"And um recently I made the decision that I just for now I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken...."

"I believe and I always believed that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that um they're not as strong as they need to be. And I just don't want to for now I don't want to go back in the system. I want to I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people. I want to talk with people. And I don't want it to be transactional where I'm asking for their vote...."

Said Kamala Harris, to Stephen Colbert (scroll to 6:02). 

Colbert said it is "harrowing" to hear her say that. When she responded: "Well, but it's also evident, isn't it?... It is harrowing..." Colbert broke in to rescue her. It sounds as though she's saying that she doesn't "want to be part of the fight anymore."

She takes the hint: "No. Oh, absolutely not. I am always going to be part of the fight. That is not going to change. I am absolutely going to be part of the fight."

And then she plunges into a Biden-worthy garble:

"There’s this saying that Biden, and then Harris, both repeated... 'building a middle class from the bottom up and the middle out.' What the hell does that mean?"

"So the first thing is there’s this kind of consultant language that just needs to go away. That was always annoying to people. But when your opponent, Donald Trump, is clearly not on any consultant-speak, it just makes it more glaring that you seem like the typical politicians."

Said Ben Rhodes, who's recommending "authenticity." He's quoted in "Obama’s Not Going to Save Democrats, but This Might/Michelle Cottle and Ben Rhodes on what Democrats misunderstand about authenticity" (NYT).

And then there’s a second piece of this, which is, Democrats have these public debates that astound me where it’s like, “Maybe we need to go on TikTok” or “We need to go on that manosphere podcast.” If you can do that, if you can make a cool TikTok video and whatever your thing is that allows you to do that, that’s great. If you can’t, then please don’t. Please don’t go there. If you can go on “Joe Rogan” because you are up to speed on the conspiracy theories or you have a background in standup comedy or you know something about ultimate fighting, that’s great. But don’t go on “Joe Rogan” to talk about building an economy from the bottom up to the middle out. That will make his audience hate Democrats more. 

And so I think what Democrats miss about authenticity — it’s not like what platform I’m on. The point is that authenticity is about being yourself. It’s not about being what you think this demographic wants a politician to be.... [M]y point is essentially, Democrats love to, for instance, sit around and be like, “What’s the policy agenda that will win back America?” I — nobody cares. There’s great ideas out there — the abundance agenda and all the rest of it — but nobody is going to read that right now. That’s a great idea for Democrats if they actually win back power or maybe if they’re in power now.

Rhodes has his "a" word for saving Democrats — "authenticity" — and I see him glancing over at Ezra Klein's "a" word for saving Democrats — "abundance." What are some other longish "a" words that could be used by an elite commentator bullshitting about reinvigorating the Democratic Party? 

Well, you know what to do with a question like that, and that's just what I did. Do not read any further if you don't want to read something written by Grok:

1. Adaptability - Emphasizing the party’s need to evolve with changing times and voter priorities.
2. Aspiration - Focusing on inspiring voters with bold, forward-looking goals.
3. Accountability - Highlighting a commitment to transparency and responsibility to rebuild trust.
4. Altruism - Advocating for a selfless dedication to the public good over partisan gain.
5. Ambition - Calling for grand, unapologetic plans to energize the base and attract new supporters.
6. Articulation - Stressing the need for clearer, more compelling communication of values and policies.
7. Audacity - Urging the party to embrace fearless, unconventional strategies.
8. Atonement - Suggesting a reckoning with past missteps to reconnect with disillusioned voters.
9. Assimilation - Proposing a broader, more inclusive coalition that absorbs diverse perspectives.
10. Ascendancy - Framing the party’s path as one of rising dominance through moral and strategic clarity.

Obama already used #7, but now I feel like dabbling in crappy book titles, like "The Audacity of Altruism." Let's see... "The Articulation of Adaptablity," "The Assimilation of Atonement," "The Ambition of Accountability," "The Ascendancy of Aspiration."

Are we authentic yet?

Don't say "Christmas." Don't even say "joy."

A Grok summary, at X:

During a recent event at the White House, Jill Biden mentioned the need for 'joy' during the holiday season, a comment which some interpreted as a subtle mockery of Kamala Harris's previous campaign slogan 'sense of joy.' Jill Biden later clarified that her remarks were not meant to be taken as an insult, emphasizing that the audience was reading too much into her statement. The incident has sparked discussions about the dynamics within the Biden administration. This story is a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time. Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.

Here's the relevant video clip.

🚨 JUST IN: Jill Biden is now OPENLY MOCKING Kamala Harris’ “joy” line

The audience even knows what’s going on, and breaks out into laughter 😂

Anybody still think Jill Biden DIDN’T vote for Trump? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/8ePBuLQVKD

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 11, 2024

"Joy" is a Christmas word: "Joy to the World/The Lord is come"/"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." It's a word that might be selected by someone who wants to avoid limiting her message to Christians. It seems more general, even as Christians hear it as specific to the Christian religion.

Jill also says "peace" and "light": "I hope that you all feel that sense of, you know, peace and light." 

"Peace" and "light" are also words that, for Christians, call to mind Jesus Christ. Jesus is "the light of the world" — "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Jesus is the "Prince of Peace" — "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

But Jill's audience, hearing "joy," thinks not of Jesus Christ but of a worldly power-seeker who used "joy" as a political brand that worked for a couple weeks and then was recognized as idiotic emptiness. Now, it's a laugh line.

Jill hears the laughing and flaps her arms about. Instead of holding steady and conveying the beauty and seriousness of the hope for peace and light and joy at Christmas, she emits a scoffing laugh and acknowledges that she too can hear what they hear, a reference to Kamala Harris.

"This winter, I’ll try to prune more gently, and I’ll probably fail. Perhaps the trees will begin to move incrementally back toward pre-human growth patterns."

"Maybe, decades from now, the next human occupant of this land will give up on them entirely and 'prune them with a spade,' as my dad likes to say. Until then, I’ll stand expectantly under the Belle de Boskoop, which by this time of year should be dropping dozens of big, russeted apples on the ground. It has vigorous, almost uncontrollable branches, and we’ve pruned it hard every year in an attempt at sculpting its form. But it reaches ever upward, each lateral proudly unburdened by fruit. If it never crops, it’ll still be here: the Bartleby of my garden, quietly, stubbornly, declining participation in the grind."

Writes Manjula Martin, in "The Rebellion of a Fruitless Apple Tree/As the rest of our culture thrives on overexposure, why shouldn’t a garden have the right to retain an air of mystery?" (The New Yorker).

I'm blogging this article simply because we have apple trees that don't bear fruit. It's a topic that hits close to home, but I was also delighted to see Bartleby, one of my all-time favorite literary characters. Now, I can't help but feel that commenters will zero in on the word "unburdened," which has been said way too many times in the 2024 election cycle. This post was supposed to be a break from all the election blogging. It's about apple trees.

Kamala Harris, asked if she's made a mistake that she's learned from, could have nailed it by ending her painful fumbling by saying...

Oh. My. God.

That Kamala town hall is it

Holy fuck

Listen and SHARE THIS pic.twitter.com/r7sq3lfWR8

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) October 24, 2024

... after "It's a mistake not to be well-versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question" — she just needed to add: And that's exactly what I'm in the middle of doing right now, so here I am, learning from a mistake in real time, and that's the end of my terrible answer. Learning!

Everyone's talking about whether Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," after John Kelly "read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online."

I saw that Kamala Harris, doing a town hall on CNN last night, "agreed" that Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," but she did not, herself, define "fascist," so I wondered what she was doing, embracing a conclusion, calling names. I live in a city where you can get called a "fascist" for venturing that Justice Scalia wrote a well-reasoned opinion. Among left-wingers, the definition of "fascist" is: right-wing. It's a shibboleth. To call someone a "fascist" is to identify yourself as on the left.

So it's a good thing to interpose the idea that a definition is needed, and it's interesting to see that Anderson Cooper did not ask Harris is Trump a fascist. But he did not task her with providing a definition. He just asked her whether Trump met the definition of a fascist. What's a home viewer to do? 

I didn't watch the town hall live. Frankly, I didn't know it was on. Which is odd considering that I read the news all day yesterday and it was a 90-minute CNN extravaganza. Hard to hide, one would think. And yet it was hidden from me.

The first headline I saw this morning was "Harris says in CNN town hall she agrees Trump is a fascist" (WaPo). Agrees? Who is she agreeing with? It was confusing, because the article only says that the moderator, Anderson Cooper, asked her if she believed Trump is a fascist. Who is she supposedly agreeing with? I don't think Cooper expressed an opinion. (That would be wrong. He was the moderator. Whatever he may think, he can't properly say it.)

I quickly figure out that this traces back to an October 22 article in the NYT, by Michael S. Schmidt: "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator/John Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist." Boldface added.

In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online.

Good for Kelly for sensing that a definition is required. Bad for Kelly for just finding something on line and reading it out loud... 

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.

... and quickly concluding that the definition is met:

Mr. Kelly said that definition accurately described Mr. Trump.

“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” Mr. Kelly said.

He thinks... but didn't do in 4 years in office? When did Trump ever say that the better way to run America is through "centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition [and] belief in a natural social hierarchy"? 

Are you wondering where on line Kelly found his definition? Make the most obvious guess and you will be right:

Trump said Abraham Lincoln was only "probably" a great president, because "Why wasn’t that settled?" ("That" = the Civil War.)

A kid asked Trump who was his favorite President when he was a kid, and, after talking about Reagan, his favorite President, who didn't become President until Trump was 35, he said:

"Uh, great presidents — well, Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled? You know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war."

This remark fits with his determined insistence that if he'd been President, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine and the October 7th massacre would never have happened. War can be avoided, we'd all like to think, but who are the peacemakers? Trump would like you to think he's the one. 

I'm reading that quote in a NYT article called "Four of Trump’s Most Meandering Remarks This Week/The former president says that his style is to 'weave' from one subject to the next. Others see something more worrisome in his ramblings."

I love the Abraham Lincoln quote. Why do we see war Presidents as the great ones? If there was a war, why don't we fault him for not saving us from it? And who, this time around, will save the world from war?

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the extent to which Trump is meandering. Let's worry about what are pointless ramblings.

The other article about Trump on the front page of the NYT is "At a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity." He's speaking in a way that can be characterized as unpresidential. He said 1. "Such a horrible four years, we had a horrible — think of the — everything they touch turns to —" and the audience yelled "Shit!" 2. (about Harris) "We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president," and 3. (about Arnold Palmer) "This is a guy that was all man.... And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, 'Oh, my god, that’s unbelievable.'... I had to tell you the shower part of it because it’s true... We want to be honest.'"

Meanwhile, there's only one article about Kamala Harris on the front page of the NYT at the moment, and it's not about problems with the way she speaks. It's not that she said "It's real," when someone asserted that Israel is committing genocide. It's not that she taunted "You guys are at the wrong rally" when somebody yelled "Christ is Lord."

No, readers are left to assume Harris is speaking in the normal, presidential manner, while Trump is in worrisome decline.

The article the NYT gives us about Harris is news of a weak blip in one question on a poll: "Harris May Be Catching Up on a Key Polling Question: Which Candidate Helps You?"

The NYT seems to be saying: Please be encouraged about Harris, though there's nothing positive that she's said or done that we can elaborate for you today. Leave the Harris door shut, and look at Trump. Isn't he terrible in the same way we've considered him terrible for an entire decade... or, uh, no, at some new more worrisome and ever lower level of descent into hell?

Getting testy.

“Testy” is this week’s “sharp as a tack” https://t.co/DoQgTOxKRN

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 17, 2024

 

Why "testy"? Of course, I don't believe these writers independently arrived at the same word. I presume they got the same message. But still, the message-writer chose that word, so the word is important, albeit not as important as it would have been if these characters had all determined on their own that "testy" was the mot juste.

"Testy" might make you think of testicle, but the etymology is a word for head — "teste." Think "headstrong." An obsolete meaning — I'm reading the OED — is "Of headstrong courage; impetuous; precipitate, rash." But the current meaning is: "Prone to be irritated by small checks and annoyances; impatient of being thwarted; resentful of contradiction or opposition; irascible, short-tempered, peevish, tetchy, 'crusty.'"

That's not very presidential! 

Not everyone decided she was testy.

Kamala Harris asserts that Donald Trump has said he will "Terminate the Constitution United States."

I'm trying to listen to Kamala Harris on Charlamagne Tha God, but — to use her phrase — come on. What is the basis for this fear mongering? 

"You know what he says he'll do? Terminate the Constitution United States. Let me remind folks: You know what's in the Constitution of United States? The Fourth Amendment, which protects you against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment. And he's going to terminate the Constitution of the United States? Which in most of those amendments, one thing or another, was about a movement spurred by black people to ensure that we would be equally protected under the law. Come on."

 

The closest I can come to a basis for making this broad claim is his use of "termination" and "Constitution" in a narrow context, back in 2020:

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he wrote [on Truth Social]. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

The NYT creates a multicolored diagram of a Trump rally speech.

That's from "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally" (free-access link). It should be "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally Speech," because the article and diagram are only about Trump's speech, but there are, in fact, many elements to a Trump rally that are not Trump's speech.

There are the hours spent in line waiting to get in, during which Trump fans interact with each other. There are the further hours spent inside and waiting for the show alongside fellow Trumpsters, listening to Trump's playlist and dancing or talking. These people are hanging out at Trump's party, having fun.

How do I know that? Have I been to a Trump rally? No. But my husband has been to 3 Trump rallies (and I've watched quite a few on YouTube).

"A quarter of registered voters still say they don't know you. They don't know what makes you tick. And-- and why do you think that is? What–what's the disconnect?"

Bill Whitaker asked Kamala Harris on "60 Minutes" last night (transcript, CBS News).

Vice President Kamala Harris: It's an election, Bill. And I take-- it seriously that I have to earn everyone's vote. This is an election for president of the United States. No one should be able to take for granted that they can just declare themselves a candidate and automatically receive support. You have to earn it. And that's what I intend to do. 

Bill Whitaker: Lemme tell you what your critics and the columnists say. 

Vice President Kamala Harris: OK. 

Bill Whitaker: They say that the reason so many voters don't know you is that you have changed your position on so many things. You were against fracking, now you're for it. You supported looser immigration policies, now you're tightening them up. You were for Medicare for all, now you're not. So many that people don't truly know what you believe or what you stand for. And I know you've heard that. 

Here's her big chance to dispel these doubts. But she gives us absolutely nothing but a determination not to answer: 

Vice President Kamala Harris: In the last four years I have been vice president of the United States. And I have been traveling our country. And I have been listening to folks and seeking what is possible in terms of common ground. I believe in building consensus. We are a diverse people. Geographically, regionally, in terms of where we are in our backgrounds. And what the American people do want is that we have leaders who can build consensus. Where we can figure out compromise and understand it's not a bad thing, as long as you don't compromise your values, to find common-sense solutions. And that has been my approach.

We are a diverse people? Is she suggesting that if her own mind can hold so many diverse opinions, then she somehow represents the consensus this country needs?! She doesn't have to believe any one thing. She just can entertain various ideas, and then, once she has power, she'll use "common sense" to work out the answer? 

I can’t believe I’m saying this.

60 Minutes just ended Kamala Harris’ campaign

This is excruciating

pic.twitter.com/TPNNSA4M3G

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 8, 2024

It felt like an imitation of Kamala Harris's "I grew up a middle-class kid" — Tim Walz began his answer with "I grew up in small, rural Nebraska, town of 400."

The moderator, Margaret Brennan, purporting to delve into "personal qualifications" — that is, character — asked Tim Walz to explain why he said he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests when, in fact, he was not.

Here's the transcript of the full debate. Walz answered:

Well, and to the folks out there who didn't get at the top of this, look...

That "look" makes me feel as though I'm being chastised for not paying attention. Am I one of the "the folks out there who didn't get at the top of this"? What does that even mean? "At the top of" what? "Get at the top"? Did he mean those who didn't watch — get in on — the debate from the beginning? Anyway, that sets up this:

... I grew up in small, rural Nebraska, town of 400. Town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on, and I'm proud of that service.

That's like Harris's "grew up in the middle-class" safe space. Instead of answering the question asked, he goes back to a snapshot of his youth. Somehow he's "proud of that service." The service of riding your bike around until it got dark. Much as I'd love to see the kids of America riding their bikes around and I'd be willing to regard them as performing a "service" if it would help, Tim Walz was just deflecting the question and doing so in a way that reminded me of all the times Harris deflected questions by directing us toward a picture of her as a child. Walz's picture is at least a happy one.

"I'm a gun owner... and if somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot... Probably should not have said that, but my staff will deal with that later."

Said Kamala Harris, at last night's Oprah event:

1. Where does her prosecutor persona come into play here? She knows it's not good legal advice to encourage people to go ahead and shoot a person who has broken into the house but not yet physically threatened you.

2. That's why she said "probably should not have said that." She knows it's bad, but she almost seems to want to display herself as somewhat bad. She’s been trying to come across as one of us, a "middle class" American, fond of our guns and adamant about protecting our family inside the home. She needs to replace the image that she's that person who said — in 2007 video that went viral yesterday — "Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn't mean that we're not going to walk into that home and check to see if you're being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affairs."

3. Which Kamala is she — the one who walks into your house to check to see if you're being responsible or the one that shoots the person who walks into her home? I suspect she isn't really either person, but is simply saying what seemed worth saying at the time.

4. Don't get me started on the distinction between "breaking" into the home and "walking" into the home. I see it, and you can do your own legal research. I read her first comment to create an image of finding someone in her house and shooting him because he's there, and I read her second statement to say that she would use the authority of the state to gain access to the homes of people who are not opening the door and inviting her in.

5. She's portraying herself as the lone armed protector of her home, but we all know she has the Secret Service protecting her. 

6. My favorite part of the quote is "but my staff will deal with that later." The staff will clean up after me. I'd like to see the Harris impersonators do a scene where Kamala is President, making wild, impulsive decisions, then laughing, and saying lightheartedly — as World War III begins — "my staff will deal with that later."

Kamala Harris sounds so weary of all those people in Pennsylvania. Does she even want to be President?

Let me preface this with the assurance that I have never trusted the people who want to be President, and I have despaired over the structural problem that we're always stuck having to vote for somebody who has strongly desired the presidency. But it is possible occasionally — through ascension from the vice presidency — to end up with a President who didn't want the job.

Please watch the TikTok video I've put at the bottom of this post, after the jump, or you can also go here, for YouTube video (begin at 1:06). Alternatively, read the text.

But you won't get the point from the cold text, so I'll have to ask you to imagine a first rate actress reading the lines in the role of a woman who can barely cover up that she's really had it with being carted around to these bullshit nothing places with their tedious needy people:

"I am feeling very good about Pennsylvania, because there are a lot of people in Pennsylvania who deserve to be seen and heard. That's why I'm here in Johnstown, and I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I'm listening as much as we are talking and, ultimately, I feel very strongly that I've got to earn every vote, and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live, and so that's why I'm here.  We're going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania."

Harris was speaking at a bookstore in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Can you put your usual partisanship to the side and genuinely empathize with her as human being?

Arlington Cemetery — "It is not a place for politics.... And I will never politicize them."

I've avoided discussing the topic, because I can see that to talk about it is to violate the principle that the military dead should not be politicized. And yet to follow that principle is to cramp political debate about war, and political debate about war should be central to every presidential campaign. And the assertion that this is no place for politics is itself political debate.

But the main reason I'm going to start talking about this issue is because the Kamala Harris X account put up this long tweet yesterday. I've boldfaced the quotes I used for the post title:

As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times. It is a solemn place; a place where we come together to honor American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of this nation. It is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff. Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt. This is nothing new from Donald Trump. This is a man who has called our fallen service members “suckers” and “losers” and disparaged Medal of Honor recipients. A man who, during a previous visit to the cemetery, reportedly said of fallen service members, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” This is a man who is unable to comprehend anything other than service to himself. If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude. And it is my belief that someone who cannot meet this simple, sacred duty should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America. I will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes, who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our beloved nation and our cherished freedoms. I mourn them and salute them. And I will never politicize them.

Those cannot be words straight from the mind of Kamala Harris. They sound like words written for Joe Biden to read off a teleprompter, replete with his oft-repeated claim that Trump said  “suckers” and “losers” and “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” It's entirely political, including, of course, the assertion that it is not political.

Trump's visit to the cemetery was also political. It was a first move in a political game that Harris ought to have chosen not to play. But she couldn't get all her supporters to refrain from playing, and in the end, she jumped in. She made the obvious move, and it is an awful blunder. You knew it was a blunder — didn't you? (I hope you are at least that savvy) — but you just had to do it. 

If only you'd had the sense and the restraint to delete most of the words. Let me help retrospectively and uselessly:

I didn't watch the Kamala Harris convention speech — way too late for me — but how can I catch up now?

When things are happening live, you sit through them as they happen, including long breaks, such as the one that impelled me to switch off the TV last night. The stage was empty, music was playing, the conventioneers were waving American flags, and the voice-over commentators were enthusing inanely about how wonderful it was to see such a large crowd waving flags. 

I knew that in the morning, all the speeches would be on YouTube, but when you have recorded speeches, are you really going to watch them through? I'd like to, just so I could write about the effect. Did Kamala do what she needed to do with this speech? We went for a long walk yesterday, and one topic was predicting how well the speech would go. I had a scale from 1 to 100 — 1 being the worst possible speech and 100 the best possible. Think of the absurdities. 50 was just: She did what she needed to do, nothing wrong, nothing special. Meade predicted 51, and I took the "under" bet. 

So there's a vague need to figure out where she did on my scale. I've skimmed the headlines and the text of the speech, but I'm disinclined to watch the whole YouTube. Can I just rely on Mickey Kaus?

Haven't read anyone else's comments on Kamala speech. Here are mine: 

High point: "out of their minds" 

Other effective themes: Caring for one another, non-Dem outreach, Project 2025 attacks (however disingenuous); not a series of ethnic or interest group panders--represents broad American interest. 

Low points: All that family stuff, all the furrow-browed pleading ( joy?), general blandness of text; oratorical Olestra. 

Bottom line: Job of speech was to make her plausibly presidential. Mission not accomplished. I doubt this will hurt her campaign but a big missed opportunity. Hollywood trainers could not transform her (which is kind of reassuring).

ADDED: The "out of their minds" bit was this:

And get this. Get this. He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator, and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are out of their minds. And one must ask — one must ask, why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well, we trust women. We trust women.

Language tip: It's better to say "They are out of their mind," singular, because each person only has one mind. 

Why do tech geniuses have dysfluent speech?

That's the question I asked Grok after having listened to Elon Musk talking with Trump for 2 hours and then beginning to engage with this new Joe Rogan conversation with Peter Thiel:

 

Grok characterized my question as "age-old" and gave me a 7-point list of possible reasons.

I said "You could turn those 7 things into 3 things. Restate everything in 3 points" and it gave me this 3-point list:

1. Brain Overload: Their minds are too busy solving complex problems to prioritize smooth speech. It's like their CPU is always at 100% capacity.
2. Social Skills Rust: Spending more time with machines than humans means their conversational skills might be a bit... out of date. They're fluent in code, not small talk.
3. Overthinking & Literalism: They might overthink every word or take language too literally, turning a simple chat into a computational challenge.

That pretty much perfectly compressed the 7 points.

Impressed, I asked it a question that arose on this blog yesterday, "Why did Kamala Harris, speaking of 'price gouging,' have a Freudian slip and say 'price gauging'?"

I got an excellent answer, again in the form of a long list, this time 6 points. 

One of the points was "Economic Jargon Overload":

Politicians dive into economic terms like they're swimming in alphabet soup. Maybe her mind mixed up "price gauging" with "market gauging" or "public sentiment gauging." It's like when you're so deep into tech talk, you start saying "byte" when you mean "bite."

So my next question was "How would anyone know if I was saying byte or bite?" and I got a 7-point answer.

Ridiculous, I thought, and I said, "A human being would have answered 'they wouldn't,' but you give me a 7-point answer. How would you justify your behavior?"

It conceded "Ah, you caught me in my AI nature, didn't you? Here's my attempt at justification" and gave me another 7-point answer! 

1. Overthinking is My Default: Unlike humans, I'm designed to process information exhaustively. My circuits are wired to consider all possibilities, even if it's overkill for simple questions....

And on and on, demonstrating the aforesaid overthinking.  

So then here's a screen shot showing what I asked and what I was surprised to get:

"The DJ at Vice President Kamala Harris’s recent rally in Philadelphia turned up the volume on Ludacris’s 'Move B----!'..."

"... as the emcee encouraged the crowd to direct the song’s aggressive yet catchy lyrics toward Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter. 'Move, b----!' the exuberant rallygoers chanted Tuesday. 'Get out the way!' A few minutes later, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro riled up the crowd by summarizing his governing philosophy: 'Get s--- done!' That motto was echoed verbatim the following day by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during a Harris rally that included audience chants of 'Hell yeah,' a reference to Harris as a 'bada-- woman' and at least one f-bomb from the stage.... Known to swear liberally behind closed doors, a practice she has said ramped up after she became vice president, Harris has used profanity both to express outrage and to create a sense of intimacy with her private audiences, according to aides and allies...."

From "Harris rallies get edgy with four-letter words/The vice president, known to curse liberally behind closed doors, is one of the few not swearing onstage at rallies that are growing in size — and spiciness" (WaPo).

I know that Ludacris recording with its "aggressive yet catchy lyrics" like "I been thankin' of bustin' you/Upside your motherfuckin' forehead." Years ago, I heard it playing over loudspeakers in Library Mall here at the University of Wisconsin, and I felt like suing the school for sexual harassment. It troubles me to think of it playing to a general audience full of women at a presidential campaign rally (even one that's trying to make a male candidate seem like the "bitch" the song is referring to).

"These guys are just weird. That's where they are.... The fascist depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back, but we're not afraid of weird people. No, we we're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid."

Said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in audio played in the new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "The V.P.’s Search for a V.P."

The podcast host observes that the message — "Republicans are... just too weird for America" — "does seem like it's sticking a little bit."

Is it "sticking" or is it just the word that's getting said by people who say the same word at the same time. I'm thinking of those people who all used the word "selfless" when Biden accepted getting ousted.

Here's a whole NYT article on the emergence of "weird" as the word: "One Word Has Elevated Minnesota’s Governor to the Democrats’ V.P. Wish List/'These guys are just weird,' Gov. Tim Walz, a former schoolteacher, has said of the opposition."

"As a Black woman, I am bracing for the inevitable racist and sexist attacks on her and have mixed emotions about us asking her to sprint a marathon and do something unprecedented in an impossibly short timeline."

Said Jasmine Clark, a Georgia state representative, quoted in "Harris seized the moment. Can she translate that energy to victory? After an extraordinary debut as a presidential candidate, Vice President Harris must now prove she can wage a winning campaign to defeat former president Donald Trump" (WaPo).

"Sprint a marathon" is a good expression, better than, say, "backwards in high heels," because Harris has been tasked to accomplish in 100 days what is normally done in something more like 1,000 days. Now, the competition was swept out of her path — by others. And the limited time we have to listen to her may work to her advantage, but Jasmine Clark is on her side, and "sprint a marathon" aptly expresses how she feels.

It made me think of the famous Lyndon Johnson line:

"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."

Now, I think Kamala Harris has led a very privileged life, and she's been boosted ahead of others, not held back, and I don't want her or her supporters to play on our empathy about race and sex to excuse her shortcomings. But she is beginning the race at the starting line when her opponent has been running for years. And yet that might be to her advantage. If she'd been exposed as the frontrunner candidate all these months, she might have many more strikes against her (if I may mix the sports metaphors).

One thing that's held against her — I see this all the time — is her awkward statement about equity:

"So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, 'oh everyone should get the same amount.' The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. It’s about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing, and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place."

She was carelessly loping along in a race to paraphrase LBJ and she took a header and fell near the finish line.