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Aside from the obvious, his actual performance was just terrible. Here a just a couple of data points I ran across this morning: I guess when people say they liked his policies, they meant his policies to deny people health insurance. How about this one? Or how about Trump’s claim that his tax cuts were the largest in history. (“nobody’s ever seen anything like it!”) How about Trump’s new crusade against Joe Biden in which he claims that nobody died on his watch? He lied, of course: 65 military personnel died in war zones during Trump’s administration. It’s common for some gold star families to blame the administration in charge for the deaths of their loved ones. Weirdly, since Benghazi it only seems to be right wing gold star families blaming Democrats. I didn’t see much of this during Trump’s tenure. Maybe all the families of the fallen were Trump fans? Or, more likely, the non-Trump fan families weren’t interested in becoming part of a political campaign.

Trump has primed his cult to believe that Kamala Harris is an illegitimate president. Of course he has. “Obama wasn’t born in the US!” “Clinton shouldn’t be allowed to run!”because of her emails. “Joe Biden didn’t win, they cheated!” Now he’s laying the groundwork to whine that Harris should not have been allowed to run. And his people believe it: Jason Streem, also 46, a dentist from the Cleveland suburbs who supports Trump, objected to the way Harris became the nominee. “She was never part of the running process,” he said in a follow-up interview. “She never received the primary votes.” He called it “the most undemocratic way of picking a nominee.” “It just threw me off,” complained Roger Sierra, 28, of Miami, an independent who supports Trump.

JV Last at the Bulwark published one of those essays this morning that make you both depressed and relieved at the same time. Depressed because it tells a truth that you really wish wasn’t true and relieved because you realize you haven’t been crazy for thinking the same thing. He starts off by quoting one of my favorite analysts, Philip Bump of the Washington Post: The Trump era is about Trump in the way that the War of 1812 was about 1812: a critically important component and a useful touchstone but not all-encompassing. Turning the page on the era requires more than Trump failing to get an electoral vote majority. Perhaps a more accurate time span to consider is something like 15 years. The election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 was hailed as a signal moment in the evolution of American politics and demography, but it also triggered a remarkable backlash. Ostensibly rooted in concerns about government spending, it was largely centered on the disruption of the economic crisis (which triggered an increase in spending) and that overlapping awareness of how America was changing.

Gosh, I wonder? The leader of House Republicans’ biggest super PAC told donors last month he needed $35 million more to compete with Democrats in the fall. Senate GOP campaign chair Steve Daines used his primetime speaking slot at the Republican convention to lament that massive spending from Democrats was keeping him awake at night. And his House GOP counterpart warned that their party’s challengers trailed Democratic incumbents by a collective $37 million at the end of June. Republicans were already worried about a glaring financial gap even before Kamala Harris’ rise. Now, with the election just two months away, they found themselves in an even more dire position: Democrats have seen a flood of enthusiasm in recent weeks, they’re far outspending Republicans on air and their donors are more energized than ever — with campaign finance data showing a surge in grassroots fundraising in late July after President Joe Biden dropped out. Panic is starting to set in.

He tried. Oh how he tried: The long line there was the Special Counsel he had Bill Barr name to “investigate the investigators” — the Durham investigation. Like all the others they came to nothing because there was nothing. He, on the other hand, tried to overturn an election and incited an insurrection and then stole a bunch of classified documents and refused to give them back. Big difference. Yuge.

I remember it well. Sadly it’s just as relevant today as it was then:

Let The Brotherhood Of The Damned be your tour guide Kamala HQ flagged this clip of tech bro “thought leader” Curtis Yarvin advocating an American Caesar as the next step for America. This is the guy incels and billionaire tech autocrats like Peter Thiel (J.D. Vance’s mentor) look to for envisioning a future with them running the world and getting laid, like, anytime they want. Gaze upon Yarvin, all ye who dream big. TPM’s Josh Marshall quipped, “Amazing that this college sophomore level thinker is a major force in Silicon Valley.” I’m reminded of the formulaic pap The Sphinx (Wes Studi) spouted as wisdom in Mystery Men (1999). Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell) gazes on in wonderment (or is it befuddlement?) and remarks, “It’s cool, isn’t it? It goes right up to the point of being, like, confusing.” Shallow and stupid or not, don’t think they won’t attempt something like this. Marcy Wheeler predicts they’ll try. Violently, preferably. https://mstdn.social/@lolgop@journa.host/113068278494067131 Vote like you mean it. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● It’s Labor Day.

I was going to deconstruct Trump’s inane interview on Fox last night but Tom addressed it well earlier and I came across this and thought it was well done. Trump ran through most of his greatest hits, mangling them like an aging crooner who forgot the words. And Levin sat there like a potted palm. (I know that Steve Schmitt is an asshole — at best — but when he’s right, he’s right. Especially about Mark Levin.)

The Republicans have spent the last four years caterwauling about the “Biden Crime Family” and its alleged connections to foreign countries, especially China. They called it the greatest corruption scandal in American history. There was no evidence of this, of course. But they just repeated it relentlessly and pushed hearings and investigations until the old “where there’s smoke, there must be fire” dynamic kicked in. Well, here’s a raging, out of control conflagration and nobody cares: [W]ith Trump running for the presidency once more … foreign governments — including brand-new regimes that weren’t involved in Trump’s first whirlwind in the White House — have only spied new opportunities to burrow into his pockets and into a second administration. Many of these networks are already known, if forgotten. Trump’s financial links with regimes in places like China, Kazakhstan, or Indonesia were already reported in detail during his presidency.