Welcome back to our regularly scheduled update on the state of the Republican race, which has currently devolved into an argument over whether the party's remaining dignity is spiraling down the drain in a clockwise or a counterclockwise direction.
This weekend's brouhaha, of course, is the observation from Trump's Democratic opponent that there are a great whopping number of bigots and xenophobes in the ranks of Trump voters, a "basket of deplorables", in her words. This is a controversial statement only in that the Republican Party has simultaneously sought to court and disavow those voters for a half-century and continues to get mighty damn peeved when someone points it out. To be sure, Donald Trump might have launched his political rise with the assertion that the first black American president was not truly an American at all, and may have launched his presidential bid proper with long rants about the Mexican government "sending us" their "rapists", and certainly his rallies and own public appearance are festivals of conspiracy theories, xenophobic warnings, frothing anger against the press and promises to purge the religious and ethnic other, but the real tragedy here is that someone important pointed that out and made the people waving confederate flags or waxing about "hunting permits" on our southern border sad.
And there is no greater travesty in American politics than making an angry white conservative sad. Entire television networks get funded from that slight.
On the Trumpian side of the aisle, this slight required Donald Trump himself to give a speech demanding his opponent, who he regularly refers to in his speeches as "Crooked Hillary", apologize for such divisive name-calling. And phoned into CNBC for an interview where he once again sneeringly referred to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas".
Filling out the rest of today's news:
• Company man Mike Pence was pleased to jump aboard the Trump campaign outrage wagon. This led to top-notch hard-hitting mind-like-a-steel-trap interviewer Wolf Blitzer asking if the descriptor "deplorable" might at the very least refer to a Trump supporter like white supremacist and former actual f--king KKK leader David Duke. Mike Pence pointedly refused the Blitzer lifeline: "I'm not in the name calling business", he responded, ably encapsulating a half-century of Republican history into a 60 second vignette. (I've heard of a big tent, but when can't condemn the actual f--king Klan you may need to reevaluate the contents of your basket, Mr. Pence.)
• In the same interview that featured a reference to a sitting senator as "Pocahontas", Donald Trump also accused the Federal Reserve of scheming with Barack Obama to not raise interest rates, which Trump says would be very bad for the stock market but should still be done because it would hurt Obama, or something, and so Obama and the Federal Reserve are plotting to force the next president to do that, or something. I remain fuzzy on the details.
• In the aftermath of an embarrassingly fluffy performance by town hall moderator Matt Lauer last week, Trump is pushing back against the planned moderators of the three presidential debates, declaring that "the system is being rigged so it's gonna be a very unfair debate." His reasoning: Those moderators will "try to be really hard on Trump" to show "the establishment" that they can be. Instead, Trump proposes a debate with "no moderators—just Hillary and I sitting there talking."
• Trump today repeated his past claim that Afghanistan is "safer than being in the middle of some of our inner cities."
• The long-simmering but never-boiling question of Donald Trump's murky charitable efforts continues to simmer, with Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold being apparently the only American reporter tasked with determining whether Trump's claims about his own charitable giving are true, or even whether Trump donates any of his own money to charity at all. Of special note are the donor-provided gifts that Donald Trump's charity gave to Donald Trump, illegal political contributions to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, "Trump Foundation" rebranding donations that were actually from other charitable sources, and multiple reports from charities that they never received money that the Trump Foundation told the IRS they had donated. That's not making for good optics.
• On the anniversary of 9/11, Trump is taking some new heat for apparently taking $150,000 from a government program meant to help struggling business recover from the attacks. Also back in the news: Donald Trump's apparent boast on the same day of the World Trade Center's collapse that their demise made his own tower the tallest building in downtown New York.
• 68 percent of Americans believe Donald Trump is "biased against women and minorities."
• Sen. Marco Rubio is getting heat from his Democratic opponent for Rubio's constant assertions that Donald Trump will eventually change his stances and behavior.
• Rudy Giuliani defended candidate Trump's oft-repeated assertions that the United States should have "taken" Iraqi oil after defeating the nation. Though such an act would be illegal under international law, Giuliani dismissed such concerns: "Of course it's legal. It's a war."
• Trump supporter and omnipresent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says he is "literally in ecstasy" over footage of Clinton stumbling while entering a car. "This is a devastating victory against the enemy." Clinton has been diagnosed with pneumonia.
• A dozen or so protesters made their presence known at the "soft opening" of Trump's new Pennsylvania Avenue hotel. A larger grand opening ceremony will take place in October.
• A new Trump ad uses Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark to rally Trump voters. After tape of Clinton calling half of Trump's supporters a "basket of deplorables ... The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it" a narrator intones that Clinton is "demonizing hard working people like you." This is a curious approach, as it would seem to ask individual Americans to judge for themselves whether that shoe fits, but it will at least get racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes and Islamophobes properly riled up. Now they really won't vote for Clinton.
• That ad aside, Republican strategists are increasingly frantic over Trump's lack of campaign advertising, worried that unanswered Clinton ads will hurt Republicans running in downticket races.
No comments:
Post a Comment