Since we are less than three weeks away from the election, we are going to diverge from our normal Friday Talking Points format today.

Instead of brief talking points at the end, instead we tried to make the case against electing Donald Trump in the most effective ways we could think up. But when we got done, we realized that this extended rant also served as a good round-up of the week's political news. Sure, there were a few other things going on in politics, but at this point we are so focused on the campaign and the election that anything else is really just a distraction, this close to Election Day.

We did manage to hand out our weekly awards, for two campaign videos that appeared this week, but we're going to whip through those pretty quickly in order to get on with the main event this week.

We apologize for the foreshortened introduction this week, but as we said we're finding it hard to focus on anything outside the realm of the presidential race.

One heartening bit of campaign news is worth highlighting up front, though. Jimmy Carter's final wish was to live long enough to cast his ballot for Kamala Harris. He did so this week, by voting early in his home state of Georgia. Way to go, Jimmy!

 

As mentioned, both our awards this week go for political ads/videos.

Democrat Eugene Vindman is running for an open House seat in Virginia, since Representative Abigail Spanberger chose to run for governor next year rather than run for re-election to the House. His opponent is Republican Derrick Anderson, who was caught faking having a family earlier in the campaign. He shot campaign footage with what appeared to be his wife and three daughters, but it turned out none of them were related to Anderson (who is actually single).

The House Majority PAC just released an ad for Vindman which is downright brilliant. It calls out Anderson out on his fake family, complete with a lookalike actor (the ad calls him a "fake Anderson" at the end) and cardboard cutouts of the four women in various poses and situations (such as eating at the table).

If you need a laugh this week, check out Vindman's new ad. For skewering his opponent so effectively, Eugene Vindman (and the House Majority PAC as well) deserves this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week.

[Eugene Vindman is a private citizen, and it is our policy not to provide links to campaign websites, so you'll have to find his contact information on your own if you'd like to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, on the other hand, released a really stupid video this week.

This seems to be a case of someone who is too old to understand some facet of online culture attempting to join in the fun, but producing cringes instead of the desired effect. Whitmer posted her attempt on TikTok, and was immediately condemned for it for a reason she hadn't even considered.

Here's the video and a description of it:

The eight-second video opens with author and influencer Liz Plank gazing up as a disembodied hand places a Doritos chip on her extended tongue, causing her eyes to roll back in apparent pleasure. The shot then pans left to reveal Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) holding a bag of chips, wearing a camouflage Harris-Walz presidential campaign hat and staring deadpan into the camera.

We have to admit, we are just as clueless about social media trends as most people our age, so we had no idea what she was even going for with this video. The article helpfully explains:

The video riffs off a social media trend in which someone out of view suggestively feeds the on-camera subject only for the shot to pan, revealing not a romantic interest but a friend or elderly relative who often looks disgusted. The videos are often set to Nelly's 2002 song "Dilemma."

The problem for Whitmer was that Catholics were seriously offended by the video, because in it they saw a mockery of their rite of Communion. Whitmer, to her credit, immediately apologized when she realized how many people she had offended:

In a statement, Whitmer said she didn't mean to reference Communion in the video but nevertheless apologized for the miscommunication.

"Over 25 years in public service, I would never do something to denigrate someone's faith," she said. "I've used my platform to stand up for people's right to hold and practice their personal religious beliefs."

Whitmer said the video was meant to be about the importance of the Chips and Science Act, which passed into law in 2022 to provide $52 billion to companies building computer chip factories and research facilities in the United States. The caption for the video, which was edited Friday, reads, "Chips aren't just delicious, the CHIPS Act is a game changer for U.S. tech and manufacturing, boosting domestic production of semiconductors to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers! Donald Trump would put that at risk."

We do take Whitmer at her word that this wasn't intentional. Even so, maybe someone should have realized the implication before the video was released? For not doing so, we have to award Whitmer this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.

[Contact Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on her official contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]

 

Volume 771 (10/18/24)

As promised, this section is going to be a little different this week. We simply couldn't contain ourselves to just seven short talking points, we had to cover the whole gamut of ways to attack Donald Trump instead.

To her credit, Kamala Harris and her campaign are doing a pretty good job of staying focused on making the case against Donald Trump. She's doing so with increasing urgency, and Trump just keeps providing more and more material to work with.

So here is our rundown of what we feel are the most effective attacks to use against Donald Trump, in the waning days of the campaign. Most of these are quotes from people who are doing this very effectively, although we did write one or two of them ourselves.

In any case, here are the biggest reasons why Donald Trump should not become president again.

 

Trump is a sore loser

Why oh why do Democrats refuse to hit Trump where it hurts the most? We all know what Trump is most afraid of, and it's so easy to hit him with it.

American kids grow up learning important life lessons in various ways, and one of these lessons is pretty universal -- every kid learns this at some point: Don't be a sore loser.

It's a simple concept, really. You can throw a tantrum like a big baby if you lose, or you can be grown-up and take it in stride. Sore losers ruin things for everybody and should always be looked down upon for being immature and losing emotional control. The flip side to this is: Always be a gracious winner, but everyone expects at least a little bragging, so this one's not as absolute. But "don't be a sore loser" truly is.

Donald Trump is a loser. He lost the 2020 election. And then he threw the biggest sore-loser tantrum the country has ever seen. So why not call him out on it, using the language we all learned as kids? Call him exactly what he is: a sore loser. Because everyone who grew up in America knows full well that that's not a good thing to be.

President Joe Biden recently almost got it right. He just somehow forgot to say the word "sore." Here's how Biden put it:

[President Joe] Biden's vice president and current Democratic nominee Kamala Harris "beat Trump so badly in the debate he's scared to death to meet her again. That's a fact," said Biden. "Tough guy, right? Tough guy. Because he knows he'd lose again. That's a fact. He is a loser."

The president mocked Trump for calling himself "pro-business" when "we all know Trump is a failed businessman." Trump's casino went under, which is "pretty hard to do," taunted Biden. "How is that possible? I thought the house always won." And "Trump was not only a loser in 2020, he's a loser in everything he does," Biden said, later adding, "The only loser I know is Donald Trump."

 

Trump is too old

To her credit, Kamala Harris has been effectively painting Trump as unfit for the job of being president, although after she released her own medical evaluation she's been mostly concentrating on taunting Trump for not doing the same.

Senator Brian Schatz had a good take on this recently:

"There are people that like for their candidate to look strong and to look like they are in command," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). Speaking of Trump, he added: "This guy looks like he's the last guy to leave the karaoke bar."

"He's gone from tough guy to elderly man saying random things," Schatz said.

But Bill Clinton had the best take on it this week, since he has a unique similarity to Trump:

Bill Clinton mocked his fellow septuagenarian and former president, Donald Trump, on Thursday for a bizarre musical episode earlier this week.

"I'm too old to gild a lily. Heck, I'm only two months younger than Donald Trump. But, the good news for you is, I will not spend 30 minutes swaying back and forth to music," the Democrat said while campaigning in Durham, North Carolina, for the Harris-Walz ticket.

 

Trump is exhausted

This one stemmed from cancelled podcast interview. Team Trump let the podcaster know that Trump couldn't do a promised interview because he was "exhausted" from the campaign trail. So pick it up and run with it!

"Earlier this week, Trump appeared to completely lose it. He was on stage for a town hall when he suddenly decided that he had answered enough questions for the night (after only taking five of them). So he played a bunch of his favorite music for the crowd instead, and stood there randomly swaying, or with his eyes closed, or gripping the back of a chair. Nobody knew what to think. Had Trump's brain just frozen? What was wrong with him? For a full thirty-nine minutes Trump stood there like a deer in the headlights. No wonder he's cancelling interviews because his team says he's 'exhausted.' He sure looks it -- he's just not up to the rigors of campaigning, obviously. And he's certainly not up to four more years in the White House, that's for sure."

 

Trump is unfit and unstable

Harris has been leaning in to this one, and doing a pretty good job of it:

It makes you wonder, why does [Donald Trump's] staff want him to hide away? One must question: Are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America?

From a different interview:

His staff won't let him do a 60 Minutes interview.... Everyone has done it except Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put out my medical records. He won't put out his medical records. And you have to ask: Why is his staff doing that? And it may be because they think he's just not ready -- and unfit and unstable.

After his appearance at the Al Smith dinner last night, Harris's campaign released a review, hitting the same notes:

"Donald Trump struggled to read scripted notes written by his handlers, repeatedly complaining that he couldn't use a teleprompter," Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. "He stumbled over his words and lashed out when the crowd wouldn't laugh with him."

"The rare moments he was off script, he went on long incomprehensible rambles, reminding Americans how unstable he's become," added Moussa. "And of course he made it all about himself. He may refuse to release his medical records, but every day he makes it clear to the American people that he is not up to the job."

The worst example was actually pretty funny. Harris seems to be getting under Trump's skin with all the talk of being unstable and unhinged. He went off on a tangent during one of his rallies complaining of people calling him "cognitively impaired" for mispronouncing a word or making some verbal error while speaking. Trump insisted this was not true (he's actually "perfect," according to him).

He then attempted his tried-and-true method of countering any attack, which is to attempt to turn it around on his opponents. But he wound up face-planting instead, and proving the truth of those who point out how often he slips a cog while speaking. He insisted that President Joe Biden was the one who (in his words) was "obviously cognitively repaired."

Um... repaired? OK, sure, Donny... whatever you say.

 

Trump is delusional

Donald Trump will believe anything anyone ever tells him and anything he reads on social media. It doesn't matter how delusional these conspiracy theories are, once he's decided that he's going to believe it nothing can change his mind. Not facts, not evidence -- nothing.

Donald Trump believes immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. He believes Kamala Harris is going to ban cows. She's also going to ban buildings with windows. He called himself "the father of I.V.F.," before admitting that he had to have it explained to him by a Republican senator. If Harris wins, the stock market will crash worse than it did in 1929 -- even though he made the same prediction about Joe Biden and it never came to pass. Harris will "start World War III," or maybe "World War II" (he gets confused, at times). He also predicted electing Biden would kill the auto industry -- and he's making the same prediction about Harris, even though Detroit seems to be doing just fine. Harris will "double" or "quadruple" your taxes. She will take away everybody's guns. Oh, and we had a "peaceful transfer of power" after the 2020 election, too.

None of this is true, of course. But the point isn't that Trump is spewing lies, it is that the lies are so downright delusional. Do we really want a president who cannot tell the difference between delusion and reality?

 

Trump is getting darker and more racist

For some reason, a lot of folks in the political media woke up this week and realized what Donald Trump's been saying pretty much throughout his entire campaign. Not sure why this week was any different than any other week, but all of a sudden there were alarm bells ringing in column after column, pointing out how incredibly dark and racist Trump's language is.

Here's one example, from Politico this week:

Donald Trump vowed to "rescue" the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, from the rapists, "blood thirsty criminals," and "most violent people on earth" he insists are ruining the "fabric" of the country and its culture: immigrants.

Trump's message in Aurora, a city that has become a central part of his campaign speeches in the final stretch to Election Day, marks another example of how the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. The supposed threat migrants pose is the core part of the former president's closing argument, as he promises his base that he's the one who can save the country from a group of people he calls "animals," "stone cold killers," the "worst people," and the "enemy from within."

He is no longer just talking about keeping immigrants out of the country, building a wall and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations.

The Washington Post also took note of Trump's increasingly dehumanizing language (emphasis in original):

Former president Donald Trump has gone full racist ( or "nativist," as some outlets delicately describe it). In Aurora, Colo., the New York Times reports, he spewed "repeated claims, which have been debunked by local officials, that Aurora had been 'invaded and conquered,' described the United States as an 'occupied state'... and revived a promise to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process." He has continued demonizing legal immigrants from Haiti in Springfield, Ohio. In Detroit, as he does in many cities with large numbers of African American voters, he bashed the city. ("The whole country is going to be like -- you want to know the truth? It'll be like Detroit," he said. "Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president. You're going to have a mess on your hands.")

Regardless of his location, he invokes the specter of a non-White horde displacing Whites. Illegal immigrants are "evil," are "taking your jobs," and have "bad genes." Right-wing hosts, elected Republicans and most down-ticket Republican candidates don't blanch, let alone denounce racism unprecedented in modern American presidential elections. The mainstream media has begun to feature Trump's racism (sometimes thinly disguised with fuzzy language) in headlines.

Another Post article had yet another example:

Last month in Wisconsin: "They will walk into your kitchen," Mr. Trump said of undocumented immigrants. "They'll cut your throat." Later, he called the same people "animals."

Make no mistake about it -- this is "Trump being Trump." This is who he is. He is whipping up racist anti-immigrant hatred so that if he becomes president people will see immigrants as inhuman and deserving of whatever Trump feels like doing to them -- rounding them up, sticking them in concentration camps in the desert, deporting them. And he's not going to be limited by who is here legally, he's openly saying he's going to use a centuries-old law to just kick out anyone he feels like.

 

It's not just immigrants Trump will be coming for, either

Trump also feels free to threaten to use military force against any American who dares to disagree with him or protest against him. This should be disqualifying to any candidate for president, obviously, as it would trample on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But Trump doesn't care, because he has never read either document.

Here's what he had to say on the subject recently:

I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country, by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns, the villages, they're being inundated. But I don't think they're the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical-left lunatics. And I think they're the -- and it should be very easily handled by -- if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen.

 

Trump wants unchecked power

The Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity for any official act, which Trump will abuse constantly. He's not going to have any "adults in the room" in his administration -- his only test for hiring his aides and cabinet is going to be their complete and utter loyalty to him. There will be no guardrails. And Trump's out there already admitting what he wants to do with this unchecked power:

"[Donald Trump] considers anyone who doesn't support him or who will not bend to his will the enemy, an enemy of our country. It's a serious issue," [Kamala] Harris said Monday night. "He is saying that he would use the military to go after them.... We know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn't like; election officials who refuse to cheat by filling extra votes and finding extra votes for him; judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will."

"This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America and dangerous," Harris continued. "Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power. That's what he's looking for."

 

Donald Trump is a fascist to the core

This one comes from Trump's former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. Who saw Trump, up close and personal. So you've got to assume he knows what he's talking about.

Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley warned that former president Donald Trump is a "fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to this country" in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee's election to another term, according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Milley, 66, served for more than a year as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump before continuing in the role under President Joe Biden.

. . .

"No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump," the general told Woodward. "Now I realize he's a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country."

 

A whole lot of Republicans know what Trump is

So many Republicans have announced their endorsement for Harris that it's getting hard to keep track of them all. The Washington Post provided a helpful list of the most prominent of these, to jog everyone's memory.

This is not normal, it bears pointing out. There has always been some crossover support for presidential candidates, to be sure, but not on this scale. We're not talking about a handful of people publicly crossing the aisle to support the other team's candidate, we are talking about hundreds of them -- starting with the man who served as Trump's own vice president, as well as the man who served as George W. Bush's vice president.

And even though he is taking the coward's route of supporting a man he knows is unfit for office, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had the best line of the week, even though it was uttered four years ago. After the 2020 election, McConnell summed up Donald Trump pretty succinctly (and accurately), calling him "a despicable human being."

 

Trump isn't "weaving" -- he's unravelling

Donald Trump has never been all that focused when he speaks, although he's obviously deteriorated immensely on this front. He used to at least be able to answer a question from a reporter or a voter with some degree of coherence and without going off on seven or eight tangents. He no longer appears able to do this in even minimal ways.

He recently came up with a way to make this all seem somehow planned, like he's playing a game of three-dimensional chess that others just can't understand. He calls it "the weave." In his mind, he is so gosh-darn smart that he is able to bring up eight or nine unrelated subjects and then somehow "weave" them into some coherent whole cloth, tying them together "brilliantly" (as he put it).

In reality, he's just rambling aimlessly about whatever pops into his head when it pops into his head. He rarely finishes any of his thoughts, he never "weaves" them into any sort of whole, and he comes off as doddering and incoherent rather than some masterful chess-player.

It's not "weaving." Weaving means creating something meticulously out of raw materials. That's not what Trump does at all. You know what it's really like? It's like you are sitting there in a beautiful sweater and you notice a thread hanging loose. So you pull on it and pull on it and as you do your entire garment falls apart. It's the opposite of "weaving." What Trump does when he speaks isn't weaving -- it's unravelling.

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground