Big news day.
Which comments? Oh, those comments. Must have been when Trump was extending his outreach to evangelicals and suburban Republican women (on the advice of his friend and advisor Roger Ailes):
Ladies, most men don’t talk like that in the locker room, or ever. In the locker room, we talk about how much our backs ache. If we talk at all. And don’t forget, he does have some lawsuits regarding sexual behavior.
But never mind that. All that matters is what Rudy Giuliani and Hugh Hewitt think.
In any case…
I’m still waiting for the “stop saying that word, he needs to step down but I’m still voting for him” comments from elected Republicans (remember, R office holders don’t care about decency and they don’t care about you. They only care about their election prospects.) And I am still unsure there will be a Sunday debate. See the above two short videos for why I say that.
Ezra Klein/Vox:
The apology is perhaps the most telling part of all this. Trump doesn’t think what he said was so bad. He thinks it’s ... normal. He thinks it’s how men talk in locker rooms. He is sorry if anyone was offended.
This is not normal. This is not how men speak in locker rooms. And the problem here is not that someone, somewhere, was offended.
The problem is if the rest of us are not offended.
This is actually a good question:
Here comes the deluge:
Here’s the latest Times Picayune daily tracker:
I like this take (Trading Places reference):
Politico:
[Mike] Pence’s meteoric rise in the eyes of Republicans comes after he notched a convincing victory in the only vice presidential debate Tuesday night at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Thirty-eight percent of voters said he beat Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, while just 20 percent said Kaine won. Pence’s favorable ratings shot up seven percentage points, as well. But Pence did Trump no favors: An astounding 84 percent said the 90-minute tit-for-tat would not change their vote.
Understand that the bolded part is far more important than the fleeting and wrong-headed analysis by insiders and pundits. There is only one way to judge the debate: did you move the needle for your principal? OTOH, though Republicans may love him today, Pence is the guy who was failing as Governor in IN, and is now forever tainted with Donald Trump. Interestingly, same poll:
Among Republicans, Pence was the most popular first choice at 22 percent, followed by Trump and Ryan at 13 percent each.
If Trump loses, they do not want him back.
Oh, by the way, Trump still thinks these innocent PoC are guilty.
In fact, more of that from Noah Rothman/Commentary:
Reconciliation and Renewal after Trump
Any number of unforeseen events still might upend the race for the White House. Right now, as it happens, a powerful hurricane is barreling down on the Southeast that might affect the region’s electoral calculus in November—though how exactly we cannot know. But if no exogenous event dramatically changes the dominant dynamics of the race as it stands today, Donald Trump is likely to lose. As such, Republicans need to start thinking about the fallout from 2016 and how to heal the lingering divisions from a fractious year defined by internecine conflict.
This project is necessary because so many on both sides of the lingering divide over Trump within the GOP do not particularly want to reconcile. Currently, Donald Trump is underperforming Mitt Romney among white voters. While Hillary Clinton is having a bear of a time reassembling Barack Obama’s winning coalition, Republicans are unlikely to see gains among minorities, women, and young voters. Trump will have run the campaign that Republicans warned against in the oft-maligned 2012 “autopsy” and proven every one of its recommendations correct. His loss should finally put to rest the idea that the GOP can win the White House on the shoulders of “missing white voters.”
Paul Waldman/The Week:
No president can unify our hopelessly divided country
America is a divided nation. And we often seem desperate to find a leader who can unite us all in common purpose, who can help us put aside our petty squabbles and work together to create the future we all want. If only those partisans in Washington cared more about the country than about their party, then we could find our way out of the gridlock and back to the good old days when we were all on the same team... right?
Well guess what: There is no leader who can do that. So we ought to just stop asking.
Sam Stein/HuffPost:
Donald Trump’s candidacy has upended conventional politics, reshaped news coverage and produced broad cultural effects that have reverberated beyond America.
But one thing it hasn’t done yet is change the basic constructs of criminal law and procedure.
This week, former Pennsylvania State University student Nicholas Tavella, 20, pleaded guilty to charges of felony ethnic intimidation, misdemeanor terroristic threats and summary harassment, among others. He was accused last December of attacking a fellow student on the basis of that student’s ethnicity, reportedly asking the victim if he was “from the Middle East,” grabbing him by the throat and threatening to put a bullet in his chest.
So what does any of this have to do with Trump?
Well, after Tavella admitted to police that his attack was racially motivated, his lawyer, Wayne Bradburn, tried to get the felony charges dismissed by claiming Tavella had been inspired by the Republican presidential nominee.
ICYMI, Josh Marshall had a fascinating tweet storm about being an American Jew this year, which I Storified here and posted here. Give it a look. Maybe the above story isn’t so isolated.
Politico:
“They’ve been protected,” says the Reizes’ mother, “to help them to not feel like being Jewish isn’t different.”
For younger Jews in the United States, that era has suddenly passed. The early months of 2016 brought in a strange tide of online hate speech aimed largely at Jewish journalists who had published articles critical of Trump or his campaign, with all the old ugly epithets on display. Then in July Trump’s Twitter account posted an image of a six-pointed star next to a picture of Hillary Clinton, with a pile of money in the background. Though he deleted the tweet, afterward Trump walked up to a brightly lit podium and defended the image, bellowing that the Jewish star was not a Jewish star. A dim reality descended on American Jews. Yes: Trump had broadcast
Ken Doctor/Nieman Labs interviews Dean Baquet, NYT:
“I think that [Trump] challenged our language. He will have changed journalism, he really will have…We didn’t know how to write the paragraph that said, ‘This is just false.’ We struggle with that. I think that Trump has ended that struggle.”
Former IA GOP chair (and not running for anything):
RCP’s David Byler with a tweet storm and story on the Rep-Dem lean of the country in the age of Donald Trump:
Michigander Susan Demas with a Michael Moore takedown:
Michael Moore Hearts Donald Trump
If there’s one thing Michael Moore knows, it’s that Donald Trump is going to be president. In fact, the only person who seems more confident of that prospect is Trump himself.
At first blush, it may seem odd that the lefty filmmaker best known for eviscerating GM for downsizing in his 1989 film, “Roger & Me,” would be grabbing pro-Trump headlines.
But given Moore’s poor track record of predicting elections and his insatiable need for media attention, this actually makes a lot of sense.
The opportunists who can’t stand up to Trump, including Moore, will be remembered.