This post includes links to articles and commentaries by David A. Graham, Heather Cox Richardson, Isabel Fattal, Stephanie Bai, Nikki McCann Ramírez, Greg Ip, Lyz Lenz, Eli Saslow, Brandy Zadrozny, Lizzie Presser, Kavitha Surana, Nicola Davis, Elie Mystal, and the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Here’s what I’ve found interesting:
- Harris and Trump share their closing arguments;
- A brief history of Trump’s violent remarks;
- Elon Musk agrees Trump’s plans will crash the economy;
- The Wall Street Journal now admits the US has a strong economy;
- The myth of red and blue states;
- MAGA attacks parents of a dead son for not mourning correctly;
- U.S. intelligence warns conspiracy theories pose major threat to the 2024 elections;
- A pregnant teenager dies because of Texas’ abortion ban;
- Thank you to Vasili Arkhipov for saving the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis; and
- Remembering what happened at the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Here we go. I’m glad you’re here.
#1
This is Trump’s Message (David A. Graham, The Atlantic, Link to Article)
We might as well start with the lowlight of last night’s Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. That would be Tony Hinchcliffe, a podcaster who’s part of Joe Rogan’s circle, and who was the evening’s first speaker.
“These Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside,” he joked. “Just like they did to our country.” A minute later: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” It took a few more minutes before he got to the joke about Black people loving watermelons. Novel, edgy stuff—for a minstrel show in 1874.
Other speakers were only somewhat better. A childhood pal of Donald Trump’s called Vice President Kamala Harris “the anti-Christ” and “the devil.” The radio host Sid Rosenberg called her husband, Doug Emhoff, “a crappy Jew.” Tucker Carlson had a riff about Harris vying to be “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.” Stephen Miller went full blood-and-soil, declaring, “America is for Americans and Americans only.” (In 1939, a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden promised “to restore America to the true Americans.”) Melania Trump delivered a rare public speech that served mostly as a reminder of why her speeches are rare.
Only after this did Trump take the stage and call Harris a “very low-IQ individual.” He vowed, “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history.” He proposed a tax break for family caregivers, but the idea was quickly lost in the sea of offensive remarks.
October 29, 2024 (Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, Link to Article)
“One week from today, you will have the chance to make a decision that directly impacts your life, the life of your family, and the future of this country we love,” she said. “[I]t will probably be the most important vote you ever cast. And this election is more just than a choice between two parties and two different candidates. It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division.”
Harris outlined Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and noted that he is “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.” She continued: “Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say: that is not who we are.” She called for Americans “to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division.”
The vice president described herself as “someone who has spent most of my career outside of Washington, D.C.,” a former prosecutor who cares that all people are treated fairly and that those who “use their wealth or power to take advantage of other people” are held to account.
She promised to “work every day to build consensus and reach compromise to get things done…. [to] work with everyone—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—to help Americans who are working hard and still struggling to get ahead.” She vowed to lower costs by delivering tax cuts to working people and the middle class, ban price gouging on groceries, lower the cost of prescription drugs, provide down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and build millions of new homes.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The final argument speeches from Donald Trump and Kamala Harris highlight the choice American voters face.
The two parties are not the same. Harris and Trump not only offer different policies, but they also demonstrate how differently they intend to govern. Harris spoke of coming together even in our disagreements. Trump made it clear that he believes the only real Americans are those who support him.
The locations chosen by the two candidates highlighted the core messages of the campaigns. Harris retired to the Ellipse outside the White House, the location from where Trump rallied his supporters before the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump went to Madison Square Garden and put on an uncomfortable homage to the February 20, 1939, pro-Nazi rally hosted by the German American Bund.
The racist and hate-filled messages shared by Trump and the other speakers his campaign invited were so troubling that Tony Hinchcliffe’s quip about the potential murder of Taylor Swift has been lost in the shuffle. It takes quite a bit of other news to keep something so awful about Swift out of the headlines.
This is why Harris has been smart in encouraging people to watch Trump’s rallies and playing excerpts of them during her speeches. People need to see what he’s like after years of the media sanewashing Trump’s statements.
Events like the Trump Madison Square Garden rally and Gen Zers sharing live reactions to Trump’s Access Hollywood speech on TikTok are forcing more people to deal with what he’s really been doing.
The American people face a stark choice. We have Trump’s misogyny, racist, authoritarian platform against a coalition that is broad enough to include Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Rep. Liz Cheney, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Like Bradley Whitford, I am “nauseously optimistic.” I don’t believe a majority of American voters want to put an authoritarian in office, especially one who has run on such a racist and misogynistic platform. These are among the reasons I think Harris will win next Tuesday by a more significant margin than polls indicate.
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#2
A Brief History of Trump’s Violent Remarks (Isabel Fattal and Stephanie Bai, The Atlantic, Link to Article)
After the second attempt on his life, Donald Trump accused his political opponents of inspiring the attacks against him with their rhetoric. The reality, however, is that Trump himself has a long record—singular among American presidents of the modern era—of inciting and threatening violence against his fellow citizens, journalists, and anyone he deems his opposition. At a campaign event on October 31, Trump said of former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it … when the guns are trained on her face.”
Below is a partial list of his violent comments, from the 2016 presidential campaign until today.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Former President Donald Trump has made comments supporting violence towards his opponents since 2015.
This article highlights over 40 of them, including audio clips in case you are skeptical a presidential candidate for a major political party would speak this way.
It’s a tactic right out of the aspiring authoritarian’s handbook. We shouldn’t sanewash or minimize it.
After Trump on Thursday added former Rep. Liz Cheney to the list of people he wanted attacked, the former Republican presidential strategist Stuart Stevens shared a message on X/Twitter for his former GOP colleagues:
To all my Republican friends. Donald Trump is talking in public about executing a political opponent, a former Member of Congress and daughter of the man you all supported for Vice President. This will be your legacy. To all my former clients I helped elect, your support for Trump will be what you are remembered for. You think all those bills you voted for will matter. No one will remember. It’s like segregation. All the segregationist Southern Senators had long careers. They are only remembered as segregationists. it’s what your grandkids and their children will read about you in their history books. It will be who you are. As it should be.
#3
Elon on Economy Crashing if Trump Wins: ‘Sounds About Right’ (Nikki McCann Ramírez, Rolling Stone, Link to Article)
Economists have repeatedly warned that a second Trump administration would be a boon to the ultra wealthy and a backslide for everyone else. As the 2024 campaign season enters its final days, the former president’s most prominent billionaire backer is in agreement, and he wants regular Americans to just suck it up.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk — the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter) and Tesla — agreed in a social media post that Donald Trump’s return to office would likely crash the economy.
“If Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit – there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy,” user @FischerKing64 wrote on X. “Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy,” he added.
“Sounds about right,” Musk replied.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I realize I may be yelling at clouds here, but I am old enough to remember when a campaign would be sunk if one of the candidate’s major donors and surrogates admitted that the plan was to crash the economy so it could be remade to their preferences.
But there it is. Elon Musk has invested (with donations supporting Trump and by turning X/Twitter into a Trump-supporting social media enterprise) in an outcome where he and his tech oligarch friends will profit at the expense of the rest of us.
It sounds like what happened in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. As the economy crashed, major industries became cheap to acquire—especially if you had the government’s ear. Crashing our economy would make purchasing assets easier for Musk and his friends. I suspect this possible outcome is one of the reasons this group has joined Trump in supporting Putin.
But will voters really choose to elect a candidate who wants to implement policies even his supporters admit will crash the economy?
The question is whether the plan is risky for Trump or the rest of us.
#4
The Next President Inherits a Remarkable Economy (Greg Ip, The Wall Street Journal, Link to Article)
Whoever wins the White House next week will take office with no shortage of challenges, but at least one huge asset: an economy that is putting its peers to shame.
With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7% over the past year. It is outrunning every other major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate.
More impressive than the rate of growth is its quality. This growth didn’t come solely from using up finite supplies of labor and other resources, which could fuel inflation. Instead, it came from making people and businesses more productive.
This combination, if sustained, will be a wind at the back of the next president. Three of the past four newcomers to the White House took office in or around a recession (the exception was Donald Trump, in 2017), which consumed much of their first-term agenda. The next president should be free of that burden.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Wait, what? The Wall Street Journal admitting the economy is strong? But how can this be if 62 percent of respondents to a recent Wall Street Journal poll rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor?”
One of the media’s jobs is to inform the public of what is happening worldwide. A poll result like this one should force reflections on what media outlets are doing so wrong to leave such a large number of people with an incorrect impression of reality.
But it won’t.
I know President Biden is old. I get he didn’t give the media all the access they demanded. And yes, there was a worldwide spike in inflation when demand increased as governments gave up on pandemic safety measures and supply chains were re-established.
However, the Biden Administration and the Federal Reserve took steps to remedy this challenge. But that hasn’t been how the media has been covering a post-pandemic economic success that is the envy of the rest of the world.
President Biden and Vice President Harris should get more credit for these results. I hope enough voters notice, especially given what Trump and Musk have planned for us.
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#5
The myth of red states and blue states (Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me, Link to Article)
I think of this myth as I watch billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong passively ignore the crisis of democracy that faces America, even while their journalists report every day that our democracy is, in fact, in crisis. They are so many Pontius Pilates trying to wash the stain of complicity off their hands.
I think of this myth when people tell me to just leave Iowa for places where it might be “better.” Or email me to say they don’t want to think about red-state politics and are unsubscribing.
The myth tells us that America is cut up into places that are insulated and isolated from one another. Red states where they can pretend their kids aren’t gay. Blue states where they can pretend that abortion access is easy.
The reality is and always has been that if you are insulated from the realities of American politics, you are rich or a white guy (or both!). And there is nothing more political than that.
The only real bubble is wealth — enough cash money to paper over a series of political injustices and enough access to move around the barriers to health care, child care, and education.
But for the most part, for the majority of Americans, these political islands do not exist. We live in this mess of a world, bumping against each other’s prejudices and fears, and trying to find a way through it. We have always understood each other. We just wanted to pretend otherwise.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Quick, can you guess the five states that recorded the most votes for former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election? What if I told you that three of them are so-called blue states?
- California 6,006,518
- Texas 5,890,347
- Florida 5,668,731
- Pennsylvania 3,377,674
- New York 3,251,997
What if I also told you that two of the top five states for Biden votes in 2020 were in so-called red states?
- California 11,110,639
- Florida 5,297,045
- Texas 5,259,126
- New York 5,244,886
- Illinois 3,471,915
I hate the Electoral College for many reasons, starting with the fact it was created to protect slave holders. Also, with the exception of Pennsylvania, the states in the two lists above are not the ones where Vice President Harris and former President Trump are visiting in the final weeks of this campaign. Since six of the seven swing states this year are in the top half for population, it doesn’t even force candidates to care about small states and rural areas.
But we don’t talk enough about how the Electoral College splitting us into red and blue states has contributed to the sense of political polarization and left Americans with the false impression that the United States is close to being two separate nations.
Lenz’s essay is a helpful corrective to this error. As a Democratic supporter living in Iowa, she explains how we still all have to live with each other. That even in the bluest areas there are Republicans and in the reddest areas there are Democrats.
If presidential elections were decided by the popular vote, we wouldn’t be talking about red states and blue states. It would be more difficult for people to create conflicts based on geography. And Republican votes in California and Democratic votes in Texas would count.
Having every vote count equally? What a concept!
#6
Their Son’s Death Was Devastating. Then Politics Made It Worse. (Eli Saslow, The New York Times, Link to Article)
A sheriff’s deputy arrived at Nathan and Danielle Clark’s front door on the outskirts of Springfield, Ohio, last month with the latest memento of what their son’s death had become. “I’m sorry that I have to show you this,” she said and handed them a flier with a picture of Aiden, 11, smiling at the camera after his last baseball game. It was the same image the Clarks had chosen for his funeral program and then made into Christmas ornaments for his classmates, but this time the photograph was printed alongside threats and racial slurs.
“Killed by a Haitian invader,” the flier read. “They didn’t care about Aiden. They don’t care about you. They are pieces of human trash that deserve not your sympathy, but utter scorn. Give it to them … and then some.”
Nathan reached into his pocket and squeezed a piece of Aiden’s old blanket that he kept with him to help stave off panic attacks. Danielle buried her head into Nathan’s shoulder and folded the flier into tiny squares.
“They have no right to speak for him like this,” Danielle said. “It’s making me sick. There must be some way to stop it.”
“We’re checking the fliers for fingerprints,” the deputy said. “They put them online and dropped them off all over the neighborhood. It’s awful. It’s grotesque.”
“Once upon a time, it would have surprised me,” Nathan said. “But nothing’s off limits anymore. We keep hitting new lows.”
This was the version of the country the Clarks and their two teenage children had encountered during the last year, ever since Aiden died in a school bus crash in August 2023 on the way to his first day of sixth grade. The crash was ruled an accident, caused by a legally registered Haitian immigrant who veered into the bus while driving without a valid license. But as the presidential campaign intensified, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, began to tell a different story.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Parents should not have to beg a presidential and vice presidential candidate—and their supporters in right-wing media—to stop using their dead child as a political prop.
But it is 2024, and here we are. The Clarks are begging. But Trump, Vance, and the rest of MAGA is refusing to agree to their request.
Worse, now they are threatening the Clarks with violence because they will not go along with the narrative.
As a result, these grieving parents are forced to see flyers filled with lies about their child, need 24-hour protection from local law enforcement, and have been advised that the best thing they can do is stay out of their home of Springfield, Ohio.
It’s disgusting. There is no justification for it. It should be disqualifying for a campaign to fail to respect the wishes of the parents of a dead child.
#7
Extremists inspired by conspiracy theories pose major threat to 2024 elections, U.S. intelligence warns (Brandy Zadrozny, NBC News, Link to Article)
U.S. intelligence agencies have identified domestic extremists with grievances rooted in election-related conspiracy theories, including beliefs in widespread voter fraud and animosity toward perceived political opponents, as the most likely threat of violence in the coming election.
In a Joint Intelligence Bulletin that was not distributed publicly but was reviewed by NBC News, agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warn state and local law enforcement agencies that domestic violent extremists seeking to terrorize and disrupt the vote are a threat to the election and throughout Inauguration Day.
The report identified the potential targets as candidates, elected officials, election workers, members of the media and judges involved in election cases. The potential threats include physical attacks and violence at polling places, ballot drop boxes, voter registration locations and rallies and campaign events.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The potential for political violence is high in the period of time between Election Day and when Congress is set to certify the electoral vote count.
Right now right-wing and MAGA outlets are spreading two messages: that only Trump can win a fair election and that there are already major problems with the integrity of the vote count.
As the Washington Post’s Cat Zakrzewski, Naomi Nix, and Jeremy B. Merill reported this week:
“The Joe Rogan Experience,” “The Ben Shapiro Show,” “The Charlie Kirk Show” and “The Dan Bongino Show” are among 26 nationally prominent programs that have amplified unfounded assertions including that the election will be rigged or stolen, according to a Washington Post analysis of episodes aired over the last year.
If Harris wins the election, especially if it is close, these lies about election integrity are priming Trump supporters to be ready to disrupt the vote counts in the states in the hopes of delaying certification long enough to force a contingent election in the House of Representatives. There are several way this result could happen, including a new thought that The Nation’s Elie Mystal shared that could allow Trump to win with fewer than 270 electoral votes. As Mystal asks, is this the “little secret” Trump claimed during his Madison Square Garden rally that he and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson share between them?
There is work to do through the weekend. I hope there is a large enough margin of victory that no one can credibly think the election was stolen from them.
#8
A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms (Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana, ProPublica, Link to Article)
Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. “Do something,” she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023.
Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before.
The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without investigating her sharp abdominal cramps. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave.
Now on Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care.
By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain’s blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were “blue and dusky.” Her organs began failing.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Abortion bans are killing women. As Abortion, Every Day’s Jessica Valenti has repeatedly explained, the so-called exceptions are fake because they are written so vaguely that doctors and hospitals are not willing to take the risk of running afoul of the abortion ban laws.
The only reason Nevaeh Crain is dead today is because she was denied timely care for her pregnancy complications. As Valenti explains, this list includes Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, Candi Miller, Amber Nicole Thurman, and Josseli Barnica. There are undoubtedly many more.
It is impossible to legislate for all of the complications pregnancies can have—particularly when the male legislators prove to be so ignorant about how the reproductive system works. That’s why this difficult decision should be left to the pregnant person and her doctor.
I suspect this issue is going to be the one that decides this election. Polls suggest that women are angry—and they should be.
#9
Soviet submarine officer who averted nuclear war honoured with prize (Nicola Davis, The Guardian)
“On 27 October 1962, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was on board the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba when the US forces began dropping non-lethal depth charges. While the action was designed to encourage the Soviet submarines to surface, the crew of B-59 had been incommunicado and so were unaware of the intention. They thought they were witnessing the beginning of a third world war.
Trapped in the sweltering submarine – the air-conditioning was no longer working – the crew feared death. But, unknown to the US forces, they had a special weapon in their arsenal: a ten kilotonne nuclear torpedo. What’s more, the officers had permission to launch it without waiting for approval from Moscow.
Two of the vessel’s senior officers – including the captain, Valentin Savitsky – wanted to launch the missile. According to a report from the US National Security Archive, Savitsky exclaimed: “We’re gonna blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all – we will not become the shame of the fleet.”
But there was an important caveat: all three senior officers on board had to agree to deploy the weapon. As a result, the situation in the control room played out very differently. Arkhipov refused to sanction the launch of the weapon and calmed the captain down. The torpedo was never fired.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
We all owe a debt to Soviet naval officer Vasili Arkhipov, who single-handedly prevented a nuclear war from developing at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 27, 1962.
Some like to claim that John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev had significant control over the situation as they worked to negotiate an end to that confrontation.
But that telling of history is far too neat. Real events were messier—and we are lucky they didn’t spin out of control. Not knowing that Soviet submarines near Cuba had a 10-kiloton nuclear missile in their arsenals is a variable that could have created civilization-ending consequences.
And we know now that one submarine came very close to launching its missile during this most dangerous and stressful time.
So, thank you, Vasili Arkhipov, for being one of the heroes of the nuclear age who prevented an unintentional nuclear armageddon.
No, Donald, This Was Not “A Day of Love”
Watch to Remember What Really Happened During the January 6, 2021, Insurrection
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