2:00PM Water Cooler 10/29/2024 | bare capitalism

Countdown!

Lambert right here: Tiny margins, however all crimson. If I had been working the Kamala marketing campaign, I’d need to see some blue. After all, we on the skin would possibly as effectively be analyzing the entrails of birds after we attempt to predict what’s going to occur to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, particularly, who will decide the result of the election however would possibly as effectively be quantum foam, however presumably the marketing campaign professionals have higher knowledge, and have the scenario as below management as it may be _{MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!}.

“Harris Aides Quietly Develop Extra Bullish on Defeating Trump” [New York Times]. “Few Democrats dispute that the race seems terribly aggressive: By no means in fashionable presidential campaigns have so many states been so tight this near Election Day. Polling averages present that each one seven battleground states are inside the margin of error, that means the distinction between a half-point up and a half-point down — basically a rounding error — may win or lose the White Home.” And: “For all his bravado in public, Mr. Trump is privately cranky and confused, based on three individuals in touch with him, with a schedule marked by power lateness. Ms. Harris, aides say, is energized by her crowds.”

Previous efficiency is not any assure of future outcomes:

Kamala (D): “Democrats alarmed Harris’s financial message isn’t breaking by means of” [The Hill]. “One main Democratic donor informed The Hill that Harris hasn’t correctly made the case on the financial system. ‘Her financial message hasn’t damaged by means of,’ the donor stated. ‘And the financial system is the problem most individuals care about. She narrowed the hole a little bit on the problem, however she’s left lots of people questioning about her imaginative and prescient.’… And whereas Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead on the problem, a latest Reuters/Ipsos discovered voters nonetheless suppose Trump has a greater method than Harris on the financial system, by a margin of 46 p.c to 38 p.c. The survey discovered that 61 p.c of voters in battleground states say the financial system is on the ‘flawed observe.’ Robert Reich, who served as secretary of Labor below President Clinton, wrote Monday that Harris’s message must ‘middle on anti-elitist economics.’” • Oh, yeah, within the ultimate week of the marketing campaign [bangs head on desk].

Kamala (D): “Harris, coming into ultimate stretch, stresses unity and paints Trump as a divider” [WaPo]. “”We’re all right here as a result of we’re combating for a democracy and for the appropriate of individuals to be heard and seen,” Harris stated. “We aren’t in regards to the ‘enemy inside.’ We’re all on this collectively, and that’s what we’re combating for.’” • How are the “deplorables” not an “enemy inside”? Commentary:

PA: “Bob Casey Performs the Trump Card” [Wall Street Journal]. “Per week from the election, we now have bipartisan consensus on two factors concerning Pennsylvania. The primary is that the presidential contest is approach too near name. The second is that just one contender has coattails. Each candidates for Senate—Republican challenger Dave McCormick and Democratic incumbent Bob Casey—agree on who that’s: Donald Trump. That Mr. McCormick would hitch his wagon to Mr. Trump is not any shock. However Mr. Casey can also be wrapping his arms across the former president as a method of boosting his credibility. He’s doing this at the same time as Kamala Harris is denouncing Mr. Trump as a ‘fascist’ and Hillary Clinton is likening his Sunday rally at Madison Sq. Backyard to a 1939 gathering sponsored by the pro-Nazi German American Bund.”

PA: “A brand new Supreme Court docket case may change the results of the presidential election” [Vox]. Genser v. Butler County Board of Elections. “On October 23, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court docket dominated that many citizens who solid a mailed-in poll improperly, thus rendering their vote “void,” needs to be allowed to solid a poll on Election Day that can really be counted. Although it’s onerous to pin down precisely what number of voters shall be impacted by this choice, it’s probably that 1000’s of Pennsylvanians will regain their capability to vote within the November election if the state supreme court docket’s choice stays in impact… On Monday, the Republican Get together requested the US Supreme Court docket to intervene and successfully disenfranchise the 1000’s of voters who shall be allowed to vote if the state court docket’s Genser choice stands.” • Essential and value studying in full, each for the mathematics (17,000 votes would possibly get tossed out) and the reason of the Impartial State Legislature Doctrine. Bears watching,

PA: “Breaking down the expansion of GOP and decline of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, county by county” [WESA]. “As of Sept. 16, Democrats made up 44% of registered voters within the commonwealth, down from a 2009 excessive of 51.2%, whereas Republicans had been at 40.2%, up from 36.9% in 2009. Unaffiliated and third-party voters have boosted their numbers much more, from 11.9% in 2009 to fifteen.7%…. Pennsylvania, like many states across the nation, has ended up polarized: extremely populated city counties corresponding to Philadelphia and Allegheny are overwhelmingly Democratic, whereas Republicans dominate in outlying and rural counties.” • Actually nice county knowledge, with charts.

PA: “How Democrats’ voter-registration benefit eroded in Pennsylvania, and what it means for 2024” [NBC]. “Already registered voters altering their occasion has been probably the most consequential issue narrowing the Democratic registration edge. Over 160,000 individuals who had been registered Democrats in 2021 are actually registered Republicans.Conversely, solely 58,000 Republicans shifted their registration to Democratic throughout the identical time interval. Furthermore, one other 83,000 individuals who had been registered as Democrats in 2021 have switched to being unaffiliated with a significant occasion. Somewhat greater than half of that variety of beforehand registered Republicans — 50,000 — did the identical. ”

PA: “Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania” [Politico]. • Possibly. The sourcing is closely Democrat, together with a precinct captain. What else are they going to say?

VA: “The Mark of Kaine: The Biden Administration Below Hearth for Virginia Lawsuit over Non-Citizen Voter Removals” [Jonathan Turley]. “The Biden Administration sued to cease the elimination of 6,303 alleged noncitizens from Virginia’s voter rolls earlier than the election, which is predicted to be shut within the state. It depends on the Nationwide Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or the ‘Motor Voter Regulation,’ which bars ‘systemic’ elimination of voters from the rolls lower than 90 days earlier than an election.” As Jebbie did for George in Florida 2000, although effectively earlier than 90 days. Extra: “Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered compliance with current legal guidelines, citing Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring the elimination of noncitizens whose names had been added below false pretenses. It additionally cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to instantly notify their county or metropolis prosecutor of such conditions. The NVRA has exceptions for removals inside what the Justice Division calls the ‘quiet’ interval earlier than an election, together with the elimination of people who’re ‘ineligible to vote due to a prison conviction or psychological incapacity, or for ‘correction of registration data pursuant to this chapter.” Nonetheless, the state argues as a threshold matter that these will not be systemic removals. The state argues that these are particular person actions triggered robotically by residents figuring out themselves as noncitizens however then becoming a member of the voting rolls. It’s a crime for a noncitizen to vote within the election. The state notes that the voter is notified of the issue and allowed to appropriate any errors to stay on the rolls. If they don’t appropriate the issue, they’re faraway from the rolls. Nonetheless, they’ll nonetheless vote on election day with a ‘provisional’ poll to problem any elimination.” • Hmm.

WA: “Arson destroys lots of of ballots inside a Washington state drop field” [Washington State Standard]. In Vancouver. “Vancouver is situated within the third Congressional District, the place Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is working for reelection in opposition to Republican Joe Kent. The race is one in every of a handful nationwide anticipated to find out partisan management of the U.S. Home. In 2022, Gluesenkamp Perez beat Kent by 2,629 votes.” • After all the reply is extra surveillance.

“New Acquisitions: 1933 and the Definition of Fascism” [A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry]. An evaluation of Trump’s rhetoric that takes it critically, and actually. “The American system is a good bit extra resilient to this type of takeover than the Weimar Republic or the Kingdom of Italy, however resilient shouldn’t be immune – such an effort may succeed and even when it failed may do great injury. Fascists, in spite of everything, not often go away energy with out violence – this one didn’t go away workplace non-violently final time, you’ll recall. And please imagine me once I say I don’t want this to return to violence, by anybody, at any level. As I’ve stated earlier than, making an attempt to ‘win the stasis‘ – the Greek phrase for political violence – by out-violence-ing the opposition is a shedding recreation that simply tears aside the social material. However it’s not but 1933. It’s nonetheless 1932: the prepare has not left the station but.” • That is maybe probably the most reasoned case for the prosecution I’ve been. However the writer Eco’s well-known guidelines for fascism, and I’m scanning down it. Once I consider Democrats I examine off #3 (“The Cult of Motion for Motion’s Sake” [Ukraine and Israel policy]), #4 (“Disagreement is Treason” [Censorship Industrial Complex, the organs of state security generally]), #5 (“Concern of Distinction” [“deplorables”]), #6 (“Enchantment to a Annoyed Center Class” [PMC careerism]), #7 (“The Obsession with a Plot” [RussiaGate]), even #8 (“The Deceptively Sturdy/Weak Everlasting Opponent” [“President of all the People” vs. half the people are deplorables]), #10 (“Contempt for the Weak” [eugenicist Covid policy, genocide]), and #13 “Selective Populism”, and #14 “Newspeak” (id politics jargon). To be truthful, the Democrats aren’t animated by #1 (“The Cult of Custom”), #2 (“The Rejection of Modernism”), #9 (“Life is Everlasting Warfare”), or, luckily, #11 (“The Cult of Heroism”) or #12 “Machismo”). however I believe you’ll agree with me once I say that the fascist smorgasbord serves up a hearty feed for each events. I agree with Paxton on methodology: “What you should be finding out is the milieu out of which they grew,” which this put up doesn’t do. So, granting the put up’s premise, 9/14 vs. 14/14? A Sophie’s Selection certainly! (Observe that on #10, genocide and eugenicist policiy, we’re what has already been completed, versus what is perhaps completed, sooner or later, a bog-standard Democrat trope.)

“Professional-Harris Tremendous PAC Raises Issues About Specializing in Trump and Fascism” [New York Times]. “Mr. Trump’s former White Home chief of employees, Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly, stated final week that Mr. Trump “falls into the final definition of fascist, for positive,” a outstanding warning from such a top-ranking official, which Ms. Harris and her workforce instantly echoed and amplified.” After all, Kelly would no extra lie than 51 intelligence officers would. Oh, wait…. Extra: “”Purely damaging assaults on Trump’s character are much less efficient than distinction messages that embrace constructive particulars about Kamala Harris’s plans to deal with the wants of on a regular basis People,” the e-mail learn.” • Fascism shouldn’t be a matter of private character [bangs head on desk].

“Turning Pointe” [Harpers Bazaar]. “Along with her mane of lengthy brown hair and ramrod-straight posture, [Mary Helen] Bowers oozed ballerina: swish, girlish, disciplined, barely prim—all the time smiling sweetly, even by means of her grueling exercises. ‘I imply, actually, she’s sort of flawless,’ says author and model guide Ray Siegel. ‘I’d have a tough time developing with a single damaging factor to say about her.’ Bowers’s Instagram feed is crowded with Sugar Plum Fairy pictures of toe sneakers, tutus, and her personal 4 younger youngsters (together with a photograph of herself in swish arabesque whereas on the hospital in labor with one in every of them). However two issues Bowers not often posts about are her husband of 17 years, Paul Dans, and politics. One must have been paying very shut consideration to note when Dans was appointed to numerous posts inside the Trump administration. Or when, in 2020, Trump named Bowers to the board of trustees on the Kennedy Middle. And lately, even those that did discover didn’t make waves about it—not publicly, at the least. However this summer time, Ballet Stunning shoppers, notably these with left-leaning views, obtained fairly a shock when Dans emerged as one thing of a celeb in his personal proper because the director of conservative suppose tank the Heritage Basis’s Presidential Transition Undertaking, higher generally known as Undertaking 2025.” And: “Not everybody has a exercise teacher whose husband is among the architects of one of the damaging right-wing-ideological social plans on pace dial, however a number of us have a QAnon sister-in-law or an antivax hairstylist. With a traditionally divisive election upon us, loads of People must determine: ” • If the Democrat base really believes this, it’s onerous to see Kamala’s message of “unity” having a lot impact. Maybe that alien touchdown must occur in spite of everything. That’ll unify us!