It's sort of fascinating to watch The Big Lie unfold in real time. In this case I'm talking about Donald Trump's assertion that Kamala Harris used to identify as Indian and then switched to being Black when it became politically expedient.
Usually there's some small kernel of truth to these kinds of attacks, but this time there isn't even that. It's simply invented out of whole cloth. Harris has always IDed as biracial and nothing about that has ever changed.
Despite this, conservatives have eagerly taken up the charge, hoping to repeat it often enough that it sinks in. But why? What's the point?
It's not just because they're afraid to disagree with Trump. Nor is it because Trump's accusation was just a weird flub. It was planned in advance with malice aforethought and it was very deliberately done in front of a Black audience. That's because it was intended to appeal to a longtime obsession of the right: namely that identity politics and accusations of "systemic racism" are just a con job by liberals. Kamala Harris, Trump is implying, is a perfect case. She's really Indian-American but then cynically adopted Blackness so that she could complain about "racist attacks" from conservatives.
This is why a seemingly trivial falsehood is more powerful than it appears. It confirms the widespread view in MAGA world that Harris is just another race hustler out to weaponize her dark skin against whites. In reality, it's white people who have suffered increasing discrimination in recent years, right?
That’s interesting. My theory is just that he wants to get people talking about race. It’s a wedge and if we’re talking about race we’re not talking about “weird.”
"... wants to get people talking about race. "
That is it. Nothing deeper than that.
okay but this line of "attack" is extremely popular with the base and they're going to vote for him anyway. He needs to appeal to the middle and I think this will backfire as he's already lost considerable support since Kamala has entered the race
I agree, it's hard to see how this wins over swing voters. A slightly different take on the intent of the NABJ tactic was put forth by J. V. Last at The Bulwark (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-trumps-cheap-heat).
Either way, I agree it was intentional, and I hope it fails.
Yes I agree it was intentional as well. I disagree that it will be effective at getting former Biden supporters to vote for him OR people excited about Harris to switch votes to him.
What is this "middle" so many people speak of? He doesn't give a flying F about the middle. His entire lifetime MO is to *eliminate* the middle, to force yes/no choices. His play is that if he raises the heat enough and forces enough people to make active choices, that'll get enough of his people to the polls-- the ones who usually don't bother to vote. That's one of the things he told his "beautiful Christians" the other day, in fact.
There's 30-40% of the eligible population that doesn't vote, over 70 million potential voters in 2020. 70 million! If even 10% of them are receptive to his BS, that's an electoral earthquake. Even 5%. Hell, 1% even. And they're spread out in ways that make every one of his voters worth much more than a D voter, thanks to the electoral college. It didn't take many of them in 2016.
A "base strategy" for him isn't just turning out the reliable voters. It's also motivating the receptive non-voters. Getting libs and visible minorities mad at him helps do that. That's why the "weird" label and outright mockery are the right way to respond, rather than tsk-tsking and scolding.
The middle? F the middle, he's trying to expand his vote by burrowing deeper into the lizard brains out there.
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Exactly my thought as well. The Felon doesn't do Deep Strategy; he does themes and he improvises around them. In this case he wanted to grab some attention, race is always a go-to for Republicans, and he knew it would be particularly attention-getting with this audience.
And the media -- and the chatterati, as in the current case -- obliged.
Problems are:
(1) he flubbed it rather badly. He WAY overplayed it, and his team had to pull him offstage. He's losing his touch. The dementia is progressing noticeably.
(2) it's a very blunt instrument. It might excite the Base, but it's offensive to a LOT of normies. He got attention all right, but not necessarily GOOD attention.
i still contend the "kamala isn't black" attackline is trump, & moreso his team, feeding off altleft bullets used against harris in 2019.
remember: trump won in 2016 drafting off democrat primary attacks on hillary as "crooked" & a "voterigger". trump's trying to play that back, unlike in 2020, when he couldn't draft off altleft arguments against joebiden ("he raped tara reade", "he's demented") without highlighting his own weaknesses as a candidate (rapist, mentally diminished).
that being said, the most effective 2019 attack against kopala was tulsi gabardine's perversion of harris' record as a prosecutor, but playing up harris as (too) tough on crime might make some gop voters like her & liable to vote for her.
so, instead, trump has to use the chapo & cumtowner bits that kamala isn't a foundational black American, &, in fact, her jamaican lineage is that of the white slaver, not the black enslaved.
Kevin, you used to cut code. Either add a "Block" button or pay one of your old coder buddies who's up to speed with webpages to do it.
The brainless flack above has to go. He's soiling the countryside around here.
Agreed. Would also help with the spambots.
i'm sorry if you supported a candidate in 2020 (sanders, warren, gabbard) who amplified, or whose supporters amplified, ados/fba smears of kamala harris.
"It was planned in advance with malice aforethought and it was very deliberately done in front of a Black audience"
Glad to see you've rethought this point since the 1st of the month.
Spontaneous racist dickishness toward a hosting organization and attendees probably is no better in the end than *planned* racist dickishness toward a hosting organization and attendees, though there could be a slightly more arguable case for excusing it. But there's just no excuse for any adult human being in this year 2024 to do what he did even if we have an explanation.
As for what to call it, "weird" works for me as the entry-level umbrella term. It's close to mockery, and mockery delegitimates.
Thank you.
His actions were not only weird, they were intentionally weird. In a cruel, uncool way.
When I was a kid, we called people like that bullies.
Aug 1: "No, Trump’s insults yesterday weren’t deliberate"
Aug 4: "Trump’s attack on Kamala Harris’s blackness was very precisely aimed"
Yep, that's quite a reversal. Hope no one got whiplash.
Nah, I think it's because many of these racists can't conceive of a spectrum of identities, or that people might identify with multiple at any one time. They also seem to believe that there's a bad faith element to having multiple identities/affinities, hence all the "well tomorrow I can just say I identify as Black, and then I am! and the day after that, I can choose to be a woman and then I am!"
They can't fathom this shit.
They can't fathom that anyone would choose to identify as Black if there was an alternative. Unless it was to take advantage of DEI, the only thing that's keeping MAGAheads from all those $100,000 a year jobs.
????????????????????
Which way will blow the wind tomorrow? https://jabberwocking.com/no-trumps-insults-yesterday-werent-deliberate/
Trump had two motivations, I think.
First, he wanted to play to his MAGA base, ignoring his campaign managers who came up with the goal to expand his appeal, especially the Black male demographic.
Second, he's a racist and a misogynist. Instinctively, he will always respond negatively to a strong Black woman. But a strong Black woman beating him is over the top and his ego has been pushed into a vile, dark, despicable place where his mudslinging is personal, openly racist and misogynistic. The facade is coming off.
I hope the Never-Trumper groups direct their ads towards triggering Trump. Let America see Trump in his raw, unfiltered self.
Yes to both, especially the long-time racism and misogyny.
This interpretation could be true if for no other reason than that nothing else about this absurd performance makes sense. But does Trump really need to rally his base at the risk of alienating pretty much everyone else. This still doesn't seem like a viable campaign strategy..
Well, trump-- as opposed to the professional campaign managers LaCivita and Wiles-- only thinks about the base, "his people." In 2016 he squeaked into office by getting more of the sporadic voters among them to turn out than were expected to. Commitment to him is what did that and is what he wants and what he works for. It's all he ever wants to see from crowds at rallies, that they're enthusiastic enough to come in from far and wide and that they cheer him. He's always trying to move more of the same kind of people and get deeper into their emotions to do that.
That isn't completely irrational when you consider that our best overall turnouts are still under 70% of registered voters, forget about eligible ones. It goes completely against conventional wisdom of looking for more voters of different kinds, which is where Ds go, and where Romney went, and most other Rs before trump, and what most of us think is rational campaign strategy.
Let's not forget that in 2016 trump managed to get more of his kind of people to go vote than anybody expected. Enough of them-- what, 70,000 across a bunch of states?-- were in just the right places that lightning struck. That's his model for winning. If he's thinking *explicitly* about anything (vs feeling his way through it all), it's to go *deeper* into the reservoir of sporadic voters among his people, not to draw from a wider range. Stirring them up more is his way to do that.
In other words I think he's doubling down, which is pretty much all he's ever done in just about everything he's done.
So republicans really believe that for every Simone Biles they see, there are 30 or 40 McKayla Maroneys getting stepped on? For every LeBron James, 30 or 40 Larry Birds who can't get their chance? Wow. Just, wow.
And not only that, but that THEY THEMSELVES are ALSO being stepped on. THAT's why they can't afford that $85,000-before-options pickup and they're still stuck in this stupid job. It's all THOSE people's fault, with their welfare and their Obamaphones and those Democrat politicians.
That isn't what the chart means. It says nothing about absolute levels of discrimination. It is perfectly possible to believe that anti-white bigotry has gotten worse in recent years and at the same time believe that it is still 10x worse for people of color.
That's accurate, fair enough, because while 12% of Rs say there's been "a lot more discrimination" against black people, that doesn't say anything about what level of discrimination was the baseline, and so it's possible to believe as you state. Personally I don't find it all that *plausible* to believe it, but it's certainly possible. "30 or 40" was for illustrative effect, btw.
When, oh when, will somebody finally do something to help white people, the true victims of 400+ years of American society?
I just can’t anymore with white fragility. I’m white and all this whining about how put upon white people are is just so embarrassing. I kind of hope that eventually when no racial group has a majority in any state, the non-white people actually do pass discriminatory laws against white people. I mean, if non-white people have to tolerate white people claiming to have suffered more than slavery and the holocaust put together, perhaps non-white people should actually get the joy of exacting real vengeance.
You are either purposely lying or willfully ignorant. No one who is making the argument that whites are discriminated against are saying that has been the case for the last 400 years. They are speaking about current times (or within the last 20 years or so).
That is dumb.
Austin's first sentence is clearly sarcasm.
Wikipedia: "Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. "
Dumb is all Atticus has got.
> "...last 20 years or so"
The Jesse Helms "White Hands" ad ran in 1990, obviously tapping into a resentment that had been building (or actively stoked) for years before. Complaints about "special advantages" for non-whites go back at least as far the day the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed.
When a black rapist, traitor, crook can run for pres. and be a contender, then we'll have reached parity and it'll be time to worry about oppression of white people.
justin fairfax, come on down.
... wait, what's that?
the democrat party doesn't propup disgraced pols?
tell that to current north carolina governor john edwards!
Would Harris be eligible for the reparations that she supports? If not, why not?
Yea, that's definitely a plank of her platform. Go find a forum where your alternative universe is accepted.
The problem with this attack as a Big Lie is that it’s so simply and tersely knocked down by noting she went to Howard.
Since when does a Big Lie need to be plausible?
It's really remarkable how pundits, blogger, and reporters keep thinking that Trump's latest racist nonsense will doom his campaign or that he must reach out to moderates. He's been doing this since 2015 and the reaction from the media has always been the same. The appeal to racism is what has won elections for Republicans for fifty years. Trump won with racist xenophobia in 2016. It was not racism which caused him to lose in 2020, but his obvious incompetence in office and the way that he never fulfilled any of his "populist" campaign promises. Since then various real problems - inflation and Biden's age - and fake problems - the economy is bad - have apparently led many people to think that they were doing materially better during the Trump administration.
Maybe Trump and Vance are going too far this time, but they are not really doing anything new, either with respect to what Republicans have done over the decades or specifically what Trump has done since he started running. Republicans are not going to give up this stuff until they lose elections badly, which is not going to happen this year
Exactly. The racism gets racists who are probably more disengaged than a lot of other cohorts out to vote. The more normie Republicans don’t love the racism but dislike the commie Dems more so aren’t going to change their vote over it. It’s been a winning formula once. The second election the racism and incompetence got those disengaged voters on the other side out in force. The question is will four years of time dampen those memories for those who voted for Biden 2020 because they hated Trump
Racists and bigots are people too. They just want to feel that they've been seen, that they've been heard, that they have value....
/s
Calling for people to follow their better nature--listen to the Angel and not the Devil on their shoulder (see old cartoons)--is taken to be an insult. There are stories of pastors no longer being able to preach the Sermon on the Mount, the Good Samaritan, etc. (or actually any actual Christian values?).
To paraphrase Gandhi:
1. Western Civilization? I think that would be great.
2. Christianity? (from GoodReads) "'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"
Bear in mind that there aren't any white racists. They'll come right out and tell you: "I'm not a racist, but ...". Calling someone racist is an intolerable affront, practically slanderous.
Explaining anything Trump does as if it's some kind of three-dimensional chess strategy - I find that hilarious. He's not that smart and he's not disciplined enough to listen to people who are. He's racist through and through and he thinks there are a majority of voters who agree with him. This is his effort to appeal to them. This kind of stuff used to be said in dog-whistle terms, but Trump is not a dog-whistle kind of guy. He just blares it out.
i believe you're overthinking trump's motivation. i'd say he wanted to tell black voters kamala isn't really black and believed they would be stupid enough to believe it and refuse to vote for her on that basis. it's moronic, but so is he.
Agreed.
He seems to have made some inroads with black male voters, who apparently like the misogyny more than they dislike (or don't see) the racism, kind of the inverse of white women who overlook the misogyny, and like the racism. If he can convince more black men that are maybe open to voting for him, that Harris isn't really black, maybe he can pick up a few more in those key states and cities (Philly, Detroit, Milwaukee).
That said, I think he went in there with a plan to slip his attack in a bit more stealthily, but Rachel Scott threw the first punch and he overreacted and couldn't control himself.
Perhaps KDs theory is right in a subconscious manner but I think he just wanted to talk about race and make it an issue (look at the venue): like a Lee Atwater strategy- meaning talking about race alone should make white people go to their tribe in his mode of thinking. It is retrograde and poor politics because even among many conservatives the reaction is, “Trump is right but let’s talk about the issues”. Meaning that they are uncomfortable in this plane but at the same time they don’t want to contradict their leader. Before he said what he said, no one was even thinking about it and now they have to defend it. IOW, the fealty of the cult goes beyond tribal politics.
I agree with Kevin. This was done by Trump deliberately and his team either agreed to it beforehand or suggested it to him as a talking point for the group he was facing. It’s kind of like Trump questioning the heroism of McCain or Obama’s citizenship. It’s how he rolls and it doesn’t seem to hurt him.
"This is why a seemingly trivial falsehood is more powerful than it appears."
powerful to the maga base but to no one else. it doesn't get him a single vote. i'm guessing that dementia donnie and his handlers see this as somehow making harris appear less than genuinely black to black voters, diminishing enthusiasm, maybe even picking off a few votes. problem is we as a country have been down this road before with barack obama, and harris, really is no different.
This stroke of genius narrative doesn't seem to much hold water when there's reports of a lot of Republicans freaking out over it, if only behind the scenes of course, because no one can afford to upset Trump to his face.
Meanwhile, just in time to save trump…
A sell-off in markets around the world turned into a rout on Monday as investors grew panicky about signs of a slowing American economy, with stocks tumbling across Asia and Europe.
Anyway, trump can attack whomever he wants and his supporters will still vote for him. The fundamental problem remains. Half the country hates you.
Hilarious NY Post has the goods.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/us-news/video-shows-black-men-in-barbershop-questioning-whether-kamala-harris-is-black/
One of the men promptly spoke up and quizzed his peers, asking them, “Is Kamala black, yes or no?” A man next to him, bluntly replied that he’d “let her speak on that, but to me, no.”
"a seemingly trivial falsehood is more powerful than it appears"
Powerful for what constituency? If it's within the MAGA-sphere, I don't care. All I care about is, will this foray by Trump help him win or not?
Sure Trump is impulsive and often makes racist attacks. The question is, how involved was the campaign ahead of time? Did Trump discuss this line of attack with his campaign managers? Did they try out different lines of attack, catchphrases, insults on each other, with surveys, on focus groups? Did they task the staff to come up with examples, video, old news stories, documents to support this line of attack?
No. No. No. No.
(Sorry for answering if the questions were posed ironically)
Mort Sahl back in the 60’s used to muse about people who talked endlessly about their problem communicating and he advised them to just shut up. (He related it much more humorously)
Today we have a group of white folks who have benefitted as a group from 350 years of white preference starting with slavery, morphing into the post civil war “Black Codes,” to Jim Crow laws, segregation, Klu Klux Clan rallies, lynchings, restrictions on access to jobs, property ownership, education and more. They are now complaining that leveling the playing field in America even a little is somehow racism against whites. Like Mort I wish they would just shut up.
But they won’t because we’ve never recovered from that our constitution’s original sin.
Yup. Pretty much, at least in part.. Another kernel of structural truth about this episode - forget for a moment the words and content - is Trump walked straight into hostile territory and unloaded full bore with both barrels. What permission(s) does this openly vicious, unrestrained, in your face act implicitly confer? How are these permissions then amplified by the things Trump actually said and implied? Forget the "ten dimensional chess" horseshit - Trump is feral, cunning, and a brilliant manipulator. In his own (conscious and unconscious) way he knows exactly what he's doing. Is he flailing? Sure. Is he losing ground, feeling the heat, whatever? Of course he is. Is he making it up (in some ways) as he goes? You betcha. But the basics are the same as always, and as Trump faces increasing pressure his desperation is going to drive him towards increasingly dark and nihilistic behavior, in ways Americans don't want to, or can't, recognize.
The mistake way too many are making - as evidenced here in comments - is to assess Trump by the wrong standards and, unsurprisingly, find him wanting. This is a fatal mistake. Trump is far, far more intentional and focused - in his own way, not your way, his way - than way too many can or want to see. We underestimate him at our peril. Again, this isn't some "ten dimensional chess" bullshit. That's a pathetic, reductive attempt to categorize Trump in a way that makes sense to people of limited scope and understanding. Trump's not Einstein, and he's not Hitler. But his success speaks for itself. He knows people, in ways many or most educated, humanistic liberals don't have the ability to understand. This is war, and he will do whatever he has to to win. Don't ever forget that.
"Trump's not Einstein, and he's not Hitler."
Hitler wasn't "Hitler" until circumstances forced him to go the full Adolf.
Trump's not Hitler, but he modeled his political rise on the Hitler playbook. The neo-Nazis understand exactly where he's coming from. So far, he's a failed Hitler wannabe, but we don't want to find out what he can do with the authoritarian power he seeks and the Supreme Court has already granted him. He must lose in November. And that might not be enough. The biggest battle might come in January.
(I've been reading recently about Hitler's childhood years. There are some eerie parallels with Trump's early years, as told in the Mary Trump book, particularly the treatment by abusive fathers. The pathologies of people are always rooted in the traumas of childhood.)
RFK jr tells Roseanne Barr about the hilarious time he, and a dead bear, and they were drinking, and . . .
https://time.com/7007802/rfk-bear-carcass-central-park/
And here I thought the worm eating his brain was bad. How is the bear story even remotely funny? He's a very disturbed individual.
It's the kind of thing that sounds like genius when you're 19 and stoned out of your gourd.
I mean, if I had a dead bear in my car when I was 19, --well, it just writes itself.
Third-party and independent candidates typically fade as the election approaches, and that's true even for the ones who aren't deeply weird.
The way he started his argument you can tell it was rehearsed. It's something different, meaning it's not her identity as a black woman, but that her identity is dishonest and recent. It's not true, but when has that ever stopped Trump? It was probably someone else's idea and this was his haphazard way of arguing the point. He just ends up looking like an ass to people other than his racist misogynistic base. I hope he keeps talking, talking his way to a loss.
This is a weird framing of the issue because how this plays in MAGA land is completely beside the point since MAGA land is not voting for Harris. The question is how this plays outside of MAGA land to people who also don't like the Democrats. With that in mind the graph that Drum gives suggests that this will not be a very potent attack. Trump is yet again appealing to the people who are already voting for him and that doesn't make it possible for them to vote more than once.
That doesn't mean that these appeals can't work. I watch the political commercials trying to figure out whether they will appeal to low information voters or not, and do not have much confidence about it. But it seems the last thing we should be worrying about is that this will play well with the majority of Republicans. The majority of Republicans are not in play.
Indeed.
Good grief, are people still playing "what devious plan was behind Trump's words?"
Trump lashes out at his enemies, saying whatever he can think of to insult them. He knows his base loves him for it, and his loyal army of propagandists in the media will instantly pick the insults up and broadcast them far and wide. That's all there is to it.