Kellyanne Conway made a horrific statement yesterday on Fox News, one of those comments where you shake your head, not sure you really read it.

This is alarming for two reasons, both of which underscore the Through the Looking Glass state of our transformed politics in this country since the advent of Trump.

First and foremost, Conway’s comment underscores the fact that Trump has never been the president of the United States, he’s only the president of the MAGA States of America. He’s made that abundantly clear any number of times, most glaringly when he threatened to refuse disaster aid to Californians during the wildfires. He did this because California, being a blue state, is not a part of the Union — not the Union in power, that is, which is the MAGA States of America.

The second reason this is problematic, is because the cultural fault line right now runs directly through Wisconsin. Kenosha is ground zero. And make no mistake, Trump is going to exploit what has happened in Kenosha and spin it to fit the framework of his red world/blue world narrative, so that people will freak and run to the ballot box and vote red.

Politico:

Trump has attempted to frame the violent unrest in the wake of Jacob Blake’s shooting as fallout from inept leadership and the inability of Democrats to take control of their cities. On Wednesday, he announced he would send in the National Guard, while criticizing Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers for not doing so, even though the Democrat had deployed guard troops on Monday and increased them on subsequent days.

As this battleground state grapples with social unrest, some Democrats fear that the looting and rioting and clashes are feeding Trump’s argument that this is what life would be like under the so-called radical left. The worry is that especially among suburban swing voters, the more upheaval and violence they witness, the more their sympathy for peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters will wane.

“There’s no doubt it’s playing into Trump’s hands,” said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. “There’s a significant number of undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to the Democratic column and back again.They are, in effect, the people who decide elections. And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers in murdering African Americans, and … for the safety of their communities.”

I don’t think that there are any undecided voters this close to the election. But I do think that there are people who can switch sides if they become sufficiently fearful.

This is what Trump is counting on. This is what he will exploit over the next 66 days.

Joe Biden did the right thing, with the video he released on Wednesday,

“[P]rotesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary. But burning down communities is not protest, it’s needless violence—violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses that serve the community. That’s wrong.”

This is exactly what we need and much more of it. Because this is the battleground and you know Trump, he will seek to “dominate the battleground” in his fascist way. We cannot let this moment get away from this and I hope that the Biden/Harris campaign sees it, as the rest of the political universe seems to. What’s going on in Kenosha is feeding Trump’s radical left narrative and his media bias narrative. This is already damaging and it can get worse. The Bulwark:

“Mostly peaceful protest” has become a running joke as an evasive way to describe a violent mob. Is there a big difference between a protest and a riot? Absolutely. I just wish the media would remember this and stop blurring the difference between them.

Add to this the increasingly widespread use of brutish intimidation tactics, as with a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who surrounded outdoor diners at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and demanded that they raise their fists to show symbolic solidarity with the cause, chanting the Orwellian slogan “Silence Is Violence.” When one woman refused, they surrounded her in a literally howling mob. The woman, Lauren B. Victor, stood firm, explaining that “she felt there was something wrong about being coerced to show support.” The whole thing bears a striking visual similarity to the Two Minutes Hate, including the raised fists, and that’s what gives it such a totalitarian flavor: the venting of unreasoning hatred against even the smallest signs of dissent.

This is precisely the sort of thing that could tip the election back to Trump by making his opponents seem like weak and timid men afraid to confront the violent brutes.

This is exactly where Trump will try to drive the wedge and undermine Democratic credibility. The Democrats’ job is to get on top of this and stay on top of it with effective messaging and appropriate action by local officials. Trump’s entire campaign right now is full bore culture war, and he’s going to gaslight the gullible that he stands for the rule of law when the fact is, if he gets reelected, you can kiss the rule of law goodbye. We are standing on the precipice of fascism, make no mistake. This could be a turning point. We need to make sure that it is not.

I am not trying to monger fear here. I am saying that we have to be vigilant as never before in this election and take nothing for granted. I am merely pointing out that Trumpism is alive. It is still a force in this country. And if Trump would get reelected, through a confluence of factors, just like last time, to wit: Russian interference, which we know is going on, even Marco Rubio said so; and problems with ballot counting, which is a realistic possibility, democracy will be lost. Trump will go stark raving bonkers, no holds barred, and we know that. We need to get on top of anything that threatens to tip the race in his direction and right now, Kenosha and the protests/riots are the hot spots.

 

Help keep the site running, consider supporting.

1 COMMENT

    • He needs to be excised from the body politic like a cancerous tumor. I just don’t want to see Democrats take this election for granted. We need to address each and every issue that comes up that threatens to pry away even one vote from Biden/Harris.

      • I never worry about Democrats taking anything for granted because it’s not in our constitution to do so — it’s in our constitution to believe all the news is bad for sand great for them and that if we breathe too hard we will lose. I worry about our fearfulness and the ease with which we swallow narratives about how everything works against us and Trump is omnipotent.

  2. That fascism ship has sailed. Nor are the protestors, however violent they get, likely to make Trump look better to matter to enough people. We need to stop acting like their desperation makes them more competent or our allies more stupid.

    • My alarm stems from that tweet of Johnathan Chait’s showing that support for BLM has dropped so precipitously. And admittedly, I’m paranoid. The greatest nightmare I have is that somehow this POS gets reelected. I don’t think he will, but I would be a liar if I didn’t say that I react to any and ever sign that he might with great trepidation.

      • If these people are so easily swayed by protests to vote for trump because of it, they probably weren’t going to vote for Biden anyway. How stupid and fickle are these people.

          • You know a heck of a lot more about politics than I ever will. I am biting my nails too. It just seems to me that some people protesting or spray painting, either in your own city, or across the country, isn’t a very compelling reason to cast a vote for trump. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Really, it just sounds like an excuse.

      • Gods, Ursula, it’s hardly as though BLM is the end and be all of reasons to oppose Trump. For all my real differences with the Lincoln Project and other exiled conservatives, they’ve got more than enough to throw their weight into the final vote count in our favor. And don’t forget what minority group elevated Biden in the first place, who have managed to survive the worst America had to throw for 400 years. Neither of those won’t let up from now until Election Day. It’s a good example to follow rather than let the paranoia paralyze you.

      • The problem was calling the protests “BLM protests” as opposed to “blm protests” (there is an essential difference). As more and more people learn about the agenda of the organization BLM, support recedes. However, I expect that support for blm is holding steady or increasing. At some level. Biden knows this. That is why BLM is not mentioned in the Biden quote.

    • We also need to stop buying the crap the media feeds us about how every little thing is “bad for Democrats” and, famously “Good news for John McCain!”

  3. It was pretty much in the bag. Then you start getting the ones that think they have something to say about what’s going on. That’s fine if you conduct yourself accordingly. But when these people speak up they think that everyone should spread rose petals for them to walk on. When that doesn’t happen as it didn’t happen for leaders like Martin Luther King jr. He went out and made it happen peacefully. He understood that folks want to join a movement if they are asked nicely. They don’t want any part of fear.

    • MLK and Ghandi knew how to get it done, no question. And it is Fear v. Love, no question about that one, either. And that’s exactly how this presidential election is framing up. Incredible.

      • The battleground isn’t going to be people’s opinions of Black Lives Matter. It will be just what it was in 2016: voter suppression. I’m more concerned about chaos around voting opportunities.

    • pj, you are correct.about the influences in Wisconsin. But look at the primary in April, the Republican incumbent state Supreme Court judge lost to the Democratic preferred candidate after the state legislature made the primary be held in person in spite of Covid. The turnout was immense. The Drmocrats showed their true colors and they can do it again.

    • Thank you, Miranda. I had mixed feelings about writing this, because I don’t want to intimate for a moment that I don’t think Biden/Harris will win. I think they will. I am merely extremely mindful of any information that comes up on radar that anything could be going south. That’s why I wrote this. Forewarned is forearmed.

  6. Ann Coulter said she would vote for Kyle Rittenhouse for president. Will this teen killer now get a presidential pardon, a medal of honor, an invite to the White House?

  7. If I’m reading the dates correctly, these polls only go through August 9th. That was before the most recent shootings and certainly before the major sports walkouts. I would expect those poll numbers would be different now.

  8. What if Gavin Newsom or Cuomo suggest they would secede from the union if Trump wins? Why would we be part of a country that doesn’t want us, according to Kellyanne.

  9. Maybe I’m paranoid, but especially last night seeing Trump’s entrance from the WH down the steps to the podium like a fucking Emperor and especially that moment late in his speech where he turned, and with a smirk asked what was the name of that place and then so arrogantly said he was there and Democrats aren’t I know there is nothing he won’t do. He’d already blown through every norm and broken laws or ordered them to be broken. We KNOW Barr has orders to coordinate with Johnson over in the Senate to drop charges on Biden and his son Hunter. That they will be bogus doesn’t matter. That won’t be the point. The point is that for all the career professionals at DOJ it’s been corrupted by this administration in key positions and with Barr doing a literal Roy Cohn redux and literally interfering in investigations (while at the same time forcing some to gin new ones up to harm Democrats) we have that problem. He’s corrupted the military, forcing the DOD to take actions like shifting NATO troops away from where they are needed, abandoning allies like the Kurds who did most of the bleeding and dying it took to compete OBAMA’s plan to defeat ISIS so there’s that. He’s corrupted the Treasury via Mnuchin to shift money around in defiance of law and Congressional intent, and not just for his fucking wall project. He’s corrupted DHS, using it for all manner of fuckery r.e. misuse of intelligence to make himself look good and Democrats bad, and to withhold assistance that can help states secure their election infrastructure. He’s corrupted the State Dept. and who knows what deals have been cut beyond his clear wanting of Putin’s assistance to interfere either actively or passively in the election? He’s corrupted federal law enforcement agencies to provide personnel to gear up and act like storm troopers on our streets up to and including snatching people off the streets. He’s corrupted even the Postal Service to try and make sure he can keep people who are likely to vote against him from receiving their ballots or having them returned on time. That’s just stuff we know for sure & anyone reading this can probably come up with something else I didn’t recall off the top of my head. Oh, and the RNC says (and I believe it) they have planned and funded (including training) to have 50k MAGAts out in selected communities and at polling stations to “monitor” (IOW engage in disruption and intimidation) voting. My guess is training will make goddamned sure their civilian goons know just what they can legally do when it comes to carrying and displaying weapons.

    This is a President who has people close to him and are as invested in his re-election as he is (they will face serious legal trouble of their own if he’s defeated) informing him on how he can use the full weight of the federal government to cheat and win in November.

    Norms or even laws broken? Trump. Doesn’t. Care!

    And, since they’ve super glued their lips to his ass neither does what’s left of the Republican Party. So call me paranoid. I don’t care. I’ve almost died & in fact should have more times than I want to think about, most of them before I was thirty. Let me put it this way. No matter how solid things are looking, no matter how close we seem to be to breaking the tape like a runner winning the race a single misstep or unforeseen event can make the difference between winning an losing. I’m thinking back to a sunny day at Camp Pendleton in the mid 1980s where I did wind up seeing the sun set, and all the days since where I lived through. In training when I fired an anti-tank missile, or more accurately tried to do so it misfired. I could hear the electrical connections sparking and hissing in the tube on my shoulder. The thing could have exploded and blown me to pieces at any second. There is a procedure to be followed and I did so to the letter, but the first was to call out the misfire and wait for everyone in the blast envelope to carefully make their own way to safety. You see, even the vibrations of a person or persons running, instead of softly walking away might have been enough to make what’s known as “a bad day.” The time, after a couple of actions with the missile still in my shoulder unfired came for me to set it down and make my own way to safety. I have never breathed so shallowly and carefully in my life as when I set that sucker on the ground and slowly (so as not to lose my balance and fall – potentially a very bad thing) and despite my size (6’4″ and in those days 225 give or take) attempt to walk thirty meters to and then over the safety berm without leaving a single bit of pressure on the ground. My point is that until I was safely over that earthen berm, I could have been dead at any second, yet the ONE thing I could NOT do was hurry a single step. I was at the mercy of my own ability to do the things I was supposed to do exactly right, to control what was possible for me to control but also at the mercy of things (from whatever manufacturing, storage or getting bumped around in transport that caused the misfire) out of my control

    That’s how I see the days between now and when the votes are counted and certified. I, and all of us have to strive to know exactly what problems might arise and what we have to do to meet them, and at the same time be alert to the fact that things beyond our control might pop up – and if so be quick enough in our thinking so as to not make things worse.

    That’s what I fear might be going on with some of the demonstrations that have taken place in recent times. As a white male, I have no place to tell people of color who die at alarmingly disproportiante rates at the hand of LE and wannabe cops not to protest. But I also think back to protests Dr. King and his people led. They marched, and sat in quiet dignity. What shocked so much of the nation then was how LE reacted to people who simply showed up, not chanting and waving signs with messages that might be turned into ammunition by those who wanted to maintain the status quo. There was also plenty of talk from the leaders of those demonstrations that people who wanted to take part WOULD by god do so quietly and not only not do anything that could be taken as provocation, but not to respond to those doing their best with the vilest, cruelest of insults and threats, and even acts of violence (throwing rock, bottles and other things) at them.

    Now? The people arrayed against them from the WH on down are often more sophisticated. Journalism being what it is, the combination of “both siderism” and the almost always overlooked fact that major media is CORPORATE and those who own and manage (at the highest levels) aren’t the “liberal” reporters conservatives like to cite when talking about media bias, but 1 percenters themselves who aren’t at all interested in changing things for the better. As for the WH and it’s operatives including Roger the Ratfucker Stone there is ample evidence that for reasons I’ve just stated journalists seldom mention, much less highlight right wing agitators doing much of the violence in addition to infiltrating the protesters to try and incite them. Paid operatives. And I will probably be attacked for saying this but when people are poor and desperate, not knowing how to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads even people of color who have every justification to be protesting the unjustices they’ve endure their entire lives can be persuaded with enough money to cross over to the proverbial dark side of the force. Not many I think, but it doesn’t take many to light a wildfire in a crowd and have it spread on a wave of emotion.

    The changing opinion polls on BLM in Wisconsin should scare the living hell out of us all. The GOP has been sharpening their people and media manipulation skills for decades, and it’s clear that for this election they realize better than ever that national polls and vote totals aren’t what matter. That the old saying “All politics is local” really is the key. Target their fuckery to the right places (and WI has been a testing lab for them for a long time now) and a repeat of 2016 isn’t just possible, but could become a reality if we slip up the tiniest bit and I for one think that while the GOP was knocked back on its heels for a while, they recovered right under our noses and starting fighting back. It’s like they slipped a sedative into our water bottle before we got into the general election ring. And now, like Sonny Liston in the fight where he lost the title to Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) have liniment on their gloves and have used a boxers clinch (the RNC) to rub it in our eyes and blind us to keep us from seeing, much less warding off the punches to follow.

  10. Well then, in Sacramento last night – the only videos I saw were white boys, spray painting property and smashing windows. The goal is to continue making it seem the black folks are the bad guys. Repeatedly. Whitey still wants black folk to be yass massah, no massah and keep their mouths shut and “know their place.” Did ya look at the picture in the link above? It’s all effing white kids intimidating people. Anyone can put on a BLM t-shirt and do this shit and folks think it’s BLM doing it. BULL SHIT! There is communication going on that we are not connected with.

    WTFU folks. Boogaloo is alive and well. KKK is alive and well. They talk. They communicate. They set shit up to make it seem black folks are doing it. Why? We know why.

  11. Your are absolutely right. The protests should stop now and Biden should say this. They only provide the pretext for violence Trump is looking for. As for Conway, no wonder her daughter is seeking emancipation.

    • If you tell protests to stop, they have won, and you have lost — and idea would appear weak and racist, which the Republicans would jump on to have their dark money groups run ads attacking him from the left and destroy enthusiasm for him among black and younger voters. They would feast on him. Luckily, Biden isn’t that dumb.

  12. “This is precisely the sort of thing that could tip the election back to Trump by making his opponents seem like weak and timid men afraid to confront the violent brutes.”

    I would trust everyone recognizes the irony of this sentence (whether intended or not).

    Trump is THE biggest brute there is and he incites others to engage in similar brutish behavior.

  13. Voters that aren’t ideological? The problem is that Democrats have let the Republicans define what the ideologies are. We are not Socialist. We promote the Constitution and attempt to live up to the preamble of the Constitution. Period.

    The Republicans are Fascist and the biggest difference between Trump and Mussolini is that Mussolini had the Corporations elect the legislature while Republicans have the kabuki dance of lobbyist buying the votes and crafting the legislation. We won’t even get into the nationalism and the racism.

    Pound it into the nations brain over the next eight weeks.

  14. I’m tired being told that if we us breathe too hard it could “tip the election back to Trump.” This seems to be the latest “race is tightening” narrative to feed readers suspense and Democrats panic (Republicans never panic and never buy into narratives like this because they are dick-swinging triumphalists; we always freak out and wail piteously). Honestly I don’t think many minds will be changed by “Oh look at the rioting and looting — coming soon to a suburb near you.” Lots of people who weren’t before are now horrified by how casually black people’s lives are treated by police.

    • That narrative is crap, all of it, something to fill in the dead air now that the Trump National Convention with its 365 Hatch Act violations is over. Do something useful with your panic, I say.

  15. I think it’s extremely interesting that no one is suggesting that Trump better condemn murderous rightwing militias or people will see him as a scary bully and not vote for him.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

The maximum upload file size: 128 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here