Jeff Sharlet on Facebook:

I’m a journalist, so this, here, is why even as a white man I am personally afraid of Trumpism. I haven’t seen this t-shirt but as part of the crowd at two Trump rallies, in Ohio and Arizona, I turned with the mob as they screamed violent wishes at the press pen — a literal metal pen into which they’d allowed themselves to be corralled. Under a Trump presidency we’d see the power of the federal govt turned against journalists like me who have annoyed Trump, and we’d see vigilantes taking more extreme measures with nothing but show investigations by federal authorities and many of the PDs that have effectively endorsed Trump through their

It’s going to be a long day.

What will Trump do if he loses? Nobody knows. My prediction? It will be some form of bad.

The son he punched to the floor in front of the son’s classmates when he was at university tells us that if the loss is big enough Puncher Trump won’t fight it. Big of him. Not yuge, but big.

For months, the Republican nominee encouraged his supporters to mistrust Tuesday night’s results, suggesting the election could be rigged, possibly as part of an intricate scheme involving African-American voters in Philadelphia, Latinos in Nevada, a cabal of international bankers, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the cast of Saturday Night Live, the

Michael De Dora suggests a thought experiment: imagine the policy positions of the two candidates for president were flipped. Trump had all the Clinton policy positions and Clinton had all the Trump ones.

Yeah. I didn’t have to read on to know the answer. Never. Not in a million years.

I wouldn’t vote for Clinton either in that scenario, of course, but I sure as hell would not vote for the evil lying cheating pussy-grabbing bully.

In this world, I would not vote for Hillary Clinton. But, I would also not vote for Donald Trump.

To be clear, in this election I do support (the real) Clinton, and do not support (the real) Trump. Their policy positions are a

A compilation of all the names for him. Two of the best:

crotch-fondling slab of rancid meatloaf

thrice-married foul-mouthed tit-judge

Ben Guarino at the Washington Post looks back on Trump’s Twitter career.

Of all the loose cannons to roll across political Twitter’s decks, Donald Trump may have been the most volatile. The GOP nominee blasted his messages into the feeds of 13 million followers and accrued retweets by the thousands. For every hit scored against Jeb Bush (“low energy“), Ted Cruz (“Lyin’“) or Hillary Clinton (“Crooked“), though, there remained a risk Trump’s potshots would be self-destructive rather than tactical.

In the past, Trump’s worst tweets included the ludicrous, like his claim that climate change was a Chinese hoax, as well as the insulting and unsubtle. “While @BetteMidler is an extremely unattractive woman,”

The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump’s handlers have taken away his Twitter.

In the final days of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump’s candidacy is a jarring split screen: the choreographed show of calm and confidence orchestrated by his staff, and the neediness and vulnerability of a once-boastful candidate now uncertain of victory.

On the surface, there is the semblance of stability that is robbing Hillary Clinton of her most potent weapon: Mr. Trump’s self-sabotaging eruptions, which have repeatedly undermined his candidacy. Underneath that veneer, turbulence still reigns, making it difficult for him to overcome all of the obstacles blocking his path to the White House.

The contrasts pervade his campaign. Aides to Mr. Trump have finally wrested away

Classic. A NY Times piece on feverish “militia” types in the rural South, hoping Trump wins and practicing their shooting skills in case he doesn’t.

During two days of conversations, grievances poured forth from the group as effortlessly as bullets from a gun barrel. On armed excursions through sun-dappled forests, they spoke of a vague but looming tyranny — an amalgam of sinister forces to be held at bay only with a firearm and the willingness to use it.

They are machinists and retirees, roofers and factory line workers, all steeped in the culture of the rural South. They say Mr. Trump, a Manhattan billionaire and real estate tycoon, speaks for them.

Nicely done. Trump the New York billionaire … Read the rest

Trump and his campaign have been hit with a restraining order. Common Dreams has the story.

A federal judge in Ohio on Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, as well as his longtime adviser Roger Stone, to prohibit attempts to harass voters in the crucial swing state.

The case, brought by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is just one currently being weighed by numerous states alleging that representatives of the Republican Party and the Trump campaign are engaging in illegal voter intimidation efforts.

According to Cleveland.com, U.S. District Judge James Gwin “said he will order the restraining order against Trump’s campaign and Stone,” who runs the controversial “Stop the

Melania Trump has returned to campaigning for her owner husband. She’s chosen a theme: bullying. She’s against it.

Melania Trump returned from political exile on Thursday by making a rather eyebrow-raising claim: as first lady, she would combat bullying. That anti-bullying campaign, however, likely wouldn’t extend to her husband.

“Our culture has gotten too mean and too violent,” the wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a crowd here in the suburbs of Philadelphia. “It is never OK when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground and it is unacceptable when it’s done by someone with no name hiding on the internet.”

If she really thinks … Read the rest

Marc Fisher at the Washington Post ponders how Trump deals with his failures.

When Donald Trump loses, he lashes out, assigns blame and does whatever it takes to make a defeat look like a win. When that isn’t plausible, he pronounces the system rigged — victory wasn’t possible because someone put in the fix.

It’s what makes him great. I mean terrible. It’s what makes him terrible. I mean it’s one of the many things that make him terrible.

Trump calls defeats “blips.” Losing the race for the most powerful job on the planet is no one’s idea of a blip, and if that happens, Trump is highly unlikely to slip away and accept life as a historical footnote,

Trump people are due in court to answer charges related to voter intimidation.

A federal judge Tuesday ordered representatives from the Donald Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party to appear at a hearing in his courtroom Wednesday afternoon in a lawsuit filed by Nevada Democrats accusing them of the engaging in voter intimidation tactics.

U.S. District Judge Richard Franklin Boulware also ordered the Trump campaign and state party to turn over any training materials they provided to “poll watchers, poll observers, exit pollsters or any other similarly tasked individuals.”

At the hearing, the Trump campaign and the Nevada GOP should be prepared to respond to the motion for a temporary restraining order that the Democrats requested in the lawsuit,

Last I heard, only one real newspaper had endorsed Trump. By “real” I mean not a party paper or a free giveaway paper that’s basically real estate ads and nothing else – I mean a “normal” newspaper with a city name in it and a longish history. But there are a few unreal ones. The Washington Post cites one.

Among the small number of American newspapers that have embraced Donald Trump’s campaign, there is one, in particular, that stands out.

It is called the Crusader — and it is one of the most prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan.

Under the banner “Make America Great Again,” the entire front page of the paper’s current issue is devoted to

Robert Reich on Facebook:

Yesterday I spoke with a former Republican member of Congress whom I’ve known for years.

Me: What do you think of your party’s nominee for president?

He: Trump is a maniac. He’s a clear and present danger to America.

Me: Have you said publicly that you won’t vote for him?

He (sheepishly): No.

Me: Why not?

He: I’m a coward.

Me: What do you mean?

He: I live in a state with a lot of Trump voters. Most Republican officials do.

Me: But you’re a former official. You’re not running for Congress again. What are you afraid of?

He: I hate to admit it, but I’m afraid of them. Some of those Trumpistas are out

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Trump and framing.

Here’s my armchair theorizing about the rise of Trump:

1. Republicans became the party that refuses to compromise. Explaining why is probably a whole separate argument itself, but here are a few contributors. (a) The tyranny of 40% — hard-core conservatives don’t have an actual majority among the population as a whole, but they can control the Republican Party, and they make up enough of the public that they don’t think they need non-conservative allies. In part they’re right: they vote in higher numbers (especially in midterms), and aren’t “wasting” their votes by being concentrated in urban areas. (Progressives, by contrast, have generally learned to accept that they need … Read the rest

George Lakoff on Trump last July:

Donald J. Trump has managed to become the Republican nominee for president, Why? How? There are various theories: People are angry and he speaks to their anger. People don’t think much of Congress and want a non-politician. Both may be true. But why? What are the details? And Why Trump?

He gives an extended answer that he says is based on his research…but his sample of the theories above is too short: he leaves out the simple fact of Trump’s celebrity, which is surely much too important to leave out. An unknown guy from East Jesus, Oklahoma who did exactly what Trump did would not, I think, have had the success Trump had.… Read the rest

Oh look, a detailed examination of Trump’s SLAPP suits, sweetly titled Donald J. Trump Is A Libel Bully But Also A Libel Loser. The author is Susan E. Seager.

Donald J. Trump is a libel bully. Like most bullies, he’s also a loser, to borrow from Trump’s vocabulary.

Trump and his companies have been involved in a mind-boggling 4,000 lawsuits over the last 30 years and sent countless threatening cease-and-desist letters to journalists and critics.[1]

But the GOP presidential nominee and his companies have never won a single speech-related case filed in a public court.

He had all the fun of bullying people though.

This article examines seven speech-related cases brought by Trump and his companies, which include four

The Times has compiled a massive collection of Trump’s Twitter insults of various people and institutions. Each item is a link. That’s a lot of work!

Let’s look at the list under Elizabeth Warren:

“Sad to watch” “bombed last night!” “Pocahontas” “Pocahontas” “wanted V.P. slot so badly but wasn’t chosen because she has done nothing in the Senate” “Pocahontas” “a very weak Senator” “Goofy” “Pocahontas” “Goofy” “the least productive Senator in the U.S. Senate” “Goofy” “goofy” “one of the least productive senators” “Very racist!” “Goofy” “has a nasty mouth” “one of the least productive U.S. Senators” “Goofy” “All talk, no action!” “Total hypocrite!” “lowlife!” “Goofy” “she doesn’t have a clue” “If it were up to goofy Elizabeth Warren, we’d

The New Yorker has a lo-o-o-ng editorial endorsing Clinton and dis-endorsing Trump. Some highlights:

…the Democratic nominee has ended up playing a sometimes secondary role in a squalid American epic. If she is elected, she will have weathered a prolonged battle against a trash-talking, burn-it-to-the-ground demagogue. Unfortunately, the drama is not likely to end soon. The aftereffects of this campaign may befoul our civic life for some time to come.

…

If the prospect of a female President represents a departure in the history of American politics, the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, the real-estate mogul and Republican nominee, does, too—a chilling one. He is manifestly unqualified and unfit for office. Trained in the arts of real-estate promotion and