Today in Washington Wrestlemania

Some readers don't like it when we use the term "kabuki theater" to refer to political maneuvering that is just for show, with the outcome already known to all participants. So, maybe we'll try "Wrestlemania" and see how that works. After all, pro wrestling is also highly scripted, and the outcome is also pre-ordained. Plus, one of the most distinguished members of the Republican Party is a pro wrestler. At least, we assume that the third-to-last speaker at the RNC would be one of the most distinguished members of the Republican Party.

Or, if we want to be more specific, we could say that it's the time of year for everyone's favorite Hammerstein and Kern musical, Show Vote. At least, we think that's the title. In any case, there are two reasons that right now is prime time for this particular behavior. First, some sort of budget has to be in place by October 1, or else there will be a shutdown. Second, most of the members of the House, and about a third of the members of the Senate, will be hitting the campaign trail for most of the month of October, and they want to have cudgels to wield against the other party.

This week, there are theatrics underway on both sides of the Capitol. Starting with the Senate, since they are the upper chamber, and they went first, there were a pair of wrestling matches related to In-Vitro Fertilization. In theory, the Republican Party is the party of IVF, at least according to the unquestioned leader of the party, one Donald John Trump. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) decided to give the members of the red team a chance to put their newfound principles into action, bringing a Democratic-authored bill to the floor that would protect the right to IVF and IUI treatments nationwide. Turns out, Republicans aren't so gung-ho about IVF after all. For the second time (the first was in June), all of the Republican senators, excepting Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), voted against the bill. That means that there were actually 51 votes for the bill, but 51 is rather short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. The Republicans' reasons, which aren't especially well explained in any of the stories we read (including the one on Fox), were "too broad," "infringes on religious liberty" and "not necessary." From this, we conclude that the real answer is: "It would piss off the evangelicals."

After the Democratic IVF bill was voted down, the Republicans, specifically Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Katie Britt (R-AL), returned fire with a bill of their own. For that one, Cruz asked for unanimous consent, and he didn't get it, as Patty Murray (D-WA) objected. So, there's no vote tally, unless you want to count it as 1-0. In this case, at least we understand what the objection is. The Cruz-Britt bill doesn't actually protect IVF and IUI, it just says that any state that bans the procedures will lose some Medicaid funding. Since red-state governors have shown a willingness—an eagerness, even—to reject Medicaid funding in order to make "a point," that poison pill isn't all that poisonous. In any case, there isn't going to be an IVF bill this year, and probably not next year, either. This despite the fact that close to two-thirds of Americans support continued access to IVF and IUI treatments.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has scheduled a vote on a stop-gap budget bill. The Democrats won't vote for it, because it includes the SAVE Act, which "forbids" undocumented immigrants from voting in U.S. elections. Since that is already forbidden, the only purpose of the verbiage is to give Republicans and right-wing media "proof" that even Democrats think undocumented-immigrant voting is a problem (it isn't, and the Democrats don't think that it is). Meanwhile, a couple of dozen hard-right Republicans, mostly Freedom Caucusers, won't vote for the legislation because it's not draconian enough in cutting spending. So, there is no chance that the budget bill will pass. And that's before we talk about the Senate, where it also has no chance of passing. Or the White House, where it has no chance of getting a presidential signature.

What is Johnson playing at, then? That question actually has two answers. The first of those answers is easy as pie: The Speaker wants to show that the current bill, with the SAVE Act included, cannot possibly become law. The second of those answers is much trickier: What next? Even Johnson's Republican colleagues say they have no idea what he's planning, once he's made his point. It's worth noting that Johnson already scheduled, and yanked, this exact bill a week ago. This certainly does nothing to dispel the impression that he's flying by the seat of his pants.

At least one person is worried that Johnson is playing with fire, and it's a person who knows a thing or two about these games of budget chicken. That would be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who spoke to reporters a few hours after Johnson announced his plans to hold a vote, and said it would be "politically beyond stupid" to have a shutdown 5 weeks before an election and that, if there is a shutdown, "certainly we'd get the blame."

The smart money says that Johnson will dither for another week, and then he'll hammer out something that can attract 100 or so Republican votes and 200 or so Democratic votes, and that can also pass the Senate and get a presidential signature. This will happen with days or hours to spare, and will leave the Freedom Caucusers fuming. It is not a difficult prediction to make, since this is pretty much how it's gone down each of the last three or four times the government was about to shut down, and none of those were just weeks before a presidential election. The only drama, we would guess, is whether the FCers decide to punish Johnson with a Motion to Vacate. They certainly could; that would thrill the voters back in their home districts, even if it would be really bad news for the GOP as a whole, very effectively making the argument "Republicans just can't govern." (Z)

Ohio Hates Democracy, Too

We had an item yesterday about anti-democratic behavior in Texas and Florida, and another one about the same in Pennsylvania. It seems like we never run out of material for these sorts of items, because today, we've got some sleazy, undemocratic behavior coming out of the people who run the show in Ohio.

As judged by recent presidential results, the Buckeye State is about 53% Republican and 47% Democratic. And yet, the Ohio U.S. House delegation is 60% Republican (9 out of 15 seats), while the Ohio state Senate is 79% Republican (26 out of 33 seats) and the Ohio state House is 68% Republican (67 out of 99 seats). The main secret of Ohio Republicans' success is, of course, gerrymandering. Nominally speaking, Ohio has anti-gerrymander laws on the books, but the net result of those laws is to put the responsibility for drawing maps in the hands of an "independent" commission that is dominated by Republican officeholders (among them, Gov. Mike DeWine).

In view of this, a consortium of pro-democratic and pro-Democratic activists, led by a group called Citizens Not Politicians, has placed Issue 1 on the November ballot. This would rectify the problems with the current situation by putting the map-drawing in the hands of a 15-person commission made up of private citizens (as opposed to elected politicians). This referendum has Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and other Ohio Republicans scared witless, because a non-gerrymandered map would produce a blue wave the first time it was used. So, LaRose—in violation of state law, mind you—came up with an extremely misleading description of the referendum for the documentation that is sent to the state's voters. Not only is the description lengthy and difficult to parse, it includes this passage:

[The referendum will] [e]stablish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio, according to a formula based on partisan outcomes as the dominant factor...

And this:

Counties, townships and cities throughout Ohio can be split and divided across multiple districts, and preserving communities of interest will be secondary to the formula that is based on partisan outcomes.

Emphasis is ours. Needless to say, the anti-gerrymandering referendum does not REQUIRE gerrymandering, nor does it prioritize partisan outcomes over other concerns. That would be pretty much the opposite of what an anti-gerrymandering initiative is supposed to do.

Given that LaRose's language is not only false, but, again, a violation of state law (these ballot summaries cannot contain advocacy), Citizens Not Politicians filed a lawsuit asking the Ohio courts to substitute fairer and more accurate language. Yesterday, the state Supreme Court issued its ruling, declaring that the language will remain (basically) as it is. The vote was 4-3; you get three guesses as to how many Republicans there are on the Ohio Supreme Court, and the first two guesses don't count.

And so, the partisan, misleading language will remain in the paperwork that Ohio residents will receive. The good news is that many people don't actually read the paperwork. And, if California is any guide at least, the war will actually be won over the air. In fact, these shenanigans might give additional motivation to anti-gerrymandering voters, by reminding them of the kind of abuses that one-party rule allows.

Oh, and it doesn't have anything to do with Ohio, but as long as we are talking about judges who don't feel the rules apply to them, ProPublica had a report yesterday documenting that Judge Aileen Cannon has been channeling her inner Clarence Thomas, and has not been filing the disclosure paperwork required when she accepts trips and other benefits. She's not gotten a fancy RV, or a five-figure vacation to the South Pacific, at least not yet, but she has attended some chichi legal "conferences" on someone else's dime, and then decided not to share that information, despite being legally required to do so. The corruption is strong with this one. (Z)

And the Grift Goes On

We didn't necessarily intend today to be the sleaze report but, as it happens, this is the second of three items in a row on that basic theme. Sorry about that. Anyhow, having addressed the bad behavior in Ohio, let us now turn our attention to Donald Trump's latest grift, which is cryptocurrency... sorta.

It's been rumored for several weeks, and yesterday Trump held a meandering online appearance in which he made it official: He and his sons have become involved in a cryptocurrency business. During his part of the announcement, Trump did not actually explain the venture, leaving that to his sons. We 100% guarantee you that he did not get into specifics because he doesn't actually understand what the product is.

In fairness to him, we suppose, the new venture is both very complicated and very scammy. It's called World Liberty Financial (WLF), and it will be a form of cryptocurrency exchange, where people can buy, sell and borrow crypto. WLF will also have its own cryptocurrency, in a manner of speaking. The WLF crypto will be non-transferable, and will produce no yield. In other words, you cannot make money from it, nor use it for any sort of transactions. The only thing it will entitle the bearer to do is vote when it comes to making decisions about the direction of WLF.

The Trumps are not the driving force behind the venture, and are effectively acting as celebrity spokesmen. Exactly how they are being compensated for this service is not clear. The actual powers behind the throne are Herro and Zachary Folkman, who previously organized a very similar arrangement called Dough. Dough lasted 3 whole months. We told you it's scammy.

In view of all this, was it even worthwhile for us to take note of the story? We think so, for the following reasons:

• For Trump to take time in the middle of a campaign certainly says something interesting about his priorities.
  
  
• The timing also suggests that Trump is, perhaps, not too sanguine about his chances of victory, and that he and his sons are thinking that they gotta get the grifting in while the time for grifting is good.
  
  
• That said, in his previous term in office, Trump was overtly hostile to crypto. If he IS reelected, he made clear yesterday that is out the window. He wants to get rid of all crypto regulation, and make the U.S. the center of all crypto production. That should work out well.
  
  
• Similarly, Trump no longer has any hesitation at all about profiting off the presidency in any way he can. If he is reelected, the emoluments clause is going to take a beating so fierce it will make the emoluments violations of 2017-21 look like a Sunday picnic. Who knows what will be for sale to the highest bidder. Probably everything.

So, there is an important story here, even if WLF and its "cryptocurrency" appear to be an even bigger sham than DJT stock. (Z)

DeSantis Continues to be DeLusional

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has returned from whatever basement he was inhabiting, knows his geography well enough to place Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida. That means that the guy who had concepts of a plan for assassinating Donald Trump was in the Sunshine State at the time that any crimes were committed. And the Governor senses an opportunity here, and so yesterday he issued an executive order declaring that the state of Florida would take the lead in investigating what happened over the weekend.

DeSantis' argument here has two parts, one that he stated openly, and the other one he alluded to obliquely. The "open" part of the argument is that, because Trump is currently a private citizen, federal law basically does not protect him, meaning the feds can only charge the gun-related crimes they have already charged. Florida, according to the Governor, can pursue more serious charges related to threats against Trump's person.

The "oblique" part of the argument, meanwhile, is the usual conspiratorial stuff. DeSantis implied that the first assassination attempt did not get properly investigated (even though there's a bipartisan Congressional committee, and even though the investigation is still underway), and that maybe the lack of enthusiasm for the investigation is because there are people in the federal government who don't much like Trump and wouldn't mind if he got shot and killed. While the Governor did not name any specific names, he did allude to "these two prosecutions." In other words, reading between the lines, DeSantis thinks (or, at least, claims he thinks) that Special Counsel Jack Smith wants Trump dead.

You don't need us to tell you how stupid the conspiracy theory stuff is. As to DeSantis' claims about the legal situation, well, maybe his research skills have gotten rusty in the nearly two decades since he graduated Harvard Law. Beyond the fact that both murder and attempted murder are most certainly federal crimes, 18 U.S. Code 351 specifically makes it a crime to attempt to kill a presidential or vice-presidential candidate, while 18 U.S. Code 115 makes it a crime to attempt to kill a former president. The feds have already said more charges are coming; presumably accused would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh will be charged under one or both of these statutes. There is also the small matter that the federal government currently controls all the material witnesses (i.e., Routh and the various Secret Service agents) to whatever crimes were committed as well as ALL of the evidence. So, DeSantis can claim he and his people are taking the lead in the investigation and/or prosecution, but that does not make it so.

The odds are pretty good that there will be no Florida investigation, and that DeSantis was just seizing on an opportunity to score some MAGA points. The only real question here is exactly what the Governor is playing at. Is he trying to return to Donald Trump's good graces, in hopes of some sort of appointment in a Trump v2.0 administration? Or, is he trying to re-assert himself as the Prince of MAGA, next in line when the throne is vacated? Whichever it is, we think DeSantis is out of his mind. Trump hates him, and that is not going to change. And the MAGA faithful don't feel much more warmly about the Governor, and certainly weren't (and aren't) buying what he is selling. We just don't see how he could possibly have a future in Republican politics, and if he does, it will be after 8-12 years in the wilderness, Richard Nixon-style, by which point any silly stunts from 2024 will be long forgotten. (Z)

The Debate Is Not Yet Over

The supporters of Donald Trump absolutely hate the fact that he lost his debate with Kamala Harris. And so, they continue to search for explanations and excuses. The latest conspiracy theory is a real corker, namely that ABC effectively gave Harris all the questions before the debate, while also agreeing to avoid any subjects she found uncomfortable, like Joe Biden's age.

The key conduit of information for this theory is an eX-Twitter user named BLACK INSURRECTIONIST. Actually, his full name is BLACK INSURRECTIONIST--I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS, but to his friends he's just BLACK INSURRECTIONIST. He claims that he was in contact with an ABC employee, who eventually provided a 5-page affidavit attesting to all the various ways in which ABC put its finger on the scale for Harris. If you would like to see the affidavit, as provided by BLACK INSURRECTIONIST, it is here. You will perhaps notice that the writing and grammar are rather poor for someone who purports to work in the news industry. In fact, they are rather poor for any native English speaker. That said, not everyone is a great writer.

Of course, it might give the story greater credibility if this ABC insider spoke to ANYONE besides BLACK INSURRECTIONIST. But—darn the luck!—that's not going to be possible. See, in a remarkable coincidence, the person already widely known among right-wingers as "the ABC whistleblower" died in a car crash this weekend. A car crash that, incidentally, no law enforcement agency has any record of. If all of this sounds perfectly credible to you, then let us know, because have we got a "cryptocurrency" investment opportunity for you.

Anyhow, if others are still talking about the debate, despite its having been a week ago, it means we don't feel too bad that we are still talking about the debate. We got a lot of interesting comments from readers and, as promised, we're going to share a few of those right now:

P.S. in Portland, ME, writes: My stepmother of 40 years was an incredibly difficult person for me to be around. At one of the inevitable family events that brought everyone together—bar mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, etc.—I asked my biological mother, who had a wisdom that ran deep, "How do you stand being around her?" And she said, "I just feel so sorry for her."

When watching a review of Kamala Harris' facial expressions at the debate, one jumped out at me—pity. For a moment, she felt sorry for him, and there is reason for it. Trump is clearly mentally ill, to a degree that only stems from a terrible upbringing. He is 78 years old and still trying to please his long-gone authoritarian father. He never has been and never will be happy. It is not all that hard to take pity on him. On the other hand, let's not go too far, as perhaps all dictators and fascists are mentally ill.

Anyway, this thought process led me to a prediction. Harris will win the election and to make Trump go away quietly; the Biden administration, along with the governors of New York and Georgia, will make a deal to pardon him provided he agrees to never run for public office again. Of course, Joe Biden's son will be pardoned at the same time. This scenario could be the best outcome for our country and the world. Time to move on.

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D.A.Y. in Troy, MI, writes: The best analogy for what Kamala Harris did to Donald Trump in the debate was box him into a corner. From going to his podium—literally cornering him—to shake his hand when it was clear he had no intention to reciprocate, to using her first response to attack one of his core messages, she made sure to put him on the defensive and never let him out of the corner.

Trump is terrible at being on the defense. His id needs to be on the attack. Harris knew this and blunted every attempt he made to mount an offensive to turn it back into him having to defend himself.

While the Republicans got their dander up about the fact-checking, it was seldom and was saved for his most inflammatory lies—like Haitian immigrants eating pets, where it would be journalistic maleficence (and potentially dangerous) to let them be out there on global television unchallenged.

However, the debate was more about Trump imploding than Harris' effectiveness. People are still asking for specifics from her (though I think she could provide a doctoral thesis on her plans for the nation and people would still be demanding specifics). She wants another debate, while Trump wants none of it. Likely, Harris would want a second debate formatted for longer-form answers where she could talk shop, but longer-form answers would make it more likely for Trump to fall apart faster like he does at his rallies. Trump is in a lose-lose situation. He lost this debate, and another debate would likely be even worse for him.

The summary is it was a good night for Harris and a bad night for Trump. Though the votes are what matters. As with the debate, Harris needs to stay on the attack and not let Trump out of the corner. Hillary Clinton's worst mistake was easing off the gas in the Midwest to chase waterfalls in Texas and let Trump slip away there. Harris appears to not be making that mistake.

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R.M.S. in Lebanon CT, writes: I think the key thing this debate revealed was how skilled Kamala Harris is at trolling Donald Trump. She is the most effective politician I have ever seen at trolling him, and she got him to rant about random, irrelevant things like crowd sizes at his events or unsubstantiated rumors of Haitians eating pets in Ohio. It was a masterclass in provocation.

I have recently done some of my own trolling of Trumpers in my area in ways that make a difference. There is a priest in Montville, CT, who, during his masses, slut-shames people who have abortions. He also has insulting signs on his property about abortion. So, to get under his skin, I went on Planned Parenthood's website and made a donation to them. There is an option to make a donation in someone's honor, and they also will send a postcard to that person's address notifying them a donation was made in their honor. I did this to him last week, and I can visualize his gnashing his teeth over it.

About a year ago, Chelsea Handler made a clip for The Daily Show discussing being a childless woman. If Taylor Swift did something similar and tweeted it to Trump and Vance they would go ballistic.

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R.W. in Brooklyn, NY, writes: My theory on why Trump said he has "the concept of a plan": He's vaguely familiar with the phrase "proof of concept" (having heard Dr. Fauci use it repeatedly) and even more vaguely knows it's a good thing to have. But the enraged squirrels chittering loudly in his head kept him from spitting it out correctly and so we got "concept of a plan."

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A.R. in Los Angeles, CA, writes: A good friend summed up the debate like this: She's great, he's nuts. To expand on that a bit, even with all the well-deserved plaudits, I still think Harris is being undersold.

To me, what we witnessed was the equivalent of Tom Brady bringing his team back from 31 points down with 8 minutes left in the 3rd quarter in Super Bowl LI. And the stakes are even higher than that. Even this site, which is not known for hyperbole, conceded that the debate could be the most consequential in presidential history. Now compound that pressure with the knowledge that the fate of the free world rests on your shoulders, because if your opponent gets in office, the most powerful country on earth will be in the hands of a self-professed dictator and Putin wannabe.

Biden collapsed under that pressure, as most of us would. I consider myself an athlete who generally performs well under pressure, but this situation would have me curled up in the fetal position rocking back and forth muttering, "Please don't make me go out there."

Not only did Harris perform, she scored the equivalent of 31 points with over half the game gone. Talk about clutch. And she made it look easy. If she can perform like that under that kind of pressure, alone on that stage, it seems to me she's ready for anything, especially when as president she'll have a team of experts around her.

And speaking of experts, she's clearly skilled at choosing the right people. She had to deliver, but her team deserves credit for prepping her superbly.

Also, a brief postscript regarding her facial expressions: It was a combination of disdain and pity, with a smattering of "how do we get grandpa to give up the car keys."

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F.F. in Providence, RI, writes: I noticed a couple of (possible) preemptive tactics taken by the Harris campaign in the debate:

1. The announcers noted a couple of times that the two had never actually met before Tuesday. So when Harris shook hands and introduced herself as Kamala Harris, it was a totally normal social interaction since they had never met. A side effect was that Trump couldn't mispronounce her name and was forced to use "she" and "her" (or SHE and HER) all night. Or at least Kamala was set up to correct him if he mispronounced her name. I think it was caught on Trump's mic.
   
   
2. Michelle Obama's mockery of Trump's "Invisible Accordion" gesticulating forced him to expend at least a small amount of mental energy keeping his left hand by his side the whole time.

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C.O. in East Lansing, MI, writes: You wrote: "Now, in Reines' view, it's all madness. 'He's all over the board,' remarked Reines. 'I think he's losing train of thought and he's just blurting out the next thing in his mind.'"

My favorite descriptor of this is that Trump is suffering from "mental incontinence." It just fits so perfectly given the complete $#!^ he spouts all the time.

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C.C. in Hancock, NH, writes: I don't say this lightly: Trump is stupid. Not in every way, but in two very important aspects, he's colossally stupid.

Now, people on the left might read this and reply, "Duh, of course he's stupid. Did you only just notice that, C.C. in Hancock?" No. It's not just that he fails to grasp non-zero-sum economics. It's not just that his ideas about race calcified in the 70s. It's not just that he speaks and writes at an elementary school level. I mean, in certain ways, his critical thinking is barely better than an inanimate object.

Exhibit (1): He let Kamala Harris bait him. He knew she was going to. He was warned. Multiple times. Harris and her campaign telegraphed it blatantly. He knew he would be hurting his campaign if he took the bait. But he apparently has as much agency as water running downhill. He just couldn't help himself. I don't think he even tried to resist. She decided what she wanted him to do, and she made him do it. Inanimate objects will generally allow you to manipulate them to your will, if you apply the right forces, but not sane adults of normal intelligence.

Exhibit (2): How credulous do you have to be to hear a report from Facebook about immigrants eating other people's pets, and to just believe that, no questions, with perfect conviction? With such conviction, moreover, that you would repeat it on camera to a national audience and not expect to look like a fool? How do you hear something like that, and not wonder "How do they know their pets were eaten by other humans? Did the pet owner actually see someone cook the pet? Did they do nothing to intervene? Why isn't this on national news?

What kind of mind lets stuff like that in with no filters? That's what the GOP has nominated to lead our country.

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J.C. in Binan, Laguna, Philippines, writes: I was really disgusted how the moderators—who otherwise did a great job with fact checking—kept referring to Donald Trump as "President". Emily Post is clear—as are numerous other sources—in a formal setting, he is addressed as "Mr." and referred to as "former." The use put him at an elevated level to her, and undeservedly so. She is currently the vice president. He is currently a rich white male.

We have half a dozen more; we didn't want to overdo it, so we'll hold them until Friday. We'll also wrap up bingo then; the site that has the reader responses is not working correctly at the moment. (Z)

Debate Memes, Redux

We also promised another set of debate memes (because there are so many to choose from). Here they are:

D'oh! Again: The Simpsons figures prominently in the debate memery. First, because there is so much material to work with. Second, because the show is, of course, set in Springfield.



We Warned Them: The Swifties are roused to anger by Trump's attacks on their hero, and Swifties for Kamala has already raised just shy of $200,000 for the campaign. On top of that, friendship bracelets (which are Swift's calling card) with Harris-related messages are now ubiquitous on the Internet:



Time and Again: This one is kind of interesting. This was the Time Magazine cover released a few days after the debate, and it was circulated widely by pro-Harris folks. Then, the incident at Trump International Golf Club happened, and many pro-Trump folks seized upon the cover as proof of a conspiracy, suggesting that the would-be assassin was part of some sort of inside job. Exactly why the conspirators would announce their intentions several days prior to the incident, and how and why they would arrange to use the cover of Time to do so, is not clear.



Equal Time: There are also plenty of pro-Trump memes out there. We don't think they are especially witty, but here's an example.



Baby Talk: When you have a reputation for certain kinds of behavior, that's going to find its way into the memes.



Transgender Aliens: E.T. in drag was pretty good; this joke along the same lines has been shared hundreds of thousands of times.



A mystery solved: Now we know who's writing Trump's material for him—Cards Against Humanity. We assume that when they call in sick, Mad Libs fills in.



An Oldie But a Goodie: Someone revived this bit from an eX-Twitter account that was very popular while Trump was president.



Staff Dachshund Otto Understands TV, Too: We don't love to link to eX-Twitter, but it's the only way to share this meme, featuring a dog who was clearly distraught over the news out of Springfield.

THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS pic.twitter.com/lQqMW5l8pT

— Tarquin (@Tarquin_Helmet) September 11, 2024

Song and Dance: Think carefully about whether you want to view this video; the song has a definite ear-worm quality to it.

"The streaming revenue from this song will be going to the Clark County SPCA and will help stray animals in Springfield Ohio find a loving home."

Might as well channel all this craziness into a good cause. pic.twitter.com/y88U79rvb4

— i/o (@eyeslasho) September 13, 2024

Anytime we do this, we get a few e-mails telling us that we should skip the meme rundowns because they are stupid.

The fact is, this is how some voters—especially younger voters—communicate. If you ignore this part of the Internet, you're not getting the full picture. On top of that, you'll have a harder time assessing the price that politicians might be paying for the choices they make.

In this case, the politicians in question are Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and the choice they've made is to lean into the cats and dogs bit. Trump, for his part, has extended it to a new town (Charleroi, PA, which is also home to many thousands of legal Haitian immigrants), while Vance has openly admitted that he knows it's a falsehood, but says it's worth it, because it keeps the focus on immigration and not on abortion.

But is it worth it? As you can see above, an enormous percentage of the memes are shredding Trump and Vance for this. The themes are: (1) Trump and Vance are absurd, and (2) Trump and Vance are mean-spirited bastards who are willing to scapegoat an immigrant community in order to score political points. We tend to doubt this is helping them, even if it is temporarily keeping people from talking about abortion. We're not the only ones who think this way; Republican House members in swing districts are really hoping that Trump and Vance drop it, because those members are being tarred by association.

So again, we think that getting the full story means you gotta take a look at the memes, sometimes. (Z)

Is It Really Going to be a Nail-Biter?

Stu Rothenberg, founder of Inside Elections, has been writing about politics for a very long time, and while not every prediction he's made has come to pass, he's also not someone who shoots from the hip. He wrote a column for Roll Call yesterday that echoes something we've written a number of times.

Rothenberg starts by noting that, if you go by the polls, it's going to be a close election in November. And the polls might very well be right. However, there are indicators that Kamala Harris is driving up enthusiasm among some key demographics, most obviously younger voters and voters of color. Pollster models of the 2024 electorate are based, more or less, on what the 2020 electorate looked like. That means that if the 2024 electorate is substantively different, the polls could be off, perhaps by a lot. The conclusion is that you shouldn't be too terribly surprised if, in the end, Harris wins fairly comfortably. Rothenberg is not saying that WILL happen, merely that it's within the realm of possibility.

Leading up to the election, the Harris campaign doesn't want to get within a country mile of talk like this. Its messaging is hammering home the notion that the election is going to be extremely close, and that every vote counts. The more that Democratic voters believe this, the more likely they are to donate money, the more likely they are to actually make sure to vote, and the less likely they are to make a "statement" vote by casting their ballots for a third-party candidate.

Once Election Day comes, however, Harris and her team will be praying the prayer of the election administrator: "Dear Lord, let it be a landslide." If she does win, then the bigger the margin of victory, the less room Donald Trump has for shenanigans. Oh, he can try, but if she wins the popular vote by 5% and the Electoral College by 60 or 70 EVs, relatively few people will take Trump seriously. Also, his would-be enablers will be less likely to stick their necks out, if they think it is a Lost Cause. In particular, as we learned in 2000, it would be very helpful if the networks are able to declare a winner on the night of the election. It's none too easy to persuade the American people that such a declaration is fake news. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Thank goodness there is finally a fresh poll of Indiana. No more e-mails asking us why we have it as a swing state. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	46%	46%	Sep 07	Sep 09	Data Orbital
Indiana	41%	58%	Sep 12	Sep 13	Emerson Coll.
Maryland	65%	33%	Sep 12	Sep 13	Emerson Coll.
Missouri	43%	55%	Sep 12	Sep 13	Emerson Coll.

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

Today's Senate Polls

Lucas Kunce seemed like he might be able to make Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sweat a little. Not so much, it would seem. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Indiana	Valerie McCray	33%	Jim Banks	47%	Sep 12	Sep 13	Emerson Coll.
Missouri	Lucas Kunce	40%	Josh Hawley*	51%	Sep 12	Sep 13	Emerson Coll.
Washington	Maria Cantwell*	55%	Raul Garcia	33%	Sep 03	Sep 06	Elway Research

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster and Zenger