Here's the top deck at Trump's Thursday rally in Manchester, NH. It's almost empty. Trump claimed that not only was the arena full, but *48,000* people—what you're seeing is about 8,500 to 9,500—had wanted to come see him. He also falsely said dozens waited *60 hours* to get in.
PS/ Note also—all for accuracy's sake—that 60% of the floor seating is taken up by journalists, and that there are scattered empty seats even in the lower deck (suggesting that those on the floor might have been able to fit in those seats or in the lowest rows of the upper deck).
MEDIA/ Note that I harp on this for a reason: Trump is in *deep* trouble in New Hampshire, where he's underwater (-26) in popularity *and* couldn't draw a crowd bigger than this one—and many of those media interviewed were out-of-staters from Massachusetts.
He should be worried.
NOTE/ This disappointing crowd in New Hampshire comes at a time when Trump and the GOP are deciding whether to put on their New Hampshire ticket a man who's been accused of physically and sexually assaulting women and got into an altercation in the White House: Corey Lewandowski.
NOTE2/ A friend outside the arena during the event said there were 1,000 to 2,000 there. When gauging the deputy fire marshal's claim there were 11,500 inside, a) see the pic (and know 11,500 means only 270 empty seats) and b) consider he said there were "8,000 to 9,000" outside.
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This essay is about more than it seems. It’s about American media, about the Biden presidency, about polling, about the current pretenders to the top of the Democratic ticket, and yes—in significant part—a vision of a Michelle Obama presidency I never thought I would write about.
Sorry... everyone here knows that polling has Michelle Obama up on Donald Trump by ELEVEN POINTS, right? It’s in the essay, of course, but I suppose I should make sure that folks understand that that is the reason this essay and essays like it needed/need to be written right now.
Only one group has the power to decide whether President Biden will end his campaign.
Corporate media.
Voters do not get a say, nor, contrary to popular opinion, does the Biden Family.
American media wants him gone, and it will make it so.
I understand some of you doubt this. You probably haven't been watching CNN.
If you watch CNN, you'll understand that it and the rest of corporate media plans to cover this story until the Democratic Party is so terrified it forces Biden out.
All this is happening in real time.
I have been a journalist since 1994, and I don't believe I've seen corporate media collectively want something as badly as it wants Biden gone. And it knows it has the power to do it, so it's not going to stop until it's done.
I don't think anyone could withstand this onslaught.
BREAKING NEWS: There's a real chance the SCOTUS ruling from yesterday also invalidated the 34 convictions Trump received in NYC, as if there was *any* introduction of evidence of official presidential acts at trial the trial and its result could be voided. nytimes.com/2024/07/02/nyr…
Yesterday I wrote that the Supreme Court ruling was far more evil than people realized.
Today I find myself writing that the ruling from yesterday is far more evil than *I* realized.
It appears we have a king now, and somehow we have this without the man even being a president.
When you treat the most vile man in American political history better than you treat anyone else on Earth, all you are doing is convincing weak-willed people to believe that that vile man must in actual fact be better than anyone else on Earth.
I'd feel better about this "coincidence" if Trump's jet hadn't been where he secreted stolen classified docs he publicly said he has every right to sell or gift as he sees fit, and if the Kremlin weren't interfering in this election on his behalf and wanting payment for doing so.
Some of you may forget—thinking Trump stored his most valuable stolen classified docs at Mar-a-Lago—but in fact that's not true. He sifted out the most valuable stolen docs and put them on his jet as he was leaving for New Jersey. We have no idea what happened to them after that.
The question is not whether the decision today allows President Biden to use SEALs to eliminate Donald Trump; it does, but he definitely should not. The question is if he can use DHS to preclude Trump from appearing on any ballots, forcing the GOP to select a different candidate.
Certainly he can find that Trump has colluded with foreign powers. And he can find that Trump incited an insurrection. Certainly it is at the outer limits of his official powers to preclude the federal government from sponsoring an election in which Trump appears on ballots.
He is not going to do any of that because he knows this Court is lawless; he knows that to take advantage of this ruling today would be anti-democratic; he knows his party would not go along; he knows it would cost him the election; he knows this SCOTUS would eventually jail him.
Supreme Court decisions cut both ways; they become the law of the land for *all*.
President Biden is *entitled* now—by *law*—to determine what official acts that might previously have been deemed illegal he can take, with presidential immunity, to protect us from insurrection.
I have no idea what those acts would be. I simply know that we are in the midst of an active insurrection that is being led by Donald Trump, and that the Supreme Court has just said that all presidents, including Democrats, have far more power than was ever previously thought.
Again, I do not know where this takes us. But I know that Republicans are discussing this decision as though it will only ever apply to Donald Trump if he attempts to establish a dictatorship in the United States after a hypothetical November election victory.