Big news out of Springfield: The Mayor has now confirmed that the emailed bomb threat did contain hateful language about immigrants.

Trump and Vance can no longer pretend not to know exactly what their vile demagoguery is accomplishing.

New piece from me
newrepublic.com/article/185953… Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, a Republican, says the bomb threat email contained "hateful" language about immigrants and specifically "Haitian folks."

Trump/Vance valorize these places, but have no real concern for the impact their demagoguery has on them.

newrepublic.com/article/185953…

This is hair-raising stuff. I talked to numerous people who are prepping for what might happen if Trump wins. They are bracing for years of legal harassment and the deep corruption of govt info into rank propaganda.

Lots of reporting in my new essay:
newrepublic.com/article/185487… We keep hearing about scary second-term horrors like troops in cities: But in this piece, I argue for another, more insidious scenario: A slow-burn authoritarianism of grinding legal harassment of Trump critics and profound corruption of the bureaucracy.

newrepublic.com/article/185487…

It's a big deal that veteran journalist Mike Barnicle has now called out his media colleagues for failing to adequately cover Trump's visibly worsening mental state. It should spur a real discussion about how to do this, before it's too late. 1/

New piece
newrepublic.com/article/185622… “We have a damaged, delusional, old man who might get reelected to the presidency," Mike Barnicle said on @Morning_Joe. He said the media doesn't really cover Trump's daily insanity as a window into his mental fitness for the presidency. This is right. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

News --> Dems are pushing the Army to clarify why they think Trump's Arlington fiasco broke the law, and demanding a clearer account of what his campaign aides did to that woman. One source says Dems are frustrated at the lack of detail.

My new piece:
newrepublic.com/article/185517… At his Michigan rally, Trump offered a highly distorted account of the Arlington mess. He omits that his own aides recorded a campaign video there and that officials told his campaign in advance that political activity was banned.

My fact check:

newrepublic.com/article/185517…

New pod: James Carville explains in detail why he's now bullish on Kamala beating Trump.

"He knows Harris has become what he's always wanted to be—the hot item. It's driving him crazy."

Carville also says Florida and NC are in play, and much more:
newrepublic.com/article/185316… James Carville also says a hidden dynamic is educated white males backing Kamala because of the impact that Dobbs is having on their wives and daughters.

"Attitudes on a lot of things are vastly different among white males, based on education," he says:
newrepublic.com/article/185316…

I think something big is happening here: Kamala Harris appears to be running precisely the kind of inspired, aggressive campaign that combatting the forces of rising authoritarianism requires.

She's running on the promise of a post-MAGA future. 1/

Link:
newrepublic.com/article/185258… There's been lots of talk about Harris reaching out to groups beyond the core Dem coalition, including GOP and Trump voters. But note what she is *not* doing: She is not making any serious concessions to Trumpism or the MAGA worldview of any kind. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/185258…

This is an interesting exchange between @EricLevitz and @karpmj. Central Q is: Why is the progressive left that brought us the Bernie movement much less critical of the Dem establishment (and successful Ds like Harris, Whitmer et al) these days? I have a few answers to this. 1/

https://twitter.com/EricLevitz/status/1826003193949757650

One is that during the Biden years, the left (at least in Congress) genuinely was brought into the tent to negotiate over the biggest priorities, such as during the talks over Build Back Better, the biggest econ rebalancing effort proposed in decades. 2/

Biden's emotional speech was fantastic, but people aren't talking enough about what he said about Kamala in particular. Biden subtly rebutted some of Trump's sleazy, racist attacks on her in a very artful way, and that's essential to winning.

My take:
newrepublic.com/article/185070… It was a beautiful thing when Biden said he was proud he'd picked a cabinet that is diverse as America itself, and talked about Kamala Harris's role in making that history -- and what's coming next:

newrepublic.com/article/185070…

NEWS --> Over 300,000 clean-energy-related jobs are being created by projects announced since the Biden-Harris climate agenda became law, a new @ClimatePower report finds.

Many jobs are in rural/GOP areas. Wrecks Trump's lies.

Details in my new piece:
newrepublic.com/article/184855…


In this piece, I argue that Elon Musk's weird exchange with Trump about EVs, in which Trump changed the subject to nuclear weapons, was revealing. Trump has nothing to say about one of the most important transformations happening in the US right now:
newrepublic.com/article/184855…

SCOOP --> Kamala Harris leads Trump by 55-37 among Latino voters in the seven key swing states, according to the first large-sample poll of Latinos taken since she entered the race.

The poll by @SomosVotantes and @BSPresearch also shows more room to grow:
newrepublic.com/article/184533… Kamala Harris' 55-37 lead among Latinos in this poll shows big improvement on Biden's performance against Trump, and suggests she may be rebuilding the Dem coalition: Importantly, Trump's favorability is only 39%, giving her more room to expand that lead:

newrepublic.com/article/184533…

Important: Border encounters plummeted again to around 57,000 in July, lowest of the Biden years and comparable to a number of months under Trump, per sources.

This undermines Trump's attacks on Harris in unappreciated ways. My new piece unpacks it all:
newrepublic.com/article/184507… The drop in border crossings is widely attributed to Biden's asylum restrictions. But it's also because Mexico is blocking migrants from traveling to our border.

This gives Harris a good argument: This is a regional issue; she gets this; Trump doesn't.

newrepublic.com/article/184507…

One other thing about Trump's attack on Harris's blackness: It shows that the Trump/MAGA/red pilled worldview is incapable of imagining that the US mainstream will see Harris' identity/ascension in a positive light.

@NGrossman81 and I dig into this idea:
newrepublic.com/article/184462… Another point on this pod: Trump/MAGA worldview and agitprop are built on the illusion of a silent anti-woke majority out there being suppressed by elite, nefarious liberal control of our institutions. This blinds them to realities of mainstream opinion:
newrepublic.com/article/184462…

This defense of media coverage of Trump threat by @ErikWemple is uncharacteristically ill-considered. He concludes media is indeed covering “stakes” of elex. For purposes of spurring a real debate, here’s a good-faith response. 1/

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/… Wemple’s method is to amass a huge number of media pieces that do describe Trump as a threat in one way or another. But he ignores all the critiques that *acknowledge* all the good journalism on Trump but still find big problems with the ways the coverage conveys this threat. 2/

It's absolutely critical that Kamala Harris strongly emphasized that a Dem president and Congress will codify Roe nationally in her first speech as presumptive nominee.

This has huge political benefits that are going underappreciated. 1/

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/184147… Right now, the Trump camp plans to attack Kamala Harris by making the election a referendum on the status quo under the unpopular Biden.

But a promise to codify Roe nationally gives Harris a way to campaign against the status quo that *Trump* created. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/184147…

This is galling: Media accounts are noting that both Trump and Dems are attacking the other as a grave threat to democracy.

But Dems base this on what Trump and his allies *say in their own words.* Trump makes shit up.

Media isn't making this clear. 1/

newrepublic.com/article/183860… Some media figures are eager to portray Trump as a "uniter" after the shooting. Axios is pushing this hard.

But Trump just unleashed a rant that wrecks this storyline, calling Jan 6 a "hoax" and depicting our Justice System as corrupt to its core. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/183860…

Remarkable finding in new Marist poll: By 68-32, voters say they're more concerned about a president who doesn't tell the truth than one who is too old to serve.

Maybe we should cover Trump's lying as a sign of his unfitness for the presidency. 1/

(link)
newrepublic.com/article/183784… The new Marist poll also finds that 56 percent say Trump lacks the character to be president.

Dishonesty is surely part of that. WaPo found that Trump told 30,000 lies/distortions as president. @ddale8 described his lies at the debate as "staggering." 2/

newrepublic.com/article/183784…

NEWS --> Ron Klain, a top Biden ally, acknowledges to me that polls showing Trump solidly ahead are "in the ballpark" of being right. But he insists there's still a path.

On the pod, Klain sat for 20 minutes of hard questions about Biden's way forward:
newrepublic.com/article/183675… This is former WH chief of staff Ron Klain's first serious interview since the debate. Some highlights: I read him the latest polling that shows Biden in trouble and asked him if he acknowledges they're right. He basically concedes it is, with caveats:

newrepublic.com/article/183675…

NEWS --> Mark Robinson, the MAGA extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence against unnamed foes in a recent speech.

"Some folks need killing!" he shouted. "It's a matter of necessity!"

Video/story here:
newrepublic.com/article/183443… Mark Robinson yelled that "some folks need killing" as a "matter of necessity" during an extended diatribe in Lake Church in southeast North Carolina, in which he attacked a wide range of unnamed enemies.

Transcript/analysis below, video in link.

newrepublic.com/article/183443…

It's amazing that some corporate leaders are willing to support Trump for tax cuts and deregulation while shrugging about what Trump's threats to wreck democracy and the rule of law would do to the business climate. 1/

New piece from me:
newrepublic.com/article/183147… WH chief of staff Jeff Zients tells me he and other admin officials are making an expansive case to CEOs that a good business climate depends on stability and the rule of law. He talked to me about the case he made to the Business Roundtable recently. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/183147…

Awful: Trump just revealed that he will attack Biden over "migrant killings" at the debate later this month. It really is time to treat the Trump-MAGA use of these horrific murders to smear millions of undocumented immigrants as a big story. 1/

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/182993… It's hard to overstate how ubiquitous the highlighting of "migrant crime" has become in right wing info spaces. Trump brings it up at rallies. MAGA lawmakers put it on T-shirts. Fox News puts mug shots on screens and highlights crimes in chyrons. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/182993…

Don't overlook this: Fox News and MAGA are pushing some truly vile smears about Biden's new policy on undocumented spouses of US citizens.

Fox/MAGA are linking it to the awful murder of a young Maryland woman, allegedly by a migrant. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/182859… There's a key tell in the Fox/MAGA attacks on Biden's policy: They all try to change the subject back to *the border.* Yet this policy is all about immigrants who have lived here for a decade or more.

I've collected some of these attacks below. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/182859…