Politics Without Trolls

Inside a small community theater in suburban Detroit, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked at a recent forum to talk about her life for the benefit of voters who are still getting to know her.

It was the type of question typically asked of a new candidate. But here was Harris getting it less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election and after millions of people already had voted. Her response underscored perhaps the defining challenge of her campaign for the White House.

“How much time do we have?” Harris quipped. 

The fact is, not much.

Any candidate’s most valuable resource is time, and from the start, Harris has been historically constrained. The Democratic nominee has been running for only three months after Democratic President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and Harris still is confronting voters who say they want to learn more about who she is or how she will govern.

Her public events have tended toward large rallieswhere crowds ride high on vibes and Harris delivers variations on her standard stump speech. In the past week or so, though, she has added events in more intimate settings, lower-key church services and black box theater sit-downs where the conversations can be more revealing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21348424

Donald Trump took the stage Sunday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden to deliver his campaign’s closing argument with the election nine days away after several of his allies used crude and racist insults toward Vice President Kamala Harris and other critics of the former president.

The Republican nominee began by asking the same questions he’s asked at the start of every recent rally: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The crowd responded with a resounding “No!”

“This election is a choice between whether we’ll have four more years of gross incompetence and failure, or whether we’ll begin the greatest years in the history of our country,” he said after being introduced by his wife, Melania Trump, whose rare surprise appearance comes after she has been largely absent on the campaign trail.

Several speakers earlier on Sunday crudely insulted Harris, who is vying to become the first woman and Black woman to win the presidency. And a stand-up comedian made lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21340475

Donald Trump sat down Friday with prominent podcast host Joe Rogan for a conversational interview that ran for nearly three hours — and the former president delivered his standard bombardment of false claims, at least 32 in all.

Many of those false claims are lies that were debunked months or even years ago. The claims spanned a variety of topics, including immigration policy, environmental and energy policy, the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Trump’s record in office, Vice President Kamala Harris, crowd sizes, and how schools deal with transgender children.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21340458

The world’s richest man promises big spending cuts if Trump gives him a job, says people “taking advantage of government are going to be upset”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21334173

With his third straight U.S. presidential campaign coming down to the wire, Donald Trump mused at a rally about hydrogen-powered cars exploding, lamented how difficult it is to get spray paint off limestone and marveled at how billionaire backer Elon Musk’s rocket had returned to Earth in one piece.

He complained Democratic rival Kamala Harris wasn’t working as hard as he was, praised Chinese President Xi Jinping as "fierce" and called former President Barack Obama "a real jerk."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21334235

Sometimes Donald Trump really is a G.O.A.T. — the “greatest of all time” — among American presidents, at least. Of course, “greatest” in this instance refers to quantity or bulk, not quality.

Greatest liar, given media tracking of unparalleled numbers of repeated lies and gross exaggerations (upwards of 30,000 during his presidency — and 40 during just one recent campaign rally in Reading, Pa.)

Greatest flyer above the law — from his infamous declaration “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” to the Jan. 6, 2021 incitement of an insurrection against the American government, and his ensuing denials of any wrongdoing.

Greatest narcissist — as in “I alone can fix it”, with “it” encompassing the economy, the border, the well-being of women (“I will protect you”), the supposed “poisoning” of American “blood,” the war in Ukraine, and so on and so forth.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21304978

"Every vote for Dr. Jill Stein or Cornel West instead of Kamala Harris makes it more likely that Donald Trump will win," wrote a coalition of leading environmental groups.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21305028

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump‘s three-hour interview with America’s number one podcaster, Joe Rogan, has been released.

In the wide-ranging sit-down, the former president discusses everything from the “biggest mistake” of his White House tenure, what he told North Korea’s leader and whether extraterrestrial life exists.

Two years ago Rogan described Trump as “an existential threat to democracy” and refused to have him on his show. But the pair seemed friendly on Friday as they chatted about their shared interest in Ultimate Fighting Championship and mutual friends like Elon Musk.

The Republican’s campaign hopes the interview will consolidate his influence with male voters, who make up the core of listeners to the Joe Rogan Experience, which has 14.5 million Spotify followers and 17.5 million YouTube subscribers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21289000

In early September 2020, wildfires tore through eastern Washington state, obliterating tens of millions of dollars of property, displacing hundreds of rural residents and killing a 1-year-old boy.

But then-President Donald Trump refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor, an investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News shows.

Trump sat on Inslee’s request for the final four months of his presidency, delaying recovery and leaving communities unsure about rebuilding because nobody knew if they would get federal help.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21289050

An inconvenient truth for Jill Stein, the Green Party protest candidate for president, is that there are only two candidates who can win the presidency on Nov. 5, and she isn’t one of them.

The other inconvenient truth for her and her avowed progressive supporters is that every protest vote from the left against Vice President Kamala Harris is a vote for former President Donald Trump.

The fast food giant said it did not facilitate Trump’s visit to a Pennsylvania restaurant and “does not endorse candidates for elected office”

Trump spokesman decried it as 'just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit'

Republican nominee reflects on assassination attempt and says ‘my faith took on new meaning on July 13’

He's been banned from the community until the election, so I'm not sure if there's a reason to continue this one.

Thoughts?

*60 Minutes *has responded to Donald Trump‘s accusation that the CBS newsmagazine edited its Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to make the interview more favorable to her — and the Trump campaign issued its own statement in response.

On Sunday, the show released the following statement in response to the Republican presidential candidate:

Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false.

60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment.

No major party presidential candidate, much less president, in American history has been accused of wrongdoing so many times.

The vice president's campaign reported $222 million raised last month.

One of the late golf legend Arnold Palmer’sdaughters calls Donald Trump’s references to her father’s genitalia “a poor choice of approaches” to honoring his memory, adding that she wasn’t upset by the remarks.

“There’s nothing much to say. I’m not really upset,” Peg Palmer Wears, 68, told The Associated Press in an interview on Sunday. “I think it was a poor choice of approaches to remembering my father, but what are you going to do?”