Trump’s Obsession With Violence Becomes More Explicit
INSIDE: Mike DeWine ... Kamala Harris ... Kris Kristofferson
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
‘One Really Violent Day’
With five weeks until the election, and early voting underway, Donald Trump has returned to the themes that most animate him: ones grounded in race and racial violence.
In a campaign appearance Friday in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the outcome of the 2024 election may very well be decided, Trump launched into a disjointed attack on crime, long a Republican code word for Black. But the dream sequence he narrated about unlawfully using violence preemptively as a deterrent to more crime was clear as a bell:
Crime and immigration as racist code words are not new in general or specifically to Trump. He has fallen back on them over and over, as other rhetorical devices come and go. As has been observed repeatedly over the past decade, Trump seems to have a visceral personal reaction to the prospect of violence, especially as a means of cleansing or rejuvenating, a baptismal violence fantasy that he indulges when the going gets tough.
The violence of Trump’s fantasies take many forms – police brutality, vigilantism, pro-wrestling theatrics – but in every form they serve as a projection of strength for a fundamentally weak, craven, and damaged man.
Trump Cranks Up Attacks On Immigrants
In related news, Trump’s racist anti-immigrant rhetoric has deepened and darkened as the race has tightened and Election Day approaches. While xenophobia has always been part and parcel of Trumpism, the combination of finding little traction elsewhere and Kamala Harris’ own biracial status has left blatant racist appeals as Trump’s last campaign grasp:
WSJ: Trump Amps Up Rhetoric to Keep Immigration at Center of Election
NYT: Trump’s Answer to Harris’s Border Trip Is To Call Her ‘Mentally Disabled’
CNN: To attack Harris, Trump falsely describes new stats on immigrants and homicide
WaPo: Trump lambastes immigrants using false homicide claims
Springfield Still Reeling From Attack On Haitian Immigrants
Politico: Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine confronts Trump’s lies.
NYT: An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers
Rule Of Law Watch
WSJ: Trump Plans Massive Shake-Up of Justice Department
Politico Magazine: Exactly How Trump Could Prosecute His Political Enemies
The Battle To Control The Senate
WSJ: Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund plans to spend $67.5 million on TV, radio and digital ads to flip Democratic Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin
Politico: Ted Cruz rebrands for a tight race in Texas
2024 Ephemera
VP debate: CBS News, the host of the debate, has abdicated its fact-checking responsibilities, in a concession to the Trump-Vance ticket.
New York Times/Siena College polls: Harris leads Trump among likely voters in Michigan 48%-47% and in Wisconsin 49%-47%.
Never Trumper: Former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), mostly recently the U.S. ambassador to Turkey under Biden, endorsed Kamala Harris.
Feds Bring Charges In Iran Hack Of Trump Campaign
Three Iranian nationals were indicted in federal court in Washington, D.C., for their alleged roles in the hack-and-leak attack against the Trump campaign.
Still Fighting Impeachment I At Ukraine’s Expense
An astonishing moment, really:
Can’t Ignore
Outside of Morning Memo’s usual jurisdiction, but the weekend developments in Lebanon are too momentous not to mention:
Israeli airstrike on Friday killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a southern suburb of Beirut.
Israeli special forces have been reportedly operating within southern Lebanon ahead of a potential ground invasion that could come as soon as this week.
Southern Appalachia Faces A Long Recovery From Helene
The death toll from Hurricane Helene rose past 100, more than a third of those deaths in and around Asheville in crippled western North Carolina, where historic rainfall caused catastrophic damage to human infrastructure.
Kris Kristofferson, 1936-2024
Kris Kristofferson’s many remarkable incarnations – from youthful accomplishments like Rhodes Scholar and Army helicopter pilot to his creative output as a songwriter and musician to his substantial career as an actor – made him the embodiment of certain eras of American pop culture, especially the 1970s.
I have an offbeat amalgam of mental snapshots of him: flying helicopters offshore for the oil and gas industry from my hometown while he wrote “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Janis Joplin would make famous posthumously; the trucker in the Sam Peckinpah movie based on the novelty song “Convoy” that defined the big rig craze of the 1970s; a member of the supergroup The Highwaymen in the 1980s along with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings; his fabled confrontation with Toby Keith backstage at Nelson’s 70th birthday party in 2009, that Ethan Hawke famously described and that Kristofferson himself said he had no memory of.
Want better media? Support a better media company!
TPM is reader-funded, unionized, and mission-driven. Read our mission.
A couple of days after the debate, the DeWines attended a county fair in Northern Ohio, a county whose name they didn’t want to share for fear of its residents being targeted. And he’s still going to vote for him. Dewine knows the problem. He could help in a huge way. But he won’t.
Wow- thanks for the link to Hawke’s article on Kristofferson. A work of art.