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Sunday, September 08, 2024

To her campaign, something else is more important. read more


The mother of the suspected Apalachee High School gunman said that she called the school on the morning of the shooting and warned a counselor about an "extreme emergency." read more


Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill was handcuffed outside Miami's Hard Rock Stadium just hours before the Dolphins were scheduled to kick off against Jacksonville. However, Hill has been released and plans to play, according to his agent. read more


The elections analyst Dave Wasserman assesses Black support for Donald Trump and explains a state-level primary that's a national bellwether. read more


Saturday, September 07, 2024

Parker Molloy: The political press's efforts to rationalize Trump's incoherent statements are eroding our shared reality and threatening informed democracy. read more


Comments

The more I think about it, the more I realize what a remarkable job Harris did last night:


Trump is a challenge for anyone, because he is a weird mix of super dangerous and a joke. . . . [T]hink of how much harder this challenge grows for a woman running against him. Play up his danger, and you risk being seen as shrill, or weak, or scared, or hysterical. Belittle him, and you risk coming off as a bitch, a ballbreaker, a nag, a witch. It was remarkable, then, to see Harris's comfort last night in treating Trump as both of these things at once, a danger and a clown.

She loves her a Venn diagram, and in the debate she seemed to find the lens-shaped intersection of what supremely dangerous wannabe autocrats and semi-retired, narcissistic, imploding clowns have in common: They are not thinking about you.

the.ink

Here's an interesting observation about a technique Harris employed:

The most important new thing I saw her do was prebunking. Pre-, not de-. Debunking is waiting for someone to lie and then hitting back with the truth. It doesn't work in politics as much you would hope it would in an age saturated by lies. But prebunking works better. Prebunking is explaining to people how they are being (or, better yet, will be) manipulated, what the motive is, how the con works, how the lie will be crafted and how it will function, and, for extra credit, who benefits from it and how. In the age of Trump, too many of his opponents have been all debunk, no prebunk.

But in last night's debate, again and again, Harris rose to the meta level and explained Trump's ways in advance so as to inoculate against their infectiousness. "I'm going to tell you all, in this debate tonight, you're going to hear from the same old, tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling," she said in the first minutes. In another moment, she prebunked any professions Trump might make to be admired by foreign autocrats for his strength: "It is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they're so clear, they can manipulate you with flattery and favors."


What better way to show that Trump is playing from "the same old, tired playbook" than to predict his same old moves beforehand?

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