Desperate Trump Panics, Pisses Off Vital Voting Bloc 2 Months From Election
Things are going just great in MAGAland...for Kamala Harris!
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I have to say, I did not have “Trump panics and pisses off his core voting bloc two months out from the election” on my bingo card. But that is exactly what happened over the last several days and, oh my, the press is having a hard time cleaning up Trump’s mess this time.
Let’s recall that Trump spent most of this election so far bragging about how he overturned Roe, thus stripping tens of millions of women of their reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. Republicans, meanwhile, have been trying to figure out how to not talk about abortion as an issue while pursuing increasingly insane restrictions.
The press has been, surprisingly, not trying to memory-hole Trump’s bragging or the fact that Republicans have made abortion all but impossible to get in their benighted states. They have, however, been downplaying the disastrous consequences. After that 10-year-old girl had to flee Ohio in the summer of 2022 to get an abortion because she had been raped and impregnated, the press had that story everywhere for days on end. But then Republicans showed everyone just how cruel and malicious they were and the resulting electoral ass-beating the GOP took in the Fall shocked both Republicans and their boosters in the media.
After that, the press made the conscious choice to make these stories go away, giving them minimal coverage, if any at all. In fact, the press complained, loudly, that it wasn’t really fair for Democrats to use abortion as a cudgel against the GOP. The idea of Democratic single-issue voters was offensive to a press that had spent decades lionizing the right as “clever” for turning their base into a mob of anti-abortion domestic terrorists.
The problem, of course, is that this country is broadly in favor of reproductive rights and the small faction of theocratic misogynists controlling the Republican Party are wildly out of step with the vast majority of the nation.
That’s how the GOP ended up waging war on IVF, something every normal person agrees is a good thing. That’s how Republicans have determined that women should bleed to death in a hospital parking lot before being allowed to terminate a failed pregnancy, something every normal person agrees is monstrous and inhuman.
Three years after gleefully striking down Roe and celebrating the pain and suffering they would be able to inflict on women, those chickens come home to roost and Republicans are staring at a world of pain and suffering of their own. Thus leading Trump to panic and trying to flip-flop on both IVF:
WASHINGTON − Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will require insurance companies or the government to cover "all costs associated" with in-vitro fertilization if he's reelected.
"Because we want more babies, to put it very nicely," Trump told a crowd in Potterville, Michigan.
And abortion:
Trump does not actually care about reproductive rights one way or the other. He was pro-choice before he was anti-abortion. He’s whatever position he thinks will benefit him the most at that moment in time. If the GOP became rabidly pro-choice tomorrow, Trump would demand abortion be mandatory.
So why the reversal on IVF, something Trump can’t even spell? Well, he pretty much tells us in his statement: “Because we want more babies, to put it very nicely.” More white babies is the part he left out. This is Great Replacement nonsense. A lot of rabidly racist techbros like Elon Musk are into this crap. There’s a reason he has almost a dozen kids, none of whom he pays any attention to. It’s all about increasing birth rates for white people and reducing immigration of “Those People.”
I promise you, in a Republican utopia, sterilization for “undesirables” would make a comeback to reduce the number of children minorities could have. If they’re allowed to have any at all.
Of course, Trump sucking up to the techbro oligarchs promising him access to their billions doesn’t sit well with the millions of theocratic Evangelicals who devoutly want to see women miserable. They are quite angry at this betrayal. They’re also pretty pissed off that Trump embraced loosening abortion restrictions in Florida:
Anti-abortion advocates interpreted Trump’s latest remarks to mean he intended to vote in favor of the referendum — though his campaign said that was not the case — and immediately vocalized their frustrations. Kristen Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, said on X that her phone was “blowing up” with “volunteers who no longer will door knock for President Trump if this is not corrected.”
“If Donald Trump loses, today is the day he lost,” conservative commentator Erick Erickson wrote in a social media post. “The committed pro-life community could turn a blind eye, in part, to national abortion issues. But for Trump to weigh in on Florida as he did will be a bridge too far for many.”
Trump walked his support back and waffled some more, saying he wasn’t taking sides. He’s trying to signal to his base that he’s really on their side, go ahead, ban abortion 100%, I don’t care. He’s also trying to tell women voters who don’t see “The Handmaid’s Tale” as aspirational that, hey, nah, I’m not really anti-abortion! You can vote for me! I won’t take away your rights as a human being!
Polling suggests that Trump is not, in fact, successfully walking this tightrope. The press, however, is trying mighty hard to prop him up:
After consistently bragging about being responsible for the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, Trump's IVF policy demonstrates a rebrand to focus on women's reproductive rights -- a key voter issue driving suburban women to the polls and that has been a spotlight since the court overruled the constitutional right to abortion that had been the law nationwide for almost 50 years.
Got that? It’s “rebranding” not a flip-flop.
Here’s the amazing thing about the way the press is approaching Donald Trump’s flailing on abortion: They’re pretending he’s a blank slate here. That whatever he says about abortion today is a new policy and we should maybe ignore what he said yesterday. Until he reverses again and then we should ignore what he said 10 minutes ago.
But Trump doesn’t just have “positions” that he switches from minute to minute. He has four years as president and the policy to match. Trump appointed three Supreme Court Justices explicitly on their promise to overturn Roe. The press just…ignores that in favor of what Trump says now.
Oh, look! Trump is “rebranding” as pro-IVF! Trump is “moderating” his position on abortion!
Let me remind you that this is the same fucking press that raked Hillary Clinton over the coals for her vote for the Iraq War more than a decade ago. They also dragged Joe Biden for voting for the Crime Bill back in the 19 fucking 90s.
We’re not even four years removed from Trump’s time in office and everything he did as president just doesn’t count anymore. All gone, bye-bye.
Unfortunately for Trump and his media enablers, his base is not so easy to forget and forgive. Remember, Trump cannot expand his coalition. He has no voters left to reach out to. There is no one left who will suddenly realize that, after a decade of Trump’s racism, lying, and treason, they actually like what he’s selling.
Trump cannot find new voters. That means he has exactly two things left he can accomplish over the next two months:
Drive down support for Kamala Harris
Drive down his own support
The press has been working non-stop to help with #1 but it hasn’t been going well. Republicans and the press haven’t figured out how to dampen voter enthusiasm for Harris and Walz (and it’s driving them crazy). The attacks on both are getting absurd as Republicans grow desperate and the press burns the last of its credibility.
But Trump has been doing a real bang-up job on #2. By ramping up his racism and misogyny, he’s pushing away suburban moms. By making a mockery of Arlington National Cemetary, he’s pushing away military families. By promising mass deportations, he’s pushing away the Latino community. By sneering at unions, he’s pushing away blue-collar workers.
And now he’s desperately trying to claw back women voters and pushing away Evangelicals, his most fervent supporters outside of the KKK.
In an election where every vote counts, Trump is the best campaign asset Kamala Harris could ever ask for.
There are 62 days until the 2024 election. Vote blue like your life depends on it. This is America. No kings. No weirdos. Vote Harris and Walz.
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Article after article on substack more about the failure of the corrupt corporate press than about actual candidates. May the story we tell of these times be "Despite the misleading and Republican-biased media, Democrats won by a landslide, crushing not only Republican hope for any political power, but also the credibilty of the mainstream media"
I love this whole piece except the last line. Voting in the election starts in *less than two weeks*—the first day of mail-in and absentee voting in the most critical state, Pennsylvania, is just 13 days away. Early voting in Virginia begins on September 20. For the millions of Americans living abroad, the time to request a ballot is *right now* (ballots will go out on September 21). The election is upon us! Democrats should make a plan to vote as soon as their state’s voting window opens. Once you vote, your name can come off the get-out-the-vote lists, which will make it easier on the volunteers who are contacting people to urge them to vote. Anyone who can vote early should do so, whether in person or by mail-in or absentee ballot if allowed in your state. Go to vote.org to check your state’s registration and voting rules, then male a gameplan to vote as soon as possible.