Harris-Walz demonstrate discipline and drive while Trump-Vance create new controversies

August 31, 2024

This short newsletter is intended to open the Comment section on Saturday. Most of the stories on Friday were continuations of themes from the week. That’s good news because the Harris-Walz campaign continues to show discipline and drive while Trump and Vance create new controversies on a daily basis. Here are a few stories to discuss on Saturday:

Per AP, “Vice President Kamala Harris ’ campaign is announcing that it is launching a 50-plus stop “Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour,” as it looks to motivate voters ahead of November. The first stop will be next Tuesday with an event near former President Donald Trump’s Florida home in Palm Beach.”

The Harris-Walz campaign’s focus on reproductive liberty coincided with Trump's flip-flop on reproductive rights for women. Trump began the week by saying that his administration would be great for women’s reproductive rights. He said on Thursday that he would vote for a ballot initiative in Florida to end the six-week abortion ban currently in effect in Florida. After a backlash from evangelical groups, Trump announced on Friday that he would vote against the ballot amendment, thereby supporting the six-week ban. See WaPo, Trump backs keeping Florida’s six-week abortion ban. (Accessible to all.)

See also Trump’s latest waffling on reproductive health shows he’s still struggling to find an answer for what he created | CNN Politics.

The Harris-Walz campaign issued a statement that said, in part,

Donald Trump just made his position on abortion very clear: He will vote to uphold an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant.

Trump proudly brags about the role that he played in overturning Roe v. Wade and said there should be punishment for women who have an abortion.

So, of course he thinks it's a 'beautiful thing' that women in Florida and across the country are being turned away from emergency rooms, face life-threatening situations, and are forced to travel hundreds of miles for the care they need.

Trump continues to struggle to explain his disgraceful actions at Arlington National Cemetery. At campaign stops on Friday, he twice told his audience that his campaign staff have urged him not to talk about it—but he could not stop himself. His explanations did not make things better. See NYTimes, A Defensive Trump Tries to Limit the Fallout of the Arlington Clash. (Accessible to all.)

Per NYTimes,

Mr. Trump insisted he had not taken the photos for the publicity. But earlier in the week, his campaign posted photos and footage from the visit on social media.

A spokesman for the campaign also insisted that it had received permission to have a photographer at the gravesite, a notion the cemetery rejected in statements.

Despite the ongoing coverage of the dispute, the press is not digging for answers. There were a dozen witnesses to the scuffle, but no one has identified the campaign staff member who shoved the cemetery official. That is a knowable fact—and one certainly capable of ascertainment by the media. But the press seems to be giving Trump wide latitude on this story. Why??

There have been many fine essays written about the disgraceful campaign appearance by Trump at Arlington, but none finer than Lucian K. Truscott IV’s post on Substack, Trump manages to disrespect both veterans and women as Arlington visit blows up his campaign. Reading Truscott’s article is a worthy investment of your time over the Labor Day Weekend.

JD Vance tried to quell the outrage over Trump's post that suggested that Kamala Harris had succeeded as a politician by performing sexual acts to advance her career. During a morning interview on Friday, JD Vance dismissed the misogynistic attack on Kamala Harris as good-natured teasing. JD Vance said,

Donald Trump is a political candidate who isn’t stodgy, who likes to have some fun and likes to tell some jokes. I would much rather have a candidate who is willing to go off script, who is willing to give every interview, and who is willing to tell some jokes. I do think that’s how you lift people up. . . .

Let’s cut through the gaslighting. Suppose JD Vance’s wife came home from her job as a lawyer in a top law firm and said a male colleague had made a “joke” about her similar to Trump's “joke” about Kamala Harris. Are we expected to believe that JD Vance would say, “Usha! It was a joke! He was just trying to “lift you up”! Don’t be so stodgy!” Of course not! Vance would likely demand that the offending lawyer be fired and urge his wife to sue the law firm for maintaining a hostile workplace.

JD Vance and Trump are fooling no one. They are making things worse. Much.

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Concluding Thoughts

Most readers agreed that Kamala Harris did a great job in the CNN interview. However, readers responded with a smattering of Comments and emails complaining that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz could have provided better answers to some questions or that Kamala Harris did not answer the questions as Dana Bash phrased them.

Of course, it is legitimate to criticize Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. But the question for the last 70 days of the campaign is whether that is a wise, prudent, or productive use of our time.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are not perfect. None of us are. Devoting energy at this point to proving that incontestable fact isn’t going to advance their electoral prospects.

Kamala Harris has made significant progress in the polls over the last month and has seized the momentum in the race. But the race remains within the margin of error in nearly every swing state. All our efforts should be focused on increasing Kamala Harris’s thin lead in the polls. And not just in swing states. She must not only win in the electoral college, but she must achieve a commanding margin of victory in the popular vote to blunt efforts to undermine her victory.

If you live in a blue state, help to “run up the score” to ensure a large margin of victory in the national popular vote. So, too, if you live in a red state. Help reduce the popular vote margin of victory for Trump. If Kamala wins the electoral college vote and secures a 15 million vote popular victory, the popular vote margin will help protect her electoral college victory.

It is a close race, but we have the momentum and are positioned to win. To quote my friend Simon Rosenberg, “We would much rather be us than them.” We have every reason to be hopeful and confident—because our candidates are “on message” and disciplined while Trump and Vance are struggling to defend their mean-spirited, misogynistic, racist, white nationalist policies. We must drive to victory by taking nothing for granted.

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

The photo below is a second view of the Sagittarius Star Cloud. See yesterday’s image of the same object here. Today’s photo shows the patch of sky immediately adjacent to yesterday’s.

In the photo above, it appears that there is a hole in the Sagittarius Star Cloud. But the “hole” is an illusion. It is a “dark nebula”—a gas cloud obscuring the stars behind it.

The dark nebula above is cataloged as Barnard 92. It is much closer to Earth (10 light-years) than the Sagittarius Star Cloud (5,000 to 16,000 light-years).

We can identify most nebulae because they “glow”—either from ionized atoms or reflected light from nearby stars. A dark nebula is “visible” only when it blocks light from objects “behind” it.