Posts in this series

We’ve seen the rise of the Holmes/Frankfurter theory that the Constitution protects few rights but protects them strongly. In practice that means that if a law infringes a constitutionally protected right, there is a heavy burden on the government to justify it, called strict scrutiny, but if there is no right, the law stands unless there is no rational basis for it.

Chapter 4 of Jamal Greene’s How Rights Went Wrong is titled Too Much Justice. The phrase comes from a dissent by William O. Brennan in a death penalty case, McClesky v. Kemp. McClesky showed that in Georgia, Black people convicted of killing white people were disproportionately sentenced to execution. Lewis Powell constructed a slippery slope argument to the effect that any kind of defendant might show such disproportion and then what? Brennan wrote that McClesky would die because Powell was afraid of too much justice.

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, (1973) is similar.  The plaintiffs were the families of kids in the Edgewood district of the Defendant San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD). They claimed that the funding system for Texas school districts was unconstitutional because it effectively deprived their kids of a decent education.

Greene begins his discussion with a description of the school that the Rodriguez kids attended:

The school building was falling apart. Many of the windows were broken. Many of the teachers were uncertified and underpaid; a third of them had to be replaced every year. Temperatures in San Antonio reached the mid-80s that day, but the school had no air-conditioning. There was no toilet paper in the restrooms. A bat colony had nested on at least one floor of the school. P. 94.

Powell wrote the 5-4 majority opinion. He starts with a detailed history and description of the funding system which is based on property taxes in each district. Edgewood had the lowest property value in the SAISD. Texas capped property tax rates. Even though Edgewood had a higher property tax rate, it raised substantially less than other school districts in the SAISD. Edgewood had $356 per student compared with $596 in Alamo Heights, which had the highest property tax valuation.

Powell’s discussion of applicable law starts with a discussion of the decision below. A three-judge panel of the District Court found that the Texas funding system discriminated on the basis of wealth, that wealth was a suspect category, that education was a fundamental right, and therefore the State was required to carry a heavy burden of proof justifying this system. Of course Texas could not show a compelling reason for the funding system.

Powell rejects that analysis. He doesn’t bother with the actual facts of the case as they affect the plaintiff. His only interest is the nature of the legal rights asserted by the plaintiff.

We must decide, first, whether the Texas system of financing public education operates to the disadvantage of some suspect class or impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly protected by the Constitution, thereby requiring strict judicial scrutiny.

Powell says the wealth discrimination shown here is unlike any other kind of wealth discrimination accepted by SCOTUS to date. Later he says the same about education as a fundamental right.

Wealth Discrimination

The lower court found that poorer people in San Antonio received “less expensive” educations that those in weather districts. It held that that was enough to find wealth discrimination. Powell says that’s simplistic. Powell says he has to find a class of disadvantaged poor people that can be defined in the customary language of equal protection cases; and then evaluate the relative — rather than absolute — nature of the asserted deprivation is of significant consequence.”

He says there are three possible ways to show discrimination.

1. People with incomes below an identifiable and relevant level, which he calls “functionally indigent” (my quotes).
2. People relatively poorer than others
3. People who live in poor districts regardlesss of their incomes.

He says he will stick to SCOTUS precedents. He offers two groups where wealth discrimination has been found. He says that in those cases, the group discriminated against was so poor they could not pay, and thus were denied a benefit available to wealthier people. We are treated to several pages of cases, an expanded form of what lawyers call string-citing. Based on this analysis, the Texas plaintiffs must be relying on Powell’s first definition of a class of poor people.

But that is no good. There are equally poor people in wealthier districts. There’s a study saying that poor people tend to live in districts with a high concentration of warehouses and industry, which would support a higher property tax rate. That’s tnot the case here.

Anyway, SCOTUS precedents require that the class be denied the benefit. Here the kids are getting an education, and some money, and that’s good enough under the Equal Protection Clause.

 … [I]n view of the infinite variables affecting the educational process, can any system assure equal quality of education except in the most relative sense. Texas asserts that the Minimum Foundation Program provides an “adequate” education for all children in the State.

Who can tell? It’s all so complicated.

The right to education

Powell says SCOTUS is committed to education as an important right. Then he says that education is just another service offered by the state. The Equal Protection Clause doesn’t require equality in that service. Powell says education isn’t a fundamental right set out in our Constitution.

It is not the province of this Court to create substantive constitutional rights in the name of guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.

Discussion

1. There’s more. Lots more. And that’s not counting the 114 footnotes. But I doubt many EW readers got far into the discussion before saying to themselves, But what about the kids going to school with BATS? The bat colony isn’t mentioned in either the SCOTUS decision or that of the lower court.  The lawyers are so wound up about the funding mechanism and court-created rules about classification that they ignored the actual outcome: kids are going to school with bats!

2. Powell gives us a slippery slope argument: if we say kids shouldn’t have to go to school with bats, we might have to say they have to be fed a nutritious meal at school.

3. Greene describes Powell’s background in some detail. Reading between the Ines, Powell seems like one of those genteel Southern Politicians, the ones who would never use the N-word in public, but can’t quite pronounce Negro, especially at the country club.

4, The 14th Amendment says in part that no state is permitted to “… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” How hard is it to apply that rule to kids going to school with bats?

5. This case and hundreds of others are the direct result of the refusal of SCOTUS to enforce the 14th Amendment. Instead, we get blindingly stupid holdings based on what John Roberts called the dignity of the state. A state that makes kids go to school with bats and calls that an “adequate” education has no claim to dignity.

Of all the coverage on Ryan Routh — the seemingly unbalanced man who fled Trump’s golf course after being spotted with a gun yesterday — just the NYT (that I’ve seen) notes that Routh’s various statements seeming to express regret about the US’ worsening relationship with Iran.

In one convoluted passage, Mr. Routh vented his anger at Mr. Trump’s dismantling of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

After writing “Iran, I apologize,” Mr. Routh added, “you are free to assassinate Trump” — although he moves freely in the book between addressing his general readers and specific subjects.

Mr. Trump and his allies have long warned about the threat posed by Iran to the former president’s personal safety. In August, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man who had recently visited Iran with trying to hire a hit man to assassinate political figures in the United States. Investigators believe that those potential targets likely included Mr. Trump.

Most journalists report that there have been two seeming assassination plots against Trump. Not so, if you count Asif Merchant’s efforts to hire a hit man, purportedly to go after Donald Trump. That would be a third.

Unless there’s a tie between Merchant’s efforts and Routh’s.

That’s almost certainly not the case.

Routh seems like someone who keep searching for grandiose meaning in his life.

Still, I keep thinking about this paragraph from the complaint charging Routh with owning a gun as a felon.

Routh was offering a public way to contact him, via WhatsApp, on the phone he had with him yesterday, a phone he seems to have carried on his person even though the gun he had and the truck he drove both had identifying information obscured.

Routh was doing so on July 10, on a day when Merchant remained at large (Merchant was arrested on July 12).

One aspect of Merchant’s planning involved requiring the EDNY informant — whom Merchant believed would help him find a hit squad — to get him a new phone.

On or about June 10, 2024, Merchant met with the purported hitmen, who were in fact undercover U.S. law enforcement officers (the “UCs”) whom the CS introduced to Merchant at Merchant’s request. Merchant advised the UCs that he was looking for three services from them, including killing a “political person.” During the meeting, Merchant presented himself as the “representative” in the U.S., indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S. Merchant told the UCs that he wanted to pay the hitmen in cash through “hawalas”—an informal and unregulated method of transferring money—in Istanbul and Dubai. Merchant also stated that he would give the hitmen instructions on who to kill either the last week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024, after he returned to Pakistan. Merchant requested that the UCs provide him with a secure cellular phone so they could communicate, and the UCs said they would do so. The UCs also told Merchant that they would be in touch about how much their services would cost.

On or about June 12, 2024, Merchant met the UCs again and obtained the cellular phone from the UCs to use in furtherance of the assassination plot. During the meeting, Merchant agreed to pay the UCs a $5,000 advance payment for the plot. Following the meeting with the UCs, Merchant met with the CS again in furtherance of the plot.

On or about June 13, 2024, Merchant wrote out coded language on a piece of paper that he instructed the CS to copy down and use when communicating with him in the future. Merchant wrote that the word “tee-shirt” would mean a “protest,” which he described as the “lightest work.” The phrase “flannel shirt” would mean “stealing,” which was “heavier work.” The phrase “fleece jacket,” the heaviest work, would mean “the third task . . . commit the act of the game,” indicating murder as previously discussed. The phrase “denim jacket” referred to “sending money.” Merchant told the CS to use the code words only orally on the phone and not to text them. [my emphasis]

So even in the plot the FBI thwarted, Merchant had a plan to set up a dedicated device for his efforts.

Again, I think it most likely that Routh is just a mentally ill person looking to give his life meaning.

But I don’t rule out that Iran tried to find more potential recruits to target Trump. Routh’s public profile would make it clear he wanted to recruit and be recruited, and his beliefs were so quirky, he might well allow himself to be recruited by Iran.

Which is to say, it’s early yet. Routh’s story may well be more complicated than it seems.

One reason fact checking doesn’t work with Donald Trump is that he has trained his followers to so distrust the press that even if Daniel Dale lays out 33 lies in one debate, Trump’s followers will simply write that off to press bias. Donald Trump has created a system in which there are two truths in the United States: one, the reality that sane people live in, and another, an all-encompassing system of false claims that Trump has spun with the help of Fox News.

So every time you try to fact check Trump, you simply reinforce the polarization in the US. You simply reinforce the belief of Trump’s supporters that the other half of society simply hates Trump’s truth. And so, counterintuitively, fact checking has the opposite effect you might want it to have: it reinforces the loyalty of Trump’s rubes, rather than leads them to doubt him.

Kamala Harris appears to understand that. One of the most fascinating aspects of last week’s debate is how, with one major and two lesser exceptions, rather than directly disputing Trump’s truth, Harris instead rebutted his false claims by making Trump look weak.

The one exception — over an hour into the debate — came when Linsey Davis invited Harris to respond to Trump’s accusation that she hates Israel.

LINSEY DAVIS: Vice President Harris, he says you hate Israel.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s absolutely not true. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people.

But aside from Harris saying, “that’s not true,” or, “that’s a lie,” Harris usually doesn’t directly dispute any of the lies Trump tells. Often, she instead says things that suggest his incompetence.

For example, in response to Trump’s first answer in which he makes a claim about the economy under his term, instead of directly disputing it, Harris mocks what a mess he left her and President Biden.

Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us. Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us.

[snip]

And what we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.

Trump claims that all the jobs created under the Biden Administration were just “bounceback” jobs as the economy reopened after the pandemic. Rather than disputing that, Harris describes how Trump is just trying to help rich people (and then notes that even Wharton assess his economic plans would bankrupt the country).

So, Donald Trump has no plan for you. And when you look at his economic plan, it’s all about tax breaks for the richest people.

[snip]

What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump’s plan would actually explode the deficit.

Trump complains about inflation and brags that up to 90% of people think he’ll be better on the economy. Harris could have corrected the polling claim or — more importantly — talked about how the Biden Administration had tamed inflation. She didn’t (there are reports that some Biden insiders are hurt she didn’t defend him more, and this may be an example). Instead, she hit Trump for sending chips to China.

[Y]ou wanna talk about his deal with China what he ended up doing is under Donald Trump’s presidency he ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military basically sold us out when a policy about China should be in making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century.

Donald Trump tells his normal lie, claiming that everyone wanted abortion to be returned to the states, and Harris simply calls him a liar, before explaining how his hand-picked Justices did what Trump wanted.

Well, as I said, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies. And that’s not actually a surprising fact.

Trump’s claim that people are engaged in infanticide is one of three lies that ABC, in this case Linsey Davis, fact-checked in real time. So Harris starts her reply by first addressing Davis’ question about whether Harris would put any limits on abortion access by using Roe as a stand-in, she then translates Trump’s infanticide claim into what it would really mean, then describes even claiming it is an insult to women.

I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to the women of America. And understand what has been happening under Donald Trump’s abortion bans.

Trump interrupts and tries to refloat his infanticide claim and Harris successfully interjects — come on! But her first response to the infanticide is to emphasize that Trump hasn’t denied he would veto an abortion ban.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Come on.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Would you do that? Why don’t you ask her that question —

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Why don’t you answer the question would you veto –

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s the problem. Because under Roe v. Wade.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Answer the question, would you veto–

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month –

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s not true.

David Muir invites Harris to respond after Trump’s cat screech. She starts by labeling him as extreme and pivots to talking about her Republican endorsers.

Talk about extreme. Um, you know, this is I think one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formally worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congressmember Liz Cheney.

That leads to a long exchange between Muir and Trump in which Trump falsely blames crime on immigrants. Muir corrects Trump’s claim that crime is going up. But there’s still a false claim that Harris could have corrected: that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than American citizens. Instead of doing that, she raises Trump’s own crimes.

Well, I think this is so rich. Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing. And let’s be clear where each person stands on the issue of what is important about respect for the rule of law and respect for law enforcement.

Trump responds with his tired lies about the legal cases against him being political. Again, Harris could fact check those lies (at least the ones that wouldn’t amount to command influence from a sitting Vice President). Instead, she doubles down on the “extreme” comment, then lays out the way SCOTUS’ immunity decision would immunize Trump for misconduct.

Well let’s talk about extreme. And understand the context in which this election in 2024 is taking place. The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the former president would essentially be immune from any misconduct if he were to enter the white house again. Understand, this is someone who has openly said he would terminate, I’m quoting, terminate the constitution of the United States.

After Trump responds to Harris answer to a Davis question about fracking, he spurts out some of the other things that Trump claims she has flip-flopped on. Don’t lie, Harris answers after first saying that his claims were not true.

Uh, defund the police. She’s been against that forever. She gave all that stuff up, very wrongly, very horribly. And everybody’s laughing at it, okay? They’re all laughing at it. She gave up at least 12 and probably 14 or 15 different policies. Like, she was big on defund the police.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s not true. [mouthed, not audible]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: In Minnesota, she went out — wait a minute. I’m talking now. If you don’t mind. Please. Does that sound familiar?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Don’t lie. [lie is audible]

Then Trump responds to a Muir question about whether he regretted his actions on January 6 by blaming Nancy Pelosi. Again, Harris could fact check Trump’s claim that it was Pelosi’s role, and not his own, to keep the country safe. Instead, she states clearly that he incited a violent mob and coddled right wingers on other occasions.

I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I was the Vice President-Elect. I was also an acting senator. I was there. And on that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation’s Capitol, to desecrate our nation’s Capitol. On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured. And some died. And understand, the former president has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason. But this is not an isolated situation. Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side. Let’s remember that when it came to the Proud Boys, a militia, the president said, the former president said, “Stand back and stand by.”

Harris says, “we’re not going back” to this — a clear sign that when she uses the term, it’s not about incumbency, it’s about Trump’s fascism.

After the Israel exchange — the clearest moment, I argue, when Harris directly disputed a claim Trump made — and the commercial break, the discussion turns to Ukraine, to Trump’s unwillingness to answer whether he wants them to win. After Trump babbles a bunch about Biden before claiming he would end the Ukraine war before he took office, Harris accuses Trump of planning to just give up.

Well, first of all, it’s important to remind the former president you’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me. I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up. And that’s not who we are as Americans.

When Muir invites Harris to respond to Trump’s false claim that she met with Putin, Harris first notes she has predicted he would lie, then describes, again, meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy (I’ve seen Trump supporters complain that she didn’t deny meeting Putin).

Yet again, I said it at the beginning of this debate, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies coming from this fella. And that is another one. When I went to meet with President Zelenskyy, I’ve now met with him over five times. The reality is, it has been about standing as America always should, as a leader upholding international rules and norms.

Some questions later, Trump interrupts to respond to Harris’ observation that Trump uses race to divide America, making a rubber-glue argument. I’m not the most divisive presidency, you are.

Knowing that regardless of people’s color or the language their grandmother speaks we all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those, not in hate and division.

DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris thank you. Linsey?

LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, this is now your third time —

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country.

Trump is trying to revert to that two truths position, on which he usually operates. Rubber, glue. In such a world, you don’t have to decide who really has had a divisive presidency, you have only to decide who you trust, and your answer will come from there.

He somehow goes from there to inflation. Once again, Harris does not respond by pointing out that inflation has been tamed, but instead with her generational comment, which she uses as a way to list all the plans she has, in contrast to Trump.

I want to respond to that, though. I want to just respond briefly. Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country. One who believes in what is possible, one who brings a sense of optimism about what we can do instead of always disparaging the American people. I believe in what we can do to strengthen our small businesses, which is why I have a plan. Let’s talk about our plans.

After Trump sets off on a rant, it appears that Harris tries to interrupt to correct Trump’s claim that she wants to take everyone’s guns, which Davis cuts off.

She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun. She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. That’s what her plan is until just recently.

LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, President Trump.

VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS: The former president has said something twice and I need to respond too. I just need to respond one time to what he has said multiple times.

She returns to both fracking (which as she notes, she answered in response to a question from Davis) and guns during a later response on healthcare.

I just need to respond to a previous point that the former president has made. I’ve made very clear my position on fracking. And then this business about taking everyone’s guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.

But that’s it–the next most direct responses to a claim from Trump, after the Israel claim.

Some of these are admittedly closer to direct responses to Trump, but except where Trump makes claims about Harris, she does not directly dispute him.

The effectiveness of this approach is clear: Rather than saying Trump’s manufactured version of truth was false — again, setting up a clear dispute and inviting Trump’s supporters to simply dismiss her as someone opposing him because she hates him — she instead demonstrated, over and over, Trump’s weakness.

That recognizes an important fact about the cult-like following Trump has created: So long as his followers believe his strength, they will believe what he says as an article of faith. They believe in him, and so believe what he says.

But they believe in him because they believe his pose of being strong.

With some exceptions (such as a segment of the Jan6ers prosecuted because they believed him, and left with a lot of time to reconsider the actions they took in response), Trump’s people won’t start to rethink what he tells them to believe until they first doubt who he is, until they first begin to see through his con of being strong and successful.

And you demonstrate that not by telling them facts that might directly contest the belief system they’ve adopted from Trump, but by pointing not just to evidence that he’s weak — he is laughed at, he is insecure about his crowd size, his daddy gave him millions that he squandered in six bankruptcies.

It’s only after they step out of a belief system based on a false belief that Trump is strong will people listen to you.

There was a great deal that Kamala Harris did to succeed in the debate. The most important thing was to rattle the old man, so his own narcissism led him to meltdown of his own accord.

But even as that was happening, the Vice President didn’t stoop to a contest of two truths, a contest over which truth voters might pick. She instead made it clear that the basis of the “truth” Trump offers, is a base of weakness and fear. She didn’t refute individual aspects of Trump’s truth. She instead kicked at its foundations, and showed how flimsy it is.

LOLGOP had already started the (probably two) posts on how Bill Barr bolloxed the Mueller Report when we realized we hadn’t actually done the report itself! So here’s my take, in readily accessible format.

The Patreon site has a rough transcript; remember: subscribing to that is separate from my own Patreon, but we’re also releasing bonus episodes.

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At about the same time that several of Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters were warning that Laura Loomer’s access to the former President threatens his presidential bid, Tim Walz was in Grand Rapids mocking how easy it is to manipulate Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris was able to, within a matter of a few seconds, use this guy’s inflated ego and narcissism to bait him into melting down on a national stage in front of 60 million.

You don’t think Vladimir Putin could do that?

You don’t think Xi Jinping could do that?

Jewish space laser conspiracist Marjorie Taylor Greene scolded Loomer about attacking Kamala Harris for her Indian ancestry (after which MTG went back to making racist attacks on migrants again).

Lindsey Graham, a sometime hawk who makes excuses for Trump’s apologies for Russia, agreed that Trump should distance himself from Loomer and the incendiary comments she makes.

“We have policy disagreements but the history of this person is just really toxic,” Graham told HuffPost on Thursday. “I mean, she actually called for Kellyanne Conway’s daughter to hang herself. I don’t know how this all happened, but, no, I don’t think it’s helpful. I don’t think it’s helpful at all.”

[snip]

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is right. I don’t say that a lot,” Graham said.

“I think what [Loomer] said about Kamala Harris and the White House is abhorrent, but it’s deeper than that,” he added. “I mean, you know, some of the things she’s said about Republicans and others is disturbing. I mean, to call for someone’s daughter to hang themselves. Yeah, no, I think that the president would serve himself well to make sure this doesn’t become a bigger story.”

The backlash comes after Trump brought Loomer, a 9/11 conspiracist, with him to the 9/11 memorial in New York. It comes as many of Trump handlers are trying to find someone, someone besides themselves, besides the candidate, to blame for his disastrous debate performance.

When asked about Republican complaints about Loomer the other day, Trump offered word salad.

Well, I don’t know what they would say, Laura has been a supporter of mine, just like a lot of people have been supporters. And she’s been a supporter of mine. She speaks very positively of the campaign — I’m not sure why you asked that question, but Laura’s a supporter. I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit. Well, I don’t know. Look. I can’t tell Laura what to do. Laura’s a supporter. I have a lot of supporters. So I don’t know exactly what you’re referring to. … I just don’t know. Laura’s a supporter. I don’t know. She is a strong person. She’s got strong opinions. And I don’t know what she said but that’s not up to me. She’s a supporter.

Shortly after this pathetic response from Trump, a Truth Social post was released over Trump’s initials, bearing none of the roughness of a post the man wrote himself. The post disavowed unspecified “statements she made.”

All that, in turn, has led to insinuations and whispers about precisely what kind of access Loomer has to Trump.

No one can keep former President Donald Trump away from Laura Loomer.

Throughout his third presidential campaign, aides and advisers have done their best to shield him from Loomer, a far-right social media influencer, and similar figures who stroke his ego and stoke his basest political instincts.

They lost that battle this week, as Loomer traveled on Trump’s jet to his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday and to Sept. 11 memorial services Wednesday. Her presence at the latter infuriated some Democrats and Republicans because one of the many conspiracy theories she has promoted is the false notion that the terrorist assault on the U.S. was an “inside job.” It wasn’t.

[snip]

[H]er presence reflects Trump’s loss of faith in his campaign aides and their concomitant fear of upsetting him in a time of crisis, according to people familiar with the situation. Last month, he tapped his 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to be an adviser to his top advisers — a move widely viewed as a rebuke of the existing leadership crew.

A senior official from Trump’s 2020 campaign team said that helps explain why Loomer is no longer being kept at arm’s length.

“The people that have the authority to stop it are hanging on to their jobs,” the former official said. “So are you going to pick that fight with him?”

A lot of this is manufactured controversy. Loomer is little different than all the other far right nutbags Trump surrounds himself with. Why blame Loomer for the cat-and-dog screech when Trump’s chosen Vice Presidential candidate — chosen with the considerable input of Trump’s dumbass son — has a much more central role in magnifying this hoax, when Trump has employed Stephen Miller to engage in such fearmongering both inside and outside the White House, for years?

And Marjorie Taylor Greene, lecturing other people about being racist? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

As described, what distinguishes Loomer is her access. I even joined in, speculating that as she traveled on his plane to the Philadelphia debate, handlers may believe she tainted the killer immigration attack coached by upstanding, reasonable people like Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, creating the screech.

The unspoken (except by Drudge) suggestion they’re fucking is the invented explanation for what might make Loomer more dangerous than the other racists and conspiracists who populate Trump’s inner circle. Me, I’m more interested in whether the problem with Loomer is that she’s so close to Roger Stone, whom campaign officials perennially attempt to keep separate from Trump during presidential elections. Ali Alexander served as Roger’s surrogate during the 2020 election; perhaps Loomer is doing so now.

Whatever it is that has Republican members of Congress and campaign officials blaming Loomer for Trump’s failures, it is also a concession.

The complaint being offered is that none of Trump’s advisors can prevent someone — in this case, Loomer — from getting Trump to parrot the most outrageous beliefs simply by inveigling herself into his closest circle and flattering him enough to stay there.

The complaint being offered is that Loomer’s mere fawning presence will lead Trump to say and do things that will disrupt the carefully cultivated illusion that he is a sane, effective leader.

Trump’s anonymous aides are making the same argument that Tim Walz did: that anyone who strokes Trump’s ego enough can win him to their view. Trump’s boasts about how valuable Viktor Orbán’s adulation is have nothing to do with Orbán’s real stature on the world stage. Rather, Trump boasted about Orbán’s “endorsement” because Orbán has serially sucked up to Trump, repeating back to Trump Trump’s own fantasy that he can deliver “peace” in Ukraine with a snap of his fingers.

The problem isn’t Laura Loomer. She’s little different than all the other extremists who remain in Trump’s good graces by performing near-perfect sycophancy.

The problem is precisely what Tim Walz warned: Trump’s narcissism and his ego make him weak, vulnerable to any person willing to use flattery to win their objectives.

Trump’s aides are making the same argument Tim Walz is: that Trump doesn’t have the self-control to protect against extremists making him their ready tool.

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In Tuesday’s debate, Vice President Harris showed her ability to dog-walk Trump into betraying his unfitness and his fury. If you hang out on social media much, you’ll see the same fury among his followers. They’re responding with vehement ugliness.

For the past several months I’ve been experimenting with my Xitter feed, trying to figure out some tactics for coping with these people. In this post I’ll lay out some of the things that seem to work, at least to make it more fun for me, and possibly to discourage some of them.

I think most of this works on any social media platform swarmed by the ignorant, the trollish, and the ugly, but I don’t use any of the others so I don’t know.

1. On Xitter, use lists. You probably only follow sane people, funny people, people who have some expertise in a field you care about, people whose views you want to read. Make private lists. These are lists that only you see and are not shared with others. I currently follow about 500 people. There are a lot of lawyers, a couple of philosophers, some funny people, a few journalists, and experts in science, economics, and finance. I selected a about 150 and put them on lists. I sorted the lists so that one has my current favorites, then one with second favorites, and a third for the rest. I move accounts around from time to time.

When I read Xitter on my phone I’m given columns at the top. One is the “for you” column. It’s loaded with Musk garbage, lunatic right-wingers, Qanon freaks, Covid deniers, anti-vaxxers, and other loons. I never read it. I don’t even update it. I just let it sit there in all it’s noxious glory. The next column is “following”. I read it when I’m waiting at a doctor’s office and expect to be sitting awhile. Then there are columns for each of my lists. I read them regularly.

On my desktop, I go directly to the button on the left column labeled lists and select one. That’s it. I don’t read Musk garbage.

2. One of the criteria I use for selecting for lists is the quality of the reposts I get. I follow several people who do a great job of reposting things I’m interested in.

3. I often reply to posts in my lists. I try to accomplish one of three things with those replies. First, adding some useful information. For example, if I see a post on something related to Project 2025, I often add a page citation and a link, encouraging people to see for themselves. Second, I try to be funny. It’s hit or miss on that.

4. The third goal is more open, I reply to some of the loons who have replied. I try never to respond to anyone with fewer than 300 followers, and lately more. If I do, it’s usually one or two words: Troll, Troll Alert, or “You seem smart,” which I stole from Lizz Winstead.

For MAGAs, I have several stock responses.

A) “You seem smart, can you tell me what Trump meant here?” Then I add one of several tweets I’ve bookmarked. One example is this from Judd Legum. It’s a collection of Trump’s nonsense. Another is this from Acyn, where Trump promises to bring back cement. I ask if they know where the cement went.

B) “You seem like a real patriot. Please empty your retirement account and send the money to Trump. If he doesn’t get elected, the world will collapse and you won’t need it.”

C) “You seem really angry. That can’t be good for you and your friends and family.”

D) “We got rid of our old guy, and he was a decent man who maybe lost a step. Why are you welded to your old guy who ignores every norm of human decency and who says weirdo stuff like this: [adding one of my links].”

5. You will get responses from some of these. I have some rules for handling them.

A) If they are seriously angry, mute and block. Life’s too short for that kind of nonsense.

B) Most of the replies are personal attacks. Often it’s homophobia, or you’re stupid, or “your a commie” [sic]. I never reply to the slur. Instead I keep the focus on them. An easy way is 4. (A) or (B) above or variations.

C) Check their Xitter profile. For crypto dudes and related finance types, I might go with “How much did you lose on $DJT, which is Trump’s social media company?” I often link to a Google search for that symbol, and set it to one year. It’s an ugly chart.

D) There’s a lot of obscenity and jerk behavior. I’ve been replying with some version of: “Ooh that’s ugly. It’s natural to be distressed after seeing your doddering old criminal get whipped by the Vice President, so maybe take a break from this site until you recover.” If they reply I continue in the same vein: “It’s okay: psychic pain is normal after a crushing defeat.” No matter what, keep the focus on them and their defects.

E) I make an exception for the anti-abortion crowd. I don’t see much of them unless they’re replying to a post from someone else. I generally reply with this link to an article on human reproduction by an embryologist, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ntls.20220041

I often suggest they need to learn about the reality, not what their preacher says. The goal is to get them to realize the dangers of pregnancy, and the actual facts about things like fetal heartbeats and fetal pain. I don’t think you can convince anyone, but maybe it’s a good first step to opening minds.

One common claim from rabid anti-abortion people is the execution after birth lie. This one is deeply rooted. A Chicago Sun-Times reporter attended a debate watch party sponsored by the Niles Township GOP; Niles Township is a suburb North of Chicago.

… [Attendees were in disbelief after Harris said, “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion,” with audible claims that she’s lying or “full of s—t.”

My stock response to these ignorant people is: Killing babies is a crime. If you know of such a crime and don’t report it you are an accessory and are criminally liable.

6. I have a few phrases I use all the time, including:

• The filthy rich and their price-gouging corporations
• Doddering old criminal
• MAGA SCOTUS
• Billionaire media and their hired hacks

I also try to use words and phrases current on the site. Sane-washing is a good current example.

7. Family. I’m lucky that my extended family is fairly normal politically. My dad was always conservative, but in his old age he became besotted by Fox News. It was miserable. I don’t have much to go on, but maybe the following will help.

Don’t respond immediately. Wait until the initial response dies out, and then wait some more.

There may be a specific reason for the anger. We have no way to figure that out for strangers on social media, but we can at least try with family. Then maybe you can work with that in a later interaction, away from the immediate contact. At least maybe you can avoid triggering something unpleasant.

Post a lot of family pics, pet videos and non-political funny stuff. It’s harder to be angry with people who make us laugh. If they go off the hook, respond later, much later, with a funny, or a link to a sports thing or anything but a reply. Life’s too short to be angry with family.

Finally, if you do respond, do so with a question: Where did you hear that? Do you have a link? Why do you think that? Could you explain?

I’m pretty sure the actual facts and your links won’t help matters, but I have to believe that getting people to say things directly, to type them out, to try to justify them, will help in the long run.

This isn’t a game for everyone. But I think it’s important to push back as best we can. We can’t let the creeps ruin everything. Do you have ideas? Comments are open!

UPDATE: There are a number of accounts that hang around accounts you might like, such as Democratic politicians. Here’s a good example: Paul A. Szypula , @Bubblebathgirl. This person spends hours posting garbage tweets, which draw lots of response. The account does not engage, and any time you spend there is wasted. Do not engage. If you feel like it: reply with “Do not engage with this troll”.

In the Election Task Force presser at which DOJ also rolled out two operations against Russian foreign malign influence last week, Merrick Garland described that the investigation into RT’s efforts to hide its efforts in the US was ongoing. “The charges unsealed this morning do not represent the end of the investigation. It remains active and ongoing.”

Indeed, last week, Tim Pool (believed to be Commentator-2 in the RT indictment) revealed that he would assist in the investigation (presumably meaning he’ll sit for the interview the FBI requested).

The language Pool used — the emphasis on a voluntary interview, one echoed by Benny Johnson’s more equivocal statement about his response to a similar FBI invitation — suggests DOJ is treating Pool, and so presumably most of the other commentators described in the indictment, as media under DOJ’s recently updated media guidelines.

Not so Lauren Chen herself — or at least, not Tenet Media. After all, the indictment describes several Discord servers — a general one, one focused on “funders,” another on “producers,” and another for one of the commentators — that all seem to be part of Tenet’s overarching Discord server run by Chen. To get legal process on that, as they clearly did, prosecutors would have had to convince DOJ’s National Security Division head, Matt Olsen, that Tenet or Chen either aren’t media or fit into one of the designated exceptions to the media rule.

Prosecutors might do that through Chen’s (or her spouse, Liam Donovan’s) past work with RT, after such time as it had registered as an agent of Russia in 2017. Or, if DOJ could prove that Chen knew the Russians she was working for were just an extension of her pre-existing RT contract, that might also satisfy the exception for “a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.” But even Chen’s acceptance of US-bound payments via wire from “Turkish Shell Entity-1” described as, “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB” would likely reach an aid-and-abet standard for RT’s alleged money laundering.

According to the indictment, the many cut-outs via which she (and by association, the podcasters) were being paid, were visible to her. None were in France, where the fictional funder of the project purportedly lived. She was witting to the money laundering alleged in the indictment, which probably qualifies her for an exception to the media guidelines. Charging that money laundering may be one step in justifying a broader investigation into Chen, including one that extends into her other roles in the far right network at Glenn Beck’s show and on Turning Point USA.

This post, which I started last week, was going to be a post laying out how all of last week’s activities seem to be an attempt to move beyond DOJ’s prior approach of name-and-shaming foreign hackers, to a name-and-disrupt approach. Lawfare did such a post earlier this week, and Alex Finley did one focused on RT and Doppelganger.

But I’m going to post the part of that larger post focused on RT now, because State just rolled out the next step of this name-and-disrupt operation: sharing intelligence showing how RT has become a front for Russia’s broader intelligence operations.

The State Department revealed declassified US intelligence findings that suggest RT is fully integrated into Russia’s intelligence operations around the world and announced it is launching a diplomatic campaign to provide countries with information about the risks associated with RT activities.

“Thanks to new information, much of which originates from RT employees, we know that RT possessed cyber capabilities and engaged in covert information and influence operations and military procurement,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

A key finding from the new US intelligence is that, for more than a year, the Russian government has quietly embedded an intelligence-gathering unit within RT that is focused on influence operations globally. That activity has been part of US officials described as a big expansion of RT’s role as an arm and mouthpiece of the Kremlin abroad. The activity goes beyond propaganda and covert influence operations to even include military procurement, according to US officials.

The flyer from State laying this out lists cover operations in Germany, France, and Argentina.

DOJ presumably timed last week’s indictment to beat the 60-day prohibition on announcements that might effect an election. But it was presumably also coordinated with Anthony Blinken’s trip to Eastern Europe, whence he just returned.

It appears that rolling out the indictment did two things. First, it laid out how this works, how a persona sets up an allegedly witting front, like Lauren Chen, to effectively recruit useful idiots on Russia’s behalf.

But by unrolling the indictment last week, DOJ likely facilitated further investigation of the Tenet operation.

It’s likely, for example, that DOJ needs cooperation from the podcasters like Benny and Pool to pursue an investigation into Chen any further. At the very least, prosecutors would have to lock them into statements that they had no idea they were working for RT. Those statements might not be entirely persuasive, mind you, but such statements would be crucial to showing that Chen was part of the RT deception, part of an effort by an agent of Russia to spread their propaganda via unwitting cut-outs.

By rolling out the indictment in the way they did, DOJ gave all the podcasters an incentive to immediately claim ignorance, if for no other reason than to preserve their own brand. As NBC curated, several of the podcasters did claim they were victims, within a day.

Pool said, in part, in a lengthy statement on X: “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.”

[Benny] Johnson, also on X, said: “A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme. My lawyers will handle anyone who states or suggests otherwise.”

[Tayler] Hansen said, in part, on X: “These allegations come as a complete shock to me and the other hosts at TENET Media. I want to be as clear as possible, I was never directed to report on any topic and had complete freedom and control over my reporting at all times. I would never agree to any arrangement where I am not the sole person in charge of the stories I cover and content I create.”

[Dave] Rubin said, in part, on X:” These allegations clearly show that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme. I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity. Period.”

[Matt] Christiansen said, in part, on X: “At no point has anyone ever directed me what to say or not to say, and I would never agree to anything otherwise. My videos and streams for Tenet are exactly the same as my videos and streams on my personal channels. Every word is from me and me alone.” [my emphasis]

And after they did claim to be victims, the FBI called them up and said, “how would you like to sit for a voluntary interview … you know, as a victim?”

This is why I’m way more sympathetic to Pool and Benny’s claims they’re victims than others, who rightly argue they had to have known something sketchy was going on: not because I believe they were that stupid (both could have been, but Pool, who hired Cassandra Fairbanks after she was already tainted as a Sputnik persona, has been swimming in these waters for years). But because DOJ set this up to highly motivate them to position themselves, publicly, as victims and then capitalized on that to take further investigative steps.

But this operation also served to disrupt Russian support of propaganda, which is one of the reasons I view the efforts rolled out last week as an attempt to disrupt ongoing efforts, rather than just an attempt to name-and-shame.

After all, the podcasters (Rubin and Benny had already moved on; the others had not) are out of a hefty paycheck. Tim Pool will either have to find some right wing billionaire to pay wildly inflated rates for his apology for Russia from here on out, or he’ll have to scale back. It might take some weeks to do that. He might even have to give up politicizing the local skateboard park.

By sanctioning RT, among others, upon release of this indictment, not just the Tenet podcasters, but anyone else in the US knowingly on the RT grift, has to drop their gig immediately.

Presumably, a number of other people are doing quietly what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter did quite boisterously last week. Ritter — who, last month, had his house searched — posted that the sanctions on RT meant he had to immediately drop his RT gigs.

Per his claims in a Substack post released since then, Ritter was getting nothing close to what the podcasters were.

Amidst revelations of multi-million dollar deals where influencers were paid $100,000 a week to produce video content, and on-air hosts given million dollar salaries along with other perks, my relationship with Russian state-owned media pales into insignificance, contracted as an outside contributor compensated with what now, by comparison, seems a paltry $250-280 per item published, with the total amount received amounting to less than 7% of my total annual income.

Apparently, my negotiating skills are lacking—rather than insisting that I would not consider any offer under $5 million, I was content with compensation that matched the industry “norm” of between $150-300 per item published. Earlier this year, when RT thought that my interest in contributing had waned, they offered to double the price paid per article; I declined, insisting that we adhere to the letter of our agreement.

And now having done that — having forced people who were being supported by RT to drop their gigs — partners around the world can turn to unpacking similar operations in their own countries.

There are, undoubtedly, other nodes like the Tenet one, both in the US and around the world. This one may have been particularly important to disrupt before the election, because of Chen’s involvement with Turning Point, which will have a key role in Trump’s GOTV.

But whatever she was doing, TPA has cut her off.

As I’ve alluded to a few times, I was sent what I believe to be three of the files Iran puportedly stole from Trump’s team. I received them after I explained why I thought this hack-and-leak was different than the Hillary one in ways that should influence considerations about publishing:

• Trump doesn’t compartment his campaign from his crimes, meaning Iran could be — could have been trying, could have succeeded in — stealing information about the Iran-related documents Trump took when he left the White House. The report that Susie Wiles was the intended target of the hack confirms that risk. In addition to running Trump’s campaign, Wiles decided who would be provided defense attorneys paid by the campaign. Aside from the classified information Trump shared with her, she should never have had anything implicating classified discovery and the classified discovery itself should never have left the SCIFs in which it was provided to defense attorneys. But she is likely to know some of what — for example — witnesses like Kash Patel said about classified information.
• In addition to the hack, Iran allegedly was also trying to solicit a hit squad to kill Trump (indeed, the alleged recruiter, Asif Merchant, was just indicted on Wednesday). That makes the possibility of Iran exploiting internal information from Trump’s campaign (such as travel details) far more dangerous.

I had decided it wasn’t worth participating. And then I got sent files I believe to be those vetting files.

In the last few days, Google has slapped a phishing warning on the files I got sent.

Even though I offered that explanation a month ago, I still get questions from people about why I, and why other outlets, haven’t published the documents.

Don’t get me wrong, other outlets are, without a doubt, exercising a double standard in choosing not to publish these documents, or at least reviewing whether the JD Vance vetting document includes some of the really damning videos surfaced since Trump picked him. It’s not just the Hillary emails in 2016. Every single outlet known to have received these files has also chased the Hunter Biden laptop, even though they never succeeded in implicating Joe Biden in anything found in the laptop. The dick pics were enough to sustain many outlets for a year (and longer, in the case of the NYPost).

But there’s one other big, big difference — one that I think explains the entire difference.

As far as I know, no one in the Kamala Harris campaign is goading journalists to post the documents.

Compare that to 2016, where Trump’s top people were strategizing how to maximize attention on John Podesta’s risotto recipe. Somebody who may be Don Jr was getting all his trolls to push hashtags so “liberal news forced to cover it.” Or 2020, when Trump’s personal lawyer flew around the world, even meeting with known Russian spies, looking for dirt on Joe Biden’s kid. And when a laptop of dick pics dropped in Rudy Giuliani’s lap, like magic, the far right demanded that private social media companies let those dick pics disseminate like wild, because — they claimed — the dissemination of distractions about Hunter Biden was absolutely crucial to Trump’s election strategy.

If I’m right that Kamala Harris has never encouraged journalists to post these documents, there would be a very good reason why not, even beyond the considerable national security risks of encouraging hack-and-leak operations from hostile intelligence services.

Kamala has just 107 days to win an election. And she has a story that she is very very busy telling.

Hack-and-leak operations are about attention, about distraction. If she focused on these stolen documents, she would distract from her own campaign, from the story she is busy telling.

In 2016, Trump used the documents Russia stole to suck up media attention, which served to distract from his own corruption. That’s what he tried in 2020, too. And media outlets have, quite literally, argued that they could avoid accusations of liberal bias by printing error-riddled stories about Hunter Biden, still sucking on that dick pic, three years later.

Hack-and-leak operations help someone like Donald Trump, because too much scrutiny of his own actions might sink his campaign.

But Harris is doing something different than Trump. She’s trying to convince voters that government can improve their lives. She’s trying to convince voters that she cares about their issues and plans to [try to] address them. She needs to sustain their attention long enough to tell that story.

She doesn’t have the time to chase distraction with documents stolen from Trump.

Besides, the press has barely scratched the surface of the corruption or right wing extremism of Trump and his running mate, just sitting in plain sight, such as JD’s claim that we’re still fighting the Civil War and he’s fighting on the side of the south, or Trump rolling out another effort to cash in on his campaign, just weeks before the election.

There’s no shortage of dirt on Donald Trump. Nothing Iran has offered, thus far, at all compares to the stuff sitting out in plain sight.

There is, however, a shortage of time. And wasting time on stolen emails would squander what little time there is.

In the first half of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris raised $361 million in a month and another $47 million in a day.

In the first half of her campaign, Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris and encouraged 400,000 people to register to vote.

In the first half of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris pantsed Donald Trump in a debate, out-TVing a TV pro.

I’ve been tracking the weird timing of this race. Sunday begins the 22nd month that Trump has been running. Because his damn campaign has been going on forever, he’s been plodding through the 92% mark of his campaign for days, stuck in slow-motion.

Today marks the 54th day of Harris’ campaign, with 53 left. Thus begins the second half of her campaign.

There are still things that could unsettle the race. Less than a month ago I listed six things that might yet do so:

• Kamala avoided any violent protests at the DNC (though her campaign also refused to grant a speaking slot to anyone supporting Palestinians, something that could affect her Michigan support).
• There’s no sign of a ceasefire in Israel, and Joe Biden has done little to forestall Israeli actions as they move to the West Bank.
• The debate did turn out to be pretty tumultuous, and it seems to have given Harris a slight boost in the polls — but thus far, it’s not clear how much.
• Between that and a particularly bad outing in New York last week, there is finally increased focus on how unhinged the former President is.
• His attack on immigrants in Springfield has led to political violence; I fear there will be more as Trump gets more desperate.
• Trump won’t be sentenced before the election (which could have helped as much as hurt him), but a superseding indictment will provide prosecutors a way to lay out his alleged crimes two weeks from now, on September 26.

On top of bad campaign news, Trump’s financial plight may begin to dominate headlines. In apparent response to Trump’s debate, his social media company crashed harder than it already was.

Unless the stock crashes some more, Trump can start unloading his Truth Social stock on Thursday. Devin Nunes seems more intent on using it to engage in diplomatic discussions with small Balkan nations.

On Monday, Trump and his failsons (including Barron) will unveil their next grift, a cryptocurrency. As Truth Social was, this is largely an effort to cash in on Trump’s popularity — but doing so significantly depends on winning the election and installing a captive SEC Chair.

If nothing else, the focus on Trump’s grift might finally get the press to focus on how much Trump defrauds his rubes.

Meanwhile, the House GOP is doing what the House GOP does: struggling to keep the government open. There’s a non-zero chance their incompetence, long hidden by supine journalists, will become visible to voters in an epic way in the next few weeks. Trump is rooting for a shutdown in the same way he made the GOP kill the border bill.

Against that background, the things that happen in the last 7.5 weeks of a campaign will happen like they normally do: volunteers will continue to call potential voters, try to get them to commit to voting for Harris, and then start encouraging voters to vote early. Harris will have extra help from unions this year to get out the vote, but she’ll need extra support from lawyers to fight back against Trump’s fuckery.

But even as that’s happening, Harris is still reaching out to new voting groups, which is one reason I’m obsessed about the timing.

The accelerated timeline shrinks the time between the moment something — perhaps an endorsement from some disgusted Republican or seeing Harris’ stature in the debate — leads a voter to first consider the possibility of voting for her and the moment they have to decide. The endorsement by the Cheneys is about creating a permission structure for Republicans to do so — to help them believe they can be patriots even if voting for a Democrat. Swift’s endorsement makes it more likely younger women will make more effort that twenty-somethings normally do to turn out. With more time, the Vice President might convert more voters, might get more voters to decide to show up.

Trump is doing everything he can to help, though, spreading neo-Nazi lies about Haitian immigrants, bringing 9/11 denier Laura Loomer to the 9/11 memorial, and hosting events with Hitler fans who attacked the Capitol at his golf resort.

But at the halfway mark, this race is still neck-and-neck.

Donald Trump is making it more clear what a vote for him would mean. But there are still far too many American voters who want the con he’s selling.