An Unfinished Sketch (Trumping the Polls)

[An unfinished sketch of a post; the text file says 13 October. This is just how it goes sometimes; it’s exhausting trying to keep up―you might have noticed we haven’t. Still, herein we find a glimpse of the moment, recorded for the sake of the historical record, and, you know, not really so much my ego, since this could have afforded some better planning and writing.]

The Donald Trump Show (Blood & Cannon)

It is not entirely certain just how we ought to take James Oliphant’s headline for Reuters, “Trump may have stopped the bleeding, but not the worrying”. The lede is one of those double-takes, not because it is unbelievable but because it seems worth checking to make certain you read it correctly:

Donald Trump may have done just enough in Sunday’s presidential debate to keep his leaky presidential campaign afloat―and that may have put Republicans considering abandoning him in an even tougher position.

It is, in fact, a reasonable thesis but not exactly reflective of the headline. Indeed, the most curious thing about bleeding is just how the Trump campaign is bleeding, or not, might well be the section header, “Red Meat for the Base”, describing the last third of the article, and here Oliphant brings the point home:

Against this backdrop of panic and condemnation, Trump on Sunday sought to rally the party’s base with a fresh barrage of provocative attacks on Clinton that will give the media something other than the tape to talk about.

He offered a blistering critique of her handling of foreign policy while the country’s chief diplomat and brought his rally cry for her to be jailed to the debate stage. He also carried out a threat to make an issue of her husband’s sexual history.

In doing so, Trump may have stopped the bleeding, but he did nothing to stop the worrying.

The base. Donald Trump stopped the bleeding, but not the worrying, among his base? Suddenly the lede, with Mr. Trump having “done just enough” to “keep his leaky presidential campaign afloat”, seems nearly an overstatement. That is to say: What counts as afloat?

About as Bad an Idea as You Might Think

So …

Less than a week before its official launch on Wednesday, Bernie Sanders’ new political group is working its way through an internal war that led to the departure of digital director Kenneth Pennington and at least four others from a team of 15, and the return of presidential campaign manager Jeff Weaver as the group’s new president.

(Dovere and Debenedetti)

… the thing is that I ought to have been thrilled by Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. He announced the day before my forty-second birthday; what a gift, right? Until the Bern scorched the landscape, most people thought of me as something of a leftist. It’s a little hard to tell anyone what to think of that notion at present, but I am and remain a cynical revolutionary, and thus the decision to wait, to see what Bernie brought before jumping on the bandwagon, feels more than simply justified.

What It Comes To (Burying Hillary Edition)

Poe’s Law in effect:

As President Obama enters the uninhibited twilight of his presidency, some of what we are witnessing from him is shocking yet informative. In the past week, Obama’s words and actions have revealed the thought process behind how policy decisions are made in his administration. Some of these recent incidents demand urgent responses from our Republican leaders, who are obligated to oppose the president when he crosses the line. But also, Republicans need to do what they can to pull Hillary Clinton into the fray. She has been getting a pass while Obama lurches to the left and Republicans generate distracting headlines.

Conservative lobbyist Ed Rogers opens with a curious paragraph, the sort of … something, I can’t exactly say what … that at the very least suggests what follows will not be the standard pabulum punditry.

And yet, it is, or, rather, both is and isn’t. It is, in fact, Poe’s Law―the proposition that in written discourse it can become impossible to distinguish between genuine extremism and a parody thereof―in effect.

First, the president’s comments Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast were jaw-dropping. He said, “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” Why would the president tell the Islamic State, a terrorist group, that he is keeping its actions in perspective? This is an incredible and alarming statement; Republicans need to voice their strong objections and force Democrats to state whether or not they agree with the president. And as the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, Clinton should also let us know where she stands. Does she think today’s actions and sentiments toward the Islamic State should be shaped by the Muslim-Christian battles of more than 900 years ago? Does she also want us to keep those battles in mind, get off our high horse and temper our objections to the Islamic State?

The first thing to note is the weird contextual shift; the second is the odd presentation. As Steve Benen noted of other conservative rhetoric on the issue:

Neither Fleming nor Bolling were kidding. This wasn’t satire intended to make conservatives look foolish; the recordings of both of men make clear they were entirely sincere.

There is a relevant point even in addition to the Poe context.