Two items. First, Trump 2020 campaign cancels advertising in key states, and also a reckless indoor campaign stop. What can go wrong? Civil disorders
The "Dumber than a box of rocks" game is not a laughing matter. We will see it duplicated in November 2020, if present trends continue.
We have a confluence of two events. First of all, the Trump campaign is now cancelling advertising in states, and secondly, there was a wildly reckless indoor campaign rally held recently. The two events, especially if rally adherents get sick from Covid 19, are mutually re enforcing and will lead to only voter suppression by the GOP being the only feasible way to eke out a 2020 "win", which would bring on civil violence on a scale not seen since the US Civil war in 1861-1865. We need to see where this is going and to apply the brakes
First the campaign stop
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/insanely-reckless-ex-rnc-spokesperson-rains-hell-on-trump-for-the-single-most-appalling-act-in-presidential-history/
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‘Insanely reckless’: Ex-RNC spokesperson rains hell on Trump for the ‘single most appalling’ act in presidential history
Published 4 hours ago on September 14, 2020
By Tom Boggioni
Donald Trump in Henderson, Nevada -- MSNBC screenshot
In a fiery column for the conservative Bulwark, the former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee absolutely blistered Donald Trump for putting Republican voters at risk by holding an indoor rally in Henderson, Nevada during a deadly pandemic, calling it the worst act by a presidential candidate he has seen in his lifetime.
More to the point he wrote, “Everything about it was f*cking appalling.”
Under a headline reading, “Trump’s Reckless, Atrocious, Deceitful Rally,” Tim Miller quipped that, thankfully, the event was “meagerly attended” which might slow the possible spread of COVID-19 at what he dubbed a “Category 3 minispreader” which followed yet another mostly maskless event the president held days earlier.
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Pointing out that the President knows how dangerous the novel coronavirus is — based upon his taped admission to journalist Bob Woodward – Miller wondered why noted “germophobe” Trump was out mingling with “the screaming plebes,” before rhetorically asking, “Or has his narcissism and deep-seated desire to downplay the virus overwhelmed his germophobia?”
“Seen with fresh eyes, the Henderson rally was truly a shocking and unimaginably wheels-off undertaking given that it came amid a pandemic that is still killing a thousand Americans a day and with wildfires making much of the West Coast uninhabitable,” he wrote before calling the president speech an “interminable harangue” as well as “BORRRRING,” pointing out the president’s rallies “increasingly have the feel of a boring nostalgia act with a lead singer halfheartedly crooning his old hits.”
What is worse, he suggested, was the sheer repulsiveness of the president feeling the need to be adored by his fans even if it might cost them their lives.
Pointing out that Nevada’s Gov. Steve Sisolak called out Trump for holding the event despite warnings it was not in compliance with local health regulations, Miller scorched the president for proceeding nonetheless.
“Everything about it was f*cking appalling,” he wrote. “In fact it was so appalling that it would stand out as the single most appalling and reckless political event hosted by any presidential nominee in my lifetime before yesterday by a long shot, if you just didn’t count anything else that Donald Trump did.”
Adding to that he noted that the public has become “numb” to the many egregious acts committed by the president which makes it even worse.
“Just because we have become immune to his behavior doesn’t mean it should be treated as if it is one side of a two-sided coin. Just because he lies so cavalierly doesn’t mean he should be allowed to get away with it,” he explained. “Just because we have become bored by our #takes and have run out of new and clever angles for analyzing our malign president doesn’t mean we should say nothing at all.”
“All the president’s grotesqueries matter. This is just the latest,” he concluded.
You can read the whole piece here.
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See this, for more:
https://thebulwark.com/trumps-reckless-atrocious-deceitful-rally/
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Trump’s Reckless, Atrocious, Deceitful Rally
The spittle was flying. So were the lies.
by TIM MILLER SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 5:30 AM
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an indoor campaign rally at Xtreme Manufacturing in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 13, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty)
President Trump attempted to hold an unmasked, indoor superspreader event in Henderson, Nevada on Sunday night, running afoul of Nevada regulations and his own administration’s guidelines. (Due to meager turn out, I have taken the liberty to downgrade it to a Category 3 minispreader.) This was Trump’s first indoor rally since the Tulsa disaster that cost Brad Parscale his job and after which Herman Cain lost his life.
This latest public-health monstrosity came on the heels of the president, at a separate maskless gathering earlier in the weekend, mocking his opponent Joe Biden for having followed responsible social-distancing protocols.
I tuned in last night because the president’s brazenness in the face of this obvious public health threat was a curiosity for me. Weren’t we told that he was a germophobe? And didn’t he admit to Bob Woodward that he knew the virus was airborne? So shouldn’t the screaming plebes freak him out a bit? Was the germophobe bit also a lie? Maybe he just didn’t like it when people of color touched him? Or has his narcissism and deep-seated desire to downplay the virus overwhelmed his germophobia?
While I wasn’t delivered any answers on this point, I was reminded about just how absolutely jarring it is that this man is ostensibly at the helm of our government in these trying times.
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For those who have been beaten down by the Trumpian disaster porn, rallies such as this don’t really make a mark any longer. The cable networks and even the three C-SPANs landed on the BORRRRING side of the ledger: None of them chose to air the event. And for political junkies and Trump-watchers, these rallies increasingly have the feel of a boring nostalgia act with a lead singer halfheartedly crooning his old hits. And there’s something to be said for that.
But it is important to take a moment to shake yourself free from the blunting effect of the orange Trumpian film that has subsumed our daily lives (and here in northern California, our atmosphere). Seen with fresh eyes, the Henderson rally was truly a shocking and unimaginably wheels-off undertaking given that it came amid a pandemic that is still killing a thousand Americans a day and with wildfires making much of the West Coast uninhabitable.
And so over the course of the president’s interminable harangue, I began to jot down the moments that stood out, beginning with his foray into the insane #Obamagate conspiracy. As Trump began a side-bar about Obama supposedly being caught spying on him, he eyed an attendee who was beginning a “Lock Him Up” chant. He then egged on the overwhelmingly unmasked crowd into a frenzy in which they projected airborne spittle throughout the building in an attempt to will to life the fantasy that their wannabe strongman president might jail his predecessor, the first black president, for an imaginary crime.
This was not the only coronavirus projectile laden with racial invective emitted by the attendees. Following the removal of a protester—presumably a Black Lives Matter activist, although it wasn’t clear from the video—the crowd began bellowing that oh-so-clever parlay: All Lives Matter. All Lives Matter.
(At this point it should be noted that the CDC recommends a good way to lessen your coronavirus risk is to avoid gatherings with singing or shouting. If you are going to be in such a location, they recommend a mask.)
In addition to basking in the two racist chants, the president said that his opponent is a Communist (“c-word”) who would eliminate the suburbs and allow anarchists to burn down Hispanic businesses. He fabricated a charge about the Democratic governor of Nevada tampering with ballots, declared that football is “boring as hell,” made fun of Chris Cuomo’s ratings, “joked” about running for a third term, and said flag burners should go to jail for one year. He shouted “I love the Hispanics,” lied about what was said at the DNC, reintroduced the bigoted dog-whistle use of and exaggerated emphasis on the middle name of Barack Hussein Obama (which he had told Bob Woodward he only does in private), said that NASA was almost closed before he got into office and had grass growing on the runways (?), and he once again implied support for extrajudicial killings by U.S. marshals. The only time he acknowledged that his campaign event was running afoul of state regs was when he ambiguously implied that he would help attendees if the governor comes after them. He never recommended that the attendees take any health precautions, despite the advance team building in a nice six-foot bubble between him and his fans.
Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak rightly and responsibly took Trump to task for his insanely reckless behavior in holding the rally at all.
But it is easy for those who cover the politics of this to let that slip into a tit-for-tat between two political actors fighting over pandemic politics in an election year.
This event was so much worse than that.
Everything about it was fucking appalling.
In fact it was so appalling that it would stand out as the single most appalling and reckless political event hosted by any presidential nominee in my lifetime before yesterday by a long shot, if you just didn’t count anything else that Donald Trump did.
And that’s the problem. Somewhere along the way he removed many people’s ability to be appalled. We have become numbed. Too many regional news outlets either won’t cover the event at all or will have headlines like “Donald Trump Makes Appeal to Hispanics At Nevada Rally.” The national Democrats will let Gov. Sisolak get in his licks, but otherwise move onto something else.
Just because we have become immune to his behavior doesn’t mean it should be treated as if it is one side of a two-sided coin. Just because he lies so cavalierly doesn’t mean he should be allowed to get away with it. Just because his oh-so-unsubtle race-baiting is part and parcel of his presidency doesn’t mean we should just let All Lives Matter chants pass by the wayside. Just because we have become bored by our #takes and have run out of new and clever angles for analyzing our malign president doesn’t mean we should say nothing at all.
All the president’s grotesqueries matter. This is just the latest.
Tim Miller
Tim Miller is The Bulwark's writer-at-large and a communications consultant. He previously served as senior advisor to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC, communications director for Jeb Bush, and spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
MORE IN 2020
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If this were an on-off event, it would just be more Trump indifference. But we have to factor in that the Campaign is running out of MONEY
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/broke-campaign-cancels-tv-ads-in-three-more-key-states-donald-trump/32312/
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Donald Trump’s broke campaign cancels TV ads in several more key states
Bill Palmer | 4:00 pm EDT September 14, 2020
Last week a bombshell landed which would have dominated the headlines if not for so much else going on. The reelection campaign for the sitting President of the United States has gone broke, to the point that it can’t afford to run TV ads in the swing state of Arizona, and the key people involved with the campaign have been reduced to blaming each other in the media for the evaporating money. Now it’s gotten even uglier.
Bloomberg is reporting that the Trump 2020 campaign has cut its TV advertising budgets in Pennsylvania and Michigan to zero. Tracking site Medium Buying is reporting that the Trump campaign is also canceling its planned TV ads this upcoming week in states including Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada. It’s one thing to not schedule TV ads to begin with, which would suggest a shrinking budget. It’s another to cancel them the day before they’re supposed to begin running, which suggests that the Trump campaign realized it doesn’t even have enough cash on hand to pay for this week’s TV adsMoreover, with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin looking uglier for him, Donald Trump has spent the past several days trying to make up for it by making a long shot play in Nevada – and now he’s even canceling his TV ads in Nevada. It’s not that Trump is shifting his resources. It’s that he’s out of resources. When you’re forced to cancel your ads in the state you just decided is your key to victory, it points to your campaign having close to zero dollars in the bank. The next thing to watch for is whether the Trump campaign begins laying off staffers and/or grumblings begin to surface about staffers not getting their paychecks. If the campaign is this broke, they’re probably struggling to make payroll as well.
end of quote
Again, see this:
https://twitter.com/MediumBuying/status/1305497690344751106
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NEW: The Trump campaign is canceling TV ad schedules that been booked for this week (9/15-9/21) in multiple states including IA, OH and NV
end of quote
What this is leading to.
FTR
The "Dumber than a box of rocks" game is not a laughing matter. We will see it duplicated in November 2020, if present trends continue.
We have a confluence of two events. First of all, the Trump campaign is now cancelling advertising in states, and secondly, there was a wildly reckless indoor campaign rally held recently. The two events, especially if rally adherents get sick from Covid 19, are mutually re enforcing and will lead to only voter suppression by the GOP being the only feasible way to eke out a 2020 "win", which would bring on civil violence on a scale not seen since the US Civil war in 1861-1865. We need to see where this is going and to apply the brakes
A. Trump is using the resources of the FEDERAL government to fly to "private " in house rallies, in order to get the adulation he craves, regardless of the risk to attendees. Once people get sick, of Covid 19, the legal problems will take off, regardless of what waivers attendees sign to enter the "events"
B. In order to remain competitive in battleground states, Trump will have to generate incidences which he can inflame via introduction of federal manpower to inflame disputes further, since he lacks the cash to conventionally campaign in many places
C. Further attacks on mail based voting will continue regardless of the fact many GOP officials have tried to enlighten Trump of, namely that his base will ALSO cut back on voting if they fear for their lives in terms of voting in person.
The outlook? A perfect storm for October to November of electioneering violence and mayhem as both sides have voters unwilling to commit to in person voting at a time of a raging pandemic, and Trump ratcheting up propaganda as to alleged "stealing" of the election from him,
Not good
Andrew Beckwith, PhD