DEMOCRATS NEED TO GIVE DISILLUSIONED TRUMP VOTERS AN OFF-RAMP

A couple of months ago, I told you that the "crazification factor" -- the percentage of Americans who will support any Republican, however deranged -- is no longer 27%, as many people have believed since the original Kung Fu Monkey blog post on this subject twenty years ago, but is now closer to 40%. I feel vindicated -- and extremely frustrated -- when I read this in The New York Times:

President Trump’s efforts to send National Guard troops to big cities, punish media organizations and pressure universities and private businesses are all unpopular with voters.

But the continued torrent of policies and tactics has not further weakened Mr. Trump’s overall standing, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena University. Instead, Mr. Trump continues to retain the support of roughly nine out of 10 Republican voters.

The net result: an unpopular president with an unchanged approval rating of 43 percent.

After the madness of the last few months -- the Times story doesn't even mention the stonewalling on the Jeffrey Epstein case by the White House and congressional Republicans -- Trump's numbers are essentially unchanged.

And it's not just the Times. Trump's approval rating is 45% according to the polling average at Real Clear Polling. According to Nate Silver's average, Trump is at 43.5% approval. Newsweek's average has him at 43%. The Cook Political Report's average has him at 42.6%. G. Elliott Morris's average has him at 42.0%. The Economist's average has him at 40%.

Could Trump go lower? Could the crazification factor change? I think it's unlikely, but it's possible.

I think some voters are on the fence right now regarding Trump -- they're dissatisfied with the way things are going in America (the right track/wrong track numbers in the Times poll are 36%/58%), but on every issue they see Trump doing something, even if it's something they don't like, and from the Democrats they not only see nothing being done (understandably, because Democrats have no power), they don't see a wide-ranging alternative vision.

Last week, I read the transcript of a Times focus group consisting of eleven disaffected Trump voters under the age of 35. Asked for the first word that comes to mind when they think of Trump, the participants said, "Aggressive," "Overpowering" "Reckless," and "The way that he’s been handling things recently, dictatorship." When asked "how things are going in America these days," where "1 means Everything’s a complete disaster and 5 means Everything is incredible," they all gave low or middling ratings: 2 or 3.

They're unhappy -- but they don't like Democrats. Yet they don't have strong arguments explaining what they dislike. To some extent, it comes down to vibes. Here's one response, from a participant named Juan:

I feel like they have a lack of identity and a lack of leadership. I feel like the Republican Party does have a better icon, in Donald Trump, with the ideology and the idealism behind him. You know what he stands for. With the Democratic Party’s, they don’t have that leader. I feel like the last person to really have that role was like Obama. Currently, right now, aside from A.O.C. and Bernie, I really don’t see anybody even who has a major exposure or brand behind the Democratic Party. Their vision of the future seems very negative to a lot of people. And I like them, I personally like them. I’m independent. I actually think they have a lot of great points. But they’re negatively viewed. The party has a lack of leadership.

The focus group is maddening because the participants seem very poorly informed, even by Times focus group standards. But this answer suggests a direction forward for Democrats.

It seems clear that Juan just wants someone who seems like a leader. Finding someone like that can be a matter of luck -- Barack Obamas (and '90s-vintage Bill Clintons) don't come along every day.

But party leaders and influencers seem to recoil in horror from Democrats with big personalities -- Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett. What's more, the party's consultants don't want the D.C. leaders -- Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries -- to seem like leaders on a range of issues.

A Democrat who seemed like a leader would have a ready answer for every political question. The leader would have strong opinions and would present them in a compelling fashion.

But Democratic consultants don't want the party's leaders to talk about everything -- in fact, they don't want the party's leaders to talk about most things. They want them to pivot to a narrow range of kitchen-table issues whenever they're asked about issues the consultants don't regard as kitchen-table.

I think the reason Donald Trump's approval rating in the polling averages never goes below 43% or 44%, despite widespread national discontent, is that many voters aren't ready to reject him without an off-ramp -- they'd feel more comfortable washing their hands of Trump if they saw an opposition leader they felt had the strength, wisdom, and stability to begin extricating us from this mess. They want a strong leader -- but Democratic consultants want Democrats to appear inoffensive, not strong.

I know there are people who believe that Democrats need a "shadow cabinet" of people who can articulate alternatives to Trumpism on their respective subjects. That might be helpful -- but I think voters might want to see one leader who has compelling ideas on many issues.

That person will also need to find a way to break through. The leader will need to be less polite than, say, Pete Buttigieg, but maybe not as gonzo as Gavin Newsom, or at least Gavin Newsom's current online persona. The ideas need to be provocative and unapologetic, as I was saying yesterday.

It's a lot to ask, and maybe it's not even possible. But someone needs to try to break through. At the very least, every prominent Democrat can work toward this end by avoiding mealy-mouthed generalities (looking at you, Jeffries and Schumer) and offering concrete alternatives to Trump's policies.

IF DEMOCRATS TAKE STRONG ECONOMIC STANDS, THEY CAN STOP BEING DEFINED BY THEIR ENEMIES

There's a good op-ed in The New York Times right now. It's written by a historian named Timothy Shenk, and it appears under the surprising-for-the-Times headline "Democrats Are in Crisis. Eat-the-Rich Populism Is the Only Answer." Shenk considers the campaigns of two candidates. One is Dan Osborn, an independent who came close to beating an incumbent Republican senator, Deb Fischer, in blood-red Nebraska last year, and who's now running for Nebraska's other Senate seat. The other is Zohran Mamdani, who's on track to be elected mayor of New York in November.

Shenk writes:

In 2024, while Donald Trump demolished Kamala Harris by 20 points, Mr. Osborn lost by just 7. According to the analytics website Split Ticket, this was the strongest performance relative to the partisan fundamentals of any Senate candidate.

What was Mr. Osborn’s secret? ... he was a credible spokesman for a message that resonated with voters in Nebraska — a blistering assault on economic elites, a moderate stance on cultural issues and the rejection of politics as usual.

Now, think about the biggest story of the 2025 election season, Zohran Mamdani’s come-from-nowhere victory in the New York City mayoral primary. From the start, Mr. Mamdani positioned himself as a fresh face confronting a dysfunctional system on behalf of ordinary New Yorkers struggling to pay their bills. He’s the happy class warrior blessed with Andrew Cuomo as his foil, a convenient stand-in for a corrupt and clueless establishment.

Shenk's conclusion:

It’s a simple recipe, really: a scorching economic message delivered by political outsiders standing up to the powerful. The villains in this narrative — and it’s essential to have villains — are the elites at the top of a broken system.... [Osborn and Mamdani] tell a story that reframes the debate, enlisting voters in a battle between the many and the few, with stakes that reach into everyday life.

I want Democrats (and others) to pursue eat-the-rich politics because it's the right thing to do -- the rich have too damn much money, and everyone else is struggling. But Shenk is right to say that this is also good politics, though I'm not sure we agree exactly on why. He writes, somewhat sneeringly:

There’s no mistaking Mr. Osborn for a typical Democrat. He regularly appears in shirtsleeves and jeans on the campaign trail, looking like he’s taking a break from fixing Pete Buttigieg’s Subaru.

Elsewhere, Shenk writes about another candidate who wants to win a Senate seat currently held by a Republican:

“I want to tear the Democratic Party down and build it back up from the studs,” said Nathan Sage, a self-described “child of a trailer park” running for the Senate in Iowa.

But Mamdani doesn't fit that profile at all. Shenk writes:

Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Osborn might not seem like they have much, or anything, in common — the child of an award-winning director and an Ivy League professor; the other a college dropout turned labor leader.

Osborn's usual attire is work shirts and worn denim, but Mamdani wears suits -- it's hard to imagine him repairing anyone's Subaru. And yet his opponents haven't succeeded in making the elitism charge stick (though Eric Adams and the Murdoch press sure tried).

It's not just because New York City is more white-collar than Nebraska. It's because Mamdani has taken big, bold stands. When you do that, you become known as The Guy Who Wants to Freeze the Rent and Make the Buses Free. You make your image, not the haters. They can try to use Fox News stereotypes on you, but if your positions are memorable, that's what people will remember about you.

Shenk tells us,

Neither Mr. Mamdani nor Mr. Osborn dwelled on cultural issues; instead, they concentrated on subjects like increasing wages and affording a home.

But Mamdani has been open about his LGBTQ allyship. A couple of months ago, he appeared on a web series answering gay trivia questions.



Mam,dani has said that "New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people" and pleadged $65 million for trans healthcare. And yet he's not seen as a candidate who's stressing cultural issues because his economic message is bold.

Shenk doesn't mention Graham Platner, an insurgent Senate candidate in Maine who's a military veteran and an oysterman, and who's also denouncing the oligarchy.

My name is Graham Platner and I’m running for US Senate to defeat Susan Collins and topple the oligarchy that’s destroying our country. I’m a veteran, oysterman, and working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people. And that makes me deeply angry.

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— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 8:37 AM

While Platner doesn't "dwell on cultural issues," he hasn't shied away from the them when asked about them. Just the opposite:

On LGBTQIA+ rights, Platner made one of his most pointed responses: “I stand right in the f***ing way of anyone who’s going to try to come after the freedoms of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

He's running for the seat currently held by Susan Collins. He says that “Susan Collins is a tool of the billionaire class,” adding, “We ALL agree we’re all getting f***ed by the system.” When that's your main message, that's what people will remember about you. You define yourself; they can try running an ad against you saying you're "for they/them," rather than "for us," but even some transphobes will ignore it because they see you primarily as a person who wants to fight for "us."

Establishment Democrats don't want to take bold stances, which leaves them vulnerable: if they don't say anything memorable about themselves or their positions, opponents will choose a hot-button issue and make that what voters remember about them. To some extent, that's what happened to Kamala Harris, and it's what's happening to the party in general. People think Democrats care only about cultural issues because most Democrats have no memorable positions on other issues. That leaves their enemies free to portray them as caring more about pronouns than grocery bills. But if you take a strong stand on issues that matter to everyone, you can also take strong stands on cultural issues. More Democrats need to recognize this.

IF THE PARTIES WERE REVERSED, WE'D BE ON THE VERGE OF MEDBED-GHAZI

So this happened:

President Donald Trump shared a bizarre AI video to social media in which he’s seen promoting “med beds” — a far-right conspiracy involving a magical bed that can supposedly heal any sickness.

In a post to his Truth Social platform late Saturday night, Trump shared a phony, AI-generated Fox News clip in which he’s seen rolling out this magic technology to hospitals nationwide.

“Every American will soon receive their own medbed card,” AI Trump said. “With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world.”

Trump tonight appears to have pushed the false "medbed" conspiracy theory, which has spread in the far-right internet over the years. www.yahoo.com/news/qanon-c...

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— Alex Kaplan (@alkapdc.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 11:14 PM

In 2022, the Daily Beast's Kelly Weill reported:

An increasingly popular conspiracy theory falsely centers around the existence of “med beds,” a fabled medical instrument that does everything from reversing aging to regrowing missing limbs. The theory has grown in popularity among followers of far-right movements like QAnon, some of whom claim to be urgently awaiting a med bed to treat severe health conditions....

Some QAnon sects have made med beds central to their conspiratorial claims. A Dallas-based group, which follows the Q influencer Michael “Negative 48” Protzman, has promoted med beds, in part because the devices address a plot hole in another conspiracy theory. The group falsely believes that John F. Kennedy is still alive and youthful, and attributes his remarkable longevity to the curative powers of med beds.

It's not clear where Trump found this video. Gizmodo's Matt Novak writes,

The video Trump posted says a Medbed card will be available soon. I haven’t found where the video originated, but medbedcard. com is a scam website selling some kind of bullshit card for hundreds of dollars.

Why did Trump post this? Is this a sign of dementia?

I don't think so. Every so often, Trump reaches out to the QAnon community. He seems to want to keep the Q people on his side without firmly committing to their ideology. Alternately, he half-watched this video and thought it cast him in a good light -- as a provider of good things -- so he told his aides, What the hell, post that, too. (His other posts last night included a video of his appearance at a golf tournament, headlined "Trump Arrives to Massive Applause at Ryder Cup." He'll apparently post anything that makes him look beneficent or beloved.)

I don't see Trump's embrace of this medical crackpottery as a sign of dementia -- but maybe Democrats should start demanding answers.

If President Biden had posted a video about a bed said to be capable of regrowing limbs, every Republican in Congress would be demanding answers from the White House about Biden's cognitive state. Prominent Republicans would announce hearings on "Medbed-gate" -- or, if they were in the minority, would demand congressional oversight and ask what Democrats were covering up. This would be a weeklong story (at least) on Fox News. Before long, pundits at The New York Times and The Atlantic would be asking whether it was time to use the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

Democrats could try to make this a big story now. They could play the dementia angle, and also the quackery angle (this is consistent with many other steps the administration is taking to advance dubious medical ideas over solid science). Republicans would counter that Trump was just joking -- can't humorless libs take a joke? At that point, maybe a few Democratic-leaning joke writers and comedians could weigh in and say, I know comedy. Where's the joke?

Many people on our side believe that Democrats need to have a narrow message focused on "kitchen-table issues," and think everything else is a "distraction." Or maybe they believe that everything is a distraction from the Epstein files. Whichever version they prefer, they agree on one thing: Democrats shouldn't talk about anything apart from a highly select group of issues.

That's ridiculous. Trump's messaging successes are proof that Americans can focus on multiple issues in the course of day. (Given what the internet has done to our attention spans, this was inevitable.) I think Democrats should focus on the important stuff -- but they should also focus on anything Trump does or says that makes him look ridiculous or that's wildly unpopular. Invading Greenland. The Gulf of America. That kind of thing. When Trump makes himself look like an idiot, Democrats should draw as much attention as possible to it. That might soften middle-of-the-road voters up for more serious critiques of Trump.

Democrats should try to turn this into Medbed-ghazi. What have they got to lose?

*****

UPDATE: Trump's post has been deleted.

NEITHER THE OLD OBAMA NOR A NEW OBAMA WILL SAVE US, EZRA

Because I'm a masochist, I read the transcript of David Remnick's interview of Ezra Klein for The New Yorker Radio Hour. What I wasn't really expecting was how obsessed both Klein and Remnick are with Barack Obama. They imply that he, or at least his style of politics, could unite us now, even though they acknowledge that he didn't succeed at doing that when he was president.

One of the first things Klein says about Obama is flat-out wrong -- self-evidently wrong.

Obama’s a very, very effective politician because he’s very good at containing opposites inside of him.... He was very good at having a sense that, if you’re going to push the country, you also need to create space in yourself—in your political movement, in your rhetoric—for the disagreement, for the concern, for the pushback. He was this generationally capable political balancer, holding both our liberalism and our illiberalism inside himself.

We know this is sheer nonsense because we're living in the Trump era. Is Trump able to "push the country"? Of course. Does Trump "create space in [him]self—in [his] political movement, in [his] rhetoric—for the disagreement, for the concern, for the pushback"? Not only does Trump not do this, he literally wants to make disagreeing with him illegal. So while Obama's approach was nice, and somewhat popular, and able to get a few things accomplished, it's absolutely not the only way to do politics successfully -- and it's questionable whether it would work at all in this era.

Klein and Remnick think Democrats' original sin was Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" speech.

Trump rises and you have, say, the Hillary Clinton “deplorables” speech, which is—

Which was a deplorable speech.

The worst word in that speech is “irredeemable.” She says that people voting for Trump are “irredeemable.” When you begin to talk like that, it’s a severing of political community.

Imagine believing that Hillary Clinton was the primary person "severing ... political community" in 2016.

Some of us remember that America's "political community" was being "severed" years earlier -- by the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Fox News. Klein was a youthful blogger back then -- he should remeber this.

Remnick, at least, understands that Obama failed to heal our politcal rift. Klein talks about the post-Obama period as a fall from grace, and Remnick questions him on that:

... one of my most strongly held views about politics is that the most important question for voters is not whether they like the politician, but whether the politician likes them. If voters are going to trust you with power, the first thing they’re concerned about is not whether they agree with you. The first thing is whether or not they feel you like them, and will take them into consideration.

But do you think any of that was centered on Obama himself?

Oh, there’s no doubt.

Why? Because of his character?

Because he was Black and foreign to people.

There you go.

But it wasn't just that. Obama was relentlessly othered by Republican Party's army of propagandists -- as a Marxist, as a jihadist, and more recently as a phony heterosexual with a trans wife.

Through no fault of his own, Obama is still regarded as an embodiment of extremist evil on the right. A Reddit poster has reproduced the text of a fundraising letter from Elise Stefanik, who's running in next year's New York governor's race, probably against the Democratic incumbent, Kathy Hochul:

Ever since he left the White House, Barack Obama has been looking for an “heir” to his political movement who will continue pushing his Far Left, socialist vision for America.

In other words, he’s looking for the *NEXT* Obama!

He’s reportedly considered several Democrat politicians over the years, including Kamala Harris before her disastrous defeat last November.

Now, it appears he’s finally found his “heir”...

According to communist Zohran Mamdani himself, he’s spoken to Obama “a number of times” on the phone to strategize about his campaign and begin planning what he’ll do in office.

Obama’s advice? Per CNN:

“You’ve got the inspiration part down, the former president told Zohran Mamdani, but there’s a lot riding on governing.”

Obama is no longer just giving Mamdani advice on how to run – he’s started coaching him on how to govern as a Leftist and pass a Far Left agenda!

Mamdani on his own was dangerous enough. But with training from Obama and the backing of his political machine, he’s a formidable adversary who’s got much bigger ambitions than just mayor of New York.

(Mamdani was born in Uganda, so he can't be president. Stefanik, a Harvard graduate who seemed intelligent and informed before she dumbed down her act to win the favor of Trump voters, undoubtedly knows that. But she knows that most of the recipients of this letter don't.)

[NAME], knowing what you know now, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to stop the rise of Obama before he got into a position of power?

Well, this is our chance to STOP the next Obama!

As the most senior elected Republican in New York, I am making a solemn pledge to you right now: I will fight with every fiber of my being to stop Mamdani and FIRE Governor Kathy Hochul who singlehandedly enabled his rise to power.

Hochul, of course, did not "singlehandedly enable" Mamdani's "rise to power." It took her weeks to endorse him after his primary victory.

Nevertheless, you can understand why Stefanik would want to tie Hochul to Mamdani in order to motivate Republican donors. But why bring Obama into this?

Because for all Obama's efforts to "create space in" himself "for the disagreement, for the concern, for the pushback," Republicans still hate him and think he's the epitome of left-wing extremism. Obama's efforts to heal the divide failed, because the Republican Party doesn't want it healed.

In the interview, Klein says,

The idea that a country as big and diverse, with as much political argumentation and division as we have, was actually doing the work of democracy, doing the work of politics—that’s actually amazing. And I think Obama wasn’t able to keep that story going, and nobody kept it going after him.

He blames -- yes, really -- social media:

One of the ways I view politics is that the communication mediums upon which it happens are very determinative of what then becomes powerful and popular and energetic. The move to social media and algorithmic media was really a move toward a style of political communication that is somewhat hostile to the liberal project and the deliberative, open-minded, thoughtful, on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand mode of discourse that Obama is good at. He’s bad at Twitter. You ever read Obama on Twitter? It’s not his thing. Trump is good at Twitter.

You know what else is "hostile to the liberal project and the deliberative, open-minded, thoughtful, on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand mode of discourse"? Every form of right-wing media since at least the Clinton era.

It's modish to say that social-media algorithms created bubbles for everyone who follows politics. But right-wingers have been living in a self-imposed media bubble since the 1990s. They stopped believing anyone except their favorite radio talkers and Fox pundits. They started to believe everything in the "liberal media" was fake news even before they started using the term "fake news."

Obama could only fight that to a draw. And a post-presidential Obama, or a new Obama, won't persuade us to be nice to one another again, because the GOP smear machine won't allow it.

THEY'RE MAKING THEIR MOVE TO CRIMINALIZE PEACEFUL OPPOSITION

I have a busy day today, so this is a hasty post, but I want to say that the most important thing that happened yesterday wasn't the indictment of James Comey -- it was the release of a presidential memorandum titled "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence." You can read it at the White House website, and you should -- it's terrifying.

I don't have time today to give you a close read, but here are some passages from the memo, closely read by Jeff Sharlet, a journalist, professor, and author, most recently, of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War.

From Trump's "terror" memo. It's critical to recognize & name the bait-&-switch: Using real acts of violence to attack the much greater strength of left organizations dedicated to building systemic rule-of-law resistance that is the opposite of violence.

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— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 5:41 PM

The kry point here is the administration's argument that violent acts like the Charlie Kirk assassination and the shooting at the Dallas ICE facility are organized political violence, planned in advance by liberal and left groups. You and I know that any twentysomething young man with the usual red-state access to guns and a head full of online brain poisoning can decide to shoot someone, and all that's needed beyond the gun and bullets is gas money. But the regime says it's all planned and financed by a shadowy "Antifa," and that's now the official policy of the U.S. government. And tens of millions of right-wing voters think that makes perfect sense.

And the imaginary co-conspirators aren't just groups that dole out money:

The “to” in Trump’s terror memo is doing terrifying work. Grammatically, it makes murder the intention of critique. So if I taught in my “educational institution” that Trump’s attack on rule-of-law is unprecedented—aka “isolated”—by this memo I could be accused of justifying murder.

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— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 6:33 PM

Key words in this clause of Trump terror memo are “trespass” and “civil disorder.” Rest is objectively or ostensibly illegal. But these terms bring under the “terrorism” umbrella something as simple as, say, sitting in front of an ICE entrance. Or, for that matter, just chanting from the sidewalk.

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— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 6:51 PM

From the Trump Terror Memo. Have you ever donated to a left org with a credit card? Get ready. This doesn’t mean they’re coming for you. It means if they want to come for you, you’re already cooked.

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— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 7:02 PM

I don't think he's exaggerating. As I said yesterday, the regime wants to define all criticism as incitement to violence. Its main target -- because Trump and everyone else in the White House want themselves and their allies to run America forever -- is liberal groups.

The point of this passage in the Trump terror memo—a major document—isn’t kicking down doors. It’s bleeding left nonprofits dry, a double whammy effect: crush the organizers, leading everyday people to believe organizing isn’t possible, that maybe they withered because they were wrong.

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— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 7:06 PM

Those groups could include the opposition party.

Speculation, but I don’t think it’s off the table that within a year or two state Democratic Party orgs could be designated terror orgs according to Trump’s terror memo. The point will be to make examples, and compel submission.

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— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 7:23 PM

The administration's argument is that every act of political violence by a person expressing views we'd call liberal or left-wing was undoubtedly financed and unquestionably inspired by left-leaning organizations and individuals enaged in fund-raising, protest, and ordinary political speech. If the administration follows through on this, it's the end of multi-party democracy and basic civil liberties in America, and that's not an exaggeration.

Sharlet's assessment of the document appears in essay form on his Substack. Everyone in America who appreciates our basic freedoms should be as alarmed as he is.

THE REGIME AND ITS ALLIES WANT TO DEFINE ALL CRITICS AS ACCESSORIES TO MURDER

Here's a September 17 press release from the Department of Homeland Security:

DHS Calls for Media and Far Left to Stop the Demonization of President Trump, His Supporters, and DHS Law Enforcement

... Following the evil act of political violence witnessed in the country last week and two attempts to resist arrest resulting in severe injuries of ICE law enforcement officers—one being drug by a car and another hit by a car....

It's "dragged," not "drug." But go on:

DHS is calling on the media, leftist groups, and sanctuary politicians to end their demonizing DHS law enforcement. This hateful rhetoric is inspiring political violence in our country and assaults against our brave DHS law enforcement.

Examples follow, including Representative Jasmine Crockett saying, "When I see ICE, I see slave patrols," and Representative Stephen Lynch calling ICE agents "thugs." This memo doesn't have the force of law, but it's an attempt to establish the premise that harsh speech inevitably leads to political violence, with the implication that criticism of the administration is stochastic terrorism -- a call to violence -- by definition.

Vice President J.D. Vance, who once speculated that Trump might be "America's Hitler," now says that silencing harsh criticsm of the regime will end political violence:

Vance: "If you want stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 24, 2025 at 2:27 PM

If you want stop political violence, stop attacking our law enforcement as the Gestapo. If you want stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi. If you want stop political violence, look in the mirror.

But it's not just government officials saying this. Here's Stephen Miller's wife promoting her podcast by telling Fox's Jesse Watters that political violence is caused by ... buskers.

Katie Miller: If we don't shut down the "hippies" singing songs criticizing fascism, it will lead to "another Tyler Robinson."

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— Craig R. Brittain (@craigbrittain.com) September 24, 2025 at 12:18 PM

The key moment, at 0:58:

JESSE WATTERS: When you see the singing, as a political operative, do you think hippies singing songs about Nazis is effective?

KATIE MILLER: That type of rhetoric, the ones that maybe they are not the assassins, but they are surely inspiring the next assassin, they're inspiring the next Tyler Robinson, to come out of his hole, come out of his couch, come out of his transgender relationship, and assassinate someone else, another one of my friends, because when you don't shut that behavior down, that's what it leads to.

The wife of the most powerful adviser to the president of the United States thinks that when people sing protest songs, the government, or some unidentified "we," needs to "shut that behavior down," because "surely" it's directly responsible for acts of political violence.

On Fox, the net is cast even wider. There was a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas yesterday, apparently committed by a young man whose favorite screen activities were video games and 4chan shitposting rather than watching late-night legacy-network television. Nevertheless, Fox's Bill Hemmer asserted that the shooter's main accomplice was Jimmy Kimmel:

The now-deceased shooter who targeted a Dallas, Texas, ICE facility wrote “anti-ICE” messages on his rounds, according to the FBI.

... during the opinion program Outnumbered, [Hemmer] closed a segment focused on the shooting and the anti-ICE message they reported contained.

“This is why Jimmy Kimmel needed to say, ‘I’m sorry. And he didn’t.'” Hemmer insisted, tying the anti-ICE violence to Kimmel’s controversial monologue from Tuesday night. “And he needs to. He needs to call Erica Kirk and talk to her. And he needs to go on his program and say, I had this lovely conversation with this grieving widow. And this is what we discussed. That’s the proper way you manage this. And that did not happen.”

“This is why Jimmy Kimmel needed to say I’m sorry.” Fox News host Bill Hemmer tries to connect ICE shooting to Jimmy Kimmel.

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— Mike Sington (@mikesington.bsky.social) September 24, 2025 at 1:52 PM

But Trump's allies reserve the right to call for violence whenever they please. Fox, in particular, seems eager to establish the premise that Trump's allies can directly recommend violent reprisals against their opponents without consequence, while Trump's critics should be seen as terrorists when they simply denounce the administration harshly. You have to wonder whether Fox's Brian Kilmeade was given the assignment of saying that homeless people should be executed if they refuse treatment, a remark for which he later apologized under pressure.



Subsequently, we had Fox's Jesse Watters (yes, him again) recommending lethal force at the UN in response to alleged equipment malfunctions during Trump's appearance there:

Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested bombing and gassing the United Nations over escalator and teleprompter issues

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— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 5:42 PM

Watters says, "What we need to do is either leave the UN or we need to bomb it. It is in New York, though, right? There could be some fallout there. Maybe gas it?"

Of course, it's long been permissible to recommend violence against institutions that are liberal-coded. Recall that in 2002, at the height of her career, Ann Coulter told an interviewer for The New York Observer, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

If you talk that way about liberal-coded institutions, you're seen as merely cheeky and "politically incorrect." Coulter had multiple New York Times bestsellers after that, and was a regular Bill Maher guest. But at the time, no one from the White House seemed prepared to jail anyone who called George W. Bush a fascist. We have no such assurance now.

CONSULTANTS ARE KILLING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY -- AND MAYBE DEMOCRACY

This chart ought to terrify every Washington Democrat:

The poll is here.

Respondents were asked about eleven issues and said that Republicans have better plans on seven of them. At a time when Americans appear to have moved to the right on immigration, and increasingly fear crime even as it drops nationwide, I can understand Republicans having leads on those issues. But foreign conflicts, when President Trump has failed to end any of the major conflicts he promised to end as soon as he took office? The economy, which Trump is destroying? Political extremism? Corruption? Seriously?

Democrats have a slight lead on respect for democracy, and significant leads on healthcare, women's rights, and the environment.

A commenter at Threads says:

The key takeaway is that Democrats have a pronounced cultural perception problem

No, this isn't a sign that Democrats have a pronounced cultural perception problem. This is a sign that Democrats have a pronounced "Our consultants say that whatever question we're asked, we should ignore the subject and pivot to healthcare" problem.

As you may recall, last month one of the Democrats' top consultants, David Shor, published a memo urging party members not talk about Trump's military takeover of the streets of D.C. The memo said (click to enlarge):

Polling shows that Trump's militarization of cities is unpopular:

But Shor's advice to D.C. Democrats was to drop the subject and pivot to healthcare or tariffs as quickly as possible, so that's what they did.

They still pivot, on everything. Here's Al Sharpton asking Hakeem Jeffries about his decision to defy the wishes of the Congressional Black Caucus by voting in favor of a House resolution honoring racist influencer Charlie Kirk.

I don't think this a very good argument for voting to honor a man who thought Jim Crow should have stayed legal. democraticleader.house.gov/media/press-...

[image or embed]

— Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 12:16 PM

Jeffries answers the question, but it's a conditioned reflex for him now -- ask him about anything other than the narrow range of issues he feels he's allowed to talk about, and he pivots to "we're not going to let Republicans divide us or distract us from the mission of protecting the healthcare of the American people."

It's simple: If D.C. Democrats won't talk about any issue other than healthcare, voters won't think they have good plans on anything other than healthcare. (Well, and also women's rights and the environment, two issues voters assume Democrats are better on because they're coded "liberal.") Maybe, in the moment, David Shor's focus-group participants respond better to the "pivot" messages. But in the long run, they respond poorly to a party that doesn't seem to want to talk about most issues that are in the headlines.

The Reuters poll is terrible for Trump personally -- he's at 41% approval, 58% disapproval. Also:

Only 35% of poll respondents approved of Trump's stewardship over the economy, and 28% gave him a thumbs up on his handling of their cost of living, with both readings slightly lower than in previous polls.

So why don't these negative feelings extend to the GOP? Because Democrats never attack the Republican Party as a party, even though they're in lockstep with Trump on everything. In fact, Democrats endlessly sing the praises of bipartisanship -- and while that might be what swing voters want, it also conveys the impression that Democrats agree with Republicans that Republicans are good people who can be trusted with government power. Combine this with Democrats' many attacks on fellow party members (as too "woke," too focused on pronouns, and so on), and of course Republicans emerge unscathed.

The only hope for saving democracy in America is a forceful campaign to insist upon fair elections in 2026 and a concerted effort to hold the entire GOP accountable for its own actions since January 20. But the consultants will undoubtedly tell D.C. Democrats not to try either of those things, and our efforts to save democracy could die of consultancy.

NO, TRUMP WILL NOT BE REPLACED AS THE LEADER OF MAGA BY JESUS

This hot take by the Daily Beast's David Rothkopf is one of the dumber things I've read in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death:

The MAGA Movement Is Ready to Dump Donald Trump. Here’s His Replacement

... Sunday’s memorial for Charlie Kirk ... was the most significant high-level gathering of MAGA leaders since Trump’s inauguration and, in that respect, it was strikingly different from any other such conclave we have ever seen.

That is because on Sunday, for the first time ever, Donald Trump was not the center of attention. In fact, he seemed almost out of place there, out of step with its tone and its clear focus on the future of the right wing in American politics.

Quite apart from the looming presence of Kirk himself, the most important voices at the event were his widow, Erika Kirk, and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Stephen Miller would beg to differ. But go on, David.

While Trump spoke as a politician, Erika Kirk and Vance adopted an approach that appeared more consistent with televangelists. As Erika stated explicitly, what they were there to advance was the politics of religious revival.

Their message was unmistakable: The future of MAGA is Christian nationalism. The central figure of their movement going forward would be not Trump, but Jesus.

I agree that some sort of national conservatism is the future of the Republican Party -- and its present, actually. ("MAGA" is not really a thing. What we call "MAGA" is the Trumpified version of the GOP/Fox/talk radio/right-wing podcast cult of Democratic demonization, which existed long before Trump and will outlive him.)

The future of this movement might have a somewhat more Christian cast than the MAGA version. But Jesus won't be at the center of it.

Religion and moralizing are cards Republicans play when they think they're useful in order to get what they want. Republicans turn on a dime, attacking the moral fiber of Bill Clinton when he was in office, then declaring themselves "South Park Republicans" a few years later, when they wanted to contrast themselves with earnest left-leaning activists, and with people who were called "politically correct." Michelle Goldberg remembers:

In 2003, Andrew Sullivan wrote about a breed of conservatives that he called “South Park Republicans,” who shared the irreverent, profane ethos of the cartoon, which debuted in 1997 and delighted in ridiculing liberal sacred cows. These Republicans were socially libertarian — “some smoke pot” — and contemptuous of political correctness, and they thought protesting the invasion of Iraq was lame. “If people wonder why antiwar celebrities like Janeane Garofalo or Michael Moore failed to win over the younger generation, you only have to watch ‘South Park’ to see why,” wrote Sullivan. “The next generation sees through the cant and piety and cannot help giggling.”

Sullivan’s concept had so much currency that the author Brian C. Anderson expanded it into a book, “South Park Conservatives,” which came out in 2005. It is a fascinating snapshot of the last time the right saw itself as culturally ascendant.

Republicans, of course, think of themselves as culturally ascendant now. They're the party that won't scold you for saying "retarded"! They're going to try to remain the bro party even as they sell religion in non-bro venues. And they're trying to build a fusion of bro culture and conservative Christianity, one that accuses most young women of being sluts brain-damaged by birth control pills, SSRIs, and liberal politics. This worldview idealizes early marriage to comely virgins in gingham who want to stay at home baking bread and bearing large numbers of children, while never comparing the sexual performance of their husbands to those of past partners.

But that's just one message Republicans are selling, and there's more Andrew Tate than Jesus in it. And it's not the core Republican message now, nor is it likely to be in the future, because there are so many aspects of liberalism that Republicans will continue to demonize in the future, and they're mostly terrestrial.

Republicans will continue to say that Democrats and liberals want to replace Real Americans with foreigners and want to force everyone's kids to be trans. They'll keep attacking Democrats as profligate spenders -- Donald Trump's strategic decision to go easy on Social Security and Medicare won't outlive him, and the party will undoubtedly launch a frontal assault on these programs soon, blaming Democrats for making them unaffordable.

The future leaders of the party might be God-botherers like J.D. Vance, but they won't put God first, because sanctimony is much less enjoyable for the base than lib-owning. And remember, if Republicans are still in charge in the immediate post-Trump aftermath -- if, for instance, Trump dies in office -- his successor's top priority will be building a cult of Trump by ensuring that his face is on money, his profile is on Mount Rushmore, his name is on Dulles Airport and schools all over America, and his likeness is venerated in every state capital. If you think the right punished a lot of people for saying harsh things about Charlie Kirk, it's nothing compared to what will happen if Vance becomes president after many Americans celebrate Trump's death. Trump will still be the leader of the GOP for some time after he's gone.

Who are the true thought leaders of the GOP? Mostly secular hatemongers like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. Erika Kirk isn't a thought leader -- applauding her speech of forgiveness made Republicans feel virtuous, but she doesn't tell them what to think. Charlie Kirk was important to them, but while his messaging was frequently religious, especially in his later years, Christianity was the frosting, while racism and trans-bashing were the cake.

The GOP's future might not have Trump's aging-libertine energy, but the party won't go suddenly godly. There are too many earthbound Democrats to hate.

DECADES OF RIGHT-WING REF-WORKING GAVE US THE NEARLY UNCHALLENGED DEIFICATION OF CHARLIE KIRK

I'm pleased that President Trump was his true self at the Charlie Kirk memorial yesterday. Other attack-dog politicians might have set the smashmouth aside for one day and gone high-minded. Not Trump. CNN's Stephen Collinson wrote:

... Trump bluntly and deliberately signaled that forgiveness and unity were for others, and that he’d use Kirk’s assassination to intensify his efforts to impose personal power even more ruthlessly....

“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said. But in a moment of brazen self-awareness that epitomized his presidency, he then broke from the script. “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent.” Trump went on, “And I don’t want the best for them.”

But for most of the media, Trump's thuggishness just made Kirk appear more saintly. Collinson continued:

But by ostentatiously stating how he differs from Kirk — who sought to engage his opponents respectfully and who prized free speech under the First Amendment — Trump made it clear he wanted Americans to perceive something about himself. He has never made a pretense of being a leader for all Americans, as most of his predecessors have — even if they didn’t follow through.

(Emphasis added.)

Here's six minutes of Kirk engaging his opponents ... not respectfully:



We appear to have lost the battle to define Charlie Kirk using his own bigoted words. And now the press believes Kirk was a titanic presence in American politics, a man who'll somehow lead the GOP even after his death, rather than a niche figure who was popular only within the GOP base, as YouGov's numbers make clear:

Go here for more polling data on Kirk.

The mainstream press thinks Kirk was a kind, empathetic believer in free debate because for years mainstream journalists have avoided learning what right-wingers say to one another when they think we're not listening. Mainstream journalists have never made it a habit to watch Fox News, listen to talk radio, read right-wing websites, examine right-wing books, or turn on right-wing podcasts. When Rush Limbaugh was alive, they never read the full broadcast transcripts he posted on his site. Apart from a few commentators, they've never made a habit of going to Media Matters or Right Wing Watch to learn what conservatives are saying. They don't pay attention to the email forwards, the online memes, the bumper stickers. Instead, they go to diners and conduct focus groups, where right-wingers give them the polite version of their thoughts on politics and culture.

And now right-wing spin doctors are giving the mainstream journalists a polite version of who Charlie Kirk was -- and the journalists have no prior knowledge to compare it with, and apparently no idea where to find contradictory information.

But beyond all this, when the GOP began to talk about Charlie Kirk as a titanic figure in American life, the right-wing equivalent of Martin Luther King in terms of reach and influence, the mainstream media decided to take the party's word for it. Why?

Because Republicans have been working the media refs for decades. Mainstream journalists now believe that they're out-of-touch elitists (as are all Democrats), and if they barely detected Charlie Kirk's influence on American politics during his lifetime, it must be because they dwell in a liberal bubble and didn't see how profoundly influential he was.

Kirk had some influence. Reporters should have been aware of him during his life. Then they could have made an accurate assessment of his influence -- and his real views. But they were oblivious, and because they've been told for years that they're hopelessly biased against the right, they uncritically accepted the right's narrative of Kirk's life and beliefs. And now that's the mainstream media's narrative as well.

And in case you think I'm implying that mainstream journalists really do live in a liberal bubble, let me be clear: mainstream journalists live in a mainstream information bubble, where Republicans (with the exception of Trump and a few outliers like Marjorie Taylor Greene) never say or do anything extreme. These journalists would never have encountered Charlie Kirk's most hateful words, and they can't fit them into their worldview even as some of them come to light now. That's not liberalism.

I WISH THE OLD-FASHIONED WORD "IDOLATRY" STILL MEANT SOMETHING

This is a real tweet from Fox News:

'MAN OF STEEL': Charlie Kirk's body stopped a bullet that would typically "just go through everything" and it was an "absolute miracle" nobody else was killed, his surgeon told TPUSA. pic.twitter.com/1Ubx519ax6

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 21, 2025

The story says that Kirk's body had no exit wound:

Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet on Saturday said Charlie Kirk's surgeon called it an "absolute miracle" that the bullet that killed him didn’t exit his body because dozens of people were standing behind him when he was shot....

Kolvet said he had just spoken with Kirk’s surgeon, who told him the bullet "'absolutely should have gone through, which is very very normal for a high powered, high velocity round. I’ve seen wounds from this caliber many times and they always just go through everything. This would have taken a moose or two down, an elk, etc.’" ...

The doctor added that Kirk’s "bone was so healthy and the density was so so impressive that he’s like the man of steel. It should have just gone through and through. It likely would have killed those standing behind him too."

In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, admirers of the saintly monk Zosima believe his corpse won't decay after he dies -- but it begins to putrefy almost immediately. Zosima should have had Charlie Kirk's publicists.

Even if you admired him, the veneration of Kirk has become idolatry, a word that used to have some power in the English language. The first of God's Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Trump-worshipers in nominally Christian churches have been violating this commandment for years, but now Kirk is an object of worship.

This happened last Sunday:

A church in Texas played an AI audio clip of Charlie Kirk saying words he never said to a congregation who gave it a standing ovation.

On Sunday (14 September), pastor Jack Graham was delivering a service at Prestonwood Baptist Church when he paused to play an AI-generated clip using the voice of the 31-year-old, who was killed on 10 September.

The audio using Kirk’s likeness reassured the churchgoers that he was “fine”, and said: “Do not let this violence divide us further. The enemy wants chaos, fear, and retaliation. Don't give it to them.”

He told the crowd that “America and free speech are worth it”, encouraging them to “get back in the fight”. The minute-long clip received a standing ovation from the church.

Church plays AI-generated audio of Charlie Kirk. pic.twitter.com/gVGnsiakMu

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) September 19, 2025

Then there's this:

Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced legislation this week that would require every public university in the state to construct “a Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza”, with a statue of the assassinated Republican activist and a sign calling him a “modern civil rights leader”, or pay monthly fines....

The Oklahoma bill, sponsored by state senators Shane Jett and Dana Prieto, specifies that the memorial site must be in “a prominent area” on the main campus of every institution of higher education in the state system, and must include “a statue of Charlie Kirk sitting at a table with an empty seat across from him” or one of Kirk and his wife holding their children.

Each plaza must also include “permanent signage commemorating Charlie Kirk’s courage and faith and explaining the significance of Charlie Kirk as a voice of a generation, modern civil rights leader, vocal Christian, martyr for truth and faith, and free speech advocate”.

And AI slop makers have been busy sanctifying Kirk:

Charlie Kirk’s death has activated a kind of person whose taste is usually underrepresented in the mainstream culture. A thread of memes and videos circulating on social media.

First, Charlie Kirk being resurrected by a crying Jesus before they embrace. pic.twitter.com/Mn6F9SAoIM

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) September 14, 2025

This is really sweet. What a glorious picture of him running to christ pic.twitter.com/eL1lEtdvGH

— ARYA™ (@elia_mafhh) September 13, 2025

Charlie Kirk holding a Trump hat in the sky, while Jesus tells him it’s fine he died because his work was finished. pic.twitter.com/TRxSIIRVjb

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) September 14, 2025

Richard Hanania, the racist right-wing influencer, has collected quite a few of these.

We live in a celebrity culture where "idol" is a positive word, but when I was a lad (and a practicing Catholic) it was seen as sinful to have false gods. Not anymore.

I WAS ON A PODCAST AND FORGOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT

Last week I was a guest on the Personality Crisis podcast, with DougJ (New York Times Pitchbot) guest-hosting in place of Balloon Juice's John Cole. I don't know what came over me after the podcast was posted, but I complete forgot to let you all know about it. Here it is.



It's also at Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Podchaser, iHeart, Listen Notes, and (I think) other fine hosting platforms. Enjoy.

TRUMP IS NO LONGER DOING PUTINISM WRONG

During Donald Trump's first term, it was clear that he was corruptly profiting from the presidency, but he wasn't doing a very good job of it. Sure, he'd overcharge the Secret Service for rooms at his properties, and host foreign dignitaries at his D.C. hotel, but he wasn't getting rich from it -- in fact, his properties had declining revenues, and Forbes says flatly that "Donald Trump lost money during his first term." By contrast, Vladimir Putin had his finger in so many pies in Russia that some observers believed he was the richest man in the world.

But now Forbes reports:

Donald Trump just had the most lucrative year of his life. The president is now worth a record $7.3 billion, up from $4.3 billion in 2024, when he was still running for office.

Rich people are buying Trump's crypto. Nations are approving Trump real estate projects. And CBS News reports on this grift:

Contribute money to the new White House ballroom President Trump is constructing and, in exchange, donors may be able to choose a Trumpian option: their names etched inside the White House forever. At least that's one option that has been discussed.

Also under consideration: listing donor names on a website....

Multiple companies have pledged to donate $5 million or more for what was projected to be a $200 million addition to the executive mansion....

Google, R.J. Reynolds, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and NextEra Energy have donated, and so have firms in the tech, manufacturing, banking and health industries, sources told CBS News.

Lockheed Martin is among the companies that have pledged more than $10 million....

A White House official said nearly $200 million has been pledged so far, and fundraising is ongoing.

Apart from the fact that Trump has raised nearly the entire reported cost of the project and is still fundraising, which means he'll apparently pay none of the costs of the ballroom after pledging to cover the entire cost himself, this sure seems like a lot of money just to get your name on a website, or even tucked inside the ballroom. Muckamucks usually want their names right up front. David Geffen Hall. The Sackler Wing.

I assume that most or all of this money is going straight into Trump's pocket, and that taxpayers will be left to cover the cost of the ballroom when Trump is gone. (Cost overruns will be blamed.)

It's obvious that everyone who's giving money to Trump is doing it for the same reason that people give money to Putin: to stay on his good side, to get benefits from the government, to avoid the government's wrath.

I expected Trump to be good at kleptocracy in his first term, but he hasn't seemed to master it until now. Why is that? Is it possible that Trump's good friend Vlad actually sat him down and explained how to do corruption correctly?

Trump also seems to be mastering censorship Putin-style, in a way he didn't during his first term. Garry Kasparov, the Soviet-born chess grandmaster and Putin critic, reminds us of Putin's crackdown on news outlets and entertainers:

In his first annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly, Putin laid out his vision of “freedom of the press”—that he would not allow the country’s media to be turned into “outlets for disinformation and a means of waging war against the state.”

... The government ratcheted up the pressure to pull shows that didn’t fit their narrative. One early casualty was Kukly (dolls), a puppet show that poked fun at Russia’s elites. NTV dropped a political talk show called Svoboda Slova (freedom of speech) after a pro-Kremlin team took over the network.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office summoned top editors and media executives to interrogate them over their finances.

Kremlin officials pressured upstart businessmen to sell their stakes in media conglomerates. Government agents raided network headquarters. The authorities strategically orchestrated mergers to ensure conformity and compliance, sacking “bad oligarchs” and installing “good oligarchs” in their place.

Independent journalists faced libel and defamation lawsuits.

Forget, for a moment, about the most high-profile assassinations of reporters and dissidents in Russia. Those would come later. The government’s campaign of procedural harassment and lawfare made it impossible for journalists and media executives to do their jobs right out of the gate.

It's possible that Trump didn't do any of this in his first term because he knew his government wasn't staffed top to bottom with loyalists. The loyalists running the country in Trump's second term are also radical rightists who seek to purge every institution in America of liberal or Democratic Party influence.

But those people don't really care if Trump gets rich off the presidency. That's not part of their agenda.

Which is why I suspect that Trump might have received tutorials on both corruption and suppression of free speech directly from the master.

Trump could conceivably have read accounts of how Putin consolidated power and got rich in the process -- but that's unlikely. We know Trump doesn't read.

Someone -- Putin or someone familiar with Putin's career -- showed Trump the roadmaps. And now he's following them.

NO DEMOCRAT WILL LOSE AN ELECTION IF SOME DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO WORSHIP SAINT CHARLIE KIRK (updated)

This Axios story makes me angry:

A resolution to honor conservative activist Charlie Kirk and condemn his assassination has been the subject of frenzied talk among House Democrats this week as some lawmakers grapple with how to vote on it.

Why it matters: Kirk was not beloved by Democrats, but some in the party fear that anything short of a unanimous vote for the resolution could be a messaging coup for Republicans.

"People are worried that we're being totally set up," one House Democrat told Axios on the condition of anonymity....

What do Democrats think? That swing voters will reject certain Democrats in November 2026 based on how other Democrats voted in September 2025 on a purely symbolic resolution? Do they really believe Kirk will still be one of America's main topics of conversation fourteen months from now? And do they realize that Kirk wasn't a universally admired person?

Shortly after Kirk's death, questions about Kirk were included in the weekly survey conducted by The Economist and YouGov. Only 24% of respondents said they were "very familiar" with Kirk; an additional 32% said they were "somewhat familiar" with him. Only 35% of respondents had a favorable opinion of him, while 36% had an unfavorable opinion. Among moderates, those favorable/unfavorable numbers were 26%/38%; among independents, they were 27%/37%. (Key numbers are here; the full survey is here.)

Charlie Kirk was not universally admired.

To their credit, House Democrats aren't demanding a unanimous yes vote, Axios reports -- and one Democrat says she'll vote "no."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in Democrats' closed-door caucus meeting Thursday morning that leadership will vote for the resolution....

His leadership team is not whipping the resolution, however, leaving lawmakers to decide for themselves how they plan to vote....

At least one House Democrat, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), is planning to vote against the resolution, telling Axios she is "not sure what is honorable" about many of Kirk's past statements.

Asked about concerns of GOP backlash, Crockett said she lives "under their heinous threats every single day" and suggested Democrats should not be like Republicans who have "abdicated their duties out of fear."

Several more said they are undecided, including Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas). Others said they plan to vote "present."

Some objectors say they would have been comfortable voting for the resolution that passed unanimously in the Senate this week. That resolution, sponsored by Utah senator Mike Lee, was shorter and milder. (The text is here.)

If I were a senator, I would have had problems with the assertion that Kirk had a "commitment to the constitutional principles of civil discussion and debate between all people of the United States, regardless of political affiliation." But the Senate bill is not as partisan as the House resolution (text here), which says, among other things, that Kirk was "always seeking to elevate truth" (he argued that the 2020 presidential election was stolen) and that he "personified the values of the First Amendment ... and did so with honor, courage, and respect for his fellow Americans" (he said vile things about trans people and Black people, especially Black women, among other "fellow Americans").

I hope those who plan to vote "no" will be accorded the opportunity to speak, and will use that opportunity to read Kirk's own words into the Congressional Record, including some of the less well known statements recently unearthed by Ta-Nehisi Coates:

The American way of life was “Christendom,” Kirk claimed, and Islam—“the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America”—was antithetical to that....

Kirk habitually railed against “Black crime,” claiming that “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people.” ... Haiti was, by Kirk’s lights, a country “infested with demonic voodoo,” whose migrants were “raping your women and hunting you down at night.” These Haitians, as well as undocumented immigrants from other countries, were “having a field day,” per Kirk, and “coming for your daughter next.” The only hope was Donald Trump, who had to prevail, lest Haitians “become your masters.” ...

“Jewish donors,” Kirk claimed, were “the number one funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions, and nonprofits.” Indeed, “the philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country.”

Charlie Kirk was not, as the House resolution states, a person who "worked tirelessly to promote unity." On his podcast and his social media, he did not display a "commitment to civil discussion."

Democrats can say this without jeopardizing their electoral chances. They can say that Kirk was an unashamed partisan who proudly insulted and offended the people he didn't like, and he had an absolute First Amendment right to do so, but we should not remember him in death as a unifier and a healer.

And we should remember that the president Kirk worked so hard to re-elect is in the process of bringing down the wrath of the United States government on other public figures who say rude things, in this case rude things the president doesn't like. At a time when the Republican Party is arguing that cancel culture is a good thing when conservatives are doing the canceling, Democrats are under no obligation to praise a man who maintained a target list of professors he hoped to remove from their jobs for speech he didn't like.

But just as Democrats bafflingly believe that they'll doom themselves electorally if they fail to vote for at least some of a Republican president's most irresponsible and unqualified nominees, Democrats apparently fret over the consequences of a "no" or "present" vote on this resolution. They shouldn't worry. The public doesn't worship Kirk the way Republicans do. And Election Day is a long way away.

*****

UPDATE: The resolution passed, but 58 Democrats voted "no" and 38 voted "present." Good for them. An additional 22 did not vote.

THIS MOMENT FEELS DIFFERENT (updated)

The authoritarian moment we're living through feels different from all the other authoritarian moments we've experienced since January 20. In those moments, the reaction was mostly the same: total compliance from the right, outrage from ordinary liberals and leftists, and meek acceptance from nearly all establishment Democrats. There's been some Democratic pushback on immigration, but very little of it from leaders of the party in Washington. Meanwhile, Republicans and right-wing pundits have behaved as if we have one branch of government, not three, and that branch is Donald Trump, plus whoever is whispering the loudest in his ear (usually Stephen Miller).

But right now it appears as if some parts of the political world finally recognize the authoritarian moment we're in. This response to the suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel by ABC isn't much, but it surprises me:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his leadership team on Thursday called for Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr to resign over the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel....

"Brendan Carr, the so-called Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has engaged in the corrupt abuse of power," Jeffries and his deputies said in a joint statement.

"He has disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC, the employer of Jimmy Kimmel, and forcing the company to bend the knee to the Trump administration. FCC Chair Brendan Carr should resign immediately."

It's just a Strongly Worded Statement, but it came less than 24 hours after Kimmel's suspension, not days later, and there's no Pivot to Kitchen Table Issues. Baby steps...

And at least one candidate on the progressive left sees preventing a crackdown on dissent as a key issue right now:

Trump just designated “Antifa” as a terrorist organization, on par with ISIS and Al Qaeda. As a reminder, “antifa” is short for “antifascist”. They will use this lie to surveil, imprison, and kill Americans on the left. This may be our Reichstag Fire moment. Wake up. www.cnn.com/2025/09/17/p...

[image or embed]

— Kat Abughazaleh (@katmabu.bsky.social) September 17, 2025 at 9:48 PM

Progressive candidates and members of Congress have been much more of a resistance than the Democratic establishment, but, as I said yesterday, they've largely been focused on issues such as the immigration crackdown, affordability, and Gaza. I hope there's more where this came from.

See also the progressive governor of Illinois:

What’s at stake here is free speech. Across the board, we’ve seen the Trump administration use the power of government to go after anybody who’s criticized them — and in this case, Jimmy Kimmel. We need to all stand up and speak out.

[image or embed]

— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) September 17, 2025 at 9:54 PM

Portions of the mainstream press seem to understand that this is a pivotal moment. The lead headline on the front page of The Washington Post online is "Trump, Allies Seek to Punish Speech They Dislike Following Kirk Killing." I found this headline at Variety: "After Shocking Jimmy Kimmel Suspension, Trump Keeps Successfully Silencing His Critics — and That’s Terrifying."

And there are a few voices on the right who aren't in lockstep with Trump. Tucker Carlson, of all people, is taking what appears to be a principled stand, for reasons that are unclear:

“You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we're seeing in the aftermath of his murder won't be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,” Carlson said Wednesday during a special edition of The Tucker Carlson Show in tribute to Kirk.

“And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever. And there never will be,” the pundit added. “Because if they can tell you what to say, they're telling you what to think...There is nothing they can't do to you because they don't consider you human.”

And in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove writes:

... there has been a disturbing and growing undercurrent in our national conversation and on the internet, a pronounced emphasis on “they” and “them.” Charlie would be alive but for “them.” “They” killed him. “They” are responsible for his death. “They” must be made to pay.

No. Charlie Kirk wasn’t killed by “them.” “They” didn’t pull the trigger. One person did, apparently a young man driven by impulse and a terrible hate. If there were a “they” involved, law enforcement would find “them” and the justice system would hold “them” accountable. But “he” and “him” are the correct pronouns for this horrendous act....

Using Charlie’s murder to justify retaliation against political rivals is wrong and dangerous. It will further divide and embitter our country. No good thing will come of it.

Trump, Miller, J.D. Vance, and the rest of the administration clearly want to blame a "they" for Kirk's murder -- and one MAGA figure in particular claims to see A Conspiracy So Vast:

Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s former chief strategist, claimed that Kirk’s death was “not a simple murder” and that the truth was “far deeper and far more malignant”....

Mr Bannon went on to suggest that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may have been involved in the incident by allegedly funding Antifa.

He doubled down on the comments on Wednesday, telling Politico: “The biggest thing is to broaden the assassination investigation from a single murder to the broader conspiracy. If we are going to go to war, let’s go to war.”

Mr Bannon also told his podcast listeners he was highly sceptical about a text exchange prosecutors said took place between Mr Robinson and his transgender lover....

“You shot a man in cold blood in front of the world... I think your parents may talk about that first before they say, ‘Oh, by the way, did you bring the rifle back?’” Mr Bannon said. “I am absolutely not buying this”....

Mr Bannon went on to urge investigators to probe connections to the assassination attempt on Mr Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year.

Trumpists don't respect Karl Rove, so I don't expect his commentary to matter much to them. But it's good to know that some on the right believe this was the act of an individual that doesn't justify a widespread crackdown on dissenters and resisters.

The mainstream right would love decades of one-party rule just like the extremists in the administration, but mainstream Republicans got used to playing more or less within the lines in their heyday. They want to go to sleep at night believing that they have American values, or at least that they don't have authoritarian values. So there could be additional pushback.

Overall, I think people who were unaware of Trump's crackdown on basic liberties are seeing it now -- not everyone, maybe not even a majority, but more people than were aware a week or two ago. If Trump is going too far for even some on the right, that's good. If he woke up the Democratic leadership, that's good. It might be too late, but a few more people appear to be awake, and aware that simply allowing events to unfold might not be the best course of action.

*****

UPDATE: The usually cautious ex-president is engaged. That's a good sign:

This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it. https://t.co/gOjqFnGv0I

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 18, 2025