Left Jabs

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Lessons From the ‘22 Midterms that the Media Didn’t Learn From

The GOP is in the process of creating another “red wave” narrative. They’re going about it in pretty much the same way they did in the midterms of 2022. Let’s all agree to not fall for it this time. Now, as then, there are dozens of new polls coming out of the woodwork, almost all of them partisan junk, with sketchy methodologies and right-wing agendas designed to juice the flagging enthusiasm of Republicans, and to mess with the heads of Democrats. Some are overtly in the tank for the GOP, some are more subtle, and who knows how many are coming from Russia? Or China? Or Saudi Arabia? Or Elon Musk? Regardless, the aim is to scare Democrats into believing that the fix is in, that Trump has the election in the bag and there’s no point in voting. This will only intensify in the next three weeks, and it’s important that we not get sucked in. They tried the same thing in 2022, and while they got clobbered in the end, it’s arguable that the junk polls did indeed cos

How Many Feet Can the GOP Shoot Itself In?

Since last week’s post was all about good news for Democrats, I thought it only fair and balanced that this week’s should be about bad news for Republicans. This goes beyond mere schadenfreude , though my personal joy at their misfortune is boundless. It speaks more to a certain astonishment at the sheer ineptitude that permeates the GOP, from top to bottom. If they seem to be limping, it’s because they’ve repeatedly shot themselves in the foot. In the runup to the 2022 midterms, Mitch McConnell famously complained about the lack of “candidate quality,” a polite way of saying his party was infested with MAGA clowns who were barely toilet trained, let alone fit for office. He can’t be much happier in this election. Of course, the “candidate quality” problem starts at the top of the ticket, with perhaps the worst candidate — and one of the worst human beings — to ever walk the earth, or rather ride it in a golf cart. And Republicans, including McConnell, have no

Is This Election Really a Nail-Biter?

I’ve been asked why I don’t think this election will be quite the nail-biter being hyped by the media. Part of my answer, of course, is that the nail-biter narrative is being hyped by the media. It’s usually a New York Times poll that triggers the nail-biting. Each poll is announced with great fanfare, in bold headlines, always with links to commentary that ripple through the rest of the media. The narrative is invariably that the race is deadlocked. Which happens to coincide with the neck-and-neck, both-sides-are-equally-bad, horserace political coverage in which they’re so deeply invested. To get some return on that investment, they bend objective reality to make Trump appear reasonable and normal, even as he descends deeper and deeper into madness. The Times has shown that it will always, always sane-wash Trump to make the race appear close, even if it isn’t. It’s not that their polls are wrong. They’re measuring something, after all. It’s just that what

My Evening with Oprah and Kamala

It was basically the Oprah Winfrey Show, with special guest Kamala Harris. And we happened to be there. Through a series of happy circumstances, we were in the audience for last Thursday’s Unite for America livestream. There were 400 of us, and we were surrounded by what appeared to be thousands of people on screens, watching virtually. We’d been told on Wednesday where to report, to a hotel parking lot half-an-hour from our house. From there we were shuttled to an “undisclosed location,” where we were met by metal detectors, body wands, handbag searches, the whole Secret Service thing. Which was just fine with us. I have a vivid imagination when it comes to high-value terrorism targets, and this was, after all, Michigan, militia heaven. So while we never thought twice about being there, it was good to see the assault weapons on our side for a change. The event was very much an Oprah production. Slick design, precocious video technology, it was as made-for-

Kamala Crushed It, But Missed a Few Chances

Remember that whole big controversy before the debate? The one about whether the microphone should be on or off when the other person is speaking? History records that the Harris team lost that one. I’m not so sure. Trump’s handlers wanted the mics off, presumably to keep their guy from haranguing Harris and alienating the audience. Harris’s people fought to keep the mics on, for essentially the same reason, or so it’s said. The theory was that Trump’s inability to keep from interrupting would expose his boorish assholery, which would most likely work to her advantage. That theory always seemed counterintuitive to me — I couldn’t see any downside to keeping Trump quiet, or upside to letting him talk under his breath. So I suspected the Harris team might be playing rope-a-dope. Indeed, I think they faked the Trump side into keeping the mics off, which is what they wanted the whole time. Because what they knew — and we didn’t — was that Harris had a whole repert

The Decline and Fall of Toxic Masculinity, We Hope

It was 2018, and Sen. Kamala Harris was sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioning Brett Kavanaugh about the Mueller Report. It was his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, and it wasn’t going well at all. We remember that hearing, mostly for the sexual assault allegations of Christine Blasey Ford, but also for the FBI’s refusal to investigate those allegations, and for Kavanaugh’s insistence that beer was a major food group. But Harris was less interested in Kavanaugh’s creepy youth than in his furtive sidestepping of a question she undoubtedly knew the answer to. Specifically, she wanted to know if he’d ever discussed the Mueller Report with anyone from Trump’s personal law firm. It was a yes-or-no question, and Kavanaugh took great pains to avoid answering it. If he said yes, he’d be confessing to a major ethical breach. If he said no, he’d be lying to Congress, and Harris would have the receipts to prove it. But it wasn’t the substance of Harr