Open Thread – Friday, September 9, 2016

Jonathan Chait: “The harrowing reality is that the only thing standing between handing control of the Executive branch to a wildly ignorant, racist demagogue with a fondness for the authoritarian world is the second-most-unpopular presidential nominee in the history of modern polling. (The most-unpopular candidate is Donald Trump, though the gap between the two is narrowing.) That Clinton is viewed as the near-equivalent of Trump, a grotesque buffoon who has committed what would normally be considered a campaign-defining gaffe at a rate of approximately once a day for 15 months, required the convergence of several factors.”

Josh Rogin on the collapse of the Trump Policy Shop: “The Trump campaign built a large policy shop in Washington that has now largely melted away because of neglect, mismanagement and promises of pay that were never honored. Many of the team’s former members say the campaign leadership never took the Washington office seriously and let it wither away after squeezing it dry.”

“Since April, advisers never named in campaign press releases have been working in an Alexandria-based office, writing policy memos, organizing briefings, managing surrogates and placing op-eds. They put in long hours before and during the Republican National Convention to help the campaign look like a professional operation. But in August, shortly after the convention, most of the policy shop’s most active staffers quit. Although they signed non-disclosure agreements, several of them told me on background that the Trump policy effort has been a mess from start to finish.”

Here's an actual presidential nominee praising Vladimir Putin and bashing @POTUS in the same breath. pic.twitter.com/zCZ0NfYcTT

— The Briefing (@TheBriefing2016) September 8, 2016

Here is what Hillary Clinton said on the “Humans of New York” Facebook page today. I think a lot of women will relate to it.

I was taking a law school admissions test in a big classroom at Harvard. My friend and I were some of the only women in the room. I was feeling nervous. I was a senior in college. I wasn’t sure how well I’d do. And while we’re waiting for the exam to start, a group of men began to yell things like: ‘You don’t need to be here.’ And ‘There’s plenty else you can do.’ It turned into a real ‘pile on.’ One of them even said: ‘If you take my spot, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.’ And they weren’t kidding around. It was intense. It got very personal. But I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t afford to get distracted because I didn’t want to mess up the test. So I just kept looking down, hoping that the proctor would walk in the room. I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that’s a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don’t want to seem ‘walled off.’ And sometimes I think I come across more in the ‘walled off’ arena. And if I create that perception, then I take responsibility. I don’t view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I can’t blame people for thinking that.

And there was a second one. This is the Hillary we should know.

“I’m not Barack Obama. I’m not Bill Clinton. Both of them carry themselves with a naturalness that is very appealing to audiences. But I’m married to one and I’ve worked for the other, so I know how hard they work at being natural. It’s not something they just dial in. They work and they practice what they’re going to say. It’s not that they’re trying to be somebody else. But it’s hard work to present yourself in the best possible way. You have to communicate in a way that people say: ‘OK, I get her.’ And that can be more difficult for a woman. Because who are your models? If you want to run for the Senate, or run for the Presidency, most of your role models are going to be men. And what works for them won’t work for you. Women are seen through a different lens. It’s not bad. It’s just a fact. It’s really quite funny. I’ll go to these events and there will be men speaking before me, and they’ll be pounding the message, and screaming about how we need to win the election. And people will love it. And I want to do the same thing. Because I care about this stuff. But I’ve learned that I can’t be quite so passionate in my presentation. I love to wave my arms, but apparently that’s a little bit scary to people. And I can’t yell too much. It comes across as ‘too loud’ or ‘too shrill’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that.’ Which is funny, because I’m always convinced that the people in the front row are loving it.”

The AP has finally deleted its lie of a Tweet advertising its lie of a Clinton Foundation story. Like the cowards they are. Like Matt Lauer, the AP can go sit on a stick.

CBS News on how Trump is making money off his campaign: “Donald Trump has contributed more than $52 million to his presidential campaign… But the Republican nominee has offset some of that by pouring $7.2 million dollars — just over eight percent of the money his campaign has spent through July — into his own businesses.”

“Since Trump moved into the general election phase, that spending has increased. During the first year of his campaign, he spent on average half a million dollars a month at his own companies. But as his campaign ramped up from the end of June through July, he spent $1.2 million at Trump businesses.”

“As U.S. officials cast doubt on Donald Trump’s claim he read the ‘body language’ of intelligence officials at a recent briefing, NBC News has learned exclusive details of what unfolded in the room — one of Trump’s advisers repeatedly interrupted the briefers until Chris Christie intervened.”

“U.S. official pointed out that intelligence officers don’t give policy advice, so it would be inaccurate to say that Obama failed to follow the advice of the intelligence community. A second U.S. official said analysts are trained not to allow their body language to betray their thinking. Meanwhile, four people with knowledge of the matter told NBC News that one of the advisers Trump brought to the briefing, retired general Mike Flynn, repeatedly interrupted the briefing with pointed questions.”

“Two sources said Christie, the New Jersey governor and Trump adviser, verbally restrained Flynn — one saying Christie said, ‘Shut up,’ the other reporting he said, ‘Calm down.’ Two other sources said Christie touched Flynn’s arm in an effort get him to calm down and let the officials continue.”

Esquire adds an editor’s note to its 2004 profile of Donald Trump:

The following story was published in the August 2004 issue of Esquire. During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed to have been against the Iraq War from the beginning, and he has cited this story as proof. The Iraq War began in March 2003, more than a year before this story ran, thus nullifying Trump’s timeline. More details can be found here.

In his Vox post, “Confessions of a Clinton reporter: The media’s 5 unspoken rules for covering Hillary,” Jonathan Allen rolls it out raw and ugly: “1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” and mainstream media outlets; 2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world; 3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there’s hard evidence otherwise; 4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America’s royal family; 5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit.” Given all that, how large would Clinton’s lead be if the media covered her fairly?

Jon Favreau has a must-read piece about the up-coming debates between Clinton and Trump. Here’s how he describes those who are helping Trump prepare:

It’s fitting that Trump…would prepare for the reality television episode of his life with the vast array of right-wing conspiracy theorists who first inspired his campaign…

These right-wing media stars don’t sell their audiences conservatism, nationalism, populism, or any “-isms” at all. They are entertainers. They sell conspiracy and innuendo. They sell outrage and grievance…If you have a problem in your life — if you’re scared or anxious or feel that you’ve been treated unfairly — people like Hannity and Drudge and outlets like Breitbart tell you where to direct your blame. They tell you who deserves your suspicion. And it’s always people who are different than you — either they’re richer, more powerful, and therefore corrupt, or they don’t look like you, pray like you, speak like you, or come from where you do.

…we should also remember that Trump is a media celebrity who’s been coached to tell a certain story about America, and the best way to counter that is with a story of our own. It’s the story that was told at the Democratic convention by Hillary Clinton, who laid out a bold, optimistic vision for a future where we rise together. It’s the story that was told by Barack and Michelle Obama, who spoke of a country that’s hopeful and generous; tolerant and kind — a place where we teach our children to treat one another with common decency and respect. It’s the story told by Khizr and Ghazala Khan, a family of Muslim immigrants who struggled and sacrificed to make a home in America, and raised a courageous son who gave his life for the country he loved. It’s a story that sometimes makes us roll our eyes because we’re hardened and cynical and we let ourselves believe that fear and anger are the only emotions that leaders can use to inspire anymore. But it’s a story that must be told, over and over again.