In traditional election cycles, endorsements–generally issued by newspapers–rarely moved votes. The endorsements this year are very different, but whether they will change any votes is unclear. Trump’s MAGA base is firmly insulated from reality–they seem to occupy a different country, where up is down and wet is dry. It isn’t just accusations about immigrants eating dogs and cats–they believe Trump’s claims that crime is up and the economy is tanking, despite the fact that data shows crime plummeting and the American economy flourishing. They might just as well be on another planet.
Because Trump voters occupy an alternate reality, the avalanche of endorsements of Harris/Walz probably won’t pry MAGA votes away. But we can hope that the unprecedented nature of those endorsements will generate registrations and turnout by rational folks who might not otherwise go to the polls. (That certainly is the hoped-for result of celebrity endorsements from super-stars like Taylor Swift.)
What has set this year’s endorsements apart isn’t just the unprecedented number of them, but the political identities and bona fides of the endorsers. (Example: Evangelicals for Harris–really!) Recently, four hundred economists endorsed Harris, warning that the election “is a choice between inequity, economic injustice, and uncertainty with Donald Trump or prosperity, opportunity, and stability with Kamala Harris, a choice between the past and the future.” The other day, seven hundred national security figures announced their endorsement of the Democratic ticket. They were later joined by General Stanley McChrystal.
The sheer number of Republican endorsers–not just the “Never Trumpers”– is staggering.
It isn’t simply high visibility people like Liz and Dick Cheney. Every day we encounter headlines like “State Republican party chairs endorse Kamala Harris for president.” In addition to the Republicans who spoke at the Democratic convention, a group of more than 200 who worked for former Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Sen. Mitt Romney and the late Sen. John McCain signed onto a letter supporting the Democratic nominee.
A recently launched “Republicans for Harris” is steadily growing.
Perhaps the most striking of all was a New York Times recent compilation of opinions of Donald J. Trump from “those who know him best”–members of Trump’s own administration, and “friends” who’ve known him for many years. As the introduction to those quotations put it,
Dozens of people who know him well, including the 91 listed here, have raised alarms about his character and fitness for office — his family and friends, world leaders and business associates, his fellow conservatives and his political appointees — even though they had nothing to gain from doing so. Some have even spoken out at the expense of their own careers or political interests.
The New York Times editorial board has made its case that Mr. Trump is unfit to lead. But the strongest case against him may come from his own people. For those Americans who are still tempted to return him to the presidency or to not vote in November, it is worth considering the assessment of Mr. Trump by those who have seen him up close.
Those opinions followed, and they are scathing. I encourage you to click through and read them.
The sheer number of economic, military and governmental experts–both Republicans and Democrats–who are warning against another Trump administration ought to be dispositive, but it clearly isn’t making inroads into MAGA fidelity, and I think there are two main reasons.
The first–and most frequently noted–is the similarity of MAGA Republicanism to a cult. In large part, MAGA folks have drunk the Kool-Aid. For whatever reason, some people are susceptible to the Jim Jones and Donald Trumps of the world, and fact-based arguments are irrelevant to them. Their devotion to the cult leader fills some sort of psychic need that the rest of us don’t share and can’t understand.
The second reason is less well understood, but I think it’s important.
Much has been made of the growing division between educated and uneducated voters. Education is absolutely not the same thing as intelligence, but folks who never learned how government works, or what the Constitution requires, are much more likely to believe, for example, that the government can simply round up and deport millions of immigrants (not to mention failing to understand the effect that would have on America’s economy if it were possible). They believe Trump when he says other countries will pay for his proposed tariffs–despite the fact that anyone who took Econ 101 knows tariffs are a tax on Americans. Etc.
The first group will simply ignore facts. The second rejects expertise as offensive elitism.
The reality-based community needs to turn out in force.
I read your column every day but rarely comment. Today’s column resonates with me and will hopefully resonate with all who read it. I will be sharing it through email and online. I truly appreciate your column and thank you for the time you devote to sharing the truth about the sad, slow death of the Republican Party.
The reference to Kool Aid is appropriate. What people forget is that Jim Jones drank the Kool Aid he told his followers to drink. Does anyone believe that Donald Trump would have done that.
No, Trump would laugh at the fools who drank the Kool-Aid. Donald is a con man who has amazingly gotten a large following from gullible Americans. As Lev Parnas said, “We didn’t expect him to win in 2016, but it happened.”
The more the press held him accountable, the stronger the bond cult members felt toward their leader. These people know the government isn’t working for the common man (which it isn’t), but they diagnose the problem wrong and misplace their trust that Trump is the solution.
I engaged another cult member last night as she was falsely conveying a meme that said the people in WNC need gas for electricity—not solar or windmills. After I addressed her, she brought up all the foreign entities that own solar and windmill farms in Indiana (which is why they are against solar and wind) that “generate energy and send it back to their countries.”
I have no idea where she got that impression. Was it Fox or a radio station? It would take a 30-second Google search to debunk it, but she didn’t bother. I know Sheila struggles to say it, but these people are ignorant. They were never taught the fundamentals of learning or scientific inquiry. They have either low IQ or memorized information to regurgitate for a test—no comprehension of the subjects taught in school.
They go through life, letting their emotions rule. If this meme invokes anger, they share it with other people who mostly get the same response. Anger is bad!
Who would think an Indiana wind farm was being used to capture Indiana wind energy and then send it to France?
The same people who are losing their shit over Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris while claiming not to give a shit about celebrity endorsements. However, they love posting memes showing Kid Rock loving on Trump. LOL
If I was on the Trump campaign, I would aggressively market that Dick Cheney endorsed Harris. A reminder of what he did with a “that’s who approves of Harris” message to depress liberal democratic turn out.
I’m pretty confident that would do wonders for Trump in close swing states. It would give the “uncommitted” additional pause and a second reason to stay home in addition to the Israel/Palestine issue. I think it would find them 1 point, and that’s probably all they need.
Glad they haven’t figured this gambit out thus far.
If I was on the Trump campaign, I would aggressively market that Dick Cheney endorsed Harris. A reminder of what he did with a “that’s who approves of Harris” message to depress liberal democratic turn out. I’m pretty confident that would do wonders for Trump in close swing states. It would give the “uncommitted” additional pause and a second reason to stay home in addition to the Israel/Palestine issue. I think it would find them 1 point, and that’s probably all they need. Glad they haven’t figured this gambit out thus far.
Oops. Put in the wrong email the 1st time. Sorry for the double post if this shows up again
Oh, I forgot to mention, these same Hoosiers now believe that the government destroyed parts of the Southeast and blamed it on Helene. Natural disasters are a conspiracy because who ever heard of a hurricane causing so much damage hundreds of miles inland?
I shit you not!
The conspiracy comes with a warning that Americans and Hoosiers need to wake up because our federal government (Deep State) is trying to destroy America.
I tried typing a response but couldn’t. How long have climatologists warned us about the strength of storms due to warmer oceans?
One video interview has a Trumpster claiming the Navy and Air Force could dump ice into the ocean to cool it down. What???
#IGNORANT
I find it astonishing that so many “leaders” – some of whom made the NYT list referenced in Sheila’s piece – could make a 180 degree turn after earlier scathing remarks describing trump, now endorsing, praising, and otherwise overlooking what they themselves had exposed. At the very top of that list stands Lindsay Graham, with JD Vance right up there as well. What happened? Amnesia? Does trump have something horrible on all of these people? I simply cannot for the life of me understand it, and I never will. Vote BLUE in huge numbers, enough to overcome whatever trump can manage to manipulate in those electoral college battleground states or we will be watching our country fade away, sure as hell.
You can’t fix stupid!
Good points Todd. I agree with you about the people that believe the crazy things you mentioned are truly ignorant. I will add the word ‘lazy’ to their ignorance. Anyone that doesn’t at least question and make an effort to verify the absolutely crazy shit they are told is just plain lazy.
Until the orange idiot was elected to office most of us had no clue how many willfully ignorant and crazy people lived among us. If he hadn’t been elected those insects (cockroaches) would have stayed in the dark crevices where they belong.
After watching the VP debate last night I thought that the most interesting thing about it was the performance of Mr. Vance. He was so smooth and glib while lying through his teeth. If you’re in his tribe or the under-informed tribe, you wouldn’t have had a clue that most of what he said was BS.
This election will be a referendum between governance and politics, two very different things. Governance benefits the country by providing a robust forward-leaning infrastructure as the foundation for everything else: individuals, families of all different kinds, small businesses, and multinational corporations. Politics is entertainment. Governance is building for the future.
During the VP candidate debate, we saw policy promotion fairly clearly stated by two worthy advocates.
Vance said that he would publicly lie for Trump, they would wall off the country from the rest of the world, go heavy on robbing from the future by making weather and sea levels more and more hostile to existing civilization, and ruralize America by supporting a return to the previous century and clamp down on what they defined as censorship, in other words, make our standard for public discourse entertaining words and not truthful words.
Some will find such a dysfunctional nightmare the greatest threat to governance since our founding. Others will worship the word as straight from their new gods on earth.
Walz stayed focused on building on our 250 years of world-leading success by modernizing our government, as every corporation that actually competes for global business has always done.
A dream of the family farm (superseded by the factory farm) versus continued world leadership.
We get to choose between them.
I am not impressed by Republican endorsements; could be a planned action by MAGA to lull opposition voters to complacently sit at home on November 5th. I remember those sitting in Congress who spoke against Trump and MAGAs when out of session yet supported them when it came time to pass or rejects bills submitted which reportedly supported their views.
Endorsements can influence reasonable people, but people caught in the vortex of Fox and friends’ propaganda will not be swayed by the truth/facts. A lot of Maga base seems to be operating in survival mode where any contra diction to their beliefs is a hair-trigger to double down on their current, circulating conspiracy theories. Indebtedness and going along to get along seems to be a big part of their cult. Mental eugenics is a way to look at it, but desperation in force is what I see. Magas should hope that DJT loses for their own well-being, families and futures.
Did anybody notice that Todd Rokita launched an investigation into ACT Blue yesterday… questioning whether they have protections in place to protect donors and voters “seeking information on whether ActBlue has appropriate safeguards in place to combat improper donation activity, including, among other things, the practice of “smurfing” — a type of money laundering in which large donations are broken up in a way that disguises who the money comes from so that donor can skirt contribution limits.
“Hoosiers deserve to know that the powerful interests funding political campaigns are operating ethically and legally,” Attorney General Rokita said. “They deserve the assurance that elections are being conducted with fairness and integrity rather than rigged in ways that dilute and undermine their own individual votes.” ”
Obviously he is hoping to suppress donations from Democrats in the critical last weeks of the campaigns… no evidence that he has any concerns about the. fundraising from the other side. So much for being the people’s attorney. This is a guy that definitely needs to go!