Public Menace: How Trump Mobilizes the Violent Extremists in His Midst for Political Ends

Posted on by Josh Marshall

TPM Reader DB pressed me yesterday to connect the dots. Because of JD Vance’s racist incitements to violence, now joined by Donald Trump, immigrants from Haiti in Springfield, Ohio, are cowering in their homes, holding their children back from school. Bomb threats have forced evacuations of the town municipal buildings and schools. We can only hope that it doesn’t escalate from here to assaults and murders. But there’s no question this is a community under siege. Vance says full speed ahead, tweeting to his supporters to “keep the cat memes flowing” or, in other words, keep pushing the story.

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How JD Vance And A Virulent Neo-Nazi Group Inflamed Tensions Over Migrants In Springfield

Posted on by Hunter Walker

It was one of the most shocking and disturbing lines in the modern history of presidential politics: During his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump made a wild assertion about a small city in Ohio that has recently seen an influx of migrants.

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Trump-Vance Virulent Attacks On Haitian Immigrants Yield Predictable Threats

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Despicable

Days of xenophobic rhetoric from the Republican ticket for president toward Haitian immigrants have produced exactly the kind of threats, intimidation, and disruption you would expect.

Here’s the lede from the Springfield News-Sun in Ohio, which has been ground zero for the baseless and comical claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets:

Several city, county and school buildings around Springfield were closed Thursday because of a bomb threat “to multiple facilities throughout Springfield,” according to a city statement released Thursday morning. Springfield City Hall was evacuated around 8:30 a.m.

Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott said at a Thursday afternoon press conference that City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, Ohio License Bureau on the south side, Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary School were all named in the threat and were cleared using explosive-detecting canines.

Real world effects from virulent political rhetoric.

On The Ground

The bomb threat in question included “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community,” Springfield’s mayor told the WaPo.

The racist attacks from the Trump-Vance ticket have left Haitian immigrants under siege and scared. Here’s a report from Wednesday on the ground in Springfield:

We know exactly where this kind of rhetoric leads. We’ve seen it over and over in the Trump era. It incites those already vulnerable to persuasion to take action and it always ends with Trump protesting that he can’t possibly be responsible for what other people did. The only thing new about any of this is which particular group or subset of society is the target.

Pure Incitement

Springfield’s Finest

Merrick Garland Steels DOJ For What May Be Ahead

Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed Justice Department employees Thursday, decrying “an unprecedented spike” in threats against them and seeming to fortify them for the possibility of Trump misusing the department if he were to win in November:

Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon. And our norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics.

Judge Tosses Out More Charges In Georgia RICO Case

State Judge Scott McAfee threw out three of the charges in the sprawling RICO case against Donald Trump and several co-defendants. Two of the charges involved the former president. McAfee relied on an 1890 Supreme Court decision in ruling that precludes states from prosecuting perjury and false filings made in federal court. The core of the case, including the most serious charges, remain intact.

2 Jan. 6 Rioters Charged With Assaulting NYT Photographer

Brothers Philip and David Walker were hit with federal charges for allegedly assaulting NYT photographer Erin Schaff inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Schaff’s account of the assault, published the next day, remains among the most poignant recollections of the Jan. 6 attack.

Nazi Sympathizer Gave Two Speeches At Trump’s Club

A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who likes to cosplay as Adolf Hitler gave speeches at two separate events this summer hosted by Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, NPR reports. The Trump campaign said Trump did not attend either event, but NPR noted that one of the events “was personally endorsed by Trump himself in a video message that was played for the room.” More on the Nazi sympathizer here and here.

Election Certification Refusers Are Now A Movement

Adam Klasfeld at Just Security: “Emboldened by Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential contest, once-modest public servants tasked with a clerical yet crucial role in election administration have tried to anoint themselves as the arbiters of the races within their jurisdictions — and grown into a national movement.”

What Is Up With Donald Trump And Laura Loomer?

After 9/11 conspiracist Laura Loomer, 31, accompanied Donald Trump, 78, to his debate with Kamala Harris and gobsmackingly to a 9/11 anniversary event, the story spilled over into Day 2 coverage by the bigs:

  • NYT: At a Key Moment in Trump’s Campaign, a Social-Media Instigator Is at His Side
  • WaPo: Trump’s time with Loomer, a far-right activist, upsets his GOP allies
  • NBC News: Far-right activist Laura Loomer’s access to Trump reveals a crisis in his campaign
  • CNN: Laura Loomer, far-right provocateur who spread 9/11 conspiracy theory, influencing Trump as he searches for a message

Great Read

Michael Hirschorn: How a Naked Man on a Tropical Island Created Our Current Political Insanity

Charges Expected In Iranian Hack Of Trump Campaign

Federal criminal charges are expected in a matter of days in the Iranian hack-and-leak scheme that targeted the Trump campaign. “The FBI investigation has focused on an online persona named ‘Robert’ who contacted American reporters, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe details of an ongoing investigation,” the WaPo first reported.

The AP subsequently ran a similar report that suggested a criminal case already exists under seal: “The two people who discussed the looming criminal charges spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because they were not authorized to speak publicly about a case that had not yet been unsealed.”

2024 Ephemera

  • No más: Donald Trump bails on a second debate with Kamala Harris.
  • NYT: A group with Republican ties is running antisemitic ads about Doug Emhoff that target Muslim voters in Michigan.
  • The Taylor Swift effect:

The Less Obvious Impacts Of Climate Change

TPM Cafe: The Skyscraper-Sized Tsunami That Vibrated Through The Entire Planet And No One Saw

Have Yourself A Weekend

My morning got off to a rough start when I realized it’s been … 35 years … since the release of James McMurtry’s perfect little debut album. Enjoy:

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On IVF, Schumer Dares Senate GOP To Put Their Money Where Trump’s Mouth Is

Posted on by Nicole Lafond

In Donald Trump’s desperate bid to win over voters who are, justifiably, concerned about the perilous position into which the Dobbs ruling has placed access to crucial fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization, the former president tried to cast himself as a “leader” on IVF during Tuesday night’s debate.

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The Skyscraper-Sized Tsunami That Vibrated Through The Entire Planet And No One Saw

Posted on by John Light

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

Earthquake scientists detected an unusual signal on monitoring stations used to detect seismic activity during September 2023. We saw it on sensors everywhere, from the Arctic to Antarctica.

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Trump’s Two Campaigns

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I wrote soon after Kamala Harris become the de facto Democratic nominee that I did not think that Donald Trump had the mental acuity, stamina or energy to fight for the presidency from behind. As long as he was a bit ahead — very durably a bit ahead — his energy and focus didn’t seem to matter. Everything I’ve seen since then has confirmed this judgment. Tuesday’s debate did so perhaps more than anything. But what I’ve also been increasingly aware of is that Trump has two campaigns in a way that is almost unique in modern presidential politics.

First, there’s Donald Trump, the guy we saw in the debate, the guy we see at the rallies and the guy Trump is, mostly, on social media. (People like Dan Scavino tweet for him sometimes. But even then it’s more an impersonation of feral Trump.) This persona was really the entirety of the campaign in 2016 because there just wasn’t any campaign infrastructure around, though a bit was built up in the last couple months. This campaign is mostly about Trump’s anger and grievances and shows all the signs not only of his longstanding degeneracy but his cognitive and personal decline over the last decade. Let’s call it the Trump campaign. But then there’s an entirely distinct and relatively traditional campaign being run by Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. That campaign wants to talk about inflation and the southern border. That campaign is running a vast and complex TV air war across all the swing states. Let’s call this the “Trump” campaign.

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What The Abuses Of Trump II Might Actually Look Like In The Real World

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Trump’s Slow-Burn Authoritarianism

An important piece out this morning from my former colleague Greg Sargent that grapples with one realistic and less overtly authoritarian scenario for a second Trump presidency:

A second Trump presidency could unleash a kind of lower-profile, slow-burn authoritarianism, something that unfolds much more quietly and largely behind the scenes. In its targeting of internal enemies and its efforts to carry out revolutionary changes via far-right governance, it could end up being much less dramatic, visible, or splashy—but at the same time, extremely insidious, difficult to track, and very challenging to mobilize against.

Sargent talks to people who are already gearing up to be targeted or have their clients targeted by a Trump administration, with an unconstrained DOJ willing to do the president’s bidding. It may not lead only to show trials but also to the slow, expensive, grinding down of perceived foes, vocal critics, and public servants just doing their jobs:

These are Trump critics who have already hired lawyers who are advising them to gird for low-grade bureaucratic bullying. They are advocates anticipating years of legal warfare against vulnerable populations like transgender Americans. They are state-level officials scouring statutes to prepare for legal tussles over who controls the National Guard. They are career government officials bracing for the corruption of official information to serve the autocrat in chief’s whims and propagandistic needs, and the underhanded subversion of rulemaking processes to deliver spoils to his cronies.

I’ve been hearing for months about people inside and outside of government who are girding for Trump II because of the roles they’ve played in, variously, investigating Trump, serving in the Biden administration, or simply working for a targeted department or agency. It’s toxic stuff that has real world effects already, even if Trump ultimately loses the election. The potential threat itself is corrosive to the civic space.

A quick final point: Trump won’t have to pick between scenarios like the one Sargent lays out and more overtly authoritarian ones. It can be both/and.

Security Beefed Up For Jan. 6, 2025

Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote, set for Jan. 6, 2025, has been designated a “national special security event” for the first time. That elevates it to the same level as the inauguration, the national political conventions, the UN General Assembly, and the Super Bowl.

Strange Bedfellows Alert

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, forced to resign his position in the George W. Bush administration over the U.S. attorneys scandal, penned an op-ed endorsing Kamala Harris for president, calling Donald Trump “perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.”

Important

WaPo: Trump stokes suspicions about assassination attempt, raising fears of more violence

Hate To See It

Right-wing extremist Laura Loomer traveled with Donald Trump aboard his private plane to the Philadelphia debate and hung out with him Wednesday during events in Manhattan and Pennsylvania commemorating the anniversary of 9/11, which she has called “an inside job.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) took the opportunity of Loomer’s increased profile to call her out for a tweet from over the weekend that targeted Kamala Harris, declaring it “appalling and extremely racist.”

That set off Loomer, who began attacking Greene over her sex life and for being a “raging anti Semite.”

Good times.

Meltdown

ICYMI:

A Philly Massacre

More debate fallout and reaction:

  • Another debate? The Harris campaign continued to push for another presidential debate while the Trump campaign weighed its options.
  • The xenophobia: “[T]he debate highlighted how Mr. Trump has escalated his assaults on immigrants in the 2024 presidential campaign, and how he uses the issue to overshadow other topics, including tariffs or the economy.”
  • Reax: Josh Marshall and Kate Riga process the debate …

2024 Ephemera

  • WaPo: Elon Musk’s misleading election claims reach millions and alarm election officials
  • The North Carolina Supreme Court’s last-minute decision ordering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed from the fall ballot after the statutory deadline will cost state taxpayers $1 million to destroy old ballots and reprint new ones.
  • Real consequences:

Grotesque

TPM’s Josh Kovensky: Father of Child Killed in Ohio Crash Begs Trump, Vance To Stop Politicizing Son’s Death

Leonard Leo Pushes To ‘Weaponize’ Conservative Ideas

“[V]astly insufficient funds are going toward operationalizing and weaponizing [conservative] ideas and policies to crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society,” conservative activist Leonard Leo told organizations he funds, in a letter obtained by Axios.

Mike Johnson Has The Tiger By The Tail Again

After yanking his preferred temporary spending bill – larded with a poison pill anti-immigrant provision – Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) finds himself in the same servile position as every other recent GOP House speaker. Behold the headlines:

  • TPM’s Nicole Lafond: Trump And Johnson’s Bid To Suppress The Vote, Shut Down The Government, And Stoke Panic Falls Apart
  • NYT: Johnson Scraps Vote on Spending Extension Amid Bipartisan Resistance
  • WSJ: GOP Objections Force Johnson to Pull Bill Keeping Government Open
  • Politico: Johnson faces GOP ire after conservative spending plan blows up
  • Punchbowl: Speaker Mike Johnson is in an extraordinarily unenviable position.

‘There’s A Lot Information On The Internet’

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) distinguishing himself as one of Tennessee’s best and brightest:

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Trump And Johnson’s Bid To Suppress The Vote, Shut Down The Government, And Stoke Panic Falls Apart

Posted on by Nicole Lafond

Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson are very proud of their plan to link a must-pass piece of government funding legislation to a bill that lays the groundwork for Trump to blame undocumented immigrants for his potential defeat in November. The only problem, we’re now learning, is that no one of any influence is on board with this plan besides the two of them.

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The Day After the Beating

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I wanted to share a few more thoughts about last night’s debate. You can find my overnight wrap-up here.

There are two realities: First, the race is going to remain close. It’s going to be a slog right up to Election Day, and Trump could win. Second, Harris thoroughly dominated and even humiliated Trump from the first minutes of the debate right through to the end. These things are both true. We just don’t know exactly how those two realities are going to interact over the next two months as they combine with other developments, news cycles and possibly new shocks we can’t predict.

Kate and I just recorded this week’s podcast which was basically all about the debate. In those conversations there’s some urge to hold back on saying just how thoroughly Harris dominated him because you don’t want to sound too frothy or exuberant or give people any sense that that thoroughness will be reflected in changes in the polls. My best guess is that it may have a small impact on the horse race polls and drive some negative news cycles for Trump.

Continue reading “The Day After the Beating” →