Trump Lied 602 Times In June Debate Against Biden. Will He Break That Record Against Harris On Tuesday Night?

Also: The threat of a woman's laugh.

This is an actual photo of Trump, looking like a well-done rotisserie chicken. The photo was taken by photojournalist Tannen Maury of Agence France-Presse (AFP) on January 6, 2024 in Clinton, Iowa. Maury stated the picture was “authentic” and has not been manipulated in any way.

“The 2024 presidential election cycle is the first time in at least 60 years that a single candidate hasn’t been ahead 5 points or more in the polls for three-plus weeks,” writes Vanity Fair’s Katie Herchenroeder, citing an analysis by CNN’s Harry Enten. That five-point margin has existed in every campaign since 1964. As Enten tweeted: “The race has been consistently close in a way I’ve never seen. The bottom line is this election is up for grabs with 2 months to go.”

There is no doubt the polls reveal a close race — which should blow the minds of all sentient beings everywhere — but it’s helpful to remember that the US uses the Electoral College, an archiac, nonsensical, concept from the days of slavery rather than the good old “one person, one vote” methos, which is how polling percentages are counted. It’s a virtual certainty that Vice President Kamala Harris will receive far more actual votes than Convicted Felon-Adjudicated Rapist Donald Trump, but the “popular vote” could be meaningless, as it was in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.

Team Trump is “literally praying” that the Orange Turd can stay on the rails Tuesday evening and not be his usual unhinged, deranged, mentally ill, orange-mask-wearing self. “I think—I pray—he can be disciplined,” Republican strategist Tricia McLaughlin told Politico. “Is Newt Nuts?” Gingrich opined that Harris will likely “try to demean him”, but all Trump has to do is “be calm and steady and stick to the real differences” between himself and Harris. . . . Yeah. Like most prayers, these will not be answered.

It all reminds me of one of my favourite Peanuts strips (October 21, 1965):

Trump is clearly expecting to fail — perhaps at a level no one has ever seen before — and for the last two weeks, he’s been laying a foundation of excuses why he did so poorly. Like everything else in this crazy world, it’s completely rigged against our hero, who has never caught even one measley break in his entire life. Job would commit suicide if he had to endure what Trump has endured. It’s been seven-eight long grueling seemingly endless years of unfairness and hoaxes and scams and now a deep state plot by the communists-marxists-leninists-socialists-stalinists-trotskyites who have slyly infested every corner of our lives and will never rest until all of us are transgender, using paper straws, and living in buildings without windows.

After the Biden-Trump debate in late June, several news outlets reported on the false, unverified, and exaggerated statements made by both candidates, as if both men were on the same level when it came to stretching the truth.

The Associated Press fact-checked Biden and Trump, both-sidesing that the candidates “traded barbs and a variety of false and misleading information”. Glenn “The Fact Checker” Kessler of the Washington Post looked at “35 of the most noteworthy claims” from the night: “Trump confidently relied on false assertions that have been debunked repeatedly. Biden, in what was viewed as a faltering performance, stretched the truth on occasion.” The Guardian noted that the two CNN moderators “took a completely hands-off approach to factchecking the candidates, letting lies and half-truths, most frequently from Donald Trump, remain unchallenged”. According to a CNN headline, “Trump made more than 30 false claims during CNN’s presidential debate — far more than Biden”. And from the Department of lol, Trump’s domestic policy adviser Tom (my shirt is) Fitton (a bit tight) said Trump told exactly zero lies.

CNN was right. Trump did tell more than 30 lies. At least 572 more . . .

Donald Trump lied at least 602 times while speaking for a total of 40 minutes in the June 27, 2024 debate. He averaged one lie every 3.9 seconds — which, I’ll admit, takes a certain amount of skill.

Seth Abramson — who writes the Proof substack (essential reading, btw) — took on the gargantuan job of documenting these 602 lies and providing links for many of them. (No idea if he’ll subject himself to that again.) After the RNC, he listed at least 80 lies in the portion of Trump’s acceptance speech in which he recounted the alleged assassination attempt made against him. Here’s a couple of paragraphs with the lies marked by number (in Abramson’s post, he discusses the lies at length):

. . . I will tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time (3), because it’s actually too painful to tell (4).

It was a warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler Township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (5). Music was loudly playing, and the campaign was doing really well (6). I went to the stage and the crowd was cheering wildly (7). Everybody was happy (8). I began speaking very strongly, powerfully and happily (9). Because I was discussing the great job my administration did on immigration at the southern border (10). We were very proud of it (11). . . .

I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard (15). On my right ear. I said to myself, “Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet” (16). And moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down. My hand was covered with blood (17). Just absolutely blood all over the place (18). I immediately knew it was very serious (19). That we were under attack (20). And in one movement proceeded to drop to the ground (21). Bullets were continuing to fly as very brave Secret Service agents rushed to the stage (22). And they really did. They rushed to the stage. These are great people at great risk (23), I will tell you, and pounced on top of me so that I would be protected. There was blood pouring everywhere (24), and yet in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side (25). I felt that (26). . . .

This massive crowd of tens of thousands of people (32) stood by and didn’t move an inch (33). In fact, many of them bravely but automatically stood up (34), looking for where the sniper would be. They knew immediately that it was a sniper (35). And then began pointing at him (36). You can see that if you look at the group behind me. That was just a small group compared to what was in front (37). Nobody ran (38) and, by not stampeding, many lives were saved (39). But that isn’t the reason that they didn’t move. The reason is that they knew I was in very serious trouble (40). They saw it (41). They saw me go down. They saw the blood (42), and thought, actually most did, that I was dead (43). They knew it was a shot to the head (44). They saw the blood (45). And there’s an interesting statistic. The ears are the bloodiest part (46). If something happens with the ears they bleed more than any other part of the body (47). For whatever reason the doctors told me that (48). . . .

They just, this beautiful crowd, they didn’t want to leave me (50). They knew I was in trouble (51). They didn’t want to leave me (52). And you can see that love written all over their faces (53). True (54). Incredible people. They’re incredible people. Bullets were flying over us (55), yet I felt serene (56). But now the Secret Service agents were putting themselves in peril (57). They were in very dangerous territory (58). Bullets were flying right over them (59), missing them by a very small amount of inches (60). And then it all stopped. Our Secret Service sniper, from a much greater distance (61) and with only one bullet used (62), took the assassin’s life. . . .

When I rose, surrounded by Secret Service, the crowd was confused because they thought I was dead (66). And there was great, great sorrow (67). I could see that on their faces as I looked out (68). They didn’t know I was looking out; they thought it was over. But I could see it and I wanted to do something (69) to let them know I was okay (70). . . .

Trump — a weak, shriveled coward who is worshipped as the ultimate alpha male by his cult members — has been whining and crying and lying non-stop for seven weeks about how IT’S SOOOO UNFAIR that Joe Biden is no longer his opponent. It’s a fact: the Orange Turd is the Oldest Presidential Candidate in History.

Once Biden was out, I expected a little more scrutiny of Trump’s obvious and worsening dementia by the mainstream media than I have seen. I didn’t get truped, but I did lose my head by putting a few grains of faith in the media. Of course, I know that reporting “what is going on” is an optional part of the job for the country’s most prominent print and television journalists. What baffles me is hearing so many people point out — even now, in 202fucking4 — that “the media has not learned a single thing/how to cover Trump” since [pick a year].

Of course, the media treats the right (and far-right) as the status quo. Of course, the media treats the candidacy of a fascist authoritarian demented rapist as no different from any other presidential candidate. Of course, the media obsesses on the very real cognitive decline of a Democratic candidate while it studiously ignores the extreme deterioration of the Republican candidate’s sanity and his inability to differentiate between reality and fantasy. Of course, the media ignores Trump’s flip-flopping opinions and crass non-stop grifting and speaking glitches and hammers on any little fault it can find with Harris. These are not mistakes. These are not biased reports because the media is terrified of being called “liberal”. This is not a media that has failed to learn how to cover a malignant narcissist/sociopath. No. This is what the mainstream media does. There are no lessons to be learned; any possible lessons were learned decades ago. The job of the US mainstream media is to create the distorted version of reality desired by the handful of corporations who control the entire media landscape — and it is in that distorted reality where we find acceptable versions of what is considered “liberal” and “conservative”.

Back On The Wagon (Fell Off The Wagon?)

Not long after I made a promise to myself to spend less time following US/Trump news and more time on what I truly want to do . . . Joe Biden finally agreed (or was convinced) he should not run in 2024, Kamala Harris (lengthy interviews here and here) defied all known laws of physics and Democratic politics by going an entire month without (more or less) a single misstep, JD Vance instantly became the most unpopular VP candidate in American history, finding it impossible to avoid being a fucking weirdo who couldn’t relate to anyone in public (h/t to Uday and Qusay for somehow convincing their father to go with Vance after leaning towards Burgum (Trump thought his hot wife was a big advantage), and the O. Turd nearly got his fat pumpkin head blown off on national TV by a young, white, presumably-Christian, AR-15-toting Republican (and then, within two weeks, his allegedly damaged right ear looked as good as new) . . . . I’m supposed to stay away from this unprecedented U-turn on one side and an epic self-immolating shitshow on the other? It’s like putting a cocaine addict behind Tony Montana’s desk. Fuckin’ hell!

Only minutes after Biden dropped out — whoever the sly fucker was that timed it for after the RNC (a “fascist monster’s ball” featuring political historian Hulk Hogan) is a goddamn genius — Harris’s campaign went from 0 to 100 in an eyeblink — and it felt like Sleepy Joe had never been president. Suddenly, Dementia Don was the oldest presidential candidate in American history — a simple fact which caused concern in the Kremlin and which conservatives demanded not be repeated by anyone.

I’ve been following politics for nearly 40 years — and I have never seen a Democrat do anything like what Harris did in her first three or four weeks. It was truly impressive. Everything she did and said hit the bulls’ eye perfectly — until she avoided any actual discussion about her support of the on-going genocide in Gaza). When I found out Tim Walz, a brilliant pick for VP, loves the Replacements and Hüsker Dü, I actually considered asking for a ballot.)

The switcheroo, made 107 days before the election, has likely caused Trump more emotional damage than whatever happened in Butler, Penn. (Which reminds me: In addition to receiving absolutely no medical information on Trump and little relevant information about the shooter, we also have no idea why the Secret Service carried Trump off the stage with his head, neck, shoulders, and chest completely exposed for close to 10 seconds (!!), which would have made an easy target for a possible second (or third) shooter. With Trump’s ear healing [sic?] in record time, the entire incident has been more or less pitched down the memory hole.)

After initially agreeing that Biden was “not fit to run for President”, Trump realized what a pickle he was trapped in and fell back on his strengths: whining and crying that everything is very UNFAIR. Trump was triggered enough to invent an elaborate fantasy in which Biden, angry at being cast aside in a coup, storms into the DNC, kicks the doors open, rushes the stage, and loudly demands to be put back on the ballot. Trump related this fantasy several times in public, hoping that repetition might make it true. . . . It did not.

Despite claiming that they’d prepared for weeks to attack Harris, Trump and MAGA clearly had no clue about how to demonize her. Their first option? Making fun of her laugh! You’d assume it was some Horshackian wheeze, but, no, it’s completely normal, nothing noteworthy about it. Saying she’s not qualified to be president because she never gave birth? MAGA is unmeasurably stupid, but even they might realize that none of the previous 46 presidents has experience childbirth.

Attacking Harris is one of their few gambits — all of the options require colossal lies. Turning Trump into a good candidate with reasonable policies and a functioning brain is out of the question — because he talks about Hannibal Lecter as a wonderful real-life person (though sadly deceased), says things like “We are going to bring back cement”, claims Harris is creating cheering crowds at desolate airports (perhaps the same airports used by George Washington’s troops during the Revoluntionary War) using AI, glitches mid-sentence with increasing regularly, and a million other reasons.

MAGA’s only possible play is to broadcast a mountain of lies against Harris and the man they call “Tampon Tim” and hope that causes some doubt in a few voters. If Team Trump hasn’t come up with anything substantial by now, will they ever? Trump recently was yelling (repeatedly) that he’s more attractive than Harris.

Happily, Harris has showed a willingness to counter these attacks and fight back (a move that has been absent from the Dems’ playbook for multiple decades). She is also planning to do something I prayed (though I’m an athiest) would happen — she is going to try to provoke Trump during the debate. Pushing his buttons is easy; he has so many triggers. I’ve been waiting a long time for Trump to say something extremely offensive. Maybe the time has finally come.

Amanda Marcotte, Salon, August 1, 2024:

As many political analysts have pointed out, Republicans aren’t doing themselves any favors by freaking out over the fact that Harris has a sense of humor. The ongoing GOP outrage that Harris sometimes expresses joy only reinforces the Democratic accusations that Trump and his allies are “weird.” Laughing when something’s funny is normal. Coming unglued because other people laugh is not. . . .

The depths of Trump’s loathing for female merriment were exposed during his two civil trials for sexual assault and defamation of journalist E. Jean Carroll, who he attacked in a department store dressing room in the ‘90s. As Carroll testified, she ran into Trump randomly that day and, as a lark, indulged his request to go shopping with him. During their outing, Carroll teased Trump with jokes about how he should try on lingerie. It appears that her laughing, which would be light-hearted fun to normal men, instead infuriated Trump so much that he responded with a violent assault. . . .

Feminists have long argued that rape is a crime of power, not of sexual incontinence. The story of Trump’s assault of Carroll illustrates this idea perfectly. In her telling, they were having a good time, right up until she told a harmless joke that angered him. [Marcotte references the famous saying: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”] . . .

I suspect what sets off misogynists like Trump is the way a woman’s laughter reminds them that women are autonomous human beings, who have full interior lives. For such men, they prefer to imagine women as appendages of men, who have no motivations outside of pleasing and serving men. A woman who laughs at a man’s jokes is acceptable. You don’t see Trump getting mad at the MAGA women who laugh at the faux-stand-up routine that he does at his rallies. But a woman who laughs out of genuine joy aggravates misogynists. 

We see this not just in the way that Trump and his allies hate Harris for laughing, they also detest her for dancing. The first attack ad released by the Trump campaign is ostensibly about immigration, but it’s also just as much about stirring up outrage that the vice president dares to dance. . . . It’s all reminiscent of a similar Republican tantrum in 2019 when they discovered that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., once danced in a video in college. . . .

The hostility to dancing is typical of right-wing rhetoric on Harris. On Fox News, Jesse Watters complained that Harris appeals to “wine moms” and characterized her interviews as “ditsy sit-downs with fan girls” to “talk about date nights.” The idea that women might relax with a glass of wine or talk about fun stuff with friends seems banal to most people, but misogynists come unglued. It’s the same thing behind their bizarre hatred of cats, or at least of women who have cats. Owning a pet is something a woman does for herself, not for men. As feminist philosopher Kate Manne pointed out in a recent interview with Salon, these men are furious that a woman is “looking anywhere else other than a man’s eyes. It’s that simple. How dare you avert your gaze from men to appreciate others, including cats.”

Sexist petulance is so childish and self-centered that it’s easy to laugh at, but as Carroll’s experience shows, that level of male entitlement can get dangerous quickly. Men who feel threatened by a woman can and often do lash out violently. . . .

[A] federal appeals court set September 6 for oral arguments in Trump’s appeal of Carroll’s legal victory.

Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, July 24, 2024:

Women who laugh in public have historically been associated with a lack of social modesty, with hysteria, and even with madness. In insisting that Harris’s laugh is somehow a sign of psychological depravity or narcotic-induced lack of inhibitions, conservatives are doing their best to couple Harris in people’s subconscious with a specific reaction: disgust.

As the philosopher Kate Manne notes in her 2017 book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, disgust has long been the weapon of choice for conservatives faced with women who try to gain political power. Disgust, Manne writes, is "a moralizing influence that intensifies and even drives novel moral judgments—in some cases, powerfully. It turns out that even mild ‘pangs’ of disgust can cause some people to judge that someone is suspicious and up to no good, even when such judgments clearly have no rational basis—when what the person was doing was entirely innocent, even praiseworthy.” And conservatives, as the science writer Kathleen McAuliffe reported in The Atlantic in 2019, are more likely to have disgust reactions triggered by specific images than liberals, which makes them more likely in turn to “make harsher moral judgments.”

This is by no means the first time that the politics of disgust have been deployed—crudely but effectively—against women. In 2007, when Hillary Clinton first announced that she was running for president, Rush Limbaugh questioned on his radio show whether the country really wanted to see “a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis.” Clinton’s laugh, too, was mocked, and associated with awkwardness and weirdness. When Trump cites Harris’s laugh as evidence of the fact that she’s supposedly “nuts,” he’s not just calling out a distinctive laugh; he’s helping his audiences draw a connection in their own minds between her emotional composure in public and her moral standing as a political leader. . . .

Those who seem triggered by Harris's laugh, though, might feel the way they do for a reason. In her book The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter, the media scholar Kathleen Rowe Karlyn remarks that when women laugh on film and television, they reframe themselves as subjects rather than objects, asserting their right to an emotional response “that expresses anger, resistance, solidarity, and joy.” In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as women became more politically active in the United States, wild rumors circulated that some who went to vaudeville shows or comic movies ended up laughing themselves to death. “Fun-loving women,” the literature professor Maggie Hennefeld writes, “were being terrorized into believing that their unrestrained pleasure could destroy them.”

In many recent cultures, laughter for women has been an outright transgressive act. Under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the former first lady Laura Bush noted in a 2001 speech, women faced beatings if they were seen laughing. And when the former Turkish deputy prime minister counseled women in 2014 not to laugh in public, lest they signal their “moral corruption,” Turkish women responded on social media by posting pictures of themselves defiantly laughing. “The men of a country in which women are not allowed to laugh are cowards,” one man wrote in solidarity at the time.

Part of what makes the attacks on Harris’s laugh seem so bizarre is that her laugh is both genuine and contagious—a sign of a woman expressing joy without neurosis or self-consciousness or repression. Laughter has a social function that binds people together and signals connection; we are 30 times more likely to laugh out loud in groups than we are alone. These acts of recognizable nonlinguistic communication are a key part of what makes us human. “Let me just tell you something: I have my mother’s laugh,” Harris told Drew Barrymore earlier this year. “And I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen, drinking their coffee, telling big stories with big laughs.” They also taught her, she said, not to be limited by “other people’s perception” of how a person should be. What Trump interprets as vulnerability may end up being a sign of Harris’s greatest strength.

Trump has been insulting Harris on a daily basis, including calling her “dumb as a rock” and “real garbage”. After Tuesday night’s debate, I hope someone asks Trump what it says about him that he got his clock cleaned by a dumb-as-a-rock-garbage-person?