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LA Times: Trump Claims Harris Campaign Paid Celebrities to Endorse Her

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2025 //
9

Trump ranted against the celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in her failed Presidential campaign, singling out Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen. He said they had been paid by the Harris campaign, and he threatened to investigate them. He insisted that Harris paid Beyoncé $11 million for her endorsement.

Trump is a sore winner.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

President Trump is very much still hung up on the star power that boosted former Vice President Kamala Harris’ ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

In a pair of posts shared to his Truth Social platform Sunday night and Monday morning, Trump criticized several celebrities who publicly endorsed Harris in her months-long bid. Among the stars fueling the former “Apprentice” host’s ire were Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah and Bono. In his caps-lock-laden tirades, Trump accused the Harris camp of illegally paying Springsteen, Beyoncé and other stars to appear at campaign events and throw their support behind the Biden-era VP.

“I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter,” Trump wrote on Sunday, before accusing Harris and her team of paying for endorsements “under the guise of paying for entertainment.”

Springsteen attacked Trump again as he performs in England.

The Boss did not back down on his fiery rhetoric against Trump on the second night of his “Land of Hopes and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, on Saturday — a day after Trump lashed out against the legendary singer on Truth Social, calling him an “obnoxious jerk,” a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker,” and writing that he should “keep his mouth shut.”

Springsteen didn’t oblige. In a resolute three-minute speech from the Co-op Live venue, Springsteen thanked his cheering audience for indulging him in a speech about the state of America: “Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy, and they’re too important to ignore.”

He then repeated many of the lines that he used during his first Manchester show — the same words that upset Trump to begin with, including the administration defunding American universities, the rolling back of civil rights legislation and siding with dictators, “against those who are struggling for their freedoms…”

“In my home, they’re persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That’s happening now,” Springsteen said. “In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. That’s happening now. In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.”
In a steady voice, he listed the many concerns of those who oppose Trump, his enablers and his policies.

“They are removing residents off American streets without due process of law and deploying them to foreign detention centers as prisoners. That’s happening now. The majority of our elected representatives have utterly failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government,” Springsteen said as the crowd applauded and yelled its support. “They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.”
He finished on a positive note.

“The America I’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real, and regardless of its many faults, it’s a great country with a great people, and we will survive this moment. Well, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, ‘In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’ ”

Categories Education Reform, Harris, Kamala, Insane, Politics, Trump

Kamala Was Not “Woke” During the Campaign

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2024 //
49

Among the many theories propounded by pundits with 20/20 hindsight vision: Kamala Harris lost because she was too “woke.” People just got tired of identity politics; they rejected “defund the police,” “protect transgender people,” and every other slogan that made straight white people feel unappreciated.

But they were wrong. Kamala seldom mentioned her race and gender. She always spoke of her great love for this country. She never said “defund the police.” And she avoided the transgender issue. It was the Republicans who kept bringing up issues that made Democrats appear out of touch. Her campaign was stubbornly centrist, even to the point of campaigning with Liz Cheney.

Zeeshan Aleem of MSNBC makes the same argument. I should carry copies of it and hand it out whenever someone claims that Kamala lost because she was too “woke.” (I confessed my personal view that Putin hacked the election. Maybe it’s just my deeply ingrained belief that women would not have voted in large numbers for a man who boasts about taking away an important right.)

He writes:

The Democratic Party is in crisis. In three contests against Donald Trump, it lost one, narrowly squeaked by in another, then lost more decisively than the first time. In Trump’s latest victory, over 90% of counties across the country shifted in his direction. Now people across the left are scrambling to diagnose what ails the party and offer a prescription. 

A group of center-left commentators and party operatives have converged on a diagnosis that could be summarized as “the wokes lost it.” This set argues that social justice activists who focus on oppression tied to identity had too much influence on the Democratic Party and helped torpedo Harris’ campaign. Working class people were alienated, they contend, by issues such as defund the police, trans rights, reparations for Black Americans, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, campus “cancel culture,” diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and the ever-evolving academic-sounding jargon that surrounds these issues. The solution, many of them imply or explicitly say, is for Democrats to become more socially conservative and stop opening their arms to “identity politics” or social justice advocacy.

This narrative is seductive for many veterans in the Democratic establishment, whose instincts have long been to mimic the right when in trouble. But this narrative is mostly wrong. It rests on a fictional account of the past, a handful of indefensible analytic leaps, and easily debunked scapegoating. A more careful reading of the facts helps illustrate how the party would benefit from a wholesale reorientation toward economic populism.   

“The wokes lost it” narrative relies on describing a fantastical presidential campaign that never existed. Harris did not run on defund the police or identity politics or any niche social justice issue. Harris brandished her track record as a former tough-on-crime prosecutor. She virtually never mentioned her racial or gender identity. On the hot-button issue of immigration, Harris promised to enact some of the most restrictive immigration and border policies in decades. She also distanced herself from the trans community by refusing to take a clear position when asked if transgender Americans should have access to gender-affirming care in this country. Harris ran mostly on a mix of positive vibes, an anodyne “opportunity economy” program, a pledge to maintain the international order and a promise to defend democracy, civil rights and normalcy. Harris’ efforts came after Biden ran a defensive and visionless campaign that banked almost entirely on fear of another Trump term and never came close to approaching anything “woke”-coded. In sum, there was no evidence of niche activists controlling the party….

There is a way for Democrats to both tap into universalism and into widespread frustration with the economy: aggressive economic populism. Tap into people’s class identity through class-first left-wing politics that pits working Americans of all backgrounds against billionaires, corporations and the 1%. Under this paradigm, bigotry of all kinds is framed as a tool by which elites distract and divide Americans from their economic exploitation. Conversely, anti-bigotry should be viewed as a war cry of freedom-lovers and a weapon for keeping the citizenry’s focus on class war. Economic proposals would not just be about incremental improvement but bringing down costs and reimagining freedom through the offerings of social democracy and cracking down on corporate greed. This would of course cause a bit of discomfort for an actuallyinfluential interest group that somehow the “the wokes lost it” crowd always forgets to mention: economic elites. But it would unite and excite the people and pave the path for a life of greater freedom in every sphere of life.

Democrats ought to stop whining about social movements, which are a fact of political life. They also ought to stop implying that movements and subcultures possess power that they don’t, while ignoring how wealthy donors shape the party’s economic agenda. The reality is political leaders and parties will always have to manage unruly coalitions and stake out positions that are in dialogue with but distinct from interest groups. Trump fairly successfully distanced himself from the national abortion ban advocates in the Republican coalition, and he successfully deceived many into thinking he would protect Social Security over the instincts of fiscal hawks in his party. Democrats, as the ostensible party of social change and egalitarianism, will always bear this burden of engaging movements even more heavily than the GOP. But a party must have an identity and that identity should be grounded in an economic sensibility. It’s time for Dems to wake up and build a real economic centerpiece for a party that has failed to establish a clear sense of self since the Reagan era.

Categories Elections, Extremism, Harris, Kamala, Trump

Robert Hubbell: The Pundits Who Blame Democrats Are Wrong

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2024 //
94

Robert Hubbell is a popular and insightful blogger who has been an inspiration during the campaign. In this post, he takes issue with the pundits who blame Democrats for Trump’s victory, specifically, those who say that Democrats abandoned the working class.

Hubbell wrote:

People continue to be in shock. Many readers report that they have withdrawn from cable news and legacy media outlets. Understandably so. Those outlets are falling over themselves to explain “why” the 2024 presidential election unfolded as it did. The only statement we can make with certainty is that whatever the political commentariat tells us in the short term will be wrong. Spectacularly so.

Don’t believe me? See Jon Stewart’s review of post-election analyses by pundits over the last two decades. See Jon Stewart’s Election Night Takeaway. Watch the entire three minutes. It will help you endure the onslaught of “hot takes” that purport to explain the election—mainly by blaming Democrats.

Before turning to the growing chorus of Democrats blaming Democrats for the loss, let’s acknowledge some good news. Voters in seven states approved state constitutional amendments to protect reproductive liberty: Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York. Newcomer Elissa Slotkin was elected as a US Senator from Michigan. US Senator Jacky Rosen was reelected in Nevada. Other races (Ruben Gallego, Bob Casey) are still open or awaiting ballot curing (more about that below).

In North Carolina, Democrats captured the offices of Governor (Josh Stein), Lieutenant Governor (Rachel Hunt), Attorney General (Jeff Jackson), and top schools official (Mo Greene). In addition, Democrats broke the GOP supermajority in the state house! (For those of you who participated in The States Project, breaking the supermajority in NC was a top priority.)

In Wisconsin, Democrats flipped ten seats in the state Assembly after the state supreme court approved new legislative district lines—setting up Democrats to take control of the state Assembly in 2026.

Blaming Democrats for losses in 2024 is not helpful, fair, or accurate

I spent much of the day drafting responses to readers who forwarded articles / posts claiming that Democratic losses in 2024 were due to the fact that they had “lost touch” or “alienated” or “failed to listen to” working class voters or male voters. I won’t link to those articles / posts. They are ubiquitous.

The notion that Democrats “failed to listen to” or “lost touch” with the middle and working classes is demonstrably wrong. Virtually every policy promoted by VP Harris was designed to help the middle class, blue-collar workers, and the working poor:

Childcare tax credits, earned income credits for the working poor, lower prescription drug prices, protecting affordable healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, protecting unions and workers’ rights, providing for in-home care for elderly and homebound, subsidizing first-time homebuyers, building affordable housing, student loan forgiveness, prosecuting price gouging, and a middle-class tax cut.

To the extent that the Democrats speak through policies, virtually all Democratic policies seek to improve the lives of the middle class, working class, and working poor. On a policy level, the assertion Democrats “forgot” or “abandoned” the working class is wrong and corrosive.

What, then, is the source of the false notion that Democrats have “forgotten” the working class? I don’t know for certain, but I have a guess. (I invite others to weigh in; I was an English major and a securities litigation lawyer. I claim no expertise in political analysis.)

Many (not all) in the middle and working classes disagree with Democratic support for women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, equal voting rights for Black citizens, and the fight against human-caused climate change. To the extent that Democrats have parted ways with the cultural and social views of many in the working class and middle class, those groups feel “alienated” and “ignored.” 

But it is no answer to those feelings of abandonment and alienation to abandon the struggle for full equality for women, LGBTQ rights, voting rights for Black citizens, and protection of the environment.

So, yes, there is a growing gap between Democratic policies on social issues and many (not all) in the middle and working classes, especially males.

Case in point: Despite unprecedented support for unions by Biden and Harris, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters refused to endorse Kamala Harris. The only rational course of action for unions is to support Kamala Harris. Why, then, did the Teamsters refuse to do so?

My belief: A majority of Teamsters—largely male working-class voters—disagreed with Kamala Harris and Democrats on social issues, like women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, Black voting rights, and efforts to fight human-caused climate change.

So, the fiction that Democrats have “ignored” the working and middle classes is wrong on the merits. It is only on social issues at the core of the Democratic Party’s commitment to social justice that there has been a divergence of opinion.

The answer to the above conundrum is not to abandon the social justice values that are at the core of the Democratic Party but to expand the voting base that is the backbone of the party.

If anyone tells you that Democrats lost in 2024 because they “abandoned” the working class, ask them specifically how Democrats did so. Be prepared to list Kamala Harris’s policies designed to improve the lives of the working class. Ask them how extending the GOP tax cut for millionaires and corporations will benefit the working class. Ask them how the GOP plan to kill Obamacare will help the working class. Or how imposing a 10% tariff on all imported goods will help the working class.

The fiction that Democrats “abandoned” the working class is designed to set Democrats against one another. It is beginning to gain traction because gullible media is willingly spreading the lie. Don’t be seduced by the fiction. Democrats must remain loyal to their roots of social justice and dignity for all. It is the right thing to do. It is the only thing to do. Political victory without justice for all would be hollow and bitter. We are better than that.

Categories Accountability, Democrats, Elections, Harris, Kamala

Michael Tomasky: The Real Reason Trump Won

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2024 //
57

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic offers his view about why Trump won. I think it was because Putin intervened with hacking. Most think it was high prices, the cost of eggs and gasoline. Some say it was because Kamala had no agenda (I disagree). Some say it was her unwillingness to detach from unpopular Biden. Some say it was Biden’s fault for not dropping out a year earlier. Tomasky disagrees.

He wrote:

Item one: It wasn’t the economy. It wasn’t inflation, or anything else. It was how people perceive those things, which points to one overpowering answer.

I’ve had a lot of conversations since Tuesday revolving around the question of why Donald Trump won. The economy and inflation. Kamala Harris didn’t do this or that. Sexism and racism. The border. That trans-inmate ad that ran a jillion times. And so on.

These conversations have usually proceeded along lines where people ask incredulously how a majority of voters could have believed this or that. Weren’t they bothered that Trump is a convicted felon? An adjudicated rapist? Didn’t his invocation of violence against Liz Cheney, or 50 other examples of his disgusting imprecations, obviously disqualify him? And couldn’t they see that Harris, whatever her shortcomings, was a fundamentally smart, honest, well-meaning person who would show basic respect for the Constitution and wouldn’t do anything weird as president?

The answer is obviously no—not enough people were able to see any of those things. At which point people throw up their hands and say, “I give up.”

But this line of analysis requires that we ask one more question. And it’s the crucial one: Why didn’t a majority of voters see these things? And understanding the answer to that question is how we start to dig out of this tragic mess.

The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win.

Let me say that again, in case it got lost: Today, the right-wing media sets the news agenda in this country. Not The New York Times. Not The Washington Post (which bent over backward to exert no influence when Jeff Bezos pulled the paper’s Harris endorsement). Not CBS, NBC, and ABC. The agenda is set by all the outlets I listed in the above paragraph. Even the mighty New York Times follows in its wake, aping the tone they set disturbingly often.

If you read me regularly, you know that I’ve written this before, but I’m going to keep writing it until people—specifically, rich liberals, who are the only people in the world who have the power to do something about this state of affairs—take some action.

I’ve been in the media for three decades, and I’ve watched this happen from the front row. Fox News came on the air in 1996. Then, it was an annoyance, a little bug the mainstream media could brush off its shoulder. There was also Rush Limbaugh; still, no comparison between the two medias. Rush was talented, after a fashion anyway, but couldn’t survive in a mainstream lane (recall how quickly the experiment of having him be an ESPN color commentator went off the rails). But in the late 1990s, and after the internet exploded and George W. Bush took office, the right-wing media grew and grew. At first, the liberal media grew as well, along with the internet, in the form of a robust blogosphere that eventually spawned influential, agenda-setting websites like HuffPost. But billionaires on the right have invested far more heavily in media in the last two decades than their counterparts on the left—whose ad-supported, V.C.-funded operations started to fizzle out once social media and Google starting eating up the revenue pie.

And the result is what we see today. The readily visual analogy I use is: Once upon a time, the mainstream media was a beach ball and the right-wing media was a golf ball. Today, the mainstream media (what with layoffs and closures and the near death of serious local news reporting) is the size of a volleyball and the right-wing media is the size of a basketball, which, in case you’re wondering, is bigger.

This is the year in which it became obvious that the right-wing media has more power than the mainstream media. It’s not just that it’s bigger. It’s that it speaks with one voice, and that voice says Democrats and liberals are treasonous elitists who hate you, and Republicans and conservatives love God and country and are your last line of defense against your son coming home from school your daughter.

And that is why Donald Trump won. Indeed, the right-wing media is why he exists in our political lives in the first place. Don’t believe me? Try this thought experiment. Imagine Trump coming down that escalator in 2015 with no right-wing media; no Fox News; an agenda still set, and mores still established, by staid old CBS News, the House of Murrow, and The New York Times.

That atmosphere would have denied an outrageous figure like Trump the oxygen he needed to survive and flourish. He just would not have been taken seriously at all. In that world, ruled by a traditional mainstream media, Trump would have been seen by Republicans as a liability, and they would have done what they failed to do in real life—banded together to marginalize him.

But the existence of Fox changed everything. Fox hosted the early debates, which Trump won not with intelligence but outrageousness. He tapped into the grievance culture Fox had nursed among conservatives for years. He had (most of the time) Rupert Murdoch’s personal blessing. In 2015–16, Fox made Trump possible.

And this year, Fox and the rest of the right-wing media elected him. I discussed all this Thursday with Matthew Gertz of Media Matters for America, who watches lots of Fox News so the rest of us don’t have to. He made the crucial point—and you must understand this—that nearly all the crazy memes that percolated into the news stream during this election came not from Trump or JD Vance originally, but from somewhere in the right-wing media ecosystem.

The fake story about Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, eating cats and dogs, for example, started with a Facebook post citing second- and third-hand sources, Gertz told me; it then “circulated on X and was picked up by all the major right-wing influencers.” Only then did Vance, a very online dude, notice it and decide to run with it. And then Trump said it himself at the debate. But it started in the right-wing media.

Likewise with the postdebate ABC “whistleblower” claims, which Gertz wrote aboutat the time. This was the story that ABC, which hosted the only presidential debate this election, fed Team Harris the questions in advance. This started, Gertz wrote, as a “wildly flimsy internet rumor launched by a random pro-Trump X poster.” Soon enough, the right-wing media was all over it.

Maybe that one didn’t make a huge difference (although who knows?), but this one, I believe, absolutely did: the idea that Harris and Joe Biden swiped emergency aid away from the victims of Hurricane Helene (in mostly Southern, red states) and gave it all to undocumented migrants. It did not start with Trump or his campaign or Vance or the Republican National Committee or Lindsey Graham. It started on Fox. Only then did the others pick it up. And it was key, since this was a moment when Harris’s momentum in the polling averages began to flag.

I think a lot of people who don’t watch Fox or listen to Sinclair radio don’t understand this crucial chicken-and-egg point. They assume that Trump says something and the right-wing media amplify it. That happens sometimes. But more often, it’s the other way around. These memes start in the media sphere, then they become part of the Trump agenda.

I haven’t even gotten to the economy, about which there is so much to say. Yes—inflation is real. But the Biden economy has been great in many ways. The U.S. economy, wrote The Economist in mid-October, is “the envy of the world.” But in the right-wing media, the horror stories were relentless. And mainstream economic reporting too often followed that lead. Allow me to make the world’s easiest prediction: After 12 noon next January 20, it won’t take Fox News and Fox Business even a full hour to start locating every positive economic indicator they can find and start touting those. Within weeks, the “roaring Trump economy” will be conventional wisdom. (Eventually, as some of the fruits from the long tail of Bidenomics start growing on the vine, Trump may become the beneficiary of some real-world facts as well, taking credit for that which he opposed and regularly denounced.)

Back to the campaign. I asked Gertz what I call my “Ulan Bator question.” If someone moved to America from Ulan Bator, Mongolia, in the summer and watched only Fox News, what would that person learn about Kamala Harris? “You would know that she is a very stupid person,” Gertz said. “You’d know that she orchestrated a coup against Joe Biden. That she’s a crazed extremist. And that she very much does not care about you.”

Same Ulan Bator question about Trump? That he’s been “the target of a vicious witch-hunt for years and years,” that he is under constant assault; and most importantly, that he is “doing it all for you.”

To much of America, by the way, this is not understood as one side’s view of things. It’s simply “the news.” This is what people—white people, chiefly—watch in about two-thirds of the country. I trust that you’ve seen in your travels, as I have in mine, that in red or even some purple parts of the country, when you walk into a hotel lobby or a hospital waiting room or even a bar, where the TVs ought to be offering us some peace and just showing ESPN, at least one television is tuned to Fox. That’s reach, and that’s power. And then people get in their cars to drive home and listen to an iHeart, right-wing talk radio station. And then they get home and watch their local news and it’s owned by Sinclair, and it too has a clear right-wing slant. And then they pick up their local paper, if it still exists, and the op-ed page features Cal Thomas and Ben Shapiro.

Liberals, rich and otherwise, live in a bubble where they never see this stuff. I would beg them to see it. Watch some Fox. Listen to some Christian radio. Experience the news that millions of Americans are getting on a daily basis. You’ll pretty quickly come to understand what I’m saying here.

And then contemplate this fact: If you think they’re done, you’re in fantasyland. They’re not happy with the rough parity, the slight advantage they have now. They want media domination. Sinclair bought the once glorious Baltimore Sun.Don’t think they’ll stop there. I predict Sinclair or News Corp will own The Washington Post one day. Maybe sooner than we think.

I implore you. Contemplate this. If you’re of a certain age, you have a living memory of revolutions in what we used to call the Third World. Question: What’s the first thing every guerilla army, whether of the left or the right, did once they seized the palace? They took over the radio or television station. First. There’s a reason for that.

It’s the same reason Viktor Orbán told CPAC in 2022: “Have your own media.”

This is a crisis. The Democratic brand is garbage in wide swaths of the country, and this is the reason. Consider this point. In Missouri on Tuesday, voters passed a pro–abortion rights initiative and another that raised the minimum wage and mandated paid leave. These are all Democratic positions. But as far as electing someone to high office, the Man-Boy Love Party could probably come closer than the Democrats. Trump beat Harris there by 18 points, and Senator Josh Hawley beat Lucas Kunce, who ran a good race and pasted Hawley in their debate, by 14 points.

The reason? The right-wing media. And it’s only growing and growing. And I haven’t even gotten to social media and TikTok and the other platforms from which far more people are getting their news these days. The right is way ahead on those fronts too. Liberals must wake up and understand this and do something about it before it’s too late, which it almost is

Categories Biden, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Why Kamala Lost

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2024 //
18

Pundits today have spent time dissecting the election results, many trying to find the one tweak that would have changed the outcome, and suggesting sweeping solutions to the Democrats’ obvious inability to attract voters. There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.

There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat. 

But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing. 

In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office, and even that his chief of staff General John Kelly considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025, I interviewed to show that they supported it. I can not compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.” 

X users noted a dramatic drop in their followers today, likely as bots, no longer necessary, disengaged. 

Many voters who were using their vote to make an economic statement are likely going to be surprised to discover what they have actually voted for. In his victory speech, Trump said the American people had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” 

White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, previously funded by Russia, posted: “It is my honor to inform you that Project 2025 was real the whole time.” 

Today, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would launch the “largest mass deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants, and the stock in private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic  jumped 41% and 29%, respectively. Those jumps were part of a bigger overall jump: the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1,508 points in what Washington Post economic columnist HeatherLong said was the largest post-election jump in more than 100 years. 

As for the lower prices Trump voters wanted, Kate Gibson of CBS today noted that on Monday, the National Retail Federation said that Trump’s proposed tariffs will cost American consumers between $46 billion and $78 billion a year as clothing, toys, furniture, appliances, and footwear all become more expensive. A $50 pair of running shoes, Gibson said, would retail for $59 to $64 under the new tariffs.

U.S. retailers are already preparing to raise prices of items from foreign suppliers, passing to consumers the cost of any future tariffs. 

Trump’s election will also mean he will no longer have to answer to the law for his federal indictments: special counsel Jack Smith is winding them down ahead of Trump’s inauguration. So he will not be tried for retaining classified documents or attempting to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost in 2020. 

This evening, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán posted on social media that he had just spoken with Trump, and said: “We have big plans for the future!” 

Categories Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Harris, Kamala, Media, Trump

The Election Results

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2024 //
49

So Trump won. In state after state, Harris got fewer votes than Biden in 2020.

Once Trump won Pennsylvania, the race was over.

She brought joy and the promise of bipartisanship to the race. Voters rejected her optimism and chose the glowering, angry man.

I am frankly frightened for the future.

Trump’s victory may be the death knell for NATO. It certainly is the end of US support for Ukraine in its fight for freedom. It’s great news for Putin. It may mean high tariffs and more inflation. It may mean the repeal of Obamacare, leaving millions of people without health insurance. It may mean the roundup of 10-15 million immigrants–men, women, and children; the erection of thousands of detention camps to hold them; and mass deportations. It may mean the prosecution of Trump’s “enemies”: Joe Biden; Kamala Harris; Nancy Pelosi; Liz Cheney; and anyone else he chooses. It surely means a pardon for the J6 insurrectionists.

I didn’t expect that voters would choose a 78-year-old man who built his campaign around fear and hatred: racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia; a man who tried to overturn the 2020 election by inciting an insurrection; a man who lies incessantly.

One piece of great news in an otherwise nerve wracking evening: Voters in Kentucky voted 65% to 35% against vouchers. This victory for public schools follows a long line of similar successes in every other voucher referendum.

A possible bit of good news is that Mo Green was beating Michelle Morrow in the race for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction. Of 5.5 million votes counted, Green was ahead by about 130,000 votes. Green is an experienced educator. Morrow is a home schooling mother and a rightwing extremist. She is noted for saying she wanted to see Barack Obama executed on pay-per-view TV. Frankly, given how little she knows about the schools and how far-out her views are, it’s shocking that she won almost half the votes.

In Massachusetts, voters overwhelmingly banned future use of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement. The last number I saw was 87%.

If there is any good news in your neck of the woods, please let me know.

Catherine Martinez reports about Florida:

Voters in Florida rejected a constitutional amendment put on the ballot by the state legislature to change school board election from non-partisan to partisan.

Janice Strauss wrote:

Good news coming from NY’s 19th Congressional District (mostly the Southern Tier area of NYS): local hometown graduate, Josh Riley, beat MAGA Marc Molinaro for Congress. Josh accepted no PAC money, he is very pro-public schools, and included many of his former teachers in numerous campaign activities.

Categories Elections, Harris, Kamala, Trump

Brian Stelter: What Was the Most Memorable Event of the Campaign?

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2024 //
3

Brian Stelter was CNN’s media critic for many years. He had a regular show called “Reliable Sources.” CNN went through a period of reorganization, and he was fired. The reorganization was a failure, CNN leadership changed. Brian was rehired. He now again writes and reports for CNN.

He wrote today:

Quick – choose a memorable moment from this presidential election year. What did you pick? Maybe Jake Tapper and Dana Bash‘s CNN presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Maybe Kamala Harris‘s DNC convention speech, or Trump’s sit-down with Joe Rogan, or his garbage truck photo op? This campaign has been chock full of made-for-TV spectacles and surprises.

But if I had to pick just one moment, I’d choose the day in August when Trump claimed that the VP’s very real crowd was faked. “She ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Trump falsely shouted on Truth Social.

The episode encapsulated so much about this election. Trump’s use of social media to spread conspiracy theories; an insistence on creating his own reality; a disbelief that his Democratic rival could draw a big crowd at all; a disregard for the fact-checkers who debunked his post. 

Plus, I bet many of you have already forgotten about AI-crowd-size-gate. That’s been another trademark feature of this campaign: exhaustion! 

Reality itself has been contested during this election year. “The refusal to accept basic, verifiable facts has some observers concerned about a repeat of 2020 false claims of a stolen election if Trump loses,” NPR wrote while debunking Trump’s crowd size lie. It can be incredibly dispiriting for journalists. Imagine trying to convince a skeptic that the Harris rally you covered did, in fact, have a crowd. But it also reaffirms the importance of journalism to vet and verify information.

 >> One last point: Trump was scratching at something deep when he said the Harris crowd “didn’t exist.” On this Election Day, some Trump fans find it unfathomable that Harris could win. Frankly, it’s also true that some Harris fans find it hard to believe that Trump could regain power. But someone is about to win. This week, America’s TV networks and newswires are like mediators, helping the country accept whatever the result will be.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Harris, Kamala, Lies, Trump

Network for Public Education: Our Closing Argument

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2024 //
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The Network for Public Education is the largest organization of parents, activists, educators and students that works to preserve and improve public education. Now in its 11th year, NPE works with organizations in every state to oppose privatization of our public schools, to promote full funding of them, and to support the professionals whose work is crucial to their success.

NPE issued this statement about today’s election

Our endorsement was as much a rejection of Donald J. Trump as it was an embrace of the Harris/Walz pro-public education ticket. There can be no romanticization of the Trump years. His choice of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, a zealot for private school vouchers, damaged the public’s faith and allegiance to public schools. They sought to slash federal education funding in every budget proposal.  Ms. DeVos has made it clear she would be eager to return to the job to dismantle the Department of Education and public education itself.

Earlier this year, the Board of Directors of the Network for Public Education Action endorsed Kamala Harris for President and Tim Walz for Vice President of the United States. 

We respect that public school advocates may or may not agree with our endorsements, and we know those who support public schools disagree on other issues. 

This year, however, we must speak again, urging all, whether progressive, moderate, or conservative in political beliefs, to support the Harris/Walz ticket. The very well-being of our children is at stake.

We have all heard the vitriol directed at immigrants at rallies and even the Presidential debate. Regardless of varying positions on immigration policy, this campaign of hatred and contempt will accelerate and inevitably permeate our schools, which millions of children who come from immigrant households attend. The rhetoric of hate not only affects how children view themselves and their classmates, but it sends the message that hate speech is allowed.

We also know that Trump’s false claims that children are receiving gender transition surgery at school and that public school teachers are “grooming” students are part of a broader anti-public school campaign. But the consequences go beyond the politics of school choice. For some parents, these lies evoke anger and fear. They undermine parents’ trust in teachers and schools. They send a message to children that adults can repeatedly lie without personal consequence and that the liar can even be rewarded with the Presidency.

Some believe the lies, hate speech, and personal attacks are just a part of the campaign. We believe that the election of Donald Trump will not end hateful misinformation and personal attacks, but rather, they will become an integral part of American life. We cannot let that happen. We can return to civil discourse and disagreement.

The stakes are greater than program funding and support. Our children are watching. Our children are learning. They deserve to grow up in a country in which tolerance and respect are the norm, not the demonization of those who are culurally or racially different or who hold a differing point of view.  For the sake of their emotional well-being and the development of their character, Trumpism must end.  We urge you to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on November 5.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Trump

Carol Burris: Why Older Women Will Not Vote for Trump

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2024 //
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The Iowa poll conducted by pollster Ann Seltzer, published in the Des Moines Register, is considered one of the best in the country. When it was released, it shocked everyone following the election closely. It found that Kamala Harris was leading Trump by 47%-44% in deep-red Iowa. That’s still within the margin of error. The decisive factor that led to Harris’s lead was the gender gap, especially among women over 65. That demographic, usually Republican, favored Harris by a 2-1 margin.

Carol Burris, a mother and grandmother, explained why Harris is favored by older women.

She writes:

The latest Iowa poll shows Harris’s incredible support among senior women (63% -Harris to 28% Trump.) Pundits are surprised. This 71-year-old is not. That is because women over 65 remember.

 

We remember the world that Trump and Vance represent.

 

·      We remember needing our husband’s consent to get a credit card.

·      We remember when single women were referred to as “old maids,” –we hear that again in the “cat lady” remarks.

·      We remember when the doors to a professional life were closed, and women who used childcare if they could find it were considered “bad mommies.”

·      We remember the era of coat-hanger abortions.

·      We remember when there was no IVF, and those who desperately wanted a child were disappointed.

·      We remember when single motherhood made women an outcast, and the child was called a “bastard.”

·      We remember the days of McCarthyism; we either lived them, or they were a recent, chilling memory.

·      We remember when the KKK marched with impunity.

·      We remember the tasteless sexist humor of Milton Berle and when Jackie Gleason regularly vowed to punch his wife Alice “to the moon.” And a nation laughed.

·      We remember the aggression and cruel repression of the Soviet Union in Europe, now returning in Vladimir Putin.

·      We remember when the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated.

We remember when gay women were called, Dykes and Butches and lived in fear of exposure.

·      And we remember an era when the common good was reflected in our religious values and “the least of these” were considered our brothers and sisters, not invaders and the eaters of pets.

 

We know the Donald Trumps of the world. We grew up with them. He belongs to our generation. We understand how they think.  We remember the days when we were “protected whether we liked it or not.” 

 

And we will not return.  We love ourselves, our daughters, and our granddaughters too much. The price of eggs will come down no matter who is elected. We are unwinding from COVID inflation like the rest of the world.  Listen to those who remember. 

Categories Cruelty, Elections, Gender, Harris, Kamala, Iowa, Trump

Houston Chronicle Endorses Kamala Harris

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2024 //
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The Houston Chronicle is the newspaper with the second largest circulation in Texas, behind the Dallas Morning News. The Chronicle endorsed Kamala Harris. This is how you endorse a Democratic candidate in a Deep Red state.

Clawing out of the mud-caked aftermath of a deadly hurricane should be a solemn moment, even in this divided America. Scenes from Helene’s wrath in North Carolina — sedans flung like toy cars, living room couches marinated in floodwaters, towns reduced to war zone rubble — touch a nerve with Houstonians who lived through Harvey and other devastating storms.

These disasters take so much from us, but the aftermath brings hope. On a trip to North Carolina and Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris worked a hot meal line and remarked at another point: “I think that in these moments of hardship, one of the beauties about who we are as a country is — is people really rally together and show the best of who they are in moments of crisis.”

In Houston, too, neighbors we’ve never met pull up with chainsaws and muck-and-gut gear, Cajun Navy volunteers deploy boats for rooftop rescues. Government makes itself useful, too, and leaders prioritize concern, clear communication and aid to those in need, above everything — including political stumping and tribalism.

Nearly all political leaders — regardless of party, geography or faith tradition — honor this ritual.

Not Donald Trump.

His visit to Helene-devastated areas was a vehicle to spread lies, inflame and divide. His claims that the Biden administration isn’t helping victims because they’re Republican or that FEMA has run out of money — “It’s all gone. They’ve spent it on illegal migrants.” — are baseless. They’ve been refuted by Republican officials and yet, they’re still stirring fear, anger and distrust that have led to threats against FEMA workers and confusion among vulnerable people about whether help is available and whether it can be trusted.

This is how Trump leads. He doesn’t. Even in a desperate hour of need, he exploits. Even from people who have lost everything, he takes.

It’s just one in a sea of examples showing why we believe Trump is unfit for a second term in the White House, and why this editorial board endorses Kamala Harris for president of the United States.

Many who are firmly in Trump’s camp won’t be swayed, we know. Some are fatigued by dire warnings about his threat to democracy. They’re less concerned in this election with abstract notions of patriotism than with how to pay the rent in a vulturous housing market or how to feed the kids when inflation has eaten the grocery budget. We understand Trump’s star power, the kernel of truth in some of his outrageous diatribes and the sense of community he’s built among Americans who feel their grievances have never been adequately addressed.

But we ask those with a shred of doubt to open your minds to inconvenient truths. We ask you to resist the temptation to dismiss the former president as some kind of redeemable shock jock — erratic, entertaining but not really dangerous.

And understand this: A man who will exploit a deadly hurricane will exploit you. A man with six bankruptcies and millions owed that he may not have the cash to pay is trying to win the White House in part to stay out of the poor house. He will not do any better with our economy. The inflation you’re feeling wasn’t invented by Joe Biden. It’s an aftershock of the global pandemic, it hurt wallets all over the world, and it’s finally easing off. As for Trump’s economy as president, rose-colored glasses are doing a number on us. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts didn’t grow the economy like he promised. He added twice as many trillions to the deficit as Biden, not even counting pandemic spending, and added half as many jobs.

Of course, other folks don’t need another reason to vote against Trump.

For them, Jan. 6 is enough, from the lying beforehand to attempting to overthrow a free and fair election to inciting a riotous insurrection at the Capitol. Protest “peacefully,” he said with one breath, and with the other: “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

For others, it was the two House impeachments. Or cozying up with dictators. Or nominating Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Or the 34 felony convictions stemming from hush-money payments to a porn star. Or the $540 million in legal judgments largely for fraud and defamation, including a finding that he’s liable for committing sexual assault.

For still others, it’s the threats about what he’ll do with a second term, especially after he lost the trust of many decent people who were willing to serve in his Cabinet the first time. Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, refuses to endorse his former boss after Trump branded him a traitor and turned loose an angry mob that hunted him during the Capitol riot so they could hang him. The distinguished military men Trump called “my generals” — including John Kelly, homeland security secretary before becoming Trump’s chief of staff; James Mattis, defense secretary; and Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — are warning voters against his dictatorial tendencies. Milley, whom Trump named the highest-ranking military officer in the nation, told Bob Woodward that Trump is “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.”

But don’t take his word for it. Trump himself said the mythical fraud he alleged in the 2020 election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Those wondering whether he’ll really act on threats to retaliate against political rivals don’t have to wonder: he already did in his first term, as The New York Times has reported. From Hillary Clinton to former FBI director James Comey, to Trump’s own former national security adviser John Bolton, those who crossed Trump found themselves facing costly, grueling IRS audits, Justice Department investigations and in Bolton’s case, a criminal probe and lawsuit when he tried to publish a book critical of Trump.   

So yes, Harris’ best asset is that she’s not Trump. Beyond her basic qualifications of human decency, self-control and mature leadership skills, her career path from law enforcement to the U.S. Senate to the vice president’s office illustrates independence, drive and a steely spine. And perhaps as important, a propensity to give more than take. Prosecuting child molesters and rapists required patience and compassion to earn the trust of frightened children. Later, prosecuting transnational cartel members required guts.

From prosecutor to district attorney to the state attorney general of California, it wasn’t an obvious trajectory for the daughter of freedom-fighter academics, her Indian-born mother a scientist, her Jamaican-born father an economist. Harris says her mother modeled civic leadership, exposed her to history and the American principles of freedom and equity and took her protests where she had a “stroller’s-eye view” of the civil right’s movement.

In her book, “The Truths We Hold,” Harris said she wanted to fight for justice from the inside, where she hoped to dispel the false choice between being tough on crime and smart on crime: “You can want the police to stop crime in your neighborhood and also want them to stop using excessive force,” she wrote. “…You can believe in the need for consequence and accountability, especially for serious criminals, and also oppose unjust incarceration.” She cites a reentry program for low-level offenders as a success and yet, she’s expressed regretfor the unintended consequences of a truancy crackdown that landed some parents in jail.

As a U.S. senator, she prioritized health care and criminal justice, even working with Kentucky Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul on bail reform that would prioritize the risk someone poses to society over their ability to pay. Assertive and clever enough in her prosecutorial style, she turned heads in Senate hearings when she stumped then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with probing questions.

She’s no flame-thrower. She’s no Marxist. Nor is she a superstar able to ace press conference improv or deliver spell-binding speeches that break free of stale scripts. She’s changed her stances on a few things, such as whether to ban fracking; now she says no. But that’s OK.

Magnetism, private jets, four-hour rallies and a lack of self reflection have never been strong predictors of a successful American presidency. She’s fearless and quick on her feet and apparently a quick study, having transformed from a bench warmer VP to a respectable presidential contender in three months. She’s a champion of federal protections for abortion rights, desperately needed in Texas where an extreme ban doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest or enough protections for women with severe pregnancy complications.

With little time, she’s come up with some workable policy ideas that would help Americans afford their first homes and provide expanded child tax credits to the parents of newborn babies. On immigration, she’s backed a tough bipartisan border bill that Trump undermined for political gain.

And there must be something genuine, and maybe a little magical, about a person who has obtained elite status in one of modern society’s toughest survivor challenges: She seems to be a truly beloved step-parent.

We don’t expect this endorsement to change many minds. We can’t inspire voter participation like Taylor Swift or Beyonce. We won’t buy it like Elon Musk. 

We just ask you to consider one question before you cast perhaps the most consequential vote of your lifetime:

If the brown floodwaters were rising around your house and the Cajun Navy could only send a small boat, who would you trust to pick you up: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? 

We know who we’d trust. 

Categories Elections, Harris, Kamala, Houston, Media, Trump
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