"How Can This Country Possibly Be Electing Trump Again?"

By Eric Alterman, The New Republic

https://newrepublic.com/article/181287/can-america-possibly-elect-trump-again

"With democracy itself on the line, the 2024 election will almost certainly be the nation’s most consequential since 1860. It will also be the weirdest.

There are two fundamental facts about this campaign that do not appear to be making much of an impact on what, at least today, seems to be close to a majority of the electorate. The first and more obvious one is that few people in history have ever been less qualified to hold a position of any responsibility, much less the most powerful position in the world, than Donald Trump. If elected, he will certainly deploy that power to destroy virtually everything Americans have historically held dear about the nation’s democratic traditions"

A note on Trump calling his supporters 'surrogates' and the gag order against him

Tues, May 14, 2024. 1:43 AM EDT
By Summer Concepcion, NBC News live report:

'In a post to X, Joyce Alene Vance, who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, noted that the gag order against Trump prohibits him from “making comments about jurors/witnesses and also from causing others to make them.”

Her post was in response to Trump’s remarks this morning outside of the courtroom, in which referred to Republican lawmakers who accompanied him to court today as his “surrogates”:
“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully. They come from all over ... and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen,” Trump said.

Although Djt is permitted to criticize the judges in his cases, it's a dangerous accelerant

'On Patriots.Win, an online forum that describes itself as Trump’s “community of choice,” Trump’s attacks on courts and judges regularly spur calls for violence. Merchan “needs to be strangled with piano wire,” one poster wrote. He “deserves garroting in the street,” wrote another.

The Gateway Pundit, a website influential in the pro-Trump community, is also a frequent venue for Trump-inspired violent rhetoric against judges hearing his cases. “These judges and lawyers should HANG for perpetuating these fraud cases,” a commenter wrote on April 16, suggesting the executions would be “an example for future generations of judges and lawyers.”

While Trump himself hasn’t called for violence on judges, his language can signal to followers that judges are no different from partisan rivals worthy of scorn, derision and attack, threatening the legitimacy of the independent judiciary, said experts on political violence'

-Per Peter Eisler. Reuters

Counterbalancing Djt's Defense...

Glad that Stormy D. has counterbalanced the defense's continuous tendency to 'dignify' Djt by calling him 'President' - even when recalling incidents that occurred after he left the White House.

At times, Nechele's questioning of Djt's former female aides comes across to me as an opportunity to subtly campaign by using pics of Djt boarding AF1, eliciting kind comments about his 'family man' facade.

Stormy's detailing of her encounters with Djt and showing how intimidating and defensive he could be - to the extent that he would threaten and bribe someone to not publicize his unsavory behavior which could have toppled his election hopes - was brilliant.

Right on, Stephanie Clifford...

It's a misogynistic, ignorant and dangerous myth that sex workers and adult filmmakers cannot be abused, raped or threatened.

Trickles of hope... and hoping for a wave!

Former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia says he’s voting for Biden:
’This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,’ says Geoff Duncan
(From The Independent U. S. Politics live report)

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A campaign email I received from Ruben Gallego (vs. Kari Lake):

Re: The actions of djT's supporters on Jan.6, 2021, while he was at the Capitol:

"I won’t ever forget it...
Standing on the House floor. Hearing shouts, pounding, breaking glass. Barricading the door and teaching my colleagues how to use their gas masks. Texting my staff, telling them to hide. I carried a rifle in Iraq; all I had to defend myself on January 6th was a pen. But I was ready to fight.

And after that day, Trump’s loyalists crawled right back to him. Witnessing them reject what they lived through, watching them ignore the testimony of the police officers that defended us that day while they were beaten, bloodied, pepper sprayed, cursed at … it makes me sick.

Kari Lake thinks the January Sixers are patriots who were “invited in” — she even campaigns with them.
I think anyone who supports those terrorists and traitors shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the U.S. Senate.

This race in Arizona is just me and her. It’s on us to stop her march to more power and influence. Whoever wins in Arizona is going to determine which party holds the Senate and could even decide whether Trump takes back the White House.

I need you with me, and I need you to take this race seriously.

The (a) Biden vs. (b) Djt choice:

(a) is not a perfectly shiny apple, has some bruises...
so 'protest' voter will choose (b) -- an orange filled with poison.

Biden 2024 voters will never forget:

-Jan. 6, 2021: The violent consequence of djT's lies

-2020-2021: Hundreds of thousands of Covid deaths, thanks to djT's lies and recklessness

-djT's appointments of SCOTUS judges who reversed decades of abortion rights

-djT's calling Nazi marchers 'good people'