Coop Scoop: A Sugar High? A Trump Campaign Death Rattle? Or Both?

JD Vance Emerges as a Bearded Campaign Boat Anchor

July 29, 2024

By Marc Cooper

Some brief house keeping. The Zoom planned for tonight has been moved to a week from today Monday august 5 because it conflicted with a major natl zoom from the Harris campaign. Mark ur calendars for Monday, August 5^th at 5pm Pacific.  You will get a couple of reminders and the zoom link from me later this week.  It will be open to all, paid and free subscribers and will be the first in a series on Campaign 2024. Hope you join in.

Okay, Coop Scoopers, put down your kitties and stow your contraceptives and spend a few minutes with me pondering a reality that is almost as difficult to just describe as it is to fathom in its deeper consequences. —

Yes, it has been reported for those who are literate or who will tear themselves away from their fantasy football stats to scan the news, but it should be five inch headlines in print newspapers and breaking news bulletins on the evening news.  The MAGA/GOP nominee for the President of the United States who is currently a narrow favorite, told his rally goers that if elected they won’t have to worry about voting anymore because there won’t be any more elections.  Can there be a news story more consequential than a sociopathic ex president who has already said he would consider suspending the constitution, and who vows to be dictator for a day, now proposing the abolition of elections?

I have to imagine that in some big legacy newsroom, there had to be a reporter or two or more who saw in this quote an entry into a big take out on just exactly how much does Trumpism share with the values of national socialist fascism.  And I have to imagine the editors saying, calm down, it’s just another one of his bullshit lines that go nowhere.  Anyway, those same editors are too busy working on stories on the manifold challenges that a Black woman candidate will have winning.

I have said many many times I am always hesitant in drawing comparisons with Nazis.  I do so with extreme caution and care. There’s that great moment from the Lenny Bruce at Berkely album where he riffs about being in a student demo and when some guy walked by with a gray uniform on, the kids started calling him a Nazi. Bruce said, “Gestapo, you idiots? He’s the post man.” And liberals have a long tradition of flippantly referring to run of the mill reactionaries, xenophobes and political chimps as nazis or fascists and that robs those words of their real impact.

So now you know where I am going.  What we are hearing from Donald Trump and from the tragi-comic half-baked, third-rate DeSantis impersonator J.D. Vance, is pure unadulterated White Christian Nationalism.  It is not identical to nazi-fascism.  It is instead an American variant and about as close a cousin as you can get to classical national socialism without having to wave around Swastikas. The crucifix, the bible, the posters of the obese Leader in his pancake makeup staring into the mid-distance (no doubt trying to remember how to multiply 9x9) will do just fine.  Add to that a couple hundred million dollars in TV advertising that will warn the country of the hellscape should a Black woman with Soros (Jewish) funding come to power and you will make Goebbels roll over in his grave.

This is not cheap and sloppy polemics. The areas of commonality and direct overlap between German National Socialism (GNS) and White Christian Nationalism (WCN) are clear:

They both believe that their respective white ethnicity is superior.

Therefore, there are superior races and inferior ones and the inferior ones must be feared, kept out, locked up, deported, and in the GNS case, erased from the earth.

Both instill fear in their populace warning them they are being “replaced” by the sub-humans, Jews or migrants (all interchangeable terms).

Both mock “bourgeois law.” The GNS wiped out the German democratic judiciary.  Trump “jokes” about dictatorship and JD Vance has counseled Trump to seek a third term and ignore any adverse ruling from the Supreme Court.  Not to mention the Supreme Court itself as probably the single most important institution enabling White Christian Nationalism.

This whole new emphasis on The Family, of cranking out babies for the Fatherland and making sure we the master race are not replaced by sub-human immigrants is lifted directly from the blood and soil motifs of Mein Kamp and NDSAP policy.  No kidding. Really.

There are at least a dozen other areas of perfect overlap between national socialism and Trump Christian Nationalism so it might be a good idea to point out some of the differences.  And there are many and they are important.

First and foremost, Hitler came to power in the midst of the Great Depression with millions unemployed.  Other dictatorships in the Third World came in the same way.  While the inequities in the current US economy are obvious and while prices are high for many and housing is very tough, the American economy of 2024 is paradise compared to 1932 Germany. 

Second, the German military was already playing footsie with state power during the previous decade and Germany was still freshly in pain from the severity of the Treaty of Versailles. The level of national grievance among the Germans was stratospheric, dwarfing the usual Trumpy litany of whining.

And while it might sound hokey, sorry, there is a much stronger democratic tradition in America, there is a clear anti-Trump majority that outstrips the Trump coalition if the former can be activated and mobilized.  And that brings us to the Harris campaign and the 99 days left to D-Day.

Anybody who has not blindfolded themselves and plugged their ears with printed out marginalia from the Youtube Grifter Leftists and Contrarians like the objectively-pro Trump trash from Matt Taibbi above, can readily perceive that Biden dropping out and Harris replacing him has poured rocket fuel into what was a moribund, a depressed, doom-scrolling Democratic electorate. 

Taibbi’s entry is garbage because like all good propaganda it has an element of truth to it for sure. Some reporters have bended toward Harris and that is pretty common in our press. And as a journalist, I am not opposed to publishing anything that is truthful at any moment. But journalists, like prosecutors, possess the right to discretion. If there is dirt about Kamala, is should not be secret. I am questioning Matt’s intention’s and timing. I forced myself to read this dreck and I found nothing I had not known for years about Harris. He uncovers nothing new. He aggregates all the negative stuff about her (with some hyperbole) and that drops it just 99 days before the election of our lifetime to form a narrative that it matters not who gets elected— especially for Matt who will be just fine either way. Indeed, a Trump dictatorship. might grow his substack. Matt informs you: So fuck you, you suckers voting for the lesser of two evils! I am above it all and virtuous!

Back to Harris and back from Ideological La-La Land to Reality:

Raising $200m in one week is not an easy trick.  A tidal wave of volunteers continues to flood Harris campaign offices.  Tens of thousands of all kinds of Americans are participating in national zoom calls with her. And out on the stump she has shown an energy and zeal and focus on the issues and on Trump that Democrats have been dying to hear and were giving up on.  More than one seasoned political operative says they are seeing today the sort of electric energy that Obama unleashed in his 2008 campaign.

I’ve had a few “friends” try to tweak me saying effectively, hey Marc you old radical, you are now in the tank for Kamala?  All I can say is what a god-damn stupid remark that reveals an underlayer of true political ignorance. I’m not in the tank for anybody. I am in the trench to stop MAGA from taking power and I am welcoming all allies for the next 98 days.  The better Harris does, the safer for the country. All are welcome, we have no litmus test other than if you are supporter of rule of law, constitutional democracy and BASIC HUMAN DECENCY. How u voted on NAFTA we can discuss after the war.

No, if elected, I doubt Harris and whatever number of Democrats that are left in Congress will not be leading any social democratic revolution.  They will not be expanding Medicare for All.  Nor will there be there a radical shift in U.S. foreign policy. But there will be maintenance of rule of law, there will be defense of civil liberties and our niggardly social insurance programs, and mostly MAGA/Fascists will not be occupying the commanding heights of the vast and powerful American state and its security agencies.  One more point, as bad as the Biden admin has been on Gaza, Trump clearly promises to be much worse and Harris is making noise about more support for the Palestinians. And that’s why I will vote for her and support her and if that means I am in a tank. So be it, because I prefer it to tanks in the street.

Let me save some of you some of your time. I know KH’s history. I’m from California. I know about Willie Brown.  I know how she took a hard line as a Prosecutor and Attorney General (though her much criticized measure of jailing truant kids never jailed a single parent), I know she has moved around on Medicare, I know she has mostly supported Biden on Israel (though the talk she gave after meeting Bibi heralds some distance taking), I know she denounced pro-Palestinian demonstrators burning American flags (as if there would be ANY presidential candidate who would not do the same), I know everything and anything you can tell me about her. And, yes, I know being a Black woman will be a double challenge to overcome with the racists out there. True.  And so?

Oh, and let me add one more thing bound to be flung my way. But, Marc… NATO, the war, US Imperialism Genocide, Victoria Nuland, yada yada. Right. Got it. Heard it. Trump is worse, thank you. I prefer minimal damage over fantasy solutions.

Here's why I am not budging.  The most recent polls show that as many as 41percent of Americans this week said they would be just fine never voting again if there was somebody really competent in charge of things.  We have the threat of a real authoritarian take over before Thanksgiving and it is time to join the fight and leave aside your doubts as they do nothing except paralyze you and others. You are free to re-assume them in 100 days. But until then, can you stow them somewhere safe and join us to defeat to Donald Trump?

Harris’ explosive lift-off may indeed be partly a sugar high. I think, however, only partly so and not significantly so. I think that because the enthusiasm I am seeing is not in her as some sort of perfect messiah candidate that Democrats love, but rather as the relatively young, feisty lady who cracked open a door of a decade of pent up frustration caused by the indignities of Trump and the threat they would be rekindled in November and what looked like a lifeless Democratic candidate and campaign.  We are seeing an explosion of energy to excise the cancer of Trumpism that entered stage four this week with the emergence of JD Vance as a bulging brain tumor on the campaign.

The polls are slowly moving and in the right direction.  Nationally and even in the swing states, the race is now tied, picking up what was about a 4 point lag by Biden.  The “double haters” have disappeared and Harris’ popularity is rising among independents –whoever they are. The problem the Republicans have is that the easiest way to attack Harris is on race and gender. And they are already doing it, not realizing their party core runs about 10 years behind the majority pop culture.  I cannot know, but I can guess that the racial and gender attacks are no longer as effective as 20 years ago (except among the already-there Troglodytes) and there’s a reason why the Imam Speaker of the House issued a fatwah to his members to stop attacking her person (he wants to keep his job).

In political campaigns, veteran consultants will tell you there are defined stages.  First stage is “defining yourself” before the other side does. Harris has a narrow window before the all-out swift boating gets going.  Second stage, visibility and rising popularity numbers.   Stage three: visible lead in consistent polling.  The consultants I trust, Matt Dowd at the top, suggests those pro Harris polls will start rolling in after the convention in late August and toward Labor Day.

He and others wisely note that Trump got no real bounce from his convention that quickly lost all impact once Biden quit (thank God).  Fresh off the still un-detailed assassination attempt, and received like Caesar, he was at his high point of the campaign. About 48% popularity.  He has no big opportunities left before the vote as I suspect if he debates Harris the best he can hope for is a draw. The only real consequential event left before D-Day is his sentencing on the Manhattan case on Sept 14, less than 2 months before voting.  Most observers think he will be given some minimal (or more) jail time that will not be served until after the election or…?  

Trump could win the electoral college with 47-48 percent, with difficulty. His problem is he has run out of voters. His decision to ignore the moderate and suburban middle and to double down on werewolves like Vance to crank up his demented fringe was probably a fatal mistake. Certainly one that pute the campaign at risk. Base voters have limited value. Just as it doesn;t matter if a Democrats wins an extra 2 million votes in California and New York that count for nothing, same deal if Trump scrounges up a few thousand more “low propensity” redneck assholes in Louisiana or Alabama? Harris, who is also running in the 45-48 range, though, has plenty of room to grow, There are still millions of once-depressed Democrats perking up. And while the hard run has not yet started, Harris going to ride that buck bronco of abortion rights straight into middle suburbia where it hurts Trump the most.

So, sugar high, maybe. But Trumps’ blood has dripped from his ear and into the water and there are tens of millions hungry folks out there who have been waiting for a chance to sink him and I think that impulse will grow, not whither over the next weeks.  Remember, whoever this campaign is about loses.  So I for one have no interest whatsoever in discussing Harris except in comparison to Trump.

For the last stretch of the campaign , he will be a convicted and SENTENCED felon temporarily out on bail.  That might turn on the dudes in pick up trucks with Trump flags, but it will win not one single vote.

Trump is now the old sickly man out there on the stump, surrounded by crazies and erratic wingman Vance, talking shit, calling names, threatening everybody who disagrees with him and spinning yarns about Hannibal Lecter, batteries, sharks, blown off ears and mass killer immigrants.  It should be a losing strategy.  But not if we listen to the twisted ideologically and click-driven siren songs of Youtube grifters urging a third party vote as a moral salve.  Sorry, these people have joined the enemies of democracy.

This cycle, friends, we are on the defensive.  If you want to fight for liberal reform, social democracy, socialism, Medicare for All, climate control, abortion and sexual rights, you better damn well guarantee you have a minimally democratic national platform to work upon.  Harris might bring none of the above.  But her election will provide the space for you to make the change you want, that we want,  or at least fight for those ends, as in the end it is our responsibility anyway.  Let Trump get elected and forget your agenda – you will be fighting his but without his power.

Remember.  Our Campaign 2024 Zoom #1 on Monday August 5^th. 5pm PDT. Zoom link coming closer to event. ++

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