Peter Wehner/Atlantic:
Morality Is for Trump What Colors Are to the Color-Blind
The majority of his enablers, though, still know right from wrong.
Trump doesn’t just cross moral lines; he doesn’t appear capable of understanding moral categories. Morality is for Trump what colors are to a person who is color-blind.
But what’s true of Trump isn’t true of the majority of his enablers. They see the colors that Trump cannot. They still know right from wrong. But for a combination of reasons, they have consistently overridden their conscience, in some cases unwittingly and in some cases cynically. They have talked themselves into believing, or half-believing, that Trump is America’s martyr and America’s savior.
Bill Scher/Washington Monthly:
Republicans Say Inflation, Crime, and Immigration Are Out of Control. The Numbers Disagree.
Every day, good news overshadows the Republican presidential candidates’ talking points. The right-wing Cassandras need a new shtick.
There’s one problem with this Republican portrayal of a Democratic president presiding over chaos: None of it is true.
Inflation was at a 40-year high. During 2022, the inflation rate started at 7.5 percent, peaked in June at 9.1 percent, and ended the year at 6.5 percent, a mark that hadn’t been cleared since June 1982.
But 2023 is a different story. The inflation rate for May is down to 4 percent, less than half of the June 2022 peak. But even back in March, when it fell to 5 percent, the “40-year high” talking point was obsolete. In July 2008, during the George W. Bush administration, inflation was 5.6 percent. And in October and November 1990, during the George H. W. Bush administration, it was 6.3 percent.
Has southern border security collapsed? Hardly. Unlawful entries have dropped by 70 percent in the last few weeks, according to the Department of Homeland Security, after Biden implemented a new border management policy.
Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson/Public Notice:
Ron DeSantis's charisma problem
Historian Julian Zelizer on the power of personality for presidential candidates.
DeSantis just doesn’t come across as the kind of charismatic leader that low-information voters get enthused about. That state of affairs stands in contrast to the GOP frontrunner he’s trying to unseat, Donald Trump, who despite his many faults — including two indictments and counting — is a cultish figure to his supporters and will never be accused of lacking charisma. And Trump is now openly mocking DeSantis’s lack of juice.
“He has no personality,” Trump said of DeSantis during a speech Saturday in North Carolina, prompting laughter from his audience.
To get some expert perspective and historical context about how personality has played a role in presidential campaigns, Public Notice contributor Thor Benson spoke with Princeton political history professor Julian Zelizer.
Rebecca Cokley/Medium:
Why “Special Needs” is Not Helpful
- Special needs was not a term developed by the disability community. We chose “disability” whereas a majority of disability euphemisims, “special needs,” “differently abled,” “physically/mentally/emotionally challenged” “handicapable” were all developed by NONDISABLED people, educators, and family members. (https://www.meriahnichols.com/3-reasons-say-disability-ins…/)
- It erases the expertise of disabled adults who find it infantilizing and inappropriate. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/my-daughter-doesnt-have-s…/)
- It is not a term defined in law. One reason the disability community uses “disability” is because the use of the world is connected to disability and civil rights statutes. The Americans with Disabilities Act. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Developmental Disabilities Civil Rights Act.
And there’s more in Cokley’s piece!
Law Professor Steve Vladek explains three important legal issues that will drive what happens to Donald Trump, the balance of power int he US Congress, and how the right-wing faction of the Supreme Court is exercising power:
William D Cohan/Puck:
Will Elon Lose Control of Twitter?
As a former restructuring and bankruptcy advisor at Lazard, I can recognize the signs of a company in distress. And it’s a pretty obvious tell that there’s financial trouble brewing when a company stops paying its bills.
As a former restructuring and bankruptcy advisor at Lazard, I can recognize the signs of a company in distress. After all, it’s a pretty obvious tell that there’s financial trouble brewing when a company stops paying its bills as they become due. That’s a recipe for financial disaster, or bankruptcy, or both. Last time I checked, if a company has more than 12 creditors—as Twitter does—then any three of them can join together to put a company into an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding. And Elon is in danger here. At some point, the creditors he is mindlessly stiffing on a regular basis are going to get sufficiently pissed to throw Twitter into bankruptcy.
Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo:
Greg Dworkin June 19, 2023 at 12:00PM From Daily KosTrumpers Know 3rd Party Spoilers Are Trump’s Only Shot
The point for the moment is not to convince you that these are bad actors or don’t deserve your vote. You know that. The point is that we can now see with some clarity a key outline of the 2024 election. Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee. As I’ve argued for months, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. There’s every reason to think that Biden will defeat Trump in the general election in another not-that-close but still nail-biting result.
It now looks increasingly likely that the US economy will be in at least decent shape in 18 months. Donald Trump will be weighed down by a slew of indictments and the general public rejection signified in 2022. But even if all that were not happening we should remember that he’s run in two general elections and his share of the popular vote has been remarkably consistent – 46.1% in 2016 and 46.8% in 2020. For the reasons I noted earlier it’s likely to be lower.
I’m not saying a Biden victory is guaranteed by any means. I simply mean it’s the most likely outcome. How does that picture get changed? By getting one or two third party candidates into the race who can, as they did in 2016, siphon off 4% or 5% of the vote and bring Joe Biden down into a range where Trump can slip back into the White House via the electoral college.
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