Pun Salad

'We must not publish a study that says we're harming children because people who say we're harming children will use the study as evidence that we're harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.' pic.twitter.com/hS4CcswkXg

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 23, 2024

Also of note:

• And we should not have expected her to show up. Freddie deBoer brings the news that should not be surprising: Big Mommy is Not Coming to Save Us.

  There’s this dude, Dan Froomkin. It’s unclear what his job is, exactly, but he’s one soldier in an army of liberals who loudly insist on a plainly false claim about this country and how it works: that Donald Trump endures as a political force because no one will tell the truth about him. This is the “why has the media gone easy on Trump??” narrative, which has somehow flourished for almost a decade now despite the fact that Donald Trump has been covered more critically by our media than any other figure in my lifetime, seemingly to his advantage. The Froomkins of the world are incapable of believing what should be a central political lesson of the past ten years, which is that Donald Trump is a uniquely divisive politician with a lot of baggage who still inspires deep love from vast throngs of people. This election is very tight because Kamala Harris is and has always been a limited politician who has particular difficulty speaking off the cuff, because the Democrats are a feckless center-right party who stand for nothing and thus can’t offer any compelling alternative to the Republicans, and because we live in a country with bozo citizens ruled by a corrupt and evil plutocrat class. But it’s also very tight because Donald Trump is extremely popular with about a third of the population in the United States, a county with an apathetic citizenry and an idiotic presidential election system, such that a guy only a third of the country likes can win the presidency.

  Mr. deBoer is (as near as I can tell, still) a self-admitted Marxist. But apparently not one of the atheist variety. Near the end of his article: "Kamala Harris is running a horrific campaign and, while I pray to God she wins, she does not deserve to."

  Funny. Although I'm not praying, that mirrors my attitude: Donald Trump is also running a horrific campaign, and while I hope he wins, he doesn't deserve to.

  Who will get what they deserve? Voters, baby. And, as Mencken observed, they "deserve to get it good and hard."

• Good advice that will not be taken. Jeff Maurer has a simple request for some of his D-side buddies: Stop Crying "Several Wolves!"

  I would describe the current state of the presidential race this way: There is a wolf. Many people — Democrats, centrist Republicans, and even former members of the Trump administration — are crying “wolf!” And others — namely Resistance Democrats and the more incontinence-challenged members of the media — are crying “several wolves!” Sometimes, these people even cry “several wolves with switchblades and uzis and they’re biting people and giving them AIDS!” Trump’s backers respond by crying “They’re lying about the wolves!” And at that point, the first group is forced to chime back in and say “They are indeed exaggerating the threat posed by wolves but it is factually true that there is one wolf, who presents a serious threat that is, to be fair, probably not existential.” Which is not the type of pithy message that wins elections.

  This dynamic was on display in response to Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night. Here’s the beginning of a piece that MSNBC ran after the event.

  [Somber video at link, and it's just as awful as Maurer says]

  Jesus woodworking Christ, MSNBC — get a grip. The main linkage seems to be simply “Madison Square Garden”; I guess if the rally had been at the Barclays Center, there would be no story. I once saw Radiohead at Madison Square Garden — I suppose that justifies a story saying “In 2019, scores of mopey 40-somethings packed Madison Square Garden to hear five pale English guys sing about robots. Now, against that backdrop of history, Donald Trump held a rally.”

  Maurer goes on to analyze alleged-comic Tony Hinchcliffe's remark about Puerto Rico.

• His words do jarre. Jacob Sullum notes a very low bar that, nevertheless, is not cleared: Donald Trump Is Not Thoughtful Enough To Be a Fascist.

  John Kelly, the former Marine general who served as Donald Trump's second chief of staff, thinks the former president "falls into the general definition of 'fascist.'" Gen. Mark Milley, whom Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, goes further, describing his ex-boss as "fascist to the core."

  Rebutting those charges, John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, says the Republican presidential candidate is not thoughtful enough to be a fascist. Bolton's take seems more accurate: Trump's views, which combine long-standing authoritarian impulses with politically convenient positions of more recent vintage, do not reflect any unifying principle other than self-interest.

  The incoherence of Trump's thinking is reflected in the incoherence of his speech, which in rallies and interviews flits from one topic to another for no apparent reason. His randomly capitalized social media rants resemble wacky email missives destined for the trash bin, written by the sort of unhinged crank you would move away from if you encountered him in public.

  Not for the first time, I feel compelled to break out the Ben Jonson quote:

  Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jarre; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous.