I never worked in a fast food joint, but I had lots of friends who did; it’s a common, mundane job experience for a lot of people. It’s not an extraordinary claim at all for someone to say they worked at a McDonald’s in their youth, but to Donald Trump it is some kind of unlikely experience, like claiming to be a UFO abductee. He’s been raging about Kamala Harris claiming to have worked in fast food 40 years ago, and thinks it is a winning argument to deny her experience.

To make his strange point, Trump volunteered to work at a McDonald’s over the weekend.

As Trump put it reporters when he got off his plane: “I’m going for a job right now at McDonald’s,” before adding, “I really wanted to do this all my life.”

I wish he had, although it would be unfair to the customers — he’d suck as an employee. But OK, he charged off to pretend to experience the life of a fast food worker.

One catch: he didn’t. The McDonald’s was closed and the streets cordoned off, while he walked in, spent a few minutes shuffling fries, and then handed out a few containers. That was it. It was a photo-op, nothing more.

Police closed the busy streets around the McDonald’s he was visiting and cordoned off the restaurant as a crowd a couple blocks long gathered, sometimes 10- to 15-deep, across the street straining to catch a glimpse of Trump. Horns honked and music blared as Trump supporters waved flags, held signs and took pictures.

It was a notable event to celebrate, the fact that Donald Trump did ten minutes of actual work.

You just know that in his future rambling babbles, he’s going to claim that Kamala Harris never worked in fast food, but he, the lazy phony, did.

Jonathan Chait (fuck that guy) uses a familiar tactic to argue that Democrats should throw trans people under the bus. He points out How Progressive Overreach Gave Trump His Favorite Attack Ad, and argues that we should back off on policies that the Republicans don’t like. He wants to use Republican hate ads as a guide to how we ought to present our principles. Trump is currently using all kinds of divisive hate ads to stir up support, and we ought to avoid advocating for the kinds of things that make Trump and his followers angry.

The Trump ad describes an answer Harris gave on an ACLU candidate questionnaire five years ago. (“As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care?” Answer: yes.). I’m sure neither the ACLU nor the Harris staffers who cooperated in this response set out to seed Republican attack ads. Yet a large portion of the work of the progressive nonprofit complex is functionally dedicated to this very outcome. And these kinds of perverse outcomes will continue to occur unless Democrats get wise to the dynamic that continues to produce them.

So reasonable. We need to woo the bigots, so stop alienating the people who hate trans people. Stop standing up for the rights of an oppressed minority because it annoys an oppressive majority. Be more conservative, as if the Democratic party weren’t already a center-right party as it were.

But watch Chait run away from his position: oh my, he’s in favor of trans rights, as long as he isn’t expected to allow them any rights.

The point I’m making here is purely political. I have no moral problem with prisons giving properly run transition care to prisoners who wish to change their sex. I’d also agree that Trump is exploiting the issue in a way designed to spread hatred against all transgender people, rather than to question one small program. (It is so small, indeed, that it went on throughout Trump’s presidency without Trump noticing or caring.) The issue is that political candidates need to think practically about the existing electorate, and the progressive movement is currently designed to ignore pragmatism.

Trump is “exploiting the issue in a way designed to spread hatred against all transgender people,” but don’t you dare support that issue. That’s not pragmatic. It might be a life-or-death issue for trans people, but maybe the Democrats ought to pragmatically allow them to die? For a few more votes from people who want them to suffer and die?

It’s not just trans rights. Chait is unhappy because absolutists on a whole host of issues don’t like the compromises he is willing to make, and oh boy, but Chait is eager to write criticisms of trans people and unions and climate activists, he’d sure like them to sit down and shut up, all in the name of pragmatism.

The groups in the coalition increasingly tend to define agreement with their cause in maximal terms. If you support equality and respect for trans people, but question, say, medicalizing young people, you’re anti-trans. If you support labor unions but oppose some positions they advocate, you’re a scab. Climate activists increasingly use the term “climate denier,” once reserved for those who refuse to accept the theory of anthropogenic global warming, for any skeptic of any element of their preferred remedies. The rampant absolutism makes it difficult to acknowledge even the possibility that there are political risks attached to going too far in agreement with the movement.

Only an idiot would refuse to recognize that taking new, bold positions is going to involve political risks. That’s the whole point! You’ll never make any progress if you only support the “safe” position.

I don’t think Chait’s position is pragmatic at all. I call it chickenshittery.

Hey, Jonathan, rather than always complaining about sane, moderate, humane positions that a politician takes on trans issues, why aren’t you focusing on the mad, cruel, pointless bigotries that their opponents trumpet loudly? Do you think that hating gay and trans people, or union-busting, or ignoring climate change are pragmatic policies that we ought to let stand, quietly?

Buk buk buk buKAW.

I care about all the things the guy in this cartoon doesn’t.

I do not want to live in the hellscape a Republican victory would produce. I fervently want Harris to win. However…I feel a prophecy coming on.

I prophesy that even if we get the best possible result, a clean sweep by the Democrats capturing the White House, the Senate, and the Representatives, November will be a nightmare. There will be contested elections. There will be false electors. There will be lawsuits. Elections will linger unresolved until Spring. And that’s the gentle stuff.

There will be riots. There will be assassinations. The Capitol will be assaulted. Gangs will roam the streets, attacking anyone not wearing a MAGA hat. Congress will be in chaos, while the Supreme Court looks on in approval, and the NY Times opines on the virtues of fascism.

Mind you, that is the best result to expect.

I don’t own any weapons of war. Maybe I should take some time in early November to sharpen the kitchen knives? Having America wiped clean by a series of climate catastrophes would be a positive outcome.

It’s not who you think it is. It’s not the people who use pronouns, it’s the ones who want to abolish words they don’t like.

But, you might say, that’s a cartoon making a humorously exaggerated claim. Nope, those are the literal words of Project 2025.

The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

But, you might continue to say, you’re a white man. You have nothing to worry about.

Unless you’re living in Florida, of course.

Also, as ProPublica revealed when they published Project 2025’s secret training videos, a representative of the group said If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.

They really think they can warp reality by controlling the dictionaries.

My grandson is autistic. I really resent it when some Republican jerk who will do nothing for autistic people jumps on the bandwagon and lies. So this guy, Dave McCormick, booked some space in North Philly for an autism awareness event…and then instead just does a campaign event for his US Senate run. There was nothing about autism at the campaign stop, just a sleazy Republican handing out cheesesteaks and grubbing for votes.

Max’s Steaks, the cheesesteak place the event was held at, kicked him out. Good.

It was organized by a Republican operative, Sheila Armstrong, who is a member of Moms for Liberty. It’s lies all the way down.

After getting kicked out of the cheesesteak place, the sleazebags went looking for another opportunity to leech off an activist group. They saw that East Bethel Baptist Church was holding a fundraiser across the street for a food ministry…so they blithely went over there to suck off that teat. They got kicked out again.

The Rev. Thomas Edwards Jr., who leads the church, told his campaign to leave because he didn’t want the GOP candidate to use photos of his congregation for campaigning purposes.

“You can Photoshop,” he told the Inquirer. “You can make things seem like they aren’t. Maybe they’re going to post we’re eating dogs or eating cats, like in Ohio. Forgive me if I’m wrong. I don’t trust these people.”

That’s the right attitude. They’re parasites.

The New York Times has always been a weaselly accommodationist to Trump’s nonsense, putting a positive spin on his words and downplaying his general incoherence. That pattern might be ending — they just ran an article titled Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age. It’s scathing.

Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs.

It’s brutal. I’m not used to seeing this kind of analysis of Trump’s speeches from the NY Times.

He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

It’s interesting, because the NY Times is not written for us — it’s the paper of record for lawyers, stock brokers, wealthy Long Island nepo babies, the aspiring upper class, etc. Maybe the Times has detected a shift in the biases of their readership, which they are quick to pander to.

It could be a good sign of troubles for the lyin’ grifter ahead…

We all know that the one thing that Donald Trump is most sensitive about is the size of the crowds at his rallies — don’t you dare impugn his popularity! Kamala Harris derailed him at their debate by mentioning that lots of people leave his rallies early, and he had to deny that. Well, the Washington Post had reporters investigate, going to his rallies and asking the people trickling out early why they were leaving.

The Republican presidential nominee consistently draws large, enthusiastic and rowdy crowds to his rallies and other campaign events, and at nearly all of them, another trend is clear: Scores of people leave early.

Most stay. But Trump often runs late and goes long, prompting many to bow out because of other responsibilities, priorities or, sometimes, waning patience and interest, according to Washington Post interviews and observations across dozens of events. Some said they wanted to beat traffic or had work the next day. Others complained about sound quality. One man wanted to go home to his French bulldog. Another needed to get home to his daughter. A third had a Yorkie with him that started acting out. A fourth man said his phone died.

Trump is in denial.

“Honestly nobody” leaves the rallies, Trump said at a recent town hall in Flint, Mich. At an event in Walker, Mich., Trump insisted “nobody ever leaves,” before adding, “and when they do, I finish up quick, believe me.” Trump then suggested that it looks like people are leaving their seats because they want to come up and take photos with him.

He thinks the people just love to hear him ramble on for hours.

Trump repeatedly has resisted entreaties from advisers and allies to cut down on his speeches. “They want a show. They want two hours,” Trump said this year to an ally who suggested shorter speeches. Like others, the ally spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

The former president has told advisers that after people stand for so long and wait for so long, he needs to give them something more than a “boring policy speech,” one person who has spoken to him said. The speechwriters craft remarks that are usually designed to go for 60 to 90 minutes, a campaign adviser said, but they know Trump will veer repeatedly off the script.

I’ve only heard short excerpts from Trump speeches — I think two hours of an old man babbling off topic would drive me insane, and I’m never attending one of these rallies. However, I encourage him to continue them, because the repetitive nonsense about sharks and batteries and windmills and eating cats and dogs are the only soundbites that are going to make the news, and they do make him look demented.