Jeff’s Notes (AKA, A Brief History of the Last 24 Hours in US Politics) for August 11, 2024:
- One thing that makes this campaign unlike any other is that the current sitting Vice President is the perceived “change” candidate. Here’s what I mean: In most elections, you have one candidate who represents the status quo; usually an incumbent President running for a second term, or a term-limited President’s VP, running to extend the administration’s track record. On the other side, you have a challenger, hoping to make the case that it’s time for something different. In this year’s case, though, the “challenger”, i.e., former President Trump, was exactly that: already President — and is explicitly stating that things used to be better (“Make America Great Again”, and so forth), while the incumbent, Vice President Harris, is now using the slogan, “We Won’t Go Back”, wresting away the position of change candidate from the Trump team. Definitely unusual times. LINK
- NPR did a meticulous fact-checking analysis of Trump’s press conference on Thursday, and found the former President exaggerated, distorted, or outright lied 162 times during the hour-long presser. Journalists have a duty to fact-check and call out politicians for this sort of behavior, and I give the folks at NPR kudos for really stepping up to the plate, here. LINK
- Politico has announced that they’ve received confidential, internal correspondence from the Trump campaign. The campaign in turn blamed it on Iranian hackers. Cyber experts are warning that this could just be the beginning. LINK
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