Politics
MAGA-friendly centrists are yada yada-ing over Trump’s threats
In a classic “Seinfeld” episode, George Costanza’s new girlfriend abbreviates her dialogue by saying “yada yada yada,” often eliding the most pertinent parts of a story. George adopts the habit, too, and he and his girlfriend end up yada yada-ing over “little” details like criminality and an untimely death. It’s hilarious and patently absurd — the conversational equivalent of burying the lede in journalism.
This is what a lot of self-identified heterodox political commentators do when they talk about former President Donald Trump. You can see it often on “Real Time With Bill Maher” panels, hear it on any number of “politically homeless” podcasts or read it daily on scores of Substack sites. These ostensible independents view “the establishment” — which includes everything from centrist Democrats to anti-Trump conservatives to non-right-wing media — as the true threat to freedom and the American way. They might concede Trump’s vulgarity is distasteful or that he’s sometimes incompetent and often incoherent, but when it comes to confronting his incorrigible criminality, corruption, racism and misogyny, and his relentless dishonesty on matters both trivial and existential, they typically yada yada past the gory details and pivot into pathological whataboutism and both-sidesism.
I could list so many more of his outrageous, inexcusable words and deeds, but it wouldn’t matter. Yada yada yada to all that, Trump’s useful centrists will argue.
In just the past 30 days, Trump has helped whip up a racist, xenophobic furor against Haitian immigrants in Ohio based on lies; suggested that people who criticize Supreme Court justices should be imprisoned; and mused that police should be allowed free rein to commit wanton violence on retail thieves over the course of “one real rough, nasty” day. I could list so many more of his outrageous, inexcusable words and deeds, but it wouldn’t matter.
Yada yada to all that, Trump’s useful centrists will argue. Only the humorless, Trump Derangement Syndrome-afflicted could possibly take the former president’s rhetoric seriously: “That’s just Trump being Trump, shooting from the hip, flying off the handle, being funny in his uniquely Trumpian way that triggers the hated establishment.”
Last week, Judge Tanya Chutkan released special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page brief laying out evidence that he says shows Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election was a private matter and not in the capacity of a sitting president. (The Supreme Court ruled this summer that a president acting in his or her capacity as president is essentially immune from prosecution.) It’s all there: Trump knew he lost the election very early, but Smith’s filing says he engaged in numerous criminal acts to overturn it anyway. Smith’s brief says he also encouraged the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, refused pleas from his own staff to call for calm, and after being told by an aide that Vice President Mike Pence’s life was in danger thanks to his own instigations, he reportedly replied, “So what?”
As I’ve previously written, if Trump hadn’t ever given his riot-inciting speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, he still attempted a self-coup through alleged fraud, intimidation and threats of violence. But high-profile MAGA-adjacent “independents” have spent the past four years yada yada-ing away the whole thing as an unfortunate and brief act of mob violence. Some have even suggested it might have actually been a trap laid by Democrats.
So don’t expect to hear anything louder than throat clearing about the Smith brief (if even that) from Trump’s useful centrists. They’re still having a fit over Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s stupid, discrediting lie about being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (he was most likely in Nebraska at the time).
As someone who is actually without a political tribe — in that I don’t neatly fit into any ideological box and feel no need to carry water for either party — I’ve concluded that Trump is, by leaps and bounds, the greater threat to American democracy and rationality.
And yet, I still say go ahead and nail Walz on his lies. Make him squirm. Hold Vice President Kamala Harris’ feet to the fire on any of her untrue or misleading statements, too. Make all power-hungry politicians feel uncomfortably accountable when they mislead the public.
And then look back at Trump. On the ledger of politicians’ falsehoods, do statements like Walz’s mistruths about whether he was in China 35 years ago (he claims he “misspoke”) even remotely measure up to Trump’s attempted self-coup or his racist incitements against immigrants?
As someone who is actually ‘politically homeless’ … I’ve concluded that Trump is, by leaps and bounds, the greater threat to American democracy and rationality.
At the vice presidential debate last week, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, refused to answer the direct question of who won the 2020 election. You’d think a true political independent — no matter how much they’re triggered by the “woke” or the “establishment” — would see Vance’s nonanswer as a craven cop-out, given how thoroughly adjudicated the legitimacy of the 2020 election has already been. But not if you’re Free Press columnist Abigail Shrier, who lamented during the debate“Dear Lord, more January 6 questions?!”
Heaven forfend a candidate for the second-highest office in the land, whose running mate tried to steal the previous election, be asked about it. We nonpartisans really ought to just move on, I guess.
Many anti-anti-Trumpers yada yada’d through 2022’s”https://www.thedailybeast.com/your-grandkids-will-care-about-the-jan-6-hearings-even-if-you-dont” target=”_blank”>Jan. 6 Committee hearings — where remarkable video evidence and testimony from ex-Trump White House officials (including Trump’s own daughter) and other Republicans laid bare Trump’s grand conspiracy to overturn a free and fair election. Trump and his allies have also spent the past four years plotting to do it again — and thanks to state-level election overhauls and a sympathetic judiciary, they’re much better equipped to do so now. Also poisoning the discourse are pro-Trump billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thielwho publicly spread the fiction that Democrats are cheating — already, they say — to win the 2024 election. Axios recently reported, “Through public remarks, Truth Social screeds and more than 100 preemptive lawsuits, Donald Trump is assembling a detailed catalog of excuses for rejecting the results of the 2024 election — if he loses.”
Yada yada yada, Walz lied about parts of his biography.
I used to think Trump-sympathetic nonpartisans suffered from a failure of imagination. Ever since Trump’s escalator descent in 2015, warnings that Trump could do unthinkable things (like try to steal an election he lost, then preemptively discredit the next one) have been dismissed as the panicked bleatings of basic establishment Chicken Littles.
But Trump is a known quantity in 2024. He was president. He’s been the GOP nominee three consecutive times. He’s been convicted of felonies and found liable for sexual abuse. He’s threatening to use the Department of Justice to jail his political rivals.
At what point do Trump-sympathetic independents think it’s OK to take Trump at his word when he promises to do horrible things — like once again pre-emptively attempting to overturn an election based on nothing?
Go ahead and nail Walz on his lies. Make him squirm. Hold Kamala Harris’ feet to the fire on any of her untrue or misleading statements, too.
To be clear, I’m not here to police anyone’s political preferences. It’s perfectly respectable to be a nonpartisan who thinks Harris and Democrats are worse. But you can’t credibly make the case that Dems are worse by blithely waving away Trump’s most egregious offenses.
I’ve”https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-antifa-book-only-bougie-wimps-oppose-left-wing-violence-against-fascists?ref=author” target=”_blank”>unequivocally criticized left-wing excesses and liberal threats of censorshipas well as Biden’s and Harris’ records. And yet, I’m reminded of the late legendary libertarian humorist P.J. O’Rourkewho despite leaning right his entire adult life, explained his vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016 on the basis that “she’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”
Yes, you can reject political tribalism and still choose a side in an election. But if your criticisms of Trump, MAGA and Republicans are rare, trivial and half-hearted — and you denounce Trump opponents (including those exiled from the center and the right) as TDS-afflicted liberals — you’re not politically tribeless and you’re not fearlessly independent. You’ve got a tribe; it’s Trump’s, and you’re a reputation sanitizer for his presidential campaign.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for BLN Daily. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.
Politics
Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.
President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.
In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.
Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.
Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.
“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.
Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.
“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.
He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”
Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.
“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”
The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.
In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.
“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.
He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”
The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.
“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.
Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.
“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.
He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”
While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.
“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”
Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.
Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.
“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.
He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”
Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.
The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.
Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.
Construction crews could begin the excavation process for what will be President Donald Trump’s massive 250-foot-tall arch in as soon as the next two weeks, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on Thursday.
The monument — which will be erected in a traffic circle at the head of the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River, coming between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery — has generated controversy as concerns emerged about the design and traffic congestion during construction.
The arch would take two to three years to construct on the proposed schedule, according to documents released in June.
“We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck,” Burgum said in a social media post.
The 250-foot-tall arch will be among Trump’s most visible projects, as the administration continues its attempts to remake Washington. Critics, however, have voiced fears that the structure may be too large, and overshadow other monuments, like the Lincoln Memorial on the other side of the Potomac River.
The proposed arch will dwarf the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in size. It is unclear at this time how much construction will cost; the National Endowment for the Humanities earmarked $15 million for the monument.
“This will be one the the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington National Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World,” Burgum said.
The monument will be constructed on land overseen by the National Park Service, and critics have argued Trump’s latest project requires explicit congressional approval. However, the Interior secretary continues to rebut these claims.
Instead, Burgum echoed previous statements and said historically “Congress and various congressionally chartered commissions decreed that a monumental work should adorn Columbia Island,” the traffic circle where the monument is planned to be constructed.
“Despite Congress’s intent, the site became and remains today a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment and significant historic value,” he said.
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