October 10, 2016

“Looming Trump” Is a Metaphor for the Republican Party

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Liveblogging a debate is an odd thing: You have to listen carefully to what the candidates are saying, but you’re also furiously typing away to deliver your brilliant commentary to a waiting world. For me, it’s exhausting. I have a one-track writing mind, and it doesn’t appreciate having background distractions. That’s why I can’t listen to music or have the TV going while I blog.

Obviously I have no choice during debates, but it means sometimes I miss things. Especially visual things. However, I know that my readers want to be au courant on all internet memes, so here’s one I missed last night: Looming Trump. Apparently Donald Trump is too hyperactive to simply sit in his chair when the other person is talking, so instead he wandered the stage. More often than not, he ended up about five feet behind Hillary Clinton, looming over her:

My guess is that this wasn’t deliberate on Trump’s part. It’s just an instinctive part of the stupid dominance games that control his life. On the other hand, some of his stupid dominance games were very, very deliberate:

Donald Trump’s campaign sought to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband by seating women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual abuse in the Trump family’s box at the presidential debate here Sunday night, according to four people involved in the discussions.

The campaign’s plan, which was closely held and unknown to several of Trump’s top aides, was thwarted just minutes before it could be executed when officials with the Commission on Presidential Debates intervened….The gambit to give Bill Clinton’s accusers prime seats was devised by Trump campaign chief executive Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner, the candidate’s son-in-law, and approved personally by Trump.

That’s Jared Kushner, as in “Ivanka Trump’s husband”:

As the candidates’ immediate family members shook hands it was also noticeable that Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton, friends of years’ standing, ignored each other. Ms Trump had spent the last few days absorbing the news that her father once called her a “voluptuous piece of a–“. She looked sad, almost tearful, throughout the ensuing 90 minutes as Mr Trump attempted to crush the life out of his opponent.

Um…I’m not sure that’s why Ivanka and Chelsea weren’t on speaking terms. I think my boss has the better take:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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