Robert Reich on Thanking President Biden

We thank you, Joe, by Robert Reich

Friends,

Tonight’s opening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will be an opportunity for the Democratic Party and the nation to take stock of Joe Biden’s term of office and thank him for his service.

He still has five months to go as president, of course, but the baton has been passed.

Biden’s singular achievement has been to change the economic paradigm that reigned since Reagan and return to one that dominated public life between 1933 and 1980 — and is far superior to the one that has prevailed since.

Biden’s democratic capitalism is neither socialism nor “big government.” It is, rather, a return to an era when government organized the market for the greater good.

The Great Crash of 1929 followed by the Great Depression taught the nation a crucial lesson that we forgot after Reagan’s presidency: markets are human creations. The economy that collapsed in 1929 was the consequence of allowing nearly unlimited borrowing, encouraging people to gamble on Wall Street, and permitting the Street to take huge risks with other people’s money.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration reversed this. They stopped the looting of America. They also gave Americans a modicum of economic security. During World War II, they put almost every American to work.

Subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations enlarged and extended democratic capitalism. Wall Street was regulated, as were television networks, airlines, railroads, and other common carriers. CEO pay was modest. Taxes on the highest earners financed public investments in infrastructure (such as the national highway system) and higher education.

America’s postwar industrial policy spurred innovation. The Department of Defense and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration developed satellite communications, container ships, and the internet. The National Institutes of Health did trailblazing basic research in biochemistry, DNA, and infectious diseases.

Public spending rose during economic downturns to encourage hiring. Antitrust enforcers broke up AT&T and other monopolies. Small businesses were protected from giant chain stores. Labor unions thrived. By the 1960s, a third of all private-sector workers were unionized. Large corporations sought to be responsive to all their stakeholders.

But then America took a giant U-turn. The OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s brought double-digit inflation followed by Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s effort to “break the back” of it by raising interest rates so high that the economy fell into deep recession.

All of which prepared the ground for Reagan’s war on democratic capitalism. From 1981 onward, a new bipartisan orthodoxy emerged that markets functioned well only if the government got out of the way.

The goal of economic policy thereby shifted from the common good to economic growth, even though Americans already well-off gained most from that growth. And the means shifted from public oversight of the market to deregulation, free trade, privatization, “trickle-down” tax cuts, and deficit reduction — all of which helped the monied interests make even more money.

The economy grew for the next 40 years, but median wages stagnated, and inequalities of income and wealth surged. In sum, after Reagan’s presidency, democratic capitalism — organized to serve public purposes — all but disappeared. It was replaced by corporate capitalism, organized to serve the monied interests.

Joe Biden revived democratic capitalism. He learned from the Obama administration’s mistake of spending too little to pull the economy out of the Great Recession that the pandemic required substantially greater spending, which would also give working families a cushion against adversity. So he pushed for and got the giant $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

This was followed by a $550 billion initiative to rebuild the nation’s bridges, roads, public transit, broadband, water, and energy systems. He championed the biggest investment in clean energy sources in American history — expanding wind and solar power, electric vehicles, carbon capture and sequestration, and hydrogen and small nuclear reactors. He then led the largest public investment ever made in semiconductors, the building blocks of the next economy. Notably, these initiatives were targeted to companies that employ American workers.

Biden also embarked on altering the balance of power between capital and labor, as had FDR. Biden put trustbusters at the head of the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. And he remade the National Labor Relations Board into a strong advocate for labor unions.

Unlike his Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Biden did not reduce all trade barriers. He targeted them to industries that were crucial to America’s future — semiconductors, electric batteries, electric vehicles. Unlike Trump, Biden did not give a huge tax cut to corporations and the wealthy.

It’s also worth noting that, in contrast with every president since Reagan, Biden did not fill his White House with former Wall Street executives. Not one of his economic advisers — not even his treasury secretary — is from the Street.

The one large blot on Biden’s record is Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden should have been tougher on him — refusing to provide him offensive weapons unless Netanyahu stopped his massacre in Gaza. Yes, I know: Hamas began the bloodbath. But that is no excuse for Netanyahu’s disproportionate response, which has made Israel a pariah and endangered its future. Nor an excuse for our complicity.

***

One more thing needs to be said in praise of Joe Biden. He did something Donald Trump could never do: He put his country over ego, ambition, and pride. He bowed out with grace and dignity. He gave us Kamala Harris.

Presidents don’t want to bow out. Both Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson had to be shoved out of office. Biden was not forced out. He did nothing wrong. His problem is that he was old and losing some of the capacities that dwindle with old age.

Even among people who are not president, old age inevitably triggers denial. How many elderly people do you know who accept that they can’t do the things they used to do or think they should be able to do? How many willingly give up the keys to their car? It’s not surprising he resisted.

Yet Biden cares about America and was aware of the damage a second Trump administration could do to this nation, and to the world. Biden’s patriotism won out over any denial or wounded pride or false sense of infallibility or paranoia.

For this and much else, we thank you, Joe.

Jess Piper went to a Harris-Walz rally in Omaha-here’s the scoop on the ground:

Chili, Cinnamon Rolls, and a Tim Walz Rally

Ope! A Midwestern Meetup.

Jess Piper Aug 18, 2024

You will be bombarded with folks reporting from the DNC in Chicago in the next few days, so I wanted to tell you about a rally in the heartland first. A rally that included so many rural and small town people. The Walz rally in Omaha. A midwestern meetup that made my day and gave me the hope that will sustain me until the election.

I was raised in the South…in Arkansas. It’s funny because the folks in the deep South always called into question the southerness of Razorback country. Now that I’ve been in Missouri for almost two decades, I notice that people struggle to define Missouri as a midwestern state or a southern state. That is likely owing to our past history with enslavement.

Missouri has an identity crisis. The southern half of the state seems to belong to the south…the northern part, where I live, is most definitely Midwestern. My neighbors use Jell-o and sugar and mayonnaise in so many recipes. That’s a dead giveaway.

Like Northwest Missouri, Nebraska is quintessential Midwestern. And so is Governor Tim Walz.

I had no trouble understanding the idioms and language of Tim Walz at the rally I attended in Omaha on Saturday. Friends, the rally felt like a big potluck. It was familiar and friendly and folksy and all the small-town adjectives.

It was just the feeling I need to get through the next 70-some-odd days…

The Astro Amphitheater in Omaha at capacity for the Walz rally.

I had a friend send over an email with the Walz rally information a few days ago, so I applied for a ticket and I made the list. I was told they ran out of tickets within 18 hours. And, you can see why…Tim Walz is from Nebraska and his home state was more than happy to invite him back.

The amphitheater had a chyron that said, ‘Welcome Back, Coach!”

I know Omaha fairly well as it is less than a two-hour drive and my family really enjoys visiting Old Market and downtown. I left my house around 7:30, but I didn’t get to Omaha until almost 10 because I stopped for gas, coffee, and some breakfast pizza at Casey’s. I had on my “Dirt Road Democrat” t-shirt which can garner some looks in small towns, but the lady at the Casey’s counter read my shirt and smiled. No comment necessary.

I drove to the amphitheater and found parking and then started the walk to the event space. I ran into a few folks who said, “Wait? Are you Piper for Missouri?” I kept thinking that I wish my kids were with me so they would know that I do more than Tik Toks for a living. This isn’t much of a flex…there aren’t many outspoken rural progressives so I kind of stick out.

As I stood in line, I talked to so many who had stories of the fear that red legislatures can instill and that the fear has simmered for years. The anxiety that comes from living like that is remarkable, but so is a new-found feeling of hope.

Hope in the man they were waiting to see. Governor Tim Walz.

The doors were to open at 11am, so I would be waiting for a while in the long line that was beginning to go all the way back to the field I had parked in.

While waiting in line, I was able to talk to a Nebraska librarian. She worked with others to gather signatures to keep vouchers out of the state and she spoke at length about the books legislators planned to ban — the pervasive feeling of fear when thinking about shelving books in Nebraska public schools. And then she beamed when talking about the feeling of hope that the Harris/Walz ticket brought.

I was able to meet a woman who was with her Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense group. I told her I was a member in Missouri and even started a rural group in which many of the members are gun owners. She said it was hard to keep folks interested in the cause and I know that first-hand, but the fact that Tim Walz is a sensible gun-owner who has a F-rating from the NRA, and stands proudly with those of us who just want to pass common sense gun laws, is a huge help. Common sense includes safe-storage and universal background checks. These are things that most gun owners agree with.

I talked to teachers and hospital administrators and union members and nurses and stay-at-home moms. There were t-shirts representing so many viewpoints. There were ally shirts and rural shirts and public education shirts and pro-choice shirts and Walz shirts.

There were smiles in line. There was no hate. There was no fear. There was hope.

I made it through security and my way inside the theater. The place was filling up quickly. I found a seat and the woman next to me told me she followed me on Twitter and lived outside Mount Ayr, Iowa. I drive through there all the time and even met with a group of about 30 Democrats there last year. She said she had to work or she would have come. She had on an “I’m Speaking” t-shirt. She’s rural. She’s an Iowan — you know the folks who are all supposed to be Trump voters?

I bumped into a friend working with the NE Dems who told me I could stand on the stage behind Walz. Yay! So, I got up and walked by lots of people with guns to the backstage where I could be one of the folks holding the sign, doing the smiling, and getting excited about everything a politician says. Well, I didn’t have to pretend to be enthusiastic. When Tim Walz came onstage with his wife, Gwen, and a former student, it was electric.

Governor Walz talked about rural spaces. He spoke about small towns and small schools. He introduced us to a few of his former high school classmates. He graduated with 24 people.

Walz told a joke about JD Vance likely thinking a Runza is a Hot Pocket. If you know, you know.

Walz talked about the midwestern school delicacy of chili and a cinnamon roll. We all laughed because it is a combination that we all ate in public school cafeterias. It’s a shared experience that we can all smile about.

Walz then spoke on the hurt that we experienced during a Trump presidency that seems like it was just yesterday. He talked of the hate and the discontent that oozed out with every policy and press conference. He reminded the crowd that we don’t have to go back. Trump can slip away into irrelevance. That Nebraska can return its progressive roots and elect Democrats up and down the ballot.

He spoke on abortion rights and feeding kids and health care and union wages and folks who have been left behind. Omaha could not get enough of his passion and good sense. He could barely speak at times because the theater was literally pulsing with cheers and applause.

He then spoke on something that I think about daily — public schools. As soon as he mentioned how important our educational system is to our country, the crowd erupted into a chant…

Teachers! Teachers! Teachers!

The place exploded and this is where I have to tell you that I nearly cried.

I was a teacher for 16 years and the last few were rough. I miss the kids, but the fact that everything became “political” was too much. Everything I taught could be deemed political…I taught a protest lit unit that was Board Approved and in my literature book, but I felt under the gun with each lesson.

The fact that this theater was filled with Nebraskans and Missourians and Iowans all chanting for public schools and teachers was heart-warming. I am called a “groomer” or a “pedophile” on social media at least a dozen times every day for opposing book bans and for my years in the classroom. The fact that there was so much love for teachers was uplifting. I am positive the current teachers in the theater left feeling they could start this year with something that has been missing in red states…hope.

My aim with telling you about this rally is to help you understand what is happening in small towns and rural parts of the country right now. Omaha is not a rural space, but most of the immediate surrounding areas are. I drove through two hours of cornfields to arrive at the event and so did so many others.

I wrote in another post that the vibes have changed since Joe passed the torch…it remains true and even more so.

I’ll leave you with this: I passed a homemade sign in Ringgold County, Iowa the other day. The entire county has less than 5,000 residents. The sign was planted in the yard of an old farmhouse next to a cornfield. They put duct tape over “Biden” and had written “Kamala” in Sharpie on an old Biden/Harris sign. I travel this route monthly, and have for years, and I never saw the original sign in the yard. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have it out in 2020.

That means something, friend. It’s enthusiasm. It’s hope. It’s rural and small town folks coming around. LFG.

~Jess

Peace & Justice History for 8/19

Peace & Justice History for 8/18

I’ve been away from the computer a lot again today, and I apologize. I’ve had ideas, decided against them, maybe one or two will still make it but another day, you know how it goes. I would be unforgiveably remiss to not post this history for this date, though, so here it is!

Letters from An American for August 16, 2024

There is a lot in this one! I bolded a few areas; those are my own emphases, rather than Dr. Richardson’s.

Letters from An American for August 16, 2024

by Heather Cox Richardson

Read on Substack

The complaint of Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) last weekend on CNN that Democrats are bullying him by calling him weird has stuck with me. As I wrote at the time, Republicans have made punching down their stock in trade for decades, and Vance’s complaint suggests that the Democrats are finally pushing back. It strikes me that behind this shifting power dynamic is a huge story about American politics.

Since the 1950s, those determined to get rid of business regulation, social welfare programs, government infrastructure spending, and federal protection of civil rights have relied on a rhetorical structure that centers “real” Americans who allegedly want nothing from government and warns that un-American forces who want government handouts are undermining the country by bringing socialism or racial, gender, or religious equality.

In 2024, that rhetoric is all the MAGA Republicans have left to attract voters, as their actual policies are unpopular. Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters at his Bedminster availability that to win the 2024 election: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody that’s gonna destroy our country.”

But it is not just Trump. A MAGA pundit has called Vice President Harris “Hitler and Stalin combined but times 200,” and on Wednesday, Republicans in Minnesota nominated Royce White as their candidate for the U.S. Senate. “We face an enemy that intends to bastardize our citizenship through an idea called globalism,” White has said. “We must begin to understand how the global affects the local and take a stand for God, Family, and Country.” White has also said that “women have become too mouthy,” and that “Donald Trump could get up on stage, pull his pants down, take a sh*t up at the podium, and I still would never vote for you f*cking Democrats again.”

The rhetorical strategy setting up Republicans against a dangerous “other” was behind Trump’s demand that Republicans in Congress kill a bipartisan border bill so that Trump could continue to demonize immigrants. You could see that demonization of immigrants today in Vance’s straight-up lie that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to give $25,000 to illegal aliens to buy American homes.” In fact, Harris today called for Congress to expand plans already in place in the Biden administration, and none of those plans call for giving money to undocumented migrants.

Also in that vein today was the announcement of Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, that he is opening an investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s work in China. Walz is the Democratic vice presidential nominee. He went to China in 1989 as part of a teach-abroad program and went on to coordinate trips for students in China, becoming a vocal advocate for human rights in that country as leaders cracked down on opposition. But by suggesting this cultural exchange is nefarious, Comer can seed the idea that Walz is somehow operating against the interests of the United States.

This longstanding rhetoric that positions Republicans as true Americans defending the country against those who would destroy it has metastasized into the determination of MAGA Republicans to replace American democracy with a Christian nationalism that cements the power of white patriarchy. Vance has been in hot water for his derogatory remarks about “childless cat ladies”; interviews have resurfaced in the past few days in which he embraced the idea that the role of “the postmenopausal female” is to take care of grandchildren.

The New College of Florida is in the news today for illustrating the logical progression of the idea that Republicans must protect the nation from those who would destroy it. The New College of Florida was at the center of Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s program to get rid of traditional academic freedom. He stripped the New College of its independence and replaced officials with Christian loyalists who tried to build a school modeled after those that Viktor Orbán’s loyalists took over in Hungary. New College officials painted over student murals celebrating diversity, suppressed student support for civil rights, and voted to eliminate the diversity, equity, and inclusion office and the gender studies program. Faculty fled the New College, and more than a quarter of the students dropped out. To keep its numbers up, the school dropped its admission standards.

Yesterday, Steven Walker of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that the school cleared out the Gender and Diversity Center, throwing the books it had accumulated into a dumpster. Officials said the books are no longer serving the needs of the college: “gender studies has been discontinued as an area of concentration at New College and the books are not part of any official college collection or inventory.”

The image of piles of books in a dumpster in the United States of America is not easily forgettable.

But the dominance rhetoric of the MAGA Republicans was never just about political power. Political power always went hand in hand with corruption. A new book by Joe Conason called The Longest Con notes that the modern right-wing movement has its roots in the promise of grifters after World War II to protect America against the communists they insisted were infiltrating the country. Their promises to defend true Americans against an enemy was always about getting cash out of the deal.

Conason emphasizes how drumming up fears of an “other” was a deliberate grift to put money into the pockets of those who told small donors that their dollars were vital for defending the United States. The biggest prize for the extremists, though, was the control of government purse strings that allowed them to turn federal and state largesse toward their own cronies. Conason notes that under President Ronald Reagan, Republicans’ cuts to government oversight and reliance on the private sector to regulate itself, along with their belief that unfettered capitalism was a form of resistance to communism, led to a boom in corruption.

That corruption has continued in the Republican Party, largely unaddressed as politicians insisted that those calling it out were simply un-American malcontents engaging in political hits against good, patriotic Americans. In contrast, as any corruption on the Democratic side can be expected to be sliced and diced in public, the Democrats have stayed relatively clean.

And this is why Vance’s comment about Democrats bullying him jumped out at me. Republican dominance is cracking as Trump struggles and Vance offends people, and as that dominance falls away, the many things it covered are starting to get attention—among them, stories of Republican corruption. And they’re doozies.

On Sunday, for example, Garrett Shanley of the Independent Florida Alligator, the student newspaper of the University of Florida, reported that when former senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) took over the presidency of the University of Florida, he “channeled millions” to his Republican allies and to secretive contracts. In 17 months he more than tripled spending from his office, with most of the money going to his former aides and political friends, most of whom continued to live and work outside the state. Sasse was appointed in November 2022 in an opaque hiring process and stepped down unexpectedly in July, citing family issues, although Vivienne Serret of The Independent Alligator reported that DeSantis allies on the Board of Trustees forced him out.

One of the biggest stories in the country these days is the corruption scandal in Ohio, in which dark money groups led by the FirstEnergy utility company worked with former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder to put into office politicians who, thanks to about $61 million in bribes, backed a $1.3 billion bailout for FirstEnergy paid for with tax dollars.

On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost agreed to settle the scandal. FirstEnergy will pay a $20 million fine, an amount that Marty Schladen of the Ohio Capital Journal notes is less than one-third the amount FirstEnergy spent to bribe legislators, and a fraction of the money ratepayers have had to pay because of the corrupt legislation the bribes paid for.

Nothing better illustrates the grift at the center of today’s MAGA Republicans than Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election and that it was stolen from him by those dangerous “others,” the Democrats. The Big Lie enabled the Trump team to continue soliciting donations in order to fight for the White House. According to Conason, Trump and his fellow election deniers pocketed $255.4 million between the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president.

On Monday, jurors found former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters guilty on seven counts in relation to her compromising of her county’s election system. Peters was determined to get voter information to My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a key Trump ally, in order to prove the Big Lie. She is facing more than 22 years in prison.

—

Notes:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8xqy0jv24o

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/16/tim-walz-james-comer-china-00174403

https://people.com/j-d-vance-post-menopausal-female-podcast-interview-8696246

https://newrepublic.com/post/184926/florida-new-college-ron-desantis-book-ban

https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/sarasotacounty/new-college-florida-books-dumpster-gender-studies/67-749fb5d8-6269-4507-827f-209c3403f7a6

Joe Conason, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martins: 2024).

https://www.comicsands.com/royce-white-resurfaced-women-mouthy-2668973149.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/royce-white-republican-nomination-us-senate/

https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/08/sasse-s-spending-spree-former-uf-president-channeled-millions-to-gop-allies-secretive-contracts

How Citizens United cleared the way for the biggest political bribery scandal in Ohio history

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost settles with FirstEnergy for $20 million

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/nate-monroe/2024/08/16/corcoran-trashes-books-to-stay-on-top-as-no-1-florida-goon-commentary/74824824007/

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/education/2024/08/15/new-college-of-florida-throws-away-hundreds-of-library-books-diversity-lgbtq/74814756007/

https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/08/reason-behind-sasse-departure

https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/former-mesa-county-clerk-tina-peters-guilty-of-7-counts-in-election-security-breach-trial

https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2024/08/12/tina-peters-election-tampering-colorado-jury-verdict

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kamala-harris-maga-jezebel-apocalypse-rcna164922

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/06/trump-kamala-harris-presidential-election

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MacFarlaneNews/status/1822620830674624629

Here’s a meme from email

This is a wonderful video from Harris-Walz

I got this in a Wonkette Substack, which is also loads of fun, but not as nice as the Harris-Walz video. I thought I’d leave it up to everyone if they want to read the Wonkette piece, which, again, is hilarious and has the above video. But in case someone’s not up for that sort of humor, the video is set up separately.

Creepy Bigots Declare Tim Walz Race Traitor For ‘White Guy Tacos’ Joke by Rebecca Schoenkopf

No way that ‘weird’ label is sticking to THEM! Read on Substack

With thanks and laughter!

Meme of the Day

Where is the parity?

I initially wasn’t going to read this, but then I thought, well, let’s see if The Guardian is doing a little better on coverage parity than the other “big papers.” I think as far as exposing and telling news stories, The Guardian excels, but today I did not see what I’d hoped for, which is actual commentary or questions regarding the Don’s fitness for campaign and office, his ability to win, and if he should step down. I am disappointed, but at least the story of his campaign foundering is being told, unlike in other news media who try to behave as if the Don/Vance campaign is normal and not freakishly authoritarian and hateful. Anyway, here is this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/15/trump-campaign-leadership

Top Trump advisers in turmoil after campaign’s worst month of 2024

Senior aides see challenges from enemies real and perceived as the ex-president struggles against Harris

Donald Trump has privately expressed faith in his campaign leadership and no firings are currently expected, but senior advisers find themselves in the most vulnerable moment as they struggle to frame effective attacks against Kamala Harris, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The past month, starting with Joe Biden’s withdrawal and his endorsement of Harris to succeed him, which propelled her to draw roughly even in key swing state polls, has easily been the most unstable moment for the Trump campaign since its formal launch in late 2022.

In that period, Trump has often committed one unforced error after another as he tries to frame arguments against Harris, struggled to break through the news cycle hyping Democrats’ enthusiasm, and suddenly found himself on the defensive with a narrow window left until November.

The sudden difficulty for the Trump campaign to lay a glove on Harris has led to Trump’s allies seeing an opening for the first time to openly challenge decision-making by senior aides and privately challenge whether some advisers should remain in their positions or be sidelined.

And the past month has been bad enough for the Trump campaign that advisers have taken those challenges – whether from enemies real or perceived – as serious threats or slights that necessitate devoting time and effort to slap down.

In a statement referring to the campaign chiefs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, a Trump spokesperson said: “As President Trump said, he thinks Ms Wiles and Mr LaCivita are doing a phenomenal job and any rumors to the contrary are false and not rooted in reality.

“This campaign is focused on winning, and anyone not focused on electing President Trump and defeating Kamala Harris is doing nothing but hurting every American. Detractors and lobbyists are waging a destructive battle of rumor and innuendo, and they are well known and will be remembered.”

woman who is Kellyanne Conway in a pale blue dress — Kellyanne Conway at a White House meeting about the opioid crisis in 2019. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

The anxiety principally stems from Trump’s recent meeting on 2 August with Lara Trump, his daughter in law whom he installed as head of the Republican National Convention, and Kellyanne Conway, who ran his 2016 presidential campaign.

Reached by phone, Conway said the meeting was focused on strategy and she told Trump that he defeated a female candidate in 2016 and could do so again in November. She said she never mentioned any names or titles of senior advisers on the campaign.

But the meeting raised hackles internally when Trump later relayed what Conway had said, which was interpreted by senior advisers as an incursion into their territory and an attempt to pitch herself to run the campaign, the people said.

The roller-coaster of anxiety diminished after senior aides felt reassured that Conway was unlikely to come aboard, at least for now, with Trump questioning her new lobbying for Ukraine and her suggestion in 2023 that Trump endorse a 15-week federal abortion ban.

But an undercurrent of nervousness has persisted. At least one other faction in Trump world with ties to figures associated with the Trump 2016 campaign is weighing whether to appeal to the former president to shake up the leadership, according to a person involved in the discussions.

The summer months have historically been the time that Trump makes changes to his campaign chiefs, as he did in 2016 when he installed Conway and Steve Bannon and David Bossie to take the reins, as well as in 2020, when he replaced Brad Parscale with Bill Stepien.

The 2020 campaign in particular carries some scar tissue for advisers, who have privately recalled in recent weeks that criticism over decision-making led to Parscale’s ouster, even if in his case, it was over questionable spending rather than resetting attack lines against their opponent.

A man (Tim Walz) and woman (Kamala Harris) wearing suits hold hands and they raise their arms in the air at a political rally — Kamala Harris and Tim Walz campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada, last week. Photograph: Julia Nikhinson/AP

The anxiety over the palace intrigue comes as the Trump campaign continues to have a difficult time landing consistent attacks against Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, coming under fire for saying they intend to run the same playbook as against Biden.

The campaign’s bet is that the election will be defined on the same points as with Biden, the people said: the crisis on the US southern border, crime and inflation that has caused a rise in the cost of living.

Trump campaign advisers and external allies agree that Trump needs to attack Harris on her policy records, but the execution has often been poor.

At the heart of the problem is Trump’s annoyance at being managed, one of the people said. And even as Trump tries to keep on message – for instance, to focus on how Harris has shifted her positions to whatever she finds politically expedient – it can be unnatural or come out botched.

When Trump spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference this month, he falsely suggested Harris had only recently decided to identify as Black because it brought her political benefits, in remarks that were egregious even by Trump’s controversial standards.

Conway told Trump at their meeting, which came days after the NABJ conference, that he should stick to policy differences and not engage in personal attacks. Several campaign officials chafed at Conway’s advice when they learned of it, one of the people said, saying they had advised the same thing and saw her as stepping on their turf.

Kamalanomics (2)

by Robert Reich Go Kamala! Read on Substack

Friends,

On Tuesday, I noted that food prices remain high because there’s little to no competition across the entire food supply chain, which has allowed big corporations to engage in a price gouging free-for-all. https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/kamalaconomics

Four companies control most food industries, allowing them to coordinate prices instead of compete on the basis of lower prices. I offered this graph to illustrate the problem:

I urged that Harris announce that as president she’ll bust up food monopolies.

Well, I have it on good authority that on Friday she’ll announce a plan to prevent corporations in the food and grocery industries from unfairly jacking up prices on consumers.

She’ll call for the first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging in these industries.

Go Kamala!