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GELFAND’S WORLD - As one pundit suggested, the October Surprise we've all been waiting for is here, but it is aimed at Donald Trump this time around. It's the onslaught of testimony by Trump's own former staffers. There was one set of comments that really struck me. Curiously, it's not the one you're all thinking of.
The context was a conversation General Kelly -- Trump's chief of staff -- had with the then-president. Kelly was responding to Trump's comment that it would be nice to have German generals. Kelly inquired as to whether Trump was referring to the generals that answered to Bismarck. Trump did not know who Bismarck was. So Kelly then referred to General Rommel. Trump did not know who Rommel was either.
There is more to the story, but the fact that the arch-authoritarian president would not know about Rommel has to be a bit shocking. But there it is -- Donald Trump is as ignorant of the second world war as he is of most other things. And if he is pretending to be knowledgeable of military affairs (he has always claimed to know "more than his generals") then you would think he would at least have heard of one of Hitler's top generals. I mean, this suggests that Trump never even saw the movie Patton.
Kelly eventually got his message across to his boss, but the message was that Trump should never ever say anything at all good about Adolph Hitler. It's amazing that an advisor would find it necessary to make this comment, isn't it? But there it is.
By the way, it's not surprising, but still a bit outrageous, that the Trump campaign's response was merely to throw mud at Kelly and call him a liar. Somehow, the dozens of once-close associates of Trump are all liars when they tell the truth about him.
E minus 12 days
There have been 26 million votes cast so far. In Pennsylvania, the early votes are heavily Democratic according to NBC, with 62% Democrats vs 29% Republicans. It's interesting that "Other" votes are only 9%. In Michigan and Wisconsin, the differences are lower, but still substantially more Democratic than Republican.
You can find the early voting numbers here.
The idea is that a campaign would like to "bank" votes in advance. There are always a certain number of voters who have the best intentions but just don't make it to the poll on election day and are thereby lost to their side. Convincing your people to make sure that their votes are cast well in advance removes some of the uncertainty. Back in 2020, the Trump campaign opposed mail-in-voting, and probably lost votes as a result. Now, they are trying to stimulate the early voting. It's not clear that they are succeeding very well, based on these tallies.
Undecided (?) voters
I'll merely refer you to Lewis Black, if you are tolerant of salty language and won't get fired for playing it. You can find it Here.
Television figures out that the City of Los Angeles is broke
A few nights ago, I noticed that the local television station was taking notice of the city's stressed finances. They seem to have been reacting to a piece in the L.A. Times, although they could have reacted to one of Jack Humphreville's articles here in CityWatch.
In thinking about the tv coverage of what is fairly obvious and straightforward, I chanced to think, "It's too bad that the Republican Party has gone so far astray." After all, there once was a group of Republicans who were moderately liberal when it came to social issues but reasonably conservative fiscally. That group would have opposed the municipal salary increases voted by the City Council and signed by the mayor. That opposition, had it been successful, would have kept the city in the black.
Our city's voters might usefully recognize that the Democratic Party machine that elects civic officials has a weakness in terms of giving in to the demands of the municipal unions. Voters should demand more fiscal integrity on the part of our elected officials. The way to deal with the problem is to insist on fiscal integrity as a condition of election and reelection.
I tend to doubt whether the local Republicans are capable of molding themselves into a party of fiscal integrity while, at the same time, casting off their social conservatism. Seems unlikely, doesn't it? But the Democrats are perfectly capable of demanding fiscal conservatism when it is indicated. To do so is common-sensical, and probably the way a majority of Democrats already think anyway. What is needed is leadership from within the Democratic Party or from the increasingly powerful unaligned bloc.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
