As the election approaches, one last torrent of BS

AS THE ELECTION APPROACHES, A FINAL TORREN OF BS. Vice President Kamala Harris received dire news during the final weekend of the presidential campaign when the Labor Department reported that the economy added just 12,000 jobs in October. Even with hurricanes and a Boeing strike, economists had expected a gain of 100,000 or 110,000 jobs. Instead, the number was 12,000. In addition, the Labor Department revised August and September numbers down by 112,000 jobs, “reflecting that the labor market was softer at the end of the summer than previously reported.” in his words Washington Post. With jobs reports having been revised down in eight of the past 11 months, October’s 12,000 could turn out to be even less than zero.

So it’s bad for an incumbent vice president trying to win the White House at a time of deep economic concern among voters. Which can explain the tenor of the campaign in recent days.

This morning, you may have woken up to the news that former President Donald Trump called for one of his most high-profile opponents, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, to be executed by firing squad. There he was on Drudge Report: “TRUMP CALLS FOR CHENEY’S EXECUTION.” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said Trump “called for Liz Cheney to be shot in the face with nine guns.” It quickly became commonplace among the journalistic elite to say that Trump asked Cheney to “face a firing squad.” It was repeated over and over and over.

If you were alive and conscious since 2015, say, and if you generally want to know the whole story before you get hysterical, you probably reacted by asking, “OK, what did Trump say?” And here’s a transcript of what Trump said Sunday in Arizona during a conversation with Tucker Carlson. The passage in question came when Carlson asked Trump’s reaction to Cheney endorsing Harris in the election. “I think it hurts Kamala a lot, actually,” Trump said. Then:

Look, he’s a troubled person. The reason she doesn’t like me is she wanted to stay in Iraq, she wants to – a tough, tough person, you know, people are being killed everywhere, she’s very tough, right? … But the reason he couldn’t stand me is that he always wanted to go to war with the people. I don’t want to go to war. She wanted to go – she wanted to stay in Syria. I took them out. She wanted to stay in Iraq. I took them out. I mean, if it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries. No. 1, is very dangerous, No. 2, many people are killed, and No. 3, it is very, very expensive. … She is a radical war hawk. Let’s set her up with a shotgun, nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, with guns pointed in her face. You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, “Oh, well, let’s send, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the enemy’s mouth.” But he is a bad person. And I used to have—I used to have dates with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.

Trump continued for several minutes, exploring, in addition to Cheney, the folly of much of the US military’s involvement in the Middle East, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in the George W. Bush administration and his treatment of Cheney’s adviser Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and more. It was all delivered in classic Trump meandering style, but the basic reading of those events was correct. It was, with all Trump’s flourishes, a pretty compelling analysis. If you want to watch it yourself, go herestarts at about 36:00 and listens for about eight minutes. It was a revealing look at a former president’s view of America’s military woes and some of the Republicans, sometimes called “chickenhawks,” who supported them. And no, Trump did not call for Liz Cheney to be executed by firing squad—or by any other method, for that matter.

However, for Trump’s opponents in the Harris campaign, the Democratic Party, the activist world and much of the media, the red light went on, the outrage machine kicked into action and the attacks began. Trump demands to execute his political enemies! With election day less than 100 hours away, the attacks have come with a heightened level of intensity. Yes, it’s crazy, but it consumes one of the final news cycles before the election.

Some of the other stories dominating the final news cycles before the election there was the Trump-Hitler brouhaha and the Puerto Rico garbage brouhaha. There is no time to go through them all. But for a while, a brief while, it seemed like Harris’ closing argument might be that Trump is Adolf Hitler redux. Then the conversation turned to trash based on the insult comics bad joke at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden. That consumed a day or two until President Joe Biden intervened, and then the Trump side started its own outrage machine and another news cycle it was consumed until Trump sentenced Liz Cheney to death by firing squad.

Is this how the campaign ends? Yes, it is. Sure, there are still three days until voting begins, and there may be three more ridiculous news cycles before the polls open. But that’s just how the campaign goes and will continue until it stops. What’s next? Well, we haven’t heard from Vladimir Putin in the past few days, and it seems highly unlikely that the Democrats and their allies in the media will let the campaign end without another Putin cycle. But who knows? There could be something completely different waiting to become the top topic in the world for a few hours. Let’s start.