Ella Emhoff, the tattoo-covered stepdaughter of Kamala Harris , became an iconic image of last week’s Democratic National Convention. And it left leading figures of the MAGA movement in meltdown, Salon’s Amanda Marcotte wrote Tuesday. “A chorus of conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk lost their minds at the sight of this young woman, she wrote.
“They complained that she's "covered in tattoos," which is held out as proof that [her dad] Doug Emhoff "messed up." (Real men, to the MAGA right, control their daughter's body from her skin to her hymen to how she dresses. Not weird at all!) “They said she wore a "man's suit" and looked like "something out of a horror film.
" They were especially incensed that her father showed affection for his fun, fashionable daughter, and freaked out that he gave his daughter a fatherly side hug during the convention." In real life, Marcotte wrote, the 25-year-old Emhoff came over as a self-assured, beautiful and successful woman. A Parson School of Design graduate who has a contract with the modeling agency IMG, she appeared to be a woman comfortable in her own skin — and with showing love for her family.
That, Marcotte wrote, is what’s triggered the Republican right. ALSO READ: Donald Trump exploits AP photo error for new $99 'Save America' book Her “ creativity, beauty, and easygoing love for her family has sent many on the right into paroxysms of rage,” she wrote. “The daughter of Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, triggers the incel-minded online right by being a Brooklyn hipster who rejects the tiresome conservative rules for how women are allowed to dress or behave.
In response, Donald Trump's fanboys are in a total meltdown, unable to accept the existence of a woman who doesn't care what they think of her. “And they can't hide that they're furious that she looks great doing so.” Marcotte highlighted one commentator, right-winger Richard Hanania, who called the model the “nightmare scenario for most people with a daughter.
” “It's yet another sign of how out of touch and frankly weird the MAGA right is,” Marcotte wrote. “No, most Americans would not find it a "nightmare" to have a daughter who is successful, popular, and confident. Most parents would feel how Doug Emhoff appears to feel: proud of the smart, independent woman he helped raise.
“ ...
The message to the bitter men of MAGA is about something else entirely. "This is why you don't have a wife," is the subtext of this grievance. "Because all the cute girls would rather move to Brooklyn and cuddle a cat than have anything to do with you.
" The reference is to J.D. Vance , Donald Trump’s running mate who spurred outrage by referring to successful single women as “cat ladies.
” “Vance's catastrophic poll numbers, however, show there are real risks to the Trump campaign of pandering so heavily to creeps,” Marcotte wrote. “The majority of Americans find it weird when men have an unhinged loathing of women who diverge from their "tradwife" fantasies.” Special counsel Jack Smith urged the 11th U.
S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse federal judge Aileen Cannon's decision to dismiss the classified documents case against Donald Trump — but there's little chance she'll be removed, a columnist wrote. The Trump-appointed judge tossed out the federal case last month by ruling that Smith had been unlawfully appointed and funded, but the special counsel's appellate brief highlighted how unusual her decision was and pointed to numerous contradictions with previous decisions, wrote MSNBC's Jordan Rubin .
"Smith’s brief didn’t indicate his intention to seek a new judge," Rubin wrote. "That doesn’t mean that the appeals court couldn’t still remove her while reversing her, but there’s reason to not expect that here." Cannon cited U.
S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in her decision, which was based in part on the deeply conservative jurist's concurring opinion in the Trump immunity case in which he questioned Smith's appointment because the special counsel had not been confirmed by Congress. ALSO READ: Donald Trump exploits AP photo error for new $99 'Save America' book "That wasn’t the issue in the immunity case , so we don’t know how many other justices (if any) agree with Thomas," Rubin wrote.
"But it would seemingly make it more difficult to kick a judge off a case in part for reaching a decision citing a sitting Supreme Court justice’s reasoning, however flawed that reasoning is." "Of course, if the high court ultimately upholds Cannon’s ruling if the case gets to the justices, that would moot any reassignment issue — as would a Trump presidential victory in November, which could lead to him eliminating the case entirely," Rubin added. On Friday, after the rousing Democratic convention was over, Trump charged that Harris’s securing of the Democratic Party’s nomination posed a “threat to democracy.
” “It was a coup. We had a coup,” Trump said of Harris’s nomination, “the first coup of the history of our country, and it was very successful.” This from a man who actually tried to orchestrate a coup — who continues to baselessly claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, who after the election threatened state election officials if they didn’t change their tallies, and on January 6, 2021, urged a crowd of armed followers to attack the U.
S. Capitol to prevent the election results from being certified. What’s Trump’s basis for his absurd claim that Harris orchestrated a coup? He argues that Harris has “no right” to run for president because she got “no [primary] votes to Biden’s 14 Million.
” READ: 'Compare and contrast': Ex-GOP insider has theory why Trump's attacks on Harris don't land This is utter nonsense. The Democratic Party had the power to replace Biden with Harris. In choosing Biden, primary voters elected delegates to pick their nominee.
Once Biden dropped out, those delegates could pick his replacement. They chose Harris. Their overwhelming enthusiasm for Harris at last week’s convention should have laid to rest any doubts about whether the Democratic Party is behind her.
Why is Trump saying this was a coup? Some analysts think he’s laying the groundwork for claiming, if and when he loses the 2024 election , that the results are illegitimate. That may be part of Trump’s motive, but there’s a far simpler explanation: Trump simply cannot believe that Biden — or anyone in Biden’s shoes — would put the nation above their own personal ambition. Trump’s malignant narcissism cannot conceive of selfless patriotism.
To Trump, no one would relinquish power simply because it is in the nation’s interest that they do so. Therefore, the Democrats must have forced Biden out. Trump insists it “was an overthrow of a president.
This was an overthrow,” adding “they deposed a president.” Trump is even claiming it was a “vicious, violent overthrow.” In Trump’s addled brain, the transition from Biden to Harris had to be vicious and violent because Biden would never have peacefully relinquished power.
Before the convention, Trump predicted that Biden, “whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him,” would crash it and take back the nomination. Several times during last week’s Democratic convention, Trump described Biden as an “angry man” who was “seething” at being replaced by Harris. It is Trump who’s angry and seething, because he now faces an opponent who’s attracting bigger crowds than his and has more volunteers, more donations, better ratings, higher poll numbers, and better vibes.
It’s not just that Biden did what Trump would never do — bow out for the good of the nation. It’s that Trump cannot believe Biden bowed out for the good of the nation. The man who claims to want to “put America first” has always put himself first, and thinks everyone else in public life puts themselves first, too.
Or they’re violently overthrown. NOW READ: 'His stability is in question': Biden hits Trump for claiming Harris ousted him in 'coup' Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.
substack.com/ A GOP strategist, faced with a growing number of Republican lawmakers and national security experts warning voters away from former President Donald Trump , conceded Tuesday he was faced with a problem. Brad Todd, a strategist managing down-ticket campaigns across the nation, was made to watch on CNN Tuesday multiple video montages of never-Trump Republicans declaring support for Vice President Kamala Harris .
"You put me in a tough spot," Todd admitted to anchor Kasie Hunt. Todd made this admission as he tried to make his case that the growing number of former Trump appointees who've turned against him — and the 200 former staffers for conservative bigwigs such as President George W. Bush and Sen.
Mitt Romney (R-UT) — was just politics as usual. ALSO READ: Donald Trump exploits AP photo error for new $99 'Save America' book "The first name on that letter today was a finance intern," Todd said. "So let's not get carried away with exactly how broad this is.
" Hunt responded to this claim with a video montage featuring back-to-back comments from high-ranking former security staff who once worked for Trump and now speak out against him. Gen. Mark Milley, Trump's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declares "We don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.
" Trump's former Defense secretary Mark Esper says, "I think he's unfit for office." Former National Security Advisor John Bolton closes the montage with the warning, "I think he's dangerous." Before pivoting to make his case for Trump, Todd was forced to admit, "I agree with John Bolton on virtually every policy issue.
" Todd then argued these comments showed a lack of loyalty to the former commander-in-chief and that voters appreciated his ability to make enemies out of former staffers. "Trump is very well-defined," Todd said. "The main thing they like about him is that he fights and that he fights against the far-left and they see the left and the Democratic Party, is way too far left.
They know his downsides." As expressed by the hundreds of Republicans who endorsed Harris on Monday, those downsides include a threat to democracies across the globe. "At home, another four years of Donald Trump's chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025 , will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions," the endorsement reads.
"Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen." Watch the video below or click here.
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