Hello and happy Tuesday. There are 83 days until the election and today we’re talking about families — angry, loving or even weirdly wonderful.
Which brings me to the closing ceremony of the Olympics. Was that the most Gen X/City of Angels extravaganza you’ve ever seen? Gotta love our L.A. fam.
Tom Cruise dived into the Paris stadium from hundreds of feet above, retrieved the Olympic flag from Mayor Karen Bass, then rode a motorcycle onto a plane that dropped him at the Hollywood sign, Botox intact.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers made a golden oldies appearance, having hit that inevitable stage of classic rocker where they look like figures in a wax museum, then turned it over to Billie Eilish — one of five Gen Z musicians that older generations can identify.
Then of course Snoop Dogg closed it out with a duet with Dr. Dre that reminded us that L.A. has as much talent as flash. Honestly, Snoop was a highlight of the Olympics, dancing with a horse, commentating for NBC (though it was Flavor Flav who sponsored women’s water polo, not Snoop, as I said earlier). Is there nothing Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. (that’s Snoop to you) can’t do?
Cruise, Flea, Billie, Snoop, Dre — the dazzle can blind you to the substance. But the substance is there, with diversity, equity and inclusion as its core. In the Golden State, land of dreams and spectacle, that’s how we do it.
It’s a direct rebuttal to the Republican rush to redefine their repression and hate as “normal” family values, drenched in conformity and compliance, in response to the Harris-Walz ticket. Part of that rebuttal is a near-desperate attempt to paint variety as dangerous and inclusion as foolishness.
Last week, we talked about the battle over masculinity between MAGA and the Democrats.
On to the natural progression: Family. Whose vision will resonate with American voters?
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) speaks at a campaign event at Shelby Township Police Department on Wednesday in Michigan.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Hate becomes a problem
The Trump campaign has long seemed to function on the belief that it could scurry around under the garbage of racism and misogyny, nibbling at ideas such as the Great Replacement Theory (that immigrants are “hordes” that will destroy America), then run for cover when the spotlight flips on.
“Fake news!” they cry when caught in the glare. “Liberal media!”
It’s a cynical strategy of barfing ugly all over the rug then blaming it on the dog, to switch critters on you.
It skitters underneath the “cat lady” claims, as well as the false “chameleon” narrative that Kamala Harris does not equally embrace her Indian and Black heritages.
Both assertions are about putting women and minorities in their place with venomous dog whistles of resentment and rancor that ring clearly in the ears of a certain set of voters, ones that have long made up Trump’s most loyal following — angry young white men.
But a funny thing happened when the Democratic ticket became a California stepmother with Hindu and Jewish influences and a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner with two IVF kids.
The dog whistles changed frequency and we all could hear them clearly.
It turns out the average voter — the swing state undecided who is critical to victory — doesn’t believe “childless cat ladies” are a subset of sociopaths. Or that being mixed race is somehow too confusing to comprehend.
Hate is a lot harder to hide — or embrace — when it’s directed at particular people. When the Trump playbook found itself unexpectedly facing Harris and Walz, the bitterness against diversity, equity and inclusion morphed.
The derided acronym — DEI — switched from being a dog whistle into shorthand for values most of us respect, and that many families embody everyday simply through their complicated, varied existences.
California values. American values. Family values.
What’s the Trump campaign to do?
Scurry for the middle
Scramble, scramble, hurry, scurry — back toward the safety of a middle-ground message. Which is exactly what JD Vance seems to be charged with, even as Trump continues his grievance-filled rambles.
In an excellent interview with CNN’s Dana Bash (who provided a masterclass on how to fact check as you go), Vance claimed that Harris “is fundamentally a fake person.”
Unlike him. He’s real. He claimed his former anti-Trumpness was because he believed “media lies” and he was “ashamed of it.”
Vance also tried to back away from his cat-lady mess, framing all of the anti-everything language of Trump’s past months and years as a “pro-family” agenda.
“The point is our country has become anti-family,” he claimed.
But the problem for Trump-Vance is that their family values have long been grounded in white Christian nationalism — controlling women, ending rights for the LGBTQ+ community — and backing away from the hate is freaking out that base. That is especially true for those angry men.
“Tonight I declared a new Groyper War against the Trump campaign,” white nationalist Nick Fuentes wrote recently. “We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they’re blowing it. Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.”
Groypers, for those with better things to consider, are a bunch of far-right white supremacists who count Fuentes as their leader.
Right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan also signaled defection from Trump, seemingly endorsing Robert Kennedy Jr. before backing away from that. Ditto for hard-right YouTuber Tim Pool.
Trump is feeling that heat enough that Monday night he did a social media interview with Elon Musk, child-king of petulant men. That call drew more than 1 million listeners.
During that conversation — calling it an interview is an insult to anyone who has ever asked a sentient question — Trump gave the usual rants, including his promise to close the U.S. Department of Education. “Not every state will do great” with giving their kids the foundation for success, he conceded. But it will be So Great for the far-right. As for Musk, it was serious fanboy energy.
Not all of those listening were fans, to be sure (I was one of those million). But it turns out angry men really do like Trump, and he really does like that adoration — Sally Field at the ’85 Oscars type of like.
They like the Trump who calls immigrants murderers and rapists. They like the Vance who slams women for not procreating according to his standards.
They don’t want to be moderate.
And so Trump-Vance has a problem. Going for the middle may gain some votes. But it may also lose the hate-based base.
Meanwhile.
The pull of decency
Doug Vose and his wife were high school sweethearts who both had Walz as a teacher their senior year. They still live in Minnesota, and Vose considers himself a dormant Republican.
Still, last week he published an op-ed with a warning to the Trump campaign.
“Make the campaign about the Trump tax policy,” he wrote. Make it about China. Make it about the border. Make it about anything other than leadership, decency and competency. Because if you don’t, and this becomes a character debate, you’re way out of your league.”
Ouch.
I asked Vose what prompted him to write such a piece, especially since he doesn’t always agree with Walz’s politics. He told me he typically votes for “all Republicans unless they are unserious.”
But Walz represents something he respects. Once, about nine years ago, he ran into Walz in the D.C. airport. Vose hadn’t seen his old teacher in years, but Walz still remembered everything about him.
“He remembered my first name, asked about my siblings, asked about my wife,” Vose said.
And when, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Vose had “ash falling on his lawn” from the civil unrest?
“I literally slept better at night knowing Tim Walz is making the decisions,” he said.
“He’s the adult in the room and he’s more concerned with what the right thing to do is rather than what’s best for his career.”
Whatever you think of their politics, it’s hard to say the same for Trump — or Vance.
We love to say that vice presidential picks don’t make or break elections. But this time, Vose is voting Harris-Walz in no small part because of Walz.
He might not be the only disillusioned Republican man making the same decision.
What else you should be reading
The must-read: Elections Officials Battle a Deluge of Disinformation
The Uh-oh :Harris, Trump see votes in not taxing tips. Experts see trouble.
The L.A. Times special: Kamala Harris raises $13 million in San Francisco, touts California roots
P.S. OMG. Tom Cruise did not, I repeat, did not, actually bring the Olympic flag back to L.A. That was fake news! Turns out it flew back on a regular old plane with Mayor Bass.
Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom — along with other elected officials, American Olympians and executives with Delta Air Lines, LA28 and U.S. Olympic leaders — pose with the Olympic flag upon its return to Los Angeles on Monday.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
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