SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2026
...right at the base of Mount Rushmore: In the last two weeks, we've alerted you to the rise of the sudden new messaging.
Last night, the messaging continued.
The sitting president was standing there, right at the base of Mount Rushmore. Sixteen minutes into the tapioca, he made an adjustment.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, at 9:21 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, the messaging began:
PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/3/26): You must love our country. There has never been anything like us anywhere on Earth, and we are not going to let anyone take that away.
Yet as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack. A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of Communism, there is now a resurgence of the Communist menace in our land.
With that, the messaging started. The president moved away from one childish theme—we're the best people who ever lived—directly to another.
Shawn McCreesh was on the scene for the New York Times. In this morning's news report, he describes the sudden pivot:
At Mount Rushmore, Trump Veers From Patriotism to ‘Communism’
Four months before tough midterm elections, President Trump used the backdrop of Mount Rushmore one night before the nation’s 250th birthday to characterize his political opponents as “godless,” “evil” communists.
“We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish stupid and unwise,” he said...
The larger purpose of the speech wasn’t hard to miss. He was sharpening a line of attack that the White House has started to use to head off a newly insurgent progressive wing of the Democratic Party that appears to be resonating with liberal voters.
Mr. Trump read from an apocalyptic script as the stony faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln looked on. He said the word “communism” so many times, you might’ve thought the Cold War was still on.
With respect to those stony faces, observers swore they saw a tear emerge from Mr. Lincoln's eye even as the current president executed two flyovers in his new Qatari jet.
(Will he use the plane for personal travel if he actually leaves the White House? No one seems to have nailed down the answer, and our news orgs don't much seem to care.)
Back to the president's address:
Just exactly how many times did he say the word "Communism?" Moving one step beyond McCreesh, we offer a provisional word count:
Word count, Mount Rushmore address
"Communist:" 6
"Communism:" 8
By our preliminary count, that's 14 usages in the six minutes devoted to this part of speech, with one additional "Marxist" thrown in.
(As best we can tell at this time, he didn't say the word "Commie.")
For the record, who are the Communists creating the current Communist menace? On what basis was he assessing them to be Communists?
The president didn't say. But as the messaging spreads during the summer and into the fall, you aren't likely to see any serious discussion of that second question. Our national discourse simply doesn't function that way.
We were struck by one part of the president's description of the Communist menace. No one believes that he's religious, but he stressed this set of claims:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Communism is the exact opposite of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It's death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil.
The godless Communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions and to really propose [sic] what's good. They don't love God and they don't want God. They don't love religion and they don't want religion, and they won't have it. But we won't let them win.
The unnamed foes aren't simply Communists—they're actually godless Communists.
They don't love God and they don't want God. By prevailing rules of the messaging game, observers are supposed to believe that the sitting president does.
Presumably, this will be the messaging as we move toward the mid-term elections. It wouldn't hurt for us Blues to recall the various ways, down through the years, that we helped create this mess.
From Joyce Vance:
ReplyDelete"I saw a great post on social media last week. It said something like, “Republicans don’t own July 4. They own January 6.” Ouch, but it’s true.
Democrats are the party of patriotism and country, the party of democracy and No Kings, and it’s time to claim that space and be proud of who we are and what we’ve accomplished—we don’t do that often enough. It’s a big tent full of people who, even though they may not see eye to eye on everything, believe in putting country over party and saving democracy now, while we still can. It’s not always easy, but today we celebrate that we are still here with no thought of bending the knee. I hope that wherever you are, you can be a part of that too!"
Somerby, this isn't messaging. It is name-calling. We Dems have already been called pedos and demons in human skin, what is there left to call us? Red America believes every stupid thing they are told by their leaders. There is no way to fight this stuff other than focusing on the issues and showing what a bad job Trump has done for everyday people. If they still respond to the commie name-calling, that is on them and they deserve what they will get. The rest of us can always move to Scandinavia, where people are reasonable and there is good govt.
ReplyDeleteI refuse to get hysterical, as Somerby is doing now, because Republicans are calling us something different this week. Personally, I don't find commie as bad as pedo, and the Epstein files WILL come out eventually.
How can there be a "resurgence of the communist menace" when Trump is already giving Putin everything he wants?
ReplyDelete"(Will he use the plane for personal travel if he actually leaves the White House? No one seems to have nailed down the answer, and our news orgs don't much seem to care.)"
ReplyDeleteMaybe the news orgs don't seem to care because this is the most irrelevant question on the face of the earth? He can buy his own jets, lease one whenever it is convenient, anywhere, and he doesn't mind breaking any laws. This will get worse after he leaves office. He is a multi-billionaire with no scruples. He can and will do whatever he wants, now and after he leaves office.
Has Somerby lost his fucking mind? Hinting that this is a question the press should be pursuing is idiotic. What is wrong with Somerby? Everyone knows that the only important press activity needs to be rooting out who was with Trump raping 13 year old girls. Because whoever it was shouldn't be allowed to seep into office after Trump dies.
Seems Trump's 250 Anniversary celebration was created with the same forethought as the war we lost to Iran on Day One.
ReplyDeleteSomerby's attempts to have his readers pity a guy who raped children is pathetic.
ReplyDeleteIt is almost as if Somerby thinks keeping that jet is a worse crime than raping children.
DeleteSomerby wants us to pity Trump despite his raping children because Somerby identifies with Trump and seeks the same sympathy for his own pitiful life.
DeleteQuck contest: Which of the above three comments is the dumbest and ugliest? (My vote goes to 12:49, but it's too close to call, really.)
Delete"A clip of President Donald Trump slipping a pair of gold ceremonial scissors into his suit pocket at a ribbon-cutting is raising alarm bells with at least one medical expert, who said the moment may point to something more serious than a souvenir grab...
ReplyDeleteHilary Shae, a pathologist whose practice focuses on neurological rehabilitation, pushed back on the kleptomania jokes in a video posted Thursday night...
The stealing is usually a symptom of changes in the brain affecting memory, judgment, impulse control, or the ability to recognize ownership," she said, pointing to "executive dysfunction" tied to damage in the frontal lobes.
She tied the behavior most closely to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, a condition she said causes loss of inhibition, impulsivity, and poor judgment. Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia, she added, could produce similar signs depending on accompanying symptoms.
"I do not think that Donald Trump is actually, psychiatrically speaking, suffering from kleptomania," Shae concluded. "I do believe it is just one more sign and symptom of dementia."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-dementia-2677156922/
This is illustrated in the plot of Ted Danson show, Man on the Inside, where one of the residents in memory care was found to have stolen missing objects Danson's PI character was hired to find. The disappearances were hard to solve because they were unmotivated, arising from the same kleptomania Trump is showing. As noted in Haberman & Swan's new book, Trump steals items within the White House too, taking them to his bedroom.
Trump's lack of impulse control extends to his fits of anger, throwing food against the wall, shouting at senators in meetings, and also his sexual remarks aimed at both men and women, when he makes remarks about admiring bodies, his inappropriate remarks to children, and a variety of bizarre behaviors lately. This stuff isn't normal.
DeleteExcusing Trump's current abnormal behavior on the grounds that Trump has never been normal is probably a mistake.
DeleteNo one on the left cares how many times Trump says communist. It is not a real issue and there is nothing we can do to stop him saying any damned thing he wants, including about Democrats. It is no worse than "Biden is too old" certainly.
ReplyDeleteMore important is for Democrats to continue to block the SAVE Act. That is the means by which Trump is promising to steal future elections.
For the record, to clear up any confusion left by Somerby, Democratic Socialists are not communists. Democrats are not communists. Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are not communists. PUTIN IS A COMMUNIST, when he isn't busy being an oligarch, a billionaire, a murderer and an asshole warmonger. Russia is our enemy.
There are currently five recognized communist states in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Trump love North Korea and its leader. He also loves Xi. This strongly suggests that Trump has ulterior motives when he refers to any Democrats as communists. It is Trump himself who loves communists in other places.
If Americans took the time to think about Trump's ridiculous statements, these claims would backfire on Trump. But he seems to be doubling down on the stupidity of his base. They should be insulted, but they won't be.
"No one on the left cares how many times Trump says communist. It is not a real issue and there is nothing we can do to stop him saying any damned thing"
DeleteDumb ass:
1) you don't speak for the entire "left"
2) obviously it matters what our opponents' political messaging strategy is
3) it doesn't matter that it's not a real issue; it only matters whether it's effective; Republican messaging frequently involves non-issues (like voter fraud, critical race theory, ad infinitum) and yet can still be politically effective
4) no one is proposing that we somehow "stop" him from saying "Communist" -- only that we might want to come up with effective counter-messaging
@1:02 I speak for the left more than you do, troll. Experience shows that it doesn't matter what our opponent's political messaging strategy is when it is full of lies. How do you combat a strategy of calling Dems "demons in human skin"? Peel back our skin and show them what's underneath?
DeleteSteve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog points out that there is a double standard for red vs blue candidates. Red voters will tolerate behavior in their own people that they won't tolerate in blues, so there is no way blues can gain favor because they are blue and that is the inexcapable sin:
https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2026/07/we-want-candidates-who-arent-woke-no.html
What is effective counter-messaging when a blue candidate is called communist? The problem is that the word communist simply means lefty in red voter's minds, and there is no way to turn blues into reds for red voters. Not to mention that we wouldn't want to be them.
Are you saying we should get our own wealthy clowns to break rules and spit hostility over the right so that we can attract angry bros to our side, with a handful of racism thrown in? Shall we hire bots and trolls to saturate social media with the message that reds are imbeciles who fuck their sisters and suck their thumbs?
What is your idea of effective counter-messaging? It doesn't work to simply counter their accusations in our candidate speeches. Harris tried that and Somerby still thinks she had no border policy. If it didn't work among putative blues who should know better, how do you reach swing voters?
Speaking of strategies, the right tried to divide the left over Israel by claiming that pro-Israel students were receiving anti-semitic attacks on campuses that didn't protect students from pro-Palestinian demonstrators. They investigated campuses in hearings and caused the resignation of several presidents of top schools due to threats by Republican donors to stop their donations. This was ginned up by the right in order to split the left.
DeleteToday, the strategy is to divide the left over the issue of communism, by labeling the Democratic Socialists as too extreme, to pro-communist, to be electable. Instead of supposed anti-semitic remarks in tweets, the right is digging up what they consider to be too extreme changes that supposedly make progressives unelectable, in the hope that Dems will panic and disavow the very candidates receiving enthusiastic support in the primaries. The point is that the same divide-and-conquer strategy is being used when Trump calls Dems communists, to split along existing fault lines between progressive and moderate Democrats. The way to counter that is by seeking unity on the left, not trying to pretend to be moderate.
This is more swiftboating. Republicans take a Democratic strength and portray it as a weakness. John Kerry was a war hero so they painted him as a coward who didn't value his medals, which we awarded as a fraud. Our strength as Democrats right now is that we can fix the economy and stop Trump's war. So the right is claiming we want to change too much, are too radical in our goals for the economy, and we'd give freebies to people who don't work hard. Plus we would sell out Israel to its enemies, undermine free enterprise (AI, crypto, billionaires) and make everyone wear Mao suits. Those are fears that red voters will respond to, but there is a large blue base that can be mobilized with different arguments that do not involve backing off of our strengths, but emphasizing them. That means blues cannot keep hating Biden and need to run on his successes, cannot abandon civil rights and women's issues (as Somerby prefers), need to reaffirm the importance of science, research and universities (characterized by Somerby as too woke) and support immigrant rights and oppose over-policing by ICE/DHS/CBP. We need to stick up for democracy and freedom, now more than ever.
DeleteI see Somerby's suggestions as weakening the chances for Democrats in 2028. Voters on the left want someone to stand up to Trump and they don't care whether they are Democratic Socialists or oddballs like Platner, if they will oppose Trump effectively. That's why there is a swing toward candidates who speak out, not because there is a swing toward left-wing progressivism, but because we want to support those who will fight.
"Presumably, this will be the messaging as we move toward the mid-term elections. It wouldn't hurt for us Blues to recall the various ways, down through the years, that we helped create this mess."
ReplyDeleteSomerby spends a lot of space in this essay showing that Trump is calling us communists, but where is his evidence that we did anything to "create this mess"? Is Somerby perhaps referring to the way he and the Bernie bros and the mainstream media (NY Times for example) undermined Hillary's campaign, putting Trump into office? If so, he should say so directly, and apologize to the rest of us Dems who voted for her in 2016. Or perhaps Somerby is referring to his own failure to support Harris, his repetition of lies about her border policy and his criticism of her interview skills (echoing right wing talking points). If so, he needs to apologize for that too. Democrats do need to learn to support our own candidates during elections, which means getting behind the Democratic Socialists who won their primaries, getting behind Talarico and Ossoff and the others with the potential to flip red states blue. I haven't heard Somerby say a single thing about Democrats pulling together. It is almost as if Somerby is rooting for the other side, the way he has taken so much care to point out how many times the president has called us communists. If the president says it, can it be false? Somerby should address THAT question, but he won't.
Somerby might ask where the fact-checking is in the NY Times when Trump calls the Democrats communists. He doesn't. Why not?
Delete"It wouldn't hurt for us Blues to recall the various ways, down through the years, that we helped create this mess."
ReplyDeleteI think it will hurt for us Blues to obsess over our past actions. This navel gazing never seems to help us run better campaigns.
In a trivial way, everything that happens first causes what happens next. That is how timelines work, but how much did we help create the current mess? That's the part I just don't see. And Somerby has not made a case on that. There are proximal causes that have more impact than anything we blues did (or are doing currently). The main cause of the current mess is that red voters thought it would be a hoot to put Trump in office, and then they did it again. We blues didn't vote for Trump (by definition). Anything else we did by being our blue selves is trivial because we also did everything we could to keep Trump from becoming president again.
I would blame Somerby and those Democrats who pushed Biden off the ticket after his highly effective term in office. That was stupid, but that didn't put Trump in office. Their lack of enthusiasm for Harris did that. And yes, those Democratic Socialists who refused to support Biden didn't help matters, just as Bernie's opposition to Hillary hurt her at the polls.
The lesson is that we Democrats need to pull together to win. Somerby doesn't say that. I suspect he has some other message of his own. I wish he would state it directly instead of hinting. But old goats don't learn new tricks.
Part of Bob's question is, "Why are mainstream Dems being defeated by some far-left candidates and what should they do about it?" One possible response would be for mainstream Dems to move farther left
DeleteGo take a flying fuck, you fascist freak
DeleteI don't see this question anywhere in Somerby's essay today. In a primary, two Democrats run against each other. No one is saying the Democratic Socialists are not Democrats, especially not other Democrats.
DeleteExtreme problems require extreme solutions. We have a big job ahead of us, cleaning up TRUMP's mess. Moderates need to let go of half-measures and do what needs to be done. That is what Democratic voters will respond to -- no more appeasement.
As a democrat voter, I ask myself, “What would David do?”
DeleteWhy has Somerby not said anything about this being the 4th of July?
ReplyDeletewho gives a shit? it's a blog about media criticism, dumb ass
DeleteWhen did the media become more important than our nation, dumb ass?
Deletewho said it was, dumb ass?
DeleteSomerby shows his priorities when he makes choices about what to write each day. His priority today is that Trump did a flyover in a jet and said "communist" 14 times, but the press didn't talk about how awful that was. Others in blue America have a priority as Americans to celebrate our country's anniversary by analyzing where we need to go from here. Somerby's is to chastise blues once again, because this is a day that ends in y.
DeleteDumb ass? Is that the only insult they taught you in troll school?
They also suggested smart ass, but that doesn’t apply to you.
DeleteA 12 year old could have found that comeback.
DeleteSince Bob Somerby founded The Daily Howler, America’s problems have become ever more severe. Coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteWhite Nationalists marching on the mall today
ReplyDeleteHappy fucking Birthday , Amelrika
Amerika
Delete"With respect to those stony faces, observers swore they saw a tear emerge from Mr. Lincoln's eye even as the current president executed two flyovers in his new Qatari jet."
ReplyDeleteThose observers are Somerby's rhetorical device, just like his analysis/interns, famous experts, and his future anthropologists living in caves. But Somerby has no idea what Lincoln's reactions to jet flyovers or Trump's remarks about communists might be.
Quite a few sources have noted that Teddy Roosevelt would not have agreed with Trump, and it doesn't bother Trump that Roosevelt's statements and beliefs are so different from his own. He seems to have fashioned Roosevelt into a fictional figure to meet his own needs for a hero president that he can equate to himself. Roosevelt would shed tears over that. Somerby should have seen those tears, not Lincoln's, given that Lincoln really has nothing to do with our current mess, but Roosevelt does.
There is Trump eulogizing Roosevelt, after removing the American Bison herds from federal lands. Roosevelt would be smoking mad over that hypocrisy. Those bison herds are one of the main attractions at Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, one of the places Trump visited and spoke. That is just wrong!
How many Americans understand that Trump has been making war on the national parks? He has been destroying the heritage of the people, and he has the nerve to visit and gloat today. Does Somerby even care about any of this? It doesn't seem like it.
Theodore Roosevelt would speak softly to Donald Trump, then beat him with a big stick.
DeleteHe wouldn't need a stick.
DeleteToo bad Trump didn't fly his jet in the hail storm. He might learn that there are limits to his power if the hail were big enough (baseball size maybe).
ReplyDeleteSomerby is trying to shame blue America over flyovers and communism, but here is the spirit of blue America, expressed by Svante Myrick, People For the American Way:
ReplyDelete"It is a tragedy that President Donald Trump has hijacked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence while he and his allies are working so hard to whitewash our history in favor of empty glorification of our “greatness.” It is even worse that he and his MAGA movement are so aggressively working to reverse progress on voting rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ equality, and equal opportunity.
Under better leadership, our 250th anniversary could have become a rare moment for Americans to reflect together on our founding promises, the ways we have failed to fulfill them, and also the ways that we have come together time and again to move the nation toward them.
We could have made this anniversary a celebration of the abolitionists, suffragists, and freedom riders, the advocates and average citizens who put their lives on the line, the millions and millions of Americans who have fought for freedom and justice at home and abroad.
I’ll be celebrating that American spirit on this Fourth of July. I’ll be celebrating the spirit of the people in Minneapolis who rallied to protect their neighbors from the violence of our current authoritarian regime. I’ll be celebrating all of the people and civic organizations who work – under great threat to themselves – to protect the people’s right to vote. I’ll be celebrating the spirit of the millions of people in every state who have turned out for joyful “No Kings” rallies in defiance of the corrupt would-be king and his court.
Those rallies directly invoke the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, whose authors declared, “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Today, we are being led by unfit rulers who are corruptly abusing their power to make us less free.
There is no greater act of genuine patriotism than to resist them.
We are four months from elections that can help us reclaim our country.
Let us pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
We, too, can make history!"
I stand with blue America, not with craven sell-outs like Somerby, nor with the misguided fools in red America. We will win the midterms because Trump's failures are obvious, and then we will choose a new president who can begin repairing and healing our nation.
"Bill Maher Bitterly Whines To Trump’s VP That Dems Won’t Come On His Show" -- headline on Mediaite
ReplyDeleteHe should more appropriately complain that Dems won't watch his show...
How does Somerby like this for messaging?
ReplyDelete"Footage of hundreds of masked men storming Washington, D.C., with Confederate flags spurred an outcry online Saturday.
An estimated 400 masked men, whom Reuters reported were with the right-wing extremist group Patriot Front, marching into D.C. on July 4 with Confederate flags, online video shows."