2:00PM Water Cooler 10/22/2024 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Fowl Track of the Day

I believed I might attempt some nightingales….

Frequent Nightingale, Azenhas do Ervedal, Avis, Portalegre, Portugal.

In Case You May Miss…

1. Trump and the Blob.
2. Kamala’s beliefs, if any, unknown, maybe not knowable.
3. Wall Road iffy on contract settlement; restructing begins?

Politics

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in reality a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Trump Assassination Makes an attempt (Plural)

“James Carville to “Unknown” Host Charlie Stone: “I’m Not Very In Being Very Truthful” In Defeating Trump” [RealClearPolitics]. Carville: “I think that this is literally a battle for the survival of the constitution…. And I think . I think we’re literally approaching the same place right now. I’m not talking about everybody stop. Don’t faint. I’m not talking about actually sweating a political opponent’s throat.” • Oh? The tendency of liberal Democrats to call for their political opponents’ deaths is well known (Matt Stoller, “On Mocking Dying Working Class White People“). So I don’t think Carville gets to go “Backsies!” on yet another example of stochastic terrorism.

Two weeks to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

Lambert here: Big Mo shifts toward Trump, this week, even in WI (that is, if you ignore the entire concept of margin of error). Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, especially, who will determine the outcome of the election but might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be _{MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!}.

“Karl Rove: Harris ‘flatlining’ in polls while Trump rises” [The Hill]. “‘What we’ve seen is Harris sort of flatlining and mostly declining, and Donald Trump modestly rising. And as a result, we’re seeing a 50-50 election; coin toss,’ Rove, a Fox News contributor, said on the network Monday…. Rove argued that with 15 days until Election Day, it’s going to be a “nail-biter” right until the end.” • As we all know, to the extent we know anything, and others say besides Rove.

“Unseen Middle-Class Black Voters Move Right” [RealClearPolitics]. “‘I make it a point to visit barbershops. And oh, the conversations. When I first supported Trump, they were telling me, oh Barbara, what’s wrong with you? You crazy. And, girl, some people stopped speaking to me,’ she said, laughing. ‘But now, I was amazed. Just Monday, I went into the barbershop, and they were talking. And oh my God, the barbers was really supporting Trump. I was like, oh my God. I almost cried because they have woke up.’” • Maybe. A deep dive on Black barbershops would be interesting (not some New York Times bigfoot, either).

* * *

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris’s Hundred-Day Campaign” [The New Yorker]. “A former Obama Administration official, now in finance, told me that his firm spends tens of thousands of dollars a month on lobbyists and consultants, and yet with ‘all these fancy-pants people, former members of Congress, nobody can tell me conclusively what she believes about anything.’” • As I keep saying: She doesn’t know who she is. As I keep saying: She doesn’t know who she is. And this is the ultra-blue New Yorker; they’re supposed to be on Kamala’s side!

Kamala (D): “The Chronically Underestimated Kamala Harris” [National Review]. “I do think the caricature of Kamala Harris as a bumbling dunce makes it easy to underestimate her, particularly in the closing weeks of an exceptionally close and high-stakes presidential campaign. Harris’s past is littered with older and more experienced men who saw her as easy pickings and came up short on Election Day…. here’s this nagging complication — if Kamala Harris is as stupid as her critics claim, why does she have the Democratic presidential nomination and a roughly 50–50 shot of being the first female president in U.S. history? Do you know how many ruthlessly ambitious Democratic men and women have desperately yearned to get where she is? How many smart, tough, shrewd, often underhanded and cold-blooded pols have tried to claw their way up the greasy pole and fallen short?… The record indicates that whatever Harris’s results are on an I.Q. test or other measure of intellect, she is particularly talented by another measuring stick, one that may be even more important in politics: She is exceptionally skilled at getting other people emotionally invested in her success.” • Worth reading in full.

Kamala (D): “The Tight-Knit World of Kamala Harris’s Sorority” [The New Yorker]. “A.K.A. members are a Who’s Who of political, cultural, and business luminaries. Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, and Bernice King, a daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., both pledged A.K.A. Toni Morrison was an A.K.A., as is the poet Sonia Sanchez. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, before she became the first female President elected in Africa, joined A.K.A. It is the most represented sorority in Congress today. The first Black woman to go to space, the first W.N.B.A. player to score more than a thousand points, the first Black female mayor of a major American city, the first Black women to lead the Treasury and Energy Departments, the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam—and now the first Black woman to become a major party’s Presidential candidate—are all A.K.A.s.” • So, PMC?

* * *

Trump (R): The Blob:

Just to underscore the point about Trump being the sole national politician aggressively questioning the core tenets of disastrous DC bipartisan foreign policy over decades, here’s the progressive foreign policy expert @stephenwertheim within the NYT in the present day making an analogous level: pic.twitter.com/qTKdtkWIgE

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 21, 2024

With one exception, after all:

(None of this, by the best way, consists of US financing and arming of Israel. Each events are dedicated to that coverage with equal religious-like fervor and a petrified unwillingness even to contemplate alternate options):https://t.co/p6v564Axk3

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 21, 2024

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump’s genius McDonald’s stunt will fry Kamala on the poll field” [Piers Morgan, New York Post]. “As political stunts go, this might need been the very best I’ve ever seen, as a result of it served two very highly effective functions within the presidential race. First, it reminded voters that his rival, Kamala Harris, has repeatedly boasted about having a summer time job at McDonald’s to make her sound extra relatable to her fellow Individuals, however thus far, not a single individual has been in a position to confirm this…. The second motive why Trump’s stunt labored so successfully is as a result of McDonald’s is in regards to the purest personification conceivable of the American free market dream — a spot the place everybody can afford to eat, and equally, the place everybody has a shot at probably operating a McDonald’s franchise at some point.” • “Probably” is doing loads work, there.

Trump (R): “Trump’s McDonald’s go to served up 4 sensible political moments” [FOX]. “First, Trump’s playful method with workers and supporters alike, clearly humanizes a person that Democrats have to persuade voters is a few sort of mixture of Stalin, Hitler, and the Hamburglar. Second, Trump’s marketing campaign fully dominated the information cycle all day at a stage within the marketing campaign when successful every day is the central and most vital aim. Third, Trump had the chance to additional mock Harris over her alleged stolen McDonald’s valor. Lastly, and most significantly, the spectacle made it fully apparent that Trump is neither exhausted, nor senile, a lie that all the liberal media sang in refrain all weekend prefer it was Handel’s ‘Messiah.’” And: “If you happen to don’t assume the occasion was a Completely happy Meal for Crew Trump, simply have a look at the toy inside, an motion determine of the liberal media with its hair on hearth.” • Certainly!

Trump (R): “Walz slams Trump over McDonald’s look” [Anadolu Agency]. “”Vice President Harris and I grew up center class. We perceive that. She really labored in a McDonald’s. She didn’t go and pander and disrespect McDonald’s staff by standing there in your pink tie and take an image,” Walz mentioned.” • Walz’s spouse was the controversy coach on the college the place they each taught in Minnesota (IIRC, she had some extraordinary numbers of youngsters, like forty). So Walz absolutely is aware of what the burden of proof is, and the place it lies: With the individual making the declare. Up to now, we’ve no precise proof (contemporaneous recollections, letters, and so on.) that she did so. So Walz additionally is aware of that Kamala’s making a false declare (“baseless,” as we are saying). Nor do I feel Trump’s tie disrespected anybody; it’s his costume, he wears it always.

Trump (R): “No, McDonald’s didn’t verify Trump’s baseless declare about Kamala Harris” [Philip Bump, WaPo]. “That element is, in reality, murky. Final month, in an effort to unearth proof of Harris’s employment, I attempted to contact McDonald’s and the homeowners of the franchises on the island of Alameda, the place she labored. However 1983 was within the pre-digital-data period, and employment information for short-term staff at franchised fast-food chains from that interval had been nearly actually not thought of important paperwork to retain. I used to be capable of finding no proof of her employment. Trump and his allies used that informational vacuum to counsel that she by no means labored there in any respect.” • Once more, the burden of proof is on whoever’s making the declare.

Trump (R): “McDonald’s staff roast Trump over ‘insulting cosplay’ stunt at restaurant that failed well being inspection” [Independent]. “[Trump] labored the fry cooker at a Pennsylvania department — with no hairnet or gloves… [S]ome have identified that he wasn’t taking correct precautions — at a location that has beforehand been cited for well being code violations.” • Truthful sufficient! Employees failure.

* * *

“Momentum vs. Machine” [New York Magazine]. “Whereas the Republican facet plans to spend the remaining days of the competition making an attempt to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris staff will try to influence voters of coloration to return to its facet and can attempt to improve numbers amongst white voters in beforehand pink suburbs. Regardless of some more and more erratic public appearances, Donald Trump has the momentum: He has managed to slender Harris’s already microscopic lead in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada whereas holding regular within the battleground states the place he has a small benefit: North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona. However the Trump marketing campaign — referred to as an unstoppable drive by its personal officers — is about to run headlong into what the Harris staff describes as an immovable object: the huge get-out-the-vote equipment that Democrats have constructed over the previous 4 years. ‘We now have the MAGA coalition,’ one Trump official mentioned. ‘However we additionally know that it’s not sufficient. And so we have to kind a broader coalition, principally with individuals who have by no means voted earlier than. The opposite facet has the better process. You by no means need to plan a victory occasion that’s depending on new voters.’” And: “What we’re left with, then, is an election that could possibly be the closest in American polling historical past, one during which even the slightest shift in voter turnout or conviction will have an effect on the end result. The variables, just like the voters, are too huge to even be knowable. ‘My recommendation to everyone seems to be that you simply simply have to cease making an attempt to learn the tea leaves,’ mentioned [Adam Carlson, a former Democratic pollster]. ‘Polls aren’t constructed to do what everybody needs them to do at this level, which is to inform us the winner. All of us are simply going to should be taught to embrace uncertainty.’” • Temperamentally and analytically, I’m with Carlson. OTOH, when (nearly) all of the pundits are saying the identical factor, my spidey sense tingles a bit. However–

The internals:

Have you learnt how I do know the internals should look high quality?

This 👇 https://t.co/baS5xs3fgn

— Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆🌴🥥🇺🇸 (@RachelBitecofer) October 22, 2024

However the identical argument applies to Trump, whose Madison Sq. Backyard rally is in a state he’ll by no means win. In any case… Ought to we be assuming that insiders at all times know what they’re doing?

“Why There Are ‘Extra Warning Indicators’ for Harris Than for Trump” (interview) [Dave Wasserman, New York Magazine]. I like Wasserman; he’s an O.G. “It’s generally thought that Harris’s greatest path to victory is the “Blue Wall” Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, versus the Solar Belt, the place she’s doing barely worse. In that case, is that as a result of there are fewer undecided voters in these locations or as a result of the demographics are extra favorable to her there? To be sincere, I’m skeptical that we’ve an actual deal with on the place these states stand in relation to at least one one other as a result of polls in Solar Belt states prior to now ten years have underestimated Democrats barely or been extra heading in the right direction, whereas polls within the northern battlegrounds have underestimated Trump by extra. So for polling averages to have Harris up by one or a fraction of a degree within the Nice Lakes states and down by one or two in these Solar Belt states, I’ve very low confidence that Harris is meaningfully performing higher in these Nice Lakes states than within the Solar Belt states. It’s doable we’ll see a considerably disjointed election outcome the place there’s not a neat relationship between how these states vote.” • Price studying in full.

* * *

Realignment and Legitimacy

Reader question:

What is the identify of the logical fallacy during which folks rationalize their tacit assist for a present actual evil as a result of they imagine a future hypothetical evil could be worse?

— T. Ryan Gregory (@TRyanGregory) October 22, 2024

This fallacy occurs on a regular basis in liberal Democrat discourse: Impartial: “Candidate D [has done bad thing in past].” Democrat: “However Candidate R [will do bad thing in future]!!” The fallacy of relative privation (“dismissing an argument or criticism as a result of what are perceived to be extra vital issues”) doesn’t fairly get on the time side of this alternate. Can any reader reply Gregory’s query?

Syndemics

“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Covid Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; consists of many counties; Wastewater Scan, consists of drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide knowledge). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Basic Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).

Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty to contact me on the handle given with the vegetation. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!

Sources, United States (Native): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater stories); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).

Sources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tricks to useful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Keep secure on the market!

TABLE 1: Each day Covid Charts

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) Good news!

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XEC has entered the chat.

[4] (ED) Down.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). I see the “everything in greenish pastels” crowd has gotten to this chart.

[7] (Walgreens) A pause.

[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). No XEC.

[11] Deaths low, positivity down.

[12] Deaths low, ED down.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The composite manufacturing index in the US Fifth District was at -14 in October of 2024, pointing to less pessimism than the -21 in the previous month, but completing twelve consecutive negative figures to mark a whole year of declining activity.”

Manufacturing: “Boeing shares rise after labor offer but analysts wary of worker pushback” [Reuters]. “Boeing shares rose 3% on Monday on hopes of an end to a crippling strike, although some analysts questioned whether a proposed labor contract unveiled over the weekend would muster enough support from the U.S. planemaker’s workers…. Wells Fargo analyst Matthew Akers, who has a bearish view on Boeing stock, said the offer may not be ratified, citing activity online that leaned negative, though not as strongly as after the first contract agreement that employees rejected. ‘Our analysis of over 1,000 online comments implies a more constructive view but still not enough to pass,’ Akers said in a note.”

At the moment’s Worry & Greed Index: 71 Greed (earlier shut: 73 Excessive Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 66 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Oct 22 at 2:37:54 PM ET.

Gallery

“In ‘Hidden Portraits,’ Volker Hermes Reimagines Historic Figures in Overwhelming Frippery” [This Is Colossal]. “Engulfed in their very own finery, the themes of Volker Hermes’ portraits epitomize a bygone period. From the Italian Excessive Renaissance to French Rococo, his digital reinterpretations playfully disguise the faces of rich and aristocratic sitters… Hermes expands upon the ornate silk robes, brocade, and lace ruffs that characterised elite trend by way of the centuries.” • For instance, “‘Hidden van Mierevelt IV’ (2022), from ‘Portrait of a Man in a White Frill’ (1620s) by Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt”:

Class Warfare

“The Proper Believes It Has the Supreme Courtroom Votes to Overturn Labor Legislation” [In These Times]. “The foundational 1935 labor law protecting workers is unconstitutional, according to major corporations and right-wing zealots who believe they have enough votes on the Supreme Court to overturn it. In the latest sign that anti-union forces will doggedly press the matter, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from processing any allegations of employer violations of workers’ rights. The National Review hailed the decision as ​’A Welcome Blow to the NLRB.’ This is after Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a similar injunction against the NLRB before the Western District of Texas in July. Both cases will work their way up to the Fifth Circuit Court, which has served as an expressway to steer anti-regulatory legal appeals to the Supreme Court ever since Trump packed it with right-wing ideologues. ‘I don’t think a lot of labor folks are focused on this right now,’ says Stephen Lerner, a fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. … ‘This is the culmination of a 50-year anti-union agenda.’… But, in trying to repeal all the rights and protections workers gained during the New Deal, including the limited protections that workers currently enjoy for organizing and engaging in collective bargaining, killing the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) would also mean the lifting of a host of restrictions on unions’ ability to carry out solidarity activism and effective economic sanctions. Are unions prepared for a return to ​’the law of the jungle?’” • Not under current leadership, no.

“The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time” [Quanta]. Mobile-friendly but for once an accessible Quanta article. Three takeaways: 1) “If no measurements can be made below the Planck scale, perhaps space-time as we know it doesn’t exist there.” 2) “It might be impossible to define physical properties of objects in space-time, so perhaps there’s some other level of organization that is exact and true.” 3) “Perhaps black holes — and by extension all regions of space-time — are holograms of data living on a two-dimensional surface of an unknown nature.” • I thought the headline meant actually fray: “Maybe if we all think real hard, we can stop this rain” –Woodstock (from memory). Oh well. Worth a read!