J.D. Vance's Weird Event in Philadelphia - "There was no line to use the ladies' room."
Every type of white man that gets a hasty ‘swipe left’ on his dating profile was in attendance.”
"Bringing back the joy": Kamala Harris' rally blows away JD Vance's weird appearance across town
In Philadelphia, thousands cheered for Tim Walz, while Trump's running mate spoke to a small, aggrieved group
By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published August 7, 2024 5:57AM (EDT)
“Vance’s event was small, mean, and yes, weird, featuring the unjustified sarcasm of the candidate and a desperate feeling reminiscent of the mood at a strip mall shot bar at 2 a.m. on ‘ladies night.'”
“There was one kind of diversity in this small but weirdly intense crowd… Every type of white man that gets a hasty ‘swipe left’ on his dating profile was in attendance.”
'Roided out dudes with bad tribal tattoos. Older men radiating "bitter divorce" energy. Men with enormous beards that have never known the touch of a trimmer. Skinny fascists wearing expensive suits, despite the oppressive heat. Glowering loners staring at the two women under 40 like cats watching birds out a window.
https://www.salon.com/2024/08/07/bringing-bac...ross-town/
https://politicalwire.com/2024/08/07/j-d-vanc...ladelphia/
It's not just about Vance, either. The Trump campaign often has the dwindling energy of a concert for a D-list band well past its prime. As my colleague Andrew O'Hehir wrote of the Republican National Convention, it was "a startlingly quiet, polite, low-energy event," without the "chaotic, unhinged, angry energy" of the 2016 convention.
As far as the Salon team could figure out, this was borne out in the numbers. The Cleveland convention of 2016 brought in an estimated 44,000 people. Despite GOP predictions that this year's would be even bigger, the Secret Service told Salon only 27,000 people had credentials to enter this year.
Trump has already started floating conspiracy theories, such as insisting officials are keeping invisible fans away from his events, to explain away the perceived difference in crowd enthusiasm at his rallies vs. the excited reception Harris has for her fledgling campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/us/politic...rowds.html
There's a lot of chatter in MAGA circles about how the enthusiasm for Harris is "manufactured," as if all the people bringing down the house on an early Tuesday evening in Philadelphia are phantoms instead of real people.
But boy, I was there, and they are very real. More than that, the contrast with the Vance event underscored the Democratic messaging about "normal vs. weird." The people who flooded the Temple stadium looked like any cross-section of America on any given night.
There was old, young and all in-between. There were tattooed hipsters and soccer moms. There were people of every race, dressed in every which way. It could have been a crowd of people chosen at random from the streets of Philadelphia, or any city in America, really.
They were brought together by the chant quickly becoming the Harris campaign slogan: "Not going back." They were also brought together in laughter when Walz offered a corny dad joke about Vance: "I can't wait to debate JD Vance. That is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show up."
Like all good dad jokes, the sexual innuendo is implied in the faintest of ways. But really, the sexual innuendo is almost beside the point. It's just another way to say, as the crowd had chanted merely half an hour earlier: "He's so weird." But in a nice way, like your high school football coach ought to.
Necessary caveat: Trump can still win. Indeed, as Harris reminded the screaming crowd, she's still the "underdog" in polling. There are still millions of Americans so poisoned by political polarization and Fox News propaganda that they can see the swelling crowd at a Harris campaign and feel resentment and fear instead of joy.
But it's still a hopeful sign that the MAGA hate just isn't moving the masses like Harris's "not going back" message seems to be doing. It may even be enough to finally tilt the polls towards the outcome most Americans want, which is not and never has been Trumpism.
Every type of white man that gets a hasty ‘swipe left’ on his dating profile was in attendance.”
"Bringing back the joy": Kamala Harris' rally blows away JD Vance's weird appearance across town
In Philadelphia, thousands cheered for Tim Walz, while Trump's running mate spoke to a small, aggrieved group
By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published August 7, 2024 5:57AM (EDT)
“Vance’s event was small, mean, and yes, weird, featuring the unjustified sarcasm of the candidate and a desperate feeling reminiscent of the mood at a strip mall shot bar at 2 a.m. on ‘ladies night.'”
“There was one kind of diversity in this small but weirdly intense crowd… Every type of white man that gets a hasty ‘swipe left’ on his dating profile was in attendance.”
'Roided out dudes with bad tribal tattoos. Older men radiating "bitter divorce" energy. Men with enormous beards that have never known the touch of a trimmer. Skinny fascists wearing expensive suits, despite the oppressive heat. Glowering loners staring at the two women under 40 like cats watching birds out a window.
https://www.salon.com/2024/08/07/bringing-bac...ross-town/
https://politicalwire.com/2024/08/07/j-d-vanc...ladelphia/
It's not just about Vance, either. The Trump campaign often has the dwindling energy of a concert for a D-list band well past its prime. As my colleague Andrew O'Hehir wrote of the Republican National Convention, it was "a startlingly quiet, polite, low-energy event," without the "chaotic, unhinged, angry energy" of the 2016 convention.
As far as the Salon team could figure out, this was borne out in the numbers. The Cleveland convention of 2016 brought in an estimated 44,000 people. Despite GOP predictions that this year's would be even bigger, the Secret Service told Salon only 27,000 people had credentials to enter this year.
Trump has already started floating conspiracy theories, such as insisting officials are keeping invisible fans away from his events, to explain away the perceived difference in crowd enthusiasm at his rallies vs. the excited reception Harris has for her fledgling campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/us/politic...rowds.html
There's a lot of chatter in MAGA circles about how the enthusiasm for Harris is "manufactured," as if all the people bringing down the house on an early Tuesday evening in Philadelphia are phantoms instead of real people.
But boy, I was there, and they are very real. More than that, the contrast with the Vance event underscored the Democratic messaging about "normal vs. weird." The people who flooded the Temple stadium looked like any cross-section of America on any given night.
There was old, young and all in-between. There were tattooed hipsters and soccer moms. There were people of every race, dressed in every which way. It could have been a crowd of people chosen at random from the streets of Philadelphia, or any city in America, really.
They were brought together by the chant quickly becoming the Harris campaign slogan: "Not going back." They were also brought together in laughter when Walz offered a corny dad joke about Vance: "I can't wait to debate JD Vance. That is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show up."
Like all good dad jokes, the sexual innuendo is implied in the faintest of ways. But really, the sexual innuendo is almost beside the point. It's just another way to say, as the crowd had chanted merely half an hour earlier: "He's so weird." But in a nice way, like your high school football coach ought to.
Necessary caveat: Trump can still win. Indeed, as Harris reminded the screaming crowd, she's still the "underdog" in polling. There are still millions of Americans so poisoned by political polarization and Fox News propaganda that they can see the swelling crowd at a Harris campaign and feel resentment and fear instead of joy.
But it's still a hopeful sign that the MAGA hate just isn't moving the masses like Harris's "not going back" message seems to be doing. It may even be enough to finally tilt the polls towards the outcome most Americans want, which is not and never has been Trumpism.
