Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.
Mark Jacob/”Stop The Presses” on Substack:
Where are the Page 1 editorials against Trump?
Major newspapers should run front-page editorials declaring clearly that a vote for Trump is a vote to end democracy.
Donald Trump is a fascist who wants to be a dictator.
How do we know this? Because he tells us so, over and over.
America’s major news organizations are beginning to say it too, belatedly. The nation’s two most influential newspapers, the New York Times and Washington Post, are writing stories about how he plans to weaponize the Justice Department to punish his political enemies, how he plans to put millions of immigrants in camps, and how he may order the military to shut down public protests if he takes office in January 2025.
But these news outlets sometimes sugar-coat Trump’s poison. A recent New York Times headline, for example, referred to Trump’s “authoritarian leanings.” Really? Leanings? If he “leaned” any more, he’d be lying down.
Others report it’s down to Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and Sens. JD Vance, Tim Scott or Marco Rubio. It’s not for the electoral votes , so money (Burgum) or abasement (the senators)?
Poll: Biden and Trump supporters sharply divided by the media they consume
Those who don’t follow political news feel more positively about Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and more negatively about Joe Biden.
Biden is the clear choice of voters who consume newspapers and national network news, while Trump does best among voters who don’t follow political news at all.
The stark differences help highlight the strategies both candidates are using as they seek another term in the White House — and shed some light on why the presidential race appears relatively stable.
And that’s the opportunity for the Biden campaign. Information via the campaign can change votes.
In interview, Trump doesn’t commit to accepting Wisconsin election results if he loses
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday didn’t commit to accepting the results of Wisconsin’s presidential election in November if he does not win and again promoted the falsehood that he won the Badger State in 2020.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the former president said he would accept the results of the November election showing he lost “if everything’s honest.”
“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump said in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.
“But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” he said.
No one has ever said it was romantic? Weasel parsing won’t win over the jury.
RFK Jr. is all over conservative media. Trump’s camp is concerned.
The independent presidential candidate is quickly becoming a thorn in Donald Trump’s side.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s increasingly frequent appearances on conservative media platforms are beginning to raise alarms at Mar-a-Lago.
It’s another sign of the rising threat that Kennedy, the independent presidential candidate, poses to Trump…
“It is concerning and beyond logic,” said Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager, “that there are some conservative platforms that continue to give a voice to someone that has called the NRA a terrorist group, who believes in eliminating gas powered engines, believes in a 70% tax bracket and generally subscribes to the same school of thought as Karl Marx.”
Campus Cancel Culture Freakouts Obscure the Power of University Boards This op-ed argues that university boards are really in control of many core functions on college and university campuses. Conservatives continually cite statistics suggesting that college professors lean to the left. But those who believe a university’s ideological character can be discerned by surveying the political leanings of its faculty betray a fundamental misunderstanding of how universities work. Partisan political preferences have little to do with the production of academic knowledge or the day-to-day workings of the university — including what happens in classrooms. There is no “Democrat” way to teach calculus, nor is there a “Republican” approach to teaching medieval English literature; anyone who has spent time teaching or studying in a university knows that the majority of instruction and scholarship within cannot fit into narrow partisan categories. Moreover, gauging political preferences of employees is an impoverished way of understanding the ideology of an institution. To actually do so, you must look at who runs it — and in the case of the American university, that is no longer the professoriate
Dan Pfeiffer/”The Message Box” on Substack:
How the Media Environment Helps Trump and Hurts Biden
The media has changed dramatically since the last time these two men faced off
We watch cable news, we download podcasts, subscribe to newsletters, and (some of us) still use Twitter to track current events. We are junkies. We seek out political news at every opportunity. But for the vast majority of Americans, who do not actively engage with politics and the news, these changes significantly altered their media diets and what they know about politics and politicians.
Recognizing how the media ecosystem has shifted is an essential first step to understanding this election and developing effective communication strategies. There were three polls released in the last week that demonstrate how these changes are shaping the race. The polls also help answer the fundamental political question of our time: why is this race so close despite Donald Trump trying to violently overthrow the country and facing upwards of 90 felonies?
1. The News Gap Strikes Again
Nothing drives elected Democrats crazier than receiving inadequate credit for their important accomplishments. Why does this happen? The answer is not complicated. Most people are unaware of President Biden’s achievements. A Navigator Research poll found that only 13% of Americans are hearing a lot about the Inflation Reduction Act and a majority are hearing little or nothing. This is particularly problematic because when you describe the provisions of the bill, 71% of all voters, and 39% of Republicans support Biden’s signature legislative accomplishments.
Cliff Schecter on Mitch McConnell and holding him to previous statements: