Donald Trump is continuing to dig way down into his nasty bucket of racism and hate, grab the mess in his hands, and then smear it all over himself. And the 2024 election remains an effective tie. It appears there is little if anything that Trump can do to lose support. Trump’s MAGA followers and tens of millions of other Americans are enthralled by his disgusting behavior. The Harris campaign and its surrogates are learning that calling Trump and his MAGA agents and other followers names such as “weird” will not stop them. They welcome the contempt; it empowers them.

In a new essay at The Atlantic, Tom Nichols gets to the heart of the strategy:

And this, in brief, is the problem for Kamala Harris in this election. She and others have likely hoped that, at some point, Trump will reveal himself as such an obvious, existential threat that even many Republican voters will walk away from him. (She delivered a short statement today emphasizing Kelly’s comments.) For millions of the GOP faithful, however, Trump’s daily attempts to breach new frontiers of hideousness are not offensive but reassuring. They want Trump to be awful — precisely because the people they view as their political foes will be so appalled if he wins. If Trump’s campaign was focused on handing out tax breaks and lowering gas prices, he’d be losing, because for his base, none of that yawn-inducing policy stuff is transgressive enough to be exciting. (Just ask Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, who each in their own way tried to run as a Trump alternative.)

Some Trump voters may believe his lies. But plenty more want Trump to be terrifying and stomach-turning so that reelecting him will be a fully realized act of social revenge. Harris cannot propose any policy, offer any benefit, or adopt any position that competes with that feeling.

At a series of rallies on Tuesday, Trump told his followers that Kamala Harris is “lazy,” has a “low IQ” and appears to be on drugs or abusing some other substance(s). These are all lies. Harris is the vice president of the United States. She is also the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. She is a former district attorney and attorney general. There is no reasonable way to conclude that Kamala Harris is a lazy person. By comparison, Donald Trump has been shown falling asleep at campaign events. Trump also appears to be manifesting symptoms that suggest that he is experiencing a crisis with his thinking, emotion and........

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