SINCERETALK

The Financial Times reports President Donald Trump’s Truth Social media platform is bleeding users as the unpopular president plays out the second year of his White House return. Kevin McGurn, interim chief executive of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) told Financial Times that Truth Social does not disclose numbers. However, digital market intelligence company Similarweb estimates the platform had about 261,000 daily active users for its mobile app in July — down from more than 436,000 that same month last year. “The low numbers relative to rivals such as X have led to questions about how sustainable the platform will be, especially after Trump stands down as president,” reports Financial Times. “… Part of [its] original mission has been usurped by X — popular among many rightwing commentators. However, The New York Sun reports news publications “built on harvesting clicks from MAGA supporters are fading as President Trump begins his final act in American politics,” and t...

Michigan Democrats nominated former public health official Abdul El-Sayed over Rep. Haley Stevens in a fiercely-fought primary on Tuesday. Yet even as pundits from all sides discuss whether El-Sayed is electable, given his progressive ideas , one pollster is observing that the experts who thought the election would hinge on race ignored a key variable — education level. “It’s not so much about class as it is about education level,” pollster Frank Luntz posted on Wednesday. He then broke down the data. “Abdul El-Sayed won 58.4 [percent] of the vote in counties where at least 30 [percent] of adults have a college degree,” Luntz wrote. “Haley Stevens won 51.4 [percent] of the vote in counties where less than 30 [percent] of adults went to college.” In the build up to Election Day, experts in the mainstream media reported an election that was expected to hinge on race, with Black voters expected to prefer Stevens. While r ace was indeed a variable in terms of the outcome, it is also a...

Atlantic writer Tom Nicols said it’s not enough that President Donald Trump is a bumbling fool whose mistakes make the nation look like idiots: He’s a vicious bumbling fool who wants to blame others for his buffoonery. “Tom Nichols, you accurately place this conversation in its real moment... Explain,” said MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “Well, he's always been a narcissist. I don't think … you need to be a psychiatrist to reach that conclusion. That's just who he is. But there comes a time in some kinds of regimes, authoritarian regimes, where the leader has become so isolated, so surrounded by people … so unwilling to tell him the truth, so capable of kind of snapping his fingers and, making a reality, like he did with the [Reflecting] pool,” said Nichols. Nichols said the situation is particularly dangerous because “there is no one around” Trump to say “this isn't true or that's a bad idea.” “He now has become completely wrapped up in his own power and surrounde...

President Donald Trump needs Republicans to retain control of the Senate so that he does not face investigations and a halting stop to his legislative agenda. Yet there are already signs that he is in trouble in key swing states, from the low turnout in Texas Republican primaries (where the GOP is in some places reducing the number of polling places ) to Trump’s endorsement of a vulnerable candidate in Georgia . Now a prominent Republican strategist broke down how those two states specifically, Georgia and Texas , truly highlight Trump’s vulnerabilities. “In the five other battlegrounds, Democrats raised more money and have more cash on hand. The problem for Republicans is acute in Texas and Georgia,” The Wall Street Journal's contributor Karl Rove wrote on Wednesday. Rove previously was a top political adviser to the previous Republican in the White House, President George W. Bush. “In the Lone Star State, the Democrat raised $68.6 million with $21.6 million cash on hand, while ...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) shocked the political world on Tuesday by announcing she would vote against confirming President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, to hold that job in an official capacity. “I have carefully reviewed Todd Blanche’s qualifications to be Attorney General,” Collins posted on X . “This includes his record and responses to questions from Senators at the Department of Justice Appropriations hearing, his confirmation hearing, and in the weeks that followed.” She added, “While I believe Mr. Blanche is a capable lawyer, the Department of Justice has become increasingly political. Mr. Blanche has taken several actions that have further eroded the Department’s independence, and that is the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation: Mr. Blanche approved an order to shield the President, his sons, and the family business from IRS audits, protections unavailable to other American taxpayers. He approved the creation of a $1.8 billion anti-weaponizatio...

The “partisan split” of Americans showed up in a big way at Fourth of July celebrations and backyard barbecues last month, but the media, while noting or even complaining about it, rarely mentions exactly why it’s happening. A few weeks ago, Louise and I were having coffee with an old friend who’s known us since the early days of the radio show, and somewhere between the second cup and the muffins she said something that’s been rattling around in my head ever since. Her sister, a three-time Trump voter, had finally called — after months of silence — and demanded to know why our friend had stopped returning her calls. “It’s just politics,” the sister said. “Why are you taking this so personally?” Our friend, who is queer and married, listened for about 30 seconds and then said, very quietly, “Because you voted for the people who want me to disappear, and you knew that when you did it.” Then she hung up. She told us she felt awful about it for about an hour, and then she felt nothing a...