Just like his Trump University, his investments in Atlantic City, his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and basically his entire presidential campaign, it turns out that Donald Trump’s campaign website looks like just another scam.

On Wednesday, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond sent out this tweet noting that a supporter of Trump had emailed him to say that he couldn’t cancel his recurring contribution on Trump’s official campaign site.

Slate

If I was a Republican voter, I'd be looking at Trump and wondering if his election would be the worst possible outcome.

It seems likely that he will heavily tarnish, if not absolutely dissolve, the GOP brand - for possibly a generation. The party would be split into the Trumpian howlers who think white, male, nationalism is the answer to everything, and all those who at least pretend to be interested in governance (all those Republicans now pledging to vote for Clinton or Johnson, or to fight him in Congress, etc.). That would worry me, if I had positive feelings about the Republican party.

But if Clinton should win, the GOP would be utterly united ... in their hatred of Clinton. It would be the status quo for the GOP: knee-jerk opposition of the hated liberal. No, they wouldn't have the Presidency, but they also wouldn't have a fractured party ostensibly lead by an ignorant, childish, buffoon who would turn voters off the GOP brand for decades. That would offer me hope.

Update:
for example

Has anyone ever asked Trump if he'll step away from his business ventures, should he win the Presidency?

A poll of 900 likely 2016 voters conducted July 13–18 by Democracy Corps found that the Roosevelt Institute’s Rewrite the Rules economic narrative outperforms a narrative focused on building on the progress that the Obama administration has achieved. In particular, it does better when pitted against a nationalist message focused on America not “winning” anymore, and generates more enthusiasm among millennials, minorities, and unmarried women.

Groovy.

The pollster came up with three sets of questions, each of which pushed one of three narratives: "rewrite the rules" (a populist, anti-establishment pitch that they likened to Sanders and Elizabeth Warren), "build on progress" (a stay the Obama course pitch that they attributed to Clinton) and a nationalist, Trumpian pitch. The populist pitch did better!

Well then, I guess we picked the wrong person! Stupid neoliberals.

Here's one of the questions in the "rewrite the rules" set:

We need to make our economy work for everyone, not just the rich and well-connected. Too many are wedded to the failed theory of trickle down economics. Too many CEOs move jobs overseas and prioritize short-term stock prices over long-term investments in their workers. Too many wealthy special interests are using lobbyists so the economy works for them. I have a plan to rewrite the rules of the economy so it works for everybody, not just those at the top. We must end the stranglehold of big money on our politics. We cannot allow Wall Street to wreck Main Street again and corporations and the wealthy must pay their fair share of taxes. More employees must be able to join unions. Our trade deals must be good for working families and not encourage American companies to move jobs overseas. And let's provide affordable childcare, paid leave and equal pay for women, make college debt-free, and make large infrastructure investments to create middle class jobs. Because we're stronger together when we grow together.

That's Question #49. It's the one the pollsters chose to represent the difference between the populist message and the boring 'stay the course' message in their polling memo, in fact. So, you know it's the best one.

But, I was curious. Some of those phrases sounded familiar: "We cannot allow Wall Street to wreck Main Street again", for example. Who said that? Clinton said that. Those exact words.

Follow a link or two, see if you can find the exact text in the linked Clinton speech or policy paper. Often you can! Literally, some of these are direct quotes.

The stuff I didn't link is stuff I didn't find a really tight fit for - not that I couldn't have found a good example of the sentiment. For example, this:

Our trade deals must be good for working families and not encourage American companies to move jobs overseas.

Can easily be distilled from this:

Because when companies take taxpayer dollars with one hand and give out pink slips with the other, and ship hundreds of jobs overseas, we’re going to make them pay back those tax benefits. And we’re going to take that money and reinvest it in workers and communities. And we’re going to slap an ‘exit tax’ on companies that move their headquarters overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. And we will defend American jobs and American workers by saying ‘no’ to bad trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and unfair trade practices, like when China dumps cheap steel in our markets or uses weak ‘rules of origin’ to undercut our car makers. I’m going to appoint a trade prosecutor who will report to the President, so we are going to end the abuse of our market, our workers, our people.

(while acknowledging her flip-flopping on TPP)

So, perhaps there is no problem with Clinton's positions. Perhaps the problem is that people won't tell the truth about them - not even her ostensible allies.

h/t LGM / RawStory

John Scalzi writes:

During President Obama’s speech on the third night, I started seeing tweets and comments from GOP operatives that were, bluntly, a little shell-shocked at how much better and, honestly, more adult Obama and the other DNCs speakers’ speeches were than what transpired at the RNC the week before. The general gist of the tweets was “Waaaaaaah the Democrats are stealing our stuff” — meaning the themes of patriotism, military honor and, yes, “real American-ness” had found their way into the DNC speeches when they should have been at the RNC.

It’s certainly true the Democrats swept up all that iconography, gave it the slightest of twists to the left, and held it up for all to see. But two things here. One, it never was the GOPs to own exclusively in the first place, particularly when the rhetoric of the GOP rarely jibed with the policies of the GOP. The Democrats have as much right to them as the GOP does. Two, well, what the hell did the GOP expect? You left all that iconography just lying around because you’re off nominating a self-interested blowhard who is trying to scare the shit out of enough old white people to get into the White House. What did you think was going to happen? The Democrats were just going to leave it in the yard for you to come back to in 2020? Rumor is, the Democrats would like to win the presidency.

As others elsewhere have noted, the problem with the Democrats using these themes previously is not that they couldn’t use them, but that given the high-volume co-option of the themes by the GOP, it seems like the Democrats were saying, “hey, us too,” which is not a good look. This year, they don’t have to worry about that, and of course that’s no one’s fault but the GOP’s. The other thing about that is that now that these themes are in the Democrats’ hands, the GOP’s attempt to use them later is likely to have that “hey, us too” feel to it, which will not be a good look for them, either.

Anyone else watch Chelsea Clinton's speech last night?

Did you notice that she slowly turned her head from left to right, right to left, constantly, the whole time?

Did it make you seasick, like it did me?

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
— H. L. Mencken

She's grown on me.

I was pretty lukewarm on her, initially. I wanted her to face a challenge in the primaries, which she definitely did. But the Benghazi hearing where she stomped on the little GOP witch-hunters is what started me coming 'round. The way she handled herself during the primaries was impressive, too. No, she's not a natural politician. But she's tough as hell, and smart, and I think she's generally on the right side of things.

The sub-zero quality of her opponent helps, too.

NBCNews has the list, and the title is no exaggeration. This is probably the longest article I've ever seen on a mainstream media website.