It's like apples and Nazi oranges

How are we comparing Donald Trump to Kamala Harris?

Welcome to Hot Tip, the newsletter that is in no way shape or form sponsored by Jeni’s Ice Cream, but remains deeply open to it. My tip for Paramount? Consider keeping your employees instead of awarding millions to your co-CEOs after laying off 15% of your workforce. Just one gal’s opinion.

HOW IS THIS WHERE WE ARE? In my past life, I spent hours each day combing through Trump footage for the “best” soundbites that would either compel you to laugh and/or leave your TV on in fear and outrage. I have every “bing bing bong,” incoherent thought, racist lie, “grab ‘em by the pussy,” and “look at my African American” seared into my brain so deeply you could probably see it on an MRI.

And I’ve worked in enough newsrooms to understand the basic thought process is this: blank pages don’t sell newspapers. Where Walter Cronkite was once the most trusted man in America, higher-ups at news orgs today are mostly interested in how to win the battle for your attention. (Hardworking journalists, to be clear, are not. I applaud those avoiding the urge to craft a dumb narrative for clicks, views, and $$.)

But it’s been nine years of this shit. Nine years and news anchors are still asking campaign surrogates “what do you think he means when he says he wants to deploy the US military against Democrats he doesn’t like?”

The annoying, click-baity narrative right now is that former prosecutor, CA attorney general, senator and current Vice President Kamala Harris just isn’t specific enough about what she’ll do in office —

—but the same bar for “specificity” doesn’t seem to apply to the candidate whose policy appears to be sway on stage looking lost for 39 minutes after declaring ‘let’s just listen to music.’

Brief recap: Trump is a 34-count convicted felon who in some states wouldn’t even be allowed to vote in a presidential election. His former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called him a “fascist” who is “the most dangerous person to this country.” He tried to overthrow the government and didn’t care that his followers wanted to hang his VP. He loves Putin and sent him Covid test kits when Americans couldn’t get them. He doesn’t know how to blend his makeup.

While I believe a Truman Show scenario in which we just tell Trump he is president and give him an oval office and a disconnected phone line would suffice, he is apparently allowed to be on the ballot for highest office.

Obviously, Trump voters are a lost cause (and other choice words I’ll save for another day because I don’t want to write an R-rated newsletter) and this whole race will likely come down to “undecided voters,” who I’m assuming would also have trouble deciding between a morning PSL or warm cup of cyanide.

But this is where we are. So here’s an early voting calendar with dates for every state. Here’s an opportunity to appeal to undecided voters more politely than I did above via phone banking for Kamala Harris. And here’s a calming jazz classics playlist.

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Manifesting works. Amelia Dimoldenberg finally got Andrew Garfield on Chicken Shop Date and watching these two maybe actually fancy each other for 11 minutes felt a little bit like I was intruding on something private. Nevertheless, she (I) persisted. So brave.

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Baby it’s not even a little bit cold outside. I live in LA, where fall means I must start the day with a sweater but have to take it off by 11 AM lest I get pit stains. So to get the feeling of apple cider and brisk temps amid a climate crisis, I light a seasonal candle and turn on one of the following:

1) Anything that takes place in the UK or Ireland but not Love Island. 2) Multicam sitcoms set in New York, especially Thanksgiving episodes. 3) Anything Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron, or Phoebe Waller-Bridge. 4) Bob Odenkirk unironically shouting “my Little Women!” 5) Gilmore Girls but only before Rory goes to Yale and gets annoying (at Yale is winter). 6) Vampires. 7) Harry Potter and you just pretend someone else wrote it. 8) Black and white films not about Christmas. 9) Someone does a murder, but it’s fun. 10) Meg Ryan gets mad at a man who deserves it.

(Ed note: All Halloween movies are fall movies, but not all fall movies are Halloween movies. The above definition encompasses things you can keep watching on November 1. Don’t get mad.)

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What to say when your great uncle harasses you about wearing a mask at Thanksgiving: A specific strain of flu appears to have been eliminated by mask-wearers — there have been no confirmed cases since 2020.

When you love breakfast and Google spreadsheets: LA resident Casey Shea has been on the hunt for the best brekky burrito in LA and has created a spreadsheet to document her findings. From one woman in burrito STEM to another, I salute you.

What to expect when you’re expecting winter: Much of the US will be warmer than usual this year, except the Pacific Northwest which will be chilly and wet. Unless Marjorie Taylor Greene decides to change that.

In the immortal words of Jeb Bush: “Please clap.” Also, like, share, subscribe, etc. <3