A new Vox poll exposes the love-hate relationship that millennials have with their smartphones:

A slight majority of those under 45 say they agree with the statement “the ability to be constantly connected to the internet with a smartphone can make me feel stressed out.” In contrast, only a quarter of those over 65 agreed with the statement. Seventy-eight percent of people under 30 found the constant connectivity of their smartphones distracting.

I imagine this feeling of being stressed comes from a feeling that you have to stay absolutely current about everything. Every alert might be something important. Donald Trump just said something stupid! Val and Kim are moving in together! This is the cutest kitten ever! Even if it’s just a quick OMG, you feel like you have to participate.

I sympathize. The difference is that as a blogger, my time scale for being current is measured in hours or so. There’s a certain amount of stress in that, but at least it’s limited to one thing (political news) and doesn’t require me to literally respond within minutes. Social use of smartphones is different. A text requires immediate response, usually within seconds or minutes—which is sort of ironic since one of the benefits of texting is supposed to be that it’s asynchronous. Technically it is, but in real life hardly anyone treats it that way.

But I imagine that things will all sort themselves out. Our phones will get ever smarter, and eventually our AI avatars will just respond for us. At some point, most communications will just be our smartphones chatting with each other while pretending to be people. That way, we stay in the loop, but we can catch up with things later—and hope that our smartphone didn’t make any horrible social faux pas. Welcome to the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, Republicans are fleeing from Donald Trump en masse. The Republican Party is in turmoil. But where other people see chaos and doom, Donald Trump sees an opportunity:

It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2016

Thus was born today’s Twitter meme:

Live now from RNC hq pic.twitter.com/aAr62Vi1Am

— Dan Eggen (@DanEggenWPost) October 11, 2016

“Perhaps they need a good talking to… if you don’t mind my saying, sir.” https://t.co/lK42FLZOYz https://t.co/BYswvo4txj

— Matt Duss (@mattduss) October 11, 2016

Trump’s next Tweet: pic.twitter.com/L9dVS49M0g

— Patricia Murphy (@1PatriciaMurphy) October 11, 2016

“You faced the 3/5 compromise. I had 3 wives.” #TrumpInShackles

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) October 11, 2016

pic.twitter.com/mvuNbYTlzy

— Felix Gilman (@felixgilman) October 11, 2016

Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald reports on the latest from Donald Trump:

At a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump spoke while holding a document in his hand. He told the assembled crowd that it was an email from Blumenthal….”This just came out a little while ago,” Trump said….”He’s now admitting they could have done something about Benghazi,” Trump said, dropping the document to the floor. “This just came out a little while ago”

Ah, Sidney Blumenthal, the unkillable Rasputin of the Clinton family. Conservatives sure do have a way of somehow putting him at the center of every scandal. This time, though, Blumenthal has an ironclad alibi: he never said this. He did email a Newsweek article to John Podesta—which was hacked and released by WikiLeaks a few days ago—but that’s all. It was Kurt Eichenwald himself who said this stuff, not Blumenthal.

So how did Trump make this mistake? According to Eichenwald, the only news organization that reported this was Sputnik, a Russian controlled news agency:

This is not funny. It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin?

Who indeed?

News you can use from Aaron Carroll:

Perhaps no one in the United States has spent more time investigating the occurrence of bacteria on public surfaces than Charles Gerba.

According to Carroll, Gerba’s research tells us that it’s just fine to eat food that you’ve dropped on the floor. This sounds suspiciously like motivated reasoning to support the stereotypical male point of view, and I’m a little curious to learn what Mrs. Carroll thinks of this. I suppose we’ll never know. In any case, the argument here is that your average floor is no more germy than any other surface in your house, and less so than many. Kitchen floors, for example, have about half the bacteria of kitchen counters.

That’s all fair enough, but what about ordinary old dirt and dust? My kitchen counters have almost none of that. My kitchen floor has lots, thanks to the fact that I walk on it, the cats walk on it, the dust accumulates until I vacuum it, and so forth. It may be that dirt and dust aren’t likely to make you sick, but it’s still a little disgusting to have it all over your food. Or am I being a little too fastidious here?

Of course, it also depends on the food item. If a peanut M&M fell on the floor, I’d have no qualms about rubbing it clean with my shirt and then eating it. But a leftover piece of chicken? Probably not.

I wonder what Donald Trump would think of all this? He’s a famous germaphobe, but he also apparently thinks that fast food is safer than other foods because it’s highly processed and standardized. So what would he think about an M&M that fell on the floor?

UPDATE: Mrs. Carroll speaks!

@aaronecarroll @kdrum I’m good with the five second rule. He’s eaten dog food before,so what’s a few seconds on the floor?

— Aimee Carroll (@aimeemcarroll) October 11, 2016

A new paper from a trio of Fed researchers suggests that our recent sluggish growth is mostly a result of demographic changes and technological slowdown. The retired share of the population has increased, which means the working share of the population has decreased. Since workers are the ones who produce goods and services, it makes sense that GDP growth will slow down in an economy with fewer adults of working age. Ditto for an economy in which technological progress is slackening.

I’ve pointed out the same thing before in the case of Japan, and it makes sense. But how about in the US? The easiest way to see the rough shape of the river is to simply look at GDP per working-age adult. That eliminates most of the demographic issues. When you do this for the US, you get a trendline that still shows a decline in GDP growth: it’s down by about one percentage point since 1978.

You can also look at total factor productivity, which gives us an idea of the effect of technological change that’s independent of demographics. Over the past 60 years, it’s been pretty flat.

Both of these are volatile series, so take them with a grain of salt. That said, productivity hasn’t changed much, but GDP per working-age adult has steadily decreased anyway. This suggests that neither demographics nor technological progress really explains things. So what does?

NOTE: This bit of amateur economics was made possible by a grant from the Committee to Prevent Endless Blogging About Donald Trump. The author thanks them for their generosity.

This is only one poll, and the sample size is small. Still, it’s the well-respected WSJ/NBC poll, and it suggests the possibility of unprecedented doom for the GOP in November:

In the new survey, Mrs. Clinton jumped to an 11-point lead over Mr. Trump among likely voters on a ballot including third-party candidates, up from 6 percentage points in September….The weekend survey found signs of women moving away from Mr. Trump. Mrs. Clinton’s advantage among women increased to 21 percentage points, from 12 points in the September Journal/NBC Survey. Mr. Trump retained a small, single-point advantage among men.

Eleven points! Among women, Clinton is now 21 points ahead, up nine points since the previous poll. This polling was done over the weekend, after the Pussygate tape was released but before Sunday’s debate.

In other words, it might get even worse. In fact, since the rumor mill suggests that more videos of Trump are coming over the next few weeks, it probably will get worse. Trump seems to think that a press conference with Paula Jones will turn this around, but that’s beyond crazy. Republicans are already jumping ship to save their own skins, and polls like today’s will feed the panic. Soon Trump will have nothing left but the Old Confederacy—a fitting end for a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic creep.

Liveblogging a debate is an odd thing: You have to listen carefully to what the candidates are saying, but you’re also furiously typing away to deliver your brilliant commentary to a waiting world. For me, it’s exhausting. I have a one-track writing mind, and it doesn’t appreciate having background distractions. That’s why I can’t listen to music or have the TV going while I blog.

Obviously I have no choice during debates, but it means sometimes I miss things. Especially visual things. However, I know that my readers want to be au courant on all internet memes, so here’s one I missed last night: Looming Trump. Apparently Donald Trump is too hyperactive to simply sit in his chair when the other person is talking, so instead he wandered the stage. More often than not, he ended up about five feet behind Hillary Clinton, looming over her:

Scary Halloween costume idea: Dress up like Trump, go to a party, and stand 3-5 feet behind successful women. pic.twitter.com/tz6STpkccQ

— erin chack (@ErinChack) October 10, 2016

My guess is that this wasn’t deliberate on Trump’s part. It’s just an instinctive part of the stupid dominance games that control his life. On the other hand, some of his stupid dominance games were very, very deliberate:

Donald Trump’s campaign sought to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband by seating women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual abuse in the Trump family’s box at the presidential debate here Sunday night, according to four people involved in the discussions.

The campaign’s plan, which was closely held and unknown to several of Trump’s top aides, was thwarted just minutes before it could be executed when officials with the Commission on Presidential Debates intervened….The gambit to give Bill Clinton’s accusers prime seats was devised by Trump campaign chief executive Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner, the candidate’s son-in-law, and approved personally by Trump.

That’s Jared Kushner, as in “Ivanka Trump’s husband”:

As the candidates’ immediate family members shook hands it was also noticeable that Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton, friends of years’ standing, ignored each other. Ms Trump had spent the last few days absorbing the news that her father once called her a “voluptuous piece of a–“. She looked sad, almost tearful, throughout the ensuing 90 minutes as Mr Trump attempted to crush the life out of his opponent.

Um…I’m not sure that’s why Ivanka and Chelsea weren’t on speaking terms. I think my boss has the better take:

Do not let stand the idea that Jared and Ivanka are moderating forces in Trump universe. They are the masterminds: https://t.co/sLsgpUtMUa pic.twitter.com/fCnUu22aHB

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) October 10, 2016

I had the weirdest dream last night. I was in this big room with American flags all around, and it turned out I was watching a presidential debate. But unlike the real debate, this one featured Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump. It was totally surreal. The moderators were asking Trump about sexual assault and Trump was insulting someone or another—maybe Rosie O’Donnell? I couldn’t tell. But seriously, it was Donald Trump. Can you imagine?

Then I woke up. Whew. But it turns out the GOP is stuck in nightmare hell, and there’s no waking up for them:

The Republican Party was at the brink of civil war on Sunday as Donald J. Trump signaled he would retaliate against lawmakers who withdraw their support from his campaign, and senior party leaders privately acknowledged that they now feared losing control of both houses of Congress.

….A wave of defections from Mr. Trump’s candidacy, prompted by the revelation of a recording that showed him bragging about sexual assault, was met with boastful defiance by the Republican presidential nominee….In a set of talking points sent to his supporters Sunday morning, Mr. Trump’s campaign urged them to attack turncoat Republicans as “more concerned with their political future than they are about the country.”

….Much of the party appeared to be in a state of paralysis, uncertain of how to achieve political distance from Mr. Trump without enraging millions of voters who remained loyal to his campaign….The Republican National Committee took on the aspect of a fortress: Numerous Republicans who sought to reach the committee’s top officials said they were unable to get through, though Reince Priebus, the committee’s chairman, flew beside Mr. Trump to the debate in St. Louis, even as Republican elected officials rejected their nominee en masse.

On Saturday I pondered what the Republican Party would do when appeals to its white base were no longer enough to win. Perhaps this is the answer: they’ll go up in smoke. Maybe that’s what it takes to force a major party into the kind of profound change they need to survive.

According to CNN, debate watchers thought Hillary Clinton won the debate, 57-34 percent. CNN’s focus group was something like 20-1 in favor of Clinton.

But! Trump did better than expected. He didn’t spontaneously combust on stage, so I suppose that’s a fair comment.

Elsewhere on CNN, the big topic is Trump’s declaration to Hillary Clinton that if he wins he’ll appoint a special prosecutor to “look into your situation.” Aside from the odious Scottie Nell Hughes, this was pretty unanimously panned as un-American and unprecedented. It’s banana republic stuff, not mature democracy stuff. Even Wolf Blitzer felt obliged to denounce it.

Trump has said this before, so it’s not actually news. But saying it on national TV in front of 80 million people? That’s different. The only good news for Trump is that it’s probably not the kind of thing Clinton really wants to talk about.

Well. That was something, wasn’t it?

Trump didn’t crash and burn like he did in the first debate, so I suppose that has to be counted as a victory of sorts. But on substance he almost literally said nothing. Every question was used as an opportunity to attack Hillary Clinton in one way or another. She’s a liar; she loves rich people; her husband is a sexual predator; she has “tremendous hate in her heart”; she wants to put coal miners out of business; she ought to be in jail; Michelle Obama hates her; and on and on. I think it’s safe to say that no one in presidential debate history has come anywhere close to being as derogatory as Trump was this evening. He also seems to have decided that he liked Tim Kaine’s VP performance, and insisted on interrupting constantly.

I guess it was something of a Hail Mary. No ordinary debate performance was likely to help Trump at this point, so why not shoot the moon? But it didn’t work. He spit out an endless stream of lies, in the hopes that the audience would just be confused. Maybe a lot of voters will be. But surely the majority won’t be impressed? I hope so, anyway.

Hillary Clinton was aggressive too, but nowhere near on Trump’s level. She called out his lies, but wisely decided not to waste her speaking time trying to refute them all. Trump was ineffective on her emails, and Clinton did a good job of deflecting questions about them. Trump insisted that he never abused any women and the Pussygate tape was just him making empty boasts. Clinton said it showed who he really was. Trump claimed yet again that Clinton’s team started the birther controversy, and twice invoked the specter of the evil Sidney Blumenthal. That’s not going to impress anyone except longtime Clinton haters.

On policy, Clinton was her usual composed self and Trump was his usual hot mess. The Muslim ban “somehow” morphed into extreme vetting. He’ll replace Obamacare with something or other, and it will be fantastic. Saying “radical Islamic terrorism” over and over is the key to fighting ISIS. If he wins, he’s going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton (!). On Syria, I literally couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.

Overall, this was not quite the shellacking that Trump took in the first debate, but it wasn’t a good look. Unfortunately, we’ll never really know how it affected him. There will be polls next week, but they’ll be responding to both the debate and Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” remarks. So there’s no telling what’s causing what.

That said, this was clearly another win for Clinton. She was calm and composed, and got in plenty of shots at Trump. Trump, by contrast, very definitely didn’t look like a guy you want in charge of the nuclear codes.

A full transcript of the debate is here.

---

A few minutes ago Donald Trump appeared at an impromptu press event with three women who claim to have been abused by Bill Clinton and a fourth who was treated badly by Hillary. That sets a tone, doesn’t it?

10:37 – And that’s a wrap.

10:36 – Trump likes his children too. Trump: “She doesn’t quit, she doesn’t give up. She’s a fighter.”

10:34 – Is there anything you respect in your opponent? Trump doesn’t want to answer. Clinton says she respects Trump’s children.

10:33 – Still no questions about climate change.

10:32 – Clinton, dryly: “That was very interesting.” I have a comprehensive energy policy etc.

10:30 – How about energy? Trump: Hillary Clinton wants to put all the miners out of business. “There’s such a thing as clean coal.” Now we’re on to the steelworkers for some reason. Solar is great, but now we’re back to coal. Coal, coal, coal.

10:27 – Trump: I would appoint judges like Scalia. Judges who respect the Second Amendment. Now Trump is claiming that he’s not taking money from big donors and corporations. He thinks Clinton is rich enough that she ought to be donating lots of money to her own campaign.

10:24 – How would you choose Supreme Court justices? Clinton: I’d like to appoint people with real-life experience. Overturn Citizens United. Uphold civil rights. Stick with Roe v. Wade and marriage equality.

10:22 – Trump is just all over the place now. I can’t keep up. Benghazi, 3 am, tweeting, sex tapes, etc. etc.

10:20 – Trump on Clinton: “She has tremendous hate in her heart.”

10:16 – Question to Trump: “Do you believe that you can be a devoted president to all of the people of the United States?” Weird question.

10:15 – Clinton says she’s in favor of arming the Kurds. Trump complains again that Clinton is getting too much time to speak.

10:13 – Clinton: “Donald says he knows a lot more than the generals. He doesn’t.” Big smirk from Trump.

10:12 – Clinton opposed to using American ground forces in Syria.

10:10 – Is Trump in favor of intervening in Syria? Or staying out? I can’t tell. Now Trump is ranting about not keeping our military plans secret.

10:08 – I literally don’t even know what Trump is saying about Syria. I guess Raddatz doesn’t either. “Let me ask the question again.” Trump then says that he disagrees with Mike Pence about Russia.

10:03 – Raddatz finally manages to shut Trump down and move on to another subject even though Trump insists that he should be able to respond yet again. Good for her.

10:02 – So far a grand total of two ordinary citizens have asked questions. This isn’t much of a town hall.

10:00 – Why didn’t Clinton change the tax code? Clinton: “Because I was a senator under a Republican president.” Trump interrupts to insist that she could have done it anyway if she really wanted to.

9:58 – Trump now basically admitting he used his $916 million operating loss to avoid paying taxes. “Of course I did.” Now ranting about how everyone does it and Clinton never tried to fix it because her rich donor pals like the tax code the way it is.

9:57 – Clinton hammering on Trump for paying no taxes for past 20 years. Obviously she’s trying to bait Trump.

9:56 – Clinton: “Everything he just said is false. I’m sorry I have to keep saying that.”

9:54 – What will you do ensure that the rich pay their fair share in taxes? Trump mentions the carried interest loophole, and that’s it. The rest of his answer is a long free association that has nothing to do with the rich.

9:52 – Trump is sniffing again. Maybe he really does do this every time he speaks?

9:51 – Trump is talking about Russia, and without a pause starts talking about how great his balance sheet is.

9:48 – How aggressive would Trump be in the debate? We have our answer. He’s just attacking without stop and now griping about not getting enough time. Bush league.

9:42 – Question about Trump’s Muslim ban. Is it still his policy? Trump: Muslim ban “somehow” morphed into “extreme vetting.” Raddatz: How did it morph? Trump just repeats it: It’s. Called. Extreme. Vetting.

9:40 – Clinton: “Trump is playing into the hands of the terrorists.”

9:38 – What are you going to do about Islamaphobia? Trump: We have to say “radical Islamic terrorism” as often as possible.

9:36 – Trump is all over the map on how he’ll replace Obamacare. Mostly he’s doubling down on the notion that allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines will fix everything. Clinton is biting her lip to keep from laughing.

9:33 – Trump: Obamacare is a total disaster. Will collapse on its own in 2017. I guess there’s no real need to repeal it, then.

9:29 – Trump is now interrupting constantly. Anderson Cooper tells him to shut up. He won’t. Then he gripes that Cooper hasn’t asked about Clinton’s emails even though they just spent the last five minutes on the topic. “Great, three against one,” Trump whines. I guess “the media hates me” is going to be a big theme tonight.

9:25 – Clinton: “It’s a good thing you’re not in charge of the law in this country.” Trump: “Because you’d be in jail.” Cheering.

9:21 – Trump: Blumenthal started the birther rumors. Michelle Obama hates you. Hillary won a rigged primary against Bernie Sanders. If he wins, he is going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her. Etc. I guess this is how Trump is going to play things.

9:20 – Clinton quotes Michelle Obama: “When they go low, you go high.” Even bigger applause. Lotsa Trump haters out there too.

9:19 – There was applause for that? Yikes. Lotsa Bill haters still out there.

9:17 – Trump goes after Bill Clinton. He abused women, and “Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, attacked them viciously.”

9:13 – Clinton not going easy on Trump. The Pussygate tape does show who Trump is. He’s unfit to be president. And it’s not just women. Etc.

9:11 – Anderson Cooper insists that Trump tell us whether he’s ever kissed or groped women without their consent. He says he hasn’t. “No one has greater respect for women than me.”

9:09 – Trump starts out with a very low-key tone. Will it last?

9:08 – Will Hillary Clinton say that we should “move very strongly” on something or other? She should!

9:07 – Has this been an edifying campaign? Hmmm. I’m gonna say no.

9:05 – No handshake! They’re ready to rumble!

9:01 – Dana Bash says Trump’s goal is to keep the Republican Party from abandoning him completely.

8:56 – John King says the town hall format is unpredictable! Sure it is. I think we have a pretty good idea of what’s coming.