🧩 BND Motif Index · M648
Flailing desperately
Someone is perceived as behaving erratically because they are trying everything they can to stave off impending doom.
📜 Plots🗂️ Horserace🗂️ Crisis response
- 10claims filed under it
- 5left shows it came up on
- 4center shows it came up on
- 2right shows it came up on
- 1claim retold online
- 1fact-checker
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
🫏 left 5
🎙️ David Pakman Show (podcast) 🎙️ Pod Save America 🎙️ The Kyle Kulinski Show 🎙️ The Majority Report (podcast) 🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast
⚖️ center 4
🎙️ Breaking Points 🎙️ NPR Politics Podcast 🎙️ Politico Playbook 🎙️ The Intelligence (Economist)
🐘 right 2
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-24 “Ilhan Omar, said to be worth $30 million, is reduced to tearfully begging supporters for money, a sign she is finished.”
🎙️ The Benny Show - 2026-10-23 “Republicans are experiencing a sense of panic regarding the upcoming midterm elections.”
🎙️ Pod Save America 🎙️ The Majority Report (podcast) - 2026-10-23 “Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to drag his opponent into the gutter because he is losing in the polls.”
🎙️ Louder with Crowder 🎙️ NPR Politics Podcast - 2026-10-22 “The GOP is flailing because they are about to lose the midterms.”
🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast 🎙️ Politico Playbook 🎙️ David Pakman Show (podcast) 🎙️ The Kyle Kulinski Show - 2026-10-10 “Donald Trump is trying to lower diesel prices before the midterms by buying diesel in advance, and this is seen as a PR ploy or scam.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-09 “Donald Trump is acting out of panic due to potential Republican losses in the midterms.”
🎙️ David Pakman Show (podcast) 🎙️ Breaking Points - 2026-10-08 “Donald Trump is behaving erratically due to political desperation.”
🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast - 2026-10-08 “The @StraitReport account on X posted a claim that Iranian officials said they would release audio of Donald Trump begging them to open the Strait of Hormuz so gas prices will go down before the midterms.” 🔎 Lead Stories
- 2026-10-08 “Pedro Sánchez is calling a snap election to use public anger over housing as a way to renew his political mandate.”
🎙️ The Intelligence (Economist) - 2026-10-05 “Trump pressured the G7 to release emergency oil and diesel reserves by threatening a diesel export ban.”
🎙️ Breaking Points
M648 · first seen 2026-10-08 · last 2026-10-23 · what this is · how the index works