THE FUN CONTINUES!
Last piece kicked us off on the new Trusk Aministration, the first post since post-election analysis and what I intend to be a resumption of semi-regular coverage. In keeping with that general style, this piece will make no attempt to cover every event that has occurred or issue that has arisen in the meantime because, frankly, there is far too much shit happening and I believe such an endeavor would be self-defeating. So instead, we take a miscellaneous sampling of current happenings and elaborate and commentate upon them. THE 2025 REGIME FOLKS:
If the banality of evil is technocrats and cold calculated procedure, we are now experiencing the stupidity of evil. It is cheap, gaudy, and vengeful, contradictory and spiteful, often unpredictable and, yes, dangerous. BUT HERE’S TO THE ABSURDITY!
March 10th - 13th
Well, Donald Trump said he could not rule out a recession, and the markets have responded accordingly. For someone that has such a loose relationship with the truth, it was an odd occasion to be forthcoming. Trump has been imposing and delaying tariffs, giving menacing whiplash, but all in all, compared to his first term, he seems much more serious about their full and total implementation. He’s even said he plans to increase what’s already on the table. So, given this and other matters such as the firing of large swathes of the federal workforce, but mostly the tariffs, he was given the chance to reassure the market: give them that bullshit optimism that they so love, and that bullshit that he is so good at giving. Smooth it over! Instead, he did not. He left the door open to voluntarily walking the country into a recession and immediate pain.
Well, great!
A couple immediate thoughts: First, Donald Trump ran on being the best for the economy, on having a strong economy, and being loved by the markets, and now that he is in, less than two months in, he is telling us the economy and the markets may have to suffer. BAIT and SWITCH! The Republicans have doubled down on this tactic recently, namely the last election cycle and this administration, and where there used to be a sort of ~gentlemen’s agreement~ that the bait had to have some small resemblance to the switch, now there is not. That inconvenience is gone. Now it is quite acceptable to tell an outright lie and replace it with an outright lie OF ANOTHER SPECIES ENTIRELY! No resemblance. Scream it all loud enough and with enough emotionally-charged terms interspersed and they’ll take what they’re served. Perhaps my favorite current example: Trump’s total disavowing of and distancing from Project 2025 during the campaign, and Russell Vought’s subsequent very consequential appointment as head of the OMB.
Second, if Trump is willing to say that a recession is possible and there may have to be some pain - just how bad is he expecting it to get? That is to say, was this a random moment of being forthcoming with the American People, contrary to previous habits, or was this an informed maneuver to begin to prepare us for what his administration now sees as the inevitable suffering - a tepid pivot from the outright lie to an understatement more closely aligned with the truth? The truth then being CRASH AND DESPAIR. This then being a chance to waffle, or pivot, and begin to veer down the path of, “Well, we never said that it wouldn’t get bad before it was good, folks, you see…” An attempt to preemptively soften the inevitable blowback when the lie was so large. I suppose time will tell!
Alright, sure. But what about the underlying point that he’s making here - the necessity of short-medium-term economic pain for long term prosperity, for a whole realignment? Well, here, conceptually, I may actually agree. The great offshoring of American manufacturing and related jobs was a death knell for the blue-collar middle class backbone of the country - the Rust Belt was not so rusty before the likes of NAFTA and associates. When you allow the exporting of jobs for owners and shareholders to maximize their profits, but provide no protections or plans for the domestic workers that are affected, there are going to be negative consequences. Negative consequences for the workers, and so inevitably and profoundly, much to the elites’ chagrin, negative consequences for the country. We have seen that on an immense level over multiple decades. There is an argument to be made that rather than provide alternative conciliatory measures, this wrong needs to be righted, and jobs need to be brought back into the country, and thus there will be inevitable pains during the adjustment. An argument to be made, sure. And much of the detail missing in this brief writing. However, there was also the busting and gutting of unions. And there was also the vast deregulation and hyper-growth of the financial sector, really culminating in the Financial Crisis and Great Recession, but still just as present, still with an addiction to zero or near-zero interest rates. Then there’s also the wealthy elite and primarily Republican assault on worker protections and rights. And then, more broadly, there’s also alternative arguments to be made, that rather than try to bring the old jobs back, we should create new jobs, in new industries - you can’t turn back the clock so look ahead, not backwards.
But my point is this - in fairness to the administration, I am not totally against the idea that there is a need to make some fundamental shifts in our economy, even if those shifts cause some temporarily painful disruptions and CUT OFF THE GRAVY TRAIN for a bit, so to speak. We can’t always focus on the short term gains to the detriment of the long term trajectory, as Trump said in so many words. However, from there I diverge. Who is this shift for, and what are its real goals? Are we just trying to bring back some car manufacturing factories for a hollow red district win, then pay the workers shit, offer shit benefits, bust up their unions and siphon more profits off to domestic wealth holders? Is there any real focus on the worker beyond a potential swing state voting bloc? Do their rights matter - does their dignity matter? If a corporation by necessity must place profits for its shareholders above all, who will place the good of the workers above all? If we don’t establish that kind of oppositional balance of tension in the system, then how will any of this matter? How will workers be able to live well if they aren’t allowed to fight for themselves, and if no one is fighting for them?
Well, what else? We have the energy secretary saying, to oil and gas executives, that climate change was “a side effect of building the modern world.” Correct! Thank you, Secretary Wright, for confirming what scientists have been saying to people like you and your audience for decades. What a bold and brave man to take such a stance in this administration - to proudly confirm that climate change in our time is indeed human-driven. Kudos, sir!
No? Am I misinterpreting that remark - missing some context, perhaps?
Tesla shares have been sliding dramatically, so just last night our President declared that he would purchase a Tesla - today! This morning! He would do so to support his friend and Certainly Not Our President (CNOP) Elon Musk, explaining that “the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby’, in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.”
Alright - first, of course, as is always first in THIS PUBLICATION - the raw and powerful absurdity. We have a Republic, a NATION, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and our dear leader is issuing late night proclamations… that he is going to buy a new car. From his friend’s company. In the morning.
Next, more seriously, is the always-hyperbolic and, more darkly, intentionally-maligning suggestion that the collective actions and protests being organized against Tesla are illegal, and in a nod to his prior troubles, collusion. Collective action is collusion, and protests, when inconvenient, are illegal! This is actually part of a broader and quite serious push by Trump to paint protests that are against him, his allies, or his causes as illegal, as criminality, and thus the protestors as criminals subject to police and legal action - ILLEGALS THEMSELVES. If you can’t beat em, LOCK EM UP!
(An aside - as with Secretary Wright, I am pleased that President Trump has hit the nail on the head, noting that the protests and boycott of Tesla are intended to “do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.” How astute!)
And on that note, we arrive at a dark tale for The People’s rights - the detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil goes to Columbia and was an organizer of the pro-Palestinian protests last year. He’s an activist, and he’s loud about it. This put him on the radar, as it often has throughout the brief and beautiful history of Our Nation. It also plays directly into the current culture war obsession with the Israel/Palestine conflict, meaning both the current actual war in Gaza, and the myriad accusations of racism at home, namely the left slamming the right for anti-Palestinian sentiment, and the right slamming the left for antisemitism, particularly during and after the aforementioned pro-Palestine campus protests.
Well, I’ll try not go get too lost in THE WEEDS here, but there’s various talk of pro-Israeli individuals and organizations back-channelling with sympathetic political contacts with the explicit intention of having Khalil punished/deported. Through some kind of strange and twisted grapevine, Khalil’s name made its way into the consciousnesses of the Trump administration upper echelon, i.e. Trump himself and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Here it was met with a hostile audience, a la Trump’s executive order 14188, signed in early February, which calls for the deportation of students with visas who have broken laws during the previous year of protests. It also finds the administration’s recent cancelling of approximately 400 MILLION DOLLARS in federal money for Columbia based on the university’s perceived lack of action on the protests… that’s a very real and very serious cudgel that the administration has chosen to beat the university with.
Right, a little background context, but the point is, Khalil was seized from his home in New York by ICE agents on March 8th. They pulled him out and put him in an unmarked car in front of his pregnant wife, and then they did not bother to tell her where he was being taken. He ended up in a detention center in Louisiana where he was then initially denied attorney-client-privileged phone calls.
Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card, and his wife is a US citizen. The ICE agents displayed no warrant. Khalil was able to get his lawyer on the phone during the arrest, and she spoke to one of the ICE agents. The agent said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. The lawyer informed the agent that Khalil actually has a green card, to which the agent said, well, we’ll revoke that instead.
The administration has cited a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that permits the deportation of lawful residents if the Secretary of State believes that their presence presents a risk of potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.
Trump took to his Truth Social airwaves to say that ICE had “proudly apprehended and detained” Khalil, and that “this is the first arrest of many to come,” amongst other maximalist language.
Actually, you know what, here’s the full Trump post because I think we should all know exactly what our President thinks about the matter:
“Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!”
Tom Homan, director of ICE, said the administration considers Khalil a national security threat. He went on to ask, “Can you stand in a movie theater and yell fire? Can you slander somebody verbally? Free speech has limitations.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Khalil’s case is not about free speech. He said, “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.”
Maybe no one has a right to…citizenship?
Right. So here we have the Trump administration doing a snatch and grab on a legal US resident who has not been accused, let alone convicted, of a crime. Instead, he’s being portrayed as a radical terrorist supporter, an antisemite, and a bad person - he’s being accused by the administration of having the wrong views, views that are not in the national interest, and expressing these views loudly, and then the administration immediately and FORCEFULLY tells us that this case has nothing to do with free speech!
“Well, sir, why are you deporting this man?”
“Well, we don’t like the way he thinks, ok?”
“Well, sir, uh, how do you know what he thinks?”
“Well, he said it!”
“Ok sir, and uh, are you not then deporting him because of what he said?”
Brow furrows and eyes narrow, “Listen, buddy, I know what you’re trying to do here - I’ll tell you this right now, ok? This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It’s just… well, we can’t have him here SAYING THESE KINDS OF THINGS!”
So we have a picture forming - expressing the wrong opinions and engaging in the wrong activities can land you as persona non grata with the administration. At this point, those opinions and activities may just start to be construed as pro-terrorist and/or anti-American, against the national interest. And worse, actually, that may be akin to standing up in a theater and yelling, “FIRE!” or in other words, not under the purview of protected speech - not even a matter of free speech. At this point, the individual, because of their opinions and activities, may be deemed a threat to national security, and at that point, well… let’s see what kind of obscure legal code we can cite to GET RID OF EM!
See, as the administration is telling us, this isn’t a matter of free speech - it’s just, well, bad people doing bad things that maybe aren’t actually crimes but still need to be punished so maybe just some murky legal theory or even extralegal (illegal) means will have to be used to get to the desired end, which is, well, getting those people to stop doing those bad things… but then again maybe if those things aren’t actually crimes and they’re just things those people are saying then maybe we’ll just have to get them to stop saying those things… which maybe actually it will be easiest and really BEST FOR ALL if the people just go away? A little detention or deportation because, well, we have to stop them because they’re BAD. So you see, nothing to do with free speech, just bad thoughts from bad people that need to go away. BAD ACTORS ONLY! Easy breezy!
Is it more fun to skip stupidly and merrily into authoritarianism?
Everyone should be fired up about how our government is treating Mahmoud Khalil simply because it is wrong. It is wrong, cruel, and stupid.
But it should also be alarming to everyone. Make no mistake, this kind of action starts with the easiest targets - people without full US citizenship. Easiest legally and easiest socially. The “others.” All the while the REAL CITIZENS are assured they have nothing to worry about! But if a regime is allowed, by the courts, by the populace, to begin punishing people for having views contrary to theirs, they will not stop at the “others.” No, they will gradually find ways to make all those who loudly disagree with them into “others.” And then it’s open season.
Well, Donald Trump said he could not rule out a recession, and the markets have responded accordingly. For someone that has such a loose relationship with the truth, it was an odd occasion to be forthcoming. Trump has been imposing and delaying tariffs, giving menacing whiplash, but all in all, compared to his first term, he seems much more serious about their full and total implementation. He’s even said he plans to increase what’s already on the table. So, given this and other matters such as the firing of large swathes of the federal workforce, but mostly the tariffs, he was given the chance to reassure the market: give them that bullshit optimism that they so love, and that bullshit that he is so good at giving. Smooth it over! Instead, he did not. He left the door open to voluntarily walking the country into a recession and immediate pain.
Well, great!
A couple immediate thoughts: First, Donald Trump ran on being the best for the economy, on having a strong economy, and being loved by the markets, and now that he is in, less than two months in, he is telling us the economy and the markets may have to suffer. BAIT and SWITCH! The Republicans have doubled down on this tactic recently, namely the last election cycle and this administration, and where there used to be a sort of ~gentlemen’s agreement~ that the bait had to have some small resemblance to the switch, now there is not. That inconvenience is gone. Now it is quite acceptable to tell an outright lie and replace it with an outright lie OF ANOTHER SPECIES ENTIRELY! No resemblance. Scream it all loud enough and with enough emotionally-charged terms interspersed and they’ll take what they’re served. Perhaps my favorite current example: Trump’s total disavowing of and distancing from Project 2025 during the campaign, and Russell Vought’s subsequent very consequential appointment as head of the OMB.
Second, if Trump is willing to say that a recession is possible and there may have to be some pain - just how bad is he expecting it to get? That is to say, was this a random moment of being forthcoming with the American People, contrary to previous habits, or was this an informed maneuver to begin to prepare us for what his administration now sees as the inevitable suffering - a tepid pivot from the outright lie to an understatement more closely aligned with the truth? The truth then being CRASH AND DESPAIR. This then being a chance to waffle, or pivot, and begin to veer down the path of, “Well, we never said that it wouldn’t get bad before it was good, folks, you see…” An attempt to preemptively soften the inevitable blowback when the lie was so large. I suppose time will tell!
Alright, sure. But what about the underlying point that he’s making here - the necessity of short-medium-term economic pain for long term prosperity, for a whole realignment? Well, here, conceptually, I may actually agree. The great offshoring of American manufacturing and related jobs was a death knell for the blue-collar middle class backbone of the country - the Rust Belt was not so rusty before the likes of NAFTA and associates. When you allow the exporting of jobs for owners and shareholders to maximize their profits, but provide no protections or plans for the domestic workers that are affected, there are going to be negative consequences. Negative consequences for the workers, and so inevitably and profoundly, much to the elites’ chagrin, negative consequences for the country. We have seen that on an immense level over multiple decades. There is an argument to be made that rather than provide alternative conciliatory measures, this wrong needs to be righted, and jobs need to be brought back into the country, and thus there will be inevitable pains during the adjustment. An argument to be made, sure. And much of the detail missing in this brief writing. However, there was also the busting and gutting of unions. And there was also the vast deregulation and hyper-growth of the financial sector, really culminating in the Financial Crisis and Great Recession, but still just as present, still with an addiction to zero or near-zero interest rates. Then there’s also the wealthy elite and primarily Republican assault on worker protections and rights. And then, more broadly, there’s also alternative arguments to be made, that rather than try to bring the old jobs back, we should create new jobs, in new industries - you can’t turn back the clock so look ahead, not backwards.
But my point is this - in fairness to the administration, I am not totally against the idea that there is a need to make some fundamental shifts in our economy, even if those shifts cause some temporarily painful disruptions and CUT OFF THE GRAVY TRAIN for a bit, so to speak. We can’t always focus on the short term gains to the detriment of the long term trajectory, as Trump said in so many words. However, from there I diverge. Who is this shift for, and what are its real goals? Are we just trying to bring back some car manufacturing factories for a hollow red district win, then pay the workers shit, offer shit benefits, bust up their unions and siphon more profits off to domestic wealth holders? Is there any real focus on the worker beyond a potential swing state voting bloc? Do their rights matter - does their dignity matter? If a corporation by necessity must place profits for its shareholders above all, who will place the good of the workers above all? If we don’t establish that kind of oppositional balance of tension in the system, then how will any of this matter? How will workers be able to live well if they aren’t allowed to fight for themselves, and if no one is fighting for them?
Well, what else? We have the energy secretary saying, to oil and gas executives, that climate change was “a side effect of building the modern world.” Correct! Thank you, Secretary Wright, for confirming what scientists have been saying to people like you and your audience for decades. What a bold and brave man to take such a stance in this administration - to proudly confirm that climate change in our time is indeed human-driven. Kudos, sir!
No? Am I misinterpreting that remark - missing some context, perhaps?
Tesla shares have been sliding dramatically, so just last night our President declared that he would purchase a Tesla - today! This morning! He would do so to support his friend and Certainly Not Our President (CNOP) Elon Musk, explaining that “the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby’, in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.”
Alright - first, of course, as is always first in THIS PUBLICATION - the raw and powerful absurdity. We have a Republic, a NATION, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and our dear leader is issuing late night proclamations… that he is going to buy a new car. From his friend’s company. In the morning.
Next, more seriously, is the always-hyperbolic and, more darkly, intentionally-maligning suggestion that the collective actions and protests being organized against Tesla are illegal, and in a nod to his prior troubles, collusion. Collective action is collusion, and protests, when inconvenient, are illegal! This is actually part of a broader and quite serious push by Trump to paint protests that are against him, his allies, or his causes as illegal, as criminality, and thus the protestors as criminals subject to police and legal action - ILLEGALS THEMSELVES. If you can’t beat em, LOCK EM UP!
(An aside - as with Secretary Wright, I am pleased that President Trump has hit the nail on the head, noting that the protests and boycott of Tesla are intended to “do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.” How astute!)
And on that note, we arrive at a dark tale for The People’s rights - the detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil goes to Columbia and was an organizer of the pro-Palestinian protests last year. He’s an activist, and he’s loud about it. This put him on the radar, as it often has throughout the brief and beautiful history of Our Nation. It also plays directly into the current culture war obsession with the Israel/Palestine conflict, meaning both the current actual war in Gaza, and the myriad accusations of racism at home, namely the left slamming the right for anti-Palestinian sentiment, and the right slamming the left for antisemitism, particularly during and after the aforementioned pro-Palestine campus protests.
Well, I’ll try not go get too lost in THE WEEDS here, but there’s various talk of pro-Israeli individuals and organizations back-channelling with sympathetic political contacts with the explicit intention of having Khalil punished/deported. Through some kind of strange and twisted grapevine, Khalil’s name made its way into the consciousnesses of the Trump administration upper echelon, i.e. Trump himself and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Here it was met with a hostile audience, a la Trump’s executive order 14188, signed in early February, which calls for the deportation of students with visas who have broken laws during the previous year of protests. It also finds the administration’s recent cancelling of approximately 400 MILLION DOLLARS in federal money for Columbia based on the university’s perceived lack of action on the protests… that’s a very real and very serious cudgel that the administration has chosen to beat the university with.
Right, a little background context, but the point is, Khalil was seized from his home in New York by ICE agents on March 8th. They pulled him out and put him in an unmarked car in front of his pregnant wife, and then they did not bother to tell her where he was being taken. He ended up in a detention center in Louisiana where he was then initially denied attorney-client-privileged phone calls.
Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card, and his wife is a US citizen. The ICE agents displayed no warrant. Khalil was able to get his lawyer on the phone during the arrest, and she spoke to one of the ICE agents. The agent said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. The lawyer informed the agent that Khalil actually has a green card, to which the agent said, well, we’ll revoke that instead.
The administration has cited a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that permits the deportation of lawful residents if the Secretary of State believes that their presence presents a risk of potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.
Trump took to his Truth Social airwaves to say that ICE had “proudly apprehended and detained” Khalil, and that “this is the first arrest of many to come,” amongst other maximalist language.
Actually, you know what, here’s the full Trump post because I think we should all know exactly what our President thinks about the matter:
“Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!”
Tom Homan, director of ICE, said the administration considers Khalil a national security threat. He went on to ask, “Can you stand in a movie theater and yell fire? Can you slander somebody verbally? Free speech has limitations.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Khalil’s case is not about free speech. He said, “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.”
Maybe no one has a right to…citizenship?
Right. So here we have the Trump administration doing a snatch and grab on a legal US resident who has not been accused, let alone convicted, of a crime. Instead, he’s being portrayed as a radical terrorist supporter, an antisemite, and a bad person - he’s being accused by the administration of having the wrong views, views that are not in the national interest, and expressing these views loudly, and then the administration immediately and FORCEFULLY tells us that this case has nothing to do with free speech!
“Well, sir, why are you deporting this man?”
“Well, we don’t like the way he thinks, ok?”
“Well, sir, uh, how do you know what he thinks?”
“Well, he said it!”
“Ok sir, and uh, are you not then deporting him because of what he said?”
Brow furrows and eyes narrow, “Listen, buddy, I know what you’re trying to do here - I’ll tell you this right now, ok? This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It’s just… well, we can’t have him here SAYING THESE KINDS OF THINGS!”
So we have a picture forming - expressing the wrong opinions and engaging in the wrong activities can land you as persona non grata with the administration. At this point, those opinions and activities may just start to be construed as pro-terrorist and/or anti-American, against the national interest. And worse, actually, that may be akin to standing up in a theater and yelling, “FIRE!” or in other words, not under the purview of protected speech - not even a matter of free speech. At this point, the individual, because of their opinions and activities, may be deemed a threat to national security, and at that point, well… let’s see what kind of obscure legal code we can cite to GET RID OF EM!
See, as the administration is telling us, this isn’t a matter of free speech - it’s just, well, bad people doing bad things that maybe aren’t actually crimes but still need to be punished so maybe just some murky legal theory or even extralegal (illegal) means will have to be used to get to the desired end, which is, well, getting those people to stop doing those bad things… but then again maybe if those things aren’t actually crimes and they’re just things those people are saying then maybe we’ll just have to get them to stop saying those things… which maybe actually it will be easiest and really BEST FOR ALL if the people just go away? A little detention or deportation because, well, we have to stop them because they’re BAD. So you see, nothing to do with free speech, just bad thoughts from bad people that need to go away. BAD ACTORS ONLY! Easy breezy!
Is it more fun to skip stupidly and merrily into authoritarianism?
Everyone should be fired up about how our government is treating Mahmoud Khalil simply because it is wrong. It is wrong, cruel, and stupid.
But it should also be alarming to everyone. Make no mistake, this kind of action starts with the easiest targets - people without full US citizenship. Easiest legally and easiest socially. The “others.” All the while the REAL CITIZENS are assured they have nothing to worry about! But if a regime is allowed, by the courts, by the populace, to begin punishing people for having views contrary to theirs, they will not stop at the “others.” No, they will gradually find ways to make all those who loudly disagree with them into “others.” And then it’s open season.
WELCOME TO THE CARNIVAL!
Well, here we are. Trump. Musk. DOGE. 2025! We’re being constantly inundated with stories and chaos, and that very phenomenon is a story of intentional chaos in and of itself. But that’s not what we’re trying to cover here, nor are we trying to play catch up with analysis of it all. No, here we take our first short general assessment of the State of the Nation under the New Administration, and we consider the unique part of the American psyche now fully on display. YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT!
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” - Napoleon Bonaparte and now, Donald Trump!
The rumor mill is firing off that Elon Musk, Certainly Not Our President (CNOP), has had his thirteenth child, this the first with this mother, a new mother for him, Ashley St. Clair. She is a conservative influencer personality type and author of such works as Elephants Are Not Birds, see from its synopsis - “Follow Kevin as he learns that even though he can sing, he is not a bird even if Culture insists that he is.” Oh boy! Capital “C” Culture!
Meanwhile, we continue to have daily stories such as, from the BBC: “US government tries to rehire nuclear staff it fired days ago”. Trump, Musk, et al (Trusk) fired staff from the Department of Energy last week, which apparently included staff from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Apparently, the Trusk Administration realized after the fact that firing staff from the National NUCLEAR SECURITY Administration may adversely impact NUCLEAR SECURITY! To quote a memo subsequently sent to NNSA employees - “The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel. Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people’s personal contact emails.” Right! Leaving the surely not redundant parenthesized “once you get it” aside, this portion of the memo is necessary because the fired employees were locked out of their federal email accounts. So, the Trusk Administration fired employees that they now realize they need, and now they can’t reach the employees to rehire them! GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY! And so we have yet another fine example of what happens when you bring the tech world / startup / venture capital mentality to the federal government.
MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS!!! Well, sure, when it’s your own personal hellscape of a startup company, when you have a small contingent of hardcore dedicated employees, I suppose there is an argument to be made. But when it’s the federal government responsible for a nation of some 350 million people? Perhaps a small bit of deliberation first would be appropriate. Perhaps rapid movement isn’t an inherently laudable trait, and perhaps, as an average citizen, I’d rather not have my things broken in the name of “progress.” Progress for who?
But, CIRCLING AROUND and bringing the above points together, I want to touch on the uniquely American flavor that is potently present in all of this. We find ourselves at a truly foreboding precipice, a precarious perch with a vast chasm of darkness below, the bottom not even visible, the potential length and depth of the fall unknown. Our President quotes an infamous dictator and preaches of his perceived lack of legal limitations on executive power. The Certainly Not Our President (CNOP) is the richest man in the world, a man with a personal wealth greater than entire nations’ GDPs, and he has apparently largely unchecked autonomy and power to gut the agencies that are responsible for administration to the average citizens - “How has Medicaid touched your life, sir, with that net worth of ~$395 billion?”
And on and on and much more to say and elaborate upon, cc: Venture Capital Extremism and The Dark Enlightenment and its adherents in Trusk World, but right now it’s this: as we find ourselves at this newly terrible and real point of potential slide into oligarchy and autocracy, we still find ourselves in a flamboyant carnival of garish horror attractions. “Ah, the richest man in the world has eliminated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, buuuuut he also just had CHILD NUMBER THIRTEEN - NOW HERE’S AN EXCERPT ABOUT HOW KEVIN IS NOT FUCKING TRAN - I MEAN - A BIRD!!!” Queue big band!!
Somehow, even when the stakes are so high, even when our democracy is being pummeled by truly dark forces, the show is outlandish and corny and absurdly kitschy. It’s a hellscape, but it’s campy! WELCOME TO THE FASCIST CARNIVAL, FOLKS, YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT!!!
Our President quotes Napoleon and then slams a McDonald’s fish fillet and a Diet Coke. You won’t have healthcare soon, but you won’t be able to help but laugh at some of the things he says! JUST THE DARNDEST THINGS!
We’re getting trans women out of women’s sports - and we’re getting REGULATION OUT OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY FOLKS!!! SPORTS! And, hey, hey, who didn’t love the Great Recession!? ***LAUGH TRACK***
Measles?? Measles, anyone? Hey, I hardly know her, but I’D LOVE TA!! ~audible groans~ We’re now seeing measles outbreaks in our country due to parents not having their children vaccinated due to their distrust of vaccines based on, well, their feelings of distrust. And now, we have RFK Jr. as US Health and Human Services Secretary. Don’t worry - he’s not against vaccines; he’s not even really skeptical of vaccines; he just has some questions! As did Bernie Sanders during RFK’s confirmation hearing - an actual quote from Sanders,
“You started a group called the Children’s Health Defense. You’re the originator. Right now, as I understand it, on their website they are selling what’s called onesies. These are little things, clothing, for babies. One of them is titled ‘Unvaxxed Unafraid.’ Next one – and they’re sold for 26 bucks apiece by the way – next one is ‘No Vax, No Problem.’” Right. Merch! Measles!
Well, and to make matters worse, just when you were thinking about taking that sweet little vacation time you’ve been saving up for a year… there seems to have been a disturbing rise in plane crashes and aviation incidents, no? Particularly the tragedy over the Potomac with the plane full of figure skaters and the Army Black Hawk with no survivors? We, The People, in the wake of these things hear tell that the FAA is short-staffed and overworked… and so, folks, Trusk and DOGE bring us - CUTS AT THE FAA!!! WOOOO!!! Fear not though, we’ve been assured that the agency has “retained employees who perform critical safety functions.” When further pressed, they said they would have to look into whether the fired radar, landing, and navigational aid workers were considered to handle critical safety functions. I imagine it went something like:
“SHUT UP! We wouldn’t fire anyone IMPORTANT to SAFETY you idiots!”
“Well, uh, what about radar? Navigation? Laaaaandddinngggg, perchance?”
“Hey now, ha ha, well uh, shucks… landing, eh? I see. Well, uh, we’ll get back to ya on that.” Spokesman dead pans into the camera with a quizzical shrug and smile. Curb Your Enthusiasm music begins to play.
We are experiencing the dismantling of our government by robber barons under the leadership, true or symbolic, of a would-be-dictator with the assistance of an eclectic cast of ideologues and charlatans - the stakes are high. And yet… it’s all done with the uniquely American flair for SHOW! Showmanship and absurdity - a flaming downward spiral but ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED??? Does the fanfare not cover up the starkness? Will we not laugh and make light all along the way down? Laugh up until the moment it’s truly, unmistakably, unarguably not funny anymore?
It’s laser lights and pyrotechnic flames and motley animatronics, and it’s clowns and jugglers and STEP RIGHT UP carnival barkers, and you’ve been laughing but also cringing and also confused, and then you’re in the maze and the chainsaw man begins to manically laugh and chase, and you scream and you laugh and you joke to your friends, “Oh, no, he’s gonna get me!” And then he does, and he chops you in half with the chainsaw, running straight down between the shoulder and the neck and out the groin, and your blood and your guts splatter out all over your friends’ dumbfounded faces as the two halves of your lacerated dead body hit the ground with a sickly squelch. A couple of your friends run, quickly seeing it for what it is, but most of them stay rooted to the spot, disbelief the most potent emotion, and a couple of them even begin to laugh, thinking it’s time for this surely garish prank to be revealed. They die next. The chainsaw man turns on them quickly, and more chainsaw men appear, apparently having been there close by in the shadows all along, and now the laughter is long gone and the disbelief is gone too and then there is only screaming and horror and stark terrible realization and whatever running away there can be, but none of that really matters because now it’s too late. Then your friends suffer and die as the chainsaw men do what they came to do - what they were there to do all along. Welcome to the Fascist Carnival, folks. You’re gonna love it.
THE GREAT CONTEST HAS ENDED
A bit of digestion leads straight into a post-mortem, eh? There’s always a winner and a loser, and so there’s always a win and a loss. Here we attempt to take a look at these things, and at the State of the Nation that led us to this outcome.
Bonus stars go to Trump and Musk! Sorry Harris, no such luck this round.
Well, here we are. The Great Contest has ended, quickly and decisively. It’s something that I’m still digesting, or in truth, still actively avoiding digesting. Easier to eat some shit and watch some television and drift through a day or two as an amorphous blob free of real thought or feeling.
There is a particular American bent toward a cheap anger. It’s an easy emotion, one that offers quick and simple satisfaction, and to be fair, one that has plentiful sources in our modern society. The problem arises in the misguided nature of the thing, and so in the careening toward fake solutions that assuage the uncomfortable irritation but offer nothing of substance. There is no nuance or acceptance of complexity and so inevitable imperfection in outcomes. There is only feeling and base level superficial response to it. ANGER demands an outlet. Decay and decline are bad and so must be reversed, simply. Equivocation of any kind equates to weakness and must be punished. And of course all of this is underlain by the extremely American bent toward paranoia… a loose and fervent paranoia that permeates all aspects of life, not in an all-consuming sense, save for the most extreme individuals, but in a way that it touches everything. We end up an angry people unwilling to analyze reality in any meaningful way - a people that knows we’re getting fucked, but doesn’t really care to find out who’s doing the fucking, only to rage against the closest target of ire. Because if the ire itself is justified, then who cares where it’s directed, really… Right? Tell me who the enemy is and I’ll start swinging, brother. THAT will make me feel better, and feeling better is as far ahead as I can think these days in this muddled modern world.
Yeah, long term consequences be damned. Larger picture self-interest be damned. Self-interest in this current paradigm lies in finding an outlet for the rage and then raging against it and feeling a short-lived satiation. Meanwhile, the paths that could potentially lead to some form of meaningful change and improvement in society are not taken, and if all goes to plan by those helping to fan these flames of short-sighted anger, they will be blocked, obstructed, closed down for as long as possible and hopefully forever. It’s a plot that has been employed by the powerful throughout history - because it works. When the status quo works for the elites, but not for the people, redirect their attention. Have them rage against the aspects of the status quo that don’t matter for your interests and in doing so direct attention away from the aspects that are important for your interests. The people can likely be riled up to care about either. It’s like, the angry mob has formed just outside the gates. It’s too late to disperse them - something will have to be burned before they’ll all go home and go to bed. So, just accept that, and turn them toward something that doesn’t really matter to you - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to you, or someone that is an enemy to you. “Nay, not this estate good people! We are not the source of your troubles! Have you not heard of… that strange looking group of people in that strange neighborhood just over yonder? Have you not seen how they behave differently than you - THAN US? Surely, that is because they are the ones plotting against you…” Make them believe it, and then they’ll do what you want without much further effort. And of course, they have agency, so if you can make it about something that doesn’t really matter to them - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to them, or someone that is an enemy to them… well, then the sell becomes easy. Make sure it’s in your interest, but if you can, use whatever momentum already exists amongst them for the redirect. Then while they march on and the fire spreads you can return to tending to what really matters, be that wealth, or power, or some strange ideological framework… whatever tickles your fancy as an elite. You can continue to have dominion over them without having to give up anything of meaning.
Yes, true, but we’re zooming out a bit too far… Donald Trump and the Republicans won the election by harnessing the cheap and simple American anger, the sense of grievance with… life, and the strange flippant contrianism that rises out of it. It’s an odd combination of things, primarily along the lines of, SOCIETY’S GONE TO SHIT!!!! Inflation - grocery prices - gas - IT’S TOO HIGH! Illegal immigrants are a shadowy mass of doom that has permeated the entire nation and, while difficult to blame for many specifics, can certainly be blamed for generally making everything BAD. We just need to know who’s coming into our country! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR JOBS!? Manufacturing jobs, real jobs, jobs that have been being destroyed since the 1980s and 90s - we need them back! The woke progressive values of the most vocal leftists have surely swept at least half if not more of the nation, and they are destroying masculinity, and family values, and good classical conservative ways of living, and they are going to be shoved down your throat, and maybe up your ass. Biden is too old, Kamala Harris is too woke and ineffective. We’re giving too much money to places like Ukraine, and we’re going to stop the war there, and unnecessary wars in general, but we’re also going to have the strongest military ever, and we’re going to bomb anyone that we have to. Less war, more war, whatever, you get it. Things like international accords, and drawn out diplomatic efforts, and large-scale government programs… we’ve just had enough. ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! CUT THE RED TAPE!!!! It’s time to just tear down all that bullshit and force our will through! No need to question why those things exist in the first place because they aren’t working now, and enough is really enough, so fuck trying to fix anything, we’re tearing it DOWN BABY.
Essentially, there are a lot of bad and wrong people in our country, and they want to do bad and wrong things to all of you, and there are a lot of bad and wrong things going on in our country, just in general, yes, and aren’t all of you getting fucked in a thousand ways, and don’t you want to not be getting fucked, and don’t you hate looking weak, and don’t you want to look strong, and don’t you maybe just a little bit want to fuck those bad and wrong people who are fucking you, and don’t you want everything to be good and easy and never make you uncomfortable, but without saying that because you are tough and would of course never say that’s all you want because you aren’t weak little pussies like them? And of course, we’ll make some jokes and have some fun while we’re doing all this, get a little rowdy. We don’t need to talk about how we’re going to do all of this, or what any of it means, because we’re angry and we’re justified in our anger and it feels good to talk about how angry we are and fuck it, fuck them, we’re taking back what’s ours, and we’re having a little fun while we do it - YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT’S TABOO OR WHAT TO DO YOU FUCKING COMMUNIST! Hehehe……
Yeah, so we’ll take many of the real problems facing average Americans and put them firmly in the hands of a billionaire president, with a multi-millionaire vice president, the richest man in the world as a close advisor to and proponent of the administration, and of course the wider Republican establishment, famous for policies like trickle down economics, union busting, and deregulation as desired by industry. A real dream team for the American worker. But hey, as consolation prizes maybe we’ll finally get to ban abortion and Venezuelans, and keep making fun of people with blue hair. Isn’t that nice? Remember that while you continue to slog through the muck for an unraised minimum wage, pion.
The American mentality decries finesse and swings a blunt object around gleefully and forcefully. If Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, this is beat everyone with a stick and scream at them, then laugh while they cry. Welcome to modernity. Decorum is dead, with spit on its grave.
So… we are angry, and if someone can just speak to that anger, just harness it and channel it and give us a small moment of catharsis amidst the rage - well, that’s good enough. Here’s the keys to the castle baby.
Of course, one side can’t win without the other one losing, and while analysis of the win always feels more pertinent, it’s important to analyze the loss as well. Kamala Harris and the Democrats couldn’t pull it off. It’s a long and wavering path that led their campaign down the drain, but I think the best place to start is probably 2016. Bernie Sanders was a populist and he had momentum. He talked to the average American, the American worker, and he acknowledged many of the stark realities that Trump was fanning the flames of. But he also offered actual plans to address them - complex, multi-faceted things, things that we can still debate the efficacy of, but certainly things that seemed to resonate with the people and were horrifying to the elites. Things that were loathed by the Corporate Democratic Party Structure. So, before worrying too much about Trump’s path in the primaries, or any of the Republican contenders, they dealt with the internal threat - they destroyed the enemy within first. Can we definitively say Bernie Sanders would have triumphed over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination if the Party had not meddled? No, of course not - we can’t be sure. But we can say with certainty that the Party put its thumb on the scale and did its best to scuttle his candidacy and promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party fought back against their own populist movement, believing they could bring it to heel with sheer willpower and brute political force. Meanwhile, the Republicans gave up on fighting their own populist movement, and let it end up at the top of the ticket. And the rest is history.
Did sexism play a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump? Of course it did. But so did stifling an authentic populist movement and so misreading the mood of the nation - running a Corporate Democrat Insider when the populace was busily raging against insiders. When people are angry, telling them that their anger is, essentially, dumb, and that you know better than them generally doesn’t work… ignoring and/or artificially stifling a groundswell of support and telling people to get in line will generally backfire in the end. Whether you like it it or not. Similarly, telling large swathes of people that they’re sexist if they don’t vote for your candidate generally doesn’t work. And I’ll offer up a harsh political reality here for those that are feeling a swell of moral argument at that statement - even if it’s true, saying it won’t get you votes. And you won’t win without the right votes. And you won’t govern if you don’t win. Morality matters deeply in governance… but it doesn’t seem to resonate too strongly with the angry American voter. That is to say, when it comes to The Great Contest, effectiveness is king, and effectiveness certainly must involve dealing in reality.
Well, Joe Biden managed to pull through in 2020, but it’s hard to say many people were really fired up about him on a personal level. We had just had the reality of a Donald Trump presidency, and then a pandemic with associated economic jolt, very alarming and bizarre times and Joe Biden was, well… boring… and kind of normal. So he pulled through. Well, it didn’t take long into his administration for many Americans to start thinking his advanced age was an issue, and while we’re skipping myriad large matters here, that culminated in his debate with Donald Trump earlier this summer. It was a fucking disaster. And it was what many Americans had considered to be a real possibility, and what many democrats had feared. But the Party/Administration, really one entity at this point, had basically been telling everyone, including their own friendly detractors, to fuck off, because like in 2016 and 2020, they knew what was best.
Well, it was such a fucking disaster that they then changed their minds. Time for Joe to go! Except… their hubris had kept them from making any real plans for an alternative. The writing had long been on the wall for the average American, but not for the Party. So what had they been doing to prepare for this potential outcome? Scouring the Democratic Party ranks for a potentially popular stand in? Certainly not. Getting Vice President Kamala Harris out in the limelight more, seen as an individual, maybe even a separate entity from the Administration - working on her image with the American People? No thanks. Instead, everyone was told to shut the fuck up and circle the wagons, until the Party just suddenly walked out of the defensive circle and said, “Whoops!”
Whoops indeed. Well, we then saw the ruthlessly efficient Party Machinery spring into action, and in record time and with a record lack of public detractors we had Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party candidate. As a cold and aloof political analyst I was actually impressed - the Machine moved quickly and efficiently and unimaginatively to a publicly presentable outcome that seemed to stave off the potent sense of absolute crisis. And the initial honeymoon phase that followed for her candidacy seemed to affirm what the Party had been telling us all since 2016 - shut the fuck up and let the real adults handle it. We’ll come out on top. Let the Democratic Party be a little undemocratic, internally, and we’ll give you democracy externally in the end. YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE BOYS AND GIRLS - JUST EAT WHAT YOU’RE SERVED!!!
Yeah, well, it turned out that running a previously entirely sidelined generally unpopular Vice President from the incumbent administration, a well-known frequent allergy of average Americans, with an unknown Minnesota governor didn’t whip up enough voting fervor across the populace. The initial pitch was “Joy!” to a seething populace full of the aforementioned cheap and simple anger and fervent contrarianism. And while there was an initial pivot from previous Democratic Party strategies - i.e. be careful about being seen as too cozy with Hollywood and celebrities; perhaps don’t focus too much on making Trump and his supporters out to be fascists on the move, instead just call them weird - as momentum waned, the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront. Kamala Harris performed very well in her debate with Donald Trump, creating a stark contrast to Joe Biden and even making Donald Trump look, well, careening and unfocused and petty. But then what? Well, hard to say. So again, it was back to the same 2016/2020 playbook, and the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront as the campaign marched on to Voting Day.
And so we had another winning strategy from the wizards of the Democratic Party Machine - anoint a candidate who lacks the organic popularity, and then use the same previously defeated/narrowly won strategies to try to get them across the finish line. If there was ever a time for trying a dramatic, if risky, shift in strategy, in messaging, even in policy - this was it. This was a candidacy born out of a political crisis against a candidacy that we were told could be the end of democracy. But instead of some kind of bold pivot to meet the moment, we ended up with more of the same, sleekly packaged by the Party Wizards with the same gift wrap used in 2016 and 2020 with a loss and a lukewarm win as track record. The Democratic Party has still not learned how to read the room. And when they do a bit of reading, and they don’t like the message they receive, they run from it, rather than try to learn how to harness it.
Now this is a tough line, and I have mixed feelings about it, but I have to ask - when it comes to politics, what’s better - avoiding and denying that which you find unsavory, labeling it as reprehensible and untouchable, taking the moral stand - and losing? Or to see reality for what it is and find a way to harness it - play in the dirt and win. Well, politics is a game of power, so let’s check back in in a year and see where we’re at, eh? See what lovely changes have been made…
There is a particular American bent toward a cheap anger. It’s an easy emotion, one that offers quick and simple satisfaction, and to be fair, one that has plentiful sources in our modern society. The problem arises in the misguided nature of the thing, and so in the careening toward fake solutions that assuage the uncomfortable irritation but offer nothing of substance. There is no nuance or acceptance of complexity and so inevitable imperfection in outcomes. There is only feeling and base level superficial response to it. ANGER demands an outlet. Decay and decline are bad and so must be reversed, simply. Equivocation of any kind equates to weakness and must be punished. And of course all of this is underlain by the extremely American bent toward paranoia… a loose and fervent paranoia that permeates all aspects of life, not in an all-consuming sense, save for the most extreme individuals, but in a way that it touches everything. We end up an angry people unwilling to analyze reality in any meaningful way - a people that knows we’re getting fucked, but doesn’t really care to find out who’s doing the fucking, only to rage against the closest target of ire. Because if the ire itself is justified, then who cares where it’s directed, really… Right? Tell me who the enemy is and I’ll start swinging, brother. THAT will make me feel better, and feeling better is as far ahead as I can think these days in this muddled modern world.
Yeah, long term consequences be damned. Larger picture self-interest be damned. Self-interest in this current paradigm lies in finding an outlet for the rage and then raging against it and feeling a short-lived satiation. Meanwhile, the paths that could potentially lead to some form of meaningful change and improvement in society are not taken, and if all goes to plan by those helping to fan these flames of short-sighted anger, they will be blocked, obstructed, closed down for as long as possible and hopefully forever. It’s a plot that has been employed by the powerful throughout history - because it works. When the status quo works for the elites, but not for the people, redirect their attention. Have them rage against the aspects of the status quo that don’t matter for your interests and in doing so direct attention away from the aspects that are important for your interests. The people can likely be riled up to care about either. It’s like, the angry mob has formed just outside the gates. It’s too late to disperse them - something will have to be burned before they’ll all go home and go to bed. So, just accept that, and turn them toward something that doesn’t really matter to you - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to you, or someone that is an enemy to you. “Nay, not this estate good people! We are not the source of your troubles! Have you not heard of… that strange looking group of people in that strange neighborhood just over yonder? Have you not seen how they behave differently than you - THAN US? Surely, that is because they are the ones plotting against you…” Make them believe it, and then they’ll do what you want without much further effort. And of course, they have agency, so if you can make it about something that doesn’t really matter to them - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to them, or someone that is an enemy to them… well, then the sell becomes easy. Make sure it’s in your interest, but if you can, use whatever momentum already exists amongst them for the redirect. Then while they march on and the fire spreads you can return to tending to what really matters, be that wealth, or power, or some strange ideological framework… whatever tickles your fancy as an elite. You can continue to have dominion over them without having to give up anything of meaning.
Yes, true, but we’re zooming out a bit too far… Donald Trump and the Republicans won the election by harnessing the cheap and simple American anger, the sense of grievance with… life, and the strange flippant contrianism that rises out of it. It’s an odd combination of things, primarily along the lines of, SOCIETY’S GONE TO SHIT!!!! Inflation - grocery prices - gas - IT’S TOO HIGH! Illegal immigrants are a shadowy mass of doom that has permeated the entire nation and, while difficult to blame for many specifics, can certainly be blamed for generally making everything BAD. We just need to know who’s coming into our country! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR JOBS!? Manufacturing jobs, real jobs, jobs that have been being destroyed since the 1980s and 90s - we need them back! The woke progressive values of the most vocal leftists have surely swept at least half if not more of the nation, and they are destroying masculinity, and family values, and good classical conservative ways of living, and they are going to be shoved down your throat, and maybe up your ass. Biden is too old, Kamala Harris is too woke and ineffective. We’re giving too much money to places like Ukraine, and we’re going to stop the war there, and unnecessary wars in general, but we’re also going to have the strongest military ever, and we’re going to bomb anyone that we have to. Less war, more war, whatever, you get it. Things like international accords, and drawn out diplomatic efforts, and large-scale government programs… we’ve just had enough. ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! CUT THE RED TAPE!!!! It’s time to just tear down all that bullshit and force our will through! No need to question why those things exist in the first place because they aren’t working now, and enough is really enough, so fuck trying to fix anything, we’re tearing it DOWN BABY.
Essentially, there are a lot of bad and wrong people in our country, and they want to do bad and wrong things to all of you, and there are a lot of bad and wrong things going on in our country, just in general, yes, and aren’t all of you getting fucked in a thousand ways, and don’t you want to not be getting fucked, and don’t you hate looking weak, and don’t you want to look strong, and don’t you maybe just a little bit want to fuck those bad and wrong people who are fucking you, and don’t you want everything to be good and easy and never make you uncomfortable, but without saying that because you are tough and would of course never say that’s all you want because you aren’t weak little pussies like them? And of course, we’ll make some jokes and have some fun while we’re doing all this, get a little rowdy. We don’t need to talk about how we’re going to do all of this, or what any of it means, because we’re angry and we’re justified in our anger and it feels good to talk about how angry we are and fuck it, fuck them, we’re taking back what’s ours, and we’re having a little fun while we do it - YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT’S TABOO OR WHAT TO DO YOU FUCKING COMMUNIST! Hehehe……
Yeah, so we’ll take many of the real problems facing average Americans and put them firmly in the hands of a billionaire president, with a multi-millionaire vice president, the richest man in the world as a close advisor to and proponent of the administration, and of course the wider Republican establishment, famous for policies like trickle down economics, union busting, and deregulation as desired by industry. A real dream team for the American worker. But hey, as consolation prizes maybe we’ll finally get to ban abortion and Venezuelans, and keep making fun of people with blue hair. Isn’t that nice? Remember that while you continue to slog through the muck for an unraised minimum wage, pion.
The American mentality decries finesse and swings a blunt object around gleefully and forcefully. If Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, this is beat everyone with a stick and scream at them, then laugh while they cry. Welcome to modernity. Decorum is dead, with spit on its grave.
So… we are angry, and if someone can just speak to that anger, just harness it and channel it and give us a small moment of catharsis amidst the rage - well, that’s good enough. Here’s the keys to the castle baby.
Of course, one side can’t win without the other one losing, and while analysis of the win always feels more pertinent, it’s important to analyze the loss as well. Kamala Harris and the Democrats couldn’t pull it off. It’s a long and wavering path that led their campaign down the drain, but I think the best place to start is probably 2016. Bernie Sanders was a populist and he had momentum. He talked to the average American, the American worker, and he acknowledged many of the stark realities that Trump was fanning the flames of. But he also offered actual plans to address them - complex, multi-faceted things, things that we can still debate the efficacy of, but certainly things that seemed to resonate with the people and were horrifying to the elites. Things that were loathed by the Corporate Democratic Party Structure. So, before worrying too much about Trump’s path in the primaries, or any of the Republican contenders, they dealt with the internal threat - they destroyed the enemy within first. Can we definitively say Bernie Sanders would have triumphed over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination if the Party had not meddled? No, of course not - we can’t be sure. But we can say with certainty that the Party put its thumb on the scale and did its best to scuttle his candidacy and promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party fought back against their own populist movement, believing they could bring it to heel with sheer willpower and brute political force. Meanwhile, the Republicans gave up on fighting their own populist movement, and let it end up at the top of the ticket. And the rest is history.
Did sexism play a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump? Of course it did. But so did stifling an authentic populist movement and so misreading the mood of the nation - running a Corporate Democrat Insider when the populace was busily raging against insiders. When people are angry, telling them that their anger is, essentially, dumb, and that you know better than them generally doesn’t work… ignoring and/or artificially stifling a groundswell of support and telling people to get in line will generally backfire in the end. Whether you like it it or not. Similarly, telling large swathes of people that they’re sexist if they don’t vote for your candidate generally doesn’t work. And I’ll offer up a harsh political reality here for those that are feeling a swell of moral argument at that statement - even if it’s true, saying it won’t get you votes. And you won’t win without the right votes. And you won’t govern if you don’t win. Morality matters deeply in governance… but it doesn’t seem to resonate too strongly with the angry American voter. That is to say, when it comes to The Great Contest, effectiveness is king, and effectiveness certainly must involve dealing in reality.
Well, Joe Biden managed to pull through in 2020, but it’s hard to say many people were really fired up about him on a personal level. We had just had the reality of a Donald Trump presidency, and then a pandemic with associated economic jolt, very alarming and bizarre times and Joe Biden was, well… boring… and kind of normal. So he pulled through. Well, it didn’t take long into his administration for many Americans to start thinking his advanced age was an issue, and while we’re skipping myriad large matters here, that culminated in his debate with Donald Trump earlier this summer. It was a fucking disaster. And it was what many Americans had considered to be a real possibility, and what many democrats had feared. But the Party/Administration, really one entity at this point, had basically been telling everyone, including their own friendly detractors, to fuck off, because like in 2016 and 2020, they knew what was best.
Well, it was such a fucking disaster that they then changed their minds. Time for Joe to go! Except… their hubris had kept them from making any real plans for an alternative. The writing had long been on the wall for the average American, but not for the Party. So what had they been doing to prepare for this potential outcome? Scouring the Democratic Party ranks for a potentially popular stand in? Certainly not. Getting Vice President Kamala Harris out in the limelight more, seen as an individual, maybe even a separate entity from the Administration - working on her image with the American People? No thanks. Instead, everyone was told to shut the fuck up and circle the wagons, until the Party just suddenly walked out of the defensive circle and said, “Whoops!”
Whoops indeed. Well, we then saw the ruthlessly efficient Party Machinery spring into action, and in record time and with a record lack of public detractors we had Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party candidate. As a cold and aloof political analyst I was actually impressed - the Machine moved quickly and efficiently and unimaginatively to a publicly presentable outcome that seemed to stave off the potent sense of absolute crisis. And the initial honeymoon phase that followed for her candidacy seemed to affirm what the Party had been telling us all since 2016 - shut the fuck up and let the real adults handle it. We’ll come out on top. Let the Democratic Party be a little undemocratic, internally, and we’ll give you democracy externally in the end. YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE BOYS AND GIRLS - JUST EAT WHAT YOU’RE SERVED!!!
Yeah, well, it turned out that running a previously entirely sidelined generally unpopular Vice President from the incumbent administration, a well-known frequent allergy of average Americans, with an unknown Minnesota governor didn’t whip up enough voting fervor across the populace. The initial pitch was “Joy!” to a seething populace full of the aforementioned cheap and simple anger and fervent contrarianism. And while there was an initial pivot from previous Democratic Party strategies - i.e. be careful about being seen as too cozy with Hollywood and celebrities; perhaps don’t focus too much on making Trump and his supporters out to be fascists on the move, instead just call them weird - as momentum waned, the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront. Kamala Harris performed very well in her debate with Donald Trump, creating a stark contrast to Joe Biden and even making Donald Trump look, well, careening and unfocused and petty. But then what? Well, hard to say. So again, it was back to the same 2016/2020 playbook, and the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront as the campaign marched on to Voting Day.
And so we had another winning strategy from the wizards of the Democratic Party Machine - anoint a candidate who lacks the organic popularity, and then use the same previously defeated/narrowly won strategies to try to get them across the finish line. If there was ever a time for trying a dramatic, if risky, shift in strategy, in messaging, even in policy - this was it. This was a candidacy born out of a political crisis against a candidacy that we were told could be the end of democracy. But instead of some kind of bold pivot to meet the moment, we ended up with more of the same, sleekly packaged by the Party Wizards with the same gift wrap used in 2016 and 2020 with a loss and a lukewarm win as track record. The Democratic Party has still not learned how to read the room. And when they do a bit of reading, and they don’t like the message they receive, they run from it, rather than try to learn how to harness it.
Now this is a tough line, and I have mixed feelings about it, but I have to ask - when it comes to politics, what’s better - avoiding and denying that which you find unsavory, labeling it as reprehensible and untouchable, taking the moral stand - and losing? Or to see reality for what it is and find a way to harness it - play in the dirt and win. Well, politics is a game of power, so let’s check back in in a year and see where we’re at, eh? See what lovely changes have been made…
THE PARTY CHOICE
ALL HAIL THE MACHIIIIIIIIIINNEEEE
NOTE: additional political analysis from the summer of 2024 is, like this piece, caught up in an unfinished collection of writings with the working title Fearing & Loathing on a Very Big Boat. This one was was extracted out for its particular pertinence.
Biden is out of the race - officially certifying himself as the lamest of ducks. Since then, as aforementioned, my brain has been in a state of rot and thus communications from the homeland have barely been able to get through, the receiver being covered in the fleshy muck from the rot and having started to corrode. But regardless, it is quite evident that Kamala Harris, the current Vice President, has already begun seriously solidifying her position as the Democratic heir, with party leaders, media figures, and most importantly, big donors, all lining up quickly and seemingly in a fairly orderly fashion behind her. It is the logical move, and there is no surprise in it.
There were whispers of perhaps something radical happening - sidestepping the VP for an interesting ticket of some combination of Democratic governors, or something of that sort. It’s fun for the various analysts to imagine such scenarios when it’s all still far off and so not real. But then the moment of actuality comes and the sitting President, for the first time since 1968, announces he will not be running for re-election in the middle of the Great Contest. Then imagination is beaten down into small pieces and swept into the dustbin, unceremoniously taken outside and thrown into an obscure dumpster in the alley. Then it’s fuck imagination - there is only political reality. If you’re one of the Party Apparatus at that point and you start to allow in imagination, you allow in the potential for chaos and panic. No, no - it cannot be.
And so we also saw the great and vast and impressive lack of forethought or planning as the Party swung quickly and efficiently into lockstep behind the least imaginative option available. There had been no plan for this eventuality despite the whisperings of it amongst the greater populace since the last election! The average man on the street, if asked to place his wilder bets, could have seen Biden stepping down, or even dying, before the Great Contest was complete. But the Prestigious Insiders were unable to speak of this beyond the faintest whisper in the darkest most obscure corridor - they could not imagine. And so there was no plan formulated. There was nothing. Just an extremely obtuse stubbornness followed by a great and stupid panic after the first debate, then a chaotic chorus of calls for Biden to step down, and then… well, then an instinctive pivot to the safe and default. And now we have the beginning of the new narrative, that our very unpopular and sidelined Vice President has never been those things; she’s just been waiting for her time to shine. It’s an incredibly stupid showing by the Party Machinery and company.
But then, why wouldn’t it be? That’s perhaps the least surprising development in all of this. The modern Democratic Party has shown itself to be quite capable at beating its members into rapid and total submission, and quite horrifically inept at just about everything else, particularly at gauging the pulse of The Nation and taking into consideration the will of the people. It’s an efficient machine, cold and calculated, a more evolved AI than we believe is yet available, hellbent on its own aims and incredibly adept at achieving them, and yet somehow nearly totally detached from human consciousness or will, devoid of things the greater populace is familiar with and desires, and so the outcomes, though somehow successful by its own foreign AI standards, seem bizarre and disappointing to us - even like failures.
And so here we are - the narrative now will pivot to the first woman, the first woman of color, the woman that has been patiently waiting on the sidelines, though was NOT sidelined, simply dutifully standing in the shadow of the Great Man Whose Time Has Passed, and now that he is ever so responsibly retreating from the sunlight, she can step out and SHINE at last. Sure. Never mind her previous political failings, never mind her past as a prosecutor (aka, narc), never mind her odd infrequent moments in the limelight in which her ramblings could be more incoherent than Biden’s. Never mind her unpopularity with the greater populace as shown in multiple polls, and more so, in the way that the Great Political Wizards will never understand - the simple wider sentiment, the instinctive feeling that is loose in the ether and can’t be quantified. Fuck all that. THE PATH FORWARD HAS BEEN CHOSEN BY THE GREAT AND INTELLIGENT MACHINE!!!
There were whispers of perhaps something radical happening - sidestepping the VP for an interesting ticket of some combination of Democratic governors, or something of that sort. It’s fun for the various analysts to imagine such scenarios when it’s all still far off and so not real. But then the moment of actuality comes and the sitting President, for the first time since 1968, announces he will not be running for re-election in the middle of the Great Contest. Then imagination is beaten down into small pieces and swept into the dustbin, unceremoniously taken outside and thrown into an obscure dumpster in the alley. Then it’s fuck imagination - there is only political reality. If you’re one of the Party Apparatus at that point and you start to allow in imagination, you allow in the potential for chaos and panic. No, no - it cannot be.
And so we also saw the great and vast and impressive lack of forethought or planning as the Party swung quickly and efficiently into lockstep behind the least imaginative option available. There had been no plan for this eventuality despite the whisperings of it amongst the greater populace since the last election! The average man on the street, if asked to place his wilder bets, could have seen Biden stepping down, or even dying, before the Great Contest was complete. But the Prestigious Insiders were unable to speak of this beyond the faintest whisper in the darkest most obscure corridor - they could not imagine. And so there was no plan formulated. There was nothing. Just an extremely obtuse stubbornness followed by a great and stupid panic after the first debate, then a chaotic chorus of calls for Biden to step down, and then… well, then an instinctive pivot to the safe and default. And now we have the beginning of the new narrative, that our very unpopular and sidelined Vice President has never been those things; she’s just been waiting for her time to shine. It’s an incredibly stupid showing by the Party Machinery and company.
But then, why wouldn’t it be? That’s perhaps the least surprising development in all of this. The modern Democratic Party has shown itself to be quite capable at beating its members into rapid and total submission, and quite horrifically inept at just about everything else, particularly at gauging the pulse of The Nation and taking into consideration the will of the people. It’s an efficient machine, cold and calculated, a more evolved AI than we believe is yet available, hellbent on its own aims and incredibly adept at achieving them, and yet somehow nearly totally detached from human consciousness or will, devoid of things the greater populace is familiar with and desires, and so the outcomes, though somehow successful by its own foreign AI standards, seem bizarre and disappointing to us - even like failures.
And so here we are - the narrative now will pivot to the first woman, the first woman of color, the woman that has been patiently waiting on the sidelines, though was NOT sidelined, simply dutifully standing in the shadow of the Great Man Whose Time Has Passed, and now that he is ever so responsibly retreating from the sunlight, she can step out and SHINE at last. Sure. Never mind her previous political failings, never mind her past as a prosecutor (aka, narc), never mind her odd infrequent moments in the limelight in which her ramblings could be more incoherent than Biden’s. Never mind her unpopularity with the greater populace as shown in multiple polls, and more so, in the way that the Great Political Wizards will never understand - the simple wider sentiment, the instinctive feeling that is loose in the ether and can’t be quantified. Fuck all that. THE PATH FORWARD HAS BEEN CHOSEN BY THE GREAT AND INTELLIGENT MACHINE!!!
BIG DEBATE NO.1
YIKES!!!
What an exchange of ideas!!!
The first Presidential Debate was hosted by CNN, outside the reach of the Commission on Presidential Debates, at 9pm EDT on Thursday, June 27th. The spectacle was held without a live audience - just four individuals in a large sterile room at the CNN studios in Georgia, a cold empty ice cavern modernized with assorted screens and with a stage for the candidates tagged with seemingly innumerable CNN logos, two icy podiums with their own red logos, and a desk for the hosts, also apparently constructed from ice and with three CNN coffee mugs on top, presumably filled with warm liquids to attempt to keep the cold at bay. Yes, just the current President, the former President, and two somber and serious CNN hosts in a cold cavern of ice and red CNN logos.
I had been looking forward to the event immensely. I mean, the spectacle! The rarity! The absurdity! We were to have two Presidents in a Presidential debate for the first time in history. The first debate outside of the safe guiding hands of the Commission on Presidential Debates since its inception in 1987. And, overshadowing all else, the characters - Joseph Robinette Biden, teetering and tottering, and Donald John Trump, kicking and screaming. This is the type of fight card a true fan of the sport pines for. This is the showdown that brings in the viewers. This is the Roman fucking Colosseum.
A few questions dominated the run up to the debate - how will Joe Biden fare? Will he be able to perform for that length of time? Will he stumble and fall on his face, literally or figuratively? Will Donald Trump be able to dominate the room as he prefers to? How will he fare with his microphone being turned off between answers and rebuttals, unable to interject freely? And, perhaps this last bit was more on my mind personally, how will CNN moderate the debate? Will they assert themselves heavily in a Washington Post-esque “Democracy Dies in Darkness” fashion? Oh, the questions!
Well, let’s just cut to the chase - Joe Biden did not do well. “Will he be able to reassure voters that his age is not an issue?” No, no he will not. Biden presented and performed like all the rumors about his declining mental capacity are true. He stumbled and he fumbled, losing complete track of his train of thought multiple times, and more frequently he simply slid down the wrong course, making a weak point or a jumbled incoherent point, things that, at best, didn’t resonate with anyone and certainly didn’t inspire confidence, or any depth of feeling really, besides perhaps a slightly aghast, “Oh, God.” He cited statistics at odd times when the numbers felt like they were getting in the way of the larger point; he didn’t cite statistics when it seemed the numbers may serve better than trying to make a broader point. He would begin to trail off and then pivot, but the pivot would come up against another wall, or just another shadowy path into the fuzzy brush, still away from the main trail those attempting to follow him were hoping for.
He stared into the void with his mouth open, seemingly seeing past the cameras into the Great Beyond, any chance at passing off the 1,000-yard stare as a look of steely determination totally destroyed by the mouth agape. One must have their jaw set to appear convincingly determined, surely. Yes, it wasn’t all horrific, and he had moments of attack and rebuttal that were adequate, but when you’re running for reelection as President of the United States of America, it’s going to be hard for the public to forget a segment with a finishing line like, “We finally beat Medicare.” Oooof.
Not great. Look, it’s true that Biden has a stutter and this has always impacted his speech delivery. And that surely played a part in this debate debacle. It’s also true that everyone has ups and downs, and that there is an entire Administration behind him, and this Administration has certainly got a number of things done, including the more mundane victories that do not whip up inspired fervor in the populace but are of actual considerable consequence. Yes, there is truth to all of these things, and so these are the lines of thinking that Biden’s supporters will cling to in the coming weeks. However, there is also stark reality - the President is both a leader and a figurehead, and people want that position filled by somebody who presents well, who inspires confidence, who can address the Nation and the World at Large and make us all feel… good. Like we’re in good hands. Capable hands. Biden’s debate performance inspired feelings to the opposite, a la, we’re doomed.
There is also much to say about the Democratic Party’s, and in this I include donors, pundits, and affiliated journalists, response to the dismal performance. I also find their response lends much to say about how we all ended up here, with an 81-year-old man floundering at the podium. Much to say about incompetency, poor planning, and arrogance. But I think we will save this for a follow up piece and instead digest the rest of the debate now.
Donald Trump is a live performer. He excels on a stage in front of a crowd, yelling, riffing, exaggerating and playing it all up for a friendly audience, a perfect outlet for a fun combination of the safe greatest hits with room for a bit of experimentation on new tracks. For this program, Donald Trump found himself with three other people in a large empty cavern of ice and CNN logos. There was no live audience to play to and play off of. This, along with the interim muting of the microphones of course, created a more subdued version of the man. We still had quintessentially on brand moments such as, “We had H2O,” presented as a profound statement during a total side step of the issue of climate change, and trademark zingers like, “I don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence; I don’t think he does either,” in response to one of Biden’s dissipating sentences. A bit of fun, sure, but we did not have Trump at his most domineering.
Interestingly, I think this was partially a result of the negotiated debate terms, surely argued for by the Biden Campaign, and I think in the end this result actually backfired for Biden. The loudest most freewheeling version of Donald Trump certainly plays well to a friendly crowd, but to those people uncommitted and in the non-aligned media, it often creates a buzz of negative sentiment. This version of Trump is likely to careen into dangerous territory for the moderate voter and to create a flurry of headlines intent on correcting some obscene falsehood, whether or not it was spoken in jest. These matters then dominate a large portion of the airwaves in the immediate aftermath.
So, by subduing this version of Trump to a large extent, the airwaves were kept open for other matters. I’m sure the Biden Administration’s goal was to keep them open for Biden, particularly during the debate, but also in the post-debate news cycle. Remove the loud noises and allow the voice of clarity to speak! Well, as previously discussed, Biden floundered. So, counterintuitively, by not allowing Trump to dominate the headlines in the usual way, it was just that much easier for Biden’s failure to become the main story. The gamble did not pay off. Trump was prevented from digging his own grave and the shovel was passed to Biden.
Now, as for the moderators: Dana Bash was prudent enough to dress for the occasion, wearing the all white special ice garment, which we all know greatly increases cold resistance by several points. Jake Tapper was not so wise, hence, assumedly, the need for TWO cold resistance drinks to be present on his side of the ice desk. A strange oversight for someone playing on their home field.
But really, other than the excruciatingly abundant high-visibility branding, CNN really did not exert their will over the debate to any large extent. The moderators essentially just… moderated. They enforced the rules of the debate, for the most part, and kept the exchanges moving. They did not interject or try to make their own rebuttals to the candidates’ claims.
Now, I’ve seen some criticism of this approach in the ether: no live fact-checking? No pushing back on blatant lies? And this is a matter of personal opinion, but I was glad not to see it. In my mind, the role of the moderators and the news anchors is to facilitate the debate, to keep the rules enforced and so the guard rails up, meaning it can move along appropriately and without unnecessary interruptions and digressions causing it to devolve into a petty shouting match, or something similar. They are not supposed to be part of the debate, and it is not their role to tell the voters what to think about the candidates’ statements. That is for the voters to decide on their own. Yes, a bit of prodding when a candidate totally sidesteps a question and leaves excess time on the table, but no attempt at moral grandstanding or terse badgering to get them to properly address an issue.
In my mind, if a candidate is unwilling or unable to respond to a reasonable question, that is a mark against them. And in my mind, I do not want CNN hosts, or anybody in any similar position, to think it is their job to tell me which parts of a candidate’s response are lies. I will gladly discern that for myself, and when a candidate is disingenuous, I will hold it against them, quite personally. This is not an appearance on a cable news show where it’s arguable the personality of the host has a valid role. This is a Presidential Debate. Let the candidates speak, and let the voters sort through their statements and make up their minds accordingly.
“But what about people who aren’t willing to do that!” What about them? That’s their prerogative, whether or not I agree with it on a personal level, and perhaps more so, do you really think a media host who someone likely already feels animosity toward will be the one to break through to them? Here’s a hot take, as an example of my mentality on this topic: if you truly believe that Democrats support killing babies after they’re born, you’re a fucking idiot. But if you think that Jake Tapper butting in and shouting, “That’s not true!!!!” after Donald Trump makes the claim is going to change anyone’s mind on the issue, you’re also a fucking idiot. It is each candidate’s job to counter the other in a meaningful way that resonates with voters. That’s what a debate is supposed to be. There was not much of that on display in the big empty CNN-branded ice cavern. But I don’t think it’s right or useful for the moderators to attempt to fill that vacuum.
Now perhaps this is a good segue to my final point, and really my more overarching take on the whole spectacle. Succinctly, it’s something along the lines of - FUUUUUCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!! But we shall elaborate.
There was no spirited exchange of ideas that a voter could listen to and make decisions based on. And more so, this very notion feels laughable at this point in time - we don’t even expect it anymore. The whole thing’s long been a quest for sound bites, for getting the upper hand in a testy exchange, for a slam to be remembered. And the overarching format of the debates lends itself to that.
How about policy? How about real steps that could be taken to create a program that will improve people’s lives, or solve an issue? Things that can actually be done. What are we going to do about the soaring national debt, about keeping Social Security and Medicare solvent, about the ongoing and impending increase in constancy and severity of natural disasters? Anyone? ANYTHING???
Instead we get bragging; we get insults; we get a farcical battle of fragile egos. Well, fuck an ego. This is supposed to be an exchange, or even a contest, of ideas and viewpoints and, sure, personalities to bolster the democratic process to elect the leader of our government. We the People are in fact supposed to benefit from all of this. Instead we watch increasingly detached elites bicker amongst themselves and about things that have less and less to do with the life of an average person.
One of my favorite exchanges came during the issue of drug overdoses. Both candidates ignored the issue of addiction and giddily pivoted to border security, to STOPPING THE DRUGS FROM COMING IN. Donald Trump proudly mentioned some kind of “certain dog that’s the most incredible thing you’ve ever seen” that would stop the fentanyl. Joe Biden harped on BIG MACHINES that will “roll over everything” and stop the flow of drugs! Neither gave further explanation of either of these things. Not one of us knows what they’re talking about. Is this not objectively absurd?
“What will you all do to address the addiction crisis in America?” NUMBER 1: Fuck addiction; we’ll stop the drugs!! “OK, HOW?” NUMBER 2: CERTAIN DOGS AND/OR BIG MACHINES!!! This is what we get. Take a complex multi-faceted issue; boil it down to one disingenuous black and white problem; even once that’s done, don’t offer a real solution to that problem; draw attention to shiny object “solution.” Why doesn’t anything ever get done? Hard to say, isn’t it?
Another pinnacle moment came in the already oft-covered golf exchange. This moment was a caricature of our aloof detached leaders, hitting the links for a rich man’s sport while the world burns, cartoonish monopoly men with cigars and champagne glasses jesting with each other while the huddled masses fester like wretched refuse outside the security fence. Trump brought up his golf game in the same vein as passing cognitive tests to show his mental and physical acuity in old age; he said Biden challenged him to a golf match; Biden responded… you know what? I kind of don’t fucking care.
Anyways, while there’s plenty more fodder throughout this thing, but we’ll wrap it up with a look at the closing remarks. The closing remarks stood out to me because they were wildly ineffective, from both candidates. Abject failure in arguably the most important moment. I mean, come on - it’s the time to shine! No need for statistics or bibliographies, and really no need even for concrete arguments at this point. My earlier criticisms aren’t valid in this section. It’s time for the emotional appeal! The restraints are off! “Why you, Sir Candidate?” What do you want people to take away from all this? ONE LAST CHANCE TO SELL IT!
Biden remained true to form - stumble, jumble, mumble. I have to think his intended delivery was a carefully curated Administration message - the economics. Bidenomics! Mention taxes, mention inflation… then he began to stumble painfully through a convoluted message on reducing drug prices for seniors (and honorable mention to eventually everybody). I mean, damn… it almost feels cruel after that performance, but the delivery was MANGLED. He tossed in a random mention of lead pipes and wrapped it up. The whole thing felt like a series of dead note cards that had been half memorized, absolutely botched on delivery, and left totally devoid of emotion or inspiration. There was just nothing there. Absolutely lifeless delivery. One last whisper into the cold echoey cavern.
Trump seemed to prematurely deliver his closing remarks a few minutes earlier when he said he wished Biden was a good President so he didn’t have to be there; Biden will take us into World War III, etc. etc. When the actual time came, it seemed he had used up the better of his broad strokes, and he instead launched into odd very non-detailed and unrelated specifics - Iran, Israel, Ukraine, space age materials, signing a document they’ve been trying to get for 42 years, choice for our soldiers… what? What does any of it mean? Sure, he hit the underlying points a few times; Joe Biden has done nothing; Trump did a lot; he’ll do a lot again. But it was disjointed, and not even in the oft high energy way that he presents it. Basically, Trump said, “There’s a whole lot of this and that going on, which I’ll stop, and I’ll bring back a whole lot of this and that!” No cohesion. No coherence. One last shout into the cold echoey cavern.
And that about sums it up. Biden floundered and flopped - certainly the more consequential performance. If he inspired anything amongst his supporters it was pity and perhaps panic. Trump delivered a more subdued version of his usual string of hyperbolic statements and brags. Nothing of note, but adequate for his supporters. Almost nothing of real meaning was said by either candidate. Red CNN logos and icy cold white and blue; a big lonely cavern filled with cold air and disappointment. The Nation hangs its head and the World shudders. Good night, America. The Great Contest continues.
I had been looking forward to the event immensely. I mean, the spectacle! The rarity! The absurdity! We were to have two Presidents in a Presidential debate for the first time in history. The first debate outside of the safe guiding hands of the Commission on Presidential Debates since its inception in 1987. And, overshadowing all else, the characters - Joseph Robinette Biden, teetering and tottering, and Donald John Trump, kicking and screaming. This is the type of fight card a true fan of the sport pines for. This is the showdown that brings in the viewers. This is the Roman fucking Colosseum.
A few questions dominated the run up to the debate - how will Joe Biden fare? Will he be able to perform for that length of time? Will he stumble and fall on his face, literally or figuratively? Will Donald Trump be able to dominate the room as he prefers to? How will he fare with his microphone being turned off between answers and rebuttals, unable to interject freely? And, perhaps this last bit was more on my mind personally, how will CNN moderate the debate? Will they assert themselves heavily in a Washington Post-esque “Democracy Dies in Darkness” fashion? Oh, the questions!
Well, let’s just cut to the chase - Joe Biden did not do well. “Will he be able to reassure voters that his age is not an issue?” No, no he will not. Biden presented and performed like all the rumors about his declining mental capacity are true. He stumbled and he fumbled, losing complete track of his train of thought multiple times, and more frequently he simply slid down the wrong course, making a weak point or a jumbled incoherent point, things that, at best, didn’t resonate with anyone and certainly didn’t inspire confidence, or any depth of feeling really, besides perhaps a slightly aghast, “Oh, God.” He cited statistics at odd times when the numbers felt like they were getting in the way of the larger point; he didn’t cite statistics when it seemed the numbers may serve better than trying to make a broader point. He would begin to trail off and then pivot, but the pivot would come up against another wall, or just another shadowy path into the fuzzy brush, still away from the main trail those attempting to follow him were hoping for.
He stared into the void with his mouth open, seemingly seeing past the cameras into the Great Beyond, any chance at passing off the 1,000-yard stare as a look of steely determination totally destroyed by the mouth agape. One must have their jaw set to appear convincingly determined, surely. Yes, it wasn’t all horrific, and he had moments of attack and rebuttal that were adequate, but when you’re running for reelection as President of the United States of America, it’s going to be hard for the public to forget a segment with a finishing line like, “We finally beat Medicare.” Oooof.
Not great. Look, it’s true that Biden has a stutter and this has always impacted his speech delivery. And that surely played a part in this debate debacle. It’s also true that everyone has ups and downs, and that there is an entire Administration behind him, and this Administration has certainly got a number of things done, including the more mundane victories that do not whip up inspired fervor in the populace but are of actual considerable consequence. Yes, there is truth to all of these things, and so these are the lines of thinking that Biden’s supporters will cling to in the coming weeks. However, there is also stark reality - the President is both a leader and a figurehead, and people want that position filled by somebody who presents well, who inspires confidence, who can address the Nation and the World at Large and make us all feel… good. Like we’re in good hands. Capable hands. Biden’s debate performance inspired feelings to the opposite, a la, we’re doomed.
There is also much to say about the Democratic Party’s, and in this I include donors, pundits, and affiliated journalists, response to the dismal performance. I also find their response lends much to say about how we all ended up here, with an 81-year-old man floundering at the podium. Much to say about incompetency, poor planning, and arrogance. But I think we will save this for a follow up piece and instead digest the rest of the debate now.
Donald Trump is a live performer. He excels on a stage in front of a crowd, yelling, riffing, exaggerating and playing it all up for a friendly audience, a perfect outlet for a fun combination of the safe greatest hits with room for a bit of experimentation on new tracks. For this program, Donald Trump found himself with three other people in a large empty cavern of ice and CNN logos. There was no live audience to play to and play off of. This, along with the interim muting of the microphones of course, created a more subdued version of the man. We still had quintessentially on brand moments such as, “We had H2O,” presented as a profound statement during a total side step of the issue of climate change, and trademark zingers like, “I don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence; I don’t think he does either,” in response to one of Biden’s dissipating sentences. A bit of fun, sure, but we did not have Trump at his most domineering.
Interestingly, I think this was partially a result of the negotiated debate terms, surely argued for by the Biden Campaign, and I think in the end this result actually backfired for Biden. The loudest most freewheeling version of Donald Trump certainly plays well to a friendly crowd, but to those people uncommitted and in the non-aligned media, it often creates a buzz of negative sentiment. This version of Trump is likely to careen into dangerous territory for the moderate voter and to create a flurry of headlines intent on correcting some obscene falsehood, whether or not it was spoken in jest. These matters then dominate a large portion of the airwaves in the immediate aftermath.
So, by subduing this version of Trump to a large extent, the airwaves were kept open for other matters. I’m sure the Biden Administration’s goal was to keep them open for Biden, particularly during the debate, but also in the post-debate news cycle. Remove the loud noises and allow the voice of clarity to speak! Well, as previously discussed, Biden floundered. So, counterintuitively, by not allowing Trump to dominate the headlines in the usual way, it was just that much easier for Biden’s failure to become the main story. The gamble did not pay off. Trump was prevented from digging his own grave and the shovel was passed to Biden.
Now, as for the moderators: Dana Bash was prudent enough to dress for the occasion, wearing the all white special ice garment, which we all know greatly increases cold resistance by several points. Jake Tapper was not so wise, hence, assumedly, the need for TWO cold resistance drinks to be present on his side of the ice desk. A strange oversight for someone playing on their home field.
But really, other than the excruciatingly abundant high-visibility branding, CNN really did not exert their will over the debate to any large extent. The moderators essentially just… moderated. They enforced the rules of the debate, for the most part, and kept the exchanges moving. They did not interject or try to make their own rebuttals to the candidates’ claims.
Now, I’ve seen some criticism of this approach in the ether: no live fact-checking? No pushing back on blatant lies? And this is a matter of personal opinion, but I was glad not to see it. In my mind, the role of the moderators and the news anchors is to facilitate the debate, to keep the rules enforced and so the guard rails up, meaning it can move along appropriately and without unnecessary interruptions and digressions causing it to devolve into a petty shouting match, or something similar. They are not supposed to be part of the debate, and it is not their role to tell the voters what to think about the candidates’ statements. That is for the voters to decide on their own. Yes, a bit of prodding when a candidate totally sidesteps a question and leaves excess time on the table, but no attempt at moral grandstanding or terse badgering to get them to properly address an issue.
In my mind, if a candidate is unwilling or unable to respond to a reasonable question, that is a mark against them. And in my mind, I do not want CNN hosts, or anybody in any similar position, to think it is their job to tell me which parts of a candidate’s response are lies. I will gladly discern that for myself, and when a candidate is disingenuous, I will hold it against them, quite personally. This is not an appearance on a cable news show where it’s arguable the personality of the host has a valid role. This is a Presidential Debate. Let the candidates speak, and let the voters sort through their statements and make up their minds accordingly.
“But what about people who aren’t willing to do that!” What about them? That’s their prerogative, whether or not I agree with it on a personal level, and perhaps more so, do you really think a media host who someone likely already feels animosity toward will be the one to break through to them? Here’s a hot take, as an example of my mentality on this topic: if you truly believe that Democrats support killing babies after they’re born, you’re a fucking idiot. But if you think that Jake Tapper butting in and shouting, “That’s not true!!!!” after Donald Trump makes the claim is going to change anyone’s mind on the issue, you’re also a fucking idiot. It is each candidate’s job to counter the other in a meaningful way that resonates with voters. That’s what a debate is supposed to be. There was not much of that on display in the big empty CNN-branded ice cavern. But I don’t think it’s right or useful for the moderators to attempt to fill that vacuum.
Now perhaps this is a good segue to my final point, and really my more overarching take on the whole spectacle. Succinctly, it’s something along the lines of - FUUUUUCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!! But we shall elaborate.
There was no spirited exchange of ideas that a voter could listen to and make decisions based on. And more so, this very notion feels laughable at this point in time - we don’t even expect it anymore. The whole thing’s long been a quest for sound bites, for getting the upper hand in a testy exchange, for a slam to be remembered. And the overarching format of the debates lends itself to that.
How about policy? How about real steps that could be taken to create a program that will improve people’s lives, or solve an issue? Things that can actually be done. What are we going to do about the soaring national debt, about keeping Social Security and Medicare solvent, about the ongoing and impending increase in constancy and severity of natural disasters? Anyone? ANYTHING???
Instead we get bragging; we get insults; we get a farcical battle of fragile egos. Well, fuck an ego. This is supposed to be an exchange, or even a contest, of ideas and viewpoints and, sure, personalities to bolster the democratic process to elect the leader of our government. We the People are in fact supposed to benefit from all of this. Instead we watch increasingly detached elites bicker amongst themselves and about things that have less and less to do with the life of an average person.
One of my favorite exchanges came during the issue of drug overdoses. Both candidates ignored the issue of addiction and giddily pivoted to border security, to STOPPING THE DRUGS FROM COMING IN. Donald Trump proudly mentioned some kind of “certain dog that’s the most incredible thing you’ve ever seen” that would stop the fentanyl. Joe Biden harped on BIG MACHINES that will “roll over everything” and stop the flow of drugs! Neither gave further explanation of either of these things. Not one of us knows what they’re talking about. Is this not objectively absurd?
“What will you all do to address the addiction crisis in America?” NUMBER 1: Fuck addiction; we’ll stop the drugs!! “OK, HOW?” NUMBER 2: CERTAIN DOGS AND/OR BIG MACHINES!!! This is what we get. Take a complex multi-faceted issue; boil it down to one disingenuous black and white problem; even once that’s done, don’t offer a real solution to that problem; draw attention to shiny object “solution.” Why doesn’t anything ever get done? Hard to say, isn’t it?
Another pinnacle moment came in the already oft-covered golf exchange. This moment was a caricature of our aloof detached leaders, hitting the links for a rich man’s sport while the world burns, cartoonish monopoly men with cigars and champagne glasses jesting with each other while the huddled masses fester like wretched refuse outside the security fence. Trump brought up his golf game in the same vein as passing cognitive tests to show his mental and physical acuity in old age; he said Biden challenged him to a golf match; Biden responded… you know what? I kind of don’t fucking care.
Anyways, while there’s plenty more fodder throughout this thing, but we’ll wrap it up with a look at the closing remarks. The closing remarks stood out to me because they were wildly ineffective, from both candidates. Abject failure in arguably the most important moment. I mean, come on - it’s the time to shine! No need for statistics or bibliographies, and really no need even for concrete arguments at this point. My earlier criticisms aren’t valid in this section. It’s time for the emotional appeal! The restraints are off! “Why you, Sir Candidate?” What do you want people to take away from all this? ONE LAST CHANCE TO SELL IT!
Biden remained true to form - stumble, jumble, mumble. I have to think his intended delivery was a carefully curated Administration message - the economics. Bidenomics! Mention taxes, mention inflation… then he began to stumble painfully through a convoluted message on reducing drug prices for seniors (and honorable mention to eventually everybody). I mean, damn… it almost feels cruel after that performance, but the delivery was MANGLED. He tossed in a random mention of lead pipes and wrapped it up. The whole thing felt like a series of dead note cards that had been half memorized, absolutely botched on delivery, and left totally devoid of emotion or inspiration. There was just nothing there. Absolutely lifeless delivery. One last whisper into the cold echoey cavern.
Trump seemed to prematurely deliver his closing remarks a few minutes earlier when he said he wished Biden was a good President so he didn’t have to be there; Biden will take us into World War III, etc. etc. When the actual time came, it seemed he had used up the better of his broad strokes, and he instead launched into odd very non-detailed and unrelated specifics - Iran, Israel, Ukraine, space age materials, signing a document they’ve been trying to get for 42 years, choice for our soldiers… what? What does any of it mean? Sure, he hit the underlying points a few times; Joe Biden has done nothing; Trump did a lot; he’ll do a lot again. But it was disjointed, and not even in the oft high energy way that he presents it. Basically, Trump said, “There’s a whole lot of this and that going on, which I’ll stop, and I’ll bring back a whole lot of this and that!” No cohesion. No coherence. One last shout into the cold echoey cavern.
And that about sums it up. Biden floundered and flopped - certainly the more consequential performance. If he inspired anything amongst his supporters it was pity and perhaps panic. Trump delivered a more subdued version of his usual string of hyperbolic statements and brags. Nothing of note, but adequate for his supporters. Almost nothing of real meaning was said by either candidate. Red CNN logos and icy cold white and blue; a big lonely cavern filled with cold air and disappointment. The Nation hangs its head and the World shudders. Good night, America. The Great Contest continues.