Politics
Where Is Donald Trump Going to Be in Five Years?
Will Leitch asks the question: Where is Donald Trump going to be in five years?
I find myself fascinated with that central question: Where will Donald Trump be in five years? The range of potential outcomes here as wide a range as any in American history. He could be in prison. He could also be the most powerful man on the planet and one of the most significant figures in world history. He also might just be sitting on a golf course eating cheeseburgers. It is more than a little concerning that the fate of the American experiment may rest on what happens over the next five years to a 76-year-old man from Queens. But it just might.Honestly, I prefer his last suggestion.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann is back, again, this time with a version of his old MSNBC show “Countdown,” in podcast form. He’s calling it… waitforit… Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Olbermann was the first talking-head-who-had-a-show that I watched regularly. It might have been because of his ESPN days, or I just liked how he looked at the news and then explained it in a way that made sense to me. I thought he was funny and an excellent interviewer.
This new podcast is the exact same show I remember every weekday morning. It has become the podcast I turn to at 6 am when I walk the dog. During that morning walk, I can almost finish an episode, and I’m fast-forwarding past the commercials and the dogs section.
Olbermann is quite good in this format. I know he has enough money to last a couple of lifetimes, so he has the time, but it seems like a lot of work to do this every week, let alone every weekday.
He’s way more entertaining than some of the other political-type podcasts I listened to in the past, so he has that going for him.
Go to Jail
It’s a good day for bad people to go to jail..
R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse case.
I can think of a few more that need to be indicted, convicted, and sentenced…
The Great Divergence
Ronald Brownstein, writing in The Atlantic, believes it might be time to start considering, in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, America as two separate countries entirely — maybe for good.
All of this is fueling what I’ve called “the great divergence” now under way between red and blue states. This divergence itself creates enormous strain on the country’s cohesion, but more and more even that looks like only a way station. What’s becoming clearer over time is that the Trump-era GOP is hoping to use its electoral dominance of the red states, the small-state bias in the Electoral College and the Senate, and the GOP-appointed majority on the Supreme Court to impose its economic and social model on the entire nation — with or without majority public support. As measured on fronts including the January 6 insurrection, the procession of Republican 2020 election deniers running for offices that would provide them with control over the 2024 electoral machinery, and the systematic advance of a Republican agenda by the Supreme Court, the underlying political question of the 2020s remains whether majority rule — and democracy as we’ve known it — can survive this offensive.
This divide is only going to get wider.
First, the justices who lied under oath regarding “settled law” should be impeached. If potential Supreme Court justices can lie under oath to members of Congress, the rule of law is finished.
I’m not hopeful regarding the midterm elections, and I’m not hopeful anyone involved in the attempted coup will be charged with anything.
Homelander is Just Donald Trump
Justin Carter, writing at Gizmodo, has a story I can’t quite believe.
You can say a lot of things about Amazon’sThe Boys, but you can’t exactly call it subtle. The show, based on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s acclaimed comics from Dynamite Entertainment, focuses on a group of corporate owned superheroes called The Seven, and a semi-covert group of average people named The Boys who’ve taken it upon themselves to kill the heroes. Across the show’s three seasons, it’s always been pretty upfront with the kind of satire it’s going for and who it tears down.
In the case of the show’s vengeful Superman-alike, Homelander (Anthony Starr), the show has said so many times in so many words that he was conceived as an analogue of former president Donald Trump. Season two even ended on him literally getting off to the idea of how much power he has over everyone else; and if that didn’t say it all, a cosplayer showing up as the character during a MAGA rally in 2020 would do the job. And should you have missed the text of the show, you’re in luck: showrunner Eric Kripke, Robertson, and even Starr himself have tried their damnedest to tell folks who Homelander really is.
Still, in case you need yet another reminder, Kripke discussed this in a recent interview with the Rolling Stone. He was upfront in saying that this season in particular was more direct in calling out the ex-president, and that the writing team really worked hard to drive that point across in comparison to the first two seasons. “He [Homelander] has this really combustible mix of complete weakness and insecurity,” said Kripke, “and just horrible power and ambition…Of course he would feel victimized that people are angry that he dated a Nazi.”
I find it utterly hilarious that people had to be told this…
Biden Is Too Old to Run for President
Mark Leibovich, writing in The Atlantic, outlines why President Biden shouldn’t run in 2024.
Let me put this bluntly: Joe Biden should not run for reelection in 2024. He is too old.
Biden will turn 80 on November 20. He will be 82 if and when he begins a second term. The numbers just keep getting more ridiculous from there. “It’s not the 82 that’s the problem. It’s the 86,” one swing voter said in a recent focus group, referring to the hypothetical age Biden would be at the end of that (very) hypothetical second term.
I’m afraid that’s correct. The real question is who should run? Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, or someone else?
They Think Their Hate Makes Them Special
John DeVore, writing at his site Humungus, explains the mind of the current Republican Party simply and without any pretension.
It is obvious that their plan to win back the House and Senate during the 2022 midterm elections is straight from their oldest playbook: preach prejudice, spread lies, and legitimize fears, no matter how irrational.
And here’s the crux of everything Republican today:
What is most galling about right-wingers, though, is how proud they are of their intolerance, as if it makes them special little snowflakes. They spit hatred at cis women and trans women and people of color and they do it with their noses in the air, all superior and haughty. They wear their bigotry like a gold star.
Their political strategies are morally offensive reruns from a past they should all be collectively ashamed of but they aren’t because winning is the sole goal, no matter the carnage. This retreat back to the old ways is a symptom of ideological rot — at the moment, conservatives believe in nothing but whatever gains them a short-term advantage on the TV, on social media, and at the ballot box.
And so they tell the faithful and those full of doubts that their fears are noble, righteous even. A white man in this country will sell out his neighbor if you nod approvingly as he explains one of his convoluted, paranoid conspiracy theories. “What’s that Mike? The Democrats are actually a secret Satanic sex cult? Sure!”
I’m so, so tired of this bullshit.
The Slap Trap Clap
Dave Pell, the managing editor of the Internet, has had enough:
A request from the managing editor to the internet I cover: Stop. Seriously, stop with the bothsidesing think-pieces about Will Smith’s slap. I’m sure Alopecia can be a traumatic condition, but this isn’t story about Alopecia. We’re not even sure Chris Rock knew about Jada’s condition, and even if he had, it’s still not an Alopecia story. It’s also not a race story. It’s not a toxic male story. There are not two sides to this story. Here’s the whole story: Will Smith snapped and slapped and the audience clapped. The guy starting whaling on someone in the middle of the Academy Awards. Jim Carrey summed it up: “I would have announced this morning that I was suing Will for $200 million because that video is going to be there forever. It’s going to be ubiquitous. That insult is going to last a very long time. I was sickened by the standing ovation. I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse. It really felt like: ‘Oh, this is really a clear indication that we’re not the cool club anymore.’” That’s it. Like the swelling on Chris Rock’s face, there’s only one side to this story. Jim Carrey got it right, and even though he’s famous for doing so, it’s the rest of the internet that’s talking out of its ass.
Now why would I bring this story up again, other than to whine about headlines that irritate news curators like me? Because this is an example of the same kind of asinine false equivalence that we’ve seen soil the media for the past several years. There were not two sides to Trump’s habitual lying. There are not two sides to the vaccine debate. There are not two sides to the potential upside of using disinfectant on the inside of your body. There are not two sides to the climate change debate. There are not two sides to the Jan 6 insurrection story. There are not two sides to the 2020 election results. Yesterday, Donald Trump requested that Vladimir Putin dig up and share dirt on Joe Biden’s family. At a time of war, that’s straight up treachery, the kind of anti-American garbage this criminal has been spewing for years. End of story.
Being unbiased does not mean giving lies the same weight as the truth. What you see and hear happening is what’s really happening, and it’s about time the media started reporting things that way, instead of making bad decisions like ABC ‘s hiring of Chris Christie or terrible ones like CBS News’ hiring of Mick Mulvaney as a paid contributor. Mick Mulvaney is what we call in the business, a stone cold liar. He once argued that Covid coverage was an attempt to bring down the president. And that’s just for starters. Why would this clown be hired by CBS News? So we can pretend that his bullshit side of the story is just as valid as the truth? Because maybe the Trumpian scumbags who did everything possible to destroy our country at home and abroad may have a perfectly valid reason for doing so? Because maybe Chris Rock’s face jumped in front of Will Smith’s hand?
Yeah. What he said.
I Need A New Butt
I have never heard of I Need a New Butt, but it sounds hilarious and perfectly appropriate for second graders.
A young boy suddenly notices a big problem — his butt has a huge crack! So he sets off to find a new one. Will he choose an armor-plated butt? A rocket butt? A robot butt? Find out in this quirky tale of a tail, which features hilarious rhymes and delightful illustrations. Children and parents will love this book — no ifs, ands, or butts about it!
Fun! Of course, the superintendent in Mississippi’s Hinds County School District took offense.
Maria Cramer and Isabella Grullón Paz, writing for the New York Times, explains how an assistant principal lost his job because he read it to children. Toby Price read the book to a group of second graders over Zoom … and lost his job.
Later that day, on March 2, the district superintendent, Delesicia Martin, called him into her office and told him he was on administrative leave, Mr. Price said. He was fired two days later, accused of violating the standards of conduct section of the Mississippi Educator Code of Ethics.
In a letter to Mr. Price, the superintendent called the book “inappropriate.” She particularly took issue with the references to farting in the story and how “the book described butts in various colors, shapes and sizes (example: fireproof, bullet proof, bomb proof).” Ms. Martin called Mr. Price “unprofessional” for having selected the book.
Delesicia Martin, the superintendent, should be fired. Immediately. There’s even a change.org petition.
No child or parent complained. The superintendent was worried someone might complain. Unbelievable.
This is one of the hundreds of reasons why the Mississippi education system rates 47 out of 50. I hope Mr. Price gets plenty of job offers to educate young minds where he is appreciated.
How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal?
Ed Yong, writing for The Atlantic, examines the distinct lack of societal change that is occurring after millions have died and nearly a million alone in just the United States.
He starts and doesn’t let up:
The United States reported more deaths from COVID-19 last Friday than deaths from Hurricane Katrina, more on any two recent weekdays than deaths during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more last month than deaths from flu in a bad season, and more in two years than deaths from HIV during the four decades of the AIDS epidemic. At least 953,000 Americans have died from COVID, and the true toll is likely even higher because many deaths went uncounted. COVID is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after only heart disease and cancer, which are both catchall terms for many distinct diseases. The sheer scale of the tragedy strains the moral imagination. On May 24, 2020, as the United States passed 100,000 recorded deaths, The New York Times filled its front page with the names of the dead, describing their loss as “incalculable.” Now the nation hurtles toward a milestone of 1 million. What is 10 times incalculable?
The whole thing paints a sad portrait of America.
Russia Begins Large-scale Invasion of Ukraine
Russia has invaded Ukraine. So far, this has been a conventional war with shelling and missile strikes.
I think this is the first major European war in which one country has invaded another with the intent of permanently taking its territory since World War II. Chilling stuff.
The New York Times has a continually updated breakdown of what’s happening.
Also, don’t forget Ukraine was at the center of the second impeachment of Donald Trump, which he only survived because Republicans could not be seen voting against the sitting President and also the reason Paul Manafort went to jail. Of course, Trump praised Putin’s “savvy” invasion. What a sniveling lapdog.
Probably the best reason Ukraine was invaded was to try and stop the country from joining NATO . As you might already know, dear reader, when one NATO country is attacked, ALL NATO countries are attacked, and we’d be knee-deep in World War III.
It still might come to that.
Tennessee School Board Removes Holocaust Graphic Novel Maus From Its Curriculum
Rob Bricken, writing for Gizmodo, outlines the short-sighted school board's decision to remove Maus from its middle-school curriculum.
As reports, the 10-member board voted-unanimously-to remove Maus from its eighth-grade literary curriculum because of its “objectionable language” and nudity back on January 10, despite arguments from instructional supervisors. But clearly, the content of the series was also in the board’s collective minds. According to the minutes of the meeting, board member Tony Allman said, “We don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff. It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy.”
Why promote Maus? Because the Holocaust was real, and it’s incredibly important that everyone learn about it and no one forgets it. What makes Maus such a special way to teach this to young teens is two-fold. First, by depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, it makes the narrative just unreal enough that it can be processed by young readers while still faithfully depicting the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. Second, the story is wholly authentic- Maus is not only Art Spiegelman’s autobiography of his talks with his father Vladek about the latter’s experiences in World War II, but it’s also a biography of his father, visually depicting his life before, during, and after his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp. That nudity, by the way, comes from a lone panel of Art’s mother Anja, who committed suicide by cutting her wrists in a bathtub in 1968. It couldn’t be less salacious.
They purposely don’t get it. They don’t want to understand it. They don’t comprehend the reality or emotional weight of anti-Semitism or the Holocaust. They won’t stop pulling it from the curriculum. They will want it out of the school library and then the public library, pushing for an outright ban of the book.
We need stories like Maus. Personal, uncomfortable stories that drive home how evil becomes commonplace and how easy it is to dehumanize an entire people based on arbitrary characteristics.
Also, the nudity in question is “mouse nudity,” so come off your high horse, Mr. Allman.
UPDATE: Of course, sales soar for Maus after its banning in Tennessee.
The Pattern
Dave Pell took a story about Ben Affleck, his marriage, and drinking and turned it into a treatise on how the media screws up stories. You should read his assessment of the Affleck kerfuffle, but more importantly, why his explanation and description of the reports fall right in line with the dumbest shit, the media did and does with Trump.
Why would I waste this space on a salacious Hollywood story? Because this is the exact same pattern we’ve seen play out on much more important stories from the beginning of the Trump era through the present. A false statement gets made. The headlines feature that false statement. That statement spreads. Social media chimes in. The false statement is challenged. And the headlines change to account for that challenge. But the focus of the story, and the social media discussion around it, is still on the initial falsehood.
Clickbait headlines are only there for clicks. The real story is immaterial.
I want to be informed and pay attention to what is going on and ignore fake news and clickbait on the internet. Still, it is becoming increasingly impossible to vet reliable sources.
I think I’m going to start really culling my information intake. Wish me luck.
Seriously, You Can Still Ignore Trump
Will Leitch on Trump:
I’ve enjoyed the last 10 months of not having Trump barge his way into every conversation I’ve had about anything, whether it was sports, movies, music, food, whatever. Trump’s signature skill is turning every conversation into a conversation about him: He may be as good at that as anyone has ever been at anything. But his ability to do so has dwindled considerably since he left office and was kicked off social media platforms (you may remember this happening, it was because of that whole “inciting an insurrection” business), and it has not, personally, been unpleasant. Having Trump less a part of public life is like having a long, emotionally abusive relationship end: It’s as if we had forgotten that life wasn’t always like this, and didn’t have to be moving forward.
My wife and I were talking about this very thing. I had not “seriously” thought about this orange clown in months. And then he shows up at the World Series, does the racist chop cheer, and people are talking about his stupid smirk and his wife (who obviously isn’t getting paid enough).
I know the answer is not to give him any oxygen. This is about all I’m going to give.
Go away. Nobody likes you.
The Bill Maher Prediction
Bill Maher on his program, Real Time, said the following: “Here’s the easiest three predictions in the world. Trump will run in 2024. He will get the Republican nomination. And whatever happens on election night, the next day he will announce that he won.”
The clip is getting some traction around the internet.
I think he’s wrong.
His belief that it doesn’t matter who runs as the candidate for the Democrats is wrong. It will matter a great deal. I could not accurately predict who it might be, but it absolutely matters.
Also, the American people already voted for the Jesse Camp of the political world instead of the Dave Holmes. They aren’t going to do it again.
Could there be some sort of coup more successful than the one that sorta kinda happened in January? I don’t think so. We learned.
There will never be another successful hijacking of an American passenger jet because everyone knows what to do. There will never be a successful coup because everyone knows what to do.
Parents Are Not Okay
Dan Sinker, writing for The Atlantic, focuses on how everything about Covid-19, politics and the public school systems have broken parents all across the country.
Instead it was a year in limbo: school on stuttering Zoom, school in person and then back home again for quarantine, school all the time and none of the time. No part of it was good, for kids or parents, but most parts of it were safe, and somehow, impossibly, we made it through a full year. It was hell, but we did it. We did it.
Time collapsed and it was summer again, and, briefly, things looked better. We began to dream of normalcy, of trips and jobs and school. But 2021’s hot vax summer only truly delivered on the hot part, as vaccination rates slowed and the Delta variant cut through some states with the brutal efficiency of the wildfires that decimated others. It happened in a flash: It was good, then it was bad, then we were right back in the same nightmare we’d been living in for 18 months.
And suddenly now it’s back to school while cases are rising, back to school while masks are a battleground, back to school while everyone under 12 is still unvaccinated. Parents are living a repeat of the worst year of their lives-except this time, no matter what, kids are going back.
Even with college-age and older kids, my wife and I are struggling with trying to keep the kids (and family and friends) safe from Covid-19 while balancing the social and emotional wellbeing of everyone concerned. Plus, you know, navigating our jobs and figuring out dinner and whatnot.
We have help and resources. I can’t imagine what it is like for parents who don’t.
Most of 2020 and a large chunk of 2021 are going to be traumatizing for kids for decades.
How Sad, No One Wants To F**k Trump Supporters
John DeVore, writing on his site Humungus, mentions how college-age women don’t want to date Republicans. Apparently, a think-tank writer named Eric Kaufman wrote an essay in The National Review this week that postulated “conservatives need to make more babies or risk securing a future for white, Trump-supporting children.”
Kaufman sees a future where an all-powerful liberal majority crushes conservatives underfoot, like a terminator cyborg stomping a human skull. He suggests, somehow, that liberals are a rising evil empire and ignores that Trump-supporters are, first and foremost, uncompromising. They refuse to debate. They long to torment and mock and ‘own the libs.’ They are proud of their refusal to hear what other people have to say.
Even if I were to meet a charming, attractive Trump-supporter who I wanted to get to know romantically, we would be doomed to fail because their entire political identity is based on being an intolerant asshole who doesn’t care what you think.
Look, I live with a college-age woman, and she has already figured out that Trump supporters are assholes who deserve to be avoided, shamed, and shunned. My step-daughter is far smarter about race, sexual orientation, and politics than I ever was at her age. Like The Who said, “the kids are alright.” It’s the aging conservative population that’s in real trouble. Being a Trumpist is a comfortable delusion. It is madness. It is unreality. It is dangerous.
I fear what DeVore fears: young men who think they are “owed” things.
The only thing Kaufman doesn’t do is threaten to weaponize horny young men, but that’s coming soon. There will be more political violence, and the tip of that spear will be young conservative men manipulated by older think tank intellectuals into believing they are owed power, and money, and sex.
Preposterous.
Rudy Giuliani Should Delete His Account
Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing tells the story of fatfingered Rudy Giuliani:
Rudy Giuliani fatfingered a tweet last week and inadvertently referenced a nonexistent URL (G-20.in); some clever wag registered the URL and stood up a static landing page that reads “Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country.”Now, Giuliani has taken to the intertubes again to upbraid Twitter (and Time Magazine!) for his stupid mistake, tweeting “Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message. The same thing-period no space-occurred later and it didn’t happen. Don’t tell me they are not committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers. Time Magazine also may fit that description. FAIRNESS PLEASE.”
He’s wrong, of course.
Look, not everyone understands how the internet works. However, someone should have told Rudy how incredibly moronic he sounds here. Remember everyone, this is the personal lawyer of the President of the United States.
What American Hears When the Press Makes Fun of the Way the President Eats
Annaliese Griffin, writing for Quartz, makes an interesting case regarding the whole “feed the Clemson Tigers room temperature fast food” fiasco.
She postulates that when publications such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic make fun of Trump’s culinary choices, it comes across as elitist. Consequently, if you like steak well done with ketchup, burrito bowls, and Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, you have no taste, too, just like the President.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying fast food, but this was a celebration at the White House. It’s not like he doesn’t own a hotel with, I’m sure, a world-class restaurant just down the road that couldn’t have catered the meal.
Trump hates formal dinners and this was his way of thumbing his nose at the very thought of being a decent host.
Trump buying McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and the like for a celebration at the White House is classless. It’s classless because Trump has no class. Even if he was trying to “connect with the young people,” he isn’t culturally savvy enough to even order In and Out Burger, Shake Shack or Popeye’s. The whole thing was a photo-op to show his supporters he’s “one of them” and the Clemson Tigers were no more props than cold fries on a silver platter.