Democracy Dies In Dampness; Plus,
Whisky Pete is the guy; and the pro-wrestling presidency
Democracy Dies In Dampness
The Washington Post last week killed an unflattering cartoon featuring Post owner Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, LA Times owner and pharma billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, and Mickey Mouse (representing the C-suite at Disney) all paying tribute to a monstrous Trump. The cartoonist, Pulitzer winner Anne Telnaes, resigned in response, and wrote about it here, along with posting the rejected draft of the cartoon.
Democracy Dies in Darkness was always at best a laughably pretentious slogan. The Post inaugurated it a few weeks after chief justice John Roberts inaugurated Trump, following two years of blown 2016 election coverage which contributed to Trump’s victory. (Not as much as other factors, such as Democrats running Clinton or Barack Obama’s egregiously stupid appointment of James Comey to run the FBI; still and all.) Only the NYT did more to normalize Trump, or offered up more egregious both-sidesing.
It was if the paper’s masthead were saying, okay, now we’re serious. Spiking the Harris endorsement and now the Telnaes cartoon are only the most obvious recent signs from the new masthead that they’re taking the slogan for what it was always worth. Nevertheless, they’re still giving it pride of place beneath the logo.
Whisky Pete’s The Guy
Yesterday’s confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he’s qualified to run the Pentagon; he’s not. He’s not even qualified to run his mouth although he doesn’t know it. Dunning-Kruger. Anyway: it was never about him, only about how the few GOP senators mistakenly represented by the press to possess a shred of integrity would find a way to endorse him. He may lose a couple votes once they get to 50, but he’s the guy.
Markwayne Joebob Nutjob Dieselfumes Mullin, who is unbelievably a senator from anywhere, went on CNN after the hearing to argue that if the senate’s functional alcoholics can do their jobs, there’s no reason to think Whisky Pete can’t do his. ‘Cause Whisky Pete’s the guy.
Pam Bondi’s The Guy
Today’s judiciary committee hearing features Pam Bondi, an utterly corrupt creature of Trump who is our next Attorney General. The New York Times ran an op-ed by presumably sentient former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, titled “The Perplexing Case of Pam Bondi.”
Here’s what Honig is unsure about: Yeah, Bondi maybe took a bribe to drop an investigation into Trump’s “university” as Florida AG; sure, she spent a year plotting to overturn the 2020 election and still refuses to say that Biden won; and okay, she says Trump’s political opponents and prosecutors who built cases against him should be persecuted; but does that mean her own years of prosecutorial experience count for nought? It’s fucking PERPLEXING, is what it is. Bondi’s The Guy.
The New York Fucking Times; fucking hell. Democracy Dies In Dipshittery.
Oh No! Trump Takes A Folding Chair To The Head!
I think I understand why a lot of people refuse to understand the part of Trump’s appeal that relates to pro wrestling. (It’s because they utterly despise him.) But hero or heel, the thing where he gets up off the mat after taking the folding chair to the head (various prosecutions and the mean things people say about him and anything else that seems unfair to the fans) is crack to the junkies. He can be hurt but he can’t be stopped.
One of the most powerful political images I’ve ever seen is AP photographer Evan Vucci’s photo of Trump immediately after whatever happened to him in Pennsylvania happened. He’s looming over the Secret Service agents trying to hustle him to safety, literally bloody but unbowed, fist upraised, American flag in the background, shouting “fight, fight, fight!”
I mean, you could not script that better, and I’ve no doubt it won him some votes. Of course Republicans went and wrecked the imagery by wearing cotton batting on their ears at the convention, but nobody was voting for those goofballs anyway. You got the fans who think he was anointed by roid rage Jesus, and you got the fans who love how no transgression is enough to keep him down—gives them hope for themselves, like Steinbeck may have sort of said about broke-ass Americans thinking of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, only with the add fillip of being temporarily embarrassed drunkards (Whisky Pete’s The Guy!) bigots and cat-haters—and you got the fans who think he’s the greatest walk-on heel of all time.
And he’s not unaware of any of this. He’s an ignorant sonofabitch, but he understands pro wrestling and reality teevee and evidently that’s all one needs to win two out of three presidential falls.
Still, you have to be at best a really disappointing human to have voted for him.
Music
Jack D. turned me on to Bobby Lewis, No Expiration Date (“Tilt-A-Whirl”); while I was looking up that Bobby Lewis, I came across the quite different Bobby Lewis I remembered, singing “Tossin’ and Turnin’” from his album of that name; Beabadoobee, This Is How Tomorrow Moves (“Take a Bite”); Adrianne Lenker, Bright Future (“Vampire Empire” and other tunes).
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Be well; take care.
Hesgeth is going to be approved. Just one more reason why we should give up all hope, drink more whiskey, and consider the American experiment to be an abject failure.
What's going down now can't be stopped until the midterms at the earliest. While criticizing the "mainstream" press for their treatment of Trump leading up to the election is fair, I can't help but think that they didn't have a lot to do with Trump's winning. The overwhelming majority of Trump's voter don't read them (in my opinion). The question that perplexes me is how to reach those voters of the "What's the Matter with Kansas" variety who elect him and his MAGA congressional supporters. Pretty tough to persuade anyone who isn't paying any attention to you. Gotta sit down with Joe Rogan? Maybe so but that's probably not enough. We're not talking complex political rhetoric here. More like, hey, did you know bird flu, not the administration, is causing the price of eggs?