Amazing what happens when you help turn a monster into a star The Washington Post reports on the befuddlement of the former Trump administration figures who have revealed his ignorance and corruption who can’t figure out why he’s still so popular with the base: John F. Kelly, the longest-serving chief of staff in President Donald Trump’s White House, watches Trump dominate the GOP primary with increasing despair. “What’s going on in the country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he’s said the things he’s said and done the things he’s done?” Kelly said in a recent interview. “It’s beyond my comprehension he has the support he has.” Kelly, a retired four-star general, said he didn’t know what to do — or what he could do — to help people see it his way. “I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce. You had his attorney general Bill Barr come out, and not a half a day’s bounce. If anything, his numbers go up. It might even move the needle in the wrong direction.
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He has to joke about it. And he should do it a lot.
Please. I’m begging you. I’m hearing a LOT of talk on social media saying that people cannot possibly ever vote for Biden because of his position on Gaza and his alleged failure to erase all the student loans. When questioned they say it won’t be their fault if Trump is elected because Biden refused to do what they want him to do. Yes, we’ve been here before. I’ve had these arguments before, particularly in 2000 and 2016 when we all saw what was coming, But the consequences were never as clear or as horrifying as they are now. He’s a fascist and he’s learned that he can get other fascists to help him. Here’s just one example that should make everyone’s hair stand on end: Sure, you can write this off as a wingnut hyperbole. But they are drawing up plans. And the entire GOP establishment is complicit in the planning. You don’t even want to know what he plans to do with climate change and guns.
There was a piece in the Washington Post this weekend about a group of swing voters in Wisconsin who are sick of our politics and are tuning out because they just can’t stand it. Ok, I can understand that. They are horrible and it’s because the right has turned our politics into a disgusting blood sport and it’s very hard to stay engaged without getting cynical and depressed, But that’s not how these swing voters interpret their ennui. In fact, they don’t seem to see the effect that Trump and his cult are having at all and blame it all on “politics.” David Roberts had a short tweet thread on this that I thought hit the nail on the head: This article is worth examining closely. It’s a classic “visit a swing county to hear about politics” piece, so it forces itself to be even-handed & “pox on both houses,” but if you read closely you can glimpse something else. Why are they upset?
“Parkinson’s disease sucks” It’s heartening to see people who still believe in public service as a vocation. A neighbor spent his career in international development. My state representative served first in the Peace Corps. I recently met a couple who retired here after careers as Foreign Service officers. Donald Trump calls Washington, D.C. a swamp and people eat it up in part because guys like George Santos and Bob Menendez give public service a bad name. (Even though there’s some “both sides” to that, political corruption and faithlessness does seem to have a right-wing bias.) Yet some people still believe. They’re not the ones who become notorious in the press. CBS this morning profiles Virginia congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D). Wexton comes from a family of public servants. She’s afflicted with a rare disease, yet forgoes some speech and physical therapy to keep serving her consituents: Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, as Wexton said, has no cure. At this time, there is no treatment that will slow its progression, and it tends not to respond to medication, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The work is never finished I am reminded. Full quotation: It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Michael Beschloss will be along presently. The anniversary brings to mind something related to Gettysburg that I wrote for Dirty Hippies in 2011, “The Future They Feared”: We were sitting in a Waffle House in Staunton, Virginia discussing the state of the nation over breakfast. I had just read an Ed Kilgore column in Salon about the nationwide Republican war on voting rights, and the conservative debate over whether voting is even a right or not. As I am standing in line to pay my tab, a African-American man in his forties slides into an occupied booth next to the register and sits opposite an older white man.
Just thought you should know. And plan accordingly.
Kevin Drum wrote a post that reminded me that I need to avoid social media right now like the plague — and should probably ignore stories about social media too. His very wise post about a story I posted yesterday is much more reasoned than mine was. Here’s the latest trend story from the New York Times. It’s about—God help us—”TikTok economics”: This is the most tiresome thing ever. When are newspapers going to learn the obvious: social media doesn’t represent anything in the real world? I mean, how likely are you to post a TikTok about how your life is fine and everything is pretty good? Not very. That’s just the nature of H. sapiens, who love to performatively gripe and complain a lot more than we like to performatively say that things are OK. The way to account for this bias is to actually ask people how they feel. Then you’ll get equal responses from everyone.
I don’t know if you’ve heard about Elon Musk’s raging antisemitism but it’s causing Xitter to lose massive numbers of advertisers and even more people are leaving the platform because of it. Here’s the basic outline of what happened: The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people … Screw your optics, I’m going in.” Those were the last words posted online by Robert Bowers before he massacred worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. It was the single deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. In previous postings, Bowers explained the grievances that led him to commit mass murder. He shared meme after meme asserting that Jews were conspiring to flood the country with brown people in order to oppose and displace the white race. “Open you Eyes!” declared one. “It’s the filthy EVIL jews Bringing the Filthy EVIL Muslims into the Country!” On Wednesday night, the world’s wealthiest man affirmed this same conspiracy theory on X, formerly Twitter, the social-media site he owns.
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, a passionate champion of mental health, caregiving, and women’s rights, passed away Sunday, Nov. 19, at 2:10 p.m. at her home in Plains, Georgia, at the age of 96. She died peacefully, with family by her side. Mrs. Carter was married for 77 years to Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who is now 99 years old. “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” President Carter said. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.” She is survived by her children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy — and 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. A grandson died in 2015. “Besides being a loving mother and extraordinary First Lady, my mother was a great humanitarian in her own right,” said Chip Carter. “Her life of service and compassion was an example for all Americans.