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The Roganing

In 2020, Joe Rogan did an episode of his podcast, a 5 hour conversation with Alex Jones. In 2015, he did an interview with Milo Yiannopoulos. 

They are among 42 episodes that - surprise! - vanished from the collection when Spotify paid over $100 million to Rogan for rights to his podcasts.

Keep that in mind when Spotify acts shocked to discover that Rogan might be doing things which are... controversial.

Rogan is sort of emblematic of the hard road many ambitious folks have in show business. A modestly successful comedian and entertainer, Rogan had a small role on the series NewsRadio in the nineties, a somewhat longer gig hosting Fear Factor on NBC, and some niche success as a standup comic - it's hard to quantify success with comics these days, in part because while they may do well enough playing the 2nd or 3rd largest club in Phoenix, the streaming service level of desperation for comic content provides many opportunities to be filmed.

I'm not trying to minimize his success, but as careers go, it may not have been the kind of thing you planned on when you started out.

I mention all of this because Rogan has always been something of a specific draw - not so much a runaway success as a solid, reasonably well liked genre specific star, that genre being a sort of scruffy, working guy icon, with some appeal in his own demographic of 25-54 white guys (hence the added gigs hosting, say, MMA fights on tv), but not necessarily a lot outside of that.

There's a defense of Rogan's podcasts - I'm getting to them - that insists that critics are attacking Rogan's audience, a putdown of all white men wrapped in the takedown of a widely followed (perhaps even wildly liked, though I'm not clear on what that even means) podcast. So let's be clear: I don't blame the audience.

The problem with the podcast is Rogan himself.

Rogan hosts the podcast much the way one would expect for a middle aged comic/reality show host to do (don't take my word for it - watch Andy Cohen) - bring up a topic, bring out a guest or two, ask some questions, bing bang boom, you've got a podcast. Get in the game early enough, promote the hell out of yourself, grab some ziz by mouthing off a few times... and you too could be sitting on the podcast that attracts millions.

But you're late and you don't, and that's kind of the point: what Rogan's doing isn't genius, or even especially hard. It isn't, really, all that different from his overall career. It just happens to be the platform where he's managed to achieve the most reach, ever, of his - again, not being critical - modest success of a career. That's what Spotify paid $100 million for. It's also why we have a little bit of a problem.

The problem, really, is Rogan's minimalist approach to hosting and topics. The whole shtick, really is "I don't know a lot about this, let's talk to someone who does" and it has, as a rising total of pulled podcasts demonstrates, led to Rogan blithely allowing quacks, frauds, Nazis and racists to share, uncontested, questionable information and views which turn out to be, inaccurate, invalid, or simply too much. It has allowed Rogan himself to casually offer up insulting slang as, one supposes, he probably thought was no big deal in smaller setttings. It's a predictable problem that could have occurred to Spotify prior to purchase had Spotify's billionaire owner seen himself (who does, these days) as not just a pass through to audiences but a content provider with a role in determining the quality of the content.

The bottom line point - and it's breathtakingly obvious - is Rogan needs an editor. A supervising producer. Someone, really, whose job exists to plan content, research guests, help prepare the host with questions, and identify potential potholes. It's the way GOOP needed actual medical advisors to point out that jade eggs might cause serious health problems inserted into your cooch. 

This isn't hard. It's not world ending or anti-white guy to point out, in passing, that unsupervised, unmoderated Joe Rogan just spitballing on an interesting topic is likely to be what it, well, is: inaccurate, embarrassing, tactless, even offensive and dangerous. It's the problem created by social media where we all just assume we can do the same thing Chuck Todd does for NBC with a budget, a staff, and a Senior Producer. Content creation is hard, it needs structure and it needs, desperately, expertise. The alternative, as the Roganing of our discourse demonstrates, is a messy, often inaccurate, frequently maddening morass of dubious vitamin cures, "i'm no expert but" opinionating, and a lot of, as it turns out, dangerous misinformation.

It's not the audience, and, I'll say it... the problem ultimately isn't necessarily Joe Rogan - though I do think, as a grown person, it's fair to ask why "maybe I don't know a lot about this and should consult people who do" isn't simply a reasonable expectation of those who wish a central role in our discourse. But, hey, that's me. What I do know is, at some point, Spotify has to move to rein in the free for all of its podcasting plans, or continue, as Rogan demonstrated, to reap the whirlwind of every loose comment and off the cuff rant. Our discourse could use grown ups. And "I hate grown ups" looks fine on a college comic at an open mic... but it may be time for Joe Rogan to think about what maturing means.

Gavin Newsom's Electric Kool Aid Recall Test

One of Gavin Newsom's biggest flaws - which, I suspect, will turn out to be key to this California recall vote - is that he has been, up to now, one of the more generically forgettable politicians of his time. Vaguely handsome, absolutely unmemorable, Newsom has casually coasted through success on the Left Coast by being less visibly flaky than Jerry Brown while catering to the needs of the deeply progressive base of California's Democrats... and somehow, leaving next to no trace of mostly being there at all.

Quick - quote me a memorable Newsom speech.

Newsom works best, as politicians do, by never being too risky, and it largely paid off. Even when he had to get tough during the pandemic, for much of it he was acting in the shadow of Andrew Cuomo and Jay Inslee - Inslee because Washington state got hit first, and Cuomo as New York got hit harder. Newsom probably needed to respond sooner and more forcefully, but his failures on that score were subsumed by the ultimate scale of the pandemic, and more than most, he was able to have the kind of success you can only have when every level of government in the state largely falls in line and works for the same goals.

But one fancy dinner at French Laundry, and a restive population that has long equated their state with breezy openness, and Newsom looked a bit, well, cavalier. Decisions about reopening were bound to be complex, but Newsom embodied the "Do as I say, not as I do" hypocrisy that, frankly, has become a struggle for almost all of us who care about public health. When to unmask, when to go back to restaurants... our choices have been a confused mix of Listening to Science and Deciding to Do It Anyway.  It's worth noting, for instance, no one involved in the French Laundry episode got sick. But that just kind of underscores the "well, why do we have to isolate so much" aspect of all our conversations, these days.

Recalling Newsom took on a life of its own once national conservatives and Fox News decided Newsom was weak enough to be beatable... whether that ultimately pans out is still a tossup of sorts, but so far, that choice looks ham handed, at best. Newsom has run a generally low key, below the radar effort to lock down a no vote on recall (from choosing an obscure September date to do it to quietly enlisting the known liberal universe to stump for him). So far, that seems to be working: polls have "no" consistently beating "yes" on recall, and while turnout is as low as expected, it's not clear that Republicans in CA have overcome their built in disadvantages to get anywhere near where they would need to be to succeed.

Partly, that's because the California GOP remains in tatters: lack of statewide leadership, indeed, any clear leadership of any kind, has been the hallmark of this effort. Driven by faceless pressure group interests, the Recall zombie walked right up to its signature deadline not knowing if they'd hit it. Once they did, no one emerged as a real potential hopeful to replace Newsom. The largely hilarious failure of Caitlyn Jenner to work up more than a vanity driven, reality show style of a campaign hurt considerably. And at this point, the GOP hopes rest on Larry Elder, a fringe-y outsider with loads of bad baggage and no real sense of what it would take to govern the largest state.

Yes, the prospect of Elder should scare people... but that, too, just plays effectively to Newsom's shambling "oh no, I'm in danger" approach to the whole thing. Everyone's worried, democrats are terrified... and yet, Newsom still has spent much of this recall campaign largely low key, barely in public, trying less to draw attention than to avoid it. That's probably, from a political strategy standpoint, the smart play: Elder flails especially for lack of a true foil, and conservative news outlet struggle to give the whole recall enterprise a sense of real urgency. Still, as I said from the start, Newsom's generic blandness has been his secret weapon all along, as well as his Achilles' heel. He will likely survive a recall... but it's hardly the most inspiring effort anyone has ever seen... and that's partly why he struggles to be seen positively at all.

A smarter, saner Republican party - or a less crazy conservative movement, at least - would probably have seen the Recall for the fool's errand it's turning out to be. Newsom isn't a political superstar... but he's also no abject failure a la Grey Davis, either. And again, frankly, Republicans have no secret Arnold Schwarzeneggar this time to swallow up the celebrity oxygen, either. No, this is just another flaky, only-in-California moment that underscores both the fecklessness of the public and the confused panda notions of what passes for state government in the Golden State. Tightening the recall process, really facing up to the state's internal issues... these are probably the real lessons of what is, and isn't happening with this Recall, and why. But seeing that would require seeing past the electric circus mentality of national conservatives, flailing through the initial moments of post Trump existence with no real sense of who they are, what they want, or how even to start. Gavin Newsom, even in their equation, is a handsome, generic detail. One widely disseminated dinner party does not a revolution make.

And sure, there may be more recalls (though most states have much higher barriers to them) and more falderal from the far right now that desperation has long since taken over good sense. But failing to oust Newsom is, well, failure. If conservatives can't turn their fanciful, ginned up narratives into political success - and so far, it's not looking great on most fronts - that's just another proof that their marginalization is more real, and less scary than as has been over advertised since the failed "insurrection" of January sixth. The foolishness is not pointing out how absurd, wasteful and dangerous conservatism has become... but how we imbue it with more power than it actually has, more triple A batteries in a flashlight than full on electric klieg lights. And if you can't beat Gavin Newsom with a flashlight... just how badass are you, really?

This Tired Old Man They Elected King

Since the arrival of the initial indictments in New York, I think the conversation around Trump has shifted. Not that he doesn't still have that well of support amongst the sycophants... but the understanding of what that fan base is (and isn't)... maybe, just maybe, is coming into focus.

DC media, with it's instinctive "who's up, who's down" mindset, doesn't quite get this... but right now, the problem is less about Trump, per se, and more about why his fans were drawn to him to begin with, and what they will do if he's (forcibly) removed from the stage.

One of the biggest misunderstandings of Trump's popularity, I'm convinced, is thinking his fans elected him President as defined by our Constitution or taught in Civics. Because the people who voted in that popularity contest (whether 2016 or 2020) weren't picking the head of our Executive Branch... they were electing something more like "Prom King" or "Favorite TV Host" or America's next MMA star... one of those.

And, as you might guess, those roles don't have a lot of definition around them.

It's not that "Trump thinks he'll be reinstated in August" was bonkers, or that Trump believes it; the problem is, still, no one seems to quite know what to do about it.

Just look at Mike Pence, who trotted out something to the effect of "reasonable can disagree" or... what was it? "we may never see eye to eye"? Pence would apparently like to suggest that he represents the sensible middle between normal government and bonkers crazypants world.... but that's not a middle, never mind anyplace real. The fact that Pence, hilariously, thinks that he can bridge the distance between non Trump Republicans and the "Hang Mike Pence" crowd - we may never see eye to eye, what with you hanging from the tree like that - is perhaps just the perfect cherry on top of the ludicrous sundae of Republican failures to do anything about Trump since he lost reelection.

They can't, of course: that would involve a return to a kind of sanity that's long gone in the discussion of Trump, conservatism, or our current Right Wing. You can't "do something" about Trump any more than you can advocate a sensible vaccine policy, question the Critical Race Theater, or stop Marjorie Taylor Greene. Tug on the threads of crazy that make up this useless tapestry... and the whole thing just unravels.

We get lost, I think, too much in asking whether the blind eye Republicans seem to have about taking on Trump is calculated opportunism or blind fear of his fans... because the reason really doesn't matter. Whether Trump can or will marshal his fan base to turn out in GOP primaries and punish naysayers (say, Liz Cheney) is still no excuse; and sure, the folks who raise money and cheerfully pass along his lies knowing they're untrue is gross (never mind the remaining contingent of true believer sycophants). But really, no one needs proof the Republican party, the wider conservative movement or the nutty world of QAnon is bankrupt morally, out of ideas and running on sheer desperation. The question is... when we get to August, and the lies are revealed (if not, you know, next week)... what difference will even that make? And if not August, what month? Does that matter either?

It makes no difference because, in no small part, we are watching the doings in a land where they don't have a President... they have a King. And sure, the crown is just some spray painted foil, and the Kingdom is whatever the view he's surveying from the absurd Mansion McCastle he's calling home - he's king of all he surveys, and what he sees on TV. And sure, that kingdom is a lot smaller since he was deposed... but the struggle now is the lingering collection of misunderstandings and lies. It's the way angry conservatives expect governance to happen by fiat. It's that anger itself, really - that education policy can be run by the angry mob, that "law and order" can simplified to police vs an angry mob of minorities... but ignore any angry white mob, say, invading our nation's capital.

Even now, as the GOP tries to sideline Trump - generally with no idea as to how - the real problem is clearer: maybe, perhaps, you can remove The King... but that just leaves a restless crowd all too eager to  hand over that crown to the next opportunist. The hesitancy within the right around autocrats and authoritarians is both how we got here and why they're stuck. Without a wholesale rethinking and reorientation to the truly American ideals - of consensus, collaboration, the values of a democratic republic - the core of the right floats further away from both reality and any real shot at redemption. Sure, there are risks to our way of life and our government that we must stand up to... still, what we may be witnessing, more to their point, is the death march to a dead end.

The teetering tower of ever piling up bs apparently hasn't reached a jenga-like moment of toppling over... but we sure look close. Trump is months, if not days or weeks, from a legal reckoning that could make a lot of his plans moot. So too, are the fates of a number of Trump hangers-on facing legal results over, say, those frivolous election lawsuits. Arizona's recount soldiers on, unlikely to give anything like the results long promised. The natives are getting restless - and pandering to ugly racist tropes while deliberately encouraging deadly myths about vaccines and public health is playing with a kind of fire  that many will regret sooner rather than later. Offer up your best excuses... but conservatives are at the end of their innocence in many ways. Your land without a King, your King without a crown... wait til they find out this land... isn't their land, after all.

Nothing Matters. What If It Did?

This isn't a post about statistics or polling or necessarily hard evidence. It's just a feeling. And Feelings, as they say, are not facts. But stay with me on this one. Just for a minute.

On January 6th we watched a wild insurrection unfold at the Capitol. Many of us had been watching both the Congressional exercise of certifying the election, possibly in tandem with the "rally" being held on the mall, near the White House. Eventually, the rally became a "march on the Capital, and then the Capital became a mob scene... but throughout, there was an air of unseriousness. Crazy outfits, flags, people who seemed unclear why they were there or what they were even doing. I'm not trying to suggest there wasn't sinister intent. Just that some of it was, well, ridiculous.

Later, of  course, as we saw pictures from inside, we saw more of this. The guy with the antler horns headdress. The guys with painted faces. The frat party antics, albeit, violent out of control party antics. Yelling incoherently. Some more intent on stealing a lectern than making a statement. Pissing on statues.  Or making statements like "Stop the Steal" with no real indication they knew how or who to stop.

We treat the Trumpist right as a serious threat, and obviously, some are. Some of them are, clearly, true
believers, engaged with a dangerous lie fed to them by a corrupt, lying criminal enterprise, led by a failed real estate magnate desperate for attention and fame.

But some of these Trumpist folks are the guy with the antlers. And we really should ask why we're taking that just as seriously.

Lurking within the hard right is a group of folks - mainly middle aged or younger white men, some women - who really don't take any of this seriously. Who are enjoying the performative street theater of Trump rallies and the politics of the last 4 years because they like the show. They like being able to act out. And - here's a deep secret - many of them don't care if there was a steal, or whether Trump is lying or not. They probably even get that he is. But the point is... they don't care. And they think it's ridiculous that you or I do.

Liz Cheney was ousted from House leadership for challenging the Big Lie. And clearly, some wanted her out for being disloyal, for challenging the Truth of Trump, as they see it. But as Madison Cawthorn said "Na na na na, nana nana, hey hey, goodbye Liz Cheney." There was plenty of unserious, I just don't like her feedback out there as well. Liz is about as serious, and as wonky, as right wing policy gets these days (which, yes, is its own example). And part of what the party and its base are rejecting, and still replacing, is the sense of taking anything about federal government seriously.

Cawthorn... Marjorie Taylor Greene. Lauren Boebert. Josh Hawley. Ted Cruz. On both side of the Capital, the Republicans have bomb throwers and outrage machines, offering nothing, literally nothing, of substance to policy discussions. Just bullies and drama queens and fame whores looking for their latest five minutes of glory in the national news feed. The right considers Joe Rogan, a modestly successful comedian turned podcast host, who famously reiterates on a regular basis that he has no idea what he's talking about, an essential conduit for reaching a significant part of the right's voting base. Why? Because like his listeners, Rogan doesn't really get why we should be taking any of this seriously.

Or take the Fox Friends who play the merry pied pipers to this nihilist line - the Tuckers and Gutfelds and Watterses who offer up sarcasm as if it's serious analysis then say "it's just a joke" when challenged. Just today, Tucker's role as source for much of the Trump world gossip floating around current news reports and upcoming books revealed, yet again, how Fox's top star believes, essentially, in nothing except his own self absorption. Yes, what Tucker is selling, crass as it is, represents significant danger. But even he, really, doesn't quite believe that the rubes are really falling for it. But if they are... well, it pays the bills.

On the left, we frequently fret about the shrinking minority of this Trumpist base, because we take them seriously, and as a serious threat, not just to the left, but to the fundamental order and underpinnings of our representative democracy. We worry about their fealty to populists and authoritarians, frauds and liars and cheats. But the bigger problem is that along with the true believers is this group of absurd nihilists who really don't believe in anything at all. Not particularly interested in ideas, or critical thinking, prone to fall for conspiracy logic and eager to be in on the joke... it's the nihilists that we really can never reach. We will never convince them, or win them over. At best, one day they will decide something else is cool, some other online gewgaw will distract their attention, maybe one day something will matter to them... but don't get your hopes up. Conservatives have signed on to this nihilism with gleeful abandon. Because nothing matters. Because they've largely just given up.

Since the election, a lot of the fun has fallen out of this faction. Partly, that too is on Trump, since he was never really in on the joke of it all - too sensitive and too afraid of ridicule, Trump really has no sense of humor. He's not joking, and never has been. There's really much less of the "can't they take a joke" excuse making the right used to offer up when challenged on their most outrageous, out there catcalls and threats. Things are ugly, and mean, and getting meaner and uglier by the day. And without a Trump that airs on TV and major social media every day, more than a little of the entertainment of these Roman Follies is gone too. So the question remains, how long will the nihilists stay with this party if it's no fun and less popular?

My guess is that they're already slacking off - Republican identification numbers are cratering, hundreds of rioters are facing serious criminal trials, Trump is sidelined... some people don't know when the party's over, but it's sure looking like last call on some of this. Then again, when you can gin up outages over Dr. Seuss and imminent calls for veganism, when Tucker and Gutfeld and Jessie Watters still rule the roost at Fox... heck even Rogan still has his primacy. The show will go on. The nihilist appeal is, after all, eternal. Nothing matters. Life is just one sick, absurd joke. If anything, perhaps, the real point is this: majority white culture was in some ways always bound to find its way to this dead end. Smoke if you got em. You never had it so good.     

Recounting, Every Single Minute

And while the pessimist in me agrees that there's a lot of bad outcomes possible... let's just take a minute and contemplate just how remarkably stupid and incoherent the Maricopa Recount actually is, and how bad it is actually going.

For months, Arizona Republicans insisted that there were so many errors and frauds in the counting of Maricopa County - which took longer than just about everyone to certify its votes, but where Joe Biden pulled ahead several days and thousands of votes sooner than expected - that there should be a recount. So Maricopa County recounted them... and got the same result. Then they audited the count... and got the same result.

Still unsatisfied, Arizona Republicans used a hugely doubtful approach of having the state Senate subpoena all of Maricopa County's ballots, records, and equipment to... well, it's still kind of unclear what all they think they're going to do, but a recount is definitely part of it.

Lots of people are making fun of the name of "Cyber Ninjas" the company hired to do the recount process; but I think the real joke is underappreciated: there's nothing to suggest that a small cybersecurity operation ever understood, had the expertise, or the organizational skill to pull off a recount of one of the five largest counties in the country. And so far, that's the joke that making this recount into a punchline.

First of all, let's be clear - one of the hardest things about the Arizona recount story is actually getting coherent journalism out of it. Reporters have been systematically blocked from much relevant fact gathering, and only the most enterprising have been able to tease out valuable insight. Such insight, as it is, has all pointed in one direction: this thing is a mess, verging on a disaster.

Second of all, the sheer size and scope of the task has been misunderstood or underestimated almost all along. There are 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County (62% of the state's population), and parts or all of 8 congressional districts. As I said, almost no county or election district elsewhere in the country has that volume of counting to accomplish. Almost any county of that size takes days, if not weeks, to fully report (New York City. Miami. Houston. Atlanta. Detroit. See a pattern?). Maricopa is, yes, the Parent County of Phoenix, so there's a city in there... but there's also the 13 smaller cities that have bloomed over the years around it. All of the Phoenix suburbs. The sprawl is absurd.

Of the 2.1 million ballots, officials overseeing the count say that 250,000 have been counted over 3 weeks. At that rate, according to the New York Times, it will take until August to complete the recount. The recount was scheduled to end this Friday. It's not at all clear Cyber Ninjas has enough staff - they have already asked for, and got, approval to add headcount to their counting staff... which is still a problem, since the Republicans, and the Ninjas, seem to be vetting potential counters for party affiliations (though apparently, not for things like, were you someone actually on the ballot, which caused them to fire a former legislator who was in the room for the first few days). 

Then there's cost. The Senate budgeted a laughable $150,000 towards the effort; the budget of the Maricopa County Election Board is in the millions. That's okay, though, no one believed you could bring in the count at that budget, and there are a number of wealthy donors throwing in money to complete it. But money and patience are not infinite. And at some point, soon, there will be growing pressure to ask just why costs keep spiraling and completion seems further and further away.

Of course, that's ignoring the absurd, crazy things the recount is supposed to assess: like are there ballots from Asia snuck into the count (hence the insane tales of searches for "bamboo" in the ballot paper), or did dead people vote (hint: if you voted, then died, you are not a dead person who voted... except you are).There were suggestions that staff would be calling or visiting voters at their homes (which, yes is a violation of voter intimidation laws... but again... what staff?). Because neither the Senate, nor the Ninjas, seem able to focus on specific examples of specific issues... every ballot is apparently being subjected to multiple inspections to check for every crazy accusation. Except no one is exactly sure if any of them are actually true.

More to the point... if there was any evidence of any truth to any potential accusation, we'd be hearing about it. The Cyber Ninjas specifically gave 24/7 video access to OANN, which has camera feeds monitoring every aspect of the recount (or so it is claimed). Even if OANN weren't primed to announce broadly and widely any discovery at a moment's notice (or conversely, if it's true OANN is broke, then maybe not), the right wing blogosphere and media are primed for proof Trump's crazy Big Lie fraud claims. They are desperate for anything that would bolster a joke argument the world refuses to take seriously. Yet, 3 weeks of work, 250,000 ballots examined... and nothing. Not a leak, not a suggestion of a counting anomaly. Nothing. No bamboo. No mysteriously dead voter. Nothing.

The only stories coming out of the recount are detail after detail describing just how half-assed, incompetent and potentially illegal the whole exercise is. Blue ink pens were handed out to counters... until someone pointed out it's illegal to use implements that could create new voter fraud. Observers were barred from the recount... until a judge had to step in and order permission for the media and outside observers. Boxes were mishandled and possibly double counted until errors were pointed out. The Justice Department says they're concerned about tampering. Maricopa County now says they're going to court to fight the Cyber Ninjas for the county's routers. And we have no idea what the Ninjas will or won't do to the servers that hold the electronic records of the original count.

As of May 14th, the whole recount has to be stopped because the Coliseum being used to hold it has another event coming in; it will be interesting to see just how every piece of the recount - never mind the pallets of those 2.1 million ballots, still in boxes - is stored and secured. But that's just details. What's truly insane, as of right now, is that this pointless, ridiculous exercise could be resumed, with no end in sight, for months.

And I'll just say it: for all the fears of some massively tampered, fictional account that Trump won with new numbers and trumped evidence of fraud... the real story here is likely to be one the right can neither spin nor talk their way out of: a badly inaccurate count that gives Biden more votes than the official count, no evidence of significant fraud (except, possibly, by the recount staff), and months of wasted time and costs that make further efforts in other cities and states prohibitively foolish. As crazy as it sounds, the best bet for many liberals is to let this farce play on and on until it plays itself into an embarrassing and very public truth: the whole recount fantasy is the biggest, and most wasteful piece yet of The Big Lie. And when they have to live that down, the right may very well have counted its way into the reckoning over the 2020 election that will truly wreck the whole show. And I am so totally here for it. Count on that.

What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Being an optimist at heart, I do tend to look on the bright side. Writing about politics, even in a reduced way during the Trump era and even now, I try to find the glimmers of hope. I'd rather focus on what's possible, how we can get out of the worst of this, the signs of progress amidst the chaos and negativity.

But yes, things can get pretty negative.

I have friends and family - trust - who question my optimism. "Can't you see how bad it is? What if the worst should happen?" And yes, they have a point. From which I roundly return with bursts of additional optimism.

Still, it's a fair point in itself. Things are bad. They could get worse. We do owe it to ourselves to be honest about the fact that, rather than hopeful progress, this could all just be a way station on the downward slope. 

So, for my best friend, for today... here's some thoughts on the worst case scenario.

When I look at the potentials for disaster in politics and upcoming elections, I tend to focus my negative thinking on 3 things: misinformation, outright chicanery, and internal disarray on the left. Overarching all of that, right now, would be the pandemic. But that's also a separate discussion. For now, I'm focused on the really bad political possibilities:

• Misinformation - As much as I think Fox is flailing, let's be clear: on a day to day basis, Fox continues to distribute slanted, inaccurate information to viewers all too eager to snap up the lies and half truths. Tucker Carlson, as loathsome as he is, adroitly presents white supremacy in friendly, suburban tones meant to suggest that any and every prejudice and crazy idea counts as okay. And plenty of hardcore Trumpists have gone further - to Newsmax, OANN and God knows where on the internet to find the fuel for their hate. Add in Trump's new (however lame) "from the desk" website, and it's a bleak picture. We already know how these lies have worked to elect not just Trump, but a string of right wing extremists. We know that it works for them, and we know they're not stopping. And we do not know, really, that even accurate objective truth can stop it. On the left, we are using "finger in the dam" approaches to try and keep the misinformation contained, at best. This is not a solution, it's a tactic. And it's not working. And it's probably not enough.
• Chicanery - All props to Marc Elias, but right now it looks like "more hurt than skirt" on the various election laws being passed in the wake of Trump's loss. Complicated new rules, limited election times, surely attempts to limit access to voting booths this year and next... and that's before we dive into redistricting that, while not as bad as the gloomiest predictions, has room for Republicans to potentially make significant gains. Then, of course, there's the "never say lost" cycle of charges and recounts and silliness of Trump folks endlessly litigating the last election. All together, there is a foundation for setting up all new efforts to steal and otherwise fake a GOP win in 22 and/or 24. Republicans gaining back control of the federal legislative branch, however solid Biden is, could spell disaster. "Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy" is just chilling. More urgently, we may not survive another length of time with Mitch McConnell driving what's left of a working Senate into the ground... but never mind him, look at what would be there if he left. The Republican Party is broken, it's a zombie party... all the rest. But those broken down zombies could, with a few well timed wins, take our representative Democratic Republic with them as they go. And that reality should terrify us all.
• Disarray - This isn't "I'm concerned about Joe Manchin." At worst, Manchin is the canary in his own coal mine of what could easily get worse: you can't have infighting in a serious way until both sides declare war. Repeated, excessive intransigence from Manchin and other "moderates" that succeeds in riling up the Sanders/Warren et al hard left is when this gets really bad, as both sides offer up "my way or the highway" proposals that stop progress of any kind in its tracks. So far, Biden has shown a deft touch, and Schumer and Pelosi are masters of political 3 dimensional chess; but one can feel the slender threads holding all of this together, and sense that already some of them are snapping. We're not doomed yet. But if HR1 is officially dead, if police reform permanently stalls... what then? Will the student left be placated by "we can't just blow up the legislative filibuster?" Probably not. Or, worse, we blow up the filibuster... and still lose. Democrats losing the ability to speak in generally one voice, or to face voters with singular focus, is a moment waiting to happen. When it does... we may all have to face a leadership vacuum we've been trying to avoid with octogenarians and Stacy Abrams. And it won't be pretty.

Disarray plus chicanery times misinformation... the math is clearly there to signal serious trouble, should all bad things come to pass. Fake stories and doctored evidence of an Arizona recount. Failures to legislate the cause deep divisions among democrats. Redistricting that gerrymanders worse than ever. All of these, and much more, are certainly very real threats. So is a justice system that fails to appropriately bring rioters to justice, combined with a Supreme Court with a super majority that could not only stall fairness, but truly set it back further. 

This is the point where I usually say to my naysaying pals "that's a lot of bad news that all has to fall your way" as I try to remind folks that Trump and his merry band of incompetents can hardly master telling untruths with a straight face, never mind pull off a  massive interstate conspiracy designed to interfere with every level of our election process. But... to be fair, I'm the one who can't quite prove that it could all go our way. There's plenty of reasonable, not that far fetched, scenarios that end very badly for democrats, the rule of law, free and fair elections and our system of justice. And that's not, in any sense, good news.

There's a lot of bad that could happen. The worst case scenario is definitely out there, it's not implausible, or even unlikely, depending on what you see. It's a fair point to wonder why we should hope for anything, and if we abandon hope, it's fair, I think, to see a lot of potential trouble dead ahead. I have no "but" to put in here, no little ray of Mary Sunshine to cheer this up, no "I'm just a cockeyed optimist" to sing you to comforting sleep. The nightmare scenario is a real nightmare, one we could really face. If that scares into you getting up and doing something... well, good. Let's hope that's not too late. Because god knows, it could really be as bad as my pessimistic friends want to believe.

Aftermath - The Hearings Begin

Untangling the events of January 6th isn't going to be simple. And it's clear that a) this is an emotional subject and b) anger about white supremacy groups is a potent, and difficult aspect of all of this.

Still, it will be important to separate out one problem from another. Failures to fully understand, or appreciate, or to prepare for the threat posed is one issue. The incitement created by Trump is another. But the failures of police and security efforts on January 6th is its own unique, additional problem. And trying to sort out that piece, as yesterdays hearing showed is both essential and complicated.

The Senate hearing with the former Sergeant at Arms of both the House and Senate as well as the head of DC's police force and the former head of Capitol Police was fascinating, revealing... and surprisingly (to me, anyway) full of details that suggested a wealth of systemic issues. If nothing else, the hearing underscored why 3 of the 4 men testifying were "Former" officials within days of the riot. Systemic failures in an organization you run that lead to disaster aren't generally events one just survives.

So what kinds of systemic issues showed up?

• Training - under questioning, Sund admitted that Capitol Police appeared woefully under trained for handling riots and mobs. While he indicated that there had been some "trial scenarios" - mostly conducted as part of events like Inauguration - other preparedness training had never been considered, never mind instituted. That failure stood in obvious contrast to DC Metro, which had all officers trained in riot emergency prep.
• Equipment - Never mind that the Capitol Police didn't have enough Tactical Units; it became clear under questioning that Sund had only recently started ordering the kind of protective equipment (such as riot protection helmets) needed in recent months (the first shipment showed up the day before the riots), delayed by the Pandemic. Further, an incredulous Senate made the point several times: no one ever cut the Capitol Police funding request, and they would have given him whatever he asked for. 
• Oversight - Sund made crystal clear that failures to call the National Guard and other resources were decisions that could not unilaterally be made by the Capitol Police, but had to go to his supervising committee, and the Sergeants both came off as decidedly weak on their defense that the reason the call went out late is because no one asked. Though conspiracists' will focus on the Army slow walking the Guard request, plenty of other, obvious bureaucratic hurdles were identifiable and preventable.
• Mission - Lurking between the lines of Sund's testimony was an obvious point: the building and personnel security functions of the Capitol Police don't square with a tactical force equipped to fight an insurrectionist mob. Are they Museum Guards? Or are they fast moving SWAT? This is not a small question, and much like the choices that led to merging Homeland Security (although as 1/6 demonstrates, not well) after 9/11, there's a question of why Federal security is a diffuse, and often unfocused effort.
• Intelligence - Whatever "you should have known" elements exist, the lack of good information was a clear issue that needs systemic solutions. Partly communication was clearly an issue (and a reminder that, for instance, the NYPD simply now operates its own unit because federal resources don't share, even with each other). But as well, the nature of our intelligence efforts - where enormous resources are (still) aimed internationally and outward while fewer resources work internally and domestically - is a problem. And it's not simple (what nation successfully spies on itself?), but the testimony definitely pointed to additional steps that must be taken.

Much of the focus on wild conspiracies may make for sexy reporting, but it would be a mistake to let the systemic issues get lost in a fog of "what about Ron Johnson" (and, just to make a point - the testimony Johnson read into the record was largely confirmation of the role of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, were anyone paying close attention to his words). Yes, there's a misinformation problem, and yes, there's a "co-conspirator" issue with some GOP Senators. But Josh Hawley continues to be a cartoon version of any kind of a threat, and Ted Cruz continues to be an expert at aiming his guns right at his feet. The real question is, does Congress have the will and the stamina to see these complex challenges to their own security through to successful resolution? I'm not sure the hearing confidently showed that. Not yet, anyway.

More pointedly, the hearing's disputes and multiple revelations underscored that Nancy Pelosi is right to want to stand up, and soon, an independent commission to take this in all the directions it needs to go. Piecemeal hearings and soundbite sum ups will not get at all the issues, all the complexities, and the serious work that needs to happen on multiple fronts. Bravo to Gary Peters reiterating, several times, that pressing the FBI on its White Supremacy investigation is ongoing and overdue. And kudos to Amy Klobuchar for calmly and effectively keeping her eye on Capitol Security. But this problem is enormous. What happened on January 6th isn't just a "can't happen again" - it's more than that. Fundamentals of our Republic type stuff. Yesterday was a start. The work remains. 

Everybody Runs... Don't They?

Watching Josh Hawley furiously backpedal is, yes, hilarious, especially given that "white power" salute that got snapped just shortly before the mob descended on the Capital. But really... what else can he do? "In for a penny, in for a pound" has rarely been so true even in someone so literal.

Hawley's been stunningly lackluster at least since he managed to steamroll his way into winning Missouri's Attorney General seat, where he proceeded, we now know, to largely outsource the running of his office so he could focus on his next Big Prize, ousting Claire McCaskill from the Senate seat she'd managed, better than most, to hold onto in squeakers, largely by being down to Earth and moderate. It's safe to say Hawley's not that, and it's a measure of McCaskill's class that up until January 6th, she never spoke a word against him in public. The more telling thing, of course, is she had no need to say anything at all. The contrast was obvious.

Hawley's surfed the waves of the Trump years as well as anyone, setting himself up as the New Guard of Trumpism, whatever that was supposed to mean... which, now if not sooner, clearly means next to nothing. Obsequious, fawning, and keen to parrot any Trump position, Hawley got his wish to be an essential member of the Trumpist GOP, a great reminder to be careful what you wish for.... and to be really specific with the genie when he shows up from the lamp. Also, just a reminder: Everything Trump touches, dies.

There are plenty of people enraged about Hawley, his actions, his behavior in the aftermath, his endlessly smarmy demeanor. I find myself more bemused than enraged - I think it's maybe a function of age, watching someone so young make such poor, obviously regrettable choices, oblivious to even the mildest exhortations of "no, stop, don't..."  Ted Cruz, for all his blunderbuss self aggrandizement, does appear capable of at least a small amount of shame. Hawley, it seems, never meant a mistake he couldn't compound.

Even that foolish fist up salute is so determinedly, self consciously silly; it's the fratboy version of finding a cause, that level of distinction between fighting for justice and fighting for your right to party that separates the serious from the poseur. It's Hawley's knitted brow and crinkled forehead (did no one let him in on the secret of Botox?) that elicit the giggles. He thinks... apparently, he thinks this is what "gravitas" looks like. And... Oh, dear. And deep behind those vacant, vacuous stares that his smile never reaches, it just seems clear he knows... this isn't really working.

'The Republican Caucus of the House has any number of these unserious types - Lauren Boebert, of course, has outdone herself as a shrill stalker of the spotlight, but from Kevin "you know we can see you" McCarthy to Jim "shirtsleeves suggest passionate intensity" Jordan to Louie Gohmert and on down the line... gerrymandering and a willingness to say anything makes for ludicrous times there. But Hawley has leapfrogged a number of Senators in his race to the bottom, or I suppose he thinks... top. It's hard, finding a space to the right of Mike Lee and Rand Paul... so I suppose, well, that's something, anyway.

Today, in addition to compounding his ongoing attempt to pretend He's Not In Hot Water, Hawley managed to make himself (along with Lee) one of only two Senators who didn't think rejecting a well liked African American four star General might look, well, tone deaf. Hawley will, surely, manage to cast himself as the only Republican rejecting all of Biden's appointments and, well... it's a plan I suppose. Still, it's wildly out of step with the moment, but as securing the Trump base goes...

I suspect, really, that Hawley's brilliant plan is positioning himself as Trump's potential 2024 VP pick. Perhaps someone should tell him that's not going to happen... but why ruin a good show? Hawley's near pathological fealty to the Crazy Town portion of the Trump Sycophancy is just astonishingly beyond what anyone else would even think of as worth doing. And sure, it's hard arguing Biden is an illegitimate president while arguing in the next breath that you were just raising "legitimate concerns" about election operations... but why let that stop you? When you've been coasting, primarily, on wholesome good looks and a willingness to say anything the hard right wants to hear, your problem isn't internal coherence. No, your problem is that the last bus left Crazy Town without you on it. If Hawley doesn't commit to making himself King of the place he got himself stuck, he really does have just about nowhere to go.

Hawley's delusions of turning his Mayor of Crazy Town shtick into a presidential run may yet come to pass; stranger, and worse candidates have had their moment. But it may be hard to get that on track with a Senate Ethics inquiry breathing down your neck, a post presidential impeachment that could implode your lodestar, and a set of political positions just slightly to the left of survivalists in the outskirts of Idaho. It's hard to tell, at the moment, whether Hawley is just running for his next dream job, running from his ultimate comeuppance, or just, you know, dancing as fast as he can, because the real terror in his eyes lies in not knowing what might happen when he stops. And yet... why... why do they always run?

Got Til It's Gone

A day later and it can seem light years away, but try and recall that until he ducked out early yesterday morning, we did indeed spend 4 years with Donald Trump in the White House. He may have ended much the way he began - in chaos, disarray, and like a thief trying to get away with something - but if there's one thing we came to learn under Trump, it was that what you see is what you will always get.

A day later, it's hard to ask just what we got, since we want to pretend, as we often do, that nothing at all matters before yesterday. By noontime, with the assembled guests in their usual spots (or something like it, under Covid) we once again paraded out an Inauguration, hit the reset button, and gratefully welcomed the return of normalcy. You know, where you can't leave your house, masks are required at the store, and vaccines are impossible to find. That's okay, stay home and watch another chorus of randos sing that song from Rent you didn't need for the umpteenth time. Liberalism means never having to apologize for the theater kids.

A day later and we have our sense of humor back, our divisions, our obstacles to progress as firmly in place as ever... and that's good, isn't it?  Isn't it swell, isn't it?  Well, it's heaven, nowadays (sorry, I was those theater kids, once)... but we may, by day three, already feel deeply disappointed watching Democrats in Disarray. Because why change anything, when all we wanted back was our same old, familiar narratives?

Familiarity breeds contempt as they say, and by the end, Trump was nothing if not familiar. Even on his way literally out the door, stopping to harangue the reporters, dutiful as ever, gathered at their rope line for one final word. And then, sharply dressed wife at his side, he toddled off (Melania swapped her severe black Chanel for a colorful caftan on her arrival in Palm Beach, and literally never looked back as she got in her car to head into private life). It's remarkable, really, that Trump seems to have exited the national stage in a way similar to other ex Presidents, could we be that lucky? I think not... but it's hard to tell what outlet he would have available to pop up on, even if he wanted.

It's hilarious, this game we're playing of treating Trump as He Who Shall Not Be Named, just one day after he leaves the presidency, whether because it serves Joe Biden's "let's move forward" storyline, or the Republicans' need to pretend they never heard of him, or our own sense that if we just don't talk about him it will be like this never happened. It's another piece of family dysfunction after all - not talking about the bad stuff. Pretending everything is fine. They paved Paradise, and put up a parking lot... but it's fine if we just agree it's nice to have the extra space to park.

The reality of course is that it's not that simple, or that easy, and pretending won't make this go away. Trump will linger in our culture, whether we determinedly try to exile him or not, whether he tries to force his way back onto the stage, or not. Trump may be relegated to the interior pages of scandal sheets and gossip rags, the story may move to lawsuits and investigations and financial failure... but he won't just be gone. Even today, Republicans are grappling with one last piece of political mischief, as they try to tamp down his "I could start my own political party" - an idea so half baked and deviously destructive, we can only hope he sees it through, Surely, it's the best next long con he could possibly have created, a grift that could make him millions long before anyone realized it was a complete sham.

Then, too, there's Impeachment, a trial to be held that apparently is the magic key to figuring out how the 50-50 Senate will finally set up shop and get down to business. Because no one is "concerned about ending the filibuster" - that won't happen and doesn't have the votes to pass, anyway. But the timing of a trial, the need for Republicans to get rid of Trump without angering the base... there's no real answer about when a trial could be helpful, or what verdict brings actual justice (at least, not for their side - we know he's guilty as sin). The struggle is real. The answers are elusive. And it's only one half of an entire branch of government that gets held up trying to figure a way out.

Good luck with that, I figure. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got til it's gone? I don't mean Trump = we knew what we got, with him. No, what we haven't begun to face - in our perfect, don't talk about the dysfunction way - is all the other stuff we got. From literally getting sick to all that's been broken, to all the disarray in putting our government back together, all the aftermath we have yet to unpack... and on and on. We are remarkable, as Americans, at all the things we can refuse to face when we out our collective energy towards it. We put him on a plane, we sent him away... a big yellow taxi came and took away our old man. Can't we just enjoy the Tree Museum and that shiny new parking lot?

Parler Games

Nothing quite says "the spell is broken" more than Twitter's decision to impose a lifetime ban on Donald Trump. If one had to point to the one thing that defined this Era of Trump Madness, it was those omnipresent tweets (ones I explored daily and tagged with #EverythingHeSaysIsALie ) which substituted for any and every aspect of an actual presidency: policy conversation, press conference, daily schedule and insult magnifier rolled into one, ugly, endlessly venal hopelessly untrue steamroller of disinformation. Without it, really, was there anything there at all?

Just days later, it's abundantly clear.... not much really was there at all. A silenced Trump may rage alone in the darkened halls of the White House, but without amplification, his sycophants grow restless, his party is rudderless and his opponents know the sweet air of freedom. How much different would our world be, or have been, had anyone had the nerve to take these actions years ago... when, just an aside, it would have been more than appropriate.

Within minutes of the decision - and the parallel, not exactly simultaneous decision to block Trump on Facebook and all of its associated properties - the right wing pundits had their instant storyline, one which thankfully absolved them of facing the aftermath of insurrection head on. Instead, we were gifted with a storyline about the Death of the First Amendment, the Unreasonable Censoring of Conservative Voices, and the "who, us?" excuse making of trying to argue that no one, really, could call Trump, or any of his minions, directly responsible for inciting a riot.

The decision fixed a heavy, awkward spotlight on the fledgling alterna-network for the right, Parler. Hastily assembled and built, according to the tech savvy, mostly on the "paperclips and string" approach to coding... Parler was already a bit of a stumbling mess as Trump's access went down - a hub of privacy invasion, bad infrastructure, conspiracy theorists pushed off legitimate forums... and the odd convergence of QAnon and Saudi exiles too eager to push the propaganda needs of the Crown Prince. Any port in a storm? More like Port of Last Resort.

In a rational world, Parler might have been able to buy itself the time needed to get itself together and to get serious... but this is the age of Internet Madness, and Trump's implosion only made Parler's underlying problems that much more stark. Having spent months trying to fend off reasonable requests from Amazon (its cloud server host) to better police the content floating through its social network, Parler's role in the January 6th events was bound to come under scrutiny, and it's failure to offer even a modest "lick and a promise" intention to clean up left Amazon little choice. Parler's arguably in over their heads leadership has tried valiantly to spin their disasters as that much more Unfair Censorship to Silence The Right, but even a minimal amount of research suggests a company that was simply overwhelmed by its users interest in a forum that let any and every crazy rant run free. And that's being charitable, since Parler even now can't seem to indicate what content it would moderate if it even knew how.

The reality is that this era we've been living through is, in many ways, the cusp of en ending, not the beginning of a New Age: a "wild west" of disinformation and questionable content, the various social networks have been struggling for years, particularly after the 2016 election revealed a debacle of Russian interference, fake stories, false accounts and deliberate propaganda aimed at fomenting civil unrest. There are no heroes here; only corporate entities with too much influence and too little oversight, gamely attempting to put several genies back into bottles. And while conservatives may have a point that some innocents may be caught up in the new oversight, that too is a tangent to a problem they've had for too long and done too little to police - a refusal to draw lines, and rule out obvious problematic actors and content pushing White Supremacy, Militia based talk of Revolution, and QAnon conspiracy fantasies. Yes, it's true Facebook and Twitter have all sorts of problems, failed enforcement and bad content moderation... but that's with at least a modicum of effort. Parler, god love it, wasn't even trying. And that failure to even adopt a fig leaf of "please stop, that's bad" just made the failure especially stark. No one's going to race to your alternative social network for more puppy videos. They want the hard stuff, the mean stuff... the stuff nobody else will let them say.

In all of this Trump was more symptom than disease - simply the biggest, worst, most prolific and most profligate example of a systemic failure to take action against obvious disinformation and malicious content. Every day, week, month, that passed it was grossly, starkly obvious that Trump flouted every possible rule and convention for content. Twitter (and eventually, Facebook too) had to step in just to acknowledge that virtually everything Trump had said regarding the 2020 election was a gross falsehood, flat out misinformation or deliberate provocation. And even that did nothing to slow the manufacture of lies, the fomenting of violence, the egregious bullying pushing things ever further to the edge. And what edge? Well, we need not ask that, not after January sixth.

It will take time, and effort to get things under some modicum of control - to push the fringes back to the fringe, marginalize the marginal, undo the massive damage to our culture, our discourse, ourselves. Like everything else, this isn't about "going back to before" - we are in this new Internet landscape to stay. But we already know that Facebook and Twitter can and will evolve, that they will not be exactly what they were, and though it's not impossible, it is unlikely that one man will be able to construct what Donald Trump did with his unique combination of avarice, idiocy, falsehoods and self interest. I do tend to think that, for better and worse, Trump's incendiary rhetoric was never so much a brilliant plan as a dopey use of bombast and bullying to play with matches and gasoline everyone else could see as potentially disastrous, even as he couldn't, or wouldn't. Much of the defense of his actions on the sixth are of the "he probably didn't mean to" sort and they're right up to a point: I don't think he meant to create what actually went down. But mostly because, I don't think he had thought that far ahead. And that, really, is the definition of incitement.

As for Parler and these semantic games the right would like to play about "free speech," I think time is running out on this "outrageousness dressed up as constitutional liberty" sales pitch. It's a tiring game of wrapping up age old prejudices in History Channel or Civics Class doublespeak that misuses faux intellectualism to sell the most anti-intellectual arguments imaginable. This isn't about free speech or even the outlines of a healthy debate; it's about one side's ability to mouth off without consequences and the other's to just take it. And that's just bullying, which is the ultimate point.

 The jig is up, the game is over... whatever metaphoric cliche one likes, where we are isn't where we were even a week ago, and even with only about a week to look at, it's clear that Trump's absence, alone, from social media is already having an impact in ratcheting down the chaos and slowing down the fuse on its way to the powder keg of further internal conflict. Which doesn't make Facebook or Twitter heroes, just slightly more socially responsible than they had been. And that, alone, is the indication of a tide turning, that modest sound of us being our better selves, trying harder to get it right. Conservatives have a choice about whether to follow that tide or get washed away. We can't make it for them, I can't guess which way they'll go, but these pointless Parler games aren't really worth playing on the way to an outcome.