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The Hillbilly Elegy of JD Vance's Senate Campaign

While it's not entirely surprising that JD Vance has achieved "massive distraction status" in his campaign to campaign for Ohio's Senate seat, that doesn't make it any more serious.

Vance, a veritable compendium of notes on white rural poverty in Appalachia with a soupçon of absurd Trumpism plus a lot of angry white guy, has enjoyed outsize success with a modest book... and well, that's about it. Initially hailed as possessing some sort of unique insight into the Appalachian communities of his ancestors, over the course of the Trump years Vance devolved from Trump critic keenly aware of Trump's know-nothing appeal to rural communities to a Trump cheerleader eager to join the jeering crowd of rural supporters. 

The theory is that Vance's high profile combined with a media ready presence results in a field clearing romp to the GOP nomination; so far that 's been held up by a number of pesky realities. One of which is that Vance isn't from Ohio, but Kentucky, and though he has borderline appeal with some parts of neighboring Ohio territory, he's been out of step with Ohio's less rural, more cosmopolitan cities and nearby suburbs. Another is that Trump personally, for a variety of reasons, favors other Ohio candidates. A third is that Vance seems to be struggling to find a narrative that can be comfortably pro-Trumpist, while not edging into simply "out there" politics. The latter is what's been surprising, since Vance initially seemed well within political mainstreams.

But these are wild times and Vance has, so far, managed to head for Crazy Town at almost every opportunity. He advanced a "pro-family" notion of politics so weirdly extreme even conservatives were baffled (claiming at one point that all left wing politicians including Nancy Pelosi, a mother of 5, could only be childless and anti family). His opposition to even the most common sense approaches to vaccination and other public health responses to Covid has been as extreme as a deep southern governor: fine for them, but absolutely at odds with the popular, sensible policies of Ohio's Mike DeWine. More to the point, Vance has yet to advance the kind of holistic politically centrist policies of a senatorial candidate that have traditionally marked Ohio, where candidates achieve national status as bellweathers of the "realistic middle").

Democratic fear of Vance, aside from the relative star power, has everything to do with the vast nameless fears that Trumpism isn't in retreat but rather running silent, but deadly, under America's cultural notice. The theory being that while normal people may think this stuff is crazy and disastrous for the GOP... just like 2016, liberals will be caught short when Republicans overwhelm them again at the polls.

What can one say? Perhaps that's true... though as a theory it tends to favor 2016 over all that's happened since, including Trump's eventual defeat in 2020, and the sense that without Trump, Republicans are struggling to achieve similar vote results (which, fair enough, could be fine for 2022, but just kicks the fears to Trump re-emerging for 2024). 

Either way, though... Vance, as a harbinger is so far not working out as planned. He continues to poll weakly in potential Republican matchups, never mind any scenario in which he actually gets a nomination and runs against a Democrat. Hillbilly Elegies alone won't solve that problem, and political extremism, so far, is making it worse. Unless some GOP behind the curtain magic works to transform Vance's extreme edges and tendency to mouth off unsupervised, it's hard to see how Vance pulls off a primary, never mind the general.

One larger thread to pull from this, though, is an insight that upsets both the right that's invested in Trump and the left that fears that they're right: ultimately, Vance's take on the rural audience may be right about their anger, but wrong about how that translates to long term political success. Vance's insights, such as they are, provide a window into the sense of hopelessness and despair that drives rural poverty, and he's surely onto something there. But rather than proving that populist politics can be their salvation, the events of the last few years have probably illuminated that hopelessness and despair tend to lead to poor choices, not wise ones, and thus, may just reinforce what it was meant to relieve. Trump, in other words, is a dead end. And Vance, provocative views or not, can't solve that any more than any other non-Trump voice. Trump himself only manages to camouflage the dead endedness with more bluster.

And that bluster, I suspect, is itself wearing thin... which is why, while Trump serves as a major distraction for the GOP, he doesn't represent any kind of solution down the political road. Between legal issues, his own short attention span, laziness and greed, Trump would happily scoop up all the money he could and shirk the actual work of even running again if he can avoid it. All because, unlike Vance, Trump isn't running away from a nightmare past in rural poverty. And because much more like Vance, he has little empathy or sympathy for all the people still trapped there.

As an aside, I suspect Vance would seem more dangerous, his appeal to rural whites more on point, had Hillbilly Elegy translated into a film that had not been met with derision rather than awe. Ham-handed and overthought, the film underscored that as much as Vance's story had some appeal, it was not necessarily new, save for the reality that America tends to ignore the addiction issues of non-privileged whites. And indeed, were Vance to position himself as an earnest, hard working voice fighting to help those addicts against an unfeeling system of bureaucracy and privilege, he might very well be the threat many left and right imagined he might be. Doing that, though, would require tapping into the things Vance himself has rejected via Trumpism: a sense of hope, of fairness, of seeing the good in what we do when we help one another.  By defining his quest in terms of his own personal victory, Vance underscores why the Trump dead end is just that dead: "only one of us gets out of here alive. And it better be me."

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?

You’ll Have Another Governor Next Week

The problem was best illustrated not when Andrew Cuomo responded to Tish James by sending out his own lady lawyer to do the only thing he knows - attack his accusers and try to discredit a process he probably put in place himself. No… the problem was best illustrated months earlier when Andrew Cuomo responded to allegations from more than a dozen former employees by suddenly ending his daily self congratulatory press appearances celebrating the magnificence of his response to the Covid pandemic.

Indeed, by March it was clear that the “Masterful Pandemic Response Show” had well overstayed its welcome anyway.  Not that Cuomo wasn’t an effective and commanding executive during the initial response; despite conservative complaining, virtually no executive had done more in worse circumstances in 2020 at a time when Trump’s uselessness was especially pronounced. Still, the revelations of “managed” statistics of nursing home deaths, if not objections to policy choices made for that population were simply too much to ignore, and at least deserved a comprehensive response.

There’s a lot of giving Cuomo a hard time for things that are not, necessarily the bad things about him: yes, he’s tetchy and high handed and sure, he’ll steamroll anything in his path to achieve whatever end he thinks is a priority at the given moment. But that’s basically Being A New Yorker, and it’s not necessarily bad, to New Yorkers. Cuomo’s self aggrandizing press wasn’t a failing… it was his Achilles heel: as long as you were buying it, he was happy to sell. When you stopped buying it… well, no more press conferences for you, babe.

No, what destroyed Cuomo was simpler: a terrible manager who made a series of incomprehensible decisions meant solely to either consolidate his power or achieve his political aims or most likely both, discovered that years of built up ill will and repeated examples were simply too much to ignore. That story, too, is very New York. And at this late date, it’s a problem, bigger than Cuomo, about the state’s failures in governance.

Had Cuomo stayed, he was very likely to become the 2nd Governor we’d impeach; as it was, he was the 4th resignation under uncomfortable circumstances in a string of state level scandals that have hit both parties and almost all of the state’s leaders from the mid to late 20th Century. It’s embarrassing, dismaying, and a subject that deserves more thoughtful conversation than has been attempted across 30 years at least of reeling from scandal tp scandal. At some point; this isn’t a bug. It’s a feature of our leaders.

Sure, we can make this about Cuomo’s personal failings - that ego! The nerve! The seek and destroy approach to politics… yes, all that and so much more. But that elides the reality that in April 2020, perfectly reasonable New Yorkers who knew damn well of multiple scandals Cuomo had played a part in were portraying the man as a genius who was all we had standing between us and the abyss. And that was his genius, his secret power - he’d so scorched the earth of New York politics, there was no one but him. 

But was that so different from Elliot Spitzer? Al D’Amato? Nelson Rockefeller? Alan Hevesi? Joe Bruno? Over and over…. New Yorkers ensconce power mad narcissists in senior roles and then wonder how it all goes so wrong (but hey, we tried to tell you Donald Trump was bad news), turn around… and do the same thing again. In part, it’s because we’ve never (ever) developed a healthy leadership bench. But more than a little of it is, why even bother? There’s a fatalism to our self governance that no one, really, should envy or emulate. We have quietly and calmly expected - over the course of my lifetime, to be sure - that Albany is just a cesspool of corruption and bad faith. Fix it? We don’t even know if government runs without it!

So now we look to Kathy Hochul - try to squint hard enough so you ignore her central role in Cuomo’s “Women’s Party” meant to derail Zephyr Teachout!~ as hopefully not more of the same. Or maybe Tish James rides her ambition that much further now that she’s iced Cuomo. Even now New Yorkers are quietly convincing themselves that women and/or minorities represent the hope for government beyond self interest and scandal. Because, as you can see, we have done so well, convincing ourselves of things.

What we need, really, is not so much a new star, but less corrupt and healthier institutions. Better, more effective policing of corruption. Dismantling the various personal fiefdoms that help individuals aggrandize power to themselves. A less sprawling, more manageable system of local governance. Election reforms. There’s plenty we could do. But we won’t, most likely, as we stand by, looking helpless and stunned that another shining hope let us down. The dysfunction isn’t the lying liars who lie to us… it’s us, the lied to, who put the Empire in Empire State, who put the scepter into the Emperor’s hands and say “be kind.” Get another governor? We’ll have another governor next week. And another one… probably soon after.

Praying For Time

“You break it, you bought it” has rarely fit so aptly as it does for Republican officials finding themselves suddenly with little choice but to emphatically call for their supporters across the South and West to finally get vaccinated. 

Vaccine misinformation and antivax messaging sits squarely with conservative news and media outlets; nightly skepticism from Fox, Newsmax and OAN joined up with months of Covid minimization and attacks on leading public health figures (the especially gross attempts to go after Anthony Fauci deserve their own special section of hell). The messy witches brew of Trump sycophancy, anti-intellectual takes on science and political gamesmanship around Covid were always bound to end in a mess of infections and finger pointing… still, its been a remarkably fast six weeks since Biden’s initial 300 million vaccines ran headlong  into the vaccine resistors, and the reality of the Delta variant started shortly thereafter. 

What had been whispered in polite circles has now become the undercurrent of urgency: if Republican officials aren’t successful soon, predictions of Republican voter dominance won’t be about manufactured conspiracies and ham handed legislating… instead it will be about the devastation done to one side of the electorate by misinformation and recalcitrance and how that dominance was lost. 

All of this underscores something even more obvious: the breakdown of the right wing noise machine, the carefully constructed false narratives that animate right wing “news” outlets, that have served as an endless buffet of distractions for right wing voters, the pundit class, and ultimately all of us. Who needs masks! Mandates are fascism! What about the lab in Wuhan? Critical Race Theory will destroy us all! And on and on. 

And so we get surreal moments like an op-ed from Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one day after publicly questioning vaccines yet again, telling Arkansans that she was indeed vaccinated and they should too, but not because “The Left” is telling you to in some condescending way… do it because your preacher says so. Or something.

The narrative is falling apart because, mainly, it is a lie. When studies were able to show that the vast majority of vaccine misinformation can be traced back to just 12 Facebook users, when the Administration can calmly and with virtually no blowback point out that Fox News traffics in disinformation… conservatives panicked. It doesn’t help that at this point some 7 states in the south are facing outbreaks of Delta that amount to the worst period yet of infections and hospitalizations… and that was in the space of one week.The rest of us can (fairly) be concerned about potential implications… but all bets are going to be off if, as predicted, a swath of southern states will have India-like issues of nowhere to store ever increasing numbers of the dead.

So… well, good luck with that: good luck trying to say “we’re really telling you the truth now” as if you can perpetuate all the other lies - the January sixth insurrection stories, fearmongering Wuhan, smearing Hunter Biden, I could go on… - and not face consequences. This cannot be fixed with a tweet. This doesn’t just end. Conservatives are on the hook for all of it - all of the lies, all of the fake stories, all of the haze that kept their audience angry and fearful and spun up. In part, this is the lesson of playing with fire: I suspect many conservatives had little idea about the deep tentacles the antivax crowd had lying in wait for just this moment, ready to seize upon, repackage and expand on the little white lies they started telling about COVID vaccines. Much the way that some more cosseted Republican operatives didn’t understand a white supremacy movement just waiting for the green light to take dog whistles and make them into flat racist rhetoric. Not at first, anyway.

Critical Race Theory, though… that one you knew. You knew that was a put up job, a new meaningless jeremiad you could throw around as an all purpose slop of racist anger, education myths, and grievance politics that can set a nation back 40 years. Or more. Who cares! Anything for a win! Let’s all pretend to make Kevin McCarthy a serious man - whose only hope now is screaming at the sky while Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger help Democrats tell the true story of January sixth.

These are the days of the guilty man… and it was fine, taking all these chances while God didn’t seem to be keeping score. But the narrative is blowing up, what was over there is over here… and suddenly belief in witchcraft and fear of science could get a lot of people killed. And maybe we should all be praying for time… but hey, conservatives, why don’t you go first. Pray that you have enough time to stop the antivax madness. Pray that no one notices your house of cards tumbling down. Pray that one inkling truth doesn’t lead to a flood of raised consciousness. All that religious fervor has got to count for something. Or… just maybe… God was keeping score. And maybe you’re just not the children he’s coming back for.

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.

Critical Race Theater

What I really want to do is yell at my TV, pretty much all the time lately, either "you don't even know what Critical Race Theory is" or, in the case of an expert who does, "Nobody cares what actual Critical Race Theory is" (at which point I usually add "honey" or "Mary" because I'm gay).

That's just where we are, it seems. (No, not about me. Keep up, Mary.)

I'm not going to waste time trying to explain Critical Race Theory because for the purposes of this discussion it's irrelevant; nothing about this supposed "debate" has anything to do with the actual use of critical theory (and sure, I could then, as a critic, go deep into why I actually find a lot of Marxist or Marx derived critical theory to be exasperating... but again, not the point). And that, too, is kind of the point.

My best friend - in his brilliant, often poetic sense of creative wordplay - was the one who observed to me that this wasn't so much real as theater: "Critical Race Theater," a way to take a strange, unfamiliar, vaguely threatening phrase like Critical Race Theory and simply obscure its actual meaning until it actually means nothing at all, and becomes a kind of performance art aimed at reviving America's discomfort and tensions around any and everything having to do with race... not least of which, questions of race, education, and acknowledging the painful aspects of our history.

"We don't want Critical Race Theory taught in schools" means basically nothing at all; no American public school - and I'm guessing, no private one either - is teaching this at any grade level, not even high school, certainly not below that. Instead, at the precise moment where America was just starting to face up to  realities of our past - be it Juneteenth or the Tulsa race riot - the question of what we teach our kids has a much more basic, underlying objection: "don't tell my white kid that white people did bad things to black people and that racism and prejudice still have a role in our culture and society... because they might realize it's true."

In the course of my lifetime I have lived through both amazing progress on race in this country and enormous setbacks; and even so, this retrenchment to racist excuse making is mind boggling, never mind scary and depressing.  The architects of this Critical Race Theater - apparently ginned up by right wing think tankers in DC - really do deserve whatever hell eventually comes for them; it's disgusting to think that someone actively worked this hard (and this openly) to set back race relations 50 years for a mix of political amusement and supposed advantage.

That last part - the question of "who gains politically" off of this is both gross and ridiculous to discuss. No one is winning here, least of all the people who think - hatefully - that electoral success derives from prodding white racial hatreds. This isn't even "Southern Strategy" or "dog whistles" for modern times - we're way past that puppy. This is just flat out "let's scare white people into seeing every black intellectual as the enemy." Nothing good will come from it. Nothing.

Conservatives and Republican opportunists figure they will "win" this by "putting liberals on the defensive;" part of the problem is, outside of a few knowledgable university level academicians, there is no one to put up a defense. Few care; fewer can or will expound the energy to "save Critical Race Theory" for places it didn't belong to begin with. What this will do is confuse the development of productive K-12 curricula, especially in American History, a backlash against the 1619 Project and other reexaminations of history - again THAT'S NOT CRITICAL RACE THEORY - which was already under way, but much easier to sell in this "Critical Race Theater" performance piece.

And sure, trying to wrest political advantage on K-12 education is a desperate play for the right, one that casting Teachers Union as their mortal enemies wasn't quite getting done, nor the largely theoretical, though still hateful, stances against trans kids in sports. It's not clear that Critical Race Theater changes all that much either, bottom line: the "Karen" notion of suburban college educated white women that Republicans are apparently chasing to realign back to their worldview were pretty well turned off by Trump's uglier racist tendencies. And lurking behind Critical Race Theater is a "same old, same old" of white tropes just waiting to implode on the right, yet again. The net-net is that Critical Race Theater, while showy and damaging at a macro level for race relations, may not ultimately move the needles Republicans need to win in the midterms, without solid candidates and actual policy proposals. It surely destroys any vestige of GOP hopes in virtually any black, or racially mixed urban area.

Still, that this happening at all is disheartening and the group that I think may turn out to be most demoralized by it - beyond the reality of the many black people who maybe, kind of were just starting to hope that there was some progress - are those older white civil rights fighters of the left. And I'm just saying... they may not be the student agitators they were in their youth... but when they get pissed, they do know that you only have one choice: organize, and go out and do something. And if the right thinks that fight goes better for them on the field of Critical Race Theater... well, it's a theory.

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.     

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.

Leaving Liz

Supporting Liz Cheney is an essentially painless exercise for any Democrat. It costs us nothing, it has no calories, and no one, not for one second, thinks we actually want Liz Cheney to do anything but be a thorn in Republicans side.

That's because Liz is terrifying.

Oh sure, we don't like to talk about it... now, anyway. But Liz is tough and hard edged and scary and she knows it and we all know she's like that because that's what she was taught. She's the warmonger's warmonger. She's the Red Scare's Red Scare. (And via her mom, she's The Iron Lady's Iron Lady.) It's why Liz was elected to leadership - she's a woman, she's got clear connections to everything her Death Star building father still runs with a private cabal, and she scares the bejeezus out of everyone, but especially Democrats. Look at her, standing there behind Kevin McCarthy, lips pursed and a thousand mile stare of disapproval. "All of these pantywaists disappoint me," one imagines her thinking. "Things will be much different when I'm finally in charge."

And for anyone who thinks that next week's vote to replace her will slow or quash those plans... think again. (And then go rewatch Dick)

You may think it's remarkable that she's stuck to her guns (now there's a phrase Liz owns: "she stuck to her guns" could go on her tombstone), but why would she not? Donald Trump is just about everything she despises in people, never mind Republicans - he's weak, he lies, he thinks he deserves all the power... need I go on? Liz believes things, believes in things. Truth. Justice. The American Way. Her unfettered access to global power. At a moment when liars and thieves and morally bankrupt sycophants hijacked her party, Liz stood firm. Because that's what she does. And frankly. that's what Republicans used to stand for. So who's wrong here?

I kid (a little), but here's the thing: Democrats supporting Liz Cheney is mischievous in its way, but she's right and so are we: truth matters. The lies matter. Liz has already made it clear: she's going to see her leadership post taken away and she's not going to stand in the way of other people's downward spiral. But Liz has power and Liz has weight and she's making her removal vote explicitly a choice to back Trump and The Big Lie. And it will stick, and it will work, and her bet that they'll lose (that is, the weak people too scared to see she's right) will happen and one day, not too far away, she will be standing when all else has fallen.

I'm with her. One doesn't expect bravery, or intelligent good sense from a Kevin McCarthy... but some of these people simply know better and are too scared to do what's right. Elise Stefanik isn't dumb, but she is letting her ambition and her willingness to pander to Trump's worst impulses overwhelm her own good sense. This is the thing about a male dominated system - it makes it hard for women to stick together. Liz knows that all too well. It's every man for himself, and if Elise has to pay for this, then one day, she will. Stefanik has had a nice run as a canny outsider willing to mouth off to power. But deep scrutiny and a starring role achieved through a good old fashioned knife in the back probably won't look great on her. She's not ready to play the kind of role Liz played, Harvard degree or no. And that's the kind of thing you know when you're Liz.

True, Liz isn't warm or fuzzy; it's her Achilles heel, the thing that's made it hard for her to succeed as a retail politician. It took a while to win statewide, even in Wyoming, and the right combination of warmer and pandering to oil money could knock her off... but she's awfully good at the latter herself. Trump may yet get his wish to destroy her congressional career by bigfooting her House race; but it's short sighted and a waste of time and resources. Cheney is reliably Republican (that's how you get into leadership), and the seat is ridiculously safe. A Donald Trump who spends enormous amounts of time and money crushing Liz Cheney is a guy who misses the fact that you could lose Liz and wind up with nothing to show for it: a House without Liz where Republicans are still in the minority is a House where Democrats will have an easier time taking control. Liz is the one who can actually, thoughtfully fight most liberal policy ideas, with her tough comments, and yes, that thousand yard stare. They need that. Desperately.

So go ahead, Republicans. Defuse your own best nuclear weapon. Denude yourselves of the toughness and experience and canny ability to speak plainly and honestly about the things you used to hold most dear. Take out Liz Cheney for nothing more than refusing to join the Big Lie and worship at the (spray painted) golden door to Mar A Lago. In exchange you get several used golf courses, some aging bottle blondes in spike heels... and the loss of anything like your dignity and good sense.You leave Liz at your own peril. But not ours.

 

Ban Me

The idea that it was a difficult or hard to predict decision to keep Donald Trump off Facebook is indicative of a problem that liberals (and everyone else, really) have when dealing with the lingering nonsense he provides: this isn't hard, we know we're right and let's just keep him away from having the chance to repeat the nightmare we lived from 2016 to 2020.

Who cares if Republicans are so internally broken as the last gasp of a political party that they can't extricate themselves from his malign influence? Who cares if "his base" must be catered to by fearful politicians bereft of ideas or independent thoughts? Why should we pay an attention to his ridiculous website, a desperate plea for relevance where he continues to blather away his incomprehensible mix of self aggrandizement, endless animus and fear of irrelevance? 

We owe him nothing.

Democrats, I swear, know this. on good days, we respond calmly and confidently to the remaining nonsense, clear in our understanding that we're right, he's wrong, and his sycophants are a minority voice that should be ignored (or in the case of his riotous mob, tried and imprisoned). We won the presidency, held a house majority and regained control of the Senate because his lies, malfeasance and corruption were simply unbearable. 

But still, like the post divorce remnants of a dysfunctional marriage, the bad man still has the power to undermine that confidence at the oddest moments. "What if he gets back on Facebook?" fretted media types. Kara Swisher - in what was surely the most embarrassing moment she's ever had and I've ever seen Maddow cater to - asserted, literally absent any relevant fact, that his return was all but a certainty (which she, quite soundly, had to retract the next morning). Even now, reporters bring up gloomy, doom filled predictions that all is lost in 2022 elections because a handful of democrats are considering running for different offices, and one woman (Cheri Bustos) has decided to retire (from, it should be noted, what is widely considered a safe seat). Because, of course... how can we possibly feel good, even for a moment, that the worst is over?

Look, I get it. Redistricting will be tough and nothing is certain. But still. Even the initial census results were hardly the bloodbath that had been foreordained, and indeed, the census, while troubled with pandemic issues, looks like a reasonably on track demographic assessment of the nation as a whole. Trump is spending time largely feeling sorry for himself, playing golf, puttering around his overpriced and ridiculous mansion cum private club, preparing to plop himself down into similarly cosseted digs in mid New Jersey, all the while whining about feeling hard done by. And sure, ambitious Republicans with no shame and less sense are catering to his whims and flying to his side to kiss the ring... but nothing, really nothing, suggests that this bowing and scraping is doing more than feeding Trump's foolish ego and putting the entire party on a crash course to oblivion.

Take Liz Cheney - or as Kevin McCarthy would add, "please." Cheney's principled and genuinely honorable insistence on speaking truth to foolishness may well kill her current chances at moving upward, but she has a point: perpetuating Trump's "Big Lie" about the election, trying to use falsehoods about made up frauds and ballot box stuffing will only damage the credibility of individuals and the group as a whole. Even now, Trump is braying from his little corner of the internet (anyone can make a website) his string of lies and misinformation of imaginary election issues. And trying to ignore the Trump in the room and run the usual ugly oppositional efforts to destroy Dem chances is unlikely to gather much traction either while Mr. Country Club can up-end the conversation with a few words. McConnell was, and remains, right in his end of term assessment: either Trump is removed from future influence, or Republicans have a problem. And he's their problem. Not ours.

I'm not saying that the Facebook - or the Oversight Board, if that's what you want, Mark - decision isn't news or a topic to discuss. It's more how we discuss it than the fact we discuss it at all. If we are done with Trump - and we are, not just "Lord knows we should be" - then let's be done. Let's be clear that he has no place in the national discourse. Let's remind ourselves, consistently and explicitly, that he continues to lie, misrepresent and insult everything that is worthy or worth holding onto in our serious discussions of national governance. Let us be clear what his sycophants, and parrots, and media enablers are, and how they should be treated - as the facilitators and enablers of damaging lies and destructive elements to our body politic. This isn't war, conservatives are not the enemy. But Donald Trump is a malignant, dangerous force against our democracy, and we calmly, and confidently, repudiate him, his followers, and all that he stands for.

This isn't hard. And we're not wrong. And there's no need for doubt or fear. We get this. Facebook gets this. Twitter gets this. Let's act like the fact that we get this means we know what we're doing. Because we do. And he is done.