SATURDAY: The Atlantic joins the human race!

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2026

Helen Lewis, superb again: As you may recall, it's the cover report in the June edition of The Atlantic. On the magazine's somewhat bluer than pale blue cover, the essay is described this way:

THE MEN WHO FEAR WOMEN
By HELEN LEWIS

We wrote about Lewis' essay last week. Online, it appears beneath this dual headline, and begins in the manner shown:

THE MEN WHO WANT WOMEN TO BE QUIET
A virulent form of misogyny has become the single most important force holding together the American right.

By Helen Lewis

Douglas Wilson has a modest proposal to improve American life: He wants to repeal the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the vote. In his ideal system, “we would do it in our politics the same way we do it in our church structure,” he told me recently. “And that is, we vote by household.”

Wilson is a co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, based in Moscow, Idaho. Over the past five decades, he has built a small empire there, dedicated to disseminating his theocratic vision for the United States: a publishing house, a school, a liberal-arts college, and a video-streaming service. His denomination, which has about 170 affiliated churches, counts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as a member, and Wilson was invited to lead a prayer service at the Pentagon in February. So when the pastor casually suggests disenfranchising half of America, people listen.

That's the way the essay begins.

People have written about Pastor Wilson before—about the pastor whose denomination includes the perpetually furious Secretary Hegseth as a member. In her essay, Lewis goes into substantial detail, first about Pastor Wilson, but then about an array of pastors, podcasters and streamers, not excluding "a loose collection of trolls known as Groypers," all of whom are part of a burgeoning gender-based movement.

As you may recalls, Lewis is writing about a loose affiliation of millionaires and other furious men. They're sometimes said to belong to the movement she starts to describe in this passage:

Wilson is a prominent voice in what is sometimes called “masculinism”: a movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men. His version is religious, influenced by the notion of male “headship” of the family and Saint Paul’s belief that godly women should “be quiet.” There are also plenty of secular masculinists, as well as nominally Muslim ones, such as the streamer Sneako, the self-proclaimed pimp Andrew Tate, and the podcaster Myron Gaines. Woman-bashing plays well on social media and sells lots of ads for crypto, sports betting, and supplements. You can make good money telling men that they’re the truly oppressed sex.

Masculinism! For ourselves, we'll go ahead and take a guess—the attitudes which Lewis goes on to describe are deeply bred in the bone. Some men are condemned to have a bit too much of the neural wiring which inspires them to loathe women in a significant way.  

The chemicals float around in their brains, perhaps in slightly excessive volume. Such men are thereby inspired to a dimwitted loathing they may find it hard to quit.

The invention of podcasts and similar technologies have helped these afflicted parties find each other and become angrier still. They may end up going on the Fox News Channel and offering ugly insults posing as jokes—such self-revelations as this:

And finally, the New World screwworm, which eats animals from the inside out, has been finally found in America, inside a cow. 

Scientists say this is just the latest of many reasons to avoid sex with Joy Behar. 

[PHOTO of Joy Behar]

AUDIENCE: Cheering, applause

The manifest nutcase who offered that musing never tires of the joy of comparing Behar to cows—or, perhaps, to horses, cattle, pigs and dogs, or once in a while to "livestock." He himself would never have sex with such an animal! 

(For the record, there would be a substantial age difference. Believe it or not, the pitiful boy who offered that quip is 61 years old! Behar, with whom he would never have sex, is 83 as we speak. Adjusting for age, and considering the norms of the culture, she looks amazingly good.)

At any rate, he would never have sex with that cow! Moments earlier, he had pleasured viewers with a joke in which (brace for punchline) he said that Ted Danson "will continue to apologize to his penis for ever having sex with Whoopi Goldberg"—and yes, that's what he said.

This is pretty much all he has. In fairness, he didn't invent the brain chemistry, the chemical torrent, which leads some men, even today, to succumb to such acts of loathing—such acts of self-portrayal.

The pitiful fellow who offered those "jokes" is part of the Fox News Channel's dimwitted duo—the pitiful pair who seem to be pushing the wonders of masculinism for that corporate "cable news" outfit.

The woman who runs that "cable news" messaging enterprise pays him $9 million per year to do this every night. As he does, the women who are paid by the Fox News Channel to serve as his co-hosts or as his panelists stare politely off into air, or in some cases choose to join in.

When Lewis' cover essay appeared, we were disappointed by its failure to cite the pair of "cable news" stars who work this beat at Fox. As of yesterday, Lewis is back with a related report from the world of this gender-based societal backlash.  

Lewis' work has long been superb. Within the boundaries of American journalism, her work is as good as it gets—and then some.

Finally, it was Lewis unbound! Dual headline included, her new report starts as shown:

The Republicans Who Impugn Talarico’s Manhood

Attacks on the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas show the GOP’s narrow, anxious definition of masculinity.

By Helen Lewis

The attacks on James Talarico have not been subtle. In the weeks since the 37-year-old state representative won the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Texas, Republicans have been describing him as “Low-T Talarico,” “James Talafreako,” and “Six-Gender Jimmy.” On May 28, the White House immigration czar Stephen Miller said on Fox News that it was “brave, courageous, that the Democratic Party would choose Texas, of all places, to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate.”

The Republicans have long marketed themselves as the manlier party, but the anti-Talarico blitzkrieg is both obviously coordinated and unusually overt. The overarching strategy here, as the Democratic presidential hopeful Rahm Emanuel has previously pointed out, is to associate the entire left with being “weak and woke.” Not manly, in other words. Talarico’s aw-shucks niceness and youthful looks are reframed as the result of low testosterone, and his (admittedly mawkish and over-egged) statements of concern for gender-nonconforming children make him a “freak.” Worst of all, according to the Florida Republican Dan Weldon, Talarico looks as though he “couldn’t name a single obscure wide receiver from the early 2000s.” Supporters of the Republican candidate, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, portray Democrats as wusses, cucks, soy boys who don’t follow sports. One commentator mused about whether Talarico wears “frilly underwear.”

So it goes with this continuing backlash. But good grief! Is that a reference to the Fox News Channel, right there in that opening paragraph?

Yes, it actually is! And with that, at long last, the Atlantic has chosen or has dared to join the human race. The magazine has even dared to let Lewis offer this:

Mostly, the attacks on Talarico have taken the form of 99,999 dog whistles implying that he is gay. On Fox News, Jesse Watters laughingly observed that the Democrats had rebuffed rumors that Talarico is vegan by posting photos of him “swallowing large sticks of meat.” He added: “He’s also 37 and not married.” When the New York Post confirmed that Talarico’s girlfriend exists by revealing her identity, the attack line mutated—did you know that she’s vegan? Pretty gay.   

By the way, I recommend watching the clip of Watters and [Stephen] Miller in full, because Miller has the kind of natural comic gifts that usually persuade people to forsake a career in stand-up and become a funeral director instead. Watters underlines the pathos by providing what I can describe only as live-action canned laughter. And yet, Miller must have some sense of humor, because his (vegan) roast of Talarico concluded with the assertion that the people of Texas, “some of the toughest, roughest, strongest men and women” in America, would never vote for “somebody with that much soy to be a U.S. senator, compared to a real conservative, patriotic, God-fearing, and truly beloved statewide figure in Ken Paxton.”

Ken Paxton? Truly beloved? Now, that’s comedy. Ken Paxton is not even truly beloved in Ken Paxton’s own party...

Astounding! The Atlantic has finally let one of its writers describe the type of braindead garbage which crowds the air at the Fox News Channel. For the clip of Watters and Miller to which she refers, Lewis links you here.

The Atlantic has thereby decided to bite the bullet and join the human race! That said, the New York Times still seems to cower in fear. So do the silent stars at MS NOW, from Rachel and Lawrence on down.

Lewis' work has long been superb. That said, our own Blue America, as a group, has never had a sexual politics. Also, our stars seem to be afraid of Fox, and they don't really seem to care. 

Gutfeld and Watters proceed in the knowledge that they can do and say whatever is pleasing. The loathing of women is undisguised, as is the baiting of those who lack the excessive volume of T which can make men so ugly, so stupid.

The Times will not report what they do. So too with our own cable stars!

FRANK: We need to do better, Barney Frank said!

FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2026

Did Gutfeld get something right? During the last year of his life, Barney Frank was concerned with the possible loss of "our democracy."   

More specifically, and quite constructively, he was concerned with the possibility that members of his own political tribe might be contributing to the danger. For that reason, he wrote the book which will be published later this year, the book which carries this title:

The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy 

How constructive were Frank's critiques? There will be no way to know until the book appears—and when it does, no one will comment or care. 

But in the final few months of his life, he gave interviews to the New York Times and to the Atlantic. 

The Atlantic's James Kirchick has seen the book. It seems to us that he made an important point as he discussed Frank's views:

Barney Frank’s Second Coming Out

[...]

Many progressives believe their own hearts to be pure but cannot conceive that anyone to their right might have sincere reasons for opposing them on borders, crime, foreign policy, or any other issue. “Many of these zealots,” Frank writes, “are convinced that the source of their abandonment is some form of corruption.” 

So Frank writes, in his book.

Kirchick, a conservative-leaner, may have seemed like a strange choice for this assignment, but Rep. Frank signed on. Meanwhile, who are the "zealots" to whom Frank refers in that one quote? 

We can't tell you that. But it's completely natural for progressives, and for everyone else, to assume that their own motives are pure and that those who disagree simply must be corrupt.  

We human beings are wired that way. It's how we're inclined to react.

In fact, we Blues managed to find a very large number of ways to help President Trump return to the White House. As is natural, w Blues have often had trouble perceiving that fact. That makes it more likely that we the people will never be able to find a way out of the threat to "our democracy"—out of our current extremely dangerous societal mess.  

It's true! Much of the gruesome behavior which emanates from the Fox News Channel is built around legitimate complaints about Democratic Party governance and Blue American issue framing. If we had to compile a list of such triggers, we'd start with the (still unexplained) border policy conducted under President Biden, but then we'd continue from there.

Many complaints voiced on appalling programs like The Five are built upon a legitimate base. That doesn't make the pseudo-journalistic behavior less gruesome, but it helps explain why there's a large audience for the gruesome behavior displayed on such programs—an audience from which the corporate bosses at Fox are apparently happy to profit.  

How gruesome does that behavior get, even as our own tribe's journalistic stars and media orgs agree to look away? Simply put, there's no way to keep up with the ugly behavior, or with the attendant stupidity of the imitation of journalism persistently aired on the channel to which we've referred..

There's no way to keep up with the channel's childish, ugly "masculinism," or with its sick imitations of journalism—its imitations of human life. That brings us back to the questions with which we began this week's reports. 

We posted those questions in Monday's report. Those questions concerned conditions at the Delaney Hall Detention Center, an ICE facility in Newark.

Based on news reports from the previous week, our questions went like this:  

Have detainees at Delaney Hall been served food containing maggots? 

Also:

Last Wednesday, did three congressmen observe this unacceptable state of affairs as they toured the site?  

News reports by CBS News and the Associated Press made it seem that at least one congressman, or possibly three, had actually seen such food being served, but the writing in their news reports was perhaps a bit fuzzy. 

In this Facebook post, the Washington Post seemed to say the same thing, mentioning Rep. Jerry Nadler by name.

That said, how about it? Did the congressmen actually see such food being served? By now, we'd say the answer is tilting toward a possible no, although there's no way to be be sure.

We've seen no one pursue the three congressmen to nail down the question of what they saw at the detention center. Meanwhile, this very Wednesday, the editorial board at the Washington Post seemed to backslid on that question a bit, in the manner shown:

Alarming cruelty reported at Delaney Hall demands accountability

The state of New Jersey filed a lawsuit this week against the operator of a privately run immigration detention center in Newark, claiming that health inspectors were denied full access to the facility. It’s the latest reminder that the federal government’s immigration enforcement system desperately needs greater transparency and accountability.   

The facility, called Delaney Hall, has become a flash point in recent weeks. Reports of unsanitary and inhumane conditions, which have become disturbingly common among detention facilities nationwide, have resulted in violent clashes outside the building between protesters and police. The situation has gotten so bad that Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) imposed a curfew around the center, and Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) deployed state troopers to manage the crowds.  

[...]   

[T]he federal government has an obligation to ensure that detainees in its custody, even if they illegally entered the country, are not subject to cruel conditions. Immigration detention centers are not supposed to be punitive; their purpose is to temporarily house immigrants while courts review their cases.

For weeks, detainees and attorneys advocating for them have accused the Delaney facility of providing poor living conditions and inadequate medical care despite outbreaks of covid and the flu. Some prisoners have joined a hunger strike, alleging that they have been served expired food and even meals containing live worms. Others have said they were subjected to solitary confinement.  

The editorial continues from there—and for starters, good for the board! The editorial board correctly asserts that detainees must not be subjected to cruel conditions—but the board has slid away from the original claim about the three congressmen. 

"Maggots" have become "live worms;" we see no difference there. But the assertions about this matter are now being sourced to statements made by detainees. The notion that congressmen actually observed some such state of affairs have disappeared from this editorial. 

Elsewhere, Blue news orgs simply ignored this allegation, right from the start. No one seems to have asked Rep. Nadler to say what exactly he saw. Could it be that we Blues just plain simply perhaps don't especially care?   

The claim last week was horrendous enough, but behavior at the Fox News Channel was immeasurably worse. It was that behavior which led us to focus on this matter as the week began. 

It began last Thursday with ugly behavior, then slid downhill from there.   

It's as we noted on Monday. "Who cares if there are maggots?" the channel's grisly Greg Gutfeld histrionically asked, on last Thursday's edition of The Five.  

"Who cares if [detainees] don't like the food?" Gutfeld's sidekick, Jesse Watters, soon added. 

At Media Matters, a fuller (though incomplete) bit of transcript was supplied. The inanity continued from the point where this transcript stopped, but—with paragraph breaks added for a modicum of clarity—this is the Media Matters transcript of the bulk of what Gutfeld said on last Thursday's The Five:  

Greg Gutfeld on the federal detention center at Delaney Hall: “Maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved”
Gutfeld: “Who cares if there are maggots?

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): In terms of the complaints, there's no video, medical records, or public reports, but I have to admit Jerry Nadler went there. And you know what he said? The food comes in small portions.

JESSICA TARLOV (CO-HOST): And has maggots in it.

GUTFELD: Yeah, but it's in small portions.

TARLOV: I get you want to call him fat, but there's—

GUTFELD: No. Why would you say that? He has a medical condition, Jessica, my God! He's obese, not fat! 

But the conditions are roughly the same as where they came from. Messy johns, medical delays. But maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved. 

I don't see the maggots. Why aren't they documented? They get 24/7 medical access. But here's the key, and this is the only thing you need to remember:

When the opposition to immigration policy scales up, the complaints spike. They're aggregated, and they are amplified, designed to set the stage for this chaotic mess. But these people, you do not have to fear them, you do not have to listen to them, they created the problem, they have lost the privilege of input. 

You can complain all you want about the maggots. I don't believe you. Because I don't believe any Democrat about immigration. It's just like commenting on Trump's health after enabling Biden's cover-up. I don't have to listen to that anymore. 

You guys blew it. Trump sealed what you broke, the border. Now he's cleaning up the aftermath. You can't stand there and tell us how to clean up the mess. You lost that right.

DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): Jessica, I will go to you. Why does it have to go from—instead of saying, "Fix this problem"—if there are maggots in the food. Like again, I don't know—

GUTFELD: Who cares if there are maggots?  

Videotape is provided at the Media Matters link.

"Who cares if there are maggots?" he thoughtfully interjected. But an array of ugly and stupid comments preceded that question, and Watters hadn't yet had the chance to offer this thought:

"Who cares if they don't like the food?"  

Regarding the food, it's "dietitian approved," Gutfeld had mockingly said. Before that, he had engaged in one of his standard jibes on the theme that Rep. Nadler is just too BLEEPing fat. 

(There's a long, coarse backstory here, built around Gutfeld's endless, brain-damaged ruminations about Nadler's imagined bathroom behaviors. And yes, this is the kind of product the Fox News Channel provides in its primetime "cable news" coverage.)

Gutfeld had also said that "messy johns" are the norm where the detainees come from. And he had voiced the remarkable journalistic theory which he now routinely voices:

Because Democrats opened the border and misstated about President Biden's health, people within his own Red tribe no longer have to listen to any claim any liberal or Democrat makes!

We Blues can complain as much as we like. In a classic prescription for a failed state, Gutfeld persistently instructs Red American viewers that they should no longer listen or care.  

Also, of course, "Maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved!" So went this messaging agent's mocking reaction in the face of the claim about maggots.

The conversation got dumber from there, with Watters joining in. The next day, Watters performed the role of clown to perfection, reading "the whole monthly menu" for the center, desserts and all, as if a pudding is just as sweet if it arrives with live worms in it.   

The rest of the children sat around, laughing and pretending that this behavior made sense. This Monday, Delaney Hall was discussed again, with Watters recalling his reading of the menus: 

WATTERS (6/1/26): They were complaining they didn't have ethnic food. We looked at the menu, it looked like Taco Bell...Instead of talking about health care or high gas prices, they're worrying about what cereal we're feeding some maniac from Honduras! That's the problem with Democrats! 

Few detainees are maniacs. It isn't clear that many or most of the detainees should be detained at all, but this is the way this game is played on this ersatz "news channel."

It went downhill from there. By the end of Monday's segment, Gutfeld was deriding Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) as "a little douche."

"Little Kim—what a little douche," the 61-year-old "bad boy" said. 

Watters jumped in to improve the play. He and Gutfeld took turns deriding Senator Kim as "the real Lil' Kim," a wonderfully entertaining reference to the lady rapper.

Much of what gets said on this show is built upon reasonable complaints. From there, the reaction tends to move in the direction of ugly and the ginormously dumb. 

President Trumnp's bizarre behaviors and lunatic claims will simply never be mentioned.  In this way, the furious Gutfeld and the clowning clown Watters engineer an epistemic silent secession, in which Red Americans are allowed to retain spotless minds about President Trump while hearing endless insults aimed at the douchebags found in the other America.

Meanwhile, we Blues! Our big news orgs report none of this profoundly destructive behavior. The ugly insults aimed at women by Gutfeld's broken brained masculinism go unreported as well. 

Do we Blues sometimes give them the fuel from which this soul-draining conduct is launched? We leave you today with this one thought about the maggots:    

Gutfeld said he didn't believe that there were maggots. As far as we have ever learned from any Blue American news org, it could be that he was right!

Frank said we Blues need to step up our game. As a general matter, we agree with that assessment.

That said, do we Blues possess the skill to see where we may be proceeding in error? As humans, we Blues, like the Reds, aren't necessarily wired that way.

Based on our tribe's widespread self-assurance, we anticipate little improvement until a highly skilled leader appears.

Starting Monday: "When language goes on holiday!" (Reports on the Callais decision. Thoughts on what comes next.)

THURSDAY: We're told what Ali Velshi is!

THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2026

Senator Kim, Obama as well: Last evening, we learned what Ali Velshi is. As it turns out, he's "a douchebag," or so Red America's viewers were told.  

Also, Barack Obama is "a gay Muslim." Viewers of the Gutfeld! program were offered that additional knowledge.   

(Also, the latest Richard Gere [HEART] gerbils ploy! The angriest dog on the Fox News Channel just can't seem to let that one go.)

Last Wednesday, we told you that "douchebag" is becoming one of Greg Gutfeld's favorite analytical terms. He also enjoys discussing "boners" and the disappearance of same, as he did in this opening "joke" at 10:02 last night:

GUTFELD (6/3/26): Last night, Katie Porter conceded the California governor's race after getting just five percent of the vote.

[PHOTO of Porter]

She'll now go back to her old job as a scarecrow for boners. 

AUDIENCE, PANEL: [Laughter]

GUTFELD: Don't worry, supporters. She always lands on her hooves.  

PANELIST KENNEDY: [Laughter]   

He just can't seem to quit what he does—what he does to pleasure his audience. That latest assertion about President Obama was also delivered at 10:02, again in the form of a "joke:"  

GUTFELD: President Trump claims he is getting along quite well with Iran's new supreme leader, who is probably gay. 

No surprise! Trump has been known to get along with gay Muslim leaders quite often.

[PHOTO of Trump with Obama]

AUDIENCE: [Cheering, applause]

"I don't get it," the little guy said as the cheering died down. "I don't know why you find that funny."  

(That's one of the many beards the termagant hides behind. For his latest about Gere—well actually, no. We don't want to link you to that today.)

To see Velshi assailed as a douchebag, you can just click here. Later, the little guy assailed him using a word which producers had to BLEEP.

Monday afternoon, this time right there on The Five, the little guy assailed Senator Kim (D-NJ), describing him as simply "a douche"—more precisely, as "a little douche."

(Senator Kim is "the real Lil Kim," Watters and Gutfeld each said. This is the way "the news" is presented on our astonishing nation's most-watched "cable news" program.)

Suzanne Scott puts this swill on the air in primetime every night. We're barely scratching the surface of where this angry messaging specialist takes it.

(On Fox, President Obama is routinely described as gay. Michelle Obama is routinely said to be a man. Rare is the night which doesn't include a throwback joke about Don Lemon, who is openly gay—rather, about how lasciviously promiscuous the liberal journo supposedly is.)

It's news! It's news that American broadcast journalism has reached this extremely low point. Unless you read the Atlantic or the New York Times, or unless you watch MS NOW, where this extremely unusual "journalistic" behavior is never reported or discussed

Those orgs are afraid of the Fox News Channel. That said, you're already living in a failed state. How hard is it to see that?

Another key disappearance: Boners, or the disappearance of same, seem to play a significant role in the termagant's mental life. On Monday evening's Gutfeld! show, he took a shot at Governor Sherill's logic, handing his audience this:

GUTFELD: Her logic disappeared faster than a boner at The View's annual Bikini Car Wash.

[PHOTO of the women of The View]

AUDIENCE: [Clatter, applause]

 GUTFELD (delightedly): It's been a while, I know.

Questions: Does this occur in news broadcasts anywhere else in the world? Or is this perhaps the "American exceptionalism" which holds these chimps in such thrall?

FRANK: Trump is imploding, the congressman said!

THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2026

We're not sure that's enough: In the last weeks of his remarkable life, Barney Frank, receiving hospice care in Ogunquit, appeared with Jake Tapper, on CNN, for a brief final interview. 

The interview itself was on videotape. The session started like this:

TAPPER (5/3/26): Welcome back to State of The Union. You will remember my next guest as a trailblazer for many things, including gay rights. He is the co-author of one of the most significant financial reforms since the New Deal.

But now, at age 86, 16-term former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a Democrat who is battling congestive heart failure, just entered hospice care. And as he prepares for his goodbyes, he's directing his famously sharp wit not only at President Trump, but at his own party. 

[Videotape]

And joining me now is former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank. Congressman, how are you feeling today?

FRANK: OK. I have felt better. On the other hand, I anticipate feeling worse. I'm in no great pain, but my energy level is low. Essentially, after 86 years, my heart's just wearing out.  

God bless the late, unforgettable Barney Frank! You can watch the full interview by clicking here. For the transcript, just click this.

He said his heart was wearing out. But also, he said his party is doing some things which make the nation's recovery less likely.   

In the last year of his life, Rep. Frank wrote a book devoted to that very claim. The book will be published later this year. 

Whatever he actually says in the book, no one will pay it a lick of attention. But this is where his critique began in his short session with Tapper:    

TAPPER: Let's talk about your book. It's going to come out later this year. It's called The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy.

You are a progressive icon, but now you are expressing some reservations about where the progressive movement has gone. Tell us more. 

[...]  

FRANK: It's precisely because I have been on the left that I have undertaken this. 

I think we're in a situation where the mainstream, to my disappointment, for many years ignored inequality. And many of us fought to get inequality on the Democratic agenda. 

But the problem was, as we succeeded in bringing the mainstream of the left into a concern with inequality, we also enabled people who wanted to use that as a platform for a wide range of social and cultural changes, some of which the public isn't ready for. 

Even when I agree with them on the end, I think they make a mistake by taking the most controversial parts of the agenda and turning them into litmus tests.  

For the record:  From a pair of final print interviews, it seems that Rep. Frank was likely referring to economic inequality at the start of this brief capsule history. 

In this brief interview, what follows is his one example of the pursuit of changes, by some on the left, which "the public isn't ready for:" 

FRANK (continuing directly): My example is same-sex marriage. Obviously, I have been working for gay rights starting in 1972, when I filed the bill. And we in the movement to establish fairness for gay and lesbian and bisexual people, we picked to work on those issues which were more acceptable.

We didn't get to marriage until after these other things had been resolved. And that's what I'm suggesting that we do today. 

The analog is males and female transsexuals playing sports that are for women. I understand there's a lot of anger about that. And I think, in the interest of the transgender community, as well as others, it would be better to go at that in a more granular way, and not simply announce that, if you don't support it, you're a homophobe.  

According to Rep. Frank, some on the left have moved too fast with respect to "males and female transsexuals playing sports that are for women." He also seemed to say that there had been some unhelpful name-calling. 

Rep. Frank was hardly alone in this general perception. Rightly or wrongly, it's widely said that Candidate Harris was substantially harmed by an earlier position she had taken with respect to health care for undocumented transexual prisoners. 

Rightly or wrongly, the idea that progressives and Democrats moved too fast in this general area doesn't belong to Frank alone. There were, of course, many other ways in which Democrats and liberals helped the current sitting president make his way back to the White House.  

The ludicrous situation involving President Biden's late abandonment of his re-election campaign stands out as a giant example. Jill Biden is out there today, seeming perhaps to make this bad situation worse.

That said, many other examples exist, most of which go unmentioned in the "safe spaces" maintained for us Blue Americans in our own tribe's media warrens.  

What else has Rep. Frank said in his book? That remains to be seen. That said, we'd be inclined to disagree with what he told Tapper, a bit later on, about the sitting president.

The sitting president is imploding, the former congressman said:   

FRANK: Donald Trump, we originally thought was a joke. And then he turned out to be very good at one thing, exploiting voters' discontent.

And so he won an election based on that and, since then, has gone back to being a joke. The man is imploding. He has no program that he's seeking to adopt.

[...]

TAPPER: You said you think President Trump is imploding. And you told Politico that you regret that you're not going to see the continued implosion of President Trump because of your current health situation.

[...]

FRANK: I say in the book, early on, that the fate of liberal democracy versus authoritarian populism will depend in part on how Donald Trump does, and if he does badly, that discredits the whole operation. 

I am convinced that he does not have an appeal beside exploiting anger. But he's so angry, and his politics are so determined by this anger, that he doesn't see that. And so that's why I think he's imploding.   

The sitting president is imploding, the former congressman said. In our view, that seems to be true in the most obvious sense, but we think it miscasts the size and the shape of the problem.  

The president's approvals seem to be dropping—although, given his endlessly erratic performance, it seems to us that they remain shockingly high. In our view, it's also true that we Blues engage in a wide array of behaviors which help him retain those numbers.  

Will the president's ongoing implosion lead to a Democratic takeover of the House (and possibly even the Senate) this year? Assuming he lets elections proceed, that seems like an obvious possibility—but he would still be in the Oval Office for at least two additional years.  

Given his apparent unraveling, that undermines the significance of the "implosion" to which Frank refers. We see the situation this way:

The president can implode as much as we like. But what might he do after that? 

In our view, implosion isn't enough. After implosion, what's next?

Major heralded global world experts have begun to advance a simple proposition about our difficult situation. Their consensus goes like this: 

If people can't see that they're living in a failed state, that has no bearing on the reality of the situation

These international global top experts are offering several comparisons to our current situation:   

In the Oscar-nominated film, The Sixth Sense, the Bruce Willis character doesn't know that he's already dead. And in Camus' famous novel, La Peste, a plague has already entered Oran, but the citizens of the sun-splashed city are unable to see this.

So it goes, top experts say, in a nation in which The Five is aired each day, with no one commenting on the way it and its companion broadcasts affect the broader society.

We started this week's reports with a reference to the dim-witted clowning seen on The Five on Thursday and Friday of last week. (The garbage only piles harder as the evening hours wear on.)

The fun concerned the reported presence of maggots. Tomorrow, we'll return to that starting point. 

This involves a problem which has no name, given the failure of Blue America's slumbering elites to speak about what is occurring inside what deluded experts now see as an imploded failed state.

Tomorrow: "Who cares about maggots?" the messengers said. Here within our own Oran, things have slid downhill from there.