SATURDAY: What the Sam Hill is megalomania?

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2024

We decided to give it a look: Yesterday, we heard a throwaway comment about "megalomania"—a comment directed at Elon Musk.

That said, what the heck is megalomania? For example, is it an actual clinical term? We decided to give it a look.

Below, we'll start you on your search. First, though, some recent findings by the New York Times' Linda Qiu.

Qiu decided to fact-check Musk's claims about this past week's original budget bill—the bill which was voted down after Citizen Musk, and then Citizen Trump, complained about its contents. 

She decided to fact-check Citizen Musk! Regarding this intervention, an earlier report in the New York Times had asked us to believe such improbable claims as these: 

Elon Musk Flexes His Political Strength as Government Shutdown Looms

[...]

In more than 150 separate posts on X, starting before dawn on Wednesday, Mr. Musk demanded that Republicans back away from a bipartisan spending deal that was meant to avoid a government shutdown over Christmas. He vowed political retribution against anyone voting for the sprawling bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called Mr. Musk on Wednesday to ask that he stop posting about the bill.

Mr. Musk also shared misinformation about the bill, including false claims that it contained new aid for Ukraine or $3 billion in funds for a new stadium in Washington. By the end of Wednesday, Mr. Trump issued a statement of his own, calling the bill “a betrayal of our country.”

It was a remarkable moment for Mr. Musk, who has never been elected to public office but now appears to be the largest megaphone for the man about to retake the Oval Office. Larger, in fact, than Mr. Trump himself, whose own vaunted social media presence is dwarfed by that of Mr. Musk. The president-elect has 96.2 million followers on X, while Mr. Musk has 207.9 million...

This week also marked the first time Mr. Musk has been able to use his website as a digital whip, driving lawmakers to support his desired outcome. 

[...]

One of Mr. Musk’s first posts about the spending bill came at 4:15 Wednesday morning in Washington.

“This bill should not pass,” the billionaire wrote on his social platform.

Between posts about his own video game antics and SpaceX’s satellite internet service, he used his X account to call the bill “criminal,” spread misinformation about its contents and issue a rallying cry to “stop the steal of your tax dollars!”

His posts followed a similar pattern of past activity on X, where he can become hyper-fixated on a single issue that bothers him.

[...]

On Wednesday, narrative eclipsed truth. “The terrible bill is dead,” Mr. Musk posted just before 4 p.m. in Washington, closing his post with the Latin phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

"More than 150 posts?" Does anyone believe such claims about this clear-headed industrial giant? 

Does anyone really believe the claims according to which Musk "can become hyper-fixated on a single issue" as he allegedly "posts about his own video game antics" while reporting the voice of God?

Also, does anyone really believe that the man who knows the voice of God could or would traffic in misinformation? These claims seemed bogus on their face—until we perused Qiu's report.

Qiu's report took the form of a journalistic "fact check." Online, her report appears beneath this triple heading:

FACT CHECK
Assessing Elon Musk’s Criticisms of the Government Spending Deal
The world’s richest man posted or amplified inaccurate claims about the bill’s provisions for congressional salaries, a football stadium and biological research.

We'll simplify it for you. According to Qiu's report, Musk tweeted that the original bill contained a 40 percent pay increase for members of Congress.

According to Qiu, his claim was remarkably close to correct. The actual number was 3.8 percent. 

(With this devotion to technical accuracy, it's no wonder his space flights work!)

Also according to Qiu's report, Musk had tweeted the claim that the original bill included a “$3 billion NFL stadium in Washington, D.C.” According to Qiu (and everyone else), that claim was just plain false.

According to Qiu, the industrial giant had also shared an earlier post which claimed that the bill contained "$60B to Ukraine" and "Mask/vaccine mandates." Those claims were also bogus, Qiu said, before moving on to Musk's inevitable but bogus claims about "bioweapons labs."

This, of course, is the Christmas season. It's a season of nutballs and fruitcakes, but also of broken toys. 

That said, on what meat doth this particular nutball feed—this extremely high-end toy? With those questions dancing like sugarplums, we return to the terms of our search:

Is "megalomania" a clinical term? Or is it simply a colloquial term of derision? 

These were the fruits of our search:

The leading authority on the term instantly clicked us ahead to its report on "narcissistic personality disorder." At its companion site, Simple English Wikipedia was willing to tell us this:

Megalomania

Megalomania is a mental illness. People with megalomania have delusional fantasies that they are more relevant (important) or powerful than they truly are. They have inflated self esteem and overestimate their powers and beliefs. People with megalomania tend to exhibit a disposition that is less inclined towards humbleness.

The word "megalomania" is no longer used in the mental health field, and is not mentioned in either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD). Instead, this condition is now called narcissistic personality disorder.

We take that to mean that "megalomania" is no longer regarded as a diagnostic clinical term. Regarding the apparent substitute diagnosis, the leading authority on the matter starts by telling us this:

Narcissistic personality disorder 

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathize with other people's feelings. Narcissistic personality disorder is one of the sub-types of the broader category known as personality disorders. It is often comorbid with other mental disorders and associated with significant functional impairment and psychosocial disability.

Personality disorders are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring and inflexible maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by any culture...Criteria for diagnosing personality disorders are listed in the sixth chapter of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

There is no standard treatment for NPD. Its high comorbidity with other mental disorders influences treatment choice and outcomes.

And so on, at length, from there. For the record, it isn't clear that Blue America's contemporary elites actually believe in this branch of modern medical science.

It's awkward to read about this particular clinical disorder. That's especially true for people who remember what the niece of the incoming president wrote about her uncle in a best-selling book whose specific assessments were almost wholly disappeared:

MARY TRUMP (pages 12-13): None of the Trump siblings emerged unscathed from my grandfather's sociopathy and my grandmother's illnesses, both physical and psychological, but my uncle Donald and my father, Freddy, suffered more than the rest. In order to get a complete picture of Donald, his psychopathologies, and the meaning of his dysfunctional behavior, we need a thorough family history.

In the last three years, I’ve watched as countless pundits, armchair psychologists and journalists have kept missing the mark, using phrases such as "malignant narcissism" and "narcissistic personality disorder" in an attempt to make sense of Donald’s often bizarre and self-defeating behavior. I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label only gets us so far.

Mary Trump is a clinical psychologist. That doesn't mean that her assessments are necessarily correct.

Her assessments could always be bogus! That's even true when she goes on to offer this:

...A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe forms is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for. 

So the observer alleged. Full disclosure:

According to current rules of the game, you can't be exposed to such ruminations within the mainstream press corps. Within their pixels or pages or endless broadcast hours, issues of mental health and mental illness can and will be applied in a wide array of contexts, but not in a context like this.

Again, this is the season of discarded fruitcakes, but also of broken toys. At present, a large assortment of such toys can be found beneath one public figure's tree.

As happenstance has it, these broken toys emerged from a remarkable array of early childhood experiences. This seems to include membership in a father's apparent cult; abandonment at an early age by a mother who was never seen by the broken toy again; and lifelong devotion to a grandmother who (literally) set a drunken grandfather on fire one night while he slept. 

For the record, the collection of highly unusual stories doesn't end there. According to prevailing rules of the game, you aren't allowed to contemplate these matters under prevailing arrangements.

Under prevailing arrangements, Citizen Musk can be derided for his megalomania, but only in passing, colloquially. He sits beneath the other citizen's tree in what may be a broken state.

The anthropologist Cummings once wrote of these seasonal trees, inhabiting a child's perspective as he did. He penned his account in the form of a poem—a poem which starts like this:

little tree

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see          i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid...

And so on from there. There are many different ways to describe the array of human experience.

With respect to Cummings' account, there seem to have been no broken toys beneath that particular tree. Within our plainly failing society, we've come a long way from there.

What the heck is "megalomania?" Breaking every rule in the book, we decided to conduct a search. We decided to take a quick look!

FRIDAY: The darkest evening of the year...

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2024

Arrival of the solstice: Tonight is a special night, NPR reports:

Saturday is the winter solstice. Make the most of the shortest day of the year

Saturday is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It's not only the shortest day of the year, but the official arrival of astronomical winter.

"At 4:20 a.m. EST, the solstice marks the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere," NASA says on its website.

That means from now until the end of June, each day will get a little bit longer...

The report continues from there. But what exactly makes this the solstice? The leading authority explains:

Winter solstice

The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, and when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky.

And so on from there.

"The winter solstice is the day with the longest night of the year." Was this the night Frost had in mind in one of his most famous poems?

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.  

In fairness, this may not be the darkest evening, but it's said to be the longest. We've been thinking about that line a lot in these recent short, gloomy days.

Metaphorically, we've been experiencing a great deal of darkness within our flailing nation's political affairs. The madness is visible all around us. But by law, it can't be discussed.

By way of contrast:

Here comes the sun, the Beatles once claimed. Any version of that song is good for the soul, but we especially like this rendition, by George and that other Paul.

Fellow citizens, Here comes the sun! At least as a matter of theory, that starts to happen, if slowly, tomorrow. 

In the alternate realm of lived events, it may be a long, unstable four years, a lengthy period driven along by the whims of a largely under-discussed collection of broken toys.

Frost's horse was between the woods and a lake. For us, it's a rock and a hard place!

THE SEARCH: Why did Harris lose to Trump?

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2024

Could the problem (in part) be Us? Why did Candidate Harris (narrowly) lose to Candidate Donald J. Trump?

The question deserves exploration. We restate a basic framework:

On the one hand, it's amazing that Harris came so close, given the ridiculous circumstance which thrust her into the campaign in late July. 

(We refer to President Biden's withdrawal from the campaign, roughly one month after his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate.)

No candidate had ever been asked to run a presidential campaign with such a late start. A person could imagine that Harris performed a political miracle by making the race so close.

On the other hand:

On the other hand, she may have lost by a narrow margin, but she lost by that margin to Trump. For many people in Blue America, this brings a few larger questions into play:

How could she, or anyone else, possibly have lost to him? 

Also, how could any decent person possibly have decided to vote for a person like Candidate Trump? 

Many people in Blue America can't seem to come up with an answer to those questions. In our view, that inability to compute points to a lingering problem over here within our own Blue American nation. 

Meanwhile, Van Jones has been conducting a search—a search which touches on those very same points. We think his search is worth reviewing. 

Last Saturday, Jones described his search, at some length, during a 53-minute discussion with Chris Cillizza. You can watch the videotape of that colloquy here. For Newsweek's report, click this.

Jones and Cillizza spoke at length. At the 19-minute mark, the slightly agitated Jones offers this assessment of his own political party:

JONES (12/14/24): The Democratic Party is in a ditch, upside down, with wheels spinning, going nowhere, on [BLEEPED]. 

Already, that doesn't sound good! But here's the fuller assessment:

JONES: The Democratic Party is in a ditch, upside down, with wheels spinning, going nowhere, on [BLEEPED]. And the people driving it are saying, "This is fine. This is fine."

So they can keep drinking their own pee water if they want to. I would be much more interested in having an honest conversation.

He wants to have an honest conversation. Or perhaps he's conducting a search.

For the record, the fact that Jones thinks X, Y or Z doesn't mean that those assessments are accurate. In our view, though, Jones has long been sharper than the average bear. We skip ahead to the part of the tape where he describes the fruit of his search.

At minute 27, the CNN commentator starts to describe a revolutionary fact. 

JONES: The mainstream media is now, by the numbers, the fringe. And the fringe, by the numbers, is now the mainstream...

If I'm sitting next to Anderson Cooper, I'm talking to a million people, maybe a million two. Down the road, on Fox, they're talking to three million people, maybe three point two.

Already, that sounds bad from the Blue American perspective. But here's the fuller assessment:

JONES: If I'm sitting next to Anderson Cooper, I'm talking to a million people, maybe a million two. Down the road, on Fox, they're talking to three million people, maybe three point two.

And there's some Twitstreamer—a Twitstreamer you've never heard of—talking to 14 million people!..[So] the fringe is now the mainstream, and the mainstream is now the fringe.

In that passage, Jones is describing an outcome which has been delivered by the "democratization of media." We're guessing that he doesn't intend for the term "Twitstreamer" to be viewed as a term of high praise.

Jones is describing the way our world now works "by the numbers." Under these new arrangements, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, as it says in a very old book! 

According to Jones, "We [Democrats] woke up in a body bag on Election Day" because we hadn't come to terms with this change in the way information (and its opposite) now gets delivered.

"We got beat on platforms I never heard of," he says as he continues. "Twitch, Kick, Rumble. All these platforms sound like symptoms of somebody in the hospital, OK? Twitch, Kick, Rumble? What is it?"

The numbers get even more overwhelming as Jones cites the 48 million people who watched part of Joe Rogan's session with Candidate Trump. And then, he turns to this, the essence of his search:

"So guys, get out of my face," he says. "We had the wrong analysis. We didn't even have the conceptual framework to understand what was happening to us." 

So Jones says, and at that point, Cillizza poses a question. When he does, Jones states the essence, at least to date, of his ongoing search:

CILLIZZA: How the hell did Donald Trump figure out the mainstream media is the fringe, and the fringe is now the mainstream?...How the hell was he, the 78-year-old guy who doesn't even have a computer and still like writes hand-written notes— How did he become the guy who cracked the code?

JONES: ...The problem is, you have a framework in your mind, "How can Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump?" 

Guys, can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an idiot! Donald Trump—Let me just be very clear. Donald Trump is smarter than me, you, and all of his critics.  You know how I know? Because he has the White House, the Senate, the House—

CILLIZZA: Totally agree.

JONES: —the Supreme Court, the popular vote. He has a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream built around him and for him, and a religiously—a religious fervor in a political movement around him. And his best buddy is the richest person in the history of the world, and the most relevant Kennedy is with him.

This dude is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on earth and in our lifetime. And we're still saying, "Well, how is this guy?"

We look like idiots to ordinary people.

CILLIZZA: You're totally right.

Is Jones "totally right" in that assessment?  If you take him literally, we would largely say no. Otherwise, we'd  strongly recommend that you consider what he's saying. 

In some literal sense, is Donald J. Trump "smarter than all of his critics?" Taken in a literal sense, we wouldn't agree with anything resembling that assessment. 

Also, we don't know if Candidate Trump actually figured anything out in the way Cillizza's question might seem to imply.  It may be that someone else figured something out—or it may be that Trump simply stumbled into an approach which let him achieve a narrow win over an accidental candidate who was thrust into the race in late July of this very year.

We don't think of Candidate Trump as being "smart." At this site, we regard him principally as "disordered"—disordered in a way the mainstream press has agreed we must never discuss.

That said, does Jones really think that Donald J. Trump is smarter than everyone else? Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. It may just be his (visible) frustration speaking. We have no idea.

Whatever Jones may actually think, there's one more key part of the account he offers of his ongoing search. Around the 32-minute mark, we find him saying this:

JONES: Everything starts to come apart. All the old conventional ways of thinking and seeing have to be challenged. 

And what you have is, everybody's down on Trump. "He's a Big Dummy. He has a bunch of idiots around him." That's a lie! It's not true! 

He's not a Big Dummy. He doesn't have a bunch of idiots around him. And just because we don't understand it, that doesn't mean that he's dumb. If we don't understand it, that means that we're dumb!

The first thing we have to acknowledge is, we got beat by something we don't understand. And then all these liberals are wandering around, "Well, I just don't understand it."

Well, maybe because you're dumb and he's smart! Try that on! Because suddenly you're going to have lenses to say, "Well, how is he smart? How am I dumb?" Not, "I know he's dumb. Why are all these voters also dumb?" 

With that, the gents confront the poison in the piece. We refer to the reflexive explanation, widely seen inside Blue America, which holds that Candidate Trump's 77.3 million voters are just stupid—or perhaps are something worse.

For ourselves, we wouldn't describe Candidate Trump as being "smart." Eventually, though, Jones toys with the most significant fruit of his search—with the possibility that those of us in Blue America have met the real Big Dummy, and the real Big Dummy right now might possibly be Us.

Why did people vote for Trump? Imagining it a different way, why did so many people vote against our own candidate? Or possibly even this:

Why did so many people decide to vote against Us?

Why did so many people decide to vote the other way? We think the possible reasons go on and on and on. We think the story dates back many years, all the way back to its start in the autumn of 65. 

Why might decent people have voted for Candidate Trump? When we Blues can't name any possible reasons, could that suggest that we've met the problem, and the problem might include Us?

Next week: At long last, the (rather long) list

THURSDAY: What are the cable news ratings like?

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2024

Sacred Troy overrun: Perhaps you're wondering what the nation's "cable news" ratings look like now that the year is over.

Over at Mediaite, Alex Griffing has reported the year-end numbers from Neilsen. Maybe Griffing's just kidding around, but he says these were the twelve highest-rated cable news programs over the course of the year:

Highest-rated cable news shows, 2024
 1) The Five 
 2) Jesse Watters Primetime
 3) Hannity
 4) Gutfeld!
 5) The Ingraham Angle
 6) Special Report with Bret Baier
 7) Outnumbered 
 8) The Faulkner Focus
 9) America’s Newsroom with Perino and Hemmer
10) America Reports with Roberts and Smith
11) The Story with Martha MacCallum
12) Your World with Neil Cavuto

Those are the twelve highest-rated shows.  For the record, they're all from the Fox News Channel.

At least in theory, these things come and go. That said, here/'s the somewhat gloomy start of Griffing's year-end report:

Fox News Crushes 2024 In the Cable News Ratings

As 2024 winds down, Nielsen Media Research averages for cable news ratings cement an undeniable trend for the year: Fox News’s increasing dominance as MSNBC and CNN face an uncertain future.

Fox ended the year by extending its winning streak with a consecutive ninth year at number one in both total viewers and the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic. MSNBC landed in second place with total viewers...

Fox grabbed over 55% of the total cable audience in prime time and 49% of total day viewers for the year, marking its largest audience share since 2015. In November, the network increased that share to an unprecedented 62% of the total viewership across the industry. Post-election, that number soared even higher as Fox News captured 72% of the cable news audience in prime time for the month’s second to last full week. MSNBC scored 16 percent, while CNN had 11 percent of cable news viewers during prime time.

... Nielsen found that Fox was also the most-watched network throughout the election in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 

Candidate Trump won the three "blue wall" states by narrow margins. Fox News was outperforming MSNBC in all three of those states. (Griffing doesn't say by how much.)

For ourselves, we look forward to dropping our endless attempt to speak about the (many) reasons why people may have decided to vote for Candidate Trump. In the new year, we look forward to seeking the most productive ways to discuss what happens on the Fox News Channel's various programs, and perhaps in the wider world of social media.

In our view, those of us in Blue America need to take a different approach. We need a new attitude. Over the course of the past few years, our cable tribunes kept trying to get the other guy locked up. However well-intentioned that approach might have been, it looks like it might not have worked. 

According to Griffing's report, here's the way it went over the course of the year. We'll edit the parts about viewers in "the coveted age 25-54 demographic," though that's the group the advertisers and perhaps the bosses care about most:

Fox News ends the year with an average of 2.4 million prime time viewers, a 31% increase from last year...CNN is also up 21% in the total average for the year with 700,000 prime time viewers...MSNBC is up 5% for the year with 1.25 million average prime time viewers..

For better or worse, Fox doubled the score on MSNBC, while CNN also had viewers.

The Five is the nation's highest-rated "cable news" show! It's also an imitation of life, a parody of journalism. It's an anthropology lesson—a fascinating study in the way we people may choose to behave.

THE SEARCH: Just another manic Wednesday!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2024

Also, Van Jones [HEART] President Biden: Long ago, during the 2016 campaign, he was described by his opponent as a puppet to Putin. 

Is he Elon's puppet now?

We refer to former candidate / incoming president Donald J. Trump. Yesterday, he created a contretemps when he intervened in the ongoing budget brouhaha, an action he took after Musk suddenly tweeted on the subject roughly a hundred times.

Or at least, we heard that number reported on cable news. All in all, it was just another manic Wednesday here in our struggling nation's version of Oran. 

The budget meltdown happened so late in the day that it didn't make the print editions of today's New York Times. Online, a report begins in the manner shown, featuring an unusually colorful bit of journalistic language:

Trump Criticizes Spending Deal, Pushing Congress Toward a Shutdown

A bipartisan spending deal to avert a shutdown was on life support on Wednesday after President-elect Donald J. Trump condemned it, leaving lawmakers without a strategy to fund the government past a Friday night deadline.

Mr. Trump issued a scathing statement ordering Republicans not to support the sprawling bill, piling on to a barrage of criticism from Elon Musk, who spent Wednesday trashing the measure on social media and threatening any Republican who supported it with political ruin.

It was not yet clear how Speaker Mike Johnson planned to proceed as the package, which was stuffed full of unrelated policy measures as well as tens of billions of dollars in disaster and agricultural aid, appeared to be hemorrhaging support. Some Republicans suggested he was mulling stripping the bill of everything but the spending extension and putting it to a vote, but the fate of such a measure was also very much in doubt.

Really? the bill "was stuffed full of" unrelated policy measures? Have editors at the New York Times barred use of the word "included?"  

Give the reporters credit! In today's report, they never say that Speaker Johnson had been trying to "shove the spending package down America's throat." 

They show that amount of restraint. But before too long, they do say this, bringing the eternal note of incomprehension in:

Even before Mr. Musk began making noise, a swell of Republican lawmakers...had been furious about the funding measure, which was rolled out on Tuesday night. It began as a simple spending bill to keep government funds flowing past a midnight deadline and into mid-March, but it emerged from bipartisan negotiations laden with $100 billion in disaster aid and dozens of other unrelated policies.

The G.O.P. resistance meant that in order to pass the bill, Mr. Johnson was going to have to rely, yet again, on Democratic votes to pass it, using a special procedure that requires the support of two-thirds of those voting. But by Wednesday afternoon, the backlash to the legislation had spread so far and wide in G.O.P. ranks that it was unclear whether he would even be able to muster a bare minimum of Republicans to partner with Democrats and push it across the finish line.

Say what? Speaker Johnson had been planning to use "a special procedure that requires the support of two-thirds of those voting?" Say hello to the cultural problem known as "the complexification of everything." 

In that passage, the Times reporters are referring to a procedure which could (possibly) be explained by Norman Ornstein but (almost surely) by no one else.  No average American citizen understands what the Times was talking about, and the Times didn't try to explain.

This complexification of everything will tend to lead to the disintegration of a large modern nation. When no one understands what's happening, people are free to fall back on the simplified stories they'll be told by their tribe's chosen tribunes.

Long ago and far away, those of us in this sprawling nation were periodically invited to chuckle at footage of South Korean legislators engaged in fist fights on the floor of their nation's legislature. 

Today, we Americans still get to watch the clown-car as it sputters and chugs along, periodically breaking down. By now, though, the clown-car in question is our own country—is us! 

The American carnage is everywhere now. As an example of what we mean, a visit to Mediaite offered these headlines at the start of this very morning:

CNN Panel Melts Down In Finger-Pointing Fallout Over Elon Musk’s Role In Derailing Spending Bill

139 Year Old Newspaper Shut Down Over Mayor’s $1.1M Defamation Lawsuit Win

‘F*cking Lying Piece of Sh*t’: Dan Crenshaw Lashes Out at Claim He Wants Pay Rise for Congress

House Democrat Says ‘I’m Just Gonna Sit Back and Sip My Tea’ and Watch Republicans Fight Each Other

Musk Sends Blatantly False Tweet About ‘Bioweapon Labs’ That Is Reposted More Than 30,000 Times

For the record, that CNN panel melted down on NewsNight, a program the network seems to have invented in hopes that manufactured screaming matches may attract a few additional viewers. 

The newspaper which is shutting down is doing so in the wake of what seems to be astoundingly dishonest behavior. 

Rep. Crenshaw can't seem to take it any more, and we can't say we blame him. Rep. Crockett is going to enjoy herself, sipping her tea, as our flailing nation comes apart at the seams.

In the midst of all this turmoil, some of us in Blue America may still be wondering about a pair of questions. The questions relate to an event which happened long ago—last month's presidential election:

How did we ever lose to that guy? Why would any decent person have voted for Candidate Trump?

Even in the midst of our current "American carnage," some of us may remember the days when such questions seemed to matter. As part of the answer to those questions, this report does appear on the front page of today's New York Times. We'll skip the first two paragraphs:

Biden, Wearied and Stinging, Prepares to Exit

[...]

This is the twilight of Mr. Biden’s presidency, the final days of the final chapter of an epic half-century political journey that has had more than its share of twists and turns. Time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day. Aides say he remains plenty sharp in the Situation Room, calling world leaders to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon or deal with the chaos of Syria’s rebellion. But it is hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world’s most stressful job for another four years. 

That does not make it any easier as Mr. Biden heads toward the exit. Nothing that has happened since he was forced to drop out of the race in July has made that decision look wrong, yet Donald J. Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris has been interpreted as a repudiation of Mr. Biden. It stung. It still stings. But unlike Mr. Trump four years ago, this president accepts the outcome.

[...]

Even when pushing for his priorities, Mr. Biden has found it hard to break through. During his visit to the Amazon rainforest last month, his fragility appeared painfully clear to those traveling with him.

After speaking for seven minutes on a day of draining humidity, a blue shirt hanging loosely over his frame, he turned to slowly shuffle away down a dirt path as several people in the audience not used to seeing him up close said they held their breath, worried that he would trip. (Aides said his gait was no more unsteady than usual.)

And so on from there. At any rate, aides still say that President Biden is "plenty sharp," but it's Peter Baker's assessment that he probably couldn't have done the job had he been re-elected. 

Meanwhile, in this morning's Wall Street Journal, a related report by Linskey et al. appears beneath this dual headline:

How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge
Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied Biden has declined.

This morning, Annie Linskey appeared on CNN to discuss the Journal's detailed report. In theory, the transcript of her remarks should be accessible here, in the 6:30-7:00 chunk of CNN This Morning. 

(At present, the transcript of that segment is missing.)

To what extent might President Biden have been diminished within the past several years? We can't answer that question, but as of August 2023, it seemed to us that it would be very hard for him to seek re-election.

Meanwhile, let the following be said:

When the president "slowly shuffled away" down that dirt path in Angola, the Fox News Channel ran with a bogus claim according to which he had unaccountably wandered off into the rainforest.

Even after additional video footage showed that this claim had been utterly bogus, players on the Fox News Channel kept pushing the bogus claim forward. This is the business our moguls have chosen as the so-called "democratization of media" continues to turn our sprawling nation into an array of warring tribes.

President Biden dropped out of the race in late July of this year. Candidate Harris was forced to jump in—and uh-oh! She herself was one of the people who had said that the president was still quite sharp.

(She had also said that the southern border was secure. Many people thought that was bullroar.)

President Biden dropped out of the race; Candidate Harris was forced to jump in. Did that unprecedented set of events possibly contribute some votes to Candidate Trump's narrow win? 

We would assume that it did. 

In our view, this was almost surely one of the many ways those of us in Blue America managed to lose this year's election. That said, many of us in Blue America still can't seem to conceive of any such explanations or reasons at all.

When President Biden stepped out of the race, Van Jones expressed his deep admiration for the departing candidate. For ourselves, we had a somewhat different reaction. 

That said, we regard Jones as a thoroughly serious player. At the time, People magazine reported some of what the CNN analyst said:

Van Jones Gets Emotional Talking About Joe Biden Dropping Out of 2024 Presidential Race

Van Jones appeared to fight back tears while discussing President Joe Biden stepping down from the 2024 presidential race.

While speaking live on CNN on Sunday, July 21, Jones, 55, became emotional as he spoke about Biden's decision to take himself out of the running. The president, 81, is now instead endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee.

[...]

Tearing up, the former Obama adviser went on, “Because this is somebody that you love. This is somebody that you care about. This is somebody who was there for you. This is somebody you wouldn’t be here without him. And you had to take something from him."

Jones continued, "If you're a young person watching this, this is leadership, this is patriotism. This is what it means to put the country first, and put the party first and put the cost first. When your arm gets tired you let somebody else finish pitching the game."

"That's what Joe Biden has done, and he's done that for all of us," he continued.

That wasn't our own reaction at this disaster unfolded. But Jones is a thoroughly serious person, and he's been conducting a search.

How did we ever lose to that guy? Why would any decent person have voted for Candidate Trump?

For ourselves, we've long regarded the president-elect as being (tragically but dangerously) disordered. Still, we can think of many reasons why other people might have decided to vote for him. Or perhaps, why people might have decided to vote against our own candidate, or just against the long-standing performance of our Blue American tribe.

How did we ever lose to that guy? Why would anyone vote for him?

Last Saturday, Jones stated his view on that matter to Chris Cillizza. All in all, he isn't impressed with our own tribe's political smarts. 

In our view, the whole thing started in 1965. We happened to be physically present when the downward spiral began.

Tomorrow, we'll try—we'll try especially hard—to review what Jones said to Cillizza. For the record, Bill Clinton said much the same thing in an interview with Joe Scarborough, and a guest essay in the Times attempted to explain why some of us in Blue America are perhaps unable to see what these people mean.

Tomorrow: Bill Clinton said much the same thing

WEDNESDAY: Stepford judge unloads on Harris (again)!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024

Anthropology all the way down: Winston Churchill famously described the Soviet Union of his day as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." 

Somewhat similarly, our nation's failing national discourse is often a clown-car inside a hall of mirrors driven by a bunch of con men.

By music men—and music women, or perhaps by a herd of Stepfords. Consider what happened again last night on the highest-rated TV show in all of "cable news" land.

For today, we won't depress you with the latest numbers from Nielsen. That said, the Fox News Channel clown-car, The Five, is that highest-rated "cable news" program. Yesterday, its Stepfords were once again assailing the dimwittedness of Vice President Harris, who lost last month's presidential election to the brilliant Candidate Trump.

The Stepfords were in their standard fine form, the better to sell their corporate owner's various talking-points with. Robotically, they recited the points their owners had placed on their messaging sheets. 

Finally, it came time for Judge Jeanine to declaim. 

For today, we'll spare you the checkered history of this illustrious "cable news" magistrate. Soon, though, here came da judge! As you can see by clicking this link, the judge was emphatically saying this:

JUDGE JEANINE (12/17/24): I think that the problem with Kamala Harris is that the woman is so inept, so incompetent, she is so inarticulate that she was a joke. She was! I mean, I don't know what she stood for. I don't know why anyone would even think she's got a chance at winning any other seat at any other race...

She didn't try to get new voters when she couldn't even perform with her own voters. She underperformed with blacks, she underperformed with the youth, and she had no interest in doing conservative media. She wasn't interested in the—I was reading about the monoculture that sports is. Nobody owns sports. That was a place for her to go in and she didn't bother.

And yet, Trump was smart enough. A lot is attributable to Barron. I mean, he understood the value of social media, how viral it goes when you capture something and then it continues to spread. And she just didn't get it. 

I mean, she had no message. She had nothing. And in the end, it's a slap in the face to the Democrat [sic] Party that she was even their candidate. She couldn't articulate how she was different than Joe. The woman is—she's just inept.

She wouldn't even do sports! It's astounding to think that the Democrat [sic] Party got stuck with someone like her!

This remains standard fare on the gruesome "imitation of life" known as the Fox News Channel. On programs like The Five, Harris is still the dumbest, stupidest, inexplicably worst presidential candidate ever. 

On that same channel's Gutfeld! show, she's still being mocked as "a drunk."

Let's get back to the judge, whose gruesome history we're setting aside for today.

The judge was performing like a trained seal, or possibly more like a Stepford. In fairness, the other players had taken their turns trashing Harris before the judge stepped in.

That said, the sheer stupidity of Fox News culture is routinely put on display when the Stepfords perform this particular script. We're even able to make ourselves find their behavior amusing.

Go ahead! Just riddle us this:

If Harris was the worst candidate ever, what exactly does that say about their champion, the fabulous Candidate Trump? These denunciations of Candidate Harris routinely coexist with declarations of his North Korean-adjacent greatness. So how, then, do the corporate Stepfords pretend to explain this?

Nationwide popular vote (to date), 2024 
Donald J. Trump (R): 77,300,739 (49.80%)
Kamala Harris (D):  75,014,534 (48.33%)

The riddle here would occur to almost any human. If Harris was the worst candidate ever, why did the greatest political strongman only manage to defeat her by less than 1.5 points?

How do the Stepfords square that circle? Of course! In the obvious way!

They square the circle by the prehuman process known as "sifting." Their channel's viewers are never told how close the nationwide vote really was. Instead, the Stepfords echo Trump's own language, finding a thousand different ways to convey the impression that he won this year's election in some sort of a landslide.

This is the existing state of what's left of our nation's "discourse." The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but the fact that people can be paid to behave this way is a lesson in anthropology.

Judge Jeanine is a lesson all by herself, a lesson in anthropology pretty much all the way down! We've spared you her journalistic history, which seems to emerge from a car.

Fuller disclosure: This goes on all night every night. On weekends, it can get even more phony and dumber.

This bullroar is broadcast to millions of voters. Over here in Blue America, our highly educated elites politely avert their gaze.

THE SEARCH: It could be as bad as the critics say!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024

But it could also be worse: To judge from the fruit of a Google search, we had never heard of Van Jones until April 20, 2009.

On that evening, he guested with Robert Redford on CNN's Larry King Live, which was still a significant program. We'd never heard of Jones at the time, but he made a strong impression.

Jones has been involved in a search—had been involved in a search for some time, including even then. First, though, let's consider what Bret Stephens says at the start of his new column for the New York Times.

Headline included, this is the way the column starts. We highlight two key points:

Done With Never Trump

It’s been more than nine years since I first denounced Donald Trump as a “loudmouth vulgarian appealing to quieter vulgarians.” I’ve called myself a Never Trump conservative ever since, even when I agreed with his policies from time to time. I also opposed him throughout his run this year.

Could his second term be as bad as his most fervent critics fear? Yes. Is it time to drop the heavy moralizing and incessant doomsaying that typified so much of the Never Trump movement—and that rendered it politically impotent and frequently obtuse? Yes, please.

Who, and what, is Trump? He’s a man and the symbol of a movement. The man is crass but charismatic, ignorant but intuitive, dishonest but authentic. The movement is patriotic—and angry.

Some of that anger is intensely bigoted and some of it misplaced. That side of the anger gets most of the media’s attention. But some of it, too, is correctly directed at a self-satisfied elite that thinks it knows better but often doesn’t...

At this site, we don't vote the way Stephens has typically voted. This year, we both voted for Candidate Harris, though it must be said that neither of us was blown away, at least on balance, by her attributes as a presidential candidate.

Each of us voted for Candidate Harris. But as Trump has said this very morning, he managed to win "the biggest mandate in 129 years!"

He also seems to be out of his mind, as that lunatic claim might suggest. And we agree with the first key point Stephens makes in his column:

Donald J. Trump's second term could be just as bad as his most fervent critics fear.  In fact, we'll disagree with Stephens in this way:

It could be even worse!

This second term could be worse than his most fervent critics fear?  Yes, it could be that! 

It could be better than critics fear, but it could also be worse. As we watch the lunacy spread all through what's left of our "public discourse," we keep thinking of Professor Knox's horrific account of the fall of sacred Troy.

Achilles slays Hector before the high walls of that sacred city, then drags his body through the dust behind his speeding chariot. At that point, the fate of the city has been sealed. Professor Knox remembers:

PROFESSOR KNOX: The whole poem has been moving toward this duel between the two champions, but there has never been any doubt about the outcome. The husband and father, the beloved protector of his people, the man who stands for the civilized values of the rich city, its social and religious institutions, will go down to defeat at the hands of this man who has no family, who in a private quarrel has caused the death of many of his own fellow soldiers, who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge...And the death of Hector seals the fate of Troy; it will fall to the Achaeans, to become the pattern for all time of the death of a city. 

The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history...

Achilles "thinks only of revenge." Once he's dragged Hector's body through the dust, the fate of Troy has been sealed. 

We keep flashing on the highlighted "images of that night" as we watch what's left of our clownlike "public discourse." We also think of the citizens of Oran, as described by Camus in his famous novel, The Plague:

CAMUS: [O]ur townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions. 

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague...

Even after the signs of plague were visible in Oran, "the danger still remained fantastically unreal." Or at least, so Camus was willing to say about those fictional townsfolk.

The townsfolk of Oran just couldn't see the obvious signs of a plague. In recent years, many of us in Blue America have been unable to see the shape of our own onrushing defeat. 

This very morning, the panelists on Morning Joe were reassuring Blue America's viewers that things aren't nearly as bad as they might seem. That said, the host of that show kept telling us, in recent years, that the GOP couldn't possibly win this year's election. 

He said it over and over again over the past few years.

That brings us to the second key point in that passage from Stephens. He says that some of the anger behind Candidate Trump's "landslide" is "intensely bigoted."

For ourselves, we're inclined to stay away from such assessments. But that's what Stephens says.

That's part of what Stephens says. But he also says that some of the anger behind the candidate's narrow (but consequential) win "is correctly directed at a self-satisfied elite that thinks it knows better [than everyone else] but often doesn’t." 

As soon becomes clear, he's speaking there, at least in part, about the people those of us in Blue America—those of us in our own Oran—have been conditioned to trust. 

As he continues, he offers specific examples of what he specifically means. We ourselves don't agree with every word he types at that point, but he makes us flash on Camus when he explains the way the elite to which he himself belongs failed to understand the reach of Trump's appeal:

Never Trumpers—I include myself in this indictment—never quite got the point. It wasn’t that we’d forgotten Clinton’s scandals or were ignorant of the allegations about the Bidens. It’s that we thought Trump degraded the values that conservatives were supposed to stand for. We also thought that Trump represented a form of illiberalism that was antithetical to our “free people, free markets, free world” brand of conservatism and that was bound to take the Republican Party down a dark road.

In this we weren’t wrong: There’s plenty to dislike and fear about Trump from a traditionally conservative standpoint. But Never Trumpers also overstated our case and, in doing so, defeated our purpose.

It isn't that the NeverTrumpers were wrong. In some ways, it sounds like Stephens is saying that they simply "forgot to be modest."

Stephens goes on in some detail from there. As with the townsfolk of Oran, he says the conservative NeverTrumpers "never quite got the point" in various ways, until it was too late.

Eventually, he offers this self-indictment:

We also talked a lot about democracy. That’s important: The memory of Jan. 6 and Trump’s 2020 election lies were the main reasons I voted for Kamala Harris. But if democracy means anything, it’s that ordinary people, not elites, get to decide how important an event like Jan. 6 is to them. Turns out, not so much.

What ordinary people really cared about this year were the high cost of living and the chaos at the border. Why did Trump—so often deprecated by his critics as a fortunate fool—understand this so well while we fecklessly carried on about the soul of the nation?

What else did we not sufficiently appreciate? That, as much as Trump might lie, Americans also felt lied to by the left—particularly when it came to the White House cover-up of Biden’s physical and mental decline. 

Even in that telling passage, we ourselves wouldn't agree with every word. We do agree with two key points:

Our high-brow elites often seemed to have no idea what "ordinary people" cared about in this election. (It sometimes seemed that they didn't know, but also that they simply didn't care.)

Also, "ordinary people" often felt lied to by those of us in Blue America—not just by the very bad people who are known to be found Over There.

Stephens is a NeverTrump conservative. Van Jones has always been a Blue American liberal/progressive.

He grew up in Tennessee, ended up at Yale Law School. We well remember being impressed by how sharp he seemed in 2009. We'd never heard of him at the time, but he's been highly visible from there.

Last Saturday, when he spoke to Chris Cillizza, Jones gnashed his teeth at the blindness of his own tribe's failed elite. In Monday's report, we linked you to Rachel Dobkin's account of what Jones said in the lengthy discussion.

Basically, Dobkin got it right. This is the way she started:

Donald Trump Is 'Smarter' Than All His Critics—Former Obama Adviser

Van Jones, an ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama and current CNN political commentator, said on Friday that President-elect Donald Trump is "smarter" than all his critics.

Does Jones literally think that Donald J. Trump is "smarter" than the rest? Or was that a bit of hyperbole, emerging from the high frustration visible all through last Saturday's discussion?

We don't know how to answer that question. But Jones has been involved in a lifelong search, and his remarks about our own elites in Blue America were scathing.

We also think his remarks were basically accurate. To hear the key part of his critique, we'll suggest that you start at minute 28 of the Cillizza videotape. Tomorrow, we'll take it from there.

It could be as bad as Trump's critics fear—but it could always be worse! The fall of Troy was vicious, vile. To what extent has our imperfect human nature actually changed in the handful of years since then?

As you can see above, Stephens asks a painful question:

"Why did Trump—so often deprecated by his critics as a fortunate fool—understand this so well while we fecklessly carried on about the soul of the nation?"

That's precisely the question Jones asks in his colloquy with Cillizza. Perhaps in frustration, he says that Donald J. Trump is simply "smarter" than the rest.

We wouldn't put it that way ourselves. As he posts about his massive mandate, we'd be inclined to let "insane" take the place of "smart."

We wouldn't put it that way ourselves! But we think that Jones's search is on point within our own Blue Oran, a flailing community located just this side of what's left of sacred Troy.

Tomorrow: What Jones said about our own "elitism"

Friday: Explaining the persistent failure to see what's sitting right there

TUESDAY: He's an avid collector of broken toys!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024

Also, many broken toys seem to be drawn to him: We've been thinking about The Grand Inquisitor, a text we don't know real well.

For the record, it's a famous text—a text we were assigned in high school. The leading authority on the text offers this at the start of a lengthy thumbnail:

The Grand Inquisitor

"The Grand Inquisitor" is a story within a story...contained within Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1880 novel The Brothers Karamazov. It is recited by Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov, during a conversation with his brother Alexei, a novice monk, about the possibility of a personal and benevolent God. "The Grand Inquisitor" is...one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom.

If recollection serves, the story involves some extremely gloomy "ideas about human nature and freedom." We've been thinking about the text largely because of the list of clips we encountered today at the Mediate site.

We humans! When freedom is bestowed upon us, our discernment can be quite limited. That said:

Thanks to the so-called "democratization of media," we're all living in a time when all ideas can be widely expressed and widely heard. When we humans are afforded that kind of freedom, results can be quite poor!

You're free to click on any link. Hegseth and Mace and Leavitt oh my!, and it pinwheels down from there:

Pete Hegseth Falsely Claimed Antifa Was Behind January 6

Nancy Mace Goes Full Area 51 Speculating About Drones

Trump Spox Karoline Leavitt Snubs Elizabeth Warren...With ‘Pocahontas’ Jibe

Is "something wrong" with Rep. Mace? Increasingly, we've wondered about that in the past year.

Leavitt is the incoming president's amazingly churlish young press spokesperson. She persistently makes us wonder how a person can get to be that way at such a tender age.

We're barely scratching the surface of all the depressing content floating around today. For the record, here's the latest from the commander himself, but also from one of New Jersey's three million mayors:

Trump GOES OFF on Judge Merchan for ‘Psychotic’ Decision Not to Overturn Felony Conviction

New Jersey Mayor Connects Missing Radioactive Material From Port Newark to Mysterious Drones

Thank you, New Jersey mayor! As the Grand Inquisitor knew, you simply can't let us humans go off and start devising ideas on our own.

With regard to the commander's latest rant, let us say this about that:

We ourselves thought the trial in question—the so-called Stormy Daniels "hush money" trial—was an embarrassing mess. We would assume that it's one of the ways those of us in Blue America conspired to help the commander gain votes in this year's election.

Did the 34 convictions help Candidate Trump? There is, of course, no way to measure or check some such suspicion.

Needless to say, it gets worse! Today's front-page report about Hegseth and his bodyguard strikes us as perhaps sadly revealing. We're referring to a part of the story everyone has agreed not to stress—the fact that the man who was left in a pool of his own blood was "a former member of the Iraqi Army’s elite counterterrorism service who is now an American citizen living in Texas."

For the record, here's that report in today's New York Times:

Hegseth’s Guard Left the Army After the Beating of a Civilian During Training

You have the freedom to click any or all of those links.

Thanks to the "democratization of media," everything is permitted! Every thought is broadcast today, and our human discernment is routinely quite poor.

If our recollection is accurate, the Grand Inquisitor explained to Jesus that we humans can't be permitted to think for ourselves. And that's even true in our own Blue America. It isn't only Them!

THE SEARCH: We enjoyed a good solid laugh!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024

Then, Judge Jeanine cited Van Jones: Yesterday afternoon, during the 5 o'clock Eastern hour, we enjoyed a good solid laugh.

More precisely, we may have enjoyed a bit of a mordant chuckle. It happened as we were watching The Five, the highest rated program in this nation's "cable news" firmament.

Millions of citizens were watching the Fox News Channel as the five panelists stood in line to praise President-elect Donald J. Trump for his brilliance at yesterday's Mar-a-Lago news event. Politely, each performer waited his or her turn to say how brilliant the incoming commander had been in his answers to every question.

Thanks to the sometimes invaluable Rev, a transcript exists of the press event, along with videotape. For the record, the event lasted for an hour and ten minutes, with the first question coming at the 25-minute mark.

Below, we'll link you to the comment from Judge Jeanine on The Five, the comment at which we chuckled. For now, let's look at some of the answers the incoming president offered the press—and let's recall the questions Blue America has been asking:

How did we ever lose to this guy? How did it get this far?

If our view, those are perfectly sensible questions. In our view, it's Blue America's inability to answer these questions which is the problem at hand.

What did the incoming president say at his first post-election presser? At one point, he reverted to a familiar theme as he spoke about Lara Trump, his daughter in law.

We were back in the high life again. No push-back or follow-up occurred:

TRUMP (12/16/24): When the election started getting closer, I asked her would she go to Washington and work on as chairman of the [RNC] along with Michael Whatley. And they did such an unbelievable job, especially on cheating.

They stopped it. Or at least they stymied it. Too big to rig. And we won in a landslide. We won tremendously. She did an amazing job.

Say what? As an aside, the landslide to which he referred was actually a win of less than 1.5 points—a rather slender win against an opponent who was only able to campaign for a bit more than three months.

That's a mere aside. More significant was the commander's claim about cheating—the never-ending, unexplained claim which flows all through his orations, with no one in the mainstream press knowing how to question, challenge or address the allegation at hand.

In this case, did "cheating" occur in the recent campaign? What form did this cheating take?

Did Lara Trump lessen the cheating, or did she "stop it" outright? None of the journalists at yesterday's freewheeling event questioned what the commander had said as this unsupported message continued to spread out to the world.

Yesterday, no one mentioned this supported claim on The Five. Also, none of the program's performers ever will. 

Many of the commander's answers went on and on, and then they went on a bit more. We were intrigued by this statement about his nominee for Secretary of Defense:

TRUMP: So many [nominees] have been just unbelievably received. I think Pete Hegseth is making tremendous strides over the last week. He's going to be great. 

Look, he went to Princeton. He went to Harvard. He was a great student there. But he really was, from the first day I met him, all he wanted to talk about was military. He's just a military guy. I think it's a natural. 

This was my idea. And Pete Hegseth gave up a lot because he was going big places in Fox. Big, big places. A lot of money. And he didn't even hesitate when I said, "Do you want to do this?" He said, "Absolutely." 

I said, "If it doesn't work out, you'll never have the opportunity that you have right now in terms of the world of entertainment or business, whatever you want to call it. You'll never have that opportunity again." In fact, it could be just the opposite, because it's nasty out there. 

He said, "I don't care. I have to do it for my country." He gave up a tremendous amount. If this didn't work, it would be a tragedy, but that's what he loves. He loves the military. I never talked to him about anything else. He'd talk about the military.

Oof! Hegseth left his role as co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend to accept the nomination. But in the commander's lexicon, Hegseth agreed to leave "the world of entertainment or business, whatever you want to call it."

They forgot to play that piece of tape yesterday on The Five! For ourselves, we were intrigued by the commander's reference to the "tremendous amount" of money Hegseth abandoned when he left the Fox News Channel.

Question! How much money does a person make for eight hours of work per week? Also, what kind of tribal obedience is being purchased when those giant salaries are paid?

We've been posing this question for decades with respect to all the news channels. Also, why isn't the public simply told what these important public figures t paid?

Back at Mar-a-Lago, the random questions kept being thrown, with rambling answers provided. Eventually, the commander offered these unexplained statements about New Jersey's drones:

TRUMP: The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is.

Our military knows and our president knows, and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because if it was the enemy, they'd blast it out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it.

Something strange is going on. For some reason they don't want to tell the people, and they should because the people are really—I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster, if you want to know the truth.

They're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I've decided to cancel my trip.

What makes the incoming commander think he knows any of that? Also, will he really cancel his weekend plans because of his fear of the drones?

The commander refused to say if he's been briefed on this matter. So it endlessly goes.

Eventually, we got to these remarks about an erroneous poll in Iowa. Also, about the many lawsuits against media figures to come:

TRUMP: I'm doing this, not because I want to, I'm doing this because I feel I have an obligation to. 

I'm going to be bringing [a lawsuit] against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster who got me right all the time and then just before the election, she said I was going to lose by three or four points and it became the biggest story all over the world, because I was going to win Iowa by 20 points.

The farmers loved me and I love the farmers. And it was interesting the way she did it, she brought it down two weeks before, she said I was going to only win by four. That was a big story. But that was good, because she brought it down from 22 points to four, or whatever the number was. Way up, way up. Easy win. Never even thought to go there. I respect them, I love them, and they understand there's no reason to go there, because she brought it from way up, walk away, which it was, and it turned out to be in the election too, by the way. It was a win by many, many points. And then she brought it down very smartly to four a couple of weeks before, and everyone said, "Wow, that's amazing. He's only up by four points." Then she brought it down to where I was down by three or four, whatever the number she used, and that was the Des Moines Register, and it was their parent, and in my opinion it was fraud and it was election interference.

She's gotten me right always. She's a very good pollster. She knows what she was doing, and she then quit before and we'll probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow.

We're filing one on 60 Minutes. You know about that. Where they took Kamala's answer, which was a crazy answer, a horrible answer, and they took the whole answer out and they replaced it with something else she said later on in the interview, which wasn't a great answer, but it wasn't like the first one. 

The first was grossly incompetent. It was weird. And that was fraud and election interference by their news magazine, a big part of CBS News. So as you know, we're involved in that one. 

We're involved in one which has been going on for a while, and very successfully, against Bob Woodward, where he didn't quote me properly from the tapes. And then on top of everything else, he sold the tapes, which he wasn't allowed to do. He could only use them for reporting purposes, not for sale purposes, and he admits that, and I think we'll be successful on that one.

And we have one very interestingly on Pulitzer, because reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post got Pulitzer Prizes for their wonderful, accurate and highly professional reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Well, it turned out to be a hoax, and they were exactly wrong. People, like many people, John Solomon, Sean Hannity is not for Pulitzer, but Sean Hannity got it right. Many people got it right. Tucker got it right. Jesse got it right. Laura got it right. Jeanine got it right. A lot of people got it right. They didn't get anything. They gave it to reporters that got it absolutely wrong, and now everybody admits it was a hoax, and I want them to take back the Pulitzer Prizes and pay big damages.

And I think we're doing very well on that one. They have no excuse for it. They gave a Pulitzer Prize to writers that got Russia, Russia, Russia wrong. And so, I think we're doing well. And I feel I have to do this. I shouldn't really be the one to do it, it should have been the Justice Department or somebody else, but I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections.

Those corrupt elections again! 

At any rate, on and on the fellow went. He's going to sue the Pulitzer Prizes. He's going to sue Bob Woodward.

He's going to sue CBS News because of 60 Minutes. He's going to sue the Des Moines Register because they bungled a poll.

As he listed the sugarplum lawsuits to come, the commander recited some golden oldy assertions, for example about the time Tucker Carlson allegedly got something right. But so it now goes, as part of the sprawling cultural breakdown which has largely resulted from "the democratization of media," a genie which will be very hard to get back in the bottle.

In the face of all this confusion, the performers hung tough at The Five. For ourselves, we enjoyed a chuckle at 5:09 when Judge Jeanine offered the following as part of her praise oration:

JUDGE JEANINE (12/16/24): I mean, you realize that he has the capacity to deliver. He has the capacity to unite the country. He has the capacity to unite the party. And I don't think there is any greater example of that than there was at the Army-Navy game.

Because it's not—it is not just the Army-Navy game, when they went crazy with chants of USA! USA! But think about who he was in that box with.

I mean, he's got Elon and JD Vance, and he's got Vivek and Mike Johnson, and Danny Penny. And he's got all these people to show that the Republican Part is uni— No more RINOs. You're a RINO, get lost! You don't matter any more!

What he's got is a united party, a united country.

Too funny! The president has a united the country—except for all the RINOs! You RINO's can just get lost!

What about all the Democrats who may not favor the incoming president? Such people weren't mentioned at this point. But so it goes, day after day, on this clown-car "cable news" program. In this classic bit of Judge Jeanine framing, the country is fully united, except for those people who aren't Us.

So it goes, day after day, as this imitation of intelligent life rolls merrily along. And then, just like that, the tough-talking judge said this:

JUDGE JEANINE (continuing directly): And then you got a guy like Van Jones, who said, "Hey Dude! This guy is smarter than me and you." 

So you've now got the left saying, "This guy is really smart. He will deliver for us."

Is that what Van Jones actually said when he spoke with Chris Cillizza? Tomorrow, we'll return to the contents of the interview we discussed in yesterday's report.

Like Thoreau and the fictional Binx Bolling, Van Jones is involved in a search. He wants to know how those of us in Blue America ever managed to lose to this guy.

It's a perfectly valid question! In our view, the problem lies in the fact that many of us in Blue America can't seem to come up with an answer. 

In our view, the answers go on and on and on and on, and then they go on some more. In our view, the fact that we're unaware of this is an unfortunate fact about Us.

Tomorrow: Back to what Jones said

MONDAY: Should Stephanopoulpos have said what he said?

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2024

Fox & Friends straightens things out: It's been strange to see people on the Fox News Channel discussing the settlement reached by ABC News in the defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump. 

It's been strange to see such people saying that Trump wasn't found liable for committing an act of "rape"—that he was only found liable for committing an act of "sexual abuse." 

It does seem to strange to see Fox personnel say that, but we've seen it said at least twice. To see the initial report of this matter on Sunday morning's Fox & Friends Weekend, along with the ensuing discussion, you can start by clicking here.

News reader Chanley Painter articulates the distinction during her initial report. The discussion continues for several minutes. Eventually, co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy somewhat oddly says this, with Kevin Corke chiming in:

CAMPOS-DUFFY (12/15/24): Well, that' an interesting turn of events. I mean, this has been a good week for Donald Trump. A lot of vindication.

CORKE: I'll say!

CAMPOS-DUFFY: A lot of the narratives by the media, by people we're supposed to be able to trust, and Donald Trump coming out on top again.

According to Campos-Duffy, Trump had come out on top again! He was only found liable for an act of sexual abuse!

Before long, the smartest of the friends jumped in, with Will Cain saying this:

CAIN: Stephanopoulos repeated the false thing over and over, like obstinately, like trying to make a jab, over and over—repeated a false thing about Donald Trump over and over and over.

Cain is perfectly bright. According to his account, someone in this age of Trump had repeated a false thing over and over and over again! It's no wonder that the trio of friends seemed to be so surprised!

So much for the weekend friends. Let's move ahead to a pair of larger questions:

Should ABC News have agreed to settle? But also, should Stephanopoulos have said what he said?

Many people have said that Trump's lawsuit would likely have been a loser had ABC News declined to settle. It seems to us that certainly could be true. There's also no way to know that.

With respect to Stephanopoulos himself, should he have said what he did in fact repeatedly say when he interviewed Rep. Nancy Mace way back in March of this year? 

He did in fact say what he said again and again and again, something like ten to twelve times in all. Also, he presumably knew that what he saying may not have been 100 percent "technically accurate" in a thoroughly perfect way.

He could have clarified his statement at some point, making his meaning clear. But he never chose to do that. To us, as we read the transcript of the interview, his repetitive presentation feels a bit like a sign of our (highly partisan) times.

Also, was he possibly being a bit insensitive with respect to the fact, which he cited again and again, that Mace has testified to having been raped when she was 16?  Here's the way the interview started:

STEPHANOPOULOS (3/10/24): Our next guest is South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a Donald Trump supporter who gave candid and courageous testimony about her own experience as a rape victim weeks before launching her run for Congress in 2019.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MACE: From some of us who've been raped, it can take 25 years to get up the courage and talk about being a victim of rape. And the first thing that happens when a woman comes out in public and says she's been raped, what is the first thing out of someone's mouth? Is that it didn't happen. This is why women do not come forward. They are afraid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congresswoman, thanks for joining us this morning.

You endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges in two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming a victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?

MACE: Well, I will tell you, I was raped at the age of 16, and any rape victim will tell you, I’ve lived for 30 years with an incredible amount of shame over being raped. I didn't come forward because of that judgment and shame that I felt.

And it's a shame that you will never feel, George, and I’m not going to sit here on your show and be asked a question meant to shame me about another potential rape victim. I’m not going to do that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's actually not about shaming you. It’s a question about Donald Trump.

MACE: No, you are shaming me.

And so it went, on and on and on and on, all through a long, contentious, highly repetitive attempt at an interview.

Meanwhile, for the record:

In recent years, Rep. Mace has turned into one of the most disingenuous attention-seekers in the entire Congress. During this long, repetitive interview, she just kept repeating the claim that Stephanopoulos was trying to shame her by asking her that question.

Was she trying to avoid his question by making that aggressive claim? Is it possible that Stephanopoulos was wandering across a line by framing the interview session that way?

Eventually, Mace finally drew the distinction between the two legal terms involved in this matter. ("It was sexual abuse. It wasn’t actually rape, by the way.") But go ahead—just try to fight your way through that long, amazingly repetitive interview session.

All in all, it reads to us like a marker of a very ugly age—an age which features angry armies, Red and Blue, angrily looking for fights.

ABC News certainly might have won in court—or then again, maybe not. In our view, Stephanopoulos should have drawn the distinction in question at some point during the session.

Meanwhile, Mace has turned into one of the most disingenuous people currently serving in Congress. Luckily, we had a trio of friends on Sunday morning who were able to sort this whole thing out.

Trump has come out on top again! He has only been found liable for an act of sexual abuse!

THE SEARCH: We don't exactly agree with Van Jones!

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2024

Except, in one way, we do: Long ago and far away, Binx Bolling was involved in "the search." For the record, Bolling was a fictional person. He was the main character of a highly regarded novel.

We were in college at the time. Full disclosure! We never could get to the end of the (widely acclaimed) book, although our girlfriend did.

We believe we may have been assigned the text in a course in 1969. But who was Binx Bolling, and what was the novel?

Below, you see what may be the most pompous thumbnail account the leading authority has ever produced:

The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer is the debut novel by Walker Percy, first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961. It won the U.S. National Book Award. Time included the novel in its "Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005." In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Moviegoer sixtieth on its list of the hundred best English-language novels of the twentieth century.

The novel is heavily influenced by the existentialist themes of authors like Søren Kierkegaard, whom Percy read extensively. Unlike many dark didactic existentialist novels (including Percy's later work), The Moviegoer has a light poetic tone. It was Percy's first, most famous, and most widely praised novel, and established him as one of the major voices in Southern literature. The novel also draws on elements of Dante by paralleling the themes of Binx Bolling's life to that of the narrator of the Divine Comedy.

In addition to its existentialist character, the novella is also deeply phenomenological.

At the time, we may have missed the way The Moviegoer drew on elements of Dante. As regards Binx Bolling's search, the authority tells us this:

Plot summary

The Moviegoer tells the story of Jack "Binx" Bolling, a young stockbroker in postwar New Orleans. The decline of tradition in the Southern United States, the problems of his family and his traumatic experiences in the Korean War have left him alienated from his own life. He daydreams constantly, has trouble engaging in lasting relationships, and finds more meaning and immediacy in cinema and literature than in his own routine life.

The loose plot of the novel follows the Moviegoer himself, Binx Bolling, in desperate need of spiritual redemption. At Mardi Gras, he breaks out of his caged everyday life and launches himself on a journey, a quest, in a "search" for God. Without any mental compass or sense of direction, he wanders the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter, and Chicago, and then travels the Gulf Coast, interacting with his surroundings as he goes. He has philosophical moments, reflecting on the people and things he encounters on the road. He is constantly challenged to define himself in relation to friends, family, sweet-hearts, and career despite his urge to remain vague and open to possibility.

"What is the nature of the search?" you ask. Really it is very simple; at least for a fellow like me. So simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.

The italicized material is from the text of the book itself, in which Bolling serves as narrator. As you can see, Binx Bolling was sunk in "everydayness," but he was trying to stage a "search."

(We're starting to remember! The young not-quite-a professor sent our girlfriend's term paper off to Walker Percy himself, whom he may have known. And Percy himself wrote back!)

We ourselves were busy stopping a war, but that's a whole other story. As for Bolling, he was involved in a search—or perhaps, he was involved in a search for a search, in a flailing attempt to follow in the footsteps of the northern writer who had once described his own search in this famous manner:

Walden; or, Life in the Woods

[...]

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. 

Something like that! For the record, Walden is full of literary allusions too, Dante no doubt among them.

Percy wrote in 1961; Thoreau had written long before that. Now we're engaged once again in a great civil war—and our own Blue America, or at least so we say, is involved in a type of a search.

At least as a matter of theory, we want to know how it is that we lost an election to Donald J. Trump! In truth, we didn't lose this year's election by much—and the numbers haven't changed a great deal from where they stood the first time he ran. 

The numbers haven't changed all that much! Here are the numbers from Trump's first campaign, and from the campaign in which he finally managed to win the popular vote:

Nationwide popular vote, 2016
Hillary Clinton (D): 65,853,514 (48.2%)
Donald J. Trump (R): 62,984,828 (46.1%)

Nationwide popular vote (to date), 2024 
Donald J. Trump (R): 77,300,739 (49.80%)
Kamala Harris (D): 75,014,534 (48.33%)

At least at the Cook Report, this year's numbers seem to be holding. Quite a few more people voted this time—155.2 million compared to 136.7 million back in 2016. 

But by that account, Trump lost the nationwide vote in 2016 by 2.1 percentage points. He won the nationwide vote this year by a bit less than 1.5 points.

Especially given the craziness of the events which led to President Biden's withdrawal, that isn't a giant change in nationwide voter sentiment. But as Red American spear-chuckers insist that Trump won in "a landslide" this year, that relatively minor change has created a world in which those of us in Blue America are conducting a type of search, or at least we're attempting or pretending to do so.

How did we ever lose to that guy? It's a very sound question! It was already a very sound question back in 2016, when he came within 2.1 points of winning the nationwide popular vote.

Meanwhile, this:

Many of us in Blue America can't seem to think of a single reason why any decent person would ever have voted for Candidate Trump—and so an ersatz search is on, in which we seek an answer to that question. 

Some of us seem inclined to say that his voters are all "just deeply racist." Given the way we humans are wired, such assessments may sometimes feel good. 

On Saturday, though, CNN's Van Jones came up with a massively different assessment, the result of his own ongoing search.

For almost an hour, Jones spoke with Chris Cillizza, creating this videotape for Cillizza's Substack site. Over at Newsweek, Rachel Dobkin is only two years out of college, but as she starts her report on what was said, she basically gets it right:

Donald Trump Is 'Smarter' Than All His Critics—Former Obama Adviser

Van Jones, an ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama and current CNN political commentator, said on Friday that President-elect Donald Trump is "smarter" than all his critics.

That's basically what Jones said!  Below, you see a fuller chunk of his presentation:

JONES (12/14/24): I mean the problem is, you have a framework in your mind: "How can Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump?" 

Guys, can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an idiot. Let me just be very clear. Donald Trump is smarter than me, you, and all of his critics. 

You know how I know? Because he has the White House, the Senate, the House—

CILLIZZA: Totally agree.

JONES: —the Supreme Court, the popular vote. 

That's a small part of what was said.  You can see that part of the conversation at roughly the 29-minute mark of the Cillizza videotape.

At this point, we ourselves want to be clear! If we're take Jones to be speaking literally, we don't agree with what he said, or at least we don't agree with it totally. 

Putting it another way, that isn't the framework we'd apply in conducting this important search.

Is former candidate Donald J. Trump "smarter" than everyone else? We wouldn't assess the incoming president in terms of "smarts" at all.

Having said that, we'll also say this:

We strongly agree with one part of what Jones says as he continues. As a general matter, we Blues just haven't been especially smart as we conduct our current search, or as we pretend or attempt to do so. 

We wouldn't describe the incoming president as being especially "smart." But we would follow Jones is saying this:

We'd have to say that those of us in Blue America haven't been super-smart at all.

Citizen Thoreau wasn't always especially kind in assessing his Middlesex County neighbors. "Men [sic] labor under a mistake," he said at the start of his famous book. Also, "The mass of men [sic] live lives of quiet desperation."

Those weren't complimentary comments. He even threw this in:

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man,—you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind,—I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.

That was in his famous book's first chapter! And yet, history, by universal agreement, speaks well of this younger man's famous search.

Blue America is trying to figure why anyone would have voted for a person like Trump. In our view, the reasons go on and on and on and on, and then they go on some more. 

In our view, one miracle of this year's election lies in the fact he won the nationwide vote by so slender a margin.

With respect to what we Blue Americans may have done, down through the years, to let Trump peel away all those votes, we think Jones is conducting a valuable search. Tomorrow, we'll show you more of what he said when he spoke with Cillizza.

Still coming, a gentler version of that same assessment from former president Bill Clinton. Also, as to why we Blues perhaps can't see our own Blue nation's occasional lack of clothes, we will offer you this.

Tomorrow: Frustrated remarks by Jones