FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2024
There is no cure for nutcase: To many observers in Red America, the former candidate was drunk once again. She was drunk, or maybe on drugs.
Within the realm of American journalism, we don't have a language for discussing such statements. More on that problem below.
Candidate Harris was drunk again, or possibly she was stoned! On the plains outside sacred Troy, within the ranks of Red America, so an array of tribunes said or suggested.
They did so everywhere from the Fox News Channel on down.
Within our journalistic culture, there is no language for describing such people. More on that shortfall below—but first, let's consider Elon Musk's latest remarkable threat against the established order.
Mediaite reports the threat in the manner shown below. Is "something wrong with" Elon Musk? Do we even have a language which lets us explore such questions?
CNN Anchor Warns Americans Not to ‘Dismiss’ As ‘Bluster’ Elon Musk’s Latest Threat
CNN anchor and chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto warned on Thursday that Americans should not “dismiss” as “bluster” Elon Musk’s threat of the death penalty against Alexander Vindman, a key witness during Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Musk wrote on X Wednesday, “Vindman is on the payroll of Ukrainian oligarchs and has committed treason against the United States, for which he will pay the appropriate penalty.” Vindman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who worked at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, has not been investigated or tried for treason, an offense that carries up to the death penalty.
[...]
Russian pro-democracy activist Garry Kasparov also sounded the alarm on Musk’s threat, writing, “America, this is your next four years, or longer. Oligarchs protected by Trump accusing former public officials of the gravest crimes without evidence or even pretense to provide any. Trial by social media, which of course is owned by said oligarch. Russia in the Wild West 90s.”
Thus spoke Elon Musk, who seems to live in some other world.
Musk is said to the world's richest person. Colloquially, he also seems to be a genuine, stone-cold nutcase. That said, our journalism lacks a language for making such observations. More on that linguistic shortcoming below.
Musk has now seemed to suggest that Alexander Vinman should be put to death. So it goes with the type of nutcase under discussion here.
In our view, Musk qualified as the nuttiest major player over the Thanksgiving break. Not too far behind was Donald J. Trump, presenting an unusual video sugarplum at his Truth Social site.
Newsweek offered a full report. You can see the incoming president's peculiar video there:
Trump Shares Edited Thanksgiving Video of Himself Popping Out of a Turkey
President-elect Donald Trump shared an edited—and bizarre—video that appeared to show him popping out of a turkey on Thanksgiving while dancing to The Village People's Y.M.C.A.
The clip is an edited version of a famous scene from the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...
Newsweek was willing to use the word "bizarre." Earlier, the incoming president had offered a "Happy Thanksgiving" post, whose text we posted yesterday:
TRUMP (11/27/24): Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
The incoming president extended his holiday wishes to everyone, even to the radical lunatics who want to destroy the country.
Judged by any traditional standard, that was strange behavior. Of course, so was the systemwide claim that Vice President Harris must have been drunk again, this time when she recorded a short message on videotape.
Yesterday, we said we'd tell you about the "drunk" claim, and so we'll make ourselves do it.
Last Tuesday, Harris recorded a brief video message in which, among other things, she offered this traditional thought:
HARRIS (11/26/24): As you heard we say many times, we like hard work...And in doing our work, we will remain committed and intentional about building community—building coalitions, reminding people that we all have so much more in common that what separates us.
We all have so much more in common!
In our experience, the theme that Harris must have been drunk arrived during the 7 o'clock hour on Wednesday night, on The Ingraham Angle. GOPAC Chairman David Avella spoke with guest host Brian Kilmeade:
AVELLA (11/27/24): Let's start with that video for a second, Brian. When you produce a video like she did last night and put out, and then one of the number-one search results on the Internet today is "Kamala drunk," you're not getting the intended results that you were hoping for.
KILMEADE: Ha ha ha ha ha.
Let's be totally fair. Avella wasn't calling her "drunk!" He was merely noting the fact that other people—people on the Internet—seemed to be doing that.
As we've noted, the idea that Harris is constantly drunk or on drugs was a repeated theme on the Fox News Channel during the White House campaign.
(Sexual insults were also common. Lordly orgs like the New York time choose to avert their gaze from such trivial matters.)
At any rate, Avella wasn't making that claim himself! He was merely suggesting that other people seemed to have some such idea.
Kilmeade enjoyed a good laugh. Three hours later, a D-list comedian went there again, this time on the Gutfeld! program:
DYE (11/27/24): I hesitate to make fun of Harris because I love drunk ladies.
PANEL: [Group laughter, especially Kat Timpf]
AUDIENCE: [Applause]
So it went on the Gutfeld! show, with Tom Shillue as guest host.
To his credit, Avella's statement was technically accurate. Online, some of Red America's leading organs were pushing the idea that Harris must have been drunk all over again when she created that brief bit of videotape.
For an instructive display of moral and intellectual breakdown, we'll suggest that you review the slippery treatment this topic received at the gruesome Western Journal, in a report which appeared under this headline:
Watch: Speculation About Kamala Being Drunk Explodes When Video to Her Voters Goes Horribly Wrong
In fairness, such speculation did explode in regions of Red America. For better or worse, The Western Journal peddles this motto: EQUIPPING READERS WITH THE TRUTH.
At any rate, Vice President Harris was drunk this week, and Musk was seeking the ultimate price. Elon Musk seems to be a genuine nutcase, but our highly primitive high-end journalism has no language for discussing such discomfiting states of affairs.
Then again, there was Joy Reid's screed at the end of her show Wednesday night. It seems that Reid's remarks may have been triggered by a sardonic remark by Bill Maher.
Red America is being told about Reid's presentation; Blue America, not so much! They haven't even posted the video at the ReidOut site!
We Blues! We've long been inclined to earn our way out—but how did we ever manage to lose, even if narrowly, to a guy like Candidate Trump?
We did so in an assortment of ways. Given the ways we humans are built, we're often unable to see such facts about ourselves, and we're likely to keep it up.
Harris was indeed speaking something like a drunk. But it’s wrong to call the VP drunk simply on that account. It’s also wrong to call Trump crazy because of his way of speaking. And it was wrong to call President Ford clumsy because he looked like a football lineman. Unfortunately once a meme gets established it persists.
ReplyDeleteYou don’t accept Somerby’s characterization of Trump? Because, according to our host, the media did not talk about Trump being crazy. That was…Somerby saying that about Trump. So what meme are you talking about?
DeleteHarris was not drunk. Nor does she cackle when she laughs. The election is over. You can stop lying.
DeleteYou can’t just turn sexism off like a switch.
DeleteTrue, although feminists can turn off access to sex like a switch.
DeletePoor Republicans, in a hilarious self own, turning themselves into a cohort of incels. I’m loving it.
Live by the sword, perish by the sword.
ReplyDeleteYou have claimed that the Media has a duty to explore whether Donald Trump is a clinical psychopath on the basis of how he appears on teevee. (Trump does appear sometimes to display symptoms of hypomania, but that syndrome's name has never appeared in your blogposts that I know of.) And, then you complain because some Media choose to speculate on why the Vice-President has frequently appeared to be drunk in public appearances. Maybe, they speculate because she frequently appears to be drunk.
Just as Biden displays symptoms of advanced Parkinson's Disease, prompting partisan speculation on his advancing senility. But, you seem remarkably shy about criticizing the Media for pretending Biden as "sharp as a tack" for many months when he certainly was nothing of the sort and still isn't.
But is he complaining that “some Media choose to speculate on why the Vice-President has frequently appeared to be drunk in public appearances?” Perhaps his real complaint is that this kind of speculation goes unremarked by “blue media.”
DeleteFox is not media. It is a propaganda mill.
DeleteIt’s remarked upon quite a bit, primarily due to the democratization of media, which Somerby (himself an engager) pretends is some kind of nefarious force.
DeleteThis blog has nothing on offer other than insight into Somerby’s and his cadre of fanboys/trolls’ wounded lost souls.
Whatever news media is doing, it resulted in more Harris votes. A majority of those that closely or moderately follow news media voted for Harris.
DeleteCorporate media is a drag on society, a net negative, but it didn’t play a significant role in Harris losing.
Corporate media has lost a great deal of its influence, and it’s the “democratization of media” that may eventually save us, but Somerby keeps acting as though corporate, mainstream media holds the key to our survival.
DeleteRemarks from the president elect and his handpicked richest-man-in-the-world oligarch funder/“government efficiency” czar (including the threat of prosecution of political undesirables) are juxtaposed here with a personal opinion of Joy Reid, who has no government position or function. The asymmetry of this should at least be noted.
ReplyDeleteAgree, but to be fair, Somerby is a very shallow and poor thinker.
DeleteRecognizing asymmetry would cause the Republican right wing house of cards to crumble, something they are aware of, so they will never, ever do it.
DeleteYawn.
ReplyDeleteDidn’t bother reading the post, since Somerby can’t be bothered with credible, coherent evidence; just came to read the lunatic comments from the fanboys/trolls for a laugh as I sip my coffee to get my day going. As my coffee perks me up I can take in the slow motion death of this miserable right wing blog.
Noting that Timpf laughed doesn’t excuse Dye — it makes Timpf less. Somerby is hinting that not all women are feminists as if that were a blot on feminism.
ReplyDeleteSometimes Somerby disparages being misleading while being technically accurate, sometimes not. It all depends on what better supports his agenda, which is to manufacture ignorance.
ReplyDeleteTypical of Republicans, lacking integrity is a feature, not a bug.
Somerby’s agenda is to manufacture ignorance of what, exactly?
DeleteAnd why won’t you answer this question?
Ignorance is a condition, of being unaware and uniformed.
DeleteIt is well understood, particularly by right wingers, that spreading ignorance is one of the more effective ways of gaining power. From religious organizations to fascists to Trump, they all use it.
As Trump says with glee “I love the poorly educated”.
You do realize that’s not an answer, don’t you?
DeleteAvella is sliming Harris, not reporting on the internet. He is responsible for the slur he repeated.
ReplyDeleteI don’t recall Somerby mentioning it, but Harris spent a good deal of effort on trying to appeal to Republicans, even campaigning with Cheney and accepting Republican endorsements. You can debate whether this was a good strategy, but it stands in stark contrast to Trump, and undermines Somerby’s idea that Democrats are uniquely represented by Reid’s less than sympathetic post-election take on MAGA.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the idea that no liberal anywhere, including Reid or even random commenters to Kevin drum’s blog should ever express disdain for Republicans comes close to advocating censorship of liberal opinion, at a time when Republican attacks and demonization of Democrats and liberals has reached epic, grotesque, and baroque proportions.
Excellent point.
DeleteI’m neutral on that strategy, I seriously doubt that it was significantly responsible for how many Dem voters stayed home (Biden incorporated a fairly similar strategy in 2020 and won handily).
Having said that, it was a blunder for Harris’ campaign to not more strongly push the notion of meeting the material needs of Americans; she started her campaign that way, but got dragged for it and seemed to wither a bit from the criticism.
It’s time Dems stop taking lessons from Republicans and right wingers like Somerby.
ReplyDeleteThey do not have our interest in mind. Duh.
Here are the media sources Robt Reich says he relies on for better reporting:
ReplyDelete“Here are the sources I currently rely on for the truth: The Guardian, Democracy Now, Business Insider, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, Americans for Tax Fairness, The Economic Policy Institute, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.”
Hillary should have stuck with Reich, he’s way cooler than Bill, and a much better person too.
DeleteCould have saved this country some misery as one can draw a line from Bill Clinton’s neoliberalism and Third Way electoral politics to Trump’s version of the Republican Party.
Where is Somerby’s promised list of reasons why a reasonable person might have voted for Trump? Still waiting.
ReplyDeleteAustralia bans access to social media for kids, they may be onto something.
ReplyDeleteThey’re not opposed to the democratization of media, they just want to regulate it in a way that benefits society.
Australia also (essentially) banned guns, and it worked!
Australia also banned right wing grifter Candace Owens (and so did New Zealand).
Indeed, Australia seems to be onto something, endorsing regulations that improve their society. Huh! Who knew?
The latent homosexuality/bisexuality so prevalent among Republicans is fueling their homophobia, and much of their anger and bitterness that torments our society.
ReplyDeleteHomosexuality/bisexuality is normal and natural.
MTG (is she a plant?) recently tweeted that the investigation into Gaetz’s unethical sexual predation is just the tip of the iceberg for what’s been going on with Republicans behind closed doors.
Turns out the party of “family values” is anything but.