DEMOCRATIZATION'S REMAINS: Podcasters of the world, unite!

FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2026

Democratization's spawn: Why do certified experts insist that our nation already qualifies as a classic failed state?   

Look at what remains of the discourse, these experts all say—and sure enough! Last night, the assault on the possibilities of the American project was present again, for all to see, on the second most-watched "cable news" program within the American firmament.

Talarico was being baited again. The Times was averting its gaze:

Stephen Miller Goes All In On Schoolyard Talarico Taunts: ‘Less Testosterone Than Jasmine Crockett’   

Stephen Miller went all in on taunting Texas state Rep. James Talarico on Thursday, telling Jesse Watters that when the Senate candidate gets his blood drawn, “soy milk comes out.”

Miller joined Jesse Watters Primetime to discuss the still unresolved conflict with Iran, before moving to a favored topic for both men–attacking Talarico’s masculinity. The top advisor to President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that Talarico was the “first transgender Senate candidate” – a post that made headlines after the official DNC account replied by calling him an “ugly f*ck.” Miller repeated the line to Watters on Thursday, before launching into a long, insult-laden rant against Talarico.

“Well, first of all, I think it’s very bold, one could say brave, courageous, that the Democratic Party would choose Texas of all places to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate,” he said. 

Willa Pope Robbins was on the scene again, reporting for Mediaite. (videotape included), Believe it or not, the transcript runs like this:    

WATTERS (5/28/26): Could we see another historical defeat in Texas? Because the Democrats have nominated James Talarico, who to me just screams "Texas."

MILLER: Well, first of all, I think it’s very bold, one could say brave, courageous, that the Democratic Party would choose Texas of all places to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate.

He’s clearly transitioning into a female. You know, when Talarico goes in for a blood test, when he gets a physical, blood doesn’t come out; instead, soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett. 

It is a mind-boggling choice. They would choose a person to run for that office who looks like he doesn’t belong in the Senate but in a cabaret show. Look, at the end of the day, I have a hard time believing that the people of Texas, some of the toughest, roughest, strongest men and women, the pioneer heritage, the frontier history, from the Mexican American war, through the Alamo and everything else, are going to choose somebody with that much soy to be a U.S. senator compared to a real conservative patriotic, God-fearing and truly be loved statewide figure in Ken Paxton.  

WATTERS: They should have nominated Crockett!...God bless him, as they say down there. More UFO files straight ahead.   

(For the slightly fuller videotape, you can start clicking here.)

So it went, with UFO files coming next, as millions of American citizens watched from locations within our failed state.   

No, Virginia! James Talarico isn't transgender, nor is he "transitioning into a female." (Elsewhere, some people are.) Also, there have been no published reports of soy milk in his veins. 

Regarding the question of Texas heritage, the hopeful has said that's he's eighth generation; we've seen no one dispute that claim. Other Texans have elected him to the Texas legislature, where he has served four terms. 

In that transcript, you're looking at the latest swill from the garbage can Suzanne Scott pries open each night at Fox. In fairness, Watters didn't make the mistake this time of openly saying "gay." 

As we noted yesterday, he had done so the previous day; it was part of the latest ugly clown show performed by him on The Five. That had been a bit of a rookie mistake, but also a mistake born of ardor.  

Experts say that a modern nation which tolerates this is, in fact, a failed state—and there was a time, not long ago, when swill like this would never have been seen or heard on a nationwide "news" broadcast. 

Those days are long gone, the certified experts all say. They say this low-IQ garbage is with us for good. It's the fruit of democratization. 

Not long ago, people like Watters and Miller had to seek each other out in furtive fashion. But then, the democratization, along with the rich, did come into our lives. 

Talk radio came, and the Internet came, and 24-hour cable news went demonically partisan. After that, social media came, and before long the crowning blow:

Before long, the podcasters came! The rise of these new platforms created the world described by this new bromide:   

Every gay-baiter a king!

These people could find each other with great ease now; they could congregate in large numbers. At the Fox News Channel, ownership hired as many of these people as they could. 

As a result, we the people can now hear gay-baiting, and trans-baiting, along with ugly insults directed at women, pretty much whenever we please.  

A new subgroup had been formed. An earlier type of discourse is gone, but various subgroups remain.

Democratization let this world emerge. Helen Lewis explores this new world in her lengthy cover report for the June edition of the Atlantic.   

Lewis may be our most instructive current writer. Inevitably, she lives across the pond.  

Yesterday, we linked you to her current essay. As we noted, it carries this dual headline, and her text begins as shown:  

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

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

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

Douglas Wilson is more a pastor than a podcaster, but he does have a video-streaming service. He's connected to Pete Hegseth, and he doesn't want women to vote.

Wilson is entitled to his views—and as we've noted, matters of sexuality and gender have always been hard. When Moses descended from the mountain, his tablets didn't describe the perfect way to structure relation between men- and women-folk.  

It's too bad that he didn't! As we noted yesterday, European literature begins with the Iliad, a war poem built around the belief of its principal characters that society should be built around male subjugation of women. That includes the subjugation of Helen, radiance of woman, and the subjugation of the kidnapped daughter of the local priest to Apollo:

                                  "Never again, old man,
let me catch sight of you by the hollow ships!
Not loitering now, not slinking back tomorrow.
The staff and the wreaths of god will never save you then.
The girl? I won't give up the girl. Long before that,
old age will overtake her in my house, in Argos,
far from her fatherland. slaving back and forth
at the loom, forced to share my bed!

So said the furious Agamemnon, the furious lord of men. 

Years later, Lewis is exploring the attitudes displayed by Agamemnon's heirs. She started with the Pastor Wilson, but soon she began to cite the furious podcasters who now people the land.

As with the troops under Agamemnon, the roll call of these furious fellows goes on and on and on. Before long, Lewis reports what Pastor Wilson says on his website, and she also states the name of the movement she is exploring:

[There is a] twinkly, avuncular Douglas Wilson, the guy who joined a hippie congregation fresh out of the Navy because he liked to play guitar...

But the 72-year-old shows a different side on his website, Blog & Mablog. For more than two decades, Wilson has been airing piquant opinions on unruly women—or, as he calls them, “small-breasted biddies,” “harridans,” “lumberjack dykes,” and “Jezebels.” He once referred to Gloria Steinem and another feminist as “a couple of cunts.” And this is the polite version. Every year he celebrates “No Quarter November,” when he promises to tell readers what he really thinks.  

[...] 

Wilson is a prominent voice in what is sometimes called “masculinism”: a movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men. 

Podcasters and streamers and websites oh my! Lewis quotes one podcaster after another as she describes the reach of this throwback subgroup—a subgroup which was able to form in the way it has thanks to democratization.

There is, of course, no way to prove that the views and beliefs of any of these "masculinists" is somehow actually "wrong." As for Lewis, who is very bright, she is bright enough, and decent enough, to mention an accurate point;

Like most popular movements, masculinism has many entry points, and both defensible and alarming forms. At one end of the spectrum are legitimate concerns about male loneliness, the declining share of men in higher education, stagnant wages for non-college-educated men, and the deadening effects of day-trading, gaming, and porn. At the other end of masculinism are a misogynist vocabulary about AWFULs and the longhouse (terms that we’ll come back to) and a political agenda close to that in The Handmaid’s Tale, whereby women are denied the right to work, vote, and control their own bodies.  

Respectable concerns are floating around inside this movement, Lewis is willing to say. (More on that next week.) 

But then she turns back to (for example) the "misogynist vocabulary about AWFULs"—braindead language the brain-damaged dumbbells of Fox were yukking it up with only a few months back.

As Lewis explains at a later point, AWFULs are Affluent White Female Urban Liberals, a point which Gutfeld and Watters did in fact find amusing. And with that, we finally reach our one point of complaint:

In her essay, Lewis cites a wide array of masculinist streamers and podcasters, not excluding some women. She never mentions the grisly, abundantly braindead subgroup members who have been hired to play this way on the ersatz "cable news" shows of the ersatz Fox News Channel.

To a remarkable extent, Greg Gutfeld has dropped his former nightly practice of comparing the women of The View to horses, cattle, pig and cows, but also to whales and "livestock." (This certified idiot finds Joy Behar—she's 83—perhaps a bit too portly.)

That said, this strange man can't seem to quit the practice of insulting women in the ugliest ways possible. For his part, Watters seems to be a genuine nutcase when it comes to his incessant list of rules about what men should and shouldn't be allowed to do.

(Real men don't lick ice cream cones, Real men don't drink from straws.)

They also like to bash and bait people who are trans or gay. They like to bait people as gay even if such people actually aren't. This is all part of an ancient pattern, in which sexuality and gender have always been challenging—hard.

As this conduct continues on Fox, the New York Times averts its gaze—refuses to report the fact that this surprising journalistic behavior is taking place. As a general matter, the Atlantic is silent too—and even Lewis failed to mention the furious heirs to Agamemnon who patrol the nation's most-watched "cable news" programs for three solid hours each weekday night.

Agamemnon swore that he wouldn't surrender the girl. The rise of the movement Lewis describes suggests that these attitudes are deeply bred in the bone.

Some of these fellows may simply be wired in such a way that these reactions can't be stopped from surging up into their undersized heads. But these reactions are widespread, and a mutt like Gutfeld—the guy is 61 years old!—teaches young men, on a nightly basis, that this is the way they should see the world and that this is the way they should play.

You can take them off the plains outside Troy but you can't get the furies to leave them. They want to be in charge of the girls. We'll guess that, in large part, they're simply wired that way.

The democratization of media has let them find other angry men who are so inclined. They're no longer on the plains near Troy, but that blood still runs through their veins.

Gutfeld insults women every night. The New York Times refuses to report this surprising fact, along with the fact that he and Watters very much like to slime decent people and very much like to bait gays.

Cronkite and Brinkley are long gone. Brought off the bench by democratization, Watters and Gutfeld remain.

 

THURSDAY: "Grandiose" and "delusional," the specialists said!

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2026

We live in a subpar world: What is the president's mental state or mental condition? If only as a matter of theory, how might a journalist start to discuss that topic?

As we noted on Tuesday, we were intrigued by one part of the recent letter on this topic from 34 medical specialists. We refer to this part of the statement which Senator Whitehouse recently entered in the Congressional Record:

Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness for Office  

[...]

Grandiose and delusional beliefs, including assertions of infallibility, imagery of himself as Pope suggestive of a divine mission, being a mythical warrior hero, depicting himself as combat pilot—dropping feces on civilians, and claims that his decision-making authority is unlimited...   

"Grandiose and delusional beliefs." The medical specialists listed such apparent beliefs among their long list of concerns about the president's fitness for office. That inclusion rang a bell with us, because we'd recently perused the Wikipedia entry on the simple term, "Grandiosity." 

On its own, "grandiosity" doesn't seem to exist as a clinical mental health diagnosis. The Wikipedia report starts like this:

Grandiosity

Not to be confused with grandiose delusion...

In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. It may be expressed by exaggerated beliefs regarding one's abilities, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people. Grandiosity is a core diagnostic criterion for hypomania/mania in bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.  

As described (and to the extent that we understand that passage), "grandiosity" doesn't exist as a diagnosis in and of itself. That said, it does constitute "a core diagnostic criterion" for conditions which may obtain in narcissistic personality disorder.  

That said, how do specialists measure the presence of "grandiosity?" As the entry continues, it offers a checklist of manifestations which fits the conqueror of Venezuela and Iran to something quite close to a T:

Measurement

Few scales exist for the sole purpose of measuring grandiosity, though one recent attempt is the Narcissistic Grandiosity Scale (NGS), an adjective rating scale where one indicates the applicability of a word to oneself (e.g. superior, glorious).

Grandiosity is also measured as part of other tests, including the Specific Psychotic Experiences Questionnaire (SPEQ), Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and diagnostic interviews for bipolar disorders and NPD. The Grandiosity section of the Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism (DIN), for instance, describes:

1. The person exaggerates talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way.
2. The person believes in their invulnerability or does not recognize their limitations.
3. The person has grandiose fantasies.
4. The person believes that they do not need other people.
5. The person over-examines and downgrades other people's projects, statements, or dreams in an unrealistic manner.
6. The person regards themself as unique or special when compared to other people.
7. The person regards themself as generally superior to other people.
8. The person behaves self-centeredly and/or self-referentially.
9. The person behaves in a boastful or pretentious way. 

Is it our imagination, or do those traits fit the past and future conqueror to something resembling a T? 

The president does in fact seem to "regard himself as unique or special when compared to all other people," except perhaps for a handful of the world's most prominent strongmen. Does he seem to imagine himself as one of Them but as separate from everyone else?

Also, does the president "exaggerate his talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way?" Might it seem that the man who said "Only I can fix it" believes, in an almost magical way, in his own (extremely limited) capabilities?  

Did he possibly feel, as some have suggested, that his godlike powers would cause Iran to fall in the same way Venezuela had? With Cuba sure to follow?

We've linked you to Wikipedia's report on "grandiose delusion / delusions of grandeur" in the useless past. This entry on simple "grandiosity" should not be confused with that, the Wikipedia entry warns.   

Having said that, we ask you this:   

What would it be like to live in a world where major journalists were willing to pursue a medical topic like this with some of those medical specialists? Where journalists were capable of some such undertaking?

(On balance, ours almost surely are not.)

Where journalists pursued the question, in a sensitive and capable way, of where runaway grandiosity on the part of a sitting president might conceivably take us? What would it be like to live in a world where journalists were capable of (skillfully) doing that?  

We live in no such world, of course. We live in a world where mainstream journalists swear a blood oath that they will never pursue any such vital questions. Also, where the pitiful children of our most-watched "cable news" channel behave in the astonishing ways we've described in the past two days—first telling us Where The Douchebags Are, then telling viewers who should be baited as gay as the major organs of Blue America agree to avert their gaze.  

That's the world in which we actually live. We repeat a basic observation:   

Man [sic] is the rational animal, Aristotle is frequently said to have said.  

On balance, and all too plainly, that famous old bromide just isn't quite right. In fact, understood in the flattering way we humans have chosen, that famous old bromide is wrong.   

It has always felt good when we've housed such beliefs. It has felt good, but it's been wrong!

ONE PART OF WHAT REMAINS: "Effeminate, gay," the children cried!

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2026

You're already in a failed state: As we've suggested in the past, the historical record suggests a conclusion:   Sexuality has always been challenging. Sexuality has always been challenging—within the male sex drive. 

Forget the news reports you read every day about the misconduct of fellows in charge. European literature, let it be said, starts with a story about the behavior which may emerge from the bit of imperfect human wiring to which we've already alluded.   

King Agamemnon, lord of men, has kidnapped the daughter of a priest to Apollo. He's employing her in the standard ways—and when her father comes to beg for her return, the lord of men is of course offended.

Professor Fagles presents the translation:    

And all ranks of Achaeans cried out their assent:
"Respect the priest, accept the shining ransom!"
But it brought no joy to the heart of Agamemnon.
The king dismissed the priest with a brutal order
ringing in his ears: "Never again, old man,
let me catch sight of you by the hollow ships!
Not loitering now, not slinking back tomorrow.
The staff and the wreaths of god will never save you then.
The girl? I won't give up the girl. Long before that,
old age will overtake her in my house, in Argos,
far from her fatherland. slaving back and forth
at the loom, forced to share my bed!
                                                              Now go,
don't tempt my wrath, and you may depart alive." 

Right there, at the dawn of the west, he refused to give up the girl! Slaving back and forth at the loom, the girl would also be forced to share the conqueror's bed!

"The old man was terrified," the war poem now says. "He obeyed the order, turning, trailing away in silence down the shore where the battle lines of breakers crash and drag."

To his credit, Agamemnon doesn't try to disguise the shape of his motives. But this is where western literature begins, with the Argive forces under this lord of men ten years into a brutal campaign in response to an earlier sexual insult—in response to the (willing) flight of Helen from Greece to Troy, where she now lives as the wife of feckless Paris, son of that city's King Priam.    

That's where the culture begins! Centuries later, the children routinely become upset when related versions of "masculinity" are perhaps referred to as "toxic." 

In modern times, the process of democratization has made it easy for boys and girls of this type to find each other and join forces as a societal subgroup—as a tribe. Before, it would have been very hard. Today, such outreach and bonding come easy.

It's in that context that the latest essay by Helen Lewis has appeared in the Atlantic. In her lengthy essay, Lewis is describing the world Where The Podcasters Are—but also the children of Fox:  

The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet
A virulent form of misogyny has become the single most important force holding together the American right.  

There you see the dual headline which sits atop her lengthy piece. As Lewis starts, she says she'll be describing a movement which is no longer fringe—a movement which "is sometimes called 'masculinism.' ”

Masculinism? As an inkling of where democratization has taken us, she offers this example, among many others, of the way the human project may now take form if you go Where The Podcasters Are:

The Men Who Want Women to Be Quie

[...] 

The male podcasters who got behind Trump in 2024 now host outright misogynists: Consider the career of the Christian debater Andrew Wilson, who in January appeared on arguably the most popular podcast in America, The Joe Rogan Experience—the manosphere-influencer equivalent of singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl.

Wilson, who appeared on Rogan’s show to promote his online debating courses, originally became famous for appearing repeatedly on Whatever, a dating podcast with 4.6 million YouTube subscribers.

In one episode, Wilson told a female fellow guest that she was too stupid to understand him, so she raised the fact that Wilson’s wife, Rachel, has children with three different men. He went thermonuclear. “You lick snizz,” he barked. “You’re a fucking dyke. Don’t talk shit about my wife, you stupid bitch.” He added, “I’m better than you.” It was an extraordinary display of uncontrolled aggression. In another clip, he mocked a female guest for being unable to open a pickle jar. She handed it to him, and he failed too. “Your hand greased the whole top of it,” he complained. Wilson has one of the most unpleasant internet personas I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve been on Bluesky. (He did not reply to my request for an interview, which was a relief.)  

As with Agamemnon's fury, so it may sometimes go with these modern lords of men. Or you could have watched yesterday's edition of The Five, the most-watched "cable news" program within our modern failed state.   

Sexuality has always been challenging! For the children the Fox News Channel sends out on the air each day, the boundaries of masculinity will be defended in the soul-draining ways the children displayed on yesterday's pitiful program.  

Where did Mediaite go to come up with Willa Pope Robbins? Wherever they went, they need to go there looking for others like her. 

As Robbins reports today, James Talarico is running for the Senate in Texas, and the children on our most-watched "news" program now hurried to call him gay.   

Robbins' report starts like this:

Jesse Watters Mocks James Talarico’s ‘Totally Not Fake Girlfriend’: ‘Does She Exist?’

Fox News host Jesse Watters mocked Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s love life on Wednesday, heavily implying that the state senator is lying about having a girlfriend by asking, “Does she even exist?”

The host made his remarks on The Five during a segment on Talarico in light of Tuesday night’s primary that saw Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeat Senator John Cornyn (R). The scandal-ridden Paxton had snagged President Donald Trump’s unexpected endorsement last week, a move that triggered widespread backlash from many within his party. Paxton is now set to face Talarico in November, and both have already gone on the offensive.

Watters went on an extended rant against Talarico, calling him “effeminate” and mocking his attempts to beat back allegations of being a vegan. He then turned to the candidate’s dating life, noting a recent interview Talarico gave in which he discussed his partner and his choice to keep her identity private.  

That's the way Robbins' report began. She provides videotape of some of what occurred, along with an extended (though incomplete) transcript.  

At this point, we'll take a guess:

We'll guess that Robbins' frankness may have been curtailed by editorial standards at Mediaite. Presumably by editorial dictum, the site doesn't ever report the astounding conduct which occurs on the Gutfeld! program.

That includes the ludicrous imitation of a news discussion which we ourselves surveyed in yesterday's report.  

(Just a guess! The editors have decreed that Gutfeld! is a comedy show, and that its various players are therefore "performing artists." Stating the obvious, Gutfeld! is not a comedy show, but we'll guess that some such editorial judgment explains the program's total absence from the posts at Mediaite.)   

At any rate, sure enough! With the battle lines finally drawn—it will be Talarico versus Paxton—The Five's gay-baiting got started.  

Inevitably, the ludicrous Jesse Watters took the lead, with Dana Perino—she's supposed to be the sane one—passive-aggressively helping him along. Here's some of what was said:

WATTERS (5/27/26): Jesse, I know you are, you are just ready to go on Talarico, so take it away.

WATTERS: Correction, it's "Tala-Freako." They nominated someone more effeminate than Beto, and I can't wait for this race to get under way. Did you know that he looks prepubescent?   

[...]

WATTERS: He’s also thirty-seven and not married. 

PERINO: [Laughs]

WATTERS: Let’s get into this. 

He says, just recently, that he has a girlfriend. And they have been together for four years. And he called her his best friend, and she was his rock. And he’s not revealing her identity, because he wants to respect her privacy and keep her safe during the campaign.

GUTFELD: Does she live in Canada? 

WATTERS: She lives– 

[LAUGHTER]

WATTERS: Now, if the campaign has only been going on for less than a year, and they have been dating for four years, why haven’t we ever seen this woman before? Basically, what I’m saying is, Does she exist? 

We’re going to find out because, if he wins, are they going to have a coming out party? Or is she still going to stay the secret girlfriend? And is this totally not-fake girlfriend also a vegan? This race–  

This is a great race to cover.

This is a great race to cover! On our nation's most-watched such show, the silly child seemed to think that he was "covering" the Texas race by launching this examination.

He's even more effeminate than Beto was, the silly child had said. Greg Gutfeld now tried to throw to lone Democrat Harold Ford:

GUTFELD (continuing directly): So Harold, I’m willing to bet that Jesse’s strategy of attack will help Talarico win, because none of the things he says has any bearing–like, that’s what the Democrats want. Is–

WATTERS: Yes, a gay vegan is definitely going to win in Texas! Not gay and not vegan, for the record. 

In that way, Watters pretended to try to establish the fact that Talarico isn't gay. He did so after signaling to millions of viewers that they should start baiting the candidate in precisely that way. 

Needless to say, the dissection of this "effeminate," "not gay" man didn't end there. 

Eventually, Kennedy spotted her chance to play. Based on her endless performances, the former VJ was made by God for precisely this line of work. 

Kennedy seems to be smarter than the others, but she rarely lets that hold her back. When the cup was passed to her, the wine spilled down her front:  

PERINO: Cornyn said last night that he's gonna, he's like, "I'm on board. I'll get behind Paxton."

FORD: We'll see.

KENNEDY: I think James Talarico has heard, "I'll get behind it" before.

WATTERS: [Laughter]  

For those who are lucky enough not to know, that's a gay joke too. As she continued, Kennedy provided such news analysis as this: 

KENNEDY: He looks prepubescent. He looks like such a beta male... 

PERINO: They'll say, they'll say, "But he's a seminarian! How dare you not support him?"

KENNEDY: He put the semen in seminarian! 

WATTERS: [Laughter]

When this is the shape of a nation's news culture, that nation isn't "in decline." It has already become a failed state.

As The Five went off the air, Watters gay-baited one last time. Two hours later, the baiting continued on Jesse Watters Primetime, our second most-watched "cable news" program:

Benny Johnson was brought on the air to provide the comedy stylings about how low in testosterone (how "low T") the effeminate "Tala-Freako" is.

Johnson is a classic post-democratization figure. His summation for the simpering Watters went exactly like this:

JOHNSON (5/27/26): So once again, the reason why Democrats are failing is they've given up on masculinity. They've given up on testosterone. They've given up entirely for effeminate, astrogenetic, catty and totally embarrassing candidates like Beto O'Rourke and "Beta" here.

We don't know what "astrogenetic" means in this context (if anything). But there you see a form of modern "masculinism" being robustly expressed.

Earlier, Jonson had offered this:

JOHNSON: Clearly, Michelle Obama has more testosterone than Talarico. James Talarico is a guy who could be played by Eliot Page in a new Christopher Nolan move, or a Subaru ad.

This plays on a standard Gutfeld! hook, in which Michelle Obama is said to secretly be a man while her husband is said to be secretly gay. Eliot Page was once the very popular Ellen Page, so you can see where that comes in.

This is who and what these fellow citizens are. You won't learn about the things they say and do in the timorous New York Times (or on MS NOW), but this is the relentless shape of their reactions and of their discourse. 

Johnson is the sort of person who never would have emerged before the democratization came into our lives. The leading authority on his life offers this instant thumbnail: 

Benny Johnson (columnist)

Benny Johnson (born May 27, 1987) is an American right-wing political commentator and YouTuber. He has contributed to several conservative media outlets such as Breitbart News, TheBlaze, National Review, and The Daily Caller.

Johnson was previously employed with BuzzFeed but was fired in 2014 due to several instances of plagiarism, where he used text from sources such as Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia without giving due credit.

Johnson has also worked for Turning Point USA and hosted for Newsmax TV.

How does a fellow like that gain prominence? Later, we're told about the way the discourse currently works:

Johnson runs three YouTube channels: "Benny Johnson," "Benny On The Block" and "Benny Brews." Johnson also hosts a podcast called The Benny Show. His main YouTube channel, titled "Benny Johnson," has amassed 6.01 million subscribers and 4 billion views as of September 2025.

Three YouTube channels, with a podcast to boot! In such ways, the democratization has given life to modern-day "masculinism." 

Lewis describes the movement in her essay for the Atlantic. We'll return to her findings tomorrow, but our literary culture began long ago on the plains outside Troy.

It all began on the plains outside Troy. With Agamemnon's fury concerning "the girl," it all began in this same general way.

Tomorrow: Able to find each other

WEDNESDAY: Laura Coates attempts to explain!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2026

In our view, part (b) is hard: Extemporaneous speech is hard. 

It can be hard to speak clearly off the cuff—and it's never been harder than it currently is as people try to discuss the Supreme Court's recent Callais decision. Or when people try to explain the original holdings of the Voting Rights Act in general.  

What did the VRA say in 1965, when it was enacted? What did it say as of 1982, when Congress added this language to the VRA's Section 2?   

SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT

42 U.S.C. § 1973. Denial or abridgement of right to vote on account of race or color through voting qualifications or prerequisites; establishment of violation.

a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b

(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b) of this section.

(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population. 

Congress added part (b) in 1982. (We've provided italicization.) Good luck trying to understand or explain what that torrent of new language actually meant. 

In fairness, the final line in part (b) was in fact fairly straightforward. Its words go exactly like this:  

Nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

According to that provision, "a protected class" (worrisome term) is allowed to have "members elected in numbers equal to their proportion of the population." There would certainly be nothing illegal or wrong about that! 

(South Carolina seems to have achieved that goal in 2011-2012. It had two Black congressmen at that time—James Clyburn and Tim Scott.)

But that same passage plainly says that there is no right to such an outcome—no legal obligation. That seems fairly clear. But as for the language which precedes it, good luck untangling this:   

A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a protected class in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect representatives of their choice.

Good luck with that highlighted construction. Meanwhile, if you can't see that that's a cloudy construction, that may be precisely the problem!

Last evening, Laura Coates went there again. On CNN's Laura Coates Live, she spoke with Scott Jennings about this very source of chaos and verbal confusion.  

You can see the videotape of their exchange by clicking to this report from Mediaite. At one point, Coates made the statement shown below (we've corrected some errors from the transcript at Mediaite): 

COATES (5/26/26): I was in the voting section of the Civil Rights Division. And I’ll tell you, as everyone realizes, that when you dilute the voting power of a particular population, the "One person, one vote" is essentially a myth. 

If you tell them that they’re going to be separated and can never actually vote for a candidate that they’re choosing or have the opportunity to have that candidate elected, that’s problematic.

And before you give me that squint, don’t tell me that Republicans have fewer offices in New England or wherever. But the crux of the matter is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to make sure that voting strength was universal. And if you dilute that power through gerrymandering and separating districts, then you do undermine the ability to do that very thing.  

Laura Coates is plainly a good, decent person. It isn't her fault that extemporaneous speech can be very hard. But that presentation is, in the end, clear as mud. 

(Beyond that, we wish people would stop talking about "the Voting Rights Act of 1965" when it seems they're really referring to provisions which appeared in 1982. It wouldn't really help in the end, but it would at least suggest that people are trying to make accurate statements about this important topic.)

Explaining things is hard! Explaining the relevant section of the occasionally murky VRA can be extremely hard. For starters, here's an apparent conundrum:

Part (b) of Section 2 explicitly says that a "protected class" (will we ever be willing to abandon that term?) is not entitled to have members elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

Part (b) explicitly says that! And yet, courts have routinely seemed to order states to create (absurdly gerrymandered) congressional districts in such a way as to pursue that very outcome! 

It's been that way for decades now. On its face, that's what Louisiana was ordered to do on its way to the Callais decision.

Question:

If a state is one-third Black, was the state somehow obligated to create (gerrymandered) congressional districts which were one-third "majority Black?" It seemed that courts were saying they were—but is that what part (b) said?

For ourselves, we'd like to see Blue America "dare to struggle, dare to win." We think the notion that Black Americans must be treated as a "protected class" has possibly reached its sell-by date.   

We know the complications of that concept lead some wavering Trump voters to hang onto their wings! But the conceptual confusion here is immense—and as the later Wittgenstein clumsily showed, when critters like us were sent to this earth, it seems clear that we weren't built for this particular type of work.

Untangling part (b) is a chore! We Blues don't seem to see it that way. A great deal remains to be said.

Professor Brabender's famous bromide: "Where I come from, we only talk so long. After that, we start to hit!"

REMAINS OF THE DAY: Where the fruitcakes and the morons are!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2026

The fruit of Ted Turner's idea: At the time, it seemed like a good idea. 

We'd have 24-hour TV news! Cable news would be available all the time! What in the world could go wrong?  

It was the late Ted Turner's idea. CNN appeared on cable screens on June 1, 1980. 

In 1982, along came Headline News, "a sister network to CNN that broadcast a looping, half-hour cycle of segments covering various news topics." 

In the long run, it turned out that we the people didn't want a round-the-clock, half-hour digest of major news. Today, the channel is called HLN—and this is its current profile:   

HLN (TV network) 

 HLN is an American basic cable network. Owned by CNN Worldwide, the network primarily carries true-crime programming, recently drifting away from limited live news programming.

[...]

In 2005, HLN began to...air more personality-based programs, including a primetime block featuring pundits such as Glenn Beck and legal commentator Nancy Grace. In the mid-2010s, HLN repositioned itself as a social media-centric network, highlighting headlines popular on social networks, and introducing social media-themed shows. Under CNN president Jeff Zucker, the channel began to backpedal on this programming in 2016, gradually shifting to a focus on crime, "regional" headlines, and entertainment stories (in contrast to CNN's current focus on politics) during its daytime programming, with true crime programs airing at all other times.  

Entertainment stories, but also true crime! 

In fairness, it's also true that the History Channel is now said by eggheads to be built around "pseudo-documentaries and pseudoscientific, unsubstantiated, sensational investigative programming."  

(Bravo, originally designed as the fine arts channel, is now Real Housewives pretty much right down the line.)

So many projects have changed! But 24-hour news is still with us, or at least imitations of same. And as "the democratization of media" spread, new subgroups took root in the soil. 

As new platforms appeared, these subgroups took root. That brings us to the members of one such subgroup who were sent on a stage last Thursday night to offer an hour of "news:"

Gutfeld!, May 21, 2026  
Emily Compagno: co-host, Outnumbered  
Sherrod Small: comedian
Greg Gutfeld: host 
Jim Florentine: comedian  
Tyrus: comedian, former "wrestler"

They would serve as the news analysts for this hour-long "cable news" program. 

With the possible exception of Small, they were wholly reliable members of one of our flailing nation's hardened cable news subgroups. On this night, they would start by pretending to tackle this topic:

Did the Cambridge city council make a mistake in ending the SpotShotter program?

That was the policy topic these tools would pretend to discuss. The pseudo-discussion started with an overview of the situation, fashioned as a "monologue" by the host. 

In yesterday's report, we laid out some of the basics about the topic at hand. We drew our information from the two news reports the host would soon cite—news reports by Boston.com and the Harvard Crimson about the decision the council had made the previous Monday night. 

Should the council have ended their city's use of the ShotSpotter program? Based on the limited information available, we ourselves can't state a firm view.

The program's host was at no such disadvantage. At the start of his monologue, he played brief video clips of two (2) Cambridge residents stating their views to the council that night—two people, out of the "more than thirty" who had spoken that night. 

Then, the host began to offer his view of the situation. Luckily, Ted Turner was no longer able to see the way the host pretended to argue what he pretended to be his case.   

He started with a comment about BIPOCs whose meaning, in context, we still don't understand. But as he continued, it wasn't hard to discern his displeasure with what the council had done. 

We'll highlight his key points. Videotape of the segment starts here:

GUTFELD (5/21/26): Who knew BIPOC were such gangsters?

Who are these fruitcakes? Who put these laid-off carnival workers in charge? The danger these idiots lecture us about isn't the ones outside their home—the bullets, the guns, the criminals. They harm the same community these [BLEEPS] claim to protect.  Luckily for these morons, a bullet to the head won't make them any dumber.  

That's how the analyst started—but who were the fruitcakes in question? Was he talking about the members of the Cambridge city council? Or was he talking about the two Cambridge residents we'd seen on our cable news screens?

(For the record, the host had referred to those people as "activists." One of the two seemed to be a high school aged kid who, like the other "activist," could hardly have been more courteous or more composed.)

To whom was the host referring when he started his news analysis? Who were the "fruitcakes / idiots / carnival workers" to whom he now referred? 

It wasn't clear who the fruitcakes were. But the studio audience enjoyed a good laugh when the analyst said how dumb these "morons" were. 

Now, he played tape of two more Cambridge residents addressing the council. Then it was back to this:

GUTFELD: So once again, these creeps aren't concerned citizens. They aren't at-risk families ducking from gunfire, putting cages on their windows. No, they're far removed from reality of any daily life. They live in their heads.   

How did the host know such things about this pair of "creeps?" He made no attempt to say—but the exercise in name-calling continued:

GUTFELD: They're professional, entitled arrogant activists whose destructive nature would rather put others at risk. Safety is not the goal, feeling superior is.  

It still wasn't clear who he was describing—the four citizens we had now seen, or the nine city council members. Nor was it clear how the host could know so much about the intentions and motives of the arrogant activists he was now describing.  

That said, the host was working from a familiar script—a script about the extremely bad values of anyone said to be "on the left." 

With apologies, one of his favorite insults emerged before he finished his presentation. After describing a violent gunman, he proceeded to offer this:

GUTFELD: That's who these smug narcissists are protecting by trying to ban something that helps actual people, not phonies like them...

According to these douchebags, the real victim isn't the person dodging gunfire, it's the fictional over-policed.

Whoever he was talking about, they weren't just fruitcake and phonies. As it now turned out, they were douchebags too!

Is this the fruit of Ted Turner's idea? With apologies, the program's host soon placed this astonishing bit of swill atop his growing pile:

GUTFELD: And this insanity spreads to other Blue cities. Mayor Brandon Johnson got rid of the system, despite Chicago being responsible for more coffin sales than a coffin saleswoman with big tits.

Yes, he actually said that. His analysis ended like this:

GUTFELD: Effectiveness doesn't matter. ShotSpotter could be 100% effective and they'd call it racist.

The fact is, they aren't happy that murderers are being stopped. They're mad that most of the murderers aren't white. And the people paying the price aren't these city council dopes, it's the people who are getting shot. And for them, getting shot is the least of their problems. It's these gasbags bent on making sure that they do.

So ended this furious person's latest imitation of human life. He started with fruitcakes and he ended with gasbags, having made many stops in between.

On the other hand, he had presented virtually none of the information found in the two news reports which had flashed on the screen. Instead, he had delivered a string of insults, along with a deranged reference to "a coffin saleswoman" he described in a typical way.

At the time, cable news had seemed like a good idea! Eventually, a corporate group decided to pay this person $9 million per year to sell their political messaging in this deranged way—and when he threw to the lady on his panel, she took the baton and she ran:

COMPAGNO: In one scenario that these freaks are putting forth, it's all potential. It's all hypothetical. The potential for over-surveillance. The potential for BIPOCs to be harmed, the potential for somehow our conversations to be picked up. 

She was discussing a bunch of "freaks." As she continued, she brought the super-inanity in:

COMPAGNO (continuing directly): That's not what this is. As you pointed out, any type of noise that has been mistaken for gunfire sounds really close to it, like a car backfiring and like fireworks. We're not talking about Jerry Nadler's farts.

Yes, that's what she said. 

For the record, the news reports had seemed to say that ShotSpotter's reports of gunshots were wrong 65% of the time. That apparent claim went unmentioned by the analysts on this show.

As she continued, Compagno soon heightened the earlier insult:

COMPAGNO: But now, because this is being removed, these white BIPOC carnival freaks will render more dangerous, and more hurt, all of these people that they pretend [to care about].

At this site, we have no idea what a "white BIPOC" is. But Compagno had heightened her original insult now, rendering the "freaks" in question as a bunch of "carnival freaks."

Other panelists played by similar rules. When it came time for Tyrus to speak, he instantly derided the four Cambridge citizens who had now been seen on tape as "the weirdest, gayest-looking white people" around. 

As he continued, he offered a bit of advice regarding the "narcissism" of the weird, gay-looking people who spoke against ShotSpotter:

TYRUS: Nobody cares about how painful your nose ring is, or the fact that your mom didn't put anything on your card.

No one was wearing a nose ring that night, but this program's bloated blowhard was on a bit of a roll. For his part, Florentine offered an ugly idea about why a person might have said that ShotSpotter wasn't helpful:

FLORENTINE: Most mass shooters are white. So they're OK with a white person going into a neighborhood with a lot of minorities and shooting them up and giving them a head start.

That was comedian Jim Florentine's version of an "idea."

It had seemed like a good idea at the time! That said, the democratization has wound on, and dregs like these are now sent on the air each night to peddle the corporate messaging.

On this occasion, the dregs in question had staged an Ad Hominem Tsunami. People who opposed ShotSpotter were fruitcakes, carnival freaks, douchebags—but also, morons and creeps.

The dregs threw in big tits and farts. This is the national culture we've chosen as the democratization has made every flyweight a king.

The Gutfeld! program is heavily watched. As a general matter, it doubles the ratings of MS NOW primetime programs.

A subgroup has formed in Red America as the Murdoch corporation puts this swill on the air. Over here, in Blue America, it gets even worse: 

Over here, another subgroup has agreed that they will never say a word about this! We were never really one America, but we're a pitiful Babel now.

A democratization has swept through the land. This undisguised serving of swill is part of what remains. 

Tomorrow:  The tenets of masculinism

Friday: What the late Barney Frank said

TUESDAY: Whitehouse fed the Congressional Record!

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2026

Journalists averted their gaze: We're sorry to be tedious, but a statement as rare as Dr. Gartner's ought to be recorded. 

The same is true of the statement made by roughly three dozen medical specialists—a statement recently inserted in the Congressional Record by Senator Whitehouse (D-RI).   

We refer to statements which have been cited and reported by Farrah Tomazin of the Daily Beast. In the bulk of this recent report, Tomazin was describing the president's most recent recitation about the three cognitive tests he keeps insisting he "aced." 

The absurdity of the president's claim has long been apparent, but he ran through the whole thing again last Friday, delivering a five-minute monologue on the subject during a rally on Long Island.

We'll offer a thought about that below. For now, here is Tomazin's report on the medical statements in question: 

Trump Reveals the One Insult He Hates Most  

[...]   

The president’s latest comments [about acing the cognitive tests] come days before he is likely to take yet another cognitive test when he visits Walter Reed Hospital on Monday for his latest medical and dental checkup—his fourth publicized examination since returning to office.  But while Trump was jovial during his speech, serious concerns about his mental fitness have nonetheless emerged, thanks in part to his erratic behavior and extreme comments.

A group of about three dozen medical experts sounded the alarm earlier this month, warning that the president was “mentally unfit” and must be removed from office “with the greatest urgency” amid escalating global tensions.

The group had not examined the president face-to-face, but it included neurologists, psychiatrists, and other physicians with extensive experience diagnosing cognitive disorders and evaluating patients.

Dr. John Gartner, a former Johns Hopkins University professor, also told The Daily Beast Podcast that as the president approaches 80, the signs that he has lost a step have become clearer.

“Anybody who has eyes, ears, and a brain… and hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid or been bitten by a MAGA zombie, can see for themselves that this person is transparently mentally ill and cognitively deteriorating,” Gartner said.  

We've mentioned Dr. Gartner before. He's the rare medical specialist who's still willing to use the (tragic) term "mental illness" when discussing President Trump. 

In this instance, he told the Daily Beast that the president is "transparently mentally ill," with additional "cognitive deterioration" layered on top of that. He says that anyone who isn't drunk or blind would be able to discern such facts. (He may mean that any functioning medical specialist would inevitably form that assessment.)   

As always, the fact that Dr. Gartner said it doesn't mean that it's true. That said, the sheer absurdity of the president's latest rambling account of those alleged cognitive tests—tests Obama could never have handled!—can surely speak for itself at this extremely late date.  

We'll post a transcript at some point. Attention must (but won't) be paid.

Also this:  

Tomazin also refers to the medical statement memorialized by Senator Whitehouse. Headline included, that lengthy statement starts like this:   

Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness for Office  

The following is not a political statement. It is a medical one, made by individuals holding both conservative and liberal ideologies, identifying as both Republicans and Democrats, from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and religions.

We are a group of neurologists, forensic psychiatrists, general psychiatrists, and other physicians, along with other mental health professionals, experienced in the diagnosis of cognitive disorders and in evaluating dangerousness to self and others. Among us are professionals whom the courts and criminal justice system regularly turn to for our expert opinion on these matters. We are also consulted by governments in matters related to national security and the psychological profiles of world leaders.

 Prior to the presidential election in the Fall of 2024, a statement assessing Donald J. Trump's mental fitness for the presidency was issued. At that time, serious signs of cognitive decline were identified, and in our expert opinion, these signs warranted disqualification from office.  

It is our professional opinion, based on previous and ongoing assessments, that Donald Trump's mental state since our 2024 statement has deteriorated even further...  

The statement continues from there. The statement does not specifically refer to issues of "mental illness." It specifically refers to "mental fitness" and to "serious signs of cognitive decline."   

That said, it does refer to various behaviors which may play a role in diagnosis of serious "personality disorders"—for example, this:  

Grandiose and delusional beliefs, including assertions of infallibility, imagery of himself as Pope suggestive of a divine mission, being a mythical warrior hero, depicting himself as combat pilot—dropping feces on civilians, and claims that his decision-making authority is unlimited...   

We've linked you to overviews concerning (diagnosable) grandiosity and delusional belief on various occasions. As we've noted, you have to hear about such matters from us because our professional journalists have agreed that they will never interview the medical specialists who could offer professional expertise with respect to such manifestations.   

The Daily Beast is the rare site which is willing to mention such matters as these. This madness goes on and on and on—and we're referring here to the colloquial madness of our Blue American news orgs, not to any medical conditions with which the sitting president may be afflicted.   

Senator Whitehouse inserted that lengthy statement in the Congressional Record. When he did, you know what happened next:

Nothing to look at! Move right along, Blue America'a journalists said.   

As for the president's account of the way he allegedly aced those extremely difficult cognitive tests, his recitations become more pathetic, even more pitiable, as time slowly crawls along. To watch his ludicrous, five-minute ramble on that topic last Friday, just click here, then move ahead to minute 42. 

("I'm the smartest guy you're ever gonna meet." That's the way the gentleman starts.)

That person is badly in need of help. So are the cowardly stars of our Blue American press corps.

THE REMAINS: Did the city council get it right?

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2026

Warring subgroups remain: Friend, please tell us the truth:   

Did the city council of Cambridge, Mass. get it right last week?   

We ask you for a reason. Before we tell you what the city council did, let's bring ourselves up to date on the current nature of Cambridge, Mass.  

Inevitably, the city in question is best known as the home of Harvard and MIT. In fairness, though, it's also a regular American city, a bit like other such cities. 

The leading authority on the matter starts by telling us this:   

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the most populous city in the county, the fourth-largest in Massachusetts. 

[...]

Kendall Square, near MIT in the eastern part of Cambridge, has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet" due to the high concentration of startup companies that have emerged there since 2010. In 2022, Cambridge was home to over 250 biotech companies, with more than 120 located within the Kendall Square ZIP Code.

So goes the current Cambridge. Because race and ethnicity came into play, or may have seemed to do so, in the policy matter we're about to discuss, we'll mention these latest estimates from the Census Bureau:

Cambridge, Massachusetts / QuickFacts
Non-Hispanic white: 53.8%
Asian: 20.4%
Black: 10.5%
Hispanic: 8.8%  

Roughly speaking, something like that. The Census Bureau doesn't make these matters especially easy. 

We now turn to the nine-member council in question:

Last Monday, the council voted to end the use of the gunshot detection technology known as ShotSpotter—to end its use in Cambridge. This decision became the subject of a "cable news" discussion last Thursday night—a "discussion" conducted by one of the many warring subgroups which have emerged from our flailing society's ongoing "democratization."

During last Thursday's imitation of human discourse, the subgroup in question used its time to tell cable viewers "Where the [BLEEPS] Are." 

Tomorrow, we'll let you see the actual words which were used in this pseudo-discussion.

It was quite a pseudo-discussion! Before we get to that part of the story, we'll let Boston.com offer an overview of what the BLEEPS in question decided:

Cambridge City Council votes to end use of ShotSpotter technology

The Cambridge City Council voted Monday to end the use of ShotSpotter devices throughout the city. The vote comes after years of debate over the benefits and potential risks associated with the technology, which listens for gunshots and quickly alerts the police if any are detected.

Five councilors voted to stop using ShotSpotter, while two opposed them and two others voted present during the council’s meeting this week.

With the vote, the council ordered the city manager and police officials to stop using ShotSpotter within 90 days. The contracts involving ShotSpotter will be terminated, and the devices themselves will be physically removed from locations around Cambridge.   

The report by Boston.com continues on from there. It was one of two news reports cited by the subgroup in question during Thursday night's presentation.   

Somewhat amusingly, the subgroup in question also cited a news report by the Harvard Crimson! In that report, undergraduates Boehmer and Michal mentioned some of the criticisms which had been directed ShotSpotter's way over the previous fourteen years:

Cambridge City Council Votes to End ShotSpotter Use Amid Privacy, Accuracy Concerns

The Cambridge City Council narrowly voted Monday to end the city’s use of ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system that has drawn years of criticism from residents and councilors over privacy concerns and potential data-sharing with federal authorities. 

The policy order, which passed in a 5-2-2 vote, directs City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 to remove and disable ShotSpotter devices across Cambridge within 90 days of signing the measure.

More than 30 residents urged the Council to cancel the city’s contract with SoundThinking, ShotSpotter’s parent company, during public comment Monday. They argued that the system is inaccurate, intrusive, and incompatible with Cambridge’s surveillance and sanctuary city ordinances.   

That's the way the Crimson's report began. Soon, these observations were added, in what might be described as a fair and balanced manner:

The Cambridge Police Department began using ShotSpotter in 2014, and in the decade since, only 35 percent of the notifications sent through the system were confirmed as actual gunfire. The system has often mistaken other loud noises—including backfiring cars and popping balloons—for gunshots.

Councilor Ayah A. Al-Zubi ’23, the lead sponsor of the policy order, said the city should evaluate surveillance technologies against “measurable standards”—including accuracy, cost, or resident input, before adopting them. “It’s got a higher false positive rate in our city and cities across the U.S., in which case I believe the benefit does not outweigh the risks of situations where our police department might be misled,” she said.

Acting Police Commissioner Pauline E. Wells urged councilors to keep the system in place, arguing that ShotSpotter gives police a tool to respond to gunfire when residents do not call 911.

“There have been at least 11 times when ShotSpotter detected gunfire in our city, and not a single 911 call came in—not one. That means 11 moments when no one reached for the phone, 11 moments when officers would have no direction, 11 moments when seconds were slipping away, and ShotSpotter was the only reason help was there at all,” Wells said.  

For starters, let us say this—Cambridge, Mass. is no city for unschooled women. The numbers after two of those names indicate the years in which the city officials graduated from Harvard itself. 

The lead sponsor of the policy order has only been out three years! We add these observations:  

If we're reading the representations correctly, ShotSpotter's spotting of shots may be incorrect as much as 65 percent of the time. On such occasions, the city's various Car 54s are sent off in the direction of gunshots which aren't there.  

Perhaps more strangely, the text of the Crimson's report suggests that there have been only eleven incidents in twelve years in which ShotSpotter spotted actual spots which weren't also reported to 911. Bason on his quoted statement, Councilor Al-Zubi ’23 may have concluded that this rate of return doesn't justify the substantial cost of continuing the system.   

On the other hand, Acting Police Commissioner Wells apparently feels that the system is a useful tool for police. Here as elsewhere, you could even imagine that reasonable people could reach different conclusions about the topic in question.  

For the record, ShotSpotter is in wide use around the country. For whatever it may be worth, a larger city—Chicago, Illinois—ended its use of the system last year:   

For an NPR report on Chicago's decision, you can just click here. (Headline: Chicago will drop controversial ShotSpotter gunfire detection system.)  

For a formal report by Chicago's Inspector General, you can just click this. (Headline:  OIG Finds That ShotSpotter Alerts Rarely Lead to Evidence of a Gun-Related Crime and That Presence of the Technology Changes Police Behavior.)

Friend, how about it? Did City Manager Huang ’05 and Councilor Al-Zubi ’23, joined by other council members, make the right decision for their city last week? 

For ourselves, we have no idea!  That said, no such uncertainty intruded on the pseudo-discussion which took place last Thursday night on a major "cable news" program. 

The program to which we refer is peopled by one of the furious subgroups created by our society's headlong democratization—by the "democratization of media" which has turned our flailing nation's public discourse into a modern Babel.  

With apologies, if we had to give a title to last Thursday's imitation of human life, we'd have to offer a title like this:  

Where the BLEEPers Are!

Tomorrow, we'll show you what was actually said when this inbred subgroup began to declaim about the Cambridge city council, but also about the "more than thirty" residents who had spoken before the council about the use of ShotSpotter. 

Brief video clips of four of those residents flashed by on the screen. The other residents who stated their views were gone, forgotten, discarded.

Back to the subgroup in question: 

Many such subgroups now exist, comprised of members who believe every word of their group's tribal lore. Or at least, so it may seem when such people are paid to appear on cable.

For better or worse, the so-called "democratization of media" has been underway for at least four decades now. Several components of this democratization may have seemed like good ideas at the time. 

They seemed like good ideas at the time! Last Thursday's pseudo-discussion is part of what now remains.

Tomorrow: What the cable news subgroup said. 

Also, the Atlantic's Helen Lewis discusses "masculinism."

Thursday: The state of Florida's new history curriculum

Friday: What the late Barney Frank said

REMAINS: In the rubble of the democratization...

MONDAY, MAY 25, 2026

...quite a few subgroups remain: First, the democratization unfolded, over at least four decades. In the midst of all that, the current sitting American president arrived on the political scene.  

He arrived on the scene with his birther assertions. Fifteen years later, this is part of what remains:

Trump Posts Image of Obama, Comey and Others in Prison Jumpsuits: ‘Sick Group of People!’

President Donald Trump posted an image on social media Sunday which depicted former President Barack Obama, former FBI Director James Comey, and other political enemies decked out in prison garb.

In the post to his Truth Social platform, the president showed Obama, Comey, and six others in mugshot-style images set against the backdrop of opening titles of The Brady Bunch—only this group of eight was captioned as “The Shady Bunch” and depicted in orange prison jumpsuits.

“This is a bad (Sick!) group of people,” Trump wrote.

For full report, click here.

Trump Drops Shocking Violent AI Vid Showing Assault on Late Show Host Stephen Colbert

President Donald Trump dropped a violent Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated video depicting an assault on ousted Late Show host Stephen Colbert—which was also distributed by the official White House X/Twitter account.

[...]   

On Friday night, he posted a video on his Truth Social account that featured a fake Late Show clip of Colbert welcoming the audience back from a commercial break, but then being assaulted by Trump. After throwing Colbert into a dumpster, the AI Trump does a discombobulated version of the trademark upper-body dance.

For full report, click here.

Trump Launches Vicious AI Attack Demanding Fox News Ban Popular Dem

President Donald Trump launched a vicious and disturbing AI-generated attack on popular firebrand Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) as he demanded Fox News ban him from their airwaves.

... In a post on Saturday morning, he dropped a dehumanizing AI image of Khanna with fangs and a demonic expression, draped in the skin of a sheep.  

For full report, click here.

WH Spox Excoriates Trump’s Fmr. Secretary of State for Criticizing Iran Deal: ‘No Idea What the F*ck He’s Talking About!’

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung ripped President Donald Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for criticizing the newly-announced, still-to-be-finalized peace deal with Iran.

In a fiery post on X late Saturday, Cheung raged at the man who President Trump entrusted as his chief diplomat for three years during his first term—with Cheung arguing that man’s opinion on the Iran conflict is now ill-informed.

“Mike Pompeo has no idea what the f*ck he’s talking about,” Cheung wrote. “He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He’s not read into anything that’s happening, so how would he know?”

For full report, click here.

Trump Rips Into ‘Losers’ Like Tillis, Massie, and ‘Dumocrats’ in Scathing Memorial Day Message

President Donald Trump rose from his slumber early on Memorial Day, shredding fellow Republicans like Thom Tillis (R-NC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY), as well as his familiar target—“Dumocrats”—in a blistering holiday message.

Trump posted on Truth Social just after 6 a.m. on Monday, targeting the opponents of his latest Iran deal.

“I laugh at all of the Dumocrats, RINOS, and Fools who know nothing about the potential deal I am making with Iran, things that haven’t even been negotiated yet, weak and ineffective people like failed Senator Thom Tillis (Soon out of office!), Bill Cassidy, who just suffered a massive Primary loss, really bad Congressman Thomas Massie, a major sleazebag who lost in a landslide  to a great American Patriot (Endorsed by “TRUMP”) after showing tremendous disloyalty to his Party (and Country!), and almost all  Dumocrats, people that have totally lost their way, constantly supporting bad policy and even worse candidates, but are constantly critical of each and every fantastic win I have,” Trump wrote.

For full report, click here.

This madness is part of what remains. So is the madness of the major Blue American press corps—the New York Times, MS NOW, The Atlantic, CNN—which continues to sit around pretending that nothing is definably wrong with the public official who generates this endless public behavior.

With the democratization, there came the splitting into groups. Thanks to the democratization, each of us could absorb the agitprop—the preferred Storylines—of the group to which we were most inclined. 

These subgroups are part of what remains. This week, we'll be exploring the cultures—the group beliefs—of some of these warring entities.   

In the famous case of Ozymandias, "Nothing beside remains." In the current circumstance, many subgroups do.

SATURDAY: What should Blue America do...

SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2026

...in the wake of the Callais decision? Friend, here we go, on a holiday weekend, with an important policy question:   

As a matter of public policy, should Blue America continue to push for the creation of majority Black congressional districts in the various states?  

It seems to us that a well-intentioned person could teach it flat or round. For ourselves, we keep wishing that Blue America would rise to meet the old progressive bromide:   

Dare to struggle, dare to win! 

On balance, we'd like to see Blue America roll up its sleeves and look for ways to win House seats in various southern states without the deliberate creation of congressional districts which make such outcomes a foregone conclusion. 

We'd like to see Black Democrats manage to do that, though we'd even settle for a world in which white Democrats were able to fashion such wins.   

Full disclosure:

Black Republican have been elected to the House from heavily white districts in Florida, Texas and South Carolina in recent years. In South Carolina, those same white Republican voters keep sending the Black Republican to whom we refer back to his current seat in the United States Senate.   

We wouldn't vote for this (Black) guy ourselves. But South Carolina's white Republican voters did and continue to do so!

In Florida, white Republican voters are hoping to elect a Black congressman as their state's next governor, though one recent poll shows him trailing the likely Democratic nominee. 

If we ourselves lived in Florida, we'd vote for that white Democrat too! But we regard this behavior by Republican voters in those southern states as a hard-won victory in the attempt to realize the "racial" American dream.  

In South Carolina, white Republican voters even preferred that Black congressional candidate to the white congressional candidate who was Strom Thurmond's son! And good grief:

After his election to the House, he was selected to fill a vacated Senate seat by South Carolina's Indian-American female governor. White Republican voters had elected her to serve as their state's governor when she was just 38!   

We wouldn't have voted for those Republican candidates, but we regard those choices by those South Carolina Republican voters as major wins for long-standing progressive ideals. We'd like to see Blue America—white, Black, Hispanic, Asian—dare to struggle after similar wins in the nation's southern states.  

On balance, those southern states remain highly "conservative"—or, in current parlance, they remain strongly pro-MAGA. Absent the construction of gerrymandered House districts, it would be hard for any Democrat, white or Black, to win election to the House or the Senate in any one of those states. 

Having said that, hold on:  

In 2017 and 2018, a miracle happened in Alabama. A progressive Democrat, Doug Jones, was narrowly elected to the Senate in a special election to fill the seat of Senator Jeff Sessions, who was leaving the Senate to (briefly) serve as President Trump's first attorney general (of many).  

Jones eked out his narrow win (victory margin: 1.6 points) because Alabama's Republicans had nominated a uniquely unelectable candidate. In 2020, Senator Jones sought election to a full, six-year term, and the norm prevailed:  

2020 Alabama Senate election: 
Doug Jones (D): 39.7%
Tommy Tuberville (R): 60.1%

It won't come easy in Alabama. Under present circumstances, it would be hard for any Democrat, white or Black, to win a statewide race in Alabama—or to win a House seat in a congressional district which, whether gerrymandered or not, wasn't majority Black.

That said, please hold on again:

One state over, right there in Georgia, Rep. Lucy McBath has been elected to the House four straight times in the heavily white 6th congressional district (18.2% Black). In 2018, she dared to struggle and dared to win, narrowly unseating a Republican incumbent.

Georgia also did this:

2020-21 Georgia Senate special election:
Raphael Warnock (D): 51.04%
Kelly Loeffler (R): 48.96%

That was a narrow win—but it was a win. Less than two years later, Senator Warnock did it again, winning a full six-year term:

2022 Georgia Senate election:
Raphael Warnock (D): 51.4%
Herschel Walker (R): 48.6%

In fairness—here too, Georgia Republicans had nominated a weirdly unelectable candidate. 

Can Senator Warnock get re-elected to another full term? Only time will tell. The same is true of Senator Ossoff, who got elected to the Senate from Georgia (by 1.2 points) as part of the 2020 election cycle.   

Demographically, Georgia differs from such neighboring states as Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. It will still be hard for Democrats of any race to win House seats from those states—especially so, it may seem, if those states reconfigure their maps in an attempt to ensure that every district in the state favors the Republican candidate.  

Given those circumstances, should Blue America continue to push, as a matter of policy, for the deliberate creation of gerrymandered districts—for districts which are specifically designed for the purpose of letting Black Democrats win House seats?  

We suppose that a decent person could teach it flat or round. But every time we Blues go out and say that this is Jim Crow 2.0, or say that it's 1892 all over again, a bevy of wavering voters for Trump decide to hang onto their wings.

As a matter of policy, we ourselves would prefer to see Blues dare to struggle to win. At present, it's hard for any Democrat to win in many southern states. 

That's surely true of Black Democrats, and it's true of white Democrats too.

Also this, from the standpoint of the American voter:

At present, it's hard for Democratic or progressive voters—Democratic voters of any race—to vote for the winning candidate in elections in those states. 

Does that mean that those Democratic voters have been "disenfranchised?" Does it mean that they've been "effectively disenfranchised," as one specialist has recently said?

Does it mean that they are no longer "represented" in the Congress? Is that what it means when the person you favored ends us losing the race?

Almost half the voters in this nation's congressional elections vote for the candidate who doesn't win. Have all those voters been "disenfranchised?" Are they "unrepresented" too?

These conceptual boondoggles come into our lives "when language goes on holiday," or so the later Wittgenstein somewhat unclearly said. And so it goes, around the clock, within our bungled imitation of a national discourse.

There's a great deal more to be said about the endless conceptual jumbles which have led us down the long, winding road which has us at this point. But trust us:

Every time Harvard and Princeton professors go on cable TV to speak with the magna cum laude Harvard grad who grew up in the suburbs with her lawyer parents, voters all across the country are listening to what gets said.

Trust us:

When those extremely highly placed, high achieving people seem to say that they've been excluded from the democracy, waves of wavering pro-Trump voters do in fact make an unhelpful decision:

They decide to hang onto their wings! Every time claptrap like that gets emitted, Blue America fails to make gains.

With respect to the fascinating specific topic which lies at the heart of the current dispute, language has been going on holiday for more than four decades now.

Language has been going on holiday in legal and journalistic work. Language has been on holiday in much of the Blue American agitprop which has emerged in the wake of Callais.

Anthropologically, we humans possess limited judgment and sharply circumscribed analytical skills. We simply aren't "the rational animal," as was first claimed long ago.

Even on the highest levels, we humans are gifted with limited judgment. Not unlike our counterpart Reds, we Blues go out, again and again, and work to establish that point.