Gallows Schadenfreude (™)

Definition:  Enjoying a hearty laugh at someone else's adversity or tribulation even as you stand up there on the windy gibbet.

I was moved to coin this term when I heard -- and not for the first time -- the recently-former Republicans and MSNOW employees at The Bulwark shaking their fist at the heavens and insisting that "billionaires who care about America" need to step the fuck up and fund a new media that can push back against Conservative media and the Republican-controlled legacy media.  

Oh how carefully they avoiding saying that Liberal billionaires need to step up and fund a genuinely Liberal media.  

From a December 31, 2025 Bulwark podcast:  

Sarah Longwell:  What do we do about an entirely consolidated media system that has been built around Trump's allies? 

Jonathan Last (with a smirk):  Why Sarah, what do we do? 

Longwell:  We have to build new things. We have to be the ones, like, where are the patriotic billionaires?  Like, Bezos acted like a patriotic billionaire and then sold out to Trump and gave him the [Washington] Post. The [Washington] Post is a shell of itself. We're going to have to build entirely new media ecosystems and billionaires who care about America are going to have to step up and start helping to both build and and bring back these media. 

Tim Miller:  We probably need to regulate them too. 

As most of you know, Liberals have been writing about the awfulness of the legacy media forever -- shouting it from our little blogs for more than 20 years, and talking about it for decades before that.  So imagine my gallows schadenfreude when I heard these former Republicans -- who popped into existence five minutes ago and were immediately lavished with the kind of daily, unalloyed support of the "liberal" media that is beyond the wildest dreams of OG Liberal bloggers and podcasters -- suddenly noticing that the legacy media sucks, then breathlessly announcing it to the world as if they think they've just discovered radium, and then insisting that patriotic billionaire damn well need to step up and take action.  

Except based on their performance to date, if they did ever find a djinn bottle on the beach and wish for the independent media of their dreams to be conjured into existence, it's pretty clear what kind of "independent" media they would ask for.  

An awesome Sensible, Center-Right new/old media -- a retro-media, if you will -- where no one talks about the state of the GOP before Trump.  Where it would perpetually be 2013: a spiritual recreation of Sally Quinn's tight circle of parlor austerity trolls of days gone by, but this time with emojis.  Where George Will would once again be the fount of all wisdom, and David Brooks would once again be free to roam the land, concocting imaginary bright futures for an imaginary Republican party. (From Brooks in 2013)

A Second G.O.P. 

...It’s probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It’s smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton...

The second G.O.P. wouldn’t be based on the Encroachment Story. It would be based on the idea that America is being hit simultaneously by two crises, which you might call the Mancur Olson crisis and the Charles Murray crisis. 

A media where, for the greater good -- 

-- Liberals who insist on writing about the Before Time or the idiocy of the new/old Brahmans of this brave, new retro-media would be kept safely away from the microphones, just as they were in days of old (both are deadlinks, so don't bother.)

BooMan weighs in:

David Brooks: Stupid as a Boiled Ham
by BooMan
Tue Jan 29th, 2013 at 09:42:45 AM EST

You knew that at one point David Brooks would suffer enough cognitive dissonance to lead him to make a permanent break with the Republican Party. That day has not yet come. Instead, because his paycheck depends on his willingness to ignore all cognitive dissonance, Brooks has today decided to advocate the creation of a second Republican Party. This party won't be based in the South or the Mormon Mountain West. It won't be completely paranoid about the ever-growing encroachment of the Nanny State. Possibly, it won't be bug-eyed nuts about Sharia Law and Latinos who behead white people in the Arizona desert...

Shakes sticks a fork in it:

The GOP isn't even honest about who they are when they're navel-gazing. Americans expect politicians to lie to us, but we expect them at least not to lie to themselves.

However, for the time being...

I Am The Liberal Media

The Pundit Brain That Wouldn't Die

Listening to professional pundits on various Big Giant Podcasts can be quite entertaining if you look at it from a properly jaundiced perspective.  For example, this is not an actual transcript, but it is a fairly accurate distillation of the all-over-the-place criticism that proprietors of various Big Giant Podcasts are tossing around these days.

Pundits:  You have to understand, people are stupid.  Voters are stupid.  They don't understand anything political and don't know how anything works and you can't expect them to.  Trump tells them crazy bullshit and they believe it.  So, what are we to do?

Well, then how about starting by kicking the crap out of Trump on stuff like the price of eggs.  These stupid voters said that's why they voted for him.  He said he'd lower prices.  He said he'd do it on Day One.  We're well past Day One.  Start with that.

Pundits:  Look, these people aren't stupid, OK?  Voters aren't stupid.  They know he's only been in...

And back and forth we go, on and on, whiplashing between "Voters are dum-dums who know nothing and believe nonsense" and "You can't treat voters like dum-dums who know nothing and believe nonsense.".

And by the way, there are at least +75 million voters who aren't stupid, who do understand the stakes and who did understand the assignment.  So in future bull sessions among your fellow pundits with Big Giant Podcasts, it would be an enormous boon to your credibility with folks like me who are one of that +75 million to refrain from bitching about "people" and "voters" and "Democrats" and instead get specific about which clusters of MAGA or uncommitted/"independent" voters you are planning on targeting for persuasion and what exactly your big plans are for accomplishing that goal.

I Am The Liberal Media

I Won't And You Can't Make Me

Well it finally happened.

Having covered a lot of stomach-churning nonsense sharted out by cosseted Conservatives on the op-ed pages of The New York Times, at last I have found the place I dare not look --

   

 -- and found Ross "Chunky Reese Witherspoon” staring back at me.

So nope, nope, nope. 

 Non. 

 Nein. 

Nee. 

아니요. 

いいえ. 

Hindi. 

Não. 

I'll Need Another Jug Of Brain Bleach To Get Past This

There is a Club: Ronna McDaniel Edition

There is a Club and we very definitely ain't in it.

I defy anyone, especially the editorial staff at @NBCNews to find any single press conference, press release, or on-air hit where Ronna did NOT spread demonstrable lies to the American public.
That is who NBC just allocated a salary for.
Absolutely reprehensible malpractice. pic.twitter.com/H0xfKB3JuG

— Schrödinger's Litter Box (@Brewjew308) March 22, 2024

And please, do not come to me, all sweaty with tears in your eyes asking, "Sir, sir, how could Liberal NBC/MSNBC do such a thing?"   Because you and I both know that they do this sort of this all the time.  

The NBC/MSNBC Republican Reputation Laundromat never closes.  It's practically their business model.  And among the many, many examples available for educational purposes, I'm gonna once again remind you that Bill "Always Wrong About Everything" Kristol used to be a punch line over at 'Liberal' MSNBC.

Remember?  (h/t Heather at Crooks and Liars):

A human wrongness PEZ dispenser.  A laughing stock...who was somehow, mysteriously, never missed a meal and was never out of the Beltway media's inner circle for more than a minute.  More here if this interests you.   

Bloody Bill was a fucking punchline...right up until MSNBC decided to adopt a fledgeling recently-former Republican media startup co-founded by Kristol.  It's called The Bulwark and almost overnight became a virtual MSNBC subsidiary.  MSNBC was quickly colonized by Bulwark employees, including Kristol, and from that day until this no one has every whispered a discouraging word about Kristol in public, nor have any of his MSNBC colleagues every been so rude as to bring up his incredibly inconvenient past.

It was something like the opposite of Orwell's concept of an "unperson".   One day Kristol is a discredited fraud and bad joke and everyone knows it, and the next day he is a suddenly a valued and respected colleague and nobody better say a fucking word to the contrary.

MSNBC is not our friend, kids.

Burn The Lifeboats

The New York Times: Scolding an Empty Chair

The great mystery (not really) of this New York Times Editorial Board column (which is labeled as a direct address to Trump-lovin' Republican voters) is...who the hell does the Editorial Board think reads and heeds the New York Times?

And, after we wade through a bit of it, I believe we can find the answer (you all already know the answer) in a Rick Perlstein series currently running in The American Prospect

To begin:

The Responsibility of Republican Voters

By The Editorial Board

Oh fuck off.  Yes, this is going to be a Stern Lecture, thundered down from high atop the pinnacle of Serious Murrican Journalism, aimed at people who not only couldn't care less what The Times has to say about anything, but firmly believe The Times plays a major part in an active Deep State communist conspiracy to something something.  

Republicans who will gather to cast the first votes of the 2024 presidential primary season have one essential responsibility: to nominate a candidate who is fit to serve as president, one who will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Donald Trump, who has proved himself unwilling to do so, is manifestly unworthy.

Yadda yadda yadda.  Orange Man Bad.  Directed at a zombie army of Republican voters who have been trained for decades to automatically ignore/attack anyone who tells them anything they don't want to hear.  Especially when it comes from the coastal media elite.  

But do please continue:

At this critical moment, it is imperative to remind voters that they still have the opportunity to nominate a different standard-bearer for the Republican Party, and all Americans should hope that they do so. This is not a partisan concern. It is good for the country when both major parties...

"Remind"  Bwahahaha!  Because, yeah, if there's one thing that, at this late date, might turn back the tide of fascist morons who threaten to swamp our democracy, it's being patronizingly reminded by the New York Times that, hey, there are other people to vote for, y'know, instead of the racist, rapist con man to whom you have sworn a blood oath.  

Then comes more yadda yadda yadda about Orange Man Bad.  Yes, we know Orange Man Bad. Everyone knows Orange Man Bad.  That's what the meatbags love about him.  What is it about that central fact that you not understand?

Mr. Trump’s construction of a cult of personality in which loyalty is the only real requirement has badly damaged the Republican Party and the health of American democracy.

No.  As usual The Times continued insistence that there must be a Reasonable Republicans Party out there somewhere (Because every Republican that they know personally is so doggone decent.  I mean, just look at David Brooks!?!) has it backwards.  Trump and his cult are a manifestation of the id of the Republican base.  They are the end-state of a road the GOP has been on for decades.  They are the base's dearest wishes fulfilled.  And aggressively ignoring the monstrous trajectory the GOP has been the hallmark of New York Times political reporting since Reagan.

Then, still more yadda yadda yadda about Orange Man Bad.  

And, sure, while "voters" might agree with his toxic policies.

...electing Mr. Trump to four more years in the White House is a unique danger.

This is the Times starting to get a little hysterical.  Panicky.  Shouting at the meatheads, I don't know if you morons realize this, but we've got this here constitutional system.  And it's really important.  Maybe you just didn't know that.  

Oh, they know.  They know.  And they want it dead.  

Mr. Trump’s record of contempt for the Constitution — and his willingness to corrupt people, systems and processes to his advantage — puts all of it at risk.

Then the Times invokes the holy name of George H.W. Bush.  Remember when George H.W. Bush lost gracefully?  Wasn't that awesome!

Dude, these people hate the Bushes.  How do you not know that?  Oh, right.  Not knowing this stuff is your business model.

It also means accepting that the power of the victors is limited.

Then the Times invokes the holy name of  John McCain.  Remember when  John McCain disagreed with the Supreme Court but bent the knee anyway?  Wasn't that awesome!

Dude, these people couldn't care less about John McCain.  And as to the Supreme Court, the reason they voted for the Bad Orange Man was so that he would pack the court with stooges and hacks who would do what they're fucking told to do.  Again, how do you not know that?  Oh, right.  Not knowing this stuff is your business model.

By contrast, as president, Mr. Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of other government officials...

Still more yadda yadda yadda about Orange Man Bad.

Voters inclined to support Mr. Trump as an instrument of certain policy goals might learn from his presidency that changes achieved by lawless machinations can prove ephemeral.

And this is where I started laughing loud enough to scare the cats.

 "Voters inclined to support Mr. Trump...might learn"?    Learn?

I'm dyin' here!

Voters who favor Mr. Trump’s prescriptions now have other options.

The Republican Party: A Land of Contrasts.

And finally, the Times in-house delusion about the nature and history of the Republican Party comes fully into the open.  

Mr. Trump is now distinguished from the rest of the Republican candidates primarily by his contempt for the rule of law. The sooner he is rejected, the sooner the Republican Party can return to the difficult but necessary task of working within the system to achieve its goals.

The reek of privileged, clueless condescension coming off this pieces is, as they say, enough to knock the flies off a shit wagon.   

So why, after all this time, does the America Newspaper of Record continue to fail so spectacularly at the seemingly simple task of A) see what is happening in plain sight all around them, and B) writing about it?

For answers to that maddening question we turn now to Rick Perlstein's interview of Jeff Sharlet in The American Prospect.  I'll give you the gist, but it's worth your time to go and read all of it:

Part I of this essay ended with a Washington-based New York Times reporter smirking. He did so while explaining to author Jeff Sharlet, who logged thousands of reporting miles and hours of deep engagement with the best scholarship on the subject for his book The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War, why he was foolish to suggest the Times consider referring to Donald Trump and his supporters as “fascists” and “racists.”

The Times reporter asserted that journalists instead should “just [write] what’s going on,” that to “offer a label” that was “going to be debated” would just “distract from the reporting.”

And besides: “The market has spoken, and they like what we’re doing.” The Times, he repeated several times, still has ten million subscribers, even if “a lot of people have thoughts, and feel ownership over The New York Times because they have been readers and subscribers for many years.”

That claim of the market as the final arbiter of success did not make Jeff Sharlet a happy man...

Since the Times really does think that it has perfected what Perlstein mockingly calls a "perfect, unblemished window unto reality itself", not only do they see no need to change the way they do things, they do not have the institutional capacity to form the question.  

They are The New York Fucking Times.  

They have ten million subscribers. 

QED.

Which explains the existence of the Editorial Board's pompous, ridiculous castigation of the poor, misguided rubes of the Republican base.  This is purely performative.  A show put on to stroke the self-righteous egos of their ten million subscribers that says, "See!  See!  We're doing what all you cossetted souls still believe the solution to our little political problem to be.  Giving the peasants a stern talking to!  Letting the hoi polloi know what's what!  And since we are The New York Fucking Times, well, what force on Earth can stand against us?"

Meanwhile, outside the NYT bubble, this the reaction of any Republican voter who might happen to stray across the Board's column. 

And that is the end of the news.

 

I Am The Liberal Media

Even Stranger Wine: The Late Stage Teevee Brain

This is an excerpt from my late friend Harlan Ellison's introduction to his book Strange Wine: 

Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look so Terrific Yourself.

I used to know Dan Blocker, who played Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza. He was a wise and a kind man, and there are tens of dozens of people I would much rather see dead than Dan. One time, around lunch-break at Paramount, when I was goofing off on writing a treatment for a Joe Levine film that never got made, and Dan was resting his ass from some dumb horsey number he'd been reshooting all morning, we sat on the steps of the weathered saloon that probably in no way resembled any saloon that had ever existed in Virginia City, Nevada, and we talked about reality versus fantasy. The reality of getting up at five in the morning to get to the studio in time for makeup call and the reality of how bloody much FICA tax they took out of our paychecks and the reality of one of his kids being down with something or other . . . and the fantasy of not being Dan Blocker, but of being Hoss Cartwright.

And he told me a scary story. He laughed about it, but it was the laugh of butchers in a slaughterhouse who have to swing the mauls that brain the beeves; who then go home to wash the stink out of their hair from the spattering.

He told me–and he said this happened all the time, not just in isolated cases–that he had been approached by a little old woman during one of his personal appearances at a rodeo, and the woman had said to him, dead seriously, "Now listen to me, Hoss: when you go home tonight, I want you to tell your daddy, Ben, to get rid of that Chinee fella who cooks for you all. What you need is to get yourself a good woman in there can cook up some decent food for you and your family."

So Dan said to her, very politely (because he was one of the most courteous people I've ever met), "Excuse me, ma'am, but my name is Dan Blocker. Hoss is just the character I play. When I go home I'll be going to my house in Los Angeles and my wife and children will be waiting."

And she went right on, just a bit affronted because she knew all that, what was the matter with him, did he think she was simple or something, "Yes, I know . . . but when you go back to the Ponderosa, you just tell your daddy Ben that I said . . . "

For her, fantasy and reality were one and the same...

Bonanza ran from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973.   That's 14 seasons and 431 episodes; the second longest running Western television series in U.S. network history.  It was also the first Western series televised in living color.  So, this conversation probably happened sometime in the mid- or late-1960s.   Back when teevee was still a magic box that brought you Three!Count!'Em!Three! networks to choose from.  When color teevee was still a rarity.  When Blocker would come into your home as Hoss Cartwright every week, year after year.   

You would have known who Hoss was and what he was about.

Another part of your brain would have also known who Walter Cronkite was and what he was about. He was serious. The news mattered. And however addled you might get, you'd never have mixed up the news of the day with life on the Ponderosa.  But somehow, through the magic of teevee, sometimes some element of that fictional drama on teevee would get to feeling familiar and real.  Especially if it was part of an ongoing drama that you spent time with over and over again for years.

Even though a part of that teevee brain knew it wasn't, it seemed like it was 

This was a principle theme of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.  

Mildred kicked at a book. “Books aren’t people. You read and I look around, but there isn’t anybody! . . . Now. . . my “family” is people. They tell me things; I laugh, they laugh! And the colours!”

 

The "family" she's referring to is the television program that's playing all day, every day on the walls of her "parlor".

Back to Ellison:

There was a woman who had the part of a home-wrecker on a daytime soap opera. One day as she was coming out of Lord & Taylor in New York, a viewer began bashing her with an umbrella, calling her filthy names and insisting she should leave that nice man and his wife alone!

One time during a college lecture, I idly mentioned that I had actually thought up all the words Leonard Nimoy had spoken as Mr. Spock on the sole Star Trek segment I had written; and a young man leaped up in the audience, in tears, and began screaming that I was a liar. He actually thought the actors were living those roles as they came across the tube.

The teevee brain is still with us, but in some incredibly toxic ways it has changed.  It has evolved to deal with 300 channels instead of three, and in the process, the teevee brain has, in a way, reversed the flow of credulity.  

Today, teevee viewers are used to seeing the same actor play many different parts in many different places.  No one is trying to arrest Bryan Cranston for cooking meth or Idris Elba for running a Baltimore drug empire, because [spoiler] A) both of the characters they played died in-series, and B) both actors (especially Elba) are well known for a variety of other standout roles.  

Similarly there is no confusion over who Julia Louis-Dreyfus is.  Or Edie Falco.  Or Danny DeVito.  They are talented professionals, who can put on a costume and inhabit a role that makes us laugh or cry or both. What we feel while we are being entertained is real, but by now the teevee brain knows that the actors are not the characters.  They're playing a part, and then they'll move on to the next part.  Different costume, different character, different feelings.  Then they'll move on once again.  Maybe a movie this time.  Maybe the stage.  

What the teevee brain now processes coming through the magic box is an overwhelming, kaleidoscopic tsunami of comedies, dramas, biopics, animation, docudramas, reality teevee, politics, westerns, news, science fiction, reruns, ancient aliens, cooking shows, bitchy housewives, wealth porn, porn porn, all stitched together with a million ads for better sex, sad dogs, happy dogs, eczema cures, floppy penis cures, baldness cures and Little Pills with Big Stories to Tell.

It's all just teevee.  

And the teevee brain has learned to expect performers to go from one role to the next, just as the sports brain has learned to expect that today's heel who pitches or QBs for our rival, might be tomorrow's hero when he's traded to our team and performs his miracles for us.  We'll cheer them when they play the hero, and boo them when they play the villain, but there are no world-ending stakes because it's all a game.  All just teevee.  And when they come through the magic box, the teevee brain accepts them for who they are now, not for who they were in their last series or when they wore a different number on their jersey.  

As I said, the teevee brain has reversed the flow of credulity: it now values how the performance makes it feel over whether or not the performance is strictly "real".

And the teevee brain doesn't care whether the person on the screen right now has ever been in anything else.  It is impossible to imagine watching, say, this season of Fargo with someone who rolls their eyes at Juno Temple's amazing performance because, "Who's she trying to fool?  Everybody knows that's Keely Whatshername from Ted Lasso.  I mean, she's not even American?!?  And OMG, that guy's not a sheriff.  That's Don Draper!" 

Now hold that thought in your mind while considering this story, which, if you're of a certain age, you might remember as making national news 26 years ago:

This is during the same period when when television networks began demanding that news division start showing a profit.  

From Nieman Reports, a quarter of a century ago:

The Transformation of Network News

How Profitability Has Moved Networks Out of Hard News

Twenty years ago, there was no network news “business.” The Big Three broadcast television networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—all covered news, but none generally made money doing so. Nor did they expect to turn a profit from news programming. They presented news programming for the prestige it would bring to their network, to satisfy the public-service requirements of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, and more broadly so that they would be seen as good corporate citizens.

Back then, the networks earned enough money from entertainment programming that they could afford to run their news operations at a loss. And so they did. Former CBS correspondent Marvin Kalb recalls Owner and Chairman William Paley instructing news reporters at a meeting in the early 1960’s that they shouldn’t be concerned about costs. “I have Jack Benny to make money,” he told them.

It is no exaggeration to say that just about everything has changed since then. Today, ABC, CBS and NBC operate in a competitive environment in which most viewers have dozens of channels from which to choose. That has transformed not just TV news but the entire television industry. Those most severely threatened by the way the broadcast business operates are the Big Three. The ABC and CBS networks (now subsumed into larger corporate structures) are losing money, according to Wall Street analysts. NBC’s network profits are also falling sharply. Those who own these networks—Disney (ABC), CBS Inc. with its major stockholder, Mel Karmazin, and General Electric (NBC)—all demand that their news operations make money...

So that's what was happening to the news.  And it's no secret when the line separating "actor/entertainer" and "politician" began to collapse:

Conservative media figured this out the minute Reagan and his henchmen killed the Fairness Doctrine.  Radio and teevee were powerful tools for making listeners and viewers feel something, and that's exactly what Rush Limbaugh and all his imitators, and Fox News and all their imitators sold their customers.  Feelings.  

While Democrats were out there trying to sell policy solutions to actual problems,  Fox News was selling its customers rage and thinly-veiled racism.  Paranoia.  Patriotism.  Moral superiority.  Sexual arousal.  The vindictive joy of making Liberals cry.  And because the consumers of Conserative media were also the base of the Republican party, the language of Republican politics quickly became indistinguishable from the language of Fox News and Hate Radio. 

From The New York Times, December 12, 1994:

Republicans Get a Pep Talk From Rush Limbaugh

...The freshman class, which included not a single "femi-Nazi," one of Mr. Limbaugh's favorite epithets for supporters of women's rights, whooped and applauded, proving itself one big fan club of the man it believes was primarily responsible for the Republican avalanche in November.

Mr. Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the class as its members tonight finished a three-day orientation here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Empower America, two conservative Washington research organizations.

Barbara Cubin, an incoming freshman from Wyoming, told Mr. Limbaugh that because 74 percent of the nation's newspapers had endorsed Democrats, "talk radio, with you in the lead, is what turned the tide." On behalf of the women in the class, she gave him a plaque that said, "Rush Was Right." He also received a pin like the ones the freshmen wore, saying, "Majority Maker."

"Rush is as responsible for what happened here as much as anyone," said Vin Weber, a former Representative from Minnesota, now of Empower America. Citing a poll taken after the election by Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, Mr. Weber said that people who listened to 10 hours or more a week of talk radio voted Republican by a 3-to-1 margin. "Those are the people who elected the new Congress," he said...

At this point the trajectory was clear.  As traditional news networks became more and more focused on entertaining and soothing their viewers rather than alienating them with information that made them uncomfortable, the Republican party devolved further and further into a for-profit division of Conservative Media, Inc. incorporated.  

Tony Snow could go from having his own show on Fox News and being the primary guest host of Rush Limbaugh's radio program, to being George W. Bush's press secretary and no one said "boo".

Karl Rove could go from being "Bush's Brain" in the White House ...  to Wall Street Journal contributor and Fox News political analyst ... to advisor to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign, without breaking stride.  

And as the language that brought the Republican customers into the tent and kept them there -- the language of  rage, racism and paranoia -- was amped up and up and up, the mainstream media kept increasing the dosage of the anesthetizing language it uses to hang onto its customers.  Over and over again, mainstream news customers are told that there is nothing to be alarmed about.  That whatever noise you might be hearing on the Right, it's just a kooky fringe, which is loud but mostly harmless, and just as loud and just as mostly harmless as the kooky fringe on the Left.  And you all are safe from all that mishegoss here beneath the sheltering bower of the Sensible Center.

And anyway, it's all just teevee.  There's nothing dangerous going on here.  No need to raise an alarm.  It's just actors changing costumes.  Everyone knows the four walls of our democracy are solid and eternal.  Everyone know the inerrant, Capraesque wisdom of the American people will always kick in during the third act and save the day, so nothing really really bad can happen here.  Things might get weird every now and then, but the stakes aren't really real life or death, so remain calm and keep shopping.  

And this dynamic goes on and on until we arrive at a place where the entire Republican party can go very publicly insane and plunge right off the cliff into out-and-out fascism...while the Great Middle of America still can't decide whether to go with Biden or Trump, because aren't both parties pretty much the same?

Never doubt that the people at the helms of the media corporations and the political party that brought us to this precipice began this project decades ago with very definite agendas in mind.  Eliminating taxes on the wealthy.  Deregulating everything.  Gutting social programs.  And for the leaders of  Conservative Media Inc., turning the Republican base into a zombie army of reprogrammable meatbags who would believe any nonsense that was shit into their skulls as long as it made them feel righteous or furious or giddy began as nothing more as a means to those ends.  

But now -- as we on the Left warned them over and over again would happen -- the leaders of  Conservative Media Inc. have lost control of the monster they made.  Now, feeding the insatiable, junkie-hunger of that rage-drunk mob has become an end in itself.  It's either feed the monster, or lose your seat in congress.  

Feed the monster, or watch your audience share drop as the mob finds someone else to tell them what they want to hear.  

Feed the monster, or they'll come for your family.   From The Washington Post:

The role of violent threats in Trump’s GOP reign, according to Republicans

Tim Alberta is out with his latest must-read this week — a profile of freshman Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.). Meijer joined Congress just days before the Capitol insurrection and almost immediately jeopardized his political career by supporting Donald Trump’s impeachment

It’s a must-read, but a tough read. That’s because it describes an exceedingly ugly situation: one in which lawmakers are disregarding private principle in their votes and often doing so out of literal fear. Not only does Meijer describe members who advocated for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office later voting against impeachment, but he cites fears of physical violence directly impacting such votes...

This is the late stage teevee brain of the MAGA mob.  Completely immune to facts.  Lost to reason.  Unmoored from their own past.   Moved to action entirely by the ganglia-twitching trigger-words they get from the magic box.  

Meanwhile, bathed in the soothing, narcotic hum of Both Siderism, the late stage teevee brain of the mainstream media customer is barely aware that any of this is happening.  And if it is, well it can't possibly be as bad as all that...because...uh...Both Sides Both Sides Both Sides.

And finally, let's not forget that late stage teevee brain is what makes it possible for "liberal" MSNBC to run a full-time reputation laundromat for a whole menagerie of current and recently-former Republican scumbags.  For example, does anyone doubt that, sooner or later, Steve Schmidt's old friend Nicole Wallace will find a way to get his mendacious, grifting ass readmitted yet again into the circle of the Heroes of the Resistance?  Just like she has already done?   Twice?

Remember, Schmidt was the GOP mercenary that put Sarah Palin into our lives.

Boo!

But then he Came to Jebus and started calling Trump a poopy head on MSNBC, and almost as one, Liberals on social media threw themselves at him like a drunk prom date.  

Yay!

He loves us!  He says all these beautiful things that no one else says!  OMG, let me get my checkbook and how much should I make it out for?

And my oh my didn't these same credulous dopes loudly and angrily scold those few of us that could not fucking believe they were falling for this guy.

Then he threw all those pretty words out the window for a Howard Schultz payday.

Boo!  

He said he loved us?  How could he have betrayed us like that?  

But Howard Schultz show eventually closed down and once again Steve Schmidt found himself "at liberty" as the vaudevillians used to say.  

And so, once more through the MSNBC Reputation Rehab Laundry and...he's back baby!  

Yay!

Spinning all those beautiful words.  Saying things that no one else has the guts to say!  OMG, do you prefer Venmo or PayPal!!

And once again, I'm over here in my little corner of the internet wondering how the hell are these otherwise intelligent mopes falling for this con man again?

Then Schmidt threw all those pretty words out the window for a Dean Philips payday.

Boo!  

He said he loved us?  How could he have betrayed us like this?

Schmidt could do this, because Shmidt understands late stage teevee brain.  He was a performer, playing the role of Hero of the Resistance.  The pay was good.  The hours were good.  The reviews were good.  Then he got offered a better part as Howard Schultz's political consultant.  Six weeks.  No heavy lifting.  And when that show closed, Schmidt changed back into his Hero of the Resistance costume at MSNBC.

And the late stage teevee brain was willing to go along with it because, really, it's just teevee.  So whatever parts he had played before in any other teevee drama, what did that matter?  At that moment Steve Schmidt was giving the audience the feels it craved, and that's all that mattered.

You can go right down the line at CNN and at MSNBC and watch this happening.  Joe Scarborough. Bill Kristol.  Matthew Dowd.  Michael Steele, who will now be given his own weekend show.   Liz Cheney was a performer who worked for the political division of Conservative Media, Inc. and when she played that part she repeated the horrifying, unforgivable lies about Democrats.  

Now Cheney is this month's hot property on the not-Fox News cable news and book circuit, and she's playing that part by spilling the beans about what went on behind closed door while she was the third most powerful person in the GOP.

This is why it doesn't really surprised me when I see someone like Chris Cuomo saying trash like this:

Chris Cuomo: “I don’t think there’s any greater risk to America with [Trump] than with Biden."

I didn't realize Chris Cuomo is such a moron. A second Trump term would be 1000 times worse than the first. pic.twitter.com/uVL7pzGO3Y

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 1, 2023

Cuomo is a media creature and he understands the various species of late stage teevee brain.  He knows that, in the long run, whatever outrageous garbage he spews today to hang into the spotlight a minute longer, it won't be a barrier to being welcomed back into the media insider club tomorrow.  A change of costume and a new script and he'll be right back in the good graces of enough credulous chumps to make it worth his while.  

After all, it's just teevee.

I Am The Liberal Media

The New York Times is Sooo Thirsty

Remind you of anything?

Study: Hillary Clinton’s emails got as much front-page coverage in 6 days as policy did in 69

A stark finding from an analysis of New York Times coverage.

 

 

I Am The Liberal Media

"But on the Other Hand...

...just think of the ratings!" -- several senior cable news executives right now.

Burn The Lifeboats

Having Read The Considered Opinion of This New York Times' Political Reporter...

...I am moved to wonder (and not for the first time) whether the Sulzberger family requires that a tiny, explosive device be installed in every Times' political reporter's skull that will go BOOM if ever they dare to write, in plan, clear language, that the Republican Party is the problem...

Increasingly, our politics are defined by two hostile identity groups who see the other not only as political opponents but as threatening and immoral. In Washington, bipartisan compromise feels nearly unimaginable. And beyond the Capitol, the two parties aren’t even having the same conversation, never mind speaking to each other. One survey in March found that Republicans had heard more about the “cancelling” of Dr. Seuss than the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Hatred between Republicans and Democrats, according to an analysis by some prominent political scientists, now “exceeds long standing antipathies around race and religion.”

...or whether they get 'em fresh off the journalism farm where, like the creche-raise gammas in Brave New World,  they've been so deeply conditioned to accept Beltway norms as gospel that, unless they are momentarily bent out of true by being simultaneously punched in the smug by a pandemic and an economic collapse and an armed Republican insurrection and a police murder trial and an openly deranged Republican president cackling with delight as his party tries to annihilate democracy in America it is literally impossible for them to think any other way.

I will believe things have changes once prominent Beltway journalists start using their privileged positions to call out the malefactors in their midst.  Until then, for those of us who have been around for more than a minute, this is not out first rodeo.  Or our second.  Or our third.  We know perfectly well that the history of modern American political journalism has been the history of its truly spectacular failure to learn a damn thing from all of its spectacular failures. 

Burn The Lifeboats

No Conservative Left Behind: The Return of Strongarm Williams

This is why Sinclair media is the devil.  Because in addition to local news, sports, weather, sports, weather, traffic and, of course, sports and weather, they infuse the very thin gruel they serve up every night with syndicated evil like this, which is broadcast on local teevee and published on the station's website:

Trump's speech at CPAC one of the best he's ever given, says political insider

 And this:

“The president looked good, the former president looked relaxed,” said Armstrong Williams to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat Monday morning. “I was amazed at how refreshed he looked, and also the bitterness, the anger, the pettiness, you know he's gonna say what he wants to say about the election being a fraud and he can say whatever he wants to say about Liz Cheney and we expect that, but overall, he was very presidential.”

 And this:

“He showed his commitment to the GOP and his gratitude to the Republicans that gave him the deal to become President of the United States,” said Williams. “Overall, given Trump and his past and his speeches, it's one of the best speeches that he's given in his lifetime.”

And so forth.

Now I guarantee you that in the greater Springfield metropolitan area, my wife and I may well be the only two Liberals who retain any memory of who Armstrong "Strongarm" Williams is and how he became memorable in the first place.  For the rest of the audience, the only thing they are told is that he is a "political insider" who must know something or else why would he be on their trusted local teevee program between the weather and the sports. squeezed.  Also:

NOTE: Armstrong Williams has business dealings with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

But we who possess the Liberal superpower of memory remember "Strongarm" Williams from the Before Time.

First let's  hear from the mainstream press.  In this case, the Washington Post, and it comes with a twist.

Administration Paid Commentator

Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law

Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01 

 

The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part.

In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column.

...

Rep. George Miller (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, said the Williams contract "is propaganda, it's unethical, it's dangerous and it's illegal" and called it "worthy of Pravda." Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to join Miller in requesting an inspector general's investigation, a spokesman said...

I omitted one detail that you may find either hilarious or sad.  This story was reported by "Washington Post Staff Writer, Howard Kurtz."

Yeah.  That Howard Kurtz.  From the paper that used to employ Howard Kurtz:

Fox News host’s hyperbolic take on the ‘war’ between Trump and the press

Howard Kurtz's book "Media Madness" is fast-moving and lively, but it's based on a false premise: that President Trump and the national press are at war with each other. Kurtz, a Fox News host, asserts this with hyperbolic drama in the opening pages: "Donald Trump is staking his presidency, as he did his election, on nothing less than destroying the credibility of the news media; and the media are determined to do the same to him." He elaborates: "It is scorched-earth warfare in which only one side can achieve victory."

I don't buy it, and I suspect that Kurtz — a seasoned newsman who spent decades at The Washington Post — knows it's not true.

This isn't really war, but at times it is something almost as unappealing: co-dependency...

...

Kurtz's allegiance to his masters at Fox News is evident right from the start, when he offers something I never thought possible: a heartfelt defense of Kellyanne Conway's coining of the infamous phrase "alternative facts" as she attempted to justify Trump's evidence-free insistence that his inaugural crowds were the biggest in history  — "period," as his spokesman said. Speaking to NBC's Chuck Todd, Conway argued: "You're saying it's a falsehood. And . . . Sean Spicer, our press secretary — gave alternative facts."...

This is why those of us with intact memories that go back further than breakfast find the media so twisty and broken.  Because there really is a constellation of husks and mopes like Kurtz who will sell whatever is left of their remaindered soul to whoever will put them on the payroll and toe whatever corporate line they need to in order to keep their position.

And speaking of sellouts and mopes...back to Mr. Williams on whom I believe was bestowed the sobriquet "Strongarm" by the late, great Steve Gilliard back in Before Time.  From his 2005 post as retrieved and reprinted in the Washington Monthly in 2015:

Of course it’s totally unethical and illegal, but hey, he’s already sold his soul to massa, why not sell it some more. Massa George wanted him to do somethin’ so he did it. And got paid well for it…[T]his ought to expose the character of the [African-American] conservative. They have no soul and no morals. They can be bought by their white overlords because they aspire to their status, but think themselves unworthy to be treated as the same. Now, I’ll freely admit both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have used their position to gain personally. But this kind of craven greed is a feature of the [African-American] conservative. He shuffles and bucks along for his master, losing his soul and dignity in the process.

He has no ethics to begin with, [preferring to be] the show horse for a bunch of people who think he’s lesser than them. So why wouldn’t he use his position to enrich himself and hide his illegal arrangement with his white masters. He’s already sold his dignity and self-respect. Why not sell his reputation as well. Williams is already an embarrassment to black people. This just furthers the shame he brings.

So what's Strongarm been up to since being outed as crook?  Well, he is now the second largest African-American owner of television stations in the United States, behind only Byron Allen.  He controls them through his holding company, Howard Stirk, LLC, which, according to Wikipedia, is parented by...Sinclair broadcasting. 

So yeah, I guess he does have "business dealings with Sinclair Broadcast Group." 

Because there is a Club.

And you and I are definitely not members.

Remember When I Told You To Burn The Lifeboats?

There is a Club: David Sirota Edition

Contrary to the grim reports we've all heard about newsrooms being gutted and newspapers shuttering, the news business is apparently faced with such a chronic labor shortage that anybody can walk in off the street and snag one a' them journalism jobs.

Sirota.  Boy, I don't know.

Help Fund The Heresy

The Gingrich Rules Abide

If you are a regular reader, you may remember about a month and half ago (or, 30 Trump scandals and 115 Trump WTF? lies ago) a two-bit wingnut conspiracy pimp names "Judge" Andrew Napolitano, was sent to the media penalty-box for embarrassing Fox News shareholders.

Specifically, he was kicked to the curn for trafficking in the "Obama wiretapped Trump" lie in great and authoritative depth and detail.  Which would have been just one more in an endless procession of Fox News lies -- lies which fly into the empty heads of Fox News viewers, nest for awhile, and then flutter away as they are displaced by the next Fox News lie -- but for the fact that President Stupid very publicly grabbed it and ran with it and blew everything up.

At the time, this was the verdict of the L.A. Times:

People familiar with the situation who could speak only on the condition of anonymity said Napolitano is not expected to be on Fox News Channel any time in the near future. Napolitano was not available for comment...

And, at the time I suggested that readers reset their Gingrich Rules Countdown Clocks to zero because...

By and large, the rule for Conservatives who live on the wingnut-welfare teat is, when they publicly step on their own dicks spectacularly enough to displease the money guys, the Gingrich Rules kick in:  30 days on the bench, after which they are reintroduced back to the media ecosystem via some "legit" format during which no mention whatsoever will be made of what got them on bad paper with the network in the first place.

And if  it turns out that Napolitano doesn't swing enough weight to rate the Gingrich treatment?  Or if the mud he splashed was too injurious to the corporation to warrant early parole from the dog house? Well that's why "senior legal contributor" positions at Breitbart, National Review or Russia Today are invented.

Well guess who's back, baby!!!

From Media Matters:

Fox's Napolitano Speculates That Comey Was Fired So Hillary Clinton "Can Be Indicted For Espionage"

Judge Andrew Napolitano: "Let Me Suggest Another Scenario ... Maybe [Hillary Clinton] Should Have Been, And Still Can Be Indicted For Espionage"

In a world gone mad, you can always count on The Gingrich Rules.

On the Subject of Listening to the People of the Land

In a former life, my span of responsibility was so weirdly far-flung  that when people asked me what I did for a living, I would tell them that I was in charge of saving Illinois manufacturing.  And while that's a wee bit of an exaggeration, it is entirely fair to say that working on every aspect of saving Illinois manufacturing took up most of my time and energy and the time, energy and budget of my tiny staff.

So believe me when I tell that even though I was involuntarily retired from the field of battle, my antennae is still highly attuned to items in the news about the struggles of the Rust Belt economy: outsourcing, manufacturing, skills training, the need to retool high schools and community colleges and the various federal, state and local policies and initiatives designed to get at these large and complex problems.

(Also every time the subject pops up within earshot, my darling wife pipes up with "Honey, they're talking about your stuff again!")

This is why I can tell you that this idea that "better messaging" to the white working class is somehow the royal road back to political majorities for the Democratic party is nonsense.  Sure, Democrats always need to work on speaking like mortal human beings and progressives in general suffer from an inexplicable inability to kill the fucking bunny even with all the claws and fangs at their disposal:

But messaging itself is not the problem.  The media is the problem.  And since, as the man said, the medium is the message, until we start taking on the media as Public Enemy #1, we're going to go right on losing.

This is shaping up to be a long post because sometimes I feel the need to drive a point home using a great big hammer, so if you want to scroll on down, be my guest.  But before you move along, my premise is fairly easy to summarize:

1. For a variety if reasons, white working class Americans have been taking a pounding since the late 1970s.  And for a different variety of reasons, a disturbingly high number number of white working class Americans keep voting for the people that fuck them over.


2. Judging by policy statements made, resources allocated, attention paid and political capitol spent, it's quite likely that history will judge the Obama Administration to have been the most consistently pro-manufacturing administration since Eisenhower.  In fact, outside of health care (and turkey pardons), I would wager a penny and a fiddle of gold that in the last eight years the Obama administration put more effort into promoting American manufacturing than into any other domestic policy priority.


3. If you are a member of the general public, unless you made an extra special effort to inform yourself, you are blissfully unaware of any of this.


4. If you are blissfully unaware of any of this, it is not because the Obama Administration failed to talk it up at every single opportunity, but because over the last eight years the American political media collectively decided that instead of boring-ass stories about what the Democratic party has been trying to do to improve the lives and futures of the working class Americans, what you needed to hear were lively fairy tales about Birth Certificates and Death Panels.  Email servers and Benghaaaazi.  A Republican rebranding scam called the "Tea Party".  Instead of stories about the Caucus Room Conspiracy and Republican sabotage and sedition, you needed to hear endlessly, plaintive cries from all the usual Beltway hacks about how Barack Obama was refusing to lead!

So, as the late, great Al Smith used to say, let's take a look at the record...

From The Department of Burying The Lede

Found 1,900 paragraphs deep in this Politico article on the fall of Salon:

...

It seems there is a sense of urgency about Salon’s future. Hambrecht is in his early 80s, and Warnock is 75. Because Salon has run deficits for almost every quarter since it was founded, the company has relied on regular interest-free cash advances from Warnock, chairman of Salon’s board, and Hambrecht, a board member. From Salon’s founding until the end of 2015, the most recent data available, Warnock and Hambrecht have given the company nearly $20 million in cash advances, and Warnock also personally guaranteed a $1 million line of credit.

“You have two founders who are aging who were writing six-figures checks every year to cover operating costs,” one person close to the company said.

If Salon’s continued existence remains dependent on them, the company could be in a precarious position...

Beauty didn't kill the Beast.

Airplanes killed the Beast.

Also always, always follow the money.

Friendship Is The Booze They Feed You

Somewhere along the line, mesmerized by all that money. Politico somehow forgot that they're basically nothing but Republican star-fuckers and camp followers, just as David Brooks managed to forget that he is not, in fact, Conservatism Personified, but merely one of the valets that Conservatism hired to make their ideological abattoir look classy.

And then one day, that Rough Beast finally arrived, his hour come round at last, slouching towards Cleveland to be born. And this guy, he feels no need to play a game of lets-pretend with the sycophants and footmen of the political class. He likes slapping the butler around.  He likes using the broken careers of his slain rivals as throw rugs and footstools.

And he has no problem treating a tramp like a tramp:

POLITICO reporter denied access to Trump event

POLITICO reporter Ben Schreckinger was denied entry to Donald Trump's press conference on Tuesday night, despite having previously been granted credentials by the campaign.

The move followed a threat last week from Trump officials to exclude POLITICO reporters from campaign events.

On Tuesday morning, Schreckinger, who has covered the campaign regularly for more than six months, received an email granting him credentials for Trump's speech and press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida that evening. But less than 10 minutes later, another email arrived saying those same credentials were denied. Upon arriving at Trump's private club, he was denied entry and escorted off of the property...

Mr. Trump will summon you if he needs you.

Otherwise, make yourself scarce loser.

No One Could Have Predicted...

File under: Put not your faith in Internet Princes (from HuffPo):

...

[Ken] Silverstein described a work environment at First Look that was "anything but functional," with a flawed editing system and “epic managerial incompetence.” Amid the slew of firings, hirings, promotions and demotions and with little guidance or support from management, Silverstein said employees felt "lost."

He writes:

What I observed was that the Omidyar-led management could not complete the simplest tasks—approving budgets or hires—without months of internal debate and apparent anguish. The Intercept didn’t even begin publishing until last February. (We weren’t supposed to call it “Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept” because a lot of other people worked there, including me for a bit, but everyone knew Glenn was the anchor of the project.) After a pause ordered by editor in chief John Cook to address its internal dysfunction, the site relaunched in July with a good, complicated story about how the NSA and the FBI had been monitoring a few Muslim-Americans in the United States. Yet I saw how difficult the story was to birth for its chief editor, John Cook, and he didn’t end up lasting long—before quitting and returning to Gawker.

Silverstein called the demise of Taibbi's Racket the "end of my journalism dream." It was like watching Omidyar’s team "kill their second baby," he writes -- the company invested substantial money and resources only to fire Racket's entire staff two days before Thanksgiving. 

"The fact that First Look hired so many talented people to create Racket, spent more than a million dollars on it, and in the end fired everyone before Racket ever published a single story must stand as one of the greatest squanderings of money and leadership ineptitude in modern journalism," he wrote.

...

This has all been moved miles above above my pay grade, but even a punk ass blogger like me can manage to both feel bad that so much was spent on so little, and deeply amused that Team Radical Transparency has apparently taken a vow of corporate silence regarding the Big Story of the shitstorm of egos and incompetence that is raging through their very own, very expensive back yard.