the bonfire of media (and political) vanities

how social media just ended legacy media's political relevance

i am getting deathly sick of traditional political campaigns and paying attention to them. it’s all so contrived and so saccharine and facile as candidates ooze from talking point to talking point always managing to speak in half truths (at best) and somehow always seem to be angling 20 degrees off axis with their answers.

that’s just the game and the game is gross.

what amazes me is that it works.

it amazes me that people tolerate it, that anyone can stand these non-answer answers and never really getting to know a candidate, their capacity, their thought process, their values, or their character in any meaningful fashion.

the fact that candidates can get away with this speaks poorly of we the demos because let’s face it mis amigos, this one is on us.

they do it because they can and if we want better, we’re going to need to demand better. that said, i think maybe better is coming.

let’s look:

as we come into the home stretch of this presidential election, it seems like team harris and team trump have been giving precisely opposite advice to their candidate.

team harris is clearly saying “up the heat, the vitriol, the fear. screw joy, let’s go make sure everyone in america knows that “orange man bad” and that a vote for him is a vote for fascist military occupation that will make “a handmaid’s tale” look like fraggle rock.”

the problem of course, is that everyone already knows that they think this and worse, that leveling such accusations while aping fascist rhetoric and tone and the furious body language that comes with it plays horribly false, especially when censorship, packing the supreme court, and ignoring immigration law sit among the centerpieces of your campaign.

it’s really quite striking how she keeps going to this verbatim talking point over and over again.

and the staging. whoo dooogie. this could be a still from a netflix remake of “v for vendetta)

it’s astonishing repetition. jarring repetition.

it’s obvious we’re watching the saturation bombing of “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”

what’s fascinating is that pre-social media, the structure of it was not really visible, but now it’s stark and obvious and from it we learn much but none of it applies to her plans or promise, just her rage and demands.

there must be 50 of these and in every one the anger is palpable and the dress and backgrounds and violent arm movements evoke no one so much as the politician that she is so fond of claiming trump to resemble.

it’s horrendous.

this is everything that’s wrong with politics. it’s vapid vilification as platform, hate from “mamala who loves you,” big sister as the new big brother.

so much for “brat.”

so much for “joy.”

this is lectern pounding authoritarian fury. it’s not a path forward, it’s just “my enemy must be destroyed.”

and this is not working. it’s death spiral and an increasingly angry kam is getting heckled and getting booed off the stage.

everyone seems to be trying to puzzle out this set of stratagems and the always poignant gatopal™ and brownstone editor extraordinaire jeffrey tucker has a useful take here:

and i think he really has a point, but one he is perhaps too much the gentleman to make in full.

but internet felines have no such proscriptions, so let us speak plainly:

kamala is an actual, no fooling around idiot.

she does not know these things and cannot learn them because she’s not smart enough and she has no good character underneath it to provide some form of saving grace.

her past roles were all as props, not as real characters influencing events.

she was underqualified for every job she’s ever had, she just never had an interview before.

kams is the final form of the gato’s postulate pokemon whereby large intrusive states inevitably devolve from grift to rule by halfwit true believers and mascots.

past a point, the fact that the grift was a grift is lost and those left in charge of vast levers of power really truly do expect unicorns and free ice cream to pop out when you press a button clearly marked “end of the world button, do not push.”

kamala was chosen as VP because she is an actual no fooling around epsilon minus semi-moron with useful demographic check boxes who lacked any base of support whatsoever beyond those besotted by intrinsic traits and who was so disliked and radical that she therefore represented a sufficiently nasty “fire” to joe biden’s frying pan that none dare call him senile.

she was not intended as an heir.

she was an insurance policy.

but like biden's burger having slipped off the bun, outside of a few shotcaller insiders most of team donkey really, truly did not know this. they assumed she was smart and capable and joyous not a rock stupid political pretender who has failed up more effectively than perhaps any human in history.

they do not know this because DEI has had a massive blind spot:

like claudine gay and who knows how many others, kamala was in a protected class of "minority woman" that has prevented anyone from questioning or even looking into her qualifications of competence.

the questions were never asked, the background never checked, the depths never plumbed. you can see this in the stuttering inability of even her own staunch supporters to name one of her accomplishments, an inability that she herself shares.

the vetting and “meet the candidate” that should have happened 3 jobs ago is now happening on one of the biggest stages in the world and she’s getting shredded as everyone realizes that this is the same nasty, unpleasant, incompetent, and deeply unintelligent authoritarian climber who got her gig as DA by being willie brown’s girlfriend.

not even washpo or the LA times will endorse her.

it’s simply too embarrassing, a bridge of complicity too far.

her exposure will wind up doing more damage to DEI than the right ever could. she’s laying bare the problems of being a diversity hire pushed past peter principle “cuz equity.”

she’s an unfixable implosion and the wokeasauraus is hoist by its own petard.

honestly, it’s sort of perfect.

aaron sorkin couldn’t script it better.

there are lots of intelligent, capable women in the world of many hues and varying identities.

there are lots of intelligent, capable people in the world of many hues and varying identities.

but we’re never going to find them if we keep maligning merit as privilege and elevating identity as if it implied competence. this is an adverse selector ESPECIALLY for the “minorities” as it demeans their achievements by casting doubt on their validity and it keeps selecting the worst out of these groups rather than the best to press to the fore because those are the ones who raise their hands to be picked for race and gender, not talent.

kamala is turning out to be the starburst firework that ends the show for DEI and she’s in real trouble out on a stage she cannot climb down from. her panic is palpable and it’s just going to keep getting worse because there is nothing to pivot to because this pony has no other tricks.

meanwhile, team trump seems to have said “stop sounding angry, go be yourself. be funny, be friendly and homey and let people in. have a little fun out there, make some french fries, go on joe rogan and make rocket noises.”

and this IS working.

despite trump being no intellectual heavyweight, i suspect it’s working because despite being a political campaign, glimmers of somehting genuine are shining through.

the “mcdonald” stunt was a masterstroke and the left going wild about it being “a setup and not a real job” just made it more so in a streisand effect for the ages. of course it was. are you guys new here? it’s a political campaign. the whole thing is a series of stunts. they all are. did you think this was a real BBQ?

but trump seemed at ease and like he was non or at least mostly non-fake having fun doing it. the people around him in the videos seemed to be responding positively.

i struggle to find a single example from the kam-paign to match it.

then there’s rogan.

what’s really amazing about the rogan thing is how both sides are claiming it vindicates them. it was 3 hours long, unscripted, wide ranging, and ran all over the place. in some of it, trump looked good, in some he said some stupid stuff. twitter has been a jousting match of dueling opinions and competing clips and talking past one another points on this. rather than drag into the he said/she said of the whole thing, i’m just going to link it. see for yourself. make up your own mind. perhaps (gasp) develop an opinion with some nuance. there’s a lot here.

the key point here is, i think, being missed. i’m not sure anything like this has ever happened in political history. it’s a watershed. better, it’s a breaking of the chains. this was 3 hours of a couple guys talking on a podcast controlled by the host doing the interview. it was not the manipulated political kabuki of traditional mass media. this was a new thing, a better thing. no editors, no boards. wild wild west.

did it solve anything, resolve everything, or end world hunger and cruelty to fluffy bunnies? of course not. but it was a look into a candidate the likes of which we have not seen before. it was long, discursive, and in the end, kind of fascinating. i heard things i liked, things i disliked, and i saw stuff (especially covid) that i wish was asked. not perfect, but a move in the right direction. this is 1000X better than any stilted and fake debate where no one answers the questions. you can actually start to see who someone is, virtues, flaws, faults, and promise.

but in the end, the simple fact is trump did it. he looked loose and comfy out there and like him or loathe him we know him better for it and that’s not nothing. this has already been seen by 26 million viewers. it makes 60 minutes look like the smallville gazette and the format is better, the tone and answers more real and far more interesting.

the legacy bobbleheads and pundits HATE rogan.

of course they do.

he and others like him are the end of the road for them.

this interview must be sending absolute shockwaves through the media world. they all just died. this is the asteroid and they are the dinosaurs. will the next presidential election even have televised debates? i flat out doubt it. who the hell would trust them? they’re insipid, rigged, and pointless.

we all know it.

so let’s do somehting else.

what we need is more of this.

what we need are more, longer deeper looks into people and thought processes, character and personality. it’s not like rogan is the only host who can do this. let’s find the next 10. let’s make this the demand of the demos. let’s get lots of perspectives. real perspectives.

you want me to consider voting for you:

show me who you are.

go do longform with good interlocutors. cover real topics. give real answers.

the interviewers should demand it and so should we.

this requirement needs to rise from we the people, we the voters.

if you will not or cannot answer simple, straight questions: pound sand.

no more made for TV fake talking points and pivots away from answering the damn question.

no more broad, bland pabulum about “making life better for the middle class.” how? be specific. show me the legislation you favor. this has happened before. the “contract with america” was a whole legislative slate.

“here are the laws will will pass if elected, read them BEFORE you vote instead of our passing them to find out what’s in them.”

this is not a crazy ask. it should be basic table stakes.

and to get there we need to demand better and this strange, toxic, wonderful place we call social media is where it’s going to happen.

questions are being asked that were never before asked, context that was withheld has been going wide, events that never before would have even been seen are front and center.

social media has become a social substrate and allowing real visibility and real visibility enables real choice.

this is a real selector, no more façade only, we wanna see inside the house before we buy.

and if you want to know why you should be a one issue voter on censorship and a free internet this election, THAT is why.

it’s not just about this election, it’s about every election after it and who gets to speak.

a whole legacy power base is teetering on the edge of rout.

push. it. over.

imagine if primaries worked like this.

imagine if kamala had gone on rogan BEFORE she got the non-vote nom instead of after.

does literally anyone think she’d be the candidate?

times they are a changin’, team toxo.

old media is over. by next presidency, they will be an irrelevance crushed by the swarming importance of the non-gatekept merit-based world.

ABC news and MSNBC and CNN and FOX are dumpster fires of flaming credibility flashing out into ashes. the NYT is farce and the altantic has devolved to “follow me for crypto picks!” level spam.

and their time as the aristocratic adjudicators of what one gets to see is over.

wanna know how i know?

this is how:

no one is saying “OMG, get her on NPR or CBS!” or “we need a washpo editorial, STAT!”

they all see that the cheese has moved.

lights out. game over.

4 years from now, the idea of using TV or print news to get credible information about politicians and political campaigns will be gone, consigned to history’s dustbin and hilariously quaint and incredible to the rising generations.

this is the dagger to the heart of bullshit in general and DEI in particular.

podcasts are meritocracy.

substack is democracy.

twitter/X is the agora.

all support the republic and all must remain ours and remain free.

the reputation economy is coming into flower and the 1000 blossoms that will bloom will pave the way forward, an imperfect way, a halting and exploratory way, a way that will make mistakes, but a way nonetheless.

inexorable, peaceful, and implacable.

our way.