News, Notes, and Notions for 2Jun24
Thoughts on the aftermath of the Donald Trump verdict, plus latest Heard Tell episodes, my media appearances, and things worth reading & watching
The excellent Matt Labash wrapped his rhetorical powers around something I’ve been stewing on. Illustrating the absurdity of politicos has been Matt’s calling card for a long time now, so it is not surprising something like the Trump verdict this past week functioned as a slow, hanging curve right where Labash could really turn on it. After the excellent synopsis of “that’s mostly what I’ve done since the jury rendered their decision: sat back and watched stupid, reckless people say stupid, reckless things“ followed by social media receipts of some of the worst examples, Labash gets to the heart of the matter:
On the other hand, his character, or lack of, isn’t a side-question. It ought to be the main question, as conservatives once obsessed over it in the era of Bill Clinton. Hypocritical gasbags even wrote entire books on virtue. So that even if you think Alvin Bragg overreached, and a judge submitted jury instructions that all but guaranteed a conviction, every single facet of this case would’ve been a disqualifier to any other candidate who didn’t have the cult following that Trump has. The facts, never really under dispute since Trump refused to testify in his own defense for fear of perjuring himself, is that he bonked a porn actress shortly after his wife gave birth to their son, paid her hush money to cover it up in the middle of an election, and then commenced lying from there. Trump says plenty of untrue things, but often tells the truth about his followers, whose number he had all the way back in 2016 when predicting that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, and he still wouldn’t lose them. A prediction that’s been proven correct over and over again, even if your only exposure to his manservants’ fealty is say, reading J.D. Vance’s Twitter feed. Not only do his believers defend him to the death, but even his faux believers do the same (Vance, like so many of Trump’s other towel-boys-and-girls, was once a committed detractor).
Do read the whole thing, and Slack Tide is worth subscribing to.
As we enter year nine since Donald Trump descended the golden escalator and became the dominator of all things news media and the center of the political universe, perhaps a readjustment is in order.
While this verdict and the other pending legal action is important to note and follow, and his campaign for president does have a good chance of returning him to office, Trump himself isn’t really the story anymore. At this point in the proceedings, anyone who doesn’t know everything they need to know to make an informed decision on the man isn’t going to seek any knowledge to make an informed decision.
Frankly, after nearly 40 years of being all over first New York tabloid media, then reality TV, the same was true back in June of 2015 when the soon-to-be 45th president announced his run at Trump Tower. There was plenty of book on Donald Trump. Most folks who fell into support of MAGA 2016/2020/2024 either didn’t read it, didn’t care, or accepted the Trump campaign’s highly suspect CliffsNotes versions.
Everything Trump has done since then has been completely consistent with who and what he was prior to 2015. Donald Trump has never not been Donald Trump. Donald Trump will never cease to be Donald Trump.
But good Lord did Donald Trump utterly break plenty of other political people who didn’t maintain themselves, or at least their publicly crafted images of themselves. The Ted Cruzs of the world who spent decades molding a public persona only to have Donald Trump rip that political soul out of them, wear it as a hat, and then demand the artist formerly known as TrusTed compliment his hat everytime they share space.
The congregation of Republicans that were against Trump before they were for him is a long list, full of folks the pre-Trump right leaning media promoted as bastions of this-or-that, but proved to be malleable extras Trump humiliated, subjugated, and diminished into a Greek chorus singing their dithyrambs to their Donald Dionysus. They don’t sing and dance out of true belief; they praise their conqueror because they were so shallow in their beliefs beforehand they now just follow the eater of their world for lack of a better idea or way to still matter.
However you judge Donald Trump - and I judge him based on the 50+ years of very public actions we have on the man - judging the followers of Trump who changed everything about themselves to bask in the Trumpian afterglow as he passes through this dispensation of time should be severe. It boggles the mind that educated, wealthy, powerful people otherwise thought to be smart and privileged in our political classes took a look at Donald J. Trump and went “yep, everything I’ve done up to this point needs to just burn in the fires to light his way.” But such is politics, ambition, and the need for meaning and power.
Trump railing against the verdict is to be expected, and doesn’t bother me very much. Donald Trump, citizen, will get to air his grievances against the charges, underlying legal theory, the judge, and all the rest in his appeals process. I know what to expect from Donald Trump.
The Trump sycophants, enablers, and Dionysian dance troupe who declare the end of all humanity because the god of their political garden isn’t bearing the fruit he once did are far more of a concern. Such people who fell so hard for Trump over the last nine years have told us something very important about themselves: they will fall for anything, and thank that anything for the privilege, and then rant to the winds that all nature should do the same.
Pathetic. Reckless people saying reckless things indeed. The Trump enablers are far more dangerous together than Donald Trump is singularly, since Donald Trump could do none of this (gestures broadly at the last 9 years) without them.
And I judge them harshly for it.
Latest Media Appearances:
I joined Jim Lokay for The Final 5 on Fox5 DC to talk the Indepedent turn of West Virginia US Senator Joe Manchin. Those of you jonesing for a video clip of me saying “I was wrong" your day has come, do enjoy it.
I talked about the fallout from the Trump verdict with The News Forum, our friend up in Canada:
Latest Heard Tell Episodes
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Your Heard Tell Show is turning down the noise of the news cycle and getting to the information we need to discern our times by digging into the business and cultural factors that cause movie theater box offices to have their worst Memorial Day Weekend in a generation. Film critic Luis Mendez of the Mendez Movie Report returns to talk not just why films like Furiosa and Garfield failed to live up to the usual movie bonanza of the holiday, but also how business changes, streaming, and other factors play a huge role into what does and doesn't make it to the big screen these days. Plus, Luis and host Andrew talk about the head of Netflix giving an insightful interview to the New York Times, and discusses streaming, changing entertainment habits, and the future of movie theaters. Then, Luis updates the Oscars race now that the Cannes Film Festival has come and gone, and talks about the early dominance of Dune 2, and what is coming up later this year that might challenge the epic come awards season.
Download and listen to Heard Tell wherever you get your podcasts:
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Your Heard Tell Show is turning down the noise of the news cycle and getting to the information we need to discern our times by talking about news media and social media, and how we consume it. Host Andrew Donaldson uses his own experiences as a writer and talking head on news programs to talk about the changing ecosystem of news media, Pew data on local vs national news, how social media changes everything about our information intake, affirmation vs information, and some practical things everyone can do to take charge of their news feeds, social media timelines, and information rotation
Worth Watch:
If you aren’t familiar, Colin Cowherd is a sports guy who rarely ventures into politics, and when he does it is usual pretty uncontroversial stuff. I found this to not only be accurate, but a much more effective argument than most pundits come up with.
Worth Reading:
More great reporting on the children endangerment crisis in West Virginia, this time from Steven Allen Adams:
Since leaving DHHR, Samples has mostly remained silent regarding his concerns about DHHR and the three new departments that sprung up in its demise: the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Health Facilities. Samples’ deposition given under oath is the first time he has laid bare his concerns, particularly when it comes to foster care and Child Protective Services (CPS).
In his sworn deposition, Samples told attorneys that he had an agreement with the Governor’s Office following his firing to not disparage each other.
“…There was just a general understanding that … I wasn’t going to specifically criticize, you know, the governor or the secretary publicly, and they were going to not trash my character in a way that then would result in me having to defend and tell my side of the story,” Samples said.
That agreement appears to be out the window, with Justice — speaking Wednesday on his weekly administration briefing at the State Capitol Building — throwing Samples under the bus.
“Jeremiah Samples was the man second in charge for a decade plus, and now he runs through the building, saying everything in the world was wrong,” Justice said. “Why in the world didn’t he fix it if something was wrong?
“The next thing I know, he was running through the building, screaming ‘fire, fire, fire.’ Then the next thing, we’re on a quest to divide (DHHR) up,” Justice continued.
However, Samples’ testimony shows someone who was trying to address DHHR’s failings in CPS, foster care, and child welfare, while dealing with a bureaucracy that was intent on avoiding transparency and more worried about public image than addressing serious problems.
Despite Justice’s comments Wednesday, Samples released a statement that evening that encouraged both the legislative and executive branches to remain focused on children.
“It has been over two years since I left the Justice Administration. I pray for the Governor as he manages West Virginia’s many critical issues, including fixing our child welfare system,” Samples said. “We need to remain focused. Anything that distracts from that is a detriment to it, and I am not going to participate in a back and forth that is a distraction.”
This drove a fun discussion on Twitter, read and think on it for yourself. From Reason “Americans Aren't Nostalgic for the Past. They Are Nostalgic for Being 15”
"The good old days when America was 'great' aren't the 1950s," writes the Post's Andrew Van Dan. "They're whatever decade you were 11, your parents knew the correct answer to any question, and you'd never heard of war crimes tribunals, microplastics, or improvised explosive devices. Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn't sold out."
The charts in the Post's analysis are striking: Across music, movies, fashion, and other social measures, Americans seem to believe that culture peaked roughly one to two decades after they were born and has declined since. The Post and YouGov polling data fits with what other researchers have found: that humans have the strongest sense of nostalgia for the culture we experienced between the ages of 17 and 23.
It's not difficult to deduce why. Those are our formative years, rich with new experiences and potential, in which most of us had few serious responsibilities and got to enjoy the safety of having others provide for our basic needs.
On its own, there is nothing wrong with having golden-tinged memories of those years. Do I still love a lot of music from the late 90s and early 2000s simply because I was born in 1987, even though I can admit that some of it is objectively pretty terrible? Damn right, I do.
But letting nostalgia get mixed up in politics is not a great idea, in part because it's obviously a false promise. Sorry, but no matter how hard you vote, you're never going to be 15 again.
Unfortunately, personal disillusionment is not the most serious problem created by nostalgia politics. As former Reason editor in chief Virginia Postrel explained in The Future and Its Enemies, many of the clashes that erupt in modern politics and culture are the result of a conflict between the forces of "stasis" and "dynamism." Her book remains a powerful argument in favor of letting messy markets work and embracing the improvements that will come from an unknown future—and I'm not just saying that because it came out in 1998.
A wonderful and true piece, Andrew. And not just because I agree with it. (Also, thanks for the shoutout.)