"Trump had the knack of making fascism feel fun to people who never learned what actual fun is" is not an observation I've seen anywhere else.
And you're right about DeSantis, not to mention other also-rans like Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz. There's more "fun" in "systemic fungal infection" than in those guys.
Nothing whatever is wrong with em—dash clauses inside parens, as someone half of whose parenthesized clauses are nested, I rather admire them. What is even more admirable is the scorn and contempt you can deliver with the precision of a guided munition to the pathetic clown who thought he could use the love he believed his followers had for him, and found that it was really a reflection of their own love for themselves.
I agree that he’s still dangerous, but what’s most dangerous about him has already happened: he’s established an environment that’s enabled thousands of theocratic wannabes to jump up and down on the institutions of democracy and the areligious political framework that a bunch of Enlightenment dudes didn’t think needed guardrails and safety nets.
The good news this week is that a lot of people have “woke” up and realized they are going to have to work hard to claw back what the clowns have broken, as evidence the election of a liberal/progressive Justice to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a freaking landslide. The fact the so much was riding on that one election indicates just how chaotic the next few years are likely to be, but at least we have some hope we’re not, as Tom Lehrer said, “riding down the razor blade of Life.”
Meanwhile, please keep writing these columns. We need your combination of humor, wisdom, and ire. Also please keep writing your fiction. I first read “Silently and Very Fast” in 2014 and fell in love with your ideas, your prose, and your mastery of voices. And yes, I’m one of the group of followers that buys your books, and will keep buying them. I’m disabled and can’t come to your readings, but I’ll be at every one in spirit.
a minor quibble: while i agree with the observation that calling them influencers "genuinely seems to bother them to be lumped in with a job they all tend to associate purely with women they disdain..." doesn't that suggest that there exist women they do NOT disdain?
Really loved this column; thanks for articulating my anger so compellingly.
This bit ESPECIALLY: describing the non-consensual aspect of it all: "But I, like you, have non-consensually manned a domestic news desk for the last seven years of social media hellfire"
The influencer label makes perfect sense and skewers that population deftly. Thanks.
One note: we now "staff" domestic news desks, and registration tables, and rocketships. You're great Cat!
The times bring forth the man and that man, most likely a man, is not Donald Trump, of whose successor will come with the smoothest of narratives, wearing the dress costume of a true patriotic leader, falsely invoking a great American past to build a bridge to a mythic future of revival, strength and restoration of the global order, that Order that serves elite American interests, always disingenuously pitched as improving the lives of those who are neglected - everyone else.
Quite impossible. The present century is the century of The Great Eurasian Union - China, Russia, Iran, South Africa, India, Brazil, Algeria, The Global South, read 87.5% of the globe and names few Americans would recognize.
Washington deals itself out and so condemns The United States to more than structural decline, read infrastructural decay, rising costs, limited substantive work opportunities and a general state of despair of which some pitch as societal anomie.
_________
Washington's Geo-Political Success Paradigm has been brought down by their failed Ukrainian Proxy War on Russia and China, largely pitched as a manoeuvre against Russia, which it is. It also always was about Washington stopping China. When then Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's BeiJing visit 2018 did not yield desired objectives, the trade war was activated. Washington takes on more damage than BeiJing.
You are a delight. You give voice to all my inchoate fears and frustration and anger. And then you comfort.
And I have found your Tip Jar on your website (bottom of page, people). And I'm buying one of your novels because OMG they must be great (chose the apple one).
Beautiful and salient, warm hearted and bang on the money. These tools are just that, selfish influencers who were never out to give anyone anything other than a platform for whatever nonsense was deemed to be effective at the time. Thank you once again Cat.
PS. Little Lord Tauntleroy made me proper chuckle.
I feel as though if I could synthesize this into something with which we could inoculate the still (even now, and how are they) apathetic in the centre and just across to either side side, we'd start to get them to wake up enough to stop standing around thinking someone else will take care of this - because the someone else is the insane faction of the GOP and they will take care of it in a way that hurts every single one of us who is not white, and straight and evangelically christian.
We can absolutely rely on their selfishness to hamstring them eventually, and we can rely on the fact that they have no desire to actually govern so they'll just show up to throw wrenches into every process and system, but the amount of work it will take to undo those wrenches is significantly more than it would take if we stopped them from throwing them in the first place. I am comforted by the fact that the tide feels like it's turning, finally, as people are realising more and more that giving people who are active cult members the reigns of power is not a good idea for good governance, but god, it's a slow turn, and we (myself included!) need to do more to make it happen faster.
Well, I wanted to write something laudatory and supportive here, but the rest of you have pretty much nailed it. So I’m gonna fall back on a modern instance from my former profession.
Ah Cat I love it when you drop into my inbox. I prepare myself for anger, sadness and happiness and then dive in to cheer you on. Because you speak truth that I feel inside, and it's great.
I don't usually watch morning tv, but they had it on at the hospital today while me and Cuddles were in the waiting room, and we got to listen to a Trumpy oerson so that thing whete they have 2 things to say and their response to every aingle question is to repeat those things and hope they get away with it.
The lady interviewing them did not let that fly 😆 She told Trumpy off at one point for not answering the questions and it was super funny. Not only were they sounding incredibly delusional, complete with fainting couch whilst bragging about gow they fot to spend time with Trumpy and blah blah blah, but they had zero answers ti the questions being asked and it was the funniest thing I've seen in ages.
Wow, Cat, that was pure, distilled wisdom and careful observation. I feel immensely comforted. Thanks for this.
"Trump had the knack of making fascism feel fun to people who never learned what actual fun is" is not an observation I've seen anywhere else.
And you're right about DeSantis, not to mention other also-rans like Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz. There's more "fun" in "systemic fungal infection" than in those guys.
Nothing whatever is wrong with em—dash clauses inside parens, as someone half of whose parenthesized clauses are nested, I rather admire them. What is even more admirable is the scorn and contempt you can deliver with the precision of a guided munition to the pathetic clown who thought he could use the love he believed his followers had for him, and found that it was really a reflection of their own love for themselves.
I agree that he’s still dangerous, but what’s most dangerous about him has already happened: he’s established an environment that’s enabled thousands of theocratic wannabes to jump up and down on the institutions of democracy and the areligious political framework that a bunch of Enlightenment dudes didn’t think needed guardrails and safety nets.
The good news this week is that a lot of people have “woke” up and realized they are going to have to work hard to claw back what the clowns have broken, as evidence the election of a liberal/progressive Justice to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a freaking landslide. The fact the so much was riding on that one election indicates just how chaotic the next few years are likely to be, but at least we have some hope we’re not, as Tom Lehrer said, “riding down the razor blade of Life.”
Meanwhile, please keep writing these columns. We need your combination of humor, wisdom, and ire. Also please keep writing your fiction. I first read “Silently and Very Fast” in 2014 and fell in love with your ideas, your prose, and your mastery of voices. And yes, I’m one of the group of followers that buys your books, and will keep buying them. I’m disabled and can’t come to your readings, but I’ll be at every one in spirit.
a minor quibble: while i agree with the observation that calling them influencers "genuinely seems to bother them to be lumped in with a job they all tend to associate purely with women they disdain..." doesn't that suggest that there exist women they do NOT disdain?
Really loved this column; thanks for articulating my anger so compellingly.
This bit ESPECIALLY: describing the non-consensual aspect of it all: "But I, like you, have non-consensually manned a domestic news desk for the last seven years of social media hellfire"
The influencer label makes perfect sense and skewers that population deftly. Thanks.
One note: we now "staff" domestic news desks, and registration tables, and rocketships. You're great Cat!
You have a way with exquisitely-worded insults. I may have to steal some.
You deserve more comments.
________
A metaphorical shock doctrine narrative, Cat.
Very focused at the interpersonal.
________
The times bring forth the man and that man, most likely a man, is not Donald Trump, of whose successor will come with the smoothest of narratives, wearing the dress costume of a true patriotic leader, falsely invoking a great American past to build a bridge to a mythic future of revival, strength and restoration of the global order, that Order that serves elite American interests, always disingenuously pitched as improving the lives of those who are neglected - everyone else.
Quite impossible. The present century is the century of The Great Eurasian Union - China, Russia, Iran, South Africa, India, Brazil, Algeria, The Global South, read 87.5% of the globe and names few Americans would recognize.
Washington deals itself out and so condemns The United States to more than structural decline, read infrastructural decay, rising costs, limited substantive work opportunities and a general state of despair of which some pitch as societal anomie.
_________
Washington's Geo-Political Success Paradigm has been brought down by their failed Ukrainian Proxy War on Russia and China, largely pitched as a manoeuvre against Russia, which it is. It also always was about Washington stopping China. When then Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's BeiJing visit 2018 did not yield desired objectives, the trade war was activated. Washington takes on more damage than BeiJing.
Could interest you, Cat . . . https://les7eb.substack.com
You are a delight. You give voice to all my inchoate fears and frustration and anger. And then you comfort.
And I have found your Tip Jar on your website (bottom of page, people). And I'm buying one of your novels because OMG they must be great (chose the apple one).
Because thank you.
Beautiful and salient, warm hearted and bang on the money. These tools are just that, selfish influencers who were never out to give anyone anything other than a platform for whatever nonsense was deemed to be effective at the time. Thank you once again Cat.
PS. Little Lord Tauntleroy made me proper chuckle.
Excellent, excellent, excellent, as always.
I feel as though if I could synthesize this into something with which we could inoculate the still (even now, and how are they) apathetic in the centre and just across to either side side, we'd start to get them to wake up enough to stop standing around thinking someone else will take care of this - because the someone else is the insane faction of the GOP and they will take care of it in a way that hurts every single one of us who is not white, and straight and evangelically christian.
We can absolutely rely on their selfishness to hamstring them eventually, and we can rely on the fact that they have no desire to actually govern so they'll just show up to throw wrenches into every process and system, but the amount of work it will take to undo those wrenches is significantly more than it would take if we stopped them from throwing them in the first place. I am comforted by the fact that the tide feels like it's turning, finally, as people are realising more and more that giving people who are active cult members the reigns of power is not a good idea for good governance, but god, it's a slow turn, and we (myself included!) need to do more to make it happen faster.
Gack?
https://www.joemygod.com/2023/04/biden-team-to-enlist-influencers-in-2024-digital-strategy/
Well, I wanted to write something laudatory and supportive here, but the rest of you have pretty much nailed it. So I’m gonna fall back on a modern instance from my former profession.
Dearest Cat
Maximum number of stars + 1: MORE LIKE THIS
Ah Cat I love it when you drop into my inbox. I prepare myself for anger, sadness and happiness and then dive in to cheer you on. Because you speak truth that I feel inside, and it's great.
I don't usually watch morning tv, but they had it on at the hospital today while me and Cuddles were in the waiting room, and we got to listen to a Trumpy oerson so that thing whete they have 2 things to say and their response to every aingle question is to repeat those things and hope they get away with it.
The lady interviewing them did not let that fly 😆 She told Trumpy off at one point for not answering the questions and it was super funny. Not only were they sounding incredibly delusional, complete with fainting couch whilst bragging about gow they fot to spend time with Trumpy and blah blah blah, but they had zero answers ti the questions being asked and it was the funniest thing I've seen in ages.
And I found you a link which will hopefully not be region locked: https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1755082/Lorraine-chaos-Donald-Trump-row
I'm gonna start calling them influencers too. We could totally expand on that too - failing influencer, wannabe influencer, etc.