Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down, they are truly down. Joseph McCarthy, communist hunter and US senator, circa 1950
I do not think the mainstream press is equipped or capable of covering ideological white nationalists and eugenicists as such, or even capable of noting that this is what they are. it is related to the wide belief that racism is simply a matter of manners. jamelle (at)jamellebouie.net The real jbouie. Columnist for the New York Times Opinion section. Co-host of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast. b-boy-bouiebaisse on TikTok. National program director of the CHUM Group.
When I was a freshman in college, sometime around the end of 1957, we were shown a propaganda movie made by HUAC as part of our orientation package. HUAC stands for the House Un-American Activities Committee, and, according to the Harry S. Truman Library, it was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and rebel activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and organizations suspected of having Communist ties. Citizens suspected of having ties to the communist party would be tried in a court of law.
The power that HUAC had, and the fear that power generated, seems absurd now – or it did, six months ago, anyway – but 1957 was a different time. Sometime in the thirties, we – well, some of us anyway – became obsessed with fighting Godless Communism, which was a threat, or a perceived threat anyway, to our national religion, Capitalism. 1957, when I saw the HUAC movie which was required part of Freshman Orientation, was four years after Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, embarrassed himself and the country as the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee, whatever the hell that means, and I thought – as I remember it, we all thought – that the going-after commies hysteria had passed.
As an aside, I knew HUAC was a house committee, and I knew that McCarthy was a Senator, but somehow, over the last 68 years, I’ve connected them in my psyche. But they were not connected, and the December 1954 censure of McCarthy by the Senate did not slow down the craziness of HUAC. End aside.
All that I remember about HUAC’s movie was how ridiculously exaggerated it was, and while I haven’t thought about that movie in years – probably 65 years – I was reminded of it by another ridiculously exaggerated movie that I just saw on FOX. Apparently, it was commissioned by President Trump to promote his Greenland adventure.
I ended up at FOX because I got angry at the reporting of the Wisconsin Supreme Court fight in the New York Times and Washington Post. I’m not angry that we won, I’m very happy about that, it’s my side that won after all. I’m angry at the biased reporting. I want my reporting to be unbiased and neutral (fair and balanced, if you will). Otherwise, I can’t trust it and can’t rely on it.
But, not surprisingly, FOX way outdid the New York Times in terms of craziness. They didn’t bother with the Wisconsin Supreme Court fight, choosing instead to feature the afore mentioned movie (displayed on Trump’s X account to aswage the doubts that this is real).
(The end of this post has been changed as the video that was originally posted here was preventing the post from loading properly).
Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do…Go back to your command and try to think what we are going to do ourselves instead of what Lee is going to do. General U. S. Grant (on the second day of The Battle of the Wilderness [I think]).
We want to hear what the plans are — are we just going to be sitting on our behinds, talking a lot? Or are we actually going to be doing something? Leanna Terrell, a 75-year-old retired Navy intelligence officer
You are meant to feel powerless. That is what a strongman wants: to make you feel as if nothing can stop the takeover of your country. Ben Rhodes is a contributing writer for the New York Times Opinion.
Fox News and the right wing would have you believe that these American values are something out of The Communist Manifesto. But let me tell you, Fox News, I don’t believe in healthcare, labor, and human rights because I’m a Marxist. I believe it because I was a waitress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The But First part is my poor, broken hand. I am now wearing a half cast – which I guess is technically called a splint – that was given to me by the hand doctor at PAMF. BTW, PAMF’s real name is Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and it is part of Sutter Health, one of the three major groups that dominate medical care in our area (medicine and eldercare are very profitable). My hand and arm are wrapped in bandages and covered with what we used to call an Ace Bandage. Everything around my left hand, arm, and shoulder hurts, and it is hard for me to do almost anything more than watch TV or my computer monitor. I am not what I would call fine. (When I wrote this, it was true, but it no longer is; I feel much better.)
Still, much of why I’m not fine is because of President Trump. I knew he was going to be disruptive and would do a lot of damage; he has plans, such as eliminating DEI, that I think will hurt our country. What I didn’t expect was for Trump to be so mean to so many people. It didn’t occur to me that hurting random people was his goal. I thought it was only settling old, real or imagined, grievances. I didn’t expect The President of the United States to be such an asshole.
As an aside, what a miserable, petty, human being he must be, even though he won the presidency. And he did win the presidency, which raises a question in my mind: If Trump is so inept, and I think he is, how inept are the Democrats who lost to him? What are we doing wrong? End aside.
I’ve been going through the five stages of grief over the Presidential Election: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, now, acceptance that Trump won. He even won the popular vote this time. I think he won because his understanding of the United States – paradoxically, especially the discontent – is closer to reality than what the Democratic establishment sees as reality. Trump sees that the government clearly doesn’t work for most people. I watched parts of Trump’s rallies, and he doesn’t talk to the crowd; he talks with the crowd, he dances with it, and he listens to it. I don’t want to give the impression that he will actually do anything. He won’t; he probably can’t. But he didn’t get elected for what he is actually going to do; he was elected for what he said he would do.
I think the Democratic establishment is reality-blind. And why shouldn’t it be? Most of its money – and don’t forget that in Washington, money equals influence – comes from well-read, socially concerned people who want to do good without hurting themselves. Unfortunately, that makes it very hard to pass laws like a minimum wage that reflects the cost of living or free medical care. I am still a Democrat; being a Democrat is rooted in my ancestral humus and it’s not my choice. Still, I think that most of the current Democratic lawmakers are not capable of bringing the much-needed change.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez being sworn in as a Representative in the House, 6 years ago.…A Getty Image
Nobody ever wins the first time they run for office. Nobody’s ever supposed to win their first bid for office. Nobody’s ever supposed to win without taking lobbyists’ money. No one’s ever supposed to defeat an incumbent. No one’s ever supposed to run a grassroots campaign without running any ads on television. We did all of those things. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
I’m not running “from the left.” I’m running from the bottom. I’m running in fierce advocacy of working-class Americans. A Tweet by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez after being elected as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at 29.
There is no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed. Mocking lower incomes is exactly how those who benefit from + promote wealth inequality the most keep everyday people silent about one of the worst threats to American society: that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. A tweet by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in response to a tweeted criticism of her inability to afford an apartment in Washington DC when she first moved there in 2019.
I so want to write about Trump’s tariff threats or his bragging about his malicious immigration policies, or his giving everybody in the government a bonus if they quit. But what good does that do to anybody? I don’t know anything about tariffs except what I read in the New York Times or the Washington Post, and I’m not sure they really know anything about tariffs either. What I do know – or remember, at least – is that both papers got hysterical when Trump put tariffs on Chinese imports in 2017 and then didn’t even bother to mention it when President Biden continued them in 2021.
With Trump, like almost everything he does, tariffs seem to be a way to fill the public communication space. Trump says something seemingly outrageous about tariffs, and then the mainstream media reacts by telling us that what Trump said about tariffs is outrageous. Then we’re all talking about Trump and how outrageous he is. But, and it is a big but, while the papers say that Trump is acting outrageously over tariffs, other news, often more critical, is pushed to the back page where, especially today in the new media environment, it is ignored.
As an aside, one of the things pushed to the back pages is how Trump fills the communication space – or flooding the zone – and how the mainstream media helps him with constant attention. End aside.
We are in a new media environment, and Trump is one of the few people who understand how to prosper in that environment. Most of the Democrats, maybe all of them except about eight, are still following the old rule book. Look good, and don’t say anything controversial. Think about it, then think about it again. It is better not to be seen than being seen in the wrong place or saying something controversial. It was better to move cautiously. .
Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I want to write about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. What I really want to write about is that I think AOC will be our first female President. I’ve been thinking this for a long time, and then I thought I was wrong because I thought Vice President Harris would win. And I thought the Vice President had an excellent chance, too. I still think she could have won, but she lost her nerve and started playing it safe. Playing it safe is what the Democratic establishment wanted her to do, but when running against Trump in 2024, playing it safe is a losing strategy.
Playing it safe is not something that New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez does. She started her political career in 2018 by running against Joseph Crowley, who, according to the New York Times, was once seen as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi because his seat was so safe.
I don’t know when I first became aware of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or even why, but it was after she was elected and before she became AOC. I fell in love with her as a politician immediately, and I mean politician in the best possible sense, in a politics as public service way. The only two other times I have felt that way were with Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. I was sure that Carter and Obama would both become president even when all the evidence said they wouldn’t be. I feel the same way about AOC.
Our politics is changing because our media is changing. The old politics, the pre-2016 politics, television politics, rewarded looking professional and not making waves. That politics required immense amounts of money and rewarded non-controversial positions. Everything was well thought out, which made for slow reactions.
The new politics, the post-2016 politics, the internet politics, rewards being seen, being everywhere, filling the news space, getting attention, and it rewards authenticity. In this new political space, exposure is everything. In the television world, Harris’es handlers didn’t want her to go on FOX News, but in the post-2016 world, that just seems crazy. Trump is a master of the post-2016 political space. He is everywhere. When the Democrats come back at him for, say, renaming Denali National Park, they help Trump in two ways: they keep Trump’s name in the center of the political space, and they answer two days later, which is two days after Trump has moved on. They seem behind the times (and they are).
I’m sure that some Democrats understand the new media landscape, but most don’t. Watching Minority Leader Schumer rebutting Trump’s 25% tariff on anything from Mexico while holding an avocado like it was going to bite him was embarrassing. And then he said that the tariff would raise the price of our Super Bowl Quack. Why did he get the job of rebutting? Not because he was good at presenting a case but because he was the senior Democrat. Meanwhile, Trump had moved on to turning Gaza into a resort after the pesky Palestinians moved to Eygpt.
Of those few Democrats who do understand the new world, nobody is better at communication than AOC. Even her tag, a very recognizable AOC, which she got very early in her political career – before she took office. shows her awareness of the power of Social Media. She is sincere, not afraid to be unabashedly herself, and relatable. She is both staggeringly young and staggeringly self-confident.
Don’t take my word for it; watch the video below. It’s long but worth it (if you are into this kind of thing and, maybe, even if you are not).
Populist Revolt Against Elite’s Vision of the U.S. New York Times
Not really a big surprise, still a big shock. It’s very likely not as bleak as it looks this morning.
It’s probably going to be a little worse if you are Jewish, or Muslim, or undocumented, or a woman, or anything but white European male, for that matter. The white male hierarchy – and it must be larger than I imagined from the viewpoint deep in my little bubble – will have more legitimacy.
The very rich will do better, NATO and Ukraine worse, but in our day-to-day lives, we (Michele and myself and most people we know) probably won’t notice much change .
The spirits that I summoned, I now cannot rid myself of again. Johann Wolfgang von Goeth in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,as quoted by Yuval Noel Harari in Nexus.
The dog barking at you from behind his master’s fence acts for a motive indistinguishable from that of his master when the fence was built; essentially, they both see the area as their territory and are protecting it, even if the dog doesn’t fully understand the concept of ownership like the human does. Robert Ardrey in The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations (1966)
A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image. Joan Didion in The White Album (1979)
Michele and I watched the VP debate last Wednesday. I know the debate was on Tuesday, but we had long-standing plans to see Yuval Noel Harari. I’m a big fan of Harari, though, to be accurate, I should really say that I am a big fan of Sapiens, Harari’s first book (I did not get through his second book).
Harari has a new book out, as do many of the other speakers in the same series of talks, and I think that is largely the reason for his being on the speaker tour. The book is Nexus, subtitled A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, and, from his talk, the book sounds interesting, if not very optimistic. One thing that Harari said that was both interesting and frightening is that Israel is using AI to pick targets in their wholesale killing of the indigenous Palestinians (I keep reading that it is called the Israeli-Palestinian War, but with the overwhelming superiority of the Israeli weapons, and an estimated death toll of about 1,706 Israelis to 41,431 Palestinians this fight can not be called a war). Harari pointed out that humans still pull the trigger, but only after AI tells them where to shoot. He did not say it like it was a good thing.
Watching the debate the next day, after reading the reviews, so to speak, was more like doing homework than “Oh boy! Let’s watch the debate”. Vance was very polished and has the ability to make some of his and Trump’s crazy ideas seem almost normal. It seems obvious to me that Vance has done a lot of debating. I kept thinking, Hum, I guess the elite schools are better; Yale, Vance’s alma mater, is better, at least in preparing people for debates, than Chadron State College, Walz’s alma mater.
The first question was something like, “Governor Walz, if it was up to you, would you support or discourage an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran?” Walz didn’t answer the question, saying instead that Hamas attacked first and that Israel has the right to defend itself, and Vice President Harris will provide steady leadership. I understand the Harris/Walz Campaign’s problem here; the Jewish population is a big demographic and a bigger donor pool. On the other side, Michigan and Minnesota, which are both swing states and could go either way, have a lot of Muslim voters, which the party does not want to lose.
Next, one of the moderators asked Vance the same question. The Republicans have a different problem; they lost most of the Muslim vote after President George W. Bush senselessly attacked Iraq (before Bush’s attack, a plurality of Muslims, who are pretty socially conservative, voted Republican). Vance, who is new to the national scene but already disliked for some of his past comments like, “Cat ladies are unhappy and trying to make everybody else miserable.”, said, “I want to answer your question, but, first, let me tell you about myself.” He came across as a nice, reasonable guy. At the very end, he said something to the effect that Israel can do whatever they want. I started to worry that this would be a bad day for the Democrats. Still, as the debate went on, Vance seemed to misrepresent various Republican and Democratic positions and, in the end, refused even to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election, leaving me feeling better.
In the background, the threat of war in the Middle East is ramping up, and Israel is increasingly seen as the bad guy, which, in my opinion, it is. That’s not good. Not good for Israel or for Jewish people around the world who are mistakenly tarred with the same brush as Israelis. I say mistakenly because Jewish people who were born and live outside Israel and Israelis are not interchangeable, and many Jewish people, especially younger Jewish people who consider Israel the dominant power in the region, think the Israeli government is in the wrong.
I’ve been interested in human evolution for a long time, probably since 1966, when I first read The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations by Robert Ardrey. Robert Ardrey was not a scientist; he was a playwright and a screenwriter who was also interested in human evolution and became a science writer. He was a very controversial science writer in 1966, but most of what was then controversial, like humans evolved in Africa and not Asia, is now considered obvious. Ardrey also wrote that we evolved from animals and were still, in large part, run by our animal roots when the prevailing wisdom was that animals acted out of instinct, and we were different because we acted through our power of reasoning (which, of course, animals didn’t have).
Ardrey postulated that one of the instincts that we are controlled by is our animal instinct to acquire land and defend territory. He further postulated that the Nazis were able to round up and slaughter the Jews because they did not have any territory to defend, and if they did own territory, they would have fought back.
Now, both Israelis and Palestinians think that the land between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean is theirs, exclusively theirs, and both are willing to fight to the death to keep it. I think that it is a problem without a solution. One of my many doctors is an Israeli who moved here from Israel because she did not want to raise her children in a country that treated the Palestinians so cruelly. Off and on, when I have an appointment with her, we end up talking about Israel and Palestine, although neither one of us has a solution.
On one of those visits, I suggested that the only solution was for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people to learn to live together in a single state. She snapped back, “No way, we would never let that happen.” It was the most animated I’ve ever seen her. Much more animated than either Vance or Walz in the aforementioned Vice Presidential Debate.
That debate was, for the most part, a civil, lowkey affair. I don’t mean that as a compliment. It would be a compliment if Senator Vance or Governor Walz actually debated their different takes on the issues, but they didn’t. Both debaters were excellent at not answering the questions, although Walz did it better. I think Vance hurt himself when he started, several times, with, “I don’t want to talk about the past, I want to talk about the future.” Maybe, in the end, that is the good thing about AI. I read that different AI programs make up answers – called hallucinating in the trade – but they haven’t yet learned to equivocate.
