Caen Spree: Hong Jury

I’s dotted, y’all

Doin’ the dots again! For noobs: The title is inspired pun-wise by the Princeton Cane Sprees but mainly a tribute to the famous elliptical style of Herb Caen, which I emulate, though not as snappily, in these occasional multi-focal posts. Let us mutually indulge our ADHD, whether genetic or media-induced. Onward...

You hardly need to hear more about Francesca Hong’s defeat by David Crowley in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary; being hip to the jive, you know that the progressive Hong lost by as narrow a margin as the progressive Abdul Al-Sayed won by in Michigan last week, yet the Prestige Press, with its raging hate-on for any Democrat to the left of Joe Lieberman, portrayed Crowley’s victory as Sociamalism Vanquish’d, as noted in Bluesky posts like this:

I hear Crowley is not a bad sort, but I just saw this Q&A he did for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on data centers last month, and it is almost entirely shoddy boosterism (“Wisconsin should be a leader in AI innovation, workforce development, and research”) and weaselly circumlocutions (“I do not believe Wisconsin should automatically roll back all data center tax incentives, but I do believe we need a more rigorous review of whether taxpayers are receiving sufficient value” blah blah blah). I know this is an all-hands-on-deck fight against fascism, but were I one of the newer voters who was energized by Hong’s unequivocal opposition to these AI-generating monstrosities, I might be very turned off if Crowley and Tom Tiffany sounded like they’re basically Frick and Frack on the issue...

Speaking of useless centrist bullshit, I have been alerted that Third Way has posted a job listing for a “Director, Anti-Extremism,” which says the new hire’s “typical day might include...”

Assembling and updating a database of the DSA’s most extreme ideas and statements and a repository of voting records, affiliations, and issue positions to make available to allies and partners;

Leading public opinion research to identify and test the contrasts that move base voters away from these extreme candidates;

Overseeing the development of memos, talking points, rapid response materials, and other products that make the case against these extreme forces in American politics...

I have a great deal of fun with these fence-straddling weak sisters in my Kitchen Table Institute sketches, but this sort of thing reminds me that I actually hate their guts. It’s not just that, while further-left Democrats are constantly browbeaten to Vote Blue No Matter Who, when the lefties win the centrists get out their kneecapping bats; it’s also that Third Way, Welcome Party, and all the other latter-day DLCs are actually preemptively collaborating with the fascists. When you see Third Way press releases like “Democrats: Abolish ICE Abuses — Not ICE” — published, believe it or not, after an ICE goon murdered Renée Good — you know that if they got power (say, under a Josh Shapiro administration) they wouldn’t use that power to end the murders, torture, and kidnapping that are ICE’s stock in trade: They’d negotiate a “reasonable” settlement with the MAGA rump whereby they only third-country-render immigrants on alternate Tuesdays, and when they murder someone they have to apologize. Oh, and, of course: More 👏 women 👏 concentration-camp guards...

Though it was most of my shtick in the old days, I don’t write much about the overtly rightwing media anymore, mostly because the stealth-MAGA finks of the Prestige Press are doing the heavy lifting for them these days. But just as it’s a useful salutary shock to look at Fox News every once in a while to get an idea how utterly divorced from objective reality its hardcore users are, so it’s worth looking sometimes at a story in, for example, the Washington neé Moonie Times to see how dark they brew the bullshit. They have one now called “Millions of men are ditching the workforce — and experts are sounding the alarm.” You might think that’s because of the ultra-shitty U.S. job market, but note they said “men,” which in wingnut world means it’s a pathology, see, meaning bitches stoled-ed their good jobs so now all men can do is play video games and wank. The experts the Times cites include “Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist who studies family issues,” a marriage-makes-you-rich buffoon I’ve noticed before; “Mark Minnella, co-founder of the National Christian Association of Financial Consultants”; “Shane Winnings, an Afghanistan War veteran who leads the Christian men’s group Promise Keepers”; and “Walter Block, a libertarian economist teaching at Loyola University New Orleans,” who explains to Times readers that “Rampant feminism has taken over our society, much to its great harm.” I don’t see why these jobless chuds can’t be trained to write for conservative media — Lord knows the barrier to entry isn’t high...

I see everyone’s having fun with Tubby’s plane switcheroo in a catering truck once he realized his Qatari bribe jet might not be safe. It does track with what we know about his low character, and it does seem grimly funny that he would abandon his Secretary of State, Press Secretary, and assorted other functionaries (not to mention several members the press corps who’ve been abasing themselves for access to him) to a possible fiery death, because they all unquestionably deserve it. It’s also funny that some of them were apparently pissed enough about it to blab to the Post. I hate to be a spoilsport but I’m mainly struck by how little impact this story has had (outside the usual crew of weisenheimers, I mean). Everyone already knows Trump is a self-centered prick who’d use a baby as a human shield like Stillson in The Dead Zone; no one’s actually shocked or outraged by it. It’s amazing to consider that two years ago people were treating this utterly self-centered career criminal like a brave hero because he might have been grazed by a bullet by a would-be assassin and waved his tiny fist in the air...

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