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“In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death”

Jethro Tull

During the winter of 1982 I was home on Christmas break from my studies at University of New Hampshire, where I majored in political science and journalism. At some point my report card from the fall term arrived in the mail. Anxious to show my father his investment in my future was paying dividends, I presented him with an honor roll caliber masterpiece.

My dad was a miser with compliments, particularly ones tossed my way, so I wasn’t expecting effusive praise. Yet and still, I hoped he would at least show some satisfaction that his first born, who escaped high school with a 1.77 GPA was now making tangible progress on his journey to responsible adulthood.

He took off his glasses to study the data for a few moments and kind of muttered a “not bad” loud enough and with the necessary emphasis to impart he was pleased with my marks. But, as was his way, the gaze turned a bit quizzical… “What’s this class, 20th Century Dictatorship and Totalitarianism,” he asked with the wry smirk he reserved for anything he deemed less than serious. I explained how interesting the class was, and how George Romoser, the Professor who taught it, was renowned in the field and had studied with the famous political scientist, Hans Morganthau. “Billy, you live in the one country where that crap is the very least of your concerns,” he chuckled. “I’d get a bit more practical if I were you.”

I go through this life confirming time and again how wise and prescient my father was, but he sure stunk up the joint on that one. Nihilist fascism’s diapered rear end is perched at our doorstep and everything about our shameful national journey to this point was foretold to me 42 years ago in Thompson Hall classrooms. It is textbook.

History’s presentation of totalitarianism is largely an abstraction that’s hard for any who have not experienced the phenomenon to fully grasp. When studying Germany’s descent into Nazi hell the usual reaction within a vibrant democracy is incredulous puzzlement at how millions could become so uniformly servile to such despicableness.

The best observers could do was to document the characteristics and organize chronologies. That way, like a disease, its symptoms can be recognized when they present themselves in other situations. You can’t simulate history; whatever catastrophes it creates must be lived through to be adequately understood. Our journey through one continues.

America is perched upon a runaway train propelled by the chaos our all-time loser must constantly create to maintain his relevance and assuage his constant insecurity. His supporters no longer try to make sense of what has steadily devolved into a constant stream of personal grievance gibberish. They will follow him anywhere he goes.

It’s exhausting and futile at this point to dwell on Trump’s vileness. Of course, he isn’t just “unfit” for office, he is an unhinged criminal who if empowered will endanger everybody. Those who surround him these days are as replete of talent or any basic duty to the country or its constructive governance as the fascist braintrusts of history past; and they are as enthusiastic as any to delve into atrocity’s dark potential.

Trump has told us clearly and often about his nefarious intentions. His Capitol Hill toadies have promised their unquestioned servility. No lie will be challenged, no outrage will be resisted. Whether the trains run on time is of no concern, only the pursuit of a narrative with no rhyme or reason past the aggrandizement of dear leader, and the legitimacy of his hatred for most of our nation. Those are the promises made that his wretched core will expect to be kept.

Nothing makes sense when the country tasked with leading the free world seriously considers for POTUS a rabid fascist whose “closing argument” in Georgia this week included performing mock fellatio on a microphone he spent the previous fifteen minutes cursing, before promising that CTE-addled former football star Herschel Walker will head up US efforts to build a missile defense shield. How will future generations studying our descent possibly be able to empathize with that?

Some time back I began texting a Republican friend who has maintained my respect since 2016. He is a pastor from Pennsylvania and a thinker, but also partisan and unquestioningly supportive of GOP candidates. Trump lost him long ago, but “Jim” has stubbornly continued to wall him off from the party he now fully controls. Throughout our correspondence this election I have argued that merely refusing to vote for him is not enough. To adequately confront him one must make a clear choice and support democracy. I convinced myself that Jim was a true bellweather; if he could vote for Harris, the “Never Trumper” bloc could prove to be determinative and the rout necessary to diminish MAGA was possible, polls be damned.

This morning Jim told me he was writing in former GOP Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse’s name for President, and would vote straight Republican down ballot. Given his tone, I sensed the only thing about the Presidential race he is certain about is refusing to vote for Harris. Whether he will, within the privacy of a voting booth, decide to forgive and forget Trump seems possible.

Whatever happens today, those of us stunned and bewildered about how we could possibly be back in the exact same nightmare we lived four years ago, should take heed of my response to Jim, and perhaps let it guide their interactions with those we know who won’t oppose the nihilist fascism Trump embodies…

“What Would Jesus Do, Jim? Witnessing Trump’s vile descent into madness this campaign, I simply can’t fathom how anybody would not run to vote against him. Why you can’t do a Liz Cheney is something I don’t know that I’ll ever get my head around. But I am certain that in the aftermath of the worst that could happen, the burning ashes of a dystopian landscape his Presidency pledges to produce, you will never be able to say you did everything to stop it… at least not to me.”

Pray for your country… And for God’s sake vote Harris. BC

Nothing about the Orwellian normalization of Trump/MAGA fascism is more perplexing than the willingness of the Biden Administration and Democrats to accept the blame and full electoral liability for inflation. When MAGA eunuchs like Byron Donald or Marco Rubio aren’t reframing the most recent example of Trump’s cognitive decline, they are surely railing about $10 cartons of eggs the “Biden economy’s record inflation” now foists on cash strapped families. 

But regardless of how often the GOP presents the premise as a given, or even how reconciled Democrats seem to be to allowing them to get away with it, just a cursory examination of the facts tells a different story. The truth is the inflation pain suffered by American families since 2020 is a direct result of the Trump Administration’s toxic mix of abject incompetence and an economic agenda devoted only to short-term political gains, pursued with no concern about the certain long-term damage they would cost. 

Trump came into office in 2017 with nothing more than a messianic claim that only he could transform the American apocalypse he sold on the stump. It was clear neither Trump nor his campaign apparatus expected to actually win, so with a shocking victory came a haphazard governing plan. As the Republican nominee, whenever  Trump did stray from culture war nihilism and warnings about a rigged election at his increasingly unhinged campaign rallies, he promised tax cuts and deregulation, the twin pillars of GOP Reaganomics obsession. 

Fox/AM and MAGA fictions aside, Barack Obama had left Trump a robust economy. Perhaps the first and most reliable measure of this was an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, virtually full participation. Any economist worth their calculator will tell you that initiating a massive tax cut when it is wholly unnecessary not only blows up the deficit, but creates inflationary pressure as ginned up demand exceeds supply. 

Nevertheless, Trump and Republicans, fully absorbed in their own falsehoods that they needed to “rescue” America from the “epic disaster of the Obama years,” moved in tandem to pass as large a tax cut package as they could. By the time it took effect in January of 2018, the monstrosity was near $2 trillion.

Forget that it catered exclusively to corporations and the wealthy, with average Americans saving less than $400 per year. Forget that it blew a massive hole in the efforts to cut the national debt, which the Obama Administration had made a priority after the Great Recession it inherited required sizable government outlays. And forget that the GOP refused to accept the fact that tax cuts actually add to a deficit if they are not offset by spending reductions, fully beholden to the myth of increased tax revenue as a budget balancing panacea. The entire exercise was unnecessary and undertaken for no other reason than Trump wanted to crow about the “economic miracle” he magically created after only one year in office. Voters were less impressed and provided Democrats a solid House majority in the 2018 election, refusing to reward Trump and Republicans for their economic malpractice. 

Trump loves tariffs mainly because of the arbitrary and near total control they provide him with. He loves to shake nations down, close allies in particular. With unhinged protectionist czar Peter Navarro – who viewed trade deficits as synonymous with foreign intrigue- chirping in his ear about who was playing the US for a fool that particular day, the President could pick a country, pick a domestic industry, and then Tweet out how US coffers would now be filled with tariff receipts and such-and-such sector could now thank him for rescuing them from ruin. Whatever collateral damage resulted was never a concern. If the carnage became too extensive, as with Midwest dairy farmers demolished by European reciprocity that wrecked their export opportunities, emergency subsidies were deployed. MAGA socialism to the rescue. 

In 2016 Republicans still fronted themselves as “the party of Reagan.” Of course, the Gipper’s brand was wedded to free trade and “letting the markets decide.” However, Mitch McConnell and his House leadership counterpart, Paul Ryan, felt little discomfort tossing aside decades of principle to bend over for Trump’s impulse tariff regime. 

As a direct tax on consumers there is no doubt tariffs spur inflation. But Trump tariffs were far worse because their arbitrary nature caused chaos throughout the supply chain, severing longstanding relationships at his whim, clouding the international marketplace with unpredictability. Covid would bring those chickens home to roost. 

Even if the Trump Administration had employed a thoughtful strategy to weather the pandemic, a sudden plummet in global production and demand were certain to set the stage for significant inflation once consumers began buying again; that’s just basic economics. As it was, Trump responded by mixing surreal incompetence with divisive incitement of his followers to, not just ignore prudent public health guidance, but violently oppose it. In addition to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, the debacle greatly intensified the price shocks supply/demand imbalances created. In fact, one could effectively argue that, even if the pandemic never occurred, Trump’s tariff recklessness generated a wave of inflation that would have come ashore sooner or later. The Covid folly jacked up its size… instead of Florida surf, Biden inherited the Hawaiian North Shore. 

Why the Biden Administration and Democrats in both chambers of Congress have from the start allowed the GOP to make inflation their exclusive domain is a great mystery. Perhaps the spinners decided there was no way the falsehood could be confronted without it being perceived by voters as sour grapes. Indeed, there is a long tradition of owning the numbers that “happen on your watch,” even though Trump and Republicans certainly refused to abide by it. 

It is also true that Biden was never in a hurry to dismantle many of the tariffs Trump imposed, so blaming them for inflation would surely invite scrutiny and charges of hypocrisy. Again, something the shameless Trump has never worried about. Yet and still, rolling over and allowing both Fox/AM and corporate media to define the issue as a given, thus enshrining it as the beginning, middle and end of MAGA attacks on the Biden economy, makes no sense at all, and in the end could doom us to a dark age of another Trump election victory. 

It’s not too late for the Harris campaign to mitigate some of the harm inflicted by this false narrative. On October 1st there will be a Vice-Presidential debate. In between doubling down on lies about immigrants terrorizing the homeland, and exploring new depths of servility to Trump, JD Vance will surely fixate on inflation. Tim Walz should be prepared to set the record straight. Our future as a going democratic concern may very well depend on him effectively doing so. BC

Recently, I was out to dinner with a close friend. We go back to the care-free days of bachelorhood, when worrying about only ourselves was all we cared to contemplate. Thirty years later, he has three kids now out of the house in various states of college or post-college doings. Since his wife was occupied with her buddies, he was freed up for sushi. 

I never lead with the challenges my son  Luke now faces as Autism sabotages his young-adult well being. However, if asked, particularly by a close friend, I will provide a complete picture. Lately, aside from debilitating attacks of anxiety about lost routines he can’t get back, our most frustrating reality is that nobody we can count on is available to stay with Luke should we want to go out together without him. 

My wife, Sue loves nothing more than to attend the weddings of her friends’ offspring. For several years now such invitations have flowed in regularly, and most always Sue goes solo while I stay home with Luke. The daughter of one particular friend is marrying an exceptional young man in August. We have both gotten to know the couple, so it was a wedding I was keen on attending. What to do about Luke? 

The mother of the bride made clear it would be fine for him to attend. I was not enthused. Luke is audible and unconcerned with public strictures on his impulsive commentary. Moreover, he is always the center of attention, exactly wrong for a celebration rightly focused on the newlyweds. Finally, there is little doubt who would be responsible for keeping up with his mania during the reception. No thanks. 

Relating this predicament to Bob, he floored me with one simple sentence. “Why don’t Kim and/or I just come over and hang out with Luke? What’s the date?” It was flabbergasting as it was direct, banal as it was extraordinary. Taken aback, I protested that I wasn’t fishing around for help.  Bob shrugged that he knew that, but nonetheless it seemed like no big deal and he wanted to do it. Bob has always been one of Luke’s favorites; the whole thing couldn’t have made more sense. I accepted his offer and we moved on to the soft shell crab tempura rolls. 

Reflecting on his offer later, I remembered back to a church support group Sue and I attended nearly 20 years ago, when the wound of Luke’s diagnosis was still fresh. This was a mega church, with a head pastor who started an entire ministry for intellectually disabled kids because his daughter is one of them. So the support group was popular, with more than ten couples ruminating weekly about our common trials and tribulations. Most all had children with Autism, some far more affected than others. Even so, there was one sad refrain everyone shared: family and friends were underwhelming in their offers to help. 

“Why can’t my sister understand the crisis I face and offer to come over and help more often? … My best friend has two healthy kids; why won’t she plan more play dates with my son?” … And so forth. Of course, as years passed most of us matured out of the narcissistic notion that our particular challenges dictated that everyone else close to us stop what they were doing and plunge headlong into our circumstances. Those who didn’t develop this understanding often ruined the relationships they needed most, and dealt with even more isolation, more heartbreak. 

Sue and I long ago put to bed most all resentment of family and friends for not stepping up as much as we’d hope. You live long enough, you understand that everybody has full plates and are dancing as fast as they can. Expecting that your hardship should distract them from the hand they’ve been dealt makes helping you more burden than fulfillment. Possessing this understanding makes my buddy Bob’s offer special, and it’s why I am confident that when we return from that wedding, Bob will leave heartened that he was able to provide a genuinely appreciated solid for his friends. Who knows? He may even offer again. 

There is a useful place for this same reasoning in our national confrontation with MAGA nihilism. That embracing Trumpism reveals biases and character flaws seems obvious to those cognizant of its pervasive malevolence. It’s why so many family ties and friendships have frayed badly since 2016. Sadly, even tragically, it’s equally clear that generalized apathy has permitted Fox/AM an open playing field to radicalize millions because they have not faced sufficient blowback that voicing lies and relentless propaganda warrants 

The first of these facts offers few options. Abiding enthusiasm for MAGA does nobody any favors, least of all the enthusiast. But the second situation requires attention, with a premium on patience and empathy; estrangement from those we value most because they don’t agree with us enough is as wrong as it is unnecessary. Moreover, there is little doubt that convincing, rather than alienating those who still have their wits about them, but are to varying degrees more resistant to allowing MAGA’s assault on our governance to distract them from routine, is perhaps the only chance America has to avoid the cataclysm of Trumpist rule. 

All of which circles back to my buddy Bob. Born and raised in Kentucky, he is highly educated, an engineer as mechanically adept as anyone I have known. That said, Bob keeps his politics close to the vest, and his view on things, particularly the federal government’s proper role in our lives, has certainly been influenced by his lineage. Also, he categorizes such civic obligations downward on his list of life’s priorities. 

Several years ago, right about when the Democratic Presidential primary was heating up, we hosted Bob and his wife, Kim, for dinner. Perhaps too much alcohol had been poured, but after a great evening, the discussion turned to politics and things went south. Bernie Sanders appeared to be surging and Bob said matter-of-factly he would have problems voting for a socialist. I sought clarity that, of course, he meant when voting in the primary…he would surely support any Democrat vs. Trump, right? He replied that, no, he wasn’t fully certain of that; he would have to weigh the issues during the general campaign.  His irresolution on the matter stunned me, and I wasn’t having it. Issues?! Really?! Trump is the issue! When the dust had settled, angry words had been exchanged and a fun night was ruined. A very old friendship was in jeopardy. 

Sue was so furious with me she demanded I drive over to their place that night if necessary to make amends. At that moment, after five years of allowing a plethora of friends, acquaintances and even a couple of family members to take a hike out of my life, I understood clearly where the line was and why it must be respected always, without exception. Luckily, Bob answered his phone that evening. I fell completely on my sword and our friendship endured. I’ll be able to fully focus my attention on quality reception finger food come August. 

Our nation’s house is on fire, MAGA arsonists the cause. Whether we can douse the flames will depend on how many can be recruited to man a hose. A sweet spot exists somewhere between condemning their seeming nonchalance and figuring that general apathy is an intractable fact of life. Our democracy’s survival depends on us finding it. One Bob at a time. BC

In his official proclamation of Thanksgiving, 1936, President Roosevelt held forth on American strength and resolve through hard times. Expressing gratitude that “Devine Providence has vouchsafed us wisdom and courage to overcome adversity…,” FDR gave thanks for “free institutions” that held strong through the worst of the Depression “with no abatement of our faith in them.”

Seventy-nine years to the day later, a Washington Post editorial cited FDR’s words to commemorate Thanksgiving, 2015. However, the Post juxtaposed Roosevelt’s observations with a novel that was published just before he offered them, Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 classic It Can’t Happen Here, dystopian fiction about America’s embrace of a fascist demagogue and the destruction of its democracy. One year out from the 2016 Presidential election, alarmed by the success of Donald Trump’s primary campaign, the Post sensed civic peril on the horizon and used our national day of thanks to remind its readers not to take for granted that which is most precious to us… free governance. 

Above all else, fascism relies on two things… fear and loathing. The amount of each required to deduce political salvation from Trump’s unhinged monologues is more than enough to, not simply abide, but actually demand atrocities America has been fortunate enough to avoid. 

Much has been made of his recent use of the word “vermin” during rally ramblings. Indeed, the context in which he employs it, as an adjective to describe the endless list of enemies – which the progressive FDR would surely get top billing on –  he plans to persecute given the chance, differs little from Hitler’s application. Fascism is, after all, substantially about dehumanization of those the state consumes.

Yet and still, one needs no Hitlerian catch phrases to recognize Trumpism has grown ever more virulent as the institutions he now pledges to destroy attempt to hold him to account for his crimes. MAGA has morphed into his vehicle for vengeance, an instrument for settling all of the scores his psychopathy can conjure. The message has morphed from grievance to hysteria; everything is existential, the ends justify any means necessary. For his cultists it is now a totalitarian preoccupation; they won’t be satisfied with half measures. Promises made, promises kept. 

As we feast this Thanksgiving, Trump is poised to sew up the GOP Presidential nomination before the primaries even begin, despite refusing to debate his primary opponents. While Nikki Haley and company jostle about Fox/AM talking points, Trump is now devoid of discipline and offers nothing but stream-of-consciousness more apt for pacing an asylum floor than a candidate’s podium. His platform is malice.  Most Republican primary voters seem fine with that. Constructive governance no longer interests them. 

Hannah Arendt, perhaps history’s most insightful authority on the critical elements of totalitarianism, wrote of the necessity to dumb everything down for the mob, literally persecuting “every higher form of intellectual activity.” Trump enjoys few things more. From Anthony Fauci to Joe Biden, “leftist” history professors to climate scientists, stupidity is “common sense.” While few believe Trump actually “follows a playbook” to invigorate his cultists and infuse the totalitarian mob they have become, a natural symmetry between his impulsive sociopathy and the fundamentals fascism requires clearly exists. His vengeance is their guiding light.

Worse, The Heritage Foundation – the same group who sponsored a series of lectures in early 2017 by none other than Newt Gingrich “to fully explain Trumpism” – is sparing no expense to make certain a new Administration will hit the ground running with an “army” of MAGA zealots. Apparently, the far-right non-profit is ready to supply up to “54,000 pre-vetted loyalists” to consolidate Trumpism’s grasp on US Government infrastructure. What will their mandate be? Exactly what Trump is telling us over and over… installing his version of apocalypse now. 

That pin you hear dropping is the entirety of the GOP resistance to Trump’s new level of absurdist malevolence. Abject cowardice does not come anywhere close to describing Susan Collins or John Thune. Nor does soulless self-seeker get close to the mark on Marco Rubio or Glenn Youngkin. Heading into next November, to be a Republican pol means you are either an exuberant fascist, an amoral opportunist or a pathetic yellow belly; nothing else fits.

Thanksgiving is about expressing gratitude for our past so we can be hopeful for our future. That millions believe that is somehow possible if we elevate an openly unhinged fascist demagogue, whose primary agenda includes nothing more than persecuting his enemies, clarifies the crisis we face. Enjoy another serving of stuffing, and some more vino, a year from now it might not taste as good. BC

The gig is officially up, not that anyone paying even cursory attention to the matter didn’t fully conclude as much from the start. But for those distracted or slow on the uptake, Matt Gaetz and the House nihilist caucus were never actually THAT opposed to short-term Continuing Resolutions (CRs) as a means to keep the government open. It was not about shutting the door, merely who possessed the keys to lock it down that ever really mattered.

The issue all along was what Kevin McCarthy surely understood it to be, when he accepted the Speaker’s gavel after a 15-round kabuki siege; it was always only a question of when and under what pretext the “motion to vacate” would arise. Turns out, branding desperate bipartisan efforts to keep the government open as a betrayal of “conservative principles” was as good a reason as any, and ended up working out just fine. Now MAGA owns the House Speakership.

Any doubts about the real Trumpist endgame evaporated last week when Gaetz himself told the posse of media constantly at his beck and call he was “open” to whatever “bridge” new MAGA hero Speaker Mike Johnson thinks may be appropriate. Suddenly, continuing resolutions are no longer apostasy, worth stopping America’s entire legislative process in its tracks.

Of course, Gaetz took pains to make clear “I don’t like governing by continuing resolution.” Apparently, the difference between Johnson, who had possessed the gavel less than 48 hours before floating a CR, and his predecessor is that “Kevin McCarthy wanted to govern by continuing resolution to get us to the next continuing resolution.”

Like W Bush gushed after meeting Putin, Gaetz has looked into the new Speaker’s heart and concluded Johnson “has a lot more credibility” that his CRs are in genuine service to the greater good of Freedom Caucus nihilism. Moving forward, expect the Florida “firebrand” to be more of a team player, and to support whatever means Johnson feels are necessary to achieve results sure to satisfy even the most stringent regressive orthodoxy.

Which is all just another way of saying they get no Trumpier than Mike Johnson… and that was the point all along. The entire stable of MAGA show horses – from Gaetz and Jordon, to MTG and Boebert, right on through to the Normans and Goodes etc. – have finally gotten what they were throwing one tantrum after another to achieve, a seditious extremist they can trust.

Make no mistake, in that regard Speaker Johnson checks off every box and then some. Creepy obsession with anything to do about sexuality? Check. Tax cuts as economic panacea? You bet. Not just climate change denial, but conflation of environmental science with dangerous “leftism?” Of course. Anti-abortion fanatic, Covid denier, pro anything with a trigger; it’s not hyperbole to argue Johnson is the most reactionary person in Congress. His scant resume tells the tale.

Worst of all, nobody on Capitol Hill embraced the Big Lie quicker and devoted more energy and resources his office afforded to legitimating its civic poison. If McCarthy was carrying Trump’s water, Johnson was pumping it from the well. Trump had barely spit out his post-election diatribe when Johnson cooed in his ear to “exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.”

Not two weeks after Election Day, Johnson was out front of cameras, and all in with Sidney Powell’s rigged Hugo Chavez election machine grift. “You know,” intoned Johnson, “the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that. And when the president says the election was rigged, that’s what he’s talking about.” Johnson would eventually lead the run of 126 House Republicans to sign on to Texas vs. Pennsylvania, the nonsensical case the Supreme Court couldn’t reject fast enough.

So what made Johnson so appealing that he was able to unite a hopelessly divided conference? His one asset? Acting like a jerk is not one of his defining traits, which makes him an outlier within the MAGA caucus. He’s actually capable of collegiality. Speak softly, but carry a big bogus amicus brief. Sometimes not being much is enough, so long as you don’t threaten opponents. Johnson was Jim Jordan in every way except for the latter’s ugly demeanor. The 20 “principled” Republicans who opposed Gym and his pressure tactics could live with that.

Johnson has right off the bat moved to confirm nihilist faith. Decoupling a bipartisan military aid package to Israel and Ukraine was unhelpful, but not fully unexpected; Johnson could argue with at least several shards of credibility that it is necessary in order to expedite backing to both nations. However, making aid to our closest allies under siege contingent on MAGA domestic priorities, such as paring IRS funding as a “budget offset,” is the sort of unprecedented outrage that only an OG Trumpist would pursue.

Moreover, with the Congressional Budget Office documenting such cuts will actually INCREASE the federal deficit, nothing is left to the imagination as to motivation. National interest is no match for Hannity talking points and Trump rally items. Determining the chicken or the egg with Johnson is an impossible task. He IS who he claims he must satisfy… a Freedom Caucus freak. Allies losing faith in American leadership doesn’t mean much to one who believes they should be on their own to begin with. Forget Russian aggression, we’ve got a southern border to lock down!

From the start Trumpism has been consumed with one primary task: making its malignancy more palatable. MAGA’s mission has always been about getting American culture and the politics it influences to once again tolerate intolerance, to abide attitudes and behavior that once was deemed disqualifying. Not too long ago, Mike Johnson would have been a nut, too whack for any public office, even in Louisiana. Now he’s a savior, elevated because those whose worldview and political positions he fully shares were permitted to bring the institution of Congress to rock bottom, where anything other than suicide gets embraced as salvation. Another metastasis of the cancer that plagues us. BC

It’s very hard to overstate the ignominy of Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow. Nine months of pointless intrigue and legislative futility came to its inevitable conclusion, sooner rather than later. It now seems fair to conclude McCarthy never had a plan heading into his doomed speakership. From the start he acted as though obtaining the gavel was the end itself, like finally winning the Masters after years of grinding on the PGA tour, a crowning achievement to a career ambition, a purely personal odyssey divorced from any larger calling. When he avoided round 16 it was a conclusion, not a start. Self service instead of public service. 

When McCarthy finally did emerge victorious from last January’s chaos and accepted the gavel, he observed that US governance is “built on checks and balances” and that it was “time to be the check and provide some balance.” In retrospect, that admonition leaves no doubt he fully understood that the nihilists intended only to obstruct and were never going to take yes for an answer. When he accepted their condition that only one of them would be required to call a vote for vacating the chair, anything bipartisan became an existential threat to his job security.

Thus, there were only two roads available to travel. One was the MAGA mire of demonizing Democrats, proceeding on the delusion he enjoyed a 35-seat vote cushion the “Red Wave” never delivered last November instead of the 5-seat micro-majority Republicans actually eked out. The other was Reality Avenue, selling to the GOP rank and file the common sense conclusion his 15-round ordeal confirmed. Reaching across the aisle would be necessary to, not only govern, but develop some minimum level of trust to fall back on when zombie provocateurs like Gaetz inevitably decided to preen for Steve Bannon and call to dismiss him. Otherwise, a tiny subset of malcontents could end things in one vote. The numbers offered no other option. 

It’s now clear the House Speaker followed the first playbook until its certain failure promised either global economic catastrophe (failing to raise the debt ceiling) or domestic political self-emulation (shutting down the government.) He would tell Gaetz, Norman, Luna, Roy, Perry, et al that he was all in with their intransigence and seek to toss them raw meat whenever possible, even if it required mind-boggling hypocrisy and abject  humiliation. Sham impeachment inquiries without a vote and once near-unanimous defense appropriations measures he couldn’t even pass an open debate on, that is McCarthy’s legacy. 

Dan Balz, the elder statesman of Washington political reporters, today wrote in his infuriatingly understated manner that Matt Gaetz embodies “the worst of performative politics, which have come to typify this era.” That’s way too banal an assessment, and only half true… McCarthy is cut from the same cloth as Gaetz; they are two of a kind. As Maryland’s Jaime Raskin, a Democratic leader who has been on the front lines challenging MAGA sedition while undergoing chemotherapy, put it yesterday when asked why Democrats didn’t prop up McCarthy during his hour of need, “I don’t distinguish that sharply between Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz.”

This weekend’s political talk shows will feature every take under the sun to explain how we got to this new nadir in our national story. But as with most all tragic sagas, to adequately appreciate the latest development, you have to revisit the beginning. That means recalling one of America’s darkest days, the first Tuesday of November, 2016. 

That trauma will remain a vivid memory until I go into the dirt, that moment I realized Trump would win the Presidency. It was 10:00 PM, well into election night, and Hillary Clinton was struggling in Virginia, a state she was supposed to have clinched before supper was served. Suddenly all of the unsettling signs of the last days leading up to the election coalesced into a shocking realization; if Clinton couldn’t win Virginia, none of the pre-vote metrics had been close to accurate. All bets were off. It was Xanax time.

In the weeks leading up to Trump’s Inauguration Day, the media embraced normalization. Those of us who had paid close attention to his campaign hatefests, not to mention his decades-long history of utter shamelessness and dishonor, found it difficult to buy into narratives about the weight of the office and institutional pressure obviating Trump’s ugliness. 

The worst-case scenario, albeit easy to dismiss as a dystopian fever dream, had Trump as both grievous cause and symptom. America would have to survive ceding him the awesome power of the American Presidency, but even if we emerged intact, the forces that impelled his rise could succeed in perpetuating MAGA’s relevance past his time in office. What if a whole new political ecosystem of nihilist bottom feeders emerged to pursue nothing but divisive chaos in the name of whatever narrative Fox/AM was serving up? Worst of all, what if such a sect consumed the GOP with nothing but servitude to Trump as its main priority? How could America possibly survive that? Fever dream indeed. 

Witnessing House Republicans in full self-destruct mode mirrors Trump’s own rabid meltdown these days as he’s slowly but surely held to account for crimes his mutineers fully abetted. Make no mistake, while both cases may offer a certain degree of immediate karmic satisfaction, the danger to America only intensifies when seditionists have their backs to the wall.   House Republicans were fond of saying how their circus to pick a Speaker last January was merely part and parcel of the “messy” process robust democracy sometimes necessitates. Nobody is saying that now. 

The corpse of the McCarthy months now rots on the US Capitol steps. It lays where an insurrection occurred, a national tragedy he spared no effort to whitewash, at the behest of those who ultimately toppled him.

Meanwhile, the country is now left to absorb another unprecedented desecration to its national brand of governance. A brand that once was the envy of the world, but now appears mortally wounded, just another chapter in a cautionary tale of how democracies can perish. BC

The actual wording of the US seditious conspiracy statute is very broad, expansive enough for anyone with the agency and bad faith to abuse it. Back in the early 1950s, alcoholic Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy did just that. Supported at all times by his own personal Iago – a soulless young lawyer named Roy Cohn – McCarthy “weaponized” the law to pander to the country’s worst civic elements and foment anti-communist hysteria. By the time his lies were recognized and his efforts disgraced, the damage his gratuitous bullying caused was extensive and lasting.

The lessons history taught us about McCarthyist persecution were good ones; common sense, really. Foremost was for the public to have more faith in essential government institutions, like the State Department. McCarthyism happened because too many were primed to accept innuendo and rumor, third-hand accounts and stray puzzle pieces to boost a narrative supported more by fear than facts. Another important moral to the Un-American Activities Committee debacle was that bad faith by lawmakers interested only in their own fortunes is far more of a threat to our way of life than the ghosts they tell us to be deathly afraid of.

Ironically, now another craven pol named McCarthy, while running interference for a criminal demagogue, who uses red scare terminology like “witch hunt” to discredit long overdue efforts to prosecute his misdeeds, is mining the depths of similar fear and ignorance to maintain the power he sold his wretched soul to attain. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy no longer leaves anything to the imagination as to whether he, like the orange monster he buoys, is willing to end the game rather than lose it.

However, unlike 70 years ago, when way too many Americans were ready to believe in an imaginary “menace” conjured up by his namesake, this McCarthy provides cover and credibility to genuine sedition, nihilist totalitarianism constantly reinforced and impelled by a multi-media juggernaut that Cold War muckrakers could only have dreamt of. This time around, in the face of an overt MAGA effort to overthrow US democracy, consequential swaths of the body politic simply don’t want to be bothered, and shrug that it’s merely now how Republicans see things.

From the start of the Trump Presidency
the critical question was twofold: would the institutions he was being entrusted to lead succeed in modifying the unprecedented ugliness of his 2016 campaign; and, if not, would he be successful in spawning a political class beholden to him and fully dedicated to normalizing his efforts to demolish the standards he inherited. McCarthy and the House caucus he leads are the ruinous answer to those questions, the priorities it pursues in full lockstep with Trump’s rabid efforts to avoid accountability for past and present transgressions.

That Kevin McCarthy has somehow avoided scrutiny for his part in permeating the Big Lie with the credibility his position enables is mystifying. It gets no more craven than the timeline of the Speaker’s positions since November of 2022.

Not 36 hours after the polls had closed, with millions of votes still to be counted, McCarthy parroted Trump’s lie that the fix was in:

“President Trump won this election so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. Do not be silent about this. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes. We need to unite together. You don’t need to be a Republican. If you believe in every legal vote needs to count, you believe in the American process, join together and let’s stop this.”

In the immediate aftermath of the failed January 6th coup McCarthy figured Trump was toast. He couldn’t jump ship fast enough, telling a group of Republican leaders – including Liz Cheney – that “I’ve had it with this guy…What he did is unacceptable.” McCarthy assured all that he wanted Trump to resign in disgrace before Inauguration Day. That was until it became clear the GOP base felt very differently, and Fox/AM shifted into “blame Pelosi” mode. With the change in wind direction McCarthy flitted off to Mar-A-Lago, hat in hand, prepared to supplicate over a club sandwich.

Blasted for bending the knee to a disgraced seditionist less than a month after 1/6, McCarthy feigned incredulity and protested he was simply “in the neighborhood” and dropped by to discuss the GOP’s future. “I can talk to anyone… just as I can go talk to Joe Biden if President Biden wants to talk…I don’t quite grasp why we’re now challenging people that they can’t talk to one another.”

However, his official statement after posing with Trump more than hinted on the horse he was now prepared to bet his future relevance on. “Today, President Trump committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022…For the sake of our country, the radical Democrat agenda must be stopped.” From there the greased slope led to fully opposing impeachment, and then first obstructing the formation of a House Committee to investigate 1/6 before totally disavowing and ceaselessly trying to discredit it.

Since then, McCarthy’s Twitter feed hardly differs from the rest of the MAGA zealots, except his tweets carry the legitimacy of his office. At every opportunity he employs his position in government to erode public confidence in its existence, slandering virtually every agency of note, either to protect Trump from legal accountability or burnish the Republican platform of opposing any effort by the Biden Administration to make the trains run on time.

Constantly repeated MAGA catch phrases – now one and the same with GOP essential messaging – such as “accountability is coming,” “two-tiered justice” and “socialist redistribution of wealth” translate into just what McCarthy meant after he sought Trump’s forgiveness in late January of 2021: the radical Democratic agenda justifies any and all measures, including sedition in the name of a nihilist criminal and his riffraff to destroy.

McCarthy now heads a pack of hyenas, a caucus that demands a willingness to overcome any pang of self-respect and basic human decency as a prerequisite for job security. Anyone who doubted this need only have witnessed the recent censure of Adam Schiff, carried over the finish line by Trump’s Truth Social threat to primary anyone who didn’t support the measure.

Forget “accountability,” a reckoning is coming. Almost 70 years ago, America finally came to its senses and called out McCarthyism for the empty rubbish it was. Its Senate ringleader was appropriately ostracized and rendered irrelevant. Now, the threat of sedition within our borders is very real, and propagated by a House Majority emboldened by a morally vapid Speaker, guided by the same odious objectives his namesake pursued several generations ago. If he doesn’t meet the same fate as his predecessor, democracy in America will. BC

“We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”

JFK

Competent democratic governance requires checks and balances between elected officials and their constituents, a tacit understanding that compromise is what allows the system to function so basic needs are met and crises are not self-induced. Good citizens respect the parameters “making the trains run on time” places on the pursuit of more parochial concerns. Conversely, good lawmakers understand that sometimes they have to say no to even their most ardent supporters, while saying yes to the other side of the aisle; this is called leadership.

Ideally, politicians come to office having devoted some thought to the relationship between their role as community leaders and the electorate, whose aspirations toward a range of policy issues they promise to reflect. It is no coincidence that US history holds in the highest esteem politicians willing to swim against the popular currents of their times because realities on the ground forced them to look past expediency.

Lincoln could have been a lot more like his predecessor, James Buchanan, and played down the reckoning that was at his doorstep. He didn’t, and historians generally consider him our greatest President, Buchanan one of our worst. FDR could have catered to the isolationists as Britain stood alone against the Blitzkrieg; most in America would have praised him for it, as Brits had Neville Chamberlain when he returned from Munich a couple years earlier, freshly inked deal with Hitler in hand. FDR understood what had to be done. FDR’s fifth cousin, macho Teddy Roosevelt, took plenty of heat for his strong support of women’s suffrage. He’s on Mount Rushmore.

The range between pandering and leading is as vast as the gulf between democracy and authoritarianism, or a grass roots activist and a populist within the thrall of a demagogue. Such spectrums are directly related to how vibrant or how wanting our civic process is. An apathetic citizenry, indifferent to its own civic welfare, creates an environment favorable to rank opportunists and their pursuit of callow ambitions very often at odds with the public interest.

The recent debt ceiling drama is the inevitable product of just such circumstances. Held captive by a Lord of the Flies GOP, whose membership is comprised of either those who pander to Fox/AM’s nihilist sedition or those too cowardly to stand against them, our governing process continues its descent into the abyss of MAGA extremism.

It’s important to remember Biden began this saga declaring what was right and essential: raising the debt ceiling and negotiating the budget are two entirely different exercises. One merely facilitates payment of liabilities already accrued, the other creates a plan for incurring future obligations. Any other view accepts the validity of manufacturing a global crisis.

Of course, it takes little imagination to conjure how bad things could become if the world’s leading economy defaults on more than $31 trillion of debt. Even attempting to minimize that scenario deserves the loss of all credence. It’s like contending that we’d still get up and go to work if only Chicago and Miami were nuked.

Yet there we were last week, 72 hours from detonation, the Senate “hoping” to pass the hasty package sent to it by the House. Despite risking an economic apocalypse, the deal contained only modest adjustments to current spending, a sizable share at the expense of the poorest and most marginalized, symbolic cruelty and nothing much else. What about the biggies, the real drivers of our structural spending spree? Defense, entitlements, massive tax cuts passed during full employment for no other reason than to ensure “fantastic numbers” during Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign? Nothing.

GOP debt ceiling brinksmanship has happened before. In 2011, the Tea Party, MAGA’s OG incarnation, took the Obama Administration to a similar cliff, insisting on budget cuts to match the amount of new credit required to pay debt the US had already incurred. The resulting standoff ended when House Speaker John Boehner realized he was dragged into battle by a platoon of Gomer Pyles, nihilist neophytes, ignorant and unconcerned about the massive damage they could cause, and clueless as to what they even wished to achieve.

The Tea Party Caucus of 2011, which was chaired by Michelle Bachman and included Mike Pence, would soon metastasize into a higher stage malignancy, Jim Jordan’s Freedom Caucus. Boehner retired rather than suffer the indignities inherent in supervising Jordan’s ship of fools. Later, in his memoir, Boehner was outspoken in his assessment of Fox/AM House members:

“Most of these guys who poke their heads up in these crises and vote ‘no’ on every compromise and claim they’re doing it all for ‘conservative principles’ don’t actually give a s— about fiscal responsibility…It’s not really about the money. It’s not about principle. It’s about chaos…. The far-right knuckleheads would refuse to back the House leadership no matter what, but because they were “insurgents” they never had the responsibility of trying to actually fix things themselves… So they got to ‘burn it all down.”

Right now, just as when Biden was finally certified in the wee hours of January 6th, or when it became clear the mid-term elections were not going to be a “Red Tsunami,” it’s easy to breath a sigh of relief that we dodged another bullet. Yet and still, at the end of the day, this episode is just another slip down the slope of normalizing MAGA’s relentless sabotage of the nation’s ability to function as a democratic concern. Moving forward it’s business as usual for Republicans to threaten to destroy the existing global order based on the outlandish lie that they have always sought fiscal constraint (Trump’s Republican Party contributed $7.8 trillion in deficits over only four years.) Moreover, the MAGA bloc who impel such insanity will never accept whatever ransom is finally agreed to as adequate to satisfy their demands. That is how nihilists operate.

The reprieve Biden just signed runs out on New Year’s Day, 2025. Expect the issue to be front and center during the 2024 Presidential campaign. Each of the two GOP primary frontrunners – who together account for, oh, about 100% of poll respondent preferences – made clear defaulting on the US debt would lose them not a moment’s slumber. Biden, if his national address is any indication. appears content to limit his messaging on the whole trauma to its happy ending and his boundless faith in bipartisanship. Meanwhile, it’s doubtful most “undecideds” will have strong opinions one way or the other on the entire issue by then. Better pray gas prices are down and Old Joe stays on his feet. The ruin of normalizing nihilist chaos. BC

Since my son’s mighty struggle with the anxious vagaries of adult autism began, Mother’s Day in our household has become a simple and straightforward affair.  Forget a lavish family outing to some expensive bistro. Counterproductive nonsense. What my wife needs and appreciates most is respite, a few uninterrupted hours of solitude to do whatever she wishes. Lord knows she deserves it. 

And so this weekend my plan was to provide at least two blocks of quality respite, each several hours long. On Saturday afternoon I took Luke with me to see a buddy of mine over in Maryland. Between a traffic-impinged drive across the beltway, the leisurely visit in his basement recreation area, complete with pool and ping pong, and a stop at our favorite Italian spot in Bethesda on the way home to pick up Sue’s beloved fried zucchini and eggplant parmigiana, four hours of solitary bliss was provided. 

Sunday morning I usually take Luke to his hockey practice in Arlington. Since he loves Silver Diner, I decided to include breakfast at its recently opened location right down the way from Kettler Ice Rink, where the “Cool Cats” go through their paces. This itinerary would yield Sue another three hours of quality morning-paper, coffee-enhanced relaxation. 

The only potential fly in the ointment was the brunch throngs certain to converge for the occasion. Luckily, despite maximum capacity and a substantial wait for booths and tables throughout a large dining area with its impressively high ceilings, the marble counter directly in front of the kitchen had a couple of stools available to whoever claimed them. With little need to review menu options I quickly ordered Luke’s usual eggs, sausage, bacon and home fries platter, while I got a side of whole wheat toast to have with the two over easy eggs he would not want. 

With our order placed and the prompt arrival of Luke’s hot “rosy tea,” we had time on our hands. My son is anything but a conversationalist, so my gaze strayed to the area known in industry parlance as “the pass” where all food servers converge to pick up their orders, delivered by the kitchen and dispatched by the MVP of any high-volume restaurant operation, the expeditor. Without a quality expeditor there exists only state-of-nature chaos where standards suffer. Organization is near non-existent, food sits unattended getting cold, mistakes go unnoticed, and general bedlam ensues as servers fight to claim platters others refuse to yield. It is not hyperbole to say a popular eatery is only as good as its expeditor. 

It’s hard to imagine one better than the woman calling the shots during our visit. Small, attractive, perhaps in her late-20s or early-30s, and like almost every other member of the restaurant’s busy staff, Hispanic, she was the poetry of excellence, unquestioned expertise in motion, fully in charge of her domain. Cheerful but authoritative, graceful but bluntly efficient, she was a constant blur of multi-tasking. Any server shying away from running others’ food she promptly enlisted, her stature more than enough to compel cooperation. 

No order the proficient kitchen staff produced escaped her focus, any mistake guaranteeing a terse rejoinder in Spanish while she garnished the other plates to be sent out. At that moment it was hard to imagine anyone, anywhere doing their job better. Likely a mother herself, there she was, tirelessly working for one, two, perhaps even three generations of other mothers who dotted the dining room’s tables and booths as their grateful families feted them. I wanted to get her name, but tarried until Luke was ready to go; and when he’s ready, he goes. I’ll call her “Isabelle.”

One thing is as certain as me never again requiring a comb; the shiny, brand new and -judging by its overflow Mother’s Day customer head count – successful Arlington, VA Silver Diner would never have opened its doors if it relied solely on a “White American” workforce. By my count there was all of one caucasian worker during what was sure to be the week’s busiest shift… a stern older waitress, who brought to mind the image of hardscrabble diners past, a solitary Flo among Angelinas and Eduardos. Diversity was not this Silver Diner’s strength; it was its very existence. 

Mother’s Day in the US dates back to before the 20th century. There seems nothing more American than able, hard working men and women, without fanfare, doing their best to facilitate a celebration for mothers to enjoy. Conversely, nothing is uglier and more inimical to how this nation brands itself and defines its exceptionalism by than ignoring such qualities to condemn people because they are different and you’ve decided to stamp them with the idiotic excuse they might be “illegal.” 

Today America is divided between those who appreciate the former without qualification, and those who embrace the latter because Fox/AM and the first President it got elected disdained such qualities to the point they have become nothing more than components of their hateful intolerance template. 

MAGA nihilism is the refusal to accept that the Post-War II world WE were the principle architect of is interdependent and dynamic. Nations who cut themselves off to go it alone only suffer and fall behind. Countries can no longer afford to inhibit heterogeneity if they are to compete effectively. The stone cold fact is that America needs every Isabelle it can get. Any political party whose members’ ambitions rely on the detestable zero-sum lie that her “American dream” comes at the expense of more “genuine” or deserving recipients is an existential threat to which little said or done in confronting it is an overreaction. 

As we barrel toward 2024 with a Republican Party consumed by Trumpist bigotry, and with nothing to offer but its creator as the favorite to once again relentlessly incite disunion under its banner, here is an important question to consider: is MAGA xenophobic nihilism the last gasp of a dying generation, whose children will abandon and move past as it goes into the dirt; or is it a lasting legacy of mothers and grandmothers who abided and embraced the hatred of men and passed it on to their offspring? We are all our mother’s children. BC

“When television is good, nothing – not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers – nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse.” 

Newton Minow

It would be hard to overstate the influence Newton Minow had on how America was informed in the television age before cable’s limitless expansion of boob tube options. Fully committed to the idea that control of information conveyed from a platform that reached millions bestowed an awesome responsibility to serve the public interest and ensure truth is protected, Minow left a determinative mark on US communication policy.

Beginning when he took over the chairmanship of the Federal Communications Commission in 1961 as one of JFK’s “best and brightest,” Minow spent a career making sure the power of news and information remained a neutral commodity in service to the common goals of the democratic process. Everything from League of Women Voter Presidential debates to the existence of Sesame Street, indeed PBS itself, owes to Minow’s personal mission statement that democratic government bore an onus of preventing television from becoming what he labeled a “vast wasteland”. Minow understood before anyone else how dangerous information for profit was, and throughout his career he fought to build a wall between news and entertainment. To know and understand Newton Minow is to see clearly the fatal missteps America has taken and how far we have allowed his worst fears to be realized. 

Few entrusted to serve  as elected US officials have uttered more public stupidity than Marjorie Taylor Greene. Elected to Congress in 2020 by voters in a Georgia district who, as Lincoln Project cofounder Steve Schmidt very charitably puts it, aren’t “pulling their weight” as citizens, Greene decided from the outset her victory was a mandate for 24/7 Twitter activity.

Cursed with an inability to process initial brain impulses before presenting them as communication, Greene ruminates for public consumption as she breathes, literally more as a function of the anatomical nervous system than any organized thought patterns. An OG QAnon conspiracist, Greene traffics in everything ranging from the ridiculously inane – Hunter Biden as a sex trafficker – to cruel cowardice – stochastic terrorism toward the LBGT community – to overt sedition with one fictitious diatribe after another in service to Trump’s cult of the Big Lie and the actual rioters who attacked democracy on 1/6. While Democrats held sway in the House Greene was rightly sanctioned and marginalized on the Hill for her constant unhinged stream of consciousness. However, the GOP leadership not only abided her, but courted her, promising relevance when control shifted their way. 

In October of last year Fox’s media shill Howard Kurtz penned a column about how MTG had “positioned herself” to become a “power player” when Republicans took control of the House the following month. He pulled out all the stops gushing about the relevancy coming Greene’s way. 

Her Twitter gibberish became “blistering attacks on the Democrats,” responsible for Greene’s success in “building a national brand by becoming one of the party’s most controversial voices.” Of course, Kurtz dipped his ladle into the false equivalence well and likened Democrat Alexandra Ocasio Cortez to Greene, citing “similar groundless statements” that he failed to provide any example of. Finally, he proclaimed Greene’s own assessment of how her stature was set to skyrocket in return for support of Kevin McCarthy as money in the bank her stardom was nigh.

“…he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway. And if he doesn’t, they’re going to be very unhappy about it” 

Indeed, nearly six months after McCarthy received the gavel in round 15, Greene is in fact far closer to the inner circle of House Republican leadership than the back benches of the chamber, despite frequent episodes of erratic behavior. With the catastrophe of debt default now seemingly a GOP priority, Greene just last week tweeted her feelings about reaching across the aisle: 

“We need to remember exactly who the Democrats are.

They would have loved to put all of us in jail.

They want to fundamentally change America.

Republicans should never forget the enemy we are dealing with. You can’t work with Communists.”

How did we reach this nadir in our governance? How could someone so wretched actually be re-elected to Congress? In the early 80s a similar incarnation may have harassed you in the airport for money, part of Lyndon LaRouche’s band of bizarre cultists. In the late 60s she may have found her way to Spahn Ranch in California and joined Charles Manson’s band of odious followers. Back then the US media landscape was shepherded by Newton Minow or Katherine Graham and Ben Bradley of the Washington Post, or Walter Cronkite – responsible people guided by a set of institutional standards. In that world she would have stayed where she rightly belonged… on the farthest fringes of American society, irrelevant to any but her fellow freaks, part of the affordable cost a free society pays for freedom. 

But that was before TV talk show producer turned GOP political operative Roger Ailes convinced an Australian multi-millionaire named Rupert Murdoch that a vast wasteland of US white grievance and resentment did exist, a “silent majority” of everyday Ozzie and Harrietts, many of whom grew up equally beholden to the stars and bars of the Confederacy as to Old Glory. From coast to coast, Ailes contended, millions chafed at the bit as they quietly endured the indignity of social and cultural progress they despised. The money to be made validating, even ennobling, their intolerance was uncountable. And so a “fair and balanced” information for profit operation was born. 

Ailes wasn’t the only one who recognized the opportunities this bloc of malcontents afforded. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, a Midwest blowhard from a wealthy and deep-rooted Missouri family, who dropped out of college – according to his mother, “he just flunked everything… he was only interested in radio” – to become a DJ, was convinced there was an audience for his far-right monologues. 

Limbaugh began his “talk” format in 1984. What that actually meant until his death last year was that he did most all of the talking. From the start, his show’s content never changed, a relentless rehashing of themes meant mostly to vilify those responsible for “political correctness,” a label he has from the start conflated with a progressive “elite” and its sinister agenda to rain tyranny and persecution on the US heartland. Meanwhile, throughout the decades, Limbaugh would pioneer and perfect the art of manipulating his studio resources to make certain those who called in with opposing views never stood a chance. 

In 1987 he was given the “keys to the kingdom” when the FCC abolished perhaps one of Newton Minow’s most important legacies… the fairness doctrine. This now permitted AM radio stations, eager to reconfigure their profitability models around Limbaugh’s format, to air opinion without offering opposing viewpoints. Limbaugh would go to his grave lauding Ronald Reagan for, as one editorialist put it: “tearing down this wall” and freeing him “from the East Germany of liberal media domination.” 

Since then a devastating 24/7 symmetry has developed between daily right-wing AM radio extremists like Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Fox News, who long ago decided to do away with any pretense of separation between its audience and theirs, employing the very same provocateurs as nightly “news personalities.” 

It’s true Fox has always had a real news division comprised of genuine journalists obliged to actually report the news. However, as emails between Fox News executives and prime time lineup propagandists such as Tucker Carlson, Hannity and Laura Ingraham – made public as part of the discovery process during Dominion Voting Systems’ massive liability action against Fox – clarify, the network has never had much patience for facts that compromise audience share. The unearthed emails lay bare what anyone paying attention recognizes, that the news division’s principle purpose has long been to provide cover and credibility to the constant deluge of nihilist resentment its wretched core consumers demand. 

Fox/AM is now a multi-media colossus, stomping its massive footprint throughout the internet while subjugating one of America’s major political parties to its beck and call. While the gist of its grievance  narrative has never really changed, Fox’s inability to control the megalomania of the first President it created has forced it to cater to a cult of personality most of its audience are enraptured by.

Moreover, after decades of being the only game in town, Fox now faces competition from Newsmax and OAN, networks with no qualms about being unapologetic depots of Trumpist propaganda and conspiracy conjecture. Thus, the political class of MAGA nihilists enjoys unconditional Fox/AM credence. Creator or creation? Egg or chicken? It hardly matters at this point. 

Newton Minow died last week at the age of 97. He was one of the final remnants of a cadre of public servants energized by the common good emerging technology could foster, yet cognizant of the damage its power was capable of wrecking if allowed to be deployed by the unscrupulous. He did his best to protect us from ourselves. Nobody who watches Marjorie Taylor Greene earn her 164K salary can feel he succeeded. The price of freedom has become very difficult to afford. BC