On the Adapt Or Die subject, I was back out on the overpass during drive-time Friday afternoon with another sign (above). I used a smaller version while standing downtown with some veterans last week. One remarked that a large box of Cheerios costs over $6. I checked that aisle in my neighborhood grocery store. He was right.
I had some observations last week when the sign I held read “A DECENT LIFE SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD.” I simply added this week’s message to the back of the reused 24″x36″ corrugated plastic campaign sign. This meant the “Decent Life” message was visible to pedestrians and cars passing behind me on the overpass. (It’s a low-traffic street.)
Traffic was lighter and cars driving faster than last week, so the interactions with “Groceries Cheaper” were fewer than the week before when traffic was stop-and-go. There were still fist-pumps, waves, and thumbs-ups from the interstate. There was also a double middle finger from one driver who didn’t appreciate being reminded what she’d voted for in 2024 vs. what she actually got.
But it was the reaction to “Decent Life” on the overpass that continued to surprise me. It came from younger voters (assuming they do). One young guy stopped and asked me to reposition so he could take a picture of that side. (“Hard” had been partially obscured.)
Two young women walked by and said they liked “Decent Life” (as two women last week had). I spun the “Groceries Cheaper” side around. They liked it too but preferred “Decent Life.” Multiple drivers passing over the bridge honked their approval of “Decent Life.”
I’m not trying to compete with the tested messages my friend Anat crafts, or even recommending “Decent Life” to candidates. I’m not a messaging expert, just limited to four to seven words large enough to be read from moving cars 75-100 feet away. I’m interested in “Sign Guy” coming off as a trusted messenger to a mixed automotive audience before moving on to edgier or more niche messages. It seems younger residents connect with how uncertain their life prospects are in the 21st century.
Before evangelizing this low-voting cohort or preaching the evils of MAGA , if Democrats ever attempt rebranding themselves, they might want to consider telling younger voters that they understand their struggles by mirroring their concerns back to them. Seems I somehow did that in seven words.
Digby commented the other day that “woke” is losing its steam as a culture war force. Woke is so tired that Christopher Rufo declared a jihad against Cracker Barrel over its CEO (a woman) removing the man leaning against a barrel from the restaurant’s updated logo.
A Facebook commentary about the rebrand from digital warrior Rachel Hurley popped up in my feed. I was only partway through before, speaking of “time capsules,” the political implications struck me:
If you think Cracker Barrel made a mistake by changing their logo and redecorating their restaurants – you really don’t understand marketing at all.
While Donald Trump Jr. is having a meltdown on social media and conservative pundits are calling it “brand suicide,” CEO Julie Masino is probably sitting in her office with a smirk, watching her $700 million strategy unfold exactly as planned. The pearl-clutching over a minimalist logo redesign tells you everything you need to know about why Cracker Barrel was dying a slow death in the first place.
Let’s get real about what was actually happening at Cracker Barrel before Masino showed up. Traffic was down 16% year-to-date. The brand ranked “middle of the pack” against competitors in food, experience, value, and convenience. They were hemorrhaging market share, particularly at dinner. Their average customer was getting older and their relevance was disappearing faster than white sausage gravy on a hot biscuit.
The people screaming about tradition seem to have conveniently forgotten that tradition doesn’t pay the bills when your target demographic is literally dying off. Cracker Barrel’s core customer base has been aging out for years, and the brand’s stubborn refusal to evolve was killing them softly. You can’t run a restaurant chain on nostalgia alone – just ask Howard Johnson’s how that worked out.
Masino didn’t stumble into this job yesterday. She spent over five years as president at Taco Bell, where she helped grow one of the most successful fast-casual brands in America. Before that, she cut her teeth at Starbucks, Mattel, and a handful of other companies that actually understand how to stay relevant in a changing marketplace. This isn’t some corporate suit making random changes – this is a seasoned executive with 30 years of experience executing a calculated turnaround strategy.
The logo change isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s a signal. When you strip away the man sitting by the barrel and go with clean, modern typography, you’re telling potential customers that this isn’t your grandfather’s restaurant anymore. You’re opening the aperture to younger families, millennials with kids, and Gen Z diners who might have written off Cracker Barrel as a place for road trip pit stops and, well, old crackers.
The restaurant industry is brutal. Casual dining chains are fighting tooth and nail for every customer, and the ones that refuse to adapt get left behind. Remember when Applebee’s was struggling a few years back? They didn’t save themselves by doubling down on their 1990s aesthetic – they modernized their menu, updated their restaurants, and started targeting younger demographics with late-night specials and delivery options. I mean, their food still sucks – but at least people don’t feel like they’re eating in a 90s time capsule. Believe it or not, new and clean trumps old and dirty every time!
The irony of the conservative backlash is that it’s exactly the kind of free publicity Masino probably couldn’t have bought. Every angry tweet and Facebook rant is amplifying Cracker Barrel’s rebrand to millions of people who might not have noticed otherwise. The controversy is getting them more media coverage than their marketing budget could have purchased, and most of that coverage is reaching exactly the demographics they’re trying to attract.
Meanwhile, the people threatening boycotts are the same customers who were already eating there less frequently anyway. You think a 70-year-old is going to stop going to Cracker Barrel because they changed their logo? They’re still serving the same biscuits and gravy. The gift shop still has the same tchotchkes. The rocking chairs are still on the porch. The only thing that changed was they got new tables and chairs, and stuff on the walls – and a graphic design element that most people probably couldn’t have described accurately before this week.
Smart brands understand that evolution isn’t betrayal – it’s survival. Coca-Cola has changed its logo multiple times. McDonald’s went from red and yellow to muted browns and greens. Even Starbucks dropped the word “coffee” from their logo when they wanted to expand beyond beverages. These companies didn’t abandon their core identity – they refined it for contemporary audiences.
The real test isn’t whether some angry customers complain on social media. The real test is whether Cracker Barrel can attract new customers while keeping enough of their existing base to grow revenue. And given that their average check is $15 compared to the industry average of $27, they have plenty of room to experiment with their customer mix.
Masino is betting that the future of Cracker Barrel lies with customers who care more about good food and value than whether there’s a cartoon character in the logo. Given her track record and the alternative of slow decline, that seems like a pretty smart bet. But hey, if you want to start your own restaurant chain that never changes anything, feel free to open up a time capsule diner and see how that works out for you.
the brand’s stubborn refusal to evolve was killing them softly
Smart brands understand that evolution isn’t betrayal – it’s survival
In response to last week’s New York Times article about Democrats’ alleged “voter registration crisis” (gift link), I published my own FB commentary:
This NYT article on Democrats’ “voter registration crisis” is causing a lot of consternation, but I believe it misrepresents what’s going on.
Based largely on new registrations, this NYT article portrays Republicans as gaining in registration on Democrats. In NC that’s not so. Democrats are losing registrations to independents (unaffiliated in our terminology).
At the beginning of 2004, our NC electorate was D: 48%, R: 35%, and UNA: 18%.
Presently it is D: 31%, R: 30%, UNA: 38%
Both Dems and Republicans have lost ground to independents in NC. The D to R gap has narrowed significantly, but that’s not Rs gaining on Dems. Granted, Dems have lost far more ground to Indys than Rs. There are many reasons for this, including a cultural shift among young voters against “joining” stuffy orgs like political parties. They keep their options open and also vote far less than people over 45.
In NC, UNAs vote against Dems statewide. But the Dem split of that vote improved from only 42% voting D in 2020 to 46% voting D in 2024.
If I could get people in Raleigh to listen, I could A) identify 100s of precincts where UNAs vote heavily blue but turn out far less than Dems, and B) demonstrate how they might use that data to focus their voter registration efforts in precincts where eligible but unregistered persons (EBUs) are highly likely to vote D.
But Dems’ voter registration approach remains Stone Age. We send volunteers out to farmers’ markets, street corners, and festivals with registration clipboards to accost random passersby. They don’t target their efforts on likely unregistered persons in friendly neighborhoods. They might but don’t.
Note: a cultural shift among young voters against “joining” stuffy orgs like political parties.
Democrats need a rebrand. You know it. I know it. How many state and D.C. electeds hanging on past their “Best by” dates know it?
I’m guessing that the DNC can’t match Julie Masino’s $6.7m in total compensation. What a shame.
It’s de riguer these days to say “satire is dead” (usually preceded by a resigned shrug and appended with a world-weary sigh). Barely a week goes by without someone publishing another Voice of Doom think piece entitled “Is Satire Really Dead?” (or a variation thereof).
If the 2007 Super Bowl commercials and ever-escalating voter participation in shows like American Idol are any indication, the dumbed-down “future” of America depicted in Mike Judge’s lightweight allegory, Idiocracy, is perhaps only belaboring the obvious. […]
Well…the America of “2505” is not so much dystopian, as it is dys-stupido. As the droll narrator explains, evolution has favored those who reproduce the most (you know…morons!). The #1 TV show is called “Ow My Balls”, and the #1 film is “Ass” (kind of says it all). […]
If you’ve surrendered to the premise at this point in the film, you won’t flinch when the President, a former WWF champion (not such a stretch, considering former and current guvs Ventura and Schwarzenegger) ends up appointing Joe his Secretary of the Interior.
Judge isn’t really saying anything new here; beyond pointing out that we live in a dumbed-down culture (yawn). There are a few inspired moments; particularly the keen observation that the progressive reduction of America’s average IQ is directly proportionate to the ever-increasing square footage of the average Costco store.
There is a bit of irony I can’t get past; it was Mike Judge who created MTV’s Beavis and Butthead, which one might argue played its own part in the “dumbing down” of a generation that came of age in the 90’s…
Hindsight being 20/20, I suppose you could argue that history has proven me to be the ass, and Mike Judge the gifted seer (in my own defense-back in 2007, how many of us could have visualized the Bizarro World of 2025?). At any rate, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Idiocracy is the film most frequently cited as a harbinger of what we’re living through now (although I stand by my original two-and-a-half star rating, harrumph).
Then again, social satire always reflects its time; and the best ones reveal universal truths that transcend their time (prescient by nature). So I would suggest that satire is, in fact, not “dead”…it’s just resting. Here are 10 personal favorites that offer proof of life.
The Graduate – “Aw gee, Mrs. Robinson.” It could be argued that those were the four words in this 1967 Mike Nichols film that made Dustin Hoffman a star. With hindsight being 20/20, it’s impossible to imagine any other actor in the role of hapless college grad Benjamin Braddock…even if Hoffman (30 at the time) was a bit long in the tooth to be playing a 21-year-old character.
Poor Benjamin just wants to take a nice summer breather before facing adult responsibilities, but his pushy parents would rather he focus on career advancement immediately, if not sooner. Little do his parents realize that in their enthusiasm, they’ve inadvertently pushed their son right into the sack with randy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), wife of his Dad’s business partner (the original cougar?). Things get complicated after Benjamin meets his lover’s daughter (Katharine Ross).
This is one of those “perfect storm” creative collaborations: Nichols’ skilled direction, Calder Willingham and Buck Henry’s witty screenplay, fantastic performances from the cast, and one of the best soundtracks ever (by Simon and Garfunkel). Some of the 60s trappings haven’t dated well, but the incisive social satire has retained all its sharp teeth. Look for Henry in a cameo as a room clerk.
Happiness –It’s difficult to describe the sensibilities of writer-director Todd Solondz, which tend to hover somewhere near the intersection of Wes Anderson and David Lynch. To wit: There is something oddly endearing about the characters in this black comedy…yet be warned there are some very, very, very bad things going on beneath these blue suburban skies (this ain’t Penny Lane).
In a setup reminiscent of Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters, Solondz centers his story on the travails of a trio of adult siblings (Jane Adams, Lara Flynn Boyle and Cynthia Stevenson), their squabbling parents (Ben Gazzarra and Louise Lasser), and a number of friends, neighbors and co-workers in their orbit (believe me-the similarities end there).
The three bravest performances in the film (and that’s saying a lot) belong to the late Seymour Hoffman (in one of his more underrated turns), Dylan Baker, and Camryn Manheim. Also in the cast: Jared Harris, Elizabeth Ashley, Molly Shannon, and Jon Lovitz (Lovitz nearly steals the movie in the memorably audacious opening scene).
Admittedly, this film may not be everyone’s cup of tea (be prepared for that “cringe” factor) but if you’re OK with network narratives involving nothing but completely fucked-up individuals, this is your ticket. It’s a veritable merry-go-round of modern dysfunction.
Little Murders – This dark, dark comedy from 1971 is one of my all-time favorite films. It was directed by Alan Arkin and adapted by Jules Feiffer from his own self-described “post-assassination play” (referring to the then-relatively recent murders of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy). That said, it is not wholly political; but it is sociopolitical (I see it as the pre-cursor to Paddy Chayefsky’s Network).
Elliot Gould is at the peak of his Elliot Gould-ness as a nihilistic (and seemingly brain-dead) free-lance photographer who is essentially browbeaten into a love affair with an effervescent sunny side-up young woman (Marcia Rodd) who is bound and determined to snap him out of his torpor. The story follows the travails of this oil and water couple as they slog through a dystopian New York City chock full o’ nuts, urban blight, indifference and random shocking acts of senseless violence (you know…New York City in the 70s).
There are so many memorable vignettes, and nearly every cast member gets a Howard Beale-worthy monologue on how fucked-up American society is (and remember…this was 1971). Disturbingly, it remains relevant as ever. But it is very funny. No, seriously. The cast includes Vincent Gardenia, Elizabeth Wilson, Doris Roberts, Lou Jacobi (who has the best monologue) and Donald Sutherland. Arkin plays an eccentric homicide investigator-and he’s a hoot.
Lost in America – Released at the height of Reaganomics, this 1985 gem can now be viewed in hindsight as a spot-on satirical smack down of the Yuppie cosmology that shaped the Decade of Greed. Director/co-writer Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty portray a 30-something, upwardly mobile couple who quit their high-paying jobs, liquidate their assets, buy a Winnebago, and hit the road with a “nest egg” of $145,000 to find themselves. Their goals are nebulous (“we’ll touch Indians”). Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, the “egg” is soon off the table, and the couple find themselves on the wrong end of “trickle down”, to Brooks’ chagrin. Like most Brooks films, it is as painfully funny as it is to watch it (I consider him the founding father of the Larry David/Ricky Gervais school of “cringe comedy”).
The Loved One – In 1965, this black comedy/social satire was billed as “The motion picture with something to offend everyone.” By today’s standards, it’s relatively tame (but still pretty sick). Robert Morse plays a befuddled Englishman struggling to process the madness of southern California, where he has come for an extended visit at the invitation of his uncle (Sir John Gielgud) who works for a Hollywood studio.
Along the way, he falls in love with a beautiful but mentally unstable mortuary cosmetician (Anjanette Comer), gets a job at a pet cemetery, and basically reacts to all the various whack-jobs he encounters. The wildly eclectic cast includes Jonathan Winters (in three roles), Robert Morley, Roddy McDowell, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Liberace, Paul Williams and Rod Steiger (as Mr. Joyboy!). Tony Richardson directed; the screenplay was adapted by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood from Evelyn Waugh’s novel.
Network – Back in 1976, this satire made us chuckle with its outrageous conceit-the story of a “fictional” TV network who hits the ratings g-spot with a nightly newscast turned variety hour, anchored by a self-proclaimed “angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisy of our time”.
Nearly 50 years later, it plays like a documentary (denouncing the hypocrisy of our time). The prescience of the infinitely quotable Paddy Chayefsky screenplay goes deeper than prophesying the onslaught of news-as-entertainment (and “reality” television)-it’s a blueprint for our age.
In the opening scene, drunken buddies Peter Finch (as Howard Beale, respected news anchor soon to suffer a mental breakdown and morph into “the mad prophet of the airwaves”) and William Holden (as Max Shumacher, head of the news division for the “UBS” network) riff on an imaginary pitch for a news rating booster-“Real live suicides, murders, executions-we’ll call it The Death Hour.”
The most famous scene is Beale’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” tirade, a call to arms (borne from a “cleansing moment of clarity”) for viewers to turn off the tube, break the spell of their collective stupor, literally stick their heads out the window and make their voices heard. It’s a memorable and inspired set piece.
For me, the most defining scene is between Beale and Arthur Jensen (CEO of “CCA”-wonderfully played by Ned Beatty). Jensen is calling Beale on the carpet for publicly exposing a potential buyout of CCA by shadowy Arab investors. Cognizant that Beale is crazy as a loon, yet still a cash cow for the network, Jensen hands him a new set of stone tablets from which to preach-the “corporate cosmology of Arthur Jensen”. It is screenwriter Chayefsky’s finest monologue.
Faye Dunaway steals all of her scenes as Diana Christenson, the soulless, ratings obsessed head of development who schemes to turn Beale’s mental illness into revenue (“You’re television incarnate, Diana,” Holden’s character tells her.) With its “evergreen” relevancy, I think Network will stand as Lumet’s most enduring film.
The New Age –Writer-director Michael Tolkin’s 1994 black comedy was the most scathing indictment of the American dream gone Sonoma catalog since Albert Brooks’ Lost in America (see review above). The New Age re-teams the Tracy & Hepburn of indie filmdom, Peter Weller and Judy Davis, who played the whacked-out couple in David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch. Instead of heading off in an RV to go “find themselves”, Judy and Peter decide to “simplify” their over-extended lifestyle by going for broke and opening a Beverly Hills boutique. Hilarity ensues…right? The film turns into a droll stroll through Yuppie Hell as we helplessly watch the couple plunge headlong in a tandem midlife crisis. Along the way, southern California trendies are lampooned, recalling Bill Persky’s 1980 comedy Serial (which aimed its barbs at the affluent Marin County set). Excellent supporting performances; the biggest surprise is Adam “Batman” West, who does a priceless turn as an aging Lothario.
Rancho Deluxe – This criminally underappreciated 1975 Frank Perry comedy-drama sports a marvelously droll original screenplay by novelist Thomas McGuane. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as modern-day cattle rustlers in Montana. Loose and episodic…just like life on the range, I’d reckon (with the odd bit of toking up and kinky sex tossed in just for giggles). Wonderful ensemble work from a cast that includes Elizabeth Ashley (“C’mon, goddamn it! I want Gothic ranch action around here! I want some desire under the elms!”), Slim Pickens, Clifton James, Charlene Dallas, Patti D’Arbanville, Richard Bright and the late Harry Dean Stanton (memorable as a love-struck cow hand). Willam A. Fraker’s cinematography shines.
Shampoo – Sex, politics, and the shallow SoCal lifestyle are mercilessly skewered in Hal Ashby’s classic 1975 satire. Warren Beatty (who co-scripted with Robert Towne) plays a restless, over-sexed hairdresser with commitment issues regarding the three major women in his life (excellent performances from Lee Grant, Goldie Hawn and Julie Christie).Beatty allegedly based his character of “George” on his close friend, celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring (one of the victims of the infamous 1969 Tate-LaBianca slayings).
This was one of the first films to satirize the 1960s zeitgeist with some degree of historical detachment. The late great cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs infuses the L.A. backdrop with a gauziness that appropriately mirrors the protagonist’s fuzzy way of dealing with adult responsibilities.
To Die For – Gus Van Sant’s 1995 mockumentary centers on an ambitious young woman (Nicole Kidman, in one of her best performances) who aspires to elevate herself from “weather girl” at a small market TV station to star news anchor, posthaste. A calculating sociopath from the word go, she marries into a wealthy family, but decides to discard her husband (Matt Dillon) the nanosecond he asks her to consider putting her career on hold so they can start a family (discard…with extreme prejudice).
Buck Henry based his screenplay on Joyce Maynard’s true crime book about the Pamela Smart case (the obvious difference being that Smart was a teacher and not an aspiring media star, although it could be argued that during her high-profile murder trial, she did in fact become one).
The outstanding supporting cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, Illeana Douglas, Alison Foland, Dan Hedaya, and Wayne Knight, with brief appearances by Buck Henry, George Segal (uncredited) and a cameo by director David Cronenberg.
Perhaps you thought that Trump’s idiotic rally blather about wind power was just for the MAGA rubes. You would be wrong:
The Trump administration on Friday ordered that all construction stop on Revolution Wind, a $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is already mostly built.
The 65-turbine project had obtained all necessary permits from the Biden administration, and nearly 70 percent of the turbines have been installed. The developers behind the project had said it was on track to produce enough electricity for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut by next spring.
Matthew Giacona, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, issued a letter on Friday to Orsted, the Danish company building the wind farm, ordering it to “halt all ongoing activities” because of unspecified issues.
“In particular, BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests in the United States,” Mr. Giacona wrote, adding that Orsted “may not resume activities” until the agency has completed a review of the project.
Why? Well, he’s making America great again.
Trump: "We're doing coal. I don't want windmills destroying our place. I don't want these solar things where they go for miles and they cover up half a mountain and they're ugly as hell." pic.twitter.com/tw720XzIIE
Trump: They are not fired by wind, by the way, because wind doesn't work. It destroys everything. It looks horrible. It's a very expensive form of energy. We are not doing wind. We are going back to fossil fuel. We can’t be foolish pic.twitter.com/fqc5MSw2x5
It’s unbelievably stupid for him to do it and even worse for the rationale he gives for it. Now it’s true that he’s in the pocket of the oil companies so there’s that. But there is every reason to believe that he is sincere about his hatred for wind and solar.
He came to loathe wind when they wouldn’t remove the turbines outside his Scottish golf course and he is obsessed with imposing his tacky, ugly aesthetics on the whole country. This is a man who thinks there’s a big valve that can release all the “water from Canada” to California. Why would we doubt that he honestly thinks that wind and solar are too “ugly” for us to use in the United States?
Bill Maher warns of a "slow-moving coup — masked police, troops in DC, federalized forces setting up a permanent security state so even if Dems win, Trump won’t give up power.
On the latest episode of HBO’s Real Time, the host and longtime foe of the president took some time to recall his recent visit with Trump and Kid Rock. Following his trip, Maher came to the conclusion that Trump was actually “gracious and measured,” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.”
“Let me first say that to all the people who treated this like it was some kind of summit meeting, you’re ridiculous. Like I was gonna sign a treaty or something. I have no power,” Maher began. “I’m a fucking comedian and he’s the most powerful leader in the world. I’m not the leader of anything, except maybe a contingent of centrist-minded people who think there’s got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.”
Yeah. ok:
After noting that the president gave him several MAGA hats, he continued, “The guy I met is not the person who the night before the dinner shit tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this was a bad idea and what a deranged asshole I was. I read it and thought, ‘Oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house.’ But when I got there, that guy wasn’t living there.”
As an example, a seemingly surprised Maher said that Trump laughs. “I’ve never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including at himself, and it’s not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it,” he said.
I’ll let Larry David comment on this ridiculous blather in a NY Times Op-ed he wrote after Maher’s pilgrimage:.
Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side — even if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity.
Two weeks later, I found myself on the front steps of the Old Chancellery and was led into an opulent living room, where a few of the Führer’s most vocal supporters had gathered: Himmler, Göring, Leni Riefenstahl and the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII. We talked about some of the beautiful art on the walls that had been taken from the homes of Jews. But our conversation ended abruptly when we heard loud footsteps coming down the hallway. Everyone stiffened as Hitler entered the room.
He was wearing a tan suit with a swastika armband and gave me an enthusiastic greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly, it was a warmer greeting than I normally get from my parents, and it was accompanied by a slap on my back. I found the whole thing quite disarming. I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as un-Führer-like. That amused him to no end, and I realized I’d never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning.
Man threatens to “call ICE” on restaurant worker—because food didn’t come fast enough. “Does anybody here speak English?” man yells—slamming fist. “I do,” cashier says—who obviously speaks perfect English. Wife in car hides her face in shame—so does dog in her lap. “Look, she is really embarrassed by you,” employee points out—after he had just shouted to his wife to “call the cops.”
He seems nice.
There’s a lot of this stuff on social media these days. It’s possible that some of it’s fake. You really can’t believe anything you see these days. But it rings true doesn’t it? Trump is this close to signing an executive order organizing a civilian militia to hunt down anyone who doesn’t look like a “real American.”
I’m sure you have noticed that the right wing is now commonly and casually referring to its political opponents as communists and socialists. I guess their previous use of the word “liberal” as an epithet just doesn’t have the same punch it used to have.
Miller: The voices you hear out there, those crazy communists, they have no roots, no connections to this city. They have no families they're raising in the city. They have no one they’re sending to school in the city, no jobs in this city, no connections to the community at all. pic.twitter.com/BwwD7ZchY8
Tom Nichols: “I remember when conservatives used to rail against this kind of thing.”
Conservative economist Jessica Riedl: “If Obama or Biden had done this, the right would have lost its mind. There’d be another ‘tea party’ movement complete with slogans about socialism. But I get it, the ‘intellectual consistency’ ship sailed a long time ago.”
Conservative talk show host Erick Erickson: “So many of you were opposed to Mamdani wanting to seize the means of production in New York City, but are totally fine with Trump’s Commerce Secretary wanting the US government to become the largest shareholder of Intel. This is socialism with an R next to its name.”
National Review’s Charles CW Cooke: “Preposterous move. If Obama had done this, so many of the people defending it would have correctly condemned it as overreach and interference and ‘picking winners and losers.’”
Republican Senator Thom Tillis: “I don’t care if it’s a dollar or a billion dollar stake in an American company, that starts feeling like a semi-state owned enterprise, à la CCCP… You’re going to have to explain to me how this reconciles with free market capitalism.”
Republican Senator Rand Paul: “If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.”
1. Bad for Intel’s long-term viability, as politics, not commercial considerations, increasingly drive its decisions. (SOEs are notoriously slow, bloated, & unproductive.) Foreign govts might also target it.
2. Bad for Intel’s competitors who are suddenly competing against it AND Uncle Sam for customers, capital, etc. (and not just chip production bc they do a lot of
3. Bad for Intel’s customers who now must fear (and may face pressure to) they’ll be pressured/forced to buy Intel’s products, regardless of their merit. (Intel is STILL struggling to make a top-end chip.) This is in turn bad for the US tech sector overall.
4. Bad for US companies that took govt subsidies (CHIPs/IRA/etc): Are they next? Should they return the money? Will they preempt via political moves/lobbying? (Buyer beware, sure, but they didn’t sign up for this, and their investments may be distorted further)(You can read the whole thing here.)
As a liberal Democrat, I’m not sure it’s quite the catastrophe the right thinks it is but there is good reason to be opposed, as Dave Dayen points out here:
If Biden had taken 10% of Intel, at least it would have been in exchange for the billions in Chips Act funding granted to the company. Trump's taking this in exchange for deciding not to destroy the company. It's literal protection money.
I don’t pretend to really understand what’s happening here. If I had to guess it’s just Trump swinging his tiny …. hands around to show he’s boss without any real underlying rationale. He’s operating almost entire lyon whim at this point and his acolytes like Lutnick are seeing his every move as some kind of magical genius that is beyond everyone else’s ken to truly understand. It’s very creepy.
But you have to appreciate the extreme hypocrisy in the right screaming “communist!” at the opposition when they’re literally taking over the means of production. As the saying goes: you cannot make this shit up.
Sykes adds an interesting little bit of history here which I had not heard before:
You know who else would recognize what’s happening here? Grover Cleveland, the only other president to serve non-contiguous terms — and who coined the term “Communism of pelf [grift]”. I wrote about Cleveland the day before Trump resumed power.
It’s worth remembering that Cleveland despised high tariffs. In Cleveland’s view, tariffs were not merely protectionist taxes on consumers, they were also instruments of fear and favor for the economic oligarchs of his time.
“Communism,” Cleveland declared, “is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and organized government.”
But he was not anticipating Bolshevism. Instead, he was talking about “the communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions…”
That form of communism — what we might call the communism of grift — “is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wild disorder the citadel of rule.”
That’s probably just a troll but you never know. I’m not sure I wouldn’t buy it…
TPM Weekender writes:
Newsom is making it clearer by the second that he is likely to launch a 2028 bid, as evidenced by his justifiably aggressive response to Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering bid to rig the midterms and the new online persona he’s rolled out to publicize his plans.
Some of it is cringe, like the all caps Trump Truth style tweets where Newsom — “YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR” — copied Trump’s voice in announcing his plans to redraw some congressional maps in California. Some of it is effective (Trump and his toadies make it easy). Some of it will get under Trump’s skin in a way that little else can: he’s stealing Trump’s grift. On Friday Newsom tweeted an image of new merchandise he supposedly intends to sell (more than likely its just another layer of his ongoing troll).
In some sense, whatever, go off. In another sense, beyond all the silly attention-grabbing pranks, Newsom is taking concrete steps to counter this White House. In moving quickly to redraw California’s maps and push back against Republicans’ redistricting power grab, he’s doing something that Democrats have struggled to do in fighting Trump for the past decade. He’s abandoning the higher ground and joining the no-holds-barred fight to stop Trump’s midterms ratfuckery.
This is the key. Get attention, yes. (Read Chris Hayes’ new book for how important that is.) But also — DO BIG THINGS! That is the key. Think FDR.
When Joe Biden took over a lot of Democrats assumed that people were yearning to go back to the day when you don’t have to think about politics all the time. So they kept it low key. Big mistake. We are now addicted to the stimulation (whether we like it or not) and out media environment makes it impossible to escape anyway unless you go off the grid. So you have to compete for attention and be willing to take risks and be aggressive. Trump is the master at this game, of course. He pretty much invented it.
But he and his people are very stupid and they are drowning in Trump’s mental illness. The Democrats have an advantage there. If they can show they’re able to fight fire with fire in both the politics and the policy they can save the country.
“Could you take our picture? Just try not to get any blood on the lens.” — The Onion
WASHINGTON—Emphasizing that he wasn’t going to leave the nation’s capital without getting one good photograph, D.C. tourist Stan Jacobs expressed frustration Friday after atrocities kept getting in the frame of his shot. “All right, everyone, looking good—just wait two more seconds until all those military guys finish shooting their assault rifles and hop back into their big armored tank,” said a visibly impatient Jacobs, who asked his family to give him a “big smile” and “say cheese” just as several National Guardsmen, FBI agents, and DHS officers sprinted into the foreground and began physically assaulting dozens of people. “Excuse me, sir? I know you have to do your job and brutalize American citizens, but could you just do it a few feet to the right? I only need two seconds without it looking like I live under a fascist police state. Actually. Could you take our picture? Just try not to get any blood on the lens.” At press time, Jacobs was reportedly struggling to crop in on the photo to hide the fact that an active member of the U.S. military had just shot him in the chest several times.
Original Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester) photo by Jeff Widener (1989). Fair use.
Who knew Donald Trump was this self-aware?
“They work for stupid people that are [MAGA]. And they’re made to do things and say things they don’t want to be saying,” Trump told an Oval Office press availability.
Trump said “radical left.” I fixed it by inserting MAGA.
That statement was after Trump threatened to send federal troops to Chicago and New York City. He’s arming National Guard troops on the streets of Washington, D.C.
“I think Chicago will be our next and then we’ll help with New York,” Trump said.
I have a feeling that people in Chicago and New York might reply, “Go ahead. Make our day.”
Get ready, news photographers, don’t miss the shot of your careers (like the one at the top).
Trump claims he’s “settled seven wars.” Ten if you count “pre-wars.” So it’s ten. (Not really. He’s doing self-promotion for the Nobel Peace Prize he so desperately wants because Barack Obama got one first.) He just hasn’t resolved the war in Ukraine he claimed he’d end in the first 24 hours of his second term.
Aaron Rupar caught my attention with his Threads comment:
View on Threads
A sane country would. But we’re not a sane country.
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