As I’ve argued in a few different posts, “DOGE” — the grandiosely and absurdly titled “Department of Government Efficiency” — is merely an advisory panel which is probably best understood as a kind of memelord performance art. But there’s one part of this spectacle worth adding to — one separate conversation that is worth having off to the side of this effort while we’re in the midst of rightly trashing it.
Here goes.
Things take far too long to do. Things take too long to build. I saw a statistic recently that New York City used to open multiple new subway stops every year. We’ve opened like two in this century. This wasn’t new to me. It’s something I’ve been wondering about for years. And there are countless examples in your part of the country as well. Some of this is tied to the fact that today we’re more concerned with workers not getting killed on the job or dumping oceans of harmful chemicals into the ground. But it’s not all that. Not even most. There are people who have this as their hobbyhorse and they at least have broad theories of the problem — not so much over-regulation, though there’s that too, but regulatory regimes that give opponents too much power to slow things down, industry regulatory capture, etc. This is adjacent to the broader topic of housing shortages and YIMBY politics. Not the same but related.
I want to share with you this note from TPM Reader PP. But context is important. I received it on November 7th — two days after the election. So you need to understand it in that moment. But it’s been rattling around my head ever since. I’d actually intended to publish it at the time. I just didn’t find the right moment. What he says doesn’t mean the conversations about new ecosystems are wrong. They’re not at all. That’s not my takeaway. But if you’re serious about building up alternative media that isn’t dominated by right-wing voices and politics-adjacent channels dominated by right-wing ideas, I don’t think you can succeed or even have a plan to succeed without starting with the premises PP is articulating.
I have read TPM for just more than half my life, and the entirety of a 20-year career in political campaigns and consulting that I decided to wind down earlier this year to pursue a very different and unrelated career.
I’m writing now somewhat in response to the broader conversation about Democrats/men/algorithms/media and somewhat in direct response to TPM’s recent article about Democrats adapting to the “new media landscape.”
As the clock winds down on the Biden presidency, Democrats and the Democrat-adjacent are hashing out, often awkwardly and painedly, what stance to take toward the second Trump presidency. I’ve already discussed this issue in the piece I wrote back on November 14th: “The Most Pernicious Anticipatory Obedience Hides in Plain Sight.” As I wrote in that post, there’s a species of Democrat who imagines there’s “some power or badassery or even a species of courage in” declaring constantly that Trump is all-powerful and everyone is powerless before him. Today this is playing out over Trump’s threat to jail the members of the Jan. 6th committee after pardoning the insurrectionists themselves.
For myself, I’m with former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whose response to Trump was “bring it on.” This isn’t just about the personal and aesthetic importance of standing or going down fighting rather than cowering. (And yes, obviously it means much less coming from me than Kinzinger.) There’s also the deeper issue I discussed in that November post, which is how much fuel anyone should give Trump, how large a penumbra of fear and shock we should allow Trump to cast with boasts he probably lacks the courage to make good on and would probably struggle to make good on if he were up to trying. This isn’t the same as ignoring these crazed and degenerate threats. And it doesn’t mean these threats couldn’t come to pass. Managing that balance is at the heart of this period we are living through.
When I look at the video of Trump, Macron and Zelensky today I see something I hadn’t expected — not just in this quick footage but more generally. (Google it.) The first thing is that Trump looks like the least comfortable guy there. But there’s something more general that I have seen globally, in both senses of the word. Round one, no one knew how to deal with Trump. He always had the element of surprise, just by being the freak that he is. Round two, I get the sense that everyone knows exactly how to deal with him. I think he feels that intuitively, and doesn’t necessarily like it.
I’m not saying this is necessarily “good” or bad for Trump. You could see it as the opposite: everyone now accepts that this is how things work and they’re ready to work with him on that basis. But I don’t think it’s totally that either. It’s a pattern or dimension of this story that I’m going to be thinking more about.
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
The North Carolina House voted on Wednesday to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto on a GOP-backed bill that will strip power from the newly-elected Democratic Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson.
Kate and Josh discuss Republicans’ perma-desire to cut social insurance, the limp response to Trump’s birthright citizenship claims and Pete Hegseth’s potential resurrection.
Member Newsletter
