It’s just sheer black out there. The window may as well just have blackouts over it. Some folks assembled some scaffolding at the weekend so every afternoon around two or three there’s some meaningful, concerned chatter and banging around. I’m not sure what they’re doing but I hope it involves better sunrises.
Well, happy pardon day! I’ve sort of been looking forward to it but now just feel sorry for all the editors with ‘historic self-pardon’ ledes ready to role. I expected it too. I suppose there’s still a few hours.
I suppose we all know that Trump coverage will continue for the foreseeable future. He’ll be courted by the populist arm of the Republicans for the mid-terms and incumbents in purple districts will live in fear of boat-shoe-fascist-grunt Don Jr.’s threat to fund primary opposition to any who fall out of line with Trumpism. The ideal situation would be one in which coverage of Trump recedes to the same awarded other far-right-failed-business-leader-sexual-predators rather than the spectacle of a bitterly enraged former president railing against everyone given call-ins on Fox and interviews on OAN for the next half a decade.
I can’t watch the rolling news. I suppose it’s the idea of a constant stream of people listing all the things they don’t know which turns me off. Most of my analysis comes either through a check of the news online first thing and podcasts where you can get a level of analysis and depth. In the case of US politics, most of that is through the Obama-bros’ Crooked Media empire and Pod Save America chiefly. But there’s something about American political satire which is quite friendly, it doesn’t have the venom of British satire. I suppose it’s not as confrontational. There has to be a punchline.
For other stuff – particularly Brexit – I adore Talking Politics which is based out of Cambridge University but it can be a bit difficult to want to listen to because it isn’t based on humour. In-depth long-term analysis of the shocks of Brexit and Covid or the immorality of Johnson and Trump are just anxiety-inducing without a rasp of even American satire to temper them.
Anyway, there was a particularly good analysis of long-term Brexit effects which was, yes anxiety inducing because of the inevitability of the pain to come. Generally, hosts and political scientists David Runciman and Helen Thompson tend to balance things pretty well. Recent episodes on Covid and Biden have been wary of hyping change or progress, neatly separating issues between the political and the systemic to highlight realistic opportunities to change and where there will be sticking points but this one on Brexit was just ‘it’s bad, it’s going to get worse.’ The guest, Diane Coyle, suggests there are five world-leading exports in the UK; financial services, artificial intelligence, green technology, higher education and the creative arts. And the government has, for political reasons, declared a culture war on the last two.
Incidentally – while I’m here – I still don’t get the fish, no one has explained why the fish was such a thing! No one even talks about the fact that it was such a thing! To this very day, journalists still write about what the deal means for the fishing industry and like someone turning up nude at a party that no-one will look at, talk about or explain, it’s just there; ‘Yeah that’s Simon.’ ‘Why is he not wearing any clothes?’ ‘Hm?’ ‘He’s not wearing any clothes, why is that?’ ‘Oh.’
Anyway, both Tory Brexiteers and moderate Republicans have started to build permission structures to excuse their collective inequities. In the case of the US, party figures are piping up to peddle the ‘you may not have liked his methods, but look at what he did’ argument. In the case of the UK a mix of Covid and a narrative of ‘EU viciousness’ is being set up to justify the failings of the thirty-year project of removing the UK from Europe. Both of these narratives appear both unfair and untrue to more left-leaning folks like myself. Particularly in the case of the US. I’d like to see one of the Republican mouthpieces on BBC News grilled as to how the complete inaction on Covid and the collapse of federal agencies which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands can be interpreted as presidential achievement. Probably won’t happen, but these cover stories will no doubt continue to secure the thin minority rule by which both parties hold (somewhat fluctuating) power.
This is also why I’m skeptical of a post-Trump and/or post-Johnson reckoning in either party. For reasons already explained, their populist hold remains strong but also to their maximalist Reagan/Thatcherist ideology the ends always justify the means. I’ve argued (unpopularly) before that a reverence of norms, principles and moralism on the left prevents opportunism and compromise to achieve change. The almost explicit aim of the Republican party since Bush senior has been to secure the judiciary in order to concretise conservative and constitutionalist values for a generation. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and the other party leaders have always been pretty open about not caring how that’s achieved. The whole point was to prevent progressivism getting to the courts and lock down conservative heartland issues for decades to come – gun rights, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights and broadly white supremacist constitutional provisions.
Issues of deregulation and climate change are useful political footballs along the way and Trump and Brexit became neat opportunities to drum up political popular support for the more outsize causes of conservatives. I’m not sure we could point to the Tories as having such a cohesive multi-decade ideological project beyond the general jingoism and regressive imperialism that keeps the right-wing press excited but in both cases, parties which maintain minority rule require bending the ‘rules’ to maintain it; something which the left’s commitment to fairness generally prevents it from doing. Looking at how Biden (or in fact the dim, distant possibility of a left-wing UK government) approaches electoral reform will be an interesting tell. This won’t be a first hundred days project but the right-wing have demonstrated more than ever their willingness, to lie, break the law and deceive to secure election victory. I’m not suggesting the left should embrace the same guerrilla tactics but don’t mistake ‘fairness’ for complicit conservatism.
Short Stuff
I don’t normally go on political rants, I’m sure you know, but I haven’t been to the pub in ages.
- There are 32 possible records in Mario Kart 64; one for each of the 16 tracks and one for the fastest lap of each track. Here’s the story of the person who over 8 years almost held them all simultaneously.
- This Twittering from Sarah Brin reminded me of the story I’ve told before about FIFA buying player data from Electronic Arts. I’d like to see analysis of more ways, beyond the technological, that the video games industry impacts on other sectors like this but I don’t know where to find it.
- The US Covid Relief bill had a clause giving 180 days for the Office for Naval Intelligence to release an unclassified report detailing what it knows about UFOs (via Matt Webb)
- What are the good video game podcasts?
Ok, that’s it. There was more but there isn’t now. Listen, you know I love you. I haven’t had time to read anything yet in 2021 so I sort of have a deficit of interesting-ness right now. Speak to you soon.