The Age of Trump Continues

I tend to avoid cable news, but when I got the news that Donald Trump had been indicted again, I fired up MSNBC like it was 2017 all over again. This reprehensible man is continuing his dominance of our public sphere, a position he has been in since 2015. Trump has been fading somewhat in the public eye, but today's events are a reminder that he never went away.

It has been eight years now, a ridiculous amount of time for a country's politics to be dominated by man so wretched and vulgar. This week I was talking to students and they told me the 2016 election was the first presidential election they were old enough to actually follow. I came to the depressing realization that they do not have a political memory of a time before our current insanity.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called the Antebellum period the Age of Jackson, and others have spoken of an Age of Lincoln that followed. We have been living in an Age of Trump, one that like the other ages mentioned will outlast the man himself. He has set the tone for a dysfunctional politics rooted in a right-wing Leninism that justifies any rule breaking as long as it advances their ideology and power. Conservatives are not trying to push their movement in another direction, they are all vying to be the Next Trump. Ron DeSantis is only the most prominent example. 

The Age of Trump is also an era where democracy's guardrails have been shredded. Trump himself led a coup to stay in power. Not only is he still walking free, he is the front-runner for his party's nomination next year. We have reached a moment where nothing matters if you don't have any shame. I think here too of Ted Cruz, who stumped for Trump after he insulted his wife and father. Politicians like Lauren Goebert, Paul Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have become celebrities by being as crass and shameless as possible. They learned at the feet of the master. 

It is hard for me to see a way forward, because in the Age of Trump we do not just disagree about politics, we disagree about reality itself. Trump the liar and fabulist has cultivated a following that lives in an alternate universe. They reject vaccinations and believe the last election was stolen. There is no way to convince them otherwise.

Today's news is welcome evidence that the rule of law may still win the day. This being the age of Trump, however, the prosecution will only raise his esteem in the minds of his followers. To paraphrase James Joyce, this age is a nightmare from which I wish to awake. 

ZZ Top, "Jesus Just Left Chicago" (Track of the Week)

I was weirdly missing Texas this week. I lived there for three years in a kind of love-hate relationship. I came to adore Houston and Austin, the amazing food, the great musical tradition, and a certain kind of zest for life that was refreshing after spending the rest of my life in the staid Midwest. At the same time, I despised its fascistic politics, open bigotry, and suffocating provincialism. I went back to visit last summer and enjoyed myself, but also knew it was definitely not a place I wanted to live.

Despite my resolution on this count, there are days when I need a taste of Texas. So this weekend I thew on ZZ Top's Tres Hombres record. It includes maybe the greatest gatefold of all time (pictured above), a gorgeous still-life tableau of Tex-Mex food. Eat your heart out, Rembrandt. 

Beyond the imagery, the music is pure Texas. It's a perfectly executed blues shuffle shot through with the spirit of Lightnin' Hopkins. When I listen to "Jesus Just Left Chicago" I can imagine myself sitting at the bar in the Flashback Cafe in Nacogdoches, sucking down a dollar twenty five Lone Star on a sticky Friday night. My time in Texas wasn't all that fun, but it sure was memorable. Despite its faults, it's a place with a real unique culture and spirit that you just can't elsewhere. While ZZ Top is best known for their sleek 80s hits, their bluesy 70s stuff will give you some of that Texas spirit without having to go there.

Look at Academic Labor to See Why the WGA Strike Matters

 Just realized that I hadn't posted my last Substack. It's about the WGA strike, and why it's so important. Having seen what happened in academia when knowledge workers lost all power to the bosses, the writers are right to fight. 

'Tis the Season for Narragansett Beer

Captain Quint drank 'gansett

I do not typically endorse products, mostly because no one is paying me to. (If any eccentric billionaires or benevolent corporations have an offer, you know my contact info!) However, there are some products I enjoy so much that I can, nay must sing their praises on this blog. 

It's Memorial Day weekend, the true start of summer. This weekend and those that follow for the next few months will be full of cookouts and sweaty outdoor activities tailor-made for drinking beers. The catch, however, is that on a hot day a beer must not merely taste good, it must also quench the thirst.

Craft beers may be great, but they fail this crucial test. Normally I stan darker beers, but drinking an imperial stout on a 90 degree day just feels flat out gross. Craft brewers have gone all in on IPAs in recent years, whose hoppiness makes my mouth puckery and dry. This is anathema on a hot day. Fruitier beers avoid this problem, but their sugar combined with hot sunshine can make me feel zapped. 

On a hot summer day it's best not to get fancy. A can of good old fashioned mass market lager can do the trick. Its watery nature quenches the thirst and goes down easy. The problem is that such beers are often bland, taste like crap, have a weird aftertaste, or lose one street cred. This is why you have to take a step down to the bottom shelf at the liquor store and grab what a friend calls "a shitty local beer." In this dusty area you will not see cans of beer with cute names or animal mascots, but beers that look like they haven't updated their graphic design since the Ford administration.

This is why I love me some 'gansett. 

It's got enough flavor that it's not Bud Light piss water, but doesn't have the weird aftertaste of Coors Banquet. They also often sell it with their rad 1975 can design, which makes you look pretty cool while drinking it. Hell, if it's good enough for Captain Quint, it's good enough for me. 

So this summer bring some 'gansetts to the cookout and reap the rewards. 

The Therapeutic Joy of Watching Silent Film

I have been on a mission to reduce the amount of time I spend in the virtual world. It's becoming clear that social media is designed in ways that make me anxious and unhappy when I use it too much, and that it often distracts me when I should be focused on other things. 

Like any other addiction that one wishes to tame into moderation (as opposed to abstinence), one needs to establish rules and practices. When it comes to my device I push myself to go to news sources themselves, rather than social media. One problem I still face is the lure of "double screening," which usually means not fully enjoying a film or TV show.

My willpower can't always do all the heavy lifting, so watching certain things helps. Recently the Blank Check podcast, one of my favorites, decided to do a series on Buster Keaton. Since I can easily watch all of his films due to the good folks at Criterion and Kanopy, I decided for the first time to watch all of the films the podcast would cover in their series. 

I'd seen a couple of Keatons before, a long time ago. Watching a bunch of silent movies has been strangely therapeutic, since they completely resist double screening. The lack of sound demands closer attention, and the intricacies of Keaton's set-ups and gags provide an amazing payoff. I find myself getting lost in these movies in ways I just haven't been watching movies at home in years. 

The best silent films are the purest cinema, and are visually far more exciting than anything to come for decades after. Not having to worry about microphone placements or sound or setting scenes around dialogue gives the camera an exhilarating freedom of movement. The lack of dialogue also allows something made 100 years ago to still feel contemporary in the most uncanny ways.  

It is ironic that film, that most visual of mediums, was more viscerally so in its earliest incarnations. It was the first to utilize the screen, the origins of our modern screen-obsessed daily lives. Yet somehow, the originators managed to do things a century ago that seem impossible today. Watch a great silent film and lose yourself; I guarantee a good time. 

Bring Back the Roadshow Format

 My most recent Substack is about the need to bring back intermissions in movies. They are making movies even longer without any way for us to pee! Back in the 50s and 60s Hollywood showed longer epics in a "roadshow" format that included an overture and intermission. I say bring it back!

(No worries, some Notes From the Ironbound exclusive content is coming this weekend!)

Teacher Action Week

Teacher appreciation week is drawing to a close, which got me thinking about how the people currently attacking education are in the minority. The love teachers get this week from parents and students has the potential to be turned into something more impactful than mere gratitude. Over on Substack I wrote about how next week should be Teacher Action Week.