Life Inside The Fire

When Donald Trump was elected, this is what I had to say:

"In a little over two weeks, Donald J Trump will be the next president of the United States, and I fear that we don't stand a chance. In conversations I've had with those who voted for Trump, both online and in person, they simply do not have any concerns or reservations about what this man has done or anything he is about to do. In most cases they are people who want their version of America to triumph, and that's a version where gays are in the closet, immigrants deported, bosses control their workers, people of color are invisible, and women are in the kitchen. If Trump has to break a few laws and break a few heads for that to happen, they simply do not care. 

Just think of all the violations we have already seen -by Trump and by his allies- that have failed to move these people. Republicans blocked the president from nominating a Supreme Court justice in an unprecedented breach of the Constitution that would have caused a crisis in an ordinary year. Republicans in North Carolina have a attempted a Reconstruction-era coup. Trump did not release his tax returns. What we know of his taxes shows that he does not pay them. He openly bragged about groping women. He mocked a reporter's disability. He insulted the parents of a soldier who died for this country. He insulted the service of a man who spent years in a POW camp. He received support from the hacking of a foreign government opposed to the United States, has praised that nation's dictator, and has now taken steps to kneecap America's own intelligence apparatus. He has appointed the editor of a white nationalist rag to a new advisor position previously unheard of. He has failed to give a press conference since July, preferring to use Twitter as a platform to kvetch, insult, and threaten. On Twitter he has made alarming statements about nuclear weapons. 

None of these actions has swayed his supporters, because they have been fighting a low-grade civil war in this country for decades, and are convinced that an autocrat will finally give them the victory they crave. 

So where are those who can check Trump's power, and call him to account? The news media has been servile, giving him credit for the Carrier deal and the House Republicans' retreat from scrapping independent oversight of Congressional ethics, even though he was not responsible. And those are the "liberal" outlets like the New York Times. With Fox News and Breitbart, Trump has a massive propaganda operation backing him. The Democratic opposition is typically pathetic. Bernie Sanders, the supposed champion of the left, greeted the election by talking about how he could work with Trump. Schumer has been playing the backroom buddy game. The left generally has been divided and disorganized. Time, money, and effort was put into a doomed recount campaign headed by the charlatan Jill Stein but supported by gullible liberals. So-called radicals have been downplaying the significance of the Russia hack and Trump's response to it, seeing it as yet another opportunity to chide liberals rather than to actually do anything constructive. Liberals have had a tendency to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. The united nationalist front behind Trump, which is drooling over itself at the thought of smiting the left and erasing its influence, will be the anvil on which progressives are smashed by the Trump hammer.
I don't like being such a downer, but if Trump's opponents remain this divided and disorganized, and the media continues to play into his hands, we are really and truly fucked. In two weeks we are headed into the fire."

I called this post "Into the Fire." After last week it feels like we have been pushed further into the fire, the flames rising even higher. I can't decide if what I wrote in January of 2017 was too pessimistic or not pessimistic enough. Trump has committed outrage after outrage. Last week alone, one of his fans tried to murder a group of prominent Democrats and another man inspired by Trump's fear-mongering over the caravan of Central American immigrants murdered eleven people in a synagogue. This is the kind of stuff I feared the most as we were first heading into the fire.

While Democrats have rallied and won improbable races in places like Alabama, Trump's supporters and Republicans in general have stuck by him. His popularity has even risen in recent weeks. As I wrote those months ago, Trump is giving these people exactly what they want. The Republican pitch to their base has been an unmitigated torrent of hate and fear that makes Nixon's similar ads in 1968 look like Frank Capra films. Many Republicans who used to recite the same Chamber of Commerce bullshit about markets and taxes are now lighting their beards on fire with nativist zeal. I have read some convincing takes is we are now seeing a fascist movement being created AFTER rather than before seizing power. Trump benefitted from the vagaries of the US electoral system (and outside meddling) to win power in a fluke election. Despite making a fool of the country in his Putin press conference, putting children in cages, and inspiring violence, Trump does not appear to have lost any support among his base. 

So what of the opposition party? The Democrats have been helped by a new generation of inspiring politicians like Ocasio-Cortez, Abrams, Gillum, and Beto, but they have mostly failed to rise to the occasion. Schumer still bends over backwards to please Republicans, giving them judgeships with hardly a fight. The Democrats have failed to provide a national message, which means that Trump is allowed to dictate what the press pays attention to because there are no Democrats demanding coverage for their issues. How will Democrats govern if they get power? The lack of clear answer to that question in damning.

At least the Democrats are showing signs of hope, though. The mainstream news media has been absolutely pathetic. They cling to bothsidesism, their one true religion. Even after Trump has threatened our democratic institutions and called the press "the enemy of the people" they still bend over backwards not to criticize the president. After bombs were sent out to prominent Democrats the New York Times actually ran an article saying "What these people said about Trump," implying that they had brought this on themselves. After Trump announced that he was going to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the Constitution, the media wrote all kinds of articles discussing how he could justify doing this, instead of rejecting it outright. Just as conservatives remain devoted to their ideology and Democrats still maintain their lack of fighting spirit, media figures are still primarily concerned with maintaining their station and not rocking the vote. The media's inability to call out Trump when his side has their own massive media juggernaut blasting their propaganda means that Trump will always have his thumb on the scale.

So two years since the last election, have we learned anything? A small number of people have pushed themselves to participate in public life. Everyone else seems to be content to just keep going  on as they did before. We have been pushed further into the fire, but some folks are in denial that they are even being burned. We are all being burned, and last week some were consumed.

October Nightfall

This is the sound of October night falling

There is nothing quite like nightfall in October. It gets dark fast with a darkness that seems far darker than on summer nights. By wintertime we have grown used to it, but in October it is a bit of a shock. The ancients believed that Halloween marked the time when the world of the dead was closest to the world of the living, and you can feel that palpably in a late October nightfall. It's one of those moments when you are reminded of the puniness of your existence in this big, overwhelmingly universe.

I felt that feeling today while driving my daughters home from their dance lesson. We were stuck in post-work traffic with Kurt Vile's new, appropriately spacey, album on in the car. It was the perfect soundtrack to the fading light of dusk suddenly dissipating to inky blackness so stark that I couldn't even make out the names on the street signs.

While I got a certain primal thrill from that moment, it provoked some less than pleasant thoughts. October nightfall heralds the coming of winter and its cold and the sun's exile. I got to thinking about the current political situation, about how we are maybe experiencing another kind of nightfall.

Elections from North Dakota to Georgia may be stolen. The idiot king spews forth bigotry. The opposition party is threatened with attempted assassinations. A completely unfit attempted racist has been placed on the Supreme Court to judge the idiot king's obvious corruption. What little democracy this country ever had may well be entering its twilight.

I hope I am wrong, but as night falls and the political winds get chilly, I am remembering Thomas Paine's admonition that we not be "sunshine patriots" but winter soldiers. It is looking more and more like our charge is not to win a short term battle, but to settle in for a long campaign in a war that may well continue after our lives have ended. I am hoping against hope for a new dawn, but I think it's time to prepare for a long winter of discontent.

For Crying Out Loud, Stop Watching The Polls

Hey you, you over there looking at 538.com. Yeah you. Are you a campaign professional or political journalist? No? Then turn that shit off!

I used to be like you, you know. Back in 2016 I was watching the polling averages every single day. I pored over the results and got overpowered by anxiety whenever Trump gained, and felt a euphoric relief when Clinton increased her lead. The roller coaster finally crashed on election day. Did any of my poll watching make a damn bit of difference? Nope.

In fact, all that time I spent comparing polling methodologies could have been spent a lot more productively. I could have volunteered in local races or contributed money. I could have driven people to the polls on election day. Instead, I did nothing but descend into an endless spiral of paralyzing anxiety.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

This time around there's a desperate need for labor on the front lines of the election war. This is why I have taken a no polls pledge. I have pledged to not look at a single poll until election day. Every time I feel the need to look at the polls I am going to try to do something more productive.

I find the poll-watching impulse to be symptomatic of certain pathologies among liberals and progressives. We tend to think of ourselves as being on "the right side of history," which breeds a certain level of complacency. If it's all down to the tides of history, that excludes us from actually having to do something. Once this fatalism takes hold, a lot of people sit back and try to read the portents of the polls as if they are Roman priests examining lamb entrails.

The time for fatalism is over. In case you haven't noticed, there's a war on. Republicans are suppressing votes, telling outrageous lies, and ginning up white racial fears and resentments. The only possible way we have a chance is to aggressively confront these forces and fight them until they submit. Watching polls is a way to avoid fighting, and in this was I do not look kindly upon draft dodgers.

Billboard Top Ten Alternative Songs October 22 1994

In the past I have only done top ten lists of Hot 100 singles, but I thought I'd do the alternative charts, since that's the music that mattered most to me in the 1990s. That and the fact that this music is such a relic of that time. In October of 1994 I was in my first semester of college, happy to be in a place where people actually liked the same music I did. And now, on with the countdown!

10. Veruca Salt, "Seether"

This song was still climbing the charts in October of 1994, before it became a big crossover hit. A simple, classic, hard hitting rocker. This song showed how many alternative bands were grounded in a punk aesthetic but had grown up listening to AC/DC. Veruca Salt got dissed for the hard rock-iness of their sound (which they fully embraced on their second album), but this one still holds up for sure.

9. Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Something's Always Wrong"

Here's a band that was definitely NOT grounded in the punk aesthetic. Like Counting Crows they combined a more heartland/roots rock vibe with the mopiness that dominated the 90s. As a melancholic person that combo suited me fine. There's a catchy folk guitar riff but this song does not have hooks as sharp as the band's bigger hits.

8. Live, "I Alone"

It is not cool to like Live anymore, but I will always have a soft spot for them. They like me came from a small rural town and like me did not give into big city cynicism. Throwing Copper had some great hard-edged songs with emotional heft, and this one fits the bill. Sure there's the usual "loud-quiet-loud" formula but it's executed better than most. Bonus points for a throwback video where the band vamps and makes faces at the camera.

7. Liz Phair, "Supernova"

Yes yes yes. Great alternarock tune with Liz at her absolute sultriest. It was kind of amazing to hear a song this blatantly carnal on the local alt-rock station. Alternative rock tended to be pretty sexless compared to traditional rock music, but Phair was a pathbreaking exception. I had such a massive crush on her, musically and otherwise. When I moved to Chicago in the late 90s I got to see her live and it was absolutely fantastic.

6. Offspring, "Self Esteem"

Well this is a bit of a contrast with its male self-pitying. The Offspring were such an unlikely success, a California punk band that had a massive chart busting album on an independent label (Epitaph) started by members of Bad Religion. In this song you can begin to hear the seeds of the future, when what was known as "alternative" became the same old macho butt rock with more distorted guitars and fewer solos.

5. Dinosaur Jr, "Feel The Pain"

No song takes me back to hanging out in my dorm room my freshman year of high school like this one. In a lot of ways 1994 was the absolute peak of alternative rock. Dinosaur Jr, an indie scene stalwart that had existed well below the surface for years all of sudden were getting significant MTV airplay. This song has some of my favorite J. Mascis guitar pyrotechnics, but what's more amazing is that a song with his broken voice on it got airplay. That was the magic of the year of our Lord 1994.

4. Nirvana, "About A Girl"

It is extremely difficult for me to hear Nirvana's Unplugged in New York without getting super emotional. Before the album got an official release my college debate coach had taped the episode off of TV and we played it on our long college debate road trips. Kurt Cobain's death had shaken me and playing this album on those dark nights crossing the prairie was like sitting shiva. This song came from Nirvana's pre-fame first album, and sounds even better acoustically. It's the first song of the set, and when those acoustic guitars churn it sets off something very deep inside of me. I once even started an aborted novel with that particular moment. The novel didn't go anywhere, and neither has the feeling this song gives me.

3. Stone Temple Pilots, "Interstate Love Song"

In the autumn of 1994 I professed to hate Stone Temple Pilots. In my new life as a college student I wanted everyone to know how deep and sophisticated and BETTER my musical tastes were. Having read too many rock critics I sneered at this band as a bunch of Johnny-come-latelys. And yes, they were not original but in time and with wisdom I could at least acknowledge that they were a decent rock band with a handful of bangin' singles. This is one of them. ("Big Bang Baby" is actually transcendent.)

2. The Cranberries, "Zombie"

With over twenty years of peace it is easy to forget how awful and bloody the Troubles were for Northern Ireland. The Cranberries, who had made their name with beautiful, ethereal singles, got hard and loud on this topical song. The sound is dated but the message is not. As Fela Kuti knew, "zombie" is a good metaphor for a person who commits violence unthinkingly. This is the kind of angry cry against hate we need more of today.

1. REM, "What's the Frequency Kenneth?"

I have commented before how REM's Monster is the 90s alternative rock album you'll always find multiple used copies of at record stores. It was a rocking, feedback-laden follow up to their two folky smashes, Out of Time and Automatic for the People. A lot of people bought on the strength of hits like this, then tossed it aside. I am a Monster apologist. A couple of songs near the end are weak, but there are some amazing tunes all over that album, and a drone-y, psychedelic sound that's pretty unique. This song is certainly on the weird side, with the title being a reference to a man attacking Dan Rather in the street and most of the lyrics being mumbled by Stipe in ways we hadn't heard since Fables of the Reconstruction. On this song in particular it was nice to hear Peter Buck cut loose on the guitar after years of mandolin-ing.

Old Dad's Records (The Failure Episode)

Episode 33 of Old Dad's Records is out now. My theme this time is failure. I start with "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac, since the titular album did not make the expected sales marks after the success of Rumours. Thankfully there's been a critical reevaluation since. After that I dig into The Faces' A Nod Is As Good As A Wink... an album I tried and failed to write a book about for the 33 1/3 series. I end with a rave for Kurt Vile's newest album, which I am grooving to as I write this.

Newt Gingrich And The Need For A Democratic Narrative

Advocating for a moon base was Newt at his Newtiest

There's a recent profile of Newt Gingrich in the Atlantic that's been making the rounds, and it has been giving me uncomfortable flashbacks to the 1990s. He led the Republican stampede into Congress in 1994, the first use of a partisan government shutdown, and the impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton. Beyond that (as was even evident in the 1990s), he was responsible for a new kind of Congressional politics. Ever since the Republicans have been practicing a kind of right wing Bolshevism, treating power as the only moral concern. Trump has merely dropped the last pretenses of decorum and civility. He is a creature who arose from the muck of this fetid swamp, not an alien to the Republican party.

Gingrich is a fatuous blowhard who likes to talk like what a dumb person thinks a smart person sounds like. Even so, he proved himself to be an effective tactician. Back in 1994 one thing he perfected was the use of political narratives. His GOPAC campaign was all about attacking Democrats as immoral, corrupt, and wasteful with coordinated messages. He also generated the so-called "Contract With America," which gave every GOP candidate, no matter how uninspired, a narrative and platform to run with. Republicans, already whipped into a frenzy with their dislike of first-term president Bill Clinton, came out in droves to the polls and took both houses of Congress for Republicans for the first time in 40 years.

Flash forward to 2018.

Democrats are also running against an unpopular first term president whom their base despises. It's fertile soil for a landslide, but that's hardly a guarantee. The issue is not just an unfavorable Senate map and gerrymandering in House. The Democrats have elected not to generate a national narrative. They have taken a "let a thousand flowers bloom" approach, perhaps hoping not to alienate voters in red areas with a progressive national message. The issue is, I have no clue how the Democrats will govern if they win Congress. Do you?

That is a huge problem. How can you claim to be an alternative to the status quo when you aren't telling people what that alternative even is? Democrats need to take a page from Newt Gingrich and establish a broader narrative. They need to paint conservatives as antithetical to the will of the people, and to make them have to come out and play defense against that narrative. Right now all the talk is about Trump, and that's not good enough.

There's three weeks left until the election, and Mitch McConnell provided the perfect ammunition today. He essentially said that his biggest regret as a politician was that he has failed to cut back on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and that cuts in those programs would be necessary to cut the deficit. The narrative here is pretty simple: Democrats want a country where people's basic needs are taken care of, and Republicans want to take away your health care and retirement so that they can give even more money to rich people through tax cuts. Please Democrats. Say it. Again and again and again and again. Say it until you are blue in the face. Say it until even our wretched excuse for a fourth estate forces Republicans to have to answer to it. The stakes are too high for politics as usual, and those politics have been a massive failure for Democrats anyway.

Pulp, "Common People"

Nothing was conventional about Pulp. Their lead singer, Jarvis Cocker, was a beanpole in giant nerd glasses whose lyrics discussed sexuality in extremely real and uncomfortable ways. The band's sound, with plenty of synths and the guitars relegated to moods and textures on most tracks, was completely out of step with the go-hard rock riffing of 1990s grunge and Britpop. They were one of those bands that if you liked them, you felt like you were in a club (at least in America.) Whenever I met a fellow Pulp fan back in the 90s I always felt an immediate bond with them.

Nobody obsesses over social class like the Brits, and so its not surprising that maybe the best pop song ever about class comes this literate band hailing from Sheffield. On "Common People" Cocker took a slight break from his romance and sex obsessions to deliver a staggering anthem about what it's like to be a common person confronted by a rich hipster poseur. Because Pulp are not a riff-rocking band, the anthemic chorus is almost orchestral, the guitars and synths climbing to a fever pitch as Cocker hits the high notes as he sings "You'll never live like common people."

While the song is a tell off to a rich girl who "came from Greece with a thirst for knowledge," there is a strain of sadness, rather than defiance to it. The line "you'll never watch your life slide out of view" is on my mind as I am in middle age. Working class people very early on in their lives are aware of limits, of their ideal life having to give way to reality, a moment where the life they see their life "slide out of view." Another painfully real line is Cocker saying this rich girl will never know what it's like "to live your life with no meaning or control." The wealthy are usually unaware of the security and options their wealth gives them. As Cocker sneers, "If you call your dad he can stop it all." That's not an option for common people.

It's easy to see why this was a hit in the UK, and why it went nowhere in the US, a nation constantly denying the existence of its social class hierarchy. This song has been on my mind a lot recently. The Kavanaugh hearings were a pretty clear example of how this nation's ruling class exists above the rules that the rest of us must follow. The people who went to Georgetown Prep will never live like common people. I only wish Americans could see this as clearly as folks across the pond can.