What are you most thankful for this year in the world of politics? For me, it’s the demise of Mark Halperin. This piece is a gem:
After all, what did Trump respond to? Most of all, two things: the sense among Americans that the language of politics has become an incomprehensible jargon of the elite, and the sense that a disaster or a dramatic change that will upend everything looms at every moment — hidden from sight, but still imminent.
We have an apocalyptic politics in part because Halperin helped promote an apocalyptic approach to political coverage. It made him and his little scoops seem hugely important: that conversation he overheard between McConnell and Schumer meant everything. The title of his career-making book, 2008’s Game Change — which sold over 350,000 copies and netted him and his coauthor John Heilemann a $5 million advance for a follow-up — says everything. Politics is a game and its rules are constantly being transformed. Its intentionally hyperbolic, breathless text presented details like the fact that Obama “woke up late … and went for a haircut with his pal Marty Nesbitt” the way an ancient monarch’s courtiers used to examine his every sigh for divine omens.
I’m glad Charlie Rose is gone too. They’re cut from the same cloth. Rose was less of a drama queen but he was equally sycophantic. Both made a career out of pretending amoral monsters were wise, serious men.
sukabi
Well what else are you gonna do when you are an amoral monster? You’re gonna normalize that behavior and demonize the normal.
p.a.
The moscato must be taking effect: I don’t care that I’m watching a dog show instead of CTE ball, and I’m not (currently) homicidal about malevolent media mavens.
debbie
Since we can’t take back the last election, I’m most thankful that Trump-hate is eating at Trump beyond all sensibility, and that, like a perpetual motion machine, it will only continue to eat at him until the end of his days. I take great comfort in knowing he will always be unhappy and aggrieved.
Ric Drywall
Kevin Drum has a retort to this piece pointing out (correctly, I think) that Halperin wasn’t apocalyptic, he was trivial. The response to him is that you tend to think that nothing matters much. Of course, this is bad as well. Drum blames Halperin for his focus on gossip. But it is conservative Evangelicals who are apocalyptic and who opened the door for Trump.
And I would add that most Americans probably couldn’t ID Halperin in a lineup. Plus, “incomprehensible jargon of the elite” has always been there on the Sunday talkshows and Editorial pages.
germy
scav
That those Holier-than-thou Eeeeeeevangelicals have nailed their public colors firmly to the mast and come out strongly in favor of white male sexual predators (so long as they technically plop their asses on the correct pews and pull the correct levers in the voting booth). The GOP’s slightly less nailed support for same white male sexual predators and white racial extremists is also tasty.
BBA
I’m thankful that Republicans aren’t going to figure out the loophole in the Constitution that would give them permanent control of the Federal government plus enough states to amend it willy-nilly.
No, I’m not going to describe it. I don’t want to give them any ideas. And it won’t work for the Democrats if we try it.
Frankensteinbeck
Maybe that’s a tiny influence. Mostly, we have apocalyptic politics because we ARE facing an apocalypse, it’s just one liberals don’t see, and when we do see it, we can’t grasp why anyone would think it’s ‘existential threat’ level important.
hedgehog mobile
Happy Thanksgiving, BJ. Grateful for Robert Mueller.
Mike in Pasadena
I am thankful that between Adam and Vanity Fair, I now have fair idea of just how much info/intel our Traitor-in-Chief gave away in his oval office private meeting with the two Russian spies. The chance that the US will not know the latest intelligence from other countries’ IC has risen exponentially thanks to Comrade Trump, aka Putin’s Puppet. So, when I am next at 35,000 or 37,000 feet and the plane I am sitting in explodes, I’ll know who to thank.
trollhattan
@p.a.:
I love watching dog shows! Although I admit hate-watching the toy group and the non-sporting group where Dalmatians are shamefully misplaced.
trollhattan
@Mike in Pasadena:
Rabid anti-commie Republicans like Nixon would have kicked Trump in the balls hard enough they’d come out his nose. It’s a party that virtually stands for nothing besides self-interest and keeping the poor, poor.
Corner Stone
What a fucking scumbag. Trump calling the troops from the down and out location of his mansion. And then played up his tax cut plan. Jeebus.
Corner Stone
While I am glad Halperin finally got a little karma, there are so many more I wish had been taken down first. Like Chuck “she seems over-prepared” Todd, Moaning Joe or my goodness – Hannity.
Maybe Karma has only yet begun to unleash the whirlwind.
Corner Stone
@p.a.: Now *there’s* something to be thankful for!
Doug!
@Corner Stone:
Halperin is way worse than Chuck Todd.
Chip Daniels
Whenever I think of these Beltway courtiers I think of that scene in The Last Emperor, where the crowd of palace flunkies stand around the 3 year old Emperor as he takes a dump, then one of them holds the bowl and sniffs the turds, and gravely advises that the Emperor needs less meat in his diet.
I can see Halperin and the rest jostling for the privilege of being that guy.
debbie
@Corner Stone:
Crappy, but it’s still second to his performance at the CIA.
Nicole
I am thankful that society is beginning to get a glimpse of how much sexual harassment there is in society. I managed to get through my youth relatively unscathed, and yet I could still list, without taking much time to think about it, at least a dozen instances, starting when I was about 12. It’s heartening to see offenders starting to be taken down for it. And when it’s someone I already disliked for being sh*t at his job, it’s even more satisfying.
CaseyL
I’m not sure what or who to be grateful for. While Trump is frittering away our national interest on the international scene and scheming via Census Director to keep voters permanently disenfranchised, the GOP in Congress are poised to pass a tax cut bill that will impoverish us (intellectually and economically) for generations. If Mueller released a hundred indictments on Monday, it wouldn’t stop the destruction.
OK, I do know what I’m grateful for: being childless.
And friends. I have wonderful friends.
Ruviana
@Ric Drywall: Lemieux at LGM has a similar take to Drum’s.
schrodingers_cat
I am thankful that I am an American citizen now. The ideal that we were all created equal is a principle worth fighting for. The American ideal is worth fighting for.
Corner Stone
COMMERCIAL: Husband picks up box of Senekot and turns to wife.
“Senekoot? What’s this?”
WIFE: “Oh, this? It’s my NUNYA GOD DAMN BUSINESS BOX. THAT’S WHAT THE FUCK IT IS! YOU WANT ME TO OPEN IT? DO YA?!”
HUSBAND: *stuttering* “Oh oh ok. So I’ll be watching TV somewhere”
Corner Stone
@Ruviana: That link resolves to some hinky website registration site.
Ruviana
@Corner Stone: Oops. I tried and got an error message. Try this: LGM post.
ETA: I tested it and it worked for me!
Villago Delenda Est
Halperin’s professional demise is good, but I won’t be fully satisfied until his head is on a pike.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Villago Delenda Est:
So many heads, we’re gonna need to ramp up pike production.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Corner Stone:
Huh?
Steve in the ATL
That is some insightful shit. For which I am thankful.
@Nicole:
Yes indeed. Hopefully my daughters will benefit from this, though I raised them not to tolerate that type of behavior (and there’s always “You know my dad is a labor and employment lawyer, right?”).
@Villago Delenda Est:
His and many others, my friend.
LurkerNoLonger
Speaking of Halperin, has his best buddy, fellow sage of conventional wisdom and Republican ballwasher, Chris Chinchilla, commented yet on his friend’s sexual proclivities? His silence is deafening and damning.
rk
I was thinking today about a girl I knew of who was doing PhD in our Department with a professor who was a well known letch. She killed herself. Rumors were she would not submit to him and he was harassing her over her thesis. A friend of mine had to meet with this professor for a project a few months later. He sat with his hand on her thigh the whole time. She didn’t say anything to him and just had to put up with it. This was 30 years ago. I just hope that at some point things change and I think they will. But it’s too late for her.
Mnemosyne
Now I have an earworm of this song. Thanks a lot, Doug.
Mike in NC
A very good article on Halperin, who, as it points out, promoted Trump more than any other hack pundit.
Dr. Bloor
Another guy who knows a lot about “who” and “when” and “how” is named Mueller. That’s the guy I pay attention to these days.
hueyplong
Halperin’s demise is one of my favorite things of 2017.
Sic semper assholis.
dsc
@debbie: a satisfying morsel of malevolent phrophesy. I still harken back to that great essay on the fact that Drumpf has NO friends. Just imagine that future–a pariah with no one to hang with.
Emerald
I’m finding it highly interesting that the predators who’ve been recently caught (bet there are more) were majorly responsible for trashing HRC. Glenn Thrush, Halperin, Rose, helped to drive the anti-HRC coverage.
One does wonder if their now-known attitudes toward women had something to do with that?
Doesn’t account for Maggie or Andrea, of course, but it’s a significant chunk of the anti-Hillary punditry.
Corner Stone
@Emerald: Or Amy Walters, or Yamiche Alcindor, or Eliana Johnson, or…
When you sit there and watch two white women on MSNBC boldly declare as absolute fact that misogyny had NOTHING to do with HRC’s loss…
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Grateful for everybody who is fighting the good fight against the kleptocracy. May they all enjoy good health and increased strength.
At the risk of crossing the streams: So say we all.
Gelfling 545
@rk: My granddaughter, college freshman, is part of an online group called (college name) predators in which women on campus alert each other to skeevy behavior by profs, students organizations, what have you. This new gereration is less inclined to take any shit.
Matt McIrvin
@BBA: Which one? I can think of several. Never mind, don’t answer that.
Kurt Gödel famously had some trouble getting naturalized because he couldn’t resist bringing up the loophole he’d found in the Constitution for turning the US into a dictatorship. But I’ve never been able to find out exactly what it was.
misterpuff
This is Good News for John McCain.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@misterpuff: You mean, “excellent news.”
RedDirtGirl
I’m thankful for all of you jackals!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steve in the ATL:
Picture a future were putting up a calendar of steam locomotives is considered sexual harassment because some repressed idiot complained trains going threw tunnels is Freudian and that’s the world I work in. It’s real, real easy to go totally stupid on this stuff so be careful what you ask for.
--bd
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, Doug. I hope you’re happy now.