It’s hard to tell if onetime sensation Nate Silver is accorded the grace that’s handed out like Measles vaccine shots to his fellow liberals who “fight the good fight,” however snookered by reality they are today. Silver’s traditionally prickly, a quality I like, and at a time when the most infinitesimal morsel of praise doled out to Trump is heresy and grounds for expulsion my semi-educated guess is his number of invitations to Peter Baker/Jake Tapper salons has dwindled. That probably doesn’t bother him: he likely has his own circle of friends and admirers, and his bank account is bursting (his Substack Silver Bulletin ranks third among those who keep track, and he’s reportedly worth around $3 million.)
I bring up Silver because he’s representative of otherwise intelligent writers who post cliché-ridden drivel on X/Twitter. An example from Jan. 4th, pre-Venezuela, ICEball fights in Minnesota, street-fighting men and women in Iran, Trump’s dumb fight with Jay Powell and the Greenland distraction: “The take that everything Trump does is a distraction from Epstein is cringe. It's probably more of a distraction for *Democrats*. There are lots of other issues w/ higher leverage with normie voters who aren't constantly watching MS Now and CNN and Dems should focus on those.”
The “buzzwords” that buzz me out are “take,” “cringe” and “normie.” I’m glad he didn’t “unpack” anything or tell readers to “let that sink in!”
Didn’t “take,” “hot mess,” and especially “hot take” fall out of favor at some point in 2018? Unfortunately, some, perhaps without thinking, use “cringe” to describe any opinion they find disagreeable, and have ruined a good word. “Normie” is just as condescending as when a reporter/pundit mentions “average” voters they met on a pit stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a throwaway “boots on the ground” feature story. (On Monday, Michelle Cottle, in boosting “maverick” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in the Times, switched to “garden-variety voters,” an improvement.) Paraphrasing Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, God don’t make no average people, because no two snowflakes are the same. Come to think of it, I don’t see the use of “snowflake” much anymore; maybe still-going-strong “white privilege” wiped that off the linguistic map.
On Jan. 5th, Nate (who, I swear, knows how to write) tweeted: “Like seriously, Walz's statement is all about how mean Republicans are and says stuff like ‘we will fight back every step of the way’, but then he announces he's quitting his re-election bid!” This is a regression to Chicago Maroon-like sloppy talk. “Like seriously”? Shorthand, and social media immediacy, is common, but does it have to be so stupid? Walz, the craziest Veep candidate I can remember—Mike Pence, with his 19th century morality, was awful, but he didn’t dance to any tune in his head or issue red-faced proclamations—might’ve resigned by the time this article is posted, which, I think would meet with self-described Nate’s favor. (Last year, I thought the statistician might, like Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk, jump to Trump, but he says he voted for Kamala.)
Anyway, I find Silver’s political/sports musing, despite the aforementioned silliness, more engaging than that of those MSM pundits who pound, and pound, the same anti-Trump theme every week. The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser is one of the gassiest, as exemplified by her Dec. 30 article “Donald Trump’s Golden Age of Awful.” Plug in: “My colleague Jane Mayer recently made an observation that sums up why it’s been so difficult to write, or even think, about what’s happening in Washington this year: it’s hard to be angry all of the time. Most of us are simply not used to being this frequently upset, enraged, infuriated, or just plain disgusted by public occurrences.”
The off-hand reaction to Glasser’s (who hides behind “Most of us”) statement: Don’t write about Trump if you’re so angry! But that assumes some measure of honesty, and in Glasser’s case it’s not true. Does anyone believe that Glasser, Jane Mayer, David Remnick, Thomas Edsall, Dana Milbank and Michelle From Brooklyn (a “shorthand” list) are perpetually “enraged” and “infuriated”? They have lucrative jobs, are members of Chairman David Brooks’ Club of the Elite, and when the evening whistle blows no doubt enjoy themselves with family and friends.
Glasser was so disgusted by Trump that she and husband Peter Baker (chief White House correspondent for the Times) wrote a book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, about the President’s first term. I’m sure the “disgust” meter was switched off when they received an advance and royalty checks.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023