"Did you just do the weave?"/"It's my own version of the weave, I call it the wander."

The shocking realization that Jack and Diane voted for Trump.

Just In:

John Cougar Mellencamp ends show early in a rage because the audience didn’t want to hear him give a lecture about his support of Joe Biden.

🔊

pic.twitter.com/rqJMn6DYKP

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) April 16, 2024

ADDED: I question whether Mellencamp was talking about Biden. Something bothered him and made him vindictive against the whole crowd:

"Let's get our fact straight. There's no crisis at the border. C'mon..."

Funny:

Still brilliant, never not been brilliant... pic.twitter.com/VWPlm59l6N

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 5, 2024

Not so funny:

Treason indeed! Ushering in vast numbers of illegals is why Secretary Mayorkas was impeached by the House.

They are importing voters. This is why groups on the far left fight so hard to stop voter ID requirements, under the absurd guise of protecting the right to vote. https://t.co/WhtVFyS6sa

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2024

By the way, Elon's position — that Democrats are rigging the 2024 election by strategically dispersing immigrants (presumably to cities in swing states) — feels like a new version of the 2020 "election denial." He's getting the jump on the accusation of "treason." 

The funny/terrifying mix is painfully strong.

Bill Maher makes an effort to satirize Joe Biden. It's not very funny, but it happened.

In another part of the show — this was last Friday — he said if it's between Biden and Trump, he'll say what he's said before: He'd vote for Biden if Biden is just a head in a jar of blue liquid. 

ADDED: Somehow I thought of this:

"TikTok is, arguably, the ascendant platform for news online, so being there makes sense. But the problem for the Biden campaign..."

"... is that this type of social media is no longer a reliable means to reset narratives. Twitter, which was once the epicenter of the political elite and media conversation, is now a wasteland called X, and its many platform competitors lack a central political focus.... TikTok’s algorithm is excellent at assessing a user’s behavior and feeding them targeted content.... Will TikTok show an avid user who rarely interacts with political content a Biden TikTok?.... Is a TikTok that gets more than 8 million views—as Biden’s Super Bowl video did—considered successful if it’s also widely mocked?... The Biden campaign seems to [have]... what amounts to the Moneyball strategy.... 'We’re going to look for home runs but we’ve got to collect singles and doubles.'... There are vanishingly few people who can bend our current, fragmented internet to their will; the rest of us have to hustle, throwing posts at the wall to see what sticks. Joe Biden, it turns out, is just another creator."

Writes Charlie Warzel in "The Moneyball Theory of Presidential Social Media/Not even the president can bend the internet to his will" (The Atlantic).

Here's the "widely mocked" Biden Super Bowl TikTok:

The NYT article "Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA Meltdown" is a tad disingenuous.

The politics writer, Jonathan Weisman, informs us that Taylor Swift "is driving the movement behind Donald Trump bonkers" and then tries to explain why.

Just 3 days ago, I was blogging about a NYT article that went on and on about how fervently Biden supporters hoped for a Taylor Swift endorsement. I thought it was embarrassing and pathetic that the Biden people were resorting to stirring up hope for their failing candidate by touting the prospect of a pop star endorsement.

But now, here's an article about how Trump supporters are getting out in front of the potential endorsement with an effort that seems fine-tuned to serve either of 2 entirely rational goals: 1. Persuade Taylor Swift to withhold her endorsement, or 2. Minimize the value of any endorsement.

If the endorsement is as valuable as the NYT portrayed it in the article on January 29th — "Inside Biden’s Anti-Trump Battle Plan (and Where Taylor Swift Fits In)" — then there's nothing "bonkers" about the Trump preemptive strike.

I'd be inclined to advise Swift to stay out of politics. I'd quote Bob Dylan: "I think politics is an instrument of the Devil. Just that clear. I think politics is what kills; it doesn’t bring anything alive. Politics is corrupt; I mean, anybody knows that." You're an artist. Preserve your artist power. Don't squander it.

But there must be those much closer to her who are saying that another Trump presidency will destroy the world, and she could, perhaps, simply by saying one sentence, push Biden to victory. How can you not say that one sentence? How can you hold yourself aloof when you have the power to save us and all the world is crying out for you to say that one line?!

"And if Dark Brandon transforms from parody imbued with implicit eye-rolling to enthusiastic exaggeration of the president’s capabilities..."

"... there’s no joke there at all anymore. So, the comedy has turned to tragedy, and if Dark Brandon isn’t dead yet, he probably will be soon. An additional hazard for the hipper, nihilistic early adopters of this trend, assuming everything ironic on the internet does really become genuine: If they’re not careful, maybe they’ll start liking Biden, too."

Writes Molly Roberts in "The Dark Brandon meme can’t escape death" (WaPo).

This news of the inevitable death of the "Dark Brandon" meme comes one day after I blogged "Meet Dark Brandon," which was based on an August 8th WaPo column "Brandon returns, darkly: Democrats turn an insult into a pro-Biden meme." 

That column was written by Matt Viser, whose newest column — "Biden, trying to tout his policies, faces a familiar intruder: Trump" — I just blogged in the previous post.  

Please don't get the impression I'm suddenly a Matt Viser fan. I blogged those columns to write criticism, not to praise them. 

I'm pleased if I contributed at all to the decline of the "Dark Brandon" meme. What I said — sarcastically riffing on something Viser said — was : "Sure, why not? Tap into the zeitgeist! The zeitgeist is fascism, right?"

Now, I'm seeing my quote in light of Roberts's line: "everything ironic on the internet does really become genuine." Should I infer Don't make fun, because it will come true? One more reason to say we're living in The Era of That's Not Funny.

"Meet Dark Brandon. Over the past few weeks, Democrats have attempted to co-opt... the 'Let’s go, Brandon' meme...."

"Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital strategy... tweeted an image of Biden smiling with red eyes, his hair haloed against a dark background.... 'Dark Brandon said "here’s the deal" and then there was a deal,' wrote Megan Apper, a senior adviser in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs at the State Department.... Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted an image of Dark Brandon after the Senate approved the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes a number of key Biden priorities.... [Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates] tweeted a meme that placed Biden — with facial hair and an eye patch — on the movie poster for 'The Dark Knight.' ... Conservative commentators pointed to the background of the poster, saying it included an image of an eagle that was used as a Nazi symbol.... But Tobin Stone, who says he created the meme, said... 'The eagle is not, and was never intended to be the Reichsadler'... White House officials said they wanted to tap into the zeitgeist and saw an opportunity to draw attention to the successes they had last week...."

 
Writes Matt Viser, in "Brandon returns, darkly: Democrats turn an insult into a pro-Biden meme With “Let’s go, Brandon,” Biden’s critics found a way to curse him. His supporters are seizing on the “Dark Brandon” meme to vaunt his superpowers" (WaPo).

Sure, why not? Tap into the zeitgeist! The zeitgeist is fascism, right? Look at all those comic book movies, that's what people want, you're saying — I get it! — fight crime with superpowers. The Dark Knight, the Dark Brandon... the kids'll love it. 

Dark Brandon strikes again https://t.co/zmhhO6V81M pic.twitter.com/FiQdB6NB7q

— Dan (@DaytimeDan) August 1, 2022

Russell Brand has fun with Kamala Harris's "passage of time" and Joe Biden's difficulty clapping.

"[D]ozens of celebrity Democratic supporters and activists... joined a call with White House aides last Monday to discuss the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. The mood was fatalistic...."

"[Deborah] Messing said she’d gotten Joe Biden elected and wanted to know why she was being asked to do anything at all, yelling that there didn’t even seem a point to voting. Others wondered why the call was happening. That afternoon, participants received a follow-up email with a list of basic talking points and suggestions of Biden speech clips to share on TikTok. The call, three days after the decision eliminating federal abortion rights, encapsulates the overwhelming sense of frustration among Democrats with Biden. It offers a new window into what many in the President’s party describe as a mismanagement permeating the White House...." 

From "After string of Supreme Court setbacks, Democrats wonder whether Biden White House is capable of urgency moment demands" (CNN).

Jack Dorsey called Elon Musk the "singular solution" to Twitter's problems and said "I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness."

"Dorsey’s exaltation of Musk evoked 'great man' thinking — a theory of history in which individual heroes direct world affairs through force of will and intellect. Antiquated among academic historians, 'great man' theory has enjoyed a renaissance in the technology industry.... What 'great man' thinking obscures is that technological breakthroughs invariably build on the work of others.... Of course Musk can’t build cars or rockets or a social network without help. But the importance of the teams he assembled at Tesla and SpaceX has been overlooked by many, including Dorsey, in assessing his takeover of Twitter. In short, Musk can’t transform Twitter, or even keep it moving forward, without a workforce of highly capable developers, designers, product and policy thinkers who truly believe in his plans for the company. And that is exactly what, by all accounts, he does not have at Twitter right now.... He could try to win over Twitter’s existing employees.... On Tuesday and Wednesday, he issued a series of tweets critical of both Twitter as a company and individual Twitter employees, including its top policy executive, Vijaya Gadde. Those tweets have helped to fuel an ugly, and at times violently racist, harassment campaign against her...."

From "Elon Musk and tech’s ‘great man’ fallacy/Jack Dorsey called him the 'singular solution’ to Twitter’s problems. But no leader can go it alone" by Will Oremus (WaPo).

There's no link on any part of "ugly, and at times violently racist, harassment campaign," and I do not know what it refers to. I went to Musk's Twitter feed, but am I supposed to sift through all manner of crazy stuff like this...

🤣💫

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022

I watch TikTok for you — and here are my 9 new selections.

1. An accurate miniature of a heavily graffiti'd ice storage box.

2. The way someone talks when he wants to get you to volunteer to wall-mount his TV.

3. The charitable work of detangling someone's hair.

4. A cat sings the blues.

5. Reacting to the news that someone's tested positive for Covid — in 2020 and in 2022.

6. Seeing if the dog likes celery.

7. A quick animation of Joe Biden, telling about when he was a little boy.

8. Discovering just how introverted you are.

9. A famous fractal — the Sierpinski triangle.

"Trump gives Biden the best advice."

@austinnasso Trump has advice #donaldtrump #trump #impression #fyp #usa #america #biden #bidenimpression ♬ original sound - Austin Nasso

ADDED: It looks much nicer as a TikTok embed, so I've replaced the YouTube version. I'll put it below the fold if people say this doesn't work on their browser. By the way, the last line is so clipped you could miss it, but it's excellent.

A new season of "SNL" begins — the cold open is all about the Democrats — and they've got a new guy playing Joe Biden.

 

I watched the whole thing and — maybe it's just me — I didn't find anything funny. The new Biden is James Austin Johnson. He doesn't look much like Biden and isn't leaning into making him ridiculous enough. The real Biden is already someone you can just watch and laugh at, so what are you going to do with it? 

 The second sentence of his very short Wikipedia page is: "He has garnered attention for his impression of former President of the United States Donald Trump, sometimes being referred to as 'the best Trump impersonator.'"

He doesn't just get attention. He garners it! 

Okay, so maybe this Biden impersonation is a fake out until they get to what they hired him for. Check this out:

PRES TRUMP TODAY IN CALIFORNIA: " 'WEIRD AL' WAS VERY MEAN TO MR. COOLIO!! DIDN'T ASK FOR RIGHTS. NOT VERY NICE!" pic.twitter.com/kgF5UFYRLP

— James Austin Johnson (@shrimpJAJ) October 18, 2020

How will they do debates if their Trump guy is also their Biden guy? I guess they're planning to worry about that when the time comes. It's really not too likely that Trump and Biden will ever debate each other again, but that would be far down the road. There will be years of running up to the primaries, with Democrats fighting Democrats and Republicans against Republicans, and Biden probably won't make it to his party's 2024 nomination. Trump probably will. 

So good luck to James Austin Johnson — with his Biden and his Trump. He does have a big problem looking like either of them, what with his huge nose. You can fake a large nose on a comedian with a small nose, but you can't fake small out of large. You have to rely on raw talent.

"I walked into the Oval Office, and the president ... got down on one knee."

Said Dick Van Dyke, who's 95 years old, and who went to the White House on Thursday, a little reception on the occasion of honors being doled out by the Kennedy Center. 

The other honorees, according to The Hill, were Garth Brooks, Debbie Allen, Joan Baez and Midori. I can't tell whether Biden got down on one knee for all of them or just for Van Dyke.

The only other detail in the linked article is that Joan Baez sang "(Ain't Gonna Let Nobody) Turn Me Around." 

She probably only sang the first verse. Here's the second verse:

Ain't gonna let the administration turn me around...

Turn me around...

Keep on a-walkin'

Keep on a-talkin'

Gonna build a brand new world

Well, those are the lyrics as presented at Genius lyrics. Reading them, I conclude that singers improvise endlessly about the thing they're not going to let turn them around.

"But Biden, so far, has been impregnable. The voice is too bland and devoid of obvious quirks..."

"... and beyond the occasional 'C’mon, man,' his conversational manner too muted and self-effacing, to give the parodists much to work with. Trump supporters and Fox News pundits would undoubtedly attribute this to the media’s liberal bias. And to be sure, Trump was viewed by the (mostly liberal) satirists not just as an irresistible comic target but also as a dire threat to the nation. Biden’s pleasantly boring presidency has been a welcome return to normality — but hardly great material for parody."

I picked that quote from WaPo's "Comedians are struggling to parody Biden/Let’s hope this doesn’t last" because the word "impregnable" caught my eye. 

I realize it's not meant as a pregnancy metaphor and we're supposed to think more in terms of a fortress. It's not normal to say that sterile women are "impregnable." The original meaning of the word is (from the OED): "Of a fortress or stronghold: That cannot be taken by arms; incapable of being reduced by force; capable of holding out against all attacks." Then there's the figurative meaning: "That cannot be overcome or vanquished; invincible, unconquerable, proof against attack." 

So the assertion here is that Biden is so neutral and featureless that an impersonator has nowhere to go. He's like a giant wall with no footholds. What can you do?! He's normal, so pleasantly boring. This is why I don't watch "Saturday Night Live" anymore. They're too lazy! Trump was ridiculously easy. I guess they loved not being challenged.

How about observing Biden and finding what is distinct and capable of mockery? I think the problem is really that they don't want to expose his flaws, that they're committed to the idea that he's normal and pleasant. But they ought to see this as a fantastic opportunity. The best presidential impersonation in this history of "SNL" was Dana Carvey's George H.W. Bush, and H.W. had the same problem of superficial ordinariness.

Press coverage of Dr. Seuss, worn at a slant.

I was reading this Vox piece, "Meltdown over Dr. Seuss/Biden didn’t mention Dr. Seuss in his Read Across America Day statement. All hell broke loose from there," and of course, I could see from the title the piece was massively slanted... 

Oh! Maybe I shouldn't use the word "slant" in the vicinity of the Dr. Seuss dispute. It's the worst word he ever used. Oh, no, it's not cute:

That's from "If I Ran the Zoo," a 1950 book that Dr. Seuss enterprises has just withdrawn from publication.  

Vox writes its article at a slant on a website where everything must be a rant. I'm not staying there long. I won't and I can't. But I noticed this one thing that seemed slightly wacky — a press conference question aimed at poor Jen Psaki: