"He’s saying, ‘I can do whatever the hell I want and you can’t stop me!' In this case, it’s sundering history."

"If you worked in the White House, you have a reverence for every wall of that place. Tattered as it may have been, there was a dignity to it. It was a quietly stately citadel of power in America, not a palace for a mad king. Trump has a manic desire to tear down history and write his own.... He believes that the only thing you can do wrong is that which is not in your self-interest."

Said David Axelrod, quoted by Maureen Dowd, in "Burnin’ Down the House" (NYT).

Sundered. 

Dowd's own words: "The president has the kind of blot-out-the-sun narcissism that spurs him to do whatever it takes to keep all eyes on him. He ignores the law, procedures, consequences. It’s a slam-dance presidency that delights in transgressing and provoking.... Trump’s talent is finding wormholes in the system that he can exploit for his own satisfaction or financial gain — things that are not specifically outlawed because it never occurred to the founders or anyone else that a lowlife could rise so high."

They left wormholes because they didn't think there would be any worms? Stop underestimating the founders! 

"Young women are constantly warned of the dangers of the manosphere.... The cult of 'toxic masculinity' is now so overcooked as to be limp..."

"... and meaningless, and, crucially, it entirely misses one key thing: feminine men can be just as 'toxic' as bodybuilders. It is Gen Z’s shallow sexual politics, which privilege 'looking' progressive over deeply felt values, that have landed us here. If the feminisation of culture has succeeded, it is because posing as effete gains men access to the women they want to sleep with. Cultural capital has deserted roided-up meatheads and landed in the lap of the moustachioed, mulletted lothario who professes to be a harmless feminist and who wields just enough knowledge about Judith Butler to talk a blushing sociology major into bed.... When visibly masculine men are maligned as potential abusers, women choose the wolf in vintage clothing. But this is all based on false assumptions: performative matcha is one more way that ill-intentioned loverboys can game our sexual politics’ daft stereotypes, joining tried-and-tested tactics like professing to be left-wing, painting one’s nails and listening to Phoebe Bridgers. You are just as likely to be shagged and bagged by a matcha drinker as a craft beer enthusiast, or indeed, a plain old lager fan...."

Writes Poppy Sowerby, quoted in "Ladies, if you see a man with a matcha latte — run/Male poseurs have abandoned macho and embraced matcha. Is it just another ploy to seduce women?" (London Times).

I haven't used my "performative (the word)" tag in a while. Here's the post where I created it, back in 2022 about a NYT piece titled, "Should Biden Run in 2024? Democratic Whispers of ‘No’ Start to Rise." I said:

"What do we mean when we talk about diversity? Is it caring for people’s different experiences and making sure no one is mistreated because of them..."

"... which I will always fight for? Or is it making people sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia, which I have also experienced. And it is how Trump Republicans are made."

Said Pete Buttigieg, at a "Future of the Democratic Party" forum, responding to a question from David Axelrod about the "spectacle of the Democratic National Committee chair election," quoted in "Pete Buttigieg slams Democrats' 'Portlandia' approach to pushing diversity" (Yahoo! News).

Pete Buttigieg is abandoning ship on DEI, admitting that it often amounts to "making people sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia."

Buttigieg is like a LibBot2000, fine-tuned by McKinsey consultants. The tide is turning.pic.twitter.com/5IFC5zqb3V

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 20, 2025

"In the wake of Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the gender and sexuality scholar Asa Seresin picked up on a feeling in the air..."

"... and put a name to it: 'heteropessimism.' ... Mr. Seresin argued that heteropessimism was defined by 'performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience.' By 'performative,' Mr. Seresin meant that though many women freely admitted that being attracted to men was at best a bummer and at worst a form of masochism, few acted on their beliefs. While expressing a sincere hopelessness, women’s disavowals seemed to be mostly gestural, like a sardonic Etsy mug."

Writes Marie Solis, in "Men? Maybe Not. The election made clear that America’s gender divide is stark. What’s a heterosexual woman to do?" (NYT).

That's a long article, but I chose that excerpt because I have a tag "performative (the word)." Here's the post — from June 11, 2022 — where I created the tag. Interestingly, it was about a David Axelrod piece asking "Should Biden Run in 2024?" Axelrod wrote, "Biden doesn’t get the credit he deserves... And part of the reason he doesn’t is performative." I said:

"When Joe Biden called Kamala Harris on the morning of Sunday, July 21st, she was... wearing sweatpants and a hoodie..."

"By the time Biden announced his withdrawal, that Sunday afternoon, a scramble was already under way, largely out of public view. Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state representative who helped Harris secure the nomination, told me... 'We weren’t going to do this bullshit that other people were asking for,' he said. In his view, an open convention was a way to 'skip over Kamala.' After Biden’s call, Harris had summoned aides to her house, and a dozen or so people gathered around a table.... In the hours that followed, her team undertook an operation that was less an improvisation than a culmination of years spent cultivating allies.... Harris never had time to change out of her sweats. By the following morning... she had endorsements from a majority of Democrats in Congress, two large unions, and a growing number of state delegations.... David Axelrod, who was the chief strategist for both of Obama’s Presidential campaigns, told me, 'There was an argument that she would be strengthened by a competition, but she showed a mastery of the internal politics, which is one test of a potential candidate. People respond to competence, and that was a very competent operation.' He compared it to a rapid military strike. 'She didn’t get handed this nomination,' he said. 'She took it.'... By gaining the nomination so late, Harris spared herself the obligation of courting the orthodox wing of her party in primaries. But a short run has risks; it left her little time to explain what she believes and what she would do in office... "

Writes Evan Osnos, in "Kamala Harris’s Hundred-Day Campaign/Three months ago, the Vice-President was fighting for respect in Washington. Can she defy her doubters—and end the Trump era?" (The New Yorker).

Little time to explain what she believes? Little time to arrive at beliefs.

ADDED: I chose this article to blog first this morning, but it was one of the many headlines I saw that made me want to create a new tag, something like "pre-postmortem." Real Clear Politics cues up these headlines:

"During the N.B.A. finals that began on Thursday, the Biden campaign ran a TV ad titled, 'Flag,' which really mirrors a strategy..."

"... that senior officials described to The New Yorker earlier this year. It’s highly focused on “freedom” conceptually, through the prism of abortion, voting rights and a few other issues. While the issues are definitely longstanding Democratic priorities, if you watch it, the solemn patriotic tone of the ad feels a little old school Republican to me — it’s an interesting artifact of how things have changed. Biden is running to preserve rights and freedoms, or, through another lens, conserve the old ways."

Writes Katherine Miller, in "This Year, It’s Democrats Who Are Waving the Flag of Freedom" (NYT).

This gets my "left-or-right ambiguity" tag. 

Where was I just reading that displaying a flag by your front door was the equivalent of a sign saying We're voting for Trump? 

Here's the ad:

Did you notice how opposition to gun rights fit the rhetoric of freedom? It's "the freedom for our children to be safe from gun violence."

The New Yorker article, from last March, is "Joe Biden’s Last Campaign/Trailing Trump in polls and facing doubts about his age, the President voices defiant confidence in his prospects for reëlection" by Evan Osnos. I started to read it, and when I got to the line "Biden, always a little taller than you expect," I knew I'd blogged it at the time. Here. Before reading my old post, I was getting ready to make a large-boulder-the-size-of-a-small-boulder joke, but then I saw that's what I did at the time:

"I'm not here as an apologist for Donald Trump and I'm certainly not here as a lawyer... but I'm trying to imagine what it would be like..."

"... if the Supreme Court said we're removing the front-running Republican candidate from the ballot and essentially saying to the American people, you won't have the opportunity to vote for him. And I think it would be very, very disruptive in this country. I think it will create a huge reaction and that worries me. It worries me partly because of Donald Trump. There's so much cynicism about our institutions already. And the strength of our democracy are these institutions. You can argue that's why you have to go the way the Colorado court suggests. But I think in the minds of many voters, this would be a subversion. And it would draw very strong reaction."

Said David Axelrod, on CNN last night, before today's oral argument.

Very strong reaction... but what, exactly? Another/"another" insurrection?

"If Trump manages to escape conviction in Jack Smith’s Washington case, which may be the only criminal trial that ends before the election, that’s going to turbocharge his campaign."

"Of course, if he’s convicted, that could turbocharge his campaign even more. It’s a perfect playing field for the maleficent Trump: He learned in the 2016 race that physical and rhetorical violence could rev up his base. He told me at the time it helped get him to No. 1 and he said he found violence at his rallies exciting. He has no idea why making fun of Paul Pelosi’s injuries at the hands of one of his acolytes is subhuman, any more than he understood how repellent it was in 2015 when he mocked a disabled Times reporter. He gets barbaric laughs somehow, and that’s all he cares about...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "The Axe Is Sharp" (NYT)

"The Axe" refers to the person Biden calls a "prick," David Axelrod.

Trump mocked a disabled reporter, but he did not, as Dowd may want readers to falsely remember, make fun of his disability.

If we could read Trump's mind, would we find that he has "no idea why making fun of Paul Pelosi’s injuries is subhuman"? But we can't read his mind.

"I’m just saying he has a path to victory. As the former Obama adviser David Axelrod has been saying, Biden has to make this a comparison election..."

"... him versus Trump. And I’d add that he has to make this a prosaic election. It’s not which of these two men do you dislike least, it’s which set of goods do you want to buy: low prescription drug prices or higher ones, some student debt forgiveness or none, abundant infrastructure jobs or few? If Biden can make this about concrete benefits to everyday Americans, I suspect he’ll be fine."

Writes David Brooks, in "Democrats: You Can Chill Out Now!" (NYT).

"The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue."

Said David Axelrod, with a distinctively clever way to state the numerical fact, quoted in "Should Biden Run in 2024? Democratic Whispers of ‘No’ Start to Rise. In interviews, dozens of frustrated Democratic officials, members of Congress and voters expressed doubts about the president’s ability to rescue his reeling party and take the fight to Republicans" (NYT). 

Another quote from Axelrod: "Biden doesn’t get the credit he deserves for steering the country through the worst of the pandemic, passing historic legislation, pulling the NATO alliance together against Russian aggression and restoring decency and decorum to the White House. And part of the reason he doesn’t is performative. He looks his age and isn’t as agile in front of a camera as he once was, and this has fed a narrative about competence that isn’t rooted in reality."

I should make a tag for "performative." It's a buzz word these days, I believe, and I'd like to keep track of it. 

"Exhausted, confused, isolated and depressed Americans are not buying the Democratic line that things are better than they look."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Can Dems Dodge Doomsday?" (NYT). Focused on helping the Democratic Party in the next election, she looks to 3 Democratic Party strategists — James Carville, David Axelrod, and Stan Greenberg.

Biden’s advisers are urging him just to sell harder and people will get it. Axelrod disagrees: “You cannot persuade people if their lived experience is telling them something different. We’ve been through hell in America and around the world.”...

Carville [says Democrats] should work not to seem like an “urban, coastal, arrogant party”... “People don’t like you.”...

... Greenberg warned Democrats not to use Obama.... “Obama did not give voice to the hurt and anger that working class voters were feeling,” Greenberg wrote.... Fretting about the threat of Trumpism, given that the Democrats are bleeding working-class voters, including Black and Hispanic ones, he told me, “If they don’t listen this time, we’re going to end up with fascism, dammit.”

To sum up. Axelrod says: empathize with the people. Carville says: stop being so damned dislikeable. Greenberg says: do class politics, not race politics.

ADDED: I'm reading the comments over there and it's overflowing with denial: Stop trashing Biden! I'm tired of attacks on Democrats! 

One comment with over 1400 up votes ends with the poorly thought-out line: "D to go forward; R for reverse....over an endless series of catastrophic cliffs." Don't go forward over even one catastrophic cliff, because that will be the end of it all, and what lies beyond is irrelevant. If the endless cliffs are behind us, so that going in reverse would take us over them, how did we get here in the first place?

Do you visualize history as a landscape? Do you think of the government as a car driving over that landscape? Does that car have an automatic transmission? When I get in my car, I don't see a "D"...

"Everybody’s strength is their weakness, in politics as in life... [Biden's] strength is he’s always spoken his mind. There’s a genuineness to that."

"There’s also a danger. In politics as in sports, you want to maximize your principal’s strengths and minimize his weaknesses. They’ve effectively maximized his earnestness and decency. They’ve not allowed him to be in situations where he can stray.... I was frustrated [not being able to book Biden for an interview]. But stepping back from my own selfish interests, I understood and admired their discipline. They were going to control his interactions. Their job is not to serve us. Their job is to serve him.

Said David Axelrod, quoted in "How the White House Polices Language in Washington" by Olivia Nuzzi (NY Magazine). After that quote, Nuzzi adds:

This reminded me of something William Safire once wrote describing how the administration of George H.W. Bush had screwed him over to neuter a damaging story: “What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.” 

Another quote from Nuzzi: 

During the Trump years, it was amusing how often it was possible to report with a straight face that the president said one thing while the White House said another, as though he was just some guy who happened to hang around there. But this odd dynamic persists into the Biden era.

That's terribly funny, the idea of the President as just some guy who happens to hang around in the White House. What if it's always been like that and the odd thing is that it took Trump to make us see?