"Marjorie Taylor Greene, you happen to be here. Would you like to run for the Senate? I will fight like hell for you, I tell you."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Awaiting possible indictment, Trump rallies in Waco and vows to 'destroy the deep state'/Trump railed against the government officials investigating him, vowing to remove 'the thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system' if he is elected again" (NBC News).

You don't see headlines like that anymore!

That's from March 25, 2023, but I'm reading it this morning because that quote was re-quoted in "As Kemp Bows Out of Senate Race, Is It MTG Time?" (NY Magazine). Sample text: "If nothing else, a Greene candidacy will make the Georgia Senate contest one of the most entertaining of the midterm cycle, ensuring that Ossoff’s low-key demeanor doesn’t sedate the electorate."

It sounds like the idea is that MTG is so exciting, people will be newly energized to vote for boring. I'm giving this my "I'm for Boring" tag not because I'm for Ossoff — it's not my state and I haven't followed him — but because I would like politics and government to back way off. Could we just have competence, professionalism, expertise, integrity, hard work, and good judgment? Long experience says no, but I like to keep a tag on the subject if only to mark that it exists as a subject.

"Are the Secret Service okay with the polar bears?"

My last post linked to my "I'm for Boring" tag, and I clicked on it and read a bunch of old posts. The ones from the last few years are nearly all about Biden.

Feel free to check them out. I just wanted to quote one thing I wrote in a post on March 3, 2020:

By the way, I had a dream about Donald Trump last night. I was at some sort of artsy song and spoken-word performance, in an intimate pink room with long comfy sofas. There were several polar bears reclining on a sofa, along with Donald Trump. This was right next to me, and I wanted to get some personal conversation with Trump, something I could remember and talk about. He was enjoying the show and singing along, being quite charming and talking to everyone. I leaned over and asked him, "Are the Secret Service okay with the polar bears?"

"The neutral-tinted individual is very apt to win against the man of pronounced views and active life."

Wrote Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in "Theodore Rex" (available atAmazon, whence I earn a commission).

He was referring to Alan B. Parker, who became his adversary in the 1904 presidential election, and I quote the passage from the book in full because it seems to have something to do with how we react to candidates today and because I have liked colorless politicians (and judges) — perhaps too much:

"Biden is the third U.S. president to visit Israel since 2013, and his visit is undeniably the most boring of them all."

"That’s not a criticism of Biden, however. In fact, the opposite is true – it’s a compliment. The uneventful and uncontroversial first day of his visit, which included fist bumps and handshakes at the airport, an exhibition of Israeli defense systems and a trip to Yad Vashem, represents a good kind of boring, which had been missing from the U.S.-Israel relationship under Biden’s two predecessors. When Donald Trump arrived in Israel in May 2017... [all the media] it had to do was place a camera in front of America’s erratic president... and let his unpredictable behavior and immature understanding of the world speak for themselves.... [Obama's] visit to Israel in 2013 was also great TV drama – a tense meeting between two rivals who had just spent the four years of Obama’s first term fighting each other over endless policy disagreements.... [Biden's visit] truly is a boring visit.... Israel is better off with a president who comes here for 48 hours, sees an Iron Dome battery, pledges to stop Iran from getting nukes, greets the American team at the Maccabiah games, and moves on to his next, more urgent challenges."

From "Biden's Boring First Day Was Just What Israel Needed/Look at Joe Biden’s visit and compare it to the previous two presidential landings. Drama? Tension? Politics? All are hard to find, but maybe that is actually good for Israel" by Amir Tibon (Haaretz).

"Attorney General Merrick Garland is, like Mueller before him, a diligent institutionalist. And while the institutionalists are not to be faulted for..."

"... attempting to prop up institutions—answering chaos with chaos is not an option—it is now amply clear that propping up institutions in response to the carnival is not enough. As Garland’s testimony Thursday morning revealed, the big lie is already going to be halfway across the world while the institutionalists are still double-knotting their loafers. When we comforted ourselves with the bromide that boring old institutionalists and reliably respected institutions would serve to cool the fever dreams and the fearmongering that characterized every day of the Trump administration, what we forgot was that boringness and stability are no match for the show. Garland is currently attempting to restore confidence in an independent, professionalized, apolitical Department of Justice, but he is doing so in the face of claims by his opponents that the DOJ is the new KGB and that its jackbooted thugs are coming to arrest you in the dark of night for expressing peaceful opposition to a classroom curriculum.... Garland is well aware that decreasing confidence in the Justice Department is a crisis that will accelerate acts of violence and self-help. That’s why he’s trying to bore us into believing that nothing nefarious can really happen on the watch of a silver-haired man with earnest centrism. The problem is that to the bulk of the GOP, anything done to uphold the rule of law now codes as nefarious. The trouble with boringness is that it’s boring.... But nobody craves boring sincerity anymore.... I used to believe that answering hysteria with vanilla bean–flavored institutionalism would restore confidence in institutions."

Writes Dahlia Lithwick in "Why Merrick Garland Can’t Win" (Slate). 

I have a lot of problems with that!

1. No one is "still double-knotting their loafers." Loafers are, by definition, slip-on shoes. No laces at all.

2. Vanilla is a very real, exciting, and complex flavor. I happen to have a very low sense of smell, and I test it from time to time by sniffing at the bottle of vanilla. I remember the smell, and oh, how I would love to smell it in its full-bodied beauty once again. Tears come to my eyes as I imagine that moment. 

3. Nobody craves boring sincerity anymore? I do.

4. Even if people find boring to be boring, we love boringness very deeply, even if it's a don't-miss-your-water-'til-the-well-runs-dry kind of love. We hate chaos. And Lithwick's incitement to chaos is loathsome to me because I have the sense to foresee the long-term losses to a short-term fling with chaos. 

We're just going to be boring until you stop looking.

 That's what I said out loud after reading the passage that begins "Biden embraces order and routine in his first week. How will that fit this moment of crisis?" (WaPo):

Almost every day of his young tenure, President Biden has entered the State Dining Room, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln looking down and wood burning in the fireplace. He speaks on the planned topic of the day. He sits at an undersized desk and searches for a pen to sign his latest stack of executive orders. Within 30 minutes of entering the camera’s frame, he has left it.

It is all plotted and planned. Little room is left for the unscripted or the unusual. 

Biden’s first full week in office has showcased an almost jarring departure from his predecessor’s chaotic style, providing the first window into a tenure whose mission is not only to remake the White House in Biden’s image but also to return the presidency itself to what he sees as its rightful path.

The result so far is a 9-to-5 presidency — a tightly scripted burst of activity that was charted over the past few months, as Biden seeks to avoid heated conflict and stick to his plan of lowering the political temperature to a level that many Americans can tune out.

So it's a plan, eh? What else is in the plan? What will you do after we tune out? Or is this all quite beneficent — a plan to give us rest and relief, respite from the frenetic, attention-seeking Trump?

By the way, I found many things to laugh at in those paragraphs. Just to flag things that amused me: "young tenure," "wood burning in the fireplace," searching for a pen on "an undersized desk," "Dining Room... little room," a "departure... providing" a "window" (or is it a "chaotic style, providing" a "window"), a "tenure" with a "mission.".

This post gets my "I'm for boring" tag, and I am for boring. I would like government to operate in a boring, reliable way. I envision hard-working experts, solving problems, serving the public interest. But I do see the downside of making it look boring. If you were really up to no good, you'd try to create a nothing-to-see-here atmosphere.

Naturally, I think of George Carlin's "It's The Quiet Ones You Gotta Watch." Of course, it's absurd to think that whenever nothing looks out of the ordinary, that's exactly when you should be most alarmed.

"MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan argues that we should think of Trump’s followers as if they were al-Qaeda members, who move freely among us because they are white..."

".... The comparison fails even though the mob in the Capitol included at least a few honest-to-goodness, unambiguous terrorists, who came there with the express purpose of violently scaring the hell out of politicians in an effort to change policy...  I once thought resistance to the hysterical style was hopeless.... We overdose on serotonin, or some equally enchanting neurotransmitter, and experience an addict’s bliss at the hysterical scenes that pass before our eyes, whether they make us happy or furious. The only thing that displeases us is boredom—and that is why boredom is our salvation. Developing an aversion to hysteria is a long process—as hard as for a drunk to learn to hate the bottle—but it is possible. You just have to learn to feel disgust for it, and for those who retweet it. I feel my own blood seroconverting against hysteria—I was once entertained, then riled, then bored, and now I am disgusted by it. And that makes me hopeful that others can undergo the same process. One sign that herd immunity against this hysterical style is within reach was the election of Biden, a nonhysterical fogey. More tests will come. A representative from Georgia has vowed to introduce articles of impeachment against Biden the day after the inauguration, for reasons too risible to bear repeating. These non-incidents are good practice: Follow the bead of your attention. Where does it go? Does it slavishly follow the antics of incorrigible exhibitionists? Do you wish it did not?"

From "What to Do With Trumpists/The proper response to these extremists isn’t counterterrorism. It is mental hygiene" by Graeme Wood (The Atlantic).

Too risible to link to an article? I looked it up. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) said Biden "is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and be easily bought off by foreign governments, foreign Chinese energy companies, Ukrainian energy companies." Is willing to abuse...? At least wait until he abuses power. Willingness to abuse power is not enough. 

"Trump’s Twitter feed... was a window into his deranged and disordered mind. The insults, grandiosity, lies, threats, bigotry and incitement..."

"He was a menace to the world, but he was a genius of the genre: nasty, irreverent, oddly addictive. It will be strange to revert to humdrum, cautious political platitudes after drinking the wine of uninhibited, free-association populism. Here are some recent tweets by President-Elect Joe Biden. 'In 10 days, we move forward and rebuild — together.' 'In 2020 we’re going to build a brighter future.' 'I’m filled with fresh hope about the possibilities of better days to come.'"

Writes Nicholas Goldberg (LA Times via Yahoo News).

Maybe people will drift away from social media. How did we get so caught up in it in the first place? Trump was part of a wave of excitement over Twitter, and with him banished — along with other vivid voices of the right — it might not have any energy at all. Why look? What's there? An old man babbles about his fresh hope of a brighter future?! If you don't have people to bounce off of, what will you tweet about? 

I remember when Twitter first got started. I already had a successful blog, but I thought this "microblogging" should work for me. But almost immediately, I saw how much it depended on going back and forth with other people who were right there next to you on the platform. I was used to sole possession of my blog's front page, and I could choose to interact with commenters on the comments page or link to other blogs, but I had a sense of this being my own place. I liked that. I'll embed a tweet here if I want to go after something I see over there. 

But I've watched Twitter develop. It's so full of journalists and politicos who snap back and forth, and Trump fit right in and amped everything up. It's so fast and vicious and crazy. Now, he's going to be extracted? Who will the lefties — the people who are left (in 2 senses) — engage with? Each other?

Do I hope the whole place falls flat? I hate the censorship. And if it falls flat as a consequence, that's poetic justice. 

Biden won the election because people wanted calm, moderation, and normality.

But it's not enough that he may be a calm, moderate, normal person. He must lead. Where is he now? Can he show his supporters how to gracefully accede to power? Can he unite us? I want an aura of beneficence, dignity, and inclusion! 

5 days ago I noted the promise he made:

Here’s my promise to you: I’ll be a president for all Americans. Whether you voted for me or not, I’ll wake up every single morning and work to make your life better.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 3, 2021

Commenters mocked me for "believing" this promise. I said (in the comments):

I believe that he made the promise. That's what matters. I will hold him to it and link back to this post whenever I need to. It doesn't matter whether you trust a politician to do what he says. You should still note the promises that are made so you can judge the performance. 

I'm judging.  

"[Biden] spent most of his career as a bit of an outsider to Washington’s social world, his face pressed against the glass."

"The cool kids, including President Barack Obama, occasionally mocked him behind his back for his cornball earnestness. Mr. Trump’s obsession with the media took the form of constant, obstreperous complaints and news-making leaks, a style Mr. Biden has suggested he finds merely embarrassing. Mr. Biden sought their approval with a more diligent and solicitous approach. As vice president, for instance, he was particularly attentive to the wise men of Washington, especially the foreign policy columnists David Ignatius of The Washington Post and Thomas L. Friedman of The Times. Mr. Biden liked nothing more than a wide-ranging, high-minded conversation about world affairs after he had returned from a trip to China or India. It seems that what Donald Trump did for the once-dying industry of cable news, Joe Biden may do for the dusty old newspaper column.... Mr. Trump has also gotten us all used to an extraordinary, if inadvertent, level of transparency. He rarely resisted answering shouted, timely questions, and his leaky White House offered journalists and their audience an X-ray portrait of a government running off the rails...."

Writes Ben Smith in "Get Me Meacham! Biden Brings Back the Media’s Good Old Days/The next president promises to do for old-line newspaper columnists what Donald Trump did for cable/What a time to be George Will!" (NYT).

I've been reading traditional media all along and can't stand cable news. I've followed Trump directly, reading his tweets and watching his rallies and press conferences. But will the people who've binged on cable news switch back to traditional print media like Newsweek and The New York Times just because Biden isn't keeping cable news fueled with hot tweets and video clips? It's not as though people need to consume news. They can pick video games or super-hero movies. There's all kinds of fast food for the mind. And if for some reason people want something more sober and intellectual, there are all kinds of heavier TV shows — "The Crown"! — and an endless supply of substantial books — Obama's memoir! 

We don't need the latest news — especially when it's dull — to be analyzed more deeply or pseudo-deeply. We're free to branch out to more interesting things. And we can still listen to Trump, who is likely to become even funnier and wilder. 

"Mr. Blinken has been at Mr. Biden’s side for nearly 20 years, including as his top aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as his national security adviser when he was vice president."

"In that role, Mr. Blinken helped develop the American response to political upheaval and instability across the Middle East, with mixed results in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Libya. But chief among his new priorities will be to re-establish the United States as a trusted ally that is ready to rejoin global agreements and institutions — including the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the World Health Organization — that were jettisoned by Mr. Trump." 

From "Biden Chooses Antony Blinken, Defender of Global Alliances, as Secretary of State/The president-elect is also expected to name Jake Sullivan, another close aide of his, as national security adviser, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year Foreign Service veteran, as his ambassador to the U.N." (NYT). 

I'm pleased to see such boring choices. Remember — a couple weeks ago, the news was that Pete Buttigieg wanted the U.N. ambassador job? I was sarcastic about that: "of course it makes sense that his background as mayor of a small city in the midwest sets him up well to deal with international affairs."

IN THE COMMENTS: Rocketeer said:

So will I be the first to start referring to the VP, SOS, and POTUS as Winkin', Blinken and Nod?

Meade read that out loud to me and I immediately recited... 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe--

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

I couldn't continue verbatim and I couldn't free-style rhymes about Biden and Harris, so I'm not bragging about my poetry expertise. Just saying I loved those Eugene Field poems when I was a child. I'm just seeing now that Eugene Field's father was the lawyer who represented Dred Scott: 

His father was Roswell Martin Field, an attorney who once represented Dred Scott, an African American man known for the 1857 U. S. Supreme Court case in which he sued for his freedom. Many believe the denial of Scott's bid by the court prompted the U. S. Civil War.

And here's the poem done with animation by Disney and music by Donovan: 

"I think they’re witnessing incredible irresponsibility, incredibly damaging messages being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions."

"And I think it is … Well, I don’t know his motive, but I just think it’s totally irresponsible.... No, I’m not concerned the vast majority of the American people [might question the legitimacy of my administration]. All the polling data has indicated, although the Republicans who worry about it, it’s higher, but over 78% of the American people believe it’s without question, it’s legitimate. And I think most of the Republicans I’ve spoken to, including some of the governors, think this is debilitating. It sends a horrible message about who we are as a country."

Said Joe Biden, yesterday, when asked about Trump's refusal to concede the election. Transcript.

The press conference was about handling the pandemic, and I was encouraged to see him embrace the decentralized federalism approach: "No national shutdown. No national shutdown, because every region, every area, every community can be different. And so there’s no circumstance which I can see would require a total national shutdown. I think that would be counterproductive."

I like the calmness, the modesty. He's displaying good instincts right now. I'll just give this my "I'm for Boring" tag to gesture at what I like about the emerging Biden administration.

IN THE COMMENTS: Balfegor points to this new poll, which Biden could not have seen when he spoke of "all the polling data" yesterday:

Huge: "How likely is it that Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win?"

Democrats - 30% - 20% say Very Likely (VL)
Unaffiliated - 39% - 29% say VL
Republicans - 75% - 61% say VL
All Voters - 47% - 36% say VL https://t.co/NMDryxyLzq pic.twitter.com/EblRuV2AXY

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) November 20, 2020

But notice the way the question is asked. It's not about whether enough votes were affected but whether the motive was to affect enough votes. Biden was talking about belief that he really did win enough votes. To believe that is not the same as believing that there were no stolen votes. In that light, these poll results are inconsequential. It's easy to say I'm sure there was some fraud, in some places, and also to believe that overall the result we're seeing is legitimate. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. The point at which you say that varies depending on whether you're happy with the outcome you're seeing now. 

ALSO IN THE COMMENTS: DEEBEE writes:

Interesting that the federalist approach did not trigger “Trump-Ian” approach in your remarks.

I didn't write it out, but I thought it. It seemed obvious. I'm not trying to suppress it. Throughout this year, I have defended Trump's federalism approach when he was criticized for not taking over with a top-down national approach. There's this, from April 11th:

"I really enjoyed last night’s debate with Sleepy Joe.... The verdict is in and they say that we, we, all of us, won big last night.... In the history of cable television, it had the highest ratings...."

"Last night, I did want [to do what] the corrupt media has refused to do. I held Joe Biden accountable for his 47 years of lie, 47 years of betrayal, and 47 years of failure. I held Joe accountable for shipping your jobs and dreams abroad, and for bowing to the violent mob at home. Can you imagine these people the way they take over these Democrats cities? I don’t even believe it. The whole nation saw the truth.... Joe Biden is too weak to lead this country. You know Biden lost badly when his supporters are saying he should cancel the rest of the debates. Now, I understand he’s canceling the debates. Let’s see what happens. I think that’s not going to be a good move. I don’t think that’s going to be a good move. Television, with those ratings, they’re never going to let them cancel. You don’t know television like that. What are they going to do? Someday, we’re not going to be doing this anymore. What are they going to do without Trump? What are they going to do?... What are they going to do when in eight, 12, maybe 16 years, I said, 'Let’s hang it up. Let’s hang it up.' 16 more years. But what he’s doing is what you do when you lose. So, let’s see what he does. I don’t think he’s going to get that. I’ve got news for Joe. If you ever became president, you have to deal with some of the toughest people in the world, and Chris Wallace is very, very easy by comparison. I will tell you. I know him. I know him well. Liberal media is upset that I took the fight to Biden and exposed his very dangerous agenda...."

From "Donald Trump Duluth, Minnesota Campaign Rally Transcript September 30: Night After First Debate" (REV).

That's the discussion of the debate. He claims to have won because the ratings were so high. That's his measure of success. But he's wrong about the ratings! According to Nielsen, the NYT reports, there was a 13% decline from the first presidential debate in 2016 — 73 million vs. 84 million.  But 73 million is still a lot, and perhaps the Nielsen numbers came out late and Trump was relying on some earlier estimate. Getting the fact wrong isn't as bad as excessive reliance on ratings. People were watching, but what did we think of the event? What did we think of him? I've seen some very negative reviews. Ah, well, you could say that he's forefronting the ratings because it's his best point. Maybe he knows he screwed up.

And he did screw up, in retrospect. He kept up the pressure on Biden — with constant interruptions and abuse — and Biden held up and stood his ground. The strategy failed, and now he has to worry that Biden can refuse to do the other debates. Biden can say he proved what he needed to prove, and Trump proved that he will be abusive, and it would be wrong to give Trump another chance to behave like that.

Trump used to be able to say Joe is hiding in his basement because his people don't want you to see that he's in a state of sad geriatric decline. Now, he's switched to saying the show must go on because the ratings are high. He's talking showbiz: "Television, with those ratings, they’re never going to let them cancel." He knows television: "You don’t know television like that." You don’t know television like I know television. He's a TV star. They can't cancel his show! It's huuge!

He raves "What are they going to do when in eight, 12, maybe 16 years, I said, 'Let’s hang it up. Let’s hang it up.' 16 more years."  Who's the "they"? The media, I think. What will they do without him and his ratings? TV wants Trump to have a second term because Trump is good TV. Everyone wants to watch the show. The Biden show will be so dull. No one will want to watch. You know, some of us think it would be good for Americans to turn away from the politics on television. It really is quite shallow and soul-deadening. But somehow, with Trump, we can't turn away.

If it's all about the ratings, winning the election is getting the show renewed. He'll win because it's a good show. He'll be renewed not just for 8 years but "12, maybe 16 years." Why'd he say 12 or 16 when he's term-limited at 8? Because it's good TV. It gives the talking heads something to talk about. They can't resist. They've already shown that they love to get melodramatic about the potential for Trump to find a way to refuse to leave office when his term is up. That's the kind of junk news TV we steep our brains in night after night. Trump says we're addicted to it, and the media know. They're our suppliers and that's how they make their money. So that's why he'll win the election. They're going to renew The Trump Show.

What a sick, sad delusion! Or... if you get Trump and you're still with him, you can say something like: Trump is a tireless optimist. He knows it went badly for him last night, but he won't feel sorry for himself and he won't give up. He talks about whatever is best. Here, it's the ratings and the greatness of the TV show he's making spontaneously day to day, for us, the people. Yes, he exaggerates the numbers — the ratings, the potential years he can hold office — but the heart of it is true. It is a great show — a cage match. And there should be no feeling sorry for Joe Biden. He deserved a hard fight, and he'd better come back for 2 more fights, and Trump will trash talk and taunt him until he does.

MSNBC commentator oozes enthusiasm: "That ad just oozed the message of his campaign... empathy..."

I don't have to specify that they were looking at a Biden ad. The bias in news media is so obvious that you probably think it's dumb to mention it. I know I'm just asking for reiterations of comments I've seen a thousand times: "You're just noticing?!" No, I'm not just noticing. I noticed it since at least January 1969 when my high school history teacher analyzed the NYT coverage of the Nixon inauguration.

Here's the ad. It's a standard political ad, old-fashioned and conventional.



The success of this ad depends a lot on whether hearing the voices of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris makes you feel warm and hopeful. I think you need be be in the mood to feel calmed. I know I like seeing images of a fatherly young black man reading a child a book that says "love" on the cover, and maybe the ad is really directed at centrist white women like me. But I felt a critical distance, perhaps because I was so put off by the MSNBC person going all ooey-gooey about the oozing empathy.

To be fair to MSNBC, they had just shown the ad, so presumably the normal TV audience was given a chance to feel the feelings that the ad was constructed to inspire. I was not the normal audience, but a car driver listening to TV on the satellite radio, and I jumped in late, after the ad. But much as I love love and want to see more love in politics, I want a President who'll be tough and fair and willing to enforce law and not stand back ineffectually while cities burn.

To some extent, I like the ad because it's so bland and ordinary. Trying to remember it, it seems like something that could have run on broadcast TV in the 1970s. It could reach me in my "I'm for Boring" place. I did vote against Trump in 2016 because I thought he was too weird to be President. He's still very weird, but I have gotten used to him. He's the prevailing norm in a hellish year. I think Americans can be lured into dully hoping that to vote for Biden is to turn the page.

By the way, the MSNBC folk assumed the ad was directed at black voters.

Kanye West is running for President as the candidate of "the Birthday Party," Elon Musk is advising him....

... and he's not for Trump anymore — "I am taking the red hat off, with this interview."

Here's the interview — in Forbes. Other high points:

... he’s ok with siphoning off Black votes from the Democratic nominee, thus helping Trump. “I’m not denying it, I just told you. To say that the Black vote is Democratic is a form of racism and white supremacy.”
... he’s never voted in his life.
... he was sick with Covid-19 in February.
... he’s suspicious of a coronavirus vaccine, terming vaccines “the mark of the beast.”
... he believes “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
... he envisions a White House organizational model based on the secret country of Wakanda in Black Panther.

ADDED:

His running mate? Michelle Tidball, an obscure preacher from Wyoming. And why the Birthday Party? “Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.”...

A few weeks after he ended two separate text chains with me with the message “Trump 2020” and a fist raised high, he insists he’s lost confidence in the president. “It looks like one big mess to me,” he says. “I don’t like that I caught wind that he hid in the bunker.”...

That said, he won’t say much more against Trump. He’s much less shy about criticizing Biden, which certainly won’t tamp down the idea that the Birthday Party is a ruse to help re-elect Trump. “I’m not saying Trump’s in my way, he may be a part of my way. And Joe Biden? Like come on man, please. You know? Obama’s special. Trump’s special. We say Kanye West is special. America needs special people that lead. Bill Clinton? Special. Joe Biden’s not special.”...

Kanye West is very good at saying interesting things. So's Trump. They're special.

It's Super Tuesday at last.

Check out the newest polls on Real Clear Politics to get a sense of which of the 3 ancient white men might fall forward into an unstoppable momentum rolling into the Valley of Inevitable Trump Victory.

I have my cruel neutrality vantage point, but even if I wanted to get more engaged, I couldn't pick somebody to root for. I don't want any of them! What a ridiculous condition the 2020 race has deteriorated into!

I'm interested in the populism of Trump and Sanders and feel something of a thrill to see the establishment of both parties getting their comeuppance. But my real preference is for absolutely boring government, run by men and women of integrity, expertise, and competence. Such folk never show up and last long enough to be in the running this late in the game, but maybe Bloomberg is closest to that idea.

But I think Bloomberg will get crushed today, and I anticipate laughing at him when that happens. That's how little my abstract preference has to do with watching the Super Tuesday antics.

Am I with the moderate, cautious people who are gathering behind Joe Biden? No, I'm staying up here on my cruel neutrality vantage point. I don't think Joe Biden is in any condition to do what it takes to fight until November and then deal with the job of President.

By the way, I had a dream about Donald Trump last night. I was at some sort of artsy song and spoken-word performance, in an intimate pink room with long comfy sofas. There were several polar bears reclining on a sofa, along with Donald Trump. This was right next to me, and I wanted to get some personal conversation with Trump, something I could remember and talk about. He was enjoying the show and singing along, being quite charming and talking to everyone. I leaned over and asked him, "Are the Secret Service okay with the polar bears?"

"Interviews with dozens of Democratic Party officials, including 93 superdelegates, found overwhelming opposition to handing Mr. Sanders the nomination if he fell short of a majority of delegates."

The NYT got the interviews and reports:

[O]nly nine of the 93 superdelegates interviewed said that Mr. Sanders should become the nominee purely on the basis of arriving at the convention with a plurality, if he was short of a majority.

“I’ve had 60 years experience with Democratic delegates — I don’t think they will do anything like that,” said former Vice President Walter Mondale, who is a superdelegate. “They will each do what they want to do, and somehow they will work it out. God knows how.”

Mondale! I was just thinking about Mondale the other day. The context was: Who is the most boring major-party nominee for President I've seen in my life?

In recent weeks, Democrats have placed a steady stream of calls to Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who opted against running for president nearly a year ago, suggesting that he can emerge as a white knight nominee at a brokered convention....

“If you could get to a convention and pick Sherrod Brown, that would be wonderful, but that’s more like a novel,” Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said. “Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, so if you can have a horror story you might as well have a novel.”

That's exactly what gets my "if Trump could do it" tag.

ADDED: I'm not saying boring like it's a bad thing. As I've said many times — and I have a tag for it — "I'm for Boring." And I voted for Mondale.



Sock it to 'em, Walter.

How the Democratic candidates responded to prompt what's "the biggest misconception about you."

There are different ways to interpret this invitation, so let's analyze and judge the candidates by the choices they made.

These are not in the order they appear in the transcript. I've grouped them in the way that fits my analysis.

First up: Biden and Bloomberg:

BIDEN: I have more hair than I think I do.

BLOOMBERG: Misconception, that I'm six feet tall.

Both of these men used the opportunity to point to a physical flaw that they've probably been sensitive about all their adult life. It's a well-known flaw. But it's not a misconception to believe that Biden has struggled with hair loss and Bloomberg is short. So they had to restate the flaw to make the answer fit.

One approach would have been to exaggerate the flaw so that it's wrong. That is, Biden could have said: The misconception is that I'm completely bald! And Bloomberg could have said: Some people say I'm only 4 foot 9! Now, nobody has that misconception, but I'd find it very funny.

Bloomberg exaggerates in the other direction, and nobody has that misconception, but he's imagining himself as a tall man, and in doing so, conceding that he is not. There's a kind of self-deprecation in that, even though it seems to be sneaking in a boast. But it's not a boast, because we absolutely know he's not 6 feet tall.

"The ‘Rage Baking’ Controversy, Explained/'Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices' is one of the most hyped cookbooks/essay collections of the year..."

"... but Tangerine Jones, a black woman who began using the phrase 'rage baking' years ago in response to racial injustice, isn’t credited," Eater explains.

On February 4, Simon & Schuster published Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices.... Then, on February 14, blogger and baker Tangerine Jones published an essay on Medium titled “The Privilege of Rage,” outlining how she coined the phrase “rage baking” back in 2015, and watched as Alford and Gunst’s book was published to great acclaim as her work went unacknowledged. Jones, a black woman, wrote that “Being black in America means you’re solid in the knowledge that folks don’t give a true flying fuck about you or anyone who looks like you,” and that she turned to baking as a form of self care. In 2015, she started posting online with the hashtag #ragebaking, and started the @ragebaking Instagram account in the summer of 2016....

“There are huge consequences when [black women] express our rage because we’re seen as threatening,” [Jones] said in an email, even noting that her post likely wouldn’t have been as popular “if I wasn’t code switching and couching my profound disappointment and anger in ‘eloquent’ ways.”

I'm trying to understand how Tangerine Jones feels, and here's what I come up with. What if some men — without so much as mentioning me — put out a book titled "Cruel Neutrality: The Transformative Power of Blogging, Brutality, and the Detached Voice," and the authors were raking in money and doing TV appearances and their names replaced mine on a Google search on "cruel neutrality":

I don't mind seeing Taylor Swift's name on "my" page, but it would irk me if some men — I made them men to approximate Jones's racial grievance — took my phrase and monetized it, fame-a-tized it. I'd be irked. But I wouldn't think, this is how the world marginalizes people like me. So I'm not getting the full Tangerine Jones effect.

ADDED: The authors of "Rage Baking" are giving some of their profits to "Emily’s List, an organization dedicated to electing pro-choice Democrat women to office, and though Jones dismisses." It's interesting the way rage is becoming part of the Democratic Party brand. I searched for the phrase "rage baking" in the NYT archive, and I found "I Misjudged the Gender Effect/The Sanders-Warren spat looked as if it’d blow over. Instead it’s fueled the 'electability' debate" (a column by Lisa Lerer from a month ago):

Sure, the energy of the first Women’s March, the #MeToo movement and the historic number of women who won congressional seats in 2018 is still alive — or at least available for purchase. Books like “Rage Baking” urge women to use “sugar and sass” as political protest, as pink hats march down runways and designers sell $400 “resistance” sweaters. But it’s not translating into support for the remaining women in the Democratic primary....

Yes, before investing too deeply in rage, get some clarity about whether rage works. It might work to get somebody flinging flour around the kitchen and gobbling cookies — let's face it, "rage baking" comes from "rage eating," and most baking is for eating — but that doesn't mean we want rage at the center of presidential politics.

AND: Some people in the comments are making fun of the name Tangerine, but Tangerine is a fantastic name. I don't think there's anyone famous named Tangerine, but there are 2 great songs about a woman named Tangerine. There's the 1941 Johnny Mercer song "Tangerine" (listen here to Chet Baker and Paul Desmond... wait, that was great, but there's no singing, so here's Frank Sinatra):

Tangerine, she is all they claim
With her eyes of night and lips as bright as flame
Tangerine, when she dances by
Senoritas stare and caballeros sigh
And I've seen toasts to Tangerine
Raised in every bar across the Argentine
Yes, she has them all on the run
But her heart belongs to just one
Her heart belongs to Tangerine
Tangerine, she is all they say
With mascara'd eye and chapeaux by Dache
Tangerine, with her lips of flame
If the color keeps, Louis Philippe's to blame
And I've seen clothes on Tangerine
Where the label says "From Macy's Mezzanine"
Yes, she's got the guys in a whirl
But she's only fooling one girl
She's only fooling Tangerine

And Led Zeppelin had their "Tangerine"! Listen here. The lyrics are a noticeably inferior to the Johnny Mercer song, but still.... Led Zeppelin!

Tangerine, Tangerine
Living reflection from a dream
I was her love, she was my queen
And now a thousand years in between
Thinking how it used to be
Does she still remember times like these?
To think of us again
And I do

"So it’s Bernie’s moment, which has sent a wave of panic through the Democratic ecosystem. It’s like waking up from a nightmare..."

"... only to realize that you’re waking up in a nightmare. Which helps explain why Democrats across the country will soon find themselves with a newfound appreciation for the virtues of one Mike Bloomberg, former Republican mayor of New York and billionaire founder of a financial data services empire. He might not have been exactly what they had in mind, but by Super Tuesday he’ll look like Brad Pitt. What people don’t yet seem to have grasped is this: Bloomberg is going to spend an astronomical amount of money on this race. Probably at least $1 billion. Maybe twice that. Possibly even more. Numbers like that upend every model of every presidential race in history. He can buy every news adjacency on cable and local television stations from now until November and not make a dent in his net worth. U.S. politics has never seen such financial throw weight in a presidential campaign....  It isn’t hard to see the nomination as Bloomberg’s for the taking. Democrats believe they will lose to Trump with Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Many harbor 'reservations' about Biden. And they know that Buttigieg isn’t going to win the Masters the first time he plays the course. Yes, Bloomberg is a bit dull. He is not exactly charismatic. And he can be a scold. But all the things that would have made him tedious in previous presidential election campaigns make him appealing now.... Trump’s greatest vulnerability is the anxiety he creates... Bloomberg doesn’t make anyone nervous...."

From "Mike Bloomberg will soon be Democrats’ dream candidate" (WaPo).

We talked about this 6 days ago — here. Back then, I started thinking Bloomberg can win, and it's been firming up into a prediction that he will win. But you know me: I'm for Boring.

ADDED: Click on my "I'm for Boring" tag and you'll get to my post from last October when I revealed — after keeping it secret for 3 years — who I voted for in the 2016 election:

I am not a Trump fan. I voted against the guy. I have voted in 12 presidential elections, and in 9 of them, I voted for the Democrat. In the 21st century, there have been 5 presidential elections, and I've voted for the Democrat in 3 of them. There have been 2 Presidents in the 21st century who have won twice and neither of them did I vote for twice. I am a true swing voter (in a swing state). All I want is a very competent, reliable, sensible, good person who can handle the presidency. I don't want your ugliness and hysteria. I don't want to see my fellow citizens cranked up into a frenzy. The very reasons I voted against Trump are getting cooked up into reasons to vote for him — by you, you idiots.