"We decided to erase him."

"There’s just mutual headshaking. It’s like you lock eyes and you shake heads and you move on"/"It’s a sense of betrayal, like, who are you? Were you always like this? I don’t know you anymore!"

Said unnamed acquaintances of Cheryl Hines, quoted in "Cheryl Hines’s MAGA Makeover Has Her Hollywood Colleagues Scratching Their Heads: 'I Don’t Know You Anymore!'/'It’s a sense of betrayal, like, who are you?' says one industry insider, of the Curb Your Enthusiasm star and wife of RFK" (Vanity Fair).

“Whatever her reasons for staying with that weird, imbecilic husband and whether or not she subscribes to his inane positions is of no real consequence,” [an unnamed "Hollywood heavyweight"] says disdainfully. "It isn’t as though we’re talking about Zendaya, whom one would desperately want to get into their movie.'...

One of the few close pals to publicly speak up about Hines in the Trump 2.0 era is Tig Notaro, who once cohosted a podcast with Hines called Tig and Cheryl: True Story.... “My friendship with Cheryl predated her marriage to Bobby.... And then he endorsed Trump, and then it just got hard.... It’s really sad, because Cheryl did bring me so much joy.”.. 

Sometimes it seems like Hines is living out some dementedly cringed-out Curb episode, where ordinary events spiral out of control. As Notaro pointed out, it was one thing when RFK Jr. was a free-floating conspiracy theorist (“a gnat on the arm,” as she put it); it’s quite another now that he wields so much power over the health of the American populace.

Remember how sometimes the rule is you never — ever — liken a person to an insect? That rule comes and goes, but I will deal with my dismay by savoring the small pleasure of using the "insect politics" tag one more time.

Try this AI prompt (I did): Tell me about the idea that it is very wrong to compare a human being to an insect, that once you start saying people are gnats or flies or something in need of swatting, you're going down a slippery slope to Auschwitz... or something like that.

"Overly online social media critics of Swift apparently instantaneously decided the new album is rife with racism and homophobia, as well as..."

"... secret messages of support for the patriarchy, eugenics, and Donald Trump. Forensic 'investigations' have uncovered 'dog-whistles,' but only woke detectives themselves are capable of hearing them. Either Swift is a covert alt-right influencer, or her young critics have been taught to see oppression everywhere, including where it quite clearly is not...."

Writes Rikki Schlott, in "Is Taylor Swift’s album really full of white supremacy and homophobia, or has everyone lost their minds?" (NY Post).

I don't really care, but I still felt engaged enough to listen to one of the songs, and isn't that the point? But how dumb it is to listen to songs and occupy your mind with the question whether the artist might be right wing. I'll just say what I said back in 2005: "To be a great artist is inherently right wing."

The song I listened to from the new album was "Cancelled!," which some listeners say is MAGA propaganda. Lyrics here, at Genius. Key words: "I like my friends cancelled.... At least you know exactly who your friends are/They're the ones with matching scars." Cancelled people make better friends. That could be a right-wing or a left-wing idea... at least if you get your left-wing ideas from half a century ago.

"Who would have ever thought that honouring someone who has been exonerated in every single courtroom he’s ever walked into would be thought of as a brave idea?"

"The two-time Oscar winner went on to compare his exile from Hollywood to the blacklisting of screenwriters under Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt in the 1940s and 1950s. “There are times when one has to stand up for principle,” Spacey said. “I have learnt a lot from history: it very often repeats itself. The blacklist was a terrible time in our industry, but we must learn from it so that it never happens again.”

Said Kevin Spacey, accepting a lifetime achievement award at Cannes, quoted in "Kevin Spacey won at Cannes — but Hollywood’s ‘sharia court’ finds him guilty/Industry insiders are conflicted as the Oscar winner, acquitted twice for sexual misconduct, plots a comeback" (London Times).

Also: "One senior producer said Spacey... deserved a second chance, but judgmental studios were still 'performing as a sort of odd sharia court, outside of judicial jurisdiction, pretending to be judge and jury on a hearsay whim.... So many lives have been ruined for no reason. Kevin Spacey received a not-guilty verdict.'"

"A lot of people really like him, so you’ll have a lot of people going, 'This is really cool.' And then you’ll have some people that’ll be like, 'What the fuck is he doing here?'"

"But hopefully the people who say, 'What the fuck is he doing,' when they realize why he’s here they’ll give him a second chance."

Said the producer of Kevin Spacey's new film, quoted in "Kevin Spacey to Make Surprise Appearance in Cannes to Accept a Lifetime Achievement Award" (Variety).

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "Tell me about the idea of a 'second chance.'"

From Grok's answer: "Christianity... emphasizes redemption through forgiveness, like the parable of the Prodigal Son. In Buddhism, the cycle of rebirth offers chances to correct past karma.... In stories, the 'second chance' trope is a classic—think redemption arcs in movies where the villain turns hero or the underdog gets a shot at glory. It’s compelling because it mirrors real-life struggles and the hope for a do-over."

In some of those second-chance stories, the second-chance getter goes on to do good things — Jean Valjean, Scrooge, etc. — but in other second-chance stories...

"I think of the [antiracist] programming as a kind of secular religion, a progressive penitence."

"The real work of advancing equality is never mentioned. One exercise that consultants recommend is for students to visit a grocery store to observe who is 'enforcing white supremacy culture.'"

Said Steve Wilson, quoted in "He’s a Foe of D.E.I. in Schools but Not a Fan of Trump’s Crusade/Steven Wilson was forced out of the charter school network he started for an essay that conflicted with antiracism initiatives. Five years later, he feels both vindicated and dismayed" (NYT).

Wilson got "canceled" in 2019: 

"All my life, I’ve loved a good quit. Leaving something broken always felt like freedom. Recently, I noticed I’d gained a lot of company..."

"... people online sharing testimonies of going 'no contact' with relatives. The diction was always the same: I went no contact; I had to go no contact. I understood the appeal of the phrase — the sense of control; the determination to cast oneself as the subject of a bad situation; the surety of the women sitting in their cars, their faces filling our TikTok screens, pronouncing with youthful confidence, 'I don’t fucking care if it’s your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your grandma, or your grandpa: If they’re toxic, then you have got to get rid of them.' It sounded so prudent, so clean, with its echoes of antiseptic pandemic DoorDash deliveries. It felt, as Eamon Dolan describes... in his forthcoming book... 'liberating and joyful,' like 'I could stand up straight at last,' like coming off 'house arrest.' Heroic, decisive. Such a great plot...."

Writes Elizabeth Weil in "What Do I Owe My Sister? Online, going 'no contact' with family members is often seen as liberating, empowering. If only I felt that way" (NY Magazine).

ADDED: For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "There seems to be a current trend for people going 'no contact.' What's the source of the recent trend and how is it going? Any pushback?"

"It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression... We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X."

"The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S...."

Mark Zuckerberg explains in this video posted today:

"What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with differing ideas...."

ADDED: Meta is moving its "trust and safety" and "content moderations" teams out of California and into Texas, where there is "less concern about [their] bias."

AND: Zuckerberg says his company needs to ally with the U.S. government in order to be able to fight the censorship that is coming from foreign governments. It's been "difficult over the past 4 years," because "even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship." "By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further. But now, we have the opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it."

This is great! I hope it goes well. I wish I new more about how much of this emerged from recent hobnobbing with Musk and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but I can see Zuckerberg is smart not to talk about that. His criticism of the Biden administration and response to Trump is plain enough. 

ALSO: Here's how the NYT sums it up:

"A decade ago, cultural norms in elite American institutions took a sharply illiberal turn."

"Professors would get disciplined, journalists fired, ordinary people harassed by social-media mobs, over some decontextualized phrase or weaponized misunderstanding.... But... it isn’t happening any more.... The era lasted almost exactly 10 years.... The political precondition was the giddy atmosphere that followed Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection, which appeared... to reveal a rising cohort of young, socially liberal nonwhite voters whose influence would continue to grow indefinitely. The rapid progression of causes like gay marriage seemed to confirm a one-way ratchet of egalitarian social norms....

Writes Jonathan Chait, in "How Liberal America Came to Its Senses/The period of left-wing illiberalism that began about a decade ago seems to have drawn to a close. The final cause of death was the reelection of Donald Trump" (The Alantic).

I'm not agreeing with the tale Chait tells. In fact, I find some of it hilarious. I'm presenting it for critical discussion. So let's continue. How did America "come to its senses"? Chait writes:

"Some people will say, best show an empty glass: Someone will fill it..."

Wrote Philip Larkin, in a poem called "Party Politics," analyzed by A.O. Scott, in "A Poem About Waiting, and Wishing You Had a Drink/Our critic A.O. Scott walks you through a poem that speaks to his mood right now. It’s called 'Party Politics,' but it’s not about those parties, or those politics." (NYT)(gift link, because there's some great analysis and images too, including a photo of Philip Larkin sitting on the floor and dumping a Pee Wee Russell LP out of its album cover).

The party seems to be a cocktail party, but you can see that he's talking about human interaction more generally. If you want those in control of the flow of liquor to fill up your glass, are you better off drinking the whole thing and standing there with an empty glass, or better off holding onto it in the half full — half empty! — condition?

By the way, I recommend not reading past the photograph of Philip on the floor with that record he wants to play for us. There are 4 more paragraphs, and they raise a separate topic — whether Larkin was "canceled" and is supposed to stay canceled — and it's an insulting distraction from what is otherwise a delightful essay.

Here — here's Pee Wee:

The false narrative.

"interviewer asks Columbia student to comment on the forcible takeover of the university building & the young woman says, 'I think it's a false narrative.' he asks her to comment on custodial staff being held captive by the occupiers of Hamilton Hall & she says, 'I think that's a false narrative.' He asks her if she is saying that the custodian is lying & she says, 'I think that's a false narrative.' He asks about Oct. 7 & she says, 'Get out of my face' & walks away."

Tweets Joyce Carol Oates.

At some point, you've got to be able to articulate what you think is true. Otherwise, you're trying to beat something with nothing. But you can always walk away.

ADDED: If the students of today don't know how to think about and articulate what they feel is wrong, the teachers and the parents bear responsibility. Young people feel that something is terribly wrong — to the point where they feel called to act out — and they're not accepting the pushback that says you are anti-Semitic if you don't support whatever Israel decides to do. 

The anti-Israel protesters are finding themselves on the receiving end of the cancel culture methodology they know how to wield. They know how to call you "racist" if you oppose affirmative action or say "All lives matter." They know how to call you "transphobic" is you're horrified by puberty blockers and "sexist" if you question abortion on demand. They've seen how that has worked to control speech and to control minds, and good for them if they decline to take what they've dished out.

Yes, the hypocrisy is glaring and the chaos is painful. And I'm not expressing optimism. I'm just saying I can see an opportunity to move to a higher ground. 

AND: Here's the interview.

"Gérard Depardieu is probably the greatest of all actors.... When people attack Gérard Depardieu in this way, they are attacking art... France owes him so much."

A quote from the letter described in "Gérard Depardieu: dozens of celebrities denounce ‘lynching’ of French actor/Signatories of open letter include Charlotte Rampling, Carole Bouquet, and former French first lady and singer Carla Bruni" (The Guardian)("Depardieu, who has made more than 200 films and television series, was charged with rape in 2020 and has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women").

"At one point in his show, he said the real divide in the country was not between rich and poor, Democratic or Republican, but between 'the insane' and 'the insufferable.'"

"The insane include the people who stormed the capitol. He calls them nuts, before adding: 'but fun.' Then he grew more animated describing the insufferable by their 'NPR tote-bag energy' and 'hall monitor' tendencies.... Minhaj... repositions him[self] less as a righteous political comic than a more self-questioning, personal comic, a move he had already begun to make; this scandal may have accelerated the shift...."

Writes Jason Zinoman, in "Was a Scandal the Best Thing to Happen to Hasan Minhaj? At the Beacon, the comic took a different tack after posting a video rebutting a New Yorker article on fabrications in his work. The crowd went wild" (NYT).

Zinoman likes that Minaj isn't "playing the victim," like "seemingly everyone" these days, including Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. And Zinoman, in a sidetrack, praises the filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, and gives a tip about a new movie I might want to see:

"In ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’ Santa was canceled because he was drunk... I was canceled because I said something in a completely independent setting."

Said Ken Dorph, quoted in "He Was Set to Play Santa. His Views on the Middle East Got in the Way. Ken Dorph had grown out his white beard, but a tense discussion of the Israel-Hamas war at a local synagogue led to complaints that cost him the gig" (NYT).

"We are on Day Five of journalistic insistence on canceling an elementary school student by any means necessary."

We are on Day Five of journalistic insistence on canceling an elementary school student by any means necessary. https://t.co/Z3hvTe8UrT

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) December 1, 2023

"Part of me shudders to view the unfolding catastrophe in Israel and Gaza through the provincial lens of America’s cancel culture debate."

"In some ways, that debate has now come full circle, because pro-Palestinian voices were being censored long before the phrase 'cancel culture' existed, one reason the left was unwise in recent years to prevaricate about the value of free speech...."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "With War in Israel, the Cancel Culture Debate Comes Full Circle" (NYT).

"[Aaron] Rodgers’s appearances out on the town are part of a well-orchestrated campaign by him and his PR apparatus. But..."

"... what’s telling is that he’s making the effort in the first place. After all: Wasn’t Rodgers supposed to be a dangerous, rebellious, edgelord truth-teller? This is the guy who smugly (infuriatingly, really) lied about being 'immunized' during the 2021 NFL season. The guy who thanked Joe Rogan for his 'COVID-treatment plan,' who seemed to imply that Joe Biden isn’t a legitimate president, who wore a shirt on Pat McAfee’s show with the words Cancel Culture crossed out ... who actually claimed... that the government was releasing videos of UFOs to distract from the 'Epstein Files.' Rodgers’s pandemic-era torching of his own reputation was so extreme that, at one point, State Farm, whom he has worked with since 2011, pulled his ads off the air.... And yet he has been a very different person since he got to New York. He is acting like… a guy who doesn’t want to get canceled?"

I'm reading "Aaron Rodgers Really Wants to Be Liked Again" (Intelligencer).

Succès de scandale: "Try That in a Small Town."

"Initially, the track got relatively little notice, landing at No. 35 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. That changed last week, after the song’s music video became a culture-war battlefield, with some accusing Aldean — one of country’s biggest hitmakers for nearly two decades — of employing racist dog-whistle tactics and the singer defending himself as the latest victim of an out-of-control 'cancel culture.'... As the debate over 'Try That in a Small Town' boiled last week, the song’s consumption metrics spiked...."

I'm reading "Jason Aldean, Decrying ‘Cancel Culture,’ Has a No. 2 Hit/'Try That in a Small Town' went from overlooked to almost topping the charts after a week of controversy" (NYT). 

This got me reading the Wikipedia entry "Succès de scandale":

Succès de scandale (French for "success from scandal") is a term for any artistic work whose success is attributed, in whole or in part, to public controversy surrounding the work.... This concept is echoed by the phrase "there is no such thing as bad publicity"....

That entry quotes Mae West, who got arrested in 1927 for a play titled "Sex": "I expect it will be the making of me."

Twitter banning Trump was "the right decision for the company, but the wrong decision for the world," said Jack Dorsey.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and ex-CEO of Twitter is joining me on the show today and reveals what REALLY happened around Trump's infamous Twitter suspension @jack pic.twitter.com/2fwTty30an

— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) July 6, 2023

Dorsey said that he came of age as "a punk." He loved that "ethos" — "challenging the system." He didn't want to become an entrepreneur, but that's where he found himself, and he needed to learn how to grow the company. Learning that, he "learned what [he had] forgotten... about what [he] loved about the internet in the first place," which is that it was decentralized.

"A month ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center declared Moms for Liberty an 'extremist group' devoted to spreading “messages of anti-inclusion and hate...."

"The 'extremist' label is justified, said Esther Prins, a professor at Penn State University who has studied the intersection of education advocacy and Christian nationalism in America. Prins said the activities of Moms for Liberty chapters — especially efforts to remove books nationwide, many of which are led by group members and which overwhelmingly target people of color and LGBTQ+ authors, a Post analysis found — are consistent with groups that promote a hierarchical social order in which 'men are over women, straight people over LGBTQ people.' Prins said, 'That’s why they don’t want children learning about racism or about the existence of people who are not straight or the existence of families that aren’t the heterosexual nuclear family.'..."

I'm reading "Moms for Liberty didn’t exist 3 years ago. Now it’s a GOP kingmaker. Five GOP presidential candidates attended the group’s Philadelphia convention this weekend" (WaPo).

The post title is the first sentence of the article, and the next part I quoted is very far down in the article. The SPLC's designation takes prominence over any explanation of what this group is and why it deserves denouncement, and the explanation isn't convincing at all. These are the parents who object to sex-and-gender-themed books in schools? The article says "efforts to remove books nationwide"... remove books from where? Schools? Or more?

Near the end of the article there's a heading "What does Moms for Liberty want in the next president?" One of the founders of the group is quoted answering "much more respect for parental rights." The other founder said: "maybe not reach out to the DOJ and the FBI and collude with them." That, we're told, refers to...

... a much-decried 2022 National School Boards Association letter to Biden that stated parents and others speaking out against school board members might be committing a form of 'domestic terrorism.' Email correspondence from the time suggested the NSBA was acting at the request of the White House, although the White House said that wasn’t true. The letter led Attorney General Merrick Garland to direct the FBI to workshop strategies for meeting threats to school employees.

You know, RFK Jr. had been scheduled to speak at that Moms for Liberty summit. I think I've heard him say he'll talk to everybody. But he got slammed and he withdrew. 

Here's Vivek Ramaswamy speaking at the summit. He refers to the group as "my favorite hate group in history." That's jocose, of course, but the fact that he's being jocose about hate shows the problem with aggressively slapping on labels like "hate" — and "extremism" and "terrorism" — instead of actually debating people who challenge your ideas. You've diluted your strongest words. You've cried wolf.

Mothers and fathers are powerfully called to protect their children. Politicians — and professors and journalists — need to engage over what is genuinely best for children, not take the weak, easy route of sneering at these parents, shunning them, and, hating them, saying they hate.