Trying to Get Back to Normal

I'm a little OCD about a lot of things, and exercise is one of them. The minute it seemed we had to shelter at home for even three weeks, i started accumulating gym equipment at home, simplified my workouts, and just kept going.

I recently did some traveling post-vaccination, and did the same simplified workouts in empty hotel gyms. Yesterday I went to a real gym, the same one I went to for five years, for the first time since last March. I have done pretty much the same six workout cycle for 20 years. I forced myself through trying to piece back together one of my old routines, was completely disoriented, and hated every minute of it.

I went again tonight, did some cardio, looked at the weight machines again, and just walked out. I just did not have any interest in being in that environment, even though it was midnight and very few people were there. 

I don't know whether I'm going to ease back into it or just stick with the workout at home thing. It's not like I'm that afraid of COVID now (though I'm keeping my eye on the Delta variant); it just felt off. A lot of things do. Most things do.

Late Night Track -- Battle of Who Could Care Less

Don't Sleep on (or With) Tucker Carlson

Brian Stelter: Tucker Carlson is filling the space Trump left behind by becoming the ‘new’ Donald Trump https://t.co/1viCJ2iZiD

— Tough Love ❤️🧢 #Resist👉🏽DP 👉🏽Putinsgay 👉🏽🤫 (@koan4u) March 15, 2021

If you haven't seen John Oliver's breakdown of Tucker Carlson's white supremacy and his influence on other white supremacists, you really should:

   

A couple of months ago, when thinking about how Trump made such a surprisingly strong showing again in November, I thought about the power of name recognition and the possibility that the fact that people have known who he is for 40 years might have factored into his election. A pattern emerged that I hadn't considered before. 

Until Joe Biden, who was elected partially because the country needed someone they trusted to clean up the mess Trump made, every Democratic President elected for the first time was someone who really didn't enter the public consciousness until his run. Obviously, the Kennedys ended up a juggernaut for more than half a century, but they weren't that well known until JFK ran. Carter was an outsider. Few people knew Clinton at least until he made his speech at the DNC in 1988, and that repeated with Obama in 2004. 

Over the same period, everyone the Republicans got elected to the White House was someone who was a household name for much longer than that. Eisenhower was recruited because he was one of the biggest war heroes in American history. Nixon had been part of the Red Scare, had served for eight years as VP, and narrowly lost to JFK in 1960. Everyone had been familiar with Reagan as an actor since like the 1940s. Bush Sr. had served as VP for eight years and his father was a Senator. Lather, rinse, repeat with Dubya. And love him or hate him, Trump had been one of the biggest self-promoters in American history and had been flirting with a White House run since the early '80s. 

That left me wondering -- do Republicans start with a bit of a deficit nationally and need that power of name recognition to get the last couple of points to put them over the top and into the White House? I don't have the data to prove it. It could be a coincidence. But the pattern has held for about 80 years. So I've been wondering who fit that bill for 2024. 

Cruz is known now, but wasn't really a household name until about 2014. Hawley was a nobody until he became an isurrectionist. The Paul family are an electoral joke on a national level. DeSantis and Abbott are pretty new and not known to most Americans. Pence was VP but only served one term. 

Carlson, on the other hand, has been consistenly on TV for two decades and now is a hero to white supremacists, as Oliver pointed out. People in Middle America have been eating his family's Swanson TV dinners since basically when TV was invented. I don't *think* he could really be elected, but he does start out with what seems to be a prerequisite for successful GOP presidential candidates -- fame. So I'm not going to laugh him off if he decides to run. 

I don't think he's stupid enough to run in 2024 if Biden is tremendously popular and runs for reelection, but he's only 51 now. The average age of a Democrat winning for the first time since JFK is about 48. Since Eisenhower, the average age of a Republican winning for the first time is well into his 60s. So Tucker's got time.

Late Night Track -- Four Days

 

Earworm of the Afternoon -- One Week

Apropos of absolutely nothing...

 

Closing Out 2020 and Looking Ahead (or, My Year Living with CNN)

So, I haven't been around here much for a number of reasons. For one thing, my professional life has been absurdly busy. Also, the avalanche of news has just been overwhelming and it's been easier to address it all in real time on Twitter. I'm thinking that if things do slow down this year, I might be able to talk about a single thing for more than five minutes before the next thing happens. I mean, in 2014 I used to grumble on a lot of weekends that the news was so boring... maybe we'll get there again. I had a few extra minutes this morning, and I figured I would put up some of my predictions for the coming year. Since I began sheltering at home in mid-March, my monitoring of trends among the talking heads on CNN has gone from checking out maybe an hour or two of CNN per night to not only having it on in the background about 12 hours a day, but DVRing it from like 10 AM Eastern until midnight. Basically, my lenses to the world for almost this whole year have been Twitter and CNN, so that's what you're getting here.

Addressing the biggest disaster... I think we're in trouble in terms of COVID. We haven't seen the worst, and this prediction might be conservative:

If that holds, we will likely be over 5000 deaths per day the week of January 10th. Stay the fuck home, people. /6 /end

— Jason Baby (@j_consolidation) December 29, 2020

The slowdown in vaccinations is scaring me. The new mutation of COVID-19 might not be resistant to the vaccines, but the next one might be. If we don't get close to herd immunity by the time it starts to get cold again in late 2021, we may never see normal life again and that's a thought to horrific to contemplate, though not an implausiblity.

Turning to Trump's fate, I've been saying for quite some time that we haven't seen the real consequences of the Mueller Report. More specifically:

Jim Comey cares about one thing -- covering Jim Comey's ass. But I think 2021 is going to be the year of the Andrews -- McCabe and Weissman. Watch those guys.

— Jason Baby (@j_consolidation) December 31, 2020

The Andrews want to spill.

And the fate of the world could hinge on what happens in just the first week of the new year:

Starting to feel like things are tilting in our direction... not just based on the polls, but based on turnout. pic.twitter.com/frOH4cZPQl

— Jason Baby (@j_consolidation) December 31, 2020

Today's the first time that if you put a gun to my head, I'd predict the Dems take the Senate. Which, after all the handwringing about November 8th, means we had a pretty good Election Day. We lost some seats that we only won in 2018 because we had an excellent year, but were hard to hold in a good year. I'll happily take the White House, an advantage-Dem tied Senate, and a narrow lead in the House after the last four years.

To close, I'll get a little meta here and talk about what CNN has been doing and where it might be going. Back in early 2018, I wrote: I've been watching cable news way too much lately. I'd gone almost a decade without viewing much of it going into the 2016 primary season. I became glued to it because I felt like Trump's campaign was a phenomenon that was fascinating from so many perspectives, and that once November 8th had passed, we'd never see anything like it again. Of course, it didn't go that way. I rarely turn to MSNBC. Scarborough is terrible, the mid-day programming is meh, and the prime time shows are preaching to the choir. When a big story is breaking, I make a point to watch Don Lemon, and also sometimes Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper. Back in 2016, Lemon seemed like a deer in the headlights, but now he's pretty masterful at managing the otherwise awful CNN panel format. Why do I bother? It's not like I'm going to learn anything there I'm not going to lean on the internet. In fact, cable news is, for the most part, months behind. I mean, it's been pretty apparent since late 2016 that Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia to steal the election, and we knew in October 2016 that the New York branch of the FBI was conspiring against Hillary. Most of the news hasn't even gotten that far. But that's why I watch CNN. I learn just how far the press has gotten in their willingness to call a particular spade a spade.

 

. 

. 

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Things are changing now. Trump's attacks on Mueller, particularly the revelation that Trump tried to fire him, is starting to elicit talk of Trump actually covering up crimes, and sometimes, the TV personalities will even allude to those crimes being Russia related. Occasionally, they'll discuss whether or not a sitting President can be indicted. I don't know whether they'll get there, but I'd say the next steps are for the CNN types to acknowledge, on air, that Trump cheated. Then they'll need to discuss what the consequences should be for stealing an election. Finally, and I don't think this'll happen, CNN panelists and perhaps hosts will call for an overturning of the election. That's what I'm watching for. The fact that there's progress at all makes this situation different than in the past. During the Bush years, the press rarely acknowledged that the administration lied us into war in Iraq, or that the administration ignored pre-9/11 warnings. The mainstream press will just never be out ahead of these types of stories. I've been following it for 20 years, I'm nearly 40, and I know by now that I'll never be satisfied with what I'm watching.

They didn't quite get to the point where Trump's theft of the 2016 election made CNN's sirens blare 24/7, but Ukraine and impeachment, along with Trump's open hijacking of the Postal Service and his refusal to let go since November 8th have opened their eyes to him. It also took several of their on-air personalities getting coronavirus, Trump causing the deaths of 300,000+ people, and Trump gassing their own reporters to wake them up:

   

Since about May, I actually think they've been great from top to bottom. For one thing, in the spring, they basically served as Black Lives Matter's equivalent of what Fox News did with the Tea Party a decade ago. Then there's the fun of Kaitlan Collins and Jim Acosta sparring with the odious Kayleigh McEnany: 

 

With a few notable exceptions, like (ugh) Rick Santorum, most Trump supporting Republicans almost never show up and are not welcomed. I regularly hear "sedition" and "trying to overthrow a democratic election," and there's been the fun development of John Harwood competing with Mary Trump to see who can psychoanalyze Trump the most:

Media: @JohnJHarwood: "@realDonaldTrump is making sure as he goes out to highlight his signature qualities -- he's a huge liar, he's delusional, and he's also incompetent. He's incompetent because he has no focus, no management skills, no willingness to accept responsibility." pic.twitter.com/Tqe7KyyEpM

— Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) December 31, 2020

As well as Jim Sciutto snarking away:

Every single one of them was voted in on the very same ballots in the very same election they will now object to. It is the height of sycophantic idiocy. https://t.co/BgFenTp2RJ

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 31, 2020

And Brianna Keilar even anti-bothsidesing:




Not to mention Chris Cuomo saying what he really thinks...



CNN has, mostly because they haven't had much of a choice, become the liberal network they've been long accused of being, and never were. They've been on the side of the good guys. Will they stay there with Biden in office? I don't know, but I think they'll be better than they were before Trump threw bleach all over the White House Press Corps.

   

 Anyway, I'll let CNN have the last prediction:

With a little luck...2021 might not suck! Join @andersoncooper & @Andy to say ✌️2020 & 👋2021 this New Year’s Eve on CNN. #CNNNYE 🥂 pic.twitter.com/Ls4z8jdGLe

— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) December 19, 2020

See you next year!

Catharsis

This is beautiful. pic.twitter.com/vYGPzl5b6R

— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) November 7, 2020

Late Night Track -- King of the World

 

Why I'm Ridin' to Paris with Biden and Harris

(Sorry, I couldn't help it, but wouldn't you rather cast an absentee ballot from Europe right now anyway?)

Malarkey!
The Sanders fans who didn't even bother to get out and vote for him?
I think you're projecting your own bias.
Shameful. https://t.co/EvHoUkb254

— Kamala is with Joe and so am I! ⚖️ (@AlasscanIsBack) August 1, 2020

I mostly agree with Kamala is with Joe and so am I (obviously, I am too!), but I think there's something to consider about what Fineman is saying.

Allison Floyd talks about a "group of certain voters" here:

Sometimes in life (often), you don’t get exactly what you want, when exactly when, you want it. Part of being an adult is squaring with that and learning to adapt.

Hell hath no fury like a group of certain voters who first choice POTUS/VP candidates aren’t their number one pick.

— Allison Floyd (@AllisonRFloyd) August 1, 2020

There's really more than one group opposing Harris, and they all appear to have a decent amount of fury. The Sanders left actively worked to undermine Hillary in 2016, but it's not just them this time.  Misogynoir explains some of the additional opposition, but not all of it. Those people are comfortable enough trying to "I-want-a-black-woman-but-not-that-black-woman" her with Karen Bass and Susan Rice. So what makes her unique?

Well, Harris represents a shift in the Democratic coalition that no one else does. She's more prepared to run in 2024 or 2028 than anyone else Biden might pick. She makes other competitors for the White House, like Eric Garcetti, not "next up." On her own, she's a nearly total break from the past. Though she was a strong early supporter of Obama, she didn't work in his administration. She's not a Clinton. She doesn't just bring change, she cements change, and for all of these people, there may be no turning back after her.

Harris makes a whole lot of people, particularly old powerful old white men like Chris Dodd and Ed Rendell, who have fancied themselves power brokers for decades (Rendell, in particular, seems to always be vocal at VP selection time; the OK-but-boring-as-cottage-cheese-and-twice-as-white Dodd thought he could win the presidency in 2008), almost totally irrelevant. She won't need them going forward, and they know it.  She shuts down a lot of the Bernie "revolutionary" insurgency down ideologically, because she's just as progressive as they are but has the color-within-the-lines political strategy that they really abhor. While I'd like to say, "Fuck 'em!", it's to Biden's benefit that he takes all of this into account as he's looking not to just win, but to win by as much as possible and to have the strongest coattails he can.

I'm not saying that I think Biden has to give Sanders, or Dodd, or Rendell anything of much value. I'm really done with white men in the White House for the rest of my life after Biden, but I'm OK with him humoring them for a few weeks and including them in the conversation. Let them feel important one more time in their careers if it will minimize the infighting for the next three months. They're the past, and we won't need them after that.

I think Joe knows where he wants to go. This wasn't an accident:

Joe can read the polls:

In the meantime, I'm really glad Biden is our nominee in 2020, not just because we're in such tumultuous times and need someone that as many Americans are familiar with as possible, but also because he knows and is comfortable with being the bridge candidate to the future. You just can't do better than a well-liked former VP for that.

I'll be very surprised if our ticket isn't Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the end of this month. Everything between now and then is basically a performance.

Earworm of the Afternoon -- Sir Psycho Sexy