Sunny and warm this late-afternoon Wednesday here in California’s Central Valley — midweek muddles.
In the cascade of news today — from Ukraine to China and back around — I came across this sidebar explainer on how the T-Rump continues to make shitty vibes this election year despite not being on the ballot anywhere.
However, he’s groomed the worse of the lot:
“Candidates who have been created by Trump’s caustic anti-democracy movement are already making their way through the Republican primaries,” @MollyJongFast warns.https://t.co/6zdpb0oGt8
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) April 6, 2022
Molly Jong-Fast notes the basic in her newsletter at The Atlantic today — in reality, some awful, nasty folks with the characteristics of assholes:
Donald Trump is not on the ticket this November, but Trumpism very much is. Candidates who have been created by Trump’s caustic anti-democracy movement are already making their way through the Republican primaries. Trumpism is turning sleepy statehouse races into terrifying referendums on free and fair elections. While it’s impossible to know just how those races will shake out, Trumpism is clearly subsuming the Republican Party. It’s like a strung-out version of the Tea Party, with more George Wallace and shades of Florida Man. Trumpism is equal parts nationalism, light fascism, nepotism, and mean tweets rolled up into a profoundly nihilistic governing style with a dash of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s important not to understate how central racism is to Trumpism. (The famous lines with which he announced his presidential candidacy are worth repeating: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”) Trumpism is a movement amplifying the Republican Party’s basest instincts.
Read the whole newsletter (it’s free), worth the sad time. Jong-Fast clicks off Ron DeSantis of Florida, Herschel Walker in Georgia, two whacks who resemble each other in the sorry shadow of the T-Rump, along with nutcrackers like Sarah Palin as examples of although the orange-turd is not on the ballot, his shit-stink will be — maybe a bad moon rising this November.
Some more bad news today, terrible really, in a ‘newsletter’ context — journalism just lost a way-good one:
1/oh my goodness: Just got crushing news from Tracy Breslin, wife of @EricBoehlert https://t.co/l0nOnE0Tad Has died in a bike accident, age 57. Adored his kids Jane and Ben, his dogs, biking and running and basketball and good friends, a fierce and fearless defender of the truth
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) April 6, 2022
Reportedly, Eric Boehlert was fatally struck by a train Monday night while cycling in Montclair, NJ, about 20 miles NW of New York City, where he lived with his family.
Boehlert’s PressRun was a fixture in my e-mail box. I quoted him a lot, cut-and-pasted his reports often into my posts — his spot-on critiques of media helped to understand and make some sense of all the bullshit.
He knew of what he wrote — some background via Deadline this morning:
Beginning his national media career as a staff writer covering music at Billboard and Rolling Stone, Boehlert pivoted to media coverage as a staff writer at Salon and then for 10 years as a senior fellow at media watchdog organization Media Matters for America. His media criticism also appeared at Daily Kos.
“We are devastated by the loss of esteemed journalist and former Salon senior writer, Eric Boehlert,” Salon said in a statement.
“Our condolences to Eric’s family and friends during this difficult time. His passing is a huge loss to media criticism and progressive journalism.”Most recently, he was the founder of the reader-supported Press Run on Substack, which Boehlert started in 2020 with a mission of delivering “unfiltered, passionate, and proudly progressive critique of the political press in the age of Trump.”
Subscribers of the thrice-weekly newsletter received “original media commentary, analysis, and reporting.”
Leaves behind a wife and a couple of children. Sad as shit.
Woke up this morning walking my mind to an easy time :
Sorrowful sad, though, here we are once again…
(Illustration out front: Edvard Munch‘s ‘The Scream,’ lithograph version, found here)