To bring in another piece of art that I’ve been thinking about a lot Re: Vance , Thiel, musk, miller, accelerationism … they completely remind me of Dr. Strangelove —- > weird creepy ideas. They imagine themselves the ubermensch who will inherit the earth, just like Hitler did.
Here’s the link to the monologue - with the incomparable P Sellers - for those who haven’t see it, the entire movie worth viewing
Love this writing … love cabaret. I still feel that there are many, many differences in 21st century US to 30s Germany and other autocratic regimes that make America unfertile soil. How Americans are raised, diversity , size, history, etc keep waiting for the book about this … plenty of books on the characteristics and dangers, what to look for - not much really on why it’s not a country where autocratic movements have difficulty flourishing. I’d add that attempts to make the US a communist nation would similarly fail.
I like the weird - let’s face it, we’ve tried and failed to deal with the threat in a serious , academic, cerebral way … it’s working
I’ve been thinking a lot about humor and the zeitgeist and politics over the last year, and I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Comedy and humor can be very effective in pointing out absurdities and cruelties and the littlenesses of those in power but they can also have unexpected results.
The comedian (or indeed any artist) doesn’t always know what will take off or how their piece will land, but there is danger in them not considering the effects of their taunting. Their intentions are not that important.
I think “weird” will be effective for a while. As you say, it serves to point out the policy positions that are out of step with the majority. It takes back what is considered “normal” after a lifetime of media and Republican framing that Democrats are unrealistic hippies oppressing a silent majority. Plus Republicans hate being told that they aren’t the norm, as they are, in their hearts, conformists. They are unlikely to claim “weird” because to them it’s an insult.
I realize Friedman is a very serious columnist, working for a very serious newspaper who needs us all to pay attention to how serious this is.
Except his very serious newspaper has been denigrating Biden over his age and normalizing Trump since for ever.
Where was Friedman when the NYT had story after story on Hillary's emails or Joe's gaffes? Why wasn't that the time to lecture his own newspaper about the serious threat Trump posed?
When did the NYT go after Trump?
You know what bothers Friedman? Weird is working.
It's working among regular people. It bothers Republicans. It just fits when JD Vance opens his mouth.
We all heard Tim Walz say it and it rang like a bell. The same way when Harris said "We are not going back" it resonated deep within me. Or "Say it to my face."
This is the language of regular Americans and I believe regular Americans hear it in a way that hits home.
Certainly a lot more than any column of Friedman's.
And if it bugs Tom Friedman okay. And if it bugs his nepo baby publisher?
I would hasten to add that any reasonable historian would point out the differences between Weimar Germany and USA 2024. While we absolutely should treat Trumpism as a clear and present etc., and while every reader here has a scar on their hearts reading “2016” the playing field is very different. Once Trump was a clown avatar of Reagan, the trickster figure the establishment warned you not to vote for. Today his brand is old and moldy and squishy. I realize the electoral college has us by the nuts, but this is a contest between beauty and ugliness held on tv. We can watch out for this maniac and still say, repeatedly: he and his cult are farty, credulous and weird, weird, weird. And the Davenport-schtupper and Cokely von Failson are weird with a beard.
I’m liking “weird” because it seems to be pairing up with the companion word of creepy. Like obsessing about women’s menstrual cycles and especially those of young girls, it certainly fits because that is downright creepy.
it's also more jarring when conformists and authoritarians are on the receiving end. (speaking as one who was punched diwn on as 'weird' in grade school)
We tried the serious route. No one cared. Scare talk, or worse, they LIKE authoritarianism. But weird. I was “weird” (trumpet playing soap opera writing poorly dressed high school in the 70s). People generally don’t want to be associated with the weirdos of the world, especially people like Trump who wants to believe he’s one of the cool kids.
Weird is landing. Project 2025. Evil but also weird.
I'm always struck that Brecht named his satire of the Nazi Party "The Stoppable Rise of Arturo Ui." Ui is a two-bit gangster just like Hitler was and Trump is, but it's important to remember that it could have been and can be stopped. These people aren't invincible. But you have to know where to land your punches. Weird is working for now. They can't handle the mockery and it's causing them to act even weirder, but we should stay attuned to when that stops working and be ready to shift to the next message.
Calling Trump a traitor, a felon, a danger to democracy etc feeds his base's fantasies of being rugged outlaw revolutionaries. Like the choad at the Heritage Foundation talking about how "their Second American Revolution will be bloodless 'if the left allows it'" It lets them project as strong rugged individualists bravely fighting the enemy leftists.
Calling them creepy and weird, and laughing at them just short-circuits that whole thing entirely. We force them onto their back feet as they cope with having to deny they fuck couches, or explain their creepy and weird obsession with 'childless cat ladies' .
So fuck all the tone police who 'warn us' about doing this like Freidman Unit. They have agendas that do not correspond to ours, so we should not seriously consider their 'advice'.
Memes spark BECAUSE they spark and that's all you can know about WHY they spark...I mean, I get why 'now' but even then,, I NEVER would have guessed that THAT word would be the one to get so under their skin...Noah Berlatsky has a great piece on that over at everythingishorrible...Also some of the comments on that thread are really illuminating and well written!
Just brilliant, Stephen. Cabaret is one of my favorite movies too. Certain scenes have been stuck in my mind since I first saw it in 1972 — the beer garden/“Tomorrow Belongs To Me” one has always been especially frightening. IIRC, after the crowd gets all aroused and is standing and singing in unison, the Michael York character asks of Maximilian: “You still think you can control them?” Art can be prologue, and can sometimes show us the future when we don’t even know it.
I count Cabaret as a fave too. The difference I see is that the Nazis were already in charge, but few realized how bad things would get until it was too late. Here in the US we worked hard to ensure that Trump didn’t win in 2020. We need to do a rinse and repeat.
The thing about 'weird' is that is an effective description. Sure they want to take over and control everything and make people's lives hell, but not in a clever, Bond villain way. More like a Rhino from Spiderman, smash everything and steal gold to melt down and make a statue of yourself.
It cuts them down to their tiny, pathetic size. They hate it. It works.
There’s something to that, I think. But then I think of the brilliant Mel Brooks, and how he demonstrated that ridicule and mockery are potent tools for fighting authoritarians by getting into their evil minds and under their thin skin.
Yes, there’s a line there somewhere. You want to poke the bear but not convince the salmon that the bear is a joke that you don’t need to pay attention to.
To bring in another piece of art that I’ve been thinking about a lot Re: Vance , Thiel, musk, miller, accelerationism … they completely remind me of Dr. Strangelove —- > weird creepy ideas. They imagine themselves the ubermensch who will inherit the earth, just like Hitler did.
Here’s the link to the monologue - with the incomparable P Sellers - for those who haven’t see it, the entire movie worth viewing
https://youtu.be/zZct-itCwPE?si=HgAMWdi8tQWW-zvd
Love this writing … love cabaret. I still feel that there are many, many differences in 21st century US to 30s Germany and other autocratic regimes that make America unfertile soil. How Americans are raised, diversity , size, history, etc keep waiting for the book about this … plenty of books on the characteristics and dangers, what to look for - not much really on why it’s not a country where autocratic movements have difficulty flourishing. I’d add that attempts to make the US a communist nation would similarly fail.
I like the weird - let’s face it, we’ve tried and failed to deal with the threat in a serious , academic, cerebral way … it’s working
Thank you!
“the limits of satire against an emerging evil.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about humor and the zeitgeist and politics over the last year, and I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Comedy and humor can be very effective in pointing out absurdities and cruelties and the littlenesses of those in power but they can also have unexpected results.
The comedian (or indeed any artist) doesn’t always know what will take off or how their piece will land, but there is danger in them not considering the effects of their taunting. Their intentions are not that important.
I think “weird” will be effective for a while. As you say, it serves to point out the policy positions that are out of step with the majority. It takes back what is considered “normal” after a lifetime of media and Republican framing that Democrats are unrealistic hippies oppressing a silent majority. Plus Republicans hate being told that they aren’t the norm, as they are, in their hearts, conformists. They are unlikely to claim “weird” because to them it’s an insult.
This is why it works - it points out that these ideas are NOT the norm
I realize Friedman is a very serious columnist, working for a very serious newspaper who needs us all to pay attention to how serious this is.
Except his very serious newspaper has been denigrating Biden over his age and normalizing Trump since for ever.
Where was Friedman when the NYT had story after story on Hillary's emails or Joe's gaffes? Why wasn't that the time to lecture his own newspaper about the serious threat Trump posed?
When did the NYT go after Trump?
You know what bothers Friedman? Weird is working.
It's working among regular people. It bothers Republicans. It just fits when JD Vance opens his mouth.
We all heard Tim Walz say it and it rang like a bell. The same way when Harris said "We are not going back" it resonated deep within me. Or "Say it to my face."
This is the language of regular Americans and I believe regular Americans hear it in a way that hits home.
Certainly a lot more than any column of Friedman's.
And if it bugs Tom Friedman okay. And if it bugs his nepo baby publisher?
Hot damn.
I would hasten to add that any reasonable historian would point out the differences between Weimar Germany and USA 2024. While we absolutely should treat Trumpism as a clear and present etc., and while every reader here has a scar on their hearts reading “2016” the playing field is very different. Once Trump was a clown avatar of Reagan, the trickster figure the establishment warned you not to vote for. Today his brand is old and moldy and squishy. I realize the electoral college has us by the nuts, but this is a contest between beauty and ugliness held on tv. We can watch out for this maniac and still say, repeatedly: he and his cult are farty, credulous and weird, weird, weird. And the Davenport-schtupper and Cokely von Failson are weird with a beard.
I’m liking “weird” because it seems to be pairing up with the companion word of creepy. Like obsessing about women’s menstrual cycles and especially those of young girls, it certainly fits because that is downright creepy.
it's also more jarring when conformists and authoritarians are on the receiving end. (speaking as one who was punched diwn on as 'weird' in grade school)
It destroys their worldview of being so right on everything that they never thought they could or should be questioned.
See also entitled white people and I say this as a white person.
World order is disrupted.
We tried the serious route. No one cared. Scare talk, or worse, they LIKE authoritarianism. But weird. I was “weird” (trumpet playing soap opera writing poorly dressed high school in the 70s). People generally don’t want to be associated with the weirdos of the world, especially people like Trump who wants to believe he’s one of the cool kids.
Weird is landing. Project 2025. Evil but also weird.
I'm always struck that Brecht named his satire of the Nazi Party "The Stoppable Rise of Arturo Ui." Ui is a two-bit gangster just like Hitler was and Trump is, but it's important to remember that it could have been and can be stopped. These people aren't invincible. But you have to know where to land your punches. Weird is working for now. They can't handle the mockery and it's causing them to act even weirder, but we should stay attuned to when that stops working and be ready to shift to the next message.
Calling Trump a traitor, a felon, a danger to democracy etc feeds his base's fantasies of being rugged outlaw revolutionaries. Like the choad at the Heritage Foundation talking about how "their Second American Revolution will be bloodless 'if the left allows it'" It lets them project as strong rugged individualists bravely fighting the enemy leftists.
Calling them creepy and weird, and laughing at them just short-circuits that whole thing entirely. We force them onto their back feet as they cope with having to deny they fuck couches, or explain their creepy and weird obsession with 'childless cat ladies' .
So fuck all the tone police who 'warn us' about doing this like Freidman Unit. They have agendas that do not correspond to ours, so we should not seriously consider their 'advice'.
Memes spark BECAUSE they spark and that's all you can know about WHY they spark...I mean, I get why 'now' but even then,, I NEVER would have guessed that THAT word would be the one to get so under their skin...Noah Berlatsky has a great piece on that over at everythingishorrible...Also some of the comments on that thread are really illuminating and well written!
Just brilliant, Stephen. Cabaret is one of my favorite movies too. Certain scenes have been stuck in my mind since I first saw it in 1972 — the beer garden/“Tomorrow Belongs To Me” one has always been especially frightening. IIRC, after the crowd gets all aroused and is standing and singing in unison, the Michael York character asks of Maximilian: “You still think you can control them?” Art can be prologue, and can sometimes show us the future when we don’t even know it.
Yep, mainstream Republicans made the same mistake with MAGA.
I count Cabaret as a fave too. The difference I see is that the Nazis were already in charge, but few realized how bad things would get until it was too late. Here in the US we worked hard to ensure that Trump didn’t win in 2020. We need to do a rinse and repeat.
Ah! But what if 2020 was the "Hitler after the arrest" period.
Trump isn't 40.
And Stephen Miller sounds like someone is giving him a wedgie when he's excited.
Bad, very bad.
The thing about 'weird' is that is an effective description. Sure they want to take over and control everything and make people's lives hell, but not in a clever, Bond villain way. More like a Rhino from Spiderman, smash everything and steal gold to melt down and make a statue of yourself.
It cuts them down to their tiny, pathetic size. They hate it. It works.
Just weird, man.
If Friedman doesn't like it we must be on to something, that guy is never right about anything. For decades...
i think he was briefly correct (in the boring-est way) about the "ground zero mosque" ... stopped clock etc.
The Friedman Unit of time: 6 more months and we will win the Iraq War. It was in every column of his in the 2000s.
I remember!
I have a friend who was put off by The Daily Show & The Colbert Report because he thought we were too comfortable laughing on the couch.
He seems smarter now than he did when he first said it.
There’s something to that, I think. But then I think of the brilliant Mel Brooks, and how he demonstrated that ridicule and mockery are potent tools for fighting authoritarians by getting into their evil minds and under their thin skin.
Yes, there’s a line there somewhere. You want to poke the bear but not convince the salmon that the bear is a joke that you don’t need to pay attention to.
Very well done.