The new referees in American politics are Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they would be wise to pay attention to lessons the old media tried to learn.
The new referees in American politics are Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they would be wise to pay attention to lessons the old media tried to learn.
A dive into the “exclusive content” from Trump 2020 shows a campaign running away from its candidate’s performance in office.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-trump-campaign-tries-to-change-the-subject
These ads seem to have come from the same playbook that Trump has been relying on for months now, with little success if you believe the polls. To get a better idea of how the campaign is trying to motivate the President’s loyal supporters and reach out to less committed ones, I downloaded the campaign’s official app, which promised to supply me with “exclusive content and campaign updates.” For a couple of days, I dived into the online Trump world, which turned out to be an immersive experience.
If Republicans succeed in their long-sought goal of privatizing the Postal Service, they will suck out what life remains in many of the communities they theoretically represent.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trumps-attack-on-the-postal-service-is-a-threat-to-democracy-and-to-rural-america
I’ve lived most of my life in small towns in pretty remote rural areas. Some were in red regions, some were purplish-blue—but every last one of them centered on the local post office. I remember years of picking up the mail from a little window in the postmaster’s living room. (If you called her the postmistress, she would tartly reply, “Uncle Sam can’t afford mistresses.”) Eventually, she needed her parlor back, to have room to work on her genealogy projects, so the community built a small freestanding building. Where I live now, the local post office takes up a third of the space in the only business in our town, a country store complete with potbellied stove and rocking chairs. It’s probably why we still have a store: if you’re there to pick up mail, you might as well get some eggs, too.
Kaufman became famous writing self-conscious films in a self-conscious time. In his début novel, he reminds us of the triumphs—and blind spots—of a generation.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-charlie-kaufman-get-out-of-his-head
Kaufman became famous writing self-conscious films in a self-conscious time. In his début novel, he reminds us of the triumphs—and blind spots—of a generation.
At least three correspondents have tested positive for the coronavirus, along with the press secretary and two of her deputies.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/business/white-house-coronavirus.html
Throughout a pandemic that has now landed squarely in the West Wing, Trump officials — who routinely shunned masks — declined to institute thorough safety protocols to protect the White House press corps, according to interviews with reporters who now face the prospect of a rapidly escalating outbreak in their daily work space.
Progressives are wary of the conservative group hammering the President, but its founders say they’re fighting for all Americans.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/12/inside-the-lincoln-projects-war-against-trump
After Obama won his second term, the Republican National Committee commissioned a study that became known as the “autopsy report.” The country’s voting population was diversifying rapidly, and, the report said, young voters were “increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents.” It noted, “Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.” In a recent book, “It Was All a Lie,” Stevens writes, “How do you go from dedicating a political party to expansion and inclusiveness and two years later rally around a man who calls Mexicans ‘rapists,’ and called for a religious test to enter the United States?” He goes on, “For decades, conservatives attacked liberals for living by ‘situational ethics,’ but the ease with which Republican leaders abandoned any pretense of being more than a whites-only party is the ultimate situational ethic.” In January, Wilson told Trevor Noah that Trump “has broken the Republican Party—it doesn’t believe in anything.” Stunningly, the 2020 Republican National Convention put forward no new platform, signalling that the Party’s sole position was fealty to Trump.
Teens have taken a technology that was supposed to help grownups stop smoking and invented a new kind of bad habit, molded in their own image.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/the-promise-of-vaping-and-the-rise-of-juul
How a scandal started with a poor housemaid and ended up taking down the most powerful woman in Africa
via Medium: https://medium.com/latterly/cashgate-2e6628549bf5
More than a year after American diplomats began to suffer strange, concussion-like symptoms in Cuba, a U.S. investigation is no closer to determining how they were hurt or by whom, and the FBI and CIA are at odds over the case. A ProPublica investigation reveals the many layers to the mystery — and…
via ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/diplomats-in-cuba
A series and podcast from Longreads, in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
via Longreads: https://longreads.com/bundyville/
A collection of Twitter accounts that has criticized Joel Embiid and Markelle Fultz, disclosed sensitive information, and outlined team strategy shares eye-opening similarities. What does that have to do with the Philadelphia 76ers’ decision-maker?
Get the latest news and updates on art, literature, music, travel, and history in a fun and interesting way.
via Culture: https://www.believermag.com/issues/201211/?read=interview_sendak
In his work with the White House, is Mohammed bin Salman driving out extremism, or merely seizing power for himself?
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/09/a-saudi-princes-quest-to-remake-the-middle-east
The most ignorant man in America knows that Donald Trump is president — but that’s about it. Living a liberal fantasy is complicated.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-little.html
In 2014, Russell Bonner Bentley was a middle-aged arborist living in Austin. Now he’s a local celebrity in a war-torn region of Ukraine. His journey reveals a troubling development in Putin’s information war.
via Texas Monthly: https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/son-wealthy-businessman-foot-soldier-vladimir-putin-russia-hacking/
The inside story of the first homicide in America’s most secure prison.
via The Atavist Magazine: https://magazine.atavist.com/murder-adx-florence-fbi-mexican-mafia
How a senseless double murder in Florida exposed the rise of an organized fascist youth movement in the United States
via Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/all-american-nazis-fascist-youth-united-states-w519651
The city’s Establishment will ignore unscrupulous acts to serve its interests — just look how it treated the onetime lawyer to the president.
via Intelligencer: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/frank-rich-roy-cohn-the-original-donald-trump.html
Why an expert in counterterrorism became a beat cop.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/07/the-spy-who-came-home
