#lib 2022

[geek-and-nina]

Next on Episode 2 of Tanthamore: Love is Blind

and a deleted pod date! below the cut!

if you want to get up-to-date on my self-indulgent reality show au, find it on A03!

 “We don’t have long left on this date and it is going to end on a happy note.” Jade insisted.

“Do you remember being a kid and seeing that pristinely made hotel bed for the first time on a vacation?” Jade asked Kit, and she sounded different once again, this time unidentifiably so. “Do you remember that childing, instinctual urge to jump on it? I have been having that same feeling every day since the first day we came into these pods. Kit… would you please do me the honor of jumping on these godawful couches with me? Even if it means the producers might start yelling at us?”

“Oh, I believe the honor would be all mine,” Kit clambered to stand, her feet bare on the cushions. Netflix should charge a premium for that she thought, remembering how many feet people were out in the world that would enjoy the sight a little too much. “Are you ready? They better put some damn good music over this.”

“I’m ready,” Jade agreed. “Three. Two. One.”

There was a peal of infectious laughter as Jade began to jump. Every moment of bravado, every careful facade fell away at the sound, and Kit allowed herself to be free, to get loose, and to go as crazy as she wanted. She whipped her bangs across her face, her limbs failed, and her knees ached a bit but she didn’t care. She danced and jumped until a PA came over the loudspeaker and two more rushed them on each side to make them stop. Jade laughed adn Kit had to join in once again before climbing down and regaining her breath. Her heart was lighter than it had been in days.

[fiercynn]

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd and his administration's surveillance of protesters, including cop city protesters? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

continuing to send arms to israel

putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships

bombing yemen

bombing syria

bombing iraq

vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations

testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice

refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza

halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this

lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)

questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)

perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital

questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same

honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself complicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Brand safety” killed Jezebel

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library this Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Progressives: if you want to lose to conservatives, all you need to do is reflexively praise and support everything conservatives turn into a culture-war issue, without considering whether they might be right. Because sometimes…they're right.

Remember early in the Trump presidency, when conservatives all woke up and discovered that America's spy agencies – excuse me, "the intelligence community" – were dirty-tricking psychos who run amok, lawlessly sabotaging democracy? Progressives have been shouting this ever since Hoover's FBI tried to blackmail MLK into killing himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

But millions of progressives forgot about COINTELPRO, CIA dirty tricks and CIA mass spying when this "intelligence community" temporarily set out to wrong-foot Trump. Remember James Comey votive candles?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/james-comey-fbi-memo-leaks-trump-inspector-general-report-column/2157705001/

Anthropologists have a name for this phenomenon, in which one side reverses its positions because their sworn enemies have done so. It's called schizmogenesis, and it goes like this: "If they hate it, we love it":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Schizmogenesis is an equal-opportunity delusion. Within living memory, white evangelicals supported abortion, because their sworn enemies – Catholics – opposed it. Some of those white Boomer women who voted Trump because abortion was literally the only issue they cared about held the opposite position on abortion not so long ago – and completely forgot about it:

https://text.npr.org/734303135

The main purpose of the culture war isn't immiserating marginalized people – that's its effect, but its purpose is to distract low-information turkeys (working people) so they'll vote for Christmas (the ongoing seizure of power by American oligarchs). For the funders of conservative movement politics, the cruelty isn't the point, it's merely the tactic. The point is power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

Which brings me to "woke capitalism." Conservative string-pullers have whipped up their base about the threat of companies embracing social causes. They (erroneously) claim that corporations have progressive values, and that big business is thumbing the scales for causes they despise. The purpose here isn't to sow distrust of capitalism per se. Rather, it's to stampede talk-radio-addled supporters into backing the oligarchy's agenda. Remember when culture war leaders told their base to support being gouged on credit-card junk fees "to own the libs?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

That's schizmogenesis working against the conservative rank-and-file, tricking them into taking the side of a cartel of wildly profitable payment processors who are making billions by picking their pockets (credit card fees are up 40% since the covid lockdowns), because (checks notes), Target pays these profiteers a lot to process its payments, and Target sells Pride merch (no, really):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

It's easy to point and laugh at conservative dopes when they're tricked into shooting themselves in the balls to own the libs. This is not a hypothetical example:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#musketfuckers

But progressives do it, too, particularly when they embrace monopolies as a force for positive social change. Remember 2019, when people got excited about playing loud pop music at Nazi rallies in the hopes that the monopoly video platforms' copyright filters would make any video from that rally impossible to post?

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

I warned then that if this tactic worked, it would be used by cops to prevent you from recording them when they're macing you or splitting your skull with a billyclub, and yup, within a couple years, cops were blaring Taylor Swift music in hopes of preventing the public from posting videos of their illegal conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/07/moral-hazard-of-filternets/#dmas

Conservatives are (partially) right about woke capitalism. It is a threat to democracy. Concentrating the power to decide who gets to speak and what they get to say into the hands of five or six corporations, mostly run by mediocre billionaires, is bad for society. The moderation decisions of giant platforms are a form of (commercial) censorship, even these don't violate the First Amendment:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

(The progressive delusion that censorship only occurs when the First Amendment is violated is a wild own-goal, one that excuses, for example, the decision by school book-fair monopolist Scholastic to remove books about queers and Black and brown people from its offerings as a purely private matter without consequences for free speech):

https://www.themarysue.com/scholastic-response-to-authors-and-illustrators-on-diverse-books/

Conservatives are only partially right about woke capitalism, though. Here's what they're wrong about: corporations don't have values. Target isn't selling Pride tees because they support progressive causes, they're selling them because it seems like a good way to increase returns to their shareholders. Individuals – even top executives – at Target might endorse the cause, but the company will only durably support the cause if that endorsement is profitable, which means that when it stops being profitable, the company will stop supporting the cause:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/business/target-lgbtq-merchandise/index.html

The idea that corporations have values isn't merely stupid, it's very dangerous. The Hobby Lobby decision – which allows corporations to deny basic health-care expenses for women on the basis that a Bronze Age mystic wouldn't approve of an IUD – rests on the ideological foundation that corporate personhood includes corporate values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc.

Citizens United – the idea that corporations should be allowed to funnel unlimited funds to politicians who'll sell out the public good in favor of investor profits – also depends on a form of corporate personhood that includes values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

There are undeniably instances in which corporate monopoly power benefits progressive causes, but these are side-effects of corporate power's main purpose, namely: taking money and power away from working people and giving it to rich people. That is what monopoly power is for.

Which brings me to ad-tech, "brand safety," and the demise of Jezebel, the 16 year old feminist website whose shuttering was just announced by its latest owner, G/O Media:

https://www.metafilter.com/201349/This-is-the-end-of-Jezebel-and-that-feels-really-really-bad

Jezebel's demise is the direct result of monopoly power. Jezebel writes about current affairs – sex, politics, abortion, and other important issues of great moment and significance. When we talk about journalism as a public good, necessary for a healthy civic life, this is what we mean. But unfortunately for Jezebel – and any other news outlet covering current events – there are vast, invisible forces that exist solely to starve this kind of coverage of advertising revenue.

Writing for the independent news site 404 Media, reporter Emanuel Maiberg and former Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler go deep on the "brand safety" industry, whose mission is to assist corporations in blocking their ads from showing up alongside real news:

https://www.404media.co/advertisers-dont-want-sites-like-jezebel-to-exist/

Maiberg and Koebler explain how industry associations like the World Federation of Marketers' Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) promulgate "frameworks" to help advertisers automatically detect and exclude real news from consideration when their ads are placed:

https://www.peer39.com/blog/garm-standards

This boycott makes use of scammy "AI" technology like "sentiment and emotional analysis" to determine whether an article is suitable for monetization. These parameters are then fed to the ad-tech duopoly's ad auction system, so Google and Meta (who control the vast majority of online advertising) can ensure that real news is starved of cash.

But reality is not brand-safe, and high quality, reputable journalistic outlets are concerned with reality, which means that the "brand safe" outlets that attract the most revenue are garbage websites that haven't yet been blacklisted by the ad-safety cartel, leading to major brands' ads showing up alongside notorious internet gross-out images like "goatse":

https://www.404media.co/sqword-game-dev-sneaks-goatse-onto-a-dozen-sites-that-stole-his-game/

More than a fifth of "brand safe" ad placements end up on "made for advertising" sites, which 404 Media describe as "trash websites that plagiarize content, are literally spam, pay for fake traffic, or are autogenerated websites that serve no other purpose than capturing ad dollars":

https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2023-06-ana-programmatic-transparency-first-look

Despite all this, many progressives have become cheerleaders for "brand safety," as a countervailing force to the drawdown of trust and safety at online platforms, which led to the re-platforming of Nazis, QAnon conspiratorialists, TERFs, and other overt elements of the reactionary movement's vanguard on Twitter and Facebook. Articles about ads for major brands showing up alongside Nazi content on Twitter are now a staple of progressive reporting, presented as evidence of Elon Musk's lack of business acumen. The message of these stories is "Musk is bad at business because he's allowing Nazis on his platform, which will send advertisers bolting for the exits to avoid brand-safety crises."

This isn't wrong. Musk is a bad businessman (he's a good scam artist, though). Twitter is hemorrhaging advertisers, notwithstanding the desperate (and easily debunked) stats-juking its "CEO," Linda Yaccarino, floats onstage at tech conferences:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/11/math-problem-for-linda-yaccarino-if-90-of-the-top-advertisers-have-come-back-but-are-only-spending-10-of-what-they-used-to-how-screwed-are-you/

But progressives are out of their minds if they think the primary effect of the brand safety industry is punishing Elon Musk for secretly loving Nazis. The primary effect of brand safety is killing reality-based coverage of the news of the day, and since reality has a well-known anti-conservative bias, anything that works against the reality-based community is ultimately good for oligarchy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

We can't afford to let schizmogenesis stampede us into loving things just because conservative culture warriors have been momentarily tricked into hating them as part of oligarchs' turkeys-voting-for-Christmas project. "Swivel-eyed loons hate it, so it must be good," is a worse-than-useless heuristic for navigating complex issues:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

A much better rule of thumb is "If oligarchs love something, it's probably bad." Almost without exception, things that are good for oligarchs are bad for the rest of us. I mean, this whole shuttering of Jezebel starts with an oligarch imposing his will on millions of other people. Jezebel began life as a Gawker Media site, beloved of millions of readers, destroyed when FBI informant Peter Thiel secretly funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the publisher in a successful bid to put them out of business to retaliate for their unfavorable coverage of Thiel:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/

This, in turn, put Jezebel under the ownership of G/O Media, who are unwilling to pay for a human salesforce that would – for example – sell advertising space on Jezebel to sex-toy companies or pro-abortion groups. G/O has been on a killing spree, shuttering beloved news outlets like Deadspin:

https://deadspin.com/this-is-how-things-work-now-at-g-o-media-1836908201

G/O's top exec, an oligarch named Jim Spanfeller who answers to the private equity looters at Great Hill Partners, is bent on ending reality-based coverage in favor of "letting robots shit out brand safe AI-assisted articles about generic topics":

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ai-articles-disinformation-future-g-o-media-rcna95944

Three quarters of a century ago, Orwell coined a term to describe this kind of news: duckspeak,

It was not the man’s brain that was speaking it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words but it was not speech in true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness like the quacking of a duck.

When investors and analysts speak of "content" (rather than, say, "journalism"), this is what they mean – a warm slurry of platitudes, purged of any jagged-edged fragments to render it a perfectly suitable carrier for commercial messages targeted based on surveillance data about the "consumer" whose eyeballs are upon it.

This aversion to reality has been present among corporate decisionmakers since the earliest days, but the consolidation of power among large firms – ad-tech firms, online platforms, and "brands" themselves – makes corporate realityphobia much easier to turn into, well, reality, giving advertisers the fine-grained power to put Jezebel and every site like it out of business.

As Koebler and Maiberg's headliine so aptly puts it, "Advertisers Don’t Want Sites Like Jezebel to Exist."

The reason to deplore Nazis on Twitter is because they are Nazis, not because their content isn't brand-safe. The short-term wins progressives gain by legitimizing a corporate veto over what we see online are vastly overshadowed by the most important consequence of brand safety: the mass extinction of reality-based reporting. Reality isn't brand safe. If you're in the reality based community, brand safety should be your sworn enemy, even if they help you temporarily get a couple of Nazis kicked off Twitter.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/#brand-safety

[mariacallous]

For most of my adult life, I worked in and around Democratic politics, and my hobby was work. Then, in 2022, I started taking surf lessons and got hooked. In April of 2023, and again last December, I took a trip to an outdoor wave pool in Waco, Texas.

If you want to meet the voters who swung toward Donald Trump and put him back in the White House, you could do worse than the hot tub at Waco Surf. I went there with my pickup-truck-driving, Joe Rogan–superfan brother-in-law, and from the moment we arrived, he couldn’t have felt more at home, and I couldn’t have felt more out of place.

At first I couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, made me feel like the odd man out. But I soon developed a theory: The great divide between us is that I constantly think about politics and they do not.

Two surf trips are hardly statistically significant. But research corroborates my wave-pool hunch: Democrats are becoming the party of political junkies; Republicans, the party of people who would rather think about anything else. And there are more of the latter than there are of the former.

Last November, a poll from Data for Progress asked voters how much attention they paid to news about the election. Among voters who answered “none at all,” just 32 percent supported Kamala Harris. Among those who paid a great deal of attention to politics, Harris’s support shot up to 52 percent. Similarly, according to the research firm Catalist, Harris improved on Joe Biden’s 2020 margins among so-called super voters—people who voted in each of the four most recent elections—by a percentage point. The good news for Democrats is that by definition, these voters turn out consistently. The bad news is that the rest of the electorate moved toward Trump by 10 points.

The Democratic Party’s candidates, donors, staff, and voters are thus caught in a contradiction. Americans’ obligation to engage politically—always present in a democracy—has never been greater. President Trump is trampling our system of checks and balances, dismantling our government and institutions, pitting the military against protesters, and putting all Americans at greater risk of disease and natural disaster. These are serious times, and serious measures, including collective action such as the “No Kings” protests that took place this past Saturday, are warranted.

Yet the best hope for defeating authoritarianism remains the ballot box. And to win elections, Democrats have to win back at least some voters who have no interest in becoming more politically engaged. The party is going to need another way to reach people—and perhaps that path goes through activities other than politics.

Democrats used to do more to put their hobbies on display. The party’s most recent two-term presidents were a saxophone-playing Rhodes Scholar and a pickup-basketball-playing former editor of the Harvard Law Review. I wrote speeches for the latter and can say from experience that President Barack Obama’s sports-guy-in-chief persona was not an act. Standing backstage, watching the president ad-lib about the Bears or Bulls, I often got the sense that he found talking rosters or playoff games far more enjoyable than diving into the details of the day’s policy announcement. The voters in the audience usually felt the same way.

Today’s Democrats aren’t completely somber. I attended last year’s convention in Chicago, where “Joy” was a campaign slogan and a guest appearance by Lil John turned the roll call into a 23,000-person party. But that’s actually a symptom of the problem, not a solution. Democrats focus on making politics fun, when the real question is whether they can have fun outside of politics. Faking hobbies, or trying desperately to appear relatable, won’t cut it. It’s got to be real.

In that respect, the party has taken a giant step backwards during the Trump era. Biden’s age and limited schedule didn’t just make it harder for him to command the bully pulpit; it meant Americans got fewer chances to see him enjoying himself outside work. In 2020, Harris launched a YouTube cooking show, but it was scrapped by the time she became vice president, and it never returned.

In Harris’s case, I suspect her campaign worried that women candidates who share too much about their hobbies are quick to be branded as unserious. It’s a valid concern. But so, unfortunately, is its opposite. Women candidates who share too little will be branded as being motivated solely by personal ambition. Besides, Democrats now struggle to have fun in public regardless of gender. Make a mental list of the most likely 2028 nominees—JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker. How many of them have a single identifiable interest outside of their job?

It’s not just candidates. The more that donors and staff surround themselves with people who are into politics, the easier it becomes to ignore the fact that most Americans aren’t. Critics have mocked every detail of the donor retreats that bring together strategists, funders, and influencers in attempts to create “the Joe Rogan of the left.” But the biggest flaw with these gatherings is baked into the premise: There will never be a Joe Rogan of the left, because there was never a Joe Rogan of the right. Rogan rose to prominence as a mixed-martial-arts color commentator. According to the fan site jrelibrary.com, he went 1,169 episodes before recording his first interview with a sitting elected official, and even now, his catalog lists just 19 episodes (out of more than 2,300) under the “Politicians” category.

Building progressive political media networks is important for those opposed to Trump. Progressive podcasts and news sites are where people who are deeply engaged in politics can stay informed, discuss strategy, and build both on- and offline communities. But to win over people who aren’t already political junkies—say, even a small fraction of Rogan’s audience—it’s important to recognize that his political credibility comes in large part from the fact that he doesn’t think of himself as political. The same is true of nearly all the other “manosphere” hosts who powered Trump’s reelection. Andrew Schulz and Theo Von are comedians. Dave Portnoy talks sports and reviews pizza. Jordan Peterson focuses on self-help. The Nelk Boys do pranks. Each of them followed the same path: focusing first on interests, then issues, and only years later turning to elections.

These hosts have something else in common: The media they use to reach people are all relatively new. In prose writing, where gravitas is still valued, Democrats maintain a cultural advantage. But in media that prioritize fun over seriousness—podcasts, YouTube, TikTok, memes, or any other format you were never assigned as homework—conservatives dominate.

What can the anti-Trump opposition do to reverse this trend? Although governor-hosted podcasts are an interesting experiment, what the party needs are channels that build audiences by being purely entertaining and then, on rare occasions, bring on candidates as guests. The Harris campaign was smart to land an interview with Call Her Daddy, and I suspect some newly launched podcasts, such as Good Hang With Amy Poehler, will be similarly sought-after for appearances as the primaries approach. Look at the comedian Ian Fidance parrying a MAGA heckler, or Ricky Velez’s brutally accurate assessment of Biden’s age. These stand-ups don’t bill themselves as Democrats. In fact, I would guess they find Democrats cringe inducing. Which is why, if they were ever to take a Rogan-like political turn, their endorsement might actually move the needle.

Democrats should also double down on their last remaining cultural edge—traditional celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, who both endorsed Harris in 2024. When celebrities endorse a candidate on social media, they reach millions of voters who might not otherwise consume much political content. Even though the Swift and Beyoncé endorsements were clearly not enough, the strategy still holds promise. The challenge for Democrats is how to get even more exposure to that audience. Imagine, in 2026 or 2028, entertainers from across genres and fandoms lending their platforms to long, personal conversations that get past campaign talking points and allow candidates to connect directly with their fans. It would be the kind of opportunity to reach disengaged voters that no TV ad or well-attended rally could replace.

Republicans might not have their normal-guy advantage for long. Having taken over the political establishment, they risk losing their place as the party of people who don’t like politics. President Trump is determined to inject government into every corner of American life. J. D. Vance is a walking “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?” meme. Stephen Miller is many things, but chill isn’t one of them.

Democrats, in other words, have an opportunity to become the party of fun again. The moment is far too serious for them not to seize it.

[thirstkanaphan]

Some random thoughts on Pirate King and Line Distribution

I had my playlist on shuffle while I was at the gym and Pirate King came on, which I don't really listen to unless I seek it out. I decided not to skip it this time and ended up having a lot of thoughts!

The highlight of this song is Hongjoong. He really came out swinging on this track. His rap is so nimble and fleet-footed and melodic. No wonder KQ decided to bank everything on this kid.

Pirate King is among my least favorite title tracks, although it establishes some of the hallmarks of the Ateez style: the galvanizing pre-chorus, only to drop into an infectious dance beat; the high-low switch between Hongjoong and Mingi's rap; the intense final 30 seconds.

Having recently done a deep dive into the Treasure series, it’s clear how much those early albums rely on the rap line and very strong music production. The song Treasure is somewhat of an exception, but that track features most of the members singing in unison while Jongho ad-libs. They really didn't start to properly utilize Seonghwa, Yunho, Wooyoung, and Yeosang in particular until much later in that series.

We can credit some of that to poor line distribution and Eden's somewhat ineffective coaching style as a producer (at least during those early years. The man was NOT prepared to have to mentor a bunch of teenagers). I cannot make myself rewatch Seonghwa in that recording booth struggling to nail his lines and tearing up in frustration while everyone watched.

I recalled @doiefy fantastic post about Ateez discography stats that everyone should read about how line distribution has changed over time (copied below from their post):

According to their data, "Yeosang's share of lines has increased by a net 76% since debut, while Jongho's has decreased by a net 77%"

While their data does not include GH1 and GH2, it would appear that the group has achieved a relative level of parity. The turning point appears to be 2022, about the time they released Halazia. For a song that was meant to be filler between cbs, it has become one of the most significant tracks in the Ateez discography. I don't think it's a coincidence that Yeosang was the breakout star of that era, due to the song highlighting his wonderfully low vocals.

Not sure where I'm going with this post, but if anyone wants to add their two cents, I'd love to hear it!

[drdemonprince]

Do you have any reading or otherwise educational materials on youth lib and family abolition? I already know about Abolish the Family by Sophie Lewis and am trying to get my hands on it

Thanks for your interest! I like Lee Circuta's writing about this stuff:

Lee Edelman's No Future is just an absolute baller take on the subject:

free to read here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lee-edelman-no-future

And there's lots of other great stuff on the anarchist library if you wanna poke around and see what jumps out to you!

[rogue-vigilante]

Guys, I know it sucks that The Greens lost a bunch of seats, but it's not because Aussies don't understand how Preferential Voting works like I hear a lot of people here saying.

Greens first preference has remained roughly the same in between the two elections. If everyone was "so scared of repeating what happened in America", that number would have absolutely dropped a hell of a lot more than it did.

So, why did they lose the seats? Simple, in 2022, in all the Green won seats they were fighting against the Libs. This year, they were mostly fighting against Labour for them (excluding Ryan which is basically a Greens win at this point).

Generally, when it comes to preferential voting (excluding most minor parties), Labour voters rank the Greens higher than the Libs, while Libs voters rank Labour higher than the Greens. In 2022, the Greens had the backing of the Labour preference voters. (This data is all available btw, I'm not just pulling it out of my arse) This year, they were fighting directly the Labour voters who helped them win the seat, relying on the preference of the Libs voters instead (and in Brisbane, the preferential votes of the AJP just got them over the line in 2022 to beat Labour into the final 2).

Given everything that happened with this election (and people jumping ship from the Libs are more likely to go to Labour than Greens, as shown by the first preference count), I'm not surprised they lost their seats. Sad, yeah, but it's not a massive shock. And it's not "people not understanding how preferential voting works" but rather preferential voting doing exactly what it's supposed to.

But, there is some good news. The Greens still basically control the Senate by holding enough seats that either party has to bargain with them to get majority. So Labour is still going to have to work with them to get bills through. And there is not an insignificant number of Aussies who vote Greens; if Labour doesn't want those voters to preference rising independent parties like the Teals over Labour, they're gonna have to listen to the Greens.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Sunday, President Biden announced he will not seek a second term and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as his pick to become the Democratic Party’s nominee. In the immediate aftermath, Harris' donations surged, and major Democratic officials rallied behind her. Republican influencers, however, seemed unprepared for a primary line of attack, initially conflating Harris’ potential presidency with the Biden administration’s policies. By evening, they appeared to have settled on a familiar but often unsuccessful tactic: focusing on pronouns and accessibility.

Within moments, several right-wing accounts posted the same video from 2022: a video of Vice President Harris sitting at a table and addressing a group of people, where she introduces herself by listing her pronouns and describing her clothing. She says, “Good afternoon, I want to welcome these leaders for coming in and having this very important discussion about some of the most pressing issues of our time. I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.”

The event was attended by a room full of disability rights leaders. According to White House Correspondent Andrew Feinberg, who stated that he was the print pooler at the event, “she was talking to a room of disability activists, including people who are/were blind.” Using descriptive terms to indicate who you are, your appearance, and what you are doing is a common technique to improve accessibility for audience members who may be blind. The Disability Visibility Project says of the practice, “A self-description provides information about a person that non-blind people passively glean. This includes identity characteristics such as skin color, gender identity, hair length and texture, wardrobe, and more.” Within hours, however, conservative accounts began pushing the video as their first major line of attack on the likely nominee. Anti-LGBTQ+ influencer Chaya Raichik posted it on her Libs of TikTok account, highlighting the footage. RNC Research, a collaborative social media account for the Republican National Committee and Team Trump, also spotlighted the video. Elon Musk quoted it, stating, “imagine 4 years of this…” Conservative influencer Wall Street Silver added, “Do we really want more of this woke junk?”

[...] The criticism to the line of attack is well-founded. Conservatives have attempted to target Democratic politicians over accessibility, transgender people, and other issues they deem to be “woke issues” for nearly four years, with little success to show for it.

The right-wing faux outrage machine’s attacks on Kamala Harris for using pronouns to address participants during a July 2022 meeting is a bit wack and a tool to push anti-trans and anti-”woke” fodder.

[somedayillbepeterpan]

A recommendation on how to watch Bridgerton S3 (this all based on my indulgent obsession with Polin so don't kill me).

After 5 days and 5 rewatches, my sugar high is down to a normal level and my emotions have finally settled down. I find that on my 5th rewatch, the angst really wasn't angsty anymore and I enjoyed the entertainment of S3.

Truly, the part 1 and part 2 release did damage on taking the show as a whole but the numbers show that S3 still did immeasurably better than S1 and S2 in terms of viewing numbers so I'm happy for that.

So, this I think is the best way to watch S3 (disclaimer: it will take longer than your normal binging but I think it's worth doing it).

Watch all of S1-S2 Polin scenes. Here's a youtube clip that compiles most of their scenes: https://youtu.be/SgOLTyKJg-Y?si=HpPAY1pN20Pk8h0-

Watch, listen, or read your favourite Luke and Nic interviews and drown yourself in all that chemistry. I started my own youtube playlist of all the Bridgerton S3 interviews but here are some of my faves: Shondaland's A Dance Story (bts of the ep4 ball with Lord Debling), Tudum 2022 Ad-lib game, Cosmopolitan UK press junket full interview, Afebre red carpet interview, etc)

Look at all the premiere and press tour photos. I rank some of them on this post: S3 Press Tour outfits

Watch S3 in its entirety. Preferably with no breaks. Because watching the carriage scene and the mirror scenes back to back is its own kind of magic.

I watched Part 2 sleep-deprived and drunk from the Luke and Nic's chemistry and then with a lingering disappointment after I saw the pap photo. I wasn't on the delulu land but I did agree with how the timing felt really off. After finishing part 2, my emotions were in such shambles that I couldn't properly judge the season.

But after taking control of my emotions and a bit of needed sleep, I appreciated S3 more and more. And I started to look at it as a whole season rather than the 2 parts.

It's not perfect but for me, this is still the best season ever.

[centrally-unplanned]

It is incredibly frustrating to listen to conversations around Russia-Ukraine where people are essentially pretending that "land concessions" are somehow new - virtually all the peace feelers of 2022-2024 (of which there have been many!) were open to that, initially around recognizing Crimea and then later around the newly annexed territories. If Russia had offered lasting peace and like permission for Ukraine to join NATO in exchange at the start of 2024, Ukraine would have taken it. The problem ofc is that Russia has never, ever, offered anything close to that - they want hard demobilizations of Ukraine and bans on any foreign security deals to give them an open hand for future control. They make it very explicit! But now people are inventing a change to give the illusion of progress, in order to justify far more important capitulations.

You can say however that the Ukrainian government has screwed up a bit on this one, because they have maintained public PR-speak around maximalist aims. This is ofc negotiation 101 and war propaganda 101 stuff, and made total sense in 2022. But by 2024 you still had Zelensky saying "the only peace is a forced peace" while public was shifting against him in the US. I can't judge that hard, maybe he was gambling that Biden/Harris would win. And ofc Trump doesn't care, he actively likes Putin because he likes dictators and wants to flex on Ukraine as a fuck-the-libs imperialism move. But it has left them a bit rhetorically flat footed as they have had to pivot towards the actual war aims of "preserving Ukraine's fundamental sovereignty" now that the international picture has radically shifted.

[txttletale]

"i come onto online to have fun" says lady whose entire relationship with the internet is insincere own-the-libs poison-irony about 2022's version of NFTs and shilling her Products. you should try exiting the ragebait casino if you want to stop losing at every table.

kinda seems like you're mad at my blog and are not having a nice time on the computer

[axvoter]

My election predictions

Polls are open around Australia, so let's have some fun making election predictions. I don't usually do this, but I have thoughts this year. Lots of 'em.

Now, I'm no oracle. In my 2022 review of the teals, I included some predictions. Here's how I fared. I predicted 2–3 out of Zoe Daniel, Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender, and Kylea Tink would win, with particular confidence Daniel would be one of the winners; all four won. I was not persuaded Kate Chaney could win; she did, 51.26% on the two-candidate-preferred count. I said David Pocock would fall a few percent short for the ACT Senate; he beat Zed Seselja (Liberal incumbent) by 7.76%!

And I predicted that "one other indie, not necessarily a teal, [would] unseat an incumbent somewhere in the country". Another teal did unseat an incumbent—quite to my surprise, Sophie Scamps won Mackellar on Sydney's Northern Beaches (a land unto itself, imperceptible from outside). Moreover, non-teal independent Dai Le famously, notoriously, hilariously thwarted Kristina Keneally's attempt to parachute into Sydney's western suburbs from Scotland Island, north of the Northern Beaches.

So, let's go more comprehensive this time. What do I think is going to happen after polls close at 6pm?

(key: 2CP = two-candidate-preferred; 3CP = three-candidate-preferred)

Who forms government?

Labor forms government: it will be tight on whether it is minority or majority, but by the end of the night I think the vibes will be majority. If it is minority, it will be like NSW after the 2023 state election, where only Chris Minns and Labor could form a government. Peter Dutton will not be prime minister tomorrow. He might well not be leader of the opposition either.

Overall, I think in net seat terms this will be a "nothing ever happens" sort of election, but that few net changes will mask volatility around the country. There are many intriguing non-classic contests to watch in tonight's count (a "classic contest" is Labor vs Lib or Nat). My preferred outcome is a Labor-led minority, as a progressive and ambitious crossbench could achieve quite a lot, but the last couple of weeks of the wheels falling off Dutton's campaign has made me suspect a Labor majority is now the most likely outcome.

How will the Greens do?

The nationwide total for the Greens will be their best (>13.1%) or second-best (12.6–13.1%) share of the vote ever, but it won't be reflected in significant gains in parliament—indeed, they will probably go backwards or hold steady on lower house seats. If they go backwards in seats held, the media narrative will be "what went wrong?" even if their vote share is a record 14%.

My prediction is that the Greens easily retain a Senator in each state, and as for the House of Reps seats most prominent in their campaign:

Melbourne: easy Greens retain

Griffith: Greens retain

Wills: narrow Greens gain from Labor

Brisbane, Richmond, Ryan: a total mess with a very tight 3CP count, where they could conceivably improve their primary vote in each and still lose the lot; I think Greens lose either/both of Brisbane (to Labor if so) and Ryan (to Liberal if so), while in Richmond the Greens could squeak a win over Labor—or come first on primary votes and lose in the end!

Macnamara: easy Labor retain

If the Greens reach the 2CP in any other seat, I don't think they will be in contention to win.

(Disclaimer: as a former Wills voter, my prediction there is laced with traces of hopium, although I haven't predicted a Greens win there before. Based on a couple of recent visits back home to Brunswick, I suspect that if Samantha Ratnam does not win we will see a very stark divide from south to north. Bell St is the traditional barrier, although my belief Ratnam can win is from the Greens vote gradually working its way up the Upfield line plus Wills gaining some very Greens territory in a redistribution from the Division of Melbourne.)

Incumbent non-teal indies?

Russell Broadbent (ex-National) will lose Monash, Ian Goodenough (ex-Liberal) will lose Moore, and David Van (ex-Liberal) is running a thoroughly doomed ungrouped independent candidacy for the Senate in Victoria. All three, most obviously Van, are doing so to get the financial perks for a sitting MP who loses their seat, which a retiring MP does not receive. George Christensen did the same thing in 2022, running as One Nation's third candidate in Queensland.

How about the more serious contenders? Helen Haines (all but a teal), Rebekha Sharkie, and Andrew Wilkie will easily retain their seats. Hard to say about Fowler: Dai Le now has incumbency perks but will the seat revert to its Labor traditions now that the party has put up Tu Le, who should have always been the candidate in 2022? Or is the choice of Keneally still rankling the locals and Labor has let Tu Le have a go one electoral cycle too late? I'm going to say Dai Le holds on.

Andrew Gee (ex-National) quit his former party for very good reasons—his support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament—and he faces a mighty challenge to retain Calare in a contest with endorsed Nationals candidate Sam Farraway, a former NSW state minister, and independent Kate Hook, who won 20.4% of the primary vote last time (40.32% 2CP) and has Climate 200 funding. It might be even tougher for Gee to win this seat than it was for him fling an Akubra hat so far that he won the Mumbil Black Wattle Fair's Chuck Akubra contest—twice! But he could win. It may well come down to 3CP. If Hook is third and Gee is in the top two, I say that he wins. If Gee is third, Hook has a shot if she's close to Farraway. If Hook and Gee both sit ahead of Farraway, who knows! I think Farraway definitely makes the top two on 3CP but beyond that... probably Farraway? but maybe Gee?

Incumbent teals?

Most incumbents will retain. Kylea Tink is not contesting the election after North Sydney was abolished in a redistribution. Amelia Hamer has done a Georgina Downer (real ones know) and blown a good opportunity for the Liberals to regain Kooyong and Monique Ryan will be returned. Zoe Daniel, Allegra Spender, and Zali Steggall will retain their seats—Daniel hopefully doesn't need to sweat it in Goldstein because the Liberals let profoundly unlikeable man Tim Wilson try to regain the seat he still has not accepted he lost in 2022. But I think Kate Chaney narrowly loses Curtin, and I have no read at all on Sophie Scamps in Mackellar for the reasons noted above about the mysteries of the Northern Beaches. She might romp in, she might get flogged, who can say what goes on north of the Spit Bridge.

Do any more teals/community independents become MPs?

I said in my review of the teals that Alex Dyson in Wannon, Nicolette Boele in Bradfield, and Caz Heise in Cowper will all be competitive. I think Dyson narrowly wins Wannon, ousting Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan. Boele got some bad press for making a sexualised joke to a 19-year-old hair salon employee early in the campaign but this did not blow up into a high-profile media pile-on. I thought it might stall her campaign but now I suspect she has a real chance of winning, especially as Bradfield takes in some territory formerly in Kylea Tink's seat of North Sydney. Heise might have maxed out last time, but Cowper does like indies (it was Rob Oakeshott's seat, he of the 17-minute speech in 2010 that finally concluded with him giving Gillard and Labor the crucial support necessary to govern in minority). I will be surprised but not shocked if she wins.

Next door to Bradfield is Berowra, where Tina Brown has run a reasonably high-profile campaign, even winning support from Phillip and Heather Ruddick (the latter quitting the Liberals to work on her campaign), but I don't think she beats Julian Leeser (Liberal).

I'm bullish on Erchana Murray-Bartlett in McPherson. She has run a great campaign (literally). Although the Gold Coast has had federal MPs from the LNP and its predecessors since 1906, and just one state seat is currently in Labor hands (Gaven), Murray-Bartlett's cause is not hopeless. At state level, Gold Coast seats have been more volatile—I lived there as a teenager and witnessed Labor sweep most seats at the height of Peter Beattie's popularity in the 2000s—and I think Murray-Bartlett is pitching her campaign very well to voters who are not prepared to go Labor but are open to changing their vote from LNP. The seat is vacant, with the LNP hoping Leon Rebello can replace outgoing member Karen Andrews, so it's now or never for Murray-Bartlett. I'm going to say she might just get her nose across the finish line first on 2CP.

There's been chatter about Suzie Holt in Groom but for mine she has no chance. Kate Hulett is a rare teal competitive against an incumbent Labor MP rather than Liberal, but in the federal seat of Fremantle she won't get as close to victory as she did in the more compact state seat of the same name, where she very nearly entered the WA parliament last March (49.2% on 2CP). She might well regret renouncing her entitlement to a British passport the next time she lands at Heathrow.

Uh-oh, what about One Nation?

The Senate could be bad. They are a chance of taking a seat off the Coalition in all five mainland states. Malcolm Roberts will retain his seat in Queensland and I am worried we will see at least 2 others join him. The one thing we can count on, at least, is that most people struggle to work with Pauline and they might not be members of One Nation in a year or two: assuming Roberts does not quit the party before close of polls today, only 7/40 people ever elected for One Nation to date have served a full term from one election to the next. What's worrying is they might prove even worse out on their own, like Fraser Anning.

Beyond there, One Nation will finish in the 2CP for Hunter but Labor will retain the seat (where would we be without parliament's largest lad, Dan Repacholi, and his annual "Burgers of the Hunter" calendar?). One Nation could also get into the 2CP in Maranoa without remotely challenging the LNP's hold on the seat.

So, yeah, the Senate?

At most elections, most states split 3/3 left/right, and I think that will happen in all six this time. The territories and Tasmania are easiest to predict: NT will be 1 Labor, 1 Country Liberal; ACT will be 1 Labor, 1 David Pocock; Tasmania will be 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Green, 1 Jacqui Lambie. Anything else would be a surprise. Elsewhere, Queensland will be 2 LNP, 2 Labor, 1 One Nation, 1 Green. In the remaining four states, the left side of the 3/3 split will be 2 Labor, 1 Green.

I can't confidently predict in which states the Liberals/Nationals will hold all 3 right-wing Senate seats and in which states One Nation will win the third. But One Nation is the only realistic contender of the panoply of weird right-wing micros. Clive Palmer's money can't buy him electoral love; his Trumpets play a discordant tune. The far-right vote will be scattered, and One Nation is the one consistent brand. They will do better than the other ratbags on primaries, and so stay in the race and have preferences from others flow to them. Rennick is no chance of retaining his Senate seat as he is in Queensland, One Nation's best state; even though Pauline isn't on the ballot, Malcolm Roberts should beat Rennick. WA and NSW have elected One Nation Senators before, there is chatter One Nation is doing well in SA (especially regionally) and they came close to the sixth seat in 2022, while in Victoria the question is whether the Liberals regain the third seat or if the final quota that Ralph Babet (UAP) won in 2022 will go to One Nation this time. I'm thinking WA reverts to 3 Liberals but that maybe ON sneaks it in at least two of NSW, SA, and VIC.

And last, the classic contests between Labor and the Coalition?

I want Dutton to lose Dickson but he won't. I suspect he holds on by about 51–53% 2PP. I predict Labor will pick up a couple of seats in Queensland though: Bonner and Leichhardt. And if Dutton leads the Liberals to a bad enough national result that he quits parliament after the election, then Labor's Ali French will finally get the seat she's been trying to win for multiple electoral cycles at a Dickson by-election.

Aston will revert to the Liberals but I suspect Labor can retain Bennelong and I'm struggling to predict Gilmore. Jerome Laxale's challenger in Bennelong, Scott Yung of the Liberals, has had some missteps, and in a tight contest those matter. I feel like Glmore should be fairly straightforwardly in the column of Labor losses, but Andrew Constance is the Liberal candidate. Despite being one of the best Liberal performers in the NSW state parliament in the 2010s, Constance has been unable to transfer to the federal parliament ever since his first abortive attempt in May 2020. I am convinced he smashed a mirror during the first covid lockdown and is enduring 7 years of bad luck because each of his attempts to get to Canberra, either through election or appointment to a Senate vacancy, has been truly cursed.

WA will be interesting. In 2022, it felt like Labor might govern in minority until the WA seats came in with a stonking swing to Labor. The tide will surely go back out, but as we saw at the state election, Labor remains very popular out west. Tangney is vulnerable but I've recently switched from thinking Labor loses it to thinking they retain it by a whisker. Bullwinkel is a new seat, notionally Labor, and it is a three-cornered contest with both Liberal and National. Labor will need to do very well on primary votes to win this but it contains state seats like Kalamunda, which Labor lost on a -14.7% swing, Forrestfield, which Labor retained 54.1% 2CP despite a whopping -24.3% swing, and extends into some of the safe Nationals state seat of Central Wheatbelt. I suspect it will be more like the state contests in Albany and Warren-Blackwood where Labor won the primary but could not win the seat and whoever finishes second at 3CP out of Liberal and National wins.

My smokey is that Labor wins Sturt in SA. It was once Christopher Pyne's seat and usually pretty safe, but the Liberals held it on just 50.45% 2PP at the last election. The party, moreover, is having an absolute shocker at the moment at state level there. Labor will fancy themselves. It might be tougher for Labor in Tasmania: I don't believe they can get past Bridget Archer, who has made a strong reputation for herself in the supposed "ejector seat" of Bass, and Rebecca White is up against it in Lyons in her attempt to transfer from state to federal parliament—but if any Labor candidate can hold Lyons for the party, it's probably her.

OK, this is way longer than I expected. This is a terrible amount of words to write if I prove to be shockingly wrong. Well, let's see what happens tonight.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully respond to these anon messages. I work in dc w a fairly wonky set and i cant overstate how haunted the DC Professional Thought Havers are by the spectre of the "low propensity voter." I think these ppl (myself included LOL) thought we had everything figured out ahead of the 2016 elections and then never recovered from the way it ended up going......i feel like in all the years that followed.....the liberal bubbles.....the coastal elites.......the hillbilly elegies......the real america....the ohio diners....the pennsylvania diners.......the polls......the 2020 horserace....while part of an earnest attempt to understand What Happened, were primarily self-indulgent, self-flagellation for being "out of touch" bc of a self-diagnosed "elite" status that then turned into ANOTHER myopic view of the world, just opposite, where the "libs" are hapless and everyone else remotely to the left are primarily victims to the unstoppable supernatural forces of the Right. Then in 2020 the narrative flipped AGAIN and once again, instead of taking the opportunity to expand a worldview and having the bravery to confront their own shortcomings, the opinion havers and wonks and beltway pressers have decided to groupthink their way into writing off democracy altogether. Its BEYOND frustrating to see! Like damn volunteer at a soup kitchen or smthn instead of being obsessed w the fact that i vote lol

Yes, and there are several reasons for that. First, despite all the factors that contributed to Trump's shock win in 2016 (anti-Clintonism, white backlash to Obama, general low voter enthusiasm, Russian disinformation, etc) we should never forget that until James Comey decided to announce 10 days before the election that he was reopening the EEEEEEEMAILS case, even though we all knew there was nothing there, she was leading fairly comfortably in the polls. And while we will never know how the 2016 election would have gone without that, which imho was one of the most unforgivable acts of blatant sabotage by a public official in American history, it's also true that we saw her poll averages start sliding almost in real time, as people who hadn't really been keen on voting for her anyway decided firmly not to and Trump was able to scrape out 16,000 votes across PA, MI, and WI to take the Electoral College. Which... we all remember how we felt that night, right? (Or in my case, early morning, since I was overseas?) We don't, we really, really don't want to feel that way again. Just saying.

As such, the media (which had already beat up Clinton nonstop during the BUT HER EEEEEMAILS saga) drastically overcorrected and as you say, began writing endless angsty handwringing pieces about Trump Voters in Rural Ohio Diners and giving endless sympathetic airtime to how "economically left behind" they felt, regardless of the fact that open racism, especially Obama backlash, was and remains the principal animating feature of Republican politics (since their only economic platform is that which makes very rich people even richer and Democratic economic policies are the only ones actually targeted at helping ordinary people). The hangover was so strong that even when Democrats had a massive 2018 midterm result and flipped the House blue for the first time since the post-ACA backlash lost it in 2010, the Conventional Wisdom was now beyond any doubt that Democrats were doomed for a generation or something, and not that Trump had squeaked out a fluky win (while losing the popular vote) due to endless Russian/Comey/third party-etc interference and wasn't actually that powerful. Even in 2020 when Biden was leading fairly steadily and things were going to hell with Covid, etc. etc. TRUMP IS UNSTOPPABLE, TRUMP IS GOING TO WIN.

(And now. Like. I know Trump thinks Trump won in 2020, as do a large majority of his cultists, but that doesn't mean he did.)

Even after that, when Roe went down in 2022, that made no difference to the RED WAVE COMING!!! narrative, and the amount of smug white male pundits insisting that abortion just wasn't very important and people weren't going to base their entire vote on it reached truly disgusting levels. We're now seeing the same thing with the constant "people won't vote for democracy and/or abortion rights" blast, when as you say, this narrative has just been completely made the fuck up by a lot of groupthinking DC media who are determined that this time, Trump really is going to win and then they get to be principled chroniclers in opposition or something. Not to mention, the basic principle of "democracy and abortion rights are good" do in fact win by thumping margins every time they're on the ballot, including in deep red states. But there is literally not a single piece of empirical evidence despite the massive amounts of it supporting the truth (i.e. that Democrats are doing historically well in competitive elections since 2018 and there's not really a major reason to think this will change in 2024) that will get the media to change the "Democrats in disarray and Biden Iz Doomed" horserace BS they so love. They don't like Biden because he's boring and competent and just does the job without being insane, because it's totally a great idea to treat American government like a reality show! (Recall the infamous comment by the CBS CEO who literally said that Trump was bad for America but great for CBS, because he pulled in high ratings and therefore lots of money and visibility for CBS. We live in the worst timeline.)

As such, the mainstream media has a vendetta against Biden, is determined that this time Trump is super definitely going to win and everyone will see how genius they are, and not-so-secretly wants Trump back because a) he's good for money and ratings, and b) because the media conglomerations are owned by oligarchs who have a vested interest in making sure that Democrats and their policies never get too popular. Notice how the once self-proclaimed centrist independent Elon Musk has turned into a rabidly alt-right fanboy ever since the Democrats really got serious about taxing billionaires as a key part of their platform. Likewise, insisting that Biden Iz Doomed makes Democrats nervous (and thus more likely to tune in) and Republicans gleeful (and thus more likely to tune in), so there's literally no incentive for the media to even try to report things accurately. You could create a very different narrative of the 2024 election if you just remotely bothered to write about things that have actually happened as they have actually taken place, rather than bending over backward to insist that Biden being four years older than Trump is a worse crime than 91 felony indictments, 2 impeachments, 1 insurrection, 450 million dollars and counting in punitive jury verdicts, more major criminal trials coming down the pipe, and just demonstrably being the worst human being alive in so many ways. I mean. Wow.

The good news, as I said in my other post, is that when people actually vote, these utter bullshit narratives get routinely blown out of the water, and that's a good thing. Because it turns out that unlike Super Smart Beltway Pundits' Super Smart Predictions, the average American does actually like democracy and freedom for women to make their own personal healthcare decisions, and they vote accordingly. So while yes, it's being made harrowingly much harder than it needs to be because of how much the media simply refuses to report that basic fact, and there is no amount of evidence that will convince them otherwise, at least we're trending in the right direction and, if we all pull our weight, can do it one more time. I realized the other day that I hadn't heard a fucking peep about Ron DeSantis in the last two months, and oh, how glorious it was. I yearn beyond words for the day (God willing, soon) when the same is true of Trump as well.

[yourdailykitsch]

Taylor Kitsch talks 'Terminal List' betrayal, 'Dark Wolf' prequel with Chris Pratt

Fans of the hit 2022 series "The Terminal List" ruefully recall Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch), the former Navy SEAL turned CIA operative, who joins SEAL commander James Reece (Chris Pratt) in uncovering a nefarious plot.

The Butch and Sundance partnership ended in heartbreak in the Season 1 finale, when Reece confronted Edwards on his sailboat with the unthinkable: Edwards, his Navy SEAL brother, was part of the conspiracy that sabotaged Reece's operation. Reece kills his best friend in the off-camera sailboat shot heard around the world.

Yet Edwards is alive in Amazon Prime Video's prequel series "The Terminal List: Dark Wolf" (premiering Aug. 27) to explain the betrayal from beyond the grave. As seen in these exclusive first-look images, Edwards and Reece are still paired as SEAL brothers seven years before the dark turn.

"This is the origin story," Kitsch tells USA TODAY, vowing to reveal the road to Edwards' betrayal. "This is the story that gets us to that point. There was so much heat around Edwards with that twist and all these questions about how. You're going to learn a heck of a lot more about who Ben really is and these twists and turns that led to that decision."

In author and former Navy SEAL Jack Carr's bestselling 2018 novel "The Terminal List," Edwards was portrayed as more conniving and less nuanced. In the TV adaptation that Carr created with David DiGilio, Edwards saw new life. "Lone Survivor" star Kitsch was given the license to bring his "Friday Night Lights" likability to the complicated, floral shirt-loving character.

"My Ben is not the Ben that Jack Carr wrote," says Kitsch. "I said that 'If you let me make him my own, then I'll take a swing with you.' And they were all for it."

Many of the memorable Reece and Edwards moments were ad-libbed in the original series, including Reece's line to Edwards – "You're not going to the golf tournament dressed like Big Lebowski, are you?"– before a golf course military operation: Carr loved the realistic banter and vibe that made the eventual treachery and death all the more tragic.

Edwards "was done much better in the series than I did in the novel," says Carr. "These guys elevated it to the level that fans wanted a prequel origin story on this character."

Pratt came up with the concept of the Edwards-centered "Dark Wolf," pushing to shoot and release the prequel before the Reece-led Season 2 of "Terminal List," which has just started filming. Executive producers Carr, DiGilio, and Antoine Fuqua enthusiastically agreed, and Kitsch was re-drafted. "It was all systems go," says Pratt.

"Dark Wolf" revisits Reece and Edwards training troops in Iraq, along with Earnest "Boozer" Vickers (former SEAL Jared Shaw), a "Terminal List" casualty. In the prequel, wildcard Edwards is discharged from the SEALs after an operation, and his coveted trident insignia is removed from his uniform. "One split-second decision changed the course of his life," says Kitsch. "You're not only stripping the bird off his chest, you're stripping away a piece of who this guy is and his purpose."

It's just the beginning. Edwards heads to Europe with departing SEAL Raife Hastings (Tom Hopper), and the duo become entangled in the shadowy world of CIA Special Operations and a lethally explosive spy conspiracy.

"Dark Wolf" provides an action-filled introduction to pivotal characters from Carr's 2019 novel "True Believer," who will loom large in "Terminal List" Season 2 – like Hastings, former Iraqi Special Operations Forces officer Mo Farooq (Dar Salim) and the crass, self-obsessed CIA contractor Jules Landry (Luke Hemsworth).

"'Dark Wolf' really gives the history and the backstory of all these key characters we will also see later," says Pratt.

The battle shifts to European cities as the series transitions from SEAL operations to international spy espionage, featuring a team that includes Mossad agent Eliza Perash (Rona-Lee Shimon).

"We get feedback from very tough critics, guys who do not mince words," says DiGilio. The new series relies on former CIA employees as technical advisors, along with former SEALs like Shaw, as well as second-unit directors Max Adams (a former Army Ranger) and Ray Mendoza ("Warfare" director). "You need that 20% Hollywood hot sauce. But we really do make that effort to get it right."

For Kitsch, it's an opportunity to tell a story that could lead to more prequel seasons for his deceased character. "I just think it came out really strong. I wish I could tell you where we're taking him," says Kitsch. "If we're lucky to get a second season of 'Dark Wolf', it would be even darker than this season, no pun intended. This really dives into the story of a man fighting for the greater good. and not winning."

[mariacallous]

Patti LuPone stood in a midtown recording studio one spring afternoon, talking to Carrie Bradshaw. LuPone, who descends from what she calls Sicilian peasant stock, had filmed an arc on the upcoming season of “And Just Like That . . . ,” as the Italian mama of Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi), the young boyfriend of Carrie’s gay pal Anthony (Mario Cantone). She was now recording some dialogue tweaks in postproduction. On a monitor, her character, Gianna, was greeting Carrie at a party. At the microphone, LuPone tried out different line readings: “Ciao.” (Imperious.) “Ciao!” (Warm.) “Ciao-ciao!” (Sprightly.)

“Just fill it up a little bit,” the showrunner, Michael Patrick King, instructed.

“I like your dress verrry much. Verrry pretty,” LuPone purred in an Italian accent.

“Shit, now I have to call the Writers Guild,” King joked, about her ad-lib. They moved on to a scene in which Gianna spars with Anthony in his apartment. King had written LuPone a saucy exit line: “Questo corridoio puzza,” which translates to “This hallway stinks.” LuPone gave him options, punching her “P”s: “Questo corridoio puzza!” (Pugnacious.) “Questo corridoio puzza.” (Droll.) “Questo corridoio puzza! Ugh!” (Revolted.) When they wrapped, King told her, “You are a delight.”

“Thank you for including me, honest to God,” LuPone said. “And just, you know, think of me. Because I don’t want to be onstage anymore. Period.”

This was almost like a queen proclaiming her abdication. LuPone is Broadway’s reigning grande dame, with a big voice and an even bigger mouth. She’s one of the city’s last living broads: brassy, belty, and profane, with the ferocity of a bullet train coming right at you. She’s as famous for playing musical theatre’s iron ladies—Eva Perón in “Evita,” Rose in “Gypsy”—as she is for her offstage rumbles. She’s fought with Andrew Lloyd Webber, who in the nineties replaced her with Glenn Close in his musical “Sunset Boulevard.” (LuPone trashed her dressing room, sued his company, and used part of the settlement to build herself a pool, which she christened the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Swimming Pool.) She’s fought with co-stars. (In her memoir, she called Bill Smitrovich, who played her husband on the TV drama “Life Goes On,” a “thoroughly distasteful man.” Smitrovich: “She’s a very, very guileful woman.”) She has even fought with audience members. She once palmed a cellphone from a texter’s hand, mid-play. In 2022, during a talkback for the musical “Company,” she berated a spectator, “Put your mask over your nose. . . . That is the rule. If you don’t want to follow the rule, get the fuck out!” Ask her about Madonna (“a movie killer”) or “Real Housewives” (“I really don’t want to know about those trashy lives”), and you’ll get a zinger worthy of Bette Davis—one of her heroines, along with Édith Piaf. (“I prefer the flawed to the perfect,” she told me.) Her bluntness has made her a kind of urban folk hero. On the Tony Awards red carpet in 2017, she declared that she would never perform for President Trump. Asked why, she responded, “Because I hate the motherfucker, how’s that?” The clip went viral.

At seventy-six, LuPone has acquired an unlikely cool factor. Since winning her second Tony—for “Gypsy,” in 2008—she’s played herself on “Glee” and “Girls,” a bathhouse singer on “American Horror Story,” and an occultist on “Penny Dreadful,” and she’s voiced a yellow giant on the cult sitcom “Steven Universe” and a socialite mouse on “BoJack Horseman.” The indie director Ari Aster cast her as a harridan mother in “Beau Is Afraid,” and last year she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as a witch in “Agatha All Along.” “She doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks,” her coven-mate Aubrey Plaza told me. Last fall, Plaza ended up living in her apartment, at LuPone’s urging, while making her Off Broadway début. “She basically kept me alive,” Plaza said. “I would wake up, and she would be making me soup. One morning, she was carving a turkey, and she would go, ‘Doll, I have to go out of town for some gigs, but I’m gonna carve this up and put it in the fridge, and you’re gonna make sandwiches with it throughout the week.’ ”

Bridget Everett, the raunchy alt-cabaret performer who starred in HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere,” met LuPone through the director and lyricist Scott Wittman. LuPone brought Everett onstage at Carnegie Hall for a duet, and they’re now developing a double act called “Knockouts.” “You think of her as the greatest living Broadway legend,” Everett told me. “You don’t think of her as a person. So when, all of a sudden, you’re out in the country and she hops in the pool buck naked, you’re, like, ‘O.K., there’s Patti LuPone! Let’s roll.’ ”

After her dubbing session, LuPone collected her crocodile purse and got into an S.U.V. on Eighth Avenue. As it lurched past the theatre district, she explained why she is, at least for now, done with Broadway. “I’m so angry at whoever choked the stem right in the middle by making Times Square a pedestrian mall,” she said. When she was starring in “Company,”LuPone would carry a bullhorn and yell at pedestrians from her car window. “It’s impossible for us to get to work,” she told me. “And I said that years ago. So I start work angry. I can’t get to my theatre, because of the traffic pattern, because of the arrogance of the people in the streets. It’s a road. Get out of the street.”

She preferred the gritty old New York of the sixties and seventies, when she moved from Long Island to make her name. Sure, the city was broke. Sure, there were muggers. (Once, when a stranger groped her friend near Grant’s Tomb, LuPone turned “she-lion”—her word—and shrieked at the guy until he fled into Riverside Park.) Sure, she heard a “scream of death” one night outside her window, in Chelsea, and knew that somebody was getting murdered. But the city was “bankrupt, dangerous, and creative,” she insisted. Now it’s all gone corporate, including the theatre, which she worries has reverted to “the gaiety phase of Broadway, when it was just follies and Ziegfeld girls.”

She’s even angrier at the rest of the country. She told me, more than once, that the Trumpified Kennedy Center “should get blown up.” In the S.U.V., apropos the current Administration, she pronounced, “Leave. New York. Alone. Make it its own country. I mean, is there any other city in America that’s as diverse, as in-your-face? It’s a live-or-die city, it really is. Stick it out or leave.” The car dropped her off at a restaurant on the Upper West Side. She asked for sherry—she’d discovered it while doing “Les Misérables” in England in the eighties—but the bartender said that they didn’t carry it, so she settled for a glass of rosé, with a side of ice cubes.

In person, LuPone is fun-seeking and dishy. She recalled one of her first trips into Manhattan, to see Saint-Saëns’s “Samson and Delilah” at the Met. “They were two of the fattest people I’ve ever seen onstage,” she told me. “There was a bed, two very large singers, a male and a female, and a bowl of fruit on the bed. And all I could concentrate on was that bowl of fruit and when they were gonna knock it to the floor.” She let out a big, booming “HA!”

LuPone was snapped out of her reverie by two chatty young women at the next table. “The whole city is so fucking loud,” she groused. “People have forgotten that they’re in public.” She leaned over to ask them, politely but firmly, “Ladies, excuse me, do you mind keeping it down just a little bit? We’re trying to have a conversation.” They obeyed.

LuPone ordered a fried artichoke, sliced in half. “I have a love-hate relationship with New York, because of what it forces you to face,” she went on. She likes that New Yorkers can sniff out a bullshitter, but her intolerance to bullshit gets her into trouble. “On a woman, they don’t like that smell,” she said. “People ask, Why am I a gay icon? I go, Don’t ask me. Ask them. But I think they see a struggle in me, or how I’ve overcome a struggle. What else am I going to do?”

She picked apart the artichoke with her fingers. “I’ve been punished for wondering what was going on since I was four,” she said, again punching her “P”s. “The question was always ‘Why?’ The answer was not permitted. To this day, if I express myself in a way that somebody doesn’t like, they will say, ‘Oh, that’s Patti.’ ” She lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes, like a tigress ready to pounce. “What the fuck are you talking about? What do you know about me, that you can say, ‘Well, that’s Patti’? And yet I never stopped asking the question ‘Why?’ ”

LuPone bristles when people call her a diva, which they do often. “I know what I’m worth to a production,” she said, her lips skewing diagonally in agitation. “I know that I’m box-office. Don’t nickel-and-dime me before you put me onstage. Don’t treat me like a piece of shit. Because, at this point, if you don’t value me, why am I there?”

If LuPone is the New Yorkiest of Broadway stars, it’s not just because of her powerhouse voice. It’s because she fights her own battles, the way the city makes you fight through rush-hour crowds. But she didn’t ask for it to be this way. “Why do I have to fight?” she asked herself, tearing out the artichoke’s heart. “What am I learning in this life that I’m atoning for from the last one? What is it that forces me to fight? Seriously. Why wasn’t it easier?”

LuPone’s many oft-recounted struggles began at four years old, when she wandered off her family’s property, in Northport, Long Island, to visit a friend. Crossing a field, she got sidetracked by some birds and butterflies. “They’re looking all over the place for you!” her friend’s father yelled when she arrived. “When I got home, I saw police cars and fire engines, and I hid under my bed,” she recalled. “When they found me, I got a serious spanking with no explanation. There was no dialogue. You did the wrong thing—smack, smack. But why?”

The LuPones lived on an apple orchard amid subdivided farmland. Northport back then was a small fishing village—at one point, the mayor was also the funeral director—with boggy wetlands and rocky bluffs overlooking the bay. Johnny Carson would sometimes moor his yacht there, and LuPone would buzz it with her father’s boat, shouting, “Johnny! Hi!” It was a bucolic place to grow up, but LuPone sensed a menacing energy, what she called the town’s “deep underbelly.”

A furtive darkness ran in her family, too. Her mother’s parents, the Pattis (her first name is her mother’s maiden name), were immigrant bootleggers; their sewing room had removable floorboards to hide whiskey. Late in life, LuPone learned that her maternal grandfather had been murdered in 1927, possibly with her grandmother’s collusion; one newspaper reported that his body had been found “in a pool of blood caused by three wounds in his head.” “All I knew was that, growing up, every Sunday, my mother would call my grandmother, and the two of them would talk in Italian, and my mother would be crying her eyes out,” LuPone said. Why?

Her father, Orlando, was the principal of her elementary school, and her mother, who went by Pat, “played the part of a Long Island housewife,” LuPone said; being a principal’s wife required “a hostess element, a façade, because she had to entertain the teachers.” Once, overhearing her parents fight, LuPone packed her books in a suitcase, stood at the kitchen door, and declared, “Goodbye, cruel world!” Her parents divorced when she was twelve, after Pat discovered that Orlando was having an affair with a substitute teacher. LuPone remembers her mother herding her and her older twin brothers, Bobby and Billy, into a car and driving to a nearby town. “We snuck up to this house and looked in the basement window, and there was my dad sitting in a chair and this woman sitting at his knees, and my mother put her fist through the cellar window,” she said. She didn’t see her father again for decades.

“My brothers were freaked out more than I was,” LuPone recalled. “I said to Bobby, ‘Honey, we’re free to pursue show business now!’ Daddy wanted us to be teachers. I was, like, ‘No thanks.’ ” Pat drove her daughter to voice lessons, informing her that her great-grandaunt was the nineteenth-century coloratura Adelina Patti. LuPone and her brothers had a dance group, the LuPone Trio, which performed on Ted Mack’s “The Original Amateur Hour.” “They had an adagio act,” her childhood friend Philip Caggiano said. “Bobby would heave Patti into the air, and Billy would catch her.” At school, she immersed herself in music, singing Haydn with the chorus and playing sousaphone in the marching band. “I remember, in the cafeteria of our junior high school, saying, ‘I want to sing just like Earl Wrightson,’ ” Caggiano recalled. “And Patti said, ‘I want to sing like Patti LuPone.’ ”

She knew that she had a Broadway-sized voice, but she was a “closet rocker, or a closet groupie,” she said. One New Year’s Eve, she and a friend drove upstate to Saugerties in a blizzard to “find the Band—and we got so close.” She moved to Manhattan at eighteen and spent a year partying at discothèques, then joined the inaugural class of the drama division at Juilliard, where her brother Bobby had studied dance. The drama program was run by the legendary actor-producer John Houseman, who had worked with Orson Welles. LuPone said, “John Houseman went out and found thirty-six of the craziest people he could find, to see whether he could strip down their personalities and create a ‘Juilliard actor.’ ”

The training was incoherent. One teacher would espouse one method—René Auberjonois told them, “Acting is fucking”—only to land a gig and be replaced by another teacher with a conflicting method. Of the original class, thirteen graduated. “They wanted to throw me out of school, so they threw all sorts of roles in my direction to make me fail as an actor—but what they did was train one actor in versatility,” LuPone likes to say. Houseman criticized her diction, calling her Flannel Mouth—hence her compensatory overenunciation—and once told her that she had “the smell of the gallows.” (It was a compliment, but she was too intimidated to ask what it meant.) “I cried myself to sleep every night my first year,” she said.

Her third year, three “advanced” students joined the class. One was Kevin Kline. “I took an instant dislike to him,” LuPone recalled. “He looked like Pinocchio to me. He had skinny legs, and he was tall, and I didn’t really see the handsomeness.” That changed one day in art-appreciation class, when they sat together in the back and started “feeling each other up,” LuPone said. Their turbulent on-and-off relationship lasted seven years. “He was a Lothario,” she recalled. “It was a painful relationship. I was his girlfriend when he wanted me to be his girlfriend, but, if there was somebody else, he would break up with me and go out with that person. And I, for some reason, stuck it out—until I couldn’t stick it out anymore.” Kline remembered the relationship as “fraught.” “We fought all the time,” he told me. “In the company, we were known as the Strindbergs.”

After graduation, in 1972, the drama class formed a repertory troupe called the Acting Company. They’d do comedy of manners in Saratoga, Chekhov in Omaha. “Patti was always pissed that, whenever there was a whore to play, she usually got the whore’s part,” her classmate Sam Tsoutsouvas remembered. The troupe also played Broadway, where, in 1975, LuPone and Kline starred in the musical “The Robber Bridegroom.” She received her first Tony nomination the same season that her brother Bobby was nominated for playing the director in “A Chorus Line.” After four years, she and ten other company members rebelled against their overseers and quit en masse, “like America breaking away from the British Empire,” Tsoutsouvas said.

While touring, LuPone had met the young playwright David Mamet, who cast her, Kline, and Tsoutsouvas in his play “All Men Are Whores,” at Yale Cabaret. LuPone felt at home with Mamet’s dialogue; its raw aggression gave language to her own. “The writing, once I understood the rhythm, became the easiest thing to speak,” she said. “I learned more about acting from David Mamet than I learned in four years at Juilliard.” Despite their divergent politics—Mamet has gone MAGA—their collaboration has endured. In response to several written questions, Mamet sent me back the following: “Opening night on Broadway of ‘The Old Neighborhood,’ I was looking for Patti around 7 P.M. and found her onstage asleep in the kitchen counter of the set. I understood it as a Sicilian Panic Attack.”

In 1979, LuPone won the role of Eva Perón, the power-hungry First Lady of Argentina, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Evita.” It was, she recalled, a “vitriolic experience.” The score was so punishing that she blew out her voice days before the L.A. tryout; a doctor told her that her vocal cords looked like raw hamburger meat. The director, Hal Prince, wanted her to play Eva as cold and unsmiling, contrary to her instincts. She had a matinée alternate who she was convinced was gunning for her job, and some of the dancers kept telling her how Elaine Paige had done the part in London. “I said, ‘Stop right there. Let me figure it out for myself,’ ” she recalled. “So I made enemies in rehearsal.” This, she believes, forged her reputation as a prima donna. “I had maybe three allies in the company,” she said. “It was Beirut from my dressing room to the stage. I had no support. I faced this trial by fire by myself.”

I spoke to a former “Evita” chorus boy who remembered LuPone as “a bit of a mess and undisciplined and driving Hal crazy.” But he also told a story that validated her sense of being messed with. After a rainy day of rehearsal, he shared a taxi with her, and they became chummy. Then Prince’s general manager ordered him to keep his distance from the leading lady. “I was very upset. I thought it had come from Patti—that I had offended her. So, from that minute on, I absolutely iced her. In retrospect, I realized they wanted to control her by isolating her.”

The show made LuPone an overnight star. She won the Tony, and everyone from Ava Gardner to Andy Warhol flocked to her dressing room. But she never made peace with the pain. “They say it’s the way you learn,” she said. “But is it necessary? It hurt so much.”

One way she coped with the stress was hockey. On Sunday nights, when “Evita” was dark, LuPone would go to Rangers games at Madison Square Garden, where, the Times reported, in 1982, she became a “regular in Section 27AA,” right behind the opposition net. She had a standing invitation from a cousin of her neighbors back in Northport, David Ingraham, whom she called a “Quaker slash arbitrage stockbroker slash high roller.” “It was high Greek drama right before my very eyes,” she recalled. “They were gladiators!” Because she was on strict vocal rest offstage, she’d pound the boards without screaming, using her voice only when she was asked to perform the national anthem.

“It’s a great spectator sport,” she told me. “Baseball bores the shit out of me—so slow. Football: I don’t get it, except I like them in their nice, tight spandex and their dreadlocks.” She did a Mae West shimmy.

LuPone would party with the hockey players, and they’d come see her shows. Ulf Nilsson, then a Rangers center from Sweden, told me, “If it was a face-off at her end, I could smile and more or less say hello to her while I was playing.” LuPone and Nilsson became close; he was the only player who put in his bio that he loved the theatre. “I probably saw ‘Evita’ about ten times,” he said. “And once I was allowed to stay right behind the stage!” (The former chorus boy remembered that the athletes LuPone had invited to watch from the wings blocked the actors’ entrances, infuriating the cast.)

The press couldn’t get enough of Broadway’s breakout star mingling with New York’s home team, and rumors spread that LuPone was dating the Rangers’ curly-haired Adonis Ron Duguay. LuPone says they were just acquaintances. (She did date an Edmonton Oiler who broke her heart.) But she remembers berating Duguay when he went to “Evita” and spent part of the show flirting with his agent at the bar. He’s now dating Sarah Palin. “They’re perfect for each other,” LuPone told me. “They’re two of the stupidest human beings on the face of the earth.” Then she paused. “How do you say stupid without saying stupid? He’s a box of bricks.” (“Wow, that’s hurtful,” Duguay said, when I reached him by phone, adding, “I can’t imagine living my life being so hateful that way.”)

One morning, LuPone called me and asked, “What are you doing tomorrow night?” Within minutes, she’d used her hockey connections to get us V.I.P. tickets to see the Rangers play against the Toronto Maple Leafs. “Seven-o’clock puck drop,” she told me in a voice memo. We met at a private dining room high in Madison Square Garden. Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Bacala on “The Sopranos,” was sitting at the next table and gave LuPone a big hello. (Her brother Bobby, who died in 2022, played Tony Soprano’s neighbor Bruce Cusamano.) She tried to order a sherry—no dice. “Nobody has sherry!” she moaned.

LuPone had brought along Pat White, who became her longtime backstage dresser after the 1987 revival of “Anything Goes.” I remembered White from LuPone’s Tony speech for “Gypsy,” in which she thanked “my very own Thelma Ritter, friend, and wrangler, Pat, who gives me a shot every single night. I don’t know what’s in it, but I’m giving the performance of my life!” (The shot joke was White’s idea.) “The people who have become star dressers know how to anticipate—and how to defuse,” LuPone said, drawing out the “Z” sound. “A lot of things can upset the equilibrium of an actor, and musicals, in my opinion, are by their very nature a vicious beast.”

White, a reserved woman in her sixties with a thick Massachusetts accent, agreed. During “Sweeney Todd,” in 2005, White would read out their horoscopes from the Post while LuPone got made up. One night, LuPone realized that White was reading her the wrong horoscope, and White admitted, “If yours is bad, I just read you the best one out of all of them.”

After dinner, we were escorted to the ice: second row, behind the Toronto bench. “I’m so happy!” LuPone said, giddy, sipping rosé out of a plastic cup through a straw. Her son, Josh, had told her to keep an eye on the Leafs’ No. 34, Auston Matthews. She reapplied her lipstick as the teams skated out. “I’m going to root for whoever wins,” she said.

A tenor who had been on Broadway in “The Phantom of the Opera” came out to sing the anthems. LuPone stood and sang along to “O Canada” but grimaced at “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which she finds too martial and hard to sing. “Good luck with this one, Mister,” she grumbled, declining to join in.

“I predict the Leafs winning,” she said as the game began, citing her “Sicilian witch instinct.” Nilsson had told me that acting and hockey are similar, because both require focus. But LuPone didn’t see much overlap. “It was all sex appeal,” she recalled of her hockey fixation. “It was rare to have anything in common except for the party that we were going to.” Soon she was shouting at the players, “Take your clothes off, boys! Naked hockey! No cups—I want full frontal! HA!”

“They have to wear skates,” White chimed in. “And the helmets.”

LuPone grunted, “Does anyone still wear a hat?”

The Leafs scored, and she cheered. Less so for the Rangers—she’d been turned off by all the U.S.A. jingoism. She also disapproved of the jumbotron (“Don’t tell me how I should feel”) and the fan contests during commercial breaks (“Too much shit going on”). After the first period, with the Leafs ahead 2–1, she retired to a V.I.P. lounge and recalled her “Evita” days. At curtain call, she said, her applause would dip after the ovation for Mandy Patinkin, who played the populist narrator Che. “I had to convince myself it was because I was so good in the part that they couldn’t make up their minds how they felt about me,” she said. “People thought I was a blond bitch, a fascist, a Nazi sympathizer.” To make herself feel better, she started performing a midnight cabaret act on Saturdays after the show, at the Chelsea club Les Mouches. She would cover Petula Clark and Patti Smith and let her wild side run free: “It was a desire for people to see who I really was.”

During the second period of the hockey game, she got restless. “The fighting is so stupid,” she groaned, as two players brawled. “They look like idiots.” The Leafs scored again, and she wiggled two fingers above her head—her Sicilian witch antennae. I asked her if her affinity for the away team echoed her struggle to win over the audience as Evita. “I gravitate toward the unexpected one, I really do,” she said. At the second intermission, with the Leafs up 4–2, the announcer welcomed a couple of excited children who had won rides on the Zambonis. “Who gives a shit?” LuPone bellowed. She had an early flight, so she left.

“Let me know who wins,” she deadpanned.

One evening, LuPone was onstage at Symphony Space, on the Upper West Side, warming up with the piano. She ran through “Fever,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” and “Anything Goes,” but there was a good chance that she wouldn’t perform any of them. The concert, “Songs from a Hat,” was designed like a parlor game: spectators would reach into a top hat and pull out numbered cards, and LuPone would sing the corresponding songs—mostly showstoppers she’d claimed over her career, such as “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” or “The Ladies Who Lunch.”

An hour later, she reappeared in a glittery black dress. The format cast LuPone as a woman up for a dare. “I have no idea what I’m going to sing,” she told the crowd, “and it’s the most fun I have onstage.” A woman in the front row picked No. 5. “Oh, God,” LuPone said. “I did this show on Broadway—for two weeks.” It was “As Long As He Needs Me,” from “Oliver!” She had starred in a failed revival in 1984, her first Broadway show after “Evita.”

Her eighties career had its ups and downs. She left “Evita” after twenty-one months, because “I lost my sense of humor,” she said. She declined an offer to play Lady Macbeth at Lincoln Center—“I said, ‘Haven’t I just been playing her for two years?’ ”—and instead went into “As You Like It” at the Guthrie, in Minneapolis, because she wanted to work with the Romanian director Liviu Ciulei. (During that show’s run, she got kicked out of Prince’s night club after she screamed at some people who were booing her cousin’s punk band.) She played Harrison Ford’s sister in “Witness,” but Hollywood’s interest in her was intermittent. At one point, she starred in a dead-end TV pilot as a singing ghost who haunts a laundromat. Nearly a dozen fizzled plays after “Evita,” she was cast as Fantine in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s première of “Les Misérables,” in London. It was a runaway hit, but she chose not to remain with the show when it went to Broadway, because her experience with the R.S.C. was so perfect that she didn’t want to taint it. “I’ve never known whether I’ve made the right decision,” she told the Symphony Space crowd, when someone picked “I Dreamed a Dream” from the hat.

In 1989, she went to L.A. to star in the ABC drama “Life Goes On,” as the suburban mother of a son with Down syndrome. “For four years,” she wrote in her memoir, “I played a docile mom in a patriarchal family.” By the series’s end, she was bored silly and no longer on speaking terms with her onscreen husband. Scott Wittman was helping her devise a solo act when she landed what seemed like the part of a lifetime: Norma Desmond in the musical version of “Sunset Boulevard.”

It turned out to be the biggest debacle of her career. Her London reviews were mixed; Frank Rich, in the Times, called her “miscast and unmoving.” Meanwhile, Lloyd Webber had cast Glenn Close in a concurrent L.A. production—LuPone thought it was a ploy to gin up a rivalry—and Close’s wraithlike approach won raves. LuPone was contracted to follow the role to Broadway, but she found out from Liz Smith’s column that she was being dumped for Close. The repudiation, mirroring Hollywood’s abandonment of Norma, only deepened her remaining performances in London. “I’d felt rejection, but not that kind of rejection,” LuPone said. Years later, at a Kennedy Center tribute to Barbara Cook, Close took a seat next to LuPone. “She said, ‘I had nothing to do with it,’ ” LuPone recalled. “I wanted to go, ‘Bullshit, bitch!’ ”

The recovery was hard. LuPone took out her fury on her husband, Matt Johnston. “It almost broke up our marriage,” she said. (They’d met when she was playing Lady Bird Johnson in a TV movie and he was a camera assistant; they married on the set of “Anything Goes.”) She went on Prozac. After a hike one day, a blood vessel in her left vocal cord burst, and she needed surgery and intensive rehabilitation. “It’s almost like she had to start from scratch,” recalled Wittman, who directed her in a 1995 concert run, “Patti LuPone on Broadway.”

Despite stray successes—a stint as Maria Callas in the play “Master Class”; a topless role in Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam”—by the early two-thousands her agents couldn’t get her seen for a TV pilot. Her comeback came courtesy of Stephen Sondheim. They had socialized in Connecticut, where both had houses, but, she said, “I thought he hated me.” (He once slammed a door in her face.) Sondheim liked getting stoned in her barn with her husband. She played Mrs. Lovett in an acclaimed Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd”—the actors played their own instruments, allowing LuPone to show off her tuba chops—and then Madame Rose, the mother of all stage mothers, in “Gypsy.” She brought brass and rage and woundedness to Rose, a woman whose struggles, much like LuPone’s, are as self-perpetuated as they are riveting.

Heading into her sixties, LuPone was on a high, her salty bravado now part of her legend. During her penultimate performance in “Gypsy,” she stopped the show to scold a photographer: “How dare you? Who do you think you are?” (The photos were part of a planned magazine feature, but whatever.) Her newfound cachet, coupled with her adventurous tastes, brought her to unexpected places. Jac Schaeffer, the creator of “Agatha All Along,” was looking for a “Patti LuPone type” before realizing that she could get the real thing. “She’s infiltrated all these counterculture spaces,” Schaeffer said. Ari Aster cast her as Joaquin Phoenix’s mother, Mona, in “Beau Is Afraid” after seeing her on Broadway in Mamet’s “The Anarchist.” “I’d written for Mona an endless, withering monologue that was meant to be very theatrical and histrionic and grandiloquent, while also being born of a real deep pain and anger,” Aster told me. “Her sudden appearance also needed to function as something of a punch line, and having the architect of Beau’s misery be Patti LuPone really made me laugh.”

Since the eighties, LuPone has been based in Connecticut. Years ago, she and Johnston got a flock of chickens and named them Marilyn, Rita, Eartha, Foghorn Leghorn, and the Fabulous Miller Sisters (Pia, Alexandra, and Marie-Chantal). All but three were massacred in a raccoon attack. “It was horrific,” LuPone said. “There was blood and feathers and guts all over the place when my husband heard me screaming. He came down in this Victoria’s Secret underwear, barefoot. We looked in the hen hut, and there was the raccoon, basically looking at us, going, ‘I ain’t finished.’ ”

In the city, where LuPone is the apex predator, she keeps a sparsely decorated apartment on Central Park West, the site of raucous New Year’s Eve parties. The guest list runs from John McEnroe to Cole Escola. “I asked her, ‘What’s the vibe of the party?’ ” Aubrey Plaza recalled. “She went, ‘Oh, you know, cops and showgirls.’ ” It was at this apartment that I met her one Saturday at noon, bearing a bottle of sherry.

LuPone had laid out strawberries, chocolates, and nuts. “Look at our little spread, dahling,” she said, with mock grandeur. She’d just returned from the GLAAD Awards, in L.A., after which she hit a gay bar with the trans TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney.

“I talk to myself a lot,” she told me. “Why? Don’t ask me. But I actually talked about Hal Prince in my head today.” The conversation was about how he had tormented her during “Evita.” “That stuff doesn’t go away. It sits there, going, Why, why, why?” As much as quarrelsome defiance has become part of her persona, it was striking to hear that it lingers even when she’s alone with her thoughts. As she sipped her sherry, a lifetime of grievance and self-pity—all evidence of her success to the contrary—seemed to well up in her. “I was dealt the hard hand, in everything,” she lamented. “So I say, This life is about figuring that out. The next life is going to be easier.”

She went on, “We start in life vulnerable. Then we are accosted. And then we put up the barriers. We put up the armor. I’ve never lost my vulnerability, so the shock continues. I firmly believe this: it’s better to fail, because you learn so much more. If you are anointed, you have nowhere to go. Failure makes you investigate. Failure moves you to the next step.”

In the meantime, the battles were unrelenting. She had told me, about co-starring with Mia Farrow in the two-woman play “The Roommate” last fall, “There was a little bit of bullshit that went down, and then I washed my hands of a couple of people in the business.” One of them, I found out later, was a press agent who, after an offstage blowup, grabbed a bottle of champagne from his office and gave it to LuPone to make amends; he did not realize that the label read “Happy Opening, Sunset Boulevard.” “The Roommate” shared a wall with a neighboring show, “Hell’s Kitchen,” the Alicia Keys musical, and sound would bleed through. At her stage manager’s suggestion, LuPone called Robert Wankel, the head of the Shubert Organization, and asked him if he could fix the noise problem. Once it was taken care of, she sent thank-you flowers to the musical’s crew. She was surprised, then, when Kecia Lewis, an actress in “Hell’s Kitchen,” posted a video on Instagram, speaking as one “veteran” to another, and called LuPone’s actions “bullying,” “racially microaggressive,” and “rooted in privilege,” because she had labelled “a Black show loud.”

“Oh, my God,” LuPone said, balking, when I brought up the incident. “Here’s the problem. She calls herself a veteran? Let’s find out how many Broadway shows Kecia Lewis has done, because she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.” She Googled. “She’s done seven. I’ve done thirty-one. Don’t call yourself a vet, bitch.” (The correct numbers are actually ten and twenty-eight, but who’s counting?) She explained, of the noise problem, “This is not unusual on Broadway. This happens all the time when walls are shared.”

I mentioned that Audra McDonald—the Tony-decorated Broadway star—had given the video supportive emojis. “Exactly,” LuPone said. “And I thought, You should know better. That’s typical of Audra. She’s not a friend”—hard “D.” The two singers had some long-ago rift, LuPone said, but she didn’t want to elaborate. When I asked what she had thought of McDonald’s current production of “Gypsy,” she stared at me, in silence, for fifteen seconds. Then she turned to the window and sighed, “What a beautiful day.”

It was. In Central Park, New Yorkers were strolling among the apple blossoms. “Oh, people sitting by themselves, lonely as hell,” LuPone observed, peering from her window. “HA! Just lonely as hell out there.” She was ready for a nap. As I walked out, she announced, “I, my dahling, am taking to my bed.”

[svt-rosalie]

. . . ♡ GOING ! ? 🛝 SEVENTEEN ★ ﾟ๑

ׁ ׅ ୨ ❪ masterlist! ❫ ୧ ⊹ ࣪

© 2023 , svt-rosalie rosalie masterlist!

2018

TTT (MT SVT REALITY)

2019

SVT TRIP ☆ MBTI of SVT ☆ Escape Singing Room ☆ Debate Night ☆ TTT (Camping Ver.) ☆ SVT Playground ☆ SVT Secret Santa ☆ The Secret of Going Sevong

2020

Mystery Mystery ☆ Don’t Lie ☆ Boo Seungkwan’s Past Life Destiny ☆ Insomnia Zero ☆ Seventeen Brain Survival ☆ SVT Escape Room ☆ Delivery Food Fighter ☆ Human Chess ☆ Debate Night #2 ☆ Pie In The Sky ☆ Four Wheeled Rider ☆ Ad-lib: Seventeen’s Got Talent ☆ The8 and the 13 Shadows ☆ The Tag ☆ Christmas in August ☆ Mouse Busters ☆ Bad Clue ☆ SVTSIDE OUT ☆ Bungee Jump ☆ CARNIVAL ☆ Don’t Lie #2 ☆ GOING VS SEVENTEEN ☆ TTT (Hyperrealism Ver.) ☆ GOING

2021

Ad-lib : GOING COMPANY ☆ One Million Won ☆ Let’s Go! Seventeen ☆ Treasure Island : 14 Raiders ☆ Don’t Lie #3 ☆ Ad Genius SEVENTEEN ☆ Roulette Life ☆ Planting Rice and Making Bets ☆ Kickball ☆ TTT (Water Sports Ver.) ☆ Debate Night #3 ☆ Tribal Games ☆ Catch Stock ☆ EGO ☆ Insomnia Zero #2 ☆ Best Friends ☆ Seventeen’s Kitchen for Two

2022

Going Seventeen Special - GOING COMMENTARY ☆ How To Eat Rice the Perfect Way ☆ Infinite GOING ☆ The Truman Show of Mr. SVT’s We Live Alone ☆ SVTSIDE OUT #2 ☆ GSVT Triathlon Championship 2022 ☆ Runner-Up Sports Day ☆ SEVENTEEN GOING Radio Special ☆ Know Thyself ☆ HIDE N SEEK ☆ WONWOO’s Diary ☆ Christmas in August #2 ☆ Good Offer ☆ Talk Get-Together ☆ Bad Clue #2 ☆ I Know and Don’t Know

2023

Going Company Outing ☆ Surprise Don’t Lie ☆ Don’t Lie : Clue ☆ Don’t Lie : The Chaser ☆ Court : The Eyes That See The Truth ☆ Finding KSY ☆ A Company Dinner for EveryWON ☆ Everything Possible in the White Zone ☆ Going Vol. 2 ☆ BOOmily Outing ☆ The Guest Who Left Secretly ☆ Point of Omniscient Interfere Penalty ☆ Rock Scissors Paper ☆ Comeback Special - God of Light Music ☆ Grudge

2024

Going Ranger ☆ 14 Angry People ☆ Liar Liar ☆ Insomnia-Zero III ☆ Class President Election ☆ Grrreuk Kak TTT ☆ Horror Special : Trap