#Substack Boost program

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Meet Veroonica O E: Tech Wizard and Product Manager

More than a talented businesswoman, Veroonica is now empowering the Substack Mastery Boost Program with her expertise. If you are a non-member, you can read this story here. Dear Subscribers, As an editor, content curator, and now a founding member of the Illumination Substack Mastery community, I started introducing my editor and writer colleagues. It is a great pleasure for me to do so. My…

[python-goose-politics]

The Concerned Bird’s Substack

Elon Musk's and X's Role in 2024 Election Interference

THE CONCERNED BIRD

JAN 10, 2025

To Whom It May Concern,

I'm writing this with a heavy heart and no small amount of fear. As a former X (formerly Twitter) employee on an H1B visa, I can't reveal my identity without risking everything, but I can't stay silent any longer about what I saw and was made to do.

When Elon Musk took over, everything changed. What started as a social media company became something much darker. I was part of a team that was directly ordered to manipulate Twitter's systems to influence the 2024 US presidential election. It wasn't subtle, and it wasn't ethical.

We completely changed how the algorithm worked, pushing pro-Trump and right-wing posts to the top of people's feeds. To make it look balanced, we also boosted some left-wing critics of Democrats, but it was all carefully calculated. These changes didn't just affect Americans - they impacted users worldwide.

One of the most disturbing things we did was create thousands of fake accounts using advanced AI systems called Grok and Eliza. These accounts looked completely real and pushed political messages that spread like wildfire. Havn't you noticed they all disappeared? Like magic.

We also knowingly allowed foreign governments to manipulate the platform. State-backed groups from Israel, Iran, and Russia were running their own influence campaigns, and because their goals aligned with ours, we looked the other way. Even when they clearly broke the rules, we didn't stop them.

Perhaps the most unethical part was how we manufactured news stories. One team would write completely fake articles, while another team would artificially boost their engagement metrics to make them go viral. We specifically targeted certain groups of people, knowing exactly how to manipulate their views and emotions.

The moderation team became a tool for our agenda. We systematically silenced anyone who got in our way, enforcing the rules when it suited us and ignoring them when it didn't. Elon Musk himself was deeply involved in these decisions, often joking about being "Black Hat MAGA."

What started as US election interference has now spread to other countries. We're currently doing the same thing in Germany and other European nations. The damage we've done is immeasurable, and I don't know if it can ever be fixed. People don't know what's real anymore, and that's exactly what we wanted.

The pilot program for the Eliza AI Agent, was election interference. Eliza was release officially in October of 2024, but we had access to it before then thanks to Marc Andreessen.

I'm terrified to be writing this, but I had to speak up. I just hope that someone with the power to do something about this sees this letter. You'll know what i’m saying is the truth by Elon's actions to the news someone spoke out. For more evidence look at the docs of Eliza AI Agent software. We left bread crumbs.

Yours sincerely,

A former employee who can't sleep at night.

Stop using Twitter. The whole site is a psyop.

[visionaryvogues03]

How Brands Are Partnering with the Creator Economy to Drive Revenue?

The creator economy has been a cathartic innovation for many online creators. On the other hand, it has gained commercial business value for brands. Collaborations with online creators have caused a shift from conventional celebrity endorsements to online influencer endorsements. The digital advertising industry has taken the internet by storm & is the sole reason for brands mulling over the idea of engagement rates, expecting higher revenue figures, resulting in adapting creative ways to attract the target audiences. 

The Rise of the Creator Economy in Brand Partnerships

The digital content economy consists of content creators, influencers, and digital entrepreneurs who use platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack to monetize their expertise and audience. With billions of users engaging daily, brands have recognized the immense potential of partnering with these creators to tap into highly engaged niche communities.

Unlike traditional marketing, where businesses push one-size-fits-all messaging, creator collaborations allow for a more personalized approach. Creators build trust and credibility within their communities, making their endorsements more authentic and impactful than conventional advertising.

How Brands Are Leveraging the Creator Economy?

To drive revenue, brands are adopting several key strategies to integrate with the creator economy:

1. Co-creation of Branded Content

Brands are moving beyond sponsorships and actively co-creating content with creators. This strategy ensures the brand’s message is seamlessly integrated into the creator’s authentic storytelling. Examples include:

Fashion brands collaborating with influencers to launch limited-edition collections.

Tech companies work with YouTube reviewers to showcase product features.

Financial brands partnering with creators to simplify complex topics like investing and cryptocurrency.

2. Performance-Based Influencer Marketing

Instead of flat-fee sponsorships, businesses are shifting toward performance-based partnerships where creators earn commissions through affiliate marketing, referral programs, or revenue-sharing agreements. This approach aligns incentives, ensuring that creators drive actual business results, such as sales or sign-ups, rather than just engagement metrics.

3. Creator-Led Product Innovation

Some of the most successful brands in the creator economy are those that involve influencers in product development. Companies like Nike, Glossier, and Logitech have launched products in collaboration with creators, leveraging their insights and audience feedback to fine-tune offerings. This not only boosts sales but also strengthens brand loyalty.

4. Exclusive Membership and Subscription Models

Brands are increasingly utilizing the subscription-based model of the creator economy by offering premium content, courses, and behind-the-scenes access through platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans (for non-adult content). By providing value-driven exclusive content, brands can create recurring revenue streams while fostering community engagement.

Expanding Revenue Streams Through Creator Collaborations

Beyond direct sponsorships and content partnerships, brands are discovering innovative ways to integrate creators into their business models:

5. Creator-Driven E-commerce Strategies

E-commerce brands are embedding creators into their sales funnels by:

Hosting live shopping events on social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Partnering with creators to launch limited-time product drops.

Utilizing creator-led reviews to drive conversions on e-commerce sites.

6. Leveraging AI and Data Analytics for Creator Partnerships

AI-powered tools now enable brands to:

Identify the best-matched creators for their target audiences.

Measure ROI through advanced sentiment analysis and performance tracking.

Optimize influencer campaigns in real-time, ensuring maximum impact.

Case Studies: Brands Winning with the Creator Economy

Nike’s Partnership with Digital Athletes

Nike has successfully integrated itself into the online creator business by collaborating with fitness influencers and digital athletes. Through personalized sponsorships and co-branded training programs, Nike has expanded its reach and enhanced customer loyalty without relying on traditional advertising.

Chipotle’s TikTok Strategy

Chipotle has leveraged TikTok creators to drive viral marketing campaigns, resulting in significant spikes in sales. By engaging influencers to create fun, challenge-based content, Chipotle taps into the organic appeal of the creator economy to make its brand a trending topic.

Adobe’s Collaboration with Digital Creators

Adobe’s approach to the creator economy focuses on providing tools and resources to digital artists and content creators. Through partnerships with leading creatives, Adobe ensures its software remains a staple for professionals and aspiring creators alike.

L’Oréal’s Beauty Creator Program

L’Oréal has taken a strategic approach to the creator economy by building long-term relationships with beauty influencers. Through exclusive training programs and product collaborations, L’Oréal empowers creators to become brand ambassadors, driving sales while reinforcing brand credibility.

Challenges and Considerations for Brands

While the social media entrepreneurship presents enormous opportunities, brands must navigate certain challenges:

Finding the Right Creators: Aligning with influencers who genuinely represent a brand’s values is crucial for authenticity.

Regulatory Compliance: Brands must ensure transparency in partnerships, including proper disclosure of sponsored content.

Measuring ROI: Unlike traditional marketing, tracking direct revenue impact from creator partnerships requires a mix of analytics tools and performance-based metrics.

Brand Safety: Ensuring that brand messages remain consistent across creator collaborations is crucial to avoid misalignment or controversy.

The Future of Brand-Driven Creator Partnerships

As the creator economy continues to evolve, brands that embrace innovation will lead the way. Emerging technologies like AI-driven influencer analytics, blockchain-based creator payments, and decentralized content ownership will further shape how businesses interact with digital entrepreneurs.

Forward-thinking brands will not only collaborate with creators but also empower them—whether through co-branded ventures, equity partnerships, or shared revenue models. By deeply embedding into the creator economy, businesses can cultivate loyal customer communities, drive sustainable revenue growth, and future-proof their marketing strategies.

Brands that integrate creators into product development, customer engagement, and marketing strategies will set themselves apart in the increasingly competitive digital landscape. As Web3 technologies, decentralized content creation, and virtual influencers gain traction, the next wave of the digital content economy will bring even greater opportunities for brands willing to adapt.

Conclusion

The shift toward the creator economy is not just a passing trend—it represents a fundamental transformation in how brands engage with consumers. By leveraging creator partnerships, businesses can drive revenue, enhance brand trust, and create marketing that feels organic and impactful. As more companies embrace this model, those that strategically integrate with the digital content economy will find themselves at the forefront of the next wave of digital commerce and brand storytelling.

With continued innovation, collaboration, and data-driven strategies, brands can fully unlock the potential of the influencer economy and create long-term, sustainable business success.

Uncover the latest trends and insights with our articles on��Visionary Vogues

[pscottm]

Elon Musk's and X's Role in 2024 Election Interference

Take this with a huge grain of salt as they only started this substack Jan 10. I am not vouching for them as a creditable source.

1/10/2025

To Whom It May Concern,

I'm writing this with a heavy heart and no small amount of fear. As a former X (formerly Twitter) employee on an H1B visa, I can't reveal my identity without risking everything, but I can't stay silent any longer about what I saw and was made to do.

When Elon Musk took over, everything changed. What started as a social media company became something much darker. I was part of a team that was directly ordered to manipulate Twitter's systems to influence the 2024 US presidential election. It wasn't subtle, and it wasn't ethical.

We completely changed how the algorithm worked, pushing pro-Trump and right-wing posts to the top of people's feeds. To make it look balanced, we also boosted some left-wing critics of Democrats, but it was all carefully calculated. These changes didn't just affect Americans - they impacted users worldwide.

One of the most disturbing things we did was create thousands of fake accounts using advanced AI systems called Grok and Eliza. These accounts looked completely real and pushed political messages that spread like wildfire. Havn't you noticed they all disappeared? Like magic.

We also knowingly allowed foreign governments to manipulate the platform. State-backed groups from Israel, Iran, and Russia were running their own influence campaigns, and because their goals aligned with ours, we looked the other way. Even when they clearly broke the rules, we didn't stop them.

Perhaps the most unethical part was how we manufactured news stories. One team would write completely fake articles, while another team would artificially boost their engagement metrics to make them go viral. We specifically targeted certain groups of people, knowing exactly how to manipulate their views and emotions.

The moderation team became a tool for our agenda. We systematically silenced anyone who got in our way, enforcing the rules when it suited us and ignoring them when it didn't. Elon Musk himself was deeply involved in these decisions, often joking about being "Black Hat MAGA."

What started as US election interference has now spread to other countries. We're currently doing the same thing in Germany and other European nations. The damage we've done is immeasurable, and I don't know if it can ever be fixed. People don't know what's real anymore, and that's exactly what we wanted.

The pilot program for the Eliza AI Agent, was election interference. Eliza was release officially in October of 2024, but we had access to it before then thanks to Marc Andreessen.

I'm terrified to be writing this, but I had to speak up. I just hope that someone with the power to do something about this sees this letter. You'll know what i’m saying is the truth by Elon's actions to the news someone spoke out. For more evidence look at the docs of Eliza AI Agent software. We left bread crumbs.

Yours sincerely,

A former employee who can't sleep at night.

[kristenbrady]

Are Social Media Influencers Getting Rich or Barely Getting By?

So the Wall Street Journal just put out an article entitled, “Social-Media Influencers Aren’t Getting Rich — They’re Barely Getting By.” They are basically saying that “platforms are paying less for popular posts, brands are pickier about partnerships and a possible TikTok ban looms.”

The article goes on to say that “Many people dream of becoming social-media stars like YouTube’s MrBeast or TikTok’s Charli D’Amelio. But for most who pursue careers as content creators, just making ends meet is a lofty goal.”

So, is this true?

Well, most of us are members here on Medium.com. Are your earnings decreasing? I’ve heard a mixed bag from different writers here on this platform. Some say they actually left the platform because of low earnings month after month, and I’ve heard some say that their earnings are only getting better month after month.

Speaking only for myself, last month I had my highest earning month on record on Medium. But this month, I seem to have hit a brick wall. No matter how much work I put into it, I can’t seem to get the numbers to move up significantly.

I have not been able to sell any eBooks on Gumroad and I lost 3 paid subscribers on Substack last week.

So, what’s going on? Is the competition for an audience growing fierce? Is the content creator industry getting oversaturated, so these platforms are deciding to pay less?

According to Forbes magazine, in 2021, the creator economy was valued at $104 billion, and it is projected to reach nearly half a trillion by 2027.

I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna stay on the content creator train and see how far it can take me. With that said, let’s go over 4 great places for content creators to hang out:

Heepsy

Heepsy is a social media influencer marketing solution made for agencies and brands. Users can gain access to millions of social influencers worldwide, in addition to the tools needed to discover the proper one for your campaigns on social media.

Not only will Heepsy provide the choice for brands to locate influencers, it’ll also introduce the choice of a Marketplace in which influencers may sift through campaigns that are published by brands. There, creators possess the flexibility to pick campaigns matching their interests that have features enabling them to filter based on the network for the promotion, the campaign’s location, the category being promoted, and much more. It ensures that social influencers are able to conveniently find campaigns aligning with their target audience’s preferences, as well as their own style of content creation.

Grin

Grin is a platform for creator management that helps e-commerce businesses construct more valuable brands using the power of content-creator partnerships.

Mention

Mention is a marketing platform that enables agencies and brands to recognize audience perception around social media and the Internet while additionally providing the capability of organizing their campaigns on social media.

By using this social media marketing platform, it’s easily possible to monitor what’s being said on the internet about a product or brand, gain analytics on their industry, as well as calculate the impact of your PR and marketing activities.

Current

Current is a platform for brands that want to maximize their influencer marketing, build their ambassador programs, as well as boost their revenue.

So, which is it for you? If you are a writer here on Medium, how’s your earnings going? Let me know in the comments section.

🍉Kristen is a contributor on Medium. Sign up here to catch every story when she publishes.

Continue reading on Medium

[bethestaryouareradio]

Speaking Tips, Purging Belongings, Garden Goals

Tune in LIVE weekly to the upbeat, positive lifestyle broadcast where producer and host Cynthia Brian showcases strategies for success on StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!®. Available wherever you listen to your favorite programs!

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Sprout a new year’s garden with hope, faith, and garden goals.

Gardening is good for you. Gardening boosts morale, lowers your grocery bill, and is a free fitness center. Goddess Gardener, Cynthia Brian provides the tools for planning to plant.

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[arcticdementor]

Martin Gurri's The Revolt Of The Public is from 2014, which means you might as well read the Epic of Gilgamesh. It has a second-edition-update-chapter from 2017, which might as well be Beowulf. The book is about how social-media-connected masses are revolting against elites, but the revolt has moved forward so quickly that a lot of what Gurri considers wild speculation is now obvious fact. I picked up the book on its "accurately predicted the present moment" cred, but it predicted the present moment so accurately that it's barely worth reading anymore. It might as well just say "open your eyes and look around".

…

In conclusion, 2011 was a weird year.

Gurri argues all of this was connected, and all of it was a sharp break from what came before. These movements were essentially leaderless. Some had charismatic spokespeople, like Daphni Leef in Israel or Tahrir-Square-Facebook-page-admin Wael Ghonim in Egypt, but these people were at best the trigger that caused a viral movement to coalesce out of nothing. When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, he built an alliance of various civil rights groups, unions, churches, and other large organizations who could turn out their members. He planned the agenda, got funding, ran through an official program of speakers, met with politicians, told them the legislation they wanted, then went home. The protests of 2011 were nothing like that. They were just a bunch of people who read about protests on Twitter and decided to show up.

Also, they were mostly well-off. Gurri hammers this in again and again. Daphni Leef had just graduated from film school, hardly the sort of thing that puts her among the wretched of the earth. All of these movements were mostly their respective countries' upper-middle classes; well-connected, web-savvy during an age when that meant something. Mostly young, mostly university-educated, mostly part of their countries' most privileged ethnic groups. Not the kind of people you usually see taking to the streets or building tent cities.

Some of the protests were more socialist and anarchist than others, but none were successfully captured by establishment strains of Marxism or existing movements. Many successfully combined conservative and liberal elements. Gurri calls them nihilists. They believed that the existing order was entirely rotten, that everyone involved was corrupt and irredeemable, and that some sort of apocalyptic transformation was needed. All existing institutions were illegitimate, everyone needed to be kicked out, that kind of thing. But so few specifics that socialists and reactionaries could march under the same banner, with no need to agree on anything besides "not this".

…

Gurri isn't shy about his contempt for this. Not only were these some of the most privileged people in their respective countries, but (despite the legitimately-sucky 2008 recession), they were living during a time of unprecedented plenty. In Spain, the previous forty years had seen the fall of a military dictatorship, its replacement with a liberal democracy, and a quintupling of GDP per capita from $6000 to $32000 a year - "in 2012, four years into the crisis there were more cell phones and cars per person in Spain than in the US". The indignado protesters in Spain had lived through the most peaceful period in Europe's history, an almost unprecedented economic boom, and had technologies and luxuries that previous generations could barely dream of. They had cradle-to-grave free health care, university educations, and they were near the top of their society's class pyramids. Yet they were convinced, utterly convinced, that this was the most fraudulent and oppressive government in the history of history, and constantly quoting from a manifesto called Time For Outrage!

So what's going on?

Our story begins (says Gurri) in the early 20th century, when governments, drunk on the power of industrialization, sought to remake Society in their own image. This was the age of High Modernism, with all of its planned cities and collective farms and so on. Philosopher-bureaucrat-scientist-dictator-manager-kings would lead the way to a new era of gleaming steel towers, where society was managed with the same ease as a gardener pruning a hedgerow.

…

Realistically this was all a sham. Alan Greenspan had no idea how to prevent recessions, scientific progress was slowing down, poverty remained as troubling as ever, and 50% of public school students stubbornly stayed below average. But the media trusted the government, the people trusted the media, and failures got swept under the rug by genteel agreement among friendly elites, while the occasional successes were trumpeted from the rooftops.

There was a very interesting section on JFK’s failure at the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy tried to invade Cuba, but the invasion failed very badly, further cementing Castro’s power and pushing him further into the Soviet camp. Representatives of the media met with Kennedy, Kennedy was very nice to them, and they all agreed to push a line of “look, it’s his first time invading a foreign country, he tried his hardest, give him a break.” This seems to have successfully influenced the American public, so much so that Kennedy’s approval rating increased five points, to 83%, after the debacle!

…

In Gurri's telling, High Modernism had always been a failure, but the government-media-academia elite axis had been strong enough to conceal it from the public. Starting in the early 2000s, that axis broke down. People could have lowered their expectations, but in the real world that wasn't how things went. Instead of losing faith in the power of government to work miracles, people believed that government could and should be working miracles, but that the specific people in power at the time were too corrupt and stupid to press the "CAUSE MIRACLE" button which they definitely had and which definitely would have worked. And so the outrage, the protests - kick these losers out of power, and replace them with anybody who had the common decency to press the miracle button!

…

Any system that hasn't solved every problem is illegitimate. Solving problems is easy and just requires pressing the "CAUSE MIRACLE" button. Thus the protests. In 2011, enough dry tinder of anger had built up that everywhere in the world erupted into protest simultaneously, all claiming their respective governments were illegitimate. These protests were necessarily vague and leaderless, because any protest-leader would fall victim to the same crisis of authority and legitimacy that national leaders were suffering from. Any attempt to make specific demands would be pilloried because those specific demands wouldn't unilaterally end homelessness or racism or inequality or whatever else. The only stable state was a sort of omni-nihilism that refused to endorse anything.

(I’m reminded of Tanner Greer’s claim that the great question of modernity is not “what can I accomplish?” or “how do I succeed?” but rather “how do I get management to take my side?”)

Gurri calls our current government a kind of "zombie democracy". The institutions of the 20th century - legislatures, universities, newspapers - continue to exist. But they are hollow shells, stripped of all legitimacy. Nobody likes or trusts them. They lurch forward, mimicking the motions they took in life, but no longer able to change or make plans or accomplish new things.

…

How do we escape this equilibrium? Gurri isn't sure. His 2017 afterword says he thinks we're even more in it now than we were in 2014. But he has two suggestions.

First, cultivate your garden. We got into this mess by believing the government could solve every problem. We're learning it can''t. We're not going to get legitimate institutions again until we unwind the overly high expectations produced by High Modernism, and the best way to do that is to stop expecting government to solve all your problems. So cultivate your garden. If you're concerned about obesity, go on a diet, or volunteer at a local urban vegetable garden, or organize a Fun Run in your community, do anything other than start a protest telling the government to end obesity. This is an interesting contrast to eg Just Giving, which I interpret as having the opposite model - if you want to fight obesity, you should work through the democratic system by petitioning the government to do something; trying to figure out a way to fight it on your own would be an undemocratic exercise of raw power. Gurri is recommending that we tear that way of thinking up at the root.

Second, start looking for a new set of elites who can achieve legitimacy. These will have to be genuinely decent and humble people - Gurri gives the example of George Washington. They won't claim to be able to solve everything. They won't claim the scientific-administrative mantle of High Modernism. They'll just be good honorable people who will try to govern wisely for the common good. Haha, yeah right.

…

Gurri divides the world between the Center and the Border. He thinks the Center - politicians, experts, journalists, officials - will be in a constant retreat, and the Border - bloggers, protesters, and randos - on a constant advance. His thesis got a boost when Brexit and Trump - both Border positions - crushed and embarrassed their respective Centers. But since then I'm not sure things have been so clear. The blogosphere is in retreat (maybe Substack is reversing this?), but the biggest and most mainstream of mainstream news organizations, like the New York Times are becoming more trusted and certainly more profitable. The new President of the US is a boring moderate career politician. The public cheers on elite censorship of social media. There haven't been many big viral protests lately except Black Lives Matter and the 1/6 insurrection, and both seemed to have a perfectly serviceable set of specific demands (defunding the police, decertifying the elections). Maybe I've just grown used to it, but it doesn't really feel like a world where a tiny remnant of elites are being attacked on all sides by a giant mob of entitled nihilists.

…

At the risk of being premature or missing Gurri's point, I want to try telling a story of how the revolt of the public and the crisis of legitimacy at least partially stalled.

Gurri talks a lot about Center and Border, but barely even mentions Left and Right. Once you reintroduce these, you have a solution to nihilism. The Left can come up with a laundry list of High Modernist plans that they think would solve all their problems, and the Right can do the same. Then one or the other takes control of government, gets thwarted by checks/balances/Mitch McConnell, and nothing happens. No American Democrat was forced to conclude that just because Obama couldn't solve all their problems, the promise of High Modernism was a lie. They just concluded that Obama could have solved all their problems, but the damn Republicans filibustered the bill. Likewise, the Republicans can imagine that Donald Trump would have made America great again if the media and elites and Deep State hadn't been blocking him at every turn. Donald Trump himself tells them this is true!

With this solution in place, you can rebuild trust in institutions. If you're a Republican, Fox News is trustworthy because it tells you the ways Democrats are bad. Some people say it's biased or inaccurate, but those people are Democrats or soft-on-Democrat RINO traitors. And if you're a Democrat, academic experts are completely trustworthy, and if someone challenges them you already know those challenges must be vile Republican lies. Lack of access to opposing views has been replaced with lack of tolerance for opposing views. And so instead of the public having to hate all elites, any given member of the public only needs to hate half of the elites.

You could think of this as a mere refinement of Gurri. But it points at a deeper critique. Suppose that US left institutions are able to maintain legitimacy, because US leftists trust them as fellow warriors in the battle against rightism (and vice versa). Why couldn't one make the same argument about the old American institutions? People liked and trusted the President and Walter Cronkite and all the other bipartisan elites because they were American, and fellow warriors in the battle against Communism or terrorism or poverty or Saddam or whatever. If this is true, the change stops looking like the masses suddenly losing faith in the elites and revolting, and more like a stable system of the unified American masses trusting the unified American elites, fissioning into two stable systems of the unified (right/left) masses trusting the unified (right/left) elites. Why did the optimal stable ingroup size change from nation-sized to political-tribe-sized?

…

The one exception to my disrecommendation is that you might enjoy the book as a physical object. The cover, text, and photographs are exceptionally beautiful; the cover image - of some sort of classical-goddess-looking person (possibly Democracy? I expect if I were more cultured I would know this) holding a cell phone - is spectacularly well done. I understand that Gurri self-published the first edition, and that this second edition is from not-quite-traditional publisher Stripe Press. I appreciate the kabbalistic implications of a book on the effects of democratization of information flow making it big after getting self-published, and I appreciate the irony of a book about the increasing instability of history getting left behind by events within a few years. So buy this beautiful book to put on your coffee table, but don't worry about the content - you are already living in it.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 13, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

As of today, the United States has more than 16 million confirmed coronavirus infections, with more than 200,000 cases diagnosed every day. We are closing in on 300,000 deaths from Covid-19. On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration gave Emergency Use Authorization to the coronavirus vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer. Today, Pfizer began to ship the first of about 3 million doses of vaccine from its facility in Michigan. Pfizer will be working with UPS and FedEx to send the vaccines around the country.

The first to get the vaccine will be high-risk health care workers. Along with them, White House staffers who work close to Trump will be among the first to receive the vaccine, to prevent more of them from becoming ill with Covid-19 after so many of them have become sick in the past months. There has been a backlash to this information, as critics note that the administration has downplayed the virus, officials have refused to wear masks, and the White House has held large gatherings that turned out to be superspreader events, so the idea that Trump staffers will now take scarce vaccines doesn’t sit very well. After the New York Times broke this story, Trump tweeted late Sunday night that he has asked for staffers not to get the vaccine immediately, “unless specifically necessary.”

Still, the eagerness of Trump administration officials to take it might help convince reluctant Americans that the vaccine is safe. The Biden-Harris team has already launched a drive to educate people about the vaccine, worried that the Trump administration’s downplaying of the virus has set that effort back significantly. While a president-elect generally stays quiet in the weeks before taking office under the principle that America has only one president at a time, Biden is indicating that he will not stay silent in the face of mounting deaths the White House refuses to acknowledge. "We’re in the teeth of the crisis right now," the president-elect said Friday. "This nation needs presidential leadership right now. … You know, we… have to face it head on.”

To combat widespread skepticism about the vaccine, Biden is highlighting trusted public health experts like Anthony Fauci, as well as other well-known figures who have agreed to be vaccinated on television. Biden’s team is also working with the Advertising Council, a nonprofit organization of advertising agencies that produces public service announcements, to launch a $50 million advertising campaign in the new year. This effort is late getting started and has been hampered by Trump’s politicization of the vaccine process, which led executives from both Pfizer and Moderna, the companies with the most promising vaccines so far, to skip Trump’s “vaccine summit” at the White House last week.

Aside from his aggressive action to combat the coronavirus, an evaluation of Biden’s nominees tells us a great deal about what we can expect of his administration. He has chosen institutionalists with a great deal of experience, and with a general bent toward fairness in government. So, for example, Dr. Janet L. Yellen, Biden’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, has served as chair of the Federal Reserve and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and her hallmark was always her defense of wage workers at a time when leading Republican lawmakers insisted that building the economy meant cutting taxes for those at the top of the economy.

Yellen is known to support lower interest rates, which tend to boost borrowing and thus the economy, but also worries about the extraordinary debt under which the country now labors. The budget deficit in 2020 was $3.1 trillion, and the debt is more than $20 trillion, which means that more than $52 billion of our tax dollars every year go into paying interest on the debt. That amount is as much as the combined budgets of the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, and State. Yellen has suggested that she sees a need to raise taxes—which heartens progressives—and to cut retirement programs, which horrifies them. She worries about the long-term effects of the rising debt as baby boomers age, doubling spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Last year, Yellen told the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care Fall Conference that she thinks our financial issues “will not be solved without some additional revenues on the table, but I also find it hard to believe that it won’t be solved without some changes to those programs…. So this is certainly something that people in this audience should have in their sights as something that will greatly affect the well-being of our cohort or, more likely, our children.”

This moderation is cheering former Republicans, like Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post, and making progressives despair. But Biden’s picks seem to be less about indicating the content of his administration than indicating he plans to have an administration in the first place. He seems to be signaling that he intends to rebuild the framework of the government that Trump has dismantled in his four years. As for what comes once that framework is rebuilt, his choice of California Senator Kamala Harris—the first woman, and the first woman of color, on a presidential ticket-- as his running mate suggests he is not signaling a return to the past. Biden has always been famous for being in the middle of the Democratic pack, and will move to the left or the right according to what he hears from the public.

The president-elect is rushing to jump into the presidency in the face of a leadership vacuum as Trump continues to stew over his election loss and to plot yet more ways he can try to overturn the results. All those options are weaker than the ones that have already failed. That’s not to say damage isn’t being done: yesterday, Trump supporters who refuse to accept his defeat roamed U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C, where last night, people were assaulted, 33 were arrested, and four stabbed.

It is not clear what is going to happen to the Republican Party with Trump demanding loyalty even as he is losing battle after battle after a very clear defeat in the election, and his base turning violent. Those lawmakers who have signed on to Trump’s attack on our democratic processes have painted themselves into a corner along with the extremist Trump base, and their strategy might weaken them politically.

In an important move today, evangelical leader Beth Moore, the founder of Living Proof Ministries, a Bible-based women’s group from Houston, Texas, who has almost a million followers on Twitter, tweeted: “I do not believe these days are for mincing words. I’m 63 ½ years & I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it…. Fellow leaders, we will be held responsible for remaining passive in this day of seduction to save our own skin while the saints we’ve been entrusted to serve are being seduced, manipulated, USED and stirred up into a lather of zeal devoid of the Holy Spirit for political gain….”

Moore follows this weekend's statement by evangelical Karen Swallow Prior, who said she was “now embarrassed and ashamed” for voting for local and state Republican candidates (although she had never voted for Trump). “What a bunch of money-grubbing, power-hungry, partisan cowards who care nothing about conservatism,�� she tweeted. Conservative journalist David French also wrote this weekend that “the frenzy and fury of the post-election period has laid bare the sheer idolatry and fanaticism of Christian Trumpism.”

If evangelicals return to their traditional stance that politics corrupts religion, the modern-day Republican Party is in trouble. In this year’s election, about 80% of white evangelicals supported Trump. They make up 15% of the U.S. population, but because they turn out in huge numbers, they provided about 40% of Trump’s votes in 2020. Since the Reagan years, white evangelicals have been a crucial part of the Republican base. If they are starting to rethink their loyalties, it will be a game changer.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

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