Friday, November 15, 2024

"The Onion takes over Infowars" is not an Onion spoof

Mark Sumner, Daily Kos staff emeritus, wrote about why one must be very careful when reading someone’s ideas on what Democrats need to do to win the next election. A big sign is they say Harris should have said something she clearly already said or complain about a policy position that Harris definitely did not put forward.
They're engaging in convenient strawman arguments that attack non-existent Democratic campaigns. Those arguments are defined by accepting nothing but Republican talking points. And the prescriptions for how to "fix" the Democratic Party all seem to come down to the same thing: Surrender.
Then Sumner looked at a nine point plan put out by Matthew Yglesias. I saw that name and thought isn’t he highly conservative? So I didn’t read those proposals carefully and skipped over much of Sumner’s point-by-point rebuttal (yes, Yglesias is conservative) and went to the summary.
To bring Yglesias' list into plain English, here's his plan for Democrats Cut taxes for billionaires Drill, baby, drill Protesters are perverts All lives matter Trans people are perverts Experts don't know more than you. Racist, sexist, and abusive language is cool Build the wall. build the camps, deport them all The government exists to help corporations and billionaires This platform may be slightly familiar to you. It's the Republican platform. It also happens to be the platform that Yglesias and others in the why-can't-Democrats-be-more-like-Republicans? faction have been pushing for eternity. What's most astounding is that some people seem to be taking this seriously.
Some of those are media people who hold up such plans as a way for Democrats to “fix things.”
Their arguments are worse than surrender; they're collaboration. These are people who have hankered for nothing so much as the downfall of the Democratic Party and progressive values. They see this moment as an opportunity to sell disheartened Democrats on the benefits of hate, disdain, and ignorance. Anyone who buys their arguments might as well pop on that MAGA hat and unfurl a Confederate flag. And a Democratic Party that followed their advice would only be the Republican Party in a donkey suit.
This story has been getting a lot of play in the media. The version I’m working from is by Oliver Willis of Kos. Alex Jones and his Infowars website and media show was an early and the most prominent voice in conservative conspiracy theories. He made up many of his claims. He funded his operations partly through selling dietary supplements (in the US supplements are not regulated). One of his big stories a decade ago was that the Sandy Hook school shooting didn’t really happen. The families of the murdered children sued Jones. The trial took a good long time. When the verdict was handed down the families were awarded nearly a billion dollars, a judgment large enough that Jones was ordered to liquidate his assets to pay it. The Infowars name and assets were bought by ... The Onion, the site known for its satirical take on the news. This news is so weird one could accuse The Onion of making it up. But it really happened. The group Everytown for Gun Safety helped seal the deal and vowed to support the site through advertising and the Sandy Hook families heartily agree with the deal. The Onion gains a new platform and that source of hurtful information has been stopped. A pundit roundup by Greg Dworking for Kos has several reactions on how bad Matt Gaetz will be as Attorney General. I’ll let you read those (or not) and turn to the memes and cartoons posted in the comments. One posted by exlrrp is from Mehdi Hasan, which looks to be from Bluesky rather than X. Hasan wrote:
The party that is obsessed with child sex offenders, & is close to a cult that claims child sex offenders run the government, just nominated a guy once investigated for allegedly sex-trafficking a 17 year old girl to be in charge of the country’s legal system. Beyond parody.
Some look at “child sex offenders” and think drag queens. They don’t run the government, though we would be in a better place if they did. Others look at that phrase and see Jeffrey Epstein’s clients. Many of them do run the government. Another one posted by exlrrp shows Putin toasting with a glass of champagne and says, “Thank you Republicans! I couldn’t have screwed your nation without you!” David Hayward, the naked pastor, posted a cartoon with a standard format: “How it started” shows people gathered around Jesus as he teaches. “How it’s going” shows people outside a church bowing to an American flag. Collins Dictionary has released its word of the year with several other worthy mentions. The top word is brat, a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude. It was created by Charli XCX and made famous when it was applied to Harris. Some of the other top words this year: Brainrot: an inability to think clearly caused by excessive consumption of low-quality online content. Looksmaxxing: attempting to maximize the attractiveness of one’s physical appearance. Rawdogging: the act of undertaking an activity without preparation, support, or equipment. Romantasy: a literary genre that combines romantic fiction with fantasy. Supermajority: (it is a word of the year only now?) Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. A sample:
“Since the election, internet searches for ‘how to move abroad’ are up by more than one-thousand percent. … Additionally, U.S. searches for ‘move to Canada’ increased by 1,270 percent, making this a perfect time to debut my new reality show: Who Wants to Marry a Mountie?” —Stephen Colbert

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