Feb. 13, 2024 - Taylor Swift, Antichrist

Feb 13, 2024

Taylor Swift Unites the World

Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast was the most-watched television event in more than half a century. The number of people watching at any given time averaged 123.4 million, CBS announced yesterday.

The last time more people watched the same thing on TV was the first lunar landing (that we know of!) … and that was so long ago that the images on TV were just black-and-white and the people on TV were just white.

The reason for Sunday’s modern-day-record viewership is, of course, Usher. Okay, okay, Taylor Swift might’ve helped. And the fact that it had to go into overtime due to the incredible scheming of Pres. Joe Biden, who’s mentally incompetent. But mostly Swift.

Swift fans who otherwise couldn’t give a shit about rich dudes chasing a ball around a field decided that watching could be fun. Which a lot of people might not have believed beforehand, given how fucking angry football seems to make millions of men on a regular basis. It also helps that watching Swift have fun is fun.

I’ve been giving some thought to exactly what it is that makes Swift such a powerful cultural force right now. So powerful that D4FRFP1 Donald Trump actually asked her not to endorse Biden, marking the first time Trump asked a woman for something since he asked his Mom to turn on the first lunar landing.

The closest thing that I have to a Swift theory is that she’s woke. And happy.

Like all of humanity, Swift’s been fucked over by rich assholes who disrupt economic justice. And she knows she’s been screwed over (mine you, no one need cry for the nice rich lady)...but she’s still happy. And she’s done something about it.

She’s also aware of people who suffer social injustice and gives voice to their pain. And yet is happy.

Swift’s found a way to recognize injustice done to her and to feel the pain of injustice to others…but still allow herself joy.

This is the way. It’s what we’re all seeking.

And it’s a rebuke of the right’s fear of wokeness. We were told MAGA was going to destroy the NFL after Colin Kaepernick took a knee. The legion of man-child angry-sads literally shot cans of beer because the company that made the cans let a transgender person touch other cans of the same beer, thereby giving all Bud Light drinkers gender cooties by osmosis.

And as much as I might want to credit The Power of Taylor Swift for this historic refutation of “go woke go broke,” even before Sunday, the previous highest-rated TV thing since the lunar landing was last year’s Swift-less Super Bowl.

And even before Sunday’s game, we learned that MAGA had lost the Bud Light bowl, too. In fact, not just lost, MAGA willingly surrendered. As Salon Food Editor Ashlie D. Stevens reported Sunday morning, MAGA Bud Light-haters have been returning to the fold… especially since they were encouraged to by that great cultural peacemaker of our time: Trump, who just happens to be a big shareholder of the company that makes Bud Light.

So what does this all mean? Thanks in part to the fleeting, transient nature of MAGA outrage, it means that these divisions that feel so irreconcilable in the moment can actually fade pretty quickly. And the world can be united, peacefully, by a solitary figure whose words, set to catchy tunes, are heeded by every stripe of humanity.

All of which, students of evangelical Biblical exegesis will recognize as the defining attributes of the Antichrist. The Antichrist, we are told, unites the world through the power of his (their…?!?) tongue. Peacefully. And not just in Travis Kelce’s mouth. Uniting all of us. Like Swift did on Sunday.

The Biblical exhortation to beware such figures makes tons of sense, strategically speaking. Anyone capable of uniting the world based on anything other than Christianity is a threat to Christianity. Pluralism is the enemy.

So anyone who can bring us together pluralismically is a threat to American Christian exceptionalism — the driving MAGA belief that their religion is right and ergo ought to be how everything is run. Bible beats Constitution in overtime and the end times.

And on literally the same day we learned that Swift had united humanity, we learned that the forces of evil were also attempting to unite the world peacefully. ESPN, Warner, and Fox announced that they’re going to charge $50 a month to unite the wide, wide world of sports under one streaming platform.

That’s right, it’s going to cost people $300 a year to watch the collective-identity-bestowing entertainment that used to get beamed into their homes for free. A lot of people who derive feelings of social belonging and self-worth from buying into the fictional collective tribalism of team-rooting are gonna lose that entirely.

Which is potentially scary. Or maybe it means that once the price goes up for bread and circuses, the people finally see what’s been done to them — and fix it. Without scapegoating non-white people just this once, please.

And also literally on the same freaking foretold-in-Revelation day, the news-talking-about world was losing its minds over the potential disintegration of a different kind of international unity. Trump suggested that if European nations in NATO won’t fund their militaries at the levels they’ve agreed to, then as far as he’s concerned Russia can come right in and he’ll happily let the NATO alliance crumble.

This is a massive no-no among Smart Important People Who Also Got Iraq Wrong. But it’s worth considering that Trump’s words could conceivably lead to a better future.

If European nations really do fear Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin and Trump’s indifference, they might ramp up military spending. As good progressives we’re obliged to tsk tsk said up-ramping, but … if it did happen, what’s the result? Potentially, a weakened American military/cultural hegemony.

And it’s possible that that’s a good thing if it’s a democratic, pluralistic power center that replaces diminished American power. Maybe America would stop fucking around in other countries as much as it does.

It’s also possible that splintering world power like this weakens international bonds. In other words, ununites the world. Through the power of Trump’s tongue.

Which would prove that, just like he’s been trying to tell us, Trump is the anti-Antichrist. Our Savior.

Senate Passes Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan Weapons Bill

The Senate this morning voted to approve $95.3 billion in mostly military spending to buy weapons for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, none of which are apparently capable of using Kickstarter.

The bill includes $14 billion in weaponry to help Israel demolish Gaza and kill Palestinians, and $8 billion in humanitarian aid to help Palestinians in Gaza deal with being demolished and dead. Weirdly, the U.S. could have saved a total of $22 billion — and human lives — by not funding any of it.

Three progressives voted against the bill: Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Peter Welch (D-VT).

Twenty-six Republicans voted against the funding, opposing aid for Ukraine in accordance with orders from their commander in thief, D4FRFP Donald Trump. Most of the money would go to U.S. arms dealers — because physics — but some will go to Ukraine.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) alluded to reported corruption within the Ukrainian government, the one place in the world that has corruption. Unlike arms dealers.

"This [bill] still has about $8 billion going directly to the Government of Ukraine,” said Lee. “They are not choirboys," he added, without explaining why he’s thinking about choirboys.

The bill’s prospects in the House are uncertain, as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has come out against the bill. Some Republicans, however, appear ready to defy Johnson and give Pres. Joe Biden yet another bipartisan win. Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-OH), for instance, said he gave Ukraine Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky “America’s commitment to support Ukraine.”

Which is now worth a lot less than it once was. Damn inflation!

Flight Attendants Picketing Today

At 30 airports in the US, UK, and Guam today, flight attendants from 24 airlines will be on picket lines demanding significant pay raises to deal with all the crap they have to deal with including but not limited to doors suddenly disappearing mid-flight and rude passengers not.

Folks who wanna help out can always bring them some nice hot coffee. Or tea. Or entire meals consisting of tiny portions the same size we should probably eat at every meal, but wrapped in plastic and weirdly better-tasting than you might expect.

Pilot unions have won significant pay raises in recent years — and the Association of Flight Attendants said some of its members haven’t had a raise in five years, unlike airline executives profiting off the post-pandemic travel boom and the cost-savings realized by not putting bolts in cabin doors.

Campaign Watch

NEW YORK Today’s the special election to fill the House seat vacated by former Rep. George Santos (R-NY). The race is a close one between former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Republican county legislator Mazi Pilip, with House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) teensy-weensy margin of control in the House at stake.

REPUBLICANS D4FRFP Donald Trump reportedly wants the Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair to be his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who has never held a related post in her life but instead focused on forging a successful career as Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law. The good news for Democrats here is that the RNC, the primary campaign arm of the entire Republican Party, will now be co-led — going into the 2024 elections — by someone with (a) no experience doing this and who (b) was handpicked for the job by someone with a virtually unbroken streak of handpicking people who are terrible at jobs.

Quickies

Three House committees wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday, asking him to turn over internal documents from the probe into Pres. Joe Biden’s (mis)handling of government documents, which focused a lot more on Biden’s (mis)handling of words and the past.
D4FRFP Donald Trump yesterday officially asked the right-wing Supreme Court to toss out his indictment on charges of attempted-presidency-theft, on the grounds that he’s immune from prosecution because he once lived in the magic house. It’s not clear when the judges will issue a ruling, and it’s not clear whether the three judges appointed by Trump consider themselves immune from recusal guidelines.
Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show last night, serving as a corrective to corporate media by ignoring their obsessions and focusing instead on the fact that Pres. Joe Biden and D4FRFP Donald Trump are old. Stewart cast doubt on Democratic claims that Biden leads meetings with acuity, asking Democrats to release tape of those meetings. Stewart’s segment was pretaped because sometimes people misspeak.

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids…!

D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.