Monday, November 21, 2022
The Russians Rushed Elon!
It was remarkable enough last Friday evening when Elon Musk ran his Twitter poll on whether to restore Donald Trump’s account. It’s a natural manifestation of the age: the computing power to conduct instant democracy is here, and the only real questions are in who puts it to that work, where, and under what auspices & authority. There is nothing politically binding about Musk’s poll, but it was a rousing technical demonstration of possibilities. More than fifteen million people throwing votes is not a sample to be ignored:
Musk’s announced principle of “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” prevailed for Trump’s account by nearly four percentage points, and it was restored. Over eighty-seven million followers now await his ensuing silence.
The meantime has been entertained with indignant clamor on the left. Reports are that the exodus to Mastodon hasn’t been completely commodious on every quarter. The technical nature of the thing leaves lots of room for swastikas, distinctly un-rhythmic hard-’R’s, and other severe pains to the inclusive ethic.
It was Friday evening when CBS News solemnly announced that they were “pausing their activity” at Twitter out of “an abundance of caution,” but would “continue to monitor the situation”. Only forty hours later, the world’s heartbeat re-started when they gave the all-clear: "After pausing for much of the weekend to assess the security concerns, CBS News and Stations is resuming its activity on Twitter as we continue to monitor the situation.” You can imagine; there was much rejoicing.
The pinnacle of panic was gained by “clinical professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business, and a public speaker, author, podcast host, and entrepreneur” Scott Galloway. Barely an hour after CBS News was back on the Twitter ramparts, Galloway appeared on “Face The Nation” to alert everyone to the recrudescent Russian menace.
Galloway can’t prove that there were Russian bots crowding Musk’s poll, but it would be hard for you to prove that they didn’t. That should make your hair stand up, but not for why he thinks it should.
It’s Time To Wash-Up: Biden
CBS News was still in the news this morning when they finally arrived at the Hunter Biden laptop party after two years. Catherine Herridge’s report came on like a paper fan in a hurricane since the Republicans have taken the House of Representatives with every promise to dig political graves in this story.
I hearken back to Lesley Stahl’s October 2020 "60 Minutes” session with Trump. Almost like an earnest relative, she took every care to let him in on the thing that every respectable person knew: the laptop “can’t be verified”.
She, along with everyone of her nervously herd-instinct species, got what they wanted out of that deal. With ends justifying all means, honorable work of their profession was postponed until more important values had been secured: suppression of the Biden laptop story was crucial to mal-informing American voters and therefore preventing Turmp’s re-election. Everyone knew this, and that’s what had to be done. It worked. It must have worked: that’s how narrow the vote was, and that’s why they did it.
And now, here’s CBS News joining the slinky back-alley crawl headed by the New York Times back in March. (Yes: they copped to it while Jen Psaki was still beaming her freckles at the White House Press Corps.) They claim to “verify” the laptop.
It must be hard: watching a lifelong dingbat fail his way into the highest political office in the land, all while he carries your party’s hopes and dreams, and then finally go to mental pieces in a time of strains and pressures that will occupy historians for decades. Now, the Great Wind Vane of mid-term elections must have blown the last crumbs of political value out of Biden’s pockets. Nobody needs him anymore, and all Democratic Party needs will swiftly be running the other way.
Nobody was going to be able to just brazen-out their denials of the laptop story, or its fullest implications, forever. In this case, it was only necessary for the right people to do it for two years. That sordid fact should also be flagged for honest historians.