PLAGUE JOURNAL September 2021: Rage for Sale: Old Media & New Media Dial for Dollars
The New York Times and Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American" sell the same anger and disgust at fellow citizens.
All summer, our headlines have been giving us deathbed confessions of people who resisted the vaccination only to kill their families: “Man’s entire family dies of COVID in the same week after refusing to get vaccinated” (Newsweek). “Nightclub manager dies of COVID after mocking vaccinated people” (Newsweek again; they must have a full-time intern working on these ). “A mom of 4 who died of COVID after her husband makes one final wish: ‘make sure my kids get vaccinated’” (Washington Post). A Texas anti-mask organizer has died from COVID-19” (New York Times). I don’t read these stories or publications (except to see what they are up to), but my iPhone gives them to me anyway. The stories are absurd, probably untrue, but the Times alone has an army of thousands of reporter-bots; add the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Slate, the Huffington Post, Vox, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, and scores of others, and real journalism can’t compete, buried under the avalanche.
The point is to generate anger and disgust at an imaginary group of people: anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, Trumpers (even though Trump’s administration brought the vaccines to market and Trump recommended that people take them). The media know they can turn people against anything simply by appending Trump to it. Increasingly, they are using the technique to turn people against each other.
Last summer (2020), when a self-proclaimed antifa supporter shot and killed a man for wearing a Proud Boys hat in Portland, a Black Lives Matter activist preached to a cheering crowd, “We can take out the trash on our own. I am not sad that a fucking fascist died tonight.” The New York Times characterized the murder with this headline: “One Person Dead in Portland After Clashes Between Trump Supporters and Protesters.” Protesters, indeed. We are supposed to be angry at the Trump supporter who was shot, not at the murderer or the people cheering the murder.
The media are in the business of activism and outrage: “postjournalism” according to Anthony Mir. (I wrote about it in an earlier post.) If Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot and killed at the capital on January 6th, had been a Black Lives Matter protester, or simply a black trespasser, as Babbitt was a white trespasser, her death would likely have inspired a new summer of violence. The Times would call for murder charges to be brought against the cop. Babbit was unarmed. The Times described her as a “small figure . . . wearing snow boots, jeans, and a Trump flag wrapped around her neck like a cape.” Her crime was the Trump flag. The Times felt it relevant to tell us, “Her social media feed was a torrent of messages celebrating President Trump; QAnon conspiracy theories; and tirades against immigration, drugs and Democratic leaders in California.” (The Times may not be aware that their own daily feed is a torrent of messages celebrating President Biden; QAnon conspiracy theories; and tirades against business owners, white men, and Republican leaders in Florida and Texas.) Babbitt’s political views justify the killing. The world seems glad to be rid of her. Those in my own social circle—anti-gun, anti-cop, anti-violence (I thought), pro-“justice”—rejoiced at the news of her death, one of them saying she has “never been so glad somebody was dead.”
Just as the BLM crowd and the Times are happy when Trump supporters are killed, we are all supposed to be thrilled when anyone questioning the efficacy of masks or the safety of new vaccines gets sick or dies. Many Americans have taken a hard turn toward irrationality, scapegoating, and demonizing their neighbors, cheered on by the press. Millions are becoming radicalized in ugly online cocoons.
I recently stumbled upon a Substack writer named Heather Cox Richardson, who puts out a daily dollop of somber rage called Letters from an American, which is the top-ranked paid political Substack subscription, a position it held as far back as December when the New Yorker mentioned it in an article called, “Is Substack the Media Future We Want?” (Substack is not the media future the New Yorker wants.) Richardson has been the subject of favorable articles in the New York Times, Fast Company, and many other publications.
So far as I can tell, Letters from an American is a gloss of mainstream news, as if she copied stories from the New York Times and the Washington Post and put them into a blender. She cites her sources at the bottom of the email. Links the first day I looked in late August included The Hill, the Texas Tribune, NPR, Slate, and Vox. A day or so later, they were the New York Times (twice), the Washington Post (four times), Brookings, CNN, Newsweek, and what looks like a local TV station. It’s hard to know why people would read her newsletter, as we all see the headlines from these publications directly through our phones. But the demand for outrage seems bottomless, and people are willing to pay for it.
I subscribed so I could see the reader comments, and there we see the point of it all: the comments section is like a religious gathering of people with an insatiable hunger for slogans and anger. Readers compete with one another for cleverest putdowns of whichever Republican politician Richardson mentioned in her post. They apparently know each other, at least by their online handles, and they cheer and encourage one another like third-rate playground bullies looking for approval from second-rate playground bullies. Occasionally they admonish each other not to engage anyone who doesn’t share their views: “It’s time to cut off his/her/it’s (sic) oxygen.”
Here’s a random sampling of the discourse Richardson’s followers engage in (spelling and punctuation are original):
TC writes, “Take your right wing traitor bullshit somewhere else, asswipe. Like over to FleeceBlock, where the fact that you’re a senile old white fuckwit won’t be so blindingly obvioyus.” (The alternate spelling must be an insider thing.)
Stephen says, “We should just have a ‘Dick tax’ to fund all abortions.”
Penelope responds, “It was so brilliant that a Stephen, a man (assumption) made that suggestion!!”
In another thread, Penelope writes, “I approve of your verbal rage this morning. All people should be enraged. We have fought this fight before. But, our African Americans and Native Americans and other POC have never stopped having to fight. So, we are back in good company and need to zero in on the out of control white, male patriarchy right now with all of power and our votes.”
Someone else writes, “Lorena Bobbit had a point!” and our friend Stephan replies, “I’m putting a Bobbit-head figurine of [governor] Abbot on my car’s dashboard.”
Joseph says, without irony, “The left wing is bound to everything under the sun. Politeness. Polity. Non-violence. Law . . . .”
TC agrees, saying that there are “no stories of left wing movements or governments destroying right wing movements or governments.”
Someone named a7i3n, in a rare challenge to the orthodoxy, replies, “Well there was that little thing about the Maoist revolution against the government of Chiang Kai-shek a few years back. Guess nothing really big happened there.”
TC disagrees, writing a long response disputing that Mao was on the left. We see how genocides happen: Mao couldn’t have been a leftist because we are leftists and we are good people (even polite).
Daria writes, “There is no real difference between the far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban. There are too many MAGA angry fat white men without masks yelling and threatening people with violence.” By far right, she probably means middle-of-the-road Republicans who support gay marriage and legalized pot, but she doesn’t elaborate.
Rob writes, “I also see so many of these Fat, Out of Shape, Men with military assault rifles pretending to be some sort of militia, when they would likely have a coronary if they tried to sprint in a combat situation. This is the caricature image that gets that tag, much like the screaming Misogynist, Racist, White Men.” After some more rambling, which includes bragging that he was married to a black woman for “2 decades,” he ends with a boast about his intolerance: “I can actually say I have a Fat, Redneck brother in MS, whom I haven’t talked to since 2016 because he is an ignorant MAGAT?” (Not sure why the question mark.)
Now things begin to derail. David says, “As someone who used the word ‘fat’ as a pejorative more than once in my younger years without considering how hurtful it might be for some people, I appreciate your posts, and I know Cathy would not have used the word if she had given her post another moment’s thought.” (Cathy didn’t respond.)
The conversation turns to the problems with fat-shaming: “BMI charts are grossly inadequate in describing the health of any individual,” etc. Our friend Rob steps in it again, saying, “Not all overweight men are idiots.”
Cathy says, “Well, one thing I do avoid is calling anyone an idiot. People who are mentally retarded that I have met are almost always lovely pleasant people.” Oh, boy. She said retarded.
And so it goes. In addition to MAGAT, other zingers include “rethuglicans,” “Texass,” “Ayatoldyouso Abbott,” “Texastan” and “Floridistan,” “Floriduh.” “Repubes,” “The Conspiratorial Republican Sedition Party,” and “The Repugnant Party,” and so on. About this party, Daria writes, “No external enemies can rival it.”
The first day I saw the newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson wrote, “In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has forbidden mask or vaccine mandates, 21,000 people a day are being diagnosed with coronavirus.” I posted a response suggesting that the statement was misleading in many ways: Florida’s ban on vaccine mandates didn’t seem meaningful, as Florida’s vaccination rate of 52% matches the national rate. Providing total cases rather than per capita numbers obfuscates because Florida is one of our most populous states: our four most populous states have (not surprisingly) our four highest total case counts. A one-week snapshot means little: cumulatively, four of the six states with the highest per capita fatalities are blue states that border one another along a narrow stretch of the mid-Atlantic coastline. Florida overall ranks just 20th in per capita fatalities, much lower if adjusted for age. And so on.
People could dispute anything I said. They could have said my numbers were incorrect or that I overlooked other relevant facts. They could have engaged in any number of ways. Yet, despite the boundless rage at white male fuckwits, they were silent. People weren’t there for information or discussion. It was a church, and they were there for the (violent, disturbed) hosannas.
TC writes, “I just want five minutes with DeSantis alone in a locked room. Just me and my baseball bat.”
The crowd loves it. Sally writes, “TC, I am not a violent person, but you made me smile for an instant!”
Denise says, “I’ll watch the door.”
Christy says, “He’s a murderer. Apparently of hundreds. No different than ISIS.”
Christine writes, “I’ve got my Louisville slugger right here TC. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
And so on. There were scores of these, lots of cheering, lots of people saying they want to watch. Someone suggested putting DeSantis into a room with dead COVID victims for ten days. There was a lot of internet giggling. Stephen, not wanting to miss out, says, “I want ten minutes with DeathSantis alone with a baseball bat... and no Vaseline.”
Ralph writes, “Headline I’d like to see; ‘Grover Norquist Drowns in Bathtub.’”
Marcy responds: “Trump suffers fatal heart attack.”
I’ve seen many online discussions, including many on Substack, but I’ve never seen this kind of irreality and violent fantasy. Under YouTube videos of Portland’s decline, for example, typical comments include, “This is what you voted for” or “Liberalism is a mental disease.” Disapproving, but not deranged.
A few days in, I posted, “There’s a lot of rage here.”
Christy replied, “Somebody just hoping to attract subscribers. Got the smell of a plop on a drive by.”
I responded, “Not at all. I wouldn’t look here for subscribers. What’s a plop on a drive by?”
Our friend Stephen (of the baseball-bat rape fantasy) wrote, “Someone doing a ‘quick hit on a Substack bong’, then taking a dump wherever they land.”
I wrote, “Hmm, that doesn’t really clear things up, but thanks for your help, Stephen!”
I came out of the cavern feeling flattened. It’s a filthy place. I know nothing about Heather Cox Richardson, but I wonder how she can look into this pit without questioning her mission. I wish she would encourage her followers to bake a pie for their white male fuckwit neighbor and have a conversation about the beautiful late-summer weather. But there’s no market for that.
The death of comic Trevor Moore comes as a shock. He wrote a song about today’s topic of internet rage (he even mentions CNN):
Jesus Christ. Reading those comments made my adrenaline spike. What an absolute cesspool.
The hypocrisy is stunning, as is the fixation on not "fat shaming" despite being okay with demonizing straight white men for completely immutable characteristics.
These are the sort of keyboard-clacking soft bodies who revel in the perverse desire to see those who don't subscribe to their dogma suffer, cowards who use the anonymity afforded to them by the internet to say disgusting, dehumanizing shit that they'd never even dream of saying to someone's face.
It worries me that I can't really see how we as a society might be able to turn the tide, so to speak, and detoxify this kind of discourse.
The next time you quote me, quote me accurately. You owe me an apology.