President Trump says we’re living in a “Golden Age” for America. His critics counter that it’s actually just another Gilded Age, like the late-19th century, in which a thin patina of gold is covering up a lot of rot underneath.
Both of these things are, in their own way, true. Twenty-first century America is richer, freer and safer than any large nation or empire at any time in human history. We’re bursting with innovation and growth. But it’s also true that a great deal is falling to pieces.
Our culture is frayed, our institutions are weak and civic virtue is hard to find. Decency has often been replaced with cruelty, abetted by the indispensable tools of the cruel: cynicism and irony.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is winning both cheers and jeers for his embrace of Trumpian trolling as his state prepares its counterstrike against Texas Republicans’ audacious mid-decade gerrymandering. And what is trolling but cynical irony?
This is my political theory of the Pumpkin Spice Latte. When Starbucks rolls out its autumn drink, the company won’t care if you post about it ironically because you’re making fun of the ‘basic” or if you are a sincere, Stanley-toting, athleisure enthusiast who can’t wait to tell her besties how much you heart-hands-emoji LOVE a PSL. You may not even know whether you’re being ironic or not when you post your first sip, but could always tell yourself you were actually trolling and not being cringe if it starts to feel icky. You can choose after the fact whether you’re being on trend or if other people just didn’t get the joke.
And that’s all cool with Starbucks. Your money and engagement are worth exactly the same, whatever your intention.
Is Newsom being patriotic in this post, or is he making fun of Trump-style jingoism? It’s got the screaming eagle sound that ‘Murica lovers on the right use to connote their own maybe ironic expressions of patriotism juxtaposed with gangster rap, but it also highlights the amber waves and purple mountains majesty in his state. Based? Cringe? Who knows, but if you don’t like the sincere patriotism, just call it a joke.
Trump is, of course, the master of Pumpkin Spice Latte politics. At any moment, Trump may be serious or just owning the libs. He can decide after the fact. It starts as a joke, then it’s the old “seriously but not literally” rope-a-dope, and then “promises made, promises kept.” From irony to strategy to reality. A third term? Annexing Canada? Deploying troops in other cities? We’ll see what happens.
When Trump supporters say he “tells it like it is,” they’re only talking about the stuff they like and agree with. The rest can just be trolling or joking: post-facto situational sincerity.
There are some obvious problems with memefied public discourse, particularly as it relates to accountability. If cynicism has become not only condoned but essential, how are we supposed to know when to roll our eyes and when to actually become concerned? Newsom’s critics certainly don’t get the joke, but can his supporters be sure going forward which part is sincere and which part is just kayfabe?
We can blame the perils of online discourse for some of this dumber, meaner version of politics. In a river of decontextualized content, doing it for the lolz is a safer bet then trying to marshal a sincere argument. But it wasn’t technology that made us this way. The things we don’t like about social media are typically the parts of the platforms that best reflect the worst parts of our nature.
In the 1990s, American politics were consumed by a profound seriousness, what then–first lady Hillary Clinton called the “politics of meaning.” The politically correct fun police of the American left of that era were a backlash against the wild era of hippies and yippies in which Baby Boomers like the Clintons had come of age. How can you joke about things when there’s a hole in the ozone?
While Rush Limbaugh and others on the right presented themselves as the new merry pranksters taking on the dour, earth-toned liberal order, deadly seriousness was hardly the sole province of the political left.
James Dobson died this week at age 89, but his political moment died long before him. Dobson’s Focus on the Family didn’t have the same sizzle as Limbaugh’s radio show, but it drew similarly large audiences, and still boasts more than 6 million listeners daily.
The Colorado-based evangelist became a lightning rod at the beginning of this century in the debate over gay marriage, but for the first two decades of his project, his was a quiet kind of outreach: wholesome, mild in tone and always, always earnest. He certainly encouraged his followers to be civically and politically engaged, but he was no Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.
Now, even those two seem mild in comparison to much of what has replaced them on the religious right. When the secretary of Defense has to clarify that he still does support women being allowed to vote despite posting a video suggesting otherwise, and the vice president draws the affectionate gaze of Christian nationalists, we know that we’re not in a coffee klatch with Dr. Dobson anymore.
The radicalism on the right and the left have prospered in the world that irony made, both as a reaction to the nihilism inherent in a cynical worldview and because in a world where it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s a joke, truly outlandish ideas can bump around without drawing the kind of heat they would have in a more sincere time.
Our overcorrection away from the deadly seriousness of the 1990s and 20-aughts has taken us a long way from the world of Dobson and the politics of meaning. And if Newsom’s foray into Pumpkin Spice Latte politics is any indication, we’re still heading deeper into the lolz.
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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Trump Job Performance
Average Approval: 41.8%
Average Disapproval: 55%
Net Score: -13.2 points
Change from last week: ↓ 2 points
Change from five weeks ago: ↓ .8 points
[Average includes: American Research Group 38% approve – 59% disapprove; Echelon Insights 47% approve – 51% disapprove; Ipsos/Reuters 40% approve – 54% disapprove; Pew Research Center 38% approve – 60% disapprove; CNBC 46% approve – 51% disapprove]
Majorities, including Republicans, knock Trump on Epstein
How do you feel about the way the Trump administration is handling information relating to the government’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein?
Approve – Disapprove
All voters: 25% – 70%
Democrats: 90% – 8%
Republicans: 53% – 44%
[Pew Research Center poll of 3,554 adults, August 4-10]
ON THE SIDE: WILD RIDE AT THE SWAMP RAT RODEO
Harper’s: “The rules of the Louisiana Nutria Rodeo are simple: From the strike of midnight on a Friday morning in February, your kill crew has forty hours to shoot as many swamp rats as possible. You can hunt in any swamp or coastal marsh within state lines, provided you deliver the rodents’ corpses to the marina in Venice, the last settlement before the mouth of the Mississippi River, by Saturday at four o’clock in the afternoon, to be weighed to two decimal places in a plastic crate. … Next year, the organizers will even ditch the label ‘rodeo’ and rebrand it the Louisiana Nutria Fest. To this end, they have touted the services of no less a personage than Miss Louisiana herself. Miss Louisiana began this year’s rat hunt at seven in the morning on a bayou near the ruin of Fort Jackson, a two-century-old star-shaped redbrick colossus on the west bank of the Mississippi River.”
PRIME CUTS
Hispanic backlash could cause Texas gerrymander backfire: Silver Bulletin: “Using Trump’s 2024 performance in each redrawn House district as a baseline, the national environment would need to shift left by 10 points (from about R+2 to D+8) in 2026 to keep the new TX-28 and TX-34 blue. In an underwhelming ‘blue ripple’ scenario for Democrats — say, a D+2 national environment — these seats would only end up around R+6. But what if Hispanic voters move further left than the national environment, on average? There isn’t data on exactly how Hispanic voters broke within each of these districts in 2024, but we do have statewide numbers from the exit polls: 55 percent of Texas Hispanics voted for Trump and 45 percent for Harris. … If Texas Democrats win Hispanics 51-49 in 2026 in addition to a blue-ripple-type shift among other demographic groups, they’d eke out a win in TX-28 and only narrowly lose TX-34. And if Hispanics shift a couple of points further left (think 53-47 in favor of Democrats), TX-34 would also remain in [Democratic] hands.”
A mirror image problem for California Dems: Decision Desk HQ: “California Democrats would have many more potentially competitive seats to defend than Republicans would in Texas. Under the Texas GOP’s proposal, every House Republican there would end up in a seat that Trump carried by at least 10 points in 2024. But in the California proposal, nine Democratic incumbents would face reelection campaigns in seats that Harris won by fewer than 10 points. Part of the difference comes down to the fact that California Democrats aim to win an even larger proportion of their state’s seats (48 of 52, 92%) than Texas Republicans do (30 of 38, 79%). That means Democrats need to stretch their votes even farther to maximize their gains. But … the California Democrats’ plan would force some incumbents to defend seats that could still be vulnerable to GOP capture … especially, the sharp Republican trend from 2020 to 2024 in the six majority-Latino seats within this group could augur trouble for Democrats in the near future.”
California’s maybe map offers hard choices for incumbents: The Downballot: “[T]he sheer cost of running for office in California, as well as the state’s not-too-distant June 2 primary, means that most congressional hopefuls can’t afford to pause their campaigns or wait until November before launching new ones. As a result, many would-be candidates are talking about running for what we long ago dubbed ‘Schrödinger’s seat’—a district that may or may not come into being, but one that candidates are nonetheless eyeing. … Democratic Rep. Ami Bera is among them. According to KCRA, Bera is considering challenging GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley in the proposed 3rd District rather than running in the 6th District, which shares a number with the suburban Sacramento constituency he currently represents—and more than half of its current residents. (Only around a third of Bera’s constituents would wind up in the 3rd.)”
Obama blesses retributive gerrymander: The Hill: Former President [Barack Obama] endorsed California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) redistricting plan in California on Wednesday, calling it a smart and measured approach. ‘Over the long term, we shouldn’t have political gerrymandering in America, just a fair fight between Republicans and Democrats based on who’s got better ideas,’ Obama wrote in a post on the social platform X. ‘But since Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House and gerrymandering in the middle of a decade to try and maintain the House despite their unpopular policies, I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this,’ he continued.”
Dems despair over registration slump: NYT: “The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before they even go to the polls. Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot. That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from. … Consider this: In 2018, Democrats accounted for 34 percent of new voter registrations nationwide, while Republicans were only 20 percent. Yet by 2024, Republicans had overtaken Democrats among new registrants. In six years, the G.O.P.’s share rose by 9 percentage points; the Democratic share dropped nearly 8 points.”
Israel the flash point in Michigan’s Dem Senate primary: Punchbowl News: “The open Senate seat in Michigan, a state President Donald Trump won in 2024, has triggered an intense battle that’s morphed into a proxy fight over the future of the Democratic Party. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), seen as the favorite of Democratic leadership, is doubling down on her pro-Israel record. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow and former Michigan health official Abdul El-Sayed — to varying degrees — say Democratic voters want their leaders to reconsider what’s been a reflexively pro-Israel stance by both parties in Washington for decades. El-Sayed, a 40-year-old physician who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, was a prominent booster of the ‘uncommitted’ movement during the Democratic presidential primary last year.”
Georgia Republicans risk another Senate fumble: The Hill: “Republicans are bracing for what could be another brutal primary as they look to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) next year. Former football coach Derek Dooley and Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Mike Collins (R-Ga.) have all launched bids for the Republican nod to take on Ossoff. Not long after Dooley — who’s seen as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) preferred candidate — entered the race, the two congressmen quickly trained their fire on the political outsider. The early friction underscores the tall task ahead of Republicans: avoiding a messy primary that leaves the nominee bruised and battered heading into the general election, while also dodging a major clash between Kemp and President Trump, who has yet to weigh in on his preferred candidate.”
SHORT ORDER
Another poll, another huge lead for Mamdani in NYC — CBS News
Earle-Sears gets postprimary bounce, trails Spanberger by 7 points in new poll — Cardinal News
Once bullish, Walz waffles on third term as Minnesota governor — KSTP
Republican state treasurer launches challenge to Shapiro in Pennsylvania —AP
Musk loses interest in third party, mulls plumping Vance ‘28 bid — WSJ
TABLE TALK: CASTING A PAUL OVER 2028
“Yeah, I’m definitely going to run for reelection. The presidential thing? We haven’t decided.” — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), talking to the Lexington Herald-Leader
MAILBAG
“I have been thinking and reading about your proposal to expand the House of Representatives. I agree with most of the arguments, both for and against. However, I disagree with two of the suggested advantages, reduced extremism and reduced gerrymandering. A larger number of districts inevitably means smaller districts. With the clustering of Democrats in urban areas, and Republicans in rural areas, there will be fewer districts that contain voters from both parties. So there will be more districts that are entirely D or R, so fewer ‘mixed’ districts. This reduces the need for candidates to appeal to members of both parties, thus leading to more potentially extreme candidates, not fewer of them. Furthermore, it is axiomatic that more districts means more lines to draw, which increases the possibility of “adjusting” those lines to meet partisan goals, i.e. Gerrymandering. I see nothing in the proposal to increase the number of districts that would counteract that situation, thus I think increasing the number of districts will increase, not decrease, the amount of gerrymandering.” — Stephen Fuld, Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Mr. Fuld,
I didn’t say there would be less gerrymandering, only that the gerrymanders would be less valuable!
Perhaps another reader as astute as you can show us how many districts each state would have with an apportionment of 653 House seats, but my guess is that there probably wouldn’t be any higher percentage of “safe” seats in the larger House. My hunch is that there would probably be more swing districts, but I’m certainly open to the possibility that I’m wrong.
But as for the gerrymanders themselves, the math is on my side. If each seat is worth 0.1531 percent of the House rather than 0.2299 percent, the value of each district decreases in value by about a third. Gerrymandering will still take place, but with decreased rewards, the political cost of stunts like those we’re seeing this year will be less appealing.
Plus, we just need more districts to have a representative House, rather than the mini-Senate we find ourselves with today. We need to increase the value of individual votes by citizens and decrease the value of individual seats to the parties.
All best,
c
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FOR DESSERT: BACK TO SCHOOL CHOPPING
WNDU: “A school district in Indiana had to close its schools Tuesday after someone stole the catalytic converters from many of its buses. According to a Facebook post from Michigan City Area Schools, transportation staff discovered early Tuesday morning that the buses had been vandalized. … The district said it is working closely with Michigan City Police Department as they investigate the incident. ‘We know this sudden change is disruptive, and we appreciate your patience and support as we work through this unexpected situation,” the district wrote. The school system said it would keep families updated on how the rest of the week might be affected. The thefts happened during the district’s fifth day of school. According to an online calendar, students started school on Aug. 13. Michigan City is located in northernmost Indiana on the coast of Lake Michigan.”
OFF THE MENU
Whole Hog Politics is taking next week off to retool the kitchen a bit. We’ll be back Sept. 5. Have a happy Labor Day!
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