When Trump goes low, Gavin Newsom goes lower, and it's delightful!
& MS WTF? Another adventure in bad rebranding
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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.
Gavin Newsom is on a troll
I’m happy that Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has been calling out President Donald Trump in numerous speeches, but I’m thrilled that California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom has embarked on a relentless campaign of hyperbolic mockery.
In numerous social media posts, Newsom has been mimicking and mocking Trump’s unhinged, pompous and weird posts to Truth Social. Examples:
NOT EVEN JD “JUST DANCE” VANCE CAN SAVE TRUMP FROM THE DISASTROUS MAPS “WAR” HE HAS STARTED. NOT EVEN HIS EYELINER LINES LOOK AS PRETTY AS CALIFORNIA “MAP” LINES. HE WILL FAIL, AS HE ALWAYS DOES (SAD!) AND I, THE PEACETIME GOVERNOR — OUR NATION’S FAVORITE — WILL SAVE AMERICA ONCE AGAIN. MANY ARE NOW CALLING ME GAVIN CHRISTOPHER “COLUMBUS” NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. — GCN (Aug. 16)
MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING — AND I AGREE — THAT I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM (AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR) DESERVE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. WHY? BECAUSE OF THE “MOST INCREDIBLE MAPS IN THE HISTORY OF MAPPING” (EVEN COLUMBUS). THESE MAPS WILL END THE “VERY RIGGED” ELECTIONS, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN (MAGA!!!), RETAKE CONGRESS “FOR THE PEOPLE”, AND SAVE DEMOCRACY. NOBODY ELSE COULD HAVE DONE THIS — CERTAINLY NOT THE “SELF-PROCLAIMED” MASTER DEALMAKER DONALD “TACO” TRUMP (TINY HANDS) WHO MISSED “THE DEADLINE” AND LOST (SAD!). PEACE THROUGH MAPS — NO ONE HAS EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE. I AM THE “PEACE TIME” GOVERNOR NOW, STOPPING “POLITICAL WARS” BEFORE THEY START. HARMONY, UNITY, EVEN LOVE. THE NOBEL COMMITTEE HAS GIVEN THIS AWARD TO LESSER PEOPLE FOR MUCH LESS. I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM, ACTUALLY EARNED IT. THE WORLD WILL BE SAFER, KINDER, AND FRANKLY MORE “BEAUTIFUL” BECAUSE OF MY MAPS. GIVE GAVIN THE NOBEL, MANY ARE SAYING. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GCN (Aug. 15)
TRUMP JUST FLED THE PODIUM WITH PUTIN — NO QUESTIONS, NOTHING! TOTAL LOW ENERGY. THE MAN LOOKED LIKE HE’D JUST EATEN 3 BUCKETS OF KFC WITH VLAD. IS HE AFRAID THE PRESS WILL ASK ABOUT ME??? (AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR) AND THE FACT I "STOLE THE CAMERAS" THIS WEEK WITH “THE MAPS”? MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING HE BEGGED PUTIN TO HOLD HIS HANDS (TINY) ON THE WAY OUT. ADMIT IT, DONNIE J… YOU’RE TERRIFIED BECAUSE THIS WAS THE WORST WEEK OF YOUR LIFE BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM. “THE MAPS” WILL END YOUR PRESIDENCY, RETAKE CONGRESS FOR THE PEOPLE, AND EXPOSE YOUR RIGGED "LITTLE GAME." MY "PERFECT MAPS" ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN ANYTHING IN TRUMP TOWER (WHICH MANY SAY SMELLS WEIRD). @STEVENCHUENG47 — EXPLAIN THIS DISASTER!!! ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT HOME, DONALD — YOU’RE PUTIN’S PROBLEM NOW. I’M AMERICA’S SOLUTION. — GCN (Aug. 15)
This last post drew an indignant on-air response from Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher:
I think he's trying to be funny. I think. I mean, I don't know what he's trying to do, but it comes across as childish. And what are you, governor of the biggest state in the union? What are you doing?
Idiot! The leader of your cult has been posting childish, bizarre, weirdly capitalized name-calling, self-aggrandizing rants on social media for years now and he’s the freakin’ president. Suddenly you find his style “childish”? Is the joke going over your head, Bunky?
BIRD-BRAIN TREY GALLAGHER (A SO-CALLED FOX "NEWS" HOST THAT NOBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF) SAYS MY POSTS ARE “CHILDISH” AND “UNBECOMING” OF A LEADER — CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? MANY ARE SAYING FOX ("EDIT THE TAPES") NEWS SHOULD CANCEL HIS PATHETIC LITTLE "BEDTIME SHOW" IMMEDIATELY. THEY ARE CALLING IT THE MOST BORING PROGRAM IN CABLE HISTORY. TOTAL SNOOZE FEST! SAD!!! — GCN
I’m sure there are some dainty Democrats out there who still think Michelle Obama was onto something when she declared “When they go low, we go high,” and imagine that if the resistance is polite and reasonable it will inspire voters. But sorry, most of us are looking for some fight from Democratic leaders, fire-with-fire responses to this preposterous, norm-breaking president.
Mockery is an effective tool, especially with someone whose ego is as fragile as Trump’s. Newsom is relentlessly underscoring how ridiculous Trump is, what a ranting bully he is. Bullying him back is necessary and satisfying.
No more sternly worded letters or reproachful speeches delivered not in anger but sorrow. No more handwringing about norms and politesse and preserving Democracy. Ridicule this ridiculous and dangerous president.
Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses
Will Trump postpone or cancel elections if he thinks he’s losing his grip on power?
Jake H. — In “The real emergency is still ahead” you wrote, "Before you roll your eyes at me or accuse me of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome [for saying that there's a strong possibility that Trump will cancel the midterm elections], tell me when in his second term has the President shown the least respect for customary restraints on presidential power."
Well, "respect" for constraints is not the right word, but he is constrained. If you're looking for examples of what he might want to do but hasn't, the list is long. He has not sought to deport American citizens. He has not declared martial law in any American city. He has not purported to use the military in a general police role in any city other than D.C., and, even there, it seems we're unlikely to see anything like a martial law sort of situation. He has not generally suspended due process for accused criminals. He has not defied the Supreme Court. He has not imprisoned American citizens for their speech. He has not rounded up political opponents. He has not had political opponents assassinated. He has not arrested Obama or Biden. He has not used a purported emergency to somehow suspend or abolish Congress. He has not declared federal laws he doesn't like void (though his approach to the TikTok ban, upheld by the Supreme Court, comes pretty close to that, but few care). He has not purported to abolish the U.S. Constitution and establish a new constitution under his dictatorial control. He has not engaged in a persecution campaign against a subset of society, suspending their rights as citizens, removing them from public life, and ultimately murdering them en masse. He hasn't even fired Jerome Powell.
Suspending the midterm elections would be akin to the more outrageous items on that list. If he were to attempt to cancel any elections, I boldly predict that he would very much lose the room and that he wouldn't ultimately succeed, just as he did not ultimately succeed (and, I believe, had no real hope of succeeding) in nullifying the 2020 election results.
None of this is meant to say that what Trump is doing is OK. I despise Trump, and I don't agree with many conservative legal views. A whole lot of what he's doing is both horrible and probably legal, which is why it's important who's elected president.
His precipitous gutting of foreign aid, his gutting of democracy-promotion, his general disdain for democracy and human rights, his affinity for the world's scum and contempt for the relative good guys, his ruining of the reputation of the United States and the resulting decay of its power and influence in global affairs, his rounding-up of illegal immigrants by thuggish force, his corrupt approach to domestic and foreign policy alike, his regular attempts to use his office to enrich himself and his family enterprises, his installing of jackasses in positions of power, his assault on the civil service, his firing of the keeper of economic numbers because he doesn't like the numbers, his constant lying and trolling like a shitty little asshole, his coddling of white nationalism and antisemitism, his hateful anti-trans rhetoric, his incompetence, his divisiveness, his general conduct as a grafter, a grifter, and a low-class moronic hood that would make Huey Long or Tony Soprano blush — all of it makes me sick.
Even so, he will not eviscerate our constitutional order. One is right to be worried, but prolific exaggeration does not serve the cause in my view. Rather, it serves to polarize yet further.
Zorn — In reading this well-considered response my mind kept interjecting”not yet!” into your list of things Trump hasn’t done. Congress is no check on him or his notion of “emergencies” as long as Republicans are in control. And it’s very much an open question if he will directly defy the U.S. Supreme Court. But the failure to turn around jets headed for El Salvador on a judicial order certainly suggests a “fuck you!” attitude toward the courts in general.
Many of the things you say he hasn’t done he has certainly indicated he’d like to do. Monday he “joked” that “During the war you can’t have elections. So let me just say, 3 1/2 years from now …. if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections. That’s good. I wonder what the fake news would say.”
Ha ha ha!
Curt Fredrikson — I haven’t the slightest doubt that Trump will declare an emergency and attempt to retain power after January 20, 2029. Put yourself in his paranoid mind. After extensive misbehavior during this presidency, whom would he trust with the power of government, which is to say potential power over him, other than himself? Certainly, nobody outside of family would qualify. Many of those around him might support this because they understand that nobody else can unite MAGAworld like he can. Take him out of the picture and splinters are likely, followed by a loss of power.
We shouldn’t give the murderous tyrant the land he wants
Jeffrey Liss — Why should the West acquiesce in one country's unprovoked invasion of another and retention of any part of that country's land? More bluntly, what is to be gained by allowing Russia to keep its ill-gotten gains?
Zorn — The precedent of a land “swap” for peace — though Ukraine surrendering territory to Russia is hardly a “swap” — is malignant. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s terms for peace seem to require Ukraine giving him the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas, and if the world lets that happen, there will be no principled reason to object to China seizing Taiwan or Russia taking the rest of Ukraine should the whim strike.
“Peace” achieved through unilateral capitulation is temporary and fragile.
AI, you ignorant slut
I noted last week that Trump’s failure to mount a timely, effective response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic cost tens of thousands of excess deaths in the U.S.. which inspired the following “debate.”
Mark K. —Here's an AI summary of how Trump contributed to to a large number of excess covid deaths:
President Trump’s dismantling of the National Security Council's pandemic preparedness office (established during the Obama administration) and his delayed acknowledgment of COVID-19's seriousness have been widely identified as contributing factors to the United States’ unusually high COVID-19 death toll compared to other wealthy countries.
Key factors include:
Delayed Federal Response: Despite early warnings, the Trump administration downplayed the threat through much of January, February, and early March 2020. This resulted in missed opportunities for timely implementation of testing, contact tracing, and other mitigation efforts that could have helped slow the initial spread.
Decentralized Approach: The lack of a strong, unified federal response led to a patchwork approach, with individual states left largely to manage the crisis on their own. This resulted in varied policies and uneven resource allocation, which contributed to inconsistent and often ineffective containment.
Public Messaging: Mixed or misleading public messaging from the White House (including minimizing the pandemic’s threat, advocating for unproven remedies, and undermining the use of masks and lockdowns) led to confusion and lower compliance with public health guidance across much of the population.
Dismantling the Pandemic Board: The pandemic preparedness office created following Ebola was disbanded in 2018, leaving the federal government without a high-level, coordinated team to steer pandemic response. This is widely cited by public health experts as having undermined readiness, especially early on.
In these ways, actions (and inactions) by the White House—including slow and inconsistent recognition of the threat—directly contributed to both the speed and scale of the outbreak, resulting in excess deaths versus what might have occurred with swifter, evidence-based action.
David O. — Oh God, is this the way we’re going to debate now? Well, here’s AI taking the other side:
Positive things attributed to the Trump administration in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic include:
Operation Warp Speed: This initiative accelerated the development, testing, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies. This program aimed to shorten the typical vaccine development timeline by investing heavily in multiple vaccine candidates and coordinating between government agencies and private companies.
Travel restrictions: The administration implemented early travel restrictions from China and other high-risk areas in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus to the United States.
Mobilization of Resources: The administration mobilized public and private sector resources to secure and distribute essential supplies, including personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators.
Development and distribution of testing: The administration supported the development and increased availability of COVID-19 testing, deploying tests to various facilities and areas across the country.
Economic relief packages: The administration worked with Congress to pass legislation like the CARES Act, providing economic relief to individuals, families, and businesses through measures such as direct payments, expanded unemployment benefits, and loan programs.
Support for healthcare providers: Funds were allocated to healthcare providers, hospitals, and community health centers to support their response efforts.
Support for vulnerable communities: Actions were taken to protect vulnerable populations, including establishing guidelines for nursing homes, expanding telehealth options, and addressing testing and care needs for uninsured individuals.
A note on reader suggestions related to last week’s item asking how I should respond to a random text that I received that appeared to come from a scammer. It read simply, “Nothing feels right without you.” I ended up going with Mark Martinez’ suggestion, “That is an unhealthy dependence. You need to enhance your agency and manifest your reality.” But the scammer never replied.
Joanie Wimmer pointed me to this MalwareBytes article advising against ever engaging with these sort of “misdirected” texts.
Conor Mac recommended the eight-episode podcast series “Scam Factory,” the description of which reads:
You know those messages that you get all the time, the ones that pop up out of nowhere? They could be real, but something about them seems fishy. You likely dismiss these texts and emails as mere annoyances, thinking you’ve stopped some random stranger from ripping you off. But the shocking truth is, the person behind that message might be trapped inside a “scam factory” on the other side of the world and forced to scam others against their will.
MS NOW? Fire the marketing department!
The liberal talk pay-TV network MSNBC announced Monday that it will soon re-brand as MS NOW as part of its split from NBCUniversal. Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is moving the financial news channel, CNBC, the USA Network, Oxygen, E!, and other networks under the “Versant” umbrella. (CNBC, which, unbeknownst to me, stands for “Consumer News and Business Channel,” will keep its name but drop the NBC peacock in its logo.)
The network has needed a new name for a long time. The “MS” stands for “Microsoft,” which co-founded the network in 1996 and ran its website. But the software giant hasn’t been associated with MSNBC for more than a dozen years now, so the “MS” is already a vestigial tail. Keeping those letters in the name is a baffling choice.
MS NOW ostensibly will stand for “My Source News Opinion World,” which sounds like refrigerator poetry or a memory test (“please try to repeat back those five words I said to you a minute ago…”)
This rebrand has a whiff of :
Tronc— the temporary, ill-fated name for Tribune Publishing
“X” — the despised new name for the Twitter social media platform
Qwikster — Netflix’s failed effort to change the name of its now abandoned DVD home delivery service
Allegis — United Airlines’ aborted attempt to adopt a new name that ostensibly signaled its allegiance to its customers
The Shack — Radio Shack’s flailing effort to tell customers that it sold more than radios prior to converting to an all-online business
Meta — The forgettable name of Facebook’s parent company
Alphabet — What we’re supposed to call the technological conglomerate that owns Google
MS NOW needed a lot more workshopping.
Unpopular opinions?
The abortion debate is really a debate about sex
A New York Post article, “‘Pregnancy robots’ could give birth to human children in revolutionary breakthrough — and a game-changer for infertile couples” strikes me as click-bait rooted in fantasy. The idea is that “extra-corporeal gestation,” (EG) is just on the horizon, and that babies will soon be able to be incubated in artificial wombs.
The article quotes a Chinese doctor whose tech company is working on the idea of feeding a developing fetus essential “nutrients through a hose,” so that pregnancy itself could be avoided: “The artificial womb technology is already in a mature stage, and now it needs to be implanted in the robot’s abdomen so that a real person and the robot can interact to achieve pregnancy, allowing the fetus to grow inside.”
I’m skeptical. I wrote about this notion 28 years ago in a column headlined “Brave New World awaits debaters of abortion rights.” (gift link)
How long before some version of the human hatchery in the first chapter of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel “Brave New World” will allow women to terminate a normal pregnancy at virtually any stage yet permit the embryo or fetus to continue to grow to full term?
As things now stand, each concession to the rights of the developing infant infringes on the rights of the woman to control what occurs in her own body, a zero-sum game in which many partisans see no room for compromise. EG would neatly separate those rights, allowing the full exercise of both and forcing all of us to examine more fully the context of our sentiments.
What if a woman who no longer wished to be pregnant could simply surrender the “products of conception” and all legal rights to a laboratory that would grow it into a baby to be put up for adoption? Would those who now support abortion rights still insist upon her right to destroy those products of conception under many circumstances anyway? …
In the list of the top dozen reasons for having an abortion cited by 1,900 patients in a 1988 Alan Guttmacher Institute study, an overriding discomfort with the abstract idea that one’s biological child would be loose in the world does not appear. Does the notion of “reproductive rights” extend to cover the supremacy of such a feeling. If not, why not?
The EG context permits us to analyze our beliefs about the moral status of the fetus in a vacuum, so to speak. It also prompts us to probe the connection between attitudes toward human sexuality and attitudes toward abortion:
Would those now opposing abortion rights be satisfied with a solution that breaks, finally, the historic connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy? Would they be content to bear whatever social burdens might be imposed on our nation by an additional estimated 1.4 million babies each year, thousands with expensive-to-treat genetic defects?
It’s hard to deny that part of the abortion-rights movement is philosophically entwined with the idea that severing the connection between sex and its primary biological purpose is a good thing–liberating, practical, fun.
And I suspect that some of those opposed to abortion rights are philosophically motivated by objections to just that severance–to sex for pleasure, something that strikes them as irresponsible and immoral. Many, after all, are willing to countenance abortions for women who are the victims of rape or incest, even though the moral status of the conceived child is identical to one heedlessly conceived. …
Does thinking this through now, while it’s still hypothetical, shed any light on the abortion standoff or point the way toward resolutions or accommodations that do not involve science fiction?
I later reported on the voluminous reader response to this column (gift link)
Abortion-rights defenders (reasserted the) right to reproductive choice and bodily integrity. An artificial womb "would still require that women undergo invasive medical procedures that government cannot morally or legally compel," argued a Planned Parenthood official.
Abortion foes, meanwhile, at least tried to meet the other main purpose of the thought experiment, which was to probe the limits of their commitment to life —to the million-plus extra babies unwanted by their biological mothers, including those with profound genetic defects, who would theoretically emerge from artificial wombs each year.
Several acknowledged their ethical obligation to help bear that burden while observing that it would only underscore the need — also promoted by abortion-rights activists — to work harder as a culture to prevent unintended conception.
I doubt the idea is much closer to reality now than it was then.
But my opinion, then as now, was that a thought experiment related to it would highlight my view that opposition to abortion rights is rooted not in abstract concern for embryonic or fetal life, but in opposition to sex for pleasure. And that this explains the liberal/conservative divide on the issue.
In another sci-fi thought experiment I once asked how it would alter the abortion debate if a foolproof contraceptive were introduced into the water supply that could be easily reversed by couples wishing to conceive. Assume no side effects.
The number of unintended pregnancies would plummet, though in both instances we’d be faced with the question of how to address fetal abnormalities. But let’s not get too far into the weeds. Here’s the poll:
Of course another way to frame this question is “Do you think support for abortion rights is rooted primarily in support for sex for pleasure?” I realize that “primarily” is a wiggle word and that your answer here is likely to be highly correlated with your view on abortion rights.
Last week’s result
Amy — I despise s’mores. Too messy and you end up sticky and thirsty. And I never fail to burn my mouth and/or fingers on the marshmallows.
Shelley Riskin — I ate s'mores frequently when I was at camp in my teens. So eating them today (infrequently) brings me back to that very happy time, the taste all mixed up with nostalgic memories.
Marc Martinez — The fun is in the making and the eating. Fun for kids and of little or no interest to most people after a certain age. The food critics might as well rant against moon pies.
NewsWheel
Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event
. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.
The week’s best visual jokes
Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:
The German shop in the photo rents floor sanders: The word is a portmanteau of "Fuss” (foot) “boden" (floor), "Schleif (grinding) “maschine" (machine) and "Verleih" (rental).
Meanwhile, there could also be a flashlight in the circle of angry tech products confronting the smartphone, along with a metronome, a filing cabinet, an instrument tuner, a Garmin …
There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!
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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.
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Opposition to abortion rights is about control, the control of women. There is nothing moral in this subjugation.
Admittedly I think Gavin Newsom's primary motivation is setting himself up to run for president, but the important thing is, he--or his Twitter writers--are hilarious. Geez, if he's that funny in person at debates, he'll be a tough competitor despite all the problems people can point at in California.