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Jeffrey Toobin became the talk of the Internet yesterday, when the world learned that the high profile legal writer and TV analyst had been suspended by The New Yorker after he exposed himself during a video zoom call.

In a statement to Vice, which broke the story, Toobin said, I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers. He continued, I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.

Vice later updated its original story to add that Toobin was masturbating on a Zoom video chat between members of theNew Yorker and WNYC radio last week. The chat was apparently an election simulation in which different prominent New Yorker writers played various parties in a disputed election. Toobin played the courts.

A spokesperson for CNN, where Toobin also works as an a legal analyst, said yesterday that, Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted.

For a writer at some other magazine, that might be the end of it. But when the writer at the center of an embarrassing incident like this just happens to work for the most distinguished magazine in the country, it gives the highbrow permission for lowbrow gags. Right-wing pundits, left-wing pundits, and even a prominent no-longer-imprisoned former football player who was held liable for his wifes killing, used the opportunity to goof on Toobin and his magazine. Heres a sampling:

1.Sasha Issenberg, journalist and author, via Twitter:

2.Kieran Healy, Professor of Sociology at Duke University, via Twitter:

3.George Conway, via Twitter:

4.Jess Dweck, TV writer, via Twitter:

5.David Klion, writer, via Twitter:

6.O.J. Simpson, whose murder case was the subject of Toobins 1996 book, The Run of His Life: The Peoplev.O.J. Simpson, in a video message posed to Twitter:

7.Paula Reid, CBS News White House Correspondent and lawyer, via Twitter:

8.Ann Coulter, via Twitter:

9. Grace Panetta, politics reporter at Business Insider, via Twitter:

10. Matt Taibbi, via Twitter:

11.Ashley Feinberg, via Twitter:

Join the conversation!

Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the citys levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregorys ouster as moderator of NBCs Meet the Press, the collapse of Washingtons Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.

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The Best Reactions to the Jeffrey Toobin Zoom Dick Incident - Washingtonian

After the deluge of the last couple weeks, theres just one newly arriving local film festival going the online-only route this week. Now in its 18th year,3rd is SF International South Asian Film Festivalis going Bollywood and Beyond with a pared-down schedule this weekend only. The opening selection on Friday is a showcase for queer Pakistani-American comedian, actor, producer, writer, and directorFawzia Mirza, a frequent past guest. Shell offer several of her satirical shorts, followed by a live Q&A.

The rest of the schedule encompasses features from South Africa (Avie Luthras dramaLucky), India (Sudhanshu Sarias psychological thrillerKnock, Knock, Knock), and Seti Xs U.S. documentaryWord to Your Motherland, about the relationship between South Asian-American youth and hiphop culture. Theres also a reprise of Ashvin Kumars 2003 U.K.Road to Ladakh, screening as homage to recently deceased Indian superstar Irrfan Khan, whos well-known to western audiences from appearances in films likeSlumdog Millionaire,The Lunchbox,andLife of Pi. Heres the full program, schedule, and ticket info.

Commercial releases arriving today via digital and/or available theatrical options include local hero Wayne Wangs SF-set domestic dramaComing Home Again, which 48 Hills previewed, and is available for streaming through Roxie Virtual Cinema and Rafael@Home; Sofia CoppolasOn the Rocks, a comedy with Bill Murray and Rashida Jones that opened elsewhere in the country earlier this month; and the acclaimed South Korean crime thrillerBeasts Clawing at Straws, now available through CinemaSF. Rafael@Home is adding both UK period pieceRadium Girls, dramatizing a real-life 1920s fight for non-life-threatening workplace conditions by female factory employees, andCitizens of the World, a very Italian social-commentary comedy in the mode of director Gianni Di Gregorios priorMid-August Lunch.

Theres also the general release (on available Bay Area suburban screens) of Justin Benson and Aaron MoorheadsSynchronic, a somewhat disappointing time-travel tale from the makers of intriguing prior indie fantasiesThe Endless,Spring,andResolution. Tyler TaorminasHam on Rye(also in Roxie Virtual Cinema) is a teen ensemble piece about a small towns curious rite-of-passage that has aDazed & ConfusedmeetsDonnie Darkovibe, but is less fun than that sounds, and which I frankly didnt quite get.

While many of these films roam the globe, the more politically attuned new arrivals are all in one way or another about the US of Aor rather Murrica, being reflections of Ugly Americanism in the hopefully-soon-to-be-over Trump era. Most conspicuous among them isBorat Subsequent Moviefilm, a sequel to the original 2006 movie that plowed new ground for big-screen comedy, while its semi-scripted, semi-improvised pranks provided a devastatingly unflattering snapshot of our fellow citizens in the George W. Bush era. In the 14 years since, Sacha Baron Cohen has been a major asset to other peoples movies (including the concurrentTrial of the Chicago 7), but his own major vehicles have been letdowns. Nonetheless, one can hardly resist feeling an uptick of excitement at the return of his most famous character.

That fame is actually a problemMoviefilmstruggles to overcome, even as it incorporates it into the plot. Sent back to the US on a special mission (after several years hard gulag labor for embarrassing his native Kazakhstan with the first film), TV journalist Borat remains too easily recognized by passers-by to get the job done. Ergo he dons various disguisesincluding, at one point, an elaborate Trump getup. But the joke remains the same, as malaprop-spouting, grotesquely misogynist, and anti-Semitic Borat both shocks and finds dismaying agreement amongst real Americans seemingly unaware theyre being pranked. (For various reasons, its often less convincing this time around that his victims really are being duped, rather than choosing to play along.)

Moviefilmstarts out somewhat unpromisingly, with too much rote scatological humor, and easy-picking targets like a self-proclaimed Instagram influencer, an anti-abortion reverend, and a Georgia debutante ball. The sequel also saddles itself with a middling sidekick in Borats previously-unknown daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova), a stowaway on his return to North America who undergoes a gradual transformation from semi-feral to semi-liberated woman.

Nonetheless, there are scattered big laughs, and things rise to a new level when corona-quarantining empties the streetsbut introduces Borat to Jim & Jerry, two QAnon enthusiasts who prove perfect shutdown company. (Particularly in that, natch, they suspect COVID is a hoax.) Their attendance of an anti-maskers rally is pure gold, topped (at least in terms of newsworthiness) by a climax in which Borat and the sexily made-over Tutar gain access to none other than Rudy Giuliani, who no doubt will already be neck-deep in public denials of his on-camera behavior by the time you read this. (Actually, in the time it took me to write this, Giuliani had already begun denying the films totally sensationalized false account of what very much looks like his preparation for an anticipated hotel-room freebie from in-character Bakalova.)

Subsequent Moviefilmdoes not and probably could not match its predecessors level of inspiration; for one thing, the original triggered too much imitation for even Cohens own efforts (here directed by Jason Woliner rather than usual past collaborator Larry Charles) to seem fresh again. For another, the Trump era has basically killed satirenothing can be more ridiculous than straight-up US political reality now. Still, this belated sequel (which is available on Amazon Prime as of today) is ultimately pointed and funny enough to have been worth the effort.

Perhaps strangely, I found myself laughing at least as often and hard while watching the documentaryWhite Noise(currently on iTunes, Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms), even as it also made the blood boil. Produced by historied (since 1857!) US magazine-slash-multiplatform publisher The Atlantic, journalist Daniel Lombrosos feature is the result of his several years spent embedded amongst numerous figures of the alt-right. He evidently won their trust, as there are many moments that could only have been shot if the subjects assumed they were in sympathetic company. But as the saying goes, Give em enough rope Whether in public or private, the white-supremacist-enabling folk here cant help but hang themselvesthey are by turns petulant, cowardly, evasive, dishonest, self-deluding, hypocritical, opportunistic, egomaniacal, and just flat-out assholes.

Why is this funny? Well, you cant help but perceive a certain hilarity in the gap between the delusional self-importance and reality of Lombrosos principals, all of whom travel the globe spreading a gospel of white panic at growing minority and immigrant populations. Theres poor little rich boy Richard B. Spencer, poster child for neo-Nazidom whos forever protesting being called a neo-Nazi even as he methodically borrows phrases, gestures, symbols, and ideas straight from literal, textbook Nazidom. He says things like I dont want to sound too grandiose, but like, Im bigger than the movement, then later whines about being called a narcissistjust before moving back to his moms Montana mansion in a giant sulk.

The other two main personnel here are not so muchde factoleaders as parasitical media whores whove latched onto white power as an audience easy to exploit at their skill level. Canadian Lauren Southern is a junior Ann Coulter wannabeyounger, blonde, and photogenic of coursebeing a supposed journalist whose main purpose appears to be attracting negative attention for calculated outrages (shes seen holding a sign on a campus saying There Is No Rape Culture In The West) to heighten her brand. Not a complicated character, she appears to have no interest beyond self-interest, and when in a rare moment of honesty she trills, To be a minority can lead to oppression!, shes not acknowledging prejudice against actual minoritiesonly fear at what will happen if/when white people are no longer a majority! OMG, what if they treat us like we do them?!? Yes, the irony does escape her.

Last and quite possibly least is alleged meme mastermind (i.e. hes been a major driver of 4chan-type viral disinformation) Mike Cernovich, who entered the scene as a mens rights advocate (apparently by mainly advising dudes on how to nail resistant chicks, then ditch em). What a man: He admits to having lived off the alimony his first wife paidhim, which coup he desperately suggests was pretty alpha. Hes largely seen here whinging about how his fame in alt-right circles is not turning into income, even as he endlessly hawks his lifestyle products and shows off his luxe new home, complete with saltwater pool and hot tub. Even Spencer calls him a bit of a grifter. Interestingly, Cernovichs second wife is Iranian, and at the films end Southern is apparently marrying a man of color. Alas, this doesnt mean theyve changed, it only confirms that they sell racial hatred for purely commercial reasons. Somehow the lack of sincerity makes it even worse.

Though we get alarming glimpses of Trump era extremist thuggery (including a march in which masses of men chant Jews will not replace us and give Nazi salutes),White Noiseis not about the average people attracted to supremacist ideologieswho are often conspicuously lower on the economic and educational scale than their high-profile leaders. Instead, its about those who lure, incite, and profit from them, invariably declining any responsibility for the violence that frequently results. When Southern posts stickers that say Its Okay To Be White, she, like the others, feeds a thumb-sucking sense that somehow the demographic which has always dominated our nation is somehow being persecuted by other groups wanting an equal (or any) place at the table. This is the true politics of whaaaaah!, no matter how conservatives love to call liberals crybabies.

The documentary ends with a montage of recent hate crimes, incidents (up to and including murder) that all three protags disingenuously claim their rhetoric could have nothing to do with, unless it was misinterpreted. But how do you misinterpret a dog-whistle as piercing as Southern opines Democracy isnt always a good thing, particularly when one might need sterner systems to keep minorities underfoot? As if that werent gruesome enough, this anti-feminist careerist shrugs I mean, gang rape is an inherently democratic process. These people are awfulbut theyre also frequently ridiculous, with their childish behaviors and blatant fibs. Mostly they just seem desperate for a public spotlight, and might have become social influencers or reality-TV aspirants if far-right rabble-rousing didnt work for them.

No laughing matter at all is a contrastingly sober documentary newly added to Roxie Virtual Cinema,The Guardian of Memory. Marcela Arteagas feature trains focus on a geographically immediate yet little-noted or understood humanitarian crisis: How since 2008 the Mexican governments supposed crackdown on drug cartels in northernmost municipalities (particularly Juarez) has resulted in decimation of the civilian population. Where criminal violence had hitherto been mostly limited to within the gangs themselves, since that point average residents have been subject to extortion, kidnappings, and execution-style killings, with the standard defenders of human rights (journalists, physicians, social activists) targeted first.

What have the authorities done about this? Nothing, and worse: As various (sometimes sole) surviving family members testify here, their neighbors and relatives were evidently slain by police and military as often as by cartel personnel. The government has simply abandoned any pretense of order or security in the region, allowing a systemic genocide to occur, its purpose and beneficiaries unclear. As Texas-based Mexican expat immigration lawyer Carlos Spector explains, the flood of refugees from this violence are mostly turned down for asylum by the USbecause theyre only fleeing criminal peril, not the political kind. But its increasingly clear to him that whats going on is both: A murderous collusion between equally corrupt interests on ostensibly opposed sides of the law.

Given a distinctly poetical tilt in its photography and scoring,The Guardian of Memoryis beautiful but excoriating, towards cold-blooded American policy as well as Mexican institutional corruption. Its an important piece of reportage thats also an aesthetic jewel of unconventional documentary technique.

These arent the only political docs newly available. Others, all released to VOD this week, include Sabina Van TasselsThe State of Texas vs. Melissa, about the highly problematic case of the first woman sentenced to death in that state; Brittany HuckabeesHow to Fix a Primary, which charts the unsuccessful 2018 Michigan campaign of Abdul El-Sayed to become the nations first Muslim governor; and a restoration of the late William Greaves long-unavailable uncutNationtime, a Sidney Poitier-narrated record of the National Black Political Convention of 1972. BAMPFA is also (as of tomorrow) hosting two documentaries by Evans Chan, 2016sRaise the Umbrellasand the newWe Have Boots, both charting Hong Kongs ongoing pro-democracy struggles.

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Screen Grabs: Borat's 'totally sensationalized false account' and other bombshell releases - 48 Hills

Jen Lancasters new memoir is about anxiety, but the top review on Amazon has nothing to do with the book.

Instead, a reviewer from Seattle, Washington, gives Lancasters Welcome to the United States of Anxiety one star the lowest ranking because of what she perceives to be the authors political views. Although the reviewer admits she hasnt read the book, more than 1,422 Amazon browsers said they found the review helpful.

Call it the United States of Animosity, where less than three weeks before a contentious election, politics are creeping into every aspect of life, even those that have nothing to do with politics. The acrimony has seeped into decorations that children will walk past on Halloween, influences decisions about what people read and where they shop, and has even turned up in an online forum devoted to knitting.

It feels like our choices of entertainment, our choices of where we shop, where we eat, what we read, has become deeply infused with political beliefs, said John Sarrouf, co-executive director of the community building nonprofit Essential Partners, based in Boston. Ive heard people say, I dont want to walk down that street because theres a big Trump sign. They dont even want to look at it.

For Lancaster, a bestselling author of 15 other books, it was jarring to see a spiteful review that she says does not even reflect her current personal views. The reviewer said that Lancaster liked conservative author Ann Coulter, based on something Lancaster published in 2006. But in 2006, I also liked chunky highlights and platform sandals, she said, adding that her political views have similarly evolved since then.

Although the all-encompassing nature of politics feels new, historians say its actually a return to an earlier time when political campaigns were the nations major form of entertainment. And some social scientists say an obsession with politics is better than its antithesis, apathy.

But others are hoping the emphasis on political divisions will end after the votes are counted next month.

It ought to be possible to say, for example, I enjoyed playing golf today, without Democrats and Republicans immediately thinking, That awful president plays golf, too, Charles Lipson, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago wrote for Real Clear Politics.

Lancaster, 52, best known for her humorous titles such as Bitter is the Next Black and Such a Pretty Fat, said that until recently, she has held fairly conservative political views throughout her career, and openly so, until around 2007.

Politics are really important to me; I was a political science major at Purdue, she said, adding that she spoke in support of the late GOP Sen. John McCain when he ran for president in 2008 at a time when other authors came out against him.

But then my entire management team said, Youre not going to have a career if you continue to say anything about being conservative. So Ive kept my mouth shut.

In her new book, she says she no longer identifies with a political party. If I identify with anything, its being an American, which is why I despise how badly weve splintered as a country. The divisions between us arent new, but the ways we deal with them are. Weve lost the social norm of civility, Lancaster wrote.

Adrienne Martini, a member of the Otsego County Board of Representatives in Oneonta, New York, wrote a book about her experience running for office, Somebodys Gotta Do It. But before she was a politician, she was a knitter, and like others, turned the hobby political by knitting pink hats that women wore in a march on Washington in 2017.

They are very easy to knit and made me feel like I was doing something after the 2016 election. The big political thing to knit right now is the dissent collar (a nod to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wore lace collars) but it doesnt move me in quite the same way, Martini said.

Knitters have also made things in support of President Donald Trump, such as a pattern for a hat that said Build the Wall, designed by an anonymous woman who calls herself the Deplorable Knitter. On her website, she said she and her husband support our President, our Troops, and our God. If any of those things offend you, this is probably not the place for you.

Her support of the president was deemed offensive by the online knitting community Ravelry, which banned her from the platform, as well as anyone promoting Trump and his policies. The resulting furor caused MIT Technology Review to write about increased politicization of the online knitting world.

But Martini said she isnt surprised or even particularly troubled by the division among knitters.

My feeling is that politics is the water that we all swim in every moment of every day. Were just more aware of how wet that water is right now and how many of us are drowning rather than swimming. Knitting is just one more way that people make their preferences known, she said

Ellen Fitzpatrick, a history professor at the University of New Hampshire who specializes in presidential campaigns, said the current high level of engagement in politics is due in part to the pandemic, but magnified exponentially by widespread use of social media.

Everyone is an authority these days, she said. Theres tremendous explosion of opportunity for people to participate in these ways; whether theyre constructive or not is another question.

But what seems a new level of engagement is actually a return to an earlier period in history, she said.

In the 19th century, fewer Americans were able to vote; women and many Blacks were not eligible, for example. But there was a tremendously high level of enthusiasm and engagement on the part of those who could vote. It was a form of entertainment; it was a way of socializing with each other. There would be these huge torchlight parades and outdoor lectures. Politics was entertainment; it was sport. It filled a lot of needs in the culture, Fitzpatrick said.

During that period, however, people identified more with political parties than with individuals, and in the early 20th century, reforms were instituted (to include secret ballots and the primary process) that made the parties less powerful, and the turnout rate, which once was as high as 80%, began to fall, and interest in elections declined and never recovered to 19th century levels.

Paradoxically, the number of eligible voters expands over the course of the 20th century, but voter enthusiasm seemed to decline, Fitzpatrick said. Whats going on today, there seems to be a high level of engagement, but whether that translates to voting or not remains to be seen.

There are new developments today, though, she noted, including exuberance for the individual candidates rather than the political parties and their platforms.

And politics is infecting everything now. This deep division is a worrisome development because it seems to be so full of anger. The anonymity of some of these platforms allows people to say things they would not say in person to someone else. I think theres a hate-filled rhetoric and divisiveness that is a very lamentable thing were seeing in recent years.

Lipson, at the University of Chicago, said that the political divisions in America are deep and the greatest since the Great Depression and perhaps since 1860. Equally disturbing is that, while in the past, people of differing political parties still found areas on which they can agree, now they rarely do.

The parties are more ideological than they have been since the 1930s, he said. Instead of having cross-cutting cleavages socially, we have reinforcing cleavages. Were slicing the pie down the same middle slice all the time. And were doing so without strong trust in social and governmental institutions, Lipson said.

If you asked in the early 1960s, do you think government generally tries to do the right thing?, 70% would say yes; now the number is like 20%, he said. We have deep social cleavages, parties that are trying to pull us apart, activists within those parties, all dealing with each other in a very low-trust environment. This is a recipe for real trouble.

Lancaster, the Chicago author, said the problem is that people are telling other people what they should think and why they should think it. If you want to make a persuasive argument, the best thing you can do is talk about your personal experience with whatever the subject is, she said.

But, she said, This is such an ugly political season that I dont think not talking about politics is the right call either. I think what we need to do is try to foster some mutual understanding or were going to have a civil war.

Sarrouf, co-author of Essential Partners Guide to Conversations Across the Red-Blue Divide, echoed Lancasters remarks, saying that people can learn a constructive cycle of conversation that they can employ anytime theyre in conversation that is becoming acrimonious.

Research has shown that peoples minds are rarely changed by yard signs, but they can be changed in a thoughtful conversation in which both sides listen deeply to the other and ask sincere questions. Be that positive deviation from the escalating norm, Sarrouf said.

Also, he advises people to quickly remove the physical manifestations of division immediately after the election. If its important to put up a sign in your yard, its important to take it down when its over, Sarrouf said.

I think its important to remember that we are not just one thing. The person down the street is not just a Democrat who voted for Biden; theyre the person who brought a bouquet of flowers when my mom passed away, he said. Or, the person for Trump is also the person who picks up trash at the kids playground so it can be a clean place for the children to play. We are not just our political identities.

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Election 2020: From Halloween to Amazon book reviews, politics are everywhere - Deseret News

Half a decade ago, the ascendance of the alt-right was about as plausible as the election of Donald Trump, and we all know how that worked out. Like the 2016 election, director Daniel Lombrosos provocative alt-right portrait White Noise isnt all that surprising, but that doesnt lessen the terror within. In capturing the racist trifecta of alt-right pundits Mike Cernovich, Laura Southern, and Richard Spencer, the documentary shows how they became emboldened by celebrity stature, and comes so close to letting them run the show it risks trumpeting their cause. Fortunately, it doesnt take the most discerning bullshit detector to realize that White Noise has been engineered to expose a fundamental danger to whatever moral fabric America has left. Lombroso has made the scariest documentary of the year without telling us anything new.

However, for the lucky few who somehow avoided any of this movies subjects and their small armies of white nationalist devotees, White Noise provides a handy primer (and just enough to avoid the need to dig further). Working closely with his subjects over the course of several years, Lombroso seems to have gained their trust, and his camera manages to track them across boisterous media appearances as they flaunt their provocative stupidity to every possible camera, including many adoring crowds.

Yet it also finds them at an inflection point empowered by Trumps election, but uncertain how to clarify the next steps. Spencer, the neo-Nazi who went viral for his infamous Heil Trump speech in 2016, annoys the hell out of Cernovich, the nebbishy anti-feminist blogger who prefers to deem his loathsome views as a defense against white genocide. Splitting the difference between the two, 25-year-old Canadian YouTube star Lauren Southern spouts maniacal xenophobic arguments against immigration and womens rights with a camera-ready smirk that hangs over her most radical pronouncements like an awkward Trojan horse. Zipping between these as it maps out their deranged community, the movie implies varying degrees of danger on display: Spencers Hitleresque ambition makes for quite the horror show, but Cernovichs unassuming dopiness and Southerns next-gen Ann Coulter charm are just as alarming for the way they attempt to soften their putrid views with personality. At its worst, White Noise goes there with them.

Like Errol Morris unnerving American Dharma, the filmmakers feature-length one-on-one with alt-right folk hero Steve Bannon, White Noise enters a moral gray zone by virtue of its very existence. Yes, theres no ambiguity about the source of outrage when a Colombia University audience revolts against Cernovich, or journalists assail Spencer for his role in inciting the Charlottesville riots that resulted in one womans death. Yet as the movie follows the traditional cinema verite beats by watching its characters go to work, it often doesnt go far enough in clarifying its moral compass. Viewers can sort most of it out for themselves, but the movies give-em-enough-rope philosophy means that even as White Noise exposes the culture of internet-based disinformation that created these monsters, it actually becomes a part of the same problematic spotlight that thrust them onto the national stage.

Still, theres a fascinating gamble involved in the way the movie dares viewers to stomach its most upsetting moments, most of which come from Southern, who seems to navigate the backlash with aplomb at every turn. That includes her delight over the positive reaction to her disingenuous immigration documentary Borderless to the moronic declarations she manages to toss out to appreciative crowds. (Go to Africa and you will see rape culture being one of many.) Spencer, whose style sense is best described as fascist boy band, looks increasingly pathetic as his crowds dwindle post-Charlottesville, while Cernovich is reduced to selling skin-care products after the media gets over his rebel image. Southern, by contrast, almost comes across as a source of sympathy. One shocking moment finds Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes propositioning her after an interview, and the sense of individuality she expresses in that moment creates one of the more troubling conflicts the movie offers up. Southern doesnt deserve to be anyones hero, but White Noise dares to make her human.

Documentarians have been holding their noses in these putrid depths of bigotry for decades. Michael Moore and Kevin Raffertys Blood in the Face made clear the ambitions of neo-Nazis on American soil almost 30 years ago, while Morris Bannon doc came out shortly before another more explicit condemnation of the man in Alison Klaymans The Brink. Yet White Noise comes across as the most harrowing of the bunch, less for the evil it exposes than the extent it allows them to control the narrative.

If theres any source of comfort that comes from spending time with these loonies aside from, hey, you really ought to vote in this election it comes from the implication that they might just cancel each other out. As Cernovich derides Spencers Nazism for holding us back, while Spencer recalls Cernovichs previous career as a really gross sex-blogger, its enough to make the case that they could simply scream each other into oblivion. (Spencer, whos living with his mother and facing pending criminal charges, may face more precise justice than that.) The jurys still out on Southern, now a young mother and wife (to a non-white person, though she wont get into that for the camera), but lets hope this particular open-ended character doesnt merit a sequel.

In fact, lets hope society doesnt. White Noise culminates by letting its subjects share their delusions of grandeur, but cant sort out if theyre pathetic or practical in these uncertain times. The documentary stops short of investigating how the world got this way, or what it will take to set things right. It might have helped, in a movie so committed to stating its main problem, to offer some semblance of solution. (Hello, education!) Nevertheless, White Noise has a compelling message at its core, by daring viewers to see the worst of our society, and cautioning against the tendency to simply tuning it out.

White Noise is now available for VOD rental.

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White Noise Review: Alt-Right Showcase Is the Scariest Documentary of the Year - IndieWire

Back in the halcyon days of February, when healing America seemed like a figure of speech and indoor gatherings of more than two maskless people werent considered a biohazard, Wendy Davis addressed a 75-person crowd in the clubhouse of a gated community outside San Antonio. It was the third event in as many days for Davis, who was two weeks away from winning the Democratic primary to represent Texass Twenty-First Congressional District, a curiously drawn slice of the state that includes downtown Austin, the suburban sprawl of San Antonio, and a rural stretch of Hill Country. Davis delivered her standard stump speecha tight, policy-driven monologue that features the story of how she, a teen mom living in a trailer park, managed to make it to Harvard Law School, thanks to hard work, Pell Grants, and a Planned Parenthood around the cornerbefore fanning out to a case for stitching up the holes in todays social safety net. (Daviss granddaughters dont have the same opportunities she did, she said; we owe it to them to change that.) Afterward, a woman in her late 50s with a sensible brown bob and a faint twang pulled the candidate aside. I got an abortion, and I tell my Sunday-school class about it, the woman began, her voice cracking. I just dont believe in backing down. You just dont back down.

Davis nodded sympatheticallyshe gets this a lot. In 2013, Davis went from Texas state senator to feminist folk hero when she filibustered a bill to effectively close all but five abortion clinics in the state. Lean In feminism was sweeping the nation, and Sheryl Sandberg couldnt have asked for a better standard-bearer for her gospel of sharp-elbowed female empowerment. To avoid giving her (male) Republican opponents even the flimsiest reason to disqualify her, Davis followed Senate rules to the point of absurdityrefraining from sitting, eating, drinking, or using the bathroom (there was a catheter ) for 11 straight hours. The gladiatorial aspect of it all, plus the fact that Davis had done it in a pair of Mizuno sneakers that were an unapologetically girly shade of pink, captured the attention of tens of thousands on a livestream, among them President Barack Obama. When details of her biography surfaced the next day, Daviss cult status grew. Women sent macram uteruses to her office to express their gratitude. She was featured in the September issue of Vogue. Though her effort to kill the bill ultimately failed, she traveled throughout Texas on a Planned Parenthood bus, disembarking to choruses of young women chanting: Wendy! Wendy! Wendy!

A few months later, when she announced that she was running for governor, Davis wasnt expected to win, but that someone with her buzz was even seeking the office gave Democrats new hope for loosening the decades-long red chokehold on the state. Her campaign raised $40 million. Then what started as an exciting underdog effort became something like a disaster, paved with muddled messaging, accusations that shed embellished her origin story (she didnt live in the trailer for that long), and her campaigns release of a tasteless attack ad suggesting that her opponent, Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, was a hypocrite for blocking disability-discrimination lawsuits as state attorney general. Davis suffered an embarrassing 20-point lossthe widest margin for a governors race the state had seen in almost two decadesand by the end of her campaign, her net favorability rating had cratered to negative 4. Apparently, most Texas voters didnt like her.

The arc of any good political story, of course, includes a comeback. When Davis announced that she was running for U.S. Congress in July 2019, Texas 21 wasnt especially high on anyones list of seats expected to flipthe district has been represented by a Republican since the 1970s. But she had a path to victory, albeit a narrow one. In recent years, the Twenty-First has experienced an explosion in population growth, with recent transplants skewing young, educated, and suburbana demographic that famously continues to drift to the left. It was an advantage compounded by the fact that the incumbent, Chip Roy, the former chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz, is such a staunch far-right ideologue that he once blocked the passage of a disaster-relief bill that would have benefited Texas because it didnt contain sufficient funds for building President Donald Trumps border wall. In 2018, Roy topped the Democratic businessman running against him by only 2.6 percentage points.

Then came a national crisis that upended assumptions about likely winners and losers. In March 2020, almost every aspect of life became a campaign issue, even campaigning itself. In the ensuing five months, Davis held just a single in-person campaign event (outdoors, in a mask), while Roywho likened stay-at-home orders to laws in Nazi Germanyspoke with constituents in crowded restaurants and attended a large, lavish outdoor GOP fundraising gala that was investigated by the Travis County fire marshal for violating the governors COVID-19 protocols. The more daylight that shined between the candidates approach to the pandemic, the more the odds seemed to tilt in Daviss favor. (That the same dynamic was playing out on the national stage didnt hurt.) In July, following a surge of coronavirus cases in Texas, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report bumped up Daviss chances of winning, changing the Twenty-Firsts ranking from Lean R to Toss-Up. And in early September, after Obama endorsed Davis, her campaign disclosed the results of a poll it had conducted that showed the two candidates in a virtual tie. During an Instagram Live event with the actor Connie Britton, Davis appeared downright giddy about her chances of winning, letting out a Dont make a liar out of me! She was kidding, but there was also sincere trepidation in her voice. Davis, perhaps more than anyone, knows the dangers of getting swept up in the hype, and the heartbreak of assuming that this will be the year Texas turns blue.

Given that Davis staged what was essentially an 11-hour performance piece on the floor of the state Senate in 2013, you might expect her to be theatrical in persona wild gesticulator, or a master of dramatic pacing. You would be wrong. The 57-year-old lawyer has a regal mien that recalls a not-evil Claire Underwood (incidentally, a character who, like Davis, is a native Texan who lost her accent along the way). Daviss diction is ivory tower and her framing cerebral, even in the personal story she tells of discovering Planned Parenthood at 19, after giving birth to her first child, Amber: They made it possible for me to take control of my reproductive destiny, and that made it possible for me to take control of my economic opportunity. So I understand very deeply why that matters so much.

Two days before the stop in San Antonio in February, Davis attended an event at the Kerr County Democratic Party headquarters, in Kerrville. Kerrville is among the reddest parts of the district, so much so that six months later, Chip Roy would share a maskless fist bump with the towns former mayor, later shrugging off his behavior to a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman: When in Rome. The mostly white Boomers who came out for Davis were the areas committed Democratic minorityone man wore a MAGA-style hat that said Make Orwell Fiction Again. Most of their questions were about Daviss efforts to expand the electoratethis group loved her, but they couldnt see her convincing many more people from their demographic to vote for her. (Do you speak Spanish? one woman asked the candidate. Working on it, she replied.) Toward the end, a guy in the back about 30 years younger than nearly everyone else, with a smartwatch, a hipster haircut, and skinny jeans, raised his hand: Where did Davis stand on the Green New Deal?

Im for drafting the most aggressive billDavis pausedthat will pass in the Senate.

The question touched a nerve. Her thencampaign manager later told me that she thought the guy might have been a plant from a far left interest group. The campaign was almost certainly wary of a third-party candidate playing spoiler, as has happened in tight races elsewhere. Indeed, when a Green Party candidate threw his hat in the ring in April, Daviss campaign sued to keep him off the ballot because he hadnt paid the required filing fees. (She ultimately lost.)

Davis is not at all shy about being a moderate. In fact, she wants to lay claim to that designation, though she prefers the term mainstream. While health care is the centerpiece of her campaignand she will say approximately a billion times, to me, on Twitter, on the trail, presumably in her sleep, that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the countryher solution is not Medicare for All. Rather, she prefers a competitive public option and expanding Medicare and Medicaid. Making sure every person in America has health care is a bold idea, she told me in February.. It doesnt mean were small thinkers if we dont think Medicare for All tomorrow is the correct path, right?

Her record is definitely on the mainstream side. The first political office she held was as a member of the Fort Worth city council, which didnt have party affiliations. During her time as a council member and later as a state senator, she championed a variety of causes, including commercial development in Fort Worth, protections against predatory lending, and regulation ofrather than a ban onthe nascent and booming fracking industry. (Davis even voted in several GOP primaries in the 1990s and, according to public records, donated to George W. Bush just before he announced his first presidential campaign.)

The problem is, as much as Davis and her campaign operatives believe mainstream is the way to go in a district that is purplish at best, and in a race where her opponent has given her the Trumpian nickname Extreme Wendy, the progressive faction of her party has more energy and influence than it has had in decades. She alienates the skinny-jeans set at her peril.

Its a strange spot for Davis to be in. Once described by former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards as someone who makes people believe anything was possible, Davis now cant take for granted the support of her partys left flank. Shes been lapped by the new generation of progressive stars, with their full-throated denunciations of capitalism and inequality, of structural racism and sexism. Daviss challenge is one faced by Democrats across the country hoping to capture traditionally Republican seats: how to keep progressives happy enough to pull the lever and woo members of the opposite party to do the same.

Davis blames her poor showing against Greg Abbott on being overly message-managed. If, for instance, she had attempted to talk about the importance of gun controlsomething she has done often in her current racemy team would have told me I lost my freaking mind, Davis told me, beginning to sound almost wistful.For me, that race felt so big and so hard. I didnt trust myself as much as I had in other races.

Bob Stein, a political-science professor at Rice University, is less existential in his assessment. Lets just get honest here. She wasnt what Id call a great candidate, he told me. He thinks Davis miscalculated how much identity politics would motivate female voters, especially on the abortion issue. She felt there were white Republican women who were offended that white males wanted to tell them what to do with their reproductive rights, and there werent. Davis has been much more circumspect about the issue this time around. At the start of the pandemic, when the state halted abortions on the grounds that they were a non-essential medical procedure, Davis tweeted about the topic only a handful of times, using relatively measured language. This makes absolutely zero sense and makes women more vulnerable, not less so, she said in one tweet.

In late September, when Senator Bernie Sanders hosted a virtual town hall, cheekily titled As Goes Texas, So Goes America, with various Texas Democratsincluding Julie Oliver, running a tight race in the neighboring Twenty-Fifth, and Jos Garza, vying for district attorney in Travis County, which overlaps with the Twenty-FirstDavis was conspicuously absent. Less polarizing special guests like Julin Castro and Beto ORourke werent enough of a counterbalance, it seemed, for Davis to risk being perceived as even socialist-curious. (When I asked her about her decision not to participate, Davis claimed ignorance. I certainly dont remember making a decision not to attend it, she said. I may not even have known about it, and thats probably the case.)

On the drive back to Austin from Kerrville in the winter, along a stretch of Highway 290 dotted with peach stands and personal-injury lawyers billboards, Davis explained where she sees herself in the landscape of Democratic talent. It would not be AOC. It would be Amy Klobuchar, she said decisively. It would be the person who goes in, puts her head down, and just works with people quietly and gets it done, you know? And thats not to take away from AOC, because I know that shes working hard on the things that really matter to her, but thats just not me.

The irony is, despite Daviss efforts to distance herself from the younger progressives, theyve helped provoke changes in attitude that are making her life easier, especially with regard to feminism. For one thing, there is much more recognition now that concepts such as likability are polluted by gender stereotypesand Daviss likability, recall, was underwater by the end of the governors race. A major cause of Texans disenchantment with Davis was media reports that she had fudged parts of her biography: She only lived in the trailer for a few months, which critics deemed not long enough to mention at all. Most damning, though, was the revelation that her then-husband had paid her law-school tuition and cared for their two children in Fort Worth while she was studying at Harvardprompting Ann Coulter to call Davis a gold-digger who found a sugar daddy. As proof that beliefs have evolved, look no further than what happened in March 2019, when Daviss fellow Texan, Beto ORourke, made a passing reference while he was running for president to his wife assuming most of the parenting duties. That he seemed to take this arrangement for granted, without so much as an Im so lucky, incited a barrage of accusations of male privilege. (He later apologized.)

Beto-for-President seems like ancient history. So much has happened in the past year and a half, and those events are still reverberating in the contest between Davis and Roy. Even as Trumps poll numbers have fallen in Texas, Roy has not stopped praising the presidents handling of the outbreak or trafficking in conspiracy theories, such as speculation that Democrats will experience a magic awakening after the election and their fears about the coronavirus will vanish. (Roy did complain, however, that his comments about Nazi Germany were taken out of context, explaining that he was referring only to a specific policy in Maine related to travel restrictions.) Meanwhile, Daviss campaign has pronounced Roy the nations top coronavirus skeptic and a danger to Texas families. Im observing my opponent going on CNN and telling the interviewer that everythings just fine in Texas on the day that we actually had the highest number of deaths in our state that wed had to that point, Davis told me when we spoke in August.

The contrast between the two candidates responses to police brutality against Black people isnt quite as sharp. After George Floyds killing in May, Davis slammed the presidents response, tweeting, True leaders mourn with the families who have lost loved ones, and she held a virtual town hall on the topic of racial justice and trans rights on June 11. But the next month, after a protester was fatally shot in downtown Austin and the national call for defunding the police reached a peak, she lowered the temperature of her rhetoric, tweeting: The incident last night in Austin at the Black Lives Matter protest was horrific. As we await more info, let us reaffirm that the right to peaceful protest is sacred in America. No doubt, Davis, who supports reforms such as banning chokeholds but has stopped short of anything more radical, is aware of just how badly defunding the police plays with the suburban voters shes trying to get. This is not lost on Roy, either. He took a staunch law-and-order tack amid the tear-gas standoffs between protesters and police that rocked Austin and San Antonio over the summer. And in September, after NBA players boycotted a handful of games to protest police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he appeared on the floor of the House with a framed jersey emblazoned with a 43: the number of on-duty law-enforcement officers killed so far this year, he said. Where is the NBA on this issue? Roy demanded.

One of Daviss favorite pieces of political trivia is about how Ann Richards, Ceciles mother and the patron saint of female politicians in Texas, won her 1990 bid for governor. The prevailing lore is that Richardss opponent, Clayton Williams, immolated a winning campaign with a single bizarre joke about rape (comparing it to bad weather, he said, If its inevitable, just relax and enjoy it).

But it wasnt the rape joke that did it, Davis told me, offering a slightly more nuanced account. Williams actually blew it at a public event right before the election, when Richards extended her hand to him, and he refused to shake it. Had that happened on any other daytwo days prior, or three days latershe probably wouldnt have won, Davis said excitedly. It was perfect timing. Its a lesson about just how swiftly circumstances can change in a campaign. Its also about how, if youre patient as a candidate, you just might get an openinga once-in-a-century pandemic, sayto show voters what youre really all about.

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