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From left: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie in Bombshell.

Bombshell, the new Jay Roach movie about the women of Fox News who took down chair Roger Ailes, unveils its story almost like a procedural. If youve been following the news the past couple of years, you probably know the outcome. In 2016, Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson sued Ailes for sexual harassment, setting off a chain reaction of other womens accusations including, most prominently, Megyn Kellys which culminated with his ouster from the network he helped build.

The movie focuses on the lead-up to those events, following Carlson and Kelly as they decide to build the case against Ailes and as they maneuver through the media and career fallout that came from their allegations.

The film is one of the more stylish entries in the burgeoning genre of explainer movies that, in breaking down Big, Serious Topics, become awards season darlings. Bombshell is already getting Oscar buzz; its loaded with major star power: Nicole Kidman plays Carlson, Charlize Theron stars as Kelly, and Margot Robbie is a fictionalized (and, spoiler alert, queer) Fox producer among the lower ranks.

By failing to bring race into its analysis, Bombshell falls into the same simplistic empowerment narrative.

Its also being received as a kind of #MeToo movie about women finding their voice in the Trump era and calling out institutions that ignore or outright support abuse and harassment. That this film depicting the realities of harassment was even made is noteworthy, and Theron, who is also a producer on the film, recently spoke about some of the difficulties in pursuing the project after some of the films initial backers pulled out. In some ways, the film complicates the lean-in womens empowerment narratives that permeate Hollywood and the media, especially through its representation of Kelly and the fictional producer. But by failing to bring race into its analysis, it falls into the same simplistic empowerment narrative, though now with a queer twist.

Bombshell is rare for a big production in that its focused on gender and power in a corporation, but it doesnt really provide a more nuanced contextualization of the stakes around Carlsons and Kellys stories. Instead, the movie ends up being, in some ways, an infomercial for their postFox News incarnations while also promoting the idea of a kinder, gentler Fox News without Ailes at the helm.

Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson.

In her essay The Cult of the Difficult Woman, critic Jia Tolentino writes about a certain strain of pop culture analysis predicated on the re-writing of celebrity lives as feminist texts. This framework uses women celebrities as tools for exploring questions of gender and sexism, without addressing, for one thing, the complicated ways that celebrities arent just regular people. And in defending women celebrities from the sexist trope of unlikability, the framework ends up ignoring other vectors of power, namely class and race.

With its emphasis on Megyn Kellys and Gretchen Carlsons stories, Bombshell initially seems like a movie version of that celebrity feminist analysis. The Megyn Kelly we meet here is decidedly not the one who deployed her prosecutorial skills on her show The Kelly File to stoke racist conspiracy theories or lecture viewers about the whiteness of Jesus and Santa. Instead, she is presented, in her own words, as a tell-it-like-it-is journalist who puts powerful people in the hot seat, and faces sexism because of it.

Presumably, representing the networks racial politics would be too controversial and make the protagonists too unlikable for the broad moviegoing audience.

This is how the movie frames her big moment sparring with Trump during the now-infamous presidential debate that turned her into a Vanity Fair cover story symbol of lean-in empowerment. (Her subsequent memoir, Settle for More, pushed this empowerment narrative even further.) Kellys decision to ask Trump about his treatment of women is portrayed less as a journalistic standard and more as a brave bucking of her networks and Ailes own sexism and support for Trump.

As with Kelly, the Gretchen Carlson we meet in the film is not the habitual peddler of racist conspiracy theories and anti-gay and anti-trans talking points. Instead, Carlson is an ideological maverick who faces pushback from Ailes for advocating for (some) gun control, and for appearing makeup-less on an episode about empowering young women. Nobody wants to watch a middle-aged woman sweat her way through menopause, Ailes admonishes her.

As the film lays out its story, it narratively emphasizes the importance of Kelly and Carlsons breaking with the sexism of conservative media orthodoxy, as if this means that they were ideologically independent-minded, rather than also complicit with that orthodoxy.

In the explainer movie mold, Bombshell frames the story so that its not just about individual celebrities but about sexism and the institution of Fox News in the Trump era. In the opening scenes, Kelly whom Theron portrays brilliantly, capturing everything from Kellys confident gait to the husky undertones of her voice speaks directly to viewers as she takes us through the different floors of the Fox building, including the floor where the Murdochs (owners of Fox) operate and the floor where Roger Ailes (the chair and CEO) holds court. In this way, institutional forces become embodied in particular power players whom we are meant to understand arent always in alignment. Yet what forces are represented as causing the misalignments are telling.

The movie defines Trumps, Ailes, and Fox News politics as problematic exclusively through gender, rather than also contextualizing gender within the networks racial politics. In fact, the film only attempts to bring in race in passing, as background information. For instance, Ailes involvement in the racist Willie Horton ads from George H.W. Bushs 1988 campaign, which promoted racist fears about black men as rapists of white women, is only mentioned quickly (without any explanation, assuming the audience will know what its code for) in the explainer-y intro of him.

The types of power dynamics the explainer movie foregrounds in the narrative (sexism against white women) and what it considers background information (racial politics) speaks to how it manufactures the imagined mainstream and white audience identification. Presumably, representing the networks racial politics would be too controversial and make the protagonists too unlikable for the broad moviegoing audience.

Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie, left) and Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon) in Bombshell.

Bombshell isnt just about Carlsons or Kellys stories. In order to be a more universal, 2019-style story, the movie knows it cant just focus on two rich, powerful straight white celebrities. So the narrative includes a third character, a fictional composite aspiring producer Kayla (Margot Robbie). As a neophyte associate producer (and, as we later learn, a queer woman), she helps expand the films depiction of power, both in terms of its identity palette and in giving a view from someone of a lower status. But in many ways, its use of white queerness does help us better understand the films limitations regarding race and identity.

To its credit, the film attempts to use Kayla to show that leaning in doesnt follow predictable alliances. Gretchen Carlson in many ways the films most unambiguous hero attempts to make Kayla part of her team, pitching her on a kind of sisterhood to get to the top together. Kayla declines, opting to join Bill OReillys team, in a moment that implies shes leaning into, even selling out to, the more powerful person to ensure her way to the top.

On OReillys team, Kayla meets Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon), a show producer who is also a (not entirely open) lesbian and liberal Hillary supporter, and they begin an affair. The movies introduction of white queerness into the identity mix is important. Because just as the film sidesteps Carlsons and Kellys problematic racist moments, it arguably uses the figure of the white queer to soft-pedal the networks questionable racial politics. Its Carr, the white gay producer, who matter-of-factly breaks down the nuances of OReillys racial politics supports the wall, but against mass deportation to Kayla.

Similarly, its through Kayla and Carr that we are introduced to Kellys white Santa moment. In an interview with the New York Times, Theron mentioned the inclusion of the white Santa moment as one of the ways the film didnt shy away from Kellys complexities. Tellingly, though, it isnt a significant part of the films actual narrative its just included when Kayla watches a YouTube clip with Carr. We dont love Megyn Kelly because she thinks Santas white, Kayla explains later, we love her because she says it. In this way, she parrots the allegedly nonideological, tell-it-like-it-is narrative that allowed for Kellys mainstream media rehabilitation.

The films depiction of harassment and the fallout from it is an important reality that many women experience, and that, until #MeToo, rarely found its way into the mainstream cultural conversation. But its necessary to question the ways Bombshell uses white femininity and queerness to create audience identification.

Carlson is an unambiguous hero in part because she is seen as refusing to sell out to Fox News politics, which is only possible because her racial and trans politics arent represented in the film. Bombshell suggests Carlson is fired because she refuses to toe the companys sexist party line. She tells her lawyers that Ailes has made comments like Youre sexy but youre too much work and to get ahead you have to give a little head. Not incidentally, during her meeting with her lawyers, they bring up that she graduated summa cum laude from Stanford to emphasize her toughness in the battle ahead, credentials seemingly meant to remind viewers that shes more impressive than shes given credit for. (Rather than suggesting, for instance, how her elite education might have aligned her with the networks, and broader medias, class politics.)

Carlson is an unambiguous hero in part because she is seen as refusing to sell out to Fox News politics, which is only possible because her racial and trans politics arent represented in the film.

You will be muzzled, Gretchen, her lawyer warns Carlson in the final scenes. Maybe, she says, suggesting shed ultimately break through that muzzle, while also presenting her as the heroic voice that made Bombshell possible.

Kayla, who is harassed quite graphically and invasively by Ailes in one of the films most sensitively rendered scenes, tries to confide in Carr as soon as it happens, but Carr asks her not to involve her; she cant help, because shes a lesbian at Fox News. Kayla hesitates coming forward, and after Carlson goes public, she calls Carr for advice while on a date with a man, but their conversation becomes about Kayla not being openly gay (in contrast to Carr).

We are meant to sympathize with the predicament of these queer white women because of the precariousness of their position at the network. The implication is that because Carr is a Hillary liberal, shes in some ways outside the networks racial power structure; yet the film could have complicated their worldview by using the narrative to question the way that their whiteness (and willingness to overlook racism) is what allows them to be at the network in the first place.

Kelly, meanwhile, goes back and forth on whether she should reveal that Ailes harassed her a decade earlier. Its a difficult decision because Ailes ultimately promoted her, she points out, and because when Shepard Smith came out, Ailes told him he didnt care where he put his pecker. Kelly feels like her own advancement and Ailes tolerance of a white gay man make Ailes not quite a monster in her eyes. Again, the film makes tolerance of white queerness a kind of litmus test for acceptability.

Both Kayla and Kelly ultimately decide to talk to the lawyers, helping lead to Ailes firing, and the framing of the aftermath is important. After Ailes firing, the Murdochs are depicted calling Trump after his win, even though they were once against him. This suggests a potentially dark worldview that nothing has really changed. Kayla comes forward and leaves the network.

But in terms of the world of the network, perhaps the most important moment after Ailes leaves is when producer Carr puts a framed picture of her and her college girlfriend which she had hidden earlier back on her desk. Its a melodramatic moment, implying that the Fox News family now has room for her and is now a potentially gentler, kinder place with Ailes out of the picture.

Every narrative has to create a moral universe, and in order to locate power in this film, its important to think about who represents the establishment and why. For Kayla, Carlson and Kelly represent the conservative establishment.

When Kelly is dealing with her post-Trump interview fallout, her husband says, Honey, get real, you are the establishment. He seems to be referring to the fact that Fox News has become part of the mainstream media. After her first post-debate interview, Kellys husband also tells her that she went too soft on Trump, and Kelly admits she needs to keep access to keep up their lifestyle. Most importantly, though, neither Kellys husband nor Kayla mean that Carlson or Kelly are the establishment as powerful white women in media. They are establishment in vague terms of class and media positioning, but can never be overtly represented as the establishment as powerful white women because then the films message would get too complicated.

To be legible as a mainstream movie, Bombshell has to participate in the kinds of narratives promoted by Fox News and mainstream media itself. Namely, that the distinction of liberal versus conservative, framed through debates about white feminism or homonormative gay rights, are somehow the most important political distinctions. This ignores the fact that, for instance, the overemphasis on those distinctions is itself a reduction of political possibilities, or the way that classism and racism in media cut across such distinctions.

To be legible as a mainstream movie, Bombshell has to participate in the kinds of narratives promoted by Fox News and mainstream media itself.

There is a kind of running theme in the film that you cant leave Fox News because youre tainted by association (both Carr and Kelly float that idea). The movie emphasizes the blowback Megyn Kelly receives after the Trump debate, including Trump calling her a bimbo, without also addressing the ways that moment also helped her secure a prominent spot in mainstream media. (Instead, theres even a melodramatic scene asking us to sympathize with her as a mother, when her children are scared by a paparazzo at their hotel. There are later similar scenes of Carlson as a mother.)

Ultimately, the events depicted in the film helped Carlson reinvent herself as something of an authority on harassment, speaking at Women at the Top: Womens Empowerment conferences, getting a Justice for Women television deal with Lifetime network, and even calling the tour for her memoir, Getting Real, Be Fierce. Kelly became a hero of lean-in empowerment with her own network morning show, landing a very lucrative deal with NBC after she left Fox News, where she pursued #MeToo stories.

Despite lacking any morning show hosting experience, the immediacy with which Kelly was hired by NBC might have been a way of appealing to the time slots white minivan majority audience after the election. The fact that longtime network fixture Tamron Hall was passed over in the process is another reminder of the politics about race and gender in the media that Bombshell fails to acknowledge. (Kelly was later fired over a blackface controversy.)

We live in a moment when the complicated intersections between whiteness and gender are made evident by the fact that a majority of white women voted for Trump. But this film is still premised on the idea that conservative white femininity is something of an anomaly and against womens interests, rather than in the interests of plenty of white women.

It would be more interesting if the film had helped explain rather than participate in the medias normalization of radical, right-wing white women with racist, anti-gay, and anti-feminist views. This has a long history, from the era of Phyllis Schlafly (the subject of another current show) and Anita Bryant (subject of a forthcoming biopic), through that of Ann Coulter and Tomi Lahren. There is almost an affirmative action spot for such women on cable news and morning shows including Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Meghan McCain on The View. There is no counterpart, for instance, of radical, left-wing women of color pundits or media figures given that kind of welcoming treatment by mainstream media.

In focusing on the sensational media mechanics and legal machinations of the Carlson and Kelly stories, the film successfully turns questions of power and harassment into a stylish Hollywood procedural-as-thriller. But its selective story about gender and its refusal to complicate its racial perspective missed an opportunity to provide a more nuanced analysis about how power works.

Bombshell was originally titled Fair and Balanced, which is, arguably, a more honest description of the kind of Hollywood-friendly liberal recuperation of Fox News culture that its actually portraying. But its new, suggestive title, playing on the double meaning of news scandal and blonde femininity, has helped sell the movie as a powerful, zeitgeist-y story about women speaking truth to power. The fact that it might become the #MeToo movie of 2019 might be a more salient critique of the class and racial politics of Hollywoods versions of womens empowerment than anything the film depicts.

Read this article:
"Bombshell" Wants Us To See The Women Of Fox News As Heroes - BuzzFeed News

"To me, Chicago is a lot like the White House. They both have a large and vibrant Russian community," former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel said at the Gridiron winter dinner. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

A FEW FUNNIES from the GRIDIRON WINTER DINNER: RAHM EMANUEL: Here we are, on December 7, the day the president reminds us that Ukraine bombed Pearl Harbor Some more about me: Im Jewish, so like Elizabeth Warren, Im a member of the tribe. To me, Chicago is a lot like the White House. They both have a large and vibrant Russian community I see cameras are banned from this event, which explains why AOC is not here

HILLARY CLINTON is now saying many, many, many people are now asking her to run. So now lets cut to the chase: are any of those people from Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania? In fact, are any of them Democrats? Joe [Biden] says he cannot remember when hes had more fun on the campaign trail. Literally: he cannot remember

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO.): Im really known by most of these reporters or at least referred to by most of these reporters as unnamed source Why is it in Washington everytime someone wants to do something nefarious they go incognito, they pick suggestive names like Deep Throat, or Carlos Danger, or Pierre Delecto, or Wolf Blitzer or Carl Leubsdorf. Names you couldnt possibly get any other way besides making them up.

NOT AT THE GRIDIRON THE PRESIDENT, last night in Hollywood, Fla., at the Israeli American Councils national meeting on a Middle East peace deal, via MERIDITH MCGRAW, who was with the president: I love deals and I was told the toughest of all deals is peace with Israel and the Palestinians. But if Jared Kushner can't do it, it can't be done." Meridiths story

-- MIAMI HERALD on the Florida GOP dinner TRUMP attended: He also pulled an unusual move, bringing on stage Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who Trump pardoned last month for cases involving war crimes. Lorance was serving a 19-year sentence for ordering his soldiers shoot at unarmed men in Afghanistan, and Golsteyn was to stand trial for the 2010 extrajudicial killing of a suspected bomb maker. Miami Herald

THE SHOOTING IN PENSACOLA

-- WAPO: Investigation broadened in Pensacola Navy base shooting, by T.S. Strickland in Pensacola, Ellen Nakashima, Joby Warrick and Hannah Knowles: FBI officials broadened their probe Saturday into the deadly shooting rampage at a Navy flight school here amid reports that several of the gunmans Saudi compatriots took video footage as the attack was underway.

Law enforcement officials combed through the shooters belongings and social media accounts on Saturday while questioning six other Saudi nationals, at least some of them fellow students in the same Navy flight training program. Three of the Saudis were said to have taken cellphone video at the scene, according to a U.S. official familiar with investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. WaPo

-- AP/PENSACOLA: Official: Base shooter watched shooting videos before attack: The Saudi student who fatally shot three sailors at a U.S. naval base in Florida hosted a dinner party earlier in the week where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Saturday. AP

-- PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL on the victims: Airman Mohammed Sameh Hathaim, 19, from St. Petersburg, Florida. He enlisted July 18 and reported to the Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes, Illinois. He reported to Pensacola on Sept. 21 and had earned the Navy Basic Military Training Honor Graduate Ribbon.

Ensign Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, from Coffee, Alabama. He was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis who was commissioned May 24 and reported for duty in Pensacola on Nov. 15. Airman Apprentice Cameron Scott Walters, 21, from Richmond Hill, Georgia. He enlisted Sept. 16 and also reported to the Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes before he reported to Pensacola on Nov. 24. PNJ

-- NYTS DAVID SANGER in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: For Trump, Instinct After Florida Killings Is Simple: Protect Saudis: When a Saudi Air Force officer opened fire on his classmates at a naval base in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday, he killed three, wounded eight and exposed anew the strange dynamic between President Trump and the Saudi leadership: The presidents first instinct was to tamp down any suggestion that the Saudi government needed to be held to account.

Hours later, Mr. Trump announced on Twitter that he had received a condolence call from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who clearly sought to ensure that the episode did not further fracture their relationship. On Saturday, leaving the White House for a trip here for a Republican fund-raiser and a speech on Israeli-American relations, Mr. Trump told reporters that they are devastated in Saudi Arabia, noting that the king will be involved in taking care of families and loved ones. He never used the word terrorism.

What was missing was any assurance that the Saudis would aid in the investigation, help identify the suspects motives, or answer the many questions about the vetting process for a coveted slot at one of the countrys premier schools for training allied officers. Or, more broadly, why the United States continues to train members of the Saudi military even as that same military faces credible accusations of repeated human rights abuses in Yemen, including the dropping of munitions that maximize civilian casualties.

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SUNDAY BEST NEW SCREENING OF FOREIGNERS ... CHRIS WALLACE spoke to DEFENSE SECRETARY MARK ESPER on FOX NEWS SUNDAY: ESPER: One of the first things I did yesterday, in the wake of this incident, was I spoke to my deputy secretary, the acting Navy secretary and others to say I want to immediately make sure we put out an advisory to all of our bases, installations and facilities and make sure we're taking all necessary precautions appropriate to the particular base to make sure our people are safe and secure. That's number one. Number two, I ask that we begin a review of what our screening procedures are with regard to foreign nationals coming to the United States.

ON THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KINGDOM GEORGE STEPAHANOPOULOS spoke to REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FLA.) on ABCS THIS WEEK: GAETZ: Of course, what happened in Pensacola has to inform on our ongoing relationship with Saudi Arabia. That is the message I directly delivered to the Saudi ambassador when she called to offer her condolences.

There are Saudis that are currently with us that are being investigated, and I made the point as clearly as I possibly could that we want no interference from the kingdom as it relates to Saudis that we have, and if there are Saudis that we do not have that may have been involved in any way in the planning, inspiration, financing or execution of this, that we expect Saudi intelligence to work with our government to find the people accountable and hold them responsible.

A message from BP:

NOW FOR IMPEACHMENT

-- NEW CHUCK TODD spoke to REP. JERRY NADLER (D-N.Y.) on NBCS MEET THE PRESS. NADLER said articles of impeachment coming THIS WEEK: There will be a lot of consultations, I assume, between members of the committee, with the House leadership, with members of the House. And we'll have to make those decisions. So we'll bring articles of impeachment, presumably, before the committee at some point later in the week.

-- PERHAPS A VOTE LATER, NADLER told DANA BASH on CNNS STATE OF THE UNION: BASH: Is it possible that you are going to vote on articles of impeachment this coming week? NADLER: It's possible. I don't know. BASH: Is that your goal? NADLER: My goal is to vote -- is to do this.... BASH: In terms of the timeline. NADLER: My goal is to do it as expeditiously, but as fairly as possible, depending how long it takes.

KYLE CHENEY and DARREN SAMUELSOHN: House Dems refresh Nixon-era impeachment report for Trump: The staff of the House Judiciary Committee on Saturday issued a historic report laying the groundwork to impeach President Donald Trump, outlining in Constitutional terms what the panel believes amounts to an impeachable offense.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler described the 55-page analysis as the heir to the only similar report produced by the Judiciary Committee, which was released during the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. That document was updated during the Bill Clinton impeachment but not fully rewritten. The 55-page report

SCENE SETTER MARK LEIBOVICH and NICK FANDOS on NYT, A1: Behind the Scenes of Impeachment: Crammed Offices, Late Nights, Cold Pizza: In cramped spaces in the Rayburn and Longworth House Office Buildings, as well as the speakers suite, the final articles of impeachment are being incubated in the shadow of the Capitol dome. It is a frantic backstage tableau of Washington anthropology, populated by Judiciary and Intelligence Committee aides, lawmakers and counsels hunched over computer screens and yellow legal pads.

History can get cluttered sometimes. The rooms are littered with empty soda cans, pie leftover from Thanksgiving and boxes pulled from shelves containing files from past impeachments. There are recurrent calls for tech support, caffeine and blankets, because the rooms can get cold, like the pizza. With so much grand talk about constitutional duties and respecting the founders and honoring oaths, there is also the mundane and the workaday. NYT

ALSO FROM MATT GAETZ on THIS WEEK On RUDY GIULIANIS trip to UKRAINE: It is weird that he's over there. REP. MARK MEADOWS said this to DANA BASH on CNNS STATE OF THE UNION: I don't know that any role -- I don't know of any role that Rudy Giuliani is playing on behalf of the president of the United States. I think he's over there as a citizen. I think part of that is probably trying to clear his name.

SNEAK PEEK THE PRESIDENTS WEEK: Monday: PRESIDENT TRUMP will have lunch with VP MIKE PENCE, and will participate in a roundtable on empowering families with education choice Tuesday: THE PRESIDENT will travel to Hershey, Pa., for a political rally. Wednesday: THE PRESIDENT will go to the ceremonial swearing in of Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, and he will host a Hanukkah reception.

Thursday: THE PRESIDENT will speak at the White House Summit on Child Care and Paid Leave: Supporting Americas Working Families, and will attend the Congressional Ball. Friday: The president of PARAGUAY will be at the White House.

A message from BP:

Good Sunday morning. SPOTTED: Hillary Clinton at Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue Saturday evening. Photos, via Kate Woodsome

HARTFORD COURANT FRONT PAGE: Low-profile prosecutor leads high-profile hunt: John Durham of Connecticut digs into origin of Trump collusion claims

A DAN DIAMOND CLASSIC: Medicare chief asked taxpayers to cover stolen jewelry: A top Trump health appointee sought to have taxpayers reimburse her for the costs of jewelry, clothing and other possessions, including a $5,900 Ivanka Trump-brand pendant, that were stolen while in her luggage during a work-related trip, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.

Seema Verma, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, filed a $47,000 claim for lost property on Aug. 20, 2018, after her bags were stolen while she was giving a speech in San Francisco the prior month. The property was not insured, Verma wrote in her filing to the Health and Human Services department.

The federal health department ultimately reimbursed Verma $2,852.40 for her claim, a CMS spokesperson said. Vermas claim included $43,065 for about two dozen pieces of jewelry, based off an appraisal she'd received from a jeweler about three weeks after the theft. Among Verma's stolen jewelry was an Ivanka Trump-brand pendant, made of gold, prasiolite and diamonds, that Vermas jeweler valued at $5,900.

Vermas claim also included about $2,000 to cover the cost of her stolen clothes and another $2,000 to cover the cost of other stolen goods, including a $325 claim for moisturizer and a $349 claim for noise-cancelling headphones.

FRONT PAGE OF THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER: Bevin mum on contract to investigate Steve Beshear

2020 WATCH

-- WAPOS DAN BALZ: Will impeachment be forgotten by November 2020? Dont be so sure.

-- BOSTON GLOBES JAMES PINDELL: Tiny Dixville Notch may see its midnight tradition disappear: [W]ith the 2020 New Hampshire presidential primary less than 10 weeks away, it is increasingly likely that the Dixville Notch tradition is dead, victim of a shrinking population too small to meet the legal threshold of five residents to be a polling place.

It is what it is, said Tom Tillotson, one of four residents of Dixville Notch, the town moderator and son of the creator of the midnight voting concept in the unincorporated town. This is obviously not what I wanted to see happen.

The probable demise of the Dixville tradition comes as the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary is fading in other ways. The small house parties, face-to-face glad handing, and herculean efforts to secure endorsements from small-town officials have given way to national polls, cable-TV debates, and rock-star candidates who command arenas from day one. Boston Globe Front page PDF

-- WAPO: Mike Bloombergs money buys him a very different kind of campaign. And its a big one, by Isaac-Stanley Becker and Michael Scherer, with an Augusta, Ga., dateline: After two weeks in the presidential race, Mike Bloomberg now employs one of the largest campaign staff rosters, has spent more money on ads than all the top-polling Democrats combined and is simultaneously building out ground operations in 27 states.

But when the former New York mayor showed up to get the endorsement of Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. on Friday, only two of the 10 chairs initially placed before the lectern were occupied. When Bloomberg joked about his college years, saying he was one of the students who made the top half of the class possible, he was met by silence.

Youre supposed to laugh at that, folks, Bloomberg said to a room at the citys African American history museum filled mostly with staff and media. For a normal presidential campaign, such moments would be a worrying sign, a potentially viral metaphor for a struggling effort. But with the Bloomberg campaign, it is not at all clear what established rules apply, if any. Everything he is doing is so unlike what has been done for decades that it is difficult to decipher how voters will react. WaPo

THE PRESIDENTS SUNDAY THE PRESIDENT and first lady are scheduled to attend a Childrens Reception at 12:30 p.m. in the Blue Room.

PHOTO DU JOUR: A U.S. Marine stands in front of the USS Missouri on Saturday, during a ceremony to mark the 78th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. | Caleb Jones/AP Photo

TOP-ED KATIE HILL in the NYT: Its Not Over After All: I overcame the desperation I felt after stepping down from Congress, and Im still in the fight.

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman (@dlippman):

-- Video Games and Online Chats Are Hunting Grounds for Sexual Predators, by NYTs Nellie Bowles and Michael H. Keller: Criminals are making virtual connections with children through gaming and social media platforms. One popular site warns visitors, Please be careful. NYT

-- Why Mike Posner Walked Across America, by Caitlin Giddings in Outside Magazine: Years after he took that pill in Ibiza, Grammy nominee Mike Posner left behind his life in L.A. to go on a 2,851-mile journey in search of... something. Heres what he learned about grief, motivation, struggle, and authenticity. Outside

-- The Epic Rise and Hard Fall of New Yorks Taxi King, by NYTs Brian M. Rosenthal: A Russian immigrant and a cabdrivers son who got his nickname by building the citys biggest fleet, [Evgeny A.] Freidman was a primary architect of some of the tactics used to build the bubble ... At the height of the market, he had accumulated $525 million in assets. He befriended the filmmaker Spike Lee, the baseball star Mo Vaughn and Mayor Bill de Blasio. His outsize antics and lavish spending often landed him on Page Six, the New York Posts gossip column. NYT

-- The Octopus from Outer Space, by James Ross Gardner in Seattle Met per Longreads.coms description: Gardner explores the Pacific Northwests evolving relationship with the octopus and how theyve gone from dangerous devil-fish bent on drowning unsuspecting sea goers to intensely curious, suction-cupped wonders. With nine brains one in their head and one in each of their eight arms octopuses are thought to be the most intelligent invertebrates on earth, capable of deep connection with humans. Seattle Met

-- The confession, by WaPos Peter Jamison in Bean Blossom, Ind.: Heil Trump and an anti-gay slur were scrawled on an Indiana church right after Trumps election. The investigation led to an unlikely suspect and the discovery of a hate crime hoax. WaPo

-- The New China Scare, by Fareed Zakaria in Foreign Affairs: The United States risks squandering the hard-won gains from four decades of engagement with China, encouraging Beijing to adopt confrontational policies of its own, and leading the worlds two largest economies into a treacherous conflict of unknown scale and scope that will inevitably cause decades of instability and insecurity. A cold war with China is likely to be much longer and more costly than the one with the Soviet Union, with an uncertain outcome. Foreign Affairs (hat tip: TheBrowser.com)

-- An Unbelievable Story of Rape, by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong in ProPublica and the Marshall Project in Dec. 2015: An 18-year-old said she was attacked at knifepoint. Then she said she made it up. Thats where our story begins. ProPublica

-- How Racism Ripples Through Rural Californias Pipes, by NYTs Jose A. Del Real in Teviston, Calif.: In the 20th century, Californias black farmworkers settled in waterless colonies. The history endures underground, through old pipes, dry wells and shoddy septic tanks. NYT

-- Hippie Inc: how the counterculture went corporate, by Nat Segnit in the Dec./Jan. issue of 1843 Magazine: Half a century on from the summer of love, marijuana is big business and mindfulness a workplace routine. Nat Segnit asks how the movement found itself at the heart of capitalism. 1843 (h/t Longform.org)

-- How Ring Went From Shark Tank Reject to Americas Scariest Surveillance Company, by Caroline Haskins in Vice: Amazon's Ring started from humble roots as a smart doorbell company called DoorBot. Now its surveilling the suburbs and partnering with police. Vice

-- The False Promise of Morning Routines, by The Atlantics Marina Koren: Why everyones mornings seem more productive than yours. Atlantic

-- Your Honor, Can I Tell The Whole Story? by Nick Chrastil in The Atavist: To read the transcript of Erin Hunters trial, which runs all of 81 pages and can be digested in half an hour, is to encounter a disregard for human dignity instrumental in producing the most sprawling system of incarceration in the world. Atavist (h/t Longform.org)

Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.

SPOTTED at a book party for Tom Rosenstiels book, Oppo: A Novel ($26.64 on Amazon): Ruth Marcus, E.J. Dionne, Luke Albee, John Podesta, Jon Leibowitz, Len Downie, Amanda Bennett, Mike McCurry, J.J. Yore, Alan Miller, John Gomperts, Tamera Luzzatto, David Leiter and Jon Haber.

SPOTTED at Microsofts Suhail Khans 50th birthday party at Union Stage at the Wharf on Saturday night: Grover Norquist, Jim Rowland, Glynda Becker, Wil Gravatt, Ximena Barreto, Susan Benhoff, Travis Korson, David Ferguson, Rebecca Furdek, Tania Mercado, Grace Morgan and Geoff Smith.

TRANSITION -- Anthony Ornato will be deputy chief of staff for operations at the White House. He previously was deputy assistant director for the Secret Service.

ENGAGED -- Kara Voght, a national politics reporter at Mother Jones, and Ben Cushing, a campaign representative at the Sierra Club, got engaged Saturday night at the Line Hotel. The couple, who met on Bumble, have been dating for two years. Pic

BIRTHDAYS: Ann Coulter is 58 Sabrina Siddiqui, WSJ reporter and CNN political analyst Kerri Kupec, director of public affairs at DOJ former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim is 6-0 Aaron Kissel, POLITICOs VP of product, is 45 (h/t Patrick Steel) APs Pablo Martinez Monsivais Debra Saunders, Las Vegas Review-Journal White House correspondent Judd Legum Brooke Lorenz, senior manager for communications at CBS Rachel Sklar Lizzie OLeary (h/ts Ben Chang) Marc Burstein, senior executive producer at ABC News POLITICOs Annie Yu and Danica Stanciu ... Ginny Badanes, director of strategic projects for cybersecurity and democracy at Microsoft ... Brie Sachse, managing director and head of state and local external affairs at Siemens ... Cayman Clevenger Nick Colvin

Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner, NBC News White House producer Jena Baker McNeil Preston Hill Steve Bouchard (h/t Jon Haber) former Rep. Ral Labrador (R-Idaho) is 52 Stephen Spaulding, elections counsel for the House Administration Committee ... Kevin Carski ... BBCs Samantha Granville ... P. Lynn Scarlett Honey Sharp (h/t son Daniel Lippman) Sylvester Okere Courtney Johnson Luis Rosero Karen Keller of FP1 Strategies and PLUS Communications B.R. McConnon of DDC Emily Leaman Solange Uwimana Alison (Matarazzo) Edwards Jen Minton Anna Miller Tom Bush Austin James Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is 66 Jeff Neubauer Jackie Gran Nancy Balz (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) Randy Altschuler is 49

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POLITICO Playbook: Inside the Gridiron - Politico

WASHINGTON (JTA) On Wednesday, theU.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee launched impeachment hearings just hours afterthe Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., concluded its own impeachment inquiry.

The 300-page Intelligence Committee report concludes that President Donald Trump placed his own personal and political interests abovethenational interests oftheUnited States in asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, calling it the act of a president who viewed himself as unaccountable and determined to use his vast official powers to secure his reelection.

It is nowthe Judiciary Committees task to decide whether to recommend articles of impeachment. And whilethe officials who appeared before Schiffs committee were fact witnesses who describedthe events surroundingthe Ukraine scandal, Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., brought three witnesses all constitutional scholars that he hoped would outline a theory of impeachment.

All three witnesses are Jewish: Noah Feldman of Harvard, Pamela Karlan of Stanford and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina. So are Schiff and Nadler, and so wastheDemocrats counsel who directedthe first 45 minutes of questioning, Norm Eisen.

Why does this matter?

Well, predictably, it mattered to anti-Semites.

Ann Coulter,the right-wing agitator, tweeted, Too little ethnic diversity amongthe professors for me to take them seriously. Consideringherpast flirtations with anti-Semitism, one could conclude that she wasnt faultingtheprofessors just for being white.

TruNews,the YouTube channel run by ananti-Semitic Florida pastor who has coinedthe term Jew coupto describethe impeachment process, took to Twitter to accuse Jewish socialist Jerry Nadler and his three Jewish witnesses of escalatingtheJew coup. TruNews also helpfully informed us that Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University scholar and witnesses called by theRepublicans who testified thattheevidence for impeachment simply does not add up, is a Roman Catholic.

Twitter removedthe tweet. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblattscreenshotted it for posterity,calling on social media platforms to take action against blatantly anti-Semitic posts.

Why not ignorethe blatant anti-Semitism?

Because the fringes no longer have pariah status: TruNews has been accredited for White House news conferences. Trump has taken questions from them (about his plans for Israeli-Palestinian peace, of all things) and his son, Donald Jr., gave TruNews an impromptu interview earlier this year at a Michigan rally. (Trump Jr.s spokeswoman told The Washington Post that he was not aware atthe time of TruNews outlook.)

Those views have crept intothe mainstream discourse.

While the hearings were underway, Breitbart News,the Trump-boosting news site, posted a story, Norm Eisen, Democrat Impeachment Counsel, Linked to George Soros.Breitbart reportedthat Soros Open Society Foundation had helped fund an ethics watchdog Eisen founded, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, tothe tune of $1.35 million in 2017. (This is not a secret: Its on the Open Society website.)

Butthe Breitbart story failed to explainthe relevance. Eisen is not pretending to be nonpartisan or unaffiliated from a liberal outlook; there is no suggestion that Soros money is reachingthe committee itself.

Soros,the liberal Jewish billionaire philanthropist, is incessantly attached to conspiracies. Fiona Hill, a former senior National Security Council staffer, noted last month how the baseless Soros conspiracy theories besetthe Ukraine scandaland called them anti-Semitic.

Republicans onthe panel attempted to depictthe three scholars onthe Democratic side as effete elitists, another classic trope.

Democrats still dont get it, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter. They are pushing ahead with impeachment based on opinions from liberal law professors from coastal universities.

McCarthy, from California, attended a coastal university (Cal State, Bakersfield), and Turley, the GOPs scholar, teaches at one, George Washington but never mind.

This creates Jewish fear

I got texts from leading Jewish Democrats during Wednesdays hearings wondering, with not inconsiderable trepidation, whether thescholars were indeed Jewish.

The trepidation is a shame because considerations of how being Jewish shapes ones outlook should be free of anxieties about what anti-Semites will make of it. And there are meaningful Jewish stories behindthe decisions of these witnesses to become constitutional scholars:

I grew up in Alabama, and I grew up Jewish in Alabama inthe1960s, Gerhardt told C-Span last year, and that was a time of great turbulence, andthe timethecivil rights movement was sort of unfolding, and it was all unfolding in front of me, and I paid attention to it, and that those events that arose inthe 60s and early 70s really shaped my interest in civil rights, but also my interest in law.

Karlan, delivering closing remarks in 2006 at theannual meeting oftheliberal American Constitution Society, called herself one ofthe snarky, bisexual, Jewish women who wantthe freedom to say what we think, read what we want and love who we do,calling on listeners to seize backthe high ground on patriotism and on love of our country from the rich, pampered, prodigal, sanctimonious, incurious, white, straight sons ofthe powerful.

Feldman, who in 2015 launched Harvards Julis-Rabinowitz Program in Jewish and Israeli Law, also helped draftthe Iraqi constitution; he is gripped by how and whether religious and civil law can coexist.

Jewish law and Israeli law are distinct and different,Feldman was quoted as saying by Tablet atthe time ofthelaunch oftheHarvard program, yet they also interact and make claims on each other.

In Other News

Georgia on my mind:Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a conservative narrowly elected a year ago with a boost from Trump, this week named businesswoman Kelly Loeffler to filltheSenate seat vacated by Johnny Isakson, who is ill.Thetwist is that Trump wanted Kemp to name Doug Collins,theranking member ofthe Judiciary Committee who ledthecharge Wednesday againsttheimpeachment and now Trump and Kemp are onthe outs. Trump is losing his luster in the South (gubernatorial candidates he backed were defeated in Kentucky and Louisiana and won narrowly in Mississippi) and women in Atlantas suburbs, emboldened since Trumps election, are thehinge on whether Georgia turns blue next year. Kemp does not want to further alienate them.

A lot of those women are Jewish. I spoke to two who head up asalon of 1,500 Jewish women aimed at flippingthestatefor Democrats, and also toAtlanta-area Jews who are grappling with how to rebuild a moribund alliance with African-Americansas a means to topple Republicans.Two Jewish candidates feature in two separate Senate races next year, and I met with both.

Two states and only two states:Earlier this year, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif, introduced a resolution backed by J Street,theliberal Middle East policy group, that wouldrecommit Congress to a two-state outcome totheIsraeli-Palestinian conflict. Theidea was to keeptheoutcome alive while boththeTrump and Netanyahu governments had retreated from it.Theresolution likely comes to a vote before this week ends, and it has had a rocky road.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., themajority leader, endeavored to sign on Republicans totheresolution. They agreed, iftheword only was removed fromthe phrase onlytheoutcome of a two-state solution that enhances stability and security for Israel, Palestinians, and their neighbors can both ensurethestate of Israels survival as a Jewish and democratic state and fulfillthelegitimate aspirations ofthePalestinian people for a state of their own. J Street forcefully objected andthe Republicans balked.The resolution will pass with only, but a look atthesponsor list features only Democrats it wont accrue many, if any, Republicans.

Bipartisanship is becoming harder: AIPAC has been asking its members for weeks to get senators to sponsor legislation that would extend sanctions to entities dealing with already sanctioned Palestinian groups. So far, it has 20 sponsors for the Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act of 2019, but until this week there was just one Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who initiated thebill with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Ive heard another two Democrats have just signed on.

Clemmons making Clemmonade:Alan Clemmons istheRepublican South Carolina state legislator you may never have heard of who is shaking up U.S. Israel policy. His2015 bill penalizing Israel boycotters has become a template for other state bills doingthesame thing. He ledthepush in 2016 fortheGOP to removethetwo-state outcome commitment from its platform. Clemmons now chairs ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that circulates templates for state legislation themodel Clemmons pursued after passing his 2015 bill targetingthe movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. That puts him in a position of enormous influence in theconservative world. ALEC had its annual get-together this week in Scottsdale, Arizona. ALEC is a wellspring of learning of, by and for legislators, he said in a release.

Worth a Look

Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice Jay Sekulow hosts the GMA Honors Celebration and Hall of Fame Induction at the Allen Arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee on April 29, 2014. (Rick Diamond/Getty Images for GMA)

Elizabeth Williamson atTheNew York Times profiles Jay Sekulow,the un-Giuliani:theTrump lawyer not currently mired in scandal and his own legal difficulties. He is alsothe general counsel for Jews for Jesus. Politico reported this week that Sekulows son, Jordan, also a lawyer on Trumps team, gleefully anticipated damagingthe scholars that House Democrats invited to impeachment. I cant wait to find out what crazy stuff the law professors have written, Jordan said on his dads radio show. I bet anti-Israel, borderline anti-Semitic. Maybe anti-American? That was before we learned all three were Jewish.

Tweet So Sweet

Seforim Chatter, an account dedicated to Jewish exegetical texts,uncovers a book on how to properly consume Hanukkah doughnuts.

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The Tell is a weekly roundup of the latest Jewish political news from Ron Kampeas, the Jewish Telegraphic Agencys Washington bureau chief.Sign up hereto receive The Tell in your inbox on Thursday evenings.

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The Tell: Three of the impeachment witness lawyers were Jewish, and it matters - JTA News

Editors note: Our friend Danna Young is a scholar of, among other things, the intersection of entertainment and information particularly humors use within the political landscape and the ways in which its messages reach and affect audiences.

She has a terrific new book out this week from Oxford University Press: Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States. In this piece, she describes how conservative and liberal media differ not only in content, but also in form in ways that exacerbate polarization.

1996 was a banner year for Americas polarized media ecosystem.

In October, a new 24-hour news channel was introduced to American audiences. I figure there are 18 shows for freaks, the former Republican strategist and Rush Limbaugh producer Roger Ailes told the Associated Press in 1995. If theres one network for normal people itll balance out. As CEO of the new Fox News Channel, working alongside founder Rupert Murdoch, Ailes would have his chance to create that network for normal people, packed with analysis and opinion programming, with a dash of news for good measure. Among those analysis and opinion shows was The OReilly Report (later rebranded as The OReilly Factor), a conservative opinion talk show hosted by former Inside Edition entertainment talk show host Bill OReilly.

From its inception, The Factor defined the conservative television talk genre. It also exemplified a genre that Tufts Universitys Jeffrey Berry and Sarah Sobieraj refer to as outrage.

But what some people may have missed is that just three months earlier, in July 1996, another non-traditional form of news-ish programming launched also as a response to mainstream media. It was a news parody and satire program called The Daily Show, on Comedy Central. Created by Lizz Winstead and Madeleine Smithberg, The Daily Show featured headlines from the days pop culture news and introduced fictional news correspondents in pretend field segments.

Winstead and Smithberg set out to create a parody program that commented, not just on the politics of the day, but also on the emerging cable news landscape that produced politics as entertainment. In an interview with The Cut, Winstead recalled sitting in a bar, watching Gulf War coverage on CNN: We were all watching the Gulf War unfold and it felt like we were watching a made-for-TV show about the war. It changed my comedy I started writing about how we are served by the media. Their framing from the start: to do a news satire where the genre itself was a character in the show.

The twin births of The Daily Show and The OReilly Factor in 1996 were not a coincidence. Both programs were the result of changes in the economic and regulatory underpinnings of the media industry and the development of new cable and digital technologies. Both presented politically relevant information that offered an alternative (in form and function) to mainstream news. Both were reactions to a news environment being transformed by pressures stemming from media deregulation throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Both were positioned as reactions to problematic aspects of mainstream journalism. Both tapped into an increasingly polarized political electorate. And both reflected the economics of media fragmentation that replaced large, heterogeneous, mass audiences with small, homogenous, niche audiences homogeneous in demographic, psychographic, and even political characteristics.

When scholars and journalists discuss conservative outlets like Fox News, they typically position the cable network MSNBC as its closest functional equivalent on the left. While its fair to say that the MSNBC of 2019 is a liberal-leaning cable news outlet that features liberal political analysis programming, this iteration of the network is relatively recent. When MSNBC was introduced in 1996, the network featured talk shows and news analysis shows from across the political spectrum. In fact, several conservative political talk personalities (including Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter) started their cable news careers at MSNBC. It wasnt until the mid-2000s that the network, failing in the ratings war, pivoted to the left and positioned itself as a liberal alternative to Fox.

But from the moment The Daily Show launched during that fateful summer of 1996, it did reflect an overwhelming liberal ideology. Im not referring to its targets or political point of view Im referring to the ideological leaning of the packaging and aesthetics of satire: packaging and aesthetics that run counter to those of conservative opinion talk.

Thats right: What if satire actually has a liberal bias, not due to its targets and arguments, but due to its playful aesthetic, layered and ironic rhetorical structures, and rampant self-deprecation? And what if political talk actually has a conservative bias, not due to its targets and arguments, but due to its constant threat-monitoring, didactic rhetorical structures, and moral seriousness?

Yes, the content, effects, and aesthetics of liberal satire and conservative opinion talk are completely different. So it can seem counterintuitive to conceptualize satire as any kind of liberal equivalent to conservative opinion talk. But we know that the two genres serve parallel functions for their audiences: highlighting important issues and events, setting their audiences agendas, framing the terms of debate, informing them on ideologically resonant issues, and even mobilizing them. And we know that the audiences of both liberal satire and conservative outrage show low trust in news, low trust in institutions, and enormous political efficacy (meaning confidence that they are equipped to participate politically). And both showed up in Americas living rooms within three months of each other in 1996 each framed as a response to problematic aspects of television news.

In my book Irony and Outrage, I argue that the modern birth of these genres can be traced to the same set of political and technological changes in the political and news ecosystem in the 1980s and 1990s. I also argue that the distinct look and feel of these genres can be traced to underlying differences in the psychological profiles of people on the left and the right differences that shape how we orient to the worlds around us and the kinds of content we are most likely to create and consume.

Decades of research from political psychology points to important psychological and physiological differences between liberals and conservatives that hinge on how we monitor our environments for and engage with threat. Conservatives, who are more prone to threat monitoring, have a lower tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity a trait that correlates with various lifestyle, occupational, and even artistic preferences. Liberals, who are less cognizant of threats in their environments, are less likely than conservatives to rely on emotional shortcuts or heuristics, instead thinking more carefully and evaluating information as it comes in.

Conservatives (especially social and cultural conservatives) tend to value efficiency and clarity. They prefer order, boundaries, and instinct. I find that that these inclinations shape their political information preferences preferences for didactic, morally serious, threat-oriented content that leaves very little doubt about what viewers should be worried about and who is to blame. Content like we find on Hannity or The Ingraham Angle.

Liberals, on the other hand, are more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. With a lower threat salience, they are more open to play and experimentation. These inclinations shape their political information preferences for layered, ironic, complex arguments that often never really say exactly what they mean. Content like we find on The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

While these genres have shared roots and may even serve parallel purposes for their viewers, the symbiotic relationship between each sides preferred aesthetic and the psychology of their viewers renders their impact quite asymmetrical.

The underlying logic and aesthetic of conservative outrage make it an ideal mechanism for tactical, goal-driven political mobilization. With its use of emotional language and focus on threats, it constitutes what philosopher Jacques Ellul refers to as agitation propaganda. Writing in 1962, Ellul described hate as the most profitable resource of agitation propaganda:

It is extremely easy to launch a revolutionary movement based on hatred of a particular enemy. Hatred is probably the most spontaneous and common sentiment; it consists of attributing ones misfortunes and sins to another

Importantly, it is not only the content of conservative outrage that renders it powerful. Rather, its the symbiosis between the threat-oriented content and the unique psychology of the conservative audience that facilitates its political impact. These conservative audience members, psychologically oriented towards protection and the maintenance of a stable society, are poised to respond to the people, groups, and institutions that have been identified as threats. The fact that these are the very characteristics of outrage content that have been harnessed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party should not come as a surprise.

In contrast, satire is a genre that remains in a state of play, downplays its own moral certainty and issues judgments through implication rather than proclamation. As a result, liberal political elites ability to harness satire and use it to their own ends is compromised. While the symbiosis between outrage and conservatism lends itself to strategic persuasion and mobilization, the symbiosis between the aesthetic of irony and the underlying psychology of liberalism render satire fruitful as a forum for exploration and rumination, but not for mobilization.

Consider one of the most critically acclaimed and influential pieces of satire of the past decade: Colberts 2011 creation of an actual super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

Colberts coverage of super PACs and Citizens United influenced public opinion and knowledge of the topic. But, according to Colbert, he didnt create his super PAC with political or persuasive intentions at all. He didnt push the limits of campaign finance in an effort to fuel activism on the issue of campaign finance reform. Rather, the whole thing came about by accident.

After having mentioned a fictional super PAC at the end of a political parody on The Colbert Report, Comedy Central expressed resistance to the idea of an actual Colbert super PAC. Are you really going to get a PAC? a network representative asked Colbert. Because if you actually get a PAC, that could be trouble. To which Colbert replied: Well, then, Im definitely doing to do it.

And so began the largely organic and experimental process of launching and raising funds for an actual super PAC and learning about the (nearly nonexistent) limits of campaign financing. As Colbert explained: [At] every stage of it, I didnt know what was going to happen next. It was just an act of discovery. It was purely improvisational. And, you know, people would say, What is your plan? My plan is to see what I can and cannot do with it.

When The Daily Show and Fox News both appeared in 1996, it would have seemed ridiculous to suggest they had much in common. But I say that they do, especially in terms of the technological, political, journalistic, and regulatory changes that gave rise to both. Ironic satire and political outrage programming look and feel different because of the unique values, needs, and aesthetic preferences of the kinds of people who create and consume each one. But the potential for these two genres to be used strategically towards partisan mobilization is absolutely not the same.

If outrage is a well-trained attack dog that operates on command, satire is a raccoon hard to domesticate and capable of turning on anyone at any time.

Does satire have a liberal bias? Sure. Satire has a liberal psychological bias. But the only person who can successfully harness the power of satire is the satirist. Not political strategists. Not a political party. Not a presidential candidate. Outrage is the tool of conservative elites. But ironic satire is the tool of the liberal satirist alone.

Continued here:
Why liberal satire and conservative outrage are both responses to mainstream media but with very different powers - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard

WASHINGTON (JTA) The young man in the smiley face baseball hat and the Teddy Spaghetti t-shirt had a question for Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump youth movement. It was about an incident that long predated both of their births, and Kirk knew just what to say.

Why do you deny the attack on the USS Liberty which is well documented by both U.S. and Israeli sources and which resulted in the deaths and injuries of over 200 Americans? the man asked Kirk at an October event at the University of New Hampshire organized by Turning Point USA.

I deny that it was a deliberate attack by the Israeli government, Kirk replied coolly.

U.S. and Israeli officials long ago concluded that the attack on the Liberty was a tragic mistake. In the midst of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel mistakenly identified the ship as Egyptian or Soviet and launched an airstrike, killing 34 crewmen. Israel apologized for the attack and paid damages to the United States and the families of the victims, but the incident has nonetheless been embraced by conspiracy theorists as a code for Israeli nefariousness.

It has also been embraced as part of a strategy by the far-right to publicly confront mainstream Republicans and insinuate their ideas into establishment conservatism. Led by Nick Fuentes, a 22-year-old YouTube personality, the so-called groyper army has regularly and publicly challenged mainstream conservatives for their views on the USS Liberty as part of a broader effort to paint them as subservient to Israel and unworthy heirs of President Donald Trumps America first agenda.

RT if you think that Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA are not for America First, Fuentes says in a tweet pinned to the top of his Twitter feed.

At events around the country, groypers have heckled mainstream conservatives and asked provocative questions often about Israel, immigration and LGBTQ rights in an effort to unmask them as fake conservatives and frauds. Named for a more grotesque version of the cartoon Pepe the Frog, which has been coopted by white nationalists, the goal appears to be to move conservatism closer to white nationalism, according to Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism.

What theyre trying to do, theres this whole grouping who refer to themselves as the dissident right, they want to move the Overton window, said Mayo, using a a term that refers to the spectrum of acceptable political discourse. They want to make racism and anti-Semitism mainstream.

Turning Point is a particularly ripe target for that effort because of its emergence as the vanguard of Trumps following among young adults. Last month, young people disrupted a Turning Point appearance by rising GOP star, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, at Arizona State University. Days later they made headlines when they drove Donald Trump Jr. off the stage at an event the group organized at UCLA.

What a HUGE victory today, Fuentes posted on Telegram, a secure messaging app favored by white nationalists, according to The Daily Beast. Cannot be understated what an incredible win we saw at UCLA.

Groypers carefully couch their views in code and irony. Provocative questions about race are often wrapped in anodyne terms like identity and demographics. And at a recent Turning Point USA event in Ohio, a questioner asked Kirk if there were any awesome, fun dance parties at a recent speaking engagement in Israel, an apparent reference to the myth that Israelis were caught on video dancing after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In an interview last year, Fuentes said he avoids the term white nationalist for purely tactical reasons.

The reason I wouldnt call myself a white nationalist its not because I dont see the necessity for white people to have a homeland and for white people to have a country, Fuentes said. Its because I think that kind of terminology is used almost exclusively by the left to defame and I think the terminology and the labels that we use I dont think that we can look at them outside of the context of their connotations in America.

The strategy appears to be bearing some fruit. In April, Ann Coulter retweeted a Fuentes tweet on immigration. Michelle Malkin, a Fox News regular, criticized efforts to silence groypers, who she described as truth-tellers.

Theyve been trying to figure out since Charlottesville what new tactics can we do to recruit more people and get the attention of the media, said Mayo. What were really seeing is that some of the views that these white supremacists present at these Q&As are views that some people who are considered mainstream have adopted.

There has been some skilled pushback from mainstream conservatives. When a heckler in Arizona shouted that Crenshaw is pro-sodomy, the congressman capably parried.

Bring it out guys, Crenshaw said. Let everybody know who you are.

Ben Shapiro, the Jewish conservative pundit, last month called out the groypers at an event of the Young American Foundation, another conservative youth movement that has denounced Fuentes. Shapiro noted that despite his best efforts, Fuentes was not always successful at maintaining an ironic distance from his bigotry.

You also happen to have the unfortunate habit of saying really disgusting things when you think other people arent listening, Shapiro said, recounting an incident in which Fuentes questioned the number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust by considering whether Cookie Monster could have baked six million cookies in five years. Shapiro then quoted a Nazi official describing how Jews were murdered.

But maybe he was just being ironic, bro, Shapiro said.

Howard Graves, a senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who tracks the extreme right, said he saw in the groypers a new iteration of the 2016 election, when Trump pushed the Republican party rightward on issues like immigration.

It is recapturing that spirit of the 2016 election where there is this kind of no-holds-barred insurgent campaign against conservatism, he said.

Originally posted here:
Meet the 'groyper army,' a movement that wants conservatives to be racist and anti-Semitic - JTA News