What happens in the midterms won’t be about Republicans or Democrats, but whether people cast a vote for the continuation of suffering, or attempt to end the anguish that banning abortion has caused.*
FOMO ON FASCISM • FOMO ON DISINFORMATION (PART DEUX!) • FOMO ON ABORTION •FOMO ON VOTING
FOMO ON FASCISM
Caption: Adolf Hitler St. ran through Camp Siegfried, 100 miles from… Manhattan. Credit: Bettmann, via Getty Images
The German American Bund might not be trending on Twitter, but the 1930’s pro-Nazi organization is very much in my search engine history.
While The Bund was formally unaffiliated with Hitler, it worked hand-in-glove with the Nazi’s to advance the aims of the America First movement; colluded with elected’s and celebrities to inculcate Nazi ideology among the citizenry; and it even ran bucolic summer camps across America, training our youth to take up arms for Adolph.
Audio: Ultra
Remember that time that the Nazi’s infiltrated Congress and attempted to spread their propaganda? I didn’t either. But just as Rachel Maddow’s team unearthed the incredible story of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s incredible corruption in Bagman, Ultra is an eerily timely tale showing how close we were to being culturally and politically captured by Third Reich surrogates on American soil. I’m up to episode five of eight, and it is hair-raising.
Read Maddow’s source material: Bradley Hart’s “Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States.”
For some context, I also benefitted greatly from this dialogue between Maddow and her MSNBC colleague Chris Hayes on his WITHPod. It’s how the sausage was made — both research and the podcast series itself.
Theatre: Camp Siegfried
This week I masked up and journeyed to the 2nd Stage Theater for a preview of Bess Wohl’s Camp Siegfried, set at a Bund summer camp out on Yaphank, Long Island in 1939. It is the story of twinned fevers — of first love and indoctrination. While it’s a two-character play (the leads are referred to as only “He” and “She” in the Playbill) there is a third presence – an offstage character who sees “She” as a physician. In response to her sharing what she’s been swept into, he offers: “Anyone can fall for anything. It’s easy to be seduced.” Here’s a history of Camp Siegfried, as well as an interview with the playwright.
I’m a language nerd. The first time I found myself comparing Trump to Hitler I DM’ed Mike Godwin for dispensation; he released me. Invoking the word “Fascism” likewise gives me pause. Now & Then’s most recent podcast episode tackles definitions and history of fascism head on. The pod is hosted by the incomparable Heather Cox Richardson and her colleague Joanne Freeman.
Caption: Tom Gregor, running unopposed for a three-year term on the Bethlehem Township school board in New Jersey.
Casual, incremental fascism is very much on my mind. We’ve just sustained an attempted assassination of the Speaker of the House, beyond the violence itself I’m most troubled by how it has been deployed as a tool to further the Republican Party’s anti-LGBTQ project. This despite that fact that this year several queer clubs (or generic venues hosting drag brunch) have been graffitied, violently protested, and even firebombed. The New York Times performed a deep dive on how the GOP went to work to “misinform” the American people. We need more of these forensic takedowns.
4,662 miles away, Putin continued his assault on Russia’s queer community. Now, any LGBTQ representation is deemed “propaganda” and made illegal. Here’s an explainer on this came to pass. Before you snark that this couldn’t possibly happen here, I give you Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. That same day as Putin acted, The Times reported that the State’s medical board had voted 6-3 to adopt a new standard of care that forbids doctors to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones, or perform surgeries, until transgender patients are 18. Watch for suicide rates among trans youth to explode.
FOMO ON DISINFO, PART DEUX
Last week, The Intercept’s Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein published an expose on the Department of Homeland Security, (DHS) claiming that its efforts to fight disinformation where essentially a ruse. That it was actually censoring information which was inconvenient to the Biden Administration and/or National Security, and coercing social media platforms including Meta and Twitter as a means to this end.
I was troubled already by the article’s second paragraph – expressing contempt for “the Disinformation Governance Board” which was shuttered before it formally launched.
While Mssrs. Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein seemed focused on whether or not DHS was doing anything untoward to coerce the free marketplace to obscure facts (heaven help us, Hunter Biden) – they seemed at best indifferent to what Homeland Security was doing to protect us from domestic disinformation. The feature sat uneasily with me, and then I saw that it was being embraced by the far Right and that Lee Fang was appearing that night on Tucker Carlson.
The next day I ran across Mike Masnick’s very close reading of the piece. His headline is unequivocal: Bullshit Reporting: The Intercept’s Story About Government Policing Disinfo Is Absolute Garbage. The founder of TechDirt (an indispensable resource) follows up on every claim and finds them all wanting. Here’s a Tweetstorm of his takedown if that’s easier to digest. Further, both the very well-respected Marcy Wheeler and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick – a staffer at the American Immigration Council, so therefore no friend to DHS (which oversees ICE) -- corroborated Masnick.
There’s potential for this Intercept piece to do real harm. That is, to reinforce the Republican Party’s meritless accusation that disinformation is not a crisis. And that what the Biden Administration is actually doing is censoring the marketplace of ideas.
I’ve been waiting for someone to do a post-mortem on DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board. If you recall, it was labelled “The Ministry of Truth” and killed before it ever met. ProPublica’s Ilya Marritz and Andrea Bernstein tackle this – and then open the aperture to look at how the Biden Administration – in their words – “… [C]aved to the Republicans on Fighting Disinformation.” I asked Ilya to comment on the Fang/Klippenstein piece, but he was too much of a gentleman to disparage the work of fellow journalists. I wish he had…
This past weekend, Dell Cameron of Gizmodo dredged up some actual malfeasance by DHS — circa Trump. Per DHS’s own internal investivative report, Trump’s Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf created dossiers or Operational Background Reports, of all Portland, Oregon residents who attended anti-racism protests in the Summer of 2020. To what end? Officials attempted to link protestors to “an imaginary terrorist plot to boost Trump’s relection odds.” Lacking any evidence, all protestors were to be labelled “violent antifa anarchists inspired” unless intel showed “something different” at a taxpayer cost of $1.5 BILLION. Unlike the Intercept report, this stuff is eye-popping. Senator Ron Wyden made this report public. Regardless of who wins the midterms, when are the hearings?
FOMO ON ABORTION
Try as they might, Republicans have been unable to shunt aside Abortion as a key issue ahead of tomorrow’s midterms. Even if that means erasing any mention of the word from campaign websites. A few weeks ago, I was struck by the image below, which shows what a pregnancy actually looks like up until ten weeks. The suite of images stands as the best evidence against any argument for “Personhood” bills which threaten to make women second-class citizens.
Do read the original Guardian feature if you missed it.
Since June, journalist *Jessica Valenti has been publishing her newsletter “Abortion, Every Day,” and tracking the suffering which is occurring to women RIGHT NOW.
On Saturday Valenti published an op-Ed/essay in the New York Times, which pulls together all that she’s learned since she launched the newsletter. Her partial headline: “… It’s Worse Than You Think.”
The women-focused The 19th – as you might expect – has led on post-Roe coverage. Here’s a link to Grace Panetta’s breakdown of Pro-Choice and Anti-Abortion campaign spending. Why am I including it at this late date? Whatever tomorrow’s outcome, the fight continues, and Pro-Abortion orgs will desperately need our held.
FOMO ON GOTV:
GET OUT THE VOTE LIKE YOUR BODILY AUTONOMY DEPENDS UPON IT
Attempts by GOP Governors at Voter Suppression have been on steriods since the 2020 election. The documentary Vigilante — featuring investigative reporter Greg Palast and directed by my dear friend, David Ambrose — looks at both the Voter Challenge efforts in Georgia (some 70,000+ voters have been challenged by hobbyists in the Peach Tree State alone) as well as Gov. Kemp’s attempt to erase a family history which includes a governor forebear who pioneered slavery in Georgia.
The documentary is FREE to stream through the 10th of November. Additionally, this past week’s episode of On The Media featured a segment on Major Gamaliel Turner (Ret.) - one of the challenged voters featured in Vigilante.
•Before heading out to the polls tomorrow, I wanted to re-up Vote Pro-Choice’s Voter Guide.
•For those of you who are passionate about Criminal Justice Reform, here’s a Voter Guide by the most excellent Scott Hechinger, the founder of ZEALO.US.
•During every election cycle I rely on Daniel Nichanian’s spreadsheet and reporting to look at the entire nation’s issues and races. For this midterm, @Taniel is tracking well over 500 measures, candidates, and electoral miscellany. I remain in awe. Here’s a Twitter thread he put together over the weekend, looking at every single state’s contests. Have a read.
Whatever the outcome, the work continues. Use this opportunity to convert any work you did during this electoral cycle to your avocation. We need everyone.
A few thoughts on Musk’s Twitter:
Currently, the cool kids are heading to Mastadon. I haven’t set up shop there, but I intend to. Aforementioned Dell Cameron wrote a primer for the platform. Take it for a spin.