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Kamala’s Campaign Blasts Off with an Explosion of Snark

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Here’s a fine example of snark:

For those who came in late, the claim — which I know I could be amplifying by repeating, but I hope that you, dear readers, what the strength of character to resist it — is that J.D. Vance, in one of the editions of his book Hillbilly Elegy, wrote that he performed an analog of sexual congress involving a couch and a latex glove. Hence the couch images above. Get it? The claim is false (WaPo; Vanity Fair; Rolling Stone). Snopes has the most tellin detail, in (sorry) “No, JD Vance Did Not Say He Had Sex with Couch Cushions“:

This rumor was false. Vance’s memoir contained no such passage, including in the first edition, as we later reported in a second article. Further, as KnowYourMeme.com reported, [the originator] @rickrudescalves — who later protected his account so only followers could see his posts — ‘signaled that he was joking when he followed up the tweet with the Go on the Internet and Tell Lies meme.

This Democrat false claim is minor league stuff, not to be compared with liberal icon Barney Frank‘s boyfriend running a brothel in the apartment they shared, or whatever has been recorded on the curiously undisclosed tapes from thoroughly bipartisan Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse and tropical island. Nevertheless, it was all over my Twitter feed for days, even though those who were one degree of separation away from @rickrudescalves’s original Tweet knew it was false. And so, for days, that was all anybody who was anybody talked about when they talked about J.D. Vance. They most certainly did not talk about the populist message — pseudo or not — of Hillbilly Elegy. That was how the Kamala campaign introduced Vance to the American public. So, all in all, their initial salvo of snark was a great success, and I expect we will see more snark in the future. In fact, after I had done the research for this post, the following appeared in HuffPo: “Kamala Harris Is Giving Us Snark — And It’s The Energy We’ve Been Waiting For” (the whole liberalgasm discourse is redolent of “energy,” “waiting,” and of course “we”):

But on Thursday morning, when Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign sent reporters an email with the subject line: “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance,” it was such a contrast from the usual stream of dry and generic emails that inundate our inboxes that it didn’t even seem real at first.

“After watching Fox News this morning we only have one question, is Donald Trump ok?” the press release began, before laying out a bulleted list of “takeaways” from the former president’s appearance Thursday on his favorite program “Fox & Friends,” where he often goes on rants and makes baseless claims.

Among the Harris campaign’s list of bullet points: “Trump is old and quite weird?” Naturally, that line quickly got the internet’s attention.

Seems like the Clinton 2.0 campaign is taking the “deplorables” tack again, except with a more youthful vibe. Something to look forward to!

There’s been a good deal of work done on snark, some of it scholarly, but as a former dedicated and long-time practitioner, I will feel free to make assertions, rather than document everything (or rather, my assertions are the documentation). In this post, I will first give define the characteristics of snark, then give a cursory history (including my own practice). I will then provide an exhibit of a Democrat’s rapturous embrace of the practice, along with a few remarks about the implications of their jouissance (which is not too strong a word.

* * *

I define the haracteristics of snark as follows, my scope being limited to extremely online electoral politics (a field in which, I might add, I have been blogging more or less daily for twenty-odd years). Snark is:

1) Reactive. From George Tsiveriotis’s Masters thesis at MIT (2017): “Blogging lends itself to snark first because it is reactive. Many bloggers [not NC!] really don’t write much at all. They are more like impresarios, curators, or editors, picking and choosing things they find on line, occasionally slapping on a funny headline or adding a snarky (read: snotty and catty) comment…. Some days, the only original writing you se on a blog is the equivalent of “Read this…. Take a look…. But, seriously this is lame…. Can you believe this?” As with blogging, so with Twitter. @EBHeater (quoted above) was reacting to @rickrudescalves’s original Tweet. @rickrudescalves was reacting to Vance’s nomination (and his book).

2) Gleefully mocking. An anthropologist, says Tsiveriotis, would consider snark a “degradation ceremony.” He writes: “[Snark is] our first tactic for desensitizing ourselves, for making it clear that the person we’re attacking isn’t human–and that since it began as a joke, we can’t be held accountable for where others take the conversation

3) Knowing. You’ve got to be in on the joke (for example, couch images in @EBHeater’s tweet). From David Denby’s Snark (2009): “This is an essay about a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation—a tone of snarking insult provoked and encouraged by the new hybrid of print, television, radio and the Internet.”

4) Virulent. Well-designed and -executed snark spreads virulently, like gossip, or an earworm (or a meme), as did the Vance/Couch conjuncture. As with blogging, and the Twitter, so with TikTok. (We’ll see how “old and quite weird” does. I’m starting to see “weird” a lot already.)

5) A form of character assassination As of, for example, J.D. Vance.

6) A team sport. Many, many accounts besides @EBHeater followed @rickrudescalves, some (no doubt) from campaign assets, others artisanal. In all cases, however, the accounts amplifying and refining the snark are engaged in a collective (“strength of weak ties“) effort. They are “friends” (and not enemies).

* * *

Search being what it is, I can’t produce anything like a timeline for the term “snark.” Certainly publications like New York Spy (1986 to 1998) paved the way for the form, if not the term: What, after all, is “short-fingered vulgarian” — coined at that venue[1] — but reactive, gleefully mocking, knowing, virulent, and a form of character assassination (however justified)? The only characteristic missing is “a team sport,” not easy in print. The first usage example I can find is from 2003, by New York Times writer Laura Miller, who applied it to book reviews: “I learned that you had to be careful in assigning books by young, celebrated authors to young, uncelebrated reviewers; the results were likely to be either starry-eyed hero-worship or (in the case of the more talented writers) a snide fury out of all due proportion to the subject at hand: snarkiness.” By that time, the liberal Democrat blogosphere was well underway, with Philadelphia, where I then, happily albeit unemployedly, then lived, as its epicenter; Atrios (my blogfather) is quoted at then-important political blog site Daily Kos as having hit a “New Snarkitude High” in 2005.

My own personal best in snarkitude took place in 2004, after Bush the Younger’s re-election. Flushed with victory, Republican talking heads simulatanously began chattering about a “Bush mandate” (“I have political capital. I intend to spend it“). In reaction, I “Google-bombed” “Bush mandate,” so that a search for that term led to the website for Mandate magazine, which featured, as I recall, the image of a fetching young gentleman in a sailor’s cap on the cover. This exploit, sadly, illustrates another characteristic of snark:

7) Lack of principles. After all, it’s not wrong to be gay, any more than it’s wrong to wear a sailor’s cap. The New York Times shows exactly the same characteristic here:

(This was too much even more Mother Jones: “There Are Better Ways to Mock Trump Than Joking That He’s Putin’s Gay Lover“).

However, snark’s unprincipled nature wasn’t the reason I gave it up (even if snark greatly influenced my style, my tone and locution). I didn’t like what it did to me personally: Always being galvanized into displays of mocking wit by events, instead of taking the time to being analytical; always outraged, and generating outrage; basically stabby. Further, the blogosphere had by then bifurcated into the Exra Kleins and Matt Yglesias’s of this world and us small fry; it was time to refocus. It was fun while it lasted, until it was not fun. No doubt the young people now discovering snark will go through a similar cycle, grid willing.[2]

* * *

I was moved to write about snark because of this thread from David Roberts (@drvolts; 221.3K Follower), late of Vox, who now has a Substack devoted to “energy and politics.” I’ll quote several Tweets from his account, where he’s reacting to @rickrudescalves:

Should be an exciting 100 days (I sympathize with the dislike of “civility”; back in the day, the late David Broder [genuflects] called us “vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers of the left [sic]” because we shared that dislike. Politically, it was utterly ineffective, except possibly at building an in-group). The assumption that Kamala is not “self-consciously morally superior” is interesting. More:

#2, Gleefully mocking: “kicking sand” is a degradation ceremony.

Let me now add:

8) Bullshit. “Not about exchanging semantic information” — as in, for example, that the couch claim is false — means, precisely, that snark is bullshit in Harry Frankfurt’s sense (“strategic indifference to the veracity of one’s assertion“).

More:

A liberalgasm. More:

“Bullshit” = “muscle” is a weird flex, but OK. More:

Well, at least we’ve only got “blood” and not soil. First, this is exactly same logic that led to the madness of RussiaGate. Second, it’s the same logic that will lead to Democrats denying Trump office, in the case of victory, by any means necessary (including, as we see, outright lying as a basic tactic[3], but going on from there). Third and finally, if liberal Democrats really want to play “dominance politics”, I think FAFO is in order as a reminder. And finally:

Well, I’m happy to see the “our democracy” put to bed because it was obvious nonsense. But if Clinton 2.0 thinks that running against “creepy, weird fuckers” (unlike, say, the totally not creepy convicted felon Anthony Weiner, whose Clintonian staffer, Huma Abedin, is now engaged to the totally not weird Alex Soros) instead of against “deplorables,” good luck to them.

If this is the reaction of a level-headed energy geek like Roberts, Lord only knows how more volatile liberal Democrats are reacting.

* * *

There remains the question of whether snark is effective (unaddressed and assumed by Roberts, presumably too enthralled by his calls for blood).

Twenty years ago, I don’t think snark was effective; Democrats took back the House in 2006 not because bloggers were foul-mouthed and snarky, but on two policy issues: The Katrina debacle, and Social Security, which Bush had threatened to spend some of his political capital cutting. (I believe that insiders familiar with that effort will argue that Pelosi was swayed by various online presences not to compromise with Bush, but I am very dubious that snarkitude had anything to do with it.) These were, in any case, policy issues. God knows we snarked on Bush for his stupidity, his religion, his towel-snapping, his Bushisms, for being a dry drunk, for his frat boy person, and on “Mission Accomplished,” and on and on and on, but none of it took. Policy did.

It may be that today, things are different. The Internet (social media, search) scales out to millions instantly in a way that the blogosphere did not. Arguably, Fetterman’s god-tier social media team kept his campaign alive and brought him to victory despite the stroke that disabled him (and I would be very interested to see if any of them are working for Kamala; something to research). For example:

TV: There were so many headline-worthy social media moments in the campaign. What was your favorite?

[Sophie Ota]: One of them has to be the crudité moment.[4] It really utilized every single part of my team. We got out a video and photos and I literally had my staffer run and get a veggie platter on her way to film time. And that photo was our most engaged-with post. We raised half a million dollars within 24 hours just off a sticker someone on my team designed. Then we were able to use that moment to get more people to volunteer with us and sign up for our relational organizing training and canvass-your-friends-on-social-media training. It went viral on Twitter, but it was also a big moment for every corner.

Of course, the the crudité moment was true; but as we have seen with the couch example, the truth is no longer needed.

If were a Republican, and still in the snark business, felt that the fate of the nation was at stake, and was convinced like Roberts that “dominance politics” is the order of the day, well… Two can play the game[5]. The phrase “la grande horizontale” comes to mind (along with “plausible deniability”). Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those two things. The next hundred days should be a wonderfully clarifying spectacle for voters and non-voters alike.

NOTES

[1] Fittingly, the phrase appears in a parody advertisement:

[2] Time presses, so I pass over the 2005 example of “Box Turtle Ben” (still virulent after nineteen years!), and sightings from 2020, and 2024 (very much everything old is new again).

[3] As, for example, Kamala did, along with every other Democrat who said that Biden was “sharp as a rack” (sorry, “tack.” MR SUBLIMINAL See how easy?)

[4] The moment, from Teen Vogue:

In a video originally posted in the spring, the heart surgeon, who was propelled to fame by Oprah Winfrey, walks through a grocery store. Things are rocky from the start: In the first five seconds of the video, he calls the store “Wegner’s,” and it turns out he was actually shopping at a store called Redner’s. “My wife wants some vegetables for crudités,” Oz says before picking up broccoli, asparagus, and carrots in turn and stating their prices. He goes on to include guacamole and salsa, commenting that it would cost “$20 for crudités, and this doesn’t include the tequila. I mean, that’s outrageous. And we got Joe Biden to thank for this.”

A 22-year-old Twitter user who goes by the handle @umichvoter and asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy (and now has a Twitter following of over 27,000), shared the video with a simple message: “Who thought this was a good idea.” The tweet quickly went viral, with Fetterman sharing the original video from April with the message: “In PA, we call this a veggie tray.”

Notice that ‘Who thought this was a good idea” is almost identical to George Tsiveriotis’s example: “Can you believe this?”

[5] From a master of the art:

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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112 comments

  1. sporble

    Am currently reading, got to what I expected to be footnote #1 and scrolled down and… no footnotes to be found. Maybe the internet ate them? In any case, so far, so good, even without the footnotes…

      1. Vandemonian

        You’re too modest, Lambert. The footnotes are always the best part. I’m all in for afterthoughts!

      3. JustAnotherVolunteer

        “Sometimes the snake’s-hands in a story are the best part, if the story is a long one.”

        ― John Crowley, Engine Summer

  2. steppenwolf fetchit

    When I compare the Democrats’ snark to Mr. Trump’s concentrated raw radioactive sewage, I dislike Mr. Trump’s raw radioactive sewage more.

    One hopes the Democrats will find something better to do than run against “deplorables”. But ” deplorables” is a ClintoMeme, just as ” bitter clingers” is an ObamaMeme. Perhaps the Democrats should put a poster of the Clintons and the Obamas on their wall and listen a few thousand times to the country song ” I got along fine before I met you, I’ll get along fine when you’re gone.”
    ( This is the closest web referrence I can find to something like it . . .
    https://archive.org/details/78_i-got-along-before-i-met-you-and-ill-get-along-after-youre-gone-he-sabido-sali_gbia0168190a )

    There’s a few things Democrats could run on, including listing some of the ugliest agenda items from the Project 2025 family of documents and saying ” Elect us and we won’t do that”.

    Lambert Strether hasn’t mentioned the Ratchet and the Pawl for at least several years now, but for those who consider another turn of the Ratchet to be a Turn Too Far, perhaps 4 More Years of the Pawl You Know might be enough to get their vote.

    1. Screwball

      There’s a few things Democrats could run on, including listing some of the ugliest agenda items from the Project 2025 family of documents and saying ” Elect us and we won’t do that”.

      Yes, because they can’t run on their record. 7.5 billion to build 8 charging stations. 42 billion on unspent high speed internet funds while not renewing the Affordable Connectivity Act giving seniors a 30 dollar a month discount. Not passing a Roe v Wade bill while having all of congress. No medicare for all in the middle of a pandemic, while mandating experimental shots that do little. Not forgetting the Ukraine debacle, and of course the funding of genocide in Gaza, and the sabre rattling against the rest of who knows who. And Joe Biden still owes me $600.

      But we’re not Trump is all they have, and how do I know they won’t do that? I don’t believe anything that comes out of their mouth (how long did they hide slow Joe).

      Yea, we need more promises from these grifters. FJB, KH, the horse they rode in on and the men that sent them.

      FCC commissioner hits Biden admin for $42 billion in unspent high speed internet funds

      $7.5 Billion in Federal Funds Yield Only 8 EV Charging Stations

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      This comment refers to The Ratchet Effect, a brilliant post from the old-school blog “Stop Me Before I Vote Again,” from 2005.

      I am not sure we are looking at a linear process (going round the ratchet) any more. As I have argued, both parties are gorging themselves at the fascist smorgasbord. For example, I don’t like Trump’s immigration proposals very much. OTOH, Democrat failed hope Gavin Newsom is actually throwing the homeless out of their encampments right now, and there are a lot of homeless people in California. I don’t like Trump’s vaccination policies for schools (as I have heard them restated) very much. But Biden is already responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people through his policy of mass infection without mitigation. Further, members of both parties were pulling on the ratchet at all phases of the ratchet’s movement; it’s not a simple binary.

      Obviously, it’s always possible to make things worse. I’m not an accelerationist; I don’t want things to be worse (“And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.'”). But it’s not at all clear to me which candidate is worse. For example, in 2016, we put off the Blob’s war in Ukraine by four years, and got project OWS.

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        The question is . . . is one sides “worse” better or worse than the other side’s “worse”? Or are the two different “worses” merely different? If neither “worse” is actually worse than the other “worse”, then all kinds of choices become possible for all kinds of reasons.

        But if one worse is actually worse than the other worse, and if the worse worse is actually so much worse as to be potentially non-survivable, then the less-worse worse is the one to vote for.
        For decellerationist survivalist-possibility-enhancing reasons.

        I have decided that I am a decelerationist. Or would like to be, if there is a way to be.

        It has also been suggested that the only way out is through. But if one takes one way through as against another way through, one ends up at either one otherside or another otherside. And if one otherside is worse than another otherside, do we want to take the least-worse way through so as to get to the least worse otherside? In this stupidest of all timelines?

        1. Screwball

          Thank you for this – I love it.

          This is where we are. We cannot vote our way out of this so we choose the method of crashing that seems the least painful. Ain’t it great?

          From the White House to my local courthouse (Cornhole, Ohio) the cockroaches come in herds. I always default to a simple plan; if you are in, you are out. Too bad we can’t flush fast enough.

          Be safe all

        2. Samuel Conner

          “stupidest of timelines” is a synchronous comparison among alternatives at the present moment.

          Thinking diachronically, there is no reason this stupidest of timelines can’t and won’t become a whole lot stupider than it currently is.

          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            Morer and morer stupidester all the time.

            Bad, badder, baddest.
            Worse, worser, worsest
            Worst, worster, worstest.

            And then worsterest after that.

            Perhaps we are entering the Political Singularity.

    3. Benny Profane

      “There’s a few things Democrats could run on, including listing some of the ugliest agenda items from the Project 2025 family of documents and saying ” Elect us and we won’t do that”.”

      Yes they will. Haven’t you been paying attention? It’s worse. We destroyed a European country with another forever war. Really destroyed it. When they finally throw 18 year olds into battle, there will be nobody left. Then we’ve been funding and arming an ethnic cleansing genocide in the Middle East with a literal bear hug. You think this stupid Project 2025, which has been in the heads of libertarians since Ronnie, is worse than that? Then we’ve watched our hallowed “democracy” made a mockery of with the coronation of a candidate who is actually much less popular than Hillary, with zero voter input, and our entire bought and paid for press is acting like the mean cool kids at lunch, mocking anybody who isn’t a cool kid while they cheer on the doofy girl for student council president. All this after they REALLY TRIED TO KILL TRUMP. With a bullet to the head, not shrapnel.
      Dude, all this is what you have to fear. Not Steve Bannon’s blog.

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        Are you inviting me to believe that it is the Democrats who tried to kill Trump? Can you offer me any reason to consider believing it?

        Project 2025 is a real thing just like global warming is a real thing. Project 2025 denial is as fantasy based as global warming denial.

        Now . . . which side ( if either side) offers more of those real things? That’s for individual citizen-voters to decide as best they can.

        1. Benny Profane

          “Are you inviting me to believe that it is the Democrats who tried to kill Trump? Can you offer me any reason to consider believing it?”

          Ok, I’ll start here:

          “The director [of the SS] is appointed by, and serves at the pleasure of, the president of the United States, and is not subject to Senate confirmation.[5] The director reports to the secretary of homeland security, and operates with the general directions thereof.”.

          Got that? Biden is/was the boss of the thugs who protected Trump. The same Trump and organization that was complaining about inadequate protection prior to the shooting. The same Biden, btw, who refused SS protection of any kind to RFK Jr., which is absurd, and particularly evil, considering, as my doctor always says, family history. Then there’s the whole new crew that was assigned in Butler, and didn’t even arrive on site until a few days before, not a week to look around and establish protocol, as was custom. The new team leader had zilch for experience. Then there’s the obvious ignore of an awesome spot to snipe at Trump, with locals literally pointing at the young man, shouting, hey, he’s got a gun! For, what, minutes? But they still allowed Trump on stage and to stay there. But the real kicker is Wray’s testimony in front of Congress implying it wasn’t really, you know, a bullet, per se, maybe, like, it was a piece of metal or sumthin’? I mean, wtf, this is the organization assigned to investigate this crime?? The same organization, that, like the SS, reports, ultimately, to Biden. The same organization that hid Hunter’s laptop from the public and allowed that subject to be called a whack job conspiracy by a lot of Very Important People.
          I’m not saying a Democrat pulled the trigger, I’m saying a Democrat created an atmosphere for it to be real easy for some kid to pull the trigger. And then they pulled the trigger and killed the kid, so he’s dead, and we’ll never hear his side. Like Oswald getting it in the stomach from cancer ridden Ruby. Never hear from them, either. But we got the Magic Bullet Theory.

          Project 2025 isn’t “real”. It’s a bunch of blowhards blogging and vlogging. It’s just another in what now is a long line of scare tactics that our beloved “democracy” will vanish with Trump II, when, at the same time, our “democracy” has been proven a total farce in the past few weeks, if you hadn’t noticed by then. It’s not Steve Bannon you have to worry about. He has no power. It’s Reed Hastings and his ilk. They have the power.

          1. gestophiles

            Trump had two bloody streaks across his face. Someone explain
            to me how one whole bullet can be two places at the same time.

              1. ambrit

                Yes, a perverse form of cherrypicking that.
                If Sr. gastophiles cannot grasp the concept of blood running down the face from the injured ear, then I have a “Magic Bullet” to sell him.
                [Would the old stand-bye “Magic Bullet” story qualify as snark?] {Asking for a fiend.}

              2. ambrit

                (Second attempt.)
                Don’t bang too hard now. If the above cannot get his head around the concept of blood flowing down a face from an injured ear, then I have a “Magic Bullet” to sell him.
                [Does the “Magic Bullet” meme qualify as snark? {Asking for a fiend.}]

            2. IM Doc

              Kind Sir,

              I would really encourage you to spend one shift in an inner city hospital on a Saturday night. You will see blood spatter and patterns in all kinds of shapes, directions, sizes, etc.

              I know you have been watching CSI and are an expert in blood spatter, but trust me, reality is much much different.

              I would encourage you to share the above with all your fellow travelers in the fever swamp that used to be known as daily kos.

            3. Samuel Conner

              Perhaps this is from blood on the fingers of the right hand from touching the ear (perhaps a reflex, or out of curiosity to assess the damage), leaving traces as the hand is lowered after touching the injured ear.

              There is no hint of contusions or scratches elsewhere on DJT’s face in public appearances after the attack, so these streaks are probably not from bleeding at the location of the streaks.

        2. lambert strether

          You’re saying that a Heritage Foundation document full of policy proposals is in the same category as sea-level rise or 1.5° C? That seems wrong.

          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            Since some of those policy proposals are designed to ” unleash” the coal, gas and oil industries, they will increase the rate of America’s carbon skyflooding. Enough to bring about sea-level rise even faster or bring us to 1.5° C sooner?

            We could ” fool around and find out” as the kids like to say.

            Maybe, of course, runaway global warming is already so baked into the Timeline Cake that some even-more carbon skyflooding won’t speed it up any more anyway.

            Or maybe not. Yet.

            1. Darvon

              How much has sea level risen in the last year, decade, century?

              The National Coast and Geodetic Survey, an official U.S. Government agency, says 8″ since 1880.Those pesky tide gauges show increase dropping.

              Climate hysterisis taxes keep going up at a faster rate.
              Port of Oakland has had no sea level rise problems in last forty plus years, other than landfill slumping, which is the only problem encountered in the Bay Area.

              If these clowns can’t stop Covid, how do they stop projected sea level changes with more taxes?

              https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-level

        3. Martin Oline

          Well, shucks now, don’t get yer panties all bunched up there. Just wait a while and when the Kamalot administration gets in they will enact that there 2025 program for you, just like Obama Care was originally a Heritage Foundation wet dream. All they will have to do is rename it and you will love it I’m sure. Mmmm, that dog food is nutritious and tasty too. /Snark off

      2. Dwight

        The Ukraine war resulted from policies under Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. Trump escalated when he could have de-escalated (in theory anyway). The Gaza genocide is the result of consistent policy over an even longer period, and here too Trump escalated. Biden is doing evil but Trump was not and will not be better. Not arguing for either non-choice, but on domestic issues I think Democrats are marginally better.

        1. WG

          The point is Ukraine and Gaza turned disasterous under Biden who can’t deescalate anything. If the argument in this thread is deaccelaration, to slow the path to worse outcomes, he is a loser in this regard.

    4. chris

      Have you read the Project 2025 document? I know it’s like 900+ pages, but have you at least skimmed it? Because I did read it and the problematic aspect of it for the Democrats is not what’s in it. It’s that they have nothing to offer in response.

      There’s actually a lot in the 2025 plan that’s good. As an example, the idea for 160 hours in a month used for calculating benefits. Or combining the OCC and the FDIC. Or supporting everyone having paid time off. I have yet to see a meme shared which describes some predicted horror that actually is based on truth, or couldn’t be applied to create a better outcome than the sclerotic excuse for a government we have now.

      Now, will those ideas be executed that way? I have no idea. You could certainly use the current document as a blueprint to strangle bureaucracy and make it so that nothing works. But given what has happened over the last few years, do you understand how many people in the US would be OK with that? Do you also understand that just like Trump is the symptom, not the disease, a second Trump administration isn’t driving Project 2025. The people behind Project 2025 are using a second Trump administration as the vector to apply those changes to our government.

      The Democrats have nothing to run on. Biden’s final thrashing about never amounted to a serious proposal for anything. Limiting rental increases to 5% or else corporate landlords can’t claim a depreciation tax credit? As if that will do anything given the current high rents being charged. As if various corporate owners won’t find other ways to recover those loses, and that’s if they’re in a position where they even need that depreciation benefit.

      The Democrats are running on two things right now:

      1.) We’re still not Trump.
      2.) Women should have abortions.

      That’s it. They can’t tell you why they should care that they’re not Trump. They’re not interested in helping people in red states have access to abortions or gynecological care. They don’t even want to define who needs gynecological care. They certainly don’t want to make that care affordable for women, or, even worse, FREE.

      I’m perfectly willing to consider new proposals from the Democrats. But I’m not going to accept them as a net positive unless they stop pushing war as a solution for peace. Censorship as a way to protect the truth. And tyranny as a way to protect democracy.

      1. Dr. John Carpenter

        Well put. This is exactly the issue. It’s meaningless to run around hair on fire about Project 2025 or whatever boogeyman du jour when they are offering no alternative. I haven’t even heard them say they won’t do the same things. Just here’s what these hard right wing people want to Trump to do, with the implication he’s going to do it, and that we should fear that. As best I can tell, this is fairly standard standard right wing election year wish list and the Dems have done nothing to prove to me they won’t do the same things. Fundraising off it doesn’t count.

        (Also it undermines the idea that Trump is this lazy, incompetent buffoon if we are to also to believe he’s going to intact this massive, diabolical structural change to “our democracy ™” but that’s another issue and one that has never troubled the Dems much.)

  3. JBird4049

    Let us distract you from the wars, genocides, omnipresent corruption, and ongoing ecological collapse, plus the increasing American poverty, homelessness, and hunger, not with epic attempts at dealing with it, but with snark.

    Nice post, but honestly, I just do not care about this partisan snarking and if they were unemployed, impeached, or in the docks at The Hague and I never heard nor saw them again in my lifetime, that would be fine.

    I just want them to all go far, far away.

    Actually, m

        1. JBird4049

          Hey, listen to the rantings and ravings, it’s important; why yes, it is very important, which I do not deny, but it is still physically painful to see or hear. Of course, that is why they are reducing politics to such dementedness as it stops debate and destroys peaceful conversation.

          1. Ben Joseph

            I’m with you, JBird. The whole reason it’s snark not policy is because there is no difference in the policy- financialization of the war machine. You could get the Buddha elected and it wouldn’t change (he’d follow the script or get shot).

  4. Vandemonian

    So I assume that when the inter tubes start to fill up with snark about some Indian-Jamaican lass who slept her way to the top (but didn’t know what to do when she got there) @rickrudescalves, @drvolts and co. will be totally fine with that…

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > who slept her way to the top

      I don’t think that’s true, although I think she slept her way into two positions on boards for the State of California that were in Willie Brown’s gift. That’s corrupt, like much of Democrat-dominated California (see under CalPERS), but not “the top.” So don’t advocate for that view here.

      But if I were running The Snark Tank for the Republicans, that’s precisely the framing I’d use, and I’d start asking Willie Brown if he has tapes. If this is so obvious a humble blogger can see it, what is Susie Wiles waiting for? It will drive the Hillbots nuts, but they’re a lost cause anyhow, and not every suburban woman is a Hillbot; some of them are also, surely, believers in meritocracy.

      1. Vandemonian

        I’m not advocating for that view at all, Lambert, sorry if I gave that impression. I don’t go in for scuttlebutt and innuendo much myself. I was just musing about the sorts of things that snark from the other side might start to focus on.

        (The two paragraphs in your comments seemed to appear in two stages. I responded to the first without seeing the second).

      2. wendigo

        Wouldn’t focussing on the Willie Brown sex open up focussing on the Karen McDougall sex or the Stormy Daniels sex again?

        Not a good look for either.

        1. Acacia

          Ah, but Stormy Daniels is not a politician who then arranged a high-paying public job for DJT.

          Important difference there.

        2. ambrit

          That would open up the way for Hillary to declare herself “Defender of Democracy” and suspend the Constitution for “the duration of the emergency.”

        4. wendigo

          You have two candidates with moral issues, but hey, if pointing out an issue where the result will be, I was bad but she was worse is good strategy, then so be it.

      3. Amfortas the Hippie

        “…. I’d start asking Willie Brown if he has tapes…”

        turkeys and i had a good loud laugh over that…which of course sent the 2 guinneas into a yelling tizzy.
        when ya think it cannot get any weirder…or stupider…it does.

        and want there a dem candidate or state congressperson here not too long ago who tried to own having an onlyfans page?
        and the dems tossed her under the train?(too much on the side of the people?)
        ( #metoo,lol)

        and wasnt boebert somehow implicated in being skanky on video, too…presumably with a six-iron on her hip?
        didnt seem to stick to her, tho….nor to sinema, for that matter…

        enforcement of the moral turpitude clause is always selective, it seems.

  5. chuck roast

    Geez…Lambert…I am so out of touch. Here I am sitting on my (ahem) couch with a well-fed cat in my lap, and you are delivering all this massive, normie, angst-in-my-pants, high-anxiety. What’s a geezer to do? Here is the original Snark. Apparently that didn’t work too well. I can only hope (thank you Pandora) that all of the thoughtful commentary in the next few months leading up to the validation of the usual a$$holes on Z/twit-face doesn’t doesn’t send you to the loony bin. You have the constitution of Joshua Slocum.

    BTW…is Taylor Swift any good?

    1. lambert strether

      Off topic, but I have heard from a member of my generation–who may choose to amplify their remarks–that Swift’s music is utterly forgettable. Perhaps that’s the appeal.

      1. Scajaquada

        It is, but the man has some redeeming lyrics . . .

        I would be complex
        I would be cool
        They’d say I played the field before I found someone to commit to
        And that would be ok
        For me to do
        Every conquest I had made would make me more of a boss to you

        I’d be a fearless leader
        I’d be an alpha type
        When everyone believes ya
        What’s that like?

        I’m so sick of running as fast as I can
        Wondering if I’d get there quicker
        If I was a man
        And I’m so sick of them coming at me again
        ‘Cause if I was a man
        Then I’d be the man

        They’d say I hustled
        Put in the work
        They wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve
        What I was wearing
        If I was rude
        Could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves?

        And they would toast to me, oh
        Let the players play
        I’d be just like Leo
        In Saint-Tropez
        I’d be the man

        What’s it like to brag about
        Raking in dollars
        And getting bitches and models
        And it’s all good if you’re bad
        And it’s okay if you’re mad
        If I was out flashing my dollars
        I’d be a bitch, not a baller

        They paint me out to be bad
        So it’s okay that I’m mad
        I’m so sick of running as fast as I can
        Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man

        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          yeah…thats pretty good.
          when i went and looked around to see what all the taylorgasm was about, i found her music…yes…unremarkable….but some of the lyrics were, if not really really good, at least not terrible.
          i have no idea if she writes her own stuff or farms it out(thats why i like Gaga)…but she’s welcome to be yard art/bartender at the Wilderness Bar any ol time…so long as she doesnt sing.

  6. jsn

    “Saving actual lives, preventing actual suffering, is more morally significant than discourse that flatters your identity.”

    Totally, like, yeah, this is so what Gaza & Ukraine are all about, saving lives and preventing suffering, yep.

    Zero self awareness.

  7. Socal Rhino

    Ms. Harris’s messaging so far reminds me of commercial TV ads calling a new entry the most popular new show of the year!, days before new programming begins to roll out. The anti-Vance snarky stuff I suspect will be liked by the kind of people who like that sort of thing, presumably laughing over brunch in Brooklyn. Just me, but snark that paints him as a loser is less effective than would be painting him as a Yale educated hedge fund running phony who profits when your family farm is sold to private equity. Call him a young Mitt Romney with a beard, or something.

    On substance, Vance is starting to draw a distinction with Harris on immigration policy, and he’s linking her policy with Elizabeth Warren, another person who probably is more highly regarded by PMC people on the coasts than working people in the rust belt.

  9. cgregory

    When did the Trumpies ever win on policy? They have always won by appealing to the limbic system. When Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high,” it’s quite likely that she was referring to snark’s position relative to Trumpian libidinal assaults.

    1. lambert strether

      Trump’s 2016 position on trade was certainly policy. What’s more, he delivered on it immediately, by pulling us out of the odious, sovereignty-destroying, and never revivified TPP.

      2. Anon

        Also the Paris Agreement, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, and the INF Treaty… but we got the Abraham Accords, yay.

        1. hk

          TBH, just from cynical strategic perspective, Abraham Accords coupled with pulling out of the Iran Nuclear deal was ingenius. Despite all the public posturing, the Gulfies were always in cahoots with israel, at least since 80s if not earlier, as they hated the uppity peasants and revolutionists in other Arab lands (and their own) wanted stability and security for themselves more than anyone (the war against Yemen being the ultimate expression of their thinking). Abraham Accords would have formalized that informal cooperation with the US underwriting the whole thing. In a way, Biden really lacked the diabolical drive to solidify the realignment in the Middle East. The Biden failure to follow up on Trump-Kushner enterprise was coupled by the China-brokered peace deal between Saudis and iran and the Yemen ceasefire, and ultimately, Hamas seized the initiative in October, last year.

          I suppose a really clever (and diabolical) leadership in Israel and US would first have tried to salvage the deal with the Saudis, even if they might have looked weak initially (actually, that is basically what the Russians did, isn’t it? Not getting carried away and subordinate military actions to the larger polirical goals?). But no one really thought about that Saudi-Israel deal any more, except, I guess, Biden and Blinken blithely talking as if it was still on, unaware, apparently, of how the world had changed dramatically.

          One thing that I am hoping on is that Trump, at least, has a good sense of how the world is changing and what it is that people are looking for given the prevailing conditions. I’m not so sure about his ability to deliver on much, though. I do hink it beats blind loons who are too clever by half.

      3. steppenwolf fetchit

        True, and in his favor.

        Then he turned around and took America out of JCPOA with Iran. And moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

    2. Socal Rhino

      I still find it interesting that people still believe that the 50% (roughly) of people who vote for a different candidate are either dangerous Marxists or violent fascists. I mean, millions and millions of people, really?

      I kept my existing alias, but a few years back I registered as “no party preference.” I welcome candidates from any and all parties to earn my vote. Not that it makes any real difference since a ham sandwich on the democratic party line will win California’s electoral votes. But my congressional district could go either way.

  10. Jessica

    The version of the well-known LBJ tale I read is that _he_ denied the story about his opponent being a pig-f*cker. Denied it loudly and widely. Deliberate Barbara Streisand effect. (Though not known by that label back then.)
    About snark, no one ever won the World Series in July. Or a presidential election either.

    1. Cat Burglar

      Most versions of the LBJ story — unlike the tweeted version — end with him saying he knew it wasn’t true, but he just wanted to hear his opponent deny it. Exactly why the couch story was put out.

      1. hk

        A perfect reply, if Vance deigns to give one, might be:. I guess Kamala is still beating her wife.

      2. 123

        Had another late night visit from the Ghost of LBJ, and he told me, Just say Vance f***s couches, and I said, That’s too crazy to even deny, and the Ghost answered, Then let him not deny it.

    2. Useless Eater

      But with early voting being what it is nowadays, you might be able to win it in September

      1. John

        Is there actually a reason for early voting? Supposed party advantage? Steal a march on the “October surprise”? It has little to do with encouraging turnout since each party foes its level best to make voting easy for “us” but ot for “them.” Instead of early voting why not multiply the number of polling places to accommodate distance in rural areas and population density in the cities. Nationalize the election in presidential years with uniform standards for candidate access and for voter access. It could be done were there the will to do it. It won’t be done because “they” might benefit.

  12. petal

    PMC friends on fb are posting memes saying don’t talk about her a certain way because daughters, nieces, other young impressionable female relatives are listening. Then more people commented with more memes about dog ladies for Harris, etc. They are putting this IdPol bubble around her already, trying to make her protected from literally any kind of criticism. I commented that I hope they do some actual research about her, because she’s a horrible, evil person with an awful track record-and that both candidates can be lousy. Will probably lose old friends over that, but at this point I don’t care. They’re completely out of touch and going down the deplorable route all over again. They are relishing it. Liberalgasm to the max-something they’ve been waiting for. It’s been fermenting. All that matters to them is that she is mixed race and has lady parts-and the other candidate(s) isn’t /doesn’t. Those are the most important things. They are lashing out all over again and it’s ugly.

  13. Tom Stone

    DJT is a fraud, a conman, a narcissist and a bloviating asshole.

    Having watched him for 9 years and having watched Harris for decades I’ll take Trump over Harris without hesitation.
    Harris will do whatever it takes to gain the Presidency and she will do whatever it takes to keep and increase that power if she does become President.
    No limits, no boundaries.
    Whatever it takes.

  14. Martin Oline

    One thing we have to remember here is that while Trump is the nominee, Kamala is not. That is for the future to decide as she may yet flame out on live TV. As the untouchable one says “Today is today, and yesterday was today yesterday. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. So live today, as the future today will be as the past today, as it is tomorrow.” Amen.

        1. ambrit

          I fear an attack of the vapours coming on! Where is the feinting couch? {Perfect for cases of ‘Coitus Politicus.’}

  17. willow

    Snark sums up the echo-chamber like dynamics of Democrat behaviour and within lies mortal danger – if they can’t get beyond in-jokes and in-group/out-group condescension, Democrats aren’t going to be able to draw in the Independents to beat Trump.

    1. petal

      I had been on the fence about voting, and had recently decided not to. The big re-emergence of the condescension has pushed me back into voting.

  18. Carolinian

    Not sure if this is an acceptable link but the summary of Hersh’s post seems worth some attention.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/07/28/it-all-tracks-hersch-reports-barack-obama-threatened-biden-with-25th-amendment-removal

    The gist is that the 25th amendment threat came from Obama, not Pelosi, and that Obama already had Kamala’s agreement to invoke it. If so that makes her–despite all the talk of “good ole Joe”–the linchpin of an effort to remove an unwilling Biden. By this version Obama wanted a delay in the selection of a replacement but Biden may in turn have made his own deal with Harris which included an immediate endorsement (which came about an hour after his original tweet) that would at least thwart some of Obama’s scheming.

    As with all Hersh FWIW. The other CT stuff at the end of the article can be ignored. Perhaps a Hersh subscriber can confirm this is really what his latest post said.

  19. Acacia

    Thanks, Lambert, for digging into this.

    I wonder how different snark is from sarcasm (i.e., as distinct from irony, insofar as sarcasm, like snark, is always “stable” whereas irony, as Kierkegaard explored, can be stable or un-). Some of the characteristics of snark do seem to depart from sarcasm or else focus it, i.e., not just the element of “group sport” but the attitude of unquestioned moral superiority that snark often seems to trade on.

    As for origins, I thought of Lewis Carroll’s snark, but couldn’t figure out a connection until I found the following entry in William Morris’ 1957 It’s Easy to Increase Your Vocabulary:

    Snarky

    A new word—and this is such a delight that it seems impossible that it is completely new, though unrecorded by the dictionaries—comes from the well-known critic, Harriet Van Horne. After quoting a British critic of commercial TV as saying, “A nation fed on this pap for one generation might as well scrap its educational system and spend the money on asylums,” she remarks, “Now this is a pretty snarky comment.”

    The snark, as all Lewis Carroll enthusiasts well know, is the mythical creature — a combination of snake and shark — hymned in The Hunting of the Snark. It seems to me that Miss Van Horne has given us in snarky a very felicitous new adjective which falls somewhere between sneering and snide (see below) in meaning and serves as an admirable and useful running mate for those worthy terms.

    By November, 1990, though, The Atlantic‘s “word history” expert Craig M. Carver had a somewhat different take:

    “I suppose that he’s an alter ego,” Jim Henson, who died last May, once said of his best-known Muppet, Kermit the Frog. “But he’s a little snarkier than I am — slightly wise. Kermit says things I hold myself back from saying.” In Britain to be snarky is to be irritable or short-tempered. In America snarky has also been slang for “elegant” or “stylish.” Snarky is probably from English dialect’s to snark (“to fret, grumble, nag,” which in turn is from the earlier sense “to snore or snort” ). Ultimately it is from a Germanic word such as the Swedish and Norwegian snarka or the German schnarchen (to snore), which are probably imitative of the sound of snoring. (The snark that appears in Lewis Carroll’s mock-heroic poem “The Hunting of the Snark” is an unrelated coinage: this imaginary animal is a portmanteau of snake and shark.) Snarky may have been influenced or reinforced by the British slang narky, “ill-tempered, irascible ,” which may be from nark, referring to an unpleasant, quarrelsome person, in an extension of the earliest meaning “an informer” or “one who watches.” (“If it was thought we were coppers’ narks it could endanger the lives of our film crews”— London Times, 1975). Nark may be from the word nak (nose) in Romany, the language of the Gypsies. This nark is unrelated to the American narc (from narcotics), a term from the world of drugs which refers to a narcotics officer or a police officer.

    I notice the word “snarky” seemed to really increase in popularity during the 1990s, so perhaps The Atlantic can be said to have also played a role, placing it on their “Fahrvergnügen” word list.

      1. gestophiles

        Ahem. For what it’s worth, as a kid I built plastic models of a US missle
        called a Snark.

  20. Arul S

    Snark can be effective to drum up buzz and create public attention. But can it carry the campaign all the way home?

    The key issues that affect voters have not changed in the last few weeks: Economy/Inflation, Crime, Immigration, Abortion. Very soon, Harris will have to start communicating her position on these issues. Based on what we know, her stand on almost all these is not really distinct from Biden’s. Or she hasn’t had a chance to articulate her own positions, which she scarcely could have done as Biden’s VP and presumptive running mate till last week.

    Trump has a clearly defined platform on all these issues. Granted, some of it is just empty words. “END INFLATION!”. How? But “Seal the Border”, “No Taxes on Tips” are attractive to voters across the identity groups. This isn’t Trump 2016. He has a economic record that many rate as decent before covid.

    Maybe I am a little impatient here. We will perhaps see a concrete platform in the coming weeks once the convention approaches.

  21. Wisco wordlover

    > By November, 1990, though, The Atlantic‘s “word history” expert Craig M. Carver
    > had a somewhat different take …

    Craig Carver may well have written articles for The Atlantic but he is better, and more authoritatively, known as one of the editors on Frederic Cassidy’s Dictionary of American Regional English project at the University of Wisconsin. Just saying.

    1. Acacia

      Ahh, so that explains the title of his column in The Atlantic. Thanks for adding this point.

  22. Vicky Cookies

    Your question as to whether or not snark “works” is helpful. Works for what? What is the goal? Labour in the UK has been accused before of not wanting to run the country, opposition being a more comfortable job. I wonder if, within the Democrat party, an organizational culture has been created which precludes initiates from asking why they’re acting the way they are; a realistic look at the results of their public-facing behavior would be the stuff of psychedelic-taking self-reflectors, not welcome in the inner circles of ‘influencers’. That the style and methods being utilized are deeply alienating to most, and that their hatefulness and mendacity is distasteful to anyone of principle probably cannot occur to them, their informational and social bubbles being what they are. I look forward to them losing.

  23. Samuel Conner

    Thank you, Lambert.

    A question — does “sh!tstirring” intersect with this?

    My interpretation of all this is that the Ds have been tearing their hair out for 9 years trying to find a way of countering DJT’s evident … um, … rhetorical … um, … talents.

    As JRB asserted within hours of losing The Debate, “it’s hard to debate a [bullsh!tter]”. I thought I noticed, during The Debate (and I think others have drawn attention to this) hints that JRB may have been trying to adopt some aspects of DJT’s rhetorical style.

    Perhaps the orgy of snark is similar (a reaction; which is a bit meta)

    If you can’t beat ’em, then join ’em (or, at least, imitate ’em).

    Does DJT get some credit for his contribution to the degradation of political discourse (if not the content, which was already bullsh!t/lies, at least the style)?

    1. Pat

      Considering my appreciation for Al Sharpton’s turn of phrase, if nothing else, long before DJT ran for any office, I think allowing him some credit for the degradation of political discourse is premature.

      In truth, I think the degradation of political discourse goes far beyond snark. We have allowed our politicians to say nothing of importance for too long. Not just the ‘fighting for’ we have gotten the last couple of years, but one of my favorites long descriptions of issues that never lead to possible policy solutions only vote for me.

      Even if they swore, I’d prefer “this is what I do” over ” this is what they want to do, isn’t it horrifying”. But that is only the most recent degradation.

  24. griffen

    I keep in the back of my mind a long ago quote from legendary financier and railroad securities rabble-rouser Jay Gould. Looking at a few of his quotations this morning. He famously antagonized Cornelius Vanderbilt with his “raids” on various Vanderbilt controlled railroads.

    “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”. Now the attribution source does not exactly tell it was Gould who spoke those words, but I’ve long attributed the phrase or have noticed it. Lamenting the lack of civil debate, well it’s from a bygone era I would contend.

    And as for the Commodore himself, this is from Vanderbilt, speaking about Gould. “You have my authority for stating that I consider Jay Gould to be a damned villain.”

  25. Dr. John Carpenter

    Snark doesn’t pay the rent or put food on the table. Snark is what swing voters want to see, not policies, David Roberts? We’ll see how that works out for her.

  26. Richard H Caldwell

    Completely agree, relying on my own experience with Twitter, which I abandoned after a few weeks of delirium, that snarking feeds humans’ worst instincts, and erodes and harshens character. Tempting, but best avoided…

    1. Samuel Conner

      > Tempting, but best avoided…

      Perhaps widespread giving in to the temptation of the enjoyments of political snark is a manifestation of “loss of executive function.”

      There may not be a bottom to this.

  27. funemployed

    This post makes me think of when I used to watch toddlers. Basically all of them of a certain developmental stage will, at some point, test you with violence. I swear they even make the same “I’m gonna hit you with this and see what you do about it” face. This is an important moment in the relationship. There are right ways and wrong ways to handle it, and doing it wrong will make your life miserable and contribute to the raising of a jerk. Today’s Democrats remind me of nothing more than how toddlers act when they are allowed to get away with this nonsense.

  28. Dave

    Snark reminds me of a think piece I read maybe 20 years ago which compared internet discourse to court culture in 17th c. France. The obsession with compressed, witty, inside jokes as validations of aristocratic “esprit.” I’m sure this comparison has been rehashed many times since then.

  29. El Tuna Maximo

    Really interesting take.
    It will be interesting to see how Trump responds when the shoe is on the other foot.

    Agree with other posters, not clear that snark isn’t a luxury of the PMC, which is to say it won’t satisfy people who are worrying about putting gas in their car, buying groceries or paying their rent.

    Could you pivot from snark to serious policy? Maybe, especially if you use cut outs to deliver the snark. (Kamela is reportedly paying influencers $150 per post for approved memes)

    Could effective snark define the ground for combat? Might a snark war waged through proxies on TikTok favor someone who is prone to word salad? Whose record is mostly tied to a very unpopular president? Maybe.

    How will the Republicans respond? So far Vance has gone for righteous indignation. Pointing to what he’s done (Marines, lifted himself out of poverty, started a company)
    https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1817362843068469249

    But I could see it getting much much darker.
    Clearly it hurt and enraged Vance. Partly because the public emasculation but more so because it activates the trope of the cosmopolitan humiliating the hillbilly. When he hits back it will be not just for him but for his people.

    If he responds with blind rage, I could see graphic public statements about Kamala’s transactional rise to the top. Maybe that would even work in Kamala’s favor since something too crude would turn off independents.
    But what I kind of expect is a cold rage, one that systematically ‘others’ her, something that functions the same way labeling Trump a “Threat to Democracy” laid the ground work for Butler.

    When we look back in 20 years it’ll be just one more step into darkness.

    1. Lena

      Imo, the snark directed against Vance will backfire in the long run. His story of childhood poverty and trauma is one that too many people identify with. Ridicule him and you ridicule millions of others who have suffered in similar ways. It’s the cool kids at the cool kids lunch table at school laughing at the poor kids in second hand clothes who go to bed at night hungry and scared. I was one that was laughed at. It leaves scars.

      Is this mockery the ‘New Face’ of the Democratic Party? Because I want no part of it. My Democratic Party was the party of FDR and LBJ, whose backgrounds could not have been more different, yet both had empathy for the poor.

      I read what is being said about Vance and my reaction is red hot anger. My reaction is how dare you privileged pieces of s*** call into question his ‘origin story’. I think many others are feeling the same. If Harris has any humanity at all, she should put a stop to it.

  30. Socal Rhino

    Meanwhile Vance keeps referring to Harris as the Border Czar. Cries of She was never the Border Czar just help reinforce the point, much like the LBJ quote.

    If the Dems want snark maybe they should run Jon Stewart

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      Was Vance for the Senate’s bi-partisan passing of the Border Bill before Trump told him to be against it?

      ( Some of the Republican Senators were, you know.)

      In today’s short-attention-span media-world, is there a way to bring that up in very few sentences?

  32. David in Friday Harbor

    Going to post a reply without reading through all 90 comments.

    I’m forever grateful to my partner of 43 years for telling me to never, ever, read Twitter…

  33. Pat

    Regarding the PMC and their belief in snark, was reading a few places other than NC this morning. There is now a meme being repeated that inflation is over, crime is down, that since the Republicans came to the table the immigration crisis is over, and that it was the big bad Republicans that killed the child tax credits. Frankly, if they belief most of that they are going to think that snark is all they need. Apparently they do not talk to enough of the help to realize that no, people are not better off than they were in 2020.

    And considering that it isn’t just the Post publishing immigrant problem stories here in NY, (similar to the drip drip drip that has led to more Gaza atrocity reports and Ukrainian losing reports that are now appearing mainstream) it apparently is becoming too obvious for the MSM to ignore.

  35. Anais

    Democrats are in full circle-jerk mode again, just like 2016 *sigh*. I keep being told by lifelong Democrats from deep blue states who haven’t worked for an hourly wage since high school and whose only contact with Republicans is fighting with equally sheltered red staters on social media that whatever dumb crap the K-Hive is doing is “how you connect with swing voters.”

    Meanwhile, they only seem to be doubling down on the, “You’re stupid for thinking the economy is bad. If you’re struggling that’s your own fault. If you can’t get healthcare that’s your own fault. If you get sick that’s your own fault. If you’re disturbed by seeing hundreds of thousands of tortured dead Palestinian children you’re antisemitic.” Their entire strategy seems to be gaslighting us all into pretending the last four years haven’t happened.

  36. vidimi

    funnily, as someone who was not in on the joke and never came across JD Vance’s alleged love of sofas, I just thought that the Ikea catalog porn stash meant to convey Vance was really boring.

  37. Terry Flynn

    The GOP should learn from its former colonial right-wing masters. The Conservative Party here in the UK never needed silly made-up stories about sex with cushions when during a “back to basics” campaign in the dying days of the 1990s Tory government a well-known Conservative Member of Parliament was found dead in stockings having died of autoerotic asphyxiation.

    His death played a large part in a long-running joke/meme about Tory politicians and their “unusual” interests. We may be a 3rd rate country these days but our right-wingers still beat US ones in the “WTF?” contests! (Though if the US challenges I’ll bet it’s due to Florida congress critters).

  38. ian

    I’m not sure the Democrats should be calling anyone ‘weird’. There are plenty of of cringe-inducing examples from their side as well.

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