Appreciating the Longform Universe

I was thinking the other day about the difference between Trump's second term now and his first in 2015, the difference between Poilievre's conservative leadership now and Harper's in 2012, the difference between Carney's leadership now and Trudeau's in 2015.

Well, lots of stuff I guess, but one of the big things I think is this: before about 2022, we expressed most of our opinions and reactions in 140 characters. That's all we had available in so-called "social media". 

And while it was often funny, it also tried to be thoughtful but people just didn't have enough space to be informative or educational, or deep. It created memes but it didn't do much to improve the conversation. 

We got some funny-haha or funny-weird tweets like this:

Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it

— maple cocaine (@maplecocaine) January 3, 2019

And some serious but brief tweets like this:

The system enables young black men to be killed behind the mask of law #Ferguson #tippingpoint #change

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) November 25, 2014

And some emphatic but obscure, like this:

Delete your account. https://t.co/Oa92sncRQY

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 9, 2016

And memes like these:

We still see lots of funny tweets. And I still appreciate them.

But now we also have "long-form" social media like Substack and You-Tube, where thoughtful and smart people can make a living just writing essays or making podcasts about all the stuff they know. And the older long-form media like Patreon and Medium and, yes, even Blogger are still operating too. 

I call all of it the Longform Universe, because it has created an online reality that has depth, knowledge, background, education, entertainment, amazement, nuance. 

Yes. I still troll through BlueSky and Threads for quick surveys of the news, but then I scan Substack and other long-forms for articles to give me the story behind the story, plus the other news analysis sites from all over. 

So I can read Paul Krugman about economics, and Dale Smith about Canadian parliaments, and Scrimshaw and Cole Bennett about politics and Phillips O'Brien and Wesley Wark about war, and Heather Cox Richardson and Mike Sowden about everything. I can listen to Miedas Touch and Brian Tyler Cohen, and the At Issue panel.

To name just a few.
And I think -- or at least, I hope -- all of this good writing and broadcasting will make us all smarter, better able to understand our complex world, and look for more than just One Main Character every day.

Good reads I found recently:

Dale Smith / Routine Proceedings

Roundup: “Clarifying” only to the media
The issue of Poilievre’s attack on the leadership of the RCMP has not gone away, and the party spent the day trying to manage the fallout, both with the new scripted talking points they handed out to their MPs when faced with media questions (obtained by the Star) that were intended to “clarify” what he meant, and the fact that Poilievre’s comms people have been sending statements to the media to again, clarify that he was only trying to cast aspersions on former commissioner Brenda Lucki and not the current management (even though the current commissioner was Lucki’s deputy, and frankly, should have disqualified himself from the position based on his response to the Mass Casualty Commission’s findings).
The thing is, Poilievre has not made any clarifications on his social media channels, or on the party’s official website, or any place that his supporters might actually see it—only to media outlets so that his followers can dismiss them as “fake news” precisely because they don’t see it on his social media channels. It is a deliberate choice, and this is not the first time that has happened, and rest assured, it won’t be the last. This is Poilievre trying to tell two different groups two different things, but unlike Erin O’Toole, he thinks he’s being cleverer about it because his followers can’t see the version he’s telling the media on his direct-to-voters channels. This is not clarification—this is fuckery, and we should be calling it out for what it is....

Evan Scrimshaw / Scrimshaw Unscripted

Bail And The Damage Done
On Carney’s Reforms
There’s been some left wing anger at Mark Carney in recent days, especially with the suite of bail reforms announced on Thursday. It’s not necessarily wrong - reversing the onus for bail for more crimes is a slippery slope to undoing the central tenet of innocent until proven guilty, and it’s likely unconstitutional to boot - but it feels entirely impossible to care, for a simple reason. It’s the price of winning seats, and stopping Pierre Poilievre.
....Will these tweaks to bail law move the needle? Not in any real sense, no - the problems of overcrowding in jails, a lack of judges to get through cases, and chronic underfunding of legal aid will continue. But the public wants tougher bail laws, so this is what they’re getting. Do they only want that because the Toronto Sun has convinced them that the only people who commit crimes in this country had previously gotten bail 67 times? Maybe, but it’s not on the Liberals to anoint themselves above the public.
Is it likely these efforts will get tossed at the Supreme Court? Sure, but that’s a feature, not a bug. Carney gets the press value of announcing the law and passing the law, while the courts can gut the dangerous and unconstitutional parts of it while we quietly are thrilled we’re off the hook on both ends. We tried, so moderates give us credit for trying, and it didn’t actually hurt anybody, so progressives don’t get apocalyptic. It’s a good day at the office for the Liberals on a tough topic....

Paul Krugman

Civil Resistance Confronts the Autocracy
While MAGA’s spin was both insane and revealing, the No Kings Day 2 Marches were a major step towards taking our country back.
....America, I’d argue, is currently operating in a strange condition -- what I would call a “bubble autocracy.” Donald Trump has not yet consolidated anything like absolute political power. But parts of our society — the Republican Party and a number of supposedly independent institutions like, say, CBS — are in effect living inside a bubble in which they operate as if he has. Within that bubble, a cult of personality around Trump has been built, a cult of personality worthy of Kim Jong Un. And to show their fealty to Dear Leader, Republicans must engage in bizarre rhetoric.
... what we have been seeing in operation isn’t the Trump administration’s strategy for dealing with its critics. It is, instead, the strategies of individual MAGA apparatchiks for dealing with He Who Must Be Obeyed.
A couple of months ago Henry Farrell had a useful post explaining why people around Trump shower him with ludicrous compliments. Farrell cited work by the political scientist Xavier Marquez, who pointed out that autocracies that build a cult of personality around their leader are subject to “flattery inflation.” ... it serves as proof of loyalty to the one man who counts, Donald Trump. The more appalling the self-abasement, the more effectively it will serve this purpose.
What I would argue is that a similar process of self-reinforcement applies to telling lies that serve the autocrat’s ego. Call it “mendacity inflation.” Trump insists that he’s overwhelmingly popular and that only a lunatic fringe disapproves of his presidency. Well, to show loyalty his hangers-on must go further, declaring that grandmothers and parents pushing prams down 7th Avenue are illegal aliens and violent criminals. The humiliating absurdity is a feature, not a bug. Simply lying about demonstrators isn’t enough; to prove their MAGA mettle people in Trump’s orbit must tell lies that are grotesque and ridiculous.
Again, what’s historically odd about this is that while Trump’s personal depravity may match that of historical autocrats, his power doesn’t. Call him Caligula, if you like, but he can’t order Senators — even Republican Senators — to commit suicide. ...

Mike Brock / Notes From The Circus

The Question They Won’t Ask
It’s not bias when journalism reports reality—it’s bias when reality threatens power
... Why do Republicans systematically believe demonstrable falsehoods at rates suggesting not legitimate disagreement but information ecosystem collapse?
Why does a majority believe the 2020 election was stolen when it wasn’t? Why are they systematically unaware that Trump is enriching himself through the presidency? Why don’t they know the DOJ is being weaponized against enemies while loyalists receive pardons? Why do they think Trump has “good and benevolent reasons” for deploying federal forces against American cities?
This isn’t a perception problem that journalism created. This is the outcome journalism is trying to cover—and getting attacked for covering accurately.
...The question isn’t why Republicans don’t trust journalism. The question is why journalism should accommodate information ecosystems that systematically fail to transmit basic facts, then attack journalism for covering those facts as if accuracy itself constitutes bias.

Terrence Goggin / The West Point History Professor

OMINOUS CRACKS EMERGE IN TRUMP WORLD: A PLANNED INVASION OF VENEZUELA IS SCRAPPED; NARCO KILLINGS ARE “QUESTIONABLE” AND THE SENATE REACTS TO TRUMP NOMINATING A NAZI
A SPECIAL REPORT
It is inaccurately assumed by many that the President of the United States can order the U.S. Military into action without the “buy in” of the professional military leadership nor the authorization of Congress. As a practical matter the President could order a land invasion of Venezuela, as he has threatened to do so to topple Venezuela’s President Nicholas Maduro. But if the Military views such a mission as unwise, tactically irresponsible, unnecessarily weakening key strategic assets and interests, it can vehemently oppose the idea. If the President insists as Commander in Chief, the Military will slow walk the Intelligence and tactical planing; then create leaks to Congress and the public that undermine the reasoning for such an operation. It then structures a brick wall within the Pentagon of silent derision and procrastination.
In the past the Pentagon has killed off projects and actions it did not like proposed by people far smarter and more clever than Hegseth, Rubio and Trump combined. With detailed plans taking months to develop, the order to invade would collapse of its own weight with “insurmountable difficulties” mysteriously not overcome and the options presented too awful to be approved. In addition the billions of dollars to finance such an invasion, much less the ongoing occupation of a nation such as Venezuela, which is the size of Texas and California combined, with six cities of one to three million people, would have to be first appropriated by Congress. Contingency reserve funds are laughably inadequate to pay for it....

And I can't resist sharing these too: