Casting A Wide Net
A conversation about culture in the age of Trump 2.0, the bro-caster scourge, the masculinity crisis, fake heretics and faux populists, America's spiritual malaise,The Bear, and much more
The other day, Australia’s own Alex Didion, who runs the film’n’culture site, Lack of Taste (which you should check out), parachuted into my inbox to ask if I’d do an extended free-ranging Q&A with him. We’ve done these twice before, and I had such a ball both times, that I told him to fire away. A condensed version of our exchange is running on Didion’s site, though I am simulcasting the whole shooting match in all its mostly-uncut goodness, right here and now. (Pinch yourselves.) We cover everything from the Trumpification of the culture, faux populists like Elon Musk, why we should blame The People for everything, the bro-caster scourge, rebels without a clue, the masculinity crisis, America’s spiritual malaise, the evils of Big Tech, the glories of Raygun’s breakdancing, my favorite pop culture offering of 2024, the best fish I caught this year, the secret to The Bear’s family red sauce, and much more. Didion is in bold print, asking the penetrating questions. The rest is me, providing more wisdom than one has any reasonable right to expect for a mere 50 bucks a year or five dollars per month. Which has me asking a penetrating question of my own: why aren’t you subscribing now?
So I'll start off with this. As an anti-Trump conservative, what is your mood nowadays following the election? Did you understand how he managed to win, not just the electoral college, but the popular vote, in spite of everything that was against him?
My mood’s dark, as I’ve probably let on by now. Though what’s bad for the country is often good for me personally, if I’m being honest, because I’ve long been in the writing-about-chaos business, and nobody produces more of it than Captain Chaos himself. My sub numbers have probably increased 20 percent since election day, and I’m about as anti-Trump as they come. So I’m not about to stand and salute the Dear Leader, as so many others seem ready to do out of fear. Though even if my numbers were sinking like a stone, my attitude would be the same, because I can’t stand authoritarian bullies. And it would make me hate myself to pretend otherwise.
I kind of understand how he won, though. Libs have been losing their way for a long time — too many of them couldn’t even admit the border was a disaster or seem to keep basic biological gender distinctions straight. (Though Kamala ran a shockingly moderate campaign — aside from all the abortion talk — so that’s not a legitimate critique of the race she actually ran.) But more important, I think hulking swaths of the electorate were grouchy about getting raped at the grocery store for the last half decade. I know I am, even if I don’t blame the Biden administration for high prices since it started on Trump’s watch during the pandemic, and occurred the world over. (I also think a butt-ton of companies are price-gouging, still surfing off “supply chain interruptions” or whatever other feeble excuse they can invoke from four years ago to camouflage their greed.) Would inflation have looked any different under Trump? If he had any good ideas about how to curtail it, he forgot to mention it during two years of campaigning. Slapping 20 percent tariffs on imports or whining a lot doesn’t count as a plan.
But — and this is not a popular answer even if it’s a gong I sound regularly — one of the real reasons he won is because too many Americans are as decadent and depraved as our leaders, who, after all, we elect. We used to at least pretend character counted. Now, we don’t even bother. As George Carlin said in an old bit I ran on my site a few weeks back:
If you have selfish ignorant citizens, you’re gonna get selfish ignorant leaders. So maybe…. it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here. Like the public.
From what you're saying, the public is part of the problem and telling them this, as a pundit, is a big challenge. You don't want to call them losers or dismiss the problems that serve as a rationale for picking the leaders that they want. But if you're going to take direct democracy to its logical conclusion, I think it's absolutely fair and they have to take some responsibility, for... I don't know…..Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy creating a meme department that would basically have a chance in hell in solving limited government, or RFK Jr looking for any chemicals in the water that turns your teeth gay.
For what it's worth, I've come around on this rationale, primarily because, while I did entertain the chance of Trump getting reelected, I had no idea that he’d exceed certain expectations like winning the popular vote, or getting New York counties to swing towards him in a big way. Even Jamelle Bouie, a pundit who I am no fan of, basically says that you can't pretend that every Trump voter has limited agency to justify their decision, and doing so means you are indirectly doing the GOP's bidding. I think he has a point there, even if it's expressed in a way that's quite smug.
Telling hard political truths is a challenge these days. Because any time you do so, you’re essentially cutting your prospective audience in half. That didn’t always used to be the case. But lots of people are no longer keen on wrestling with nuance or contradictions or screaming absurdities, even for sport. I’ve inadvertently made plenty of enemies out of former friends or readers just by speaking the truth as I understand it. But…..that doesn’t mean it’s not still worth telling.
And here, The Sainted People bear a lot of responsibility, by my lights, for falling for so much faux-populist horseshit. And I say faux-populist, because look at who is selling us what. You just mentioned Elon and Vivek, a couple billionaires who made their initial killings as Big Tech and Big Pharma bros, but who have re-fashioned themselves as Populist Avengers, raging against the elites. Dude, they ARE the elites! The same way Fox News trying to pretend it’s anti-establishment is a bad joke. Fox has been the establishment on the right for almost 30 years. They’ve been whipping CNN and MSNBC in the ratings for nearly as long. They make or break just about every Republican nominee. And Republicans now own the presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. But they’re going to rebel against themselves? And pretend they weren’t for all the things they espoused every step of the way, pre-Trump? (George W. Bush, interventionism, the Iraq War, et al. — things I was often against, by the way.)
And what was Elon and Vivek’s first pronouncement from their perches at their phony Department of Government Efficiency that Trump likely awarded them just to get them out of his wrap-around hair? Telling federal workers they have to go back to the office five days a week. These are guys who acted like they were getting told to hit the showers at Auschwitz when asked by health authorities to wear a mask in a grocery store during the worst worldwide pandemic in a century. But now that they’re the (nominal and unelected) authorities, they’re going to make damn sure some cubicle monkey from the Department of Agriculture has to spend three hours in D.C. traffic per day, or he’s not doing his job and should be fired? And they want you to think that only the left is about authoritarian overreach?
When’s the last time these gasbags even went to their office? I’m not sure Elon’s left Mar-a-Lago since the election, he’s so busy sniffing Trump’s jock. And best I can tell, Vivek’s only job these days is raking in investment income and going on conspiracy podcasts. He’s a smart guy who has learned it’s a lot more fun and profitable to play a dumb guy on TV. Which is a fair description of four-fifths of the right-leaning punditocracy these days.
But Elon and Vivek sound all the mob-approved angry and defiant bro-notes on Twitter or at Trump rallies or at Charlie Kirk wank-fests, so we’re supposed to mistake them for the People’s Champions? Demagoguery has always existed. But never have so many transparently obvious conmen so easily duped so many low-sloping foreheads as right here and now. And they keep lying to the people because the people they’re addressing enjoy being lied to. Which is on the people as much as it is on the grifters who tickle their naughty parts while whispering sweet nothings in their ear.
So let's talk about Trump's impact on culture. It's safe to say that Trump is the culture, and always has been a shrieking aspect of American vulgarity for almost his entire career. Rappers love to mention his wealth, he's a game show host with the pretense that he's a successful businessman, he has his name across Golden buildings; he appeared on TV physically destroying Vince McMahon. That's reported fairly often, but there's another aspect of Trump's comeback I don't see people talk about. Trump is a heretic and everyone loves to practice heresy nowadays. They aren't victims, and they are often corrected by institutions that are losing trust, which means that they think these people are lying to them. These people are akin to the silent majority that Nixon and Ronald Reagan attracted, except they express loud vibes on podcasts and alternative media. After all, it's why RFK Jr. hates vaccines and corporations, and Elon Musk pretends that they are pushed away by the "woke mind virus" and it's heresy to say that in polite society. But now, with Trump reelected, these positions won't be anti-establishment positions anymore. Andrew Breitbart says that "politics is downstream from culture,” and these decadents feed off a decadent ideology. Whatever happens to Trump, they can live in comfort that Western Civilization is saved for the next four years. Any thoughts?
Your hiphop-Trump reference gives me an excuse to quote Yung Joc’s “It’s Goin’ Down”: Time to flip the work, make the block bump/Boys from the hood call me black Donald Trump. It’s one of my theme songs. Right up there with Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself.” We iconoclasts have to stick together.
I like rebels as much as the next guy — I used to root for Luke Perry’s character on Beverly Hills 90210, for instance— but everybody can’t be one. Even if they’re all trying very hard to be, because it’s a good branding strategy. They all want to be outsiders even if they spent half their lives as insiders. Megyn Kelly, who used to be the primetime poster girl for the Fox establishment (back when Trump was still disparaging her and she wasn’t yet stumping for him), who then left to go try to be White Oprah at NBC (before they made her worth more than the Sun King by paying her not to work for them anymore), now seems to want everyone to think she’s a MAGA badass because she drops an f-bomb here or there and yells about The Establishment a lot. Whatever that even is these days. I’d submit that Joe Rogan and his hundreds of countercultural knockoffs are the culture, now. I don’t actually know what Kelly believes, mind you. Though in fairness to me, I’m not sure she does either.
But everything about our culture has been atomized and decentralized. It’s getting harder to find Old Orders to rebel against. Especially when your rebel-in-chief has ruled one of the country’s two major parties with an iron fist for the last decade, and is the twice-elected President of the United States. In the early ‘70s, the counterculture wanted to stomp around chanting, “Fuck Nixon.” Now, they want to be Nixon. But it’s kind of hard to be an outlaw and the sheriff at the same time. Unless you’re a dirty sheriff. Which Nixon kind of was, come to think of it, as is the felonious Trump.
Which is why I reject that Trump is saving western civilization. It’s more like he’s debasing it, turning even normies into narcissistic, belligerent, cos-playing tough guys, not unlike the WWE wrestlers he used to hang out with. I’m as pro-western-civ as anyone out there. But it’s not like he’s saving the culture. I don’t think the guy’s ever read a book, including the ones he had ghost-written. I mean, if manosphere morons like Andrew Tate are now our idea of saving the culture, our culture is pretty screwed. We might as well all just go join the Taliban.
You really want to be a rebel these days? Say you religiously read the New York Times, generally trust medical experts, and have full confidence that 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. The Roganauts will look at you like you just took a squirt in their Liquid Death can. It’s fine to buck conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom is often wrong. But it’s also often right. Sometimes, a stitch in time really does save nine. Sometimes, my bird in my hand is better than someone else’s bird in my bush. (I might have that wrong, but you get the idea.)
Professional heresy has become its own kind of orthodoxy. Asking questions is good. But asking stupid, dishonest ones just to muddy the truth and create an alternative reality where all facts are negotiable is a less worthy enterprise. You’re basically just whacking off your audience, and turning them into even bigger conspiratorial cranks than the one you’re pretending to be for clicks.
I gather that you don't listen to a lot of podcasts, because the medium does prove your point that culture has become atomized and decentralized. I'll get to the topic of “young men,” but people listen to Joe Rogan and Hawk Tuah girl because they're lonely. (Believe me, I listened to a lot of Joe Rogan after I finished university while having to spend months looking for a job). They listen while they are at work, or at the gym or when they need to go for a hike. They're not intending to become political soldiers, but the moment your grievances are accommodated by the vibes of the podcast, it seems that your identity and opinions are shaped by hearing what the host has to say.
Is that a nice way of telling me I sound overly-judgy about podcasts? Because if so, you’re right. I don’t mean to slag the entire podcasting juggernaut. Which would be stupid on my part, kind of like saying “books are bad.” When I should be saying, “these particular books are bad.” I hasten to add that most of my journalism friends seem to have two podcasts apiece. And even if I just semi-slagged someone like Megyn Kelly, she’s extremely good at what she does: smart, a compelling communicator, etc. I might sound like one lonely man standing on the beach, trying to hold back the podcasting storm surge. (Though not so lonely that I’d ever listen to the Hawk Tuah girl.)
But I was just trying to make the point that a lot of smart, compelling communicators dumb themselves down to splash around in the bogs of conspiratorial thinking and paranoia and rank demagoguery. Which their often youngish male audience seems particularly susceptible to. My largely apolitical college-age son rolls his eyes at the crap that finds its way into his feed all the time. The algorithms seem to think he’s an easy mark. He’s a wise kid, so I don’t think they’ll get him. Still, I suggest to him that he do something more useful with his free time, like listen to audio books, or watch Loudermilk, or hit himself in the head with a hammer. Anything, really.
You have written a lot about masculinity in all its forms and I want to know how you felt about the gender polarization in America. I was in the US for two weeks in the lead-up to the election and we had the executive director of a Clintonite think tank as one of our speakers. I asked about the podcast landscape and why young American men are displaced in daily life. They don't go to university, they're dropping out from the workforce, compared to women who now make up more than half of the professional workforce. The growing majority are not making families or dating. And men have drifted further to the right, as polls have suggested, compared to women who are moving leftwards. I asked him what the Democrats could do to win them over and he told me "I don't know the answer." We had countless thinkpieces diagnosing the problem, but not giving the solution, and it feels that solution now has been, as you say, listening to podcasts, looking up to Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Andrew Tate or [redacted]. Anyone who is roughshod in any field will be an inspiration to them, rather than the David Frenches and Sam Harrises of the world, whose moderate approach is considered to be preachy. But is there a masculinity crisis and what's the remedy?
As with most complex, multi-faceted problems, I don’t think there’s one easy, clean solution. Also, I’m not sure the problem isn’t a wee bit overstated, becoming reality because commentators constantly assert that it is. Yes, most of the things you mention seem to be statistically true. And it’s a tough time for young men. Then again, when aren’t times tough? As a Gen X’er, I don’t remember feeling like I had life licked at 23, nor did most men who came of age when I did. Was it easier during World War II, when ten million American men were drafted, and over 400,000 were killed in combat? Was it easier in 1860, when you were lucky just to make it past 40 years old? Those seem like much bigger problems than college-male enrollment rates to me. You just didn’t have as many people whining about them on social media.
Yes, the cost of living sucks. So it’s as hard to get launched as ever. Yes, college debt — which has become sinfully ridiculous, especially for what you’re getting for your money (which is not much) — sucks. Yes, it sucks that the wokesters have spent the last couple decades trying to erase all gender distinctions, though those tend to naturally reestablish themselves pretty quickly when men and women meet between the sheets. (Marriage rates have actually rebounded a bit from historic lows around 2019.)
I do hear lots of talk about how women are more financially independent than ever, making men more extraneous than they used to be as stereotypical breadwinners. Or about how traditionally male jobs have been offshored or automated away. But less often talked about is the spiritual malaise that seems to have set in. Some of this is due to all the ideological extremism of both sides. One extreme, ratcheting up its opposite’s worst tendencies, which is almost always the case. So one side gives you imaginary pronouns in order to erase masculinity, and the other gives you the cartoonish version of masculinity, starring Andrew Tate and the rest of the ball-tanning knuckleheads.
But any half-sentient observer can sense not just overcompensation, but demoralization and exhaustion. And I truly believe a lot of this springs from our technology, which has overrun our lives, and encourages passivity because so much of a younger person’s life (as well as that of middle-aged and older persons, for that matter) is lived vicariously. You feel like you’ve played in the game before you’ve really gotten on the field. And even when you do get on the field, so much of life is lived performatively, so you can show it off on Instagram. Life, once removed.
Meanwhile, while exhibitionism rages stronger than ever, the unsexy things we used to associate real manhood with: duty, sacrifice, honesty, stoicism, empathy, love for your fellow humans — those virtues get short shrift. Which goes to the spiritual malaise I just mentioned. There are still plenty of people around who exemplify these things, but nearly none of them are front and center. Our faith leaders have failed us in droves. (See Christian nationalism, which as a Christian, I positively detest.) Our fathers increasingly don’t give moral instruction, like say, my dad did, whether I wanted to sit through it or didn’t. (He didn’t ask my permission.) Our politicians are so awful, that they’re not even worth discussing. Although it is worth discussing that they are a reflection of us, since we elect them. They are a mirror of our souls, which have grown deeply, seriously ugly.
But all of this dysfunction is put on steroids because we, generally — and young men more specifically and especially — are constantly filling our minds with horseshit. If you hook yourself up to a poison drip all day, you’re gonna go toxic, sooner or later. And that is a lot of what we’re seeing.
Why and how do we underestimate that algorithms can determine or undermine our culture, where vices triumph over virtues?
Because whoever the evil geniuses were who invented the recommendation algorithms know that at heart, the human animal is a dark one. And darkness breeds addiction: to conflict, to tension, to anger, to hate-reading-or-watching. You can’t entirely blame what you’re getting fed, because chances are what you’re getting fed is what you’ve already sought out and binged on. Social media architects just want to keep you hitting that dopamine pellet lever in your Skinner Box. So they’re built to prey on our own worst, most addictive instincts. Which isn’t too difficult since there’s a lot more bad news in the world than good news. (The latter, so often going unreported, or being regarded as no news at all.)
There’s a verse in Philippians I’ve quoted quite often in print, that says: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
But as we both know, that ain’t how the internet works. Hell, that isn’t how I work, for the most part. There’s a reason so many Silicon Valley types who hooked the world on the fentanyl of the mind keep their own children away from it. Because they know better.
How do you think the second Trump wave will affect pop culture? I don't think there's gonna be another "resistance" against him, although if there is, it's gonna be quite muted. I predict that there's neither a celebration nor a condemnation of the man as much as the first wave, because the mainstream elites are still wrestling over their wounds.
Maybe. But I’m going to swim against the tide on this. Though there’s undeniably less resistance energy this time around than there was at the same point in 2016, I think it’s way too premature to think it’ll stay that way. Right now, we’re seeing sheer fatigue. The novelty is gone. Not only are we coming off an endless election cycle, but people get bored of anything after a decade. And it has been almost ten solid years of watching Trump lie his ass off while serving as a perpetual outrage machine.
But the outrages will indeed keep coming. He’s made more iffy decisions in a couple weeks (with his cabinet-appointments clown show) than most presidents do in their first year, and he hasn’t even been sworn in yet. Wait until whatever stooge he inserts at Justice starts prosecuting his enemies list, or he slaps 20 percent tariffs on our imports, making the last several years of inflation look like a fire-sale at the Dollar Store. There will be plenty of pushback then. Or else we’re further gone as a country than even I think we are.
How does it affect pop culture? Who knows ? I’m not sure there’s gonna be a lot more Handmaid’s Tales, i.e., things that are read as commentaries on current events. The escapism might become more escapist — people truly wanting to get away from politics when they’re not deliberately focused on politics. We have now seen Elon rent himself out as Trump’s catamite, and Mark Zuckerberg seems to be following suit. So I don’t expect social media will get any better. And there will be waves of low-rent MAGAtardism shoved down our throats. (Donald Trump Jr. has his own publishing house! Apparently, the titles aren’t even scratch’n’sniff!) But these things won’t catch the culture’s imagination anywhere outside of MAGA. Much the way you don’t see too many normie Americans walking down the street in gold Trump high-tops while holding their leatherette Trump/Lee Greenwood Bibles. Those are just cult collectibles.
If people think they’re bored by the dug-in opposition, how much more boring will it be to say, watch Fox commentators praise everything the Great Leader does for the next four years, while trying to pretend he’s not unhinged? That’s about as tiresome as it gets. Plus, their aged audience is dying off a little more every year. So CNN and MSNBC aren’t the only ones in trouble.
So a bit of a lightning round, to summarize the things 2024 has to offer. What was:
The most iconic cultural moment in America, outside of the 2024 election cycle?
I’d say it’s Matt Gaetz going from AG nominee to taping birthday greetings on Cameo for 500 bucks a throw faster than you could say, “Do you know any hot 17-year-olds who like to party?” It proves just how shameless America has become. And by the way, I don’t expect Gaetz is done in public life by a long shot. He’ll still probably be made head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Because we are no longer even an Idiocracy, but a sad parody of one.
The best pop culture you enjoyed. It could be music, movies, TV, whatever.
I hate to sound like all the other sheeple, but I have enjoyed every second of The Bear, even when some say it’s off, as many critics did during its latest season. But it is hands down the best writing/acting on TV at the moment. With one powerhouse performance after another: Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jon Bernthal doing dead-brother flashbacks. And speaking of Bernthal, he also has a great podcast called Real Ones, in which he sat down with one of his old buddies/co-stars, Shia LaBeouf, when the latter was at the bottom of a pit after personal scandal. They did a riveting two hours, the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere else. In fact, I like The Bear so much, that I’ve taken to cooking the restaurant’s family-meal spaghetti they featured in one episode, which someone recreated on the internet, with a few modifications. The two tricks? You have to use real San Marzano tomatoes, and not the knockoff version, which I learned the hard way. (Too much acidity otherwise.) And you have to sauté and then puree your fresh basil, garlic, and olive oil before pouring it into the sauce. It’s now my wife’s favorite, and her people hail from Cortona in Tuscany, where they don’t take such matters lightly.
The best fish you caught?
It’s mostly been a horrible fishing year. One fishery after another of mine has collapsed. My striper fishery. My smallmouth bass fishery. Even the largemouth numbers in my regional ponds are off. Trout are fishing okay, but I live so far away from my go-to trout streams that I don’t get to them nearly often enough. So shad really saved my ass this year. Which is good, because they’re my favorite fish to catch anyway. They push up our rivers from the sea for about two months in the spring. They are slutty as hell, and they run and jump like a poor man’s tarpon. They’re not monsters. A big hickory shad maxes out at around 24 inches. But they keep my soul solvent, and for that I love them.
The best and worst piece of journalism you've read this year?
Let’s start with the worst. I had quite a few email tussles this year with a “friend” who insisted on repeatedly sending me Gateway Pundit articles. They were the worst. Dishonest, shamelessly hackish, proudly stupid. Though not much different than what too many in right-leaning-journalism (where I made my bones for a long time) have become. The best? I came up as a longform feature writer, and I’m not reading too much of it that knocks me out anymore. So let’s go another way. This is going to sound hopelessly square and old-timey. But Garrison Keillor is 82-years-old, cranks out a column or two a week on top of his live shows, and that guy still makes beautiful, funny, humane sentences as easily as he puts on a pot of coffee. I’m not sure anyone else pays attention to him anymore besides me and his devoted readers. But if it’s so easy to do, why is hardly anyone else doing it? A long time ago, he used to be a staff writer for The New Yorker, and a New Yorker friend of mine said the legendary writer/editor Roger Angell once told him that Keillor “was the best natural writer The New Yorker had published since Thurber.” Am pretty sure that claim still stands.
The person who gave you hope this year and the person who disappointed you the most?
The person who gave me hope this year? The provenance is a bit murky, but whoever coined the phrase, “This too, shall pass.” The person who disappointed me the most? So many to choose from. I’m not at liberty to say on the personal front. But in the public sphere, let’s go with Nikki Haley. She thumped Trump as hard as she could for a month or two in the Potemkin primary, but not nearly as hard as she sucked up to him after the fact. She’s my old party in a nut. These people no longer even know the meaning of shame or principle.
Greatest sports moment?
By far, it was your fellow Australian Raygun’s breakdancing performance at the Olympics. She inspired me, proving that you don’t have to have anything like natural talent or craft to perfect your art. You just have to have a green sweatsuit and a dream. She so restored my appetite for life, that I polished off an entire Bloomin’ Onion at The Outback all by myself.
Who is better? Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?
I’ve had more than enough of both. So let’s go with Chaka Khan.
Bonus Track: I deliberated adding this while writing this piece, but only decided on editing it in after Chaka Khan got (rightly) celebrated in my comments section after publishing. So while my email list won’t see it, unless they double back, you will. Here’s my favorite Chaka Khan song, or at least tied with “Tell Me Something Good,” from her Rufus funk-band days. It’s a pretty ballad she did with Bruce Hornsby for Spike Lee’s Clockers soundtrack, called “Love Me Still.” Suck on it, Taylor and Beyoncé.