Watching people I follow scramble to set up accounts on Mastadon or Post these past weeks—driven by Musk’s malignant and readily apparent intentions in purchasing Twitter—reminds me of the cautionary first lesson in Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. 1/ Do not obey in advance. Sound advice from the esteemed historian. If Musk’s aim is to destroy Twitter or make it an unworkable Maga cesspool in the name of “free speech,” then people fleeing Twitter before that actually happens will only hasten its demise. 2/

Here’s the thing: The virus is going to have its way with our economy one way or the other. There’s no avoiding it. Trump & Co. still don’t get that. And the longer it takes for them to understand, the worse it is going to be, for all of us. 1/ There’s but one primary option: Understand the enormity of problem, then craft a recovery based on that complete (as possible) understanding. 2/

The news re the dismissal of DNI Maguire is rife with all the usual themes: Russia, loyal stooges, narcissistic rage, the “deep state,” etc., but also one key meta-theme: Trump’s attempt to use state powers to assert control over your reality. This is part of the full realization of Trump’s idealized self—Trump the Magnificent, using his God powers as only the Chosen One can. Trump as Thanos, possessing the Reality Stone and snapping his fingers. You get the point.

Some early flashes of malevolent energy in the back half of 555. They sound good, loose. #Phish #CouchTour A pause, then straight into Farmhouse, a personal fav after Chula Vista 2016, but a tune they don’t often sink much energy into. #Phish #CouchTour

This Post article is a good exemplar of the challenge facing the free press in reporting in the Age of Trump. It was written by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Ashley Parker, whom I respect and have no specific beef, but it employs a common but dangerously flawed template. 1/

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1035322349078372352

The problem is the binary framing traditionally applied to “balanced” reporting of political news. In the Age of Trump, there’s a glaring absence of good-faith quote sources of “the other side.” 2/