Editor's note: so as I mentioned the other day, I'm bringing "back" a blogging-style variation on a popular feature I used to write over on ninaillingworth.com called The Wall of Shame. The twist is that rather than take-down pieces and tweet collections I'm randomly preserving evidence of media muppet headassery, one online clusterf*ck at a time. Is that petty as f*ck? You betcha, Sparky.
Typically these will just be quick blog posts with screenshots but let's just say today's subject inspired me to get a little involved and ended in this short, heavily sourced essay. I'm not saying you *have* to click on the links in this article to enjoy this piece, but today's serving of beef will certainly be more delicious if you do.
Let's get down to business, shall we?
A Whole Jamil of Beans
With the realization that Downmarket Mussolini's half-assed "chicken coup" has finally ground to an unofficial halt, the online discourse is turning towards discussions about Joe Biden's cabinet nominees or potential nominees and it's going just about as well as you'd expect - it's a travshamockery.
While articulating the full contours of that debate would be beyond the scope of this piece, the basic gist of the controversy is that after relying on the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party to carry his decaying mummy carcass over the line against Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Joe Biden is currently shutting out qualified progressive candidates to stack his cabinet with corpse merchant lobbyists, investment bankers, and free market fundamentalists; a series of decisions that are highly unlikely to be popular with voters in general. Naturally, while progressives and the larger American left are by no means surprised at this development, they're certainly not pleased with Biden's completely predictable betrayal and many influential voices are speaking out against Palooka Joe's new pack of minions.
In response, someone has clearly given the Neoliberal Discourse Defense TeamTM marching orders to defend Biden's picks at all costs; with results that run the full gamut between farcical and Orwellian. Of course, all of that might sound like a conspiracy theory, but thanks to Clinton campaign emails published by Wikileaks and David Brock's big fat mouth, we already have a pretty good idea that this sort of thing goes on all the time. Now obviously I don't have the time to fish out dumb tweets from every blue-checkmarked lackey working in the Dem-Booster Bullsh*t Factory, but even just a cursory examination of headlines in the mainstream and faux-progressive media is fairly instructional here:
Joe Biden’s Cabinet Picks Send a Clear Message: The Adults Are Back in Charge
Here Come the Adults: Biden’s Cabinet is shaping up to be everything that Trump’s was not
Biden’s Cabinet is ‘delightfully boring.’ Can reality-TV-addled America deal with it?
Biden's dull-by-design plan
Kelly Evans: Boring Is (Hopefully) Beautiful
Analysis: Biden prioritizes experience with Cabinet picks
'A cabinet that looks like America': Harris hails Biden's diverse picks
Joe Biden nominates first woman to lead intelligence and first Latino to head homeland security
Republicans Are Really Trying to Argue That Biden's Cabinet Picks Are Corrupt
Biden keeps the peace with first Cabinet picks
Biden Cabinet picks largely unify Democrats — so far
Progressives Can’t Find Anyone in Biden's Cabinet to Be Mad About—Yet
Progressives Cheer Joe Biden's First Round of Cabinet Picks: 'A Great First Step'
Whew, that is certainly quite a lot of bullsh*t; I'm particularly impressed at the bold declarations that progressives have no issues with Biden's cabinet in light of the numerous linked examples I featured above, showing prominent progressives being actively pissed off by those picks. This is all very interesting and you could reasonably infer quite a lot about how power networks manipulate political propaganda in the American discourse just from clicking most of the links above; but ultimately the Biden Cabinet fight between neoliberals and progressives is only the backdrop in our story - the tableau on which our tale of flak goblin dipsh*tery plays out if you will.
That's because, as it turns out there is one potential Biden cabinet nominee too odious for even some portions of the braying Biden booster bunch - bawh gawd, is that Rahm Emanuel's music?!
Yes my friends, the conniving sh*t-weasel, clown prince mandarin of the neoliberal project, Rahm Emanuel himself is reported up for some sort of position in Biden's Cabinet; presumably as a reward for eating enough kittens to secure Palooka's Joes backroom support within the Party - although at this point it's fair to say, the quest to reanimate his zombie career is not going entirely swimmingly.
And as you can see from the screenshot above, this time it isn't just progressives up in arms; Rolling Stone senior writer Jamil Smith was among the many mainstream liberals outraged by the mere idea that Rahm might be returning to national office. And quite frankly, Smith is right; Emanuel is a scumbag lying monster who helped cover up the execution-style murder of a 17 year old African American teen named Laquan McDonald by the notoriously racist and abusive CPD aka, the Chicago Police Department. While that certainly isn't the only part of Rahms resume that should automatically disqualify him from office, it's arguably the most repugnant note in a long career full of such; and yes, as Jamil notes, including Emanuel in the cabinet would be profoundly insulting for African American voters who overwhelmingly turned out for Palooka Joe in the 2020 presidential election.
So, what's the problem? Well, as I get older, my memory isn't always what it used to be, but for some reason I recall Jamal singing a different tune the last time a portion of the base got shafted by the elite liberal establishment - sometime back in March, or so; right after the centrist power brokers and an immensely popular former President knifed Bernie Sanders, his 2020 primary campaign, and the democratic socialist movement?
Whoops - I betcha didn't count on becoming a walking "sowing/reaping" meme when you typed that one up huh? Smooth move ya f*cking brain genius; would you like a side order of boot to lick with that schadenfreude Jamil? But hey don't blame yourself my good man. I mean who could possibly have predicted that spuriously accusing the only truly anti-racist candidate in the 2020 Democratic Primary of taking Black voters for granted, as opposed to the guy who romanticized segregationists, helped write the racist 1994 Crime Bill and still believes cracker bullsh*t about the deficiencies of African American parenting, would at some point backfire? What kind of staggering powers of deduction would it have taken to realize that a former anti-bussing advocate who is known for peddling stories about a razor-wielding gangsta named Corn Pop and repeatedly lying about his own participation in the Civil Rights movement, might cynically discard Black voters immediately after getting elected? However could anyone in political media at all have conceivably foreseen this kind of f*ckery in advance? I mean you'd probably have to be like a senior writer who throughout his career has "explored the intersection of politics and identity" or something to figure all that sh*t out - oh, wait.
Now look, I'm not about to go off on some kind of reactionary skred about the evils of "identity politics" here, but this tweet is a prime example of high-profile Democrats and their media minions weaponizing issues of race, identity and marginalization to punch left, delegitimize anti-establishment political leaders and attack voters whose only crime is believing life would be better if there were no billionaires and we all shared our resources a little more. Furthermore, this type of divisive f*ckery is nothing new for Smith, who has clearly spent the past several years actively weaponizing issues of identity against the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party. and in particular, Bernie Sanders. Please keep in mind that we're talking about a guy who went from demanding Joe Biden drop out after the third debate because he's a hopelessly out of touch cracker, (while Smith himself was rather clearly in the tank for Kamala Harris, might I add) to essentially describing Palooka Joe's low-key racist declaration that "if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black” as a teachable moment; for a then 77 year old career politician, who also happens to be a U.S. Senator, and former Vice President. I don't want to call Jamil a double-talking, puppet assclown here, but let's just say the last time I saw principles that flexible, the situation involved a shady subprime mortgage.
Or f*ck it, maybe that's just too kind and I really do want to call Smith a goddamn minion. After all, this asinine little sh*t-puppet knew full damn well when he typed that tweet that Sanders wasn't calling African American voters in South Carolina the "corporate establishment." As he made very clear at the time, Bernie was obviously talking about a months, if not years, long corporate media "fear and smear" campaign, publicly exposed clandestine "Stop Bernie" meetings among Democratic Party luminaries and yes, the Barack Obama-lead centrist "Voltron" strategy that saw almost (thanks Liz!) every other mainstream candidate drop out and endorse Biden with Sanders on the cusp of otherwise winning the nomination contest. This is simply not an honest mistake on Jamil's part because you'd have to have been living under a rock to accidentally take Sanders out of context in this extremely precise and dishonest way - clearly as a professional journalist covering the Democratic Party nomination contest for Rolling Stone, the author knew full well what Bernie was talking about; it is after all, his job. In other words, Smith's criticism was disingenuous media muppetry at its finest; which might go a long way towards explaining why Jamil is now a senior writer at Rolling Stone instead of roundtable chair-meat at MTV News; after all, we already have documented evidence that he's a real team player.
So, will a vampire scumbag like Rahm Emanuel end up in Biden's government in the final reckoning? I have no idea! But one thing I can tell you is that Jamil's (rightfully) angry tweets won't factor into the decision at all; because even a decaying rapist mummy like Biden knows that the grumblings of an in-pocket, lacky propagandist, just don't amount to a whole Jamil of beans.
Welcome to Great Moments in Media Muppetry, agent Smith - you've certainly earned the honor.
- nina illingworth
Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!
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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”
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