Kamala’s campaign kicked off with an outburst of sarcasm

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Here’s a good example of sarcasm:

For those of you who are late, I may overstate this point by repeating it, but I hope you are strong enough minds to resist it. J.D. Vance, in one edition of his book, Hillbilly Elegywrote that he performed a semblance of sexual intercourse using a couch and latex gloves, hence the image of the couch above. get it? This claim is false (The Washington Post; Vanity Fair; Rolling Stone). Snopes (sorry) says:No, J.D. Vance never said he had sex with a couch cushion.“:

The rumor was false: As we later reported, Vance’s memoir, including the first edition, contained no such passage. In the second article. moreover, translator @rickrudescalves reportedly later secured his account so that only his followers could see the post, but later tagged the tweet with a “go internet and lie” meme, implying that it was a joke.

This false Democratic claim is minor league and doesn’t compare to a liberal icon. Barney Frank‘s boyfriend was running a brothel out of the apartment they lived in, or that the completely bipartisan Jeffrey Epstein was bizarrely recorded on unreleased tapes from his townhouse and tropical island, whatever that may have been, it was all over my Twitter feed. day to dayEven those who are one degree removed from @rickrudescalves’ original tweet Already knew It was fake, and for days that’s what everyone was talking about when they talked about J.D. Vance. They weren’t talking about any populist message, fake or otherwise. Hillbilly ElegyThis is how Kamala’s team introduced Vance to the American people. So their first barrage of quips was a big success. There will be more to come. In fact, rear While researching this article, I came across the following article in HuffPo:Kamala Harris is sarcasm-ing us — and it’s the energy we’ve been waiting for.(The entire discourse of Libergasm is reminiscent of “energy”, “standby” and of course “we”):

But when Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign sent reporters an email on Thursday morning with the subject line “Statement Regarding 78-Year-Old Convict’s Appearance on Fox News,” it was such a stark contrast to the usual bland, mundane stream of emails that flood our inboxes that it initially seemed surreal.

“After watching Fox News this morning, we have only one question: Is Donald Trump OK?” the press release began, listing “takeaways” from the former president’s Thursday appearance on his favorite show, Fox & Friends, where he often engages in abusive rants and unsubstantiated claims.

Among the Harris campaign’s bullet-point list was one sentence that, unsurprisingly, quickly caught the Internet’s attention: “Is Trump old and very changed?”

The Clinton 2.0 campaign appears to be adopting the “deplorables” strategy again, albeit with a more youthful vibe. I’m excited to see it!

There has been a lot of research into snark, some of it academic, but as a former and long-time practitioner, I would rather take the liberty of making a statement (or rather, my statement is teeth In this post, I will first define the characteristics of snark, then provide a brief history (including my own practice), then give examples of Democrats’ enthusiastic embrace of snark, and make some comments about what they mean by their snark. Enjoyment (That’s not a very strong word.

I would define the characteristics of snark as follows, but the scope of my definition is Very Online Electoral politics (which I’ve been blogging about almost daily for over 20 years).

1) Reactive. from George Tsiveliotis’ MIT master’s thesis (2017) “First of all, blogs are a good place to be sarcastic because Reactive“Many bloggers (not NC!) actually write very little at all. They’re more like impresarios, curators, or editors, cherry-picking stuff they find online and occasionally adding a funny headline or sarcastic (i.e. cheeky, nasty) comment.” As with blogs, so too is Twitter. @EBHeater (quoted above) was responding to @rickrudescalves’ original tweet, who was responding to Vance’s nomination (and his book).

2) to sneer with gleeAnthropologists would view sarcasm as a “ritual of humiliation,” Tsiveliotis says. He writes: “[Sarcasm]is our first tactic to desensitize ourselves, to make it clear that the person we are attacking is not human. And because it started as a joke, we are not responsible for where the other person takes the conversation.”

3) Things to knowYou have to understand the joke (for example, the couch image in @EBHeater’s tweet). David Denby Snark (2009) “This is an essay on the strain of mean-spirited, deliberate abuse that is spreading like conjunctivitis in the national conversation — a tone of sarcastic contempt instigated and encouraged by a new convergence of print, television, radio, and the Internet.”

Four) toxicityWell-crafted, well-crafted sarcasm spreads like wildfire, like gossip or a catchy tune (or meme). That’s what happened with the Vance/Couch incident. It’s as true on TikTok as it is on blogs or Twitter. (See how “old and pretty weird” goes; I’m already starting to see the word “weird” a lot.)

Five) A type of personal attack Take J.D. Vance, for example.

6) Team SportsBesides @EBHeater, many, many accounts follow @rickrudescalves. Some of these are (no doubt) campaign assets, while others are artisanal. But in either case, the accounts that amplify and refine the sarcasm are collectively (“The strength of weak ties“) effort. They are “friends” (not enemies).

Searches can’t create anything like a timeline of the word “snark.” New York Spy (1986 to 1998) paved the way for the form, or the term. After all, isn’t “short-fingered vulgar” a term coined on the spot(1), a reactive, gleefully mocking, know-it-all, spiteful, ad hominem attack (however justified)? The missing feature is “team sports”, which is not easy to do in print. The first example of its use I found was in 2003 in New New York Times reporter Laura Miller applied this to book reviews: “I learned to be careful when giving a book by a young, famous author to a young, unknown reviewer. The result is likely to be either dreamy hero-worship or (in the case of the more talented writers) cynical anger out of proportion to the subject matter – sarcasm.” By that time the liberal Democratic blogosphere was well developed, with its epicenter in Philadelphia, where I was happily (though unemployed) living at the time. Atrios (the father of my blog) wrote on the Daily Kos, then an important political blogging site: “New Snarkitude HighIn 2005, he released “.”

The height of my own cynicism came in 2004 after Bush was re-elected. Republican commentators, euphoric about the victory, were quick to declare the “Bush mandate.”I have political capital, and I intend to use it.” “. In response, I said, “Google BombIf you search for the words “Bush’s orders” Mandate Magazinethe cover of which, as far as I can remember, featured the figure of an attractive young gentleman in a sailor’s hat. This practical joke, unfortunately, illustrates another characteristic of irony.

7) Lack of principlesAfter all, being gay is no more wrong than wearing a sailor’s hat. The New York Times We see the exact same characteristics here:

(As Mother Jones puts it:What better way to make fun of Trump than joking that he’s Putin’s gay lover?().

But the unprincipled nature of sarcasm wasn’t the reason I quit (even though it heavily influenced my style, tone, and delivery). I didn’t like the effect it had on me personally; instead of taking the time to analyze, I was always fueled by events, delivering a sarcastic witticism, always indignant, generating indignation, and basically being stinging. Plus, the blogosphere had by then become polarized between the Exla Kleins and Matt Iglesias of the world and the rest of us scumbags. It was time to refocus. Sarcasm was fun while it lasted, but it stopped being fun. The young people who discovered sarcasm will no doubt go through a similar cycle for as long as the grid allows. (2)

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I was inspired to write about irony after reading a thread by former Vox writer David Roberts (@drvolts; 221.3K followers), who now runs a blog on Substack calledEnergy and politicsHere are some quotes from the tweets:

It’s funny how couch jokes annoy Republicans, but it’s even funnier how couch jokes annoy Democrats who self-identify as morally superior. “We’re better than this.” No, we’re not. Stab those motherfuckers with a knife.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 27, 2024

It should be an exciting 100 days. (I agree with you about the dislike of “politeness.” Long ago, the late David Broder (on his knees) called us “A blogger who badmouths the left (sic)” because we shared the same aversion. Politically, it was completely ineffective, except perhaps to organize ourselves. It’s interesting to assume that Kamala is not “self-consciously morally superior.” Furthermore:

…”We are laughing at you because you are pathetic, and because we want to.” The irrationality of it, the fact that it’s made up and kind of silly, is the *point*. This is not an exchange of semantic information, it’s kicking sand in someone’s face. It’s a game of dominance.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 27, 2024

#2, to sneer with glee: Kicking the sand is a degrading ritual.

Let me add here:

8) Bullshit“It is not an exchange of semantic information”—for example, that Sofa’s assertion is false—means precisely that sarcasm is false in Harry Frankfurt’s sense (“Strategic indifference to the veracity of one’s claims().

more:

This is a rare moment when the Left is feeling rejuvenated. A little confident! For the first time in a long time. At last, the Left can hold its head up high and kick the sand instead of coughing and apologizing for showing its face. At last!

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 27, 2024

Liberalgasm. More information:

I know many want politics to be about evidence and reasoned debate and uniting across differences, and maybe one day we can get some of that back. But right now it’s all about knife fights and pretentious, high-minded thinking…

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 27, 2024

It’s a weird boast to say that “bullshit” = “muscles,” but it’s okay.

… Winning is far more important than a campaign that panders to your personal tastes and preferences. Saving real lives and preventing real suffering is morally more important than rhetoric that panders to your identity.

Get a taste of blood. Fight! pic.twitter.com/lhjzXeF4qW

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 27, 2024

Well, at least we have “blood” and not dirt. First, this is the exact same logic that led to the Russiagate madness. Second, it’s the same logic that would lead Democrats to deny Trump the presidency if he wins. By any means (As we will see, this includes outright lies (3). Finally, third, if liberal Democrats really want to play “rule politics”, I think FAFO is a good warning. And finally:

Think about the evolution from Biden’s “threat to democracy” (stilted grievances from the podium) to Harris/Waltz’s “oh my god, they’re creepy, weird” (like you’d say to a friend). The basic message is the same. But the feel is different.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 27, 2024

/Center>

Well, I’m glad the “our democracy” nonsense was obviously nonsense, so it’s been resolved. But I’d be remiss if Clinton 2.0 were to be “creepy, weird people” (e.g., Convicted felon Anthony WeinerWhose Huma Abedin, Clinton staffercurrently engaged Alex Soros is not weird at all) but to the “deplorables” I wish them luck.

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(The conclusion will come later.)