Dem Debate Preview
Here's what will happen when 20 Democrats debate this week in Detroit
Read: Why DC therapists are having a tough time, what happens to your politics when you start watching trash TV, the balmy summer in the Arctic Circle, crazy advances in child-rearing and dairy farming in the Netherlands, reason to worry about South Korea, a trick to keep people honest, how many lives expanding Medicaid saves, the latest awful news about the news business, the weird thing one UK network did to double its podcast downloads, where the concept of “acting white” came from, the 6 percent of Americans who give Trump high marks on the economy but still don’t support him and what that means for 2020, what the biggest predictor of a senator’s vote is, what makes you a better predictor than an expert, how to read polls, which party is winning the message war on immigration, and a new kind of apple that’s coming to produce sections near you. Also, did you know corn sweats?
Watch: Elle Fanning in Teen Spirit, a kinetic gem of a music movie.
Listen: New songs from BJ the Chicago Kid and Spoon, a Tiny Desk Concert from a punk band called IDLES, and a video from Beck starring Alison Brie.
But first: This is totally what is going to happen in the Democratic debates this week.
On Tuesday, July 30, CNN will air the first night of the second round of the Democratic debates with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at center stage. Sanders will be unable to survive the contrast Warren provides when she demonstrates an adult understanding of how shit actually works. CNN will break into the debate to air Bernie’s political obituary, whereupon John Hickenlooper will be caught on a hot mic asking whether this means he is the next old white dude up.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has complained that male candidates such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former congressman Beto O’Rourke are getting too much media attention, will give Buttigieg a sock and say, “Dobby is a free elf now.” Her campaign will later say that she chose the sock with a Republican senator. The sock will be red.
Beto, who like Cher, Madonna, and Beyoncé is not in the top tier of candidates, has struggled since kicking off his presidential campaign with a vision quest and a Vanity Fair cover. Nevertheless, he’ll benefit in the debate by standing next to Governor John Hickenlooper who doesn’t at all look like the chatty older man you don’t want to sit next to on a plane. To create a media-ready moment, Beto will make out with Marianne Williamson, at her podium of course, because he is a gentleman. John Delaney will demand and be promised equal time. He will not get it.
The next night will reprise the contretemps between former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris. Biden will open with the King's gambit, also known as the open Sicilian, by reminding everyone that his civil rights record passed muster with President Barack Obama. This will draw a sharp look from Senator Cory Booker, but he will nevertheless agree that Biden was in fact Obama’s vice president. Harris will gently point out that perhaps what a much-younger Obama needed Biden on the ticket for was not credentialing on civil rights. You will receive 17 emails from her campaign in the next five minutes.
Someone will make a joke about the presumptive frontrunner “bidin’ his time” during the debate, causing DNC Chair Tom Perez to issue a new rule during the debate to never try that again. Jay Inslee will call Michael Bennet “Steve,” and though most people will assume he mixed him up with Steve Bullock, Inslee will later admit that he had no idea who Bullock was and just though Bennet “looked like a Steve.” Pundits will reach a post-debate consensus that in fact Michael Bennet looks more like a Kevin.
In a surprise move, Beto will break into the studio to give Tulsi Gabbard a rose. Biden will criticize Medicare-for-all as a betrayal of Obamacare. Booker will accuse him of “trying to Mediscare us,” providing a helpful reminder that the New Jersey Senator is, in fact, still running and had not dropped our earlier in the debate.
Google searches for “shirtless Jay Inslee” will increase during the debate. Behavioral scientists will reason later that the increase in searches was due to his placement next to the less-attractive Bill de Blasio, who will spend so much time criticizing establishment Democrats that Julián Castro will be frustrated enough to say, “CNN once aired a live shot of an empty podium before a Trump press conference. Letting you talk is the next best thing, I guess.” A subsequent David Brooks column will cite this as an example of the violation of norms, but no one will be around to read it because Castro’s remark will have left a giant smoking crater.
What I’m reading
Finished Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird. Helluva read, and a great story that went untold for too long. Highly recommended.
Now I’m reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, a gift from the estimable L.K.
People are so miserable in DC since Trump’s election that now even the therapists are having a hard time coping and marital advice columns are going sideways. So let’s focus on places that are more bonkers than the U.S.:
Scientists found a correlation between watching flimsy entertainment and a susceptibility to simplistic solutions being offered by populist politicians. Bonkers.
The Philippines political scandal where “police filed sedition charges against Vice President Leni Robredo and 35 other leading government critics, including prominent senators, Catholic Church clergy, ex-soldiers and leftists”? Bonkers.
Gangsters wearing masks and white T-shirts attacking black-clad pro-democracy protestors at a Hong Kong subway station? Bonkers.
Headline: “It was 84 degrees near the Arctic Ocean this weekend as carbon dioxide hit its highest level in human history.” Meanwhile, only 12 percent of Americans think it’s too late to do anything about climate change. Bonkers.
An elected official linked veteran suicides to pot use? Sure, it’s Texas, but that’s like a whole ‘nother country, so: Bonkers.
Bolivia has only 28 ATM’s for every 100,000 people, so one company has an app to turn taxis into mobile ATM’s. Bonkers.
Reddit users are stapling bread to trees in Sheffield. Bonkers.
Muslim reporters are having a hard time writing about a Malaysian sex-tape scandal involving two male politicos. Bonkers.
The Dutch have a tactic for child-rearing called “dropping” in which they leave them in the middle of a forrest in the middle of the night and wish them luck getting home. Bonkers.
Also from the Dutch: They have a floating dairy farm a Rotterdam river where robots tend to 32 cows. Bonkers.
All the lights went out in Venezuela because of what the government claimed was an electromagnetic attack on hydroelectric system. Bonkers.
South Korea shot 360 rounds of warning shots at Russian spy plans that entered its airspace. Bonkers.
Recent Studies Indicate: Talking about your visit to Dr. Google with your human doctor leads to better examination-room interactions, “the best healthcare experiences and strongest doctor-patient relationships.” Also, according to an experiment by a behavioral economist, asking people about their ethical foundations “before they had an opportunity to cheat eliminated the dishonesty.” Expanding Medicaid as a result of Obamacare resulted in a 9.3-percent reduction in deaths in states that chose to do so, which means in states that didn’t...
News nerds: Newspaper circulation has fallen to its lowest level since 1940, readerhip has leveled off, and local TV news ratings fell by double digits since last year. The New York Times now has two television series based on its print content, and they are struggling to increase diversity on the obit pages. Advice columns are driving reader engagement. News UK stopped producing half of its podcasts (stopped casting half its pods?) and downloads doubled and ad revenue tripled. As newsrooms cut arts coverage, the arts industry is thriving. Finally, every single reporter and editor reading this newsletter needs to read this Twitter thread. It’s OK. We’ll wait until you’re done.
In bidness: Remember when Amazon was giving out $25 gift cards to people willing to get 3-D body scans? Here’s why. Are you a good boss? Ask yourself these five questions. (Me? Not so much.)
Stateside: “Acting white” is the by-product of school integration and the association of scholastic achievement and whiteness. The shortage of single men in U.S. cities is shrinking. Your favorite band might be screwing you. My friend T.H.J.G. has a better idea to measure and maintain fleet fitness in the Navy. A podcast helped free a wrongfully convicted man.
Here is a report on the 6 percent of Americans who disapprove of Trump’s job performance but give him a thumbs up on the economy: “These Americans don’t show many signs of being susceptible to President Trump’s economic message: They voted for Democrats by 20 points in 2018, and they trust Democrats in Congress far more on health care, and somewhat more on taxes and immigration.” And this might be underselling how big the blog of conflicted voters is, writes Ronald Brownstein:
These voters consistently register as a substantial group. Since April, polls from CNN, Quinnipiac University, and ABC/The Washington Post have found that between 16 percent and 19 percent of Americans who approve of Trump’s handling of the economy still disapprove of his overall job performance. That’s a very high disparity by historical standards: The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has found that Trump’s approval rating among Americans who say they are satisfied with the economy is running 16 to 20 percentage points lower relative to the approval ratings of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Also, partisanship is a greater predictor of how a senator votes than is the wealth of those who would benefit from that vote. In other words, Bernie Sanders is this.
Speaking of predictors, stop looking at general election polls for a while. Here is how to read polls. For example, this is a good way to use polling data. Also, expertise is less important than curiosity in making accurate predictions. Which brings us to this: According to the prediction market on PredictIt.org, expectations that Trump would be impeached decreased during Mueller’s congressional testimony.
Democrats are winning the message war on immigration if you look at engagement with news stories.
In produce news, Gala has ended Red Delicious’ reign as America’s most-popular apple. Also, welcome Cosmic Crisp, a new variety owned by Washington State University that is hitting stores this year. Finally, “corn sweat” is contributing to muggier air in midwestern cities.
My friend M.H. wrote the hell out an incredible story of a man wrongfully convicted in east Texas who is now back with his family because podcast.
And the last word goes to: Chuck Klosterman, who gave such a good answer to “Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite to a dinner party?” that no one should ever ask the question ever again.
What I’m watching
Hassan Minaj’s episode about hip-hop and streaming opened my eyes to the global political force that the music genre has become.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, gives a TEDTalk (I know, how 2015) on how we make decisions irrationally.
But the movie you have to see is Teen Spirit, starring Elle Fanning as a Polish immigrant kid who enters a UK American Idol-style contest. There are two things this movie does well, and differently. The first is something my youngest son pointed out. They don’t waste a lot of time on exposition, focusing exclusively on plot. You figure out what you need to know along the way, such as where the movie is set, and what you don’t—for example, why they moved from Poland to the UK—is never explained. The result is an inexorable momentum carrying you to the end. Second, there are two typical narrative structures for music movies. One is the rise, fall & resurrection (A Star is Born, Ray, Walk the Line, hell, even Walk Hard), and the other is the quest (8 Mile, That Thing You Do!). This one is the latter, and the better for it. The movie came out last spring to good reviews but little notice; my sons and I saw it on Amazon Prime. You’ll like it. It’s a gem.
What I’m listening to
BJ The Chicago Kid is out with an oddly titled album called 1123. I like “Feel the Vibe (feat. Anderson .Paak)” because I like anything with Anderson .Paak because it has the retro soul and authentic instrumentation that elevates hip-hop, or at least the stuff he does.
But I am a middle-aged white dad in America, so I’m excited about Spoon’s new track on their greatest hits album (what?) called “No Bullets Spent.” Every time there’s a new Spoon song it feels like I’m still in my 30s.
There’s a punk rock band called IDLES who did a Tiny Desk Concert that kicked off with a surprisingly danceable song called "Never Fight A Man With A Perm." They sing about inclusion and toxic masculinity, but I find them irredeemably charming because they call cocaine “a bag of Charlie Sheen.” Also, the dude in the American flag shorts is apparently a dentist.
But this weekend I was lucky enough to see Beck in concert for the first time. He opened with “Loser,” which floored my friend D.G., who could not believe that he was playing his biggest hit right out of the box. He’s been part of the soundtrack of my adulthood since he did I heard him singing about two turntables and a microphone on KGSR while driving in my Saturn. He has a sound that pulls from genres as he moves through time, all the while putting out danceable tracks that sound like Beck songs. So I’m going to leave you with “Colors,” the title track from his latest album.
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