Cancel Culture ... But In A Good Way
Tucker Carlson is out; Elon Musk is flailing, and Ron DeSantis is circling the drain.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, ’ absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
Tucker Carlson Out
I don’t have much to add to this story yet, as we still don’t have a clear sense of why Carlson was pushed out at Fox News (I have no doubt the leaks will be a-coming). According to reporting in the Washington Post, “It was Carlson’s comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case, that played a role in his departure from Fox, a person familiar with the company’s thinking told The Post.”
It’s worth keeping in mind that the person who had the plum 8:00 show on Fox before Carlson was Bill O’Reilly. He was jettisoned after a host of sexual harassment allegations from Fox co-workers — and we don’t hear much from O’Reilly anymore. Carlson took over O’Reilly’s spot after holding down the 9:00 timeslot that Megyn Kelly had previously held. She left for NBC, and we don’t hear much about her either.
Perhaps Fox executives viewed Carlson as a headache, were annoyed by his leaked criticisms of them, and considered the platform more valuable than the messenger. Or, to put it in starker terms, the Fox brain trust decided they can put any 50-something white male on their 8:00 hour, spouting white male grievances to the Fox audience, and he’ll do just fine. And if he’s more controllable and slightly less openly racist than Carlson, it would be that much better.
I’m, of course, speculating here, but the larger point is that Carlson is not some irreplaceable member of the conservative mediasphere. Most conservative talking heads, if they are devoid of shame and a moral core (and most are), could do the job just as well as Carlson and get high ratings.
I would expect that without his Fox platform, Carlson will go the way of O’Reilly and Kelly, who, after leaving Fox, also lost their influence. Maybe he’ll do a podcast, though I doubt he’ll show up on OAN or Newsmax. In short, the reign of Tucker Carlson as the troubadour of right-wing politics is likely over. And since, as I wrote last year, Tucker Carlson is evil … good riddance.
Dumber Than a Buick
Let’s check in on how things are going at Twitter.com.
On Saturday night, many accounts with more than 1 million followers—maybe all of them—were slapped with Twitter Blue subscription badges. Dead people got them, too, with Musk or someone on his team deciding that Anthony Bourdain, Kobe Bryant, and Jamal Khashoggi should be branded as having paid for Twitter.
Living famous people worked furiously to let people know that they had not paid for checks. Chrissy Teigen figured out that by changing her Twitter handle, she could make it go away. Lil Nas X swears “on his soul” that he did not buy Twitter Blue. Jason Alexander is exasperated. Sorta-famous media and political figures offered similar clarifications. CNN’s Daniel Dale noted the restored checkmark on his account (which has since been unrestored) and said: “Obviously did not do this.”
To put this in more context, Musk threatened to take away everyone’s blue checkmark unless they signed up for Twitter Blue and paid him $8 a month. Pretty much no one agreed to do this. So realizing that Twitter users with one million followers produced a lot of free content for the site and got people to log on to Twitter.com, Musk restored their blue checkmarks for free. And the overwhelming response from a cross-section of authors, music stars, journalists, pro athletes, and even universities was, “We don’t want it.” In fact, they didn’t want it so badly that they felt the need to announce to their millions of followers, “We didn’t pay for this.” So rather than a prized online possession, blue checkmarks have become a source of embarrassment and a stain on one’s public reputation.
To make matters worse, the people who did pay for the blue checkmark are wondering why they are shelling out $8 a month for something that rich people are getting for free, especially after Musk and his fanboys made a big point of exorcising wealthy celebrities for paying for Twitter Blue.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
Years from now, Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter will be taught in business school as a case study in business schools on how not to run a social media website — and people won’t believe that it actually happened.
Indeed, if Twitter Blue were the only Musk screw-up, it would be a stunning standalone case. But at this point, it gets thrown on the ever-rising pile of screw-ups. First, Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter. It’s now worth approximately $20 billion, and his constant and ill-advised tweeting has destroyed its brand identity. At this point, Twitter is about as popular and well-regarded as gout.
Second, he fired or scared off most of Twitter’s staff, which is one of the reasons that the site breaks down far more frequently and users are inundated with spam. Now that blue checkmarks are gone, fake accounts, pretending to be celebrities and news outlets are increasing exponentially. Third, Musk has failed to figure out how to monetize the site, and with online advertising in freefall, things will likely get worse before they get better. The Twitter Blue disaster, which was largely self-inflicted, has helped to close off more potential revenue sources for Musk.
Then there’s stuff like this, which makes it difficult for anyone who doesn’t wear a tin foil hat to give Musk their money voluntarily.
The funny thing is, if Twitter had a different, less assholish CEO, I would be inclined to pay $8 a month to use it. Hell, I pay that much for Hulu, and I use Twitter about a million times more. But Musk is so toxic, and the benefits of Twitter Blue are so difficult to discern that there’s practically zero chance of that happening. Plus, even if I could find the value, I wouldn’t want the blue checkmark next to my handle for fear that people would think I’m the kind of person who would pay for it.
I honestly have no idea if Twitter will survive this, but I feel confident that the brand will be in the crapper as long as Musk is running the show.
Your Ron DeSantis in Freefall Anecdote Of The Day
This from Politico Playbook is pure gold
Oof.
This video of Ron DeSantis looking like the world’s worst bobblehead is quite something. One of my cardinal rules of presidential politics is that once you become a media punchline, you’re done. So put another fork in the bloated political corpus of Meatball Ron.
Memories …
Three years ago yesterday
What’s Going On
Don Lemon is out at CNN.
Democrats aren’t excited about Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, but I'm not sure it matters in the era of Trump and negative partisanship.
Good piece by my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown on how fear of gun violence has become an omnipresent element of American life.
Nearly everyone in Arizona hates Kyrsten Sinema.
US gun sales are rising … which means more Americans are likely to die from gun violence.
Today In Bob Dylan/Musical Interlude