For Presidents Day, former president George W Bush wrote an essay on George Washington, that curious foundational figure no one really can say much about. A fascinating document that exists out of time, the equivalent of a fifth grade essay that may as well have been heavily pulled out of an encyclopedia, full of generic patriotic platitudes and pieties. As a celebration of the office, it was then described as a “subtle” rebuke of the current President. A dash too subtle, naturally, to the point where you know it is no such thing. It describes virtues and that we have a president that does not meet any virtues allows a forced reading.

The George W Bush legacy has, I guess, now been fulfilled with military strikes against Iran for the wobbling claim of desiring regime change to free an oppressed peoples. And with that, Donald Trump is now a neo-con. We spent bulk of the George W Bush second term with an “any minute now” warning of impending war / “invasion” of Iran — something that was never coming to fruition. The loudest cohort on this drumbeat included, out of the fringes, the likes of Alex Jones, Scott Ritter, Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul, the various writers on The American Conservative. All of whom no love lost for George W Bush and were ready to throw their lot in with Donald Trump. You can toss in figures like Tim Poole and a batch of horeshoe “gonna knock Obama liberal interventionalist” groups in the mix — all ready to call anti-war Obama voters hypocrites for supporting a guy who was busy surging troops in Afghanistan. I am going to make an educated guess — check in with Matt Taibbi and what I will see is a one-sided neener neener “whataboutism”.

For what it is worth that one saving grace of President Trump, why until the last month of office I rated President Trump ahead of President Bush, is now in smoldering ashes. (He talked to North Korea’s dictator — that was a positive in my view.) Also I knew it was coming, so there is no disillusionment on my part — which I suppose is something I would share with this grouping of neo-con busting paleo con and conspiratorial mish mashes. Though I shouldn’t share that.

Weird melee of cultural jackassery.  I did not hear the Bad Bunny Super bowl half-time performance — saw it visually, mostly.  Seemed good.  I recognized some Puerto Rico touchstones in it — a bit of an expansive celebration which you, curmudgeonly old white yokel, should be able to identify with broadly if not specifically.  Ends with a display of all the flags of the hemisphere, including incidentally Canada and USA.  I suppose this is a source of agitation — “It’s the USA only, bastard!”.  I suppose if you want to be truly woke you need to shout out all the First Nations.

The much mocked “Turning Point USA” half-time performance, by way of commentary, I ended up hearing more audio out of.  They have Kid Rock lip-syncing.  I like a couple Kid Rock albums — right when he turned to country-rock, don’t like anything before that or after that when he decided he wanted to be the next Ted Nugent.  They have some anti-trans country song by someone or other.  They have a violinist.  All a little bit of a “whatever” in and of themselves.  But I am struck by how trying too hard and narrowcasting it is.  They dedicate it all to Charlie Kirk.  Bring up Charlie Kirk a lot.  Oblivious or unconcerned that no one outside their orbit gives two shits about Charlie Kirk, even after they tried to pound it for political gain.  In the last presidential election, much was made of Trump’s “winning the culture” more so policy, a breeze through various manly podcast spaces that had tapped out of politics and only go so in some weird anti-woke space.  He pulled together a number of fragments there, broadly where I don’t know what “dead centre of the mainstream” is.  They key to their political sway is they are not altogether political in a sense of making great announcements of philosophy.  I suppose we can drop Bad Bunny and his show into the same equation only… more broadly supported.

For his part, Charlie Kirk had tweeted responses on half time shows.  He liked Beyonce’s performance.  I don’t know if maybe Beyonce had more than one show, because her’s was more overtly political and defiant a display.  Elsewhere in comments, I see a little bit of revisionism on the “wardrobe malfunction” of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, mocking a right for being in a huff as usual — though that one is more understandable a point — brushing past and forgetting and not having now that it is convenient left-ward  commentary on the power dynamics of the show and what the heck that even was.

Overall I am a kind of “hey, cool.  Bruce Springsteen whipped out a protest song of the moment “Streets of Minneapolis”.  But the song is almost beside the point, I want it to go number one even as I tend to be dour and understand Bob Dylan’s “I don’t want to do finger pointing songs” — we move outside the land of subtlety.  But as per Springsteen — there really isn’t anything subtle you wish to say, and blunt statements are required — the Times really do challenge that notion that, oh Repressive Times at least create great art.  Nah, the art sucks, even when it is what is required.  I see that problem when politicos — Mussolini and Trump — have as part of their appeal complete buffoonery.  So Satire -wise, I see the performance a few months ago from Jesse Welles the song “Join ICE”, and we got a problem.  It could just be lifted unironically for an ICE recruitment pitch, which are not subtle and have identical messaging.  

Is Springsteen’s quick hit good?  My gut tells me no, but it allows an audience to tell “ICE out now! “. Name checking Noem and Milker, who in a decade will be history books as we have new jackasses to take their place. I suffer the trauma of the Bush era’s Neil Young horror show.

Interesting to see Tom Morello, he of Rage Against the Machine fame, as the mc and a performer hosting Springsteen.  I would think Morella at least postures Springsteen as, like, Democratic Party shill (not “Raging” enough) — but, maybe we’re in a land of “close enough” as too the old question for Morello as he fails against en toto The Corporations and Capitalism — sure made millions from your Sony contracts, huh?