Crash Course: Ballad of Mike Lindell (sad chorus)

[View this email in your browser]( Your daily update from [Salon](. Is the ballad of Mike Lindell reaching the sad part? If you haven't been keeping up with the bickering and infighting in TrumpWorld as the twice-impeached ex-president's followers keep trying and failing to prove he was cheated out of victory in 2020 — well, why would you? Offhand, we can't come up with any other activity that would be quite so simultaneously anxiety-producing and unproductive. That said! There's something undeniably fascinating about the [downward trajectory of Mike Lindell]( the pillow salesman who terrified the nation by visiting the White House during the last days of Trump's regime in hopes of persuading the then-prexy to invoke the Insurrection Act, appoint the deranged Sidney Powell as Special Prosecutor of Everything and call out the military to do ... something bad, although Lindell didn't quite know what. The fact that Pat Cipollone and Mark Meadows (really, genuinely not a pair of libtard never-Trumpers) had Lindell 86'd from the White House on that occasion ought to have provided a narrative clue to Trump fans, but of course it didn't. In recent days (by which we mean months), Lindell has promised to reveal "absolute proof" that the election was hacked or stolen or whatever, and while it was brutally obvious from the beginning that he had no such thing, only now are conniving crime-doers like Steve Bannon and Roger Stone beginning to tiptoe away from him, as [Zachary Petrizzo reports for Salon]( today. Along the way, Stone and Bannon are of course seizing the chance to air grievances about each other — part of a long-running, inscrutable feud — with each man presenting himself as Lindell's true friend, counseling him to come 8% of the way back to reality. They aren't Lindell's friends and it's hard not to feel a little bad for the guy, even if he's not returning our calls anymore. He seems to believe that Salon is a nest of antifa spies — which would be cool if it actually came with huge checks from George Soros. Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Oops, she challenged the patriarchy (however indirectly) Britney Spears, feminist signifier of the moment — and perhaps of the decade so far — is best understood as "a child of pornification, [whose] life story so far illuminates the power and influence of raunch culture," writes gender studies scholar Bernadette Barton in a [sure-to-be-controversial essay]( for Salon. Barton makes abundantly clear that she's not trying to tell any girls or women, including Britney, what to wear or how to present themselves. But she urges both Britney's fans and detractors to "take a breath" and consider that "sexual commodification" — the very substance of Britney Spears' career — but instead a "rigged game," a "cultural con" and a "cruel form of gaslighting" that keeps girls and young women "preoccupled with the male gaze." Photo: Scott Gries/ImageDirect/Getty Images - ExxonMobil has [poured millions of dollars]( in donations into the same Texas and Louisiana communities where activists accuse it of poisoning residents by the thousands. Is the greenwash wearing thin? - Is science actually [winning the culture war]( No, not on vaccine hesitancy — on evolution, which most Americans have at last concluded is actually a thing. - Sean Penn says he doesn't want to make movies with anti-vaxxers — and doesn't even want them to [watch his movies in theaters](. - The criminal trial of disgraced R&B star R. Kelly gets even darker with [allegations about "reproductive coercion"]( within his cult-like compound. Not a subscriber yet? [Sign up]( to receive Crash Course. Democrats just can't quit this guy, can they? Progressives have been watching and waiting for a bit of inevitable Democratic Party payback — the nomination of former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel as U.S. ambassador to Japan — and it arrived last Friday, quite possibly in hopes no one was paying attention. Well, Salon contributor Norman Solomon definitely was, and [offers a blistering take]( writing that "Emanuel’s dreadful record as mayor of Chicago was in keeping with [his entire career]( spanning several Machiavellian decades that included stints as a member of Congress, a high-level aide for Presidents Clinton and Obama, and an investment bank director using his connections to make [$18 million in two and a half years]( Joe Biden has publicly (and justifiably) credited Black voters with propelling him first to the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. But the Emanuel nomination, Solomon says, amounts to giving the "presidential middle finger to the constituency that gave him the highest proportion of support among all demographic groups in last year’s general election: Black voters." In this instance, there's no point denying the big rift that runs through the Democratic caucus: While progressive House members like Rashida Tlaib, Mondaire Jones and Cori Bush were outraged by the Emanuel nomination, praise was heaped on the former Chicago mayor by the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary chair. Only the Senate can block Emanuel's nomination, and with that body divided 50-50 (and most Republicans likely to vote against any Biden nominee just because) the outcome remains uncertain. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Solomon writes, has expressed concern about the notorious coverup of the Chicago police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, and has promised constituents he'll think long and hard about his vote. Photo: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images - [How Charles Dickens built "Bleak House"]( The Guardian - [Philosopher Richard Rorty's warning against authoritarianism]( The New Republic - [Can the U.S. work with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan?]( Washington Post - [NYC surpasses S.F. as nation's most expensive rental market]( The Gothamist How soon till the show trials start? It's hard out here for a pimp, isn't it, Congressman Mo Brooks? Wait, wait, wait — did we really say that? No, we did not. It's difficult to be a pure-dee conservative and walk the Trump line faithfully even when you really, really want to. That's what we said. Brooks [advised the Trump faithful]( at an Alabama rally to "move forward" from their obsessive concern with the supposedly fraudulent 2020 election — and did that while he was introducing Trump himself, the man who literally talks and thinks about nothing else. This was not a good idea. After Brooks — who has been as stalwart a Trump supporter as anyone could name — spent the entire next day being burned in effigy throughout the right-wing media ecosystem, his fellow right-wing crazypants, Marjorie Taylor Greene, actually came to his defense, urging the listeners of some loon-bot show not to judge Brooks by the fact that, on this solitary occasion, he had provided them some moderately good advice. Photo: Getty Images/Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call Have a tip for Salon? Feedback on this newsletter? [Let us know](mailto:brett.bachman@salon.com). [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( Copyright © 2021 Salon.com, LLC, All rights reserved. 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