The News Not Noise Letter: Was This On Your 2023 Bingo Card?
An iconic post-presidency mugshot. Plus: a debate reality check, what's up next in Georgia, and the Pumpkin Spice Latte turns 20.
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At dinner one night this week, a friend paused and said to me, “You know there’s no evidence we’re not living in a simulation.” I thought of that many times this week. First, while I was watching the high decibel scrimmage that was Fox News’ GOP primary debate; I’m calling it the TikTok debate because the 60-second time limit for candidate answers ensured there was less substance onstage than in a teenager’s TikTok feed. Then again, during the surreal coverage of Trump’s booking at Fulton County Jail – which included a rolling live-shot on cable news from inside a vehicle in the motorcade – and when we got the first-ever post-presidency mugshot. It’s all a bit much to process.
First GOP Debate of the Season: Republican presidential hopefuls held their first debate Wednesday in Wisconsin, but the big winner of the evening wasn’t even there.
Trump-less: Despite former President Trump’s absence, his opponents barely used the opportunity to criticize him or make the case that he should not be the GOP’s nominee for 2024. The few times any candidate did go after Trump, they were booed soundly by the audience. Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaire “political outsider” currently polling in third, was full of canned zingers and loudly involved himself in many of the debate’s big moments, insisting that climate change is a “hoax,” that the US should stop funding the war in Ukraine, that all the other candidates are “Super PAC puppets” and that he would pardon Trump on Day 1 in office. Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley had the biggest surprise performance, with a ferocious attack on Ramaswamy as a foreign policy neophyte who “wants to hand Ukraine to Russia…let China eat Taiwan…and stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends,” Haley said. She also appealed to suburban women by trying to strike a comparatively “reasonable” tone on abortion access, while DeSantis, Pence and others competed to have the most extreme posture on the issue. You can find my (sometimes humorous) coverage of the night here.
Winningest Performances: Instant polls show that Republican voters who watched the debate thought Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley performed well. On the other hand, pundits thought Ramaswamy cleaned up. (That matters because the pundit class shapes media coverage, which shapes the race; more on this below.) On cable news, analysts repeatedly compared Ramaswamy’s performance to Trump’s in 2016, concluding that voters want “outsiders” as opposed to the “Washington insiders” or elected officials onstage.
Vivek Ramaswamy: Wondering where he came from and who’s backing him? The Guardian reports that Peter Thiel and Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society are two of his longtime allies.
Selecting for Outrage: The media doesn’t just cover the race — it shapes it, too. This debate format favors candidates who easily offer simple answers to complex questions, and who drop zingers or lob attacks without conveying shame or compassion. Does that select for the qualities you’d most like to see in the Oval Office? It likely favors those who have never grappled with the tough decisions that face elected leaders, who can naively assert that governance is easy. It’s long been true that the media favors the person with the most outrageous soundbite (hence the Noise in our title). What’s different this time? In past cycles those forces were balanced by quieter town halls, long sit-down interviews, candidate forums — more thoughtful forms of communication. With the public’s shorter attention span and constant engagement with candidates on social media, 2024 is leaning even further away from quiet/thoughtful and into noisy/omnipresent. Pundits underestimate the way social media informs the campaign. I suggest we not do the same.
Tucker/Trump: On that note — did you notice that the coverage of Tucker Carlson’s sit-down with Donald Trump is all about how many views it got and not about what was said? Both men suggested that America is headed to a violent conflict. Mainstream news is also uncritically reporting that the interview got 250+ million “views” without explaining that what X calls a “view” in no way translates to a person actually watching the video.
Out on Bail and Out of Jail: In the other big 2024 story of the week, former President Donald Trump reportedly used a Lawrenceville, Georgia company, Foster Bail Bonds LLC, to post his $200,000 bail at the Fulton County Jail, Friday.
Mugshot Money: No surprise Trump is already fundraising off his mugshot. (You can read lots of takes about the iconic nature of the mugshot here, here, and here’s a Wikipedia page on the mugshot already.) And Trump made his first post on X (formerly known as Twitter) in years, sharing the mugshot as well.
Reminder: we still don’t know how Trump’s indictments will impact his support or the presidential field. For one thing, it’s hard to know how much stock to put in polling this cycle. I’m going to lean into the idea that it’s a helpful guide. With that in mind:
When Republican primary voters were asked “If Trump is convicted of a serious crime in the coming months, who would you vote for in your state’s 2024 Republican primary?” support for Trump dropped from 52% to just 35% in a YouGov/Yahoo News poll.
51% of Americans and 53% of Independents told pollsters they think Trump is “guilty of the alleged crimes in the federal 2020 election subversion election case,” according to a new Politico/Ipsos poll. And 34% of Independents say a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump.
Georgia Indictment Next Steps:
Monday Hearing: There’s a federal hearing scheduled for Monday to determine whether this case can be moved out of state court to federal court. Two attempts to change the case’s venue have already failed.
First Trial: The first trial in the Georgia indictment could begin as soon as October 23, but this trial will likely only involve one of the defendants, Ken Chesebro. No news yet on when Trump and co. will be tried.
Targeting the Prosecution: Georgia lawmakers passed a new state law allowing a state panel to remove local prosecutors. The state GOP’s first target? Prosecutor Fani Willis.
I’m not saying we’re living in a simulation or that some force is testing our ability to process dramatic change (or just glitching). I do keep wondering if there’s any evidence that it’s not the case.
And Now, Some News That Doesn’t Suck:
Rare Baby Animals: If you spend any time online, you likely know that patternless beige is the trendiest look in quiet luxury. Now it seems the Animal Kingdom is going on-trend: the Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee is home to a new spotless tan giraffe calf, born this summer. Measuring 6 feet tall, the giraffe calf is healthy, happy, and remains totally spot-free. The zoo calls her “the rarest living giraffe on the planet,” sharing that the last time a giraffe was born without a pattern was in Tokyo in 1972. The zoo is hosting a poll to name the giraffe calf. You can vote on your favorite name here until September 4. Meanwhile, the Thomas Belt Zoo in Juigalpa, Nicaragua welcomed a rare albino puma cub, likely one of only four worldwide. The cub is the only albino in its litter, including two beige spotted puma siblings. The albino cub is said to be nursing well and remains healthy, although albino animals require extra care and are more vulnerable to sunlight than their pigmented counterparts.
PSL Turns Twenty: Happy 20th birthday to that much-loved, much-maligned autumn staple, the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Love it or hate it, the PSL has become a marker of the season as much as too-early Halloween candy and the first yellow leaves. The PSL was born in 2003 in an attempt to replicate the success of the seasonal winter Peppermint Mocha, but it has far outshone its predecessor. Starbucks says it’s sold hundreds of millions of PSLs since the product launched, and in 2015, Starbucks announced they would finally feature real pumpkin puree in the recipe.
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