DL Open Thread Monday, Jan. 1, 2024

Benjamin Netanyahu must think the high road has been mined, because he steadfastly refuses to take it. As the slaughter in Gaza continues, he promised to continue what he calls a war for another year. I think history is more likely to call it a massacre.

Frustration makes people say things they haven’t thought through. A group of Muslim-Americans is pushing for their co-religionists to abandon Joe Biden in the 2024 election. Left unexplained, as always when this threat is issued, is why they’d fare better under Trump. They wouldn’t, of course, which exposes them as vengeance-addled. This is entirely in keeping with a conflict in which the two sides seem to be vying to determine which can make itself least appealing to the disinterested.

The headline writer nailed it: Ron DeSantis spent $160 million to make himself less popular, which sounds like a lot, but it’s a bargain compared to what Elon Musk spent to make himself less popular.

It’s comforting to think that we’re the good guys, and all the assholes are Republicans. Alas, there are plenty of non-Republican assholes loose upon the land. Taylor Swift fans, for example. Author Anne Lamott found out the hard way how petty adolescent girls and the people who act like them can be. She tweeted a New Year’s message saying she hoped to read less about Taylor Swift in 2024 and suffered the revenge of the Swifties. I don’t much care for Taylor Swift’s music either – it’s anodyne pop, but I don’t care about her love life and it’s all she seems to care about. OTOH, I can’t read less about her, because I tend not to read about her at all. Despite her fans’ insistence otherwise, she’s not very interesting.

So I hope to hear less about her this year, but only because I hope to hear less about all the things our journamalistic class obsesses about in lieu of covering actual news.

The floor’s yours.