"A man of no country"

Trump Takes Manhattan

I actually started telling friends back in January that I thought former President Donald Trump would lose the election. I haven't been that loud about my feelings here in the newsletter, but I just figured that Trump had already lost once and you can't really be a strongman if you don't look strong anymore. No matter how much you tell people you didn't actually lose. I, admittedly, got a little worried after the first debate with President Joe Biden, but once he got swapped out for Vice President Kamala Harris in July, I was back to feeling optimistic again.

And I actually don't think Trump believes he can win either. At least, legally. In fact, his campaign really only makes sense if you view it through the lens of a candidate who wants to cause enough chaos to try and steal an election, rather than win it.

It's been the same process all summer. Trump's campaign will cross some kind of line with regards to decency, let the country freak out for a sec, and then walk themselves back from hysterical extremism to something milder. Project 2025, the moral panic over Haitian immigrants in Ohio, his constant flip-flopping on abortion — all of it was meant to test exactly how much of the quiet part they could say out loud this time around. And, of course, it works because if you try to write about this stuff you sound ridiculous.

There has already been a lot of ink spilled over “sanewashing,” the term many use to describe the mainstream media’s inability to accurately report on what Trump says and does. And, as we’re learning this week, there are definitely publications like The Washington Post and The LA Times, that are willing to torch their reputations and their subscription businesses to appease Trump’s powerful supporters. But I don’t think that’s actually the core problem with how the media has covered Trump.

As someone who worked in newsrooms during Trump’s first two campaigns and presidency and had to cover the insane garbage that comes out of his mouth, it is not as easy as a lot of liberals seem to think it is. The man does not speak in full sentences or complete thoughts. It can take thousands of words to not only debunk something he’s said, but even define what it was that he was referencing in the first place. I have often wondered if he does this on purpose and I’ve settled on the opinion that no one could be this consistently and consciously good at never giving the media a coherent quote. I think he’s just like that.

But yesterday was different. Yes, some of Trump's team have tried to distance themselves from the jaw-dropping levels of racism and vitriol on display at his Madison Square Garden rally, but, for once, it all fit easily in a headline.

Trump, hot off his appearance on Joe Rogan, spent the afternoon ranting about immigrants, referring to them as the “enemy within,” as the massive crowd of supporters chanted back at him “send them back.” History does not repeat, but it rhymes, etc.

Elon Musk joined Trump on stage, doing his weird stupid X jump thing again. Musk also debuted a new “Make America Great Again” hat, written in the Nazi font, which he described as “dark gothic MAGA,” which actually might be more embarrassing than if he had just admitted it was a Nazi thing. He also apparently does not know how the “U-S-A chant” is supposed to go. As X user @arod_twit wrote, “Starting a USA chant with his Dracula apartheid accent. A man of no country.”

The only guy who seemed to have a worse night than Musk was “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe, whose opening set was so racist you probably haven't even heard every racist thing he said because there was just so much of it.

According to Nate Silver, Hinchcliffe is driving so much (presumably negative) attention that he's currently getting more Google activity than Taylor Swift. While, according to Silver, Trump hasn't had this level of attention since his second assassination attempt. Which would be bad if yesterday was meant to convince anyone to vote for him. Which it clearly wasn't.

As The New York Times reported this morning, a network of Trump supporters have been working for years to make sure that no matter how America votes next week, he'll still win. Ballot boxes are already burning. And yesterday was about making sure that those carrying out the plan know exactly why they're doing it. One last signal flare up into the sky so every extremist in the country knows he’s on their side. And while it’s nice that America’s largest newsrooms have finally gotten comfortable putting the word “racist” and “Trump” in the same headline, we’ve likely passed the point where definitions matter. Now all that’s left to do is wait.

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A Good Halloween Costume

Tim Walz Finally Played Crazy Taxi

Gov. Tim Walz continues to microtarget me specifically. He went on a Twitch stream over the weekend with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and finally got to play Crazy Taxi. He also echoed my own feelings on the Sega Dreamcast, telling Ocasio-Cortez, “I thought it would conquer the world.” Me too, Tim. Though, in many ways it did, since most of its core features, like the VMU second screen experience, internet connectivity, and introduction of DLC were actually just too earl—

Walz’s team also used American Football’s “Never Meant” in a TikTok video. As one user on r/Emo wrote, “The trickle down effect of having sad millennials taking more senior positions in campaigns as we all grow older.”

Curious to see which part of my teenage experience Walz mines next for the campaign. Has he ever watched the Digimon movie?

Bluesky Will Be Launching A Paid Plan

I actually did not see this one coming. Bluesky raised a Series A round of funding and is now planning to add a bunch of monetization features. It should also be noted that the funding lead on the Series A is Blockchain Capital, which was a lead investor in Coinbase and OpenSea, but Bluesky, in a blog post, said they do not plan on adding any blockchain-based features.

Instead, the site will be launching customizable profiles, high quality video, and a creator tip jar feature, some of which will be put behind a premium tier of the site. Bluesky was also clear that paying for the site would not make your account more visible. Which is admirable, but I’m curious how effective simple quality of life features will be in attracting paying subscribers. Like with everything Bluesky does, I hope it works.

Though, I have to admit I’m a little disappointed to see Bluesky going down a similar path to every other social network. I wrote about this last week, but Bluesky has the foundation to become something much different than its competitors. And even though its team are quick to brag about it, I don’t get the sense that they even know what to do with the platform they’ve built.

Rosanna Pansino Vs. MrBeast

If you haven’t been following the feud between YouTuber Rosanna Pansino and MrBeast, it dates back to last year, when Pansino issued a statement saying that MrBeast had edited footage of her during the Creator Games 3 to make it seem as if she did worse than she actually had.

Pansino then did a taste test of MrBeast’s new Lunchly box and discovered the cheese was not drippy, but, in fact, moldy. And Pansino’s video went very viral, with other users reporting similarly moldy cheese.

Pansino is back, though, with a new video about MrBeast and it’s a bombshell. She got her hands on thousands of leaked chat logs from MrBeast’s internal Telegram group, spanning 2020-2021. She also verified them with former employees. In the video, which is embedded above, Pansino details how MrBeast employees, including the YouTube star and his former collaborator, Ava Kris Tyson, who, herself, has already been accused of inappropriate behavior and grooming, were allegedly making sexual comments in the chat and even shared sexually explicit material of children. Pansino also said she reported the chats to the FBI.

The major revelation though from Pansino’s video is that MrBeast’s public comments that he was unaware of Tyson’s inappropriate behavior were apparently not true, seeing as how these chat logs show that he was engaging with Tyson’s inappropriate content at the time.

Boring Japanese Halloween Is Back

It’s the internet’s favorite time of year: Jimi, or Mundane, Halloween. The contest is organized every year by the Japanese blog Daily Portalz and the costumes this year were excellent as always. The one below was my favorite, but this one was pretty good too.

You can check out a thread of all the best ones here.

Good Post About Balatro

Some Stray Links

• “Fandom has toxified the world”

• “How Substack's follow feature betrays its original mission”

• Fear and loathing at the Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition

P.S. here’s a good post about Blade.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***