Ron or Don? That is the Question Posed by the 2022 Midterms
PLUS: A review of "Endure" by Special Interest
On the one hand, elections are clarifying moments. Many of the uncertainties and assumptions we hold regarding our political moment are thrown into stark relief, the balance of power shifts, and the day after Election Day feels like a whole new political world. Yet at the same time, it’s easy to misread the results of elections, to declare the People have Spoken (as if tens of millions of people can send a single message with one voice) and assume candidates and parties have won mandates they haven’t really earned. The moment begs to be analyzed, but this new territory still requires a more complete survey. We may not have that until the voters reshape the political landscape yet again two years from now.
So let me step carefully here. I’m going to stick with the tools I used in my pre-election analysis—the political and economic fundamentals—to craft my post-election analysis. The conclusion is fairly straightforward: Given the tendency for a president’s party to lose seats during a midterm election—and given that Biden’s poor approval rating, voters’ negative assessment of the economy, and Americans’ general sense the country is on the wrong track are all likely to exacerbate those losses—Election Day 2022 should have been a bloodbath for Democrats. But it wasn’t. As it stands, Democrats will retain control of the Senate (Republicans only had to win one net seat to take control of the chamber) and they’ll probably lose their House majority by an exceedingly thin margin, if they lose it at all. (I would just note, however, that a party that stokes an unprecedented insurrection by lying about the validity of election results and then spends a summer misleading people about the efficacy of vaccines in the midst of a pandemic which in turn drove up death rates among their very own supporters should have been drummed out of office completely, but that’s just me.)
In a “normal” midterm, one would have expected Republicans to have defended their toss-up Senate seats in Wisconsin (which they did) and Pennsylvania (which they didn’t); win the three toss-up Democratic-held seats in Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada walking-away (Georgia is going to a run-off, while Nevada and Arizona have been called for the Dems); and flip a surprise seat or two in Democratic-leaning states like New Hampshire, Colorado, or Washington (not even close.) On the House side, Republicans should have dominated the toss-up seats and snatched a few of the seats that leaned Democratic. Instead, Republicans have only won six of the twenty-six toss-up seats that have already been called and are only leading in four of the ten that remain uncalled. Of the twenty-eight lean Democratic seats (a number of which, based on fundamentals, really should have been toss-ups or lean Republican seats) Republicans only posed a serious challenge in four of them. (To view the state of these House races, consult this page at the New York Times.) In the twelve most competitive governors races (Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin) Republicans have only notched three wins (Georgia, Texas, and Nevada, the latter of which they flipped) and currently trail in a fourth (Arizona). Perhaps most amazingly, Democrats now have control over more state legislative houses than before.
There are a few factors that may have made this a not-so-normal midterm. To begin with, it is very rare for the party that controls neither the White House nor Congress to tally a major policy victory under such circumstances, but that’s precisely what happened when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this past summer. Many have concluded the issue of abortion kept Democrats politically engaged at a time when they may have otherwise sat the elections out. Now, abortion rights has the potential to become an issue that motivates Democrats for elections to come.
It’s also possible we’re seeing a new political pattern emerging that is displacing the midterm pattern we’ve grown accustomed to, as more voters in this high-partisan/high-interest era remain politically engaged in off-presidential election years. Couple that with House districts that have been drawn in ways that generally make them less competitive, and big 30-to-40-seat wave elections become harder to pull off. Still, those economic and political fundamentals I mentioned earlier were pretty strong and should have claimed more vulnerable Democrats.
Which leaves us with Donald Trump, who is taking most of the heat for the GOP’s losses. He’s catching flak on three fronts: Boosting poor nominees like Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, and Don Bolduc in winnable races; keeping the issue of democracy front and center by constantly reminding people of his disdain for and threat to it; and just generally being his old attention-craving self at a time when most voters would prefer to keep ridin’ with Biden than return to the drama of the Trump years. Trump is a prime driver of negative partisanship, the force that compels partisans (in this case, Democrats) to vote not to support their own party but to stymie the opposition. Trump is proving to be an outstanding GOTV operation for Democrats. Additionally, during a midterm in which independent voters actually broke for the president’s party, Trump appears to be a drag on Republican efforts to win over middle-of-the-road voters as well. As Tim Alberta wrote for The Atlantic, “The manifest reality is that Trumpism has become toxic—not just to the Never Trumpers or the RINOs or the members of the Resistance, but to the immense, restless middle of the American electorate.”
For someone whose public image and sense of self is tied up in the idea of winning, Trump’s really starting to stink like a loser, and it’s rubbing off on his party. The chatter is that Republicans are over the guy. Over the past few days, I’ve read multiple articles about how Washington establishment types, the donor class, figures in conservative media, and even grassroots Republicans are ready to move on from Trump. Here’s last Wednesday’s front page of the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post for crying out loud:
Now, we’ve been on this Access Hollywood bus before, most recently on January 6, 2021, when Lindsey Graham broke up with Donald Trump after some unpleasantness at Graham’s place of work. Graham, however, like most Republicans, would cycle back to their ex-prez. There’s no reason to believe Republicans wouldn’t do the same this time around, either.
But unlike years past, there’s an attractive alternative to Trump whom Republicans are falling pretty hard for. Ron DeSantis beat his Democratic opponent by less than 0.5% in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial election; last week, in the only real bright spot for Republicans, he won re-election by about 19.5%. Florida has long been considered a quintessential toss-up state. Many think DeSantis has moved Florida firmly into the Republican column, and more and more Republicans now want DeSantis to work that same magic on the national stage.
Trump, of course, is ready to go scorched earth on DeSantis if the governor dares to challenge him for the GOP’s presidential nomination. Trump has already posted two long rants on his social media network TruthSocial about the man he nicknamed last weekend (at a Dr. Oz rally in Pennsylvania, of all places) “Ron DeSanctimonious” (I know, it doesn’t make any sense) accusing DeSantis of ineptness, disloyalty, and sycophancy. Trump’s also hinted he has dirt on DeSantis, stating, “I think if he runs he could hurt himself very badly.” Just as he has in the past when Trump has snarled in his direction, DeSantis has taken none of Trump’s bait and stayed silent, although I wouldn’t doubt DeSantis is reminding every Republican bigwig he talks to that he just outperformed Trump by 16 percentage points in the president’s adopted home state.
Whoever predicted the most immediate issue arising from the aftermath of the 2022 midterms would revolve around the leadership of the Republican Party is owed a Coke. Ron or Don? That is the question. Don promises vindication, restoration, the triumph of triumph, MAGA…Again. Ron promises MAGA without the baggage of its avatar, MAGA refined, MAGA in the hands of someone who can actually MAGA, MAGA as a credible conservative majority.
In the best case scenario for Republicans, Trump would spend the next four weeks flaming out in Georgia (where he’s already flamed out before) on behalf of a Heisman trophy winner he deemed Senate-worthy who believes abortion is murder but has helped two women he’s impregnated get abortions and who thinks he’s a cop because a sheriff once gave him a pretend badge to play with. That might convince Trump’s base that their man is past his prime and lead them to shop for someone new, which might convince Trump to get to work on his Mar-a-Lago presidential library rather than suffer another lost caucus in Iowa. And then just like that, Republicans will sweep all that unpleasant stuff this republic’s dealt with over the past eight years under the rug like it never happened.
That’s almost too clean of a break, though. If Herschel Walker loses in Georgia, Trump will deflect blame onto others; if Walker wins, Trump will probably be there in the Capitol holding the Bible Walker is sworn in on. But Georgia aside, there are three factors worth considering:
Trump senses he is a well-timed recession away from moving back into the White House. He also knows only about 30,000 votes kept him from winning a second term. The presidency is in reach, if he can only get his stubby little fingers around it.
A certain segment of Trump’s supporters are essentially cultists who won’t bother voting unless their dear leader tells them to head to the polls. These voters turn out for Trump, not the Republican Party or Ron DeSantis. And it wasn’t as though voters in Republican-leaning districts rejected election deniers. (Well, except for Madison Cawthorn. And Sarah Palin. And maybe Lauren Boebert.) I mean, come on, Ron Johnson got himself re-elected in a must-win state for Trump.
Republicans have had opportunities in the past to abandon Trump at relatively little cost (1/6 was definitely the moment) and have chosen not to do so. If Trump threatens to take his political ball (along with all his supporters) and go home, Republicans will find ways to not only let him play but let him win as well. They really fear the alternative: Watching him set their party on fire after breaking up with him.
I have to think DeSantis has taken these factors into account as he weighs a presidential run. If he ran against Trump and lost due to Republican voters’ loyalty to Trump, DeSantis—like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz before him—will find his reputation and political career in tatters. If he ran against Trump and won despite the opposition of Trump’s base, he’d likely flounder in the general election as disenchanted Trump voters, convinced the primary process was rigged by party insiders, stay home. As much as Republican elites want him to save the party, it makes much more sense for DeSantis to sit out 2024, finish his term in 2026, and take his shot at the White House in 2028, when both Biden and Trump would be term-limited (and possibly after Trump would have crashed-and-burned in 2024.)
In other words, despite the hype around a Trump-DeSantis showdown and the prospect of Republicans finally ditching Trump, it isn’t going to happen. The only way DeSantis runs in 2024 is if Trump’s base sours on him. Otherwise, Republicans are stuck with Trump. Should have impeached him when they had the chance.
And lo and behold, they just can’t quit him. House Republican Conference Chair and Gollum protege Elise Stefanik (NY) has endorsed Donald Trump for president even though Trump has yet to officially declare his intention to run. (That’s coming in a couple days apparently.) The calculation is fairly straightforward: The Trump coalition is the broadest coalition Republicans can stitch together at the moment. Without him on the ballot, they may win back wayward NeverTrumpers and some measure of dignity, but they’ll lose Trump’s larger MAGA base. Given the way the Electoral College and the Senate distort our politics, that’s not a bad gamble, although the parlay involves risking the future of American democracy against bad odds.
My take: If Republicans end up succeeding with Trump at the helm of their party—which remains a real possibility, especially if the economy doesn’t improve—that’s bad news for American democracy. But based on the results of last week’s election, which should have been a gimme for Republicans, Trumpism is more likely to only offer diminishing returns for the GOP going forward. At some point (and if they don’t first sacrifice American democracy on the altar of Trumpism) Republicans are going to have to cut ties with Trump and begin rebuilding their party. Doing so will cripple them politically for a few electoral cycles, but this turn of events seems inevitable. The question is if Republicans are more inclined to do so now or later.
One final note: Please don’t assume that by pitting Ron DeSantis against Donald Trump that I think DeSantis is the savior that can deliver the Republican Party from Trumpism. Far from it. I’ve really been getting a kick this week reading Never Trump conservative commentators who have called for a complete overhaul of the Republican Party praise voters for rejecting Republican candidates and then in nearly the same breath suggest DeSantis is the way forward for the GOP. No. DeSantis is Trumpism, just with impulse control. He’s still a crude troll with authoritarian tendencies and an inclination for cruelty. He’s not above letting people suffer so long as he’s owning the libs. Just last month he had people arrested for voting when state officials told them they could vote. If DeSantis is “Trump, but competent,” or simply “less of an existential threat than Trump,” voters need to send that dish back to the kitchen every single day.
Intermission: “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” by Bruce Springsteen (2022, Only the Strong Survive)
Signals and Noise
Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are dealing with serious questions about their ability to lead their congressional caucuses. One would assume McConnell is in the better spot since the Senate is so clubby, but support for him could waver
if he can’t get Herschel Walker across the goal line (and Walker’s seat might not matter if Democrats prevail in Arizona and Nevada.)now that he won’t be majority leader. Reports are Florida Senator Rick Scott was coming for him until Republican hopes fizzled on Tuesday. Still, new reports suggest Trump aims to make McConnell the fall guy for Tuesday night. And by the end of the week, McConnell’s position seemed less assured.As for McCarthy…with such a slim majority (somewhere between 2-6 seats I think?) moderates, right-wingers, and Trump could all make demands of him, although House Republican Caucus rules only require McCarthy to win half the Republican caucus. Trump already expects McCarthy’s endorsement/coronation. And remember, McCarthy isn’t exactly a puppet master; if anything, he’s the puppet. Not the sort of guy who should be entrusted with so much power, and given his profile, I wouldn’t doubt it if he ends up on the backbenches yet again. If that were to happen after McCarthy endorsed Trump, what would that say about Trump’s support within the GOP?
And what about Pelosi? Is she interested in going back to minority leader? Isn’t it time for new leadership regardless? Here’s my idea: Keep her on as leader for the 2023 legislative showdowns, then have her step down in 2024 so the new Democratic leadership doesn’t have to spend two years getting pilloried by Republicans.
Susan Glasser at The New Yorker reminds Democrats not to spike the football, because they still lost the House, which makes life for Biden much more difficult in DC. But with Democrats holding on to the Senate, they can continue shaping the judiciary.
Republicans hoped to make gains in New England in the midterms. Didn’t happen.
Democrats did not fare well in New York, however, where they lost numerous seats. Republicans ran aggressively on the issue of crime. New York Democrats had aggressively gerrymandered the state this spring; they expected to pick up three additional seats as a result. A judge threw that map out and let a special master draw a new one; now Democrats are down three seats. In one of the more shocking results, DCCC chairman Sean Patrick Maloney lost his Hudson Valley congressional seat. Who did he blame? Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, of course. That didn’t sit well with AOC. Here’s Maloney’s and AOC’s take on what happened. (For more on what went wrong in New York for Democrats—former Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems to play a starring role—check out this article.)
Republicans ran the table in Florida. Here’s Michael Grunwald, for The Atlantic, explaining why: “If Democrats want to do something about this problem, they can’t think of it as an inevitable fact of life in the Sunshine State; they need to ask why the Republican Party is so attractive to newcomers, and why Florida is so attractive to Republicans. My two cents, as I wrote in an essay about Cape Coral after Hurricane Ian, is that the sugary DeSantis vision of a Free State of Florida paradise where nobody will force you to pay income taxes, get vaccinated, care about climate change, limit your water consumption, or build your house in a safe location is extremely alluring. It promises ice cream when Democrats are mostly offering broccoli.” Florida, man.
Democrats did well in Michigan, where they gained control of both houses of the state legislature and re-elected Gretchen Whitmer governor, vaulting her into the top tier of either 2024 or 2028 presidential contenders. Michigan Republicans blame Trump for their poor showing. Democrats also did pretty good in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, part of the old “Blue Wall.”
Other Democratic governors to keep on eye on: Jared Polis in Colorado, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, and Wes Moore in Maryland.
So disappointing to see Democrat Stacey Abrams lose her gubernatorial race in Georgia. She’s a tremendous talent with a knack for connecting with people across the political spectrum. One could imagine her as president one day. It’s certainly not easy for a Democrat to win in Georgia, and she deserves credit for making that state competitive for Team Blue. I hope Democrats ask her to lead their national GOTV operation.
Democrats still lag Republicans when it comes to control of statehouses nationwide, but they made important gains in a number of states this year.
Does Mark Kelly’s victory in Arizona suggest Kyrsten Sinema is misplaying her hand?
MAGA nut Lauren Boebert is on the ropes in her solidly Republican Colorado congressional race. Why? According to her opponent, her constituents just don’t like her.
Sarah Palin thinks the Republican Party sabotaged her campaign and wants people to quit donating to the GOP.
Nate Cohn at the New York Times looks at how abortion and concerns about democracy shaped electoral outcomes on a state-by-state basis…
…which makes me think Florida’s plan to tighten abortion restrictions even further in the state isn’t the way for Republicans to consolidate power in the state.
How did Democrats fare among Latinos? In some states (like Florida), not well, but in other states and in certain demographics, they mostly held their own, although there are signs of slippage. This is an issue Democrats need to get on top of. Additionally, voters of color showed some declines in their support for Democrats as well.
It looks like young voters delivered again for Democrats.
Independents favored Democrats by 18 points in Pennsylvania, 28 points in Georgia, and 30+ points in Arizona.
David Shor found more Republicans voted than Democrats, yet Democrats still won because a number of self-identified Republicans didn’t back their own party’s nominee.
Rich Lowry, for Politico: “Trump is a Bust for Republicans” (“You nominate FDR for a third time after he’s won the first two times [and wash, rinse and repeat]. You make a romantic icon of a promising young leader cut down in his prime, like JFK. You revere the two-term presidents, like Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, who went out on high notes. It’s passing strange to become similarly devoted to a political figure who barely won a fluky presidential election, then lost a winnable reelection bid, before dragging the country through a bonkers attempt to overturn the result, with the episode ending in futility and bloodshed. The natural response of a party to all this shouldn’t be, ‘Please, let’s try that again, and in the meantime, allow the former president to be the most important arbiter of our political fate.’”)
Jonathan Chait reports the GOP revolt against Trump is more serious than people think.
For the most part, Republican candidates are (thankfully) conceding defeat this year rather than challenging the results. And most election-denying candidates running for offices overseeing elections have lost, including the secretary of state candidates in Arizona and Nevada. You can track how election deniers did here.
But Don Trump is casting doubt on the validity of the election results in Arizona and Nevada.
Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake is also not accepting the results. She’s already said she won’t accept them if she loses and that she would win only by doing better than the fraud.
Lindsey “Goose” Graham thinks there’s fraud in Nevada. Turns out he’s just really bad at math.
Here’s more from Trump attacking DeSantis: “I was all in for Ron, and he beat [2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew] Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen.” Wait, Trump sent federal law enforcement to Florida to stop the vote counting? Um, shouldn’t someone maybe look into that?
So petty: From a Trump post on TruthSocial: “Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me. I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him - or he couldn’t have come close to winning. But he knows that, and admits it. Besides, having a hard time with the Dems in Virginia - But he’ll get it done!”
Better Petty:
Tiffany Trump got married this weekend but the father of the bride is “cranky” and mad at the bride’s stepmother for talking him into endorsing Dr. Oz.
Trump’s legal problems are probably going to hit the fan this month.
By Charles C.W. Cooke, for National Review: “Donald Trump’s G.O.P Establishment Has Failed” (“Trump is the Republican establishment now. He’s the default, the Man, the swamp. It is Trump who is widely considered the front-runner for the party’s nomination in 2024. It is Trump whose endorsements are treated as if they were official edicts. It is Trump to whom the press and the public tend to link all GOP nominees. And, judging by the squeals that emanated from his allies yesterday, Trump’s machine intends to do everything it can to keep it that way, and to thus ensure that he wins the next primary election and loses the next presidential election. With the country in its present state, Republicans simply cannot afford that sort of frivolous, low-energy, old-boys-club complacency. GOP, you’re on notice.”)
How did the polls perform in the midterms? Taken together, on average, they underestimated Democratic strength by about 3%.
I get why California and Oregon send every voter a ballot. It’s not all that clear to me why it takes so long for Nevada and Arizona to count their votes. But can we please come up with a way to finish counting the votes within 24 hours of the polls closing? Dragging the vote counting out over a week only lends itself to accusations of voter fraud even when everything is on the up-and-up. It’s possible to both ensure access to the polls and count votes quickly.
A federal judge has struck down Biden’s student loan forgiveness program.
New numbers this week suggest inflation is beginning to ease.
By Madeleine Ngo, for Vox: “How Economists Know Whether Inflation is Getting Better”
Elon Musk has said Twitter may lose billions next year and have to declare bankruptcy. Not sure what he’s got up his sleeve when it comes to his new toy. You’d think he’d be busy enough running an electric car company and trying to land people on Mars.
I share this picture not to remind you that Angel Hernandez is far and away the worst Major League Baseball umpire but to direct your attention to that FTX logo on his shirt.
FTX is a cryptocurrency. It just went bust. Its co-founder’s fortune went from $16 billion on Monday to $0 on Friday. He planned to spend $1 billion dollars for Democrats in the 2024 election.
The American ad industry is trying to fix the problem of gun violence in the United States.
Russia has retreated from the city of Kherson, in a region Putin “annexed” only last month.
Alexander Gabuev writes in The Atlantic that Putin is not simply saber-rattling when he threatens to use a nuclear weapon.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley estimates Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties in Ukraine, while 40,000 Ukrainians have been killed or wounded.
Intermission: “Turn Back the Hands of Time” by Bruce Springsteen (2022, Only the Strong Survive)
Top 5 Records Music Review: Endure by Special Interest
It’s become a cliche to say we’re living through a “slow-motion car crash,” that the great inexorable crises bearing down on us—democratic decline, unchecked global capitalism, climate change—are day-by-day, year-by-year, decade-by-decade bringing about the end of human civilization as we know it. That’s not what it feels like to the band Special Interest, though. For them and those they speak for, we are careening (not slouching) toward Bethlehem or Gomorrah or whatever apocalyptic allusion you want to use here. It’s a massive, ongoing, multi-car pile-up happening in real time at high speed, and we’re living in the wreckage.
Special Interest is a New Orleans band, but you would not associate the style of music they play with that city. They’re essentially a punk band, but with soulful vocals and throbbing/rubbery bass lines propelled by electro club beats. Their influences go far beyond that, though. At any moment you may hear traces of James Chance, Throbbing Gristle, Garbage, or OutKast, along with allusions to early Talking Heads or Bad Brains. Special Interest slip easily back and forth between the political forthrightness of Rage Against the Machine and the punk-funk playfulness of the B-52s. But the band I kept thinking about as I listened to them was Nirvana: If audiences today consumed rock and roll music the way they did in the 1990s, Endure would be as fresh, big, and meaningful to Zoomers as Nevermind was to Generation X.
Finally, a post-pandemic band that rocks out rather than in, that is meant to be blasted from speakers rather than burrowed into your ear drums, that has recorded music that is supposed to be listened to in a mob of people rather than in the isolation of a bedroom. Special Interest wrote much of it while gathered together at a socially-safe distance from one another during lockdown. The music they aimed to share with the world reflected their desire to be together than apart. That wasn’t just because they longed for human connection, but because the time called for social solidarity, for people to rise up against unfettered capitalism, racism, environmental degradation, complacency, and the sort of dehumanization all of that seems built upon.
Their new album is an absolute rush. Songs like “Cherry Blue Intention”, “(Herman’s) House”, and “Foul” move fast. People’s identities change quick. It’s liberating—“You can be whoever you want” declares lead singer Alli Logout—but maybe “just for the night.” As Logout later asks, “Can we really be who we want all the time?” These particular moments are so fleeting, barely an escape before we’re jostled back into the rat race where we adopt multiple ill-fitting identities just to scrape by. And sometimes these escapes, chemically-induced as they are on occasion, are barely that. We remember them, we forget them, the highs hit us as hard as the lows, and they leave us damaged. Endure carries us quickly from the party to the morning-after crash.
“How do you measure the time you’ve lost” Logout sings on “Foul”, a song that blasts the listener with all the ways we end up physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. It’s not that we’re losing long stretches of time. The problem isn’t ennui. It’s that the hits keep coming, one after another, second by second it seems. That’s where the time is lost. This cavalcade of injuries, both personal and social, don’t fix themselves as quickly as they’re inflicted. We could all use the time to heal, to reset, to set things right, but we’re under constant bombardment.
In the midst of this, Special Interest celebrates the survivors and the crusaders. “Sleep deprived (It’s an art)” we hear on “Foul”, explaining how people find a way to make it work and carry on. And since ours lives are filled with so much churn, why not burn this house down and start again, as Logout sings on “(Herman’s) House”. Is that nihilism? Or an acknowledgment that we ought to question the things and ideas we’re attached to in a world that does not necessarily value attachment and that is changing so rapidly that the old ways of doing things may quickly lose their utility?
During the album’s second half, a greater sense of dread begins creeping into the songs, as if it is dawning on the band they won’t be able to party their way out of this catastrophe. Righteousness and release aren’t enough. We can take our stand, but the wave rising against us may still wash us away. Special Interest’s response isn’t the sort of Boomer optimism found in the memorable political tracks of the 1960s, when songwriters believed in the power of the people and that a change was gonna come. It also doesn’t draw on Gen-X cynicism, probably because Zoomers realize they can’t leave behind a world that refuses to leave them alone.
Instead, their answer comes in the form of the ominous eight-minute “LA Blues” (see Exit Music), destined for year-end and decade-in-review best-of lists. The song begins as a survey of the 21st-century wasteland and a kiss-off to anyone who would look down their nose at something they refuse to understand. Yet midway through, it becomes a plea to God for understanding and a demand that God explain why all this loss and devastation has come down upon the head of someone who may not be perfect but certainly doesn’t deserve this pain. There isn’t an answer, just the long squall of a guitar, before Logout finally sings “The end of the world is just a destination” over and over again. The concluding lines: “I had to grow to love/ Yes and now I know I’m not unworthy of love”.
It’s a theme you might find in the novels of Emily St. John Mandel or Sally Rooney. We are not damned. We are merely living in the world we were born into. So what are we to do? Endure.