C/D: Rick Perlstein

Today in REAGANLAND, an ambitious difference-splitter "endorses" Jimmy Carter, " not the finest thing since wheat cakes...not the 2nd coming...but...doing a good job." Tho, "If you're looking for an Irish Catholic Democrat to support, wait until 1984 and one of us will be back." pic.twitter.com/8E2vYNRgRA

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) April 22, 2020

Biden, on the other hand, is definitely the finest thing since wheat cakes

The Kopechne endorsement almost struck me like Hillary getting Monica Lewinsky's endorsement in 2016.

Eh, by that point, it was probably just water under the bridge.

I checked with Alan Alda, and he said it's okay if I laugh.

Finished Nixonland.

Boy, does that book go up a notch once Nixon begins recording his conversations.

Finished. (Reaganland). Exhausted. Possibly the longest book I've ever read.

I thought it a breeze -- I gobbled it. Did it bore you?

At times, yes--when he waded into stuff like Moral Majority meetings, or anti-tax amendments and such. I found there was much more of that than in the previous three books. I like it best when he steps back and connects what's going on politically to the culture out there. And there was some of that--like how Reagan's defense of the Vietnam War was initially assumed to be catastrophic by the press, but that meanwhile they completely missed that The Deer Hunter was indicating something else was plainly underfoot.

Yeah. I loved those bits.

Good podcast with the LGM folk: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/10/lgm-podcast-reaganland

My next book, with @littlebrown + editor @pronoydsarkar—on what has happened to America since 2000, and how it can unhappen. Short, sharp, and out in time for the 2024 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. And it will take no prisoners. Now leave me alone for 18 months! pic.twitter.com/OHbpk4dNK2

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) May 17, 2022

I've read a couple of those here's-how-to-fix-things books (which this sounds like), and can think of many I haven't; wish he'd continued on with what he was doing.

The "short, sharp" thing makes me wonder if he needed to give himself a "little" project break between what he was doing and the "leave me alone" bit makes me hopeful he's getting back to it. Dunno.

I thought so too. Also: cash flow.

He's already answered the question the next book would need to answer--"How did Trump happen?"--but I still want him to write it.

I remembered a book called "After Strage Texts" after reading about TS Eliott's "After Strange Gods" and discovered it literally un-google-able": only TS and stuff about texting. It can't even come up (without subtitle) in an Amazon search! https://t.co/XFrDEooZZx

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) February 10, 2023

True, I also get no results for "After Strage Texts"

"After Strange Texts" otoh...

I've looked for ASG for a couple years. Not even my uni library has a copy.

A remarkable story from @rickperlstein about a night he shared with Marc Andreessen, who said of rural small-town Americans who didn't leave their communities, "I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet"https://t.co/KqIeLAtXHR

— David Dayen (@ddayen) April 24, 2024

paging mr. choppy

That was well written but a long write-up to a pretty weak punchline. I was expecting Burroughsian levels of depravity to be revealed ("...and then Andreesen snapped the houseboy's neck while still balls-deep...") but all that for a snarky one-liner about rednecks? Meh.

Says something about Andreessen that's that all he can say!

yes it shows how boring the very rich are. They're different from you and me.