What’s peak 2017? In the 2020s, what will we look back on as a emblematic of this tire fire of a year?
Was it the sort of year when you wonder how a white supremacist winds up as an EEOC compliance officer at a minority-owned company?
Was it the nostalgia for the merely terrible national discourse and leadership of the George W. Bush years?
I bet there was no point in 2008 at which you thought, “Nine years from now the leading voices in the GOP will make Joe the Plumber look like Voltaire.” — Ed Myrrh-mila (@gin_and_tacos) December 12, 2017
Was it when the Republican party started fighting with the American Bar Association because they disagree about whether judges should be competent?
Was it when an Army buddy of an alleged pedophile Senate Candidate tried to give an example of moral behavior and it still involved underage prostitutes? Or when the candidate’s wife tried to claim they weren’t prejudiced because they have “a Jew” as one of their attorneys?
Between Kayla Moore rebuffing anti-semitism by citing her “Jew” lawyer and the president rebuffing sexual assault charges by sexually harassing a sitting senator, this has been a great 12 hours for own-goals. — Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) December 12, 2017
Was it something more subtle, like this analysis from The Awl of what went wrong with Dilbert as Adams began to love the boss more than the worker, loving in Trump all the same things he used to mock about managers.
Or maybe Scott Walker wearing a festive Christmas sweater to celebrate the season of generosity while gutting the state’s safety net and drug-testing food-stamp recipients.
Or the technological absurdity of Waze and Google Maps directing people down roads that are empty because they’re on fire.
Realistically it’ll probably be the constant drumbeat of sexual harassment being uncovered. The long-delayed acknowledgement of something that men have known about but not quite understood, and women have long understood but not been able to get taken seriously. The year when you see a male celebrity or professional role model mentioned somewhere and wonder if he’s dead, or just dead to you now. (Read the Ken Friedman rundown. It’s horrifying.)
That and the collusion. Yeah, that’ll be in there.
#RollTide
Reports from Alabama yesterday included active voters suddenly marked as inactive and voting machines breaking. And cops showing up to check voters for outstanding warrants. Yet somehow decency and the colossal strategic mistakes of the Republican party ran together and Doug Jones won the special election.
Cultivating amusement
Massachusetts Gothic: “Why is that field red? The children ask. It’s a cranberry bog, the adults repeat. Just a cranberry bog. The eyes in the bog do not blink.”
The 2017 Hater’s Guide to Williams Sonoma.
A collection of rejected New Yorker covers called The Not Yorker.
What if we made twee indie romances in the Star Wars universe?
What if you took a neural net and asked it to write a Harry Potter novel?
Cultivating joy
Snow day elephant
Unable to operate the straw on the iced coffee, a dog falls asleep with his nose in the cupholder.
Shoulder-mounted kitten.
Secretly Ironic 