Keeping up with the news—online or in print, on Twitter or on cable—is like watching soap-operas. Plots advance slowly. Characters step forward to have their of clashes and conflicts and then we CUT to another sub-plot.Players and pundits take turns having their moments on camera, at microphone, or at keyboard. Even the audience gets into the act—in social-media posts and diner interviews—as the drama slowly unfolds. For the first time in history all of us can both see the show and be the show.
But most of the time, it’s boring and repetitive. Most of what everyone says and Tweets is completely predictable—because most of it is exactly what they said and Tweeted yesterday and what they will say and Tweet tomorrow. As a news consumer (and Tweet producer), I find it all melding into a drone of elevator music. What starts as a sharply focused story soon fades to a background noise.
Case in Point: Biden’s Build Back Better bill
Introduced with a flourish and a promise of transformative improvement, the Build Back Better bill passed the House after some hard negotiations between progressives and centrists. Then, once it crossed to the Senate, it got tangled up in public negotiations. It melted into a slog of ambush interviews with Manchin and Sinema. Hopes faded that the Democrats could manage to bypass the filibuster and and use the budget reconciliation process, where they could pass it with fifty votes plus the Vice President’s tie-breaker. Without Manchin and Sinema, they didn’t have the fifty. By the end of 2021 the bill had stalled. Apparently dead. I had thought last December that it might resurface in a few weeks. But that never happened. It was not merely dead, it was really most sincerely dead.
Or was it?
Turns out that taking the negotiations off the news and silencing the hourly punditry was the best thing for it. Out of camera and microphone range, Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer kept hammering on it. And then suddenly, in late July, the media were shocked to learn that the Senators had worked out a compromise that delivered a substantial amount of the original bill, giving it a more timely title “Inflation Reduction Act.” This weekend, it passed the Senate, delivering the most substantial climate bill in U.S. (and earth’s) history, closing tax loopholes for corporations, lowering health-care costs, lowering the deficit, and not raising taxes on families earning $400,000 or less. Taking the negotiations private delivered a huge win.
Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act capped a streak of steady good news for Democrats and President Biden. I know you know this, but it’s still good to list them:
Passing the CHIPS and Science Act
Zawahiri mission
PACT Act (Burn Pits)
Record job creation numbers (528,000 new jobs in July)
Unemployment drops again (to 3.5%)
A (modest) gun safety bill
NATO expansion for Finland and Sweden
Kansas votes to keep constitutional protection of abortion rights
A visit to Mar-A-Lago
Just as Schumer and Manchin managed to keep their negotiations out of the news until they had come to agreement, so too has Attorney General Merrick Garland kept silent about how—or if—he’s proceeding against the disgraced, defeated, twice-impeached, former president.
Garland’s measured, professorial demeanor and his steadfast refusal to disclose anything beyond platitudes such as “we will pursue justice without fear or favor” have left the public and the punditry in the dark. Was he doing nothing? Or was he simply saying nothing? From the outside, it was impossible to know.
Garland was either following department practices of declining to comment on ongoing investigations or he was declining to act. Which was it?
And then last night, the FBI came a-knocking on the Florida residence of The Former Guy with a search warrant. MAGAworld went to DEFCON 3. Kevin McCarthy sputtered retaliatory threats. Pundits professional and amateur sprang into a frenzy of speculation. But still, as of this writing, Garland is keeping quiet about what was sought and what will come of it.
As the months of secret Manchin-Schumer negotiations demonstrated, no news can be very good news, indeed.
Stay tuned.
The point is that Trump did not release the warrant. Which he could have. So he must be very upset about what the Feds were looking for. Good.