Don't Call It Momentum
This week brought a shift in strategy and mindset for those who oppose the authoritarian takeover of the US. Just don't call it momentum.
Like a Supreme Court justice defining pornography, I know momentum when I see it.
I’m not talking about the vague, hazy idea of momentum that for many sports fans exists as a law of the universe, corralled by one team before being snatched by another for no particular reason other than the incomprehensible vagaries of momentum itself, that slippery devil. I’m talking about momentum born of adjustments in both strategy and mindset: A change of who is on their back foot because of some critical alteration one side of a competition has made, a change for which the opposition – for now – has no answer.
My longtime online buddy, the handsome and erudite Patrick Claybon of NFL Network, long ago took up the mantle of redefining momentum for sports fans and coaches and athletes who have for generations treated momentum as some unseen, magical force that can be halted with a well-timed timeout. Claybon has led the charge in dismissing momentum as a specter with a mind of its own. For that I am grateful.
"Do the things," Claybon says. "The things don't do themselves."
— Patrick Claybon (@PatrickClaybon) January 24, 2022
Sports knowers might take their understanding of various forms of ball and apply it to politics after Tuesday’s hopeful little turn of events. Judge Susan Crawford crushed Elon Musk’s giant bag of money known as “Brad Schimel” to maintain a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court majority that will banish at least two gerrymandered Republican House seats; Florida Democrats sorta kinda competed in ruby red districts; and Senator Cory Booker booted segregationist piece of shit Strom Thurmond from the chamber’s record books with a 25-hours speech, an act with no immediate material benefit but one that finally showed a sense of urgency for which Americans have begged since the coup against the U.S. government began in earnest three months ago.
One might say, if one were so inclined, that the momentum has swung.
None of Tuesday’s developments happened by mistake. The Republican momentum – if you want to call it that – did not simply pack its bags and move to the blue side of things for reasons known only to itself. Real, actionable changes in strategy and attitude led to Tuesday’s shift. No one called a time out after three straight three pointers just to stop the game and hope to god that the other team would stop drilling threes. The stakes of elections were better explained and the ads against Republican candidates went hard as fuck. Adjustments were made.
Over the past month we’ve seen an almost panicked sense of urgency – among both folks on the left and increasingly alarmed normies – as Elon Musk’s illegal attacks on the American government leave local economies in tatters and critical resources ripped away from scientists, researchers, and some of the neediest people on earth. This was no Trump 1.0, this was a better organized destructive force determined to push us down the slide of autocracy with lightning speed. All politicians and parties are not equally good and bad, Americans learned the hard way, their hands pressed firmly to the red-hot stovetop. Some of these politicians – namely those allowing the open plunder of the federal government – need to be opposed, and opposed vigorously.
Denny Carter
Musk’s entitlement, his brashness, his deadly ignorance, and his contempt for representative democracy all played a factor in driving people out to the polls in Wisconsin. Musk, like a big dork, characterized the Wisconsin Supreme Court race as one that would “determine the fate of western civilization.” What he meant by that is a Crawford win would guarantee fair electoral districts in Wisconsin, which would give Democrats a better shot at a House majority, which would lead to investigations into Musk’s business empire and his flagrantly illegal actions as head of the invading DOGE forces that have nullified our legislative branch and created the most acute crisis since at least the Civil War (if you’re wondering why it doesn’t feel like that, it’s because you have access to high quality TV and endless streams of mindless online content; nothing can feel too bad in such a state). Musk was paying Wisconsin Republicans to vote against Crawford because he desperately does not want to face the consequences of his actions.
The sowing has been a blast for Elon; the reaping will be far less fun.
Maybe people don't like when a billionaire lands in their state on the eve of an important election and bribes people to vote for his preferred candidate. Maybe they see that as demeaning and anti-democracy. Maybe they don't like the wildly unsophisticated, brain poisoned rich guy flaunting his wealth as a weapon against fair elections (normies love fairness). Maybe they don't like when public figures openly embrace white supremacist online influencers and do a full-chested goddamn nazi salute before a national audience before gaslighting that audience about not seeing what they think they saw.
Whatever it was, Wisconsin's pro-democracy organizations mobilized and convinced more than enough folks to get out and vote in an off-year election. I was struck by the serious and businesslike tone of Crawford campaign organizers when I joined them in early March to make phone calls to voters in the state's Democratic strongholds. They were calm and resolute. There was a sense that we could not afford to lose this one. We had to notch a win against Musk and his ocean of cash. Having seen the horrors Musk and his DOGE hackers have so happily delivered over these past ninety days, voters adjusted their urgency meter and the momentum – if you want to call it that – took notice. Shoutout momentum.
Cory Booker Said What Needed To Be Said
The most cynical and detached among us would see Booker's 25-hour Senate speech as nothing more than a shameless stunt, a meaningless action from a high-ranking elected official in a party that has coddled the American fascist movement for a decade, failing to stamp out its embers when they had the chance. To the cynics among us, I understand your plight. At heart, I am one of you. But cynicism and nihilism are exactly what fascists want you to embrace. That was true 90 years ago in Germany and Italy, and it's true today in the US and Russia and parts of eastern Europe where fascism is ascendant. It's when the people reject cynicism and nihilism that these wretched people are put on the defense.
It wasn't all that long ago that we saw American fascism put firmly on its back foot. Democrats had firmly seized momentum with a refreshing, new approach to opposing the country's anti-democracy movement. It was in the first days and weeks of Kamala Harris' campaign, after taking over for Joe Biden – who may or may not have thought he was president of NATO – that an extremely online approach to beating back Trump worked wonderfully. Calling them weird, making fun of their appearances and habits and ignorance and all their strange preoccupations, avoiding the pitfalls of policy details: It broke the fascist fever, if only for a moment. I had never seen, in my twenty years of following American politics, Republicans so defenseless in the face of mockery and ridicule. The Harris campaign had shrunk Trump down to size. The professional Democratic consultant class saw it as their jobs to re-inflate Trump. The fascist fever took hold again. The strategic reversal saw momentum drift back to Trump. You know the rest.
That Booker took time during his record-breaking talk-a-thon to acknowledge the Democratic Party's many maddening failings against Trump's fascist movement was necessary and important. "I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I've been inadequate to the moment," Booker said. "I confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that have given way to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say, 'We will do better.'"
Denny Carter
It's something we've all known and said for ten years now; it's not something elected Democrats have readily admitted. I saw it as rare moment of clarity and honesty, a clear-eyed leveling with a massive electorate that has lived in fear of what might come of their country should the Bad Men have control for long enough. Admitting the party has failed to rise to the moment over and over again for a decade is the kind of thing that can melt the cynicism that has built up in people's hearts as a defense mechanism against the dread that hangs over everything every day. Dare I say: It's a momentum changer.
Does Booker's confession change anything materially? It does not. Is it performative? Maybe. Performance, however, is necessary in an age in which our attention is pulled in five thousand directions every waking moment of every fucking day. Booker's speech was viewed by tens of millions of people across various streaming platforms. Clips of his performance flooded every social media platform, even the explicitly fascist one. For one day, Democrats had broken the right's death grip on the attention economy. It felt like a 25-hour reprieve from living in Donald Trump's reality show, written and conducted from the most powerful seat in the world. I would very much like out of this show.
Why it took ninety days of utter destruction from an administration that is intentionally weakening the country and turning us into a pariah state is another question entirely. How voters did not remember the horrors of Trump 1.0 is impossible to grasp until you remember we have the collective attention span of a social media-addicted goldfish. The goldfish swam back to Trump, and now we have a gestapo, a eugenicist in charge of our health system, and a second Great Depression on the horizon.
I suppose there's no point in fixating on what we could have had if right-wing algorithms had not hacked our brains in the lead up to the 2024 election. For now, at least, we can be glad – even hopeful, if you're up to it – that strategic and psychological shifts have lured momentum onto our side. Just don't call it momentum.
Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.
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