Now an obscure “one-hit wonder,” Thunderclap Newman’s “Something In the Air” was a pretty big hit in 1969, and though the band (assembled by The Who’s Pete Townsend) fizzled out, the song had a lot of believers. I was 14 at the time, when the Vietnam War was at full-tilt, and it’d be a revisionist fib to say I didn’t, with comrades, find it hopeful. A battle cry, just like Neil Young’s “Ohio” (backed by Crosby, Stills and Nash), which was recorded and released just weeks after the Kent State murders on May 4th, 1970. Speedy Keen’s lyrics started: “Call out the instigators/Because there’s something in the air/We got to get it together sooner or later/Because the revolution’s here.”
In retrospect, that “sooner or later” is lazy (so laid back it’s horizontal), and, in any case, if history’s your bag, the “revolution” never occurred at all. Lots of excitement, though. (And it’s possible it was the aroma of patchouli, sweaty sneakers and cheap, no-tariff Mexican herb in the air.)
I suppose there’s something in the air today as well, although what, precisely, is in the hands of countless juries (I claimed, and was granted, an exemption on this one). Donald Trump’s in the thick of it, big surprise, with his dispatch of 2000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines (so far) to Los Angeles (so far), where continuing protests against ICE agents are taking place, even though the mayhem doesn’t compare, yet, to the defying-Covid-rules George Floyd-inspired demonstrations and riots across the country around this time in 2020.
I despise Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, an idealogue who believes every single immigrant, legal or illegal, is a threat to the United States, a vile rallying cry, and I hope he looks cross-eyed at Trump and gets his White House key card confiscated. The President’s huffing and puffing in the past week was one more performance on his “never-ending tour,” and if it was meant to “memory-hole” his confusing feud with Elon Musk (as I wrote on Monday, that flap is pretty fishy), it worked.
As expected, Democrats are losing their minds over the L.A. videos (some fake, on both sides), although there’s a lot of thespian spin there as well; could be they’re trying to bury the news that Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin—as reported by Politico, fair warning—considered abandoning his post, near tears because of an internecine squabble with now-ousted Vice Chair David Hogg, of all people, who wants their party to be more aggressive in evangelizing to voters under 26.
David French, writing for The Bulwark, excuse me, The New York Times, earlier this week was as near-apocalyptic as Thunderclap Newman (although surely less fun to hang out with). He concluded: “It’s too early to declare a constitutional crisis, and in any case, debating the label we attach to any new event can distract us from focusing fully on the event itself. But each new day brings us fresh evidence of a deeply troubling trend: America is no longer a stable country, and it is growing less stable by the day.”
I haven’t felt the tremors yet—the country’s mood is contentious, at least for the minority of partisans, described by the Times’ David Brooks as the “educated elite and everybody else”—and the United States is far more stable than in 2020-21 with all the Covid fear, which gave way to angry skepticism about the government, federal and local.
As David Frum—the I’ll-write-a-story-on-the-existential-threat-to-democracy-because-of-Trump-if-the-check’s-good mush-mouth—admits in The Atlantic, the L.A. situation is really about the 2026 midterm elections. He writes: “If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control. Or he might suspend voting until, in his opinion, order has been restored. Either way, blue-state seats could be rendered vacant for some time.”
Say what, Rutherford? And you wonder why honest lefties want no part of Frum’s fantasies. There’s a transparent political element at play now, but it isn’t just Trump. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has a horrendous record but is still called a “formidable challenger” to the Republican in 2028 by lazy reporters, is just as omnipresent as Trump. He’s got a problem, it’s his job to resolve it as sensibly as possible, but instead makes posts on social media (can’t one of his lackeys do that?) of him in the “central command center” of the day. Newsom’s taunting Trump, daring the President to arrest him, but that won’t happen. (If Trump takes the bait, it’d be his stupidest tactic this year, especially since he’s winning the performance run-off right now, although I’d guess a gambler could get insane odds on a wager.)
The New York Times is slobbering over Newsom: that’s all you need to know.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023