They got Tupac, didn’t they?

This is not a failure of law enforcement, this is a failure of COMMUNICATION!

Tell everybody guns are cool and the government is the enemy of the people and what do you expect?

And then you’ve got Elon Musk asking on X why this doesn’t happen to Harris and Walz and when confronted with the blowback he deletes the tweet and says it’s all a joke. Explain to me how that works again?

If you want to be horrified, or if you just want an adjustment, you need to read yesterday’s excerpt from the new book about Donald Trump and “The Apprentice”:

“The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump’ – The inside story of how the producers of “The Apprentice” crafted a TV version of Mr. Trump — measured, thoughtful and endlessly wealthy — that ultimately fueled his path to the White House.”

Free link: https://t.ly/u9X6Z

This is not dense, like the article on Roberts and the Supreme Court in the same edition, this is easily read and I highly recommend it, but since it’s so hard to get people to click through, let me just give you a few quotes:

“The first thing they noticed was the stench, a musty carpet odor that followed them like an invisible cloud. Then they spotted scores of chips in the finish of the wooden desks and credenzas.”

And:

“The place did not exactly buzz with energy either. Fewer than 50 people worked at Trump Organization headquarters in midtown Manhattan. At the office’s spiritual center, Mr. Trump’s own desk bore no evidence of work, no computer screens or piles of contracts and blueprints, just a blanket of news articles focused on one subject: himself.

And:

“‘He would fire the absolute wrong person,’ recalled Mr. Braun, who came to recognize the times when Mr. Trump ‘had no idea what was going on, and he would just make something up.'”

It’s a myth baby, TV sold it and America bought it.

And then the disenfranchised turned over America’s table.

Let’s be clear, Clinton was out of touch. Hell, the Democratic party is still out of touch, I haven’t yet recovered from how they covered up Biden’s foibles, thinking we’d buy that he’s spry and up to the job in his eighties. And we had a media that bought it, as if we can’t see the truth with our own eyes.

And the truth is that Trump has been inciting violence for years. Rile people up and you get results. These people are doing God’s work, at least that’s what they believe.

And then you’ve got J.D. Vance. Unlike Trump, Vance is actually smart, even though his book was fiction and he worked with Peter Thiel and knows about as much about the rank and file as Prince William, never mind his brother.

This is what the Trumpsters don’t understand. Trump and Vance can’t be on your side because they never experienced your side, they’ve got no idea what it is, they don’t live that way, and in the case of Trump, never has. This is not Bernie Sanders up from nothing.

It’s not like the past has not been prologue. January 6th was enough.  But we had the Bundy standoff before that. All kinds of people who think the rules don’t apply to them. Destabilizing the government. So they can…

Exactly what? Bring chaos to the country at large?

Kind of like the death of Roe v. Wade?

Sure, it’s sad we live in a nation where rogue actors take pot shots at our officials, but let’s stop with the kumbaya. Sure, there are mentally ill independent actors, but even they are inspired by the news they’re exposed to. Like that child sex ring run out of a pizza parlor.

The Democrats don’t know how to fight back. Call a spade a spade. They say to wait until it works its way through the courts, which is interminable and too many of the Trump judges rule in his favor.

How come Trump knows it’s about hearts and minds and the Democrats don’t?

And I don’t care how many Secret Service people you put on Trump, if someone wants to get him, they will. That’s how the world works. No one is safe. This is just another demonization of the government. Hell, the Mafia can’t keep people safe and crime is their business! The only way to stay completely safe is to never go outside your bunker, and surround that with concertina wire and security. And that’s no way to live.

It’s everybody’s fault but theirs. The immigrants. Unless you’re descended from a Native American, you’re an immigrant too. And just like the Nazis incarcerated everybody with a hint of Jewish blood, even if they went to church, if we went back far enough you’d be considered an immigrant too.

As far as being a real American… What exactly does that mean? I’m here, I’m a citizen, I’m not real?

But it gets worse than that… The WaPo predicts the Republicans will take over the Senate. Why not, when the two Dakotas get four Senators between them. Same deal with Wyoming.

And there’s the Electoral College. The game is rigged for Republicans but it’s still not enough for them.

So you hate me and you hate the Democratic elite. Fine. What’s your solution for school shootings?

Once again, I don’t care how many ARs you’ve got, you’re no match for the government, which can squash you like a bug. Stop with the fantasy that guns can keep the government in line.

As for assault rifles… Everybody’s so afraid of alienating a minority of the public, a minority of gun owners, that no action can be taken. This is just like the inane politicians who flipped and now pay fealty to Trump. You may be keeping your job, for a while anyway, but you’re making things worse, not better.

Did you read the story in Saturday’s “Wall Street Journal” about Ford’s CEO being freaked out by electric cars in China?

“What Scared Ford’s CEO in China – Jim Farley is changing strategy to combat what he calls an ‘existential threat’ from  China’s electric carmakers”

Free link: https://t.ly/R7DII

Bottom line, if it weren’t for protectionism, China would soon own our car market. This is not Yugos, this is electric cars and some hybrids priced low with features you can’t even dream of.

But what are we told? We need more oil! Drill, baby drill!

And if you don’t like the news in the right wing paper of record, here’s an equivalent piece in the left:

“Trump’s Obsession With Oil Could Destroy America’s Auto Industry”

Free link: https://t.ly/zoaOy

Share the above two articles with everybody you know.

We need a moon shot, an equivalent to JFK’s promise to put a man on the moon in the sixties, something we actually did, when the U.S. was still a can-do nation.

People don’t understand the problem. You make it a movement. You need a better name than “The Green New Deal.” It has to be about saving America, if you want to make America great again this is how you do it, as opposed to fantasizing about a past era that wasn’t so good to begin with and will never come back.

People don’t know the truth. And therefore they act on falsehoods.

And my inbox is inundated with lefties decrying the “New York Times.”

But the joke is on them. You want to compete with the “Times,” do your own reporting. Furthermore, most of the complaints are about the Op-Ed pages, which are inherently opinion.

So it’s not only those on the right who don’t get it.

And we’ve got parents who don’t want schools to shut out cell phones because… They want to be able to get in touch with their progeny in case of a school shooting. How upside down is that!

This is the nation we now live in. Where everybody’s living in fear.

While they feel powerless.

And then some martyrs, uninformed and uneducated, decide to take matters into their own hands.

Trump is responsible for the assassination attempts. Period. But in the topsy-turvy world we live in, they’re blaming it on Harris and Walz. Is there no truth left?

You can’t be afraid of the other side.

God, I wish Kamala Harris would speak English, say under Biden things have actually been pretty good, better than all the countries in Europe. Lower inflation… You’ve got to own your victories instead of running away from them. Own your truth if you want to win. Start running on Biden’s record. The question isn’t whether you’re better off today or four years ago, the story is how we beat Covid and not only survived, but thrived! That’s quite an accomplishment.

As for vaccines… They protect against death. Every study says that.

Where fewer people were vaccinated there were more deaths.

When are people going to start telling the truth?

Oh, you get it on social media.

Like that woman who responded to former Trump White House personnel chief John McEntee who said no women were “bleeding out” as a result of abortion bans:

Check this out: https://t.ly/m2LS2

Meanwhile, Harris keeps asking us for money for TV advertising. Who in the hell is watching linear TV, and how many of those people have not made up their minds?

But as a matter of fact, the Harris team is deep into TikTok, you can read all about it here:

“The ‘feral 25-year-olds’ making Kamala Harris go viral on TikTok’: https://t.ly/yv0jN

All the action is online and the left wing elite keep telling us to get off our smartphones. How do you think you get the message out today?

I’m just irritated because everybody in the news yesterday was dancing around the issue, talking about the shooter instead of the target. Yes, it’s interesting another person wanted to take out Trump, but can you focus on Trump, can you stop being afraid, and can you speak in plain English?

The right can stay in its bunker, refuse to believe the truth.

And the left can be afraid to say the truth.

But I’m not.

Trailer: https://t.ly/8_M5q

If this happened in America…

We’d still be talking about it and we’d never get over it.

What you’ve got here is a documentary on the Nova Music Festival, you know, in the Israeli desert on October 7th, where people were killed, raped and taken hostage.

Now the truth is war is not like in the movies. There’s no soundtrack. There’s no arc. No buildup to a crescendo. The sun is out, the light is bright, and WHAT THE F*CK IS HAPPENING!

The rockets are in the air… And no one is concerned. First and foremost, many attendees are high. This is Israel, the land of the Iron Dome. You’re safe, right?

Wrong.

Now we’ve been taught that not only is the United States the greatest country on the planet, but those in the rest of the world are the other. Maybe we’ll let some people from England and Ireland pass, after all they speak the same language. But what is astounding, what you’ll notice right away, is these people are just like you and me.

Assuming you’re in your twenties.

This is before commitment, obligation. Before the big job. Before marriage and kids. When you’ll drive all night to a location you just learned about to party until the sun rises, and even thereafter.

They’ve got tattoos, stringy hair. And they radiate intelligence and awareness and togetherness. This is not class warfare, this is kumbaya.

And then…

Not only are revolutions now televised, but so is war. Everybody’s got a smartphone camera, documenting their life.

We remember the seven o’clock news footage of Vietnam. Canned for our consumption. There was a filter between what was going on over there and what we learned over here. As a matter of fact, stories would leak out and no one would believe them, because the U.S. was the almighty, we didn’t lose wars, we had the money and the power, and it was just a matter of time before we conquered.

Only we didn’t.

Turns out weapons are no match against hearts and minds.

So what happens is twenty three years ago the Twin Towers fall down, 2,753 people died, along with 184 at the Pentagon and 40 in Pennsylvania and…

In retaliation we invaded Iraq. Which held no responsibility for the terror attack.

But someone had to pay!

So if you watch this movie, and most people won’t, because it’s launching on 9/24 on Paramount+, a streaming outlet so crummy that the parent company was sold at a near fire sale price (but it is on BBC2 on 9/26), and we’ll pay for Netflix, and Amazon Video is baked into Prime, but beyond that everything is expendable, and Paramount+ is way down the list of desirability.

And most people don’t want to see this stuff.

First and foremost they hate the blood. There’s a warning at the beginning of the film, but what ensued was not what I thought would be shown. You’ve got people literally running for their life, you’ve got people being shot… Once again, it’s not orchestrated like a Hollywood movie. It’s just hours and hours of…

Being on your own.

The IDF was caught flat-footed, no one knew what was going on. The attendees were calling law enforcement, and if they could even get through, the people they spoke to didn’t believe them, certainly were not amped up about it.

So first and foremost you’ll be confronted with the security lapse. The vaunted Israeli military… Failed. Someone was responsible.

And then there’s Hamas.

When you see them cut the fence and storm through with their rifles, out for blood… I can’t imagine anybody watching this and siding with them, unless you’re a member of Hamas yourself.

This is what the Israelis are up against.

But somehow the script has been flipped. Israel is seen as the aggressor.

Not that I’m going to change your mind if you believe otherwise. This is a nation where Tucker Carlson proffers a Holocaust denier who lauds Adolf Hitler and denigrates Winston Churchill. And even the right wing “Wall Street Journal” has excoriated Carlson for this, but now he’s got a Top Ten podcast and a chip on his shoulder after being sidelined by Murdoch so good luck getting him to change his ways.

And then there’s Fox itself.

I recommend you read the article “How Fox News sane-washes Trump” in today’s “Washington Post.” Here’s a bite:

“The quotes cited feel very Earth-2 to anyone not steeped in the right-wing ecosphere — ‘big win,’ ‘best closing,’ ‘this race just got tighter.'”

Free link: https://wapo.st/4dm6pOV

My inbox is filled with stuff like this. Pointing to the number of views of Trump’s debate closing on YouTube… That’s one of the talking points, along with railing against ABC and the moderators, which makes no sense if Trump truly did clean the floor with Harris.

But my point here is in a world where there are multiple news sources, and people only consume what they agree with, one cannot change people’s views on the war in Gaza. Impossible. I haven’t been able to do it.

Then again, how important is it to most people?

Of course it’s about antisemitism, because you don’t see equivalent protests about the deaths in Syria and Sudan, but if you’re a member of the group attacked…

Just like Black people tell their kids to beware of “driving while Black,” we Jews are brought up being reminded by our parents about antisemitism.

Of course it’s worse for the Blacks, because they’re easily identifiable. But any minority ultimately comes up for abuse. It can be as simple as living in a northern city as opposed to the rural south, or even living in California. Not that I want to make all these equal, I just want to illustrate that if you believe you’re immune, you’re dreaming.

Or as Martin Niemöller so famously put it:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

So most people won’t be incentivized to watch “We Will Dance Again.” You’ve got to have Paramount+, and if you’re not an EDM fan, or a Jew, why take the time?

Used to be different. In the three network era. If it made it on to TV, millions of people saw it. That’s something we lost with cable and the internet.

But once you see Hamas in the movie… Your opinion might change. You still might talk about innocent Palestinians, but this is what the Israelis are up against. Not only did Hamas attack out of the blue without provocation, they employ a vitriol and complete lack of feeling for humanity that thank god we do not see in the U.S. But if you watch this movie, you do see it. Which is why people should.

I could give you my position on the Gaza conflict…

Hell, I’ll tell you that I’ve got no time for Netanyahu and the settlements, but when terrorists are challenging your right to exist, what are you supposed to do?

From the river to the sea baby, they want Israel annihilated.

But you might not agree.

But that’s the modern world, you’ve got your news and you assume mine is as narrow and biased as yours, therefore my opinion is dismissible. There is no truth, never mind agreement.

But these images don’t lie.

We can’t even convince Trump voters to investigate his behavior, what odds do we have that the views of the pro-Palestinian faction can be changed?

I will tell you that BDS was founded by the Palestinians, it took root on college campuses and the kids eating up their info are the same as the social media influencers on the payroll of Tenet Media, funded by the Russians. Better to be angry and take a side, and double-down, as opposed to try and survey the landscape and see what is really going on.

Am I going to defend everything Israel does?

Absolutely not. They were undercutting the Supreme Court before this all happened. And the religious right that has pushed the settlements and the rightward policies of the government…thank god their children now have to go into the army. What’s fair is fair.

You’ve got talking heads in this movie say they’ll never forget it. This day, what they saw. And you hear this all the time, but…

When Hamas is throwing hand grenade after hand grenade into your shelter, when you wake up and find out you’re covered in dead bodies, no wonder people have survivor’s guilt, no wonder some of the survivors have committed suicide in the ensuing year.

As for one of the hostages from the Nova festival, at the end of the film it’s said that Hersh Goldberg-Polin was taken captive, his fate unknown, but now we know he’s dead. Shot in a tunnel 65 feet below ground by Hamas.

This is what the Israelis are up against. This is what Hamas has been doing with all the money sent to aid the citizens of Gaza. This is the uncomfortable truth the pro-Palestinian people refuse to acknowledge.

But those damn Jews.

Loud-mouthed and entitled. Who do they think they are?

They’re just like you. They want to live in peace and prosper. But this lifestyle was threatened. What do you want them to do?

I don’t know if you can eradicate Hamas. I don’t know if you can get rid of the tunnels. I don’t know if you can get rid of hatred of Israel in Gaza. It’s thorny.

But this war is not one-sided.

Let me ask you again, what would you do if you were attacked, if your loved ones died? What is enough for you to put down your arms, to stop fighting? You’re never going to forget your fiancé. Are you ready to swallow your pain, put down your arms, get over it?

That’s what I’m asking you.

And when you watch this movie you might ask yourself this question too.

But in an age where there’s a firehose of media, it’s hard to get people’s attention for anything. Herd mentality rules. The American cowboy, the rugged individualism this nation was built upon, has been sacrificed for groupthink.

You’re entitled to your own opinion.

But get back to me after you watch this movie.

This is forever.

You can’t manufacture virality. Remember “Gangnam Style”? People weren’t even interested in the follow-up video. Quick, name it! (It’s entitled “Gentleman,” and if you know that you’re entitled to automatic qualification for the next hobby horse nationals. Meanwhile, “Gentleman” does have 1.6 billion views on YouTube, but that does not mean its impact lasted. Everybody checked it out, and then… Meanwhile, “Gangnam Style” has 5.2 billion views. If you’ve seen the trick once, that’s enough.)

But “Gangnam Style” hit before TikTok, before participatory media became everything. You just don’t want the word to spread, you want people to use the basics to create something new, you want them involved, you want them to OWN IT!

You don’t fight hoi polloi creation, you embrace it. The more time people dedicate to making clips with your content, the longer your content lasts.

So an individual spreading the word is not enough. Sure, if you’re the very first, you can get props, assuming anybody knows, and most people don’t care.

And sure, some of the eating pets pics and videos were released immediately and gained traction, but it took a little time for the great ones to appear…half a day? Remember the cycle is short. Which is why you want something that lasts forever, but this is rare.

Like last night’s VMAs… Remember when the VMAs were not only the talk of the town, but the world? Milton Berle and RuPaul. A spontaneous interaction. The appearance of Pee Wee Herman not long after his arrest. Is anybody talking about last night’s VMAs? I’ve seen news stories, but there’s no social media virality, whereas I’m still cracking up over pics and videos of pets in my feeds.

And it’s not only my feeds, it’s my email and iMessages. Everybody wants to play. Because it’s so ridiculous.

Do I think Trump’s statements will negatively impact his campaign?

Well, so far nothing has.

Then again, the Democrats have changed their strategy. Rather than try to be serious, they’re standing at arm’s length and making fun of Trump. This started with “weird.” And when Trump was going off the rails on Tuesday night, Kamala held her hands to her chin and smiled in a way school kids do when the object of their attention doesn’t realize they’re committing a faux pas, that they’re a laughingstock.

Of course Trump doubled-down, by entering the media room and doing his own spin. Talking about how he won the debate and quoting numbers to that effect. When you’re going down you don’t fight, you take a break, hope that it blows over.

Now in order to go viral today not only do you have to create content that the public can utilize to create new content, you need to be in the game constantly.

This is a paradigm older acts complain about and younger acts don’t think twice about.

You never know when your lucky break will come. You never know what will cause your lucky break. But talk to anybody who’s ever had one and you’ll find out…the action that caused the break was never the one they anticipated would do it. The well-planned action, crickets. The one you do reluctantly, on a whim, that spreads. When you’re less invested, your attitude reflects this. It’s the difference between a studio recording and a live one. The former is studied, worked over. The latter is spontaneous, you can capture lightning in a bottle.

And one thing that is at the heart of most virality is humanity. Click tracks and building a record instrument by instrument reduce this, as do multiple writers and remixes/effects. You want to be able to polish it, because getting it right out of the box, with just the basics, is so difficult to do.

The reason so much music does not resonate with the public is because it’s lacking humanity. Not in the lyrics, although there can be a problem there too, but in the basic music. We’re so far from the garden that people expect that four decade old 808 sound on every record. Where’s the surprise?

Records are the essence of virality. If they contain that humanity and capture the zeitgeist. And this is why sixties tunes and classic rock over index in the culture. It was about experimentation, it was about being different, the public couldn’t stop paying attention.

So Trump is in the news 24/7. And it’s been working to his advantage. In that he still takes up most of the air in the media.

But Trump has veered so far from the truth that he was just begging for someone to push him over, he was ready to topple like Humpty Dumpty.

The “Access Hollywood” tape had legs, might have sunk Donald if it weren’t for Comey reopening investigation into Hillary’s server. But we’re used to sex scandals. And the public can’t participate in them, own them. But comedy?

Keep throwing things against the wall and something will stick. But you don’t know what it is and if you’ve lost track of the plot beware.

Other than J.D. Vance, no one is defending the inane idea that immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Ohio. Furthermore, Trump and his team illustrated that despite Truth Social and his tweeting, they really don’t have a grip on the internet. The net is full of b.s. and scams. And you can get away with forwarding this crap to like-minded, narrow-visioned friends, but when you put it into the world at large…it’s going to be scrutinized, and debunked.

Turns out this election is not about the issues, but the penumbra, and Trump and his team didn’t realize this. No one wants to hear about fracking, even taxes or the border, they want to see the two candidates wrestle, they’re waiting for one to touch the third rail. And wrestling is a good analogy, in that it’s scripted entertainment, fake. And Kamala was pretty scripted Tuesday night, and it was her off the cuff stuff that resonated most. As for Trump… When he went off script he lost all of us.

So if this stops being about Trump and Harris and what they stand for, and becomes about how laughable Trump is, that might be to Harris’s advantage. No one wants to be associated with a laughingstock. Even Fox said Harris won the debate. Only in Trump’s deranged mind was he the winner.

So, remember, ink is one thing, virality is another. Don’t point to how many stories you’ve got on Google, pull up Instagram and TikTok and X and see how often it comes up in your feed. That’s the measure of virality.

And this is what the mainstream doesn’t understand and to the degree it does hates it. Because that means they’ve got no control. And let’s be clear, they’ve got less control than any time in history!

Most people in America can’t even name two songs by Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, the Weeknd…but if you paid attention to the press, you’d think they’re ubiquitous. But all of the public doesn’t want the same thing.

But this election is binary, so there’s amazing focus. And it’s the only game we’re all focused on. Forget music, forget the NFL, everybody’s got an opinion on the election. And when Trump steps in it and then doubles-down on something that was not vetted that is almost impossible to believe, people are going to notice.

You remember the Kennedy assassination. You remember 9/11. You’re going to remember that Trump said immigrants were eating cats and dogs.

Now if you’re Tiny Tim, if you’re an influencer, all publicity is good publicity. But if you’re selling the aforementioned humanity, if you have any credibility, this is not true. Be wary of doing things off brand with the hopes of virality.

This is what we live for in a controlled country. The unexpected. The spontaneous.

We’ve had two big events this year.

One, Biden dropping out.

Two, Trump telling us that pets are in peril in Springfield, Ohio.

Trump gets the trophy here. He’s the strongman who rang the bell at the county fair. But he doesn’t even realize it. If he did, he’d make fun of himself, neutralize his words.

Trump is built for a passé era. When you could deny, deny, deny and stay above the fray. No one is above the fray anymore, we’re all in it together, and if you don’t have a sense of humor about yourself, you’re ripe for excoriation.

I can’t stop laughing at the posts. The pictures of cats dressed up as law enforcement. Others talking about the risk to pets. The warnings to stay away from Springfield.

This is genius.

But it’s not helping Trump. He didn’t have to lay out this craziness, but he’s lost touch with the public.

Don’t you do the same.

Bassist for Peter Gabriel, King Crimson and so many more!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tony-levin/id1316200737?i=1000669276346

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/b395e989-24c2-4ca5-83fb-1e14f32a592e/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tony-levin