The Nelkocracy

The idiot interviewer and the propaganda problem

Because there’s something wrong with me, I like to imagine the debate over putting President Barack Obama on The View.

Thinking about it now, it seems uncontroversial. Almost expected. The audience of the show was enormous: The day after his first election, 6.2 million people had tuned in to listen to Barbara, Whoopi, Joy, Elisabeth, and Sherri react to the news that America had elected its first Black president. (Sherri, in a moment that feels like approximately one million years ago, cried.)

But no sitting president had ever appeared on a daytime talk show before. And some people weren’t keen to start the trend.

"I think the president should be accessible, should answer questions that aren't pre-screened, but I think there should be a little bit of dignity to the presidency," Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said at the time. The president, he went on, should do “serious shows.” He likened doing The View to appearing on The Jerry Springer Show.

Columnist DeWayne Wickham lamented the changes — but not on some nebulous concern for the sanctity of the White House. Journalists were becoming entertainers, and entertainers were rising to speak plainer truths than the journalists. Jon Stewart had become the voice of a moral conscience in America whilst big-name anchors were trying to make everyone forget that they had cheered for a disastrous series of interventions abroad. There was Christiane Amanpour playing a journalist in Iron Man 2, there was Brian Williams hosting Saturday Night Live.

"You can expect the confusion over who's a real journalist to grow as more news organizations try to do journalism on the cheap,” Wickham wrote. This was nothing less than journalistic “cross-dressing,” he wrote. This slide, this cheapening of news, “will make it increasingly easy for savvy politicians such as Obama to avoid answering tough questions from this nation’s dwindling number of truly serious journalists.”

Obama ignored the naysayers, as did 7 million viewers. He submitted to some serious questioning, including his thoughts on Snooki. (“I don’t know who that is,” the president said.)

We can look back on that moment fondly.

Donald Trump is the daytime TV president. From the soft-focus design of the White House to the gold leaf adorning everything to his penchant for contrived drama and his love of quack medicine, everything about Donald Trump exudes the unhinged energy and occasional religious extremism of basic cable between 10am and 3pm. So long gone is any concern for the dignity of the presidency that it has become so du jure that Trump called in to Fox & Friends, the propagandist cousin of The View, whenever he wants to vent.

If Obama inched the standard of dignity down a notch, Trump has crashed into the dignity gauge with the Weinermobile.

Having tapped one of the worst degenerates of daytime TV to run Medicaid, as he uses a different quack to run propaganda for his secret police, Trump sought high and low for new ways to confuse news and entertainment, to avoid answering tough questions, and to torch any lingering shred of dignity in the presidency.

He found it in The Nelk Boys: A team of Canadian-American podcast bros who had become internet famous for living out the ethos of do pranks and party hard. These Youtubers’ brand was built on making people angry, getting in trouble, sophomoric humor, and learning as little as humanly possible.

So naturally, Donald Trump sat down with Nelk for a brain-numbing interview. Then he did it again. And then he invited them on Air Force One. And then he brought them to the White House for a very special mission. It was, in a way, a prank on the very concept of journalism. A certified FAIL! for human rights and international law. Trump and his press team wanted the Nelk Boys to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This week, on a very special Bug-eyed and Shameless, covering up war crimes with the stupidest successful people on the internet.

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Last week, I joined Elamin Abdelmahmoud to chat about the truly unhinged interview with the Israeli prime minister — who, if he had done this interview in most other countries, could face arrest on a warrant from the International Criminal Court.

I was joined by internet culture/video game journalist Alyssa Mercante and the progressive answer to Joe Rogan: Hasan Piker. You can listen below to hear us fully break down the interview itself (or here, if you don’t use Apple podcasts. The full video should be on YouTube next week.)

The slightly irreverent tone of this newsletter, and the podcast, should be understood in the context: Gaza is starving. At least 60,000 Palestinians, perhaps more than 70,000, are dead. Israel has systematically targeted hospitals and healthcare workers. It is not sending in enough aid to keep the population of Gaza alive. Other nations have forced the issue and begun air dropping aid: When they do, Israel tries to stop journalists aboard from filming the devastation. Journalists have died en masse. The West Bank is being seized. Gaza will likely be occupied. The hostages are likely condemned to death. The war is getting worse. Israeli democracy is failing. (Dispatch #135)

Last week, I wrote about the tough but necessary steps the world should take to hold Israel to account, and the pressure that must be applied to stop the war.

If you’ve followed the newsletter, you know that I’ve been writing more-or-less the same thing for two years: This war is a catastrophic mistake (Dispatch #76), Hamas is a parasitic organization which will benefit from these horrors (Dispatch #74), only a long-term deal and democratic reform can solve these issues (Dispatch #77, #78, #101), and Israel is subverting the international law protections that were designed to avert another Holocaust. (Dispatch #82)

This humanitarian disaster worsened in recent weeks, and has increased the likelihood that Israel can, and should, be found guilty of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Public opinion is, I think, shifting in a huge way. The number of those who would deny that the war is inhumane and unconscionable is declining.

Which is exactly why Netanyahu has to yuk it up with these barely-literate doofuses, who have risen far past the level of their own incompetence.

The concern, to my mind, is not that the Nelk Boys are about to become a primary source of news for a generation of disaffected young men. My main worry is that our media ecosystem has become so dire, so manipulated, so weaponized, and so distorted that shows like these can thrive and that this tactic can be effectively replicated again and again for any conceivable ends, even covering up a possible genocide.

The contours of this tactic have been emerging for years. But there’s reason to think that Netanyahu is about to launch a full-court press of this influencer-first informational-nihilism strategy, right as he plans to make a bigger, deadlier push into Gaza City.

So let’s quickly talk about the new class of influencer-propagandists.