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The Costs of Too Much Budget Stimulus
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The Bulwark is home to Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Bill Kristol, JVL, Sam Stein, and more. We are the largest pro-democracy bundle on Substack for news and analysis on politics and culture—supported by a community built on good-faith.
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Overtime

The Costs of Too Much Budget Stimulus

Plus, the best ad of the Super Bowl...

Jim Swift's avatar
Jim Swift
Feb 08, 2021
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Leading The Bulwark…

Featured Image

The Costs of Too Much Budget Stimulus

DESMOND LACHMAN: The economy needs fiscal and monetary support—but not more than it can afford.


šŸŽ§ On the Pods… šŸŽ§

Amanda Carpenter: The Right’s Free Speech Scam

On today’s Bulwark podcast, Amanda Carpenter joins Charlie Sykes to talk about the upcoming impeachment trial and how the GOP will use ā€œfree speechā€ as a way to argue Trump shouldn’t be barred from holding future office.

Is Compromise Alive?

Tom Nichols joins to consider the state of governance and GOP self-policing.


For Bulwark+ Members… šŸ”

MORNING SHOTS: The Prodigal Republicans šŸ”“

CHARLIE SYKES on The Never Again Trumpers.

THE TRIAD: Get the Shot. šŸ”

JONATHAN V. LAST: We have to start fighting the vaccine demand problem right now.


From The Bulwark Aggregator…

  • The MyPillow Guy’s Fever Dream – James Poniewozik, The New York Times

  • Bubble Pop: Janet Yellen Could Create An Economic Crisis – Desmond Lachman, 1945

  • George Shultz at 100 – Shay Khatiri, The Bulwark

  • Why Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are at odds – Josh Kraushaar, National Journal

  • You Don’t Have to Be Recruited to Work for Russian Intelligence – Michael Weiss, Newlines Magazine

  • For One GameStop Trader, the Wild Ride Was Almost as Good as the Enormous Payoff – Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal

  • My Sister Was Disappeared 43 Years Ago – Daniel Loedel, The Atlantic


In Today’s Bulwark….

Featured Image

The Trouble with Biden’s Iran Envoy

SHAY KHATIRI: Critics of Robert Malley worry about his pro-Iran sympathies. They should worry more about his outdated views.

Featured Image

Where Is the Love?

LINDSEY APPIAH: Reflections from the forgotten flock of non-white Evangelicals.

Featured Image

The Shiny Shallowness of Today’s Country Music

SCOTT YENOR AND GREG MCBRAYER: Music Row puts out songs that ignore or even make light of the serious human problems that were once country staples.

Featured Image

It’s Not Your Fault Your TV Doesn’t Work Right

TONY DAVIS: Increasingly complicated and complex home entertainment systems and standards demonstrate just why we should hope theaters never go away.

Featured Image

The House GOP’s Dangerous Swerves

BRIAN KAREM: When it comes to crazy or sane, you have to pick a lane.


🚨OVERTIME 🚨

Let’s talk about last night’s Super Bowl. A few observations before I get to ads, because since I’m a Browns fan, I rarely care about the game itself. As a marketing grad, I care more about the ads.

  • It is always a good thing when Roger Goodell gets booed by fans. He needs to know that fans know he is a bad commissioner. People (especially right wingers these days) say they’re never going to watch football, but they’re lying. Just like Ted Cruz probably still owns Nikes and uses a Keurig in his office. Boycotts don’t last unless you lose your team. Even then. Is that cancel culture? Hard to tell.

  • I had no dog in this fight. I think Tom Brady, while talented, is a cheater.

  • I don’t like repeats.

  • The Browns could have beat the Chiefs if Roger Goodell was good at his job and allowed helmet to helmet calls to be reviewable. Not that I’m sure the Browns would have made it to the big game necessarily. But hey, it was possible.

  • While the game changes (Tom Brady has won Super Bowls in three concurrent decades), Patrick Mahomes is going to take Brady’s torch. Brady will retire eventually. He grew up in a different NFL that played football differently. Go watch any AFC matchup from the 1980s if you disagree. It’s like they’re playing a different game than what we even saw 20 years ago. Those two throws on third and fourth downs from Mahomes? Literal insanity.

Twitter avatar for @BillyHeyen
Billy Heyen @BillyHeyen
That was an ABSURD throw by Patrick Mahomes. It hit Darrel Williams in the face. That kind of night for the #Chiefs. #SuperBowl
Image
2:30 AM āˆ™ Feb 8, 2021
14Likes5Retweets

Mahomes threw this ball, literally horizontal with the ground, 30 yards, and it hit his target in the face. It would have been a touchdown if he caught it.

They say ā€œdefense wins championshipsā€ and it this case it did. It usually does. But pocket QBs are likely a thing of the past and QBs like Mahomes are the future.

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have…

People hated the Vince Lombardi ad the NFL put together for last night’s game. But people are often stupid, and while the NFL may be evil and Roger Goodell might be a horrible commissioner, the NFL excels at marketing.

This was the best ad of the night.

In fact, watching it made me tear up a little.

Check it out:

Here’s why the ad was the best: It had something for everyone. Very rarely do ads have a ā€œhookā€ for every viewer. This one did. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a market segment that couldn’t find something in this ad that appealed to them, unless that market segment was Extremely Mad, Very Online Conservatives Who Won’t Watch The NFL Because of Colin Kaepernick or Black Lives Matter. (Which is Kurt Schlichter and a few other people at Breitbart and maybe the Daily Wire.)

The NFL said it was ā€œA voice from the past. A message for today.ā€

The ad appeared first before the game started, and my wife noticed I was wiping my eyes. I guess there’s a reason I work in politics and policy and punditry and not being an advertising creative like I had once aspired to.

My late grandfather was born a few years before Lombardi, one of the most legendary coaches in the game (outside of Paul Brown) was. He dressed very much like Lombardi did. I know I’ve shared this image before, but here is me with my grandfather, Charles Swift, at an Indians game in the early 1990s.

There’s just this generational resemblance there, the glasses, the hat, the buttoned collar, the jacket. I internalized Vince Lombardi as my late grandfather. That’s just how guys born before 1915 dressed as older men.

And then, there was this scene. The steely-eyed girl playing catch with her dad in a field, seeing Lombardi look at her, smile, nod, and give a tip of the cap.

It was like one of my twin daughters saw the ghost of a great grandfather they never met suggesting: ā€œI’m proud of you.ā€

Emotionally, I got sacked big time.

The ad is inspirational, and almost every scene is perfect. The NFL is the richest league in sports and they handled COVID-19 better than others. Mainly because they could afford to. But at the end of the day, they’re a business that still wants to make money. And that’s what this ad is about. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Here’s the script of the ad, and I’d welcome any disagreement from readers if you can point to a better Super Bowl ad:

The road has been rough. 
The load, heavy. 
And nothing from hell to sky has turned us back.

We did not get here alone.
We arrived as one.

With courage. 
With stamina. 
With teamwork.

And after all the cheers have died down.
And the stadium is empty. 
After the headlines have been written. 

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

And I firmly believe in our finest hour, 
Our greatest fulfillment to all we hold dear,
Is that moment: when we work our hearts out in good cause,
And lie exhausted on the field of battle, victorious. 

Because it’s not whether we get knocked down,
But whether we get back up.
As one.

If you want to learn more about how they made Vince Lombardi come back to life, click here. (And yes, after consulting with Sonny Bunch, we concluded that the score was Hans Zimmer, from The Thin Red Line.)

What Became of Trump’s Election Dead-Enders… A must read from Asawin Suebsaeng and Will Sommer at The Daily Beast. It’s a deep dive into the crazy.

Meanwhile, from the Falkirk Center…

Twitter avatar for @MatthewBoedy
Matthew Boedy @MatthewBoedy
The guy on right: ā€œDespite the suspension of his law license, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is helping out in a flurry of election lawsuits that are attempting to undermine Joe Biden’s victory...ā€ www2.ljworld.com/news/state-reg…
Twitter avatar for @falkirk_center
Falkirk Center @falkirk_center
The scientific method means nothing to tyrants & the lab coat sycophants who do their bidding. It's not science if only one set of "experts" can share conclusions & only those conclusions are permitted in the public square. It's just tyranny served one spoonful of fear at a time. https://t.co/184yiNGiPA
2:10 PM āˆ™ Feb 8, 2021
4Likes2Retweets

Radicalizing Against Democracy… In The Atlantic, Chris Hayes writes:

[T]he fight to democratize political power is precisely what is most necessary. Any progress toward that goal, any effort to push back against minoritarian control, will lead to bitter conflict. But there is no way to avoid that fight if we’re to defeat the growing faction that seeks to destroy majority rule. No substantive victories can endure unless democracy is refortified against its foes. That task comes first.

A sad story. The suicide of this teenager might not be something you want to read.

Is this how I die? What it was like to be a journalist during the insurrection.

Making It Easier to Vote Is Good for Republicans, Too… This should be evident to all, but the data bears this out, too.

Do you wanna see my SCIF? Kinda weird!

Twitter avatar for @OKnox
Olivier Knox @OKnox
ā€œDonald said: ā€˜Malcolm, do you want to see my SCIF? It is so cool.’ [snip] We turned around a corner and there was this big steel box about the size of a shipping container.ā€
theguardian.comHow Donald Trump’s hand-holding led to panicky call home by Theresa MayA remarkable BBC documentary reveals the startling reality of meeting the president
9:40 PM āˆ™ Feb 7, 2021
75Likes34Retweets

Our semi-conductor shortage… It is here to haunt us. And until COVID-19 is over, it is probably here to stay.

In a world, where Dan Crenshaw spends lots of time time making movies to elect bad Republicans… He is also here to criticize celebrities for having too much free time during a pandemic that has ravaged the movie industry.

Twitter avatar for @HeathMayo
Heath Mayo @HeathMayo
Dude... You made two full-length feature films this year, and you’re a member of Congress during a pandemic. https://t.co/oRGy7TyTf1
Image
Image
Twitter avatar for @DanCrenshawTX
Dan Crenshaw @DanCrenshawTX
These commercials are proof that celebrities had a lot of free time this year.
3:22 PM āˆ™ Feb 8, 2021
2,545Likes358Retweets

Let’s end on a good note. Fellow Ignatius grad, Rep. Ted Lieu shares this thread from Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), who you might know as the guy who spent time cleaning up the Capitol after the insurrection.

My only complaint is that he might have compromised evidence that should send more insurrectionists to prison, and the USCP is pretty deferential to a member, but what he did was a symbol of American greatness. Read the thread and see what he learned. And why America is great.

That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you tomorrow: Questions, comments, thoughts? You know how to reach me: swift@thebulwark.com.

If you’re not yet a member, we’d love to have you.

If you are a member, we do offer gift memberships for friends and family. We’d love to have them, too.

Give a gift membership

Stay safe!

Jim

—30—

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