by Edward Champion

The Super Tuesday Hangover

Last night’s results were disappointing and dispiriting for progressives. But it’s vital for us not to lose hope even as we face the terrible truth.

I’m going to be avoiding political news for the rest of the week. I’m doing this for my own sanity. I have an audio drama to finish editing and freelancing jobs to carry on with and lovely actors to record some insert scenes with. And frankly, like many of you who were disappointed in last night’s results, I need to devote my time and energy to summon hope and positivism and joy after the sorrow and sleeplessness caused by Super Tuesday. (I finally did get some sleep. But it wasn’t easy. And I know I wasn’t alone. I was texting with three friends at 4 AM, all of us up, all of us worried, all of us advocating for different candidates, all of us seeing the shocking reality ahead of us. What serious political wonk looking at the long game implications wasn’t up at an ungodly hour contemplating the horrific consequences of four more years of Cheeto?)

The Democratic Establishment, a cowardly entity that prioritized a formula that didn’t work in 2016 and that went all in on a doddering Wonder Bread spokesman who cannot get names, dates, or places right and who is less inspiring than Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and George McGovern combined, decided that Joe Biden would be the man to defeat Trump and coordinated accordingly in Dallas on Monday night. Even the best polls inform us that Biden can barely muster little more than 50% against the worst President that this nation has ever had the misfortune to endure.

I will vote for Biden if he is the frontrunner. But he won’t get a dime from me. I won’t campaign for him. I have no enthusiasm for this man whatsoever. I may as well be voting for a potted plant that can occasionally form coherent sentences while it is being watered. Honestly, someone needs to find Corn Pop and get his side of the story. I’m guessing Biden wasn’t nearly as tough as he thought he was.

Sure, we have to vote for him in November if it comes to that. We have little choice. But Joe Biden is not a man for the people. He is not a unity candidate. He is meaner than Bernie and more of a bully. Biden’s needless attacks and insults on voters — such as berating the two vets who bravely confronted his pro-war record in Oakland, calling an Iowa voter “a damn liar,” and telling another voter questioning his policy that he was fat — are not the stuff of a President who must consider the viewpoints of others and remain coolheaded and respectful when facing justified criticism. Frankly, Biden’s conduct here is far more Trumpian than any comparisons that have been applied to Bernie.

And poor Elizabeth Warren. She couldn’t even carry her own state. She refused to see the writing on the wall and stayed in the race too long. And now Warren and Sanders supporters are at each other’s throats on social media. Fractiousness and divisiveness. The stuff we don’t need right now. The best thing that Warren can do — if she truly believes in progressive policy — is to drop out of the race and persuade her followers to vote for Bernie. That’s the only way we’ll get a progressive President at this point. But it’s not likely. It looks like we’re all going to be holding the bag for a gaffe machine.

November will be the equivalent of attending a mandatory corporate meeting and falling asleep and getting reprimanded for not paying attention to the floundering and boring old man, devoid of innovation and originality and true awareness, spearheading the PowerPoint shitshow that expresses little more than vanilla platitudes and the status quo and a remarkably uninspiring litany of mainstream awfulness. I will vote — like many, without a shred of passion or conviction, holding my nose the entire way, much like someone disposing of a rat caught in a glue trap, feeling the sense that I am not changing a damn thing and knowing that Biden is as inspiring as accidentally walking into a giant heap of moldy white bread during a morning stroll — and I will probably go home right after my vote and drink many shots of whiskey, contemplating how the DNC cowered and caved when they could have created hope and dreams and inspiration and built upon Bernie’s coalition and given more than a few fucks about universal healthcare and a world in which people didn’t have to go bankrupt to stay healthy. Amy, Beto, Pete — all easily purchased pawns. When Trump wins again in November, they will have to live with this. I’m sure they’ll sleep quite well. After all, they had to be promised something. The worst thing about all this is that all of America will fall victims to authoritarianism and abject cruelty and a nation in which income inequality and exploiting the poor and the middle class is ever more the status quo. Good hard-working American people who clearly don’t deserve to be sacrificed to the corporate gods worshipped by neoliberal centrist cowards — this will be the new normal. And it will take at least a decade to recover from this madness. That’s the best case scenario.

Yes, it’s vital to accept realism. But we cannot lose hope despite these nightmarish truths. It fills me with sadness to see a remarkable progressive movement manipulated and short-changed so expertly by an Establishment instilling fear in swing voters who were, only days before yesterday, completely in the tank for Bernie. Perhaps we were fools in believing that progressive momentum would continue unabated. Still, it was the best kind of foolishness: the one that involved taking care of others, standing for something bigger than ourselves, believing that people were worthy of human rights and dignity, feeling empathy and passion and conviction, and placing pure energy in a beautiful dream that the Democrats could once again return to their roots and alter the national landscape and improve wellbeing much as they had with the New Deal and the Great Society. Still, it’s equally important to not have your hopes and spirits and idealism and ambitions paralyzed by the truth. And who wants to listen to hopelessness? I certainly don’t want to be guided by it.

We will rise again. We will fight again. Bernie is still a long shot. But do we want to tell our grandchildren that we didn’t go the distance? It may take years, but we have no other choice. For now, let us regroup and be gentle and be true and be bold and crack jokes so that we can find the faith again. That is what gets people eventually on the right side. That is the true path to unity.

by Edward Champion

My Evening with James Lipton

James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors Studio, has passed away. Here is my James Lipton story.

I had just moved to New York City and I was then a punkish and somewhat obnoxious independent podcaster who did ridiculously comprehensive and quirky interviews with authors. I had, like many other film and book geeks, been a devout watcher of Inside the Actors Studio. You didn’t know whether or not Lipton was serious or playing an absurdist role — especially with the Proust questionnaire. But you did have the sense that you were seeing someone who was orchestrating a somewhat important conversation, even if the dignified atmosphere didn’t always feel entirely earned.

Anyway, I learned that James Lipton had a book called Inside Inside and, purely because I had nothing to lose and my approach has always been to ask other people to be involved with my silly projects and see if they want to have fun (a surprising number of people are game), I sent an interview request to the publisher.

Amazingly, Lipton’s people said that he would be very keen to talk with me and that I’d get one hour with him.

I couldn’t believe it. I called some of my old buddies in California.

“Dude, James Lipton himself is going to be on The Bat Segundo Show!”

“No way!”

“That’s awesome!”

Sure, Lipton wasn’t the hugest name. He was some guy on the Bravo network. But he was known for being thoughtful — perhaps too thoughtful — towards the big names. He even had the decency to appreciate Will Ferrell’s impersonation of him on Saturday Night Live. And I suppose that free-wheeling, vaguely classy attitude was what made him someone who you couldn’t discount, even if you found him a little too serious at times. Inside the Actors Studio‘s atmosphere was generous with its time and it allowed you — to cite one of many examples — to see Robin Williams’s creative mind at work after taking a scarf from the audience and spending the next few minutes improvising with it. Lipton was often ridiculed for these efforts. But nobody, not even me, knew how much of a gent he was. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

I set up the interview in a restaurant. Lipton arrived, wearing vast swaths of makeup (he had just come off a television interview), and seemed a little uncomfortable with my microphone setup on the table. I started with some of my goofy questions. This was what I usually did to break the ice before I went into the serious stuff. But Lipton looked lost, caught in some internal sea of melancholy. I wondered if I had somehow said something to piss off James Lipton. This has been known to happen. I do have a tendency to shoot off my mouth, largely unknowingly. I ended up stopping the mic and asking, “Hey, man, are you okay?” He said he wasn’t feeling well and that he wanted to reschedule. He told me that I was a thoughtful young man and he offered deep apologies. I was baffled. Then he left the table and seemed to be deeply ashamed.

I sat there, bewildered, packing up my gear. There was little else I could do. Then I received a call from the publicist. The publicist told me — and the two of us both seemed to be worried about Lipton — that Lipton had received a brutal review of his book in a major newspaper that morning and that he felt embarrassed, leaving me like that. Could Lipton make it up to me? Could I meet Lipton that evening at his Upper East Side townhouse? I was stunned. Lipton really wanted to do the interview with me and do me a solid. “Yes,” I said calmly and professionally. I then quickly called my friends and said, “Holy shit! I’m meeting Lipton at his house! Should I dress up?”

I did dress up a little bit. And I arrived on time. I met Lipton’s wife, Kedekai, and I was firmly in Lipton Land. I was offered good scotch, which I politely declined. Kedekai came out with a large dish of snacks. And Lipton — still wearing television makeup — emerged and again offered profuse apologies for not being able to go through with the interview that afternoon. He showed me around his house. There was a room in which every wall was festooned with framed letters and photos of Lipton with his arm around big shot actors. “This collection is a little embarrassing,” said Lipton, who I suspected had said the same thing to everyone. But I actually thought his collection was somewhat endearing. Basically, Lipton was a huge geeky fan of actors. But for a man of Lipton’s generation, this was something you didn’t announce.

What impressed me more than this was how much of a gentleman Lipton had been. I was just some silly online guy who did interviews and here Lipton and his wife were treating me like royalty, lavishing me with such incredibly generous hospitality that I wondered if they had somehow mixed me up with someone else.

Lipton told me that I was someone who was different from the usual media people he talked with. Yes, I had read his 512 page memoir in full before talking with the man. I did this with every guest on my show. But this seemed to astonish Lipton. He clearly wasn’t used to this or anyone doing this kind of intense research. I got the sense that Lipton was a man who was secretly very shy and introverted and who really wanted to be taken seriously by people, but who usually wasn’t. I was apparently that rara avis interview where Lipton would be able to be Liptona at length.

We started rolling tape. You can listen to the interview here. And the two of us had a thoughtful, sometimes very funny, and gently revealing conversation of just how Lipton lived and operated in the way that he did. By simply allowing James Lipton to be himself, and being genuinely interested in him (as I was with all the people I interviewed), I was able to get an incredibly fascinating portrait of the man. Maybe Lipton needed the Lipton approach done with him. I don’t know. But when we finished the conversation, Lipton thanked me profusely and said that it was the best interview he had ever received. He asked for my mailing address. I gave it to him and, for many years, I received a Christmas card annually like clockwork.

I think what people failed to understand about Lipton is that he both liked to please people but he did this because he wanted to be known and loved and respected. But he wasn’t the kind of man who wanted to advertise this need. Because the Inside the Actors Studio persona was one of gravitas and seriousness. Lipton laughed very loud at my jokes in the comfort of his home and when the mic wasn’t on, but he grew very serious when he knew we were recording.

What I do know is that, for about two hours of my life, I was able to give Lipton some unconditional love and respect. Perhaps because I wasn’t a journalistic vulture. I was more of a guy who greatly enjoyed talking with people and accepting them on their own terms. But I had learned some of these moves by watching Inside the Actors Studio.

by Edward Champion

Jack Welch is Dead: Goodbye and Good Riddance

Jack Welch was one of the greatest corporate villains who ever lived, standing against the American worker. His death deserves our celebration.

Jack Welch, a scurrilous American disease who was frequently misidentified as a human being, finally bit the bucket on Sunday. There are many business tycoons who will lionize this unapologetic ratfuck, but I, for one, am very glad that this unpardonable snollygoster, this vile enemy of the American worker, is dead. For Welch was an innovative corporate sociopath who prioritized profits over human life. He was known as “Neutron Jack” for a reason. It wasn’t just that he had the destructive force of a neutron bomb because of the callous way in which he destroyed the livelihoods of hard-working Americans for maximum gain. His very soulless demeanor resembled a weapon of mass destruction. If Fat Man and Little Boy could talk and carry on a board meeting, Jack Welch was the living embodiment of this murderous Faustian bargain. Jack tried to disguise his unrelenting evils with a phony smile and a bullshit avuncularism that was appealing to other white males who hoped to adopt and emulate his ruthless approach for their own ends. But make no mistake: for all of his candor, this scumbag was incapable of compassion and, as such, he deserves no respect.

Welch’s fawning and uncritical acolytes claimed that everything he touched turned to gold. But at what cost? Welch was one of the first CEOs to break the covenant between a profitable company and the American worker. He believed in grouping workers into clusters — the so-called “vitality curve” — and not giving those who didn’t fall within the top 20% a chance, paying little heed or heart to human factors in a worker’s life that might temporarily alter their performance. Under his tenure at GE, he reduced 411,000 employees in 1980 to 299,000 employees in 1985. The GE stock kept shooting up during that time, rising to two and a half times the value. There was more than enough wiggle room to keep workers employed. But not for Jack. He sold off businesses and laid off workers and Forbes named him “Manager of the Century.”

But what was the end result of decimating GE like this? A swift rise followed by a sputtering fall. Because you can’t sustain this kind of growth forever. Under Welch’s handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt, it became very easy for GE Capital to become more cartoonish and thus flounder. And that is because Welch set the template for profit at any cost. It lines your pockets for a number of years, but it never lasts. And if that’s the case, are the many hundred thousand workers truly worth the sacrifice?

Jack Welch never gave a damn about the American worker or preserving job security. He was a dirty slithering hagfish who only existed to pursue mad and Machiavellian ends. In seven years, Welch not only reduced the GE workforce, but he reduced its unionized share. Unionized employees fell from 70% to 35% of the total workforce. This left them without the leverage to negotiate and they became targets under the vicious profit-motivated evil of Jack Welch.

There’s simply no way that anyone with a moral conscience can revere this guy. If you hold Jack Welch in any kind of esteem, then I don’t know if I could ever invite you to dinner. Before Jack Welch came along, there was a line in the sand in which it was understood that workers shared the profits and benefits of a company’s success. But Welch changed all that and inspired other lunatics to adopt similarly heartless policies that are now the norm. Welch only innovated in the way that he inflicted barbarism against this covenant with blue-collar Americans. And for that, his demise requires me to pop open a bottle of champagne and pledge a renewed commitment to standing up for the health, security, and wellbeing of the American worker as Jack Welch rots in hell.

by Edward Champion

The End of Buttigieg is the Rise of Bernie

Pete Buttigieg’s sudden dropout has made this a two person presidential race, one that will be very good for Bernie if he plays his cards right.

Pete Buttigieg left the presidential race because he didn’t want to be humiliated on Super Tuesday. He had been roundly thrashed last week by brave workers risking their livelihood after his hollow platitudes to those fighting for fifteen dollars an hour didn’t land and he was received by unremitting ridicule. Moreover, he didn’t have the money to win. He had $6.6 million at the beginning of February, just a half million less than Biden did. And then South Carolina happened. Tom Steyer, who took the state’s motto “While I Breath I Hope” quite literally by going all in, had bested Buttigieg by three percentage points. Then Steyer dropped out. And the polls showed Buttigieg not doing all that well. Behind the unpopular Bloomberg in Utah. Just 8% in a February 19th Washington Post/ABC News poll. Barely 10% in a CBS News/YouGov poll released on February 23rd. He had canceled his pivotal Florida trip, claiming a cold, much like Frank Sinatra. But he didn’t have Sinatra’s popularity or his power. He didn’t have young voters. He didn’t have African-Americans. He couldn’t win, even though he had declared victory in Iowa before the results were in and carried himself in the final weeks of his campaign much like Little Lord Fauntleroy walking the streets of New York City with an aristocratic air.

But now he’s out. And what this means is that the Democratic race has come down to Bernie Sanders vs. Joe Biden. This, however, is an election in which Sanders has the clear advantage, not Biden. Conventional wisdom might suggest that voters cleaving to Buttigieg would put their faith in a dependable mainstream moderate with brand name recognition like Biden. But the donations and the polling figures paint a different picture. Sanders raised $46.5 million in February alone, easily dwarfing the Biden war chest. A Morning Consult poll released on February 27, 2020 shows Bernie ahead as a second choice among Buttigieg voters by 21%. It’s admittedly a narrow lead over Biden and Warren, who did merit 19% each in this poll. But it nevertheless speaks to the significantly underestimated way in which Bernie has built a vast coalition.

It’s possible that the flailing campaigns of Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren may be able to take some of the wind out of Bernie’s sails. Klobuchar, who sustained a level of remarkably controlled rage against Pete in the last two debates, will no doubt be galvanized by this news. But it’s doubtful that she will crack much more than 6% in most of the Super Tuesday races. Warren has a slightly better chance, but her support has plummeted in the most recent primaries. 9.2% in New Hampshire. 9.7% in Nevada. If we look to Nevada as a litmus test, the 14.3% that Buttigieg won in that state would likely be split among Bernie, Biden, and Warren. And if that’s indicative of the national clime, that’s simply not enough of a share for her to roll past Biden, who will likely see stronger numbers in future races after his win in South Carolina.

Biden represents the likely second place candidate. But he’s going to need to mobilize a lot of people to donate money in the next few weeks. And he’s going to need to have a very strong showing in the fourteen states up for grabs just two days from now.

All this is very good news for Bernie. But his campaign should not grow complacent. As I argued last night, he’s going to need someone like Stacey Abrams in his corner. He’s going to need to demonstrate to black voters and older voters that he’s worked out the numbers and that he stands with a coalition that is inclusive of centrists and the South. His present strategy of pointing out that universal healthcare and free college tuition are not radical ideas is a start. But this is a place where Biden is likely to attack him on.

Buttigieg’s exit is definitely Bernie’s gain. But it’s not the end of this grueling race. Not by a long shot.

by Edward Champion

Why Bernie Needs Stacey Abrams as Vice President

Bernie is likely to be the Democratic frontrunner. But the recent South Carolina primary results have revealed why Stacey Abrams is his most ideal vice president.

Joe Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary tonight. As I write this, with 67% of the precincts reporting, Biden leads by 48.68%, with Bernie Sanders in second place at 19.3%, Tom Steyer in third place at 11.4%, Pete Buttigieg in fourth place at 7.9%, and Elizabeth Warren in fifth place at 7%.

First off, Biden’s win doesn’t negate Bernie’s present momentum as Democratic primary frontrunner. And it doesn’t discount Bernie’s ability to build broad and inclusive coalitions. Even in South Carolina, Bernie did very well among younger black voters in the exit polls. What he needs to do now is to appeal to older voters and, of course, more African-American voters. He has a strong partnership with Nina Turner and, nationally speaking, his numbers are up among blacks — with 20% describing themselves as “enthusiastic” about Bernie.

Warren’s campaign is nearly finished. Barely 10% in both Nevada and New Hampshire. Just 7% tonight in South Carolina. We’ll know more on Super Tuesday, but, despite an increasingly stronger profile at the debates, she’s just not getting through to voters. My prediction is that she will drop out of the race before Buttigieg and that this support will likely go to Bernie. Buttigieg has proven to be incredibly tenacious, but his track record prevents him from winning the broad support of black voters. On that front, Biden definitely has more of a shot nationally than Buttigieg ever will.

The likely reality is that the three top Democratic candidates will be Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Pete Buttigieg. Of this trio, Bernie stands out as the most progressive candidate. And he has the support of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal, and Rashida Tlaib. But to clinch the national race, Bernie needs someone who is (a) African-American, (b) a woman, (c) from the South, and (d) who can unite moderate liberals and progressives.

That person is Stacey Abrams.

If Bernie is the frontrunner, Abrams is the only logical choice for vice president. She’s been the deputy city attorney of Atlanta and an incredible figure in the Georgia General Assembly, single-handedly stopping Georgia Republicans from implementing a cable tax that would shift the burden to working people. She’s shown that she can reduce prison expenses without the crime rates going up. So she’s good with the numbers. Abrams’s powerful response to this year’s State of the Union address demonstrated that she was authentic, personable, and pragmatic, and showed that she genuinely cared about working people. In talking about her father hitchhiking home without a coat (he had given the coat to a homeless man), Abrams proved that she was better than Warren in talking about her working-class roots and tying this personal experience into the need for kindness and sacrifice.

What’s greatly appealing about Abrams is that she’s formidable — especially in her 2018 gubernatorial battle against Brian Kemp — but has always come across as a voice of empathy and reason. She is a natural born leader and she has said repeatedly that she wants to be President one day. So she’d definitely bring her A game as veep. Among moderates, she could be perceived as the gentler voice to Bernie’s bellowing. Plus, she’d clean Mike Pence’s clock in the vice presidential debate.

But aside from these terrific credentials, we’d also have the historic precedent of the first African-American woman running for vice president. Not only would this carry on Obama’s legacy (she earned his endorsement while running for Georgia governor), but this would also add a vital new context to Bernie’s proposed plans for Medicare for All, tuition free education, and guaranteed housing. Progress shouldn’t just be about adopting vital and significant policy changes. It also needs to ensure that the people in power reflect the people of America. This would also lay down the flagstones for Abrams becoming President — whether in a subsequent election or in the terrible event that Bernie, who is 78 years old, dies while serving as President.

It’s not enough to want Trump out of office. If the Democrats want to win, they need people who will be inspired enough to show up to vote. And in order to do that, the 2020 Democratic ticket needs the same hope that fueled Obama’s campaign in 2008. Bernie is close to this, but it’s clear that he cannot build a coalition on his own. He needs Stacey Abrams to be there with him.