Welcome to Civil War Every Day

My hyperfixation becomes your inbox clutter

A photo I took at the 2016 RNC, back when I was fooling around with mounted lens for my iPhone. Would still like to be a photojournalist when I grow up.

Opening Salvo

I’m still virulently anti-newsletter. After recording one whole podcast episode about Civil War (and getting ready to record a second)¹, I am also desperate for another outlet for my still-evolving thoughts of various depths about Alex Garland’s spectacular² movie, an exhaustable supply I know will eventually peter out if only to return in almost full force once the movie inevitably makes some kind of commotion at the Oscars next year. I have too much to say to fit in an op-ed, yet my thoughts are too narrow to sustain — what were those things called? Oh, right, a blog. So, you know, one of these. For a while.

Why am I obsessed? Because the movie gets at a sense of unease I’ve felt ever since I was drawn to write about politics. See, I got here via Hunter S. Thompson, not Woodward and Bernstein. I care about the political process a lot. I care even more about justice. But why do I do what I do? Because when things get hot and heavy, I want to be in on it.

(Thompson: “I haven't found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as a sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story no matter how bizarre it is, [or] going out and getting into the weirdness of reality.”)

I love covering conflict. I get excited about clashes of ideas and I’ve felt a thrill when those clashes get to the edge of something more tangible or, at the very least, are about something important. More to the point, political turmoil puts my work in greater demand. The Trump years were the second-best thing that ever happened to my career.³ Certainly, the Trump years were good for my ego in a deliciously virtuous way: I got lots of compliments for my work, but also, strangers would see my media credentials and say, “Thank you” without knowing who I was.

As the credits rolled during my first viewing of Civil War, I felt the same solemn surge of satisfaction that I used to feel when some civic-minded soul would tell me to keep up the good job just because I was in the press pen at a rally. I happened to be wearing my “America Needs Journalists” t-shirt at the theater and snapped a selfie looking grim and proud, posting it to my socials with “wore the right shirt.”

But as I sat with my feelings about the movie — indeed, almost before the haunting last image of the film faded to black — I got uncomfortable with my own celebration. When Lee lectures Jessie about not getting involved with the combatants just a scene or two before Joel howls about the distant gunfire getting him hard, aren’t we supposed to notice that these journalists’ motives aren’t pure? Aren’t we supposed to see that by the film’s end they’ve actively taken a side?

The side they take is the side of righteousness. I believe Garland is unequivocal that one side of his war is better than another.⁴ But I believe the core argument of the movie is that righteousness is not absolution, that being on the side of the good and right and true won’t keep you from doing awful things. I don’t think it’s an anti-war movie; it might be an anti-pro-war movie.

In interviews with Garland (and I’ll start collecting them in the next edition), he’s said what I felt in those first closing moments is the kind of compliment he intended to pay. Doing the PR rounds, cast members have called it a “love letter to journalism.” Perhaps. Sometimes love letters are not as flattering as we’d like them to be.

Incoming

• “A sheriff, a felon and a conspiracy theorist walk into a hotel. They're there for the same conference: The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association is urging lawmen to form posses, seize voting machines and investigate baseless claims of voter fraud.” [NBC]

• “US Republican Kari Lake tells supporters: 'Strap on a Glock' as election nears” [Reuters⁵]

• “Many Americans who recently bought guns open to political violence, survey finds. Study of 13,000 Americans finds particular risk among certain types of gun owners, including those who carry weapons in public.” [Guardian]

• “'‘It can happen again’: Judge set to preside over Trump trial delivers her toughest Jan. 6 sentence to date” [Politico]

Background Noise⁶

• “I Love a Man in Uniform,” Gang of Four

• “Kool Thing,” Sonic Youth

• “Blank Generation,” Richard Hell and the Voidoids

1. Subscribe to Space the Nation! And subscribe to Drezner’s World, the Substack of my podcast co-host, Dan Drezner, who is currently doing me the enormous favor of not acting that smug about my having joined him in this newsletter netherworld.

2. Using that word with all the care and intention possible. This is a movie about spectacle that is a spectacle, that wants us to think about the act of observing a spectacle.

3. The best thing was blogging the George W. Bush presidency, so, you know, I’ve got some sins to answer for.

4. Some people don’t see how unequivocal he is about this and that’s bananas to me.

5. 😉

6. Songs that should be on the Civil War soundtrack but somehow aren’t.