Hope Has Never Trickled Down, It Has

Trump Walked Into A Media Setting For Which He Was Far Better Suited Than The Other Contenders Because He Actually Knows How To Do Reality Tv And Made Them All Look Like Pretenders. And I Would Argue That Our News Media Has Only Gotten Worse Since Trump Got In Office. Trump Is Media Crack. The Ratings Have Never Been Higher. The Reason Cnn Would Run An Hour Of An Empty Podium Waiting For Him To Show Up During The Campaign Is Because They Were Terrified If They Turned Away From Trump Their Rating Would Go Down.

It's Certainly Something We Haven't Seen Before In Terms Of A Fully Commercial Global Brand - Really A Family Of Brands - Not Just Trump But Also Ivanka, Who Has A Sub-brand. We've Never Seen This Before. We've Had Presidents In Financial Conflicts Of Interest Before, But This Phenomenon Where A Sitting President Image Avatar Is Out There Selling Golf Courses And Condominiums, Even As He Is In Office And Having The Value Of His Personal Brand Inflated Dramatically By Fact Of His Being President, Is New Territory.

I Do Think That At This Moment In Late Capitalism It Is Easier In Our Minds To Imagine Raising Florida 30 Feet To Escape The Rising Seas Than It Is To Regulate Capitalism To Make It Serve Human Beings.

Indeed The Three Policy Pillars Of The Neoliberal Age-privatization Of The Public Sphere, Deregulation Of The Corporate Sector, And The Lowering Of Income And Corporate Taxes, Paid For With Cuts To Public Spending-are Each Incompatible With Many Of The Actions We Must Take To Bring Our Emissions To Safe Levels.

I See The Gap Ads As Being A Great Example Of How Branding Has Changed. Those Gap Campaigns Are Pop Culture. They've Been Incredibly Powerful. They Have Had The Kind Of Effect On Culture That A Hit Band Has. Just Look At The Gap's Khaki Swing Ads, Which Were Music Videos. They Had This Tremendous Impact On The Industry - Suddenly Everything Started Looking Like Gap Ads And It Became Difficult To Know Who Was Co-opting Whom And Who Was Creating Culture.