18 great articles, videos and podcasts around the raging fire of the American election
I was trying to be addicted to CNN but then my colleagues intervened.
IN the lead up to the 2020 US election, throughout the Capitol Hill riot and on past the inauguration, I became an addict.
One of the WhatsApp groups I’m a member of developed into my favourite source of news coverage (and chatter).
Its members are a shadowy cabal of international journalists, academics, experts and, somehow, me.
Day after day the perma-bleeping beast burped up the best new reportage, the most relevant deep-dives, documentaries, TED talks, digital projects and everything in between.
The volume of great content posted became too much to follow in real-time so I compiled a list of the articles — some of which spun off on particular conversation points (freedom of speech, platform regulation, QAnon) and some of which was more run-of-the-mill ongoing coverage of events.
Two days ago I sat down and began reading through that list. I’m still here reading. The WhatsApp group keeps buzzing and I keep adding to the list.
I’ll save you the full library, but here are the things that I found most interesting and valuable (so far).
Enjoy the show.
What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol
This is a phenomenal piece of journalistic assembly. It is historical record par-excellence; it’s legal evidence; it’s an interactive documentary; it’s a digital project. You can lose a day to it. I did.
Conspiracy theories in America
A long read but definitely with the eyeballs.
It is but a finger on the gargantuan brilliance that is The Atlantic’s Shadowland project, which I am nowhere near finishing yet, and I thoroughly recommend that you dig into. This is a great place to start though.
“The internet is a crime scene”
An interview with misinformation and digital extremism expert Joan Donovan by Politico’s digital editor Zack Stanton.
“Fuck Parler and the fascist assholes behind it”
Digital designer Aral Balkan’s Twitter thread on web-hosting as a utility and why Amazon Web Services (AWS) sets a bad precedent by de-platforming Parler.
Origins of America’s new ‘civil war’
Boston College History professor Heather Cox Richardson on the birthing of right-wing terror in America.
Madness On Capitol Hill
This is just some straight-up New Journalism style great reportage by @AndrewMcCormck of The Nation, who was on the scene of the Capitol farrago.
“Dear Facebook, this is how you are breaking democracy”
Former CIA analyst, diplomat and Facebook employee Yaël Eisenstat on how Facebook’s business model is fueling social division.
Written and recorded in August 2020 — before the Capitol Hill mob descended — it proves prescient enough in conclusion to make you pay attention to every word on the second watch. It’s 15 mins long. Bring tea.
A QAnon ‘Digital Soldier’ Marches On, Undeterred by Theory’s Unraveling
Portrait of a lady on fire with QAnon from the New York Times
The problem with banning people from social media
“Who decides free speech?”
Fascinating piece on the reason we should hold back on fast action on social regulation, by author Gillian C. York — director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Has the threat of Trump really gone?
A podcast (with video feed) from Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy
This Ways To Change The World episode gives glorious length to Timothy Snyder, the American author and professor of history at Yale University, and a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. Just bathe in his brain.
What is Rexit?
Apologies, this will only work if you have a Times subscription and tolerance of the Murdoch-owned media. But it is a brilliant piece on the spectre of secession in the US.
Off the rails: Behind Trump’s post-election meltdown
A superb Axios podcast series on Trump’s election nightmare
The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists
Among other things, forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee explains what you should and shouldn’t do if your friends or family have drunk the Trump Kool Aid.
Was it a coup?
I still don’t think the Capitol Hill clusterfark was a coup — but this article has gone further than any other in persuading me that the use of that word has some merit.
We Worked Together on the Internet. Last Week, He Stormed the Capitol.
Fascinating piece from The New York Times media columnist Ben Smith on the downward path a former Buzzfeed colleague took to the Capitol calamity.
The psychology of misinformation
Just one of the many great things First Draft is doing/has done.
AND FINALLY…
‘They’ll be back’
Arnie’s speech was a good one — even if the needless patriotic music throughout grates like hell.
If you made it this far, congratulations. You have my permission to eat an extra biscuit.
