December
7, 2023
Taylor
Swift’s victory, and her mostly unimpressive competitors, is a PR disaster for
the establishment
Each
year, editors of the prestigious American news magazine, Time, choose a person,
group, idea, or object which, for better or worse, made the most impact on the
world. This year’s newly crowned winner is American singer-songwriter Taylor
Swift. The choice is totally valid, for reasons that speak volumes about the
current state of the Western world.
In
a year marked by billions in Western taxpayer cash being shoveled out the door
to Ukraine, Swift was the one person who made headlines for her singlehanded
contributions to the US economy. At $93 million spent per show by fans, the
Washington Post estimated that her Eras tour alone could add $5.7 billion to
the US economy. That’s a lot of cash-to-tax potential for a country addicted to
spending. It’s a wonder that last year’s winner, Ukrainian President Vladimir
Zelensky, hasn’t yet asked for Swift to just hand the cash over to him directly
– or at the very least demand that he be allowed to open for her on tour with
his pantless, hands-free piano playing routine.
US
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was shortlisted along with Swift,
specifically for his attempts at a “soft landing” of the US economy amid
inflation and spending, but that particular plane is still careening down the
runway. So as far as efforts to pull the economy out of a tailspin, he’s
apparently only really fit to be Swift’s co-pilot. Or Barbie’s. As in the doll.
Because the Barbie movie managed to also rake in $1.4 billion worldwide for the
US economy to help compensate for Washington’s screwups. Maybe the Pentagon can
paint some of its bombs pink in honor of Barbie’s economic contributions before
sending them off to Kiev. Or just have a giant inflatable Barbie ride them, in
the style of Dr. Strangelove’s Slim Pickens.
What’s
most striking about this year’s shortlist and its ultimate winner is what it
says about the weakening role of the traditional Western establishment.
Hollywood
writers and actors made the list for their strike against movie studios, a move
that barely made a dent for the viewing audience in this era of streaming
services and globalization, where libraries of millions of films and shows, old
and new, from all over the world in various languages already exist at people’s
fingertips. There was a time when Hollywood represented the be-all and end-all
of American soft power dominance. The collective audience shrug around the
strike suggests that’s no longer the case.
Prosecutors
who laid 90 felony charges against former US President Donald Trump made the
list of finalists. Arguably, they’re one of the very few things standing in the
way of GOP frontrunner Trump’s reelection next November – other than Trump
himself. But the fact that it takes a whole team of people to throw the book at
a single anti-establishment loose cannon – and he’s still managing to trounce
the Republican competition in the polls between court appearances – speaks
volumes about the establishment’s weakness. The fact that Trump is currently
neck-and-neck with incumbent President Joe Biden despite having a recent
mugshot says even more.
CEO
of OpenAI, Sam Altman, made the list, amid the drama of him being fired and
then rehired when employees rebelled en masse. I guess that’s supposed to make
him some kind of anti-establishment hero. At the very least he’s not overtly
pro-establishment. But he oversees technology which, incorporated into the
ChatGPT app, has allowed C-level students to automatically generate D-level
papers that they mistake for A+ grades. Not exactly a tool for the kind of
critical thinking that the establishment fears.
The
one single Western establishment leader on the shortlist, King Charles III,
made the cut just for existing, basically – and for the fact that his mother,
Queen Elizabeth II, stopped doing so last year. “At a moment of change for the
monarchy, he signified the power of tradition,” Time noted, referring to his
“decades-long wait for the throne,” which sounds like a euphemism for an
average Taylor Swift fan waiting in line for the washrooms at a concert.
Finally
rounding out the list, there’s Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese
leader Xi Jinping – the only two heads of government on the list, and both
spearheading a new multipolar world order. Apparently, Time had to go all the
way over to the other side of the world to find leaders who could even raise
eyebrows.
Forbes
names ‘most powerful woman’ award winner
Putin
being one step away from being named Person of the Year is the exact opposite
of the anti-Russian cancel culture that Ukraine and its Western establishment
enablers have been trying to propagate. Some might think that it doesn’t much
matter because it’s only PR. But PR and narrative are all they care about. They
treat PR victories in Western establishment media like they’re battlefield wins
deep in enemy territory. And with things not going too great right now on the
Ukraine counteroffensive front, PR and narrative is all they really have – and
they’re increasingly hanging by a thread as reality emerges through the
crumbling facade.
We’re
talking about people who invent awards to give to each other. As far as they’re
concerned, a PR victory in a prestigious Western establishment publication for
Putin is basically a war crime against Kiev.
Putin
and Xi weren’t the ultimate winners this time – although Putin did win in 2007
– but the fact that Putin made this list when last year it would have been
unthinkably taboo suggests that the PR tide is turning. And the fact that the
Western establishment is so glaringly unremarkable and feckless – as its
near-absence from this year’s list proves – goes a long way to suggest why.
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