Democracy Dying Emoji!
Jeffrey Goldberg Had Me At "Dunder Mifflin"
I can’t get enough of Jeffrey Goldberg’s story about the Signal group chat he was invited to join, and was struck by something he said to his colleague Hanna Rosin on Radio Atlantic.
The basic facts revealed in Goldberg’s story—a mixture of incompetence and evil that’s fast becoming the hallmark of Trump 2.0—were genuinely shocking, but when Goldberg talked about how he suspected this chat was not the hoax or subterfuge he’d at first assumed such a ham-handed effort must be, he pointed out something I agree is quite telling.
Goldberg: If somebody is spoofing this, then it’s not some media-gadfly organization. It’s a foreign intelligence service that had knowledge of the U.S. strikes—seems implausible. But then the part that really struck me as very Trump administration was the sharing of all these emojis: flag emojis, muscle emojis, fire emojis.
Rosin: Prayer emoji.
Goldberg: Prayer emoji, which, you know, and it’s like, by the way, I mean, it was—talk about relatable. It’s like every workplace—I mean, this is what I actually thought when I’m seeing this come over the phone, is Wow, every workplace is the same. It’s like, Big victory! We got the new, you know, the Dunder Mifflin contract, and, you know, muscle emoji, and it’s like, here was, you know, We took out some Houthis! Good, good, good work, everybody. So that’s when I thought, Wow, these guys are—these could be these guys. Because if I were trying to spoof them, I wouldn’t do something so implausible as to start inserting juvenile emojis into a national-security conversation.
Juvenile emojis like this. (Subscribe to the Atlantic here).
I also just listened to Jeffrey Goldberg on The Daily at the New York Times, where he talked more about emojis with Rachel Adams:
I want you to describe to us what you’re seeing in this group chat after the attacks start.
Jeffrey Goldberg
It’s a couple of updates on the consequences of the attack — that’s all I’ll say — the damage that they think that they have done, combined with some congratulatory texts. And this is, of course, where they start using emojis.
Rachel Abrams
Emojis. Which emojis are they using?
Jeffrey Goldberg
Before the attack started, there was the prayer emoji used by a couple of people. And then during the attacks, when the reports are coming in that that’s going well from the American perspective, there’s the flexed bicep, I guess, emoji.
Rachel Abrams
I’m familiar with these.
Jeffrey Goldberg
There’s the fire emoji. There’s an American flag emoji. And sometimes they’re repeated a couple of times. And there, I’m sitting there, watching that and going, wow, every workplace is the same, huh?
Jeffrey Goldberg had me at Dunder Mifflin. The company that The Office made the symbol of mediocrity and soul-stealing office culture is a good metaphor for the Trump White House. On that show, Michael Scott desperately wanted to be cool and hang with the bros. In real life, Trump was elected by the bro culture, put bros in his Cabinet, and is letting bros like Elon Musk run wild in government.
‘Own it, fire Waltz, move on’ reads the headline in Politico. “White House allies fume as group chat scandal grows”
Even if that happens, we know that nothing substantial will change because Donald Trump does not admit mistakes. Trump is also lazy (and, I repeat, stupid), which makes something else Jeffrey Goldberg said on The Daily ring so true:
Rachel Abrams
It really makes you wonder what else is being communicated this way.
Jeffrey Goldberg
How many other small groups are there?
Rachel Abrams
And also, why would these folks be communicating this way? I mean, just —
Jeffrey Goldberg
You know why?
Rachel Abrams
Why?
Jeffrey Goldberg
You know why?
Rachel Abrams
Tell me.
Jeffrey Goldberg
Because going into a SCIF is a pain in the neck.
Rachel Abrams
Even if it’s in your basement?
A reader of this newsletter assures me that this story isn’t breaking through on right-wing media, who insist it’s about Trump’s successful bold action and The Atlantic’s and Jeffrey Goldberg’s perfidy. I’m not so sure—what are you hearing?
In fact,
has just published this:Trump’s Most Outrageous Scandal Yet Is Actually Going Viral
Jeffrey Goldberg has now released the full text of the group chat the White House insists contained no classified war plans. Read for yourself. And see the preening of the young Vice President, showing off what he’s “not sure the President is aware” about. Ouch.
It’s no surprise that muscle emojis and flags and fires and prayer hands are the level of communication skills Donald Trump’s national security team can muster. (I hate emojis—but I’m a crusty old wordsmith).
I’ve been writing in this space about the problem we’re having due to a political system that’s held in such low esteem that voters will elect a president because he’s funny, or he annoys the kind of people who annoy them.
Reap, meet sow.