#buckley mercer universe | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

antihcroes · 1 year

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#ANTIHCROES is an extremely selective & private, independent, multimuse as penned by pluto

THIS BLOG IS CURRENTLY ON SEMI-HIATUS, MORE INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND HERE

affiliated with: @liveshaunted, @souldivine, @heartfe1t (all blogs), @inspotlight (all blogs), @phantomloved (all blogs), & @sapphiredhearts

muse list can be found under the cut (ages listed are just the main ages i'll write them in, but i am willing to write any of them at any age)

OCS

daisy beacon. 19. FC: madelyn cline (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - FANDOMLESS

violet cooke. 19. FC: emma myers (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - FANDOMLESS

cori edwards. 18. FC: katherine mcnamara (she/they, pansexual/panromantic) - JATP

dani fernandez. 19. FC: olivia rodrigo (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - FANDOMLESS

noah grady. 18. FC: peyton meyer (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - FANDOMLESS

maya kent. 18. FC: giorgia whigham (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - DC UNIVERSE (SUPERMAN)

betty mclanden. 19. FC: kristine froseth (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - FANDOMLESS

gracie mercer. 18-30+. FC: grace van dien (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - JATP

krista patterson. 18. FC: india eisley (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - JATP

callie peters. 22. FC: odeya rush (she/her, demisexual/demiromantic) - FANDOMLESS

riley mills. 18. FC: mary mouser (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - FANDOMLESS

isabelle reid. 18. FC: bailee madison (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - FANDOMLESS

rory reynolds. 20. FC: sadie sink (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - FANDOMLESS

tommy warwick. 19. FC: rudy pankow (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - JATP

raine wilson. 21. FC: sabrina carpenter (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - FANDOMLESS

CANONS

wednesday addams. 18. FC: jenna ortega (she/her, demisexual/demiromantic) - WEDNESDAY

jay al-jazari. 19. FC: booboo stewart (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - DESCENDANTS

zay babineaux. 20. FC: aubrey joseph (he/him, pansexual/panromantic) - GIRL MEETS WORLD

yelena belova. 30. FC: florence pugh (she/her, asexual/aromantic) - MCU

amity blight. 18. FC: kristine froseth (she/her, homosexual/homoromantic) - THE OWL HOUSE

ricky bowen. 18. FC: joshua bassett (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - HSMTMTS

robin buckley. 18. FC: maya hawke (she/they, homosexual/homoromantic) - STRANGER THINGS

sam carpenter. 25. FC: melissa barrera (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - SCREAM

tara carpenter. 19. FC: jenna ortega (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - SCREAM

kc cooper. 21. FC: zendaya (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - KC UNDERCOVER

missy cooper. 23. FC: liana liberato (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - YOUNG SHELDON

alice cullen. immortal. FC: alexandra shipp (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - TWILIGHT

emmett cullen. immortal. FC: alex fitzalan (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - TWILIGHT

renesmee cullen. immortal. FC: hailee steinfeld (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - TWILIGHT

sharpay evans. 18. FC: olivia rose keegan (she/her, homosexual/homoromantic) - HSM

ryan evans. 18. FC: owen joyner (he/him, homosexual/homoromantic) - HSM

katniss everdeen. 24. FC: naomi scott (she/her, demisexual/demiromantic) - THE HUNGER GAMES

mal faery. 19. FC: dove cameron (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - DESCENDANTS

mack fox. 21. FC: maia mitchell (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - TEEN BEACH

nick franzelli. 19. FC: paris berelc (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - NO GOOD NICK

monica geller. 23. FC: kaylee bryant (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - FRIENDS

rosalie hale. immortal. FC: florence pugh (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - TWILIGHT

melinda halliwell. 20. FC: danielle rose russell (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - CHARMED

pj halliwell. 18. FC: katie douglas (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - CHARMED

steve harrington. 19. FC: joe keery (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - STRANGER THINGS

maya hart. 19. FC: kathryn newton (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - GIRL MEETS WORLD

michelle jones-watson. 18. FC: zendaya (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - MCU

cassie lang. 18. FC: kathryn newton (she/her, homosexual/homoromantic) - MCU

jake long. 21. FC: ross butler (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - AMERICAN DRAGON: JAKE LONG

jo march. 22. FC: maya hawke (she/her, homosexual/homoromantic) - LITTLE WOMEN

riley matthews. 19. FC: zoe colletti (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - GIRL MEETS WORLD

alex mercer. 18. FC: owen joyner (he/they, homosexual/homoromantic) - JATP

farkle minkus. 20. FC: corey fogelmanis (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - GIRL MEETS WORLD

julie molina. 18. FC: madison reyes (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - JATP

gabriella montez. 18. FC: isabella gomez (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - HSM

randy meeks. 18. FC: tyler posey (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - SCREAM

luz noceda. 18. FC: jessica sula (she/they, bisexual/biromantic) - THE OWL HOUSE

peter pan. 19. FC: tom holland (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - PETER PAN

peter parker. 18. FC: tom holland (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - MCU

peter parker. 22. FC: andrew garfield (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - TASM

luke patterson. 18. FC: charlie gillespie (he/him, pansexual/panromantic) - JATP

kim possible. 19. FC: sadie stanley (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - KIM POSSIBLE

sidney prescott. 18. FC: danielle campbell (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - SCREAM

tatum riley. 18. FC: madison iseman (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - SCREAM

barbie roberts. 32. FC: margot robbie (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - BARBIE UNIVERSE

liv rooney. 19. FC: dove cameron (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - LIV & MADDIE

audrey rose. 19. FC: sarah jeffery (she/her, homosexual/homoromantic) - DESCENDANTS

justin russo. 23. FC: froy gutierrez (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - WOWP

enid sinclair. 18. FC: emma myers (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - WEDNESDAY

gwen stacy. 18. FC: milly alcock (she/her (trans female), bisexual/biromantic) - SPIDER-VERSE

gwen stacy. 19. FC: meg donnelly (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - MCU

gwen stacy. 22. FC: josephine langford (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - TASM

bella swan. immortal. FC: nina dobrev (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - TWILIGHT

jeremy thompson. 21. FC: nick robinson (he/him, homosexual/homoromantic) - NO GOOD NICK

xavier thorpe. 19. FC: felix mallard (he/him, bisexual/biromantic) - WEDNESDAY

bethany walker. 21. FC: virginia gardner (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - JUMANJI

kate wallis. 19. FC: olivia holt (she/her, demisexual/demiromantic) - CRUEL SUMMER

addison wells. 21. FC: meg donnelly (she/her, pansexual/panromantic) - ZOMBIES

nancy wheeler. 18. FC: natalia dyer (she/her, bisexual/biromantic) - STRANGER THINGS

carrie wilson. 18. FC: savannah lee may (she/her, homosexual/homoromantic) - JATP

hunter wittebane. 19. FC: danny griffin (he/him, bisexual/demiromantic) - THE OWL HOUSE

#( pinned post )

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empathichearts · 2 months

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911 & 911 Lonestar

evan buckley maddie buckley adriana diaz eddie diaz sophia diaz athena grant-nash howard han bobby nash ember palmer ravi panikkar lou ransone hen wilson mateo chavez marjan marwani savannah mercer carlos reyes marina reyes grace ryder hudson ryder judson ryder vivian ryder owen strand paul strickland tommy vega

Grey's Anatomy Universe

jackson avery andrew deluca lexi grey shreya kumari george o'malley amelia shepherd callie torres jo wilson zander perez victoria hughes diane lewis dean miller pruitt miller theo ruiz ben warren elijah abbott charlotte king caroline king-freedman georgia king-freedman rachel king-freedman addison montgomery betsey parker jake reilly sheldon wallace

One Chicago

sylvie brett joe cruz chris herrmann stella kidd kevin atwater kim burgess antonio dawson trudy platt natalie manning crockett marcel connor rhodes vanessa taylor

Fire Country

javier castillo jake crawford eve edwards bode donovan sharon leone vince leone liana obasi gabriela perez manny perez

#╰––– » 「 ⛑ 」 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹. ┊ come get y’all juice

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thebridgehqs · 7 months

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The following need to post in the next 48 hours or message the main for an extension:

@prcphesieslie: Eddie Diaz, Billy Black, Matthew Scott, John Sheppard

@totouchthcstars Bonnie Harper

@lcnelylcves Evan Lorne, Aiden Ford

The following need to make an intro in the next week or message the main for an extension:

@virtuousouls: Octavia Blake, Rupert Giles + catch up

@cquity: Kathleen Harvey, Victoria Sutherland, Sophie Hatter, Medusa, Renesme Cullen, Juliette Ferrars, Leah Clearwater

@totouchthcstars: Quigley Quagmire, Louise Blecher, Ashley Magnus, Leo Valdez, Raven Reyes

@rosewaterdrunk: catch up

@allxthingsxglxtter: Nikola Tesla, Jonathan Carnavan + catch up

@prcphesieslie: Billy Black, Matthew Scott + catch up

@fidclium: Seamus Boyle, Orpheus Fraser, Jacob Black + catch up

@lcnelylcves: Sean Mulcahy, John Druitt, Anthony Lockwood, Allan a Dale, Salem Saberhagen, Evan Lorne, Aiden Ford, Helen Maclean, Cam Mitchell, Skaara

The following need to make the required posts in the next week or message the main for an extension:

@cquity: 1 on Alison Watts.

@hxlcycnx: 1 on Haythem Kenway, Lachesis, Lia Beaufort, Matt Murdock, Violet Baudelaire and Yvaine. 2 on Artagan, Dionysus, Marc Spector, Olive Smith and Saoirse O'Farrell.

@featherskies: 1 on Missy Moreno and Psyche 2 on Rory Gilmore

@dancngthroughlife: 1 on Quinn Fabray

@rosewaterdrunk: 1 on Alina Starkov, Anna Marie, Artemis, Asami Sato, Asta Runefist, Beauregard Lionett, Catherine Alexander, Clarissa Fairchild, Clarisse La Rue, Darcy Lewis, Demeter, Ellie, Fauna Nylund, Flora, Gwen Stacy, Iris West, Jean Gunnhildr, Katara, Kate Bishop, Lara Croft, Leia Organa, Loriel, Miaski, Nimue, Penelope Crawford, River Mekhala Niranpai, Sersi, Vex'ahlia De Rolo, Wanda Maximoff and Zelda. 2 on Aloy, Allura Vysoren, Cora Hale, Daphne Scott, Hope Van Dyne, Mako Mori, Malia Tate, Rayla Dragonguard and Sarah Wilson.

@roarunderpxpercuts: 1 on Alex Claremont-Diaz, Blair Waldorf, Jesse and Patrick Commerford-Blanco 2 on Benedict Bridgerton, Carl Grimes, Castiel, Charlie Spring, Edwina Sharma, Josie Saltzman, Niklaus Mikaelson, Maxine Baker, Peter Parker, Ricky Bowen, Sebastian Matthew-Smith, Shego, Steven Universe, Stiles Stilinksi, Tamar Kir Bataar, Willie Stewart and Zed Necropolis

@allxthingsxglxtter: 1 on Angrboda, Aurelia Gunner, Bryce Claiborne, Cassie Anderson, Diego Hargreeves, Hadie, Jason Todd, Lady, Leo, Lochlyn Boyle, Lyra Samos, Maelstrom Adler, Maive Mccullough, Morpheus, Odysseus Pierce, Sapphire, Shade Barrow, Shaun Gilmore, Veralidaine Sarrasri, Viktor and Xiao 2 on Adam Carlsen, Alex Mercer, Billy, Daja Kisubo, Ember Cobalt, Levi Sullivan, Nikola Tesla and Lisa Snart.

@totouchthcstars: 1 on Belle, Bonnie Harper, Chloe Sullivan, Clove Kentwell, Crowley, Dustfinger, Dorothy Gale, Elena Gilbert, Effie Trinket, Gabriel Van Helsing, Grogu, Grover Underwood, Han Solo, El Hopper, Jessie Cook, Jim Hawkins, Klaus Hargreaves, Lucifer, Maddie Buckley, Melody, Olaf, Pippin Took, Sabrina Spellman, Silena Kyle, Spock, Stede Bonet, Tony Stark, Velma Dinkley, Valkyrie, Wall-E 2 on Giulia Marcovaldo, Lorna Dane, Peter Parker, Rhaegar Targaryen, Son Goku

@virtuousouls: 1 on Lo'ak Sully 2 on Faith Lehane, Galadriel, Genya Safin, Grace Augustine, Huan, Joel Miller, Jaskier, Joyce Byers, Maya Lopez, Raleigh Beckett, Rick Grimes, Sam Gamgee, Skye Richfield, Spencer Reid, Steve Rogers, Thema, Xu Xialing, Yelena Belova.

#thebridge: activity

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wavehq · 10 months

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( ANONYMOUS ASKS ) ——- pls what are your most wanted at the moment??

this is a super long list from our discord, but: anyone from a league of their own, matthias helvar, nina zenik, mal oretsev, david kostyk, zoya nazyalensky and nikolai lantsov ( grishaverse ); dustin henderson, joyce byers, jonathan byers, nancy wheeler i'm not sure if we have her rn if we do i apologize, jim hopper, steve harrington and robin buckley ( stranger things ), tony stark, miles morales, steve rogers, bruce banner, thor, natasha romanoff, james rhodes, and logan / wolverine ( marvel ), mickey milkovich, ian gallagher, carl gallagher, debbie gallagher, karen jackson and kevin ball ( shameless ), lorelai gilmore, lane kim, luke danes, jess mariano, dean forester, logan huntzberger, paris geller, sookie st. james and emily gilmore ( gilmore girls ), richie tozier, ben hanscom, mike hanlon and beverly marsh ( kingverse ), peter shaw and bob andrews ( the three investigators ), ken carson ( barbie cinematic universe ), helen shivers, ray bronson and karla wilson ( i know what you did last summer ), tanjiro kamado, kanao tsuyuri, inosuke hashibara, giyuu tomioka, mitsuri kanroji, shinobu kocho, muichiro tokito, zenitsu agatsuma, genya shinazugawa, yushiro and sabito ( demon slayer/kimetsu no yaiba ), xingqiu, chongyun, xinyan, xiangling, yun jin, zhongli, xiao, yanfei, ganyu, keqing, beidou, ningguang, yelan and shenhe ( genshin impact ), reggie peters, alex mercer, willie, bobby shaw/trevor wilson and julie molina ( julie and the phantoms ), eleanor levethan, tara scott, elliot tanners and erica norman ( do revenge ), kitty song covey, min ho, q shabazian, dae heon kim and yuri han ( xo, kitty ), tara jones, elle argent, nick nelson, tao xu, isaac henderson, aled last, imogen heaney, and sahar zahid ( heartstopper )!

ADMIN DREAM is… mobile! ——- 5-30 minute replies.

#panfandom rp #appless rp #multifandom rp #discord rp #crossover rp #whq.mw #mw.characters

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bright-molina · 3 years

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ok wait this is the anon asking about how the buckley-mercers came about and I read Emergency Contact again and realized it was a reader insert and I cannot help but think that the reader has to have some form of trauma they are literally a buckley and now I can’t stop thinking about what it could be? I JUST ADORE YOUR WORK SO MUCH

ONCE AGAIN ANON YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY AN ANGEL!!!!!

I'm so glad you like this little world as much as me and @biqherosix do oh my gosh 🥺

[I'm gonna use she/her pronouns for this one but if anyone would prefer any others just let me know!]

Ahh okay SO

Short answer: poor Baby Buckley has had it rough. Absent parents and both her siblings leaving her alone left her with her fair share of abandonment issues and quite a bit of emotional detachment.

Long answer:

Baby Buckley is Alex’s age, they met when they were young a couple times during family reunions and whatnot and the last time they exchanged numbers and they talk all the time, calls, texting, facetime, everything (this will be relevant in a little bit)

We all know Maddie practically raised Buck herself and the two of them are the ones who raised Y/N

But still, it isn’t the same as having parents. If they paid little attention to Buck, they paid even less attention to y/n, there were a lot of times when their parents forgot there were kids in the house at all

Buck is 11 years older so when he was out doing something it was y/n fending for herself, a child barely old enough to read with no one there, that’s just how it was

So she learned to keep to herself, she could never keep her parents' attention no matter how hard she tried, and she tried practically everything. They always looked past her so she learned quickly to keep every single thing locked inside cause there was no one there to pay attention either way

It was always different with Maddie and Buck though, she let her guard down then because they were always there. She could trust them. Then Maddie left. She knew nothing about what was going on, all she saw was someone else leaving her alone. So she distanced herself. They both did.

Then one night Buck mentioned wanting to leave, promising y/n he’d take her with

But when he found the letter from Maddie telling him she couldn’t go with them he didn’t know what to do. Without her guiding him to do the right thing he was lost, fully believing he couldn’t do it. So he left.

He took a page out of Maddie’s book and left y/n a letter, promising he’d keep her updated and visit her soon

And for a while she believed him. She waited by the door every day after school, collected his postcards and hung them on her wall, smiling as she read the stories he told over and over again.

But days turned to weeks then months then a year had gone by and nothing

He still sent postcards and gifts on birthdays but it wasn’t the same as having him there

The postcards and pictures became bitter reminders that he was out living his life, happy as could be, without her. So she took them down and stuffed them deep inside an old backpack out of sight. Every new one he sent joined the pile unread.

Maddie stopped answering her calls and it became more obvious that they had both moved on without her

So there she was, alone at home, with two parents who preferred to pretend she didn’t exist

They were absent at best, most days were spent alone in her room, either sitting in silence or blasting old cd’s as loud as she could but never letting herself think of either of her siblings

She was never too good at remembering to do things herself, it was just easier to forget anything and everything, easier to not say a single word

Her only relief came when Alex called, he’d relay everything about how his band was doing, play her their newest songs, and sometimes when he could tell she was having a rough time he’d sing to her

That brief period of feeling okay, of feeling like there was someone there, meant everything. As they got older the phone calls turned to texts and even those became more sporadic until they stopped all together for a brief period of time.

I’m actually gonna elaborate on the rest of this in another short fic I’m working on now but essentially:

One day Y/N gets a call from Alex’s phone but it’s not actually Alex. It’s Reggie, Luke, and Bobby looking for him, he was missing and they thought she’d know where he could be

It’s not him, it doesn't sound like something he'd do and she can tell something is wrong. So naturally, she uses the debit card Buck left her to buy herself a ticket to LA telling them “No one will miss me here anyway.”

Y/N is 15 when she decides to stay in LA. Permanently.

The five of them practically live in Bobby’s garage together, it’s just safer and better for them given everything they have to deal with at their respective houses. They’re there for each other and that’s all they need, they’re convinced of it.

She has no clue Buck is also in LA. The postcards were at the bottom of one of the only bags she took with but they’re still left unread. She doesn’t answer the calls from him or Maddie and the first time her dad calls she loses it, breaks down in angry tears and throws the phone across the room because why now?

It’s months later, her and Luke, who are the quickest, are at a grocery store, one of the big ones that can afford to lose a little money, with their bags and sublty sneaking whatever they need into the pockets. Everything happens fast and next thing they know there’s a scream, a lot of yelling, and upon closer examination, an accident.

Despite everything, Y/N picked some stuff up from Maddie and she’s the first to rush to the scene, telling Luke to call 911

She makes friends, hesitant ones, with the paramedics who responded to the call. The one who helped her, Chimney as he introduced himself, doesn’t tell anyone about the things stuffed in her bag. He does however promise that if she ever needs anything to come down to the 118 and ask for him and his friend, Hen.

Eventually, she does and as promised, they're both there. She’s tense and on edge the entire time she follows them around the place but it’s not until she gets to the second floor that she realizes she made a mistake going there in the first place.

The very first person she lays eyes on is her brother. Evan Buckley himself.

And she runs.

#i just am obsessed okay #i don't know whether to start adding tags to these little hc's but anyway #jatp #911 #buckley mercer universe #lovely anons

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goodblacknews · 6 years

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(via Mercer University Seniors Kyle Bligen and Jaz Buckley Make History as 1st African-American Team to Win NPDA National Debate Championship)

#mercer university #kyle bligen #jaz buckley #NPDA #National Debate Championship #african-american debaters

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thekinghazzastyles · 3 years

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･｡ﾟrequest rules･｡ﾟ

- I only write for fictional characters; so please don't ask for actual people.

- I'm not completely opposed to writing NSFW/smut I just believe I would be absolutely terrible at it.

- I do NOT write anything involving incest, bestiality, pedophilia, non-con/dub-con elements, or detailed descriptions of self harm, suicide, or eating disorders.

harry potter characters:

harry potter

ron weasley

hermione granger

fred weasley

george weasley

ginny weasley

percy weasley

bill weasley

charlie weasley

cedric diggory

oliver wood

neville longbottom

draco malfoy

theo nott

blaise zabini

pansy parkinson

luna lovegood

remus lupin

james potter

sirius black

regulus black

theseus scamander

newt scamander

the maze runner characters:

newt

thomas

gally

minho

julie and the phantoms characters:

julie molina

flynn

carrie wilson

luke patterson

reggie peters

alex mercer

criminal minds characters:

spencer reid

aaron hotchner

derek morgan

emily prentiss

penelope garcia

luke alvez

high school musical: the musical: the series characters:

nini salazar-roberts

ricky bowen

ej caswell

gina porter

marvel cinematic universe characters:

steve rogers

bucky barnes

sam wilson

tony stark

stephen strange

t’challa

peter parker

wanda maximoff

pietro maximoff

natasha romanoff

vision

bruce banner

loki laufeyson

thor odinson

hela odinsdottir

carol danvers

scott lang

darcy lewis

maria hill

erik killmonger

m’baku

stranger things characters:

eleven

mike wheeler

will byers

lucas sinclair

dustin henderson

steve harrington

max mayfield

billy hargrove

robin buckley

jonathan byers

nancy wheeler

the 100 characters:

clarke griffin

bellamy blake

octavia blake

john murphy

raven reyes

finn collins

monty green

jasper jordan

echo

lexa

roan

the umbrella academy characters:

luther hargreeves

diego hargreeves

klaus hargreeves

allison hargreeves

five hargreeves

ben hargreeves

vanya hargreeves

shameless characters:

lip gallagher

carl gallagher

ginny and georgia characters:

ginny miller

max baker

marcus baker

abby

sophie sanchez

matt press

riverdale characters:

archie andrews

betty cooper

jughead jones

veronica lodge

sweetpea

toni topaz

cheryl blossom

jason blossom

reggie mantle

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bestfrozentreats2 · 4 years

Link

The series has been long gone from radio, but I began airing episodes on my WFMU radio program in Summer 2016, and aired the entire Wilson series on a bi-weekly basis. Wilson is a genial host, a charming broadcaster with a warm presence. His humor is self-deprecating, and he always puts his guests at ease with his robust (sometimes too robust) laughter. The episodes are interesting time capsules from a period when superior audio fidelity was helping FM radio harvest music seekers from static-plagued AM. Despite the dominance of rock, psychedelia, and folk-rock, Wilson offers a bit of genre-surfing in Music Factorycontent, occasionally mixing in R&B, jazz, Latin, and the token classical number. He throws down hippie parlance (“groovy”—a lot) with the conviction of a trendspotter with a master plan, and insists on pronouncing terpsichore as TERP-si-kor. He had Teddy Reig on the program, though probably none of his listeners had a clue about Teddy’s legacy. Thank you, Tom Wilson. And yes, he hosted Lou and John from the Velvet Underground (whose first two albums were produced by Wilson). The VU interview is underwhelming.

Most episodes were transferred from rare vinyl discs provided by Byron Coley, with the rest provided as digital files by Harry Weinger at Universal. Thanks to both gents. I have digitally restored the transfers (often a quixotic endeavor—these were not high-quality pressings), and in many cases replaced music tracks with upgraded audio. The episodes contain commercials for then-new MGM-Verve releases. They are the same commercials, episode after episode, and they become maddening in their repetition. You will be endlessly reminded that “Nico is beautiful,” that “Women hate war,” and that buying a Tim Hardin album “is like owning a work of art.” One of the recurring commercial announcers is Scott Muni, a longtime figure in New York rock radio. Muni had been a Top 40 anchor at WABC-AM until 1965, then gradually transitioned over to FM, eventually finding a home at WNEW-FM in 1967.

You can stream or download each episode below as mp3 audio. The opening and closing theme is “Help, I’m A Rock” by the Mothers of Invention from the 1966 album Freak Out!, produced by Wilson. I do not own the rights to any of this music, nor to the programs themselves, and these programs are NOT FOR SALE.

Program #01 — Tom Wilson Program #02 — Odetta Program #03 — The Velvet Underground (Lou Reed & John Cale) Program #04 — Every Mother’s Son Program #05 — The Cowsills Program #06 — Paul Williams (editor, Crawdaddy Magazine) Program #07 — Tim Buckley Program #08 — Sam the Sham Program #09 — Artie Ripp (producer/hustler) Program #10 — Teddy Reig (producer/legendary character) Program #11 — Richie Havens Program #12 — Janis Ian Program #13 — The Lovin’ Spoonful (Jerry Yester and Joe Butler) Program #14 — Ultimate Spinach (Ian Bruce-Douglas and producer Alan Lorber) Program #15 — Orpheus (Bruce Arnold and producer Alan Lorber) Program #16 — The Appletree Theater (John Boylan) Program #17 — Beacon Street Union (producer Wes Farrell) Program #18 — Dave Van Ronk Program #19 — Sandy Posey Program #20 — Bobby Callender Program #21 — Harumi Program #22 — Mike Jeffery and Mark Joseph (Tom Wilson absent) Program #23 — Recording engineers: Gary Kellgren, Phil Ramone, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt Program #24 — Bret Morrison (voice of radio’s “The Shadow”) Program #25 — William “Rosko” Mercer (popular New York radio voice in the late 1960s) Program #26 — Paul Shalmy, editor of Eye Magazine (article about WFMU from Eye, Nov. 1969)

In 1968 Wilson left the show, and comedians Bob & Ray were hired to host the series, which moved to WNEW-FM in September of that year.

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renton-city-blog · 7 years

Text

Aberdeen

Airway Heights

Algona

Anacortes

Arlington

Asotin

Auburn

Bainbridge Island

Battle Ground

Bellevue

Bellingham

Benton City

Bingen

Black Diamond

Blaine

Bonney Lake

Bothell

Bremerton

Brewster

Bridgeport

Brier

Buckley

Burien

Burlington

Camas

Carnation

Cashmere

Castle Rock

Centralia

Chehalis

Chelan

Cheney

Chewelah

Clarkston

Cle Elum

Clyde Hill

Colfax

College Place

Colville

Connell

Cosmopolis

Covington

Davenport

Dayton

Deer Park

Des Moines

DuPont

Duvall

East Wenatchee

Edgewood

Edmonds

Electric City

Ellensburg

Elma

Entiat

Enumclaw

Ephrata

Everett

Everson

Federal Way

Ferndale

Fife

Fircrest

Forks

George

Gig Harbor

Gold Bar

Goldendale

Grand Coulee

Grandview

Granger

Granite Falls

Harrington

Hoquiam

Ilwaco

Issaquah

Kahlotus

Kalama

Kelso

Kenmore

Kennewick

Kent

Kettle Falls

Kirkland

Kittitas

La Center

Lacey

Lake Forest Park

Lake Stevens

Lakewood

Langley

Leavenworth

Liberty Lake

Long Beach

Longview

Lynden

Lynnwood

Mabton

Maple Valley

Marysville

Mattawa

McCleary

Medical Lake

Medina

Mercer Island

Mesa

Mill Creek

Millwood

Milton

Monroe

Montesano

Morton

Moses Lake

Mossyrock

Mount Vernon

Mountlake Terrace

Moxee

Mukilteo

Napavine

Newcastle

Newport

Nooksack

Normandy Park

North Bend

North Bonneville

Oak Harbor

Oakville

Ocean Shores

Okanogan

Olympia

Omak

Oroville

Orting

Othello

Pacific

Palouse

Pasco

Pateros

Pomeroy

Port Angeles

Port Orchard

Port Townsend

Poulsbo

Prescott

Prosser

Pullman

Puyallup

Quincy

Rainier

Raymond

Redmond

Renton

Republic

Richland

Ridgefield

Ritzville

Rock Island

Roslyn

Roy

Royal City

Ruston

Sammamish

SeaTac

Seattle

Sedro-Woolley

Selah

Sequim

Shelton

Shoreline

Snohomish

Snoqualmie

Soap Lake

South Bend

Spangle

Spokane

Spokane Valley

Sprague

Stanwood

Stevenson

Sultan

Sumas

Sumner

Sunnyside

Tacoma

Tekoa

Tenino

Tieton

Toledo

Tonasket

Toppenish

Tukwila

Tumwater

Union Gap

University Place

Vader

Vancouver

Waitsburg

Walla Walla

Wapato

Warden

Washougal

Wenatchee

West Richland

Westport

White Salmon

Winlock

Woodinville

Woodland

Woodway

Yakima

Yelm

Zillah

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topmixtrends · 6 years

Link

“SOUNDS GREAT on paper.” That’s a phrase I heard a lot as a kid in the late ’70s, usually when my parents and their friends were talking about communism. Certainly an earthly paradise as depicted in the writings of Trotsky or Lenin, but — shame, isn’t it? — communism did not seem to actually work in real life.

The notion that something could sound smart in theory and not work out in practice applies just as well to another product of early 20th-century Russian thought: the individual-over-the-masses, market-worshipping libertarianism philosophy that comes from Ayn Rand. It’s been carried on, after Rand’s 1982 passing, by American acolytes including Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and, probably, someone you went to high school with.

The fact that the libertarian wonderland of absolute sexual and economic freedom only ever worked in Rand’s melodramatic novels and helium-voiced Rush songs — that her philosophy of “Objectivism” has never been successfully applied to actual governance — does not seem to cross the minds of libertarian true-believers. And to many of them, it seems not to matter: a fealty to Rand, to heroic ideas of intellectual superiority and capitalism’s grandeur, is more important than what puny mortals consider political or intellectual reality. If you try arguing sense with them, you’ll quickly wish you hadn’t.

Why should we care, then, about a discredited goofball ideology from deep within the last century? Because Ayn Rand–style libertarianism has probably never been more assertive in American politics than it is today.

What once seemed like the golden age of Rand turned out only to be a warm-up. In the 1950s, you could go to Objectivist salons in New York, where sycophants like Greenspan and future self-esteem guru Nathaniel Branden would gather round the goddess to luxuriate in every word (in some cases, the connection was more than purely intellectual: Branden was one of the polyamorous Rand’s numerous younger boyfriends). In the ’60s and ’70s, you could attend vaguely countercultural conventions across the nation where men would shout conspiracy theories and women would emulate their heroine by wearing broaches shaped like dollar signs. For a while, the Christianity-and-Cold-War strand of the American right headed by William F. Buckley Jr. marginalized the libertarians for their atheism and noninterventionist stance. From the evidence of 1971’s inside-the-whale memoir, Jerome Tuccille’s It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, this movement was hardly built on solid intellectual ground. The abundance of selfish children driving the ship, part–Veruca Salt, part–Mike Teavee, made this seem like the kind of cult sure to wither of its own ridiculousness.

But with the Reagan Revolution, libertarianism was brought indoors, and the direct-mail New Right that accompanied the movement relied heavily on anti-government dogma. In many parts of the United States — the Sun Belt, the boys’ club of billionaires who fancy themselves self-made heroes, and various enclaves in the capital — Rand’s vision established its second beachhead.

And gradually, the discredited movement that tended to attract nerds and know-it-alls became part of the political mainstream.

“I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents,” outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan told the Weekly Standard, “and I make all my interns read it.” He only backed away from Rand when her atheism caused him image problems with God-fearing Republicans, who, if they looked closely, would see that Objectivism is almost exactly the opposite of what’s preached by the Biblical Jesus.

In fact, several of the key Republican young guns are Fountainhead-adjacent. Senator Rand Paul is not only the son of longtime libertarian crank and Texas Congressman Ron Paul (he of the racist newsletters). The younger Paul is such an Atlas Shrugged–pounder that a rumor flourished for years that his first name came from the family’s favorite author.

In Silicon Valley, billionaires are working to put the “liberal” back into libertarian — at least, the 18th-century “classical liberalism” cooked up before industrialization, widespread racial tension, and modern finance capitalism. For all their quoting of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, it makes their retro version of Objectivism about as useful for 21st-century life as an 18th-century telescope. The Randed-out Peter Thiel, whose commitment to free speech did not keep him from suing a major media company into oblivion, is perhaps the most prominent Valley libertarian. But he’s hardly alone: if you wondered why Elon Musk was selling flamethrowers, just remember he’s another guy who loves freedom.

Besides the true-believers, reactionary wackjobs often stop over at Galt’s Gulch on their way to even scarier neighborhoods. Mike Enoch — born Mike Peinovich — is a racist and anti-Semite beloved on the alt-right for his The Right Stuff blog and the popular podcast The Daily Shoah. On his journey from leftist extremism to far-right derangement, he was energized by the work of Rand, Murray Rothbard, and economist Ludwig von Mises; his libertarian blog sported posts like “Socialist is Selfish” and “Taxation is Theft.”

Similarly, the polite Midwestern Nazi profiled by The New York Times, Tony Hovater, was a vaguely leftish heavy-metal drummer until he discovered libertarianism. He was, in fact, radicalized by what he considers the Republican Party’s perfidious treatment of libertarian hero Ron Paul; today he reads numerous Rand-y academics for intellectual guidance.

Then there’s Robert Mercer, one of the invisible rich people who has more influence on world affairs than just about everyone you know put together. Mercer, who helped fund Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidential race, and, for years, Breitbart News, is also the father of Rebekah Mercer. A toxic rich girl par excellence, Rebekah is known to Politico as “the most powerful woman in GOP politics” and to others as the first lady of the alt-right. (She recently sowed a rift on the right by cutting off Steve Bannon’s paychecks following his tussle with President Trump.)

Even in this charmless crowd, Robert Mercer’s obnoxiousness stands out. The Citizens United decision has unleashed people like Mercer — secretive gazillionaires whose expenditures are often untraceable despite the way they remake our shared reality. “In my view, Trump wouldn’t be President if not for Bob,” an old colleague of Mercer’s told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer.

Oh, and then there are Charles and David Koch. “Suddenly, a random billionaire can change politics and public policy,” election watchdog and registered Republican Trevor Potter told Mayer, “to sweep everything else off the table — even if they don’t speak publicly, and even if there’s almost no public awareness of his or her views.” And, as of this fall, the Kochs now effectively own Time magazine as well as a bunch of other publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to the retro British rock magazine Uncut.

And Charles Koch’s foundation has given something like $200 million to colleges and universities, in many cases to appoint pro-business, anti-government scholars to institutions like Chapman University.

The Kochs’ defenders talk about libertarians as some kind of oppressed minority. But unlike most other right-of-center subcultures, libertarians are woven into the nation’s intellectual and cultural mainstream. If you went to a liberal arts college, live in a big city and read The New York Times or Washington Post, follow indie-rock bands and watch trendy shows on HBO, you probably don’t know many evangelical Christians. You could very well spend your days with very little contact with war-mongering neoconservatives. The rural/working-class/NRA side of Caucasian conservatism is likely something you experience mostly through Hillbilly Elegy or reruns of the now-cancelled Roseanne. Libertarians, by contrast, are everywhere. Go on Facebook, and some former friend from childhood is lecturing you about the free market.

We are now, many decades after the germination of Rand’s cult of personality, in a world where a Library of Congress survey deems Atlas Shrugged the most influential book next to the Bible. As the GOP, Wall Street, the intellectual plutocracy of think tanks and foundations, and Silicon Valley grow in coming years, expect to see the influence of this group and its ideas grow and stretch.

Despite numerous parallels with Scientology, Objectivism is not just sitting still, getting weirder while remaining confined to a few thousand worshippers. We have not yet reached Peak Libertarian. So where do these goofy ideas come from, and what effect might they have?

A partial answer — both rigorously told and incomplete — comes from a recent book, How Bad Writing Destroyed the World, by Wellesley College comp-lit professor Adam Weiner.

Weiner’s key insight is connecting Rand’s ideas — and the Russian literary intellectual lineage she emerged from — with the 2008 financial collapse. “By programming Alan Greenspan with objectivism and, literally, walking him into the highest circles of government, Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy,” he writes in the book’s introduction. “I am choosing my metaphor deliberately: as I will show, infiltration and bomb-throwing were revolutionary methods that shaped the tradition on which Rand was consciously or unconsciously drawing.”

Most historical changes have some kind of intellectual root, for better and worse; kudos to Weiner for tracing how a series of bad ideas and clumsy prose led the nation to the Great Recession. But Weiner, a scholar of Russian literature, appears to be far more interested in one of Rand’s antecedents than Rand herself. Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the revolutionary socialist best known for his 1863 novel What Is To Be Done?, written while its author was imprisoned in a St. Petersburg fortress, is his true subject. The book famously inspired Lenin’s world-shaking pamphlet of the same name.

There’s one small problem with this premise, and one large one. Weiner shrewdly anticipates the first: how could a man of the extreme left — who helped inspire the terrorists who coalesced around the Russian Revolution — simultaneously provide the intellectual foundation for the godmother of the market-worshipping right? He finds the common denominator in Chernyshevsky’s notion of “rational egoism,” which Weiner describes as the idea that “the rational pursuit of selfish gain on the part of each individual must give rise to the ideal form of society.”

Sound familiar? This chimes almost exactly with Rand’s “virtue of selfishness” — the bedrock of her pseudo-philosophy of unchecked capitalism, minimalist government, and rugged individualism pursued by übermensch heroes. “The main heirs of Chernyshevsky’s bumbling, illogical aesthetic,” Weiner writes, “were the Soviet-mandated novels of socialist realism and the ‘capitalist realism’ of Ayn Rand.”

Weiner deftly handled the contradiction here: a bad novel could not only become ideologically potent, but it could also inspire people who would not recognize each other as fellow travelers.

Yet Weiner’s book lives up to neither its title nor its subtitle, “Ayn Rand and the Literary Origins of the Financial Crisis.” Weiner’s final chapter, “In the graveyard of bad ideas,” returns to Rand’s biography — she grew up in St. Petersburg and watched as the Bolsheviks looted her family’s possessions — and intellectual roots. But it feels like an addendum, however skillfully told, to a reasonably lucid and well-researched book about an influential but not very good 19th-century Russian novelist.

In connecting Rand — and contemporary American libertarianism — to an extremist strain of pre-revolutionary Russian thought, Weiner does help clarify this bizarre lineage, its combination of heartland America Firstism with something clearly alien to our Constitution and its mostly British political origins. Ayn Rand is not just Adam Smith in a screenwriter’s bungalow — she’s coming from somewhere different from classical liberalism.

The book Weiner seemed to be delivering — offering the intellectual history of either kook libertarianism, or the 2008 crash, or both — still needs to be written. Until then, the second edition of Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind — released in November, this time under the subtitle “Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump” — does a skillful job connecting philosophers, historians, and economists of the past with our recent rightward turn. His chapter on Ayn Rand and libertarianism, in specific, offers much of what Weiner’s volume promises and fails to provide.

“Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabobov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand,” Robin begins. “The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.” Robin, a political professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, starts with pre-revolutionary Russia, but considers Rand’s real birthplace to be Hollywood, where she landed in 1926 and was quickly recruited by Cecil B. DeMille. “For where else but in the dream factory could Rand have learned how to make dreams — about America, capitalism, and herself?”

And Rand’s us-versus-them formulation of the stalwart genius against the “moochers” and “looters” — revived by Mitt Romney in his “makers” versus “takers” speech — is textbook vulgar Nietzscheanism. It also helps explain the appeal of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to misunderstood adolescents who dream themselves the übermensch.

Rand’s novels heroize — in the same campy way she learned from Russian operettas and Hollywood movies — defiant, comically masculine builders like architect Howard Roark and engineer/inventor John Galt. It feels somehow inevitable that the recent libertarian, anti-government, pro-business strain on the American right would lead us to a man who seems right out of her pages: the defiant, comically masculine real estate developer Donald Trump.

The real history of Ayn Rand’s bad ideas — their roots, their trajectory, their collateral damage — can’t be contained in any book, however good or bad. It’s all unfolding around us, as her zombie devours the Republican Party and soon, the rest of us, with no sign of abating.

Scott Timberg is the editor of The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles and author of Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class.

Banner image by Erik Fitzpatrick.

The post The Bad Idea That Keeps on Giving appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2uScwIk

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

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bright-molina · 3 years

Note

no thoughts 👁👁 just the buckley-mercer family

HARLEY HARLEY HARLEY!!!!!! I need you to know that I adore you oh my god

I know I did this last time but have some Buckley-Mercer headcanons just for you 🥰

Their living situation is a little odd

Buck’s apartment consists of him, y/n, Alex, Albert, and Luke

It’s hectic, it’s a lot, Buck has to be the responsible one and it’s a role he had to grow into but ultimately it’s the environment they need and it works for them,

Maddie’s place consists of her, Chimney, Jee, Bobby, and Reggie

It’s a little quieter but it’s also chaotic in its own way, there’s a lot of running around but it’s also filled with a ton of laughter, and no matter how many times Maddie insists they don’t have to, Bobby and Reggie always offer free babysitting

Though they are known to change arrangements a lot, sometimes Alex needs a little more peace, sometimes Reggie needs an outlet for all his energy, sometimes Y/N just needs to spend some time with her sister and they’ll make all the boys have a sleepover at Buck’s

Really it varies on a regular basis

It wasn’t always easy, in fact it kinda got worse before it got better

And it’s still not easy

But they’re learning and growing together

Y/N struggles to open up to anyone that isn’t Alex or the boys, especially when it comes to Buck and Maddie, she learns everything that happened at one point and she understands but it still hurts, sometimes she stays the night at Julie’s or May’s and those are the nights where she struggles, where it’s harder to get through the day, and they let her leave but they also check in with Ray and Athena and they’re always there in the morning waiting for her

Alex still gets really anxious every now and then, everyone else left their lives behind but sometimes there’re moments when he remembers that his parents are only a car ride away, living with family that cares about him means the world but there’s a part of him that’s scared it’ll be taken away, but these people are ones that recognize the tells he has, they go out of their way to be there for him and he realizes then that they’ll always be there to support him

Maddie is the parent figure, she’s the one they go to when they need serious advice, she’s the most level headed and has a tendency to worry the most about them, sometimes she has doubts but those are always pushed away when she hears the chorus of ‘love you Maddie!’

Chimney likes to pretend he’s also a parent figure but he’s not the best at the hard stuff, he wants to be the good guy all the time which results in things like Alex mentioning they had an idea for new merch but they were saving money to get the shirts printed and Chim ends up spending way too much money getting them the shirts along with too many other things they didn't need, he always means well though

Albert is by far the cool one, he drives them wherever they wanna go, helps them get ready for shows, covers for them if they need it (within reason of course), he’s the more lenient one who advocates and fights for them whenever everyone else is a little mad, they love having him around, he’s the one the boys go to for approval when they need an outside opinion for something the band is doing

Buck is absolutely the embarrassing one, he’s the one who worries about them when he shouldn’t, the one who tells bad jokes fully thinking they’re good. He cares about them more than anything and he lets them have fun but he’s also the one who tries to insert himself into their planned activities for the day when they get together with May, Julie, and Flynn cause he thinks he fits in easy

Luke, Reggie, and Bobby are honorary Buckley Mercer’s. None of them can pinpoint when it happened but one day they heard Chimney and Maddie refer to all of them as ‘our kids’ and lost it completely. Sometimes they forget that they’re truly family until they come across a framed picture of all ten of them or when they see song lyrics stuck on the fridge with a post it note stuck to the front telling them how good it was. The concept of family is never clearer to them until those moments.

But family doesn’t stop there, it includes Julie and Flynn and May and the entire 118.

Whenever there’s no band practice or anything to do and they’re bored it’s almost certain that they’re at the 118 if everyone is on shift

They’re all just so supportive of each other

Then there’s the occasional day where no one has a shift, no one has practice, no one has any commitments

Those days are their favorites. Everyone shows up at Athena’s house and though she pretends to be surprised they all happen to be there at the same time, she welcomes them with open arms.

They talk and laugh and Luke brings along the acoustic and plays whatever they want him to. He’s been known to learn songs just for them. They sit in the backyard and have the time of their life.

It’s those nights when none of them can remember anything other than that feeling of being really truly happy. There’s no fear or anxiety or worry. There’s just them, their family, and the feeling of being happy

#this is soft but don't be fooled #the version with just Alex is gonna be...a lot of angst #comfort yes but also angst #jatp #911 #buckley mercer universe #alex mercer #maddie buckley #evan buckley #chimney han #albert han #more tags that i'll add later #HARLS I LOVE YOU

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thetrumpdebacle · 6 years

Link

I recently heard on cable news that special counsel Robert Mueller wanted to interview some “Russian oligarchs” about their supposed influence on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Liberal talking heads at such organizations as MSNBC and CNN keep warning that nothing has been done yet to protect the integrity of our voting process against “Russian interference” as the 2018 midterm elections loom ever closer on the nation’s horizon.

What about the American oligarchs, I wondered, people like businessman Richard Uihlein, who regularly distort U.S. elections at every level—local, state and federal? Who will protect our “democracy” from the plutocratic “wealth primary” power of the American oligarchy?

If you are like most U.S citizens, you’ve never heard of Richard Uihlein. An heir to the Milwaukee-based Schlitz beer fortune, Uihlein is the billionaire CEO of Uline Inc., a private, family-owned Wisconsin company that sells shipping and packaging materials to the tune of $2 billion in annual revenue. He lives in a mansion in Lake Forest, a hyperopulent preserve north of Chicago.

He’s also way into right-wing politics. As one can learn from a quick trip to the Center for Responsive Politics’ (CRP) website, Uhlein invested $24 million—that’s right, $24 million—in the 2016 elections. His political contributions went to Republican candidates and Republican-affiliated and “conservative” (that is, radically regressive and reactionary groups such as the Club for Growth. A longtime supporter of right-wing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Uilhein is a major sponsor of hard-right Republican candidates—at both the state and federal levels—and organizations across the nation.

So far, Uihlein is the top political contributor in the 2018 federal U.S. election cycle, at $21 million. In 2016, however, he was just the nation’s ninth biggest investor. Above him on the plutocratic “wealth primary” scale stood the San Francisco hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer ($91 million, all to Democratic candidates and Democratic Party-affiliated “liberal outside groups”); Las Vegas billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson ($83 million to Republicans and the right); Florida billionaire financier Donald Sussman ($42 million to Democrats and “liberal” groups); Chicago multimillionaire media mogul Fred Eychaner ($38 million to Democrats and “liberal” groups); Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and the “world’s youngest self-made billionaire” ($27 million to Democrats and “liberal” groups); billionaire mathematician and hedge fund manager James Simons ($27 million to Democrats and “liberal” groups); billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer ($26 million to Republicans and right-wing groups); and billionaire right-wing hedge fund manager Robert Mercer ($26 billion to Republicans and right-wing groups). Michael Bloomberg rounded out the top 10 list at a cool $23,786,083.

These megadonors are the superrich cream atop a deep plutocratic pitcher. The CRP’s list of the top 100 individual contributors to federal candidates during the 2016 election cycle ends with Karen Wright, CEO of a leading gas-compressor manufacturer. She gave a whopping $2.2 million to Republicans and the right.

How are such ridiculously astronomical political investments—far beyond the capacity of all but a superopulent minority of U.S. citizens—possible under U.S. law? Aren’t there limits on how much rich people can spend on U.S. elections?

Not really. Not for rich people whose agents know how get past the nation’s porous regulations. Federal law sets a $2,500 per-person, per-election limit on how much a donor can give to a federal candidate, a $30,800 per-person, per-year limit on donations to national party committees, and a $10,000 total limit on per-person contributions to state, district or local party committees.

But the rules change when it comes to technically “independent” nonparty and “outside” groups called political action committees, known as PACs. A person can give as much as $5,000 to a PAC that contributes directly to candidates. And there are no limits whatsoever on how much a person can give to a PAC that declares it will spend its money totally independently from a candidate’s campaign. These “independent expenditure” groups, which can receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations or unions, are commonly called super PACs.

Some nonprofit groups, called “social welfare” organizations or “501(c)(4) groups,” can also accept unlimited contributions. The primary purpose of these groups cannot technically be political, but they can spend substantial amounts on political activities, such as TV commercials.

Adding to the plutocratic muddle, the Supreme Court’s infamous 2010 Citizens United decision overthrew a federal ban on corporations and unions making independent expenditures and financing electioneering communications. It gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates.

This has opened the door to astonishing levels of private spending in the nation’s public elections. “During the 2016 election cycle,” CRP staffer Bob Biersack notes, “the top 20 individual donors (whose contributions were disclosed) gave more than $500 million combined to political organizations. The 20 largest organizational donors also gave a total of more than $500 million, and more than $1 billion came from the top 40 donors. … At a time when Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were confirming that large numbers of people donating small amounts could fund successful campaigns, the extraordinary role being played by the very few donors who give the most may be the most important element in this new era.”

Thanks to the problem of “dark money,” moreover, we don’t have a complete record of which rich people give how much to which candidates. While super PACS must disclose their donors, 501(c)(4)s are not required to do so. These nondisclosing organizations engage in numerous political activities: buying ads that advocate for or against a candidate, running phone banks, making contributions to super PACs (!) and more.

It’s reached the point where, as a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer last year, “a single billionaire can write an eight-figure check and put not just their thumb but their whole hand on the scale—and we often have no idea who they are. … [A] random billionaire can change politics and public policy—to sweep everything else off the table—even if they don’t speak publicly, and even if there’s almost no public awareness of his or her views.”

Their right to not disclose means that the campaign finance data listed above significantly underestimates total political investments made by the nation’s leading election donors. (And that was just federal data. It does not include campaign finance at the state level, where the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers focus a lot of their legendary election funding and policymaking power. The Kochs and their allies understand that, in the words of historian Nancy MacLean, “corporate and conservative interests can make their will felt most easily in state governments—and are more likely to be challenged successfully by the citizenry at the federal and local levels—partly because state affairs are less well monitored by the people the press”).

According to the CRP, outside spending by nondisclosing 501(c)(4) groups—so-called dark money—exceeded $160 million in 2016. “A [U.S. campaign finance] system founded on the principle of individuals giving limited, disclosed contributions directly to candidates, parties and PACs has morphed into a system that allows individuals and organizations to give hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars, to groups to spend in elections, some of whom are closely aligned with candidates and parties, without disclosure. …”

Under the high court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the federal government can set no legal limits on a candidate’s total campaign expenditure except in cases in which public campaign funding is made available to candidates. The sky’s the limit.

All of this and more makes the United States’ ever more expensive electoral politics a wild West-like money chase in which candidates who want to be viable must endlessly court big-dollar, business-class donors who do not generally invest without profit-serving policy returns in mind.

No other “democracy” in the developed world comes close to the United States when it comes to giving big-money donors unregulated power in their national electoral processes. Along with other and related characteristics of its election and party system—winner-take all contests with no proportional representation, rampant partisan gerrymandering of election districts, voter registration problems, corporate media bias and the “federalist” decentralization and partisan control of U.S. election process—this plutocratic campaign finance free-for-all is why the Electoral Integrity Project (a research undertaking funded by the Australian Research Council with a team of researchers based at the University of Sydney and Harvard University) ranks the democratic election integrity of U.S. elections below that of all 19 North and Western European democracies and also below that of 10 other nations in the Americas (Costa Rica, Uruguay, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Jamaica, Grenada, Argentina, Barbados and Peru), 10 nations in Central and Eastern Europe, nine Asian-Pacific countries, two countries in the Middle East (Israel and Tunisia) and six African nations. The U.S. ranks dead last among “Western democracies.”

What does American campaign finance have to do with the 2016 election, whose outcome so much of the Democratic Party establishment and its many friends in the nation’s corporate media oligopoly blame on “Russian interference” and “Russian oligarchs”? A lot more than one might think from the media’s focus on “Russiagate” or from Biersack’s reflection on how “Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders [supposedly] confirm[ed] that large numbers of people donating small amounts could fund successful campaigns.”

An essential source here is the distinguished political scientist and money-politics analyst Thomas Ferguson’s recent study, co-authored with political scientist Paul Jorgensen and statistician Jie Chen, titled, “Industrial Structure and Party Competition in an Age of Hunger Games: Donald Trump and the 2016 Presidential Election.” Ferguson, Jorgensen and Chen mined the nation’s complex finance data to paint an extraordinary portrait of how the American oligarchy’s campaign funding put Trump in the Oval Office.

Perhaps their most remarkable finding is that the left-leaning “populist” Sanders came tantalizingly close to winning the Democratic presidential nomination with no support from Big Business. The small-donor Sanders’ campaign was “without precedent in American politics not just since the New Deal, but across virtually the whole of American history … a major presidential candidate waging a strong, highly competitive campaign whose support from big business is essentially zero.” In the end, though, Sanders was foiled by the big-money candidate Hillary Clinton’s advance control of the Democratic National Committee and convention delegates. He dutifully complied with her corrupt victory and campaigned on her behalf, as promised from the start. The Wall Street establishment kept its command over the not-so leftmost side of the American two-party system. Sanders failed.

Things were different on the Republican side. The right-leaning “populist” challenger—Trump—ran strangely outside the longstanding neoliberal Washington consensus, as an economic nationalist and isolationist. His raucous rallies were laced with dripping denunciations of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and globalization; mockery of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq; rejection of the New Cold War with Russia; and pledges of allegiance to the “forgotten” American working class. “In striking contrast to every other Republican presidential nominee since 1936,” Ferguson, Jorgensen and Chen note, Trump “attacked globalization, free trade, international financiers, Wall Street, and even Goldman Sachs. … In a frontal assault on the American establishment,” Trump “proclaimed ‘America First.’ Mocking the Bush administration’s appeal to ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as a pretext for invading Iraq, he broke dramatically with two generations of GOP orthodoxy and spoke out in favor of more cooperation with Russia. He even criticized the ‘carried interest’ tax break beloved by high finance.”

This cost Trump much of the corporate and Wall Street financial support that Republican presidential candidates usually get. But however disingenuous and laced with racism and nativism it may have been, much of Trump’s rhetoric was popular with a considerable portion of the electorate, thanks to the widespread economic insecurity that had spread among the populace during the transparently bipartisan New Gilded Age and with special low-wage poignancy in the wake of the Great Recession. He would become the first Republican presidential nominee in memory to out-perform his Democratic opponent with small (middle-class and working-class) donors.

It’s a mistake, however, to see Trump as a sign of small-donor potency in the American system. The billionaire Trump’s personal fortune permitted him to tap popular anger while leaping insultingly over the heads of his less wealthy, albeit corporate and Wall Street-backed competitors (“low energy” Jeb Bush and “little Marco” Rubio most notably) in the crowded Republican primary race. A Republican candidate dependent on the usual elite bankrollers would never have been able to get away with Trump’s crowd-pleasing—and CNN and Fox News rating-boosting—antics.

Things were different after Trump won the Republican nomination, however. He could no longer go it alone after the primaries. During the Republican National Convention and “then again in the late summer of 2016,” Ferguson, Jorgensen and Chen show, Trump’s “solo campaign had to be rescued by major industries plainly hoping for tariff relief, waves of other billionaires from the far, far right of the already far right Republican Party, and the most disruption-exalting corners of Wall Street.” By the authors’ carefully researched account, the Trump general election campaign relied for its success on “a giant wave of dark money—one that towered over anything in 2016 or even Mitt Romney’s munificently financed 2012 effort—to say nothing of any Russian Facebook experiments.” Along with giant contributions from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife ($11 million), Sands Casino employees ($20 million) and Silicon Valley executives, Trump garnered a giant wave of money that “turned into a torrent” from big hedge funds and “large private equity firms, the part of Wall Street which had long championed hostile takeovers. …”

The critical late wave of big right-wing money came after Trump moved to rescue his flagging campaign by handing its direction from the Russia-tainted Paul Manafort to the white-nationalist and American-as-Apple-Pie Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, who advocated what proved to be a winning, Koch brothers-approved strategy: appeal to economically and culturally frustrated working- and middle-class whites in key battleground states, where the bloodless neoliberal and professional class centrism and snooty metropolitan multiculturalism of the Barack Obama presidency and Clinton campaign was certain to depress the Democratic “base” vote.

Along with the racist voter suppression carried out by Koch-backed Republican state governments (Ferguson, Jorgensen and Chen rightly chide Russia-obsessed political reporters and commentators for absurdly ignoring this important factor) and (the authors intriguingly suggest) major anti-union offensives conducted by employers in some battleground states, this major late-season influx of big right-wing political money helped tilt the election Trump’s way.

The Clinton campaign might still have prevailed if it hadn’t made egregiously stupid mistakes. It failed to set foot in Wisconsin after the Democratic convention or to purchase campaign ads in Michigan. Clinton got caught telling wealthy New York City donors that half of Trump’s supporters were “a basket of [racist, white, working-class] deplorables”—a hideous mistake hauntingly akin to Mitt Romney’s gaffe in 2012, when he was videotaped telling elite donors that 47 percent of the population were a bunch of lazy welfare dependents. Above all, the Clinton team decided not to talk about policy. In an epic miscalculation, her team decided not to advance anything close to a standard, progressive-sounding, Democratic Party policy agenda. Clinton ran almost completely on the issue of candidate character and quality. This was a blunder of historic proportions, given Clinton’s own highly problematic character brand. Any campaign needs a reasonably strong policy platform to stand on in case of candidate difficulties.

What was her deafening policy silence about? Money—big American oligarchs’ money. Clinton’s campaign funding success went beyond her party’s usual corporate and financial backers to include normally Republican-affiliated capitalist sectors less disposed than their more liberal counterparts to abide the standard, progressive-sounding policy rhetoric of Democratic Party candidates. This was a curse. For “one fateful consequence of trying to appeal to so many conservative business interests,” Ferguson, Jorengensen and Chen note, “was strategic silence about most important matters of public policy. … Misgivings of major contributors who worried that the Clinton campaign message lacked real attractions for ordinary Americans were rebuffed. The campaign sought to capitalize on the angst within business by vigorously courting the doubtful and undecideds there, not in the electorate.”

As the authors show, there is little empirical evidence to support the Clinton and corporate Democrats’ self-interested and diversionary efforts to explain her epic fail and Trump’s jaw-dropping upset victory as the result of (1) Russian interference, (2) then-FBI Director James Comey’s October Surprise revelation that his agency was not done investigating Clinton’s emails, and/or (3) some imagined big wave of white, working-class racism, nativism and sexism brought to the surface by Trump. The impacts of both items 1 and 2 were infinitesimal in comparison with the role that big campaign money played both in silencing Clinton and funding Trump. The blame-the-deplorable-racist-white-working-class narrative is belied by basic underlying continuities in white, working-class voting patterns. As Ferguson, Jorgensen and Chen note, “Neither turnout nor the partisan division of the vote at any level looks all that different from other recent elections. … 2016’s alterations in voting behavior are so minute that the pattern is only barely differentiated from 2012.” It was about the money—the big establishment money that the Clinton campaign took (as the authors plausibly argue) to recommend policy silence and the different, right-wing big money that approved Trump’s comparative right-populist policy boisterousness.

Imagine if Sanders had snuck past Clinton in the primary race. Could he have defeated the billionaire and right-wing billionaire-backed Trump in the general election? Perhaps. Sanders consistently out-performed Clinton in one-on-one match-up polls vis-à-vis Trump during the primary season, but much of the big money (and corporate media) that backed Clinton would likely have gone over to Trump had the supposedly “radical” Sanders been the Democratic nominee.

Even if Sanders has been elected president, moreover, Noam Chomsky is certainly correct in his recent judgment that a President Sanders “couldn’t have done a thing” because he would have had “nobody [on his side] in Congress, no governors, no legislatures, none of the big economic powers, which have an enormous effect on policy.” A Sanders presidency would certainly have been undermined—if it had tried to do anything seriously progressive—by several factors, including a significant downturn in capitalist investment (with an attendant rise in joblessness) and the relentless hostility of the corporate media oligopoly. Right-wing media, including Fox News, talk radio and Breitbart News (which has received at least $10 million in backing from the arch-reactionary U.S. plutocrat Robert Mercer) would have gone ballistic, driving its followers to scary new levels of deadly disruption.

As Chomsky might have added, Sanders’ oligarchy-imposed “failures” would have been great fodder for the disparagement and smearing of progressive, left-leaning and majority-backed policy change. “See,” the reigning plutocratic media and politics culture would have said, “We tried all that and it was a disaster!”

That and more are reminders of something I made a special point of highlighting (with no special claim to originality) in my 2014 book, They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy: Campaign finance is just the tip of the iceberg in how the American capitalist ruling class owns and runs the political and policy systems the United States. It’s got nothing to do with Russia.

Meanwhile, though, political money matters a great deal as we race into the 2018 midterm contests and the 2020 elections with U.S. “election integrity” still unprotected from the special plutocratic power of America’s wealthy masters. Nobody in Congress is talking seriously about passing bills to remove private cash from the public elections—or even to mandate reasonable “dark money” disclosure. Fuming about Moscow’s allegedly powerful conspiracy against our supposedly democratic elections looks more than a little ridiculous when considered alongside the deafening official silence on America’s own oligarchic electoral system.

via The Trump Debacle

#IFTTT #The Trump Debacle

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