Based Safety vs. Cringe Propaganda #1

To be Based, or to be Cringe

• BASED SAFETY
  Justin Murphy interviews Contain host and SP friend Barret Avner about his move to Austin and “republican art fag socialism.” Michael Tracey shows how AOC exploits personal trauma to stymie political dissent for the NY Post. Geoff Shullenberger examines the troubling dual phenomenon of social justice replacing education and austerity programming dragging down American universities. Leila Mechoui and Alexander Davidson expose the pandemic lockdowns as political theater that achieved little beyond further eroding the material conditions of the working class for The Bellows. Steven Fairchild offers a brutal critique of unaccountable technocracy. Geoff Shullenberger interviews artist and writer Gio Pennachietti for his Outsider Theory podcast. Chris Dankland recounts the best of the storied genre of Houston hip-hop for the Dennis Cooper Blog. I write about Bowie, Prince, Alan Vega, and Scott Walker and the death of the “haunted modernist troubadour” for new music site Mute Presence.
  
  CRINGE PROPAGANDA
  Faux-socialist mag Jacobin comes up with yet another ridiculous defense of AOC’s political spectacle. Likewise, Jezebel writes off leftwing critique of AOC’s bullshit artistry as a “sexist fantasy,” and links to a tweet of mine as part of the problem. The riddler Nathan J. lambasts Joe Biden and the Democrats for their lies about $2000 covid relief checks, conveniently overlooking the fact that he called everyone who didn’t vote for them a fascist not but a few months ago. Everything about leftwing commentator Derrick Varn is cringe. Antifa black metal critic Kim Kelly offers a guide for “spotting Nazis in heavy metal,” and as if she wasn’t reactionary enough already, she then pivots to calling out country music’s most enduringly beloved star Dolly Parton for oligarch propaganda network NBC News. Hyperallergic imagines artists which might be worthy of a good Trump post-presidential portrait, and it’s not particularly funny or clever. Jerry Saltz gets elated over a subpar Roni Horn piece and the Joe Biden presidency.
  
  Illustration by Adam Lehrer