The Sorensen Monologues

The Last Firewall

Looking back at the past several years, the cascade of institutional failures leading up to this moment is nothing short of breathtaking. Remember that brief period after January 6 when nearly everyone was appalled at what had happened, and major corporations suspended their donations to House Republicans who refused to certify the 2020 election results? Now we have the Washington Post and the LA Times unable to publish endorsements for Harris because their multibillionaire owners with obvious conflicts of interest forbade their editorial pages from doing so.

After finishing this cartoon and trying to decide on a title, I Googled the phrase “It’s down to us” and found that Jamelle Bouie had written a similar opinion piece with that headline a few days ago. I guess a lot of people are thinking along the same lines. 

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Performance Issues

At the Lancaster, PA rally, Trump got on the subject of being interviewed for his mental fitness, and stated “I have no cognitive. She may have a cognitive problem, but there’s no cognitive problem… Got no cognitive.” 

I have been impressed with Harris’s campaign, and I marvel at her ability to remain so energetic and composed throughout it all. The fact that the contest is so close given Trump’s history of embracing violent extremism, his affection for Putin, and his obvious unfitness for office is not only unfair, but a damning indictment of our entire political system. This isn’t a “polarization” crisis, but an epistemological crisis. I just hope there’s enough reality left to save us.

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Swing State Confidential

With Pennsylvania being the must-win battleground state in this year’s election, I’ve found myself thinking about my formative years there (shout out to the Lancastrians on this list!). Trump has won Lancaster County handily in the past, which I find a little difficult to square with my memories of the place. Yes it’s a Republican area, but also a place of humility and decency. 

Hog Maw is a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy (and a dish also eaten in the South) consisting of pig stomach stuffed with sausage and boiled potatoes. I served this at a family restaurant that still exists. Fasnachts are like hole-less donuts, often made from potato flour. They are primarily eaten on Fasnacht Day, which marks the day before Ash Wednesday.

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Project 1025

The Project 2025 paragraph about deleting the words “gender” and “reproductive health,” etc. from every government document veers straight into Year Zero cultural purge territory:

“The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”

Thinking about this for a moment, I’m not sure how you ban abortion without using the word, but I’m sure they won’t let that get in their way.

Also, as ProPublica revealed when they published Project 2025’s secret training videos, a representative of the group said “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”

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Innovations in Hypocrisy

Electricity demand for massive data centers used for AI and cryptocurrencies is growing rapidly, and by 2026, may equal the power consumed by the entire country of Japan. A researcher quoted in the linked Vox article notes that generative AI can, in many cases, use 30-40 times more energy for the exact same task (such as an internet query) than earlier technology. Microsoft talks a good game about climate change and using AI to accelerate decarbonization, but at the same time, they’ve been marketing AI to ExxonMobil and Chevron as a way to find oil and gas reserves and speed up production.

Then there’s Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputing facility in Memphis. The area where it was just built is a historically Black neighborhood already suffering from high asthma and premature death rates due to pollution from other industrial activity. The data center requires so much power that some 18 portable methane gas-burning generators have been installed to run it, bathing the community in smog. The plant powers Musk’s chatbot called Grok, which is integrated with X/Twitter and has a “fun” mode that delivers mildly profane responses and, according to Vice, is prone to spreading inaccuracies.

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