It’s not that Kristi Noem, Aaron Rodgers, and Taylor Swift didn’t have their fans. They did, enough of them to finish third and tied for fourth, respectively. But if you want to dominate the Attention-Whore Index, it really helps to own a social-media platform and use it to disseminate misinformation that puts the lives of hurricane victims and rescue workers in peril (Elon Musk, 34 percent). Or, even better, quadruple down on the lies, insults, and hours-long muddles of sentence-fragment non sequiturs that pass for campaign speeches (Donald Trump, 37.3 percent). And then top that off by shuffling and swaying onstage to piped-in music for a very long time in front of puzzled supporters and concerned aides.
“That was a day of love.”
—Donald Trump, Talking about January 6
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
TUCKER CARLSON
“I’m just saying the guy looks super, super gay to me.” Because we all wanted to hear his mincing views on Tim Walz. Revealed his fantasies about Trump at a rally in Georgia: “Dad comes home and he’s pissed.… And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And, no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”
2.
DONALD TRUMP
Fully into the manic phase of his campaign. Spent the first 10 minutes of a rally improvising, bizarrely, on what amounted to “Variations on the Theme of Arnold Palmer’s Penis.” (A thought: perhaps Palmer had, in fact, normal-size equipment, but that it looked gigantic to Trump.) Worked a shift for the cameras at a closed McDonald’s, following which there was a McDonald’s-related E. coli outbreak across 10 states. Took softball questions from children on Fox News, and whiffed. (On his favorite farm animal: “I love cows. But … according to Kamala, who’s a radical-left lunatic, you will not have any cows anymore.”) At a town hall for Latino voters, said regarding climate change, “I have been an environmentalist.... I got awards.... I’ve had many awards over the years for environmental.” Elsewhere, speaking of his opponent: “We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president! The worst!” Also: “She’s a stupid person. Stupid person.” Challenged, on Fox News of all places, about his lies, Trump compounded them, notably regarding January 6: “There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. That was a day of love.”
3.
ELON MUSK
In the event that you’re not among the 48 percent of voters who still regard the above case study as an example of top-notch presidential timber, perhaps you can be bribed. Musk has a few pennies to spare, and along with the $75 million he’s given to a pro-Trump super-PAC, he’s offering $1 million every day to a lottery winner chosen from among anyone who signs an online petition “supporting the U.S. Constitution.” If this sounds suspiciously like buying votes, that’s because it probably is. “Some election law experts have already questioned the legality of that scheme,” noted The Times of London, and many others, including the Justice Department. “It is a federal crime to pay people to induce or reward them to cast a ballot or register to vote.”
4.
J. D. VANCE
While the top of the Republican ticket dealt unconvincingly with fast-food fries (and everything else), Vance, the Project 2025 candidate, bartended briefly before a Green Bay Packers–Houston Texans game in Green Bay. And, after weeks of slithering, finally went on the record regarding the last election. Sort of. “So did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? Not by the words that I would use.”
5.
THE SUSSEXES
News that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had bought a holiday home in Portugal—one of 300 as-yet-unbuilt residences in a 722-acre development called the CostaTerra Golf & Ocean Club (“the simple luxury of natural European living”), along a hitherto pristine coast south of Lisbon, for at least $4.7 million—wasn’t likely to play out well for them in the press. And sure enough, locals are now said to be “up in arms as their once-accessible coastline has turned into exclusive territory,” reported the Daily Record. “Recent changes to regulations now permit local councils and governmental entities to earmark particular stretches of sand as ‘private,’ effectively sealing off many beloved spots.” One resident called it the “worst thing to happen to the Portuguese coast, typical greed situation.”
6.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
Flexing those A.W.I. muscles again after the encouraging public response to her views on weaponized hurricanes. (If nefarious types can “control the weather,” as Greene insists, presumably that extends beyond hurricanes. That soft autumn breeze turned suddenly chilly? Don’t be fooled—it’s the “Democrat party,” at it again.) Anyway: Greene reached back to a favorite conspiracy theory that in 2020 Dominion voting machines had “flipped” votes from Trump to Biden—a fantasy debunked so thoroughly that Fox News settled a lawsuit, for $787 million, over having promoted that misinformation. Now she’s claimed that in Georgia, where early voting has begun, machines have again “kept on switching the votes.” (Guess in which direction.) Also revived another groundless conspiracy theory by demanding that someone “investigate” coronavirus vaccines because “cancer rates are at an all time high.” She’s back!
7.
JILL STEIN
So is she. There’s a time to run as a stubborn third-party candidate, and a time not to. See Ralph Nader, 2000. Or Jill Stein, 2016. That year, the Green Party candidate “received nearly 1.5 million votes, [and] her support in the decisive states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania exceeded Mr. Trump’s margins of victory,” The New York Times said. “Some national polls now place her around 1 percent, which could be more than enough to make a difference and infuriate her detractors anew.” Maybe Stein is just determined to give this country another “day of love.” —George Kalogerakis
George Kalogerakis, a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL, worked at Spy, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. He is a co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and a co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War
