As American democracy enters its final weekend, we’re all feeling a bit wistful. But even after Mendacity, Crudeness & Incompetence: The Sequel hijacks all our screens—large, small, mental—on Monday, we can take some solace in knowing that the Attention-Whore Index, at least, will continue to be scrupulously tabulated and 100 percent accurate. No alternative realities here, just the grim actual one we (and you, the voters) celebrate and reward each week.
Regarding which, perennial A.W.I. champion Donald Trump, who hates to lose—and has won 41 of these things—will not be pleased with last week’s results. Elon Musk, coming off his bid to rule the world, won easily, doubling the felon/president-elect’s total (47.3 percent to 23.4 percent). Newly rebranded Everyduchess homebody Meghan Markle was third, with 12.4 percent.
Who’s next? Let’s find out, but first:
“NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!”
—Donald Trump
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
ELON MUSK
Keeping busy. Was sued in federal court by the Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged violations in connection to his purchase of Twitter. Reportedly got involved in securing the release of an Italian journalist jailed in Iran. But it’s the horrific wildfires in Los Angeles that really caught his attention, and there he was in the Pacific Palisades, inspecting the damage and posting, “We are going to position Cybertrucks with Starlinks and free Wi-Fi in a grid pattern in the areas that most need it in the greater LA/Malibu area.” This grandstanding/performative generosity followed posts in which Musk diminished the idea that climate change had anything to do with the fires, instead blaming “1. Nonsensical overregulation that prevented creating fire breaks and doing brush clearing. 2. Bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water.” Well, he must, as always, be right; after all, he’s the world’s richest person.
2.
MEGHAN MARKLE
Like Musk, Markle embodied the grandstanding/performative-generosity divide. She and Prince Harry donated money to the fire victims, and the couple turned up at the Pasadena Convention Center to offer the displaced comforting quasi-royal hugs in front of the cameras. (No good deed goes uncovered.) The Sussexes’ Montecito home—which they said was open to loved ones (not family members)—was spared, but not the duchess’s Southern California–centric Netflix show, whose premiere she understandably postponed until March.
3.
MARK ZUCKERBERG
Busy, busy. Having made Meta, with its three billion users, safe for the dissemination of lies, rumors, and other offenses, and furthered the Meta-MAGA merger by appointing U.F.C. C.E.O./Trump ally Dana White to his board of directors, Zuckerberg turned his attention to “culturally neutered companies that seek to distance themselves from male energy.” That is, “Masculine energy I think is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it.” Or, to clarify: “If you’re a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it’s too masculine. It’s—there isn’t enough of the energy that you may naturally have. You want women to be able to succeed and have companies that can unlock all the value from having great people no matter what their background or gender.” By which he meant to say: “It’s like you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy.”
4.
DONALD TRUMP
Dispensed with the smelt (“an essentially worthless fish”) and was then free to resume lumbering impatiently around the greenroom of power until outgoing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report interrupted him, concluding that there was enough evidence to convict him for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Trump took this typically in stride: “Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were.”
5.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
Introduced a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” because “It’s our gulf. The rightful name is the Gulf of America, and it’s what the entire world should refer to it as.” Speculated that “Governor Newson may be criminally responsible for these California wildfires.” But Greene doesn’t just lob grenades, she offers solutions: “Why don’t they use geoengineering like cloud seeding to bring rain down on the wildfires in California?,” she posted. “They know how to do it.” Fine, but remember, that would mean working with the Democrats, because as Greene made clear not long ago, they’re the ones who control the weather.
6.
PETE HEGSETH
Confirmation season is upon us, but most of the attention was on Hegseth, the proposed secretary of defense. There were those few tiny issues from his past—allegations of sexual assault, financial mismanagement, heavy drinking, and dubious qualifications, plus a new CNN report about his disdain for the removal of the names of Confederate generals from U.S. military bases (“a sham,” “garbage,” “crap”). But at his hearing, Hegseth simply didn’t answer questions he found unappetizing, and Republican senators—threatened, according to The New York Times, by Trump and his allies with “daunting political fallout” if they didn’t rubber-stamp the nominee—rolled over as one during the hearings, their paws in the air.
7.
ERIC ADAMS
Federal prosecutors presented additional evidence to a grand jury, suggesting that more charges might be brought against New York’s criminally indicted mayor. One of Adams’s 2021 supporters, a construction executive, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, in this instance soliciting and reimbursing his employees’ donations to the mayor’s 2021 campaign. And Adams, who has begun making his shaky arguments for re-election, finished tied for fifth (6 percent) in a poll of likely Democratic voters. Time for a little vacation at Mar-a-Lago!
8.
STEVE BANNON
Maybe it’s envy, but the onetime Trump adviser is not an Elon Musk fan. Bannon told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that Musk is “a truly evil guy, a very bad guy” who “should go back to South Africa,” asking: “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, White South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?” And therefore he’s “made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” promising that “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day. He will not have a blue pass to the White House, he will not have full access to the White House, he will be like any other person.” Oh, but he could never be that—just ask him. —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
