"The decision to publish the Steele dossier originated with the reporter Ben Smith, then the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News...

"In Smith’s telling, the laws of Web traffic, shaped by social media and their ability to disseminate material at exponential, 'viral' rates, unseated old power structures. An old news outlet held its authority by retaining a fixed audience and standing on its record of success. A new one, such as BuzzFeed News, won largely by being linkable and first. When it came to the Steele dossier, which a number of news organizations had in hand, Smith’s concern that someone else would beat him to the link made him feel physically unwell. His site wanted the traffic. And, when the CNN anchor Jake Tapper summarized the contents on air one day, Smith knew that viewers would be Googling for the goods. He and his colleagues, snatching the keyboard back and forth, composed a brief introduction that noted the dossier’s 'specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations' then posted the document itself, in PDF form. In his book, Smith recalls meditating on 'the viral power of an object... something that readers would fixate on and pass hand to hand.'"

Writes Nathan Heller in "BuzzFeed, Gawker, and the Casualties of the Traffic Wars/Ben Smith’s new book shows how the race for clicks spawned—then strangled—the new media" (The New Yorker).

So Smith had a temporary grip on clickbait, but can the man write a book? I see the hardcover, released last Tuesday, is #2,216 at Amazon. But who'd buy that in hardcover? Anyone interested in Smith's musings on virality would go with the Kindle, don't you think? I know I would, because I'd want to be able to cut and paste, using my own skill for presenting something you'd find delectable. But the Kindle version is at #5,107. I'm not interested in reading Smith's insights. Who wants the deeper thoughts of someone who figured out how to ride the moment for thrills? 

So I'm sticking with The New Yorker, which operates in the middle ground between clickbait and books. Nathan Heller pulls some quotation from the book:

"In hindsight, the twenty-tens saw the emergence, growth, dominance, and incipient decay of the largest social networks...."

"[W]e can’t rely on large digital platforms that are motivated by profit above all.... Those huge, public networks are growing riskier, messier, and less enticing by the day.... The next decade of the Internet is likely to yield more cloistered digital spaces that seek to correct the ills of Big Social Media. The looming 'post-platform' era, as it is already being called, will consist of smaller online communities connecting through group texts, Reddit forums, Discord servers, and e-mail newsletters.... [V]irality may no longer be the goal. But it may at least offer a less exploitative mode of existing online. In a way, it will resemble an earlier version of the Internet, operating on a tried-and-true principle: friends are more trustworthy than strangers."

Writes Kyle Chayka, in "BuzzFeed, Blue Check Marks, and the End of an Internet Era/Just a decade ago, Twitter and BuzzFeed were the popular poles of online life. Now their struggles are emblematic of where social media went wrong" (The New Yorker).

Here at Althouse, it doesn't just "resemble an earlier version of the Internet." It is that earlier version. And it has been for 7,039 days straight. You don't have to go back. You're already here. 

"Several large shareholders have urged BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti to shut down the entire news operation...."

"BuzzFeed News... has about 100 employees and loses roughly $10 million a year.... The digital media company went public via a special purpose acquisition vehicle in December. The shares immediately fell nearly 40% in their first week of trading and haven’t recovered.... Rather than shut down BuzzFeed News, Peretti is attempting to make the division profitable. He has a ready-made template: He made the decision to lay off 70 HuffPost staffers last year after acquiring the company from Verizon Media...."

CNBC reports.

BuzzFeed — I haven't blogged about Buzzfeed since Ben Smith ran the place and Jake Tapper criticized him for being "‘Irresponsible’ For Publishing Trump Dossier." That was bloggable because Tapper wrote (in private email) "Collegiality wise it was you stepping on my dick."

"Collegiality wise it was you stepping on my dick."

Wrote Jake Tapper, in email to Buzzfeed's Ben Smith, quoted in "Emails Reveal Jake Tapper Ripping BuzzFeed Editor Ben Smith as ‘Irresponsible’ For Publishing Trump Dossier" (Mediaite).

Male bravado, even in humiliation. It's a funny expression. You've got the concession that the other man has impinged on you and hurt you, but you've worked in an image of your huge, out-there dick.

ADDED: In other news of newsfolk talking about body parts, there's "Rachel Maddow Skewers Matt Whitaker for Chugging Water at Hearing: 'A Lullaby for Your Kidney Health.'" I guess that's all they had on Matt Whitaker. Matt Watertaker. So much less amusing that "Collegiality wise it was you stepping on my dick." But to be fair to Rachel. She was on TV. We're not seeing her email, which might have much sexier body parts than kidneys.

Panic mode.

I would have thought that with President Trump threatening to declare an emergency and use executive power to build his wall that people would be careful about using the word "emergency," but I just ran into this headline in The New York Times:

The BuzzFeed Layoffs as Democratic Emergency

Digital media has always been a turbulent business, but last week’s layoffs suggest a reason for panic. 

By Farhad Manjoo

Opinion Columnist

"BuzzFeed's report... as written, was as clean as it gets: Trump directed Cohen to lie about the Trump Tower in Moscow project, and there’s tons of evidence to support that."

"Very rarely has a story been so unequivocal — usually there are more hedges and acknowledgments of what isn't known. And unlike most other reportage in this saga, this accused the president of a felony — a very different bar. Democrats read the story and began immediately dreaming up articles of impeachment. Even some conservatives joined the 'If true' chorus...."

Writes Axios in "A reckoning for political journalism" (also reporting that BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith is standing by his story, saying "We literally don't know what the special counsel is referring to" and "This is a line of reporting that has been repeatedly vindicated").

"In A New Email, Elon Musk Accused A Cave Rescuer Of Being A 'Child Rapist' And Said He 'Hopes' There's A Lawsuit."

"In an email to BuzzFeed News, Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused a Thai cave rescuer of moving to Thailand to take a child bride. The rescuer denied all the claims," Buzzfeed reports.

Musk last month apologized for accusing Vernon Unsworth of pedophilia after the diver questioned the value of Musk’s contribution to the rescue, a small submarine that ultimately went unused. But in a series of emails to BuzzFeed News, Musk repeated his original attacks on Unsworth — and made new and specific claims, lambasting the rescuer as a “child rapist” who moved to the Southeast Asian country to take a child bride....

“I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you fucking asshole,” Musk wrote in the first message. “He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time. As for this alleged threat of a lawsuit, which magically appeared when I raised the issue (nothing was sent or raised beforehand), I fucking hope he sues me,” he added....

Musk’s renewed attacks on Unsworth come after a series of erratic public gestures, notably a widely publicized suggestion that he would take Tesla private and the narration of his home life by the rapper Azealia Banks....

What's the Azelia Banks story? I had to look that up. This is from The Cut (last week):

Ever since she went to Musk’s home for a recording session... Banks has been airing the Tesla CEO’s dirty laundry in lengthy Instagram Stories — claiming that he had been tripping on acid when he tweeted that he was considering taking his company private for $420, and by sharing screenshots of texts she allegedly exchanged with his girlfriend Grimes, in which the musician says Musk’s accent is fake, his D is big, and Russians are trying to kill him. But now, the rapper has apologized, Billboard reports....

We all live in a yellow submarine. A small submarine. With a big dick.

"Wife says: WTF--next abusive men will decorate their cocks and call it 'innocent Christmas fun' as they expose themselves to women..."

"... and what the heck has it got to do with the celebration of Christ's birth people---Is everyone on this planet NUTS??? I have never commented before, but this really riled me...along with everyone using the word Bitch and thinking it's perfectly OK...no folks, it derogatory toward women--get a grip!!!!"

An apt comment at a Buzzfeed article titled (I'm not kidding), "18 Christmas Boobs That Are The Actual Reason For The Season/Deck the boobs with boughs of holly."

How does stuff like this persist in the era of #MeToo/The Reckoning?

Possibly related: "BuzzFeed Layoffs Could Be A Huge Bellwether For Digital Media/Jonah Peretti’s digital media empire is laying off 8% of its staff, a sign that some of its best efforts to diversify are not panning out as planned" (Fast Company).

ADDED: Of course, Buzzfeed has a woman doing the article, making it okay. The woman is Delaney Strunk (any relation to Strunk of Strunk and White?). I clicked on her name to see what else she's been providing to the Buzzfeed enterprise, and I had to laugh at "'Complicit' Has Officially Been Named The Word Of The Year And The Shade Is Thick." Complicit?! You're complicit.

"Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not 'succumb to [his] sexual advances.'"

Buzzfeed reports on what looks like an egregious case of sexual harassment and on the way Congress hides its sexual harassment problems (and thereby facilitates them going forward).

Buzzfeed has acquired what it says are the documents showing the settlement and the ludicrously biased procedure: "a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her."

“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution....

Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process that involves counseling and mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.

The procedure also requires the complainant to continue working during 90 days of this counseling and mediation, so not only are you forbidden to talk to anyone about your troubles, but you have to keep working under the conditions you're saying are abusive.

This woman ended up with a settlement of just a little over $27,000, and she also lost her job and had to keep silence. I guess the power differential and the fear were so great that $27,000 was a good amount of money to her. I mean, look what she says he did:

On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to “touch it,” in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands. She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.

In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to “just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go.”

“Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” the former employee said in the documents.

There was also evidence of a pattern of behavior, with affidavits from 3 other staff members. One can only wonder what other evidence was not seen because of past settlements with obligations to keep silent — not seen by the complainant. Conyers knows what's in his own history, and that's another element of the power differential. He knows how much he's got to hide. She's just a young person who needs to get a footing in her career and probably worries that her word against his won't be believed, which is probably part of why she was selected for the special workplace treatment that is sexual harassment.

One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. “One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)

"Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire who has come under media scrutiny for his role in helping elect Donald Trump, announced today he would step down from his role as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies."

"The decision, announced in a memo to Renaissance employees, followed a BuzzFeed News exposé revealing the connections of Breitbart News — partially owned by Mercer — to white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Sources familiar with Renaissance informed BuzzFeed News in recent days of significant anger within the company about the report, which revealed that former Breitbart News tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos had cultivated white nationalists and used them to generate ideas and help edit stories on the site."

Buzzfeed.

ADDED: Here's a useful New Yorker article from last March: "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency/How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency," by Jane Mayer. Excerpt:

Mercer is the co-C.E.O. of Renaissance Technologies, which is among the most profitable hedge funds in the country. A brilliant computer scientist, he helped transform the financial industry through the innovative use of trading algorithms. But he has never given an interview explaining his political views. Although Mercer has recently become an object of media speculation, Trevor Potter, the president of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, who formerly served as the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said, “I have no idea what his political views are—they’re unknown, not just to the public but also to most people who’ve been active in politics for the past thirty years.”...

Through a spokesman, Mercer declined to discuss his role in launching Trump. People who know him say that he is painfully awkward socially, and rarely speaks. “He can barely look you in the eye when he talks,” an acquaintance said. “It’s probably helpful to be highly introverted when getting lost in code, but in politics you have to talk to people, in order to find out how the real world works.” In 2010, when the Wall Street Journal wrote about Mercer assuming a top role at Renaissance, he issued a terse statement: “I’m happy going through my life without saying anything to anybody.” According to the paper, he once told a colleague that he preferred the company of cats to humans.

I can see why a man like that would withdraw. 

It's hard not to see.

On the NYT front page right now:

Here's a Psychology Today article "We See What We Want to See." It gets our attention with Grace Kelly's breasts:

“At the rehearsal for the scene in Rear Window when I wore a sheer nightgown, Hitchcock called for [costume designer] Edith Head. He came over here and said, ‘Look, the bosom is not right, we’re going to have to put something in there.’ He was very sweet about it; he didn't want to upset me, so he spoke quietly to Edith. We went into my dressing room and Edith said, ‘Mr. Hitchcock is worried because there’s a false pleat here. He wants me to put in falsies.’

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘You can't put falsies in this, it’s going to show—and I'm not going to wear them.’ And she said, ‘What are we going to do?’ So we quickly took it up here, made some adjustments there, and I just did what I could and stood as straight as possible—without falsies. When I walked out onto the set Hitchcock looked at me and at Edith and said, ‘See what a difference they make?’”

And here's a Buzzfeed listicle, "22 People Who Found Jesus In Their Food." Here he is — #16 — in the Marmite:

It's too late to rescue the man from the gator, but the fight to rescue his memory from the punchline goes on.

"Tommie Woodward yelled, 'Fuck that gator!' just before he was killed by one in Texas, and his death instantly became a national joke. For his family, grieving means having to rescue the person from the punchline."

Family, you are just reminding me of a punchline I had already forgotten. I had no memory anymore of your foolish son either.

The linked article — at Buzzfeed — is really long. I scrolled all the way down for you and snagged the last 2 paragraphs, which suggest why Buzzfeed decided to dive this deep:

Back at Burkart’s Marina, standing on the pier, near where his brother spent his final moments, Brian shares how a combination of fatalism and faith help him mourn. “Losing somebody ain’t easy, but what’s done is done,” he says. “Ain’t nothing I can do about it, can’t take it back.” He takes a deep breath. “Tommie just got to go home. I look forward to the day I get to go. One day I will get to see my brother again.”

For now, he will settle for the nights when he sees Tommie in his dreams. It doesn’t happen often, and there’s no hidden meaning, nothing to analyze. What Brian sees in his dreams and what it means is pretty overt. The same scenario plays out each time. Once Tommie appears, Brian stops whatever he’s doing. He then looks at his brother, smiles, and says, “Man, it’s good to see ya.”

There's a yearning for family and religion, and, sometimes, when you can't get it, you can nevertheless get some warmth from an ironic distance.

"The incoming administration dismissed CNN and BuzzFeed News’s report as 'fake news,' a term now used by partisans and cynics to discredit reporting they don’t like. We should have seen that coming."

"BuzzFeed News’s reporting helped popularize the term to describe a new breed of fraudsters. But the dossier is a real document that has been influencing senior officials, lawmakers, intelligence agencies and, potentially, the new commander in chief. Nobody should fall for this attempt to turn the press on itself by making a reasonable debate about transparency into a media civil war. News organizations should instead consider this reality: Our audience inhabits a complex, polluted information environment; our role is to help them navigate it — not to pretend it doesn’t exist. The need to show our work and earn trust has never been more important, since once reliable official sources are peddling 'alternative facts' — as the White House press secretary did Saturday."

Writes Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed, in a NYT op-ed titled "Why BuzzFeed News Published the Dossier."

The term "alternative facts" came not from the press secretary, but from Kellyanne Conway, in a "Meet the Press" interview with Chuck Todd that I described as a 9-round fight, here. Chuck Todd kept asking Conway "why the president asked the White House press secretary to come out in front of the podium for the first time and utter a falsehood?"

And then we get the sound bite of the whole morning, as she attempts, at long last, to refute Todd's idea that it was a "provable falsehood":

What-- You're saying it's a falsehood. And they're giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. But the point remains--

Todd sees the gem he has caused to come into existence and plucks it out to hold in his hand and admire:

Wait a minute-- Alternative facts?

Conway tries to plow on, but he repeats the Conway's terrible phrase:

Alternative facts?... Four of the five facts he uttered were just not true. Look, alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods.

I scored a big win for Todd in what was Round 3. But in the comments at my post, I got more deeply into the question of what "alternative facts" means:

In context and read sympathetically, "alternative facts" doesn't mean that there are competing versions of the truth and you can refer to all of them as "facts."

Actually, that wouldn't bother me that much, because it would mean that the word "facts" was being used to mean "assertions of fact." Chuck Todd used the word "litigating," and in litigation there are factual issues, and litigants try to get the "fact-finder" to accept their assertions of fact as the facts. If one litigant states a fact — X is true — the other litigant may say X is not true. It would be awkward but understandable to call X and not-X "alternative facts."

But what I think Conway meant was that there are many different factual issues, and some people choose to forefront one factual issue — such as the size of the crowd at the Inauguration — when there are many other factual issues that could have been selected as the main story. There are "alternatives" in that you don't have to make such a big deal out of that one thing, and you could emphasize something else. The "alternative facts" were all the other things that Trump did, good things, that would have put him in a good light, and the media is criticized for picking out the fact that diminished Trump.

Chuck Todd to Buzzfeed's Ben Smith: "You just published fake news!"

Smith defends the decision: "This was a real document that was really being passed around by the very top officials of this country...."

Trump is about to do a press conference.

I'll be watching and updating this post. Watch with me!

UPDATE 1: Trump has "great respect for freedom of the press and all of that." He expresses admiration for the news outlets that refrained from reporting on the salacious dossier.

2: "We're going to have a very elegant day" on the inauguration, with lots of military bands.

3: "It's an asset if Putin likes Trump," because we need Russia's help fighting ISIS.

4. "Does anyone really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way."

5.  He could run his company and serve as President at the same time and do great, but he doesn't want to do that.

6. Trump's lawyer explains the structure set up to separate Trump from his business "empire" ("hundreds of entities"). She stresses that this isn't legally required, but voluntarily. Trump is giving up all management authorities "for the duration" of his administration. The sons — Don and Eric — are given all power. Ivanka will have no further involvement with the organization. Trump's assets will be held in a trust. Many details about what will be in that Trust. Many liquid assets have been sold. Many deals canceled, losing millions. No foreign deals will be made during the administration. There will be an ethics adviser scrutinizing any domestic deals (from which Trump will be walled off).

7. Why not sell everything? Selling the brand "Trump" would create more dangers of exploiting the presidency. Ending the brand would be throwing away immense wealth. Other options are also dismissed as unrealistic.

CNN drains the political talent from Buzzfeed.

What will happen now to the once-vibrant, genre-crushing force that is Buzzfeed? Will CNN successfully jazz up its brand or is it just extracting the political vigor from Buzzfeed?

The NYT reports:

Andrew Kaczynski, the BuzzFeed reporter whose scoop about Donald J. Trump’s early support for the invasion of Iraq surfaced in the presidential debate last week, is leaving to join CNN, just a month before the election.

The two other members of BuzzFeed’s political research team, Nathan McDermott and Christopher Massie, and Kyle Blaine, the deputy politics editor, are also going to CNN, leaving BuzzFeed short-handed for the final stretch of the campaign.

Short-handed! (Funny to see that word again after delving into its significance yesterday, the first day of the new Supreme Court term, with the Court said to be "short-handed," something I problematized here and here.)

Back to the NYT:

The departures, which come only weeks after BuzzFeed said it was formally dividing its news and entertainment divisions, are also likely to resurface questions about the company’s plans for its news operation.... The moves... leave a void at BuzzFeed, which has built its news reputation on its political coverage and is gearing up for what will probably be a frenetic last month of the campaign....

The departures could also feed the apparent feud between Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, who recently said he did not think BuzzFeed was a “legitimate” news organization, and [BuzzFeed editor in chief Ben Smith], who said that CNN had given too much airtime to Donald Trump in the interest of ratings....

On Monday, Mr. Smith said in an email: “I guess this means that CNN has seen the value in doing the kind of tough reporting on Donald Trump that BuzzFeed News has been doing all presidential cycle, and we wish Andrew good luck.”

It's not the tweeting, it's the retweeting that gets you... if you're Trump.

Oh, no. Trump goofs up retweeting again. See the problem?



"Don Vito" apparently just googled to find a generic picture of a black family, but they are actual people who don't appreciate being appropriated and presented as real Trump supporters. Actually, they don't sound that bothered. Buzzfeed found the man, and he called it “misleading” and “taken out of context.”

Oh, this is a nothing controversy, but it got me to this other story that has me laughing ought loud: "Facebook Appears To Think This Picture Of A Horse Is Porn And Won’t Let Us Share It" — which is updated to say: "Facebook seems to be flagging this article — the one you’re reading right now — as pornography" and: "And then, after Facebook removes this article from your feed, it makes you go through your photos and verify that none of them are pornographic."

Now, I think I know where Donald Trump got his speech-making style — from Sarah Palin.

I finally got around to watching the speech Sarah Palin gave yesterday, endorsing Donald Trump. I first saw it in the form of a BuzzFeedNess piece titled "So, Uh, Here’s The Full Text Of Sarah Palin’s Bizarre Trump Speech," which made me think she was inarticulate, saying "uh" a lot and going off on weird tangents. But a simple search of the text — the text transcribed without pity — shows she only said "uh" once other than the time she deployed a string of "uh"s for comic effect, saying that the GOP establishment "is wailing, 'well, Trump and his, uh, uh, uh, Trumpeters, they’re not conservative enough.'" That one "uh" comes near the one "um":

What he’s been able to accomplish, with his um, it’s kind of this quiet generosity. Yeah, maybe his largess kind of, I don’t know, some would say gets in the way of that quiet generosity, and, uh, his compassion....

Maybe "compassion" is a hard word for righties to say. Just yesterday, right here on this blog, we voted on whether "compassion" (along with "social justice") was a left-wing brand. Or maybe "compassion" is just too Bush-y. Remember "compassionate conservativism"?

In June, 1986, [historian and presidential advisor Doug] Wead wrote an article for the Christian Herald, describing then-vice-president George H. W. Bush, to whom he served as an aide, as a “compassionate conservative.” According to journalist Jacob Weisberg, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush's son, first picked up the term "compassionate conservative" from Wead, in 1987.

In 1992, when Doug Wead ran for U.S. Representative from Arizona, he wrote a campaign book entitled Time for a Change. The first chapter was called “The Compassionate Conservative” and outlined Wead’s philosophy that the masses didn’t care if Republican policies worked if the attitude and purpose behind the policies were uncaring....

Nicholas Lemann, writing in New Yorker magazine in 2015, wrote that George W. Bush's "description of himself, in the 2000 campaign, as a 'compassionate conservative" was brilliantly vague—liberals heard it as 'I'm not all that conservative,' and conservatives heard it as 'I'm deeply religious.' It was about him as a person, not a program."....

But back to the Palin speech. I listened to it, which makes a different impression from reading. What struck me was how similar it was to the way Trump speaks — short, punchy statements. It's rousing, rallying. It feels nervy and brave. Sarah is at her best in this milieu. Whether you'd trust her to be President is an entirely different matter, but speaking to a crowd, she is brilliant. So she is simply wonderful speaking on behalf of someone else, as she was in the early days of the 2008 campaign, before the McCain people reined her in.

Speaking for Trump, not as Trump's running mate, she's able to be herself, let her Palinosity flow, and it's great stuff. Its similarity to the way Trump speaks creates an uncanny dynamic. And Trump is not like McCain. He's not going to seem dull or stodgy by comparison to Palin. He doesn't need to worry about her star power. He's already established his star power.

Seeing her next to him, I can tell it's a shared style. It's not just something only one person can do. Two are doing it. That gives hope to others. But what are the elements of that style? How could somebody else learn to do it?

Now, I just want to quote 2 things Palin said that jumped out at me. Maybe these can be studied in an effort to discern the elements of the style. First:

The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them. It’s why we see these lousy trade deals that gut our industry for special interests elsewhere. 

That's great form and substance. Look at the vivid words: "bloating," "suck off," "lousy," "gut." I know the "suck off" — "suck off of" — refers to breastfeeding, but on an emotional level where the concrete images swirl together, that crony capitalist she's talking about looks a louse-ridden man with bloated gut getting a blow job.

Second:

[H]e’s got the guts to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debate on his sleeve, where the rest of some of these establishment candidates, they just wanted to duck and hide. They didn’t want to talk about these issue until he brought 'em up. In fact, they’ve been wearing a, this, political correctness kind of like a suicide vest.

Wearing political correctness like a suicide vest. You don't really have enough time to think through the analogy, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but jeez, take off that vest, it's a suicide vest! Trump "wear[s] the issues" — the right issues! What are you wearing? Better wear the right thing! But you don't have time to analyze that. You just feel it as she's off and running to more short sentences...

And enough is enough. These issues that Donald Trump talks about had to be debated. And he brought them to the forefront. And that’s why we are where we are today with good discussion. A good, heated, and very competitive primary is where we are. And now though, to be lectured that, “Well, you guys are all sounding kind of angry,” is what we’re hearing from the establishment. Doggone right we’re angry! Justifiably so! Yes! You know, they stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, “Just chill, okay just relax.” Well, look, we are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.

We are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.

Yeah, get used to it. Get used to political speech that's not tame and calculated but emotive and in-the-minute, with enough substance showing through along the way that you never lose the sense that it's about real issues. You think that's "bizarre," BuzzFeed? Get up to speed. This is what America sounds like.

"BuzzFeed plans to withdraw its participation from the South by Southwest Interactive festival after organizers decided to cancel two gaming and online harassment panels..."

"... after receiving 'numerous threats of on-site violence.'... 'We will feel compelled to withdraw … if the conference can’t find a way to do what those other targets of harassment do every day — to carry on important conversations in the face of harassment.'"

"The beautiful door is completely open for me."

Some nice viral video from Dove (that serves an advertising purpose without showing a product).

I found that because Buzzfeed had an article about it with the subtitle "Once again, soap is acting condescending" and an "update" that reads:

This post was inappropriately deleted amid an ongoing conversation about how and when to publish personal opinion pieces on BuzzFeed. The deletion was in violation of our editorial standards and the post has been reinstated.

The article was (lamely) critical of Dove:

Dove has a long and fabled history of experimenting with the shame women feel about their bodies and posturing that they are the way out of it.... Feeling beautiful is an obligation and a pressure — and sometimes a pleasure, but not always. Feeling beautiful is so much work: work that beauty companies cash in on and exploit.

Gawker attributed the deleting to the fact that Dove advertises at Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed denied that, saying that the post violated a "show don't tell" rule:

When we approach charged topics like body image and feminism, we need to show not tell. (That’s a good rule in general, by the way.) We can and should report on conversations that are happening around something that we have opinions about, but using our own voices (and hence, BuzzFeed’s voice) to advance a personal opinion often isn’t in line with BuzzFeed Life’s tone and editorial mission...

When we write about news-related topics revolving around class, race, and feminism and other heated topics, it’s important that we show the conversation that is happening, or find other people who can give smart and valid quotes to make the point, or, ideally, add to the conversation with something substantively new....

I get it. The "buzz" that belongs in the feed of Buzzfeed is the buzz out there in the world, not the buzz in the writer's head. You're supposed to receive and convey the buzz, not create buzz, or at least that's the way it's supposed to look.