thenation--2020-06-10--Why Washington Keeps Lobbying for War in the Middle East

It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order .
It took place in Washington , D.C. , and it resulted in a KO .
The winners ?
Lobbyists and the defense industry .
The losers ?
Us .
And odds on , you didn ’ t even know that it happened .
Few Americans did , which is why it ’ s worth telling the story of how Saudi , Emirati , and Qatari money flooded the nation ’ s capital and , in the process , American policy went down for the count .
The fight began three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pugilists hadn ’ t really liked each other that much before then , but what happened in 2017 was the foreign policy equivalent of a sucker punch .
On the morning of June 5 , Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) , Egypt , and Bahrain announced that they were severing diplomatic ties with Qatar , the small but wealthy emirate in the Persian Gulf , and establishing a land , air , and sea blockade of their regional rival , purportedly because of its ties to terrorism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who responded in ways that would later become familiar during the Covid-19 pandemic—by emptying supermarket shelves and hoarding essentials they worried would quickly run out .
Their initial fears were not unwarranted , as their neighbors , Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates , were even reported to be planning to launch a military invasion of Qatar in the weeks to come ( one that would be thwarted by the strong objections of Donald Trump ’ s then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ) .
Making sense of this now three-year-old conflict—which turned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ East ranging from the war in Yemen to the more than 10,000 American military personnel stationed in Qatar into political footballs—requires refocusing on Washington and the extraordinary influence operations the Saudis , Emiratis , and Qataris ran there .
That , in turn , means analyzing Foreign Agents Registration Act ( FARA ) documents filed by firms representing all three countries since the spat began .
Do that and you ’ ll come across a no-punches-barred bout of lobbying in the US capital that would have made Rocky envious .
The Saudis Come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the blockade of Qatar seven months before it began when Donald Trump was elected president .
Just as his victory shocked the American public , so it caught many foreign governments off guard .
In response , they quickly sought out the services of anyone with ties to the incoming administration and the Republican-controlled Congress .
The Saudis and Emiratis were no exception .
In 2016 , both countries had reported spending a little more than $ 10 million on FARA registered lobbying firms .
By the end of 2017 , UAE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million , while the Saudi ’ s had soared to $ 27.3 million .
In the months following Donald Trump ’ s November triumph , the Saudis , for instance , added several firms with ties to him or the Republicans to an already sizable list of companies registered under FARA as representing their interests .
For example , they brought on the CGCN Group whose president and chief policy officer , Michael Catanzaro , was on Trump ’ s transition team and then served in his administration .
To court the Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , run by former Republican Representative Buck McKeon , who had previously served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee .
And that was just registered foreign agents .
A number of actors who had not registered under FARA were actively pushing the Saudi and Emirati agendas , chief among them Elliott Broidy and George Nader .
Broidy , a top fundraiser for Trump ’ s campaign , and Nader , his business partner , already had a wide range of interests in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE .
To help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a campaign to turn the new president and the Republican establishment against Qatar .
One result was a Broidy-inspired , UAE-funded anti-Qatar conference hosted in May 2017 by a prominent Washington think tank , the Foundation for Defense of Democracies .
It conveniently offered Representative Ed Royce ( R-Calif. ) a platform to discuss his plans to introduce a bill , HR 2712 , that would label Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism .
It was to be introduced in the House of Representatives just two days after the conference ended .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a US ally in the Middle East and was the home of Al Udeid Air Base , where more than 10,000 American soldiers are still stationed .
So that bill represented a striking development in American-Qatari relations and was a clearly traceable result of Saudi and UAE lobbying efforts .
The unregistered influence of players like Broidy and Nader was evidently backed by other FARA-registered Saudi and UAE foreign agents actively pushing the bill .
For example , Qorvis Communications , a long-time public relations mouthpiece for the Saudis , circulated a document @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Funding Terrorism and Extremism , ” claiming that country was funding Al-Nusra , Hamas , the Muslim Brotherhood , and other groups .
( Not surprisingly , it included a supportive quote from David Weinberg , a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies . )
While that anti-Qatar crusade was ramping up in Washington , the president himself was being wooed by the Saudi royals in Riyadh on his first official trip abroad .
They gave him the literal royal treatment and their efforts appeared to pay off when , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump tweeted , “ During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology .
Leaders pointed to Qatar—look !
” A week after the imposition of the blockade , the Emirati ambassador to the United States , Yousef al-Otaiba , wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Al Udeid Air Base to be moved to the UAE , a development the Qataris feared could open the door for an eventual invasion of their country .
However , this Saudi and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani , the emir of Qatar , was caught flat-footed by the influence operations of the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates .
The year before Donald Trump became president , the Qataris had spent just $ 2.7 million on lobbying and public relations firms , less than a third of what the Saudis and UAE paid out , according to FARA records .
But they now moved swiftly to shore up their country ’ s image as a crucial American ally .
They went on an instant hiring spree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with close ties to Trump and congressional Republicans .
Just two days after the blockade began , for instance , they inked a deal with the law firm of former Attorney General John Ashcroft , paying $ 2.5 million for just its first 90 days of work .
They also quickly obtained the services of Stonington Strategies .
Headed by Nick Muzin , who had worked on Trump ’ s election campaign , the firm promptly set out to court 250 Trump “ influencers , ” as Julie Bykowicz of The Wall Street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s campaign sought to woo prominent Fox News personalities Trump paid special attention to like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee .
He was paid $ 50,000 to travel to Qatar just months later .
In September 2017 , the Qataris also hired Bluefront Strategies to craft a comprehensive multimedia operation , which was to include commercials on all the major news networks , as well as digital and printed ads in an array of prominent publications , and a “ Lift the Blockade ” campaign on social media .
Meanwhile , ads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the illegality of the blockade and the country ’ s contributions to fighting terrorism .
Bluefront Strategies was to influence public opinion before the next session of the U.N. General Assembly that month .
Qatar and its proxies then used the campaign “ to target key decision-makers attending the General Assembly , including Trump ” to gain support on that most global of stages .
Its agents weren ’ t just playing defense , either .
They actively attacked the Saudi lobby .
For example , Barry Bennett of Avenue Strategies , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ letter to the assistant attorney general for national security accusing Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee ( SAPRAC ) of FARA violations in their funding of an expensive media campaign meant to connect Qatar ’ s leaders with violent extremism and acts of terror .
Such counterpunches proved remarkably successful .
SAPRAC eventually felt obliged to register with FARA .
Meanwhile , Huckabee tweeted , “ Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful , modern , and hospitable Doha , Qatar.
” Finally , at that U.N. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Emir al-Thani of Qatar and said , “ We ’ ve been friends a long time… I have a very strong feeling [ the Qatar diplomatic crisis ] will be solved quickly.
” They both then emphasized the “ tremendous ” and “ strong ” relationship between their countries .
The Qataris next mounted a concerted defense against HR 2712 .
Lobbying firms they hired , particularly Avenue Strategies and Husch Blackwell , launched a multifaceted campaign to prevent that legislation from passing .
Elliott Broidy even claimed in a lawsuit that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lobbyists had hacked his email account and distributed private emails of his to members of Congress in an attempt to discredit his work for the Saudis .
In November 2017 , Barry Bennett from Avenue Strategies went on the attack , using a powerful weapon in Washington politics : Israel .
He distributed a letter to members of Congress written by a former high-ranking official in the Israeli national security establishment explicitly stating that Qatar had not provided military support to Hamas , as HR 2712 claimed it had .
Three months later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Trump administration with the cancellation of a $ 6.2 billion Boeing contract to sell F-15 fighters to the Qatari military ( and the potential loss of thousands of associated jobs ) if the bill passed and sanctions were imposed on that country .
All of this was linked to a concerted effort by Qatari agents to contact “ nearly two dozen House offices , including then House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy , ” to prevent the bill ’ s passage , according to a report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we work .
Ultimately , HR 2712 died a slow death in Congress and never became law .
The Saudi Bloc ’ s Battle for the War in Yemen Just as Qatar started to turn the tide in the fight for influence in Washington , the Saudis and their allies faced another problem : Congress began moving to sever support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen .
On February 28 , 2018 , Senator Bernie Sanders ( I-Vt. ) introduced a joint resolution to withdraw US support for that war .
According to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , LLP , representing the Saudi ministry of foreign affairs , contacted several members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations , particularly Democrats , presumably to persuade them to vote against the measure .
That March , the firm sent out dozens of emails to members of Congress inviting them to a gala dinner with the key Saudi royal , Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman .
According to the invitation from the CGCN Group , another FARA-registered firm representing the Saudis , the “ KSA [ Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ] -USA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ enduring defense and counter-terrorism cooperation ” and “ historic alliance ” between the two countries .
It would end up taking place just two days after the Senate voted to table Sanders ’ s bill .
Emirati lobbyists similarly reached out to Congress to maintain support for their role in that war .
Hagir Elawad & Associates , for example , distributed an op-ed written by the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs justifying the war , as well as a letter written by that country ’ s ambassador , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defending the Saudi-led coalition ’ s efforts to avoid civilian casualties and arguing that “ the United States has a clear stake in the coalition ’ s success in Yemen.
” When that conflict began , Qatar was still a member of the coalition , but the imposition of the blockade led it to withdraw its forces from Yemen .
Qatari officials then used the country ’ s media empire , centered on the broadcaster Al Jazeera , to highlight the disastrous aspects of the ongoing war .
In doing so , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another reason to focus their own influence machines on both Qatar ’ s and Al Jazeera ’ s destruction .
( That network ’ s closure was , in fact , one of the original 13 demands the Saudis and Emiratis had made for lifting the blockade . )
From the moment it was founded in 1996 , Al Jazeera had been an instrument of Qatari soft power , so it was hardly surprising that the UAE had long pressured members of Congress to force the network to register under FARA as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were not in vain .
In early March 2018 , 19 members of Congress signed and sent a letter to then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging the Justice Department to demand that Al Jazeera be registered under FARA .
Another such letter sent to the Justice Department in June 2019 by six senators and two representatives asked “ why Al Jazeera and its employees have not been required to register.
” According to FARA filings , all but one of those representatives had either received campaign contributions from or been contacted by a Saudi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , has yet to register .
Despite the efforts of Saudi and Emirati lobbyists in the early months of 2018 , the emir of Qatar still managed to land an invitation to the Oval Office .
At their meeting that April 10 , President Trump again described al-Thani as a “ friend ” and a “ great gentleman ” as well .
The emir , in turn , thanked the president for “ supporting us during this blockade.
” If Trump ’ s cozying up to him was a setback for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi nearly did in the Saudi lobbying juggernaut as well .
The CIA later confirmed that the crown prince himself had ordered that Saudi citizen ’ s assassination at the country ’ s consulate in Istanbul , Turkey .
As a result , some lobbying firms cut ties with the kingdom and its influence on Capitol Hill waned , as did positive public opinion about Saudi Arabia .
In December 2018 , the Senate passed the Sanders bill to end support for the war in Yemen .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ War Powers resolution to end involvement in that conflict , a historic congressional move in this century , even if later vetoed by President Trump ( as were a series of attempts to block his treasured arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ) .
Given the president ’ s unyielding support for the Saudis and Emiratis as especially lucrative customers for this country ’ s defense industry , the Qataris have clearly decided to crib the Saudi playbook .
In May , that country purchased 24 Apache helicopters for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months later , agreed to pay for and manage a $ 1.8 billion expansion of Al Udeid Air Base to ensure the American military ’ s continued presence for the foreseeable future .
In doing so , Qatar was visibly at work co-opting two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington : the military and the weapons makers .
While Qatar faced a near-existential threat to its survival when the blockade began , three years later it ’ s not only surviving , but thriving thanks to its influence operations in Washington .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , diplomatic , and military relations between the two countries .
Meanwhile , the emir ’ s rivals in Riyadh not only failed to make their blockade a success , but saw their influence wane appreciably in the United States as they stumbled from one public relations fiasco to the next .
Even their staunchest defender , Donald Trump , recently threatened to sever US military support for the Kingdom if the Saudi royals didn ’ t end their oil war with Russia ( which they promptly did ) .
In truth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle for influence hasn ’ t been Saudi Arabia or the Emiratis , it ’ s been America .
After all , the efforts of both sides to deepen their ties with the military-industrial complex ( reinforcing the hyper-militarization of US foreign policy ) and increase their sway in Congress have ensured that the real interests of this country played second fiddle to those of Middle Eastern despots .
Certainly , their acts helped ensure near-historic levels of arms sales to the region , while prolonging the wars in Yemen and Syria , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on an almost unimaginable scale .
None of this had anything to do with the real interests of Americans , unless you mean the arms industry and K Street lobbyists who have been the only clear American winners in this never-ending PR war in Washington .
In the process , those three Persian Gulf states have delivered a genuine knockout blow to the very idea that US foreign policy should be driven by national—not special—interests .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order. It took place in Washington, D.C., and it resulted in a KO. The winners? Lobbyists and the defense industry. The losers? Us. And odds on, you didn’t even know that it happened. Few Americans did, which is why it’s worth telling the story of how Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari money flooded the nation’s capital and, in the process, American policy went down for the count.
The fight began three years ago this month. Sure, the pugilists hadn’t really liked each other that much before then, but what happened in 2017 was the foreign policy equivalent of a sucker punch. On the morning of June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain announced that they were severing diplomatic ties with Qatar, the small but wealthy emirate in the Persian Gulf, and establishing a land, air, and sea blockade of their regional rival, purportedly because of its ties to terrorism.
The move stunned the Qataris, who responded in ways that would later become familiar during the Covid-19 pandemic—by emptying supermarket shelves and hoarding essentials they worried would quickly run out. Their initial fears were not unwarranted, as their neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were even reported to be planning to launch a military invasion of Qatar in the weeks to come (one that would be thwarted by the strong objections of Donald Trump’s then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson).
Making sense of this now three-year-old conflict—which turned aspects of American policy in the Middle East ranging from the war in Yemen to the more than 10,000 American military personnel stationed in Qatar into political footballs—requires refocusing on Washington and the extraordinary influence operations the Saudis, Emiratis, and Qataris ran there. That, in turn, means analyzing Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) documents filed by firms representing all three countries since the spat began. Do that and you’ll come across a no-punches-barred bout of lobbying in the US capital that would have made Rocky envious.
The Saudis Come Out Swinging
The stage had been set for the blockade of Qatar seven months before it began when Donald Trump was elected president. Just as his victory shocked the American public, so it caught many foreign governments off guard. In response, they quickly sought out the services of anyone with ties to the incoming administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. The Saudis and Emiratis were no exception. In 2016, both countries had reported spending a little more than $10 million on FARA registered lobbying firms. By the end of 2017, UAE spending had nearly doubled to $19.5 million, while the Saudi’s had soared to $27.3 million. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
In the months following Donald Trump’s November triumph, the Saudis, for instance, added several firms with ties to him or the Republicans to an already sizable list of companies registered under FARA as representing their interests. For example, they brought on the CGCN Group whose president and chief policy officer, Michael Catanzaro, was on Trump’s transition team and then served in his administration. To court the Republican Congress, they hired the McKeon Group, run by former Republican Representative Buck McKeon, who had previously served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
And that was just registered foreign agents. A number of actors who had not registered under FARA were actively pushing the Saudi and Emirati agendas, chief among them Elliott Broidy and George Nader. Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump’s campaign, and Nader, his business partner, already had a wide range of interests in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To help secure them, the two men embarked on a campaign to turn the new president and the Republican establishment against Qatar. One result was a Broidy-inspired, UAE-funded anti-Qatar conference hosted in May 2017 by a prominent Washington think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It conveniently offered Representative Ed Royce (R-Calif.) a platform to discuss his plans to introduce a bill, HR 2712, that would label Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism. It was to be introduced in the House of Representatives just two days after the conference ended. Current Issue View our current issue
Qatar, mind you, had been a US ally in the Middle East and was the home of Al Udeid Air Base, where more than 10,000 American soldiers are still stationed. So that bill represented a striking development in American-Qatari relations and was a clearly traceable result of Saudi and UAE lobbying efforts.
The unregistered influence of players like Broidy and Nader was evidently backed by other FARA-registered Saudi and UAE foreign agents actively pushing the bill. For example, Qorvis Communications, a long-time public relations mouthpiece for the Saudis, circulated a document titled “Qatar’s History of Funding Terrorism and Extremism,” claiming that country was funding Al-Nusra, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other groups. (Not surprisingly, it included a supportive quote from David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.)
While that anti-Qatar crusade was ramping up in Washington, the president himself was being wooed by the Saudi royals in Riyadh on his first official trip abroad. They gave him the literal royal treatment and their efforts appeared to pay off when, just a day after the blockade began, Trump tweeted, “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar—look!”
A week after the imposition of the blockade, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Al Udeid Air Base to be moved to the UAE, a development the Qataris feared could open the door for an eventual invasion of their country.
However, this Saudi and Emirati onslaught did not go unanswered.
Qatar Strikes Back
Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, was caught flat-footed by the influence operations of the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. The year before Donald Trump became president, the Qataris had spent just $2.7 million on lobbying and public relations firms, less than a third of what the Saudis and UAE paid out, according to FARA records. But they now moved swiftly to shore up their country’s image as a crucial American ally. They went on an instant hiring spree, scooping up lobbying and public-relations firms with close ties to Trump and congressional Republicans. Just two days after the blockade began, for instance, they inked a deal with the law firm of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, paying $2.5 million for just its first 90 days of work.
They also quickly obtained the services of Stonington Strategies. Headed by Nick Muzin, who had worked on Trump’s election campaign, the firm promptly set out to court 250 Trump “influencers,” as Julie Bykowicz of The Wall Street Journal reported. Among others, Stonington’s campaign sought to woo prominent Fox News personalities Trump paid special attention to like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. He was paid $50,000 to travel to Qatar just months later.
In September 2017, the Qataris also hired Bluefront Strategies to craft a comprehensive multimedia operation, which was to include commercials on all the major news networks, as well as digital and printed ads in an array of prominent publications, and a “Lift the Blockade” campaign on social media. Meanwhile, ads on Google and YouTube were to highlight the illegality of the blockade and the country’s contributions to fighting terrorism. Bluefront Strategies was to influence public opinion before the next session of the U.N. General Assembly that month. Qatar and its proxies then used the campaign “to target key decision-makers attending the General Assembly, including Trump” to gain support on that most global of stages.
Its agents weren’t just playing defense, either. They actively attacked the Saudi lobby. For example, Barry Bennett of Avenue Strategies, a PR firm they hired, sent a letter to the assistant attorney general for national security accusing Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC) of FARA violations in their funding of an expensive media campaign meant to connect Qatar’s leaders with violent extremism and acts of terror.
Such counterpunches proved remarkably successful. SAPRAC eventually felt obliged to register with FARA. Meanwhile, Huckabee tweeted, “Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar.” Finally, at that U.N. meeting, President Trump actually sat down with Emir al-Thani of Qatar and said, “We’ve been friends a long time… I have a very strong feeling [the Qatar diplomatic crisis] will be solved quickly.” They both then emphasized the “tremendous” and “strong” relationship between their countries.
The Qataris next mounted a concerted defense against HR 2712. Lobbying firms they hired, particularly Avenue Strategies and Husch Blackwell, launched a multifaceted campaign to prevent that legislation from passing. Elliott Broidy even claimed in a lawsuit that the Qatari government and several of its lobbyists had hacked his email account and distributed private emails of his to members of Congress in an attempt to discredit his work for the Saudis.
In November 2017, Barry Bennett from Avenue Strategies went on the attack, using a powerful weapon in Washington politics: Israel. He distributed a letter to members of Congress written by a former high-ranking official in the Israeli national security establishment explicitly stating that Qatar had not provided military support to Hamas, as HR 2712 claimed it had.
Three months later, Husch Blackwell all but threatened Congress and the Trump administration with the cancellation of a $6.2 billion Boeing contract to sell F-15 fighters to the Qatari military (and the potential loss of thousands of associated jobs) if the bill passed and sanctions were imposed on that country. All of this was linked to a concerted effort by Qatari agents to contact “nearly two dozen House offices, including then House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy,” to prevent the bill’s passage, according to a report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy where we work. Ultimately, HR 2712 died a slow death in Congress and never became law.
The Saudi Bloc’s Battle for the War in Yemen
Just as Qatar started to turn the tide in the fight for influence in Washington, the Saudis and their allies faced another problem: Congress began moving to sever support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. On February 28, 2018, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a joint resolution to withdraw US support for that war. According to FARA filings, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, representing the Saudi ministry of foreign affairs, contacted several members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, particularly Democrats, presumably to persuade them to vote against the measure.
That March, the firm sent out dozens of emails to members of Congress inviting them to a gala dinner with the key Saudi royal, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to the invitation from the CGCN Group, another FARA-registered firm representing the Saudis, the “KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]-USA Partnership Gala Dinner” was to emphasize the “enduring defense and counter-terrorism cooperation” and “historic alliance” between the two countries. It would end up taking place just two days after the Senate voted to table Sanders’s bill.
Emirati lobbyists similarly reached out to Congress to maintain support for their role in that war. Hagir Elawad & Associates, for example, distributed an op-ed written by the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs justifying the war, as well as a letter written by that country’s ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba, to 50 congressional contacts defending the Saudi-led coalition’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties and arguing that “the United States has a clear stake in the coalition’s success in Yemen.”
When that conflict began, Qatar was still a member of the coalition, but the imposition of the blockade led it to withdraw its forces from Yemen. Qatari officials then used the country’s media empire, centered on the broadcaster Al Jazeera, to highlight the disastrous aspects of the ongoing war. In doing so, they provided the Saudis and Emiratis with yet another reason to focus their own influence machines on both Qatar’s and Al Jazeera’s destruction. (That network’s closure was, in fact, one of the original 13 demands the Saudis and Emiratis had made for lifting the blockade.)
From the moment it was founded in 1996, Al Jazeera had been an instrument of Qatari soft power, so it was hardly surprising that the UAE had long pressured members of Congress to force the network to register under FARA as a foreign agent. And Emirati lobbying efforts were not in vain. In early March 2018, 19 members of Congress signed and sent a letter to then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging the Justice Department to demand that Al Jazeera be registered under FARA. Another such letter sent to the Justice Department in June 2019 by six senators and two representatives asked “why Al Jazeera and its employees have not been required to register.” According to FARA filings, all but one of those representatives had either received campaign contributions from or been contacted by a Saudi or Emirati lobbying firm. Al Jazeera, however, has yet to register.
The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi
Despite the efforts of Saudi and Emirati lobbyists in the early months of 2018, the emir of Qatar still managed to land an invitation to the Oval Office. At their meeting that April 10, President Trump again described al-Thani as a “friend” and a “great gentleman” as well. The emir, in turn, thanked the president for “supporting us during this blockade.”
If Trump’s cozying up to him was a setback for the Saudis, the murder of critic and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi nearly did in the Saudi lobbying juggernaut as well. The CIA later confirmed that the crown prince himself had ordered that Saudi citizen’s assassination at the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
As a result, some lobbying firms cut ties with the kingdom and its influence on Capitol Hill waned, as did positive public opinion about Saudi Arabia. In December 2018, the Senate passed the Sanders bill to end support for the war in Yemen. Both houses of Congress also passed a War Powers resolution to end involvement in that conflict, a historic congressional move in this century, even if later vetoed by President Trump (as were a series of attempts to block his treasured arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).
Given the president’s unyielding support for the Saudis and Emiratis as especially lucrative customers for this country’s defense industry, the Qataris have clearly decided to crib the Saudi playbook. In May, that country purchased 24 Apache helicopters for $3 billion and, a few months later, agreed to pay for and manage a $1.8 billion expansion of Al Udeid Air Base to ensure the American military’s continued presence for the foreseeable future. In doing so, Qatar was visibly at work co-opting two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington: the military and the weapons makers.
And the Winners Are…
While Qatar faced a near-existential threat to its survival when the blockade began, three years later it’s not only surviving, but thriving thanks to its influence operations in Washington. They have helped immeasurably to deepen economic, diplomatic, and military relations between the two countries.
Meanwhile, the emir’s rivals in Riyadh not only failed to make their blockade a success, but saw their influence wane appreciably in the United States as they stumbled from one public relations fiasco to the next. Even their staunchest defender, Donald Trump, recently threatened to sever US military support for the Kingdom if the Saudi royals didn’t end their oil war with Russia (which they promptly did).
In truth, however, the real loser in this struggle for influence hasn’t been Saudi Arabia or the Emiratis, it’s been America. After all, the efforts of both sides to deepen their ties with the military-industrial complex (reinforcing the hyper-militarization of US foreign policy) and increase their sway in Congress have ensured that the real interests of this country played second fiddle to those of Middle Eastern despots. Certainly, their acts helped ensure near-historic levels of arms sales to the region, while prolonging the wars in Yemen and Syria, and so contributing to death and devastation on an almost unimaginable scale.
None of this had anything to do with the real interests of Americans, unless you mean the arms industry and K Street lobbyists who have been the only clear American winners in this never-ending PR war in Washington. In the process, those three Persian Gulf states have delivered a genuine knockout blow to the very idea that US foreign policy should be driven by national—not special—interests.


thenation--2020-06-11--Gimmicks Might Be the Key to Understanding Capitalism

Over the course of her career , scholar and critic Sianne Ngai has asked readers to interrogate the everyday aesthetic judgments we make about art and objects .
While finding kitty cams , baby carrots , and bath toys “ cute ” might seem innocent , Ngai cautions that a term like “ cute ” is ultimately rooted in a desire to “ aestheticize powerlessness , ” a useful tool for making commodification and consumption feel , conversely , empowering .
Ngai explores the assumptions about political economy underpinning “ cute ” and similar terms in her 2012 book Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Interesting .
In that book , which won the Modern Language Association ’ s James Russell Lowell Prize for excellence in literary criticism , Ngai explored the ways that our aesthetic judgements have been molded and transformed by the logic of late capitalism .
The “ zany , ” perhaps best embodied by the image of Lucille Ball stuffing chocolate bonbons into her mouth while working on the conveyor belt , encapsulates , Ngai argues , our growing sense that the boundary between labor and play has begun to dissipate .
“ Interesting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , represents a demand to prolong our critical labor , or as Ngai puts it , “ Let ’ s keep on talking about this movie , let ’ s continue giving it attention , even though it is not particularly good.
” In her latest book , A Theory of the Gimmick ( 2020 ) , Ngai proposes another aesthetic category , “ gimmicky , ” to think through broader questions about how artistic worth is measured in capitalist culture .
The gimmick , as a kind of labor-saving device that ironically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , is an embodiment of our anxiety about the way value is tied to labor .
Gimmicks , Ngai explains , from cryptocurrency to Marcel Duchamp ’ s ready-mades to the late fiction of Henry James to hair products that overpromise , fill us with a sense of mistrust or irritation because we sense a mismatch between the amount of labor encoded in them and their proclaimed value .
In doing so , we register a sense that labor and value are at once intertwined and perhaps should not be .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire system we live by .
For Ngai , one of the reasons the gimmick is so important is that it “ tells us something about how ordinary people process capitalism.
” Indeed , Ngai ’ s work , starting with her first book , Ugly Feelings ( 2009 ) , has been devoted to exploring so-called minor , unprestigious , or everyday aesthetic experiences , ones typically shunned by the field of philosophy ( which has largely focused on the Enlightenment categories of the beautiful and the sublime ) .
“ Gimmicky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ cute , ” is a word that we use spontaneously in daily speech .
In this way , Ngai ’ s work is invested in a kind of aesthetics at the margins and the way aesthetics can be levied against ( and defiantly wielded by ) the most marginalized .
Ngai spoke with me by telephone from her home in Chicago .
We discussed Puff Daddy , the Fyre Festival , capitalism ’ s shiny broken promises , and what cultural criticism sounds like in a bar .
ennifer ilson : So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the various gimmicks you identify over the course of the book : Google Glass , stainless steel banana slicers , the Fyre Festival , Hamburger Helper , the novels of Henry James , pencil sharpeners , an entire book written without the letter “ e ” —just to name a few .
Can you tell us what makes these things gimmicks ?
Sianne Ngai : Let ’ s take the example of the pencil sharpener design that ’ s in the book—a Rube Goldberg cartoon .
Starting in the late 1920s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ inventions , ” machines ostensibly supposed to help people save time but that were in fact elaborate contraptions involving lots of parts to accomplish a simple task .
[ Goldberg ’ s pencil sharpener involves 19 steps culminating with a woodpecker emerging from a cage to sharpen the pencil . ]
What ’ s put on display is an excessive amount of effort to achieve a minimal result .
Goldberg ’ s pencil sharpener is an allegory of the gimmick in that it ’ s a labor- and time-saving device that doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increases it .
It ’ s a great model of the gimmick ’ s problematic relationship to labor , of how it ’ s either overperforming or underperforming or often both at the same time .
JW : You write that the gimmick is “ capitalism ’ s most successful aesthetic category ” but also “ its biggest embarrassment and structural problem.
” Can you break that contradiction down for us—if it is a contradiction ?
SN : The gimmick is successful in that it lies latent in every capitalist commodity .
At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gimmicky is to say it ’ s a failure , it ’ s unconvincing .
So the gimmick is not just an impoverished form .
It ’ s an aesthetic judgement—and spontaneous evaluation—that is also a diagnosis of value not being where it is purported to be .
By calling something a gimmick , we are saying it ’ s over-valued , and this counter-evaluation stems from appraisals of the amount of labor and time encoded in the object .
It ’ s worth noting that the gimmick is our only aesthetic judgment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variables—value , labor , and time—come to be inextricably linked under capitalism .
The judgment thus gets at the core of how our economic system works , but it does so obliquely , at the aesthetic level .
Nonetheless , to use the term is to register doubt about that system .
JW : What is the doubt we ’ re registering when we call something gimmicky ?
SN : It ’ s first and foremost an aesthetic dissatisfaction , but one that immediately refers to an economic misgiving .
And that misgiving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ultimately wrong about the way capitalism produces and measures wealth .
How to Be Critical of the Things You Love There ’ s also this layer of begrudging acknowledgment that even if this thing isn ’ t convincing to me , it will be or has already been convincing to others .
In other words , my experience of the gimmick always includes an awareness that the gimmick is not a gimmick for other people : Someone will go for the banana slicer or cryptocurrency future ( and indeed , we as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while predominantly negative or critical , our aesthetic judgment also includes a recognition of how socially powerful the promises of capitalism are—of how they manage to remain appealing and collectively effective in spite of being perpetually broken .
JW : You write that the word “ gimmick ” first appears in print in the 1920s .
What about that specific historical moment gives rise to this understanding of the gimmick and the aesthetic value being attached to labor-saving ?
SN : I ’ m cautious about making historical claims based on etymology , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the word becomes trackable right around the inauguration of a long period of economic crisis and global recession .
It doesn ’ t seem coincidental that in the English language we would start to have a codified concept for something that is breaking its promise to deliver value at a moment where people were seeing that promise broken all around them .
The timing of the word ’ s emergence in the early 20th century also helpfully underscores that “ gimmick ” is an aesthetic specific to mature , crisis-prone capitalism ( which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t things before then that we wouldn ’ t be tempted to call gimmicks now ) .
One suspects that usage of the term spikes at moments when things are falling apart economically .
JW : How does Theory of the Gimmick build on your last book , Our Aesthetic Categories : Zany , Cute , Interesting ?
SN : There is certainly a throughline .
Our Aesthetic Categories similarly focuses on aesthetic forms and judgments that tell us something about how people process capitalism , even in their ordinary or casual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argument there is that what makes the cute , zany , and interesting so prevalent in contemporary culture and discourse is that they index the socially binding ways in which people work , exchange , and consume .
The gimmick is , however , more than just a fourth category .
The gimmick is a much bigger aesthetic phenomenon .
Rather than indexing a specific phase—say , circulation as opposed to production—it points to the unstable dynamics of capitalist value production as a whole .
I ’ m aware I keep emphasizing ordinary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ philosophy ’ s almost exclusive reliance on “ the beautiful and the sublime ” to theorize aesthetic experience has resulted in a neglect of the vernacular judgements people use in daily life , which are just as theoretically interesting .
I wanted to pay attention to these aesthetic concepts and treat them with the same philosophical seriousness .
The “ gimmick ” is a word you might hear at a bar or on a bus .
So the appraisal of something as a gimmick is around us all the time .
JW : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases in which one artist ’ s gimmick is another ’ s genius .
I ’ m thinking of those Puff Daddy songs that came out in the late 1990s with all the samples from previous decades .
There were all these music critics at the time bemoaning it as a trend toward the unoriginal .
I even found one who called his use of samples “ gimmicky , ” but samples are in fact really common .
I ’ m just wondering if you think there are certain people who , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ gimmicky , ” and when other people wield it , it ’ s treated differently ?
SN : I like your example—I ’ m now vividly recalling his sampling of “ Every Breath You Take ” in “ I ’ ll Be Missing You.
” The Police original is horrible , but the Puff Daddy version works .
Art often takes up the gimmick form deliberately .
Edgar Allen Poe loved gimmicks , and he made use of them as gimmicks , in “ The Raven ” and , even more so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” his tongue-in-cheek essay on the making of “ The Raven , ” where he says the entire poem is made of devices calculated to bring off “ poetic ” effects .
Announcing in deadpan that one will of course have to start with the ultimate poetic theme , the “ death of a beautiful woman , ” then add a catchy refrain and so on , he ’ s essentially modeling , in a Rube Goldberg–like way , all the techniques one needs for the production of literary value .
Poe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( with his love of literary tricks ) , and why not add Puff Daddy—all of these artists flirt with the gimmick to some degree .
JW : I ’ m glad you brought up Poe and Duchamp , because I think one of the things people love about your work is how eclectic your archive is—from Hamburger Helper to 1970s labor documentaries to Cubism .
Not to harp on Puff Daddy , or maybe to harp on Puff Daddy… SN : Ha ha , I have no strong thoughts about Puff Daddy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realize I did either until just like five minutes ago .
What I was getting at , and maybe Puff Daddy wasn ’ t the best example , but when , say , black artists do something that could be construed as labor-saving , does that get construed differently ?
I ’ m thinking about things like welfare , stereotypes about laziness .
Do you see racialized artists or art forms getting labeled gimmicky in ways that wouldn ’ t happen with other artists ?
SN : There ’ s a moment in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experimental novel by Clarence Major , where a critic compares the narrator/Major to John Barth and calls Barth ’ s writing “ a gimmick.
” The critic ’ s use of “ gimmick , ” while overtly aimed at a style of literary postmodernism associated with creative writing programs , is racially tinged : an insinuation that Major has been trying to be “ the black John Barth.
” In response , Major reclaims the term and starts to insert the word everywhere in his paragraphs , in part to underscore that what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just language .
This is interesting , because some of the strongest indictments of the gimmick using the specific word come from African American activists .
I ’ m thinking of a moment in “ The American Revolution : Pages From the Negro Worker ’ s Notebook ” ( 1963 ) when James Boggs , the Detroit autoworker , denounces the “ gimmicks ” of “ well-meaning liberals ” pushing inadequate reforms in response to the systematic expulsion of labor from US manufacturing as capital moved on to more profitable sectors .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the 1970 documentary Finally Got the News from Ken Cockrel , a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers , against the “ whole credit gimmick society.
” So the work of people of color can be objects of the judgment that something is gimmicky , but people of color can also wield the judgment in aesthetically powerful ways .
JW : Reading this book , I started thinking about some of the other aesthetic judgements I find myself making .
For instance , the other day , I was about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” but because I ’ d just read your book , I thought , What am I actually saying ?
Are there other words like that , words like “ the gimmick , ” that we use really often in criticism that we don ’ t typically think of in terms of labor ?
SN : Oh no !
“ Effortless ” is a lovely utopian word !
“ The gimmick ” is actually an indictment of the failure of something to reduce effort in the way it purports .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aesthetic Categories told me they had a similar anxiety about using “ interesting ” after reading that chapter , when my intent was to show how useful this evaluation is , and precisely because there is something empty about it .
Your question points to synonyms for “ gimmicky ” which are the direct opposite of “ effortless ” — “ belabored , ” for instance , or “ contrived.
” “ Contrived ” is worth lingering on because it gets at the same ambiguity the gimmick encodes .
JW : My last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gimmick ?
SN : That ’ s the thing about gimmicks—they ’ re sometimes annoyingly lovable and strangely fun to talk about .
I ’ m a sucker for a lot of literary gimmicks , including metafictional reflexivity .
I also own an egg-cooking machine from Aldi which many would see falling in the same category as the banana slicer , but which I will swear by .
But my favorite gimmick is probably the “ quick-burning paper ” for “ Lady Fair Cigarettes ” that Janeane Garofalo ’ s character invents in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reunion .
Lady Fair ’ s slogan is “ Twice the taste in half the time for the girl on the go.
” One couldn ’ t ask for a better summary of the logic underlying this aesthetic category !

Over the course of her career, scholar and critic Sianne Ngai has asked readers to interrogate the everyday aesthetic judgments we make about art and objects. While finding kitty cams, baby carrots, and bath toys “cute” might seem innocent, Ngai cautions that a term like “cute” is ultimately rooted in a desire to “aestheticize powerlessness,” a useful tool for making commodification and consumption feel, conversely, empowering. Ngai explores the assumptions about political economy underpinning “cute” and similar terms in her 2012 book Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting. In that book, which won the Modern Language Association’s James Russell Lowell Prize for excellence in literary criticism, Ngai explored the ways that our aesthetic judgements have been molded and transformed by the logic of late capitalism. The “zany,” perhaps best embodied by the image of Lucille Ball stuffing chocolate bonbons into her mouth while working on the conveyor belt, encapsulates, Ngai argues, our growing sense that the boundary between labor and play has begun to dissipate. “Interesting,” our most ubiquitous aesthetic judgment, represents a demand to prolong our critical labor, or as Ngai puts it, “Let’s keep on talking about this movie, let’s continue giving it attention, even though it is not particularly good.”
In her latest book, A Theory of the Gimmick (2020), Ngai proposes another aesthetic category, “gimmicky,” to think through broader questions about how artistic worth is measured in capitalist culture. The gimmick, as a kind of labor-saving device that ironically overperforms (i.e., doing too much), is an embodiment of our anxiety about the way value is tied to labor. Gimmicks, Ngai explains, from cryptocurrency to Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades to the late fiction of Henry James to hair products that overpromise, fill us with a sense of mistrust or irritation because we sense a mismatch between the amount of labor encoded in them and their proclaimed value. In doing so, we register a sense that labor and value are at once intertwined and perhaps should not be. In essence, we begin to doubt the entire system we live by.
For Ngai, one of the reasons the gimmick is so important is that it “tells us something about how ordinary people process capitalism.” Indeed, Ngai’s work, starting with her first book, Ugly Feelings (2009), has been devoted to exploring so-called minor, unprestigious, or everyday aesthetic experiences, ones typically shunned by the field of philosophy (which has largely focused on the Enlightenment categories of the beautiful and the sublime). “Gimmicky,” like “interesting” and “cute,” is a word that we use spontaneously in daily speech. In this way, Ngai’s work is invested in a kind of aesthetics at the margins and the way aesthetics can be levied against (and defiantly wielded by) the most marginalized.
Ngai spoke with me by telephone from her home in Chicago. We discussed Puff Daddy, the Fyre Festival, capitalism’s shiny broken promises, and what cultural criticism sounds like in a bar.
—Jennifer Wilson
J ennifer W ilson: So I made a list of just some of the various gimmicks you identify over the course of the book: Google Glass, stainless steel banana slicers, the Fyre Festival, Hamburger Helper, the novels of Henry James, pencil sharpeners, an entire book written without the letter “e”—just to name a few. Can you tell us what makes these things gimmicks?
Sianne Ngai: Let’s take the example of the pencil sharpener design that’s in the book—a Rube Goldberg cartoon. Starting in the late 1920s, Goldberg drew hundreds of devices he called “inventions,” machines ostensibly supposed to help people save time but that were in fact elaborate contraptions involving lots of parts to accomplish a simple task. [Goldberg’s pencil sharpener involves 19 steps culminating with a woodpecker emerging from a cage to sharpen the pencil.] What’s put on display is an excessive amount of effort to achieve a minimal result. Goldberg’s pencil sharpener is an allegory of the gimmick in that it’s a labor- and time-saving device that doesn’t save labor but in fact increases it. It’s a great model of the gimmick’s problematic relationship to labor, of how it’s either overperforming or underperforming or often both at the same time. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
JW: You write that the gimmick is “capitalism’s most successful aesthetic category” but also “its biggest embarrassment and structural problem.” Can you break that contradiction down for us—if it is a contradiction?
SN: The gimmick is successful in that it lies latent in every capitalist commodity. At the same time, to call something gimmicky is to say it’s a failure, it’s unconvincing. So the gimmick is not just an impoverished form. It’s an aesthetic judgement—and spontaneous evaluation—that is also a diagnosis of value not being where it is purported to be. By calling something a gimmick, we are saying it’s over-valued, and this counter-evaluation stems from appraisals of the amount of labor and time encoded in the object. It’s worth noting that the gimmick is our only aesthetic judgment indexing the way in which these three variables—value, labor, and time—come to be inextricably linked under capitalism. The judgment thus gets at the core of how our economic system works, but it does so obliquely, at the aesthetic level. Nonetheless, to use the term is to register doubt about that system.
JW: What is the doubt we’re registering when we call something gimmicky?
SN: It’s first and foremost an aesthetic dissatisfaction, but one that immediately refers to an economic misgiving. And that misgiving is the feeling that there is something ultimately wrong about the way capitalism produces and measures wealth. The Nation Interview How to Be Critical of the Things You Love Nawal Arjini
There’s also this layer of begrudging acknowledgment that even if this thing isn’t convincing to me, it will be or has already been convincing to others. In other words, my experience of the gimmick always includes an awareness that the gimmick is not a gimmick for other people: Someone will go for the banana slicer or cryptocurrency future (and indeed, we as a collective body already do). So while predominantly negative or critical, our aesthetic judgment also includes a recognition of how socially powerful the promises of capitalism are—of how they manage to remain appealing and collectively effective in spite of being perpetually broken.
JW: You write that the word “gimmick” first appears in print in the 1920s. What about that specific historical moment gives rise to this understanding of the gimmick and the aesthetic value being attached to labor-saving?
SN: I’m cautious about making historical claims based on etymology, but we can’t ignore that the word becomes trackable right around the inauguration of a long period of economic crisis and global recession. It doesn’t seem coincidental that in the English language we would start to have a codified concept for something that is breaking its promise to deliver value at a moment where people were seeing that promise broken all around them. The timing of the word’s emergence in the early 20th century also helpfully underscores that “gimmick” is an aesthetic specific to mature, crisis-prone capitalism (which is not to say that there weren’t things before then that we wouldn’t be tempted to call gimmicks now). One suspects that usage of the term spikes at moments when things are falling apart economically.
JW: How does Theory of the Gimmick build on your last book, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting?
SN: There is certainly a throughline. Our Aesthetic Categories similarly focuses on aesthetic forms and judgments that tell us something about how people process capitalism, even in their ordinary or casual ways of talking about pleasure. The argument there is that what makes the cute, zany, and interesting so prevalent in contemporary culture and discourse is that they index the socially binding ways in which people work, exchange, and consume. The gimmick is, however, more than just a fourth category. The gimmick is a much bigger aesthetic phenomenon. Rather than indexing a specific phase—say, circulation as opposed to production—it points to the unstable dynamics of capitalist value production as a whole.
I’m aware I keep emphasizing ordinary talk. Both books argue that academic philosophy’s almost exclusive reliance on “the beautiful and the sublime” to theorize aesthetic experience has resulted in a neglect of the vernacular judgements people use in daily life, which are just as theoretically interesting. I wanted to pay attention to these aesthetic concepts and treat them with the same philosophical seriousness. The “gimmick” is a word you might hear at a bar or on a bus. So the appraisal of something as a gimmick is around us all the time.
JW: I’m wondering if there are cases in which one artist’s gimmick is another’s genius. I’m thinking of those Puff Daddy songs that came out in the late 1990s with all the samples from previous decades. There were all these music critics at the time bemoaning it as a trend toward the unoriginal. I even found one who called his use of samples “gimmicky,” but samples are in fact really common. I’m just wondering if you think there are certain people who, when they wield something, it gets called “gimmicky,” and when other people wield it, it’s treated differently?
SN: I like your example—I’m now vividly recalling his sampling of “Every Breath You Take” in “I’ll Be Missing You.” The Police original is horrible, but the Puff Daddy version works. Art often takes up the gimmick form deliberately. Edgar Allen Poe loved gimmicks, and he made use of them as gimmicks, in “The Raven” and, even more so, “The Philosophy of Composition,” his tongue-in-cheek essay on the making of “The Raven,” where he says the entire poem is made of devices calculated to bring off “poetic” effects. Announcing in deadpan that one will of course have to start with the ultimate poetic theme, the “death of a beautiful woman,” then add a catchy refrain and so on, he’s essentially modeling, in a Rube Goldberg–like way, all the techniques one needs for the production of literary value. Poe, Duchamp, Rube Goldberg, Henry James (with his love of literary tricks), and why not add Puff Daddy—all of these artists flirt with the gimmick to some degree.
JW: I’m glad you brought up Poe and Duchamp, because I think one of the things people love about your work is how eclectic your archive is—from Hamburger Helper to 1970s labor documentaries to Cubism. Not to harp on Puff Daddy, or maybe to harp on Puff Daddy…
SN: Ha ha, I have no strong thoughts about Puff Daddy.
JW: I didn’t realize I did either until just like five minutes ago. What I was getting at, and maybe Puff Daddy wasn’t the best example, but when, say, black artists do something that could be construed as labor-saving, does that get construed differently? I’m thinking about things like welfare, stereotypes about laziness. Do you see racialized artists or art forms getting labeled gimmicky in ways that wouldn’t happen with other artists?
SN: There’s a moment in Emergency Exit (1979), the experimental novel by Clarence Major, where a critic compares the narrator/Major to John Barth and calls Barth’s writing “a gimmick.” The critic’s use of “gimmick,” while overtly aimed at a style of literary postmodernism associated with creative writing programs, is racially tinged: an insinuation that Major has been trying to be “the black John Barth.” In response, Major reclaims the term and starts to insert the word everywhere in his paragraphs, in part to underscore that what the critic calls a gimmick is really just language.
This is interesting, because some of the strongest indictments of the gimmick using the specific word come from African American activists. I’m thinking of a moment in “The American Revolution: Pages From the Negro Worker’s Notebook” (1963) when James Boggs, the Detroit autoworker, denounces the “gimmicks” of “well-meaning liberals” pushing inadequate reforms in response to the systematic expulsion of labor from US manufacturing as capital moved on to more profitable sectors. And of a truly electrifying rant we hear in the 1970 documentary Finally Got the News from Ken Cockrel, a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, against the “whole credit gimmick society.” So the work of people of color can be objects of the judgment that something is gimmicky, but people of color can also wield the judgment in aesthetically powerful ways.
JW: Reading this book, I started thinking about some of the other aesthetic judgements I find myself making. For instance, the other day, I was about to compliment something for being “effortless,” but because I’d just read your book, I thought, What am I actually saying? Are there other words like that, words like “the gimmick,” that we use really often in criticism that we don’t typically think of in terms of labor?
SN: Oh no! “Effortless” is a lovely utopian word! “The gimmick” is actually an indictment of the failure of something to reduce effort in the way it purports. It’s funny because some reaaders of Our Aesthetic Categories told me they had a similar anxiety about using “interesting” after reading that chapter, when my intent was to show how useful this evaluation is, and precisely because there is something empty about it. Your question points to synonyms for “gimmicky” which are the direct opposite of “effortless”—“belabored,” for instance, or “contrived.” “Contrived” is worth lingering on because it gets at the same ambiguity the gimmick encodes.
JW: My last question: What’s your favorite gimmick?
SN: That’s the thing about gimmicks—they’re sometimes annoyingly lovable and strangely fun to talk about. I’m a sucker for a lot of literary gimmicks, including metafictional reflexivity. I also own an egg-cooking machine from Aldi which many would see falling in the same category as the banana slicer, but which I will swear by. But my favorite gimmick is probably the “quick-burning paper” for “Lady Fair Cigarettes” that Janeane Garofalo’s character invents in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. Lady Fair’s slogan is “Twice the taste in half the time for the girl on the go.” One couldn’t ask for a better summary of the logic underlying this aesthetic category!


thenation--2020-06-11--You Don’t Have to Publish Both Sides When One Side Is Fascism

The Trump administration and its Republican enablers are fighting a series of wars directed at targets inside the United States .
A partial list would include immigrants , African Americans , Jews , poor people , middle-class people , people with student loan debts , the environment , voting rights , fair elections , blue-state taxpayers , the rule of law , honest elections , and all forms of accountability for Donald Trump , his family , and the criminals who helped him get elected .
Because these are by and large unpopular causes , and it is the job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know what is going on , journalists are also a necessary , if ancillary , target .
That explains Trump ’ s frequent use of the phrase “ enemies of the people , ” which had been the go-to charge of dictators and mass murderers , as well as his incessantly parroted mantra “ fake news.
” Those running the country ’ s elite media institutions have no experience with a situation like this and still can not figure out how to handle it .
Historically , media machers have seen themselves as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things run smoothly for whoever is in power .
They do this , in part , because they believe in the cause and , in part , to obtain access , quotes , and the public pretense of respect .
When James Reston , who was then The New York Times ’ most influential columnist , published an op-ed in 1979 titled “ By Henry Kissinger With James Reston , ” he did so not with shame but pride .
Reston was flacking for a man who directed a secret , unconstitutional war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalists and the members of his own staff to determine who leaked the news to Reston ’ s paper .
US government officials , especially but not exclusively Republicans , have been lying to the American people about matters of life and death for a long time .
The mainstream media eventually righted itself under President Richard Nixon ’ s assault on our democratic institutions , but its ability to do so today under Trump , an even greater threat to American democracy , is considerably diminished .
The reasons for this are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technological .
But during the present crisis , the biggest problem is that the leaders of the mainstream media can not make up their minds about the fundamental question of the Trump presidency : “ Which side are you on ?
” The top editors of almost all of America ’ s mainstream media institutions have explicitly rejected the notion of a journalism of opposition .
While The New York Times and The Washington Post , for instance , have tallied Trump ’ s untruths—separate from the articles in which they are repeated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commitment to the mindless both-sides style of reporting in which Republican lies and incitements to fascist violence are given equal weight to Democratic attempts to tell the truth and defend democracy .
Thanks to Trump ’ s response to the protests against police brutality , however , the jig is up .
Military leaders past and present and even a few Republicans have had enough .
It is not OK for Trump to demand a military attack on our own citizens and then lie about having done so .
And yet at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offered American journalism ’ s most prestigious real estate to Senator Tom Cotton to make the case for Trump ’ s proposed assault .
Trump ’ s New Press Secretary Fits Right In The best case that could be made for the Cotton op-ed was its obvious crappiness .
The piece was nothing but lies , half-truths , character assassination , and scare tactics .
Anyone reading with a critical eye would have recognized his argument ’ s weakness and dismissed it as deranged fascist propaganda .
Had the Times defended its decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was purely to expose the shoddiness of the Trump team ’ s argument , it would have been a defensible position based on a degree of respect for the intelligence of its readership .
This is presumably the reason Russian President Vladimir Putin and Taliban deputy Sirajuddin Haqqani have appeared on the op-ed page as well .
But that is not what happened .
The paper ’ s editorial page editor , James Bennet , followed by its publisher , A.G. Sulzberger , initially justified the piece in terms of the op-ed page @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commitment to diversity of opinion .
They acknowledged the piece ’ s weaknesses only after an unprecedented online rebellion by the paper ’ s reporters and contributors , led by African American staffers who felt that its publication put their lives in danger .
Bennet resigned after admitting that he had not read the piece in advance , and the deputy in charge , James Dao , was reassigned .
Given the regular appearances on the page of former Wall Street Journal opinion editors Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an alumnus of the Journal ( and The Weekly Standard ) —who edited and shepherded the piece onto the Times ’ website despite objections from a photo editor , did not recognize its awfulness or dangerousness .
But therein lies the problem .
The paper can not decide which side it ’ s on .
We know which side Cotton ’ s on .
In addition to calling on Twitter for the military to attack protesters with “ no quarter ” —that is , committing the war crime of massacring captured troops even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department of Justice to “ prosecute [ reporters and an editor at the Times ] to the fullest extent of the law ” for an article revealing a US intelligence program to track the financial activities of suspected terrorist networks .
He was for many years a protégé of Weekly Standard founder William Kristol , who , in his previous , pre-woke incarnation , similarly opined , “ I think it is an open question whether the Times itself should be prosecuted ” for what he termed a “ totally gratuitous revealing of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of the war on terror.
” Kristol was rewarded for this with a regular spot on the op-ed page .
I don ’ t doubt the Times editors ’ good faith in seeking to expose readers to points of view they might not otherwise encounter .
But more than three years into the Trump presidency , given the threats we face , it is long past time for editors to stop playing both sides with fascism and democracy .

This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue.
The Trump administration and its Republican enablers are fighting a series of wars directed at targets inside the United States. A partial list would include immigrants, African Americans, Jews, poor people, middle-class people, people with student loan debts, the environment, voting rights, fair elections, blue-state taxpayers, the rule of law, honest elections, and all forms of accountability for Donald Trump, his family, and the criminals who helped him get elected. Because these are by and large unpopular causes, and it is the job of the press to let the public know what is going on, journalists are also a necessary, if ancillary, target. That explains Trump’s frequent use of the phrase “enemies of the people,” which had been the go-to charge of dictators and mass murderers, as well as his incessantly parroted mantra “fake news.”
Those running the country’s elite media institutions have no experience with a situation like this and still cannot figure out how to handle it. Historically, media machers have seen themselves as collaborators with government officials to ensure that things run smoothly for whoever is in power. They do this, in part, because they believe in the cause and, in part, to obtain access, quotes, and the public pretense of respect. When James Reston, who was then The New York Times’ most influential columnist, published an op-ed in 1979 titled “By Henry Kissinger With James Reston,” he did so not with shame but pride.
Reston was flacking for a man who directed a secret, unconstitutional war in Cambodia and Laos and illegally wiretapped journalists and the members of his own staff to determine who leaked the news to Reston’s paper. US government officials, especially but not exclusively Republicans, have been lying to the American people about matters of life and death for a long time. The mainstream media eventually righted itself under President Richard Nixon’s assault on our democratic institutions, but its ability to do so today under Trump, an even greater threat to American democracy, is considerably diminished. The reasons for this are complex. Some are economic, others technological. But during the present crisis, the biggest problem is that the leaders of the mainstream media cannot make up their minds about the fundamental question of the Trump presidency: “Which side are you on?”
The top editors of almost all of America’s mainstream media institutions have explicitly rejected the notion of a journalism of opposition. While The New York Times and The Washington Post, for instance, have tallied Trump’s untruths—separate from the articles in which they are repeated verbatim—neither has proved willing to reconsider its commitment to the mindless both-sides style of reporting in which Republican lies and incitements to fascist violence are given equal weight to Democratic attempts to tell the truth and defend democracy. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Thanks to Trump’s response to the protests against police brutality, however, the jig is up. Military leaders past and present and even a few Republicans have had enough. It is not OK for Trump to demand a military attack on our own citizens and then lie about having done so. And yet at this moment, New York Times opinion editors offered American journalism’s most prestigious real estate to Senator Tom Cotton to make the case for Trump’s proposed assault. More From Eric Alterman Conservative Jews Made a Terrible Bargain With Trump and the Right Over Israel December 21, 2022 Todd Gitlin Told His Truth Everywhere He Went February 8, 2022 Why the Media No Longer Cares About Nicaragua September 28, 2021
The best case that could be made for the Cotton op-ed was its obvious crappiness. The piece was nothing but lies, half-truths, character assassination, and scare tactics. Anyone reading with a critical eye would have recognized his argument’s weakness and dismissed it as deranged fascist propaganda. Had the Times defended its decision to publish the piece by explaining it was purely to expose the shoddiness of the Trump team’s argument, it would have been a defensible position based on a degree of respect for the intelligence of its readership. This is presumably the reason Russian President Vladimir Putin and Taliban deputy Sirajuddin Haqqani have appeared on the op-ed page as well.
But that is not what happened. The paper’s editorial page editor, James Bennet, followed by its publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, initially justified the piece in terms of the op-ed page’s traditional (and laudable) commitment to diversity of opinion. They acknowledged the piece’s weaknesses only after an unprecedented online rebellion by the paper’s reporters and contributors, led by African American staffers who felt that its publication put their lives in danger. Bennet resigned after admitting that he had not read the piece in advance, and the deputy in charge, James Dao, was reassigned. Given the regular appearances on the page of former Wall Street Journal opinion editors Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, it’s no wonder that the 25-year-old Adam Rubenstein—also an alumnus of the Journal (and The Weekly Standard)—who edited and shepherded the piece onto the Times’ website despite objections from a photo editor, did not recognize its awfulness or dangerousness. But therein lies the problem. The paper cannot decide which side it’s on.
We know which side Cotton’s on. In addition to calling on Twitter for the military to attack protesters with “no quarter”—that is, committing the war crime of massacring captured troops even if they surrender—he also once urged the Department of Justice to “prosecute [reporters and an editor at the Times] to the fullest extent of the law” for an article revealing a US intelligence program to track the financial activities of suspected terrorist networks. He was for many years a protégé of Weekly Standard founder William Kristol, who, in his previous, pre-woke incarnation, similarly opined, “I think it is an open question whether the Times itself should be prosecuted” for what he termed a “totally gratuitous revealing of an ongoing secret classified program that is part of the war on terror.” Kristol was rewarded for this with a regular spot on the op-ed page.
I don’t doubt the Times editors’ good faith in seeking to expose readers to points of view they might not otherwise encounter. But more than three years into the Trump presidency, given the threats we face, it is long past time for editors to stop playing both sides with fascism and democracy.


thenation--2020-06-11--Why NASCAR’s New Ban on the Confederate Flag Is Such a Big Deal

Hell froze over this week when NASCAR announced its decision to officially ban Confederate flags from its racing venues .
In a statement as astonishing and unexpected as anything we ’ ve seen in sports since maybe 1947 , the racing league said , Make no mistake about it : This about-face against decades of history in what has been a citadel of white supremacy happened because Bubba Wallace , the only full-time black driver in NASCAR , challenged the organization to make the flag a relic of its history instead of a defining logo .
“ I haven ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race—everything that ’ s going into it and everything going on in the world .
Trying to race to change the world here , ” said Wallace , just before a race in Virginia for which he painted his car black , with the words Black Lives Matter on each side .
“ It ’ s not that we ’ re saying no other lives matter , ” said Wallace .
“ We ’ re trying to say that black lives matter , too.
” Wallace hasn ’ t been alone .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Earnhardt Jr. , Kyle Busch , and Jimmie Johnson speaking of the need for anti-racism , with Earnhardt tweeting it out with the statement , “ I will listen and learn # BlackLivesMatter.
” Inside the Fight to Take Down the Confederate Monuments in New Orleans To call this a sea change in NASCAR is a profound understatement .
The Confederate flag is to NASCAR as soccer is to Brazil or pizza to New York City : a seemingly inextricable part of its branding .
People who grew up on The Dukes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the General Lee , know exactly how deep in the culture this goes .
Already , NASCAR is feeling the heat , with social media posts spewing vitriol at them by the ton and NASCAR driver Ray Ciccarelli announcing that he is retiring in protest of the ban .
In a now-deleted Facebook post , he wrote , I don ’ t believe in kneeling during Anthem nor taken ppl right to fly whatever flag they love .
I could care less about the Confederate Flag but there are ppl that do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a racist all you are doing is f—ing one group to cater to another and i ain ’ t spend the money we are to participate in any political BS !
!
What ’ s tragic about this is that NASCAR ’ s roots are not in bigotry or pining for the lost cause of the enslavement of African people .
Stock car racing started with bootleggers who were juicing up their cars to outrun the cops and the Ku Klux Klan ( many of whom were interchangeable ) .
The Klan were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enforce it with violence .
The stock car bootleggers were true rebels .
Not in the traitorous Confederate sense , but in the style of rabble-rousing nonconformity .
The original stock car drivers had more in common with the white folks in the streets this month calling for black lives to matter than they did with the Confederate-flag-waving Trump supporters who have been the backbone of NASCAR ’ s business for so many decades .
What they are doing right now honors their true tradition , buried under decades of Confederate sewage .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ history—from NBA players marching in the streets to NFL players challenging their league to stand up for black lives , to this remarkable decision by NASCAR .
Whether this moment becomes a movement in NASCAR will depend on the drivers themselves keeping up the heat .
They can ’ t be content with woke branding and think that they have done their part .
They , far more than the personalities of any other sport , are going to have to challenge their fan base to pick a side .
They say you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moving train .
Can ’ t be neutral in a car doing 200 miles per hour either .

Hell froze over this week when NASCAR announced its decision to officially ban Confederate flags from its racing venues. In a statement as astonishing and unexpected as anything we’ve seen in sports since maybe 1947, the racing league said,
The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry. Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.
Make no mistake about it: This about-face against decades of history in what has been a citadel of white supremacy happened because Bubba Wallace, the only full-time black driver in NASCAR, challenged the organization to make the flag a relic of its history instead of a defining logo.
“I haven’t really slept much thinking about this race—everything that’s going into it and everything going on in the world. Trying to race to change the world here,” said Wallace, just before a race in Virginia for which he painted his car black, with the words Black Lives Matter on each side. “It’s not that we’re saying no other lives matter,” said Wallace. “We’re trying to say that black lives matter, too.”
Wallace hasn’t been alone. A video was released with stars like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, and Jimmie Johnson speaking of the need for anti-racism, with Earnhardt tweeting it out with the statement, “I will listen and learn #BlackLivesMatter.” Related Article Inside the Fight to Take Down the Confederate Monuments in New Orleans Collier Meyerson
To call this a sea change in NASCAR is a profound understatement. The Confederate flag is to NASCAR as soccer is to Brazil or pizza to New York City: a seemingly inextricable part of its branding. People who grew up on The Dukes of Hazzard, who drove their Confederate-flag-covered car, the General Lee, know exactly how deep in the culture this goes.
Already, NASCAR is feeling the heat, with social media posts spewing vitriol at them by the ton and NASCAR driver Ray Ciccarelli announcing that he is retiring in protest of the ban. In a now-deleted Facebook post, he wrote,
I don’t believe in kneeling during Anthem nor taken ppl right to fly whatever flag they love. I could care less about the Confederate Flag but there are ppl that do and it doesn’t make them a racist all you are doing is f—ing one group to cater to another and i ain’t spend the money we are to participate in any political BS!!
(If you’ve never heard of Ray Ciccarelli, that’s because he has never won a NASCAR race.)
What’s tragic about this is that NASCAR’s roots are not in bigotry or pining for the lost cause of the enslavement of African people. Stock car racing started with bootleggers who were juicing up their cars to outrun the cops and the Ku Klux Klan (many of whom were interchangeable). The Klan were strong believers in prohibition and ready to enforce it with violence. The stock car bootleggers were true rebels. Not in the traitorous Confederate sense, but in the style of rabble-rousing nonconformity. The original stock car drivers had more in common with the white folks in the streets this month calling for black lives to matter than they did with the Confederate-flag-waving Trump supporters who have been the backbone of NASCAR’s business for so many decades. What they are doing right now honors their true tradition, buried under decades of Confederate sewage.
This is a pivotal moment in sports history—from NBA players marching in the streets to NFL players challenging their league to stand up for black lives, to this remarkable decision by NASCAR. Whether this moment becomes a movement in NASCAR will depend on the drivers themselves keeping up the heat. They can’t be content with woke branding and think that they have done their part. They, far more than the personalities of any other sport, are going to have to challenge their fan base to pick a side. They say you can’t be neutral on a moving train. Can’t be neutral in a car doing 200 miles per hour either.