American Psychosis, Facebook, and a Dog

By David Corn  October 4, 2022

The other evening, I was dining outdoors with a friend, and a fellow stopped to say hello and tell me he was a fan of my work. My companion piped up, “You know he has a new book out?” This man said he was unaware of that. A few days later, at an event downtown, a prominent progressive activist whom I’ve known for decades greeted me and asked, “So what are you writing these days?” Another participant in our conversation replied, “He has a book that was just released.” The progressive activist responded with a blank look. He, too, was unfamiliar with American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.

These were interesting data points. As Our Land subscribers know, I have been flapping my arms quite hard for the past month, flogging this book. Yet as any desperate author—which means any author—will tell you, the main challenge in selling a book is letting people know you have a book to sell. That’s true for all marketing. But in the book business, publishers rarely run extensive advertising campaigns, and it can be tough to fully reach the potential audience for a book. These encounters demonstrated that I had not gotten the word out as thoroughly as possible.

I basically had four avenues for placing this book in front of prospective buyers. There was this newsletter, of course. (Sorry for the relentless pestering.) And Twitter, where I have nearly 1 million followers. (Twitter’s algorithms do not deliver my tweets about the book to all followers, but several tweets did reach tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands.) Subscribers to the print edition of Mother Jones could learn of the book through a cover story adapted from American Psychosis. And the biggest audience of potential customers was MSNBC viewers who saw me on one or more shows. (Thanks, Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ari Melber, Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin, Jonathan Capehart, Michael Steele, and Katie Phang.) The cable network obviously provided a wonderful platform for plugging the book. On top of all this, there were assorted podcasts, a handful of radio shows, C-SPAN, and one CNN appearance. (Jake Tapper’s show). For some reason, several conservative talk hosts turned down offers from my publisher.

All told, this was exposure that many authors cannot achieve. Nevertheless, there are, as my two anecdotal experiences indicated, people who are not addicted to Twitter, who are not MSNBC watchers, who are not MoJo subscribers, and who are not OurLanders. They escaped the net I cast.

There was one platform I had hoped to use to sell the book: Facebook. But it failed me—and for some interesting reasons. The basics: I have two Facebook pages. A personal page has about 800 friends; a fan page has over 63,000 followers. I used to diligently employ both to promote my journalistic work. And I had great success with that. An article posted on my fan page would typically reach between 10,000 and 150,000 readers, occasionally even more. Then a few years ago, Facebook changed its algorithms to de-emphasize news content—more gossip from friends and more pet pictures!—and this distribution channel shriveled. A recent example: a scoop I had about J.D. Vance that drew much attention on Twitter and elsewhere generated a measly 376 impressions on my Facebook fan page. Posts on that page about my book have received between 500 and 1,300 impressions—meaning Facebook’s algorithm was sharing these posts with only a small number of the people who had signed up to follow my work. A natural audience was being dramatically shortchanged.

Facebook did kindly offer to boosts my posts—that is, place them in the feeds of fans—for a fee. But when I tried this, the company rejected me, explaining that my posts contained political content and that I needed to be verified to buy such “ads.” That process takes weeks. I applied for verification, and still no word.

At this point, I should note that two years ago Mother Jones discovered that when Facebook changed its algorithm to emphasize personal news over news news, this shift favored conservative outlets over progressive ones. A slide presentation for Facebook execs explicitly stated that Mother Jones would suffer, while the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro’s right-wing media operation], would benefit. When you hear conservatives whining about Big Tech’s supposedly stifling the right, know that this is BS.

It's tough to determine if Facebook’s revised algorithm slammed me more than other journalists and writers. Zuck’s monster does not make its secret sauce transparent. But when I was bemoaning the uselessness of Facebook for hawking American Psychosis, a colleague suggested I conduct an experiment. Following her advice, I posted a photograph of my dog Moxie “reading” a copy of the book on our porch. (The picture came from MoxieCam™, a feature included in the premium version of this newsletter.) This was the post’s caption: “Moxie, the smartest and cutest dog around, sure knows how to spend a Saturday morning. Check out what just arrived for her.” You will note there was no mention of the book and no reference to its title. So no “American” or “Republican” to trigger the algorithm. And “cutest dog” and “Saturday morning,” I thought, might tickle said algorithm.

It worked. This post scored 10,676 impressions. That’s more than 10 times the average number of impressions for previous posts related to the book. That led to over 1,000 likes and scores of shares and comments—far more than the usual handful. Of course, the post had no link to Amazon or any other bookseller for the book. But it did reach a much larger audience than informational posts about the book.

The lesson: if you want to sell a book on Facebook, get a dog. Well, maybe. I suppose I could next do a post with Moxie holding up a sign that proclaims “Buy this book!” and displays an easy-to-remember website address—and accompany it with a caption that includes the words “beautiful puppy.”

I don’t mean to complain about the travails of selling a book—or to only pick on Facebook. (Newspapers across the land used to publish lots of book reviews, which informed millions of readers about a book’s existence. Now they don’t.) American Psychosis is a New York Times bestseller, and I am grateful to everyone who helped along the way, including subscribers to this newsletter. And book sales did increase during the pandemic—good news for publishing. But I do wonder whether it has become tougher for authors to connect with potential purchasers. Though this book is a success, I shudder at the notion that I’m missing potential customers and readers. Still, I’ve been fortunate to have access to assorted platforms where I could pitch the book, and, most of all, I’m lucky to have a cute and smart dog to assist with this task.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com

A Denizen of the Economic Establishment Admits the Elite’s Big Mistakes

Alice Rivlin was a pioneer. Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1975 to 1983 and head of the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration, she was the first woman in both posts. In the late 1990s, she was vice-chair of the Federal Reserve. When not in government service, she was high-profile Democratic policy wonk, think-tanking on budget and economic issues from a perch at the Brookings Institution and long associated with deficit hawks who decried what they called irresponsible government spending. (She was a supporter of spending that could be considered investments.) She died three years ago, leaving a final book unfinished. It was to be a volume warning that partisan warfare, political standoffs, and congressional gridlock posed a direct threat to the welfare and happiness of the American people. And it was to be an inside-the-Beltway call for consensus-building and compromise-forging, recognizing that the problem was not a both-sides issue, with Republicans having become the anti-government party quite willing (or eager) to see negotiations fail. Rivlin left behind a manuscript somewhere between 50 and 75 percent complete, and her son, Allan Rivlin, and his wife, Sheri Rivlin, each a policy professional, finished the book for her.

Divided We Fall: Why Consensus Matters, published this week, comes with two endorsements on the cover, one from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the other from conservative writer Bill Kristol—a testament to her desire for bipartisan and ideological compromise. Rivlin traces the rise of partisanship in American history and examines in detail the successes and failures of bipartisan efforts at budget deals in the Reagan, Clinton, and Obama years. She calls for changing the rules and tone of American politics, with the former being perhaps easier. One reform she urges: deep-sixing the Senate filibuster. She acknowledges the difficulty of the task at hand, given Republican fealty to Trump and Trumpism. But she still insists on optimistically pressing ahead to break through partisan polarization. Yet she wrote all this before the pandemic, the 2020 election, the Big Lie, the January 6 insurrectionist riot, and Trump’s full embrace of QAnon paranoia and irrationality. One must wonder at this point, can a cri de coeur from a Washington establishmentarian make a difference?

I was asked to be part of a panel discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution to mark the release of the book. I’m not sure why the think tank invited me. But that did prompt me to read the book, and what I found most intriguing was Rivlin’s admission that the “economic establishment” blew it.

Rivlin, who was president of the American Economic Association in 1986, notes she was long “part of an informal group of partisan, nonpartisan, and bipartisan economic policy professionals that are sometimes referred to, either approvingly or derisively, as the ‘economic establishment.’” This group includes folks who work at the Fed, OMB, Treasury, and other government agencies, as well as scholars, academics, and assorted policy professionals, many of whom are employed by banks and financial institutions. Through the various economic crises of the past hundred years—the Great Depression, the OPEC price shocks of the 1970s, the more recent downturns—this assembly, she says, “has gotten a lot more right than wrong and has helped make the nation, and the world, quite prosperous over the years.” Perhaps. But she does confess that she and this fraternity “collectively have made three mistakes that are far better to face than ignore” and that these errors have caused this establishment to suffer “a loss of authority that has made it more vulnerable to challenges from populism on both the right and the left.”

The three mistakes? First, the economic establishment “did not recognize the full dimensions of the increasing economic inequality, racial inequality, lack of real wage growth, and the anxieties among the poor, the working class, and middle-class, exacerbated by technology in the workplace and globalization of economic production—and the need to make substantial investments to help workers transition to jobs in the new economy.” That was a big one to miss. This is perhaps the economic tale of the past 50 years and has dramatically shaped the political landscape. As Rivlin notes, “there was economic pain and frustration in many households throughout the land, to which Washington seemed totally oblivious.” This was particularly true in the deindustrialized Midwest and agricultural areas. As an example, she cites the Clinton administration’s failure to do more for those Americans who lost out due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The second error: “not anticipating and avoiding the 2008-2009 financial crisis and economic collapse.” She points out that experts disagree on whether signs were missed. But it’s clear that her establishment was more gung-ho than prudent about risks in the financial markets that could clobber millions below the 1-percent.

The third mistake was “a failure to fight the pernicious effects of money on politics and public policy.” Rivlin wags a finger at the revolving door between government policymakers and Corporate America, noting, “A lot of alumni of the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations, myself included, have become far too comfortable taking lucrative jobs, board of directors’ seats, and speaking fees from corporations and financial institutions.” Rivlin attenuates her mea culpa: “I did not think I was doing anything wrong when, after leaving the Clinton administration, I took a seat on the board of the Burroughs Corporation (which then merged with the Sperry Corporation, forming Unisys). There were then, and still are, too few women in corporate leadership.” Nor did she believe it was wrong to accept speaking fees at a few corporate retreats. But she came to realize that such activity throughout this realm casts a shadow and prompts doubt and suspicion about the beneficiaries of these practices.

Rivlin refrains from casting blame on her compatriots in the economic establishment. But she notes that “the diminished authority of the economic establishment did contribute to the political environment of distrust of authority in 2016, and we must understand that this continues today.” And that diminished authority, she is essentially saying, is partly the establishment’s own fault. It must be “humble and listen to more people,” she advises.

It's no surprise Rivlin does not call to burn down the establishment. Yet it is refreshing to see one of its denizens acknowledge its failures and own-goals and explain how its mistakes led to a political environment in which Trumpism (with its various wars on experts and policy expertise) could thrive. What a pity that Rivlin is gone and cannot present this case, a much-needed corrective.

The Watch, Read, and Listen List.

Topdog/Underdog. In 2018, the New York Times placed Topdog/Underdog in the No. 1. slot on its list of the 25 best American plays of the previous quarter-century. The Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Suzan-Lori Parks, which opened at the Public Theater in 2001 and starred Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle, immediately entered the pantheon of Great American Plays. The story is a tale of two impoverished Black brothers. Lincoln spends his days employed as a Lincoln impersonator (in whiteface) at an arcade, where patrons get to kill him over and over. (Within the play, this is not as weird as it sounds.) Kicked out of his home by his wife, he bunks with his brother Booth—yes, Booth—in Booth’s run-down, one-room apartment (without any running water). Booth is a petty thief who yearns to be a three-card-monte street hustler—which happens to be what Lincoln used to be before he went straight and donned the Honest Abe costume. The immediate conflict is caused by Booth pressuring Lincoln to team up with him and return to the street. Lincoln isn’t interested, though he’s on the verge of being fired at the arcade and replaced by a wax dummy. But the struggle between the brothers quickly escalates to cover multiple issues stemming from the poisoned roots they share.

The play is a fast-paced exploration of identity and family. “Like Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's landmark novel of 1952,” Times critic Ben Brantley wrote about the original production, “Topdog/Underdog considers nothing less than the existential traps of being African-American and male in the United States, the masks that wear the men as well as vice versa.” Twenty years later, in the days of Black Lives Matter, the play, which recently opened for a limited Broadway run at the elegant and modest-sized Golden Theater, unfortunately still connects. I saw it last week and marveled at the mesmerizing performances of Corey Hawkins (Lincoln) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Booth) and the freshness of Parks’ work. What makes the play a masterpiece is that she avoids all preachiness and delivers punches—that is, dialogue—reminiscent of David Mamet, but with larger purpose. She also establishes a con game as the foundation of the plot. (Hawkins does a mean job of throwing the cards as an ex-hustler.) And Parks deftly captures fraternal tension—a la Sam Shepard’s True West—without the heaviness of melodrama. The set-up seems obvious: Lincoln, Booth, get it? The naming of the two, we are told, was a joke played on them by the father who abandoned the pair, as did their mother. But will history repeat? Parks handles this question artfully, and I sure won’t tell you what happens. I will say, if you want to be moved and impressed by tremendous American drama, see this play. (Or read it.)

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

October 1, 2022: How Giorgia Meloni’s win in Italy helps us understand a US Senate race; American Psychosis in the news; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Ben Stein); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 27, 2022: Stormy Daniels, AOC, and the long arc of Donald Trump’s possible downfall; American Psychosis in the news; Skullduggery and the Havana Syndrome; the New York Times agrees about Mark Finchem; and more.

September 24, 2022: The craziest GOP candidate in the nation; American Psychosis becomes a bestseller; Dumbass Comment of the Week (FPOTUS); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 21, 2022: Donald Trump and the birth of QMaga; American Psychosis in the news; House of the Dragon versus The Rings of Power; and more.

September 17, 2022: American Psychosis and the reckoning of history; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 13: What Barack Obama said to me about the 47 percent video; the release of American Psychosis; and more.

September 10, 2022: A death in Washington and a very Trumpian conspiracy theory; American Psychosis update; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Donald Trump Jr.); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 7, 2022: Donald Trump and gaslight fascism; the conservative crazy gets crazier; American Psychosis: the first review; a brilliant after-the-Vietnam War novel and Dark Winds; and more.

September 2, 2022: Snowflake fascists and the GOP politics of rubber and glue; American Psychosis tease of the week; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Blake Masters); Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table and Sara Watkins’ “You and Me”; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 26, 2022: In praise of preaching to the choir; American Psychosis tease of the week; J.D. Vance and the podcaster who said “feminists need rape”; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Mitch McConnell); comparing The Old Man, Westworld, and For All Mankind; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.