Black Panther movie poster KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

Photo by Faiz Zaki (Shutterstock)

Wakanda isn't real, but neither is direct democracy in America, so why not freely devote ourselves to the Black Panther nation, anyway?

Is the recently impeached president's administration even real? Is Trump real? In a true testament to how much facts don't matter in the time of the 45th, the U.S. Department of Agriculture "accidentally" listed Wakanda as a free-trade partner, alongside 10 actual trade partners, on a tariff-tracking tool. A spokesperson for the Department addressed the oversight in a statement, "Over the past few weeks, the Foreign Agricultural Service staff who maintain the Tariff Tracker have been using test files to ensure that the system is running properly. The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down."

Yet the tool was a fountain of specific details when it came to trading with Wakanda. "There were hundreds of data inputs for Wakanda… Different commodity groups offered on drop-down menus range from fresh vegetables and unroasted coffee beans to essential oils and livestock," according to NBC News. "Yellow potatoes had to maintain a '0.5 cent/kg' base rate when shipped in from the fictional East African nation, while frozen Chinese water chestnuts were tariff free if the U.S. decided to import them from Wakanda. Cows were also tariff free."

It's far from the first time reality has blurred with fiction when it comes to geopolitics and basic geography. Who hasn't Googled "Is Agrabah" real?" at least once? Aladdin's beloved fictional city, sometimes based on the beautiful landscapes of Marrakech, was named by Disney director John Musker when he created an anagram of "Baghdad" (where the 1992 animated film was originally set).

And then there's the fact that democracy as a concept has always been oversimplified and mistranslated from theory to praxis. As sociologist Malka Older points out, "[I]t's hard to claim that the United States, at any point in its history, has been a democracy in the rigorous sense of the word. This is partly by design. The foundations of the United States were defined by a struggle over how much democracy should be mitigated. It was terrifyingly radical to suggest that the people — even a very restricted group of people — might have a say in government, and the founders cautiously padded the rails to limit the power of the masses." Even as we've tried to help our idea of democracy grow up from this nascent fear of authoritarianism (with policies that were truly radical to the founding fathers, such as giving non-white people the right to vote and speak and eat and breathe whenever they want), America's never been a true democracy.

Today, it's arguably not a democracy at all. In 2016, The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index downgraded the U.S. from a "full democracy" to a "flawed democracy" due to "a further erosion of trust in government and elected officials there." In 2014, a Princeton study concluded that the U.S. is an "oligarchy" rather than a democracy, a fundamentally unequal political system run by the economic elite.

So between increasing voting restrictions and gerrymandering, political power aligning with soulless corporations rather than public opinion, and spreading pronouncements that democracy is dead, who says we can't have a vibranium White House? Marvel's fictional indestructible element is just as real as American democratic freedom.

CULTURE

Pathetic White Men Are Big Mad That Greta Thunberg Is Time's Person of the Year

Let's meet some of the lowest-performing white men in the world.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg arrives to deliver a speech at the Assemblee Nationale, French parliament, in Paris, France, 23 July 2019. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who sparked the #FridaysForFuture school strike movement, attended a conference with young climate activists at the National Assembly.Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in Paris, France - 23 Jul 2019

Photo by IAN LANGSDON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

I have apologized for this article. Please see my full statement here.

Every December since 1927, TIME's Person of the Year award has recognized the most influential person (or group of people) on the global stage.

Its ranks include almost every sitting US president since the award's inception, alongside world leaders, business moguls, and activists. The magazine does not necessarily endorse every winner––sometimes their pick for most influential person (i.e. Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Joseph Stalin in 1939) reflects the destructive ends of global influence. But regardless, for most recipients, especially those in the activism space, the award is viewed as an honor––and in 2019, it most certainly is.

Time's 2019 Person of the Year is Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate change activist who has traveled the world speaking to politicians, leading protests, and urging everyone to stop turning a blind eye to the myriad ways that humans are destroying the planet.

But even though 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming and climate change are both real and caused by humans, right-wing lunatics (read: very angry white men) hate Greta Thunberg, because...?

Much of their adult hatred directed towards a child dedicating her life to trying to making the world sustainable for future generations stems from the fact that they are, in reality, literal babies trapped in hairy, pale, man-bodies. But their main reason is the fact that their God-King (they're too stupid to understand how elected public officials are supposed to work), Donald Trump, hates her, too.

So because Donald Trump doesn't believe in climate change (putting his stupid ass in disagreement with his own government's science divisions), his even stupider supporters don't either. Now they're real mad on Twitter over Greta Thunberg being TIME's Person of the Year, so they're sh*tting their diapers for all to see. It's great. Let's meet some of the lowest-performing white men in the world up close and personal.

Oh, who's this angry white boy trying to compare Greta Thunberg to Hitler? Why, it's "Count Dankula," the Scottish YouTuber best known for teaching his dog to perform a Nazi salute gesture and respond positively when asked, "Do you wanna gas the Jews?" Apparently it was couched in typical alt-right "just a joke" bullsh*t, but Dankula, whose real name is Mark Meechan, later joined the right-wing populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) alongside frequent milkshake enthusiast Carl Benjamin, so...yeah, really funny! All that being said, when Meechan equates Thunberg to Hitler, he might be trying to give her a compliment.

Here we have Exhibit B: An angry boomer Trump stan/far-right stooge named Bill Mitchell who earned his blue checkmark by hosting a less successful online version of Alex Jones' show. While his opinions might only be relevant to people with actual brain damage, he does have a particular knack for defrauding his followers out of money. Which is to say that yes, at the very least he follows the right-wing ideals of preying on stupid people and attacking children.

Lastly, we arrive at the poster boy of white male mediocrity: Donald Trump Jr.––a man so talentless that he needed his daddy's friends to buy up his book, a man so pathetic he got absolutely slaughtered on The View, and a man so self-unaware that he'll probably go his entire life without ever realizing that if his dad wasn't rich, he'd be just another schlub.

There's a reason pathetic white men spend so much of their time crying about the accomplishments of better, more useful people on Twitter. Because at the end of the day, they're absolutely worthless, and deep down they know it.

CULTURE

The Infowars Heckler's Impeachment Rant Shouldn’t Surprise Us

Owen Shroyer just live-streamed a racist rant at an impeachment hearing, because what's more American than that?

Infowars host Owen Shroyer attends the 'Stop The Steal Caravan' rally in front of the Virginia State Capitol on November 12, 2020 in Richmond, VA

Photo by Amy Harris/Shutterstock

A heckler from the far-right website Infowars was just forcibly removed from an impeachment hearing after delivering an incendiary and racist rant that took aim at former President Barack Obama.

"Americans are sick of your impeachment scam! Trump is innocent!" Owen Shroyer shouted early Monday morning. "Folks, Obama was emailing Hillary Clinton on her illegal server under a secret name, that came out in emails. And he claimed he didn't know she had it. Barack Obama is a treasonous ... he belongs in jail. He belongs in Guantanamo Bay. I mean look, I'm not saying this should happen but Barack Obama, you know, find the tallest tree and a rope."

Shroyer's comments were delivered in defense of President Trump, who has insofar obstructed the current probe into his attempt to persuade Ukraine to help him win the 2020 election by withholding documents and discouraging witness testimony. Shroyer delivered his rant at the start of the latest impeachment inquiry hearing, accusing Congressman Jerry Nadler and other Democrats of treason. Less than 40 seconds after he started speaking, he was forcibly removed by police.

LIVE: House Judiciary Committee Impeachment Inquiry Evidence Hearingwww.youtube.com

Shroyer is a known conspiracy theorist and instigator who has been banned from Facebook and YouTube, which is really saying something. Along with Infowars, he infamously helped spread the debunked Pizzagate theory, which alleged that the Clintons were involved in a child sex-trafficking ring.

Shroyer's comments at the hearing were, of course, deeply racist, as they concern the first African American president of the United States, but given his website's track record and white supremacist leanings, this shouldn't surprise us. Websites that perpetuate this kind of misinformation present major threats to any form of democracy and justice. Videos with titles such as "Why Impeachment Crisis Is a Textbook Lynching" add insult to injury, co-opting legacies of racist oppression and transmuting the American people's distrust of authority into fake news.

Still, we shouldn't think of Shroyer as a lone wolf or solo extremist gone rogue; rather, he's an unusually visible symptom of a much larger and very complex matrix of problems. Some of the worst perpetuators of racist systems hold positions of power across party lines, and mainstream media sources and politicians can be purchased and influenced by major moneyed influences as well. In all these cases, false information can easily become weaponized as protest and alternative versions of truth when refracted through the right's kaleidoscope of circumstances, rage, and high-profile distraction.

CULTURE

Ariana, Bernie, Trump, A$AP Rocky, and the Kardashians: How Politics Became Pop Culture

Pop culture can be useful when connected to politics if it inspires tangible action—but the two can be like fire and gasoline when combined in the wrong way.

Senator Bernie Sanders on Ariana Grande's Endorsement and Growing Up Brooklyn

In a world where the Kardashians and A$AP Rocky have been name-dropped during literal impeachment hearings, it's hard not to wonder if we're living in a simulation.

Of course everything about Donald Trump's regime has had a simulacra-like quality about it, as full of glitches as any beta website. The former reality TV star has often been called the "social media president," after all, and his prolific Twitter usage grows more surreal by the hour.

We've entered an era where pop culture, social media, and politics blur into each other, tangling in every aspect of our lives. In fact, as the Kardashian, Jay Leno, and A$AP Rocky name-drops reveal, the ties between figures in pop culture and politicians have never been stronger and more influential, able to influence actual policy and political decisions.

Bernie Sanders and Ariana Grande Unite

At the same time Trump is discussing the Kardashians in one of the most high-profile hearings of all time, one of Trump's most formidable opponents is making his own ties to certain pop culture deities. Yesterday, Bernie Sanders was photographed beaming with Ariana Grande, and Grande took to Instagram to voice her support. "MY GUY. thank you Senator Sanders for coming to my show, making my whole night and for all that you stand for !" She wrote on Twitter. "@headcountorg and i are doing our best to make you proud. we've already registered 20k+ young voters at my shows alone. also i will never smile this hard again promise."

Sanders responded, "I want to thank @ArianaGrande for not only being a wonderful entertainer, but also for being such an outstanding advocate for social justice. We must all be prepared – like Ariana has shown – to fight for everyone who is struggling. It was great to meet her in Atlanta last night."

The senator has shown abnormal acumen in terms of using pop culture to his advantage, which can't entirely be said of his primary challengers. Previously, he's aligned himself with Cardi B, Susan Sarandon, and the Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. While Hillary Clinton garnered the support of thousands of A-list celebrities to no avail and put on a show of performative allyship that wound up looking like loyalty to Hollywood elites, Sanders' choice of allies feels more purposeful and genuine.

Bernie x Cardi Bwww.youtube.com

Then again, in the eeriest way, the same might be said of Donald Trump. His clear allegiance to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West—both figures who provoke immense ire and loathing among the masses and who, like the worst of car crashes, are incredibly difficult to look away from—aligns well with Trump's general distaste for authority and reason.

We have good reason to question celebrity alliances, as they do seem like excellent marketing for both sides. Celebrities can benefit from appearing more politically engaged through alliances to politicians, and, of course, the latter can reap the adoration of massive fanbases through a few deep connections. In some ways, celebrities and politicians seem united by the sheer amount of money and power they both amass and use to run their platforms.

But there's a long tradition of art blending with political ideology and vice versa. After all, what are politicians and performers, if not master storytellers, capable of rallying hundreds of thousands of people? When has anything been separate from politics?

Political Art vs. Pop Culture Politics

Art has always been political, used as a way of disseminating ideas and ideologies. Pop culture, in particular, is a broad mode of communication between the masses and collective values and ideas. "'Pop-culture' does not belong to just the elites and it is not officially or ideologically acknowledged as the dominant culture any level," writes Ayush Banerjee, "yet its discourse has enormous significance in the formation of public attitudes and values, as well as a profound impact on both domestic and international affairs."

Politics has also always been a theatrical game, and pop culture icons have long endorsed candidates. John F. Kennedy had Frank Sinatra sing "High Hopes" during the 1960s. Nixon famously met Elvis; and then there was Ronald Reagan, who, like Trump, made his way from Hollywood to the Oval Office.

President And KingTIME.com

But in a time when silence is widely equated to taking the position of the antagonist, there's never been a time when it's been so imperative for artists to develop political alliances, and vice versa. Similarly, politicians must rely on social media and its language to channel their campaigns, as being out-of-touch with the online world can tank you as quickly as a meme can go viral.

Are celebrity relationships influential and beneficial? "If a celebrity endorsement just benefits a politician looking to boost their profile and prove their cool, then it's a lame effort to manipulate fans with short attention spans," writes John Avlon on CNN. "But if Poliwood draws sustained attention to a real public policy problem, it can serve as a gateway to civic engagement and spur political action."

Overall, the general consensus seems to be that pop culture can be useful when connected to politics if it's linked to tangible action—but the two can be like fire and gasoline when combined in the wrong way. "Politicians are not celebrities; they do not deserve fawning worship," writes Mark E. Anderson. "They are public servants, who can and should be scrutinized, and must be held accountable for their actions."

Arguably, with the rise of #MeToo and cancel culture, celebrities are being held to higher standards than ever before (which isn't saying too much, but still). Perhaps the intermixing of politics and pop culture doesn't mean that the simulation is breaking. Maybe the walls between the worlds are just falling down.

In some cases, this intermixing of pop culture and politics leads to the kind of apocalyptic cognitive dissonance that's plagued the entire Trump impeachment hearing circus. On the other hand, seeing Ariana Grande and Bernie Sanders beam together—both so full of hope for a better world—feels like the beginning of something, and God knows we all need something to get us through the next 18 months.

MUSIC

A$AP Rocky Was Namedropped During Trump's Impeachment Inquiry, and That's Beautiful

"I think we primarily discussed A$AP Rocky," said an old white guy.

Why A$AP Rocky was mentioned in the impeachment inquiry

A$AP Rocky, hip-hop's current patron saint of Russian headwear, has had quite a tumultuous past few months.

Not that you needed us to tell you this, but President Trump's been having a rocky time (pun intended) recently, too: He's currently facing potential impeachment because he asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to do the U.S. "a favor" by investigating Trump's political rival, 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden. The House of Representatives have been holding public hearings of testimonies from various White House staff. Rocky's name just keeps coming up in the conversation, which is utterly amusing.

Gordon D. Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union, testified to Congress today (November 20) and mentioned a short phone call he had with Trump following his conversation with Zelensky. "I have no reason to doubt that this conversation [between Trump and Zelensky] included the subject of investigations," Sondland said, before detailing his own evidently riveting chat with Trump: "I think we primarily discussed A$AP Rocky."

In July, Rocky was charged with assault after getting in a fight in Stockholm with two men who appeared to be following and harassing him and his entourage. Trump, ever the prompt social media poster, didn't shy away from intervening and sharing his thoughts: "Just spoke to @KanyeWest about his friend A$AP Rocky's incarceration," read an actual tweet from the president. "I will be calling the very talented Prime Minister of Sweden to see what we can do about helping A$AP Rocky. So many people would like to see this quickly resolved!" No matter how many times #FreeRocky was tweeted, unfortunately, Trump couldn't collude with Sweden enough to keep Rocky from being found guilty.

It will always be equal parts hilarious and awkward when old white dudes in politics rub elbows with notable rappers, but a rapper being mentioned so casually in what could be only the third impeachment in American history is the kind of strange coalescence that could only happen in 2019.

CULTURE

The 7 Craziest Things That Have Happened Since Trump Was Elected

It's Been Three Years Since Election Night, And It's Time Look Back on the Chaos

ABC

Three years ago today, The New York Times was still proudly proclaiming the near-certainty that Hillary Clinton would be our president, and we all pretty much assumed they were right.

But if you were Biff Tannen in Back to the Future 2 (which President Trump absolutely is), travelling back in time with your future-knowledge, you could have made some good money betting on the election upset.

BTTF2: Old Biff Gives The Grays Sports Almanac to His 1955 Alter Egowww.youtube.com

In the UK, where it's legal to bet on these things, gamblers made millions by betting on Trump's victory. Still though, Trump's win is hardly the most surprising thing that's happened in the last three years. If you really wanted to get out there with your gambling, you could make some serious cash predicting stuff like…

Kanye Is Going to Come Out as a Trump Supporter

Dragon energy! Less than two weeks after the election, Kanye began the horrifying saga that is still underway by announcing that, if he voted, he would have voted for Trump. This is obviously a strange turn for the man who once visibly broke Mike Myers by saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Considering the fact that 80% of black voters consider Trump racist, and only 8% voted for him in 2016, and that Trump and his father were actually sued back in the 70s by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to black people, you might expect Kanye to have similar concerns about our current Commander-in-chief. You would be wrong, because Kanye knows that Trump has "dragon energy," which is why he wears MAGA hats and says that being enslaved was a choice.

Trump's Press Secretary Is Going to Be on "​​Dancing With the Stars​​"

Sean Spicer was bad at his job. He was easily flustered, combative, couldn't deliver a convincing lie, and was constantly distracted by having a colon literally packed to the brim with swallowed chewing gum. But once he'd resigned, it was time to start rehabilitating his image. The process began just a few months after he left the White House in September of 2017, when he made a theatrical appearance on stage at the 69th Emmy Awards—to the delight of Kevin Spacey—and joked about how he used to lie to America for a living. Since then, he's been a correspondent on Extra and finally achieved the pinnacle of his career in August of this year, when he was announced as a member of the cast of Dancing With the Stars season 28. Good luck, Sean!

He's Going to Give Omarosa a Job at the White House

Remember Omarosa Manigault? Back in 2016 the name might have rung a bell. She was the devious villain who lost the first season of The Apprentice and went on to have a successful career as "that awful woman from The Apprentice." Who better to work in the White House? After all, she recognized the importance of the office of the presidency as "the ultimate revenge", so… Actually, her addition to Trump's transition team in December of 2016 was pretty predictable. The only thing more predictable was the fact that she would eventually stab Trump in the back. The fact that she had to be physically dragged out of the White House is a nice bonus though.

An Adult Film Star Is Going to Describe His Mushroom-Penis

Everyone knows that Donald Trump has the best, classiest taste, so if he's going to cheat on his new wife with an adult entertainment star, you'd better believe that star is going to be a three-time "Favorite Breasts" award-winner, and the star of classic films like Trailer Trash Nurses 6 and Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre. What might be a little less predictable is that said entertainer will write a book in which she compares Trump's weird penis to a mushroom.

He's Going to Compare "Button" Sizes with Kim Jung-Un

Speaking of Trump's weird penis, you know what a dick-measuring contest could be a fun metaphor for? A series of reciprocated threats between two men comparing terrifying nuclear arsenals. What fun. You could definitely make some money predicting something so stupid, but what's really impressive is predicting that these two star-crossed madmen will then fall in love.

He's Going to Create a Sci-Fi Military Branch Called Space Force

Space Force? Okay, at this point your predictions are just lining up with what a ten-year-old would do with the presidency…which is actually a pretty good model for anticipating his behavior. Unfortunately, Space Force is not going to involve kickass, Starship Trooper space marines, but the ridiculous name alone is pretty great. What could be more childish than that? Other than…

He's Going to Look Directly at a Solar Eclipse

Do you remember being warned about solar eclipses as a child? It's like the number two thing about eclipses. Number one, the moon blocks the sun. Number two, don't look at it! Surely, no adult would be so stupid, right? In his ongoing effort to be a caricature of ignorant defiance, Trump ignored this warning and looked directly at the sun during the 2017 solar eclipse.

Now just remember this list when you hop in your time machine, and you should be all set. If you want, you could also cash in on some of the more predictable stuff, like appointing an "alleged" sex criminal to the supreme court and putting kids in concentration camps, but obviously the real money is in Space Force.