Dear Reader (Including the dude in Brazil who hasn’t changed jobs since 1922),

As at least one working woman with a riding crop probably said to Roger Stone, I’ve got to put a clock on this one. 

So, I’m going to do this “diarist” style (where a bunch of mostly disconnected thoughts and observations are connected by the chewing gum, baling wire, and duct tape of stylistic legerdemain and poetic license). I call it diarist style because I think the old New Republic’s diarist columns, at their best, managed to pull this off.

I’m not sure that Elon Musk is going to pull off this Twitter thing. I wish him luck and, contrary to an amazing number of people, I don’t think this is the biggest deal in the world. In fact, I think the most significant thing about Musk’s (very likely) acquisition of Twitter is not the acquisition of Twitter itself but how big a deal people are making of it. Abe Greenwald over at Commentary said it best a couple weeks ago, “People believe Twitter is the real world. They therefore believe that Elon Musk is buying the world.”