Chad Prather

MIDTERMS & JUKE BOX HEROES🧵 1/3 There’s a wonderfully instructive scene in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, a movie which chronicles the early days of the space program: The men chosen to be America’s first astronauts are being wined and dined at a huge event in Houston at the newly opened Astrodome. Vice President LBJ sings their praises; beautiful women flirt with them; corporate America gives them Corvettes, luxury watches, and lucrative endorsements; and they are hailed as heroes. They bask in the glory knowing they’ve done nothing to deserve it. The scene switches to the California desert. Two men stand in a desolate landscape staring into a hangar. Test pilot Chuck Yeager and engineer Jack Ridley inspect the new Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a plane created to push the very limits of space and overtake the Russians. “Shall we see what she can do?” asks Yeager. The scene switches back to Houston and the smug astronauts. Although the best pilot, Yeager isn’t among them because the powers that be didn’t think he fit the All-American profile they wanted: handsome, college educated, and a smooth political operator. The astronauts shake hands, wave to the crowd, and the lights of the Astrodome dim as they seat themselves to watch burlesque dancer Sally Rand ascend the stage and begin her ostrich feather fan dance for them. The scene switches again. Yeager taxis down the runway, pulling the canopy of the F-104 down as he goes. There are no crowds to praise him, no glory to be won beyond the self-satisfaction that he is fulfilling the mission to which he has been assigned: To put the United States ahead of the Russians. Back to the Astronauts. The sexy Sally Rand dances to Debussy’s Clair de Lune, each man feeling she’s dancing just for him. Yeager rockets for the very edge of space with the soft elegance of Clair de Lune now serving as the background music for the drama in Houston and the one shaping up in the California desert. This subtlety hints at Yeager’s work in obscurity because it fits the astronauts’ celebratory event, not his bat out of Hell mission. Something goes wrong. Yeager can see space; almost touch it. But the engines stall. The plane begins a death spiral. He fights for control as he plummets. The astronauts, 1,500 miles away, are blissfully unaware. Ridley sees an explosion on the desert horizon and a plume of black smoke. As he races to the crash site, the driver says: “Is that a man?” To which Ridley replies: “Yeah, you’re damn right it is!” Yeager is burned horribly, but he nonetheless stands, his parachute and the burning husk of the F-104 behind him. What novelist Tom Wolfe was doing — and the filmmakers after him — was juxtaposing the real work of beating the Russians vs the glamour sold to the public: One, but for rare moments, goes unsung and unnoticed. It involves great personal courage, nightmarish risks, and the condescension of those who have no idea what Yeager does. The other is the lights of Tinseltown, empty speeches, backslapping politicians, endless photo ops, and the reassurance that they really are heroes saving the world. This brilliant contrast mirrors something I’ve been mulling for a long time: real cultural engagement and impact vs illusory cultural engagement and impact. I’m referring to social media. I think many conservatives mistake their likes and retweets for actually moving the needle. Moving as I do in the world of conservative “influencers” — the very term is ironic given what I’m saying — I try to push them to get off their phones and engage the world. In part I do it for their own mental health. I can see how it hypes them or keeps them in a constant state of anxiety. I can also see them getting dopamine rushes when a tweet gets a lot of attention or they receive praise. I see their inability to read a real book from beginning to end — not just listen to one — or have a sustained conversation that doesn’t involve reaching for their phones multiple times….