Political Theatre category archive

Froma Haroop agrees with Buzz (see below):

History tells us that the poll numbers at this point reveal close to nothing about the future. The political pundits portray their analyses as thunderbolts carried down from Mount Olympus. But frankly, anyone could do their job.

Follow the link for her reasoning.

Susan Estrich finds many of Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposals to be somewhat alarming. Here’s a bit from her article; follow the link for the rest.

In a speech on Wednesday, he (Ramaswamy–ed.) announced his proposal to get rid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Department of Education; and the Food and Nutrition Service.

(snip)

But that’s the least of it. His plan is to do all of this unilaterally — without Congress. In other words, forget about the Constitution.

So much for separation of powers. So much for checks and balances. These agencies are created by Congress and subject to congressional oversight as well as executive supervision. Vivek Ramaswamy is not running for president; he literally wants to be king.

There might be a bright side.

He’s exposing today’s Republican Party by saying the quite part out loud.

In case you wondered what you can expect from a faction that no longer believes in securing the general welfare . . . .

You can’t tell the players without the program!

PoliticProf finds himself unswayed.

Dick Polman finds news reporting that somehow pretends that we are in a time of politics as usual. A snippet (emphasis added):

This past weekend, the Washington Post devoted major coverage to a Both Sides study conducted by some political scientists who’ve concluded that “today’s Republican and Democratic parties have evolved to a place where they emphasize difference, stoke fear and animosity, and incite conflict,” and that both parties “have gotten us to the highly undesirable and dangerous place in which we currently reside.” Why the Post would highlight such a finding is a mystery to me, given the incontrovertible fact that one party still believes in democracy and the other party is a personality cult bent on destroying democracy, led by a criminal defendant charged with 91 felonies.

At Psychology Today Blogs. Neel Burton takes an in-depth look at what classical philosophers–Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Seneca, etc.–had to say about tyranny. All of them had intimate knowledge of, and, in many cases, first-hand experience with tyrannical rulers.

In the course of the article, he suggests three conditions that must be met to hold tyranny at bay. In the context of dis coarse discourse, they give rise to feelings of–er–unease (emphasis added):

First, we need to ensure that a life spent in politics remains an attractive prospect, or at the very least a tolerable one, or else sensible people will be put off from going into politics, hollowing out the center and leaving us to be governed, or misgoverned, by disturbed and power-hungry fanatics.

Second, we need to think more carefully about education, and what it means to be educated. Unless we transform ourselves by carrying out the work of the mind, we could be millionaires, like Nero, or Putin, and still be miserable. Playing the tyrant, and taking everyone down with us, is not, as Seneca reminds us, what human beings are for.

Third, a country’s constitution or political settlement must contain sufficient safeguards to prevent or arrest the rise of a potential tyrant, or simply of a less than decent or competent leader. This is not the case in the U.S. and no longer the case in the U.K. . . .

I find the entire piece timely, indeed, alarmingly so, and commend it to your attention.

Can you spot the one that’s different?

Via PoliticalProf.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s David Mills argues that words matter and that using words loosely contributes to dis coarse discourse. Here’s a tiny bit of his article:

That’s one very big problem with our political speech. Too many people destroy words in a particularly effective way: by giving people a reason to reject speech they don’t want to hear.

One of those words used all the time is “extremist” for someone you disagree with. (Also related words like leftist, rightwing, woke, fascist.) If you successfully label someone an extremist, no one has to listen to him or take seriously anything he has to say. Everyone should act as if he didn’t exist.

I think that a couple of times he tiptoes just a wee bit into the quagmire of what Driftglass refers to as “both-siderism,” but his article is well-worth the few minutes it will take you to read it.

Via Job’s Anger.