Political Theatre category archive

Donald Drezner is cautiously optimistic. A summary of his argument would seem to be, “It could be worse.” A nugget (emphasis added):

It seems appropriate to consider just how well the republic has handled President Donald Trump. My tentative conclusion is that, so far, the system is working.

This is, to be clear, no thanks to Trump himself. One way the system could have worked was if the president learned the norms and rules of the presidency and adapted to them. That hasn’t happened — if anything, the opposite has occurred. Trump’s behavior has gotten worse. He clearly views himself as a monarch more than a president, taking credit for anything good and claiming he has powers that he does not. He has tried to cajole the FBI and Department of Justice to investigate his political opponents.

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Image via Job’s Anger.

Thom discusses the analogy of government as father and how it can help our understanding of conservative and liberal worldviews.

Jay Bookman thinks that Republicans have got it backwards. A snippet:

The Republicans keep telling themselves that current political problems are caused by their failure to keep promises to voters.

I think it’s even more basic than that: Their current political problems are caused by the fact that their promises suck . . . .

Follow the link for his reasoning.

Snowflakes.

Learn more here.

Shaun Mullen parses Julian Assange’s very strange embrace of Vladimir Putin.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Sander van der Linden offers five tips for spotting fake news (also known as “lies”). Here they are. Follow the link for a discussion of each one.:

1) If it sounds too ridiculous to be true, it probably is!

2) Be aware of politically framed content.

3) Facts go viral less often than falsehoods.

4) Verify the source and context.

5) Don’t get most of your news from social media websites.

Frankly, I think the last is the most important. “Social” media has become the primary vector for facilitating fakery.*

Legitimate media sometime makes mistakes, but, regardless of its political leaning, does try to keep editorials on the editorial pages and out of the news stories. That’s something that the Boston Globe and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, just to pick two from opposite ends of the newspaper spectrum, have in common.

Those who post to “social” media make no such effort, and the “social” media platforms have no interest in and make no effort to ensure that their users are either accurate or truthful, while those users are often willfully and purposefully inaccurate and untruthful.

Oh, and by the way, that a factual news story may seem unfavorable to a cause or candidate you or I favor doesn’t mean its slanted. It means you or I just don’t like it.

This is not to imply that you should be uncritical. Critical is good. But base criticism on facts, not feelings.

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*It has long puzzled me that persons will believe stuff they read on a computer screen when they wouldn’t believe the same stuff if they read it in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The bully’s pulpit.

Warning: Video may autoplay.

Der Spiegel looks back on a year of Trumpery. A nugget:

It’s been a year since the election that pushed the liberal West into crisis. The White House is now occupied by a man who is constantly triggering a new uproar, a man who is perennially angry, wayward, erratic, a besieged, unstable king, almost Shakespearian. Under Trump, the capital has turned into the set of a reality TV show. Old Lincoln, sitting on his throne, appears even more worried than usual.

Follow the link for the rest.