Political Theatre category archive

Thom spots a disturbing trend. This is a must-listen.

Werner Herzog’s Bear shares Thom’s disquiet, though he approaches events from a different angle.

Farron’s a bit off the mark about Y2K. Yes, the media overstated the danger and went all Chicken Little. Heck, one of our neighbors fell for the hype and went all prepper on us, installing a generator that would roar to life whenever there was a momentary blip in the electricity, tormenting the neighborhood for several years.

The potential problem, though, was real. I was working for a company that manufactured security software at the time, and our programmers were working overtime to update software so that it would work on January 1, 2000.

Via Juanita Jean.

Via Job’s Anger.

Trumpling down.

Shaun Mullen.

At the Inky, psychiatrist Lawrence Blum offers a quasi-Freudian analysis of the election results. Here’s a bit; follow the link to read the whole thing.

When faced with threat, anxiety, and uncertainty, people want the benefit of phallic magic. In our shared, vital, fantasy world not having or receiving it leaves us in a sorry state. For that reason, it seems clear that many voters were willing to forgive Donald Trump his remarkable (and abusive) phallic excesses in the hope of benefiting from his presumed phallic magic.

There is a broader lesson to be learned from this election. Issues may be important. Reality may be important. But reality seldom trumps fantasy.

I’m not sure I buy it, but it’s far more persuasive than I would wish. One aspect seems correct: Once they wake up, voters will find that they have been well and truly–oh, never mind.

Der Spiegel interviews the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick, regarding his concerns about a Donald Trump presidency. Read it.

Here’s snippet (emphasis added in the body of the text):

SPIEGEL: On the night of the election, you published a stunning warning that the election’s outcome was “surely the way fascism can begin.” It’s been three weeks now. Has fascism begun?

Remnick: No it has not and I want to be clear about what I wrote. The whole sentence, the complete thought is this: I don’t think there will be fascism in America, but we have to do everything we can to fight against it. As the Germans know better than we do, disaster can take a nation by surprise, slowly, and then all at once. My deep sense of alarm has to do with his seeming lack of fealty to constitutionalism. He seems to think it is within his rights to trample the First Amendment, to disdain the press, to punish protesters or flag-burners, to ban ethnic categories of immigrants, and so on. He has myriad conflicts of interest. He appoints people of low quality, to say the least. He lies with astonishing frequency and in stunning volume. His temperament and character is precisely what you would hate to see in your children, much less your president. We can wish all these things will magically change once he is in office, but will they?

Details here.