Political Theatre category archive
Power Plays 0
In The Guardian, Marilynne Robinson explores how the Republican Party managed to shoot itself in the foot with Trump. A nugget:
For years they have gerrymandered districts to make them “safe” for their representatives in Congress, thereby incubating a culture of politicians who are too odd and extreme – and white – to appeal to a national electorate. Their restrictions on voting can be expected to have the same effect.
In other words, they have seized one kind of power at the cost of another, and in the process exacerbated every demographic problem that threatens their future as a national party.
Hey! Rubio! 0
Daniel Ruth offers obsequies for Little Marco. A snippet:
It’s pretty simple, really. You can have all the best advisers and all the money in the world and none of it is worth a bucket of warm spit if you still have a lousy candidate.
“Sweet Seduction” 4
Der Spiegel attempts to figure out Donald Trump’s appeal and leans towards the idea that he fills a vacuum created by the refusal to the powers that be (when I was a young ‘un, it was called “The Establishment”) to deal with very real social and economic problems. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
There is no lack of proposals for combatting social inequality. What is missing is the will of the elite. But for as long as those who profit from the division of society are not prepared to relinquish at least a modicum of their power, privilege and affluence, Trump’s sweet seduction will not diminish.
Keith Zakheim seems to have reached a have reached a somewhat similar conclusion. Here’s a bit from his piece at NorthJersey.com:
They will no longer be fooled by the smooth-talking pol who harangues against Wall Street on the stump but uses its lucre to pay for campaign advertisements. . . .
Trump is a foul-mouthed bigot who lacks the intelligence, grace and humility to lead the greatest nation on earth. But he does have one redeeming quality — he is not a member of the political class — and a vote for him is not an irrational choice. In fact, if it is true that “insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result,” then Trump voters today are acting perfectly rationally in not pulling the lever for career politicians.
Click the links. Read the rest.
Again along the same lines, Chauncey Devega and Tim Wise recently discussed, among other things, the question that lefties and economists often ask:
- Why do poor and middle class white voters so often vote against their economic best interest?
Wise theorizes that, in a racist and sexist society, whiteness and, to a lesser extent, maleness are themselves almost tangible property; if the folks who overtly incorporate them into their self-identities see them threatened, they will fight to defend and retain them, as they might chase an armed burglar without a thought to their own safety (the interview with Wise starts about 20 minutes into the podcast).
In other words, if you don’t got much, you hang on to what you got, however ephemeral and fantastickal it may may be.
Or, as Lyndon Johnson once put it:
“Raging Hormonal Imbalances” 0
Samantha Bee suggests that men are too emotional to be in charge.
Warning: Almost as tasteless as a Republican debate.
Via Raw Story.
Abnormal Psych 0
There’s a whole new phobia come to town.
You All Shush Up Now 0
Southern Beale discusses the sexist payload of shushing a sister. A snippet:
Why? Because you’re telling me I’m not important. You’re discounting me. You’re saying my ideas don’t matter, and that I don’t have the right to express them.
Men interrupt each other all the time and I daresay they don’t have that same response. It’s just how they communicate. But men and women come at communication from very different places.
Strange Bedfellows 0
Welcome to the morning after the night before.
The Lincoln that Time Forgot 0
Thom and David S. Reynolds discuss the Lincoln of the Party Once of Lincoln.
During the Great Depression, one wag remarked (and it’s still true today), “The Republican Party has gone from being the party that freed the slaves to being the party that frayed the sleeves.”
The Retirement of Sisyphus 0
Philadelphia, like many jurisdictions (not just cities), has a “pension crisis.”*
The cause of the crisis is not pensions. The cause of the crisis is the decision of governments small and large to agree to pensions, then choose not to fund them. Now that funding time is due, the solution of choice seems to be to screw the workers who have been paying their share of the pension plans all along through payroll deductions.
The Philadelphia City Controller, looking at the example set by professional fraudsters, has proposed a novel idea: buy out pensions at a cut rate so that the pensioners, now that they have reached retirement age, can keep right on working. A snippet from the story:
The payments would represent only a portion – say, 50 percent – of what a retiree could expect to receive over a lifetime. Still, a fair number of retirees might be enticed by the prospect of a cash windfall they could invest on their own, Butkovitz said.
“This would give people the opportunity to start a business,” he said. “Or do something that could potentially change their life and provide financial security long-term. And, of course, they could convert it into an annuity.”
You can take it from me, starting a new business or gambling at the Wall Street track is not a retirement dream of most persons at retirement age.
Retiring is the damned retirement dream, one which is more and more a stolen dream.
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*In Philadelphia’s case, the problem is exacerbated by the systematic screwing given Philly by the Republicans in the state legislature. For example.
GOPocalypse Now 0
Shorter Leonard Pitts, Jr.: They brought it on themselves.