Political Theatre category archive
Return of Beyond the Palin 0
Will Bunch is fed up with the political-entertainment complex. A bit from his article:
There may come a day, a couple of years from now, when our national parks are ringed with oil wells and America is embroiled in a war in the Middle East that’s even more pointless than the wars that came before it, when all the laughter will die in sorrow and folks will wonder what the hell just happened.
Follow the link for more.
Also, be sure to read Jim Wright’s take. Here’s a bit from it:
Sarah Palin’s Donald Trump endorsement speech was in fact a brilliant summation of the modern GOP.
Dis Coarse Discourse, He’s a President, Not a Dictator Dept. 0
Have you noticed that folks who talk about what President Obama hasn’t done almost never mention what Republicans have been doing?
Chris-Crossed 0
Mike Kelly considers Chris Christie’s State of the State quite revealing–not about New Jersey, but about Christie. A snippet:
Some people return, carrying old burdens and wounded memories. Others return to revel in some measure of glory.
Still others return with a re-invented narrative – a view of their past that is not even remotely grounded in reality and, of course, a view of their future that seems equally misguided.
This is Chris Christie.
Follow the link for the bill of particulars.
“A Nation of Immigrants” 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., speaking of Nikki Haley’s delusional response to the State of the Union address, in which she said, “When you’ve got immigrants who are coming here legally, we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion.” Here’s a list from his article:
The Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended citizenship to “any alien, being a free white person … “?
Or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, whose title and intent are self-explanatory?
Or the Immigration Act of 1917, which banned immigrants from East Asia and the Pacific?
Or Ozawa v. U.S., the 1922 Supreme Court decision which declared that Japanese immigrants could not be naturalized?
Or U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the 1923 high court ruling which said people from India – like Haley’s parents – could not become naturalized citizens?
One more time: The history of American immigration laws is a narrative of canonizing racism, and the lies Americans tell themselves does not change that. The willingness of Americans to gainsay their history, though, says much about the human desire capacity for denying reality.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Amongst collective nouns, there’s a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, a pod of whales.
I propose a new collective: A bray of Trumps.
Norment’s Torments 0
The Republican leader of the Virginia Senate, Tommy Norment (R–A Place that Should Have Known Better), has banned the press for their traditional access to the Senate floor because of transparency.*
The Richmond Times-Dispatch responds.
_______________
*He’s agin’ it.
Brand Loyalty 0
Clarence Page suggests that the brand may be the Trummp card:
This occurred to me last summer after I encountered former “The Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault in the lobby of NBC’s Washington studios, shortly after Trump launched his campaign.
Newly hired to help lead Trump’s Ohio campaign, Manigault advised me that in assessing Trump’s appeal, “there’s a different analysis and metrics you have to use.”
“Reality television has now taken over television,” she said in an MSNBC discussion later. “People want to see real moments and see life unfold in front of them. Not scripted, but real moments.”
I fear it does no good to point out that there’s little that is real about “reality television.”
The Trump Card 0
At the Boston Review, Sam Rosen spots a pattern of Trumpery. A nugget (follow the link for much more) (emphasis added):
Twits on Twitter 0
Twitter.
Banana-fanna-fo-fwitter.
Twitter.
