Political Theatre category archive

(Broken link fixed.)

In a fascinating column, David Leonhardt explores his reaction to another writer’s article about “centrist bias.” I commend it to your attention.

Here’s a bit (emphasis added):

Centrist bias, as I see it, confuses the idea of centrism (which is very much an ideology) with objectivity and fairness. It’s an understandable confusion, because American politics is dominated by the two major parties, one on the left and one on the right. And the overwhelming majority of journalists at so-called mainstream outlets — national magazines, newspapers, public radio, the non-Fox television networks — really are doing their best to treat both parties fairly.

In doing so, however, they often make an honest mistake: They equate balance with the midpoint between the two parties’ ideologies. . . .

But that’s not the only problem. There’s also the possibility that both political parties have been wrong about something and that the solution, rather than being roughly halfway between their answers, is different from what either has been proposing.

Methinks Leonhardt is onto something here.

The type of blind loyalty to centrism as he describes it does not admit the possibility that either (or both) polar position(s) may be just wrong, wrong, wrong and limits discourse to the narrow swath of landscape visible through the Overton Window.

Secretary Scofflaw.

I find the DOD’s action particularly repulsive, as my father’s unit was captured during the run-up to the Battle of the Bulge and spent the rest of the war in German POW camps.

Like most soldiers who actually see combat, my father seldom alluded to his experiences during the war, much less actually talked about them, but I recall one time: As we watched the opening of The Great Escape on television, he said, almost to himself, “That’s exactly what it looked like.”

Paul Krugman marvels at the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, suggesting that comparing it to Ebeneezer Scrooge libels Scrooge. A snippet:

. . . while Dickens portrays Scrooge as a miser, he’s notably lacking in malice. True, he’s heartless until he’s visited by various ghosts. But his heartlessness consists merely of unwillingness to help those in need. He’s never shown taking pleasure in others’ suffering, or spending money to make the lives of the poor worse.

These are things you can’t say about the modern American right. In fact, many conservative politicians only pretend to be Scrooges, when they’re actually much worse — not mere misers, but actively cruel.

Follow the link for examples.

Read the transcript.

The editor of The Progressive Populist is–er–annoyed that news media refer to Donald Trump as a “populist.” A snippet:

There are clear differences between populism and fascism. Populism is a movement that rose in the late 1800s as a reaction to the rapid industrialization of the US during the Gilded Age. It called for the government to protect working people, farmers and small businesses against monied interests, particularly railroads and what were then called “trusts,” which we now know as corporations. The little guys needed protection against the plutocrats and oligarchs who own and control the corporations (and the government).

(snip)

Trump has demonstrated the Grand Oligarch Party’s tilt toward fascism, but the GOP has been moving in that direction since American plutocrats, who had been looking for an opportunity to overturn the New Deal since the end of World War II, put up Ronald Reagan to run for president in 1980.

Follow the link for the rest.

Via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.

Via Job’s Anger.