Political Theatre category archive

Elie Mystal has a theory as to why minorities are not feeling the Bern. Those excerpts convey her main point.

The explanations for why this is happening tend to blame the minority voter. Bernie surrogates say: “minority voters are voting against their own interests,” . . . .

Can I just throw out there the possibility that Sanders is under-performing with minorities because Sanders is doing something wrong?

(snip)

It is insulting to minorities to suggest that most of the things we hoped could be accomplished under Barack Obama can be done now… if only we put an old white guy in charge. Immigration reform! Justice for Trayvon! An economic recovery that works for all! Everything is possible again, as long as it’s a white guy leading the charge!

Do please read the entire piece. She says much more.

I think she has a point.

I’ve mentioned before in these electrons that the lefties I find most irritating are the purists, the ones who, if they don’t get the whole loaf, every crumb including the one still left in the loaf pan, get all up in a huff and take their ball* elsewhere–the sort of folks who voted for Nader because there wasn’t a bit of difference between Bush and Gore.

Though Sanders is a good and decent person and he and Clinton are conducting as principled a campaign against each other as we have seen in some time–a minuet compared to the Republican dog fight in a latrine–too many Sanders supporters behave like officious sneering jerks. They’ve even earned their own nickname.

Officious sneering jerks may not win friends, but they sure as hell influence people.

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*Yeah, I know it’s a mixed metaphor.

It’s my blog and I can mix what I want to.
You would mix too if it happened to you.

For all practical purposes, no significant movement.

While jobless claims unexpectedly climbed by 6,000 to 278,000 in the week ended Feb. 27, the four-week average dropped to the lowest level since the end of November, Labor Department figures showed on Thursday.

(snip)

The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week swings, decreased to 270,250 from 272,000.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits rose by 3,000 to 2.26 million in the week ended Feb. 20. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.7 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.

Aside:

Really, Bloomberg? “Unexpectedly”? When your “experts” unexpect almost everything that the unemployment rate does?

Dick Polman observes that Republicans are putting away their dog whistles.

(Quoting Paul Ryan) “If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices. We appeal to their highest ideals. This is the party of Lincoln.”

I’m glad I wasn’t sipping coffee when I heard Ryan say that, because the liquid would’ve exited through my nose. I thought of Keith Richard, who wrote in his rock n’ roll memoir that life’s absurdities are best handled with “legs-in-the-air laughter.”

“This party does not prey on people’s prejudices …”

Is Ryan kidding or what? Because it’s empirical fact that his party has been preying on prejudice for the past 50 years. Donald Trump is different only in degree. He has merely ditched the dog whistle and stripped away the code words.

Meanwhile, Werner Herzog’s Bear is not optimistic; he sees a real danger of a fascist America. Here’s a bit from his latest piece on Trumpery and Republicanism.

Fascists have been able to take power historically once old-line conservative elites are willing to make a deal with them, since fascists are fringe enough that they usually can’t quite make it to the top on their own. The old conservatives elites make these deals once they realize that the masses are sick of them, and thus think they can keep power by allying with, or even controlling, a populist demagogue. We seem to be on the cusp of entering that phase.

(Continued below the fold.)
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At the Inky, Peter Binzen and Peter Lindsay look at the history of the Trump Taj Mahal and suggest that anyone who thinks that Donald Trump has business skills should do so too.

Trump has shills, not skills.

Aside:

I once spent a night at the Taj (long story don’t ask). Goddamned ugliest hotel room I ever saw in my thirty years on the road.

Bill Blum argues that, as a politician, Donald Trump is more like a remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger than he is heir to any professional politician, foreign or domestic. He points to similarities in upbringing, showmanship, ego, and tactics. A snippet:

Both men are also adept in the art of intimidation and delivering stinging insults. During his storied bodybuilding career, Schwarzenegger was renowned for practicing “psychological warfare” to best his competitors. Once installed in Sacramento, he tried to employ the technique against his Democratic opponents in the state Legislature, openly deriding them as “girlie men.” At one point in 2009, he sent the president pro tem of the state Senate a metal sculpture of bull testicles to encourage him to fall in line with proposed social-service spending cuts.

It’s worth a read. Whether or not you find it persuasive (and I think he has accurately described at least part of the elephant), it provides a novel prism for interpreting a chilling phenomenon.

John Oliver tries to understand Donald Trump’s appeal.

Via Raw Story.

Dick Polman imagines the Lincoln-Douglas debates in modern dress.

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*If anyone proposes a project to you or your organization and includes this repulsive bit of consultant-speak in the proposal, run. Very fast. The other way.

Chauncey Devega makes the case the Donald Trump is the classic WWE villain.

Via Indomitable.

Via Job’s Anger.

Werner Herzog’s Bear awakens from hibernation in 2019 and surveys a Trump presidency.