Political Theatre category archive

John Dickinson is fed up with political fund-raising emails. So too am I, even those from persons I tend to support. Furthermore, because I’ve chosen to contribute snall sums to a few candidates on my local ballot, I seem to get them from every candidate everywhere. A snippet:

Perhaps it’s effective, but there’s a larger point to be made about political fundraising emails: They are a bouillon cube of all that is awful about American politics — the grasping for money, the phony plays on your emotion, the baiting, and reduction of anything complex into its most incendiary form. What makes these emails bad is not the breadth of their insult, but what it says about the people who send them. Here’s the short version: They think you’re stupid.

Via Juanita Jean.

Matthew Pulver describes the symbiosis between Nixon’s odious southern strategy and the sense of victimhood and paranoia which characterizes (and fuels) contemporary right-wing ideology. A nugget:

Contemporary conservatism is a Southern politics. Ironically, the Southern persecution narrative, born of defeat, has spread nationwide to form the basis of Republican victories since Reagan and the conservative hegemony that moderated President Clinton, establishing through President George W. Bush nearly 40 years of rightward movement at the national level. It is the South’s principal political export, now a necessary ideological substrate in Republican rhetoric.

Read it.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that the Republican Party’s main mistake over the last generation has been its failure to reach out to African-American voters.

Er, yeah. (More at the link.)

It would be difficult to “reach out” to African-American voters when kowtowing to bigotry has been the Republicans’ principle strategy for over 50 years.

The Daily Show reflects on the influence of Ms. PacMan on Republican marketing strategy. In related news, Dick Polman explains the Reince Cycle.

Video below the fold in case it autoplays.

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Another delightful parody ad from the Sacramento Bee’s Jack Ohman.

“The Three P’s” comes before “the three R’s.”

Accordlingly, teachers in Philly have lost their contractual health benefits, because, in Republican World, contracts and promises have no meaning.

Will Bunch explains how Republicanism trumps contracts and commitments. A nugget (follow the link for more on the three P’s):

Lost in the spin is the fact that health benefits for retired teachers — dental, vision, prescription drugs — were also disappeared by the SRC this morning. That’s some lesson that American society teaches today’s schoolchildren: Work hard all your life and someday we’ll break the promises we made you, because we can.

The Republican Party has become a vile and loathsome thing.

Driftglass.

Via Balloon Juice.

I seldom agree with Michael Smerconish. I once described him to Atrios as “an Every Man, Fred Flintstone with a typewriter.” Nevertheless, I do think that, unlike most persons who call themselves “conservative,” he tries to live in the real world.

In this case, he got one right.

Phony symbols are worse than no symbols at all.

Stephen Colbert reviews the Republican lineup.

Below the fold in case it autoplays.

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Via C&L.

Political twits.

Yastreblyansky explains the David Brooks Pablum Pump.

From the accompanying post notes that the lawyer house Republicans hired to argue their case has quit “out of embarrassment.”

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Jon Stewart lampoons Congressional Republicans’ ignorance of science.

Below the fold in case it autoplays.

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