At some point over the summer, it struck me that the greater part of the media wanted Trump to be elected, consciously or unconsciously. He would be more “interesting” than Hillary Clinton; he would “pop.” That suspicion was confirmed the other day, when…
[H]alf the country now worries, and the other half hopes, that Trump will make good on his threat. More likely, he’ll contract the job out to House Republicans salivating over the prospect of televised hearings, starting with Clinton raising her…
She defended rather than apologized for her vote in 2008, willing to pay a political price for standing by her principles and decisions. Partially as a result of that, she was universally seen as the leader who could answer the…
Here's what the electoral map would look like if only 3-year-olds voted today. pic.twitter.com/j8VPZQ8EGd
— Ryan George (@theryangeorge) November 8, 2016
Late on election night, after the matter and the immediate after-matter had passed, I turned, only a little drunkenly, to the latest episode of Aftermath on my DVR. The production is far from the level of premium TV product like, among newish shows, Quarry and Westworld, but the scenario and its development seem even more timely now than they did before 11/9…
From: Roar | Hillary Clinton – YouTube
[T]oday’s conservatism has far more to gain from the defeat of Donald Trump, and the chance to oppose Clintonian progressivism unencumbered by his authoritarianism, bigotry, misogyny and incompetence, than it does from answering the progressive drift toward Caesarism with a…
[S]he is a patriot. She will uphold the sovereignty and independence of the United States. She will defend allies. She will execute the laws with reasonable impartiality. She may bend some rules for her own and her supporters’ advantage. She…
The lesson of this campaign, on both sides, is that with the fragile exception of the Affordable Care Act, which has expanded the number of citizens with health insurance, our clotted political system has failed to meet the emergency of…
Trump’s crusade to alienate a record number of college-educated white women voters seems likely to succeed. A vicious war waged by congressional Republicans against the first woman president may do for women what unscrupulous attacks against the nation’s first black…
For the United States, national security necessarily means more than just prevailing over rivals and preventing violence against the country and its allies. It means survival as a thriving democratic political culture. Right now, at least in my view, no…
If the subject of democracy - the demos, the mob - has proven itself, as always expected by those not taken in by the hustle, unworthy of respect or responsibility, then what basis do Berman, Scialabba, or any of the rest of us have for deeming whatever "Fahrenheit 451- or Blade Runner-style" authoritarian oligarchy to be "catastrophic"? Catastrophe becomes just another name for life on Earth as ever, and authoritarian oligarchy, with space set aside for the New Monks, looks like the best anyone ever could have expected. How else are we supposed to keep billions of ignorant, violent, etc., people from destroying themselves?
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In light of the ritualized sacrifice of a single man, on the altar of what we cannot help but believe - no possible justification - the many may be revealed to us as allies, as "with us," perhaps first symbolically, but now also practically. Put simply, Foley's death marks if it does not itself restore American re-engagement on behalf of those we had all but abandoned in the region.
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TV pundits and op-ed writers of every major newspaper epitomize how the Democratic establishment has already reached a consensus: the 2020 nominee must be a centrist, a Joe Biden, Cory Booker or Kamala Harris–type, preferably. They say that Joe Biden should "run because [his] populist image fits the Democrats’ most successful political strategy of the past generation" (David Leonhardt, New York Times), and though Biden "would be far from an ideal president," he "looks most like the person who could beat Trump" (David Ignatius, Washington Post). Likewise, the same elite pundit class is working overtime to torpedo left-Democratic candidates like Sanders.
For someone who was not acquainted with Piketty's paper, the argument for a centrist Democrat might sound compelling. If the country has tilted to the right, should we elect a candidate closer to the middle than the fringe? If the electorate resembles a left-to-right line, and each voter has a bracketed range of acceptability in which they vote, this would make perfect sense. The only problem is that it doesn't work like that, as Piketty shows.
The reason is that nominating centrist Democrats who don't speak to class issues will result in a great swathe of voters simply not voting. Conversely, right-wing candidates who speak to class issues, but who do so by harnessing a false consciousness — i.e. blaming immigrants and minorities for capitalism's ills, rather than capitalists — will win those same voters who would have voted for a more class-conscious left candidate. Piketty calls this a "bifurcated" voting situation, meaning many voters will connect either with far-right xenophobic nationalists or left-egalitarian internationalists, but perhaps nothing in-between.
From: There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate | Salon.com
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Understanding Trump’s charisma offers important clues to understanding the problems that the Democrats need to address. Most important, the Democratic candidate must convey a sense that he or she will fulfil the promise of 2008: not piecemeal reform but a genuine, full-scale change in America’s way of thinking. It’s also crucial to recognise that, like Britain, America is at a turning point and must go in one direction or another. Finally, the candidate must speak to Americans’ sense of self-respect linked to social justice and inclusion. While Weber’s analysis of charisma arose from the German situation, it has special relevance to the United States of America, the first mass democracy, whose Constitution invented the institution of the presidency as a recognition of the indispensable role that unique individuals play in history.
From: Trump’s Charisma
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[E]ven Fox didn’t tout Bartiromo’s big scoops on Trump’s legislative agenda, because 10 months into the Trump presidency, nobody is so foolish as to believe that him saying, “We’re doing a big infrastructure bill,” means that the Trump administration is, in fact, doing a big infrastructure bill. The president just mouths off at turns ignorantly and dishonestly, and nobody pays much attention to it unless he says something unusually inflammatory.On some level, it’s a little bit funny. On another level, Puerto Rico is still languishing in the dark without power (and in many cases without safe drinking water) with no end in sight. Trump is less popular at this point in his administration than any previous president despite a generally benign economic climate, and shows no sign of changing course. Perhaps it will all work out for the best, and someday we’ll look back and chuckle about the time when we had a president who didn’t know anything about anything that was happening and could never be counted on to make coherent, factual statements on any subject. But traditionally, we haven’t elected presidents like that — for what have always seemed like pretty good reasons — and the risks of compounding disaster are still very much out there.
From: Trump’s latest big interview is both funny and terrifying - Vox
Comment →Oh, our conversations will get less frustrating as you learn the other 90% of what I'm on about. ;-)
In this case, although there was [...]
A Levinasian paradox: she was a Polish RC right-wing nationalist bigot, yet she issued an appeal, itself in entirely anti-semitic terms, for the rescue and [...]
I typed out a brief response at CT, somewhat in a hurry, since I had to attend a local environmentalist meeting, but it failed to [...]
