Thursday
Jun092016
The Commentariat -- June 10, 2016
Presidential Race
Paul Krugman: "... the G.O.P. was able to serve the interests of the 1 percent by posing as the defender of the 80 percent -- for that was the white share of the electorate when Ronald Reagan was elected. But demographic change ... has brought the non-Hispanic white share of the electorate down to 62 percent and falling. Republicans need to broaden their base; but the base wants candidates who will defend the old racial order. Hence Trumpism.... [Donald Trump] represents little more than the rage of white men over a changing nation. And he'll be facing a woman -- yes, gender is another important dimension in this story -- who owes her nomination to the very groups his base hates and fears." -- CW
Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg: "In a few weeks, at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, [President Obama] will symbolically hand over leadership of the party [to Hillary Clinton].... This transition is structured, anticipated, consistent, orderly and boring. Which is one way of saying that the Democratic Party is a coherent, well-functioning political institution that bears little resemblance to the cascading disasters that define the Republican Party and yielded Donald Trump as its likely presidential nominee." CW: Wait, wait. You're wrecking the "Democratic party in disarray" conventional storyline.
The Party Steps on Bernie's Last Hurrah. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Making a last stand as a Democratic presidential candidate, the senator from Vermont was set to meet with President Obama and other leading Democrats and stage a show of his continuing ability to draw throngs of supporters at an outdoor rally near RFK Stadium. Only all that was eclipsed -- much like his upstart presidential campaign itself -- by Hillary Clinton and the muscle of the Democratic establishment. Shortly after Sanders emerged from his meeting with Obama, word got out that the president was going to trumpet an endorsement of his former secretary of state in a video. And then it became clear that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a darling of the political left and Sanders's ideological soulmate, had also chosen Thursday to throw her support behind Clinton." CW: Stupid move, people. Whoever orchestrated this (Hillary Clinton/Debbie Wasserman Schultz) is one nasty piece of work. ...
... Annie Karni of Politico: "Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has no doubt that Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be qualified to serve as her vice president -- but she refused to say the same of Bernie Sanders." CW: Hmmm, I guess Clinton didn't listen to her good friend Ed Rendell, who said the other day that Clinton would never choose Warren because Warren is "not in any way, shape, or form ready to be commander-in-chief."
... Carrie Dann of NBC News: "Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren ..., a hero to liberal progressives ideologically aligned with Bernie Sanders' anti-Wall Street rhetoric, endorsed ... Hillary Clinton Thursday night on MSNBC's the Rachel Maddow Show." Includes video. -- CW ...
... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Thursday formally endorsed Hillary Clinton and called her the most qualified candidate to seek the White House, imploring Democrats to come together to elect her after a bruising party primary." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)
Everett Rosenfeld of CNBC: "President Barack Obama officially endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president on Thursday, saying he is 'fired up' for the presumptive Democratic candidate. In a prerecorded video released Thursday, Obama latched onto the Clinton campaign's slogan, letting his supporters know that 'I'm with her,' and pledging to campaign for the presumptive nominee. The president's endorsement comes eight years and two days after Clinton did the same for him." -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
I didn't hear a single word about him trying to change the fact that she's the nominee. I think he's accepted that. -- Harry Reid, on Bernie Sanders, after a meeting yesterday
Bernie is not worn down. He's not bitter. He's not angry. He wants to make sure that issues he's pushed for have vitality. -- Chuck Schumer, after meeting with Sanders yesterday
I remember when he first left. It was kind of everybody with a real smile and put their arm around him and said, "Good luck, Bernie." And then we watched as he put together an incredible campaign, not just in the fundraising but in the way that he lit up so many Democrats and even independents who came to his side. He became a force, a political force, and a positive one as far as I'm concerned. I think our party can learn from his candidacy and I think we're going to count on him to bring us across the finish line with a victory in November. -- Dick Durbin, yesterday
Compare these Senators' remarks with Hillary Clinton's performance yesterday. Clinton walked all over Sanders. The Senators made positive remarks. At the very least, Clinton is tone-deaf. But I think it's more that she's a mean girl. She enjoys kicking people when they're down, & she can't helping doing so, even when it's an impolitic thing to do. There's a difference between being forceful and being a bully. -- Constant Weader
The Bern Cools Down? Clare Foran in The Atlantic: "Bernie Sanders isn't ready to back down yet -- but the end of his campaign is in sight. Speaking outside of the White House on Thursday after meeting with President Obama, Sanders confirmed he would compete in Washington, D.C.'s Democratic primary next week. But he signaled a willingness to work with Hillary Clinton to ensure that Democrats win the White House. 'I look forward to meeting with her in the near future to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump and create a government, which represents all of us and not just the one percent,' Sanders said." -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Dave Weigel & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Vice President Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivered a one-two punch Thursday to Donald Trump in speeches that signaled the increasingly coordinated effort by Democrats to push the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his restive GOP allies on Capitol Hill." -- CW ...
... CW: One reason Clinton might want to choose Warren as her running mate: Warren pulls no punches in attacking Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, et al. She's damned good at it, too:
Joshua Green & Tim Higgins of Bloomberg: "According to Kantar Media, Clinton and Sanders aired 206,528 spots between them this year — and not one was deemed 'negative' by the analysts in Kantar's Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG). 'In an open presidential primary, this is probably unprecedented,' says Elizabeth Wilner, senior vice president for political advertising at Kantar.... Donald Trump ... faced roughly $62 million in attack ads during the primaries. Most of the spots were aired by fellow Republicans." CW: Which is unfaaair.
From the Facebook page of an old friend:
Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said "that she has not ruled out supporting Clinton. 'I worked very well with Hillary when she was my colleague in the Senate and when she was Secretary of State,' Collins said. 'But I do not anticipate voting for her this fall. I'm not going to say never, because this has been such an unpredictable situation, to say the least.'" -- CW
** Donald the Deadbeat. Steve Reilly of USA Today: "Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will 'protect your job.' But a USA Today Network analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades -- and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans ... who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them. At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings ... document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs.... Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others. Trump's companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage.... In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic's liens -- filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties...." -- CW
CW: The Washington Post editors demand Donald Trump release his tax returns, which he has refused to do, relying on "nothing but flimsy excuses." Expect a steady drumbeat of such demands. As the Post editors, suggest Trump has something to hide. So I'm wondering if Trump will eventually fill the need to answer his critics by releasing fake tax returns -- showing him to have a huuuge income, to have made huuuge tax payments & to have given huuuge amounts to charity -- just as he wrote a fake doctor's report. And if his reports are fake, who would out him? Not the IRS.
With friends like these. Nick Gass of Politico: "Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke defended Donald Trump on his radio show earlier this week from criticism of his comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, blaming 'the Jews' in the media for propagating a long-running negative agenda against the presumptive Republican nominee. The white supremacist radio host dropped the names of Fox News' Chris Wallace, along with Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer on CNN, who Duke said he had 'exposed ... as a Jewish agent.' Jeff Zucker, the current president of CNN Worldwide, is 'another Jewish extremist,' he remarked. 'And more recently, Fox News, the shabbat goy shiksa Megyn Kelly, 'cause they love to have some gentiles doing it.'" --safari ...
...Sasha Abramsky of The Nation: "For days now, prominent Republican Party figures have been trying to work out how to respond to Trump's racially toxic denunciations of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel.... Trump,Gingrich told CNN yesterday in response to the uproar, was a 'gifted amateur' who was learning the ropes as a candidate for the most powerful job on earth incredibly quickly...Let's call that out for the cretinous gibberish it so obviously is.... How much more of this 'amateur' verbal knife play will it take before Newt Gingrich and Trump's other GOP apologists realize that they are supporting not a well-meaning amateur but a very professional, and very dangerous, shit-smearer?" --safari
Jim Newell of Slate: "Plenty of people have vaguely surmised that Donald Trump's nomination marks the end of the Republican Party as we knew it. But what is even the mechanism for that? Is there some sort of vehicle through which the death of one of America's two major parties is processed? Of course there is: bankruptcy.... Profound financial mistakes are going to be made with the money Trump is able to siphon from wealthy GOP donors. And that's most likely how the GOP goes out of business." --safari...
...safari note: Trump has perfected the art of ripping off the little man, but it hadn't occurred to me that now he's positioned himself to sucker in the GOP big rollers to blow their own ill-gotten gains on his ego trips, too. World's greatest conman?
Tim Egan: "Trump lies about big things (there is no drought in California) and small things (his hair spray could not affect the ozone layer because it's sealed within Trump Tower). He lies about himself, and the fake self he invented to talk about himself. He's been shown to lie more than 70 times in a single event. Given the scale of Trump's mendacity and the stakes for the free world, it's time that we go into the fall debates with a new rule -- an instant fact-check on statements made by the candidates onstage.... It's up to the debate commission, as they set the rules for the fall, to ensure that truth has a place on the stage." ...
... CW: This is a good idea. When the candidates haggle about the terms of the debate, Clinton should insist upon it. I would, however, definitely recommend the use of a buzzer each time the factcheckers catch a candidate in a lie.
Greg Grandin of The Nation: "Is Donald Trump a fascist? It's an interesting question that has generated insightful commentary over the past few months, with the best answers situating Trumpian illiberalism within America's long history of racial oppression, slavery, Jim Crow apartheid, and the ongoing backlash to the loss of white privilege. But a key concept is missing from this discussion: empire." --safari note: I'm not entirely convinced, but it's a thought I haven't seen brought up yet...
...Jonathan Chait: "Donald Trump has attained his wild popularity among Republicans by tapping into their pervasive feeling of racial victimization. The right-wing view of Obama as a crafty manipulator of racial tension comes through in Ben Shapiro's column in National Review. While rejecting Donald Trump's argument that only white men are fit to judge his fraud trial, Shapiro insists that Trump is merely recapitulating Obama's sin of 'tribalism.'... That the first black president could proclaim over and over that his country can (and has, and will continue to) progress toward racial harmony, and yet be portrayed in the elite conservative media as a hectoring prophet of racial doom, tells you everything you need to know about why Trumpism has prevailed." --safari
Blast to the Trump Past. Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: "Believe Donald Trump, folks: There is an anti-asbestos conspiracy. In his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, Trump warned America not to buy the crusade against 'the greatest fire-proofing material ever used.' He claimed the movement to remove asbestos -- a known carcinogen -- was actually the handiwork of the mafia.... Polish construction workers who worked on the construction of Trump Tower sued Trump, with some telling the New York Times that 'they often worked in choking clouds of asbestos dust without protective equipment.' The contracting company used by Trump hired the Poles -- undocumented immigrants were working off the books -- at only $4- to $5-an-hour..." --safari
What about the kids? Rory Carroll of the Guardian: "Tracey Iglehart, a teacher at Rosa Parks elementary school in Berkeley, California, did not expect Donald Trump to show up on the playground.... That has not stopped some children from channeling and adopting ... [Trump]'s xenophobic rhetoric in playground spats and classroom exchanges. 'They said things like "you'll get deported", "you weren't born here" and "you were born in a Taco Bell",' said Iglehart, 49. 'They may not know exactly what it means, but they know it's powerful language.'" --safari
Other News & Views
Derek Thompson of The Atlantic: "A new report from the Congressional Budget Office on household income since 1979 reaches two stark and significant conclusions. Inequality is growing. But so are government efforts to combat it -- and they're working. First, the bad news. The distribution of income in the United States has been more unequal under Obama's presidency than any time since the 1930s, according to the Gini Index, a conventional measure of the inequality.... The upshot is that the federal government is doing more to correct inequality right now than at any time in the last 35 years. The five years when tax and transfer policies took the biggest bite out of inequality were the first five years of Obama's presidency." --safari ...
... safari note: Great news for just about everybody, except for old, xenophobic white males that want to "take their America back(wards)".
Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "In a plea deal with prosecutors, Rear Adm. Robert Gilbeau ... pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony charge of lying to federal investigators in the wide-ranging 'Fat Leonard' corruption scandal, marking an exceptionally rare instance of a flag officer being criminally prosecuted for actions while in uniform." -- CW
Sanity at Last. Tal Kopan of CNN: "A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that there is no Second Amendment protection for concealed weapons -- allowing states to prohibit or restrict the public from carrying concealed firearms. The en banc opinion by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could set up a new showdown on gun rights at the Supreme Court. At issue was California's law on concealed weapons, which requires citizens to prove they have 'good cause' to carry concealed firearms to get a license. Plaintiffs challenged guidelines in San Diego and Yolo counties that did not consider general self-defense to be enough to obtain a license." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... Akhilleus: Finally a court of law decides that Second Amendment rights are not absolute and unconditional. The loons will be out in force after this ruling. Foxbots are oiling their vocal cords for days and nights of incessant caterwauling. Don't overlook the fact that this ruling was delivered en banc. Had Scalia still been around that probably wouldn't have mattered much, since everyone needs a gun on their hip, but the current court makeup could make it less likely that this ruling would be overturned. NRA sociopaths must be swinging from the chandeliers. The ones made out of Colt .45s.
New York Times Editors: "The Republicans' blockade of Judge [Merrick] Garland is shameful, but it is only the most glaring example of what has been a historic slowdown in filling federal court vacancies across the country. This has been enormously damaging to the district courts, which deal with hundreds of thousands of cases annually, and where backlogs drag out lawsuits and delay justice. It also harms the appeals courts, whose rulings are the final word in nearly all litigation, since the Supreme Court hears only about 75 cases a year.... This disgraceful and destructive behavior extends well beyond the judiciary. The current Senate has approved the fewest civilian nominees by a president in 30 years, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service. One nominee [-- Cassandra Butts --] for an ambassadorship died recently after waiting more than two years for a confirmation vote that never came." -- CW
Sarah Burris of RawStory: "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires all persons flying a small unmanned aircraft register their craft before flying it. But now one student is challenging that requirement after the FAA came after him for two drones he created -- one that shoots a gun as it flies and one that has a flamethrower attached to it." --safari
Shell-Shocked. Robert Worth of the New York Times: Pilot studies suggest that PTSD may be more physiological than psychological. "Much of what has passed for emotional trauma may be reinterpreted, and many veterans may step forward to demand recognition of an injury that cannot be definitively diagnosed until after death." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Sarah Burris: "A small bomb detonated in a women's bathroom at a Target store in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, Wednesday afternoon. Officials are not yet sure if the bomb was related to the right-wing wrath the company has endured as a result of their bathroom policy, but investigators are looking into it." --safari
Alejandro Davila Fragoso of Think Progress: "The Bay Area has long been a bastion of environmental action, but this week locals outdid themselves when they approved an unprecedented, first-of-its kind tax to remove pollution from their bay and create habitats to fight sea level rise." --safari
Joanna Walters, et al., of the Guardian: "The judge in the Stanford sexual assault case allowed defendants accused of gang-raping a 17-year-old high school student to show the jury photographs of her wearing a revealing outfit when he presided over another controversial case involving college athletes. Judge Aaron Persky, who is under fire for his lenient sentencing of Brock Turner, a former Stanford swimmer convicted of sexual assault, made several controversial rulings in a 2011 civil trial stemming from the alleged gang rape by members of the baseball team at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, California." -- CW ...
... Tom Namako of BuzzFeed: "Vice President Joe Biden penned an open letter to the Stanford sexual assault survivor who read a powerful message to her assailant in court detailing the effects of his actions on her." The article includes the full text of the Vice President's letter. ...
... Nicole Auerbach of USA Today: "Former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner ... is not and will not be eligible to compete at any USA Swimming-sanctioned events (which includes Olympic Trials), USA Swimming confirmed Monday afternoon." -- CW
... Elizabeth Dwoskin & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "... in Palo Alto, the impact is visceral. Inboxes and social media are full of links to petitions: People demanding better support from the university for sexual assault victims, calling on Stanford officials to apologize and pay for the victim's therapy, and asking the judge in the case to step down. A protest is planned for Sunday at an annual commencement event. 'Everyone on campus is talking about it,' said Dulcie Davies, a graduating sorority member who plays field hockey. 'Everyone is sharing everything on Facebook.'" -- CW
Way Beyond
Patrick Wintour & Chris Stephen of the Guardian: "Libyan forces claim to have reached the centre of the coastal city of Sirte, Islamic State's key stronghold, meaning the jihadi group may have lost all territorial control in the country. The speed of the apparent rout of Isis after three weeks of heavy fighting is extraordinary given US intelligence was suggesting only two months ago that the group had 6,000 fighters in the city and was starting to pose a threat to neighbouring Tunisia." --safari
News Lede
New York Times: "Gordie Howe, one of the greatest and most durable players in the history of hockey, who powered his Detroit Red Wings teams to four Stanley Cup championships and was 52 years old when he officially retired from playing the sport, died on Friday, the Red Wings announced. Howe -- Mr. Hockey to the sports world -- was 88."
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Reader Comments (16)
Everybody needs good poetry, and here is a nice piece that will become more pertinent this year as good people earnestly discuss whether a woman can really do the job:
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/hope-a-d/advice-to-young-ladies-0146091
@safari: Exciting reading by Greg Grandin and you're right––lots of food for thought here. Some time ago a few of us here discussed William Pfaff's excellent book, "Manifest Destiny" in which he presents what he claims is the tragedy of America's foreign policy. We, he says, defend our expansions by claiming the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities. If you recall after 9/11 the books that came out re: hegemony–-one actually called "Empire"––fanned the flames of "us" against "them"––Bush's policy to "abolish evil from the world ( a task, by the way, usually thought reserved to God). Trump's messages have a similar ring plus here's a man who demanded a tower to be built in his name that was to be bigger, finer, better than any other, rising above all others. If that doesn't smack of "empire" building, I don't know what is.
The relationship between Presidents and their Vice aren't always roses and hugs. When Eisenhower was leaving office a reporter asked could Ike tell us what positive measures Nixon had implemented.
"If you give me a week I might come up with something–-I just don't remember" Ike replied.
Reagan could barely stand Poppy Bush––Barbara Bush complained, "Ronny and Nancy never invited us up for a dinner with them alone––not once!" Gore distanced himself from Clinton at the end because of the sex scandal (and wasn't it Tipper who wanted certain rap songs banned?) so that his running for President with emphasis on global warming wasn't going to get confused with all that other matter that was heating up the office of the presidency.
The funniest episode was when G.W. Bush was going to endorse the Republican candidate, John McCain. The two hated each other. The day of the endorsement we see Bush waiting outside for McCain to arrive. He waits and he waits––he does a little dance––the wind is blowing now so he plays around with that–-he does a little jig–-and finally McCain arrives. The endorsement in the Rose Garden is so tepid, even those roses start to wilt.
Yet now we have a President and Vice President who love and respect each other; we have now a President who has endorsed someone he clearly respects and has much affection for and isn't that just the bees knees!
Elizabeth Warren: Attack dog on steroids. "You, Donald Trump are a total disgrace!"
When Rachel asked: "If you were asked to be Hillary's running mate do you think you would be capable?"
"Yes, I do."
@safari & PD Pepe: Like safari, I'm skeptical about Grandin's theory. PD Pepe may have put her finger on it -- what Trump really wants to "build" is a personal empire. He wants to control not just a few dozen snazzy places but an entire country.
I also think there's another kind of "empire" that Trump is building -- one in which he "owns" not just a great country but the whole world. He expects to force other countries to pay us for things: Mexicans will have to pay for the wall between us & them; the Iraqis will have to turn over their oil fields to the U.S., the Japanese & South Koreans will have to pony up (more) for our protection, etc.
It seems fair to argue that Trump is pulling back the "empire" we have by doing less for others -- Europe: "We're backing out of NATO; you're on your own"; Japan: "Get your own damned nuclear weapons." But that "empire" is more metaphysical than geographical: we have "influence" all over the globe but little direct power.
Trump, with his limited vision, would stick to a more concrete "empire"; one with hard, geographical boundaries that nonetheless crushed other geographical areas by exerting the power Trump imagines he would have to force the leaders of these countries to pay tribute to the U.S. Trump claims he would do this with trade wars & by other economic means, but it's hardly silly to anticipate that when other countries responded negatively to Trump's demands & maneuvers, he would become enraged & resort to using military force.
Marie
Marie says, "But I think it's more that she's a mean girl. She enjoys kicking people when they're down, & she can't helping doing so, even when it's an impolitic thing to do."
I don't agree or disagree with you, Marie, because I don't know. Can you enlighten me with specific examples of Clinton "kicking people when they're down"?
Patrick,
A fine selection. I'm not familiar with A.D. Hope's work but he seems to have the storyteller's art well in hand.
Postumia's story, the Vestal Virgin whose tale he here recounts, tried in Ancient Rome for the crime of being too smart and dressing too well--an eye more toward "coquetry" than sanctity ("colique sancte potius quam scite") as the translation of Livy in the Loeb edition would have it--my translation of "scite" would have been "elegantly" but I think the Loeb gets more to the spirit of that sorry event--is expanded to include the tragic fates of other women deemed uppity and operating above their stations, Hypatia, a classical era philosopher and mathematician, and Joan of Arc. Hope wrings out the wrongs and wonders whether the downfall of states can be attributed less to political mistakes and more to the crushing of enquiring minds and spirits.
Postumia, even though she was, as Livy notes, completely innocent, was tried twice and reprimanded by the Pontifex Maximus for not being demure enough, her smarts and elegant dress being considered distracting enticements, and (more likely) challenges to the ruling patriarchy.
And that suffocating, misogynistic spirit still exists.
Drumpf still judges women by how they look and what they wear. Judge Aaron Persky, he of the slap on the wrist for rape infamy, has a history of discounting women and deciding that they must be in some way responsible for violent and vicious attacks on their person. Presiding over a gang rape trial in 2011, Judge Persky thought it entirely appropriate that the jury be shown private photos of the victim dressed in scanty attire, possibly to demonstrate her....coquetry? Judge Pontifex Maximus, indeed.
But it's not just the way women are dressed that can get them into trouble, being too smart for their own good can be a danger as well. Hypatia, that Alexandrian philosopher and mathematician, was murdered in a most horrific fashion by anti-intellectual Christians who saw her as a bad influence. A woman who thinks? Kill her! But they couldn't just let it rest with torturing and murdering her, they had to come up with a good reason for their savagery. So, in the 7th C, John of Nikiu, a Coptic bishop and historian, rewrote Hypatia's story describing her as a pagan witch who "...beguiled many people through Satanic wiles..." so, naturally she had to die. I mean, they had no choice, right? The bitch.
And here we are, 14 centuries later, with the same old shit being flung up on the wall every night on Fox and every time people like Ed Rendell and Donald Trump open their mouths. "Legitimate rape", six month sentences for sexual assault, women referred to as dogs and pigs. And people lining up to vote for assholes who embody the same hateful, fearful sensibility that killed Hypatia, burned Joan, and dragged Postumia into court twice for something she never did.
God, I hope Clinton wins by a landslide.
I just watched the link of my hero Elizabeth Warren take down "the donald". she may not have castrated him but you know he must be worried about that knife in her hand.
If only she were to be the first to break that ceiling.
Whither the Republican Party?
An interesting question, part of it answered by the specifics of its transformation over the last fifty years and another part by a look at the Know Nothing Party that arose from the ashes of the American Nativist Party of the 1830's and achieved its political zenith in the 1840's and 50's, before the Civil War and the emergence and decades- long domination of the then new Republican Party shoved it off the public stage into the pages of unread history books.
As Krugman notes, todays' RP is clearly a polygamous marriage of convenience that has become very publicly inconvenient. About the time I was born, my father moved from being a staunch Roosevelt supporter to casting his vote for Ike. He was a struggling small businessman and the ethos and policies of the RP of the 1950's seemed a better match for his life in a small, white American town. For him the RP was the party of business, as he knew it. A world of hard-working, independent entrepreneurs, a bit suspicious of the heavy hands government and the power of unions, but whose virtuous industry would surely be rewarded. Overall, it was a comfortable vision.
By the late 60's, when competition from the emerging big box stores was already hurting his business, the RP had reached out to him in other ways, some of them far less laudable. The RP was already riding the greed train: the RP, the party of business. And then there was the train's other car, a big one, maybe one or two added at each election cycle, the anti-communist caravan powered by fear.
By the late 60's, the RP began to add hate cars, subtly at first. We can all list them because they are still with us. Guns, God and gays were in the mix, of course, but Nixon's election marked the public addition of racial considerations, which in electoral terms meant a re-emergence of South vs. North and urban vs. rural divisions that had not been so evident in decades. When we no longer had a Depression or a World War to hold us together, the RP eagerly picked us apart, creating their own big tent of greed, fear and hate.
But it wasn't a very stable tent. Without the Supremes' interference (and the second time around, 9/11) it wouldn't have managed even one President since the century turned. The numbers just weren't there.
Since the Bush Crash people even some Republicans were beginning to notice they were not welcome on the greed cars. Those cars were reserved for the Kochs.
And who were the growing population of Hispanics and Blacks supposed to hate? The mirror told them they were the "other," useful only as the lever the RP had been successfully employed to pry whites away from reason and vote against their own self-interest. They were certainly not welcome on the train.
The pretense that the party still serves small, independent businessmen has been shattered by globalism and corporate giantism. So now the RP, with the exception of Trump's faux "black friend," is left with the aging rolling stock of racism.
By itself wealth can no longer win at the national level, which is why big money is moving to the states and local elections.
The future?
I'm guessing more money will flow to some version of the Libertarians, who don't like big government because it has a habit of interfering with the sacred bottom line. And while I don't know if they will rename it, but what will remain of my father's RP will become the new American Nativist Party, which will eventually suffer the same painful fate as its 19th century predecessor, rendered irrelevant by history.
Maybe we'll live long enough to see.
Marie,
Trump's "concrete empire" might one day include a gigantic statue of himself. Perhaps a few years after he has passed into whatever ring of hell (hopefully) awaits him, we might see some wag submit something like this as that effigy lies in well deserved ruins...
"...on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozytrumpias, king of kings:
Look on my mob-built casinos, ye Mighty, and despair!'"
You guys know the rest...
Can't you just picture that wrinkeled sneer of cold command? The little hands that mocked and the tiny heart that fed?
Sure you can! It's Ozytrumpias!
@PD,
Tipper Gore was a founder of PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) that advocated a rating system for rock albums based on their lyrical content. Here's the full Senate hearing from 1985 with eloquent testimony by Dee Snider, John Denver, and Frank Zappa.
Ken,
Excellent post. History too often ensconces us so high above the fray that the hustling, bustling mob below resembles insects, unapproachable and understandable only as vaguely familiar curiosities of the past. It helps to have a street level view of passing events, and your dad's relationship to his newly chosen party and its progression (not to be confused with progressivism) toward its 21st century concatenation provides helpful context.
But whither the Confederate Party? I would be loathe to prophesy. Events have a remarkably consistent habit of making monkeys of us all. Just think of all the terrible, interminable, blood soaked wars predicted to be concluded within months, if not weeks.
In 1964, after the Goldwater defeat, the prognosis for conservatism was similar to that of a stage 4 cancer patient. But, as Rick Pearlstein has pointed out (in one of his books, I forget which right now), in 1960, 22,000 contributed to President Kennedy's campaign, 44,000 to the Tricky One. But four years later, Goldwater had contributions from one million supporters. After 1968, five of the next six presidents were Republicans. That was a trend.
What's trending now for wingers?
My sense is that not much will change right away. If there is a realignment, it will be more a rebranding at first. The people providing the money and "intellectual" foundations (such as they are) are the same fuckers who will be around for this rebranding. Although there seems to be a roughly aligned group of voters, they are mostly connected by what they're against rather than what they're for. Teabaggers never were a grassroots group, they were invented by the Kochs and it shows. But there are still an enormous number of voters tethered together by hate and fear, the essential elements of modern conservatism since Goldwater and probably much earlier. I don't see that as changing in the near term.
I can't take much pleasure in the apparent immolation of the Confederate Party because of the mob that is still out there supporting candidates whose only offer is more hatred. These people aren't going anywhere anytime soon. They've been bred on hatred and fattened with bigotry, promoted by unconscionable traitors from right-wing media.
We do need a viable party to offset the Democrats who have a tendency to run around like wild, precocious children. If the Confederate Party is in need of a rebirth of some kind, the Democratic Party is in need of a housecleaning. Hopefully Sanders' success will have something to do with this. But as long as Wasserman-Schultz types are still in charge, I am not overly sanguine about that eventuality. Perhaps Senator Warren will have something to say about that.
But as for wingers, I recall that Pearlstein once described Goldwater's candidacy as a kind of therapy for conservatives, without which they would need to be committed.
Wingers are still in need of being committed but there is no therapy in sight and that scares the shit out of me. Instead, what they have is Dr. Donald Demento and his staff of scared shitless sycophants, squatting at the ready with the leeches and the snake oil.
Featured in today's Hullabaloo: Wow.
And Undercover Blue makes a good case for EW staying where she is.
Marie, I'm a little puzzled about your "mean girl" remarks about Hillary. I went back through the prior news reports and couldn't find anything that Hillary had said about Bernie that could be construed as mean. Could you link us to the remarks you are referring to?
Egan channeling Jefferson (whose party, let it be said, did not hesitate to print massive untruths about John Adams in their own newspapers)?
As reported by Jill Lepore in a 2009 "New Yorker:"
"During his beleaguered second term Jefferson suggested that newspapers ought to be divided into four sections: Truths, Probabilities, Possibilities and Lies."
Never happened, but not a bad idea, and it would keep an army of Kesslers very busy.
I just got home and have time to read, and I too am puzzled about Marie's attitude toward Hillary.
President Obama recorded the video on Tuesday and it aired after his meeting with Senator Sanders. The thinking is that he gave Bernie a heads-up that it was coming.
Bernie seems to have been the only person unwilling to see the writing on the wall..... absolutely no chance that he could be the nominee. And seemed unwilling to concede graciously. Enough already, Bernie!
@Unwashed: boy, oh, boy, what fun to watch those old hearings although I could only last through Dee Snider–-I'll check those others later. Thanks for the link. Twisted Sister messages according to Dee are wholesome, kinky maybe, but since he's a Christian no one should get THEIR boxers/bloomers in a twist over them. Loved Snider's statement: "Being a parent is not a reasonable thing." Now that would be a song that he could sing or maybe put on a Tee.
@AK: And wasn't Shelley a bit of a bad boy himself? Trying to recall my romantic poet's days I think Percy Bysshe while at Eton was called "Mad Shelly" or something like that. Anyway, enjoyed your rendition of "Ozytrumpias"––very clever.