;)
The Commentariat -- March 7, 2016
Lou Cannon of the New York Times: "Nancy Reagan, the influential and stylish wife of the 40th president of the United States who unabashedly put Ronald Reagan at the center of her life but became a political figure in her own right, died on Sunday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 94." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ... ...
... Nancy Reagan's Los Angeles Times obituary, by Elaine Woo, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Presidential Race
Rebecca Traister of New York looks forward to a Clinton-Trump general election: "It's hard to imagine there are many voters who are really undecided between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The Clinton supporters want a president to be competent, capable, to understand how to work the levers of political power. The Trump supporters want a president to give jeering voice to their fury, a character through whom they might vent their frustration.... The contest will really come down to who can persuade more of their deeply divided constituencies to come to the polls. And this is the dynamic that should give Democrats chills; because the carnival barker's job is knowing how to draw a crowd." ...
... CW: Still, unless all the rational voters sit this one out, it's hard for me to believe that "undecideds" will decide they want a vulgar, name-calling, bigoted, unstable bully ostensibly running the country.
Todd Spangler & Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "With Michigan issues consuming much of the back and forth in a spirited debate Sunday night between the Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton surprised rival Bernie Sanders by accusing him of failing to support the 2009 auto rescue and joined him in calling for Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to resign or be recalled as a result of the Flint water crisis." ...
... Anne Gearan & Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "The session included the sharpest exchange yet between the Democratic presidential candidates over their economic plans and records. It included a heated argument over the auto industry bailout...." ...
... CW: Clinton clearly got the better of Sanders in the exchange; besides Bernie's rudeness, his argument on the substance was wrong. Although the government did lose money on the auto bailout ($9.3BB) part of TARP, that bailout arguably saved millions of auto industry jobs, thus "making" more than $100BB in industry-related worker-paid taxes. So a big net gain. I'm looking for Krugman to have more to say on this. Clinton cast the right vote on TARP; Sanders did not. That's a problem.
Hillary Clinton & Bernie Sanders debate at 8:00 pm ET Sunday night in Flint, Michigan. Noah Weiland of Politico: "CNN hosts and plans to distribute half a million water bottles to four locations around town before the debate." ...
... New York Times reporters are liveblogging the debate.
Maine Democratic Caucuses
The Washington Post has projected Bernie Sanders to be the winner of the state's caucuses, with 74 percent of precincts reporting. Sanders currently has about 64 percent of the vote; Clinton has 36 percent. ...
... Manuel Tobias of Politico: "Bernie Sanders has won the Democratic caucuses in Maine, according to the Associated Press. The Vermont senator's victory is his third of the weekend, along with wins in Kansas and Nebraska on Saturday, and his eighth state overall." ...
... Kevin Miller of the Portland Press Herald: "U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders won Maine's Democratic presidential caucuses Sunday, defeating Hillary Clinton by a large margin on a day that saw unprecedented turnout statewide. But waits as long as four hours in Portland prompted one Democratic leader to suggest it's time for Maine to replace caucuses with primaries.... Democratic officials estimated that 46,800 people participated in Sunday's caucuses held at more than 400 locations around the state, beating the previous record of roughly 44,000 participants in 2008. The Democratic turnout also dwarfed the 18,650 Republicans who participated in that party's Maine caucuses one day earlier." ...
... Jonathan Swan of the Hill: "Bernie Sanders wheeled out an endorsement of his presidential bid from one of Flint's celebrated political sons just before Sunday night's Democratic debate in that Michigan city plagued by a toxic water crisis. Don W. Riegle Jr., who served in the House and Senate over his career, endorsed Sanders in a press conference held about an hour before the CNN debate between Sanders and presidential rival Hillary Clinton in Flint, Mich. "[Sanders] stands head and shoulders above all the other candidates in either party," Riegle said.... Riegle, who grew up in Flint, used the press conference to attack Bill and Hillary Clinton, saying their policies were bad for his hometown. Former President Clinton's policies 'destroyed the Flint I loved,' Riegle reportedly said."
The Angst of the Elite. Jonathan Chait: "The secret fear lying beneath Rubio's accurate depiction of Trump as a 'con artist' is that Republican voters are easy marks. The Republican Party is constructed as a machine: Into one end are fed the atavistic fears of the white working class as grist, and out the other end pops The Wall Street Journal editorial-page agenda as the finished product. Trump has shown movement conservatives how terrifyingly rickety that machine is and how easily it can be seized from them by a demagogue and repurposed toward some other goal."
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Senator Marco Rubio of Florida won the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday, The Associated Press reported, giving him a much-needed victory after a string of losses that threatened to push the Republican presidential nomination further out of his reach." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Maybe that's because Marco is such a good friend to Puerto Rico. Also from Parker's report: "Puerto Rico is embroiled in a debt crisis, with the territory facing a deficit of more than $70 billion. Mr. Rubio took a tough line on the matter in Congress, urging Puerto Rico to focus on improving its economy and fixing its troubled fiscal situation rather than seeking bankruptcy protection."
... Ed O'Keefe, et al., of the Washington Post: "Party leaders, donors and other supporters of Rubio portray a political operation that continues to come up short in its message, in its attention to the fundamentals of campaigning and in its use of a promising politician. The failures have all but doomed Rubio's chances of securing the GOP nomination, leaving him far behind Trump and Cruz in both delegates and states won." CW: Also, could have something to do with the fact that Marco is an obnoxious, preening pipsqueak. But I'd still vote for him for class president if Trump, Fiorina & Cruz were his opponents. ...
... The Smug Factor. James Poulos of the Week says it better: "... Rubio proved that there's something much worse in this populist season than being born on third and thinking you just hit a triple. However subliminal, his sense of upwardly mobile entitlement was weirdly off-putting and perversely reminiscent of the entitled yes-kid who thinks he should get what he wants because he knows exactly how to give his teachers and school administrators exactly what they want. Rather than embodying the 20th-century Republican story of increase earned through luck and pluck, he became an avatar of the 21st-century striver whose stock in trade is his special snowflakehood."
Matt Flegenheimer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Republicans hoping to halt Donald J. Trump's march to their party's presidential nomination emerged from the weekend's voting contests newly emboldened by Mr. Trump's uneven electoral performance and by some nascent signs that he may be peaking with voters. Outside groups are moving to deploy more than $10 million in new attack ads across Florida and millions more in Illinois, casting Mr. Trump as a liberal, a huckster and a draft dodger. Mr. Trump's reed-thin organization appears to be catching up with him, suggesting he could be at a disadvantage if he is forced into a protracted slog for delegates."
Forgot to post this yesterday morning. SNL does a pretty good job in capturing the essence of last week's presidential primary races:
** "American Demagogue." David Remnick of the New Yorker: "As early as 1988, Trump hinted at a run for the White House, though this was understood to be part of his carny shtick, another form of self-branding in the celebrity-mad culture. And now here we are.... Pull the camera back, and Trump can be viewed as part of a deadly serious wave of authoritarians and xenophobes who have come to power in Russia, Poland, and Hungary.... The Republican Party, having spent years courting the basest impulses in American political culture, now sees the writing on the wall. It reads 'Donald Trump,' in very big letters."
... This SNL-produced ad features Donald Trump voters at their best. Hey, it's who they are:
Ted Cruz? An inspiration to every kid in America who worries that he'll never be able to run for president because nobody likes him. He's running. -- Joe Biden, at the Gridiron dinner Saturday
(... Here are a few more jokes made at the Gridiron dinner. The link above includes many of Vice President Biden's remarks.)
Isaac Chotiner of Slate: "Ted Cruz's twin victories on Saturday night in Maine and Kansas -- coupled with his strong second-place finishes in Louisiana and Kentucky -- likely mean he will emerge as the long-discussed, as-yet-unglimpsed 'non-Trump' Republican contender.... But Cruz's excellent night is also good news for Donald Trump. Cruz will not only have more trouble solidifying an anti-Trump coalition than Rubio -- or at least a better version of Rubio -- would have. Cruz's success may also mean that the GOP establishment, which despises the Texas senator, will not go all out to stop Trump.... Rubio's campaign ... is almost dead...." ...
... It's a Media Conspiracy! Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) said on Sunday that the media is sitting on explosive negative information about front-runner Donald Trump with plans to run it later in the year to tear the candidate apart.... Cruz called out the media, saying one of the reasons they want Trump to be the eventual nominee is because they know he can't beat Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton. 'Hillary would wallop him,' Cruz said." CW: The idea here is that the media are holding back reports on Trump, which they'll wait to dump until after he's the nominee, to make sure Clinton's general election opponent is the weakest GOP candidate. I guess the media cabal is run by some real dopes; they should have been boosting Bobby Jindal or Jim Gilmore. Those guys are really duds.
Rebecca Savransky: "Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Sunday via Snapchat and at a rally."
Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: Mitt Romney is "leaving the door open -- just a crack -- to the possibility of being drafted by his party at a contested convention in July. 'I don't think anyone in our party should say, "Oh no, even if the people in the party wanted me to be the president, I would say no to it,'" Romney said Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'No one's going to say that.'" ...
... Paul Krugman: "The good news is that there was a real [economic] policy debate going on within the G.O.P. last week [between Romney & Trump]. The bad news is that it was junk economics on both sides."
CW: If the Republican party wants to save itself from massive embarrassment, it should nominate Jim Webb for president. He's a DINO who used to be a RINO. Sure, he'll say stupid Republican things, but he's a Democrat now, giving the GOP plausible deniability on all fronts. No coattails, of course, but Republicans can sit on the sidelines & laugh their way to oblivion as two Democrats tangle. And who knows? Republicans might rise from the ashes of the flameout.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The United States launched a series of airstrikes on an al-Shabab training camp in Somalia Saturday, killing 150 militants and averting what a Pentagon official described as an 'imminent threat' posed by the group to both U.S. and African Union troops stationed in the war-torn country."
AP: "Jimmy Carter announced Sunday that he no longer needs treatment for cancer, less than seven months after revealing he had been diagnosed with melanoma that spread to his brain. Carter, 91, shared the news at one of his regular Sunday School classes at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia."
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Reader Comments (22)
Evidently Debbie doesn't do Downton since she scheduled the debate on the Sunday night when PBS aired the final chapter on this splendid series which ended beautifully, all neatly tied up in a great big bow. The genius of this show is that every character HAD character (even if bad) substance, and was significant. That's the great thing about being a writer ––you can be all the instruments in your orchestra and you get to play exactly what you want.
Unlike real life where it's catch can and sometimes downright dirty. I did manage to see parts of the debate on the gab fest afterwards and thought Bernie was going to explode. He needs to quell that angry, red faced, rhetoric a tad––I'm afraid he might explode. (although people love it, I guess). Interesting back and forth about the car business––did he not see this coming? I understand that Hillary's team got right on the water crisis in Flint and managed to organize a water brigade of sorts––didn't get the particulars on this, but sounds like a very smart move.
And––" The Republican Party, having spent years courting the basest impulses in American political culture, now sees the writing on the wall. It reads “Donald Trump,” in very big letters."
David Remnick seals it.
The NJ Star Ledger editorial today discusses the fact that Trump is not a 'true' Republican. (http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/03/its_trumps_party_and_its_too_late_to_crash_it_edit.html).
The best line is the mention of 'Gov. Chris Christie (R-Hostage)'.
And note that this piece follows up on the previous one in pointing out that in reality, we have more than two political parties, Dem., Repub., Trump (and maybe a fourth called 'Christian').
@P.D. Pepe: "Debbie doesn't do Downton" is one of your best lines ever. (Great finale; redemption for even some of the questionable characters and some lovely moments all around.)
According to a Times editorial, this new Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives has an extremely broad mission and could therefore go on forever - or at least until the Republicans lose the House. It is no more than a witch hunt with subpoena power, which power is being used in a way that may endanger lives of abortion providers and stem cell researchers. None of this might have been possible if Dems and Independents had managed to get up off their asses and vote in 2010.
I highly recommend the Chait piece posted above. "The secret fear lying beneath Rubio’s accurate depiction of Trump as a “con artist” is that Republican voters are easy marks. The Republican Party is constructed as a machine: Into one end are fed the atavistic fears of the white working class as grist, and out the other end pops The Wall Street Journal editorial-page agenda as the finished product. " What I can't yet figure is how to present this info back to Drumpf supporters without getting punched. I'm a firm believer that 'the first man to raise a fist is the first to run out of ideas' and Donny's people show how few ideas they have by how fast they embrace violence.
@PD Pepe & Citizen: Oh, I think Debbie does do Downton. This was a last-minute-scheduled debate. Debbie knew quite well when the "Downton Abbey" finale was on, & she also knew that Sanders would likely win the day's primary in Maine.
It was a bit of a mistake because I thought Bernie came off really badly; he was wrong on the bailout & he was wrong to tell Hillary to STFU. He sounded Trumpy-grumpy. Undecided voters who saw the debate, I think, would have leaned way toward Hillary.
Marie
P.S. Thanks to Citizen for the H. G. Wells quote. I hadn't heard it, & it's exactly right.
Marvin's link to the Star Ledger piece points out the hypocrisy of wingers attempting to distance themselves from the Trumperor.
To the weepers and hand wringers on the far right (there is no near or central right...they're all out there hanging over the edge) who complain bitterly to anyone who will listen that Trump is not their fault, and besides he's not really a Republican anyway, I say abyssus abyssum invocat: hell calls hell. Which means that not only is Trump a Republican, he is the perfection, the apotheosis of the mold the GOP has been crafting for years like an the incarnation of a malevolent and misanthropic Hephaestus.
And don't be misled by those few instances of orthodox apostasy in Trump's platform (such as it is), his disdain for winger goals of chloroforming Social Security and their pornographic love of all out non-stop war. Those are blips on a radar screen peppered with Republican landmarks, racism, misogyny, hatred for minorities, love of ignorance and "gut feelings", arrogance in place of perspicacity, a penchant for violence as a panacea for what ails ya, and the absolute reliance on a bigoted and blinkered world view. And Trump's insistence that because he funds his own campaign he's not beholden to anyone is a joke, total bullshit. The Trump weltanschauung is all of a piece with white privilege, inherited wealth, and the arrogance of money and power.
His declarations of freedom from such sordid influences remind me of that old Sprint commercial in which a sneering, grasping Koch-like oligarch revels in his new cell phone agreement which doesn't tie him to older forms of contractual hell. "It's my way of stickin' it to the Man" he says, as if he's an Occupy protester who's just been pepper sprayed by the protectors of the corporate status quo. "But...but...you ARE the man" says a clearly confused underling.
No. Trump IS the Republican Party. He is what they've been cooking up in their nefarious dens of anti-democratic, anti-American hatred for decades. Reagan was a less obvious prototype, Gingrich and The Decider were beta versions, but Trump is the finished product.
Yesterday D.C. made the point that Trump is not some anomaly, as mooching machers like Turtle Man McConnell, whiny little runts like Rubio, and loathsome dirty tricksters like Cruz would have us all believe. He would be nothing without the stockpile (I was going to say "wealth" but thought better of it) of GOP hatred cynically fostered by conniving party bosses and their media outlets over the years. In a way, it reminds me of their incessant attempts to paint each new mass murder as a one-off, unfortunate, but entirely unpredictable and sadly unpreventable tragedy. They're not. If it weren't for decades of gun knobbing and heinous laws passed against putting any stops on gun ownership, background checks, and a love of letting malcontents strut about in public flashing weapons in the faces of small children there is little doubt that the plague of gun deaths in this country would be a fraction of what they are now.
We are what we do. All of us. Republicans too. You can't say "We may walk like ducks and quack like ducks, but Trump is the only duck."
Liars, delusional, or just stupid?
You decide.
In the wake of Nancy Reagan's passing, it will be curious (curious like watching a snake eat a live rat) to see how the coming wave of St. Ronnie nostalgia affects the current farting contest among Confederate hopefuls. It'll be epic.
Wistfulness like you read about. Wistfulness for those halcyon days of threatening to bomb Russia, stupidly and needlessly allowing Marines to die, blaming welfare queens in Caddies for all the problems of the universe, the deification of the moneyed class, the onset of obscene income inequality promoted shamelessly by a chief executive, a chief executive who regularly fell asleep in cabinet meetings while discussing issues vital to the country, for an Interior Department that tried to sell off national parks to be strip mined by industry cronies, for playing footsie with sworn enemies in order to funnel American money to help Central American death squads rape and murder nuns, for an administration hit with more indictments than the mafia after a nationwide FBI raid.
Ahh...the good old days.
Akhilleus, you are right. Trump's greatest 'accomplishment' is the exposure of the true Republican party. Because of Trump, things like racism are no longer just wink-wink. However there is another piece to the puzzle. Trump threatens the Republican establishment. Forget policy. It is all about control. Remember he already threatened Ryan.
Maybe the real problem for Republican politicians in Washington is the fact that if there is a seriously rich POTUS he may not be interested in the primary purpose of stuffing their pockets. And remember this, if Trump is POTUS, the absolutely only thing that matters is Trump!
In the face of those ghostly presences from my youth, most of them female, who frequently admonished me to be polite, I'm still thinking Nancy Reagan's death must have brought a great sadness to what passes for the minds of astrologers, worldwide.
They never had it so good.
PD and Victoria D.,
If only real life were like that at Downton. Which tuxedo to wear to cocktails this evening? Should we take the Rolls or the Duesenberg up to the London house? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
There've been some times (especially this season) when I felt badly for Thomas, but never thought I'd feel happy for the guy. I guess even conniving malcontents can have a second act.
Unless they're Republicans, of course. They never change. They're like that old Herman's Hermits song, "I Am Hen-ery VIII I Am", "...second verse, same as the first..." "Let's see....greed, hypocrisy, racism and hatred didn't work last time. I know! Let's double down on that shit. It's sure to work this time!"
They've got a one-way ticket for a descent into the maelstrom. The worst part being they're trying to force the rest of us into their self-made whirlpool. The guy in the Poe story survived but came out with white hair. I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that a GOP presidency featuring any of the current dolts would incur a far worse outcome.
And don't forget, kids, these are the BEST the GOP has to offer. The very best. I'd be blanching if my body hadn't turned off that response mechanism 'round about the middle of Reagan's second term.
Ken,
I typically don't resort to internet chat shorthand, but LOL.
Ken,
Oh no, you had to bring up astrology. Now, I'm afraid you're all in for another science geek lecture. Sorry, I can't help myself.
The next time someone asks you "What's your sign?" back it up a month. For a few thousand years, astrologers have been ignoring a little detail called Precession of the Equinoxes. The area of the sky in which the sun appears on a given date, is now about a full month out of sync with the traditional "sun signs" of astrology.
Not that it matters. If astrology had any predictive uses, it could readily and conclusively be demonstrated. Mountains of statistical data exist containing individual's birth dates. The most obvious are records of marriage and divorce. It is very simple to search for any statistically significant correlation between a couple's 'signs'. You don't even need to know what signs are supposed to be mutually compatible. Any correlation would stand out. Many such studies have been done by both believers and nonbelievers. No above chance correlation has ever been found between birth dates and anything at all: occupation, health, relationships... nada.
None of this, of course, will convince any fan of horoscopes. No more than a believer in Supply Side, Tinkle Down, Reaganomics will allow reality to intrude on their Mythology. Just though you might like to know.
Ted Cruz: "The media, those liberal snakes, are sitting on a BOMBshell about Trump and they won't lift a finger to help me!"
What, pray tell, is a bombshell bigger than what we already know about the Trumperor?
That he makes fun of disabled people? That he ripped John McCain because he spent six years in the Hanoi Hilton and didn't Rambo his way out like Trump would have? That he's a racist jerk who pals around with white supremacist assholes? That he's a misogynistic creep? That he's a serial liar? That he's totally ignorant of actual policy requirements and all founding documents including the Constitution? That he's a belligerent bully who promises to "bomb the shit" out of foreign countries he doesn't like and torture anyone who gets in his way? That he threatens the Speaker of the House? That he demands loyalty oaths given with Nazi salutes?
What? What is the horrible revelation that would all of a sudden make people wake up and say "Boy, oh boy, that Trump. Better vote for Cruz."
Oh, wait. Something, something, something tax returns. Is that it? Oh, and it will be a shock for all those louts who beat people up to impress their fuhrer that he's a chiseler, a double-crosser, and a swindler? That he plays fast and loose with his finances, the better to line his own pockets and stiff the federal government? They love him for that stuff.
Seriously, unless it comes out that Trump has been running a kiddie porn ring with himself and the Subway pedophile guy as the adult leads in pederast video extravaganzas, or that he secretly tortures girl scouts in the basement of Trump Tower, I'd say there's not much that will dissuade Trump's swinish followers.
I'd say, "Ted, grow up", but that ship sailed.
D.C.,
After your successful mission in Astrology World, your next assignment, should you agree to take it (doing the old Mission Impossible thing here), is to do the science tarantella on the tiny noggins of Republican theorists who cleave to alchemy as the solution to all the country's problems stemming from frighteningly bad winger economic policies. Their firm belief that they can turn leaden bullshit into gold needs to be shivved, but good.
Naturally, if you are caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
Good luck.
Let us also remember that it was President George H. W. Bush who coined the term "Voodoo Economics" to describe the Supply Side Con during the 1980 nomination debate with the RayGun.
Astrology, Alchemy, Voodoo, Divination -- pick your delusion, plenty of company.
One of the many despicable bits of nonsense you hear from the R candidates is how Obama has lowered the US stature in the world. I have a completely opposite memory, from Obama being greeted by crowds in Germany as a candidate to the recent triumph of the multinational treaty on Iran's nuclear program. Obama has done a lot to repair the damage that "Freedom Fry" W inflicted on our foreign relations.
Steve Benen has a nice bit on how foreign diplomats are using their loudest stage-whisper voices to express their opinions on a certain candidate:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-world-watches-the-us-presidential-race-disbelief
@Janice How lucky you were to learn about the island Bornholm, and Denmark, when you were only 19. "Luck" often results from initiative and effort, and I am curious as to whether you chose our island and if you happened to attend the gymnasium in Ronne and in what year.
I too will vote for Bernie Sanders, if I am allowed to do so in the upcoming Democratic primary in the state where I was last resident in the United States. To me he is much more of a capitalist than any of the other candidates, because, like the Danes, he thinks investing in human capital through health care and education is a good idea.
I will certainly vote for Mrs. Clinton if she gets the nomination. But I am surely unhappy with the way she and former President Clinton (and former prime minister Tony Blair) have monetized public service.
@Marie I don't know if you were being facetious when you suggested Jim Webb as the Republican nominee. But I applaud your originality, and that of your readers, at a time when the US presidential race can seem to an average citizen to be frustratingly repetitive and tedious.
While I do not agree with Webb on many issues, I have long admired his courage, his deep thinking, and his hard won talent as a writer. So the Republicans could do a lot worse....... (And probably will.)
D. C.
First time out a version of this one got lost in the ether. But I'll try to reconstruct.
Thanks. Though my spatial perception limitations won't allow me to picture it, did know about that precession thing, but did have one misgiving about the astrology post. Seemed to remember another President had some connection with astrology, so feared by singling her out I was unduly harsh to Mrs. Reagan. But no worries. Turns out (used the net to jog memory) it was not the President but his grandson, one Gavin Arthur, who plied his star-gazing trade in the Bay Area during the fabulous sixties, horoscoping like mad.
And this vision followed: Maybe while Ronnie was single-handedly putting down the student rebellion at SF State, Nancy snuck off to Mr. Arthur's parlor and consulted the stars. Should Ronnie capitalize on the growing hippie backlash and seek the White House?
We know what the answer must have been... and (ala Paul Harvey) maybe that's the Rest of the Story...
Ken,
The other Great Mystical Magical Mystery is what the hell ever happened to the Dawning Age of Aquarius?
"Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions, golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelations, and the mind's true liberation."
HUH? However did the Love Generation morph into the Tea Party?
Jonathan Chait's piece on Trump's exercise in paralyzing Republican stalwarts (linked above), begins with this:
"People get worked up during presidential campaigns. But the rise of Donald Trump has provoked conservative intellectuals to express their dismay in existential tones. "
"Conservative intellectuals"? Full stop.
I'll forgo the easy snub about how "conservative intellectual" is an oxymoron, or how it would be easier to teach a unicorn to recite the Gettysburg Address backwards than to find a conservative intellectual.
So who are these conservative intellectuals? Let's see....Arthur Laffer, whose napkin scribble has decimated the American economy but proven a gigantic windfall for the one percent. Charles Murray, who offers guys in white hoods his full academic support. Norman Podorhetz who has never seen a bomb that didn't need dropping on someone he hates. David Barton, the go-to righty-right-right historian who simply makes shit up to fit the desired outcome. Homophobic douchebags Dinesh D'Souza and Niall Ferguson. I'm guessing that in some circles, Glenn Beck is considered an intellectual.
I'm sure there are serious, smart people on the right who don't move their lips when they read but where are they now? Why are they keeping silent? Why have they never spoken up against (or even about) the atrocious disdain for critical thinking so rampant on the right and the resultant horror show policies engendered by ignorance and virulent anti-intellectualism (which in this case I mean anti-smarts).
Right-wing pundits are all in a tizzy wondering what happened to those well behaved sheep who used to do what they were told and vote the way they were supposed to. All those years the party was grooming good little goosesteppers, they never took into account that in order to convince the rubes of the infallibility of right-wing ideology and policy pronouncements designed to help the rich, bomb the enemy, boot minorities in the face, and keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, they had to appeal to the gut. Their ideas simply couldn't stand the test of critical interrogation and there was no evidence that con games like supply side actually worked. So appeal to emotion. Whip up fury and hatred. Invoke racism, via dog whistles or less subtle techniques. Best of all, inculcate victimhood and paranoia.
What they didn't count on was that the rubes did great at learning the victimhood and paranoia stuff, not so good at the policy pronouncements and ideological orthodoxies.
So here we are.
But where are those "conservative intellectuals"? Have they been sitting in front of their TV screens watching the Confederate debates, devouring popcorn and rooting for the next dick joke, or the next astonishing display of ignorance and vile hatred? Remember when Carly Liarina promised to reduce the 74,000 page tax code to three pages? Why did none of these big brains shake their head and admonish Liarina to stick with reality? What about Cruz's promises to turn the country into a theocracy? The Mexican Wall? The Pyramids for Jesus?
And I'm not referring now to the low opinion held by nearly all confederates for intellectuals. I'm talking about the intellectuals themselves. Because if they are sitting there, afraid to speak up when the country most needs them, even if it means attempting to provide some correctives for their own party, then what the fuck good are they?
They're no more useful than Sarah Palin. And it's always been my understanding that the job of public intellectuals was to offer something of value to the public, something based on facts and careful thought.
So maybe "conservative intellectual" is an oxymorn after all.
D.C.
It doesn't answer your question but would recommend "American Hippies" by classmate Bill Rorabaugh, published last year, as a good summary of the Love Generation.
Haven 't talked to Bill about the hippie phenomenon in a while, not since he was working on early drafts of the book, but in those conversations and emails the same question arose.
My answer is as it most often is: money and power. While some Love Generation members made a lot of money (Stewart Brand comes to mind) selling alternatives to what had been Middle America and as recounted in "What the Dormouse Said" (brought to my attention some years ago by that same Rorabaugh) that generation also had much to do with the Silicon Valley explosion, most simply slipped into a drug-induced nod or went "back to the land," building their own, separate communities and removing themselves from the larger one they fled for all those reasons those of us who grew up in the fifties remember well.
As the Vietnam War wound down and the draft was no longer an issue, they absented themselves from politics, something that aside from the War was never their "thing," and their absence opened the way for the young Republicans (Mitt was a proud cardholder for a year or so on the campus Bill and I shared) to join forces with Right Wing Money which was just beginning to flow to conservative think tanks (those "intellectuals Akhilleus notes) and with the blue collar backlash first orchestrated by Tricky Dick and broadcast loudly and furiously by Reagan.
By the end of Reagan's terms money again took center stage in the American conscious, moral outrage--one of the Lover Generation's foundations--was muted or entirely absent, and much of the middle class had been so successfully gulled by the Reagan glitter that for a Democrat to win, Clinton had to run as a DINO and needed a Perot for a foil.
Worked for him but the country has been paying the piper since.