Politics

The Return of the Bobos

A few thoughts on David Brook's Atlantic piece, "How the Bobos Broke America". It's interesting but not particularly helpful. For the most part, I think it accurately correlates with my own perception about how class works in the U.S., but it doesn't get to the underlying problem that I have been writing about in the
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Boredom, Dionysos, and the Ethic of Authenticity

For people like Trump there is no good or bad; there is only boring and entertaining, and so anything is permitted so long as it is entertaining. The only sin is to be a bore, and it is better to be a boor than a bore. This is a truth someone like Matt Gaetz well
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Filibuster Bust

“I predict to you your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded, autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake.” —Joe Biden If this seems hyperbolic, then you really haven't a clue about the significance of the moment. It's understandable–we all tend to
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From Edsall’s Column This Morning:

Bernard Grofman, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine, put it this way in an email: We would not have Trump as president if the Democrats had remained the party of the working class. The decline of labor unions proceeded at the same rate when Democrats were president as when Republicans were president;
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Trump’s Big Lies: Mission Accomplished (Updated)

For his opponents, the lies were intended to be profoundly demoralizing. Neither counting them nor checking facts nor debunking conspiracies made any difference. Trump demonstrated again and again that the truth doesn’t matter. In rational people this provoked incredulity, outrage, exhaustion, and finally an impulse to crawl away and abandon the field of politics to
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Status and Legitimacy on the Trumpian Right

I wrote this in February right after the Senate acquittted Trump in the impeachment trial: The problem isn't Trump; it's the Republican Party. Republicans simply do not care about the rule of law, i.e., the constitution, except when they can use it as a club to hit their political enemies. This isn't new; it been
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It’s not Trump Love; It’s (Neo)Liberal Hate

A machinist named Tim carried his steelworker union card in his wallet for years after the factory closed, just to remind himself who he was. Tim grew up in a union household. His dad had been an autoworker; his grandfather, a coal miner. “We always voted Democrat because they looked after the little man,” Tim
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Ontological Dizziness and Fear of the Future

Their portrayal of what the country would look like if the Democrats win big in November is indeed a frightening one to Trump supporters: a White House with Senator Bernie Sanders as the shadow socialist president; a Democratic House of Representatives where Representative Ilhan Omar calls the shots; a society in which mask mandates are
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Obamanation

Many Americans who had welcomed Obama concluded that the game was rigged for the rich and well connected. While he sat through agonizing meetings in his first 100 days, outside the White House the Tea Party rose up like a vicious storm. Democratic Party suffered a massive defeat in the 2010 midterm elections, resulting in
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Two Cliches

The first cliche being repeated ad nauseam by the incoming Biden people is "We've got a lot of work to do." The second is "What unites is far stronger than what divides us," or words to that effect. So regarding the first, assuming that the Dems don't get at least 50 in the senate, what
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