anti-theatricality and politics round-up

update 12/9/2022

"A fashionable critique of much political punditry is that it’s theater criticism, too focused on personality and superficial action, not focused enough on the real stuff of policy.

"But we’re talking about Kyrsten Sinema today, the senator from Arizona who loves to create drama. And that’s the best way to understand her announcement this morning that she has changed her affiliation from Democrat to independent.

Here are two conflicting ways to understand Sinema’s move: In one, she was never really a true Democrat anyway, and this simply ratifies what everyone already knew. In the second, she’s still a Democrat, this is nearly pure performance, and she will continue to be a crucial and mostly reliable member of the Democrats’ thin majority. Both of these views might prove right."

- strangely the rest of this Atlantic piece by David A. Graham does not sustain or even return at the end to the theatrical metaphors of the opening gambit 

"Democracy is boring. It’s bad for ratings and clicks. It requires compromise. 

"Fascism is exciting. The strongman lands blows on the enemy! Compromising is seen as weak. 

"Too many people want theater."

- Teri Kanefield

"Trump likes to say a secret of his "success" is he understands show business. If he really did tho, he'd know there was a reason why there was never a sequel to "Pluto Nash," "Ishtar" or "Battlefield Earth." And his first crack at the WH was a much bigger flop than all of those."

 - David Rothkopf 

"Unfortunately, fantasies can be generated faster than reality can puncture them. So off we go with a repeat of an old show—written, directed, and performed by a production company oblivious that it is chasing box-office success by remaking a three-decade-old flop. - " 

- David Frum on the Republican Congress's investigations of Hunter Biden as a replay of the Clinton  investigations (not sure if he meant Bill or Hillary - either works)

"The Republicans keep giving you theatrics. Really since Reagan, it's been theatrical politics. Ex-actors. A series of theatrical candidates."

- Joy Reid, MSNBC, after defeat of Herschel Walker

"It seems to me that [Trump]'s doing what he always does: Write a script and try to force everyone to become actors in his show."

-Teri Kanefield 

 "She killed my admiration by her talk. Her talk. The enormous ego, false, weak, posturing. She lacks the courage of her personality, which is sensual, heavy with experience. Her role alone preoccupies her. She invents dramas in which she always stars. I am sure she creates genuine dramas, genuine chaos and whirlpools of feelings, but I feel that her share in it is a pose … This false self is composed to stir the admiration of others, inspires others to words and acts about and around her"  

- Anais Nin on Kari Lake

"In the Elon Musk show, facts don't matter.

It's all about the show."

-Teri Kanefield