David A. Graham at Atlantic on how impeachment-inquiry-happy Republicans are "playing House"
"Republicans are just playing House. The impeachment inquiry is a prominent example, but others include the spectacle of Kevin McCarthy’s removal; the process to replace him, which even Republicans described in terms unfit for a family magazine; and a failed gambit on reauthorizing intelligence laws this week. This isn’t governance. It’s ludic, and ludicrous.....
The resolution passed yesterday doesn’t accuse Biden of any high crimes or misdemeanors. This is just playing around....
When Republicans were simply fighting one another and cutting their own leaders off at the knees, it was an embarrassment to the party but also mildly entertaining. But now the chaos has started to affect the rest of the nation..... None of this is just fun and games.
"... All that’s going on is a pantomime of governance"
Michael Cohen finds document that shows Trump recycles the same attacks…he simply changes the name of the attacked as needed. He stated that Trumps lawyers are not there to lawyer but to create theatrics…Trump thinks he will win the election by creating a circus…the bigger the circus the higher the poll numbers…it’s why the defense thinks they will need to take until Dec 15th to make their case when in fact they can do it in a week…they want to put on a show. Trump knows he lost but he knows he can get it all back by winning the WH and robbing America blind…his goal will be to turn every case into a circus.
[source unknown]
Another example showing how the Other Side has started using anti-theatrical tropes:
Lindsey Graham: Biden sending troops to the border is “ridiculous theater”.
Reporter: Did you feel the same about it being theater when Trump sent troops to the border in 2018?
David Frum at the Atlantic on a second Trump term
If Trump wins the presidency again, the whole world will become a theater for his politics of revenge and reward. Ukraine will be abandoned to Vladimir Putin; Saudi Arabia will collect its dividends for its investments in the Trump family.
Doreen St. Felix at The New Yorker on the Republican debates as an "Anti-Spectacle" and cos-play fantasy for a not-happening Trumpless future for the GOP
"A post-facto watch of nearly eight hours of political theatre creates a story that is, of course, counter to how a debate is meant to be consumed. The story being: how the G.O.P. was seeking to arrange its characters in a Trumpless environment, a future that could end up being a fantasy.
"... Roles were set on that first stage, in August, from which there have been insignificant deviations. Everyone knows to hit their marks. The former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, played the muted elder; Senator Tim Scott, the awkward patriot. Ron DeSantis, the wooden and sober ideologue, dodging specific questions to convey his general vision of a culture brought totally to heel, literacy corralled, genders controlled. Chris Christie, the pitied loser, trying to become the moralist phoenix rose from the ashes. Ramaswamy, the big-mouth contrarian. Nikki Haley, the woman among the men, conjuring the example of her brutal idol, Margaret Thatcher.,,,
"... As the industry of election spectacle coalesces once again, the regular ugliness of the right has utterly lost its shock value, making the tedium a kind of anti-spectacle. By the end of the second debate, it was clear that no sense of durable celebrity could be found amongst the viable candidates; Ramaswamy was the queasy star, but he was not a challenge to DeSantis or to Haley
".... The drama between the two candidates, which has grown nastier in the course of the four debates, is of the personal and intra-racial sort, and has been the through line that has stuck with me. Earlier in the season, Ramaswamy called Haley “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels,” and this week, he went harder, bringing a prop, a sheet of paper on which he had written in schoolyard print, “Nikki = Corrupt,” and needling her for several minutes on end for not being able to name three provinces in Eastern Ukraine. Haley initially made a calculation, responding in a calm and imperial manner that she wouldn’t dignify Ramaswamy’s pestering with a response. But she eventually produced three names, one of which was Crimea, which isn’t an Eastern Ukrainian province, feeding the beast of the show. That’s her gamble."
George Packer at the Atlantic on Trump and the media
The relationship between Donald Trump and the news media has always been a little disingenuous, like a pair of fighters trading insults and throwing air punches at a weigh-in. The hostility is real, but the performance benefits both sides.
Trump claims to despise the journalists who cover him, calling them “the enemy of the American people,” suing them, and threatening unspecified reprisals for their transgressions against him. But his narcissism craves their constant attention, and as president he gave reporters far more access than his successor has, taking their late-night phone calls, then framing their cover stories in gold. Media organizations, including this one, have warned for years that Trump is a danger to the democracy that makes journalism possible, and that a vigorous press is essential to a free society. At the same time, the media became dependent on his vile words and scandalous deeds for their financial health, squeezing droplets of news from his every tweet even if the public had nothing to learn. Leslie Moonves, the disgraced former TV-network chair, said of Trump’s first candidacy: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
Just wondering, is there a specific reason your most politically involved posts occur on your glam rock blog, aside from the theatrical element?
ReplyDeleteThey aren't exactly political so much as looking at the rhetoric of political discourse - and in this case tropes to do with the idea of the degeneration of politics into showbiz. So this would be the place really.
ReplyDeleteAround the time of Trump's election, which coincided with the publication of Shock and Awe, I did a piece for the Guardian which maybe I'll post here, looking at the overlap between glam ideology and Trumpism. There was also a piece about Alice Cooper and Trump.