TV news is the political equivalent of toxic industrial waste. No context, no depth, just minute-by-minute breathless panic, veering from one subject to the next like a dog in a field full of rabbits. It is making people crazy.
What were the odds that my father, in his half an hour a day of free time over the past forty years, would ever successfully escape the cultural tractor beam created by these professional crooks? Those odds were low enough that thousands of people could build careers on them, stripping my father and millions of other people of their political power just as blatantly as if they had robbed them on the street. My father had little chance against this machine.
Perhaps the biggest story of this election is how little impact the video had on the preferences of the vast majority of American voters. Yuck.
There was a subtle and powerful message behind the gag lines in a Saturday Night Live skit this week. Kenan Thompson has a recurring bit called “Black Jeopardy.” This week, the gameshow parody featured Tom Hanks playing a Trump supporter.
With this year’s Presidential race more or less over, you may be asking – what’s next? Races for Governor in 2017 in Virginia and New Jersey should get some attention, along with the US Senate race in Virginia. But let’s look just a little farther out, to the 2018 Senate …
How many traditional Republican voters will split their votes between a Trump alternative and the Republicans farther down the ballot? How many of them will just stay home? It looks like we are seeing an unprecedented surge in turnout among Democratic constituencies. Are we going to get an outcome more like ’06 and ’08? Will this surge be large enough to threaten Republicans who hold strong leads in the polls, like McCain and Rubio?
Failing to address what white racial and cultural supremacy means, especially to whites lower down the economic ladder, creates a risk. Without some wider cultural replacement, we may settle in to a long era of racially Balkanized politics, in which voting behavior is dictated by loyalty to identity rather than any serious discussion of policy.
Today Josh Barro posted an explanation of decision to leave the Republican Party. For those you who followed GOPLifer, a lot of what he has to say will sound familiar. His childhood background with the party, his acceptance that Trump is a sort of proto-Fascist, and his disgust with the “sane” Republicans who have sold their souls for power are themes that ring true to many new ex-Republicans.
These people deserve to get what they are asking for, but unfortunately we would all have to share the hell they would create. Go vote. It’s the only way to stop them.
Let’s be honest – none of these revelations about Donald Trump, if they had emerged in February instead of October, would have changed the outcome of the primary. Republicans wanted a racist, sexist pig as their champion. They got exactly what they wanted.