The Republican Party is increasingly catering to people who live in an alternative universe of false narratives spread by media outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax and on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google/YouTube. A major political movement becoming completely untethered from reality is terrifying to see — and often accompanies the slide into authoritarianism.

-Max Boot in the Washington Post

 

Biden’s big bet: He can remake economy with no bad side effects

The American Families Plan is part of the president's bold gamble that he can improve Americans’ lives without unleashing years of inflation, slower growth and less incentive to work.

By Heather Long43 minutes ago

• White House proposes $1.8 trillion package to boost safety net, education
• Analysis: Top takeaways from Biden’s American Families Plan
• Biden to pledge an immigration overhaul

 

Lawyers from the Justice Department have been arguing in court lately that Trump’s continued lying about the election, along with the amplification of those lies by right-wing media, remains an ongoing threat

-Heather Cox Richardson

 “When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight o' clock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Sean Wilentz Review of David Reynolds Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times

From The New York Review of Books 4/29/21

The author tries to capture the social environment of Lincoln's times.

Reynolds illuminates aspects of Lincoln's life that most biographers miss.  But strained connections between Lincoln and his cultural surroundings.  

Does not make the mistake of reducing Lincoln to the sum of his surroundings.

What truly was most important with Lincoln: his political career and his views on slavery and race.

Reynolds is good at discerning the under culture of premodern America.

Lincoln is one our America's greatest writers as well as our greatest President.

Like Whitman, Reynolds says that Lincoln contained "multitudes."

Reynolds believes he has to call Lincoln "Abe."

The books is especially good on Lincoln's early years in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.

No tobacco or liquor, for a time scorning organized religion, and feeding his mind with Pope, Burns, and Shakespeare.

Wilentz thinks Reynolds ambles off key at times like a jazz player showing his erudition on 19th century rabbit holes (my words).

Most of Reynolds excavations enrich our knowledge of the 19th Century.

"Brady and the Cooper Institute speech made me President."  Abe Lincoln

Lincoln was freakishly ugly.

At Cooper Lincoln looked like a Barnum oddity.

Despite his appearance Lincoln won the crowd over with his evident integrity and simplicity of purpose.

Lincoln has been attacked over the years from both sides of the political spectrum.

In 1866 Edward A. Pollard published The Lost Cause."

A foundational text for Confederates then and Neo-Confederates today.

The left assails Lincoln as an egalitarian phony like Wendell Phillips in his own day,

Frederick Douglass's views in 1876 are more nuanced and judicious (my words).

The lefty's attack as a phony including Bennett continues to this day.

Reynolds says that Lincoln loathed slavery so much that he chose war over tolerating its spread.

Then how do we explain Lincoln saying in 1858 that emancipation might take a hundred years and his staying in his first inaugural that he had no opposition to the original 13th Amendment which would have locked slavery into the Constitution?

"If Lincoln hated slavery so much, why didn't he going the abolitionists?"

The abolitionists fervor would never break up the slaveholders's power according to Reynolds.

Lincoln represented anti-slavery Constitutionalism as opposed to immediate emancipation.  The problem is that taking what was a potentially long view prolonged the suffering and wrongness of slavery for a very long time.  Lincoln was a hard man; not a soft-hearted liberal egalitarian.

Reynolds rebukes the views of Bennet for their "falsity."

Reynolds remarks that Lincoln was a man of his own time and place.

Lincoln's casual racism of his time and place can always be accommodated if the historian wishes.

Of course Reynolds is white and Bennett is black.

Lincoln loved black spiritual music as if that exculpates his racism.

Lincoln's support of colonization is explained away.

Whether Lincoln moved away from colonization before he died is an open question.  

In the end it was Brown's strategy not Lincoln's peaceful strategy that led to emancipation.

Then how you can avoid the view that events propelled Lincoln into glory?

Most of Lincoln's public record can be spun in different directions especially colonization.

It comes down to whether the historian likes or dislikes Lincoln.

It is almost impossible to have a balanced view of Lincoln.

Reynolds says that Lincoln held of the conventional racial views of the the time but he was able to transcend them.  False praise I would say.

Reynolds says Lincoln was a man of his time and place and he can somehow forgive Lincoln for his enjoyment of minstrel shows and made racial slurs.

Lincoln may have looked forward to greater equality but he did not look very far (my opinion).

For sure Lincoln was always against slavery but he wasn't in any hurry before the war to hasten its end.

The war forced the immediate end of slavery which was totally unseen before the war.

 My psychiatrist: "Do you have a bucket list?"

Me: "I'd like to see Paris before I die but Philadelphia will do."

(Stolen from W.C. Fields)

 

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Had my second Pfizer shot yesterday. The CVS person administering the needle was named Bridgett. She was very gentle with me. After injecting the needle which I barely felt, she said okay now are you ready for the shot? We both laughed. I am tender and have to be treated with baby care. After a busy night of tossing and turning and wild dreams and palpitations I am here to talk about it today.

The borderline this morning between sleep and wakefulness was a Roman one with splashing fountains, the Vatican, troops marching, and narrow Roman streets complete with street singers.

But I achieve full awakening in Pelham, Alabama. Overnight rain, the cool sweetness of April in the South. Rome is for another day.

 

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Liberals have never denied that immigration changes society. Of course it does, along with generational shifts, changing fashions, and evolving social norms. When I was young, people wore low-rise jeans and MTV still played music videos. Now it's skinny jeans (though apparently not for long) and TikTok. Change is inevitable, and generally good, as anyone who has a memory of hair-destroying styling products in the bad old days can contest.

What makes "replacement" a conspiracy theory, however, is that it invents this elaborate fantasy ascribing change not to the normal churn of human society, but to a sinister and hidden conspiracy of Jews and Democrats who are secretly inflicting change to pull off some grand scheme.

What makes "replacement" a conspiracy theory, however, is that it invents this elaborate fantasy ascribing change not to the normal churn of human society, but to a sinister and hidden conspiracy of Jews and Democrats who are secretly inflicting change to pull off some grand scheme.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

That is, of course dumb. It's like "neo-Nazi message board" levels of dumb. Carlson deflects attention from that by pretending that we're debating the factual assertion "change is real," and lashing out at straw-liberals who, though only in his imagination, are pretending it's not.

More importantly, Carlson is propping up this fake debate so that he can smuggle in his real argument, which is that change is bad.

Carlson's whole gambit depends on the presumption that change is a terrible thing. But that belief is both delusional and, on the subject of immigration, racist. As Adam Serwer of The Atlantic recently wrote, the same kinds of arguments were made "at the turn of the 20th century" to argue that "Polish, Russian, Greek, Italian, and Jewish" immigrants "posed a danger." Carlson's hysterics make about as much sense as some man in the 1920s arguing that the bagel is the downfall of American civilization.

Lieu's point actual point was, of course, that people like him are a valuable addition to the American community, and we should welcome the changes immigration brings. Carlson knows that he can't win that argument, especially when reminded of how idiotic such arguments from the past look to modern eyes. As Sewer notes, the Tucker Carlsons of the 1930s were so racist and paranoid that even Nazis rejected some of their ideas as "a bit too strict." So instead, Carlson raves about secret conspiracies and pretends that liberals are hiding something. It's pure projection, of course. The only people hiding anything are Carlson and his allies, who are hiding their true motivation: naked racism.

The "replacement" and "change" language feeds on the very human fear of mortality that is especially powerful with the largely elderly Fox News audience. As Heather "Digby" Parton wrote last week for Salon, "The fact is that we are all going to be 'replaced' by the generations that come up behind us." Change is often terrifying because it's a reminder that time is passing by and that the grave awaits us all. For many people, it's easier to let this sour-faced, middle-aged prep school brat lash out at immigrants than grapple with their fears of change and death. Carlson is a cynical demagogue, no doubt, and that's why he's a dangerous one.

AMANDA MARCOTTE

 The difference between the Bushes and the Trumps of the party is that the Bushes dog-whistled to the base -- they made Bible references that went over the heads of secular Americans while implying fealty to white evangelicals, for example, which they only partially delivered on -- and perhaps even decided to live with the discomfort of knowing they were leading a party that was increasingly banking on racial and gender resentment to achieve power. 

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But Trump spoke the previously unspoken, and embraced the resentment not just as a path to power, but as a real battle cry. He drew what was previously intentionally obscured and denied to the center of his movement. 

That Bush is now speaking out is certainly laudable, but also conveniently underplays his role in laying the groundwork upon which Trump built. Certainly Bush seems horrified by the end result -- as we all should be. But while he's pointing to the ugly thing his party has become, he should pause and reflect on his own contributions.

-From Salon.com

 

After Derek Chauvin is found guilty, some see a shift in police prosecutions

The closely watched trial’s outcome will ripple outward in notable ways, according to legal analysts and others: Prosecutors appear more willing to bring charges against officers, and police leadership might feel more emboldened to try to dismiss troubled officers.

By Mark Berman and Kimberly Kindy

 

Ex-Officer Found Guilty of Murdering George Floyd

• A jury deliberated for just over 10 hours before convicting Derek Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
• The verdict, which could send Mr. Chauvin to prison for decades, followed case after case of officers’ going without charges or convictions.
• President Biden praised the verdict, but called it a “too rare” step to deliver “basic accountability” for Black Americans.

 

Opinion: The Republican Party is beyond salvation — even without Trump

Opinion by 

Max Boot

Columnist

April 20, 2021 at 12:05 p.m. CDT

That was a very telling comment that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) posted on Twitter last week. He noted that tweets from President Biden’s account “are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional” and that his “public comments are largely scripted.” In Cornyn’s mind, this “invites the question: is he really in charge?”

On one level, this shows a senior Republican senator — someone who is seen as a staid establishmentarian — trying to spread smarmy insinuations that the president has lost his marbles and is being manipulated by shadowy leftists. That’s an article of faith on the conspiratorial far right that has now migrated to the mainstream despite the total lack of any substantiating evidence. When called out by Chris Wallace on Fox News, Cornyn retreated to the usual, despicable defense of conspiracy theorists: “I simply asked a question.” I didn’t say the moon landing was faked — I was only asking if it was!

But what is even more disturbing about Cornyn’s tweet is the upside-down assumption that it’s normal for a president to spew deranged, ungrammatical, abusive tweets — and that there is something wrong with a president who refuses to do so. Most people thought that President Donald Trump’s tweets were bonkers — but for a large portion of the GOP, they have now become the standard by which his successors will be judged. Republicans have gone down the rabbit hole where sanity and sobriety are inexplicable and indeed suspicious.

This is a sign of how the Republican Party is adjusting to post-Trump life. It has embraced Trumpism without Trump. This is not really a set of policy preferences; the GOP in 2020 passed on a platformbeyond allegiance to the Orange Emperor’s whims. It is more of a mindless, obnoxious attitude — it’s all about “owning the libs,” spreading conspiracy theories, and waging culture wars as a way to rile up the rabid base and keep the cash register ringing.

Three of the major tenets of the Trumpified GOP have been on public view the past week — if you can bear to watch.

Hostility to science: Watch the video of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) yapping at Anthony S. Fauci, one of the nation’s leading infectious-disease experts, like an enraged chihuahua. “Dr. Fauci, when is the time?” Jordan kept asking. He wanted to know when it was “time to pull back on masking” and “physical distancing.” “When do Americans get their freedoms back? ... What is low enough? Give me a number.” Fauci tried to explain that restrictions could be lifted as infection rates got lower. But for Jordan, this had nothing to do with eliciting information — it was all about showing his contempt for a leading scientist and demonstrating that he is much more exercised about prudent public health restrictions than about a virus that has already killed more than 567,000 Americans. It’s no surprise that vaccination rates are lower in counties that Trump won than in counties that voted for Biden.

Racism: Some of the most pro-Trump members of the House tried last week to start an America First Caucus. “White People First” is more like it: Their manifesto declared that “America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions. History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country.” There was so much blowback that the America Firsters backed off. But, as my colleague Aaron Blake notes, the white supremacist “replacement theory” — which claims that shadowy elites are importing people of color to replace native-born Whites — has gained wide adherence in the GOP. It has been pushed recently by everyone from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who recently wondered (there’s that question again!) if Democrats “want to remake the demographics of America to ensure — that they stay in power forever.”

Authoritarianism: The Big Lie has become Republican orthodoxy — just like tax cuts and conservative judges. Polls show that 78 percent of Republicans don’t think Biden legitimately won and 51 percent say Congress “did not go far enough” to support “Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.” Little wonder that so many 2022 aspirants — including leading Republican Senate candidates in Ohio, Alabama, Missouri and North Carolina — are pushing the falsehood of the stolen election. The willingness to deny the election outcome — and thereby to reject democracy itself — has become the new litmus test for Republican primary voters.

This is by no means the whole of the GOP — but the Trumpy wing is by far the most vocal, militant and important. The “mainstream,” by contrast, is weak, vacillating and uncertain. Former House speaker John A. Boehner is a case in point: He denounces the “crazies” who have taken over, but he admits that in 2020 he voted for Trump — the leader of the crazies — because “I thought that his policies, by and large, mirrored the policies that I believed in.”

As I’ve said before, this is a party that is beyond salvation. I just wish Republicans didn’t insist on proving that bleak judgment right with dismaying regularity.

 

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As the performer Dorian Corey expounded in the documentary “Paris Is Burning”:

“I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you’ve made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you’ve left a mark. You don’t have to bend the whole world. I think it’s better to just enjoy it.”

I also decided to just enjoy it. I have decided to be more intentional about managing and maintaining personal relationships, to watering those flowers.

When I am gone, and people remember my name, I want some of them to smile.

-Charles M. Blow in the NY Times

 

tags: revision, writing

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“...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” 
― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

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I met my new psychiatrist this morning. I asked right off the bat if he were Freudian. He said ah, hah! Your first defense mechanism! We're off to a good star

 

U.S. imposes sanctions on Russia over cyberspying, election influence effort

The measures will complicate Russia’s ability to raise money in international capital markets.

By Ellen Nakashima40 minutes ago