Two brief video clips.
Scenes from an American election campaign.
Today's blog post is brief. I present two videos, each about two minutes. Both are from GOP campaign debates. They look like Saturday Night Live skits, but these are real.
I experienced both humor and dismay while watching them. In the Arizona election the woman in the multi-colored blouse, Kari Lake, is the leading candidate. The centerpiece of her campaign is the 2020 election, which she insists was won by Trump. In the Wyoming election, Harriet Hageman is getting almost twice the votes as Liz Cheney, according to a poll reported in the Casper, Wyoming Star Tribune.
I repeat the final words, spoken by Liz Cheney in the second video: "We've got to elect serious leaders." Liz Cheney is a serious leader.
This is a clip from the debate for the Arizona Republican Primary Election for governor:
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| http://tinyurl.com/ysbrpd83 |
This one is from the Wyoming Republican Primary election for the state's sole congressional seat.
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| http://tinyurl.com/2vb4u8za |
14 comments:
As we commemorate the founding of this nation I can't help but wonder what those thoughtful men (sadly, only men, but that's another issue) might think watching the utter stupidity that has permeated American politics.
My guess is they would be appalled. I think they would run back into Independence Hall and write up what would amount to product safety warnings to attach to the Constitution. Something like the one on washing machines: "Do not put any person in this washer.", or my favorite, on an electric drill: "not to be used as a dental device".
Ben and Tom would probably have come up with something like: "FRAGILE, handle with care. Keep out of the reach of the feeble minded, evil or demonstrably bats**t crazy".
Oh dear. I watched both videos and experienced only dismay.
I didn't have the stomach to watch either one completely through to the end. Those people belong in an asylum, not a Political Campaign, with the exception of Liz Cheney.
We are doomed.
Or maybe they would have decided that an hereditary autocracy wasn’t such a bad idea after all
‘‘Twas ever thus:
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
There are many in this great land of ours who fool you by walking upright.
Democracy is an attempt to generate high quality decisions from a large mass of low quality components.
The wisdom of the crowds.
Democracy isn’t perfect. But what would you replace it with? The “wisdom” of the elites? Not in this country.
Democracy is the worst system, except for all the others.
The Arizona campaign that Peter’s clip is from was described as “a clown car of a debate,” except the clowns are like something out of a Stephen King novel.
Liz Cheney recently said, "Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution." Peter quotes her as saying, “We’ve got to elect serious leaders,” but her loyalty to the Constitution and her oath of office have eliminated her as a serious contender. Considering what the Republican Party has degenerated into, it’s a mystery why she would even want to be a part of something so hostile to America’s core values.
The founding fathers knew about all of this. They wrote about it.
They put structures in place to compensate for it, like having state legislatures elect senators instead of the public directly. Idealists like the early progressive movement got rid of that particular safeguard. Was that a good thing? It’s a delicate balance.
What we currently have is the bottom up nature of democracy in rebellion against the forces of top down control. The bottom has noticed that the top doesn’t give a fuck about it. They are not pleased. Rightfully so.
Will Democrats come full circle, back to restrictions on eligibility for office, and for exercise of the franchise itself?
If so, I suspect that any "new" regime would simply indulge a different set of toxic stupidities. Meet the new boss...
For the record: It wasn't progressives that got senators elected by popular vote. It was a Constitutional amendment ratified by 3/4 of the states.
Democrats were, indeed, the party of restricting voting rights for Black Americans and for maintaining racism. In 1963 to 1966 that firmly switched. Then Republicans took over that role, first with Goldwater a principled advocate of state power in a federal system.
Then by 1968 Nixon led the GOP to add a coded racial element: the Southern Strategy. By 1980 Reagan kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia--Philadelphia, Mississippi, a middle of nowhere place noteworthy only by it having been a locality whose power structure resisted investigating the murder of a Black man and covered it up. It was a pretty obvious signal that the federal government wasn't going to hassle localities that didn't give justice to Black victims.
Now the parties have settled into their corners. Democrats have tried to empower Blacks in a way that irritates and estranges other minorities plus non-college Whites, to their political peril. Many liberal Democrats think they have gone overboard. The GOP in the Trump era has been the party that in legislation, judicial decisions, administration, and messaging, has opposed Democrats in their endeavors. Trump's messaging is barely-coded or uncoded. It has had mixed results politically.
In any case, Republicans throw the Democratic past up to attention, thinking, perhaps to point out Democratic hypocrisy. In fact, Democrats changed, as did Republicans. My own sense is that calling out that racist past is a good sign. It shows that Republicans think that that past is shameful, and I agree. The downside, as I see it, is that by calling it out some Democrats are encouraged to over-react and think they need to be anti-racist, in a way that turns out to be ill-liberal. Reverse-prejudice is prejudice, to my mind. I am stuck in the past. I like MLK. Oddly eough, I think the South Carolina primary vote in 2020 shows that Black Democrats are, as well. The problem is the well-educated Democratic perfectionist scolds, who are ore Royalist than the King. In this case, ML King.
When it becomes impossible to defend one's own political party it is preferable to attack what the other party "might do," without any supporting evidence.
The painful, sad truth is that the current GQP is the party of voter suppression, white supremacy, environmental degradation, female reproductive slavery, violent insurrection and gun worship. No wonder some folks are afraid to look in the mirror.
Woke to the left of me,
Trumpists to the right,
Here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you
Mr. Sage--
For what it's worth? To the extent you were responding to my comment, I was misconstrued. Rereading my comment, I can't say I fault you. But what I intended to cite was not comparatively recent history, instead to reference the very first decades of the Republic and all the varied and extensive limits on who could vote or serve. These were set by both/all parties. I wryly specified Democrats because today they are the biggest critics of the founding era and all that has evolved therefrom. These videos are good arguments for classic means and education requirements.
From the start, a significant percentage of our population has mindlessly, and often violently, opposed diversity, equity and inclusion. One of the dumbest mistakes the U.S. ever made was preventing the Confederacy from seceding. It would have given all those angry white nationalists someplace to go and feel at home. On the other hand, their economy would probably still be based on slavery.
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