"As clear as the sun
Shines on Kansas, the vote sings
Loud, “Hallelujah!”
--Christina Starobin, 8/2/22
It would be easy to misunderstand what happened in Kansas.
The resounding "no" vote in Kansas was not a progressive victory for abortion rights. It was a conservative victory against intrusive government.
The ads have a tone that readers will instantly understand to be essentially "conservative." They sound like ads for Republican candidates, or ads against environmental legislation, or ads against expanded access to health care. One ad had a flashing glimpse of a mandated COVID mask. The premise of the ads is that the power-grabbers in government plan to force their heavy hands into our personal lives and we must stop them.
Here is the text of one, paid for by a group called Kansans for Constitutional Freedom:
This confused constitutional amendment is a slippery slope for Kansas. It gives government more power over your privacy and your personal medical decisions. Don't let politicians take away your freedom. Send a message. Vote no.
Here is a link.
Here is the text of another ad by the same group:
Abortion is already highly regulated in Kansas. Here are the facts. Taxpayer funding for abortion: Outlawed. Abortion after viability: Banned. Parental consent: Required. You should also know this. This confusing constitutional amendment could lead to a total ban on any abortion in Kansas with no exceptions for rape, incest, or a mother's life. That's extreme and goes too far. Vote no. No--on changing the constitution.
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| 30 seconds |
The ads are "shot dark." They are quasi black-and-white and have a menacing tone and feel. This third ad takes that mood further with a message of conspiracy, exposed through a "leaked audio." A secret plan is underway and "supporters aren't telling you the truth." It warns that the government plans a "total ban on abortions, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or mother's life."
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| 30 seconds |
There is a lesson for Democrats in these ads. They must not presume the victory in Kansas means that there is an oscillation back towards the left, as defined by bigger, better government or the forward edge of the culture wars on sex and gender. This was not a referendum on trans inclusion into a revised notion of "womanhood." This wasn't about pronouns. Blue state Democratic governors, legislators, and candidates who favored aggressive COVID mandates can take note. Advocates of gun regulation can as well. Same with climate activists who think the Kansas vote means there may be undiscovered support for cap-and-trade regulation in Republican areas. This news will disappoint some people but the ads speak for themselves. Kansans voted for less government. Watch the ads, or these additional ones:
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5 comments:
I'm sure those anti-government intrusion conservatives will be outraged if Democrats force them to pay less for their prescription medications.
Both parties both parties have a similar tendency to optimistically/hubristically project their true inner desires onto a voting public that does not share those desires.
America does not want to become Gilead or Ecotopia. For that matter, it doesn’t even want to become Scandinavia.
Yes, it would be horrible if all citizens of the U.S. had access to affordable health care, or could afford to go to College if they really wanted without taking on massive debts, at usurious interest rates to do so. Just horrible if Public Schools were funded so teachers could be paid enough to keep them in their carriers. Just Horrible if Corporations and people like Bezos, Zuckerberg and Musk actually had to pay real living wages, and a significant portion of their personal fortunes in taxes to support the infrastructure they so cheerfully use. Just Horrible, it would be.
Another (nitpicking?) note?
The senryu is a bit more than “somewhat similar” to the haiku. It’s the same unrhyming 5–7-5 format, just with differing thematic emphases. Nor is Ms. Starobin, more importantly, observing those senryu emphases—unless she actually agrees with Mr. Sage, and is being thoroughly facetious in her otherwise apparent paean to Kansas and its voters? Sure doesn’t read that way. Inquiring idle minds want to know!
To LD
The poem, then my analysis is the senryu, taken together.are a meta metaphor--a phrase I never imagined I would write.
Her poem stands alone as a happy thought about politics. The distance between Kansas' reputation and the election result is the setup in her poem. The Halalulya is the ironic twist--given that ira was for Kansas of all places. So I think her poem is a legitimate senryu. The irony is that Kansas related such progressive joy.
Now, in the meta of my overall post, her poem is the new status quo. The thesis. The setup. The poem is the equivalent of the first stanza or two of a senryu. The thing that sets up the reversal in the final syllables.
The ironic reversal is my own opinion, the material after her setup poem. The burden of my post is that there is little for liberals to celebrate other than the result. The ballot measure lost by being the opposite of the collectivist, woke feminist, Democratic message. That,, then, is the ironic twist. Of course my post was six hundred or more words, not five syllables. But I warned that the whole post, poem and response was the metaphors of a single senryu.
I think I know Christina's politics,but maybe I am just guessing, based on demography and being part of her cohort, which vote for near universally got Hillary and shares liber feminist views. She is almost an archetypal example of a predictable cohort--although she is, of course, uhrrbown person and might surprise me. Still, she is in the classic second wave feminist age cohort, and given a MA from Columbia, a PhD from NYU, a career in English Literature, being a woman in the Radcliffe Class of 1971, a veteran of both Vietnam college strikes and MS Magazine feminism, living in New England, if she is not a liberal supporter of abortion rights she would have defied every demographic stereotype.
I like her poems,. She posts to a list serve group and shares them. They are wistful about the passing of time. Insightful. She's very gracious to let me repurpose them. The whole post was a giant senryu.
Peter Sage
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