TP for Our National Bunghole

It puzzles me a bit when I see political groups, especially those with "tea party" leanings, advocating that we "take back America" (or some emphatic variation thereof). It's easy to understand the appeal of this message when the alternative is having to consider nuanced positions on serious policy matters, but a key question remains - who exactly are they taking America back from? In this context, the call to take back America is either hysterical hyperbole or a sincere cry for armed insurrection. If it's the former, it represents an empty slogan intended to help elect the candidates who are likely to be least capable of accomplishing anything productive after the election. If it's the latter, letting the corrupt agents of a tyrannical government know what they're planning represents a serious tactical mistake on their part. Either way, sensible people who care about the fate of our great country would be well-advised to steer clear.

Meet the Propro

No one who's fascinated by American politics would have wanted to miss this week's interview with Donald Trump on Meet the Press. Fitting that description, I even watched it on live TV. It's a testament to our fragmented media environment that a program being compelling enough to watch as it broadcasts is something of a status symbol just as Trump's candidacy is a testament to how dysfunctional politics have become since the last time a Clinton, a Bush and a billionaire were all presidential candidates.

As you might imagine, Trump's responses were perversely fascinating, particularly on questions about the Iran nuclear weapons deal. On the one hand, he was far more realistic than other candidates, acknowledging that a new President can't simply "rip up" the agreement on day one of their administration. On the other, he compensated with a different sort of bluster, insisting that he could have a far better job than the "incompetent" people who negotiated the agreement and vowing that he would go through every part of the agreement - as he claimed to have done with many other bad deals he took over - presumably to find loopholes to be used to his advantage. 

What fascinates me about this approach is that it calls to mind two of the only groups it's socially acceptable to mock, lawyers and federal employees. By my reckoning, the only group (of non felons, at least) that's more acceptable to mock is prostitutes. As an aside, this strikes me as even more perverse because prostitutes provide an unambiguous benefit to society in the form of blow-jobs. If we're all being honest, this in itself is sufficient reason why they shouldn't be mocked.

If The Clash Released An Album Today, It Might Be Called Sandernista

It seems increasingly fashionable in liberal circles to lament the treatment of Bernie Sanders by the media. The general script is that the "mainstream media" (where have I heard that pejorative before?) ignores both the large crowds he draws and the serious issues he talks about in favor of Donald Trump and - especially- Hilary Clinton. Even if you agree with his views and share the (equally laudable) desire to have serious issues widely discussed, there's a worrisome streak of naïveté within the crusade for Sanders. 

It has nothing to do with whether he's "electable" and everything to do with misunderstanding how mass media works just as thoroughly as the most ardent FoxNews zealot does. The "mainstream media" in America, of which FoxNews is as much a part as NBC or the New York Times, isn't liberal or conservative - it's commercial the same way a Marvel comics movie is commercial. 

Like most commercially-minded movies, the media isn't particularly well-suited to handle serious issues and deep thoughts. Where it excels is plot and external conflict. Consequently, politics is inevitably packaged in terms of conflict - winners and losers or protagonists and antagonists. Even when reporters and pundits purport to talk about serious issues, it's in reductive terms and typically in hindsight - as we saw eight years ago with the sparring between Clinton and Obama about whether going to war in Iraq was a mistake and as we see this year with Jeb Bush about whether the Iraq war was a mistake. 

Those who believe that Senator Sanders' campaign should get more coverage are probably right, but in the effort to spread that view it's essential to keep in mind that the reasons why he isn't getting it are far less about his stance on issues (or even his chances of winning an election) than they are about Clinton and Trump being far more entertaining and thus easier to package for the nightly news. Failure to understand that risks sounding an awful lot like the people on "the other side" that we tell ourselves we're smarter than, and we wouldn't want that.