US Politics: The Transition Continues

[The Killer Snark]

14 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

I'm not sure how much of this is your own opinion versus Brietbart's take.   The choice to cast exclusively PoC for all of the roles other than King George (so there is still a role for a white guy here; did Brietbart bother to mention that?), and then appealing to a notoriously diversity-adverse Vice President to value diversity, is not hypocrisy.   Hamilton's decision to employ almost exclusively people of color only comes across as problematic only to people who are either blissfully unaware of how incredibly hostile to PoC the entertainment industry has been (there's some pretty interesting videos/ articles documenting the various blackface white actors adopted to play certain roles across theatre and film), or those who refuse to believe we do not live in a "post-race" world.  Hamilton's color-conscious reversal of the historic marginalization of PoC is a critique, and cries of "reverse racism" are just absurd.  

 

The cries of 'reverse racism' are indeed absurd, because it is simple racism. Hiring people of a certain colour purely so as not to hire other people of a colour less favoured is pure and simple racial prejudice.

[butterbumps!]

27 minutes ago, The Killer Snark said:

The cries of 'reverse racism' are indeed absurd, because it is simple racism. Hiring people of a certain colour purely so as not to hire other people of a colour less favoured is pure and simple racial prejudice.

Are you of the belief that people of all color are now on the same equal footing in society (at least American society, which is the one we're discussing in this case), and that all past injustices have already been corrected for?

I'd also think a self-avowed "cultural preservationist" such as yourself would see hip hop (which is the musical style of the show) as something white people have no claim to, and would be, perhaps, rightly barred from taking what belongs to someone else culturally, and praise the casting choices thusly?

[maarsen]

When making art, the artist gets to choose the medium. In this case the artist chose non white actors. Artistic freedom trumps just about anything.  

[Dr. Pepper]

Isn't the whole point of choosing POC for the Hamilton cast to make American history and ideals accessible for today's audience?  

And yup, the Hamilton cast trying to politely appeal to Pence has overshadowed all other corruption news surrounding Trump.  I brought up to a Trumpster about Trump settling his fake university suit and Ivanka sitting in on diplomatic meetings and they said that sounds like a fake liberal attack because he hadn't heard a thing about it.  Guessing it's not being report on Breitbart, Fox or fake news memes?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

They should be happy that he attended the show at all. Next time, don't bother, VP. Problem solved.

Not being able to attend Broadway shows is hardly going to reduce one's quality of life. The arts community is liberal to the bone in any case. No loss whatsoever.

What?  Are you suggesting we are going to lose the Arts community and that loss is no big deal?  

Addressing the VP-Elect, while unlikely to be effective, is well within the first amendment perview of these actors.  Why would their actions necessitate an apology?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, Yukle said:

What about Governor? That's the office equivalent to President at state level.

The US is a Federal system with multiple sovereign entities.  Counties and Parishes are not sovereign entities whereas States are.  States are unitary Govenrments, therefore, no EC needed in the election of Governors.  However, if a State chose to begin to use an EC like system to choose its Governor, that's its call, not that of the Federal Government (without an Amendment to the US Constitution either granting the Federal Government such regulatory power or directing States to refrain from an internal EC system).

[The guy from the Vale]

Scot,

Several central European countries also have federal systems. None of them has an electoral college

[SkynJay]

I suppose the cast of Hamilton could have instead suggested Pience be thrown out, perhaps offered to pay the legal fees for roughing him up?

The story is beyond silly, and as a theater fan I am just thrilled to see we once again get to rehash the casting call.  I am just positive had Odom or Diggs been denied their part because 'historically the character is white' that Breibart would have been all over that racist decision within the liberal casting decisions, RIGHT?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Scot,

Several central European countries also have federal systems. None of them has an electoral college

And?  Most European countries also have Parliamentary systems where the Public plays no direct part in the selection of their chief executive.  That is less democratic than the EC.  Should that be tossed?

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I think the Hamilton thing is turning out to be a masterful piece of media manipulation by the Trump team.

[OldGimletEye]

5 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I think the Hamilton thing is turning out to be a masterful piece of media manipulation by the Trump team.

Yes, conservative faux outrage, like faux news, is a remarkable thing.

Trump says some highly disturbing things about race and gender in the United States.

People are worried.

They then express those worries.

Conservatives then proceed to express outrage over these people's "arrogance".

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I brought up to a Trumpster about Trump settling his fake university suit and Ivanka sitting in on diplomatic meetings and they said that sounds like a fake liberal attack because he hadn't heard a thing about it.  Guessing it's not being report on Breitbart, Fox or fake news memes?

In conservative world, Spock sports a goatee. It really is an alternate universe.

[Jaxom 1974]

9 hours ago, Commodore said:

You invite paying customers to view your art, then give them a lecture when they show up? Nothing respectful about that (no matter who it is).

Also, if you have to supplement your art with explicit scolding, you're compensating for deficiency in the art itself.

Shame they weren't scolding then.  

8 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Silvio clearly disagrees with you, but you're probably right.  You probably know a lot more about effective protest through art.

I mean... What's that guy ever done, MIRITE?

I know many things.  I know Silvio has a real name.  But I digress.  

In this case, I think he is incorrect in his assessment.  Especially since I find it difficult to believe Springsteen has never used a concert to speak up about something important to him, and he's The Boss...

Does Steven van Sandt have an issue with that scenario?

57 minutes ago, SkynJay said:

I suppose the cast of Hamilton could have instead suggested Pience be thrown out, perhaps offered to pay the legal fees for roughing him up?

The story is beyond silly, and as a theater fan I am just thrilled to see we once again get to rehash the casting call.  I am just positive had Odom or Diggs been denied their part because 'historically the character is white' that Breibart would have been all over that racist decision within the liberal casting decisions, RIGHT?

This. Damn it.

21 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I think the Hamilton thing is turning out to be a masterful piece of media manipulation by the Trump team.

This. Damn it.

[LongRider]

12 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I think the Hamilton thing is turning out to be a masterful piece of media manipulation by the Trump team.

 

3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes, conservative faux outrage, like faux news, is a remarkable thing.

Trump says some highly disturbing things about race and gender in the United States.

People are worried.

They then express those worries.

Conservatives then proceed to express outrage over these people's "arrogance".

The actor involved is a POC who had the courage to speak to a known homophobe who has gained a huge position of power.  After Jan 20, the chance of Pence as VP hearing any of these voices will be nil.  What the actor did while not truly outrageous, is interesting and took courage.  I like what Nils Lofgren said about this:

 

Quote

“The audience had the freedom to boo,” he tweeted. “The statement was truth to power. Any chance you get to speak truth to power right now, you have to take it.”

Since Trump's election many have been worried about freedom of speech and 1st Amendment rights.  Trump's twitter storm about this has become news and he's stoked outrage amongst his followers which can possibly dampen free speech.  How much longer will the American people have the chance to speak truth to power?   It's a grave concern.

 

[OldGimletEye]

http://crookedtimber.org/2016/11/15/on-the-national-and-international-causes-of-trumpism/

Interesting comments from Eric Rauchway.

Quote

The slow recovery put Obama’s legacy at political risk. For decades, political scientists had been modeling the effect of economic performance on US elections. The longest established and highly reliable such predictor was Ray Fair, whose equation took into account a series of variables including economic good news. In the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential election, the Fair model, largely influenced by the paucity of good economic news, predicted the Democrats would narrowly lose the presidency. Challenged on the validity of his predictions, Fair wrote, “If one assumes that the empirical regularities gleaned from the past 25 elections, as reflected in the coefficient estimates, hold for this election, one would conclude that the Democrats’ chances are quite poor.” Fair conceded the possibility that “people who would otherwise vote for the Republicans because of the sluggish economy and a desire for change will vote for the Democrats because of Donald Trump’s characteristics that they don’t like.” But it was impossible to say in advance of the November 8 canvass.

If the economists were right that a bigger and better stimulus would have produced a faster economic recovery with more widespread prosperity, and the political scientists were right that lackluster economic performance gave Republicans favorable odds of taking the White House in 2016, then Obama’s decision to de-emphasize stimulus in favor of pressing for health insurance reform was a gamble of immense, if unknowable, magnitude and consequence. The opportunity to craft the largest missing piece in the ramshackle American welfare state was surely unique. But for the adoption of healthcare reform to prove meaningful to American lives in the long term, the new program would have to remain in place, and indeed be improved in later years. The Obama health insurance reform narrowly survived a legal challenge in the Supreme Court in 2015, and its further survival would depend on the election of Democrats to defend it in Congress and to nominate and confirm judges and justices likewise willing to uphold it. The parlous recovery made the election of such Democrats uncertain indeed and even at the end of Obama’s presidency it was unclear whether he had won that gamble owing in large measure to the dramatically changed character of the Republican Party in 2016.

It is possible the political effects of the weak turnaround were not limited to Obama’s legacy, Democratic electoral chances, or the future of reformed health insurance provision; they may have extended to the legitimacy of the US political system itself. The effects of a slow and sputtering recovery after such a hopeful start would have been predicted—indeed, were predicted—by Franklin Roosevelt. Considering the despairing mood of the nation in 1932, he thought it no surprise that Americans had staged no revolution. But with the promise of a New Deal, he had raised hope—and “disappointed hope, rather than despair, creates revolutions.… Now there was hope and he knew he must not preside over more disappointment,” his aide Rexford Tugwell recalled. A twenty-first century study confirmed Roosevelt’s intuition. Examining the economic and political fortunes of twenty-eight countries between the world wars, the economic historians Alan de Bromhead, Barry Eichengreen, and Kevin H. O’Rourke found that “when economic bad news continues beyond a certain period of time and negative expectations become firmly entrenched, some people reach for extreme solutions.” As the limping recoveries of the interwar period extended into a period of years, it became ever more likely that these conditions would lend strength to fascist parties whose leaders and constituents did not want merely to govern existing institutions, but to destroy them.

The disappointments that followed the brief moment of hope in 2009 yielded similar boosts to right-wing parties and movements in many nations. Five years onward, in the European Parliamentary elections of 2014, the National Front of France increased its share of the vote from 6.3 to 24.9 percent, the UK Independence Party likewise rose from 16.5 to 26.8 percent, and the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs went from 12.7 to 19.7 percent. British voters in the throes of nationalist enthusiasms and angered at the effects of austerity on their institutions chose to depart the European Union, or “Brexit,” in 2016.

The US has an institutional bias against minor parties, but taking account of that constraint, the political effects of the weak recovery looked similar. Trump gained the Republican nomination and Trumpism—a mix of nationalism, nativism, and contempt for Constitutional limits and parliamentary norms, among other resentments—gained a purchase on the Republican Party.

As the worldwide trends of the twenty-first century indicate, economic malaises and rightward shift cannot owe solely to decisions made in the Obama White House or even within the United States. These trends owe to a decades-long effort to discredit Keynesianism and the New Deal in favor of leaner budgets, lower taxes, and fewer public services. But it is worth noting that in the 1930s, the US diverged from a global trend toward right-wing extremism owing in large measure to the rapid and visible successes of the New Deal. In the years after the 2008 crash, it did not.

I remember very well all the debates that have happened since 2008. As soon as the financial crises struck the right went into full throttle New Deal or fiscal stimulus denialism mode. You had people like Amity Shlaes writing books like “The Forgotten Man” and you had people like Lee Ohanian writing papers claiming now FDR prolonged the Great Depression. Tales of swabian housewives were told, along with fanasies about “confidence fairies” and “expansionary austerity”.

Even Miltion Friedman got thrown under the bus, and conservatives had a new found love for Hayek (Author of Road to Libertarian Horsehsit) and Mises.

It seems to me that many on the right wanted to re-fight the 1930s and in a perverse way, they may have scored a victory. It's pretty depressing.

[butterbumps!]

1 hour ago, Dr. Pepper said:

And yup, the Hamilton cast trying to politely appeal to Pence has overshadowed all other corruption news surrounding Trump. 

 

38 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I think the Hamilton thing is turning out to be a masterful piece of media manipulation by the Trump team.

yea, I think it's a case of wagging the dog to distract from shitton of genuinely problematic corruption news, using a particularly emotionally-charged story to reinforce hate of the "coastal elites" who only care about identity politics, while trying to shame them into silence by pointing to "reverse racism" to discredit, and continuing the "you can protest, but only in the way we say you can" line.  

[LongRider]

17 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

http://crookedtimber.org/2016/11/15/on-the-national-and-international-causes-of-trumpism/

Interesting comments from Eric Rauchway.

As the worldwide trends of the twenty-first century indicate, economic malaises and rightward shift cannot owe solely to decisions made in the Obama White House or even within the United States. These trends owe to a decades-long effort to discredit Keynesianism and the New Deal in favor of leaner budgets, lower taxes, and fewer public services. But it is worth noting that in the 1930s, the US diverged from a global trend toward right-wing extremism owing in large measure to the rapid and visible successes of the New Deal. In the years after the 2008 crash, it did not.

Just happen to think this worth repeating.

[LongRider]

3 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

Something, though, that rubs me the wrong way is that a lot of these people calling for jobs aren't merely looking for jobs, but some very specific ones, and sometimes for not very good reasons.   There are a lot of jobs available for the taking, but many of them happen to be in fields historically associated with "women's work," such as nursing, which many men categorically reject.   Harvard Business Review came out with an interesting analysis of the situation, identifying, well, essentially, toxic ideas about gender roles that's partially at root in the call for the president to bring back some very specific jobs they deem properly masculine and the like

This is a very good article, thanks for posting the link.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, butterbumps! said:

 

yea, I think it's a case of wagging the dog to distract from shitton of genuinely problematic corruption news, using a particularly emotionally-charged story to reinforce hate of the "coastal elites" who only care about identity politics, while trying to shame them into silence by pointing to "reverse racism" to discredit, and continuing the "you can protest, but only in the way we say you can" line.  

When it comes to the term "elite" conservatives are often pretty mealy mouthed.

The Koch Brothers are not elites. 

Donald Trump and his cronies are not elites.

No, what the term "elite" often means is that you dared to disagree with Rush Limbaugh.

[Commodore]

I would characterize elites as those with power, responsibility, and perhaps influence.

Which doesn't inherently make them smart, capable, ethical. Hence the criticism.