The editor of the New Yorker wishes that someone would step forward and express the nation’s despair as eloquently as Robert F. Kennedy did after the assassination of Martin Luther King. I don’t know. After all, it was just a few months later that the assassin’s bullet found him. These threats are not quelled with poetic words and I don’t know if our society is even capable of hearing such things right now. I think it’s more important not to forget what brought us here. As Remnick writes: What must be said, contrary to the rhetoric of Vance, Scott, and Abbott, is that Trump has, to say the least, done little to calm or to unify the country he once led and is campaigning to lead again. Unfortunately, it is hard to recall a public voice in living memory who has done more to arouse the lowest passions that so often percolate within individuals and the greater society. Even as one expresses genuine relief that Trump escaped a worse fate on Saturday (and sympathy for the family of the spectator at the rally who was killed), it is legitimate to describe what Trump and his rhetoric have meant to the country.
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Can the United States avoid a descent into political violence? Of the 52 cases where countries reached the levels of polarisation which now exist in the US, half had their status as democracies downgraded. The US is the only Western democracy to have sustained such intense polarisation over such an extended period. It really is Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 14 2024
by Tony Wikrent
The Trump Shooting: The Most Shocking Act of a Shockingly Violent Age
Michael Tomasky, July 14, 2024 [The New Republic]
This was not an abnormal incident. It’s a sign of the times….
ut whatever his motivation turns out to be, his act not isolated. There was the shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise in 2017. The attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Nancy, in 2022. Those are just the headline-grabbers, but political violence, or at least the threat of it, is now a constant in American life.
The Trump rally shooting reveals a bipartisan consensus about what constitutes political violence — and who should wield it.
The post The Only Kind of “Political Violence” All U.S. Politicians Oppose appeared first on The Intercept.
As the Biden campaign implodes, corporations are swooping in to pick up the pieces, and more news from The Lever this week.
Those of us who occasionally follow stock markets worldwide are usually well aware of the fact that ‘winners’ in these markets are largely the result of the harvest of chance. Occasionally, however, one hears so-called day traders express the view that it surely cannot be a question of pure luck that some stock traders consistently […]
Star Trek: Prodigy writer/producer Jennifer Muro has a Doctor Who-inspired spinoff idea for Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher and the Travelers.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: The Bear, The Last of Us, The Rookie, Marvel Studios/SDCC, Tracker, Superman & Lois, Doctor Who, and more!
What to do when we can’t trust our own eyes (or at least, the videos we are looking at. I spoke last weekend at a panel discussion on Navigating Lies, Deepfakes & Fake News, organised by McPherson Independent. This a group promoting the idea of an independent community candidate in the electorate of McPherson south of […]
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Someone tried to shoot Trump today. They didn’t get him, although reports are saying his ear was cut by some flying glass from his teleprompter. Two others were shot, however, and the shooter was as well. We don’t know yet about motives. But we do know this: Oh really? How about this: And you can see where Trump wanted them to go with his dramatic fist rise and blood on his face: The race is scrambled again and I have no idea where it will lead.
With the mercury continuing to soar in many sections of the country I thought I would curate a Top 15 “hot” noirs festival. Hot-as in sweaty, steamy, dripping, sticky, sudoriferous crime thrillers (get your mind out of the gutter). If you’re like me (and isn’t everyone?) there’s nothing more satisfying than gathering up an armload of DVDs and spending a hot weekend ensconced in my dark, cool media room (actually, I don’t have a “media room” nor any A/C in my apartment…but I can always dream). Enjoy! Ace in the Hole – Billy Wilder’s 1951 film is one of the bleakest noirs ever made: Charles Tatum: What’s that big story to get me outta here? […] I’m stuck here, fans. Stuck for good. Unless you, Miss Deverich, instead of writing household hints about how to remove chili stains from blue jeans, get yourself involved in a trunk murder. How about it, Miss Deverich? I could do wonders with your dismembered body. Miss Deverich: Oh, Mr. Tatum. Really! Charles Tatum: Or you, Mr. Wendell-if you’d only toss that cigar out the window. Real far…all the way to Los Alamos. And BOOM!
Assassination attempts targeting populist leaders have had a track record of boosting their popularity.
The post Will This Make Trump More Popular? appeared first on The Intercept.
Greg Sargent at TNR makes an important observation about why the polls remain so close: A new Marist poll takes the novel step of asking registered voters which is more off-putting in an occupant of the Oval Office: dishonesty or excessive age. The results are surprising, and along with other polling along these lines, it should influence how Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s relative qualifications for the presidency are covered from here on out. The poll asked: Which is more concerning in a president, someone who doesn’t tell the truth, or someone who might be too old to serve? The results were lopsided: By 68 to 32 percent, respondents were more concerned about the lying than the aging. Given the relentless media focus on presidential age of late, that’s simply remarkable. While the poll doesn’t directly compare Trump and Biden on that particular question, it also finds that 52 percent of Americans say Biden has the “character to serve as president,” whereas only 43 percent say this about Trump. Fifty-six percent say Trump lacks the character to serve, which surely reflects public perceptions of Trump’s dishonesty.
This is going viral all over social media and it is hilarious. I’m sorry to say, because I’m an old person sadly attached to old fashioned communication, but this is probably a better way to reach people about policy:
According to this breathless Axios report, the fall election is the “boys vs. girls” election. I could be mistaken but it sure sounds like they think the “boys” are the big winners in that contest: There’s more. And it’s unpleasant to read. Trump’s “surge” among men after his “frail” performance by 23 points and Biden’s “ticked up” 8 points after the debate according to the Oracle of Delphi New York Times/Siena poll. The GOP convention is apparently looking to exploit this alleged advantage by featuring wife beaters and golf pros: Dana White, the macho president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the hottest sport for testosterone-charged fans, will introduce Trump, whose rhetoric and policies shoot right into the bloodstream of his male-dominated base. White, a controversial figure in his own right, apologized last year after being filmed slapping his wife at a nightclub.
Once upon a time the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken booked a nice hotel room with a Queen bed and invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to share it with him. Continue reading »
Summers right across the northern hemisphere are getting hotter but vegetation can lower the temperature locally. Macaques show humans how to cope with hotter conditions. Poor progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Northern summers are getting hotter Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, even if not all the details are clear (the axes Continue reading »
Every generation, or thereabouts, has its moment of unlearning or forgetting two salutary lessons that should be indelibly imprinted on the memory and the consciousness with the advent of war: first, idiosyncrasies or hubris, or both, can overpower political leaders; second allies are not necessarily friends no matter how much they may seem like us, Continue reading »