Image from, with caption: Peter Finch as Howard Beale in the 1976 film "Network," written by Paddy Chayevsky.
David Brooks, "Respect First, Then Gun Control."
Excerpt:
This has been an emotional week. We greet tragedies like the school shooting in
Florida with shock, sadness, mourning and grief that turns into indignation and
rage. The anger inevitably gets directed at the N.R.A., those who support gun rights,
and the politicians who refuse to do anything while children die.
Many of us walked this emotional path. But we may end up doing more harm
than good. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it is that guns have become a cultural
flash point in a nation that is unequal and divided [JB emphasis]. The people who defend gun rights believe that snobbish elites look down on their morals and want to destroy their culture. If we end up telling such people that they and their guns are despicable, they will just despise us back and dig in their heels. ...
***
Paul Krugman, "The Content of the G.O.P.’s Character."
Excerpt:
[L]et’s be clear: America in 2018 is not a place where we can disagree
without being disagreeable, where there are good people and good ideas on both
sides, or whatever other bipartisan homily you want to recite. We are, instead, living
in a kakistocracy, a nation ruled by the worst, and we need to face up to that
unpleasant reality.
***
Roger Cohen, "The Madness of American Crowds."
Excerpt:
The wealthiest society on earth is currently subjected to the chaotic rule of a mean and vulgar charlatan who refined the manipulation of humanity through a TV show that was a ratings smash in its first season, continued under his guidance for more than a decade, and relied on the cruelty of whimsical humiliation for its frisson. Donald Trump had a solid education in the power of images, the flimsiness of objective reality, and the magnetism of authority.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose
any voters, O.K.?” he declared during the campaign. Let’s hand it to Trump: he was
right. Americans voted him into office after he said that. They were ready to roll the
dice, even on nuclear war, if the alternative was to be bored. They were mad. ...
***
Charles M. Blow, "Attacking the ‘Woke’ Black Vote."
Image from, with caption: Protester with the Black Lives Matter movement gathered near the White in in 2016.
Excerpt:
One thing that is clear to me following the special counsel’s indictment of 13
Russians and three companies for interfering with our election is that the black vote
was specifically under attack, from sources foreign and domestic. And this attack
appeared to be particularly focused on young black activist-minded voters
passionate about social justice: The “Woke” Vote.
The tragic irony is that these young people, many of whom already felt like the
American political system was failing them, were encouraged to lay down one of the
most powerful political tools they have, thereby ensuring an amplification of their
own oppressions.
The indictment proclaims that the defendants acted as Americans to create
social media pages and groups “which addressed divisive U.S. political and social issues.” But that is a phrase so broad and bland as to obscure the piercing truth that the indictment reveals: Referencing actual voter suppression, it says that “in or around the latter half of 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, through their personas, began to encourage U.S. minority groups not to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or to vote for a third-party U.S. presidential candidate. ...”
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