Not that I was totally disconnected from the world of manufactured opinion, consent and news, mind you. I still was able to get NPR (National Public Radio), so I learned on the morning after the big event that Joe Biden had chosen Kamala Harris to be his running mate.
After listening to NPR for days on end, I remember why I'd stopped tuning into it a decade ago.
With its combination of Trump disgust and associated Russophobia brought to the level of barely contained hopeless and helpless hysteria, sponsored by more craft beer microbreweries, sustainable gourmet food emporiums, artisanal coffee roasters, Ivy League tutoring services and more pretentious New-Agey stuff than I ever knew existed in upstate New York and adjacent New England, it was, in fact, a virtual teaser for this week's Democratic National Convention. With very few exceptions - notably,an excellent "Fresh Air" interview with human rights activist Sister Helen Prejean - I found NPR to be just as off-putting in its own smarmy way as any drivel belched out by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.
During one call-in segment on the locally-produced "Round Table" breakfast show, a woman describing herself as the manager of an upstate New York trailer park described her tenants as "lovely people" who, despite their hard-knock lives, are still true believers in Donald Trump. Why oh why do "these people" always vote against their own interests? And why oh why do they resent the well-meaning and earnest and fact-based NPR crowd so much?
"Racism" was the unanimous verdict of the panelists, who proceeded to lambaste Trump's stereotypical misogynistic characterization of Kamala Harris as "nasty." One panelist had a thesaurus magically to hand and proceeded to properly enunciate all the synonyms for "nasty." Another panelist decried the media's disrespectfully sexist habit of referring to the candidate only by her first name. This is so unfair, she said, because they call him Biden rather than just plain Joe, and they always call him Trump instead of Don. There were also the requisite quotes from Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
God help me, but I found myself commiserating with the elite-hating trailer park folk as my own bile rose in response to the limousine liberalism of the NPR experts.
The emphasis on identity politics serves, of course, to shield Harris from such legitimate critiques as her prosecution of the poor parents of truant children and her use of prisoners as unpaid or barely paid firefighters. her prosecution of low level drug offenders and her refusal to prosecute Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin or his California bank for foreclosure fraud.
Mass liberal hatred of Trump fills the vacuum of the Democratic Party's having no agenda of its own to make people's lives better. "Remote" describes both its convention broadcast method and its relationship to the non-wealthy.
Desperate Housewives actress Eva Langoria glamorously and seamlessly took over last night where NPR left off, acting as the hostess of the Democratic Party's quadrennial national convention. I very naively thought that absent incessant chants of "USA! USA! USA" brayed out by delegates decked out in their garish hats after every sentence by every politician with a speaking role, the event would be more palatable.
How wrong I was. This convention is not a celebration. It offers no hope. It should actually be called Quadranimus, because it is nothing but four years of elite #Resistance and moneyed hate and fake despair and rancid concern-trolling all rolled up into four days.
I should have taken a drink every time that Bernie Sanders uttered the word "unprecedented" and Michelle Obama used the word "folks," and when each of them mentioned "shtruggle." If I had, I would be having one heck of a hangover right about now.
While the Democratic Party has been moving inexorably to the right over the last four or five decades, the 2020 convention was the first time they've totally come out of the closet. Former Republican governor and presidential candidate John Kasich, awkwardly playing the role of Dorothy, was filmed literally standing at a fork in a road. Some brainless talking scarecrow had apparently whispered in his ear and instructed him to take the route all the way to Oz and to Joe A trio of Republican women (former New Jersey Gov.Christy Todd Whitman and CEO Meg Whitman and Staten Island GOP machine politician Susan Molinaro) were granted more speaking time than progressive dynamo Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
Those GOP mavens admittedly were hard acts to follow, but Bernie Sanders did his very best, lauding Joe Biden's gracious gesture of lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60 as another magical fork in the road to the Emerald City of true guaranteed single payer health care. This tortured detour is certainly better than Trump defunding the Post Office so that your Amazon package arrives in two weeks rather than within the promised two days. Isn't it? Isn't it?
The situation is so dire that Nancy Pelosi is going one step beyond praying for the low-status victims of the Covid-19 crisis currently being co-opted by the Dems for their Quadranimus show, and is actually calling her members back to Washington to block Trump's wholesale destruction of the US Postal Service for his own crass political purposes. In order for Pelosi and the Democrats to return to power, voters must not only be shamed and terrified into picking Biden, but they must also have the option of using the mail to do so. This is especially true for those vulnerable uninsured voters who are being told by Bernie Sanders that they must survive until the age of 60 to get a slim chance of access to guaranteed government-run coverage before they die of their untreated diseases. Because it seems that even the much-ballyhooed public option promised by good old honest, decent, empathetic Joe Biden has already been quietly tossed down the memory hole.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, emerged from his taciturn turn at his sprawling Martha's Vineyard estate to offer some "unusually sharp criticism" of Trump's attempted destruction of the Post Office and its resulting vote suppression.
“What we’ve seen, in a way that is unique to modern political history, is a president who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting,Obama said on Cadence13’s Campaign HQ podcast in a discussion with his former campaign manager David Plouffe. “What we’ve never seen before is a president say, ‘I’m going to try to actively kneecap the Postal Service to [discourage] voting and I will be explicit about the reason I’m doing it.’”
“That’s sort of unheard of, right?” he added. “And we also have not had an election in the midst of a pandemic that is still deadly and killing a lot of people, and we still don’t know the long-term side effects of contracting the illness.”But back in 2009, his first year in the White House, Obama was singing a very different tune. In true Republican fashion, he defended his own abandoned promise of a health insurance public option by likening it to the "inefficiency" of the US Postal Service. He made the preposterous claim that in order for a thing to be efficient, it must be privatized, competitive and profit-seeking. Since the taxpayer does not fund United Health or Blue Cross, Obama suggested, then why should the public fund the postal service?
"I mean, if you think about it," he said, "UPS and FedEx are doin' just fine. It's the post office that's always havin' problems." (Yeah, he was at one of those folksy, g-droppin' town halls).
Obama failed to mention that the Post Office wasn't doin' so good in large part because Congress had bipartisanly passed a bill requiring the USPS to fund its pension and health plans 75 years into the future - in other words, to pay for the benefits of future postal workers who haven't even been born.
The destruction wasn't started by Donald Trump. He has simply revved it up to Mach speed and boasted about it more, while fully exposing the anti-labor machinations operating in both parties for the last 40 or 50 years.
Matt Taibbi beat you out by a day:
ReplyDeletehttps://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-official-2020-democratic-national
At least Billy Porter and Stephen Stills were entertaining, but they appeared after Mrs. Obama, and were not aired by the cable channels, so I only found out about their performance this morning. If I have to watch the rest of this mess, I'm watching on CSPAN.
I think Hofstadter is the one who wrote a completely debunked false history of populism. Even though historians at the time discredited the work, main street never got the message. So, to this day, his debunked history of populism is taken as truth and policy is then based upon it.
ReplyDeleteTaibbi and Halpern at the Useful Idiots podcast hosted a long interview with Thomas Frank, who shared an honest history of the populists. It was a pleasure to watch. Would certainly make you feel better after so much exposure to NPR.
NPR has been a horrorshow for dog's years now, with the exception of "Thistle & Shamrock", assuming that's still on the air. And I guess "Fresh Air" is fine if you have hipster tastes and avoid the political segments (but then everything is political these days, so...)
ReplyDeleteI thought "Nasty" was a good thing to be now (maybe only if you're female?) Pay no mind to the brains leaking out my ears from constantly shaking my head. I can't bear thinking about the current state of affairs anyway, so who needs anything but sawdust up in your noggin?
Probably we were already past the point where younger folks could truly grasp the big plot twist in "Miracle on 34th Street". Nixon's gang lit the fuse and the Dems have done bupkiss to prevent the dismantling and looting of yet another cherished public institution.
"access to guaranteed government-run coverage"
There's that pesky A-word again! I only wish coverage, actual 100% coverage, was really guaranteed under Medicare. If it were then I wouldn't be sitting here looking at a stack of doctor's bill I can't afford.
As for frickin Bernie, he's dead to me, not that I was ever a real fan (I knew his temporizing ways from the Air America/Thom Hartmann days back in the '90s.) Ultimately, his candidacy has been to genuine political reform what Obamacare was to healthcare reform -- a wet blanket to smother the fire.
Really loved this essay, Karen. Kudos to you.
ReplyDeleteI suppose NPR has had to choose a side to align itself with in order to financially survive. I certainly don't consider it anything other than mainstream media. One has to go to the blogosphere (sp?)to find any independent journalism of worth.
I find myself detesting the Obamas, Clintons and their Pelosi ilk. I cringe when I hear them speak almost as much as I detest the Republicans. I guess it is because they turn on their base so easily - and because they are so ruthless in throwing the vulnerable in their constituency under the bus without a backward glance.
I have never really understood what the Democrats and Republicans have had against the Post Office other than financial competitors to the post office most probably are big donors. I sincerely hope the need for mail in ballots will actually save the USPS and that - because they will most probably benefit from it - the Democrats will end up being its champion.
I don't know if anyone is listening to The Analysis - Paul Jay's podcast. He's got some good guests including Thomas Frank. After listening, I often feel panicked about how close our destruction is - both financially as well as environmentally. I thought you might be interested, Karen, if ever your internet goes on the blink again.
Cheers from outback Australia. I worry terribly for the U.S.
ReplyDeleteThis quadrennial’s Republican and Democratic conventions are anything but super gatherings resulting in unity and purpose. The internet, TV and other virtual what-have-you illusion technology, pulling together our mentally- and geographically-scattered politicians, don’t come close to the sweaty excitement of old.
Mistaaah Speakaaah!….
Ordaaah, Ordah! [tap, tap, tap of the gavel]….
Will the Sergeant at Aaahms please clear the aisles….
Mistah Speakaaaaaaah, the great state of Alabama casts its 45 deep Dixie votes for ….
That circus act would keep me up until 02:00 AM, with or without NPR's Scott Simon apeaking earnestly for the establishment. It was then that I had a glimpse of how deep and widespread was the effect of substandard schools on the American mind (beyond the enlightened states of New York and New England).
Last night, most of America stayed tuned to Netflix or its competitors. This morning we read about the convention from people who also read about it from people who were paid to stay tuned to report on the virtual nothing of it all. Now we understand the skeptics of the late Sixties who were sure the moon landings were played out in a Disneyland studio.
Next up on the menu of make believe: November 3. Will there be an on-time election? Will everyone who cares to vote be able to? Will the votes be counted honestly? (Stop giggling.) How noisy will be the reception of that count? Will the final decision be made based on the math, the street, the Supremes or uniforms swinging batons?
I can't watch it anymore. The ratio of airtime given to Republicans to that to Democrats I actually want to see approaches infinity.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've taken to entertaining myself by contacting my state senator about trying to shore up NY's antiquated election laws by the general election. And asking for updates on the Green/Libertarian lawsuit. I actually like my state senator. He told the richest man in the world to go fuck himself.
Take a look at the Board of Directors for PBS:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/board-directors/
They are all cookie cutter corporate conformists.
David Koch the radical right wing extremist billionaire was on two local PBS Boards for many years before his death. A PBS commentator said it was good to have him there to provide "balance". I wondered who was the radical left wing extremist Board member that he was balancing out?