In Finland, PhDs are awarded sword as a symbol to defend what's right and true. My sword stays at home today, but I #marchforscience pic.twitter.com/jdbZXOpC2p
— Sari Rautiainen (@SariRautiainen) April 22, 2017
Chaz Danner, NYMag, “Scientists and Their Allies Stage Unprecedented Worldwide Protest“:
Scientists and their supporters amassed in large numbers in hundreds of cities across the globe on Saturday to participate in the March for Science, a worldwide protest in support of science, scientists, and the value of scientific research. More officially, the nonpartisan event was meant to encourage “political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest.” Many attendees in the U.S., however, appeared to be motivated as much by their respect for science as they were by the Trump administration’s perceived antipathy towards it. The sweeping White House-proposed budget cuts to federal agencies that fund scientists and their research was instrumental in driving interest in the march over the last few months, and government science budgets were clearly on the mind of many other marchers across the world too, as was the threat of human-driven climate change. Evidence and reality may be neutral, but in the present political climate, scientists may no longer be able to be so.
Whatever the specific motivations of individual participants, the overall march was undoubtedly a unique event in the history of science and politics. As the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney explains after talking to some science historians, “While scientists and their allies have argued about and even occasionally protested on specific political topics over the years, taking to the streets in a sweeping defense of scientific truth itself and its role in policymaking seems considerably broader and, for the research world, more fundamental.”…
Apart from continued #Resistance, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
.
Science Day Marches Outdraw Donald Trump’s Inauguration https://t.co/VfBcrXuk8G pic.twitter.com/wi6Y81Jq3z
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 22, 2017
Pictures from the March on Science from the U.S. and around the world https://t.co/q31pL5qvHe pic.twitter.com/N0BheXf1wB
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 22, 2017
ArchTeryx
Impressive that PhDs from France get a sword (my sister never told me about that one!).
What we’d rather be awarded, and what certain countries guarantee, is a job. The U.S. is one of the only Western countries that, upon awarding the PhDs, tell the recipients, “Congrats, welcome to the real world and good luck!” and toss us into the shark pool. But European PhDs in bioscience have suffered just as much from the Great Recession and associated austerity fetish…they just have better governmental and social (read: welfare) support. Right now, the only country hiring a major passel of their own PhDs is China.
Too bad the air’s poisonous in the cities there.
OzarkHillbilly
@ArchTeryx:
Finland, and with that I let my pain in the ass pedantic presence be known.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone???
The Thin Black Duke
“Science is Magic that works.”
–Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Moderation? Really? It’s only been 2 days and already the spam bot has forgotten me. Let me try again: @ArchTeryx:
Finland, and with that I let my pain in the a$$ pedantic presence be known.
Cermet
Not only is science real magic but it routinely creates real miracles – unlike prayer that pretty much always fails.
Elizabelle
@ArchTeryx: Silly Wabbit: Welfare is for Wingnuts.
They had to do it, too. Otherwise, wingnutia would die out, in the sunshine and out there, competing with observed experience and facts.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
My favorite thing was the brain hats, especially the ones like the one in that picture (Etsy link) that had a clear anatomical division between the hemispheres.
They weren’t very common (in Philly anyway) because apparently they were a heckuva lot of effort to knit/crochet, and everyone I talked to who was wearing them had either knitted her own or had it knitted by a friend who was marching with her.
ETA: I like the sword thing. I’m fantasizing about a Ph.D. defense process where you earn it by a duel with your advisor. Although I recognize some people have good relationships with their advisors and good experiences at their defense. (I am ABD myself, having my advisor pull my defense at the last minute a couple weeks before the committee was to meet, and family life kind of intervened after that).
raven
At the University of Georgia graduations the county sheriff leads the procession carrying a sword. A tradition that supposedly goes back to guarding the students from Indian attack.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire)
“Science Day Marches Outdraw Donald Trump’s Inauguration”
Not difficult to do, really.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Hi Ozark. I hope you had a nice weekend?
BTW — The Bot did not forget you, it remembered you again.
Immanentize
@raven: How’s the aching ankle?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Currently trending Nationwide “Donald Trump Is Unintelligible”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@rikyrah: Morn’n neighbor!
raven
@Immanentize: It was my calf and it turns out I was really lucky, it seems to have been a bad cramp and not a tear. I fished from 2 til sunset and caught a bunch of keeper whiting!
Immanentize
@raven: excellent news. Tears hurt! And good fishing to boot!
ETA. Cramps hurt too, but certainly they get better quicker….
raven
@Immanentize: No doubt, I was really worried that it was going to ground me for the balance of our stay.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: After your previous comment, my quick read was ‘Moron neighbor’. I thought that wasn’t nice and then re-read it. It’s late here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Drink lots of water, that’s what my nurse tells me. Also prunes.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Nice.
Baud
@raven: Excellent.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You having any problem uploading to flickr? I seem to be able to from iPhoto but cannot directly from my computer?
ArchTeryx
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, crap. I completely missed that boat. Shows what I get for trying to comment at sparrow fart.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I’ve been doing it from Lightroom for the last several months; no problem, I uploaded a photo tonight.
OzarkHillbilly
@ArchTeryx: They both start with an “F”. A mistake anyone could make! Well, I could anyway. Not sure how that fact will make you feel.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yea, I can upload from LR too but I am disappointed that, when I subscribed to the adobe suite, my computer has slowed and LR isn’t nearly as fast.
Shantanu Saha
The New York Fcking Times calls it the “March On Science” instead of the “March For Science.” Makes it sound like the opposite of what it was. Don’t they have editors anymore?
Eric S.
Good morning.
Appropo of nothing I’d like to point out we are in a magical time of year here in Chicago. The trees are in bloom. The tulips are out. The song birds have returned. The days are warming but the nights are still cool and perfect for sleeping. Last but not least my alarm clock is briefly in sync with Ozzie the Cat. My morning wake up head butt and his morning belly rub, which are based on the sunrise, are at the same time as my alarm.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The catalog and smart previews need to be on a SSD, otherwise it’s dog-ass slow.
ETA: And use a separate SSD than your system drive, if at all possible.
debbie
@raven:
Glad you were able to fish!
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: And again I am in moderation. Maybe the spambot just doesn’t want me talking to ArchTeryx?
debbie
@raven:
Your computer’s slowed because Adobe is very busy monitoring what you’re doing with their programs every single second of the day.
Baud
@Shantanu Saha: The NYT is garbage.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
I’ve heard that.
ArchTeryx
@OzarkHillbilly: Got France on the brain, both because of my sister and because of the French elections.
Which was really weird – she’s lived in France for almost 20 years, but didn’t know that Russian Twitter trollbots and American right-wing outlets were heavily pimping LePen to get her into the runoff. I pointed her to the BJ article and told her to get reading. Bet her circle in France are going to have, um, a lot to talk about.
(She’s heavily liberal and absolutely hates LePen, so she’s one of us and was quite interested in it. They just don’t have the taboo against discussing politics openly in France that we do here – it’s consider fine sport for the dinner table!).
Jim Kakalios
Despite the rain, the DC March was awesome. My Teach-In event, using ViewMasters to present comic book pages to the audience, was a big hit. The Optical Society (one of my hosts) videotaped the talk – I’ll send a link when its available.
My two favorite signs at the March were: “If you think the answer is Clean Coal – Go Home. You’re Drunk.” and a nerdy, Star Trek – The Next Generation reference: “There Are Four Lights!”
My all time favorite sign is the one (I believe I saw it posted here) about “First they came for the scientists and the Park Service said lol no and went rogue…..” The Park Service folks at DC, by the way, were super nice.
The DC March ran like clock work, and when a schedule said something would happen, it happened. The infrastructure – main stage, large screen projectors, everything, I’m told all came from AAAS. Physicist and former Congressman Rush Holt gets big props in my book. He played a big role in turning this from a concept to reality.
Returning to lurking, disappearing into the shadows. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Seriously, I’d like to know. Asking for a friend.
Patricia Kayden
@David Canadian Anchor Baby Koch: Trump is completely articulate when he spews bigotry though which is quite telling. We clearly hear and understand him when he yells about Mexicans being rapists and Muslims needing to be banned. Interesting.
Baud
@Jim Kakalios:
All of them, Katie.
msdc
I don’t know where Sarah Reese Jones got that picture, but it was definitely not the March for Science on Saturday.
rikyrah
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I loved the brain hats too??
debbie
@ArchTeryx:
It used to be like that here. Reagan changed all that by enabling conservatives to believe they are entitled to permanent power.
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Someone posted it at another blog, daring us to make sense of it….Life is entirely too short.
I go to my default question….
What if 44 had given an interview like this?
What would the MSM be saying?
We all know damn well what they would be saying.
That this mediocre White man is being graded on a serious curve is an understatement.
rikyrah
@raven:
Glad to hear that it wasn’t serious
Iowa Old Lady
Say what?
rikyrah
@Eric S.:
That vision of the cat and the alarm is cute ?
Felonius Monk
@Cermet: Oh ye of little faith. ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: It’s Trump. Whaddyaexpect?
amk
twitler and mad dog waved their collective dicks at isis in Afghanistan and no one knows what the fuck was achieved.
Meanwhile, about 10 taliban guyz walk in and kill more than 150 young afghan army recruits.
I don’t know which side is ‘winning’ bigly.
rikyrah
So, this is what Wilmer left out of his interview..
Uh huh ???
https://mobile.twitter.com/Smartypants60/status/856222682781802496
rikyrah
In moderation, please help.
Kristine
I marched in Chicago–it was my first ever. The weather cooperated–it was cool but sunny. It was an all-ages event: babies in strollers, toddlers, elementary school-age children and their parents, all the way up to elderly folk for whom this was the latest march of many.
I think my favorite sign overall was “There is no Planet B.” Simple and to the point.
Looking forward to the Climate March this coming Saturday.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning!
@raven: Glad to hear you’re on the mend and the trip isn’t ruined. And fuck LBJ for good measure!
amk
Agreed.
OzarkHillbilly
The Democrats delivered one thing in the past 100 days: disappointment -Cornel West
No link. No read. No comment.
Bjacques
I’ve got a friend who’s a Finnish doctoral candidate. She’s also a Thelemite and really looking forward to receiving that sword.
OzarkHillbilly
Ten of the best March for Science signs – in pictures
My favorite: 3 Trump silhouettes, one with “-273.15 degrees” in it, another with “Absolute Zero” in it, The 3rd drawn as a constellation of stars, with “Black Hole” in it.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: In moderation again, I think I’ll blame Alain this time. (well he did say something about comments getting funky)
geg6
Sitting here in the federal court jury room. At this point, I’m praying I get picked for a jury and have a quick case and get dismissed tout suite. Driving into Pittsburgh was a nightmare (an hour and 15 minutes for a 30 mile drive) and the parking will cost $19 per day. Ugh.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
My comment is stuck in moderation. If I hadn’t lurked in other threads, I would have thought I was special… ;-)
JMG
@ArchTeryx: In my recent, as in got back last night, trip to France, almost nobody brought up politics to me, possibly because they felt an American would be sick of talking about Trump. When the topic came up, I excused myself by saying that I felt last November 8 disqualified Americans from discussing the politics of other countries.
efgoldman
@OzarkHillbilly:
T’ain’t you. Alain was fixing something yesterday and apparently it broke something else, throwing random comments into the briar patch. He’ll get to dealing with it today.
efgoldman
@Cermet:
Anybody who was a kid or a parent when the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines came out in the 1950s understands that, or should.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
So somebody about 71 should understand that?
OzarkHillbilly
@efgoldman: No, it’s me, I know it’s about me because everything is all about me. Alain hates me and he is conspiring with a bunch of jackals to get ME and only ME.
schrodingers_cat
सत्यमेव जयते.
Science does not need your belief. Its true whether you believe in it or not.
efgoldman
@rikyrah:
He’s not mediocre. He’s have to rise a big bunch of levels to even see mediocre from where he is. He is a hideous excuse for a human being in every respect, who can barely wipe his own ass, let alone run a country and the world.
Paul in KY
@Shantanu Saha: They probably edited it to say that…
efgoldman
@amk:
As the Russians found out in the 1980s, and the British before that, and I forget who before THAT, there is no “winning” by an outside power in Afghanistan.
There’s killing a lot of people, and subduing more, but ultimately nobody “wins.”
LurkerNoLonger
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Presumably the interview was conducted in a quiet room and not in a wind tunnel. There’s no reason this fucking idiot should be unintelligible other than the obvious fact that he’s a fucking idiot.
Marcopolo
@OzarkHillbilly: I saw this on the innertubes (not in person at the StL march) but my favorite now is, “Disaster movies always start with the government ignoring the scientists!”
clay
@OzarkHillbilly:
What in the ever-lovin’ hell did he expect the Democrats to do? They have — some cabinet appointments aside* — been almost 100% opposed to the entire Trump agenda**, even going so far as to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. They have literally done everything in their legal power.
That’s a nice gig: Help ensure that Democrats can’t really on lefty support to get elected, then bash them for (I guess) not being lefty enough even though they have no power to enact any sort of lefty agenda.
I used to have a lot of respect for him. I read Race Matters in grad school and it really influenced my thinking. But it’s clear he’s been in an academic and/or purity bubble for far too long.
*Which would’ve been approved anyway, so it didn’t really matter. And they opposed the most odious ones.
**The Democrats’ unified opposition has been a necessary — but by no means sufficient — condition for the lack of accomplishment of Trump in HIS 100 days.
low-tech cyclist
@msdc:
You’re absolutely right, it damn sure wasn’t. If you were on the Capitol steps, the crowd was coming towards you on Pennsylvania Avenue, not down the Mall.
There were people on the Mall, but not crowds of people there. (Other than on the north side of the Monument grounds before the march itself began. But Jones’ pic shows the Mall jammed with people much closer to the Capitol than that.)
I’ve got plenty of photos, and her pic is bullshit.
efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I certainly do. I was in fifth or sixth grade when they gave us the shots in school. There was a sweep of an epidemic just a couple of years before, but we were out of the country.
There were several cases in the small town where mrs efg grew up; her mother remembers that everybody lived in fear.
montanareddog
@amk:
I expect equipping the 10 taliban with knock-off AK47s cost a tad less than the $20million for the MOAB, too.
ArchTeryx
@Marcopolo: And usually end with the survivors in the wreckage wailing, ‘Hoocouldanode this would happen!?’
One of the last lines in Towering Inferno was ‘maybe they ought to leave [the burned out skyscraper] up, as a monument to all the bullshit in the world.’
Would have been perfect if it was one of Trump’s buildings.
croald
The “outdraw Trump’s inaugural” thing is fake news. There’s only one source for it, I’ve never heard of them, and if you look at the article they quote a few numbers that add up to 100,000 or so, then handwave and say “millions”.
OzarkHillbilly
@efgoldman:
There is no “subduing” an Afghan. You have 3 choices: Killing him, pissing him off royally, or paying him off (whereupon he will buy some bomb making materials and sell them to one of the really pissed off Afghans for a nice tidy profit).
Or so I’ve read.
amk
@efgoldman: Yup. History has taught nothing to the supah pawahs.
OzarkHillbilly
@LurkerNoLonger:
Well, that and the fact that he was dropped on his head several times as a baby.
montanareddog
@efgoldman:
To adapt a quote from “Nothing Sacred”
The hand of God, reaching down into the mire, couldn’t elevate him to the depths of mere incompetence
Marcopolo
@low-tech cyclist: That and the fact that no one in her pic seems to be using an umbrella. Kudos to all the folks who turned out in DC in chilly wet weather.
Another Scott
@geg6: Thank you for being there and doing your duty as a citizen. It’s important.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@clay: You gave Professor West more thought than he deserves.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: The Moderation Monster is still grabbing innocent posts…
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Jim Kakalios: I have been trying to catch you. Here’s my comment from yesterday:
Paging the Viewmaster lurker guy: Jim Kakalios from the April 20, 2017 thread at 11:10 am:
My best friend is a nuclear physicist and I think your Viewmaster presentation on superheroes would be make a really great gift for him. Any chance I could purchase a set of your discs and a Viewmaster for a gift for my friend?
schrodingers_cat
@efgoldman: Word. He is at the tail end of human intelligence and decency.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Click on his name as it links to a website. There is a “contact me” link there.
Another Scott
@msdc: The picture was on the official March for Science video. It was aspirational rather than documenting the actual attendance. See, e.g. YouTube. (It’s clearly a Photoshop as the crowd was at the Washington Monument, not around the Castle.)
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
Sure we do Jeff, you’re a joke and it’s on us, we’re just waiting for the punch line.
oldster
The other thing wrong with Sarah Reese Jones’ photo: people are not dressed for rain.
I was there, dammit. It was a big crowd, but every person in it was wearing a rain-coat or a poncho or a field-expedient Hefty Garbage bag. Everybody had a hat on, or some sort of head-covering.
The people in her photo are dressed for a sunny day.
I am sure that SRJ’s heart is in the right place, but *please* don’t spread falsehoods, even if you hope they will help. *Please* don’t spread fake photos.
It will undermine our side’s credibility. And it’s an insult to Science.
tobie
@rikyrah: Thanks for this. I’m glad to know I’m not alone in my disdain. Reading the twitter thread helped.
rikyrah
I’m a White, working-class millennial. Bernie Sanders does not speak for me
Trevor LaFauci
April 24, 2017
………………………………………..
But those among the White working-class aren’t the only ones who are struggling. This seems to be a concept lost on Bernie Sanders, or, at the very least one that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. It makes sense when you think about it: Sanders left his diverse Brooklyn community to head for the hills of homogenous Vermont where he could seek out other like-minded socialist thinkers. Sanders’ political philosophy has always been one of a class-based struggle where all the ills of society would be cured by simply establishing economic equality. In Sanders’ mind, economics trump all. Therefore, if we are able to create a system where everyone has the same financial situation then there would be nothing left to cause distress.
Because of this worldview, Sanders cannot see how and why non-economic issues negatively impact our communities. He cannot see how the wealthy African-American attorney still will be ignored by a cab driver due solely to the color of his skin. He cannot see how the Muslim doctor still has patients who are hesitant to see her because of her hijab. He cannot see how the gay software engineer still worries that he could be fired from his job simply for loving whom he chooses. He cannot see how the Latino businessman still worries that one of his loved ones could be deported. And he cannot see the young college student who relies on Planned Parenthood for her affordable healthcare needs.
These successful individuals have all achieved a level of financial security. Yet, they are not at ease. The reason is that there are greater societal issues unrelated to their financial security that take priority in their lives. This is why Bernie Sanders’ economic populism message fails to resonate with people of color. Yes, there are those who are struggling financially. But they are also dealing with numerous issues that cannot simply be solved simply by having a few extra bucks in their pocket. More money won’t end systemic injustices in our schools, courts, and prisons. More money won’t end racist policing practices. More money won’t end the threat of deportation. More money won’t end a professional business culture that refuses to provide an opportunity for advancement. More money won’t end more and more voting restrictions placed upon these communities. It is these concerns that go beyond simple matters of economics and touch the very fabric of our society.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t see this because he has chosen not to see it. Because acknowledging the intersectionality of all these issues means that there is not a simple solution that can be placed on a bumper sticker. A “political revolution” that overthrows the millionaire and billionaire class still has to deal with all these issues for people of color. That, in itself, completely undermines Sanders’ message that economic equality is the only needed ingredient for a successful society. To acknowledge all these issues would mean that Sanders would have to expand upon his knowledge and understanding of class-based political systems and that is something he simply has no interest in doing. He has made his career, and more importantly his success, by waging class warfare against the wealthiest of the wealthy. This is the political hill that Bernie Sanders has placed himself on and it will ultimately be the hill that he dies on.
Michael Bersin
More photos from the March for Science in Kansas City on Saturday:
March for Science – Kansas City – April 22, 2017 – part 4
rikyrah
So, the GOP threatens to take away healthcare from 24 million people….
The Muslim ban….
The Deportation of all of those non-criminals….
He’s been like a ghost…..
Couldn’t stop opening his mouth during the term of 44 and now he’s quiet as a church mouse pissing on cotton….but, can open his mouth to complain about DEMOCRATS?
PHUCK OUTTA HERE!!!
rikyrah
There Is Nothing Left of Trump’s Supposed Economic Populism
by David Atkins April 22, 2017 4:17 AM
Entire oceans of ink have been spilled over the question of how much of Trump’s support came from prejudice versus economic anxiety (hint: it’s both and they’re interconnected.) But no matter the answer, what’s clear by now is that Trump’s economic populist agenda on behalf of the white working class no longer exists if it ever did. His betrayals of Main Street on behalf of Wall Street have been gradual and numerous, but two executive orders yesterday seal the deal:
Trump has trussed up giveaways to Wall Street in worker-friendly language, but the intent is clear: to give the finance industry free rein to predate at will–though as Matt Yglesias notes, even the executive orders themselves are empty legislative husks designed to give Trump the illusion of accomplishments before the 100-day mark. Still, even an empty gift to Wall Street remains a gift.
There is now nothing left of Trump’s promises to workers. Better healthcare and lower premiums than the Affordable Care Act? Nope. Pressure against Chinese currency manipulation and offshoring of jobs? Not anymore. Keeping advisers who listen to Trump’s base instead of Goldman Sachs? Suckers.
rikyrah
Clearing the Field for Clinton Was Democrats’ Biggest Mistake in 2016
by David Atkins
April 22, 2017 7:00 AM
The recent release of the Clinton campaign expose Shattered is causing yet another round of introspection about what Democrats did wrong in 2016 and how to fix the problem. The Clinton campaign’s own failures of targeting and messaging are already the subject of much discussion and have been rehashed ad nauseam. Matt Taibbi’s take on the navel-gazing, operative-centric view of the pundit and consultant classes is probably the best of the book’s reviews so far and well worth reading. A large number of powerful people still have a difficult time accepting the movements that coalesced behind Sanders on the left and Trump on the right as legitimate, authentic populist forces rather than a group of discontents mesmerized by cults of personality around Pied Piper candidates. They often cannot concede that there would still have been a massive movement of anti-establishment anger even had Sanders and Trump never run at all.
Which leads us to one of the least discussed failures of the establishment that helped lead us to this juncture: the effort to clear the field for Hillary Clinton. Sanders and Clinton supporters are still furious with one another to this day, as can be seen from the often hostile reactions on both sides to the unity tour currently ongoing between Tom Perez and Senator Sanders. Clinton backers accuse Sanders supporters of being racist and sexist fifth column betrayers of the party, while Sanders’ fans accuse Clinton’s of abandoning core economic principles and depressing youth turnout. Wildly unfair attacks are levied on both sides.
But the ongoing hostility isn’t the fault of either camp’s supporters. It’s the fault of the establishment that tried to clear the field for Clinton.
It is widely acknowledged that Democrats in positions of authority, including but not limited to President Obama himself, worked to clear the field of significant opposition to Clinton. President Obama directly pushed Vice President Biden out of the running, and other potential contenders from Elizabeth Warren to Cory Booker were discouraged from making a run. They did this under the misguided theory that a primary free of contention would give Democrats an advantage over a divided GOP field.
rikyrah
Desperately Insecure, President Trump Holds a Fan Rally To Avoid a Comedy Roast
by David Atkins
April 23, 2017 6:35 AM
I have noted here before my distaste for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as a vapid show of light camaraderie between newsreaders masquerading as journalists, and the politicians they are supposed to be holding to account. I have also said that it’s probably better for the event if the President does not attend, as his absence would allow comedians and the press more flexibility in being openly critical of him rather than merely poking fun at him in jest. For his part, Trump might gain some plaudits for ending an increasingly distasteful Beltway tradition.
But it’s one thing for Trump to skip the dinner. It’s quite another for him to do so in order to hold another of his feel-good revivalist campaign rallies.
The rally is reportedly designed to distract from a one-two punch of bad news for Trump: the WHCA dinner itself, as well as coverage of Trump’s woefully underwhelming first 100 days in office. But there’s some question as to just how effective that will be. First, Trump rallies are nothing new. The President will likely say some incendiary things in order to grab media oxygen, but coming off as even more unhinged than normal won’t help him much. Trump’s biggest hurdle in the short term isn’t a lack of popularity (though that clearly doesn’t help.) It’s his inability to win consensus from Republicans in Congress–to say nothing of Democrats–for his legislative agenda. Trump doesn’t face re-election for another four years, and the biggest threat to his not lasting that long is the mounting scandal over Russian election interference and the Trump campaign’s possible collusion therein. So keeping even in a cable news cycle or two is mostly meaningless.
The bigger danger for Trump is that holding a pep rally at a time when his agenda is stalled and the press is openly hostile, makes the President look vain and weak. It gives him the impression of a man so afraid of a roast that he runs from it into the arms of his adoring fans. It reeks of cowardice. A celebrity who behaved that way would endure endless ridicule from the gossip magazines, and Trump is a tabloid celebrity who leveraged his outlandish personality into the White House.
It won’t matter much in the long run, but Trump’s actions once again show him as a thin-skinned man with no work ethic, no sense of humor and no ability to withstand even mild criticism. It will be a fitting miniature capstone on the molehill of his first hundred days’ achievements.
rikyrah
Macron Won–But France’s Austerity Centrism is Still in Big Trouble.
by David Atkins April 23, 2017 5:10 PM
Results from the French primary election are in: center-right, pro-EU finance banker Emmanuel Macron defeated the racist, far right nationalist Marine Le Pen, and will face her again in the runoff. With exit polls showing Macron with a commanding lead over Le Pen in a one-on-one contest, opponents of xenophobia and fascism around the world are breathing a sigh of relief.
But they shouldn’t. Populism, especially for young voters, is increasingly carrying the day.
Like most of the developed world, France is facing a political revolution born of an economy that no longer guarantees job security and wages that can keep up with the cost of living, combined with demographic changes that exacerbate racist reaction to that economic anxiety. Those forces have led to a xenophobic hysteria among older conservatives reflected by Trump and Brexit on the right, as well as strong yearnings for a socialist upending of the current economic order among younger and left-leaning voters. Despite the apparent victory for corporate-friendly centrism symbolized by Macron, France is also facing the same dynamic.
Most obvious, of course, is support for Le Pen. Her rebranding of her father’s far-right Front National party as a kinder, gentler far-right nationalism is partly to be credited for her success, but in reality the same wave of anti-immigrant hatred that helped empower Trump and Nigel Farage is also driving her vote.
But a similar upheaval is also taking place on the French left. In a shocking turn of events, neither of the traditional French center-left and center-right parties made it into the runoff. Macron’s victory notwithstanding, political instability is still incredibly high.
Current president Francois Hollande’s popularity is brutally low in France in large part due to his embrace of EU austerity economics, which in turn has led many on the left to also oppose a European Union whose finance-sector-driven policies they see as hostile to the interests of the working class. The result of Hollande’s cratering approval is that his party’s candidate Hamon, despite having a very progressive policy platform, failed to get traction.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
A primary free of contention probably would have given Democrats a major advantage. Unfortunately, thanks to Sanders and his “corrupt DNC” rantings, we failed to have one.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
This may have already been posted here (or elsewhere), but as I’m TL;DR (too lazy, didn’t read):
Apparently, whereas Shitgibbon would retain 96 percent of his 11/8 voters, were the election held today, Hitlary would only retain 85 percent, with the 15-percenters being a combination of “third party, or not vote at all.”
Thanks, Bernie, you self-important fuck. But PLEASE KEEP FUCKING THAT CHICKEN WITH YOUR BASHING OF THE DEMONRAT PARTY.
Until this point, I think I’ve pretty much refrained from comments like those in the preceding two sentences. Not that I didn’t think Bernie made himself into a big problem for Hillary, but that I figured it didn’t add anything. (Of course, given my typical comments, who could tell?) Based on the low “retention rate” — most of which I attribute to Bernie continuing to think his shit don’t stink — I believe the proper NY response to Bernie and his Bros is “fuck THAT shit.”
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: BS needs to be kicked to the curb, like yesterday.
randy khan
@rikyrah:
I know you’re just quoting, so understand that this is not aimed at you, but the whole “they cleared the field” argument is stupid. I mean, Biden largely didn’t run because his son had a fatal illness and died in the summer of 2015 (and even then, he considered it), and most of the other people on the “they could have run” lists have evinced no interest in the job. Not to mention that Clinton had huge polling leads over everyone who wasn’t named Biden.
And even then, there were five candidates, including a well-known, two-term blue state governor. (I will grant that Webb was not a real candidate, except perhaps in his head, but he was there.)
LurkerNoLonger
@rikyrah: I was waiting for your reaction to West’s assholishness. I wasn’t disappointed.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
I foolishly looked at the comments on Washington Monthly. There are STILL morons out there who are 100 percent convinced that Hillary Clinton messed up the primary voting in Arizona, because why would the Republicans have any motive to fuck with Democratic voters? It’s a mystery! ?
@randy khan:
And, again, even if there was an attempt to “clear the field,” Sanders blew that all to hell with his ongoing campaign of Party-hating bullshit. I’m still pissed at the assholes who booed the speakers at the DNC, particularly since they still self-righteously insist that they had to because there’s no way Sanders could have lost just because Democrats thought he was a shouty asshole.
HeidiMom
@geg6: From Beaver County over Green Tree Hill to PGH — I remember it well, even though I only had to do it once or twice. Good luck!
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Je suis SHOCKED to see you write that!!! Almost as SHOCKED as if Mnemosyne or Conster had written it.
Mnemosyne
OMG. I just realized who Sanders is. He’s the guy who calls you a stuck-up bitch when you turn him down for a date, but then mobilizes all of your mutual acquaintances to campaign to get you to change your mind.
Stop trying to make “fetch” happen.
Seanly
The Boise March for Science was pretty well attended. Around 1000 people.
SFAW
@Seanly:
It may turn out that the only March for Science with fewer attendees than the 2017 Inauguration* was the one in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.
(And a very-belated Happy 99th Birthday to June Foray!! Hokey Smoke!)
Jim Kakalios
@WaterGirl: Hi WaterGirl.
The Optical Society of America arranged for, and paid for, the ViewMasters and discs. Thus it’s not up to me – I can check. But I’m doubtful, as it might get into rights (for the images) issues. But I’ll ask.