Circus Maximus MMXVI: Let’s get it on

8 06 2016

And now there are two.

Bernie Sanders put up a hell of a fight, and I don’t know that anyone, including he, thought he’d last into June. And if he wants to go thru the DC primary, well, why not? He’s earned it.

Side note1: Bernie gets to be a little pissed off about losing and given a little time to get over his pissiness. As others have pointed out, he ran a hell of a campaign, but wasn’t prepared to go the distance against someone who has been all kinds of prepared since long before 2008.

I was ambivalent, for different reasons, about both Sanders and Clinton, but of course I am not at all ambivalent about the choice between the two-time senator and former secretary of state and the burnt sweet-potato french fry and real estate brand man. There will be no reluctance whatsoever in ticking off her name in November.

I’m also about as worried about Bernie-or-busters as I was about the PUMAs in 2008: not at all. Sure, some will hold out, but most will shrug and sigh and maybe mutter a curse or two as they, too, pull the lever/punch the ticket/connect the arrow next to Clinton’s place on the ballot. Doesn’t matter: a reluctant vote counts as much as an enthusiastic one.

Side note2: Some political scientist have floated various voting reforms which would allow someone to register the intensity of the vote—say, give each voter 5 points and allow her to allot them as she sees fit. I don’t have an opinion one way or another about this, but, as every fervid backer of every losing candidate has been pained to discover, pulling that lever extra hard doesn’t make your vote count more than once.

Still, it sucks to lose, so I’ll wait a week or so before telling the Busters to pull their heads out of their asses and vote against the giant orange bathroom troll.

I have no idea what will happen over the summer or how the vote will go in the fall. I didn’t think Trump had the organizational stuff to pull off a nomination win, but he did, so I don’t know what to do with stories of his lack of organization for the general. I think it’ll matter, but how much? I ain’t guessing.

I do think Clinton will put together a pretty fucking good general campaign. Her husband was arguably a net negative during the primary—he can get surly when arguing with the left—but he’s golden when going after the right. I think Sanders will continue to burn it down in college towns, even if he mentions his own agenda more than Clinton.

And then there’s the little matter of a generally popular president who is crazy popular with the Left Set. If only out of self-interest (and I’d guess, probably a bit than that), he’ll campaign for the person who can protect and extend his achievements.

So: the preliminaries are over. Let the games begin.


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Everybody knows the dice are loaded, 23

2 06 2016

Work hard, keep your head down, follow the rules, show up on time, show up early, leave late, educate yourself, keep up, keep plugging away, be loyal, faithful, and true.

Be disposable:

Frank has been with us for more than 20 years. He works in the warehouse and has done a good job for us. I like him. But, to be honest, for the work he performs I could easily replace him someone younger and… cheaper. Would it be wrong to let him go?

And the costs are rising, right? You’re increasing Frank’s salary every year, at least by the cost of living. And that’s not all. You’re contributing to his healthcare and his 401(K). He’s earning more and more vacation each day that he’s working for you. And as he gets older, you’re increasing the risk that he will cost your company more – maybe he gets injured or needs financial assistance because he’s not putting enough away for his retirement. Sure, he’s got experience. He’s proven. He’s a known card. But he’s costing you. And you know you can get the same job done by someone else for less money. I see this with many of my clients, and it’s a complicated issue. Are you a heartless cad if you let this guy go? Doesn’t loyalty count for anything? The guy’s given you 20 years of his life, and you’re just going to cut him loose? You must be some kind of awful person.

Actually, no you’re not an awful person. I am not encouraging that you should discriminate based on your employee’s age. Age discrimination is against the law. However, your job is to make the decisions. The hard decisions that are necessary to grow your business and ensure it as a going concern for years to come. Why? Because you have employees, customers, partners, suppliers and everyone’s family members (including yours) that rely on you and your company for their livelihoods. And their interests should rise above the interest of any one specific person. OK, maybe you don’t have to be so harsh. Maybe you can ease him out over the next two years. Or find another role for him where he could actually be more productive for you (Driving a forklift? Maintenance? Customer service?) as he gets older. But if you’re letting your overhead get too high and your profitability becomes negatively-impacted because you’re unable to make those hard choices, then you’re hurting everyone who depends on you.

So what, exactly, did our esteemed adviser say that was wrong?

Isn’t what he’s counseling precisely in line with that great capitalist hero, Milton Friedman?

That is why, in my book Capitalism and Freedom, I have called [“social responsibility”] a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

So, no, don’t do anything illegal—don’t fire the old man just for being an old man—but by all means, fire the long-time highly-paid worker for being a long-time highly-paid worker.

Do it for the “employees [except the one’s you’re firing], customers, partners, suppliers and everyone’s [except the employee’s you’re firing] family members (including yours).”

Do it for the children.

.
.
.

At least Friedman had the guts to be a son-of-a-bitch about the cold logic of capitalism.


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When they ask me, “What are you looking at?”

26 05 2016

So, two months with the smart phone, and. . . all right, it’s all right.

Mostly, because I’m paying less with this phone plan than I did with the last one, but also, those weather and MTA apps are pretty darned convenient. And it’s nice that my friends are no longer harassing me to, y’know, get a smart phone.

Oh, it’s also useful for another thing: Twitter.

I’d read tweets online, Twitter-er by Twitter-er, but with the Twitter app, I’m just reading them as they all come up. And while I thought I would find tweeting addictive, it’s actually the reading of tweets that I can’t quit.

It’s mostly a nifty diversion, a few minutes here and there (and, yeah, here and there and here and there) to check Jamelle Bouie and Jeet Heer and Dick Nixon (who’s far more entertaining dead than he ever was alive), and, occasionally, to plink out a few thoughts of my own. Harmless, mostly.

But, it must be said, people can also be really fucking stupid and mean, too. I know: shocking. I’m not talking about the racists and anti-Semites and misogynists (who litter others’ feeds), however, but the puerile shit tossed around by and at folks on the left side of the line—not least over who “deserves” to stand left of center.

I am adamantly not a boundary enforcer. Yes, I can perhaps see some small point to having someone patrol the line, but ye gads, only if that patrolman or -woman is unarmed and otherwise unable to do much but yell “Trespasser!”

Left Twitter is full of boundary cops, they’re all armed, and they want nothing better than to hold you up and demand the secret password, and to shoot if you can’t be bothered to mouth the right words.

It is contemptible, and exhausting.

My fatigued disgust (or disgusted fatigue, take  yer pick), is almost certainly because I am old and crabby and do not have time for this shit. Yes, when I was younger I would have FUCKIN’ LOVED to have jumped into every single feed and fight and throw punches and stomp and whoo-hoo!

I think. Maybe.

Or not. You see, when I was high-school young, I WAS the leftist, and if I fought (using my words, not my fists), I fought with the guy who was conservative. There weren’t that many people in my high school who cared about politics at all, so it’s not like there were a lot of people on my side I could go after (or who could go after me) for insufficient purity.

College? Well, plenty of leftists and liberals, but even there I don’t recall much interest in calling out others for their insufficient commitment to The Cause—and not a little irritation when I was called out. I don’t know, maybe it’s just not in me.

The boundary patrolling, I mean. Fighting the right? I’m all over that.

And that, in the end, is what I’ll do. As I said, I’m old and tired and have only a limited amount of energy to hoist up my rifle and take aim, so I’m not going to waste that energy taking potshots at folks more-or-less on my side of the line.

Especially now—not with an orange-colored Stay Puft Marshmallow Man about to stomp his way across the country.


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Circus Maximus MMXVI: And you try to run but he’s got a gun

22 05 2016

I can’t be the only who, when she saw this:

Trump guns

 

. . . immediately though of this:

 


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Circus Maximus MMXVI: You’re so nice

21 05 2016

When I lived in Minneapolis I used to gripe about “Minnesota Nice” by quoting the lines from Sondheim’s Into the Woods:

You’re so nice.
You’re not good,
You’re not bad,
You’re just nice.

Fake, I’d mutter, it’s all so fake. Nice is overrated.

Now, I have since come around somewhat to the notion of ‘It’s nice to be nice’, but only somewhat, and not particularly in politics.

Oh, sure, avoid, as Machiavelli warned, being hated (something Ted Cruz couldn’t manage to do), but virtù beats nice every time.

Thus, Hillary Clinton should take to heart the next lines—

I’m not good,
I’m not nice,
I’m just right.

—and go full hard-ass on the road.

Now, I do understand that Clinton has the reputation of being great one-on-one: warm, gracious, attentive, and wonderful at drawing people in. In front of a crowd, however, she lacks the looseness which would ingratiate her to that crowd. She’s fine, she rarely messes up, but she also rarely inspires or impresses.

So she should stop trying to impress anyone, and just go full on “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I am all out of bubblegum.”

As to her opponent, well, Trump is a bullshitter, and as I’ve noted a couple of times previously, it is tremendously hard to respond to or pin any kind of responsibility on a bullshitter. Instead of going after the bullshitter—which forces you on to his territory—you just reject him outright.

You say “Nah”, and refuse to engage; roll your eyes and laugh; toss his words back at him with a heaping dose of “really?”

The great strength of the bullshitter is the unwillingness to  take anything seriously; it is also a weakness which can be turned against him.

So Clinton should go full “No Bullshit”. It gives  her a way to blunt Trump’s mad libs, and coolly to deride his seriousness while signalling her own, very serious, approach to politics.

It also allows her to admit “Nope, I’m probably not going to bring tears to your eyes, but you can bet your sweet bippy that Imma get the job done.”

And that might actually impress.

(ETA: credit for Into the Woods lyrics)


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Circus Maximus MMXVI: Hold me closer, tiny dancer

11 05 2016

So, a coupla’ months ago I wondered why those who saw the Republican party as dysfunctional didn’t think to connect this dysfunction to an inability for the party to ‘decide’ on an acceptable nominee.

Which is a long way of saying: why didn’t any of us see Trump coming?

Apparently, one guy did: Norm Ornstein.

I had focused for so long on the growing dysfunction inside the Republican Party, and I believed that its leaders had generated an awful lot of the anger out there. And eventually, I combined that with the set of polls that we began to see that showed 60 to 70 percent support for outsiders and insurgents.

He lays Tiny Hands Trump’s triumph squarely at the feet of Republican leaders, where it belongs:

[I]f you forced me to pick one factor explaining what’s happened, I would say this is a self-inflicted wound by Republican leaders.

Over many years, they’ve adopted strategies that have trivialized and delegitimized government. They were willing to play to a nativist element. And they tried to use, instead of stand up to, the apocalyptic visions and extremism of some cable television, talk radio, and other media outlets on the right.

And add to that, they’ve delegitimized President Obama, but they’ve failed to succeed with any of the promises they’ve made to their rank and file voters, or Tea Party adherents. So when I looked at that, my view was, “what makes you think, after all of these failures, that you’re going to have a group of compliant people who are just going to fall in line behind an establishment figure?”

He traces the problem back to Newt Gingrich and his efforts to tear down Congress; I’d guess the problem goes back at least to Reagan—“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”—if not further, but clearly the Republican establishment’s willingness to rip apart the establishment goes back a ways.

What’s the appropriate cliché, here? Came back to bite ’em in the ass? Fanned the flames of a fire that consumed them? Something something boomerang something?

Whatever.

When you basically move dramatically away from what we call the regular order, when you almost debase your own institutions — you’re gonna find an opening for somebody who’s never been a part of it and who can offer you very, very simplistic answers.

It’s not that I blame the GOPper bosses wholly for Trump’s popularity—I think he did hit on some kind of whacked-out beat that got a lot of people clapping—but that they couldn’t be bothered to take him out when the taking was good.

And now they—and we—are stuck with him. Sad!

Ornstein also kicks at our profession:

Political scientists in some ways, just like journalists, pursue false equivalence. They do not want to suggest anything flatly or that one party is to blame. There’s a kinda cynicism whenever you suggest something might be different than it was in the past. “Oh, no, it’s always the same.”

[…]

And there’s a herd mentality too, I think. People glom onto The Party Decides and you look like a fool if you say, “Well, no, that’s not right” — because everybody believes it! I don’t know if I would call this a black swan moment, but people’s unwillingness to take a risk of breaking from consensus or believing that it will come out differently than it has before is pervasive.

Yeah, I followed that pretty much down the line. In my defense, I’m a political theorist, not an Americanist—but that line could also be turned against me: why so willing to follow along?

And I (still) do follow Jonathan Bernstein‘s admonition that any major party candidate, by virtue of being a major party candidate, has a shot at winning the presidency. As Ornstein notes

We do know that straight-ticket voting has increased dramatically. This to me suggests we’re not gonna have a 45-state blowout like Goldwater faced, or a 49-state one like Mondale or McGovern had. You’re gonna start with some states and you’re gonna start with 45 percent of the votes. Most Republicans are gonna come back into the fold.

Yep. And, Oh god.


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Burn, baby, burn

28 04 2016

I am notably flexible when it comes to paper deadlines—and that is biting me in the ass this week.

I give my students a due date, then, a week or two before the due date, tell them that if anyone wants more time, s/he needs only email me prior to that due date and I’ll give them a week extension, no questions asked. (More than a week requires an explanation.)

It’s easy enough to do: I don’t have TAs so I don’t have to worry about disrupting someone else’s schedule, and my classes are small enough (35 or under) that, even with multiple classes, I can get the grading done.

Why not just make the deadline the week-later date? Well, then I’d have to be a bitch about deadlines, lay on penalties, and otherwise stress out all concerned. This way, I have the flexibility to offer my students flexibility—something which is appreciated by all concerned.

Anyway, this usually works out fine, but I am currently grading papers and projects for all of my classes and, well, that’s where the ass-biting comes in. It’s actually more of an minor ass-nibbling, as I’m on spring break so do have the time to grade (while also still having some time to break).

Still, all that grading is officially the reason why I’m not writing much on my blog this week.

All of that said (she said in a very long preamble), I couldn’t pass up this exquisite put-down:

Sven Mary, the attorney for accused Paris bomb suspect Salah Abdeslam, said his client had “the intelligence of an empty ashtray”.

Not just an ashtray—an empty ashtray.

Beautiful.

h/t The Stranger


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Well, something’s lost but something’s gained

20 04 2016

This is the year we all turn 50.

School-year, I mean, so some of us got a head start last fall, but as of this past weekend, only one us is still waiting on her birthday.

B. had left a message for me on my birthday saying Hey, let’s all get together in Chicago in April, and mirabilis dictu, we all got together in Chicago in April.

We’re old now—one of us is soon to be a grandmother—and we have the wrinkles and dyed hair to prove it. And yes, there were discussions of creaking bones and medical tests and demurrals from that last glass of beer or wine. And yes, we talked about high school classmates and who died, who divorced, who married whose ex, and of old crushes and friends who’ve fallen away.

But mostly we talked and walked and laughed. We walked to Millennium Park and the Navy Pier, took distorted pictures of ourselves in the Bean (I have no idea what it’s actually called), wandered through the old Chicago Public Library building and decided that paying 10 bucks to get married by a justice of the peace in one of its splendid halls would be a very good deal. We took an architectural tour via the Chicago River (we were all terribly impressed with the tour guide) and wandered around the WGN building gazing at and occasionally patting the embedded stones from around the world.

We ate Chicago-style pizza.

Now, here I have to mention that I tried really (well, pretty) hard not to be a tiresome New Yorker and comment on everything Second City, but when it came to the deep-dish pizza, I had to say “Chicago-style”. (B. did, however, agree with me that “pizza” really did mean New York pizza.)

Anyway, it was good.

The whole weekend was good. The conversation zipped around and around and we were all quite agreeable with one another. I swore too much and P. and T. competed with how many steps each took, and the four of us in line for the river tour weren’t entirely sure the other two would make it back from the bathroom in time, but as we parted on Sunday we all agreed we should do this again, maybe in Chicago, maybe in Milwaukee, but yes, definitely, we should get together to eat and drink and walk and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh, at ourselves and all we’ve been through and all that’s yet to come.


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Circus Maximus MMXVI: Oh won’t you stay just a little bit longer

14 04 2016

It helps to have low expectations of one’s president.

I think that’s a big part of why I’m not really into the Democratic primary: there’s nothing about either of them which leads me to think he or she would be an A-MAZING president.

I like Sanders’s focus on economics and that Clinton’s a hard-ass; I don’t know that Sanders would be that effective and I distrust Clinton’s instincts. That said, I think both would bring in good people to help compensate for their respective weaknesses. So, y’know, they’re both fine.

Still, like many others, I do think that a president can exceed expectations, and when that happens, it’s hard to say So long.

It’s gonna be hard for me to say So long to President Obama.

Oh, there are all kinds of policy decisions with which I disagree with him, and there are certainly disappointments—you probably have your own list—but man, this guy just gets presidenting.

It’s true that I prefer a cool to a hot temperament (not least because I run towards hot, so am unimpressed with it), but I also think a president has to have some kind of core calmness if he or she is to do the job. It’s an impossible job: the president has to make far too many decisions based on both too much and too little information and more often than not has to try to control situations which are not controllable. Thus, the person in that chair has to reconcile him- or herself to the absurdities of the powerlessness of the most powerful position on the planet if he or she is to have any chance at all at failing well.

And yes, he or she will fail, precisely because it is an impossible job. The only issue is will she or he fail well or fail miserably.

President Obama has failed well, exceedingly well. He has grown into his role rather than having been shriveled by it. He seems, against all odds, to enjoy being president, perhaps because he’s never much paid attention to odds.

I wonder if this is how Republicans feel or felt about President Reagan: that the job of the president just seemed to fit him.  That I hated Reagan’s policies meant I was never able fully to see the man’s political gifts, and as Bill Clinton (who wasted what gifts he did have) was the only Democratic president in my adulthood, there were few opportunities for wistfulness at the end of a presidency.

But yeah, I’m wistful. For all of his faults and for all of my disagreements, I’m going to miss Barack Obama in the White House.

I don’t think I’ll see in my lifetime another president who will fail as well as he has.


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Circus Maximus MMXVI: Glad I’m not a Kennedy

7 04 2016

Really, glad I’m not a Republican.

I’m mean—yeah, given my views, obviously—but at least I don’t think either of the Democratic candidates is a dumpster fire. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about either, but, like Rebecca Schoenkopf and the Wonketteers, I’m pretty much they’re both fine, they’re both good.

Which is to say: what I like about each is what I distrust about each: Clinton’s practicality and Sanders’s impracticality. I’d say Let’s try to merge ’em, but then we’d end up with someone like Rod Blagojevich: completely cynical and a little insane.

(As an aside: this horseshit about Clinton’s ambition to be president as somehow bad is, shall we say, pretty rich coming from the campaign of someone running for president. Yeah, I know this kind of petty shit crops up in all campaigns and from the best of candidates, but shees: still annoying.)

No, this is what we’ve got: two people who would have different styles of governing but who each a) care about good governance; and b) would accomplish about the same as the other. I’ve learned to keep my expectations low—please try not to make things worse and if you can make them even a little bit better that would be great, thanks—so unless Clinton or Sanders runs off screaming into the night, they’ll be fine.

Trump and Cruz, on the other hand, don’t meet even that basic non-screamer standard. Cruz creeps people out—his most enthusiastic non-paid supporters seem to be those who spend the least time with him—and Trump lacks even the barest competence.

Yes, Cruz is intelligent, and yes, Trump has a certain, um, panache, but when it comes to governing, neither much cares: Trump supporters want to burn everything in their quest for GREATNESS and Cruz’s, well, christ, those who aren’t supporting him merely to stop Trump are waiting on some kind of red-white-and-blue Rapture.

Which is to say, if I’m a Republican who wants a president who can actually preside, I’m lookin’ at these two and thinking, Oh, boy.

I’m not concern trolling: I think Republicans as a whole are getting exactly who they deserve, and if either of those whos didn’t have a shot at the presidency, i.e., a chance at wrecking things for the rest of us, I’d be clapping in glee.

Still, I do feel a bit of sympathy for the ordinary Republican who just wants someone who’s not a night-screamer, someone who’s just, y’know, fine.


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