Loved your extended metaphor.
Let's hope the Dems can pull it together.
Hmmm...sounds like the Repubs are going from a three ring circus to turning into humpty dumpty.
I don't see much that will put them back together again.
damm sara, good pice but you have been hanging out with lm too much
Mrs. Robinson - that was simply brilliant.
Bravo!
Mrs. R-
Beautiful!
hmmm, more like a circus in Imperial Rome
Wonderful post - the latest in a long line of great posts you've done.
That was gorgeous
Fantastic piece! Let's hope that the Dem version of Cirque du Soleil is more like the erotic, adults-only, polyracial and polysexual Zoomanity than the tame, safe-for-kids Wintuk or whatever it's called.
BTW, actually saw Zoomanity and ALMOST got called on stage. I DID manage to be invited to do a "5 point inspection" on one very nice, very young, very buff, very bi man in a skintight silver jumpsuit. :D It made the ticket price worth it!!
today's quote of the day from the NYT about one of the former circus performers
"He was too New York, too Italian, and he had too many wives."
DOROTHY KALIADES, of Queens, on the problems with Rudolph W. Giuliani’s presidential quest.
Remember, the big top itself stays up because all three directions pull equally; but not too hard that the fabric tears.
It's a great piece.
Markos had a couple of articles yesterday as well on how their anti-immigrant policies have destroyed them. (California is a great example post Pete Wilson.)
But given that they appeal to our very worst instincts as Americans, I don't seem them as going away for long. Part of me even worries that they will regroup out of the convention given it's brokered nature. (Gingrich anyone?)
We need to aggressively promote tolerance and education to counter them. Tolerance teaches kids not to fear the other. Education gives them the tools to make good evaluations. Throughout history cultural workers - artists, musicians, activists -- have carried that banner.
We will have so much shit to clean up over the next four years, but we must make these two things a priority.
Excellent piece, as usual. I wouldn't get too over-confident in their incipient demise, though: that scene from Fatal Attraction just keeps coming to mind. And anger, which gushes out like a too-tightly-squeezed box of popcorn in the pudgy hands of their devotees, is a mighty strong motivator. I think their minions will fall in behind McCain (or whomever)simply because the alternative, A black or female Librul, is just too terrifying to imagine. Hope I'm wrong, but...
the fanatics will still come out to vote...its about tribal identity its THEIR guy, regardless of how distastful he is THEIR team will beat OUR team. thats what matters to them in the end...they will be willign to distroy everything jsut to say that WE didn't win.
More over they are msotly authroitarian types. as soon as the authroites above them line up behind a canadate, be it McCain or Romney they will all fall in line. It dosn't matter how you persoanly feel abotu a decision if it came from your better it came from god. If you find it distastful you are wrong, so fallow directions and beg forgivness for your sin of doubt.
great job. apt metaphor. it truly carried all the way through.
Flat taxers, flat earthers, and warmongers. Got it.
Great article.
I think Willy Kristol said the same thin in theNYT last week.
Good work.
Beautiful metaphor, Ms. Robinson!
But you were forgetting something. Every circus has to have a sideshow, an assemblage of freaks, geeks and other things that simultaneously draw in the marks while repelling them.
People like:
Neo-Nazis
Extremist Racists
Self-hating Gays (I am in awe at the level of denial among the Log Cabiners)
Know-Nothings
Nativists
With people like this capering just outside the Big Top (in, but not *in* if you take my meaning) the circus reaches its full potential.
Digby has often said the Rethug base will simply do as they're told come election day; No matter how much they despise, say, McCain, they'll hold their noses and vote for him if he's the candidate. I can't say I find anything to dispute with in that analysis.
Unfortunately.
It's just like the turn of the last century--trusts, "muscular Christianity" and "speak softly and carry a big stick."
Ring One--Nixon, Reagan, Bush II
Ring Two--technically empty
Ring Three--Ford, Bush I
Of course there are blends between Rings One and Three. Notice that Ring Two has never had the spotlight. They want their chance, and they want it now. That explains Huckabee.
Great metaphor Mrs. R.. Don't forget the carny barkers, the Malkins, Limburghs and O'Reillys, whose job is to get the marks in the big top and convince them that they are watching the greatest show on earth and pay no attention to that hand stealing your purse or wallet.
In all three, this shared desire for global conquest was accompanied by a fundamental contempt for those about to be conquered -- an assurance of superiority that expressed itself an extreme level of racism, sexism, and religious bigotry that they didn't always try quite hard enough to conceal.
Wow, The Dems need to sell the rest of the world the idea that they don't represent this.
Great piece Sara - kudos to Jesse for pushing it back up where it belongs.
Nice piece ... but whereas dannyboy cited "Fatal Attraction" I'd choose "Terminator" - as has been said already, authoritarian-types will rally even around someone they dislike, & support them as if they'd been their first choice all along, if he's "our man" & not a LIBERAL.
Also worth noting the propensity of the Dems to blow big leads late in the contest - an American tradition I'll be very happy to see fade away.
The world is longing for regime change in America. Make it so.
It's never smart to do the victory dance when you're still on the 20-yard-line. Their tent may be tattered, but they still have a few little tricks up their sleeve. Like their sneaky little friend trolling the parking lot for open doors - you know, Mr. Diebold.
the fantics will vote and vote in teh numbers we are sue to seeing from them. YOU (the Dems) cannot win with out the rest of us. if YOU put up a partasian hack like hillary, if you give us no reason to bother voteing (as I see no gain with hillary, tradeign one authritarian for another is not a good idea in my book) you will lose again as there are more right wing authoritarians then left wing.
Truly a great metaphor, so perfect in fact that it might not be a metaphor at all - but instead a literal truth. After all P.T.Barnum admitted what, in his famous quote, his whole enterprise was established and was dependent on; "There's sucker is born every minute".
Come to think of it, doesn't the ringmasters outfit look suspiciously a lot like Uncle Sam? Maybe without the bull whip.
To moonglum:
This is the same exact mistake made by the Greens in 2000. "What's the difference?"
Anyone who says even an authoritarian-leaning persona as Hillary would be "the same" as an equivalent administration under the Republicans needs to realize something else from this entire metaphor: The ringleader is NOT the substance of all the acts.
Seriously, exactly how likely is it that a President Hillary would appoint another Alito or Scalia to the Supreme Court? Or another Browne to FEMA? How many of our trade missions and oversight bureaus would be headed by industry cronies? Exactly how many egregious "strategy meetings" like Cheney's infamous energy committee would happen?
If Hillary gets the nod, it might mean we're in Iraq longer than if Obama gets the nod, and honestly, we don't really have the ability to predict either. We may still have an "overly muscular" foreign policy - but you really need to share whatever it is that you're intoxicated on if you think that a Hillary presidency would be -anything- like a McCain or a Romney presidency.
And this doesn't even speak to the notion that Huckabee is looking mightily vice-presidential right now. There may well be a need for either of the current frontrunners to buy off the religious right with exactly such a maneuver. Imagine for a moment: a 73-year old McCain with Huckabee just a heartbeat away from the presidency. And tell me... Hillary represents a threat to all our civil liberties -that- big?
moonglum --
If you honestly think a Clinton presidency is the same as a McCain or a Huckabee presidency, in my assessment you are so filled with hate for Clinton you have lost the competence to make grounded political judgments.
Any standard observer would disagree with you. Only those filled with hate Hillary Clinton at all costs -- those who frankly would normally be found at RedState or LGF -- would say Clinton is the same as McCain is the same as Huckabee. Except they wouldn't say that. They would say she is worse than those, that she is the devil. Which is pretty much what you've been saying.
Your hatred is blinding you. Stop flinging it around here. It's icky.
Jesse: look at the few bills she has sponserd. they all further an authroitarian agenda. hell look at the crap that bill pulled when he was president, progresives where tossed the occasional meaningless bone (FMLA...whooho I can take unpaid vacation days...thanks.) while the corperation got major gifts (NAFTA) and the laws got tighter on personal freedom. the last clinton presidancy was was filled with loseing of regulations for big busness while they tightened restrictions on the rest of us, hte whole dot com bubble and burst was a direct result of their loseing of restrictions...and they started the process that ended in the houseing bubble.
Add to that Hillarys ties to the prayer breakfest, her ties to the monnies, her membership in the fellowship (second only to the monnies in size, and probably more powerful dominist group in washington). her ites to APIC, her love for all thigns liberman ect ect.
If she where a white guy with a diffrent last name she would be a neocon. I decided long before that I could never vote for hillary regardless of who was on the other side.
look at teh big picture, we have a "dem" president inacting a neocon agenda, what exactly happensin four years?
Moon old boy, if it is between a Democratic Satan and a Republican demon, you can still depend on the Democrat to owe something to us. I am far from a Clintonesta... but given no other President than her or any of the Republican candidates, I'll go with the She-Devil. Elect a Republican and you get 4 to 8 more years of George Bush et al.
Outstanding piece. I'm surprised these three groups have co-existed for this long. I know far too many people who vote GOP simply for monetary reasons, yet are pro-choice, for gay marriage, etc.
I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton by any stretch of the imagination, but if she is the Dem nominee I will vote for her and donate money to her campaign. It is essential that either Hillary or Obama get into the White House. Hillary is far, far better then the GOP alternative.
No matter which of the dem candidates you like, there IS a difference between them
Packer, George. "The Choice," "The Clinton-Obama battles reveals two very different ideas of the Presidency." The New Yorker, 1-28-08.
OT, but it should be interesting to see how the Clinton camp tries to spin this.
Given everything I've seen or heard of her, her years on the Wal-Mart BoD are vintage Clinton: Fiddle around the margins, give it a kinder, gentler tweak or two, maybe even "green" it up a bit, but never, no never ever do anything to really upset a deeply corrupt and authoritarian status quo.
Understand, though, I'm not offering this as evidence for the "there's not a dime's worth of difference" crowd. It matters quite a bit who appoints the judges and staffs the agencies. Just ask a half-million Katrina refugees -- unfortunately, those 1000+ corpses can't tell you their feelings on the matter.
Like it or not (and I don't) Clinton and Obama are the best we're going to get, this time around. Although we're getting much better at pushback, Liberals and especially Progressives are still a long, long way from controlling the narrative. Until we do, anyone as gauche and impolitic as a Dean or an Edwards (i.e. a truth-teller) will simply get the $400 Haircut/Cone of Silence treatment.
The last major politician who dared to speak out in public against the Military-Industrial Complex was Eisenhower. In his farewell speech.
Exactly. HRC or Obama are the best we can get this time around. Both are DLC-type Democrats, but I would still prefer either one to any Elephascist son of a bitch, for much the same reasons I would prefer diabetes to cancer if those were my only two choices.
Amuseinc: that is where we disagre, with a clinton in office I see a slower walk down the neocon path, but its still the same path, and in the end we are in the same place. worse yet in 4 years ut hands everything to the theocrats who will allways show up in droves (clintons have a bad habit of driving voters away in droves).
then again with hillarys domnist ties perhaps that is the intended outcome. remeber she said this in 07 "I applaud the Universal Peace Federation's global networks of individuals and organizations committed to peace building through dialogue, education, and service.". Rather odd praise for the Moonies.
lets also remeber we had Bush senior after is presdancy for Iran contra nad more...enough that we would have never seen his son. The clintons let him off the hook, just up and shut down the investagations..i doubt bushs feet will be heald to the fire.
what it all adds up to is a DINO of the worst sort. I would not vote for lbermen and I will not vote for her.
Great piece.
Jim:
Nice piece ... but whereas dannyboy cited "Fatal Attraction" I'd choose "Terminator" - as has been said already, authoritarian-types will rally even around someone they dislike, & support them as if they'd been their first choice all along, if he's "our man" & not a LIBERAL.
It's already happening. Hannity has already spun his jalopy around and is murmuring sweet nothings at McCain The War Hero And Prisoner In The Hanoi Hilton.
Look. I was raised Republican and, for no good reason, am still registered GOP (haven't voted for an R since 2000, but I still get some interesting junk mail). So I know what I'm talking about here, more or less...
Never, ever, underestimate the authoritarian impulse among Republicans. The party in the 20th century has been deeply respectful of hierarchy. How else to explain nominating Bob Dole in 1996? He 'deserved' it.
So the rank and file WILL line up behind McCain, if he's the nominee, or Romney, if it's him. No question about it.
The question is, rather, how enthusiastically they'll support the nominee. Sara's piece indicates the complications here: three disparate camps, all loathing each other.
And in a year like this, with a Democratic/Progressive bloc energized with holy wrath at the colossal Bush screwups, moderate enthusiasm equals Hoover-like disaster for the GOP.
Moonglum's comments remind me of my personal grudge against Hillary. I will hold my nose and vote for her if she's the nominee and the polls show a close race, but anyone that tries to scapegoat video games for violence in society has earned my petty, but undying dislike.
But I actually wanted to comment that I fear either Democratic nominee may reunite the fractured GOP circus, though I expect that Hillary will be a more effective catalyst to inspire the three rings to ignore their differences.
'Kin brilliant. Pure shining spot on brilliant metaphors. And spot on labels.
Once again, Mrs. Robinson has seduced a generation. Or six.
You GO gal.
Great analysis. *G*
Obama and HRC are both DLC tools, but I will still vote for either one in November over any Elephascist. At least the DLC represents the less insane wing of the plutocracy, whereas between the Gingrich Congress and the Chimperial Presidency, the more insane wing of the plutocracy has been misruling the country for some 14 years now, plus installing HRC or Obama would at least start rehabilitating the USA's reputation in the world.
Did i missunderstand the debate last night or is hill pushing subdermal tracking and identification chips as part of her mandatory insurance scam?
no she not an authoritarian nut.
"Flat taxers, flat earthers, and warmongers. Got it.
Great article.
Marek | 01.31.08 - 7:49 am |"
Or, to make them all flat-:
Flat taxers, flat earthers, and flatten 'em all.
Thanks Captain C, I just couldn't find that third flat.
Oh no. A three ring circus is still contained in a big tent.
What we have now is more like a Hoochie-Coochie side show for a cheap carnival.
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