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somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years

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Alternate History: November 22, 1963

If John F. Kennedy survived his assassination attempt in 1963, he would almost certainly win re-election in 1964, so long as he kept Lyndon B. Johnson on as his VP. The Civil Rights Act would be stalled in Congress without Johnson as president to put pressure on conservative Democrats, but its still popular enough that it would become a campaign promise instead. Kennedy defeats Republican segregationist Barry Goldwater with a respectable majority, though not the 60-40 landslide of Johnson in our timeline. The Civil Rights Act passes in 1965 or 1966, and Kennedy commits fewer atrocities in Vietnam (his opponents call him soft or communism even though he was literally shot at by a communist sympathizer, he just doesn’t want to have another military failure like the Bay of Pigs in 62)

In 1968, the Democratic nomination is a two-way race between Lyndon B. Johnson and Kennedy’s own brother and Attorney General Bobby. Johnson and Bobby HATE each other, and they don’t pull any punches; Johnson had a history of opposing civil rights in the 50s, but he was instrumental in helping Kennedy secure the senate votes for filibuster cloture and passage in the 60s. Bobby Kennedy abused his post to act as his brothers personal lawyer, helping cover up some less than reputable decisions. It’s neck and neck going into the primaries. Johnson has more experience, but Bobby Kennedy is younger and more charismatic, and would have John’s endorsement. He would almost certainly be assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, same as in our timeline, because of his support for Israel. Sirhan was an anti-Zionist Palestinian, and in our timeline he killed Bobby when he was a senator running for president in 1968. If JFK was never assassinated, Bobby would stay on in his cabinet as AG instead of becoming a senator in 64; as AG, he was his brothers main advisor for foreign and domestic policy, so he would be at the forefront of the American response to the Six Day War in 1967 in which the Arab states tried to push Israel into the sea. Sirhan would have even greater motivation to kill him in this timeline for supporting Israel in the war, so Johnson would probably become the Democratic nominee. He would probably still pick Hubert Humphrey as his VP, as he did in our 1964, because Humphrey was a liberal civil rights activist in the senate, also instrumental in passing the Civil Rights Act. Humphrey is closer in line to Bobby Kennedy, so Johnson is able to unite the party following his death.

The Republicans in 68 would be split between the moderates led by New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and the conservatives led by California governor Ronald Reagan. In our timeline, following the total repudiation of Goldwater conservatism in 64, the Republicans picked the middle-of-the-road Richard Nixon (he was their nominee in 1960 but lost to JFK, then lost the governorship of California in 1962, after which he promised to leave politics forever, but rescinded that promise when he saw he could run as the anti-Goldwater with his former boss Eisenhower’s endorsement). In this timeline, he would be considered a political laughingstock for his defeats; everyone would compare him to his very popular and successful opponent JFK, so he wouldn’t stand a chance against either his brother or his VP in 68. In our timeline, Reagan came in second in the Republican primaries, followed by Rockefeller at a distant third. In this timeline, Rockefeller would rocket into first without competition from Nixon. Rockefeller was a liberal Republican (sounds like an oxymoron today, but they used to exist), so he would probably pick Reagan as his VP to balance the ticket, holding onto conservative voters.

1968: Johnson/Humphrey vs Rockefeller/Reagan, it would be very close and would depend heavily on ultraconservative segregationist George Wallace, who ran as a spoiler in our 68, splitting the Democratic vote and giving the presidency to Nixon. Humphrey was a Midwestern Democrat, Wallace a southerner, so they represented two very different sides of the party. In this timeline, both Johnson and Wallace are southerners, so Wallace wouldn’t stand nearly as much a chance; our Johnson and this Kennedy lost the south to Goldwater in 64, but this Johnson would probably be able to crowd Wallace out of the race and run without intraparty opposition. In this case, I think Johnson/Humphrey would win.

1972, Johnson is in very poor health, but the last president to choose not to run for re-election was Rutherford B. Hayes (1877 - 1881). Johnson/Humphrey would run again, this time against Ronald Reagan at the top of the Republican ticket. Reagan didn’t run in our 72 because Nixon was a popular incumbent, but he ran in our 76 and nearly unseated incumbent Ford because he was unpopular for pardoning Nixon. If Reagan picked a moderate as his VP, as he did in our timeline with George Bush, he would probably pick George W. Romney, the outgoing governor of Michigan (and father of Mitt). The Johnson/Humphrey ticket would have a slight incumbency advantage over the Reagan/Romney ticket, but Reagan is still super popular, so there’s probably even odds he gets elected. To make it interesting, let’s say that he wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college; this has never happened to a Republican, they have always been the beneficiary of these loopholes

1824: Democratic-Republican turned National Republican John Quincy Adams loses the popular vote to Democrat Andrew Jackson, but wins the electoral college. I actually approve of this one because Jackson was a genocidal warmonger who inspired Hitler (that’s not hyperbole or Godwin’s law, it’s true, look it up). Jackson won the rematch in 1828

1876: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden, and some closed-doors corruption gave him the electoral college by exactly one vote, on the condition that he end Reconstruction and allow the south to rule itself without federal oversight. This created Jim Crow, which haunts us to this day.

1888: Republican Benjamin Harrison loses the popular vote to Democratic President Grover Cleveland, the first and so far only sitting president to lost in such a manner. Cleveland would win the rematch in 1892, again becoming the first and so far only president to win a non-consecutive second term. Cleveland won the popular vote three times in a row, a feat only surpassed by FDR’s four terms 40 years later.

2000: Republican George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore. Bush would have lost the electoral college too, but his brother Jeb was the governor of Florida and illegally ordered the state to stop the federally mandated recount. The state was too close to call, and later investigations show that if the recount had continued it would have gone for Gore, giving him the presidency, but Jeb and he 5-4 conservative Supreme Court gave it to George on a technicality; “oh, it’s too late to restart the recount, sorry, better luck next time.”

2016: Republican Donald Trump loses the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump was divisive because he was an idiot racist sexual predator, and Clinton was divisive because she was a disingenuous career politician who a lot of people hated for a variety of valid but less substantial reasons (Banghazi wasn’t her fault, but she still acted as though she was entitled to the Democratic nomination, like it was her birthright, that anybody who dared challenge her was interfering in Herstory). She lost because of low voter turnout in the rust belt and disproportionate media attention paid to third party candidates; had Johnson and Stein not been taken seriously, she probably would have carried Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania (at least one, maybe two or all three), possibly winning the presidency. Now, whether or not Russia interfered on Trumps behalf and changed votes in those states is unconfirmed; I believed it for a while, but then Biden won them all in 2020, which shows that Clinton was just a historically weak candidate. If Russia could change votes to give Trump a victory in 2016, they absolutely would have done it again in 2020.

In this timeline’s 1972, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson lost the popular vote to Republican Ronald Reagan, but eked by with a slim electoral college victory. Now, our Johnson died on January 22, 1973 of a heart attack, which would be just two days into this Johnson’s second term, but I believe he would have survived slightly longer in this timeline. The presidency ages you; inheriting it in 63 and holding it until 69 definitely put more stress on him than if he had remained VP under Kennedy the whole time. This version of Johnson didn’t fumble Vietnam, so he isn’t despised by the public as he was in our 68 (he was eligible to run for a third term, but chose not to because he didn’t think he had enough support to win). This Johnson would probably survive well into 1973 or maybe even 1974 before dying, giving the presidency to Hubert Humphrey.

In 1976, the Midwestern Humphrey would run with a southerner as his VP. In our timeline, he ran in 1968 and chose northerner Edmund Muskie of Maine, and lost because of southern opposition from Wallace. To secure he south, he would NEED a southerner; if he was going for a moderate he’d pick Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, if he was going for a conservative he’s go with Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia (he would almost certainly pick Carter because Byrd led the filibuster opposition against the Civil Rights Act which Humphrey fought for, making them rivals on the matter). Because Reagan was so popular and got more votes in 72, he would probably become the Republican nominee again; it’s not unlike what the Democrats did in the 50s, running Adlai Stephenson against Dwight Eisenhower in both 1952 and 1956, or our timeline’s Republicans running Richard Nixon in 1960 and 1968. Reagan would pick a conservative as his running mate this time, probably Bob Dole; in our timeline, Gerald Ford picked fellow moderate Nelson Rockefeller as his VP in 74, but replaced him with Dole in 76 because he needed conservative support. I think that Reagan would shuck moderate support after losing in 68 and 72, in favor of a full conservative ticket. Reagan/Dole would defeat Humphrey/Carter in a landslide, ending 16 years of Democratic rule.

In 1980, Reagan/Dole would run for re-election against someone like Teddy Kennedy. In our timeline, Teddy challenged incumbent Carter in the primaries, and just barely lost. In this timeline, he would be he frontrunner, and would have his older brother’s endorsement. JFK would probably live into the early 1990s in this timeline; his sisters all lived to be in their 80s and 90s, but Teddy (his only surviving brother) died in his 70s. John was chronically unhealthy, suffering from Addison’s Disease, so he would probably die younger than Teddy, so 1994 at the latest. At this point, to see who wins we need to look at foreign policy; Vietnam is over, ended by Johnson or Humphrey, both of whom would be likely to reach detente with the Soviets and establish relations with the Chinese as our Nixon had. These are major achievements, but the election would come down to Iran; our Carter lost because he fumbled three Iranian crises in quick succession;

The Revolution: in the 1950s, Iran had a functioning democracy, and as an independent state it decided to distance itself from western powers to preserve Persian interests in the Middle East. Eisenhower overthrew the democracy and installed a pro-America puppet monarchy led by the Shah, who was in turn overthrown by religious extremists in 1979, installing the theocracy we know today run by the Ayatollah. Eisenhower destroyed Iran, and everyone up to and including Carter were complicit.

The Oil Shock: the new Islamic Republic of Iran decided it didn’t want to continue giving away oil to the United States as the puppet government had, so exports dried up, exacerbated by a war with Iraq the following year. Oil prices skyrocketed, and we were hit with a global recession.

The Hostage Crisis: a group of pro-revolutionary students took over the US Embassy in late 1979, holding 52 Americans hostage for over a year and a half. Carter eventually negotiated their release, but Reagan got all the credit because they weren’t let go until January 20, 1981, Reagan’s first day in office, making him look like he solved it all by himself.

Reagan was a warmonger who wanted to heat up the Cold War, and it was only because of his VP George Bush that we avoided the apocalypse. Bush specialized in foreign policy, and helped ease tensions with the USSR when he became president himself in our 1988, working with Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. In this timeline, no Bush means no detente, means we very likely would go to war with Iran over oil, becoming this timelines equivalent to the first Gulf War. Reagan would fight hard to restore the Shah, probably triggering a second revolution and an Iranian Civil War. This very same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to try and inch its way closer to the warm water ports of the Indian Ocean, which is an entirely new crisis for him to deal with. In our timeline, he responded to the Soviet invasion by giving money and weapons to the Mujahideen, an anti-communist militia led by none other than Osama Bin Laden. Bid Laden would turn against the US government in the 80s and 90s, bombing and eventually knocking down the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. If Eisenhower destroyed Iran, Reagan destroyed Afghanistan.

BUT, here’s the thing; Iran was our sworn enemy in the 1980s, but our Reagan decided they were a necessary evil in order for him to push his conservative agenda overseas. In 1985, Reagan decided he wanted to overthrow the left wing government of Nicaragua by funding the Contras, a right wing rebel group, but Congress told him he wasn’t allowed to do that. Instead of accepting it, he decided to fund them under the table, selling weapons to Iran to raise the money in secret. This was textbook Treason with a capital T, again literally, not hyperbole. Providing aid to our enemies is the definition of treason, a word that gets thrown around so often that people forget how serious a charge it is. By giving Iran weapons just a few years after the revolution and hostage crisis, Reagan could have gone to jail for life or been executed, but he shifted blame onto some underlings and covered it up, narrowly avoiding impeachment; he and VP Bush would go on to pardon their co-conspirators, so everyone got off scot free.

So, imagine Reagan in this 1980 gaming both sides of the Iran War; propping up a puppet monarchy AND selling weapons to the religious extremists AND sending money to Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in place of the Nicaraguan Contras. In this timeline, we didn’t have a Nixon presidency, so there was no Watergate Scandal. Whatever Reagan gets into in 1980 would become this timeline’s equivalent, only worse because he wasn’t able to learn from Nixon’s mistakes and cover it all up as thoroughly. If this didn’t tank his re-election chances, he would almost certainly be impeached at the start of his second term. Dole was just some schmuck from Kansas, not the head of he CIA like Bush, so he wouldn’t be able to help Reagan out of this mess. If Reagan resigned like Nixon, Dole would pardon him like Ford, though I suspect Reagan would try to ride out impeachment because he’d rather be acquitted than quit. Our Nixon lost all support from even his own party after Watergate, so it’s likely that this Reagan would have the same disadvantage; our Reagan was beloved by Republicans, and still is to this day (they think he can do no wrong, even though he nuked the middle class and let the obscenely rich take control of every aspect of our lives, socially and economically), so maybe he would still have support, but not as much because in this timeline he would become Nixon. Nixon won in 1972 with a 49 state landslide, but resigned in shame just 2 years later; it’s very likely that his Reagan would follow suit, losing all credibility regardless of how much support he has at the start. It would depend on whether or not the Democrats had the balls to investigate him until they struck oil.

All this time I’ve been assuming that Congress would remain the same throughout this timeline, with longstanding Democratic majorities in both houses, but I failed to account for how vulnerable seats would change in the alternate 1972 and 1982 reapportionments. After 16 years of Democratic rule from 1961 to 1977, Congressional Republicans would likely gain support from the public, maybe even pushing the Republican Revolution of the 90s ahead by a decade or two. Johnson/Humphrey would become Bill Clinton, competent and popular, but the perfect boogeymen for the Republicans to rise up against.

I’ll continue this scenario tomorrow after doing more research to see what the alternate Congress would look like. Going forward from here depends heavily on which party is in power when Reagan goes for a second term during the Iran Crises.

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sol1056 · 5 years

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set it up and pay it off

This was going to be part of another post which I ended up breaking into two. Finally had a chance to get to this tonight.

I’m watching tDP and istg I’m trying my hardest not to compare it ... but every mistake [other shows] made, tDP is doing a right (and an amazing right). But in terms of writing?? The fact that they solve small issues without dragging it to the next season making the audience tired and not interested?? Amazing!!

Hello, payoffs! Not only does tDP do setups and payoffs right, it knows how to gracefully remind us, and then delivers those payoffs that’ll have the most bang for the screentime.

For those unfamiliar with the term, if the classic chekov’s gun is the setup, the moment the gun is used (in whatever way) is the payoff. Payoffs are delightful things, and very little compares when it comes to satisfying readers (regardless of the nature of the payoff). Humans like getting the answers to questions.

Behind the cut: types of setups and payoffs, four things to remember, choosing payoffs and their role in the narrative, the dangers of doing them cheaply, and how to destroy a payoff’s weight.

Spoilers for the first episode only; everything else is vague or uses non-tDP examples to illustrate.

a bit about setups and payoffs

When the story asks a question or raises a possibility, that’s the setup (aka the gun on the mantle), and the payoff is the answer. This is not the same as a character asking a question; setups and payoffs are designed for the audience.

Frex, talking about bad weather is effectively asking, ‘what if the weather got really bad?’ Now when the tornado strikes, the audience was primed for the possibility. A setup can be to show a character’s skill, so the audience isn’t surprised when the character devises an ingenious solution in the finale. Odd descriptions and curious hints will spike the tension and raise the question, ‘what if this house is haunted?’ long before a ghost even appears on the page.

Most stories have an overall question, like ‘can A win the Kentucky Derby’ or ‘can B find true love’ --- this is often what we call the throughline. But stories are also full of ongoing questions for the characters, and also about them (or their world, their backstory, their perspectives). Some get answered right away, some explained later, and some, well, never.

Nearly every conversation between Viren and Harrow raises about twenty questions and answers perhaps five. The characters know (or think they know) the answers to a lot of these questions; their dialogue works on the level of exchanging information, and also to provoke or establish possibilities in the viewer’s mind. When we later see Ruunan’s skills or Amaya’s rank or some other detail that resolves the setup, it’s an aha! moment.

four things to remember

1. Setups should make sense at that point in the story. If a character is busy trying to master unfamiliar machinery, it’s probably not the most appropriate time to mention the character is a croquet champion. If the character is in a room with no windows in the building’s interior, it’s going to be awkward if you decide it’s time for them to worry about the strange weather.

2. A setup needs to make sense in hindsight. If the ghost died by drowning, and your tension-raising questions are all prompted by lightbulbs breaking and the smell of an open fire... that’s not going to make much sense, thematically.

3. A setup must be intriguing. Say a story raises questions about a character’s animosity or honesty. If the reveal is, well, he always looks like that, or she’s always nervous, the reader’s going to apply that retroactively and decide that question had no point. (That’s a fast track to losing an audience’s trust, by the way.) If your setups are boring, the audience will find the payoff boring.

4. Don’t delay all your payoffs until the end. You don’t want to answer everything too fast, or you’re losing a great source of tension. But you can’t put off answering for too long, or the audience will get frustrated and quit. (Or they’ll hold on just long enough to get the one answer they really want, and quit then.)

answer this, not that

As tDP’s three protagonists move through the season, they know nothing of the larger intrigue going on, and they have no clue what lies ahead. Resolving any of those other questions might answer some world-detail for us, but they’re not an immediate concern for the protagonists. That makes those setups less valuable for an emotional payoff, because they don’t hold as much story-weight, comparatively.

What tDP did so well was that it never lost sight of the protagonists’ own questions. The writers then identified what they could answer without giving everything away --- and of those questions, they chose to answer the ones with the greatest urgency and emotional weight.

To understand why you’d answer those in the middle of the story, it helps to understand what payoffs do, in the narrative.

the role of payoffs in the narrative

I’ve talked before about the promise of the premise, and the payoff of the setup is a parallel to that concept. When the story sets up a question (a premise), that payoff is where it delivers on the promise. It’s not always good news. Payoffs are consequences; sometimes it’s more powerful to have everything go wrong.

Here’s an example of a mid-story payoff that doesn’t have emotional weight, vs several that do. In LotR, the fellowship is forced to go through the Mines of Moria. This is a double setup: one, can Gandalf remember his way through the labyrinthine halls, and two, can they get through without alerting whatever now lives in the mines. The tension hangs on those setups, and the story delivers four payoffs for it.

Gandalf halts the party while he tries to remember which branch in the path is correct. When he does, it’s a payoff, and it does double duty: yes, he remembers enough to guide the fellowship (what a relief) and now they can proceed (as opposed to spending the rest of the book wandering around in the dark). We readers get a breather from the oppressive tension, and the story is pushed forward.

For at least a chapter or so, Gimli’s been insistent they should go through Moria. A marvelous place, distant kin sure to show them dwarven hospitality, etc. Seeing Moria is a question that only appears once they reach the mountains, and Gimli’s interest in it is mostly from a need to impress: his constant talk becomes another setup.

The second payoff comes Gimli forces a detour to investigate a tomb. We get a short passage where Gimli reads the eye-witness account of the mine’s last occupants. It’s an emotional payoff... but only for Gimli. It’s certainly not much of a payoff from the perspective of a reader who’s focused on the urgency driving them through the mines. Had the mines been a planned part of the route from the beginning, with the entire company desperate for the safe shelter, the mine’s disaster might’ve carried greater emotional weight.

When Pippin knocks a helmet down a well, it’s a third payoff, addressing the setup created by Gandalf's strict warning about stealth. The tension rises but it’s alleviated in another way: the setup has been fulfilled. Now to find out the consequences: a fight scene, a chase, and the situation turns dire.

Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog is the fourth payoff, pushing the setup to its limit (whether they can all get through safely), but also resolving a setup planted much earlier in the story. That is, that Gandalf is what will make the journey possible, and keep them safe (and together).

That setup (of Gandalf’s necessity) is fulfilled when the story yanks him out of the picture, and it comes with substantial emotional weight. We’ve had seventeen chapters showing how much Frodo admires, even adores, Gandalf. Not only is the result of that setup potentially threatening the fellowship’s success, it’s also emotionally devastating for Frodo and the other hobbits.

In sum, payoffs do three things in the narrative: they remind readers of the stakes by delivering smaller consequences along the way, they deliver emotional beats (including the catharsis of laughter if the payoff is the punchline to a humorous setup), and they regulate the story’s tension and pacing.

disingenuous setups make for cheap payoffs

If you look at some of the turning points in tDP, there are payoffs previous to the final episode. Think of every place the story is begging a question, and you end up with a whole lot of chekov’s guns; tDP practically has three mantles’ worth.

If the elves swear an oath to fulfill their duty, what happens if they fail? If the boys can’t protect their prize, what will happen to them, to Rayla, to the humans and elves? If the boys trust Rayla with their prize, will she betray them? If the elves assassinate King Harrow, will the other human countries march to war? And what’s the deal with that mirror, anyway?

What makes tDP especially satisfactory is how it plays with closure before any payoff. This can be a little tricky; it requires a narrative voice that’s gained the audience’s trust. In short, you take any given question, let the characters acknowledge the consequences of failure, and then let them accept this as the price of making their choice. Skip this step, and any reversal will feel cheap.

Take the pivotal moment in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. From the moment Edmund meets the White Witch, he’s set on a path to betray his siblings. With Narnia’s prophecy hanging on the need for all four children to sit on the thrones at Cair Paravel, the story has setup Edmund’s actions to have significant payoff. If the White Witch kills him, the prophecy won’t be fulfilled.

When the Witch delivers her ultimatum, and Aslan decides to offer himself as substitute sacrifice, Susan and Lucy end up bearing witness. Aslan explains his choice (but not all of his intentions), and the moment is heavy with emotional weight as the girls realize the consequences of their brother’s actions. The story doesn’t shirk from their grief, either; it’s a long passage of their distress as they do their best to undo --- or at least ease --- the worst of the Witch’s damage.

The contrast of that seeming abject loss with Aslan’s return --- and his explanation of the loophole that only he knew about --- could’ve been a cheap trick. What makes it such a pivotal moment is that neither of the point-of-view characters (Susan and Lucy) have any idea of what lies ahead, nor does the story ever slyly wink in the reader’s direction.

In tDP, there’s an ongoing looming consequence of Rayla’s choices, and she goes through the stages of handling that with all the gravity of what she believes to be true. The story never contradicts her beliefs; in fact, it reinforces them repeatedly, closing each additional option until only one terrible consequence remains.

We can hope that some loophole might exist, but the story never winks in our direction: it does nothing to reinforce that hope, instead pushing the setup inexorably towards its logical payoff. Like tLtWatW, nothing breaks the looming anguish of the setup’s apparent consequences, just as Aslan’s resigned wish for the girls to look away closes the door on hope that he'll at least fight his fate.

embrace the weight of a payoff

There’s an excellent video that deconstructs the use of bathos in Marvel movies (good to watch if this paragraph confuses you). Bathos is an abrupt turn from the serious to the trivial, which parallels a cheap payoff in that it tips its hand. It tells viewers: hey, we’re not taking this seriously, so no reason you should, either.

This is where tDP --- like Trollhunters --- really shines, because it never raises the veil to show the writers behind the curtain. Too often, stories (especially in current media) back away from committing to the payoff; it’s almost like we’ve got a generation of TV/film writers afraid to show any depth of emotion. The tension gets above a 2, and the writers retreat to a joke.

There’s plenty of humor in tDP; it’s filled to the brim with witty lines even funnier in context. What keeps it from being bathos (too much) is that it’s rarely an intentional quip on the part of the characters. Rayla is deadly serious when she tells the boys, “I’m not falling for that flashing frog trick, again!” If the writers expected me to laugh, the narrative doesn’t allow even a beat as indication. The story treats its characters --- and every payoff --- with a sincere gravity.

I think the crucial ingredient comes in how the narrative understands itself: as an intimate portrayal of a character in this situation, vs that of an actor onstage before an audience. You may’ve heard that over-quoted bit about ‘dance like no one is watching’ --- the same is true for stories: they must unroll as if there’s no audience other than the characters in that scene, in that moment.

This goes back to a setup that revolves around characterization such as honesty or duplicity. If a character cries in private, the reader’s assumption is that this character’s grief isn’t meant to be seen as feigned. With no audience (as far as the character knows), there’s no reason for pretense. If the payoff later is a reveal the character was faking all along, the story did worse than laughing at its own characters: it lied to the audience.

It set up a premise which the audience trusted as valid, only to deliver a payoff that hinged on the audience's gullibility. If bathos trivializes an emotional payoff, a story’s duplicity mocks the audience’s engagement.

A story can lie to its characters, can mislead them into thinking they have options when they have none, can maneuver them into thinking they have no options beyond one... but a story should never, ever, lie to the audience. If there’s a setup, its payoff must be honest.

To paraphrase Gaiman, a story doesn’t have to be real to be true --- and the place we most often glimpse a story’s truth in how it handles its payoffs.

#the dragon prince #writing #story structure #setups and payoffs #sol thinks about stuff

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laularlau8 · 7 years

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The history of India’s independence and the creation of Pakistan had been unfamiliar to Gillian Anderson when she took the role of Lady Mountbatten for her new film Viceroy’s House. The actor had once hired a private history tutor, a dozen years ago, to fill in some gaps of history she was hazy on – “Stuff that just wasn’t in my brain” – but this had not been one of them.

“No, I’d thought let me start with a couple of things that I don’t actually know that much about, or I can’t remember that much about, which was the first and second world wars.” She starts to laugh. “But it was a disaster. Because I have no memory. I took notes, blah, blah, blah, but couldn’t remember a thing he taught me. Nothing. I’m not even sure, if you’d asked me the next day, I could have told you what I’d learned. You know, even my favourite books, I couldn’t tell you what they were about. It’s always been that way.”

The menopause hasn’t helped, and lately things have become so bad that she’s going to get herself tested to see if she might actually be dyslexic. “Somebody had said to me that dyslexia isn’t just about seeing words backwards, it’s also about the assimilation of information. I’d always been afraid to look into it, because I was afraid that if I found something out, I would think that I couldn’t do anything that I wanted to do. I have this impression that I can do whatever I make up my mind to. But the reality is...” She lets the sentence fall away with a grimace.

By a bit of luck, the one thing the actor has always been able to remember are her lines. “But of course that’s terrifying for me, thinking, well, what if this problem that exists in the rest of my life shows up in that respect, too? Then I’d be buggered.”

If this creates an impression of a ditzy blonde, it would be misleading. We meet at the photographer’s studio, where a rack of stylist’s clothes stands unused; she chooses to be photographed in her own, and the way she chuckles about this makes me think the preference is par for the course for Anderson on shoots. Her fitted black trouser suit and heels are a sort of corporate/fashion hybrid, and her manner is similarly friendly but business-like. Apart from her enormous eyes, everything about Anderson is tiny, and the compactness reinforces the sense of efficient self-possession she conveys. She was just 24 when, as FBI agent Dana Scully in the paranormal TV drama that would make her a global star, she captivated X-Files fans for 10 years with her hyper-rational cool, before moving to London where her career has been equally sure-footed. From period dramas (Bleak House, House Of Mirth, War And Peace) to big-budget TV series (Hannibal, The Fall), to independent movies (The Last King Of Scotland, A Cock And Bull Story), comedy (Boogie Woogie, Johnny English Reborn) and theatre (A Doll’s House, A Streetcar Named Desire), Anderson seems to get busier the older she gets. It’s a tall order for a beautiful blonde to play consistently powerful, intelligent women, but Anderson has pulled it off.

The actor brings her air of serious purpose to the role of Lady Mountbatten, giving us a less flighty version of the aristocrat than the good-time girl caricature we’ve been accustomed to. She evokes her character’s classic colonial glamour, but depicts her dashing about nursing the sick and injured, and being a generally good egg.

“One of the things that I was surprised by in studying Edwina was that there was certainly a turning point in her life when she went from being predominantly a socialite, and wafting around and having affairs, living pretty much from holiday to holiday and leaving her children at home. But when the war happened and she started to participate in nursing et cetera, her escapism completely switched over to being of service, so everything she did from that moment on was about properly digging in and working around the clock.”

Viceroy’s House opens with the arrival in India of Lord Mountbatten and his wife in 1947, to oversee the nation’s transition from colonial rule to independence. Hugh Bonneville plays Edwina’s husband, and their official residence – Viceroy’s House – is not so much the film’s setting as the third star member of the cast. Sumptuously filmed, at moments the movie is a sort of Downton Abbey of the Raj, with all sorts of romantic intrigue going on below stairs among the 500 Hindu, Sikh and Muslim household staff. But there is not so much as a hint of the affair Lady Mountbatten was rumoured to take up with the man about to become India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Their romance was to have been the subject of a 2009 film, Indian Summer, until the Indian government took exception to the salacious storyline and forced the movie to be cancelled. In the hands of British director Gurinder Chadha, whose own family were among the 14 million displaced in the violence and bloodshed of the period, this new version of India’s independence is less racy, if rather more substantial, and concerns itself with the politics of partition.

Anderson says she was always conscious while making the film that some viewers will find the concept of a “good” colonialist inherently problematic – “yes, absolutely, absolutely” – and 70 years after independence, she found herself revisiting colonialism’s dynamics on location. They filmed in Jodhpur, staying at the Umaid Bhawan Palace hotel, where the film was also shot, using the palace to double for the real Viceroy’s House. “And, you know, we’re in a situation where we’re in a developing country and we are filming at the height of luxury and, yes, there’s an uneasiness to it. There was one actor we worked with, who does a lot of work around the world in – I can’t remember whether it’s around poverty or Aids – who would not stay there. He refused to stay in the hotel, and wanted to stay in some place that felt more like India.”

Even by the standards of activist actors, Anderson’s own involvement in social and political causes is prolific. The 48-year-old has campaigned variously for women’s rights in Afghanistan, against sexual violence towards girls in Myanmar, for better access to HIV treatment in South Africa and education in Uganda, against domestic violence in the UK and child trafficking across the globe, for the rights of indigenous tribes in South America and conservation of cheetahs in Namibia, against deforestation in the Amazon and rabbit fur farms in China – and that is nothing like the full list. I was therefore expecting her to be quite forthright about current political affairs, but am completely wrong.

“I generally have a tendency to steer away from outright political discussion in interviews, because I am an actor, and there’s so much that I don’t understand, and I don’t for a second feel like I have a right to that platform. I don’t want to get into a discussion about Trump or about Brexit or any of that – I feel it’s best left to people who really understand the very, very complex issues. Not for a second am I going to pitch in, because I don’t really know what it is that I’m talking about. I have opinions, but I don’t think my opinions are more valid because I’m an actor and have more of a platform than others.”

I wonder if this is her way of saying she shares the view that actors ought to stop turning awards ceremonies into anti-Trump rallies, but she looks faintly alarmed. “No, no, no, I’m not saying that at all. I’m only talking about myself. I don’t have an opinion on whether or not actors should speak out.”

She has, on the other hand, just co-written a book called We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere. Rather like Anderson, it is less polemical than one might guess from the title, and more a manual for spiritual self-improvement. Co-written with her close friend Jennifer Nadel, a former barrister and BBC documentary maker, Anderson has described it as a work of advice to her younger self. “I have struggled with self-esteem myself,” she said last year, “and in looking at the ways that I have dealt with overcoming those things, I started to think that maybe some of it might be potentially useful for other people of all ages.”

According to the introduction, it is a “manifesto for a female-led revolution”, and Anderson stresses that it is “not a self-help book”, although it reads a lot like one. Chapters are called things like Acceptance: Making Friends With What Is, and Courage: Ending The Victim Trap, and its pages promise to “change your life”. It prescribes a detailed programme of fairly recognisable techniques, which range from meditation, affirmations (“This is who I am and I’m glad to be me”), messages to oneself on Post-it notes stuck to the bathroom mirror (“My name is Decca. I am a good and kind person. I do not need to please everyone. I do enough. I am enough.”) and a nightly gratitude list of reasons to feel grateful to the universe. As is often the case with this sort of book, I find myself torn between cynical giggles and the mesmerising thought: what if it works?

Anderson swears it does, but she has such cut-glass British poise that I struggle to picture her solemnly reciting affirmations. It might have been easier to reconcile her voice with the book’s rather Californian, new-age tone had we met in America, for she is what’s called bidialectal; when in the US, she speaks in an American accent, but here she sounds completely British, and says she has no control over it. “I was in Los Angeles recently with a couple of Brits and I thought, I’m going to see what it’s like to talk among Americans with a British accent, and I felt so uncomfortable. It felt so disingenuous, and I kept thinking they must think I’m a complete twat. But when I’m here, it’s nearly impossible for me to maintain an American accent.”

Anderson was born in Chicago but moved to London aged five, while her father attended film school in the city. When she was 11, the family moved back to the States, to Michigan, but continued to spend summers in London, and by her early teens Anderson was rattling off the rails. Punk rock, drugs, an addict girlfriend and a much older boyfriend all featured heavily in her adolescence, and her classmates weren’t wrong when they voted her “most likely to get arrested”. On the night of graduation, she broke into her school to try to glue the locks shut, and was charged with trespass.

She has been in therapy since the age of 14, and the book is interspersed with personal passages on her own experience of mental-health difficulties. “There were times,” she tells me, “when it was really bad. There have been times in my life where I haven’t wanted to leave the house.” But there’s a bit of a dance between disclosure and discretion, because whenever I ask her to elaborate on the personal vignettes in the book, she shuts down.

I kept hearing myself say, ‘I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down’

The book contains enough 12-step-style advice to make me think addiction issues went beyond teenage experimentation for Anderson, and when I say so, she nods. Could she say a little more? “No.” After 24 years in therapy, and writing the book, I’m guessing she has a good idea where her problems stem from, but the question receives a chilly, “Pourquoi?” There are “quite a few”, she says, but “I would have put them in the book if I wanted to talk about them out loud.”

Her first husband was a Canadian art director she met on the set of The X-Filesand married at 25. Their daughter Piper was born a year later, but the marriage was over within three years; her second marriage, in 2004, to a journalist and producer, ended within two. Months later, she announced she was pregnant, and had two sons – Oscar, now 11, and Felix, nine – with a British businessman, before they split up five years ago.

I’m curious about how a single mother who has been working flat out for 25 years (she was back on the X-Files set nine days after giving birth to Piper) can even find the time to practise all the spiritual techniques her book recommends.

“Well,” she smiles, “I’ve definitely deliberately slowed down. Because I kept hearing myself say, ‘I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down.’ I must have said that for 10 years, or maybe even 20 years. I was just sick and tired of hearing myself. I just thought, why do I do this to myself, and why have I done it for so long? People would laugh at me because I’d be like, ‘I had an extra 10 minutes, so I stopped in to say hi, you know.’ It became enough of a joke among my friends that I had to start paying attention to it. So one of the things I try really hard now to do is, no matter what, after I drop the kids, I go back home so I can meditate.”

Why has she always pushed herself so hard? “Well, the bigger-picture part is that I’m responsible for quite a lot of people financially, so it’s that. But it’s also a little bit of fear of what happens when one slows down. When I think about an empty period of time, fear comes up. I’m quite good at being on my own, so it’s not necessarily fear of myself, but probably fear of facing those things like: why do I drive myself so hard?”

Does she really compile a list of things to feel grateful for every day? “Yes! I do a gratitude list every night. I mean, it’s in my head now, but I go through stages where I think I’m just complaining all the time again. It’s too floating in my head, it needs to be on paper.” Complaining all the time is “probably one of the things I struggle with most. I suffer from great intolerance. Such intolerance of so much.” Such as? “Oh, intolerance of myself. Intolerance of situations. Intolerance of people on the street. Intolerance of whatever. So I have to constantly settle myself down from the state of being aggravated.”

I try to picture her stropping about, grumbling about roadworks or noisy neighbours, and find this image easier to conjure than the new-age version of her intoning, “My name is Gillian Anderson, I am a good and kind person.” She has a steeliness about her that I really like, but whether it’s proof of the success of her spiritual techniques or indicates the limits of their powers, I can’t decide. She certainly feels like someone in full control of herself and her life, and if this keeps her at a slightly cool distance, it is also rather enviable.

She says she used to be pitilessly intolerant of her own physical self, but won’t elaborate on how that manifested itself, because she refuses to allow herself that line of thinking. “I will not go there. I simply will not allow it any more. Because the things that we might be critical of ourselves about actually don’t matter. The only thing that really matters in terms of our peace of mind is our peace of mind itself, and how we react to things. All I know is that when I meditate, one goes beyond the physical, and it is possible to tap into a sense of absolute contentment and joy in that place. So if that’s where you’re starting, then actually none of this,” and she gestures to her body, “means anything, really.”

How is it possible for a working actor to liberate herself from concerns about physical appearance, when her existence is so entwined in it? After eight seconds of silence, she replies: “I don’t know. I mean, as I get older, I imagine the roles that I’m able to get are going to change. There will be a certain point where I’ll make the decision to go grey, you know. There might be a certain point where I decide that it’s silly for me to continue being blond when I’m in my 60s. I’ve also always wanted to direct, I’ve also always wanted to be an artist. Maybe when the kids are out of college, I can decide to downsize and go grey and get less work.”

The art of acceptance is one of her new book’s biggest themes. As someone who is terrible at it, I’ve never been sure how realistic an ambition true acceptance really is.

“Well, there’s an opportunity for fear around every corner, fear of the future, fear of what if,” Anderson says. “But the acceptance of wherever we are, whoever we are, is freedom. So, you know, I can sit and bemoan the fact that I don’t get the same roles, or bemoan the fact that my skin is starting to look like chicken skin, or bemoan whatever it is. But that’s not reality. That’s fighting reality.”

#gillian anderson #viceroy's house #film #culture #television & radio

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Hold Tight on the Wall, President Trump Townhall.com ^ | January 11, 2019 | David Limbaugh

The Democrats are no more serious about border security today than they were when they falsely promised Ronald Reagan in 1986 that they'd secure the border in exchange for amnesty for some 3 million illegal immigrants.

Democrats are experts at seducing Republicans into abandoning their principled commitments. Over and over again, in contentious political skirmishes, Republicans relent in good faith -- after accepting the Democrats' promise to deliver on their side of the bargain in the future -- and immediately deliver their side. But that future never comes. In legal parlance, this is fraud in the inducement.

In his notorious "read my lips" travesty in 1988, President George H.W. Bush promised that if he were to be elected, there would be "no new taxes," but in 1990, he reneged on his pledge in reliance on the Democrats' disingenuous and later broken promise to cut spending.

Now the unctuous, cadaverous duo of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demand that President Trump immediately reopen the federal government in exchange for their vague assurance that they will work with him in the future on border security measures.

Note: Democrats aren't even offering Trump as much as yesteryear's Democrats offered Reagan and Bush 41. This time around, they aren't even pretending to make certain concessions in the future beyond the anemic $1.3 billion they've already committed. They're just demanding that he unilaterally abandon his signature campaign promise for their half agreement to contemplate certain half measures on border enforcement at an unspecified future time.

Yet Trump is the one who is being unreasonable and overly political?

Many conservative commentators are saying that Democrats are solely focused on making Trump look bad and handing him a devastating political defeat, but I think it's more than that. Of course they want to lure him into forfeiting any chance he may have for re-election, but they also now actively oppose serious border security.

The Democrats risibly claim they oppose a wall because it would be an inefficient use of federal funds -- as if fiscal responsibility were even part of their passive vocabulary, let alone their active one. They insist that focusing on border enforcement is imprudent because most illegal immigration occurs from people overstaying their visas. Regardless of the accuracy of that claim, it is absurd to oppose border enforcement because it is only one important part of a series of necessary steps toward enforcement.

Don't think for a second that Democrats oppose a wall because it wouldn't work. They do so precisely because it would work. I repeat: It is border security they oppose, as evidenced by their opposition to Kate's Law, their reprehensible support for sanctuary cities, their callous disregard for criminal elements, in whatever percentages, illegally crossing our borders, their jaw-dropping opposition to the deportation of MS-13 gang members and other violent criminals, their demonization of ICE, their history of obstructing border enforcement, their secret affinity for open borders because increasing illegal immigration leads to an endless new supply of future Democratic voters, and their endless game-playing over a wall, including their gleeful eagerness to keep their precious federal government shut down just so they can demagogue the issue and humiliate Trump.

One day the Democrats will pretend they earnestly support border enforcement, and the next Pelosi tells us that a wall would be immoral. She can't have it both ways. Why would it be immoral for a sovereign nation to protect its border and its citizens? Why would a wall be immoral when other forms of border enforcement are not? Was it immoral when she and virtually all other Democratic Party leaders gave impassioned speeches in recent years stressing the imperative of border security and preventing illegal immigration?

It's time the Democrats were forced to justify their indefensible position on the wall. It's heartbreaking that we've arrived at that point in our history when one of the nation's two primary political parties is bearish on national sovereignty and the rule of law. Democrats, whether because the majority of them embrace the notion or because of a morbid fear of their rabid base, are now the party of open borders. Indeed, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new face of the party, asserts that illegal immigrants and those who seek to cross our borders illegally "are acting more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be."

Don't you see? Trump's deplorables are un-American because they want to preserve America's sovereignty, its rule of law and what is left of its uniqueness and exceptionalism.

How does this debacle ever end? It won't be easy, because Republicans must get substantial funding for a wall if Trump is to preserve any chance at re-election in 2020 and because Democrats feel no urgency, seeing as the status quo on immigration suits their purposes and advances their political interests. Democrats have no desire to resolve the issue without bringing Trump to his knees in abject capitulation. They think they've cleverly backed him into a corner because he said in the infamous Oval Office meeting that he would accept responsibility for a shutdown if Democrats wouldn't agree to substantial wall funding. Everyone knows that what Trump meant was that he was willing to shut down the government over the wall, which he believes is essential for our national security -- not that it would be his fault if they couldn't come to an agreement.

Yet Schumer and Pelosi keep childishly repeating the "Trump's shutdown" mantra, thinking that Americans are too dense to understand that when a shutdown occurs, each side is contributing to the impasse.

I think the Democrats are being too clever by half. The longer this fiasco continues the likelier average Americans will realize how nonessential many government services are to their lives and realize that contrary to the Democrats' posturing, Trump has been far more flexible and reasonable than Democrats, and Democrats' extremism will become increasingly evident.

Trump has nothing to lose politically by holding firm and everything to lose by caving without Democrats meeting him halfway. Likewise, America has much to lose if Democrats prevail in their orchestrated charade. Please hang tight, Mr. President.

TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial KEYWORDS: aliens; border; border security; build the wall; democrats; demonrats; president trump; ronald reagan; trump; wall

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/dutertes-drug-war-killed-thousands-and-filipinos-still-loved-him-then-he-called-god-stupid/

Duterte's drug war killed thousands, and Filipinos still loved him. Then he called God 'stupid.'

President Rodrigo Duterte slams his hand lightly on the podium, as if to show exasperation. Speaking in his usual casual tone, he unloads an expletive-laden tirade over what he sees as a bizarre story rife with stupidity. This is the Filipino firebrand’s style — unfiltered, informal speeches littered with sometimes inappropriate jokes, slang and curses that make his audience feel like they’re listening to a friend and not the leader of their country.

But this time, as he spoke in front of a crowd in the city where he was mayor for more than two decades, Duterte was ranting about a story that many Filipinos hold dear. Mumbling at times and weaving between English and Tagalog, Duterte said:

What he did was, Eve eats the apple, then she wakes up Adam.… So Adam eats the apple. Then, malice was born. Who is this stupid God? That [expletive] is really stupid if that’s the case. You created something perfect, and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work. How can you rationalize.… Do you believe it? … So all of us now, all of us are born with an original sin. The original sin, what is that? Was it the first kiss? What was the sin? Why original? You’re still in the womb and you already have a sin? It’s your mother and father’s doing and you’re not even included, and now you have an original sin? [Expletive]. What kind of religion is that? That’s what I can’t accept.

The backlash was swift, and a few days after the June 22 speech in Davao City, Duterte gave another speech, bristling and on the defensive:

I didn’t say that my God is stupid. I said your God is not my God because your God is stupid. Mine has a lot of common sense. Then now, why do you have to talk about religion? If I choose not to believe in any God, what’s the [expletive] thing about it? It’s a freedom to choose.

Filipinos have looked past the populist president’s attacks on the pope and the Catholic Church, and even his infamous rape joke about a murdered Australian lay minister, to name a few examples. Even the president’s brutal drug war that has killed thousands has substantial support, despite condemnation from the Catholic Church and international human rights groups.

But bellicose rhetoric that not only mocks God, but also questions one of the most fundamental teachings of Catholicism? That may have crossed a line among the deeply religious populace and given the Catholic Church fresh ammunition, said Aries Arugay, a political-science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

“It’s one thing that Duterte attacks the church; it’s another thing that he attacks God himself,” Arugay told The Washington Post. “The church’s power and political influence might have been in decline; however, that doesn’t mean that Filipinos are not religious and spiritual anymore.”

Filipinos’ approval ratings of their president hit their lowest level since Duterte was elected in 2016, according to a recent survey by Social Weather Solutions. The Manila-based pollster surveyed 1,200 adults from across the country a few days after Duterte’s “stupid God” comment. The results: 65 percent — down from 71 percent in December — said they were satisfied with the president. Twenty percent — up from 14 percent in December — said they were dissatisfied, leaving Duterte with a net rating of 45 percent, a record low in his presidency.

Some in the Catholic Church say the dip in Duterte’s popularity was a direct result of his mockery of God. For instance, Filipino Bishop Ruperto Santos told the Manila Bulletin that the drop is a “wake-up call” for the president to reflect on his “abusive and offensive” words. In a thinly veiled condemnation of the president, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines released a lengthy written sermon July 9 calling out people in power who “boast of their own wisdom” and “blaspheme our God as stupid.” Catholic bishops also called for a three-day fast, which ends Thursday, in response to Duterte’s profane comments.

Arugay thinks there could also be other reasons for Duterte’s sinking popularity. Although the country’s economy is growing, the inflation rate is at its highest in five years, resulting in some apprehension over rising costs, Arugay said. That’s especially problematic in a country where more than 20 percent of its 104 million people live below the poverty line.

But if there’s anything that seems to have elicited some response from the Duterte administration, it’s the backlash to his condemnation of God and the story of Adam and Eve. Officials formed a committee that they said would hold dialogues with churches. Duterte’s spokesman defended the president, saying that he, too, should be afforded the same religious freedom that other Filipinos enjoy.

“The Duterte administration knew that there was damage done,” Arugay said, adding that he thought the comments were simply made in the heat of the moment. “But it has repercussions in a society that is deeply religious. You’re talking about the biggest Catholic society in Asia.” (More than 80 percent of the population in the Philippines is Roman Catholic.)

This month, Duterte sat down with religious leaders and apologized, not to them but to God — his God, that is.

“My God is good.… What makes you think that your God is my God? … If it’s the same God, then I’m sorry. That’s how it is.… Sorry, God,” Duterte said.

He even promised an archbishop that he would stop attacking the teachings of Christianity — only to break it the following day by questioning the existence of heaven and hell.

“You know my God never created hell because if he created hell, he must be stupid God.… I do not believe in heaven because if I do, only a fraction of you in this crowd will ever enter heaven,” he said in a July 10 speech, according to GMA News.

Hence, the long-standing fight, Duterte vs. the Catholic Church, continues.

Duterte’s relationship with the most powerful religious institution in the Philippines has been tenuous at best. As a high school boy, he said he and several others were molested by a Jesuit priest. The self-professed womanizer who boasts of having two girlfriends and two wives is also far from what the church would consider an epitome of morality, Arugay said.

Still, Duterte remains highly popular.

A survey by another local pollster, Pulse Asia, found that Duterte’s approval rating actually jumped from 80 percent in March to 88 percent in June. That survey, however, was conducted before Duterte insulted God.

But even the less-glowing poll showed that he remains popular among a majority of Filipinos, especially those 18 to 24 and those who live in rural areas.

Although presidents’ popularity ratings are generally high after they’re elected and begin to dip a year or two into their presidencies, to compare Duterte to his predecessors would be disingenuous, Arugay said.

“We’re talking about Duterte, who hasn’t really conducted himself in a way that other presidents have conducted themselves,” he said. “This is a president who will not shy away from issuing remarks against women, or any kind of political sensitivity out there.… He’s a populist who performs for a specific audience.”

Duterte resumes his murderous crusade

Trump should condemn Duterte’s bloody war, not invite him to the White House, critics say

Philippines’s Duterte keeps lashing out at the United States — over atrocities a century ago

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/19/dutertes-drug-war-killed-thousands-and-filipinos-still-loved-him-then-he-called-god-stupid/

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benrleeusa · 7 years

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[David Post] Is the Supreme Court allergic to math?

The Supreme Court in 2012. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

Yes, says Oliver Roeder, in an interesting essay at fivethirtyeight.com. At least some of the justices, he suggests, have “a reluctance — even an allergy — to taking math and statistics seriously,” as evidenced most recently by their questions and comments at the Oct. 3 oral argument in the Supreme Court’s Gill v. Whitford “partisan gerrymandering” case.

As he himself acknowledges, he’s hardly the first to make the suggestion; there’s a rather substantial library of academic commentary on “innumeracy” at the court (and, more generally, throughout the judiciary). But I think he’s correct in pointing out the rather serious consequences this might have in the particular context of the court’s deliberations in Gill.

I have long been struck by the fact that it is unfortunately well within the norms of our legal culture — among lawyers, judges, law professors and law students — to treat mathematics and related disciplines as kinds of communicable diseases with which we want no part. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard a student or colleague or member of the bar say something like, “Oh, math! I don’t do math — that’s why I went to law school!” It is well known that the surest way to place three-quarters of your audience into shutdown mode in a law school class or legal conference is to introduce a formula, or a graph, or the results of some calculation.

Gill, as most of you are probably aware, involves a challenge to the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature’s 2011 redistricting map, a map that, according to the three-judge panel below, was both intended to, and did, systematically disadvantage Democratic voters and advantage Republican voters across the state. As evidence of the intent of the map’s drafter to “secure Republican control of the legislature for the decennial period,” the court noted that the redistricting committee had prepared a number of different maps, and that the one finally chosen was the one that, in the opinion of those who had constructed it, was, statistically speaking, the one most likely to produce a Republican-dominated legislature.

As evidence of the discriminatory effect, the court found that it was “clear that the drafters got what they intended to get” — a map that made it “more difficult for Democrats, compared to Republicans, to translate their votes into seats.” In the 2012 election, Republicans won 48.6 percent of the statewide vote, which gave them 61 percent of the seats in the state’s 99-seat assembly, and in the 2014 election, Republicans took 52 percent of the statewide vote and ended up with 64 percent of Wisconsin State Assembly seats. [Put differently, when the Democrats received 51.4 percent of the statewide vote in 2012, they ended up with 39 assembly seats; when the Republicans received around the same percentage (52 percent) in 2014, they ended up with 63 seats — a 24-seat disparity.]

Of course, one would hardly expect perfectly proportional results — 52 percent of the overall vote leading to 52 percent of the legislative seats — from any districting map; and “partisan gerrymandering” is, to some degree at least, an inherent feature of any system (like the one that pertains in most states) that puts the legislature in charge of constructing the maps. So the case, in essence, poses the question: How much is too much? And how do we know whether and when it’s too much?

Now, I’m not sure I agree with Roeder when he says that the case “hinges on math”; one could imagine the court declining to engage with the “how much is too much?” question on any number of grounds (such as the plaintiff’s standing to raise the claim, or the “justiciability” of political gerrymandering claims in general).

But it is certainly true that “how much is too much?” questions often (and sometimes only) can be profitably analyzed with the aid of mathematical tools. If you want to know if a building exceeds the local building-height limit, you pull out a ruler. It’s useful to have some way to measure the extent to which the Wisconsin map does, or does not, entrench Republican control by giving Republican votes greater “weight” than Democratic votes.

COMMENTERS PLEASE NOTE: You do not have to remind me that when they are in power, Democrats “do the same thing.” I recognize that; that is precisely what makes this case so important. Power will attempt to entrench itself by all possible means, and that is as objectionable when coming from either direction on the political spectrum. This is not a partisan issue; it is one that anyone who cares about democratic processes should care about; it it’s not your ox being gored today, it will be tomorrow, I promise you.

The court below used a number of such measures, all of which demonstrated the bias incorporated into the Wisconsin maps: the “mean-median” index, the “partisan bias” measure, and the much-discussed (and terribly-named) “efficiency gap” (EG). The EG measures the number of “wasted votes”; votes that would not have affected the outcome of the election had they not been cast. [For example, all votes for a candidate who received less than a majority are “wasted” in this sense, as are all votes for the winning candidate in excess of the 50 percent+1 needed to secure the election.] All elections will have large numbers of wasted votes; the question, though, is whether the map is skewed in a manner that systematically wastes more Democratic votes than Republican votes (as the court below found that it was).

There are any number of questions one might have about how this phenomenon can be measured, and how particularly egregious violations of nonpartisanship can be identified. But the transcript of the oral argument here makes for rather depressing and disheartening reading. To my eyes, the argument shed less light than usual on the hard questions in the case, and the attitude of several of the justices towards the measurement question ranged, as Roeder suggests, from bemused befuddlement to outright hostility. Justices A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch pressed the challengers on whether any metric could ever serve as a constitutional bright line, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was particularly dismissive of what he called — rather oddly — “sociological gobbledygook” in the challengers’ arguments:

[If] you’re the intelligent man on the street and the Court issues a decision, and let’s say the Democrats win, and that person will say: Well, why did the Democrats win And the answer is going to be because EG was greater than 7 percent, where EG is the sigma of party X wasted votes minus the sigma of party Y wasted votes over the sigma of party X votes plus party Y votes. And the intelligent man on the street is going to say that’s a bunch of baloney. … And that is going to cause very serious harm to the status and integrity of the decisions of this Court in the eyes of the country.

That strikes me as a bit disingenuous. There are any number of opinions that the court (and the courts) issue that would leave the “intelligent man on the street” scratching his head, because of the presence of what we might call “legal gobbledygook,” and if Roberts is suggesting that the court’s use of objective mathematical indices of partisan asymmetry would be especially troublesome to the man on the street, I’m not convinced.

I think that perhaps Alito put his finger on what really troubles these metric skeptics: the fear that they will look ridiculous at some point down the road for having chosen a flawed measuring stick:

… gerrymandering is distasteful. But if we are going to impose a standard on the courts, it has to be something that’s manageable and it has to be something that’s sufficiently concrete so that the public reaction to decisions is not going to be the one that the Chief Justice mentioned, that this three-judge court decided this, that — this way because two of the three were appointed by a Republican president or two of the three were appointed by a Democratic President.

[Over the past 30 years] judges, scholars, legal scholars, political scientists have been looking for a manageable standard. All right. In 2014, a young researcher (Eric McGhee) publishes a paper, in which he says that the leading measures previously, symmetry and responsiveness, are inadequate. But I have discovered the key. I have discovered the Rosetta stone and it’s — it is the efficiency gap. And then a year later you bring this suit and you say: There it is, that is the constitutional standard. It’s been finally — after 200 years, it’s been finally discovered in this paper by a young researcher …

Now, is this the time for us to jump into this? Has there been a great body of scholarship that has tested this efficiency gap? It’s full of questions. Mr. [Eric] McGhee’s own amicus brief outlines numerous unanswered questions with — with this theory.

It’s a legitimate concern, I suppose; as in many areas of the law where courts are presented with non-legal “expert” testimony, they should be wary of jumping too quickly into the fray, choosing one contested side over another given that they generally do not possess the tools with which to evaluate the pros and cons of the testimony presented.

But I do hope the court does not rest on this to abdicate its responsibility to craft some meaningful and manageable measures of partisan interference with the electoral process.

Many years ago, John Ely provided, notably in his book “Democracy and Distrust,” what I continue to regard as the most persuasive solution to the fundamental dilemma posed by the institution of (undemocratic) judicial review in a democracy, and the conflicts arising from allowing the most unrepresentative branch of the government the power to overturn actions taken by the more democratic branches. Ely argued, in essence, that the court’s appropriate role is that of referee in the electoral arena. Ordinary electoral processes can be relied on to self-correct, without the need for judicial intervention, most attempts by lawmakers to act outside of constitutional boundaries, except in those circumstances where either (a) those actions corrupt the electoral process itself and are, as a consequence, self-sustaining and uncorrectable, or (b) the majority is withholding from the minority the protections it affords to itself. Electoral politics can’t correct these problems, which are inherent in the nature of representative democracies, and courts must step in.

The Warren court’s “one man-one vote” decisions of the 1960s and 1970s were, in Ely’s view, paradigmatic examples within the first category. Judicial interference in the reapportionment cases was justified because systematic bias favoring rural voters in state legislatures would never self-correct, because the legislatures were composed of those who had directly benefited from the bias, and the court had to intervene.

And so, too, in the Gill case; Wisconsin’s Democratic voters cannot, through their votes, correct the bias in the Republicans’ favor, because the map was drawn precisely to dis-enable them from being able to do that. It will be a sad day indeed if the court turns away from its constitutional obligation to keep the electoral process a fair one because its collective eyes glaze over at the sight of a mathematical symbol or formula.

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nancyedimick · 7 years

Text

Is the Supreme Court allergic to math?

The Supreme Court in 2012. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

But I do hope the court does not rest on this to abdicate its responsibility to craft some meaningful and manageable measures of partisan interference with the electoral process.

Many years ago, John Ely provided, notably in his book “Democracy and Distrust,”what I continue to regard as the most persuasive solution to the fundamental dilemma posed by the institution of (undemocratic) judicial review in a democracy, and the conflicts arising from allowing the most unrepresentative branch of the government the power to overturn actions taken by the more democratic branches. Ely argued, in essence, that the court’s appropriate role is that of referee in the electoral arena. Ordinary electoral processes can be relied on to self-correct, without the need for judicial intervention, most attempts by lawmakers to act outside of constitutional boundaries, except in those circumstances where either (a) those actions corrupt the electoral process itself and are, as a consequence, self-sustaining and uncorrectable, or (b) the majority is withholding from the minority the protections it affords to itself. Electoral politics can’t correct these problems, which are inherent in the nature of representative democracies, and courts must step in.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/10/19/is-the-supreme-court-allergic-to-math/

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wolfandpravato · 7 years

Text

Is the Supreme Court allergic to math?

The Supreme Court in 2012. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

But I do hope the court does not rest on this to abdicate its responsibility to craft some meaningful and manageable measures of partisan interference with the electoral process.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/10/19/is-the-supreme-court-allergic-to-math/

#Law #Lawyer

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omginstantpaperbouquetblr · 7 years

Link

William K. Black. September 6, 2017 Kansas City, MO

The Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party (Third Way) is relentless in trying to bring back the days in which the Democratic Party’s leaders buried the Party in Wall Street’s pocket under the label “New Democrats.” That period led President Clinton and Vice President Gore to implement disgraceful policies that made Wall Street executives fabulously wealthy at the expense of people. To deliver on their promises to Wall Street, Clinton and Gore had to betray much of what the Democratic Party stood for. Clinton and Gore’s destruction of effective financial regulation, which President Bush exacerbated, created the massively criminogenic environment that blew up the global economy.

I have written several times and documented that Third Way is a creature of, and devoted to, Wall Street’s CEOs. Third Way’s con is describing itself as “centrist.” Wall Street CEOs are not centrist. They include the world’s most powerful and destructive predators and parasites. The “left, right, center” metaphor does not apply to a group like Wall Street’s CEOs. The latest media sucker to fall for Third Way’s con is Politico. Politico fell whole hog, calling Third Way a “center-left think tank.” Fortunately, Google’s recent purge of New America Foundation scholars has proved that “think tanks” financed by elite corporate CEOs are oxymorons run by regular morons. The one thing you can never do as a scholar at a faux “think tank” like Third Way is actually think – and then make public the perfidy of the corporate CEOs that fund the non-think tank.

Third Way is Wall Street on the Potomac, so it is preposterous to call it “center-left.” It keeps its corporate funders secret to maximize their corrupting influence. It is one of many Pete Peterson front groups.

Politico compounded its error of falling for Pete Peterson’s false flag operation through its uncritical regurgitation of Third Way’s latest propaganda about jobs. The title of the article was “Third Way study warns Democrats: Avoid far-left populism.” A Third Way “focus group” prompted the article. Focus groups rightly became infamous when the Clintons’ based policy not on the merits or principles, but on political popularity as expressed by tiny groups of people discussing their impressions about a matter. One of the reasons Hillary Clinton was so unpopular with many people was that they believed that she based too many of her policies on their popularity in focus groups rather than any principled beliefs. Politico’s analytics-free article ignored that sad history and the political stupidity of basing a Party’s principles and policies on focus groups.

The Third Way memorandum that prompted the Politico story has one strength. It confirms what progressive Democrats have long argued – the key is jobs. That fact confirms that the anti-jobs Wall Street agenda that Third Way and the New Democrats have been pushing is not only terrible policy but also terrible politics. Politico is oblivious to these facts. It turns out that the actual statement by focus group participants strongly support Senators Sanders and Warren’s pro-jobs policies. Third Way, however, as a Wall Street front group, opposes their pro-jobs policies and supports Wall Street and the New Democrats’ anti-jobs policies.

The Third Way memorandum is even more dishonest in its treatment of President Trump’s policies. The memorandum also shows why focus groups are so unreliable in revealing anything other than the participants’ perceptions. Third Way shows how perceptions can be divorced from reality.

The fact is that the Democratic Party faces a grave perception problem: voters do not believe it is the party of jobs. Pre- and post-election polls confirmed that Democrats trailed on the issue of jobs in 2016. In the lead-up to Election Day, Republicans led by six points on jobs. Even worse, a post-election poll put Republicans’ edge at 16 points on “creating more good-paying jobs in the U.S.,” while another looking at working-class whites gave Republicans a 35-point advantage on which party will “improve the economy and create jobs.”

[T]his perception took shape during the 2010 midterm election—in which Republicans swept to power—and has existed in varying degrees since.

The focus group participants’ perceptions of Trump’s fake pro-jobs promises reveal that lying relentlessly to a subgroup of our population works. Trump’s agenda is hostile to jobs, but he said he was pro-jobs and would produce miracles. Trump is a notorious liar. Lying works with a significant portion of the electorate. It shapes their perceptions, which are often divorced from reality.

Third Way claimed that the focus group’s participants perceived Democrats as not putting enough emphasis on jobs for three reasons. Their actual results demonstrate that this is not true. First, the results show that the statement is imprecise. The more accurate statement is that white working class voters for Trump perceived Democrats as not focusing on providing jobs to the white working class. Second, the white working class Trump voters were frequently willing to display openly their intense hatred for the “other.”

Focus group participants were palpably angry about this perceived neglect. At times, this anger boiled over into vitriolic attacks on people they perceived as “others.”

In full disclosure, some participants’ comments were offensive to the core, and these people may be true Trump believers who are simply lost to the Democratic Party.

They’re angry because they believe the system rewards everyone but them, and this anger manifests itself in vicious attitudes toward outgroups. Some participants in our focus groups were not shy to convey overtly racist, xenophobic, and homophobic attitudes.

In plain English, Third Way found that bigotry explained why many white working class voters voted for Trump. Third Way describes the “overtly racist, xenophobic, and homophobic attitudes” as “vicious,” “palpably angry,” “vitriolic,” “shocking,” “appalling,” and “offensive to the core.”

Third Way falsely describes how it treated the “vitriolic” racism.

Throughout the memo, we determined it was important to convey participants’ words in an unfiltered format—even where we found their words shocking or appalling.

In fact, the racism was so ugly that Third Way does not quote a single example of it even though their report contains dozens of quotations from the forum participants. The fiction that Democrats, from 2010 on, sought to create jobs for blacks and Latinos but not the white working class provided these racist participants’ (false) excuse for voting for Trump and for proclaiming their hate for the “other.” The “homophobic” attacks demonstrate that tying Trump voters’ to supposed job favoritism by Democrats for blacks and Latinos is simply an excuse for bigotry.

It is relatively hard for participants in a three-day long focus group to express racist views in front of others. The racists know, and hate, the fact that other members of the group that they will have to interact with disdain their racism. Most moderate racists are unlikely to utter their true hate for the “other” in such a setting. Third Way did not report the number of focus group members that displayed intense racial animus or quote them because these facts did not accord with their agenda, but the number would have substantially understated the actual number of participants who held such views.

Third Way’s memo unintentionally demonstrates the absurdity of Trump voters’ perceptions. Third Way finds that Trump voters agree that the system is rigged – but on behalf of the people who lose under that system!

The root cause of voters’ anger is the political system they perceive as rewarding the poor and the rich.

Note that they list the poor first as the fictional greatest beneficiary of the rigged system. Anyone who knows the history of the United States will recognize the strategy used by white elites for centuries to ensure their political and economic domination by creating racial solidarity with poorer whites by casting poor blacks as villains. Trump’s white identity strategy reprises the same disgraceful demonization. It is no surprise that it worked for Trump; it has worked for over 150 years.

Third Way shows how spectacularly the strategy of demonizing blacks worked for Trump in attracting white working class votes.

Some participants also communicated resentment over special breaks for the rich, but there were fewer of these comments and they were less vitriolic in tone.

Third Way says it mentioned the poor first as the fictional greatest beneficiaries of the rigged system because the Trump voters rarely mentioned that the system was rigged to enrich further the wealthy. Even in the few cases they did so they were “less vitriolic in tone.” The Third Way’s memo about its focus group is so unscientific that it does not provide any numbers on how many participants expressed particular views. Third Way is also disingenuous in its “less vitriolic” description. The sole example Third Way provides of Trump voters’ perceptions of the system being rigged in favor of the wealthy is the phrase “many tax cuts/credits have been given to the upper class.” Using the word “vitriolic,” even with the modifier “less,” is absurd to describe that comment. The Trump supporters’ “vicious” racist language attacking poor blacks and Latinos” stands in complete contrast to the rare, milk toast lament about the wealthy.

Third Way provides a dishonest and crude explanation for how the system is rigged in favor of the victims that is understandable only if the reader realizes that Third Way shills relentlessly for Wall Street CEOs and regularly promotes many of Trump’s lies. Third Way’s highest priority is defeating the re-imposition of the rule of law on Wall Street CEOs and ending their massive frauds that have enriched them by devastating our Nation and much of the world.

I have spoken to and with thousands of the white working class. They know that Wall Street CEOs rig the system to benefit those CEOs. It enrages them. It enrages them even though President Obama failed to prosecute any of those CEOs. Those prosecutions could have transformed the political situation because they would have explained to the public how the frauds worked, how they drove the crisis, and how they enriched the CEOs. The working class is enraged at Wall Street CEOs even without this information, but consider how motivated they would be if they could read the revelations produced by over 1,000 convictions of elite bankers. Then consider how supportive they would be of the political party that had the courage to bring those prosecutions.

President Obama did not simply fail to prosecute the Wall Street CEOs who led the largest frauds. His Justice Department failed to prosecute even the not-so-elite mortgage banker CEOs and SVPs who led the making of millions of fraudulent mortgage loans. Even worse, to the extent Obama and his DOJ officials said anything about elite bank fraud they virtually always spoke to downplay it and to express their fear that prosecuting fraudulent bankers could harm the world. Obama’s unprincipled failure to restore the rule of law to Wall Street was terrible policy and terrible politics.

Third Way, of course, ignores Wall Street elites’ crimes as the ultimate form of rigging the system. Third Way, like Trump, presents a false dichotomy. The Democratic Party must choose to be “pro-business” and abandon being “anti-business.” As Third Way and Trump spin the issue, pro-business means pro-jobs and anti-business means anti-jobs. Third Way wants both major parties devoted to serving the interests of giant corporations’ CEOs. It advises the Democratic Party to further weaken the government and embrace deregulation again to complete the evisceration of the rule of law. Wall Street created, and runs, Third Way to ensure that it shills for Wall Street’s greatest wishes.

Democrats should be the party that supports honest businesses. Only by vigorously enforcing the rule of law can we avoid the “Gresham’s” dynamic that makes it impossible for honest business to compete with their criminal rivals. George Akerlof received the Nobel Prize in Economics in large part for his 1970 article on markets for “lemons” that introduced and named this perverse dynamic to economists.

[D]ishonest dealings tend to drive honest dealings out of the market. The cost of dishonesty, therefore, lies not only in the amount by which the purchaser is cheated; the cost also must include the loss incurred from driving legitimate business out of existence.

Only government can break this perverse dynamic through regulation and prosecution – the enforcement measures essential to establishing an effective rule of law. The Gresham’s dynamic is terrible for jobs because it drives our most destructive financial crises and recessions. Effective regulation and prosecution is essential to expanding jobs – and preventing criminal employers from defrauding their employees. The Democrats should become the pro-honest business party by re-establishing the rule of law. It would be good for jobs, good for America, and good politics. If the Democrats return to shilling for Wall Street they will be destroyed. Even Third Way admits that voters would support such a principled, pro-jobs policy were the Democrats to adopt it.

It is true that voters want the government to crack down on business abuses….

There are other pro-job policies that the Democrats should make their own. First, the Democrats should be the party of full employment through a federal employer of last resort program. Everyone who wishes to work and is capable of working will have a job. Jobs, not simply a basic income, are essential to the sense of fulfillment of those who can work. Such a program would also put the lie to the claim that the poor do not want to work.

Second, the U.S. puts its firms at a competitive disadvantage relative to international competitors by placing the cost of health care on many firms. A significant number of the largest firms provide the so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans that spur the severe inflation of Americans’ health care costs. Single-payer and national health system programs are much cheaper than our systems and provide equivalent or superior care. Both effects, removing the medical care costs from U.S. firms and reducing overall U.S. health care costs, would lead to more U.S. jobs.

Third, the other key to U.S. jobs is improved education and skills training, particularly for those who lose their jobs.

Fourth, better child care could allow more young parents to work outside the home.

Progressive Democrats favor each of these four pro-jobs programs while Third Way and Republicans oppose each of the policies. Third Way’s memo does not mention any of the four programs, presumably because Trump voters do not understand or support them. That suggests that Hillary Clinton and the DNC have done a poor job of supporting each program and explaining how valuable each is in creating jobs. The New Democrats controlled the DNC and they opposed jobs guarantee programs and single-payer health care. They opposed Senator Sanders’ bold educational program even though the white working class would have been the primary beneficiaries of a well-designed program providing public funding sufficient to allow anyone able to meet university standards to study for a degree. Buried deep inside the Third Way memo came an important admission and a deliberate misstatement about polls showing Democratic Party members’ dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton because they perceived her policies as anti-jobs.

Comparing polls from 2012 and 2016, 90% of African Americans felt Obama’s economic policies would be good for them, compared to 62% who felt the same about Clinton’s. Among Millennials, 57% felt Obama’s economic policies would be good for them, compared to only 38% for Clinton’s.

It turns out that the Democrats’ choice of a New Democrat, Hillary Clinton, as their candidate led to the perception that she was not as committed to jobs as were other elected Democrats such as President Obama. As a New Democrat, Secretary Clinton was less committed to jobs than Senator Sanders. Third Way has, implicitly, admitted that the anti-jobs perception it claims to have identified with “Democrats” was actually a perception of the candidate that Third Way relentlessly pushed – Secretary Clinton. Secretary Clinton was far weaker on jobs than were progressive Democrats like Senator Sanders for the reasons that I have explained.

One of the most important pro-job education programs that progressive Democrats pushed was ceasing direct and indirect federal subsidies to for-profit schools that defrauded students and the public. Such frauds have dominated the for-profit sector. They result in substantial costs to the public and educational programs that are so poor quality that they leave the typical graduate unprepared to work at the promised jobs. The programs also lead to very high dropout rates and frequent(federally guaranteed) loan defaults. Trump, of course, ran one of these notorious educational frauds. His fraud was so crude that even the existence of the fictional “Trump University” was a fraud. Unfortunately, for-profit schools also made Bill Clilnton wealthy, so the New Democrats have been weak on stopping such frauds. Trump, unsurprisingly, is removing any rule of law restraining these frauds even though fraudulent for-profit schools are major job killers.

Third Way ignored two of the most destructive anti-job policies pushed by many New Democrats for an excellent reason – Third Way was wildly enthusiastic about those policies. Even when it quotes a focus group participant’s statement attacking trade deals as job killers, the Third Way memo ignores the point. The quotation stated the participant’s perception that Trump was pro-jobs because he was “ending trade agreements that are not in our favor.” The New Democrats and Third Way passionately pushed those trade agreements, which Third Way now implicitly admits Americans broadly perceive as anti-jobs.

The second, and far more destructive, job killer pushed by New Democrats and Third Way is the Grand Betrayal, which they called the “Grand Bargain.” In 2010, at a time when the economy desperately needed a far higher level of fiscal stimulus, the New Democrats and Third Way achieved domination of the Obama administration’s fiscal policy. President Obama recruited a senior Third Way leader, Bill Daley, as his Chief of Staff. Daley, a former Wall Street banker, promptly made the Obama administration’s top domestic policy in 2011 the attempt to shred the safety net in a deal with the Republicans. Pete Peterson’s fondest dream is the privatization of Social Security, which would increase Wall Street investment fees by tens of billions of dollars. The Grand Bargain would have also inflicted the economic malpractice of austerity at a time when we were just beginning to recover from the Great Recession.

Had President Obama and Daley succeeded in negotiating this Grand Betrayal of the American people and the Democratic Party’s principles, the economy likely would have been thrown back into recession and Obama would have been a one-term president. Fortunately, the Tea Party members of Congress made demands that were so extreme that the Grand Betrayal failed. Unfortunately, because the Obama administration endorsed austerity the job and wage recovery was slow and the public tended to blame the party in power. Third Way was the most fervent supporter of the Grand Betrayal, including austerity – the most lethal job killer.

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#NEWS

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