CSotD: The FINO Countdown
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Today's lead-off juxtaposition is a meditation on a house divided not between Republicans and Democrats so much as between those with faith in democracy and those with a paranoid fear of both authority and of "intruders" in their Mythological America.
As Horsey points out in the cartoon and, more pointedly, in the essay accompanying it, the Republicans have created and fostered a climate of division, and Jones, in his own blog posting, expands on the point Horsey closes with, which is that the virulent pushback against Nikki Haley's official Republican response to the State of the Union tells us things we didn't want to know about the actual State of the Union.
Much of the commentary I've heard on the SOTU — both from those who liked it and those who didn't — was that Trump benefited simply from being discussed, if not named, in both speech and response.
And I've heard quite a bit about how the response to Haley's remarks shows that the Republicans have lost control of their party.
The Republicans have built a Frankenstein, or, to satisfy the purists, a "Frankenstein's monster," and there's a bit of nomenclature humor there in the idea of the Monster stomping around the countryside declaring his creator a FINO.
To stick with the metaphor, note that, when Nixon and his cronies first brought the Monster to life, it was mostly misunderstood, and it was only in the sequels that he became evil and destructive, though, having been around in those early days, trust me, the Monster was bad enough even then.
But at least Nixon, and Reagan after him, were able to control the Monster. They deployed it carefully, and for specific purposes, and, while it couldn't save Nixon once his actual crimes were exposed, the Silent Majority has been consistently loyal to, and accepting of, self-serving explanations that don't stand up to independent scrutiny.
Which they still are, except that, as in Clay Jones's cartoon, they are taking their explanations not from a coordinated partisan spin-shop, but from talk radio hosts and random bloviators, who, unlike the silent architects of Nixon and Reagan's efforts, have no specific goals beyond fame and whatever personal aggrandizement comes with it.
The idea of a "house divided against itself" should be pondered, not in terms of the Gospel of Mark, but in the context of Lincoln's speech, made, it should be noted, in a futile run for the Senate, and in which he cited the Dred Scott decision and the Kansas-Nebraska Act as harbingers of a coming crisis, saying
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
And of course he was right, but the cost of a happy ending was some 750,000 American lives, and, while there were plenty throughout the nation who opposed the Union, a major key to victory was that the traitors were, for the most part, concentrated in one area and responding to one authority.
Try replaying it with them scattered throughout the country in little pods of well-armed anarchists.
And, by the way, don't give Trump too much credit for all this. He simply shouldered his way to the front of the mob, shouting "Follow me!" and running in the direction they were already headed.
Nor should you wait for the FINOs to regain control. They've long since lost both reins and stirrups and are simply clinging to the mane of this runaway horse.
And a tip of the hat to Matt Wuerker for passing on this astonishingly apt piece by Australian cartoonist David Rowe. To which I can add nothing but applause.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle
Wuerker himself notes the State of the Clinton Campaign.
I don't know how much this is resonating around the country, but, out here in the Granite State and I assume also in Iowa, the gloves are off and the forked-tongues have started wagging.
The bad apple doesn't fall far from the tree, especially if the tree can fix it up with positions at Wall Street firms owned by its contributors and no-show "correspondent" jobs at major networks.
Not that Hillary is beholden to Wall Street, mind you. She's a friend of the worker, too, and, you know, whatever.
At Prickly City, Scott Stantis takes a swipe at that odd coincidence of having your campaign co-chair from the last run emerge as the neutral, perfectly fair party chairman during this one. That winning hand becomes more "inevitable" when the dealer has an interest in how the cards fall.
The whole world is watching. Or, they would be, if Debbie Wasserman Schultz weren't in charge of the totally aboveboard debate schedule.
At least one national nightmare is over
John Cole, with the only lottery cartoon that made me chuckle.
Thank god it's over, leaving only the question of whether the
people who buy in are the same ones who proudly post
those "Another day I didn't use algebra!" memes.
Meanwhile, my position has not changed.
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