Bob Schwartz

Tag: politics

Obama: The Superstar of the Troubled Democratic Show Is Leaving

obama-slow-jam-the-news

Did you ever watch a TV show that was only just okay, but you kept watching week after week because you really liked the star—someone so special that he made even the worst episodes watchable and enjoyable?

Then that superstar left the show. Contract differences. Elections. Whatever. And then the show was over. Canceled.

Barack Obama has left the Democratic show. In the month since the election, we have gotten a preview of what it will be like without him. The Democrats thought, as producers do, that they were really the show, and not some guy that they had helped turn into the superstar he became.

Producers quickly learn that you can’t force people to watch your show. You can’t expect people to watch your show just because you tell them how great and important it is, and how terrible the other networks and shows are. While it’s an advantage to have a superstar, it’s better still to write good scripts, employ creative directors, and cast good people in interesting roles. Better to give people what they want and what they need. As viewers or as citizens and voters.

Trump and Administration as Comic Book Characters

trump-comic-1

Comic books aren’t always funny. They include some very dark characters with dark intentions and powers. Those intentions and powers are found in the real (non-comics) world, so we should pay attention and shouldn’t laugh.

One other thing, though, is that these dark characters are two-dimensional, even when they are turned into compelling movie characters. Upon close inspection, they have no intelligence, because they have no brains, because they are…comic book characters.

And so, as long as we recognize that the real President and his real administration have very real intentions and powers, we might gain perspective from treating them graphically as comic book characters. In any case, we are probably already tired of seeing photos of Donald Trump. Maybe this is a way to make the view a little bit different and more interesting.

The news is that Rick Perry will be nominated as Energy Secretary, head of a department he had trouble remembering he wanted to eliminate. So here he is:

rick-perry-comic-1

More New York Hate Attacks—On a Muslim Cop and a Subway Worker

aml-elsokary

Just as you probably didn’t see any national coverage of the assault on a Muslim college student riding the New York subway, you also probably didn’t see stories about more attacks in the last few days—including one on a New York City cop.

Sunday

‘I will cut your throat!’: Man attacks Muslim cop and her son

A suspect was arrested Sunday in the Brooklyn attack on an off-duty Muslim cop wearing a hijab.

“Go back to your country,” the man yelled at NYPD Officer Aml Elsokary during the incident Saturday.

He also targeted the cop’s 16-year-old son — shoving him and shouting a slur that referenced ISIS — before telling them both, “I will cut your throat! Go back to your country!” sources said.

The incident is being probed as a hate crime.

The suspect, whose name was not released, lives near the scene of the attack, on Ridge Boulevard and 67th Street in Bay Ridge.

Elsokary made headlines in 2014 when she helped rescue an old man and a baby from a burning building.

Monday

Muslim MTA worker in hijab pushed down stairs, called ‘terrorist’

A Muslim New York City Transit employee who was wearing a hijab with her uniform was injured when she was pushed down the stairs at Grand Central Terminal Monday morning by a man who called her a “terrorist,” officials said.

The 45-year-old woman was on her way to work at 6:20 a.m. when the man confronted her on the 7 Train.

“You’re a terrorist and you shouldn’t be working for the city,” the hate-monger spewed at her while the two were on the train, as he jabbed at her MTA patch.

He followed her off the train and pushed her down the stairs. Her ankle and knee were injured and she was taken to NYU Langone Hospital.

We have to start facing a few realities, though strategies to deal with them are still to be determined. One is not just the presence of hate and intolerance—an age-old problem—but the growing aggressive expression of that hate, possibly in light of the current political climate. Another is a certain willingness to stand by while that happens—also long-standing—because we will always have such people and that’s just the way things are. A final reality is much of the news media, which, with all due respect, spent the presidential campaign focused on all kinds of nonsense and missing all kinds of truth, sometimes in the name of being “objective” and not judging or having opinions.

These latest examples of necessary truths are not matters of opinion. What’s wrong is wrong, and if the media is uncomfortable reporting or analyzing it, maybe they have outlived their usefulness and relevance.

Republicans Wake Up to Find Themselves Married to Trump

trump-maples-wedding

The Washington Post reports:

Two closely-watched Republican lawmakers are calling on their colleagues to maintain aggressive congressional oversight of the Trump administration next year even though the new president hails from the same party controlling Capitol Hill.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who have large national followings and grander political ambitions, agreed that House and Senate committees must keep close tabs on Donald Trump’s new government starting next year — not because they want to stick it to a man that neither originally endorsed for president, but because doing so would help rebalance power between the three branches of government.

During the campaign, Trump was like a rich and wacky member of the Republican family—a crazy uncle you could distance yourself from, but who was after all a member of the family, and you did want to make sure that he left you something in his will. This led to many Republicans doing some fancy dancing.

But Trump is very much alive, and the Republican Party woke up to find itself married to him. So while Republican Senators like Cotton and Gowdy say they will “maintain aggressive oversight” because they want a proper balance of power, that isn’t it. Married to Trump, they know that if he screws up, come the next election—or sooner—they will get the blame and take the hit. Trump may now be head of the household, but his new family is going to try to make sure he doesn’t burn down the house. Because they know he just loves to play with fire.

Trump Appointments: Qualifications? We Don’t Need No Stinking Qualifications.

USS George Washington

“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges.”
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927) by B. Traven, changed slightly for the movie.

The naming of Ben Carson to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development brings this to mind.

Imagine that you are a really, really rich guy with a big ego and a big yacht. You pilot that yacht all around America and some locations around the world.

You conclude that based on this experience, you are able to captain the biggest destroyer in the U.S. Navy fleet (USS Zumwalt, 610-foot, 15,000-ton, $4.4 billion to build) or a Nimitz-Class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (USS George Washington, 1092-foot, 100,000-ton, crew of 5,000).

You further conclude that in general, qualifications are overrated and unnecessary. You therefore feel free to ask anyone to do anything, no matter how big the job or small the experience or knowledge. After all, that’s how you got your job in the first place.

You’re hired!

“Drunk men screaming Trump’s name try to rip off Muslim student’s hijab as straphangers stand idly by on East Side subway, cops say”

Yasmin Seweid

This is from today’s New York Daily News.

I have mixed feelings about repeating such a negative story. But I am repeating it because Google News shows that at this point it has been covered by only 26 news outlets in America and the world.

Only twenty-six news outlets. Practically any story gets more coverage than that—let alone a story with major social implications, involving the next President of the United States, or at least his name as a rallying cry.

One more thing: Take the hateful actions of these attackers, and imagine their shouting the name of some other President. Imagine these men shouting “You look like a f—ing terrorist! Get the hell out of the country! You don’t belong here!” followed by “George Bush! George Bush!” or “Ronald Reagan! Ronald Reagan!”

Are we ready for this New World?


STRAPHANGERS STOOD BY AND WATCHED as three drunk white men repeatedly screamed “Donald Trump!” and hurled anti-Islam slurs Thursday at a Muslim Baruch College student before trying to rip her hijab off of her head on an East Side subway, the woman told the Daily News.

Yasmin Seweid said she was stunned by the assault — and the fact that no one in the subway car came to her aid.

“It made me really sad after when I thought about it,” she said. “People were looking at me and looking at what was happening and no one said a thing. They just looked away.”

The terrified 18-year-old recounted her harrowing encounter with the hate-spewing trio.

“I heard them say something very loudly, something about Donald Trump … I also heard them say the word terrorist and I sort of got a little scared,” Seweid told The News.

Seweid had left an event at Baruch and was on her way home on an uptown No. 6 platform at the 23rd St. and Park Ave. stop at about 10 p.m. Thursday when the men started taunting her, she said.

They hollered at the business major as she boarded a train.

They kept screaming Trump’s name at her, and then said, “Oh look, a (expletive) terrorist,” she said.

“Get the hell out of the country!” they yelled during the train ride. “You don’t belong here!”

Seweid, who was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Egyptian parents, was shocked.

“I born and raised in this country,” she told The News. “I’m an American, you know?”

When Seweid ignored them, they pulled on her bag to get her attention and the strap broke.

“That’s when I turned around and said ‘can you please leave me alone,’ and they started laughing,” she said.

She walked to the other end of the train, and they followed her and tried to pull off her hijab, a head covering worn by Muslim women.

“Take that thing off!” they hollered.

“I put my hand on top of my head to hold it,” Seweid said. “Then I turned around and screamed ‘what the (expletive).’ ”

Seweid got off the train at Grand Central Terminal on E. 42nd St. and reported the terrifying incident to police.

Her father, Sayeed Seweid, 55, of New Hyde Park, L.I., said he was also angry that no one else stepped in to defend his daughter.

“Nobody even offered to help an 18-year-old girl,” he said. “That means something. Her phone was dying. You offer help — it doesn’t matter the race, religion, or the country.”

After filing a police report, shaking and crying, Seweid made her way to Penn Station where she called her father after finding an electrical outlet to charge her phone, her father said. She was not injured.

He came and picked her up and they chatted with police into the early morning hours before driving home.

On Friday, Seweid sat with police officers and tried to help spot the men on surveillance video, her father said. No one has been arrested.

The incident is another in a growing list of bias crimes across the city since Trump’s election. Cops said that from Nov. 8 through Nov. 27, there were 34 reported incidents compared to 13 in the same period in 2015.

“American Muslims, and particularly men and women who wear religious attire, are being increasingly targeted by hate nationwide in the wake of the Nov. 8 election,” said Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“I was very shaken up … I’m definitely traumatized,” Seweid said. “I’m really scared.”

Of the 34 incidents between Election Day and Nov. 27, 18 have been anti-Semitic in nature, compared to five in the same period last year. Five of the incidents have been anti-gay, and five others, anti-white. Two targeted Muslims and one was anti-black.

The Democrats Need Boldness Not Gamesmanship

“Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the elder Democratic leadership in Congress were able to fend off an insurgency and keep their jobs. It was explained that they deserved to maintain their roles, even if they are beholden to the old ways, because they are all veteran insiders who know how the game is played.

Knowing how the game is played has value, but not nearly as much value electorally as being bold. Being passionate. Convincing people that you believe in something so wholeheartedly that nothing, not even keeping your job, is more important. The evidence mounts that Democrats have ignored this, don’t believe it or can’t do it.

When Barry Goldwater was nominated for President by the Republicans in 1964, the party establishment rent its garments in despair at his supposed extremism, and felt vindicated by his colossal loss in the election. But within 20 years he was the intellectual soul of the party, and within 50 years—right now—even though Republicans speak with reverence about Ronald Reagan, the one they really owe their dominance to is Goldwater. They are the political heirs to his boldness.

In an alternate universe, the Democrats nominated Bernie Sanders, who proceeded to lose, maybe not as badly as Goldwater did, but possibly badly. Yet immediately after the election, an entire generation of young Democrats gets genuinely fired up, remaking the party as a vehicle of sweeping progress, of resistance to the worst and change for the best. Within a few years, Republicans have a fight on their hands, and within a few more years the tide turns—not just in Congress, not just in the presidency, but in the governorships and state legislatures, where the Democrats are also currently a minority. This happens not because President Trump or the Republicans are so bad, but because the Democrats are so bold, charismatic, appealing and inspiring.

Genius, power and magic. That’s the Democratic ticket.

Free Your Mind and the Country Will Follow

free-your-ass

Free Your Mind and the Country Will Follow

They say
All tactics
No strategy.
They say
All strategy
No tactics.
They say
No strategy
No tactics.
None of it matters
Without a mind
Clear and open
As the ocean.

This was inspired by listening to Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra (born 1969, reborn 1983). The title is adapted from an album by Funkadelic (above), Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow (1970). In politics and life, the point exactly.

President John Barron

Things happened so fast in this campaign that it is hard to remember everything. I had forgotten, and was just reminded by a previous post of mine, that Donald Trump reportedly had called up journalists pretending to be a publicist for Trump named John Miller or John Barron (Barron is the name of Trump’s youngest son).

This gave me an idea, to help those who are still having trouble with the election results, and may have trouble for a while to come. Consider identifying the next President as either John Miller or John Barron. (Between the two, President John Barron has a very presidential, almost royal, sound to it.)

The news about the next administration may not be easy for some people to accept. But if you think of it as the administration of President John Barron, that might make things just a little bit easier.

Democratic Millionaires and Billionaires To Meet in Palm Beach to Plan the Future of the Party of the People

For a while today, I thought that Kanye West announcing he would have voted for Trump—if he had voted—was the most interesting bit of news.

But this from Politico is much better:

David Brock on Thursday night emailed more than 200 of the biggest donors on the left — including finance titans George Soros, Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman — inviting them to a retreat in Palm Beach over inauguration weekend to assess what Democrats did wrong in 2016, figure out how to correct it and raise cash for those initiatives.

For the Democratic establishment, it is not just that they are pretending that Bernie Sanders never happened. They are pretending that the election never happened, or that what did happen had nothing to do with the party being hopelessly and cluelessly out of touch with the constituencies it needs to win elections.

Thomas Frank wrote about this in his recent book Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? It is an insightful work, and one that presages and sort of predicts the results of this presidential election. It deserves a complete reading, and his multi-faceted analysis is not quickly summarized. But here is one aspect:

ON THE LIBERALISM OF THE RICH

I am pressing on a sensitive point here. Democrats cherish their identification as the Party of the People, and they find it unpleasant to be reminded that affluent professionals are today among their most dedicated supporters. Democrats’ close relationship with the successful is not something they advertise or even discuss openly.

Exceptions to this rule are rare. One of the few works I know of that seems to approve, albeit with reservations, of liberalism’s alliance with a segment of the upper crust is the 2010 book Fortunes of Change, written by the philanthropy journalist David Callahan. The premise of his argument is that our new, liberal plutocracy is different from plutocracies of the past because rich people today are sometimes very capable. “Those who get rich in a knowledge economy,” the journalist tells us, are well-schooled; they often come from the ranks of “highly educated professionals” and consequently they support Democrats, the party that cares about schools, science, the environment, and federal spending for research…

There’s a simple reason that financial firms rallied to the Democrat [Barack Obama] on that occasion, Callahan suggests: because people on Wall Street, being very smart and very well-educated, are natural liberals….

To this honor roll of intellectual and financial achievement, Callahan appends the following observation: “This is definitely not the Sarah Palin demographic.”

No. But neither is it a demographic with any particular concern for the fate of working people.

In addition to Frank’s book, also recommended is the new book from Bernie Sanders, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. I don’t think Bernie’s going to be invited to the Palm Beach gathering, but boy howdy, that would be something.