Bernie, Donnie, and Jon Drive Them Wild
Bernie, Donnie, and Jon.
Three fine fellows who drew three pretty awesome crowds.
24 Million to watch Donald Trump whisper sweet nothings to
everyone in earshot. 3.6 Million for Stewart’s sayonara, his second highest of
all time—trailing only an episode in late 2008 where a skinny guy with big ears
showed up on his way to Washington.
28,000 for Bernie Sanders in Portland, Oregon—19,000 packed the Moda
Center, home of the Portland Trailblazers, and another 9,000 Bernie groupies joined
outside the arena.
Personally, I am a little exhausted. That’s a lot of viewing and reading I felt
compelled to do.
Let’s start with Bernie.
He’s burning it up—his crowds are bigger than any other candidate, of
either party—he came to Portland from Seattle, where he drew an estimated
15,000. People want to see this guy who
looks like some distant elderly relative.
Listen to Bernie and you take away two impressions. The first is that he’s a slightly crazy
socialist who stepped right out of a 50’s Noir film. The second is that some of the things he says
seem to make sense—not all of it, but some of it, and shouldn’t be so easily
dismissed.
Here’s a statement from Bernie’s website, and see how it
sits with you. “Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and
the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a
progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the
environment and provides health care for all? Are we prepared to take on the
enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we
continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?”
What
do you disagree with? Factually, most
metrics show the middle class has been losing ground. As to a gap—it looks pretty gappy to me. And as to power—Bernie is right on. The economic elites have always played a
major role in shaping policy, and the Supreme Court has now blessed unlimited
spending, and whether they want to acknowledge it or not, unlimited
influence-peddling and purchasing.
Bernie
has identified the problems with real clarity.
His “progressive” solutions, to my liberal but capitalist mind, sometimes
seem a little farfetched and could do more harm than good, but at least he’s
thinking about the issues that confront ordinary people—jobs, economic
security, education, healthcare.
This
has to be making Hillary Clinton nuts.
Bernie isn’t a threat to her amassing the most votes in the
primaries. But he is a threat to her,
intellectually and emotionally. The
enthusiasm you see for him is a function of the fact that he is saying things
resonate with his audience—and she isn’t connecting the same way. I would have very serious doubts about his
capacity to do the job—much more so than Hillary. But if by some bizarre set of circumstances,
we were to elect Bernie Sanders, “on day one” he will walk into to the Oval
Office wondering what he can do for the maximum number of people. Bernie is the genuine article, and Bernie wants
to help. About how many politicians can you say that?
Now
let's move over (a bit) on the ideological spectrum to Jon Stewart. Until the last week or so, I thought Jon
Stewart was a left of center political satirist who skewered (mostly
Republican) politicians, could do a very good interview when he wanted to,
cursed a little more than I thought absolutely necessary, and was a perfectly
pleasant way to spend a few minutes a couple of times a week. I didn't think he was Allan Nevins, or Walter
Cronkite, or Milton Freidman, or William F. Buckley.
I
guess I wasn't paying attention. Literally
thousands and thousands of comments appeared on the websites of major
newspapers, a remarkable number of them from outraged conservatives. The
consensus on the Right was that Jon Stewart failed, and failed horribly, in his
duty to be fair and balanced. Stewart may
have had only about 1.4 Million average viewers, but apparently he reached into
every conservative household. Bernie
Sanders is just a typical commie-Democrat, and Hillary is, well, Hillary. Jon Stewart—he was a secret agent cloaked in
fake impartiality with the singular mission of driving them bonkers. Reading some of the comments—and the columns,
I would say he succeeded.
My
personal favorite of this genre was Gerald Alexander’s “Jon Stewart, Patron
Saint of Liberal Smugness” which appeared in this last Sunday’s New York Times. Mr. Alexander eloquently enunciated his
personal agony with said smugness and Stewart’s abject failure “And
Mr. Stewart…. was more qualified than anybody to puncture this particular
pretension. He trained his liberal-leaning audience to mock hypocrisy,
incoherence and stupidity, and could have nudged them to see the planks in
their own eyes, too. Instead, he cultivated their intellectual smugness by
personifying it.”
As
my children would say, LOL—and maybe even a full ROFL. Jon Stewart was a comedian. He was funny and fast and if you didn’t like
him, you could always turn the channel.
He didn’t demand you agree with him—and in fact, many prominent
conservatives were more than happy to come on to join in the fun—including
several who have or are currently running for President. But Stewart wasn’t a teacher. He didn’t have a higher obligation to find an
often-false equivalence between the two parties. And surely, he didn’t need to start each show
with an hourglass on his desk, and flip it half way through his opening
monologue with “now, the Stewart Mocking Response to the Stewart Mocking
Critique.” Chill, Mr. Alexander. Stewart has left the show, and you will no
longer have to have to suffer so. You
may now soothe yourself with the pleasant non-partisan poetry of Rush and
Sean.
Now,
on to the Donald. My goodness, the
shrieking—his and everyone else’s. The
geese are honking everywhere. Donald
Trump is a big, loud, crass, hyper-caffeinated and hyper-opinionated
billionaire. People are drawn to his wealth, his outspokenness, and his alleged
capacity to fix things.
Trump
draws, and draws big—does anyone seriously think 24 Million people would have
tuned in to bask in Jeb Bush’s charisma? But he’s the physical embodiment of “inconvenient
truth” for the GOP. Trump was set upon
last Thursday by a network and a party who want to see him gone (no-one sucks
up all the air in the room better than the Donald, except maybe Bill
Clinton). He, predictably, reacted
strongly to it, shot his mouth off, particularly about Megyn Kelly, but the
Trump Blimp (why not?) still seems afloat.
That
makes the GOP a little nuts, just as Bernie makes Hillary a little nuts. He’s connecting, and the GOP is fainting
right now—fainting at the idea that they might be thought of as a little
misogynist, a little loose cannon, and a little “unwelcoming” to people who
speak with accents. The mad (but
coordinated) scramble to dissociate from him (while love-love-loving his
supporters) is a function of that.
There
is a common thread between Trump, Sanders, and Stewart. For the right audience, they are saying
precisely the things those people think need to be said. And all three, in their distinct ways, are authentic. What you see is what you get.
The
Daily Show carefully planned to replace Stewart with Trevor Noah, and perhaps
he will be a hit. But no one can
possibly know right now. As for Trump
and Sanders, their respective parties assume (read, “hope desperately”) those energized
fans will happily, and uniformly, tune in to new hosts.
Maybe. When I see fannies in seats, I’ll believe
it.
August 11, 2015
Michael Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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