Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters. Mr. Trump is no different.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/opinion/the-right-way-to-resist-trump.html//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js
Tattered Remains of Tartary 
I think he’s wrong about the protests (though I had my own qualms about people burning them selves out before the war has even begun in earnest). The reality is that he’s already made some key decisions with staff. That said I shared the article on FB myself and think it’s on point about focusing on and attacking policy.
Hill’s campaign strategy was to focus almost exclusively on Trump’s buffoonish and if anything not only did it not work. It just heightened perception of her being an elitist among some sections of the electorate.
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I seriously doubt any one has sympathy for Trump or Pence outside the less than 30 percent who voted for them.
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They CHOOSE to live in the public eye.
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Reading the reports from npr and the Guardian it doesn’t look like the cast pulled any kind of stunt – rather that they acted respectfully and responsibly to try to put a positive spin on a tricky situation and that it was only Trump’s tweet that claimed harrassment. Of course, Pence is not now going to contradict his boss, nor, perhaps, did he read the situation the way I did, at home, from the newspaper.
But my point here is that none of this is news of a kind worthy of our attention – it’s all just circus, and it’s playing out according to Trump’s script. Perhaps it will even eclipse the shitstorm around his choice of attorney general.
Keep your powder dry, wait for a clear shot. But far more than that, reestablish sensible reporting in general.
Do any of you guys have a moderately respectable paper of record? I use NRC Handelsblad, sometimes WSJ, The Independent (although it’s spotty). I miss the IHT. I’m not yet willing to adopt Stuart Robertson’s method of mixing in Breitbart or Alex Jones because that just seems like more noise to me.
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I suspect Pence went to see Hamilton, not really knowing who wrote it, and salivating at the idea it would be a lighthearted passion play where that dastardly James Madison gets his comeuppance for that whole Bill of Rights thing, what with it’s evil establishment clause.
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Obama got booed regularly at public venues, and even had a Congressman scream at him during a speech. The cast most certainly did not break any new ground in terms of incivility, and the wording of their speech was remarkably anodyne.
I don’t think the purpose of these things is to change Pence’s mind on anything. That’s probably impossible. It’s to make enacting his policies as politically compromising and as difficult as possible.
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More on Richard’s point, it will be very interesting how journalists will make calculations on access to sources in return for nomadverserial coverage considering Trump hates the press, is eschewing typical means of access, and seems to favor a handful of people (like Joe Scarborough and Sean Hannity). I don’t have a ton of faith in the NYT to be completely honest, but I suspect they’ll get a lot less wishy washy on BS stories like emails and impolitic musical theater casts if Trump tries to freeze them out.
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…so I was thinking “why would Mike Pence of all people decide to go to see Obama’s favourite musical, Hamilton, with someone who “promotes an HIV lifestyle” or whatever his phrase is in the leading role?
And then the penny drops: same day Trump buys off the Trump U lawsuit. Distraction works beautifully. Wondering if the cast got a cut.
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I guess to some people, the President-elect is allowed to make a theatrical spectacle, but not theaters.
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Richard G I think it’s more then just a distraction, it’s that as well, but the proclivity of the president elect to engage in personal twitter wars with private individuals is disconcerting. Likewise his Twitter claims that any form of protest (even as one as mild as the Hamilton casts – seriously the statement was utter appeasement) is an affront that can only be paid manipulation by his political opponents or deserves abasement and apology is pretty much egotistical totalitarian nonsense.
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it is result of increases in fees and decline of education – it serves certain interests but might kill us all
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Chris Tamm rising university fees is really the elephant in the room – it’s becoming a multi-generational problem and the basis of a caste system. I grew up with free tuition and it meant that it was a genuine choice, whether or not you went to college. And if you didn’t, you could still learn a trade and even dream one day of managing other people – you wouldn’t be working in the financial sector or medicine, but you could easily rise through a lot of customer service industries etc. In the US today, OTOH, you’d better be well positioned on leaving middle school to begin the horse race of gpa and advanced placement courses and so on, in order to get the privilege of shackling yourself to 20 years of student loans, just to hope for something better than a low-paying job in a soon-to-be-automated industry.
I reckon Bernie’s college tuition program is the most radical thing mooted this election cycle. Even more radical would be a reform of most undergrad degrees to reduce costs, guarantee standards and encourage critical thinking of a kind that would help students make smart choices about their education.
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left disenfranchising from poor – rich only being educated will make it worse
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