The Left Begins to Realize Their Guys Haven’t Delivered
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Morning Jolt September 16, 2014 The Left Begins to Realize Their Guys Haven't Delivered Zephyr Teachout, who challenged Andrew Cuomo in the New York State Democratic primary, contends that the Democratic party "needs a kick from the left." The dissatisfaction of liberals ought to be a useful antidote to glum conservatives convinced that America has sold its collective soul to collectivist statism. But it's worth noting what Teachout finds most objectionable about Cuomo:
Notice the casual conflation of "cronyism and corruption" and "support for Republican candidates at Republican causes." Is too much "support for Republican candidates" the problem that should be the main focus the Left? Or is it merely the aspect of modern Democratic governance that bothers them the most? New York is beginning universal pre-K, even though a lot of schools still stink. The unemployment rate has slid down as Americans leave the workforce, but few would claim this is a booming era of hiring and opportunity. Obamacare has reduced the number of insured nationally to a mere . . . 41 million. Premiums are set to go up about 8 percent next year. Dodd-Frank completely failed to end the era of "Too Big to Fail." There was massive fraud in the stimulus program, costing taxpayers "billions", but the Left would much rather talk about the Koch brothers. Our foreign policy is a dumpster fire right now. The bigger problem for the Left is that their preferred president and their preferred governors and legislators, enacting their preferred policies, have not generated their preferred results. Teachout took about a third of the vote in a New York Democratic primary that had low turnout. George H.W. Bush: Please Keep My Ex-Employee Out of the Senate Heh:
If Michelle Nunn's old bosses aren't supporting her bid for Senate . . . why should you? America Has Plenty of Grown-Ups. But Our Pop Culture Isn't Interested. In the New York Times this weekend, A.O. Scott declared "The Death of Adulthood in American Culture." Let's get a few observations out of the way: Scott's aiming to stir the pot with this, and there's a strong case to be made that American culture — or at least American pop culture — is mirroring and/or celebrating the concept of extended adolescence. With that in mind, let's start with this point:
Oh, bull. Wait, I'll clarify that: No one in those shows knows how to be a grown-up. And perhaps in some corners of America at this moment, communities dominated by underemployed urban quasi-professionals, unmarried, without kids, without mortgages, without a career path or plan… perhaps in those places, and in those social circles, it indeed seems like no one knows how to be a grown-up. But it's an extreme act of "Pauline Kaelism" to conclude from that "nobody knows how to be a grown-up anymore."
No, it hasn't. Come on, A.O. Scott, you're ten years older than me and Wikipedia says you have children. Have you been to a PTA meeting? Been down by the school bus stop, seeing your kids off? Been by the soccer practice? Gone to the local high-school football game? You don't see a lot of grown men emulating the slacker goofballs of Judd Apatow movies in those spaces — nor, say, the local firehouse, police station, military base . . . Scott mentions Louie, featuring comedian Louie C.K., and entirely separate from whether you find his show funny, it's unpersuasive to claim he's representative of American fatherhood in 2014. He plays a fictional version of himself, a recently-divorced stand-up comedian, working nights in Manhattan. Yet Scott concludes:
Speak for yourself, man. It's not that America doesn't have any grown-ups or non-loser dads left. We dads didn't go anywhere; it's just that television networks don't make as many shows about us, and when they do, the kind of people who review film and television for the New York Times aren't as interested. Sure, you do see a couple of family sitcoms on the dial these days — Modern Family, etc. But it appears that network programmers — and perhaps audiences — have concluded that they're just not interested in telling stories about moms and dads and kids anymore. (And let's face it, the 80s and early 90s did churn out a lot of saccharine family sitcoms with nauseatingly cute kids.) In a lot of today's dramas, if you're a dad, something terrible is probably going to happen to you: Walter White. Staff Sergeant Nicholas Brody. Ned Stark. This is more an observation than a complaint. Not all popular culture needs to hold a mirror up to us. An ultra-realistic show about police work could get pretty boring with the paperwork, unsolved cases, zero gunfights or car chases, etc. Joss Whedon wrote that happy characters are boring characters. Even if you want to portray a happy, loving family, you need some sort of conflict or action to move the story along. Remember a moment ago when I described "communities dominated by underemployed urban quasi-professionals, unmarried, without kids, without mortgages, without a career path or plan"? How large a portion of the communities of our creative classes fits that description? Or perhaps more specifically, how many people in our creative classes percolated for years in that sort of extended-adolescence Bohemian urban environment? There's nothing inherently wrong with that environment -- for a while, at least — but it's light years away from being universal. Our national storytellers may be quite convinced that they're holding a mirror up to society — but they're only reflecting their own limited personal experience. This sort of "You Hollywood types are too insular" complaint usually gets dismissed as whining when it comes from a conservative but maybe it sounds more valid coming from a Latino or Asian-American, when they note how few movies at the Cineplex or shows on the dial reflect the stories and experiences of their communities. Real-life America still has plenty of grown-ups, good dads, and all of those types that Scott's essay contends are on the way out. Someday somebody might get the crazy idea of making a television show about them. ADDENDA: Campaign Spot reader Greg offers one more point about the impracticality of dressing nicely when traveling by air:
. . . Our Katherine Timpf reports, "A sorority at California State University Fullerton is in serious trouble because it hosted a Taco Tuesday event where students wore 'culturally insensitive attire' such as sombreros." Oh, come on! The problem with Taco Tuesday is not the sombreros. The problem is it's a cover for President Business' evil plan!
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