It’s that extra level of satirical depth that consistently elevates [Atamanuik's] portrayal of Trump above everything Alec Baldwin has done to date on Saturday Night Live.... the next thing I saw (at The Daily Beast) was, "The Hell That Was Watching Kim Kardashian and Alec Baldwin Chat for an Hour/The second episode of ‘The Alec Baldwin Show’ featured a grueling sit-down talk between the reality-TV superstar and SNL’s Trump."
To recap, Alec Baldwin’s #Resistance consists of softly parodying the president on SNL while the world burns around him. But Baldwin has consistently displayed Trumpian tendencies himself....And what's going on with "Saturday Night Live" in the run-up to the election? Have they somehow determined that they're not helping the side they want to help?
All of this makes him perfect for Kardashian, who has experience dealing with Donald Trump—and with Trump supporters, like her husband. As Kim recently admitted, she’s come to accept Kanye West’s newfound Republicanism as a means to an end, saying, “I am aware that Kanye speaking out in favor of Trump got me through the door—got him to pick up my call.” But while Kardashian has inarguably used her influence to do some good, this is hardly the time to just stand in the back and watch as your life partner co-signs a racist president, spreads false information and amplifies far-right voices....
When the conversation inevitably turned to Kanye West and Donald Trump, Baldwin predictably failed to ask the tough questions, letting Kardashian skate by on beauty-pageant platitudes about “having an open mind.”....
As The Wrap reports, the new season of the show began with 3 weeks of new shows, but the past 2 weeks have had reruns and next week there's just going to be some collection of old Halloween-themed sketches. There is supposed to be a new episode on November 3rd, which is before the election, but it's odd — isn't it? — that the show is backing off right before the election. (You can compare the 2016 schedule here, 2014 here)
Anyway, keep an eye out for attacks on Alec Baldwin and flop sweat over the failure of pop culture to help the Democratic Party.
The only side I'm taking is I'm for the separation of art and politics. I don't like them cross-bred. You get "a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up." (I'm quoting Thomas Paine, of all people, who was writing in a slightly different context.)
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"...co-signs a racist president, spreads false information and amplifies far-right voices....
That right there is why everyone should turn away from the radical fascist leftwing. The cliche' idiocy that anyone who disagrees with the leftwing is a "racist".
So. Tired.
World not burning. Democrats hardest hit.
I'm for the separation of art and politics. I don't like them cross-bred. You get "a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up."
You get agitprop.
SNL is an ad campaign for democrats.
Isn't there a regulation against that? In reality, all of late night TV and daytime TV, and primetime TV is tantamount to one giant ad campaign for the democrats/ against the R party.
It's nothing but -- 'the GOP is racist, the GOP will force you to keep your unwanted baby, The GOP will kill you in some fashion, The GOP is bad bad bad, democrats are good good good.' But mostly the charge of racism. and that charge is made over and over again based on the fact that the GOP respects sovereign borders. You racist.
From the article:
The episode ended with a brief animated story, in which two terrifying caricatures of Kardashian and Baldwin discussed Kanye West’s traveling tips
Terrifying caricatures is unexpected.
SNL won several Emmy's last season and viewers are at all time levels? Did I read that correctly? Because everyone I know says the show has long ago jumped the shark and is no longer funny. I am a long-time fan and have shut it off due to lack of anything funny for at least a year now. Fake News?
So they are out to get Baldwin because he's not hateful enough to Trump.
The left has gone completely crazy.
Can't be worse than the "Pod Save America" show with four young privileged white Obama insiders: Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Lovett.
Here's an interesting review.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90250825/the-pod-save-america-tv-show-is-not-going-to-save-democracy-or-even-your-friday-nights
You will be made to care.
I posted a link the other day from the NY Times (I think) that sounded like an older Democrat warning that the present insanity is driving people away.
Sorry it was the WSJ.
Three statements in recent years illustrate why former Democratic voters have abandoned their party. First, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign remark that small-town Americans “cling to guns and religion.” Second, Michelle Obama’s statement, also in 2008, that “for the first time in my adult lifetime I am proud of my country.” Third, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 characterization of Trump supporters as “deplorables”: “They are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”
None of these statements had anything to do with national security or economics. They revealed a mind-set that many voters find offensive—a huge cultural chasm that cannot be bridged by offering voters economic goodies.
It's interesting and, I think, a warning.
Their successors in the party have continued to focus on cultural issues with limited appeal. Their focus on political correctness and conformity has left an impression on traditional Democrats that their party leaders care more about transgender bathroom access than employment, the cost of living, education or public safety. Mrs. Clinton’s “deplorables” reference struck home with these voters.
The Democrats’ post-1972 evolution also has turned upside down the party’s approaches to racial and economic justice.
Maybe SNL producers read the WSJ.
"This is hardly the time to just stand in the back and watch as your life partner co-signs a racist president"
I know why people say this, now, but it's the result of lazy research and not anything factual, so it kind of bothers me more, because anyone can easily debunk it, if they want to.
"I'm for the separation of art and politics. I don't like them cross-bred. You get "a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up.""
Needless to say, I disagree, and aim to prove that idea wrong. There was a time when there was no doubt they went together very well. They've just got to be in the hands of someone who appreciates them for what they are, again, and not what they're expected to do.
Andrew Breitbart said politics is downstream of culture, so - still thinking 10 years ahead - it's up to conservatives to get ahead of it. Credibly.
Just think of me like "John Henry" or something.
Michael K said...
I posted a link the other day from the NY Times (I think) that sounded like an older Democrat warning that the present insanity is driving people away.
That's what I'm waiting to see come midterms. It seems to me that it took the Dems a while to realize that they'd run off the white working class vote. I'm wondering if it's dawned on them that they may have done the same to the center-left middle class vote, who may just stay away from the polls this year.
Perhaps the left is finally realizing they can not continue to gain advantage by relying on homophobic, women bashing, racists to say vote against those bad Republicans.
Baldwin is a far worse Trump than the guy who played Trump before him. Similar to Matt Damon, another mediocre actor who SNL had play a character not because he's good at it, but because he is famous, Baldwin is a walking billboard for the Republican get-out-the-vote effort.
I posted a link the other day from the NY Times (I think) that sounded like an older Democrat warning that the present insanity is driving people away.
The way I see it, the Dem party has always had two wings: the academics and the pragmatics.
The Academics were the ones who believed in the theory of progressivism, which is to say that they had a progressive model of the world that they compared to reality and which drove their decisions regarding politics and their view of the larger culture.
The Pragmatics, on the other hand, weren't true-believers in progressivism, but instead backed the Dems because it personally benefitted them: union workers, government aid recipients, public sector employees. The union electrician and school secretary probably don't care about systemic racism or the colonialist oppression of the banking system. They just want to ensure that they have a job, can afford their mortgage, collect unemployment if the economy goes south, and can afford to send their kid to college. They probably also have a son in the Marines, and they say a prayer for him every Sunday at church service.
The academics drove the ideology of the party, but required the pragmatics in order to get out the vote and win. Clinton understood this, hence his third-way of politics. The problem is that the academics don't like the pragmatics, and vice versa. Obama gave the academics the sense that they'd found a winning mixture of urban millennials, single women, and minority voters that would allow them to win without the pragmatics, and as a result they stopped trying to hide their disdain.
And, yes, I need money to pull it off, if anybody actually wants to see anything even remotely like it - or the Right-of-center movement animating it - to succeed. I am not an educated man, and I've almost had to shut it down once already. Somebody actually told me it could Make America Great Again.
Somebody's got to bridge that gap.
Althouse, "The only side I'm taking is I'm for the separation of art and politics. I don't like them cross-bred." Agree 100%.
I have a friend who really is a famous artist. People assume he is liberal because he is an artist. He's as conservative as I am. For him, he is a spy behind enemy lines.
I watched Comedians in Cars with Ellen DeGeneres, and she wanted to go explain to Jerry's kids how Jerry was wrong not to be freaking out about Trump. By the end of the show, after she hid his keys to "teach him a lesson," it was pretty clear that Jerry despised her. "Was that sarcasm?" "Yes."
BTW, why haven't the Norks nuked us yet? Ellen seemed pretty sure! She was playing herself as Dory who forgets everything she said after ten seconds.
I don't mind art mixed with politics, what I hate is the one-sided gatekeeping.
When artists write novels to, as they see it, eviscerate evil Republicans, they leave all their writing talent behind. Mailer's "Why are we in Vietnam?" and Roth's "Our Gang", for example, were embarrassingly bad writing. I guess it's not a good idea to write when the only motivation is hate.
The casual smearing of Uncle Donnie as "racist" is laughable. For decades, the guy lived as a Manhattan liberal, and socialized with people like Hillary Clinton. If he is in fact a "racist," what does that say about Hillary? Obviously, that she associates with racists. Which makes HER a racist. Not to mention the rape enabling in which she indulged on behalf of her husband William.
For decades, the guy lived as a Manhattan liberal, and socialized with people like Hillary Clinton.
Logic does not apply to leftists.
We see that here every day.
The Democrats one issue besides Trump this year seems to be "pre-existing conditions."
How can insurance cover pre-existing conditions ?
tim in vermont said...
"I watched Comedians in Cars with Ellen DeGeneres, and she wanted to go explain to Jerry's kids how Jerry was wrong not to be freaking out about Trump. By the end of the show, after she hid his keys to "teach him a lesson," it was pretty clear that Jerry despised her."
Ellen DeGeneres has been known to start sentences with the words "My psychic told me", making her someone you can't expect to be likable, or reasonable, for very long.
johns said...
"When artists write novels to, as they see it, eviscerate evil Republicans, they leave all their writing talent behind. Mailer's "Why are we in Vietnam?" and Roth's "Our Gang", for example, were embarrassingly bad writing. I guess it's not a good idea to write when the only motivation is hate."
That's what I meant by "They've just got to be in the hands of someone who appreciates them for what they are, again, and not what they're expected to do."
If you're actually looking for the marker for this, listen to the New York Philharmonic broadcasts. When Baldwin is gone from the voiceover, you'll know the word is truly out.
How can insurance cover pre-existing conditions
Thus the justification for "single-payer"... or we could address affordability through competitive practices and pricing, first, but that is an unprofitable solution, and does not keep pace with asset inflation and other acts of economic distortion.
the guy lived as a Manhattan liberal
Liberalism is in principle and practice a divergent ideology.
Trump, too. Dershowitz, too. Even Reagan, once. #PrinciplesMatter
Blogger n.n said...
How can insurance cover pre-existing conditions
Thus the justification for "single-payer"..
Single Payer, as the Democrats describe it, has the "Land Office" problem. There is an infinite demand for free stuff, therefore you cannot use price to ration.
The French System, which I concluded would be the best model for US reform ten years ago, has a market mechanism, which is anathema for Democrats.
Pre-existing conditions, in the French system, are handled by special programs, much as the risk pools did here until Obamacare.
In France, there is a program for diabetes, for example, that is separate from the usual system. If you are diabetic and have complications, that is paid from a separate fund. If you are diabetic and have appendicitis, that is paid through the usual system.
The French are having problems because of high unemployment and the flood of British immigrants who will not go back to Britain to the NHS but who have not pid into the French system which is supposed to be funded from payroll deductions. It would work well here but change, as Obama found out, is difficult because trust is low.
The French system was designed by the Free French during exile and the Germans had uprooted the previous system. It was constructed after 1945.
Michael K said...
"The French are having problems because of high unemployment and the flood of British immigrants....It would work well here"
It's funny how people can look at the same thing and see two different things. My impression of the French medical system (I was last there in 2004 after a two year stay) was one of incompetence and ineptitude, patients being harmed in ways I thought were off-the-charts, and eventually just sheer dread I'd ever have to use them myself. There's a lot of polio-like diseases, and kids with their hair falling out, plus the problems that come with ancient villages where inbreeding took place long ago but their problems still show up today. It was scary.
And I didn't even know they were wild about homeopathy then.
That country - France - gets defined by a city - Paris - waaay too often. It's really nothing like that. It's like them, coming to San Francisco, and thinking you've seen the United States.
France is a medical Hell Hole.
It's simple maths: art + politics = propaganda
Art has been political since the first Sumerian Priest-king commissioned a bas-relief on the temple facade. Or long before that probably.
Shelley's Ozymandias captured the motives - one of them of course was "look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!". This was indeed the point of all those images of Ramesses III, and of hundreds of other rulers. Even Republics did and do this, often for personal power but usually for collective and institutional purposes. The grandeur of every State Capitol and City Hall is a piece of propaganda, designed to increase the prestige and influence of their occupants. They are mighty men, as they occupy such a mighty place, full of art and symbolism to demonstrate their legitimacy and authority.
Every last piece of public art, and much of private art, has some political context.
And a great deal of literature. Dante spent a lot of stanzas in the Inferno slagging his political enemies and their predecessors. A modern, liberal Dante may well have come across as an anti-Trumpist, with a host of Republicans past and present in his various sticky situations. And so on, and on, if one cares to look.
Baldwin was terrific in "Miami Blues" playing an amiable psychopath. A very good overlooked movie.
He's a superb dramatic actor, a great comedic actor -- but a terribly screwed up and often repulsive person.
Blogger Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
SNL is an ad campaign for democrats.
That's the intention, however, the effect is they are helping Trump.
In France, if you don't work, you get 80% of whatever you made at your last job in unemployment - and there's no incentive or demand to get another one.
Many people are functionaries - an actual job position - which just stands for someone who does make-work. I knew a kindergarten teacher who had 10 functionaries, as teacher's aides, helping the kids crayon correctly.
I saw a woman have a pot-induced panic attack. Her friends called for an ambulance for some reason. We could see the hospital from their house but it still took 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Larry, Moe and Curly got out - with Larry and Moe heading straight past the patient to the house bar to pour a drink.
Curly said the female patient needed to get undressed - in front of everyone. He checked her out (wink, wink) and then drew blood from just below her rib cage. He said she had to go to the hospital for an overnight stay.
Ever since then, I've been hearing that's the fucking Gold Standard.
Howard said...
"It's simple maths: art + politics = propaganda"
Not true. Not even close.
I like your propaganda Crack while I don't always agree with it. Hitler perfected the use of art in politics. Most of the modern art world is horrible lefty marxist propaganda.
ancient villages where inbreeding took place long ago but their problems still show up today. It was scary.
And their medical system caused this how ?
The trouble they are having has nothing to do with the design of the system.
Last time I checked, they had the highest satisfaction rate in Europe and that was from people who had been patients.
Michael K said...
"Last time I checked, they had the highest satisfaction rate in Europe and that was from people who had been patients."
They give homeopathy high marks as a medicine, too. They're French, Dude. Hypochondriacs who can be seen anytime. Making sense isn't their strong suit.
We have a low satisfaction rate, compared to the French, because we try to do - literally - everything for everyone. The French are resigned to dying in their little villages as they always have for thousands of years. We expect every procedure to be attempted and even then won't accept our loved one died until our lawsuit against the hospital fails.
We are - literally - in The New World and they're still shaking off medieval superstitions.
One big difference with the French is we have about 500% too many trial lawyers.
These after-the-fact purity tests are very Stalinist. Baldwin may wind up like Kamenev or Zinoviev, metaphorically.
and, imho, mixing art and politics is not necessarily good or bad. If politics determines art you get propaganda, but genuine artists can (not necessarily will, but sometimes can) illuminate life and even politics in constructive ways, if the pols stay out of it and the artists do their thing.
Les Miserables, The Crucible, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, much of Kafka, Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware, much of Dickens, the Lincoln Memorial, Dvorak's New World Symphony, Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin,... one could go on for hours.
btb, I know I am treading close to politics driving art with Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I will go there, nonetheless
France is a medical Hell Hole.
You can wax poetic about the "design of the system," Michael K, but my firsthand (though admittedly dated) experience with La Sécu in the early 90s tracks with Crack's opinion - and is what put me off the idea of any form of national healthcare for good.
"The only side I'm taking is I'm for the separation of art and politics."
That mule has left the barn.
I'm not for separating art from politics. I'm just for holding political art to the same standard as nonpolitical. Too many artists can't, and put out political art that would end in the dust bin if were about beauty or love. My favorite political art pieces - off the top of my head - are John Prine's Paradise and Steve Goodman's Ballad of Penny Evans and The Lincoln Park Pirates. If you can make political art as good as that, have at it.
Politics is shit.
Art is ice cream.
No matter how little politics you mix into art, the result is a bowl full of shit.
The ratio of the mix will not convince me to eat the mix.
And the word art can be exchanged with anything you like.
Politics, no matter how thinly spread, makes whatever it covers into shit.
A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!
— Robert A. Heinlein
Rocketeer said...
"You can wax poetic about the "design of the system," Michael K, but my firsthand (though admittedly dated) experience with La Sécu in the early 90s tracks with Crack's opinion - and is what put me off the idea of any form of national healthcare for good."
Oh, Dude, you can not imagine my shock, when I got home, and these fools were actually fighting to have it!
My shame consumed me.
I'm seeing the memo, it kinda looks like Towlie, stalking Baldwin.
What other meaning could I possibly take from:
"Did a memo go out to get Alec Baldwin?"
I hope the memo succeeds.
Blogger Rocketeer said...
France is a medical Hell Hole.
You can wax poetic about the "design of the system," Michael K, but my firsthand (though admittedly dated) experience with La Sécu in the early 90s tracks with Crack's opinion - and is what put me off the idea of any form of national healthcare for good.
If France is a medical "Hellhole" what does that make the rest of Europe ?
I said it would make a good model for our reform. Instead we got Obamacare which was an incompetent disaster.
There are some aspects of the French system I don't agree with. For example, the French ambulances in trauma cases spend too much time at the scene trying to stabilize the patient. We learned that does not work. In my trauma center Princess Diana ,night have survived since the French paramedics spent a half hour with her still alive.
Your personal experience is an anecdote and I wonder how much it was, whatever it was.
I appreciate the work you do Michael.
I do want to add that any analysis of policy should always note that Crack's an idiot.
Michael K said...
"If France is a medical "Hellhole" what does that make the rest of Europe ?"
I don't know. I'm always amazed at how little Americans know of Yurp, and vice versa, so - until that gets cleared up - what any of it "means" is anyone's guess.
"I said it would make a good model for our reform. Instead we got Obamacare which was an incompetent disaster."
I saw a woman with Lou Gerieg's (sp?) disease get repeatedly dropped on her head. Never saw that here.
"There are some aspects of the French system I don't agree with. For example, the French ambulances in trauma cases spend too much time at the scene trying to stabilize the patient. We learned that does not work. In my trauma center Princess Diana ,night have survived since the French paramedics spent a half hour with her still alive."
You keep saying "French" when I know you mean "Paris" - which is in France - but is highly deceptive: as I said, the country works differently from the city.
"Your personal experience is an anecdote and I wonder how much it was, whatever it was."
It was living somewhere, off and on for 20 years - and seeing the whole thing - versus merely visiting the big city or reading about it.
Dave said...
"I do want to add that any analysis of policy should always note that Crack's an idiot."
People were calling me "Mr. Dixon" at the age of four, and a "genius" pretty much thereafter, so there ain't shit you can say to put a dent in my ego, because it was pumped-up far beyond your range long before I met you - and they even put it in print. Don't forget:
I'm an idiot who was in this band and several others considered iconic. And yeah, that's a John Peel session, Asshole.
I'm an idiot who was used as a source for this book because I was having so much sex I'm practically an expert.
I'm an idiot who this book says has more integrity than anyone - and says so twice.
And I'm an idiot who this article says is "a major musical talent".
Oh - and I'm building a major blog with a group of Indian kids who regard me as a "guru" as nobody says shit about you guys - while you, for reasons of insecurity, anonymously snipe at my heels from the ether of the internet. You know what that means:
DAVE’S NOT HERE.
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