How Michelle Obama reminded me of Jordan Peterson.

I'd just listened to Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan's podcast. I blogged about some of it, here, yesterday. Peterson was criticizing woman who fail to develop beyond their natural, instinctive empathy. Let me give you a bit more of what he said:

"I've been lecturing to people for a long time about how to conduct themselves in life so they don't become a tyrant or a handmaiden to the tyrants, a silent handmaiden to the tyrants, let's say.... Because women are more agreeable, they're more prone to manipulation by psychopaths because their primary ethos is nurturing. For a naive woman, every victim is a baby...."

Now, you may find it odd, but I hear echoes of that as I am listening to Michelle Obama in "You Need to Learn to Say No (Even to an Inauguration)," the new episode of her podcast.

I know, your first inclination may be to mock the "poor me" aspect of this. She doesn't have a thing to wear... to the Inauguration. And not having a thing to wear, for her, means instructing her team of clothing wranglers to avoid readying the appropriate outfit, which they otherwise actively assemble for every possible occasion that might pop up (or "pop off"). She is not like other women. Very funny. But true! So work past that instinct to mock. I want you to think about how she is confessing to the agreeableness vulnerability that Jordan Peterson sees in women.

Michelle says:

"After her speech, the first daughter strode past the first lady to greet her father. Melania, who had first smiled broadly at Ivanka, suddenly went stony."

"The exchange was particularly loaded given the context: Melania’s former BFF and aide, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, is beginning to dish on her new tell-all about the first lady, which includes accounts of conversations in which Melania mocks Ivanka. It has been reported that Melania calls Ivanka ''the princess' — Trump singled out his favorite child in his convention speech — and Ivanka has reportedly called Melania 'the portrait.' After many tugs of war, Melania has resigned herself to the fact that Jared and Ivanka run the White House. The basic view in the building is that Ivanka has wrestled Melania to a draw. Wolkoff writes that Melania was so annoyed by her stepdaughter’s attempts to, as she saw it, infringe on her role in planning the Inauguration that she launched 'Operation Block Ivanka.'"

From "The Princess vs. the Portrait in Trumpworld/The first family serves up a malarkey buffet" by Maureen Dowd (NYT).

Here's the excerpt about "Block Ivanka" from the Wolkoff book (published at New York Magazine)(warning: the author herself calls it "petty"):

Am I to think that while the new President was delivering his inaugural speech, John McCain was chanting something like "Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao" to steady his nerves and contain his rage?

According to HuffPo, Amy Klobuchar, speaking to "a crowd of more than 200" in Des Moines, Iowa, described her experience at Trump's inaugural like this:

I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain, and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation. He understood it. He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.

Recited? Seems like some sort of chant. But he was reciting to her. If I had to bet what the somewhat less than brilliantly articulate Klobuchar meant, I'm guessing that Trump would say a line and McCain would mutter a name to Amy. Something like this:

TRUMP: We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Hitler...

TRUMP: I will fight for you with every breath in my body...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Stalin...

TRUMP: There should be no fear – we are protected, and we will always be protected...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Mussolini...

TRUMP: Now arrives the hour of action...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Mao.

Bad Lip Reading at the Inauguration.

What if Trump's inauguration crowd had been bigger than Obama's? You know very well how the press would have presented it.

Once I've prompted you with the question, I expect you to take less than 10 seconds to think of the same answer that occurred to me.

I'll reserve my answer to give you a chance to confirm what I think is so obvious.

IN THE COMMENTS: 7 minutes after I posted this, Shane said:

At least make the "answer" available so we can move on to our other blogs that are less condescendingly precious this morning, hopefully. Please?

15 minutes later, from me:

The comments are divided between the people who can't say it or are pretending not to know and the people who are saying it as plainly as possible, so why do the not-knowers not know yet?

Says Althouse, preciously condescendingly.

ALSO: Another question is: How would the press talk about Trump's relatively small in-person crowd if it wanted to portray Trump's support as better than Obama's?

I think this is a harder question, so I'll blurt out my answer right away. Trump had huge rallies before the election, which is when — in a democracy — physically showing up matters. That's why they call it a rally. There's something you need people to get up and go out and do: Vote and rouse other people into voting. That was done for Trump and he won the election. Trump supporters achieved that. It's now time to get back to your own life, your work and your family and friends and to give the person you've elected a chance to fix the problems he said he'd fix, make America great again, etc.

To go out to see him now has more to do with the adoration of the man — as if he's your idol or you want to merge with him and have an emotive need about being "part of history." That's deranged in a democracy. It's more normal to believe you've done your political work. You shouldn't show up at a rally to further boost this man's look of importance and to get photographed as an element of a crowd and to be used instrumentally to magnify his power and give his to swearing in a feeling of divine ascension. He's President, and that's an earthly reality that's plenty in itself and achieved through the election, which happened months ago. You don't have to further inflate him or devote yourself as a follower.

In this view, the Trump supporters are not nutty or deluded or in thrall to a god-like celebrity. They're just ordinary people who focused on electing the best President and who've gone back to living in the real world. They didn't need or want to go to a love-in for the man.

If you use this template, you can make what happened with Obama in January 2009 look bad!

The media are going after Trump about the inaugural crowd size because it's part of "creat[ing] the illusion that Trump is not popular, that he didn’t legitimately win, that there isn’t that much excitement for him."

"To them, it’s not a nitpick, and that’s why Trump’s fighting back on it," said Rush Limbaugh, on his show today.

Trump knows exactly what they’re trying to do with this. What’s being reported is that Trump is a megalomaniac, that he’s an egomaniac, and that he’s a narcissist. And he cares about all these things like crowd size and everything.

What they’re not reporting is they start it. They report. They put up a couple of phony pictures side by side to try to create the impression that nobody cared about Trump’s inauguration. Well, I had Trump on this program back in October, and I asked him about the constant hit back via tweet or other method attempt use. And he said he did it because he’s not gonna sit there and allow his name to be muddied and just sit there and have a lie establish and the roots planted and have it start growing. If it’s about him, if it’s about his name, his business, or his family, he’s not gonna put up with it....

I'll just do a poll:

Should Trump keep fighting back about everything, as aggressively and continuously as he does?

Yes. The media are trying to defeat him, and he should be relentless.

He should hit back about everything, but keep it quick and short and move on.

He should be selective. Don't give air to every criticism. Don't look obsessed with trivia.

Stop getting dragged into disputes. Lead the conversation. Do good things for us and talk about that

I hope Trump fails, so I encourage him to flail away at every damned thing.

I hope Trump fails, so I hope he backs off and gives his critics free rein.

The media are not out to get him. He should graciously allow the professionals do their job.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Can someone explain to me why Chuck Schumer spoke at the Trump inauguration?

I've searched many articles and can't find an answer. If you leave out the religious speakers — doing invocations and benedictions — and the Supreme Court Justices administering the oaths, you only get — other than Trump himself — Inaugural Committee chair, Roy Blunt, who gave the opening remarks, and Schumer. Why Schumer?

Schumer's remarks were widely perceived as antagonistic to Trump. Why was Schumer allowed to step on Trump's big day? I don't think he was entitled to speak. I don't think there's a tradition of letting the other party insert a dissenting voice. So why did that happen?

Was it Trump's idea — perhaps some deal-making guile involving flattery and extracting buy-in? I noticed Trump being cozily friendly with Schumer at the Congressional Luncheon and the signing ceremony. Is this a campaign to co-opt Schumer?

But was the Schumer speech antagonistic to Trump? Here's the full text. I'm reading it. He refers to our "challenging" times and our aptitude for dealing with challenges. He praised democracy (without any suggestion that Trump didn't fully win the election). And he mainly used his time to read a letter from a Civil War soldier that showed fortitude and patriotism. That letter, Chuck Schumer says, gives him "solace, strength," and he hopes it "will give you the same."

I guess what's anti-Trump is the suggestion that some people are needing solace and strength to get through the Trump administration and the hyperbole of likening our post-election divisions to the calamitous breakdown that was the Civil War. It's not that big a deal.

I'm just wondering why Schumer was speaking at all.

ADDED: I just happened to turn on CNN and hear:

Maggie Haberman (of the NYT): "Schumer's speech... was not exactly sort of a come-together we're-all-in-this-together. It was essentially a party doctrine."

Dan Balz: "It was a pre-buttal."

Haberman: "Exactly. And it was much more so than we have heard in a while. I understand what Schumer is doing. But if you are Trump, you hear that and then you say, you're only yelling at me about why we're not doing things together."

Fake news!

What Schumer actually said is being forgotten and replaced by a fake story that Schumer went completely partisan and divisive. 

The NYT banner-headlines Trump's lurid phrase "American carnage."

On the front page, right now:



I love the novelty sunglasses, and I was going to give the NYT credit for highlighting a beautiful woman who supports Trump, but after I did the screen-capture and uploading, my impression that I was looking at a Jean Seberg type of woman...



... gave way to a realization that this is a young man and then that the NYT wasn't saying even some hip, pretty women love Trump but — Listen for the first strains of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."



In that light, AMERICAN CARNAGE isn't political hokum, it's a dire warning.

So let's find the phrase in context. The article linked through that front-page headline has a different, milder headline, "Donald Trump Is Sworn In as President, Capping His Swift Ascent." But the cherry-picked phrase appears in the first paragraph:

Donald John Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on Friday, ushering in a new era that he vowed would shatter the established order and reverse a national decline that he called “this American carnage.”

Shatter the established order! Does that seem at odds with ending carnage? No, not if you think he is lying about the existence of carnage and gulling Americans into believing we need dramatic change. The "established order" was presided over by a man, Barack Obama, who got elected under the banner of "change," and "change" was a worship word then. The existing order of the time needed to be overthrown, and it was delightful that Obama had descended from the heavens to perform the miracle.

But Trump has ascended — up from hell? — and the change he's threatening is shattering.

In the NYT's annotated transcript of the speech, we see the carnage line — "This American carnage stops right here and stops right now"— is accompanied by an attempt at factual correction:

Violent crime increased about 4 percent in 2015, but that is a small blip in a decades-long decline in crime. The United States remains far safer than it has been in generations.

But did the speech equate "American carnage" with "violent crime"? Let's look at the text. The line appears about halfway in, after Trump has accused Washington insiders of channeling the rewards of government to themselves and denying the "just and reasonable demands of righteous people."

The demands are 3: "great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves." That's all The People want and it's what they deserve — good schools, neighborhoods, and jobs.

With that premise, Trump unleashes exactly one sentence before the end-to-carnage announcement:

Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

So you see the "carnage" is not merely violent crime. It refers to everything that is robbing people of good lives: poverty, the loss of manufacturing businesses, bad schools, gangs, and drugs, in addition to crime. Trump embraces the people — we are "just and righteous" and "beautiful," but deprived of what government fails to give us as it funnels benefits to its own insiders.

That scam is over. That's what the carnage ends now means.

AND: Sometimes I feel that I'm making things happen. Here's the NYT front page right now, linking to the same article:

I'm reasonably proud of my Inauguration Day blogging. There were times — I'm sure you knew...

... when I bit off more than I could chew, but through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out, I faced it all, and I stood tall, and I am done for the night.

I've still got the TV on....

I don't know. This entertainment. It's really bad. It's just not at the level to belong on this grandiose stage.

ME (to Meade): "What were those piano guys called? The Piano Guys?"

MEADE: "Yeah."

ME: "Yeesh." (I can't believe I watched them at the concert last night, and now I have to sit through this again.)

MEADE (reading the internet): "They're a YouTube sensation. From Utah."

YouTah.

Did that one lady who sang "Mack the Knife" end with "Now that Trump is back in town!"? The character in the song "Mack the Knife" is a serial murderer!

I couldn't believe the children singing. It went on so long! Wasn't it their bedtime? All those 60s pop songs that never go away, so you never miss them. I never want to hear "Can't Help Myself" again, but I'm utterly appalled when a little girl who looks about 9 sings the line "I'd do anything you ask me to." Have words lost all meaning?

I know there was a lot of bullying of performers, so that it was very difficult to put this show together at all creditably. I appreciate the predicament. And I know I don't have to watch. I do think averting one's eyes would be best.

Now a bunch of men are clogging. They're attractive men. Oh! He's doing his horse routine and they projected a photo of a statue of a soldier on a horse. Oh, no, they projected the Iwo Jima, flag-raising sculpture. What does Iwo Jima have to do with buff men clogging?

ME (doing voiceover for a dancer): "Let me waggle my ass at you in a military fashion."

I don't really want Sam Moore's backbone to slip. He's 81.

FINALLY: Trump and Melania appear. Her white dress reminds me of cake decorating. Her bare shoulders glimmer. Trump's tux has extremely baggy pants. He eschews tailoring. That's his style. They dance that dance that's not really a dance — just rocking back and forth. I'm worried that the bulky Trump will squish the delicate swirl of fabric that extends from Melania's extensive bust. The dress is floor-length and then some, and I'm sure he's treading on it. Don't tread on me!

The song is "My Way" — "I ate it up and spit it out."

Live-blogging the Trump Inauguration.

1. We've been watching for a couple hours, but I think it's time to get the blog going.

2. I'll say what I suppose everyone is saying — I haven't looked — Melania's outfit is delightfully perfect. The color, the gloves, the length of the sleeves, the high cut of the jacket revealing the slimly columnar torso, the wrapped up, folded over neckline. Love it!

3. There's a scene we here at Meadehouse have watched 3 times and discussed at length. I think the title is: Delivery of the Tiffany Pizza. Donald and Melania drive up to the Obama's house. Donald gets out of the car and amiably greets the Obamas as Melania emerges from the far side of the car and walks around to the steps, and she's carrying a horizontal, flat box — the size and shape of a pizza box — and we know by the color and the white bow that it's from Tiffany. Melania, smiling warmly, joins the group, and she hands the box to Michelle. Michelle reacts as if a box of crap has been foisted on her, and she looks around as if she's truly pissed to be stuck with the box. No one off camera comes forward, presumably because they're all instructed to stay out of the photo op. The 2 saluting military men can't stop saluting. They're not like apartment doormen or hotel bellhops. They can't wrangle the packages. Michelle could pretend to appreciate the gift and hold it in a discreet sideways position. It's not really pizza. It's not as though the cheese will slide off if she turns it vertical. Obama sees he must cater to his wife's emotional needs, and he, in his last moments as President of the United States, walks over, gets the package, and takes it inside the house, and then he comes back out to line up for the big, historical photo.

4. Kellyanne Conway arrives at the Capitol. I saw her earlier on one of the morning shows and thought her majorette outfit could use a hat, so I'm glad to see she's got a nice red hat to complete the costumery. [ADDED: I'm seeing a closeup of the buttons on her coat. They seem to be the heads of lionesses. I think of what Donald Trump said about her last night: "There is no den she will not go into."]

5. Hillary Clinton arrives at the Capitol. She's wearing a nice champagne-colored pantsuit and puts on a matching light overcoat. From off-screen, some reporter yells out, "Madame Secretary, how does it feel to be here today?" Another one says: "How are you feeling, Madame Secretary?" What's she supposed to say? I'll say it for her: How the fuck do you think it feels? We overhear the CNN commentators giggling and one of them — maybe Axelrod — mutters "probably come up with a different question."

6. Axelrod says he finds it "irritating" that some Democratic Party members of Congress are boycotting the inauguration. When Trump takes the oath he will be President for all of us and there's business we need to do as a country, and we need to do it together, he says.

7. The Supreme Court Justices — all 8 of them — are here, arriving together, all in robes. Justice Breyer is carrying a ziploc bag of supplies. Alongside him is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with a brown-colored lace collar. Is that a deliberate variation from white?! Remember she's on record having called Trump "a faker" with "no consistency about him." The Chief Justice looks determined — do not botch the oath. Clarence Thomas — who's doing the oath for Pence — looks happy. Kennedy and Alito seem spry. Elena Kagan seems fine. Sonia Sotomayor, perhaps rather weary, lumbering.

8. Trump and Obama emerge from the White House. They both look grim. Grumpy. CNN has a split screen so we also see Bill and Hillary Clinton arriving at the Capitol. They look grim too. Oh, no, now Bill is smiling. He's on camera, living in the moment, looking good. Good old Bill.

9. "She looks stunning. She looks great. She's stunning in defeat. She looks great." Meade is watching Hillary walk through the halls out toward the inaugural stage.

10. Oh, that steep stairway! So great that no one falls.

11. Trump swivels toward the camera. Looks right at us. He's waiting inside while Pence comes out. Pence has to shake many hands — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, all the Trump ladies, etc. etc.

12. Trump is announced. He walks out. Gives a thumbs up then an upraised fist. Kisses Melania. Kisses Michelle. Takes his place. Who's that lady standing behind him doing an iPhone video?

13. Shots of Trump include Barron, sitting right behind him. Barron looks as though he might be staring into an iPhone. He's corrected by his mother at one point. He yawns. He looks annoyed, even angry.

14. "And God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you..." The Bible reading seems to refer to Trump.

15. Clarence Thomas administers the oath to Mike Pence.

16. An ultra-smooth rendition of "America" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

17. President Donald Trump. It's real now. It happened. Good luck, America!

18. Oh! The speech. I'd forgotten. We have a whole speech to go. "We are transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it to you."

19. The theme: YOU. Today is "The day The People became the rulers of this nation once again... Everyone is listening to you now."'

20. "When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice."

21. Trump ends his speech and raises his fist. Waves it around in the air.

Trump arrives at the Inaugural Concert — stopping to salute the statue of Abraham Lincoln — to the tune of The Rolling Stones' "Heart of Stone."

"You'll never break this heart of stone," Mick sings — in recorded music — as Donald Trump walks out, holding hands with Melania.

Let's keep watching.

Here's the NYT coverage:

With cameras filming his every move, even his airplane, Mr. Trump arrived in Washington a day before he is sworn in, appearing at a luncheon with supporters at the Trump International Hotel, where he praised the collective I.Q. of his cabinet members.

“We have by far the highest I.Q. of any Cabinet ever assembled,” Mr. Trump said in the remarks, which reporters heard only the first several minutes of before being escorted out.

UPDATE 1: Is Trump tweeting? Seems like he's using a device.

UPDATE 2: 3 Doors Down is performing a song — "Kryptonite" — with the line "If I go crazy then will you still/Call me Superman."

Let me get back to "Heart of Stone." That blew my mind. It was clearly cued up to began as Trump began his walk out. The song begins "There've been so many girls that I've known/I've made so many cry and still I wonder why." Given the gender politics of the campaign, that's radically insolent. And he's walking with his wife. She has to hear of the many "girls" that he's known? The song continues:

Here comes the little girl
I see her walking down the street
She's all by herself
I try and knock her off her feet

Try and knock her off her feet?! Does she just let you?

And later:

Don't keep on looking that some old way
If you try acting sad, you'll only make me glad....

UPDATE 3: Toby Keith is singing, "We'll raise up our glasses against evil forces" and holding up a big red cup of what he calls whiskey. [AND: We know Trump sees alcohol in the light of his older brother's tragic descent and death, so I don't think the alcohol-based crowd-rousing suited the occasion.]

UPDATE 4: I loved the fireworks with the military performance of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." That was properly elevated and spectacular, with reverence appropriate to the occasion and the setting. I'd have liked it if all the music had been done by the military performers, but I understand that some of the popular music suited Trump's man-of-the-people theme.

Trump's speech, with a hand-held mike, was very casual. There were some good references to national unity and a desire to serve all of the people, but too much of it leaned toward the partisan, with bragging about the campaign and even talking about polls.

I thought everyone looked great. Trump had very glossy hair. His black coat went nicely with Melania's black coat. Ivanka stood out in green. Tiffany looked better than I'd ever seen her. All the adults were super-tall. The children were adorable. But kids: No chewing gum!

"Don't give up blogging; our minds would rust without you. But I think you have earned a retirement from watching those Sunday morning panel shows."

I'm reading the comments on yesterday's post "This blog is 13 years old today" just after shutting off the TV — after 2 minutes — with the thought I don't have to do this. Not that I ever had to do it. It wasn't my job to monitor the Sunday morning shows.

The quote is from WA-mom. And thanks to all who commented on my bloggiversary post — and on all posts, which (I assure you) are written because I have genuinely found something interesting. I'm not under assignment to do any of this. It's not like the way I had to submit myself to the task of reading, say, Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, when it was my job to teach Conlaw1.

Why have I watched the Sunday shows? It's a one-day-a-week variation from the usual approach to looking around for something to talk about. Often I do sit through 3 or even 4 or 5 of them. This morning, I couldn't get started even on the first one.

What's blocking me isn't that I just retired and I'm living in a new way. It's that — or so it seemed from the first 2 minutes — the shows are grinding through all the complaints about Donald Trump. I feel I've heard them, I've had my fill of the grousing, and I think a new President deserves his moment of elevated pomp followed by a fair chance to show he can do something beneficial for the country. I've never seen anything like this kind of hostility and opposition thrown in front of a new President.

I think Trump has figured out how to thrive on hostility and opposition, and I know it causes me to root for him. It's my instinct to pull for the underdog, even as I recognize the absurdity of seeing the most powerful man in the world as the underdog. But that's what the Trump haters have done. Congratulations, you nitwits. Now, could you sing me a song about your triumph?



By the way, celebrities, "I Will Survive" is not "by Gloria Gaynor." The song was written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. The big hit version was sung by Gloria Gaynor, but when it's you singing it, you're not singing a song by Gloria Gaynor. But I appreciate your underscoring how embarrassingly stupid you are. That helps the rest of us "survive" — by ignoring everything you have to say.

"How could I have this much hate spewing at me, and I haven't even done anything?"

"I guess it's not like those old days when political views were your own and you had freedom of speech. ... We live in a different time now and a decision to go and do something for America is not so clear-cut anymore."

Said Jennifer Holliday, who was going to to perform at the Trump inauguration. I'm completely unsurprised that she's been bullied into withdrawing.

"The bikers are certainly used to being outnumbered and we are prepared to form a wall of meat."

Said Chris Cox, founder of Bikers for Trump, who are attending the inauguration.

That quote dragged the word "Altamont" up out of the swamp of my memories.

Paul Anka takes the highway.

It won't be "My Way."

Who got to him?

Paul Anka steps on Obama's "My Way" and agrees to perform at the inaugural dance for Trump.

Did you remember Paul Anka wrote the lyrics to the song that drives some people crazy? The original lyrics are French, "Comme d'habitude":



In 1968, David Bowie tried writing English lyrics. Bowie's version is "Even a Fool Learns to Love":



Frank Sinatra rejected Bowie's lyrics:

"I was so pissed," said Bowie later. "I thought, 'God, I could have done with that money'. And so I wrote Life on Mars, which was sort of a Sinatra-ish parody, but done in a more rock style."

And the work went to Paul Anka.

Now, just a couple days ago, HuffPo put up "This Farewell Mashup Of Obama Singing ‘My Way’ May Leave You Misty":

And suddenly, the news comes out that Paul Anka is going to sing the song for Donald Trump:

An insider tells the site, "Paul was asked by the members of the Trump inauguration committee and he was only too happy to do it for his longtime friend. While everyone else was running scared from performing at the inauguration, Paul stood fast. He wasn't about to be intimated [sic] by anyone!"

Anka will be singing special re-written he-did-it-Trump's-Way lyrics. We can only guess what changes he'll make to the lyrics. You can't start with "And now, the end is near...." even though that's a perfect line from the Trump hater's viewpoint — along with "Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew/When I bit off more than I could chew...."

And, whatever you do, wear a shirt — "That’s Just. The Fucking. Way. It Is!"

A sign for Occupy Inauguration — taped to a lamp post on the UW campus.

The image of Trump looks like he's saying "fuck." The event

Somebody saw fit to edit the sign:



I've looked at the Facebook page for the event. It says:

Donald Trump and the reactionary core of the Republican Party are coming to power in 2017 on a platform of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and pro-corporate policies....

The Democratic Party has proven they are incapable of stopping Trump. It is time to build a new party for the 99% based on the united power of all exploited and oppressed people, on movements for social and economic justice, on the belief that we CAN do better than this corrupt and rotten system!

11 thoughts about The Rockettes performing at the Trump inauguration.

1. I have trouble picturing The Rockettes performing at any presidential inauguration. How could lined-up, leggy females be kicking for a new President? How is that the proper tone for the occasion?

2. But I know The Rockettes have performed for an inauguration in the past. I hadn't noticed, so maybe it was off to the side somewhere and hardly mattered.

3. Or maybe there weren't enough bloggers back in 2001. There were no tweeters. Perhaps it should have been mocked and trashed, but new media had not yet lined up with our legs synchronized and ready to kick.

4. My trouble picturing The Rockettes at an inauguration is remedied by finding video of The Rockettes kicking at an inauguration:

5. Oh, good lord, they were prancing around at the feet of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. The symbolism! The tweets that could have been made if we had Twitter then! I'd like to see Abe get up off that chair — animated by horror of ladies in scanty panties & military garb — and do some kicking of his own.

6. If something shouldn't be done at all, is there more reason to say it shouldn't be done for Donald Trump or less? Think carefully! Your instinctive first reaction is probably wrong.

7. Shouldn't those who loathe Donald Trump be the most enthusiastic about the impending performance of The Rockettes? It's such wonderful raw material: The inauguration is crass and in bad taste, like everything else Trump touches. The "dancing" is all about maximizing staring into women's crotches, so apt for the man who made us focus on pussy-grabbing. The Trump administration is messaging us that it intends to reduce women to sex objects. They had to get as many kicking legs out there as possible to symbolize how Trump plans to treat vulnerable Americans. Etc. etc.

8. Marie Claire is leaking quotes from Rockettes from a private meeting with management: "I think that the Rockettes have always been apolitical, and now by performing at this particular inauguration, it's making us political," "We were #1 trending on Twitter and it's just really hard to see, especially our faces being likened to Nazis. Is this not something we could have foreseen? I think it's been really hard for all of us. Especially around Christmas, and the schedule's so hard, and we're all so tired." Management argued that it was "ironic" for those who hate Trump's hate to be hating on Trump, and one Rockette said, "it just sounds like you're asking us to be tolerant of intolerance."

9. Are The Rockettes apolitical*? Art is or can be political, depending on how you define political. But The Rockettes are a long-running, highly commercial act. No existing artist is expressing anything meaningful through the continued repetition of this dancing that was dated and spent half a century ago. From "A Catcher in the Rye," which came out in 1951:

10. Yes, the dumb guy in the audience, impressed by the precision, readers have been laughing at him for as long as I've been alive. But the show still pulls in money, and it still gives long-legged young ladies a dancing job. Management instructed the dancers in branding: "This is a great national event... It's a huge moment in the country's history... The fact that we get to participate in it... we are an American brand, and I think it's very appropriate that the Rockettes dance in the inaugural and 4th of July and our country's great historical moments." That's the brand: Old-fashioned, uncritical Americana.

11. Like it or loathe it, that's your audience. And it's kind of Trump's audience too. If you are a conscientious objector to that, go ahead and anguish over the dissonance in your life. It's a good time to think about how we want to live. How much branding and commerce do you want imposed on you? How much principle can a scantily clad, rigidly choreographed woman maintain? What are people expected to do to keep their jobs? When do you see your job as significantly creative and expressive of your individual mind? How much do we join together to get economically valuable things done — in a chorus line, in a country — and when do we break away from the group and insist on our personal autonomy? And what will happen to us after we do?

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* Joe Biden was a member of The Rockettes in 1968, or so it says on his résumé.