Index

Political Theater

In Texas and Florida, the only function of the state government is performance art.

As I often do, I was reading the New York Times today, particularly the opinion column. Today, it was Does It Matter That Investigators Are Closing In on Trump? That is an interestingly provocative title, given that those who abide by the law have long wondered how the orange toddler stays out on the streets. He has done things that would long ago have had the rest of us locked up in solitary confinement for life.

The column is another edition of a conversation between Gail Collins and Bret Stephens. Gail is the human being in the column, and Bret is the conservative. Usually, Bret is intelligent enough to leave the ridiculous to Murdoch and company, but today he crossed the line. What prompted this rant is that Gail completely failed to call him out on it.

The exchange in question starts out with Gail:

Well, let’s start with one we’re going to disagree about. I’m guessing there’s no way you could be rooting for Beto O’Rourke in Texas, right?

Bret: Ah, no, except as a performance artist. When are Texas Democrats going to nominate a centrist who stands a modest chance of winning a statewide race?

I have to ask how Gail could fail to call him down on this - she let it go unchallenged. I have to ask because there is absolutely nothing in Texas politics except theater, an extreme version of the “performance art” that Bret puts down. The business of governing the state there (and in Florida as well) is non-existent. The entire machinery of “government” has been turned to defending, maintaining, and expanding the anti-democratic powers of the fascist governors and legislatures.

There is no resemblance to a functioning state government in either place. Even the public information functions in those two states have been turned over to the Murdoch lie factory to be piped, utterly free of any reality checks, into the homes and businesses of those clueless enough to leave the electronic sewer valve on.

It isn’t like Bret has no clue about the real ethics, etc. of the fascists at the various levels of government:

Bret: No doubt the Trump Organization was run with the kind of fierce moral and financial rectitude you’d expect if Elizabeth Holmes had been put in charge of Enron. But the essential currency of Trumpism is drama, and what the New York and U.S. attorneys general have done is inject a whole lot more of it into Trump’s accounts.

He knows exactly who is in charge in Texas and Florida, too. So how is “performance artist” a bad thing in a state with nothing but drama and performance? The only difference between Beto and Abbott is that Beto cares about human beings. Abbott and his fascists have done nothing for the people of Texas, so having someone actually interested in the citizenry would be a pleasant start. It might even be possible that Beto would begin to wring some actual governance out of the comatose “government” there.

At any rate, if I was interested in the official lies from the right, I would listen to a few minutes of Tucker Carlson from somewhere on the Internet, then put a bullet in my head. Even a couple of minutes of that insane idiocy removes all reason to live. There is too much stupidity out there already.