Daily Archives: December 20, 2019

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: National media now weaponized – The News Herald

Posted: December 20, 2019 at 7:44 pm

Brandon S. Todd of Wewahitchka writes: Its all a political-machine, intended to be a circus, for the primary purpose of distracting us from the real, tangible, and fixable issues affecting our property, wallets, and families.

We live in very chaotic and confusing times.

The stories and reports we Americans get are sometimes too much to absorb. Most of us simply are trying to get by," the last thing we need is a mendacious media.

The media has force-fed us lie after lie, till it has appeared as truth the Left announces falsities as truisms. The American media has become a partisan-agent of chaos; television news is all synchronized, so propaganda knows no limits here now.

Local journalism is the back-bone of any city; local newspapers and stations still matter tremendously to the nation. However, the national high-tower companies are peddling quantity over quality partisan opinion over investigative fact.

Its troubling to know that Fake News is actually a real thing. Narratives are created day-in-day-out. Character assassinations are performed hear sayers have open-mic sessions on national television now.

To put it very bluntly, the news media have been weaponized; political correctness and half-truths are what they shovel. Very partisan political-factions have merged with journalistic institutions, and now the past, present, and future are all narratives.

"Control the narrative, control the nation."

Those in power are swaying journalism in America; we have a polarized, more than corporate institution that was once united for truth and founded upon egalitarian principles. Now media, especially TV, have become 'Orwellian' in nature; facts are no longer the media's concern.

The weaponization of the media is a threat to all of democracy. The free press must remain utterly free to operate for the American people. Propaganda is inevitable. However, mass-deception should not be the norm to allow MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, etc., to keep getting away with deceiving the public must not be allowed.

Its all a political-machine, intended to be a circus, for the primary purpose of distracting us from the real, tangible, and fixable issues affecting our property, wallets, and families.

America is ranked as one of the deadliest places to be a journalist, behind Afghanistan, Syria, Mexico and Yemen.

No wonder we cant get the truth to tell it is quite risky.

Brandon S. Todd, Wewahitchka

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Arguing for Truth in the Anti-Culture | Carl R. Trueman – First Things

Posted: at 7:44 pm

With the recent Tory triumph in the British parliamentary elections, it is clear that the old, predictable dynamics of politics and public life are gone, at least for the immediate future. As we approach the U.S. presidential election in 2020, it seems likely that, whoever wins, it will not be somebody of moderate views and mild personality.

One note repeatedly struck by pundits is that of the opposition between populists and liberal elites. Such an approach provides a partial explanation for what we see unfolding before us: The lefts failure to achieve popular appeal is surely connected to the fact that it has abandoned traditional economic concepts of oppression for the psychologized categories of identity politics. And so the left now finds itself out of step with traditional workers, for whom jobs are more important than gender-blind bathroom policies or drag queen reading hours. The concerns of the cocktail party set in Chelsea or Manhattan are not the concerns of workers in Huddersfield or West Virginia.

Yet I would suggest that the real division in the politics of the earthly city is not between populists and elites, or the New Left and Everybody Else. It is between those who believe that human nature is a given and those who believe it is merely a social construct. And that distinction cuts across the grain of traditional political taxonomy, given that the latter is as compatible with right-wing libertarianism as with critical theory.

The symptoms are all around us, most obviously in the arbitrary morality of the moment. The NBA boycotts North Carolina over its bathroom policy, yet plays the fawning sycophant to China, a nation with a catastrophic record on human rights. Money may be the key factor, but that rests on a deeper (anti)metaphysical point: It is not that the NBA hypocritically strains at a gnat while swallowing a camel; it is that there is no longer any objective scale beyond the immediate exigencies of the economy by which to judge which are the gnats and which the camels. And what we see on the world stage with corporations like the NBA and nations like China we can all observe in our own small worlds, from those who decry traditional use of pronouns yet glory in abortion rights, to those who vilify political correctness but who are perennially outraged at the smallest perceived linguistic slight directed at themselves.

Our culture is increasingly an anti-culture, marked only by relentless iconoclasm. That is why I write for, and support, First Things. For all of the differences among the writers, it remains committed to showing, by precept and example, that civil discourse and honest, open discussion of the most important issues in this earthly city are vitalbecause there is such a thing as human nature, and therefore there is such a thing as human flourishing, which is not for us simply to invent for ourselves.

Carl R. Trueman is a professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College.

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Here come the ‘angels of anarchy’: Surrealist women to steal the shows in 2020 – Art Newspaper

Posted: at 7:44 pm

Leonora Carringtons The Old Maids (1947) is part of a show on British Surrealism at Dulwich Picture Gallery next spring Estate of Leonora Carrington/ARS; Photo: James Austin

The women of Surrealism, dismissed for decades as muses, are finally attracting scholarly attention as artists in their own right. Celebrated in a host of forthcoming museum exhibitions, their legacy now appears to be challenging the work of the better-known men with whom they shared their lives as artists, and as lovers.

Two survey shows of the movement are due to open in February. Fantastic Women will bring together 260 works by 35 artists including Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage and Dorothea Tanning at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (13 February-24 May 2020). British Surrealism follows at Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London (26 February-17 May) with around a quarter of its works by women, among them Ithell Colquhoun, Eileen Agar and Edith Rimmington.

Tate Modern, which this year dedicated shows to Tanning and Dora Maar (until 15 March), is planning a major Surrealism exhibition with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, tentatively scheduled for 2021-22, in which female artists are expected to have a strong presence. Also in the frame is a solo show next year for Carrington at Fundacion Mapfre in Madrid and moving on to the Museo Picasso Malaga, which has formit hosted a major exhibition of 18 female Surrealists in 2017-18.

Experts say the ground is shifting. Surrealism scholar Patricia Allmer, who curated Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism at Manchester Art Gallery in 2009, says the public appetite for these works has grown in the decade since then. With Angels of Anarchy there were many people who said, why didnt we know about this work before? And now a new generation of students have studied them, and it has changed their outlook.

Indeed, David Boyd Haycock, the curator of the Dulwich show, says he does not consider the women of British Surrealism separatelythey are included on merit, not to tick a political correctness box. He thinks it may have been easier to be a female Surrealist in Britain than its birthplace in France. Andre Breton, who founded and presided over the movement in 1920s Paris, trod a strange and paradoxical line between on the one hand embracing freedom, and on the other hand seeking control, including of women, Boyd Haycock says.

There is good news for museums wishing to cement the place of female Surrealists in their permanent collections. There may be new work still to find, especially by Carrington who was very prolific, says the San Francisco- based gallerist Wendi Norris, who this year sold paintings by the artist to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Also, we know there are Tannings still to find.

Like Boyd Haycock, Norris argues that these women stand on their own terms alongside the male giants of their time. That would certainly be music to the ears of Leonora Carrington, to whom I was close in the last five years of her life, and who strongly resisted being pigeonholed as a woman artist.

Joanna Moorhead is the author of The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington (2017)

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Bull Session: Remember the Alamo? And Wendy Davis? And That Peloton Ad? – Texas Monthly

Posted: at 7:44 pm

Remembering the Alamo used to be fairly straightforward. The battle of 1836, Davy Crockett, John Wayneokay kids, back on the bus. But ever since 2014, this hallowed Texas monument has become the locus of a notably less cinematic war, all raging around the controversial plan to renovate and redesign it. At first blush, the Alamo master plan presented by Texas land commissioner George P. Bush seems pretty logical and perfectly reverent. Repair some cracks. Create a whole new museum to house the many artifacts that singer and Alamo buff Phil Collins donated, after growing bored of playing the In the Air Tonight drum solo with Jim Bowies knife. Close off the streets in front that have become home to carnivals, demonstrators, half-naked exhibitionists, and, occasionally, the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.

But opponents quickly seized on the proposal to relocate the Alamo cenotaph to a new spotone closer to the funeral pyres where the bodies of the fallen Texas revolutionaries were burned, yet much farther away from the Alamo itself. This swelled into a controversy that grew even more complicated after San Antonio mayor Ron Nirenberg mused in a radio interview that he hoped the newly renovated Alamo would honor both sides. This seemingly throwaway platitudecoupled with some vague promise of healing on the renovation website and Nirenbergs recent removal of a Confederate war memorialhas sparked a raging battle of its own, aimed at the supposed scourge of political correctness thats out to erase Texas history. And that preemptive furor finally culminated last week in the wild accusations that Bush is so intent on telling everyones side of the story, he even wants to erect a statue of the Mexican tyrant Santa Anna, right there on the Alamo grounds.

The charge was leveled by a group that calls itself Save the Alamo and was launched by Bushs onetime political rival for the land commissioner job, Rick Range. And it likely would have remained there, swirling in the eternally screaming abyss of panicky Facebook shares, had Bush himself not brought attention to it through his own social media posts calling the rumor patently false, an outright lie, and quite frankly, flat-out racist.

And the fog of war has only thickened now that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has blundered into this mess. This week, Patrick issued a statement criticizing Bush and his staff, saying theyve derided anyone who disagrees with the Alamo redesign as a small vocal minority who are liars and racists. This is offensive and inaccurate. This is, of course, a rather sweeping mischaracterization of what actually happened, as Bush pointed out in his own official response: Lt. Gov. Patrick has taken my statement out of context, much like the small group of protesters and activists, Bush wrote. To clarify, I stated the accusation that I was erecting a statue of Santa Anna at the Alamo, and protesters continually referring to me with slurs such as Santa Anna Bush online is racist. He then went on to say that Patrick was twisting my words, adding, It is a very dangerous mistake for an elected official with his power to make.

You might think it all would have ended there, with Bush having made it plain that only those specific rumormongers among the plans opponents are the racists. But Patrickthe immortal words of William Barret Travis no doubt ringing in his earsproudly declared he would never surrender or retreat, issuing yet another statement to aver that he did not twist words or float rumors. He also doubled down on his criticism of Bush and the General Land Office for even mentioning those racist attacks in its official statement, saying he was surprised and disappointed.

Patrick is right that not all opponents of the Alamo plan are racists or liars, and that they constitute more than the small, vocal minority named rather dismissively by the General Land Office. Plans to move the cenotaph have been met with numerous protests, public hearings, and last-ditch legislative proposals over the past few years; clearly, its the biggest controversy the monument has seen since that time Ozzy Osbourne peed on it. Still, Bush is right to condemn an outright lieone that was cooked up by the guy who lost an election to him, no less. Patricks attempt to spin that as Bush dismissing all critics is every bit as disingenuous, and a needlessly distracting addition to a debate thats already plenty contentious and confusing. (We havent even touched on the lawsuit filed by descendants of the Native Americans buried thereand who for Bushs sake, hopefully werent among the human remains that were newly unearthed this very week.) Texans want to remember the Alamo, but when this is all over, well be lucky to remember our own names.

With controversies such as the Alamo kerfuffle, its enough to make you wonder why anyone ever wants to run for office. But a new ad from Wendy Davis posits that campaigning can be its own reward, with the former state senator announcing her run for Congress in Texass Twenty-first Congressional District with the rather dubious slogan, Running for office is truly the Gift That Gives Back. Thats true in one regard, at least: its already given Davis plenty of attention, thanks to its topical-ish spoof of that Peloton commercial that briefly unleashed a storm of online mockery and actually tanked the companys stock. In her version of the ad, Davis tries to get back into campaign shape to run against Republican representative Chip Roy. She documents her journey, from 6 a.m. wake-up calls to go talk to voters to (in a fairly loose interpretation of parody) taking video selfies while astride her own Peloton bike.

Its all perfectly cute, in the self-aware way that all commercial spoofs and campaign ads are, though its certainly a muddled message. After all, most of the negative reaction to the Peloton ad was centered on the idea that the woman was something akin to a hostage. She didnt have to be doing this. She only seemed to be committing herself to this pointless slog to prove something to a manor, in the most charitable reading, out of some doing-it-for-the-Gram narcissism. Neither is perhaps the subtext her campaign intended for Daviss reintroduction to politics. Theres also something slightly desperate about the fact that Davis tagged her post with the accounts for both actor Ryan Reynolds and his Aviation Gin, acknowledging the companys own Peloton spoof, but also not-so-subtly asking for his help making it go virala plea that, adding to the overall cringe factor, Reynolds seems to have ignored. Hopefully Daviss team will offer something a little more substantive next time, and resist the urge to dress her up as Baby Yoda.

Also spinning his wheels this week, former presidential candidate Beto ORourke has lately retreated to the familiar, returning to the comforting bosom and lowered stakes of state politics, and concentrating on offering general support for local progressive candidates. So it comes as no surprise that hes wrapped his face in the security blanket of a scruffy unemployment beard, which ORourke seems to grow whenever he no longer has voters to answer to. Good thing, too, seeing as Betos beard tends to be as polarizing as his thoughts on gun control.

Much as it did when he grew it out last January, not long after ORourke lost to (a similarly freshly bearded) Senator Ted Cruz, Betos beard has once again divided the nation over whether its a sign of virility or of depression, a bold reclamation of his free-agent status or some form of post-breakup wallowing. (For his part, Cruz himself approves.) But even more troublinglyand metaphoricallyBetos beard just doesnt seem to be generating the same level of excitement this time around. Even the parody Twitter account @BeardBeto appears to have lost interest long ago, apparently growing disenchanted enough to switch allegiances to [Elizabeth] Warrens Unscented Deodorant. Maybe Betos beard should have stuck closer to his face for a while, until it achieved the fullness it needed before branching out.

While Beto ORourke is out there letting his beard down in the freaky, ramble-tamble of semi-post-political life, maybe hell cross paths with Rick Perry, whos been similarly cut loose to follow his heartno longer answering to The Man, or the people who want to know how he might have helped The Man exact certain political pressures on foreign countries. Indeed, after bidding a perfectly timed farewellto the Department of Energy, Perry seems to have found a new source of his own. Perrys apparently been burning, burning, burning, like a fabulously coiffed Roman candle, hurtling across some sort of mad, Kerouacian journey to the heart of the American dream, only to end up stranded somewhere outside of Cisco.

The setback seems to have been temporary, at least, as Perry says he soon found himself rescued by at least 5 good Texans and one very good dog, a menagerie that swept Perry off the side of the highway and gave him a lift to the airport for his next adventure.

Who knows where Perrys boho odyssey will take him next, or what fellow travelers will join his restless search for kicks? Nothing behind him but Ukrainian lawsuits, nothing before him but cozy rewards from the private sector, as is ever so on the road. Why, this time tomorrow he could be watching a bullfight down Mexico way, or appearing on Fox News, or splitting a can of beans with a railcar hobo, or appearing on Fox News. Heres to the next patch of stars Perry lays his head under. Hopefully its nowhere near Washington, D.C. Or the Alamo.

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How Ivanka and Eric Trump conquered the world and rescued Christmas – The Guardian

Posted: at 7:44 pm

Ivanka Trump has ended 2019 in the most Ivanka way possible: conducting a pretend interview with a friendly journalist at a conference that she was not fit to attend.

Over the weekend, the first daughter rounded off a year of tirelessly promoting herself with an appearance at the Doha Forum, which is one of those Davos-like conferences where the rich and powerful get together to hobnob and release huge amounts of hot air into the atmosphere. All in the name of solving the worlds most complex problems, of course.

As usual, Ivanka was one of the least qualified people in the room but also one of the most shameless. While government officials such as Turkeys foreign minister and Rwandas president fielded hard-hitting questions from journalists, Ivanka was interviewed by Morgan Ortagus, a US state department spokeswoman and former Fox News contributor. In other words, Ivanka basically sat down for an interview with her own PR person.

As you can imagine, the questions were brutal. Ortagus delivered sycophantic prompts such as: You were able to put womens prosperity into the national security strategy. That was so important to me that you did that and Id love for you to explain that. Obligingly, Ivanka waxed lyrical about how wonderful she is, while Ortagus oohed and aahed.

Ivankas extraordinarily softball interview raised some eyebrows. Even Vladimir Putin doesnt get interviewed by [the Kremlin press secretary] Dmitri Peskov, complained one Russian journalist. Poor Ivanka was immediately dismissed as Nepotism Barbie by the Twitterati, which was rather below the belt; Barbies daddy never gave her a high-ranking job in the government.

But that is enough snark. Whatever you think of Ivanka, she has achieved an astonishing amount this year. As her father announced recently to the Economic Club of New York, she single-handedly created 14m jobs which is truly remarkable when you consider that the entire US economy has added only 6m jobs under Trump.

Of course, Ivanka has done more than anyone to empower women. In February, she launched the Womens Global Development and Prosperity initiative to help 50 million female entrepreneurs globally. This would be great, were it not for the fact that her daddys government has made enormous cuts to foreign aid and reinstated the global gag rule that means international NGOs are barred from US government health funding if they perform or promote abortions. As Oxfam has noted, Ivankas initiatives wont even come close to making up for the damage done by the Trump administration.

The inspiring thing about Ivanka is that reality never gets in her way. She is blessed with the opposite of imposter syndrome. She is a motivational quote in high heels there is nothing Ivanka thinks she cant do. To be fair, there is little she hasnt done. This year alone, she rubbed shoulders with world leaders at the G20; sashayed into North Korea with her papa and declared the experience surreal; patronised women on a grand tour of Africa; and bought the worlds whitest dog.

It is easy to laugh at her. But if 2019 has taught us anything, it is that the Trump family is having the last laugh. They have weaponised exhaustion. From day one of Donalds presidency, they have eschewed established norms and acted shamelessly. Meanwhile, the rest of us have grown too tired to remain outraged. We have become used to Ivanka placing herself on the world stage. But beware: the woman is a wolf in chic clothing.

Sticking with the Trumps, sad news from the muddy trenches of Manhattan, where I have spent the better part of a decade fighting the war on Christmas. It has been a bloody battle and there have been times when my comrades in the PC army have come tantalisingly close to victory. Alas, our enemy triumphed. We must finally admit defeat: the war on Christmas has been lost. The Trumps and their allies have won. And by God are they smug about it.

We now dont have the political correctness we used to, crowed the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro during a recent interview with Eric Trump (the blond one who looks perpetually confused) and his wife, Lara. People are actually saying: Merry Christmas.

Lara joyously concurred. You can say Merry Christmas again! she exclaimed. Isnt that so nice, Jeanine? Eric agreed that it was just so nice, Jeanine. Its incredible, he enthused, as best his seventh-grade vocabulary would allow. It is nice to say Merry Christmas again This is what the American dream is all about We can sit there with a Santa Claus and with beautiful trees and eat ice-cream. Activities that, of course, were outlawed under Obama.

If you werent a footsoldier in the war, you could be forgiven for not knowing the conflict even existed. Of all the stealth battles that have been fought, the war on Christmas was truly the stealthiest. No one but the devout viewers of Fox knew it was happening. Indeed, according to a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University, watching Fox increased the likelihood someone would believe in the festive conflict by between 5% and 10%. It is almost as if the whole thing was a delusion dreamed up by the right.

But worry not, my friends: all is not lost. The war may be over, but there are plenty more battles to fight. I dont know about you, but I am going to spend the non-denominational holidays recharging my environmentally friendly batteries. And then I am off to fight in the war against men.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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How Ivanka and Eric Trump conquered the world and rescued Christmas - The Guardian

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Checking the Donald – The Jakarta Post – Jakarta Post

Posted: at 7:44 pm

With Donald Trump, you somehow know that trouble will find him and that impeachment is a question of when rather than if.

Even before being elected into office in 2016, he had made numerous statements (e.g. Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists) and done things (including paying hush money to a porn star) that were beyond the pale, things that could make him, using the parlance of todays generation, canceled.

Once in office, there was no stopping his aversion to political correctness and bad behavior. When a bunch of white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, North Carolina and one protester was killed, he failed to condemn what was a blatant case of racism and white nationalism.

Neither has Trump made any efforts to improve civility while in the White House. He has regularly attacked women, people of color and even some of the most respected figures in American politics. In international fora, Trump professed his admiration for controversial figures and strongmen, including the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And then there are his incessant tweets.

Of course, none of these deviations from the norm has risen to the level of criminality. Its just Trump being Trump, as some of his supporters like to say.

But more than just turning United States politics into an ugly spectacle, Trump has in his almost three years in office delivered blow after blow to American democracy. His effort to withhold military aid to Ukraine until President Volodymir Zelenksy launches an investigation into Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden was a barefaced effort to rig what should be a free and fair US presidential election in 2020.

And if a democracy's health could be measured by the power holders respect for political opponents, free media and independent judiciary and bureaucracy, after three years of Trump, American democracy is not doing well.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump threatened to jail his opponent Hillary Clinton once he got into office. When he picked William Barr as attorney general earlier this year, one of his primary directives was to launch an investigation into possible wrongdoing by the Clintons.

The Ukraine scandal has also brought to light the effort from Trump to pack bureaucracy with yes-men who would do his dirty work and get rid of professional diplomats like Ambassador Marie Yovanonitch. And who could ignore his daily attacks on the media by calling all negative news about him fake news spread by the corrupt media.

For Democratic Party congressmen and congresswomen who cast their yea votes to impeach Trump on Wednesday, the 45th president is a clear and present danger to American democracy; the impeachment process is part of the checks-and-balances mechanism to prevent the rise of a strongman that would even further abuse his political office for personal gain.

What the House has decided may be annulled by the Senate, now packed with Trump-pliant Republican senators. But the momentous vote on Wednesday indicates that democracy is still alive in America. We just dont know for how long.

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Rotten Tomatoes Score Revealed for Netflix’s The Witcher Starring Henry Cavill – Bounding Into Comics

Posted: at 7:44 pm

The Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores for Netflixs The Witcher starring Henry Cavill have arrived.

The Rotten Tomatoes Critic score sits at 62% with an average rating of 6.07 out of 10 based off 26 reviews. There are 16 fresh reviews and 10 rotten reviews.

Heres what the critics are saying:

Dan Fienberg at The Hollywood Reporter gives the show a Rotten review. He writes, Will you like The Witcher if youre a curious neophyte? Maybe, but you have to be patient with it, and if thats not your job, the outsized amusements may not be worth the convoluted build-up.

Mike Hale at the New York Times gives the show a positive review. He writes, If it sounds like that could be fun, youre right. The Witcher has a lighthearted sense of humor.

Ed Power at the Daily Telegraph gives the show a 3 out of 5 with a Rotten rating. He writes, The Witcher, by contrast, is more muddled than Machiavellian and also, perhaps, the mother of all missed opportunities.

Kimberly Ricci at Uproxx gives the show a fresh score. She writes, This series might finally make people stop referring to [Henry] Cavill as Superman or ex-Superman and, instead, as a theater-trained actor who made a nerd-fueled passion project which, yes, really has no business being this enjoyable.

Jacob Oller at Paste Magazine gives the show an 8.3 out of 10. He writes, The Witcher is a wildly entertaining treat for newcomers and long-time fans alike.

Alex Abad-Santos at Vox gives the show a 1.5 out 5. He writes, I suppose we, dead baby included, cant be as lucky as Henry Cavills leather, only experiencing The Witcher in tiny doses and getting to do so while being worn to death by the mortal hug of Cavills thighs.

Erik Kain at Forbes gives the show a 9 out of 10. He writes, If youre looking for an original dark fantasy with some horror elements, some bare skin and plenty of blood and gore (and monsters) look no further. The Witcher, I am quite sure, is destined to surprise and delight.

The Audience Score sits at 88% with an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 from 560 reviews.

Heres what viewers are saying.

Joshua S gives the 5 stars. He writes, Perfectly faithful to the canon, and fantastically casted, directed and acted. From a lifelong Witcher fan, this is wonderful.

Sandra G gives the show 5 stars. She writes, This is what I wanted.

Adam K gives the show a half star. He writes, Strange, I dont like it.

Mike K gives the show five stars. He writes, As a fan of the books, its about as good as you could hope for in a streaming series adaptation. Ignore the critics that wanted Game of Thrones 2.0, this isnt that.

Krzysztof S gives the show one and a half stars. He writes, They have cut too much and changed too many characters so most of the fontal story losses most of the meaning. I dont like political correctness. Maybe if I hadnt read the books, I would have given a better mark.

Iris L gives the show 5 stars. She writes, Completely blown away. Cavill is fantastic as Geralt. Definitely a must watch!

Phoe N gives the show 1 star. They write, I like Henry Cavill and appreciate his enthusiasm for this role. Personally, I am turned off by killing an animal in a film if it doesnt have any significance or symbolism. Like when a cat got eaten by a sea creature in an Oscar winner a few years ago. Its in poor taste and unneeded. Apart from that, The Witcher was hyped up so much I expected it to be much better. It was like a Syfy Channel B-series. I cannot see how anyone could compare it to Game of Thrones. If youre a Cavill fanatic or know the books, you might like it. But from the perspective of someone who is unfamiliar, it didnt do it for me. I had no idea about GOT and got hooked on it after the first episode. I got hooked on LOTR. Not The Witcher.

Over on Metacritic, The Witcher has a Metascore of 55 from 14 reviews.

It received 6 positive reviews, 6 mixed reviews, and 2 negative reviews.

Heres what the critics are saying:

William Hughes at The A.V. Club gives the show an 83. He writes, When the worst thing you can say about a series is that every episode ends up being better than the one that preceded it, that leaves an exciting amount of room to grow. Especially when you can see it steadily moving out of the shadow of the show Netflix might have wanted, in favor of the far more interesting series it might actually turn out to be.

Tom Reimann at Collider gives the show an 80. He writes, For all its massive scale, The Witcher is a surprisingly small story centered around three appealing main characters. Its a classic fantasy tale about war and magic and prophecy, with grotesque monsters, supernatural detective work, and political intrigue thrown into the mix. Its all a bit silly, but no more so than Game of Thrones ever was.

Tim Surette at TV Guide gives the show an 80. They write, The barrier for entry with The Witcher is pretty high; between the weird-ass fantasy names, odd story structure, and complicated backstory, its a lot to take on without a little help. I went in knowing very little, but at some point decided f it, Im in, and left wanting to know a lot more. If you can add a new project like The Witcher to your life, you should.

Daniel DAddario at Variety gives the show a 60. He writes, The Witcher also boasts richly expensive visuals and an expansive-seeming world, at least in its first five hoursWhat it lacks, though, is tonal consistency. This is a show with moments of drama and of gruesome violence cut through with a glancing humor that too often feels tossed-off and out-of-place in the world the show has created.

Brian Lowry at CNN gives the show a 45. He writes, Henry Cavill plays the title role in The Witcher, but giving a pulse to this dreary medieval fantasy series is too much of a job even for Superman.

Darren Franich and Kristen Baldwin at Entertainment Weekly gave the show a 0. They wrote, Alas, my destiny is to never watch this borefest ever again.

The User Score on Metacritic currently sits at 6.3 from 321 ratings.

The show received 194 positive ratings, 18 mixed, and 109 negative ratings.

Heres what users are saying:

DizzyStyle gives the show a 4. They write, Actually this isnt bad but Its Witcher. This should be EPIC. Instead they create something usual. Not canonical Misscasting (triss, yen and other girl roles no comments) Poor backgrounds (scenes/actions/graphics) Too mush tolerance for brutal east European fantasyThis film try to please everyone but instead this film just please too much tolerant and casual people.Witch is brutal, no comprise and dark fantasy. But this is just a netflix teleshow.

LeonCorvin gives the show a 1. They write, This is what happens when you push a modern, tolerant agenda into a series on Slavic fantasy and ignore the canon of original books.

MightyMike gives the show a 1. They write, Bad acting backed up by even worst writing. Convoluted plot of the first episode made from various bits and pieces of at least two short stories was just a preview of how much Netflix writers can turn masterpiece into a piece of crap.

This, plus terrible dialogs, utterly craptastic casting choices and just low overall quality of the show force me to pick the lesser evil (which is give this show a 1 and warn all of you!)

Smalo gives the show a 3. They write, Hennry is good as Gerals everything else is not good. The Witcher should be on slavic culture not on western and there this show lost it s soul.I would get 0 score but i will get 3 just because of Hennry.

KUTC gives the show a 10. They write, Awesome season and great start for a long-distance series. Hope people will get that it is an adaptation and a fantasy world. As Sapkowski himself said, when he curated the series along the way, that it never was a clear slavic novels, it is about the story, not about the world or individuals. I hope that this mess that infantiles are causing will end soon and they will see the series for themselves, for a change. Can bet 90% of them never read the books nor played Witcher besides the third one. Long live Withcer. Hope this saga will see its end on a screen and all of the stories will be told.

Starilent gives the show a 5. They write, he story telling is a mass, and some characters are disaster. I dont mind some adaptation differ from the original books, but this adaptation is so bad It lost a lot of good or key parts of books, but used the time to make Yennfer a childish **** ( while I LOVE this character in books and games).And I really doubt that peoples who never read the original books could understand what happened in this show, cause they never explain any necessary information like what witcher is, why they drink that potions, why people hates them, what is the conjunction of sphere, witchers and mages age really slow and could live hundreds of yearsIts a bad thing that you have to read the book or played the game first to enjoy the show.

VonSeux gives the show a 4. They write, Dont you feel disconnected from the show when everything, even light, is post processed, and so Fake? I do not care about book or game fidelity but this is just not good drama.

MrMonsters gives the show a 6. They write, Unfortunately, great production design and amazing fight scenes cannot make up for the shows flat performances and dull dialogue.

Have you see The Witcher yet? What did you think about it? If not do you plan on checking it out?

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Opinion: Are we about to have another ‘free speech’ debate in Denmark? If so, Ill pass – The Local Denmark

Posted: at 7:44 pm

On Wednesday, sections of the country and its social media were up in arms after Pernille Vermund, leader of the stridently anti-immigration, right-wing Nye Borgerlige party, used the word perker the Danish languages quintessential ethnic slur in a television documentary.

READ ALSO: Danish party leader uses ethnic slur in TV documentary

Vermund subsequently doubled down on the remark, saying I don't regret it. Let's call things what they are. If you're a negro, you're a negro; if you're aperker, you're aperker, if you're an immigrant, you're an immigrant.

Understandably, that got a reaction.

Natasha al-Hariri, director of the youth organization of the Danish Refugee Council, has called for a broad rejection of Vermunds sentiments.

Should we not show the 400,000 people in Denmark who could be considered perkere that we dont accept this type of derisory, racist remark? It would actually be nice if someone bothered, al-Hariri tweeted.

She is of course completely correct, and as a target of such abuse has a lot more authority to speak on it than I do.

Politicians including Sikandar Siddique, immigration spokesperson with the environmentalist Alternative party, and Social Liberal deputy leader Sofie Carsten Nielsen have in fact spoken out against Vermund and to support al-Hariris view.

Weve been here before though, and the next steps are clear.

Vermund or a like-minded high-profile person will say she can say use the word or any other word she wishes to because in Denmark there is free speech, and that will never be curbed by any kind of censorship.

The 2005 Mohammed cartoons, still a high water mark for Danish cultural tunnel vision, and multiple defences of the use of other words with overtones of racial prejudice neger is the primary example provide the precedents for where were headed here.

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Its fine, goes the logic, to be politically incorrect and say or do something which has an othering effect on a large segment of your own society, because free speech.

Even if it makes your advanced, stable, pragmatic democracy seem like a tribute act to 19th century parochialism, thats okay. Because free speech.

I get it. Denmark has free speech. Nothing is sacred. You can make distasteful jokes and laugh at inappropriate things. Im all for that, its part of the honest, straightforward mentality that makes Denmark unique.

Its not an excuse to piss people off for the sake of it. That is what Vermund is doing here and what Rasmus Paludan, the leader of a far-right group which, unlike Vermund's, was rejected by the electorate, was prepared to go to far more extreme lengths to achieve.

After making an unprovoked verbal attack on your chosen target community, you can then invoke free speech, make yourself a victim of political correctness and censorship, and use that to try and drive a wedge down the middle of the population.

Weve seen the long term outcome of that kind of thing in other Western democracies which I wont mention here (okay, maybe I will).

Last week did indeed see unpleasant opposing demonstrations in Copenhagen between an Islamophobic organization and counter protestors. But Denmark is too pragmatic overall and its political system too sensible and consensus-driven for it to go down the route of the US or UK.

Furthermore, the country is stable and, while of course far from perfect, doesnt have societal ills of a requisite magnitude that they can convincingly be blamed on any particular segment, either fairly or unfairly.

So retrograde, racially divisive language must instead by justified by the Denmark has free speech argument.

MPs and anyone else using this kind of language in the public debate should realize that what theyre doing is not plain talking. Its plain embarrassing, for them and for Denmark.

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What We Know About Andrew Yangs Base – FiveThirtyEight

Posted: at 7:44 pm

Whether hes dancing the Cupid Shuffle or wearing a button pledging to Make Americans Think Harder, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang has run anything but a normal presidential campaign. That seems fitting for a political novice whose background in law and technology has given his campaign an unusual top issue: a signature proposal for a universal basic income Yang calls it the Freedom Dividend to mitigate the effects of automation and job loss on the economy. At one debate, Yang even announced that his campaign would give 10 families $1,000 per month for the next year as a case study for his UBI proposal.

And although Yangs support continues to hover in the single digits about 3 percent nationally, on average he is one of seven candidates who made the December debate, and he is also the only candidate of color to make the cut. So heres a look at what we know about Yangs small, but loyal support the Yang Gang and what it can tell us about his presidential bid.

Yangs strength comes primarily from voters under the age of 45, especially those between the ages of 18-to-29. Take Morning Consults large-sample weekly tracking poll where they interviewed more than 13,000 likely Democratic primary voters nationwide from Dec. 9 to Dec. 15. In that survey, Yang received 9 percent support among 18-to-29 year olds, which put him fourth behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (44 percent), former Vice President Joe Biden (18 percent) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (12 percent). So even though Yang had far less overall support in the poll than Sanders (4 percent versus 22 percent), Yang actually had the largest share of supporters under the age of 45 (74 percent compared with Sanderss 69 percent).

Share of overall support for Democratic presidential candidates from primary voters younger than 45 vs. those 45 or older, according to Morning Consults weekly tracking survey

Data for Morning Consult weekly tracking poll conducted Dec. 9-15, with sample size of 13,384 respondents. Only candidates polling at 2 percent or higher were included. Calculations were made with data rounded to the tenths place.

Source: Morning Consult

Additionally, Yang enjoys less overall support among the older half of the 18-to-44 range, with the backing of about 5 percent of 30-to-44 year olds, putting him fifth behind Sanders, Biden, Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

As for why Yang has an outsized appeal among younger voters given his overall standing, he has without question run an internet-savvy campaign, leaning into the meme culture popular among his supporters online. Hes also appeared on well-known podcasts, answered questions from users on Reddit and Quora and promised to give one Twitter user $1,000 per month just for retweeting him, which attracted over 100,000 retweets. But Yang also hasnt shied away from discussing the dark underbelly of technology. Thats an issue that resonates with many young people, who have grown up in an era where tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google have dominated the marketplace and are helping alter the future of work. Yang thinks a UBI is necessary to counteract this sort of economic disruption, especially as things continue to change in the coming years.

Yang, who has been called a doomer because of his outlook, believes President Trump won in 2016 because people were worried about losing their jobs in a fast-changing world. And as young people are most familiar with the ins and outs of new technology, its understandable why a candidate who is heavily engaged with technologys benefits and pitfalls may be so attractive to younger voters.

In addition to Yangs support trending young, it is also very male. For instance, in that Morning Consult survey, Yang earned 11 percent among 18-to-29 year-old men versus just 6 percent among women in that same age group. And according to The Economists polling with YouGov, his support among men in this age group is about 10 percent, while his support among women is in the low-to-mid single digits. Interestingly, differences between men and women largely disappear among older age groups.

Theres also evidence of Yangs appeal to younger male voters aside from the polls, however. For example, an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics in November found that women were less likely than men to contribute to his campaign only 29 percent of Yangs itemized contributions have come from female donors so far. (Only Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has raised less among women donors 24 percent.) Another sign is Yangs share price in betting markets, whose participants are predominantly young men. As of publication, PredictIt prices Yangs shares around 8 cents for winning the Democratic nomination analogous to a slightly less than 10 percent chance despite polling at around 3 percent nationally.

Asian Americans are also a very important part of Yangs base. While Asian Americans will make up only around 5 percent of the primary electorate, Morning Consult found Yang at 19 percent among them, behind only Biden (24 percent) and Sanders (22 percent). And Yangs support among Asian Americans has consistently outdistanced his overall numbers. Back in September, for instance, Yang polled at 8 percent in a survey from AAPI Victory Fund/Change Research of just Asian American and Pacific Islander primary voters even though he was polling at about 2 percent nationally.

Part of this may be because so few Asian Americans have run for president. There were Asian American Hawaiians like Republican Sen. Hiram Fong, who got a handful of votes at the 1964 and 1968 GOP conventions, and Democratic Rep. Patsy Mink, who won a small number of votes in the 1972 primary, but their bids were a long time ago. Granted, former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is Indian American, ran for the Republican presidential nomination last cycle, but he struggled to attract more than 1 percent in the polls and suspended his campaign in November 2015, well before any votes were cast. So in the 2020 primary, Yang, along with Sen. Kamala Harris (who is part Indian American but has since dropped out), have perhaps given Asian American voters at long last someone from their constituency to back, which can help explain why so many have rallied to Yangs side.

As a fellow outsider candidate, Yangs appeal also shares some traits with Gabbards in that Yang also broke through in part via nontraditional venues, including outlets that are considered part of the Intellectual Dark Web, a politically amorphous network that generally criticizes concepts such as political correctness and identity politics. Like Gabbard, Yang also hasnt shied away from going on conservative talk shows, doing interviews with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, whereas some Democrats have refused to appear on Fox News. Yangs donor count also exploded after appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts in the country, which also helped Gabbards campaign.

Still, for being an outsider candidate, Yang doesnt get as much support from Trump supporters or conservatives as Gabbard does. In last weeks poll from The Economist/YouGov, for instance, 25 percent of Trump voters who said they plan to vote in the 2020 Democratic primary said they intended to support Gabbard, versus just 2 percent who said they would support Yang. Similarly, in that Morning Consult poll, Gabbard received 5 percent among very conservative and conservative primary voters (and very little support among more liberal voters), whereas Yangs support was more ideologically balanced, ranging anywhere from 2 to 4 percent across all five ideological groups.

Nor does Yang get as much disproportionately liberal support as another outsider in the race: Sanders. Thats despite notable overlap between Sanderss supporters and Yangs supporters, according to Morning Consults second choice voter data. That Morning Consult survey found that 8 percent of Sanderss supporters picked Yang as their second choice, while a whopping 33 percent of Yangs backers said Sanders was their backup option. Yet in that same poll Sanders got the most support from very liberal and liberal voters (29 percent and 22 percent, respectively) and less from moderate and conservative voters as a whole, so his support was more weighted toward more liberal voters than Yangs.

However, one thing that all three candidates have in common is that all three attract higher levels of support from self-identified independents than Democrats. This isnt exactly a surprise for Sanders, considering he did better among independents than Democrats in the 2016 primary. But in that Morning Consult poll, the trend is obvious: Sanders earned 28 percent support among independents, compared with 21 percent among Democrats, while Yang earned 6 percent support from independents, compared with 3 percent among Democrats. Gabbard also picked up 4 percent among independents and only 1 percent among Democrats. This generally holds up across other polls, too, in which all three candidates get higher percentages among independents than Democrats, though obviously there be will more self-identified Democrats voting in the primary than independents.

With only seven candidates making the cut for Decembers debate, its fair to say that Yangs outsider candidacy has broken through in the Democratic primary in large part thanks to enthusiasm for him among younger voters and Asian Americans.

The question now is whether he can expand his appeal beyond 3 or 4 percent nationally. Raising nearly $10 million in the third quarter certainly helps his case thats real money he can use to build an on-the-ground campaign structure in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. And with an army of small donors, Yang may have a reliable source of money to broaden his reach. Still, the crowded group of four candidates at the top of the polls will make it tough for him to actually win the nomination.

Nonetheless, Yangs continued presence in the primary when other candidates with more traditional resumes have already dropped out speaks volumes to his appeal. Perhaps Thursday night will be an opportunity for him to gain real momentum. After all, despite speaking the fewest words in the last debate, Yangs net favorability improved the most of any candidate on stage in our polling with Ipsos. Maybe dont write Yang off just yet, even if a lot would have to go right for him to break into the top four.

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It’s a very bad week for Donald Trump but he remains a dangerous foe – Salon

Posted: at 7:44 pm

On Wednesday, Donald Trump will likely be impeached by the House of Representatives for high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States Constitution, American democracy and the rule of law. Even though Trump will certainly be acquitted in the Senate by his Republican minions, his impeachment is long overdue and very much earned.

On Sunday night, the House Judiciary Committee released its 658-page impeachment report, summarizing Trump's crimes:

He has abused his power in soliciting and pressuring a vulnerable foreign nation to corrupt the next United States Presidential election by sabotaging a political opponent and endorsing a debunked conspiracy theory promoted by our adversary, Russia. He has engaged in a pattern of misconduct that will continue if left unchecked. Accordingly, President Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

On Monday, Trump released a totally unhinged six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attacking her, the House Democratic majority and the entire impeachment process. It is a truly astonishing document, unlike anything ever previously written (or dictated) by an American president, a semi-literate display of false claims, victimology and grievance-mongering. As Daniel Dale and Tara Subramaniam of CNN have written,"It was on White House letterhead. It read like a string of President Donald Trump's tweets.And it was just as dishonest."

In total, Donald Trump is the nightmare scenario envisioned by the framers. He is precisely why they included impeachment and removal from office in the Constitution as a remedy for a tyrant or other usurper of democracy and the rule of law.

Historian Jeffrey Engel, co-author of Impeachment: An American History, explained this to Sky News:

Their primary examples of when a president would need to be removed from office all involved a president who worked with foreign powers, who came under the influence of foreign powers, and in particular who in some way lied or disseminated in order to achieve office, and then achieve office again, to keep their first commission of crimes from being found out. So I think this is the one that is the closest to what the founders actually feared.

Contrary to warnings by Beltway insiders and others that impeaching Donald Trump would lead to a backlash against the Democrats among voters, so far the opposite appears to have happened.

Since the Ukraine scandal first hit the news, opinion polls have shown a growing level of support for impeaching Trump. In fact, more Americans now support impeaching Donald Trump than supported the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974.

Even Fox News, which functions as Trump state-sponsored media, has been forced to admit that almost half of registered voters want to see Trump impeached and removed from office. Their result was very close to the average of 48 percent or so across a range of other polls.

In response, Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News on Twitter condemning their poll as [A]lways inaccurate, are heavily weighted toward Dems. So ridiculous same thing happened in 2016. They got it all wrong. Get a new pollster!"

Trumps opponents and critics have reason to feel ebullient: Even the network that is Trumps most stalwart defender and ally has evidence that the public mood has turned increasingly hostile toward him.

But Trump should perhaps be happier if he looked more closely. And his detractors should moderate their gloating.

A closer examination of the new Fox News poll shows that support for impeaching Donald Trump is largely a function of extreme political polarization and the power of the right-wing disinformation machine. The presidents Republican voters continue to support him in overwhelming and consistent numbers.

The Fox News poll also shows Trump being defeated by all of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, with Joe Biden leading Trump by seven points. But viewed in a broader context, that poll also indicates thatTrumps overall job approval has remained steady throughout the impeachment process and for most of three years in office.

Writing at the Atlantic, David Graham explores this phenomenon:

The lack of movement over the past few weeks, given the overwhelming evidence, is certainly disheartening. As Michael Tesler writes in The Washington Post, the most persuadable voters arent paying much attention to the impeachment. Most voters are likely following their party affiliation: A long line of social science research shows that when political elites are this sharply divided, the public follows their lead. Partisan messaging is so powerful that Americans tend to adopt their partys standpoint even when that position runs counter to science and objective facts.

Thus the paradox of impeachment politics: Supporting impeachment is anathema for Republicans. Supporting impeachment seems to be hurting vulnerable Democratic politicians, at least marginally. But support for impeachment remains remarkably strong, and also, Trumps approval remains as stable as ever.

Centrist Democrats and their allies in the news media who still insist on dispensing conventional wisdom about the enduring strength of Americas political institutions, and about the inherent decency of Trumps voters, are incapable of accepting a basic fact: Donald Trump is loved by his supporters and has the highest level of base support among any president in the history of modern polling largely because of his disregard and disdain for democracy, the rule of law and basic human decency. Impeachment will not change that fact. In the worst-case scenario, impeachment may make Trump more popular not less. This will happen because of Trump's shared "victim" narrative with his supporters and because Trump's criminality gives his supporters a deviant thrill.

For Trumpers and other conservatives, impeachment by the Democrats embodies the political correctness they pathologically rail against and obsess about.

Donald Trump lies now more than 15,000 times since taking office, as tallied by the Washington Post. His supporters do not care.

Trumps supporters have also told pollsters that they are concerned or wish that he would tone down his crude and other horrible behavior. Yet they also assure pollstersthat their support for Trump is unwavering. Research has shown that the most ardent Trump supporters and other followers of the global right are attracted to chaos and destruction. They view Donald Trump as a tool for advancing that goal.

Although Trump is an unrepentant and avowed sinner, a cruel and greedy man who puts babies and children in cages, and an abusive lecher who has been credibly accused by numerous women of sexual harassment and sexual assault, a recent poll by PRRI shows that white Christian evangelicals are near-unanimous in their support. These so-called Christians have twisted their own mythology to convince themselves that Trump is Gods tool or prophet and therefore fulfills divine purpose in America and around the world.

Trumps dangerous behavior is not some type of outlier or a special and unique case. In many ways, he is the distillation of todays Republican Party and conservative movement, which is dedicated tousing both quasi-legal and illegal means to keep nonwhites and other likely Democratic voters coalition from voting at all.

Social science research shows that many white Americans embrace authoritarianism as a way of maintaining absolute power as a group instead of sharing power with nonwhite Americans in a multiracial democracy. This echoes repeated findings that racism and racial animus overdetermined Trump support, rather than "economic anxiety" among the white working class. Other research shows that white Republicans, and especially Trump supporters, are much more likely to be racist than are white Democrats.

From the end of the civil rights movement forward, American conservatism has become increasingly allied with white supremacy. As such, todays conservatives view Americas multiracial democracy as an existential threat. The election of Barack Obama created a full-on state of white rage and racial paranoia about the browning of America." This victimology and white rage metastasized into the fascist Trump movement.

Political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of the bestselling book How Democracies Die,"explain this in their September New York Times op-ed, Why Republicans Play Dirty:

The growing diversity of the American electorate is making it harder for the Republican Party to win national majorities. Republicans have won the popular vote in presidential elections just once in the last 30 years.

The problem runs deeper than electoral math, however. Much of the Republican base views defeat as catastrophic. White Christians are losing more than an electoral majority; their once-dominant status in American society is eroding.

American democracy faces a Catch-22: Republicans wont abandon their white identity bunker strategy until they lose, but at the same time that strategy has made them so averse to losing they are willing to bend the rules to avoid this fate. There is no easy exit. Republican leaders must either stand up to their base and broaden their appeal or they must suffer an electoral thrashing so severe that they are compelled to do so.

In the Atlantic, George Packer summarizes the Republican Partys corruption and embrace of authoritarianism:

Todays Republican Party has cornered itself with a base of ever older, whiter, more male, more rural, more conservative voters. Demography can take a long time to change longer than in progressives dreams but it isnt on the Republicans side. They could have tried to expand; instead, theyve hardened and walled themselves off. This is why, while voter fraud knows no party, only the Republican Party wildly overstates the risk so that it can pass laws (including right now in Wisconsin, with a bill that reduces early voting) to limit the franchise in ways that have a disparate partisan impact. This is why, when some Democrats in the New Jersey legislature proposed to enshrine gerrymandering in the state constitution, other Democrats, in New Jersey and around the country, objected.

Taking away democratic rights extreme gerrymandering; blocking an elected president from nominating a Supreme Court justice; selectively paring voting rolls and polling places; creating spurious anti-fraud commissions; misusing the census to undercount the opposition; calling lame-duck legislative sessions to pass laws against the will of the voters is the Republican Partys main political strategy, and will be for years to come.

Republicans have chosen contraction and authoritarianism because, unlike the Democrats, their party isnt a coalition of interests in search of a majority. Its character is ideological.

Trump and the Republicans' embrace of authoritarianism and other anti-democratic behavior is a symptom of other, larger problems in Americas political culture as well.

Too many Americans treat politics as a team-sports contest instead of as a serious, important debate where the countrys future and present are being decided by responsible, reflective citizens. As demonstrated by Patrick Miller and Pamela Johnston Conover in their 2015 Political Science Quarterly article Red and Blue States of Mind," 41 percent of respondents who identified with the Democratic or Republican parties believe that winning is more important than policy goals or advancing a particular ideological agenda. Thirty-eight percent of respondents believed that their political parties should use all available means including cheating, censorship, and violence to win.

Given what is known about asymmetrical polarization in America, the sports team logic of the Republican Party, its media and supporters has repeatedly shown itself to be especially toxic to American democracy and society.

In the final analysis, President Donald Trump is being impeached because he is a political thug and a dreadful person. But these contemptible qualities and behaviors are exactly why so many of his followers are so attracted to him. What Democrats and other decent people see as sins, Trumpers instead see as virtues. This dynamic is a function of the political deviancy and moral inversion common to sick societies.

The way most Democrats and liberals understand the power and allure of Trumpism and what lies ahead, after impeachment and the 2020 election is hamstrung by an unwillingness to accept precisely why Trumps hold over his supporters is so absolute and powerful.

When they go low we go high! and other such high-minded incantations will not defeat authoritarians like Donald Trump. If Democrats want to win in 2020 and beyond, they mustfight both harder and smarterthan they have been willing to fight so far.

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