Friday, April 28, 2017

A magazine obsessed

Frontpage: "The Left's culture of contempt."
The Atlantic’s May cover features Alec Baldwin covered in orange makeup holding up a Trump wig. The cover asks, “Can Satire Save the Republic?”

What is satire saving the Republic from? Republicans. While making America safe for Socialism.
I subscribe to the Atlantic magazine but there's 0% chance I'm going to re-up in a couple of months.  Before the election, they ran an editorial - only the third in their history - urging Americans to vote against Trump and, if I remember correctly, I agreed with a lot of it.  Since the election, the Atlantic has been trying to justify its editorial with one hit piece after another.

True story: I decided that if the Atlantic ran another cover story about Trump, I was cutting them loose.  Sure enough, this month's issue came yesterday with an orange-coated Alec Baldwin on the cover.  But wait!  There's more!  There's also: "The plan to end Europe" about how Trump's going to destroy a continent, "Golden State Warrior" ("[California] prepares to battle Trump")  and "The Brilliant Incoherence of Trump's Foreign Policy."

But the letter section.  Oh the letter section.  This includes single-minded missives in response to the cover article from two months ago, the over-the-moon hysterical "How to build an Autocracy."  Here's a portion of a letter from some poly-sci professor at Touro College:
The manifestly authoritarian characteristics of the man and many of his advisers lead me to think that a violent crackdown [against protesters] is highly likely. ... A violent crackdown could be the start of attempts by the administration to curb democracy, and possibly even shut down democratic institutions.
For the "Resistance!" the place is always Kent State and the year is always 1984.

1 comment:

Trump Arrangement Syndrome said...

What is satire saving the Republic from? Republicans. While making America safe for Socialism.

Oh, indeed. The key thing that has always defined socialist values and advanced socialist goals is "satire."


Before the election, they ran an editorial - only the third in their history - urging Americans to vote against Trump and, if I remember correctly, I agreed with a lot of it.

A lot of Republicans had the same last wild, meaningless fling before settling down.


Since the election, the Atlantic has been trying to justify its editorial

They can try, but they'll never justify it as well as Trump has.


True story: I decided that if the Atlantic ran another cover story about Trump, I was cutting them loose.

Prudent ground rule. By July 4, you won't have any magazine of any kind left to read.


For the "Resistance!" the place is always Kent State and the year is always 1984.

Which really pisses off the right, which knows the correct answer is Neville Chamberlain and 1938.