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Jeet Heer Profile picture
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30 Oct, 4 tweets, 1 min read
1. Trump's closing message in 2020 is definitely confused and defuse. Very different than 2016 where he closed strongly, with "Crooked Hillary" message in sync with a rhetorical populism that portrayed Trump as foe of the global elite.
2. Trump's 2016 campaign was disgusting on all sorts of levels, but simply in terms of message discipline, especially after Bannon took charge, it was very focused. The problem he has now is that his core anti-system message only works if you are challenger.
3. Since he's now the status quo, economic populism has receded from Trump's messaging. It's still there in dribs and drabs but doesn't structure his argument as it did in the heady Steve Bannon days of 2016. Trump 2020 talks more about stock market than jobs.
4. To use his own terms, Trump is a choker. He's choking like a dog. thenation.com/article/politi…

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More from @HeerJeet

Jeet Heer Profile picture
26 Oct
1. One week out and what is Trump's closing message? That the pandemic isn't really so bad and is being hyped by the media and his opponents. I don't think this is going to do it.
2. Broadly, the pandemic has been good for incumbent parties all over the world, shunting partisan disputes aside and letting them claim mantle of leadership. The USA is one big exception and it's because Trump has steadfastly refused to govern.
3. To be clear, the "covid is fake" message has real appeal to large chunks of Trump's constituency: militia types who want to kidnap their governor, Charles Koch & assorted plutocrats who want "herd immunity" strategy, cranks & contrarians, etc. But it's not a majority message
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
23 Oct
1. Thinking more on last night's debate, one big problem Trump has is that he's never clearly defined Joe Biden. Is Biden the career politician who hasn't done anything to change things for 47 years or is the AOC/Sanders puppet who will usher in a socialist revolution? Both?
2. Is Biden a racist who voted for the crime bill and labelled Black people as "super-predators" or is he the radical who will destroy the suburbs by making it easier for people of color to move there? According to Trump, Biden is both.
3. Is Biden so dementia-addled he doesn't know where he is or is the the all controlling head of an international crime family? According to Trump, Biden is both.
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
22 Oct
1. I too am puzzled by You-Got-Mail-gate because @meaganmday's reading of the film strikes me as the common sense one. In fact I remember making similar arguments nearly 20 years ago!
2. Here's a review I wrote in 2002 about a diverting but forgettable comedy (Brown Sugar) where I bring up You Got Mail and the hidden economic subtext of nearly all romantic comedies.
3. Almost all romantic comedies have an economic subtext because marriage is a union of economic units (households) as well an emotional union. Jane Austen, the greatest of all writers of romantic comedies, knew this & was explicit about the financial status of her characters!
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
21 Oct
1. Speaking of Sacha Baron Cohen, I'll confess that I was partly wrong in anticipating the worst from Sorkin's Chicago 7 movie (where Cohen plays Abbie Hoffman). I thought Sorkin's earnest liberalism would completely miss the anarchic spirit of 1960s.
2. Sorkin is the most 1990s sensibility imaginable, a real distillation of a kind of Clintonian politics that idealizes elite comity. The Chicago 7 trial was the most 1960s event possible -- a moment where the revolt against racism & imperialism destroyed comity.
3. But it's that tension between Sorkin's politics and the politics of the Chicago 7 defendants (not to mention Bobby Seale) that makes the movie worth watching. It's interesting to see how Sorking grapples with the gap & tries to do justice to people who give him the willies
Read 7 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
15 Oct
1. It is a good passage but I'm not sure that it does the work Douthat wants it to in rebutting the idea that Trumpism is authoritarian. Worth remember what Adorno wrote about the element of buffoonery & clowning in fascism.
2. The thing with Adorno is that, contrary to what people who have a stereotypical idea of him might think, he really loved clowns. He was, as a scholar wrote, "a fan" of clowns, mimes, acrobats, circuses. Silliness was genuine utopian break. But he also saw the danger of clowns
3. Here's Adorno on clowns & fascism. The point about how a clownish leader (the classic fascists but more recently Berlusconi, Ford, Trump) serve as a rebuke to respectability is I think acute: the message of clowning is anti-system.
Read 6 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
14 Oct
1. This is a good enriching discussion from smart people (Foner, Hochschild, Katznelson, Wilentz) about Richard Hofstadter, but....
2. but...at 53 minutes in Wilentz says that even though the Library of America anthology contains 5 essays on Barry Goldwater & more on similar themes, it is not repetitive. As someone who read the book, I can confidently state that this false. The book is very repetitive!
3. I documented this in my Nation review but the same sentences keep popping up in the book over & over again. Because Wilentz selected a narrow range of essays rather than give the full scope of Hofstadter's interests.
Read 6 tweets

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