Conservative Country Songs

Many posts have discussed the politics of popular culture.

Rolling Stone:

EVEN ACROSS THE whole history of the genre, unabashedly conservative country songs are harder to find than non-fans might think. Nashville’s prevailing ethos has always been far more focused on entertainment than on stirring up trouble on sensitive issues, even from a side many core listeners might find sympathetic. But at least since our culture war found its current form during the Vietnam years, twang-infused songs that take up right-wing arguments keep popping up — most recently in the form of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” and Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond.” (The latter song is a complicated case, since its own creator doesn’t see it as conservative — but many of its most vocal initial fans did.) In the wake of those two songs topping the charts, here’s our look at the most conservative country tunes of all time. (And yes, there are also plenty of progressive-leaning country songs, too, from Maren Morris’ “Better Than We Found It” and Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow” to almost anything by Jason Isbell.)

Racial Identity is Fluid

David Byler at WP:

Many Americans assume race is a constant: something people are born into and that — like their birth date or country of origin — simply doesn’t change.

But for a surprising number of us, race is a fluid concept. Polling data show that roughly 8 percent of adults jumped from one racial category to another in recent years. And that has important political implications for the Republican Party.

The best data on race-switching comes from panel surveys conducted by academics. These studies — such as the General Social Survey, the American National Election Studies and the Cooperative Election Study — ask a representative sample of Americans about their views and identities and then contact them again four to eight years later to track how they have changed.

...

In recent elections, some voters changed their race and their vote at the same time.

For example, 59 percent of multiracial Trump converts — that is, mixed-race voters who passed on Mitt Romney in 2012 but voted for Donald Trump in 2016 — also switched their race to White. Among multiracial voters who didn’t support Trump or Romney, only 4 percent moved into the White category.

Juliana Jiménez Jaramillo at Slate:

Ricky and Lucy were considered one of the first interracial couples on television, even though Desi Arnaz, who played Ricky on I Love Lucy, came from a white Cuban family. Despite being white, television executives opposed his casting, saying the public wouldn’t go for a “Latin” as the husband of an “All-American girl.” It was only after Lucille Ball insisted that they reluctantly agreed.

His whiteness wasn’t enough for him to go unnoticed, but it did allow him to get as far as he did in show business in 1950s America. A CBS creative consultant on the I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special, Alex Abella, who is Cuban-born himself, said to Hispanic magazine in 2001, “If Desi were black or had black blood, he wouldn’t have had any success or been allowed on the air. Americans could accept him because—like it or not—he was white.”

Slavery and GWTW

 At The Ankler, historian David Vincent Kimel writes about deleted scenes in the script of GoneWith the Wind.

Remarkably, much of the excised material in my Rainbow Script was a harsh portrayal of the mistreatment of the enslaved workers on Scarlett's plantation, including references to beatings, threats to throw “Mammy” out of the plantation for not working hard enough, and other depictions of physical and emotional violence. Had these scenes remained in the final film, they would have stood in startling juxtaposition to the pageantry on display at the premiere in Atlanta. At the time of production, GWTW’s romanticization of slavery led African American thinkers like Ben Davis to call it “dangerous poison covered with sugar.” William L. Patterson went even further, describing it as “a weapon of terror against black America.” These voices were in the critical minority in the twentieth century, but over time, scholars have increasingly emphasized GWTW’s promulgation of the mythology of the Lost Cause, an interpretation of the Civil War that romanticizes the struggle as a war of Northern aggression that desecrated Southern honor and culture.

The article starts with a remarkable revelation about MLK: 

At the Atlanta premiere of Gone With the Wind on December 15, 1939, the 10-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. was dressed as a slave. It was the second night of an official three-day holiday proclaimed by the mayor of Atlanta and the governor of Georgia. King’s choir was serenading a white audience, directed to croon spirituals to evoke an ambiance of moonlight and magnolias for the benefit of the movie’s famous producer, David O. Selznick.

"America First"

 Sarah Churchwell at WP:

Popular memory, as captured by Wikipedia, currently credits Woodrow Wilson with coining the phrase “America First” during his 1916 presidential campaign. Wilson certainly popularized it, in a 1915 speech urging native-born Americans to view hyphenate immigrant Americans with suspicion and to demand of naturalized citizens: “Is it America first, or is it not?” But he didn’t originate it.

At an 1855 “American convention” held in Philadelphia, the American Party adopted a platform that would have sweepingly denied political and civil rights to immigrants. Speaking during a downpour, a nativist politician from New York told the crowd, to cheers: “American as I am, I decidedly prefer this rain to the reign of Roman Catholicism in this country … I, as an American citizen, prefer this rain or any other rain to the reign of foreignism … I go for America first, last and always.”

“America first, last and always” may sound simply patriotic, but since the 1850s it has consistently invoked nativist restrictionism and economic protectionism, and often urged isolationism. It has often accompanied anti-immigrant violence and conspiracy theories. In 1876, an anti-Catholic editorial called on every American “in this Centennial year, to renew the declaration of independence, to declare himself and the nation free, as it ought to be, from the thraldom of every foreign power — whether England or Rome — and to begin again where our forefathers began, with America first, last and always.”

During the latter decades of the 19th century a widespread belief developed that Britain supported free trade as part of a secret plot to thwart the growth of American industry; Republicans responded with a protectionist tariff and “America First.” Well before Wilson, in 1888, Benjamin Harrison promised home labor and protectionism under the “Republic Banner” of “America First, the World Afterwards!” in an election fought over tariff policy.

Knowledge of Issues and Events -- Including The Slap

Many posts have discussed public knowledge of issues and events.

88% of Americans have seen, read or heard about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars— on par with the general awareness of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and well ahead of other major news events. https://t.co/GLz8apXW1R pic.twitter.com/vLqdQiOjpE

— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) April 1, 2022

Serious Cold Open on SNL

Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York performs Prayer for Ukraine. Saturday Night Live.

Popular Culture and Extremist Recruitment

Marc Fisher at WP:

The far-right groups ... including white supremacists, self-styled militias and purveyors of anti-government conspiracy theories — have created enduring communities by soft-pedaling their political goals and focusing on entertaining potential recruits with the tools of pop culture, according to current and former members of the groups and those who study the new extremism.

They approach young people on gaming platforms, luring them into private rooms with memes that start out as edgy humor and gradually grow overtly racist. They literally sell their ideas, commodifying their slogans and actions as live streams, T-shirts and coffee mugs. They insinuate themselves into chats, offering open ears and warm friendship to people who are talking online about being lonely, depressed or chronically ill.

The pathways into the kind of extremism that led to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, threats against lawmakers and last year’s armed confrontations at state capitals nationwide are often initially anything but ideological.

“All these people who stormed the Capitol and later said, ‘What did I do wrong? I didn’t think it was illegal’ — they want what we all want: belonging, friendship, cultural meaning,” said Robert Futrell, a sociologist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who studies white-power movements. “We gloss over that too often, but in any movement, there’s a festival atmosphere. They gain a feeling of power from being surreptitiously connected through things they enjoy, like music. This is much more complex than just an ideological movement.”

Before conspiracy theories take root, before people decide to break the law because they think society is somehow rigged against them, there is first a bonding process, a creation of connection and camaraderie that encourages members to believe they will now be privy to answers that outsiders cannot know or understand.

“You have neo-Nazis, eco-fascists, conspiracy theorists, and what unites them is the culture, not the ideology — the videos, movies, posters, memes,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism.

De Facto Chinese Censorship of US Films

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian at Axios:

China's box office is projected to soon surpass the U.S. as the largest film market in the world.

• "Access to that market can make or break the success of a major Hollywood film," said James Tager, the author of a recent PEN America report about how the Chinese government censors the U.S. film industry, and how the industry responds by self-censoring.
• But the Chinese government tightly controls access to the market, excluding films that include content it dislikes, and blacklisting individual actors or film studios that have previously participated in activities the Chinese Communist Party doesn't like.

...

Movies also have an almost unmatched ability to instill widespread public sympathy for vulnerable groups and to prolong remembrance of crimes against humanity, such as the Rwandan genocide, depicted in "Hotel Rwanda."

• But the last time a major Hollywood studio made a movie that presented a vulnerable group as the victim of Chinese government aggression was in 1997 with "Seven Years in Tibet" starring Brad Pitt.
• The Chinese government responded by slapping a five-year ban on Columbia TriStar, the production company that made the film — a response that cast a chill over the U.S. movie industry.

The result: Film studios now go out of their way to ensure their movies avoid topics or depictions of China that might fall foul of China's censors.

• "The most significant effect of this censorship and self-censorship is completely invisible, because it involves the movies that are never made," said Tager. "What major Hollywood studio would make a movie about what is happening in Xinjiang, with the internment of over a million Muslims?"
• “For 10 years, you haven’t seen any bad Chinese guys,” said Schuyler Moore, a partner at Greenberg Glusker. “If I saw a script with an anti-Chinese theme, I would advise my client that that film would never be released in China.”

California Drives Out Movie Production

Jen Maffessanti at the Foundation for Economic Education:

In fact, in 2017, only ten of the top 100 movies produced that year were made mostly in California.

It’s no secret that the entire state of California is experiencing a large and sustained out-flow of residents, but Los Angeles County, in particular, is showing the biggest losses. The question is why.

Why is the film industry abandoning its Mount Olympus?...

Sticking with labor costs, California has the second-highest minimum wage in the country at $13 an hour, though that’s set to increase to $15 an hour by 2022. And though there’s still some back-and-forthing going on regarding the notorious AB5 law, many businesses in the state are being told they need to hire their freelancers as (far more expensive) permanent employees.

Not only that, but California’s real estate and housing markets are among the most expensive in the country, a trend that shows no real sign of improving. The state’s zoning and building regulations make innovation difficult. Special preferential political treatment of the California agriculture industry has led to water rationing for individuals during drought conditions.

Take the high costs in California, combine it with fewer people going to the movies, and the result is a shrinking profit margin for production studios.

In fact, drinking water isn’t the only beverage subject to regulation in California. Furthermore, the state’s 2019 kerfuffle with electricity provider PG&E’s rolling blackouts for customers during high winds is also largely a problem created by the meddlesome state government.

Once all of these factors—and the above list is by no means comprehensive—are taken into account, California has the highest poverty rate in the US.

It isn’t that filmmakers don’t want to film in Los Angeles—they do. But all of these combined constraints significantly increase the total costs of filming and producing in California. Heck, not even films set in Los Angeles are being shot in Los Angeles these days.

Production is moving overseas or to states such as Georgia, with generous tax incentives.

The entire state is seeing residents of all kinds leaving. In 2018 alone, the state saw a net loss of about 190,000 residents. That’s slightly more than the entire population of Shreveport, Louisiana. According to a recent UC Berkeley poll, about half of the people still living in California have considered leaving. For Hollywood, history is repeating itself. When asked why, 71 percent cited the high cost of housing and 51 percent said it was because of the high tax burden.

Grace, Reconciliation, and a Veteran

On Saturday Night Live last week, Pete Davidson mocked Dan Crenshaw, a GOP congressional candidate who had lost an eye during combat in Afghanistan.  It was an ugly joke.  A week later, though, he apologized to Crenshaw on air, and the segment turned out to be remarkably moving and patriotic.  Crenshaw -- now a representative-elect from Texas -- not only accepted the apology with grace and wit, he mentioned Davidson's father, a New York firefighter who gave his life on 9/11.

It is a perfect clip to watch on Veterans Day.

Stephen Colbert and Patrick Wilson Sing the National Anthem at Citi Field

A number of posts have discussed the national anthem.  Here is a respectful (and surprisingly good) rendition.

Using Pop Culture to Counter Russian Disinformation

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe at WP report on Russian disinformation in 2016. Richard Stengel, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, tried as early as 2014 to push back.

Stengel’s best bet was Michael M. Lynton, then the chairman of Sony Pictures, who had grown up in the Netherlands and immediately understood what Stengel was trying to do. He recalled how in the 1970s one Dutch political party sponsored episodes of “M.A.S.H.” to portray America as sympathetic to the antiwar movement. A rival party bought the rights to “All in the Family” to send the message that U.S. cities were filled with bigots like Archie Bunker.

But Sony’s agreements with broadcasters in the region prevented Lynton from giving away programming. Other studios also turned Stengel away.

Back in Washington, Stengel got Voice of America to launch a round-the-clock Russian-language news broadcast and found a few million dollars to translate PBS documentaries on the Founding Fathers and the American Civil War into Russian for broadcast in eastern Ukraine. He had wanted programing such as “Game of Thrones” but would instead have to settle for the likes of Ken Burns.

“We brought a tiny, little Swiss Army knife to a gunfight,” he said.

Dab

Four years ago, Rep. Loretta Sanchez did a "Call Me Maybe" video.

At The Los Angeles Times, Christine Mai-Duc reports on the California Senate debate between Sanchez and Kamala Harris:

After being interrupted by the moderator several times, Sanchez finally stopped, pausing to strike a pose as Harris looked on. 

What happened next was at first a mystery.

For viewers at home, the camera showed just a reaction from Harris, who bit her lip and looked to the audience, eyes wide. To see Harris' face, go to 55 minutes and 29 seconds in the video below.

Laughing, Harris says, "So, there's a clear difference between the candidates in this race."

But a photo captured by Los Angeles Times photographer Rick Loomis appears to show Sanchez in a pose resembling "the dab," a dance move created by rap group Migos and popularized by NFL star Cam Newton.

 

Those in the room were left to wonder what exactly the pose meant, Loomis said, but it did not seem to be a curtsy or a bow.

Then, this Twitter video surfaced: It does appear that Sanchez, in fact, "dabbed."

Did Loretta Sanchez #dab at end of Senate debate with Kamala Harris? What do you think? @NBCLA pic.twitter.com/YeAb0zYWsj

— Adrian Arambulo (@AdrianNBCLA) October 6, 2016

The Shallows

Peggy Noonan writes:

In the past 18 months I talked to three young presidential candidates—people running for president, real grown-ups—who, it was clear to me by the end of our conversations, had, in their understanding of modern American political history, seen the movie and not read the book. Two of them, I’ve come to know, can recite whole pages of dialogue from movies. (It is interesting to me that the movies our politicians have most memorized are “The Godfather” Parts I and II.)

Everyone in politics is getting much of what they know through the internet, through Google searches and Wikipedia. They can give you a certain sense of things but are by nature quick and shallow reads that link to other quick and shallow reads. Sometimes subjects are treated in a tendentious manner, reflecting the biases or limited knowledge of the writer.

If you get your information mostly through the Web, you’ll get stuck in “The Shallows,” which is the name of a book by Nicholas Carr about what the internet is doing to our brains. Media, he reminds us, are not just channels of information: “They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” The internet is chipping away at our “capacity for concentration and contemplation.” “Once I was a scuba driver in the sea of words,” writes Mr. Carr. “Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

If you can’t read deeply you will not be able to think deeply. If you can’t think deeply you will not be able to lead well, or report well.

A Problem with "Designated Survivor"

Designated Survivor, a new series that premieres tonight on ABC, is about a low-ranking cabinet officer who becomes president after a terror attack wipes out most of the government.

Federal law (3 U.S. Code § 19) provides that the speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate follow the vice president in the line of succession.  If there are vacancies in both jobs, it goes to Cabinet officers in this order:  Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.

But there is a big problem with the series premise. From the law:

An individual acting as President under this subsection shall continue so to do until the expiration of the then current Presidential term, but not after a qualified and prior-entitled individual is able to act, except that the removal of the disability of an individual higher on the list contained in paragraph (1) of this subsection or the ability to qualify on the part of an individual higher on such list shall not terminate his service.

In other words, as soon as the House or Senate can reassemble and choose a speaker or president pro tem, that person takes over from the cabinet member serving as acting president.  The Congressional Research Service explains:

The House elects a new Speaker, who, upon meeting the requirements, i.e., resigning as a House Member and as Speaker, then “bumps” the cabinet secretary, and assumes the office of Acting President. The President Pro Tempore serving as Acting President could be similarly bumped by a newly-elected Speaker. Both persons would be out of a job under this scenario: the President Pro Tempore, by virtue of having resigned as Member and officer of Congress in order to become Acting President and the senior cabinet secretary, by virtue of the fact that, under the act, “The taking the oath of office
... [by a cabinet secretary] shall be held to constitute his resignation from the office by virtue of the holding of which he qualifies to act as President.”

In the show's scenario, most of the members of the House and Senate die in the terror attack, presumably meaning that there would not be enough to elect a speaker or president pro tem.  In such circumstances, the law allows for expedited special elections to the House. As a practical matter, though, it might take months to repopulate and organize the House.  In the Senate, on the other hand, the 17th Amendment gives states the choice of  gubernatorial appointment or special election.  Thirty-six states take the first route, allowing the governor to fill the vacancy until the next regularly-scheduled, statewide general election.  Fourteen states require a special election, but nine of them allow for a short-term appointment until the election takes place.  So it would probably be possible to reconstitute the Senate in a matter of weeks, at which time it would choose a president pro tem, who would then take over.

Maybe the series will explain this complication away, or perhaps just simply ignore it.

Hamilton!

Intro course in American politics

How most of us have seen Alexander Hamilton:

 

Ron Chernow's biography gives us a different picture of Hamilton. Here is a passage summing up what the born-out-of-wedlock Hamilton and his brother faced in their youth:

Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, 16, and Alexander, 14, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. At every step in their rootless, topsy-turvy existence, they had been surrounded by failed, broken, embittered people. Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths, scandals, and disinheritance. Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being -- that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen -- seems little short of miraculous.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 1: "A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."

Hamlton, Federalist 8: The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.

Or to put it into language with which you are more familiar:




Washington's Farewell Address



Hamilton's letter on Jefferson and Burr

"Better Way"

House Speaker Paul Ryan is announcing an agenda for the House GOP.  Its title, "A Better Way," may seem vaguely familiar.  "The Better Way" was the campaign slogan of fictional California Senate candidate Bill McKay (Robert Redford) in the 1972 movie The Candidate.

Outdated Government Technology

GAO reports:

Federal legacy IT investments are becoming increasingly obsolete: many use outdated software languages and hardware parts that are unsupported. Agencies reported using several systems that have components that are, in some cases, at least 50 years old. For example, the Department of Defense uses 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation's nuclear forces. In addition, the Department of the Treasury uses assembly language code—a computer language initially used in the 1950s and typically tied to the hardware for which it was developed. OMB recently began an initiative to modernize, retire, and replace the federal government's legacy IT systems. As part of this, OMB drafted guidance requiring agencies to identify, prioritize, and plan to modernize legacy systems. However, until this policy is finalized and fully executed, the government runs the risk of maintaining systems that have outlived their effectiveness. The following table provides examples of legacy systems across the federal government that agencies report are 30 years or older and use obsolete software or hardware, and identifies those that do not have specific plans with time frames to modernize or replace these investments.

Brian Fung reports at The Washington Post:

There are parallels here to fiction, which can be just as instructive. In the 2004 hit TV series “Battlestar Galactica,” humanity comes under assault from robots that it created. Much of the human space fleet is taken by surprise, crippled by a robot-built computer virus that spreads from ship to ship thanks to the sophisticated networks linking the crafts together. The Galactica, an obsolete warship due to be mothballed, is one of the few to survive the initial surprise attack. Why? Because the Galactica’s systems were not part of the humans’ IT network, sparing it from the virus that disables the rest of the fleet. The lesson seems clear: Sometimes, newer is not better.

As it happens, a similar logic underpins the U.S. military’s continued use of floppy disks. The fact that America’s nuclear forces are disconnected from digital networks actually acts as a buffer against hackers. As Maj. General Jack Weinstein told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2014:

Jack Weinstein: I'll tell you, those older systems provide us some -- I will say huge safety when it comes to some cyber issues that we currently have in the world.
Lesley Stahl: Now, explain that.
Weinstein: A few years ago we did a complete analysis of our entire network. Cyber engineers found out that the system is extremely safe and extremely secure on the way it's developed.
Stahl: Meaning that you're not up on the Internet kind of thing?
Weinstein: We're not up on the Internet.
Stahl: So did the cyber people recommend you keep it the way it is?
Weinstein: For right now, yes.

Hamilton!

A number of posts have mentioned the Hamilton musical, which is now a Grammy winner.





And in relation to no one in particular...

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 1: "A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."

Alexander Hamilton, Constitutional Convention, June 6, 1787: "An influential demagogue will give an impulse to the whole. Demagogues are not always inconsiderable persons. Patricians were frequently demagogues."

Stan Lee's SCOTUS Cameo

At The Washington Post, Michael Cavna reports on a Supreme Court case involving Marvel:

In summing up the court’s ruling, Kagan actually refers to Spider-Man language from 1962’s Amazing Fantasy No. 15, by co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, by quoting Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben:

“What we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly. Cf. S. Lee and S. Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15: ‘Spider-Man,’ p. 13 (1962) (‘[I]n this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility’). Finding many reasons for staying the stare decisis course and no ‘special justification’ for departing from it, we decline Kimble’s invitation to overrule Brulotte.”

(It should be noted, too, that within an easy web-sling of the Supreme Court, the original art from Amazing Fantasy No. 15 lives at the Library of Congress. This town appreciates its Spidey.)

Comic Riffs, of course, had to get an equally playful reaction from Spider-Man’s co-creator himself.

“It’s kinda nice to be quoted by the Supreme Court,” Lee tells The Post’s Comic Riffs this morning. “The next time they meet in session, I hope they remember my cameo.”
Kagan concluded the court’s ruling by writing: “For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

“It is so ordered.”

Which is essentially her way of writing: “Excelsior!”