“I lay awake at night wondering, ‘What in the world is going on?’” asked Michelle Obama early in her Saturday rally speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She’s not alone. The woman I spoke with on Friday said the same while choking back tears.
But, holy hell, who writes Obama’s speeches? There is a lot of her in them, obviously. Her convention speech in August pulled few punches. This speech last night, her first since the DNC, featured bare knuckles.
“A scathing indictment of Donald Trump,” said CNN.
“Y’all know I hate politics,” Obama began, referencing the stakes in the presidential election. “But I hate to see folks taken advantage of even more.” She took on the threats to America, and especially to American women. Specifically, from Donald Trump (NPR):
“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse — all of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all,” she said.
Obama described Harris as a “grown up” with a clear set of policies, and said she fears “too many people are willing to write off Trump’s childish, mean spirited antics by saying, ‘Well, Trump’s just being Trump,’ rather than question his horrible behavior. Some folks think he’s funny.”
“That’s exactly how he got elected the first time — folks gave him a pass and rolled the dice betting that he couldn’t possibly be that bad,” she said.
If you don’t have 40 minutes to spare, catch this clip from the finale of her speech. Before this, she lays bare what women face through their lives from menarche to menopause and how, too little, the men in their lives do not appreciate the the tenuousness of women’s reproductive health care they neither understand nor attend.
“So I am asking y’all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously. “
Everyone must watch all 8 minutes and 24 seconds of this speech by Michelle Obama.
It might be the finest I’ve ever heard on the topic of abortion rights, as well as the stakes in this election for American women…and the men who love them.
“If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage,” Obama said, addressing men threatened by societal change and attracted to Trump’s implicit promise of rolling it back.
“So, are you as men, prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety? And to the women listening, we have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better by us. We have to use our voices to make these choices clear to the men that we love — our lives are worth more than their anger and disappointment. And we are more than just baby-making vessels.”
Perhaps only Michelle Obama can give a Michelle Obama speech. But, damn!
(With apologies to Rod Serling for my frightfully tacky paraphrasing) Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of 25 films. Each is a collector’s item in its own way—not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a celluloid canvas, streaming in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare. And …Happy Halloween!
Beauty and the Beast (1946)– Out of myriad movie adaptations of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy tale, Jean Cocteau’s 1946 version remains the most soulful and poetic. This probably had something to do with the fact that it was made by a director who literally had the soul of a poet (Cocteau’s day job, in case you didn’t know). The film is a triumph of production design, with inventive visuals (photographed by Henri Alekan).
Jean Marais is affecting as The Beast, paralyzed by unrequited passion for beautiful Belle (Josette Day). This version is a surreal fairy tale not necessarily made with the kids in mind (especially with all the psycho-sexual subtexts). The timeless moral of the original tale, however, is still simple enough for a child to grasp: It’s what’s inside that counts.
The Blair Witch Project – Love it or hate it, there is no denying the impact of this cleverly marketed horror flick. In the event that you spent 1999 in a coma, this is the one where a crew of amateur actors were turned loose in dark and scary woods, armed with camping gear, video cameras and a plot point or two provided by filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who then proceeded to play creepy, “gotcha” mind games with their young troupe.
The result was surprisingly effective; after all, it’s the perception that “something” in the woods is out to get you that fuels nightmares-not a stunt man in a rubber monster suit lurching about in front of the camera. Arguably, you could cite The LastBroadcast (1998) or relatively more obscure 1980 cult flick Cannibal Holocaust as the progenitors of the “found footage” genre, but The Blair Witch Project took it to a an entirely new level.
Bubba Ho-Tep – This 2002 tongue-in-cheek shocker from Don “Phantasm” Coscarelli could have been “ripped from the headlines”…if those headlines were from The Weekly World News. In order to enjoy this romp, you must unlearn what you have learned. JFK (Ossie Davis) is still alive (long story)…he’s now an elderly African-American gentleman (even longer story). He resides at a decrepit nursing home in Texas, along with Elvis Presley (midnight movie icon Bruce Campbell).
The King and the President join wheelchairs to rid the facility of its formidable pest…a reanimated Egyptian mummy (with a ten-gallon hat) who’s been lurking about waiting for residents to pass on so he can suck out their souls. Lots of laughs, yet despite the over-the-top premise, both Campbell and Davis’ portrayals are respectful; even poignant at times.
Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter – “What he doesn’t know about vampires wouldn’t even fill a flea’s codpiece!” This unusually droll Hammer entry from 1974 benefits from assured direction and a clever script by Brian Clemens (co-creator of The Avengers TV series). Captain Kronos (Horst Janson) and his stalwart consultant, Professor Hieronymus Grost (John Cater) assist a physician in investigating a mysterious malady befalling the residents of a sleepy hamlet…rapidly accelerating aging.
The professor suspects a youth-sucking vampire may be involved…and the game is afoot. Along the way, the Captain finds romance with the village babe, played by lovely Caroline Munro. The film was released at the tail end of Hammer’s classic period; possibly explaining why Clemens seems to be doing a parody of “a Hammer film”.
Delicatessen– Love is in the air…along with the butcher’s cleaver in this seriocomic vision of a food-scarce, dystopian “near-future” along the lines of Soylent Green, directed with trademark surrealist touches by co-directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (The City of Lost Children). The pair’s favorite leading man, Dominique Pinon (sort of a sawed-off Robin Williams) plays a circus performer who moves into an apartment building with a butcher shop downstairs.
The shop’s proprietor seems to be appraising the new tenant with a “professional” eye. In Jeunet and Caro’s bizarre universe, it’s all par for the course (and just wait ‘til you get a load of the vegan “troglodytes” who live under the city). One memorable sequence, a comically choreographed lovemaking scene, is a masterclass in film and sound editing.
Don’t Look Now – This is a difficult film to describe without risking spoilers, so I’ll be brief. Based on a Daphne du Maurier story, this haunting, one-of-a-kind 1974 psychological thriller from Nicholas Roeg (Walkabout, The Man Who Fell to Earth) stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as a couple who are coming to grips with the tragic death of their little girl. Roeg slowly percolates an ever-creeping sense of impending doom, drenched in the Gothic atmosphere of Venice.
Eating Raoul– The late great Paul Bartel directed and co-wrote this twisted and hilarious social satire. Bartel and his frequent screen partner Mary Waronov play Paul and Mary Bland, a prudish, buttoned-down couple who are horrified to discover that their apartment complex is home to an enclave of “swingers”. Paul is even more shocked when he comes home from his wine store job one day and discovers Mary struggling to escape the clutches of a swinger’s party guest who has mistakenly strayed into the Bland’s apartment.
Paul beans him with a frying pan, inadvertently killing Mary’s overeager groper. When the couple discovers a sizable wad of money on the body, a light bulb goes off-and the Blands come up with a unique plan for financing the restaurant that they have always dreamed of opening (and helping rid the world of those icky swingers!). Things get complicated, however when a burglar (Robert Beltran) ingratiates himself into their scheme. Yes, it’s sick…but in a good way.
Ed Wood – Director Tim Burton and his favorite leading man Johnny Depp have worked together on so many films over the last several decades that they are surely joined at the hip by now. For my money, this affectionate 1994 biopic about the man who directed “the worst film of all time” remains their best collaboration. It’s also unique in Burton’s canon in that it is somewhat grounded in reality.
Depp gives a brilliant performance as Edward D. Wood, Jr., who unleashed the infamously inept yet 100% certified cult classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space on an unsuspecting movie-going public in the late 50s. While there are lots of belly laughs, there’s no punching downward at Wood and his decidedly off-beat collaborators; in a way the film is a love letter to outsider film makers. Martin Landau steals his scenes with a droll, Oscar-winning turn as Bela Lugosi. Also with Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette and Jeffrey Jones.
Forbidden Zone – Picture if you will: an artistic marriage between John Waters, Max Fleischer, Busby Berkeley and Peter Greenaway. Now, imagine the wedding night (I’ll give you a sec). As for the “plot”, well, it’s about this indescribably twisty family who discovers a portal to a pan-dimensional…oh, never mind. Suffice it to say, any film that features Herve Villechaize as the King of the Sixth Dimension, Susan Tyrrell as his Queen and soundtrack composer Danny Elfman channeling Cab Calloway (via Satan), is a dream for some; a nightmare for others. Directed by Danny’s brother Richard.
I Married a Witch– Clocking in at 77 minutes, Rene Clair’s breezy 1942 romantic fantasy packs in more wit, sophistication and fun than any ten modern “comedies” you’d care to name put together. I’ll tell you what else holds up pretty well after 80 years…Veronica Lake’s allure and pixie charm. Lake is a riot as a witch who re-materializes 300 years after putting a curse on all male descendants of a Puritan who sent her to the stake.
She and her equally mischievous father (Cecil Kellaway) wreak havoc on the most recent descendant (Fredric March), a politician considering a run for governor. Lake decides to muck up his relationship with his fiancé (Susan Hayward) by making him fall in love with his tormentor. All she needs to do is slip him a little love potion, but her plan fizzes after she accidentally ingests it herself. And yes, hilarity ensues.
J-Men Forever!– Woody Allen may have done it first (What’s Up, Tiger Lily?) and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 troupe has since run the concept into the ground, but Firesign Theater veterans Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman did it best with J-Men Forever.
I am referring to the concept of re-appropriating footage from corny, no-budget B-films and re-dubbing the soundtrack with comic dialogue. I’ve been a devotee of this film since it aired on the USA Network’s after hours cult show Night Flight back in the 80s (alright, raise your bong if you remember that one).
The creators had a sizable archive from the old Republic serials to cull from, so they were not restricted by the narrative structure of one specific film. As a result, Proctor and Bergman’s wonderfully silly concoction about saving Earth from a nefarious alien mastermind called “The Lightning Bug” benefits from quick-cut editing, synced with their trademark barrage of one-liners, puns and double entendre, all set to a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. “Schtay high!”
Mulholland Drive – David Lynch’s nightmarish, yet mordantly droll twist on the Hollywood dream makes TheDay of the Locust seem like an upbeat romp. Naomi Watts stars as a fresh-faced ingénue with high hopes who blows into La-la Land from Somewhere in Middle America to (wait for it) become a star. Those plans get, shall we say, put on hold…once she crosses paths with a voluptuous and mysterious amnesiac (Laura Harring).
What ensues is the usual Lynch mind fuck, and if you buy the ticket, you better be ready to take the ride, because this is one of his more fun ones (or as close as one gets to having “fun” watching a Lynch film). This one grew on me; by the third or fourth time I’d seen it I decided that it’s one of the iconoclastic director’s finest efforts. Peter Deming’s cinematography is stunning. The truly fascinating cast includes Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Michael J. Anderson, Robert Forster, Lee Grant, Chad Everett, Dan Hedaya, and, erm, Billy Ray Cyrus.
Multiple Maniacs – Warning: This 1970 trash classic from czar of bad taste John Waters is definitely not for the pious, easily offended or the faint of heart. The one and only Divine heads the cast who became Waters’ faithful “Dreamland” repertory (Edith Massey, Mink Stole, David Lochary, etc.) in a tale of mayhem, filth and blasphemy too shocking to discuss in mixed company (you’ll never see a Passion Play the same way).
Watching this recently for the first time in several decades, I was suddenly struck by the similarities with the contemporaneous films of Rainier Werner Fassbinder (Love is Colder than Death and Gods of the Plague in particular). Once you get past its inherent shock value, Multiple Maniacs is very much an American art film.
The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) – “Images of wax that throbbed with human passion!” Get your mind out of the gutter…I’m merely quoting the purple prose that graced the original posters for this 1933 horror thriller, directed by the eclectic Michael Curtiz (Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, King Creole, et.al.).
Beautiful (and busy) Fay Wray (who starred in King Kong the same year) captures the eye of a disturbed wax sculptor (a hammy Lionel Atwill) for reasons that are ah…more “professional” than personal. Wray is great eye candy, but it is her co-star Glenda Farrell who steals the show as a wisecracking reporter (are there any other kind of reporters in 30s films?). Farrell’s comedy chops add just the right amount of levity to this genuinely creepy tale. A classic.
Night of the Hunter – Is it a film noir? A horror movie? A black comedy? A haunting American folk tale? The answer would be yes. The man responsible for this tough-to-categorize 1957 film was one of the greatest acting hams of the 20th century, Charles Laughton, who began and ended his directorial career with this effort. Like a great many films now regarded as “cult classics”, this one was savaged by critics and tanked at the box office upon its initial release (enough to spook Laughton from ever returning to the director’s chair).
Robert Mitchum is brilliant (and genuinely scary) as a knife-wielding religious zealot who does considerably more “preying” than praying. Before his condemned cell mate (Peter Graves) meets the hangman, he talks in his sleep about $10,000 in loot stashed on his property. When the “preacher” gets out of the slam, he makes a beeline for the widow (Shelly Winters) and her two young’uns. A disturbing tale unfolds. The great Lillian Gish is on board as well. It’s artfully directed by Laughton and beautifully shot by DP Stanley Cortez.
No Such Thing– Director Hal Hartley’s arch, deadpan observations on the human condition either grab you or leave you cold, and this modern Beauty and the Beast tale is no exception. TV news intern Beatrice (Sarah Polley) is sent to Iceland to get an exclusive on a real-life “monster” (Robert Burke), an immortal nihilist who kills boredom by drinking heavily and terrorizing whomsoever is handy.
After her plane goes down en route, her cynical boss (Helen Mirren) smells an even bigger story when Beatrice becomes the “miracle survivor” of the crash. The Monster agrees to come back to N.Y.C. if Beatrice helps him track down the one scientist in the world who can put him out of his misery.
The pacing in the first half is leisurely; dominated by the Monster’s morose, raving monologues, set against the stark, moody Icelandic backdrop (I was reminded of David Thewlis’ raging, darkly funny harangues in Naked). Once the story heads for New York, however, the movie turns into a satire of the art world (a la John Waters’ Pecker), as the couple quickly become celebrities du jour with the trendy Downtown crowd.
Psycho – Bad, bad Norman. Such a disappointment to his mother. “MOTHERRRR!!!” Poor, poor Janet Leigh. No sooner had she recovered from her bad motel experience in Touch of Evil than she found herself checking in to the Bates and having a late dinner in a dimly lit office, surrounded by Norman’s unsettling taxidermy collection. And this is only the warm up to what Alfred Hitchcock has in store for her later that evening (anyone for a shower?).
This brilliant thriller has spawned so many imitations, I’ve lost count. While tame by today’s standards, several key scenes still have the power to shock. Twitchy Tony Perkins sets the bar for future movie psycho killers. Joseph Stefano adapted the spare screenplay from Robert Bloch’s novel. Also in the cast: Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsalm, and Simon Oakland.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Speaking of Fay Wray…50 of years of midnight showings have not diminished the cult status of Jim Sharman’s film adaptation of Richard O’Brien’s stage musical about a hapless young couple (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) who have the misfortune of stumbling into the lair of one Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) one dark and stormy night. O’Brien co-stars as the mad doctor’s hunchbacked assistant, Riff-Raff.
Much singing, dancing, cross-dressing, axe-murdering, cannibalism and hot sex ensues-with broad theatrical nods to everything from Metropolis, King Kong and Frankenstein to cheesy 1950s sci-fi, Bob Fosse musicals, 70s glam-rock and everything in between. Runs out of steam a bit in the third act, but the knockout musical numbers in the first hour or so makes it worth repeated viewings.
Rosemary’s Baby – “He has his father’s eyes!” Roman Polanski put the “goth” back in “gothic” in this devilish 1968 metropolitan horror classic. A New York actor (John Cassavetes) and his young, socially phobic wife Rosemary (Mia Farrow) move into a somewhat dark and foreboding Manhattan apartment building (the famed Dakota, John Lennon’s final residence), hoping to start a family. A busybody neighbor (Ruth Gordon) quickly gloms onto Rosemary with an unhealthy zest (to Rosemary’s chagrin). Her nightmare is only beginning. No axe murders, no gore, and barely a drop of blood…but thanks to Polanski’s impeccable craft, this will scare the bejesus out of you and continue to creep you out after credits roll. Polanski adapted the screenplay from Ira Levin’s novel.
The Shining – “Hello, Danny.” It has been said that Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his sprawling novel about a family of three who hole up in an isolated Rocky Mountain hotel for the winter. Well-that’s his personal problem. I think this is the greatest “psychological” horror film ever made…period (OK that’s a bit hyperbolic-perhaps we can call it “a draw” with Polanski’s Repulsion).
Anyway…Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Jack Nicholson discovers that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, etc.
The Shout – This unsettling 1978 sleeper was adapted from a Robert Graves story by Michal Austin and its director, Jerzy Skolimowski. The late John Hurt is excellent as a mild-mannered avant-garde musician who lives in a sleepy English hamlet with his wife (Susannah York). When an enigmatic vagabond (Alan Bates) blows into town, their quiet country life begins to go…elsewhere. This is a genre-defying film; somewhere between psychological horror and culture clash drama. I’ll put it this way-if you like Peter Weir’s The Last Wave(which would make a great double-bill) this one is in your wheelhouse.
Siesta – Depending on who you ask, Mary Lambert’s 1987 thriller is either a compelling riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…or an unfinished film in search of a narrative. It was not well received by critics, but has a modest cult following, of which I am a card-carrying member.
Ellen Barkin stars as an American daredevil who wakes up on a deserted runway in Spain, dazed, bruised and confused. As she wanders about getting her bearings, pieces of her memory return. She encounters assorted characters in increasingly weird scenarios. The film lies somewhere between Carnival of Souls and Memento.
Also with Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Isabella Rossellini, Martin Sheen, Grace Jones, and Jodie Foster. Patricia Louisiana Knop (9½ Weeks) adapted the screenplay from Patrice Chaplin’s novel. Atmospheric score by Miles Davis. Long out-of-print on DVD, this is a film begging for a Blu-ray release (should any reissue label folks be reading this…hint, hint!).
Trollhunter – Like previous entries in horror’s “found footage” sub-genre, Trollhunter features an unremarkable, no-name cast; but then again you don’t really require the services of an Olivier when most of the dialog is along the lines of “Where ARE you!?”, “Jesus, look at the size of that fucking thing!”, “RUN!!!” or the ever popular “AieEEE!”.
Seriously, though- what I like about Andre Ovredal’s film (aside from the convincing monsters) is the way he cleverly weaves commentary on religion and politics into his narrative. The story concerns three Norwegian film students who initially set off to do an expose on illegal bear poaching, but become embroiled with a clandestine government program to rid Norway of trolls who have been terrorizing the remote areas of the country (you’ll have to suspend your disbelief as to how the government has been able to “cover up” 200 foot tall monsters rampaging about). The “trollhunter” himself is quite a character. And always remember: while hunting trolls…it’s best to leave the Christians at home!
Ugetsu Monogatari – Kenji Mizoguchi’s eerie 1953 ghost story/morality tale was adapted from several short stories by 18th-Century writer and poet Ueda Akinari.
The story is set in 16th-Century Japan, in the midst of one of the civil wars of the era. A potter of modest means and grandiose financial schemes (Masayuki Mori) and his n’er do well brother (Eitaro Ozawa) who fantasizes about becoming a renowned samurai warrior ignore the dire warnings of a local sage and allow their greed and ambition to take full hold, which leads to tragic consequences for their abandoned wives (Mitsuko Mito and Kinuyo Tanaka).
Beautifully acted; particularly strong performances by the three female leads (Mito, Tanaka, and the great Machiko Kyo as the sorceress Lady Wakasa). It’s a slow-burning tale, but if you just give it time the emotional wallop of the denouement will floor you.
Young Frankenstein – Writer-director Mel Brooks’ 1974 film transgresses the limitations of the “spoof” genre to create something wholly original. Brooks goofs on elements from James Whale’s original 1931 version of Frankenstein, his 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, and Rowland V. Lee’s 1939 spinoff, Son of Frankenstein.
Gene Wilder heads a marvelous cast as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced, “Franken-schteen”) the grandson of the “infamous” mad scientist who liked to play around with dead things. Despite his propensity for distancing himself from that legacy, a notice of inheritance precipitates a visit to the family estate in Transylvania, where the discovery of his grandfather’s “secret” laboratory awakens his dark side.
Wilder is quite funny (as always), but he plays it relatively straight, making a perfect foil for the comedic juggernaut of Madeline Khan, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman (“Blucher!”), Terri Garr and Kenneth Mars, who are all at the top of their game. The scene featuring a non-billed Gene Hackman (as an old blind hermit) is a classic.
This is also Brooks’ most technically accomplished film; the meticulous replication of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory (utilizing props from the 1931 original), Gerald Hirschfeld’s gorgeous B & W photography and Dale Hennesy’s production design all combine to create an effective (and affectionate) homage to the heyday of Universal monster movies.
I’ve posted this before but since Trump will be holding another “America First” rally at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night, I thought you might want to see this again. It is chilling:
An interview with the filmmaker:
Q: How did you discover this event? A: A friend of mine who was writing a screenplay about New York in the 1930s told me about it, and I couldn’t believe that I’d never heard of it. When I found out it had been filmed, I asked an archival researcher, Rich Remsberg, to see what he could find. It turned out that short clips had been used in history documentaries before, but no one seemed to have collected together all of the scraps of footage – there was some at the National Archives, some at UCLA’s archive, some at other archives. So he gathered it, and I edited it together into a short narrative. When Charlottesville happened, it began to feel urgent. So I sent it over to Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook at Field of Vision and said, “Have you ever heard of this event? Would you be interested in supporting the film?” And they jumped on board.
Q: What struck you about the footage? A: The first thing that struck me was that an event like this could happen in the heart of New York City, a city that was diverse, modern, and progressive even in 1939. The second thing that struck me was the way these American Nazis used the symbols of America to sell an ideology that a few years later hundreds of thousands of Americans would die fighting against.
It really made clear how the tactics of demagogues have been the same throughout the ages. They attack the press, using sarcasm and humor. They tell their followers that they are the true Americans (or Germans or Spartans or…). And they encourage their followers to “take their country back” from whatever minority group is ruining it.
Q: Why do you think that most Americans have never heard of this group or this event? A: The footage is so powerful, it’s amazing that it isn’t part of every high school history class. But I think the rally has slipped out of our collective memory because it’s scary and embarrassing. It tells a story about our country that we’d prefer to forget.
We’d like to think that when Nazism rose up, all Americans were instantly appalled. But while that might be true for many Americans, there was a significant group who were sympathetic to their white supremacist, antisemitic message. When you see 20,000 Americans gathering in Madison Square Garden, you can be sure that many times more were passively supportive.
These were ideas that, if not universally accepted, were at least considered legitimate points of view. In a part of Fritz Kuhn’s speech that isn’t in the film, he applauds Father Coughlin, whose radio shows praising Hitler and Mussolini reached audiences of 30 million Americans. Henry Ford published excerpts from the antisemitic and fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
National hero Charles Lindbergh wrote in Reader’s Digest, “Our civilization depends on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back… the infiltration of inferior blood.” In a speech for his America First Committee (which had 850,000 members) Lindbergh argued that “Instead of agitating for war, Jews in this country should be opposing it in every way, for they will be the first to feel its consequences. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”
Press magnate William Randolph Hearst defended the creeping fascist movement, saying, “Whenever you hear a prominent American called a fascist, you can usually make up your mind that the man is simply a loyal citizen who stands for Americanism.”
But two years after this rally in Madison Square Garden, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and Germany declared war on the U.S. At that point this philosophy became socially unacceptable. And when the Nazis began killing American soldiers, we started erasing the fact that any Americans had ever supported it.
In the end, America pulled away from the cliff, but this rally is a reminder that things didn’t have to work out that way. If Roosevelt weren’t President, if Japan hadn’t attacked, is it possible we would have skated through without joining the war? And if Nazis hadn’t killed American soldiers, is it possible that their philosophy wouldn’t have become so taboo here?
Q: Who was the guy who ran out on stage during the rally? A: He was a 26-year-old plumber’s helper from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum. When he ran on stage to protest, he was beaten up and had his pants ripped off as he was thrown from the stage. He was also arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25.
Greenbaum explained to the judge the day after the rally, “I went down to the Garden without any intention of interrupting. But being that they talked so much against my religion and there was so much persecution I lost my head, and I felt it was my duty to talk.” The Magistrate asked him, “Don’t you realize that innocent people might have been killed?” And Greenbaum replied, “Do you realize that plenty of Jewish people might be killed with their persecution up there?” (New York Times, 2/22/39).
He went on to serve in the military during WW2 and was featured in Stars and Stripes magazine. (The Washington Post did a terrific article on Greenbaum after the film came out.)
Years later when Greenbaum was asked why he did what he did, in spite of the risk, he simply said, “Gee, what would you have done if you were in my place…?” I think that’s a question for all of us who are witnessing similar demagoguery today.
Q: What was the public response to the rally? A: There was a debate at the time over whether the Bund should be allowed to have a rally, and that debate – like so many things about the event – seems eerily contemporary.
In TheNew York Times, the American Jewish Committee argued that although the Bund was “completely anti-American and anti-democratic…because we believe that the basic rights of free speech and free assembly must never be tampered with in the United States, we are opposed to any action to prevent the Bund from airing its views.” Mayor LaGuardia, for his part, ridiculed the event as an “exhibition of international cooties,” and said he believed in exposing cooties to the sunlight.
Q: What happened to this group after the rally? A: The German American Bund, who held the rally, had a significant presence in the 1930s. They had youth camps and training camps in New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and held a huge march down East 86th Street in Manhattan. But their mainstream appeal was reduced by their leaders’ German accents and culture.
As Halford E. Luccock famously said, “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.’”
The group’s leader Fritz Kuhn was eventually arrested for embezzling Bund funds, sent to prison, and stripped of his citizenship. After the war, he was deported to West Germany where he died a few years later. The Bund disbanded soon after the start of World War II, but the people who had supported it remained.
I don’t have it in me to watch the whole thing. But here are Tim Miller and Sam Stein giving you the highlights if you are curious.
Miller says it was like being at a country club bar listening to two rich guys sitting there talking about some articles they read in the Wall St. Journal about whales. I think that’s being generous. Get this:
President Trump, America's History Buff, explains to Joe Rogan that President Lincoln was very depressed because he lost his beloved son, Tad.
Trump was three hours late for his rally because he was doing this podcast. Many of the attendees had already left and then he made the rest stand around in the cold and listen to Ave Maria. I’m not kidding.
Betting that abortion access can be a winning message in Texas and across the country, Vice President Kamala Harris rallied more than 30,000 people in downtown Houston Friday night to “Vote for reproductive freedom.”
Those words were emblazoned behind Harris, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, Texas country legend Willie Nelson and global pop superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as they declared the next 11 days leading up to Election Day as the final push in an existential fight for freedom.
In her 30-minute speech, Harris keyed in on her campaign’s closing message for the election’s final days, framing the issues of democracy and reproductive rights as two sides of the same coin. Harris argued Trump and other Republican officials will erode citizens’ rights, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade and abortion bans across much of the South as proof that rights can be taken away.
“We are 11 days out from an election that will decide the future of America, including the freedom of every woman to make decisions about her own body and her own freedom,” Harris said.
While Harris received loud cheers from the crowd throughout her speech, the biggest roar of the night occurred when Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland walked on to the stage to speak.
“I am not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician, I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said. “A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies. A world where we’re not divided.”
Beyoncé and Rowland spoke of their childhoods growing up in Houston, where they founded Destiny’s Child before going on to stardom. Rowland said the city has a role to play in this year’s election.
“Now Houston, you’ve already had a hand in creating destiny, so do what you do and do this thing again,” Rowland said.
By the way, this won’t work either:
This conservative super PAC is spending $20 million to trick voters into believing that Trump is pro-choice – and they’re invoking Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s name to do it https://t.co/tUjG9BTOFX
Polls have sample sizes of hundreds or a couple of thousand. Early voting has sample size of millions. It’s not theoretical or speculative.
All polling is based on modeling from past elections. There has never been a gender gap like this in turnout. If Harris wins by a… https://t.co/nZb2nZu46i
Most of the evidence for this comes from focus groups and polls. In an August Times/Siena poll, for example, men aged 18 to 29 favored Trump by 13 points while women in the same age range favored Kamala Harris by 38 points.
To explain this swing to the right among young men, most observers look to the larger cultural environment. They say that our institutions stress inclusion and women’s empowerment in a way that alienates young men. They say that men feel undervalued and that Democrats don’t respect traditional masculine values. They say that young men are looking for a strong economy that would help them support a family, and that these men believe Trump will make it happen.
I think this narrative is a bit overstated. There’s no doubt that many young men are more supportive of Trump than they are of Harris. But overall, according to the most recent Harvard Youth Poll, young men who “definitely plan to vote” back Harris over Trump — 55 percent to 38 percent. For evidence in favor of the view that young men favor Trump, look no further than a recent survey of young male voters from Blueprint, a Democratic polling firm: Most men ages 18 to 29 rank inflation, jobs and the economy as top issues and trust Trump to handle them over Harris. Still, most of men surveyed by Blueprint have a favorable view of Harris — more favorable, in fact, than that of men ages 30 to 49.
But to my eye, Trump’s inroads — however large or modest they might be — with young men are less striking than Harris’s enormous lead with young women. The gender gap among young voters is as large as it has ever been. According to the Harvard poll, 70 percent of likely voters among young women of color favor Harris, as against 15 percent for Trump. The former president leads among young men across the three most recent Times/Siena polls, but Harris maintains a similar 67-to-28 advantage among young women there as well. You can find similar spreads in every available poll of the national race. Women overwhelming favor Harris, and men largely favor Trump.
The gender gap among young women has not inspired the same level of analysis and deep focus as has the gender gap with young men. Even a close reader of election coverage may forget for a moment that this is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs more than two years ago. If there were ever an election in which to focus on the political behavior of young women, it’s this one.
I don’t make predictions anymore, so I won’t try to make a guess about what these gaps mean for the final outcome. But I will say that if Kamala Harris wins the White House, we may look back and say that we should have focused a little more on the women, young and otherwise, who most likely made the difference.
Yes, I believe that’s the case. But I will also bet that most of the analysis will be on how Harris and the Democrats are failing men. And so it goes.
Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, appeared to voice support for a plan for North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Legislature to award former President Donald J. Trump the swing state’s electoral votes, according to video of a conservative gathering on Thursday that was posted on social media.
Mr. Harris, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, later walked back his comments in a statement on Friday, saying that the “theoretical conversation has been taken out of context” and that “every legal vote should be counted.”
His comments, reported earlier on Friday by Politico, came in an exchange with Ivan Raiklin, a lawyer and a supporter of former President Donald J. Trump who promoted a plan in 2020 to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors from several disputed swing states.
Mr. Harris appeared to use the hurricane-damaged region of western North Carolina as a rationale for the plan, falsely saying that the voters there had been “disenfranchised.” The North Carolina State Board of Elections approved several emergency measures this month to ensure that voters in the region who were reeling from the effects of Hurricane Helene could still cast ballots.
The Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus is floating the idea of a coup in North Carolina. But why not? Trump will be pitching this himself after the election is he loses. He’s just getting ahead of the curve.
Amazon owner Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post editorial board’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris causing a major uproar. The LA Times’ billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong did the same thing two days ago. Editors are resigning, people are unsubscribing. It’s freaking out everyone in journalism. But this is actually bigger than journalism which is already in crisis for a hundred different reasons.
Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.
It’s not.
It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.
[…]
Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.
And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.
Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub.
Last reminds us of the early 2000s in Russia when Putin, realizing that the oligarchs who had supported still maintained enough power to oppose him if they chose to, arrested the most powerful oil tycoon in the country ostensibly on charges of corruption.
Khodorkovsky was convicted and sent to a labor camp in the Russian Far East while the government confiscated Yukos and redistributed it to Putin’s cronies. Khodorkovsky’s money, his power, his connections—none of it could protect him from Vladimir Putin.
The rest of the oligarchs got the message. If Putin could get to Khodorkovsky, he could get to anybody.
Trump isn’t even the president yet. He can’t arrest anyone right now and, God willing, never will be able to. But these guys have all seen that Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and the other tech-bro billionaires all lining up and they’ve decided that it doesn’t serve them to get on the other side of him.
Democracy expert Timothy Snyder has pointed out that “most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.”
I don’t care about newspaper endorsements and most people don’t. But the fact that in both of these cases the papers’ ownership stepped in and stopped them at the last minute is seriously alarming. I don’t know if beating Trump can stop this premptive slide toward authoritarianism among the billionaires but I know that losing to him won’t.
This is yet another motivation to get out the vote. These billionaires only have one vote each. For now.
“Black Insurrectionist,” the anonymous social media persona behind some of the most widely circulated conspiracy theories about the 2024 election, can be traced to a man from upstate New York.
He’s also white.
With a profile photo of a Black soldier and the tagline “I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS,” the account on the platform X amassed more than 300,000 followers while posting dubious claims about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Some were amplified by former President Donald Trump, his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and their Republican allies in Congress. The most salacious claims have come in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Last month, the account posted what Black Insurrectionist claimed was an affidavit from an ABC News employee, alleging Harris was given questions in advance of the network’s debate with Trump — which ABC News vigorously disputed. Trump approved, though, declaring, “I love the person.” More recently, Black Insurrectionist posted a baseless claim alleging inappropriate behavior between Walz and a student decades ago, a falsehood that U.S. intelligence officials said sprang from a Russian disinformation campaign.
The reach that the Black Insurrectionist account attained with assistance from Trump and his allies demonstrates the ease with which unverified information from dubious sources can metastasize online to shape public opinion. The speed and scale of disinformation has been an animating force in the presidential campaign, with the potential to affect the outcome in a close election.
The Black Insurrectionist account is linked directly to Jason G. Palmer, who has his own questionable backstory, starting with the fact that he isn’t Black, according to an Associated Press review of public records, open source data and interviews with a half-dozen people who interacted closely with Palmer over the past two decades. The records and personal accounts offer a portrait of an individual who has repeatedly been accused of defrauding business partners and lenders, has struggled with drug addiction and whose home was raided by the FBI over a decade ago. He also owes more than $6.7 million in back taxes to the state of New York.
[…]
In emails and phone conversations, Palmer, 51, made a series of seemingly contradictory claims about his ties to the account, which was deactivated last week several hours after the AP first reached out to Palmer for comment.
He acknowledged in an email that he was involved with the account, but said that he did not create it. He also claimed to have owned it at one point before selling it in April or May to a person who he declined to identify.
“I do not know what is going on with this account,” Palmer wrote in an email last Thursday.
But in an interview on Tuesday he said he participated in making claims about Walz that were posted to the account this month. And he suggested that he worked as a “researcher” with a broader group.
“We did that with big people. National people,” Palmer said. “I have no comment on anything else regarding that.”
Maybe that’s true but it’s just as likely that he’s a lone wolf ratfucker. Twitter is awash in this garbage.
Both The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post this week violated Timothy Snyder’s Rule No. 1 for opposing tyranny: Do not obey in advance. Both papers declined to issue a presidential endorsement. Many of The Post’s opinion writers objected vigorously. Whatever the papers’ ostensible explanations, we know the real reason. The owners are chicken shits.
America deserves much more than an aspiring autocrat who ignores the law, is running to stay out of prison, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.
The better angels of our nature demand it.
There is only one candidate — Kamala Harris — who will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States from foreign and domestic enemies.
So help us, God.
Confronted as we are with what not to do, Anand Giridharadas at The Ink asks “our go-to messaging expert,” Anat Shenker-Osorio, to advise readers on how to fight the good fight. I’ll just list the bullets (with some light comments).
Do: Run like you’re leading the winning team
Don’t: Act like underdogs
Do: Call out what you’re against
Don’t: Feed what you’re fighting
This cuts across the grain of progressives who insist on proving to everyone how smart they are by refuting (with facts) whatever lies our opposition tells. It doesn’t work. It leaves Democrats fighting on the GOP’s turf and arguing they are GOP-lite. To soften up Trump’s support ASO suggests, “You have to run against your opposition and not against the people that your opposition reviles.”
Don’t forget that political races are not just contests of ideas, but contests of skills. Go hone your skills with campaigns where you are. See if your county committee has “game.” (Many don’t.) They want and need you.
I recorded an abbreviated For The Win webinar on Tuesday for Illinois county chairs. “But they’re not a swing state,” a friend said. Why bother? Because they’re not a swing state. See all that red? How often do those less-populated rural counties covered in soybeans, corn, and wheat in not-a-swing-state see a presidential race set up shop there and show ’em how it’s done? Wanna guess?
Stuart Stevens, former Republican strategist, called back this week to a post he wrote in The Bulwark in October 2020 “imploring my new Dem friends to finish the campaign with confidence and swagger.” Were he a leading Democrat, his message would be:
We are going to crush Donald Trump and the sickness he represents. There are more of us than there are of them. We are right. They are wrong. This is our moment. This is our destiny. Walk with confidence. Do not falter. Victory will be ours.
I once again make the plea. Arrogance is walking on the field, bragging you will win without having done the work. The Harris-Walz campaign and thousands of volunteers are doing the hard work. You’ve earned it.
No team wins the Superbowl thinking, “We might have a shot.” This is yours. Walk out and take it. You will look back at this moment with quiet pride and satisfaction for the rest of your life, knowing that when America called, you answered.
James Carville is not my go-to for advice because you know what he’s going to say whether he agrees with Democrats’ strategy or critiques it. Nevertheless, Fallows excerpts his New York Times op-ed on why he thinks Kamala Harris will be our first woman president. Mostly, for this:
My final reason is 100 percent emotional. We are constantly told that America is too divided, too hopelessly stricken by tribalism, to grasp the stakes. That is plain wrong.
If the Cheneys and A.O.C. get that the Constitution and our democracy are on the ballot, every true conservative and every true progressive should get it too. A vast majority of Americans are rational, reasonable people of good will. I refuse to believe that the same country that has time and again overcome its mistakes to bend its future toward justice will make the same mistake twice. America overcame Mr. Trump in 2020. I know that we know we are better than this…
A movement that marches with hope is 1,000 times as thunderous as a movement that marches with dread.
Fallows is betting that in the privacy of the voting booth Americans, women especially, will not choose “a felon “a convicted felon, who admires Adolf Hitler, whose mind is obviously deteriorating, whose most senior national-security staffers have warned urgently against him, who scoffs at Constitutional limits, who has no plausible platform, who knows nothing of US history, who brags about the most divisive Court ruling in modern history (Dobbs), who is a pawn of hostile foreign interests,” etc.
Liz Cheney, Harris and Barack Obama are working the “blue wall” states this week. Republicans are clearly unnerved by the chorus of voices from Trump’s first term — Cheney’s especially — warning the country they’ve served not to allow TFG near the White House again:
In all of these locales the message was: Precisely because time is short and the stakes are high and the prospects can be discouraging, it’s time to work even harder, rather than to give up.
Obama made this a standard riff. Each time he mentioned some new outrage from Donald Trump, the crowd would start to boo—and he’d immediately cut them off with: “Don’t boo! VOTE!” It became call-and-response. In her Blue Wall conversations with Harris, Liz Cheney would lay out their policy differences, but then say: We are absolutely together, in the only fight that matters.
Trump’s fascist movement has seduced a large fraction of the country. He’s ignorant, vengeful, and his dictator friends are scary. Exhortations of “we’re better than this!” fly in the face of proof after proof that we are not. And yet.
I keep returning to Dave Neiwert’s German language professor explaining how in the overwhelmingly Christian home of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, villagers living adjacent the Nazi death camps each morning, in their tidy Teutonic way, swept away the ash that fell on their windowsills overnight. Like many today, they blinded themselves to what was happening right next door:
“When the camps were liberated and their contents were revealed, they all expressed surprise and horror at what had gone on inside,” he said. “But they all had ash in their feather dusters.”
Yeah, we fought them over there so we wouldn’t have to fight them over here. Well, that hasn’t worked out. But we beat them before. We will do it again.
Race is remarkably stable. 47% of country is MAGA or open to MAGA; 53% isn’t.
The goal of Harris-Walz is to coalesce as much of 53% as possible. Today, Liz Cheney and Bernie Sanders are on the same side. That’s not a bad coalition.
The differences in polls are about the percentage of the 53% that Harris is getting. Trump stays stuck at 47%.
If you were for Trump, you were for Trump months ago. You are looking for someone else to be acceptable. He’s functioning as the incumbent.
Harris is winning a larger percentage of R’s than Trump is of D’s. She’s winning independents.
Could Trump win? Sure. But is there any element of the campaign that Trump campaign is performing at a higher level than Harris campaign? Think of it as a sports team match-up. She has better organization, more money, a better message and is performing at a much higher level than Trump. Most candidates are trying not to make mistakes at this stage of the presidential race. Exhaustion is a key factor. But Harris is improving. Maybe because she hasn’t been a candidate for a year and a half.
In campaigns, the question you ask every night is would you rather be your campaign or the other guy? I’d rather be Harris.
The only poll that matters is on Election Night. Remember that. Then gird yourselves for the backlash and sedition that will continue through certification aall the way to January 20. For now, I’m prepared to shed tears on Election Night. Tears of joy.
A woman, 58, called our county Democratic Party headquarters Friday with the other kind. Registered unaffiliated, she was angry that her mailbox is filled with attack flyers from Republicans and no mailers from Democrats. They’d stolen Harris signs from her early voting location. I tried to explain that Trump’s field team is incompetent, that Democrats are dedicating their resources to more effective turnout tactics. But the quavering in her voice revealed the real reason she was angry. She’s terrified.
The military widow was on the edge of sobbing for almost 15 minutes. Her late husband had spent a career serving this country. She, in turn, had spent her marriage supporting his work upholding the values for which the United States claims it stands. Staring down a fascist movement that’s overtaken many, both in the country and in the conservative area of the county where she lives, is more than she can bear. It broke my heart.
By the end, I had her relieved somewhat and chuckling through tears.
Our story is not over. Don’t count out America. It’s never a good bet, Joe Biden reminds us. We have reason to swagger.
Fallows too offered up a message from the 2011 Super Bowl about never being counted out. Because that’s who we are. That’s our story.
Enjoy.
Update: Forgot to convert the Eminem photo from html and it displayed something else. Fixed it.
