November is fast approaching, and with it a myriad of state and local elections. We published a guide last week to more than 500 races, and why they matter, to help you navigate it.
But we also wanted to hear from you. For “Ask Bolts,” our ongoing series in which we tackle reader questions, we asked you what you wanted to know about these upcoming elections.
As always, you came through with many thoughtful questions. Today I tackle six of them—a fun opportunity to introduce you to our team’s elections reporting and research in a new way.
Navigate to the question that most interests you here, or scroll down to explore them all at your leisure:
What’s the best way to find out about nonpartisan judges? So many people tell me they have no idea and leave the ballot blank. Jump to our answer.
I have a lot of friends who say, “I live in D.C., it’s not like my vote matters that much.” What downballot races can I advocate for? Jump to our answer.
What’s the most unusual office that’s having elections? Jump to our answer.
Where can people get involved as poll monitors? I can travel. Jump to our answer.
I’m sure you remember those two NYT headlines from the other day. I wrote about it, along with just about everyone else.
Margartet Sullivan, former ombudsman for the Times, weighs in on it and I think it’s fascinating that one of her former colleagues at the paper professed ignorance about why people were criticizing the paper for it:
Commenting on the second headline, the author Stuart Stevens, who writes about how democracies turn into autocracies, suggested: “These two headlines should be studied in journalism classes for decades.”
After I responded, “Not a bad idea,” a prominent voice from the New York Times chimed in. Michael Barbaro, who hosts The Daily podcast, posed a challenge to me: “Care to explain what the issue is with these headlines?”
Barbaro, whom I know from my days as public editor of the Times, is a smart guy, so I’m pretty sure he knows what the issue might be.
But sure, I’ll explain: The Kamala Harris headline is unnecessarily negative, over a story that probably doesn’t need to exist. Politicians, if they are skilled, do this all the time. They answer questions by trying to stay on message. They stay away from specifics that don’t serve their purpose.[…]
Sullivan points out that the Harris headline is really a reflection of the hysteria among the elite press that Harris hasn’t been giving them the direct attention to which they believe they are entitled. Boo hoo.
So, it’s a negative headline over a dubious story. By itself, it’s not really a huge deal. Another example of Big Journalism trying to find fault with Harris. More of an eye-roll, perhaps, than a journalistic mortal sin.
But juxtapose it with the Trump headline, which takes a hate-filled trope and treats it like some sort of lofty intellectual interest.
That headline, wrote Stevens, “could apply to an article about a Nobel prize winner in genetic studies.” […]
She notes that deep in the article itself they do address the fact that Trump is evoking “the ideology of eugenics promulgated by Nazis in Germany and white supremacists in the United States.” To me that’s the big story and it’s one that’s been out there since Trump came down the escalator in 2015. He really believes in this stuff and it’s never been fully explored even as he’s now not only talking about his own “good German blood” as he used to do but saying that migrants have inferior genes. This is right out of the Nazi playbook and aI would think that if the media made as big a del about this as they did Hillary Clinton’s emails, some Hispanic and Black Americans who think he’s good for the economy might wonder if maybe he’s talking about them — which he is.
But they don’t do that. Sullivan writes:
This is vile stuff. Cleaning it up so it sounds like an academic white paper is really not a responsible way to present what’s happening. What’s more, the adjacency of these stories suggests equivalence between a traditional democracy-supporting candidate and a would-be autocrat who stirs up grievance as a political ploy.[…]
She asked her graduate journalism students at Columbia to comment on the headlines. Without prompting, they didn’t have any problem understanding what the problem was.
She concludes:
In parting, I’ll share with you a post from historian and author Kevin Kruse about Trump.
Historians: He’s a fascist. Political scientists: He’s a fascist. His own aides: He’s a fascist. The NYT: He shows a wistful longing for a bygone era of global politics.
That, in essence, is the issue with these headlines.
On November 21, 1922, the New York Times published its very first article about Adolf Hitler. It’s an incredible read — especially its assertion that “Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so violent or genuine as it sounded.” This attitude was, apparently, widespread among Germans at the time; many of them saw Hitler’s anti-Semitism as a ploy for votes among the German masses.
But the really extraordinary part of the article is the three paragraphs on anti-Semitism. Brown acknowledges Hitler’s vicious anti-Semitism as the core of Hitler’s appeal — and notes the terrified Jewish community was fleeing from him — but goes on to dismiss it as a play to satiate the rubes (bolding mine):
He is credibly credited with being actuated by lofty, unselfish patriotism. He probably does not know himself just what he wants to accomplish. The keynote of his propaganda in speaking and writing is violent anti-Semitism. His followers are nicknamed the “Hakenkreuzler.” So violent are Hitler’s fulminations against the Jews that a number of prominent Jewish citizens are reported to have sought safe asylums in the Bavarian highlands, easily reached by fast motor cars, whence they could hurry their women and children when forewarned of an anti-Semitic St. Bartholomew’s night.
But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.
A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them.”
Now, Brown’s sources in all likelihood did tell him that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was for show. That was a popular opinion during Nazism’s early days. But that speaks to how unprepared polite German society was for a movement as sincerely, radically violent as Hitler’s to take power.
Ten years later:
How’d that work out for us?
Ugh:
Yet again a neutral headline to avoid displeasing Trump. He is not campaigning in any traditional sense: he is spreading propaganda and inciting violence. Call it for what it is. https://t.co/LoktzdKGAq
Ezra Klein says to ignore the polls and as you know I feel the same — if only I could. Having said that, it you are refreshing on 538 several times a day anyway, this can help you keep perspective:
Back in 2016, Harry Enten, then at FiveThirtyEight, calculated the final polling error in every presidential election between 1968 and 2012. On average, the polls missed by two percentage points. In 2016, an American Association for Public Opinion Research postmortem found that the average error of the national polls was 2.2 points, but the polls of individual states were off by 5.1 points. In 2020, the national polls were off by 4.5 points and the state-level polls missed, again, by 5.1 points.
You could imagine a world in which these errors are random and cancel one another out. Perhaps Donald Trump’s support is undercounted by three points in Michigan but overcounted by three points in Wisconsin. But errors often systematically favor one candidate or the other. In both 2016 and 2020, for instance, state-level polls tended to undercount Trump supporters. The polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s margin by three points in 2016 and Joe Biden’s margin by 4.3 points in 2020.
In a blowout election, an error of a few points in one direction or another is meaningless. In the California Senate race, for example, Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is leading Steve Garvey, a Republican, by between 17 and 33 points, depending on the poll. Even a polling error of 10 points wouldn’t matter to the outcome of the race.
But that’s not where the presidential election sits. As of Oct. 10, The New York Times’s polling average had Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points nationally. That’s tight, but the seven swing states are tighter: Neither candidate is leading by more than two points in any of them.
Imagine the polls perform better in 2024 than they did in either 2016 or 2020: They’re off, remarkably, by merely two points in the swing states. Huzzah! That would be consistent with Harris winning every swing state. It would also be consistent with Trump winning every swing state. This is not some outlandish scenario. According to Nate Silver’s election model, the most likely electoral outcome “is Harris sweeping all seven swing states. And the next most likely is Trump sweeping all seven.”
Which is all to say: The polls can’t tell you the way in which they’re going to be wrong, nor by how much. But that’s what matters now.
This morning there were a slew of polls showing the race is tightening, some of them straining credulity. I decided to just ignore them all. I’m also finding that my tolerance for Democratic bed wetting is very thin right now, with everyone and their their grandmother having sage advice for Harris and the Democrats. It’s enervating and counterproductive to have this discussion in public especially since Trump is deploying the Bandwagon Effect and strutting around like he’s 10 points ahead. It’s just not helpful
We’re all still suffering from the horrific 2016 result and stressed out about a possible repeat. We can’t believe that orange monster is even close. I don’t know about you but I’m stressed out beyond belief knowing that so many of my fellow Americans are enthusiastic about putting this freak back in the White House and some, to be generous, just think it doesn’t matter that he’s a fascist because they just want their tax cuts, don’t want a woman in the White House or simply hate Democrats/ desire power so much that they are willing to overlook it. I don’t know how I can unsee that, regardless of the outcome of the election. But that’s a problem for another day.
If you’re a political junkie there are lots of stories and plenty of information out there to keep you interested. The horserace stuff just isn’t one of them. It’s close. That’s all we need to know.
Trump on police: “They’re gonna end our crime problem very quickly. All we have to do is give them the word. They’re ready to go … they’re not allowed to do the job … we’re gonna indemnify them against any problems they have.” pic.twitter.com/EEVlHfg8wV
Trump on police: “They’re gonna end our crime problem very quickly. All we have to do is give them the word. They’re ready to go … they’re not allowed to do the job … we’re gonna indemnify them against any problems they have.”
Politico, of all places, published this little article this weekend to little fanfare, with this headline:
Donald Trump vowed to “rescue” the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, from the rapists, “blood thirsty criminals,” and “most violent people on earth” he insists are ruining the “fabric” of the country and its culture: immigrants.
Trump’s message in Aurora, a city that has become a central part of his campaign speeches in the final stretch to Election Day, marks another example of how the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. The supposed threat migrants pose is the core part of the former president’s closing argument, as he promises his base that he’s the one who can save the country from a group of people he calls “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people,” and the “enemy from within.”
He is no longer just talking about keeping immigrants out of the country, building a wall and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations.
In his lengthy speech Friday, Trump delivered a broadside against the thousands of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora. And he declared that he would use the Alien Enemies Act, which allows a president to authorize rounding up or removing people who are from enemy countries in times of war, to pursue migrant gangs and criminal networks.
“Kamala [Harris] has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens,” he said.
His rhetoric has veered more than ever into conspiracy theories and rumors, like when he amplified false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets. And Trump has demonized minority groups and used increasingly dark, graphic imagery to talk about migrants in every one of his speeches since the Sept. 10 presidential debate, according to a POLITICO review of more than 20 campaign events. It’s a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.
“He’s been taking Americans and his followers on a journey since really 2015 conditioning them … step by step instilling hatred in a group, and then escalating,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who writes about authoritarianism and fascism and has been outspoken about the dangers of a second Trump administration.
“So immigrants are crime. Immigrants are anarchy. They’re taking their jobs, but now they’re also animals who are going to kill us or eat our pets or eat us,” she continued. “That’s how you get people to feel that whatever is done to them, as in mass deportation, rounding them up, putting them in camps, is OK.”
[…]
Vivid imagery, such as telling crowds of rally attendees that migrants will “cut your throat,” are now a staple of Trump’s speeches. He cites cases of U.S. womenand girls allegedly murdered by immigrants in the country illegally, even as studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans.
But Trump says they are — because they are inherently worse people. He’s told nearly all-white crowds in the past that they have “good genes,” even before his explicit suggestion this week that non-white immigrants are genetically inferior — when he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that migrants have “bad genes.”
“What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments,” said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, the author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy” and a vocal critic of Trump’s rhetoric. “Hitler used the word vermin and rats multiple times in Mein Kampf to talk about Jews. These are not accidental or coincidental references. We have clear, 20th century historical precedent with this kind of political language, and we see where it leads.”
Trump is certainly demonizing immigrants as the greatest threat to America. But his list of the “the enemy within’ is quite long too. And I suspect they are the ones he personally hates:
Donald Trump floats sending the U.S. military after U.S. citizens who don’t support him. https://t.co/Q1LjyYjkVL
Authoritarian alert: If Trump returns to power, he will be waging war on America. Trump says we are "occupied" and will use force to "liberate" the country. Counter-insurgency warfare will be deployed to "root out" this domestic enemy, immigrants are just the start. https://t.co/um1yFa4SDh
H/T to JV Last for flagging Alsobrooks’s excellent critique of the mealy mouthed Larry Hogan’s refusal to vote for Kamala Harris:
I think the decision not to vote in a presidential election, for a senator, is a disqualifier. This job requires votes. Tough votes. That you have to make a decision. And for a person who says he can see a bipartisan way forward, but was unable to do the most bipartisan thing ever, in an election where he said he despises their nominee, but cannot bring himself to even vote for Vice President Harris, and in fact will have forfeited the chance to vote in three different elections rather than stand up and do the right thing, choose a tough vote, and vote for a Democrat? He voted for deceased individuals and said he will do so again in this election. And I think it is instructive of the way he would operate as a senator.
It’s a disqualifier for anyone who knows Trump is unfit but refuses to vote for Harris. It’s especially disqualifying for a Senator who is basing his entire campaign on his willingness and ability to be bipartisan.
When Donald Trump walked into the Oval Office on January 20th 2017, he INHERITED the lowest unemployment rate the U.S. had seen in nine and a half years.
— TheValuesVoter (Also on Threads and BlueSky) (@TheValuesVoter) October 12, 2024
It has happened repeatedly, 1932 being another great example. Clinton also inherited a recession, left a booming economy which Bush promptly slowed down by pushing through a bunch of tax cuts and deregulation.
They take credit for the economy they inherited and then immediately screw it up. Let’s not let that happen this time. The consequences will be worse than usual because Trump’s trade war and deportation schemes are bound to cause major disruption and if we have a crisis we already know that he is totally incapable of handling it. He proved that last time.
If you have wondered, as I have, how in the world some of our neighbors are so determined to spread (and believe) malicious rumors and conspiracy fantasies in the wake of natural disasters, a Sunday sermon.
C.S. Lewis wrote his The Chronicles of Narnia series in the early 1950’s, publishing “The Last Battle” in 1956. The books concern English children teleported to Narnia, a magical land filled with talking animals as well as humans, the good and the bad. Like Lewis’s space trilogy, the Narnia books are rich in Christian allegory (much of it barely allegory). They contain some scenes never to be forgotten.
For those who never read “The Last Battle,” one scene may be instructive this morning, whatever Lewis meant by it. Perhaps disillusionment and loss of faith after the war. In our case 70 years later, perhaps the dispelling of the comforting notion among MAGA cult members that this country was founded by and for people who look and believe like them. My friends, my neighbors, my church, my money, etc.
The last of the true Narnians find themselves trapped in cave used as a stable. As an enemy army waits outside, inside they wait to die. The great lion Aslan, Narnia’s Christ figure, appears and opens the back of the cave to a land of goodness and light, basically heaven’s footfills. His faithful rise to join him there.
Except the dwarfs. Narnia has changed for them. They feel betrayed by a false Aslan sold them by enemies. They’ve darkened, turned inward and cynical, tribal, and in the end self-deluded. They’ve rejected hope. The exit to a better world is there but they cannot see it:
“Aslan,” said Lucy through her tears, “could you – will you – do something for these poor Dwarfs?”
“Dearest,” said Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.” He came close to the Dwarfs and gave a low growl: low, but it set all the air shaking. But the Dwarfs said to one another, “Hear that? That’s the gang at the other end of the stable. Trying to frighten us. They do it with a machine of some kind. Don’t take any notice. They won’t take us in again!”
Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at! Never thought we’d come to this.” But very soon every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarreling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot. But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said:
“Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”
“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”
1956.
The Good Liars, of course, choose only their craziest MAGA encounters for posting. But they are plentiful enough.
MAGAs believe FEMA is not here and to blame for what it is doing here and what they imagine it’s doing here but it’s not. (Despite the Chinooks and Black Hawks flying over my house.)
The dwarfs are for the dwarfs, trapped in a prison of their own minds.
And that’s my sermon.
[Missed my 6 a.m. PT post. Still having internet outages and bandwidth issues here in Asheville, both fiber (ATT) and cell (Verizon). The fixers are fixing their fixes. The outage ATT promised to have fixed at midnight, they changed last night to 3 a.m. Now they’ve changed that projection to 6 p.m. today. Bandwidth comes and goes. Had to go around my ass to get to my elbow, figuratively speaking, to post this. ]
On October 9th, 2020, the Former Occupant of the White House issued an official Columbus Day Proclamation, which read in part:
Sadly, in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy. These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions. Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister. They seek to squash any dissent from their orthodoxy. We must not give in to these tactics or consent to such a bleak view of our history. We must teach future generations about our storied heritage, starting with the protection of monuments to our intrepid heroes like Columbus. This June, I signed an Executive Order to ensure that any person or group destroying or vandalizing a Federal monument, memorial, or statue is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I have also taken steps to ensure that we preserve our Nation’s history and promote patriotic education. In July, I signed another Executive Order to build and rebuild monuments to iconic American figures in a National Garden of American Heroes. In September, I announced the creation of the 1776 Commission, which will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and honor our founding. In addition, last month I signed an Executive Order to root out the teaching of racially divisive concepts from the Federal workplace, many of which are grounded in the same type of revisionist history that is trying to erase Christopher Columbus from our national heritage. Together, we must safeguard our history and stop this new wave of iconoclasm by standing against those who spread hate and division.
On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor Indigenous peoples’ strength, courage, and resilience. We celebrate the vast contributions of Indigenous communities to the world. And we recommit to respecting Tribal sovereignty and self-determination and working to usher in a new era of our Nation-to-Nation relationships.
The history of America’s Indigenous peoples is marked by perseverance, survival, and a deep commitment to and pride in their heritage, right to self-governance, and ways of life. Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have built and sustained powerful Tribal Nations, cultivated rich cultures, and established vibrant communities. And their discoveries and knowledge still benefit us today. But because of our Nation’s failed policies of the past, generations of Native peoples have faced cruelty, violence, and intimidation. They were forced to leave their homelands, prohibited from speaking their own languages and practicing their sacred traditions, and forced into assimilation. Indigenous lives were lost, livelihoods were ripped away, and communities were fundamentally altered. Despite the trauma and turmoil, Indigenous peoples have persisted and survived. Their stories are testaments to the bravery and resolve of generations to preserve their heritage, cultures, and identities for those to come after them.
Today, Indigenous peoples lead in every way, share their histories, and strengthen their communities. They are also stewarding lands and waters, growing our shared prosperity, and celebrating the good of our Nation while pushing us to tell the full truth of our history. Indigenous peoples have long served in the United States military, fighting for democracy. And Indigenous communities continue to be an integral part of the fabric of the United States, contributing so much to our shared prosperity. […]
From day one, I have worked to include Indigenous voices at the table in all we do. I have appointed Native Americans to lead across the Federal Government, including the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland — America’s first Native American Cabinet secretary — and so many others serving in key roles in my Administration. I was proud to re-establish the White House Council on Native American Affairs to help coordinate policy. Together, we have taken historic steps to improve the consultation process between Federal agencies and Tribal Nations. […]
When my Administration reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act in 2022, we included historic provisions to reaffirm Tribal sovereignty and expand Tribal jurisdiction in cases where outside perpetrators harm members of their Nation. And recognizing the ties of Indigenous peoples across North America, I supported a Trilateral Working Group with Canada and Mexico to ensure Indigenous women and girls in all three countries can live free from violence.
My Administration is also preserving important ancestral Tribal lands and waters. I have protected and conserved more than 42 million acres of our Nation’s lands and waters. I established, expanded, or restored 11 national monuments. […]
On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we recognize that it is hard work to heal the wrongs of the past and to change course and move forward, but together, nothing is beyond our capacity. May we take pride in the progress we have made to establish a new era of Tribal sovereignty and Indigenous self-determination — one grounded in dignity, respect, and friendship.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 14, 2024, as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I also direct that the flag of the United States be displayed on all public buildings on the appointed day in honor of our diverse history and the Indigenous peoples who contribute to shaping this Nation.
Pledging to end the scourge of violence against human beings, but nary a peep about protecting monuments? Preserving sacred Tribal lands while (apparently) letting the National Garden of American Heroes go to seed? Where are your priorities, Joe?!
Think of your legacy…I mean, come ON, man!
At any rate…in honor of this coming Monday’s Indigenous People’s Day, I’ve selected 10 related films that are well worth your time.
Arctic Son — I first saw this documentary (not to be confused with the unrelated 2013 film Arctic Son: Fulfilling the Dream) at the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival. Andrew Walton’s film is a classic “city mouse-country mouse” story centering on a First Nations father and son who are reunited after a 25-year estrangement. Stanley, Jr. was raised in Washington State by his single mom. Consequently, he is more plugged in to hip-hop and video games than to his native Gwich’in culture. Troubled by her son’s substance abuse, Stanley’s mother packs him off for an extended visit with Stanley Sr., who lives a traditional subsistence lifestyle in the Yukon Territories. The initially wary young man gradually warms to both the unplugged lifestyle and his long-estranged father. Affecting and heartwarming.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith — One of the highlights of the “Australian New Wave” that flourished in the 70s and 80s, writer-director Fred Schepsi’s 1978 drama (adapted from Thomas Keneally’s novel, which is loosely based on a true story) is set in Australia at the turn of the 20th Century.
Jimmie Blacksmith (Tommy Lewis) is a half-caste Aboriginal who goes out into the world to make his own way after being raised by a white minister and his wife. Unfortunately, the “world” he is entering from the relative protective bubble of his upbringing is that of a society fraught with systemic racism; one that sees him only as a young black man ripe for exploitation.
While Jimmie is inherently altruistic, every person has their limit, and over time the escalating degradation and daily humiliations lead to a shocking explosion of cathartic violence that turns him into a wanted fugitive. An unblinking look at a dark period of Australian history; powerful and affecting.
Dead Man — Rhymes with: “deadpan”. Then again, that could describe any film directed by the idiosyncratic Jim Jarmusch. As far as Kafkaesque westerns go, you could do worse than this 1995 offering (beautifully photographed by the late Robby Müller).
Johnny Depp plays mild-mannered accountant and city slicker William Blake (yes, I know) who travels West by train to the rustic town of Machine, where he has accepted a job. Or so he assumes. Getting shooed out of his would-be employer’s office at gunpoint (a great cameo by Robert Mitchum) turns out to be the least of his problems, which rapidly escalate. Soon, he’s a reluctant fugitive on the lam. Once he crosses paths with an enigmatic Native American named Nobody (the wonderful Gary Farmer), his journey takes on a mythic quality. Surreal, darkly funny, and poetic.
The Emerald Forest — Although it may initially seem a heavy-handed (if well-meaning) “save the rain forest” polemic, John Boorman’s underrated 1985 adventure (a cross between The Searchers and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan) goes much deeper.
Powers Boothe plays an American construction engineer working on a dam project in Brazil. One day, while his wife and young son are visiting the job site on the edge of the rain forest, the boy is abducted and adopted by an indigenous tribe who call themselves “The Invisible People”, touching off an obsessive decade-long search by the father. By the time he is finally reunited with his now-teenage son (Charley Boorman), the challenge becomes a matter of how he and his wife (Meg Foster) are going to coax the young man back into “civilization”.
Tautly directed, lushly photographed (by Philippe Rousselot) and well-acted. Rosco Pallenberg scripted (he also adapted the screenplay for Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur).
The Gods Must Be Crazy — Writer-director Jamie Uys’ 1984 cult favorite is a spot-on allegory regarding First World/Third World culture clash. The premise is simple: A wandering Kalahari Bushman named Xi (N!xau) happens upon a discarded Coke bottle that has been carelessly tossed from a small plane. Having no idea what the object is or how it got there, Xi spirits it back to his village for a confab on what it may portend. Concerned over the uproar and unsavory behavioral changes the empty Coke bottle ignites within the normally peaceful community, Xi treks to “the edge of the world” to give the troublesome object back to the gods. Uys overdoes the slapstick at times, but drives his point home in an endearing fashion.
The Last Wave —Peter Weir’s enigmatic 1977 courtroom drama/psychological thriller concerns a Sydney-based defense lawyer (Richard Chamberlain) who takes on five clients (all Aboriginals) who are accused of conspiring in a ritualistic murder. As he prepares his case, he begins to experience haunting visions and dreams related to age-old Aboriginal prophesies. A truly unique film, at once compelling, and unsettling; beautifully photographed by Russel Boyd. Lurking just beneath the supernatural, metaphysical and mystical elements are insightful observations on how indigenous people struggle to reconcile venerable superstitions and traditions while retaining a strong cultural identity in the modern world.
Mekko — Director Sterlin Harjo’s tough, lean, and realistic character study is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Rod Rondeaux (Meek’s Cutoff) is outstanding in the lead, as a Muscogee Indian who gets out of jail after 19 years. Bereft of funds and family support, he finds tenuous shelter among the rough-and-tumble “street chief” community of homeless Native Americans as he sorts out how he’s going to get back on his feet. Harjo coaxes naturalistic performances from his entire cast. There’s a lot more going on here than initially meets the eye; namely, a deeper examination of Native American identity,
Powwow Highway — A Native American road movie from 1989 that eschews stereotypes and tells its story with a blend of social and magical realism. Gary Farmer (who resembles the young Jonathan Winters) plays Philbert, a hulking Cheyenne with a gentle soul who wolfs down cheeseburgers and chocolate malts with the countenance of a beatific Buddha. He has decided that it is time to “become a warrior” and leave the res on a quest to “gather power”.
After choosing a “war pony” for his journey (a rusted-out beater that he trades for with a bag of weed), he sets off and is waylaid by his childhood friend (A. Martinez) an A.I.M. activist who needs a lift to Santa Fe to bail out his sister, framed by the Feds on a possession beef. Funny, poignant, uplifting and richly rewarding. Director Jonathan Wacks and screenwriters Janey Heaney and Jean Stawarz keep it real. Look for cameos from Wes Studi and Graham Greene.
This May Be the Last Time — Did you know that the eponymous Rolling Stones song shares the same roots with a venerable Native-American tribal hymn, that is still sung in Seminole and Muscogee churches to this day? While that’s far from the main thrust of Sterlin Harjo’s documentary, it’s but one of its surprises.
Harjo investigates a family story concerning the disappearance of his Oklahoman Seminole grandfather in 1962. After a perfunctory search by local authorities turned up nothing, tribal members pooled their resources and continued to look. Some members of the search party kept up spirits by singing traditional Seminole and Muscogee hymns…which inform the second level of Harjo’s film.
Through interviews with tribal members and musicologists, he traces the roots of this unique genre, connecting the dots between the hymns, African-American spirituals, Scottish and Appalachian music. The film doubles as both history lesson and a moving personal journey.
Walkabout — Nicholas Roeg’s 1971 adventure/culture clash drama introduced audiences to charismatic Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil (who also appears in another film on my list, The Last Wave). Gulpilil is an Aboriginal teenager (“Black Boy” in the credits) who unexpectedly encounters a teenage “Girl” (Jenny Agutter) and “White Boy” (the Girl’s little brother, played by Luc Roeg) while he is on a solo “walkabout” in the Australian Outback. The sun-stroked and severely dehydrated siblings have become stranded as the result of a family outing gone terribly (and disturbingly) awry. Without making any promises, the Aboriginal boy allows them to tag along; teaching them his survival techniques as they struggle to communicate as best as they can. Like many of my selections here, Roeg’s film challenges us to rethink the definition of “civilization”, especially as it pertains to indigenous cultural identity.
One more thing…
This Monday, October 14th, Seattle alternative station KEXP-FM (my old job!) will be honoring Indigenous People’s Day with special music programming (streaming live worldwide). More info here.
Steelmanning (as opposed to strawmannin) is a rather obscure concept defined as:
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person’s argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent’s argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one’s own position. Developing counters to steel man arguments may produce a stronger argument for one’s own position
Apparently, the Washington Post called up economics journalist Noah Smith and asked him to make the best case for Trump’s economic policies, ostensibly in order to give people a good faith argument that they could easily understand so they’d realize that Trump’s policies aren’t actually very good. Steelmanning. Smith declined because while there may be some reasonable uses for this type of argumentation. using them with Trump’s ramblings easily turns into sanewashing.
This is what some journalists and most headline writers are doing. By making Trump’s inane blather into coherent arguments they are missing the point entirely. Trump’s an imbecile and a lunatic and there is no real policy except revenge, racism and xenophobia. Giving his wild fascistic bleating the veneer of respectable policy proposals, regardless of your motive, is to mislead the public.
People need to hear his insanity as it’s delivered. Only then do you really understand what’s going on.
Kudos to @Noahpinion for refusing this absurd assignment. And the @washingtonpost should be ashamed of itself for still, at this late date, failing to understand Trump & his movement.
As @whstancil has articulated so well, the whole appeal of fascism is that it releases you from any obligation to be decent or intellectually curious or coherent in your beliefs. It is a permission structure to wallow in your basest instincts, which is why it attracts assholes.
When Trump tries to pitch his giant nationwide pogrom as a solution to the housing crisis, he is bullshitting. He’s reverse engineering some plausible rationale for what he & his followers really want, which is to make brown people suffer.
In other words, the real truth of Trump’s housing policy is raw xenophobia & racism. By “steelmanning” that argument, the WA Post will be directly deceiving readers, leading them to believe that the real truth of the policy is some coherent set of “reasons.”
Whatever your thoughts on steelmanning in general, specifically steelmanning *fascism* is an intellectual sin. The point of fascism is to unleash raw ugly instincts — that’s why it is built around “rallies,” ie, mobs where people can subsume their individual thought.
Steelmanning an individual fascist policy, just in and of itself — regardless of *how* you steelman it or what specifically you say — is grossly misleading. There are not good, credible versions of these policies, because they were not derived from credible policy objectives.
The “real truth” of fascism is the ugly instincts toward cruelty, persecution, resentment, and anti-intellectualism. The rickety “policy” they offer as a facade for those instincts is a pretense, a distraction. Steelmanning it makes it look otherwise. Shame on WaPo.
I wish I could understand why the media hasn’t learned this lesson by now. It’s been almost a decade of this. It’s not as if they have anything to lose by being honest about what they, and every other sersone who isn'[t indoctrinated in the Trump cult, can see with our own eyes. Trump already sees them as an enemy of the people unless they are groveling at his feet like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. There’s no benefit to trying to make the nonsensical make sense.
It’s their job to tell the truth and they simply are failing to do that a good part of the time.
Trump vows to sent "elite squads" of ICE and Border Patrol to conduct mass deportation raids in places like Colorado and calls for the death penalty for "sadistic monster" migrants who commits murder pic.twitter.com/KVckbAuhKq
"They have to go back to where they came from. I'm sorry." — Trump promises to deport *legal* Haitian immigrants from Springfield, Ohio pic.twitter.com/6wW56EkqcU
Trump in Aurora: "The enemy from within. All the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country. That's a bigger enemy than China and Russia." pic.twitter.com/bE4H3DLQX7
