Lily Salter's Blog, page 999

Inside the “Stonewall” catastrophe: A dull, miscast, misguided, bloated, schmaltzy and shlocky disaster of a movie

"Stonewall," the newly released movie about the 1969 rebellion that launched the modern gay liberation movement, is so bad it's almost baffling. It seems beyond comprehension that people could take such an electric piece of history and make something this dull, miscast, misguided, badly written, bloated, schmaltzy and shlocky out of it, but director Roland Emmerich and screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz have managed it.

Almost everything about "Stonewall" is terrible. You watch it alternately cringing and howling; the sparsely attended screening I went to was so rocked with laughter that you would have thought we were seeing the comedy of the year.

"Stonewall" caused a great deal of controversy before anyone had seen it, thanks to a trailer that pushed the real-life heroes of the riot—namely, trans people, drag queens, people of color and women—to the side in favor of a made-up white Midwesterner named Danny (played by Jeremy Irvine). Emmerich and Baitz defended themselves, saying that the trailer wasn't representative of the whole movie. Emmerich also said explicitly that the focus on Danny was a way to win straight people over--a strange goal if ever there was one, but a goal that underscores the perverse incentives of Hollywood as well as anything could. Emmerich and Baitz clearly don't know what kind of movie they've made. The representation issues in "Stonewall" are very real, and very glaring—yet another example of the film industry's insistence on pushing white characters to the forefront of its stories, even if they don't deserve to be there. It is Danny who throws the brick that launches the riots, Danny whose cry of "gay power" ignites the crowd, Danny who leads his people into battle.

The filmmakers, stuck in a Hollywood bubble, seemed surprised that anyone would have a problem with this. A better rejoinder would have been to make a good movie. But almost every inch of "Stonewall" is wrong.

First, it's so, so long. You feel every one of its 129 minutes, like painful shards of boredom were breaking your mind apart.

The writing is off-the-charts awful. It's as though Baitz reached into a bag marked "clichés," pulled some out at random and pasted them into the script. This is a movie where someone actually says, "Those kids, they've got nothing left to lose." Someone says, "I just want to break things!" about 40 minutes before he goes on to break things. Another character actually declares, "I'm too mad to love anybody right now."

The movie is shot through strange, grimy filters, as though Emmerich was trying to project some of the seediness of the Village through the lens. It just means that you have to squint a bit to see anything clearly. There are also anachronisms so glaring you wonder how they got through the editing process. In one sequence, Stonewall patrons dance to "I'll Take You There," a song that didn't come out until 1972.

The biggest problem with "Stonewall," though, is that it's not actually about Stonewall. Any real attempt to explore the politics behind the rebellion are cast aside in favor of creaky soap opera. For some reason, "Stonewall" thinks that what we really need is lots and lots of Danny, the sensitive Indiana boy who rolls into the Village and proceeds to learn a host of life lessons from the assorted rainbow coalition of queer ruffians whose main job in life is to worry about Danny's feelings.

We spend what feels like 17 years on Danny's past in Indiana--his doomed affair with another boy, his awful father's rejection, his plucky kid sister's tearful cries as he leaves the small town life behind forever. It's all so weirdly retro--Emmerich and Baitz have crafted a melodrama as hoary and sudsy as anything made in 1925, let alone 2015. It would all be deliciously kitschy if you didn't sense that all involved thought they were making a profound masterpiece.

This sense of antiquated staginess continues when Danny lands in New York. He immediately meets a group of Lost Boys (and, despite their gender-bending, this is decidedly a boys' movie--women might as well not exist) who, in their theatrical chatter, are more "West Side Story" than anything.

Their leader is Ray, a waifish Puerto Rican hustler. It's been a long time since I've seen an actor and character so thoroughly mistreated by a movie as Ray is by "Stonewall."  Actor Jonny Beauchamp brings an appealingly aggressive energy to the part, but he's fighting a losing battle with the script. "Stonewall" is more interested in whether Danny will dance with Ray than with what caused such a seismic event as the eponymous struggle to take place. Ray's default mode is an anguished screech. He spends the whole movie wailing hysterically about why Danny won't love him, and why the world is so down on him. That the main character of color's primary function is to moon over the stupid white kid is galling enough. That the character is supposed to be based on trans pioneer Sylvia Rivera makes it all the worse.

Ray's not the only whiner, though. Everybody in "Stonewall" whines all the time. Irvine, a Brit who brings little to the central role of Danny beyond his looks, has an especially difficult time with all of the mewling, as it exposes just how shaky his American accent is. This is a big problem, because Danny has a lot to complain about. He's thrust into the sort of cautionary tale about what happens when small-town boys go astray that would not be out of place in a conservative movie from the 1950s. You can almost see the trailer: Gasp as a destitute Danny is forced to turn his first trick! (The camera closes in hilariously on his crotch as the strings of doom pierce the soundtrack.) Sympathize as he is led astray by Trevor, a liberal sleaze who just wishes those kids would stop being so angry! (Let's all light a candle for Jonathan Rhys Meyers, lampooned in a thankless role.) Feel the terror when Danny is pimped out to a sadistic, old, cross-dressing queen! (This sequence features the kind of horror-movie gay gorgons that you thought had been left behind long ago.)

So much energy is expended on this bilge that, when the riot actually comes, it comes essentially out of nowhere. Emmerich and Baitz have barely bothered to lay any groundwork for the ostensible center of their film. Stonewall itself is a blip; the real story is whether or not Danny will ever reconcile with his family and make it to Columbia like he dreamed of.

Obviously, there is a great movie to be made about Stonewall. Just as obviously, "Stonewall" is not that movie. Maybe someone will be inspired by the magnitude of its failure to make the kind of film that Stonewall deserves.

Oh, and if you want to see a wonderful movie about a gay boy's coming-of-age against a real-life political backdrop, watch "Pride." It is as good as "Stonewall" is bad.

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The Milky Way’s missing mass has been partially found

Giant galaxies such as the Milky Way and Andromeda consist mostly of exotic dark matter. But even our galaxy's ordinary material presents a puzzle since most of it is missing and remains undiscovered by scientists. Now, however, by watching a galaxy plow through the Milky Way's outskirts, astronomers have estimated the amount of gas surrounding our galaxy's bright disk, finding that this material outweighs all of the interstellar gas and dust in our part of the Milky Way. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background—the big bang's afterglow—indicate that one sixth of all matter in the universe is ordinary, or baryonic, containing protons and neutrons (or "baryons" in the parlance of physicists), just as stars, planets and people do. Based on the motion of distant objects orbiting the Milky Way, astronomers estimate that our galaxy is roughly a trillion times as massive as the sun. If five sixths of this material is dark matter, then this exotic substance makes up 830 billion solar masses of our galaxy; baryonic matter should account for the remaining 170 billion. The trouble is, all of our galaxy’s known stars and interstellar matter add up to only about 60 billion solar masses: 50 billion in stars and 10 billion in interstellar gas and dust. (The Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars, but most are smaller than the sun.) That leaves a whopping 110 billion solar masses of ordinary material unaccounted for. If the Milky Way is even more massive than currently estimated, this missing baryon problem gets worse—and the same conundrum afflicts other giant galaxies as well. Where are the missing baryons? Perhaps in a diffuse gaseous halo around the Milky Way. X-ray satellites have detected oxygen atoms in our galaxy that have lost most of their eight electrons, a sign they inhabit gas that is millions of degrees hot—far hotter than the surface of the sun. But since we don’t know how far these fried oxygen atoms are from us, we can’t accurately gauge the size of this component of the galaxy. If they're fairly close to the disk, then this so-called circumgalactic medium isn't extensive and therefore doesn't amount to much. But if they're far away, spread throughout a gargantuan halo, this gaseous material could outweigh all of the galaxy's stars, providing fuel for star formation for billions of years to come. Fortunately for astronomers, the Milky Way is so mighty that it rules a retinue of smaller galaxies that revolve around it just as moons orbit a planet. The most splendiferous satellite galaxy is the Large Magellanic Cloud, shining 160,000 light-years from Earth. Like all the other galactic satellites, this one moves around the Milky Way, but unlike most of its peers, it abounds with gas, which gets stripped as it ramsinto the halo's own gas. The amount of gas lost depends on the speed at which our neighbor moves and how dense the halo gas is. And that density can yield a mass estimate for the halo's gas. Recently, the Hubble Space Telescope measured the galaxy's speed. This allowed astronomers Munier Salem of Columbia University, Gurtina Besla of the University of Arizona and their colleagues to study the stripped gas and estimate that the gas density in the Milky Way's halo near the Large Magellanic Cloud is 0.0001 atoms per cubic centimeter. That's not much—only about 10,000 times more tenuous than the interstellar gas in the Milky Way's disk—but the halo covers a lot of real estate. In research submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, the astronomers assume that the gas density declines with distance from the Milky Way's center, and calculate that the gas adds up to 26 billion solar masses, or close to half the amount in all of the Milky Way's stars. Matthew Miller, a graduate student at the University of Michigan who is completing his dissertation on the circumgalactic medium, says this number corresponds with previous estimates but is based on a more direct measurement of the density. Still, the newly calculated halo gas mass makes up just 15 percent of the Milky Way's expected baryonic content. Besla says the true quantity of the halo gas is probably greater because its density may decline less with distance than standard models assume. Miller suspects the missing baryons may be absent from the Milky Way altogether, having never fallen into our galaxy with the dark matter, in which case they are drifting in the vast space between giant galaxies. Besla predicts that future work may yield a better measurement. Another gas-rich galaxy—the Small Magellanic Cloud, 200,000 light-years from Earth—orbits the Large Magellanic Cloud. Their dance has spilled gas into a stream more than half a million light-years long. Most of this Magellanic Stream extends beyond the Large Magellanic Cloud and thus should probe the halo's gas density elsewhere, Besla says, further constraining the mass of the circumgalactic medium. Indeed, astronomers on Earth are lucky: They inhabit one of the few giant galaxies boasting two nearby gas-rich satellite galaxies. "It's amazing how much information this system provides us," Besla says. In contrast, all satellites orbiting a more typical giant galaxy have run out of gas, and any astronomers there may look upon their peers in the Milky Way with quiet envy.

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John Boehner’s tears and Pope Francis’ radical challenge: A spiritual leader rises as a political nonentity falls

Whether Pope Francis can bring meaningful change to the Roman Catholic Church, and establish a new global role for that venerable, tarnished and internally divided institution, remains to be seen. But some things can be perceived clearly amid the gushing media coverage of the pontiff’s triumphant American visit, and the global lovefest that continues to surround his papacy. First of all, the semiotics and messaging of the Vatican are enormously altered under Francis – especially compared to his ghoulish predecessor, Benedict XVI, who openly longed for a shrunken congregation of zealots, eunuchs and old ladies. Words and attitudes matter, especially the words and attitudes of a man believed by his followers to be infused with the Holy Spirit, and who traces his authority (at least nominally) all the way back to a fisherman who was given a new name by Jesus Christ. You don’t have to believe any of that stuff, needless to say, in order to grasp the importance of what Pope Francis demonstrated in Washington and New York this week: A spiritual leader can still play a powerful unifying role in the secular world, if only momentarily or temporarily, in a way that political leaders hardly ever can and hardly ever do, especially in the poisoned ideological climate of the United States. Those ideological toxins propelled Republicans and Democrats out onto Capitol Hill after Pope Francis’ address to Congress, where they assured the cameras that they had heard two entirely different speeches and that the pontiff was really on their side. But the fact remains that the GOP leadership and the most virulent of Tea Party legislators were compelled to listen respectfully while Francis called for an end to the death penalty, the international arms trade and epidemic homelessness, and challenged the world’s supposed superpower to address the global climate crisis, welcome immigrants and combat the “cycle of poverty” that accompanies “the creation and distribution of wealth.” (Did he intentionally omit the sentence arguing that politics “cannot be a slave to the economy and finance”? We will never know for sure.) It may be unduly optimistic to hope that the pope’s speech provoked some genuine introspection among the entrenched antagonists of the Beltway, many of them so stuffed with lobbyist cash and high on shutdown fervor they have entirely forgotten that the outside world exists. Mitch McConnell is not big on introspection. If nothing else, Francis shamed the permanent paralysis and philosophical nullity of America’s political caste in the eyes of the world, which is no small accomplishment. Were those really tears of joy John Boehner was crying? Or was the unnaturally hued House Speaker reflecting on the fact that his political career was about to end in abject failure? If we compare Francis’ brief papacy to the tragic and/or pathetic tale of Boehner, who has now been brought down by right-wing revolt after five years of nothingness, the differences are both illuminating and disturbing. Both men are constrained to a large degree by circumstances and institutions they cannot control, and the pope has the advantage of wielding nearly unlimited power, untrammeled by democracy. There is certainly intense political struggle inside the Vatican, and some ultramontane Catholics would cheer at news of Pope Francis’ downfall, as the crowd at the Values Voter Summit cheered when Marco Rubio told them that Boehner was toast. But those in the church hierarchy who hate Francis can’t simply vote him out; they would actually have to murder him, which has happened on numerous occasions but is more difficult to pull off these days. (We will set aside conspiracy theories about the 33-day reign of John Paul I in 1978.) Still, it’s fair to say that one of those men has made an effort to step outside the internal politics of his institution, and to view it in terms of its global and historic mission. The other has been entirely devoured by political infighting, and never had any larger vision or sense of purpose in the first place. He will go down in history as the answer to an especially devious trivia question: Who was the Speaker of the House during its least functional era since the Civil War? Taken entirely on its own terms, the Catholic Church is supposed to play a larger and more important role in the world than acting as the enforcers of an outmoded sexual morality or as a support system for tyrants and dictators. It’s supposed to be the leading exponent of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a capacious and contradictory task that most popes of this century and the last one have studded with asterisks and steadily defined downward. Whether you like him or not, Francis is endeavoring to recapture that sense of larger mission. Somewhere inside John Boehner’s brain, behind the scores of last Saturday’s golf foursome and the siren song of that bottle of Highland single-malt in his desk drawer, there may persist some awareness that the United States Congress was supposed to serve a higher purpose too. By all accounts Boehner is a decent guy and a Midwestern small-town success story, who wanted to play the traditional role of compromiser and back-room dealmaker. He may once have read about the discussions that led to James Madison’s Virginia Plan and the bicameral Congress created in the Constitution. The House of Representatives is supposed to be the most direct arena for the reflection of popular opinion, and the driving force of policy change. It’s where stuff is supposed to get done. Looking back at Boehner’s soon-to-be-forgotten tenure, we can only conclude that either that is no longer possible or he was not the man for the job (and quite likely both). Of course we should not succumb too readily to Francis fervor, which presents a seductive but dangerous trap to many Catholics, former Catholics and “ethnic Catholics” like me. (I was never confirmed, but my father, my grandparents and many Irish generations before them were all Catholic, and I cannot deny a residual affiliation.) For many people, not all of them believers or even theists, Francis represents the possibility of spiritual renewal, a yearning that lies deep in human history and consciousness. To Catholics, he recalls the church of John XXIII and Vatican II, the church of Latin American “liberation theology,” the church that led Bobby Kennedy to get down on his knees in a California lettuce field in his Park Avenue suit, receiving Communion alongside Cesar Chavez and a team of immigrant farm workers. Pope Francis is those things and is not those things; his positioning is highly calculated and politically astute. First of all, the new pope’s words and actions are obviously limited by his church’s tormented history and its encrusted dogmas. Francis is not going to revoke priestly celibacy, overturn the ban on contraception or reverse centuries of teaching on homosexuality overnight, and quite likely does not want to. He is not pro-choice or “pro-gay” or a feminist; he simply does not want to be held hostage by issues that make the church appear irrelevant. His canonization of the 18th-century Spanish missionary Junípero Serra, viewed by many Native Americans as a genocidal invader who enslaved their ancestors and destroyed their cultures, was at the very least a significant P.R. blunder for a pope who prides himself on speaking for the downtrodden and the oppressed. All that said, it’s not fair to dismiss Francis’ loving and inclusive rhetoric, or his refusal to pronounce judgment against social forces and political movements repeatedly demonized by previous popes, as nothing more than lipstick applied to an enormous pig. Some activists in the Catholic Worker Movement apparently felt dissed by the pope’s brief reference to Dorothy Day, the charismatic and controversial co-founder of that most radical of all Christian social-justice organizations, in his Thursday address before Congress. I see their point, sort of: Francis pulled something of an MLK-style rebranding on Day, praising her for the strength of her faith and the inspiration she drew from the Gospel and the lives of the saints. Francis did not mention that Day fervently despised capitalism and was an ardent pacifist who refused to pay federal income tax, or that Catholic Worker was (and is) essentially an anarchist political movement that understands its communal households as models for nonviolent social revolution. If any self-respecting Republicans in that chamber had actually heard of Day (or could understand the pontiff’s imperfect English), they should have stalked out in outrage. Day was arrested numerous times for direct-action protests on behalf of many different causes, was under FBI surveillance for half a century and repeatedly sided with socialist and Communist revolutionaries. She summarized her differences with them this way: Communists wanted to make the poor rich, whereas “the object of Christianity is to make the rich poor.” As

Mentored in the art of manipulation: Donald Trump learned from the master — Roy Cohn

When the country finally ended Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s secular inquisition—“Have you no decency, sir?” asked one witness—his chief aide said that the witch-hunting Democrat from Wisconsin had been silenced by his colleagues because he “would not observe the social amenities.” In today’s parlance, Roy Cohn might say that McCarthy suffered because he refused to be politically correct.

McCarthy was such an effective tormentor of the innocent that his name became synonymous with character assassination. He was eventually driven out of the Senate. Disgraced alongside his boss, Cohn departed Washington for his hometown of New York City where he became the ultimate political fixer and a terror in his own right. If you needed a favor, or wanted to hurt an enemy, Cohn could do the job. He talked like a make-believe mobster and counted real ones among his clients. Having spent years under the shadow of ethics complaints, Cohn lost his license to practice law in 1986, just before he died of HIV/AIDS, a diagnosis he denied. A gay Jewish man who spewed anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist remarks, he was actually quite charming in his way and left behind many friends. Among them were gossip columnists (like McCarthy, Cohn cultivated them) and two men he mentored in the art of manipulation: Roger Stone and Donald Trump. When Trump was still in his 20s he hired Cohn and began to move in the same circles. Both were members of Le Club, a private hot spot where the rich and famous and social climbers could meet without suffering the presence of ordinary people. Later, when Studio 54 served the glitter and cocaine crowd, Cohn and Trump were there too. Cohn modeled a style for Trump that was one part friendly gossip and one part menace. Cohn looked and sounded like someone who could hurt you if you crossed him. Trump kept a photo of the glowering Cohn so he could show it to those who might be chilled by the idea that this man was his lawyer. It was Cohn who introduced Trump to a young political operator named Roger Stone in 1979. Stone had cut his teeth in the Nixon campaign of 1972 where he posed as a student socialist who donated to an opponent and then made the contribution public. The fake scandal helped scuttle antiwar congressman Rep. Pete McCloskey’s presidential bid and ensured that Nixon was around to give America three more years of a disastrous war and Watergate.

Brilliant and perpetually aggressive—“attack, attack, attack” is his motto—Stone teamed up with Trump to create an ersatz presidential bid in 1987, and the two have been political partners ever since. Like Cohn, Stone is a risk-taker. He and Trump got caught breaking campaign rules as they fought the development of Indian casinos and state officials levied a hefty fine. Stone counsels clients to “Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.” He once told a reporter that it was his practice to always, “Get even.” “When somebody screws you,” he added, “screw ‘em back—but a lot harder.”

Trump’s version of the Stone credo, as he told me, is to “hit back 10 times harder” whenever he feels attacked. Like McCarthy and Cohn and Stone, Trump loves to gossip and trade in information. He too cultivates an air of menace to keep his opponents off-guard and he hates to apologize, or back down. And, like Cohn, he insists that the kind of talk his critics consider offensive is really just the truth expressed without the social amenities. This is an ingenious tactic for someone who wants to be free to say almost anything, even if it’s insulting, and get away with. Much of what Trump says and does comes straight out of the Cohn/Stone playbook, including his eagerness to make people uncomfortable and confused. As a campaign consultant Stone advises candidates to open multiple battlefronts, and as a source for reporters he often mystifies anyone who seeks to understand what he’s up to. For his part, Trump is a man prone to outrageous statements that defy fact-checking and our fascination with him stems, at least in part, from the delightful challenge of trying to figure out when he’s serious and when he’s putting us on. The current state of the Stone-Trump relationship is puzzling indeed. Stone has earned substantial sums for Trump and has always seemed to lurk behind the scenes in his political life. However, his outrageousness can seem like a liability and in 2008 Trump told Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker, “Roger is a stone-cold loser.” He also complained that Stone “always tries taking credit for things he never did.” Trump told me that he finds it easy to cut off those who displease him and that none of those who are banished ever return. Given this stand, it may seem strange that Trump welcomed Stone back into his political circle prior to announcing his candidacy for the GOP nomination. The reunion was short-lived, as the Trump campaign fired Stone in August with an announcement that said he was promoting himself too much. However, Stone insists he resigned before he was fired and he has continued to stump for Trump in the media. He is, like Donald, a true descendant of the McCarthy/Cohn line and perhaps as impossible to fully disown as a member of the family. Michael D'Antonio is the author of “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” (Sept. 22, 2015; St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books). As part of a team of journalists from Newsday, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting before going on to write many acclaimed books, including “Atomic Harvest” and “The State Boys Rebellion.” He has also written for Esquire, the New York Times Magazine and Sports Illustrated.

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Pope Francis’ message is completely lost on Catholic universities

Pope Francis has made serving the poor a Pope Francis has made serving the poor a

How to explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents in the field?

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Trevor Noah’s learning curve: How “The Daily Show” host plans to turn his “clean slate” into success

On Friday morning, journalists were granted a sneak peek at the “Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” during which the host answered questions about the regime change and showed off the spiffy new set, which is buried in a warehouse out on the nether-reaches of Hell’s Kitchen. Accented in gray, brown, deep reds and blues, the set evokes his predecessor’s, albeit with some subtle tweaks — which seems to be Noah’s approach to the show itself. “I look at ‘The Daily Show’ as a beautiful house that I’ve inherited,” Noah explained, looking handsome and at ease as he perched on a director’s chair in front of the anchor desk. “I’m not going to break the house down and start trying to build a house from there; I go ‘this is a beautiful house that’s been there for many years, it’s a landmark.’ So what I’ll try and do is create it into the home of my dreams, using my new family." "So as time goes on, I’ll be breaking down a wall here, changing a color there, moving a counter over there," he added. "But you will know there’s a new person living in the house, because you’ll be complaining about the noise.” In terms of guests, Noah seems to be aiming for a familiar mix of entertainers, politicians and cultural figures, although he says his show will include more musical performances. For the first week’s lineup, Noah outlined how each guest was chosen to make a statement about the show's revamped identity: Comedian Kevin Hart (“that’s what the show is, it is a comedy show first and foremost”), Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe (“like myself, a new voice in a space, but from a female side”), musician and Taylor Swift disrupter Ryan Adams (“he’s done in essence what we’ve done here: he’s taken something loved and cherished by many and created a new version”). Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie was picked to confirm that “the show is still going to be political; it’s still going to be American politics." But it remains to be seen how Noah will deal with the intricacies of the American political system that were his former boss’s bread and butter. Jon Stewart was mired in the system, and the South African-born Noah is much more of an outsider — a viewpoint he intends to use to his advantage in the writers' room. “I also bring in a certain level of ‘did you see this other thing that comes from another place,’ and then we get to talk about that,” he explained. “They get an outsider’s perspective.” As he reiterated a few times, Noah doesn’t see his learning curve as a disadvantage. Rather, he expects that balancing his fresh eyes with the experienced perspectives of his writers (most of Stewart’s writing staff have stayed on) will provide a new way in to some of the show’s well-trodden topics. “The fun part is the learning, and I think sometimes transferring that learning into a TV show and giving that to the audience is fantastic, like when you have a child, they learn new things and then you get to relearn it with them,” he added. Take covering the recent Republican debates: Noah said he and his team worked together to figure out how to stay true to the show’s brand and to his sensibilities simultaneously. “For the writers, they’ve got a history with all of these people," he explained. "I’m watching the debate and someone says something about something one of the politicians did 10, 15 years ago, and they’re like ‘that’s like the time that happened.’ And I’m the person going ‘why is that funny? Who is that person? What is important about that?’" "What’s great about this is I think we have an opportunity to re-learn these instances," he added. "I come in on a clean slate with a lot of the politicians, a lot of the news media outlets.” Certainly, Noah lacks the jadedness that was seeping from Stewart's pores by the end of his tenure. He also might not necessarily target the same Fox News and GOP punching bags that Stewart liked to target. Noah rarely watched Fox News while living abroad, and he seems excited now to dig into the conservative slop bucket. “I get to forge my own relationships, I get to discover the person that I will grow to loathe and hate,” he joked. “I’m not coming in with any preconceived notions of where I think my battles should be waged.” Noah’s childlike naiveté about the U.S. political quagmire may have its charms (and, I suspect, may be more winning for a correspondent than a host); it could also lead to a disconnect between Noah and “The Daily Show’s” politically savvy liberal audience, who might not have the patience to wait for Noah to outgrow his burgeoning “college libertarian phase,” as my colleague Sonia Saraiya dubbed it. “The joke that happened with myself and Steve [producer Steve Bodow] is we were watching the debate together, and I was complimenting every single thing that Rand Paul said,” Noah said. “Rand Paul said something and I said ‘that sounds great!’ and Steve said, just you wait, he’s going to break your heart. And I was like, ‘I don’t know, seems like a pretty amazing guy to me.’” While Rand may be the first candidate in Noah’s heart, he seems open to whichever GOP candidates want to step into the ring with him. After saying that he’d love to have Ben Carson on because “it would be a very energetic interview,” he spoke a little bit about Donald Trump, a notoriously slippery interview subject — even Colbert seemed to have a tough time with the blustering candidate when he appeared on "The Late Show" earlier this week. “Donald Trump is an interesting one, because the truth of the matter is he doesn’t say much,” Noah acknowledged. “Really what we’re doing is enjoying the spectacle of it all. That’s really what we’re doing it, we’re indulging it, and at some point that indulgence may come back to bite us. But we’ll see. Obviously Donald Trump is welcome on the show and I would love to have him on, but the question I would ask myself and the team is, what do we aim to achieve from this? Are we doing this just for entertainment or are we really trying to get answers, are we really trying to go into a political space with these people?” Noah’s on-the-fly political humor chops got a little test this morning, when Saraiya broke the news mid Q&A that John Boehner was stepping down from his congressional seat, and asked Noah to share some of his failed Boehner jokes with the audience. After demurring that it was probably time for him to step offstage, he lamented the speakers's departure (“That’s sad, I liked him! He cried all the time") and expressed disappointment that he wouldn’t get to show off some of his Boehner material: “They weren’t failed, they were great jokes! That’s the sad thing.” Still -- perhaps wisely -- Noah chose not to rise to the bait. “I’m a big fan of thinking before I say or react to anything," he added. “So that’s what we would be doing right now is talking about it and reminiscing on our favorite John Boehner moments, and [the writers] would be taking me back to some I didn’t know of. And we’d figure out a way to go from there.” https://twitter.com/annaesilman/statu... https://twitter.com/annaesilman/statu... Friday morning, journalists were granted a sneak peek at the “Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” during which the host answered questions about the regime change and showed off the spiffy new set, which is buried in a warehouse out on the nether-reaches of Hell’s Kitchen. Accented in gray, brown, deep reds and blues, the set evokes his predecessor’s, albeit with some subtle tweaks — which seems to be Noah’s approach to the show itself. “I look at ‘The Daily Show’ as a beautiful house that I’ve inherited,” Noah explained, looking handsome and at ease as he perched on a director’s chair in front of the anchor desk. “I’m not going to break the house down and start trying to build a house from there; I go ‘this is a beautiful house that’s been there for many years, it’s a landmark.’ So what I’ll try and do is create it into the home of my dreams, using my new family." "So as time goes on, I’ll be breaking down a wall here, changing a color there, moving a counter over there," he added. "But you will know there’s a new person living in the house, because you’ll be complaining about the noise.” In terms of guests, Noah seems to be aiming for a familiar mix of entertainers, politicians and cultural figures, although he says his show will include more musical performances. For the first week’s lineup, Noah outlined how each guest was chosen to make a statement about the show's revamped identity: Comedian Kevin Hart (“that’s what the show is, it is a comedy show first and foremost”), Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe (“like myself, a new voice in a space, but from a female side”), musician and Taylor Swift disrupter Ryan Adams (“he’s done in essence what we’ve done here: he’s taken something loved and cherished by many and created a new version”). Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie was picked to confirm that “the show is still going to be political; it’s still going to be American politics." But it remains to be seen how Noah will deal with the intricacies of the American political system that were his former boss’s bread and butter. Jon Stewart was mired in the system, and the South African-born Noah is much more of an outsider — a viewpoint he intends to use to his advantage in the writers' room. “I also bring in a certain level of ‘did you see this other thing that comes from another place,’ and then we get to talk about that,” he explained. “They get an outsider’s perspective.” As he reiterated a few times, Noah doesn’t see his learning curve as a disadvantage. Rather, he expects that balancing his fresh eyes with the experienced perspectives of his writers (most of Stewart’s writing staff have stayed on) will provide a new way in to some of the show’s well-trodden topics. “The fun part is the learning, and I think sometimes transferring that learning into a TV show and giving that to the audience is fantastic, like when you have a child, they learn new things and then you get to relearn it with them,” he added. Take covering the recent Republican debates: Noah said he and his team worked together to figure out how to stay true to the show’s brand and to his sensibilities simultaneously. “For the writers, they’ve got a history with all of these people," he explained. "I’m watching the debate and someone says something about something one of the politicians did 10, 15 years ago, and they’re like ‘that’s like the time that happened.’ And I’m the person going ‘why is that funny? Who is that person? What is important about that?’" "What’s great about this is I think we have an opportunity to re-learn these instances," he added. "I come in on a clean slate with a lot of the politicians, a lot of the news media outlets.” Certainly, Noah lacks the jadedness that was seeping from Stewart's pores by the end of his tenure. He also might not necessarily target the same Fox News and GOP punching bags that Stewart liked to target. Noah rarely watched Fox News while living abroad, and he seems excited now to dig into the conservative slop bucket. “I get to forge my own relationships, I get to discover the person that I will grow to loathe and hate,” he joked. “I’m not coming in with any preconceived notions of where I think my battles should be waged.” Noah’s childlike naiveté about the U.S. political quagmire may have its charms (and, I suspect, may be more winning for a correspondent than a host); it could also lead to a disconnect between Noah and “The Daily Show’s” politically savvy liberal audience, who might not have the patience to wait for Noah to outgrow his burgeoning “college libertarian phase,” as my colleague Sonia Saraiya dubbed it. “The joke that happened with myself and Steve [producer Steve Bodow] is we were watching the debate together, and I was complimenting every single thing that Rand Paul said,” Noah said. “Rand Paul said something and I said ‘that sounds great!’ and Steve said, just you wait, he’s going to break your heart. And I was like, ‘I don’t know, seems like a pretty amazing guy to me.’” While Rand may be the first candidate in Noah’s heart, he seems open to whichever GOP candidates want to step into the ring with him. After saying that he’d love to have Ben Carson on because “it would be a very energetic interview,” he spoke a little bit about Donald Trump, a notoriously slippery interview subject — even Colbert seemed to have a tough time with the blustering candidate when he appeared on "The Late Show" earlier this week. “Donald Trump is an interesting one, because the truth of the matter is he doesn’t say much,” Noah acknowledged. “Really what we’re doing is enjoying the spectacle of it all. That’s really what we’re doing it, we’re indulging it, and at some point that indulgence may come back to bite us. But we’ll see. Obviously Donald Trump is welcome on the show and I would love to have him on, but the question I would ask myself and the team is, what do we aim to achieve from this? Are we doing this just for entertainment or are we really trying to get answers, are we really trying to go into a political space with these people?” Noah’s on-the-fly political humor chops got a little test this morning, when Saraiya broke the news mid Q&A that John Boehner was stepping down from his congressional seat, and asked Noah to share some of his failed Boehner jokes with the audience. After demurring that it was probably time for him to step offstage, he lamented the speakers's departure (“That’s sad, I liked him! He cried all the time") and expressed disappointment that he wouldn’t get to show off some of his Boehner material: “They weren’t failed, they were great jokes! That’s the sad thing.” Still -- perhaps wisely -- Noah chose not to rise to the bait. “I’m a big fan of thinking before I say or react to anything," he added. “So that’s what we would be doing right now is talking about it and reminiscing on our favorite John Boehner moments, and [the writers] would be taking me back to some I didn’t know of. And we’d figure out a way to go from there.” https://twitter.com/annaesilman/statu... https://twitter.com/annaesilman/statu... Friday morning, journalists were granted a sneak peek at the “Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” during which the host answered questions about the regime change and showed off the spiffy new set, which is buried in a warehouse out on the nether-reaches of Hell’s Kitchen. Accented in gray, brown, deep reds and blues, the set evokes his predecessor’s, albeit with some subtle tweaks — which seems to be Noah’s approach to the show itself. “I look at ‘The Daily Show’ as a beautiful house that I’ve inherited,” Noah explained, looking handsome and at ease as he perched on a director’s chair in front of the anchor desk. “I’m not going to break the house down and start trying to build a house from there; I go ‘this is a beautiful house that’s been there for many years, it’s a landmark.’ So what I’ll try and do is create it into the home of my dreams, using my new family." "So as time goes on, I’ll be breaking down a wall here, changing a color there, moving a counter over there," he added. "But you will know there’s a new person living in the house, because you’ll be complaining about the noise.” In terms of guests, Noah seems to be aiming for a familiar mix of entertainers, politicians and cultural figures, although he says his show will include more musical performances. For the first week’s lineup, Noah outlined how each guest was chosen to make a statement about the show's revamped identity: Comedian Kevin Hart (“that’s what the show is, it is a comedy show first and foremost”), Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe (“like myself, a new voice in a space, but from a female side”), musician and Taylor Swift disrupter Ryan Adams (“he’s done in essence what we’ve done here: he’s taken something loved and cherished by many and created a new version”). Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie was picked to confirm that “the show is still going to be political; it’s still going to be American politics." But it remains to be seen how Noah will deal with the intricacies of the American political system that were his former boss’s bread and butter. Jon Stewart was mired in the system, and the South African-born Noah is much more of an outsider — a viewpoint he intends to use to his advantage in the writers' room. “I also bring in a certain level of ‘did you see this other thing that comes from another place,’ and then we get to talk about that,” he explained. “They get an outsider’s perspective.” As he reiterated a few times, Noah doesn’t see his learning curve as a disadvantage. Rather, he expects that balancing his fresh eyes with the experienced perspectives of his writers (most of Stewart’s writing staff have stayed on) will provide a new way in to some of the show’s well-trodden topics. “The fun part is the learning, and I think sometimes transferring that learning into a TV show and giving that to the audience is fantastic, like when you have a child, they learn new things and then you get to relearn it with them,” he added. Take covering the recent Republican debates: Noah said he and his team worked together to figure out how to stay true to the show’s brand and to his sensibilities simultaneously. “For the writers, they’ve got a history with all of these people," he explained. "I’m watching the debate and someone says something about something one of the politicians did 10, 15 years ago, and they’re like ‘that’s like the time that happened.’ And I’m the person going ‘why is that funny? Who is that person? What is important about that?’" "What’s great about this is I think we have an opportunity to re-learn these instances," he added. "I come in on a clean slate with a lot of the politicians, a lot of the news media outlets.” Certainly, Noah lacks the jadedness that was seeping from Stewart's pores by the end of his tenure. He also might not necessarily target the same Fox News and GOP punching bags that Stewart liked to target. Noah rarely watched Fox News while living abroad, and he seems excited now to dig into the conservative slop bucket. “I get to forge my own relationships, I get to discover the person that I will grow to loathe and hate,” he joked. “I’m not coming in with any preconceived notions of where I think my battles should be waged.” Noah’s childlike naiveté about the U.S. political quagmire may have its charms (and, I suspect, may be more winning for a correspondent than a host); it could also lead to a disconnect between Noah and “The Daily Show’s” politically savvy liberal audience, who might not have the patience to wait for Noah to outgrow his burgeoning “college libertarian phase,” as my colleague Sonia Saraiya dubbed it. “The joke that happened with myself and Steve [producer Steve Bodow] is we were watching the debate together, and I was complimenting every single thing that Rand Paul said,” Noah said. “Rand Paul said something and I said ‘that sounds great!’ and Steve said, just you wait, he’s going to break your heart. And I was like, ‘I don’t know, seems like a pretty amazing guy to me.’” While Rand may be the first candidate in Noah’s heart, he seems open to whichever GOP candidates want to step into the ring with him. After saying that he’d love to have Ben Carson on because “it would be a very energetic interview,” he spoke a little bit about Donald Trump, a notoriously slippery interview subject — even Colbert seemed to have a tough time with the blustering candidate when he appeared on "The Late Show" earlier this week. “Donald Trump is an interesting one, because the truth of the matter is he doesn’t say much,” Noah acknowledged. “Really what we’re doing is enjoying the spectacle of it all. That’s really what we’re doing it, we’re indulging it, and at some point that indulgence may come back to bite us. But we’ll see. Obviously Donald Trump is welcome on the show and I would love to have him on, but the question I would ask myself and the team is, what do we aim to achieve from this? Are we doing this just for entertainment or are we really trying to get answers, are we really trying to go into a political space with these people?” Noah’s on-the-fly political humor chops got a little test this morning, when Saraiya broke the news mid Q&A that John Boehner was stepping down from his congressional seat, and asked Noah to share some of his failed Boehner jokes with the audience. After demurring that it was probably time for him to step offstage, he lamented the speakers's departure (“That’s sad, I liked him! He cried all the time") and expressed disappointment that he wouldn’t get to show off some of his Boehner material: “They weren’t failed, they were great jokes! That’s the sad thing.” Still -- perhaps wisely -- Noah chose not to rise to the bait. “I’m a big fan of thinking before I say or react to anything," he added. “So that’s what we would be doing right now is talking about it and reminiscing on our favorite John Boehner moments, and [the writers] would be taking me back to some I didn’t know of. And we’d figure out a way to go from there.” https://twitter.com/annaesilman/statu... https://twitter.com/annaesilman/statu...

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“Trump is kind of scary. I get the feeling he might actually pull it off”: Michael Shannon on “99 Homes,” the economic collapse and the eroding American Dream

Michael Shannon gives an indelible performance as Rick Carver in Ramin Bahrani’s intense, rewarding drama, “99 Homes.” A shrewd, affectless real estate broker in Orlando, Florida, Rick puffs on e-cigarettes and carries a gun as he goes about his work forcing people out of their foreclosed homes. After he evicts Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) and his family, Rick finds an opportunity to hire Dennis as his protégé. The balance of power between these men shifts over the course of this intense, engaging drama. What makes “99 Homes” electrifying is how Shannon taps into what makes Rick tick; it’s more than just greed and hubris, it’s a mindset that justifies his behavior which escalates to criminal activity. He gets Dennis to do his dirty work with the promise that Dennis can recover his family home. Shannon has a glint in his eye that makes Rick as seductive as he is slimy. Yet the actor, who is best known for his work in “Taking Shelter,” and his Oscar-nominated turn in “Revolutionary Road,” takes a completely different—and nice guy—role in “Freeheld,” opening October 2. In this issue-driven drama, Shannon is Dane Wells, a New Jersey cop who becomes a straight ally in his lesbian partner Laurel Hester’s (Julianne Moore) battle for pension benefits after she is stricken with cancer. Shannon spoke with Salon about his characters and his career, as well as his thoughts on realty, the American Dream and the worst jobs he ever had. How do you find—or do you find—something redeeming about Rick Carver in “99 Homes?” Well, I don’t think he’s a piece of human garbage. He’s a person trying to survive like anyone else. He’s a very intelligent person. I admire the fact that he seems to have found a way to take a system that is rotten and corrupt, and turn it to his advantage. Most people don’t do that; they give up, or play the victim. He didn’t. He said I’m going to try and conquer this system and not be bullied by it. I feel like it’s an epidemic in this culture that in order for people to get ahead they have to step on somebody’s head, you know? It’s not the only option, but there are a lot of people who make money by screwing other people over. He’s not the sole shining example of that. How do you identify with Rick, who is seductive, but not exactly lovable? Do you have sympathy for him? I don’t know that I have sympathy for him, or that he asks for sympathy. Mostly, I could say I identify with him to the extent that he’s a creative individual. He’s a colorful character and the way he operates and gets by is through his wits. He’s an iconic kind of con-man wheeler-dealer-type person, which is exciting to play. I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass whether you have sympathy for him or not. He’s lonely and unhappy, and something is eating away at him. He thinks Dennis can help him resolve that by passing along the tricks of his trade; maybe he can exonerate himself somehow. If Dennis accepts things, it helps validate his behavior. I think he has a lot of doubts about himself underneath his exterior confidence. The characters you tend to play are brainy and dangerous. You make viewers root for them even when most folks would run from them in real life. But then you turn around and play a nice guy in “Freeheld.” What are your thoughts about the men you play on screen? I don’t know that there’s a unifying element with all of the characters I play. I am always excited by the opportunity to explore how someone else’s mind works. It’s why I started acting in the first place. I like exploring other people’s identities. Every job is different, and comes about for different reasons. With “99 Homes,” I wanted to work with Ramin, because I thought he was a great filmmaker. When I read the script, I saw he took the subject I didn’t know much about and illuminated it in a robust, heartfelt way. I also have a soft side, so something like “Freeheld”—they showed me the doc about Laurel [Hester] and it melted my heart. I met the real Dane Wells and he was a fascinating person. He has a lot of dignity, and the fact that he cared so much about Laurel, I found that very moving. The notion that they had been partners on the force for so long and real close friends, but that Laurel was keeping secrets to keep her job, was a situation I wanted to explore. He had no idea that she was gay.  Rick smokes e-cigarettes and chews on a cigar—the latter being a symbol of power and money. Are you a cigar enthusiast? No. Ramin gave me the e-cigarette. I got into it while we were shooting, but as soon as we wrapped I turned it back in. Rick pays Dennis to clean out a house literally full of shit. What is the worst job you ever had? [Laughs] Telemarketing was pretty bad. So was canvassing door to door for an environmental organization when I was a teenager. I worked at Taco Bell once for a summer. That wasn’t great. I was in the back and made the meat and beans. I was a meat-and-bean man.  Rick has to tell folks they are losing their homes, which is pretty devastating. What’s the worst or most devastating news you received? Once I was in London and was doing press for “The Iceman,” and while I was there I got a phone call that my daughter Sylvia’s appendix had ruptured and she was going into surgery. So I got on the first plane I could. But while I was on the plane, she was in surgery. I got off the plane and she was out of surgery and OK, but that was the longest flight I’d ever taken. Rick says “Don’t get emotional over real estate.” What can you say about your experiences buying and selling property? I don’t picture you living in a McMansion, but more monastically? Our main residence is in Brooklyn, in Red Hook. I rent there. I’m naturally suspicious of banks and mortgages. I always have been. Mortgages seem like a raw deal, but I finally broke my pact to never have a mortgage, so now I have a condo in Chicago. I try not to throw my money around too much, because you never know when you’ll run out. They say Nicolas Cage overextended his finances, and he works constantly because he bought too many houses.  Rick also has a hell of a speech about the American Dream. How do you think that dream is doing these days? [Sighs] I feel like there’s been a lot of gridlock, and I feel bad for Obama, who didn’t really get to spread his wings and fly. It’s sad to see it all gearing up for the next whoever it might be. Trump is kind of scary. I get the feeling he might actually pull it off. I’m very lucky, I get to work, and it would be hard for me to complain about anything. I have what I need. I know a lot of people are still suffering. This collapse is not a thing of the past for most people. I don’t know how you get ahead. You used to go to college and get a nice job, but nowadays people have a great education and still can’t get a job. It’s scary. And the technology end of it, they seem to be trying to replace people with machines. That’s going to create more unemployment. I try to stay optimistic. I have two kids. I hope the world is still worth a shit when they grow up. Michael Shannon gives an indelible performance as Rick Carver in Ramin Bahrani’s intense, rewarding drama, “99 Homes.” A shrewd, affectless real estate broker in Orlando, Florida, Rick puffs on e-cigarettes and carries a gun as he goes about his work forcing people out of their foreclosed homes. After he evicts Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) and his family, Rick finds an opportunity to hire Dennis as his protégé. The balance of power between these men shifts over the course of this intense, engaging drama. What makes “99 Homes” electrifying is how Shannon taps into what makes Rick tick; it’s more than just greed and hubris, it’s a mindset that justifies his behavior which escalates to criminal activity. He gets Dennis to do his dirty work with the promise that Dennis can recover his family home. Shannon has a glint in his eye that makes Rick as seductive as he is slimy. Yet the actor, who is best known for his work in “Taking Shelter,” and his Oscar-nominated turn in “Revolutionary Road,” takes a completely different—and nice guy—role in “Freeheld,” opening October 2. In this issue-driven drama, Shannon is Dane Wells, a New Jersey cop who becomes a straight ally in his lesbian partner Laurel Hester’s (Julianne Moore) battle for pension benefits after she is stricken with cancer. Shannon spoke with Salon about his characters and his career, as well as his thoughts on realty, the American Dream and the worst jobs he ever had. How do you find—or do you find—something redeeming about Rick Carver in “99 Homes?” Well, I don’t think he’s a piece of human garbage. He’s a person trying to survive like anyone else. He’s a very intelligent person. I admire the fact that he seems to have found a way to take a system that is rotten and corrupt, and turn it to his advantage. Most people don’t do that; they give up, or play the victim. He didn’t. He said I’m going to try and conquer this system and not be bullied by it. I feel like it’s an epidemic in this culture that in order for people to get ahead they have to step on somebody’s head, you know? It’s not the only option, but there are a lot of people who make money by screwing other people over. He’s not the sole shining example of that. How do you identify with Rick, who is seductive, but not exactly lovable? Do you have sympathy for him? I don’t know that I have sympathy for him, or that he asks for sympathy. Mostly, I could say I identify with him to the extent that he’s a creative individual. He’s a colorful character and the way he operates and gets by is through his wits. He’s an iconic kind of con-man wheeler-dealer-type person, which is exciting to play. I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass whether you have sympathy for him or not. He’s lonely and unhappy, and something is eating away at him. He thinks Dennis can help him resolve that by passing along the tricks of his trade; maybe he can exonerate himself somehow. If Dennis accepts things, it helps validate his behavior. I think he has a lot of doubts about himself underneath his exterior confidence. The characters you tend to play are brainy and dangerous. You make viewers root for them even when most folks would run from them in real life. But then you turn around and play a nice guy in “Freeheld.” What are your thoughts about the men you play on screen? I don’t know that there’s a unifying element with all of the characters I play. I am always excited by the opportunity to explore how someone else’s mind works. It’s why I started acting in the first place. I like exploring other people’s identities. Every job is different, and comes about for different reasons. With “99 Homes,” I wanted to work with Ramin, because I thought he was a great filmmaker. When I read the script, I saw he took the subject I didn’t know much about and illuminated it in a robust, heartfelt way. I also have a soft side, so something like “Freeheld”—they showed me the doc about Laurel [Hester] and it melted my heart. I met the real Dane Wells and he was a fascinating person. He has a lot of dignity, and the fact that he cared so much about Laurel, I found that very moving. The notion that they had been partners on the force for so long and real close friends, but that Laurel was keeping secrets to keep her job, was a situation I wanted to explore. He had no idea that she was gay.  Rick smokes e-cigarettes and chews on a cigar—the latter being a symbol of power and money. Are you a cigar enthusiast? No. Ramin gave me the e-cigarette. I got into it while we were shooting, but as soon as we wrapped I turned it back in. Rick pays Dennis to clean out a house literally full of shit. What is the worst job you ever had? [Laughs] Telemarketing was pretty bad. So was canvassing door to door for an environmental organization when I was a teenager. I worked at Taco Bell once for a summer. That wasn’t great. I was in the back and made the meat and beans. I was a meat-and-bean man.  Rick has to tell folks they are losing their homes, which is pretty devastating. What’s the worst or most devastating news you received? Once I was in London and was doing press for “The Iceman,” and while I was there I got a phone call that my daughter Sylvia’s appendix had ruptured and she was going into surgery. So I got on the first plane I could. But while I was on the plane, she was in surgery. I got off the plane and she was out of surgery and OK, but that was the longest flight I’d ever taken. Rick says “Don’t get emotional over real estate.” What can you say about your experiences buying and selling property? I don’t picture you living in a McMansion, but more monastically? Our main residence is in Brooklyn, in Red Hook. I rent there. I’m naturally suspicious of banks and mortgages. I always have been. Mortgages seem like a raw deal, but I finally broke my pact to never have a mortgage, so now I have a condo in Chicago. I try not to throw my money around too much, because you never know when you’ll run out. They say Nicolas Cage overextended his finances, and he works constantly because he bought too many houses.  Rick also has a hell of a speech about the American Dream. How do you think that dream is doing these days? [Sighs] I feel like there’s been a lot of gridlock, and I feel bad for Obama, who didn’t really get to spread his wings and fly. It’s sad to see it all gearing up for the next whoever it might be. Trump is kind of scary. I get the feeling he might actually pull it off. I’m very lucky, I get to work, and it would be hard for me to complain about anything. I have what I need. I know a lot of people are still suffering. This collapse is not a thing of the past for most people. I don’t know how you get ahead. You used to go to college and get a nice job, but nowadays people have a great education and still can’t get a job. It’s scary. And the technology end of it, they seem to be trying to replace people with machines. That’s going to create more unemployment. I try to stay optimistic. I have two kids. I hope the world is still worth a shit when they grow up. Michael Shannon gives an indelible performance as Rick Carver in Ramin Bahrani’s intense, rewarding drama, “99 Homes.” A shrewd, affectless real estate broker in Orlando, Florida, Rick puffs on e-cigarettes and carries a gun as he goes about his work forcing people out of their foreclosed homes. After he evicts Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) and his family, Rick finds an opportunity to hire Dennis as his protégé. The balance of power between these men shifts over the course of this intense, engaging drama. What makes “99 Homes” electrifying is how Shannon taps into what makes Rick tick; it’s more than just greed and hubris, it’s a mindset that justifies his behavior which escalates to criminal activity. He gets Dennis to do his dirty work with the promise that Dennis can recover his family home. Shannon has a glint in his eye that makes Rick as seductive as he is slimy. Yet the actor, who is best known for his work in “Taking Shelter,” and his Oscar-nominated turn in “Revolutionary Road,” takes a completely different—and nice guy—role in “Freeheld,” opening October 2. In this issue-driven drama, Shannon is Dane Wells, a New Jersey cop who becomes a straight ally in his lesbian partner Laurel Hester’s (Julianne Moore) battle for pension benefits after she is stricken with cancer. Shannon spoke with Salon about his characters and his career, as well as his thoughts on realty, the American Dream and the worst jobs he ever had. How do you find—or do you find—something redeeming about Rick Carver in “99 Homes?” Well, I don’t think he’s a piece of human garbage. He’s a person trying to survive like anyone else. He’s a very intelligent person. I admire the fact that he seems to have found a way to take a system that is rotten and corrupt, and turn it to his advantage. Most people don’t do that; they give up, or play the victim. He didn’t. He said I’m going to try and conquer this system and not be bullied by it. I feel like it’s an epidemic in this culture that in order for people to get ahead they have to step on somebody’s head, you know? It’s not the only option, but there are a lot of people who make money by screwing other people over. He’s not the sole shining example of that. How do you identify with Rick, who is seductive, but not exactly lovable? Do you have sympathy for him? I don’t know that I have sympathy for him, or that he asks for sympathy. Mostly, I could say I identify with him to the extent that he’s a creative individual. He’s a colorful character and the way he operates and gets by is through his wits. He’s an iconic kind of con-man wheeler-dealer-type person, which is exciting to play. I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass whether you have sympathy for him or not. He’s lonely and unhappy, and something is eating away at him. He thinks Dennis can help him resolve that by passing along the tricks of his trade; maybe he can exonerate himself somehow. If Dennis accepts things, it helps validate his behavior. I think he has a lot of doubts about himself underneath his exterior confidence. The characters you tend to play are brainy and dangerous. You make viewers root for them even when most folks would run from them in real life. But then you turn around and play a nice guy in “Freeheld.” What are your thoughts about the men you play on screen? I don’t know that there’s a unifying element with all of the characters I play. I am always excited by the opportunity to explore how someone else’s mind works. It’s why I started acting in the first place. I like exploring other people’s identities. Every job is different, and comes about for different reasons. With “99 Homes,” I wanted to work with Ramin, because I thought he was a great filmmaker. When I read the script, I saw he took the subject I didn’t know much about and illuminated it in a robust, heartfelt way. I also have a soft side, so something like “Freeheld”—they showed me the doc about Laurel [Hester] and it melted my heart. I met the real Dane Wells and he was a fascinating person. He has a lot of dignity, and the fact that he cared so much about Laurel, I found that very moving. The notion that they had been partners on the force for so long and real close friends, but that Laurel was keeping secrets to keep her job, was a situation I wanted to explore. He had no idea that she was gay.  Rick smokes e-cigarettes and chews on a cigar—the latter being a symbol of power and money. Are you a cigar enthusiast? No. Ramin gave me the e-cigarette. I got into it while we were shooting, but as soon as we wrapped I turned it back in. Rick pays Dennis to clean out a house literally full of shit. What is the worst job you ever had? [Laughs] Telemarketing was pretty bad. So was canvassing door to door for an environmental organization when I was a teenager. I worked at Taco Bell once for a summer. That wasn’t great. I was in the back and made the meat and beans. I was a meat-and-bean man.  Rick has to tell folks they are losing their homes, which is pretty devastating. What’s the worst or most devastating news you received? Once I was in London and was doing press for “The Iceman,” and while I was there I got a phone call that my daughter Sylvia’s appendix had ruptured and she was going into surgery. So I got on the first plane I could. But while I was on the plane, she was in surgery. I got off the plane and she was out of surgery and OK, but that was the longest flight I’d ever taken. Rick says “Don’t get emotional over real estate.” What can you say about your experiences buying and selling property? I don’t picture you living in a McMansion, but more monastically? Our main residence is in Brooklyn, in Red Hook. I rent there. I’m naturally suspicious of banks and mortgages. I always have been. Mortgages seem like a raw deal, but I finally broke my pact to never have a mortgage, so now I have a condo in Chicago. I try not to throw my money around too much, because you never know when you’ll run out. They say Nicolas Cage overextended his finances, and he works constantly because he bought too many houses.  Rick also has a hell of a speech about the American Dream. How do you think that dream is doing these days? [Sighs] I feel like there’s been a lot of gridlock, and I feel bad for Obama, who didn’t really get to spread his wings and fly. It’s sad to see it all gearing up for the next whoever it might be. Trump is kind of scary. I get the feeling he might actually pull it off. I’m very lucky, I get to work, and it would be hard for me to complain about anything. I have what I need. I know a lot of people are still suffering. This collapse is not a thing of the past for most people. I don’t know how you get ahead. You used to go to college and get a nice job, but nowadays people have a great education and still can’t get a job. It’s scary. And the technology end of it, they seem to be trying to replace people with machines. That’s going to create more unemployment. I try to stay optimistic. I have two kids. I hope the world is still worth a shit when they grow up. 

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America’s “religious liberty” fiasco: What Kim Davis, the GOP & Ahmed Mohamed reveal about our stunted priorities

Yesterday, Pope Francis made an historic speech before Congress, the first Pope ever to do so. The themes of his papal visit have been notably social-justice oriented, including a focus on poverty and immigration and the responsibility we all have to work to help the poor and destitute among us. During his remarks, he spoke passionately about just immigration, and of his own family’s history of moving from Italy to Argentina, where he was born. Pope Francis made further history when he declined to stay and talk with Congress members in favor of spending time at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. He spoke before roughly 250 staff and volunteers before joining another 300 people for lunch with St. Maria’s Meals, a project of the local branch of Catholic Charities. Many in the audience were homeless. In his remarks Pope Francis touched briefly on the issue of religious freedom, saying,

“It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society.”

We remain in this country inthe throes of a debate about religious freedom, with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who defied a federal court order requiring that she issue marriage licenses, asserting her right to discriminate against same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs. We've also seen, more recently, 14-year-old high school student Ahmed Mohammed arrested by his teachers for bringing a homemade clock to school; a Louisville mosque vandalized with hate speech; and the Indian-American president of the University of Southern California student body verbally attacked for her race and religion. For whom, then, is the American right to religious freedom? For Ahmed, racial and religious profiling resulted in an unjust arrest. Violence and discrimination against Muslims and Sikhs continues, as does the profiling of Arab and South Asian American communities across the country. And, lest we think that this is an issue only faced by non-Christians, let’s remember the horrific and ongoing violence targeting Black churches that has surged in recent months. In fact, in the wake of the shooting of nine worshippers at Charleston’s historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church, many Christian conservatives spoke at length about religious freedom. Instead of naming the attack as race-based violence, many right-wing commentators spoke of it as evidence that Christians are under attack in the United States. Fox News went so far as to declare it an “attack on faith.” GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum called the shooting part of a broader assault on “religious liberty” in this country. The recent anniversary of the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, which killed four young girls and injured 22 others should remind us of the fact that Black worshippers aren’t attacked for being Christians, they are attacked for being Black. A year after the bombing in 1963, KKK members beat churchgoers leaving the Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Mississippi. White supremacists have continued targeting black churches and are not motivated by anti-Christian beliefs, instead, they are an age-old response to the deepening political power and civil rights organizing of these churches. For whom, then, is the American right to religious freedom? If we speak about religious liberty and the freedom to worship without acknowledging the racial biases that permeate this country and result in unspeakable violence against those who are not White Christians, our religious liberty is hollow at best, and false, at worst. Yesterday, Pope Francis said the following words:

“We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms.But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.”

The violence perpetrated in the name of racism is surely in this category as well. Eesha Pandit is a writer and activist based in Houston, TX. You can follow her on twitter at  @EeshaP , and find out more about her work at  eeshapandit.com .   -- Eesha Pandit www.eeshapandit.com @EeshaP  Yesterday, Pope Francis made an historic speech before Congress, the first Pope ever to do so. The themes of his papal visit have been notably social-justice oriented, including a focus on poverty and immigration and the responsibility we all have to work to help the poor and destitute among us. During his remarks, he spoke passionately about just immigration, and of his own family’s history of moving from Italy to Argentina, where he was born. Pope Francis made further history when he declined to stay and talk with Congress members in favor of spending time at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. He spoke before roughly 250 staff and volunteers before joining another 300 people for lunch with St. Maria’s Meals, a project of the local branch of Catholic Charities. Many in the audience were homeless. In his remarks Pope Francis touched briefly on the issue of religious freedom, saying,

“It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society.”

We remain in this country inthe throes of a debate about religious freedom, with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who defied a federal court order requiring that she issue marriage licenses, asserting her right to discriminate against same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs. We've also seen, more recently, 14-year-old high school student Ahmed Mohammed arrested by his teachers for bringing a homemade clock to school; a Louisville mosque vandalized with hate speech; and the Indian-American president of the University of Southern California student body verbally attacked for her race and religion. For whom, then, is the American right to religious freedom? For Ahmed, racial and religious profiling resulted in an unjust arrest. Violence and discrimination against Muslims and Sikhs continues, as does the profiling of Arab and South Asian American communities across the country. And, lest we think that this is an issue only faced by non-Christians, let’s remember the horrific and ongoing violence targeting Black churches that has surged in recent months. In fact, in the wake of the shooting of nine worshippers at Charleston’s historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church, many Christian conservatives spoke at length about religious freedom. Instead of naming the attack as race-based violence, many right-wing commentators spoke of it as evidence that Christians are under attack in the United States. Fox News went so far as to declare it an “attack on faith.” GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum called the shooting part of a broader assault on “religious liberty” in this country. The recent anniversary of the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, which killed four young girls and injured 22 others should remind us of the fact that Black worshippers aren’t attacked for being Christians, they are attacked for being Black. A year after the bombing in 1963, KKK members beat churchgoers leaving the Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Mississippi. White supremacists have continued targeting black churches and are not motivated by anti-Christian beliefs, instead, they are an age-old response to the deepening political power and civil rights organizing of these churches. For whom, then, is the American right to religious freedom? If we speak about religious liberty and the freedom to worship without acknowledging the racial biases that permeate this country and result in unspeakable violence against those who are not White Christians, our religious liberty is hollow at best, and false, at worst. Yesterday, Pope Francis said the following words:

“We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms.But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.”

The violence perpetrated in the name of racism is surely in this category as well. Eesha Pandit is a writer and activist based in Houston, TX. You can follow her on twitter at  @EeshaP , and find out more about her work at  eeshapandit.com .   -- Eesha Pandit www.eeshapandit.com @EeshaP  Yesterday, Pope Francis made an historic speech before Congress, the first Pope ever to do so. The themes of his papal visit have been notably social-justice oriented, including a focus on poverty and immigration and the responsibility we all have to work to help the poor and destitute among us. During his remarks, he spoke passionately about just immigration, and of his own family’s history of moving from Italy to Argentina, where he was born. Pope Francis made further history when he declined to stay and talk with Congress members in favor of spending time at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. He spoke before roughly 250 staff and volunteers before joining another 300 people for lunch with St. Maria’s Meals, a project of the local branch of Catholic Charities. Many in the audience were homeless. In his remarks Pope Francis touched briefly on the issue of religious freedom, saying,

“It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society.”

We remain in this country inthe throes of a debate about religious freedom, with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who defied a federal court order requiring that she issue marriage licenses, asserting her right to discriminate against same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs. We've also seen, more recently, 14-year-old high school student Ahmed Mohammed arrested by his teachers for bringing a homemade clock to school; a Louisville mosque vandalized with hate speech; and the Indian-American president of the University of Southern California student body verbally attacked for her race and religion. For whom, then, is the American right to religious freedom? For Ahmed, racial and religious profiling resulted in an unjust arrest. Violence and discrimination against Muslims and Sikhs continues, as does the profiling of Arab and South Asian American communities across the country. And, lest we think that this is an issue only faced by non-Christians, let’s remember the horrific and ongoing violence targeting Black churches that has surged in recent months. In fact, in the wake of the shooting of nine worshippers at Charleston’s historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church, many Christian conservatives spoke at length about religious freedom. Instead of naming the attack as race-based violence, many right-wing commentators spoke of it as evidence that Christians are under attack in the United States. Fox News went so far as to declare it an “attack on faith.” GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum called the shooting part of a broader assault on “religious liberty” in this country. The recent anniversary of the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, which killed four young girls and injured 22 others should remind us of the fact that Black worshippers aren’t attacked for being Christians, they are attacked for being Black. A year after the bombing in 1963, KKK members beat churchgoers leaving the Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Mississippi. White supremacists have continued targeting black churches and are not motivated by anti-Christian beliefs, instead, they are an age-old response to the deepening political power and civil rights organizing of these churches. For whom, then, is the American right to religious freedom? If we speak about religious liberty and the freedom to worship without acknowledging the racial biases that permeate this country and result in unspeakable violence against those who are not White Christians, our religious liberty is hollow at best, and false, at worst. Yesterday, Pope Francis said the following words:

“We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms.But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.”

The violence perpetrated in the name of racism is surely in this category as well. Eesha Pandit is a writer and activist based in Houston, TX. You can follow her on twitter at  @EeshaP , and find out more about her work at  eeshapandit.com .   -- Eesha Pandit www.eeshapandit.com @EeshaP  

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John Boehner was really bad at his job. Now things are about to get epically worse

Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner was his usual weepy self as Pope Francis spoke to a joint meeting of Congress. Boehner, a Catholic, had invited three popes to address Congress, and Francis finally took him up on the offer—a first in U.S. history. So it wasn't that surprising to see Boehner, in the background, leaking like a water faucet in disrepair. Only now, we can see those tears in a different light, as Boehner announced his stunning resignation from Congress, effective at the end of October.

There's little doubt that the proximal cause of  Boehner leaving is the GOP's internal fight over whether to do another government shutdown—this time, aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood, an organization that (at 45 percent) is currently viewed about three more favorably than Congress.

But it's equally clear the push to oust Boehner has bubbling for some time, though characteristically not with much method or discipline. In late July, North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows surprised everyone with a motion to vacate the chair, which Politico described as “an extraordinarily rare procedural move that represents the most serious expression of opposition to Boehner’s speakership,” going on to note:

GOP leaders were taken completely by surprise. Meadows, a second-term Republican, hadn’t even asked for a meeting with Boehner or other top Republicans to air his gripes.

Boehner had faced a challenge to his leadership before, but not in his most recent election. So the ebbs and flows of opposition have remained relatively opaque, aided by a generally incurious press. Rachel Maddow represents a distinctly discordant view, having repeatedly run segments arguing that “John Boehner is bad at his job.” But it can be argued that Maddow is wrong to blame Boehner for problems that are much bigger then the office he holds, or even the GOP House caucus.

Indeed, viewed through an institutional lens, Boehner's troubles go back much further, encompassing the all three of his GOP predecessors. In 1998, Newt Gingrich resigned as Speaker, and from Congress, after the GOP lost seats in mid-term elections after intensely pursuing a Clinton impeachment agenda. Just days after the election, CNN reported, “Faced with a brewing rebellion within the Republican Party over the disappointing midterm election, House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the stunning decision Friday to step down not just from the speakership but also from Congress.”

Gingrich's replacement, Louisiana's Bob Livingston, resigned just over a month later [video], before even taking office, after his own extra-marital affairs were revealed by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. Amazingly, Livingston, who had been part of Gingrich's leadership team devoted to hounding Clinton from office, said in his remarks, “I want so very much to pacify and cool our raging tempers and return to an era when differences were confined to the debate, and not a personal attack or assassination of character.”

Livingston's deliberately low-key successor, Dennis Hastert, had some troubles in office, but managed to survive with dignity and reputation reasonably intact through eight years of leadership—the longest tenure ever for a Republican—until Democrats retook the House in the 2006 mid-terms. It was only this year that he was criminally charged for lying to federal agents and evading financial reporting requirements, reportedly as part of an attempt to conceal sexual misconduct with a minor, which in turn raised new doubts about his handling of similar problems in the Mark Foley affair, just prior to the 2006 election.

At one level, this record speaks to a lack of personal morality—a key GOP hobby horse for at least the past half century, if not virtually forever. But more deeply, it highlights the inherent dangers stirred up by running political campaigns as moral crusades, which simply cannot be sustained as a means of government in a secular, pluralistic system. The attempt to demonize Planned Parenthood as evil incarnate involves spectacular levels of fraud and deception. Such deception may be sustainable within the bubble of the GOP base, driving the latest mania which appears to have exhausted Boehner's endurance, but it cannot prevail in the polity at large, unless the elite media are fully on board—as they were in attacking ACORN, or selling the Iraq War—but not for this fight.

Thus, Boehner bows out as an institutional sacrificial lamb. But the only question is: for what? His office offered the following:

Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any Speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all.

The Speaker's plan was to serve only through the end of last year. Leader Cantor's loss in his primary changed that calculation.

The Speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution.

He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his Speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the Speakership and his seat in Congress, effective October 30.

So Boehner is protecting the institution of the House, which he somehow confuses with the Pope? Even though the Pope did not unite and inspire all of Boehner's caucus (typically, only the Democrats were united). The Catholic back-bencher who boycotted the Pope to show his displease with the Pope's concern over global warming is decidedly out of step with American Catholics, but he's much more in tune with Boehner's caucus than Boehner himself is—and that is the root of Boehner's problem.

Boehner is presiding over a House divided—and sub-divided—against itself, and his real failure is simply to recognize that fact and face up to it, however much it might have required a “profile in courage.” It would have actually done his own party a world of good. He could have passed the Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill, if only he'd been willing to do so with votes from both parties, rather than from Republicans alone.  On the one hand, he gives lip-service to bipartisanship and responsible leadership, but on the other hand, he has repeatedly failed to act in that way. So now, because of his failure, immigration is not an issue Republicans have helped deal with, it's become the launching pad of Donald Trump's campaign, which in turn has unleashed a whole new army of demons for the GOP to wrestle with in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

There may be little doubt that if Boehner had passed immigration reform, it would have cost him his speakership. But he's lost his speakership anyway, and what does he have to show for it?  Only the record of having secured a visit from the Pope—which surely heart warming, and tear-jerking, and all. But if one thinks just for a moment about actually doing anything based on what Pope Francis had to say, then there's a whole different reason for Boehner's tears to start flowing again.

And those tears, sadly, would only be the beginning. Because the history of failed GOP speakerships touched on above is only an aspect of the deeper problem, which goes to the very nature of the party itself. The GOP was born from the ashes of the old Whig Party, but it was the only, or even the first party to so emerge. Before the GOP rose to prominence, the virulently anti-immigrant American Party, commonly known as the “Know-nothings,” were the most promising party to replace the Whigs. They won 51 House seat in 1854, while the Whigs were still on their last legs, before being eclipsed by the Republicans in 1856. When the Whigs collapsed, their remnants could have gone either way. One direction was anti-immigrant, the other was anti-slavery—although fretfully at first.

But the modern GOP has spent the last five decades courting those sentimentally opposed to its anti-slavery origins as “the Party of Lincoln,” and the last 10 years, at least, reviving the anti-immigrant sentiments on which the Know-nothings were founded. As confused as Boehner may be about his role, his responsibilities, his place in the order of things, it is only a small part of the much larger confusion that the GOP as a whole has been wallowing in for years—and, sadly, dragging the rest of America along with it.

The more things change, as Boehner steps down, the more we should expect them to stay the same—only worse. Perhaps even much, much worse. There will be plenty more tears to come.

Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner was his usual weepy self as Pope Francis spoke to a joint meeting of Congress. Boehner, a Catholic, had invited three popes to address Congress, and Francis finally took him up on the offer—a first in U.S. history. So it wasn't that surprising to see Boehner, in the background, leaking like a water faucet in disrepair. Only now, we can see those tears in a different light, as Boehner announced his stunning resignation from Congress, effective at the end of October.

There's little doubt that the proximal cause of  Boehner leaving is the GOP's internal fight over whether to do another government shutdown—this time, aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood, an organization that (at 45 percent) is currently viewed about three more favorably than Congress.

But it's equally clear the push to oust Boehner has bubbling for some time, though characteristically not with much method or discipline. In late July, North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows surprised everyone with a motion to vacate the chair, which Politico described as “an extraordinarily rare procedural move that represents the most serious expression of opposition to Boehner’s speakership,” going on to note:

GOP leaders were taken completely by surprise. Meadows, a second-term Republican, hadn’t even asked for a meeting with Boehner or other top Republicans to air his gripes.

Boehner had faced a challenge to his leadership before, but not in his most recent election. So the ebbs and flows of opposition have remained relatively opaque, aided by a generally incurious press. Rachel Maddow represents a distinctly discordant view, having repeatedly run segments arguing that “John Boehner is bad at his job.” But it can be argued that Maddow is wrong to blame Boehner for problems that are much bigger then the office he holds, or even the GOP House caucus.

Indeed, viewed through an institutional lens, Boehner's troubles go back much further, encompassing the all three of his GOP predecessors. In 1998, Newt Gingrich resigned as Speaker, and from Congress, after the GOP lost seats in mid-term elections after intensely pursuing a Clinton impeachment agenda. Just days after the election, CNN reported, “Faced with a brewing rebellion within the Republican Party over the disappointing midterm election, House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the stunning decision Friday to step down not just from the speakership but also from Congress.”

Gingrich's replacement, Louisiana's Bob Livingston, resigned just over a month later [video], before even taking office, after his own extra-marital affairs were revealed by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. Amazingly, Livingston, who had been part of Gingrich's leadership team devoted to hounding Clinton from office, said in his remarks, “I want so very much to pacify and cool our raging tempers and return to an era when differences were confined to the debate, and not a personal attack or assassination of character.”

Livingston's deliberately low-key successor, Dennis Hastert, had some troubles in office, but managed to survive with dignity and reputation reasonably intact through eight years of leadership—the longest tenure ever for a Republican—until Democrats retook the House in the 2006 mid-terms. It was only this year that he was criminally charged for lying to federal agents and evading financial reporting requirements, reportedly as part of an attempt to conceal sexual misconduct with a minor, which in turn raised new doubts about his handling of similar problems in the Mark Foley affair, just prior to the 2006 election.

At one level, this record speaks to a lack of personal morality—a key GOP hobby horse for at least the past half century, if not virtually forever. But more deeply, it highlights the inherent dangers stirred up by running political campaigns as moral crusades, which simply cannot be sustained as a means of government in a secular, pluralistic system. The attempt to demonize Planned Parenthood as evil incarnate involves spectacular levels of fraud and deception. Such deception may be sustainable within the bubble of the GOP base, driving the latest mania which appears to have exhausted Boehner's endurance, but it cannot prevail in the polity at large, unless the elite media are fully on board—as they were in attacking ACORN, or selling the Iraq War—but not for this fight.

Thus, Boehner bows out as an institutional sacrificial lamb. But the only question is: for what? His office offered the following:

Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any Speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all.

The Speaker's plan was to serve only through the end of last year. Leader Cantor's loss in his primary changed that calculation.

The Speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution.

He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his Speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the Speakership and his seat in Congress, effective October 30.

So Boehner is protecting the institution of the House, which he somehow confuses with the Pope? Even though the Pope did not unite and inspire all of Boehner's caucus (typically, only the Democrats were united). The Catholic back-bencher who boycotted the Pope to show his displease with the Pope's concern over global warming is decidedly out of step with American Catholics, but he's much more in tune with Boehner's caucus than Boehner himself is—and that is the root of Boehner's problem.

Boehner is presiding over a House divided—and sub-divided—against itself, and his real failure is simply to recognize that fact and face up to it, however much it might have required a “profile in courage.” It would have actually done his own party a world of good. He could have passed the Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill, if only he'd been willing to do so with votes from both parties, rather than from Republicans alone.  On the one hand, he gives lip-service to bipartisanship and responsible leadership, but on the other hand, he has repeatedly failed to act in that way. So now, because of his failure, immigration is not an issue Republicans have helped deal with, it's become the launching pad of Donald Trump's campaign, which in turn has unleashed a whole new army of demons for the GOP to wrestle with in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

There may be little doubt that if Boehner had passed immigration reform, it would have cost him his speakership. But he's lost his speakership anyway, and what does he have to show for it?  Only the record of having secured a visit from the Pope—which surely heart warming, and tear-jerking, and all. But if one thinks just for a moment about actually doing anything based on what Pope Francis had to say, then there's a whole different reason for Boehner's tears to start flowing again.

And those tears, sadly, would only be the beginning. Because the history of failed GOP speakerships touched on above is only an aspect of the deeper problem, which goes to the very nature of the party itself. The GOP was born from the ashes of the old Whig Party, but it was the only, or even the first party to so emerge. Before the GOP rose to prominence, the virulently anti-immigrant American Party, commonly known as the “Know-nothings,” were the most promising party to replace the Whigs. They won 51 House seat in 1854, while the Whigs were still on their last legs, before being eclipsed by the Republicans in 1856. When the Whigs collapsed, their remnants could have gone either way. One direction was anti-immigrant, the other was anti-slavery—although fretfully at first.

But the modern GOP has spent the last five decades courting those sentimentally opposed to its anti-slavery origins as “the Party of Lincoln,” and the last 10 years, at least, reviving the anti-immigrant sentiments on which the Know-nothings were founded. As confused as Boehner may be about his role, his responsibilities, his place in the order of things, it is only a small part of the much larger confusion that the GOP as a whole has been wallowing in for years—and, sadly, dragging the rest of America along with it.

The more things change, as Boehner steps down, the more we should expect them to stay the same—only worse. Perhaps even much, much worse. There will be plenty more tears to come.

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