Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 658

Never say #NeverTrump: The reunifying Republican Party is doing all it can to avoid a reckoning

Ben Sasse; Donald Trump (Credit: Getty/Saul Loeb/Reuters/Chris Keane/Photo montage by Salon)

Back in the halcyon days of the presidential primaries, there was speculation among pundits and political scientists that we might be witnessing the end of the Republican Party as we know it. That the split in the GOP between a nativist base and intellectual conservatives that Donald Trump’s candidacy had brought out into the open might shift the nation’s political geography, resulting in a realignment matching that of the post-civil rights era, when Northeastern liberals and African-Americans fled to the Democrats while the Southern Dixiecrats joined the Republicans.

The evidence was endless. There was the #NeverTrump movement, made up of rising Republican stars like Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and old GOP establishment figures like George Will and Bill Kristol, the latter of whom spent months desperately searching for an independent conservative to mount a third-party campaign. There was the deafening silence from the party’s living former presidents, George H.W. and George W. Bush, and other famous elders. There was the at-best-lukewarm support of Trump from party leaders in Congress. There was the fact that Trump spent much of August lagging in the polls while watchers wondered if the GOP’s traditional voters would come home to support the nominee or stay away.

What would the effect of this chaos be on the future GOP? The nation’s political science graduate students stood waiting, thesis proposals already forming in their heads.

Now as we count down the last seven weeks to the election, we can cautiously predict what will happen to the Republican Party if, as still seems likely, Donald Trump loses on Nov. 8.

Nothing.

Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

After the election, whether Trump remains a figure of any import in the party, the GOP will continue its existence as an uneasy collaboration of Ayn Randian economic policy proponents and white ethno-nationalists terrified of losing what’s left of their diminished influence on the social order. The only difference is that the latter group might feel more empowered to flex its muscles.

You could see this happening over the weekend, when Republican leaders let Trump’s outrageous revisionism of his birther history pass with almost zero comment. If anything, the party institutionalized birtherism by allowing Trump surrogates to take to the airwaves and push the lie that the candidate had stopped talking about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate after 2011 and that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had begun the spread of the birther falsehood during her failed 2008 primary campaign. There was zero pushback from party leaders, with the exception of some mild criticism from Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Meanwhile, GOP chairman Reince Priebus was going to bat for Trump by promising that any party figure who might want to run for the presidency in the future would not be allowed to do so unless he or she endorses Trump now, an idea that the candidate himself has floated. The only even semi-prominent party member who publicly pushed back on this notion was Gov. John Kasich, who was soundly rejected by voters in the primaries and is unlikely to find himself with more power four years from now.

Trumpism and the GOP are now inextricably linked. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for a delinking.

Part of the problem for the #NeverTrump conservatives is that they have nowhere else to go. In the post-civil rights era, socially liberal Republicans could talk themselves into joining a more socially liberal Democratic Party that was trying to take up the mantle of equality while not embracing a radically leftist economic policy. At the other end of the spectrum, segregationist Democrats were happy to go to a party that promised to maintain the old social order the country had known for 200 years.

Now, though, the socially liberal Republican does not exist. The conservatives of the #NeverTrump movement are still going to be committed to lower taxes, ending abortion, dropping government spending on everything except national defense, and shredding the social safety net, to name just a few.

For example, are any Republicans so disgusted by Trump that they would leave the Republican Party at a time when its majority in the House of Representatives is hoping for a GOP president to sign into law Paul Ryan’s massive tax cuts for the wealthiest in society? Not when the Democratic nominee is floating a large tax increase on the top 1 percent, they’re not.

A realignment that sees Republicans fleeing to the opposition party is especially unlikely when that party is headed by Hillary Clinton, their sworn enemy of two and a half decades. That she is heading a party moving to the left of where it was when her husband was president makes it even less appealing for disgruntled GOPers.

There has been some talk in liberal circles of making the Republican Party pay a price for its embrace of white ethno-nationalism this election. But gerrymandering of House and state districts mean the GOP will maintain legislative majorities and possibly will hold onto the Senate as well. Like with a fractious baseball team, winning tends to smooth over the cracks.

So after the election, the #NeverTrump faction of the party will make an uneasy peace with the white ethno-nationalists who support the presidential candidate. And any chance for the party to reckon with itself will likely be lost for at least a generation.

Charlotte erupts with protests after police kill disabled black man family says was ‘reading book in car’

Police in riot gear use teargas to disperse protesters after police killed a disabled black man in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday, September 20, 2016 (Credit: Adam Rhew/Charlotte magazine)

Large protests erupted throughout Charlotte, North Carolina late Tuesday night after police shot and killed a black father.

The family of the victim, who was identified as 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, says he was disabled, and was unarmed and reading a book in his car when he was killed. Police claim Scott was armed.

Lyric Scott, the victim’s daughter, streamed a video on Facebook immediately after the incident.

“You shot my daddy for being black!” Lyric Scott told the police in the video.

She said her father was disabled and unarmed.

The victim’s sister also claimed he was unarmed, local journalist Joe Bruno reported.

Sister of the man police shot and killed: "he didn't have no gun, he wasn't messing with nobody" @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/37k55Lt70H

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016

Keith Lamont Scott’s brother and cousin said he had been holding a book and was waiting for his son to be dropped off after school.

The brother of the man police shot and killed tells me he was holding a book and waiting for his son to be dropped off from school @wsoctv

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 20, 2016

Y'all shot my cousin because he was reading a book and waiting for his son to get off the bus? Please explain #KeithLamontScott

— Black Barbie™ (@KelTheQueen) September 21, 2016

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told local news outlet WSOC-TV that they had been looking for an unrelated suspect who had an outstanding warrant when they saw a man leave his car with a gun.

Officers then approached the man, even though North Carolina is an open carry state. Police claim the man, later identified as Keith Lamont Scott, got out of his car with a gun and “posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers,” WSOC-TV said.

Prominent lawyer and legal analyst Eric Guster emphasized that, even if Keith Lamont Scott had been armed, North Carolina is an open carry state.

#KeithLamontScott was the wrong person. Police were looking for someone else.
If he had a gun, it is an open carry state.
Try again

— Eric Guster, Esq (@EricGuster) September 21, 2016

An eyewitness told Lyric Scott that police tased her father and shot him at least three times.

Keith Lamont Scott was taken to the hospital, where police later confirmed that he died.

Protests erupted in response to the shooting.

I'm at the scene of a protest after a Charlotte police officer shot a man earlier today. pic.twitter.com/bC7eIM28A0

— Adam Rhew (@AdamRhew) September 21, 2016

Local journalist and photographer Adam Rhew said police pushed protesters down the road, then used teargas to disperse them.

Police moving crowd down the road. #charlotte #cmpd pic.twitter.com/Ny8cBEbP1V

— Adam Rhew (@AdamRhew) September 21, 2016

Crowd dispersing after Charlotte police used tear gas #cmpd pic.twitter.com/sjx255fkZC

— Adam Rhew (@AdamRhew) September 21, 2016

Local reporters said a bus with a SWAT team was called in, while protesters chanted “Hands up don’t shoot,” a popular slogan in the Black Lives Matter movement.

SWAT is here. People are chanting "hands up don't shoot" @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/9h3q16S1z5

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016

A bus full of SWAT officers arrive at I-85. @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/0Nq6Kv1C9K

— Gina Esposito (@GinaWSOC9) September 21, 2016

Scores of protesters subsequently blocked the busy highway I-85.

Wow pic.twitter.com/TS8nl6NKG0

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016

Protesters also damaged police cars in outrage at the killing. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said at least 12 officers were injured in the protests.

this is happening in my city right now. #KeithLamontScott #cmpd #charlotte pic.twitter.com/HcqNxXpTAs

— sedra (@sedrakurdi) September 21, 2016

A man who identifies on Facebook as Mills Shaka Zulu Gill livestreamed multiple videos of the demonstrations. Mills’ video shows protesters setting up flaming barricades on the highway, while police shoot more teargas.

#KeithLamontScott protesters still out, blocking highways, & setting up flaming barricades: https://t.co/yaeFnpSaOm #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/TJ9crWSjUr

— Ash J (@AshAgony) September 21, 2016

Cops are shooting more tear gas at #KeithLamontScott protesters now: https://t.co/yaeFnpSaOm #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/nD9A4mXiBB

— Ash J (@AshAgony) September 21, 2016

On social media, users criticized those who were more upset at the destruction of property than the loss of a life.

Police car < human life.
Not to mention this is a REaction to an action…which ended in someone's death. Perspective. #KeithLamontScott https://t.co/uUSSuw8hSr

— pam (@pamnonga) September 21, 2016

If you're angrier over a cruiser being destroyed than the murder of an innocent man then you are part of the problem. #KeithLamontScott

— Elizabeth (@FeministRainbow) September 21, 2016

So we can't read books without being shot either? #KeithLamontScott

— Phalisha Jackson (@icandyphi93) September 21, 2016

Samuel Sinyangwe, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, noted that, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department statistics, black residents are just 32 percent of the population, yet are subject to 50 percent of stops, 68 percent of searches and 74 percent of uses of force.

.@CMPD stats show black people are:
32% of population
50% of stops
68% of searches
74% of uses of force

Hyper targeted. #KeithLamontScott

— Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) September 21, 2016

In response to the police shooting, Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts tweeted, “The community deserves answers and full investigation will ensue. Will be reaching out to community leaders to work together.”

The community deserves answers and full investigation will ensue. Will be reaching out to community leaders to work together @CMPD @ncnaacp

— Mayor of Charlotte (@CLTMayor) September 21, 2016

Stop blaming the “other woman”: The toxic sexism behind Brangelina infidelity divorce rumors

(Credit: AP/Evan Agostini/Salon)

Well, that was fast. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been “officially” broken up for all of two minutes, and the internet already found a woman to blame for it. Following a TMZ report that the 41-year-old actress filed for divorce from her partner of 12 years, speculation suggests that it was motivated by an on-set fling with Marion Cotillard (“Inception”), who co-stars with Pitt in Robert Zemeckis’ World War II thriller “Allied.” An homage to the classic romance “Casablanca,” the 52-year-old actor plays an intelligence officer who falls in love with a French resistance fighter (Cotillard), who may or not be a Nazi.

InTouch Weekly first reported on these rumors in March under the headline: “The Woman Who Tore Them Apart.” The magazine has alleged that Jolie — an Oscar winner, director and renowned humanitarian with a busy schedule of saving the world — became consumed with jealousy over Pitt’s new leading lady. “Marion is not only beautiful and talented,” In Touch wrote, “but she’s exactly the kind of sultry European actress Angie has always wanted to be.”

You know the details because they’re interchangeable with every single report on the Pitt-Jolie marriage over the past decade. It’s a mad lib of celebrity discontent — including allegations of screaming fights, tearful confessions, late-night walkouts, and the oldest canard of them all: the specter of another woman, an evil succubus whose sole purpose is to wreak havoc in the lives of the beautiful and famous. The sexist trope of blaming women for a man’s infidelity is trotted out every other week to sell tabloids, allowing men to get off the hook while their wives and mistresses are burned at the stake for their dirty deeds.

In the case of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, rumors of his wandering eye aren’t just possibly untrue. It’s the exact same bullshit women have to deal with every day.

When it comes to slut shaming, InTouch Weekly wins some kind of bizarro blue-ribbon prize. The March report has suggested that Jolie, who met her now-husband on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” in 2003, was terrified for months of being the victim of what the tabloid called “what-goes-around-comes-around syndrome.” Pitt was married to former “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston when that film was in production, and the magazine has suggested that an affair would be Jolie’s comeuppance for seducing him. If you’re counting, that’s two slut shames for the price of one.

The actresses’ suspicions were correct, at least according to Page Six. In the wake of divorce papers being filed, the publication reports that Jolie — supposedly driven to madness — had the pair followed by a private eye, who caught them playing bam-bam in the ham on set.

If Cotillard has been waiting in the wings to make like Ty Pennington and wreck the Pitt-Jolie home, she apparently isn’t the only one. Tabloid media has also pointed the finger at Lizzy Caplan, the “Masters of Sex” actress who also appears in “Allied.” The couple’s ever-shifting series of love triangles has previously included Aniston, whose face is splashed on a “Brad Still Loves Jen!” tabloid cover just about every day, and “Inglorious Basterds” star Melanie Laurent. Were every single one of these reports true, Pitt would have no time to act at all. His IMDb page would be a list of seedy motels in Reno, Nevada.

A particularly amusing bit of hearsay has suggested that Pitt is also hung up on Gwyneth Paltrow, his ex-girlfriend and mid-’90s doppelgänger. A National Enquirer story reported that the actor instead of Jolie’s. Later Pitt was said to have suggested that his wife eat a hamburger to help gain weight — a piece of advice he supposedly read on Goop, Paltrow’s lifestyle website for the rich and vacuous. Jolie was allegedly furious.

Reports suggest that $400 million is at stake in the divorce, which would be a great deal of money to spend over a sandwich.

TMZ has denied the glut of rumors around Pitt’s infidelity, claiming that the problem is his well-documented love of marijuana. “Angelina reached her breaking point last week over Brad’s consumption of weed and alcohol,” TMZ claimed, “and combined with what she says are Brad’s anger issues.” That could be true or it could be that two human people found themselves pulled apart by conflicting schedules and the demands of raising six children or any number of other marriage conflicts that can’t be reconciled. The public treats celebrities as if they are gods who inhabit Olympus. But the reality is that they face the same pressures every other couple does. Juggling the myriad responsibilities of parenthood and long-term commitment isn’t easy.

But if Brad Pitt actually did cheat on Angelina Jolie with Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michael Bloomberg’s enthusiastic sign language interpreter, a sexy female sherpa or Barb from “Stranger Things” — and there’s no evidence at this point that any of that is true — there’s only one person whose fault it is and it’s not his wife or mistress. It’s his.

Why is it so difficult to hold a man accountable for his mistakes? This is a question that comes up every time a famous man strays from his marriage.

When “Sorry,” the breakout number from Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” seemed to suggest that Jay Z had had an affair, the Nancy Drew Twitter Detectives went after fashion designer Rachel Roy. In the track, Ms. Knowles sings, “He better call Becky with the good hair.” Roy, who served as the creative director for the rap mogul when his Rocawear line launched in 1996, appeared to reference the song in an Instagram post “Good hair don’t care.”

Actual proof of her involvement was beside the point. Roy — along with singer Rita Ora, Jay Z’s longtime protégé — received numerous death threats on social media for an affair she has claimed she never had. “[O]nline haters have targeted me and my daughters in a hurtful and scary manner, including physical threats,” Roy wrote in a press release.

Added Roy: “As a mother — and I know many mothers would agree — I feel that bullying in any form is harmful and unacceptable. I would hope that the media sees the real issue here — the issue of cyberbullying — and how it should not be tolerated by anyone.”

Monica Lewinsky, the patron saint of other women everywhere, argued that the trouble is not only that mistresses, even alleged ones, are subjected to the threat of violent retribution. It’s also that men get a pass to cheat again and again.

“With every marital indiscretion that finds its way into the public sphere — many of which involve male politicians —it always seems like the woman conveniently takes the fall,” Lewinsky wrote of her 1995 affair with President Bill Clinton in an op-ed for Vanity Fair. “Sure, the Anthony Weiners and Eliot Spitzers do what they need to do to look humiliated on cable news. They bow out of public life for a while, but they inevitably return, having put it all behind them. The women in these imbroglios return to lives that are not so easily repaired.”

She raised an interesting question: Would it have been so easy for Weiner, recently caught in yet another sexting scandal, to have emerged back into public life to begin with if we were not so willing to forgive men? Monica Lewinsky — referred to as a “bimbo” by the Clinton camp, grilled by Barbara Walters about her “nerve” and who considered taking her own life — had to drop out of the public eye for nearly two decades. This was Weiner’s third fracas in five years.

This double standard has a toxic trickle-down effect. When women view men’s actions as blameless, they are more likely to place the burden on themselves. Researchers at University of Texas at Austin surveyed 129 female sexual-assault survivors, finding that 62 percent thought they were responsible for what happened to them — and not their rapist. Instead of viewing the incident as a clear violation of their consent and refusal to recognize their boundaries, many victims blamed their own actions, such as drinking too heavily or wearing clothing that might “invite” unwanted advances. Others pointed the finger at “society.”

Psychologist Brandy Engler has suggested that we’re unwilling to name men’s frailties because it seems easier to force women to suffer for men’s sins. After all, we’ve been been doing it for centuries. “If the public narrative is to put the burden of blame on men, that would make us feel hopeless and sad about men,” Engler wrote in Time. “But if we can villainize one woman, we still have reason to hope — and it provides a collective discharge of angst about our fears of betrayal.”

Even though it might seem to ease our ongoing crisis about masculinity, creating another Becky to toss on a funeral pyre doesn’t help anyone. What took place behind the scenes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s marriage is no one’s business, and it’s certainly not the fault of whichever woman the public decides is responsible. It’s about time for men to answer for their own transgressions.

Breaking: “Sit down, David Brooks! I shall stand against kneeling during the national anthem!”: The Greatest Living American Writer

(Credit: Getty/Thearon W. Henderson/Bryan Bedder/Salon)

I understand why high-school football players, and middle-school tuba players and fifth-graders whose dads were shot by the cops are “pulling a Kaepernick.” Believe me, kids, I’ve been there. In 1973 my cousin Tad and I boycotted our racquet club for an entire week because it was refusing to admit a Jewish family. Nothing came of our efforts, and the Mount Winchester Squash Society remained Semite-free for another six years. But we stood tall. Injustice is injustice, no matter the price of admission.

That’s different, however, from not standing during the national anthem. Such an action is not only counterproductive; it’s quite unseemly in the grand picture and it runs directly against everything for which our country stands. We live in America, after all, the most exceptional country in the exceptional history of the human race.

I must join colleagues of mine, like the armchair sociologist, cuckold and lesser columnist David Brooks, in saying that when you diss the flag, you play a part in damaging our grand heritage. As I prophetically wrote in my 1998 book of essays “Embrace the Cloth: A Tapestry of Salutes to the Greatest Flag Ever,” “The youth of today must understand that our history is historical, especially on the day of the big game.” How true that remains.

Folks in hats with buckles on them founded our country. These people believed in several principles — that you should be able to worship any god you want as long as he is Christian, that you shouldn’t eat with your hands and that reading is fundamental. Our American ancestors slaughtered millions of people and enslaved countless thousands so that we could be free to stand around during a song at a ball game. Then in 1776, a bunch of sweaty, wig-wearing men signed an independence document declaring that all men should be created equal.

“But,” they wrote, in a lesser-known paragraph, “When kickoff approaches, don’t kneel during a national anthem because that’s unpatriotic.” A decade later, Alexander Hamilton, who despite current popular perceptions, was not a multicultural tap dancer but rather a stolid, law-and-order loving fan of the sporting life, added this to the back end of the Constitution: “We shall not sit down before the flag when the patriotic songstress trills because sitting is as bad for you as smoking.”

Over the next hundred years, as I wrote in my epic history of the Lincoln presidency, “Talk to the Beard,” America proved time and again that the best way to create social change is just to go along to get along and not do anything that will call attention to yourself. That’s especially true when it comes to standing for the national anthem, even though we didn’t actually have one until 1931. As the Great Emancipator himself said, “The Oversoul covers me with a blanket and I shall not take the knee while gazing upon the Gridiron.”

Meanwhile, closer to the present day, black people have always loved the flag like it’s their precious binky. It’s a little-known fact that the police played the National Anthem for Martin Luther King Jr. while he was in Birmingham jail. He stood with his hand over his heart, tears in his eyes the entire time. When I think of Dr. King, I don’t think of protest. I think of a cuddly black preacher who would never disrespect the great game of football. We must stay true to his meaning and teachings.

In 1964, I went down South with the Freedom Riders, working on a sensible and semi-critical article about the “limits of civil rights” for the Partisan Review. The bus driver played the national anthem the whole time. Actually, some people wanted to listen to The Beatles and James Brown, but I pitched a hissy, saying, “My brothers and sisters, our sense of national purpose and collective story depends on continually paying homage to this droning, archaic war song.”

As we sing the national anthem, even a parodic version that calls it “The Star-Spangled Banana,” we’re collectively joining in a celebratory ritual of the things that made America great: football, stagecraft, mainline Protestantism and eating a sensible, quiet dinner with your family. All that is being lost, I fear. If we don’t hold fast to patriotism via blind arrhythmic genuflection to a symbolic piece of cloth, we’ll lose the sense that we’re all in this together. We’ll lose the sense of shared loyalty to ideas bigger and more transcendent than our own short lives. Also, it’s easier for your phone to slip out of your pocket when you’re sitting or kneeling, and phones can be expensive to replace.

You see, what’s wrong with America isn’t that we’ve unwittingly let one of our two major political parties fall into the hands of a fascist con man who is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to Russia. It’s that we lack a sense of collective purpose — of pulling the rowboat together toward uncertain destiny. I understand that kids and athletes today think they’re doing something American by taking the knee against police violence. But we’d be better served if those kids instead gave the police a big hug and said, “Here is a tasty pie that I made. I love you. God bless America.”

We have a crisis in in this country. Not everyone wants the exact same thing that everyone else wants. When you stand for the national anthem, which is your civic duty as a cisgender son or daughter of the American compact, you’re building a little solidarity, trying a little tenderness and singing a radical song, written by a racist about watching a fort get bombed. Also, you’re probably singing it off-key. But I’ll save that corrective for my next column.

America’s outsider POTUS fantasy: “Designated Survivor” gives us the president we claim to want

Kiefer Sutherland in "Designated Survivor" (Credit: ABC)

ABC’s “Designated Survivor” begins with an act of terror that, for voters fed up with a gridlocked Congress and incestuous politics, offers a fantastic and brutal reset. As Kiefer Sutherland’s character Tom Kirkman is drinking beer and watching the State of the Union, the seat of America’s government is suddenly annihilated. The president, vice president and many of the nation’s most powerful political figures have been blasted off the face of the Earth and, just like that, leadership falls into his quivering hands.

This would have kicked the unstoppable Jack Bauer of “24” into action. Agent Bauer, Sutherland’s most famous role, is a man who runs toward explosions and not away from them. He had the president on speed dial. Contrast that with Kirkman, a bespectacled man who can’t even get an invite to the State of the Union address. Instead, he is named the “designated survivor,” the Cabinet member low enough not to be missed during the president’s major speech but close enough to the heart of power that he can assume the duties of commander in chief should calamity strike. Which never happens . . . right?

By now, meeting Sutherland’s characters on the worst days of their lives is a familiar gig. This one is remarkably awful for Kirkman, given that it begins with his being fired from his rather thankless position as the secretary of housing and urban development. A few hours later, his first act as president is to be briefed on the attack in the situation room. His second is to excuse himself so he can vomit. (Yet another point of contrast with Jack Bauer: We never saw that man enter a bathroom.)

The giant shadow that Sutherland’s past work casts over the TV-thriller genre can make watching “Designated Survivor,” premiering at 10 p.m. on Wednesday on ABC, a strangely meta experience. Indeed, the opening four minutes feel like an alternate version of Agent Bauer’s life, one where he went to Cornell, married an attorney named Alex (Natascha McElhone) and cranked out a couple of beautiful children, neither of whom were ever hunted by a cougar.

Remembering the way in which Sutherland used to roar at villains each week, it’s odd to see him in the gentler guise of a morally upright man who looks downright uncomfortable sitting at the head of a powerful table, surrounded by solemn suits and military might while he’s stuck in his ratty college hoodie.

Created and executive produced by David Guggenheim, “Designated Survivor” is completely unrelated to “24,” of course, and most people can distinguish one fiction from another. But a viewer can’t be blamed for making the comparison. The memory of Sutherland’s longest-running role also makes watching him channel waves of uncertainty into Kirkman uniquely satisfying. Sometimes we forget that the actors inside of pop-culture icons can access a variety of emotional shades. Sometimes, too, it helps for them to show us the difference between an action heavy and a character who is as far from superhuman as they come but who can be heroic nevertheless.

“Designated Survivor” is a prescient drama, debuting very near to the presidential election, not to mention an election informed by deep rancor rooted in fear and powerlessness. Voters claim to want an inexperienced outsider not beholden to corporations or all-powerful lobbies; here, we’re given a particularly violent birth to the populist president whom so many claim to desire.

The president of “Designated” is a true unknown, plucked from the world of academia. Having never been elected to office or made any questionable alliances, he’s a clean slate.  But he’s never drawn blood either since he hasn’t fought his way through the political ranks. This makes him highly vulnerable.

That Kirkman’s main adversary is a military hawk, Harris Cochrane (Kevin R. McNally), hints at some might-over-right debates and accompanying power struggles in future episodes, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of leadership will be forged in such a crucible. Problems are going to arise that Kirkman can’t simply punch or shoot his way out of, even if obstinate policymakers and backroom deal-makers will no doubt make us want to see him do so. He’ll need to call on logic, diplomatic skill and pure guts, all of which can be thrilling to watch in the hands of a compelling performer of Sutherland’s caliber.

Adjunct to all this chaos is the realization that as “Designated Survivor” progresses, Kirkman is journeying into a political landscape littered with unknowns. The bitterly partisan Congress, a number of the joint chiefs of staff —they’re all gone. It is literally a dawning era in D.C., and that notion creates endless story possibilities.

As such, the alternate universe of “Designated Survivor” doesn’t instantly provide the kind of inspiration and comfort that Josiah Bartlet’s fictional presidency on “The West Wing” gave to half of America during the George W. Bush administration. Nor for that matter does Kirkman, a loyal family man, hold an eighth of the sex appeal of “Scandal” POTUS Fitzgerald Grant.

But the fact that he reacts to being thrust into the world’s most powerful leadership position with a mixture of fear, doubt and a determination makes Kirkman an appealing figure, refreshingly normal and fascinating to watch. No matter who wins in November, we’re betting that “Designated Survivor” will accomplish what real-world politics couldn’t: uniting a broad swath of Americans behind the idea of this drama’s fictional leadership.

Watch and weep: “This Is Us” will give you something to cry about

Gerald McRaney and Milo Ventimiglia in "This Is Us" (Credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)

There are times when television serves a gentle reminder that parts of my soul have fossilized or if not that mostly atrophied. Usually it happens every few seasons when a series touted as sooo very poignant and full of feeling, a show designed to make the audience shed tears by the end of each episode, joins the schedule. I call these “cry dramas,” and the latest is NBC’s “This Is Us,” premiering at 10 p.m. tonight and switching over to its regular 9 p.m. time slot beginning on Oct. 11.

A certain kind of viewer is going to love “This Is Us,” specifically those for whom the demise of “Parenthood” was an event worthy of pouring out a bottle of old-vine pinot ’round the old apple tree. While nothing could legitimately replace those weekly visits with the Bravermans, “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman deserves credit for perfecting a new formula guaranteed to elicit a comparable cathartic buzz with a series of stories that appear to be tenuously connected at best but, as we eventually discover, intertwine in ways we may not expect.

The structural shenanigans of “This Is Us” are impressive, even to those us of whose tear ducts have sealed shut. (Guilty as charged!) One can’t help but appreciate the twists that Fogelman and his fellow executive producers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have integrated within the premiere and how well the script showcases the impressive talents of Milo Ventimiglia, Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown, Gerald McRaney and Mandy Moore. They really are in top form here.

This is especially true of Brown, who makes his character Randall into a swirling ball of internal conflict, which is somewhat sharpened by his knowing it’s his birthday. Elsewhere a TV sitcom actor named Kevin (Justin Hartley) approaches his special day with similar complexity, as does a single woman, Kate (Chrissy Metz). The only one who embraces his annual celebration with an iota of zest is Jack (Ventimiglia), a man whose wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore) is pregnant with triplets.

To reveal anything beyond their shared birthday would spoil the various surprises revealed as the opening hour of “This Is Us.”  This, in turn, may impair someone’s ability to get his or her bawl on with maximum potency.

Know this: There is absolutely nothing wrong with a cleansing boo-hooty-boo before bedtime. Heaven knows I’ve enjoyed my share. Tougher to abide, however, are plot developments intentionally designed to reach inside our rib cages to work our vulnerability like a dish sponge after dinner. If those moments legitimately take me by surprise, fine. But when I see them coming, a protective sheet of cynicism high as the Wall in Westeros rises up to protect my soul.

So while I will not reveal specific details about “This Is Us,” those viewers who are intensely invested in weeping with abandon may want to stop reading this right now.

You see, Fogelman, Ficarra and Requa also collaborated on “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” and they have employed many of the same storytelling devices in their new NBC drama as they did in that film. Meaning, we walk through separate stories of very different but pleasantly privileged people, each steered by disparate challenges and influences. Eventually they all come together in a somewhat unpredictable fashion — that is, unless you’re skilled at picking up small details telegraphed in a number of scenes.

Applying this tactic to the introduction of “This Is Us” generates a lot of pleasant humor and cozy empathy that thwacks a person squarely in the emotional tenders. Each of the characters is boxing the same existential doubts many of us feel on certain birthdays about the choices we’ve made, and where life has taken us, and that makes them immediately embraceable.

And admittedly, when the story keeps us wondering about who these people are and plays with our preconceived ideas about life, fate and identity, “This Is Us” can feel magical. But as is the case with “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” some of these arcs are more interesting than others. Metz’s is distressingly awash with problematic messages about food and fat shame, somewhat impairing my ability to savor the raw sincerity in her performance.

The pilot’s climactic moment either cements the viewer’s desire to buy in or drives her away completely, which could prove to be a fatal flaw. It’s so huge, in fact, that it hints that “This Is Us” could transform into something of a weekly mystery machine, inviting viewers to guess at the next reveal and the next and the one after that. Signature quirks have a brief shelf life on television, and those informing so much of the specialness of “This Is Us” are in danger of growing tiresome and emotionally manipulative in short order.

One assumes the producers are aware of this and intend to use this strategy sparingly. “This Is Us” might also be helped by its prestige potential and the fact that there is nothing else like it on broadcast television right now. Provided that future episodes can maintain the pilot’s quality, the show should earn the time it needs to connect with an audience willing to fall under its sob-inducing spell. Granted, that viewership probably won’t include someone like me; I am partly dead inside. But I’m counting on Fogelman and his partners to give it their best shot.

Betraying Snowden: There’s a special place in journalism hell for The Washington Post editorial board

Edward Snowden (Credit: AP/Getty/Joe Raedle/Photo montage by Salon)

There is a special place in journalism hell reserved for The Washington Post editorial board now that it has called on President Barack Obama to not pardon National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

As Glenn Greenwald wrote, it’s an odd move for a news publication, “which owes its sources duties of protection, and which — by virtue of accepting the source’s materials and then publishing them — implicitly declares the source’s information to be in the public interest.” Notably, the Post decided to “inexcusably omit . . . that it was not Edward Snowden, but the top editors of the Washington Post who decided to make these programs public,” as Greenwald added.

The Post’s peculiar justification is as follows: While the board grudgingly conceded that reporters, thanks to Snowden, revealed that the NSA’s collection of domestic telephone metadata — which “was a stretch, if not an outright violation, of federal surveillance law” — it condemns him for revealing “a separate overseas NSA Internet-monitoring program, PRISM, that was both clearly legal and not clearly threatening to privacy.”

Prism may be legal in terms of statutory authority but its constitutionality is certainly up for debate. And it’s rather odd to say that about a program that along with one called Upstream provides the the NSA with “hundreds of millions, if not billions, of communications, ” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Prism is almost certainly vacuuming up communications by U.S. citizens (not to mention innocent people abroad, whose rights the editorial board doesn’t care about) and us being used to an unknown extent in federal criminal prosecutions.

Thanks in large part to Snowden, The Washington Post newsroom shared a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for its work in exposing the inner workings of a national security state that is utterly incompatible not only with a democratic and free society but also with the operation of a free press. The Post, however, has now parted with its colleagues at The New York Times, the Guardian and The Intercept by calling for the prosecution of the paper’s most important source in decades.

The editorial board went on to cynically exploit the civil rights movement in service of its argument, writing that Snowden should “come home and hash out all of this before a jury of his peers” because it “would certainly be in the best tradition of civil disobedience, whose practitioners have always been willing to go to jail for their beliefs.”

Civil disobedience, however, is a tactic geared to expose an oppressor’s brutality. It’s not that people have a duty to submit to arrest but rather that they have a responsibility to disobey unjust laws. The Post editorial board should know this and stop exploiting the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and company for ends they would never approve of.

The Post editorial also has averred that “Snowden hurt his own credibility as an avatar of freedom by accepting asylum from Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who’s not known for pardoning those who blow the whistle on him.” Given that it was the U.S. government that ensured that Snowden sought shelter in Russia, this is nothing more than intellectual dishonesty. As the Guardian has reported, Snowden “was on his way to Cuba” and “spent five weeks in the transit area after the US cancelled his travel documents, before being given temporary asylum in Russia.”

As Snowden said in 2014, “I don’t think there’s ever been any question that I’d like to go home.”

The leadership of the Post’s newsroom no doubt disagrees with the editorial board, and I understand that there is a wall between the paper’s two sides. But media institutions take political stances all the time and not just on their editorial pages.

In Pennsylvania, I participated in two lawsuits led by the state’s affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union while I was a reporter at the Philadelphia City Paper. One was against a state law infringing on the free speech rights of prisoners and the other was against the state’s refusal to disclose the source of drugs used in its lethal injection protocol. In the latter case, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the state’s most straight-laced media institution, joined in.

As Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan (whose work as the New York Times’ public editor I truly miss) has written: “What Snowden was, without dispute, was an extraordinarily important source. Without his decision to bring the information to journalists, it is very unlikely that we would know what we do about mass surveillance in the post-9/11 world.”

Defending one’s sources, of course, is a bedrock value of journalism.

The ACLU, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have jointly created an online petition calling on Obama to pardon Snowden, as part of a broader campaign that coincides with the release of the Oliver Stone film “Snowden.” Journalists are not just reporters covering a story but also workers with professional and political responsibilities. We should sign on. If individual reporters can’t, then the papers should. It’s a shame that the Post, of all institutions, hasn’t done so.

WATCH: Latest NRA attack ad uses recycled B-roll footage to claim Hillary wants to take women’s guns

The National Rifle Association released its latest political attack ad on Tuesday, entitled “Don’t Let Hillary Clinton Leave You Defenseless.” It makes an apparent appeal to women voters as part of a reported$15 million campaign.

In the ad, a female homeowner is hypothetically unable to defend herself from a sinister invader, because the Democratic presidential nominee “could take away her right to self-defense” — i.e., her handgun, which she keeps in a safe on her dresser. “Don’t let Hillary leave you protected with nothing but a phone,” the female narrator warns.

PolitiFact, in May, found no evidence that Clinton planned to abolish the Second Amendment, as Trump has repeatedly claimed. Instead, the Democratic nominee has made clear her intention to beef up regulations on gun ownership, going so far as to suggest that more reasonable NRA members “form a different organization and take back the Second Amendment from the extremists.”

“I do support comprehensive background checks, and to close the gun show loophole, and the online loophole, and what’s called the Charleston loophole, and to prevent people on the no-fly list from getting guns,” Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews last January.

As MediaMatters noted on Tuesday, the NRA has twice before used the same B-roll footage to portray a home invasion in down-ballot attack ads against former-Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Missouri Senate candidate Jason Kander, both Democrats.

Watch the NRA’s ad below:

Adult Swim streams “Space Ghost” episodes from 9 seasons for free

(Credit: Comedy Central)

As a tribute to C. Martin Croker, the Adult Swim animator who played Zorak and Moltar on the classic “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast” and who passed away over the weekend, the network made almost all of the episodes available to watch for free online.

From a fan perspective, and Croker’s death notwithstanding, this move represents a significant boon, as the DVDs went out of print and the copies available on YouTube possessed all the quality of their native standard definition.

The show featured interviews with guests one wouldn’t assume would appear on a show with the aesthetic values of a North Korean indoctrination film from a previous era — Jim Carrey, Willie Nelson, David Byrne, Michael Stipe, Jon Stewart, Thom Yorke, Lassie, and Pavement’s Steve Malkus, whose band Space Ghost couldn’t, or most probably wouldn’t, stop mistaking for The Beatles.

It also featured the first appearances of iconic Adult Swim regulars, including Harvey Birdman and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force of Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad.

Look Again: The day’s most compelling images from around the globe

Gesus Lamadrid, right, dressed up as Batman and Orlando Gonzales, center dressed up as Iron Man interact with 8-year-old Tyler Levin Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, in Chicago. A window washing crew dressed up as superheroes to entertain the young patients at the hospital. (AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim) (Credit: AP)

 

Aleppo, Syria   Ammar Abdullah/Reuters

Men drive a motorcycle near a damaged aid truck after an airstrike

There’s a reason the best photojournalists have somewhat of a reputation for detachment or coldness, and also for risking their lives for ambiguous reasons. They are simultaneously looking to document the news, sometimes in highly dangerous environments, and also to capture beautiful and memorable images that stand on their own. This photo by Ammar Abdullah, shot in the world’s most famous war zone of the moment — Aleppo, Syria — is a perfect example. It illustrates an urgent story of global importance, and is as beautifully composed as an Old Master painting, with a genuine memento mori, or reminder of universal mortality, in the skeleton of an aid truck in the background.

–Andrew O’Hehir, senior editor

 

London, England   Daniel Leal-Olivas/Getty

A gallery assistant poses in front of Mark Rothko paintings

This gallery assistant analyzes both painting’s brush strokes, proportions, and color; while simultaneously embodying Cameron Frye’s existential crisis in a profound way.

–Jillian Kestenbaum, office manager

 

Rostock, Germany   Bernd Wustneck/Getty

Galapagos tortoise “Isabela Frieda” sits on the scale

Even the dumbest humans like to consider themselves superior to the most intelligent animals, and I think THAT is dumb. Just look at Isabela, this glorious tortoise. She’s almost 200 pounds and could easily crush a tiny human just by sitting down. She’s also super smart and adorable — imagine her in tiny tortoise glasses!

–Tatiana Baez, social media coordinator

 

Chicago, Illinois   Tae-Gyun Kim/AP

Dressed as Batman and Iron Man, two members of a window washing crew interact with an 8-year-old patient in a hospital in Chicago.

Tyler Levin, 8, quickly confirms the sighting: Yes, indeed the superheroes have arrived — just in the nick of time. Batman and Iron Man, often disguised as window washers Gesus Lamadrid and Orlando Gonzales, have landed in Chicago to rescue Tyler from the infinite boredom of a hospital stay.

–Marjorie Backman, copy editor