Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 848

Two CNN analysts nearly come to blows over Trump’s disgusting race-baiting

Former Obama administration consultant Van Jones and Republican strategist Jeffrey Lord nearly came to blows on CNN's Super Tuesday coverage tonight. The pair were arguing about Donald Trump's recent statements about David Duke and his affiliation with the KKK. "Here's a guy who disavowed this many, many, many times," Lord said. "You hear this statement from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today. I like Paul Ryan. We both worked for Jack Kemp." However, Lord added that "Jack Kemp would be appalled at this. I hate to say this about the Republican establishment but their view of civil rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club. This is atrocious. This is atrocious. This is why Donald Trump has the ability -- because he's not going to patronize people." Jones shot back that it's not as if it's just this statement that Trump made that's offensive. "The things that Donald Trump has done and not just in this race are horribly offensive. You can go back with this guy for a long time -- I want to talk. I want to talk. Because this is important. You can go back to the central jogger case where he came out and had innocent black kids winding up in prison." "No," Lord replied, "innocent kids." "Hold on a second," Jones said. "Innocent black kids." "We have a big problem at this point now, because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here and S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan." "That is not cool," he severely understated. Watch the entire exchange below via Media Matters. Former Obama administration consultant Van Jones and Republican strategist Jeffrey Lord nearly came to blows on CNN's Super Tuesday coverage tonight. The pair were arguing about Donald Trump's recent statements about David Duke and his affiliation with the KKK. "Here's a guy who disavowed this many, many, many times," Lord said. "You hear this statement from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today. I like Paul Ryan. We both worked for Jack Kemp." However, Lord added that "Jack Kemp would be appalled at this. I hate to say this about the Republican establishment but their view of civil rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club. This is atrocious. This is atrocious. This is why Donald Trump has the ability -- because he's not going to patronize people." Jones shot back that it's not as if it's just this statement that Trump made that's offensive. "The things that Donald Trump has done and not just in this race are horribly offensive. You can go back with this guy for a long time -- I want to talk. I want to talk. Because this is important. You can go back to the central jogger case where he came out and had innocent black kids winding up in prison." "No," Lord replied, "innocent kids." "Hold on a second," Jones said. "Innocent black kids." "We have a big problem at this point now, because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here and S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan." "That is not cool," he severely understated. Watch the entire exchange below via Media Matters. Former Obama administration consultant Van Jones and Republican strategist Jeffrey Lord nearly came to blows on CNN's Super Tuesday coverage tonight. The pair were arguing about Donald Trump's recent statements about David Duke and his affiliation with the KKK. "Here's a guy who disavowed this many, many, many times," Lord said. "You hear this statement from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today. I like Paul Ryan. We both worked for Jack Kemp." However, Lord added that "Jack Kemp would be appalled at this. I hate to say this about the Republican establishment but their view of civil rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club. This is atrocious. This is atrocious. This is why Donald Trump has the ability -- because he's not going to patronize people." Jones shot back that it's not as if it's just this statement that Trump made that's offensive. "The things that Donald Trump has done and not just in this race are horribly offensive. You can go back with this guy for a long time -- I want to talk. I want to talk. Because this is important. You can go back to the central jogger case where he came out and had innocent black kids winding up in prison." "No," Lord replied, "innocent kids." "Hold on a second," Jones said. "Innocent black kids." "We have a big problem at this point now, because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here and S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan." "That is not cool," he severely understated. Watch the entire exchange below via Media Matters. Former Obama administration consultant Van Jones and Republican strategist Jeffrey Lord nearly came to blows on CNN's Super Tuesday coverage tonight. The pair were arguing about Donald Trump's recent statements about David Duke and his affiliation with the KKK. "Here's a guy who disavowed this many, many, many times," Lord said. "You hear this statement from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today. I like Paul Ryan. We both worked for Jack Kemp." However, Lord added that "Jack Kemp would be appalled at this. I hate to say this about the Republican establishment but their view of civil rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club. This is atrocious. This is atrocious. This is why Donald Trump has the ability -- because he's not going to patronize people." Jones shot back that it's not as if it's just this statement that Trump made that's offensive. "The things that Donald Trump has done and not just in this race are horribly offensive. You can go back with this guy for a long time -- I want to talk. I want to talk. Because this is important. You can go back to the central jogger case where he came out and had innocent black kids winding up in prison." "No," Lord replied, "innocent kids." "Hold on a second," Jones said. "Innocent black kids." "We have a big problem at this point now, because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here and S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan." "That is not cool," he severely understated. Watch the entire exchange below via Media Matters.

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“It’s just gonna become worse and worse”: Jubiliant Donald Trump goes hard after Hillary in Super Tuesday victory speech

Soon-to-be GOP nominee Donald Trump held his victory news  conference Tuesday night at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. "I want to congratulate Ted on the winning of Texas ... It was an excellent win," Trump began, after a lame intro from Chris Christie, and before setting his sights on his opponents: "I watched Hillary's speech and she's talking about 'wages have been poor' and 'everything's poor,'" Trump said. "She's been there for so long. If she hasn't straightened it out by now, she's not gonna straighten it out in the next four years. It's just gonna become worse and worse." "She wants to make America whole again, and I'm trying to figure out what is that all about," he added. "Making America great again is going to be better than making America whole again." "I know it was a very tough night for Marco Rubio," Trump continued, pouring salt into his primary opponent's wound. "He worked hard, he spent a lot of money; he is a lightweight, as I've said many times before." (Trump later admitted that he liked Rubio until the "about a week ago" when "he became Don Rickles, but Don Rickles has a lot more talent.") Trump promised to spend a lot of time in Rubio's home state of Florida in the coming weeks, in an effort to combat "the special interests" and "people who want to have their little senator do exactly what they want," who he said plan to dump $20-25 million into the Rubio campaign between tonight and the primary. After a brief stump speech and some jabs at his opponents (i.e. Clinton and Rubio), Trump took questions from reporters. In response to a question about his gradually more moderate stance on Planned Parenthood, Trump called himself "a common-sense conservative." "Planned Parenthood has done very good work for some - for many, many - for millions of women," Trump admitted. "But we're not gonna allow it, we're not gonna fund so long as you have the abortion going on at Planned Parenthood." "I'm going to be really good for women. I'm going to be good for women's health issues," Trump continued. "It's very important to me." Asked whether he'd be able to get along with Congress -- specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan, who criticized Trump's KKK-neutrality -- Trump said, "I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm gonna get along with him, and if I don't, he's gonna have to pay a very big price."Soon-to-be GOP nominee Donald Trump held his victory news  conference Tuesday night at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. "I want to congratulate Ted on the winning of Texas ... It was an excellent win," Trump began, after a lame intro from Chris Christie, and before setting his sights on his opponents: "I watched Hillary's speech and she's talking about 'wages have been poor' and 'everything's poor,'" Trump said. "She's been there for so long. If she hasn't straightened it out by now, she's not gonna straighten it out in the next four years. It's just gonna become worse and worse." "She wants to make America whole again, and I'm trying to figure out what is that all about," he added. "Making America great again is going to be better than making America whole again." "I know it was a very tough night for Marco Rubio," Trump continued, pouring salt into his primary opponent's wound. "He worked hard, he spent a lot of money; he is a lightweight, as I've said many times before." (Trump later admitted that he liked Rubio until the "about a week ago" when "he became Don Rickles, but Don Rickles has a lot more talent.") Trump promised to spend a lot of time in Rubio's home state of Florida in the coming weeks, in an effort to combat "the special interests" and "people who want to have their little senator do exactly what they want," who he said plan to dump $20-25 million into the Rubio campaign between tonight and the primary. After a brief stump speech and some jabs at his opponents (i.e. Clinton and Rubio), Trump took questions from reporters. In response to a question about his gradually more moderate stance on Planned Parenthood, Trump called himself "a common-sense conservative." "Planned Parenthood has done very good work for some - for many, many - for millions of women," Trump admitted. "But we're not gonna allow it, we're not gonna fund so long as you have the abortion going on at Planned Parenthood." "I'm going to be really good for women. I'm going to be good for women's health issues," Trump continued. "It's very important to me." Asked whether he'd be able to get along with Congress -- specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan, who criticized Trump's KKK-neutrality -- Trump said, "I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm gonna get along with him, and if I don't, he's gonna have to pay a very big price."Soon-to-be GOP nominee Donald Trump held his victory news  conference Tuesday night at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. "I want to congratulate Ted on the winning of Texas ... It was an excellent win," Trump began, after a lame intro from Chris Christie, and before setting his sights on his opponents: "I watched Hillary's speech and she's talking about 'wages have been poor' and 'everything's poor,'" Trump said. "She's been there for so long. If she hasn't straightened it out by now, she's not gonna straighten it out in the next four years. It's just gonna become worse and worse." "She wants to make America whole again, and I'm trying to figure out what is that all about," he added. "Making America great again is going to be better than making America whole again." "I know it was a very tough night for Marco Rubio," Trump continued, pouring salt into his primary opponent's wound. "He worked hard, he spent a lot of money; he is a lightweight, as I've said many times before." (Trump later admitted that he liked Rubio until the "about a week ago" when "he became Don Rickles, but Don Rickles has a lot more talent.") Trump promised to spend a lot of time in Rubio's home state of Florida in the coming weeks, in an effort to combat "the special interests" and "people who want to have their little senator do exactly what they want," who he said plan to dump $20-25 million into the Rubio campaign between tonight and the primary. After a brief stump speech and some jabs at his opponents (i.e. Clinton and Rubio), Trump took questions from reporters. In response to a question about his gradually more moderate stance on Planned Parenthood, Trump called himself "a common-sense conservative." "Planned Parenthood has done very good work for some - for many, many - for millions of women," Trump admitted. "But we're not gonna allow it, we're not gonna fund so long as you have the abortion going on at Planned Parenthood." "I'm going to be really good for women. I'm going to be good for women's health issues," Trump continued. "It's very important to me." Asked whether he'd be able to get along with Congress -- specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan, who criticized Trump's KKK-neutrality -- Trump said, "I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm gonna get along with him, and if I don't, he's gonna have to pay a very big price."

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“Pass the Scotch”: Pundits, celebs weigh in on Donald Trump’s “yuuge” Super Tuesday victory

Donald Trump is out to a strong start on Super Tuesday, with six states called for the New York businessman so far. No one was more unhappy with Trump's victories than conservative pundit Bill Kristol: https://twitter.com/BillKristol/statu... Later, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced his endorsement of Trump, throwing Kristol further into despondency: https://twitter.com/BillKristol/statu... At Trump's victory press conference, Chris Christie's puzzling, unenthusiastic introduction and body language drew scrutiny: https://twitter.com/owillis/status/70... https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status... https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status... The night's other big winner (at least according to Ted Cruz) is Ted Cruz, who locked up victories in Texas and Oklahoma: https://twitter.com/FrankBruni/status... https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/statu... https://twitter.com/SteveKornacki/sta... Meanwhile, Marco Rubio might still win in Minnesota, but the only person still buying into #Marcomentum seems to be Marco Rubio: https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/704... https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/... https://twitter.com/NickBaumann/statu... https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/sta... https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/sta... And Ben Carson says he's not dropping out, for whatever that's worth: https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/stat... Results from Minnesota, Vermont and Alaska are still to come. Stay tuned for updates. https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/statu... Trump is out to a strong start on Super Tuesday, with six states called for the New York businessman so far. No one was more unhappy with Trump's victories than conservative pundit Bill Kristol: https://twitter.com/BillKristol/statu... Later, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced his endorsement of Trump, throwing Kristol further into despondency: https://twitter.com/BillKristol/statu... At Trump's victory press conference, Chris Christie's puzzling, unenthusiastic introduction and body language drew scrutiny: https://twitter.com/owillis/status/70... https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status... https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status... The night's other big winner (at least according to Ted Cruz) is Ted Cruz, who locked up victories in Texas and Oklahoma: https://twitter.com/FrankBruni/status... https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/statu... https://twitter.com/SteveKornacki/sta... Meanwhile, Marco Rubio might still win in Minnesota, but the only person still buying into #Marcomentum seems to be Marco Rubio: https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/704... https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/... https://twitter.com/NickBaumann/statu... https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/sta... https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/sta... And Ben Carson says he's not dropping out, for whatever that's worth: https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/stat... Results from Minnesota, Vermont and Alaska are still to come. Stay tuned for updates. https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/statu...

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Hillary Clinton’s commanding Super Tuesday victory: Bernie Sanders stays alive but has slim path to nomination

With the Republicans tearing themselves apart over the previously non-controversial question of whether it’s okay to be for the KKK, it’s amazing that the Democrats are getting more than cursory attention this Super Tuesday. It’s a testament to how tense the Hillary Clinton/Bernie Sanders race has felt, a perception fueled by the high stakes that are inevitably involved when one side is pushing for the first female president and the other side wants to elect someone who literally calls himself a socialist. Not that race hasn’t become a pressing and frankly uncomfortable issue in the Democratic primary. In recent weeks, Clinton has aggressively marketed herself as the candidate that has a more well-rounded vision of racial and social justice than Sanders, whose intense focus on Wall Street and the “big banks” she has implied is a “single issue” campaign. Sanders responded by focusing campaign efforts away from more racially diverse Southern states and towards states where white voters dominate the Democratic Party more. It appears that the Clinton strategy is working. Clinton picked up heavy support in states that Sanders needed to win. He was banking on those areas to prove his strategy of targeting states with majority white voters was feasible. Even in other states, where she was projected to win, her performance with white voters suggested that the racial division that Sanders was counting on to win is not materializing. Sanders, however, is still alive in the race, picking up four states: Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma. Clinton’s victory speech, to supporters at a campaign stop in Miami, suggested she is already turning away from the bitter primary struggle and towards a general election, where she clearly expects to face Donald Trump. “America never stopped being great,” she declared, in a direct dig at Trump’s claim that America has lost its way. “We have to make America whole.” “Instead of building walls,” she added, “we’re going to break down barriers and build ladders of opportunities and empowerment.” Her speech was mostly a swipe at Trump, but it was also playing on her campaign’s recent focus on social justice issues, particularly those that are race- and gender-related, which she has been using to accent the differences between her campaign and Sander’s more finance-focused campaigns. From the beginning, the Sanders campaign has had to deal with the sense that their supporters are largely well-heeled white people who fancy themselves “radicals” but who nonetheless feel they should be calling the shots in the Democratic Party. Initially, the Sanders campaign strove to overcome this image, eagerly reaching out to activists associated with Black Lives Matter and recruiting Spike Lee to campaign for Sanders. But after his crushing loss in South Carolina, which was largely attributed to black voters (Clinton got 86% of African-American voters), it appears Sanders shifted strategies. He turned to campaigning most heavily in states where white people make up a much bigger percentage of the voting base, clearly hoping to turn out these particular voters and shift the odds in his favor. Indeed, ,his campaign has narrowed focus so much on white voters that the “Meet the Press” blog questioned Sanders’ judgment on this front, gently noting “it's puzzling to us why Sanders didn't make a bigger play in those southern states.” Considering the racial dynamics at play, it’s hard to deny that it’s a mistake that only serves to create the impression that white Democrats are pitted against black Democrats. Which is especially unfortunate, as both Sanders and Clinton have platforms that are explicitly anti-racist and policies that are meant to address racial inequities, both economically and socially. Part of Sanders’ problem was the whole white vs. black narrative wasn’t just uncomfortable. It’s not even really true. Clinton won both white and black voters in South Carolina, even if her margins with the latter were far larger. The two candidates were nearly tied with white voters in Nevada. Super Tuesday was just more of the same. Exit polls in Virginia showed Clinton getting 82% of black voters but also 55% of white voters. Clinton got both white and black voters in Tennessee. In Arkansas, same story, with Clinton winning both. Clinton won white, black, and Hispanic voters in Texas, a state which cuts a wide swath of people, both geographically and culturally. Clinton may be getting a bigger cut of voters of color, but, to be blunt, white people still like her. Moreover, CNN’s exit polling suggests that the media perception of animosity between Sanders and Clinton voters is overblown, with most Democratic voters saying they like both candidates. The likelier explanation is that Clinton just does well with a diverse group of people, and that Sanders’s popularity with a certain kind of well-educated, cosmopolitan white voter — the kind of people that are way overrepresented in the media class — was creating a sense that he is more popular than he is. “Based on the makeup of the Democratic electorate, Mr. Sanders needs to outperform Mrs. Clinton among nonblack voters by a significant margin to counter her success in attracting black voters,” Jonathan Martin and Nate Cohn of the New York Times write. Even setting aside some of the serious political problems with such a strategy, the grim fact of the matter is that Sanders doesn’t seem to be pulling it off. The main question now is how long will Sanders hang in? His initial gambit, arguing that his socialist views would turn out long-fallow voters, fell apart in the face of lower voter turnout that the Obama/Clinton race got in 2008. His new move, of targeting white progressives, doesn’t seem to be helping much either. He needed to win that demographic by huge margins in order to overcome the voters of color turning out for Clinton, and it just doesn’t seem he’s got quite enough votes to get there. He may be able to close the margin somewhat as the primaries move to whiter states, but it’s hard to imagine he can catch up — and the cost of doing so is perpetuating this somewhat misleading and certainly divisive narrative of white vs. non-white in the Democratic Party. The best move, at this point, would be to bow out soon and put his support behind Clinton for the general.With the Republicans tearing themselves apart over the previously non-controversial question of whether it’s okay to be for the KKK, it’s amazing that the Democrats are getting more than cursory attention this Super Tuesday. It’s a testament to how tense the Hillary Clinton/Bernie Sanders race has felt, a perception fueled by the high stakes that are inevitably involved when one side is pushing for the first female president and the other side wants to elect someone who literally calls himself a socialist. Not that race hasn’t become a pressing and frankly uncomfortable issue in the Democratic primary. In recent weeks, Clinton has aggressively marketed herself as the candidate that has a more well-rounded vision of racial and social justice than Sanders, whose intense focus on Wall Street and the “big banks” she has implied is a “single issue” campaign. Sanders responded by focusing campaign efforts away from more racially diverse Southern states and towards states where white voters dominate the Democratic Party more. It appears that the Clinton strategy is working. Clinton picked up heavy support in states that Sanders needed to win. He was banking on those areas to prove his strategy of targeting states with majority white voters was feasible. Even in other states, where she was projected to win, her performance with white voters suggested that the racial division that Sanders was counting on to win is not materializing. Sanders, however, is still alive in the race, picking up four states: Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma. Clinton’s victory speech, to supporters at a campaign stop in Miami, suggested she is already turning away from the bitter primary struggle and towards a general election, where she clearly expects to face Donald Trump. “America never stopped being great,” she declared, in a direct dig at Trump’s claim that America has lost its way. “We have to make America whole.” “Instead of building walls,” she added, “we’re going to break down barriers and build ladders of opportunities and empowerment.” Her speech was mostly a swipe at Trump, but it was also playing on her campaign’s recent focus on social justice issues, particularly those that are race- and gender-related, which she has been using to accent the differences between her campaign and Sander’s more finance-focused campaigns. From the beginning, the Sanders campaign has had to deal with the sense that their supporters are largely well-heeled white people who fancy themselves “radicals” but who nonetheless feel they should be calling the shots in the Democratic Party. Initially, the Sanders campaign strove to overcome this image, eagerly reaching out to activists associated with Black Lives Matter and recruiting Spike Lee to campaign for Sanders. But after his crushing loss in South Carolina, which was largely attributed to black voters (Clinton got 86% of African-American voters), it appears Sanders shifted strategies. He turned to campaigning most heavily in states where white people make up a much bigger percentage of the voting base, clearly hoping to turn out these particular voters and shift the odds in his favor. Indeed, ,his campaign has narrowed focus so much on white voters that the “Meet the Press” blog questioned Sanders’ judgment on this front, gently noting “it's puzzling to us why Sanders didn't make a bigger play in those southern states.” Considering the racial dynamics at play, it’s hard to deny that it’s a mistake that only serves to create the impression that white Democrats are pitted against black Democrats. Which is especially unfortunate, as both Sanders and Clinton have platforms that are explicitly anti-racist and policies that are meant to address racial inequities, both economically and socially. Part of Sanders’ problem was the whole white vs. black narrative wasn’t just uncomfortable. It’s not even really true. Clinton won both white and black voters in South Carolina, even if her margins with the latter were far larger. The two candidates were nearly tied with white voters in Nevada. Super Tuesday was just more of the same. Exit polls in Virginia showed Clinton getting 82% of black voters but also 55% of white voters. Clinton got both white and black voters in Tennessee. In Arkansas, same story, with Clinton winning both. Clinton won white, black, and Hispanic voters in Texas, a state which cuts a wide swath of people, both geographically and culturally. Clinton may be getting a bigger cut of voters of color, but, to be blunt, white people still like her. Moreover, CNN’s exit polling suggests that the media perception of animosity between Sanders and Clinton voters is overblown, with most Democratic voters saying they like both candidates. The likelier explanation is that Clinton just does well with a diverse group of people, and that Sanders’s popularity with a certain kind of well-educated, cosmopolitan white voter — the kind of people that are way overrepresented in the media class — was creating a sense that he is more popular than he is. “Based on the makeup of the Democratic electorate, Mr. Sanders needs to outperform Mrs. Clinton among nonblack voters by a significant margin to counter her success in attracting black voters,” Jonathan Martin and Nate Cohn of the New York Times write. Even setting aside some of the serious political problems with such a strategy, the grim fact of the matter is that Sanders doesn’t seem to be pulling it off. The main question now is how long will Sanders hang in? His initial gambit, arguing that his socialist views would turn out long-fallow voters, fell apart in the face of lower voter turnout that the Obama/Clinton race got in 2008. His new move, of targeting white progressives, doesn’t seem to be helping much either. He needed to win that demographic by huge margins in order to overcome the voters of color turning out for Clinton, and it just doesn’t seem he’s got quite enough votes to get there. He may be able to close the margin somewhat as the primaries move to whiter states, but it’s hard to imagine he can catch up — and the cost of doing so is perpetuating this somewhat misleading and certainly divisive narrative of white vs. non-white in the Democratic Party. The best move, at this point, would be to bow out soon and put his support behind Clinton for the general.

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Human sad-trombone Chris Christie introduces Donald Trump with the lowest energy “victory” speech in American political history

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who last week endorsed Donald Trump, was pegged to introduce the GOP front-runner's victory speech tonight -- and delivered the most unenthusiastic introduction to something labeled a "victory" in the recorded history of contests that could end in either "victory" or "defeat." Christie struggled to praise Trump, saying that "this isn't a campaign, it's a movement." He unconvincingly added that "America wants to stay strong, America wants to stay together, and they know that to do that, they need to have a strong, bold, tough, decisive leader back in the Oval Office." "Ladies and gentlemen," he said with what appeared to be manifest dread, "let me introduce to you the next president of the United States, Donald Trump." Watch the entire sad spectacle below via Fox News.New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who last week endorsed Donald Trump, was pegged to introduce the GOP front-runner's victory speech tonight -- and delivered the most unenthusiastic introduction to something labeled a "victory" in the recorded history of contests that could end in either "victory" or "defeat." Christie struggled to praise Trump, saying that "this isn't a campaign, it's a movement." He unconvincingly added that "America wants to stay strong, America wants to stay together, and they know that to do that, they need to have a strong, bold, tough, decisive leader back in the Oval Office." "Ladies and gentlemen," he said with what appeared to be manifest dread, "let me introduce to you the next president of the United States, Donald Trump." Watch the entire sad spectacle below via Fox News.New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who last week endorsed Donald Trump, was pegged to introduce the GOP front-runner's victory speech tonight -- and delivered the most unenthusiastic introduction to something labeled a "victory" in the recorded history of contests that could end in either "victory" or "defeat." Christie struggled to praise Trump, saying that "this isn't a campaign, it's a movement." He unconvincingly added that "America wants to stay strong, America wants to stay together, and they know that to do that, they need to have a strong, bold, tough, decisive leader back in the Oval Office." "Ladies and gentlemen," he said with what appeared to be manifest dread, "let me introduce to you the next president of the United States, Donald Trump." Watch the entire sad spectacle below via Fox News.New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who last week endorsed Donald Trump, was pegged to introduce the GOP front-runner's victory speech tonight -- and delivered the most unenthusiastic introduction to something labeled a "victory" in the recorded history of contests that could end in either "victory" or "defeat." Christie struggled to praise Trump, saying that "this isn't a campaign, it's a movement." He unconvincingly added that "America wants to stay strong, America wants to stay together, and they know that to do that, they need to have a strong, bold, tough, decisive leader back in the Oval Office." "Ladies and gentlemen," he said with what appeared to be manifest dread, "let me introduce to you the next president of the United States, Donald Trump." Watch the entire sad spectacle below via Fox News.

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Melissa Harris-Perry tears into MSNBC’s “culture of fear” on Twitter

Days after her MSNBC show's cancellation, Melissa Harris-Perry lashed out at the network in a string of critical tweets Tuesday. Last week, Harris-Perry announced in an email to coworkers that she would boycott her own MSNBC show, citing frustrations over a lack of editorial control and repeated preemptions by election coverage. On Sunday, MSNBC confirmed that it would part ways with Harris-Perry. "The Melissa Harris-Perry Show" frequently focused on issues of race and diversity, and Harris-Perry was quick to note on Twitter that other MSNBC presenters of color had also recently been shelved: https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... Harris-Perry then proceeded to address her departure, detail her ongoing severance negotiations with MSNBC, and criticize MSNBC — and cable news in general — for its lack of diversity: https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... after her MSNBC show's cancellation, Melissa Harris-Perry lashed out at the network in a string of critical tweets Tuesday. Last week, Harris-Perry announced in an email to coworkers that she would boycott her own MSNBC show, citing frustrations over a lack of editorial control and repeated preemptions by election coverage. On Sunday, MSNBC confirmed that it would part ways with Harris-Perry. "The Melissa Harris-Perry Show" frequently focused on issues of race and diversity, and Harris-Perry was quick to note on Twitter that other MSNBC presenters of color had also recently been shelved: https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... Harris-Perry then proceeded to address her departure, detail her ongoing severance negotiations with MSNBC, and criticize MSNBC — and cable news in general — for its lack of diversity: https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat... https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/stat...

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“Has anyone called his campaign a Trumpster fire yet?”: Despite some early hope, it turns out Marco Rubio’s the only one who still thinks he can win

Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status... Marco Rubio is still convinced that he can stack all these second- and third-place finishes into enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, math be damned -- but denizens of Twitter aren't convinced that he can stop the beastly momentum of Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/704... https://twitter.com/selenalarson/stat... https://twitter.com/landotalley50/sta... https://twitter.com/petersuderman/sta... https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/7... https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/statu... https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/70... https://twitter.com/anamariecox/statu... Rubio's so delusional, even the loathsome Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter can make valid points: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status...

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Chris Rock’s Oscars didn’t “fight the power”: A night of crude jokes and cynical deflection is a poor way to show progress

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Of all the people disappointed by the Oscars ceremony last night, the most disappointed were the audience. It’s a joke you can make any year, but this year is special--this is the year that all eyes were on Chris Rock to see how he’d deal with the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that became impossible to ignore once several big names boycotted the ceremony, leaving the Oscars audience an uncomfortably white crowd. Blaming Rock as host for the Oscars’ ratings dipping to an eight-year low is, of course, nonsense. The fact that Rock announced he’d directly address the #OscarsSoWhite protests is probably the only reason many people--including myself--tuned in. God knows the ceremony’s buzz would not have been improved by a white presenter who signaled they would carefully avoid any mention of race. What did we get? I’d like to damn the night with faint praise by saying it was “as much as we could’ve expected,” but even that wasn’t true--it was on par with what we could’ve expected, but with some glaring unforced errors. Yes, it was amazing that Chris Rock’s monologue and his skits throughout the evening directly tackled the elephant in the room--especially the sincere, heartfelt speeches given by Kevin Hart and Alejandro Iñárritu. Rock’s sketch where he interviewed regular moviegoers in Compton--in a year when, in a textbook case of adding insult to injury, “Straight Outta Compton” received no nominations except for its white screenwriters--was a pretty sharp dig at the vast cultural chasm between the film industry as academy insiders see it and the entire universe of filmmakers and audiences the academy routinely ignores. And yes, Rock came out and said it, calling Michael B. Jordan a “should’ve-been nominee” moments before Jordan launched into his presenter speech with an admirably straight face. And then the ceremony surprised a lot of us by earnestly and humanely addressing a topic we didn’t expect to come up, tying in the best original song nomination for “The Hunting Ground” and best picture nominations for “Room”  and “Spotlight” with a speech by Vice President Joe Biden promoting a bystander-intervention pledge. The subsequent Lady Gaga performance of “Til It Happens to You” with real-life survivors of sexual assault onstage was the highlight of the evening and, arguably, the highlight of the past 10 years’ worth of Academy Awards ceremony performances. Even with the looming controversy over the bias in who got nominated it was impossible to be cynical about Brie Larson winning best actress after the moving scene of her hugging survivors as they left the stage. The ceremony broke through the cynical shell we’ve all built up while watching these things multiple times that evening. Pete Docter’s simple “Make stuff” advice to children when receiving his award for “Inside Out.” Louis C.K.’s intro for the best documentary short category reminding us about the world of filmmakers who barely see a cent of Big Hollywood money but do the work for the chance to tell untold stories. The always tear-jerking In Memoriam montage hitting doubly hard in the year we lost Leonard Nimoy and Alan Rickman. (Who didn’t instantly tear up at hearing the famous line from “The Wrath of Khan”?) And of course the evening culminated with an underdog best picture win for “Spotlight,” a meta example of a film that wasn’t just about social issues but about the power of the media when it chooses to take an active role in addressing social issues. Insecure journalists wrestling with doubts over the future of the profession collectively swooned at the acceptance speech. This year they even improved basic things like the ordering of the categories to emphasize the progression from screenplay to shooting to finished film and the construction of the clips packages for the technical categories to show how sound mixing or cinematography is as important to a film as the director and actors. It was a much-welcomed injection of relevance into awards that had previously felt like filler while we were waiting for the acting, directing and best picture highlights. So why did so much else go so horribly wrong? Why, with such a push from some corners to get past old-guard Hollywood elitism and cynicism and talk about how important movies can be to people in the real world, did old-guard elitism and cynicism mount such a stirring resurgence? The stage was set with Chris Rock’s opening monologue, which, while it certainly directly addressed the #OscarsSoWhite issue, made two breathtakingly tone-deaf arguments in quick succession: One, that the Oscars (and representation in entertainment media in general) is really not that big a deal, and two, the reason people are making a stink about it now is that we are no longer dealing with things that are big deals, like the actual violence and murder protested by the 1960s civil rights movement. This was an incredibly stupid thing to say. The fact that #OscarsSoWhite has trended in tandem with its preceding sister hashtag #BlackLivesMatter isn’t exactly subtle to anyone who’s ever glanced at so-called Black Twitter. (Which Rock clearly has, given his much-appreciated last-minute shout-out to #BlackLivesMatter at the end of the ceremony.) A #BlackLivesMatter documentary addressing the violence and murder going on in the streets right now was commissioned by HBO as a direct result of the uncomfortable negative attention #OscarsSoWhite put on the film industry. Acting like caring about day-to-day violence in the streets and the impact media and culture have on that violence are somehow mutually exclusive -- a common, frustrating, tired argument anyone who talks about racism in media will inevitably see dozens of times in the comments section -- ignores history. It ignores the many, many arguments that have been made about how the excuses made for the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown frequently come verbatim from untrue stereotypes out of TV and movies, how the only way Darren Wilson’s description of Brown as a “demon” who was “bulking up to get through the bullets” could possibly make sense to anyone is after a lifetime of media portrayals of the scary superhuman black man. It ignores Martin Luther King going out of his way to call Nichelle Nichols and tell her not to quit "Star Trek" because having a black woman on TV who wasn’t a domestic servant mattered. It ignores the ongoing civil rights protests around the Oscars back in the 1960s and '70s, including Marlon Brando making history as the first and only best actor winner to boycott the ceremony, sending American Indian Movement activist Sacheen Littlefeather to accept the award in his place. It ignores the fact that at the very moment Chris Rock was talking, there was a “Justice for Flint” fundraiser going on in protest of the Oscars, hosted by two black prominent filmmakers snubbed for best director nods who used #OscarsSoWhite to bring attention to the cause of a predominantly black community whose water was literally poisoned. As though to compound the tone-deafness of ignoring the existence of an event that, by existing, pretty much destroyed every single point Rock made in his monologue, Rock went on to make a joke out of doing his own fundraising among the millionaires in his audience for his daughter’s Girl Scout troop -- a cute joke, yes, but a joke that’s only remotely funny if you’d never heard of the “Justice for Flint” fundraiser going on at the same time or somehow put it entirely out of your mind. Then, as now, the academy wants to have its cake and eat it too. When people talk about the immense positive impact art and culture can have on people’s lives, when “The Hunting Ground” starts a national conversation on sexual assault that goes all the way up to the White House, the academy milks it for all it’s worth. But when it’s time to address the other side of the coin, how art and culture is just as, if not more, often a negative force in the world, taking existing prejudices and misunderstandings and hatreds and making them worse for a bigger box office gross, suddenly, hey, it’s just entertainment and we’re all taking it too seriously and the controversy is mostly good for a laugh. How else do you explain the bizarre decision to trot Stacey Dash out for a quick non-joke of a joke segment, other than to make light of the massive backlash to her dismissive remarks about Black History Month and #OscarsSoWhite and paint it as no big deal? And then of course there’s the incredibly gratuitous joke where Chris Rock brought three kids onstage as the Asian (and Jewish?) “accountants from Price Waterhouse Cooper,” apparently just to troll the audience. What even is the joke here? Is it that thanks to stereotyping most audiences think of Asian-Americans’ involvement in the film industry, if we have any at all, as being corporate bean counters with no creative talent? Is the joke that this stereotype gets thrust on us starting when we’re in grade school and leads to a lifetime of our being thought of as socially awkward childlike dorks? (As an aside, when trying to think of an East Asian speaking character in an Oscar-nominated film this year the best I could come up with was “The Big Short” making that exact same joke with Ryan Gosling’s quant.) Is it a “meta” joke about how the fact that racism complaints always focus on black people vs. white people makes people think jokes about other people of color is OK? Nah, it was a meta joke about how complaining about nasty jokes about Asians on TV is no big deal when there are exploited Asian child laborers in the world. Just like, apparently, whether or not there’s a black officer on the Enterprise is irrelevant when people are being lynched. That was crap. It was especially crap coming immediately after Chris Rock’s vox-populi interviews in Compton where a random man on the street stood up for solidarity between all people of color. It was even crappier after Sacha Baron Cohen brought back Ali G--one of the least-asked-for character resurrections of all time--to double down on the edgy humor with a similar ha-ha-I-offended-you bait-and-switch joke comparing Asians to the Minions. Which was only a prelude to Baron Cohen undercutting any semblance of respect the ceremony had given to real-life issues by introducing “Room” as a movie about a “roomful of white people” (while Olivia Wilde just stood there in awkward silence). The whole night was like that, every moment of genuine emotion undercut by crappy jokes intended to remind us not to take any of it too seriously. Everything good about this year’s Oscars was heavily intermixed with the Oscars’ traditional ham fists and tin ear. The orchestra comes in for special acknowledgment for its seemingly-random but often-unfortunate musical cues: Why play on Kevin Hart with the theme from “Beverly Hills Cop”? Why play on Julianne Moore with Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”? Why make the “play them off” theme song be Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” an especially cringeworthy choice when the person you’re playing off directed a film about the Holocaust? Why rigidly adhere to your 45-second speech limit to play off Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy while she was in the middle of talking about how her film literally changed the law about so-called honor killings in Pakistan? Why do that immediately after Louis C.K. brought up the painful fact that unlike all the movie stars and millionaires in the room, the chance to speak up about these issues is the only reward filmmakers like Obaid-Chinoy get? The impression I got from the ceremony was of an Oscars that was forced, kicking and screaming by a wave of controversy, into acknowledging that this year’s ceremony simply could not be business as usual while still awkwardly, cringily trying to be business as usual whenever they could manage it. It was a ceremony that let Kevin Hart make a heartfelt, unscripted speech but ran panicking to cut his mic when they were afraid he might be about to cuss. The most confusing and frustrating musical choice of the night didn’t come from the orchestra--it was the choice to play Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” to open and close the show. Was it a sincere nod by Chris Rock to ongoing frustrations with big movie studios and the suits who run Hollywood? Or was it a snarky jab at the idea that awards shows and movie stars matter at all when there are “real issues” to address? Or, to take a third option, was it a kind of cry for help from Rock himself, a world-weary sigh at the impossibility of actually addressing how screwed up the nature of the Academy Awards are while still agreeing to host them? Who knows. Given the tenor of the evening, the ambiguity was most likely deliberate. And whoever OK’d that decision was probably as ill-versed in the history of the Oscars as Sam Smith revealed himself to be last night. “Fight the Power,” after all, originated from “Do the Right Thing,” a movie that, like “Straight Outta Compton,” got a screenwriting nod but no nod for best director or best picture, and that, like “Creed,” got a best supporting actor nomination for the one prominent white character in the film (Danny Aiello as Sal) but no nod for the black lead. Like “Creed,” and “Straight Outta Compton,” “Do the Right Thing” didn’t actually win anything. “Fight the Power” itself wasn’t even nominated for best original song that year, which was won by “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid.” (I’ll leave music historians to debate which of those two songs had a greater cultural impact in the end). Best picture that year was “Driving Miss Daisy,” a touching and inspiring film about a black man working as a domestic servant to a white lady. That was in 1989, 27 years ago; the little golden statuette Daniel Day-Lewis got instead of Morgan Freeman for best actor that year is the same age as Taylor Swift. How much has really changed since then? Well, now we’re talking about it and making jokes about it and playing a recording of “Fight the Power” at the show (even if it’s still impossible to imagine it being played onstage or any song like it winning an award--and no, the fact that “Lose Yourself” and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” are hip-hop songs does not make them the same kind of song). Chris Rock making jokes about race--even bad, infuriating, point-missing jokes--is a step up from the “good old days” of “Uma, Oprah” vapidity. But this is a really poor showing for a quarter-century’s worth of progress. Chuck D’s reaction to his song being used says it best: “The point of the song is a call to making change eventually, not just applauding the thought.” The song is called “Fight the Power,” not “Mock the Power,” and especially not “Gently Poke Fun at the Power While Shrugging That In the End It’s No Big Deal.”Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Of all the people disappointed by the Oscars ceremony last night, the most disappointed were the audience. It’s a joke you can make any year, but this year is special--this is the year that all eyes were on Chris Rock to see how he’d deal with the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that became impossible to ignore once several big names boycotted the ceremony, leaving the Oscars audience an uncomfortably white crowd. Blaming Rock as host for the Oscars’ ratings dipping to an eight-year low is, of course, nonsense. The fact that Rock announced he’d directly address the #OscarsSoWhite protests is probably the only reason many people--including myself--tuned in. God knows the ceremony’s buzz would not have been improved by a white presenter who signaled they would carefully avoid any mention of race. What did we get? I’d like to damn the night with faint praise by saying it was “as much as we could’ve expected,” but even that wasn’t true--it was on par with what we could’ve expected, but with some glaring unforced errors. Yes, it was amazing that Chris Rock’s monologue and his skits throughout the evening directly tackled the elephant in the room--especially the sincere, heartfelt speeches given by Kevin Hart and Alejandro Iñárritu. Rock’s sketch where he interviewed regular moviegoers in Compton--in a year when, in a textbook case of adding insult to injury, “Straight Outta Compton” received no nominations except for its white screenwriters--was a pretty sharp dig at the vast cultural chasm between the film industry as academy insiders see it and the entire universe of filmmakers and audiences the academy routinely ignores. And yes, Rock came out and said it, calling Michael B. Jordan a “should’ve-been nominee” moments before Jordan launched into his presenter speech with an admirably straight face. And then the ceremony surprised a lot of us by earnestly and humanely addressing a topic we didn’t expect to come up, tying in the best original song nomination for “The Hunting Ground” and best picture nominations for “Room”  and “Spotlight” with a speech by Vice President Joe Biden promoting a bystander-intervention pledge. The subsequent Lady Gaga performance of “Til It Happens to You” with real-life survivors of sexual assault onstage was the highlight of the evening and, arguably, the highlight of the past 10 years’ worth of Academy Awards ceremony performances. Even with the looming controversy over the bias in who got nominated it was impossible to be cynical about Brie Larson winning best actress after the moving scene of her hugging survivors as they left the stage. The ceremony broke through the cynical shell we’ve all built up while watching these things multiple times that evening. Pete Docter’s simple “Make stuff” advice to children when receiving his award for “Inside Out.” Louis C.K.’s intro for the best documentary short category reminding us about the world of filmmakers who barely see a cent of Big Hollywood money but do the work for the chance to tell untold stories. The always tear-jerking In Memoriam montage hitting doubly hard in the year we lost Leonard Nimoy and Alan Rickman. (Who didn’t instantly tear up at hearing the famous line from “The Wrath of Khan”?) And of course the evening culminated with an underdog best picture win for “Spotlight,” a meta example of a film that wasn’t just about social issues but about the power of the media when it chooses to take an active role in addressing social issues. Insecure journalists wrestling with doubts over the future of the profession collectively swooned at the acceptance speech. This year they even improved basic things like the ordering of the categories to emphasize the progression from screenplay to shooting to finished film and the construction of the clips packages for the technical categories to show how sound mixing or cinematography is as important to a film as the director and actors. It was a much-welcomed injection of relevance into awards that had previously felt like filler while we were waiting for the acting, directing and best picture highlights. So why did so much else go so horribly wrong? Why, with such a push from some corners to get past old-guard Hollywood elitism and cynicism and talk about how important movies can be to people in the real world, did old-guard elitism and cynicism mount such a stirring resurgence? The stage was set with Chris Rock’s opening monologue, which, while it certainly directly addressed the #OscarsSoWhite issue, made two breathtakingly tone-deaf arguments in quick succession: One, that the Oscars (and representation in entertainment media in general) is really not that big a deal, and two, the reason people are making a stink about it now is that we are no longer dealing with things that are big deals, like the actual violence and murder protested by the 1960s civil rights movement. This was an incredibly stupid thing to say. The fact that #OscarsSoWhite has trended in tandem with its preceding sister hashtag #BlackLivesMatter isn’t exactly subtle to anyone who’s ever glanced at so-called Black Twitter. (Which Rock clearly has, given his much-appreciated last-minute shout-out to #BlackLivesMatter at the end of the ceremony.) A #BlackLivesMatter documentary addressing the violence and murder going on in the streets right now was commissioned by HBO as a direct result of the uncomfortable negative attention #OscarsSoWhite put on the film industry. Acting like caring about day-to-day violence in the streets and the impact media and culture have on that violence are somehow mutually exclusive -- a common, frustrating, tired argument anyone who talks about racism in media will inevitably see dozens of times in the comments section -- ignores history. It ignores the many, many arguments that have been made about how the excuses made for the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown frequently come verbatim from untrue stereotypes out of TV and movies, how the only way Darren Wilson’s description of Brown as a “demon” who was “bulking up to get through the bullets” could possibly make sense to anyone is after a lifetime of media portrayals of the scary superhuman black man. It ignores Martin Luther King going out of his way to call Nichelle Nichols and tell her not to quit "Star Trek" because having a black woman on TV who wasn’t a domestic servant mattered. It ignores the ongoing civil rights protests around the Oscars back in the 1960s and '70s, including Marlon Brando making history as the first and only best actor winner to boycott the ceremony, sending American Indian Movement activist Sacheen Littlefeather to accept the award in his place. It ignores the fact that at the very moment Chris Rock was talking, there was a “Justice for Flint” fundraiser going on in protest of the Oscars, hosted by two black prominent filmmakers snubbed for best director nods who used #OscarsSoWhite to bring attention to the cause of a predominantly black community whose water was literally poisoned. As though to compound the tone-deafness of ignoring the existence of an event that, by existing, pretty much destroyed every single point Rock made in his monologue, Rock went on to make a joke out of doing his own fundraising among the millionaires in his audience for his daughter’s Girl Scout troop -- a cute joke, yes, but a joke that’s only remotely funny if you’d never heard of the “Justice for Flint” fundraiser going on at the same time or somehow put it entirely out of your mind. Then, as now, the academy wants to have its cake and eat it too. When people talk about the immense positive impact art and culture can have on people’s lives, when “The Hunting Ground” starts a national conversation on sexual assault that goes all the way up to the White House, the academy milks it for all it’s worth. But when it’s time to address the other side of the coin, how art and culture is just as, if not more, often a negative force in the world, taking existing prejudices and misunderstandings and hatreds and making them worse for a bigger box office gross, suddenly, hey, it’s just entertainment and we’re all taking it too seriously and the controversy is mostly good for a laugh. How else do you explain the bizarre decision to trot Stacey Dash out for a quick non-joke of a joke segment, other than to make light of the massive backlash to her dismissive remarks about Black History Month and #OscarsSoWhite and paint it as no big deal? And then of course there’s the incredibly gratuitous joke where Chris Rock brought three kids onstage as the Asian (and Jewish?) “accountants from Price Waterhouse Cooper,” apparently just to troll the audience. What even is the joke here? Is it that thanks to stereotyping most audiences think of Asian-Americans’ involvement in the film industry, if we have any at all, as being corporate bean counters with no creative talent? Is the joke that this stereotype gets thrust on us starting when we’re in grade school and leads to a lifetime of our being thought of as socially awkward childlike dorks? (As an aside, when trying to think of an East Asian speaking character in an Oscar-nominated film this year the best I could come up with was “The Big Short” making that exact same joke with Ryan Gosling’s quant.) Is it a “meta” joke about how the fact that racism complaints always focus on black people vs. white people makes people think jokes about other people of color is OK? Nah, it was a meta joke about how complaining about nasty jokes about Asians on TV is no big deal when there are exploited Asian child laborers in the world. Just like, apparently, whether or not there’s a black officer on the Enterprise is irrelevant when people are being lynched. That was crap. It was especially crap coming immediately after Chris Rock’s vox-populi interviews in Compton where a random man on the street stood up for solidarity between all people of color. It was even crappier after Sacha Baron Cohen brought back Ali G--one of the least-asked-for character resurrections of all time--to double down on the edgy humor with a similar ha-ha-I-offended-you bait-and-switch joke comparing Asians to the Minions. Which was only a prelude to Baron Cohen undercutting any semblance of respect the ceremony had given to real-life issues by introducing “Room” as a movie about a “roomful of white people” (while Olivia Wilde just stood there in awkward silence). The whole night was like that, every moment of genuine emotion undercut by crappy jokes intended to remind us not to take any of it too seriously. Everything good about this year’s Oscars was heavily intermixed with the Oscars’ traditional ham fists and tin ear. The orchestra comes in for special acknowledgment for its seemingly-random but often-unfortunate musical cues: Why play on Kevin Hart with the theme from “Beverly Hills Cop”? Why play on Julianne Moore with Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”? Why make the “play them off” theme song be Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” an especially cringeworthy choice when the person you’re playing off directed a film about the Holocaust? Why rigidly adhere to your 45-second speech limit to play off Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy while she was in the middle of talking about how her film literally changed the law about so-called honor killings in Pakistan? Why do that immediately after Louis C.K. brought up the painful fact that unlike all the movie stars and millionaires in the room, the chance to speak up about these issues is the only reward filmmakers like Obaid-Chinoy get? The impression I got from the ceremony was of an Oscars that was forced, kicking and screaming by a wave of controversy, into acknowledging that this year’s ceremony simply could not be business as usual while still awkwardly, cringily trying to be business as usual whenever they could manage it. It was a ceremony that let Kevin Hart make a heartfelt, unscripted speech but ran panicking to cut his mic when they were afraid he might be about to cuss. The most confusing and frustrating musical choice of the night didn’t come from the orchestra--it was the choice to play Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” to open and close the show. Was it a sincere nod by Chris Rock to ongoing frustrations with big movie studios and the suits who run Hollywood? Or was it a snarky jab at the idea that awards shows and movie stars matter at all when there are “real issues” to address? Or, to take a third option, was it a kind of cry for help from Rock himself, a world-weary sigh at the impossibility of actually addressing how screwed up the nature of the Academy Awards are while still agreeing to host them? Who knows. Given the tenor of the evening, the ambiguity was most likely deliberate. And whoever OK’d that decision was probably as ill-versed in the history of the Oscars as Sam Smith revealed himself to be last night. “Fight the Power,” after all, originated from “Do the Right Thing,” a movie that, like “Straight Outta Compton,” got a screenwriting nod but no nod for best director or best picture, and that, like “Creed,” got a best supporting actor nomination for the one prominent white character in the film (Danny Aiello as Sal) but no nod for the black lead. Like “Creed,” and “Straight Outta Compton,” “Do the Right Thing” didn’t actually win anything. “Fight the Power” itself wasn’t even nominated for best original song that year, which was won by “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid.” (I’ll leave music historians to debate which of those two songs had a greater cultural impact in the end). Best picture that year was “Driving Miss Daisy,” a touching and inspiring film about a black man working as a domestic servant to a white lady. That was in 1989, 27 years ago; the little golden statuette Daniel Day-Lewis got instead of Morgan Freeman for best actor that year is the same age as Taylor Swift. How much has really changed since then? Well, now we’re talking about it and making jokes about it and playing a recording of “Fight the Power” at the show (even if it’s still impossible to imagine it being played onstage or any song like it winning an award--and no, the fact that “Lose Yourself” and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” are hip-hop songs does not make them the same kind of song). Chris Rock making jokes about race--even bad, infuriating, point-missing jokes--is a step up from the “good old days” of “Uma, Oprah” vapidity. But this is a really poor showing for a quarter-century’s worth of progress. Chuck D’s reaction to his song being used says it best: “The point of the song is a call to making change eventually, not just applauding the thought.” The song is called “Fight the Power,” not “Mock the Power,” and especially not “Gently Poke Fun at the Power While Shrugging That In the End It’s No Big Deal.”

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Please give Samantha Bee “The Daily Show”: They squandered Jon Stewart’s legacy by giving the show to the wrong host

A decade ago, former President George Bush (the tall awkward one) staged one of the strangest and most memorable scenes in recent political memory. Speaking before the Florida Legislature, Bush the elder began weeping, rather uncontrollably, as he recalled how his second son, Jeb, had lost an election as governor 12 years earlier. The psychological back story to this moment was painfully obvious. Bush the Elder had gotten all choked up because Jeb’s loss had foiled his grand scheme, which was to see Jeb elected president in 2000, rather than his ne’er-do-well big brother, George W., who had (as you’ll recall) joy-ridden America into a ditch by 2006. The old man was mourning the impending death of the Bush dynasty. I know it’s a weird and inexact association, but I kept thinking about this clip as I considered the recent fortunes of "The Daily Show." I couldn’t help imagining that somewhere high up in Comedy Central headquarters there’s an executive sobbing with the same intensity as old Poppy Bush. Because over the past month it’s become painfully obvious that "The Daily Show" squandered its shot at a political comedy dynasty by betting on the wrong host. They could have, and should have, offered the gig to their brilliant and longest-serving correspondent Samantha Bee, who had supplied the show 12 years of sidesplitting dispatches. But they never even asked her. Instead, they went with Trevor Noah, an affable South African newcomer who had appeared on the program a grand total of … three times. I will refrain from calling this a crying shame; it’s more like a damn shame. Trevor has, thus far, laid a well-intentioned egg. In the midst of a bizarre and bloated political pageant that begs for satirical puncturing, he’s made "The Daily Show" something worse than unfunny. With the exception of an occasional home run, he’s made it irrelevant. Meanwhile, Bee’s "Full Frontal," which debuted earlier this month on TBS, has become an instant phenomenon. And not because Bee is the first female tapped to host a late-night comedy program. Because she is, thus far at least, the smartest and funniest. Her success surely has a lot to do with her talented and diverse writers’ room, which is anchored by former "Daily Show" head writer Elliot Kalan and Jo Miller. (It says a lot that these two chose to team up with Bee and her comedy partner/husband, fellow "Daily Show" all-star Jason Jones, rather than stick with the proven franchise.) But it’s Bee herself who has made the first two episodes of "Full Frontal" such a revelation. As a correspondent, Bee has the ability to throw herself headlong into the field, as she did so often at "The Daily Show," while retaining the instincts of a critic who can pinpoint the tragic ironies of whatever scene she’s trolling. Her two-part series on the jingoistic hysteria surrounding Syrian refugees was an explanatory journalism tour de force, one that laid waste to the nativist rhetoric of the Republican presidential candidates, and the alarmist media that certifies their scare tactics. Bee led viewers through the elaborate screening process refugees endure, and traveled to a Syrian refugee camp, to give the crisis a human face. Her outrage was the byproduct of thwarted pathos. At the other end of the spectrum was a mind-blowing Werner Herzog-style documentary on Jeb Bush’s doomed candidacy, which managed to capture, as no other media outlet has, the wrenching futility of his run. But the heart of the show resides in Bee’s high-octane tirades as a host. Like Stewart, her central aim is to rail against the garish dysfunction of our media and political class. But even more than Stewart, she radiates a palpable disgust at the blithe corruption of our politicians and pundits—and she does so from the perspective of a feminist tired of seeing her gender bullied by penised morons. In one dazzling seven-minute riff Bee managed to provide an astonishing survey of the venality surrounding the death of Supreme Court Justice (and proud homophobe!) Antonin Scalia, spotlighting the intransigence of Republican senators who refuse to carry out their constitutional duty to consider an Obama nominee “because some chinless dildo wants to use his gavel to plug up your abortion hole.” That would be you, Mitch McConnell. That was just the first three minutes. Bee went on to show a montage of the ensuing Republican Presidential Debate/Hissy Fit, during which Donald Trump praised Planned Parenthood and blasted the Iraq War, and the lies used to justify it. These disorientingly sensible positions sent Bee into a full meltdown. The most striking aspect of this monologue was the speed and accuracy of Bee’s observations. Her hit rate (i.e., the number of laugh lines she was able to generate per minute) rivaled Stewart on one of his best nights. Bee has what her old boss had: an authentic sense of moral rage. Watching her fume and fulminate, one senses that she’s not cracking jokes just to win laughs, but to keep herself (and us) from going insane. This is what made Stewart so alluring to so many viewers. He was able to use his bemused Everyman shtick to confront the heartbreaking decay of our democratic institutions. We wanted to see his wit and his conscience at work on the problem of our civic dysfunction. We wanted his take. Viewers don’t want Noah’s take. More precisely, he doesn’t have a take. He has a series of clever quips, delivered in a genial and telegenic manner. There’s no genuine sense of distress in his approach. His barbs aren’t barbed. Perhaps this has something to do with Noah being an import from South Africa. But Bee, who is in fact Canadian, radiates the impatient contempt of a citizen who feels betrayed by America’s leaders and its vapid, cynical press. She is smirkier in her delivery and far less conciliatory—more rabid dog than hangdog. Unlike Stewart, who too often sought to avoid conflict, Bee is spoiling for a fight. (Her gift for breezy ad hominem is not to be overlooked here. Consider her special pet name for Trump: Creamsicle.) Bee is also far more adept at articulating the peculiar frustrations of women living in a country still ruled by patriarchal privilege. There’s a palpable sense of danger in her jeremiads, a bristling disgust at the mostly unexamined manners in which women are continually treated like social and electoral chattel. Consider her treatment of the unfortunate Kansas state lawmaker who proposed a dress code for women. Bee not only chided his meager legislative achievements, and the broader fiscal mismanagement of his state, she critiqued his “skeevy facial hair.” In a direct address reminiscent of Stewart's meet me at camera three moments, Bee told the legislator, “You don’t get to regulate what people wear to work … If I get distracted wondering whether that yellow stain around your mouth is whiskers or just the lingering impression of a glory hole, that’s my problem not yours.” It was a moment of astonishing vulgarity, but one that laid bare what it feels like when the misogynistic privilege that allows men to judge and regulate women’s bodies and attire gets turned back on them. In a world of “feminist icons” that flounce around like fashion models (Taylor Swift) or pimp Bud Light for big bucks (Amy Schumer), Bee represents a return to the defiant values of second-wave feminism. She doesn’t want to join the boys club. She wants to burn it down. In other words, Bee displays all the same qualities of rhetorical and social fearlessness that she brought to her "Daily Show" segments. Had "The Daily Show" recognized her genius, we’d still be talking about that program. But they didn’t. And in the end, who cares? What matters is that Bee is out there, raging against a world gone mad, taking aim at the mean and mendacious, reaming one chinless dildo at a time.A decade ago, former President George Bush (the tall awkward one) staged one of the strangest and most memorable scenes in recent political memory. Speaking before the Florida Legislature, Bush the elder began weeping, rather uncontrollably, as he recalled how his second son, Jeb, had lost an election as governor 12 years earlier. The psychological back story to this moment was painfully obvious. Bush the Elder had gotten all choked up because Jeb’s loss had foiled his grand scheme, which was to see Jeb elected president in 2000, rather than his ne’er-do-well big brother, George W., who had (as you’ll recall) joy-ridden America into a ditch by 2006. The old man was mourning the impending death of the Bush dynasty. I know it’s a weird and inexact association, but I kept thinking about this clip as I considered the recent fortunes of "The Daily Show." I couldn’t help imagining that somewhere high up in Comedy Central headquarters there’s an executive sobbing with the same intensity as old Poppy Bush. Because over the past month it’s become painfully obvious that "The Daily Show" squandered its shot at a political comedy dynasty by betting on the wrong host. They could have, and should have, offered the gig to their brilliant and longest-serving correspondent Samantha Bee, who had supplied the show 12 years of sidesplitting dispatches. But they never even asked her. Instead, they went with Trevor Noah, an affable South African newcomer who had appeared on the program a grand total of … three times. I will refrain from calling this a crying shame; it’s more like a damn shame. Trevor has, thus far, laid a well-intentioned egg. In the midst of a bizarre and bloated political pageant that begs for satirical puncturing, he’s made "The Daily Show" something worse than unfunny. With the exception of an occasional home run, he’s made it irrelevant. Meanwhile, Bee’s "Full Frontal," which debuted earlier this month on TBS, has become an instant phenomenon. And not because Bee is the first female tapped to host a late-night comedy program. Because she is, thus far at least, the smartest and funniest. Her success surely has a lot to do with her talented and diverse writers’ room, which is anchored by former "Daily Show" head writer Elliot Kalan and Jo Miller. (It says a lot that these two chose to team up with Bee and her comedy partner/husband, fellow "Daily Show" all-star Jason Jones, rather than stick with the proven franchise.) But it’s Bee herself who has made the first two episodes of "Full Frontal" such a revelation. As a correspondent, Bee has the ability to throw herself headlong into the field, as she did so often at "The Daily Show," while retaining the instincts of a critic who can pinpoint the tragic ironies of whatever scene she’s trolling. Her two-part series on the jingoistic hysteria surrounding Syrian refugees was an explanatory journalism tour de force, one that laid waste to the nativist rhetoric of the Republican presidential candidates, and the alarmist media that certifies their scare tactics. Bee led viewers through the elaborate screening process refugees endure, and traveled to a Syrian refugee camp, to give the crisis a human face. Her outrage was the byproduct of thwarted pathos. At the other end of the spectrum was a mind-blowing Werner Herzog-style documentary on Jeb Bush’s doomed candidacy, which managed to capture, as no other media outlet has, the wrenching futility of his run. But the heart of the show resides in Bee’s high-octane tirades as a host. Like Stewart, her central aim is to rail against the garish dysfunction of our media and political class. But even more than Stewart, she radiates a palpable disgust at the blithe corruption of our politicians and pundits—and she does so from the perspective of a feminist tired of seeing her gender bullied by penised morons. In one dazzling seven-minute riff Bee managed to provide an astonishing survey of the venality surrounding the death of Supreme Court Justice (and proud homophobe!) Antonin Scalia, spotlighting the intransigence of Republican senators who refuse to carry out their constitutional duty to consider an Obama nominee “because some chinless dildo wants to use his gavel to plug up your abortion hole.” That would be you, Mitch McConnell. That was just the first three minutes. Bee went on to show a montage of the ensuing Republican Presidential Debate/Hissy Fit, during which Donald Trump praised Planned Parenthood and blasted the Iraq War, and the lies used to justify it. These disorientingly sensible positions sent Bee into a full meltdown. The most striking aspect of this monologue was the speed and accuracy of Bee’s observations. Her hit rate (i.e., the number of laugh lines she was able to generate per minute) rivaled Stewart on one of his best nights. Bee has what her old boss had: an authentic sense of moral rage. Watching her fume and fulminate, one senses that she’s not cracking jokes just to win laughs, but to keep herself (and us) from going insane. This is what made Stewart so alluring to so many viewers. He was able to use his bemused Everyman shtick to confront the heartbreaking decay of our democratic institutions. We wanted to see his wit and his conscience at work on the problem of our civic dysfunction. We wanted his take. Viewers don’t want Noah’s take. More precisely, he doesn’t have a take. He has a series of clever quips, delivered in a genial and telegenic manner. There’s no genuine sense of distress in his approach. His barbs aren’t barbed. Perhaps this has something to do with Noah being an import from South Africa. But Bee, who is in fact Canadian, radiates the impatient contempt of a citizen who feels betrayed by America’s leaders and its vapid, cynical press. She is smirkier in her delivery and far less conciliatory—more rabid dog than hangdog. Unlike Stewart, who too often sought to avoid conflict, Bee is spoiling for a fight. (Her gift for breezy ad hominem is not to be overlooked here. Consider her special pet name for Trump: Creamsicle.) Bee is also far more adept at articulating the peculiar frustrations of women living in a country still ruled by patriarchal privilege. There’s a palpable sense of danger in her jeremiads, a bristling disgust at the mostly unexamined manners in which women are continually treated like social and electoral chattel. Consider her treatment of the unfortunate Kansas state lawmaker who proposed a dress code for women. Bee not only chided his meager legislative achievements, and the broader fiscal mismanagement of his state, she critiqued his “skeevy facial hair.” In a direct address reminiscent of Stewart's meet me at camera three moments, Bee told the legislator, “You don’t get to regulate what people wear to work … If I get distracted wondering whether that yellow stain around your mouth is whiskers or just the lingering impression of a glory hole, that’s my problem not yours.” It was a moment of astonishing vulgarity, but one that laid bare what it feels like when the misogynistic privilege that allows men to judge and regulate women’s bodies and attire gets turned back on them. In a world of “feminist icons” that flounce around like fashion models (Taylor Swift) or pimp Bud Light for big bucks (Amy Schumer), Bee represents a return to the defiant values of second-wave feminism. She doesn’t want to join the boys club. She wants to burn it down. In other words, Bee displays all the same qualities of rhetorical and social fearlessness that she brought to her "Daily Show" segments. Had "The Daily Show" recognized her genius, we’d still be talking about that program. But they didn’t. And in the end, who cares? What matters is that Bee is out there, raging against a world gone mad, taking aim at the mean and mendacious, reaming one chinless dildo at a time.

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Sorry, David Brooks, but we can’t blame Trump’s ascendance on “anti-politics” — it’s class politics

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