The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    This is a test. Name

    By Flavius on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 1:00am |

    at least five liberal  democratic US presidents. 

    Right. FDR.

    Good. Keep going.

    Obama.

    I´ll give you that one.And...?

    Could have been LBJ but for Vietnam

    Coulda, shoulda, woulda

    JFK !

    Began with the Bay of Pigs ? First  cut in the maximum incremental income tax rate. Liberal?  

    A leader? Certainly. But for liberal causes?

    Woodrow Wilson!

    With his views of Blacks?

    Well....Carter was a nice man  and a better human being than tricky Dick.

    Like everyone else in man kind.but the test was naming  the five most liberal. 

    that´s two.

    My  mother 's calling me.

    See if she knows the name of an actual liberal  who  could make it.

    This time will be different.

    Uh, huh.

    Comments

    Yeah except for that I suspect we've crossed a rubicon into a new paradigm. Looking to me like what will matter most is not the political ideology but the amount of skill in not feeding trolling of all kinds. Like a parent who does not fall for the kids' shenanigans. Especially after the House gets done with whatever it's going to do, voters will have close to PTSD. Overton window going to disappear for a while, the personality will be far more important. And again--I think it can't be overstressed--the skill at not feeding trolling. Just my guessing at this point in time, of course.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 3:33am

    Darn. Just when I was getting ready to use Overton for whatever I felt like promulgating.

    Maybe I should use Eddie Epstein ´s story.

     A  1954 British book, published to critical acclaim  was read by... critics ,a hardcover sold 2383 copies in the US. Meanwhile  Epstein who gave a new meaning to the adjective ¨rumpled ¨, a  scholar of Joyce and everything else , teaching at Queens ,became the editor of Capricorn , a publisher of  paperbooks for students . Where he was expected to bring out more editions of ¨ Dewey and Santayana- according to a Times interview with Epstein.

    ¨When I reprinted it, there were six extra blank pages in the back of the book.I could have cut them out, but           inste​ad I used them them to write an essay.¨

    Still quoting from the Times...."I thought it   (the  book ) would sell more than Dewey and Santayana.¨  

    It did. 4300 pages in 1959, 15,000 in 60,and The Lord of the Flies sold a half a million in 62.

     


    by Flavius on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 8:39am

    Most important... he had a daughter named Bronwen? how Tolkien of him. (if only he'd published Lord of the Rings as well).

    https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/books/edmund-epstein-dies-at-80-gave-...


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 9:30am

    You could leave off the second sentence and write this when FDR was running. Some one likely did.

    This time will be different?

    Who knows? It was different when FDR was elected. Some times different things happen.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:21am

    Interesting point. I don't know a whole lot about it but a look at Wikipedia for the 1932 election, sounds to me like he was first elected as "Daddy help us" and not as a liberal. My underlining:

    As Governor of New York, Roosevelt had garnered a reputation for promoting government help for the impoverished, providing a welcome contrast for many who saw Hoover as do-nothing president.[9] Roosevelt also attacked Hoover for being, "the greatest spending Administration in peacetime in all our history."[10] The outrage caused by the deaths of veterans in the Bonus Army incident in the summer of 1932, combined with the catastrophic economic effects of Hoover's domestic policies, reduced his chances of a second term from slim to none. His attempts to campaign in public were a disaster, as he often had objects thrown at him or his vehicle as he rode through city streets. However, with unemployment at 23.6%,[11][12] Hoover's criticisms of Roosevelt's campaign promises did nothing more than further lower his popularity with the public. Roosevelt himself did not have a clear idea of the New Deal at this point, so he promised no specific programs.[13] It was said that "Even a vaguely talented dog-catcher could have been elected president against the Republicans."[14] Hoover even received a letter from an Illinois man that advised, "Vote for Roosevelt and make it unanimous."

    Hoover called Roosevelt a "chameleon in plaid" and Roosevelt called President Hoover a "fat, timid capon".[15] In the last days of campaigning, Hoover criticized Roosevelt's "nonsense ... tirades ... glittering generalizations ... ignorance" and "defamation".[15]

    Was the Democratic party even considered "liberal" in 1931? Actually, isn't it the case that the term didn't have today's meaning, how we use it was defined and created by him? Socialism was still rather new, after all. Wolraich would understand more, of course--the diff between "progressivism" in reaction to the gilded age and what we think of as liberalism. WWI and flu epidemic changed attitudes about isolationism. People with liberal/libertine social values were sympathetic with an idealized view of the communist movements, and they were fooled. Throw prohibition in there....

    It's complicated apples and oranges. We've definitely got similar radical cultural change and counterreaction, but not a lot of the other precursor stuff.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 10:47am

    hah, from the Wikipedia link, look at red vs. blue for 1932, the northeastern elites are Republican red and the South is the deepest blue:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:34am

    In 32. By 36 he was  ¨that man¨.


    by Flavius on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 1:38pm

    And  he was ¨different¨.And a good thing he was.


    by Flavius on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 4:26pm