The annual “Peanuts” cartoon of Charlie Brown trusting Lucy to hold that football is a wonderful metaphor because it’s so adaptable. Some people see it, like a divorcee’s marriage, as the triumph of hope over experience. Others see the eternal gullibility of the average person. What most people forget are the endlessly inventive inducements Lucy employs to get Charlie Brown to suspend his disbelief just one more time.
Keep those strips in mind whenever you read someone praising Trump’s outreach to North Korea. People with irrational fears about nuclear weapons — we’re going on 75 years of a nuclear-armed world and we’re still the only people who have used them against humans — have responded like marionettes as Trump first provoked a war of words, then pretended to “win” it because he and Kim have “great chemistry.” In fact, it appears (as I mentioned last week) that the country’s nuclear program has not been interrupted, let alone abandoned.
So-called “moderate” Democrats have their template and they’re honing it to a fine point with the help of corporatist tools like Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, an ex-Marine whose PAC is backing other “leaders” with similar backgrounds. This is the vision of America the “moderate” Democrats have — one with the same deference to corporations and the military we get from the GOP, now with 50% less crazy. It’s Clintonism — Bill Clintonism — all over again.
Because we need stuff that makes us feel good sometimes, if you haven’t caught Paul McCartney’s “Carpool Karaoke” episode with James Corden, give yourself a 23-minute treat. Here’s a piece to explain the episode registered 120 million views already.