Tag Archives: 2016 presidential election

Kosinski Foresaw Our Television President

By Robin Bates | Published: April 24, 2017

Jerzy Kosinski’s 1970 novella “Being There” describes a man whose obsession with television helps him thrive and even ascend to the White House. Sound familiar?

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Trump as Browning’s Pied Piper

By Robin Bates | Published: January 17, 2017

Charlie Pierce of “Esquire” makes good use of Robert Browning’s “Pied Piper of Hamelin” to describe Donald Trump’s con job. Then he imagines the tables turned and Trump as the deceitful major who stiffs his employee.

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2016’s Top Story–Trump, Trump, Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: December 29, 2016

Looking back of 2016, I choose three posts that stood out to me, all dealing with Trump. One compares him to Satan inspiring the invasion of Earth by Sin and Death in “Paradise Lost.” The other two compare him to Herman Melville’s “Confidence Man” and to the narrator’s son in the Raymond Carver short story “Why, Honey?”

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Despite Trump, “The Land Holds Us Still”

By Robin Bates | Published: December 7, 2016

On this one-month anniversary of the 2016 election, I look back at two authors who meditated on what to do next immediately after hearing the news. Terry Tempest Williams looks to nature while Zadie Smith looks to the music to be found in multiethnic harmony.

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Toni Morrison: White Panic Led to Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: November 16, 2016

As Toni Morrison sees it, William Faulkner’s observations about white panic go a long way toward explaining Trump’s victory.

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HRC & McKinley’s Strong Woman Fantasy

By Robin Bates | Published: November 15, 2016

Robin McKinley’s “Chalice” is a novel about a woman with strong powers who scares men away. It’s a story that may explain the 2016 election.

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What Would Beowulf Do?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2016

Beowulf offers us guidance for fighting back against Trumpism. Here’s a step-by-step account of the three monsters that will be facing liberals and what they must do.

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Poetry: Sure Solacer of Human Cares

By Robin Bates | Published: November 12, 2016

For those trapped in gloom, Emily Bronte reminds us that the Imagination is there to provide us with solace.

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Shakespeare Understood Trumpism

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2016

According to Adam Gopnik, Shakespeare would have understood the rise of Donald Trump better than we do today. Whereas we see him as a historical oddity, Shakespeare would have seen him as the kind of evil that has always resided within humankind.

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