Tag Archives: politics

Time for GOP Moderates To Go to Ground?

By Robin Bates | Published: May 9, 2016

As the GOP reels in the wake of Trump’s victory, it might want to model itself on Edgar in “King Lear.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, King Lear, Presidential Primaries, Republican moderates, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Now, Gods, Stand Up for Trump!

By Robin Bates | Published: May 8, 2016

When traditional institutions like the government or the Supreme Court are undermined, the way is cleared for the rise of liar like Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged delegitimization, Donald Trump, GOP, John Roberts, King Lear, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

The Unbearable Lightness of Donald Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: May 5, 2016

Czech author Milan Kundera warned about how dictatorships thrive off of our forgetting. In a “Rolling Stone” article, Charlie Pierce argues that forgetting has led to the rise of Donald Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Donald Trump, forgetting, GOP, history, Milan Kundera, Presidential Primaries, remembering, Unbearable Lightness of Being | Comments closed

Trump and Gazing into the Abyss

By Robin Bates | Published: May 3, 2016

Ted Cruz said that, if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, we would be gazing into the abyss. For what this would be like, I turn to Milton, an expert on abysses.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Presidential Primaries, Ted Cruz | Comments closed

Ted Cruz as Lucifer, “Squat Like a Toad”

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2016

After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bram Stoker, Dracula, Henry Fielding, John Boehner, John Milton, Julius Caesar, Lucifer, Paradise Lost, Peter King, Presidential Primaries, Satan, Senate, Ted Cruz, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Limbaugh’s Clinton-Ratched Comparison

By Robin Bates | Published: March 30, 2016

Rightwing radio host Rush Limbaugh regularly compares Hillary Clinton to Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and, in so doing, can be said to have paved the way for misogynist Donald Trump. If it’s Trump vs. Clinton in the general election, things will get ugly.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ken Kesey, misogyny, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rush Limbaugh | Comments closed

Bernie Is Peter Pan, Hillary Is Wendy

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2016

Bernie Sanders is the adventurous Peter Pan, Hillary Clinton is the cautious and pragmatic Wendy. Which candidate you prefer may be related to which character you like better.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bernie Sanders, Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton, James Barrie, Peter Pan, Presidential politics | Comments closed

Christie as Prufrock & Other Lit Allusions

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2016

Political pundits have been turning to literature to talk about the GOP primaries. This past week saw citations of Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, and Richard Adams (“Watership Down”).

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alice through the Lookinglass, Donald Trump, GOP primaries, Lewis Carroll, Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Macbeth, Marco Rubio, Presidential politics, Richard Adams, T. S. Eliot, Ted Cruz, Twelfth Night, Watership Down | Comments closed

History’s Zigzagging Narratives

By Robin Bates | Published: February 23, 2016

This Stephen Dunn points out how we see history as a series of narratives. Sometimes our heroes are those “too unhappy to be reasonable.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged historical narrative, history, Presidential Primaries, Stephen Dunn | Comments closed