Hello, all.
I snapped this photo of the London Eye from my Uber on the way back to my hotel, after dancing all night with friends from the cast of Allegiance. It was a grand night of celebration of our run, and my heart is full even though my fuel tank is empty.
With your concurrence, the week ahead can wait till tomorrow. What this brain and body needs right now is some serious Zs.
Jay
I would like to offer a topic for your consideration.
The rise of Donald Trump and his successful conquest of the affections of the uneducated in the Republican base has left the GOP hostage to them both at the national level. Most of the media reportage of the Trump indictment and the behavior of the GOP has been framed in terms of criminal enterprises and autocratic movements. While applicable, American history offers another example that may be more apropos. I find that these circumstances very closely resemble the model of political "boss-ism" so prevalent in American cities in an earlier time.
In developing American cities in the 19th and 20th centuries, political power often coalesced into the hands of a single party dominated by a "political boss." Men like William "Boss" Tweed, Mayor James Curley, Mayor Richard Daley, Ma and Pa Ferguson, and the Vare family all succeeded in locking down political power for decades by providing patronage to uneducated immigrants flooding into their cities in exchange for their unquestioning political loyalty. They established sophisticated political machines that guaranteed their long-term control of the political landscape by suppressing opposition, flagrant voter-fraud, distributing favors and employment, passing laws that favored their political outcomes, and occasionally brutal physical intimidation. They were infamous for the amount of corruption and graft with which they were associated and by means of which they locked down personal wealth and power. Old-time political bosses often involved their families in the enterprise, and so politics and its associated corruption became the family business. Education and the dissolution of ethnocentric neighborhoods, coupled with criminal indictments, whittled away the power of political bosses and their machines.
In the 21st-century in our country, social and mass media have provided the means to create political machines at the state and the national level. (Huey Long may have been the first example of this.) Governor Scott Walker's gerrymandering of Wisconsin gave his political machine a lockdown on Wisconsin politics for nearly two decades. Governors in red states around the country followed that lead, with each and every one of them fearing to provoke Donald Trump; the de facto "boss" of the Republican party at the national level. Even while he is under indictment, ambitious Republicans fear his disapproval. This is because of his command of the loyalty of the voters they need. I find all of this is highly reminiscent of the American history of "boss-ism" in our large cities.
I’m so envious you could stay up all night partying… I remember those days. Happy for your success!