Iowa Caucus

I don't really care to comment on, or even pay too much attention to, politics. Yesterday wasn't the Iowa caucus to me, yesterday was my birthday, and I went out to eat with my family to a restaurant of my choice that none of them would ever want to eat at (except my son-in-law), and I made those who stayed up after dinner watch a movie of my choice that none of them would ever have picked (The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938 with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland. What a great movie.) However, I read a little bit of commentary on the proceedings, so here's the Z-man's take, which I endorse and agree with:

All of the study of rat behavior obscures the fact that the only reason any of this is happening is Trump dared to speak for normal white people in 2016. Whites are about seventy percent of the voters right now. Twenty percent of them are insane, leaving about half the voters with no representation in the system. The Democrats explicitly hate these voters, and the Republicans implicitly hate them. Elections are about who gets to spit in these people’s faces first.

That is the subtext of this election. The regime is debating with itself whether now is the time to close the door entirely on the white voter. They believe the time is near when national elections will be like we see in Democrat controlled states. There is a permanent majority called Democrats, a ceremonial opposition called Republican and the goal is to prevent the majority of citizens from getting any say. The results last night suggest they still have some work to do.

It seems supremely unlikely that any election, no matter how hard we vote, is likely to get us out of the trouble that we've been set up to have meet us inevitably and inexorably.  But maybe I'm wrong. The success of AfD in Germany with its platform of mass repatriation of foreigners suggests that such a movement could sweep all of Western Civilization shortly. It's kind of a long-shot, but we should exhaust all attempts to resolve our problems as peacefully as possible before resorting to last resorts, right? Even those solutions in which we have low confidence but which are the right things to do, we should attempt first.

As an aside—on that birthday movie, although it was her second blockbuster together with Flynn, Olivia de Haviland turned only twenty two a few weeks after the release of the film. She was only nineteen or even eighteen for the filming of her earlier blockbuster with Flynn, 1935's Captain Blood.

Young Olivia de Haviland was an absolutely brilliant star in the Hollywood firmament. Her younger sister, Joan Fontaine (really Joan de Haviland; she used her step-father's last name as a stage name) was equally beautiful while young, and in fact looked a lot like her older sister. The similar movie Ivanhoe, which tackles similar themes, being set at literally the exact same time and dealing with John's attempted coup over Richard and Richard's dramatic arrival in England in disguise, stars Fontaine as Rowena. However, since it was made in 1952, nearly fifteen years later, she was now too old to really be comparable to her older sister in 1938. Besides, that movie is really all about young Elizabeth Taylor anyway. Fontaine in Rebecca or even Jane Eyre would be a better comparison, although those aren't Medieval pageantry epics like Ivanhoe and Robin Hood are.

Ah, the belles of Old Hollywood! I doubt I would have actually liked young  Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, Olivia de Haviland or Grace Kelly had I known them in person in their primes. They probably were terrible people with loads of personality problems and drama—and in fact in some cases we know this explicitly. Grace Kelly was a notable nympho who slept around with every male star she could. Fontaine and de Haviland had a strained relationship full of drama because of unresolved issues from their childhood. Taylor was notoriously married more than just about any other actress, which isn't just a red flag; it's the whole communist parade. It should be noted, however, that there is a suggestion that the drama between the sisters might have been drummed up as a publicity stunt, and that they got along fine. Olivia lived to be 104, the oldest Academy Award winner and one of the last surviving veterans of the Golden Age  of Hollywood. She was also  the last surviving cast member of Gone With the Wind, and said that she still watched it from time to time to reconnect with her dead castmates.

But at least they were smart enough to put on a good show and not be so blatantly in your face about it. I think a young Denise Richardson was very pretty too, but she was so stupid that she did that reality show when her career was faltering, and showed the entire world how vapid, narcissistic and unlikeable she actually is in person. Now I can't look at her without being turned off.