Wednesday June 01, 2016
Hamilton v. Trump
“I am so less informed than your average Rolling Stone reader, just because I‘ve had my head up in this world. But I can tell you that Trump’s politics about building a wall, that's old. And it's such a malignant form of a very common American electoral disease, which is, ‘Point at the newest people here and say they’re the reason you‘re broke.’ That's as old as time itself. That's ‘Irish Need Not Apply. That’s [Pat] Buchanan in the Nineties. And it's finding purchase with Trump right now.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda in, and on the cover of, Rolling Stone magazine.
Miranda definitely tries to avoid the politics of today, saying nice things about Dick Cheney of all people, but his show, the biggest cultural phenomenon of the year, is a good contrast with the biggest political story of year. The story of Alexander Hamilton is about “another immigrant coming in up from the bottom” and “We‘re finally on the field, we’ve had quite a run/ Immigrants—we get the job done.” Cf., Trump, 11 million, rapists, wall, pay for it.
BTW: “Point at the newest people here and say they‘re the reason you’re broke” is the best distillation of Trump that I've seen. Cf., this. Also: this.
The story of today.
Twitter: @ErikLundegaard
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