Why didn’t the Koch brothers spend the $889 million they once said they would on this year’s presidential election? Why do they seem to be pulling back from federal campaign politics altogether? “If the Kochs are the poster children for the supposedly corrupting role of money in politics in a post–Citizens United world, Trump demonstrates that money isn’t everything,” Reihan Salam writes. “To two brothers who think long and hard about the effectiveness of every dollar they spend, spending money on electoral politics is no longer looking like such a great investment.”
Megyn Kelly’s Tuesday night interview of Donald Trump was fawning, phony, even comradely, Isaac Chotiner writes. This, Chotiner points out, could be expected, despite Trump’s history of saying such unbelievably rude things to Kelly in the past: “With Rupert Murdoch having warmed considerably to Trump, it was predictable that Kelly would do so as well.”
All the things right-wingers have said about Barack Obama—dangerous demagogue, authoritarian, celebrity attention-seeker, race-baiter—are actually true of Donald Trump, Jamelle Bouie writes, taking a trip through the looking glass. ”Why have Republicans elevated a man who stands for everything they claim to hate, who has lived a life of decadence and frivolity they claim to despise?” Bouie asks, rhetorically. “You could waste an afternoon speculating about the source of this projection. But time is a commodity, and you should live your life.”
What is Maria Bamford’s new Netflix show Lady Dynamite like? Faced with reviewing something so sui generis, Willa Paskin pulls out the lists: “Surreal, wild, fourth wall–shattering, time-hopping”; “part showbiz satire, part alt-comedy showcase, part plaintive character sketch, and all ambitious gonzo, a show that feels like nothing else on TV, a cult classic that, in the age of Netflix, may appeal to a horde.”
On Undark, Steve Silberman writes about the long history of invisibility of black autism. “As a result of [midcentury child psychiatrist Leo] Kanner’s theory that his syndrome disproportionately affected hyper-ambitious, upper-middle-class families, two generations of clinicians and researchers would view autism primarily as a condition of white children,” Silberman reports.
For fun: You can now take an online film class with Professor Werner Herzog. “I do not use a storyboard. I think it’s an instrument of the cowards.”
Oh, me too. Definitely,
Rebecca
