"THE NEWSROOM" KNOCKS IT OUT OF THE PARK
Aaron Sorkin knocked the Voter ID issue out of the park on tonight’s episode of “The Newsroom” of HBO. It is essential viewing for anyone who venerates American democracy and is mindful of the threat to democracy posed by Tea Party religious fundamentalists. (If you are an HBO subscriber, there will be re-runs, and alternatively, you can view this and past episodes on the web at http://tinyurl.com/8tdm8h8 also requiring an HBO subscription.)
In tonight’s show, titled “The Greater Fool,” Sorkin’s alter ego, news anchor Will McAvoy tells the story of a 75-year old Black woman from Tennessee, Dorothy Cooper, who cannot vote because she no longer drives, and, therefore has no government-issued ID. (Spoiler alert.) He goes on to point out that
33 states have proposed or already adopted voter registration laws, 32 of which are controlled by Republicans
It’s estimated that 11 percent (20 million people) of voters don’t have government-issued ID’s and will be disenfranchised in November
During the 5-year period under the Bush administration 196 million votes were cast and there were 86 cases of voter fraud, or .00004%
He explains that Republicans want to disenfranchise voters without government ID’s because the majority of them will otherwise vote for Democrats
He then takes on the Tea Party, debunking the Party’s claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, quoting such seminal figures as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Constitution itself (1st Amendment) to which he could have added James Madison and George Washington. He chides otherwise mainstream Republicans for pandering to religious fundamentalists in the Tea Party, showing a clip of then-presidential-candidate John McCain stammering though the assertion that “The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”
He points out the hypocrisy of the Tea Party religious fundamentalists, observing that “the biggest enemy of the phony Republicans is Jesus Christ, who said “heal the sick, feed the hungry, care for the weakest among us and always pray in private.”
He saves his most withering fire for the climax at the end of the show, in which he cites the characteristics of the Tea Party religious fundamentalists:
Ideological purity
Compromise as weakness
A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism
Denying science
Unmoved by facts
Undeterred by new information
A hostile fear of progress
A demonization of education
A need to control women’s bodies
Severe xenophobia
Tribal mentality
Intolerance of dissent
Pathological hatred of U.S. Government
He concludes: “They can call themselves the Tea Party, they can call themselves conservatives, they can even call themselves Republicans (although Republicans certainly shouldn’t). But we should call them what they really are: The American Taliban. And the American Taliban cannot survive if Dorothy Cooper is allowed to vote.”
My personal view is that if the American Taliban succeed in “taking this country back” by disenfranchising those who are most ill-served by right-wing principles (embodied socially by religious fundamentalism, economically by Reaganomics, and militarily by “Long War” policies ), the disconnect between what the majority of American people want and what the ruling elite deliver will eventually become so great as to provoke a cataclysmic counter-reaction, very likely ending in violent revolution and/or civil war.
In case you are wondering about the title of tonight’s show, “The Greater Fool,” it is another of Sorkin’s appeal to Quixotic idealism in the service of a better America, the leitmotif underlying “The Newsroom” and “The West Wing”: “The greater fool is someone with the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to think that he can succeed where others have failed. This whole country was made by greater fools.” This theme was introduced in the first episode in which Will McAvoy’s executive producer tells him: “You know what you left out of your sermon? That America is the only country on the planet that since its birth has said over and over and over that we can do better. It’s part of our DNA.” Amen.
David L. Smith
www.the-predicament.com