Actually, I don’t think you’re correct in this particular case for Sinema, for 2 reasons. The first is that, when I actually looked at the gesture on the video, it was quite mild. I wouldn’t even have noticed much of anything. The second is that so far Sinema has been something of an actual maverick regarding the filibuster. So far it’s only been verbal rebellion, and if in the end she votes to ax the filibuster than her verbal rebellion will have been theater. But it remains to be seen.

Except that there was a time when the Democrats loved their country.

No longer.
(Unless by “love” they mean “destroy”.)

In any event, it seems that the dynamic of obtaining and keeping absolute power has been radicalized, along with the use of language meant to disguise that attempt (to gain absolute power) while demonizing anyone (e.g., “Deplorables”) and anything (e.g., “the Law) that might succeed in blocking you from obtaining absolute power and/or who doesn’t agree with you.

As for theater, no doubt; but “not all theater is created equal”, etc.

(Besides, I’d prefer to use the term, “rhetoric”.)

“It’s because it’s theater guys.”

Might as well drop the mic there. Anyone who doesn’t get it is not paying attention. It’s us against them. It always has been. The Founders tried to keep the “them” from growing, but over they years the “them” found ways to get to the spigot and control its flow.

There is a peaceful way back, but I can’t imagine we’ll get there. I hope we do, but it’s hard to imagine reason succeeding in today’s (or tomorrow’s) climate. Maybe it’s time for another country to show us the way? Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, Hong Kong?

Let’s think about this for a minute. Why would she do this?

Is she stupid?

Does she not know she’s on TV?

Or is ril[ing] the left and getting all the attention directed to her the whole point of the exercise?

Doesn’t that make way more sense? And if so, what assumptions might we, the audience for this little drama, need to change about how Congress works?

Isn’t this little stunt the mirror image of McCain’s “no” on Obamacare, and aren’t the justifications the same?

In the end, McCain stood dramatically before the Senate chair. He turned his thumb down.

Neither sides’ politicians are stupid people who don’t understand the consequences of what they do. Both sides politicians understand perfectly well the theater of what they wish to be perceived as doing.

Where was the Senate parliamentarian on Obamacare? How does this unelected person all of sudden have so much power and the Dems throw up their hands?

It’s because it’s theater guys. There are Dem constituencies who want a $15 minimum wage, and powerful and connected Dem clients who don’t want it. The Dems need to appear to have tried to do something.

Mirror image here is Republicans and the wall, or Republicans and Obamacare repeal. When they let one man, or a handful of “defectors”, or a parliamentarian put a stop to something and all throw up their hands, it’s theater.

And now we don’t have to assume that one side is good and smart and principled and the other is bad and dumb and in lockstep.

We can appreciate our fellow humans for what they are, as human like us, and our lizard overlords for what they are, which is people who have their hands on the spigots of tax money and make their living by directing it to their friends–and to do that they all need to work together while pretending they don’t.

First step to changing things is to see them as they are, and not as presented to you by people who have an interest in making you believe in the presentation. Until you see the real problem you cannot change things.

Er, well, White Globalists more likely.

File under: Let them eat Our Humility….

Topic comes up again in his latest weekly podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6WUNJmLQ5U