The New Yorker’s view of the world, updated for Trump victory
The view at 30,000 feet is the same as the view from 9th Avenue.
The most famous The New Yorker magazine image ever clearly has to be a 1976 illustration by Saul Steinberg for the cover depicting the view from 9th Avenue (the West Side) of Manhattan.
The landscape of the rest of the country is shown as mere random places on a blank landscape between the Hudson River and the Pacific ocean.
Having grown up in the NYC suburbs, I can tell you it was an absolutely accurate visualization of how New Yorkers thought of the country.
Jersey was over there, and there were some mountains most of the way across the country somewhere, D.C. was on the way to Florida, and on the other side of the ocean were three countries: China, Japan, and Russia.
That New Yorker cover has competition.
Sweeping Twitter is the image below, a cartoon depicting a passenger in a plane announcing that the pilots are too smug, and therefore passengers should fly the plane. The cartoonist’s name is Will McPhail:
It is a not very subtle hit at Trump’s victory, a victory viewed by the cartoonist and 99.99% of New Yorker readers as a victory of all those people who live on the other side of the Hudson, the people who are too stupid to run the country and live in Nowheresville.
Because running the country is just like flying a plane, apparently. And the experts who have run it so far are the only ones who can do it competently.
The reaction from liberals has been as expected – that the cartoon is a metaphor for Trump’s victory by the Stupid Class.
The reaction from others has been pretty snarky and mocking, particularly in response to this tweet of the cartoon by Ben Taub:
From this week's @NewYorker pic.twitter.com/4EPsd4Eb1M
— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) January 2, 2017
would love to see a list of all the "journalists" who retweeted this between masturbatory strokes @bentaub91 @NewYorker
— Ursus, Director of Weather and Banana Programming (@AceofSpadesHQ) January 2, 2017
@LegInsurrection did they not read "The Flight 93 Election"? Seems like they're inadvertently confirming the premise, post hoc.
— John Alden Meade (@johnaldenmeade) January 2, 2017
That reference in the tweet above to “The Flight 93 Election” refers to an article at the Claremont Review in early September, The Flight 93 Election:
2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
There are some parodies of the New Yorker cartoon, including this one by “Our Lawyer” Ron Coleman:
My first entry pic.twitter.com/pCSpwnpmcn
— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) January 2, 2017
Here’s one I created:
Can you think of any other “appropriate” captions?
Here are some reactions on Twitter:
nothing better than a New Yorker cartoon telling the plebs to shut up and let the powerful run the country pic.twitter.com/e3ZzkIsb4G
— Blup In Japan (@blippoblappo) January 2, 2017
Do you think there was actually someone at the New Yorker who thought this cartoon made sense, or is it just 100% trolling? pic.twitter.com/EeSC4l7ogS
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) January 2, 2017
https://twitter.com/hale_razor/status/815945711711719426
https://twitter.com/avelshi/status/815944005699694596
https://twitter.com/BlazerMc88/status/815936567638458368
Fixed that New Yorker cartoon. pic.twitter.com/m3Yd4WEa2Z
— Yung Rick Murray (@yung_rick) January 3, 2017
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Comments
What’s so appallingly ironic is that T-rump is giving it to his base…good and hard.
The MOST elite of the elite are his picks for top economic positions, and his “answers” are HIS answers. Not yours. You aren’t smart enough to conduct your own lives. He’s the only one who can fix it. He’s said so. Often.
“Who thinks Hellary should be prosecuted and sent to prison?”
Not Der Donald, and he’s the only opinion in the room.
Dupes.
as part of the “base”, I think I can illuminate you on what the base is thinking. What confounded the Left so much is that the base does not care about methods, the base does not care about procedure, the base does not care about what are the politically correct optics to managing the daily MSM circus.
The base cares about results. Nothing else. And this is really a very harsh position.
Now Trump isn’t even in office yet, and he will get a reasonable period of time to produce. (6 months to a year, I think) If the economy is improving and the job outlook is getting better by then (and that is ALL that matters, really) then the base is going to be ecstatic, and Trump will be able to do anything he wants and hand out goodies to anyone he wants.
BUT – If Trump does not produce results, and things to NOT get better economically, fairly quickly, then Trump is going to be repudiated and we’ll probably have an Elizabeth Warren country next. Even if he does everything “right”.
This is what the Left misses, this is what you are missing. What Trump does right now doesn’t matter at all to the base. We don’t care how he does it. The results he gets will be everything. His movement, and his entire movement sinks or swims on him getting it right.
p.s. What the Washington Left and Right have gotten so wrong for so long is that they think politics generally, and ideology specifically, are just tools to be used to keep the prols happy while the ruling class does nothing. That’s what people are so pissed about, and that’s why a majority doesn’t give a flip anymore about ideology or “gotcha” moments. Trump has promised to make things better for average Americans. Either he will, or he won’t. If he does, nothing that he does matters, it will all be forgiven, and even blessed. If he doesn’t nothing that he does matters, it will all be condemned.
Interestingly, I think Trump gets this dichotomy better than anyone else in Washington does.
I’m not missing one flucking thing, Tom.
“Trump has promised to make things better for average Americans. Either he will, or he won’t. If he does, nothing that he does matters, it will all be forgiven…”
That should scare you spitless. That you could even write that should make you review your thinking. It’s as un-American a thing as I’ve seen anyone say in a long, long time.
Poor post Rags!
I have to think you are not representative of the Trump base, because of this:
“Trump has promised to make things better for average Americans. Either he will, or he won’t. If he does, nothing that he does matters, it will all be forgiven, and even blessed.”
This is exactly the same thinking of the liberals and elites the Trump base seeks to overthrow – ends justify means. It is also a legitimate Hitler reference in that Hitler’s base said the same of him.
I find it very hard to believe the Trump base agrees with ‘ends justify means’ at all, that they’ve granted Trump carte blanche to do whatever he wants as long as he succeeds. Constitution. Heard of it?
The statement I made was simply a statement of reality. Reality doesn’t care whether I like it, or whether I hate it, or whether it makes us happy, or makes us scared.
Reality Is.
And I think that anyone who is honest with themselves will have to admit that is the point that the nation has reached. If Trump is somehow able to get jobs increasing and the economy booming (and yes, that is a very difficult thing to do and I take no position on whether he can or not) then, again IF he does that, he will have free reign to do whatever he wants. That does scare me a bit, nevertheless, it is the truth, and there is nothing you or I can do to change that.
Likewise, if we fall into a severe recession and Trump fails, then this country will go back to a hard left political model, and there will be nothing you and I can do to change that either.
Is this a scary place for the country to be? Yes, it is. But here we are. This was the Flight 93 election – now we’ve taken the cockpit. We could easily still nosedive into the Pennsylvania countryside – nothing to do but ride it out.
“as part of the “base”, I think I can illuminate you on what the base is thinking.”
“The base cares about results. Nothing else. And this is really a very harsh position.”
Um, no, that’s actually a fascist position. You owe the Trump base an apology.
Henry, you suffer from a severe lack of imagination. If jobs are back and the economy is going great in a year, you will be at the front of the line waiting to bow down and pay him homage.
Servo, you speak for the Trump “base” about as much as Rags speaks for the conservative base.
The “base” will not accept extra constitutional means, nor do they have any reason to. The constitution provides the means for trump to counter much of the unconstitutional/illadvised BS perpetrated by obambi. The rest will involve legislation.
Sorry, Henry, but I think that Trump’s die-hard base does indeed think that the ends justify the means. This is one of the reasons that they are working so hard to ridicule, belittle, and otherwise silence principled conservatives. We stand in their way by mentioning pesky documents and foundational ideals like those put forth in the Constitution.
They’re angry just like us, maybe even angrier than we are, and they are ready for anything . . . up to and including a King Trump who jails people without cause; who sends the IRS, FBI, CIA, whatever after his and their enemies; and who vastly expands government with a wink and a nod to national security.
Trump won’t have the free rein that Obama had, he’s not immune to critique, censure, or impeachment, and he knows it. Notice how he never talks about his “movement” anymore? It’s not a good sign.
All that said, I voted for him, so I sincerely hope that he will be a great president. If he does even half of what he promised, he’ll be a good one. More, and he’ll be great. 🙂
Tom Servo: If the economy is improving and the job outlook is getting better by then (and that is ALL that matters, really) then the base is going to be ecstatic, and Trump will be able to do anything he wants and hand out goodies to anyone he wants.
Wow. Just wow.
One of the interesting things that I observed by watching his rallies (Every last one of them was posted online. They are not hard to find.) was the way he used them as polls. He was visibly testing his ideas against what people wanted.
That and his well-turned call to his supporters to avoid violence, which was scandalously disreported by the collusive media.
Meanwhile, the Hillary Campaign chose the politics of personal destruction over a debate on the issues, because they knew Trump would be a formidable opponent. The hired rent-a-rioters for the purpose of blaming Trump and his supporters for violence.
Now, his choices of accomplished, knowledgeable people does not suit the opposition.
Oh, well.
His choicesssssss of Deemocrat Goldman-Sachs and anti-market craziies DOES suit you…???
Oh! well!
Why should anyone listen to a purveyor of “fake” news during the campaign, that still refuses to call Trump by his actual name?
If it takes a gazillionaire to do the job, as opposed to a career “public servant” that has never hired anyone or accomplished very much, does it matter?
Time to remove the broken record some people are playing.
How ’bout a Soros employee?
Or someone who expressly denounces market economics?
Or a voting Deemocrat?
Maybe it’s time you took your lies and “broken record” away.
Huh…how ’bout it? You can control that WAY better than you’ll EVER control me.
Could care less about controlling you. Spare the narcissism, please.
A little thicker skin might help, too.
Your extreme bias resembles what is seen from the media.
Rather than allowing the benefit of the doubt, that accomplished rich people may actually do better in job performance, you have already decided and concluded the worst.
As such, the broken record syndrome so prominent from the campaign.
Old school, you apparently didn’t see the memo – Rags is never wrong.
I could not give a flying fluck about how much money someone has…depending on how they got it.
How ’bout a Soros employee?
Or someone who expressly denounces market economics?
Or a voting Deemocrat?
Answer the flucking questions. Or are you too enthralled?
Just as I don’t control you, thankfully, you don’t control me. So you can figure out what to do with your demand that I answer you!
You are not just overly biased, as seen in the lead up to the election, but way too angry, as seen in the way you engage others.
Based on your analysis to date, why should anyone find you credible? No need to answer this rhetorical question, yet the feeling is that you will not resist.
“I could not give a flying fluck…”
Must you continue to use this kind of trashy language? It is unbecoming and gives visitors who might come here a bad impression of Legal Insurrection.
Ragspierre said in part:
“… Dupes.”
Let me fix that for you.
“… Deplorables.”
I said it and meant what I said. You just reinforced it.
When I need any help from the duped, you’ll be one of the first I call on.
At noon on 1/20/17 all us Deplorables can hoist a flagon of mead to celebrate the inauguration Donald Trump as president of all the United States. Victory is sweet!
On a plane full of JournoLists: “These smug pilots have lost touch with passengers like us. Who thinks Dan Rather should fly the plane?”
Apparently, according to the logic of the New York/Washington magalopolis, countries—and airplanes—should be operated by—who else?—lawyers, they being the pros at laws and stuff.
William Buckley gave us a famous aphorism about this notion. Something about phone books and Harvard.
I remember a Physics faculty lounge joke. “Could somebody turn on the coffee maker for me, please? I’m a theorist.”
This is not as far off as it sounds.
‘Way back when I was in law school, I worked as a clerk at a patent firm. At the time, the firm had big, photocopying machines that were continually jamming and spitting pages out in the wrong order, at random. This happened nearly every time I had to copy something. I asked the secretaries to show me how to clear a jam, and they showed me. This made my life, and theirs, much easier.
I did not know that there was a rule in the firm, “No Attorneys may mess with jams on the copiers! This in a law firm where all of the attorneys had underlying degrees in math or the sciences. I was allowed to keep on clearing jams, however, because I was not a lawyer, yet.
The saga of the Wollman Ice Rink is a fabulous case study in governmental bureaucratic blundering vs the efficiency of private enterprise. When the pilots are flying you into the ground, yes, someone else needs to take over.
The Wollman Ice Rink is, indeed, a good vignette of the T-rump “results oriented management style”.
He lied, cheated, and stole the supplies, labor, and talent of people who worked that project.
Far from being a “pro bono” project for T-rump, he STILL gets money from the rink.
Such “interesting” behavior from a billionaire…
Cite. With details, please.
What? You didn’t know this about your Little Yellow God?
Do your own research. I have.
“Do your own research. I have.”
LOL, in other words, you’re full of it.
Yes comrade, of course, capitalist Trump exploited the workers to rebuild an ice rink and to line his pockets. Far better to have a government run ice rink with no ice, because that’s more “fair.”
Stick your “comrade”…sideways.
T-rump isn’t a “capitalist” except in the crony…or fascist economics…sense.
And, yeh, Der Donald has a history of lying, cheating and stealing. Oh, and using foreign labor…both legal and illegal…over domestic workers.
That is NOT ‘capitalism’ unless you subscribe to the “Godfather” bullshit about the mob being ‘capitalism’.
Speaking of which, see Cohn, Roy (mob attorney and Donald’s mentor).
At worst Trump has operated under the system as it exists, not in some fantasy world. How can you blame a business man for resorting to bankruptcy if the law permits it? Why shouldn’t he take advantage of tax loopholes to legally avoid paying taxes?
And yet….
oddly enough, I never hinted at bankruptcy or tax payments.
That’s just you attempting to deflect.
I can’t speak to taxes, because that all remains carefully shrouded.
I CAN say that if Der Donald pulled any of the shit he did in his bankruptcies in any of the Federal Districts I practice in, he’d have BEEN in jail now for some years.
Since you brought it up…
“Such “interesting” behavior from a billionaire…”
Whenever confronted with actual capitalism at work, and successful, you have a conniption.
“Interesting” behavior alright. Capitalist success.
The rink was closed in 1980 for a proposed two years of renovations at $9.1 million. Six years and $13 million later, after the problem-plagued work was still not completed by the city, Donald Trump persuaded Mayor Ed Koch to let him complete the work in four months at $2.5 million in order to have it open by the end of the year.[3][4] Koch initially objected but later agreed to Trump’s proposal when Trump offered to pay for the renovations himself with the stipulation that he be allowed to run the venue and an adjacent restaurant and use the profits to recoup his costs.[5] Trump hired CIMCO, Canada’s largest refrigeration company and the NHL’s preferred rink equipment supplier, to complete the project. [6] The rink reopened to the public on November 13, 1986, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and press conference attended by Koch and Trump, covered by national evening broadcast television news.[7][8] Total cost of renovations by Trump came in under budget at $2.25 million and two months ahead of schedule.
Donald Trump operated the rink from 1987 to 1991.[9] From 1991 to 2001 George Makkos from The Makkos Organization of M&T Pretzel, operated Wollman Rink. Since 2001, Wollman Rink has been operated by a joint venture between The Trump Organization and Rink Management Services of Mechanicsville, Virginia. The Trump name is prominently displayed on the walls of the rink as well as on the Zamboni that maintains the rink. Operation of the Lasker Rink on the north edge of Central Park is also handled by the group.
The irony is Trump built an empire prior to being elected.
Obama never ran a hot dog stand – not could he.
Substitute Obama standing up in that isle and asking, “Hope and change – I’ll fly this big jet. Er, full disclosure: I’ve never even flown a Cessna. Nor could I. Nonetheless — “
Judge them also by
-who they’ve hired
-who they’ve fired
-who they didn’t fire but should have and why.
Dear Mr New Yorker— I paid for this plane.
PS- others paid for your seat with their lives. I think that qualifies any of us to fly it.
For being totally off the radar of east coast elites I am eternally grateful.
I posted this in the Forum section, but it seems appropriate here too.
Trumpism Explained. Once you get past the Newtisms it’s really interesting.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/30/newt-gingrich-trumpism-explained.html
“You have to get it in your head. The current system is broken. It is obsolete, so don’t try to fix it. Try to replace it. Trumpism also means they use modern technology. Trump has 25 million people on Twitter and Facebook. His great realization, which occurred around October of 2015, you can actually reach all these people for free. He decides on Tuesday, let’s do a rally in Tampa. They email, and Tweet, and Facebook, everybody in Florida that’s in their list, and says, hi, I’m going to be in Tampa on Friday at 5 o’clock, and 20,000 people show up.
The other candidates are all buying TV ads. He’s showing up at a mass rally, which is covered live on television. He then has 20,000 people with smartphones who take his picture. They all send it out on Facebook and Instagram. If you figure 40 people per person, a 20,000 person rally, is an 800,000 person system, about twice the size of MSNBC. For free. There’s no exchange rate you can create that makes sense. It’s like trying to compare Polish cavalry and the Wehrmacht in 1939. These are totally different exchange rates.
Trump also understands that you have to be on permanent offense. If you look at the Wehrmacht, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the Israeli Army, they all have the same doctrine. If you are surprised, one third of your forces go into defense, two thirds go on counterattack. You never give up the initiative. That’s Trump. Trump’s core model is, you hit me, I hit back, and I hit harder than you hit. He learned it in the New York media when he was a business man. He’s on permanent offense. He gets up in the morning figuring out, how am I going to stay on offense? He understands that the media has to chase rabbits, so he gives them rabbits to chase, because if he doesn’t give them rabbits to chase, they’ll invent a rabbit.”
I’ve stopped in at legal Insurrection on and off for years now. But I’ve never commented till now. I happen to like the reserved and respectful tone/style of the articles and most of the commenters. Shooting from the hip here as an outsider I’m probably poking a hornet’s nest, but here’s primarily a query. In comparing a number of posts: for example, one by Ragspierre, re. his brief comments and then his accusations about DT concerning the Wollman Rink; then in contrast, in reading VaGentleman’s detailed response and history of DT and Rink, what strikes me is the difference in the tone, style, civility, detail, and content of their respective comments. Further, for example, in reading Userpen’s question to Ragspierre: “Must you continue to use this kind of trashy language? It is unbecoming and gives visitors who might come here a bad impression of Legal Insurrection.”, Userpen has a valid point — for I am one of those to whom he refers that gets driven away, at minimum, by the tone of the commentary. In running down the pages of comments, I wonder: if anyone hopes to have a reasonable exchange at LI or elsewhere, when there appears in an exchange a lack of mere common politeness or decency or respect, or even common civility, then that exchange becomes a drain on the tenor, mood, and style of a site (even if there’s no — to use Herman Kahn’s term — “escalation ladder” of rudeness or, worse, profanity). Consequently, I simply ask myself, “Why even bother to return to the site, or its comments, or even comment?” — such as I’m doing now. Further, for those in the LI community, why even bother to answer — or give protracted attention — to those lacking in common politeness that bring down or darken LI’s good and spirited vibe and perhaps even its respectability? Professor Jacobson’s hard-work and efforts, and that of his colleagues, as well as the community of good people that partake in LI’s commentary deserve much better. Wishing you all the warmest and best wishes for 2017.
Used to respect Rags.
Now he’s just sour and petty.
He cannot get over his hate.
Sad.