Politics are war

And war is hell

Glenn Beck. Meet Huey Long and George Wallace.

"The performance is intended, not to provide information or even to persuade, but rather to create a space in which rational discussion can be bypassed entirely. The demagogue, whether of old or new vintage, “does not confront his audience from the outside; he seems rather like someone arising from its midst to express its innermost thoughts. He works, so to speak, from inside the audience, stirring up what lies dormant there.... It is difficult to pin him down to anything and he gives the impression that he is deliberately playacting.... Moving in the twilight zone between the respectable and the forbidden, he is ready to use any device, from jokes to doubletalk to wild extravagances.” - Prophets of Deceit. 1949.

It always looks to be accurate to fall back on "the more things change..." whenever I get despondent over the chances for actual intellectual engagements with people over things. I should instead know that there are no chances.