Sunday, November 13, 2016

After the US election: Gore Vidal calls it in 1960

An oddly divided light on our bedroom ceiling



From Gore Vidal's 1960 play, The Best Man. Also a rather good movie after its successful run.


CANTWELL [conscience-less 'populist' candidate]
  I don't understand you.

RUSSELL [flawed but principled candidate]
  I know you don't. Because you have no sense of responsibility toward anybody or anything and that is a tragedy in a man and is a disaster in a President! You said you were religious. Well, I'm not. But I believe profoundly in this life and what we do to one another and how this monstrous "I," the self, must become "we" and draw the line at murder in the games we play with one another, and try to be good even when there is no one to force us to be good.

(CANTWELL rises. He speaks carefully, without rancor)
  You don't understand me. You don't understand politics and the way it is and the way this country is and the way we are. You are a fool.

RUSSELL
  We're not the way you think we are. At least not yet.

1 comment:

  1. rush to judgment? all we are saying is...give peace a chance
    let's see what happens in the next two years...let's be patient. I voted for Obama and I kept hoping he would be good and then we started to bomb Libya and that is when I gave up on him...really. By the way...this time I voted for Stein...mainly because she was against the death penalty.

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