If You Have a Brain, Don't Read This . . .

A foreboding contrast in style and logic:

1) President Obama's interview about healthcare on The Weeds: Obama is clear, knowledgeable, logical, and totally candid; he offers a challenge to Republicans-- he would love to endorse a transparent healthcare plan that does things better than the Affordable Care Act; Obama comports himself with intelligence, grace, and style and shows comprehensive understanding of the healthcare system, healthcare markets and economics, and the science of medicine . . .

versus

2) Donald Trump's muddled conspiratorial medical gobbledygook-- he's asked anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. to head a commission on vaccine safety . . . despite the fact that all links between vaccines and autism have been debunked (Jenny McCarthy aside) but Trump also brilliantly avoids looking like a total lunatic, as he has vaccinated his children-- just on his own schedule, a slower, very "conservative" schedule . . . thus claiming his own bizarre, unfounded (but appealing to a certain sort of maverick renegade Trump supporter) middle ground . . .

and these two polemically opposed rhetorical methods illustrate the same lesson as Marshall Curry's excellent political documentary Street Fight . . . disenfranchised folks don't want statistics and numbers and policy debate, they want a compelling narrative that explains why forces beyond their control have conspired against them, and a roguish hero, with the same imperfections they possess, who is willing to fight the forces of academic logic and intellectual elitism, using any means necessary . .  . though he's a Democrat, Sharpe James would be a welcome addition to Trumpland!