Transatlantic Authenticity – Sanders and Corbyn

Seven Presidential election cycles ago, Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau and movie director Robert Altman (Nashville, The Player) teamed up to make the brilliant political satire miniseries Tanner ’88, featuring Michael Murphy as a photogenic idealist on a quest for the Democratic nomination.

The fake Congressman’s slogan was “For real”.

A modern-day Tanner, Jack Kimble, uses social media to highlight the absurdity of the current GOP primary race, and politics in general.

(Jack Kimble)

But now there are a couple of really real candidates, on either side of the Atlantic, whose wave of popularity has tapped into a widespread yearning for politicians to not be, primarily,  politicians, but to speak their minds with candor and consistency and to, above all, appear to be on the side of the – increasingly pissed-off – people.

The latest poll in New Hampshire shows Bernie Sanders leading Hillary Clinton for the first time – doubtless assisted by Hillary’s ongoing problems over her email server and by extension perceptions of her trustworthiness – as the Vermont Independent continues to attract ever-larger grassroots audiences to his campaign stops.

Here’s – partly – why (although just the wealth aspect of her unpopularity doesn’t explain the Donald Trump phenomenon).

In Britain, the opposition Labour Party, still reeling from defeat in May’s General Election, is set to elect a new leader. And the current front-runner is a man the New York Times describes as a “soft-spoken 66-year-old of the hard left,” the MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour has been taken aback by “Corbynmania,” with large crowds, passionate social media involvement and news coverage of a trim, bearded vegetarian teetotaler who says what he has believed for the last four decades with a disarming clarity.

His views, which were hard-left Labour in the 1970s and ’80s, are finding new supporters among younger Britons who like his anticapitalist, anti-austerity stance — much like those who support Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain — and who dislike rivals’ poll-driven wobble.

But Corbyn’s popularity among the populace isn’t shared within his party.

http://twitter.com/TheNewsGlobe/status/631540671309070336

And as the registration window for party members to vote in the leadership contest closed on Wednesday – the vote begins on Friday and runs until Sept 10th, with the result announced on the 12th – there were stories of prominent left-wingers being barred from voting.

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WORLD

Former US President Jimmy Carter announced that he had cancer. At 90, Carter is the second-oldest former Commander-in-chief, after George H.W. Bush.

As the Greek parliament prepares to vote on Thursday on the terms of the latest bailout agreement, Reuters reports on details of the “stress test” required by the country’s  creditors. 

US warplanes began manned bombing raids against ISIS targets in Syria from Incirlik airbase in Turkey.

The Environmental Protection Agency took “full responsibility” for the pollution in the Animas River in Colorado. 

http://twitter.com/riverpurewater/status/631658859413798912

Two huge explosions rocked the Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 17 people – including nine firefighters – and injuring about 400. The blasts reportedly happened at a warehouse for storing hazardous materials.

http://twitter.com/PzFeed/status/631657054810324992

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POLITICS

Wednesday was the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, with President Obama writing to the New York Times urging its restoration.

But as [Jim] Rutenberg chronicles, from the moment the ink was dry on the Voting Rights Act, there has been a concentrated effort to undermine this historic law and turn back the clock on its progress. His article puts the recent push to restrict Americans’ voting rights in its proper context. These efforts are not a sign that we have moved past the shameful history that led to the Voting Rights Act. Too often, they are rooted in that history. They remind us that progress does not come easy, but that it must be vigorously defended and built upon for ourselves and future generations.

It was also the anniversary of the Watts riots in Los Angeles. described as “the original Black Lives Matter” protest.”

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MEDIA

The Economist made a statement about changes to its ownership following Pearson’s sale of the Financial Times, which owned 50 per cent of the magazine.

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SPORTS

New England quarterback Tom Brady and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell faced off in front of a federal judge in New York, over the Deflategate scandal.