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THE POLITICS OF ESTHETICS….Ezra Klein is agog at Sarah Palin’s campaign rhetoric:

I can’t remember George W. Bush engaging the culture war with anything even approaching this ferocity in 2004.

McCain and Palin are running on fumes. There’s just nothing left for them to talk about aside from unpatriotic liberals, sneering urbanites, and how the mainstream media hates them. The politics of esthetics is all they have left.

It has truly been a remarkable campaign. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don’t know who I’d pick — and that’s something that would have been inconceivable as recently as a year ago. I wonder if McCain has any idea just how thoroughly he’s going to exit this campaign with his reputation permanently soiled and his life story in tatters?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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