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shelobussy · 3 years

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Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

#susan pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #narnia #meta #narnia meta #susan meta #ash does fandom #ash does meta

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Best Horror Movies to Stream

https://ift.tt/36P7Are

Updated for October 2020

The world of streaming horror movies can be an overwhelming place.

Let’s say you’ve got your Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and HBO Max subscriptions all set and ready. Now you want to get terrified with the best horror movies you can find in time for Halloween. But there are so many options! What’s a horror addict to do?

Here you’ll find the master list. That’s right, we’ve hand-selected only the absolute best and most terrifying horror movies available on all the major streaming services and combined them here for your streaming (or screaming) pleasure.

Be sure to let us know if you make it through all 31!

Apostle

Available on: Netflix

Apostle comes from acclaimed The Raid director Gareth Evans and it’s his take on the horror genre. Spoiler alert: it’s a good one.

Dan Stevens stars as Thomas Richardson, a British man in the early 1900s who must rescue his sister, Jennifer, from the clutches of a murderous cult. Thomas successfully infiltrates the cult led by the charismatic Malcom Howe (Michael Sheen) and begins to ingratiate himself with the strange folks obsessed with bloodletting. Thomas soon comes to find that the object of the cult’s religious fervor may be more real than he’d prefer.

Apostle is a wild, atmospheric, and very gory good time.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter

Available on: Netflix

Some kids dream about being left overnight or even a week at certain locations to play, like say a mall or a Chuck E. Cheese. One place that no one wants to be left alone in, however, is a Catholic boarding school.

That’s the situation that Rose (Lucy Boynton) and Kat (Kiernan Shipka) find themselves in in the atmospheric and creepy The Blackcoat’s Daughter. When Rose and Kat’s parents are unable to pick them up for winter break, the two are forced to spend the week at their dingy Catholic boarding school. If that weren’t bad enough, Rose fears that she may be pregnant…oh, and the nuns might all be Satanists.

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The Blackcoat’s Daughter is an excellent debut directorial outing from Oz Perkins and another step on the right horror path for scream queens Shipka and Emma Roberts.

The Cabin in the Woods

Available on: Amazon Prime

A remote cabin in the woods is one of the most frequently occurring settings in all of horror. What better location for teenagers to be tormented by monsters, demons, or murderous hillbillies? Writer/Director Joss Whedon takes that tried and true setting and uses it as a jumping off points for one of the most successful metatextual horror movies in recent memory.

Like you would expect, The Cabin in the Woods features five college friends (all representing certain youthful archetypes, of course) renting a….well, a cabin in the woods. Soon things begin to go awry in a very traditional horror movie way. But then The Cabin in the Woods begins doling out some of the many tricks it has up its sleeve. This is a fascinating, very funny, and yet still creepy breakdown of horror tropes that any horror fan can enjoy.

The Changeling (1980)

Available on: Shudder

A classic haunted house ghost story that frequently makes horror best of lists The Changeling sees a bereaved composer move into a creepy mansion that’s been vacant for 12 years. Vacant that is, except for the spirit of a little boy who met an untimely death…

An unravelling mystery with a sense of intrigue and pathos that draws you into the narrative, all the way to the sad and disturbing final act revelation.

City of the Living Dead

Available on: Amazon Prime

Italian horror director Lucio Fulci kicked off his famous “Gates of Hell” trilogy with this gruesome, crude but surreal 1980 gorefest, in which a reporter (Christopher George) and a psychic (Catriona MacColl) struggle to stop those gates from opening and letting a horde of hungry undead into the world.

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Fulci loosely based the movie on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, vying for the latter’s brooding atmosphere while indulging in his own trademark splatter. The results are somewhat slapdash but a must-see for Italian horror fans. Followed by the much better The Beyond (1980) and House by the Cemetery (1981).

The Dead Zone

Available on: Amazon Prime

The Dead Zone strangely remains both one of Stephen King’s more underrated movie adaptations as well as one of director David Cronenberg’s more unsung efforts. Yet it ends up being among the best from both author and auteur, while also providing star Christopher Walken with one of his most moving, complex performances to date.

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Walken’s Johnny Smith awakens from a coma to find out he’s lost five years of his life but gained a frightening talent to touch people and see both their deepest secrets and their future. Whether to use that power to impact the world around him is the choice he must face in this bittersweet, eerie and heartfelt film, which found Cronenberg moving away from his trademark body horror for the first time.

Doctor Sleep

Available on: HBO Max

Let’s be up front about this: Doctor Sleep is not The Shining. For some that fact will make this sequel’s existence unforgivable. Yet there is a stoic beauty and creepy despair just waiting to be experienced by those willing to accept Doctor Sleep on its own terms.

Directed by one of the genre’s modern masters, Mike Flanagan, the movie had the unenviable task of combining one of King’s most disappointing texts with the opposing sensibilities of Stanley Kubrick’s singular The Shining adaptation.

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And yet, the result is an effective thriller about lifelong regrets and trauma personified by the ghostly specters of the Overlook Hotel. But they’re far from the only horrors here. Rebecca Ferguson is absolutely chilling as the smiling villain Rose the Hat, and the scene where she and other literal energy vampires descend upon young Jacob Tremblay is the stuff of nightmares. Genuinely, it’s a scene you won’t forget, for better or worse….

The Evil Dead

Available on: Netflix

1981’s The Evil Dead is nothing less than one of the biggest success stories in horror movie history.

Written and directed on a shoestring budget by Sam Raimi, The Evil Dead uses traditional horror tropes to its great advantage, creating a scary, funny, and almost inconceivably bloody story about five college students who encounter a spot of bother in a cabin in the middle of the woods. That spot of bother includes the unwitting release of a legion of demons upon the world.

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The Evil Dead rightfully made stars of its creator and lead Bruce Campbell. It was also the jumping off point for a successful franchise that includes two sequels, a remake, a TV show, and more.

A Field in England

Available on: Amazon Prime

2013’s A Field in England presents compelling evidence that more horror movies should be shot in black and white.

Directed by British director Ben Wheatley, A Field in England is a kaleidoscope of trippy, cerebral horror. The film takes place in 1648, during the English Civil War. A group of soldiers is taken in by a kindly man, who is soon revealed to be an alchemist. The alchemist takes the soldiers to a vast field of mushrooms where they are subjected to a series of mind-altering, nightmarish visions.

A Field in England is aggressively weird, creative, and best of all clocks in at exactly 90 minutes.

Fright Night

Available on: Amazon Prime

Screenwriter-turned-director Tom Holland lets a jaded, smarmy vampire named Jerry Dandridge loose in suburbia and watches the blood spurt in this beloved ‘80s horror staple.

Chris Sarandon brings a nice combination of amusement and menace to the role of the bloodsucker, while Planet of the Apes veteran Roddy McDowall is endearing as a washed-up horror host recruited into a real-life horror show. Much of Fright Night is teen-oriented and somewhat dated, but it still works as a sort of precursor to later post-modern horror gems like Scream.

Green Room

Available on: Netflix

Green Room is a shockingly conventional horror movie despite not having all of the elements we traditionally associate with them. There are no monsters or the supernatural in Green Room.

Instead all monsters are replaced by vengeful neo-Nazis and the haunted house is replaced by a skinhead punk music club in the middle of nowhere in the Oregon woods. The band The Aint Rights, led by bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin) are locked in the green room of club after witnessing a murder and must fight their way out.

Hellraiser (1987)

Available on: Shudder

Directed by Clive Barker based on his novella The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser is an infernal body horror featuring S&M demons who’ve found a way out of a dark dimension and want to take you back there.

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This is the movie which introduced chief Cenobite Pinhead (played by Doug Bradley) – who would return for seven more Hellraiser sequels. But the first is of course, remains the edgiest and the best. Hellbound: Hellraiser II is also available.

Hereditary

Available on: Amazon Prime

Between Hereditary and The Haunting of Hill House 2018 was a great year for turning familial trauma into horror.

Written and directed by Ari Aster, Hereditary follows the Graham family as they deal with the death of their secretive grandmother. As Annie Graham (Toni Collette) comes to terms with the loss, she begins to realize that she may have inherited a mental illness from her late mother…or something worse.

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Hereditary is terrifying because it asks a deceptively simple but truly creepy question: what do we really inherit from our family?

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Available on: Shudder

Wes Craven’s 1977 cult classic sees an extended family become stranded in the desert when their trailer breaks down and they start to get picked off by cannibals living in the hills. It’s brutally violent but it also has things to say about the nature of violence, as the seemingly civilized Carter family turn feral. The film was remade in 2006 but the original is still the best.

Horror of Dracula

Available on: HBO Max

Replacing Bela Lugosi as Dracula was not easily done in 1958. It’s still not easily done now. Which makes the fact that Christopher Lee turned Bram Stoker’s vampire into his own screen legend in Horror of Dracula all the more remarkable. Filmed in vivid color by director Terence Fisher, Horror of Dracula brought gushing bright red to the movie vampire, which up until then had been mostly relegated to black and white shadows.

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By Louisa Mellor

With its penchant for gore and heaving bosoms, Horror of Dracula set the template for what became Hammer Film Productions’ singular brand of horror iconography, but it’s also done rather tastefully the first time out here, not least of all because of Lee bring this aggressively cold-blooded version of Stoker’s monster to life. It’s all business with this guy.

Conversely, Abraham Van Helsing was never more dashing than when played by Peter Cushing in this movie. The film turned both into genre stars, and paved the way for a career of doing this dance time and again.

The House of the Devil

Available on: Amazon Prime

Indie horror auteur Ti West’s low-budget creepfest is a homage to 1980s horror yet plays it straight; he sets out to make a movie with the feel of genre films from that era without making self-aware in-jokes and references — and he mostly succeeds.

But The House of the Devil is also the definition of a “slow burn”: very little happens for much of the first hour (save a jolt here and there) and then the third act explodes into a paroxysm of murder, gore and Satanic horror. That makes the film feel a little off-balance, although in the end it all becomes quite unnerving.

House on Haunted Hill

Available on: Amazon Prime

What would you do for $10,000? How about surviving a night in a mansion haunted by murder victims and owned by a psychotic millionaire? Seems like a party trick until people actually start dying.

Vincent Price is the master and mastermind of a house that suddenly makes everyone homicidal—but the real pièce de résistance is what dances out of a vat of flesh-eating acid.

Some vintage horror never dies, and this 1959 classic is immortal.

Hush

Available on: Netflix

In his follow-up to the cult classic Oculus, Mike Flanagan makes one of the cleverer horror movies on this list. Hush is a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse with the typical nightmare of a home invasion occurring, yet it also turns conventions of that familiar terror on its head. For instance, the savvy angle about this movie is Kate Siegel (who co-wrote the movie with Flanagan) plays Maddie, a deaf and mute woman living in the woods alone. Like Audrey Hepburn’s blind woman from the progenitor of home invasion stories, Wait Until Dark (1967), Maddie is completely isolated when she is marked for death by a menacing monster in human flesh.

Further, like the masked villains of so many more generic home invasion movies (we’re looking square at you, Strangers), John Gallagher Jr.’s “Man” wears a mask as he sneaks into her house. However, the functions of this story are laid bare since we actually keep an eye on what the “Man” is doing at all times, and how he is getting or not getting into the house in any given scene. He is not aided by filmmakers who’ve given him faux-supernatural and omnipotent abilities like other versions of these stories, and he’s not an “Other;” he is a man who does take his mask off, and his lust for murder is not so much fetishized as shown for the repulsive behavior that it is. And still, Maddie proves to be both resourceful and painfully ill-equipped to take him on in this tense battle of wills.

The Invitation

Available on: Netflix

Seeing your ex is always uncomfortable, but imagine if your ex-wife invited you to a dinner party with her new husband? That is just about the least creepy thing in this new, taut thriller nestled in the Hollywood Hills. Indeed, in The Invitation Logan Marshall-Green’s Will is invited by his estranged wife (Tammy Blanchard) for dinner with her new hubby David (Michael Huisman of Game of Thrones). David apparently wanted to extend the bread-breaking offer personally since he has something he wants to invite both Will and all his other guests into joining. And it isn’t a game of Scrabble…

Intense, strange, and not what you expect, this is one of the more inventive thrillers of 2016.

Midsommar

Available on: Amazon Prime

It’s hard to categorize Midsommar, Ari Aster’s follow-up to his absolutely terrifying horror debut, Hereditary. Part straight up horror, part The Wicker Man, and part anthropological study, Midsommar seems to occupy many genres all at once. Aster himself called it a “break up” movie. But whatever genre Midsommar is, it is a brilliant, and at times deeply disturbing film.

Florence Pugh stars as Dani, a young woman trying to heal in the wake of an enormous tragedy. Dani follows her boyfriend, Christian, and his annoying friends to an important midsummer festival deep in the heart of Sweden. Christian and company are there partly to get high and have fun and also partly to study the unique, isolated culture for their respective theses. To say that they get more than they bargained for is an understatement. But Dani may just end up getting exactly what she needs.

Night of the Living Dead

Available on: Amazon Prime, HBO Max

George A. Romero’s 1968 zombie classic The Night of the Living Dead messed up the minds of late ’60s moviegoers as much as it messed with every horror movie that followed. Shot on gritty black and white stock, the film captures the desperate urgency of a documentary shot at the end of the world. It is a tale of survival, an allegory for the Vietnam War and racism and suspenseful as hell freezing over.

The Walking Dead vs. Real-Life Survivalists: How to Prep for The Zombie Apocalypse

By Ron Hogan

Movies

Night of the Living Dead: The Many Sequels, Remakes, and Spinoffs

By Alex Carter

Night of the Living Dead set a new standard for gore, even though you could tell some of the bones the zombies were munching came from a local butcher shop. But what grabs at you are the unexpected shocks. Long before The Walking Dead, Romero caught the terror that could erupt from any character, at any time.

They’re coming to get you. There’s one of them now!

Nosferatu

Available on: Amazon Prime

Nothing beats a classic, and that’s exactly what Nosferatu is. As the unofficial 1922 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this German Expressionist masterpiece was almost lost to the ages when the filmmakers lost a copyright lawsuit with Stoker’s widow (who had a point). As a result, most copies were destroyed…but a precious few survived

This definitive horror movie from F.W. Murnau might be a silent picture, but it’s a haunting one where vampirism is used as a metaphor for plague and the Black Death sweeping across Europe. When Count Orlock comes to Berlin, he brings rivers of rats with him and the most repellent visage ever presented by a cinematic bloodsucker.

13 Essential Dracula Performances in Movies and TV

By Tony Sokol

Culture

The Bleeding Heart of Dracula

By David Crow

The sexy vampires would come later, starting with 1931’s more polished vision of Count Dracula as legendarily played by Bela Lugosi, but Max Schreck is buried under gobs of makeup in Nosferatu making him resemble an emaciated cadaver. Murnau plays with shadow and light to create an intoxicating environment of fever dream repressions. But he also creates the most haunting cinematic image of a vampire yet put on screen.

Pet Sematary (2019)

Available on: Amazon, Hulu

After the classic Stephen King novel of the same name and Mary Lambert’s 1989 movie, what could there possibly be left to say about Pet Sematary? Quite a lot actually! Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer breathe new life into this old tale…not unlike a certain “sematary” itself.

Movies

Pet Sematary Ending Explained

By John Saavedra

Movies

On the Set with Pet Sematary’s Producer

By Nick Morgulis

Jason Clarke stars as Louis Creed, an ER doctor from Boston who moves his family to rural Ludlow, Maine to live a quieter life. Shortly into their stay, Louis and his wife Rachel (Amy Semeitz) experience an unthinkable tragedy. That’s ok though as neighbor Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) knows a very peculiar place that can help.

Phantasm

Available on: Amazon Prime

Director and writer Don Coscarelli has said that this 1979 cult classic was inspired by a recurring dream — and we believe him, since Phantasm has the surreal, not-quite-there feel of an inescapable nightmare from start to finish.

With its bizarre plot about a funeral parlor acting as a front to send undead slave labor to another dimension, the iconic image of the Tall Man, killer dwarves and those deadly silver spheres, Phantasm was and is like no other movie of its era.

Poltergeist

Available on: Netflix

Before there was Insidious, The Conjuring, or a myriad of other “suburban family vs. haunted house” movies, there was Poltergeist. Taking ghost stories out of the Gothic setting of ancient castles or decrepit mansions and hotels, Poltergeist moved the spirits into the middle class American heartland of the 1980s. With a smart screenplay by no less than Steven Spielberg (and, according to some, his ghost direction), Poltergeist finds the Freeling family privy to a disquieting fact about their new home: It’s built on top of a cemetery!

You probably know the story, and if you don’t you can guess it after decades of copycats that followed, but this special effects-laden spectacle still holds up, especially as a thriller that can be enjoyed by the whole family. Fair warning though, if your kids have a tree outside their window or a clown doll under their bed, we don’t take responsibility for the years of therapy bills this may inflict!

Ready or Not

Available on: HBO Max

The surprise horror joy of 2019, Ready or Not was a wicked breath of fresh air from the creative team Radio Silence. With a star-making lead turn by Samara Weaving, the movie is essentially a reworking of The Most Dangerous Game where a bride is being hunted by her groom’s entire wedding party on the night of their nuptials.

It’s a nutty premise that has a delicious (and broad) satirical subtext about the indulgences and eccentricities of the rich, as the would-be extended family of Grace (Weaving) is only pursuing her because they’re convinced a grandfather made a deal with the Devil for their wealth–and to keep it they must step on those beneath them every generation. Well step, shoot, stab, and ritualistically sacrifice in this cruelest game of hide and seek ever. Come for the gonzo high-concept and stay for the supremely satisfying ending.

Sweetheart

Available on: Netflix

Don’t let the name fool you, Sweetheart is very much a horror movie. What kind of horror movie, you ask? Well, after a boat sinks during a storm, young Jennifer Remming (Kiersey Clemons) is the only survivor. She washes ashore a small island and gets to work burying her friends, creating shelter, and foraging for food. You know: deserted island stuff.

Movies

Dog Soldiers: The Wild History of the Most Action Packed Werewolf Movie Ever Made

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

By Gavin Jasper

Soon, however, Jenn will come to find that the island is not as deserted as she previously thought. There’s something out there – something big, dangerous, and hungry. Sweetheart is like Castaway meets Predator and it’s another indie horror hit for Blumhouse.

The Tenant

Available on: Amazon Prime

Roman Polanski, in addition to being a creep and outright sex criminal, has a grand fascination with apartments, directing an unofficial “Apartment Trilogy” with Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Tenant. And it’s not hard to see why. There is something a little strange about dozens if not hundreds of relative strangers all calling the same place “home.”

1976’s The Tenant is the culmination of Polanski’s obsession with communal living and in some ways is the creepiest. Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a paranoid young file clerk who is on the verge of succumbing to the constant dread he feels. Things are exacerbated when Trelkovsky moves into a Parisian apartment and discovers the previous occupant killed herself. What follows is a tense and trippy exploration of fear itself.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Available on: Shudder

You’ve probably seen this one already, but this founding father of the slasher genre is a bit of a fairy tale when glimpsed at the right light. Some dumb kids wander into the wilderness, far away from the safety of civilization, on a trip to their grandparents’ home.

Movies

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: How Low-budget Filmmaking Created a Classic

By Ryan Lambie

Movies

The Real Texas Chainsaw Massacre: How Ed Gein Inspired Classic Horror Movies

By Tony Sokol

But instead of reaching their destination, they wind up on the dinner table for the “Other,” who in this case is a redneck family of cannibals with a crossdressing serial killer who’s weapon of choice has an electric motor that makes a sweet hum as its blades tear into your flesh. When viewed like that, it might be worth seeing all over again, eh?

Under the Shadow

Available on: Netflix

This recent 2016 effort could not possibly be more timely as it sympathizes, and terrorizes, an Iranian single mother and child in 1980s Tehran. Like a draconian travel ban, Shideh (Narges Rashidi) and her son Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) are malevolently targeted by a force of supreme evil.

This occurs after Dorsa’s father, a doctor, is called away to serve the Iranian army in post-revolution and war-torn Iran. In his absence evil seeps in… as does a quality horror movie with heightened emotional weight.

Underworld

Available on: Netflix

No one is going to mistake Underworld for high art. That obvious fact makes the lofty pretensions of these movies all the more endearing. With a cast of high-minded British theatrical actors, many trained in the Royal Shakespeare Company, at least the early movies in this Gothic horror/action mash-up series were overflowing with histrionic self-importance and grandiosity.

Take the first and best in the series. In the margins you have Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen portraying the patriarchs of warring factions of vampires and werewolves, and a love story caught between their violence that’s shamelessly modeled on Romeo and Juliet. It’s ridiculous, especially with Scott Speedman playing one party. But when the other is the oft-underrated Kate Beckinsale it doesn’t matter.

The movie’s bombast becomes its first virtue, and Len Wiseman’s penchant for glossy slick visuals, which would look at home in the sexiest Eurotrash graphic novel at the bookstore, is its other. Combined they make this a guilty good time. Though we recommend not venturing past the second or third movie.

Available on: HBO Max

Jordan Peele’s debut feature Get Out was a near instant horror classic so anticipation was high for his follow-up. Thanks to an excellent script, Peele’s deep appreciation of pop culture, and some stellar performances, Us more than lives up to the hype.

Movies

Us: How Jeremiah 11:11 Fits in Jordan Peele Movie

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

Us: Jordan Peele’s References and Influences

By David Crow

Us tells the story of the Wilson family from Santa Cruz. After a seemingly normal trip to a summer home and the beach, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), Gabe (Winston Duke) and their two kids are confronted by their own doppelgangers, are weird, barely verbal, and wearing red. That’s just the beginning of the horror at play for the Wilsons and the world. Fittingly, Us feels like a feature length Twilight Zone concept done right.

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Why Did Republicans Hate Obama So Much

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-did-republicans-hate-obama-so-much/

Why Did Republicans Hate Obama So Much

Barack Obama Has Polled As The Worst Us President Ever Even Beating George W Bush Courtesy Fox New

Barack Obama has polled as the worst US President ever, even beating George W. Bush. Courtesy Fox New

US President Barack Obama isn’t rating well with his fellow Americans.

WE LOVE him but it seems his own countrymen can’t stand the sight of him.

Barack Obama, who has 43.9 million Twitter fans, has also landed the title of the most unpopular US President since World War II. This means he even rates lower than his predecessor George W. Bush.

While it’s no secret his popularity has been waning, a new poll has revealed just how disliked he has become since sweeping to power in 2009.

A Quinnipiac University survey has shown that even Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney would have been a better choice for voters.

According to the poll, 45 per cent of people say the country would have been better off if Mr Romney had been elected in 2012, and a staggering 38 per cent see him as a better choice.

Leaders are generally rated lower once in power — take Prime Minister Tony Abbott, for example. His popularity has plummeted to the depths that saw Julia Gillard outed in favour of Kevin Rudd’s return.

But Obama’s popularity would come as a shock to Australians who have mostly regarded the president as being in line with our way of thinking.

And he’s certainly popular on Twitter. In December 2012, President Barack Obama scored the most retweeted tweet of the year with an image of him and first lady Michelle embracing along with the words “four more years”.

Obamacare

Why Do Republicans Want To Repeal Obamacare So Much Because It Would Be A Big Tax Cut For The Rich

There are going to be so many tax cuts for the rich, you’re going to get tired of tax cuts for the rich. You’re going to say, “Mr. President, please don’t cut taxes for the rich so much, this is getting terrible.”

arrow-right

And it will start when Republicans repeal Obamacare.

This is the Rosetta Stone for understanding why conservatives have acted like subsidized health care was the end of the republic itself. It wasn’t just that it had the word “Obama” in its name, which, in our polarized age, was enough to ensure that 45 percent of the country would despise it. No, it was that Obamacare was one of the biggest redistributive policies of the last 50 years. The Republican Party, after all, exists for what seems like the sole purpose of reversing redistribution.

A quick recap: Obamacare is a kind of three-legged stool. First, it tells insurance companies that they can’t discriminate against sick people anymore; second, it tells people that they have to buy insurance or pay a penalty, so that everyone doesn’t just wait until they’re sick to get covered; and third, it helps people who can’t afford the plans they have to buy be able to. Which is to say that you need to come up with a whole lot of money to make this work — money that Obamacare gets by taxing the rich. Indeed, at its most basic level, it raises taxes on the top 1 percent to pay for health insurance for the bottom 40 percent.

Getting tired of tax cuts for the rich yet?

Theres One Reason Why Republicans Keep Telling Obama To Shut Up Its Exactly What You Think

Republicans have smeared and violated the first black president since he first ran for the office, demanding that he watch his mouth and “show his papers.”

Looking back now, I was likely beginning my journey to leaving the Republican Party on September 9, 2009, when Barack Obama was addressing a Joint Session of Congress and Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, shouted “you lie” in the middle of the president’s address.

The president looked in the direction of the shout, calmly said, “it’s not true” and continued. The House rebuked Wilson a week later, but notably that vote came on party lines, and the tone had been set.

The next year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” The year after that, Donald Trump joined the so-called Birthers “just asking” whether the first black president was even really an American at all.

Republicans have kept attacking Obama ever since, even after he left office—smearing him, violating him, demanding that he “show his papers.”

McConnell, Trump’s lapdog, told Trump’s daughter in law, Lara Trump, that Obama was “a little bit classless,” and instructed him to “keep his mouth shut.” He didn’t say “boy, stay in your place” but he didn’t have to. The people who belong to Trump and McConnell’s Republican Party know damn well what he meant there, and made no real effort to mask.

READ THIS LIST

His Eulogy For John Lewis Was Typically Soaring The Reaction On The Right Was Furious

Last week, a former president gave a speech in which he described the United States as a country dedicated to high ideals and striving to “form a more perfect union,” and he called on Americans to support reforms that would help to ensure more equal representation for all. In response, members of the opposing party said that this former president was promoting “communist terrorist propaganda,” and labeled him “cynical,” “divisive and partisan,” a “national disgrace,” and “one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures in the history of American politics.”

I’m talking, of course, about Barack Obama’s eulogy for civil rights icon John Lewis — and the unhinged reaction of right-wing journalists and media personalities to it. The context is what made that reaction so astonishing. We’re three-and-a-half years into an administration defined by constantly dividing the country between those who support the current president and everyone else, who are often denigrated as haters and losers and “enemies of the people.” More proximally, last week was one when Donald Trump suggested postponing the 2020 presidential election and promised suburban voters that he would protect them from being “bothered” by poor people moving into their neighborhoods and lowering their property values. That was the context for Republicans taking offense at Obama for daring to suggest that “we can do better.”

We’re Less Far Apart Politically Than We Think Why Can’t We All Get Along

Partisans on both sides of the aisle significantly overestimate the extent of extremism in the opposing party. The more partisan the thinker, the more distorted the other side appears. And when we see the opposition as extremists, we fear them. Our tribal thinking prepares us for battle.

What’s the solution? More information? More political engagement? More education?

Surely more information leads to better judgment. But social scientists at the international initiative More in Common find that having more information from the news media is associated with a less accurate understanding of political opponents. Part of the problem appears to be the political biases of media sources themselves. Of all the various news media examined, only the traditional TV networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, are associated with a better understanding of political views.

This discrepancy may be a result of the lack of political diversity among professors and administrators on campus. As political scientist Sam Abrams found, the average left to right ratio of professors nationwide is 6 to 1 and the ratio of student-facing administrators is 12 to 1. Democrats who have few or no Republican friends see the other side as more extreme than do those with more politically diverse friends. And the more educated Democrats are, the less likely they are to have friends who don’t share their political beliefs.

So what can you do?

A version of this article appeared on the Newsmax platform.

Obama Is Antithetical To Trump So Long As He Exists Trump Is Threatened

Central to Trump’s presidency is the effort to erase Obama’s legacy—his policies, his social agenda, and, more intriguingly, his very persona. This observation is neither new nor original. After all, Trump’s run on the Republican party began with his advocacy of birtherism, an attempt to quite literally delegitimize Obama. .

Obama has remained top of mind for Trump ever since. The evidence is by now well documented: The flap over inauguration crowd size; the withdrawal from the Iran deal; the rollback of Obama’s environmental policies; the broadband attack on Obama’s environmental regulation and nondiscrimination policies; the ongoing assault on Obamacare; his complaints of “presidential harassment”; his recent disparagement of Obama during the G-7 meeting , and on and on.

Many observers have taken notice. Back in 2017, Charles Blow of The New York Times wrote, “Trump is obsessed with Obama. Obama haunts Trump’s dreams. One of Trump’s primary motivators is the absolute erasure of Obama – were it possible – not only from the political landscape but also from the history books.”

“Two Years Into Trump’s Presidency, Obama Remains a Top Target for Criticism,” Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman have likewise noted recently in the Times “It took all of one minute and nine seconds for President Trump to go after his predecessor on Friday — just one minute and nine seconds to re-engage in a debate that has consumed much of his own time in office over who was the better president.”

Video: Its Impossible To Imagine Trump Without The Force Of Whiteness

Roediger relates the experience, around 1807, of a British investor who made the mistake of asking a white maid in New England whether her “master” was home. The maid admonished the investor, not merely for implying that she had a “master” and thus was a “sarvant” but for his basic ignorance of American hierarchy. “None but negers are sarvants,” the maid is reported to have said. In law and economics and then in custom, a racist distinction not limited to the household emerged between the “help” and the “servants” . The former were virtuous and just, worthy of citizenship, progeny of Jefferson and, later, Jackson. The latter were servile and parasitic, dim-witted and lazy, the children of African savagery. But the dignity accorded to white labor was situational, dependent on the scorn heaped upon black labor—much as the honor accorded a “virtuous lady” was dependent on the derision directed at a “loose woman.” And like chivalrous gentlemen who claim to honor the lady while raping the “whore,” planters and their apologists could claim to honor white labor while driving the enslaved.

This is by design. Speaking in 1848, Senator John C. Calhoun saw slavery as the explicit foundation for a democratic union among whites, working and not:

With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.

Why Is The Affordable Care Act So Despised By So Many Conservatives

IT HAS been called “the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed”, “as destructive to personal and individual liberties as the Fugitive Slave Act” and a killer of women, children and old people. According to Republican lawmakers, the sources of each of these quotes, the Affordable Care Act , or Obamacare, is a terrible thing. Since it was passed by a Democratic Congress in 2009, it has been the bête noire of the Republicans. The party has pushed more than 60 unsuccessful Congressional votes to defeat it, while the Supreme Court has been forced to debate it four times in the act’s short history. Obamacare was also at the heart of the two-week government shutdown in 2013. Why does the ACA attract such opprobrium from the right?

Race Alone Doesn’t Explain Hatred Of Obama But It’s Part Of The Mix

NPR

President Obama speaks at a news briefing in July about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. Carolyn Kaster/APhide caption

toggle caption

President Obama speaks at a news briefing in July about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.

It’s a fact of American life that a good share of the electorate is disappointed, disapproving and even disdainful of President Obama. What’s less certain are the reasons why.

For some Democrats, the explanation is simple: race. In recent weeks, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Mississippi Rep. and former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist have all said racism is the driving force behind Republican resistance to the president.

Republicans, unsurprisingly, say their disdain for Obama is based not on the color of his skin, but on the content of his policies.

“If any white Democrat had pushed through a billion-dollar stimulus plan and a takeover of the health care industry, he would have been equally detested by conservatives and Republicans,” says Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster and consultant.

There’s no question we’re living in a time of divisive politics, when roughly half the country is likely to hate the president, no matter whom he or she might be.

But race has been a factor in American politics since the very beginning. It’s certainly part of the mix in terms of responses to Obama.

Race Is Not The Whole Story

But Race Is Definitely A Factor

All That Obama Represents

Facebook

Obama Really Did Activate Voters Their Hopes But Also Their Fears

There are reams of evidence supporting this explanation, and I run through much of it in my piece “White Threat in a Browning America.” Obama’s presidency was inextricable from the massive demographic change that made it possible, and that continues to reshape American life and politics. But it wasn’t just demographic change that Obama represented. Obama, though a Christian himself, led an increasingly secular coalition, and was othered as a secret Muslim in the minds of many conservatives. Similarly, perceptions of economic change were filtered through broader views about Obama and the country: the political scientist Michael Tesler found that the most racially resentful Americans were the most economically pessimistic before the 2016 election and the most economically optimistic after it.

Obama, notably, spoke about race less than past presidents. But Obama himself was a symbol of a changing America, of white America’s loss of power, of new groups were gaining power. That perception wasn’t wrong: In his 2012 reelection campaign, Obama won merely 39 percent of the white vote — a smaller share than Michael Dukakis had commanded in 1988. That is to say, a few decades ago, the multiracial Obama coalition couldn’t drive American politics; by 2012, it could.

On its face, this is laughable. But Limbaugh’s audience wasn’t laughing. They were listening.

So yes, all of this led to Trump.

Have Republicans Ever Hated A President More Than Barack Obama

It’s getting harder to deny.

The widespread belief on the right that Barack Obama is a Muslim is one of the stranger features of this period in history. There are some of them who know that Obama says he’s a Christian but are sure that’s all an act designed to fool people, while he secretly prays to Allah. But there are probably a greater number who haven’t given it all that much thought; they just heard somewhere that he’s a Muslim, and it made perfect sense to them-after all, he’s kinda foreign, if you know what I mean. Rather remarkably, that belief has grown over time; as the latest poll from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows, fully 30 percent of Republicans, and 34 percent of conservative Republicans, now believe Obama is Muslim. These numbers are about double what they were four years ago.

You can bet there aren’t too many who think there’s nothing wrong with it if he were. For many of them, it’s just a shorthand for Obama being alien and threatening. So it leads me to ask: Can we say, finally, that no Democratic president has ever been hated by Republicans quite as much as Barack Obama?

This antipathy has multiple sources interacting together, so it’s overly simplistic to say that it’s just because of Obama’s race, or it’s just because of heightened partisanship. But it’s getting harder and harder to claim that there’s ever been a Democrat Republicans hated more.

The Seeds Of Trump’s Victory Were Sown The Moment Obama Won

Nine months into the Donald Trump administration, the United States seems eons removed from the country that just nine years ago elected its first black president.

Yet the racial divide that Trump demonstrated with his narrow Electoral College win was always there.

President Barack Obama read to a certain portion of white America as an unending attack on white Christian identity, centrality and cultural relevance. In their minds, he was seeking to end their right to bear arms and the right of conservatives to speak freely.

For this group of Americans, Trump has been the corrective. As Ta-Nehisi Coates points out in his brilliant Atlantic essay, “The First White President,” for Trump’s supporters, his election was itself the point. Putting a human wrecking ball against political correctness, feminism, multiculturalism and even decency was the ballgame.

Obama’s election masked this fierce racial schism for only a few short months. That ended the moment he declared, in July of his first year in the Oval Office, that a white Cambridge police officer acted “stupidly” for arresting a black college professor — and long-time Obama friend and mentor — outside his own home.

The racial divide that Trump demonstrated with his narrow Electoral College win was always there.

Yet Obama won re-election by a convincing 5 million votes. Even more than in 2008, his victory demonstrated the power of a non-white constituency to do the once-impossible: deliver the White House, twice.

How The Right Wing Convinces Itself That Liberals Are Evil

Since the 1950s, the conservative movement has justified bad behavior—including supporting Donald Trump—by persuading itself that the left is worse.

If you spend any time consuming right-wing media in America, you quickly learn the following: Liberals are responsible for racism, slavery, and the Ku Klux Klan. They admire Mussolini and Hitler, and modern liberalism is little different from fascism or, even worse, communism. The mainstream media and academia cannot be trusted because of the pervasive, totalitarian nature of liberal culture.

This did not begin with Donald Trump. The modern Republican Party may be particularly apt to push conspiracy theories to rationalize its complicity with a staggeringly corrupt administration, but this is an extension of, not a break from, a much longer history. Since its very beginning, in the 1950s, members of the modern conservative movement have justified bad behavior by convincing themselves that the other side is worse. One of the binding agents holding the conservative coalition together over the course of the past half century has been an opposition to liberalism, socialism, and global communism built on the suspicion, sometimes made explicit, that there’s no real difference among them.

The title of that LP? Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine. The American left is used to waiting for liberals to finally get ruthless. Through the eyes of the right, they always have been.

Support Nonprofit Journalism

The Real Reason Trump Is So Dead Set On Crushing Obamacare

Chris Cillizza

Over the past 24 hours, President Donald Trump has taken two actions aimed at mortally wounding the Affordable Care Act.

The first tasks his administration with increasing competition among health care insurers, a move very likely to drive younger people out of the insurance marketplace entirely and driving up costs across the board. The second, announced late Thursday night, .

The key to understanding Trump’s motivations here are entirely contained in the ACA’s shorthand nickname: Obamacare. It’s named after the man – former President Barack Obama – who shepherded it into existence. And that’s exactly why Trump wants to get rid of it.

Trump’s entire political life – dating all the way back to his adoption of birtherism earlier this decade – is positioned against all things Obama. Why? Because for many Trump supporters in this country, Obama – and his beliefs about society and government – were the antithesis of what they believed.

The best way to distinguish yourself in Republican politics during Obama’s time in office was to position yourself against, literally, everything about Obama – up to and including his legitimacy to be president due to fact-free claims about where he was born.

At every rally, every speech and almost every day on Twitter during the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to get rid of Obamacare – and quickly.

How America Changed During Barack Obamas Presidency

Michael Dimock

Barack Obama campaigned for the U.S. presidency on a platform of change. As he prepares to leave office, the country he led for eight years is undeniably different. Profound social, demographic and technological changes have swept across the United States during Obama’s tenure, as have important shifts in government policy and public opinion.

Apple released its first iPhone during Obama’s 2007 campaign, and he announced his vice presidential pick – Joe Biden – on a two-year-old platform called Twitter. Today, use of smartphones and social media has become the norm in U.S. society, not the exception.

The election of the nation’s first black president raised hopes that race relations in the U.S. would improve, especially among black voters. But by 2016, following a spate of high-profile deaths of black Americans during encounters with police and protests by the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups, many Americans – especially blacks – described race relations as generally bad.

Percentage point difference between all adults saying race relations are “generally good” and those saying “generally bad”

Generally good

Obama presidency

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

But by some measures, the country faces serious economic challenges: A steady hollowing of the middle class, for example, continued during Obama’s presidency, and income inequality reached its highest point since 1928.

Related: How America Changed During Donald Trump’s Presidency

He’s Removed The Veneer That Hid America’s Racism

somehow left behind its racisracist tweets widely criticized

It doesn’t make any difference what color the president is. Malcolm X could have been elected president and racism would have continued just the same.

Kehinde Andrews, historian and author

“the heartbeat of racism” Kehinde AndrewsJoe Scarborough Max Boot.one poll

Racist policies work better when they don’t seem to be racist… once the veneer comes off, a lot of people in the middle will shy away. Trump has taken away the veneer.

Kevin Kruse, historian

it’s just racist.

The Thing Donald Trump Hates Most About Obama

Donald Trump spoke to GQ last month as he sat at his desk in Trump Tower, and many of his characteristically idiosyncratic reflections on the improbable months he has spent as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination appeared in the December 2015 issue. But inevitably, a single article cannot possibly convey all that Donald Trump is, and so some segments of the conversation had to remain unheard. Until now.

You said an interesting thing in one of your first interviews, in 1981: “Man is the most vicious of all animals and life is a series of battles ending in victory and defeat.” Is that still what you think?Sure. I mean, the lions hunt for food. Oftentimes humans hunt for sport. It’s much different. But you look at the chain, and you look at what’s going on in the chain, and yeah, mankind is pretty tough.

I can see that. At the same time I don’t know how the electorate’s going to feel: to be characterized as the most vicious of all animals.Oh, I think they’ll be fine with it. I think they know it’s true. What—you want me to take it back? “Oh, I’m sorry I said that…”

And people who think that that’s not true—they’re just fooling themselves?I think people think it is true.

But I guess one way to look at the world is it’s a jungle and a fight for survival, and another way to look at the world is we’re all in it together and we should love each other**.**

An important part of what you’re saying all the time is “I’m smart.” How smart are you?I’m very smart.

Trump Has Banished The Ghost Of Ronald Reagan

for sayingone memorable phrase

We’re now in a time in American history and in world history where we cannot imply afford to be moderate. We can’t afford to just be tinkering around the edges.

Rutger Bregman, historian and author

economic expansion“haunted by the Reagan era.” at times more like a Republicanproposedreducedncluded conservative ideasGippernever cutvowed to raise taxes conservative voters wantedand notunexpected backlashPublic supportan essay “Rooseveltian vision of activist government.

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As someone who was weaned on stories of leftist intellectuals and journalists traipsing off to communist countries to pay obeisance, I can only shake my head as a parade of right-wingers are making their way to Hungary to sing the praises of authoritarian Viktor Orban. Tucker Carlson of Fox News is the highest-profile rightist to make the trek, but the path was already well-trod.

Former National Review editor and Margaret Thatcher speechwriter John O’Sullivan has moved to Budapest to head the Danube Institute, a think tank funded by Orban’s government. He likes his nationalism straight up.

A few years ago, at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., Orban was an honored guest, which was a bit head-snapping for those inattentive to the drift toward authoritarianism on the right. Speakers at the conference have featured mainstream figures such as John Bolton, Chris DeMuth, Peter Thiel, Oren Cass and Rich Lowry. In addition to Orban, other questionable invitees included Marion Marechal and Steve Bannon pal Matteo Salvini.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast. Her most recent book is Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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Why Do So Many People Hate Obamacare So Much

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Julie Rovner

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Opposition to Obamacare has been strong from the beginning. Demonstrators made their dissatisfaction clear in front of the Supreme Court in 2015.

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, has roiled America since the day it was signed into law in 2010. From the start, the public was almost evenly divided between those who supported it and those who opposed it.

They still are. The November monthly tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 50 percent of those polled had a favorable view of the health law, while 46 percent viewed it unfavorably.

Partisan politics drives the split. Eighty percent of Democrats were supportive in November, while 81 percent of Republicans were strongly negative.

That helps explain why Republicans are working to repeal a key element of the health law in the tax bill Congress is negotiating. The requirement that most Americans have health insurance or pay a tax penalty — the so-called individual mandate — is by far the most unpopular provision of the law, particularly among Republicans.

Still, while partisanship is a major reason why some people hate the health law, it’s far from the only one. Here are four more:

Ideology

Adding to that was the unhappiness with the ACA’s individual mandate. Although the idea was originally suggested by Republicans in the late 1980s, the GOP had mostly backed away from it over the years .

Lack of knowledge

Confusing the health law with the rest of the health system

Are Voters Responsible For Their Own Choices

Where Obama and Shapiro differ sharply in their explanation is in the attribution of blame. Obama blames Trump — and others in the Republican Party and conservative media — for demagogically preying on Americans’ fears and anxieties. Shapiro blames Obama for adopting a lecturing tone that alienated a critical mass of Americans.

Some of this strikes me as, well, strange. John McCain just had Obama speak at his funeral. The idea that the 2008 campaign was uniquely scurrilous is provably wrong. The rest of it is the usual Rorschach test of American politics; I think Obama treated issues of identity with unusual care and caution and, particularly early in his presidency, was unusually willing to believe the best of his political opponents, but I doubt I’ll change any minds on that in this column. Indeed, the deep division over how identity politics was wielded in the Obama era, and who was really acting outside the norms of American politics, is exactly what you’d expect if you believe this broader story of demographic, political, and cultural upheaval.

More interesting, I think, is the way both Obama and Shapiro implicitly absolve voters of responsibility for the choices they made. Obama’s basic argument is that too much change, too fast, made right-leaning voters susceptible to a demagogue’s charms; Shapiro’s basic argument is that too much of Obama’s liberal provocations, for too long, made right-leaning voters long for a strongman of their own.

It’s Not Just Deranged It’s Projection

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

There’s no doubt that when historians assess the Obama presidency, they will pay a great deal of attention to the deep political divisions within the country, and how those divisions shaped political events. There are racial divisions, class divisions, and, most of all, political divisions. Within Congress, for instance, the parties have been moving apart for the last 40 years, as fewer and fewer moderates get elected and the median of both parties moves toward the edge. But the reality is that while Democrats have moved left, Republicans have been moving right much more sharply — a fact not only established by political science but evident to anyone remotely familiar with Capitol Hill.

Yet Republicans are sure that the fault for all this — long-term trends and recent developments alike — can be laid at the feet of Barack Obama, who is terribly, appallingly, despicably divisive.

Here’s the truth: You might like Barack Obama or you might not; you might think he has been a good president or a bad one. But the idea that blame for the political divisions we confront lies solely or even primarily at his door is positively deranged.

They followed through on this plan. As Mitch McConnell explained proudly in 2010, “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny Barack Obama a second term.”

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When The Patriots Played at Fenway

People casually dismiss the Pre-Tom Brady - Bill Belichick eras of Patriots history as irrelevant. The memories of the early 1990’s when the Patriots went 1-15 and two seasons later went 2-14, and rumors swirled of this he team jettisoning Foxborough for St. Louis until Robert Kraft purchase of the team and subsequent hiring of Bill Parcells did more than just turn the page on a disastrous time in team history that still defines the franchise pre-21s century.

Entering the American Football League in 1960 the BOSTON Patriots struggled to find a home to house their squad made up of NFL cast offs. Settling on Boston University’s Nickerson Field. The newly minted team did bolster promising young coaches and players. Lou Saban wouldn’t find much success in Boston, but his second stop in Buffalo delivered the Bills franchise two AFL Championships. Future Patriots head coach Mike Holovak began his tenure managing the offensive backfield. Robert “Red” Miller coached the offensive line. Later he’d manage the Denver Broncos to their first Super Bowl appearance in 1977; defensive backfield coach Joe Collier would find himself on his staff molding the famous “Orange Crush” defense which came to define the Broncos pre-John Elway.

Quarterbacking for the infant team was Walpole, Massachusetts native Butch Songin. His rifle arm matched the makeup of the AFL high flying offensive nature. 4th in passing yards per game (176.9). 2nd in passer rating (70.9). 4th in total passing yards (2,476). 4th in passing touchdowns (22).

Butch was from the humblest of beginnings. At 36 this was Songin’s most prominent feature in professional football. Though he did quarterback the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to the 1953 Grey Cup in the Canadian Football League, the National Football League overlooked Songin. From 1947 to 1949, Songin was the starting QB for the Boston College Eagles. He completed 192 of 385 passes for 2,534 yards, 30 touchdowns, and 24 interceptions. In 1950 he was selected 247th overall by the Cleveland Browns. He would never play a game for the team or for the NFL.

Luckily for Songin, football wasn’t the only sport he was good at. Songin was an All-American for Boston College playing hockey. Winning the 1948-49 National Championship as captain of the squad. While the National Hockey League also gave Songin the cold shoulder, his nephew Tom played right-wing for the Boston Bruins. Songin seemed over the idea of playing football when the Patriots came knocking at his door. He was coaching high school football - and would still moonlight in that role while quarterbacking the Patriots for the 1960 season.

In his debut for the Patriots Songin threw for 12 of 24 for 145 yards, two interceptions, and his lone touchdown was caught by Jim Colclough. Hailing from Medford, Colclough lead the Patriots in the three of the first four seasons in receiving, compiling an impressive 2,984 yards, 31 touchdowns and 173 receptions before Gino Cappelletti rose above him in the pecking order. Colclough went on to compile 283 receptions for 5,001 yards and 39 touchdowns for the Boston Patriots over the 1960–1968 seasons.

Boston’s first ever win came at the expense of the New York Titans coached by the legendary Hall of Fame quarterback Sammy Baugh. In the dilapidated Polo Grounds the Patriots stormed back from a 24-7 deficit, the twosome of Songin and punter Tom Greene cut the Titans lead to just 3. Greene hit Oscar Lofton; later Songin hit Colclough.

With 12 ticks left on the clock New York still lead. Fortunately for their opponent the Victory Formation yet to have been incorporated. Titans center Mike Hudock snap was low and punter Rick Sapienza fumbled the ball. A scrum ensued, both teams literally kicking a chance at recovering the pigskin away until defensive back Chuck Shonta snatched it from the ground and ran into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.

Baugh and Titans owner Harry Wismer were irate afterwards and filed a complain to the league office claiming that there is video evidence of the Patriots’ illegally kicking the football. Commissioner Joe Foss would acknowledge that the officials made a mistake in no whistling the play dead, but decided against overturning the result of the game. The Patriots first ever victory in franchise history came off a technicality.

Ultimately, it he Patriots finished 5-9, last in their division. Though their twelfth game in franchise history against the eventual AFL Champion Houston Oilers would be the first sellout in the history of the new league. New England proved to be indeed an era that can house a professional football team.

Songin suffered a neck injury and missed the final two games of the season. The Patriots looked eager to replace their aging, withered quarterback with somebody that would excite the fans and raise their ceiling. With the 35th pick in the 1961 AFL Draft the Patriots took Georgia College QB Fran Tarkenten. Unfortunately, Tarkenton chose to play for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. The Patriots were left still without a quarterback.

In the middle of the 1960 campaign the Patriots acquired journeyman quarterback Babe Parilli from the Oakland Raiders. His first start was on opening day of the ‘61 season against the Titans. He threw for just 92 yards and the Patriots lost 21-20. By week 5 general manager Edward McKeever believed the team to be underachieving. The Patriots were sitting at 2-3, despite housing AFL All-Pros Tom Addison, Fred Bruney, Gino Cappelletti, and Larry Garron. Saban was relieved of his duties and Holovak was installed as his replacement. From then on, things turned around. Under Holovak’s direction the Patriots would finish 7-1-1, good for a 9-4-1 mark on the season, one game behind the eventual champion Oilers. They tied the Oilers in the 6th week of the season and had the Patriots eked that one out instead, they’d head to the AFL Championship Game. They were a George Blanda kick away from going from Worst to First.

Parilli, a Rochester, Pennsylvania native, held a clipboard for the majority of his career. Drafted out of Kentucky, Parilli played under the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant. Receiving accolades such as consensus All-American in 1950 and 1951 and was fourth in Heisman Trophy voting in both years.

In the six-years Parilli spent on the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, later the Cleveland Browns, and his lone season on the AFL’s Oakland Raiders he started 18 games, appearing in 67, threw for 39 touchdowns and 79 interceptions. Despite all of that the Patriots entrusted him with the keys and rewarded their faith in him instantly. Parilli lead the AFL in completion percentage in 1961 (52.5). 1961 was the season Cappelletti become a star scoring 8 touchdowns making the All-Star team.

In their first season under Songin’s stewardship the Patriots ranked dead last in the AFL in points scored (286). Less than a full season with Parilli at the helm the Patriots soared to number 2 (413). Second in passing touchdowns (29) and last in interceptions (21).

In 1962 the Patriots duplicated their 9-4-1 record from the previous season, this time two games behind division leader Houston. They had the lead up until November 18th during a contest against the Oilers when Parilli suffered a broken collar bone. They would go on to lose despite a solid performance from backup Tom Yewcic, 21-17 and lose first place in their division. If Parilli hadn’t gone down with an injury or if the Patriots didn’t tie the Buffalo Bills in their November 3rd matchup they’d represent the Eastern division in the title game. Another promising season derailed by happenstance.

Still, the Patriots were on the rise. Ron Burton and Colclough each had 40 receptions. Burton reached 1,000 yards from scrimmage, and Colclough’s 10 receiving touchdowns was 2nd best in the AFL, behind only Dallas Texans’ All-Pro Chris Burford (12).

After 1962 the Patriots would move to the Red Sox’ home in Fenway Park.

Behind Parilli the Patriots become one of the most exciting franchises in the AFL and looked posed to continue their momentum into the 1963 season. The Patriots finished 7-6-1. The defense anchored by All-Pro Larry Eisenhauer, All-Stars Ron Hall, Bob Dee, Nick Buoniconti, Tom Addison, and team leader in interceptions Bob Suci allowed the 2nd fewest points in the AFL for ‘63 (257) only two more than the eventual champion San Diego Chargers. The offense wasn’t as stellar. Parilli completed just 45 percent of his passes, threw 24 interceptions and the air game was only better than the Dick Wood’s New York Jets and Mickey Slaughter’s Denver Broncos.

Scheduled to play Buffalo on the 24th of November the AFL postponed their slate of games after John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas the day before. While the NFL decided to play their Sunday games, the AFL didn’t believe their players and coaches would be in the right state of mind to perform.

"We were quite proud of that,'' said Boston Patriots wideout/placekicker Gino Cappelletti. "Our league made the decision not to play and thought it was the right thing to do.

"This was the right thing to do because the whole country was watching the historic events unfolding on television. It was a no-brainer for us, but the stodgy old NFL went on and played.''

Under the dark cloud of President Kennedy’s assassination the Boston rallied around the Patriots as they clinched the division crown over the Bills in a tie-breaker game to decide who’ll challenge the Chargers to the AFL title.

Parilli struggled throughout 1963, but on the day of December 28th he redeemed himself accumulating 300 passing yards and 2 touchdowns en route to a 26-8 demolishing of the favored Bills. Larry Gannon caught each of those touchdown passes. The Bills QB duo of Jack Kemp and Daryle Lamonica combined for 19 of 45, 301 yards, a touchdown and four interceptions.

But the Patriots in their first and only AFL Championship Game would run into a brick wall known as the greatest team in the league’s history, the Chargers, losing spectacularly 51-10.

With the Oilers core aging, it seemed the Patriots were the ideal successors to the AFL’s Eastern division. Optimism was still prevalent entering 1964. The Patriots fared far better posting a 10-3-1 record, losing the final game of the season to the Bills and subsequently the division title and a spot in the AFL Championship Game against the Chargers. Had they won the championship game would’ve been played at Fenway Park as the team with the best record held home-field advantage, there was no such thing as a neutral playing field in the AFL or NFL in the pre-Super Bowl era.

Parilli had himself a career season earning his first, and only, 1st team All-Pro honors, leading the league in touchdowns (31) and passing yards (3,465). Gino Cappelletti lead the team with 49 receptions for 865 yards. Art Graham wasn’t far behind him with 45 receptions, and AFL All-Star Larry Gannon chipped in 40. Cappelletti lead the league in total points scored (155), aided by his reliable kicking foot converting on 25 attempts. Cappelletti won AFL MVP honors as the Patriots as a team reached their collective peak.

The AFL also was at its peak of its own powers. Many pondered whether the ‘63 champion Chargers could beat the NFL champion Chicago Bears in a contest. Nobody entertained the idea of George Blanda’s Oilers or Len Dawson’s Texans of accomplishing such a feat. Perhaps any team from the AFL in ‘64 you match up against the NFL champion Cleveland Browns bests them. The Bills, Chargers, Patriots combined to allow less points than the Browns did 279.6 to Cleveland’s 293. Even though the browns had Paul Brown and Jim Brown, the Patriots and the AFL’s best presented a clash of styles that could have benefited the AFL in a hypothetical matchup.

The AFL exploited an error in how the NFL regarded talent. Parilli was a typical NFL castoff given a second chance by the upstart AFL. The Patriots sent fullback Alan Miller, halfback Dick Christy and defensive tackle Hal Smith west for Parilli and fullback Billy Lott to the Raiders. Lott led the team in rushing in 1961, gaining 461 yards on an even 100 carries while catching 32 passes for 333 more yards and scoring a total of 11 touchdowns, but he ran the ball only 43 times over his two remaining seasons.

The trade for the Raiders turned into a rare misstep in an era where they were considered the gold standard in excellence.

Parilli’s 1964 mark of 31 touchdowns stood as a Patriots franchise record until Tom Brady broke it into pieces in 2007. While Parilli is enshrined in the collegiate and Patriots Hall of Fames, respectfully, he hasn’t sniffed Canton.

From 1961 to 1966 the Patriots suffered just one losing season, winning on average 8.1 games a year, the ‘65 campaign really skews how good they were at this time. Excluding the 4-8-2 season, the Patriots averaged 8.8 wins. If a couple of scenarios had gone differently the Patriots would be viewed as not only the class of the AFL, but in an area where the Celtics, Red Sox, and Bruins have such mystic and allure to go along with their laundry list of accomplishments and titles the pre-Brady/Belichick Patriots would’ve never been given the label as the black sheep of the foursome.

Up until 1980 the Patriots finished with a winning record more often than not. Housed two MVP’s (Cappelletti and Nance). Quality quarterbacks in Parilli and later Steve Grogan. Famous, well regarded head coaches like Holovak and Chuck Fairbanks lead them to victories and playoff berths. They even snuck into a Super Bowl in 1985... of course they received a throat slashing at the hands of the Bears, but hey, at least they got there. Not many franchises can say that.

What was the most glorious thing reading about these teams is the fact they played at Fenway Park. When the lease on Nickerson field was up the Patriots moved nearly 2 miles east to Fenway. "We felt like we were legitimate because it was a major league venue," Cappelletti recalls the first time the team entered the sacred confines of Fenway.

#free coinage of silver #AFL #NFL #Boston Patriots #Babe Parilli #Gino Cappelletti #Fenway park

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