Knightfail

I finally caught up with Vikings and have been watching it in real time (Ewww! Commercials?) along with everyone else. More on that below. But today I wanted to ramble a little bit about the History Channel's new show, Knightfall. I'm a day late, but maybe some of you still haven't seen it. After reading this, you may not want to.

Knightfall is about the Knights Templar; a monastic order founded in the 12th century to protect and assist Christian pilgrims on the trail to the Holy Land after the Crusades had been initiated and the various Christian states had emerged in the Levant. Their official name is The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Over time, they became known as the Knights of the Temple or simply Templars, in the same way that the similar Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem became known as the Hospitallers. Nicknames are far from a modern invention. The Templars were a warrior order and one of the more effective fighting forces on the Christian side during the two centuries that it took the Muslims to expel the Europeans from the region. That being said, they were still a monastic order, which meant that they lived like monks often did, spending a lot of time at prayer and taking vows of poverty (they are the "Poor Fellows"), chastity, and so forth. It's the poverty angle that usually comes up in any historical discussion about them.

Since they were on the leading edge against the infidels, they became a favored charity inside the church (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was their most prominent advocate) and received not only money but businesses and land (i.e. wealth.) With the rapid growth of their order, the actual warriors soon became a relatively small fraction of the whole organization and they designed an early method of banking, where pilgrims could leave their money at a Templar fortress in Europe, travel to the Holy Land with a letter of credit, and receive the same sum from a fortress in Jerusalem or Acre or wherever they ended up. The purpose of the organization soon became money management, rather than bringing the word (and sword) of God to the infidel. This ramped up when the Crusader states were destroyed and the Templars returned to Europe without much else to do. In the end, they became a primary lender to various monarchs, most notably Philip IV of France, whose own activities following on the heels of his father, Philip III, had plunged the state into debt and who went to the Templars to get a bailout. All good so far?

OK. So here's where we get to the show, somewhere around 1306. Instead of, say, doing a show like Vikings, where the founding of the order is displayed and we see the daily struggles, battles, and politics of the Levant in the Crusader era; or simply a show just about the extremely complex politics surrounding the post-Acre period in France and the order's eventual destruction, the driving plot element for our main characters at the center of those political machinations is... the Holy Grail.

Yes. That Holy Grail. With the magic and the healing and the voices booming down from the heavens and yadda, yadda, yadda. So, Vikings took a few figures from legend and many from the historical record, most prominently Ragnar Lodbrok, and has successfully woven it into a fairly accurate portrayal of history (There's that word.). Knightfall, OTOH, is taking a well-documented segment of that same historical record and weaving a legend into it that doesn't become prominent for another couple hundred years and then has more to do with silly English knnnniggets than a monastic order. The Grail was first mentioned in a poem in Flanders in the 12th century, but it was regarded as a work of fiction and it didn't have any of the trappings of being the cup of Christ or anything like that. All of that came later when someone thought it'd be a cool spin. In short, the Templars had absolutely zero to do with it and riding that horse means veering away from the quite interesting story of the Templars themselves and into Dan Brown Da Vinci Code stuff which just detracts from the whole picture. In the first episode, we already have the secret compartment in the sword of Godfrey with the gemstone that was somehow carved years ago to indicate that the Grail had made it to France. This is like the goofy side of Indiana Jones, where objects of extreme veneration and surrounded by ancient cities filled with devout believers are placed in rooms that are so dangerous that no one would ever go in there to worship the deity in question. Similarly, no one would "hide" the location of the grail by carving a gemstone to reveal the first clue in the puzzle unless they wanted said gemstone to be a plot device in a TV show. Try finding evidence of that in your nearest medieval epic.

That's pulp adventure stuff, which is absolutely fine if that's what you want. I love Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a great film. But there are also no illusions about what it is: an adventure film, as opposed to a TV series that is ostensibly about the Knights Templar, but seems intent on sidelining much of their interesting and complex history (there's that word again) for magical fireworks. They're not doing the Templars. They're doing King Arthur and calling it the Knights Templar. Seriously, we already have our Perceval (Bobby Schofield; young lad, innocent, true believer, not jaded) and our Lancelot. They call him "Landry" (Tom Cullen) but that was probably a writing room goof: "This guy, the not-quite-leader, best warrior, we'll call him Lannnn... dry. Yeah." How do I know he's Lancelot? Because the devoted monk is breaking his vows of chastity in the most spectacular way possible by screwing the king's wife!

Really? This is how we explain the eventual decision by Philip to exterminate the Templars, not because he was a right bastard and figured that rubbing out his lenders was better than actually paying his debts (they didn't call him the "Iron King" for nothing; of course, some people also called him "the Fair"...) but because he's going to be mad that his wife is screwing his best friend? As soon as Merlin walks in with a prophecy, we should be good to go, yeah? The problem with the story of the Templars is the same one that afflicted the samurai in the later Shogunate era: with no enemy to fight (or at least, the lack of will to do so), the warrior class reverts to other activities. The Templars became bankers that prayed a lot. The samurai became clerks and bureaucrats who carried swords. Both groups tried to maintain the very martial and focused outlook that their original role demanded, but it became impossible. The Hospitallers became little more than pirates in their waning days, for that matter. I think that's enough story material to drive the series forward without invoking the Arthurian legend in ways large or small.

Plus, there's way too much of this "knight in shining armor" stuff. No one walks around in plate armor. It's heavy and uncomfortable and you certainly don't keep it on your horse if you're hurrying into the countryside at the last minute. There's no way your horse would have been armored like that in the middle of Paris, so why should you grab it from the stable in full plate regalia? But then when the moment comes to display just why the Templars were so feared, they dropped the ball. The Knights were prominent in the Levant because wearing that much metal made them the medieval equivalent of a tank. They would charge, shatter lines, and then the infantry would clean up. This was showed to decent effect during the siege of Acre scene at the beginning. But when they rush out of Paris to save the Jews, they come down the road on the flank of the mercenaries. That's a prime target. Take the charge and the mercs won't even have time to turn their spears properly. That's an easy win. Instead, they ride around to the front of the enemy's formation (i.e. its strongest point) and dismount. Za? You're knights. The word goes back to the equestrian order of the Romans. Your advantage is that you're on horseback. But you decide to abandon that advantage and slug it out on the ground. OK.

None of the performances stuck out in any marked way. There's no interesting character like Ragnar or quirky character like Floki or even frustrated, simmering character like Rollo. Lance- uh, Landry is simmering in frustration, but it's so drowned in angst that it's hard to be sympathetic. Plus, he's decided to relieve some stress by shacking up with Joan of Navarre. The real Joan was reportedly a highly intelligent and shrewd woman, so it's a natural fit if the showrunners wanted a strong female character. But the real Joan had also grown up with Philip and they were very fond of each other, in contrast to many other medieval marriages. But I could live with all of that. I could live with the "love interest" routine and the need for sex in a "mature" series and so forth. It's all good. Maybe Joan of Navarre was getting horizontal with the master of the Templars. But all of those little failings pale in significance to the fact that the series is going to be driven forward by the chase for the magic chalice. They chose... poorly. I'll probably watch the second episode just to see what happens, but it's not likely I'll go past that.

*                 *                *

On Vikings, I thought they did really well with a lot of the time compression and the eventual introduction of the Great Heathen Army. It remained interesting and Ragnar's constant, driving need for glory and legacy was a very human motivation that made waves for everyone around him. I thought that Floki's realization in Algeciras that the Muslims were ignoring the invaders because of their devotion to their god and the practice of their religion was a highlight of the whole series; a very moving moment. The first couple episodes of season 5 have been a little rocky. I think everyone- cast, writer, and fans -knew that it was going to be difficult to replace the energy not just of Ragnar, but Travis Fimmel and the void is definitely there. Neither Lagertha, Bjorn, Harald, or Ivar can be the central focus that Ragnar/Fimmel was. None of the other actors have that charisma and writer, Michael Hirst, has taken advantage of that void to present all of those people striving to fill the gap that Ragnar left them. It's much easier to do method when a change in production basically demands it. The one exception is Floki. His travels to and around Iceland have been interesting and have carried a lot of subtle excitement and emotion. I don't think Vikings will ever carry the weight and quality that other legendary shows have. I'm watching not because I'm fascinated by the story or the people playing it, but because I already know the story and I'm interested to see it brought to life on the screen.

Anyway, next I'll return to Westworld. Yes, I've finally gotten through the majority of it and I might as well put down some perspective before the new season arrives in the new year. There's no guarantee I'll actually watch the new season, but I'll get to that next time.

It's not on my back

 

Film

 12 Monkeys began its first season on SyFy last Friday. Like many people, my first reaction when I heard the announcement of a TV series was: “Why the hell would they do that? The story’s over and there's not much more to say.” But in the worlds of time travel and Hollywood, there's always something else to say, even if no one cares to hear it. My next thoughts were: “How are they going to duplicate Terry Gilliam’s offbeat style which was one of the real selling points of the film? And how are they going to even come close to the performances of Bruce Willis (one of the best of his career) and Brad Pitt (the one that convinced me he could act and earned him his first serious critical appraisal), which were two more real points in the film’s favor?” The short answer is: They’re not. The long answer is: SyFy, like much of Hollywood, is hoping to attract viewers with a franchise (even though a 20-year-old standalone film only somewhat registers in that classification) and then keep them with solid writing and acting. Did they do so? In my case, not really.

Film

 The first problem is the visuals. Films obviously have much larger budgets than TV series (at least to start they do) and so can create and shape their worlds in vastly superior ways. Gilliam’s film, like many of his other efforts (Brazil, Time Bandits) was gritty, dirty, shadowy. It made you uncertain about what was real and what wasn’t. It left you searching the screen for clues and answers and still fascinated even if you didn't find them. It made the mundane menacing, as it would be to someone traveling through time on what seemed to be a hopeless mission. But even with all that uncertainty, it felt like real people lived there. The technology used for that time travel was the most obvious aspect of that feel. The steampunk brass and protrusions were in full evidence and it was clear that humanity and this technological wizardry were confined to dark and dirty spaces because we could never see the time machine or really ascertain how it functioned, but we knew that it was unstable. It was presented that way with all of the wobbling bits and jarring performance as James Cole plunged into the chronal stream.

The TV show has none of that. In the couple shots we saw of the machine and Cole, it’s spotless. It could have just rolled off of the nearest Star Trek set as a stand-in for one of the Enterprise’s dilithium containment tubes. Furthermore, there’s nothing around the machine to indicate that it’s anything other than a film set. It’s in a largely featureless room, without people and without indication that anyone or anything has ever been there other than Aaron Standford, who plays Cole, and a camera crew. The same problem exists for the rest of the episode. Cassandra Railly’s (Amanda Schull) hotel room is just a spot to shoot a scene, despite her having waited there for who knows how many days and then waited while Cole recovered from his wound. The lengthy interrogation of Cole takes place in what looks like a converted garage. Cole’s first disappearance takes place in the cleanest alley of any American city yet known. The only place that has some degree of visual character is the house where they meet Leland Goines, which simply apes a similar scene in the film as Cole desperately tries to find the progenitor of the world-destroying virus. There’s nothing eye-catching in the episode that leads one to think: “Hey. I wonder if that were a clue to this story or the background of it! I’d like to see that again.”

And TV...

 Likewise, both Standford and Schull, while not bad at their jobs, certainly don’t sell their roles. Willis as Cole was determined and borderline maniacal, but he was also completely confused because he was in an environment that he remembered but had left behind 30+ years ago, past who knows how many drugs and the strain of the time shift. That’s an interesting character and Willis played it to the hilt. Standford acts like he just walked on to the set from downtown Toronto… because he did. He’s completely in control and cagey at all the proper moments. There’s nothing to indicate that he’s any different from any of the NSA agents who hold him prisoner, despite being stupid enough to let his personal aggression threaten the security of the mission he’s supposedly so committed to. Part of the film’s appeal is its uncertainty. We’re pretty sure about Willis’ Cole’s mental state but we’re as lost as he is in trying to solve the big mystery (the virus) or the small one (if he’s actually sane.) There is no doubt in Standford’s Cole. He’s completely linear and, thus, completely uninteresting. Similarly, Schull doesn’t even approach the doubting desperation of Madeline Stowe in the film, who keeps spouting rationalizations even as the impossible occurs right in front of her. Schull goes along with the story because it’s the story, not because her character believes it. And, seriously: Cassandra Railly? Really? Nothing reeks so much of SyFy’s  Sharknado  cheapness than dropping in little sops to Greek myth as some kind of nod to the audience that a) knows the myth or b) remembers the reference to Cassandra from the film or c) somehow doesn’t think that this is their lowbrow attempt to let the audience know that they’re in on the story.

Because, in essence, the first episode played out like we were in on the story, right? It’s a franchise. The only reason we’re watching is because we’ve seen the film. The show doesn’t have to spend any time questioning the reality of what Cole is seeing. We know he’s sane because we’ve already seen this. In that case, why are we watching it again? Oh, I see. It’s to introduce all of the random viewers who haven’t seen a film from 20 years ago but are still somehow SyFy Channel watchers. They must be a crowd of… what? 20? Maybe 25? In that case, boy, did they get screwed because they got the 45-minute National Geographic version of a genuinely interesting story.  They don’t get any of the bad in-episode references like Cassandra, but they do get a canned pilot that doesn’t even set up interesting questions about time travel (the central premise of the show, albeit not the film) other than: “Why is this happening?” I can ask the same question about the weather and get a response that might be more interesting.

Time travel, yo.

 But there’s a key in those last two sentences. The central premise of the show is time travel, which means that what we’re likely looking at is a modern, slightly-darker version of Quantum Leap except without any of the historical trappings that made that show successful. We won’t get to see Scott Bakula try to deal with the rage, frustration, and danger of living through the Watts riots. Instead, we’ll see Standford bulldogging his way toward the final answer: the solution to the virus. But that doesn’t make for good TV. Either we’ll be chasing time travel red herrings every week (“This week: How do James and Cassandra deal with the fact that Goines dropped his key to the bioweapons vault in a building that later burned down?!!”)  or we’ll be stalling as they attempt to keep from solving the virus issue in order to not end the series. It’s like The Fugitive. What happens when he finally finds the one-armed man? Well, it’s either a great movie or the end of your series, so you’d better start stalling and make some wicked subplots to carry you.

And, granted, this could all be a case of pilot episode necessities. You have to lay your groundwork before your story can really roll forward. Fine. But, in the name of that bloody weather, HOOK ME! Give me something, anything, to say: “That was cool and I’m coming back to see what this person does next.” The pristine example of this in modern TV is the first episode of Breaking Bad, where Walter White is driving a runaway RV down a desert road in his tighty whities and a gasmask with two corpses rolling around in the back. Holy shit! I’ve seen it twice and I want to watch that again more than I want to see the next episode of 12 Monkeys. It doesn’t even have to be that explosive.  Again, the selling point to the film was the mystery. You sat and watched because you weren’t quite sure what was going on but it was interesting. This first episode was laid out in a fashion in which you couldn’t miss what was going on, which made it largely uninteresting and certainly not compelling enough to turn on again.

All of that said, I may give the second episode one more shot because I could be wrong (Grantland thinks I’m wrong.) It wasn’t the unmitigated tire fire that was Constantine, but that’s like saying you’d rather watch 12 Monkeys instead of C-SPAN during budget deliberations. Yes, I’ve done that. There may be no greater combination of boredom, abject despair, and astonishment at the idiots appointed as our “representatives.” Now that I think of it, I’ve got this great idea that involves time travel, the US Congress, and nerve gas… Meanwhile, 12 Monkeys is currently just another example of why TV is bad for your eyes.

Coke and a smile, people

So, one of the resident conservative iconoclasts put this on the board today in response to Coke's ad during the Super Bowl:

You know what? I actually think the adverse reaction (which seems to have been pretty minimal) is more than anything else a case of people being annoyed at being told what to think.
Posted on February 3, 2014 
 
There are a lot of social signals that one has to conform to certain ideals. Diversity is good. Gay people deserve equal treatment. Bullying is bad. The rich don't pay their fair share. Poor people deserve a leg up. Prejudice is bad. Burning carbon is bad.

I think people at some point just resent being "herded" by broad, mass media social signals into viewpoints that are selected to be good by some collective agreement by some opinion makers. I think it is actually okay for some people to think, yes, America is the product of immigration, and is an example of diverse people from diverse cultures with diverse languages forming a new society--and continually adding diversity through immigration. But a cherished paean to America should preferably be sung in America's language--which necessarily is English even if plenty of Americans speak a different language as their first language.

In this case, I think I find the reaction to the reaction (calling people neanderthals etc.) more troubling than the reaction.

(Oh, and sometimes bullying is good. Some people deserve to have their ass kicked. And carbon energy has been a great boon to people in general, and has really improved the quality of the lives of billions of people. The doctrinaire attitude on some topics is sometimes worth questioning.)

There's so much ammunition there that it almost brought me to the point of immobility... but nah. I did sit there for a moment trying to decide whether it was more disingenuous or fatuous (definitely something with an "ous") but, in the end, it's like playing Tee ball.

The central theme is the usual pseudo-Libertarian horseshit that essentially states that people who aren't tolerant of intolerance are hypocrites. Coke, instead of presenting the song "America the Beautiful" in its proper language of English (how offended must the English be that their language has been abducted by idiots?), has done all independent thinkers (read: racists, super-patriots... oh, and idiots) a disservice by encouraging the social mores that state that diversity and respect for cultures and languages that are not explicitly whitebread 'Murrican are, in fact, a good thing.

First off, it certainly is trying to "tell you what to think." It's an advertisement. It's telling you to think about buying Coke. That's how they do. But you're saying the rest of society is telling you how to think about non-whites and gays and the environments and bullies? Who's telling you? The people that object to all of that anti-social behavior? Yeah. Life is rough that way. Most decent people will tell you that it shouldn't matter what color someone is or what language they speak (aka "Diversity is good.") And they'll tell you that gay people should be treated equally since they're, you know... people; that treating people poorly ("Bullying") is wrong; that poor people could use your help; that prejudice is bad... What intelligent person doesn't think those things? Certainly is a helluva lot easier to get along with your neighbors if you don't hold preconceptions about them before you even get to know them. Fer reals. It's, like, been proved and stuff.

Secondly, what could honestly be so offensive about singing a song in another language? Would you shout down a chorus in France if they dared to sing "America the Beautiful"? Are you saying that people who can't speak English aren't allowed to sing that song about their home (because that's quite a few residents of this nation)? I mean, that's what these people are saying:

No wonder I am a Pepsi man. #boycottcoke
— CUZ_55 (@Cuz_55) February 3, 2014

You know what's NOT American? America the Beautiful in a million languages #boycottcoke
— John (@JRaw1285) February 3, 2014

I love diversity and what not, but the Super Bowl is an AMERICAN tradition. #boycottcoke
— Macy (@Macy_Lewis) February 3, 2014

Last time I checked this is America and we sing patriotic songs the way they're written #boycottcoke
— josh (@joshmunti) February 3, 2014

You can't sing an American song in another language! #boycottcoke
— spencinator (@taylorspencer3) February 3, 2014

The most unamerican coke commercial ever. National anthem in non English #boycottcoke
— K C (@TheBoyCrispy) February 3, 2014

(H/T Midtown blogger for the list.) I bet you're really discouraged that you didn't hop on Twitter last night and number yourself among Mensa candidates like that. Such a lost opportunity. I especially like the last guy, since Coke has not only told him what to think but drinking too much of that crap has clearly corrupted his memory of his own national anthem.

What a number of people likely failed to remember is that Coke was bouncing off of their own 40-year legacy of having produced this commercial:

which explicitly and implicitly called for unity and goodwill among races and nations (albeit from the foremost front for the CIA in destabilizing and disrupting many of them...) Given that and the current rather divided status of these United States, what message would you have preferred to hear? "America is beautiful as long as it's sung by and filled with white, hetero, sometime bullies who don't want to be reminded that they're racist, homophobic assholes?" I mean, I'm sure there's a song out there like that but probably not from any composer this side of the Aryan Nation.

Now, of course, I'm being facetious (another "ous") because there's no way you'd (publicly) admit to thinking that because it would be stupid and make you look and sound every inch the Neanderthal that those fools did on Twitter last night. If one is so weak-willed as to object to being "told how to think" by a commercial or is objecting to the broad-based message of inclusion despite difference that said commercial is presenting then, yeah, I think you deserve every epithet being tossed your way, especially if you're willing to do so in a public forum like Twitter.

And, again, suggesting that people be tolerant of your obnoxious attitudes for fear of hypocrisy is perhaps the most asinine idea put forth in that post. Contradiction is not intelligent refutation (thank you, Michael Palin.) What you see as heavy-handed social engineering, the rest of us see as simple common sense. There's all kinds of people. Getting along with them should be the first order of the day, every day.

It's not capitulation. It's collusion.

So the latest rumor from the Beltway is that the default avoidance deal will be all cuts and no revenue increases (i.e. taxes on the rich.) There was the usual anguished gnashing of teeth and dismay among the Democrats and D-sympathizers on the board which, at a base level of sympathy, I can understand. After all, you'd like to think that a still-relatively popular president with a pathetically-loyal following and control of the top house of Congress would be able to cut a better deal than everything the opposition party wants and none of what his wants.

But do they want it?

We all know the answer to that because we are all thinking people, rather than believing people. The answer is: Don't be ridiculous. Of course they don't want it.

Almost every member of Congress and the vast majority of Obama's administration are either too wealthy or completely servile to those who are too wealthy to ever want a change in economic policy that imposes more of the public burden on them; regardless of what happens to the little people depending on the programs targeted for the deepest cuts (Social Security and Medicare.) That includes Obama. The election is less than a year-and-a-half away. He can't cut into the loose change of the people who fill his election coffers and whom will be happy to pave the driveway of the rest of his life with gold when he leaves office. He's already raised a record amount of cash. No sense turning off that spigot.

"But how can he do this?!", his erstwhile supporters shriek. It will cost him the election! Interestingly, most of them don't voice the more immediate concern: it's a complete violation of the line of horseshit that all of them fell for in 2008 (and every election prior...) and, for some reason, continue to cling to in the face of all activity to the contrary. It's hard to confront the truth sometimes, so we'll give them that. But will it cost him the election?

Traditionally, on the face of it, you don't want to savage major spending programs right before an election when the economy and employment situation is already weak. The current employment situation in the US would more properly be termed "dire", so it would seem even less intelligent to cut spending in the situation where most sitting presidents start showering programs with money in order to have something beneficial to the peasants to point to on the campaign trail. So, why?

Because, despite all the Obama and Dem supporters' insistence that he has the GOP by the short hairs in this standoff (which, in political terms is probably true) what they don't understand (or don't want to admit) is that the people he really has in his grip are them. You can come to that conclusion simply by listening for the howls of outrage to gradually be drowned out by the sonorous drone: "He had no other choice."

Imagine that these monks are your average Democrats or D-sympathizers; condemned to a life of self-abuse and mindless chanting while their leaders discard them like so much Dark Ages rabble. The image is perfect. They're the mirror image of GOP followers of people like Bachmann and Palin, neither of whom should be allowed near public office if common sense were the determinant of political reality in this country. Those Democrats believe that their leaders won't betray them again and again, despite repeated occurrences of exactly that. They're believers, not thinkers, and they're every bit as dangerous to the body public as the Bachmann hordes, if not worse, because they prevent any real change from occurring while encouraging everyone around them to accept palliatives as real medicine. And, when the Dems are betrayed, they immediately fall to the mantra: "He had no other choice." Despite being a sitting president and controlling half of Congress, he had no other choice. Clinton committed all kinds of perfidy against traditional Democratic values and programs, even while the Democrats controlled both houses, and the Democrat base was still informed that "he had no other choice." He had to go along to get along with people who really couldn't have stopped him, despite much sound and fury to the contrary. But Clinton, at least, was slick while selling his aluminum siding. Obama doesn't even try that hard.

"But the election-!", they scream. "Even loyal followers and, most importantly, independents won't put up with this." Oh, but they will. This is where the short hairs come back in, courtesy of two things: 1. The GOP field is pathetically bad in the eyes of the general public. Even if Obama hammers those least able to resist, the idea that anyone on the GOP side wouldn't do the same thing is preposterous. 2. The age-old Democratic boogeyman about how it could only be worse under the GOP, no matter how bad the current guy is. That's the essence of Democratic politics for the past two decades.

So, no, he won't end up losing the election by showing his true colors here (for only the 30th time of his presidency so far...) People will lap up the "nothing else he could do" mantra and hedge it with the idiocy of the current GOP field and that old boogeyman: "Think of how much WORSE it could be... as it continues to do nothing but get worse. But, y'know, slowly. So, that's better."

The simple fact is this: Obama has too many donors, friends, colleagues, and sycophants who are enjoying the Bush II tax rates, so there's no way he'd stoop to change them, even if he personally wanted to, which he doesn't, based on every action he's taken since he's been in office. If we had more thinkers and fewer believers, perhaps the reaction of the populace (and his supporters) would be different.

Democracy (and its republican bastardizations) with a somnolent electorate ensures oligarchy. Welcome to it.