Author: Bonnie Honig

Renovating the House (and Senate…)

Renovating the House (and Senate…)

Posted by | Oct 1, 2018 | |

One thing that sent Christine Blasey Ford to therapy in 2012 was a marital disagreement about a house renovation. Such renovations create the kind of dramatic conflict that can really test a marriage: this is the trite premise of all those house design shows on HGTV. But the story Blasey Ford told was anything but trite. Against the advice of an architect, and against the wishes of her husband, she was insisting that their renovation plans feature two front doors. Two front doors? The architect and the husband objected. So off to therapy she and her husband went. It was there...

Read More
Fortuna in Finland

Fortuna in Finland

Posted by | Jul 20, 2018 | |

Political theorists and other readers of the classics will recognize the advice, to use torture, do the “unthinkable,” and to “Be rougher and you’ll see a different relationship;” all of it said by Donald Trump in interviews stretching from the 1990’s to the 2016 campaign and then, most recently, in Europe at the NATO meeting. It strikingly echoes Machiavelli’s counsel in The Prince regarding how best to deal with Fortuna, Machiavelli’s term for the lucky break or random chance event that makes or breaks a man of action. Machiavelli personifies Fortuna, the prince’s frenemy, as a woman and he...

Read More
“Entirely Consensual”? Stormy Daniels’ #MeToo moment 

“Entirely Consensual”? Stormy Daniels’ #MeToo moment 

Posted by | Mar 27, 2018 | |

 “A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’” Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes Sunday night. It was 2011 and she was in a parking lot. Her baby daughter was in the car seat and she was on her way to the gym. The man then “leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’” The threat worked: Daniels was “rattled.” The scene is straight out of one of those movies where nothing good happens to...

Read More

(Un)Reality TV: Trump, Kelly, and the Revolving Door of Whiteness

Posted by | Oct 21, 2017 | |

With a reality TV president in office, it should be no surprise to watch, once again, as the revolving door between reality and TV swings once more, and we are left unclear which side of it we are on. And yet I am stunned at the usefulness, not for the first time, of the show VEEP, in helping us to understand Trump in Washington. In Season 6, episode 8 of VEEP, we meet the father of Selina’s devoted assistant, Gary. Selina, for those who do not know the show, is an empty, ambitious woman who will do or say anything to get what she wants and is indifferent to, and indeed totally unaware of the impact of her actions on those around her. In this particular episode, after 5 ½ seasons of degradation and dependence, Gary gets Selina to go to his hometown, meet his parents, and attend a party he wants to throw. Jessica Goldstein summarizes what happens next: Before the party, “Gary confides in Selina that he has this childhood story, a loving one he has tenderly held all his life…The party has gone in decidedly not Gary’s planned direction … [and then Selina, who is trying to impress one of the guests with her folksiness] gets up to give a toast … and she steals Gary’s story. It’s a wonder to behold. She does tell it...

Read More