{"id":61241,"date":"2018-10-26T01:46:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T01:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=61241"},"modified":"2018-10-26T01:47:53","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T01:47:53","slug":"what-poetry-has-to-say-about-the-mob-at-the-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=61241","title":{"rendered":"What poetry has to say about &#8220;the mob at the gate&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; Donald Trump and Joy Reid. meet CP Cavafy ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> has been repeating a mantra tying Dems to the word <strong>mob <\/strong>recently &#8212; here&#8217;s one example:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"fr\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cDemocrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs!\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@realDonaldTrump<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DonaldJTrumpJr\/status\/1053264195632926721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>Belay that!<\/strong> For Trump &#8220;the mob at the gates&#8221; might equally, scarily, be that &#8220;caravan&#8221; in Mexico, making its way up to a confrontation with US troops at the border, and no doubt paid for their troubles by<strong> George Soros<\/strong> &#8212;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Take your camera. Go into the middle. You&#8217;ll find MS-13. You&#8217;ll find Middle Easterners..<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hold it: that&#8217;s a powerful image.<\/p>\n<p>But <strong>Joy Reid<\/strong> saw the mob differently:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The mob are WOMEN.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Democrats, the caravan, women &#8212; take the <strong>mob at the gates<\/strong> as you will, there&#8217;s a considerable force, on the outside, massing and pressing to come in. And poetry has something to say about that (recurrent) situation. In the words of <strong>CP Cavafy<\/strong>&#8216;s celebrated poem,<strong> Waiting for the Barbarians<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?<\/p>\n<p>      The barbarians are due here today.<\/p>\n<p>Why isn\u2019t anything going on in the senate?<br \/>\nWhy are the senators sitting there without legislating?<\/p>\n<p>      Because the barbarians are coming today.<br \/>\n      What\u2019s the point of senators making laws now?<br \/>\n      Once the barbarians are here, they\u2019ll do the legislating.<\/p>\n<p>Why did our emperor get up so early,<br \/>\nand why is he sitting enthroned at the city\u2019s main gate,<br \/>\nin state, wearing the crown?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But I&#8217;ll invite you to read the answer to that question, and the rest of the poem, powerful as it is, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/51294\/waiting-for-the-barbarians\">on the Poetry Foundation site<\/a>..<\/p>\n<p>Cavafy has one possible outcome &#8212; but there may be as many as there are mobs, or people perceiving them.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, enjoy the poem, and vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; Donald Trump and Joy Reid. meet CP Cavafy ] . Donald Trump has been repeating a mantra tying Dems to the word mob recently &#8212; here&#8217;s one example: \u201cDemocrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs!\u201d @realDonaldTrump &mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 19, 2018 ** Belay that! For Trump &#8220;the mob [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[934,526,185,1314,311,722,778,741,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barbaric","category-charles-cameron","category-democratic-party","category-donald-trump","category-gangs","category-gender","category-photography","category-poetry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61241"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61251,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61241\/revisions\/61251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}