Best films of 2019

Metacritic produces an annual list of the top films of the previous year based on top-10 lists created by various film critics. This is an aggregation based on lists produced by 340 critics:

FILMS MENTIONED ON MOST CRITIC TOP 10 LISTS - 2019

Movie and Metascore		# 1st Place	# 2nd Place	# Other	Points
1	96 Parasite	77	33	137.5	434.5
2	83 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood	38	27	124.5	292.5
3	94 The Irishman	24	45	118	280
4	93 Marriage Story	14	27	117	213
5	90 Uncut Gems	20	18	87	183
6	95 Portrait of a Lady on Fire	12	10	79	135
7	91 Little Women	5	12	85	124
8	82 Knives Out	9	5	82	119
9	87 Pain and Glory	10	7	66.5	110.5
10	89 The Farewell	2	7	87.5	107.5
11	91 The Souvenir	3	9	55.5	82.5
12	81 Us	1	1	73.5	78.5
13	84 Booksmart	2	5	52	68
14	78 1917	5	5	42.5	67.5
15	72 Midsommar	3	2	52.5	65.5
16	83 The Lighthouse	3	2	50.5	63.5
17	83 The Last Black Man in San Francisco	4	2	46.5	62.5
18	82 Transit	4	7	28.5	54.5
19	80 Ad Astra	1	3	45	54
20	59 Joker	4	5	30.5	52.5
21	58 Jojo Rabbit	4	2	34	50
22	78 Avengers: Endgame	3	1	38.5	49.5
23	78 A Hidden Life	3	2	34	47
24	85 Atlantics	0	3	37	43
25	79 Hustlers	1	0	37.5	40.5
26	80 Waves	4	1	25	39
27	85 Ash Is Purest White	3	2	24	37
28	77 High Life	1	1	31.5	36.5
29	69 Her Smell	2	2	25.5	35.5
30	88 Apollo 11	0	2	28.5	32.5

Through February, I've now seen 15 of the 30 listed films. My rankings would be (roughly):

Tier I Outstanding: top award choices

Parasite
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

1917
Marriage Story
Little Women
Portrait of a Lady on Fire

October 2020 update: 2019 was a great year for movies, clearly. Indeed, the top 3 on the next tier could be moved up with these 6 on another day.

Tier 2 Very good: strong consideration for awards

Knives Out!
Uncut Gems
The Irishman
Transit
JoJo Rabbit

Atlantics

Uncut Gems was very well done, generally, but I didn't care for the 3 artsy shots used by the filmmakers to peer and travel inside a human colon, a gemstone, and an open wound. The film it most reminded me of this year was Her Smell, actually, as the two main characters of these films were seriously flawed and frustrating to observe.

Tier 3 Above average, but flawed in some way

The Souvenir
The Farewell

Hustlers
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Us
High Life
Ad Astra
Joker
Booksmart
Apollo 11
Her Smell

My rankings are not very precise. Virtually all of the films listed here have real strengths and are worth your time.

Tier 4 Skip it

Avengers: Endgame
N/A

If you are a big fan of these Marvel films, you probably already saw it. If you are not, then just skip it. I wish I had the nearly 3 hours back to watch something else and read. It moves slowly at times. There are too many characters. The fight scenes are cartoonish with lots of CGI. I'm tired of the impossible-to-kill villain. Spoiler alert: Now available with time travel. 

I'll update this list with highlighted additions after this post first appears.

Of the 15 films I've missed as of the original post, it's unlikely I'll see Midsommar anytime soon as I'm not a big fan of horror.

These are all of the unlisted films in alphabetical order. I'll move them up as I see them:

Ash is the Purest White
A Hidden Life
The Lighthouse
Midsommar
Pain and Glory
Waves

On any given day, I might feel slightly differently about film rankings within the different tiers. In any case, 2019 was another good year for film.


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ISA 2020: Mulling withdrawal

March 25:

On February 28, I sent the following note to a colleague that I follow on twitter.
--------------------------
Dear X:

I saw your coronavirus and ISA tweets. Are you attending? I'm supposed to stay 4 nights and give 2 papers but had delayed buying tickets even before the news about the 2 Japanese tourists. I saw that you referred to Hawaii as a vector and I think that’s true. Somewhere I read recently that Hawaii has about 800 flights per month to/from Asia.

News reports suggest Hawaii hasn't sent any samples from sick people to CDC for tests, so the Hotel/ISA statement about cases is somewhat misleading. Hawaii has quarantined dozens of people (56 as of last Friday). Doctors have apparently forwarded samples from some of those patients and requested CDC tests, but local authorities have said they don’t meet the criteria (because the people hadn’t traveled to Asia, basically). Because of tourism, Hawaii obviously has strong incentives to avoid an outbreak. Then again, they might have perverse incentives to slow-walk information that would imperil their economy. Trump is doing that with regards to the stock market. 

If this disease starts spreading from domestic cases (like the one in California), then Hawaii’s lack of testing makes no sense. Local authorities didn’t even know about the Japanese couple until they had returned home. The incubation period for the disease is estimated at 5 days, though they don’t really know.

Given that the contagion rate has been really high in some countries and the death rate is 2-3% (reportedly 20 times the rate for the flu), this is obviously a serious issue. The hospitalization death rate is around 15%, which would seem to indicate that as many as 20% of patients end up in the hospital. Even a prolonged hospital visit with a ventilator would be terrible.

I’m interested in your perspective as I mull pulling out of ISA.

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Research update

In the last year, I've had several publications appear online and/or in-print.

1. Rodger A. Payne (2020) Canada, the America First agenda, and the western security community, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, DOI: 10.1080/11926422.2020.1712219. 

If you want access, the journal publisher provided an eprint link I can share with 50 people. Send me a note.

2. Rodger A. Payne (2020) Stigmatization by Ridicule: From Dr. Strangelove to Donald Trump, in Non-Nuclear Peace; Beyond the Nuclear Ban Treaty, ed by Tom Sauer, Jorg Kustermans, and Barbara Segaert (Palgrave Macmillan), pp 87-113. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-26688-2_5.

I have a pdf if you are interested. This was tied to the conference I attended in Antwerp, Belgium, in May 2019.

3. Rodger A Payne (2019), Grappling with Dr. Strangelove’s “Wargasm” Fantasy, International Studies Review, , viz018, https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viz018 

This one is a bit older (online March 2019), but it remains forthcoming in print afaik. Any members of ISA can download this.

4. Rodger A. Payne (2019), “America First” and U.S.–Canadian Relations, in Canada–US Relations
Sovereignty or Shared Institutions? ed. by David Carment and Christopher Sands (Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 61-83. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-05036-8_4

This was related to my fall 2018 Fulbright in Canada, but I actually delivered the paper at a workshop at Johns Hopkins SAIS in June 2018.  It's already been downloaded over 200 times, so I presume it was used in some courses over the last year. That's one primary purpose of the Canada Among Nations annual volume. I think I have a pdf of this too.





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2020 Oscars

As per usual, my spouse and I have tried to watch as many Oscar contenders as we could prior to the big event. This task was made especially difficult by the fact that the show has moved forward over the years. The 2018 show was held during the first week of March and it has typically occurred in late February in recent years. Oh well.

I've read a bit about the favorites (and checked with the oddsmakers), but the lists below reflect my personal rankings -- and I'm only going to rate the films and performances I've seen. These are NOT my predictions. And yes, this is a completely subjective and poor way to think about art.

Later, I'll move up films and performances as I see them, but I'll highlight those additions in yellow.
For now, the films and performances that I have not seen are listed below those I have watched, separated by a blank line. Prior to the awards show, I saw 5 of the Best Picture nominees.

BEST PICTURE

"Parasite"
"Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"

"1917"
"Little Women"
"Marriage Story"

"The Irishman"
"Jojo Rabbit"
"Ford v Ferrari"
"Joker"


This is not the best Quinton Tarantino film, but it is very well crafted and I like the way it captured the era leading up to the Manson murders. I probably would have liked The Irishman more if it had been cut by 15 to 30 minutes. It was simply overlong. Little Women was excellent, and Marriage Story was very powerful. Joker really doesn't belong in this elite group. Knives Out! or Transit would have been better selections (based on the films I saw).

I know I need to see Parasite and 1917. They're on the list.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Joaquin Phoenix, "Joker"
Adam Driver, "Marriage Story"

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"

Antonio Banderas, "Pain and Glory"
Jonathan Pryce, "The Two Popes"

Though Joker was not one of the year's 10 best films, Joaquin Phoenix certainly gave a terrific performance. Adam Driver was also excellent.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Renée Zellweger, "Judy"
Saoirse Ronan, "Little Women"
Scarlett Johansson, "Marriage Story"
Charlize Theron, "Bombshell"

Cynthia Erivo, "Harriet"

Judy, Judy, Judy.

Update: Finally saw Theron's performance as Megyn Kelly and I must say that it is a remarkable imitation. I'd say they could be twins, but the internet says Theron has inches of height on Kelly.

DIRECTOR

Quentin Tarantino, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
Bong Joon-ho, "Parasite"

Sam Mendes, "1917"
 Martin Scorsese, "The Irishman"
Todd Phillips, "Joker"

I have a difficult time separating this award from Best Picture. Where is Greta Gerwig?

Update: It's early May 2020 and I've finally seen Parasite. I like it's story a good deal, but I think the world Tarantino created in his film is richer and more interesting. At least to me. So I am separating Best Picture and Best Director!

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Laura Dern, "Marriage Story"
Florence Pugh, "Little Women"
Scarlett Johansson, "Jojo Rabbit"
Margot Robbie, "Bombshell"

Kathy Bates, "Richard Jewell"

Dern benefited from a great role, but she also delivered a great performance. 

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Brad Pitt, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"
Tom Hanks, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"

Joe Pesci, "The Irishman"
Al Pacino, "The Irishman"

Anthony Hopkins, "The Two Popes"

I know Tarantino is a fan of Steve McQueen and I felt like Pitt was channeling him. Hanks did a really fine Mr. Rogers imitation.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

South Korea, "Parasite"
North Macedonia, "Honeyland"

Spain, "Pain and Glory"
France, "Les Misérables"
Poland, "Corpus Christi"

Sadly, [as of Oscar night] I have not seen any of these.

Update: Paradise is genuinely great and Honeyland is also very, very good. Also, where's Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

"Honeyland"

"American Factory"

"The Edge of Democracy"

"For Sama"

"The Cave"

Yes, I am behind. 

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Films of 2019

As I note every December, I watch a good number of movies every year, though most are viewed on my television -- on DVD, from DVR recordings, or streamed from Netflix or Amazon Prime. This year, my spouse and I attended two film festivals and so I managed to see half a dozen films in a theater-like setting -- even if that meant most were shown in a middle school auditorium in a vacation spot.

Because I have not yet seen that many newly released films in the theater, I cannot at this time write a credible post on the best movies of 2019. Most of the highly touted films are released in December, a very busy month. Eventually, of course, I will see them. I tend to discuss those films in a post about Metacritic's best movies of the year, or in my annual entry about the Oscars.

Again this year, I missed several of the summer hits as well. Indeed, many of the best films I saw this past year were movies that I originally missed in the theaters in prior years. I saw a number of late 2018 Oscar-bait films earlier this year.

To make this abbreviated 2019 list (also, to jog my memory), I scanned the top grossing movies of the year, as well as IMDB's most popular titles for 2019. I also consulted Metacritic, which my spouse and I use to point us towards good movies all year long.

In rough rank order of my preference, these were the top 2019 films I saw this year, as best as I can recall:

Little Women *
Saint Frances **
Knives Out! *
Transit
Gloria Bell
High Life
The Souvenir
Etruscan Smile **
Dolemite is My  Name
Paddleton
Hummingbird Project

* I saw these films in a theater.
** I saw these films at the Traverse City Film Festival

I saw Little Women in a small theater in Long Island over the Christmas break. It's a very well made movie, though I have not yet decided if I liked the time jumps as compared to the traditional linear telling of the story. The casting of Emma Watson as the oldest sister seemed problematic to me -- despite her age, she seemed too young to be a wife and mother. Saoirse Ronan is outstanding as Jo, so perhaps Watson was merely outclassed as an actor in this film. Filmmaker Greta Gerwig definitely knows what she is doing and I would not be surprised to see her nominated for an Oscar or two (for directing or writing the adapted screenplay).

When we saw Saint Frances at the Traverse City Film Festival, the director and writer/star were interviewed afterwards. One of them said that the film had found a commercial distributor, but the film may be ticketed for a 2020 release. Watch for it if you have not had a chance to catch it.

I suspect there are some other serious Oscar contenders on this list as most feature high quality acting. Indeed, that's a very good set of movies; I'd recommend essentially all of them, although the Hummingbird Project had some script deficiencies. I found The Souvenir kind of frustrating in an artsy sort of way, though I suppose it was unique and memorable.

Knives Out! (a mystery) or Transit (a thriller) may become a future fixture on my Global Politics Through Film syllabus as both have an interesting immigration theme. I liked both more than Us (horror), which is on the next list and arguably has a similar political message. All make pointed political commentary through unusual genre choices.

The remainder of my 2019 list consists of genre films -- comedies, action flicks, musicals, and science fiction. They are not ranked very carefully, though I think that the ones near the top are superior to the ones near the bottom. All offered some entertainment, but most near the very bottom are flawed in some fairly important ways:

Brittany Runs a Marathon
Yesterday ***
Blinded by the Light
Captain Marvel
Us
Always Be My Maybe
Booksmart
Late Night
Rocketman
Extra Ordinary **
Long Shot
See You Yesterday
Troop Zero **

** I saw these films at the Traverse City Film Festival
*** I saw this film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

I'm not typically a fan of comic book films and mostly avoid/ignore horror flicks and musicals. Captain Marvel is one of the better Marvel movies, partly because it seems more like a human story and it does not take itself too seriously. Us provides some interesting social commentary about immigration and Extra Ordinary is a humorous take on the horror genre. It's not Ghostbusters, but the main characters are interesting and worth getting to know for 90 minutes.

If you like the music of the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, or Elton John, you probably already saw Yesterday, Blinded by the Light, and/or Rocketman. I inserted them based primarily on my preferences towards the artist subjects.

Booksmart received much acclaim this year, but it didn't grab me. I think I'm aging out of the teen sex comedy even if this one had some new twists. I thought Brittany Runs a Marathon was a far superior film and I was more entertained by the rom-com Always Be My Maybe.

Documentary

Framing John Delorean **
Rolling Thunder Review: A Bob Dylan Story
Amazing Grace

** I saw this film at the Traverse City Film Festival

All of these are very good and fiddle with the documentary genre. Alex Baldwin plays the title character in various scenes of Framing John Delorean. While some of his lines are based on footage from secret FBI video, other moments are clearly imagined by the filmmakers. Perhaps it should be placed above in the list of narrative films.

If you like the music of Bob Dylan or Aretha Franklin, it would be hard to top these listed documentary choices. Both focus on the performers in a particular moment, decades ago.

Here's the annual list of 2019 movies that I intend to see in the future (hopefully in 2020):

1917, Ad Astra, Aeronauts, All is Well, American Factory, American Woman, Apollo 11, Arctic, Art of Self-Defense, Ash is Purest White, Avengers: Endgame, Bacurau, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Biggest Little Farm, Black Mother, Blaze, Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Breaker Upperers, Burning Cane, Chambermaid, Clemency, Day Shall Come, Diane, Echo in the Canyon, End of the Century, Egg, El Camino: Breaking Bad Movie, The Farewell, Fighting with my Family, Firecrackers, For Sama, Ford v Ferrari, Fyre, Girl,  Good Boys, Grass, Ground Beneath my Feet, Her Smell, High Flying Bird, Hotel Mumbai, Hustlers, I am Mother, In Fabric, In My Room, The Irishman, Judy, Knock Down the House, Last Black Man in San Francisco, Let the Sunshine In, Light from Light, Light of My Life, Little Woods, Luce, Maiden, Marriage Story, Mickey and the Bear, Midsommar, Mike Wallace is Here, Monos, Motherless Brooklyn, The Mustang, Native Son, Never Grow Old, Never Look Away,  Non-Fiction, Official Secrets, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, One Cut of the Dead, Pain & Glory, Parasite, Peanut Butter Falcon, Peterloo, Photograph, Plagiarists, Plus One, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Queen & Slim, Ray & Liz, Relaxer, The Report, Rosie, Ruben Brandt Collector, Screwball, Share, Shazam!, Slut in a Good Way, Someone Great, Sometimes Always Never, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Suburban Birds, Synonyms, Triple Frontier, Two Popes, Uncut Gems, Velvet Buzzsaw, A Vigilante, Western Stars, Wild Nights with Emily, Wild Rose, Woman at War.

Keep in mind that I didn't (yet) get around to seeing many 2018 movies from last year's wishlist:

22 July, American Animals, Anna and the Apocalypse, At Eternity's Gate, Beautiful Boy, Black '47, Blaze, Border, Boy Erased, Burning, Colette, Dark Money, Destroyer, Disobedience, Don't Worry He Won't Get Far on Foot, Double Lives, Double Lover, Early Man, Far from the Tree, Golden Exits, Goldstone, The Guernsey, The Guilty, Happy as Lazzaro, The Happy Prince, The Hate U Give, Hereditary, Hold the Dark, I Kill Giants, In the Fade, Lean on Pete, Love After Love, Mandy, Miseducation of Cameron Post, Operation Finale, Outside In, Prospect, Ready Player One, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, Solo: Star Wars Story, Sweet Country, The Tale, Unsane, Upgrade, Utoya - July 22, Vox Lux, Wildlife, Zama.

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Books of 2019

As I have annually since 2005, I am posting a nearly complete list of books I read in the preceding year.

Please allow me to repeat the ground rules: First, I generally do not list academic books that I reviewed unless the review was published. In my academic job, for instance, I often read a number of books competing for a $100,000 prize exhibiting the best "ideas for improving world order."

Of course, since I'm an academic, I read multiple chapters and large sections of many books pertinent to my research and teaching. However, I'm not going to list those here unless I read them cover-to-cover. Save for the books I use in class or read for review, I often skim over some portions even of outstanding books. It's a time/efficiency issue.

So, what did I read this year, mostly for pleasure? They are listed below. I posted short reviews of most books at Goodreads. A few of the recommended books include a link to Powell's books; the blog receives a 7.5% commission on sales that begin via my Powell's links

Non-fiction

Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons; An Enduring Debate by Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz

Clear & Present Safety by Michael Cohen and Micah Zenko

Power Ball by Rob Neyer

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Hell of Good Intentions by Stephen Walt

Calling Dr. Strangelove by George Case

None of these are 5 star books, but the top 4 or 5 books listed here are definitely worth your time. During my 18 month sabbatical, I read a number of works on decision-making and expertise. The Kahneman and Taleb books are important works on these topics in the public sphere. The former is based on a long and successful career in academia, the latter is longer than it needed to be and includes a lot of stories that could have been cut -- especially by someone like Taleb who is so critical of the "narrative" academic disciplines.

I used the Sagan and Waltz and Cohen and Zenko books in my International Security class last fall and think both are very good. The former worked better as a textbook, but Michael Cohen visited Louisville to speak in my class and I think that made a favorable impression on the students. I liked the parts of their book that focused on threat inflation, though my lectures included some examples that they overlooked. I was a bit less interested in their efforts to expand the security agenda by including domestic policy issues like gun control. I framed these as human security topics.

Walt blames liberals for many of the major mistakes in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. While they may deserve some of the blame, keep in mind that this foreign policy category includes many neoconservatives who often disdain multilateral institutions. To my mind, the U.S. failure to work cooperatively with other states is a much bigger problem than the high-minded aspirations Walt attributes to liberalism.

Only the Case book was sub-par. I published an article recently on the film Dr. Strangelove and didn't learn that much from Case's work. Indeed, he had some errors that should have been caught.

Finally, I also read just about every word in Baseball Prospectus 2019, but not in cover-to-cover fashion. The 2019 book was edited by Patrick Dubuque, Aaron Gleeman and Bret Sayre. Annually, I looking forward to the new edition, likely due in February.

Fiction

As I traditionally do, I place the best works of literature at the top of the list, then the genre fiction (though there are some books that could be placed in either category). The least interesting or entertaining books are listed last in each section.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

All our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

The Education of a Poker Player by James McManus

The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

Half of a Yellow Sun is a terrific book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in foreign affairs, as told through individual lives. In this case, the focus is on Biafra's 1960s struggles to win independence from Nigeria. It provides personal accounts of civil war.

Motherless Brooklyn provides an interesting spin on the detective genre given that the detective has Tourette's syndrome and works for a small-time hood. The larger caper is kind of far-fetched, but it is entertaining.

The Mastai book begins fairly strongly, but loses steam. The McManus book seems like a collection of short stories crying for a volume 2. Wodehouse is Wodehouse.

March Violets by Philip Kerr

The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

North From Rome by Helen MacInnes

I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton

The Widening Gyre by Robert Parker

Black Money by Ross Macdonald

The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)

Canary by Duane Swierczynski

Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell

Good Behavior by Donald Westlake

Raven Black by Ann Cleaves

The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel by Jeffrey Lewis

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin

Free Fall in Crimson by John MacDonald

Beyond Recall by Robert Goddard

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

The  Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black (John Banville)

For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming
.
.
. [large gap]
.
.

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert Heinlein

Thanks mostly to Bookmooch and PaperBack Swap, I continue to read books by a diverse array of (mostly) hard-boiled crime story authors. These writers typically develop a single main character across a long series of books: Parker's Spencer, Stark's Parker, John MacDonald's Travis McGee, Rankin's John Rebus, Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer. Nearly all of these were pretty good this year, though perhaps ultimately forgettable. Until refreshing my memory with Google, I'd already forgotten the plot of at least half of the books listed above involving those characters.

Kerr's Bernie Gunther solves crimes during the Nazi era in Germany, so that was certainly novel and interesting. Ambler and MacInnes wrote terrific spy fiction during the Cold War and these tales are harmed more by the way current readers depend upon their smartphones than by the broader historical changes that have occurred in world politics.

Modesty Blaise is sort of a female James Bond. This year, I preferred the former to the latter.

Stephen King's middle book of a trilogy was fine, but I did not need the chapter involving the detective visiting the killer from Book 1. Obviously he was establishing a plot line for the third book, but it distracted from this tale. This book would likely make a decent film.

The Heinlein book was easily the worst book I read this year. After a somewhat promising premise at the start, it devolved into a sexist and borderline misogynist story that I had to put down multiple times before deciding to power through it in December.

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Trump and Threats of Political Violence

I've been collecting these anecdotes and would welcome additions:

In August 2015, then-candidate Donald Trump strongly criticized Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders for showing that he’s “weak” by allowing Black Lives Matter protesters to  take control of the microphone at a campaign event in Seattle. CNN’s Eric Bradner reproduced the full Trump comment: “I would never give up my microphone. I thought that was disgusting. That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women -- the microphone; they just took the whole place over… That will never happen with me." Trump continued, “I don't know if I'll do the fighting myself or if other people will, but that was a disgrace. I felt badly for him. But it showed that he's weak.”

In November 2015, another protester yelled “Black Lives Matter” at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama. A fight soon broke out, the protester fell to the ground, and he was allegedly kicked and punched by several white men. At the rally, Trump declared, “Get him the hell out of here, will you, please? Get him out of here. Throw him out!” As the man was escorted by security from the event, members of the crowd repeatedly pushed and shoved him. The following day, Trump said “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” Trump complained that the man was “so obnoxious and so loud, he was screaming.”

In January 2016, a protester threw a tomato at a Trump rally in Iowa City, Iowa. A week later, on the February day of the Iowa caucuses, Trump told his audience in Cedar Rapids: “If you see somebody with a tomato, knock the crap out of them.” ABC News reported that Trump told his crowd, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell ... I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise."

In another February 2016 event in Las Vegas, Nevada, Trump accused a protester of throwing punches at security guards. He told the crowd, “You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher. I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell ya.” At the same event, Trump referenced the leader of Iranians who took US Navy sailors hostage as a “rough guy with a rough mouth — I’d like to smack the hell out of him.”

At still another February 2016 rally in Warren, Michigan, Trump reacted to a protester by declaring “Get him out.” He added, “Try not to hurt him. If you do, I'll defend you in court. Don't worry about it.”

In March 2016, when his rally in St. Louis, Missouri, was repeatedly interrupted by protesters, Trump said, “Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long [to kick them out] is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore… There used to be consequences. There are none anymore.” Trump continued: “These people are so bad for our country. You have no idea folks, you have no idea.”

At an August 2016 rally in North Carolina, Trump said it would be a “horrible day” if his opponent Hillary Clinton is elected President. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks… Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”[8]

Trump’s violent rhetoric continued after becoming president.

In a July 2017 speech to law enforcement officers on Long Island, Trump said “And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon — you just see them thrown in, rough — I said, please don’t be too nice.  (Laughter.)  Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?  Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody — don’t hit their head.  I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

In July 2017, Trump shared a controversial edited video on Twitter revealing Trump in a 2007 WWE skit violently attacking another man who had been standing near a wrestling ring. In the doctored version shared by Trump, the CNN logo was placed in the area where the man’s face would be.

In October 2018, Trump praised Montana RepublicanRepresentative Greg Gianforte who body slammed a reporter at a rally. Trump declared, “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”

In a March 2019 interview with Breitbart News, Trump was discussing the tactics used by Democrats to use subpoena power in its investigations of the president: “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

On September 29, 2019, Trump tweeted a quote from a supporter speaking on Fox News who said that a successful impeachment would cause civil war: “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress.”

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BISA Conference June 2019

I attended two academic conferences during the summer and did not find time to blog about either. This post will serve as a quick summary of my itinerary and research presentations at the first one of them. Hopefully, I will summarize my time in Hamburg in late August soon in another post.

From June 12-14 I left Dundee for a few days and attended my first British International Studies Association (BISA) conference  in London and I really enjoyed it. For the first two days of the conference, I basically attended panel-after-panel, about four each day. I used to attend a large number of panels at regular ISA meetings, but as I've become more senior in the discipline, I've used my research travel funding to attend smaller workshops focused on specific research projects or to attend more specialized security studies conferences.

Even when I attend ISA these days, I've spent large blocks of conference time meeting with other academics (whether engaged in mutual projects or social functions), talking to publisher representatives in the book rooms, or preparing for discussant duties (reading panel papers often received at the last minute).

I was largely freed from those sorts of responsibilities at BISA as I did not know very many people at the conference, it featured only a very small book room, and I was not assigned any service responsibilities.

The many panels I attended at BISA 2019 were generally of a high level and I look forward to seeing some of the research once it is published. The third day I attended only the morning panels and spent some time in the book rooms as well. I did have one meeting a book publisher and connected with a number of new friends throughout the meeting.

The very first panel I attended reflected the kind of intellectual and identity diversity featured throughout the conference. It focused on a new book that I have not yet read -- The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at its Centenary by Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan. Both authors attended and spoke, though only Buzan was listed in the program.. The panel was chaired by Chris Brown of the London School of Economics and also included Laust Shouenborg (Roskilde University in Denmark), Michael Cox (LSE), Meera Sabaratnam (SOAS), and George Lawson (LSE).

I attended an assortment of panels, mostly chosen by topic; thus, some featured graduate students, others highlighted the work of junior scholars, and still others included prominent European scholars, including Nick Wheeler (University of Birmingham), Ole Wæver (University of Copenhagen), Charlotte Epstein (University of Sydney),

These where the titles of the panel I attended in full:

• The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at its Centenary 
• Global Leadership in the Future of International Relations 
• Trump and the Liberal International Order
• US relations with the World  
• International Law as an Instrument of Politics: Interpreting, Contesting, and Deploying Legal Norms
• Trump, American Exceptionalism and the International Order (my panel)
• School’s Out? Beyond New Thinking in International Security
• Twists and (Re)Turns: Directions in International Political Theory

Notice any patterns?

I also did a little panel hopping at times in attempt to see some specific presentations of interest. That strategy did not always work -- I would just miss a presentation, or in one case the room was too full to enter.

My presentation was on "An Alliance of the Multilateralists: Practical Necessity or Foolish Fantasy?" It seemed to be generally well-received, though I had proposed this topic earlier this year when I thought Germany and France were going to move forward with their proposed "alliance" at a faster clip. They officially rolled out their Alliance For Multilateralism at the September UN meetings in NY.  Thus, much of my paper explained why they were moving forward and speculated about the kinds of subjects that might be on the agenda going forward.

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Looking for dangerous patterns in language

In my National and International Security Policy course this semester, I'm including a session on the threat of white nationalism. This is partly because of several recent prominent acts of racially-motivated violence.

However, I'm also concerned about the American political leaders who might incite such violence -- or stand quietly to the side while their allies incite such violence.

The most extreme kind of racial violence ends in genocide, or some other form of mass atrocity. As a signal of that kind of future violence, students of genocide are particularly concerned when political leaders start equating their political opponents "with animals, vermin, insects or diseases." Scott Straus, who recently won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, argues that particularly menacing narratives were a central element in genocides that occurred in the countries he studied (primarily in Africa):

Straus tells us that it is ideologies and ideas—or "founding narratives"—and the way these inform the strategies, tactics, and decisions of political leaders that matter more than anything else. Founding narratives are, according to Straus, those mythically framed national ideologies that define who is in and who is out, or who rules and who is ruled—ideologies that establish hierarchies between primary and secondary citizens and juxtapose the 'good,' state-supporting part of the population and the 'evil' part that is blamed for undermining and destroying the state. 

Basically, genocide does not happen in states founded on inclusive, tolerant, pluralist principles. It happens when political leaders convince some parts of their population that other portions are the evil sources of all that is wrong with the country.

Chris Wallace of Fox News has noticed that the current President of the United States keeps making particularly divisive claims about the districts of people of color serving in Congresss. For example, Trump said that Elijah Cummings's district in Maryland is a“disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Trump wrote that “no human being would want to live there.”

In this instance, Trump is one step removed from describing these members of Congress as inhuman. He describes their districts in such terms -- and therefore implicitly says something about the people who live in them.

Moreover, Trump has described some immigrants as animals and "not people." He has described groups of immigrants attempting to migrate to the US as being part of an "invasion" and said that caravans of migrant include "some very bad people." In response he has called for militarization of the southern border and sent US troops there. Trump rarely (if ever?) talks about the violent situations that many (if not most) of these migrants are fleeing -- and the reality that they might well be completely lawful refugees. 

Rather, Trump has joked about where one might be able to get away with shooting immigrants.

Scholars Aliza Luft and Daniel Solomon  argue that dehumanizing language normalizes extreme perspectives,  "alters norms of what is and isn’t perceived as acceptable views or behavior," and "can serve as post-hoc justification" when some people do commit acts of extreme violence.

In terms of extreme political division, Trump has described some media outlets as an "evil propaganda machine for the Democrat Party." He has falsely accused some of his political opponents as describing "evil Jews." He has just this week accused Jewish voters of being "disloyal" when they vote for Democrats. Note: 80% of Jews voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, a voting pattern consistent with their long-time history. In recent political ads, a Trump voice-over says "Liberals care more about illegal immigrants than they do about our own citizens. It’s time to put America first. We need border security.”

Trump has a long history of characterizing his political foes as "evil" or "sick" or "bad people."

Trump is not the first America politician to demonize his political opponents. After all, Newt Gingrich's political action committee circulated a memo calling on fellow Republicans to escalate their rhetoric a generation ago:

He [Gingrich] established a political action committee called GOPAC to help Republican candidates across the country become more effective campaigners. And in 1990, the group distributed to GOP contenders a pamphlet called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” which encouraged the candidates to “speak like Newt”—that is, to rely upon sharp and divisive rhetoric. It presented a list of 30 “optimistic positive” words to use, including “freedom,” “truth,” and “family.” It also provided a list of “contrasting” words: “crisis,” “decay,” and “red tape.” And this second list recommended going to extremes. Republican candidates, it noted, should call Democrats “shallow,” “radical,” “incompetent,” “pathetic,” “sick,” “bizarre,” and “traitors.” Gingrich’s group was urging GOPers to engage in all-out rhetorical war, going beyond arguing over policies to engaging in the politics of personal destruction.

GOP campaign strategist Frank Luntz has strongly criticized this form of politics:

“It’s the most destructive political memo written in modern politics. All it did was teach hate and division…It’s a precursor of what’s going on today.” (Though Luntz has previously been associated with this memo, he says he was not working for Gingrich when it was drafted and that it was composed by a longtime Gingrich aide named Joe Gaylord. Gaylord did not respond to a request for comment.) “That memo,” Luntz says, “is as cynical and evil as anything that’s been written in American politics.”

Luntz today does not embrace Trump's rhetoric -- and worries where it might be taking the country:

So what does Luntz, who has been a GOP strategist for much of this time, think of Trump’s demagogic breakout? (Luntz, who was at odds with Trump during the 2016 campaign, has reportedly been advising the White House since his old friend Mick Mulvaney became Trump’s chief of staff.) “I don’t want to go there,” he says. “I’m not answering this for anyone. I don’t want to comment. It’s not what I would do. It’s not what I would say.” And Luntz, who blames “both sides” for the toxic political environment, continues: “But I will tell you this. I’m afraid for the country. I do not think we know how low we can go…I know what the outcome is. It’s bad. It’s France in 1793. It ends up consuming everything.”

That 1793 reference is to France's infamous "reign of terror," when Maximilien Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety accused political opponents of treason -- and had them executed. This violence became part of a larger political revolution and bloody civil war.

More extreme concerns about political violence aside, Trump's behavior is also of concern to scholars who study democratic backsliding to authoritarianism. 



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