Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cnn, Comics, donald trump, entertainment, stan lee, Van Jones, x-men

How Comics Influenced Politics With Van Jones Part 3

Published Fri, 08 Apr 2016 17:00:29 -0500

And we reach the third and final part of my interview with CNN political analyst Van Jones. Previously we covered his growing up with comics and how they influenced his beliefs and outlook on life. Then we shifted into how comics have effected the current political environment and now in this final part we talk about how he sees the presidential election playing out and then swing it back around to comic books again.

If you're not familiar with Mr. Jones, he is a Yale-educated lawyer, founder of social enterprises like The Dream Corps and former Green Jobs adviser to President Barack Obama.

Here are links in case you missed the first or second parts.

DW: That leads me to a question I've wanted to ask you or someone at least. I watch CNN a lot and they have some terrific political commentators like yourself, Paul Begala, David Gergen, Donna Brazile, Maria Cardona, S E Cupp and the list goes on. But in this cycle they seem to be bringing on what I can only call Spin Doctors for the candidates. I understand wanting to be fair and balance, but when you have someone on set purposely trying to drive the narrative away from the topic… what does that add to the discussion the network is trying to have?

VJ: I think that the argument would be that millions of people have gone out and voted for Donald Trump. A die-hard conservative may not like it, a strong liberal may not like it, someone with a functioning brain stem may not like it… but that is a reality in the country. And if you don't have that point of view represented in the conversation then that conversation is not a fair and accurate reflection of reality. My bosses made the decision that the viewers need to be able to hear from people they passionately disagree with, but they should at least hear the argument. And I have a hard time arguing with that.

I don't always enjoy those discussions myself, but I do think that it's better for people to be able to come to CNN to hear very smart, traditional conservatives and very smart, traditional liberals and hear a person who can defend a Bernie Sanders or a Ted Cruz or a Donald Trump or a Hillary Clinton. And the reality of it is that no normal people with any real standing, given the 17 choices that were available in the Republican Party, are going to come and defend Donald Trump in August and September of last year. Most people of standing are going to back a more traditional horse. So those unusual people who decided to get out there and defend their guy then are the ones who are on TV now. I was on the Daily Show and they asked how can you get Trump and all his Trumplings off TV, and I said I had a secret. A way to get Trump off TV forever. You beat him in all 50 states in November. You won't have to worry about him again, at least in politics.

Until then we have to deal with all these people who are aghast are the same people who for seven years under Obama that were saying racism was over. The same people who said, "Racism is over, you guys should shut up. Quit complaining. You have a black president. All is well except for you running your mouth." And we kept saying, "No. It turns out after 400 years of the kind of problems we've had, they don't all get erased in one day." And lest we forget that the majority of white people didn't vote for Obama. Not because he was black but because the majority of white people haven't voted for a Democrat since 1976. So it's not like everyone went out and voted for Obama if that is going to be your proof point that racism is over.

My point is that literally the same people who had nothing to say about that congressman screaming, "You lie!" at the State of the Union in 2009 or got very offended when pointing out any racial undertones in the Tea Party in 2010, who were so smug and dismissive about anyone raising concerns about any of this stuff are now horrified now that low and behold that if you play with enough of these dragon teeth that you end up with a dragon. And that's what they've got now. And my hope is that these people now go back and re-evaluate. He didn't come out of nowhere. He's just saying with a megaphone what they've been saying through a dog whistle for a while now. About immigrants, about Muslims, about people of color, about women and now here it is.

DW: I know that this has been an election cycle that has been almost impossible to predict, but I am curious as to what your gut says is going to happen.

VJ: If you asked me two weeks ago I would've said Trump gets the nomination for the GOP, goes against Hillary and it's a very tough fight that comes down to the Rust Belt. I would've said that the Latinos make it impossible for Trump to win Florida, Colorado and Nevada. They stay blue. Then Trump poses a huge challenge to Democrats in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. If he could take those blue and purple states Red by ripping up race in Virginia and trade in the Rust Belt then he could win. That is what I would have said.

The problem I have now is that he seems to have really just slipped on a banana peel. These past few weeks with hitting way down in the gutter with attacking Cruz's wife and some of the violence at some of his events has taken some of the air out of the balloon. So you could go into a brokered convention and nobody knows what is going to happen in that situation. We'd have to count on a Cruz / Kasich ticket to stop Trump. And that is a very different fight for Hillary Clinton in the fall.

If you have Cruz / Kasich then you probably have Clinton with one of the Castro brothers (Julian and Joaquin) as her running mate and then who knows. But I've been surprised that even Newt Gingrich who has been quietly supportive of Trump came out over the weekend and used the word 'stupid' in regards to Trump. Talking about him getting down in the mud with the whole wife bashing stuff. It could be the case now that you have fewer options and Trump is clearly afraid to debate Cruz one-on-one on stage, that he may not make it. He would have to get 53% of the remaining delegates (at the time of the interview, higher now) and two weeks ago that seemed easy but now I'm not so sure he can do it.

DW: I'm going to bring it back around to comics now. First, since we're talking Trump v Cruz… Batman v Superman. Did you get to see it during your vacation?

VJ: I did not. I'm going to go see it this weekend. I was in Hawaii and I wanted to wait and see it at my favorite cinema here in L.A. I am looking forward to it.

DW: Final question. You're an author and you're a comic book fan. Do you have any desire to write comics?

VJ: I do. It's funny, I have a bunch of ideas that have been rattling around in my head for at least a decade. And every year I say, "Next year I'm going to do this!" And I have not yet. I have created a little media company called Magic Labs Media (magiclabsmedia.com) that I'm starting to get into producing documentaries. Just to put my toe in the water of being a producer of any kind. But, yes I do hope that someday… and I may do it under a pseudonym because I may suck… but I hope that someday I can have a comic book on my wall framed that I had at least some role in bringing to life.

DW: I've been listening to you on TV for years and here in this interview and I think you'd do fine. You'd bring it from the heart.

VJ: That's very encouraging. Maybe we'll look back and say, "that was the interview where it all started." I'll tell you what, you look at a Walt Disney, or John Lasseter at Pixar or Stan Lee or any of these guys who have had such a huge impact on the minds of young people… if you counted up all the people that Stan Lee's characters have inspired and been role models for, he might have had the impact of a couple of president or more. Those characters are going to live on for a long time. A lot longer than any bill or State of the Union address. So maybe I should switch profession… we'll see.

I want to thank Mr. Jones for his time.

Photos take from www.vanjones.net

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