I have been thinking about optics lately.
Not the science of optics, the sort of thing that Euclid, Ptolemy, Descartes, and Newton wrote about.
All that is intensely interesting.
But what I mean is the sociology, not the science, of optics.
For example, what were the optics of President Joe Biden’s fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York on March 28?
He showed up with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Headlining the entertainment was “Lizzo.” She was joined by professional celebrities and leftwing emoters Queen Latifah, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo, and Lea Michele.
Tickets for the event topped out at $500,000.
Lucky holders of those pricey entry tix got onstage photos with Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden.
The festivity took in an astonishing $26 million.
Who says Democrats don’t have a sense of humor?
With respect to fundraising, it meant $5 or $50, not $500,000.
Is there a problem of optics here?
Normal old Joe from Scranton, Pennsylvania, blinking into the gilded lights of all that brittle celebrity: Do you sense a bit of cognitive dissonance, a soupçon of hypocrisy, a rancid aroma of the political con job?
Meanwhile, over in a working-class town on Long Island, former President Donald Trump went to the wake of Jonathan Diller, the New York police officer who was allegedly murdered in cold blood by Guy Rivera, a black career criminal and ex-con.
President Trump spent time with Mr. Diller’s widow and made a few moving remarks about the out-of-control rise in crime in New York and other major cities.
I’d say the optics of that visit were rather different from the money-soaked orgy of self-congratulation at Radio City Music Hall.
It’s been a season full of arresting optics.
Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan quickly followed suit, loudly touting their “love” of these individuals.
What were the optics of that?
Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis hires her boyfriend to prosecute President Trump.
But we did not know that Nathan Wade was her boyfriend until his wife’s divorce lawyer revealed it.
It was then that we also learned that Ms. Willis allegedly paid Mr. Wade more than she paid anyone else on her staff and that he allegedly used some of that money to pay for expensive vacations for himself and Ms. Willis.
The optics were awkward.
Politicians and their handlers tend to be experts at managing optics.
Reflecting on that fact, I conclude that such amazing violations of the accepted and expected canons of optics are not inadvertent.
Perhaps Ms, Willis was caught off guard.
After all, how was she to know that her boyfriend’s wife’s attorney would be so terrier-like in pursuing and publicizing the details of Mr. Wade’s interactions with the district attorney?
But the whole “Transgender Day of Visibility” and the in-your-face fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall: What are we to make of that?
I think it is a covert acknowledgment that the left has taken another step in dropping its mask.
There was a time when the left pretended to be supporting the little guy, the ordinary working-class family, and traditional American values.
That has been less and less the case in recent years.
I suspect that the Richie-Rich party at Radio City and the blatant celebration of mental illness on Resurrection Sunday was a calculated piece of performance art.
“We do these outrageous things because we can.”
“We challenge you to respond.”
Such incidents are so many gauntlets cast down in provocative challenge.
So far, no one has risen to the challenge.
The optics of that incapacity, that lack of what the Greeks called “thumos,” likewise presents some troubling optics.
There are those who say that a line has been crossed and that these bad optics will finally move people to action.
Maybe.
Or maybe it’s just another step toward the abyss.
Not that we’re allowed to call it that.
The optics of such candor would be completely unacceptable.
