ABSTRACT
What can Shakespeare teach us about the state of twenty-first-century American politics? A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filled with lovers, fairies, and amateur actors producing a play for sophisticates, provides insight into the way we select our leaders. In particular, our most recent quadrennial exercise in nationwide partisan politicking, the 2012 presidential primaries-with the likes of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann auditioning for the role of Republican standard-bearer-suggests that while there is great humor to be gained from absurdity, the price of political polarization and niche and network media that often serve as a conduit for their primary performances, have tremendous costs for our political discourse and governance. While Shakespeare’s notoriously
unaware actor Nick Bottom notes that “to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together,” it may well be that when it comes to the presidential selection stage, truth and reason keep little company together.
