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"let his once-taut sneer grow slack"

Is it just me, or are my sneers a little soft lately?

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

2 marks for the whole damn thing.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Nobody should put much stock in my political predictions as I have a very mediocre track record – I’m only right maybe 50% of the time. But my instinct for the 2024 GOP nomination is Trump will win.

All of the establishment punditry (of which National Review is only one, and a diminished one at that) who are lining up behind DeSantis ignore some pretty important things about him, and about the GOP base. DeSantis is without charisma, he’s short, and he isn’t very nimble when he’s unscripted. He’s also hamstrung because like ALL of the potential GOP candidates, he has to walk the tightrope of not criticizing Trump too forcefully so as not to alienate TFG’s fervent supporters, while also trying to explain why he himself is the better choice. DeSantis *HAS* so far been successful with his transphobic and racist agenda, but I’m not sure he fully grasps how absolutely feral much of the GOP base has become.

Trump understands where the base is at – he was a major player in encouraging them to go there, after all -- and his message is full-on retribution: a restoration of white, male, Christian, heteronormative dominance just like DeSantis pitches, BUT with the important addition of retaliation and eradication of the “enemy.” I think on an emotional level that wins him the primaries.

Of course, I also think it will be pure poison in the general election. But as things stand, I think it gets Trump the nomination. And the GOP establishment, including the conservative pundits at National Review, KNOW Trump is poison in the general, which is why they are all lining up behind DeSantis. But it’s the primary voters who will decide, as we saw in 2016.

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Mar 7, 2023·edited Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Six year old me watching 7 Faces of Dr. Lao from the back of the family's Olds Vista Cruiser had a perfectly magical experience. I haven't watched it since because I know I'd be disappointed.

Ol' CW (Cock Womble*) Cooke is one of

those guys that makes a good living being wrong all the time. Bastard.

Good column!

* this is evidently one word. His parents obviously didn't know.

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Do you suppose that Cooke (& the NR editorial board) are just trying to replay their rope-a-dope from 2016? See how many suckers fall for it this time (bringing their subscription $$), just to flop over & expose their throat to whatever slavering monster the GOP ends up nominating next year?

It seems these chuds also have their part to play in pretending the election is a horse race on their side...

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

The best part of the school conservatives whining about Trump the pols emulating is that policy-wise there’s essentially 100% overlap. Donnie ran in 2016 as what our exceptional media characterized as a populist. Once in office, he implemented approximately no populist policies. Just saying.

In other words, even when the old school conservatives are correct about something they’re still wrong. Or to paraphrase Kari Lake, they’re suffused with small flaccid dick energy.

As for the face of the Trump-dominated GOP, it’s that image LGM uses of the couple wearing Trump 2016 “Fuck Your Feelings” T shirts and grinning like they know something.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Some commentator on my TV said that the two leading Republican candidates for President are the two meanest candidates, and I think that's right (at least it explains what Nikki Haley isn't bringing to the table).

Mean is what Republican voters want, what they've always wanted, and nobody does it better than Trump, although DeSantis sure works hard at it. One advantage for DeSantis: He's in office right now, so he can be mean to people in real time, instead of just bragging about how mean he's been in the past or promising to be mean in the future. "Hey, what immigrants have you kidnapped lately?"

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

The last bunch I would consider calling "conservatives" was my dad's generation: Depression and WWII survivors who believed they could advance by merit and hated the elites who" had it easy," like FDR and JFK. Starting with William Fucking Buckley it's been all pseudoconservatism since and although you could be a conservative who thought birth control and even abortion was your own business back in Dad's day, now you have to hate all the right people to be in the Republican Party at any level above uninformed voter who votes Republican because "Eisenhower and Lincoln." It's so easy to discomfit the remaining Republicans who deny racism/homophobia/xenophobia - just ask who they voted for and be prepared with a short list of the terrible things those politicians have supported.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

The National Review stands athwart history and shouts "stop the slide into irrelevance".

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Thanks for the still from Kind Hearts and Coronets! All-time classic.

I think I was in my mid 20s when I decided to buy an issue of The New Republic and one of the National Review, just to see what they were like. This was back around 1980. The New Republic was tolerable, mostly a lot of high-toned blather. But the National Review was rant after rant after rant, without the slightest care for logic or reasoned thought. Conservatism, eh?

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Now, and for a few years, my only question to conservatives has been a variant of "what the fuck has conservatism ever done through all of human history to advance the health, safety, and happiness of the average person?" In my mind conservatives are are like the Gorn tracking Kirk in that Star Trek episode: "I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick." Fuck that shit.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

NYT is in the same boat, so to speak. Literally no one I know subscribes anymore.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

One of my favorite things on CSpan is guys calling in who are furious at all things liberal, whose whole argument is "Look at them democrats, they have nothing to be for, they're just anti-Trump, TDS."

'Cause, yeah, all they are is anti-everyone. The cruelty and hatred are there to accomplish actual societal and policy goals, but honest to fuck I think they'd do it anyway just for the sick thrill.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Today I learned a new word: fleer

Thank you, Mister Ed Rosso! (The “Ed” stands for “education”!)

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

"in search of a conservatism-with-good-taste that no longer exists"

Who now would believe there ever was a thing pushed called "compassionate conservativism"?

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

You know, my Dad has made a reservation for me on an Alaska cruise this August, and, thinking of NatReview, I'm suddenly worried it might be a conservative cruise! ZOMFG two weeks up to my eyeballs in wingnuts!

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