Personally, I LOVE Marco Rubio's proposed legislation. If enacted, it would wipe out the existing legislation put through by Republicans and signed by Dubya that explicitly BARS shareholders from holding C-suite types accountable. But I guess when you have no interest in what your proposed laws actually do, you can just make and break the rules as you go along.
Spot on. It really does boil down to 1) the silo effect of social media, where everyone consumes their own “news” from their own preferred outlets, so persuasion is unnecessary; and 2) the conservative elites’ realization that their base doesn’t care about policy as long as their perceived “enemies” are suffering worse than they are. The elites can enrich themselves and their donors out in the open so long as their message is Own The Libs.
When I left the Army in '84, I ended up around a bunch of Reaganites, being unaware of the sea change the USA had undergone while I was stationed overseas. The only thing more ardent than their devotion to Ronnie was their heroic consumption of drugs and booze, one thing I could relate to at the time. The downside was having to listen to them spout mung like the stuff you just quoted. I parted ways with them some time later with absolutely no regrets.
Let’s all remember that short-lived game show: “Name a Conservative Program That Worked.” Even with multiple categories (War, Economy, Crime, Poverty, Drugs, Infrastructure, Healthcare, Education, Race) the average contestant dropped out within 5 minutes, muttering “Geez, I got nuthin’!”
Best thing ever- so much win! From " poncy proseur pitching his pseud style" to " Evil Carnies"
I haven't had time to look up " Mencius Goldbug" and I may not because I like the sound of the words so much I worry the definitions may disappoint compared to my ( so far) wild conjecture.
A couple of corrections though, minor things really. I believe the current convention is to always preface Bill Bennett's name with
" Degenerate Gambler" and I believe David Brooks has moved on from salad bars to plumbing the depths of his research assistant's hot ass.
It's looking likely we may have to strike to finally get some form of equity at my school, and I always go to these union meetings & see Econ & Business professors & want to shake them. "You know we're here because of the things you're too chicken shit to say."
And then I remember I'm a literature prof: 75% of us would aver in all sincerity that Shakespeare writes "universal" truths while James Baldwin is "niche."
Eh. The veneer of civilization is thin and barbaric pressures erode said veneer and there’s the GOP and here we are.
As for the intellectual presentations, as it were, it was a marketing thing because there was a need for the conservatives — outliers of sorts back when WFB and company were making their bones — to appear Sober and Serious. The need for that now is completely unnecessary. They’ve had a lock on the mainstream media since the late 70s or so, and the part of the base not supporting the GOP for personal wealth doesn’t give a shit about any effete intellectual stuff.
So. No need for Serious Policy Thoughts. Pretty much that simple sorry.
If Shapiro's brain pills worked, he'd lose his audience. Though if they're toxic he will too, which makes me want to say they're just sugar pills, but the last couple years have taught me these fuckers prefer them to be toxic.
And since when do lesbians love Madonna? She's bi, at best, and GC lesbians like Camille fucking hate bi people almost as much as they hate trans people. Paglia's a divide-and-conquer gay, too. Fuck her. (Mind you, bi women aren't into Madonna much, either. They handed us her and said "Look, representation!" and I thought, yeah, so was Herb Baumeister. You might, in fact, be surprised by the assumption that serial killers are usually bisexual, but it's an actual thing I've been lectured on by lesbian lovers.)
Anyway, last night I was watching the twitter Marxists quote Jonah fucking Goldberg's Liberal Fascism at people to explain why liberals suck. (I'm a liberal because Molly Ivins was a liberal, and there's only so many things I can make my brain do at this age, and I'd rather concentrate on labels I use that hurt people, not whether "progressive" is better than "liberal". (I say "bi" too, despite howls that I'm a bigot by pan people. It means the same thing, you twerps just got a dictionary instead of a queer history book.)
It was easily a half-dozen far left people explaining that we're trying to genocide everybody because liberalism only pretends to be better than Trumpism. Pardon the fuck out of me. *I*'m not the one quoting Jonah Goldberg.
Wow, that Wilson quote about how the Laffer Curve is probably bullshit is really something. Good catch, Roy!
These guys were playing with things - the lives of the poor, the full faith and credit of the United States government - that they didn't really care about. If some poor folks starve, or the government goes bankrupt, who cares? What good are the poor, and who needs a government anyway?
We imagine history is driven by great passions or strongly held ideas, but I'm starting to think one of the most powerful world-historical forces is simple don't-give-a-shit.
This was just fucking excellent, both parts. One of the most astute and succinct explanations of the rise of Trump dementia came from one Roy Edroso: "The Republican rabble has always been ready for a true shitheel to step up..."
So, having debased everything else, it's no surprise that Trumpism -- so devoid of substance it doesn't even deserve an "ism" suffix -- has undermined what conservatives call "intellectual" now to the point where the fascist whackjobs of the Claremont Institute and their lunatic rants are what passes for policy discussion. (Remember Michael Anton's "Flight 93 Election" insanity got him a top advisor position in Trump's pinky ring junta. Not to mention I have as many degrees in economics as Larry Kudlow.)
Unfortunately, the New Rite has transitioned from the lip service veneer of respectability of bygone conservative intellectuals to the stupidist of fascist conspiranoia and magical thinking. As Roy so deftly describes, even the bogus ideas of the poncy poseurs and shitty thinkers have been so devalued we are living in a Homer Simpson timeline, and it's downhill from here.
A related topic I'd really like to understand better is the near-total collapse of confidence experienced by traditional liberals that enabled the rise of these "conservative" "intellectuals" (And yes, that's a PAIR of bullshit quotes I'm using there).
Lines at the gas station, a relatively brief period of stagflation, the bankruptcy of New York City and a lost Presidential election and millions of highly educated people simply decided to throw up their hands and let the right wing take over for a while. "Gosh, I guess ideas we've believed our whole lives that have benefitted millions of people just don't work now, let's give the whole show over to Milton Friedman and see what he can do."
Why? Is there any historical precedent for such a thing?
One big difference is the disappearance of the centre-Left pseudo-consensus that had Eisenhower on its right and Kennedy on its left—or maybe that's reversed—Keyneseanism, enough welfare and other schemes to keep people from starving 'but not enough to remove the incentive to work' (that is, 'letʼs preserve the fiction that we need people to continue to have jobs and, more importantly, bosses'), foreign adventurism without nuking anyone, civil rights with the goal of letting Negroes be just like white people.
This pseudo-consensus, as regressive as it seemed to some and seems to more now, was very definitely to the left of (say) Robert Taft and Russell Kirk, and much as we'd like to believe that people who disagree with us are stupid, it's not so, so some people believing to its right became intellectuals and it could even be refreshing to test your ideas against theirs—it also, I have to admit, felt safe because these guys were fringe figures.
But ever since The Rot Really Set In, that is to say January of 1981, the consensus shifted to where they were or close enough for mass suffering. This meant 0.) they weren't funny any more, and 1.) the ascendancy that Wilson celebrated, much as in a right-wing parable, encouraged laziness and attracted dumber sorts looking for a buck who might just as easily opted to have been liberal intellectuals in 1965.
Slightly off-topic, but the intellectuals at the Bulwark finally learned about Jonah Goldberg what the rest of us already knew for years; he's an idiot. This revelation provided us with the quote of the week from Mona Charen: "It’s hard to see what Goldberg is talking about." Always.
Personally, I LOVE Marco Rubio's proposed legislation. If enacted, it would wipe out the existing legislation put through by Republicans and signed by Dubya that explicitly BARS shareholders from holding C-suite types accountable. But I guess when you have no interest in what your proposed laws actually do, you can just make and break the rules as you go along.
Spot on. It really does boil down to 1) the silo effect of social media, where everyone consumes their own “news” from their own preferred outlets, so persuasion is unnecessary; and 2) the conservative elites’ realization that their base doesn’t care about policy as long as their perceived “enemies” are suffering worse than they are. The elites can enrich themselves and their donors out in the open so long as their message is Own The Libs.
Kleptocracy and Idiocracy, plus spite.
When I left the Army in '84, I ended up around a bunch of Reaganites, being unaware of the sea change the USA had undergone while I was stationed overseas. The only thing more ardent than their devotion to Ronnie was their heroic consumption of drugs and booze, one thing I could relate to at the time. The downside was having to listen to them spout mung like the stuff you just quoted. I parted ways with them some time later with absolutely no regrets.
Let’s all remember that short-lived game show: “Name a Conservative Program That Worked.” Even with multiple categories (War, Economy, Crime, Poverty, Drugs, Infrastructure, Healthcare, Education, Race) the average contestant dropped out within 5 minutes, muttering “Geez, I got nuthin’!”
Best thing ever- so much win! From " poncy proseur pitching his pseud style" to " Evil Carnies"
I haven't had time to look up " Mencius Goldbug" and I may not because I like the sound of the words so much I worry the definitions may disappoint compared to my ( so far) wild conjecture.
A couple of corrections though, minor things really. I believe the current convention is to always preface Bill Bennett's name with
" Degenerate Gambler" and I believe David Brooks has moved on from salad bars to plumbing the depths of his research assistant's hot ass.
Seriously- this is brilliant.
It's looking likely we may have to strike to finally get some form of equity at my school, and I always go to these union meetings & see Econ & Business professors & want to shake them. "You know we're here because of the things you're too chicken shit to say."
And then I remember I'm a literature prof: 75% of us would aver in all sincerity that Shakespeare writes "universal" truths while James Baldwin is "niche."
So fuck us as well.
Eh. The veneer of civilization is thin and barbaric pressures erode said veneer and there’s the GOP and here we are.
As for the intellectual presentations, as it were, it was a marketing thing because there was a need for the conservatives — outliers of sorts back when WFB and company were making their bones — to appear Sober and Serious. The need for that now is completely unnecessary. They’ve had a lock on the mainstream media since the late 70s or so, and the part of the base not supporting the GOP for personal wealth doesn’t give a shit about any effete intellectual stuff.
So. No need for Serious Policy Thoughts. Pretty much that simple sorry.
If Shapiro's brain pills worked, he'd lose his audience. Though if they're toxic he will too, which makes me want to say they're just sugar pills, but the last couple years have taught me these fuckers prefer them to be toxic.
And since when do lesbians love Madonna? She's bi, at best, and GC lesbians like Camille fucking hate bi people almost as much as they hate trans people. Paglia's a divide-and-conquer gay, too. Fuck her. (Mind you, bi women aren't into Madonna much, either. They handed us her and said "Look, representation!" and I thought, yeah, so was Herb Baumeister. You might, in fact, be surprised by the assumption that serial killers are usually bisexual, but it's an actual thing I've been lectured on by lesbian lovers.)
Anyway, last night I was watching the twitter Marxists quote Jonah fucking Goldberg's Liberal Fascism at people to explain why liberals suck. (I'm a liberal because Molly Ivins was a liberal, and there's only so many things I can make my brain do at this age, and I'd rather concentrate on labels I use that hurt people, not whether "progressive" is better than "liberal". (I say "bi" too, despite howls that I'm a bigot by pan people. It means the same thing, you twerps just got a dictionary instead of a queer history book.)
It was easily a half-dozen far left people explaining that we're trying to genocide everybody because liberalism only pretends to be better than Trumpism. Pardon the fuck out of me. *I*'m not the one quoting Jonah Goldberg.
Wow, that Wilson quote about how the Laffer Curve is probably bullshit is really something. Good catch, Roy!
These guys were playing with things - the lives of the poor, the full faith and credit of the United States government - that they didn't really care about. If some poor folks starve, or the government goes bankrupt, who cares? What good are the poor, and who needs a government anyway?
We imagine history is driven by great passions or strongly held ideas, but I'm starting to think one of the most powerful world-historical forces is simple don't-give-a-shit.
This was just fucking excellent, both parts. One of the most astute and succinct explanations of the rise of Trump dementia came from one Roy Edroso: "The Republican rabble has always been ready for a true shitheel to step up..."
So, having debased everything else, it's no surprise that Trumpism -- so devoid of substance it doesn't even deserve an "ism" suffix -- has undermined what conservatives call "intellectual" now to the point where the fascist whackjobs of the Claremont Institute and their lunatic rants are what passes for policy discussion. (Remember Michael Anton's "Flight 93 Election" insanity got him a top advisor position in Trump's pinky ring junta. Not to mention I have as many degrees in economics as Larry Kudlow.)
Unfortunately, the New Rite has transitioned from the lip service veneer of respectability of bygone conservative intellectuals to the stupidist of fascist conspiranoia and magical thinking. As Roy so deftly describes, even the bogus ideas of the poncy poseurs and shitty thinkers have been so devalued we are living in a Homer Simpson timeline, and it's downhill from here.
Quite good!
A related topic I'd really like to understand better is the near-total collapse of confidence experienced by traditional liberals that enabled the rise of these "conservative" "intellectuals" (And yes, that's a PAIR of bullshit quotes I'm using there).
Lines at the gas station, a relatively brief period of stagflation, the bankruptcy of New York City and a lost Presidential election and millions of highly educated people simply decided to throw up their hands and let the right wing take over for a while. "Gosh, I guess ideas we've believed our whole lives that have benefitted millions of people just don't work now, let's give the whole show over to Milton Friedman and see what he can do."
Why? Is there any historical precedent for such a thing?
Well, at least it's great to know why we're doomed.
One big difference is the disappearance of the centre-Left pseudo-consensus that had Eisenhower on its right and Kennedy on its left—or maybe that's reversed—Keyneseanism, enough welfare and other schemes to keep people from starving 'but not enough to remove the incentive to work' (that is, 'letʼs preserve the fiction that we need people to continue to have jobs and, more importantly, bosses'), foreign adventurism without nuking anyone, civil rights with the goal of letting Negroes be just like white people.
This pseudo-consensus, as regressive as it seemed to some and seems to more now, was very definitely to the left of (say) Robert Taft and Russell Kirk, and much as we'd like to believe that people who disagree with us are stupid, it's not so, so some people believing to its right became intellectuals and it could even be refreshing to test your ideas against theirs—it also, I have to admit, felt safe because these guys were fringe figures.
But ever since The Rot Really Set In, that is to say January of 1981, the consensus shifted to where they were or close enough for mass suffering. This meant 0.) they weren't funny any more, and 1.) the ascendancy that Wilson celebrated, much as in a right-wing parable, encouraged laziness and attracted dumber sorts looking for a buck who might just as easily opted to have been liberal intellectuals in 1965.
Slightly off-topic, but the intellectuals at the Bulwark finally learned about Jonah Goldberg what the rest of us already knew for years; he's an idiot. This revelation provided us with the quote of the week from Mona Charen: "It’s hard to see what Goldberg is talking about." Always.