66 Comments

"Cahiers du Sinema." Where we afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable.

Expand full comment

This ^

Expand full comment

Take a Standard-Issue Liberal subtract 90% of the empathy, add 90% more money.

Expand full comment

I’m getting a vibe, or perceiving an atmosphere, or perhaps deeply connecting with an intuition if you will, that these people need to be punched in the fucking face. But I don’t come from a red state so my feelings cannot be authentic.

Also, I wasn’t aware Kyrsten Sinema had any political positions that exceeded “hahaha, PSYCH!”

Expand full comment

Kyrsten Sinema exists to remind us that in assessing a person’s political beliefs we should ignore sex, race, religion, country of origin and spelling of the name “Kirsten.”

Expand full comment

I thought this was my own personal hobbyhorse, but the seemingly endless variations in spelling the names Kirsten and Kristen always fill me with inexplicable rage, LOL.

Expand full comment

And the spelling is never based on an authentic Nordic spelling; they just substitute a few letters like they’re writing a bargain basement fantasy novel

Expand full comment

who can tell anymore?

there's no authentic Nords left...

Expand full comment

As a teacher, I've seen it all. Explains my thousand-yard stare.

Expand full comment

thousand yards

that's one BIG subdivision

Expand full comment

I haven't been following Sinema closely, because, you know, I'd rather gouge out my eyes with a teaspoon, but has she had any comment on the rather unfortunate recent developments in the area of abortion rights? And specifically whether this one instance might rise to the importance of an issue like extending the debt limit in terms of justifying a temporary suspension of the filibuster? Or has she been too busy burning $50 bills in front of homeless people to comment?

Expand full comment

I too would rather have a root canal than search out the inscrutable policy positions of Our Lady of the Wacky Wigs. But I'm guessing it's closer to igniting $50 bills than otherwise, if history is any judge.

Expand full comment

Alas, I'm in Az. Haven't seen anything from her about Roe. But she was one of the gang on the recent gun issue.

"Today, we finalized bipartisan, commonsense legislation to protect America’s children....."

Expand full comment

Oh, you can be sure she's taking this as evidence that she was right all along on the need to maintain the filibuster, "See? If we all just work together all bipartisan-like, we can get things done, even with my beloved filibuster!"

Expand full comment

In other words, The New Republic meets Salon.

Expand full comment

Totally vibing this, Roy.

Expand full comment

"It's all too easy to feel alone in a nation where liberalism is too liberally liberal, so the editors invite you to share a breath with them while you call 911 on your Black neighbors' BBQ for the fourth time this summer."

Expand full comment

Every issue has a page that's just Nextdoor postings on suspicious individuals seen in the neighborhood.

Expand full comment

"Crispin and Iphigenia" is the best thing ever 'cause you know there's kids

saddled with the nickname "Iffy" growing into little psychopaths at this very moment.

The tone of this is perfect. I worry about you getting stuck in a supercilious prick

persona, though. You're almost too convincing and that Abyss always stares right back.

Expand full comment

Do a Moe Howard on the Abyss and poke its eyes out.

Expand full comment

That might work!

Expand full comment

Favorite vanity license plate evar:

"NYUKX3"

Expand full comment

I don't imagine lil' Crispy is gonna turn out too well either.

Expand full comment

He's got lotsa critters.

Expand full comment

I applaud your point, and your style of parody. But a quibble from a liberal when it comes to crime: there is a non-zero probability of being a victim in a mass shooting, which is higher in some states, and when it should be vanishingly small. You have a better chance of recovery and fewer victims from a random knifing.

Expand full comment

"Quibberal"

Expand full comment

That’s the magazine’s Sunday morning show.

Expand full comment

Just what you want for breakfast, all that yesbuttery goodness!

Expand full comment

Nah, that's the snooty puzzle game segment on said Sunday morning show

Expand full comment

Ooh, can I get a Quibberal tote bag?

Expand full comment

OK fess up Roy! Which is the actual not-at-all-a-self-parody ‘zine that you have so magnificently deconstructed?

Expand full comment

Prolly not Cahiers du Cinema.

Expand full comment

If The Atlantic and Architectural Digest had a child.

Expand full comment

'As deeply as we believe anything, which to be frank isn’t much' pretty much nails it. You made my day 💕

Expand full comment

Of late, I’ve been wondering just what the term liberal even means. Once I note not being an asshole (or worse) outside one’s tribe, so to speak, while still being cool with the current extractive economic system, I dunno that there’s any significant meaning to the word politically.

I can expand but I’m apparently unauthorized to do so.

Expand full comment

A politician is a liberal if s/he thinks our government's economic policies should be based on Keynesianism but also thinks it's best not to talk about it.

Expand full comment

I’m thinking broader than just elected officials. But pro-Keynesian, okay, but most elected officials are neoliberals first and foremost.

Expand full comment

You see the difference when we're going into a recession, and Republicans go with "Government needs to tighten its belt in tough times, just like you and me" which sounds all virtuous and commonsensical to the average person, and Democrats get the right answer, which is "Government needs to spend MORE in a recession or we'll spiral further and further down into total economic collapse", but then they forget to explain to any of the voters WHY the seemingly common sense approach is wrong in this case, and then get their asses kicked at the polls.

Expand full comment

Difference is, only thing Republicans want to do is seize power. Times are tough? We (Republicans) need to seize power. Times aren't tough? We need to make them tougher so we can seize power.

Expand full comment

So, the Dem response is talk without action to back it up.

Let’s just stipulate something: it’s much better to elect Dems than Republicans but said Dems won’t do much to improve things like, for example, restoring the child tax credit, reverse an extractive economy, expand SCOTUS, etc., etc., etc. Holds back GOP efforts to cause further national decline but nothing else.

Expand full comment

Can something the would be so different if there were just two more anti-filibuster Dems really be described as a fundamental property of the Democratic Party?

Expand full comment

A what if is a lame response in this era. Personally, I prefer their god smiting all Republicans.

Expand full comment

s/Whereas our radical liberals […] friends/Whereas our radical liberal […] friends/1

…or else Our Gracious Host, like an Originalist Justice, is just correctly channelling the original author's mistake.

Expand full comment

Note taken and appreciated

Expand full comment

I'm all in favour of her doing exactly what she needs to do to prevent another Arpaiïc senator from taking office, I just refuse to like it.

Then again, my basic politics are 'Immanentise The Culture as soon as possible.' so I might be too {inured to}/{immured in} compromise at Square Zero, the one where I remember 'Humans.' and make a face, not least in the mirror.

(Iain M. Banks admitted that The Culture likely weren't possible with unmodified humans who hadn't been spacefaring in small groups for 10^4s of years to weed-out the worst jerks.)

Expand full comment

Your basic politics appeal to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Expand full comment

I limit myself to R.E.'s 'Comments' section because at least then I'm paying to express my opinion, as opposed to the likely cheat making someone pay for mine would be.

(Beside that, here I get to be right-wing by comparison—as indicated above, my heart's politics are so utopean that I'll put-up with a lot because I'm afraid of the body-counts of the alternatives, likely under-hating the slow-motion guillotine already at work. If it were 1916 I could be a 'Communist', or if it were 1830 a Liberal, but if I didn't value ever learning from experience I would be a 'libert'arian.)

Expand full comment

Arizona's Astronaut Senator seems to be doin' OK, despite not being a fucking asshole.

Expand full comment

"Arpaiïc" is very good.

Expand full comment

I got as far as "those who are in some sense or vibe “liberal” (whatever that means)" and I was looking for someone to punch. "NEXT ISSUE: Special guest essay by Ben Shapiro on economic anxiety"

Expand full comment

“but unlike you, they have a heightened sense of the importance of their own feelings”

The assassin’s blade slid in and out so smoothly that it wasn’t until hours later the target realized they’d received a mortal wound.

Expand full comment

You didn’t thank The Atlantic for letting you reproduce their article.

Expand full comment

Or their vibe, or their mise en scène, or their zeitgeist, or whatever.

Expand full comment

Their zeitgeist is, to say the least, status je ne sais quo...

Expand full comment

Re: names — even in my rural red area I know one woman named Crispin and many girls and women named Tristan. Naming boys after medieval occupations is bad enough, but has anybody read anything to know what gender Crispin and Tristan are? (And yes, I know, society doesn’t need rigid gender stereotypes and all that, but come on; these parents are not iconoclasts or smashing the patriarchy).

Expand full comment

I'd suspect in those cases that sounded "girly" & so were used. Every guy wants a tough Viking name, but the toughest names were Ivar or Flosi -- they don't sound quite right in English.

Expand full comment