Jonathan Chait’s misleading guide for liberals trying to figure out what happened
I have a clue for Jonathan Chait: he knows very little about conservatives. For example:
One universal fact of political life is that people tend not to enjoy highlighting faults committed by their own side, and often respond to others bringing up behavior they don’t want to defend outright by deflecting blame.
Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan – you must not have done much hanging out on the right, because the right’s favorite occupation (perhaps even more beloved than trashing the left) is to trash the Republican Party.
Chait continues:
…[W]while few leftists go so far as to explicitly advocate violent or destructive acts, refraining from criticism of violent protests is, among parts of the far left, almost a social norm.
A social norm. In other words, it’s become required groupthink to wink at violence and excuse it away. And I would say that many leftists are also explicitly advocating destructive acts these days.
More:
The preconditions that permitted these events to go forward are the spread of distinct, illiberal norms throughout some progressive institutions over the last half-dozen years. When I wrote about the phenomenon in 2015, a common response was to dismiss it as the trivial hijinks of some college students, a distraction from the true threats to democratic values. It certainly was (and remains) true that the right poses a vastly greater danger to liberalism than does the far left.
Chait basically has no idea what he’s dealing with. As someone who’s looked at political life from both sides now, I can say in no uncertain terms that old-fashioned liberalism – the kind I grew up with, the kind that valued free speech and liberty, the kind that would never condone violent riots and destruction of property – has far more in common with conservatism than it does with the far left. Conservatives are Chait’s friends here, not his enemies. But he’s utterly unaware of it.
Chait continues:
Nonetheless, it is an error to jump from the fact that right-wing authoritarian racism is far more important to the conclusion that left-wing illiberalism is completely unimportant.
The cluelessness continues. Chait equates “the right” with “right-wing authoritarian racism.” I guess he believes his own propaganda.
Both American public opinion and many institutions have moved left on race and gender during this time. It is a positive change opening humane new possibilities for reform, but it has come along with some illiberal side effects.
No Jonathan dearie, they’re not “side effects” that will fade away once the wonderful humane goal is reached. The goal will never be reached, and the side effects are essential and will not be dropped from the program. Some day you may find yourself the target. Do you not study history at all?
…[The left] frequently collapses the distinction between words and action — a distinction that is the foundation of the liberal model — by describing opposing beliefs as a safety threat.
I feel like it might be time to start screaming at Jonathan, because maybe if I talk louder he’ll hear me. That distinction may be “the foundation of the liberal model” – a foundation that conservatives share, by the way – but it is not the foundation of the leftist model. The foundation of the leftist model is “whatever gets us power.”
I’m going to stop there, because anything I’d say about the rest of Chait’s piece is either irrelevant or redundant.
But why, you might ask, do I care about Chait’s inability to understand the danger the far left represents not just to the right, or to the US, but to beliefs and values he professes to hold? Because, at least theoretically, old-fashioned liberals who believe in those old liberal values like freedom of speech, and the difference between words and acts, could – if they stopped thinking that conservatives are their evil racist enemies – find common ground with them to fight the evils of a far left that threatens us all.
I doubt it will ever happen. And Chait’s article is a good example of why.
Unfortunately, the foundation of the leftist model is indeed whatever allows the attaining of power, whereas for conservatives it is the maximizing of individual freedom within a structure of ordered liberty (hence the need for some laws and regulations, and a sense of continuity with inherited traditions and wisdom). The foolishness of Chait (and of many others like him) reminds one of the French expression “pas d’ennemis a gauche.”
Someone needs to point the good Mr. Chait to Neo’s post here. I was going to point it out on Chait’s column Neo linked, but that meant registering with the New York magazine….something I won’t do.
What Chait acknowledges is that there is no initiative in favor of conventional politics where he sits. They ‘refrain from criticism’ and will continue to do so because the long menu of abuses (which people like Chait commonly defend) are actually just different aspects of a common political phenomenon. They have no problem with harassment of the opposition by the IRS, harassment of the opposition by student clubs, harassment of the opposition by tech companies, harassment of the opposition by elements of the security state, harassment of employees by HR officers trolling through their Facebook posts, gross bias on the part of federal prosecutors and judges, vote fraud (and it’s companion, bogus charges of ‘voter suppression’), riots, petty insurrection, repeating lying by public health officials for political reasons, encouraging insubordination by general officers, etc. They’re all co-operating like a hive. This phony ‘criticism’ is just one task among many.
In 1996, figures within Conservatism Inc (Walter Berns, Peter Berger, and Wm Buckley among others) threw a conniption when Richard John Neuhaus and Charles Colson assembled and published a collection of articles on the implications of abuses of judicial review for democratic legitimacy. Well, here we are 24 years later. None of what’s going on is consistent with a political order which turns on electoral contests and public debate and it has metastasized to such a degree that it has made the mechanics of political activity as challenging as they have been in generations.
physicsguy: “Someone needs to point the good Mr. Chait to Neo’s post here.”
It would do no good at all. Chait, as far back as I’ve been aware of him, has always been like this. He seems to be one of those who take Adorno’s “f-scale” as gospel (and there are many more.)
Anyone who’s read Narnia should remember the scene at the end of The Last Battle, where “the dwarfs refuse to be taken in.” That is really what we are dealing with. People who cannot hear what others are saying, or see what is in front of their nose. (To cite one rare rational leftist.)
Recall that Chait once sat in judgment of the right, claiming that the right, compared to the left, was much more guilty of “epistemic closure.” Also recall that Chait previously showed his objectivity by writing how much he HATED, REALLY HATED, George W. Bush.
2003:Mad About You:The case for Bush hatred.
And so on and so forth.
Chait is a clown.
Fit just hit the shan…
in ohio… 80 showed up for a BLM protest intended for 20-25
and 700 citizens showed up, including bikers and more and drove them out
regular people are waking up and taking to the streets and they have the numbers
turns out the man who shot at the columbus incident was a council member…
have to verify that… but if they have woken up the silent majority
woe be to them… they do not have the numbers nor resources..
nor do they have the people willing to DIE as they have in wars to save things
get the popcorn ready
Art, I hope you’re right. Do you have a link to a news release on the Ohio incident?
@physicsguy
Google is doing its best to block it, even if you put all the words you can including the paper name in to find it
Black Lives Matter protest of 80 people in tiny Ohio town where just 13 black residents live is overrun by 700 white counterprotesters armed with rifles, handguns and baseball bats
Heavily armed white men and women from motorcycle gangs and ‘back the blue’ groups flocked to the small town of Bethel Sunday
Around 700 counterprotesters – some seen in Trump t-shirts – shouted ‘Blue lives matter!’ and ‘All lives matter!’ and ripped signs from protester’s hands
80 of the 2,828 Bethel residents were holding a peaceful BLM demonstration
One protester was seen on camera being punched in the back of the head by a counterprotester in a confederate flag bandanna, while cops looked on
Clashes persisted for a second day Monday, leading the police chief to declare a curfew and several people were arrested
Large swathes of the counterprotesters were thought to have come from out of town, with motorbikes seen carrying out-of-state license plates
A staggering 97 percent of Bethel residents are white and just 13 black people live there, according to US Census estimates
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8431699/Black-Lives-Matter-protest-80-people-tiny-Ohio-town-overrun-700-armed-counterprotesters.html
A tiny Ohio town’s Black Lives Matter event was overrun by armed counterprotesters
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/16/bethel-ohio-black-lives-counterprotest/
“do I care about Chait’s inability to understand the danger the far left represents not just to the right, or to the US, but to beliefs and values he professes to hold?”
If (it’s a big “if”) we are to some day make common cause with “moderate Dems” and others who secretively favor free speech and other freedoms against Left mob rule, I believe it will only happen when we become worthy allies.
By that I mean willing to fight.
Also recall that Chait previously showed his objectivity by writing how much he HATED, REALLY HATED, George W. Bush.
Which was a common sentiment among street-level Democrats and indicative of their essential pathology. Bush was daring (or foolhardy) in his post – 9/11 maneuvers in the Near East and Central Asia (and had the assent of much of the congressional Democratic caucus initially). He was decidedly non-confrontational in the sphere of domestic policy. He hardly answered his detractors in explicit terms, cast only two vetoes in eight years in office, negotiated assiduously over budgetary matters, did not persuade Bill Frist to bulldoze Senate Democrats when they used parliamentary maneuvers to bottle up his judicial nominees for years at a time, etc. (In re judicial appointments, you’ll notice that Republicans tried to restore congressional courtesy in 1993 and 1994 by rolling over for Bill Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees, something whcih was not reciprocated in 2005 even though you had Republican appointees replacing Republican appointees). They loathed George W Bush not because of anything he did or said. They loathed him because that’s their default state.
Yeah, Jim: Fight. Not politically, not metaphorically, but physically trash the enemy FIGHT!
I’m sick of talk. I won’t wait for handwringing or lies to pass. It’s time to own the F-word.
Has anyone else watched Tucker’s latest on the national submission to Marxist BLM rule?
Fight brave people, FIGHT!
If (it’s a big “if”) we are to some day make common cause with “moderate Dems”
There are no ‘moderate Democrats’. There are some old liberals of advanced age and a few wonks like Harold Pollack. Among politicians, there’s Manchin and a few others. They cannot help you much, and for career reasons most of them won’t. I look at the crud coming over our Facebook wall from street-level Democrats in our social circle. They either say something asinine or they say nothing.
It seems clear the left has decided that conservatives are not a legitimate part of society: their voice has no place, the laws don’t apply equally, crimes against them are laudable, etc.
Gorsuch’s “textual” interpretation that sex implies gender theory and transgenderism is a signal of something really broken in the high society, the social group who actually rules so many spheres of the commanding institutions.
The “Palmer Report” account tweets openly declaring such a position are shared, I believe, by a majority of liberal intellectuals, journalists, politicians: the deplorables are unacceptable, only menial works are to be allowed for them, perhaps someone can be reeducated.
Very similar to Maoism, with its supercynical incitement and then exploitation of savage social passions – however firmly under the control of “the Vanguard party”, with its monopoly of education, information and economy (now via Google).
Scary. However, our duty to tell the truth and do what’s right doesn’t change.
Never bend to the prince of lies, his stink is all over the place.
“if they stopped thinking that conservatives are their evil racist enemies”
And what has Chait or the vast majority of conventional liberals ever done about racial problems in America other than pat themselves on the back for not being like those evil racist conservatives? When you define yourself in opposition to and Other, anything which makes the Other bad makes you good and anything which makes the Other less bad makes you less good.
I’m starting to think that when you boil everything else away, the problem is that our current generation of elites is just weak and awful on both the Left and the Right.
The Left, by the way, was criticizing the Democratic Party from way back in the day. Meanwhile, a bunch of conservatives on Twitter just threw a hissy fit defending the precious honor of Mitt Frickin’ Romney and heaven forbid anybody besmirch the saintly halo of Paul “Wait…you mean after voting 70 times to repeal Obamacare, we actually need a plan in place to repeal it?” Ryan.
Mike
The preconditions that permitted these events to go forward are the spread of distinct, illiberal norms throughout some progressive institutions over the last half-dozen years.
hey jo jo… what the heck do you think a revolution is about? cucumber finger sandwiches over tea and crumpets? I can understand you realizing you might not have thought they were serious, but to think they were serious and that serious didnt include breaking eggs in a french style revolution that would allow other countries like russia and china to attack while we were discombobulated or let them destroy the economic system that so many depend on to eat, and remain breathing?
It certainly was (and remains) true that the right poses a vastly greater danger to liberalism than does the far left.
Actually not jo jo… because the lefts ‘liberalism’ is not liberalism… when you call for chopping off heads, removing books like hitler, wanting re-education camps, hating jews… what part of that has anything to do with the liberalism you imagine?
Nonetheless, it is an error to jump from the fact that right-wing authoritarian racism is far more important to the conclusion that left-wing illiberalism is completely unimportant.
You mean what racism? the one that put blacks in camps? exterminated them? seeks as farakahn has said, kill babies in hospitals? please let me know what kind of racism arrests more of the people you think they are for than those they are supposedly agianst? what kind of racism sets up colleges and spends millions of dollars to help? what kind of racism comes up with affirmative action, and goes to war to destroy segregation down to the drinking fountains.
Both American public opinion and many institutions have moved left on race and gender during this time. It is a positive change opening humane new possibilities for reform, but it has come along with some illiberal side effects.
ah… jo jo… when you are out of work, and you have no welfare, and your only acceptable end is to die… or they put you in a camp while you cry out that your on their side… or take away your voice putting you on the bottom of the new race scales… what will you say
Let me know when the elite on the Right control social media, Hollywood, the press, and then I’ll worry about the vast damage they are doing to the country. Because of Twitter. Oh, that explains it. Someone is fixated on an ineffectual ex-congressman again. Sheesh.
Pagliaro is dead on with “Gorsuch’s ‘textual’ interpretation that sex implies gender theory and transgenderism is a signal of something really broken in the high society, the social group who actually rules so many spheres of the commanding institutions.
Pagliaro continues, “The “Palmer Report” account tweets openly declaring such a position are shared, I believe, by a majority of liberal intellectuals, journalists, politicians: the deplorables are unacceptable, only menial works are to be allowed for them, perhaps someone can be reeducated.”
++++++
That’s why nice-looking black couples and families are seen so often in TV commercials, despite blacks being only 14.6% of the population, the least prosperous demographic, the least-often married, the leader in abortion rates, who self-segregate into their own culture and idioms.
We are being re-educated by the megacorps and their advertisers.
Now we have a Supreme Court edict that says you can define (and naturally act out) your own gender. Perverted men and boys hoisting their skirts to pee in toilets of girls’ and ladies’ rooms. Being self-defining and deviant, socially corrupting, is now a sacred right!
Sanctioning bestiality by SCOTUS cannot be far off; sheep need love too!
But all is not lost. Neo is her own inner Joni Mitchell with her lyrical “looked at [political] life from both sides now”.
Neo,
You write:
I can say in no uncertain terms that old-fashioned liberalism – the kind I grew up with, the kind that valued free speech and liberty, the kind that would never condone violent riots and destruction of property – has far more in common with conservatism than it does with the far left.
I read that as a somewhat positive assessment of a political philosophy [liberalism] that is left of center. Which means – to me – that one can be left of center and not be carried off into far left territory. That is something I agree with. But perhaps the liberal and left terms need to be defined?
To sort of use your words here I would also say don’t confuse liberals with left authoritarianism. An old fashioned liberal can believe in moving the needle in a progressive manner for minorities, women, LGBT et al and the environment etc without demonizing and viciously forcing everyone who is opposed to progressive ideas and practices and getting the government or the courts to help make this happen.
I have often argued that history in America has always pitted progressives vs. conservatives. And in the long run progressive political ideas tend to win to the point that conservatives eventually embrace them. Ending slavery, women’s suffrage, minimum wage, clean air and water, Civil rights, gay rights etc. [Note I’m not making a Republican / Democratic distinction but a conservative / progressive one]. But the key is how we get there both in practice and perception. Maybe some conservatives in 1964 were just as outraged by liberals getting Civil Rights passed and they labeled those liberals as communists and far left – when actually by today’s standards they were just old fashioned liberals who don’t look so bad now?
Margot Cleveland has a Twitter thread on the Flynn case and the Deep State’s spectacular abuse of justice.
DOJ made a filing and denied prosecutorial misconduct. Yet the spectacular withholding of exculpatory evidence happened and the prosecutor resigned?
One commenter sums it simply:
“Judge Sullivan is in effect attempting to have the Obama DOJ to take over the case.
“@GenFlynn
is nothing more than a political prisoner at this point.”
Sullivan called out The Swamp creatures to protect him against AG Barr and they are still winning.
https://twitter.com/ProfMJCleveland/status/1273295675820736513
I am hopeless on so many fronts. Chait I gave on long ago.
The late Andrew Breitbart was on the Hoover Institute’s Uncommon Knowledge some years ago talking about how the media is relentless in framing the right as bad, or if the right doesn’t live up to their own stereotypes, the media and the left condescendingly are surprised. Breitbart said that if you don’t want the left to characterize you whichever way they want you have to be perfect. Perfect. Perfect in your words. Perfect in your phrasing. If they can’t go after you by the way you look they’ll go after your lack of education. If you have education but it isn’t elite or in the realm of being selective they’ll go after your mannerisms. They will find a way to discredit you. If you are a PoC and do not agree with their narratives you will be ignored or portrayed as kooky.
The left will forever think of the right as uneducated and bigoted. The left accuses the right of many, many things. But if there’s one thing for sure I’m certain of the left, as an ex-liberal turned conservative, is that the left is, without a doubt classist and elitist. They dislike the suburbs. They loathe the small town and rural communities and the people in them. I have found non-progressive/regressive relatively easier to please when choosing where to live. In my experience a modern day liberal will hop from one city to another to find one that is “progressive” enough. Chicago isn’t liberal enough so they move to Boston. Boston reminds them too much of colonialism so they move to NYC. NYC to them seems too corporate so they move to San Fran. If they had the chance they would move to Paris. Oh Paris! Would they venture to the Parisian countryside? Surely they are progressive in small town and rural France! Wrong. They then hug to urban areas.
There is no one filled with such disappointment and hatred for others than a modern day liberal. The irony. They will either act as the victim or shun and leave others behind because they do not live up to their relative moral standards.
Montage – you contend that “liberal” and “left” should be defined as different philosophies, and I agree. But they can’t be self-defined. I can call myself Queen Elizabeth – it doesn’t mean I get to live in Buckingham Palace. There are characteristics that define liberals, and different characteristics that define leftist authoritarians; by their fruits shall ye know them. (Alternatively and less biblically, if it quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck, it’s a duck.)
How often do we hear about a person whose actions mark her (going with my own pronouns to avoid sounding, I don’t know, sexist or whatever) as a leftist authoritarian – such as quelling speech, denying due process, and declaring a person guilty of a wrong that person did not commit by reason of that person’s being a member of some group that the accuser says did commit that wrong at some point – being called “leftist” or “authoritarian” and firing back in outrage, “How dare you! I am a liberal” or (in spite of clearly regressive ideas) “I am a progressive“? We have to agree on definitions, or we’re just talking past each other.
Of course, I think we’ll just be talking past each other anyway, since each side thinks the other is guilty of bad faith – and each side is right to some degree. But I was over on Althouse earlier and reading how Prof. Althouse plans to “wait until November” to decide how to vote, and I had to comment that “when all the gross infringements emanate from one side, how do you justify ‘waiting until Novembe'” to decide which side to vote for?” Yes, there are rightist authoritarians. But they are not the owners of the conservative soul, in the way that leftist authoritarians are apparently the owners of the progressive soul, based on eyeballs and minutes.
One more thing directed at your comment: You say, “in the long run progressive political ideas tend to win to the point that conservatives eventually embrace them.” I think you misunderstand conservatism, and maybe you can tell me if I misunderstand progressivism. Conservatism conserves what works, and rejects the idea of progress (or change) for its own sake – which makes it continue to support policies that, a few years along, could reasonably be called “outdated.” Conservatism evolves, slowly, because it urges a careful and stepwise approach to change, and if and as the benefits of changes prove to outweigh the drawbacks, those changes become part of what we now conserve.
Progressivism, on the other hand, appears to me to embrace whatever change has most recently captured the heart and imagination – “defund/abolish the police” being a recent example – without careful consideration of the law of unintended consequences (in that particular example, even the obvious and intended consequences are being swept aside in the fervor of it all) or any sort of cost-benefit analysis. Take the welfare reforms of the ’60s – in the progressive desire to help poor black Americans, progressives incentivized the destruction of black families and brought about a system of multigenerational dependency that we’re all – poor black Americans most of all – still suffering from today. The intentions were great (I’ll give rank-and-file progressives the full benefit of the doubt, even if the leadership might indeed have been motivated by the will to power). The incentives were perverse. The damage is ongoing.
Change my mind, I guess, as the podcaster says.
But I think American political discourse benefits from the full spectrum of political philosophy’s being debated openly. Conservatives do sometimes need the push off the starting block that a perhaps imprudently fast progressive action can provide – slavery (which should never have been an American conservative policy, given that American conservatives should always have been on the side of all people’s being created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, etc.) is the best example I can think of. And progressives definitely need the moderating effect of conservative prudence sometimes.
Both American public opinion and many institutions have moved left on race and gender during this time. It is a positive change opening humane new possibilities for reform, but it has come along with some illiberal side effects.
Diversity is a color judgment including racism, sexism, classicism, etc.
Sex is male and female. Gender is sex-correlated physical and mental (e.g. sexual orientation) attributes. The transgender spectrum includes homosexuals, bisexuals, intersexuals, neosexuals, under a principle of political congruence (“=”) or selective exclusion, and a Rainbow symbol, which excludes black, brown, and features the shredded remains of white, a symbol which should never be associated with human life.
Then there is selective-child, the Wicked Solution, Planned Parenthood, including life deemed unworthy of life for social progress, and clinical cannibalism of profitable parts for medical progress.
Liberalism is divergent. Progressivism is monotonic change. Libertarianism is organic. Conservativism is moderating. #PrinciplesMatter
Jamie; montage:
For years and years I made the distinction between liberals and leftists. When I was young, the Democratic Party was something like 40% moderates, 55% liberals, and 5% leftists. Now it’s 1% moderates, 5% liberals (maybe not even that much), 44% people who might call themselves liberal but don’t even know or care what liberal principles are and acquiesce with and approve of anything the left does or says, and 50% leftists.
So now it’s a distinction without a difference.
‘Do you not study history at all?” – Neo to Chait
That was rhetorical, right?
Wikipedia doesn’t include his schooling.
Jamie,
I see your point. It would take an hour to type out a full response but I will say that I think it’s true progressives often want change quickly and yes sometimes without actually thinking how they get there. While conservatives might be a tad slow in understanding the call for change but wanting a different solution due to political philosophy. But sometimes conservatives lose because of perception and optics. Take Civil Rights legislation. Most Republicans actually supported Civil Rights but some like Barry Goldwater did not based on conservative principles. He was not a racist but, boy, the optics were bad. He wanted to make a political argument and all people saw was the end result, which was no civil rights.
I’ll agree not all progressive legislation succeeds. Pruitt Igoe housing complex comes to mind. But sometimes there is a throw it and see what sticks philosophy when government takes over. Is that good? Sometimes not in the long run. Some are still debating FDR’s policies, which a number of people tend to like [social security as an example].
Re Althouse. I have argued before that there are only two parties and even though each run the gamut from moderate to extreme when people choose to vote they have to consider all of that but usually end up choosing the individual candidate rather than the entire political panoply. If people were voting for only left or only right perhaps the elections would be different. Although at the local and state level the positions tend to be even more varied.
Neo, you may be right. it’s frustrating for sure.
Montage:
Progressives don’t understand the wisdom of this basic concept:
The perfect is the enemy of the good,
Progressives chase the “perfect” destroying the good enough, not because “justice” demands it, but really because of process and power are just so sweet.
“… if they stopped thinking that conservatives are their evil racist enemies…”
But they can’t.
This because they’ve been brainwashed by Democratic Party / MSCM 24/7 “trash talk” for most of the 21st Century, a phenomenon that really took off mid-way through the “oughts”, accelerated in 2008 and hit warp speed in 2016.
And so we have an extraordinary cohort of super-intelligent, chin-stroking fools like Jonathan Chait who believe they are looking at the world around them as they rehash the “liberal” talking points that have been echoing in their heads for at least the past 20 years.
I’m curious though. Someone should ask him how he views Dershowitz and Turley…and what he thinks of the cross-the-board “Liberal” response to them.
Another view of Chait.
https://reason.com/2020/06/12/the-revolution-is-eating-its-own/
Jonathan Chait’s article on progressive intolerance both describes and illustrates the problem.
DAVID BERNSTEIN |THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY | 6.12.2020 9:53 AM
Another view of Chait.
Faculty libertarians are not your friends. Ever.
“So now it’s a distinction without a difference.” neo @ 11:03
Then there’s nothing left to talk about because leftists are not interested, even in the least, with discussion. It’s all about power and control for them and that end justifies whatever means are necessary to gain it.
There’s only one cure for a metastasizing fanaticism.
The choice being forced upon us has become binary; prepare to defend our inalienable rights with force of arms or accept the continued fundamental transformation of rights into revocable privileges that demand enslavement in thought, word and deed.
Update on Spygate turned a Obamagate: Walid Phares reveals that Mueller SC, various Congressional, and other investigators interviewed him multiple times, just like multiple other Team Trump victims.
He believes that they were all coached by a similar disinformation file on him, and that the new Senate investigation might be able to pry this dossier loose.
He believes that that the goal of the Obama Team was to rid Trump of the ability to reverse the Iran Deal, thus supporting the treason theory of Lee Smith. To do that, they had to disable or otherwise sack any Trump insider expertise at State and with executing new foreign policy goals.
John Solomon is on the case, breaking news
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/ex-trump-adviser-breaks-silence-russia-probe-says-iran
Taster, there really is a Deep State, a fifth column, or something:
Oops, “oughts” oughtta be “noughts”….
——————
Christopher Caldwell’s “The Age of Entitlement” has been much touted of late as describing how the Civil Rights Act (of LBJ’s administration) and the legislation it has subsequently influenced along with the zeitgeist it inspired, has essentially (if I’ve understood the argument) created a mighty counterweight to the Constitution itself.
IOW, the idea of a nation based on laws and a Constitution written (and amended) after arduous debate and soul-searching has been STEALTHILY usurped by the overarching principle of a nation whose Law of the Land must be subsumed by “Civil Rights” (stealthily because the “Bill of Rights” is in fact enshrined in the Constitution and its amendments).
The question then becomes, how does one legislate “Civil Rights”; that is, where does it end? And which other “Civil Rights” of the some (or the many) must be sacrificed to enable the “Civil Rights” of others if, as perhaps it inevitably must (though this may not be obvious, at least at first), “Civil Rights” becomes a zero-sum game (as the so-called principle of “equality of outcome” vanquishes the far more justifiable, even if difficult-to-implement principle of “equality of opportunity”).
Where de Tocqueville, during his investigative visit in the early 19th C., perceived with great enthusiasm that the separation of church and state—and the fact that the US had no officially sanctioned state religion—was one of the country’s more glorious (and practical) innovations, and the reason why, as he noted, religions were various, flourishing and vibrant, it appears that “Civil Rights” (so-called), having achieved the status of a civil or secular “religion” (or cult, if one believes that anyone can do anything and everything in its name, even though such an attitude/conclusion MUST be a misreading and misapprehension of the idea, an all-encompassing blueprint for the pursuit of morality, decency and virtue!), has thus become THE quasi-state religion of a sizeable number of people in the country.
It is by this seductive END RUN (whether orchestrated intentionally by the usual suspects or adopted more “innocently” by the morally “resolute” and the “repairers of the world”); it is by this perverting of intent that the boundary between state and religion has been utterly breached, with the result clearly visible in the mayhem, confusion, societal polarization and violence, much of which has been supported, even if tacitly, by the political persuasion that Chait is doing his pathetic best to rationalize, and this simply because the purported “goal” of this violence (along with the rationale for its Left-wing support) is a secular nirvana—a golden era of Civil Rights.
Correspondingly, the Right, personified by Trump and his “deplorable” supporters—RACISTS all, by definition (and thus ANTI-“Civil Rights”)—are being portrayed, by “THE RIGHTEOUS”, as standing firmly, obstinately and unjustifiedly in venal and evil opposition to this paradise (achievable no doubt if it weren’t for Trump). Hence the vitriol directed against him (and everything and everyone associated with him—even to the point of vilifying and ridiculing proven, life-saving medications he suggested)
Yes, Trump and his supporters are portrayed as devil-like persona…while the Left, personified by Obama et al. are on the side of all that is good as they subvert the laws of the nation and destroy individuals and institutions to rid the country of Trump—that is, for morally (and theologically) appropriate reasons.
Such weakening if not erasing of one of the tenets of the nation, this elevation of “Civil Rights” to religious, even fanatical religious status, augurs an ever-uncertain future (as the recent SCOTUS decision has made clear, no matter how one interprets Gorsuch’s motives).
“We live in a liberal democracy…”
It’s hanging by a thread and only by virtue of “ORANGE MAN BAD” and those who support him.
Which is precisely why—for the usual suspects—he is very, very bad…and why he must be removed by hook or by crook.
Well, they’re working on it, ever more feverishly, fast and furiously…
What Chait says is a complete waste of time to read. He and his sort do not use language, facts, and logic as normal people do. I’m presuming Chait is smart enough to know better although for many on his side it comes naturally and they have no other idea.
Saw a facebook post from a friend who lives in Brooklyn. Says they live in a militarized police occupation zone and the cops don’t care–euphemism here–about black people.
As evidence, he says the regime views protesters as violent, greedy, and quotes from Shea’s discussion of mobs looking to destroy and loot.
He knows better. He lives there. He denies–by omission–that there is any violence or looting. His immediate circle know better. They applaud him for saying what he said because they can believe half a dozen impossible things before breakfast and need to. And enjoy it.
And believing this convinces them that the regime doesn’t care about black people.
If, in some fashion, he could be brought to view footage of the looting and violence, he would smoothly pivot to how utterly justified it is. Seen him do it in other circumstances.
If you get some audio from protests, you can hear arguments over the meaning of works….”racism”, “violence”, “fascist”. Point is, the words mean what the left needs them to mean at the time and arguing about their accurate use is a waste of time and they enjoy, or at least consider it useful to get the rest of us tied up in an argument whose usual ground rules–logic and fact–only we believe.
I’m sorry to say this, but discussion in pursuit of an agreement to settle our differences is a waste of time. While it might be useful or entertaining to read such as Chait, our gracious hostess has shown us…it’s a waste of time unless it’s a matter of knowing our enemy. But, whatever we glean from this is only useful as long as the left agrees to agree that it’s even relevant. And they’re under no compulsion to do so.
So. Okay. Chait gets his facts wrong. Chait contradicts an earlier position. Chait misses a logical conclusion. Does anybody think Chait cares?
Ed Driscoll’s on a roll:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/381028/
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/381024/
H/T Instapundit
A corrective to the cowardly blindness (or worse) of Jonathan Chait:
Theodore Dalrymple on the current “predicament”…
https://lawliberty.org/the-era-of-moral-thuggery/
Key graf:
The whole masterful thing.
Wrong about the Dems “thinking” that Reps are evil.
“… if they stopped thinking that conservatives are their evil racist enemies…”
They FEEL that Republicans are evil. All the Dem lies in the media, and academia, are to create this feeling, and lies & half-truths to make it easy for the super-smart test takers to “believe they think it”. Like rationally conclude it.
They don’t.
They rationalize their feelings.
All smart folk are able to lie to themselves, and believe their own lies.
No rational arguments will change the beliefs of those whose feelings are a certain way. Tho laughing at their superstitious beliefs might at least make them angry a bit – are they angry enough to look at evidence and facts? Not usually.
The problem is that college
educatedindoctrinated folk get their status and money come from espousing these false beliefs, and virtue signalling to other college indoc’d decision makers.The culture and business and academic decision makers, including politicians and “conservative” SCOTUS justices have all been thru the Dem dominated, Republican hating college system.
As long as anti-totalitarians call them “left” or “Leftists”, it allows Democrats on the ballot to claim it’s not them.
It IS them. Voting Democrat makes the problem worse, and America has this problem because of the Democratic Party.
Democrat Derangement Syndrome – Dem DS. Not Trump, Kavanaugh, Palin Derangement Syndrome; not Bush, not Reagan, not even Nixon nor Goldwater DS. All hated by Dems, because of the feelings. But those who Hate the Loudest are the Best!
And after Trump there will be further, possibly worse, hatred for any other Reps or public figures who oppose the Politically Correct mob.
Until colleges hire more Republicans than Blacks or Gays.
Congress should pass a law that forbids hiring discrimination against Republicans. And current and past students of colleges which advertised “diversity” should sue their colleges, and win, for false advertising.
“They FEEL that Republicans are evil.
…
No rational arguments will change the beliefs of those whose feelings are a certain way.
…
Congress should pass a law that forbids hiring discrimination against Republicans.”
Yes, they ‘should’… good luck with that.
Congress should pass a law that forbids hiring discrimination against Republicans.
What needs to happen is co-ordinated state and federal legislation which breaks the academy’s rice bowls. As for anti-discrimination law, a fragment of it ought to apply to public agencies, public corporations, natural monopolies, and oligopolies wherein collusion in restraint of trade is a threat. Otherwise, it all should disappear except for some disclosure requirements. We’ve lived for 50-odd years with lawyers second-guessing everyone’s discretionary decisions. Time to break some of their rice bowls too.
If you only watch one video today, it should be this one.
https://billwhittle.com/americas-failed-social-experiment-are-you-on-team-red-or-team-blue/
Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan – you must not have done much hanging out on the right, because the right’s favorite occupation (perhaps even more beloved than trashing the left) is to trash the Republican Party.
Then there’s Ymar… that likes trashing the entirety of human civilization and all factions in itself. LOL>
Aesop, the good red vs blue stuff. how many red pills do people need before they can wake up?