Politics
Georgia Voters Call B*llsh*t on Existential Threatism
If you’ve spent any time in Republican circles since 2016, you’re familiar with a particular pattern of GOP political pressure. No, pressure is perhaps too mild of a word. The better word is bullying.
The pattern works like this. Trumpist activists seize disproportionate power in the grassroots, work with the Trump team to nominate Trumpist candidates, and then browbeat every conservative who raises objections in the general election. They use negative polarization (with a helpful assist from Democratic extremism) to present voters with the “binary choice.”
Are you pro-life? Then you can’t vote for the Democrat. Are you worried about the border? Then you can’t vote for the Democrat. Even if the Republican’s character is so deficient that you wouldn’t want your kid working for them if they managed the local McDonald’s, the MAGA movement will yell, “Still better than the Democrat!”
It turns out that people don’t want to be bullied into the ballot box. It turns out a significant enough number of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters will turn to their own party and say, “Do better.” They’ll call the Trumpist bluff and turn the challenge back to them—if these issues are so vital, why are you nominating obviously deficient candidates? Why aren’t you taking the high demands of public office seriously?
But this point becomes truly powerful only combined with this last observation. MAGA losses combined with normie Republican wins shows there’s life left in conservatism yet. Here’s the tale of the tape in Georgia: Walker was the only Republican this year to lose a statewide race.
David French, Georgia Exposed the Trumpist Scam (Emphasis added)
Of course, a similar argument applies to Democrats: If Doug Mastriano was an existential threat to democracy, why did you spend money to get him elected in the primary?
Bad Omen
Any Republican that’s out there trying to work with [Democrats] is wrong.
Kevin McCarthy, quoted in the Economist
Culture
What subscriptions should I cancel next?
One of my most vital convictions is summed up in this post: “Wondering how to decide what to read? Here’s a simple but effective heuristic to cut down the choices significantly. Ask yourself one question: Does this writer make bank when we hate one another? And if the answer is yes, don’t read that writer.” Americans have these wildly distorted views of people whom they perceive to be their political enemies because so many journalists and talking heads enrich themselves through stoking hatred. Those people should be utterly shunned.
Alan Jacobs, via a reminder from John Brady.
I’ve looked ahead on my list of books to read and eliminated a few based on this wise heuristic.
But what of newspaper editorials that say “hateful rhetoric directed toward transgender people and the broader LGBTQ community” aired from “church pulpits” to “school board debates and libraries” causes people who’ve rarely or never darkened the door of any church open fire in gay bars and clubs? Aren’t those newspapers making bank on hatred?
Alan Jacobs at least is consistent. Last I knew, he read news once per week, on Friday, from The Economist, which doesn’t write such piffle.
Noble lies
The Matthew Shepard myth — that he was murdered by two redneck strangers because he was gay — is still widely believed, even though the hideous murder was far more complex and fundamentally about meth. The idea that the Pulse shooting was motivated by homophobia — not true — is routinely repeated …
This is not healthy. Noble lies are still lies. And lies always fail in the end.
…
“I sure hope Trump has some more brilliant ideas for can’t-miss Senate candidates. Omarosa maybe? Carrot Top? Ghislaine Maxwell?” – Ann Coulter on the Georgia runoff.
“Can’t believe Lindsey Graham’s pitch of ‘vote for the brain damaged guy to show you’re not racist’ fell short,” – Richard Hanania.
Wordplay, an occasional feature
When the right words won’t suffice
We are currently in a time, perhaps unprecedented, when talk about all kinds of sexual behavior is pervasive, even inescapable. And we Christians who value purity are very much on the outside, expressing beliefs that the culture can’t even understand. There’s little likelihood that, if we could only find the right way to say it, we’d win people over; I found that out with the pro-life issue. It’s the beliefs themselves that they reject, and changing the words won’t fool them.
Professor David Bradshaw, The Beauty of Chastity, a chapter in Healing Humanity
Words of the Year
For the first time in its history, the Oxford English Dictionary trusted the general public to vote on the word of the year instead of having its esteemed lexicographers make the choice.
Predictably, the general public immediately abused this trust by voting overwhelmingly for the slang term “goblin mode.”
… “goblin mode”. That means a state in which someone indulges their laziest or most self-indulgent habits—perhaps suitable as a symbol for the first proper post-lockdown year.
The Economist Daily Briefing for December 5
the stink of loserdom
The aura now surrounding Florida Man, per Ross Douthat
[S]ubordinating truth to politics is a game which tyrants and bullies always win.
Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge
To believe that wealth is the only significant measure of the worth of an individual, a family, or a community is to reject the teaching of nearly every religion and wisdom tradition that ever was.
Mark Mitchell and Nathan Schlueter, The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry
The Orthodox “phronema” [roughly, mind-set] cannot be programmitized or reduced to shibboleths.
You can read most of my more impromptu stuff here (cathartic venting) and here (the only social medium I frequent, because people there are quirky, pleasant and real). Both should work in your RSS aggregator, like Feedly or Reeder, should you want to make a habit of it.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 