Trump-free
Ends and means
I would like to see illegal immigrants deported absent asylum claims that pass the smell test. But I want due process for them, all of them. There’s a right way and a wrong way. The right way, some baddies may get through the net.
I would like to see abortion eliminated in this country. But I always thought that the “decider,” under our constitution, is the states — not the Courts, Congress or, god forbid, an Executive Order from POTUS. Oh, and not by forbidding its citizens to travel out of state.
Yup. Tennessee tried that. I think Texas tried something along those lines, too.
Fessin’ up
I rooted for Brexit.
Having now tasted the equivalent of Brexit, in the form of Executive Orders from he-who-shall-not-be-named-here, I admit I was wrong.
But, see, I’m writing about him, and everyone else is writing or talking about him, so he’ll consider it a win.
Selected Observations on Public Discourse
Stolen from Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker:
4.
The most popular social media platforms will be those that allow people to avoid responsibility for what they say.
Every society has institutions of this sort. In ancient times, it was the bacchanalia. For us it is online shitposting and the burner account.
5.
Consider the etymology of the word ‘dictator’—from the Latin dictare (which translates as ‘to say often’). It thus designates a person who talks obsessively—repeating the same thing over and over.
It’s curious that dictators aren’t defined by their deeds, merely their monotonous talk. The assertion of power through repetitive speaking eliminates the needs for listening, or (at an extreme) even for action.
But isn’t this the dominant model of communication in the current era?
Social media is thus the true dictatorship of the proletariat—contrary to what Marx thought.
…
9.
If Aldous Huxley had known about endlessly scrolling short videos form a handheld device, he would have made it the preferred media interface of his Brave New World.
He wisely understood—unlike Orwell or Bradbury—that ruling elites don’t need censorship and book-burning if they can convince people to voluntarily abandon literacy.
…
13.
Podcasting is the new stream of consciousness—long, rambling, freeform.
It is the closest thing to avant-garde that media has ever devised.
…
23.
When images replace words and concepts, thinking skills erode—and do so rapidly.
Neil Postman saw this coming decades ago. He wrote:
Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.
It’s sobering to think that he already grasped this in 1985.
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26.
Scholar Perry Link recently described the longterm impact of getting blacklisted in China. It depressed him—at least at first. He could no longer visit friends there, or attend conferences, or do research, or teach.
But his credibility increased as an inevitable result of the official sanctions.
He said he finally understood the full power of his blacklisting, when he showed up one day to teach at UC Riverside.
A young blond male on a skateboard came careening my way. He jumped off in front of me and neatly flipped the board upward with his foot to catch it in his right hand.
“Professor Link!” he said.
“Yes…?”
“I hear you’re on a Chinese government blacklist!”
“Yes, that’s right…”
“Dude!” he shouted, gave me a thumbs up, and skated off.
In the aftermath, Link gained a reputation for courage, honesty, reliability, and forthrightness that he could never have achieved without the blacklisting.
I think about this a lot when I mull over growing evidence that I’ve been shadowbanned on Twitter. Maybe I should thank Elon Musk.
…
33.
Not long ago, stupid comments were just stupid comments.
But they have risen in the world. Now they’re training data sets.
Andrew Tate
[A] certain segment of conservatives have determined that not only is [Andrew] Tate very much for real, but he is a natural inhabitant of the political and cultural right. He has appeared on The Tucker Carlson show and The Candace Owens show. Benny Johnson recently interviewed him. With news breaking in the last few weeks that the Trump administration may have pressured the Romanian government to allow Tate and his brother Tristan to come to the United States, Tate’s embrace by the popular right seems complete.
Tate apologists offer a couple of related justifications to anyone questioning the wisdom of this arrangement. The first is that Tate, we are told, “has cracked the code” on how to talk to young men, and by bringing him into the movement, conservatives stand to bring countless young men into the fold.
Not going to happen.
The idea that Tate’s success a few years ago at convincing a segment of young men to enter his Hustlers University to earn a P.H.D. (Pimpin’ Hoes Degree) will translate into convincing that same segment of men to commit to a movement aimed at preserving the best of Western culture and virtue seems fanciful at best.
Tate’s popularity with his audience has never been about conservatism in any form. His popularity rides exclusively upon the fact that he grants young men permission to act on their basest impulses while promising that doing so will make them rich. If anything, Andrew Tate cannot save the West because Andrew Tate is what the West must be saved from.
…
Tate’s ascendency signifies not the triumph of the popular or dissident right, but the rot at its core. No movement not fundamentally adrift would embrace him. No movement rooted in the love of The True, The Good, and The Beautiful would countenance his crass and violent history and say, “You’re one of us.”
Dean Abbott, Front Porch Republic
I’ve paid no attention to Andrew Tate, but he has intruded into my field of vision often enough for me to say that this seems about right. Tate is closer to barbarian than to conservative.
Trump 2.0
Anti-Antisemitism: Trump’s all-purpose excuse for lawlessness
… Donald Trump wants no ambiguity: “My promise to Jewish Americans is this,” he said on the campaign trail. “With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”
As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, I find no comfort in the Trump administration’s embrace of my people, on college campuses or elsewhere. Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people.
All of these agendas — from dismantling basic government functions to crushing the independence of cultural and educational organizations to criminalizing political speech to legitimating petty presidential vendettas — endanger the principles and institutions that have actually made this country great. For Jews, a number of these agendas do something more: They pose a direct threat to the very people they purport to help. Jews who applaud the administration’s crackdown will soon find that they do so at their peril.
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Abductions by government agents; unexplained, indefinite detentions; the targeting of allegedly dangerous ideas; lists of those under government scrutiny; official proclamations full of bluster and bile — Jews have been here before, many times, and it does not end well for us. The rule of law and the right to freedom of thought and expression are essential safeguards for everyone, but especially so for members of groups whose ideas or practices don’t always align with the mainstream. As M. Gessen recently wrote in these pages, “A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others.” What our government is doing now is wrong in itself, but beyond that, it poses a bigger threat to Jewish people’s safety than all the campus protests ever could.
Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University.
Lunatic Loomer’s guilt by association
President Trump has fired Gen. Timothy Haugh, the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, multiple outlets reported Thursday night. The move—which coincided with Trump’s dismissal of six members of the National Security Council—reportedly came at the behest of MAGA activist Laura Loomer, who visited the Oval Office last week. In a post on X, Loomer said that Haugh had “no place” serving in the Trump administration because he had been selected by Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Patently unconstitutional
[T]he executive order purporting to reject birthright citizenship is unconstitutional and designed to introduce maximum chaos. I say that for several reasons. One is that the originalist arguments against birthright citizenship are weak (for previous posts on this blog, see here and here). Another is that given more than a century of judicial precedent and executive and congressional practice and legislation, the standard for reconsideration by the courts cannot be “we’re just asking questions” or “well, it could have gone either way” or even “this is the best reading” but rather an extremely strong showing of demonstrable error. And of course with enough water under the bridge, even that isn’t enough. What has been offered in the administration’s briefs and in the scholarship they rest on is not remotely close to meeting that kind of high standard.
Samuel Bray, Divided Argument blog
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
Simone Weil, from a letter to Georges Bernanos.
[N]one of the things that I care about most have ever proven susceptible to systematic exposition.
Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread With the Dead
I don’t do any of the major social media, but I have two sub-domains of the domain you’re currently reading: (a) You can read most of my reflexive stuff, especially political here. (b) I also post some things on the only social medium I frequent, because people there are quirky, pleasant and real.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 