An ultramontane conservative Catholic using the term “cancel culture” with a straight face is rich, too, given the RCC’s history of silencing everyone from Galileo right up to the victims of sexual abuse.
And, yeah…
He’s intellectually dishonest and a pathological BSer, but he’s smart enough not to let himself get caught in outright lies.
Lawyers! Because respect for the law is ultimately what will keep Cheeto Benito in check. Got it.
What about the rest of the Grifting Old Pricks?
Apparently Kim can, at the very least, fake empathy for his people convincingly, something Trump can’t even manage. (I can’t even tell if he’s trying to.) That’s really saying something when Kim Jong-un is more sensitive and, well, human than the president of the United States.
True, but remember that when we say “Trump” in this context, we’re also talking about his enablers in the White House who are absolutely planning out ways for him to stay in power even after people vote against him. Donnie has been told of these plans but understands very little of them, based on his public comments on the subject.
Like other’s have said, it doesn’t matter if trump is dumb as rocks. It’s the people around him who push his buttons and pull his strings that count. Trump does not need to plan the coup, or run it. He just needs to stand back and let the people that he’s been letting actually run the government organize the coup (mcconnel, barr, mnuchin, devros, putin, etc). Trump’s job is just to be a showman and keep the attention on himself, and make speeches and be the figurehead and just blindly sign whatever they tell him to sign.
Yeah. Weird to see BoingBoing amplify the words of a conservative scumbag and inveterate dummy like Douthat.
I think this is going to be the main factor in the blue tsunami of 2020. Solid Trump voters aren’t going to switch to Biden, they’re just not going to show up.
And they’ve been told not to mail in their ballot, so a lot of Trump’s “likely voters” (i.e. voted in the last election) are being overcounted in the polls.
I’m hopeful of a major Biden landslide (400+ ev) and normally i’m pretty pessimistic.
But Douthat’s also too inept. So, he might be right this time, if accidentally(?)
However, his thesis is obviously flawed. While Trump himself is inept, many of his underlings (William Barr, Stephen Miller, etc.) are certainly not. Bush-43 was, by and large, inept, but he had master-lawyers like James Baker steal the 2000 election for him. Not all — not even most — Republicans are never-Trumpers. They’ll hold their nose. And they’ll help this fetid mass of overdeveloped blastosphere cells attain a second term.
Anyway, without arguing with any of your statements, here is the piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/cancel-culture-.html
He basically agrees with your point that the term may be new, but the phenomenon is old, though its targets may change from time to time. And the only reason the Right opposes it now is because it often is effective against horrible opinions, namely right-wing ones.
Does he mention the long (and on-going) history of his beloved RCC – the one he usually can’t shut up about – in the context of this phenomenon? Does he discuss Popper’s Paradox? If he does neither, it’s his usual BS and not worth the time of anyone who thinks critically.
The right opposes it only selectively, as it always has. Exhibit A is Colin Kaepernick, whose protest Douthat considered improper and who still isn’t playing in the NFL.
It’s Trump’s in-power enablers that worry me.
Besides, power will make him sober. He’ll grow into the responsibility of the role yet, any day now.
“Not that law!”
“Not that order!”
Doesn’t change the fact that they weren’t some sort intellectual powerhouses. They also had some serious establishment backing. Taking advantage of defects in our system via a power grab doesn’t take nearly as much planning as you’d imagine. Nor does it take a great strategic mind. Even a rather shallow understanding of history can offer guidance for those looking to stage a coup.
Indeed.
I don’t know that posting this is necessarily endorsement on the part of @frauenfelder. I suspect not.
Cancel culture is not a thing. It’s a made up thing to justify shutting down activists on the left.
If there are a bunch of Fox News assholes in jail for legitimate sedition charges, and Trump is in prison, then the US will be in a state of civil war, as there is no way the republicans are going to let their propaganda arm face consequences for their actions.
It may well be a low level thing, but there will be shooting.
Maybe it’s time America started having a talk about divorce?
As a lame duck I would assume Trump’s only two goals would be:
Reduce the risk of jail time for himself and his associates, and
Enrich himself and his family.
So I’d expect to see breathtakingly brazen straight-up corruption and theft - B Movie fare like flying to Russia on Air Force One with a cargo of gold bars from Fort Knox honestly wouldn’t surprise me in the least at this point. I’d expect some incredibly cynical maneuvers to favor politicians who somehow might block or impede entities that might otherwise feel like prosecuting him. And I’d also anticipate him positioning himself to move into a retirement as a TV gadfly constantly railing against the Biden administration in some unprecedented format, like with his own daily Limbaugh-style ranting talk show where he constantly stirs up his dwindling but devoted band of supporters and basically taunts Biden to come after him for inciting violence under threat of ‘unleashing’ his followers, whatever that might mean.
Can’t imagine him starting any foreign wars, at least - no upside to him personally and upside to him personally is all that has ever mattered. We will see.
“It’s like there’s a horse, loose in a hospital.”
-John Mulaney, Kid Gorgeous
Hmm, now that you put it that way…
and Cadet Bone Spurs deserve each other.
Crikey, just in time for Halloween. 
FTFY
Has Kim been checked for excessive steroid consumption or whatever?
Pretty surreal…
Steroids use would likely cause the opposite reaction.
