Sometimes the letters to the editor are very good.
Elizabeth Spiers — Sometimes the letters to the e...
wonder what nancy thinks of her famous neighbor
Ross remains the least essential and least insightful columnist at the Times and that is really an impressive feat.
He is the respectable conservative invented like Voltaire's invented God; both irrelevant & indispensable
bretbug is still there
Bret is actually adjacent to a conservative constituency. Ross is just this weird little pervert trying to convert the heathen.
bearistotle.substack.com/p/political-...
Political Prediction as Humiliation Kink
Ross Douthat and Conservatism's Unspeakable Political Desires
bearistotle.substack.com
Ross’ apparent ignorance of V-necked undershirts allows that little white triangle under his chin to give us a subtle visual clue that he’s a fraud.
(Oh, nice type correction: afraud corrects to afraid!)
Ross is interesting in that “adult convert to conservative Catholicism” is an extremely weird and specific type of dude and it’s fascinating to see how his brain works but yeah he does not represent more than about 5 total voters
You could have left off everything after “columnist,” and you’d have still been correct.
I especially pull my hair out when the slate gabfest includes him and acts like his takes are remotely legitimate.
It works in reverse- if they want to act like he's legitimate, they are, by association, just as stupid.
Give Nancy a column!
Give her Ross’s, preferably!
Birding?! In this economy!
Loved the comment. Don’t forget the sarcasm tag next time
Fuck yeah nance
They're terrified of everything: vaccines, EVs, drag queens, black people in TV commercials, trans people, trans people playing sports, men who dress stylishly, women with opinions, a black president, renewable energy, etc etc etc
I've seen these weird signs popping up 'No Large Scale Solar' and I don't understand the objection. Of course I will look into it eventually but they're at homes flying the flag or displaying signs of a pedophile, so it's probably something bonefuckingly stupid.
It's astroturfing, using reactionary community clubs that are already in place and get large amounts of handy yard signs and slogans funneled in for whatever today's cause is, by exactly who you'd expect
www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1...
An activist group is spreading misinformation to stop solar projects in rural America
An NPR/Floodlight investigation found that a longtime Republican insider is stoking solar opposition by spreading bad information about health and environmental risks. Her influence is growing.
www.npr.orgWe really are in the worst timeline
Exactly who you’d expect, saying exactly what you’d expect. People with ties to the fossil fuel industries, claiming (among other things) that solar projects contribute to climate change
Rural America truly is a lost cause
We're not a monolith, though. There are a lot of people kinda ideologically beyond redemption, but as in the South and Texas, there are also a lot of us here fighting for better. Don't write us off, we need solidarity with one another to ever get out of this timeline, as it were
Truly, I get this. Both my parents grew up in NE Oklahoma during the Great Depression. My mother was one of eleven children; her father was a miner. His work during WWII (mining lead & zinc) helped pave the way for my mother to go to college & have her dream career as a teacher.
My father was a twin; he and his brother weighed less than 5 lbs at birth. His family struggled through the 1930s; in such an environment, dreams mean so much. Dad dreamed of being an electrical engineer. He served in the Navy during WWII. Thanks to the GI Bill, he achieved his dream.
But my parents encountered a great deal of skepticism when they went to Dad’s first engineering job on the east coast.Some people didn’t think a couple of Okies deserved to be considered professionals. They always met such attitudes with grace, not anger. I admire them so much for that.
The area where my parents grew up would eventually become the site of the Tar Creek Superfund. If I express frustration here, it’s at incomers who are set to profit at the expense of locals who have lived in an area for years.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Cre...
Btw I did not mean my other reply as hostile, for sure there's a lot of days when rural america feels like a lost cause and i regret getting stuck here. But i try to cultivate a sense of empowerment wherever i can
You’re attempting to be fair in a world that’s increasingly polarized. It’s a difficult balancing act, to be sure.
Terrified of EVs, which my uncle very confidently told me one Thanksgiving a) don't store enough energy to be viable and b) require so much energy that they will collapse the grid.
doss routhat
And she lives so near by Ivana, RIP.
Is it me, or are most conservatives more supportive of the oppressor than the oppressed? Seems like some sort of psychologically crossed wires.
Oppressors bring a strict order to the world: these are the people who control you, and these are the people you control. Conservatives need that order to feel safe. They're *terrified* of anything they don't understand, and they'd rather subjugate that knowledge than do the work of understanding it
Bingo. Which is sort of funny in view of the fact that democracy is inherently messy. Which is why subconsciously, democracy really bothers them and they're always trying to put severe limits on it.
Yes. I never understood why anyone would want an authoritarian leader till I read a comment that they want a strict dad leader so that they can stay a child.
Baked into conservatism is devoted commitment to a hierarchy. Therefore oppression is the natural order, as long as they're the oppressors.
The psychoanalytic term is "identification with the aggressor."
I can feel badly for people caught in it but that doesn't alter the fact that they're a real pain in the ass.
That better encapsulates my impression. Thank you.
I should add that I'm not talking about patients. The "peers" who do "peer-to-peer" for insurance companies are the most obnoxious example of identification with the aggressor that I know of.
"Here's why four unsuccessful generics trialed don't justify increased expense to us."
Wilhoit’s Law:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
YES
Wow - burning eloquence!
get his ass Nancy
Thank you for sharing this. I’ve tried similar appeals in the past, but never so well. This way of framing it is so useful.
Please use alt text or ask for help with the tag alt4me. All disabled people are as human as you and me
Alt4you
🫡
This is excellent! What publication is this and what article is she responding to?
New York Times. She’s responding to this opinion piece by Ross Douthat: www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/o...
Opinion | Can the Left Be Happy?
Comforted by neither God nor history, and hoping vaguely that therapy can take their place.
www.nytimes.comOmg! What the hell has happened to the New York Times??
Ross Douthat isn't the only bad columnist they've hired and continue to publish.
That article is such a relentless piece of garbage. It’s shocking. It’s not smart or insightful on any level. Unbelievable.
It said "Ross Douthat" on the byline, so you knew it wouldn't be good...
To think he’s actually paid for his “opinions”.
Given the nytimes complicity in spreading Trans panic and misinformation about Oct 7 it seems like they've hired Julius Streicher' corpse to head the editorial board
Its our Christian Influenced Cosmic Optimism ™️ that makes us so sad, we can’t even shoot a puppy in the face.
"Trump Feeling Fresh and Happy to Clear His Name in Court"
By Ross Douthat
More like Ross Don’t Douthat
Kudos to Nancy!
let 'er rip Nancy
Side note: going to start referring to repubs as "Dout-hats".
Out of curiosity, I looked this column up, and I think Nancy grossly understated Ross' lack of self-awareness.
Imagine the ones that don't get published.
The American voter who gets loudly drunk at rallies, cheers on taking rights from "other" people, gets their news from Facebook, and wants politicians who'll create more food and shelter insecurity so they can volunteer at their church's food bank to save their soul. This is called "happiness."
The temptation to post this on my mostly unused Facebook and leave the replies on unread for months is so high...
Closest agreement I saw was “I respect Mr Douthat but…”
The curated letters appear both intelligent and on-point—something every social media platform should aspire to—and to reaffirm beliefs that happiness is a by-product of an otherwise purposeful, good life
GIFT: www.nytimes.com/2024/04/27/o...
I once saw Douthat alone at a Starbucks in DC, and I certainly walked away with the impression, “oh, what a happy fellow I have seen!”
Many are truly outstanding
Ross who?
Get his ass Nancy
Hey Liz, your post of this letter is the first post I've read on bsky as "I've just arrived". And because of the content You my dear are my first follow. lol I'm here from Post that apparently is coming to an end. Same name there.
Often times
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Like a lot of conservative US Catholics, Ross thinks the Pope is a fraud.
I had to watch the interview, and….What POS Nancy Mace is. I find her insensitive at the very least
I love that Nancy is just kinda there. Like they almost forgot this is a Nancy comic and added her in at the last minute.
Ross is a conservative Catholic, and the adjective comes before the noun for a reason.
At least one of them thinks that no one should vote for any republican until the party is burnt down, thinking that the party is supporting authoritarianism and is irredeemable. That person remains a conservative, and happens to be on the blue
This is what the average conservative is like nowadays, they're all at least this violent and evil
BREAKING: Pennsylvania man beheaded his father, a federal employee, and called for "revolution" against "Biden regime" and "army of illegal immigrants" in online video
Take away Ross Douthat’s column and give it to Nancy!
Maggie Haberman, Ross Douhat, and Bretbug all sweating now that they can be replaced with an AI and the Times is actively trying to do so
Bretbug is also happy to perpetuate the rape libel that the NYT invented
there are three modes to conservative cultural consumption:
1) this thing is actually conservative
2) this other thing is just like something popular, and is conservative
3) this thing is communist and must be destroyed with the full power of the state
i'm trying to pinpoint but i think the funny part to me is that this man is a READER OF THE NY TIMES ETHICS COLUMN. Like he is specifically interested in what is right and wrong and is taking the time to write an email
That’s from the “he gets us” campaign that is trying to be “cool” but is actually a very conservative church
Would like to get Ross Douthat mildly drunk and see if he still holds the line there. Rare conservative intellectual who is clearly smart enough to know better.
I can make a case that the Jews invented baseball and basketball that is at least as solid as the case, made to me several times by different people, that the Chinese invented pizza.
So, are they trying to make the rank and file "conservative" think that the Times is "libural?"
Being on the aro-ace spectrum is weird enough sometimes but as someone who is at least furry-adjacent I have to wonder about the degree of overlap there.
I wonder what the traffic is on the columnist-to-columnist chats… least informative part of the whole paper.
Of course one interpretation of this is that GB News is the house organ of the Conservative Party, or at least the very right wing bit and so it isn't worried that the Conservative government is going to let Ofcom do anything too serious.
At the very least, there needs to be a test of "is this actually urgent"
How is there both a Ross Stevens and a Steve Ross megadonor is what I want to know.
Exactly! Like, to the outside world Francis is still massively conservative, and he *is* by a lot of standards, but in the environment of the Church itself he is very much a radical reformer.
With that and the Montana case it is really hard to figure out what is actually going on and what is going into the outrage machine.
At the very least this one is an eating disorder related action.
This is just like the conservative fascination with Spain in the 60s and 70s ...a poor misgoverned country ...but at least Spain used to be a superpower
[Ross Tucker Podcast] “We need to lower the expectations for what he is…he is not really at that level talent-wise…” – Greg Cosell
https://www.rawchili.com/3495173/
[Ross Tucker Podcast] “We need to lower the expectations for what he is…he is not really at that…
“We need to lower the expectations for what he is…he is not really at that level talent-wise…” – Greg Cosell
“We need to lower the expectations for what he is…he is not really at that
www.rawchili.com