The American Conservative Is Increasingly Insane

[LFC]

Oct 2, 2022 21:35:11 GMT indy said:

Rod seems a bit old to have finally realized the world has no problem moving on with or without you. You can't outrun it either.

He has wrapped his entire existence around playing the victim and the coming danger of the "woke mob." As he's gotten older it's consumed him more and more. If his wife (definitely) and kids (maybe) have finally said "ENOUGH!" because they're no longer able to civilly and sanely communicate with him there may be a bit of him that still kinda' knows it's his fault but it's his entire identity and he can't let go. Sadly it defines him more than his family.

[goldenvalley]

When he was more sane he offered some thought provoking essays.  But even in reading his book about moving back to Louisiana when his sister was ill you can see the book was about him...not his sister.  It's always all about him, his fear, his beliefs, everything that happened seemed to happen to him personally.  The move to Budapest was inevitable and once he gets disillusioned there, who knows...a monastery somewhere?

[indy]

He was never my favorite over there back when it was worth reading but I enjoyed his posts. He always seemed pretty high strung even then but all the bridge pins appear to have snapped simultaneously.

[LFC]

Some of the more clever writers at TAC start out sounding normal. This piece from 9/29 about the Great Lizzo/Flute Scandal (cue scary "DUMB-DUMB-DUMB!!!" music) has 8 paragraphs that aren't off the rails. He did pretty good up to that point but instead of easing into his stupidity and outrage he made a quick leap.

The liberals who control the far reaches of the administrative state and supposedly non-political entities like the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian Institute, are daring you to notice the insult they're leveling at one of our nation's founders. They’re picking a fight with you, and daring you to respond. I can’t help but feel for Lizzo for being used in such a cheap gimmick.

Or they may have been introducing and promoting their collection, which NONE of these outraged snapperheads even knew existed, to Lizzo's large fan base. But that story isn't politically advantageous.

[LFC]

Yeah, TAC is pretty much in the bag for Putin. The most they'll say is "What Putin did was wrong BUT..." because there simply has to be a "but." Here's what's up there now. (This is a bit long but there's a lot of Putin puffin' up there.)

Don't Buy the Narrative on Ukraine isn't totally insane

No doubt, some are running away. An estimated 261,000 fled the country so far, and perhaps more will follow. The fact of draft dodging is not in dispute. But it is not clear that the types heading for the border are of much interest to the recruiters. More likely, they are educated, liberal men, sometimes with families, and with no military experience.

Actually that figure is the number who fled BEFORE mobilization. Another estimated 700,000 have left after and they continue to leave. The statement "it is not clear the types heading for the border are of much interest to the recruiters" requires total ignorance of what has been happening including Putin's own semi-apology about the number of overaged men who were grabbed. As for "educated, liberal men" not being of use in battle weeellll, really? The guys who would be smart enough to train up fast on complicated equipment aren't useful?

Then she pulls this one out.

What should be in dispute is the coverage. Ann Applebaum is an American-Polish journalist and the wife of the former Polish minister of foreign affairs and current Member of European Parliament Radoslaw Sikorski—last seen thanking the U.S. for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe.

A quick search for "Radoslaw Sikorski Nord Stream tweets" has RT and Tass among the top 5 returns. She quotes Israel 365 News which has this in their About; "Israel365News offers a fresh and Biblical perspective on the latest news from Israel and the Middle East. Our bias is not liberal nor conservative – just Biblical." Gee, sounds legit.

This piece advises Biden to basically collapse at Putin's feet because he's threatened to use nukes ... and THIS time he's serious. I understand there are varying views on probability and response but this is little more than bed wetting.

Russian officials have signaled on multiple occasions that while the Kremlin has no current plans to use even small, tactical nuclear weapons to end the military stalemate in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s government reserves the right to use nukes if Russia’s independence or territorial integrity is threatened. Putin has indicated on multiple occasions that the nuclear option remains intact to respond to such “existential threats.” Most recently, Putin stated in a September 21 speech that his “country also has various means of destruction, and for separate components and more modern than those of NATO countries, and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal." He emphasized that his warning “was not a bluff.”

Joe Biden’s administration needs to take those signals seriously. But instead of backing away from its policy of supplying Ukraine with increasingly powerful weapons, Washington is doubling down on that approach despite Moscow’s rising anger. Worse, administration officials reportedly have sent “back channel” warnings to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would lead to “grave consequences,” suggesting a NATO military response. The conditions are now in place for a full-fledged game of nuclear chicken.

One might think that Biden’s policy team and its supporters in the foreign-policy blob would take Moscow’s latest warnings quite seriously and adopt a more cautious, prudent policy. But these are many of the same people who dismissed or even scorned Putin’s repeated statements since at least 2008 indicating that attempts to make Ukraine a NATO member or even an informal military asset would cross a “red line” and would not be tolerated. Hawks in the United States and Europe were astonishingly confident that Putin was bluffing. Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine demonstrated conclusively that he was not.

So pull all arms support because Putin is scary. As for that last paragraph Ukraine and NATO made it clear that Ukraine would not be joining and Ukraine offered it in an initial peace deal sooooo ... yeah, maybe read up on something before you write about it. (Oh, wait. That's not required at TAC or anywhere else in right-wing media!)


This description of Ukraine's currently purely political move of asking to join NATO is so bizarre it's tough to pin down the worst parts. It's just kind of frothy and disjunct. Here's a part of it that's pretty shrill, panicking, and frothy.

On its face, the proposition is so laughable one might think Zelensky is making a play to return to his old profession as a stand-up comedian. But Zelensky’s latest well-produced political stunt is no laughing matter. If the West caves to Zelensky’s demands, this winter could go from cold to nuclear.

"We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine's application for accelerated accession to NATO," Zelensky said in a Friday post on his Telegram channel.

"De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards. They are real for Ukraine—real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction," the Ukrainian leader went on to say. "We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is the alliance."

Zelensky, however, did not elaborate on how exactly Ukraine has helped or protected the United States as of late. And with Ukraine bitterly embattled in a war over its own territory, does anyone think it would come running to America’s rescue if the homeland came under attack, let alone the capacity (absent massive western transfers) to make a difference? The answer, of course, is no.

Psst. I guarantee you they've helped us a ton with full access to many of Russia's most state of the art weapons systems that they capture on the battlefield. The screeching about our homeland coming under attack sounds like crazy uncle Bob who lives and breathes Faux News at Thanksgiving.

And then there's Rod. Poor, poor, crazy Rod. As usual he cuts a whole cloth from a few threads, claiming to know what Europeans are thinking because he talked to a few people in Hungary, the European nation most supportive of Russia. Apparently Europe is going to hate America because Russia attacked Ukraine and multiple nations provided aid. Of course it's all our fault.

I hear this kind of thing more and more -- cab driver from the airport the other night said he is angry at Russia, but also angry at the US for provoking Russia -- and not just in Hungary. Most Europeans were solidly behind Ukraine, but with winter barreling down on them like a freight train, more and more of them are wondering why, exactly, they have to watch their economies destroyed to achieve Washington's anti-Russian foreign policy goals.

Yes, because Europe has no anti-Russian foreign policy goals, particularly those nations that know what it's like to live under their gentle rule. And no thought that fascist Viktor Orban's control of the media might, in some way, shape public opinion against Biden. He wouldn't even be able to imagine that.

And finally Crazy Rod ("He's iiiiiinnnnsaaaannne!") just plain fluffing for Russia.

It is insane for us Americans to think that Russia doesn't have a legitimate security concern over Ukraine as a Western ally on its border. The US would not for one second tolerate Mexico becoming a Russian client state, even if this were the free and democratic choice of Mexican voters. And Mexico is only an imperfect comparison, because Ukraine has been part of the Russian sphere for time out of mind, and Kyiv is, for historical reasons, vital to Russia's religious and cultural identity. I'm not at all saying that Ukraine should capitulate to Russian imperialist aggression! It should not. But at the same time, if we want peace, the West is going to have to recognize that Russia cannot tolerate a pro-Western Ukraine.

Note there's no mention of Europe having legitimate security concerns over having a Russian ally on ITS border. Nope, security concerns constitute a one-way street. And remind me again how many nations NATO has taken control of since its inception? Did he somehow miss the news that both Sweden and Finland are so afraid of Putin that they've run to NATO for security? How about that the Baltic nations that once lived under Russia's loving rule are pushing harder to support Ukraine than many other nations not on the border? Or do those little places not matter?

The rest is just melting down about how cities getting vaporized and how Russia is afraid of the U.S. because we know hate Christians or something like that. You know, pure, uncut, Dreherian victimhood.

[LFC]

Oct 2, 2022 20:37:11 GMT LFC said:

Rod Dreher is actually moving to Budapest to live in an increasingly fascist, bigoted paradise with a heavy helping of theocracy, of course.

This piece. I'm not familiar with the writer Roy Edroso but this is one of the most biting mockeries of both substance and style that I've ever read in my life. Here's just the beginning. The part about becoming an advisor to Orban and strident denial that his divorce had nothing to do with anything gay (I still suspect there's more than a little self-denial / self-loathing that Rod will never come to grips with) are just verbal stilettos.

[Based on a thing.]

When I think of how sincerely I endeavored to create a beautiful idyll by relocating my then-intact family to my hometown of Gascap, Alabama, and how things actually turned out, I am put in mind of the poet Howard Sprague from “Mayberry R.F.D.”:

I think I know how Adam felt
When paradise he left behind
For I, too, tossed an Eden away
That many others would like to find
O golden town of Mayberry
Your every vista I recall
I cherish every sight and sound
Especially since I’ve lost them all…

I know just how Howard felt — that he had betrayed all his old friends by going on that snooty TV show, most cruelly of all Goober. But there are key differences. For one thing, unlike Howard I have never faltered in my defense of the values of Gascap and rural America to its critics, even when rubbing elbows with the elite in the dozens of world capitals where I spend most of my time, including Budapest — how lovely it sounds when you pronounce the “s” like “sh”! — for which I leave tonight to live the life of a divine wanderer and poet of pro-family policy, and also advisor to Viktor Orbán (such an honor!).

And for another, Howard’s friends and family all rallied around and understood him in the end because of the strong philia and storge and agape shared by these manly sons of Mayberry. I received a far different reception; but then life so seldom measures up to the lively Arts.

The intense, throbbing, tormenting afflictio of my forced separation from these people is every bit as intense, throbbing, and tormenting as the agon I described when I first reported my divorce from my wife which is not the result of adultery or anything that resembles adultery and especially not anything gay. These tortures have been so unrelenting that I could barely enjoy my sacramental meats on my last visit to the Penisola Appenninica.

They are also I believe the cause of several strange dreams I have had recently – for instance, one about my friend with the wife who was possessed by the devil, in which we were joined by Virgil from the Divina Commedia, with whom we had an intense discussion of Drag Queen Story Hour. This reminds me of something I recently wrote about Dante…

[Approximately 800 words later]

Can you understand now why I felt sure that I had squared the circle, and could gift what I had learned in my intellectual and gustatory investigations to the people who had raised me, and that they in turn could impart their rustic wisdom to my wife and children, who sorely needed it, as their years in the corrupting cities had made them less receptive than I would have liked to the folkways and racial slurs with which I had grown up?

But there arose conflicts, conflicts and resentments, of which I may not speak lest I betray confidences at which I may only hint, for fear of identifiably contextualizing and contextually identifying circumstances to which I may only allude, and that allusively. I can only say that, while I freely admit there is much blame that may reasonably redound to me, there is also much blame I may not only evade but also reasonably redirect to others, in the classic manner of Rubber and Glue — oh, if only I could tell you the whole story! But all of us have sworn, and enforceably under state law, to secrecy.

[goldenvalley]

Oct 21, 2022 20:07:26 GMT LFC said:

Oct 2, 2022 20:37:11 GMT LFC said:

Rod Dreher is actually moving to Budapest to live in an increasingly fascist, bigoted paradise with a heavy helping of theocracy, of course.

This piece. I'm not familiar with the writer Roy Edroso but this is one of the most biting mockeries of both substance and style that I've ever read in my life. Here's just the beginning. The part about becoming an advisor to Orban and strident denial that his divorce had nothing to do with anything gay (I still suspect there's more than a little self-denial / self-loathing that Rod will never come to grips with) are just verbal stilettos.

[Based on a thing.]

When I think of how sincerely I endeavored to create a beautiful idyll by relocating my then-intact family to my hometown of Gascap, Alabama, and how things actually turned out, I am put in mind of the poet Howard Sprague from “Mayberry R.F.D.”:


I know just how Howard felt — that he had betrayed all his old friends by going on that snooty TV show, most cruelly of all Goober. But there are key differences. For one thing, unlike Howard I have never faltered in my defense of the values of Gascap and rural America to its critics, even when rubbing elbows with the elite in the dozens of world capitals where I spend most of my time, including Budapest — how lovely it sounds when you pronounce the “s” like “sh”! — for which I leave tonight to live the life of a divine wanderer and poet of pro-family policy, and also advisor to Viktor Orbán (such an honor!).

And for another, Howard’s friends and family all rallied around and understood him in the end because of the strong philia and storge and agape shared by these manly sons of Mayberry. I received a far different reception; but then life so seldom measures up to the lively Arts.

The intense, throbbing, tormenting afflictio of my forced separation from these people is every bit as intense, throbbing, and tormenting as the agon I described when I first reported my divorce from my wife which is not the result of adultery or anything that resembles adultery and especially not anything gay. These tortures have been so unrelenting that I could barely enjoy my sacramental meats on my last visit to the Penisola Appenninica.

They are also I believe the cause of several strange dreams I have had recently – for instance, one about my friend with the wife who was possessed by the devil, in which we were joined by Virgil from the Divina Commedia, with whom we had an intense discussion of Drag Queen Story Hour. This reminds me of something I recently wrote about Dante…

[Approximately 800 words later]

Can you understand now why I felt sure that I had squared the circle, and could gift what I had learned in my intellectual and gustatory investigations to the people who had raised me, and that they in turn could impart their rustic wisdom to my wife and children, who sorely needed it, as their years in the corrupting cities had made them less receptive than I would have liked to the folkways and racial slurs with which I had grown up?

But there arose conflicts, conflicts and resentments, of which I may not speak lest I betray confidences at which I may only hint, for fear of identifiably contextualizing and contextually identifying circumstances to which I may only allude, and that allusively. I can only say that, while I freely admit there is much blame that may reasonably redound to me, there is also much blame I may not only evade but also reasonably redirect to others, in the classic manner of Rubber and Glue — oh, if only I could tell you the whole story! But all of us have sworn, and enforceably under state law, to secrecy.

I'm familiar with Roy Edorso.  In fact reading Dreher's stuff made me google Dreher's name to find out what people said about him which led me to Edoros's alicublog.com.  He also runs a private subscription newsletter that the above quote is from. He doesn't put as much on the free blog as he once did so I stopped looking there. His sarcasm and his commentariat puts me in mind of the Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog.  Similar takes on life and politics.  He doesn't like Douthat and Stephens at the New York Times.  No surprise.

[LFC]

The cruelty of the Republican Party is now embedded deeply into the TAC psyche. In a garment rending piece about Republicans getting blown out in PA the author, who looks like a snot-nosed kid and who wrote an article for Real Clear claiming California would transition children by force, we have this clear-eye assessment of John Fetterman. Of course a) he was nominated before his stroke, b) he is hardly an invalid, and c) there's no sign he was a "lunatic" as compared to much of the Republican field, including PA gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. What a nasty little shit stain this punk is, a perfect fit for today's TAC.

It shouldn't have been hard for Republicans to win in Pennsylvania. Joe Biden is tremendously unpopular. Inflation is up over 8 percent. The Democrats nominated an invalid for Senate who was a lunatic before he had a stroke. The outgoing Wolf administration had presided over nearly eight years of radical progressivism in a commonwealth that is neither radical nor progressive.

And Republicans managed to blow it.

And then we have Rod. I would say it's Rod being Rod but I didn't think he was intentionally cruel. As nutty as he became I honestly believe that saying something this nasty about a stroke victim's lingering symptoms was a bridge too far for him. Clearly I was wrong and he's as much of a nasty little shit stain as any other Republican. Bold mine.

I woke up this morning in London hoping -- not just hoping, but expecting -- to see news of a Red Wave having crashed upon the shores of an America sick of the woke Democrats. I was disappointed. The Red Wave talk turned out to be bullshit. As I write, we still don't know the outcome of control of the Senate. We do know, though, that the Trump-endorsed candidate in Pennsylvania was beaten by a brain-damaged Democrat. That tells you something. That tells you a lot, actually.

Yes, Rod. That sentence you wrote tells me a lot, actually. It tells me you've descended from being a blind fool to being an angry, mean, awful human being. Pray to your God(tm) all you wish. It won't change what you've allowed yourself to become. You are now a bad person. Maybe not irredeemable but definitely evil.

Bonus paragraphs showing Dreher's continuing descent into Christian nationalism madness. Bold mine.

Well, look, the two races I cared most about -- DeSantis's Florida governor re-election bid, and J.D. Vance's Senate race in Ohio -- both went the way I wanted. Senator Vance! I'm old enough to remember this 2016 TAC interview that broke TAC's server and launched J.D.'s book into the stratosphere. We became friends after that. Here's an interview I did with J.D. right after his conversion to Catholicism. I can testify that J.D. Vance is a good man, and I think he will be a great senator -- and even president one of these days. God is with him!

The future of American political conservatism is Ron DeSantis, J.D. Vance, and National Conservative-style Republicans like them. Not MAGA. Not the Bulwark sad remnants of the pre-Trump GOP establishment.

Double bonus points for lying about the current crime rate.

The underwhelming election results on Tuesday, in a country suffering from high crime and high inflation...

The reality?

"Live not by lies", Rod. Live not by lies.

[goldenvalley]

LFC, I'm surprised you are not blind after reading this poisonous crap.

[LFC]

Nov 10, 2022 21:21:00 GMT goldenvalley said:

LFC, I'm surprised you are not blind after reading this poisonous crap.

I limit how often I check in. I haven't taken a look in weeks. I can't imagine having to monitor it daily. It's pretty much Breitbart with mildly better writing.

[LFC]

I saw this go by. Dreher has become outright hateful. At this point I think he could justify anything done to LGBTQ people as "saving our souls" or some such bullshit. In less than a decade he's become a perfect example of "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." If Lawrence v. Texas was overturned and gays were jailed for having sex he'd have no problems with it. The mask is off.

Bonus cluelessness points for his shrill screeching about totalitarian libs while he's living in Hungary. It's no shock that his wife and kids can't bear to be around him anymore.

[indy]

I wonder if Rod's tilt toward hostility was the product or the cause of his family life falling apart? I don't assume one or the other and it seems it could be either. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other.

Seems to me a lot of MAGAland feeds on bitterness and thinly veiled anger towards people they want to blame for their circumstances.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 13, 2022 1:11:12 GMT indy said:

I wonder if Rod's tilt toward hostility was the product or the cause of his family life falling apart? I don't assume one or the other and it seems it could be either. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other.

Seems to me a lot of MAGAland feeds on bitterness and thinly veiled anger towards people they want to blame for their circumstances.

He claims not to be a MAGA person.  Most of his vitriol before and after Trump has been aimed at single sex marriage, homosexual lifestyle, whatever he calls it. It seems to be based on his version of religion and how it should govern everyone's behavior. LFC had a theory about it back in February.

The crazy train continues from there. I'm convinced that Rod's childhood experiences, one of which he was bullied and his pants pulled down by some boys, have twisted his brain into an irreparable mess. His loathing of gays, something he'd deny with his dying breath, continues to be displayed more blatantly and more frequently (almost constantly) as he ages. I suspect that if he's still writing a decade or two from now his defensive walls meant to hide his hate from public view will crumble almost completely.

It didn't take a decade...

[indy]

Honestly, I have no idea. He says he's not MAGA yet espouses all the trademark attitudes and loves Hungary. My take is that his issue is with Trump himself and not really with the movement in general. I really don't pay much attention to him but it is always a little funny to see him promoting authoritarian attitudes as a response to 'totalitarian libs'  which implies he is willing to sacrifice any coherent structure to his beliefs and adopt the win at all costs mentality justified by a 'they're coming for our kids' rationale. I don't think there is much empty space separating him from MAGAland whatever he says to the contrary.

[LFC]

I couldn't resist checking in on the TAC post-mortem on the election. It's everything you'd expect. First up, an article entitled Don't Blame Trump by JD F***ing Vance himself as he jumps right out of the gate orally servicing the Orange Man's rear crevasse. I can't imagine TAC being an apologist for a shit for brains like Trump a decade ago but today it's fully expected. How far they've fallen.

Don't Blame Trump

Any midterm autopsy ought to focus on how to close the national money gap, and how to turn out less engaged voters.

Let’s start with an obvious caveat: there is a lot we don’t know. Precinct level data is still outstanding in most states, and exit polls are notoriously finicky. Votes are still being counted out west. We’re still ignorant about a lot. But any effort to blame Trump—or McConnell for that matter—ignores a major structural advantage for Democrats: money. Money is how candidates fund the all-important advertising that reaches swing voters, and it’s how candidates fund turnout operations. And in every marquee national race, Republicans got crushed financially.

The reason is ActBlue. ActBlue is the Democrats’ national fundraising platform, where 21 million individual donors shovel small donations into every marquee national race. ActBlue is why my opponent ran nonstop ads about how much he “agreed with Trump” during the summer. It is why John Fetterman was able to raise $75 million for his election.

Republican small dollar fundraising efforts are paltry by comparison, and Republican fundraising efforts suffer from high consultant and “list building” fees—where Republicans pay a lot to acquire small-dollar donors. This is why incumbents have such massive advantages: much of the small-dollar fundraising my own campaign did went to fundraising and list-building expenses. If and when I run for reelection, almost all of it will go directly to my campaign. Democrats don’t have this problem. They raise more money from more donors, with lower overhead.
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Outside groups, like SLF, try to close this gap. But it is a losing proposition. Under federal elections law, campaigns pay way less for advertising than outside “Super PACs.” In some states, $10 million from an outside group is less efficient than $2 million spent by a campaign. So long as Republicans lose so badly in the small dollar fundraising game, Democrats will have a massive structural advantage.

No mention of how the Orange Man has raised 9 figures from small donors and just kept most of it. JD's ass kissing would never allow him to acknowledge that Trump is tapping out their small donor base for his own personal stash.

[LFC]

In this piece about candidate quality JD Vance, utter nutter and conspiracy theorist with zero practical experience in governing, is held up as what Republicans should strive for in a candidate. F*** me. Bonus points for, once again, taking a dig at Fetterman's stroke while providing gentle, non-specific admonishment of Herschel "I'M A SHERIFF!" Walker.

'Candidate Quality' Cuts Both Good and Bad
Do we get the a Sen. Vance without a Trump-led GOP?

t’s the day after the midterms, when in the Before Times we could have expected to have full results. In this new world of “defending democracy” by enacting months of voting and mailing ballots and broken voting machines, the picture is still unclear. As Micah Meadowcroft reminds us today, we shouldn’t accept this as normal. Election Day must be a day once more, when voters show up to their polling place in person with an ID. You’ll even get a sticker as a souvenir.

But what we do know is that the expected red wave didn’t materialize, in a year when nothing seemed to be going right for Democrats. Many are quick to blame candidate quality, and especially the poor quality of Trump-endorsed candidates. Tim Carney makes the point effectively in the Washington

There’s a lot of noise as these midterm results flow in, and a few unsettled races at the moment, but this much is clear: Republicans would control the Senate next year had they stuck to nominating good candidates. Instead, typical of the Tea Party-to-Trump Era, Republicans in many key states nominated people who were patently unfit for office.

The senate loss in Pennsylvania, to a post-stroke John Fetterman who can’t even speak clearly, was certainly winnable by a better candidate than a celebrity doctor from New Jersey. Georgia is one of those unsettled races, but Herschel Walker was a lagging candidate who seemed determined to kneecap his own campaign at every turn, a fact reinforced all the more by Brian Kemp’s resounding victory in that state’s gubernatorial race. If Oz and Walker end up costing the GOP the senate, it will be hard not to blame Trump for propping up bad candidates.

And yet, for those interested in moving the GOP beyond the failed pre-2016 consensus, we must also look at the Trump wins. It’s hard to imagine that Senator-elect J.D. Vance gets the GOP nomination in Ohio without Trump’s endorsement. And we shouldn’t discount a Trump effect in yesterday’s general election, either. Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2020. Vance looks set to win his senate seat by a slightly lower margin, and far behind Republican Mike DeWine’s win in the governor’s race. In a state where the 45th president is still wildly popular, did Trump get Vance over the line?

And then the tapdancing and general insulting of non-dynamic, simply competent lawmakers as candidates. The GOP has made it crystal clear that just being a good lawmaker isn't good enough. You have to be a screeching, raving lunatic who repeats lies as effortlessly as you breathe. JD Vance fits that mold(iness) to a tee.

Trump was able to shatter the failed GOP consensus because of his unorthodoxy, in both style and policy. This has always been the double-edged sword of the Trump era. It delivers huge wins that would be unthinkable from a more typical politician, as well as some really head-scratching decisions. Who else would stand by Brett Kavanaugh at the height of #MeToo, and also turn to John Bolton for foreign policy advice after denouncing the Iraq war?

Trump’s post-presidency endorsements have followed the pattern. The man is nothing if not willing to surprise, and Vance, Masters, Walker, and Oz all fit that mold, for better and for worse.

So yes, it’s possible that poor Trump-endorsed candidates will cost Republicans the Senate. But the more interesting question for those of us interested in reshaping the Republican Party is this: Would you rather have a Senate majority with milquetoast establishment Republicans representing Ohio, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia—or a minority that includes Senator Vance and Senator Masters, rising stars intent on moving the Republican Party in a better direction? Do we get the latter without a Trump-led GOP?

[LFC]

Finally it's all about sticking with the crazy horse. To be fair that may be the only path they have left. They took decades to build that path street road super-highway but they never tried to figure out if it had exit ramps. It appears that it doesn't.

No red wave. That’s the headline everywhere this week.

Some people are disappointed; some are gloating; some are coping. I’m closest to the first group, but I’ve grown more optimistic over the course of these last few days.

With the notable exception of Senator J.D. Vance, everyone I liked who was locked in a tough race lost on Tuesday. Most of them lost big. But none of the losses is very difficult to explain, and none is much more difficult to resolve. There were plenty of surprises on Tuesday. But there aren’t really any mysteries.

First, some myths.

The red wave didn’t fail because the GOP leaned too hard into the MAGA movement. For one thing, most of the hand-waving about ultra-mega-MAGA extremists this cycle hasn’t actually been about the populist-nationalist conservatism signified by the slogan. It’s been about “election deniers,” which is to say Republican candidates who don’t get super excited about the “shadow campaign” to “fortify” the last election against a Trump victory.

One of the most prominent has been Kari Lake, the charismatic ex-TV host poised to defeat Katie Hobbs (who as secretary of state oversaw the controversial 2020 election) in the Arizona gubernatorial contest. Setting aside the fact that the vote-counting process has proven many of Lake’s complaints about incompetence correct, plenty of other Trump loyalists have won or look poised to win their midterm contests too. If asking questions about 2020 is really such a killer, then all of these results will have to be explained.

Even Doug Mastriano, the other ultra-mega-MAGA boogeyman of regime media and Resistance Twitter, didn’t lose because he was too radical. He lost because he refused to run a campaign. He won the primary and then vanished into thin air, handing a winnable race to a far-left holdover from the unpopular incumbent government by a margin of 14 points. He dragged Dr. Mehmet Oz down with him, though the latter might have lost regardless by virtue of being a liberal.

[indy]

Nov 15, 2022 0:02:54 GMT LFC said:

I couldn't resist checking in on the TAC post-mortem on the election. It's everything you'd expect. First up, an article entitled Don't Blame Trump by JD F***ing Vance himself as he jumps right out of the gate orally servicing the Orange Man's rear crevasse. I can't imagine TAC being an apologist for a shit for brains like Trump a decade ago but today it's fully expected. How far they've fallen.

Don't Blame Trump

Any midterm autopsy ought to focus on how to close the national money gap, and how to turn out less engaged voters.

Let’s start with an obvious caveat: there is a lot we don’t know. Precinct level data is still outstanding in most states, and exit polls are notoriously finicky. Votes are still being counted out west. We’re still ignorant about a lot. But any effort to blame Trump—or McConnell for that matter—ignores a major structural advantage for Democrats: money. Money is how candidates fund the all-important advertising that reaches swing voters, and it’s how candidates fund turnout operations. And in every marquee national race, Republicans got crushed financially.

The reason is ActBlue. ActBlue is the Democrats’ national fundraising platform, where 21 million individual donors shovel small donations into every marquee national race. ActBlue is why my opponent ran nonstop ads about how much he “agreed with Trump” during the summer. It is why John Fetterman was able to raise $75 million for his election.

Republican small dollar fundraising efforts are paltry by comparison, and Republican fundraising efforts suffer from high consultant and “list building” fees—where Republicans pay a lot to acquire small-dollar donors. This is why incumbents have such massive advantages: much of the small-dollar fundraising my own campaign did went to fundraising and list-building expenses. If and when I run for reelection, almost all of it will go directly to my campaign. Democrats don’t have this problem. They raise more money from more donors, with lower overhead.
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Outside groups, like SLF, try to close this gap. But it is a losing proposition. Under federal elections law, campaigns pay way less for advertising than outside “Super PACs.” In some states, $10 million from an outside group is less efficient than $2 million spent by a campaign. So long as Republicans lose so badly in the small dollar fundraising game, Democrats will have a massive structural advantage.

No mention of how the Orange Man has raised 9 figures from small donors and just kept most of it. JD's ass kissing would never allow him to acknowledge that Trump is tapping out their small donor base for his own personal stash.

The reason Fetterman gets 30 million in small dollar donations and Oz gets 5 million is because of ActBlue? Build an ActRed platform and they will come, is that it? Ok then.

[LFC]

Finally, what would TAC be if it didn't have Rod Dreher soiling his tighty whities because a group stood up for the basic human rights of LGBTQ people. ("Get back in the closet, queers!" --Rod, probably) Bold mine with a follow-up on the very Wikipedia link he provided.

The US national soccer team is sticking it to Qatar, all right:

The United States' men's national team have made a huge statement at the World Cup in Qatar by redesigning their crest to incorporate the rainbow flag, in a bid to show solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.

The tournament, which starts on Sunday and sees the US play their opener against Wales on Monday, has been hugely controversial in its build-up, given Qatar's human rights record and attitude to homosexuality.

As recently as this month, a Qatar World Cup ambassador told a German TV broadcaster that homosexuality was 'damage to the mind', and it remains illegal to be gay in the conservative Muslim country.

The USMNT appear to have made an immediate stand on their arrival in Doha, though, by changing the usual red stripes on their crest to a rainbow.

I personally disagree with Qatar's official policies on homosexuality, in general. But this cheap woke stunt is wrong. It's an insult to the Islamic host country. I'm old enough to remember what then-president Barack Obama said in his celebrated 2009 Cairo speech:

I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect... . There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

The very moment this conflicts with the most sacred value of the American Left and the US ruling class -- LGBT rights -- respect for Islam goes out the window. I have lived in Central Europe off and on for the past two years, and I tell you, American cultural imperialism on the LGBT front is very much in your face -- and the people in this part of the world resent the hell out of it. In the past week I spoke to a Christian activist from one former Communist country who was extremely angry about this. She said that in her country, the US Government and Western civil society organizations have pushed and pushed for the eradication of conservative religious and social values there. She said, "The ordinary people don't want these things, but they keep happening, and nobody knows why. Nobody knows why."

I know why.

Now let's look at Rod's link on "Qatar's official policies on homosexuality" that he disagrees with, in general.

Since 2004, Article 296 of the current Penal Code (Law 11/2004)[8] stipulates imprisonment between one and three years for sodomy between men. This is a slight revision of the original law that stipulated up to five years' imprisonment for male homosexuality. Also, the death penalty is applicable only to Muslims, for extramarital sex regardless of the gender of the participants. However, there is no evidence that the death penalty has been applied for consensual same-sex relations taking place between adults and in private.[1][2][3]

Got that? Imprisonment for up to 5 years, where you know they'll be abused and raped repeatedly, and possibly death but at least only if you're Muslim and none recorded so far ... maybe. But hey, Rod, that paragon of religious piety and virtue, disagrees with that "in general." It's much more important not to insult the good people running this nation than to keep people from being imprisoned and torture over loving somebody.

And here's the reality of the situation as we come up to the World Cup that Qatar purchased from corrupt FIFA officials.

Qatar Preventive Security Department forces have arbitrarily arrested lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and subjected them to ill-treatment in detention, Human Rights Watch said today. LGBT people interviewed said that their mistreatment took place as recently as September 2022, as Qatar prepared to host the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in November and even as the government came under intense scrutiny for its treatment of LGBT people.

Human Rights Watch documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022. Security forces arrested people in public places based solely on their gender expression and unlawfully searched their phones. As a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” center.

Conversion therapy has been rejected as harmful by a host of medical and psychiatric organizations. It's a cruel farce that sprouted from religious ignorance. This is basically tantamount to torture, and Rod thinks the most important thing to do is not insult the torturers.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit (or at least ignore) atrocities."

[LFC]

Nov 15, 2022 0:32:47 GMT indy said:

The reason Fetterman gets 30 million in small dollar donations and Oz gets 5 million is because of ActBlue? Build an ActRed platform and they will come, is that it? Ok then.

Trump has a pretty tight grip on the small donation spigots and he's not sharing. It's driving them insane but they're all too pathetic to even utter a word about what is obvious.

[indy]

Nov 15, 2022 0:33:06 GMT LFC said:

Finally, what would TAC be if it didn't have Rod Dreher soiling his tighty whities because a group stood up for the basic human rights of LGBTQ people. ("Get back in the closet, queers!" --Rod, probably) Bold mine with a follow-up on the very Wikipedia link he provided.

The US national soccer team is sticking it to Qatar, all right:


I personally disagree with Qatar's official policies on homosexuality, in general. But this cheap woke stunt is wrong. It's an insult to the Islamic host country. I'm old enough to remember what then-president Barack Obama said in his celebrated 2009 Cairo speech:


The very moment this conflicts with the most sacred value of the American Left and the US ruling class -- LGBT rights -- respect for Islam goes out the window. I have lived in Central Europe off and on for the past two years, and I tell you, American cultural imperialism on the LGBT front is very much in your face -- and the people in this part of the world resent the hell out of it. In the past week I spoke to a Christian activist from one former Communist country who was extremely angry about this. She said that in her country, the US Government and Western civil society organizations have pushed and pushed for the eradication of conservative religious and social values there. She said, "The ordinary people don't want these things, but they keep happening, and nobody knows why. Nobody knows why."

I know why.

Now let's look at Rod's link on "Qatar's official policies on homosexuality" that he disagrees with, in general.

Since 2004, Article 296 of the current Penal Code (Law 11/2004)[8] stipulates imprisonment between one and three years for sodomy between men. This is a slight revision of the original law that stipulated up to five years' imprisonment for male homosexuality. Also, the death penalty is applicable only to Muslims, for extramarital sex regardless of the gender of the participants. However, there is no evidence that the death penalty has been applied for consensual same-sex relations taking place between adults and in private.[1][2][3]

Got that? Imprisonment for up to 5 years, where you know they'll be abused and raped repeatedly, and possibly death but at least only if you're Muslim and none recorded so far ... maybe. But hey, Rod, that paragon of religious piety and virtue, disagrees with that "in general." It's much more important not to insult the good people running this nation than to keep people from being imprisoned and torture over loving somebody.

And here's the reality of the situation as we come up to the World Cup that Qatar purchased from corrupt FIFA officials.

Qatar Preventive Security Department forces have arbitrarily arrested lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and subjected them to ill-treatment in detention, Human Rights Watch said today. LGBT people interviewed said that their mistreatment took place as recently as September 2022, as Qatar prepared to host the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in November and even as the government came under intense scrutiny for its treatment of LGBT people.

Human Rights Watch documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022. Security forces arrested people in public places based solely on their gender expression and unlawfully searched their phones. As a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” center.

Conversion therapy has been rejected as harmful by a host of medical and psychiatric organizations. It's a cruel farce that sprouted from religious ignorance. This is basically tantamount to torture, and Rod thinks the most important thing to do is not insult the torturers.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit (or at least ignore) atrocities."

Qatar bans beer sales at the cup. That will probably be a bit of a shock to Budweiser, one of the sponsors.

[LFC]

Dreher decided to illustrate how clueless he is about things other than religion and gay people. You have to read his views on Twitter to believe how untethered from reality he’s really become.

www.theamericanconservative.com/the-elon-musk-freakout

[indy]

What would an "effective" Twitter be? As I see it, a forum for the exchange of as wide a variety of information as is possible, without giving voice to hardcore bigots, extremists, violent people, and other kinds of malicious commenters.

LOL. Pretty breezy explanation of an 'effective' twitter. What's the old saying, the devil is in the details? What does 'as wide a variety of information' mean? What exactly counts as 'information'? Who defines who the 'hardcore bigots, extremists, violent people, and other kinds of malicious commenters' are?

Let's moderate, says Rod, so long as we draw all the lines exactly where I want them to be and I don't have to do any of the hard work of actually defining my terms by putting them on paper for the moderation team to follow, or managing the thousands of people trying to enforce them in a chaotic world of 8 billion people all talking at the same time in hundreds of different languages, or making the thousand advertising people who actually provide the money to keep it all going happy. I'll leave all those little details to someone else so long as I get what I personally want for the low cost of $0 or, I guess, $8 if you let me keep my little blue checkmark.

On the other hand, I'll be happy to sit here and criticize the result but I can tell you right now that if the 'woke' culture (which again, I'm not going to bother to define in any sort of useful detail, but I'll know it when I see it) gets any input to the definitions, guidelines, or implementation then you did it wrong.

What a putz.

[LFC]

Nov 20, 2022 12:37:06 GMT indy said:

LOL. Pretty breezy explanation of an 'effective' twitter. What's the old saying, the devil is in the details? What does 'wide a variety of information' mean? What exactly counts as 'information'? Who defines who the 'hardcore bigots, extremists, violent people, and other kinds of malicious commenters' are?

To paraphrase the famous saying, "follow the gays." Dreher is pissed off because the vast majority of American society, and increasingly other societies, look down on gay bashing, and that included Twitter. That puts him in the position of being viewed as immoral and as self-righteous as he is he can't stand it. I've read a lot of him over a decade and I've become more and more convinced that gay bashing is his primary lens into the world, one where he and his kind are the real persecuted victims of the gays and "woke" left and not the other way around. Sure he'll drop a caveated "live and let live" once in a while and then return to his regularly scheduled programming.

"Live not by lies," Rod.

[LFC]

TAC seems to be going out of its way to find total whackjobs who can bind anything together with false equivalence. This one is an apparent Russian expat who is screeching that California handing ballots out to everybody is pretty much like Russia forcing people to vote or else. The comparison is particularly jarring and lacks even the most basic smoothing of the ridiculous edges. First she tells a story of her sister not voting and the local apparatchiks showing up at their door. That's followed by:

That family story no longer feels outlandish; in all but minutia, it has ceased to be a warning about socialism. 

That Soviet situation is now not so very different from the electoral process in, for example, California, where, two years ago, under the guise of a public health emergency, Governor Gavin Newsom authorized absentee ballots to be sent to every voter. It worked so well for him that he later made the change permanent. Conveniently, ballot harvesting, also called ballot trafficking, which allows the collection of mail-in voting ballots by a third party, had already been legalized in 2016.

Under the ballot trafficking regime, we don’t drag teenage girls out of bathtubs and send them in freezing cold temperatures to polling places with still-wet hair. Oh no, that would be rude. Instead, party and union functionaries arrive at their doorsteps to pick up the ballot—this type of coercion is far more gentle on all individuals involved. We may eschew certain cruel details of Soviet life, but the attack on privacy feels very Soviet and, more importantly, the negation of agency, the very essence of disenfranchisement, is the same. 

And then there's the lie about our elections being "increasingly opaque."

In the USSR, “elections” were play-acted to cover up autocracy. Alexei Yurchak explained in Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More how, in the 1970s and ’80s, the language of Soviet propaganda was designed to give the impression of stability, and the population was enlisted to reproduce slogans written by the Kremlin. Likewise, the results of Soviet “elections” were predetermined, but everyone was mired in the lie of participation, to help create the illusion of an indestructible regime. 

America today has a mirror problem. A sense of suspense around the key races is the norm—pundits generate attention-grabbing headlines, polls are interpreted every which way, and bets are placed on PredictIt.org. At the same time, the process itself is becoming increasingly opaque. With voting and balloting taking weeks if not months, many states have retired the idea of Election Day. The ballots can be returned in batches and stored in unsecured boxes. Cameras watching the uncounted ballots go dark in the middle of the night. Citizens are admonished to trust the experts, and reassured computers will not mess with the vote. 

This is not the idea of free and fair Western elections that was sold to us, the discontented in the USSR. A real election involves people going to the polls and casting their vote in privacy, but in a way that is observable, so that anyone can see that it is free of coercion. Paper ballots are tallied immediately after the precincts close. And, of course, a valid form of identification is required to vote. One day, one ballot, one voter, one ID. 

Multiple intentional deviations from this model raise doubts about whether what we are witnessing qualifies to be called an election at all. 

All I can say is that the author is clearly f***ed up, something that seems to be a requirement for TAC these days.