I was really enjoying your newsletter until I got to the transgender "radicalization" opinion piece you elected to include among far more serious and deserving topics. I come to the Bulwark to get away from these culture war click bait articles designed to wedge the Democratic base.
It amazes me that Mollie H. can spout such obvious B.S. Has she no integrity, no workhouses, no prisons? Is she employed by the Ministry of Truth? How can anyone respond to such an egregious assault on verity and even on logic? I am appalled!
This is what the Republican party has been since the segregationist Democrats left for the Republican party. I admire you anti-Trumpers but you are in denial regarding the fact that your former party has been "unwoke" (i.e. racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic) for years. They are fascists pure and simple. I hope all the young voters who regularly sit out elections wake up when Roe vs. Wade and gay marriage are reversed by the Extreme Court. Most Republican voters are delusional and most Democrat voters are apathetic. Bye, bye democracy.
Towards the end of the article Charlie sites is the most terrifying part of all. It is literally a bullet list for the Final Solution of Ukraine:
" In this case, the necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
—liquidation of armed Nazi formations (which means any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Armed Forces of Ukraine), as well as the military, informational, educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
—the formation of public self-government bodies and militia (defense and law enforcement) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
—installation of the Russian information space;
—the withdrawal of educational materials and the prohibition of educational programs at all levels containing Nazi ideological guidelines;
—mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, the spread of Nazi ideology and support for the Nazi regime;
—lustration, publication of the names of acccomplices of the Nazi regime, involving them in forced labor to restore the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Nazi activities (from among those who will not be subject to the death penalty or imprisonment);
—the adoption at the local level, under the supervision of Russia, of primary normative acts of denazification "from below", a ban on all types and forms of the revival of Nazi ideology;
—the establishment of memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, perpetuating the memory of the heroes of the struggle against it;
—the inclusion of a complex of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new people's republics;
—creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years."
It is odd that the first thing I noticed in aforementioned RIA Novosti manifesto of mass death (beyond all the death) was. . . All the excessive adjectives and adverbs.
I mean, really.
It seems to be a common trope of violent authoritarian propaganda. All the damn adverbs.
Call that Exhibit #62,548 of my theory that those who commit the worst crimes are also the most unsuccessful in normal life. Clearly the guy that wrote that horrible manifesto flunked many of his writing classes. :/
Not the thing I should notice first about it. It speaks volumes about the evil we're up against. But still. :/
Re Kevin Williamson, David French et al. - it's not hard to understand the collapse of Reaganism in hindsight. First, Reaganism was at best a shaky triad of economic libertarianism, cold War anti-Communism and social conservatism. Second, the "Southern Strategy" and the parallel efforts to capitalize on "Outer Borough" ex-Democrat grievances belied any reliably libertarian bias in the GOP. Third, before the 1970s neoconservatism did not exist whereas paleoconservatism (the original "America First") was still a serious thing and never really went away.
Once the affable Reagan departed, it was only a matter of time before his legacy faded - even without the punishing shocks of the financial meltdown and the frustrated military interventions abroad. Indeed it's remarkable that it lasted as long as it did.
If today's conservatives expect to do any better they will have to be mindful of the message they're promoting, and not just take voters wherever they find them.
We are getting close to the point where it is going to be (as my dear mother would say) time to shit or get off the pot.
How can you read stuff like we have seen and see what is going on and fail to act in some effective fashion? How can you keep buying energy off these people and financing this crap? How can you defend these people and look at yourself in the mirror without retching?
On Mona Charon's piece. I really hope somebody who can make a difference reads that piece. I have blocked every one of the D's solicitors since just after the 2020 election. Their childish infighting, self-serving naivete regarding governance in the 21st Century, and their utter lack of foresight into the impending disaster, is incomprehensible. Any thinking strategist would take a mere 30-40 percent of the incredibly damning evidence of treason, voter suppression, and ant-democratic behavior the Republicans have been marshalling and turn it into a rallying cry for 2022. We have heard nothing but a call to gather round the campfire. Moscow Mitch has a strategy, as usual. The press is giving TFG everything he needs. Schumer is wringing his hands, and Canada does not look like a good option.
In today's TAC by Dreher: "You tell me: would you rather live in a society governed by Viktor Orban, or Joe Biden, who once called Orban a “thug”? Because if we on the Right don’t get an American version of Orban soon, it’s going to be Bidens (including Republican Bidens like Larry Hogan) all the way down to the society’s dissolution." FRIGHTENING!!!
It's perfectly fine to call Collins, Murkowski and Romney pro-pedophile. Just don't accuse them of inviting other Republicans to orgies or doing drugs.
How can you read the Russian screed against Ukraine without horror? And, without realizing that fascism is exactly where we are headed in this country? We have a major political party that has weaponized lies, both big and small, to regain power. They have several media outlets that join them in spreading the lies, shaping the views of their audiences. They embrace white supremacists and armed militias. Their elected officials do not defend our nation, our laws, our institutions, or our Constitution, instead actively participating or remaining silent because their lust for power justifies all of it. When a violent insurrection becomes legitimate political discourse, when the occupant of the White House can flaunt any law, any decency, any norm, when they defend and minimize foreign interference in our elections, when they are willing to embrace any brutal dictator and pursue any means to overturn a free and legitimate election - how much further do they have to travel before it's no longer hyperbole to accuse them of fascism?
Every American should be very concerned about casting a single vote for a political party that will not change the dangerous and hate-filled course they are on unless and until they are dealt massive defeats at the ballot boxes.
Again, absolutely outstanding article by Cathy Young. She is indespensable to understand the Ukraine War and to interpret the evolution and reactions from the different factions of the US ideological camps. On the Kremlin manifesto, I think it is an error to call it fascism. It falls into the realm of what the ideological evolution of the old European Communist Parties has become in many places in Europe. As a native from a European country, and as a person who came to age at the time of the Soviet Union collapse, I have seen the evolution of the former communist parties in the different European nations that later formed the United Left into New radical left subparties which question the very existance and right to existance of most modern European nations (colonialism has a lot to do with it, but the reasons given are as diverse and complex as the European history. In each country, they attach the reasoning to a different issue). When I mention this to my own family (my US-born and raised husband, dual citizenship children and US in-laws), they question me and tell me that "I exaggerate and they don't see it." They don't see it because understandably they are not paying attention. Only a few weeks ago my own husband became alarmed when I showed him a op-ed in a major US publication (I can't remember exactly which one) by a US professor and a cadre of cheerleaders in the comment section who repeated all the ideological theories which gave foot to questioning the right to existance of my country, all the theories that they never heard before and thought that I was exaggerating. In every Western European country there's some Bandera-like figure with a questionable past that some radical portion of the left is using to question the right to existance of the liberal order as it is now and to limit access to the system to opposing parties for their real or imagined association to those figures. Let's don't call fascism everything we find despicable. Of course, you will find very troubling right-wing nationalist Oban-like figures in many European countries, but you will also find the right-to-exist deniers on the left, and their speech sounds a lot like the Kremlin Manifesto.
I was really enjoying your newsletter until I got to the transgender "radicalization" opinion piece you elected to include among far more serious and deserving topics. I come to the Bulwark to get away from these culture war click bait articles designed to wedge the Democratic base.
It amazes me that Mollie H. can spout such obvious B.S. Has she no integrity, no workhouses, no prisons? Is she employed by the Ministry of Truth? How can anyone respond to such an egregious assault on verity and even on logic? I am appalled!
This is what the Republican party has been since the segregationist Democrats left for the Republican party. I admire you anti-Trumpers but you are in denial regarding the fact that your former party has been "unwoke" (i.e. racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic) for years. They are fascists pure and simple. I hope all the young voters who regularly sit out elections wake up when Roe vs. Wade and gay marriage are reversed by the Extreme Court. Most Republican voters are delusional and most Democrat voters are apathetic. Bye, bye democracy.
This relates more to your podcast than to this column. Mainstream news outlets consistently step on good economic news under Biden. https://pressrun.media/p/is-the-press-rooting-against-biden?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODAwMzksInBvc3RfaWQiOjQ4MjE5NTQ4LCJfIjoiQzIyMnEiLCJpYXQiOjE2NDkxNzkzMjgsImV4cCI6MTY0OTE4MjkyOCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTMzMTgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.0J50ee3TKyU4QE49caAlTs-oWLw3IJWOynFO11rqi_8&s=r
Do people experience malaise because they’re told to, and told that all good news is in a penumbra of grimness?
Towards the end of the article Charlie sites is the most terrifying part of all. It is literally a bullet list for the Final Solution of Ukraine:
" In this case, the necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
—liquidation of armed Nazi formations (which means any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Armed Forces of Ukraine), as well as the military, informational, educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
—the formation of public self-government bodies and militia (defense and law enforcement) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
—installation of the Russian information space;
—the withdrawal of educational materials and the prohibition of educational programs at all levels containing Nazi ideological guidelines;
—mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, the spread of Nazi ideology and support for the Nazi regime;
—lustration, publication of the names of acccomplices of the Nazi regime, involving them in forced labor to restore the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Nazi activities (from among those who will not be subject to the death penalty or imprisonment);
—the adoption at the local level, under the supervision of Russia, of primary normative acts of denazification "from below", a ban on all types and forms of the revival of Nazi ideology;
—the establishment of memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, perpetuating the memory of the heroes of the struggle against it;
—the inclusion of a complex of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new people's republics;
—creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years."
Kevin Williamson should give his coworker Rich Lowry a call.
It is odd that the first thing I noticed in aforementioned RIA Novosti manifesto of mass death (beyond all the death) was. . . All the excessive adjectives and adverbs.
I mean, really.
It seems to be a common trope of violent authoritarian propaganda. All the damn adverbs.
Call that Exhibit #62,548 of my theory that those who commit the worst crimes are also the most unsuccessful in normal life. Clearly the guy that wrote that horrible manifesto flunked many of his writing classes. :/
Not the thing I should notice first about it. It speaks volumes about the evil we're up against. But still. :/
Dots between Vlad the Invader and the GOP pedophia-obsessed: DNC hack, Pizzagate, QAnon.
Re Kevin Williamson, David French et al. - it's not hard to understand the collapse of Reaganism in hindsight. First, Reaganism was at best a shaky triad of economic libertarianism, cold War anti-Communism and social conservatism. Second, the "Southern Strategy" and the parallel efforts to capitalize on "Outer Borough" ex-Democrat grievances belied any reliably libertarian bias in the GOP. Third, before the 1970s neoconservatism did not exist whereas paleoconservatism (the original "America First") was still a serious thing and never really went away.
Once the affable Reagan departed, it was only a matter of time before his legacy faded - even without the punishing shocks of the financial meltdown and the frustrated military interventions abroad. Indeed it's remarkable that it lasted as long as it did.
If today's conservatives expect to do any better they will have to be mindful of the message they're promoting, and not just take voters wherever they find them.
"Covid Hysteria, Antiracism and the Collapse of Authority"
Title of Peter Wood's new piece in the Spectator
We are getting close to the point where it is going to be (as my dear mother would say) time to shit or get off the pot.
How can you read stuff like we have seen and see what is going on and fail to act in some effective fashion? How can you keep buying energy off these people and financing this crap? How can you defend these people and look at yourself in the mirror without retching?
On Mona Charon's piece. I really hope somebody who can make a difference reads that piece. I have blocked every one of the D's solicitors since just after the 2020 election. Their childish infighting, self-serving naivete regarding governance in the 21st Century, and their utter lack of foresight into the impending disaster, is incomprehensible. Any thinking strategist would take a mere 30-40 percent of the incredibly damning evidence of treason, voter suppression, and ant-democratic behavior the Republicans have been marshalling and turn it into a rallying cry for 2022. We have heard nothing but a call to gather round the campfire. Moscow Mitch has a strategy, as usual. The press is giving TFG everything he needs. Schumer is wringing his hands, and Canada does not look like a good option.
In today's TAC by Dreher: "You tell me: would you rather live in a society governed by Viktor Orban, or Joe Biden, who once called Orban a “thug”? Because if we on the Right don’t get an American version of Orban soon, it’s going to be Bidens (including Republican Bidens like Larry Hogan) all the way down to the society’s dissolution." FRIGHTENING!!!
It's perfectly fine to call Collins, Murkowski and Romney pro-pedophile. Just don't accuse them of inviting other Republicans to orgies or doing drugs.
How can you read the Russian screed against Ukraine without horror? And, without realizing that fascism is exactly where we are headed in this country? We have a major political party that has weaponized lies, both big and small, to regain power. They have several media outlets that join them in spreading the lies, shaping the views of their audiences. They embrace white supremacists and armed militias. Their elected officials do not defend our nation, our laws, our institutions, or our Constitution, instead actively participating or remaining silent because their lust for power justifies all of it. When a violent insurrection becomes legitimate political discourse, when the occupant of the White House can flaunt any law, any decency, any norm, when they defend and minimize foreign interference in our elections, when they are willing to embrace any brutal dictator and pursue any means to overturn a free and legitimate election - how much further do they have to travel before it's no longer hyperbole to accuse them of fascism?
Every American should be very concerned about casting a single vote for a political party that will not change the dangerous and hate-filled course they are on unless and until they are dealt massive defeats at the ballot boxes.
Again, absolutely outstanding article by Cathy Young. She is indespensable to understand the Ukraine War and to interpret the evolution and reactions from the different factions of the US ideological camps. On the Kremlin manifesto, I think it is an error to call it fascism. It falls into the realm of what the ideological evolution of the old European Communist Parties has become in many places in Europe. As a native from a European country, and as a person who came to age at the time of the Soviet Union collapse, I have seen the evolution of the former communist parties in the different European nations that later formed the United Left into New radical left subparties which question the very existance and right to existance of most modern European nations (colonialism has a lot to do with it, but the reasons given are as diverse and complex as the European history. In each country, they attach the reasoning to a different issue). When I mention this to my own family (my US-born and raised husband, dual citizenship children and US in-laws), they question me and tell me that "I exaggerate and they don't see it." They don't see it because understandably they are not paying attention. Only a few weeks ago my own husband became alarmed when I showed him a op-ed in a major US publication (I can't remember exactly which one) by a US professor and a cadre of cheerleaders in the comment section who repeated all the ideological theories which gave foot to questioning the right to existance of my country, all the theories that they never heard before and thought that I was exaggerating. In every Western European country there's some Bandera-like figure with a questionable past that some radical portion of the left is using to question the right to existance of the liberal order as it is now and to limit access to the system to opposing parties for their real or imagined association to those figures. Let's don't call fascism everything we find despicable. Of course, you will find very troubling right-wing nationalist Oban-like figures in many European countries, but you will also find the right-to-exist deniers on the left, and their speech sounds a lot like the Kremlin Manifesto.