About that Sober read of the Nation ...
The right fucking suck, but watching MAGA eat its own is just delish. Pop a bottle of your favorite quaff, pop some popcorn, and tuck in.
After I set up the scheduled post titled "A Sober Read of the Nation", I woke up this morning to two related items. First let's return to the NY Times, and David French...
Before I dive into the content of the piece, I gotta say: Are you just figuring this out Mr. French? Seriously? After your congregation chased you out for adopting an orphaned child from Africa, and your sect of the Southern Baptists turned on you?
Anyhow, let's dig in, shall we? (Reminder, click the banner image to access the gifted NY Times link)
As you might have suspected, Mr. French is keying off of the hullabaloo around the Tucker Carlsen tongue bath of Groyper Nick Fuentes' nutsack. The incident he starts with is the incredibly cack-handed response from Heritage Foundation leader - Kevin Roberts - who initially excused the rage, following the "NETTR" principal. NETTR is No Enemies to the Right, basically meaning that you never criticize anyone to the right, and you always punch left.
Thus, Roberts defended Tucker from the swelling chorus of calls to boycott him because he platformed the odious, avowed antisemite, white nationalist, and all around anal wart that calls itself Nick Fuentes.
Hoo-boy, did the Never Trump echo-system not like that. But fuck, it's the Heritage Foundation, they can weather a minuscule wedge of the media like the Bulwark, Adam Kinzinger, and Charlie Sykes.
But it turns out that within the Heritage Foundation there exists a (probably small and shrinking) cadre of "principled" conservatives.[1] Turns out that hating imigrants, black and brown people, and especially all of the LGBTQ+ crowd is fine, but don't you dare call for an extermination of Jews, or praise Hitler, deny the Holocaust. That is causing some bad infighting and a lot of staff leaving.
Mr. French writes:
“We will always defend truth,” Roberts said. “We will always defend America, and we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda.”
“That includes Tucker Carlson,” Roberts continued, “who remains — and as I have said before — always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation. The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail.”
It’s hard to overstate how much this approach tends to work in the modern Republican Party. The hatred of the left — and of conservatives who are critical of Donald Trump — is so overwhelming that even the most basic acts of moral hygiene are considered weak or woke, or worse.
Clearly, Kevin Roberts is stunned that this caused a ruckus. He's just doing what has worked oh so well in the MAGA era for a decade now.
From my perch, decidedly left of center, this is a bit delish. I will admit that this in particular is what is causing a monstrous rift in the MAGA-Republican party. Mr. French also notes this:
The answer is rooted in part in the unstable bargain that millions of conservatives made with themselves and with America to keep supporting Trump.
First, as a bit of background, Trump’s rise not only eviscerated the idea that there should be any kind of character test for participation in Republican politics, it also resulted in an aggressive, vicious purge from the party and the movement of anyone who attempted to hold Trump accountable for depravity and lawlessness. Some of us have even been told that we’ve abandoned our Christian faith for opposing Trump.
Many of the conservatives who remained didn’t want to abandon the president, but they also didn’t want to completely abandon decency, either. So they chose a third way. Trump receives special dispensation (witness the much more muted response to Trump’s dinner with Fuentes, especially among Republican lawmakers), but standards still apply to everyone else. Other Republicans have to toe the line.
This reminds me of the Rick Wilson coined adage: Everything Trump Touches Dies or ETTD.
Anyhow, that was delightful, and worth the read. I do recommend reading it. And then look into the comments. There is a wafting sense of schadenfreude all through it:
Couldn't have said it better!
Jeff Tiedrich slays, as is the custom
The Sunday Missive from Mr. Tiedrich is one of his usual barn-burners:
Jeff Tiedrich
I mean, from the title, "How Much Nazi is the Right Amount of Nazi?" cuts to the chase. If you have even a scintilla of decency, the number is 0. But MAGA has no decency.
I'm not going to spoil your fun of reading Jeff's words. Click through and enjoy. I suspect most of my subscribers already get his missives in the mail.
Until the next item that spikes my rage rolls by, peace out!
1 - One has to wonder what their "principles" actually are, since they wrote the fuckery that is the Project 2025 that is ratfucking much of the country. But I digress
