[ Thanks to Ramon Grajo for the find! ]
Category: America
I want you to watch one video today: You Go High, We Go Low, which is one of the videos in Ian Danskin’s series, The Alt-Right Playbook. It’s especially important in light of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.
There’s going to be a battle over filling the vacancy in the Supreme Court, and the last time that happened, we had the Republicans breaking rules (or at least going outside them, and breaking sensible norms)…
and the Democrats taking the high road, giving us this…
and this:
Danskin argues that one of liberals’ weak points is that in embracing the idea that the ends do not justify the means, they tend to overemphasize the means and forget that the ends are the actual goal.
He points out that one of the key differences that separate liberals and conservatives — and which the alt-right has weaponized — is that conservatives primarily defend beliefs, and liberals primarily defend process. In this fight, liberals are playing by Harvard debating club rules of order, and conservatives are going by the norms of prison riots.
He reminds us of this important fact:
An action has no intrinsic value wholly separate from its outcome.
Remember, when you call out a conservative, MAGAt, or alt-righter and they reply “So much for the tolerant left,” they’re try to make us play by rules that they themselves aren’t following.
What they’re really saying is:
Watch the video:
Recommended reading
- Los Angeles Times — Column: Trump’s dire warnings are not about Biden’s America. They’re about his America
- Vox — Trump’s argument about “Joe Biden’s America” is undercut by the fact that he’s in charge
- Yahoo! — Wow, “Joe Biden’s America” Sure Looks A Lot Like Donald Trump’s America
- Chicago Tribune — Column: The RNC’s message: Biden’s America will look like Trump’s America, so … don’t elect Biden?
- Reason — Trump Warns America That Biden’s America Will Look Like Trump’s America
- AP News — As crime surges on his watch, Trump warns of Biden’s America
“RESOVLVED [sic],” the resolution reads, complete with a sloppy typo that would’ve been caught by an attentive proofreader or even a word processor from the previous millennium, “That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention…”
In short, they say they’re doing a great job, they’d like four more years of doing said great job with Trump nominally at the helm.
This election’s no longer a referendum on liberal vs. conservative — it’s been reduced to a choice between semi-competence and a toxic, self-serving, half-assed autocratic cult of personality.
Further reading
- Business Insider: Republicans will not adopt a new platform at this week’s convention and will instead pledge to ‘enthusiastically’ support Trump
- New York: GOP Will Not Write a 2020 Platform, Pledges Undying Trump Support Instead
- Slate: Republicans Announce Their 2020 Platform Consists of Supporting Whatever Trump Wants
- Esquire: The Republican Platform Is a Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of Unreason
- Mediaite: ‘Cult of Personality’: RNC Mocked After Announcing They’re Totally Abandoning a Party Platform, Just Supporting Trump
Categories
America in a nutshell
Baseball is no longer the national pastime; Oppositional defiance disorder is.
Last month, this painting appeared on the cover of Der Spiegel (here’s the international edition, in English), the most-read news magazine not just in Germany, but Europe as well. Its title is Der Feuerteufel (the firestarter), and its subtitle is Ein Präsident setzt sein Land in Brand (“a president sets fire to his country”).
To find out more about this magazine cover, see Ad Age’s article, Germany’s Leading Newsweekly Decries Trump’s Incendiary Approach.
