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Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT
, 4 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
I'm not completely sure that this @ezraklein analysis *rebuts* Sullivan's argument that Christianity's decline + conflating religious impulses w/partisanship makes politics worse ...
In general the essay does a good job complicating Sullivan's too-simplified story, while also offering an example of his point that the Vox-y style of liberalism doesn't have much an answer for institutional religion's decline.
vox.com/policy-and-pol…
More generally I would submit that it is not a coincidence, comrade, that bursts of racial progress in the US have tended to happen in the aftermath of periods of Christian revival -- great awakenings and post-World War II.
The past rhetoric of both black and white crusaders against apartheid is incomprehensible absent the Protestant religious consensus they were appealing to and trying to shape. This consensus's evaporation isn't the only important fact about our time, but it's a big one.
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There are plenty of reasonable critiques of the @TuckerCarlson manifesto but none of them add up to a defense of the rusted upper-bracket-tax-cuts-forever junk that passes for an establishment-GOP agenda.
"Don't infantilize the white working class, they aren't just victims, public policy has limits, the breakdown of the family doesn't have a political solution ... and now please clap for a tax bill that only seems to benefit our donor class, because Freedom."
"Giving parents more money probably won't reverse the decline of the two-parent family and payday lenders fill a sad but necessary niche ... now please clap for massive stock buybacks, haven't you ever read Adam Smith?"
Read 4 tweets
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I'll let you folks argue about the WASPs; I want to say something more serious about this essay, which I snarked at briefly last night:
quillette.com/2018/12/04/und…
I understand, in an era of anxiety, the Pinker-ish desire to point out the ways we've never had it so good. What I don't understand is the tendency to act like improvement = transcendence, as if we've actually slipped free of our ancestors' ruled-by-nature condition entirely.
We have more mastery over nature than in the past, more comforts and more years of life, but the claim that "we no longer live by the caprice of God and nature" is just whistling past the graveyard.
Read 7 tweets
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This tweet was slightly opaque; here's a probably-equally opaque unpacking:
One of the (plausible) cliches of left discourse is that racism + racial divisions make it hard to build a united working class front in America, bc the capitalist class can use racial bias + suspicion to divide and conquer.
One could extend a version of that analysis to the prospects for a successful as opposed to evanescent American conservative populism as well, in two related ways.
Read 10 tweets

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HEADS UP >> All eyes on powerful Ald. Ed Burke today on heels of the FBI raiding his offices 👇👇👇@WBEZ @DenverManuel #politics
#FBI raided Burke's offices in November, 3 months shy of #Chicago elections. Burke has been alderman for 50 years. He controls the $$ at City Hall (AKA: chair of the @ChiCouncil Finance Committee), via @WBEZ's @dmihalopoulos @claudiamorell @beckyvevea >> tinyurl.com/ycbjunke
Important background: Burke's private/public lives are so intertwined he's recused himself from hundreds of @ChiCouncil votes that have sent $$$ in benefits to his private clients, via @dmihalopoulos @WBEZ & @DavidKidwell1 @phjudge @BetterGov >> tinyurl.com/y79292bp
Read 14 tweets
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@ScottPresler I'm with U, man. U can't ignore any voter be it black or white. But path 2 victory in 2020 is 2 solidify white vote & get single white college ed women 2 vote @GOP in larger numbers as well as "suburban GOP white voters"

Trump has 2 run "Comfort Game"

@RationalMale @parscale
@ScottPresler @GOP @RationalMale @parscale Look I've looked at the data closely. Unless there is a major sea change, we will get 50 percent latino vote before the black vote. Thats the trend. We shouldn't ignore any group.
@ScottPresler @GOP @RationalMale @parscale That said, what will absolutely destroy our chances is if white voters dont show up or defect to Democrats.

A split up white vote dooms us

The midterm wins for Democrats were driven by white liberals who are brainwashed by trump. Our voters of course didnt show up as strongly
Read 32 tweets
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#Analysis: Ending #BirthrightCitizenship for the children of illegal immigrants and birth tourists has long been the crown jewel of pro-sovereignty immigration reformers. It's about interpreting the #14Amendment of the #Constitution correctly. Thread.
First, to quote the great Ann Coulter, it's laughable to think that any Founder, Framer or Amender of the Constitution intended for American citizenship to be the prize in a game of Red Rover with the Border Patrol. We're a nation of laws, after all.
Second, #14Amendment was one of three emancipation-related amendments to the #Constitution, designed to grant citizenship to former slaves and their children. The congressional record shows nobody believed 600,000 Americans died to give Congress the chance to open the borders.
Read 5 tweets
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Completely unacceptable, of course.

However, the fact that this story is on Quillette rather than a more mainstream publication makes me uneasy. The early decision not to publish because it would feed misogynistic politics may have been prescient.
Listed as Associate Editor of Quillette is @toadmeister, who has expressed views that appear to disparage the intelligence of women and people of colour, and who is an open supporter of eugenics. The suppressed academic research supports his agenda, tho no doubt unintentionally.
I would never support suppression of genuine academic research. This story needs to be heard. But I am suspicious of the motives of Quillette's editorial team in accepting this complaint for publication. Controversial academic research can be used to further political aims.
Read 5 tweets
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Es ist mutig und zeugt von Durchhaltevermögen, dass @hopedresden und @AusRaus weiterhin Pegida entgegentreten. Der ganze Rest ist ein einziges Armutszeugnis. Der "antifaschistische Schutzwall" ist nur ein Teil davon. Es kommt so viel zusammen (und das nicht nur montags). #dd0608
@hopedresden @AusRaus Hier werden Geschichten aber auch Geschichte geschrieben, man wird das irgendwann nachlesen können, wie eine "Hauptstadt des Widerstands" entstand und dann auch lange blieb (bis 2018 haben sie Dresden ja schon "gehalten"). Dass das alles möglich ist, sollte uns Sorgen bereiten.
@hopedresden @AusRaus Die Arroganz des Narzissten #Bachmann nimmt zu (kein Wunder), jetzt spricht er nicht mehr nur von "wir bleiben bis wir siegen", sondern er erweitert den Pegida-Slogan noch auf die Zeit nach dem "Sieg". Mit "Sieg" ist wohl gemeint, dass alle Pegida-Forderungen von der Politik
Read 65 tweets

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