1. Good thread on Russel Kirk & Jim Crow. The thing to note is that Kirk's 1958 editorial marked a shift in how Northern conservative intellectuals saw South. Kirk was from Michigan & previously not bad on race (he opposed Japanese American internment).
2. We tend to take the alliance of Northern and Southern conservative intellectuals for granted, but it's a product of an ideological shift from 1945-1960, a kind of precursor to the Southern strategy the GOP adopted in 1960s.
3. Prior to 1945, Northern conservative intellectuals & pundits (Mencken, Nock, Pegler) were blistering critics of white south, seeing it as cultural & moral backwater, & supported some measure of civil rights (primarily anti-lynching laws).
4. The primary intellectual form of Southern conservatism tended to be traditionalist anti-capitalist (i.e. the agrarians) which clashed with the pro-business orientation of Northern conservatives. Also, of course, Republican party was minimal in South.
5. The post-1945 reconciliation of the South & North was a product of a variety of factors: the expansion of civil rights movement beyond anti-lynching to democratic rights, anti-communism, and the emergence of Dixiecrats as leading Southern opponents of liberalism
6. William F. Buckley was a big part of this story, for very personal reasons: his mom was Southern and Buckley grew up in South Carolina on one of the biggest former slave plantations in America (originally owned by James Chestnut, who ordered firing on Fort Sumter)
7. Buckley's South Carolina plantation was very old school, complete with black servants. "It was like Gone With The Wind," recalled Garry Wills. This was the emotional roots of Buckley's support for white Southern racism.
8. At National Review, Buckley was in perfectly poised to promote the idea of the white South as a conservative bulwark, aided by writers like Richard Weaver and J.J. Kilpatrick. They created a new synthesis of northern & southern conservatism.
9. All of which is to say that there was nothing inevitable about Northern conservative embrace of racist backlash politics in South. It was a choice. There were other paths open and other parts of their own tradition they could have turned to.
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1. Worth revisiting the debate between @ezraklein and Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel/Palestine because there's a specific factual point that Klein got very wrong which he should apologize for. Klein insisted that unlike Hamas, Netanyahu was not "specifically targeting killing civilians."
2. TNC responded to Klein with a very eloquent "hm" which I think was a polite way of saying "what are you talking about?" Klein's statement was absurd on the face of it since both in current Gaza onslaught in last seven decades, Israeli government's have killed many many civilians, at a rate that is truly startling.
3. But of course apologists like Klein have always had a way out dealing with the very high civilian death count that he Israeli government has inflected on Palestinians: intentionality. Those deaths were all regrettable collateral damage from fog of war. Lots of civilians died but Netanyahu wasn't "specifically targeting killing civilians."
1. Stan Lee -- father of the Marvel universe or one of the biggest cultural frauds of recent history? A terrific piece that helps advance a longstanding question about Stan Lee's alleged authorship (or non-authorship) of 1960s Marvel comics. This deeply researched article -- which also serves as a profile of a fascinating writer -- has found some evidence that is major addition to this debate. Let me unfold a tale.
2. Stan Lee presented himself as the creator of the Marvel universe, the visionary who came up with the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Black Panther etc. And that's the way he was usually presented in the press & by Marvel/Disney hype machine. It was always nonsense.
3. In truth, Lee was the junior collaborator of the artists he worked for, notably Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko. Kirby & Ditko came up with most of the characters & plots as well as the preliminary dialogue, which Lee then polished. But there's reason to think he didn't even always do the polishing.
1. So I have a few thoughts on Elon Musk, ketamine, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, opium, Hitler's meth habit, William F. Buckley and the most pathetic acid trip in history, W. H. Auden, cocaine, Aldous Huxley, the CIA, and Silicon Valley, as well as other related matters.
2. Thanks to some excellent reporting from the Wall Street Journal & The New York Times -- as well as the evidence of our own eyes -- we know Musk is an epic consumer of Ketamine (enough to damage his bladder) and also partakes of LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, mushrooms & who knows what else.
3. It's important to contextualize Musk's drug use not as a personal quirk (good or bad) but as part of the larger drug culture on the right. The first Trump administration was awash in speed and Xanax & there's a two century history of mind-altering substances fuelling activities of the right.
1. Wall Street keeps hoping Trump will change his mind, realize Tariff Wars are stupid, and pull back. That's why so many fell for that stupid Walter Bloomberg tweet this morning & market had a brief rebound. But change-of-heart not happening. Trump is in YOLO mode. Only path forward is congress.
2. 2. Thinking Trump will change his mind isn't unreasonable: in 1st term he was reined in by moderate GOP. But reality is Trump is in 2nd term, most likely can't run again, this is his last shot to achieve goals: YOLO. And he's had stupid trade deficit fixation since 1980s.
3. Only path forward is congress, which in fact has constitutional power to set tariffs. That was foolishly delegated to president but can be taken back. To do this you'd need 20 GOP senators: so far 7 are on board: so 13 more.
1. Politically, the key thing to understand is tariff crisis is above all else a constitutional crisis. Under USA constitution, power of tariffs belongs to congress, not president.
2. Now, congress has a right to delegate its tariff power to president, which it has done over last few decades. This parallels the shifting of war making power from congress to president and was also done on so-called national security grounds.
3. The argument for delegating tariff power to president -- like broader argument for imperial presidency -- was idea that POTUS was more responsible & security minded (concerned for whole nation's interest) than congress, which represented narrow regional interests.
1. Trump's goal of taking over Gaza (after Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed) is evil and deranged. It's also not going to happen, along with many other similarly crackpot, criminal goals: annexing Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal etc. These absurd goals are evidence of imperial decline
2. Feature of all of Trump's recent trade wars is that he uses hyperbolic threats (annexing Canada, 25% tariffs etc), then reaches an agreement whereby other country concedes little or nothing. Pattern has been seen in Canada, Mexico, Panama, Colombia. Declare war, do nothing, declare victory,
3. Trump's a product of the world of professional wrestling where kayfabe (fake feuds, fake fights) are the norm. He's brought that narrative technique to politics and foreign affairs. Important to both condemn his goals as evil but also at the same time debunk them as kayfabe.