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, 4 tweets, 2 min read
The latest issue of NR has my negative take on "Joker," one that is, I think, somewhat different than the other negative takes:
nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/…
In a nutshell: "Joker" isn't bad bc it's a dangerous movie about incels/populists/white-male alienation. It's bad bc it *isn't* about those things, but we're so starved for serious contemporary cinema that everyone's reading current concerns into a middling Scorsese simulacrum.
I will add that I've now read enough interesting takes on the movie (incl. from my NR colleague @rkylesmith) that I will admit I could be reading my own hostility to the superhero empire + JJ Abrams-style Boomer-classic simulacra into a movie that's actually a cut above both.
@rkylesmith But if you're looking for a movie about male alienation/violence/terrorism/misogyny at the end of history, I would suggest that "Fight Club," twenty years old now, is still far more relevant and challenging than the wayback-late-'70s-machine Phillips built for his Joker.
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Ross Douthat
@DouthatNYT
Very powerful rhetoric here from @AdamSerwer, to which I will offer a few mild responses:
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Working backward. First, it is not the case that the possibility of having the state turned against "has not even occurred" to anxious religious conservatives; if anything they have become too paranoid (a paranoia that in other contexts liberals mock) about exactly that.
Nor is the case that religious conservatives have no experience w/state coercion in their US history; Catholics + Mormons as well as evangelicals comprise the coalition, and it's not a coincidence that Catholics are often the most concerned about liberalism's anti-clerical edge.
Read 11 tweets
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Ross Douthat
@DouthatNYT
I agree that the great conservative dispute is confusing but I think this distillation from @davidfrum is mistaken; however I will test my sense of things with a poll.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Prior to the Supreme Court's 1962 school prayer ruling in Engel v. Vitale and sundry subsequent legal and cultural developments, was the United States a (Protestant) integralist society?:
If you answer "yes" then Frum's distillation of this debate to "integralism" makes some sense; if "no" it mostly does not.
Read 11 tweets
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Ross Douthat
@DouthatNYT
Now that I've inspired @rr_reno to throw down the gauntlet (again?), it's time for a thread about the resilience of fusionism.
firstthings.com/web-exclusives…
First, my own priors: I have a lot of respect for libertarian policy analysis and insight, but (as anyone who reads me knows) I share the @firstthingsmag desire for a right that's more economically interventionist to social-conservative ends.
(And to the extent that this alternative to fusionism extends to a more realist/less-hawkish foreign policy - which is debatable but plausible - I share that vision as well.)
Read 17 tweets

Related threads

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Call Paul's Boutique
@modernhomesla
Don't ya <3 a good Classic?

Paul does too.

Especially when it
details his continued
corruption + disloyalty
2 America since,
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But, it's a grt point
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Ultimate Phoney
#Ivana
"After the Gold Rush"
by Marie Brenner
vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/…
Highly recommend this read.
A-MA-ZING.

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Emily Post,
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on the news shows
offering his services
2 negotiate w
the RUssians."📌

"Talk he might run 4 pres."📌
8-8-2018
🌴🏠Mar-A-Lago🏠🌴

National Register of Historic Places, 1972
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Due 2 unfortunate circumstances,
heirs,
Dina Merrill
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decide 2 list the Palm Beach estate.

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Teri Kanefield
@Teri_Kanefield
(Thread) GOP cynicism and the Trump sexual assault allegations

The GOP response to the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault rape allegation demonstrates that the GOP never really cared about Bill Clinton’s sex life or if Biden touched a woman’s shoulder.
edition.cnn.com/2019/06/24/pol…
1/ The GOP pretended moral outrage, and cynically exploited the Clinton allegations for political advantage.

Similarly, Trump family members using private email servers for gov. business shows that the GOP knew HRC’s alleged wrongdoing was no big deal.
nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/…
2/ Trump's defense to the Carroll allegation—“She wasn’t my type”—is not only an insult, it implies that only attractive women can be raped, and that rape springs from male sexual urges.

Indeed much of history, rape was a property crime. For more, see 👇
Read 20 tweets
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Stu Cvrk
@STUinSD
Thread: Arguing with a Lefty About the Welfare State and More, Part I

1. Seems like a waste of time, doesn’t it? Lefties think we don’t live in a “welfare state” but at the same time don’t see any problem with “government assistance” of any kind. Let’s explore this.
2. Before getting started, many followers wonder where all the topics of my threads originate, as well as how I can keep pumping them out daily. I happen to like history & politics & their intersection. I find that most people ignore political history these days. Unwise!
3. Before my Tw@tter days, I used to collect and disseminate articles and commentary of interest to an extensive email distro list built up over many years, as well as engage in debates with a few of them on occasion.
Read 50 tweets
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Shem Horne
@Shem_Infinite
"First, a poorly attributed story will break ....." "Next, thousands of blue-check journalists, with hundreds of millions of followers between them, will send it around Twitter before they have read beyond the headline."

lol this is exactly how it works

nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/…
After that, I have to read a super boring 30 paragraph article or 30 page indictment to understand what actually is going on because I can't trust the media to sum up the information without lying about it.
This is a really funny article and is pretty accurate for the most part about the lifecycle of fake news in present day. Well worth reading, I laughed out loud quite a few times.

I take issue with this though, these people are screaming from the start but no one listens to them
Read 12 tweets
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Jewhadi™
@JewhadiTM
Bad, Press nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/…
Our nat’l press is a national joke. Vain, languid, excitable, morbid, duplicitous, cheap, insular, mawkish, and possessed of a chronic self-obsession that would have made Dorian Gray blush, it rambles around the country in neon pants, demanding congratulation for its travails.
The most vocal among the press corps’ ranks cast themselves openly as “firefighters” when, at worst, they are pyromaniacs and, at best, they are obsequious asbestos salesmen.
Read 36 tweets
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Politick_Rick
@Politick_Rick
Actually, you can still own a machine gun in the U.S. It's highly regulated, but very possible. There are many of them out there. --> thefederalist.com/2017/10/02/act…
--> vox.com/policy-and-pol…
2/ It's irrational to think that we can eliminate guns, or certain types, in the U.S. You'd have a hard time seizing 300 million of them. I'm pretty sure people won't cooperate. No one's going there. And of course you'd have to amend the Constitution, 2/3rd in both Houses & 3/4
3/ of the States would have to ratify, good luck with that.

We do have a culture of violence in the U.S. & we desperately need to address that. Of 11- 12 thousand gun deaths/yr, 9-10 thousand of them happen in the inner-cities, Black on Black crime. Gang turf wars & collateral
Read 35 tweets

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