What I'm reading to try to stay sane
Plus: a Political Fata Morgana
My latest in a series of irregular, random, contrarian musings on the idiocracy of our times:
But, first, the obligatory dog pictures.
Auggie is ready for action (as usual):
Eli four years ago:
What I’m reading these days
A look at what’s on my bedside table…
(A profoundly moving read from a fantastic writer. I’m also listening to Nancy’s book on Audible, when I take the boys for walks. Russell Moore’s blurb is exactly right: “I didn't know writing could be this haunting and hilarious, heartbreaking and exhilarating all at the same time. I did not want it to end. This tour de force of storytelling and sense-making is one of the most gripping and beautiful memoirs in a generation. In these pages, Nancy French takes us beyond this confusing American moment right into the soul of our shared human condition, full as it is of gore and glory. You will not close this book the same as you were when you opened it.”)
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(An ideal antidote to the hysteria and insanity of our time.)
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(Brilliant look at the sea-change in media we are undergoing.)
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(Fun read about narcissistic man-child oligarchs.)
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(Charles was, and is, simply the best. Also listening on Audible.)
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(Just discovered her. Love her prose and ‘tude.)
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(Re-reading some of the Snark Classics. Also listening on Audible. Occasionally scare the dogs by laughing out loud.)
A Political Fata Morgana
The mirages known as Fata Morgana really are extraordinary sights.
The optical illusion can appear on the horizon over water or over land when the atmospheric conditions are just right. The name is the Italian translation of “Morgan le Fay” of Arthurian Legends, because the astonishing images were often described “as fairy castles in the air or false land conjured by her magic.” Sometimes the objects in the Fata Morgana – boats, islands, mountains coastlines -- are upright, sometimes upside down, as rays of light bend to create the quickly changing images.
Despite their attractions, though, it is always important to remember that mirages soon fade away. Which brings me to this weekend’s remarkable scene in the House.
For a genuinely stunning moment, it felt like we got a glimpse of the Republican Party from the Before Times; a party saw the United States as a shining city on a hill and a defender of democracy against authoritarianism aggression. It was a party that Ronald Reagan would have recognized.
But… this is still Donald Trump’s party, and there is no doubt what his election would mean for Ukraine… and our standing in the world.
ICYMI: I wrote about it in Monday’s Atlantic Daily newsletter (where I’m sitting in for Tom Nichols.)
Despite the illusion of a rational foreign policy and this past weekend’s flash of courage and independence, Johnson and the rest of the GOP conference are all but guaranteed to rally to support Trump. Even as he stands trial on multiple felony charges, Republicans are lining up to pledge their fealty to the former president whether or not he is convicted; New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and former Attorney General Bill Barr are merely the latest Republicans to bend the knee.
In just a few months, my hometown of Milwaukee will host the GOP’s re-coronation of Trump, affirming once again his absolute grip on the mind and soul of the party. By then, what happened this weekend will seem like a distant mirage.
You can read the whole thing here.
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ICYMI: Marge is going through some things…
Nota Bene
There is a William F. Buckley Jr. line for every occasion, and the one for Sen. J.D. Vance is: “I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”
Vance came to his heartland populism via an education at Yale Law School, Peter Thiel’s money, Hollywood, and the New York Times bestseller list. A venture capital man who once denounced Donald Trump as unfit for the presidency and who currently is so intimately and uncomfortably attached to Trump that it is impossible to distinguish him from a hemorrhoid, Vance has decided to be the clown prince of a very small kingdom: the realm of people who feel very strongly that the U.S. government should accommodate Vladimir Putin’s imperial project in Ukraine and beyond. Vance is not stupid, and he has seen how far a clown prince can go in Washington. He even has some reason to hope that he is 1,659 days away from being elected president of these United States after serving as Donald Trump’s vice president and riding that lame duck as far as he will waddle.
This war will be over only when the Russians no longer want to fight—and they will stop fighting when they realize they cannot win. Now it is our turn to convince them, as well as our own pro-Russia caucus, that their invasion will fail. The best way to do that is to believe it ourselves.
Jewish students have been forced to endure an atmosphere of eliminationist rhetoric that is consistently unable to modulate or confine its Manichean demands. The pro-Palestinian groups have chosen to embrace violent fundamentalist death cults as their allies. They have chosen to spurn compromise and coexistence. The gaping void of a humane, universalist, liberal movement to advocate for the cause of Palestinian freedom is their failure, and its fruit is the rancid antisemitism that, despite their feeble denials, has sprung up everywhere since October 7.
It’s simply not good enough for Biden and his fellow Democrats to gently chide the anti-American left and move on. Throw them under the bus. Pick one — any will do, as this is a target-rich environment — and make an example of him or her. Democrats are clearly afraid of how America’s restive students would react to that sort of banal majoritarianism. Whatever backlash that effort engenders among the young, indolent, and miseducated — however violent and disruptive it may be — will not come back on the Democrats who were bold enough to express their affection for the United States.
[NPR CEO Katherine Maher] is not, in fact, a liberal of any kind. She is — as the tweets and the record prove — a near-parody of an illiberal leftist, dedicated to replacing open and free debate with benign censorship, and to constructing a journalistic regime rooted not in the pursuit of truth but in the urgent task of dismantling “white supremacy.”…
Maher’s full tweetage is a deep dive into the successor ideology. First and foremost, it means an end to the Enlightenment idea of empirical truth, discoverable by a curious human being, regardless of his or her identity. This idea is, in fact, a “white male Westernized construct,” as Maher once explained in an interview. “Seeking the truth, and seeking to convince others of the truth, might not be the right place to start,” Maher argued in her TED talk.
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Hey, I warned you that this would be contrarian.
“who currently is so intimately and uncomfortably attached to Trump that it is impossible to distinguish him from a hemorrhoid”!!!! 😂🤣 That sentence made me legit lol! It’s just <chef’s kiss!> so good….
Charlie - we HAVE missed you!!
Perhaps it is some small comfort to know that people with attitudes like Maher and the nuts on college campuses are driving the likes of this lifelong liberal rightward. I cannot abide this sort of distorted thinking on either extreme. Grab a warped lens and start viewing every single thing you encounter through it: soon enough, you will be warped to match. It’s sickening.