Category Archives: Media
Republican Leaders
Republican leaders told President Trump they had a plan to get things done in Congress. They didn’t. And the swamp remains.
So Trump made a deal with Chuck Schumer to raise the debt ceiling and free up billions for hurricane victims. Now he’s looking at Schumer for more deals.
Republican Leaders
Here’s what Rich Lowry has to say about that:
The idea that Trump, who has been too inept to help his own party in Congress, will team up with perhaps the most deviously shrewd Democrat in the country and come out on top is difficult to credit. Schumer will milk Trump for whatever he can get — every tactical advantage, every bit of new spending — so long as he doesn’t give away anything important and doesn’t materially boost Trump’s political standing.
National Review’s Jonathan Tobin thinks the Republican party means nothing to Trump. Maybe for good reason:
Trump is unbound by any loyalty to the party that nominated him or to men such as House speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell. To the contrary, he regards them as foes in a cold war against a political establishment he neither likes nor trusts.
Hate Group Members
The extremist hate group thing seems a little trumped up to me.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says there are between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members. The SLPC is the media’s go-to choice for hate stats. They even publish this helpful hate map.
But their definition of hate seems broad. They label some Christian groups that don’t share their views on LGBT issues, like the Family Research Council, as hate groups. Then again, I suppose the Klan also considers itself a Christian group not big on the LGBT agenda.
Anyway, I found the FBI figure of 2,200 Klan members quoted in Newsweek archives. So I went with it.
Robert Lee Removed From University of Virginia
ESPN removed Robert Lee from the University of Virginia. Not the statue. Robert Lee the announcer. He’s the guy scheduled to do the play by play for Virginia’s opening game against William & Mary. In the hope of avoiding offense, ESPN removed him from the game.
Robert Lee and the Horse He rode in On
Meanwhile USC students want Traveler the Trojan Horse removed from Southern Cal games. Traveler was also the name of Robert E. Lee’s horse. That would be Robert Lee the general, not the announcer.
No Statue of Limitation in Identity Politics
Tear ’em all down.
Mark Lilla is a liberal history professor at Columbia. He blames identity politics for Democrats’ failure to win elections. The professor thinks the left focuses too much on what keeps us apart rather than on what brings us together. He says his conservative students make arguments based on ideas and principles. But his liberal students make their arguments based on identity.
Here’s a link to his latest book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. And here are a couple of reviews from The Guardian.
Alt Right Antifa Moral Equivalency
Democrats, the media, CEOs, Republican leaders, conservative pundits, and Mexican bandits hammered Trump for saying there were two sides to the Charlottesville brawl.
And if there were any “very fine people” in Charlottesville, as Trump said there were, they weren’t to be found among the alt right or antifa combatants. Maybe he meant very fine thugs.
Moral Equivalency
The moral equivalency thing is what really brought trouble for Trump. The idea that neo-Nazis and KKK types were the moral equals of the protesters they were fighting was too much.
Maybe, but the antifa types are pretty bad. Here’s Jonah Goldberg:
These goons and thugs oppose free speech, celebrate violence, despise dissent, and have little use for anything else in the American political tradition. But many liberals, particularly in the media, are victims of the same kind of confusion that vexed so much of American liberalism in the 20th century. Because antifa suddenly has the (alt-)right enemies, they must be the good guys. They’re not. And that’s why this debate is so toxically stupid. Fine, antifa isn’t as bad as the KKK. Who cares? Since when is being less bad than the Klan a major moral accomplishment?
So maybe it’s not moral equivalency. Just Extremely Ugly vs Very Ugly.
