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Nothing Is Ever Going Back to Normal
National Review — after previously offering that Drag Queen Story Hour was a “blessing of liberty” and railing against Florida Governor Ron de Santis for modest efforts at pushing back against the left — finds itself shocked… shocked … at the metastasizing phenomenon of leftists foisting drag shows (featuring men strutting pretending to be women as if women were clown-prostitutes) on children. “Oh, my heck!” they proclaim. “Who could have foreseen that if we indulged the left in their depravity they would push it even further?“
It’s understandable why (Bush) Republicans and (Atlantic) Conservatives would prefer not to fight the culture wars. It’s just not gentlemanly/ladylike to make a big fuss about leftists sexualizing children. It’s icky and Trumpy to confront the left about their cultural ambitions and their use of every lever of Government to promote them. And because they don’t want to fight, it’s very easy to succumb to denialism. “Yes, sure, there are a few crazies on the fringe of the left, but most of them don’t want to get gay with kids. And if we just calmed down and found some common ground we could get back to normal. Hey, why are those people over there making those kids shove cash in that transvestite’s thong?”
“In Defense of Political Escalation,” Abigail Shrier makes the eminently logical point that the left has no intention of ending the culture wars, or even a ceasefire.
Those waiting on the mythical pendulum to “swing back,” should stop holding their breath. The gender activists are True Believers, akin to jihadists: no amount of reasoning diminishes their resolve, no appeal to data brings them pause, no urge to consider the sanctity of American liberties will convince them to cool it.
While conservatives have been waiting for things to calm down and get back to normal, and fretting that “we oughtn’t do things that are at odds with our precious principles,” the left have seized not just Government power, but also academic power, media power, and even corporate power which they eagerly wield against anyone who dissents from Woke ideology.
If the woke continue to gain ground, where will we skeptics go to educate our children, transact commerce, find fair adjudication of our custody disputes? Where will we publish when not only the New York Times has a “gender director”—when every publication does?
That is the worry that likely motivates DeSantis, the first politician to “weaponize” the Florida tax code. He brought its hammer down on Disney to punish that one company for using its immense corporate coffers to lobby against parents’ rights in Florida. In principle, it’s a move I’m leery of. (And in the case of sending CPS after moms and dads who take their kids to drag shows, it’s a move I would oppose.)
But the gist of this stratagem—escalation—may be necessary. Indeed, it already seems to be working. Playing offense, even raising the stakes, may be the only means of achieving a much-needed truce. I’m out of better ideas. How about you?
Yeah, if there is another way to bring the culture back to plumb, I would be interested to hear it. But pundits writing hand-wringing articles in magazines that are only read by other pundits doesn’t seem like an effective solution to me.
And it’s not just the gender bending. The left will never give up on CRT. They will never give up on Climate Totalitarianism. They will never, despite John Cornyn’s delusions, give up on zero-tolerance gun control.
They don’t want to make a deal; they want our complete submission.
Published in Culture
Did you just . . . advocate for snobbery?
And if you argue that Trump is wrong on transgender issues, you can be called a RINO for advocating that only actual, biological women should be allowed in women’s bathrooms.
Repeat after me: Santorum was right, Dr. James Dobson was right, Michael Medved was right, anyone who was saying that “gay marriage” was a slippery slope, was right …only it was a precipice, not a slope.
The unacknowledged possibility is that Trump bungled the 2020 election and now wants to shift the blame for this defeat by talking about a stolen election.
Unacknowledged? You and your comrades fill thread after thread with this silly take.
I think this is the truth not just a possibility. The election was bungled when the Democrats changed the rules for voting prior to the election in many of the key swing states. Trump and the Republican party did not fight this properly and prevent it from happening. He was warned time and time again to get into the game and stop this and he ignored it. I voted for him twice but I think his day is done and he should let DeSantis carry the torch forward.
You seem to think that by listing the titles of the podcast and article, you’ve proven something. What, exactly? If you have specific objections to specific points, I’d be happy to hear them. If you don’t have specific objections to what is actually said, then you’ve wasted your time typing.
Which I do.
Completely the opposite: Trump emphatically did NOT support the state of North Carolina, he supported the idea that guys who call themselves gals should be allowed to use the women’s bathroom. That’s far more egregious in my mind, and corrosive to the culture, then David French supporting the First Amendment.
No, quite the opposite. I often hear, in criticisms of National Review, that they’re somehow posh and snobby, but I don’t know where that comes from other than the kind of snobbery that thinks that those who use reason and write well are snobs.
I agree. As soon as you accept the idea that gender doesn’t matter to marriage, you pave the way for gender to not matter.
Trump never made any effort to win back the suburban voters who had left him (and in that first debate, gave them plenty of reasons to not to go back). He barely won against Hillary, one of the most disliked public figures ever to darken the political arena. I agree – time for someone else. And someone who isn’t pushing 80!
Multiple things can be possible at the same time. Trump could have behaved better on Jan, 6th, it may be time for Trump to step aside for someone like Desantis and the Jan 6th Committee is an improperly formed group that exists only for political theater not to find the “truth” NR doesn’t do itself favors by publishing the position that this is a real committee and that its findings matter (either to finding the truth or to voters).
Goody for Liz Cheney she is really sticking it to Trump on her way to an embarrassing loss of her own seat. She represents Wyoming, the people there wish she would spend time on the issues that matter them, not her personal crusade.
You don’t see it, but I did. They don’t like so-cons and they write mealy mouthed “conservative case for progressive cause du jour” stuff. If they stopped that, good for them. I used to read them 2-3 times a week. That’s what I got out of them. I liked French’s absolutist position on the 2A, but I think even he has moderated away from that.
I am not a free trader. I’m a nationalist. They hate my views. They do not support it. That’s all there is to it.
people who don’t move deserve to die?
Oh goodie, 101 comments to catch up!
Awwww, did Kevin Williamson hurt your feels? How dare someone suggest people go to where the jobs are instead of waiting for government handouts……..
It isn’t just that they don’t support my views. It’s that I’m an ignorant, white supremacist hick who voted for a man with no policy positions because I’m stupid.
That is the line. And it’s why I’m not big on you, either. It’s the idea that people who had no reservations about voting for Trump in the 2016 primaries must have been personality cult worshipers. That attitude came from there. It’s prevalence on Ricochet in 2015-2020 came from NR. The drink bleach, Covington kids, Nazis = good people – all of that was regurgitated by NR writers.
Understand this – I’m not ashamed of my political views or the beliefs that formed them. I’m not ashamed of my vote for Trump. And it was not worship, but voting for the only man on the playing field that even attempted to articulate my own views. NR loses because they think those policies are worthless.
I have that essay saved, it’s valuable.
How does Disney basically paying taxes to itself to provide water and what-not, really different from Disney paying taxes to a county to do the same?
Snobbery…
How dare someone question the wisdom of familial isolation?
Sometimes you have to move to where the work is, not just sit at home and collect food stamps.
How about this? At least for books, if the new fad among libraries is to not charge late fees, check out all of those books and don’t return them. If they restock, do it again.
I was going to quote parts of the post but the entire thing is nonsense in my opinion. What kind of inferiority complex makes someone purposefully misstate all these positions and opinions. I feel like I just read a page from Daily Kos. As just one example, David French’s debate with Ahmari is just that…French’s opinion not National Review’s opinion. National Review always has and continues to offer multiple opinions on topics, something a lot of people around here obviously will not tolerate.
As someone who actually wears a hardhat every day, this populist anti-intellectualism posing (THEY TALK ALL FANCY!) seems about as genuine to me as 80’s democrats shouting about how they are “for the working man”. I’m not buying it.
Again, isolating people from family and community is not good. If your economic policies depend on people moving far from their families to get service jobs in big cities, there is something wrong with the policies.
And there were.
People who are far removed from family are more dependent on government assistance because their family isn’t around. And service industry jobs still use government assistance.
I’m certainly not ashamed of my vote for President Trump. I’m shocked that Ricochet’s Biden voters are okay with what he’s done to this country. Perhaps they blame President Trump . . . somehow . . . for what Biden’s done.
But I wasn’t ashamed at any time between 2016 and 2020 either, no matter how many times Ricochet’s Biden voters declared that I was racist for voting for Trump, some kind of cult member for voting for Trump, anti-intellectual for voting for Trump, a red-neck savage from flyover country for voting for Trump, a drug-addicted welfare recipient for voting for Trump, or whatever new slur they could come up with because they decided they were so much better than I was because they knew better than to vote for the awful Orange Man. One infamous Ricochet member insisted that Ricochet’s Trump voters must all apologize for their votes.
I know who should be ashamed of their votes, and it’s not me.
This is what I’m talking about. The NR readers think the only legitimate argument to dying towns is they need to move or die.
The economic policy discussion isn’t allowed by them. They are going to double and triple down on their views and refuse to even consider that maybe the economic policies are contributory and while moving is a part of life, maybe we could look into seeing if our policies are making that movement a social disaster and not just a normal part of life.
I have to agree that Trump was very disappointing on issues of sodomy and other abominations, and on straight sexual morality, too. He was pretty strong on abortion. Other than that, I thought that he was weak on social issues.
The third-of-a-loaf or so that we got from Trump was better than social conservatives did with prior Republican Presidents.
In hindsight, I find G. W. Bush to have been the worst. I remember being upset about it, at the time, when he opposed same-sex marriage but supported civil unions. He was willing to concede everything but the word marriage. I’m not sure, but back in the early-to-mid-2000s, there might have been the political will to stop that sodomite agenda, if we’d had a Republican leader willing to take on the issue.
Rick Wilson, is that you?
Gosh, I wonder why Trump voters loathe these people.
Ah, once again I see the deployment of this lazy slur. If you disagree with the Trump-haters, you’re a far-leftist.
Boring. Bored now.