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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
Conservatism, Inc. refuses to acknowledge their own part in this economic disaster.
But David French apparently didn’t? And that was criticism directed at French, from what I remember in previous comments, not at NR.
That would qualify as “protection money/payoffs.” Microsoft and Apple wound up learning that lesson too, eventually.
Disney does not have a First Amendment right to preferential treatment in perpetuity.
Or, how about not electing leftists who set up policies to destroy local jobs?
If you listen to the podcast, you will find that there is plenty of criticism of the committee, and for reasons that you and I would likely agree with. That doesn’t mean that there is no information coming out of there that is useful to our understanding of what happened and Trump’s role in it.
I’ll see about making a gif.
I think she is out of touch with what the voters of Wyoming want, and I agree with you that she is following her personal agenda. They will respond by throwing her out of office.
National Review doesn’t like social conservatives?! That is so ludicrous, so false, and simply shows that you aren’t familiar with the actual content of the magazine. Do your credibility a favor and actually spend some time familiarizing yourself with the topic you’re writing about.
But National Review doesn’t think all of Trump’s policies were worthless. There’s a range of opinions on Trump and his policies because there are writers with different viewpoints. But they don’t worship him.
I keep asking you to stop with this language, and you don’t. I assume it’s because you think it’s a clever put-down. It’s not clever, and it makes you look nasty.
I DID read them. This isn’t the hill to die on. It never was, it never is, it never will be.
I gave them a shot. I wasn’t impressed.
Also, a number of “conservative” pundits/writers flipped their positions when they found out that Trump supported what they claimed to believe.
Really? My ancestors came from Ireland. They moved because they needed to find a place where they could have opportunities. They had a lot tougher time of it than do modern Americans as no one gave them a welfare check.
When coming to the US, members of different ethnic groups tended to group together also in the US. So, not a good comparison.
They didn’t believe Trump HAD policies.
I voted for Trump in 2020. Personally, I think people who voted for Biden should be embarassed. Ashamed? That seems a bit much – people have their reasons – but I think some embarassment at least is in order.
They relied on churches and missions, instead!
Seems like the only reason to not be ashamed of voting for Biden would be if they didn’t know how awful a person he was. But to be a grown-up supposedly intelligent person and NOT know that, is also something to be ashamed of.
What do you mean policy discussion isn’t allowed by NR readers? Isn’t this a discussion? You don’t seem to understand that people can disagree with you and yet still be largely on your side of the political divide.
That’s at least twice now where participants in this thread have used welfare recipient as a slur. Attacking poor people is really not a good look, guys.
And what caused people to move from Ireland and England to the states? Couldn’t have been economic policies leading to disasters, could it?
I think it would have taken more than a strong president willing to take on the gay marriage argument to win that battle, I’m afraid. The battle was lost when public education stopped teaching critical thinking, and the teaching profession as a whole taken over by progressives.
I agree. I just think the special district status was beneficial to the residents of the area. I could have wished for some other way to punish Disney.
When the response to KW is “tell me where he hurt you” and “they should move or die”, conversation and discussion isn’t actually what they are interested in. Con is a die hard free trader. So is HW. To get them to even have an open discussion would be pulling teeth from an Indo Raptor.
Maybe. I simply don’t find the actions of this Committee to be credible. I am completely on board with the idea that Trump could have handled things better on Jan 6. I don’t really think he created a riot or tried to overthrow the Government.
The Committee simply does not function as a real Congressional Committee. It is a partisan “get Trump” Committee. So when they put out information to “get Trump” I am not surprised and have no idea how to separate to spin from the truth. An actual Republican presence on the Committee might help us find the truth and create a credible finding.
I am not really on board Trump 2024 but nothing that this Committee says will push me in either direction. Just like nothing MSNBC or Mother Jones says will move me to support or not support Trump.
You probably could call the donations to Schumer “the cost of doing business in New York State”.
I use the language because that’s what it looks like to me – it reminds me very much of the adulation the progressives had for Obama. I am uncomfortable, as an American, with this adulation that seemingly can’t bear criticism of the Messiah at hand, whether Obama or Trump. At its best, it’s a cult of personality. At its worst, it has religious-like aspects to it and so “worship” is as good a term as any.
And especially on Irish (or whatever their group was) people who had come before.
If Disney tax money is now spread out beyond just the immediate Disney properties, the residents of the area might benefit even more.
So, you’re saying that a white guy in a dying Appalachian town, living on food stamps, can’t find other white guys to bond with in other places in the US that do have job opportunities?