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From Commentary Magazine’s Editors
Excerpt:
“We stand against the mob and all its aims. We stand against the chaos and violence, the silencing of debate, the purging of heretics, the rewriting of history, and the destruction of the greatest country in the world. We will defend the most majestic achievement of humankind, the United States of America, against the most ignoble impulse in human history, to tear down that which is good.”
We Must Stop the Great Unraveling
Published in General
But what does HE mean – not just what he might say now, if asked, but what he’s said and done in the past – by “family?”
That is a good point and one that the looters, rioters, vandals and their supporters used to justify their actions. How do you respond to them?
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t find it all that complicated.
As for eschewing illegal violence, we can simply assume that this letter was written in America in the 21st century, and read it within that context.
Farrakhan is a loathsome man, as is Sharpton, as are many of the people behind the Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements. But there’s a difference between noting someone’s awfulness and attempting to have them silenced. Bringing pressure on institutions to de-platform people, having editors fired for publishing a piece that expresses a view one finds repugnant, shouting down speakers, using intimidation to declare some topics unacceptable for discussion, getting people fired for expressing their views — those are the kinds of things that constitute “cancel culture.” Expressing a negative opinion about someone, even labeling him an anti-Semite or a racist, is not.
You ask how we deal with a Farrakhan. I think we do it by exposing him, pointing out what he says and believes, and letting people evaluate him based on that. We don’t have to “deal with” Farrakhan. We have to deal with the ideas he puts forth, and counter them with better ones.
Again, perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t see a lot of gray here, a lot of difficult ambiguity.
I want to clarify this part of my comment, as I think that it is ambiguous. I think that the ADL is correct that Farrakhan is an anti-Semite. I think they are probably correct that he is America’s leading anti-Semite. This may be debatable. I would have thought that Al Sharpton was in the running, and Richard Spencer.
Sharpton is apparently in the good graces of the ADL now (here). In fairness, there are some indications that Sharpton may have mended fences in this area in recent years, but I don’t know the details. If true, it would be a good thing, and the ADL would be commendable for extending grace on the issue.
Trump is no antidote. He serves only himself.
with other concerns, just as great.
OK–so 2020 is a “toss up” of concerns. Sounds good.
If your point is that we can expect the same cultural destruction with a Republican in the White House as we can with a Democrat in the White House, I think that’s probably not a sound assessment. I think Republican control of any branch would be better than Democratic control of any branch. I think that’s true for any plausible Republican and Democrat.
None of which is particularly topical vis a vis the original post. But I think it’s true nonetheless.
Commentary on Facebook is 24/7 never Trump. No wonder Gary likes it.
What about the Free Beacon? I’ve been thinking of replacing my current daily newspaper, because they decided to stop putting a “Though Of The Day” in each edition after someone horribly let a Jefferson Davis quote through earlier this month. Which is really the last straw. But seeing Victorino Mattus and Sonny Bunch on the “masthead” gave me pause. True, they’re not JV Last, but still…
I never went to Commentary on Facebook. Thanks for the hat tip.
You’ll love it.
I swore off the Commentary podcast back in ’16, during the primary season. I couldn’t stand Trump, but the smarmy, arrogant, supercilious tone coming from Noah became just too much. It wasn’t that he was critical of Trump, it was the dripping condescension toward anyone who despised Trump less than Noah did. Being as far as was possible from being a Trump supporter myself, I didn’t take this personally, but it was stomach-churning to listen to.
My recollection was that J-Pod did a credible job of being objective, especially considering his background and pedigree, and I still enjoy him on GLOP on occasion, but I still have no desire to sample anything from Commentary, writ large.
I have an interesting relationship with the Commentary Podcast. I have a hard time falling asleep without background TV and/or a podcast. I find J-Pod to have the most relaxing voice to listen to, and when I go to bed, I listen to J-Pod as I fall asleep, setting my alarm to turn off the podcast a minute before it ends.
Not that they’re always right, but if I were as smart as they were, I’d be pretty smarmy, too. I mean even more, even worse.
It can be wildly entertaining to go back and listen to some of the Commentary Podcasts from October 2016 and listen to them pontificate about the impossibility of Trump winning the election.
@miffedwhitemale and every other podcast from that era!
JPod took it to a whole ‘nother level.
@miffedwhitemale he doesn’t hedge, for sure.
I still think JPod’s right about ‘The Odd Couple’. Especially Seasons 2, 3 and 4….
Podhoretz has a charmingly childish tendency to exaggerate: everything, whether it’s a movie or a politician’s gaffe, is “the worst one ever in the history of….” Sometimes he sounds a little like our President, in that one respect.
Pundits prognosticate; that’s what they do. I think the Commentary guys (and gal) tend to do it poorly, and they do it apparently without awareness of their own limitations and track record. Doom comes off them in sheets most episodes, but the disasters seldom occur and rarely as they anticipate them. And then they move on. Still, I enjoy most of the shows, and even Noah when he’s being less supercilious. I just don’t take them very seriously.
But I take their editor’s letter seriously. I’m not aware of any other organization that has issued something similar. With everyone rushing to flagellate themselves for the sins of others, to claim “responsibility” for imaginary crimes, Commentary’s response was an oasis of sanity and decency. It made me glad that I’ve allowed my Commentary subscription (electronic only) to persist for the last several years. They just earned my continuing support.
Can you imagine his overreaction to that?
I stopped really caring about pundits back in 2012 when I realized this is just a job to them. They are more or less actors playing a role. This is not punditry; as @henryracette says: no one else has issued something so clear and forceful and I am not planning on picking the source to death. If we cannot rally around at least the first 4 points, then do we stand for anything?
But hopefully you’d be less wrong.
The question for me is, do all the rest of their words and actions, support the idea that they actually believe THESE words? For me, the answer so far is “no.” It’s like the Dems claiming to support “the constitution,” but what THEY think the constitution is, bears little resemblance to the actual document.
I can’t think of anything I’ve read in Commentary or heard on their podcast that would lead me to think that they don’t believe what they wrote. I find nothing to criticize in what they wrote or their decision to publish it, and much to commend.
Maybe it’s a difference of interpretation then. Maybe they do believe all those things, but if they also believe – or at least some of them believe – that Trump is AGAINST all those things, then it’s still like the Dems saying the Constitution means whatever they say it means.
There are conservatives who believe that it is actually harmful for the conservative cause to support Donald Trump. They believe that more harm than good will be done by it, that it’s a short-term expediency that will end up harming us in the long run.
I don’t know that they’re mistaken. I think they are, but I don’t know it. Since none of us can unerringly predict the future, none of us knows whether we will look back someday and realize that conservatism was derailed in 2016 and never recovered.
It would be presumptuous, I think, to accuse those who sincerely believe that of being insincere in their support of fundamental conservative principles. They could as easily — and as unfairly — make the opposite charge, that those of us who voted for Trump (and who will vote for him again) are the ones undermining conservatism and betraying our shared cause.
There is a very great difference between those who allowed their distaste for Trump (which I understand) to drive them away from conservatism, and those who maintain their conservative beliefs but honestly believe that supporting Trump leads to, at best, a Pyrrhic victory.
I’m firmly in the camp that believes it makes more sense — far more sense — for the cause of conservatism for us to re-elect Trump than to allow the presidency to go to the Democrats. I believe that so strongly that I think those who disagree are making a foolish miscalculation. But I respect their sincerity, if they truly believe that conservatism is ultimately harmed by Trump.
(Having said all that, I find the conservative never-Trump position so tenuous, logically, that I suspect the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of never-Trump conservatives are deluding themselves, and would be hard-pressed to defend their positions logically. So they resort to invective and vague hand-waving about a conservative rebirth, about Republicans learning their lesson, etc. It strikes me as very fanciful, but I don’t doubt that they really believe it.)
PS While I don’t know this, I suspect that the Commentary crew would, in a pinch and if the vote mattered, quietly pull the lever for Trump in 2020.
Well, my poor benighted mother sincerely believes that Obama’s inauguration didn’t have Greek columns, that he didn’t say anything about stopping the rise of the oceans, that he didn’t tell the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle that energy prices would “necessarily skyrocket” under his policies, that Eric Holder wasn’t held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents, and on and on… “Sincerely believe” doesn’t carry a lot of weight with me, in many situations it just shows that someone is deluded/delusional.
Of course, not everyone who disagrees with you in wildly uninformed and/or senile.