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The Bulwark
It’s funny how catalysts work.
In chemical terms, catalysts are things that accelerate reactions but that are not themselves consumed in those reactions. When you add oxygen to a fire, the rate of burning is increased — but the oxygen is consumed in the process: oxygen is not a catalyst. On the other hand, the platinum in the catalytic converter in your car is a catalyst: it catalyzes (facilitates) a chemical reaction that reduces toxic carbon monoxide and waste hydrocarbons, converting these substances into, largely, non-toxic carbon dioxide and water. (Platinum isn’t a perfect catalyst, in that it’s gradually changed in the process, but it does a good job nonetheless.)
President Trump was a kind of catalyst. He caused a lot of conservatives to undergo a chemical transformation, and to become something other than, and, I think, less than, the conservatives they used to be, all without undergoing any obvious transformation himself. We need look no further than The Bulwark to see a beautiful example of this peculiar transformation.
The folks who founded The Bulwark were once respectable conservatives, but the catalyzing effect of an encounter with President Trump’s peculiar brand of unconscious knee-jerk conservatism (a style which, while never really to my liking, I nonetheless profoundly miss) changed them.
And so these august luminaries of once-upon-a-time conservatism are now running stories like this one: Guns Should be Safe, Legal, and Rare. Let me try to put this gently, but still in keeping with the tone of the piece (which would run afoul of the Ricochet CoC for its casual use of the F-bomb): To hell with that, you whinging pansies of The Bulwark.
Or how about this gem? Can Biden Become America’s Next Great President?
No. No, he can’t. Because he’s an incompetent who doesn’t understand the first thing about American greatness, has always pandered to the mainstream of his mediocre party, and is now in the thrall of his wife or whoever programs his enhanced-font teleprompter and sets out his medications every day. There is nothing about the man that ever hinted at greatness, and nothing about him now that even suggests basic competence. He’s a doddering place-holder, rewarded for not being someone roundly hated by the media and targeted by them and Big Tech for destruction.
What an amazing catalyst was President Trump, to transform such erstwhile political stalwarts as Mona Charen and Bill Kristol and Jonathan V. Last and Charlie Sykes into such mealy and base metal.
The Bulwark has become a woke leftist rag, albeit a virtual one. They should now be seen as yet another organ of the progressive mainstream media.
Maybe I’m sorry to lose these sad mediocre Quislings. But I don’t think I am.
Published in Politics
What am I supposed to be seeing? Frum’s hysterical hatred of Trump voters? Because that’s what I’m seeing.
I exist to avoid the egregious Frum at all costs. His wife is really funny though.
Ah yes the worst President of the last 50 years. The one who wrecked the middle east.
“Isolationist,” etc, are just trying to say “populist” to people who can no longer be convinced to believe that “populist” is automatically wrong.
I think “isolationist” is the slur they use to make “not sending jobs overseas” sound like a bad thing.
I am for sending jobs overseas if it doesn’t go to China. Free trade still works even if no one believes in it.
I am for sending jobs overseas if it doesn’t go to China. Free trade still works even if no one believes in it.
For certain meanings of the word “work.”
Right. And to quote an obscure modern-day scientist: Science is true, even if no one believes it.
I like that quote even if I’m not the biggest fan of the source.
If I could go back and change my academic career, I’d pursue chemistry (that’s in an alternate universe. Loved my field of study, loved my job, loved the people in my job, so I’m kind of full of it here.). Man, I loved the periodic table (am I supposed to capitalize that?). I loved figuring titrations. When I finally “retire, retire” I’ll probably audit undergrad chemistry courses, just so I can be that awestruck by the universe again.
Science is perhaps the one thing that is not ever “true”. It is always in a state of experimentation and confirmation. And it even necessarily involves up-ending prior conclusions.
But thats not what all the people yelling SCIENCE! believe.
I agree with Flicker in that Science is constantly updating itself. However, the reason why we should trust science is that it eventually figures some stuff out. There is always more to learn but we have figured some of the basics of the universe that are now quite reliable. Cell theory for example.
I haven’t read the string of comments that got us to “the reason why we should trust science,” but just want to observe that “science” is routinely used to refer to three distinct things: the men and women who conduct scientific investigations; the current views prevalent among those people; and the process of experimentation and observation and theorizing and criticism by which knowledge of the natural world is advanced.
I have a lot of confidence in that last understanding of what “science” means. I have much less confidence in the first, given the highly politicized nature of much of what is passed off in the popular press as “science.”
What does sending JOBS overseas have to do with free trade? It was never a problem for me because my job couldn’t be outsourced, but it happened to people I knew. In the worst case, one was told to train his replacement if he wanted to receive any severance pay at all. Due to what was age discrimination, he never worked a full-time job again.
Thankyou for such a clarifying comment. The press is absolute garbage when it comes to discussing science and anything that is remotely political needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
But please note that if the third definition of science is trustworthy, we can eventually figure some things out.
Henry, while you and I disagree about sex robots and probably almost everything else that’s interesting and/or perverse, we agree about the role of the scientific method in approaching an understanding of the universe. I’m a huge fan of hypothesizing, testing through experimentation, and criticism.
I think science is in danger today because the expression of criticism is being suppressed. I think it is probably the greatest danger we face, both in terms of science and in terms of our political independence, this self-righteous suppression of so-called “misinformation” being practiced by our opinion-shaping elite.
The demand to “trust the science” is, unfortunately, coming from that elite, and being used to justify the suppression of any critique or challenge of the approved consensus. That’s bad, and it ultimately works against the pursuit of truth.
It also works against the pursuit of science, not that they care…
Indeed. The process of constant testing and double checking is being replaced with dogmatic beliefs that accord to whatever is popular at the time.
David Berkinski was interviewed by Peter Robinson after the publication of one of Berlinski’s books. At one point, they touched on the arrogance of “scientists” toward the rest of society. Berlinski observed that few phrases in the news generate more frustration/anger than “scientists say …”
It isn’t fair under an inflationist government and financial system. This should have been dealt with 30 years ago. That’s why I tell everybody to listen to Steve Bannon about trade. It’s very difficult to deal with now.
I can’t get anybody to ever do this, but this is a good explanation.
He also explains why it’s so hard for Republicans and libertarians to get any power. It just doesn’t work or sell under this monetary and financial regime. The whole system is set up to grow government, make people dependent on it, and then steal from each other with it. The other thing you should watch or simple Austrian economics videos about deflation. Inflation isn’t worked until the Soviet Union fell and computers and automation came online. We have done every single thing wrong in the face of automation and globalized trade, and it is very difficult to deal with now.
The other video I tell people to watch is the long interview of David Stockman on real vision. It will cost you a dollar to see it.
That is a killer skit. It runs from lofty to infantile and back again effortlessly, hilariously, without missing a beat.
I’m for sending Kristol overseas. Can you make that happen?
No one makes it happen. Free trade is the result of impersonal forces.
However, you do bring up a point that Kristol’s job was never at risk. Not from Trump losing, not from all the bad ideas by the left, not from free trade. I do think there is a problem with people whose economic lifeline isn’t connected to reality.
I’m jokingly assuming your academic fields of study included the following:
Bear-wrasslin’
Hippie-tossin’
Commie-smashin’
I really wasted my time in Poli Sci.
Apologies for coming late to the conversation; someone else may have already pointed this out above. The author of the linked article (Tim Miller) reveals that he has no real understanding of the 2nd Amendment, nor does he seem to have any inclination to learn. He misrepresents the 2A as intended to allow individual personal protection against crime (the point of concealed carry laws), rather than as the means of insuring that the general population always have the means to resist the imposition of armed tyranny on the part of the central government. Sadly, this is a common misunderstanding, even among intelligent conservatives acting and speaking in good faith. Yes: concealed carry, open carry and every manner of legal support for personal protection is right and good, and are appropriate applications of 2A. But this is NOT why the Founders included it in the Bill of Rights. It is there to insure that the general populace rightfully will have the effective means to resist in the event the Federal Government decides to use the regular military to enforce its will. The Second Amendment exists to affirm that we – all of us – always have the right to make “an appeal to Heaven” for the protection of our freedom.
(Okay. Now I’ll go back and catch up on the comments…)
Except for the possibility that a computer simulation of Kristol might actually be better than the real Kristol, and it wouldn’t need an expense account for travel, fine dining, cigars, and wine/liquor. I wonder if Pierre Omidyar is looking into that?
As Thomas Sowell and others have remarked, a system in which people pay no price for being wrong is a system in which wrong decisions are endlessly made. The system will be dominated by the incompetent and the corrupt. (Ahoy!) Kristol had a lucrative career: Pretend to be a conservative while in reality serving the corporate donors and government apparat. Trump threatened that by offering an alternative that threatened to actually do what Kristol pretended to want to do: shrink the size and power of government, freeing individuals to do more for themselves.