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We’re back after our 4th of July break (well, most of us are back — we have Ricochet Editor Bethany Mandel sitting in for the vacationing Peter Robinson) and we’ve got another super-sized episode to make up for our time off. First up, the always great Heather Mac Donald, who speaks truth to protestors like nobody else. Then, meet Shermichael Singleton, former political strategist, a former Deputy Chief of Staff at HUD, and a former member of the GOP. Shermichael tells us why he’s left the latter two organizations and it should be required listening at the RNC. Luckily for us, Shermichael is a current Ricochet podcaster and if you have not listened to the Speak-Easy podcast he co-hosts with Antonia Okafor, we highly recommend it. Also, a bit on the Harper’s free speech letter, the triumphant return of the Lileks Post of The Week, and Bethany has a new Twitter friend.
Music from this week’s show: Everything Is Broken by Bob Dylan
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNvuYPpX0C0
Is this the vaunted Lincoln Project that we’re talking about?
Yes I’ve been getting his radio show for years. But even if he has excerpts from the Sunday show on his radio show, I find that I often disagree with hosts on what was the most important thing to excerpt.
I am surprised the milquetoast Richochet allows such fiery voices as McDonald correctly dismantling black American myths and giving a voice for West sadly needed. How did she make it on here?
Conservatives, egalitarians, Republicans are you getting it yet? Ideas are weak sauce in a multicultural society. Singleton is a serious black intellectual. Did he care about all the anti-Conservative policies of Trump. Did he leave Republicans because they spend like drunken sailors? Did he leave Republicans for their poor immigration policies? No – he left because of a perceived attack on his tribe/race. Tribe/race is the future of our American nation. Tribe ranks higher than ideas for everyone except whites who are just slow at figuring out what is happening.
I repeat this frequently…Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). This is a set of ideas and beliefs and they voted for him 65/35. Seems pretty healthy. Blacks voted for Obama 97/3. Race and tribe are so much stronger than ideas.
I will take bets on Singleton writing articles and maybe a book in the next few years about why he left the Republican Party because they just didn’t get it and why he is now a totalitarian lefty. It will be something about how we need the power of the state (just for now of course) to correct the [imaginary] racial injustice of the racist America.
Can we finally put away the myth that Trump tweeting is a net positive? Everyone says he knows what he is doing with his tweets. And sometimes it is brilliant. But sometimes its downright clumsy and has real negative consequences. It is often so divisive.
It is very hard to see someone as a smooth operator who wastes political capital on Roger Stone BEFORE an election. Even if he loses he has until Jan to make this type of controversial pointless call.
Having said that Trumps policies are mostly good. I am not on Twitter and vote based on other things. So Trump has my tepid support…but wow do I wish he could be more like his Mount Rushmore speech and less like an old boomer tweeting nonsense.
Thats a rough assessment. Among the millennial truly religious whites 4 children is +2 the average. Truly religious zoomer women plan to have 0-1 children…its shocking to hear them talk. They plan to put that one kid in daycare while they become doctors. Feminism has won on this front sadly.
The pill, abortion, and feminism showed up right in time to create a berth dearth for Medicare. Furthermore, the great society destroyed all kinds of human capital and thus put huge pressure on net taxation. We are ruled by real geniuses.
No it doesn’t. Not in politics. People are burning down cities and destroying monuments to Western and American culture and you are crying about personality. This is why Republicans lose. They are so unforgivably self righteous. Democrats were lining up to vote for a criminal. They will line up to vote for a man with dementia. Republicans are crying that Trump has a bad personality. I dont want politics to be important – I want free people to be able to ignore it and the world goes on ok. But that is past. The left wants a world that is extremely dangerous for free people, a world that in the past has led to widescale murder. We have a rising leftist population that openly wants to destroy the Constitution. But Republicans cannot be bothered to just vote for the President who opposes that because he says dumb stuff. He lies. Yes…he does. He is probably a fabulist and I wish we had a better man. But wishing is silly politics. So Republicans will go to the voting booth smugly talking about Truth, Right, and decency. LOL. They just need monocles and top hats.
The win after the Wilderness strategy? Sure thats great. I am sure Democrats will pass no laws, make no changes. The new TRUE CONSERVATIVES will just inherent a world for them to lead just like today. This is a suicide plan not a political strategy.
Also, I think this whole idea is wrong. Many Southern Blacks have strong dialects. I used to think there was something wrong until I lived in the South and worked with them. Its just a stereotype that the dialect means something bad…like the Southern White dialect is currently the “ignorant” dialect. I really think this whole thing is overwrought.
This is an oversimplification of what Libby Emmons says:
Don’t “other-size” anyone. Don’t let anybody talk you into that garbage.
Don’t let mind numbing, nebulous crap about systemic racism into your head.
Romney set up press conferences for his big moral conscience so he could preen about what a moral person he was. He was petty. He saw an opportunity to hurt Trump so he did. There is simply no legal, rational, or CONSERVATIVE argument in support of impeachment. Romney did it because he is a small man that thinks his singular moral conscience is so great and pure that it should override everything. This from a man that at one time was an abortion supporter (or at least tolerated his wife being). Some moral conscience you have there.
You mean other than his very public impeachment vote, right? Other than that major historical decision. I guess neither of us are mind readers. But, are we seriously supposed to think Romney has achieved super human status and that was of no influence to him?
I thought “opportunistic swine” summed it up, but there is great value in elucidation. Thanks!
The worst southern accent comes from Hollywood.
We’re at nine pages of comments and I don’t think anyone expressed concern about what the lockdown did to @jameslileks‘ color. How did his head get to be such a different shade than his body? :)
Do you have proof of this? I’ve never even seen James Lileks shirtless much less naked.
Just joking about the photoshop used for this episode. The body used for James’ head is much paler.
@jaredsturgeon, no need to be such a shrinking violet. Feel free to tell us what you really think. 😂
Jason Whitlock just said on Mark Levin that identity politics forces people to be racist. Other-zing.
The biggest problem with Singleton seemed to be that he was getting his “facts” from the media which lies about Trump. And other Republicans/conservatives. Constantly. That’s a pretty foolish thing for a “serious intellectual.” But it seems very common for black people.
Singleton is getting his “facts” from exactly the same place all anti-Trumpers do; i.e., the liberal media.
He comes across as a bit of an opportunist — or am I the only one who noticed that?
I guess he could be an opportunist, if it’s actually deliberate. But it might just be essentially laziness. Nobody is putting on current-news TV news reports or printing newspaper stories about Washington, Jefferson, Madison, etc. So he pretty much had to read books that had been carefully crafted after looking back on events from over 200 years ago. And the other stuff he read that might have been about people from 2,000 years ago. But now he’s just reading the New York Times or whatever, and seemingly believing they’re just as honest and credible as those books. That might be laziness, or it could actually be a form of stupidity.
I’m also reminded that during the most recent “episode” with Tom Sowell, I think it was Rob Long told about encountering a young black woman reading one of Sowell’s books, and making at least a somewhat positive comment about it.
So, really, nobody needs to read – or hear – Singleton. Just read and hear Sowell!
Here is a short (< 10 minute) video in which black comedian Michael Jr. shares an experience from his own life.
A Personal Experience with the Police | Michael Jr.
Jun 3, 2020
The trouble is that if one bothered to ask, the great majority of black men could each share their own experiences of genuine mistreatment and abuse of police authority. Singleton has had his own experiences, some of which he shared on his own podcast. That is why black families need to have “the talk” with their young boys. They must prepare them for such situations. That’s a talk I never needed as a white male or even imagined should be needed.
This is consistent with multiple other sources. The issue isn’t lethal shootings. That narrative was debunked by both Heather McDonald and earlier guest economist Roland Fryer. The issue is the frequent abusive misuse of police authority.
That must be changed so that every person is treated with an equal presumption of innocence that is their due as a civil right.
Anyone inclined to just assume it must be the black person’s fault needs to listen to more people who have lived through those experiences.
@jameslileks I’m still orbiting around the twin planets of Gratitude and Thanks for your mention of my post – I’m far beyond cloud 9. In the chaos that’s been the Twin Cities in this lost summer, it’s comforting to know we still have you. So thank you, again.
You seem to have missed the point about averages and such. Heather Mac Donald covered some of that too. And you also need to consider other factors, such as that while the civilian might have CLAIMED to have been cooperative etc, without body camera video or the like, that’s not the same as PROOF.
And in terms of personal experiences/stories, I have a black neighbor lady who is very nice, pleasant to everyone… not long ago I was outside when her son (early 20s?) came out and walked to his car, yelling into his cellphone about how he was going to check on his girlfriend or baby mama or something, and if she wasn’t there he was going to smack her around because she must be cheating on him….
Now, if a cop sees and hears that, do you expect them to JUST MAYBE do something differently than if the same young black man comes out of his mother’s place saying “goodbye mom, see you later” and says into his phone “I’m going to see (whoever), I’ll check in with you later…”
And if you asked that young black man what he had been doing/saying when he came out, I’d lay you odds that he’d say something like “nothing, man.” And if the cop asked him about going to smack someone around, the guy would probably say the cop was being racist. If you showed him the video, he’d probably claim you set him up…
I also don’t just assume it’s The Black Person’s Fault if they have a problem with police. I assume it’s The Person’s Fault, no matter what color they are.
Until proven otherwise.
Prejudice happens when we take the examples where someone in a group was indeed guilty of (whatever) and then apply that presumptively to all members of the group.
Because there are bad cops, should we presume all cops are bad?
Because there are examples we can find of blacks who act in ways that might invite trouble or suspicion, therefore we can presumptively dismiss all reports of mistreatment as being of the same kind?
Did you see the Michael Jr. video I provided? Once you have, do you think
a) That’s how police should operate. Quite justified.
Or
b) Michael Jr. must not have told the true story of what happened. We don’t have any real reason at all to suspect that anything like that actually happened to him, or happens to other black men (despite what they also report).
Or
c) That is seriously messed up and it needs to change.
Many black men testify to mistreatment and have for many years. Their consistent repeated testimony agrees with the extensive study of forceful abuse of police authority, even according to the testimony of the police themselves.
BTW I’ve never claimed this is something special about white police. Black police may also forcefully abuse their authority, whether out of assuming guilt, or the training they received, or bad police policies.
I am asking, why is there so much unwillingness to believe that all these indications pointing in the same direction are pointing to something very real concerning how at least some cops operate that really needs to change? I would have thought that was plainly visible after George Floyd.