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| Burst your bubble: conservatives on Trump, opioids and the religious right | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| Once again this week, we have seen titanic conservative disillusionment with Trumpism, and not just from the usual suspects. Some social issues, such as opioid addiction, have become too pressing even for conservatives to ignore. | Once again this week, we have seen titanic conservative disillusionment with Trumpism, and not just from the usual suspects. Some social issues, such as opioid addiction, have become too pressing even for conservatives to ignore. |
| American carnage | American carnage |
| Publication: First Things | Publication: First Things |
| Author: Christopher Caldwell is a senior writer at the neocon flagship the Weekly Standard, and a regular contributor to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, where he is a contributing editor. | Author: Christopher Caldwell is a senior writer at the neocon flagship the Weekly Standard, and a regular contributor to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, where he is a contributing editor. |
| Why you should read it: Progressives may not agree with Caldwell’s take on America’s opioid epidemic, but it would be hard to deny that he takes it seriously. | Why you should read it: Progressives may not agree with Caldwell’s take on America’s opioid epidemic, but it would be hard to deny that he takes it seriously. |
| Reporters including Chris McGreal at the Guardian have brought the opioid epidemic to broader public attention. Here, Caldwell wonders what is to be done. He acknowledges that it is intertwined with the alienation that comes from social and economic breakdown. He even concedes that Reaganism “wound up enlisting the American middle class in the project of its own dispossession”. But he denies that treating it as a health problem, as progressives generally recommend, is a solution. | Reporters including Chris McGreal at the Guardian have brought the opioid epidemic to broader public attention. Here, Caldwell wonders what is to be done. He acknowledges that it is intertwined with the alienation that comes from social and economic breakdown. He even concedes that Reaganism “wound up enlisting the American middle class in the project of its own dispossession”. But he denies that treating it as a health problem, as progressives generally recommend, is a solution. |
| Wherever you stand on big pharma, the “war on drugs”, or addiction, you need to pay attention to the conservatives who are formulating new responses to America’s plague of addiction. This terrible issue isn’t going anywhere fast, and we need to understand how the right is trying to frame it. | Wherever you stand on big pharma, the “war on drugs”, or addiction, you need to pay attention to the conservatives who are formulating new responses to America’s plague of addiction. This terrible issue isn’t going anywhere fast, and we need to understand how the right is trying to frame it. |
| Extract: “Today’s opioid epidemic is, in part, an unintended consequence of the Reagan era. America in the 1980s and 1990s was guided by a coalition of profit-seeking corporations and concerned traditional communities, both of which had felt oppressed by a high-handed government. But whereas Reaganism gave real power to corporations, it gave only rhetorical power to communities. Eventually, when the interests of corporations and communities clashed, the former were in a position to wipe the latter out. The politics of the 1980s wound up enlisting the American middle class in the project of its own dispossession.” | Extract: “Today’s opioid epidemic is, in part, an unintended consequence of the Reagan era. America in the 1980s and 1990s was guided by a coalition of profit-seeking corporations and concerned traditional communities, both of which had felt oppressed by a high-handed government. But whereas Reaganism gave real power to corporations, it gave only rhetorical power to communities. Eventually, when the interests of corporations and communities clashed, the former were in a position to wipe the latter out. The politics of the 1980s wound up enlisting the American middle class in the project of its own dispossession.” |
| When does Trump become the establishment? | When does Trump become the establishment? |
| Publication: Conservative Review | Publication: Conservative Review |
| Author: When he found himself on the wrong side of Breitbart’s primary-era civil war, the writer Ben Shapiro flounced. Now he shops his wares all over the #nevertrump parts of the conservative mediasphere. I would never advise that you make a habit of reading Shapiro, but he discloses something interesting here. | Author: When he found himself on the wrong side of Breitbart’s primary-era civil war, the writer Ben Shapiro flounced. Now he shops his wares all over the #nevertrump parts of the conservative mediasphere. I would never advise that you make a habit of reading Shapiro, but he discloses something interesting here. |
| Why you should read it: Shapiro may not be the world’s best analyst, but the piece offers a good insight into the reptilian mindset of a certain subset of conservatives as they gleefully watch the Trump presidency derail. | Why you should read it: Shapiro may not be the world’s best analyst, but the piece offers a good insight into the reptilian mindset of a certain subset of conservatives as they gleefully watch the Trump presidency derail. |
| A couple of years back, Jackie Calmes published research for Harvard’s Kennedy School about the ways in which conservative media’s maniacal “anti-establishment” orientation made it impossible for conservatives to govern. That research suddenly looks more relevant than ever. Trump’s presidential campaign was the apotheosis of anti-establishment animus. But ever since his Trumpcare failure, he’s looking more and more like he might end up on the wrong end of Republican anti-elitism. If you listen carefully, you can hear them sharpening their knives. | |
| Extract: “President Trump is anti-establishment when it comes to persona, of course – he thinks that every governmental Gordian knot can be cut, that he can simply bulldoze his opposition, that deals are for sissies and that tough guys finish first. But the deals he wants to cut look a lot more like former President George W Bush’s ‘compassionate conservatism’ than they do like the Tea Party agenda.” | Extract: “President Trump is anti-establishment when it comes to persona, of course – he thinks that every governmental Gordian knot can be cut, that he can simply bulldoze his opposition, that deals are for sissies and that tough guys finish first. But the deals he wants to cut look a lot more like former President George W Bush’s ‘compassionate conservatism’ than they do like the Tea Party agenda.” |
| The crisis of Trumpism | The crisis of Trumpism |
| Publication: Politico | Publication: Politico |
| Author: Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review, and regularly bobs up on Fox News and Politico. However many bad calls he’s made, or windmills he’s tilted at, his office means that people tend to give weight to what he says. This goes double for the occasions upon which he deigns to talk sense. | Author: Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review, and regularly bobs up on Fox News and Politico. However many bad calls he’s made, or windmills he’s tilted at, his office means that people tend to give weight to what he says. This goes double for the occasions upon which he deigns to talk sense. |
| Why you should read it: For now, it’s hard to argue with the basic thrust of this piece – which is probably why it was trending on Twitter last night. Whatever Trump appeared to promise, and whatever he may yowl into Twitter’s great maw, he doesn’t appear to have anyone around him who is able to translate his instincts into something that may one day resemble a legislative program. In two years, if the administration has righted itself, it may seem as a premature and self-serving article. This week, it’s compelling. | |
| Extract: “Trumpism is in crisis. This isn’t a function of poll numbers, or the Russia controversy, or any other melodrama of the past three months, but something more fundamental: no officeholder in Washington seems to understand President Donald Trump’s populism or have a cogent theory of how to effect it in practice, including the president himself.” | Extract: “Trumpism is in crisis. This isn’t a function of poll numbers, or the Russia controversy, or any other melodrama of the past three months, but something more fundamental: no officeholder in Washington seems to understand President Donald Trump’s populism or have a cogent theory of how to effect it in practice, including the president himself.” |
| Does the religious right’s decline help the alt-right? | Does the religious right’s decline help the alt-right? |
| Publication: The American Conservative | Publication: The American Conservative |
| Author: George Hawley wrote last year’s best, and most prescient, book on the conservative crack-up that led us to Trump. | Author: George Hawley wrote last year’s best, and most prescient, book on the conservative crack-up that led us to Trump. |
| Why you should read it: Hawley responds to Peter Beinart’s article in the Atlantic, which urged progressives not to dance on the grave of the Christian right, since its decline has empowered the “alt-right”. Hawley looks at the data and finds that in fact, there’s not a straightforward relationship between religious observance and feelings of white identity. For better or worse, if the Christian right is declining, it’s hard to tell what, if any, effect this is having on the re-emergence of explicit white nationalism in American politics. | Why you should read it: Hawley responds to Peter Beinart’s article in the Atlantic, which urged progressives not to dance on the grave of the Christian right, since its decline has empowered the “alt-right”. Hawley looks at the data and finds that in fact, there’s not a straightforward relationship between religious observance and feelings of white identity. For better or worse, if the Christian right is declining, it’s hard to tell what, if any, effect this is having on the re-emergence of explicit white nationalism in American politics. |
| Extract: “It is probably not a coincidence that explicit rightwing racial politics began to rise as the religious right declined. But it would be a mistake to assume that Christianity is necessarily a boon or a detriment to white identity politics. Although a post-religious right may be more dangerous to liberal values than the religious right ever was, we should not exaggerate the degree to which Christianity serves as an ideological constraint. Christians have felt perfectly comfortable with many kinds of governments promoting many kinds of policies, and that will likely remain the case for the foreseeable future.” | Extract: “It is probably not a coincidence that explicit rightwing racial politics began to rise as the religious right declined. But it would be a mistake to assume that Christianity is necessarily a boon or a detriment to white identity politics. Although a post-religious right may be more dangerous to liberal values than the religious right ever was, we should not exaggerate the degree to which Christianity serves as an ideological constraint. Christians have felt perfectly comfortable with many kinds of governments promoting many kinds of policies, and that will likely remain the case for the foreseeable future.” |
| House Republicans revoke Obama internet privacy rules | House Republicans revoke Obama internet privacy rules |
| Publication: Breitbart | Publication: Breitbart |
| Author: Sean Moran is a Breitbart drone who previously did a couple of internships in the conservative end of the Washington swamp. | Author: Sean Moran is a Breitbart drone who previously did a couple of internships in the conservative end of the Washington swamp. |
| Forget him, you’re here for the comment thread. | Forget him, you’re here for the comment thread. |
| Why you should read it: On Tuesday, Congress voted to revoke the FCC’s internet privacy rules, opening the way for internet service providers to mine, use and monetize data scooped up from their customers. Trump supports them in this. But in doing so he’s made some of the angry nerds who supported him angrier still. In the comment threads, watch them try to reconcile themselves with the fact that Trump doesn’t give a hoot about them. | Why you should read it: On Tuesday, Congress voted to revoke the FCC’s internet privacy rules, opening the way for internet service providers to mine, use and monetize data scooped up from their customers. Trump supports them in this. But in doing so he’s made some of the angry nerds who supported him angrier still. In the comment threads, watch them try to reconcile themselves with the fact that Trump doesn’t give a hoot about them. |
| Extract: “Wow, amazing that some Trump-bots are ok with this, because Republicans signed off on it and you have Trump as POTUS. | Extract: “Wow, amazing that some Trump-bots are ok with this, because Republicans signed off on it and you have Trump as POTUS. |
| If these privacy rules, the EXACT SAME RULES, were to be revoked in a Democrat controlled Congress and a Dem in the White House, the Trump-bots would be screaming bloody murder! | If these privacy rules, the EXACT SAME RULES, were to be revoked in a Democrat controlled Congress and a Dem in the White House, the Trump-bots would be screaming bloody murder! |
| If you are only morally outraged when the ‘other’ party does something but ok with it when ‘your’ party does that exact same thing, you’re a partisan hypocrite. | If you are only morally outraged when the ‘other’ party does something but ok with it when ‘your’ party does that exact same thing, you’re a partisan hypocrite. |
| Kudos to the Trump supporters who are calling out this BS for what it is.” | Kudos to the Trump supporters who are calling out this BS for what it is.” |
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