It's weird because people weren't at all chill about the Brinsley shooting in Brooklyn, even though he was clearly quite deranged. I think Trump just realized this was his last chance to start acting presidential.
Charlie Pierce and Jon Chait noticed the same thing.
I don't know what to make of it.
I think they've seen they've ridden racism as far as they can for electoral benefit, and now they're trying to triangulate. So not so much growing up as staying cynical and kinda evil, but with a finger to the prevailing winds.
Most charitably, those described had been able to sublimate even to themselves the fact that they were in the business of harnessing racism, and now with Trump winning their base voters, and unabashed white supremacists getting much more vocal online*, it's gotten harder for them to push down the reservations.
*One of those linked by Slate is at Red State, which is now a NeverTrump outlet.
Yeah, but I'm having a hard time viewing Newt Gingrich with much charity.
Maybe Falling Down was ahead of its time. There's a scene where the angry white man meets a white supremacist and recoils in horror.
5: As is Pierce:
N. Leroy was all over every platform on Friday explaining how tough black folks have had it--never forgetting, however, to mention how those crazy black folk kill each other--when everyone who's watched his career knows Gingrich's would call for a return to the Missouri Compromise if he thought it would sell 20 more books. I'll give Lewis and Wolf the benefit of the doubt, and good on them for what they wrote. However, whenever Gingrich launches into his tinhorn historian-as-Polonius spiel, I will continue to grab my wallet with both hands.
I don't have enough money to need two hands to grab my wallet.
Yeah, I assume Gingrich is just being Gingrich, realizing the center is shifting and speaking in ways that are new but still superficial compared to his actual goals.
I just read a review of his Civil War alternate history series - apparently it straddles desperately to show the South and Lincoln and equally correct and great, and the cackling villain is a New York Democrat.
9: Because they know damn well the comment section would look like Stormfront and undermine their attempts to appear less vile.
I admit I was amazed to hear of the Matt Lewis piece, a confession that he'd never actually believed that innocent black people were routinely abused/killed by police. (On the one hand, one wants to say: you're an ignorant asshole fuck if you thought that all these black people were flatly lying for some nefarious reason. On the other hand, one wants to marvel: wow, okay, and would you like to take a look now at any other self-righteous blinders you may have on?)
The Diane Rehm show yesterday had on a panelist - Damien someone from the WSJ - who said at some point regarding the changed circumstances of video footage of police abuse, "Indeed, this has changed the national dialogue. Who knows whether this [police violence] is a new phenomenon or whether it's been going on for some time ..."
Huh.
I have no idea what is going on here - I would go with the "they're desperately trying to coax their base into saying the quiet parts quiet again" reading but what's absolutely remarkable to me isn't even that they're saying there's a genuine problem, or that race is involved in it. What's leaving me stunned is that a bunch of them are - seriously! - going with "we have to listen to what the minorities are saying and genuinely take it seriously because they have a more valid perspective on this than we did". That's something that is a genuine and baffling change (and one which would also be nice to see extended to women), because it's as far from the basic position that they've been coming from on race for my entire life.
I mean, I still have the "Oh, so now there's evidence that this is happening, eh?" reaction to it, since it's not like there wasn't plenty of perfectly good evidence that it was happening even before these incidents started getting video taped as well, and since they've been getting video taped for a while now to an endless chorus of excuses. But the extent to which at the very least the people linked to are saying "we have to take the word of minorities about what it is like to be one" is really catching me off guard.
13: Indeed, who knows? Who could ever know? It's a mystery.
15: Indeed. It was sad that his remark went unquestioned by the other panelists -- just part of the facile, quick-talking patois employed by certain members of the Beltway journalistic establishment.
(I don't want to change the subject, but the same guy later said, regarding Hillary Clinton's goddamn emails, that the principal difference between her case and that of General Petraeus was that Petraeus lied to the FBI, "and you don't lie to the FBI". Thankfully, the guest moderator did correct him a bit later.)
really catching me off guard
Maybe they are actually worried about a race war. There was that frightening former Congressman who
tweeted incendiary threats toward Obama and Black Lives Matter.
If it really is a bunch of conservatives suddenly thinking "Wait hold on black people would also have guns in a race war - that could be dangerous!" it's the funniest thing ever.
From my murky view into the world of gun-nut-dom via a high school friend, the Philando Castile shooting (and, particularly, the NRA's silence) seems to have shaken some gun enthusiasts, because the facts of the case can be spun much more credibly as "cop kills a law-abiding gun owner" as "cop kills a dangerous thug". There's some "oh, they thought he was an armed robber" (which one of his friends helpful parsed as "how do we know a school cafeteria manager with no criminal record beyond moving violations wasn't an armed robber?") chatter, but it's been pretty muted.
Castile does seem like someone that even someone trying very hard would have a difficult time spinning: responsible gun owner, no criminal record, long time and generally beloved employee at a grade school, and so on. I guess I can see a lot of gun nuts looking at that and having a hard time seeing much difference between him and how they see themselves* aside from race.
*I mean, plenty of gun nuts from what I've seen are people who would be very easily spun if they were a minority who had just been killed by a police officer. But it's not like they see themselves as someone who could be dismissed that way.
If it really is a bunch of conservatives suddenly thinking "Wait hold on black people would also have guns in a race war - that could be dangerous!" it's the funniest thing ever
Yeah. Frankly, I find it very difficult to consider that right-wingers finding reality is something done in good conscience; surely it's a ploy of some sort, for electoral advantage or some such. Then I caution myself against epistemic closure.
Suppose they (Matt Lewis et al.) really do mean it. What next? I would want to see from them various proposals and changes of stance. We can see whether any of that is forthcoming.
I doubt it's an intentional ploy, but if it's a realization that sticks around past the point where it's right there in front of them in really large type I'll be more impressed/surprised. I suspect that to the point where it's sincere it's likely to be forgotten as soon as is convenient/possible, in roughly the way plenty of them now think that Bush was a successful president or the Iraq war went well during his administration or that there were weapons of mass destruction there or whatever despite having known full well he wasn't eight+ years ago.
18: In response to the Black Panthers arming themselves and exercising their right to open carry the sainted Ronald Reagan signed into law some of the most restrictive gun legislation in the country when he was governor of California.
Right, but I'm trying on for size the possibility that these are actual grownups who can remember something for more than a day or two. I admit it's really hard for me to believe that they can or will. I acknowledge that they feel the same way about us, is the thing. They are convinced that liberals have an agenda in service of which they (we) will twist anything and everything. We're frequently told by seemingly well-meaning politicians that the other side must be viewed as working in good faith, and it invariably strikes me as bullshit. And they believe the same of us, that we're working in bad faith (lying about police brutality, for example).
It's incredibly difficult to avoid the feeling that any decent sentiments coming from the right aren't a con job, and one's pride insists that one won't be played, dammit. I feel as though the burden's on them to prove they aren't faking it.
So the Obamabots and Clintonauts, having determined that Bernie Sanders, Corey Robin, and the brosocialists are History's Greatest Monsters with their language of confrontation, struggle, and responsibility and nosehairs...have wafted over toward those sweeter-talkin prettier Redstaters and libertarians, said conservatives suddenly finding that there are other victims of state oppression besides themselves. Let them commiserate in perfect harmony. I am sure a Grand Bargain can be found, national police review boards (state optional of course) in return for tax cuts, basic income replacing social programs, and of course endless forever war.
This Union was foretold in the ancient tomes. Peace in Our Time.
perhaps they realized that this is exactly what a "Second Amendment Solution" looks like.
I'm going with "rich white guys realize they have something to lose if it comes to violent revolution".
25. Even though I hardly ever come to the Mineshaft any more, I can still tell within 15 words when I'm reading a mcmanus post.
I'm going with "rich white guys realize they have something to lose if it comes to violent revolution".
25. Even though I hardly ever come to the Mineshaft any more, I can still tell within 15 words when I'm reading a mcmanus post.
I can name that bob in eight words.
HL!
The lesson I take away from both NeverTrump and the comments of the past few days is that I basically don't understand movement conservatives. I had a completely reliable rule of thumb -- I think of the dumbshit racists I knew, and I slather a thick coat of college bullshit on top of it. But now it's totally broken down.
28/29: Could be a competitive sport. How soon and how accurately can you buzz in?