The death of Margaret Thatcher gives Mr. Sullivan an opening to get back to being his favorite self: a whiny, Conservative twat.
There should be no phony squelching of debate or universal deference when someone of Thatcher’s stature dies. But there are some limits in decency. Death-parties? Misogynist placards? They remind me one reason why I was a Thatcherite in the first place. The ugly extremism of her opposition.
Indeed!
And based on this bold statement of principles, one can only assume that it was his deep, Thatcherite horror of bilious extremism that led Young Andrew Sullivan to come to our fair shores and fling himself into common Conservative cause with this guy:
And this guy
And these guys:
And this guy:
And these wretched clowns:
And this bottom-feeding gorgon:
And so many more.
So many, many more.
And remember, Mr. Sullivan did not merely take up their odious banner, carry their toxic water and lend his credibility to their degenerate cause, but stayed in their service year after year after year until all the flava had been chewed out of American Conservative Bubbliciou.
Which is why Mr. Sullivan has been working fast to reboot himself as a whiny, Centrist twat.
The howls from the left – has the Democratic party reverted to pre-Clinton brain-deadness so swiftly – confirm the constructive moderation. One reaction from the right, it seems to me, was so cynical, toxic and foul in its hypocrisy and bad faith … well it had to have happened in Washington.
Or maybe a whiny, Libertarian twat.
But maybe it’s because I’m a libertarian...
Because, yknow, those fucking Liberals!
...I have to say the sheer lack of any grace among some liberal commenters on what was an obvious outreach to African-Americans depresses me. Josh Marshall piles on:Yesterday morning Sen. Rand Paul went over to Howard University. And it didn’t go terribly well. One might say that’s only to be expected in a case like this – perhaps even the whole point – since the aim is to break the ice between communities either antagonistic to each other or thoroughly out of communication. But it’s more an example of what happens when a staunch conservative steps out of the GOP’s tightly-drawn racial nonsense bubble and hits an audience not dying to be convinced that the GOP’s problems with non-whites are the results of boffo misunderstandings about a Republican party that is actually the best thing that ever happened to black people.
14 comments:
yeah, when Thatcher was busting unions, destroying manufacturing and using martial law to beat up punks and Irish, the people who OPPOSED her were being ugly.
What a shit Andrew is. Now he wants to be on OUR side because the Great War Adventure and Magic Austerity Adventure have turned out crappy? Can we send him back?
Sullivan's comments are actually very simple to understand: "Their views are odious and ours are noble because they are wrong and we are right."
This is the vein that runs through every form of religious and political fundamentalism.
Mike.K.
Ask (see my comment in the last thread) and I shall receive. Thanks, dg.
Today was a banner day in incoherent yet smug knee-jerk hippie punching.
Rand Paul proves, spectacularly, to be an ignorant boob who thinks when it comes to race relations and civil rights, what dead people did decades ago matters, yet what's happened in the past 50 years doesn't...and it's the liberals pointing and laughing at his faceplant that depress him.
The fuck does Sully expect? Polite applause, just because he showed up? What a tool.
...and the "braindead left" shot is even worse. Yes, it's the liberals defending Social Security, and have the facts entirely on their side in so doing, who are braindead, not the ghouls who are manufacturing a bullshit crisis so that they can get their grubby paws on it.
Because, to this elitist twat, the golden rule remains - if it pisses off "the left", it has to be good policy. Sometimes I think he see that as the goal in and of itself. Because his attempts to argue it on the merits are always a hoot.
Tramp the dirt down...
I wish Sully would go to Howard and explain how "interesting" "The Bell Curve" was. I doubt he has the courage for that.
Vic78
Seems you've covered the douchebag lineup admirably. You might also include the Koch Bircher network and their pet "Libertarian" Christian nationalist puppets, Ron and Rand Paul.
Sullivan hasn't changed his stripes, just his costume.
Let's recap. Rand Paul lied and pretended that the Democrats are socialists. (Okay, maybe on this point he's just dumb.) Rand Paul lied and pretended the Southern Strategy and the past 50 years never happened. Rand Paul lied and said he never opposed the Civil Rights Act. Paul delivered a considerable amount of bullshit, and did it with his usual condescension.
Liberals point this out.
In response, Sullivan whines about liberals being mean, without engaging the substance of the critiques against Rand Paul. Most glaringly, he ignores that Jamelle Bouie, whom he links, covers the Southern Strategy in some depth.
Not long ago, Sullivan had to insist that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq so he could pretend that both sides are to blame/Sullivan was blameless/no one could have known. Tellingly, almost every asshole centrist or purity troll who insists that both sides do it/both sides are equally to blame ignores the Southern Strategy. You cannot truly understand – or discuss – American political history without it.
As for Sullivan's linkees, Weigel has his moments, but he was or is a libertarian, and back in 2010 complained that Rand Paul was being punished for his honesty in his Maddow interview, when the truth was Rand Paul repeatedly refused to give a straight, honest answer, which would have been, yes, I would have opposed the Civil Rights Act. (I see Weigel is still sorta at it; the accusations weren't solely that Rand Paul was a racist, they were that he was, at best, fucking clueless.)
As for Freddie DeBoer (and this goes for Weigel and Nick Gillespie, too) – on what planet do liberals support the "War on Drugs," or find opposition to it startling and original? The LGM crew, for example, routinely point out where both Ron Paul and Rand Paul are right on issues, but then also point out how wrong they are on everything else. This is not difficult. Moreover, if Rand Paul wants to cosponsor decriminalization measures, or eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, great, we can find common ground there, but the opposition to that stuff comes from conservatives (some of them Dems). As with the Southern Strategy, there's some history there. Chris Hayes' segment is a bit jokey, but it does have some substance, and Freddie just ignores that to complain that mean Chris Hayes has "prove[n] conservative stereotypes about liberals and race." Well, no, Rand Paul was further proof of the stereotypes of conservatives/libertarians on race. FFS, most of what Rand Paul said was insulting bullshit that cherry-picked when it wasn't outright false. And the critique is, never mind all that, why aren't liberals focusing on the 5% that wasn't crap? Time for them to calibrate their bullshit detectors and outrage allocators…
I don't think most Americans understand just how reviled thatcher was in the UK when she was in charge. She not only fueled the best punk/ska/revolution rock in history, she was responsible for some of the most violent riots Britain has ever seen, and that's saying something. Just mention "Poll Tax" to any Scot, and you'll get a history lesson you'll never forget. Unless you're Sully. So go fuck yourself and your "on average" 16 partners a month Sully. We don't want you anywhere NEAR our side.
Batocchio,
You discussed the Southern Strategy, but let's not forget its hideous little Hell-sister, the Christian Right, specifically the Moral Majority and Values Voters Coalition.
The Moral Majority was not evangelical Christianity's first foray into politics. As Driftglass points out, every segregationist argument is woven in the language of white Biblical patriarchy. The church was the enabler of the Dixiecrats, who became the George Wallace Democrats. The Moral Majority came together the presidential cycle after the Southern Strategy was enacted, not to welcome in the evangelicals, but to call back the evangelicals still stinging from the LBJ rebuke of the '64 DNC.
In our culture, we treat religion as something sacrosanct. That is a carefully cultivated notion. It allows people to glue a plastic Jesus to he forehead of any shambling conservative monstrosity, and then their monster cannot be rebuffed or rebuked as it rampages across the countryside.
To the point of the article, this is another point on which the likes of Sullivan dare not speak. Personally, I've said before that I think he honestly does not understand the monster Southern white evangelical fundamentalism has become. He's British, and so he is used to society keeping religion in check. Others know that the evangelicals will descend upon them like a pack of rabid wolves if the wrong word is spoken.
Mike.K.
Mike K,
Great point about the Evangelicals and racism. I spent a summer in FlorGioBama in the late 70s. Carter had just made the IRS start investigating some of the Academies that just happened to spring up like mushrooms when forced integration started taking hold in Southern public schools.
Hell, there was not an attempt to even hide it. They'd openly tell this Yankee college boy about their new all-white Christian schools and how they were scrambling to find a token "couple of good ones" to scholarship in so they could avoid the dreaded segregation desired by the Feds.
Excellent analysis as always, however I must echo a sentiment a feminist friend of mine just related. Sullivan is a twit, not a twat. He has neither the warmth or depth to be a twat.
The Phyllis Shafley video was great. I always liked the irony of her commanding women to stay at home and be good little helpmates while she herself was galavanting around the country making public appearances. She and Huck make such a wonderful pair of grifters. Neither has ever had a real job, and yet the royalties come pouring in. Kind of gives me the chills just thinking about how great this country is having produced folks like them with the ability to make money conning suckers out of their cash.
There's a reason why Thatcher worshippers like Sullivan tend to flee to the US to seek cover among Republicans. It's the last place on earth where you can sit around and talk about how Pinochet was a misunderstood genius without getting punched in the face.
What's missing from Sully's list of Thatcherite "serious mistakes – the poll tax, opposition to German unification, insisting that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist"? Why, her homo-hatred of course.
Toxic self-loathing runs deep.
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