Emotionalism, tribalism, intolerance, lies, cruelty, and extremism surround us (and I have not been immune in this climate to their temptations either). Trump has turned the right into a foul, spit-flecked froth of racist reactionism, and he has evoked a radical response on the left that, while completely understandable, alienates me and many others more profoundly with every passing day.
[….]And so I walk the dogs. And I meditate. And I smoke more weed in the evenings. And I browse the apps. And I find myself searching for figures outside this time and place who were in similar circumstances and yet kept their heads. You can never go wrong reading Orwell.
Given Sully’s obsession with our campus radical overlords (and the second half of his article is devoted to the martyrdom of St. Googlebro), I’ll put this in terms he an understand: smoking out, reading Orwell, and decrying the overall state of the world is how teen-agers deal with break-ups, not how adults deal with encroaching tyranny. Nothing wrong with smoking pot obviously, but it’s not a substitute for picking a side and fighting for it (instead of concern trolling it).
Since people who give a fuck about the country don’t have the luxury of spending all their time browsing apps and meditating, let’s raise some money.
Give here to the Balloon Juice fund that’s split equally among all Democratic eventual nominees in House districts currently held by Republicans:
Give here to Swing Left which is promoting grassroots progressive activity targeting over 70 Republican House districts.
Baud
I’m depressed now. I thought we had alienated him long before this.
Baud
BTW
SNAP!
Starfish
@Baud: You are not the radical left.
RSA
Since his days at The New Republic, at least, Sullivan was less a victim than a perpetrator.
Baud
@Starfish: True. I don’t hate Democracts.
Planetpundit
Mr Sullivan (as well as Tina Brown) are good arguments for banning green cards to Tory expats; if one was to advocate immigration bans which I’d never do…….
GregB
Sully would have been a real pip during World War II.”Please don’t denounce the Nazis so harshly, you are alienating me.”
JPL
@Baud: How do adults deal with encroaching tyranny?
Baud
@JPL: They fight back.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@RSA: “racist reactionism”
He still stands ? behind publishing The New Republic.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Planetpundit: Right behind them: Canada.
Betty Cracker
Receiving an “identity politics” lecture from the likes of Andrew Fucking Sullivan is like being scolded by a Kardashian for self-promotion.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: The Republican party’s entire schtick is white identity politics.
efgoldman
Why do we give a shit what a couple of assholes (Sully, Glennie) who move no votes and are read by an infinitesimal part of the population think about anything? If they have any influence at all, it’s among other self-centered navel-gazers.
Fuckem
ruemara
@JPL: armaments & battle lines.
Wag
I think that this is what Andrew actually means…
Villago Delenda Est
Sullivan, as always, can fuck the fucking fuck off.
sibusisodan
Avoiding dealing with the rise of reactionary politics by reading Orwell sounds wrong on so very many levels.
MattF
Yeah, Orwell was the non-political aesthete who joined up with the Trotskyites in the Spanish Civil War. Is Sullivan saying that’s what he would have done? I’d guess that, in fact, Sully would have been an admirer of the ‘manly’ Mussolini.
Doug!
Also too, a massive proportion of out punditry relies on a contrarian form of identity politics to promote themselves.
Sully — I’m a gay person but I’m a Tory who shits on the Stonewall movement.
McArdle — I’m a vegetarian who hates other vegetarians. I’m a free-trader but I support Brexit, etc. etc.
Flanagan, Roiphe (and McArdle actually): I’m a woman but I hate feminists.
Villago Delenda Est
@Wag: This is true, and it’s precisely why he should fuck the fucking fuck off.
Cermet
While I prefer to forget that Andy Sullivan – the self hating gay man who couldn’t make it in Britain so he came here to share his stupidity and lack of insight – I understand why his verbiage is still posted here from time to time. For Jackals to realize we are the superior species over weasels like him or floating shit like tRump supporters.
Baud
@efgoldman: This is true.
Steve in the ATL
@efgoldman: what the cranky old man said
patrick II
@Planetpundit:
But then we might lose John Oliver!
efgoldman
@MattF:
Sully, like all armchair armies and keyboard kommandos, when confronted with a real weapon (not necessarily a firearm) would scream and run away.
WereBear
Sullivan is the secular equivalent of Billy Graham: a good looking fellow who said things powerful men liked, and was elevated as a consequence.
Hearst and Luce told their respective media empires: “Puff Billy.” And lo, it came to pass.
efgoldman
@Steve in the ATL:
What do you know about it? You claim to be from Atlanta, but you couldn’t find it on a map.
schrodingers_cat
@patrick II: I don’t think Oliver is a Tory.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: Sully is good looking?
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: A raised stick with a nail in it would be more than enough to send Sullivan into the full panic mode.
patrick II
There’s more than a few of those around. FWRNJ, Or Female Right Wing Nut Jobs.I think about every woman Evangelist belongs.
Nicole
Sully is realizing the future may not belong exclusively to white men and he is terrified.
To borrow from Yarrow, tick tock, motherfucker.
efgoldman
@WereBear:
For better or worse, Sully on his best day didn’t have a tiny fraction of the influence that Graham had on his worst.
schrodingers_cat
As a naturalized citizen what does Sully have to say about a crowd booing naturalization ceremonies and their emotional impact?
Thread
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: For a conservative. My thesis is supported by any CPAC photo.
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
“They don’t mean hyper-educated white people like me”
raptusregaliter
Sully is such a twit. He whines for a living, and a bad day for him is when his local market is out of the special organic arugula. Don’t understand how he still has a job when you can get the same kind of reflections from any 12-yr-old blogger who is currently having a SAD.
maya
Say, isn’t that the Andrew Breitbart Diet?
Schlemazel
@WereBear:
Since I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that fart smell hanging in the air I want to share my favorite Billy Graham story.
Graham was headquartered in Minneapolis until the late 70s. The local paper ran an expose about his operations. If you wanted his revival talents in your home town he would send a team of people to talk to all the local churches. The churches had to open their books to them & show their weekly take. It was explained from past experience that each church would see an increase in attendance and offerings of a specific percent the week after the show closed. That number would go down every week for the next 10 weeks, until it was back to where it was before hand.
It was explained to them that in addition to paying all the travel (1st class of course) for the good reverend they would each pay a percentage of the increase take.
It was less than a year later he decided to head to North Carolina.
tamiasmin
I thought the problem was Trump, Pence, Ryan, McConnell, Sessions, and the whole up-is-down, “they’re-stealing-our-country” GOP.
Wrong again. It turns out the problem is Andrew Sullivan. Sure. Sure it is.
Citizen_X
Orwell? Orwell dealt with the previous iteration of this crisis by travelling overseas to kill fascists!
Sorry if that “alienates [you] and many others more profoundly with every passing day,” Andrew. BTW, I’m going to need a link on that “many others” assertion.
evodevo
I noticed there’s nowhere for me to sign in to NyMag.com lol … I DO have a username and password there … no comments allowed? or what? I guess Sully isn’t interested in MY opinion …
WereBear
@efgoldman: True. Just pointing out it was less intrinsic value and more more more PR.
Amir Khalid
I quit paying Sully any attention years ago, when I realised he was just a hysterical ninny. My disaffection with the intellectual-poseur side of him is only a secondary reason.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker:
Damn, Ms Cracker, I sure am glad Ididn’t have a snoot full of coffee when I read that.
Haroldo
@efgoldman: Yerp. Another Aging Masshole (I wear this badge proudly) strongly in the fuckem camp.
P.S. (Congratulations, Gramps)
WereBear
@Schlemazel: What a story! Yes, I devoured the bio The Prince of War yesterday and it was very clear it was the evangelism business.
Walker
Googlebro was bad at his job and deserved to be fired. People who support him demonstrate how out of touch they are with the tech economy.
JPL
@ruemara: It’s time to pull out my bb gun and practice.
azlib
I guess Sully discovered politics is not bean bags.
NotMax
Bonglesse oblige.
Because you’re in comfortable enough circumstances to be able to afford doing little else. And perverse enough to by extension evince admiration of caring about no one else.
hueyplong
A Sullivan’s fee-fees are not all that high on the list of things that must be appeased in order to reach the sought-after tipping point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that Bari Weiss seems to be the NYT’s designated “I’m a (_________), but….” columnist.
Sullivan is such a preening self-parody, I can’t believe NYMag hired him, but I don’t know their business model. Eric Alterman (who seems to have vanished) used to taunt him beautifully (the gay-catholic, ex-pat tory, Gap model…), and mock the self-congratulatory Beltway types who used to flaunt him as their Gay Friend to prove their enlightenment. Joe Klein (an unlamented apparent vanishing) seemed to think he should have had a statue erected to himself for attending Sully’s wedding.
Barbara
Sullivan is unable to discern the difference between things that are disagreeable (to him) and things that are existential threats. Whereas, Jennifer Rubin, Tom Nichols, and Ana Navarro (to name three) seem not to have that difficulty. Never mind that Sullivan would be barely tolerated in the political universe that he seems to wish for. This inability to locate the true North Star of what makes a society free and fair is not new. I just finished reading The Saboteur, a pretty fast read about a member of the French Resistance who was also the direct descendant of La Rochefoucauld (the 17th century writer). It sketched a fair amount of background that has made me want to search out other books on the French Resistance, which was resistance to French collaboration in addition to German incursion. Anywho, one of the things the book discussed was that Germans in charge of trying to infiltrate the Resistance figured out that many hated each other almost as much as they hated Germans, e.g., the Southwestern arm of the Resistance was vehemently anti-communist. The Germans used brute force and torture, of course, but more than a few people were turned based solely on appeals to hatred of their fellow citizens. Sullivan is a collaborator in the making. He just hasn’t been offered a high enough price yet.
patroclus
Well, unlike many of the BJ commentariat, I like to read Sullivan, but this screed makes no sense at all. He’s opposed to Trump and will vote Dem this fall and yet he writes a bothsiderism screed that bears no relation to reality. Trump is terrible and crass and toxic and boorish but the left has developed “no credible spokesperson. Huh? How is that remotely equivalent?? And how about Adam Schiff on the Russia probe? How about David Hogg and Emma and Cameron and Stephen and all the other Parkland survivors on preventing mass murder? How about Durbin on immigration? How about Jerry Brown ?? Trump is awful and destroys everything he touches but the “left” describes religion as insane?? Huh?? How is that remotely equivalent?? And the “left” doesn’t do that – atheists do – and the “left” and atheists are not the same. I’m a Presbyfrickinterian and I still believe in loving thy neighbor and not judging. And of course atheists describe religion that way because that’s what they believe. It’s completely normal for them to do that – if Andrew wants to change that, he should try to change their minds with arguments – not invective. And why does he conflate the two? That’s not a particularly intellectual way of approaching things.
And that’s it – no other problems with the way the “left” has behaved (in this screed) other than in the treatment of Andrew himself. Oh how horrible!! He isn’t liked because he’s spent his entire life (fifth column – cough; Clinton hatred – cough)) demonizing the “left” just like Trump does now. How about some self-awareness Andrew?? If he really doesn’t like Trump, he could do at least as good of a job of expressing it as Kristol, Frum, Rubin and even Mona frickin Charen. Why doesn’t he?
RSA
Sullivan is still as intellectually dishonest as the day is long. He writes,
Khazan’s words (my emphasis)
Sullivan turns Khazan’s general but careful summary of what we know and what we don’t know into a much stronger conclusion. In my reading, at least. It makes me mad that he hasn’t learned anything over the past decades. He even writes, “And notice the dismissal of any argument that cites distributions and bell curves — very basic statistical tools — as if they are designed to obscure rather than reveal the complicated truth.” Again, in my reading, this suggests he’s never given up on Charles Murray’s book.
Thornton Hall
As long as there is a group of people calling themselves “the left” which believes that politics is something you think about, rather than something you do, there will be an equal and opposite reaction, a group calling itself “the right” which uses the same intellectual masturbation technics to come to the opposite policy conclusions.
The National Review wrote this up in clear language when it was founded. Take them at their word.
Foucault swing voters call Andrew Sullivan into existence. It’s a package deal. We need to rid ourselves of both,
MattF
@patroclus: Just imagine how Sullivan would react if there was a RW American authoritarian who was just even the teensiest bit less stupid, dishonest, and patently guilty as Trump. It would be love at first sight and it wouldn’t be pretty.
bobbo
I mean, at this point you don’t need to waste time on this loser. 3000 words and it’s always Teh Left or Teh Clintons or both. Also his chronic weed habit makes him paranoid and melodramatic
CarolDuhart2
Thanks to those radical leftists you despise, legally, Sully
But I pity him more than that. He is a guy who has nowhere to go in a conservative/Republican world that despises him for the very things he is; gay, foreign, and a weedsmoker.
What drives people like Sully absolutely bonkers is that we are fighting back, and not the way he would like to see us do. He, and his conservative allies(?) want the reaction to be like the 1960’s: violent, unorganized, with opponents spouting barely understood Marxism. They long for that singular leader who would be a target for their ire, or failing that, Hillary, Obama, or both to be that leader. We aren’t giving it to them. Instead it’s voter registration, turnout, education, recruiting candidates, and a lot of women in pink hats.
Jay Noble
Ummmm . . . Is he smoking his weed legally wherever it is he’s living?
Barbara
@CarolDuhart2: Sullivan wishes for a world that looks a lot like the 1950s, whether because of aesthetic or cultural or religious feelings, except that, he would be accepted in that world as a gay man. It’s no use telling him that without feminism (in particular, because of its impact on the whole idea of gender and gender roles) and without openness to difference of other kinds as well, there is no acceptance of gays, certainly no gay marriage. I get that he will vote for Democrats, and so on, and yes, thanks for all that, but I have a hard time getting over that what he really longs for is a world where he can hate the same people that conservatives do without himself being hated. Just once, I would like him to GIVE THANKS to the insufficiently articulate assholes and shoutie people on “the left” who stood up for their rights simply because they were standing up for his rights too.
Miss Bianca
Where does Sully live, anyway? New York? that’s not one of the states that has legalized his evening coping mechanism. Must be nice to be a right-wing white pundit, not to have to worry that copping to smoking the Demon Weed in wide-circulating print won’t win him a visit from one of Jeff Sessions’s Irregulars. Or be subject to a sudden drug test from his employers.
Fuck this asshole. “Radicalization on the Left”? Pricklouse ain’t seen *nothing* yet, and he’s already snivelling “Save me!” to Big Daddy Orwell? Orwell’s thinking about rising from the grave and slapping him with a brick.
Sab
@patroclus: I also used to like to read Sully, and when I did my spouse would always annoyingly and correctly point out “but he’s always wrong!”
Not easy to publish Charles Murray and Betsy McCaughey in one lifetime if you actually are trying to be serious rather than a mere provacateur.
Citizen_X
@RSA: Argh. “distributions and [sic] bell curves” [a bell curve represents one type of distribution] are not statistical tools, they’re statistical results.
Once again, Sullivan presents sloppy thinking as deep intellectualism.
JR
So, he’s a fucking burnout, right?
I have the inkling that Sully is sad that no one cares to read his stuff anymore
Brachiator
@RSA:
Sullivan is one of those “intellectual,” religious conservatives who falsely believes that science confirms some idea of “God given” deep unchanging human nature. A human nature which, unsurprisingly, validates contemporary conservative stereotypes about gender and race. Circular bullshit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sab: I used to read and enjoy some of his blog when he was defending Obama against the right, but the sheer buffoonery of so much of his stuff, not just the anti-Hillary stuff (which practically begged for people to practice amateur psychology on the internet), but stuff like changing the color of his blog background during the Iranian protests and acting as if he had run off to Spain to fight Franco in 1935, and of course his legendary “You’re welcome” to the should-be grateful Iraqi people for his support of Bush’s war.
OTOH, he inspired what remains my favorite Betty Cracker image: Andrew Sullivan, running down the street, screaming hysterically, naked and smeared with beagle poop.
Matt
Where’s Zombie Orwell when you need him to slap the taste right out of a fascist’s mouth?
I don’t know how he can read Orwell while forgetting that “radical leftism” for Orwell included literally taking up arms in Spain.
Neldob
Now there’s a group that gets no press, the religious left. That evangelist op-ed yesterday at the nyt gave me nightmares; and they call themselves Christian. Yikes.
Another Scott
Donated x2. Thanks for the regular reminders, Doug!
Pointing and mocking at Sullivan and the like is satisfying, but work on the ground is what it’s going to take to turn the national government around. And that work takes resources.
Only 254 days until Election Day.
Eyes on the prize.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen_X: Sully is pretty innumerate, I used to read his blog a long time ago. Forget stats, I would be surprised if he understands and can calculate percentages.
bemused
@efgoldman:
Like David Brooks and so many others, Sullivan were given relevance and elevated seats by media that are inexplicable to me.
Congrats on new grandkid on the way. It’s not easy to keep up with lives of regular commenters but you stuck in my mind because we both have granddaughters born in same month, same year. Your comments on your bright and funny granddaughter echo our delight with ours. Our grandddaughter has a sister that just turned one year old. Too much fun, those grandkids are.
Gvg
@Miss Bianca: actually, I think he might get busted for weed. Sessions probably wouldn’t mind a high profile arrest. Sully is an idiot. He should be in a different state.
I don’t think he is as listened to now as he was a few years ago.
kindness
I always am amazed people like Andrew who would be one of the first of the undesirables tossed into the new concentration camps continue to go out of their way to protect the virtues of fascists.
bobbo
How did my party get so racist, asks the publisher of the Bell Curve
bystander
@efgoldman:
Depends on what you call a weapon.
WaterGirl
Remember that cute Far Side card where someone is yelling at their dog Ginger for being bad and the balloon above the dog’s head says “Blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah Ginger?
That’s what this thread reads like for me – blah blah blah Sully blah blah blah blah SULLY. I haven’t the slightest interested in Andrew Sullivan.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl:
And yet, here you are.//
J R in WV
@kindness:
This. He seems to have no sense of self-preservation for starters. He allows his religion to distort his thought processes, if he has any thought processes at all.
Religion isn’t based upon facts, it’s based upon belief and hope. Or so I believe, heh… That working upon belief works OK for some people, but it can be so mutable, people slide from going to Episcopal or something like that, and can later on wind up in some Theocratic fundy church being taught to believe in hate of the other, and other can be switched on and off.
Calouste
@bystander: Anything more dangerous than a sharpened kiwi fruit.
raptusregaliter
@Miss Bianca:
And not only is she here, she spent two graphs proclaiming how this subject doesn’t interest her AT ALL.
smh…
Miss Bianca
@raptusregaliter: “Waiter! The food here is TERRIBLE! And the portions are so small!”
Sometimes the classics still say it best…
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I kept hoping someone would go OT!
WaterGirl
@raptusregaliter: Hey, I’ve always loved that card, so I got to relive it as I typed.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: LOL! Well, usually that’s a pretty safe bet around here!
matt
Sullivan has a negative response to the left’s reaction to Trump and not to Trump himself is apparently what I just read.
Epicurus
Since when is Sullivan a mature adult?
bobbo
@Citizen_X:
“Andrew. BTW, I’m going to need a link on that “many others” assertion.”
He has nightly jam sessions with the ghost of Christopher Hitchens
JGabriel
Andrew Sullivan:
This from they guy who promoted and advocated for Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve.
Listen, Andrew. Trump didn’t turn the right into a “foul, spit-flecked froth of racist reactionism”. The right nominated Traitor Donald to be the GOP’s standard bearer because it was already a “foul, spit-flecked froth of racist reactionism” – as your own advocacy of The Bell Curve, and its continuing popularity on the right, confirms.
pluky
“browsing the apps,” is this code for arranging hook-ups on Grindr?
Zinsky
The ONLY thing I like about Andrew Sullivan is that he smokes a lot of weed!