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You are here: Home / Wingnut Whisperers

Wingnut Whisperers

by John Cole|  April 5, 20189:49 pm| 92 Comments

This post is in: Assholes, Go Fuck Yourself, Our Failed Media Experiment

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My sister from another mister touched on the Williamson firing at the Atlantic, but I thought I would add my two cents. I’d be remiss if I didn’t start this whole discussion by asking why we need more conservative voices to begin with. Conservatives currently hold the Presidency, the House, the Senate, right wing voices are dominant on the Supreme Court and should someone drop dead, even more so. They control the overwhelming majority of state legislatures and governor’s office, control AM radio, have their own national news network on television and via Sinclair are closing in on dominating local television, and this doesn’t even get into all the wingnut welfare ventures like Red State, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, the Federalist, and so on so forth. So it’s not like anyone in this country is missing out on hearing conservative viewpoints.

At any rate, Noah Berlatsky hada good piece the other day in the Huffington Post titled “Bad Ideas Aren’t Worth Debating“:

The issue is not left intolerance. The issue is that conservative intellectuals make bad, often nonsensical arguments, and spout opinions that are hateful and harmful on their face.

Nor is this a surprise, given the last several decades of American history. Anyone looking objectively at the GOP’s record in politics over the last 30-odd years would reasonably conclude that conservatism is a bankrupt and harmful ideology, built on bigotry and a fetishization of tax cuts for the rich. The previous Republican president, George W. Bush, presided over an unnecessary and catastrophic war, a horrifyingly incompetent hurricane relief effort, and a historic, devastating financial collapse. The current Republican president is an incompetent would-be authoritarian whose main accomplishments so far have involved empowering a fascist police force to harass and deport innocent people. The Republican Congress put forth incoherent health care plan after incoherent health care plan, before ramming through a similarly incoherent tax cut for the wealthy.

Conservatism in office has brought Americans war, financial disaster, misery, and rising fascism. Conservative pundits, meanwhile, write column after column propounding ill-informed, bigoted, and cruel solutions to problems that don’t exist, while denying the existence of real injustices and misery.

This is not some sort of coincidence. Conservative governance is a disaster because conservative thinking is bankrupt. Giving more space to conservative thinkers is not going to make our polity more diverse and vibrant. It’s going to fill our public sphere with prejudice and ignorance. Ibram X. Kendi challenges and enlightens. Kevin D. Williamson does neither of those things.

So not only are we deluged with conservative ideas, they’re usually bad ideas not even worth debating. Actually, they are pretty much always bad ideas. Actually, they’re not even ideas. Modern conservatism doesn’t have actual ideas, they have self-reinforcing belief systems, and feelings, and an ever shifting concept of us vs. them. They don’t actually debate whether climate change is worth dealing with, they just deny it’s happening or claim it’s made up and then bring snowballs into the well of the Senate to prove… I have no idea what they are trying to prove. And it’s like that with EVERYTHING.

I mean, name an actual new conservative idea from a prominent conservative intellectual in the last decade. Go ahead. Alright, now try to name a new conservative idea or approach from anyone. Yeah. You can’t. And there’s a reason for that- there haven’t been any.

For all the bluster about conservative intellectualism, there just isn’t really any. Hell, look at the role of George Will, David Brooks, Bret Stephens, etc. They aren’t thought leaders, they just try to put an intellectual veneer on the same old horseshit that comes seeping out of the stupid right. They’re wingnut whisperers. Human babelfish for rightwing babble. It’s why all they talk about is liberal intolerance or why every other column by Bret Stephens and Will is a weak jab at climate change. It’s quite literally all they have.

And if you look at it that way, I guess you can give Kevin Williamson some credit for calling black people primates and for lynching women who have abortions. While not new ideas in any sense of the term, they are new to mainstream publications, so there’s that.

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Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    April 5, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    I was thinking of becoming a communist. They had the moral and intellectual judgement to support Hillary. But more importantly, given the current initiative to foster diverse viewpoints, I should easily be able the get a cushy gig at one of our nation’s premier media outlets. It’s a sure thing.

  2. 2.

    HinTN

    April 5, 2018 at 9:57 pm

    new to mainstream publications, so there’s that

    There but for the grace of dog…

  3. 3.

    HinTN

    April 5, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    @Baud: Sure is a relative term.

  4. 4.

    kindness

    April 5, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    Me thinks there is some kind of a disease that is affecting publishers and media executives. We need find a cure fast.

  5. 5.

    HinTN

    April 5, 2018 at 9:59 pm

    @kindness: Moar money

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    April 5, 2018 at 10:03 pm

    As people who slavishly worship money, they are bankrupt by any and every other measure.

  7. 7.

    piratedan

    April 5, 2018 at 10:03 pm

    well its not even completely devoid of ideas, they’re vehemently anti-idea. I’m not gonna blow smoke up our collective butts and say that every spit-balled thought come up by Dems is a winner. But every “idea” propagated by the GOP is nothing more than the Monty Python “Argument sketch” writ large… Dems pro immigration and dreamers, GOP opposed to it, health care, funding the government…you can tick off every damn thing down the line. They’ve become so entrenched that there is no common ground, every Dem position is demonized, be it from education, the role of government itself to even who our fucking allies are.

  8. 8.

    AxelFoley

    April 5, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    I love when Cole gets all righteous. ?

  9. 9.

    Schlemazel

    April 5, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    @Baud:
    I have said for a long time now, in a world where Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are raving liberal socialists I have to be a communist. There is no other option if that is the yardstick being used

  10. 10.

    Aleta

    April 5, 2018 at 10:08 pm

    Shani O. Hilton https://twitter.com/shani_o

    spring can really hang you up the most
    ‏@shani_o
    (What about hiring a nazi and just saying “yes, we hired a nazi”)

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    April 5, 2018 at 10:08 pm

    I was enjoying seeing Erick Erickson and other Williams-supporting conservatives getting absolutely fucking roasted on Twitter.

    We do have a huge divide in our country right now, and it’s between folks who think that fetuses are more important than women and people who think women are more important. We have a huge moral gap where science, logic, and fairness stand on one side and religion, irrationality, and rigid cruelty stand on the other.

  12. 12.

    zanamu

    April 5, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    name a great conservative idea of the last decade – this is a great question that I will now ask every conservative I meet. And luckily (ha!) I live in Nebraska, where conservative identity is a reflex. This should be fun.

  13. 13.

    Betsy

    April 5, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    *Dayum*, Cole! This is pretty near the best stuff you ever wrote. You hit it in every way.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    April 5, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    Well, technically we humans are a primate species, so … That aside, there’s certainly a failure of imagination in the leadership of publications like The Atlantic Monthly. As you say, they don’t cast their net wide enough. And what they’re looking for is in fact not diversity of opinion, but a perception of balance between opinion writers on the “right” and those on the “left”. And to make up the numbers to reinforce that perception, they are too often willing to hire, or worse to keep on, quite dreadful thinkers and writers. People who don’t bother to research the facts, who let ideological bias or personal quirks cloud their thinking, who write nonsense.

  15. 15.

    p.a.

    April 5, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this [society] cannot endure, permanently, half [stupid] and half [realist]. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of [stupidity] will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its [acolytes] will push [stupidity] forward… in all the States…

  16. 16.

    lumpkin

    April 5, 2018 at 10:20 pm

    >>>The previous Republican president, George W. Bush, presided over an unnecessary and catastrophic war, a horrifyingly incompetent hurricane relief effort, and a historic, devastating financial collapse. <<<

    As always they leave out 9/11. I have never figured out why everyone, including democrats gave him a pass on that. It was Bush's job to prevent it and he had the necessary information to do so. HE FUCKED UP. All the rest that followed is on him too.

  17. 17.

    BruceFromOhio

    April 5, 2018 at 10:20 pm

    PREACH it, mofo.

  18. 18.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 10:20 pm

    Cole, why aren’t you writing for the Atlantic

  19. 19.

    cgordon

    April 5, 2018 at 10:22 pm

    Why, as someone pointed out, they keep on coming back to “Oberlin college students are shutting down free speech.” It’s all they got.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 5, 2018 at 10:23 pm

    Ben Shapiro @ benshapiro
    If Kevin Williamson and bariweiss are too controversial for Leftists to allow a platform, this raises a serious question: is there anyone to the right of David Frum who isn’t?

    Very serious. Super serious. Like, mad serious question. (I personally don’t find Bari Weis controversial, I find her to be a pointless and boring addition to the already overcrowded field of Oberlin Student Government Scolds)
    also, too

    Optimistic Populist @ briebriejoy
    Optimistic Populist Retweeted Ben Shapiro
    I’m ready for my offer to write for the brave, courageous, unafraid-of-dissent National Review. NRO

  21. 21.

    Bill Arnold

    April 5, 2018 at 10:24 pm

    I make an exception for a few of the writers (and only some of the time) at https://www.theamericanconservative.com/, e.g.
    Daniel Larison, Iran Hawks Hate the Nuclear Deal Because It Is Successful
    And oftentimes one sees actual arguments there, that fall apart only with analysis, no simply because they are built on a foundation of falsehoods.
    As to an actual new conservative idea, no, feeling a bit stumped.
    OK, it’s not a new idea, but maybe that competitive (with proper regulation of non-competitive behavior) capitalism can (sometimes) accelerate technological change without inter-nation war (another mechanism that can have such an effect), and sometimes this change is, overall, good.

  22. 22.

    BruceFromOhio

    April 5, 2018 at 10:24 pm

    @Baud: Yes, let’s get GREEN.
    Real fucking GREEN.

  23. 23.

    fuckitall

    April 5, 2018 at 10:25 pm

    “name an actual new conservative idea from a prominent conservative intellectual in the last decade.”

    Decade? Try four decades, and the ideas get worse over time.

    These people are like the New York Jets of politics. With the exception that they win the “Superbowl” every
    other eight years.
    Thank god Parcells stayed out of politics.

  24. 24.

    japa21

    April 5, 2018 at 10:25 pm

    Many years ago, Charles Pierce wrote his book Idiot America. The basic claim was that what used to be fringe ideas and were viewed as such by most of the population were being given credence as ideas that were worth discussing.

    The mere thought that some of these “conservative” concepts are worth discussing is just more evidence of that. If 99 people agree on something which is totally verifiable, and one crazy person thinks otherwise, the media must present both views as carrying equal weight. This then gives the fringe 1% idea room to grow, and it does.

    Fox News was the carrier of the idiocy plague. The real question is whether or not we can recover from the disease.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 5, 2018 at 10:26 pm

    Cole, didn’t you spend a bit of time looking for a reasonable conservative to FP here? EDK, etc.?

  26. 26.

    kmeyer the lurker

    April 5, 2018 at 10:26 pm

    Alright, now try to name a new conservative idea or approach from anyone.

    I thought the tire rims & anthrax for dinner idea was pretty innovative.

  27. 27.

    BruceFromOhio

    April 5, 2018 at 10:30 pm

    @kmeyer the lurker: A classic for all times.

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    April 5, 2018 at 10:32 pm

    @Schlemazel:

    in a world where Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are raving liberal socialists I have to be a communist. There is no other option if that is the yardstick being used

    So true.

  29. 29.

    BC in Illinois

    April 5, 2018 at 10:32 pm

    I have opposed GOP candidates since the ’60s. The first presidential vote I cast was against R Milhous Nixon. But I think that the time of actually listening to conservative arguments came to an end when I realized that Reagan’s actual “governing philosophy” consisted of the idea (paraphrased) that:

    We have made it so hard on the rich, that people don’t even want to be rich any more.
    We have made it so easy on the poor, that everybody wants to be poor

    I realized that this was nothing more than bullshit, spouted by an undeserving rich man.
    That realization remains today, almost 40 years later.

    Conservative thought is bullshit. And until some “conservative” rises up and repudiates Reagan’s bullshit and begins again on another foundation, there is no reason to give them any consideration at all.

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    April 5, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    on the right, it’s paranoids, neo-Nazis, Koch-head “libertarians”, and christian fascists all the way down…not that those categories don’t have significant overlap, mind you…

    But yeah, basically what Cole said. None of the aforementioned four groups have any actual reasoning or evidence behind their “ideas”: it’s all belief, it’s all fervor & fear. Nothing to offer folks except a) the company of like-minded loons and b) that oh-so-soothing feeling of never having to think.

  31. 31.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    April 5, 2018 at 10:39 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Cole, didn’t you spend a bit of time looking for a reasonable conservative to FP here? EDK, etc.?

    It would be amusing, the Jackals are hungry.

    Also, almost certainly linked before, but still appropriate:Jezebel Regrets Its Decision to Hire Cannibal Witch as Writer-at-Large

  32. 32.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)

    April 5, 2018 at 10:42 pm

    Two words: A and men.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    April 5, 2018 at 10:42 pm

    As I told my RWNJ dad and brother several election cycles ago, and remind them every cycle since: I, the raving liberal in the family, can – just for arguments’ sake – make better conservative arguments on a host of topics than they can at this point. They don’t even remember HOW to do it…all they know is a sort of slack-jawed, caveman-like moment of thought that is of course, Cleek’s Law.

    They just want whatever the opposite of what Dems, Hillary, brown people, women, scientists, and college kids want. We seriously fucked up by not coming out hard against drinking lye while playing with chainsaws in a tiger cage. “Oh NO YOU DON’T, Conservatards!!! You can’t have my lye! You can’t touch my chainsaw! And you sure as hell can’t go in that tiger cage, not while I’m a-walkin’ this Earth!!!”

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 5, 2018 at 10:43 pm

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: I wasn’t joking.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    April 5, 2018 at 10:43 pm

    You are on point, Cole.???

  36. 36.

    Jay

    April 5, 2018 at 10:46 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Brooks, Friedman, Douthat, Sully, et al, don’t represent the “right”.

    They represent an imaginary “conservatism” that has never existed in the US.

    When the MSM brings in, for example, a Never Trumper, semi modern “conservative”, it blows up in their face in seconds, horrifying their audience and advertisers.

    They bring in one guy like Williamson, and their market freaks.

    Here’s an example of the actual “leaders” of modern conservative thought:

    https://mikethemadbiologist…

    “In Everything You Love Will Burn, journalist Vegas Tenold reveals that [Nazi Matthew] Heimbach was trained at the Leadership Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC, whose alumni include Mitch McConnell, Grover Norquist, and James O’Keefe; that Heimbach is hugely influenced by Pat Buchanan; and that, on Inauguration Day, Heimbach was introduced to a room full of GOP strategists and state legislators at the Capitol Hill Club, directly across from the Capitol building. “A few years ago the GOP wouldn’t be able to even sit in the same room as you, but things have changed, and now we need each other,” Heimbach’s Republican contact told him, as quoted by Tenold. “This is a big day”

    You might remember him from the incest laden Nazi Trailer Park sex triangle orgy and violence that blew up the Nazi “Traditionalist Workers Party.

    The MSM’s not yet ready for headlines like “Blood and Soil”, or “The Fourteen Words”,

    Yet.

  37. 37.

    justawriter

    April 5, 2018 at 10:47 pm

    Republican’s last new idea was Cleek’s Law and it took someone from this beloved site to explain it to them.

  38. 38.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 10:49 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Cole, didn’t you spend a bit of time looking for a reasonable conservative

    Does he look like Diogenes?
    Spoiler: I’ve met him. No.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 5, 2018 at 10:51 pm

    Richard M. Nixon @ dick_nixon
    For the record, I don’t understand all this slobbering on Williamson as a writer. He is the equivalent of a piano bar player: all flourishes, no ideas or feeling.

  40. 40.

    Ksmiami

    April 5, 2018 at 10:51 pm

    Point and mock them – shame them – conservatism is just backasswardism and fear

  41. 41.

    Ridnik Chrome

    April 5, 2018 at 10:52 pm

    Any wingnut who complains about Williamson being fired should have to answer, first of all, whether they agree with him that women who have abortions should be hanged, and second, if they don’t agree, why they believe that such an opinion should nevertheless be respected. And if they can’t or won’t answer they should STFU.

  42. 42.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 10:53 pm

    @BC in Illinois:

    And until some “conservative” rises up and repudiates Reagan’s bullshit and begins again on another foundation, there is no reason to give them any consideration

    Right after the Pope renounces Jesus.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    April 5, 2018 at 10:55 pm

    @kindness: @japa21:
    Pierce calls it “Republican prion disease” and I have not encountered a more apt diagnosis. Now if we could just get them to stop eating one another’s bwaaaains….

  44. 44.

    El Caganer

    April 5, 2018 at 10:56 pm

    Say what you will about ‘Uh uh uh, suck it, libtards, uh, uh, uh,’ at least it’s an ethos.

  45. 45.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 5, 2018 at 10:57 pm

    There are some new ideas from techno-libertarians (blockchain etc.) but I can’t for the life of me come up with a conservative intellectual one.

  46. 46.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    April 5, 2018 at 11:00 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Does he look like Diogenes?

    Oddly, that’s exactly how I imagined Cole.
    http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/paintings/images/waterhouse_diogenes.jpg

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 5, 2018 at 11:00 pm

    @efgoldman: I’ve met Cole, but I never met Diogenes. I assume you knew him well.

  48. 48.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    April 5, 2018 at 11:01 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: My apologies then. I started reading Balloon-Juice in the mid 2000’s, because I saw John as an honest Republican (as he was at the time), who would argue on the merits rather then using ad hominem and bad faith arguments.

    At the time I naively believed that Bush would lose for his second term (heh), and wanted somebody to keep me politically grounded for the Democratic resurgence I predicted 4 years too early. I also thought that after the 2006 election, the Republican rank-and-file would look to the interests of their party, and find some points of common cause with the Democratic party, and there would be a swing of power away from the executive and back to the legislature (ehhhh,,,).

    Then the 8 years of the Obama administration happened, which was better than we deserved, but not enough of what we needed as a country. At this point with 20 years of personal experience, I come form a starting place that any conservative viewpoint, without outside verification, is arguing in bad faith. It’s not always right, but it saves a HELL of a lot of time and heartache. I used to say “When will the Republican party root out their crazy, so we can keep each other honest for the sake of America”. I don’t believe that anymore.

  49. 49.

    zhena gogolia

    April 5, 2018 at 11:03 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That’s kind of hard on piano bar players.

  50. 50.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 11:03 pm

    @Sm*t Cl*de:

    that’s exactly how I imaged Cole.

    I’m trying to imagine Cole with a beard and in a toga

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I assume you knew him well.

    I’m not quite that old

  51. 51.

    Ridnik Chrome

    April 5, 2018 at 11:05 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Now if we could just get them to stop eating one another’s bwaaaains….

    We better hope they do, because as I keep saying, until the Republicans get better (or they’re replaced by a sane, reasonable center-right party) the rest of the country isn’t going to get better. It will just be an endless cycle of one Democratic administration trying to fix all the shit that the previous Republican administration has broken, and the longer it goes on, the more shit will get broken, and the less will get fixed.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    April 5, 2018 at 11:07 pm

    @efgoldman:

    I’m trying to imagine Cole with a beard and in a toga

    You do know that Cole was in a fraternity, right?

  53. 53.

    Lyrebird

    April 5, 2018 at 11:10 pm

    @efgoldman:

    I’m trying to imagine Cole with a beard and in a toga

    Doesn’t he have a beard, or did I imagine that photo?

    A toga is pretty easy to put on over one’s overalls,
    so that would work.

    I know he’s likely better fed than Diogenes or that American Gothic dude with the pitchfork, but he does regularly post photos. Now Tom Levenson, him I don’t quite picture in overalls.

    Good night all!

  54. 54.

    MomSense

    April 5, 2018 at 11:11 pm

    @kindness:

    Have you seen the series Brain Dead?

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 5, 2018 at 11:12 pm

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:

    My apologies then. I started reading Balloon-Juice in the mid 2000’s, because I saw John as an honest Republican (as he was at the time), who would argue on the merits rather then using ad hominem and bad faith arguments.

    Post-2008, Cole made some efforts to find a reasonable right-of-center person to FP here. My understanding was that is was intended to create an interesting dialogue. Erik D. Kain, or EDK, was his first attempt. EDK effectively lied to people here and used B-J as a springboard to bigger libertarian bloggerdom – a comeplete asshole move. Cole tried a few other ones before giving up on the project.

  56. 56.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 11:14 pm

    @MomSense:

    Have you seen the series Brain Dead?

    Every day on the news from the WH

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 5, 2018 at 11:16 pm

    Deleted because late to the party, as fucking usual.

  58. 58.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    April 5, 2018 at 11:19 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I vaguely remember him a bit? I was in grad school, so my attention was pretty divided.

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 11:21 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    When the hell did you meet Diogenes?

    When you introduced me to your old friend.

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 5, 2018 at 11:25 pm

    Matthew Yglesias @ mattyglesias
    Remember when Fox News fired George Will because he said mean things about Donald Trump?

    also loony, drooling racist Ralph Peters and well-groomed racist Meghan Kelly, and probably a few more I’ve forgotten about

  61. 61.

    Aleta

    April 5, 2018 at 11:26 pm

    All that explaining by Jeff Goldberg (without saying why he ignored women journalists for days). How he doesn’t believe in judging a life’s work by one tweet. (Media Matters spent a short time listening to podcasts and posted all kinds of ugly quotes.)

    He and Williamson had an honest talk and have merely parted ways. (Like gentlemen.) The point is, Jeff says, that he continues to uphold the Atlantic’s tradition of respectful well-reasoned debate. He’ll keep on grappling with complex moral issues and presenting all views. It’s not about Williamson’s abortion views at all.

    And here’s how the complex thinkers of the radical extremist RW respectfully grappled back:

    Atlantic Shows It Can’t Handle Real Ideological Diversity (Reason)
    Atlantic Fires Conservative Writer Over Abortion Views (Wa Free Bcon)
    T N C And J Valen. Prove Atlantic’s Hypocrisy On Kevin Williamson</em (Federalist)
    Kevin Williamson and the Declining Space for Provocateurs (Wa. Examiner)
    Cowards: ‘The Atlantic’ Fires Conservative Kevin Williamson for Not Being a Liberal, Holding Pro-Life Views (NewsBusters)
    Double-standard? The sheer hypocrisy behind the Atlantic’s decision to fire Kevin Williamson (Lifesite)
    Kevin Williamson Fired From The Atlantic For Opposing Abortion (I forget who)

    Myself, I think Jeff has been dishonest and lacks moral integrity.

  62. 62.

    Steeplejack

    April 5, 2018 at 11:26 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    Re Daniel Larison (weighing in for raven, who no doubt has gone to bed already):

    He is a member, or was the last time I checked, of the League of the South, a racist, neo-Confederate organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. So he has the same “problem” as Kevin Williamson: seemingly sane and reasonable on some subjects, nutso on others.

  63. 63.

    efgoldman

    April 5, 2018 at 11:27 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    probably a few more I’ve forgotten about

    I try to forget about them all. Constantly

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    April 5, 2018 at 11:29 pm

    ObOpenThread? Dean Baker at CEPR:

    Donald Trump has proved the skeptics wrong, it seems that the American people stand to be big winners as a result of his trade war. The Chinese government announced a major initiative to promote the manufacture and use of generic drugs.

    The reason this is potentially a big deal for the United States is that it could mean that China intends to push the envelope in replacing drugs protected by government-granted patent monopolies with drugs sold at free market prices. While the TRIPS provisions of the WTO do require members to respect patents and copyrights, there are flexibilities, such as compulsory licensing, to allow far more competition that what we see in the United States market.

    Countries also have varying rules on what items can be patented. For example, India has far more stringent patent rules than the United States so that many drugs that are protected by patents in the US are sold in a free market in India.

    This can matter hugely for people in the United States, since if China joins India as a mass producer of high-quality generic drugs, it will become increasingly difficult for the US drug companies to maintain an island of protected prices in the United States. The gap between the patent-protected price for drugs like the Hepatitis C drug Solvaldi and new cancer drugs is often more than 100 to 1 (equivalent to a 10,000 percent tariff) and can be as much as 1000 to 1.

    There is an enormous amount of money at stake (in addition to people’s health) if we can get drugs at their free market price. We will spend more than $450 billion this year on prescription drugs that would likely sell for less than $80 billion in a free market. The difference of $370 billion is almost 2.0 percent of GDP. It is more than five times the entire food stamp budget.

    We will need to have alternative mechanisms for financing the research and development of new drugs and having these costs shared internationally. But it is not difficult to develop mechanisms that are more efficient than the anachronistic patent monopoly system. If Trump’s trade war ends pushing us in this direction, the whole world will have won.

    (See the original for embedded links.)

    One needs to be able to separate out the snark, but his point is a good one. The TPP and other big trade deals often have huge components of forcing our trading partners to do more to “protect” US patent and trademark owners. If Donnie succeeds in starting a trade war, and Chinese generics become “a thing”, then US companies that charge $1,000,000 for a course of treatment are going to be very, very upset.

    Of course, that’s not what Donnie claims he has in mind when he talks about MAGA and all the rest…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 5, 2018 at 11:33 pm

    @Steeplejack: Pat Lang is raven’s bête noire, not Larison.

  66. 66.

    Aleta

    April 5, 2018 at 11:35 pm

    Media Matters typed out some more quotes from Williamson’s podcast :

    KEVIN WILLIAMSON: But at the end of the day we also have to pay attention to the actual facts of the case. And the unhappy part of that story is that a lot of the complaint is based on fiction. A lot of what we have to say about it is based on fiction. It just simply is not the case that young black men are getting gunned down, unarmed, by police officers in any sort of significant numbers. It’s just not something that really happens.

    KEVIN WILLIAMSON: And I don’t think that a lot of people talking about this right now really even quite understand what the basic genesis of these protests were and where they came from. I think [football player Colin] Kaepernick is a fairly unsympathetic character because he seems to be someone who doesn’t actually know very much what he’s talking about and kind of likes to play radical, maybe to make up for the fact that his sports career wasn’t all that promising there at the end.

    CHARLES COOKE (CO-HOST) But this notion that we will make it incumbent upon your boss to provide a health plan, then tell him what has to be in it, and then tell him that it’s none of his business is inherently absurd. 
    KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Someone just needs to tell these brave feminist warrior princesses fighting the patriarchy that it’s time to stop asking Daddy to buy you stuff.

  67. 67.

    Jay

    April 5, 2018 at 11:41 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Do you honestly think ‘Murkin’s are going to be allowed to buy cheap generic Chinese drugs, other then fentaynol?

    They arn’t allowed to buy Canadian.

    Stripping IP protections from Trademarked/Patented drugs, is a means of protecting your own people, not ‘Merkin’s.

    Dean Baker’s trying to polish a turd, for Trump.

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    April 5, 2018 at 11:45 pm

    @Another Scott:

    I had a cat die from melamine-laced cat food that used ingredients imported from China. They also caught baby formula companies adding melamine to baby formula after several babies died, and the head of the company was executed.

    I’m not touching a generic drug made in China.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    April 5, 2018 at 11:55 pm

    @Jay: Dean isn’t a Trump supporter. He’s having fun with counter-factuals, and reminding readers of the costs of excessive patent and trademark protections – something he writes about quite often.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    Jay

    April 6, 2018 at 12:01 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    Reputable companies should be fine, others, not so much.

    It’s like South African generics, or Indian generic’s, some companies are building a future, others are just looking for a quick buck.

    Still, Canadian, Australian and British generics, which are as safe, or safer than the US Trademarked/Patented drugs, arn’t legally allowed south of the border, to drive prices down,

    Only a Moron would believe Chinese generic’s would be allowed into the US to drive prices down. Way too many Pharma bucks in Politicians pockets for that to happen,

    Unless Javanka adds drug smuggling from China to their Product line.

  71. 71.

    dww44

    April 6, 2018 at 12:03 am

    @Mnemosyne: So, last week there was a thoughtful op-ed in the local paper from a frequent conservative contributor who resides in the overwhelmingly conservative county just south of this majority-minority one. The writer posited that evangelical Christian voters had ceded any moral authority they once had by voting for and continuing to support Donald Trump, who clearly has a dearth of moral character, and at the same time to vilify Jimmy Carter (a product of a county not very far from the writer’s home) just because the latter’s politics were to the left of those of the evangelical voters.

    So a couple of days ago there was a long response from a typical far right letter writer to the effect that he could make the case that he and others can support Trump and not support Democrats because the latter is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies, who’ve been murdered in the most cruel ways imaginable. Trump’s less bad because they can pray for Trump to be better. Also, too, Jimmy Carter might be a good Christian but he was a WEAK President and the former isn’t…….

    As on many other days, I threw down my newspaper in disgust and out of consideration for my spiking blood pressure. There is nothing we on the left can do to carry the day except to outvote the mf’ers. Also, gaining a bit more sway and presence in the media would help to move the Overton Window back a bit towards sanity.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    April 6, 2018 at 12:03 am

    @Mnemosyne: I remember hearing about those things, and I’m sorry you were a victim of it. :-(

    China has lots and lots of problems. That is true.

    But it’s also the world’s manufacturer of all kinds of products that weren’t even imagined 20 years ago. Things can and will change.

    FT:

    […]

    Manufacturers in China have traditionally made low-cost generics for domestic use. But they see sales in the US — the world’s largest generics market, worth $114bn in 2015 — as a way to boost revenues and prove their quality to Chinese patients who place greater trust in imported drugs. 

    Increased generics exports contributed to an 8 per cent year-on-year rise in exports of western medicines from China in 2017 to $3.5bn, according to Chinese officials, though that figure includes drugs made by multinationals in China. 

    “From a manufacturing standpoint, many Chinese facilities have approval from the FDA or European drug authorities, so are on the same level as overseas companies,” said John Lin, a partner at consultancy Roland Berger. 

    Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine has gained half a dozen FDA approvals in the past year, including two that are the first generic alternatives to existing products and command higher margins than other, later generics.

    The company, which will release its annual results this month, predicts US approvals helped its overseas revenues grow at “near to double digits” last year, said Zhang Lianshan, the company’s president of global research and development. 

    The price difference between a branded drug and the generic can be significant. According to the US National Average Drug Acquisition Cost database, the cost of a single tablet of Lipitor, a statin that lowers the risk of heart attack, is more than $10 for a 20mg pill, whereas the generic form costs just 6 cents. 

    Prices have fallen in the US generics market in the past year due to consolidation among drug retailers, squeezing margins for manufacturers. But Hengrui believes exports can also boost domestic sales. 

    “You can generate revenue outside of this country but also you give the Chinese patients assurance quality-wise and that’s good for sales in China,” said Mr Zhang. The company is focusing on exports of injectable and inhalable products, which have higher manufacturing standards than tablets and so command higher margins. 

    Apart from Hengrui, Chinese companies exporting generics include Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical, which gained eight FDA generic approvals last year, and CSPC Hebei Zhongnuo Pharmaceutical, based near Beijing, which gained five. Shanghai-based Fosun Pharma paid $1.1bn for a majority stake in India’s Gland Pharma last year, which will boost its US generics presence. 

    Hengrui is considering assembling its own sales force in the US rather than relying on third parties, Mr Zhang said, as the company seeks to overcome the advantage enjoyed by India where “the environmental costs are lower and wages are lower”.

    Even if they don’t sell a lot to the US, convincing their home market that their products are safe enough to sell domestically can hurt US manufacturers. They can do a lot of damage to rich US companies if Donnie continues his bone-headed actions….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    April 6, 2018 at 12:05 am

    @Jay:

    The company that sold the rice that poisoned my cat was reputable right up until it turned out they were poisoning pets to make a few extra bucks.

    Sorry, but I do not trust Chinese companies when it comes to stuff that could potentially poison me. YMMV.

    Also, you can buy drugs online from Canadian pharmacies if your doctor writes a prescription for you.

  74. 74.

    Viva BrisVegas

    April 6, 2018 at 12:13 am

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    It will just be an endless cycle of one Democratic administration trying to fix all the shit that the previous Republican administration has broken, and the longer it goes on, the more shit will get broken, and the less will get fixed.

    Fall of the Roman Empire.

    Competent emperors would pop up who would fix the fuck-ups of their incompetent predecessors. This worked until they ran out of competent emperors.

  75. 75.

    whoohw

    April 6, 2018 at 12:20 am

    The best republican president of my lifetime, by far, was Bill Clinton, and it broke the republican party. Clinton pretty much adopted the last legitimate ideas of the right into the center-left. Instead of taking this as an “intellectual victory”, the republicans responded by jettisoning those positions and doubling down on whatever crazy bullshit still remained in their garbage dumpster of “ideas”.

  76. 76.

    Jay

    April 6, 2018 at 12:41 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    “Buying prescription drugs from a Canadian website isn’t legal, but many Americans do it anyway because of the government’s unofficial “non-enforcement policy” for personal imports. First publicized in 1998, the policy basically says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will focus its enforcement efforts on unapproved imported drugs intended for commercial markets here in the U.S., and that patients who order personal amounts of non-controlled substances from foreign pharmacies will generally go unharassed.”

    That changes from time to time, with US Patients and Pharmacies being harassed and charged, ditto for Canadian suppliers.

  77. 77.

    Citizen Alan

    April 6, 2018 at 12:48 am

    @Sm*t Cl*de:

    I honestly clicked on that expecting Diogenes to be naked and holding a mop.

  78. 78.

    Mandalay

    April 6, 2018 at 12:50 am

    @John_Cole:

    Alright, now try to name a new conservative idea or approach from anyone. Yeah. You can’t. And there’s a reason for that- there haven’t been any.

    You appear to have have forgotten why President Gingrich defeated Obama in 2012:

    Gingrich offered his vision of an ambitious new space program. “By the end of my second term,” Gingrich said, “we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.” The crowd erupted in applause.

    And he was just getting started; by 2020, he said, there would be regular flights to Mars.

    And Newt came up with that all by himself, so there.

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    April 6, 2018 at 1:01 am

    At is most basic premise, conservatism is just plain selfish. No one, no thing should get in their way of stealing as much money as possible. And it works this way all the way up and down the conservative pay scale. The poor white trash segment wants to have more than the people they are bigoted about, the uber wealthy wants to just have more. And as just having more is never enough they want to destroy anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Conservatism has been this way since time started. It isn’t even earning better it’s just having better, it isn’t being better it’s making everyone else inferior, because they are not only not better they are far worse. Today’s conservatives are the ME generation. On steroids. Their ideas are not ideals they are heist plans.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    April 6, 2018 at 1:11 am

    @Jay:

    They represent an imaginary “conservatism” that has never existed in the US.

    Because it’s not an ideal, it’s a series of bullshit bumper stickers that use people against each other so no one will notice that they are trying to steal everything not welded down, including our rights and government. They don’t even want it for their own, they just don’t want others to have it. They are at their most basic spoiled rotten children.

  81. 81.

    Chet Murthy

    April 6, 2018 at 1:25 am

    @Mnemosyne: To Mnem’s point, remember the big baby formula scandal of a while back? Chinese (in China) buying up dry baby formula literally all over the world (even in Germany) to the point where countries started imposing export controls. Why? B/c Chinese manufacturers were putting melamine in — it apparently made the powder higher in protein than without. But of course, poisonous.

    Evan Osnos (New Yorker) wrote some articles about the extent to which Chinese people don’t really trust their government or companies to produce safe food and other products. I remember a little whlie back reading that China had convinced the US that they could process chicken grown in the US, but shipped over there for processing, and not have to label it differently from chicken processed in the US.

    Gotta say, that alone scares me. China is like _The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, right now. Sure, they’ll eventually come out of it. But they ain’t out yet.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    April 6, 2018 at 1:26 am

    @Another Scott:
    And you think those drugs would be allowed in the US? I used to purchase one medication from Canada because it was much cheaper. It wasn’t a generic, it was name brand and cost me $25/unit in the states and $15/unit from Canada. It’s now $19/unit from Canada. But it’s now illegal to actually import drugs from other countries, which it wasn’t at the time.

  83. 83.

    Spinoza is My Co-pilot

    April 6, 2018 at 1:30 am

    The foundational principles of conservatism — the very bedrock on which the entire conservative edifice is built — are these: I Got Mine, Fuck You/Devil Take the Hindmost. All else is commentary.

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    April 6, 2018 at 1:31 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    It’s actually illegal to import those drugs, even with a prescription, which is the only way the Canadian pharmacies will sell to you. Not that a lot of people aren’t doing it anyway, but it is now and has been against federal law for a few years.

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne

    April 6, 2018 at 3:32 am

    @Ruckus:

    I think the last time I did it was pre-Obamacare, so you’re probably right.

    Still, no made-in-China generics for me, thank you.

  86. 86.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    April 6, 2018 at 5:55 am

    @BC in Illinois: @Ruckus:
    O came to this country from India back in 1999, so pardon my ignorance of American hiatory: has there EVER been a time when conservatives were right about anything? They opposed emancipation (of course, back then conservatives were democrats), they sided with thw south on states’ rights, they opposed the right of women to vote, o posed FDR on economic policy, opposed Truman on integration of the military and China policy. Then there was that moron McCarthy!

    They opposed civil rights, opposed repeal of miscegenation laws, opposed LBJ’s economics, supported the war in SEAsia (so did democrats but I’m not arguing that they were perfect, and besides, this support was to a large extent, predicated upon showing the could out-muscle the Republicans on confronting the Soviets).

    Conservatives came up with the Southern strategy, opposed Brown V Board of Ed., opposed Carter, made a secret deal with Iran re: hostages (as did Nixon scuttle the peace talks!), facilitate Iran-Contra, supported Apartheid and opposed Nelson Mandela (Dick Cheney and our very own Kris Kobach!) And god, I’m Fucking tired already.

    The point is they’ve always been wrong. To extend Cole’s argument, I would really lie to be educated about anything good or righteous that conservatives have been for, EVER.

  87. 87.

    The Simp in the Suit

    April 6, 2018 at 6:58 am

    Not to harsh the Cole buzz, cuzz I think it’s a righteous rant wrt to there being no need for more conservatives to spout off, but asking for NEW conservative thought misses the point. By definition, there never has been and never will be NEW (true) conservative thought.

    The whole point of conservatism is that some Ur-Con from the dim past had the original conservative thought, which was that All Is As It Should Be And Should Never Change (note that the Ur-Con was wealthy and of the dominant race/culture/religion of his time — and he’s a he).

    Of course, when you never exercise a muscle, it goes flaccid. And thus we have all the mush-for-brains “commentary” from all the usual suspects.

  88. 88.

    NorthLeft12

    April 6, 2018 at 7:57 am

    I guess my go to discussion point with conservatives has always been that they [conservatives] have been on the wrong side of every historical issue since humans learned to record history.
    They have fought tooth and nail against every advance in society. Any program that has been of value to ordinary people has had legions of right wingers howling against it. Usually predicting the end of mankind as we know it.
    Which has always been the point.

  89. 89.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    April 6, 2018 at 8:53 am

    @NorthLeft12: Exactly. Conservatism is inherently against progress (and progressves, by extension) and so is always the wrong choice, ethically, logically, morally, philosophically.

  90. 90.

    JAFD

    April 6, 2018 at 9:33 am

    Having spent much of The Little Depression in job-hunting mode, I am picturing Mr. Williamson’s ‘Orientation Day’, where he is shown where the bathrooms and the lunchroom are, how to set the password for his office computer, etc, and introduced to Everybody He Needs To Know and The Folk He And The HR Guy Bump Into.

    At a break, the HR guy sez “So, how do you like your new co-workers ?”
    KW replies “About twenty-five percent of them ought to be killed.”
    “Joke, you’re making ?”
    “No, I mean it. I would drag out about a quarter of these employees and hang them from the nearest tree.”

    At this point the HR Guy is going to excuse himself, dash to office, and produce an Official Notice of Withdrawal of Job Offer. Or maybe you can come up with reason he doesn’t – I can’t.

  91. 91.

    Neldob

    April 6, 2018 at 10:21 am

    As always, I’m a little late to the party, but the looney right has been in ascendance for more like 40 years and just because they’re bonkers doesn’t mean I’m not moderate.

  92. 92.

    Another Scott

    April 6, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @Ruckus: Dead thread, but…

    If the FDA approves the factory and the drug, I can’t see any reason why the country of origin should matter. When I go to get a prescription filled, I don’t know where it was manufactured until I look at the bottle. The last antibiotics I got were made in India. My statins are often made in Canada. The Clif bars we get are made in Canada, also too. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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