The New York Times first mentioned Adolf Hitler in 1922, a bit over 100 years ago:
The 1922 article was excerpted several years ago in Vox. In it, The Times notes that this Hitler fellow presents as a reactionary politician and spews a lot of antisemitism. But it also reports that maybe that’s all for show — a gambit to rile up the rubes. Possibly this Herr Hitler isn’t really a committed antisemite:
So violent are Hitler’s fulminations against the Jews that a number of prominent Jewish citizens are reported to have sought safe asylums in the Bavarian highlands, easily reached by fast motor cars, whence they could hurry their women and children when forewarned of an anti-Semitic St. Bartholomew’s night.
But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.
A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them.”
I heard an echo across a century yesterday when reading Pamela Paul’s NYT column: “What Liberals Can Learn from Ron DeSantis.” (gift link)
It would be easy to write off DeSantis as a cartoon culture warrior or as racist, homophobic, transphobic and xenophobic. He may well be all those things, and so may some of his constituents. But he may not be, and either way, it would be foolish to characterize all his followers as such. Assuming a stance of moral superiority will do us no good.
Emphasis mine. Let’s do a 1922 – 2023 thought experiment using Ms. Paul’s words:
It would be easy to write Hitler off as a cartoon culture warrior or as racist, antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic and Romaphobic. He may well be all those things, and so may some of the Germans who support him. But he may not be, and either way, it would be foolish to characterize all his followers as such. Assuming a stance of moral superiority will do us no good.
Maya Angelou’s counterpoint: When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. Especially if your employer has been serially, tragically wrong about reactionary clowns for more than 100 years.
DeSantis is no Hitler — he lacks the late führer’s oratorical skills, for one thing. But as valued commenter Sister Golden Bear frequently reminds us, there’s a reactionary movement afoot in the U.S. that daily engages in eliminationist rhetoric against one of our most vulnerable communities, and DeSantis is among its loudest voices.
I’m not familiar with Paul’s oeuvre, but my impression is she’s an anti-woke whiner, so it isn’t so surprising she filters everything through the lens of an alleged “moral superiority” that probably stung her personally on some issue or another. I believe our tribe can be annoyingly scolding and self-righteous. But that’s no excuse to downplay the danger when a reactionary clown rises, whether in Bavaria or Tallahassee.
Open thread.
dmsilev
There’s a huge strong streak of ugliness in this country. Goes back a long time, and has been expressed against a whole series of targets. Trump was a master at exploiting that ugliness, he pretty much was its avatar. DeSantis could end up being Trump-but-smarter, which would not be good. He doesn’t really have that id-unchained personality that Trump does, which might limit his visceral appeal to the haters. Might.
Karen S.
I wonder why the NYT is so blind to this and has always been blind to this. Is it a willful blindness or is it a sort of naive blindness? I go back and forth when I take the time to ponder it.
Baud
The NYT has been doing this for a long time
Alison Rose
File under: Boy howdy, they didn’t know how accurate a statement that was…
And yeah, Pamela Paul is an asshole. And very proud of it.
Karen S.
@dmsilev: Definitely agree about the ugly streak. It’s long, deep and wide. What’s striking and scary is how easy it is for some to tap into it whenever they want to, so they can get the “rubes” riled up.
Baud
Despite my feelings about the NYT, I will say that there is a difference between the NYT’s own articles and their selection of op-ed pieces. I mean, both are terrible, but they are different things.
West of the Cascades
Extended riff and parody of Pamela Paul’s putrid piece: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/02/when-the-woke-mob-came-for-hitler-2
Baud
Also too, why is “he’s lying about how evil he is” a mitigating consideration?
zhena gogolia
In my print paper this has been a one-two punch. Caldwell yesterday telling us to respect Putler’s fee-fees, and Paul (ex-wife of Bret Stephens) today telling us we should appreciate our home-grown Putler.
Cameron
Looks like DeSantis is going to win his battle with Disney. Dummy that I am,I thought he had given up. I forgot just how vindictive he is. Worse than Trump.
Gin & Tonic
@Alison Rose:
My mother, who was fluent in German (among other languages) told me that he was the most electrifying public speaker she ever saw – and she lived on this earth for 95 years.
eclare
That quote by Maya Angelou is so true. I should have taken literally several things my ex said when we were first dating.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: That’s kind of like debating whether you’d rather die of anthrax or bubonic plague.
eclare
@Cameron: I assume Gay Days will be gone soon.
sdhays
@Baud: Because if he’s lying, we can’t feel morally superior
ETA: No, I don’t understand it either, in case it’s not clear.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve seen Triumph of the Will, I believe it.
Roger Moore
FTFNYT: fascist-curious for more than a century.
NorthLeft
When Pamela Paul said “ Assuming a stance of moral superiority will do us no good.” , was she including herself as an opponent of DeSanitize and his band of deplorable followers?
That would be poor form on her part, although in the real world it is laughable that she thinks she opposes the right wingers.
Kathleen
NY Slimes. All The Fascists Fit To Fluff Since 1922. Betty, have you listened to Rachel Maddow’s Ultra podcast series about American fascist wannabes in 1930’s and 40’s? It is outstanding.⁹
zhena gogolia
Lincoln Project did a nice job with Joe’s rope-a-dope at the SOTU:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm_oBJeGj58
Baud
@NorthLeft:
Also, we are morally superior.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
I am so tired of reporters and TV talking heads saying that the U.S. is too divided and we should not demonize people who have opposing political views….Yeah sorry, I do not have to give time or listen too people who follow a racist, transphobic, misogynist. It’s just so mean of me to call people who believe those things racist, transphobic, or misogynist. I want there to be a divide between me and people who a rooting for the active harm or at the very least the silencing of people they don’t like. Trump, DeSantis and their ilk have the right to say what they want, they don’t have the right to not get push back for it.
Brachiator
Yes, the NYT got Hitler wrong. So did a lot of other media. And yes, the NYT was worse in many ways, continuing to kiss up to him after it was clear that he was dangerous. Still, you need some context here, instead of always coming back to this to try to prove something about the Times.
However,
Holy Fuck! They are bothsiding the shit out of DeSantis in an attempt to whitewash him. And to jump to “well, not all of his followers are racists” is just about the dumbest shit I have read all day. And it is early here.
Matt McIrvin
@Cameron: Disney doesn’t really care that much about its weird little pocket government, I think. On the one hand it gives them control over stuff they normally wouldn’t control, on the other hand it costs them money. It was more important to Walt Disney, who had grandiose plans that were never realized once he was dead.
But that doesn’t mean they’ll cave on everything. He tried to stop them from removing the “Song of the South” theming from Splash Mountain and I think they just ignored it.
Cameron
@eclare: I think it’s likely. He’s got all kinds of things up his sleeve and a pet legislature to rubber stamp them.
Old School
@NorthLeft:
That’s what confused me. The piece is written as though she considers herself part of the liberals. However, her example of “assuming a stance of moral superiority” is Hillary Clinton and “deplorables.”
Baud
@Old School:
That’s all I need to know to permanently and completely write her off.
brendancalling
@West of the Cascades: I was going to mention that. LGM completely demolished that column, then lit it on fire, then jumped up and down on the ashes.
Baud
People love giving Dems and liberals advice about how to fight evil much more than they like fighting evil directly.
Cameron
@Matt McIrvin: The trouble is that every time I think he can’t get worse he proves me wrong.
Miss Bianca
@West of the Cascades: I like “mental mouse droppings” as a description of Paul’s piece. (Pamela, that is, not Campos.)
Mike in NC
In his typical modest fashion, Fat Bastard was recently quoted as calling himself “the Savior of Western Civilization”. Maybe true if Western Civilization is defined by the likes of Steve Bannon and other fascists.
Baud
@Cameron:
There’s your problem. Republicans always get worse.
WereBear
So. Hitler was just saying that to get elected.
mvr
I think the phrase “Anti-woke whiner” may have some legs and I am going to try to work it into my vocabulary.
Alison Rose
@eclare: That’s okay, if they do Bats Day out there, plenty of them are queer and the other queers can join in.
Baud
@WereBear:
And Republicans will never overturn Roe!
Matt McIrvin
@Old School: It’s the Conor Friedersdorf maneuver: write a trolling right-wing critique of liberalism as if it were gentle self-criticism from inside the house. I see liberals fall for his shtick over and over, so it works.
azlib
DeSantis is scary and we need to oppose him with vigor. He does fortunately lack what Hitler had in abundance – charisma. He comes across to me as always angry and mean.
Elizabelle
Betty Cracker! Thank you for this post. I saw that Pamela Paul column yesterday, and thought the same thing. Fuck those fuckers. Michelle Goldberg and now this. I don’t put it down to being naive.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
We really do. It’s the dark side of introspection.
Elizabelle
Those fuckers at the fuck the fucking New York Times are going to try to tote bag us to death, aren’t they?
Baud
@azlib:
He lacks charisma, and Trump had the benefit in 2016 of not being frightening to a lot of people because he acted like a clown and was an “entertainer.”
UncleEbeneezer
Agreed. Whether DeSantis is sincere or not, we must fight this Transphobic bullshit wherever we can. The main problem is that it is a difficult fight to engage in. Most of it is playing out at State and local venues that we can only signal-boost or donate to, from afar. I wish there was some sort of PostcardsToVoters campaigns we could use to try and do something helpful, but I’m not sure that would even be effective (outsider input can often hurt the cause rather than help) let alone feasible.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
I don’t think that’s the lesson.
Remember that Lucky Lindy was a hero (did his famous flight in 1927). He was a fascist. Lots of famous Americans (and Brits, and others) were fascists.
FTFNYT was giving visibility to fascists, and explaining away the “bad parts” because they liked them.
And too many still do.
My $0.02.
Grr…,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: Also, this obsessive, What’s-Really-In-Their-Hearts? coin has a flip-side where we endlessly question the sincerity of people on our side. If I had a nickel for every “But Did She MEAN It?” retort aimed at Hillary, no matter what she did/said…
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It’s good to periodically check yourself on whether you’re doing the right thing, and to be open to criticism. But it’s also important to be able to recognize a pattern and to see when you’re being played. It’s tough, though.
schrodingers_cat
NYT op-ed writer Roger Cohen had a slobbery piece about Modi last month. NYT loves themselves despots and dictators.
jonas
@Gin & Tonic: My mother studied in Germany back in the 60s and rented a room from this nice old lady who had actually met Hitler personally one time. Said he was the sweetest, most charming man she’d ever met.
Lots of Germans of that generation regretted the war and its destruction. But not necessarily Hitler.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: The very first Mickey Mouse cartoon (“Plane Crazy”, a silent short animated several months before “Steamboat Willie”) begins with Mickey admiring a picture of Lindbergh and tousling his hair and putting on a lopsided grin to look like Lindy. It doesn’t play great now.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
Honestly, I think that was at least as much about introducing Princess and the Frog theming as it was about eliminating Song of the South theming. Here in Southern California, at least, it’s part of a broader retheme toward Princess and the Frog, e.g. changing the French Market Restaurant to Tiana’s.
WereBear
There was a fairly recent biography of Hitler, two parts, originally in German. And I just got the second part. I was utterly riveted by the first one and intentionally slowed down so I wouldn’t be left wondering about the second one, so I will soon go back to it.
This author was able to delve into the smallest minutiae and had new things. Like I had heard rumors he hung with this theatrical crowd, but this biography describes how Hitler apparently sought out acting and mesmer teachers and the tricks of great orators. For a very special purpose.
This interviewee said that he was in the theatrical trade for a long time and Hitler could have been the best German actor of his generation. But that’s not what he wanted, this gentleman said.
MisterDancer
Agreed. I’ve been thinking on this, and why.
I feel like it’s easier to blame The Other, than to take a hard look at ourselves, and how we might contribute to issues. It’s the “White Moderate” issue Dr. King pointed out decades ago, expanded to a host of issues.
As long as there’s Someone Else Trying, these people can always point to them as not doing it “right” from armchairs. And, of course, those people never have to be accountable for their opinions.
Jeffro
It’s interesting…these trump/DeSantis MAGA Republicans…they say they’re for freedom…
the freedom to have only the books they approve, or no books at all, in your kids’ school library (and their teacher’s classroom library, too)
the freedom to have the government tell private businesses big (Disney) and small (that bar that hosted a drag show that’s going to lose its liquor license) exactly who they can serve and how they’re going to run their business
the freedom to have everyone around you armed to the teeth, in public
the freedom to have to bear your rapist’s child, or to have your miscarriage investigated as a possible crime
the freedom to pay higher taxes on anything that helps mitigate climate change
Interesting, all this “freedom”
Cathie from Canada
Isn’t Paul the former wife of Bedbug Stevens?
The NYT certainly aims for a diversity of opinion, don’t they.
different-church-lady
Now, what would be the reason that would be easy? Think… THINK….
brendancalling
@Brachiator: This is why i stopped reading the NYT, and actively encourage others to stop reading it too. Their journalism is bad. Their op-eds are bad. Their history is bad, and many of the people who work there are bad people.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
This isn’t exactly unique to Democrats fighting evil. It’s always easier to give advice than to perform, and the people doing it can always claim to be right. If the person does what they say and succeeds, it’s proof of how good their advice is. If they ignore the advice and fail, it’s because they didn’t listen. If they ignore the advice and succeed, they would have been more successful if they had listened. And if they listen to the advice and fail, it’s because of their poor performance, not because the advice was bad.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Yes, the whole “He’s just play acting at being a hate-spewing shit” thing is… well, I was going to call it a logical fallacy, but that’s giving it too much credit.
Brachiator
I am trying to read the NYT op-ed piece during work breaks. A few notes.
I take him seriously. He is not afraid to appeal directly to white supremacists. He understands what they want and wants to give it to them.
This makes him a potential danger to this country and to democracy. Kinda like that Adolf guy.
Gee. You mean like making Maggie Haberman official Trump stenographer?
This should be noted. DeSantis did well with various Hispanic voters, not just conservative Cuban Americans. Democrats need to pay attention to this.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Trump had the enormous advantage of not having a record to run on. Having an actual record makes it harder to disavow your unpopular ideas.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Captain C
@UncleEbeneezer:
We have no idea. But we can hear their words and see their actions, and in the case of DeSantis, both are quite awful.
This really reminds me of the get-out-of-Hell-free-if-you-just-claim-Jesus-saved-you-no-matter-what-you-do crap peddled by some of the more repellant churches out there.
Baud
@Brachiator:
I think we’re trying to get away from viewing Latinos as a single bloc.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Agreed!
And yeah, wow, that’s contemptible nonsense. Randomly reminds me of the bit from The Royal Tennenbaums… “Everybody knows that Custer died at the Battle of Little Big Horn. What this book presupposes is… maybe he didn’t?”
Chief Oshkosh
@dmsilev:
There is a huge streak of ugliness in every country. If you don’t think that is the case for a particular country, that’s because you haven’t spent enough time there or haven’t visited enough of the various regions or socioeconomic strati or don’t understand the language well enough, etc.
There’s a strong streak of ugliness in humans. Full stop.
How that plays out in the public sphere depends on many things, including the actions of people like the NYTimes writers, editors, and publishers.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: I got the impression it was initially announced as a bit of a panic move in the wake of the George Floyd protests, which sparked one of our sporadic waves of cultural introspection over the extent to which we should put up with old racist stuff. For a while there wasn’t any apparent motion on the proposal, but now they’re actually doing it.
DeSantis, seeing an opportunity for demagoguery, tried to make it a historic landmark and sue them on preservationist grounds but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
(Splash Mountain is one of those things where, on the surface, it doesn’t seem all that overtly racist but the more you dig into the layers of adaptational source material the worse it gets. Until, that is, you get to the African-American stories that the racist white writer was appropriating in what he thought was an affectionate manner. But any proposed change to the ride is also a weirdly intense lightning rod for nostalgic agony from the kinds of people who complain about changes to theme-park rides. I rode it once, thought it was a very good ride on its own terms but, you know, a lot of baggage there. And it’s just weird that they put up a “Song of the South” ride in, like, 1989.)
prostratedragon
@Baud: Or that it’s so harmless to pitch one’s appeal to the most horrid reprobates. Especially since it’s acknowleged that he’s forming a sort of army of them.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Another Scott: Exactly, also too, Ford was a fascist, he even got the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle in about 1938.
Queen Elizabeth’s uncle (and the former King of England, was a fascist). One wonders what the hell would have happened in the U.K , if Edward had NOT decided to abdicate but had dumped Mrs Wallis instead?
JaySinWA
@Baud: I read an article a while back that DeSantis’ wife was home charm-schooling him. Apparently the folks at a recent fund raiser were amazed at his newfound ability to stick around pretending to smooze. Not that he was good at it, but that he was doing it at all.
Betty Cracker
@brendancalling: I cancelled my NYT subscription in 2016, but it was really more of a symbolic thing because I need to access it for work and just glommed onto a friend’s account. (Maybe a little more than symbolic since they did lose my $9.99 a month, not that they noticed.)
So, I get what you’re saying! But I disagree that their journalism is bad. Their political desk absolutely sucks donkey balls for sure, but most of their straight news coverage is pretty good. They do have some bilious hacks writing opinion pieces but some good and insightful people too.
Captain C
@brendancalling:
The funny thing is that they do some great page B17 journalism, which is usually directly contradicted by that day’s front page and Op-Ed section.
Roger Moore
@UncleEbeneezer:
I think the strongest response to this is that I’m not voting for someone’s heart; I’m voting for their actions. I really don’t want to elect a politician who is so devoid of principles he’ll do something awful because it’s popular even though he knows in his heart it’s wrong. Similarly, I’ll vote for someone who’s effective at implementing my preferred policy as a cynical ploy over someone who’s pure of heart but can’t get it done.
Tony Jay
Always the same tune from the media where right-wing nut bars are concerned.
Endless patience for the ‘populist’ hate they spew out, justified on the grounds that they have to reach into the gutter to appeal to the lumpen proles, and always with the unquestioned assumption that, as they self-define as ‘anti-Left’, their basic ideology must be of the Right and, therefore, safely mainstream.
And as long as it’s profitable for their owners to keep on doing it, they’ll never ‘learn’ to do any better.
eclare
@different-church-lady: It’s great when you distill an argument to its essence.
Chief Oshkosh
Does Ms. Paul ever get around to explaining WHY “it would be foolish to characterize all his followers as such…”?
On one level, that line reminds me of another: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.”
Why SHOULDN’T I think that ALL of DeSantis’ followers are shitheels? There is no downside to assuming that. OTOH, there is a definite downside to pretending that they are, oh, I don’t know, economically anxious.
Matt McIrvin
@Chief Oshkosh:
Yeah… One thing about the US, though, is that we make specific claims about being the world’s guarantor of freedom, democracy and equality that make all of this rankle particularly. We’re the slaver republic that was founded on the proposition that all men are created equal. I guess you can see elements of that going on in Britain and France.
Betty Cracker
@JaySinWA: I’m reflexively suspicious of “power behind the throne” stories that implicate women in their awful husbands’ evil machinations, but I sort of believe it about Casey DeSantis. Even political hacks who are in favor of the DeSantis regime’s policies say CD is RD’s closest advisor, and the way she ran the Hurricane Ian relief fund as if it was her own personal GoFundMe was pretty gross.
different-church-lady
It also occurs to me that if you work in what is (ostensibly) journalism, and you suspect someone might be a cartoon culture warrior or racist, homophobic, transphobic and xenophobic, it’s an integral part of your job to answer that fuckin’ question.
pajaro
Betty,
Do you know about Congressperson Luna? The Post just dropped a long article that suggests that she, shall we say, embellished some of her past. It’s not quite Santos, but it’s an interesting read.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/10/anna-paulina-luna-republican-biography/
Matt McIrvin
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Didn’t Hitler like to hand out copies of Henry Ford’s pamphlet on the global Jewish conspiracy?
Roger Moore
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
My understanding is that it wasn’t a coincidence he was forced out when he was. People in the government were worried about a war with Germany and wanted to get rid of him before it caused a crisis during the war. If it had come down to it, they probably would have either come up with some other excuse to force him out or had him quietly assassinated.
Alison Rose
@Chief Oshkosh:
I don’t know if she does, but I assume it’s something along the lines of “because it’s mean and hurts their feelings”. And if there’s one thing the NYT cannot abide, it’s hurting the feelings of reactionary bigots with the brainpower of a drugged gerbil.
eclare
@Roger Moore: Wow, I never heard that. I heard he was a Nazi, but not that’s why he left when he did.
mrmoshpotato
Pam, sit down, shut up, and listen.
Ron DeathSantis is a fucking fascist pile of shit!
And so concludes my PSA. Thanks for listening.
Tony Jay
@WereBear:
Heh. I’ve been kicking around an alt-hist story for a while where the Klan gets better (and considerably more ruthless) leadership in the early 1920s. One of the two major figures is an embittered actor who brings a ton of frustrated ambition and charisma to the job of selling America on fascism. The thinking being that, in the US, a sexy smile and a melodious voice would get a wannabe dictator further than frenzied ranting ever could.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic: A buddy’s MIL was a little girl in Berlin, and told a story of being taken to the Olympics where “Herr Hitler got very mad when the black man won the race.”
His kids all attended a Spanish language immersion grade school here, where adults would intermittently come in and tell their family’s story. So one year they brought Helga in to tell their story, and she began with “Let me tell you what is was like to be in the Hitler Youth….” Beyond the utter confusion among the kids she evidently also got their attention, because the story stood out from the far more common “Mi abuela” tales of coming north to work the fields. Helga’s mother spent time in jail after a neighbor reported her for saying something negative about that same herr Hitler.
mrmoshpotato
@Chief Oshkosh:
Make them deny it.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato: Now there’s a TED talk.
trollhattan
@JaySinWA: Same wife sporting the Jackie-Kish celery green cape the other day? Very. very Stepford look and I’m vaguely reminded of Lady Romney.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Bullshit. There was a particular editor who, for various reasons, was deep up Hitler’s ass. But the NYT was not the only newspaper or magazine that got Hitler wrong.
Some jackals love gnawing on this bone. Do you want to say that the NYT has continually and consistently backed fascists since its founding or since the 1920s? And are they unique in this?
Some people love to hate the Times, and sometimes for good reason, but damn, context matters.
Gregory
Pamela Paul makes the stupid and tired mistake of arguing to look past the fact that DeSantis deploys racist, sexist, xenophobic, and fascist rhetoric by pointing out that we can’t know what’s in his heart, or his supporters’.
Fair enough. So my retort is, who cares what’s in his heart? We know what he does, and that’s enough to be condemned. And we know Pamela Paul is doing, which is to concoct a weak-ass defense of a fascist.
Moreover, it’s DeSantis who presumes that his followers are racist and xenophobic and all because he chooses to deploy that rhetoric to appeal to them. But the so-called “liberal media” never retreats to the fainting couches over that assumption.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
About time.
Dems would do well to pay more attention to Asian-American concerns, too. There were big Republican-ward shifts in 2020 and 2022.
Flushing went from Clinton 65-32, to Biden 61-37. The Republican candidate for mayor, an insane person, won this neighborhood in 2021, while the Democrat won the city as a whole 70-27. These populations are generally not located in places where it makes much of a difference for statewide races, but a couple assembly seats did flip last year.
Betty Cracker
@Kathleen: I recommend that pod to everyone I know. It’s fascinating.
@pajaro: I saw that. She’s definitely a kook and now we know she’s a liar too. I wish Charlie Crist had not succumbed to the temptation to lose his third statewide race. DeSantis would probably have been reelected no matter who ran, but the House might have been spared another lying kook.
Cameron
Maybe I should have waited a few more years before moving to Florida. Pennsylvania isn’t perfect, but I like who’s running the store.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Well, they can have the benefit of the doubt on Hitler. But they can’t have the benefit of the doubt 80 years after Hitler.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: My maternal grandfather lost a good job as an engineer because he refused to join the party.
different-church-lady
@Gregory:
Let’s assume what’s in his heart is good and pure.
Doesn’t that make his words and deeds even more inexplicable?
Brachiator
@Baud:
Yep. Neither Hispanics nor Asian Americans can be viewed as monoliths.
gvg
@dmsilev: Look at world history instead of just the US and…we actually look sort of goodish. People are, have been, still are, not as nice as they should be. When people start spouting sentiments like this in public, why on earth is it hard to believe they mean it? The evidence is there, over and over.
As for fleeing……I don’t think anyplace is all that much better especially considering the reach and power of the USA. A lot of proposed places to flee have much worse records than we do although not always against the same things. We don’t always hear about their current warts because of our distance and because we don’t pay attention.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: +1, but I’m kind of a “hearts and minds, both” person.
Once someone is in office, they’re going to be voting on all kinds of things that never came up during the campaign. What’s their thought process? How will they evaluate evidence and witnesses and think about implications of the bills and their votes? What do they do when circumstances change?
That’s when having some idea of what kind of person they are, and “what’s in their hearts” can be important. But it’s not more important than their actual record, their actual statements, the actual people they hang out with and support in word or deed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@Karen S.: IMO, the NYT is partial to those who are partial to the Likud faction in Israel. Generally that is going to be GQPers.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
My German teacher in Junior High was born in Germany in 1933, and she had plenty of stories about what that was like. I got the impression she was more bored with the Hitler Youth stuff than anything; she (as a youngster) thought it was a big waste of time. She also said she learned the value of speaking a foreign language when she could use her English to beg American soldiers for food.
EarthWindFire
@Roger Moore: This.
If Ron DeSantis can’t act according to what’s in his heart, this is not my, your, or any one else’s problem. The expectation that any voter should examine what a politician may or may not really feel is bunk. If DeSantis is appealing to evil people to get elected, those evil people are going to expect him to deliver….evil. Why should I care if he really means it or not?
Llelldorin
Oh, absolutely. That said, “Sure, you’re right, but you’re so smug about it! I’ll just be wrong! That’ll show you!” is what you’d expect from a bratty teenager, not a grown-ass adult.
Baud
@Another Scott: That’s a little different. You’re not asking people to interpret that what’s in a candidate’s heart to be something different than what their actions reveal. I mean, it’s a fair observation to say we don’t know from DeSantis’s record whether he would send trans people to death camps. But we do know from his record that he is not going to treat them with the same dignity that all people deserve, and would take some actions that harm them.
Paul in KY
@Baud: It’s all for show, Baud. He and his wife know that their primary voters swing ‘evil’ and they have to be in front of that. Nothing more…
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve seen excerpts of him ranting and he did seem to be a master of timing.
Baud
@Llelldorin: I’ll have you know that I’m pleasantly annoying and self-righteous.
rikyrah
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
AMEN
Like I’m supposed to play nice who want to strip me of my rights. Like, all of them, and turn the clock back to what my ancestors had to go through…and in the name of being polite?
Phuck outta here.
Paul in KY
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: We’re not giving them Hell, we’re telling the truth & they think that is Hell!! Paraphrasing our great Pres. Truman.
Major Major Major Major
@gvg: yeah, a lot of countries have much less of a taboo against casual, out loud, sometimes official, racism/prejudice. But we don’t always hear about it because it doesn’t always map well to our understanding, or because we just don’t get a lot of real foreign cultural news anyway.
Llelldorin
@Baud: It would be easy to write me off as annoying and self-righteous. But I may not be.
(Any conclusions about my followers are vacuously true.)
Major Major Major Major
@Llelldorin:
What you’d expect, perhaps, but as the saying goes, we need a majority.
Paul in KY
@Old School: She’s a 5th Columnist. Literally and figuratively.
Paul in KY
@brendancalling: It was very well written.
JMG
Not only did the Times get Hitler wrong, they got Stalin wrong, too. Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty was an outright Soviet apologist in the ’30s. I believe he won a Pulitzer for it, too.
Paul in KY
@mvr: As Kay has mentioned, they are the biggest effing whiners in the world. We/Pres. Biden/Democratic politicians should mention that all the damn time!
Paul in KY
@azlib: He does have an ersatz Jackie-Oish wife. If Hitler had had one of those, we’d all be wearing lederhosen…
Chris
The reason why this is an idiotic way to think and always has been is that it doesn’t fucking matter whether a leader is “genuinely” anti-Semitic on a personal level or only pretending to be for the sake of his audience. His audience is where he gets his power, and if what he fires them up with is anti-Semitic rhetoric, that means he’s going to have to act on it whether or not it’s out of personal belief. His position will demand it.
Political pundits hate this kind of thinking, of course, because they’re desperate to believe that the world is divided between gullible rubes who believe the propaganda and the Savvy people who know the hidden truth (and that they themselves are part of the Savvy). And because they themselves don’t ultimately give a shit what happens to the Jews (or whoever) either way, and resent you for trying to put the focus on that rather than on their armchair psychology of what’s going on in the politicians’ brains. They want you to know that they understand how the people in power think, and if not, they’re at least keeping the conversation on the people in power, i.e. the People Who Really Matter, which is what Serious People do. Running stories about what’s happening to this or that disenfranchised minority group is a human interest story, maybe even gossip, certainly maudlin and manipulative: it’s almost like running a story about a puppy who got run over and died. It’s very sad and all, but it’s not real news, come on now.
different-church-lady
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Years ago the radio guy Joe Frank had a segment in one of his monologues about how the press behaves — it went something like, “And everything is presented with a sense of balance. ‘On one side, the murderer. On the other, the victim. Two different views.'”
rikyrah
@EarthWindFire:
I know that’s right.
Chris
@JMG:
That’s fucking impressive. Usually, the biases of those in power means that they’ll at least be more or less correct in denouncing left-wing dictators, even if they’re terrible about the right-wing ones. Apparently not.
They’ve really never been right about anything, ever, have they?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I think Republican redistricting would likely have knocked Crist out if he had run again in the 13th CD. Reporting after the midterms, Florida Politics said that Democrat Eric Lynn would have won the former district but even though he ran 8 points ahead of Governor candidate Crist, Lynn still lost to Ms. Luna by 28,000 votes.
Major Major Major Major
@JMG: “can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs”—that was him re: Soviet atrocities, right?
Baud
@JMG: Yes, there were a lot of communist apologists back in the day. We shouldn’t sweep that under the rug, even though the current threats are right-wing.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: I used to live in S. Florida, and back then (early 80s), Latinos of any persuasion (mostly Cuban though) really didn’t get along with the African American population. The African Americans really resented the Cubans for alot of the preferential treatment they received, love of Repub politicians, etc. etc.
DeSatanis has been whupping up on the blahs and I think that, unfortunately, is alot of his appeal in S. Florida to the Latino population.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: I never said they were unique. I think it’s clear that many (not all) of the voices that FTFNYT published didn’t think Hitler was all that bad.
This seems to be a decent and fairly balanced summary of news reporting (in FTFNYT, the WSJ, and Time) from the time of his rise:
(Emphasis added. I think it’s safe to assume that he was “well known in intellectual circles” because the press was covering him, and not covering him as being a monster.)
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Or if he’d just kept her on as his paramour. She was worse than him as a Nazi-lover. Was quite good friends with Ribbentrop. The Brits thought she was an agent for them.
eclare
@different-church-lady: I read a description of good journalism that said (paraphrasing) we don’t want you to report “Is it raining outside? Opinions differ.” We want you to open the fucking window and tell us the truth.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Possibly, but even post-gerrymander, I don’t think it’s exactly a hard-right district, and Crist is a known quantity. That might have allowed him to eke out a win in the 13th. We’ll never know now, of course.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Dems really weren’t the more “liberal” party in thee 1880s, at least not in any sense of that word as we use it today.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Crist can’t help but be Crist, but I got the impression he ran a decent campaign.
eclare
@rikyrah: Hillary even said something about how she didn’t care what was in people’s hearts. IIRC the press had a fit.
Paul in KY
@Alison Rose: The real reason probably (for Ms. Paul) is that demonizing them in that manner might cause enough revulsion to ensure they lose and she does not want that.
Baud
@Paul in KY:
Is it “demonizing” if they’re actually demons?
Mai Naem mobile
Wikipedia says Pamela Paul was married to Bret Stephens. She divorced him but it makes me question her judgment . Kind of like Gavin Newsom being married to Kimberly Guilfoyle. I don’t think DeSantis has a good q score. You kind of need to be gregarious to be POTUS and he doesn’t have that and it can’t be taught. I think the ’24 GOP candidate will be somebody who’s not being talked about a whole lot right now. Possibly a governor and there’s plenty of those.
Chris
@Baud:
Yeah, that’s one of the reasons that sentence is absurd.
In the 1880s, no longer supporting Republican candidates would, if anything, be a sign of conservative bias.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: There is a huge streak of ugliness in humanity.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Sounds like Eric Lynn was a good candidate. I hope he has a future, maybe in the 13th CD even. Gerrymanders can break down over time, and Ms. Luna might turn out to be another Boebert.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
Is that why she was given prime real estate in the NYT? Seriously, I limit my clicks on that website — what’s the basis for giving her this platform? Who does Betty Cracker have to marry to get the same treatment?
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: I think the point is that the Times is doing it again. As GWB said, “Fool me once, won’t get fooled again.”
Sister Golden Bear
Betty, thanks for highlighting the eliminationist rhetorical (and actions) aimed at trans and LBGQ+ folks.
Sadly some more news along those lines:
Good news:
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear: The TN law sounds ripe for a 1st Amendment challenge.
Gregory
@different-church-lady: Or contemptible, because he obviously presumes he needs to sully himself with racist, misogynistic rhetoric in order to win their votes.
No one disparages Republican voters more than Republican politicians who pander to the worst human qualities to get their votes.
danielx
@WereBear:
Not unheard of; it was said of Douglas MacArthur that if he had elected to go on stage instead of going to West Point, nobody would have ever heard of John Barrymore. Dwight Eisenhower was once asked if he personally knew MacArthur and responded that he not only knew him but had studied drama under him for four years in the Philippines.
Sister Golden Bear
Also, while I have mixed feelings about AOC, this is how you ally. (Hearing video at the link.)
geg6
@Cameron:
We’ll welcome you back with open arms. Can’t understand why you’d leave to end up there. Say what you will about PA, but we’re not Florida, thank the FSM.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear:
This is…horrifying. I mean, I recognize this isn’t overly common among minors, but for example, some older teen trans boys will get top surgery. Are they actually talking about forcing them to have another surgery to revert back? Or is this focusing on hormone therapy?
Baud
@Baud: Never mind. You said the Senate passed it, not that it was law yet. Not yet ripe for a court challenge.
trollhattan
Here we go, again.
“Small car?” I’ll go with Corolla.
Paul in KY
@Baud: No.
Wyatt Salamanca
@pajaro:
Luna is Looney Tunes or cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs (choose whichever one sounds better to you) and will fit right in with Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
C Stars
Or maybe a Moskvich
Sister Golden Bear
We saw a similar spate of suicides and attempted suicides by trans teens when the first ban on trans healthcare passed last year.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: OF COURSE BIDEN DOESN’T CARE ABOUT DEBRIS FALLING ON A RED STATE!!! – Ronny Jackson, probably, about 30 seconds from now
Dan B
@Alison Rose: Very horrifying. It’s one step from requiring conversion therapy on LGBQ people along with electroshock and drug treatment like some guys I knew were subjected to in the 50’s and 60’s.
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
Indeed. Who cares if he’s just play-acting? In the unlikely event that he is, he’s doing a damned good job of it. And if it works politically, why would anyone think he’s going to stop riding that horse he keeps winning with?
And does anyone think FL voters were saying, “I like the way he play-acts, even though I know he doesn’t mean it,” or were they buying into his alleged play-acting because they want a leader who will be gratuitously cruel to people different from them?
The latter, duh, and as others here have said, that’s the scary part.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yep, everyone forgets about the Dixiecrats. Ignorance of that fact has led to hundreds of bad takes about Florida’s political transformation.
Agree that Crist ran a decent campaign. Anyone else would have probably been crushed by the DeSantis juggernaut too, but I hope 2022’s third strike concludes Crist’s attempts to win statewide office.
lowtechcyclist
@Captain C:
Nothing wrong with getting out of hell free, but that’s between them and the Lord. If they’re still acting like assholes after their alleged conversions, then they’re still assholes, and why should anyone care if they’re ‘saved’ assholes?
Cameron
@geg6: Florida has many delightful things (delightful people aren’t quite as numerous) but I didn’t move here for that. There’s a lady……
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Oooh. Nominated.
NotMax
@WereBear
Spoiler Alert
.
.
.
.
.
.
He loses in the end.
...now I try to be amused
@Chief Oshkosh:
We’ve been down this road before and somehow the ugliest of them were forced back under their rocks. (Mostly.) How do we do it again, short of a war?
Dorothy A. Winsor
The FBI searched Pence’s home today and removed one document with classified markings.
NotMax
@…now I try to be amused
Need moar rocks.
//
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Baud: The thing is, the Nazis did not start with sending people to death camps, they started with gradually chipping away at the rights of people they wanted to target (Jews, gays, physically and mentally disabled people, gypsies) they made it dangerous for those peoples friends or allies to help them. Then they cut people off from their social circles, fired from jobs, kicked out of schools. Finally they started gathering all the people they considered “undesirables” in specific places/neighborhoods walled and locked them off. Once that was done they started shipping people to “work camps”
These things always start one small thing at a time, like a runaway train rolling slowly down the track, picking up speed as it goes. It doesn’t stop unless you do something to stop it. DeSantis is young, he has years to build a bigger following…
C Stars
@Sister Golden Bear: I both wish, and don’t wish, that these incidents were more widely reported.
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
You’re suggesting that reporters and pundits actually do their jobs?? What a bizarre notion!
Jeffro
@Jeffro: TRIGGER-HAPPY BIDEN ON A RAMPAGE, UNCONCERNED FOR SAFETY OF ‘REAL’ AMERICANS ON GROUND – tonight’s Tucker chyron, nickel bet.
Bex
@eclare: The world owes Wallis Simpson heartfelt thanks for removing Edward VIII from the monarchy.
Baud
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I didn’t say DeSantis wouldn’t send people to death camps. But we don’t know that he will. The best we can do is conclude that the risk of it is beyond our comfort zone.
lowtechcyclist
@Alison Rose:
Perfect. If only it weren’t so damn true.
Sister Golden Bear
@Alison Rose: I believe the detransion requirements are just hormonal related. But fucking Twitter apparently didn’t save when I bookmarked it, and didn’t RT like it was supposed to. So I’ll have to check through Trans Twitter to find the screenshot of that part of the bill for the exact verbiage
And for those who are Twitter haters, unfortunately it’s still best source of info about all the anti-trans bills.
Betty Cracker
@Bex: There was an episode in “The Crown” about it!
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: I suppose I should be relieved that they aren’t talking about forcing breast implants on young men, but…JFC. I just cannot comprehend the level of cruelty and callousness these people harbor against trans folks. Just leave people the fuck alone.
Martin
For folks interested in the ‘who’s really a fasicst’ question. I *really* strongly recommend the Innuendo Studios YouTube series ‘The Alt Right Playbook‘. It’s really well produced and researched. Ian is legitimately good at talking about this stuff and I find them to be easy watches. One of the lenses that Ian views this through is Gamergate which you might have heard of but may not really understand if you aren’t a part of video game culture. He gives a good explainer for the uninitiated, and as such serves as exposure to a part of culture that you probably miss – which also serves as a good illustration of why fascist movements sometimes show up when they do – when new media channels arrive which they can communicate over before the masses realize what they are doing. The Nazis took advantage of this as well.
Sister Golden Bear
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
I’ll also note that the famous photo of Nazi book burning, one of the first, was them burning the library of Berlin’s Institute of Sexology, founded by a gay man, which was an advocate for LBGTQ+ rights, and the first medical institution that was supportive of trans people. The Nazi killed a trans woman who worked there for good measures, and Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld only survived because he happened to be out of town.
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: Nobody is going to criticize you for using Twitter for good. Were it that even 5% of the folks on the platform are using it for that reason.
JoyceH
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
A while back I was watching a Rick Steves travel series, which was basically him going around to various places and showing the points of interest. I was intrigued to learn that Nuremberg has a Nazi museum. Nothing about the war and battles, all about the Nazi and fascist philosophy and movement, how it started and how it spread and what to look for. They do educational events for schools and police departments. The Germans at least seem serious about not allowing that to happen again.
trollhattan
@Jeffro: ”Why didn’t we quietly follow it and gather information on how it worked and what it was looking at?”
–Some Lt General (ret) on Turker’s show, probably
Martin
@Jeffro: No, you’re missing the gold – What really happened with Ted Steven’s plane crash? Did Obama fall for a Chinese false flag and have the CIA shoot hit plane down?
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer:
Not everyone lives in a state considering anti-LGBTQ+ bills, but most states are considering them. See a list here to see if your state is. If you can, the best thing you can do it either show up for hearings, and/or contact your state legislators.
trollhattan
@JoyceH: Big difference between Germany and Japan in how they confront their wartime behavior and what led to it.
When my kid was a HS exchange student, one day trip was to Dachau. Kind of wish we’d taken the Germans to Alcatraz, just because.
citizen dave
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I really like this comment. This morning I went down a line of thought about the commerce republicans having to deal with the maga nuts in their party; and how one deals with the maga types meeting one in public, to the fact they are kind of like zombies, and hey, is this why the zombie shows are so popular?
Cameron
@trollhattan: Sounds like one of them there extraterrestrial beings.
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin: I’ve gotten Twitter and Facebook shamed here before, even when I’ve tried explaining why I and other stigmatized minority folks still use them. Just sayin’.
trollhattan
@Martin: Ted Stevens and JFK Jr. return to get Trump reinstated to office. We’ll have that story next, after these important messages involving gold, survival meals and crypto exchanges.
Citizen Alan
@Jeffro: If so, Biden can come sit next to me. And I live in a red state right now! (So maybe he shouldn’t come sit next to me if he’s going to shoot something down over Mississippi, I guess.)
NutmegAgain
@jonas:
@Gin & Tonic:
On the other hand, there were folks like my mother–American, but fluent in 5 languages. Born in 1919, she had European (German) parents (except her father was born in NJ, but raised & educated in Germany). They went back to visit all through the ’20s, right up until the NSDAP (Nazi party) had any kind of presence in the Bundestag. They thought Hitler was a 2 bit, no-account, low class, low life and were horrified by his ideas & policy. My grandfather always referred to him as “the Monster”. But, they were Americans, so somewhat outside looking in.
trollhattan
@Cameron: I’m thinkin’ yep. The AF can claim “We took the ‘extra’ out of this extraterrestrial.”
(Bet they’re thrilled to be out shooting at shit and not just in mock combat. It doesn’t hurt that this shit doesn’t shoot back.)
Citizen Alan
@Captain C: The majority of American Christians and the overwhelming majority of white conservative Christians are just assholes who got dunked in a bathtub and then told it makes them better than everyone else. “Whited sepulchers” was what Jesus called them. He also said that on Judgment Day, he would tell them to their faces that he never knew them and send them to hell.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@JoyceH: Germany does have a lot of laws in place to discourage the return of fascism, unfortunately hard right political groups are using the current economic instability in Germany to their advantage. Germany foiled a planned hard right coup just last year. History doesn’t repeat but it sure does rhyme !
Old School
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: They are the modern Pharisees.
Martin
@Baud: TR, a Republican, coined ‘progressivism’ and ran from the party’s left into the 20th century.
The current notion of ‘liberal’ is centered on individual rights and dignity, and really didn’t come into focus until Obama when we started to decide that we could afford to lean into it and not lose elections. I don’t know how you consistently apply that term historically when it’s meant radically different things throughout that period. Hell, throughout my lifetime.
Citizen Alan
@Sister Golden Bear: You know what amazes me about this? Back before law school, I was a high school band director for a few years in a little one horse town in Mississippi. And at one point, as a fundraiser for the band program, they floated the idea of a “woman-less wedding,” wherein people would pay money to watch a mock wedding ceremony with the bridesmaids being a bunch of men in drag (and myself as the bride!) I wasn’t comfortable with it for a lot of reasons so it never happened. But it was amazing to me that a bunch of men who were basically hardcore Southern Baptists are fine with drag so long as it’s something you can laugh at.
I wonder if these idiots want to ban Mrs. Doubtfire.
Jeffro
@Old School: SEE?? I told y’all it was coming! =)
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: Proud of California, that’s for sure. But it is so astronomically unfair that someone’s right to exist as they are depends on their geographic location. I wish it were just as easy as saying “everyone move here” but it’s obviously not. I do what I can to help those in states where their government is attacking them rather than uplifting them, but it never feels like enough against the onslaught of hate.
Is it cool to share this Google Doc? Like if I wanted to share it on FB? I have a very small friends list, mostly people I know/have known IRL or online friends I’ve known for many years, many of whom are themselves queer and or trans and/or NB.
Baud
@Martin:
I thought we “leaned into it” during the post-WWII era until the 80s, when we did start losing elections, and then began resurrecting it with Obama.
tobie
I’m not sure why I always confuse Magnus Hirschfeld with the (Judas H) Magnes Museum in Berkeley. Hirschfeld should have a museum devoted to his life, the research field he started, the continuation of his work, etc. somewhere in the world.
Jeffro
@Citizen Alan: IF BIDEN IS UNWILLING TO STAND DIRECTLY UNDER FLAMING WRECKAGE FALLING TO EARTH, HE SHOULD RESIGN, THE COWARD – Rich Lowry (or one of eight hundred others)
WE NEED ‘GUN’ CONTROL – FOR JOE BIDEN! – WSJ Op-Ed tomorrow
trollhattan
@Old School: How can they resist? Who gets the byline, I wonder? Maybe Friedman can chat with a cabby real quick.
Chris
@Alison Rose:
This is why I’m largely pro Open Borders in principle, and pro whatever-the-closest-to-it-we-can-get-is in practice.
Tony G
@Karen S.: My understanding of the interwar period (the twenties and thirties) is that a significant number of American businessmen were either openly supportive of the Nazi’s (like Henry Ford) or were just happy to make money by doing business with Nazi Germany (like Thomas Watson of IBM and Prescott Bush). IBM actually managed to continue doing business with the Nazi’s after the war began by going through a Polish subsidiary (under German occupation). My point is that, certainly in my lifetime, and probably 100 years ago as well, the primary constituency of the New York Times has been wealthy Wall Street guys. Those guys will not be troubled by a few tens of millions of dead bodies, and the New York Times won’t either.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
While Trump is clearly a bigger scumbag than Pence, Pence is still a scumbag and I hope the rest of his fucking life is filled with misery, failure, and humiliation.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: She was really great yesterday. As were Raskin and Goldman.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Thanks. Great resource. I’m a fellow CA resident and usually know about our Trans-supportive legislation efforts, but I’ll share this with others in other States.
Old School
I did not know Fox Soul was a thing that existed.
J
After a very casual read, I was inclined to defend the column. Quite possibly I didn’t read it carefully enough. But I took the message to be ‘we underestimate the danger Ron Desantis poses at our peril’, which is how the bulk of the commenters on the NYT website took it. If the point was instead Desantis isn’t such a bad guy, then the column deserves all the abuse being heaped on it. It remains true, true, that we underestimate RD at our peril (as we did his principal rival in vileness).
tobie
@UncleEbeneezer: I read somewhere that Debbie Wasserman Schultz absolutely fileted Jonathan Turley duiring questioning yesterday or today. Seems like Democrats are using their allotted time for questing on committees to great effect.
Chris
@Baud:
Yeah.
To the extent that modern liberalism makes a big deal of “individual rights and individual dignity,” I think a lot of it can be traced back to the McCarthy era, when a lot of prominent liberals found their own individual rights and dignity very much in peril, and they took the lesson to heart.
Before that, it was treated a lot more cavalierly. The 1920s Red Scare and the war hysterias around both world wars were all probably far worse than the actual McCarthy era, but they weren’t so much targeted at prominent, mainstream liberals, rather ethnic minorities, immigrants, and a few political radicals. So liberals didn’t tend to care as much and many of them even led the charge. (As late as 1950, you still had Hubert Humphrey proposing a bill to hold people without trial that the President had declared “subversive.”)
Brachiator
@Tony G:
A co-workers family lived in Duarte, California during the 1920s and 1930s. His German American grandmother admired and supported Hitler and only reluctantly stopped believing him when America entered the war.
In the 1920s, he was seen as Making Germany Great Again. A significant number of ordinary people thought that Hitler might be the bee’s knees.
Alison Rose
@Old School:
It’s not.
rikyrah
@Alison Rose:
Trans have become their shiny obsessive object now that they’ve ‘ won’ on abortion.
They can’t be them without someone to hate.
different-church-lady
deleted
Baud
@Chris: We quite rightly hear a lot about the Japanese internment during WWII, but the federal government’s actions against individual liberties during WWI were quite awful (by modern standards) and often gets lost to history.
different-church-lady
@Old School: They named it “Soul.” To appeal to black viewers. In the year 2023.
I just don’t what to say anymore…
gwangung
@Sister Golden Bear: Love these tools. Makes it easier to speak our minds.
TriassicSands
It’s not so much that he’s worse than Trump, he’s simply more competent in general. Yes, his competence is in the service of bigotry, but Trump is so consumed with himself that there never is a big picture.
Baud
@different-church-lady: Those jive turkeys!
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: When I was a kid in the 1970s, I had a general feeling that liberalism in this sense was gradually increasing and that this was progress. Of course, I also had a feeling from the news that everything else was going to shit (crime, pollution, the economy, trust in institutions, the world situation, etc.) And I imagine that confluence of trends fed into the Reagan counterrevolution.
When Reagan got in, he turned “liberal” into such a dirty word that for a while it was difficult to imagine that anyone had ever embraced it on purpose. And I think that some of the further-left “progressives” of my generation and the one slightly younger have still kind of subconsciously assimilated that association even though it came from conservatives.
eclare
@Old School: I’ve never heard of it either.
Kay
It’s the incoherence of the anti wokesters that gets me.
They signed on to a self-aggrandizing, overly dramatic letter claiming that “woke” 22 year old college students at elite universities are a grave threat to speech and debate, yet faced with a governor who uses state power to silence and chill speech they not only don’t speak against it- they DEMAND that liberals all pretend it isn’t happening!
I thought “culture wars” were bad politics – Isn’t that what this group of self proclaimed Professional, Official Liberals just told us? We had to shut down The Woke because it makes them uncomfortable?
Culture wars are bad politics unless conservatives engage in them, then they’re good politics? How is this different than a complete surrender?
Sister Golden Bear
@Alison Rose: Yes, the Google doc listing anti-LGBTQ+ bills is meant to be shared.
I’ll also note that their obsession is overwhelming about trans women. Trans men get far less attention. And yes misogyny is a big factor. If were less generous id say the Christofascists men pushing this hate the fact that trans porn turns them on. Red States have the highest consumption of that particular genre.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Don’t many of these laws violate Federal and State protections against discrimination based on “sex?” I know gender =/= sex, but so many of these laws are literally using assigned-gender (based on external sex organs) that it would seem like this would be a good avenue to pursue by the ACLU, since even states like Montana often have Sex as a protected class.
trollhattan
@Old School: Fox Seoul would make more sense.
Cameron
@Baud: No doubt with carefully scripted dialogue lifted from episodes of Mod Squad. How in the world did they get Joe Biden?
Kay
You know what would be really bold and contrarian? If one of the professional anti woke warriors would just admit they basically AGREE with DeSantis on cultural/civil rights issues. That they write this tortured nonsense supposedly “advising” Democrats to shut up about cultural issues not because they want to advise Democrats but because they think DeSantis is RIGHT and they hope his side prevails on social issues.
Baud
@Kay: Won’t happen. The whole point is to help DeSantis by making insecure liberals unconfident in opposing him. If they said they agreed with DeSantis, those liberals would just tune them out.
Baud
@Cameron: The Super Bowl is on Fox, so which other Fox entity would be better?
Betty Cracker
@J: Agree with the point about not underestimating DeSantis. It was the “he may not be” quote above that gave the game away for me — the column is minimizing the egregious harm DeSantis is doing by persecuting vulnerable people to address imaginary problems. It’s gaslighting.
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, some of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws are patently unconstitutional. But 1) they don’t care, and 2) many of them are hoping to get a case that goes to the SCOTUS — just as they did with anti-abortion laws. Given the open anti-LGBTQ views of several Justices, they’ve got a good chance of winning if that happens.
Cameron
@Baud: None of them. Sorry,but the Super Bowl appearance doesn’t seem worth it to me
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
Title and author?
Baud
@Cameron:
Not a big fan either, but the presidential interview has been happening for a number of years now.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear:
Gay men panicked them much, much more than lesbians ever did. I know it’s not remotely the same thing and not a correct way of conceptualizing it, but to conservative gender bigots, these are both cases of a “man” voluntarily adopting aspects of femaleness, which seems to be the thing that most freaks them out in the world. Maybe they think it’s contagious. Maybe they think a man’s status as king of the world is somehow being devalued.
Sister Golden Bear
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. Absolute gaslighting.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: Thank you.
And yeah–I remember when bathroom bills started becoming more prominent, it was like 98% about trans women using the women’s bathroom. They rarely seemed to mention trans men using the men’s room, which…was really them telling on themselves and their misogyny. Especially because a trans man in a men’s room who hasn’t had bottom surgery would be at incredible risk of harm. But it’s not like the right gives a sliver of a fuck about that
(ETA that obviously *any* trans man would be a great risk)
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear: Some of the First Amendment violations might be too much even for the current Supreme Court. Definitely should hope the legislative practice of medicine laws stay away from the Court.
Dan B
A prominent religious institute surveyed Republicans. 71% support Christian Nationalism and believe in Hreat Replacement theory – that white Christians are being replaced by dark skinned immigrants and residents.
Article was, I believe, in today’s Guardian.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin:
Agreed. It’s the same reason they also freak out about cisgender men who deviate from their narrow and rigid definition of masculinity.
Cameron
@Dan B: That’s horrible. I figured it would be bad,but not that bad.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott:
In March 1932, someone at The Atlantic had a clearer grasp of the man.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Poor Pajama Boy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
speaking of FL politics
Mitch McConnell knows how to hate. He really hangs Scott out to dry (audio). also:
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: I recently read a letter in an advice column regarding a dad who was upset when his toddler son wanted a bike helmet with flowers on it, and didn’t want to let him have it. Like JFC. Doesn’t it get exhausting being that aggressively MANLY all the damn time?
Alison Rose
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: LOL I hate McConnell but that was a good dig, right there.
J R in WV
@Baud:
That article fawning all over that nice Mr. Hitler back in 1922 was not an editorial, nor an opinion piece — it was published as news about a new and popular politician in Germany/Bavaria/Austria etc.
My father was in Vienna Austria in the days preceding Mr. HItler’s ceremonial entry into Vienna as he took over yet another European nation, his first person story of witnessing storm troopers marching around the city was chilling.
My cousin and I found a German flag circa 1938 in her father’s files after his death — crimson with a white circle with a black swastika in it. We were shocked, and after that is when my dad told us of the family tour of Europe in the summer of 1938. As the flames were being set by the nice Mr Hitler.
I once had a ton of respect for the NY Times, regarded them as the newspaper of record, the national document, etc. No more. I suspect hey are at some level evil scum, working for fascism, so long as they get to be part of the leadership.
At some point IIRC I learned that one Carlos Slim, Mexican billionaire, is a silent partner in ownership of the Time Company, with somewhere near 50% ownership. I don’t know if that’s still true or was ever true now that disinformation is so common.
Sister Golden Bear
@Alison Rose: Ironically the one detransitioner the TERFs always trot out as an example of transition regret by a former trans teen is a cis woman who transitioned to being a trans man and back. Of course they always omit the fact that she was 28 when she got top surgery.
Miss Bianca
@eclare: Jonathan Fisher, British journalism professor: “If someones says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the fucking window and see which one is true.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Brachiator: El Monte was home to one of the biggest Nazi HQ’s in the US, in the 60’s-70s. And in the 30’3-40’s there was a whole lot of Nazi stuff happening in LA:
“The first Nazi rally in Los Angeles took place in the summer of 1933, a few months into Adolph Hitler’s chancellorship, at a downtown biergarten nicknamed the Brown House, after the Nazi Party’s offices in Munich. It was here (now an America’s Best Value Inn) that the Jewish spymaster known as L1 sent his first undercover operatives, a husband-and-wife team of Christian German émigrés, with instructions to infiltrate the Fascist underground.
“Today people are marching and saying, ‘Jews will not replace us,’ ” Steve Ross, the author of a forthcoming book, “Hitler in Los Angeles,” which documents the rise of anti-Semitic hate groups and a covert Jewish-led resistance, said the other day. “In the thirties, they’re saying, ‘Kill the Jews.’ All it takes is one crazy person. People say, ‘It can’t happen here,’ but it is happening here. Once you have the Fascist takeover of the government, all the other things can happen.”
L1 was Leon Lewis, an unassuming lawyer who had served in the First World War and helped found the Anti-Defamation League. The Nazis called him “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles.” He worked independently; the F.B.I. focussed its scant resources on the Communist threat, and many on the city’s police force were Klansmen or American Fascists, or at least sympathetic to the anti-Jewish attitudes of the Hitlerites. By the time Pearl Harbor was attacked, Lewis’s agents had disrupted elaborate efforts to spread Nazi ideology in the United States, revealed fifth columnists and saboteurs inside the Douglas aircraft plant, and foiled two murder plots whose targets included not only the spymaster but also Jack Benny, Samuel Goldwyn, Charlie Chaplin, and Louis B. Mayer. “The Nazis saw L.A. as more important than Jew York, as they called it,” Ross said. “La Guardia, who was half Jewish, had the ports closely watched, whereas in L.A. they were able to bring in propaganda, money, everything they wanted, without a worry.
…
Los Angeles’s Nazis and Fascists, some of whom were taking orders directly from Hitler and Goebbels, were preparing for what they saw as an inevitable Nazi take-over of the United States. Anticipating that day, Norman and Winona Stephens bought a fifty-acre piece of land above the Pacific Palisades, and started to build a fortress that would serve as Hitler’s West Coast White House, halfway between Tokyo and Berlin.”
eclare
@Miss Bianca: Thank you! Brilliant. Much better than my paraphrasing.
Sister Golden Bear
@Alison Rose:
Yes it does. That’s s major reason thar a lesbian cis woman who posed as a man for 18 months to write a book about experience had a nervous breakdown at the end
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Moscow Mitch really likes fucking with people and winning. Seems like Skeletor/Batboy has not sufficiently kissed up to him.
Pity.
Brachiator
@UncleEbeneezer:
California, especially Southern California was ironically home to Nazi sympathizers and also to people who fled Nazi persecution.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Golden Bear:
Just wanted to say thanks for being a great Twitter resource on this stuff! (I don’t have much more than incoherent rage to say about the anti-trans stuff…)
Baud
@J R in WV:
Right. But the current article about DeSantis is an op-ed.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: Of course. I also don’t get the “a small percentage of people have some regret for various complex reasons and therefore NO TRANSITIONING FOR ANYONE EVER” stance.
But of course, asking them to use critical thinking would be like asking my cat to solve quadratic equations.
UncleEbeneezer
@tobie: She was pretty good too.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: I’m thankful that the cis men in my life all mostly roll their eyes at macho shit.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Golden Bear: Gorsuch did write Bostock, so there is that thin reed of hope…
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@UncleEbeneezer:
Murphy Ranch.
Gin & Tonic
@UncleEbeneezer: Speaking of El Monte.
Kay
No one needs a warningabout being “complacent”, either. Political media swooning over DeSantis was entirely predictable. We knew they would, they are.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: What it reminds me of is a column by John Derbyshire from back in the early 2000s or so, in which he complained that advocates for gay rights kept trying to distract everyone by talking about lesbians when he didn’t care about lesbians–the problem was the horror of “buggery” (the word he used).
To him nothing was more terrifying, more repulsive, more searing to his soul than “buggery”, and he was very specific that what horrified him about it was not that some person was taking it up the butt, but that a MAN was purposefully letting a thing be done to him that was only supposed to be done to women, and this made it utterly degrading. What might be done to a woman was of no particular concern to him.
I thought it was… revealing. Extremely revealing.
Martin
@Baud: We leaned into it in the sense of ‘we’ll acknowledge your existence if you agree to vote for us’, not in the ‘we’ll give you positions of authority’ sense.
There’s a difference between acknowledging the transgender community and ceding cis positions of power for transgender leaders. For the black community we did the former when Nixon efficiently hoovered up the most racist members of the white voting block and Democrats couldn’t win fucking elections and resigned to just doing enough to get black voters to pull the ‘D’ lever. The black community didn’t really start to see the latter until Obama. That progress is really a product of the utility of black people to the institution of the Democratic Party. Black folk made themselves really indispensable. Despite their population, their reliability as a D vote make them the most critical demographic to Dem elections, and so, power has to be handed over. This is why women didn’t make as rapid progress. Women haven’t been reliable D voters (apart from black women). To the degree that Democrats do turn over institutional power to women, that will be due to black women who are the organizing force of the black voting community, not to white men. Make sure to credit the right people there.
This is why Democrats support for the transgender community gives me some hope. The transgender community has no electoral power. Like, at all. No election anywhere in this country is going to swing on the transgender vote. There is no transactional political benefit to supporting the community, because the community has nothing to give in return which builds Democratic power. And yet, Democrats are doing it, because it’s the right thing to do and helps to anchor the caucus around that moral act. I’m not sure how *far* they’re going to go. When will the DNC throw millions behind a transgender senatorial candidate? Not holding my breath there, but it seems way more plausible than the old transactional calculus should allow it to be.
But I also interpret that as Democrats feeling as though they have enough cultural headroom to be generous on that front. While they may not pick up many votes, they won’t lose them either. The anti transgender votes on the right are not votes that Democrats can get no matter what they do. The right’s intransigence creates space for marginalized groups to get support on the other side – because there’s no risk to doing that. If the right were more open to voting for Dems, I suspect Dems would throw a lot of these groups an anchor just large enough to win those votes over. I think we all expected that around the Dobbs decision – that Dems would get squishy on abortion. They didn’t. In fact they got a lot less squishy.
Now, did the Dems do that because it was morally the right position, or did they do it because they could read the polling and saw that is was politically advantageous? I’m too cynical to not say it’s actually 100% the latter being marketed as 100% the former. I’m sure lots of leaders in the party are happy that those are in alignment. I don’t really trust them to pick the right side when they aren’t.
UncleEbeneezer
@Major Major Major Major: My bigger hope is that SCOTUS doesn’t want to take up the fight and lets Circuit Courts strike these laws down.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
So, in 1922 the New York Times wrote and published a long piece about the nice Mr Hitler and how he wanted to lead the Germanic peoples into a modern future.
Their bureau chief in Moscow supported Mr Stalin devoutly, and denied the possibility that there was a famine in Georgia and Ukraine while millions starved to death.
Since then they supported the so nice Mr Trump, hired his publicist’s daughter to cover the nice Mr Trump, and had Mrs Paul write and published her piece about how nice Mr DeSantis is regardless of his racism and misogyny.
Seems like more than a century of fawning approval of despotic fascist monsters to me. Believe them when they tell you who they are the first time!
Martin
@Alison Rose: You kidding. I embrace my low T-ness. All my friends are going bald and I have the same hair as when I was 18. Call me a beta cuck all you want, I just respond by staring at your hairline which I *know* you are extremely self-conscious about. I will leave your self esteem in ruin with my judgmental gaze.
Martin
@UncleEbeneezer: I haven’t figured out which job the conservative judges believe they are there to do – give Rs an electoral narrative or serve as institutional regressive bulwark against an increasingly liberal country.
Given their ineptitude so far, I don’t have a good case for the former, so I am increasingly resigned to the latter.
Another Scott
@Martin: Another example: “NeoLiberal” in economics.
Drives me nuts, but there’s no way I’m winning that war.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: Their bureau chief in Moscow had, um, certain peccadilloes, knowledge of which on the part of the NKVD made him less than objective.
artem1s
@danielx:
Somehow I don’t think that was a complement. A lot of US military leaders recognized he was a raving megalomaniac long before Truman gave his ass the boot.
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer: We hoped that about anti-abortion laws too.
Alison Rose
@Martin: I wasn’t kidding. I don’t understand your response.
Another Scott
@J:
There have been 356 stories at FTFNYT mentioning Ron, according to the Search tab on that page.
As TFG taught us, mentions in the big press are worth a lot. There was a big story in Vanity Fair or Spy or something decades ago that said TFG loved it when he was called out as a “slumlord” when he was starting out, because it gave him attention.
I’m not trying to be a crank, and I don’t think I am a crank, but FTFNYT doesn’t just “report” “All the News That’s Fit To Print”, it has a big role in deciding what is news. Reporting so much on Ron leaves less room to report on others who aren’t monsters. These are conscious choices they make.
Feeding monsters is bad.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: OMG yes that word has become totally unmoored from its original meaning.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: I never thought that was likely. The moment RBG died I assumed Roe was done (and Affirmative Action too). They’ve spent too long openly pining for that opportunity. I’m not sure they have the same passion and desire to get into the fight on LGBTQ rights. I don’t like the odds at all, but I think they are slightly better in this case that Gorsuch/Roberts may not want this added to their legacy. I’m just trying to keep some kind of hope. We’ll see.
Ally
I just googled Pamela Paul and she looks like Marjorie Taylor Green with better hair.
misterpuff
Well, FOX Soulless definately exists.
Betty Cracker
@Martin:
If you disregard the existence of the patriarchy, yeah that is a perfectly cromulent explanation.
Another Scott
@prostratedragon: Thanks for the pointer.
I’m reminded that
Alisa Zinovyevna RosenbaumAyn Rand hated the Soviets with the burning heat of 10,000 suns.I’m sure we could easily find others who suffered (to various degrees) living under various tyrannical rulers and had life-long visceral reactions against them. It might be one of the best arguments for Democracy…
Prevent the creation of charismatic monsters! Support Democracy!
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: No, that was my point. The patriarchy is much more durable force – and there’s no ‘payoff’ as it were to stop, so we don’t.
Miss Bianca
@eclare: And how do I know this? It’s the sig line for my reportering emails. : )
Elizabelle
The FTF NY Times has daddy issues.
(1). Their preferred form of governance is “benevolent” oligarchy. They are all about money. Don’t touch ours! But (2) Their preferred GOP daddy has gone crazy radical, and is now trying to personally track their menstrual cycles, too. What to do, what to do? Stick up for those icky “Democrats in disarray” (ie. Mom and schoolscreacher)?” Or just pretend Daddy isn’t what Daddy has actually become?
They have a body count, too. Judith Miller anyone? Paving the way for Trump (bad Covid daddy) with their Clinton Derangement Syndrome. They’re where people go to lie, because their elitest of the elite journalists will fall for crumbs from Daddy.
Recall the role Peter Baker and his equally horrible wife Susan Glasser (perched at The New Yorker) had in tarring Biden’s brave decision to get us out of Afghanistan. It was a debacle! No credit for taking us out of a war that could never be won.
There is a stench to the FTF NY Times. Of death.
Tony G
@Brachiator: Yeah, there was probably a lot of support in the U.S. for Hitler. (There was certainly a lot of anti-semitism and white supremacy, so why not?). Famously there was that big pro-Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939. If there was that much support in “liberal” New York City, then there must have been a lot more in other parts of the country.
Tony G
@Ally: Maybe she was cloned in the same laboratory.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
DeSantis isn’t Hitler, he’s more like Goebbels; someone who cynically adopted hard right views and ended the truest of true believers.
Barry
@NorthLeft: “When Pamela Paul said “ Assuming a stance of moral superiority will do us no good.” , was she including herself as an opponent of DeSanitize and his band of deplorable followers?”
IMHO, she is on DeSantis’ side, and is using ‘we’ as a fifth columnist does.
Barry
@Brachiator: “Some jackals love gnawing on this bone. Do you want to say that the NYT has continually and consistently backed fascists since its founding or since the 1920s? And are they unique in this?”
There is another classic article from late August, 1939, discussing Hitler. Read it and try to find any news value.