Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 22m

I assume he has been nursing a grudge against the whole medical establishment ever since Covid. He feels they didn’t treat him with enough respect and it’s now payback time.

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 12h

Agreed. And now I shall read your conversation with Karen Attiah.

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 12h

All of that, plus look at the world they were living in. Communists to the left, fascists to the right. No environment for goody-goodies.

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 12h

Related beef: I was frustrated by Moyn’s book bashing the Cold War liberals for being too bleak. You can’t govern without getting your hands dirty. Even if you are a liberal.

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 13h

This and the previous one look promising. If liberalism conceptualizes itself solely as a theory of justice or fairness, it forgets that it has to be a guide for getting things done, not just for adjudicating.

1 1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 15h

The callers must be well paid Soros employees. (Expect to hear that very soon.)

1 10

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 19h

Also a sign that by associating the Democrats with Antifa they’re heading towards declaring the Party a terrorist organization.

1 4

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 20h

Still, it wasn't a wholly vacuous question whether the Nobel Committee might be cowed by the pressure campaign. I'm glad they weren't, but, as we are seeing every day, plenty of people aren't capable of mustering that kind of courage.

1 5

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 22h

This is all about 2020 isn’t it? As usual he can’t tell the difference between present and past, and it fits with his mentality of bearing grudges and plotting retribution.

4

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 22h

A constructive suggestion!

11

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 22h

What it does show is Trump’s mastery of media and “the attention economy.” But yes, it’s lamentable.

4 53

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 1d

This whole cognitive frame - rural “real” America, traditional values vs decadent urban America overrun by crime and disease - has been nurtured by right wing media for 30 years. By now people are firmly locked in.

20

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2d

Figures are figures, but it’s still surprising. Trump (and Putin!) have been so successful in framing the issue in terms of the US culture war, Ukraine being turned into a “woke” cause, it’s hard to imagine that being reversed.

1 1 6

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2d

One feels that if only Comey could be publicly humiliated by a perp walk Trump would be satisfied and drop it. It’s always the image, never the substance.

12

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2d

A factor in play in the interwar period - maybe now also - is that many people supported fascism who saw themselves as conservatives. They believed in the same things (country, order) and hated the same things (socialism, decadence). That enabled the drift from one to the other.

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

In theory she’s the nation’s top law officer, mandated to protect the rule of law. In practice she’s more like a consigliere for a crime family.

2 16

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

The fact that he got reelected despite being found liable in the E Jean Carroll case suggests that Americans don’t care all that much about these sexual offenses. If someone is rich and famous they tend to get a free pass.

1 16

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

Yes, that remark was the giveaway, wasn’t it.

5

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

Putin’s great insight, which he probably reached 20 years ago or more, is that racism is the Achilles heel of western societies. With brilliant success he continues to exploit and exacerbate it in order to further Russia’s recovery of its great power status.

2 7

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

There’s a whole theory that Brexit was dreamed up and funded by people who wanted to protect their access to tax havens, which was being threatened by EU policy. It was then sold to the masses as a patriotic thing.

2 6

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

Um … Justice Kavanaugh would like a word.

4

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

That’s right, nothing new. I think it’s really helpful to place the current crisis in that historical perspective.

1 5

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

Jefferson Cowie’s book Freedom’s Dominion is an eye-opener in that regard.

1 1 14

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

You might think so, but … States’ rights were a tactical slogan in the South’s fight to resist federal (ie liberal) authority. Now that the South is on the front foot it of course sees its epochal struggle against liberalism as nullifying the rights of liberal states.

7 6 110

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

Highlighting the weird disconnect within a party that nominally advocates small government but in practice is instituting a dictatorship.

2 19