"...there’s no room for me. Color me an anti-fan of performative politics, particularly if it means I’d be part of the show that features
bigots posing as bleeding hearts. Plus, all that earnestness! It brings out my ironic and impish side, inclined to correct typos on signage or foment some kind of peripheral debate. Every time someone at one of those encampments cried out 'Free Palestine' I’d be tempted to yell 'From Hamas!' I’d surely get kicked out of the group that wants to kick other people out.... I realize we live in a country born of protest and my attitude may seem vaguely un-American. Watching the rabble-rousers on HBO’s 'John Adams' during Covid lockdown, my first grumbly thought was, 'Stop whining and pay your taxes!' Reading about the
Whiskey Rebellion made me think of drunken MAGA types sloganeering at a Trump rally about the glory of firearms...."
Writes Pamela Paul, in
"Confessions of an Anti-Protester" (NYT)(free access link).
I share a lot of those feelings. I feel a sense of heightened individuality when I find myself in a crowd. And, like Paul, I've only participated in
one political protest in my entire life, but I do rankle at "drunken MAGA types sloganeering at a Trump rally."
Drinking at a Trump rally? Where does she get that? I see the effort at humor after the mention of the Whiskey Rebellion, but I don't think there's drunkenness at Trump rallies. Maybe attend one and look around. You don't have to protest. You don't even need to support the candidate.
Snake through the line and talk to people over the railings.
You may be surprised. They might be real human individuals, like you.
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Trump rally in Philly on Saturday.
I share her attitude about "solidarity." But the Whiskey Rebellion was about taxes. Her casual and ignorant slur of Trump supporters is a sop to the lefties who she knows are going to vilify her for not buying the pro-Palestine stuff.
When someone drones on about Solidarity I think of Lech Walesa.
She forgot to mention the the drug-addled, zombie-like Biden supporters.
It's the NYT, so the anti-Trump shibboleth is required.
"I would never belong to any organization that would have me as a member"
Been to two Trump rallies. Not a drunk in sight, nay, nary a drink. She wrote that to provide faux balance and innoculation from lefties. It’s a signal for them but also for us who have broken the code and know what she really is saying.
James K said what I just said but better: “ anti-Trump shibboleth”
There's nothing un-American about holding the protestors to the same standard of freedom of conscience and freedom of expression that you want to hold the government to. That she thinks otherwise tells me (along with the MAGA crack) that while she may be a better American than her compatriots, she still has a long way to go to get what this country is about.
Drunken MAGA supporters carrying guns is a favorite Narrative slander fed to the Northern and Midwestern audiences.
Secret, there are none except in Fantasy Land where they are supposedly out in the woods or in all of the uncivilized Southern States.
They might be real human individuals, like you.
Implies she’s a real human being; assumes facts not in evidence. /sarc
Okay, seriously, if she’s going to try to get published in the New York Times isn’t it pretty much mandatory to display TDS and take a cheap shot at the Normal people? Not joking this time.
A better crack would've been: clean-living MAGA supporters hectoring me to pick up my trash. It's more of a Tea Party joke, but it still works.
Always disliked the kumbiyah, hold hands, we're all in it together crowd since late elementary school.
A lot more so since the cries to send the unmasked to concentration camps during Covid.
Being an Air Force brat and then, later, being involved in the oil patch, first through my own career and then through marriage, were invaluable experiences for me. Temperamentally and based on family background I'm probably predisposed to the writer's hauteur (which she calls "impishness") - correcting signs and stirring the pot and such. But because from early on I met and interacted daily with people from other - let's just say it - classes from the one I was born in, I was constantly smacked in the face with other people's human individuality, brought up short by intelligence and humor where my own inflated sense of myself hadn't led me to expect it.
Thank goodness for those experiences. I still struggle to find and really to feel humility sometimes, but it's never amiss. Humility opens the door to so much: people's kindness, their courage, their worries and fears that maybe I can at least listen to even if I can't help, their ironic and impish sides.
All of which makes it sound as if I'm judging and dismissing the writer. Maybe... and maybe I shouldn't be. But I've learned that I'm usually safer judging "elite" books by the words on their covers than I am judging normal people on the same basis.
Althouse returns to the gun show in the middle of the photo.
She concludes that "antisemitism is a bad look." With these Progressives, it's all about the optics. The depths of their shallowness can never be underestimated.
Wow, smug NYT tramp writes paeans to the establishment. Inspiring stuff. But the hard left needs some amount of enthusiasm for their increasingly failing presidential campaign. Minorities, pensioners, the working class- all are shifting towards Trump. So to display that you don't need or care about "left-wing" protestors only leaves you with unlikable Reddit drones, LIV moms, and civil service bureaucrats.
Then again, even the former contributors at The Daily Beast might wish for the return of Trump:
https://www.thewrap.com/daily-beast-union-
staffers-buyout-layoffs/
"It's the NYT, so the anti-Trump shibboleth is required."
I've been wondering, is a shibboleth also required in polite society now? Like "How do you do, fuck Trump, etc"?
People have been so circumspect with me.
Wow, smug NYT tramp writes paeans to the establishment. Inspiring stuff. But the hard left needs some amount of enthusiasm for their increasingly failing presidential campaign. Minorities, pensioners, the working class- all are shifting towards Trump. So to display that you don't need or care about "left-wing" protestors only leaves you with unlikable Reddit drones, LIV moms, and civil service bureaucrats.
Then again, even the former contributors at The Daily Beast might wish for the return of Trump:
https://www.thewrap.com/daily-beast-
union-staffers-buyout-layoffs/
Every time "MAGA" is said with hostility, I think about the (weird) old 20th century psychoanalysts and their notion of the Shadow: Unconscious. Ego. Anxiety. Resistance. Projection. See Carl Jung.
The (flawed, angry, hostile, drunk) anti-MAGA crowd are exactly what they project onto the typically average and unremarkable MAGA crowd. The hostile people were never told "no" and never disciplined and never left their comfort zone, so they can't emotionally handle it. They are stuck in toddlerhood. Tantrums. Penis envy? Anal retentives?
Psychoanalysis was so weird...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)
I mean, there are women friends haven't heard from since 2015. Just. nothing.
Words were never spoken, but it's like they were deathly afraid I was not in perfect accord with them re Trump. God forbid I be amused by him.
Has that happened to anyone else?
Like "How do you do, fuck Trump, etc"?
@wild chicken, yes, weren’t you aware? Back in the day the hard core Jew haters said “Heil Hitler!” Today they say “Fuck Trump.”
Can one be "insufficiently appalled"?
Trump rallies are like Tea Party rallies.
No messes.
No junk.
Respectful ordinary folks.
The collective left are all liars - even the so-called 'good ones' cannot help but lie.
Left-wing radical democratic temper tantrum "protests" - where always there is trash strewn everywhere... by lazy progressives who then retreat to mommy's basement for a video game binge and more rage-planning.
They can't help the massive Projection tendency, even when it has no place in the article. It's ingrained in the Left. She probably gets drunk and yells at the TV when Trump comes on. That's what I get from her tiny tantrum within a premise with which I could have identified.
Not now. I think she's an undisciplined dumbass who needed an editor.
She punched her timecard,
all the topics hit
time to get paid.
Step over to the window please.
Quoting an expert... "don't mind the maggots".
Can this woman be stupider or more self involved rhetorical since 2020 50 cities burned cops were murdered by the scores not by maga but the people her paper grovels to everyday the editorial page makes self important blather about how thsy are engaged in serious word legitimizing terrorists
"Althouse returns to the gun show in the middle of the photo."
LOL.
I liked that people in that photo looked fit. The stereotype is that everyone in Wisconsin is out of shape, but that's not what I've seen.
Reminds me of the time I went to a Tea Party Rally back in the day. Many of my Dem friends were calling TEA Party people "Rethuglicans". When I reported back that the attendees were 80%+ white women over the age of 50 my Dem friends looked at me as if I was insane. Surely there were proud racists there? Well no. None. Surely the were young thugs in wife beater t shirts in attendance? Again, no. And my report changed zero minds. They went on as before claiming the TEA Party was a vile racist organization out to do dirty deeds. I always refer to them as the "hypnotized, propagandized and aggrandized".Now, 15 years down the time line they're still the same. Willfully blind to objective visual reality.
Reminds me of the time I went to a Tea Party Rally back in the day. Many of my Dem friends were calling TEA Party people "Rethuglicans". When I reported back that the attendees were 80%+ white women over the age of 50 my Dem friends looked at me as if I was insane. Surely there were proud racists there? Well no. None. Surely the were young thugs in wife beater t shirts in attendance? Again, no. And my report changed zero minds. They went on as before claiming the TEA Party was a vile racist organization out to do dirty deeds. I always refer to them as the "hypnotized, propagandized and aggrandized".Now, 15 years down the time line they're still the same. Willfully blind to objective visual reality.
Yet she provably kneeled before cuomo who killed 30,000 in nursing homes and had her set of fauci candles
"They might be real human individuals, like you."
No, ma'am, they are not anything like me, or most of us.
You are describing a difference of opinion, or belief. People holding such differences can see others as real humans. This is different, dangerously so.
I have many Catholic friends and family members, some of whom are devout and believe in the divinity of Jesus, the immaculate conception, the Resurrection...
I am not Catholic; I believe none of this, but I have cordial and loving relations with them. They bear no animosity towards me.
We also root for different sports teams.
Then I read comments at WaPo, Slate.com, and similar places; interviews with Jew-hating protestors, climate change believers. These people are of a different species- their hatred and contempt of me and people like us is thick, immovable, opaques, and not open to discussion. The latest buzzword they have for people who prefer peace and prosperity to war and inflation is "MAGAt." Vermin due no more consideration than any other pest that one would call an exterminator to be rid of. They currently are in the process of cutting down all the laws, so desperate are they to avoid giving non-believers any consideration.
Like every leftist in history, they will turn on their own given sufficient motivation.
Beware.
"I feel a sense of heightened individuality when I find myself in a crowd." Love that line! Me too.
cops were murdered by the scores not by maga but the people her paper grovels to everyday the editorial page makes self important blather about how thsy are engaged in serious word legitimizing terrorists
Well this is simply a lie . "Forty-eight officers were shot and killed on the job last year [2020], compared to 51 in 2019, the report stated." And that is in the entire country by all encounters. So your claim of "scores" of officers killed is simply a lie.
Then I read comments at WaPo, Slate.com, and similar places; interviews with Jew-hating protestors, climate change believers. These people are of a different species- their hatred and contempt of me and people like us is thick, immovable, opaques, and not open to discussion. The latest buzzword they have for people who prefer peace and prosperity to war and inflation is "MAGAt." Vermin due no more consideration than any other pest that one would call an exterminator to be rid of. They currently are in the process of cutting down all the laws, so desperate are they to avoid giving non-believers any consideration.
I read comments like this and think to myself: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
When it was open season on cops from coast to coast
Freder can't do math.
Scores = multiples of 20 so 51 is "two score and eleven cops shot..."
Narciso FTW. Again.
Let's not forget all the first responders blinded or otherwise injured by the courthouse riots in the Pacific Northwest either, nor the displaced cops in Minneapolis when their HQ was allowed to burn down for Saint George's riot.
48 = "Two-score and eight cops killed..." IOW still "scores" as written.
"48 = "Two-score and eight cops killed..." IOW still "scores" as written."
Math is HARD!
(And there were cops killed in ambushes that were not directly, immediately connected with riots. Nice try at deflection.)
Free Palestine!
(With every Palestine purchase at regular price.)
That's a take on an old Free Tibet! joke.
IDK who you are, Pamela Paul, but you're my newest best friend. A few years ago I coined the term "Inactivist" (apparently not a real word) to describe myself, but "Non-Protester" works fine too.
But wait - I see the Times has softened the headline for some reason, and removed the term "non-protester." Well that figures... it might catch on! Can't have that happening...
Somebody needs to tell this leftwing bimbo that "sloganeering" is not "protesting."
"Drinking at a Trump rally? ...I see the effort at humor after the mention of the Whiskey Rebellion..." It's not humor. "Drunk" was simply the next item on her Big List of Approved Insults (Right-Wing / Republican Appendix). Next are "Meth-addled" and "Sister-Impregnator."
"48 = "Two-score and eight cops killed..." IOW still "scores" as written."
48 is the total number of police shot to death in the line of duty. Yes, it is several score. But I thought you would at least have read the article. Most were stops of suspicious people or domestic disputes, not riot control.
There was a notable incident in Houston (or was it Dallas) where a policeman was killed by a sniper. But it turns out that the shooter had absolutely nothing to do with BLM. And in fact, up until the time the shots rang out, the demonstration was completely peaceful.
Freder: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Lefties and the Bible. Bwahahahaha! Whenever I post on a lefty site I am called a "MAGA" and subjected to vitriol and hatred with no reference to any points I have made. Conservatives do very little of that Freder may feel that what happens here when commenters point out correctly his math errors and other mistakes in his arguments, but is isn't the same. We do think that he, like all lefties, is ignorant, but that doesn't bring Matthew 7:3 into play.
and the numbers of dead officers have risen consistently for the last three years, if i didn't know better, I would say you are glad at the dead cops, or as you would call them pigs,
Solid citizens. But they look like a bunch of drunks to her. But since the MAGA types are known for leaving a rally site cleaner than they found it, it's obvious that they are taking their empty whiskey (and whisky--the drink both Scotch and bourbon) bottles home with them.
Ah Freder 48 cops dead is "two score and eight".
"I read comments like this and think to myself: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?""
When thy brother is absolutely bat-shit, self-recrimination may have to wait.
Jeez, Freder. This kind of appeal-to-values-I-don't-hold schtick hasn't worked since the '90's. Yet Progs keep trotting it out as if no one has been paying any attention at all.
Yeah, she doesn't like protests, y'know like those icky tea party or MAGA types. Or even worse those "pro-palestine" people.
Gee, where was this column in 2020? The summer of BLM/Antifa and "Mostly Peaceful Protests". Or in 2017 during the Pussyhat march against "Trumpism"?
This is all so fucking predictable. When The Democrats, liberal/left and Globalists are in charge then its "Gosh, all those protesters are so boring". And "whats with all this whining? Shut up and Get a job!".
But when the liberal/left and Globalists are OUT of power and out protesting, then all these "Politics is such a bore" types mysteriously disappear from the pages and screens of the MSM.
The MSM turns these sorts of writers on and off like a water tap. Its all depends on who's in power, what policy is being pushed, and what the "party line" is. Its astounding how almost everything in the MSM/NYT's is like that. Everything can be good or bad, depending on whether it helps the "narrative" or "Pushes the party line".
The only constant seems to be "Antisemitism is always a bad look".
Historical example: its been like that for a long time on the liberal/left. Anyone who didn't understand that it all about following the party line would've been shocked and amazed at flip/flops performed by the liberal/left elite from 1916-1948.
War is terrible - Wilson kept us out of War - 1916
War to great. We need to make the world safe for Democracy - 1917
War is terrible - Arms makers are merchants of Death - 1935
War is great - we need to fight fascism - 1939
War is terrible - we need to get along with Stalin - 1946
War is OK - we need to stop Stalin - 1950
Liberal/leftists put on pacifist or Patriotic World Crusader clothes depending on the party line. Anyone who believed these people were sincere, was played for a fool.
Activism is a substitute for religion and protesting is a sacrament of that religion. It makes so much more sense when you realize that.
I am with the author of the linked article: if it involves crowds, count me out. I am loathe to go to a large concert anymore, even if it's band I've been dying to see. Just can't do it anymore.
the whiskey rebellion was not about drinking whiskey, but about the poor farmers in the mountains who found it hard to export their crops, but if they made whiskey, they could easily export it to the lowlands and sell it for cash to buy stuff and pay the taxes on their land.
They saw the government taxing their whiskey as harming their ability to make a living.
Kate said...
"A better crack would've been: clean-living MAGA supporters hectoring me to pick up my trash. It's more of a Tea Party joke, but it still works."
It's the same people.
I read comments like this and think to myself: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Your lack of self-awareness is astounding. Always has been.
Enigma:
The hostile people were never told "no" and never disciplined and never left their comfort zone, so they can't emotionally handle it.
Psychology is actually the study of self, not the study of the human mind. Any laying of the 'discoveries' onto others is rationalization.
One must admit, Freder can tap dance.
So, the socialist commenters are missing because they're all in a seminar, and nobody told Freder.
When they get back, will they try applying all that new stuff they learned?
Can't wait.
Repeal the Respect for Marriage Act. Civil unions for all consenting adults. Stop the political congruence ("="). #NoBigotry
She writes: Reading about the Whiskey Rebellion made me think of drunken MAGA types sloganeering at a Trump rally about the glory of firearms...."
This shows she is ignorant about the Whiskey rebellion, which was a rebellion against taxing whiskey, not about drinking it.
It was difficult for locals in the mountains to transport crops to the cities to sell for money (to pay taxes and buy needed things). Whiskey was easier to transport and allowed them to make a profit so taxing it was seen as the government trying to make them poor.
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