"Once a thinker begins to conceive of politics as a pitched battle between the righteous and those who seek the country’s outright annihilation, extraordinary possibilities open up."

Writes Damon Linker, in "Get to Know the Influential Conservative Intellectuals Who Help Explain G.O.P. Extremism" (NYT).

A coalition of intellectual catastrophists on the American right is trying to convince people... that the country is on the verge of collapse. Some catastrophists take it a step further and suggest that officials might contemplate overthrowing liberal democracy in favor of revolutionary regime change or even imposing a right-wing dictatorship on the country.... If Mr. Trump manages to win the presidency again in 2024, many of these intellectual catastrophists could be ready and willing to justify deeds that could well bring American liberal democracy to its knees.

Who's the catastrophist here? The writer of this article or the people he's writing about? 

Who is he writing about?

"In a style that mixed a kind of faux-caveman brutishness and message-board pidgin with classical references, Bronze Age Pervert informed his readers..."

"... that 'you don’t see yourself as you really are' because 'spiritually your insides are all wet, and there’s a huge hole through where monstrous powers are [expletive] your brain, letting loose all your life powers of focus.'... The book... was significant because it spoke directly 'to a youthful dissatisfaction (especially among white males) with equality as propagandized and imposed in our day: a hectoring, vindictive, resentful, leveling, hypocritical equality that punishes excellence and publicly denies all difference while at the same time elevating and enriching a decadent, incompetent and corrupt elite.' Bronze Age Pervert regarded the founders’ idea of rights, the very bedrock of the American political tradition, as false.... Conservatives didn’t have to agree with any of this, but they did need to acknowledge that 'in the spiritual war for the hearts and minds of the disaffected youth on the right, conservatism is losing. BAPism is winning.'"

From "How the Claremont Institute Became a Nerve Center of the American Right/They made the intellectual case for Trump. Now they believe the country is in a cultural civil war" (NYT). The article is by Elisabeth Zerofsky, but she's quoting Michael Anton, a Claremont Institute fellow who wrote an essay about the Bronze Age Pervert book.

Should John Brennan be the new Director of National Intelligence?

Dennis Blair has resigned, and Obama says he has "more confidence" in Brennan. Michael Anton looks at some things Brennan has said:

First, in prepared remarks in Washington, Brennan referred to his love for “al-Quds,” which happens to be the Arab revanchist name for the city that the rest of us call “Jerusalem.” This terminology is routinely used by Islamist terror groups to rally the faithful....

[Second, a]t a conference in Washington, he said that the Obama administration is exploring ways to strengthen the hand of “moderate elements” within Hezbollah....

Earlier this year Brennan said that the 20% recidivism rate of the Gitmo detainees released up to that point was “not that bad.” See, he explained, the rate for American criminals sometimes approaches 50%....