No one should go to a concert and have to hear a hate fest which is what Macklemore did. Robert Kraft is a proud Jewish man and he wasn’t having this crap any more. Although there is pushback I it’s too damn bad. Suck it up. Jews will not be whipping boys for haters. So you can quit the pearl clutching routine. Macklemore is beyond mere politics. And you should recognize that.
This is an old point that some say is just linguistic. But it is not merely linguistic. It is substantive.
The terms liberal and conservative as used in this post do not have the meaning that they have had for a few generations. Liberals are not progressives; conservatives are not MAGA Trumpers. We (liberals and conservatives) want nothing to do with those usurpers of the parties we once belonged to. Sensible pundits like you have got to stop using those terms to mean what they were never intended to mean. It confuses people.
The last item suggests to me, and not for the first time, that the “liberal” and “conservative” labels have lost whatever coherent meaning they may have had. Let’s take, as an example, “whether to allow homeless people to camp in public spaces.” I am on the old-style left, which I define as strong support for unionization and for health care coverage as a human right. When it comes to homeless people camping in public spaces, I consider it a societal failure that this is where anyone lives, and we need to address it humanely. So, for me, this is not a matter of either allowing or prohibiting camping out in public spaces, but rather a question of what we need to do as a society to address the underlying issues—very often mental illness—that contribute to homelessness. Where I personally come out on this is that such people need to be in supportive housing, not camping out in the public square.
Agree, though based on my personal life experience and work with homeless I would amend “very often mental illness” to “very often mental illness and/or substance addiction.”
I'm going to offer a few contrarian thoughts here. 1) I not only think most polls---nearly all---are wrong, but have absolutely failed to adjust to a) massive new (3m) GOP registrations since November 2024; 2) deportations/self-deportations of about 5 million illegals (of whom, I think, most reasonable people would accept that SOME voted and of those who did vote, they voted D); the 3) massive voter roll purges (again, over 3m---maybe 5---and again disproportionately D voters). When these are factored in, I think polls are off anywhere form 4-10 points in the direction of Ds. Paxton will win by 4; OH (always, always, always underpolls Rs---in 2016, they missed Trump by 8; they missed JD Vance by 4; in 2020 they missed Trump in OH by 4, and so on). So I don't think Husted or Vivek are in trouble. AZ has a 311,000 GOP lead in voter reg. What may be happening as well is that thanks to people such as El-Sayed, Mamdani, Pressley, AOC and others, voters have already internalized a major FEAR FACTOR of Democrats that they will not state out loud, namely that they really do fear that Democrats will be a threat to their lives and families, but can't say so. Rs may be incompetent, lazy, even corrupt, but I do not think Rs are viewed anywhere as a threat to people's lives. We'll see. I was dead on in 2024 (in July of 2024 I said Trump would win with 312 EVs and win the popular vote by 1.5%, and I also called the senate then perfectly (well, I was LOW on the number of Republicans by one). In 2016, in October, I said Trump would win with "Between 300 and 320 EVs." Again, final was 304.
I think you make some good points, Larry. However, I think Trump’s undisciplined antics (Lake Ontario, trade spats, $5,000 if Republicans keep Congress, crypto earnings, etc.) will cost Republicans big time.
The Republicans are going to be murdered in the mid-terms and probably 2028 no matter what Trump does. The brute fact is that enough independents hate both parties, and it's a lot easier to run as an outsider who brings "change" than an insider who has to defend the status quo.
In five or ten years, everyone on the left will pretend they never supported defund the police, (trans)gender ideology, open borders, socialism, rewriting American history, the white fragility thesis, Latinx, hating men, hating Western Civilization and so on.
But they'll gradually retreat and the 2020s will seem like a bad dream. It won't impact elections.
The GOP’s fortunes in November will largely hang on the price at the pump and right now that’s not looking good. Poor candidate choices by the Democrats may still save the Senate for them.
2028 will depend heavily on whether or not the Democrats keep hitting the gas on crazy or realize that Trump light is arguably the sweet spot for the country and moderate heavily. The better the Dems do in November the less I like their chances in 28.
Speaking of gas prices and Iran, I think it's stunning that the same people who put on Handmaid's Tale costumes to go vote in 2024 defend Islam so forcefully.
Getting murdered for not wearing a head scarf = a different and beautiful culture
Not being able to murder unborn human beings = patriarchy
The war isn't going to get any better, Trump really has no way out, and so gas (and diesel) prices will only go up. Perhaps go up by more than anyone thinks right now.
I don't. By the time the election comes and jobless claims continue to plummet and fuel prices drop and Ds continue to be dangerous, "antics" won't matter a whit when you're voting for a congressman.
Even if fuel prices drop, inflation isn't going anywhere. We know this, because that is what the bond market is telling us. And it knows the state of inflation better than you or I or any pundit in existence.
Rates have already risen on both short-term and long-term treasuries, and Warsh and the FOMC have in turn been forced into pledging to hike the Fed's lending rates *more than once* in the next quarter. That does not happen unless inflation is well-entrenched in the economy. And unlike under Biden, this isn't a global inflation--this has all happened domestically, starting with the tariffs and then kicked into high gear by the Iran war. There's no ambiguity about who to blame--everyone knows the culprit resides in the White House.
I agree that the bond market is the judge of last resort. I'm not too worried about the level of rates though. The average rate on the 10 Year over the last 45 years (since 1980) was 5.63% vs. 4.96% currently. We're just returning to normal rate levels. My sense is that Warsh will be an outstanding Fed Chair, but he can't solve decades of deficit spending by Presidents and Congress of both parties.
To me, the Iran war Trump stumbled into is still relatively cheap compared to the alternative of the Shia 12th Imamers having a nuclear device, which they will use. On the other hand, I agree Trump's tariffs have mostly been counter-productive. I think Pete Navarro has the President's ear and there doesn't seem to be anyone (Bessent?) pushing back.
I don't think the polls will be far off, simply because an incredible number of Trump's 2024 voters will stay home (or vote D) this time over his failed Iran war. A long term attritional stalemate is a failure, and his voters are angry about it. And it could get worse - Iran could actually win if they are able to conduct a nuclear test that deters Trump during the lame duck session, before the Democrats are able to cut off funds for the war in January.
Support from Karl Rove is not a good look. Liberals were right about him back in the day and should not embrace him now. MAGA pretty much despises him and that you should celebrate.
Thanks for the link to Jeff Maurer‘s piece. It was interesting, thought provoking, and well worth the click through. I do think he misses one major point. Kraft did seek to ban Macklemore from his venue for something he posted online or said in an interview. He banned Macklemore from using his venue as a platform to spread the modern day equivalent of blood libel.
That being said, I’m not sure going for the ban out of the gate was the best path forward. I believe it’s best to assume ignorance rather than bigotry in this case. It would have been better for Kraft to have offered to screen the film of the atrocities committed against innocent Jewish kids and families on Oct 7th along with presenting the hard facts that prove there is no genocide in Gaza and that Hamas not Israel is responsible for the suffering of Gazan civilians.
Karl Rove? he still around? The worst deep state neo con out there. Democrats can have him, he's terrible.
I'm an independent. Both parties are bad and unworthy to support. I lean republican these days. Democrats are way to out there for me. Too much liberal woke there.
I want to support a party that supports working people, the middle class. Not out there and hasn't been since FDR died. Republicans support money and owners only; democrats support feel good social causes.
> The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas. Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a “heritage America” composed of white descendants of the original European settlers.
All leftists need is to find one Republican who makes a politically incorrect joke and they'll feel justified in their hatred and bigotry for years. At the same time as the Bo French (who???) controversy, a famous rapper called Macklemore performed in a fake Hasidic beard and oversized nose to dehumanize Jews. Ed Sheeran dropped him and now every other opening act on his tour has dropped out.
For the overwhelming majority of conservatives, "heritage America" means Christian values and not secular values (like the Reign of Terror, the gulags, the holodomor, the great leap forwards, Social Darwinism, eugenics, (trans)gender ideology, "abortion is healthcare," defund the police, and open borders).
JMan, I don't know why this needs to be viewed through the red-blue tribal lens. French's remarks were abhorrent -- far beyond a "politically incorrect joke" -- and it's okay to say as much. We can simultaneously acknowledge this and also call out Macklemore's abhorrent takes on the Middle East and offensive cosplay. In fact, most people probably fall in that middle camp. It doesn't have to be either/or.
I think it's also entirely fair to acknowledge that there is a subset of the right that does not share your definition of "heritage America" but rather sees it through a much more identitarian lens. Insofar as that term simply means Christian values, I imagine Rove would largely agree with you. (It's worth noting that he has remained in the GOP throughout the Trump era and hasn't taken the path of many of his old colleagues in becoming a Never Trumper.) But his understanding of this idea seems due to the fact that some of the people who espouse it also see brown people at a football game and don't think, "This is an incredible example of assimilation at work," but rather, "The America I want to see would never look like this."
There is excess on both sides of the spectrum. I'm sure a lot of people think it's worse on one side or the other, but regardless, it's okay to call it all out.
Here is my main point: the primary problem in American politics today is the pure unadulterated hatred leftists (not liberals) have for anyone who disagrees with them. Until our politics has properly recalibrated such that the lefts hatred is simply unacceptable in the public square, it remains the main problem by about 3 orders of magnitude.
1. Your life as a disaffected true liberal doesn't give you much insight into the lives of those who identify as conservative. I hated conservatives and believed them to be racist until I became a conservative. Ironically, because I dropped my "soft bigotry of low expectations." Yet the price of admission was the left's hatred and to be labeled a racist. I've been a called a racist by my liberal friends for thinking - correctly - that it was the left and not Ron DeSantis rewriting American history. I've been called a racist by my friends for opposing "defund the police." I've been called a racist by my friends for supporting ICE and secure borders. I've also been called a fascist by my friends for opposing surrogacy. I've been called a bigot by my friends for opposing (trans)gender ideology. I've been called an oppressor of women for being pro-life.
2. Bo French is a railroad commissioner. Until today, I didn't even know that was a thing. I assumed he was a Congressmen or something important. And yes, it was a politically incorrect joke, just like the comedian's joke about Puerto Rico in the run up to the 2024 election. "Abhorrent" would be something like "I hate black people," or "black people are genetically inferior to whites." If Bo French is actually racist then now that the national spotlight is on him, we'll start to find comments like that. And if we do, I'll then agree with you.
3. Leftists can do things far worse with no repercussions. Here is Jimmy Kimmel in blackface mocking a black athlete's intelligence.
I know you’re a longtime reader of ours, so you’ll be familiar with all of our issues regarding the far left. I wouldn’t say that “pure unadulterated hatred” by them is the biggest problem in our politics, but insofar as there are people who are like that, I’d agree that they’re extremely toxic.
I do think you are selling us short, though. I’m aware that many liberals think the term “conservative” is synonymous with “racist,” and I find that to be inaccurate, ignorant, and deeply counterproductive. I grew up in the middle of the country and have a large extended family, so I have spent a lot of time around conservatives. Most of them are decent people, just as most of the liberals in my life are.
But there are absolutely people who themselves identify with the political right and who possess racist views—who look at a picture of a college football game that contained few white students in it and think that “this isn’t what America should look like.” Just read the numerous stories about college/young Republican groups who members were caught espousing the most noxious kind of racial views; read Rod Dreher’s accounts; heck, just spend a day on X. This is a real phenomenon, and I’m sorry, but the fact that French doubled down after his first tweet and suggested the kids in the photo were foreigners (they were all American citizens and born in America) kinda gives away the game (and I’m the first person to defend irreverent comedy from puritans). There’s a reason why it’s not just people on the left but numerous Republicans in Texas chastising him as well for his comments! (Noah Smith has also documented some of the other things he's said in the past, which one would be hard-pressed to argue exonerate him in this matter: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-anti-american-right)
Look, I think that it’s bad when people lump normal conservatives in with figures like this, and I would say the same thing when others lump normal liberals in with DSA types and illiberal identitarians. (I know you’re not doing that, but you get my point.) But I think our politics would be in a much better state if people all around were more willing to police the excesses of their own side. We do that every day, and I give kudos to the Republicans who are doing it right now.
I became a Christian in 2004 after being raised in a secular family. But even as early as the mid-2000s the writing was on the wall. The New Atheist movement was on the rise--they were true vanguard of Wokism. And you could see the leftist "Bill Clinton was a Republican-lite" crowd growing in power.
I stopped talking about politics at work and basically went underground and into the closet. I worked in IT in a blue state. It's not like I'm in HR or a nonprofit. And being underground you hear how average leftists talk. I also live in a small blue state town that is gentrifying from a Portuguese and Italian working class immigrant community to affluent DINK families. So I get the same talk with neighborhood events.
The idea that there is a small subset of chronically online people driving the hateful discourse is simply false.
> But there are absolutely people who themselves identify with the political right and who possess racist views ... heck, just spend a day on X.
I agree that X and Bluesky are cesspits of hatred on both sides. But the fact is that there are illegal immigrants in the United States. And there are illegal immigrants in universities. It's not beyond the pale of public discourse to point that out, or at least, it shouldn't be. Making a crude joke with no evidence whatever of illegal status is not the kind of politics I'd like to see, but again, let's get the left to drop the "deplorable theory" and then we can worry about spicy tweets.
Right now the left has essentially unlimited power as long as they can find a Republican county clerk in BFE with a mean tweet. They can force every heterodox liberal and non-MAGA conservative outlet into participating in their two minutes in an attempt to create a narrative that MAGA is racist. That's the way its worked since 2012-ish and this approach has broken American politics.
I notice that you didn't have a problem with Macklemore performing with a Hasidic beard and large prosthetic nose. How is that not a hundred times worse than Bo French? I suppose you could say that he's an entertainer but the left has gone after a million conservative entertainers
> I would say the same thing when others lump normal liberals in with DSA types and illiberal identitarians
The problem is that there aren't many "normal liberals." Democrats just take marching orders from MSNBC, NY Times and Vox. And since they are ideologically captured by leftism, it means the vast majority of Democrats are leftists.
Consider for a moment that with the pieces you’re choosing to promote you are essentially arguing that a politician should be cancelled for posting a single off color joke online, while an entertainer should be allowed a platform to continually promote the modern equivalent of blood libel.
Thank you! That's the point I was trying to make but not quite able to articulate.
Welcome Stack on Macklemore: "But I’ve long felt that we’re better off letting people say just about any intensely stupid thing that they believe. "
Welcome Stack on Bo French's far milder take: "There are “just asking questions” Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots."
No one should go to a concert and have to hear a hate fest which is what Macklemore did. Robert Kraft is a proud Jewish man and he wasn’t having this crap any more. Although there is pushback I it’s too damn bad. Suck it up. Jews will not be whipping boys for haters. So you can quit the pearl clutching routine. Macklemore is beyond mere politics. And you should recognize that.
This is an old point that some say is just linguistic. But it is not merely linguistic. It is substantive.
The terms liberal and conservative as used in this post do not have the meaning that they have had for a few generations. Liberals are not progressives; conservatives are not MAGA Trumpers. We (liberals and conservatives) want nothing to do with those usurpers of the parties we once belonged to. Sensible pundits like you have got to stop using those terms to mean what they were never intended to mean. It confuses people.
Two things can be true:
- MAGA is much closer to the conservative Democrats of the 90s than Reagan
- MAGA is far more conservative than the Democrats of today
Did you mean “than Reagan was” or “than to Reagan”?
I think both might be true, and both are certainly compatible with your second item. But I’m curious.
"Than to Reagan."
MAGA is quite close to conservative Democrats of the 90s. They're pretty far to the left of Reagan.
The last item suggests to me, and not for the first time, that the “liberal” and “conservative” labels have lost whatever coherent meaning they may have had. Let’s take, as an example, “whether to allow homeless people to camp in public spaces.” I am on the old-style left, which I define as strong support for unionization and for health care coverage as a human right. When it comes to homeless people camping in public spaces, I consider it a societal failure that this is where anyone lives, and we need to address it humanely. So, for me, this is not a matter of either allowing or prohibiting camping out in public spaces, but rather a question of what we need to do as a society to address the underlying issues—very often mental illness—that contribute to homelessness. Where I personally come out on this is that such people need to be in supportive housing, not camping out in the public square.
Agree, though based on my personal life experience and work with homeless I would amend “very often mental illness” to “very often mental illness and/or substance addiction.”
Good point, thanks for noting that.
I'm going to offer a few contrarian thoughts here. 1) I not only think most polls---nearly all---are wrong, but have absolutely failed to adjust to a) massive new (3m) GOP registrations since November 2024; 2) deportations/self-deportations of about 5 million illegals (of whom, I think, most reasonable people would accept that SOME voted and of those who did vote, they voted D); the 3) massive voter roll purges (again, over 3m---maybe 5---and again disproportionately D voters). When these are factored in, I think polls are off anywhere form 4-10 points in the direction of Ds. Paxton will win by 4; OH (always, always, always underpolls Rs---in 2016, they missed Trump by 8; they missed JD Vance by 4; in 2020 they missed Trump in OH by 4, and so on). So I don't think Husted or Vivek are in trouble. AZ has a 311,000 GOP lead in voter reg. What may be happening as well is that thanks to people such as El-Sayed, Mamdani, Pressley, AOC and others, voters have already internalized a major FEAR FACTOR of Democrats that they will not state out loud, namely that they really do fear that Democrats will be a threat to their lives and families, but can't say so. Rs may be incompetent, lazy, even corrupt, but I do not think Rs are viewed anywhere as a threat to people's lives. We'll see. I was dead on in 2024 (in July of 2024 I said Trump would win with 312 EVs and win the popular vote by 1.5%, and I also called the senate then perfectly (well, I was LOW on the number of Republicans by one). In 2016, in October, I said Trump would win with "Between 300 and 320 EVs." Again, final was 304.
I think you make some good points, Larry. However, I think Trump’s undisciplined antics (Lake Ontario, trade spats, $5,000 if Republicans keep Congress, crypto earnings, etc.) will cost Republicans big time.
The Republicans are going to be murdered in the mid-terms and probably 2028 no matter what Trump does. The brute fact is that enough independents hate both parties, and it's a lot easier to run as an outsider who brings "change" than an insider who has to defend the status quo.
In five or ten years, everyone on the left will pretend they never supported defund the police, (trans)gender ideology, open borders, socialism, rewriting American history, the white fragility thesis, Latinx, hating men, hating Western Civilization and so on.
But they'll gradually retreat and the 2020s will seem like a bad dream. It won't impact elections.
The GOP’s fortunes in November will largely hang on the price at the pump and right now that’s not looking good. Poor candidate choices by the Democrats may still save the Senate for them.
2028 will depend heavily on whether or not the Democrats keep hitting the gas on crazy or realize that Trump light is arguably the sweet spot for the country and moderate heavily. The better the Dems do in November the less I like their chances in 28.
Speaking of gas prices and Iran, I think it's stunning that the same people who put on Handmaid's Tale costumes to go vote in 2024 defend Islam so forcefully.
Getting murdered for not wearing a head scarf = a different and beautiful culture
Not being able to murder unborn human beings = patriarchy
The war isn't going to get any better, Trump really has no way out, and so gas (and diesel) prices will only go up. Perhaps go up by more than anyone thinks right now.
That would be great news if they really retreat rather than “pretend” and then go back to supporting all those things once elected.
I don't. By the time the election comes and jobless claims continue to plummet and fuel prices drop and Ds continue to be dangerous, "antics" won't matter a whit when you're voting for a congressman.
Even if fuel prices drop, inflation isn't going anywhere. We know this, because that is what the bond market is telling us. And it knows the state of inflation better than you or I or any pundit in existence.
Rates have already risen on both short-term and long-term treasuries, and Warsh and the FOMC have in turn been forced into pledging to hike the Fed's lending rates *more than once* in the next quarter. That does not happen unless inflation is well-entrenched in the economy. And unlike under Biden, this isn't a global inflation--this has all happened domestically, starting with the tariffs and then kicked into high gear by the Iran war. There's no ambiguity about who to blame--everyone knows the culprit resides in the White House.
I agree that the bond market is the judge of last resort. I'm not too worried about the level of rates though. The average rate on the 10 Year over the last 45 years (since 1980) was 5.63% vs. 4.96% currently. We're just returning to normal rate levels. My sense is that Warsh will be an outstanding Fed Chair, but he can't solve decades of deficit spending by Presidents and Congress of both parties.
To me, the Iran war Trump stumbled into is still relatively cheap compared to the alternative of the Shia 12th Imamers having a nuclear device, which they will use. On the other hand, I agree Trump's tariffs have mostly been counter-productive. I think Pete Navarro has the President's ear and there doesn't seem to be anyone (Bessent?) pushing back.
I don't think the polls will be far off, simply because an incredible number of Trump's 2024 voters will stay home (or vote D) this time over his failed Iran war. A long term attritional stalemate is a failure, and his voters are angry about it. And it could get worse - Iran could actually win if they are able to conduct a nuclear test that deters Trump during the lame duck session, before the Democrats are able to cut off funds for the war in January.
Support from Karl Rove is not a good look. Liberals were right about him back in the day and should not embrace him now. MAGA pretty much despises him and that you should celebrate.
Thanks for the link to Jeff Maurer‘s piece. It was interesting, thought provoking, and well worth the click through. I do think he misses one major point. Kraft did seek to ban Macklemore from his venue for something he posted online or said in an interview. He banned Macklemore from using his venue as a platform to spread the modern day equivalent of blood libel.
That being said, I’m not sure going for the ban out of the gate was the best path forward. I believe it’s best to assume ignorance rather than bigotry in this case. It would have been better for Kraft to have offered to screen the film of the atrocities committed against innocent Jewish kids and families on Oct 7th along with presenting the hard facts that prove there is no genocide in Gaza and that Hamas not Israel is responsible for the suffering of Gazan civilians.
https://spencerguard.substack.com/p/israel-is-not-committing-genocide
Karl Rove? he still around? The worst deep state neo con out there. Democrats can have him, he's terrible.
I'm an independent. Both parties are bad and unworthy to support. I lean republican these days. Democrats are way to out there for me. Too much liberal woke there.
I want to support a party that supports working people, the middle class. Not out there and hasn't been since FDR died. Republicans support money and owners only; democrats support feel good social causes.
> The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas. Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a “heritage America” composed of white descendants of the original European settlers.
All leftists need is to find one Republican who makes a politically incorrect joke and they'll feel justified in their hatred and bigotry for years. At the same time as the Bo French (who???) controversy, a famous rapper called Macklemore performed in a fake Hasidic beard and oversized nose to dehumanize Jews. Ed Sheeran dropped him and now every other opening act on his tour has dropped out.
For the overwhelming majority of conservatives, "heritage America" means Christian values and not secular values (like the Reign of Terror, the gulags, the holodomor, the great leap forwards, Social Darwinism, eugenics, (trans)gender ideology, "abortion is healthcare," defund the police, and open borders).
JMan, I don't know why this needs to be viewed through the red-blue tribal lens. French's remarks were abhorrent -- far beyond a "politically incorrect joke" -- and it's okay to say as much. We can simultaneously acknowledge this and also call out Macklemore's abhorrent takes on the Middle East and offensive cosplay. In fact, most people probably fall in that middle camp. It doesn't have to be either/or.
I think it's also entirely fair to acknowledge that there is a subset of the right that does not share your definition of "heritage America" but rather sees it through a much more identitarian lens. Insofar as that term simply means Christian values, I imagine Rove would largely agree with you. (It's worth noting that he has remained in the GOP throughout the Trump era and hasn't taken the path of many of his old colleagues in becoming a Never Trumper.) But his understanding of this idea seems due to the fact that some of the people who espouse it also see brown people at a football game and don't think, "This is an incredible example of assimilation at work," but rather, "The America I want to see would never look like this."
There is excess on both sides of the spectrum. I'm sure a lot of people think it's worse on one side or the other, but regardless, it's okay to call it all out.
Hi Michael,
I appreciate your comment.
Here is my main point: the primary problem in American politics today is the pure unadulterated hatred leftists (not liberals) have for anyone who disagrees with them. Until our politics has properly recalibrated such that the lefts hatred is simply unacceptable in the public square, it remains the main problem by about 3 orders of magnitude.
1. Your life as a disaffected true liberal doesn't give you much insight into the lives of those who identify as conservative. I hated conservatives and believed them to be racist until I became a conservative. Ironically, because I dropped my "soft bigotry of low expectations." Yet the price of admission was the left's hatred and to be labeled a racist. I've been a called a racist by my liberal friends for thinking - correctly - that it was the left and not Ron DeSantis rewriting American history. I've been called a racist by my friends for opposing "defund the police." I've been called a racist by my friends for supporting ICE and secure borders. I've also been called a fascist by my friends for opposing surrogacy. I've been called a bigot by my friends for opposing (trans)gender ideology. I've been called an oppressor of women for being pro-life.
2. Bo French is a railroad commissioner. Until today, I didn't even know that was a thing. I assumed he was a Congressmen or something important. And yes, it was a politically incorrect joke, just like the comedian's joke about Puerto Rico in the run up to the 2024 election. "Abhorrent" would be something like "I hate black people," or "black people are genetically inferior to whites." If Bo French is actually racist then now that the national spotlight is on him, we'll start to find comments like that. And if we do, I'll then agree with you.
3. Leftists can do things far worse with no repercussions. Here is Jimmy Kimmel in blackface mocking a black athlete's intelligence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uscWBm0l6jE
I know you’re a longtime reader of ours, so you’ll be familiar with all of our issues regarding the far left. I wouldn’t say that “pure unadulterated hatred” by them is the biggest problem in our politics, but insofar as there are people who are like that, I’d agree that they’re extremely toxic.
I do think you are selling us short, though. I’m aware that many liberals think the term “conservative” is synonymous with “racist,” and I find that to be inaccurate, ignorant, and deeply counterproductive. I grew up in the middle of the country and have a large extended family, so I have spent a lot of time around conservatives. Most of them are decent people, just as most of the liberals in my life are.
But there are absolutely people who themselves identify with the political right and who possess racist views—who look at a picture of a college football game that contained few white students in it and think that “this isn’t what America should look like.” Just read the numerous stories about college/young Republican groups who members were caught espousing the most noxious kind of racial views; read Rod Dreher’s accounts; heck, just spend a day on X. This is a real phenomenon, and I’m sorry, but the fact that French doubled down after his first tweet and suggested the kids in the photo were foreigners (they were all American citizens and born in America) kinda gives away the game (and I’m the first person to defend irreverent comedy from puritans). There’s a reason why it’s not just people on the left but numerous Republicans in Texas chastising him as well for his comments! (Noah Smith has also documented some of the other things he's said in the past, which one would be hard-pressed to argue exonerate him in this matter: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-anti-american-right)
Look, I think that it’s bad when people lump normal conservatives in with figures like this, and I would say the same thing when others lump normal liberals in with DSA types and illiberal identitarians. (I know you’re not doing that, but you get my point.) But I think our politics would be in a much better state if people all around were more willing to police the excesses of their own side. We do that every day, and I give kudos to the Republicans who are doing it right now.
Hi Michael,
Once again I appreciate the response.
I became a Christian in 2004 after being raised in a secular family. But even as early as the mid-2000s the writing was on the wall. The New Atheist movement was on the rise--they were true vanguard of Wokism. And you could see the leftist "Bill Clinton was a Republican-lite" crowd growing in power.
I stopped talking about politics at work and basically went underground and into the closet. I worked in IT in a blue state. It's not like I'm in HR or a nonprofit. And being underground you hear how average leftists talk. I also live in a small blue state town that is gentrifying from a Portuguese and Italian working class immigrant community to affluent DINK families. So I get the same talk with neighborhood events.
The idea that there is a small subset of chronically online people driving the hateful discourse is simply false.
> But there are absolutely people who themselves identify with the political right and who possess racist views ... heck, just spend a day on X.
I agree that X and Bluesky are cesspits of hatred on both sides. But the fact is that there are illegal immigrants in the United States. And there are illegal immigrants in universities. It's not beyond the pale of public discourse to point that out, or at least, it shouldn't be. Making a crude joke with no evidence whatever of illegal status is not the kind of politics I'd like to see, but again, let's get the left to drop the "deplorable theory" and then we can worry about spicy tweets.
Right now the left has essentially unlimited power as long as they can find a Republican county clerk in BFE with a mean tweet. They can force every heterodox liberal and non-MAGA conservative outlet into participating in their two minutes in an attempt to create a narrative that MAGA is racist. That's the way its worked since 2012-ish and this approach has broken American politics.
I notice that you didn't have a problem with Macklemore performing with a Hasidic beard and large prosthetic nose. How is that not a hundred times worse than Bo French? I suppose you could say that he's an entertainer but the left has gone after a million conservative entertainers
> I would say the same thing when others lump normal liberals in with DSA types and illiberal identitarians
The problem is that there aren't many "normal liberals." Democrats just take marching orders from MSNBC, NY Times and Vox. And since they are ideologically captured by leftism, it means the vast majority of Democrats are leftists.
Consider for a moment that with the pieces you’re choosing to promote you are essentially arguing that a politician should be cancelled for posting a single off color joke online, while an entertainer should be allowed a platform to continually promote the modern equivalent of blood libel.
Thank you! That's the point I was trying to make but not quite able to articulate.
Welcome Stack on Macklemore: "But I’ve long felt that we’re better off letting people say just about any intensely stupid thing that they believe. "
Welcome Stack on Bo French's far milder take: "There are “just asking questions” Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots."