executive editor, barbell quarterly: I actually don't mind being challenged by honest disagreement, even from conservatives. so if the times ever finds an honest conservative opinion writer who can write worth a damn, that'd be fine. what i cannot abide is people who lie in the newspaper.

I actually don't mind being challenged by honest disagreement, even from conservatives. so if the times ever finds an honest conservative opinion writer who can write worth a damn, that'd be fine. what i cannot abide is people who lie in the newspaper.

Just took a Times survey. This looks like them trying to justify the strategy of the opinion section: 'We're challenging you with bullshit opinions from noxious people because we want to make you stronger.' Or maybe, as it continued, they are thinking of starting an adventure travel business....

i have very little interest in reading anything written by a fascist because 1) they can't write for shit 2) they have no new ideas and 3) when they do write, all they do is lie anyway

It’s true. The most famous fascist poet is Ezra Pound and his shit is fucking TRASH

Mishima! Mishima could fucking write.

Mishima had the courage of his convictions, if nothing else

I wish more of them did, in Mishima's fashion.

Getting heckled by bored soldiers followed by some amateur bowel surgery? I guess it's easier if you know you have a guy there with a sharp sword to make sure it'll be over soon.

There are of course great writers who were fascist or fascist adjacent. You may or may not like Pound's poetry but he has a lot of new things to say and was highly influential on writers across the political spectrum. T.S. Eliot and Yeats are two great poets that come immediately to mind.

Were these guys actually like Mosley heads or did they just take a cautiously approving view of Benito or Adolf at first I score people more gently if they were ignorant or clearly disapproved but did not realize Hitler was, you know, Hitler (because he hadn't done it yet)

and there are of course many poets who are better than Ezra

Boooooo

aw cmon, that was a Good pun

*applauds*

WAH-HAH

I did include one of Pound's poems in my "make a book with five poems you wrote and twenty by other people" assignment for English class when I was in high school, but in my defense, I was in high school.

Hey man totally get it for high school and college, you read what you’re given, etc etc. I was a big Eliot fan for a while and then wised up

I can say i will happily read a fascists good-faith explanation of their beliefs because the likelihood of such a work existing is about the same as me spontaneously quantum-teleporting through the floor.

But also they’re so boring most of the time. Such squares like at least *try* be entertaining instead of cringy

I watched a interview with Ross Douthat on the Bulwark, not exactly a bunch of leftists, and it's shocking how fucking bad he is at just holding a coherent opinion the moment it comes into contact with any kind of pushback. youtu.be/VGS012F2MbU?...

Could a Brave GOP Have Kicked Trump to the Curb? (w/ Ross Douthat) | Bulwark Podcastyoutu.be Trump wins voters who don't read The New York Times or listen to The Bulwark Podcast, and elite opposition may not be enough to defeat him. Ross Douthat joins Tim Miller for a spirited debate about what the conservative movement gave away in sacrifice to Trump on world leadership, abortion, and democracy. Show Notes: Douthat's recent piece on the pro-life movement: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/opinion/trump-abortion-pro-life.html Send your mailbag questions here: [email protected] Join Sarah, Tim and JVL for a Bulwark Live event in Philly on May 1 and May 15 in D.C. with the George Conway. For information and tickets head to TheBulwark.com/events 0:00 - Intro 1:55 - Speaker Mike Johnson Trying to Pass Foreign Aid Packages 13:46 - Republicans Back Tracking on Abortion 23:31 - How Trump Has Changed Republican Party 33:31 - Upcoming Bulwark Events 34:39 - Douthat’s Ranking of Last Four Presidents 42:07 - Potential Threats from Second Trump Term 🔥 Get 30 days of Bulwark+ absolutely free: https://thebulwark.com/freetrial ------ 🚨 Want to listen without ads? Join Bulwark+ for an exclusive ad-free version of The Bulwark Podcast. For a limited time, we're offering 30 days completely free: https://thebulwark.com/freetrial The Bulwark Podcast: Tim Miller and guests discuss the latest news from inside Washington and around the world. No shouting, grandstanding, or sloganeering. Conservative, conscientious, and civil. Browse episodes and add The Bulwark Podcast to your podcast client of choice: https://www.thebulwark.com/podcast/the-bulwark-podcast/

I appreciate that when asked to rank the presidencies of W, Obama, Trump, and Biden, he immediately assesses Bush as the the most catastrophic by far, and then starts casting about for a reason to put Trump ahead of either Democrat.

I just think, as someone who used to edit comment and now writes it, that 'it's challenging our readers' is just a terrible rationale for publishing something. (In general I think the rationale should always be 'I think this is good', which o/c is not the same as 'I agree with it'.)

I would actually be horrified and a bit upset if the reason for publishing me was that it was 'challenging' - it should be that we think it's good and it will inform, enlighten and entertain our readers!

No-one at the WSJ - where I actually go to read American conservatives - thinks they are commissioning 'challenging' works. They think 'oh, a nice crisp piece from Peggy about Point du Hac'(Sorry, no-one wanted this unsolicited three skeet rant about editing or commissioning comment.)

I'm very grateful for this and I do not consider it a rant. I have found this very useful in thinking about my own work (writing about software market dynamics) and perhaps I err on the side of the challenge. I could reframe as a way to enlighten and inform less pointedly, with more data in context.

Pour one out for George Will. I used to really like him with a bow tie on George Stephanopolus, making some quietly well worded homily about Eisenhower, conservatism and baseball. That guy really was the Sorkin fantasy of a steady republican. And he never turned up on Parks and Rec.

It's the confusion between "enlightening our readers who we assume to have a particular political perspective on the POV of others" with "challenging" isn't it?

Perhaps related to the fiction issue of confusing "explaining how the villain tells themselves they're the hero" with "giving the audience a way to view the villain as a hero"

Yes - the former starts with a point of basic respect for your readers, the second is bizarrely and IMO wrongheadedly aggressive.

I find reading Lionel Shriver's column on the Spectator really challenging (as in "banging my head against the wall" challenging). That's why I almost never do it.

I have come to have a perverse fondness for Ross Douthat in that he can diagnose social problems correctly, but his solution 100 percent of the time is: everyone should get married. I'm glad he loves his wife!

A few years ago, Marc A. Thiessen ran an opinion piece whose title claimed "[v]accinated Americans are more likely to die from a lightning strike than covid" Naturally, he was comparing a yearly risk of COVID-19 death to a lifetime risk of lightning death, even according to his own linked source.

I was so annoyed that I wrote WaPo an angry letter explaining that the title was not an opinion but rather a (false) statement of fact, and that they should issue a correction. And of course they put that in the circular file. Must have been some alternative facts I guess.

My favorite line is "You are more likely to be shot in the face by Dick Cheney than killed by a meteor strike." It was true at the time. Now we know of people who have died by a meteor strike.

I have had productive discussions with conservative people even when they've held opinions I find repugnant (like someone who genuinely held a consistent pro-life position). The Times is just hacks who've crowned themselves the defenders of civilization.

If you replace "Challenges me" with "Makes me mad" it's obvious that what they're doing is retroactively justifying outrage-driven engagement

"See??? People LIKE it when we make them mad!!"

They know anger is addictive, and the first one is free.

my theory is that libertarians are the best conservative writers because they tend to approach things from first principles rather than immediate partisan gain, so even when the conclusions are quite reactionary they're more comfortable exposing their premises

Honestly, I want fewer pundits and more analysts -- that is to say, more folks like Paul Krugman, people who have some kind of knowledge or expertise I lack, and write about the world through that lens. I have never been clear as to why I should care what Douthat or Chait think about things.

It's what I fondly remember as an INFORMED opinion.

Gail Collins tried to get Bret Stephens to name a theoretical climate policy he might support some day and he couldn't do it. Even under duress from their own colleagues, they're just kind of stupid and / or acting in bad faith.

I actually don't want to read any opinion pieces in the newspaper. Challenging, well-written, agreeing, any of it. I look at the news for news.

The whole thing depends on conflating the meanings of the word "challenge." Thing that are difficult for me can make me a better, stronger person - although sometimes they just make me give up or train me to learn bad habits...

But having someone dispute my ideas and beliefs does NOT have inherent value. The idea that I need to carefully listen to ideas EVEN IF THEY ARE BAD is an implicitly conservative talking point. Some challenges to beliefs are good, but it's not inherent to the act of "challenging."

It's like saying "painting my house makes it prettier." Well, it could, but there are other ways to make your house prettier, and there are ways to paint your house that don't make it prettier.

their right wing opinion writers are just profoundly unintelligent people with no interest in attempting critical thinking. if they had a capacity for shame they would be embarrassed to weigh down people like bouie and mara gay.

you could argue that the Tom Cotton editorial was good in a way because despite the fact that it was obviously bullshit, it was straightforward bullshit that didn’t try to obfuscate the goal of violent fascism

That argument would be weakened (but not destroyed) by their later admission that they actually edited it (with his approval) to tone it down 😬

I don't like being lied to, but I figure that someone who tells me a carefully thought-out, detailed, plausible lie at least shows some respect for my intelligence. So many of these right-wing clowns just spew transparently obvious bullshit, adding insult to injury.

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