309 Comments
Commenting has been turned off for this post

How does someone who's from North Carolina and lives in Hawaii know where to be in Florida, at the exact location, at the exact golf course, where Trump made a last minute decision to play golf?

Expand full comment

Yes to The Americans being one of the best tv series ever. I say one of the best because…The Wire.

Expand full comment

Martin Gurri’s “bracing essay” may be the most fatuous drivel I have ever seen on this website. Mr. Gurri, you obviously have the political acumen of the average high school Sophomore, so let me help you out.

When one party weaponizes the legal machinery of the law, both federal and state, to bankrupt and imprison their primary political opponent {Key Study Point>>>} that is BAD. When the same party openly decares their intention to end the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court and end any opposition to whatever laws they pass {Key study point>>>>} that is BAD. Why? Because the goal of such actions is to create a one-party state like we currently have in Venezuela and will soon have in Mexico. That, as you may possibly realize, is also BAD!.

Instead of showing any awareness of the seriousness of this situation you rattle on inanely about people who have “have turned away from the sources of meaning in the private sphere—faith, community, and neighborhood—and gone searching for their substitute in politics.” Clueless doesn’t begin to adequately describe this childish blather.

Mr. Gurri, henceforth please eschew writing about politics. Perhaps you can give us “bracing essays” us on pop psychology or gender studies since anything written on such subjects can never be shown to be either right or wrong.

Expand full comment

My mother had the good graces to breathe her last on Constitution Day, Sept. 17, at the age of 100. Since she had to go, I'm glad she isn't experiencing this particular campaign season as well as this summer's particular Drag season Olympics and this particular woke cult season's attack on actual motherhood. It's been 5 years, and so much easier to compose and read my tribute this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foMsJtQ_gww

Expand full comment

"The 13 percent were casually cruel for the sake of being honest."

Cruel? How about proof of enough brain cells to contaminate a Petrie dish? Like y'all could demonstrate by examining...

“…for the present, no one knows who is in charge of the United States.”

Expand full comment

I'm not certain, but I think that's a reference to the lyrics of one of Swift's songs.

Expand full comment

If so, the probability that I would recognize it as such is exactly zero. All that I know of Ms Swift is that which I have heard; mainly that she's a billionaire because of songs about having made bad choices.

Expand full comment

Exactly why it's not a surprise that she's supporting "HER"

Expand full comment

I don't know anything about her either, and did not understand what was meant by "casually cruel" with respect to Swift's endorsement of Harris.

Expand full comment

The Popular Kids have always had their little Sekrut Kodes. Took me far too long to grok that they're never of any consequence, and generally insulting.

Expand full comment

Yes, definitely not worth wasting time decoding.

Expand full comment

I know Ann Arbor quite well. That happened right next to Fraternity Row.

The city itself has always been a haven for antisemities. Jewish families didn't dare let a Menorah show from the front window - that would invite vandalism in the middle of the night.

When I was in junior high, I knew a kid in the next neighborhood over who didn't "pass". His family didn't hide their Jewishness, and was harassed regularly. He finally agreed to a "fight". They got him down and beat him with a rock. He lost an eye. A 13-year-old kid, living in a middle class neighborhood in a city with one of the highest education rates in the country, was maimed for life because he didn't hide his heritage. The police did nothing because he agreed to "fight".

When I was in college there, Farrakhan was invited to speak on campus. Back then, you didn't argue whether people had the right to speak - you challenged their views. So someone on the Daily wrote an editorial condemning Farrakhan's views. That morning, following the distribution of the paper, gangs of students pushed people aside and took the entire stack of Dailys from their boxes in university buildings and destroyed them. The university administration was silent. The police were silent.

Less than a mile from where that student was assaulted, there's a synagogue in an upscale neighborhood. Every week for decades, there's a "protest" outside that synagogue. A group of antisemites screaming about whatever they think Israel is doing that week, as if being Jewish thousands of miles away is a crime.

City council, after decades of pressure, finally asked them to stop (of course, they didn't). The police have never cared. The students at this internationally-renowned institution, supposedly attuned to defending people from hate over skin color or heritage, couldn't care less.

In other words, Ann Arbor is a hotbed of antisemitism. It's like Boston on a tiny scale. They call themselves "The Harvard of the Midwest", and that could be where it comes from.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this police report is the beginning and the end of this story.

Expand full comment

It comes from the Religion of "Peace". A la Dearborn.

Expand full comment

Dearborn was a cesspool long before any Islamic people moved the region. Think back to Mr. Protocols himself, revered in the area with countless statues and even a "museum".

People back home wonder why I root against the Lions, despite it being the only NFL franchise in operation during the entire Super Bowl era that has never even appeared in a Super Bowl. Well, think of the family that owns the team and even put that jerk's name on their stadium.

Expand full comment

Coming to read these comments every day is just proving Martin and Yuval's points. Americans on the left and the right in general cannot concieve of getting along. As an outsider looking in, it's very clear.

Expand full comment

Ollie namedrops “casually cruel” which seems to be from the lyrics for “Mr. perfectly Fine”

https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-mr-perfectly-fine-taylors-version-from-the-vault-lyrics

Not being Taylor Swift-savvy I took the opportunity to read the lyric and it seems to me that they largely echo the much better Carly Simon song “You’re So Vain” from my college days.

Expand full comment

"A feature, not a bug" has worn out its welcome as fresh, arresting prose.

Expand full comment

"People have turned away from the sources of meaning in the private sphere—faith, community, and neighborhood—and gone searching for their substitute in politics."

Bingo! As the Dems continue working hard to destroy faith, community, neighborhood, small businesses, traditional values, and the American Dream, what else is left? Politics is the new religion, angertainment, and culture. It benefits no one but the elites.

Expand full comment

Chuck Schumer calling for more Secret Service funding is like a Bolshevik asking if his firing squad could get more target practice.

Expand full comment

Do you know what’s an existential threat to democracy? Assassins.

Expand full comment

“How can ‘Justified’ be as low as number five?” How can it anything but number one! For more proof of Graham Yost magic, watch the superb ‘Sneaky Pete’ on Amazon produced by Bryan Cranston and, oh that’s right, Yost was a producer on the sublime ‘Masters of the Air’ as well.

Expand full comment

I can't believe that after two attempts on President Trump's life, Kamala Harris and everyone in the Biden Administration continue to call Donald Trump an existential threat to democracy and liken him to Hitler. Democrats need to understand that those comments are literal dog whistles for every wack-job that takes them seriously. And clearly there is a lunatic fringe on both sides. They are actually putting themselves in dangerous positions as wack-jobs on the right become more and more angry because of these assassination attempts. In addition, members of Trump's Secret Service detail -- the men and women who are sworn to take a bullet for their subject -- they are put in jeopardy as well. Stop the ridiculous rhetoric before somebody gets killed. Argue the policies until the cows come home but stop the inflammatory commentary. Its untrue and it dangerous.

Expand full comment

They fully understand their comments are dog whistles.

Expand full comment

This is awesome:

https://www.ft.com/content/37af2899-3b61-42c8-b359-9ae2e66e9aa4

Israel blows up Hezbollah pagers. Sound on for the video so you can hear the Islamic terrorist/progressive hero crying.

Expand full comment

Martin Gurri's point about people substituting politics for government is a good one.

But I believe the left is to blame for making a god out of politics. They have devoted their lives to political action. They have elevated politicians to godlike status. It wasn't Republicans who made a cult like following around JFK. It wasn't Republicans fainting at Obama rallies.

It has long been Democrats seeking ever more power for government. Republican political involvement has largely been in reaction to the "Leviathan" of government power grab. We are always accused of being the party of no. How bad does it have to get before we see the wisdom of no?

"Standing athwart history, yelling STOP!"

William F Buckley

Expand full comment

The right can thank itself for providing the religious framework around the left's deification of politics and woke ideology, copied directly from its equally disingenuous and morally bankrupt Christian fundamentalism.

Expand full comment
Sep 17·edited Sep 17

I don't understand your comment but I'm not sure I want you to clarify.

Expand full comment

They should definitely not clarify. Blaming Christians for wokeness is ridiculous. No one is forcing anyone to believe or practice anything they don’t want.

Expand full comment

Perhaps you're not old enough to remember when the Christian Right was in ascension after the first inauguration of Ronald Reagan. It was a Bible-based morality that was at odds with late 20th-century human rights. As John McWhorter pointed out in his book Woke Racism, antiracism (I felt, woke causes in general) borrow heavily from the Christian framework, the only religious framework most Americans really know. The cultiness of wokeness is borrowed from Christian fundamentalism, itself, a cultier version of the religion.

Expand full comment

Spare us...

Expand full comment