BUBBLE BOY.

if you don't know what it's like to drive a truck, you ain't a real U.S. male, sez tough guy Sean Davis of The Federalist. Davis' angle is that "A Bunch Of Journalists Freak[ed] Out After Being Asked If They Know Anybody Who Drives A Truck." In this case "Freak Out" means they asked, upon being questioned as to whether they owned a truck or not, what owning a truck has to do with anything. This Davis interpreted to mean that reporters are "the most cloistered and provincial class in America" and live in a "liberal media bubble." Davis neglected to mention what sort of truck he drives, what sort of loads he hauls, or if his rig is equipped with a CB and a jaker breaker.

Actually, turns out he's not talking about big rigs, but about Silverados and Tacomas and other such Canyoneros one sees driven by accountants and middle managers all across the fruited plain. But I suspect that is, as the saying goes, central to his point. Davis also lists a bunch of Twitter responses which he portrays as evidence of his thesis; in one of these, Jose A. DelReal says yes, he has a truck "b/c I'm from Alaska. Do any friends own one in DC or NYC? No, because they're unnecessary here." Davis' response: "This person writes for Washington Post and just missed the entire point." That point, apparently, is that in order to be unbubbled and in touch with the Real America you must have a truck, not because you need it, but because lots of Americans have them whether they actually need them to do actual hauling or not, just as many Texans wear cowboy hats whether or not they ever rode herd, or many conservatives revere the Confederate flag whether or not they ever faced the Union Army in battle.

In other words, it's purely symbolic, like a weekend boho's beret or a hipster's lumberjack threads. The only reason to treat the Chevy Silverado with more respect than a lumbersexual's duds or any other fetish object is to communicate to other pencil-neck types that you, and not they, are In Touch with the Common Man. Davis, his bio explains, is a former economic policy adviser to Gov. Rick Perry, CFO of Daily Caller, and chief investigator for Sen. Tom Coburn, and holder of an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School, so maybe he needs a truck to put it over. If that doesn't work, maybe he can add a pair of truck nuts. If that also fails, maybe he can resort to other traditional imagery. But doesn't all that posing get tiresome after a while?

UPDATE. Tweaked this to make clear that Davis is talking about suburban-dadmobiles. "I thought he was talking about driving a tractor-trailer!" says Frank McCormick in comments. "Shoot. Does he know that a Ford F-150 actually has automatic transmission and, other than a slightly more of a challenge in parallel parking, drives just like a car? What a sissy!"

Also in comments (which are well worth a visit) are several suggestions for a Wingnut Bubble Test, which might be worth formulating sometime, notwithstanding that such scams are much easier to put over on the other side. Questions might include: Have you ever...

• taken public transit to work?
• met a Muslim (protesting at a mosque doesn't count)?
• "strolled through the alleged 'no-go' zone of east Dearborn so feared by the wingnut community for its demonic Shariah law and roving bands of swarthy terrorists?" (h/t trex)
• Eaten a vegetarian meal because you were in the mood, not because you were too sick to keep meat down?
• Read a book for pleasure?

 I could use some more suggestions in comments.

NUTSY NAZI TIME.

It's turning into old home week at alicublog, and mainstays like Rod Dreher and The Federalist are always good for holiday cheer. But let us not sleep on Roger L. Simon, kingpin of the PJ Media empire, who in his occasional waddles to the mike always says something sensational, and this week is no exception:

Are Europe's 'Extreme Right' Parties Really So Extreme?

If you're curious to hear what Simon thinks of Jobbik's call for a ban on all immigration in Hungary, or of the overtly fascist Golden Dawn in Greece and People's Party in Slovakia, apologies, his handlers have steered him toward three more telegenic/less ostentatiously jackbooted entities: UKIP, which he thinks is all about "local democratic rule"; Geert Wilders, a notorious bigot but only against Muslims, hence MSM-friendly; and Germany's AfD, which has recently started slowly to de-Nazify itself, which may explain Simon's sangfroid ("my knowledge [of its extremism] is not first hand, but I am skeptical") -- or maybe he's heard that many of the new neo-Nazis are trending pro-Israel and figures, hey, let bygones be bygones.

So he doesn't see what's so Nazi about these guys -- but...

The irony of ironies may be that the true heirs to the Nazis are the Merkels of the world, not the AfD, etc. While not Hitler-like in mass murder and megalomania, not to mention all the master-race insanity...

(Because that's not the important part of Nazism.)

...they do share a background with the genocidal dictator -- socialism. The Nazis were the National Socialist Party.

Like Jonah Goldberg, Simon thinks libtards are the Real Fascists; unlike Goldberg, he doesn't even dimly perceive what a hash of that theory the election of Trump makes.

That Merkel is East German is not accidental.

Similarly, Trump can't be a fascist because like FDR he's a white American. Then, a kill-Mozzies close and it's off to his weekly fedora-reblocking. So much for linking arms against fascism, guys; guess we'll have to do it ourselves.

TODAY'S ASYLUM TOUR.

The kids at The Federalist are on fire lately, but I know you guys are busy with Christmas shopping and fighting the patriarchy and whatnot, so I boiled down a couple of their recent offerings for you:

2016: The Year The ‘Alt-Right’ Breached The Moral Quarantine On Racism. Robert Tracinski quotes himself on how the alt-right is the left’s fault because they accused less-racist-than-the-alt-right people of racism, sort of like how people who bring charges against burglars are responsible for Bernie Madoff because with their nitpicking they discredit the whole concept of theft. Tracinski is thus able to admit that his own party nominated and elected “a candidate whose entire campaign is penetrated by the Aryan Nation” because it’s neither his fault nor any skin off his ass.

It’s Going To Take Men With Guns To Stop The Suburban Deer Uprising. I’ll just quote John Daniel Davidson’s closing -- you can pretty much reverse-engineer it from there:

In any case, we’d all better get used to hunting and eating more deer. If not, we’d better get used to them crashing through our windows and breaking down our doors. The deer uprising has begun.

Now That Trump Is President, Can The Left Finally See How Much He Has To Offer Us? Sean Lester is a “member of the political left” who chooses to address “my own supposed half of the spectrum” at The Federalist because as the old saying goes, if you’re hunting for ducks you ought to go somewhere where all they ever do is bitch about ducks. Lester reminds liberals that Trump has gay friends, is anti-TPP etc., and not to worry about all his other stated intentions that horrify liberals because he’s “dishonest” (about the horrifying stuff, not gays and TPP — that you can trust him on). And to those worried about Trump’s nightmarish transition and cabinet picks, Lester says, “don’t ignore, however, that he brought on Elon Musk,” so if Trump destroys the planet you might be able to book a SpaceX ticket for Mars.

Dear MTV: Telling White Guys What To Do Just Provokes Racism. The Tranciski article run through the Urban Dictionary filter.

Maybe It’s Time To Redefine What It Means For Women To ‘Have It All.’ Grace Olmsted works, yes, but she’s a good mommy, as you can tell because she talks about how good a mommy she is, not like you bitches and skanks.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

Jesus and Mary Chain meet Galaxie 500. Nice.
(That reminds me, J&MC have a new one coming.)
•   Guess what, future Social Security beneficiaries -- looks like the Republicans plan to cut your benefits. Like the man says, take a peek at Table B2 of this letter from the SSA Chief Actuary, estimating the impact of the GOP’s Social Security Reform Act of 2016 -- which, I remind you, faces no meaningful obstacles once Trump is in office. Find your AIME (you can calculate it here), then look on the table for the Proposal Schedule Benefit/ Percent of Present Law relevant to yours and see how you'd be affected. Seems like most of us except for the lowest earners with the already-lowest benefits will take a haircut. Make America Sleep on a Grate Again!

•   Maureen Mullarkey, last examined here for her contention that we only countenance abortion because we want fetal tissue to make us immortal, has got with the New Age and sold The Federalist one of those you-artists-are-only-making-us-love-Trump-more stories. The record-scratch here is Mullarkey herself is an artist, she says, though she doesn't seem to like other artists, particularly young ones, sniffing that "second-year MFA students are invited to a 9-day frolic dubbed 'Barefeet and Birthday Suits: MFA in Berlin'" while she toils in her lonely cold-water atelier without even clothed-and-shod love from the cognoscenti. Subheds include "Your ‘Education’ Consists of Indoctrination" and "I Thought Artists Were Against Censorship." She is especially mad that "Trump’s victory has affected even the artists’ listserv I belong to" -- they all talk about how bad Trump is and artists' complex Westbeth even suggests they "donate to four recommended charities. The character of Westbeth’s policy preferences is clear in their selected endorsements," Mullarkey notes with disgust: "Planned Parenthood; the Ali Forney Center for gay and transgender teens; God’s Love We Deliver, a service for HIV/AIDS patients; Cabrini Immigrant Services, a boon companion to illegal aliens seeking social services." Gross, right? Mullarkey apparently has enough brains not to flame her fellow painters where they can see it, and instead vents for the more appreciative wingnut crowd under the subhed "You’re Fueling Trump Again, People":

Here is a pitch-perfect sample of the elitist self-regard that contributed to Trump’s victory. The writer, a painter, takes for granted his own rectitude. He also assumes his audience is equally offended by an election that went against the grain of worthier preferences. Worthiness, you see, is a natural result of intellectual superiority. It comes with those special gifts and unique strengths unavailable to lesser sorts.

How different that is from the Trump voter, who thoughtfully considers the equality of all creatures and respect for the viewpoints of other before pulling on his "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirt and going out to harass Muslims.

TODAY IN WINGNUT WHINING.

Sean Davis of The Federalist says the evil libtard media doesn't care about the fires raging in Gatlinburg and elsewhere 'cause it's only crackers getting burnt:

Ravaged by months of drought, huge swaths of the southeast United States are on fire, but you wouldn’t know it judging by national media coverage... 

The lack of rainfall has led directly to the scores of fires currently burning throughout the South. 

The scene in Gatlinburg is nothing short of terrifying... 

But because it’s not happening in New York or D.C. or Los Angeles, it doesn’t really count as news. When a few snowflakes begin to fall in Washington, it’s a national emergency. When Los Angeles has a lot of traffic on Thanksgiving, it requires an international APB. But when tens of thousands of acres are burning in the South following months of drought, it barely warrants a shrug.

So what does Davis care? I keep hearing that the MSM is discredited and full of lies, and real patriots only watch Fox and read hate sites.

I opened up Google News and saw this at the top of the page:

Also, if you look up "georgia fire" or "tennessee fire" on Google News you get hundreds of thousands of references at present. They're not mostly from Hillarypedophile.com and nazifrog.net.

Oh, just for grins I looked up "fire" on the front page of Breitbart.com. I got "Theismann: Fire Any GM Who Trades for Tony Romo," "Levi Strauss: Do Not Bring Your Legal, Concealed Carry Firearms Into Our Stores," and "Top Cleric Criticizes Egyptians For Rejoicing At Israeli Forest Fires."

And you know what's eating up Breitbart's front page right now?

Apparently Breitbarteers, enraged that Kellogg's stopped advertising on their site, are tweeting pictures of their Fruity Pebbles and Frosted Flakes in the garbage so people will know they're serious. Why doesn't Breitbart tell their readers to send their cereal to Gatlinburg instead? At the very least they can try dropping it on the conflagrations from helicopters; given the texture of the stuff, it'll probably work just as well as that foam they normally use.

No pleasing some people, though I guess they get something out of being displeased.

UPDATE. From comments, Jimcima:

The scene in Gatlinburg is nothing short of terrifying....but when tens of thousands of acres are burning in the South following months of drought, it barely warrants a shrug. 

And that fire is barely half the size of just the last fire we had to evacuate from where I live in San Diego. 

Before that? 

The Cedar Fire burned 280,000 acres, which is 17x bigger than the Gatlinburg fire. It killed 26 people and we lived in the parking lot of the local high school for almost a week. 

I don't recall the national news coverage but I distinctly remember commenters on conservative websites saying how "stoooopid" we fucking Californian fruits were for living in a wildfire area.

MINE, BY THE RIGHT OF THE WHITE ELECTION.

The Federalist cheerfully declares:

This Election Marks The End Of America’s Racial Détente
Jamelle Bouie is right about one thing: the racial social contract we’ve had is over. Whites aren’t content to let everyone but them get special treatment any more.

Wondering WTF? Got you covered: The article is by David Marcus, who had previously regaled us with "How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism," in which he complained that black people were inexplicably harshing on his white brothers and sisters:

What is new is the direct indictment of white people as a race. This happened through a strange rhetorical transformation over the past few years. At first, “white men are our greatest threat” postings tended to be ironic, a way of putting the racist shoe on the other foot. They were meant to show that blaming an entire race for the harmful actions of a few individuals is senseless.

Then the tenor changed. What started as irony turned into an actual belief that white people, specifically white men, are more dangerous and immoral than any other people. Loosely backed up by historical inequities and disparities in mass shootings, this position has begun to take a serious foothold.

Marcus went on to warn us that if blacks didn't cut it out, him and his honkies were going to get "tribal" on them. From the new column, it would appear he thinks the Trump election proves Der Tag has come. At first he moons over Jamelle Bouie's "White Won" election post-mortem with the performative empathy of David French or Rod Dreher mooning over Ta-Nehisi Coates, then catches Bouie's observation on American whites and blacks that "I thought this meant we had a consensus. It appears, instead, that we had a detente." Darn right, says Marcus:

The rules of the deal were pretty straightforward. For whites, they stated that outright racist statements and explicit appeals to white racial identity were essentially banned. Along with this, whites accepted a double standard about the appropriateness of cultural and political tribalism. For obvious and reasonable historical and economic reasons, black and brown people explicitly pursuing their own interests was viewed differently than whites doing the same thing.

Finally, the answer to the ancient "how come they can say 'nigger' and we can't?" riddle! But when Trump got away with racist shit in broad daylight, says Marcus, that showed "the white acceptance of legitimate racial double standards had dissipated, and without it the détente could not stand." And that's because black folk got out of hand, and started "calling everyone a racist" -- white people got pissed and now you people have to accept their terms. These terms are left vague -- some bullshit about listening to each other, which probably means no more kneeling at ball games, and definitely no getting upset about an elected official cheering the idea that Michelle Obama is an ape -- come on, we let Chris Rock make fun of the way we talk! Marcus attempts to sweeten the deal with some poetry:

The détente was far from perfect. It often allowed quieter racism to lurk unchallenged. In some ways, it was a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. But Band-Aids have a role to play in treating bullet wounds...

Yeah, this guy should definitely be at the table for the negotiation of the New Detente, right next to Attorney General Rudy Giuliani.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

Current mood.
•   Last Friday I mentioned a long-distance diagnosis of the allegedly dying Hillary Clinton by one John R. Coppedge, M.D., of Texas, every bit as ridiculous as previous long-distance diagnoses of Barack Obama I'd seen in crappy wingnut sites, but in this case published by the respectable D.C. tipsheet The Hill. Well, now look what The Hill is cooking:

Clinton’s sixth nerve palsy: What difference does it make?
By Zev Shulkin, contributor

This put in mind of Daniel Plainview crying "I am the Third Revelation!" The Sixth Nerve Palsy hath oped the Seventh Seal! Shulkin, "an ophthalmologist in Dallas, Texas," saw Clinton on the TV in 2013 when "Clinton appeared before Congress with thick glasses" and noticed "the left lens of Hillary’s glasses appeared hazy and a close-up of her black frames revealed a sticker with vertical lines. That sticker is commonly used to manage diplopia or double vision," leading Shulkin to "surmise from looking at the direction of the lines on Hillary’s glasses, that Clinton developed a sixth cranial nerve paralysis or palsy as the result of her fall" that year. No wonder she did so badly in the debate on Monday! Next week: The Hill finds a guy who can do EKGs with his personal Mind-Ray (patent pending).

•   Here's a screenshot of what appears at the top of disqus' alicublog comments section when I go to it:

I realize these come-ons are to a great extent tailored to me, or rather to an algorithm's idea of me and my interests based on what my internet usage reveals -- mainly that I'm an old white man who visits a lot of rightwing sites. I include this because it suggests, in its poetic way, the reason why Trump and his enablers are hammering on about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. People say Trump's obsessed with her and maybe out of control but -- at the risk of sounding like my more Scott Adams-ish friends who think everything Trump does is 12-D chess -- I think his logic is more like the logic of this advertising: That old guys like me are susceptible to the cheesiest, most LCD appeals, especially when it comes to women, and would be swayed by a story about this hot chick who acts all la-de-da and deserving of respect but she's really not because she was in a porn film -- well, okay, just Playboy magazine and a reality show, but don't worry, we'll find the good stuff if we keep looking! In other words Trump and his people, like the people behind this advertising, have a very low opinion of us, and offer us the opportunity to confirm it by electing him.  I think this is closer to the mark than most of the essays about what sub-classification of authoritarian Trump is.

•   Time for one more -- how about this doof from The Federalist? He's sort of Reform MRA -- that is, he accepts all the men-want-polygamy, women-want-hypergamy, alpha-males-get-all-the-trim red pill guff, a la:

If a man’s social status in its various incarnations plays a prominent role in his attractiveness to women, then a man’s promiscuity indicates that many women have recognized his social status. This effectively raises his standing further...

...but rather than portray this knowledge as secret wisdom with which dorks can get laid, he argues for the Restoration of Virtue, because he's moral, see, and thinks it's terrible that Young People Today are having sex, and assumes it's all very sad sex on account of a book he read, but doesn't like the implication that the girls are the "victims" of this very sad sex. In fact, he clearly thinks what's needed is more female victims:

In other words, any mutually beneficial bargain would have to restore chastity, slut-shaming, and early marriage while ending no-fault divorce... 

In the absence of the civilizing power of marriage and family and the virtue of chastity that facilitates it, it girls will always choose those boys to pursue, and the cycle will only ramp up as long as society overlooks this antisocial behavior of the girls because sensible people are afraid of being labeled misogynists for calling it out. 

If we want this ugly situation to change, then demanding more from boys while simultaneously disincentivising them from offering more is a losing proposition. The only viable time-tested option is to reverse course and begin recovering what we, as a society, have lost. 

We need to begin respecting men again. We need to recover the virtue of chastity even if it happens to make a slut feel ashamed...

Ugh. I never thought I'd say this, but at least the straight-up MRA guys seem like they're capable of enjoying themselves.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

This guy will be among the many acts at the Sounds of Freedom kickoff
for the Museum of African-American History and Culture this weekend.
Fun, ain't it?
•  You may recall in the column recently I reviewed rightwing distance-diagnoses of Hillary Clinton. There's a new bit, in (get this) The Hill by one John R. Coppedge, a politically-active "general surgeon from Texas" who saw Hitlery on the teevee and has determined that she has a condition known to the medical community as Questions Remain Brain Damage Vote Trump. I have never noticed anything particularly weird about her eyes, myself, but the video freeze-frame at the top of the story looked alarming. Turned out it was from a Conan O'Brien skit.

In 2014 Conan O'Brien did a spoof of Hillary Clinton's interview with Diane Sawyer about her lack of lingering health issues following her 2012 concussion. In an obviously photoshopped version Clinton's eyes are made to oscillate crazily. 

It was a very funny piece. Now, it may not seem so funny.

Then he links to one of those look-at-these-milliseconds-of-speech-in-super-slow-motion videos beloved of internet detectives. Why didn't The Hill put that at the top of the article, given that it was offered as evidence by the good doctor, instead of the skit? I think I can guess: Fronting this very serious analysis with the sort of thing your crazy Uncle Earl posts on Facebook would make it look unserious; a glossy fake is more in line with the appeal they're hoping to achieve -- maybe some viewers will come away thinking Hillary's eyes actually did that in a news interview. And that feller who showed it? He was a doctor! Ha, libtards, now who's anti-science? I tremble when I consider that we may have only the thinking people of America behind us.

•  It has been suggested to me that this thing by The Federalist's Daniel Payne about Hillary Clinton on Zack Galifianakis' Between Two Ferns webshow -- called "Zach Galifianakis Had A Responsibility To Challenge Hillary. He Failed" -- is a satire of the hard time Jimmy Fallon got over Trump. I disagree, for three reasons:

1. Satire is funny.
2. Rage at popular entertainers is a Pillar of Conservatism, and the bretrhen have flipped out over Between Two Ferns in the past.
3. I've read Payne's stuff before -- including his attack on the socialism of school lunches, and "Girl Scout Cookies Prove We Need To End Child Labor Laws" -- and I have to say that if his whole career isn't a satire, none of it is.
   

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

Saw Television at the 9:30 Club on Tuesday; they were in pretty good shape.  But they didn't play anything from Adventure, which I love. So here's some of that.
•   Matt Lauer is getting pounded from several directions for aggressively questioning Hillary Clinton while failing to impede Trump's river of bullshit.  One such complaint comes from Jonathan Chait, who says that the problem is Lauer's false equivalence: "television personalities like Lauer... are failing to convey the fact that the election pits a normal politician with normal political failings against an ignorant, bigoted, pathologically dishonest authoritarian..." At National Review Charles Two Middle Initials Cooke leaps on this; Chait has written against political correctness before, he informs us, and that the entertainment industry is full of liberals! Yyyeah, A. Normal Person might respond, so? What's that got to do with a lame journalist letting Donald Trump steamroll him? Because Matt Lauer is more widely seen than your average New Republic writer, says Cooke; hence he is pop culture, and since pop culture is you liberals' fault so is Matt Lauer:

Or, to put it another way: Most people aren’t reading “elite print news sources,” they’re watching mainstream television and going to the movies, and these sources are both teaching them what to think in ways that political-opinion magazines never will. 

Today, Chait is less “may or may not be unfair” and more “horrified.” Why? Well, because now he believes that pop culture — which is just as shallow and dumb as it’s always been; Lauer is no anomaly — is hurting him and his party. And we can’t have that!

Welcome to the club, comrade. 

Because Cooke has a British accent, some people may assume him cultivated, yet he lumps journalism in with "mainstream television" (as opposed to edgy, fringe television like The Five, I guess) and movies, just like your average dumbass culture warrior who takes it on faith that Field Marshall Chomsky Cloward-Piven Alinsky is conducting everything that appears before the public (except some brave truth-tellers like the staff of National Review) in one grand symphony of socialism, and that if one Liberal Cultural Agent does something that fails to advance the cause, all libtarddom is thrown into a tizzy, or at least will be when Charles TMI Cooke calls them out. How a grown man can get through life without apparently meeting an artist and understanding why he does what he does (hint: it's not on orders from Moscow), I can't guess; more evidence, I suppose, that these changelings are raised in vats and educated in Skinner Boxes before being sluiced into their editorial pens and wingnut sinecures.


• To some sad specimens of humanity, everything is politics. At The Federalist Rachel Lu gushes at first over the Minnesota State Fair, where she had the opportunity to display her vegetables, which make her proud if not eloquent ("My tomatillos were bursting with freshness, still wet with morning dew, and packed with the trademark tomatillo tang" -- sounds like a cigarette ad from the 50s) as well as some ornamental gourds, which won her a prize. But then, after the ceremonies, Lu is told that they throw away the exhibits and she can't have hers back. She has an extended fit, and finally reveals that this condition appeared in the rules of the competition, presented to her ahead of time; since she is a member of the Party of Personal Responsibility, this naturally cuts no ice with her:

I had read the rule book. My eyes had passed over those words. If I had back-checked all the numbers, I could have deduced that my display would be peremptorily confiscated against my will. I just made the ridiculous mistake of assuming the rules would make some sort of sense.

When it comes to entitlement, Lu makes Megan McArdle look like Albert Schweizer. But the best part is the inevitable connection of Lu's personal inconvenience with sociamalism:

As a conservative, I do feel a little foolish for having learned the hard way that bureaucratic rules are unreasonable. Hadn’t I read about the Sacketts and their fight with the Environmental Protection Agency? Did I need a personal one-on-one with Clive Bundy to get this?...

It could have been worse. I lost eight beautiful gourds that I grew with my own hands, and gained a salutary reminder that nothing lovely should voluntarily be delivered into the clutches of the state. When bureaucrats are involved, the rules will trump beauty, truth, and human feeling every time. Even at the Minnesota State Fair.

Maybe next year she'll start her own, privatized state fair, safe from the clutches of the collectivist Minnesota State Agricultural Society. The entry fees might be a little higher -- nothing good happens without a profit motive! -- but it'll be worth it because you won't have to follow rules that don't make sense (to Rachel Lu, anyway).

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

I like their sound. h/t @sethdmichaels

•  There can be none more Rod Dreher: Apparently Clay Higgins, a rightwing Baton Rouge character currently running for Congress  ("Looking to be a 'loud, angry voice' in Washington, D.C.," per The Advertiser), wanted to go into Red Cross centers where flood refugees were staying and conduct prayer meetings; Red Cross politely declined, and explained themselves thus:

Is it true that the Red Cross doesn’t allow people to pray in shelters? 

We have been so moved by the outpouring of care and kindness we’ve witnessed among Louisiana residents. At the Red Cross, our priority is also providing comfort to all that reside at our shelters. We recognize and are sensitive to the fact that hundreds of people from different backgrounds are often sharing a large space with limited privacy. It is of the utmost importance that we respect people’s individual needs, backgrounds and beliefs in accordance with our Fundamental Principles, which state that we bring assistance without discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinion. With this in mind, and for the privacy of our shelter residents, we do have policies in place on who can enter shelters to ensure that people have a private, secure place to stay as much as possible. Please know people in the shelters are also welcome to pray and gather among themselves.

Dreher quotes these very words, and responds:

So much for the “Cross” in Red Cross. No wonder south Louisiana people are pissed off at them.

Elsewhere at his blog -- check the caption:

Maybe his whole Benedict Option off-the-grid malarkey will in the long run be a blessing to us all.

•  I see people are debating the efficacy of Hillary Clinton's alt-right speech. I of course am fully on board -- she's adopted my method! I've been telling the world about the very large racist component of conservatism for years, starting from back before they had a fancy "alt" name for themselves. I've also told people how they take small stories like the "knockout game" and inflate them into harbingers of race war, and how more mainstream wingnuts promote such loony ideas as a hi-sign to the neo-Confederates in the back room. I have been vilified for it by VDare and other such like, which is just gravy -- I really do it for the Moscow Gold, and also because I think it's  important that we cut the crap and acknowledge where all their crocodile-tear hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you social welfare and policing policy ideas really come from. Hillary's not all the way there, of course -- her husband was a big part of the bullshit, after all -- but I'm for anything that pushes the ball along.

•  Speaking of the alt-right, D.C. McAllister of The Federalist tells us "It’s important, therefore, to step back and analyze exactly what the truth is about race in today’s politics," and the truth is that conservatives aren't the racists liberals say they are -- in fact, liberals summon racism (or something that looks very much like it) by invoking its name:

Those accusations increased so dramatically during the Obama presidency that I would also add it has created an emotional backlash that has caused many Americans to develop negative feelings toward minority groups. We are seeing much of this negativity expressed in politics today. It is important to understand this development in the right context. It doesn’t stem from white supremacism, but frustration born of racial identity politics...

Polls that show Trump supporters having negative feelings toward minorities reflect this backlash. Unfortunately, too many conservatives have misinterpreted such polling, using those errant interpretations to promote the false narrative that Trump supporters on the whole are racist, when they’re actually reacting to the charge of covert racism and to racial identity politics.

When you accuse someone of racism, how else is he supposed to react but with racial slurs? But that isn't the half of it -- apparently, in addition to making these poor people look racist, liberals are also behind the recent murders of cops, and are coming for Rush Limbaugh and D.C. McAllister next:

Today, the violence is directed against police. Tomorrow, other stigmatized groups will be targeted. The question is, what is all this leading to? What’s the endgame? What happens when you stigmatize a group, negate it, make it powerless, and then blame it for all your struggles? They must be annihilated. 

Boy, I remember when they used to call us sissies -- now we're storm troopers! Well, you live long enough, you get to see all kinds of weird shit. Anyway, on to McAllister's solution:

For conservatives to successfully de-stigmatize their identity, they must do something that is not happening right now. They must unite with all stigmatized out-groups. Everyone who opposes the Left has been labeled by the same brand. To fight back, they must unite, overcoming differences to face a common enemy.

Alas, McAllister doesn't say who those other out-groups are. Maybe it includes people who hate gay people -- excuse me, people who are made to look as if they hate gay people. OK, but what other liberal stigmatees are there? Billionaires who want even more tax breaks? Pretty sure they're already with the conservatives. Oil and gas executives? Ditto. I suppose the real play here is to convince white working class people in general that liberals are denigrating them -- Obama said that bitter-clinger thing once! -- but that'll be stretch, since conservatives are these days busy telling those folks their problems are nobody's fault but their own. You know, it's too bad no one in that movement knows anything about community organizing.

ALWAYS LEAVE 'EM LAUGHING.

"Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions" with Alice Wetterlund and Nato Green is a mildly amusing web video (the bit where a "crisis center" counselor shows Wetterlund a picture of a 10-year-old and says it's "your baby at 536 weeks" is one of the better ones ) which probably renders its greatest sevice to comedy by turning wingnuts into Margaret Dumont. National Review's Ian Tuttle:

It’s extraordinary that this needs to be said, but: Killing a human being isn’t particularly funny. Imagine if the NRA made a sketch called “Comedians in Cars Invoking ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws,” or the Fraternal Order of Police filmed “Cops in Cars Using Lethal Force against Resisting Suspects.”

Hmm, I think I get the analogy he's making: liberals are pro-abortion, while conservatives are in favor of beating and killing black people.

The folks at NARAL probably wouldn’t be amused. And rightly so.

But there’s a particular moral derangement that accompanies abortion. It’s been observed time and again (including by yours truly) that the days of “safe, legal, and rare” are long gone. “Rare” vanished as an aim years ago, and the dancing in the streets that accompanied last month’s Supreme Court decision striking down Texas’s abortion-clinic regulations should mark the official end of “safe” as a goal.

These bitches refuse to feel bad about it! In fact they're dancing! Quick, pass another funerals-for-fetuses law to soothe my rage!

What remains is the hope of a Cecile Richards-designed utopia in which, like Wetterlund’s character in the film, you can order an abortion like a McChicken. (“One abortion, please!”) And, just as important, enjoy it.

This is an apparent reference to the Abortions at Krispy Kreme and Chipotle Act of 2014, muscled through Congress by Hitlery Benghazi.

National Review is so outraged it gave the video two posts! "Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions video is A) not funny and B) based on a lie," claims Tuttle's comrade Alexandra DeSanctis. In fact, she insists, it's easy to get an abortion in America -- well, outside the woo-woo crazy Christianist hellholes, which DeSanctis doesn't mention; she seems to think the joke is about conscience exemptions for doctors, which suggest she didn't watch the video but instead had her preacher read a summary to her. "...procuring abortions anywhere else isn’t good enough for NARAL," she sputters. "Abortion has to be available everywhere." These guys are really working that abortion-everywhere angle; why they aren't adding WHERE MY KIDS CAN SEE IT! I can't guess.

Other wingnuts are catching the fever, some of them trotting out their film criticism chops: "This is a thing that exists. People made it. Watch what they made... They thought this video was funny and informative, apparently," cracks comedy genius Jim Treacher. "It’s terribly unfunny and riddled with misleading statements," tsks Bre Payton at The Federalist -- just like those banana peel gags; banana peels aren't actually that slippery, you know.

Then there are the deep semiotic analysts like Heather Wilhelm at Real Clear Politics. The video has a throwaway where Wetterland, after explaining why she wants an abortion, says "look at that kid" and gestures to some raging child off-screen. “That kid is slapping his dad in the face,” says a horrified Green. Got the bit? OK, attend Wilhelm's exegesis:

Hold your befuddlement, folks: It gets worse. “Also, I mean, look at that kid,” Alice says, gesturing out the window. We hear the sounds of a crying toddler, off camera. This toddler is, at least according to the latest science, a living human being with a heart and a brain and, depending on where you stand, a soul.

“That kid is slapping his dad in the face,” Nato says, in the manner of a man whose own soul has lost its batteries.

“Yeah, we don’t need more of those in the world!” declares Alice. Yeah, girlfriend! We don’t need any more pesky kids! Let’s get rid of them in a vague and unspecified fashion! Oh, but wait a second: My brain just got in the way, because it is larger than that of a stegosaurus. Why are toddlers related to your problem, Alice? You’re not incubating a person, right, so why worry?

Now that's funny! And I haven't even gotten to Wilhelm's extended denunciation of the 536-weeks bit ("For years, large segments of the pro-choice movement vehemently denied abortion involved a human child, or at least avoided that fact. Now, many no longer even try to hide it"). I suggest Greg Gutfeld snap Wilhelm up for "Comedians Raging About Abortion." That ought to give Fox ratings a bump -- at least until 2018, when the last of its viewership dies off. But I'll still be watching, because YouTube jokes come and go, but agitated wingnuts are a joy forever.

COLOR BLIND.

A couple more black people just got shot by cops for what appears to be no good reason, so it's time for conservatives to trot out their usual weak-ass offers of conditional solidarity only so long as nobody mentions the R word in which case everything's off. At National Review Charles C. W. Cooke:

The officer could have been squarely in the wrong, and that would not necessarily render the incident “racist.”

In the same locale, Jim Geraghty:

But for some reason, some will point to this and say, “ah-ha, more evidence that cops are racist and murder with impunity!”

At The Federalist, Rachel Lu really strains to get the dopes who visit her site to accept that maybe not every person of color shot by the police has it coming, starting with the title, "You Don’t Have To Be Black Lives Matter To Support Police Accountability." Well, that's a relief! In 2,000 words, she mentions racism exactly once:

We understand how easily cops can become scapegoats for progressive liberals with an agenda. They deal daily with the grim effects of social breakdown, and when those confrontations take a tragic turn, liberals would much rather blame the “racist” police than acknowledge the bitter fruits of the sexual revolution and the welfare state.

So many innocent people of indeterminate race gunned down, and it's all because of LBJ and Hugh Hefner. Well, I trust we've learned a valuable lesson here; question, if you must and very gently, the police, but never question how good we are to You People.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the Bill Clinton/Loretta Lynch thing and the Hillary Clinton/FBI thing and (mainly) rightbloggers' hysteria at being foiled by The Clenis and Hitlery once again. Like most Americans I'm kinda bored already by the CLINTONS CAUGHT SPITTING ON THE SIDEWALK (BY WHICH WE MEAN THE CONSTITUTION) stories emanating from Wingnut World. But after nearly a quarter century of this shit, even the brethren seem tired of it, too, and that's what I think I caught in this latest round of Clinton Contra action.

Some bonus material for the real-people late-night crowd: Here's some high-class hackery from Stephanie M. Jason at The Hill:

Given the "Teflon ability" of the Clintons to avoid political fallout from past questionable dealings – Whitewater, Chinagate, Travelgate, Monica-"gate", Clinton Foundation’s "pay-to-play" – Hillary’s karma may be catching up with her now.

Translation: We know The Clenis and Hitlery are guilty of something even if no legal or regulatory body has ever agreed — the law of averages is on our side!

Also I had to watch judicial cosplayer Judge Jeanine explain why Hillary was getting away with it this time: Apparently Boss Obama “knew [Clinton] had a private email server, so he is complicit -- and they will not allow a Constitutional crisis where the President of the United States knew about the risking of the security of the United States… Career prosecutors, FBI guys that I know, they’re pulling their hair out…" Maybe it's time Judge Jeanine and Wild Man Kurt Schlichter  and Allen B. West and all the other secessionists took their act on the road and overthrew another wildlife sanctuary!

UPDATE. Haven't had time (thanks to the inevitable post-holiday work-beating) to really examine the rightwing seethe-fest after Hillary got the fuck off, but now that I've had a look-in, all I can say is, between the armchair re-litigators like Joel B. Pollak of Breitbart.com ("FBI PROVES HILLARY CLINTON COMMITTED PERJURY BEFORE BENGHAZI COMMITTEE") and National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy ("FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook"), and screaming mimis like David Harsanyi at The Federalist ("She is above the law. And there is no one to stop her"), it is to LOL. One obvious thing never occurs to them about the Clintons: if everyone thinks they're corrupt, what does it say that people will still side with them against you?

NO, THAT'S NOT WHAT WE MEAN BY BOOBOISIE.

Yeah, so someone told me there was something at The Federalist that --

Men Did Greater Things When It Was Harder To See Boobs

[Blink. Blink.]

While some have made the case that Kim Kardashian and her friend Emily Ratajkowski have made boobs boring, breasts are in fact are so potent that they may be hastening our decline. Breasts and female nudity have always been eye-catching to positively distracting, depending on your sex. The sheer boobitude immediately available either through online porn, Kardashian’s Twitter feed, and Tinder (otherwise known as Uber for boobs) has rapidly accelerated to the point that men have stopped creating because there’s so few obstacles to seeing them.

I won't string you good people along: this really is Amy Otto's argument -- that men aren't sufficiently productive because they can see tits -- and it never gets any less stupid. She eventually gets around to saying people are also having too much actual sex -- naturally, it's basic wingnut theology -- but she sincerely seems to think that looking at internet porn and sex are, basically, the same thing. No, really -- look:

Men also used to marry younger and in larger numbers to lock down their very own real-life woman. Now, why bother doing the decent work of marrying and raising a family if you can swipe right and see a new pair every night?

Beating off is pretty good, Amy, but actual sex with a partner is an exponentially different and preferable experience. Trust me, I've done the research. Otto's proof points for the social ravages of sex aren't so hot either:

Further, take note that the prime age for invention used to be one’s early twenties; often, scientists and other folks were not as productive in later decades.

Yeah, back when life expectancy was 40, people tended to hurry up. Maybe what we should really be doing away with is antibiotics! (Actually we sort of are.)

Now, that is often not the case: “There’s a boom in inventions by people over 50,” John Calvert, executive director of the United Inventors Association, told the New York Times. 

The article she cites is from last year, so who knows, maybe since then a bunch of pre-teens have created snapchat plugins that have bent the curve.

I should leave this ridiculous thing alone, but here's a final mango for y'all:

This may sound a bit Trumpesque, but to Make America Great Again we may need to Make Seeing Boobs Rare Again. Men did great things often in pursuit of women. Eric Clapton, in desperate love with George Harrison’s wife Patti, wrote the famous rock anthem “Layla” in pursuit of her.

Because before 1970 Eric Clapton had never seen a woman naked. Well, at least not a grown woman.

PARDON MY FRENCH.

Are you shitting me:

Conservative columnist Bill Kristol is working to recruit David French, a writer for National Review, as a third-party presidential candidate, CBS News has confirmed.
"A group approached French, he's considering it seriously and is in contact with lots of serious people," a source with knowledge of the effort told CBS News.

I have followed French's career at National Review for years and will just quickly tell you that he's not only against gay marriage, he's also against Griswold v Connecticut, the decision that invalidated laws against contraception ("Is there a single legal doctrine that can stand against the quest for personal sexual fulfillment?" French thundered); that he denounced the widespread mourning of Prince's death on the grounds that "Prince was ultimately just another talented and decadent voice in a hedonistic culture... notable mainly because he was particularly effective at communicating that decadence to an eager and willing audience"; that he has compared Kim Davis, that crazy clerk who refused to sign gay marriage licenses, to "men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox — the men who first put the 'protest' in 'Protestant'"; that he -- well, I'm out of time for the moment, but you can peruse the archive for more if you can stand it. The point is, he makes Trump look like Eisenhower.

UPDATE. I see Kristol's plan to elect David French President of the United States is getting a lot of press, from reputable outlets as well as from rightbloggers. Already there has been some controversy and an accusation of dirty tricks.  T. Becket Adams of the Washington Examiner announces, "Politico reporter badly mangles anecdote about David French's marriage, Iraq deployment." Kevin Robillard of Politico, it turns out, posted a screenshot -- a screenshot! -- of a passage from a Kathryn J. Lopez item on French in National Review that claimed French wouldn't let his wife communicate with men by email or use Facebook at all while he was deployed overseas because "David knew, with his 'stomach clenching,' that 'the most intimate conversations a person has are about life and faith' — and that 'spiritual and emotional intimacy frequently leads to physical intimacy.'" The screenshot is not faked, but Adams claimed Robillard "badly misrepresented" the passage  on the grounds that... well, he has no grounds; maybe he meant it was quoted out of context, but Adams reproduces more of Lopez's story and it doesn't make it look any less weird. I guess Adams means that when a wingnut's own words make him look bad, it's a smear job. (Update: A commenter notes the issue is the implication that Pere French laid down the rules for Mere French, as it was portrayed as a mutual decision. Good point, but still weird, and The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway doesn't make it less weird, raging that the Liberal Media think "David and Nancy French coming out of a deployment with an intact marriage is something we need to highlight and scoff at," whereas Bill Clinton had sex with an intern etc.)

Anyway I don't care about the guy's personal life, I only care about his ideas, which are insane. I'll be back with more, but for now I'll leave you with another screenshot, which I assure you is also not faked:

 

I know, authors don't choose their heds or graphics, but believe me, the article doesn't redeem it.

UPDATE 2. For French newbies, more on his interesting beliefs: After Dylann Roof's racial mass murders in Charleston, French wrote a post called "If One of the Churchgoers in Charleston Had Been Armed . . ." and it's just what you imagine, ending in a Paean to The Gun:

Don’t just carry. Don’t just go to the state-mandated training, buy a weapon, and then forget about it... Practice with a handgun until you can take it from a position of safe carry to active engagement within seconds. Then practice that again until you’ve beaten your best time. Then practice again. And realize that practice isn’t a burden but a joy...

Shudder. When people started feeling creepy about Confederate symbols because of Roof, French offered a qualified defense of the Lost Cause ("We of course agree that the Confederate states should not have left the Union, but it should be noted that the notion of secession was hardly universally condemned, even in the North").

French is also sour on academic tenure because it lets liberal professors teach without getting fired, but doesn't want it ended until he and his buddies are done "overhauling departments" (i.e., stuffing them with conservatives affirmative-action hires). He thinks you shouldn't worry that black people get killed so often by cops because, after all, so many of them are criminals, or at least suspected of crimes. And Lord how he hates them Mooslims.

In short, he's wrong about everything -- sometimes in entertainingly loony ways, but always wrong, which may explain his attraction for William Kristol. Nothing else does, though. The only thing French's candidacy can possibly achieve is the further normalization of the psychosis on the right.  Hmm -- maybe Kristol's smarter than he looks and this was his plan all along?

UPDATE 3. Well, he's got the crucial Quin Hillyer endorsement.

DEMENTIA '16.

That Egyptian river ran through Columbia Heights today:

Don't Blame the Republican Party for the Rise of Trump

Because he's the Democratic nominee presumptive? No. Because he's the nominee presumptive in some other party that isn't the Republican Party? No. Because [throws a handful of dirt in your face, runs]. This may be the worst thing McArdle has ever written. Seriously, look at this:

Or maybe those liberals shouldn't be forgiven so easily. I’ve been pondering these theories -- advanced by everyone from Barack Obama and Harry Reid to Bill Maher -- and the thing is, they don’t make a heck of a lot of sense. They seem to posit a Republican electorate that is, on the one hand, so malleable that the GOP leadership could create the emotional conditions for a Trump candidacy -- and on the other hand, a Republican electorate so surly and unmanageable that it has ignored the horrified pleading of conservative leaders and intellectuals, in order to rally behind Trump.

That there is some bullshit, and not just because what she presents as either-or choices are not mutually exclusive, but also because both the "either" and the "or" are gibberish. GOP voters don't have to be "malleable" to turn from covertly pyscho to overtly psycho: They only needed to suffer through two Black President terms, bookended by the humiliation of George W. Bush (hey, wonder if the Republicans will finally invite him to a convention this year?) and the recent Gay/Trans Apotheosis, for their psycho-sap to rise and run over all by itself.

Neither is there anything weird about the Trumpenproletariat "ignoring the horrified pleading of conservative leaders and intellectuals." Who, aside from some National Review cruise-goers and Inner Circle party donors, has ever cared what Jonah Goldberg and Billy Kristol said or thought? The Republican rabble has always been ready for a true shitheel to step up -- hell, they were hot for President Sarah Palin until she decided to run a safer grift. And before Ronald Reagan's elevation to sainthood, he was just a talking doll with a nice smile and strong appeal to the Strom Thurmond wing of the Party -- which wing never went away, but only got older, grimmer, and mad that they can't say the n-word anymore because of political correctness.

The rest is also crap and who has time, but I will say that anyone who writes "triple-distilled balderdash … high-test twaddle … self-congratulatory swill … nonsense on stilts" ought to be sent to a young-fogey rest home and given plenty of sedatives.

Believe it or don't, McArdle was still out-crazied -- but, less surprisingly, by David French:

The American people need the chance to make a better choice. Given the stakes of the election, to simply leave the race to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is to guarantee a terrible presidency marked by incompetence and cronyism. There is just one hope — however slim — of avoiding this national disaster: America needs a third option.

And at this point, Mitt Romney is the only man who combines the integrity, financial resources, name recognition, and broad public support to make a realistic independent run at the presidency.

Does French actually think Romney has a chance in hell? He has at least enough brain cells left to be sneaky with his answer:

A third-party Romney bid would introduce the chance of a different outcome, giving millions of Americans the important option to choose a man of integrity as their president.

Similarly, millions of Americans had the important option to choose windshield washer fluid over Coca-Cola as their beverage at lunch. It could happen!

But the goo-goo ga-ga winner is David Marcus at (where else?) The Federalist:

How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism

Long story short, liberals are talking about bad things white people do, and how else can a rational honky react except by going neo-Nazi?

White people are being asked -- or pushed -- to take stock of their whiteness and identify with it more.

I see a crying cowboy in Oklahoma, who can't watch TV no more without seeing them Key and Peele fellers talking down His People -- and since you libtards injected race into things, this is forcing the cowboy to "identify with it more." Marcus laments:

This is a remarkably bad idea. The last thing our society needs is for white people to feel more tribal. The result of this tribalism will not be a catharsis of white identity, improving equality for non-whites. It will be resentment towards being the only tribe not given the special treatment bestowed by victimhood.

When we start lynching people, remember who started it! Why must you always provoke us.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the trans bathroom baloney that's been riling the rightbloggers. (The Voice, alas, cut my original title, "Trans Urine Express," and didn't even replace it with "Rightbliggers Wet Themselves Over etc." or the equivalent. Mailer wept! They did a good job on the column, though.)

My instinct is conservatives are taking a flyer here -- the issue is unlikely to sway the masses much, but they can take this opportunity to test some lines for the convention and campaign that might stir certain constituents (you know, morons) to useful outrage.

Their major play, it seems so far, is that Obama's literally exposing little girls to harm of molestation. You can't get more overt than The Federalist's headline, "Obama Threatens Schools: Let Men In the Little Girls’ Room Or Else." It's like grown women don't piss or shit, but merely send their tiny daughters to Obama's Sex Toilets to be mowed down by opportunistic penises. Of course men invade ladies' rooms as it is, without the help of LGBT activists, which the brethren seem to think makes their case. I wonder if they wake up sweating in the middle of the night with the realization that some of the guys in the men's room are gay -- which, by their logic, leaves their little boys (and themselves!) ripe for predation.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

The situation's hopeless. You know it's true.

• Krystle Schoonveld at The Federalist:

6 Reasons To Sext Your Husband

Um.

...There are many reasons you should send your husband pictures of yourself scantily dressed, or racy text messages reminding him of the night before. After all, sex is important in a marriage. It is the physical representation of the way you feel about one another, and it’s fun. Sexting can enhance the experience of making the beast with two backs, and can help your marriage be even stronger than before.

Here's another tip: Stop calling it making the beast with two backs.

1. Foreplay
Are you planning a romp in the sheets later that night?

To do: 1. Laundry 2. Lunch with Jill. 3. Canning. 4. Romp in the sheets. 5. Write Federalist column. 6. Me-time!!!

Sexting him during work, or perhaps on his way home, will prime him for the event.

"Went right through the crossing gate just as the train was coming, Detective. We found this on his phone."

Lucky for you, there is a good chance he will reciprocate with hot texts and pictures.

"What're you doing, Len?" "Taking a dump, same as you." "Yeah but your foot's all the way inside my stall!" "Just trying to get a good angle." "What?" "Oh, come on. You're a married man yourself!"

...Sure, he has seen you naked a thousand times. But your man won’t turn down seeing you nude if he has the opportunity. A man is a visual creature, and a woman has the visual assets to intensify the attention she receives from her spouse, if she so chooses...

I could go on (I'm tempted, believe me -- I haven't even gotten to "Yes, this refers to the all-important Spank Bank", nor her reference to the "coitus arsenal"), but I have to ask: Who is this for? Some lady who doesn't know men like homemade porn? Is it like a rightwing version of Joan Allen in the tub in Pleasantville? Here's what I think: After the 2012 election, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds called on conservatives to take over ladies' magazines, on the theory that they could be used to hypnotize women into voting Republican. Maybe Schoonveld is a sleeper cell. (Picked a bad year to activate her, if so!) Either that --

Your goal is keeping him focused on your skills and assets, proving to him that you still think about taking his skin bus to Tuna Town too...

...or it's a Poe. Won't be the first time one has fooled me.

DON'T SELL THE STEAK, SELL THE SCHIZO.

I think Budweiser's plan to call itself "America" through the summer is very clever. In these days of fancy beer, heritage and value are what they have going for them, and it's generally better to emphasize the former than the latter. And if Bud ain't American, what is?  (I have in my old age adopted fancy-beer ways, to my great shame, but when I visited a VFW hall in Takoma Park last year, Bud was what there was and I drank it happily and in volume, as the Founders intended.)

I would not have thought of this as a political thing at all, but here comes one Adam Schaeffer at The Federalist to tell us that the buzzword factory at which he works tested the campaign -- probably not at Budweiser's behest, or he wouldn't be publicizing the results like this -- and found it causes "Republican women" to "move +18 points toward Trump and away from Clinton."

Doubt if you will the lasting impact of such an effect, or even the veracity of his story, but feast with me on Shaeffer's analysis:

Taking a closer look, the Bud ad hits some powerful emotional buttons, themes, and stereotypes. The voiceover claims Bud is “proudly a macro brew” over a driving, stripped down, thumping soundtrack (piss off — we are who we are, and if you don’t like it, too friggin bad).

Quick cuts flash by — the pounding hooves of huge, strong Clydesdales, majestic trees, swinging axes, red …

The voiceover says Bud isn’t “brewed to be fussed over” and is “brewed for drinking not dissecting” (you’re the one who should be embarrassed, not us, you little sissy). More red, sissy men, manly men, red, large machines, victory cheers, steam, welding sparks.

It ends with a parting shot: “Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale. We’ll be brewing us some golden suds” (you’re beer is lame and so are you, we’re awesome, so there). More sissy men, manly men, logos, red, logos, red.

I’m stretching a bit here, but bear with me … what Party is most associated with the stereotype of a fussy, condescending, sissy man? And which Party goes with the stereotype of a no-nonsense, prideful, manly-man? How do these stereotypes feel about each other?

It's like the brainwashing scene in The Parrallax View, except I'm hearing "Yakety Sax" in the background. I wonder if people will still respond to these equities when America is a smoking crater?

SEDUCED INTO GAYNESS! ONE WOMAN'S STORY.

Not that D.C. McAllister of The Federalist had ever written anything that made sense to me before (Sample: "If we’re going to warn people of the perils of Big Gulps and French fries, shouldn’t we warn them of the dangers of sex?"), but when she started talking about how some people, particularly children and butch dudes, have problems with sexuality and friendship I thought she was in the ballpark at least of rational discourse:

Just this morning I was watching Fox NFL Sunday, and Terry Bradshaw was talking about how he was excited by Howie Long the first time he saw him play. The eruption of uncomfortable laughter was expected. But he kept on, saying how Long “took his breath away”—which incited even more snickers. 

While I grinned, having seen this same scenario played out over and over again, I was also saddened, because I saw it as just one more knock on a kind of love we desperately need in our lives—passionate, nonsexual love. But we’re so uncomfortable with the expression of intimate, familiar feelings among men that we’ve given it its own name—bromance. 

I should have known when she started quoting C.S. Lewis that things would go badly wrong (quoting Chesterton is also a useful warning sign). Ditto when she started ranking on Romanticism and The Sexual Revolution. Then:

Let me illustrate this point with two men—let’s call them Steve and Paul—who are both very expressive in their feelings. This is an important distinction because it’s no accident that the top personality types by a large margin for people who identity as homosexual are “feeling types” —INFP and INFJ for women, and ESFJ and ENFJ for men.

Steve and Paul—two highly extroverted-feeling men—meet one another and they have an immediate connection and common interests. The effect of a Puritanical attitude still pervasive in our culture says “Don’t show affection, be controlled with your feelings.” But that’s not who they are. They’re passionate... 

Maybe, if they lived in times past, when men had places where they could really connect as men, they could express themselves in some way. But that’s not the case in modern culture with fluid interaction between the sexes and lack of “man-only space.” So what do they do with their feelings now? Suppress them or show them? 

Not sure what's wrong with "fluid interaction between the sexes" (I could go for some right now!), nor why guys who need a "man-only space" can't just join the Man Scouts and go hang out under a bridge, but okay.

One would hope they can simply show them, but because of the impact of sexualization, they interpret that expression in a sexual way. As a result, the two men either don’t want to be thought of as gay (because they’re not, not because they necessarily think homosexuality is wrong), and they withdraw.

That does sound sad. But there are alternatives to submitting to this kind of social pressure. Changing you support system, for example --

Or, they begin to doubt and wonder, Am I gay?

Oh fuck me.

“I get excited when I’m with Paul,” Steve says to himself. “He puts a spring in my step just talking to him. I’m stimulated by his intellect and insight. He makes me feel more alive after talking to him than I did before. Those feelings are so strong they must be sexual. I must be gay.” Paul feels the same. But they’re not gay at all. They don’t want to have sex with each other. They’re simply men who feel and express deep passions and feelings, and they want to connect with someone with common interests.

Ya gotta wonder how McAllister knows they're not gay. Maybe she decided while staring into Steve's dreamy eyes during one of his long talks about how Paul puts a spring in his step.

Anyway, it turns out the big problem is not that jocks will be awkward among their fellow bros, but that "the more friendship is misunderstood and ignored, the more people will identify as homosexual and bisexual." Out of pure confusion of eros and phileo, men wind up sucking cock and women wind up eating pussy. Not to mention the polyamory! "What you need are friends," McAllister tells one poor soul who has been seduced into multisex, "real, loving friends -- not more sexual relationships." She explains that eros is "a throaty passion that can end badly and lead to tragedy," but that probably just got them more turned on.

Me, I'm all for nonsexual love, including the demonstrative kind, but if my friends are getting laid I'm usually happy for them, not convinced they've made a throaty mistake (unless they've picked up a thrush). Why is sex such a puzzle for these people?