NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about rightbloggers' slow, shuffling shift from #NeverTrump to accommodation. It's not like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so much, as like what happens in real life to people when they convince themselves that, say, $4.49 a pound isn't too much to pay for tomatoes. Except, you know, sinister.

UPDATE. I am delighted to see my column promoted in a tweet from the John Hospers Foundation. Now that's a name I'd not heard in a long time! The preface to the Foundation website begins, "Ayn Rand and John Hospers had a stormy intellectual love affair," but alas it does not deliver on that racy promise. I can tell you, though, these cowboys are not going Trump.

A HAND-JOB, NOT A HAND-OUT.

So, why are conservatives all het up over Facebook and its alleged prejudice against them? I don't normally give much credence to the totally mental Glenn Beck, but something in his whining coverage of the meeting Zuckerberg arranged over the affair with prominent wingnuts struck a nerve:

I sat there looking around and heard things like:  

1) Facebook has a very liberal workforce. Has Facebook considered diversity in their hiring practice? The country is 2% Mormon. Maybe Facebook’s company should better reflect that reality.  

2) Maybe Facebook should consider a six-month training program to help their biased and liberal workforce understand and respect conservative opinions and values.  

3) We need to see strong and specific steps to right this wrong.  

It was like affirmative action for conservatives. When did conservatives start demanding quotas AND diversity training AND less people from Ivy League Colleges... 

What happened to us? When did we become them? When did we become the people who demand the Oscars add black actors based on race?

"What happened to us?" Oh Glennda, where have you been? Conservatives are constantly demanding affirmative action, and have been for years. They want affirmative action on Ivy League faculties. They want affirmative action in the mainstream media. They want affirmative action in Hollywood. And so on. Whenever they don't dominate a field, they shriek and wail that it's because they're being oppressed by all-powerful liberals.

And the funny part is, what's really going on is they just can't compete in those marketplaces. If conservatism were what everyone wanted, then they wouldn't need to force Harvard to hire more wingnut professors -- they could just put a little more money in the marketing budgets of Bob Jones, Liberty University, and various other Bible colleges, and watch them become the new Ivy League. This solution to the "Academic Discrimination against Conservatives" that guys like David French of National Review complain about is obvious, indeed self-evident, and completely consonant with supposed free-market values -- surely the Invisible Hand will reward wingnut schools over socialist ones? -- yet they never even bring it up for some reason.

Same's true with Facebook. Why are conservatives blubbering over their underrepresentation on this corrupt liberal social media site they hate so much, anyway? Hasn't the current crisis alerted The People to Facebook's communist provenance? And since The People are with the Right, surely they'll abandon these commie sites toot suite for rightwing ones. Look, here's Freedombook -- which started as Reaganbook and came back in 2014 with its new, freedom-loving name. Since America loves conservatism, surely citizens must be abandoning Facebook in droves -- especially now that they know it's prejudiced against the comedy stylings of Steve Crowder! -- and flocking to Freedombook. Yet I haven't been reading about this new social media phenomenon,  even in National Review and Commentary. Why not?

Because they know it's bullshit, that's why not. Yet everyone, including Zuckerberg, indulges them, because it's easier to make believe they have legitimate grievances than to tell them, "If you don't like it, fuck off to Freedombook and see how far you get," and bear their tantrums afterward. Sigh! This political correctness will be the death of us all.

THE PRIVATES WAR OF ROD DREHER, CONT.

"Yes, Sir, welcome to Mellor's, what can I do for you?"
"It's Miss."
"Excuse me?"
"It's Miss, thank you."
"Nah, I'm going to keep calling you Sir."
"What?"
"You look like a dude to me. I'm not calling you Miss."
"Well, that's rude."
"Take it or leave it, Mister."
"I'm going to report you to the HRC."
"Shriek, wail, you're oppressing me."

"Seriously," Rod Dreher complains of the requirement that New York businesses refer to the customer by his, her, or (why not) hir pronoun of choice, "how does a business owner operate under these conditions, even a business owner who wants to do the right thing?" I suppose for Dreher just not being a douchebag isn't an option.

COGITO ERGO SOME ASSHOLE.

We do make fun of Victor Davis Hanson, Professor Emeritus of Stolen Messican Chainsaw Studies at National Review, for his addiction to ancient rightwing tropes. But it's hard not to. I mean, talk about long memories -- Obama made a crack about the Special Olympics in March 2009, and Hanson was still going on about it as recently as February 2016. Hanson can to this day be counted on to summon the ghosts of slur-campaigns past such as Jeremiah Wright's "God Damn America" as if they were still in the first bloom of youth. But today he outdoes himself:

The Pajama Boy White House

Honest to God, Pajama Boy -- that object of butched-up wingnut rage from three years ago! Long shitfit short, Professor Hanson associates the Obama Administration with sundry unmanly phenomena -- "prolonged adolescence," "the disappearance of physical chores and muscular labor," "the shift in collective values and status from production, agriculture, and manufacturing to government, law, finance, and media," etc. -- which, to the extent they have anything at all to do with objective reality, go back decades, not to 2009; the decline of real-man occupations like manufacturing, for example, really kicked into high gear during the Reagan Administration.

But no matter -- there was an OFA employee named Ethan Krupp who appeared in an Obamacare ad in his pajamas, and hadn't the decency to feel ashamed about it! Professor Hanson coldly intones:

 Most men in Dayton or Huntsville do not lounge around in the morning in their pajamas...

Dayton or Huntsville are butch places, see -- the masculine signifiers "Hunt" and "Ton" appear in their very names.

...with or without built-in footpads, drinking hot chocolate and scanning health-insurance policies. That our elites either think they do, or think the few that matter do, explains why a nation $20 trillion in debt envisions the battle over transgender restrooms as if it were Pearl Harbor.

Then, killing Japs; now, trans-chick craps! Vanitas, vanitas, moans Professor Hanson with the back of his wrist pressed to his forehead, but in a manly way. As he further contemplates the unapologetic cocoa-sipping sissy, he works himself up to a fine, Dr. Smith in Lost in Space lather:

In a case of life imitating art, Ethan Krupp, the Organizing for Action employee who posed for the ad, offered a self-portrait of himself that confirmed the photo image. He is a self-described “liberal f***.” “A liberal f*** is not a Democrat, but rather someone who combines political data and theory, extreme leftist views, and sarcasm to win any argument while making the opponents feel terrible about themselves,” he explains. “I won every argument but one.” I suspect that when Krupp boasts about “making opponents feel terrible about themselves,” he is referring to people of his own kind rather than trying such verbal intimidation on the local mechanic or electrician.

Professor Hanson bets that electrician would whale the tar out of Pajama Boy! Hanson has the card of an electrician in his Rolodex! That man is a fine specimen, and Professor Hanson could tell by the cruel way he once balled up a napkin and forcefully threw it in the trash that he'd beat up Pajama Boy, and perhaps let Professor Hanson hold him while he did it! (Pajama Boy, he means.)

Krupp is emblematic of an entire class of young smart-asses found in Silicon Valley, on campuses across the nation, and in Hollywood, and now ensconced at the highest levels of American government and journalism. Do we remember Jonathan Gruber...

Gruber -- ooh, I see we're headed back down Memory Lane, and Professor Hanson has thousands of words left; he keeps mashing Ethan Krupp into Obama, going "See that guy? That's what you look like!" ("​Pajama Boy arrested-development references? 'I’m LeBron, baby'... Pajama Boy ignorance? If you forget that the politically correct version of the Falklands’ name is 'Malvinas,' then just plug in 'Maldives'..."), before collapsing into a Euripides quote, a goblet of Opimian wine, and perhaps, to keep from having to live in this rotten effeminate world, a knife to his own guts -- but ha, mater facit, as if! In Professor Hanson's fantasies, it's always someone else who gets it, just around the corner.

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?

SCREW YOU, WE'RE FROM TEXAS.

Uber and Lyft gave Austin an ultimatum -- vote away your foolish ridesharing safety laws, or else! -- and Austin told them to go fuck themselves. Andrea Grimes at the Texas Observer expects the corporations, which left Austin in a huff after the vote, to muscle the Texas legislature to override the city's laws -- which is a good bet to succeed, alas, because, as we saw when the lege and governor overrode Denton's anti-fracking law, in today's Tejas democracy ain't shit when there's some corporate ass to kiss.

Still, Austin's resistance gladdens my heart; it's like Dürrenmatt gave The Visit a happy ending. But conservatives feel very differently about it -- including those conservatives who like to call themselves libertarians. Actually Reason's Brian Doherty, to his credit, bravely maintains sangfroid ("as of Monday Austin will be a lot harder a city to get around in without owning your own car, which is a shame for everyone"), leaving only his mangled lede to show his true tortured feelings:

Activist obsession with "level playing fields" in non-commensurate businesses (taxis lack the user rating and identification systems that Lyft and Uber have) primed the citizens of Austin to vote for regulations that they knew (or had every opportunity to know) would drive the very helpful smartphone ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft out of their city.

When you have to work that hard to make it look good, it ain't good, Brian. Others had a harder time keeping their tempers. "Austin's Regulatory Regime Drives Uber And Lyft Out Of Town," sputters John Kartch at Forbes. His lede is nice and clean, since unlike Doherty he doesn't seem to have any shame getting in his way:

With the failure of Proposition 1, Austin’s innovation-friendly reputation has taken a hit. The city’s decision to saddle ridesharing apps with an extensive list of petty, burdensome, and unnecessary regulations is driving Uber and Lyft out of town, effective Monday.

And they tell me Facebook is prejumadiced! Kartch has an interesting take on public referenda, too:

Rather than adopt the less burdensome substitute ordinance, the city council forced the Saturday May 7 special election vote on Prop. 1. The local taxpayer cost of holding the special election was expected to be $500,000 but the city council pressed ahead anyway.

The voice of the people -- what a waste!

Prop. 1 failed by a vote of 48,673 to 38,539. The confusing ballot language written by the city council was of no help to pro-ridesharing residents.

Yeah whatever buddy. "Uber forced to leave Democrat-controlled Austin, thanks to new regulations," snarls Anthony Hennen at Red Alert Politics. "Say what you want about whether or not it is practical or necessary to require these companies to fingerprint their drivers but this still provides another example of government not working well with ingenuity of the private sector," says whatever Chinese slave writes under the alias Andrew Mark Miller for Young Conservatives.

The wettest hen is John Daniel Davidson, an apparent James Poulos impersonator at the The Federalist. Under the headline "How Austin Drove Out Uber And Lyft" -- characterizing the corporations' voluntary exit as a shotgun march to the city limits is a popular shtick with this bunch -- Davidson writes:

The story of how Uber and Lyft were driven out of Austin is a textbook example of how government-backed cartels force out competition under the guise of creating a “level playing field” or ensuring “consumer safety.”

That's how statists are, with their "truth in labeling" and "Pure Food and Drug Act" and other such scare-quoted chimera.

In this case, the cartel is the local taxi cab lobby, which successfully saddled Uber and Lyft with cab-like regulations that shouldn’t apply to ridesharing companies.

"Cab" and "taxi" are such unfriendly, old-sounding words, whereas "ridesharing," "Uber," and "Lyft" all sound fun and now and hip and shouldn't be saddled with your stupid rules, Mom!

It's nice, those rare occasions when the good guys win, ain't it?

UPDATE. The snittiest comment on this so far is from Kevin D. Williamson of National Review, who calls Austin "second-rate" for not letting Uber and Lyft write their laws. "The one thing New York cannot bear, municipally, is being second-rate... Austin, on the other hand, is cool with being second-rate," he writes. "...Given a choice between annoying its long-established transit cartels and confirming itself as second-rate, Austin voted for second-rate." Makes me think of Daniel Plainview at the end of There Will Be Blood: "Bastard from a basket. Bastard from a basket! You're a bastard from a basket..." Williamson also asks, "how about we let people decide for themselves, like adults?" as if there hadn't just been an actual election -- then immediately adds, "People in Austin apparently cannot trust themselves to make those kinds of decisions. They’re second-rate, and they know it." Try to imagine any constituency that would be moved by this, besides playground bullies.

Meanwhile here's Tom Giovanelli, head of the free-market think tank Institute for Policy Innovation, with the libertarian angle (it's entitled "Only Government Could Oppose Ride-Sharing" -- apparently referenda and regulatory overreach are the same thing to the Sons of Rand):

Unfortunately, some cities insist on maintaining their corrupt cartels with taxi companies, even at the cost of depriving their residents of valuable and convenient services like Uber and Lyft. Austin, Texas, recently made this mistake. Because the states have an interest in protecting the freedom of their residents and the economic vitality of their state economies, states should consider legislation that preempts municipalities from restricting ride-sharing services. As we have argued before, local control is not a trump card that allows municipalities to restrict economic freedom.

Feel the freedom, peasants!

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about "presumptive nominee" Trump and the slow shift in rightblogger sentiment toward him. Some #NeverTrump types will hold firm, I think, but Principled Conservatism will leak a great many soldiers because many of them have no real reason to resist Trumpism -- the National Review guys are obliged by the terms of their sinecures to talk about policy, but do you think someone like Ace of Spades or the guys at Hot Air really give a shit about the Constitution as anything but a rhetorical weapon to use against the dirty hippies they hate? That being the case, what's stopping them from lining up with the ultimate dirty-hippie hater?

I'll be interested to see how Rod Dreher's case resolves itself. For months, Dreher has been pee-dancing around Trump, saying things like “I want Trump to beat the SJWs at their game. They are making America ungovernable… But it is not sufficient to cheer Trump for opposing these idiots. Whatever my heart says in the moment, my head tells me that I don’t want Trump to win…” blah blah blah.

Dreher has remained unproductive on the pot, but lately his hints at Trumpism have gotten stronger. Last week he read a rude blog post by Harvard professor Mark Tushnet, moaned for the millionth time that “we cultural conservatives have lost, and have to prepare for active resistance under occupation,” and declared, “the only good reason I can think of to vote Trump this fall is that we can be certain that President Hillary Clinton, who will probably get to name three, maybe four, Supreme Court justices, will do her best to appoint justices that believe as Mark Tushnet does…”

I imagine Dreher will keep this up till one day Hillary Clinton supports some trans woman using the ladies room, whereupon he'll declare THIS IS IT! and go whole hog. No more lesser-of-two-evils shit, like when he voted against David Duke but “felt sick inside over it.” And he won’t be the only one. After all, if guys like Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have gone over, how bad can it be?

UPDATE. The rats are boarding the sinking ship! At National Review, Fred Schwarz:

For both candidates, their main interest is, of course, themselves; but Hillary’s basic inclination is far to the left and so is the base of her party, whereas Trump’s inclination is centrist consensus and the base of his party is to the right. Even if you assume they both will practice Clintonian triangulation (govern from middle and placate your base with gestures), Trump’s middle will be to the right of Hillary’s. She will fight to shift the nation leftward, while he may let such a shift occur but will not aggressively pursue it (for instance, on immigration, he won’t do much to stop it, but neither will he aggressively work for legalization and amnesty, and he will let Border Patrol and ICE do their jobs).

So if Trump gets elected and drones some guy because he beat him on a land deal, or clubs Paul Ryan to death with a baseball bat on national TV, Schwarz can confidently say, "Yes, but his capricious evil inclines to the Right!"

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

10 days of drizzle -- let's fight it with Hasil! Hoo! Hee! Ha! Ha!

• I got another thing in that Sherman Oaks Review of Books. Not only is it funny, it's humor. I am a humorist, like Dave Barry and Dennis Prager. [struts gaily into bankruptcy court]

• I mentioned the other day how weak Jonah Goldberg's columns had become -- not that they were ever strong, mind you, but they once had some energy, powered either by crowing certainty of untrue facts or desperation at the possibility that readers would notice what a dunce he is. I think the Trump surge took some of the break-wind out of his sails; when Trump attacked him personally I think he expected all conservatism to rise to his defense; instead goons flooded his inbox, called him a cuck, and took over the Republican Party. Well, Goldberg seems to have found a coping mechanism: a weird sort of fatalism, because oh well, Trump may destroy his movement but at least he'll beat up Hillary, and thus restore the honor of the Goldbergs [obligatory fart]. It's kind of like cheering a serial killer on the loose because he might murder someone you don't like. Get a load of this:

And, more to the point, The Hillary Story is far less entertaining than The Trump Story. Clinton is boring. She’s as fun as changing shelf paper on a Saturday afternoon. 

Meanwhile, who wouldn’t want to see a sequel to Back to School in which the Rodney Dangerfield character becomes president? Clinton is rich, and morally and ethically corrupt. So is Trump. But at least he’s entertaining. Everyone suspects they know what President Hillary Clinton: The Movie would look like. Trump: The Movie? That could be a wild ride.

Goldberg's template for black humor is a shitty Reagan-era comedy, apparently. If things get really grim, maybe he'll give us Ernest Goes to a Concentration Camp.

• "An old friend" sent Rod Dreher another Tale of Trans Terror from (get this) "North Texas" and -- well, I don't know guys...

“I thought I knew what was going on in this country,” she said. “I was wrong.” 

She had taken her teenage son to see the Captain America: Civil War movie for his birthday. In line behind them waiting to buy tickets stood several men in their early 30s who were obviously transgendered, and a young woman who presented as a man, though was plainly a female. My friend, “N.”, said the group started talking about sex, including their favorite positions, their favorite sex toys, you name it. One of the group was 20; an older transgender said to him, “You’re just a kid now, but when you turn 21, we’re going to take you out and get you broken in.” They proposed an orgy. 

On and on like this. And more transgenders joined them, not waiting in line, but moving towards the front to stand with their friends. N. told me that the trans group was very aware of itself, and did not care who heard their filthy talk...

...and then they pulled out their switchblades and had a rumble! This scene sounds unlikely to have taken place in the West Village, let alone Texas. Could Brother Rod be trying to heighten the contradictions -- as groundwork for his Benedict Option book? Would a Christian lie to us?

BUT IT JUST DON'T WORK OUT THAT WAY/ AND THE COURSE OF A LIFETIME RUNS.

How will you celebrate Mother's Day? By fighting statism? No? But Stella Morabito -- some of whose other loony columns at the Federalist we have previously enjoyed -- says that's the Reason for the Season:

Motherhood is the first and last line of defense against totalitarianism. If you think this statement sounds over the top, you ought to ponder why the family has always been the ultimate target of tyrannical systems of government such as communism. Advocates of cultural Marxism tend to view families as akin to subversive cells that get in the way of centralized state power. 

Well, Abbie Hoffman did say "Kill your parents." I didn't think that many people took him up on it. But Morabito says the matricidal instinct yet rages -- in Barack Obama!

Lately we see devoted mothers -- particularly traditional, stay-at-home mothers -- increasingly mocked and challenged as cultural throwbacks. Even President Obama has criticized them in policy speeches, including his 2015 State of the Union.

This is such bullshit that Morabito uses a link to Mollie Hemingway to back it up. (Obama was self-evidently promoting his pre-school program for working parents, not mocking or, as Hemingway had it, taking a "bizarre swipe" at stay-at-home mothers.) But if you're reading The Federalist for anything other than lulz, chances are you believe Hussein and Moochelle and everyone else who sends their kids to Sidwell Friends is trying to sacrifice families to the dictatorship of the proletariat -- but being reeeeal crafty about it, see:

Sure, on the surface and for the moment, they will publicly tolerate mothers, and even offer platitudes honoring them on Mother’s Day.

Here's your Mother's Day card I mean false flag, breeder!

But the fact is that Big Brother is now -- and always has been -- in a perpetual state of war with Little Mother...

And by what nefarious means does BB war with LM?

Big Brother: 1) uses the lures of orgasm and vanity to separate men from women through faceless and perfunctory sex (i.e., the sexual “revolution”)..

Orgasms and Vanity and The Revolution! Sounds like a Prince tribute.

As we change language and pronouns to suit gender ideology—and hence build a sexless society—the terms “mother” and “father” will legally be abolished...

I can't wait for that executive order! What will we call them instead, I wonder? "A and Not-A"? "Pete 'n' Tillie"? "Sacco and Vanzetti?" The rest is even worse gibberish, but for connoisseurs there are some golden glints of madness:

A healthy mother-child bond anchors and stabilizes children. It imbues them with a sense of security to go forth and explore the world and make friends. This is very bad for the grievance industry of central control...

We don’t quite understand or accept that most of a mother’s work in forming good citizens is in many ways a covert operation...

As the state invades private life, it removes the laboratory in which the seeds of civil society can gestate. We might say it performs an abortion on civil society...

It's like a Chick Tract written by the guy from Se7en. STELLAAAAA!

WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO BE KILLED BY OUR OWN TROOPS SALUTE YOU.

I don't know who's funnier -- the pre-emptive rightwing Trump sellouts, or the #NeverTrump dead-enders. On the one hand, among the former are guys like National Review's Mark Krikorian:

Donald Trump is unfit to be president. He’s a braggart and a liar. And a serial adulterer. He’s behaved shamefully during the primary campaign. He wouldn’t recognize the Constitution if he tripped over it in the street. He doesn’t know even the Cliff Notes version of any policy issue. The idea that the party of Lincoln and Reagan, Coolidge and Eisenhower, Justice Harlan and Senator Taft has nominated Trump is appalling.

And I’m going to vote for him anyway.

Krikorian claims it's because he hates Hitlery Klintoon and fears she will make everyone bake gay wedding cakes, though history shows he hates Mexicans at least as much, so this may not be much of a stretch for him.

On the other hand we have the loyal Niedermeyers of True Conservatism. At Erick Erickson's ridiculous The Resurgent, "Josh Hammer" (I mean come on) gives the last full measure of Derp:

This morning, my Resurgent colleague Steve Berman noted that Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), which is now in Israel and begins at sunset tonight here in the U.S., actually falls this year on the same day as Star Wars Day. Readers know where I stand on issues pertaining to the former, so I’d like to focus on the latter—and, specifically, on borrowing from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Here we go: we are the Resistance. Yes, the orange-hued demagogic “presumptive nominee” charlatan and his “alt-right” ilk are the First Order, and movement conservatives comprise the Resistance.

Wait... did he just compare the Holocaust to Star Wars? I guess it will end with us all in death camps, but meanwhile this election should be hilarious.

RED LIGHTS ARE FLASHING AROUND ME/ GOOD LORD IT LOOKS LIKE THEY FOUND ME.

I'm beginning to think I've been too generous in my assessment of the Republican Party. I assumed they had enough ward-heelers, shoulder-hitters, and all-around goons to defend against the Trump onslaught, but it looks as if they can't even keep it close enough to steal.

Well, if I'm disappointed, you can imagine how actual Republicans think about it -- and by that I don't mean a majority of Republican voters, I mean Republican operatives who got #NeverTrump tattoos and whose media perches are now under threat. Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal seems to have suffered a brain injury. He's tut-tutting Trump's adoption of "America First" as if seven years of boob-bait articles about Obama's "apology tours" hadn't crossed his field of vision without raising so much as a Bretpeep. Oh, and get this:

Did Mr. Trump know anything about the history of the America First Committee before he seized on the phrase?... 

With Mr. Trump it’s hard to say: He has a way of blurring the line between ignorance and provocation, using one as an alibi when he’s accused of the other. Is he Rodney Dangerfield, the lovable American everyman pleading for a bit of respect? Or is he Lenny Bruce, poking his middle finger in the eye of respectable opinion?

I guess in this reading Rodney Dangerfield is the muse of ignorance and Bruce the muse of provocation, though I can't imagine how his editors let him speak better of Bruce than Dangerfield. Oh, but the follow-up makes it:

Whichever way, the conclusion isn’t flattering.

No wonder he's got it in for comedians -- in the depths of his seriousness the guy's a laugh riot.

UPDATE. Ted Cruz has dropped out, and the #NeverTrump gumps have gone gaga. National Review's primary Jesus freak David French weeps, as is such people's wont, over the "culture" that kept Trump prominent even while French was furiously writing nasty columns about him. If only we could do something about that damned culture! one imagines French seething -- though his own writing suggests that culture, as understood by normal human beings rather than culture-war dumbbells, had nothing to do with it:

The great tragedy of Trump’s Republican establishment is that — unlike mainstream media outlets that are built from the ground up to chase ratings — these “conservative” institutions and individuals were allegedly built around principles. Yes, they wanted eyeballs and page-views, but until this presidential race, many of them took great pride in their ability to attract an audience through the force of their ideas and the strength of their convictions. Indeed, these individuals and institutions used to pride themselves on policing the conservative movement, on calling out the “RINOs” and moderates in our midst.

And who are these "tragic" figures who once stirred the masses with the "force of their ideas and the strength of their convictions" -- like Burke, like Buckley? According to French, they are "Breitbart, Sean Hannity, Drudge, multiple Fox News personalities, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and... Rush Limbaugh."

I'd say part of the problem, at least, is that conservatives have been grading tragedy on the curve.

Oh, for lagniappe let me mention that French also denounces (now that it hasn't worked for him) "furious rhetoric" because it's "polarizing." You can search my archives for evidence of French's moderation, but spare yourself and just take in this item about French denouncing Griswold v. Connecticut -- yes, the landmark 1965 birth control decision -- as a tribute to "the awesome power of the sexual revolution over law and logic." In short, French is nuts, and now he's standing in front of the Trump mob screaming I'M NOT NUTS, YOU'RE NUTS! Notwithstanding that this is the fall of the Republic, you have to admit it's damn funny.

Anyway, all hail Donald Trump -- Republican standard-bearer! It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.


UPDATE 2. French is getting weirder:

Now is an ideal time for the Libertarian Party to get its act together and nominate a truly serious candidate — a person who may not meet the party’s typical purity tests but who can at least make a serious argument and advance a range of policies that unite both conservatives and libertarians.

The Libertarian Party! This, from a guy who thinks birth control should be illegal. Well, libertarians aren't too into women's rights anyway; in fact, sometimes I think Reason magazine's refreshing opposition to trans bathroom laws is based on the fact that some of the persecuted parties have penises.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...on the brethren's elegies for Prince, which took one of two approaches: 1.) Prince was a distraction from the true path of dull sexlessness, or 2.) Prince was rightwing and that's what was really great about him, not that bogus "music" stuff.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

The song starts at 1:27. We're not gonna wash our face; we're not going anyplace.
• OMG Bobo:

I was surprised by Trump’s success because I’ve slipped into a bad pattern, spending large chunks of my life in the bourgeois strata — in professional circles with people with similar status and demographics to my own. It takes an act of will to rip yourself out of that and go where you feel least comfortable. But this column is going to try to do that over the next months and years. We all have some responsibility to do one activity that leaps across the chasms of segmentation that afflict this country.

Can you -- excuse me -- can't catch my breath -- whoosh. Now then: Can you imagine David Brooks out among the hoi polloi?

[SCENE: a low dive in Lancaster, Pa., Wednesday night. Smallish crowd of men in gimme caps; country music loud; David Brooks enters. To fit in, he has ditched his Brooks Brothers suit and tie, and wears instead his old rowing blazer over a light blue New & Lingwood shirt open at the neck, Berle Charleston Khakis, and Hush Puppies. He stands motionless at the bar until the music quiets a little.]

BROOKS (to bartender): Yoo-eng-gling, please.

BARTENDER: (handing him a Yuengling) It's Ying-ling.

BROOKS: Ah! Sorry, my Cantonese is a little rusty. (Looks around; no one is laughing; clears throat) Can one of you fellows tell me whether they still make Rolling Rock out at Old Latrobe?

(Silence.)

BROOKS: Bartender, a round for my friends here.

(Beer is delivered. Men drink.)

MAN #1: They moved to Jersey in ought-six.
MAN #2: I ain't worked since.
MAN #3: My grandma is in jail for crystal meth and my paw lives in a treehouse.

BROOKS: You don't mind if I take notes? To what do you gentlemen attribute your financial difficulties?

MAN #1: Nigger president.
MAN #2: The freemasons.
MAN #3: I keep a dead woman wrapped in plastic in my trailer for company.

BROOKS: I assume you're all voting for Trump?

MAN #1: Hell no. I'm voting for that Clinton bitch cuz I want to see her go to jail but these Republican sons-a-bitches won't do shit unless they can impeach her.
MAN #2: I'm not just voting for Trump. I'm gunna be his Secretary of the Treasury, he tells me.
MAN #3: I'm voting for Trump cuz I'm a heighten-the-contradictions guy. Lemme send you my article in Salon.

BROOKS: Bartender, can I get some Slim Jims for my friends?

MAN #1: I think we'd all prefer the charcuterie. (to the bartender) They got organ meats from Brook Farm today, don't they, Christopher? And maybe a nice pinot noir.
MAN #2: Kale salad for me. That nose-to-tail shit makes me gassy.
MAN #3: I shoot my rifle into a tree stump out back and if I do it enough I get a boner.

Aaaaand scene!

POSITIVELY THE WORST PRINCE MEMORIAL COLUMN.

Almost without my noticing it, David French has become the worst thing at National Review. Jonah Goldberg has, as we know, a distinguished history of stupid, but his recent columns are just so lazy and aimless that they're not even worth making fun of (I mean, look at this shit). Contender Kevin D. Williamson seems at first a clinical sociopath, but once you tumble to his shtick (call everyone else stupid, drop in an obscure reference or two to make it look intellectual-like) it's kind of like Porky Pig tumbling to Daffy Duck's "People shouldn't push me around... I'm a split personality!" routine; the magic is over.

But French just keeps finding new ways to be wrong. Take his Prince column. Yes, seriously, this horrible wingnut Jesus freak wrote one.

Prince died last week, and America overreacted. No, I’m not diminishing Prince’s talent. He was one of pop music’s most gifted songwriters and musicians. As millions shared his more memorable performances, I realized I’d forgotten what a great guitar player and showman he was. He could write hit songs like few others, and he shared his talent freely, “gifting” songs to other artists. In short, he was one of the few pop stars whose fame was fully justified.

You can really feel his pleasure at Prince's work, can't you? You can't? Well, of course not; this is exactly the sort of thing I would write about a NASCAR driver ("I had forgotten what a great NASCAR driver he was... he could turn left like no other") if I were trying to pretend I liked him as a way to win the confidence of someone whose intelligence I didn't respect.

But to spend time on the mainstream and left-wing Internet last week — or to listen to some of the web’s more popular podcasts — you would have thought America lost a national hero, and not merely an immensely gifted artist.

You heathens didn't cry like this when Andrew Breitbart died!

...In our post-virtue culture, we worship celebrity and talent not for its own sake but for ourselves. Their talent is all about us. Their fame is for our amusement. Pop music fills the hymnals in the temple of the self. We are the stars of our own biopic, and we just lost someone who wrote part of the score.

Can't you see how selfish, how narcissistic it is to enjoy music? I mean, music that isn't hymns?

The sentimentality is understandable, given the millions of people who could remember some significant moment in their lives that happened to the sounds of “Lets Go Crazy” or “When Doves Cry.”

(You know he had to look them up.)

...Our country doesn’t lack for heroes, but our true heroes certainly lack for fame. Even on the Left’s terms, valorizing Prince for his transient activism disrespects those who spent their lives in the trenches, fighting for their vision of “social justice.”

Hmmm -- I don't remember "the Left" telling me not to mourn Prince; maybe I missed a meeting... but hold on, brother French has taken up a snake:

For conservatives, Prince was ultimately just another talented and decadent voice in a hedonistic culture. He was notable mainly because he was particularly effective at communicating that decadence to an eager and willing audience.

GLORY HALLELUJAH THIS "PRINCE" WAS A VILLAIN IN A CHICK TRACT, MAKING THE KIDS GO A-FRIGGIN' AND A-FRUGIN' WHEN WHAT THEY NEED IS CHEESUS!

...I don’t say any of this to denigrate Prince or his talents.

Fuck you.

And I don’t say this to shame people out of listening to music they enjoy, though not all music is worth hearing.

You heathens ever hear Three Doors Down?

Rather, it’s time for a dose of perspective. Music has its place...

!!!!

...and gifted musicians undeniably enhance our lives...

You know, like air conditioning or wall-to-wall carpeting.

...but if our hearts are given to these songs and those who make them, then our lives are unnecessarily impoverished.

And then it hits you -- French isn't just ignorant of Prince, or even just of music -- this poor, twisted freak literally doesn't know what art is. He doesn't know its place in human history, or why human beings invented it, or why it persists even when it doesn't make money or is suppressed. He thinks it's upholstery. He thinks it's some sort of trivial comfort. And he thinks so because he's been taught that all you need are Jesus and Bill Buckley and the pleasure you can take from the suffering of your inferiors, and anything else that has a claim on the human soul, whether it's justice or sex or art, must be crushed lest it steal their thunder.

These are the monsters that monsters bred. You think Trump is bad? You have no idea.

THE LAST ACT OF A DESPERATE MAN.

Somebody explain to me how pre-selecting Carly Fiorina as a running mate is an advantage for Cruz. A failed CEO who lost thousands of jobs -- that's what primary voters in Indiana are screaming for! (I guess he figures California Republicans nominated her for something once and they might do it again. But that time she was actually on the ballot, and not the appurtence of the nation's only charmless Texan.)

If you're not up on Fiorina or have managed to banish her from your memory, check my columns on her lack of qualifications, her outrageous Planned Parenthood slanders, and her maladroit supporters in wingnut media -- the worst of whom, as you might expect, is Megan McArdle, who actually argues on Fiorina's behalf against success as evidence of competence. (If only I could get employers to buy that one!)

Enjoy -- and enjoy also the sad endorsement of Brandon Morse at Red State. ("While Fiorina has a fair share of criticism aimed at her, and her successes and failures at HP are hotly debated..." Oh brother.) Fave bit:

It should also be noted that a Cruz/Fiorina ticket would also strip Hillary of one of the sharper arrows in her quiver; the fact that she’s a woman.

Look, we got one too! Maybe Cruz, should he get the nomination, will try to fix it so Fiorina debates Clinton in his stead, while he goes around the country scaring children. I can just see Hugh Hewitt at the moderator's table: "Mrrowr mrrowr! Hissss!"

...BUT NOT FOR THEE.

So there's a site called Market Urbanism, against which I am predisposed for two reasons: because they announce chirpily in their header, "Believe it or not, free-markets and urbanism go well together"; and because they like to cite Joel Kotkin, who for years has been harboring a hate-on for the Blue Cities and is always predicting their downfall. But I figured I'd give it a chance. I mean, heaven forbid Vox should call me smug or something.

The first item I looked at, by Carolyn Zelikow, about how Richard Florida and his "creative class" (and not, as you might think, rapacious capitalism) have ruined the cities by flooding them with yuppies -- in fact the title is "Richard Florida Should Replace The Term ‘Creative Class’ With ‘Country Club.'" The thing is rife with the conservative version of virtue-signaling (values-signaling?); Zelikow refers to creatives' penchant for "superficial diversity" and "Florida’s tacit preference for bike lanes over food stamps," she accepts the claim that "members of the Creative Class embrace diversity, except when it comes to blacks, whom they prefer not to live around," etc. But look at how she starts:

Here’s a fun fact about me: I embody the Creative Class.

I live in a big, old witchhatted townhouse between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan in Washington, DC. I love locally raised produce and my exposed brick yoga studio has a juice bar. I fall in love with every silver bullet remedy for civic malaise I come across: teach kids to code! bike lanes! murals! And guess what? I work at a think tank, where we think… for a living!

I should note that at no point in the essay does Zelikow inform us of any plans to move away from creative-class-ridden D.C. -- though she notes that there are "many American cities that are doing just fine without a preponderance of Creative Class representation: Houston, Atlanta, Oklahoma City all come to mind." Can't she telecommute from Oklahoma City? She thinks for a living!

The other item I examined was by Nolan Gray and called "Reclaiming 'Redneck' Urbanism: What Urban Planners Can Learn From Trailer Parks." Gray likes trailer parks on the expected conservatarian grounds -- "a trailer owner pays rent not only for a slice of land in an apparently desirable location but also for a kind of club good known as 'private governance,'" plus there's no "top-down, paternalistic planning," etc. Alas, neither does Gray walk the walk:

The lesson here is not, of course, that we should all go live in trailer parks. As a Kentuckian, I have spent enough time in and around trailers to think better of that idea. But...

Yeah thanks. Still I find even this much honesty refreshing. I wonder when regular, non-niche conservatives will start picking it up, e.g., "Welfare recipients should take regular piss tests and only be allowed gruel to eat -- though of course if I ever get into economic trouble I expect to maintain the standard of living to which I am accustomed, because I think for a living."

UPDATE. Comments, always excellent, outdo themselves on this one. For example, weedcard:

This dipshit has obviously never lived in a trailer park. WTF does he mean by "private governance?" That a man can discipline his woman when she "sasses" him and not have to worry about the statist police force enforcing the radical, left-wing Violence Against Women Act? That since most trailer parks do not require a lease the landlord can kick you out anytime he wants for any reason?

No, weedcard, he means freemarket ReaganHayek doubleplusgood. I mean, it doesn't matter what it means so long as he doesn't have to live in it.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the Andrew Jackson/Harriet Tubman swap on the $20, and rightbloggers' bright idea of portraying this as a conservative victory because Jackson was a Democrat and Tubman was a Republican and what about guns libtards? I don't think this strategy is meant to attract black voters, or even get rightbloggers' usual followers comfortable with such voters -- a visit to the comments sections of their pro-Tubman posts shows how fruitless that would be. It's really just a way for them to take some sting out of an event which, were it not so racially fraught, they would be denouncing as a politically correct outrage (and don't worry, sports fans, some of them do). And you know what? That's fine. It's not a bad thing when the enemy starts pulling uniforms off your dead soldiers and putting them on so they can pretend they were on your side all along.

UPDATE. If you like blowhards gassing about politics on internet radio AND WHO DOESN'T, you may enjoy my appearance on Joshua Holland's latest Politics and Reality podcast or whatever you people call them these days, never listen to the things myself. BTW Josh, a writer for The Nation and not often wrong, is wrong about one thing in the broadcast: this blog's name is pronounced al-i-CU-blog, based as it originally was in the web magazine alicubi, from the Latin. There -- when your grandchildren are studying the fall of the American Empire you'll have an interesting footnote to share with them before they shove you into the Elder Hole.

UPDATE 2. Hat tip to commenter J--- for bringing my attention to this encomium from RedState:

My only hope is that someday, one hundred and fifty or two hundred years hence, we will have occasion to honor on our currency a brave (and as yet unknown) warrior who will have helped to erase the stain of legalized infanticide from this nation's history, in the same way Harriet Tubman helped erase the stain of slavery.

I picture Erick Erickson IV,  who kidnaps pregnant women from abortion clinics and chains them up in birthing pens, wanted by the police but celebrated by conservatives.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

I'm sorry Prince is dead, but there's not much on the internet of him I can use. I'm sorry Hound Dog Taylor is dead too.
• Chuckleheads like Steven Hayward at Power Line are trying to portray the placement of Harriet Tubman on the 20 dollar bill  as a crisis for liberals because a few authors (including my old pal Steven Thrasher) have noticed the irony of a soldier of liberation appearing on the currency of her oppressor. But by and large the liberals I've talked to (and I see lots of them at our frequent abortion-fests) are pleased to have Jackson o'erthrown by a freedom-fighter. Actually the real split appears to be among conservatives: The Hill cites a survey showing the Trump faction (which, I remind you, is yuge) mostly against the new avatar for reasons I bet you can guess. The anti-Trump conservatives, perhaps sensing a propaganda opportunity, have devised a claim on Tubman because, as National Review's Eli Lehrer writes, she was "black, Republican," and "gun-toting" -- as if she were an NRA yahoo rather than a person of color operating in a time and place where she could easily have be killed without consequence. Some of them even want Tubman shown holding a gun on the bill. I would agree, if she could be shown using it to kill a white man. (Also, I bet every one of these cowboys would plotz if they came upon a live black woman with a gun.)

• Oh and yeah, Prince. So much has been said already, but I will say that he was always reliably fresh in a way that even the most talented non-genius musicians aren't -- after I stopped paying close attention to him in the glyph era, every so often a new AFKAP/Prince tune would pop up and suddenly all would be funky and right. I'm listening to HITNRUN Phase Two now, and with its rock-solid pop values -- not just in the way it's written but in the way it sounds, the way the stings and squeals are placed, the reverb on the flute, the twist of the stomp-box dials -- he could have written it 30 years ago. Who knows, maybe he did. But it has no smell of the basement or the retro vault; it's as new as today. And so is everything he did from I Wanna Be Your Lover onward. Even the cheesy 80s synthesizer and drum pad sounds on the old stuff don't chain his music to the past. That's because of his gift, but also because he was always down in it -- though he was a great guitarist his real instrument was the recording studio, and he played its variations obsessively and revealed them to be limitless. That's good to remember at those moments when you get sick of pop music or feel too old to participate and start to believe that what the withered scolds of the past hundred years say is true, that it's just cheap crap for children; Prince always proves them wrong. We didn't get tired of him because he never got tired of music. He believed in jazz, rhythm and blues, and this thing called soul; he believed in rock 'n' roll.