An Antiplatonic Twitter Dialogue on What the Wish to "Preserve a Cultural Centrism" Actually Means
As Noah Smith says: "Please stop I give up you can have all my money":
Noah Smith: 🐇: Write another post! I'd be interested to know how you think Obama abandoned the cultural centrist ground, specifically.
#MMT: Moral Money Tao: @samvega: "Obama abandoned the cultural centrist ground" by moving ever further right to appease Republican leaders. Who doesn't know this?
Brad DeLong: 🖖🏻: Obama abandoned the "cultural centrist" ground because he decided to be a Black person, unlike Clinton, who decided to be a white person. See?
Noah Smith: 🐇: But his race did not change AFAIK. What did change? Did he start acting more culturally "black" in his second term? I detected no change.
Mark Talarico: @MarkTalarico1: No, he was pretty consistent being the father I could only hope to emulate.
Geriatric Millenial JD: @Errorreporrt: That is important. He abandoned it because while educated elites listened to his message the vast majority of people used the heuristic of race and the cultural centrism was useless. This is why the very sudden realignment of parties started in 2008 and peaked by Trump. Wealth and Education are no longer the best predictors of Democrat of Republican. Views relating to race are now the best predictor and wealth and education just correlated.
Riot Diet: @MrRiotDiet: He said “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin” See, that was abandoning centrism. He was supposed to say “given the genetic variation inherent in reproduction, my son could have looked like Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, or anyone.” That’s centrism.
Noah Smith: 🐇: Was it just that one line? Seriously?! If so that's NUTS.
Brad DeLong: 🖖🏻: Remember, for Ross Douthat, "preserve a cultural centrism" starts out with Ross wanting a society and culture that is a safe space to be disgusted if attractive young women offering you a great gift are taking birth control:
A girl who resembled a chunkier Reese Witherspoon drunkenly masticating my neck and cheeks. It had taken some time to reach this point—"Do most Harvard guys take so long to get what they want?" she had asked, pushing her tongue into my mouth. I wasn't sure what to say, but then I wasn't sure this was what I wanted. My throat was dry from too much vodka, and her breasts, spilling out of pink pajamas, threatened my ability to. I was supposed to be excited, but I was bored and somewhat disgusted with myself, with her, with the whole business... and then whatever residual...
Rachel Palmer: _@RachelPalmerCam**: Oh that's gross. Had had some level of respect for Doughat. But gross.
Brad DeLong: 🖖🏻: "...enthusiasm I felt for the venture dissipated, with shocking speed, as she nibbled at my ear and whispered—'You know, I'm on the pill'..."
Noah Smith: 🐇: Please stop I give up you can have all my money
#MMT: Moral Money Tao: @samvega: What Noah said. 😋 Douthat titled his book "Privilege" thus demonstrating his total insensitivity to irony or shame or self awareness, a common Republican superpower.
Scott Gosnell: @infiniteme_: Are you sure this isn't one of the lesser Bret Easton Ellis novels?
Brad DeLong: 🖖🏻: If it were, it would be titled "Chunky Reese Witherspoon"...
Brad DeLong: 🖖🏻: Then Ross retreats—"preserve a cultural centrism" becomes keeping a society and culture that is a safe space for Niall Ferguson to get applause from, as Tom Kostigen reports:
John Maynard Keynes' economic philosophy was flawed and he didn't care about future generations because he was gay and didn't have children.... Speaking at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., in front of a group of more than 500 financial advisors and investors.... Ferguson... explained that Keynes had no [children] because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of 'poetry' rather than procreated... sa[id] it's only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an 'effete' member of society...
Then Ross retreats further, and "preserve a cultural centrism" becomes keeping a society and culture that is a safe space for people to say that, while homosexuals' private lives are their own business, allowing civil same-sex marriage would gravely damage the moral fabric of society.
I don't know whether Ross would still maintain today that his own marriage is gravely injured by happy lesbians outside of San Francisco's City Hall. And it is not completely clear what "preserve a cultural centrism" means to him today. We do, however, know what it...
Aardvark Avenger: @matthoboken: People who think Obama abandoned "cultural centrism" are not cultural centrists.
Brad DeLong: 🖖🏻: ...means to his political allies; bashing transsexuals every chance they get for being... something... IMHO, James Bennet is not doing his job when he allows Ross Douthat to write "preserve a cultural centrism" instead of "tacitly winking at transsexual bashing".
Riot Diet: @MrRiotDiet: Title of a book: James Cashill: _"If I Had a Son": Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman" https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1938067215
William Schaden, Saloon Keeper & end filibusters: @puckthecat1: good lord. of course, the upshot of the focus on that one weak-ass line is that his identity was the problem and they would have searched through his entire public record for something else to latch onto if he hadn't said that
Riot Diet: @MrRiotDiet: Pretty much. 1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
#orangehairedbaboons #highlighted
