Those people are NOT conservatives!
20
Let's see - Joe Biden drops F bombs, Tom Perez curses in every speech, Hillary is known to have a foul mouth, etc. Not really a new thing on either side.
3
Not being privy to the halls of power myself, my view of Washington politics and politicians is shaped more by the show "Veep" that by the NYT or Wall Street Journal. If "Veep" is to be believed- and I've read numerous articles in which Washington insiders attest to its accuracy- political speech in Washington is flavored with colorful, outrageous, and sometimes hilarious profanity. If this is true, it's hard to see how Scaramucci's obscenity-laced comments signal the end of Western civilization or, more pertinently, a moral failing peculiar to Republicans. In fact, this article reeks of hypocrisy.
5
Conservatives chose this over and over. Every time they rewarded practitioners of the politics of personal destruction, from Newt Gingrich to Karl Rove, this was their choice. When they rewarded the Swiftboating of John Kerry with a second term for George W. Bush, this was their choice. Every time they tuned in to Fox Propaganda and parroted the lies of O'Reilly, Hannity and Fox & Friends, they chose this. When they cheered the coarse, bellicose, imbecilic Sarah Palin, and approved of her being potentially one heartbeat away from the presidency, they chose this. Conservatives are why there's the "This is fine" meme -- they accepted and applauded the worst impulses in their movement.
So, Dr. Frankenstein, how do you like your monster?
So, Dr. Frankenstein, how do you like your monster?
124
I hate to break it to you, but conservative voters - Republicans in the main - have always been profane and enjoyed what one might consider obscenity, as long as it fits into their conception of right and wrong. Women may not swear, and men should not in the presence of women or children, but it seems to me in the male-dominated business world, there was plenty of dirty talk and female nudity. This has nothing to do with the Clintons or the cratering of moral standards due to liberal hippies in the Sixties. This is about reinforcing traditional gender roles and values. Nothing about The Mooch's outburst or Trump's vulgarity is out of line with traditional conservative values or views about gender roles.
68
Go back at least to Joe McCarthy (embraced by the ever-so-cultured conservative icon, William Buckley and supported, while useful, by Taft, Wherry and co.) and you'll see that "conservatives" have always been willing to espouse crass indecency and trash democracy in their pursuit of power. So-called conservatism is, and always has been, class warfare dressed up as "principle", pure and simple.
61
Evangelical Christians who voted for Donald Trump and have stood by him have to take some responsibility for the vulgarity. Is this the language they use or allow their children to use? Why then vote overwhelmingly for someone who was caught on tape being proud of how vulgar he could get.
72
People who resort to vulgarity expose their inability to communicate in civil, articulate ways. Anthony Scaramucci's performance is unacceptable by any measure.
47
Is the author trying to link the 1968 demonstrators to the present-day White House (WH)? If so, the author is wrong. The WH is filled with people who want to enrich themselves at the expense of the ordinary voters. The 1968ers wanted to end the Vietnam war, and thus correct a serious error of US foreign policy (and escape the draft).
72
The problem is not moral rot, it is economic desperation. It is interesting because conservatives tend to think that people are poor because they are stupid or amoral; whereas, liberals tend to think that people are amoral or stupid because they are poor. While globalization and technology have made vast fortunes for the intellectual elite, and, of course, the grubby Wall Streeters, it has not done much for main street. The appeal of a "charlatan" savior of the masses is as old as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The coarsening of our world comes from the fact that people believe the system is rigged and that the normal rules are for suckers. It is the mentality of the mob and the Mafia and no good will come of it.
41
As for that caption, it is laughable to say that the vulgarity of the administration "has not deterred" supporters. It is like catnip to them.
39
Donnie is a child.
12
This article should be included in the Library of Congress or a time capsule so future generation can better understand how such times as these came to pass! I have not read another column, ANYWHERE, that accurately depicts the hypocrisy and utter despicability of the Republican Party and the Conservative movement of the early 21th Century.
17
Remarkable Op-Ed from a conservative. The paragraph about John McCain's defeat in 2008 that "concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship" were for suckers leaves out an obvious reason for McCain's defeat: his choice of the air-head feather-weight with a bad mouth, Sarah Palin! McCain fouled his own nest with that choice!
58
What a farce. The "conservative movement" in politics has always preached law and order and morality when it comes to wagging its finger at the poor for how they fail to shoulder the burden of poverty and discrimination, but turns a blind eye to a long history of racism, economic discrimination, and voter disenfranchisement directed at poor and minority voters. It was the children of these moral hypocrites who led the rebellion against their parents' values. The "barriers of acceptable moral and political conduct" never protected the poor, or the weak, or the disenfranchised. As well, it was never clear that the actual on the ground, day in day out, moral behavior in the Bible Belt was actually measurable better in any respect than that of the "Other" -- such as progressives who agitated for women's rights and ecology.
39
Just No. I think the Heat is getting to you. Perhaps Climate Change???
14
Anthony Scaramucci: Because Donald Trump believes the United States should be a good Christian country.
11
i didn't think i'd ever read a column blaming our current roubles on the 60s intellectuals in general and democrats in particular? but now i have. maybe this type of thinking is why we have a trump in the whitehouse? maybe it's the "it's never our fault" conservatives that have created this mess? you should lose your column space over this one.
48
No guardrails? These guys don't even have their hands on the wheel. The 2008 Obama-McCain race was also framed in automotive meatphor, "Would you give the keys back to party that drove the country into a ditch?" The answer turns out be 'Yes' by a hair with Congress, Russian, FBI fingers on the scale to scuff up the continuation of the slow recovery back from near disaster.
Mr. Hannabury, my high school American History II teacher, introduced me to the comparison of the U.S. automobile industry to the buffalo-based economy of native Americans. So many elements of our economy were dependent on cars, cars, cars. Now we are on the threshold of being able to 'right-size' car ownership with folks being able to summon the means to get from where they are to where they need to be rather than pay monthly bills for complete ownership. Imagine the impact that will have on worldwide production, maintenance and insurance. One thing I know, this crew will attempt to blame Democrats for not being ready for the change!
Mr. Hannabury, my high school American History II teacher, introduced me to the comparison of the U.S. automobile industry to the buffalo-based economy of native Americans. So many elements of our economy were dependent on cars, cars, cars. Now we are on the threshold of being able to 'right-size' car ownership with folks being able to summon the means to get from where they are to where they need to be rather than pay monthly bills for complete ownership. Imagine the impact that will have on worldwide production, maintenance and insurance. One thing I know, this crew will attempt to blame Democrats for not being ready for the change!
6
Attempt to implicitly blame Trumpism on hippies and leftists, noted.
Both parties have always had their fringes. In 1968, the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey, the sitting Vice President and a mainstream, establishment figure. You know who the Republicans nominated in 2016. In 2016, the fringe completed its takeover of the party. This was the entirety natural result of 30 years of cultural wedge issues (flag burning, Willie Horton, anti-gay ballot initiatives), scorched earth politics (Gingrich, Clinton impeachment), conspiracy theories (Vince Foster, Bengazi), voodoo policy (Laffer curve) and slander (swiftboating, birth certificates) that have left the Republican base in a permanent state of opposition to reality.
Both parties have always had their fringes. In 1968, the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey, the sitting Vice President and a mainstream, establishment figure. You know who the Republicans nominated in 2016. In 2016, the fringe completed its takeover of the party. This was the entirety natural result of 30 years of cultural wedge issues (flag burning, Willie Horton, anti-gay ballot initiatives), scorched earth politics (Gingrich, Clinton impeachment), conspiracy theories (Vince Foster, Bengazi), voodoo policy (Laffer curve) and slander (swiftboating, birth certificates) that have left the Republican base in a permanent state of opposition to reality.
78
Honorable Conservatism, Mr. Stephens? Surely you jest!
25
Notwithstanding the boorish bluster, it seems like a Communications Director should understand the basics of controlling at the outset whether an interview is on the record or off the record. Just another example of The incompetence of the Trump appointees. Although this guy seems capable of reaching new lows.
30
Bret Stephens born in 1973 says it all. Different story for those of us who watched Senator Abe Ribicoff live at the Democratic convention lambasting the police "Gestapo" tactics. Stephens' premise relies on his alternate facts. Times' editorial policy seems to promote "balanced" thoughtful sounding columnists like Brooks and Stephens, but for intelligent insights, I prefer the thoughtful conservatives out there who are blasting Trump without assuming a defensive posture of balance that only muddles the truly disastrous current state. Unless you are saying the Vietnam War was mostly a good thing that did not merit protests and that health care coverage for those who can not afford it is a bad thing. If so, I get your point.
35
How can any thoughtful conservative respect the process that spat up Trump?
10
I'm not buying your argument, Mr. Stephens. There is a huge difference between protesting an unjust war and selling out to the wealthy supporters.
Barry Goldwater, in stating, ". . . extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," set the stage for the decline of the Republican Party. John McCain, the one person in the GOP who comes closest to Goldwater's stature, has just informed us that extremism is no virtue when it is plain stupid.
Barry Goldwater, in stating, ". . . extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," set the stage for the decline of the Republican Party. John McCain, the one person in the GOP who comes closest to Goldwater's stature, has just informed us that extremism is no virtue when it is plain stupid.
49
So glad to see so many people calling out this inane and completely false comparison for what it is: Another sign of the hypocritical moral bankruptcy of whatever "conservatism" has become.
44
Reactionaries tramped the meaning of "conservative" as brutally as they did the meaning of "liberal".
12
It is regrettable that the New York Times felt the need to tell millions what Anthony Scaramucci said to one reporter in one telephone conversation. Locker room talk has been a proven method of keeping ladies out of the conversation and the range of expletives have always been a reliable inverse measure of a gentleman.
Being a lady or gentleman was an admirable way of educating children before sex became a sport and pregnancy became a burden. Today Planned Parenthood and the LGBT community educates children and the vulgarities of the locker room are reduced to political realities. We have lost both the guardrails and the guiderails that a wholesome civilization needs.
Being a lady or gentleman was an admirable way of educating children before sex became a sport and pregnancy became a burden. Today Planned Parenthood and the LGBT community educates children and the vulgarities of the locker room are reduced to political realities. We have lost both the guardrails and the guiderails that a wholesome civilization needs.
2
The whole world is a locker room to Trump and his entourage.
We have surrendered reason to a mob of psychotics projecting an imaginary human personality onto nature.
We have surrendered reason to a mob of psychotics projecting an imaginary human personality onto nature.
11
Yes, those profanity blasting liberals are all behind this explosive dive into the dregs. After all, their lectures are nothing but curse and slanderous innuendo modeled after the classic Newton's Diatribes on German Mathematicians. The problem with the Trump administration is that they are just crass without any imaginative play or humor. I offer my students a reason to study anatomy that will give them cover when they decide to belittle their opponents; that they use technical terms that give their opponents pause to make the connection they were just insulted. The Trump administration needs a first-class tutor in a course on mastering Churchhill's Rules on Diffusive Retorts. I doubt if they would gain much, however, they get so much fun out of being in elementary school brawls.
3
They don't do vocabulary-building. Trump gets by on about 500 words.
9
The White House already should be severing the employment tie with Mooch.
Thank you, Bret, for describing Trump's White House as "the most morally grotesque administration in American history."
All the Fundamentalist conservatives--including Sarah Huckabee Sanders--should be totally horrified. How is it they wanted prayer in public schools, but embrace this President?
Thank you, Bret, for describing Trump's White House as "the most morally grotesque administration in American history."
All the Fundamentalist conservatives--including Sarah Huckabee Sanders--should be totally horrified. How is it they wanted prayer in public schools, but embrace this President?
21
While its nice to see a conservative bashing the vulgarities of the Trump Whitehouse, the platform he launches from (blame the hippies, blame the 60's, the moral turning point was the defeat of McCain in 2008) is so wobbly that any meaningful diatribe has its feet in the muck from the start.
Such is the patchwork quilt of forces joining daily to salvage our democracy from the proud Know-nothings who have handed the reins over to the King of Know-nothings. For the time-being I will embrace Mr Stephens as a comrade.
Such is the patchwork quilt of forces joining daily to salvage our democracy from the proud Know-nothings who have handed the reins over to the King of Know-nothings. For the time-being I will embrace Mr Stephens as a comrade.
10
Mr. Stephens,
You are too young to remember the sixties and seventies. Let me add to the background here and perhaps you will understand why many, especially persons of color and women, generally see the changes made in those years.
--Until 1963, it was perfectly legal in many states to refuse to hire, refuse to rent hotel rooms or entertainment spaces, refuse to serve in restaurants, etc. Jews and African Americans.
--Until 1974, "help wanted - male" and "help wanted- female" job classifieds were legal.
--Until 1973, female diplomats in the United States State Department were required to resign on marriage.
--Up to 1974 or 1975, we had a military draft, but privilege and access to doctors who would write silly notes excused service (e.g., our current President, a life-long golfer who got successive deferments based on bone spurs.)
--Up until the 1980s or so, in many jurisdictions, a conviction for rape required two eyewitnesses, marital rape was not a crime (even where spouses were separated) and police would not make arrests in instances of domestic violence, even when presented with an obviously injured spouse and a husband who freely admitted the violence.
--Pollution of lakes, rivers, etc., was not even against the law. One of the Great Lakes (Lake Erie, I believe) caught fire.
I hope this helps you put the sixties and seventies into perspective.
You are too young to remember the sixties and seventies. Let me add to the background here and perhaps you will understand why many, especially persons of color and women, generally see the changes made in those years.
--Until 1963, it was perfectly legal in many states to refuse to hire, refuse to rent hotel rooms or entertainment spaces, refuse to serve in restaurants, etc. Jews and African Americans.
--Until 1974, "help wanted - male" and "help wanted- female" job classifieds were legal.
--Until 1973, female diplomats in the United States State Department were required to resign on marriage.
--Up to 1974 or 1975, we had a military draft, but privilege and access to doctors who would write silly notes excused service (e.g., our current President, a life-long golfer who got successive deferments based on bone spurs.)
--Up until the 1980s or so, in many jurisdictions, a conviction for rape required two eyewitnesses, marital rape was not a crime (even where spouses were separated) and police would not make arrests in instances of domestic violence, even when presented with an obviously injured spouse and a husband who freely admitted the violence.
--Pollution of lakes, rivers, etc., was not even against the law. One of the Great Lakes (Lake Erie, I believe) caught fire.
I hope this helps you put the sixties and seventies into perspective.
52
I'm blinking my eyes in disbelief here, Mr. Stephens. You agree that the 1968 Democratic Party Convention riots in Chicago were the fault of "university professors, politicians and journalistic commentators?"
Really? Are you kidding me? The Chicago police bore no responsibility? The tone-deaf and misguided Johnson administration in the midst of the Vietnam carnage was blameless?
Absolutely! Blame the university profs. It's always their fault. They think way too much. As for the "journalistic commentators," Mr. Stephens, you already know the sorry deal there.
Really? Are you kidding me? The Chicago police bore no responsibility? The tone-deaf and misguided Johnson administration in the midst of the Vietnam carnage was blameless?
Absolutely! Blame the university profs. It's always their fault. They think way too much. As for the "journalistic commentators," Mr. Stephens, you already know the sorry deal there.
27
Real nastiness started with Swift-Boat crowd, and has gotten worse and worse, until the entire midsection of this country are all deck-mates.
17
Mr. Stephens is a terrific writer and the kind of representative of conservativism that we miss in W. H. Buckley. Interesting that he alludes to protestant movements, given that he has a nonsectarian background. I had to consult the Wiki on Antinomians. It quotes Adam Clarke that the Gospels' liberation from "ceremonial" laws is replaced by an even stronger bond to moral law. This is clearly something that Trump and Mooch don't respect in the least.
Like CD in Maine, I'm not aware of those who gave Trumpism a "patina of intellectual respectability and moral seriousness" - which, if there were such a thing, would be besmirched by the foulness of Trump/Mooch, like an icon dropped in a pigsty.
I once worked with a lawyer who had worked with Congressman Father Drinan, who opposed the Vietnam war and was the first to introduce legislation to impeach Nixon. The anti-war movement wasn't represented only by the "Steal This Book" guy; some considered the was immoral. As Dr. Planarian pointed out, this contrasts strongly with the moral basis of Trumpism, which is essentially, "Greed is good, and so is unrestrained lust." Trumpism is indeed Antinomian, but lacks the Christian principle that faith engenders respect for moral law.
Like CD in Maine, I'm not aware of those who gave Trumpism a "patina of intellectual respectability and moral seriousness" - which, if there were such a thing, would be besmirched by the foulness of Trump/Mooch, like an icon dropped in a pigsty.
I once worked with a lawyer who had worked with Congressman Father Drinan, who opposed the Vietnam war and was the first to introduce legislation to impeach Nixon. The anti-war movement wasn't represented only by the "Steal This Book" guy; some considered the was immoral. As Dr. Planarian pointed out, this contrasts strongly with the moral basis of Trumpism, which is essentially, "Greed is good, and so is unrestrained lust." Trumpism is indeed Antinomian, but lacks the Christian principle that faith engenders respect for moral law.
4
In a pre-68 Andy Griffith episode, Mayberry town elders block a show by the kids in Miss Crump's class featuring contemporary music and dancing. The kids respond with a Roaring 20s show. Tales of the Gay 90s also come to mind, and a dirge about St. James Infirmary.
Depression, world war, and postwar global responsibility sobered up America in a way that Prohibition never could. I think the tippling began again with JFK's inaugural address, just as the Bill Buckley conservatives were writing Eisenhower out of the conservative movement.
I'm a big fan of civil rights and the moonshot; but Vietnam was a debacle led by elites, not 18 year old draftees too young to drink or vote unlike the guys in the National Guard and Reserves who weren't called up.
With the Southern Strategy, Nixon made a bargain with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Draw a line from that, not 1968, to Gingrich and McConnell.
There's an old joke about how if the govt doesn't trust the people it should dissolve them and elect a new people. With modern media and computer aided redistricting we've approximated that. To take one example, political activists left and right conflate contraception and elective abortion. I don't think most people think and feel that way.
1968? Pshaw.
Depression, world war, and postwar global responsibility sobered up America in a way that Prohibition never could. I think the tippling began again with JFK's inaugural address, just as the Bill Buckley conservatives were writing Eisenhower out of the conservative movement.
I'm a big fan of civil rights and the moonshot; but Vietnam was a debacle led by elites, not 18 year old draftees too young to drink or vote unlike the guys in the National Guard and Reserves who weren't called up.
With the Southern Strategy, Nixon made a bargain with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Draw a line from that, not 1968, to Gingrich and McConnell.
There's an old joke about how if the govt doesn't trust the people it should dissolve them and elect a new people. With modern media and computer aided redistricting we've approximated that. To take one example, political activists left and right conflate contraception and elective abortion. I don't think most people think and feel that way.
1968? Pshaw.
15
Actually, one obvious connection between 1968 and 2016 is the folks who were fighting in the streets in '68 are often the very same people who now attend Trump rallies. I know more than a few guys now in their late 60's and early 70's who've told me they used to be leftists protesting the Vietnam War and Nixon, who now support Trump. What I believe to be the common theme here is, quite frankly, the attitude that I want what I want when I want it, and everyone else who stands in the way is my enemy. Those who wanted free college and a free pass from having to fight in Vietnam are now those who continue to want their Social Security and Medicare guaranteed (as Trump has done) while feeling free to express outrage that others should get Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment insurance. They didn't complain when previous generations paid high taxes to subsidize their generation's opportunities, but now bitterly complain about their tax dollars going to support the "lazy, takers and moochers," who "expect everything to be handed to them."
While I realize this isn't true of all Boomers, you only have to look at the voting demographics to see that Trump did better among white male Boomers than he did among virtually any other demographic.
While I realize this isn't true of all Boomers, you only have to look at the voting demographics to see that Trump did better among white male Boomers than he did among virtually any other demographic.
6
Just a suggestion!
Why not replace English expletives with foreign ones. That way, oldies (such as myself) and boys/girls-scouts would be less disturbed. In addition, little by little, we would also start to create an international baseline for that sort of pronouncements.
I contend that the English language is a bit deficient in that domain and would learn a lot from foreign adventures.
Ultimately, as a species reaching for a lower level, we may, in a moment of grace, shame, and hilaruty, wake up and migrate back to the surface.
Why not replace English expletives with foreign ones. That way, oldies (such as myself) and boys/girls-scouts would be less disturbed. In addition, little by little, we would also start to create an international baseline for that sort of pronouncements.
I contend that the English language is a bit deficient in that domain and would learn a lot from foreign adventures.
Ultimately, as a species reaching for a lower level, we may, in a moment of grace, shame, and hilaruty, wake up and migrate back to the surface.
Bret,
"No guardrails" is much much much too polite, a modest but inadequate image for the damage being done and the danger we are in. It is much much much much worse than "no guardrails." There are no depths to which the "so-called person doing a poor impersonation of a president" will not sink. To paraphrase Roger Ebert one more time, to call Trump, and now Scaramucci, the bottom of a bottomless pit is to insult the pit and the concept of bottomlessness.
"No guardrails" is much much much too polite, a modest but inadequate image for the damage being done and the danger we are in. It is much much much much worse than "no guardrails." There are no depths to which the "so-called person doing a poor impersonation of a president" will not sink. To paraphrase Roger Ebert one more time, to call Trump, and now Scaramucci, the bottom of a bottomless pit is to insult the pit and the concept of bottomlessness.
6
The Trump-Mooch gambit worked--we're all talking about White House cursing and now, whether or not the Wall Street Journal was correct to blame all our troubles on the 1968 Yippies.
Meanwhile, our attention has been deflected from the most important issues--the Russian hijacking of our election and the scheming by our President to stop an investigation of that act of war against our country.
Even conservative spokesmen like Stephens should appreciate the threat to our politics posed by Putin and Trump.
Now that is worth cursing about--and resistance.
Meanwhile, our attention has been deflected from the most important issues--the Russian hijacking of our election and the scheming by our President to stop an investigation of that act of war against our country.
Even conservative spokesmen like Stephens should appreciate the threat to our politics posed by Putin and Trump.
Now that is worth cursing about--and resistance.
4
The upheaval of the 60's is a fair comparison. "Radicalized" beliefs, at least as compared to the then existing norm, did appear radical. And the vanguard of that movement was primarily of the young; 18 to 30.
The decline of conservatism into the cesspool of right-wing propaganda is vastly different: It is the radicalism of the old; 50 to 80.People with the financial means to, literally, buy elections. The mega-donors that enabled Atwater, Gingrich, Limbaugh and Trump.
You reap what you sow, and when you own the landscape you control all.
The decline of conservatism into the cesspool of right-wing propaganda is vastly different: It is the radicalism of the old; 50 to 80.People with the financial means to, literally, buy elections. The mega-donors that enabled Atwater, Gingrich, Limbaugh and Trump.
You reap what you sow, and when you own the landscape you control all.
7
Conveniently Bret you forgot to mention that in 1968 Nixon was elected as president. He was as foul-mouthed as Scaramucci if not worse. I don't think it was the specific year that made him that way. He was the head of the fish.
7
Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, suggests in "On Tyranny" that a coup by Mr. Emoluments & his authoritarians is inevitable. Perhaps the coup has occurred, & a bi-partisan resistance must step up. Accept this depraved, delusional (e.g. poison in the ears of Scouts) narcissism or oppose it. Collaborate with the Trumpian path or seek a different path.
2
Apparently everything bad in the political world of America is caused by those horrible protesters of the late 60's and early 70's. That lets all the right wing supporters off the hook for what transpires in and as the result of any president who claims to be a Republican.
9
Only thing new here is transparency. Kennedy, Johnson (especially), Nixon (especially), Clinton and now Trump. The exceptions: Reagan, Ford, Carter, and Bush I and II. Decorum and the patina of civility go out the window when every issue is a death match.
1
It appears as though the Trump Administration has a new theme every week. They spend more time talking about firing people then they do building a cohesive team that can actually get things done. Last time I looked the GOP controls about every branch of government however they are extremely dysfunctional and cannot get anything done. President Trump seems to be mentally ill and incapable of accomplishing any of his meaningless goals. The only thing that needs to be removed from the swamp is President Trump and his unimpressive children.
6
The tea party movement caused a sea change. They were angry, pushy, loud, ignorant and vulgar - and the media ate it up. The right quickly embraced the movement as their salvation. The Donald was propelled by these people and learned that "nice guys don't get media attention," the lifeblood of politics.
6
very tenuous comparison between '68 outsiders and '17 insiders.
7
Mr. Stephens's misconception of an (im)moral equivalence between the "conservative" (???) intelligentsia of 'these days' and that of the liberals in the '60's cannot be forgiven or explained by the fact that he is too young to remember the mortal sins of Viet Nam, Birmingham, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera -- committed by a government of and for the better off (as usual), and imposed upon the 'lesser classed.'
9
Having had a competent black man as a President, brought the conservative movement prejudices to the surface. This gave us Trump, Sessions, Bannon, the Mooch, etc. in the White House. As Rosen Carter once said, "I think this president (referring to Reagan- the messiah of modern day conservative movement) makes us comfortable with our prejudices." Trump makes us proud of our prejudices!
7
After Obamacare was passed, President Obama and Vice President Biden were standing next to an open microphone when Mr. Biden uttered a crass four-letter word heard around the country. Many of us were stunned and furious at this occurrence as we are with Mr. Scaramucci's tirade using vulgar language.
Just because the Democratic Party used this crude language does not mean that Republicans should do so. You can get a point across without resorting to gutter language. It may take a bit more brain power but it can be done.
Just because the Democratic Party used this crude language does not mean that Republicans should do so. You can get a point across without resorting to gutter language. It may take a bit more brain power but it can be done.
2
Fundamentalists and evangelicals are what happened. Kind of ironic that the result has been wholesale behavior of the sort Christians supposedly decry.
8
We will be seeing more "Moochies". Scaramucci was hand picked by the President in his best Access Hollywood tapes' tradition. A tradition that is evolving from accidental hot mikes to the on the record Mooch's conversation with the New Yorker with a collection of profanity and vulgarrity that is today's Presidential Seal.
I wish the best for General Kelly in what will probably be a short tenure since there is not a vaccine against what he will be enduring.
I wish the best for General Kelly in what will probably be a short tenure since there is not a vaccine against what he will be enduring.
2
The sixties were the result of people waking up to to fact that much of what the had been been taught about america was rose colored. Assassination had become commonplace That they needed to think for themselves and act to make change. Excess and theater were part of the result. Now we have an administration and supporters who bring dishonesty and untruth to a whole new level. To blame the 1968 for todays morrass seems to missunderstand the lessons of history competely.
9
Our acting president, like the hedgehog, knows one thing well. He knows how to drive a 24 hour news cycle so he is the center of attention - regardless of what that attention derives from. Our acting president only mouths what he thinks will cement his ties to his base. Nothing more, nothing less. Leader? A laughable concept for a self absorbed hedgehog.
4
Bret is appalled at the vulgarity, sure. But not too appalled at the contempt for rule of law, for inequality and injustice. He and his Gop conservative friends laid the groundwork for this admininstration they now hypcriticaaly deplore.
6
Dear Bret,
Why not write your own simple, clear column? Those at the highest ranks of our government are not the heirs of eloquent conservatives like William Buckley, but of rabble-rousers like George Wallace before his change of heart.
Why not write your own simple, clear column? Those at the highest ranks of our government are not the heirs of eloquent conservatives like William Buckley, but of rabble-rousers like George Wallace before his change of heart.
4
There's no mystery here Bret. You conservatives own the Southern strategy and the risible Laffer curve. You own the ignorance of your voters and the breathtaking cynicism of your leadership. Most of all, you own Trump and he will blow you up. Thank God.
11
Degrading the military service of a candidate didn't start in 2008 with McCain. Let's not forget 2004's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their attacks against John Kerry.
7
In this episode:
Bonfire of the Vanities
meets Lord of the Flies.
Bonfire of the Vanities
meets Lord of the Flies.
4
It wasn’t ‘68 where the guardrails were lost. First Nixon chose power over the law (“If the President does it, it’s legal.”) and the GOP invited in the Jim Crow Dems. Then Reagan condemned governing (“Government is the problem”) and fiscal policy was replaced with trickle-down rhetoric. After Roe v Wade, the GOP merged with the religious right and God became a Republican. Then with Gingrich came ideological purity over sanity. Liberal was evil, and compromise heretical. (Ideological purity wars are self-destructive because they can only go toward more extreme definitions of purity and drift ever further from reality.) So anything “conservative” was good, and all else was evil. Moderates were purged. Enter Fox News, which celebrated “Hate the Libs” and served a steady diet of outrage to enthrall the voracious base. During Bush II the war on facts took off as GOP donors saw climate change and data-based regulation as threats to their dreams of oligarchy.
Then they all went nuts over Obama. No lie was too big. Obstruction became standard when they found it was easier to cop an attitude than craft a bill. After 8 years of obstruction and no political price (thanks to gerrymandering (strategically well-played, if cowardly, since it admits that without rigged districts and voter suppression they can’t win on ideas)) they had no moral foundation left, only the will to power. Trump, their unleashed id, won. So where is the value of morality, when it doesn’t win elections?
Then they all went nuts over Obama. No lie was too big. Obstruction became standard when they found it was easier to cop an attitude than craft a bill. After 8 years of obstruction and no political price (thanks to gerrymandering (strategically well-played, if cowardly, since it admits that without rigged districts and voter suppression they can’t win on ideas)) they had no moral foundation left, only the will to power. Trump, their unleashed id, won. So where is the value of morality, when it doesn’t win elections?
11
When will you accept that republicans do what they do because of their own decisions and choices? When will you understand the implications of your own seeking to excuse the indefensible? When will you stop blaming democrats for what their opponents do? It's unseemly coming from a man whose party ramps on about "personal responsibility" and then blames everyone else, even those who tried to stop them, for their multi-debacles and sins. Sort yourself out, sir.
7
Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers very aptly described this White House:
"It's like watching an octopus put its socks on."
And what's stunning is the negative fallout of a single week in Trump World:
---His Mini-Me known as The Mooch unleashes an unheard of amount of vulgarities and somehow gains a position taxpayers will be paying.
---Mr. Trump is criticized by the Boy Scouts for drastically inappropriate content said to America's youth--- normally urged to be courteous, kind, clean and reverent!
---And by the Pentagon, following his out-of-nowhere transgender ban and dishonestly claiming he discussed it with the military and generals.
---And by the International Association of Chiefs of Police + Amnesty International USA --after Trump called for more police brutality.
Contempt for law defines this presidency.
"It's like watching an octopus put its socks on."
And what's stunning is the negative fallout of a single week in Trump World:
---His Mini-Me known as The Mooch unleashes an unheard of amount of vulgarities and somehow gains a position taxpayers will be paying.
---Mr. Trump is criticized by the Boy Scouts for drastically inappropriate content said to America's youth--- normally urged to be courteous, kind, clean and reverent!
---And by the Pentagon, following his out-of-nowhere transgender ban and dishonestly claiming he discussed it with the military and generals.
---And by the International Association of Chiefs of Police + Amnesty International USA --after Trump called for more police brutality.
Contempt for law defines this presidency.
6
To the editorial staff: the column was thought provoking and many of the comments raise valid reactions. This topic using the comments would be a good piece for Sunday Review. But it would be necessary to flesh out exactly who Stephens is referring to.
1
Brent seems to be joining a growing number of "conservatives" who rejoice in Republican bashing. This group includes Joe Scarborough, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. These folks aren't anti-Trump intellectuals like, say, George Will. They have gleefully engaged in GOP-bashing that is almost Pelosian in its joy. I guess high paying jobs at the NYT and MSNBC, as well as accolades from the liberal media outweigh loyalty to their movement. They seem to forget that Trump, unlike Hillary, cleanly won his party's nomination, for better or for worse. Voters do what they want to do, regardless of what Scarborough and Staples wants. The real GOP is living with this: the rats have jumped ship.
Disagree dude...the protesters in Chicago were right! Should the Venezuelan youth not fight...should they whimper and accept the outrage of Maduro and everything he is setting out to do? Should there never have been an Arab Spring? Nothing better for tyranny then a good uprising. Come to think about you might check out the Boston Tea Party.
7
The 1960's and the Politicians who ruled at least did not make a laughing stock of our Country, nor did it manage to destroy our democracy, although some did try. That is the difference.
Trump and his cohorts, and this includes the Republican party have managed to interfere with every Governmental agency that is there to protect our rights.
And furthermore Trump, his staff and most of the Republican leaders lack a moral compass.
At least the people protesting the Viet Nam war had a moral compass. Some may have not agreed with the protesters against the war, but none were shocked because of immoral behavior. It was and is still our right to protest what we believe to be our rights.
The vulgarity and immorality that besets us now is because of those we have elected. They are appealing to the basest instincts in human behavior.
It is up to us to reset the tone of our country.
Trump and his cohorts, and this includes the Republican party have managed to interfere with every Governmental agency that is there to protect our rights.
And furthermore Trump, his staff and most of the Republican leaders lack a moral compass.
At least the people protesting the Viet Nam war had a moral compass. Some may have not agreed with the protesters against the war, but none were shocked because of immoral behavior. It was and is still our right to protest what we believe to be our rights.
The vulgarity and immorality that besets us now is because of those we have elected. They are appealing to the basest instincts in human behavior.
It is up to us to reset the tone of our country.
6
Today's brat pack is vandals all the way up and all the way down.
Tony Soprano speaks for the executive branch and the right wing loves it.
4
Truly we are on the eve of de.struction
2
Yo Bret! What was your #? Mine was 114.
DRAFT #.
If you didn't have one you too young to be telling me what happened in 68, buddy.
You also need some serious fact check- the official verdict was Chicago was A POLICE RIOT. The violence came first from the uniform org acting under order from Higher Authority.
Higher Authority was under "attack" for having started a stupid war with a Big Lie, continued the slaughter with an endless dog and pony show of lies, and acted like it could continue to do so, committing mass murder, endlessly.
Gee, deja vu all over, eh?
As far as men and rough language? T'were always so. Your answer is to sweep that back under Victoria's skirts?
This bit belongs in the Journal, not the Times.
DRAFT #.
If you didn't have one you too young to be telling me what happened in 68, buddy.
You also need some serious fact check- the official verdict was Chicago was A POLICE RIOT. The violence came first from the uniform org acting under order from Higher Authority.
Higher Authority was under "attack" for having started a stupid war with a Big Lie, continued the slaughter with an endless dog and pony show of lies, and acted like it could continue to do so, committing mass murder, endlessly.
Gee, deja vu all over, eh?
As far as men and rough language? T'were always so. Your answer is to sweep that back under Victoria's skirts?
This bit belongs in the Journal, not the Times.
8
What I take away from this article is the author's unapologetic repetition of Scaramucci's vulgarity to create what he clearly hopes will be a piece of 'journalism' that will get folks' attention. His willing concession to sensationalism ("Oh, Look at me, I"m the first journo in the Times to NOT bleep vulgarities") is Trumpian, as are the lame arguments regarding the 60s. Just another young performer looking for attention. Next!
2
"the blessing of an intellectual class"? you mean like David Brooks and Ross Douthat?
5
Yes something has gone terribly wrong in American politics. Listen to the Kennedy Nixon debate tapes in the Kennedy Library and recall the 2016 presidential debates. You will get a terrible pit in your stomach.
My culprit is Newt Gingrich. The intellectual as revolutionary who brought the GOP to congressional majority through scorched earth politics. He scorned compromise, precipitated the first government shutdown and eviscerated political opponents. His serial adultery made no difference to his supporters. Newt showed conservatives how to win. Modesty ,responsibility and restrained be damned.
My culprit is Newt Gingrich. The intellectual as revolutionary who brought the GOP to congressional majority through scorched earth politics. He scorned compromise, precipitated the first government shutdown and eviscerated political opponents. His serial adultery made no difference to his supporters. Newt showed conservatives how to win. Modesty ,responsibility and restrained be damned.
10
If one believes that a vote for Hillary is literally a vote for Satanism then one would be willing to excuse anything as a lesser evil.
5
President Trump exists because idiots are easily distracted by vulgar comments and debates over who is more vulgar and why, like drunk baseball fans arguing about impossible matchups between players from different eras. Many people litteraly voted just to win this sort of meaningless argument. Get over it.
What are you going to do, Mr. Trump, to reign in the cost of healthcare? Increase gender, race, and class equality? Improve our infrastructure and education programs? Improve America's global influence?
What are you going to do, Mr. Trump, to reign in the cost of healthcare? Increase gender, race, and class equality? Improve our infrastructure and education programs? Improve America's global influence?
Let's see now, Yippee "street fighters" are the real responsibles for Don Scaramucci's tantrum. And Trumpist megalomania in general.
And if you don't believe, refer to the Antinomian WSJ's reference to T.S. Eliot quoting Homer quoting Odysseus.
All Greek to me !
Bret, PLEASE focus on one issue at a time, and abandon your scholarly pursuit of the primum mobile in current politics. Oh, and leave Isreal out altogether, lest you abandon forever your journalistic objectivity.
Best Regards,
JV
And if you don't believe, refer to the Antinomian WSJ's reference to T.S. Eliot quoting Homer quoting Odysseus.
All Greek to me !
Bret, PLEASE focus on one issue at a time, and abandon your scholarly pursuit of the primum mobile in current politics. Oh, and leave Isreal out altogether, lest you abandon forever your journalistic objectivity.
Best Regards,
JV
He lost me at "In 1993 The Wall Street Journal published a famous editorial called “No Guardrails,”". Famous to whom? The WSJ editorial page has long been a cesspool of whackaloons, would-be plutocrats and their boot-lickers. I notice the date coincided with the advent of a Democrat president, no doubt a time of great mourning and fear in those environs.
9
i think 'vulgarity' is the very least of our problems.
3
All this talk about Mooch's vulgarity. People, this is just a New York dialect.
It is the attitude that prevails in hedge fund trading rooms.
2
"In its account of the conversation, The New York Times opted to quote Scaramucci in full. Why not? We’re long past pretending that this is not the way the leadership of the country speaks."
And then you repeat the vulgarities, sounding rather like a twelve year old testing the waters of permissiveness. The convoluted thinking in this piece is so Republican it's laughable. What on earth is your point?
And then you repeat the vulgarities, sounding rather like a twelve year old testing the waters of permissiveness. The convoluted thinking in this piece is so Republican it's laughable. What on earth is your point?
8
The Times really needs to start adding NSFW tags to its articles (not safe for work)
1
So it's basically still a bunch of war hating hippies fault. Talk about a lack of responsibility. Y'all broke the government by creating a willfully ignorant, racist, frightened right wing. And in difference to the NYTimes, I am restraining my language.
9
Don't blame the hippies, they never passed the drug tests.
1
Remember: William F. Buckley, the patron saint of intellectual conservatism, lost his temper and called Gore Vidal a "queer" and threatened to "sock" him, right on TV. Which just goes to show you how, inside every sanctimonious conservative, there lurks a latent derailed immoralist. Our president simply made it OK to let the demon out--much to the relief, apparently--of half of America.
5
djt, what can I say, you've actually did it. You have drained the Washington swamp and replaced it with a cesspool. Only a man of your character could have achieved such a monumental task in such a short time. You should sit down right this minute and tweet out again to everyone just how truly great you are. Besides, it's not like you have anything more useful to do. I hope you are exceedingly proud of yourself as most of us think you are pretty much worthless.
6
I'd rather a vulgar president than a criminal one.
lucky buddy, you got both.
4
You've got both now.
4
Hillary Clinton was neither vulgar nor a criminal. She was competent. And that's why she overwhelmingly won the popular vote.
6
The hour of crisis for Donald Trump's presidency is here. While John Kelly is the new Cheif of Staff, 3 people still have with direct access to Trump. That, alone will defeat Kellys ability to establish any order.
The President has elevated a rude punk .."Mooch"..who clearly plans to debase the decency of the Presidency as a Comms Director. His way of communicating is that of a rude high school boy.. Steve Bannon shows no respect for the discipline and order needed for the administration to function. Add to it "Super-Jared," the son-in-law with several job and no understanding of any of them.
Only 1 man is responsible for this disfunction-Donald Trump. Man-up and grow up Donald. It's my country...there are 330 million of us.1 of you and flawed doesn't properly describe you. However, I won't be so indiscrete in my description of you. I have respect for the Office of the Chief Executive of the United States. Only you can get the White House operating well. Respect the office you hold and do it in a hurry!
#failurefriday #trumpdothejob
The President has elevated a rude punk .."Mooch"..who clearly plans to debase the decency of the Presidency as a Comms Director. His way of communicating is that of a rude high school boy.. Steve Bannon shows no respect for the discipline and order needed for the administration to function. Add to it "Super-Jared," the son-in-law with several job and no understanding of any of them.
Only 1 man is responsible for this disfunction-Donald Trump. Man-up and grow up Donald. It's my country...there are 330 million of us.1 of you and flawed doesn't properly describe you. However, I won't be so indiscrete in my description of you. I have respect for the Office of the Chief Executive of the United States. Only you can get the White House operating well. Respect the office you hold and do it in a hurry!
#failurefriday #trumpdothejob
This experience is disgusting. The people who still judge Bill Clinton's infidelities 30-40 years later, and blame his wife for having feelings about the women who screwed her husband, cheer on these crass, vulgar and utterly incompetent people who are desecrating our White House and gutting key departments in our government. We are lucky there has not been a real crisis so far - other than Trump's self-inflicted ones. What happens if there's another Katrina and we have no FEMA Director? What happened when there is some sort of critical event in our foreign policy and we have no deputy Secretaries of State or ambassadors appointed in the majority of positions? This is governing MALPRACTICE in addition to a vulgar reality show. Trump is not the President. He presides over a dog fighting ring essentially. He delegates the tasks of the presidency and watches tv and golfs. He has shown zero growth. He's the same ill-prepared boor he was in every debate. When he's out, we will hopefully have abnormal President again and sigh our relief. Out with the trash.
6
This is a very specious and invalid argument here. Equating the antiwar movement of 1968 with the Trump presidency may work well for former Wall Street Journal employees, but the comparison is inaccurate at least and risible at best. Bobby Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King-- NOT the clownish Abby Hoffman-- were the moral leaders my generation followed.
The Chicago 1968 protests were commonly described by eyewitnesses as "a police riot." The peers of my youth of that time were protesting an immoral war (in which I served, by the way), a racist and homophobe society (which still persists), among other violations of the US constitution. Non-violent resistance against a very violent society was the order of the day. NO moral stance can be found among Trump, his cohorts in crime, and his constituency. These malefactors maintain a racist, homophobic, anti-woman, pro-gun, anti-intellectual stance that is the antithesis of the Christian gospels and the rule of law. It is the self-righteous and unregulated capitalists of the GOP who have created and encouraged this sad evolution of a sector of American society.
The Chicago 1968 protests were commonly described by eyewitnesses as "a police riot." The peers of my youth of that time were protesting an immoral war (in which I served, by the way), a racist and homophobe society (which still persists), among other violations of the US constitution. Non-violent resistance against a very violent society was the order of the day. NO moral stance can be found among Trump, his cohorts in crime, and his constituency. These malefactors maintain a racist, homophobic, anti-woman, pro-gun, anti-intellectual stance that is the antithesis of the Christian gospels and the rule of law. It is the self-righteous and unregulated capitalists of the GOP who have created and encouraged this sad evolution of a sector of American society.
9
As a young teen living near Chicago during 1968, I don't recall a television network such as Fox News supporting the "liberal intelligentsia." Were there people making ALOT of money using talk radio, television, or print media to support the anti-war movement, the women's movement, or the struggle for Civil Rights? Look at the salaries of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Ann Coulter! Look at the army of conservative lobbyists, lawyers, think tanks all making a large paycheck by playing the game of politics! Look at all the wealthy millionaires and billionaires supporting "conservative" or corporate causes! Your comparison to 1960's activists breaks down here. Activists from the sixties met and slept in church basements, or on the couches of friends, not the five star hotels of today's conservative movement. What happened to the old American ethic of modesty, responsibility, and restraint indeed?
19
Back then there was a "fairness doctrine" that limited the concentration of sheer fantasy in political commentary. That went out the window in the Reagan enablement.
5
I think part of what Stephens is trying to say is that neither the President nor the new Communicators Director display internal discipline as to what they say, and both serve as extreme counterexamples to what their modes of expression should be.
I would not agree that "The larger responsibility falls on the intellectuals— university professors, politicians and journalistic commentators." That responsibility belongs to all of us. We shouldn't conflate these occupations, nor assert for any reason that those occupations provide a de facto intellectual standard nor model of morality. There are charlatans in every field, and they rise up in every situation that demands loyalty over independence.
Scaramucci's "outburst" should be considered significant. This is is the most transparency we can expect from the top spokesperson for the executive branch.
I would not agree that "The larger responsibility falls on the intellectuals— university professors, politicians and journalistic commentators." That responsibility belongs to all of us. We shouldn't conflate these occupations, nor assert for any reason that those occupations provide a de facto intellectual standard nor model of morality. There are charlatans in every field, and they rise up in every situation that demands loyalty over independence.
Scaramucci's "outburst" should be considered significant. This is is the most transparency we can expect from the top spokesperson for the executive branch.
7
Perhaps the present had its seeds sown in the Sixties, but not because "the justifications never really stopped". It was because of the resistance to change that solidified against it, with a fear-based mentality that said those changes must not only be stopped, but rolled back. Millions of former Dixie Democrats fled to the Republican party which embraced them and their racism and xenophobia. And if there was anything that symbolizes the philosophy of the R-C movement since the Fifties and Sixties then it's the quote: "Winning isn't everything...it's the ONLY thing". No holds barred opposition to anything not deemed conservative enough, finally taken to extreme by the Republicans shutting down government, and then refusing to vote on a legitimate SCOTUS candidate for a year until after the elections were held.
So, yes, the supporters of the R-C movement would absolutely forgive Trump for ANY misdeed in return for tilting the Supreme Court to the right for decades. Their ends justify any means. And sadly, this means the Dems must return fire with the same tactics if we are to find some balance again. This will likely mean even more escalation of partisanship and gridlock, and may even lead to open violence as the intractable divide of the mid-nineteenth century led to the Civil War. Because if you try to suppress the need for change - as has happened since the Sixties - eventually it will explode, and that IS a lesson to be learned from that era.
So, yes, the supporters of the R-C movement would absolutely forgive Trump for ANY misdeed in return for tilting the Supreme Court to the right for decades. Their ends justify any means. And sadly, this means the Dems must return fire with the same tactics if we are to find some balance again. This will likely mean even more escalation of partisanship and gridlock, and may even lead to open violence as the intractable divide of the mid-nineteenth century led to the Civil War. Because if you try to suppress the need for change - as has happened since the Sixties - eventually it will explode, and that IS a lesson to be learned from that era.
7
Harmonious coexistence of diversity creates many opportunities for mutually beneficial exchanges. They just don't get this.
2
This quote, Mr. Stephens, is laughable:
"Did it come with the defeat of John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and the conclusion by rank-and-file conservatives that concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship — the virtues that just saved the G.O.P. from a political disaster of its own devising in Friday’s health care vote — were for suckers?"
George W Bush did a wild smear campaign in the South Carolina primary savaging McCain's honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship in 2000.
W Bush had the Swiftboaters savage John Kerry's honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship.
But, finally, this waxing poetic of John McCain now is questionable.
I admire John McCain, but I will never forgive him for foisting Sarah Palin upon us, a wildly unqualified, name-calling, quitter who lowered the bar to help Trump step over that bar.
"Did it come with the defeat of John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and the conclusion by rank-and-file conservatives that concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship — the virtues that just saved the G.O.P. from a political disaster of its own devising in Friday’s health care vote — were for suckers?"
George W Bush did a wild smear campaign in the South Carolina primary savaging McCain's honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship in 2000.
W Bush had the Swiftboaters savage John Kerry's honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship.
But, finally, this waxing poetic of John McCain now is questionable.
I admire John McCain, but I will never forgive him for foisting Sarah Palin upon us, a wildly unqualified, name-calling, quitter who lowered the bar to help Trump step over that bar.
13
You speak of Palin's non-qualifications for Vice President? Just what were Obama's qualifications to be President? Community service? A short term "lecturing" at Harvard Law? An equally short few months as a Senator?
Do you really have to be reminded that Obama was a senator?
1
I wonder about the changing role of the Church in America and the effect it has had on the change in personal morals and ethics. In the 50s and 60s the Church was focused on an individual's personal behavior. Today that focus has morphed to political behavior, which I believed has resulted in rationalizing our personal actions.
5
Nothing new under the sun. Know Nothings and Father Coughlin and Joseph McCarthy. Xenophobia has always been a part of the American landscape, and there have always been politicians who chose to capitalize on it. There might have been a capitulation in 2008, but it wasn't after the election: who was McCain's choice of running mate but a proto-Trump?
7
It's been said before, but it bears repeating - Why are all the other supposed Congressional 'leaders' seemingly in support of what this President says and does? Why is there this cadre of former so-called leaders who make the rounds on cable news shows extolling the virtues of this President? We have the likes of a former Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives and an ordained Christian minister giving this guy their unflagging support. We can try to place the flash point of when we changed the discourse of decorum but when that's all done, I think it will be ultimately place at the feet of those who believe that human law is just as good or better than moral law - law that has been with us since the beginning of time.
6
Really, Mr. Stephens?
I love the superiority of Republicans. You want to talk about 1968, why not 1972:
Bernstein and Woodward
Washington Post
10/10/72
"FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of Nixon.
The activities were aimed at all the major Democratic presidential contenders and -- since 1971 -- represented a basic strategy of the re-election effort.
FBI agents established that hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nixon campaign contributions had been set aside to pay for an extensive undercover campaign aimed at discrediting individual Democratic presidential candidates and disrupting their campaigns.
"Intelligence work" is normal during a campaign and is carried out by both political parties. But investigators said what they uncovered being done by the Nixon forces is unprecedented in scope and intensity.
It included:
Following members of Democratic candidates' families and assembling dossiers on their personal lives; forging letters and distributing them under the candidates' letterheads; leaking false and manufactured items to the press; throwing campaign schedules into disarray; seizing confidential campaign files; and investigating the lives of dozens of Democratic campaign workers."
Trump has a Republican "No Guardrails" legacy.
I love the superiority of Republicans. You want to talk about 1968, why not 1972:
Bernstein and Woodward
Washington Post
10/10/72
"FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of Nixon.
The activities were aimed at all the major Democratic presidential contenders and -- since 1971 -- represented a basic strategy of the re-election effort.
FBI agents established that hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nixon campaign contributions had been set aside to pay for an extensive undercover campaign aimed at discrediting individual Democratic presidential candidates and disrupting their campaigns.
"Intelligence work" is normal during a campaign and is carried out by both political parties. But investigators said what they uncovered being done by the Nixon forces is unprecedented in scope and intensity.
It included:
Following members of Democratic candidates' families and assembling dossiers on their personal lives; forging letters and distributing them under the candidates' letterheads; leaking false and manufactured items to the press; throwing campaign schedules into disarray; seizing confidential campaign files; and investigating the lives of dozens of Democratic campaign workers."
Trump has a Republican "No Guardrails" legacy.
29
Superb response to a misguided article.
3
Honorable Conservatism? You mean. Deny Climate Change! Against Campaign Finance reform! Support NRA. Repeal Estate Tax Flat tax. Abolish EPA. Restrict Voting. District Gerrymandering. Repeal ACA for Tax Cuts for the rich. Increase Defense Spending. ETC
23
This is all institutional nihilism.
2
Exactly!
1
I do not know who Bret Stephens is. From this column, all I can conclude is that he has is incomprehensible and incoherent. His weird argument seems to be that the political developments of August 1968 were a turning point toward moral catastrophe—or was it 2008? Or is it now? And was it the New Left that caused it, or the philosophical enablers on the Right? Or the hard-core conservative voters?
Personally, what heartens me is that the surge of protest and anger at the Republicans and Trump signals a resurgence of progressive political activism.
In the late 1960s, many of us who opposed the Vietnam War did NOT condone the protests that trampled on others' civil liberties. We did not try to justify it; we condemned it. But we understood where the anger came from. And a similar anger has surfaced now.
But when a President tells the police not to worry if they injure someone being arrested (who, let it be noted, is not guilty until proven so in a court of law), then the excesses are coming indeed from the top down. We have a President and staff members who have no sense of what is in the Consitution they are sworn to defend.
Alas!
Personally, what heartens me is that the surge of protest and anger at the Republicans and Trump signals a resurgence of progressive political activism.
In the late 1960s, many of us who opposed the Vietnam War did NOT condone the protests that trampled on others' civil liberties. We did not try to justify it; we condemned it. But we understood where the anger came from. And a similar anger has surfaced now.
But when a President tells the police not to worry if they injure someone being arrested (who, let it be noted, is not guilty until proven so in a court of law), then the excesses are coming indeed from the top down. We have a President and staff members who have no sense of what is in the Consitution they are sworn to defend.
Alas!
28
I lose track. Who were the "conservative intelligentsia"? Those Republicans who joined the Birtherism movement or those who formally repudiated it? Because if you accept the latter definition, there's been no conservative intelligentsia whatsoever for at least eight years.
22
WmC: 'Who were the "conservative intelligentsia"?'
Stephens never names any, but he does give a list of philosophies, job titles, and roles:
Stephens: "Trumpism ... professors, politicians and journalistic commentators — the theoreticians, enablers, sanctifiers, excuse makers and Never Never-Trumpers — ..."
"Trumpism" sounds about as well-defined as "Stalinism". Stephens should expand on the definition of "Trumpism". This seems too limited:
Stephens: "They are our new Antinomians, who believe the president and his administration are bound by no law, even the Mosaic one, because they have already been saved by a new version of grace — in this case, the grace of defeating Hillary Clinton."
Stephens never names any, but he does give a list of philosophies, job titles, and roles:
Stephens: "Trumpism ... professors, politicians and journalistic commentators — the theoreticians, enablers, sanctifiers, excuse makers and Never Never-Trumpers — ..."
"Trumpism" sounds about as well-defined as "Stalinism". Stephens should expand on the definition of "Trumpism". This seems too limited:
Stephens: "They are our new Antinomians, who believe the president and his administration are bound by no law, even the Mosaic one, because they have already been saved by a new version of grace — in this case, the grace of defeating Hillary Clinton."
"Morally grotesque" is the best description so far of trump and his white house. Let's make sure that we never have reason to use "morally evil".
9
The administration's position on climate change is morally evil. Attempting to deny health care to tens of millions of Americans is morally evil. Obstructing justice is morally evil. Etc.
2
Peggy Noonan pegged this president correctly: he is a weak, whiney vulgarian who hides his insecurity with serial lying, bullying his underlings and trying to act the tough guy in constant campaign rallies. He is the first president in history to advocate police brutality in a speech to law officers. He is the first president in history whose speech to Boy Scouts had to be apologized for. He is the first president in history to indulge in naked nepotism, tax evasion, science denial, multiple conflicts of interest, merchandising of the White House, attacks on the First Amendment and the Judiciary. He has no moral compass, no decency, no ethics, no curiosity about the world around him, no qualifications for the job of president, no desire to learn and no desire to govern. He treats the presidency like a reality show and his only policy goals are self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. He is a national and international embarrassment and has single-handedly destroyed much of what the Republican Party used to stand for. Yet the GOP continues to enable this monstrosity.
75
I'll take a vulgarian with sound principles and good policy positions over a smooth-talking socialist globalist any day.
Mr. Stephens, the guardrails were never in concrete, the ruling class moved them as they saw fit. In 1968 my generation started to question the those in charge of guardrail placement. Next exit, Vietnam, "The President lied, men died". My generation dared to stop at the offramp and say, "what are we fighting for...".
That is very different than the no nothing dissent from today's radical right.
That is very different than the no nothing dissent from today's radical right.
25
Republican goalposts are just mirages.
2
No mention of the evangelical christians who have so hypocritically embraced Trumpolini and his hateful, caustic push to dictatorship by way of lies and a no guardrails presidency?? Wonder what they think of Scaramucci? Do they still think god works in mysterious ways? I thought good christians were all about moral guardrails... Part of the history of the current phenomenon Stephens fails to acknowledge, describe and explain here is the dark shift reflected in evangelicals' support of Trumpolini, which has much more to do with racism, homophobia, a self-serving rejection of science they believe will enhance their pocketbooks, and an anger that supposed handouts are being given to people who don't look like them, than it does any set of christian moral principles.
29
So true. Please add misogyny to the list of "moral" traits evangelicals. (re. St. Pence).
2
The Republican Party and Donald Trump clearly have no moral compass. Language is not the issue here since it's nothing any of us hasn't heard before on the street, in the locker room and sometimes even at the office. The problem here is the attacks on democratic institutions that made America the beacon of hope for millions of Americans and those who gave everything up to come here and be a part of the American dream. These democratic institutions were not attacked in the same ways in 1968 as they are now being assaulted. The disparaging attacks on the judiciary, the intelligence community, the freedom of the press and our environment is a quantum leap in the destruction of the greatest country on earth that has little to do with the events of 1968. The language of Scaramucci and Trump are a reflection of Trump supporters feelings since they've lived on a diet of Rush, Levin and Fox News, all which have embraced obstruction and now that they're finally in a position to make policy, simply can't. They're just too used to saying no. That's easy. We have to look past the language and look closer at the agenda even if policy is not yet being implemented because the Republicans can't get their act together and the White House occupants are incompetent. Damage is still taking place and when it gains momentum, it may be beyond repair. These people have no interest in bi-partisanship. They crave empowerment and greed at the expense of us all. We need to wake up.
11
What else in 1968 could possibly have affected the moral judgment of the country? How about a misguided war in Asia, a decade after a misguided war in Asia?
The US does not exist in a bubble. The Vietnam war drove a wedge between how the right and left define morality that still simmers today. The liberals then and now protesting the butchery of wars fought by Americans in far away places by America's teenagers (in Vietnam). Remember the draft number assignment day, determined by birthdate? I do. That generation then went overboard, turning to drugs and violence.
The right however, was more than willing to accept collateral damage, in other words, the killing of innocents, while still pretending to uphold godly virtues despite the obvious hypocrisy. They also ignored the plight of southern blacks. They went overboard domestically attacking civil rights in the name of religion and greater good. It was a combination of these two forces that lowered "the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct."
The rights' current self-destructive woes, we are to believe, are a response to liberal debauchery. Ignore that the right waves the flag while still blithely accepting collateral damage and racism in violation of the commandments it pretends to hold dear. Hypocrisy caught up with the right. What we are witnessing is the imploding of the right wing blame game.
The US does not exist in a bubble. The Vietnam war drove a wedge between how the right and left define morality that still simmers today. The liberals then and now protesting the butchery of wars fought by Americans in far away places by America's teenagers (in Vietnam). Remember the draft number assignment day, determined by birthdate? I do. That generation then went overboard, turning to drugs and violence.
The right however, was more than willing to accept collateral damage, in other words, the killing of innocents, while still pretending to uphold godly virtues despite the obvious hypocrisy. They also ignored the plight of southern blacks. They went overboard domestically attacking civil rights in the name of religion and greater good. It was a combination of these two forces that lowered "the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct."
The rights' current self-destructive woes, we are to believe, are a response to liberal debauchery. Ignore that the right waves the flag while still blithely accepting collateral damage and racism in violation of the commandments it pretends to hold dear. Hypocrisy caught up with the right. What we are witnessing is the imploding of the right wing blame game.
21
I think of the draft lottery as the great awakening of Lotto mentality in the US. My number was pulled in the first lottery, when nobody even tumbled the drum after dumping in the capsules with the dates inside, December last.
It's been less than four months since The Times announced the hiring of Bret Stephens as its new voice of "neo-conservatism," and I'm already weary of him. Like many commentators here, I came of age during the sixties, and it was nothing like Stephens and his blindered mentors at the WSJ imagine it to have been. Others have told of their experience in great detail; I'll just note that while down by the World Trade Center earlier this year to photograph those protesting Trump's immigration policy, I realized that the vast majority of the protestors were either grey-haired boomers or mid-20s millennials. Very few Gen X/Gen Y'rs (Stephens' cohorts) were in sight.
Politico's Jack Shafer put it best: with Bret Stephens, it's the "resting-smirk that is his best move." He's one more smarmy neo-con that The Times feels the need to bring in on occasion, so as to claim "objectivity." And like others before him (William Safire comes to mind), he'll wind up sitting by himself in a corner of the Time's cafeteria, methodically digesting his bland, stale lunch.
Politico's Jack Shafer put it best: with Bret Stephens, it's the "resting-smirk that is his best move." He's one more smarmy neo-con that The Times feels the need to bring in on occasion, so as to claim "objectivity." And like others before him (William Safire comes to mind), he'll wind up sitting by himself in a corner of the Time's cafeteria, methodically digesting his bland, stale lunch.
16
Stacy's accurate depiction of Evangelicals at the core of the Trump moral disaster raises a legal question. Are Evangelical organizations really religions, in particular Christian religions in a legal sense?
Evangelical churches and their pastors invariably insist that they are fervent followers of Jesus. My problem with them since the coming of Trump is there is no truthful way to connect Trump with the Jesus of Christian scriptures. If anything Trump is Dostoyevski's Anti-Christ.
Evangelicals worship of Trump has exposed their hypocrisy concerning their professed Christianity. They have grotesquely misrepresented themselves, providing strong justification for enforcement lawsuits to deny them government privileges that generally derive from the first amendment. The IRS should lead the way.
Evangelical churches and their pastors invariably insist that they are fervent followers of Jesus. My problem with them since the coming of Trump is there is no truthful way to connect Trump with the Jesus of Christian scriptures. If anything Trump is Dostoyevski's Anti-Christ.
Evangelicals worship of Trump has exposed their hypocrisy concerning their professed Christianity. They have grotesquely misrepresented themselves, providing strong justification for enforcement lawsuits to deny them government privileges that generally derive from the first amendment. The IRS should lead the way.
12
It feels like Trump is slowly peeling away his pretend Republican layers, and is slowly exposing his real skin by surrounding himself with people of his own ilk. I think before long, his administration will be devoid of all conservatives (aside from Pence), and will hire only those that are more like him. Brash, self-serving, arrogant and unqualified. Conservatives were warned that Trump was not one of them, and it seems that now he is showing his true self.
5
The contrast between what Pence claims to stand for and what Trump stands for is now a gap as big as the universe.
While Trump and his associates have taken incivility and bad behavior to new heights (or really lows), Bill Clinton's behavior with Monica Lewinsky and in lying to the grand jury was reprehensible and arguably worse.
3
But I never feared for my country with Clinton as I do now. I didn't have the feeling then that our country would never recover like I do now. And I was never truly embarrassed of our country as I am now, because now I know that it was my fellow Americans who willfully did this to us.
2
Thank you Mr. Stevens. I look forward to the day when America wakes up from this nightmare.
Alternative view: the WSJ's condemnation of anti-protesters in '68 is of a piece with its embrace of Trump and the right's general embrace of this awful president. It flows from a reactionary insistence that proper social hierarchies are the ones that have long existed in America and all challenges to it must be put down with hysterical zeal and violence. The anti-Vietnam movement disgusted reactionaries because it was led by people they hated. The Trump movement is basically the same. Reactionaries were never able to come to terms with the legitimacy of Obama and radicalizing them was no big lift. All it took was a little dash of white nationalism and law-and-order hysteria.
10
1968?!
In the Age of Trump, to focus one's attention on the Democratic convention is myopic to the extreme. Such a view ignores the murderous racism and immoral lunacy of the Vietnam War raging at the time. Now that was vulgarity! The vulgarity of words is one thing, but the actual weaponization of hatred and violence of the 50's and 60's has reared its ugly head in every decade and has never really been adequately addressed by this country.
Not one word in this column -- not one word -- about the popularization of hatred as political tool by hate-talk radio and tv. More than any other factor leading to this vulgar administration has been the selling of hate. This is the price we're paying for conservatives' unwillingness to condemn the fact-free, hate-mongering vulgarity of Fox, Limbaugh, et al.
In the Age of Trump, to focus one's attention on the Democratic convention is myopic to the extreme. Such a view ignores the murderous racism and immoral lunacy of the Vietnam War raging at the time. Now that was vulgarity! The vulgarity of words is one thing, but the actual weaponization of hatred and violence of the 50's and 60's has reared its ugly head in every decade and has never really been adequately addressed by this country.
Not one word in this column -- not one word -- about the popularization of hatred as political tool by hate-talk radio and tv. More than any other factor leading to this vulgar administration has been the selling of hate. This is the price we're paying for conservatives' unwillingness to condemn the fact-free, hate-mongering vulgarity of Fox, Limbaugh, et al.
23
Wish I could recommend this repeatedly.
1
Scaramucci embodies every negative stereotype about New Yorkers that Middle American Trump voters hate, especially the evangelicals. Yet there's no outcry from them. They're too busy cheering Trump's false statement that he's banning all the "wicked" transgendered Americans from the military.
5
To see the state of conservatism, look no further than the healthcare debate. Obamacare was a conservative design from the Heritage Foundation, which is now the law of the land and doing quite well. Rather than attacking it, conservatives should be singing its praises. Their hatred of a black President and brainwashing from Fox News prevents them from doing so.
This brainwashing extends much, much further. Conservatives think tax cuts pay for themselves (they do not); that the banking crisis was caused by government forcing banks to make bad loans (it was instead caused by failure to regulate the risk taking of individuals and banks); stimulus doesn't work (it works quite well), and hard money is always the right answer (if the Fed didn't print money as liberals argued, we'd be in a Depression today).
Conservatism today has virtually no relevance or basis in fact.
This brainwashing extends much, much further. Conservatives think tax cuts pay for themselves (they do not); that the banking crisis was caused by government forcing banks to make bad loans (it was instead caused by failure to regulate the risk taking of individuals and banks); stimulus doesn't work (it works quite well), and hard money is always the right answer (if the Fed didn't print money as liberals argued, we'd be in a Depression today).
Conservatism today has virtually no relevance or basis in fact.
11
I really like this column, but the analysis is not quite complete. Today, it's all about the money...the money to maintain political power, and the money to maintain media juggernauts. Many...not all, but many...political and media entities will do ANYTHING to hold and advance their beachhead, with no regard to collateral damage to the country.
3
President Obama was a devoted family man who took time to spend with his family on a daily basis and was savaged by the same people who decry the moral rot of our country as a reason to support a thrice-married womanizer, Trump.
The unfortunate thing about having principles is that you must stick with them, even when they are inconvenient. If they are easily sacrificed for political gain, you are every bit as immoral as those who you claim to be destroying our country.
The unfortunate thing about having principles is that you must stick with them, even when they are inconvenient. If they are easily sacrificed for political gain, you are every bit as immoral as those who you claim to be destroying our country.
12
The 1741 sermon by Jonathon Edwards cited by Mr Stephens contains the line "he that stands or walks on slippery Ground, needs nothing but his own Weight to throw him down." Unfortunately too many people walked on the slippery ground of voting for a demagogue and their weight is about to throw all of us down into the destruction of America.
RESIST!
RESIST!
7
The Trump administration can never be justified, but it can and will be eradicated at the ballot box.
2
This column neatly sums up al that is wrong with conversativsm -- but not in the way the author intended. Woodstock was not about vulgarity. The violence in Chicago in 1968 was perpetrated by the police. When you start with wrong premises--which most historians would agree with--you end up with whacko conclusions. So, the vulgarity of Republicans and conservatives now which is so clearly on display, is not new. The sotto voce racism against Obama, the distorted conspiracy (Whitewater anyone?) against Clinton, the moral superiority instead of Christian humility -- this is all conservatism and it's been going on for 50 years.
19
They got what they wanted, and, more appallingly, they are cheering, and wildly celebrating America's decent.
2
Et tu, Bret?
Well said, Mr. Stevens, although I would place the blame less on intellectuals and more on its opposite, junk culture and specifically reality tv. Reality tv has fostered the old Andy Warhol view and I paraphrase that "everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" or at least have that goal. Reality tv allowed a vulgar, mendacious, intellectually stunted, category 5 narcissist to present himself as a great deal maker and manager for pretending to fire C level celebrities of his own ilk.
But I do find the comparison to the Yippies accurate; to me Steve Bannon is the equivalent of Abbie Hoffman, a smart, college educated, media savvy, cynic who knows deep down that all of the intellectual reasons for the posture won't bring about the actual results promised, but rather anarchy.
There is a significant difference however and one that you allude to in this column, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were anti establishment provocateurs, not members of the government. By choice and through necessity Donald J Trump a man who serves as president and his biggest fan concurrently has surrounded himself with the only people who will have him, the opportunistic, the manipulators, the extremists, the crooked, the family and a few patriots who one hopes are doing to him what he is doing to the country, if not exerting influence than stealthily fighting against his pernicious influence.
But I do find the comparison to the Yippies accurate; to me Steve Bannon is the equivalent of Abbie Hoffman, a smart, college educated, media savvy, cynic who knows deep down that all of the intellectual reasons for the posture won't bring about the actual results promised, but rather anarchy.
There is a significant difference however and one that you allude to in this column, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were anti establishment provocateurs, not members of the government. By choice and through necessity Donald J Trump a man who serves as president and his biggest fan concurrently has surrounded himself with the only people who will have him, the opportunistic, the manipulators, the extremists, the crooked, the family and a few patriots who one hopes are doing to him what he is doing to the country, if not exerting influence than stealthily fighting against his pernicious influence.
1
Bret Stephens finds the roots of Republican bad behavior in 1968 protests of the Vietnam War rather than in the war itself, which was a sick abomination beyond imagination.
The Republican Party has been and is the party of American violence. Just yesterday Trump urged an audience of police to expand violent treatment of suspects in custody, and was applauded. The violent gun epidemic in the US is a Republican project.
The roots of Republican bad behavior don't lie in any particular year or event. They lie in millions of non events, millions of individual Republican growth stunts. These are bullies and children. When they don't get what they want, they lie, yell, hit, kick, or shoot, often in support of equally deformed ideas. "Liberty" and "freedom" have become the right to do whatever one wants with no consideration of the rights of a larger community. Or they are used to literally oppress the rights of other, often minority, views and ways.
They have come very close to breaking the entire country and now it is time to respond patiently, carefully, compassionately, non violently, and firmly, just like a good parent would. We must all now parent these grown children for the good of all.
The Republican Party has been and is the party of American violence. Just yesterday Trump urged an audience of police to expand violent treatment of suspects in custody, and was applauded. The violent gun epidemic in the US is a Republican project.
The roots of Republican bad behavior don't lie in any particular year or event. They lie in millions of non events, millions of individual Republican growth stunts. These are bullies and children. When they don't get what they want, they lie, yell, hit, kick, or shoot, often in support of equally deformed ideas. "Liberty" and "freedom" have become the right to do whatever one wants with no consideration of the rights of a larger community. Or they are used to literally oppress the rights of other, often minority, views and ways.
They have come very close to breaking the entire country and now it is time to respond patiently, carefully, compassionately, non violently, and firmly, just like a good parent would. We must all now parent these grown children for the good of all.
5
During my high school years, I enjoyed watching Firing Line on PBS, hosted by W. F. Buckley. I was not a conservative then, nor am I now . . . however, the intellectual rigor of the conversations was, to me, enjoyable, challenging and elevating.
Sadly, the "intellectual class" of "honorable conservatism" was destroyed by Newt Gingrich and his ilk decades ago, and in its place stands a "class" that defies an easy description, but can be viewed 24/7 on Fox TV.
Sadly, the "intellectual class" of "honorable conservatism" was destroyed by Newt Gingrich and his ilk decades ago, and in its place stands a "class" that defies an easy description, but can be viewed 24/7 on Fox TV.
12
Gingrich and Limbaugh have been two of the absolutely worst influences over the past three decades. Limbaugh is the elder figure along the lead carnival barkers for the cruel and uncivil speech movement.
1
Mr. Stephens you and some of your other conservative brethren probably all mesmerized from the great prophet Ronald of California seem to hold to a foundational premise about the "party" that has been a myth for a long time. The rebellion of the youth of the '60's was against the precursors of greed and might that even Eisenhower warned about. Nixon flipped the party of Lincoln to the party of bigotry while Reagan fortified the nation's takeover to corporate interests. Trump is not an aberration, but a growth fertilized in your party's soil. The resistance to Trump is rooted in the same derision towards corruption and abuse of power that fueled the protests of my youth...except it is no longer just the radical youth raising their fists.
7
I don't think the conservative intelligentsia can be blamed for the rise of Trumpism. Most thoughtful conservatives rejected him from the very beginning. I think the GOP's controlling elite and their operatives, people like Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes and Karl Rove are to blame. They realized that the GOP is ideologically a small minority party representing only the very rich, especially the investor class and major owners of corporate stock, and that it could not survive in a democracy without resorting to deliberate deception and shameless pandering to the worst instincts of the less thoughtful voters. So thats what they did. Ailes and Fox News were instrumental in disinforming, confusing and inflaming those voters, and set the stage for Trump to take the lies and malice to a new level, beating the GOP propagandists at their own game. GOP contempt for voters and cynicism about democracy itself, perhaps beginning with Nixon's Southern Strategy, cleared a path for Trump's bumbling and improbable rise.
6
Personally, I found Obama to be... Oh so eloquent and yet Oh so weak in standing up to the 1%. He entertained them in his home and wrote laws to benefit their wealth making apparatus. The media gave him a free pass. America was willing to put up with a mouthy show-man like Trump if he was capable of fighting for average Americans. (Unfortunately, Trump is not that guy, but Hillary would have likely been worse. Her hypocrisy was pretty deep.)
This newspaper enabled Obama and sang his praises without end. It was an incredible display of unquestioning faith, almost a conversion. The country eventually became disgusted with the propaganda campaign offered to him and rejected his successor. Trump's election is a result of pent up frustration with an emotionally detached (from the hard working middle class) elite.
This newspaper enabled Obama and sang his praises without end. It was an incredible display of unquestioning faith, almost a conversion. The country eventually became disgusted with the propaganda campaign offered to him and rejected his successor. Trump's election is a result of pent up frustration with an emotionally detached (from the hard working middle class) elite.
""I shouted out now who shot the Kennedys
after all it was you and me"
Rolling Stones
By 1968, our best moral leaders had been murdered. Ya think that had anything to do with it? We were at a moral crossroads, with the chance to turn for the better, and what we got was murdered leaders. Anyone who was there and is still watching can see that the imperialists won and are still in charge. Still we vote, and try to live moral and productive lives knowing that our chances of completing that turn for the better are vanishingly small.
Then along came Trump. Politically, Trump and his gang are the symptom, not the disease. Economically, Trump and his gang, and people like him are the disease itself. At the next election, we might put a bandage over this particular wound, but the cancer persists.
after all it was you and me"
Rolling Stones
By 1968, our best moral leaders had been murdered. Ya think that had anything to do with it? We were at a moral crossroads, with the chance to turn for the better, and what we got was murdered leaders. Anyone who was there and is still watching can see that the imperialists won and are still in charge. Still we vote, and try to live moral and productive lives knowing that our chances of completing that turn for the better are vanishingly small.
Then along came Trump. Politically, Trump and his gang are the symptom, not the disease. Economically, Trump and his gang, and people like him are the disease itself. At the next election, we might put a bandage over this particular wound, but the cancer persists.
3
2016 is not 1968, not yet. For those who lived through 1968, it was personal for everyone. We have yet to reach that stage where our cities smoke in the ruin of racial injustice, our campuses are convulsed by anti-war protests, and every family dinner is an angry debate between generations over the future of the Republic.
While the threat of Trump is existential, it has not awakened his supporters to the hypocritical travesty of his rule. It has yet to reach them personally, but may still. Even in failing to repeal the ACA, the GOP actually won a round in the game. They just don’t know that they are playing Russian roulette with the American people.
While the threat of Trump is existential, it has not awakened his supporters to the hypocritical travesty of his rule. It has yet to reach them personally, but may still. Even in failing to repeal the ACA, the GOP actually won a round in the game. They just don’t know that they are playing Russian roulette with the American people.
2
Thanks to Mr. Stephens for finally correctly applying the proverb--the head of the fish is the person in charge (Trump, as he keeps telling us). Or maybe Mr. Scaramucci's inner truth-teller was peeking out from behind the mask and saying this all along.
As someone who was both an academic at the time and worked with a peace group at the Democratic convention in Chicago, the violence witnessed was mostly a blip in the social behavior of the left as it has evolved. Certainly, there are exceptions, but the playbook of leftist demonstrations and protest is that of Ghandi and King.
There arguably has been a broad lessening of decorum across our social and political fabric, but the most radical left of that period has diminished in numbers and influence. Who cites Abbie Hoffman on any subject these days?
With the possible exception of Bill Clinton, have the Democrats ---or even Republicans---put more straight arrow men in the White House than Carter or Obama?
There arguably has been a broad lessening of decorum across our social and political fabric, but the most radical left of that period has diminished in numbers and influence. Who cites Abbie Hoffman on any subject these days?
With the possible exception of Bill Clinton, have the Democrats ---or even Republicans---put more straight arrow men in the White House than Carter or Obama?
4
At least the party of "family values" has FINALLY been exposed as the sham it has always been.
5
I think it's this simple. Next election, the Democrats need to get their voters out if they want to save America. Trump's red meat base will never change. They can only be out voted. it's not like the man won by a landslide.
4
Lest we forget, Donnie was also a 68er, just not a protester (no need, with a rich dad to buy a compliant doctor to diagnose those "bone spurs"). Remember there were only a handful of Yippies with the guts to go against Mayor Dailey's storm troopers. But Donnie cashed in on all the changes other people fought and sometimes bled for, just as he has always cashed in on other people's work. So it is correct to trace Donnie's excesses back to 1968, just not in the sense the WSJ meant in 1994 or Stephens means today.
3
I can understand the writer trying to find something to compare this horror show to, but nobody's buying it. Not even the writer. He knows better. The "reach" has detached his arm from from his shoulder. He knows the danger we're in and eventually he'll give up trying to blame it on liberals or whatever. Anyone who continues to try to do the old false equivalency thing with this mess could only be a trumpist. And this guy ain't no trumpist. He knows better and he'll be ok once he finally decides on honesty.
6
Mr. Stephens, without those unwashed despicable hippies protesting the Viet Nam War, the military industrial complex, and supportive corrupt politicians, would have continued to bloat their coffers and take the lives of multitudes of innocents for many more years.
There was a morality in those days that has succumbed to greed and ignorance over the decades, but may be experiencing a resurgence, as evidenced by the young supporters of people like Bernie Sanders who are advocates of our old pledge to "Help All and Harm None".
You need to look farther and deeper for the ones to blame for the state of our country now; your condemnation of my generation was lazy and misinformed.
There was a morality in those days that has succumbed to greed and ignorance over the decades, but may be experiencing a resurgence, as evidenced by the young supporters of people like Bernie Sanders who are advocates of our old pledge to "Help All and Harm None".
You need to look farther and deeper for the ones to blame for the state of our country now; your condemnation of my generation was lazy and misinformed.
11
Dear Bret Stephens:
I like your article but Trump won because of language and he will continue to be popular because of language. Its not what he says, its how he says it.
A phrase like "They are our new Antinomians, who believe the president and his administration are bound by no law, even the Mosaic one" makes my blue collar family feel ignorant, feel poor and react with anger.
I like your article but Trump won because of language and he will continue to be popular because of language. Its not what he says, its how he says it.
A phrase like "They are our new Antinomians, who believe the president and his administration are bound by no law, even the Mosaic one" makes my blue collar family feel ignorant, feel poor and react with anger.
1
'A phrase like "They are our new Antinomians, who believe the president and his administration are bound by no law, even the Mosaic one" makes my blue collar family feel ignorant, feel poor and react with anger.'
Anyone can look up words online, so there is no excuse for "feel[ing] ignorant". Try Googling "Antinomians" and "Mosaic".
As for why that sentence would make anyone "feel poor and react with anger", you will need to say more.
Anyone can look up words online, so there is no excuse for "feel[ing] ignorant". Try Googling "Antinomians" and "Mosaic".
As for why that sentence would make anyone "feel poor and react with anger", you will need to say more.
What is going on now has nothing to do,with 1968. This is about the money. Nobody in 1968'was involved in demonstrations to gain wealth. The "intellectuals" the GOP follows now are in think tanks such as the Club for Growth. What they have wrought is a kleptocracy and nihilism.
6
The hard-hats who beat up kids with long hair, the racists who sang "Bye Bye Blackbird" to bussed-in African-American children and the conspiracy nuts who claimed Vietnam continued to hold American POW's after the war was over never went away. The "law-and-order" Wallace-voting segregationist die-hands never went away.
After they were reviled and discredited for these actions, they simply morphed into the Birthers, White Lives Matter, Government Death Panel, anti government-of-any-kind, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim parade that Trump raced to the front of . It all seemed so fresh and new.
When Trump is discredited--and he and these ideas will be discredited--they'll move on to the next demagogue who steps up and taps into their resentments and perceived slights. And America will continue to be dysfunctional and weaker, if not in full decline. We will only survive and still seem the most viable society by comparison if the rate of decline for Russia and China is steeper and faster (and that looks like a good long-term bet.)
After they were reviled and discredited for these actions, they simply morphed into the Birthers, White Lives Matter, Government Death Panel, anti government-of-any-kind, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim parade that Trump raced to the front of . It all seemed so fresh and new.
When Trump is discredited--and he and these ideas will be discredited--they'll move on to the next demagogue who steps up and taps into their resentments and perceived slights. And America will continue to be dysfunctional and weaker, if not in full decline. We will only survive and still seem the most viable society by comparison if the rate of decline for Russia and China is steeper and faster (and that looks like a good long-term bet.)
5
"Every vote cast for Donald Trump was a vote for vulgarity." Have you spoken with every person who voted for Trump? Have you searched inside each one of them to ferret out their motives?
Statements like these from both sides undermine otherwise sound arguments. Outrage is often legitimate. But anger usually weakens attempts to counter injustice and ignorance.
We must do our best to stick with facts. Hyperbole gives the other side more opportunities to divert attention from the real discussion. We must do our venting offline. Else, we simply feed a lake of anger. Fight fire with water, not more fire.
Statements like these from both sides undermine otherwise sound arguments. Outrage is often legitimate. But anger usually weakens attempts to counter injustice and ignorance.
We must do our best to stick with facts. Hyperbole gives the other side more opportunities to divert attention from the real discussion. We must do our venting offline. Else, we simply feed a lake of anger. Fight fire with water, not more fire.
Abby Hoffman was no "revolutionist". He was a Yippie. Look carefully at Steve Bannon and Trump and see if you don't find twisted reflection of Abbie's political philosophy lurking somewhere within.
1968 was not the mother of our current mess. The results of the refusal to acknowledge those serious critiques of American international and domestic policy are now bearing fruit.
1968 was not the mother of our current mess. The results of the refusal to acknowledge those serious critiques of American international and domestic policy are now bearing fruit.
1
I'm curious if Mr. Stephens left the WSJ because of "Trump’s media defenders." That's why I cancelled my subscription, though I do miss reading it, even if many on the editorial board are noxious.
I was genuinely frightened by what Mr. Stephens said on the Morning Joe show yesterday: "I think that if he is not impeached or resigns, he could very well win reelection."
Certainly that prospect is last thing anyone was thinking this past week. The way you said that as your concluding remark was utterly chilling.
I was genuinely frightened by what Mr. Stephens said on the Morning Joe show yesterday: "I think that if he is not impeached or resigns, he could very well win reelection."
Certainly that prospect is last thing anyone was thinking this past week. The way you said that as your concluding remark was utterly chilling.
Have you noticed that conservatives absolutely cannot write about the depravity of the republicans today without also engaging in "whataboutism" with regard to democrats. Stephens here attempts to equate the appalling hypocrisy of current "republican intellectuals" (although as we all know, that term is an oxymoron) with Democrats embracing anti-war protesters--people determined to speak out about the money-grabbing depravity of those who orchestrated the Vietnam war (with the same money-grabbing motives of those who orchestrated the Iraq war, by the way). In the 60s the democratic party sided with those who had anti-war motives. But, what "morality" can be used to justify what the conservatives are doing now, in enabling this monstrosity Trump and inflicting him on our once beautiful country? More false equivalency, Stephens. Just stop it. Just own it. The right in this party is corrupt, stupid, and sick. It has nothing to do with anything democrats are doing or ever did. Just own that fact.
11
This article swung wildly from pinning the origin of moral decay on 1968 Democrats to asking a question which took my breath away: if Trump molested a woman in the Oval Office would conservatives feel that the Gorsuch SCOTUS appointment justified the election of such a miscreant? (They would say yes, I fear.)
There are, undoubtedly, no guardrails for this presidency, no moral compass, no wealth of experience, no honoring of political norms, no prudence, no honor, no soul. The question here is from whence did this deviance spring? Or, plainly, whose fault is this?
I feel the fault is multi-pronged:
-The weaponization of Christianity. As a Catholic I have watched in horror as Christian extremists across the land (funded by billionaires) have sought to impose their beliefs on everyone else, including relentless assaults on women's reproductive freedom and the LBGT community.
-The politicization of SCOTUS way beyond any semblance of its traditional role. SCOTUS appointments almost outrank the presidency in terms of a rationale for voting.
-The difficulties of many white enclaves across the land in dealing with demographic realities, in competing successfully in the workplace without post-high school education, in flexibly reinventing themselves (including relocating and retraining), and in accepting a black president, waves of motivated immigrants and the rising demand of darker-skinned people for justice.
-The failure of all of us to pay attention to the above.
There are, undoubtedly, no guardrails for this presidency, no moral compass, no wealth of experience, no honoring of political norms, no prudence, no honor, no soul. The question here is from whence did this deviance spring? Or, plainly, whose fault is this?
I feel the fault is multi-pronged:
-The weaponization of Christianity. As a Catholic I have watched in horror as Christian extremists across the land (funded by billionaires) have sought to impose their beliefs on everyone else, including relentless assaults on women's reproductive freedom and the LBGT community.
-The politicization of SCOTUS way beyond any semblance of its traditional role. SCOTUS appointments almost outrank the presidency in terms of a rationale for voting.
-The difficulties of many white enclaves across the land in dealing with demographic realities, in competing successfully in the workplace without post-high school education, in flexibly reinventing themselves (including relocating and retraining), and in accepting a black president, waves of motivated immigrants and the rising demand of darker-skinned people for justice.
-The failure of all of us to pay attention to the above.
3
What hogwash. Blaming the sixties is a hoary old excuse by the right to continue the pillage that brought the chaos of the sixties. Where to begin, how about sending the poor to save the rich kids ( Donald, Rush, Saint Reagan, Dick Cheney) in Vietnam. Historical revisionism. But then that seems to be how the United States of Central North America rolls.
7
The faux outrage over some off color language from a presidential staffer just makes me shake my head. If this is the best Trump opponents can come up with, ("but they talk dirty!"), it explains why they lost.
While I certainly don't think it was wise for Scaramucci to telephone a reporter and proceed to unload in those terms, it's difficult for me to take liberals' pearl-clutching seriously when everyone knows that JFK and Clinton used the White House for their assignations with young women and LBJ was well known for his foul mouth.
Now, if Mr Stephens wants to discuss a real obscenity, one that will top Scaramucci's outburst, let him rerun one of his columns telling us why the Iraq War was a GREAT idea...
While I certainly don't think it was wise for Scaramucci to telephone a reporter and proceed to unload in those terms, it's difficult for me to take liberals' pearl-clutching seriously when everyone knows that JFK and Clinton used the White House for their assignations with young women and LBJ was well known for his foul mouth.
Now, if Mr Stephens wants to discuss a real obscenity, one that will top Scaramucci's outburst, let him rerun one of his columns telling us why the Iraq War was a GREAT idea...
3
"A more interesting question is how the conservative movement came to embrace it." Hmmm.......... climate change denial, racism and tax cuts for the wealthy, for starters.
2
Scaramouche paranoid schizophrenia syndrome infecting the U.S.?
Bad enough every human being is thrown into a world (the universality of living life) which is known only in fraction because of both limitation of human intellect and something about the world itself which does not present itself in forthcoming fashion to educate a person to best of ability that a person naturally possesses; in fact the world often seems to operate in opposite fashion, that it seeks to destroy a person rather than to educate, elevate a person.
This results in not a bit of personal paranoia on a person's part; religion itself with Gods or God and demonic forces or Satan is not a little bit of a paranoid schizophrenic view of life. But now add modern times to the mix, the force of knowledge technological, psychological, increased technique of manipulating reality for better and worse. The capacity in modern times--and it is only increasing--for surreptitiously helping or harming a person, perpetrating a snow job or springing a pleasant surprise, is truly astonishing and frightening and whether a person is being helped or harmed the result is the same: The feeling on the person's part of loss of control, loss of dignity, loss of development of own identity in the world.
It's just perfectly natural a person would twist and turn, play the fool, brag, bully, become vulgar, oscillate between this conspiracy theory and that, seek to perpetrate tricks in turn...We twist reality into ourselves today.
Bad enough every human being is thrown into a world (the universality of living life) which is known only in fraction because of both limitation of human intellect and something about the world itself which does not present itself in forthcoming fashion to educate a person to best of ability that a person naturally possesses; in fact the world often seems to operate in opposite fashion, that it seeks to destroy a person rather than to educate, elevate a person.
This results in not a bit of personal paranoia on a person's part; religion itself with Gods or God and demonic forces or Satan is not a little bit of a paranoid schizophrenic view of life. But now add modern times to the mix, the force of knowledge technological, psychological, increased technique of manipulating reality for better and worse. The capacity in modern times--and it is only increasing--for surreptitiously helping or harming a person, perpetrating a snow job or springing a pleasant surprise, is truly astonishing and frightening and whether a person is being helped or harmed the result is the same: The feeling on the person's part of loss of control, loss of dignity, loss of development of own identity in the world.
It's just perfectly natural a person would twist and turn, play the fool, brag, bully, become vulgar, oscillate between this conspiracy theory and that, seek to perpetrate tricks in turn...We twist reality into ourselves today.
So Conservative vulgarity is somehow the fault of the anti-war protesters of 1968? And how on earth did McCain losing to Obama convince the rank-and-file that "honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship were for suckers?"
I know Bret Stephens is not your usual Conservative blame-monger, but I really wish the Conservative movement would man up and take responsibility for its own misguided policies, blunders and vulgarity.
I know Bret Stephens is not your usual Conservative blame-monger, but I really wish the Conservative movement would man up and take responsibility for its own misguided policies, blunders and vulgarity.
5
Wow. enjoyed the wordcraft. As mentioned 'Readers will have their own views'. Good to see a professional that has mastered their craft. Gives me faith humanity may survive.
1
it is a false equivalence to compare the protests,
not riots,of the 1960s to the intolerant right wing
"basket of deplorables"supporttong Trump.
the so called riots in Chicago were caused by
Mayor Daley and his brutal police force.
today's types supporting Trump have no interest
in debates but only vulgar language and violent
confrontation.
not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but when it came
to Trump supporters, she had it right.
not riots,of the 1960s to the intolerant right wing
"basket of deplorables"supporttong Trump.
the so called riots in Chicago were caused by
Mayor Daley and his brutal police force.
today's types supporting Trump have no interest
in debates but only vulgar language and violent
confrontation.
not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but when it came
to Trump supporters, she had it right.
2
Let's stay focussed. Whether it's the transgender military ban, the Mooch's language, health care drama, Long Island gangs or the late Friday resignation, this is a scatter gun approach by the WH, trying to find the story that will take over the headlines to keep the Russia investigation out of the news. It was a relief to watch Friday's Rachel Maddow for example, whose show invoked some discipline by covering mostly Russia-only related items. More of that please!
3
During the late sixties, with the war raging, and the now known acts of Nixon colluding to sabotage the peace talks, watching American soldiers dying on the evening news, the violence of those against the civil rights movement, two more assassinations, jim crow all over the place, gays in closets, women fighting for equality and respect, bombs, fires on university property, and so-on-and-so-on.
I wore lots of buttons then and one of them said, "It is as bad as you think and they are out to get you!" On a daily basis, due to the draft, I said to my self, "Johnson is out to get me killed."
Bret Stephens, where were you during the sixties?
I wore lots of buttons then and one of them said, "It is as bad as you think and they are out to get you!" On a daily basis, due to the draft, I said to my self, "Johnson is out to get me killed."
Bret Stephens, where were you during the sixties?
6
Vulgar language is the crutch of people who don't actually have the best words.
1
Thank you for the history lesson blaming only liberals for Trumpism and today's conservative crisis. Same right wing media propaganda blather which won't solve any problems. Just as Democrats and progressives must do some serious soul-searching, perhaps conservatives should stop the blame game and come up with a thoughtful agenda based on something other than intolerance, greed, and my favorite, ramming your so-called Christian "values" down everyone's throat.
3
Vulgarity is not criminal. Criminals are not necessarily vulgar. Liberals and rinos forget the distinction because they judge morals by manners.
1
McCain with the active support of the WSJ editorial page of which Stephens was an ornament named Palin, a complete airhead, as his running mate. The problem is not 1968 it's the progressive destruction of civilized norms and the contempt for facts and intellectualism displayed by the Republican party and the conservative political entertainment industry. Government shut downs, the ludicrous impeachment of Clinton, charges that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster, the fiasco in Iraq, all of it supported by rabidly right wing voices like the WSJ oped page. No Mr Stephens the problem is not 1968 and flower power, it's people like you.
9
The changes attributable to 1968 are the only positive ones we've had in decades. Until I read this editorial I didn't know there was anybody left defending the war in Vietnam.
And blaming intellectuals was perfected by Stalin and Mao, so we already know how well that works.
And blaming intellectuals was perfected by Stalin and Mao, so we already know how well that works.
1
BRAVO! So true.
Modern GOP politicians, with a few exceptions identified by their "No" vote on healthcare, and the Administration have demonstrated a total disdain for civic and moral values. They patronize their Evangelical and Pentecostal base with high-minded slogans and stances, while betraying our Republic with their hatred of all things "Liberal", or involving Hillary Clinton. Compared to them, the Yuppies and demonstrators of Chicago 1968 were paragons of virtue.
4
"Readers will have their own views. " Yep, we- readers- will. Mr. Stephens is making the best excuse for Trump's behavior. First, the false equivalency with the liberal movement of the 1960s, and I will leave it at that. The liberalism elevated its scope of conscience to acknowledge that our war in Vietnam was morally, and other ways, wrong. Second, it is wrong to think the conservative movement and its intelligentsia lost their moral scope, and I do not think there was much there to begin with. Representing the conservative movement and its intelligentsia as moral (or with moral standing as to the nation and its citizens), while citing Gorsuch's Supreme Court appointment (as I assume it is a good thing from the conservative point of view) makes me wonder if the conservative intelligentsia is even capable of self-reflection anymore. The election of Trump should give the conservative movement and its intelligentsia a reason for reformation, perhaps, with a conservative renaissance to follow. This also applies to the liberal movement and all its sects. I am not holding my breath for either!
1
Trump and his band of crass low-class morons have taken the presidency and its' staff to new low levels. I've never heard (perhaps it was never reported) such talk from the head of the United States. Just when I think things can't get any worse, the moron-in-chief comes out with even lower taste, along with his mini-trumps!
6
"I've never heard (perhaps it was never reported) such talk from the head of the United States."
Nixon used "such talk" and it is "reported" in this biography:
"Richard Nixon: The Life" by John A. Farrell.
You can do a word search in the Amazon preview. I checked several common obscenities and insults, and they are in Farrell's book.
Nixon used "such talk" and it is "reported" in this biography:
"Richard Nixon: The Life" by John A. Farrell.
You can do a word search in the Amazon preview. I checked several common obscenities and insults, and they are in Farrell's book.
Language is a toy to orators. How much of it you see depends on the manners taught by their mothers.
1968 was a tumultuous year and not just in the United States. In France there were the protests known simply as "May 1968". And yet the U.S. didn’t really begin to diverge from the other advanced nations until years later, and certainly not because Yippie values were in the ascendancy. Rather, with the rise of Reagan, anti-government rhetoric became mainstream accompanied by union-busting, the lionization of CEOs, catabolic capitalism, the wholesale move of industries to low wage countries, etc.
Despite Mr. Stephens' misdiagnosis, it is clear that the fish's head is rotten and that all of our institutions are in peril.
Despite Mr. Stephens' misdiagnosis, it is clear that the fish's head is rotten and that all of our institutions are in peril.
17
Brett, this chaos starts with the core Republican message, that government is the problem. Reagan said it - and IMHO, he was wrong - but Republicans keep repeating it.
People are the problem, inasmuch as it is people who yearly vote for government, constitute government, and too often seek to corrupt government.
As to what happened to the conservative movement, there's no mystery.
Kevin Phillips, the old Nixon advisor, wrote about it in his books, American Theocracy and Bad Money, identifying the extreme danger in the conflation of conservative politics and reactionary religion.
When you conflate politics and religion, your opponents suddenly become evil, not misguided. They cannot be allowed to govern - as McConnell refused to allow Obama and the Democrats to govern - and nonpartisan collaboration with them becomes sacrilege.
Add in the contributions of FOX, the poison pen authors, the radio shock jocks, and the sewer of alt-right media in general, who carry this conversion process even further, we see the birth of a mutant, alternative reality - within which uncomfortable facts are ignored rather than incorporated into a more nuanced, truthful world view, and a Trump-style "winning" becomes all that matters.
Brett, for the political Right to regain its moorings, it's going to have to divorce faux righteousness from politics. If what we're arguing about is ultimately the size of government, it's best to keep religion completely out it.
People are the problem, inasmuch as it is people who yearly vote for government, constitute government, and too often seek to corrupt government.
As to what happened to the conservative movement, there's no mystery.
Kevin Phillips, the old Nixon advisor, wrote about it in his books, American Theocracy and Bad Money, identifying the extreme danger in the conflation of conservative politics and reactionary religion.
When you conflate politics and religion, your opponents suddenly become evil, not misguided. They cannot be allowed to govern - as McConnell refused to allow Obama and the Democrats to govern - and nonpartisan collaboration with them becomes sacrilege.
Add in the contributions of FOX, the poison pen authors, the radio shock jocks, and the sewer of alt-right media in general, who carry this conversion process even further, we see the birth of a mutant, alternative reality - within which uncomfortable facts are ignored rather than incorporated into a more nuanced, truthful world view, and a Trump-style "winning" becomes all that matters.
Brett, for the political Right to regain its moorings, it's going to have to divorce faux righteousness from politics. If what we're arguing about is ultimately the size of government, it's best to keep religion completely out it.
20
It is interesting that you agree with the 1968 argument in which it was the protestors who were at fault, rather than those in power who abused said power, kicking off the moral decline that you find represented by the protestors. Why was their an anti-Vietnam protest? Because it was an unjust war. When leaders fail to live up to moral ideals, they erode the moral foundation, giving tacit permission for everybody else to respond in kind. While we are all responsible for own actions, we need to demand more of our leaders.
16
Oh thank you, sir. From his photo, Mr. Stephens was not alive in '68, much less an 18 year old in danger of being forced to give his life in an unjust, immoral and unnecessary war. But my friends were. The failure of moral, or even thoughtful, leadership was epic and the only was to stop it was rage in the streets. So, let's use that as an example for ridding outselourselves of today's immoral and incompetent leadership.
4
There is another idea that has corrupted American morality that gets little notice. I think that Vince Lombardi once said of football: "Winning is not the main thing, it is the only thing." Abby Hoffman's quote is a mere corollary.
That attitude explains a lot (including, e.g., Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server and Wall Street speaking fees). Republicans found themselves, in June 2016, with a nominee who, by any measure, was an insult to many of their party's, and America's, values. But if winning is everything, the party had to choose between dumping their nominee in favor of their principles, or getting behind him (or, at least, out of his way). They preferred winning, and they won (admittedly, a surprise to many of us).
That attitude explains a lot (including, e.g., Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server and Wall Street speaking fees). Republicans found themselves, in June 2016, with a nominee who, by any measure, was an insult to many of their party's, and America's, values. But if winning is everything, the party had to choose between dumping their nominee in favor of their principles, or getting behind him (or, at least, out of his way). They preferred winning, and they won (admittedly, a surprise to many of us).
6
After an astounding breakthrough article on immigration Mr. Stephens shows how his conservative vision also limits one's understanding, He blames the intellectuals for 1968 and thereafter, shades of Mr. Bennett with a little Alan Bloom thrown in. We didn't defend traditional values and decorum with sufficient tenacity, the story goes.
Well, Mexico did. Long hairs in Tlaltelolco were mowed down by the score in 1968. Mexican intellectuals mostly supported the massacre with their silence. So we have that historical example--bullets rained down but by George decorum was saved.
Intellectuals in the U.S. were not the agents of 1968. Some positioned themselves to be literary successes or media figure and I suppose older conservatives saw them on TV and remember them today. But the results of 1968 were the Weather Underground, President Nixon and the War on Drugs. Forces much more powerful than the intellectuals were engaged in action, forces we mostly still don't understand, perhaps because we continued to watch TV. Well, look at what watching TV has got us now.
Well, Mexico did. Long hairs in Tlaltelolco were mowed down by the score in 1968. Mexican intellectuals mostly supported the massacre with their silence. So we have that historical example--bullets rained down but by George decorum was saved.
Intellectuals in the U.S. were not the agents of 1968. Some positioned themselves to be literary successes or media figure and I suppose older conservatives saw them on TV and remember them today. But the results of 1968 were the Weather Underground, President Nixon and the War on Drugs. Forces much more powerful than the intellectuals were engaged in action, forces we mostly still don't understand, perhaps because we continued to watch TV. Well, look at what watching TV has got us now.
7
Excess, excuses and permission. The excesses that I remember are from the 1980s, the age of "greed is good."
The rules of good behavior became devalued?
"Good behavior" included prejudice against and institutionalized repression of gay people and people of color. Birth control was illegal until the 1970s and in the early 1960s women couldn't take out a loan or buy property without their husband or father signing for them. The wage gap between men and women was huge: women earned 59 cents for every dollar men earned. And, as other commenters have said, the Vietnam war was a morally repugnant war which was based on falsehoods. The FBI spied on and harassed civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. There was chaos,and there was unacceptable violence but it's hard to see what was immoral in these protests against inequality, unfairness, and lies.
The rules of good behavior became devalued?
"Good behavior" included prejudice against and institutionalized repression of gay people and people of color. Birth control was illegal until the 1970s and in the early 1960s women couldn't take out a loan or buy property without their husband or father signing for them. The wage gap between men and women was huge: women earned 59 cents for every dollar men earned. And, as other commenters have said, the Vietnam war was a morally repugnant war which was based on falsehoods. The FBI spied on and harassed civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. There was chaos,and there was unacceptable violence but it's hard to see what was immoral in these protests against inequality, unfairness, and lies.
16
As a liberal, I enjoyed your frightening vision of today's Conservative movement. Not so much the attack on 1960's Vietnam War protesters. There, the idea was to save lives, literally, and strong measures were required.
19
I find it interesting that both Mr Stephens and David Brooks, hired on to represent the conservative view, have gone off the rails at the depravity of the Trump administration.
Maybe we aren't as dead in the water as I thought.
Maybe we aren't as dead in the water as I thought.
11
They still cling to the alleged intellectual sophistication of holding and preaching mutually contradictory opinions simultaneously.
4
Mr. Stephens, when Mr. Scaramucci denounced the departed Reince Priebus as "a [darn] paranoid schizophrenic", he also unwittingly diagnosed his and his own boss's malady. As they say, "it takes one to know one".
11
We can thank the shock jocks for tearing off the guardrails.
10
Where was I in 1993? At Rockefeller Plaza at the smaller building before we moved higher. Oddly enough it was never quite the same when we did, not as conducive for eavesdropping, and while my boss at the time could see his apartment from the office window, the clouds were gathering and we were in waiting-mode.
The 'No Guardrails' Presidency in the Wall Street Journal? Well, I have never read it and have just been reviewing food coupons for free in the countryside mail.
What is this new expensive-sounding bistro in town, in this cast of characters, with a fancy operatic name? If there is one language that rarely changes it is slang, which should be relegated to the literary trash bin.
This American wants a President and an Administration. A Real One, and let's stop jerking the People of The Land of The Free around. Some of us are barely managing to put food on the table and have trouble paying the water bill.
There must be a President out there somewhere. T.S. Eliot also wrote that We were in the hands of a ruined millionaire on earth, and as he was writing, there was a real President when our Country was called The United States of America.
The 'No Guardrails' Presidency in the Wall Street Journal? Well, I have never read it and have just been reviewing food coupons for free in the countryside mail.
What is this new expensive-sounding bistro in town, in this cast of characters, with a fancy operatic name? If there is one language that rarely changes it is slang, which should be relegated to the literary trash bin.
This American wants a President and an Administration. A Real One, and let's stop jerking the People of The Land of The Free around. Some of us are barely managing to put food on the table and have trouble paying the water bill.
There must be a President out there somewhere. T.S. Eliot also wrote that We were in the hands of a ruined millionaire on earth, and as he was writing, there was a real President when our Country was called The United States of America.
3
Did the conservative intelligentsia join the vulgars, or did the medial promote conservative intellectuals who were vulgar by giving all the air time to them, and demote the classy intellectuals and those who wanted solutions with ridicule and lies?
12
If only Abbie Hoffmann had lived to see this!
1
"Men are not gentle creatures ... they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus. (Man is a wolf to man.)"
Of course, Freud is passe, but his words (above) are still worth considering.
Of course, Freud is passe, but his words (above) are still worth considering.
4
Freud is as passé as Darwin and Copernicus was in their day. Man is actually a sheep in wolf's clothing.
You've seen the suicide stats. It's a demolition derby out there. This is entertaining and beyond that nobody cares.
1
Is past still prologue as these "neo-conservatives" more and more and more agree Trump is a liar and vulgar (but on policy, what?) I appreciate Mr. Stephens' incredulity at the pathetic White House (style?). Yet: Who are/were these increasingly minted neo-con converts?. Who will they be again on substance/policy? For what its worth Wikipedia says: "Stephens was a "prominent voice" for the start of the 2003 Iraq War,[13] ...."Although WMD were never found, Stephens continued to insist as late as 2013 that the Bush administration had "solid evidence" for going to war.[15]". I get it that more and more (neo) conservatives are saying they too do not like bald-faced Trump lies (but apparently still OK for the GOP as a whole on US heathcare, taxes?)...Who will these neo-conservative spinners be during a Pence/Cruz administration they supported?,,, Maybe this wolf/sheep's clothing discussion isn't too far off when we just think about 'Mooch', McConnell, Gowdy, Trump, Spicer, Atwater, Cheney, Nixon et al., et al., et al.
4
Vulgarity is the first recourse of the ignorant and insecure.
8
Bret, I really could not care less about a 1993 article caricaturing the liberals in 1968 in the conservative Wall Street Journal (your former employer, you might have mentioned). It's tiresome and far from germane to the very different isues we face today, but I suppose gabbing about this ancient article let's you try a "both sides!" obligatory thing as well as help you burn off your word count.
(Also , was it really necessary to pad out tour article with extensive quotes of the most vulgar things Scaramucci said? We've all read them, Bret. Everywhere. No need to repeat the filth here.)
In short, it is 2017, your Republican party has gone insane, your President Trump is an active danger to the country. Try and focus on that with a little clarity and humility, why don't you. No one cares what the WSJ had to say in 1993 about 1968's liberals and "dirty hippies". Apples, oranges, and a mightily weak editorial here. Dashed off on a summer Friday no doubt.
(Also , was it really necessary to pad out tour article with extensive quotes of the most vulgar things Scaramucci said? We've all read them, Bret. Everywhere. No need to repeat the filth here.)
In short, it is 2017, your Republican party has gone insane, your President Trump is an active danger to the country. Try and focus on that with a little clarity and humility, why don't you. No one cares what the WSJ had to say in 1993 about 1968's liberals and "dirty hippies". Apples, oranges, and a mightily weak editorial here. Dashed off on a summer Friday no doubt.
21
The hook was with the noontime indoctrination of Americans by Paul Harvey with his " News and Comment". The rest is history, or, perhaps the beginning of the end of American History.
We have a political gioblastoma. Ugly end. Sad.
We have a political gioblastoma. Ugly end. Sad.
3
Stephens how about considering the rise of the the religious right with their attitude of hate and condemnation of people who did not have evangelical beliefs. They could easily justify vitriol because the non believers, like Catholics and Jews (now Moslems) were going to hell. In their view the end, which is forcing people to adhere to their beliefs or at least bend to them, justifies the means, the deal struck between the evangelicals and Trump. Miners rioted for better working conditions, African Americans rioted against civil injustice and yet these actions did not start a social rejection of the values you ascribe to the war protestors.
9
I love it! Brett Stevens spends his column space today bemoaning the coarse language currently infecting Washington.
Brett, hun, sometimes men swear in the heat of battle, when the pressure is on. You do understand the thoughts being expressed, not literally, in those vulgarities, right? Do you agree, or disagree, about Steve Bannon?
Good first step here, not censoring the language on our behalf. Now, think about what is going on behind the words. It's like people who think the biggest problem in black neighborhoods is using the N work, or vulgar language in general. You really are exposing yourself as sheltered here, and sheltered folk rarely act on behalf of the common good.
They're too busy clutching pearls and adjusting to the non-PC.
Brett, hun, sometimes men swear in the heat of battle, when the pressure is on. You do understand the thoughts being expressed, not literally, in those vulgarities, right? Do you agree, or disagree, about Steve Bannon?
Good first step here, not censoring the language on our behalf. Now, think about what is going on behind the words. It's like people who think the biggest problem in black neighborhoods is using the N work, or vulgar language in general. You really are exposing yourself as sheltered here, and sheltered folk rarely act on behalf of the common good.
They're too busy clutching pearls and adjusting to the non-PC.
3
Thank you for printing the White House Communications Director's quotes in full, making it clear what their new standard is.
4
Do conservatives never tire of paeans to "halcyon days gone by" that mischaracterize the past? To be clear, I too despise Mooch. However, I don't credit this vulgarian's assent (or the boss he loves) to Chicago riots or the malign forces unleashed by a Trilling cocktail party. Both are insignificant compared to the actual cause: there has been, in the last 50 years a struggle for power that used to be shared only by white men. It has, to their chagrin, trickled down. It began with the Civil Rights movement, accelerated because of Vietnam and continued to snowball in a Women's movement, gay rights movement, et al.
I assure you it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain one's decorum when dogs are unleashed upon you for crossing a bridge or hoses opened up to blast you 30 feet. Being told by conservatives AIDS was god's judgment of my sexual preference did much to diminish the possibility of a polite rejoinder. Are you really shocked guardrails you cherish come off when a woman is told she is not in charge of her own uterus? Had conservative's record on minority rights been better, or had you not beaten the war drum for a really stupid Iraq war I would gladly have been decorous. But as conservatives were silent, I was loud. That is not incivility; it's civil disobedience.
You know the difference and I credit you concur the loss of some decorum is worthwhile. Blame vulgarity on the internet and capitalist greed, and leave the social norms nattering to David Brooks.
I assure you it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain one's decorum when dogs are unleashed upon you for crossing a bridge or hoses opened up to blast you 30 feet. Being told by conservatives AIDS was god's judgment of my sexual preference did much to diminish the possibility of a polite rejoinder. Are you really shocked guardrails you cherish come off when a woman is told she is not in charge of her own uterus? Had conservative's record on minority rights been better, or had you not beaten the war drum for a really stupid Iraq war I would gladly have been decorous. But as conservatives were silent, I was loud. That is not incivility; it's civil disobedience.
You know the difference and I credit you concur the loss of some decorum is worthwhile. Blame vulgarity on the internet and capitalist greed, and leave the social norms nattering to David Brooks.
15
Does no conservative pundit have the ability and moral insight to write a column about the willingness of conservatives to abase themselves in their support of trump without trying to shoehorn some real or imagined comparison with a liberal events
15
What nonsense to claim that the intellectual and (a)moral ancestor of the GOP vulgarity is the opposition to the immoral war in Vietnam! "Opposite" does not even cover the distance between the two!
8
Trump's vulgarity and pretentiousness have reached a new low, a moral turpitude that doesn't seem to bother his 'base' (likely an ignorant and prejudiced but adoring mob indifferent to the truth and the current abuse of power of it's beasty 'idol'), nor a coward and hypocritical republican congress, while fanned by Trump's propaganda tool (Fox Noise). We are not only witnessing but feeling a stinky swamp of depravity in the White House. The public's 'freedom' (license, really) to say and do whatever stupidity comes to their minds, language's beauty crashing down impossibly low, unable to communicate in an educated, and elegant way about reality, our feelings, and the need to trust each other by, accordingly, a civilized behavior. Scaramucci's stinking attitude is, in effect, just the tip of Trump's iceberg. What a circus, with the clown-in-chief feeding crumbs to his fans, while democracy's flickering light is dying. Are we going to let it happen, by contributing with our silence?
3
Bret Stephens, your column made my blood boil. There is absolutely no comparison between the protesters of 1968 (I was one of them) and the current administration. We were heartsick at a war that ended up sending our 50,000 of our brothers to die, and killed over 2 million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. None of those nations had ever attacked the U.S. If we violated your rules of decorum, what was that compared to mass murder inflicted by our government?
And frankly, I am less horrified by Scaramucci's potty mouth than I am by Republicans--decorous of language or not--whose aim in life is to destroy the ACA, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, impoverishing and killing millions of Americans so that billionaires can get a tax break.
And frankly, I am less horrified by Scaramucci's potty mouth than I am by Republicans--decorous of language or not--whose aim in life is to destroy the ACA, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, impoverishing and killing millions of Americans so that billionaires can get a tax break.
14
It's not just the intellectuals, also the theologians who back Trump. They too need to look in their hearts, and ask if this filth is worth it. The "but Hillary" excuse no longer works if this administration continues on this path of defiling the offices they hold.
3
"Every vote cast for Donald Trump was a vote for vulgarity."
More to the point: every vote cast for Donald Trump was a vote against career politicians (aka "The Swamp").
More to the point: every vote cast for Donald Trump was a vote against career politicians (aka "The Swamp").
2
Trump has created his own swamp, ditching qualified people for incompetent Trump lovers. Fealty, not ability, is what Trump demands. That's why his cabinet and his White House staff are constantly in turmoil.
1
The office of the presidency had been demeaned and destroyed by its current occupant. I wouldn't allow my grandchildren to listen to him. The republicans are the swamp, those serving , and those voting for them. Long live the Democratic Party!
2
I have a born again friend who voted for Trump "because he is a scoundrel" and still supports him in spite of all the immorality. Hypocrisy and mendacity are the political standards Facts , truth , science, morality,and moderation are for losers
2
I am disgusted at the behavior of the "men" in this administration. I thought I would never have to see such behavior again once I left High School. Never thought my leaders would be the HS jerks.
5
Bret, you reach the right conclusion for all the wrong reasons It's not Clinton's fault, it's not the fault of anti-war protesters in the 60's. Look to the immense power of the vulgar right wing tabloid media, powered primarily by the Murdoch empire, not to mention the equally vulgar and hate filled Limbaugh and Savage types. These reptilian moguls and demagogues spew their disgusting racist ,sexist rhetoric to many adoring millions every day. They have the power of the president ( the vulgarian in chief ) behind them now. There is only one antidote to this poison : the ballot box. Unite,resist and vote.
6
Civility long since lost its place in a Republican platform of guns everywhere, laws written around women's bodies, greed, homophobia, xenophobia, taxphobia, governmentphobia and sciencephobia. The GOP's agenda is obnoxious and so corresponds with obnoxious personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
The voices of an in-your-face political party have been pitched so high that as low a character imaginable now occupies the Whie House.
The voices of an in-your-face political party have been pitched so high that as low a character imaginable now occupies the Whie House.
4
It's times like these, that I think of old lines from old tv series.
" where's superman ? ". Just when you think you hit bottom.
" where's superman ? ". Just when you think you hit bottom.
Conservatives can never refrain from false equvocations. Really, you think that Americans protesting an immoral war in 1968 set the stage for the rise of Trump? That's laughable. Do you recall a man named Nixon in 1968? A foul mouthed, devious, immoral leader surrounded by associates of equal moral failings. Sounds vaguely familiar to the appalling tragedy unfolding before us now. I don't suppose, however, that you see this reflecting at all on the Republican party and all of the substandard leaders they've imposed upon us since Nixon.
Your pathetic argument just doesn't wash.
Your pathetic argument just doesn't wash.
9
"If the president were to sexually assault a woman in the Oval Office tomorrow, would you still justify your vote on the view that Neil Gorsuch’s elevation to the Supreme Court made it all worthwhile?"
I can answer that on behalf of Trump's base. The president would need to sexually assault a woman on Fifth Ave., then shoot her, all while being cheered on by Vladimir Putin and the Gorsuch nomination would still make their vote TOTALLY worthwhile.
I can answer that on behalf of Trump's base. The president would need to sexually assault a woman on Fifth Ave., then shoot her, all while being cheered on by Vladimir Putin and the Gorsuch nomination would still make their vote TOTALLY worthwhile.
2
We didn't elect a politician, we elected a celebrity. We had a candidate that bragged about assaulting women, showed a disrespectful attitude towards a war veteran, mocked a disabled reported and claimed he could commit murder with impunity. He then hires his friend who turns out to be a potty mouth. What did we expect?
6
Of course the Wall Street Journal would blame any movement that rejected the status quo, a vocal and engaged citizenry is bad for business. The populist movements of the 1960's, which began with civil rights and spawned the women's, ecology and gay rights movements, were a bottom-up rejection of governmental non-responsiveness. What introduced moral chaos was Nixon's fearmongering campaign and the embrace of law and order politics; which fanned the flames of racism. That campaign was driven by the first Roger Ailes-produced hate commercials. William Buckley, with his National Review and Front Line television show, brought an air of effete intellectualism and patrician polish to what Gore Vidal identified as "crypto-Nazi" fascism. Reagan brought a grandfatherly geniality to repression while he drove a stake into the heart of the union movement. Right-wing radio led by vitriolic Rush Limbaugh stoked the fires of hatred and Murdoch's Fox News (Roger Ailes again) perfected the art of free and balanced propaganda. The Wall Street Journal advocated an irresponsible and unbridled Capitalism where the marketplace not government could best provide for all our needs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson preached a mass-market, dog eat dog Christianity where the faithful were rewarded and damn the rest. Each brought progressively cruder behaviors and into the breach stepped Donald Trump with his inherited wealth, dubious business skills and questionable morality. How's that for an update?
7
"The fish ROTS from the head down."
And Trump is the head that is bringing the GOP fish down. Stephens and other conservatives better hurry up and cut off the head.
Learn from the Mafia.
And Trump is the head that is bringing the GOP fish down. Stephens and other conservatives better hurry up and cut off the head.
Learn from the Mafia.
2
Maybe you can be forgiven for your false analogy, since Google tells me that you weren't even born yet at the time of the Chicago "riots." I put "riots" in scare quotes, because the video evidence is that it was the police who were out of control, not the demonstrators.
I was alive and graduating from high school in that horrible year of 1968, and what I remember most is how the assassinations seemed to mark the end of any realistic hope for a peaceful transition to a more equitable and peaceful society.
It wasn't the fault of any countercultural types that hate radio began springing up all over the country in the 1980s. It wasn't the fault of any countercultural types that Fox News began broadcasting to the mean and dumb of America over twenty years ago.
It was your side that created disdain for intellectual activity, for the arts, for civic responsibility, and for anyone who wasn't a white, middle class, suburban or rural person.It was your side that taught Americans to worship billionaires. It was your side that made Social Justice Warrior a term of disdain. (It's better to be an Anti-Social Injustice Warrior?)
The groundwork for the current Republican president was laid long ago. Maybe your party never thought it would get this bad. After all, you had used amiable dunces like Reagan and Bush Jr. as front men for the financial schemers and the fanatical war hawks.
You outsmarted yourselves.
I was alive and graduating from high school in that horrible year of 1968, and what I remember most is how the assassinations seemed to mark the end of any realistic hope for a peaceful transition to a more equitable and peaceful society.
It wasn't the fault of any countercultural types that hate radio began springing up all over the country in the 1980s. It wasn't the fault of any countercultural types that Fox News began broadcasting to the mean and dumb of America over twenty years ago.
It was your side that created disdain for intellectual activity, for the arts, for civic responsibility, and for anyone who wasn't a white, middle class, suburban or rural person.It was your side that taught Americans to worship billionaires. It was your side that made Social Justice Warrior a term of disdain. (It's better to be an Anti-Social Injustice Warrior?)
The groundwork for the current Republican president was laid long ago. Maybe your party never thought it would get this bad. After all, you had used amiable dunces like Reagan and Bush Jr. as front men for the financial schemers and the fanatical war hawks.
You outsmarted yourselves.
11
"How did so many of the same people who spent the past 50 years bemoaning the decline of morality and decorum become the agents and enablers of the most morally grotesque administration in American history?" Come on, they've always been phonys and liars. Evangelical ministers with concubines comes to mind. Maybe back in the Eisenhower era there were moral Republicans, but not for decades. They found a guy who will give them subjugation of women, punish brown people, supplant the Constitution with the bible, all the while claiming the putative moral high ground. They never were moral.
4
"Honorable Conservatism"?? Really? Since when is being a shill for the sanctity of 'profiteering uber alles' under the guise of "family values" been honorable? This rot doesn't stem from institutional excusers and explainers of war protesters of 1968, it stems from the human history of greed and crime. The current abomination in the driver's seat is a direct reflection of national mission failure, from our money corrupted electoral and legislative processes
to our endless cultural proclivity for self absorption, blind consumerism, and rapacious profiteering.
to our endless cultural proclivity for self absorption, blind consumerism, and rapacious profiteering.
1
Guard rails? I would settle for training wheels! Trump is a clear and present danger to the republic and the GOP is still pledging allegiance to the dumpster fire of trump! Why did I rally to oppose trump, the GOP and the alleged conservatives today as Trump encouraged violence against suspects, criminals and immigrants? Because I want my grandkids to know that I resisted, I fought back, I marched, I solicited, I refused to accept Trumpism.
3
Tony, that "the fish stinks from the head down" is an indictment that includes your boss.
That people use profanity is neither shocking nor surprising. But most people are circumspect when they are in public and especially when they know that they are likely to be recorded or quoted in the media.
The "Mooch" was neither circumspect nor guarded when he spoke to a reporter and reportedly his boss loved it. Not surprising since Trump himself known to use the "f" word during some campaign rallies. That Trump loved Scaramucci's outburst is backed up by the fact that Preibus is gone, something the "Mooch" mentioned in his tirade.
The man who selected Preibus, Bannon and Sessions is now either directly or indirectly belittling them. As always, he doesn't question his judgement in selecting them but opt to paint the people he chose as disloyal or incompetent.
The buck stops nowhere near Trump's desk. That is a problem bigger than Mooch's outbursts.
The "Mooch" was neither circumspect nor guarded when he spoke to a reporter and reportedly his boss loved it. Not surprising since Trump himself known to use the "f" word during some campaign rallies. That Trump loved Scaramucci's outburst is backed up by the fact that Preibus is gone, something the "Mooch" mentioned in his tirade.
The man who selected Preibus, Bannon and Sessions is now either directly or indirectly belittling them. As always, he doesn't question his judgement in selecting them but opt to paint the people he chose as disloyal or incompetent.
The buck stops nowhere near Trump's desk. That is a problem bigger than Mooch's outbursts.
1
A lot of this stems from McCain's disgraceful choice of Sarah Palin as Vice President. It "normalized" the idea that an ignorant loudmouth could be president, and that some people liked it like that. She not only lowered the bar, she threw it into the gutter in which the right wing likes to wallow.
2
The present President and his shifting and shifty band have turned the mostly admired USA into that uncouth but unavoidable acquaintance that you carefully evade giving your phone number or address.
1
So why doesn't the newspaper that markets itself as "the daily diary of the American dream" fulsomely condemn those who in this historical moment are "lowering the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct?” Could it have to do with whose dreams that behavior and conduct pursues?
In the beginning Republican saint Ronald Wilson Reagan running for President in Philadelphia Mississippi where three civil rights workers were murdered by the cops and the Klan talking about state's rights. Then Reagan moved on railing against imaginary 'Cadillac driving Chicago welfare queens' and 'strapping bucks standing in line with food stamps waiting to buy T-Bone Steak'. Then Saint Ronnie prophesized that America could increase spending on entitlements and the military forever because neither deficits and debts matter in an exceptional America.
Donald John Trump is Ronald Reagan without any of the acting and governing experience and talent or gift for good-natured smiling shrugging bigoted misogynist xenophobic euphemism.
Donald John Trump is Ronald Reagan without any of the acting and governing experience and talent or gift for good-natured smiling shrugging bigoted misogynist xenophobic euphemism.
3
Abbie Hoffman's quote about getting away with it reminds me of the old Roman saying,
"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex". Roughly translated into today's English: "Where there is no special counsel, there is no indictment." These are words that Trump evidently wants to live by.
"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex". Roughly translated into today's English: "Where there is no special counsel, there is no indictment." These are words that Trump evidently wants to live by.
The GOP has become truthless, vulgar, and in their service to the American people, grossly incompetent. If they don't flip on Trump and his team, they're done. 2018 and 2020 will be red recessions.
For a parallel, consider the evolution of the Praetorian guard under Sejanus. Chosen to protect the emperor and to project his will, they ultimately controlled the emperor.
1
The conservative movement embraced vulgarity when they embraced bigotry and racism. Which is to say, they have always been a party of vulgarity. It's not hard to find 1963-era handbills urging conservatives to impeach JFK for treason. Anti-gay parades with people taunting, "Got AIDs Yet"? Or pictures of Tea Party rallies where Obama was compared to a monkey. And small-town parades with floats where Hillary Clinton is portrayed strapped to an electric chair. Trump didn't bring this on. He's just the latest to lift conservatism's rock. Stop pretending to be surprised at all the creepy crawlies hiding underneath.
4
Would conservatives still justify their vote for Trump if he assaulted a woman in the Oval Office tomorrow on the basis that putting Gorsuch on the SCOTUS (only after changing the nom process, btw) made it all worthwhile?
We all know they would. He could shoot her on Fifth Avenue afterwards, if it gets them a second seat.
I hope we can return to normal conventions on censorship of smutty language once we have a normal POTUS in DC again.
We all know they would. He could shoot her on Fifth Avenue afterwards, if it gets them a second seat.
I hope we can return to normal conventions on censorship of smutty language once we have a normal POTUS in DC again.
"Conservative movement," two words that should be in a pharmaceutical ad on TV. Yes, you know what I'm referencing.
1
Wait! Did you just "agree" that the police riots at the 1968 Democratic convention were the moral responsibility of progressive intellectuals? I certainly don't. Try to think back for a minute. The phrase "police riots" is not mine. That was the finding of the official commission that investigated. How easily, how glibly history gets reversed for the sake of an editorial!
3
Is this for real? Comparing the legitimate grievances of the late 60s (an unjustifiable war and draft, virulent racism against minorities, open oppression against women and the LGBTQ community — not that it's much better now) with the current state of the whack job alt-right? The two are not similar. Give me a break.
4
On Friday, I was listening to 'intellectual' Hugh Hewitt verbally disgrace the 3 Republicans for voting against GOP healthcare while blaming the Democrats for the existence of Evil in the world. I guess he is joining the ranks of the other GOP intelligentsia such as Gingrich and Limbaugh in their efforts to keep the GOP agenda alive at All costs while meekly slapping Trump on the wrist if the occasion warrants.
The EVIL that is the Democratic Party such as the ACA must be stopped at all costs to integrity and intellectual rigor. The party over country mantra and glue is destroying the GOP and the country's governance.
The EVIL that is the Democratic Party such as the ACA must be stopped at all costs to integrity and intellectual rigor. The party over country mantra and glue is destroying the GOP and the country's governance.
1
The pivot moment was Palin.
1
Bret Stephens blames Trump administration vulgarity and thugishness on 1968 hippies?
4
Such false equivalency - citizens raging because of an immoral war vs. citizens raging because they are racist, homophobic, misogynist, and selfish.
4
McCain sold out by putting Sarah Palin on the ticket with him. He sold out conservatism to the snarky, know nothing wingnuts of the party.
3
Recently there has been a lot of talk about "norms" being violated. Scaramucci's words may be a transmogrified version of Revere's chimerical "The British are coming." Except that his obscene rant could be the harbinger of a civil war, or a dark age, in which the United States is vitiated and permanently impaired.
However, the 1968 analogy is spurious. If I were protesting a racist, genocidal war, and the Chicago cops were beating on me, I might use some bad language also. I'd like to know the last time a hedge fund manager has taken a punch or a billy club from the police. Scaramucci was ensconced in luxury when he uttered those words.
Many of the Chicago Seven were culpable of breaking the law. But Scaramucci is damnable as a perditious spirit. He's Joseph Goebbels with a Rolex.
And where was the talk about "No Guardrails" when Trump questioned President Obama's citizenship? And during the 2016 campaign when he first broached the moniker "crooked Hillary?"
Defamation reached its apogee with jejune Trump. Stating that the '60s "betrayed liberalism" is specious on many levels. A lot of good came out of the 1960s, politically and culturally. Women and minorities slowly achieved more rights. Popular artists did unforgettable work.
The current zeitgeist is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.
However, the 1968 analogy is spurious. If I were protesting a racist, genocidal war, and the Chicago cops were beating on me, I might use some bad language also. I'd like to know the last time a hedge fund manager has taken a punch or a billy club from the police. Scaramucci was ensconced in luxury when he uttered those words.
Many of the Chicago Seven were culpable of breaking the law. But Scaramucci is damnable as a perditious spirit. He's Joseph Goebbels with a Rolex.
And where was the talk about "No Guardrails" when Trump questioned President Obama's citizenship? And during the 2016 campaign when he first broached the moniker "crooked Hillary?"
Defamation reached its apogee with jejune Trump. Stating that the '60s "betrayed liberalism" is specious on many levels. A lot of good came out of the 1960s, politically and culturally. Women and minorities slowly achieved more rights. Popular artists did unforgettable work.
The current zeitgeist is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.
5
The conservative intelligentsia might know what the 'et tu' refers to and which scribe made this short phrase world famous.
On the other hand, many of those that voted for the glitzy, vulgarian, brainless, narcissistic bully in the White House might not.
With their votes they told Trump they were and or wanted to be ut tu.
On the other hand, many of those that voted for the glitzy, vulgarian, brainless, narcissistic bully in the White House might not.
With their votes they told Trump they were and or wanted to be ut tu.
1
There is nothing radical about men in power positions celebrating their dominance by acting and speaking however they wish - grabbing, insulting, bullying, demeaning, ridiculing, blaming the victim for over-sensitivity or not getting the joke, excusing boorishness as unique charm, - while everyone else better just shut up and behave themselves. The public language is rawer, but the display is nothing new - it's deevolutionary, even - sort of rat pack ring a ding ding. It's a last gasp of old men on their way out.
2
Melania has her work cut out for her.
Nothing worse in mind of a conservative than to be compared to the hippies.
1
Yeah! That's right Brett. All those hippies rioting against the indiscriminate killing of foreigners, the carpet bombing of the jungle to kill a few combatants, the soaking of the environment with agent orange. What an example of honor, service and integrity that was.
Like the Athenian Greeks we are free and free in both ways. First we have the right of equality to speak in assemblies; called 'isegoria' by the Greeks and the right to say what we like called "parrhesia".
Those hippies were practicing both, if violence occurred it was because they were attacked for doing so and their defense became disorderly.
The blame lies with a government that wanted to annihilate an enemy by any means possible for what they were thinking - not what they were doing. Which was seeking freedom from the harsh form of capitalism being imposed by the USA.
Like the Athenian Greeks we are free and free in both ways. First we have the right of equality to speak in assemblies; called 'isegoria' by the Greeks and the right to say what we like called "parrhesia".
Those hippies were practicing both, if violence occurred it was because they were attacked for doing so and their defense became disorderly.
The blame lies with a government that wanted to annihilate an enemy by any means possible for what they were thinking - not what they were doing. Which was seeking freedom from the harsh form of capitalism being imposed by the USA.
3
The precedent is constitutionally immune to charges of sexual assault, rape, child abuse or murder. Let alone conflict of interest, vulgarity or incompetence.
You live in an absolute monarchy. Get used to it. Move on. If you don't like Trump, you can go back to mad king George III. But don't blame the hippies and the summer of love.
You live in an absolute monarchy. Get used to it. Move on. If you don't like Trump, you can go back to mad king George III. But don't blame the hippies and the summer of love.
Many conservatives voted for Trump for the Supreme Court's possible ending of abortion. Do they realize that what they did in electing Trump is far worse morally than overturning Roe v Wade? How very stupid they were!
1
Trump, in his bottomless incompetence, has ensured that the Affordable Care Act will remain the law of the land. We'll never see his idiotic wall built, infrastructure will keep crumbling, and there will be no return of his fictitious "clean, clean coal."
Trump's treasonous collaboration with Vladimir Putin did not end with Trump's election. It will end with Trump's removal from office, along with all of those who benefited from Trump's unholy alliance with America's enemies, including his VP and all his cabinet members.
Trump's treasonous collaboration with Vladimir Putin did not end with Trump's election. It will end with Trump's removal from office, along with all of those who benefited from Trump's unholy alliance with America's enemies, including his VP and all his cabinet members.
We do not need a General in the White House. We need a statesman. Not many generals in our history have possessed that quality of statesmanship. We shall soon see which way the wind blows............
2
"If the president were to sexually assault a woman in the Oval Office tomorrow, would you still justify your vote..."?
What a silly question. Of course they would. During the campaign he commented on how he could kill a person and still be elected. He also admitted to getting away with abusing women because women flocked to him. And he even commented on his beloved daughter as being a sex object.
So why would it be any different in the White House.
What a silly question. Of course they would. During the campaign he commented on how he could kill a person and still be elected. He also admitted to getting away with abusing women because women flocked to him. And he even commented on his beloved daughter as being a sex object.
So why would it be any different in the White House.
2
Apparently the Moral Majority, ie Religious Right have never bothered to read the 10 Commandments...........There's even one in there about greed.
1
It just shows how conservative organizations like a religious right will accept anything over pragmatic progressivism. their president is now a vulgar inept selfish insecure Manchild who needs nothing but himself. the head stinks from the fish down and he has brought hold area to the office, that's for my neighbor who loves wearing his Trump shirt and brandishing his Trump flag on his Ford F-150 he's always been a vulgar bully. he finally found someone to channel his hate
1
I would take Abbie Hoffman over the Mooch anyday...
Donald Trump is a sociopath, NOT a psychopath, thank God.
Otherwise we'd REALLY be in trouble.
.
Otherwise we'd REALLY be in trouble.
.
Guardrails? How about sending this administration a set of training wheels?
258
This White House is in the sewer. No guardrails or training wheels help.
2
Bret,
I hope your former colleagues at the Wall Street Journal read this column and, then, go take a long, honest look on the mirror.
Also, those fundamentalist Christian leaders who so transparently sold their souls for a Supreme Court appointment.
However, I'm not optimistic.
I hope your former colleagues at the Wall Street Journal read this column and, then, go take a long, honest look on the mirror.
Also, those fundamentalist Christian leaders who so transparently sold their souls for a Supreme Court appointment.
However, I'm not optimistic.
16
These horrible people simply cannot accept the constitutional limits to government power that preclude them from legitimately legislating a theocracy.
Please, before everyone becomes unhinged over false equivalency, read the 2nd, 3rd and 4th paragraphs again...carefully.
This opinion piece is not trying to equate motives or merit, but rather the need to accept responsibity for the outcomes (intended and otherwise) of the means we choose to pursue our interests (be they noble or not).
We owe this to each other.
This opinion piece is not trying to equate motives or merit, but rather the need to accept responsibity for the outcomes (intended and otherwise) of the means we choose to pursue our interests (be they noble or not).
We owe this to each other.
3
No Republican is responsible for anything anymore. To the extent they accept responsibility for anything, God made them do it.
1
First, there really is no comparison between Trump and McGovern, a war hero and thoughtful, decent man by all accounts. Trump is more like Nixon.
Second, in the long run it is highly possible that the biggest losers, aside from the nation itself, in the the wake of the Trump fiasco will be Evangelical Christians. The fraud at the heart of their weird take on Christianity has been exposed good and clear. I'm in my mid-50s and for my whole life that community has been braying about its own moral superiority. And then the enthusiastic embrace of Trump, with all his greed, bragging, dishonesty, vulgarity, chaos, intimations of violence, and just plain unhinged attacks, especially on women, involving menstruation, urination, bleeding, etc. He mocks the disabled. He unleashed a guy like Scaramucci. He wallows in self-dealing and unseemly finances. The man is a moral disaster on every front. There is not one single area where he exercises any probity. Yet the Evangelicals overwhelmingly adore him. You know people by the company they keep. Look at Sarah Huckabee Sanders, busy bee that she is trying to normalize the abnormal. Their game has been fully exposed. They want power. It has nothing to do with morality, or religion, or God. They want their way, and they are willing to get it by any means.
Second, in the long run it is highly possible that the biggest losers, aside from the nation itself, in the the wake of the Trump fiasco will be Evangelical Christians. The fraud at the heart of their weird take on Christianity has been exposed good and clear. I'm in my mid-50s and for my whole life that community has been braying about its own moral superiority. And then the enthusiastic embrace of Trump, with all his greed, bragging, dishonesty, vulgarity, chaos, intimations of violence, and just plain unhinged attacks, especially on women, involving menstruation, urination, bleeding, etc. He mocks the disabled. He unleashed a guy like Scaramucci. He wallows in self-dealing and unseemly finances. The man is a moral disaster on every front. There is not one single area where he exercises any probity. Yet the Evangelicals overwhelmingly adore him. You know people by the company they keep. Look at Sarah Huckabee Sanders, busy bee that she is trying to normalize the abnormal. Their game has been fully exposed. They want power. It has nothing to do with morality, or religion, or God. They want their way, and they are willing to get it by any means.
41
Mark Noll wrote a book on the evangelicals decrying the readiness to follow anyone who pitches religious snake oil because there is no place for critical thinking in the way they approach the Bible...or nature...or just about anything. Critical thinking is portrayed as a betrayal of Jesus and the result is Trump. if I understand Christianity accurately, it is just that belief which is the biggest betrayal. The Evangelicals were suckered for Trump. He swallowed them whole.
Show a trace of decency and empathy and the Republicans will flay your soul.
John McCain, that much lauded hero of this essay as well as many other articles these days, stands for more than the virtues set out here. He brought us Sarah Palin, the decision that put American presidential politics on the road to The Apprentice. He brought us a show of virtuous speech followed by craven voting. That he finally tacked off in the direction of a righteous vote the other night is a relief, but you can never tell where John will go with his votes - promises so much, and then ... Well, then he will get a lot of attention. Always. He is as much of the problem as anybody else you can name.
19
"In the meantime, we have a “No Guardrails” presidency, in which Trump’s contempt for law, procedure and decorum are a license for the behavior of his minions and a model for future American demagogues and their apologists."
As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, I never expected to agree with Bret Stephens on much of anything. I can agree with him as to the above statement.
It is high time (can it be ONLY 6 months since the inauguration with "the biggest crowd of all time", which was lie #1 of this Presidency?) that Republicans, and especially conservatives, come to grips with the fact that we have a narcissistic egomaniac sitting in the Oval Office and he is "off the deep end." His continual lies, his lack of understanding of how the government works, and his utter lack of interest in anything other than his own fame and fortune render him unfit for office and "a clear and present danger to our country." (Thank you, editors of the Cincinnati Enquirer.)
When are Republicans going to wake up and understand that it is also THEIR democracy that is in the balance? We are all in the same small boat. If Donnie the Dunce sinks it, we all lose.
Pay attention, folks. The "crazy" does not harm just one political party. It harms us all.
As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, I never expected to agree with Bret Stephens on much of anything. I can agree with him as to the above statement.
It is high time (can it be ONLY 6 months since the inauguration with "the biggest crowd of all time", which was lie #1 of this Presidency?) that Republicans, and especially conservatives, come to grips with the fact that we have a narcissistic egomaniac sitting in the Oval Office and he is "off the deep end." His continual lies, his lack of understanding of how the government works, and his utter lack of interest in anything other than his own fame and fortune render him unfit for office and "a clear and present danger to our country." (Thank you, editors of the Cincinnati Enquirer.)
When are Republicans going to wake up and understand that it is also THEIR democracy that is in the balance? We are all in the same small boat. If Donnie the Dunce sinks it, we all lose.
Pay attention, folks. The "crazy" does not harm just one political party. It harms us all.
8
The more realistic comparison of 1968 and 2016 would be not the Yippies in Chicago or the Weathermen -- as rare, really, as the alt-right neonazis and gun-toting anti-immigrant ranters now -- but the vast crowds who came peacefully to the Pentagon, Martin Luther King's March on Washington, and the crowd estimated at the time at a million people walking down the New York avenues demanding peace (I was there, walking with a trio of nuns singing the Dona Nobis Pacem). Their analogues today are huge crowds of women -- tart and funny language aside, hardly any breach of morality -- and the crowds who have assembled peacefully to petition their government for a redress of grievances. One of the notable things about this time and that time is the eagerness of pundits to locate the end of all worth, all morality, all reason. You'd think they were getting paid for it.
9
It's right in our faces. Nobody is more presumptuous than the inventors of an imaginary personage, who purportedly created and still allegedly supervises the whole universe, to make what they demand non-negotiable.
Well, if nothing else, Mr. Scaramucci makes it clear that the so-called President's comments on that bus to Billy Bush were not merely "locker room talk" that was unusual for him. Nor was Mrs. Trump telling the truth when she said those comments reflected a man she did not recognize as her husband.
If Trump is fine with Scaramucci's comments and vileness, and indeed fulfilled his predictions by accepting Priebus' resignation the very next day, then those Billy Bush comments were just the tip of the iceberg and tell us that this president is every bit as foul and vulgar as we thought. He can wrap his whole tower in gold leaf, but he will never have half as much class as President Obama had in his little finger.
My hope is that Scaramucci will be General Kelly's first firing. He didn't even get his "quote" right--the real text is that a fish rots from the head (not stinks). Paul Craig Roberts And we have a rotten government at the moment. I doubt that one general with values will be able to clean out the mess on his own. I also hope he doesn't end up completely tarnished and with his reputation in tatters as has happened to so many others who joined this "administration".
If Trump is fine with Scaramucci's comments and vileness, and indeed fulfilled his predictions by accepting Priebus' resignation the very next day, then those Billy Bush comments were just the tip of the iceberg and tell us that this president is every bit as foul and vulgar as we thought. He can wrap his whole tower in gold leaf, but he will never have half as much class as President Obama had in his little finger.
My hope is that Scaramucci will be General Kelly's first firing. He didn't even get his "quote" right--the real text is that a fish rots from the head (not stinks). Paul Craig Roberts And we have a rotten government at the moment. I doubt that one general with values will be able to clean out the mess on his own. I also hope he doesn't end up completely tarnished and with his reputation in tatters as has happened to so many others who joined this "administration".
17
You're assuming that the general has values....
The head is rotted clean off the fish with Trump strutting like a peacock over a nation of pigeons.
Oh,now, please don't imply that McCain's loss of the 2008 election was enough to disenchant decent conservatives and force them to conclude that "concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship" had gone by the wayside. Don't forget that McCain was running with Sarah Palin. And Obama had plenty of "honor, service, integrity" etc., as he amply demonstrated during his two terms.
15
Have to take issue, Mr. Stephens, with your assertion that the election of 2008 showed, "that concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship...were for suckers?"
Barack Obama is every bit as honorable, every bit as dedicated to service as John McCain. He is far more statesman-like and has much more integrity than anyone from across the aisle.
It wasn't the election of 2008 that showed these qualities were for suckers. It was the election of 2016.
Barack Obama is every bit as honorable, every bit as dedicated to service as John McCain. He is far more statesman-like and has much more integrity than anyone from across the aisle.
It wasn't the election of 2008 that showed these qualities were for suckers. It was the election of 2016.
23
So much of the goings-ons in and around the Trump presidency and White House leads me to conclude:
Corruption empowers and absolute corruption empowers absolutely.
So many, with respect to Spicer's firing, Priebus' resignation and the demeaning of Sessions have commented: With President Trump, loyalty is a one-way street.
Shouldn't it be: With President Trump, loyalty is a U-turn?
Corruption empowers and absolute corruption empowers absolutely.
So many, with respect to Spicer's firing, Priebus' resignation and the demeaning of Sessions have commented: With President Trump, loyalty is a one-way street.
Shouldn't it be: With President Trump, loyalty is a U-turn?
2
"Every vote cast for Donald Trump was a vote for vulgarity. His supporters got exactly what they paid for."
Kind of like a "Basket of deplorable", Bret? To be fair to Secretary Clinton, she placed that quote in context to at least imply it was not all Trump voters. But the legions at the rallies shouting " Lock her up" should be asked now: " Are you proud to see our democratic institutions failing?"
Kind of like a "Basket of deplorable", Bret? To be fair to Secretary Clinton, she placed that quote in context to at least imply it was not all Trump voters. But the legions at the rallies shouting " Lock her up" should be asked now: " Are you proud to see our democratic institutions failing?"
20
I think the decline really accelerated when Newt Gingrich and his band took over the House in the 90's and we have seen consistent "the ends justify the means" behavior ever since.
24
Another word I found today among NYT readers' Comments about Trump is "amoral--i.e.,"having no moral restraints." We have progressed from Jerry Springer and the birth of reality TV to actual road rage in the White House. Male hysteria in a world of instant feedback via technology has become a fact of daily life, inevitably encouraging muddle-heads, both rich and poor, to just "let go," convinced that they'll get plenty of on-the-spot attention.
9
Just remember, before he hosted a TV show proudly plumbing the depths in search of the lowest common denominator, Jerry Springer was elected Mayor of Cinncinnati, Ohio, a very conservative city.
1
The voting machine doesn't know whether your ballot was cast nose-holding, qualified, or reluctantly. It only reads 100% support.
so trump has 62,000,000 true supporters who got exactly what they wanted. Sad.
so trump has 62,000,000 true supporters who got exactly what they wanted. Sad.
3
Bret Stephens sounds like he's having the vapors. Harry Truman and Richard Nixon used obscenities the way Picasso used oils. Last week some horrible man insulted me with a string of profanities because I wouldn't give him my seat on a bus.
Welcome to the new normal. So stop pretending to be shocked. Nothing about Trump or his staff should come as a surprise to anyone anymore.
Welcome to the new normal. So stop pretending to be shocked. Nothing about Trump or his staff should come as a surprise to anyone anymore.
10
I don't know about you, but I expect more from our President than some stranger on a bus. Welcome to expectations of decency.
7
LBJ was especially vulgar and crass.
1
Neither Truman nor Nixon were stupid enough to go on a profane tirade to a reporter on the record. Much of Nixon's profanity was revealed on the White House tapes.
1
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." ~ Cassius
That many feel powerless and subjugated in their lives to rally about leadership who revel in tearing institutions down and hulimiating the accomplished is a statement of our human condition. We watch and do nothing and view ourselves as underlings, as Cassius puts it, and helplessly follow that leadership who eventually will further subjugate us or destroy us. To those in Congress I say, "get a little courage, and do what is right, and not what is politically expediant to your career."
That many feel powerless and subjugated in their lives to rally about leadership who revel in tearing institutions down and hulimiating the accomplished is a statement of our human condition. We watch and do nothing and view ourselves as underlings, as Cassius puts it, and helplessly follow that leadership who eventually will further subjugate us or destroy us. To those in Congress I say, "get a little courage, and do what is right, and not what is politically expediant to your career."
4
Just another right wing expression of false equivalence I was one of those kids in 1968 running amuck in the sreets. I did it because I was determined to fight my warhere, not in Vietnam. And I was certainly destined for Vietnam according to the mail I got from the Selective Service. Are Trump supporters just as desperate today? Was Obamacare an existential threat like the jungle of Vietnam? Life under Hillary as bad as life under the Universal Code of Military Justice?
10
Trump was a beneficiary of the Zip Code deferments that were part of the "selective service" process.
1
The reason that the GOP conservatives embrace foul gutterspeak is that when you have no ideas except bald self-interest, no policy except denial and exclusion, no interest in facts and no concept of logic, all that remains is bullying, degrading language. Most of us have known in our youth a neighborhood or schoolyard bully. He always tried to intimidate with loud, foul speech, but beneath the skin he was a shallow coward who felt the need to elevate himself by abasing others. This is what you get when a political party condones and celebrates this behavior. This is what you get when ignorant voters applaud the bully because his vulgarity is seen as "telling it like it is." This is what you get when that schoolyard bully lives in the White House.
23
Trump is a ratification of everything I despised about growing up in the US.
Stephens refers to the intelligentsia rationalizing away the acts of the 1968 Chicago convention protesters, they were on Eugene McCarthy's side of ending the war.
What about that was incorrect Bret?
What about that was incorrect Bret?
8
Oh, Mr. Stephens. 1968 is not 2017. Unfortunately for us now.
1968 was the start of a great movement for personal freedom and equality in your country. Those dirty protesters that made everyone so uncomfortable at the WSJ started something by protesting an unjust war that flung the bodies of young Americans, at war on foreign land, who could not dodge the draft as dt* did, and the bodies of helpless civilians in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, and their soldiers defending them, against the bloodied brick wall of unreason.
It was the start of change for the better. It may have appeared to those who treasured the sanctimonious conformity of the 50's to be 'uncivil'. In fact, it was an unbridled expression of the great civility of your nation as expressed in your founding documents.
You probably don't like this website, but this is a list of legislation passed from 1963 to 1968. A lot has happened for equality, fairness and recognition of the environment since then as well.
http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/lbj-biography/landmark
However, is your mind open enough, and has come far enough from 1968 to recognise that many people have much more freedom than they did then?
The only freedom they have a LOT less of, is freedom from economic inequality. Perhaps the WSJ would like to write an article about that now?
Who are the ones using 'bad language' now? What has the R party done to make life better for all Americans in the last 6 months?
1968 was the start of a great movement for personal freedom and equality in your country. Those dirty protesters that made everyone so uncomfortable at the WSJ started something by protesting an unjust war that flung the bodies of young Americans, at war on foreign land, who could not dodge the draft as dt* did, and the bodies of helpless civilians in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, and their soldiers defending them, against the bloodied brick wall of unreason.
It was the start of change for the better. It may have appeared to those who treasured the sanctimonious conformity of the 50's to be 'uncivil'. In fact, it was an unbridled expression of the great civility of your nation as expressed in your founding documents.
You probably don't like this website, but this is a list of legislation passed from 1963 to 1968. A lot has happened for equality, fairness and recognition of the environment since then as well.
http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/lbj-biography/landmark
However, is your mind open enough, and has come far enough from 1968 to recognise that many people have much more freedom than they did then?
The only freedom they have a LOT less of, is freedom from economic inequality. Perhaps the WSJ would like to write an article about that now?
Who are the ones using 'bad language' now? What has the R party done to make life better for all Americans in the last 6 months?
20
Agree with this opinion wholeheartedly. #liar45 has never been different - look at his past - always the sleaze - always involved in dubious dealings - always dishonest. His supporters either were being too stupid to understand the potential harm this would do to our country, or just didn't care because they were blinded by innate prejudice and racism. Our representatives need to get a grip!!! They have the power to reign him in and need to show him that he is not a king. Many in the GOP need to develop a spine and respond to #liar45 's threats.
3
Trump and Mooch's antics probably strengthened the spines of his base. They love this stuff. To them it's all a game. They are far too illiterate and ignorant to understand the incredible damage this administration is doing to the country, and to them.
Conservative pundits, Fox News etc all, do understand it but embrace the Bannon strategy of tearing the country apart from the inside.
Conservative pundits, Fox News etc all, do understand it but embrace the Bannon strategy of tearing the country apart from the inside.
10
Call it the Putin strategy. He is out to show the world how to fracture the US.
Suggesting that one source of conservative support for Trump (R-Vulgar) was the 2008 defeat of John McCain is rich. McCain, a true war hero but only occasionally a "maverick" in a love-hate relationship with left and right, foolishly named a vulgar, ignorant woman of no substance to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Sarah Palin's rantings were even too much for Trump, who rarely mentioned her support during his campaign. In nominating Palin, McCain recognized and encouraged the growth of ignorant and mean-spirited Republicanism now in full flower.
No need to blame the 60s liberal politics for Trumpism. Joe McCarthy and The John Birch Society were in full force in the 1950s, in turn arising from the racist and anti-Semitic dog whistles of Lindbergh, America First and Father Coughlan in the 1930s and pre-war '40s. Trumpism is the natural result of anti-government, anti-sick, anti-poor, pro-wealth, pro-racist and anti-feminist compost soil around for 100 years (see also, Harding administration Red scares that also empowered J. Edgar Hoover). You reap what you sow, Mr. Stephens. Trump is a fat over-ripe tomato grown from hospitable soil.
No need to blame the 60s liberal politics for Trumpism. Joe McCarthy and The John Birch Society were in full force in the 1950s, in turn arising from the racist and anti-Semitic dog whistles of Lindbergh, America First and Father Coughlan in the 1930s and pre-war '40s. Trumpism is the natural result of anti-government, anti-sick, anti-poor, pro-wealth, pro-racist and anti-feminist compost soil around for 100 years (see also, Harding administration Red scares that also empowered J. Edgar Hoover). You reap what you sow, Mr. Stephens. Trump is a fat over-ripe tomato grown from hospitable soil.
21
Trump won the presidency because our system is broken. He is a symptom, who now has the power to be the cause of a new host of symptoms, but he is in power due to the failings of each party:
Republicans have used right-wing media ("populism" of the worst sort that continues to first blast "liberals" and "the left" in hate-language, and then in a second step make "liberal" seem non-white and "foreign") to rally masses in support of policies that only help the psychopaths among the super-rich.
Democrats have moved to the space formerly occupied by moderate Republicans, and they have become such an urban elite party that they fear the gun-toting rural folks, and they have even lost touch with urban working classes, and their policies offer them very little except a little protection from the globalization that Democrats have no idea how to manage for the good of all. (See Trump and Sanders and how their appeal overlapped.)
The malfunctions that produced Trump are still in place.
Republicans have used right-wing media ("populism" of the worst sort that continues to first blast "liberals" and "the left" in hate-language, and then in a second step make "liberal" seem non-white and "foreign") to rally masses in support of policies that only help the psychopaths among the super-rich.
Democrats have moved to the space formerly occupied by moderate Republicans, and they have become such an urban elite party that they fear the gun-toting rural folks, and they have even lost touch with urban working classes, and their policies offer them very little except a little protection from the globalization that Democrats have no idea how to manage for the good of all. (See Trump and Sanders and how their appeal overlapped.)
The malfunctions that produced Trump are still in place.
5
Your generalizations about Democrats miss the mark.
Not everyone living in an urban area is elite, and anybody with a modicum of intelligence should fear gun-toting rural folks.
In any case, they have a much better idea of how to manage things for the good of all than Republicans do.
Think not?
Read that G.O.P. health bill.
Not everyone living in an urban area is elite, and anybody with a modicum of intelligence should fear gun-toting rural folks.
In any case, they have a much better idea of how to manage things for the good of all than Republicans do.
Think not?
Read that G.O.P. health bill.
3
I always love to made to think, and this column did that for me.
I came to adulthood in the late 60's and the 70's and was pelted (literally and figuratively) by people who told me that we were destroying America with our "culture of excess. excuses and permission" and our failure to observe the ethics of "acceptable political and personal conduct".
I had never really stopped to think that these are the self same people who are failing to observe those American values now - that the table has not just turned, but been turned upside down.
And the real irony was that we were not turning our backs on those values back then, we were insisting they actually be observed, not the hypocritical mouth service of that honesty and service and statesmanship and sacrifice in public office that was being touted but not practiced - a demand for the actual enactment of values like kindness and concern for the less well off and for the environment over profits and education and health over war.
Now, we who are being consistent are facing those who are giving up all pretense of fighting for values, for using the process as intended, for governing for all the people, for "acceptable political and personal conduct".
Who knew that it would be the party of the censors who arrested Lenny Bruce for his 10 and George Carlin for his 7 "Filthy Words" who are now using them from the WH with impunity.
I came to adulthood in the late 60's and the 70's and was pelted (literally and figuratively) by people who told me that we were destroying America with our "culture of excess. excuses and permission" and our failure to observe the ethics of "acceptable political and personal conduct".
I had never really stopped to think that these are the self same people who are failing to observe those American values now - that the table has not just turned, but been turned upside down.
And the real irony was that we were not turning our backs on those values back then, we were insisting they actually be observed, not the hypocritical mouth service of that honesty and service and statesmanship and sacrifice in public office that was being touted but not practiced - a demand for the actual enactment of values like kindness and concern for the less well off and for the environment over profits and education and health over war.
Now, we who are being consistent are facing those who are giving up all pretense of fighting for values, for using the process as intended, for governing for all the people, for "acceptable political and personal conduct".
Who knew that it would be the party of the censors who arrested Lenny Bruce for his 10 and George Carlin for his 7 "Filthy Words" who are now using them from the WH with impunity.
10
"How did so many of the same people who spent the past 50 years bemoaning the decline of morality and decorum become the agents and enablers of the most morally grotesque administration in American history?"
That question is the reason a guy like Trump can succeed. Because the people who have been bemoaning the lack of morality for the last 50 years only applied that question to "the other guy". Their own moral foibles or challenged character were never attendied to or examined. It has always been "the other guy" that created the mess.
Three of the "leading lights" of the Republican party, (Limbaugh, Gingrich and Trump) have 10 wives between them! Morality, Mr. Stephens?
That question is the reason a guy like Trump can succeed. Because the people who have been bemoaning the lack of morality for the last 50 years only applied that question to "the other guy". Their own moral foibles or challenged character were never attendied to or examined. It has always been "the other guy" that created the mess.
Three of the "leading lights" of the Republican party, (Limbaugh, Gingrich and Trump) have 10 wives between them! Morality, Mr. Stephens?
14
No. There is a very stringent rule of law, and it is the law of the free market. It is a punisher of the inefficient and the useless and anyone else who stands in the way of being fed to it or benefitting from it. There is no other morality, any other morality is just hypocritical window dressing over an assault on the insatiable God of the market.
1
This vulgar, "rules don't apply to me" crowd has been around a long time. They just needed someone to give them cover and the media to give them a public voice. I credit John MCain for lighting the fire with his choice of Sarah Palin. He did a great disservice to our nation, it's rule of law and our democracy.
2
Why blame it on 1968? Does every evil in a conservative's mind have to go back to hippies?
I'd blame instead the rise of Transactionalism and the worship of marketing, of share, of profiteering. Sex sells, Vulgarity sells. Pitching to the lowest common denominator sells.
Scaramucci is the direct descendent of the Wolf of Wall Street, not the crowds at Woodstock.
If everything is a transaction; if the most important goal is profit; if people are judged by the content of their wallet rather than character; if the free market is held up as some godlike Golden Bull idol; if an empty entity like Trump is valued because he had a TV persona; then crass, vulgar and boorish are the result.
If you cannot put a price on it, then current Conservatives cannot value it. That is where the crass is coming from. Norm busting is from too much weed and a Summer of Love. It is from transaction valuation of everything we do and are.
I'd blame instead the rise of Transactionalism and the worship of marketing, of share, of profiteering. Sex sells, Vulgarity sells. Pitching to the lowest common denominator sells.
Scaramucci is the direct descendent of the Wolf of Wall Street, not the crowds at Woodstock.
If everything is a transaction; if the most important goal is profit; if people are judged by the content of their wallet rather than character; if the free market is held up as some godlike Golden Bull idol; if an empty entity like Trump is valued because he had a TV persona; then crass, vulgar and boorish are the result.
If you cannot put a price on it, then current Conservatives cannot value it. That is where the crass is coming from. Norm busting is from too much weed and a Summer of Love. It is from transaction valuation of everything we do and are.
8
I don't see much of anything from the '60s in the U.S. having anything to do with what's happening right now. It's a matter of two corrupt political parties paid for by the 1% putting up two despised candidates, gaming it all the way, and the craziest, sleaziest, dumbest candidate winning by cheating. If the wealthy think they can rein in what they have wrought just as soon as they get their GOP puppets in Congress to strip-mine our rules and regulations; they really ought to brush up on what happened in Germany in the 1930s. They and their puppets are fueling a fire that won't be contained.
2
Bret Stephens turns his bad behavior microscope on 1968 protestors of the Vietnam War, rather than the Vietnam War.
So now Trump's and Republican behavior is traceable to those protestors rather than to that war.
The Republican Party has been and remains the party of American violence. That should have become clear yet again just yesterday with Trump's urging of additional police brutality.
So now Trump's and Republican behavior is traceable to those protestors rather than to that war.
The Republican Party has been and remains the party of American violence. That should have become clear yet again just yesterday with Trump's urging of additional police brutality.
8
The straight jacket morality of the 1950's included Jim Crow laws and McCarthyism. This gave way to administrations, both Democratic and Republican that lied to us about the realities of the Vietnam War. The youth movement, out of disgust, age-appropriate rebelliousness and self interest, gave up on trusting government and focused on improving themselves. Christian virtues of modesty, humility and charity became old school and new mega churches preached a gospel of prosperity. We became the "me" generation of self-help and self-actualization. Come the Internet, where everyone has a voice and the loudest voices gain the biggest audiences and truth is a flavor rather than a reality. In this new environment braggadocio is a virtue that leads to more clicks, the modern measure of success.
Thus the swamp Trump slithered out of.
Thus the swamp Trump slithered out of.
5
The problem of vulgarity and/or "poor" behavior in public life in America? The problem of picking and choosing particular words or even statements or types of behavior as low, vulgar, crass, and seizing on particulars, words, statements, types of behavior to represent elevation in public life?
I think Karl Popper is really instructive here. In his "Unended Quest" he talks about how vastly more important it is to get theoretical framework, context correct rather than to focus on particulars such as words. I have no problem with vulgarity or disruptive forms of behavior if the context, theoretical framework of thought and action is powerfully articulated. A good example of seeing what occurs by focusing narrowly on words (vulgarity of course) or particular actions without articulating powerful framework, theory, is to simply study the history of film, all the corny movies of the past which would focus on removing this element or that to give elevation, order, morality but in actuality just result in a narrow, sanitized, quite limited, in fact inaccurate account of the totality of life.
The problem with vulgarity, poor behavior in American life cannot be corrected by focusing on particulars, trying to sanitize, narrow speech and action but can only be overcome by increased intellectual life, supreme pursuit of theoretical framework, vast context by great imagination, which actually allows vulgarity, free play of action. No one minds vulgarity in the mouth of Shakespeare.
I think Karl Popper is really instructive here. In his "Unended Quest" he talks about how vastly more important it is to get theoretical framework, context correct rather than to focus on particulars such as words. I have no problem with vulgarity or disruptive forms of behavior if the context, theoretical framework of thought and action is powerfully articulated. A good example of seeing what occurs by focusing narrowly on words (vulgarity of course) or particular actions without articulating powerful framework, theory, is to simply study the history of film, all the corny movies of the past which would focus on removing this element or that to give elevation, order, morality but in actuality just result in a narrow, sanitized, quite limited, in fact inaccurate account of the totality of life.
The problem with vulgarity, poor behavior in American life cannot be corrected by focusing on particulars, trying to sanitize, narrow speech and action but can only be overcome by increased intellectual life, supreme pursuit of theoretical framework, vast context by great imagination, which actually allows vulgarity, free play of action. No one minds vulgarity in the mouth of Shakespeare.
1
Vile, uncouth behavior and statements have been around as long as man has walked the earth. People in power just used to hide their real selves and pretend they held the moral high ground. This isn't a question of "when," society changed, it's a question of looking at ourselves and being honest.
2
I was there in 1968, mr. stephens. the protests you cite were to call attention to the obscenity of the war in Vietnam, where thousands of American lives were being destroyed in service of lies that our socalled leaders knew were lies, as well as to defy the overt and evil racism that had been stirred by the candidacy of George Wallace. some protestors used vulgar language. oh my!
the deaths of king and kennedy, and the brutality of the Chicago police showed us what was really going on. Nixon won the election with only 43% of the popular vote, and tens of thousands more died in Vietnam while he argued about the shape of the table at which negotiations were to be held. that was obscene. we protested. some of us used vulgar language. oh my!
a little later, college students who protested PEACEFULLY (and some who were simply walking to class) were killed at Jackson state and kent state. the government deployed troops against its own citizens who were engaging in the constitutional right to free assembly and KILLED THEM. and some of us protested the deaths of those innocents. and we might have used vulgar language. oh my!
spare me your disdain for our protests. we could use them today to bring trump and his inept, corrupt administration to its knees.
the deaths of king and kennedy, and the brutality of the Chicago police showed us what was really going on. Nixon won the election with only 43% of the popular vote, and tens of thousands more died in Vietnam while he argued about the shape of the table at which negotiations were to be held. that was obscene. we protested. some of us used vulgar language. oh my!
a little later, college students who protested PEACEFULLY (and some who were simply walking to class) were killed at Jackson state and kent state. the government deployed troops against its own citizens who were engaging in the constitutional right to free assembly and KILLED THEM. and some of us protested the deaths of those innocents. and we might have used vulgar language. oh my!
spare me your disdain for our protests. we could use them today to bring trump and his inept, corrupt administration to its knees.
5
"How did so many of the same people who spent the past 50 years bemoaning the decline of morality and decorum become the agents and enablers of the most morally grotesque administration in American history?"
Bemoaning the decline of morality of others is very often just another tactic used by immoral people to accrue power.
Scolding Gingrichian hypocrites, scapegoating politicians, and pious frauds are a dime dozen. Their support for Trump is not surprising..
What is surprising is that you seem to have bought all that moralizing as sincere.
Bemoaning the decline of morality of others is very often just another tactic used by immoral people to accrue power.
Scolding Gingrichian hypocrites, scapegoating politicians, and pious frauds are a dime dozen. Their support for Trump is not surprising..
What is surprising is that you seem to have bought all that moralizing as sincere.
6
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. -- Ray Bradbury
Trump doesn't read. In fact, he disdains reading. As a consequence, he doesn't understand words very well, and his vocabulary is constricted -- as are his thoughts. This chain leads to paranoia through the realization that he is limited and insufficient. So he surrounds himself with vulgar toadies and sycophants who make even him look good. It becomes a vicious cycle.
This far transcends the culture of the 1960s, where movements were lead by people of distinction, culture, knowledge, and intelligence: the Kennedys, MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Betty Friedan, the Beatles, the Doors, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Dylan, Santana, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Simon and Garfunkel, Coltrane, Johnny Cash, Kubrick and so many others ... People of influence -- people who actually did something to effect positive change.
What we have today is a president who cannot read -- the first one ever! It is "Idiocracy" realized -- incarnate.
There is no comparison. We are in far greater peril now than we have ever been.
Trump doesn't read. In fact, he disdains reading. As a consequence, he doesn't understand words very well, and his vocabulary is constricted -- as are his thoughts. This chain leads to paranoia through the realization that he is limited and insufficient. So he surrounds himself with vulgar toadies and sycophants who make even him look good. It becomes a vicious cycle.
This far transcends the culture of the 1960s, where movements were lead by people of distinction, culture, knowledge, and intelligence: the Kennedys, MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Betty Friedan, the Beatles, the Doors, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Dylan, Santana, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Simon and Garfunkel, Coltrane, Johnny Cash, Kubrick and so many others ... People of influence -- people who actually did something to effect positive change.
What we have today is a president who cannot read -- the first one ever! It is "Idiocracy" realized -- incarnate.
There is no comparison. We are in far greater peril now than we have ever been.
7
"Did it happen in the 1990 the conclusion by rank-and-file conservatives that concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship — the virtues that just saved the G.O.P. from a political disaster of its own devising in Friday’s health care vote — were for suckers?"
Lemming like, 48 GOPators follow Pence over the cliff, trying to strip health care from sixteen million Americans, and Mr. Stevens proclaims that some noble virtues gathered together to avert a Republican political disaster. Say what?
Sometimes it seems conservatives are almost talking sense, and then a whooper like this belches forth from the bubble to remind us it's all sewer gas, all the time.
Lemming like, 48 GOPators follow Pence over the cliff, trying to strip health care from sixteen million Americans, and Mr. Stevens proclaims that some noble virtues gathered together to avert a Republican political disaster. Say what?
Sometimes it seems conservatives are almost talking sense, and then a whooper like this belches forth from the bubble to remind us it's all sewer gas, all the time.
3
"Their answer, in a nutshell, was 1968 — specifically, the culture of excess, excuses and permission that abruptly supplanted the old American ethic of modesty, responsibility and restraint."
Right. Like everything else, it was the hippies' fault. Before that Americans were wedded to "modesty, responsibility and restraint." Two words: Great Gatsby.
Right. Like everything else, it was the hippies' fault. Before that Americans were wedded to "modesty, responsibility and restraint." Two words: Great Gatsby.
2
There are too few McCains, Collins or Murcowskys with the moral fiber to act on their principles, even when threatened.... "the courage of your convictions ". Like an old movie when the mob controls city hall and a few crusading reporters , officials and legislators try to return law and order. There are too many willing to ignore, look away or excuse what is happening in front of their eyes., either from fear or some selfish motivation. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
1
It isn't that hard to understand, and it doesn't stem from 1968, Bret. It stems from 1980, when Ronald Reagan famously uttered the contemptible lie, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'" This from a man who had lived through the New Deal and the Arsenal of Democracy, the early successes of the EPA, the thousands of gruesome lung cancer deaths prevented by the first initiatives to reduce smoking, and so on. If you hold government in contempt, Bret, you are going to opt for a contemptible government.
6
it should be forever remembered that saint Ronnie chose to launch his campaign with a barely concealed call-out to the racist rebels of Mississippi.
2
Sad but essential to hear the voices uncensored and uninterrupted. Interview Bannon and Mnuchin and Mulvaney too. They may not use profanity but the emptiness and cruelty of their ideas should be front and center every day.
3
Um, 1968 happened because the US was committed to a near-genocidal war in Asia.
In Cambodia where I live people are still recovering from that. In the words of Richard Holbrook, they will still be recovering from that in 100 years. The protestors at the time knew much of this, & got nowhere with the mainstream media & politics - which is why they acted.
Context, please.
In Cambodia where I live people are still recovering from that. In the words of Richard Holbrook, they will still be recovering from that in 100 years. The protestors at the time knew much of this, & got nowhere with the mainstream media & politics - which is why they acted.
Context, please.
4
Choose one from the following two options:
A. Vulgarity, obnoxiousness, inexperience and mendacity in a presidential candidate promising to kick start Congress, restore middle-class jobs and a sense of national identity.
B. Preperation, polish, beautiful manners, and a work ethic in a presidential candidate promising business-as-usual.
A lot of people can't afford to be anything but pragmatic—beautiful manners are a luxury you can't afford. If you're just making ends meet, option A. looks pretty good.
A. Vulgarity, obnoxiousness, inexperience and mendacity in a presidential candidate promising to kick start Congress, restore middle-class jobs and a sense of national identity.
B. Preperation, polish, beautiful manners, and a work ethic in a presidential candidate promising business-as-usual.
A lot of people can't afford to be anything but pragmatic—beautiful manners are a luxury you can't afford. If you're just making ends meet, option A. looks pretty good.
The Republican Party essentially has become a party of tribalism. They look at Trump, a serial philander, and see a decent God fearing man because they believe the Democratic Party is the party of shiftless nair-do-wells. I have a feeling that this failed repeal of the ACA woke up a lot of people who went to college and work in a job that pays less than $44,000. Cities like Atlanta are filled with people who never saw a race riot, and who chose to be in a more vibrant place. Trump will be a last gasp of the Conservative movement. Eventually, there won't be enough people living in the remote areas of Georgia to gerrymander.
2017 was the year that we learned the GOP is a jobs program for lawyers and little else.
2017 was the year that we learned the GOP is a jobs program for lawyers and little else.
3
The Trump Administration is everything vulgar, gross, offensive, disgusting and gauche about American society all rolled up into one revolting package of yuckiness. I am still at a loss to understand how even those who loathe Hillary Clinton could have concluded that this is preferable to her, but then again, perhaps I underestimate the extent to which Trump's racism and misogyny was a selling point for many. The idea that Trump is a template for future demagogues is a worrisome one. The thought of getting someone follows the Trump model but who is actually competent is the kind of thing that keeps me up some nights.
I also feel compelled to point out a factual error in the last sentence. Mr. Scaramucci is located at the other end of the alimentary canal.
I also feel compelled to point out a factual error in the last sentence. Mr. Scaramucci is located at the other end of the alimentary canal.
4
What a flagrant bit of irony it is that John Kelly is supposed to bring discipline to a White House that champions the lack thereof. Witness the undisciplined language of Trump who is now out-trumped by his new temporary darling the foul mouthed Scaramucci. To paraphrase on old bit of wisdom: You cannot have discipline and no-discipline at the same time.
There is another bit of flagrant irony here. John Kelly, the savior who is going to unite and discipline the White House, is the same John Kelly who proposed to separate and divide immigrant parents from their immigrant children when they are caught trying to cross the border.
All that has happened is that Mad King Trump has got himself a new court jester in Scaramucci even while telling his new darling general to clean up the mess. If you like dog fights, as I am sure Trump does, that is undoubtedly a good thing. For the rest of us bewildered onlookers, not so much.
There is another bit of flagrant irony here. John Kelly, the savior who is going to unite and discipline the White House, is the same John Kelly who proposed to separate and divide immigrant parents from their immigrant children when they are caught trying to cross the border.
All that has happened is that Mad King Trump has got himself a new court jester in Scaramucci even while telling his new darling general to clean up the mess. If you like dog fights, as I am sure Trump does, that is undoubtedly a good thing. For the rest of us bewildered onlookers, not so much.
4
As a Democrat, I have a lot of respect for John McCain. But choosing Sarah Palin as a running mate? Don't see a lot of "honor, service, integrity . . . statesmanship" in that choice. She paved the way for our current President, with her no-thing self-promoting.
3
Things did change in '68, Mr. Stephens, but not in the way you think. Beginning with Nixon's "Southern Strategy", continuing through "Welfare queens" and "Willie Horton", through Fox's "War on Christmas" and on to Trump's "Mexican rapists", the Republican party has increasingly relied on ginning up hate and fear to win elections. There are many contributors of varied importance to this trend away from the days of "I Like Ike" that we could add, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh among them, and the party's merger with right wing media is a subject for a different day.
The truth is that, well before it became a term, the Republican party has become a the party of "trolls". They stand for, and propose nothing that speaks to the better angels of our nature, and instead take their only pleasure in poking sticks in the eyes of those they perceive as above them (the "liberal elite"), while standing the necks of those those they perceive as below them (women, minorities, immigrants, the LGBT community). Their thankfully embarrassing failure on "referring" Obamacare is just the most recent, most glaring example of this.
Trump is the fruit of this tee, but it has deep roots.
And PS- your absurd false equivalency between the protests of 1968 and Trump now, is another example of why you, and the rest of the Republican elite, also bear responsibility for Trump's rise. You're intellectual bending of facts has been providing cover for the trolls for a long time.
The truth is that, well before it became a term, the Republican party has become a the party of "trolls". They stand for, and propose nothing that speaks to the better angels of our nature, and instead take their only pleasure in poking sticks in the eyes of those they perceive as above them (the "liberal elite"), while standing the necks of those those they perceive as below them (women, minorities, immigrants, the LGBT community). Their thankfully embarrassing failure on "referring" Obamacare is just the most recent, most glaring example of this.
Trump is the fruit of this tee, but it has deep roots.
And PS- your absurd false equivalency between the protests of 1968 and Trump now, is another example of why you, and the rest of the Republican elite, also bear responsibility for Trump's rise. You're intellectual bending of facts has been providing cover for the trolls for a long time.
7
Comparisons to the 60s are a bit shaky, but you're 100% right about the president and his enablers in the (very) former party of Lincoln.
A fiction writer's guide from central casting: When choosing the names of your characters remember sound carries recognition of character, like "Scaramucci threw Priebus under himself and Bannon will be next."
i wanted to vote for Mccain in 08 cause like me he is a veteran. his record is far better than mine. but that was my litmus test for my vote. well he was great choice till the GOP told him for a running mate he had to have CRAZY. Sorry that vote dont hunt. as for civil incivility it has gotten worse as the decades have piled up. Evolution i suppose.
1
Can we separate the words from the actions?
Can we stop clutching the pearls over the fact that Anthony Scaramucci used a few words that one could find anywhere these days, including a middle school playground. Liberals and conservatives alike have used these words for years, and Scaramucci's rant would be as troubling (but less entertaining) had he used more polite words, just as the President's words would have been just as disturbing had he referred to female genitelia by its clinically accepted name rather than the colloquialism he did use.
This is an administration with no standards of behavior, period. That's the problem. We've become a nation far too pre-occupied with "bad" words and far too tolerant of bad deeds.
Can we stop clutching the pearls over the fact that Anthony Scaramucci used a few words that one could find anywhere these days, including a middle school playground. Liberals and conservatives alike have used these words for years, and Scaramucci's rant would be as troubling (but less entertaining) had he used more polite words, just as the President's words would have been just as disturbing had he referred to female genitelia by its clinically accepted name rather than the colloquialism he did use.
This is an administration with no standards of behavior, period. That's the problem. We've become a nation far too pre-occupied with "bad" words and far too tolerant of bad deeds.
1
Pretty soon we'll have that smooth talking phony Mike Pence for president, a radio man skilled at smiling mendacity. In substance, he'll be as bad or worse than Trump on matters of individual freedoms, foreign policy, the war on the poor, the gay and the intellectual. But the right will be singing his praises because he'll talk nice about it. I can hardly wait.
2
Bret Stephens was born in 1973.
He's read about 1968. Saw the movie. Heard a boomer tell a tale.
1968 was not about Abbie and Jerry and furry-haired hippies throwing rocks at the police in Chicago.
It was about 1,200+ body bags coming home --- each month.
It was about citizens who took to the streets in Washington and were beaten by the 82nd Airborne after the camera crews packed up.
It was about teach-ins, and diving into books, and journalists in the underground press reporting what others wouldn't.
And kids taking off from college to be "Clean for Gene" in New Hampshire.
I look at the photos of the sick and disabled entreating Congress in Washington these last few weeks --- and getting arrested --- and I think: Yes, I remember that.
Glory days.
They're back.
He's read about 1968. Saw the movie. Heard a boomer tell a tale.
1968 was not about Abbie and Jerry and furry-haired hippies throwing rocks at the police in Chicago.
It was about 1,200+ body bags coming home --- each month.
It was about citizens who took to the streets in Washington and were beaten by the 82nd Airborne after the camera crews packed up.
It was about teach-ins, and diving into books, and journalists in the underground press reporting what others wouldn't.
And kids taking off from college to be "Clean for Gene" in New Hampshire.
I look at the photos of the sick and disabled entreating Congress in Washington these last few weeks --- and getting arrested --- and I think: Yes, I remember that.
Glory days.
They're back.
6
It's as easy as Marshall Macluhan. The medium is the message. Everything is entertainment and entertainment is everything.
There is no going back. The genie is way too fat for the bottle. The plug has been pulled and we are all spinning dizzily for the drain.
Drain the swamp? We are being drained of our civility, our intelligence, our humanity.
Titillation wins.
There is no going back. The genie is way too fat for the bottle. The plug has been pulled and we are all spinning dizzily for the drain.
Drain the swamp? We are being drained of our civility, our intelligence, our humanity.
Titillation wins.
2
If this is what we have been reduced to----bottom fishing, Mooch lingo--we are done. We have been successfully destroying our country , our creed --and our future.
We are done.
How can I raise my grandchildren (n=5) in this environment?
Here is a Haiku.
Gone and emptied of America values.
The falconer-----forget it!
Betrayed country.
Truly, the head stinks.
We better remember who we are.
We are done.
How can I raise my grandchildren (n=5) in this environment?
Here is a Haiku.
Gone and emptied of America values.
The falconer-----forget it!
Betrayed country.
Truly, the head stinks.
We better remember who we are.
1
I don't buy that we of age in 1967-1971 invented violent protest. We were cannon fodder for a war-for-profit (and little else) and we knew it. We fought back. We took to the streets, not the boardroom and Twitter. This administration loves oligarchs, not law and order. Perhaps we should head back to the streets again. Though Trump would have no hesitation to kill us. Or we just support and cheer the leakers. They are sane and that is how we are fighting back against the enemy. Who now occupies the White House.
5
"As Scaramucci said, paraphrasing a proverb, 'The fish stinks from the head down.'"
Yes, and those of us who remember Benjamin Franklin's proverb, " Guests, like fish begin to smell after three days" know that Scaramucci, the Mooch, had worn out his welcome after his first obsequious performance on day one. He should pack his bags and leave now!
Yes, and those of us who remember Benjamin Franklin's proverb, " Guests, like fish begin to smell after three days" know that Scaramucci, the Mooch, had worn out his welcome after his first obsequious performance on day one. He should pack his bags and leave now!
1
While the "Days of Rage" were dominating the news, Richard Nixon was working with Madame Chennault to torpedo the Paris Peace accords for his own political advantage. Remember his "secret plan" to end the war? Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as a result of his treachery. That's more than cynicism, that is evil.
1
Say what you want in attempting to explain this presidency, or the conservative movement that put him there, but I see the free-range vulgarity associated with it as nothing more than than the excesses that are allowed by being a rich, white man in America.
God knows Obama wouldn't have been able to get away with one tenth of ANYTHING Trump has done, or said so far.
Imagine the horrified uproar if he was caught on tape saying he grabbed a woman by her genitals, or if he pushed a foreign diplomat out of the way in order to stand in the front row at a photo shoot. You get the drift.
As for that foul-mouthed choice of a commuincations director Anthony Scaramucci, there's no way his baseness would be tolerated were he part of the Obama administration -- as is, he's an aberration and an embarrassment to this country and himself.
How and why the overwhelmingly white conservatives have chosen Donald Trump as their champion, may very well lie in the fact that he's able to do and get away with everything they wish they could.
But any way you figure it out, it's a mess.
God knows Obama wouldn't have been able to get away with one tenth of ANYTHING Trump has done, or said so far.
Imagine the horrified uproar if he was caught on tape saying he grabbed a woman by her genitals, or if he pushed a foreign diplomat out of the way in order to stand in the front row at a photo shoot. You get the drift.
As for that foul-mouthed choice of a commuincations director Anthony Scaramucci, there's no way his baseness would be tolerated were he part of the Obama administration -- as is, he's an aberration and an embarrassment to this country and himself.
How and why the overwhelmingly white conservatives have chosen Donald Trump as their champion, may very well lie in the fact that he's able to do and get away with everything they wish they could.
But any way you figure it out, it's a mess.
5
Two minor points: (1) What Melania Trump called "locker room talk" has always been popular especially among conservatives in their locker rooms, fraternities, and clubhouses, but only now has it been printed as part of the public discourse in a paper like the New York Times. (2) In the 1960s, we had a true left wing, which ranged from liberalism to extreme revolutionarism. The true left in the 1960s weren't Democrats. They hated liberals more than they hated conservatives. Today, the revolutionary impulse is almost entirely on the right; Gingrich called his movement the "Republican revolution." Republicans own what we have in the White House. Democrats have nothing to do with it.
1
If there was an obscenity in 1968 it was in the administration that lied to its constituents regarding the basis for conducting the war in Vietnam. The anti colonial movements throughout South East Asia from 1945 to 1976 (French Indochina, Malaysia and Indonesia) were all portrayed by the west as communist inspired and falsely portrayed as existential threats to the west's security interests. If there is an obscenity to be found it is in the number of lives on all sides lost to prove that falsehood.
1
Mr. Stephens' column is a smashing of guardrails in of itself. Has a New York Times columnist ever suggested before that a sitting President could rape or sexually assault someone in the Oval Office? That's what Trump does to us as a nation -- the norms get pulverized to dust. And like Mr. Stephens, I fear that his time in office will indeed enable another demagogic tyrant to seize power.
I think to sum it up the hard right, Evangelistic Christians, left behind middle class all felt the end justified the means. The big problem is trump lied to all of them.
1
Yes, there is similarity between 1968 and 2016; both were years when rebellion broke out in America.
In 1968, we rebelled against the status quo - against racial and gender inequality, an immoral war, and a world where nuclear annihilation was just the push of a button away.
In 2016, Americans rebelled against the status quo - against a Washington political and media establishment corrupted by greed, unresponsive to the people, and so out of touch with Americans' lives, struggles and opinions, that they never saw it coming.
And when hasn't rebellion been vulgar?
How and when did conservatives, well, the far right movement that gobbled up conservatism years ago, when did the far right movement embrace vulgarity?
When they decided to demonize liberalism. When they decided to scapegoat immigrants. When they decided to exploit fear of terrrorism. When they decided to fan the flanes of racism. When they decided to turn Americans against each other. When they decided to trash their own system of government. (To be fair, our elected representatives had a lot to answer for.)
When they decided to remake America in their own image.
Yes, they embraced vulgarity. They rewrote our political discourse in vulgarese. Is it any wonder that vulgarity reigns in the White House alongside their president?
In 1968, we rebelled against the status quo - against racial and gender inequality, an immoral war, and a world where nuclear annihilation was just the push of a button away.
In 2016, Americans rebelled against the status quo - against a Washington political and media establishment corrupted by greed, unresponsive to the people, and so out of touch with Americans' lives, struggles and opinions, that they never saw it coming.
And when hasn't rebellion been vulgar?
How and when did conservatives, well, the far right movement that gobbled up conservatism years ago, when did the far right movement embrace vulgarity?
When they decided to demonize liberalism. When they decided to scapegoat immigrants. When they decided to exploit fear of terrrorism. When they decided to fan the flanes of racism. When they decided to turn Americans against each other. When they decided to trash their own system of government. (To be fair, our elected representatives had a lot to answer for.)
When they decided to remake America in their own image.
Yes, they embraced vulgarity. They rewrote our political discourse in vulgarese. Is it any wonder that vulgarity reigns in the White House alongside their president?
2
Talk about intellectualizing and justification. This article seeks to rationalize the current administration and its supporters by blaming 'the sixties'. It was those dang hippies and now we have vulgar Trump and his people using profanity in the White House. Honestly, and all due respect, the vulgarity is bad but its the least of our problems when it comes to this administration.
The vulgarity and coarseness are but symptoms of Trump and company's underlying ignorance, arrogance, self interest, and utter lack of knowledge of history or government processes.
We'd do well to focus on how our constitutional guardrails can protect us from this wreck in the White House. Or to continue the stinky fish metaphor, we got bigger fish to fry - stop worrying about how it began going bad - pay attention, be vigilant, be solution focused, we have got to get rid of this rottenness before it stinks up the entire country.
The vulgarity and coarseness are but symptoms of Trump and company's underlying ignorance, arrogance, self interest, and utter lack of knowledge of history or government processes.
We'd do well to focus on how our constitutional guardrails can protect us from this wreck in the White House. Or to continue the stinky fish metaphor, we got bigger fish to fry - stop worrying about how it began going bad - pay attention, be vigilant, be solution focused, we have got to get rid of this rottenness before it stinks up the entire country.
2
I'd like to ask a wide swath of Trump voters if this stinky fish presidency they
voted for was worth it to defeat Mrs. Clinton. Looking back at the rallies and the primary debates we saw, it was evident that Trump lacked decency as he continually assaulted his opponents and demeaned, lied and bullied his way to the top. His voters discounted the vulgarities, racism, hate and lies, and lost
their religious faith in doing so. They clearly defied their "godly" beliefs to approve Trump and what he stood for. I want to know how in God's name Trump has gotten away with it, as his supporters, his base ,still believes in this despot, defying both their God and the democracy they believe in. What happened to their Christian values?
voted for was worth it to defeat Mrs. Clinton. Looking back at the rallies and the primary debates we saw, it was evident that Trump lacked decency as he continually assaulted his opponents and demeaned, lied and bullied his way to the top. His voters discounted the vulgarities, racism, hate and lies, and lost
their religious faith in doing so. They clearly defied their "godly" beliefs to approve Trump and what he stood for. I want to know how in God's name Trump has gotten away with it, as his supporters, his base ,still believes in this despot, defying both their God and the democracy they believe in. What happened to their Christian values?
As Scaramucci said, paraphrasing a proverb, “The fish stinks from the head down.” Yes, it does, Mooch. And you’re merely the mouth.' Well, yes, but it seems his words have meant something besides blowing in the wind. A bit on the fish story here http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-head-down.html
Has our country been rotting? Is it due to leadership? Carter said 'a country as good as its people'; apparently his concept of goodness was related to his faith.
Scaramucci reminds me of a notorious hedge fund manager I met briefly and by chance. Apropos of another area of endeavor he remarked, 'Whatever it takes'. It remains to be seen what will get through the government meat grinder. To your point though, its rather awkward to hold your nose while embracing.
Has our country been rotting? Is it due to leadership? Carter said 'a country as good as its people'; apparently his concept of goodness was related to his faith.
Scaramucci reminds me of a notorious hedge fund manager I met briefly and by chance. Apropos of another area of endeavor he remarked, 'Whatever it takes'. It remains to be seen what will get through the government meat grinder. To your point though, its rather awkward to hold your nose while embracing.
Just when I thought it wouldn't get worse, it did. Scaramucci is the worst advertisement that New Yorkers could have...he is disgusting. And if this is the kind of talk they think Americans want, I can guarantee you it is not. Having been reared in a conservative Indiana, I can assure you the Christian Right who supported Trump are in shock over Mooch's public tirade and no doubt are beginning to question how Trump could believe in such a person. I have traveled the world since my youth, including a stint in the Navy. I am not easily shocked nor offended. But nobody of any character talks like Scaramucci did, especially on a world stage. Our nation is going down the toilet if these people stay in control.
Mr. Stephens invokes a WSJ editorial about 1968 in order to explain what is happening today. It is an effective way to make his point but it relies upon false equivalence.
He writes, “The real blame here [in 1968] does not lie with the mobs who fought bloody battles with the hysterical Chicago police. The larger responsibility falls on the intellectuals … who said then that the acts committed by the protesters were justified or explainable.”
Anti-war demonstrators were “street fighters” and “mobs” and who committed acts that were inappropriately justified or explained.
I spent August of 1968 in the 6th Convalescent Center in Vietnam recovering from wounds. I am better qualified than either the WSJ editorial board or Mr. Stephens to judge that those “intellectuals” were not just correct to but obligated to oppose the war and to justify and explain the actions of the victims of the Chicago Police Riot.
Those maligned intellectuals are neither to blame for Trumpism nor did they create a precedent for it.
He writes, “The real blame here [in 1968] does not lie with the mobs who fought bloody battles with the hysterical Chicago police. The larger responsibility falls on the intellectuals … who said then that the acts committed by the protesters were justified or explainable.”
Anti-war demonstrators were “street fighters” and “mobs” and who committed acts that were inappropriately justified or explained.
I spent August of 1968 in the 6th Convalescent Center in Vietnam recovering from wounds. I am better qualified than either the WSJ editorial board or Mr. Stephens to judge that those “intellectuals” were not just correct to but obligated to oppose the war and to justify and explain the actions of the victims of the Chicago Police Riot.
Those maligned intellectuals are neither to blame for Trumpism nor did they create a precedent for it.
3
This president is enabled by a Republican Party that so desperate to get back into to power that they were (are) willing to look the other way at almost every degradation of the office and immorality of the person thats holding it. If it meant that they would be able to pass their agenda of tax cuts and deregulation they were perfectly willing to make a Faustian bargain. Republican values have been shown to be growth and prosperity a.k.a. tax cuts and deregulation. Anything else is secondary to that. They are perfectly willing to deal with the current occupant of the White House as long as he helps them towards their agenda. He also has been greatly enabled by both the right wing news media and their deliberate misinformation machine, as well as, the so called lame stream media that seems to be solely concerned with winning the ratings wars. in final analysis the blame must lay squarely with the American public who actively support craven politicians and makes the kind of media that puts entertainment value and the catering to a particular worldview over any kind of objective truth the highest rated cable media.
6
1968 - the year that Republicans ran Nixon for President. A moral low-point, for sure.
2
"But it exactly represents what this administration is and will continue to be, with the blessing of an intellectual class that has done as much to betray honorable conservatism as the liberal intelligentsia of the ’60s did to betray honorable liberalism."
That is quite a presumptuous analogy, given the '60s have 9-1/2 years on 'this administration'.
That is quite a presumptuous analogy, given the '60s have 9-1/2 years on 'this administration'.
1
"His supporters got exactly what they paid for."
Not quite right, Mr. Stephens, they got exactly what WE are paying for. It is becoming very clear that the Republican Party is no longer a conservative political movement; it has morphed into an authoritarian party. Remember the goal announced in the Bush43 years about creating a "permanent Republican majority... ?" Just look at what this hopefully transient Republic majority government has wrought so far. It is not just elections that have consequence, governance, particularly poor governance, will have consequences too.
Mr. Stephens, I rarely agree with your politics. But I do believe that our government works best when we have two parties that work in "loyal opposition" and not in open warfare.
Is there no bridge too far for GOP leadership, or even GOP rank and file?
Not quite right, Mr. Stephens, they got exactly what WE are paying for. It is becoming very clear that the Republican Party is no longer a conservative political movement; it has morphed into an authoritarian party. Remember the goal announced in the Bush43 years about creating a "permanent Republican majority... ?" Just look at what this hopefully transient Republic majority government has wrought so far. It is not just elections that have consequence, governance, particularly poor governance, will have consequences too.
Mr. Stephens, I rarely agree with your politics. But I do believe that our government works best when we have two parties that work in "loyal opposition" and not in open warfare.
Is there no bridge too far for GOP leadership, or even GOP rank and file?
3
The appointment of Gorsuch to the SC was an illegal act and should not be a moment to be proud of for conservatives. Mitch McConnell and the Republican senate refused to do what the constitution provided, for more than a year. This makes this SC appointment invalid.
The actions of this presidency in personnel matters is demeaning, low class, and cruel. We thought the treatment of Jeff Sessions was mean and uncalled for, but the way R. Priebus was fired was beyond normal reason. To publicly use profanity and accusations of illegality to a supporter one day before firing made no sense and in my mind is grounds for utilizing the 25th amendment . This presidency should not be permitted to continue to besmirch our countries reputation in the world. This Republican congress shares the shame of this administrations behavior by their sin of not what they do but what they have failed to do.
The actions of this presidency in personnel matters is demeaning, low class, and cruel. We thought the treatment of Jeff Sessions was mean and uncalled for, but the way R. Priebus was fired was beyond normal reason. To publicly use profanity and accusations of illegality to a supporter one day before firing made no sense and in my mind is grounds for utilizing the 25th amendment . This presidency should not be permitted to continue to besmirch our countries reputation in the world. This Republican congress shares the shame of this administrations behavior by their sin of not what they do but what they have failed to do.
9
People who voted for Trump and belong to a fundamentalist/evangelical church, or, like the Mormon Church have rules and regulations that will get you ostracized if you go against them and other religions that seem more like mini=cults than anything else, all excuse their votes because they voted for one issue alone. That issue - abortion, removal of immigrants, taxes, removing rights from LBGT people, and other one-issue reasons put Trump in office.
That he is a vulgar, dishonest and amoral man is ignored because those one issue votes chose to suspend their supposed support of Jesus whose teachings are the epitome of what Trump does not stand for.
That he is a vulgar, dishonest and amoral man is ignored because those one issue votes chose to suspend their supposed support of Jesus whose teachings are the epitome of what Trump does not stand for.
7
The problem with this kind of muddy thinking is that, by continuing the vilification of "intellectuals" as a single group, Mr. Stephens flames the same kind of anti-education ardor that helps people to become muddy thinkers. In a nation as large as ours, there will always be sizable groups of outspoken people who feel superior to fellow citizens. These self-appointed elites may act vulgar or snooty. What matters is that they feel contempt for others. Contempt is a dangerous disrupter. Empathy and critical thinking are its enemies, as well as the greatest outcomes of an educational system that fuels a real democracy. We as a nation have swapped a desire to grow smart and just with the desire of a handful of folks to use the system to grow obscenely rich by keeping others in their place. Hate speech is detestable whatever its source, whether in the Citizens United decision emanating from SCOTUS or from some would-be mogul in the WH, or ordinary mean folks who are just plain scared. I just wish Mr. Stephens would really think clearly and critically about these issues instead of continuing the prejudice against the kind of intellectual rigor that founded our great nation.
2
It's always tempting to blame the hippies, but their "excesses" didn't happen in a void.
The government was forcing thousands to fight in a pointless war in southeast Asia, an inconvenient historical context Bret ignores.
Imagine the gall of people resisting the call of an out of control government! The horror!
The government was forcing thousands to fight in a pointless war in southeast Asia, an inconvenient historical context Bret ignores.
Imagine the gall of people resisting the call of an out of control government! The horror!
12
Don't confuse hippies with 60s politicos; they were very different groups. Hippies dropped out, politicos remained engaged.
Hippies dId not simply "drop out." Do you not recall the huge Grant Park protests where cops violently beat demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago? That protest triggered the Chicago 7 trial, one of the first to be televised. And, for better or worse, put Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Wavy Gravy, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Lee Weiner, John Froines and Bobby Seale on the nation's TV screens.
A false distinction in every way. Everyone was getting drafted.
Stephens pinpoints the counterculture "revolution" and unrest in 1968 when "specifically, the culture of excess, excuses and permission that abruptly supplanted the old American ethic of modesty, responsibility and restraint".
I think he has the time wrong, because the rift from modesty to excess, responsibility to excuses and restrain to permission occurred on January 20th 2017 when Obama transferred presidential power to Trump.
I think he has the time wrong, because the rift from modesty to excess, responsibility to excuses and restrain to permission occurred on January 20th 2017 when Obama transferred presidential power to Trump.
5
Actually it was the Reagan 80s that condoned, not to say promoted, selfish excess as a permissible lifestyle; the 60s confrontations focused on human rights, care for our fellow human beings.
1
Sorry, your argument is not valid in the least possible way. Trying to pinpoint the start of social decay by using an event in history is quite foolish. Is it possible that if one looks into this matter one sees that there never were any guardrails at all? Just the illusion of them put in place by those seeking power and personal gain. This pattern has been going on for thousands of years in human history. All that is taking place now is that the persona is dissolving and therefore is becoming transparent to more people who care to look.
2
While I largely agree, I see other paths to the place we're in now. First, let's remember that about one third of our citizens is still fighting the civil war--these are people whose blood pressure appears to have been permanently raised when Obama got elected.
Second, The GOP, through years of effort and calculation by bowing to religious zealotry and curtailing education, created their perfect voter--they literally value ignorance more than rational thought and knowledge. This was all too apparent when George W. Bush ran for president, in which poll after poll should he was well behind Gore on nearly every qualification but they preferred his folksy, simple-language what-me-worry persona and thin resume to a precise, capable and experienced career politician.
Third, when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, it was all too apparent that a lot of people loved her because she was a lot like them--happy to dismiss inconvenient facts, suspicious of those with experience and willing to make things up as she went. She represented a new model for the GOP--say something provocative enough and the media will repeat it over and over.
Second, The GOP, through years of effort and calculation by bowing to religious zealotry and curtailing education, created their perfect voter--they literally value ignorance more than rational thought and knowledge. This was all too apparent when George W. Bush ran for president, in which poll after poll should he was well behind Gore on nearly every qualification but they preferred his folksy, simple-language what-me-worry persona and thin resume to a precise, capable and experienced career politician.
Third, when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, it was all too apparent that a lot of people loved her because she was a lot like them--happy to dismiss inconvenient facts, suspicious of those with experience and willing to make things up as she went. She represented a new model for the GOP--say something provocative enough and the media will repeat it over and over.
11
Great stuff but stop now: I only know of Mr. Stephens and his conservative bent, through the pages of the times. His recent Op-eds, including this one, have been withering but thoughtful take-downs of operatives in the White House and by association, Republican leadership. But he now has to stop writing any more else, it will be easy for the WH, media and Republicans to paint him as an outlier, a heretic or an odd bird - as a way to undermine his message. If Mr. Stephens can continue to sustain his reputation (ostensibly) as a solid Republican/conservative, his message is more likely to have an impact.
You conveniently omit the facts about why the anti-Vietnam movement were protesting: an unpopular war being fought for specious reasons and prolonged by a nefarious, lying Republican president and Kissinger. Our troops died because if their self-serving lies.
6
Oh geez it's happening on the left today, just hasn't reached as high as elected office, thank goodness, yet. But attend a few protests over a pipeline project or police misconduct. The threats and invective and shouting and, sometimes, physical violence, from the left, are always excused by the left as justified on the merits or as well-meaning but passion-driven lapses of good judgment. At some point, a progressive politician will figure out that there is an audience for that kind of behavior, and down they'll go.
2
Please turn your lens on Congress. I think you will find a lot of enablers in that sorry group of Republicans.
4
The shifting of blame and refusal to take responsibility for one's actions - the 1968 anti-Vietnam protests - is a hallmark of the Republican party. It's used by spokespeople (Spicer, Conway), GOP politicians (all) and talking heads (Limbaugh, Hannity) It's consistent, it's persistent and it's insidious. You are doing that in this column. If you can't see the trajectory of GOP lies from 1968 to here, you are either willfully naive or shifting blame a la GOP-style. These nefarious lies and blame shifting have damaged our democracy and gave us McConnell, Cheney, Trump, et al.
6
How would such a movement begin, where is there a Leader to lead?
Currently, there is a huge void and Trump , his Administration, and the Republican Congress are watching the wild fire surrounded by massive chaos but have no idea how to move forward. The Justice Department along with the Supreme Court and being torn asunder with no road map forward. All in this particular group have no idea about governing or the survival of our Democracy.
Can the Citizens of the United States take to the Streets and force the end of this deadly charade?
Currently, there is a huge void and Trump , his Administration, and the Republican Congress are watching the wild fire surrounded by massive chaos but have no idea how to move forward. The Justice Department along with the Supreme Court and being torn asunder with no road map forward. All in this particular group have no idea about governing or the survival of our Democracy.
Can the Citizens of the United States take to the Streets and force the end of this deadly charade?
2
By equating the GOP of today and the radical leftists of the 60's Brett's makes it obvious that he was not there. The 60's was a period of liberation and of protest against a war that was sending young men to die to support a deeply corrupt South Vietnamese regime. It was also the time when the civil rights movement finally achieved some fundamental changes. It was a revolutionary period and like all revolutionary periods did give rise to excesses from radicals, but those radicals, however misguided, did not rely on blatant lies and conspiracy theories to make their case. Those excesses derailed the revolution, the backlash that followed gave us Nixon and, after a brief interlude, Reagan. There may not be a direct line but there is a zig-zag to what we have today, a party in power that has at its head the most mendacious braggart and vulgarian that ever sat in the oval office with a supine Republican Congress devoid of any sense of the common good.
5
You speak of "the old American ethic of modesty, responsibility and restraint" as if the mere belief in the ethic were enough. We have always been a people confused about our foundational myths and the reality behind them. While we taught our children for generations that such was our ethic (Parson Weems' cherry trees, etc.), we also taught them through our actions that modesty and restraint were for suckers and that responsibility was always demanded of others. Have you ever visited the mansions of Newport?
You refer to a WSJ article about the evils of 1968 as if a liberal excess from the past explains conservatives today. What about earlier conservative excesses? Why no mentions of the insanity of the John Birch society? Why no mention of the Dallas "Mink Coat Mob" of wealthy conservative women and men who jeered, yelled obscenities, and, by some accounts, spit on Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson in 1963? You know that I could list many more such instances of conservative misbehavior preceding Chicago in 1968.
You suggest the Antinomians as a template for current conservative behavior. As a descendant of people on both sides of that controversy (including Anne Hutchinson), I have long believed it to be one of the most symbolically important events in our early history. Both sides, however, exhibited corrupt behavioral patterns still will us today. You should rethink your understanding of the events of 1637-8 rather than 1968. The Puritan ethic, and all that.
You refer to a WSJ article about the evils of 1968 as if a liberal excess from the past explains conservatives today. What about earlier conservative excesses? Why no mentions of the insanity of the John Birch society? Why no mention of the Dallas "Mink Coat Mob" of wealthy conservative women and men who jeered, yelled obscenities, and, by some accounts, spit on Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson in 1963? You know that I could list many more such instances of conservative misbehavior preceding Chicago in 1968.
You suggest the Antinomians as a template for current conservative behavior. As a descendant of people on both sides of that controversy (including Anne Hutchinson), I have long believed it to be one of the most symbolically important events in our early history. Both sides, however, exhibited corrupt behavioral patterns still will us today. You should rethink your understanding of the events of 1637-8 rather than 1968. The Puritan ethic, and all that.
3
There was always a fundamental contradiction between the Republican party's peddling of "traditional values" and its ideological market fundamentalism. You can't reduce all social & cultural pursuits to markets without subjecting the values that motivate them to the lowest common denominator. It's no coincidence that the "religious" right was more open to wars of aggression & torture than it was to charity & turning the other cheek. A big turning point was the marriage of entertainment & "journalism" embraced by the right wing media in the 80's & 90's. Now the logic of right wing politics is the same as the logic of entertainment. Anger sell, vulgarity & violence sell, fake news sells. The necessity for Republican politicians to constantly prove that they're more extreme than the next guy is the same as the necessity for any product to price itself lower. No need to be shocked, it will get worse.
2
Bret Stephens blames the 1968 Chicago protesters for the lack of decency that entered American politics at that time. But Mr. Stephens, in 1968 you had five years to go before even being born. You don’t mention the obscene war in Vietnam or President Johnson who, abetted by the whole Republican Party, smugly drafted thousands of American youngsters into that insane conflict. You omit mention of Mayor Daley ordering his police thugs into the crowds to beat kids and journalists on the head. The Republicans are indecent today, but they were fully complicit in the indecency of 1968, eventually giving us Richard Nixon, the original president without guardrails who helped set the now southern-based Republican Party on its present course. Responsible journalists don’t quote Wall Street Journal editorials from a time before they were born and about things of which they know nothing.
9
20th century into the 21st century was all about tearing down the established rules and understandings for the sake of innovation. But it doesn't mean it's the right thing. This has happened in every category of life and some prime examples show how it's can horribly mess things up. Take for instance the food industry making cheaper, more engineered food that ends up making the whole populace sick. The media and entertainment making an arms war of how much can we get away with to make more money has destroyed common decency.
As an atheist I am glad the religion isn't dictating the lives we live politically (presumably) but I do fret that the loss of going to church and sitting for an hour with your neighbors who you wouldn't normally be with is a very important means of keeping a society respectful of each other. Sadly it was only those who practiced the same religion but it was a monocultural world world more or less.
Not today. We just have let everything slide into this filfth that is Donald Trump.
As an atheist I am glad the religion isn't dictating the lives we live politically (presumably) but I do fret that the loss of going to church and sitting for an hour with your neighbors who you wouldn't normally be with is a very important means of keeping a society respectful of each other. Sadly it was only those who practiced the same religion but it was a monocultural world world more or less.
Not today. We just have let everything slide into this filfth that is Donald Trump.
2
Many would disagree with a key tenet of this article: that the rude protests of 1968 introduced vulgarity into American culture.
We see the 1960s as a courageous, historic turning point, when protestors marched against the draft and the regime that took us into Vietnam. When gays began to fight their way out of the closet. A decade when African-Americans marched for their civil rights despite danger. A decade when effective contraception granted women freedoms and opportunities that men had enjoyed and exploited for a long time.
How did the dapper GOP conservatives, who looked down on these protests and bemoaned the Sixties, and who still mourn the 1950s, spawn an unmannerly president like Trump? How did Nixon and Reagan and pouty Newt Gingrich and Shrub (plus Cheney) ... and George Wallace, Goldwater ... ever lead to Trump?
It's obvious. Dapper Republicans have been standing on the shoulders of a resentful mob for decades. That's your Southern strategy. Trump knows how to excite those mobs, how to lead them in mean chants, guide them to curse reporters penned like cattle, and teach them to believe ridiculous rumors about that black Muslim dude who thought he was president, and that uppity broad who wanted to be president.
That's your base, sir. It's swampy, and you and your allies have been fishing in it, feeding off it for years.
We see the 1960s as a courageous, historic turning point, when protestors marched against the draft and the regime that took us into Vietnam. When gays began to fight their way out of the closet. A decade when African-Americans marched for their civil rights despite danger. A decade when effective contraception granted women freedoms and opportunities that men had enjoyed and exploited for a long time.
How did the dapper GOP conservatives, who looked down on these protests and bemoaned the Sixties, and who still mourn the 1950s, spawn an unmannerly president like Trump? How did Nixon and Reagan and pouty Newt Gingrich and Shrub (plus Cheney) ... and George Wallace, Goldwater ... ever lead to Trump?
It's obvious. Dapper Republicans have been standing on the shoulders of a resentful mob for decades. That's your Southern strategy. Trump knows how to excite those mobs, how to lead them in mean chants, guide them to curse reporters penned like cattle, and teach them to believe ridiculous rumors about that black Muslim dude who thought he was president, and that uppity broad who wanted to be president.
That's your base, sir. It's swampy, and you and your allies have been fishing in it, feeding off it for years.
9
Bravo.
Thank You!!!
My political and moral consciousness started in early 50s. The roots of mean, self destructive, and unproductive actions that you call "moral chaos" is plain and simple - it is political APATHY breed by Republican Party.
Why should we attack "crudeness"; it would mostly serve to limit free speech which is the mortal enemy of plutocracies/theocracies.
Nor uphold standards and mores that for the most part were designed to criminalize the activities of common people or types of people and that by design advantage the rich who get around such restrictions to live free and/or somehow profit from the suppression of others.
Nor defend attitudes that give cover to mean archaic bigotries.
The WSJ and you castigate the wrong players. The real "culture of excess, excuses and permission" resided then as it does now in the ruling class. The "old American ethic of modesty, responsibility and restraint" was nothing but their cover to get away with their crimes against the people.
Yes we are pathologically apathetic. The R-Party has effectively breed apathy and blindness into us. We are pacified.
They're masters of false equivalencies, straw men, and red herrings - it allows their corrupt candidates/policies to have place.
The art of exulting faith over reason/superstition over science is theirs - it allows them to diminish the value of truth.
DUMBED DOWN WE DON'T VOTE OR VOTE TOO CASUALLY!
Time we who value freedom/justice became less apathetic and a lot more uppity! VOTE!
Why should we attack "crudeness"; it would mostly serve to limit free speech which is the mortal enemy of plutocracies/theocracies.
Nor uphold standards and mores that for the most part were designed to criminalize the activities of common people or types of people and that by design advantage the rich who get around such restrictions to live free and/or somehow profit from the suppression of others.
Nor defend attitudes that give cover to mean archaic bigotries.
The WSJ and you castigate the wrong players. The real "culture of excess, excuses and permission" resided then as it does now in the ruling class. The "old American ethic of modesty, responsibility and restraint" was nothing but their cover to get away with their crimes against the people.
Yes we are pathologically apathetic. The R-Party has effectively breed apathy and blindness into us. We are pacified.
They're masters of false equivalencies, straw men, and red herrings - it allows their corrupt candidates/policies to have place.
The art of exulting faith over reason/superstition over science is theirs - it allows them to diminish the value of truth.
DUMBED DOWN WE DON'T VOTE OR VOTE TOO CASUALLY!
Time we who value freedom/justice became less apathetic and a lot more uppity! VOTE!
2
When government is demonized, and competition is idolized, what do you get?
This is a most interesting essay, one that I would love to hear discussed by the author and other Times columnists perhaps.
I am an active user of social media and value the connections it affords me to people who have very different perspectives than me. I learn a lot.
That said, at its worst it also makes it easier for people to share vulgar, racist, sexist, and otherwise inappropriate comments and have them quickly amplified by like-minded people. And it also enables a lot of casual snark, the type of thing you might say when laughing with friends who get your nuance or have a broader context for who you are as a person and what you believe.
I often find myself quickly hammering out a put-down Tweet in response to an opinion I do not agree with. But fortunately (and sadly not always) I usually impose my own guardrails, show some self-restraint, realize it would add nothing to civil discourse or others learning, and delete it.
Can we have a civil society without ample and generally accepted community guardrails? I do not know.
I am an active user of social media and value the connections it affords me to people who have very different perspectives than me. I learn a lot.
That said, at its worst it also makes it easier for people to share vulgar, racist, sexist, and otherwise inappropriate comments and have them quickly amplified by like-minded people. And it also enables a lot of casual snark, the type of thing you might say when laughing with friends who get your nuance or have a broader context for who you are as a person and what you believe.
I often find myself quickly hammering out a put-down Tweet in response to an opinion I do not agree with. But fortunately (and sadly not always) I usually impose my own guardrails, show some self-restraint, realize it would add nothing to civil discourse or others learning, and delete it.
Can we have a civil society without ample and generally accepted community guardrails? I do not know.
It would help if 48% of the voting population had actually voted in the last presidential election instead of sitting at home being brain-numb and oblivious.
We need a Constitutional Amendment to require voting by all citizens in all elections or fine the irresponsible citizens who don't.
We need a Constitutional Amendment to require voting by all citizens in all elections or fine the irresponsible citizens who don't.
1
STOP with the language. We're all read the quotes. Children are encouraged to read newspapers, you realize? If you can't get the point across, you need better writing skills.
1
Bret, Bret, Bret, the answer to your question is obvious and you just don’t see it. It also goes back to 1968 and the rejection of your cherished norms. Conservative moralizers have always been hypocrites, 1968 wasn’t a rejection of moral norms it was a rejection of moral hypocrisy. My generation simply decided that we could no longer stand to keep the things that happened behind closed doors behind closed doors. The world doesn’t need moral rectitude, it needs kindness.
Trump in his own perverse way is doing the same thing the hippies did, he is acting the way Republicans have always acted behind closed doors, he is just doing it out in the open for the world to see the rot, the ethical bankruptcy and complete lack of kindness and empathy that Republicanism really represents.
Trump in his own perverse way is doing the same thing the hippies did, he is acting the way Republicans have always acted behind closed doors, he is just doing it out in the open for the world to see the rot, the ethical bankruptcy and complete lack of kindness and empathy that Republicanism really represents.
5
Here is a simple test for Republicans and their fellow travelers. Would you trust Donald Trump to be left alone for half an hour with your 10 year old daughter?
1
With all due respect this parallel to 1968 is specious and succumbs to the usual canards of conservative mythology. In other words: baloney.
3
It is true that arrogant journalists always know better. They have the stage and are not different from university professors, politicians, rich people such as George Soros who want to impose their self serving egos. Destruction is always popular, killing too. See nowadays movies. On the other hand, here comes an outsider who does not need our money but he need American patriotism and support. One cannot train to be US pres. Mistakes can happen. Yes, there is morality, but there is also reality. Support of US government and president TRUMP may be boring, but America needs patriots and TRUMP is one.
1
“Certain rules that for a long time had governed behavior also became devalued. Whatever else was going on here, we were repeatedly lowering the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct.”
The WSJ was right in one respect: 1968 may indeed have marked the moment when such rules became devalued. But it wasn't young people protesting a morally indefensible war (and being brutalized by the police) who were the catalysts. It was the man who was elected president that year and who went on record himself using Scaramucci-like language, and worse, in the Oval Office. Had other presidents done the same thing? Very likely. But the public hadn't heard other chief executives swearing like a barroom drunk and making disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans. When Nixon's recordings were aired the public's illusions about the "morality and decorum" of the presidency were shattered.
Today we have another (Republican) president who doesn't need a secret taping system to convince us that the standards of acceptable personal and political conduct have been lowered even further. He uses Twitter.
The WSJ was right in one respect: 1968 may indeed have marked the moment when such rules became devalued. But it wasn't young people protesting a morally indefensible war (and being brutalized by the police) who were the catalysts. It was the man who was elected president that year and who went on record himself using Scaramucci-like language, and worse, in the Oval Office. Had other presidents done the same thing? Very likely. But the public hadn't heard other chief executives swearing like a barroom drunk and making disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans. When Nixon's recordings were aired the public's illusions about the "morality and decorum" of the presidency were shattered.
Today we have another (Republican) president who doesn't need a secret taping system to convince us that the standards of acceptable personal and political conduct have been lowered even further. He uses Twitter.
10
'No Guardrails' Presidency? You bet. How can anyone with knowledge of 1930's Europe not compare Trump's politically oriented speech to the Boy Scouts at their Jamboree Rally this past week to the youth rallies during that era when boys and girls were being indoctrinated to a belief structure meant to shape their character and political leanings?
5
This is one of the most blatant pieces of false equivalency I have ever seen out of the New York Times. Comparing the '60s to now reveals a misunderstanding of both eras that is really quite profound.
The '60s were indeed a period of great liberation, during which equal rights for races, sexes and sexual preferences first took hold of the broader population. They were also a period of great fear, as we were fighting a pointless war to defend French colonialism in Vietnam and our young men were subject to an involuntarily draft to fight, and in many cases to kill or to die, in a pointless war halfway around the world. Of course, aside from the "draft" part of it we have a similar now, but the terror of the draft molded a lot of people's views toward life and toward our government.
But, unlike today, our government was competent and conscientious, and during the campaign for president in 1968 two of the most major players in the Democratic race were assassinated. Violence begets violence, and the 1968 Democratic National Convention was the result.
But the most major difference between then and now is something that has become so forgotten that people no longer believe it could ever have been true: Back then, we all KNEW, as an absolute, axiomatic fact of the world, that tomorrow would be better than today, for all the tomorrows to come.
Does anyone believe that now?
The '60s were indeed a period of great liberation, during which equal rights for races, sexes and sexual preferences first took hold of the broader population. They were also a period of great fear, as we were fighting a pointless war to defend French colonialism in Vietnam and our young men were subject to an involuntarily draft to fight, and in many cases to kill or to die, in a pointless war halfway around the world. Of course, aside from the "draft" part of it we have a similar now, but the terror of the draft molded a lot of people's views toward life and toward our government.
But, unlike today, our government was competent and conscientious, and during the campaign for president in 1968 two of the most major players in the Democratic race were assassinated. Violence begets violence, and the 1968 Democratic National Convention was the result.
But the most major difference between then and now is something that has become so forgotten that people no longer believe it could ever have been true: Back then, we all KNEW, as an absolute, axiomatic fact of the world, that tomorrow would be better than today, for all the tomorrows to come.
Does anyone believe that now?
473
The point that the 60's were a decade to be proud of is exactly right. Not only did we finally address the race issue in our country, we included freedom for women and rights for the aged. We acknowledged the poor and declared war on poverty.
Of course conservatives looked at the new freedoms and social programs as a denial of the right to be a racist and hate monger.
The war was exposed for what it was and made the basis of its ending.
A decade in which I am proud to have participated.
Of course conservatives looked at the new freedoms and social programs as a denial of the right to be a racist and hate monger.
The war was exposed for what it was and made the basis of its ending.
A decade in which I am proud to have participated.
1
Dr.--There is NO comparison. WE had commitment to a number of righteous causes. Conservatives are committed to lining their pockets, any way possible, no matter who dies in the process.
1
Please don't blame NYT for giving a platform to Mr. Stephens. There should be credit given where credit is due. Beyond that, very well said.
Abbie Hoffman didn't get away with anything. He became a fugitive and was effectively shut down.
The extremism and vulgarity of the left in '68 was in response to the obscenity of Vietnam. But Nixon became president, remember? It never entered the White House.
The extremism and vulgarity of the right we are living in now is because a black man became President and expanded healthcare.
So the comparison is really superficial and just another example of false equivalence.
Trump is historically unique and uniquely a threat to our way of life and the tea party right is solely to blame.
The extremism and vulgarity of the left in '68 was in response to the obscenity of Vietnam. But Nixon became president, remember? It never entered the White House.
The extremism and vulgarity of the right we are living in now is because a black man became President and expanded healthcare.
So the comparison is really superficial and just another example of false equivalence.
Trump is historically unique and uniquely a threat to our way of life and the tea party right is solely to blame.
631
This is very interesting and scary if you think about it. The Tea Party movement, supposedly about freedom and liberty, spawned Trump. Trump, however, is grabbing power to use for his own ends, trying to gut much of government which would curb him.
His supporters blindly follow him thinking he is on their side and not understanding how our government is supposed to work. Trump, however, has always been and always will be for Trump. All one has to do is read the story of his life and business practices. He has always told people what they want to hear and never done it.
We have 3 1/2 years to go so one can only imagine what government will look like when he is done. What his supporters don't realize is that dangerous precedents are being set here. When the next person becomes president, or dictator, or whatever, after this is all undone, he will also have those practices to build on.
While the Tea Party may like what Trump is doing, they may not, and most likely will not like what the next person does. People seeking power usually don't do it just to help others. But the TP will have unleashed that by their support for Trump. Unintended consequences. They will have destroyed what they were seeking.
His supporters blindly follow him thinking he is on their side and not understanding how our government is supposed to work. Trump, however, has always been and always will be for Trump. All one has to do is read the story of his life and business practices. He has always told people what they want to hear and never done it.
We have 3 1/2 years to go so one can only imagine what government will look like when he is done. What his supporters don't realize is that dangerous precedents are being set here. When the next person becomes president, or dictator, or whatever, after this is all undone, he will also have those practices to build on.
While the Tea Party may like what Trump is doing, they may not, and most likely will not like what the next person does. People seeking power usually don't do it just to help others. But the TP will have unleashed that by their support for Trump. Unintended consequences. They will have destroyed what they were seeking.
The "Bernie Babies" that didn't bother to vote in the three key states that swung the election are the most to blame.
The white right has systematically been gerrymandering across the country and has successfully managed to make voting difficult for some groups in our country. HRC's campaign failure in the states where the electoral college mattered the most was a factor as well. The drip, drip, drip of the email investigation, and then Comey's 11th hr admonitions didn't help either. The extremes of the Tea Party and its objectives are on display every day in Congress. The failure of the repeal and replace just squeaked by. There is so much to be vigilant about. Impeachment for one; a good place to start.
Why is it necessary to draw the false comparison with the intellectuals of the 60's. True intellectuals, progressive or conservative, accept the science that teaches climate change is real; that growing inequality in wealth and opportunity suggests an economic philosophy inflexibility chained to free markets may be a problem; that medicine has fundamentally changed, assuring great benefits that all members of a wealthy society should enjoy as a right; that assuring equal rights for LGBT's is to assure freedom for all; that assuring women's contraceptive products is not an attack on religious freedom.
Scaramucci is an embarrassment, agreed. So are Pence; Ryan; and much of the political class mouthing the silence of conservative intellectuals.
Scaramucci is an embarrassment, agreed. So are Pence; Ryan; and much of the political class mouthing the silence of conservative intellectuals.
21
Hey Bret, wake up. This is not a problem created by Trump alone. Our country has been divided for many years. Not just conservatives vs liberals, but people vs people. The haves and the have nots. The people stifled by the over use of political correctness. So, once Trump entered the scene in the primaries with his vulgarity and ability to say no to any form of civil decorum, the media ate it up. Day after day after day we were shown "news" about the latest Trump outrage. you guys all loved it. The clicks on your articles, the rating's jump for shows like CNN and FOX. The arguing pundits on every station you tuned into. Then, when he won, everyone was shocked. I think even Trump himself. And the riots began and the pussy cat hats and the arguing got even louder on TV. And now you say there are no guard rails? Come on. You in the media were implicit from the start. You helped knock down any guard rails. Do not go blaming 1968. We were much more civil back then. We had a more trustworthy news. Good grief, we had Walter Cronkite!
Vietnam was horrible. There was every reason to be upset. But some of this outrage now is NOT focused on the things that can do this country harm: our failing schools, our ridiculous healthcare costs, our crumbling infrastructure, our continued war in the Middle East, greed destroying our environment.
Yet sadly, you still focus on the behavior of a president elected because of his ability to spew nonsense. Please focus more on the issues we face.
Vietnam was horrible. There was every reason to be upset. But some of this outrage now is NOT focused on the things that can do this country harm: our failing schools, our ridiculous healthcare costs, our crumbling infrastructure, our continued war in the Middle East, greed destroying our environment.
Yet sadly, you still focus on the behavior of a president elected because of his ability to spew nonsense. Please focus more on the issues we face.
16
But remember: in 1968 it was the Vietnam war, and the draft. Today, it is income inequality, and despair among the left-behind. In both instances, the "establishment" needed a shock to the system and to the status quo.
The real question is: how will we come out of this, and what will the country look like? How will the economic rise of Asia and the goals of our adversaries play into it? And, will justice prevail?
The real question is: how will we come out of this, and what will the country look like? How will the economic rise of Asia and the goals of our adversaries play into it? And, will justice prevail?
11
Mr. Stephens makes no sense. He equates the protesters of the 1960's to the greedy, fact challenged, self-serving conservative leadership of the last 3 decades. Protesters in the 1960's were protesting about civil rights, women's rights, and a war gone horribly wrong. I hope he isn't suggesting those issues weren't worth protesting for. I am curious how he views the protesters of today who are standing up against the Republican establishment he so aptly describes...
34
Best sentence in this column: "Every vote cast for Donald Trump was a vote for vulgarity." Trump's vulgarity, evident in the campaign, spoke to racial and gender resentments that bubbled through all social classes. And, the media found Trump compelling television. He made money for them. The whole episode continues to be a tragic aberration.
While I very much agree with the sense of this column, that the political vulgarity adored by the Trump leadership receives no courageous push-back from conservative leaders, I'm less sure that linking this moment of disorder to the 1960s is a clear comparison. Yes, it was the war, but consider the impulses on the social and political fabric in that era. They included the assassinations of a sitting President, a Senate candidate, a non-violent civil rights icon, and a human rights activist. Civil rights, voting rights and gender inequality were being legislated. These big movements of the time were about pushing against historic tides to expand fairness, access and opportunity in America. As best as I can see, Trump's political misconduct is is limited to disrupting and demeaning every American that has not worked in Trump Tower.
While I very much agree with the sense of this column, that the political vulgarity adored by the Trump leadership receives no courageous push-back from conservative leaders, I'm less sure that linking this moment of disorder to the 1960s is a clear comparison. Yes, it was the war, but consider the impulses on the social and political fabric in that era. They included the assassinations of a sitting President, a Senate candidate, a non-violent civil rights icon, and a human rights activist. Civil rights, voting rights and gender inequality were being legislated. These big movements of the time were about pushing against historic tides to expand fairness, access and opportunity in America. As best as I can see, Trump's political misconduct is is limited to disrupting and demeaning every American that has not worked in Trump Tower.
23
My thoughts exactly. While caught in the emotions of the moment those were different times. What is not acknowledged is the awful possibility that Trump will do real harm such as to start a war. Hopefully congress will do the job of containing him until the country has a chance to affirm or deny who we really are.
4
"Thought exercise for Trump’s media defenders: If the president were to sexually assault a woman in the Oval Office tomorrow, would you still justify your vote on the view that Neil Gorsuch’s elevation to the Supreme Court made it all worthwhile?"
That isn't even a thought exercise, which assumes his supporters think. The media defenders such as Jeffrey Lord merely have verbal reflexes that kick in. If Trump sexually assaulted a woman tomorrow and the act was captured on videotape for all to see, I guarantee that among the first 25 words out of Jeffrey Lord's mouth would be "Bill Clinton" (as if the sins of others negate or excuse our own) and within eight hours, or four, Trump's supporters would all have come up with a narrative that blamed the woman.
And then Trump would say yeah but look at her, implying either that she was so alluring that his actions were natural or that she was so unexciting that she should feel lucky to have been noticed. And then the common Trump voters would see their own instincts mirrored and feel reassured (the women too, as if the assault they'd experienced when perpetrated by the ultimate authority figure gave it God's grace), and the best legal minds in Washington would speak in reverent tones of how you can't indict a sitting president. And Congress would at once set to work on another health care repeal denying access to reproductive services to women while the old goats popped their Viagra paid for by taxpayers.
Too easy to imagine.
That isn't even a thought exercise, which assumes his supporters think. The media defenders such as Jeffrey Lord merely have verbal reflexes that kick in. If Trump sexually assaulted a woman tomorrow and the act was captured on videotape for all to see, I guarantee that among the first 25 words out of Jeffrey Lord's mouth would be "Bill Clinton" (as if the sins of others negate or excuse our own) and within eight hours, or four, Trump's supporters would all have come up with a narrative that blamed the woman.
And then Trump would say yeah but look at her, implying either that she was so alluring that his actions were natural or that she was so unexciting that she should feel lucky to have been noticed. And then the common Trump voters would see their own instincts mirrored and feel reassured (the women too, as if the assault they'd experienced when perpetrated by the ultimate authority figure gave it God's grace), and the best legal minds in Washington would speak in reverent tones of how you can't indict a sitting president. And Congress would at once set to work on another health care repeal denying access to reproductive services to women while the old goats popped their Viagra paid for by taxpayers.
Too easy to imagine.
14
Republicans won the election by playing on the fear and anger of approximate 80000 voters in a handful of precincts. They are experts in the tactics of fear and small time politics, which has served them well at the local level in some areas for years.
There is no such thing as a Republican intellectual anymore, at least not that anyone would listen to. It's not big ideas for America that drive the Republican Party. Now with full control of the federal government they cannot govern -- at least not through open legislation -- because after "No Hilary" they have nothing to offer.
There is no such thing as a Republican intellectual anymore, at least not that anyone would listen to. It's not big ideas for America that drive the Republican Party. Now with full control of the federal government they cannot govern -- at least not through open legislation -- because after "No Hilary" they have nothing to offer.
17
One could argue that the social revolution which began in the 1960s was predicated upon easily-available contraception; basically, the Pill. Without the entanglements that often accompanied out-of-wedlock sexual relations, women in particular were freed of the consequences of what had previously been considered "immoral" behavior.
And you think that was a bad thing? It was liberating beyond words. At least it was for me.
We don't need this Bret. The late Hunter S. Thompson was spot on when he said "Nixon is an immoralist posing as a moralist. I am a moralist posing as an immoralist." The WSJ would never get it.
28
Scaramucci is foul to his own truly, but nothing compared to what the (expletive here) GOP did to Obama for 8 YEARS! Imagine what the (expletive here) Scaramucci will try to do to Democracy now. He's trying to make this comment ok and tossing folks under the bus as normal. Please don't let him do either to anyone!
10
I was a Freshman at Berkeley in 1968, and I object to the characterization often found in the Conservative movement that the 60's betrayed honorable liberalism. The 60's sprung from revulsion at the Vietnam War a lesson the Conservative movement might have learned before the disastrous parallel escapade in Iraq. It took liberalism farther and then most children of hte 60's moved to a more moderate liberalism. I like this editorial but it contains the old hackneyed canards in a strained effort at parallelism.
28
You absolutely on target. This is a necessary OpEd piece, but misguided in it's conflation of the 60's movement as an analog for this mess. Some felt then that extreme measures were needed to stop the eventual deaths of 1.3 million, 60,000 of whom were American. The current conservative aneurism is about approaches to budget and regulation with little concern for mass death.
5
I would remind Mr. Stephens that by the time 1968 had rolled around, 16,592 American soldiers had been killed and 87,388 wounded. I cannot think of a better reason for American liberalism, intellectual or in the field to raise bloody murder about it. It is hard to believe that eventually, well over 60,000 would be killed and 304,000, or 1 out of 10 who served there were wounded, many to become amputees. No wonder Nixon, the great liar, and predecessor to the consummate liar, Trump was elected. We really don't know what in the hell we're doing. Then or now.
27
This means that the deaths on Nixon's head amount to about 42,400 US soldiers from the point his agents sabotaged LBJ's Paris peace negotiations.
What is the matter with the USA? Why can it not curb its psychopaths?
What is the matter with the USA? Why can it not curb its psychopaths?
2
Go on...say it: "At least the Democrats didn't elect Abbie Hoffman and the Yippees. It took the Republicans to drive us off that cliff."
19
Fascinating, but I think, wrong. The conservative base DOES want to remake the US into what they perceive as a "moral" nation (women in the home, no pandering to the poor, no abortion, no homosexuals, power reserved to Christian groups.) And Mr. Trump is their crusader, forgiven his sins while he fights off the infidels.
The President's base is delighted with a foul-mouthed, loose-principled administration because they think it's somehow an indication of authenticity. But those same supporters still condemn, with hysterical swiftness, any of those same behaviors in anybody else. A book with the word "hell" or "damn" for students? Ban it! (Never mind that Boy Scout Jamboree speech.) A minister who had an affair, or who won't support every tenet of the church? Fire him! (Mr. Trump's marital shenanigans just show he's a "real guy," and those policy flip-flops are just politics.) A town official who uses eye-popping vulgarities when speaking to the press should be fired! (The Mooch is protected by his proximity to The Hero.)
Mr. Trump & his people can do as they like. Everybody else better toe the line.
The President's base is delighted with a foul-mouthed, loose-principled administration because they think it's somehow an indication of authenticity. But those same supporters still condemn, with hysterical swiftness, any of those same behaviors in anybody else. A book with the word "hell" or "damn" for students? Ban it! (Never mind that Boy Scout Jamboree speech.) A minister who had an affair, or who won't support every tenet of the church? Fire him! (Mr. Trump's marital shenanigans just show he's a "real guy," and those policy flip-flops are just politics.) A town official who uses eye-popping vulgarities when speaking to the press should be fired! (The Mooch is protected by his proximity to The Hero.)
Mr. Trump & his people can do as they like. Everybody else better toe the line.
44
Harmonious coexistence of diversity is a state of happiness. Enforced uniformity is life without hope.
Et tu Mr. Stephens?
You seem to be blaming "intellectuals" from the late 60s for the sins of our current administration. Abbie Hoffman, an intellectual?
The only similarities I see between the 60s and our current situation is a significant portion of the population feeling unrepresented by our political system.
For the past 50 years the Dems have been winning on social issues and the Reps on economic issues. Both sides have effectively ceded ground to the other. The Rs yell and scream about social issues, but mostly act for wealth accumulation and the Ds talk about income equality, but do little or nothing to remedy the situation. The intersection of these policies is a 1% who get the social freedoms of the Ds and the economic protections of the Rs. The rest of us are left to choose either/or. Do I want to be protected from the prejudices of the mob or do I want the theoretical possibility of becoming a 1%er, who reaps all of the benefits and none of the penalties?
You seem to be blaming "intellectuals" from the late 60s for the sins of our current administration. Abbie Hoffman, an intellectual?
The only similarities I see between the 60s and our current situation is a significant portion of the population feeling unrepresented by our political system.
For the past 50 years the Dems have been winning on social issues and the Reps on economic issues. Both sides have effectively ceded ground to the other. The Rs yell and scream about social issues, but mostly act for wealth accumulation and the Ds talk about income equality, but do little or nothing to remedy the situation. The intersection of these policies is a 1% who get the social freedoms of the Ds and the economic protections of the Rs. The rest of us are left to choose either/or. Do I want to be protected from the prejudices of the mob or do I want the theoretical possibility of becoming a 1%er, who reaps all of the benefits and none of the penalties?
18
1%er who do not understand the consequences of nihilism provoked by the arrogance of wealth and power invite the deluge.
1
A wonderful article about cause and effect. I don't totally disagree with the analogy about 1968. I was there and involved at least to some degree during that period of time. I was involved in the so-called Peace Movement while living in NYC as a musician and performer. My partner and I were invited by Robert Kennedy to fly with him to Binghamton NY and perform right before he was to announce his candidacy for President. Because of bad weather in Binghamton, we had to fly to Syracuse NY and then bus back to Binghamton. Because of the time constraints, we didn't have time to perform so myself and Errol sang in the back of the bus with Robert Kennedy on our way back to Syracuse. I bring this up because what we were involved in at the time with our peace movement was totally sincere. We wanted to change the world, and do it peacefully. What is taking place right now is vulgar with no real worthwhile goals. People involved in this present movement are more Machiavellian than anything else.
33
Donald Trump has no fixed center. It mattered little in real estate where a deal closed or it didn't, money was made or lost. But it matters greatly whether people have healthcare or do not, whether the roads are safe to drive on or are not, whether corporations prosper but individuals do not. The vulgarians supporting his presidency might as well be selling real estate, for they too have no vision beyond winning or losing. McConnell & Ryan's willingness to pass any healthcare bill no matter its content is astonishingly clear evidence of this fact. We are in for a rough ride, and I for one, fear that the language of violence combined with an armed and vulnerable populace will become actual physical violence over time. 1968 on steroids.
29
From 2008-2016, conservatives chose to ignore the fact that "concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship" were on display in the Oval Office, and actively obstructed just about anything that Obama tried to accomplish. That we went from one of the most dignified presidencies to arguably the least so is laid at the feet of the Republican party.
88
I cannot imagine what the extremely self-disciplined George Washington would make of this lummox who is is president now.
14
John McCain is honorable and has great integrity...most of the time Let's not forget that he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and told a falsehood when he said that she had been thoroughly vetted. No one from his campaign had visited Alaska. It was a rash and reckless decision and her elevation to the national stage paved the way for Trump.
In 2016, John McCain, running for his sixth term, was critical of Trump. When Trump won the nomination and McCain fought in his own primary against a Republican who was absolutely pro-Trump, McCain publicly supported Trump, despite private misgivings. He even let Trump insult his military career. Once McCain was reelected he became critical of Trump again. Integrity, mostly, but eclipsed by personal ambition.
In 2016, John McCain, running for his sixth term, was critical of Trump. When Trump won the nomination and McCain fought in his own primary against a Republican who was absolutely pro-Trump, McCain publicly supported Trump, despite private misgivings. He even let Trump insult his military career. Once McCain was reelected he became critical of Trump again. Integrity, mostly, but eclipsed by personal ambition.
32
The whole world is Trump's litterbox.
All these guys like McCain and even John Kasich should be taken with a grain of salt. McCain may deserve some credit for having some semblance of integrity but he supports a one party rule of America via the power of the Republican Party. Kasich was hugging senior citizens when he tried his shot at the presidency and talking about just doing a job and I found it laughable for those of us who know the real John Kasich here in Ohio.
But always remember this vulgar, crass and ignorant guy for president is what his supporters want and they still justify any destructive thing he does or says as benefiting us to "Make America Great Again".
But always remember this vulgar, crass and ignorant guy for president is what his supporters want and they still justify any destructive thing he does or says as benefiting us to "Make America Great Again".
Republican signposts on the way to Trumpism:
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation is no virtue". Goldwater
Gingrich's shutdown of the Government - indulging childish temper tantrums
The blue dress culmination of Ken Starr's 7 year Whitewater investigation - indulging the conspiracy theorists fantasies
Sarah Palin, as VP candidate.
The Republican Congressional leaders vowing to obstruct Obama in every way possible without regard to the merits
The 2010 Republican Campaign against Obamacare - false memes shouted at lawmakers during townhall meetings giving rise to the Tea Party
The "No Compromise" approach of the Tea Party and "Freedom Caucus", resulting in shutdowns of the government and near default on the debt.
The Modern Republican Party is primarily a group of extremists who support plutocracy and will justify any and all means to achieve their goal.
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation is no virtue". Goldwater
Gingrich's shutdown of the Government - indulging childish temper tantrums
The blue dress culmination of Ken Starr's 7 year Whitewater investigation - indulging the conspiracy theorists fantasies
Sarah Palin, as VP candidate.
The Republican Congressional leaders vowing to obstruct Obama in every way possible without regard to the merits
The 2010 Republican Campaign against Obamacare - false memes shouted at lawmakers during townhall meetings giving rise to the Tea Party
The "No Compromise" approach of the Tea Party and "Freedom Caucus", resulting in shutdowns of the government and near default on the debt.
The Modern Republican Party is primarily a group of extremists who support plutocracy and will justify any and all means to achieve their goal.
106
One "honorable" Joe Wilson shouting, "You lie," to Pres. Obama during an address to a joint session of Congress.
1
And let's not forget the Kochs and other corporate lobbyists and contributors (dark money) to campaigns of those who are most beholden to their contributors who do not represent the bottom 90%.
1
The modern GOP supports a keptocracy. This is not all about the money.
Somehow you can draw a line from Abbie Hoffman to the Wolf of Wall Street? Nope. Larger forces are at work here.
22
So don't leave us hanging-Tell us what forces you would list!
Well, first of all, if demonstrations and violent acts are what we are talking about here, America has a long history of such. In December of 1773, a group dressed as Indians boarded a ship in Boston Harbor, seized bales of tea, and threw them into the water. After the civil was groups of men throughout the South dressed up in while robes and hoods and committed many acts of violence.
But here is what Stephens is missing. There is a difference between right and wrong. In the first case, as the firebrand James Otis said, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." In the second case there is no justification besides bigotry and the need to keep power. In 1968, the Viet Nam War had become a national disaster. And remember that most of the violence was on the part of the police and that many other even larger demonstrations were peaceful.
And there is a third point to be made here. In 1968, no matter how Stephens tries to blame "intellectuals", the demonstrations against the War were largely done by people who had no other way to show their views. To think the massing of 100,000 people on the Mall in October of 1967 was due to intellectuals is absurd.
On the other hand what we are talking about in 2017 is the descent into vulgarity on the part of the leaders of the country or their spokespersons, people whose every word is covered by the media, who have a myriad of ways to express their views.
Quelle Différence!
But here is what Stephens is missing. There is a difference between right and wrong. In the first case, as the firebrand James Otis said, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." In the second case there is no justification besides bigotry and the need to keep power. In 1968, the Viet Nam War had become a national disaster. And remember that most of the violence was on the part of the police and that many other even larger demonstrations were peaceful.
And there is a third point to be made here. In 1968, no matter how Stephens tries to blame "intellectuals", the demonstrations against the War were largely done by people who had no other way to show their views. To think the massing of 100,000 people on the Mall in October of 1967 was due to intellectuals is absurd.
On the other hand what we are talking about in 2017 is the descent into vulgarity on the part of the leaders of the country or their spokespersons, people whose every word is covered by the media, who have a myriad of ways to express their views.
Quelle Différence!
71
McCain's primary loss in 2000 is a much better example than his general election loss in 2008. It was the anonymous slanders by Bush's team against him and his family in the South that sank his chances and made it clear that the G.O.P. values "honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship" a lot less than they value winning elections.
39
Antinomians!?! Lordy, that's a $2 word (adjusted for inflation). That's a mighty narrow lens you're using, there. Along with the excesses and inevitable neglects of the cultural revolutions of the 1960's, came the social upheavel that arose with groundbreaking liberations in civil rights, women's rights and environmental awareness, just to name the big three. Don't forget the assasinations of three major political and spiritual leaders! The 60's also brought the first generation of largely college educated young adults, who were politically informed and wanted to see greater social justice and political openess and accessibilty.
The Trump revolution brings absolutely nothing positive with it's disturbances and upheavel. In fact, it's regression and devolutional spirit seem to be fueled by fear-mongering and hate. This extremely toxic mix may be an unprepared, (though predicted) response to accelerating demographic and employment changes, but it is still a highly dangerous stew and the exact opposite of the needed adaptations: job re-training, creative new laws and policies, and sober debate. We need to speak plainly about how our values and adaptability are being undermined and are unhealthy signs of national decline, in the world, and, more importantly, at home. The failures and successes of the past can be our guides, if reason and historical precedents can be rediscovered by this impulsive and wreckless administration.
The Trump revolution brings absolutely nothing positive with it's disturbances and upheavel. In fact, it's regression and devolutional spirit seem to be fueled by fear-mongering and hate. This extremely toxic mix may be an unprepared, (though predicted) response to accelerating demographic and employment changes, but it is still a highly dangerous stew and the exact opposite of the needed adaptations: job re-training, creative new laws and policies, and sober debate. We need to speak plainly about how our values and adaptability are being undermined and are unhealthy signs of national decline, in the world, and, more importantly, at home. The failures and successes of the past can be our guides, if reason and historical precedents can be rediscovered by this impulsive and wreckless administration.
41
Don't forget the War on Drugs. Those inclined to recreational use of cannabis have been systematically excluded from government, academic, and corporation positions of responsibility since the Nixon administration.
7
We are where we are because the Republicans have become the party of the ugly Americans. Those individuals who buy good American companies making good products then load them up with debt, cheapen the product, take all the money out of the company, declare bankruptcy and move on leaving the town with unemployment to cope with. They have no social responsibility. They may be rich but they are morally bankrupt.
The hardworking American senses something is wrong, but has an underlying faith that America is a good country. That faith or trust has been destroyed by these Republican leaches as the true American sees his wealth decline, his children struggling under student debt and having to compete with foreign workers while the 'job creators' lobby for more H1B visa slots and his health insurance costs more than his mortgage.
The comparison to '68 may be accurate, but those '68 protesters were morally right. The Republicans are mean, cruel, people who start wars, rough up demonstrators and use force and foul language rather than compassion and reason while governing.
Another empire rotting from within.
The hardworking American senses something is wrong, but has an underlying faith that America is a good country. That faith or trust has been destroyed by these Republican leaches as the true American sees his wealth decline, his children struggling under student debt and having to compete with foreign workers while the 'job creators' lobby for more H1B visa slots and his health insurance costs more than his mortgage.
The comparison to '68 may be accurate, but those '68 protesters were morally right. The Republicans are mean, cruel, people who start wars, rough up demonstrators and use force and foul language rather than compassion and reason while governing.
Another empire rotting from within.
55
It is a shame that young people can no longer read newspapers or watch the news. Evangelical Christians must be so proud of their White House right now. Parents may not be. http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/02/02/its-time-we-stopped-calling-donald-t...
12
Remembering and living through that ghastly kaleidoscope of the year 1968 brings us to today and the "No Guardrails" presidency of the King of vulgarity and demogoguery, Donald Trump. Abbie Hoffman's quote - "The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it" - is more than spine-chilling. Getting away with it is what Trump and his malign Republican minions are doing. The difference is that 1968 was just a harbinger of today and did not forecast the horrific reality in which we are existing today. The difference is that we Americans are sinking in the quicksand of Presidential chaos, drowning in the inescapable whirlpool of "the most morally grotesque administration in American history" - as you state, Bret Stephens. There is no better example of moral grotesquerie today than the Goebbels-like figure of Anthony Scaramucci, the President's new Director of Communications for the White House mouthing foul vituperations on the record for the world to read! "The Mooch", a Harvard Law School graduate unlike Barack Hussein Obama in every way possible. We Americans and our American Empire - like the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and Germans in their evil empire last century - are the frogs being boiled alive in the pot of slowly warming water, not aware till too late that they are doomed.
In 200 days, the Trump presidency fish has rotted from the head down.
In 200 days, the Trump presidency fish has rotted from the head down.
16
Full disclosure: I didn't make it past the Scaramucci quotes. I understand the Times wanting to describe the world as it is but this guy is the White House Communications Director. He's now one of you guys and you, meaning the media, are letting him get away with this. You are the ones who need to shut him down. A Press Secretary is pretty much useless if the actual press doesn't print his screeds.
If I used that language in this forum I would be banned while this clown gets a pass. Not just a pass he's the featured speaker. Talk about pandering to the absolutely lowest and most common of denominators.
In these times we need you to be better than that.
If I used that language in this forum I would be banned while this clown gets a pass. Not just a pass he's the featured speaker. Talk about pandering to the absolutely lowest and most common of denominators.
In these times we need you to be better than that.
7
If the press cleans up or omits the worst of Mr. Scaramucci's comments, the American public will not know what a sleezeball the President wants close by--and serving as his official mouthpiece. Is your anger really best directed at those who report the truth or at those who create the awful truth?
1
The Times was quoti,by his language so he would NOT get away with it
1968. The height of the Vietnam disaster. MLK, Bobby Kennedy assassinated. Nuclear Armageddon on a hair trigger. Be polite.
2017. Height of ISIS disaster. Deranged president. Nukes from North Korea. Be polite.
2017. Height of ISIS disaster. Deranged president. Nukes from North Korea. Be polite.
10
Why stop at the Vietnam protests. What about the civil rights movement, and all those "uppity blacks", beating up on good old boys with their faces? Peaceful protest is a right, protected by the constitution. In the vast majority or cases, the anti-war violence of the Vietnam era was started by the police. The acts committed by the Vietnam protesters were justified, *and* explainable, as their first amendment rights, a legitimate political response to far bloodier events unfolding in Vietnam.
18
The right wing's immorality is not new. True, the sexual shenanigans were kept quiet, the partying behind closed doors--but the malice and bullying have been there for a long time. The meanness has been there, the segregation-forever snarlers, the haters of social security from the start, the rich men's pals, the war profiteers' buddies. Talking Jesus while hating every word of the Sermon on the Mount. Trump's barking mad fans were always snapping away in the republican back yard, ready to follow the whistles. You might just be figuring it out, with this gargoyle and his goons in the open, but the republican brand of immorality has been there all along. It's time for you to leave, as you value your soul.
33
At the Times you have the reactionary wing of the Resistance: David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Bret Stephens. Three people genuinely repelled by Trump's vileness but are equally upset that that their own mean spirited agendas [not exactly the same ones] will be derailed as a result. They speak with soft reasonable (sometimes nasty) voices as they push pretty chilling policies.
Then you have the Clintonian wing of the Resistance: Kristoff, Krugman, Blow, Collins, Egan. They genuinely want some measure of social justice as long as it remains well within bounds and doesn't disrupt corporate power too much. It is also a place where war criminals like Gen. Mattis are considered “adults” who they hope will help reign in Trump. If Clinton had won there would probably be not one peep of criticism of whatever acts of military aggression she would very likely have committed.
Finally you have the resistance wing of The Resistance which is basically confined to the “free speech zone” called the comment section. It is where actual analysis and transcendent visions are allowed to appear. Unpaid and marginalized, it is one part semi-liberated space and one part cordoned off area. Structurally, there is an attempt to tame and control the passions of commenters that often flow in that section. But still that section often glows as more than a handful of people keep forging ahead with great passion and intensity.
Then you have the Clintonian wing of the Resistance: Kristoff, Krugman, Blow, Collins, Egan. They genuinely want some measure of social justice as long as it remains well within bounds and doesn't disrupt corporate power too much. It is also a place where war criminals like Gen. Mattis are considered “adults” who they hope will help reign in Trump. If Clinton had won there would probably be not one peep of criticism of whatever acts of military aggression she would very likely have committed.
Finally you have the resistance wing of The Resistance which is basically confined to the “free speech zone” called the comment section. It is where actual analysis and transcendent visions are allowed to appear. Unpaid and marginalized, it is one part semi-liberated space and one part cordoned off area. Structurally, there is an attempt to tame and control the passions of commenters that often flow in that section. But still that section often glows as more than a handful of people keep forging ahead with great passion and intensity.
16
It seems conservatives will never tire of propping up the corpse of sixties radicalism as their straw man. That WSJ editorial was far from the definitive word on the subject of Chicago's police riot, or the sixties in general -- it was typically overwrought reaction to cultural changes the editors didn't like ("...something's happening here and you don't know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones?"). If he wants to understand the ugliness of modern conservatism, Mr. Stephens will have to look into the dark heart of his own movement.
20
"No guardrails" seems appropriate for an administration that's being run like a bumper car ride at an amusement park. Reckless amateurs at the wheel. Look out!
Life seems to go in cycles, and we have certainly reached a low point. Maybe the 'reality TV' thing has gone too far. The human thirst for gossip has been with us forever. It’s one of the ties that bind. But this desire to invade lives that are more interesting, exciting, weird, or downright creepy has inured us to the bizarre and fake, and allowed it to creep into our everyday lives.
So that’s what we’ve got. Donald Trump: bizarre and fake.
Life seems to go in cycles, and we have certainly reached a low point. Maybe the 'reality TV' thing has gone too far. The human thirst for gossip has been with us forever. It’s one of the ties that bind. But this desire to invade lives that are more interesting, exciting, weird, or downright creepy has inured us to the bizarre and fake, and allowed it to creep into our everyday lives.
So that’s what we’ve got. Donald Trump: bizarre and fake.
8
This is high brow sophistry from a guy that got canned and can't get over it.
4
So squalid.
Hang on Bret. We now know the moral outrage and civil disobedience in 1968 was justified since the US sent 50,000 young Americans to die needlessly in Vietnam.
And If Trump and his bellicosity should enter the US in another war, conflict or police action that the Republicans justify such as Iraq, I and my fellow resisters will be there on the front lines doing my best to "betray honorable liberalism".
And If Trump and his bellicosity should enter the US in another war, conflict or police action that the Republicans justify such as Iraq, I and my fellow resisters will be there on the front lines doing my best to "betray honorable liberalism".
14
Yes.
This is an absolutely off the rails editorial. Our insane President and the insane administration around him are somehow morally comparable to those who protested the Vietnam War???
12
The entire premise of this column is absurd -- was lying about Weapons Of Mass Destruction Abbie Hoffman's fault as well? The demonstrators in Chicago 1968 were trying to end a murderous, immoral, illegal war -- Donald Trump is trying to fatten his bank accounts.
14
I was struck by the Abbie Hoffman mention, as well -- it deserves some sort of award for Achievement in False Equivalence. Abbie was an activist, a provocateur, and remained far removed from the political mainstream. Donald Trump is the president of the United State, and his minions are running the Executive Branch of our government. No wonder Stephens is worried and appalled. We all should be.
4
It's aways been all about the money. We are responsible for the current state of affairs.
1
They elected a vulgar man who sanctions blaming people of color for working class whites' economic problems. He has promised to move away from political correctness, which essentially means it's okay to put non-white people in their place, even by violent means. Recent videos by the NRA encourage people to take up arms against BLM. Yesterday, on camera, Trump told police officers brutality is okay. I partly agree with you, Brett. But let's not pretend Trump's vulgarity was the primary reason some voted for him. Many are down with white supremacy, and he is their hero.
10
So, Bret, are you accepting this abomination you accurately describe, or calling for regime change? Do you agree it is time to save the Republic from the destruction that Trump is bring upon us? Will the GOP rise to the occasion? Your readers need to know.
2
Trump's goal this past week -- mostly achieved -- was to maintain and enlarge his already sizeable appeal to America’s political cranks and bitter-enders, the group of men, women and young people who realistically view themselves as losers existing outside the mainstream of American economic and political life; who are not adverse to seeing other people join them in their misery as the country enters into a prolonged period of chaos and confusion.
He will ride his Presidency out in this manner for as long as it lasts, taking credit for anything good that happens along the way, regardless of how little he deserves it, while placing the blame for everything bad that happens on President Obama, Mrs. Clinton, Democrats, immigrants. Hollywood and the media.
When Trump finally leaves the White House, it will be as as the Founder of the Make America Great Again Party whose aim will be to rule this country for the next thousand years.
He’s the great man liberals always feared would arrive on horseback; Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge all rolled into one; with the great objective of driving a final stake into the heart of liberalism.
He will ride his Presidency out in this manner for as long as it lasts, taking credit for anything good that happens along the way, regardless of how little he deserves it, while placing the blame for everything bad that happens on President Obama, Mrs. Clinton, Democrats, immigrants. Hollywood and the media.
When Trump finally leaves the White House, it will be as as the Founder of the Make America Great Again Party whose aim will be to rule this country for the next thousand years.
He’s the great man liberals always feared would arrive on horseback; Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge all rolled into one; with the great objective of driving a final stake into the heart of liberalism.
3
There is a straight line from Dan Quayle, to GW Bush, through Sarah Palin to Donald Trump. All state-managed by the Republican national propaganda network (trading as Fox News).
As reflected in the Republican Party's Southern Strategy, the Party elite realised that they could not maintain power without appealing to the nativist, anti-intellectual mass (the "deplorables", in contemporary parlance). The red meat was of course covered with a thin veneer of mainstream Republican respectability concocted by commentators/"intellectuals" like Bret Stephens.
The mask is off now and the deplorables have taken the Republican Party back.
The gloves are off. They no longer have a need for any veneer or sugar coating, so no need for "intellectual" justification or explanation (or explainers). Its just raw power and greed now, in this case fused with stunning ignorance and incompetence.
As reflected in the Republican Party's Southern Strategy, the Party elite realised that they could not maintain power without appealing to the nativist, anti-intellectual mass (the "deplorables", in contemporary parlance). The red meat was of course covered with a thin veneer of mainstream Republican respectability concocted by commentators/"intellectuals" like Bret Stephens.
The mask is off now and the deplorables have taken the Republican Party back.
The gloves are off. They no longer have a need for any veneer or sugar coating, so no need for "intellectual" justification or explanation (or explainers). Its just raw power and greed now, in this case fused with stunning ignorance and incompetence.
11
Republicans and Conservatives have been solely concerned with power (Boardroom, Bedroom, ect.) for a long time. There are no values. Hence, vulgarity easily finds a home.
1
I no longer watch the network news with my 13 year old son and I no longer hand him the newspaper. It's just much too much.
2
I have always thought that the Republican party began its descent into ignominy during the reign of Newt Gingrich as Speaker and the relentless pursuit of the Clintons. Even as Newt was shaming Bill Clinton for his sexual escapades in the Oval Office, he was carrying on adulterous activities of his own, and I'm sure his posse laughed about it behind their hands. The fact that this execrable gasbag is given airtime in any forum says a great deal about how low we've sunk as a society. The Republicans have somehow come to think that they alone are fit to govern this country, that no one else could possibly have a good idea or valid point of view in conflict with theirs. It has become easier for them over time because of the relaxing of the moral underpinnings that used to keep such intellectual laziness and willful ignorance in check, or at least made it embarrassing to be accused of those things. The Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for the ascendancy of Trumpism and its outright celebration of personal excess, lack of discipline, ignorance, pathological greed, impulsiveness, ineptitude and incuriousness. It is only when those qualities get in the way of their so-called agenda and they've come to realize they've lost control of their beast that they're indulging in second thoughts. Too late. Too late for us all.
3
Wow. Disavowing 1968, publishing editorial pieces recalling the glory days of the Cold War V1.0 add to this the fact that globalism (including off-shoring, outsourcing and importing) is now a central plank in Democratic leadership and the NY Time OP-Ed pages and the Times gets the gold medal for gymnastics.
"If the president were to sexually assault a woman in the Oval Office tomorrow,..."
At one time an affair in the workplace between a male chief executive and an unpaid intern would have been considered a form of sexual assault or at least coerced sexual relations. Fortunately Hillary closed ranks with Bill and defended the sexual predator (which WJC was). But Hillary got a run at the White House out of it so it looks like that "made it all worthwhile".
"If the president were to sexually assault a woman in the Oval Office tomorrow,..."
At one time an affair in the workplace between a male chief executive and an unpaid intern would have been considered a form of sexual assault or at least coerced sexual relations. Fortunately Hillary closed ranks with Bill and defended the sexual predator (which WJC was). But Hillary got a run at the White House out of it so it looks like that "made it all worthwhile".
My pick for the creators of this hostile us against them version of conservatism was the emergence of right wing talk radio which evolved into Fox News. If I remember correctly, it was the elimination of the fairness doctrine by the FCC during the Reagan administration that unleashed the monster.
5
You seem to be forgetting Sarah Palin.
3
Oh yes, I remember all of the “No Guardrails” style ranting and raving in the Journal and from several conservative pundits all through the Clinton years. The outrage did not stop until the GOP had impeached President Clinton for moral turpitude. In fact, Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, won the presidency by constantly harping on restoring “honesty and integrity to the White House.” And yet, we now have a president, who has so debased the office in just six months, one wonders what else we have in store over the next 3 and ½ years? We have lowered the expectations of presidential behavior to such a nadir that the leaders of Philippines and Zimbabwe seem like choirboys in comparison.
There is a difference between speaking like a politician, which Trump claimed he was not, and spouting off like illiterate louts, which both Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, his new director of communications, come across as. For the GOP leadership to meekly accept Mr. Scaramucci’s vile profanity, so starkly reproduced here by the Times, is an abomination. Profanity might be cool within the ivory towers of the private sector, but it is simply unacceptable in highly visible positions in the public sector. Instead of firing all of his White House colleagues, Mr. Sacramucci should do the honorable thing and resign, so that the people can see honesty and integrity at least partly restored to the White House, the most sacrosanct institution in the land.
There is a difference between speaking like a politician, which Trump claimed he was not, and spouting off like illiterate louts, which both Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, his new director of communications, come across as. For the GOP leadership to meekly accept Mr. Scaramucci’s vile profanity, so starkly reproduced here by the Times, is an abomination. Profanity might be cool within the ivory towers of the private sector, but it is simply unacceptable in highly visible positions in the public sector. Instead of firing all of his White House colleagues, Mr. Sacramucci should do the honorable thing and resign, so that the people can see honesty and integrity at least partly restored to the White House, the most sacrosanct institution in the land.
2
Whoa, hold on. You are saying that the 1968 protests were wrong, which must mean that you think that what they were mostly protesting against, i.e., an obscene, expensive, idiotic war in which young American and Vietnamese conscripts, and Vietnamese civilians, were being slaughtered, was right.
No Brett, the intellectuals were right, and it's incredible, and frankly disturbing, that you still think they were wrong.
No Brett, the intellectuals were right, and it's incredible, and frankly disturbing, that you still think they were wrong.
5
Bret you and your party brought this on. How dare you accuse people trying to stop a immoral and illegal war that were attacked by a mob of Chicago police of having anything to do with the vile situation we find ourselves in.
The disgusting state of the presidency is on You and Yours.
The disgusting state of the presidency is on You and Yours.
5
I’m heartened by the many comments by readers of this op-ed, who also take umbrage with the grotesque equating of the tone of the 1968 protests with the vulgarity of the current administration and its foul-mouthed supporters.
3
In simplistic terms, when "honey no longer attracts the bee", three shots may do the trick; A shot of whiskey, a gun shot and shooting off at the mouth ....
1
Hubris and vulgarity are part of Trump's misrule. He clearly knows no other way.
2
You did not mention the inspiration for the current state of what was once a respectable political philosophy. Rush Limbaugh was the pioneer in demonizing by lying through your teeth. His fan club IS THE BASE.
I was around in 1968. Much of what happened was over the top. But when a pressure cooker is left unattended and the meal inside starts to stink, something has to give.
Trump and the Mooch had the path cleared by Rush. He has been the voice of the angry and disenfranchised. Sadly, those "Conservatives" with a sense of decency went along because they saw his success in attracting numbers to build that base. Rush was the original liar in chief .... there were others, but he was the best at being a liar and a bigot.
I was around in 1968. Much of what happened was over the top. But when a pressure cooker is left unattended and the meal inside starts to stink, something has to give.
Trump and the Mooch had the path cleared by Rush. He has been the voice of the angry and disenfranchised. Sadly, those "Conservatives" with a sense of decency went along because they saw his success in attracting numbers to build that base. Rush was the original liar in chief .... there were others, but he was the best at being a liar and a bigot.
2
In a hundred years (or less), if anyone is still reading or writing history (trying to just stay alive in a disintegrating social order will be a full-time occupation --- global warming will do that) two names will figure prominently: Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch (with a supporting cast of such as Jerry Falwell). There are of course many mini-Rushes but the original created the genre and still dominates it.
The techniques are tried and true --- read the relevant passages of "Mein Kampf" to see the master hand at work.
I have an elderly acquaintance who was a teenager in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. I am ever haunted by what she told me a few years ago --- that the tone of voice and the endless lies spewed on RW hate radio strongly reminded her of the effusions of Herr Josef Goebbels.
The techniques are tried and true --- read the relevant passages of "Mein Kampf" to see the master hand at work.
I have an elderly acquaintance who was a teenager in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. I am ever haunted by what she told me a few years ago --- that the tone of voice and the endless lies spewed on RW hate radio strongly reminded her of the effusions of Herr Josef Goebbels.
2
You didn't mention Fox News and online media. I remember the faux outrage on Fox when a photo made the rounds of Obama with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office (they moved on to something else when people found a picture of Bush Jr. doing the same). Such disrespect! But I'm not sure that Trump's supporters are hearing much about Scaramucci's vulgarities, because Fox isn't talking about it much and they're not emailing each other crazy messages about it, like they did (and still do) about ridiculous stories involving Obama and Hillary.
So thank you for reprinting the shocking language. The Republicans are already waving it off as just "colorful" language, and it's important to be clear about just how awful it was. I know people will say that's just men talking, or business men, or Wall Street traders, or people who are "passionate" about their work. But honestly, nobody I know talks like this!!
Everyone is guilty of hypocrisy at one time or another. But the hypocrisy of the "moral majority" (I guess we can retire that phrase now!) and the religious right when it comes to Donald Trump is downright staggering.
So thank you for reprinting the shocking language. The Republicans are already waving it off as just "colorful" language, and it's important to be clear about just how awful it was. I know people will say that's just men talking, or business men, or Wall Street traders, or people who are "passionate" about their work. But honestly, nobody I know talks like this!!
Everyone is guilty of hypocrisy at one time or another. But the hypocrisy of the "moral majority" (I guess we can retire that phrase now!) and the religious right when it comes to Donald Trump is downright staggering.
5
Good points. I date the moral rot of today's right-wing reactionary radicals (they're not conservatives) back to the 1980s when we started hearing the mantra "Greed is good." The hypocrisy of holding out Ronald Reagan as a paragon of godly virtue, uniting Wall St. greed with evangelical fervor, led directly to the spectacle of so-called "Christian" ministers applauding and supporting Trump, the most openly immoral man ever to occupy the Oval Office. Susan Faludi's "Backlash" describes some reasons why.
Culturally, Fox celebrated and disseminated vulgarity with shows like Married With Children, which launched in 1987. Fox has been at the forefront of normalizing right-wing vulgarity, encouraging its commentators to hector, bully and shout at its targets with a reckless disregard for truth and embrace of conflict, which they made up as needed ("war against Christmas"). Bill O'Reilly is the perfect example but not the only one. Roger Ailes used Fox to project his own pugnacious, profane, misogynistic, norm-violating personality and make it acceptable. Roy Cohn, the ultimate sleazeball, was Trump's mentor and coached him in how to get away with outrageous, illegal behavior. TV networks colluded in turning that into entertainment and even "news." Hollywood presents models of manliness that celebrate crudeness, misogyny, violence, profanity." The music industry does the same.
Trump is the inevitable outcome of how cultural "leaders" have embraced and taught vicious vulgarity.
Culturally, Fox celebrated and disseminated vulgarity with shows like Married With Children, which launched in 1987. Fox has been at the forefront of normalizing right-wing vulgarity, encouraging its commentators to hector, bully and shout at its targets with a reckless disregard for truth and embrace of conflict, which they made up as needed ("war against Christmas"). Bill O'Reilly is the perfect example but not the only one. Roger Ailes used Fox to project his own pugnacious, profane, misogynistic, norm-violating personality and make it acceptable. Roy Cohn, the ultimate sleazeball, was Trump's mentor and coached him in how to get away with outrageous, illegal behavior. TV networks colluded in turning that into entertainment and even "news." Hollywood presents models of manliness that celebrate crudeness, misogyny, violence, profanity." The music industry does the same.
Trump is the inevitable outcome of how cultural "leaders" have embraced and taught vicious vulgarity.
6
Mr. Stephens, you correctly ask how and why supposed guardians of morality and standards have excused the grotesque Trump and his administration.
Here are some events brought to us by some of those guardians since 1968:
--The shoddy treatment by the Tea Party and many in the GOP of President Obama, a person of dignity who ran a clean administration.
--Mitch McConnell putting the interests of his political party above the interests of the nation and his shameless non-stop twisting of the truth.
--Lies by the Bush Administration that got us into Iraq.
--The Supreme Court ruling on the 2000 election.
--Watergate, secret bombing of Cambodia, and the undermining of peace efforts courtesy of Richard Nixon.
--Kissinger urging the overthrow of Allende in Chili.
--Racial politics; Police shootings of blacks.
--Income inequality and the money-grubbing economy.
(We can note that President Clinton's conduct with an intern was not brought to us by conservatives.)
Here are some events brought to us by some of those guardians since 1968:
--The shoddy treatment by the Tea Party and many in the GOP of President Obama, a person of dignity who ran a clean administration.
--Mitch McConnell putting the interests of his political party above the interests of the nation and his shameless non-stop twisting of the truth.
--Lies by the Bush Administration that got us into Iraq.
--The Supreme Court ruling on the 2000 election.
--Watergate, secret bombing of Cambodia, and the undermining of peace efforts courtesy of Richard Nixon.
--Kissinger urging the overthrow of Allende in Chili.
--Racial politics; Police shootings of blacks.
--Income inequality and the money-grubbing economy.
(We can note that President Clinton's conduct with an intern was not brought to us by conservatives.)
4
Big Money in politics is the problem.
"Follow the money"
Why should this be any different?
"Follow the money"
Why should this be any different?
“Did it come with the defeat of John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and the conclusion by rank-and-file conservatives that concepts of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship —“
Whoa Mr. Stephens I sincerely hope that you aren’t equating these principles with Senator John McCain and Sarah Palin?? Mr. Showboat McCain!! Watch his showmanship as he made an entrance on the Senate Floor and NOT waiting to be called upon cast his “no” vote with a thumbs down performance worthy of Joaquin Phoenix in The Gladiator.” Or watching him in 2008 singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys and sending out Palin to snarl and ridicule an African-American candidate. A VP candidate who was a journalism major at the seven different community colleges she attended (One semester here in Hawai’i) who was unable to name ONE newspaper or news magazine she read. Palin brought us the Tea Party and its consummate low information, uneducated voters.
Yet you don’t say one word about Barack Obama who David Remnick of the New Yorker describes as a constitutional scholar who is intelligent and curious, who sought to understand just how to govern with class, empathy, and compassion. Obama a man who had the ability to change rhythm and style like a Martin Luther King Jr to appeal to every audience.
Yesterday YOUR party’s head told the police officers of Suffolk County to quit being nice to criminals and smash their heads...to CHEERS!
Whoa Mr. Stephens I sincerely hope that you aren’t equating these principles with Senator John McCain and Sarah Palin?? Mr. Showboat McCain!! Watch his showmanship as he made an entrance on the Senate Floor and NOT waiting to be called upon cast his “no” vote with a thumbs down performance worthy of Joaquin Phoenix in The Gladiator.” Or watching him in 2008 singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys and sending out Palin to snarl and ridicule an African-American candidate. A VP candidate who was a journalism major at the seven different community colleges she attended (One semester here in Hawai’i) who was unable to name ONE newspaper or news magazine she read. Palin brought us the Tea Party and its consummate low information, uneducated voters.
Yet you don’t say one word about Barack Obama who David Remnick of the New Yorker describes as a constitutional scholar who is intelligent and curious, who sought to understand just how to govern with class, empathy, and compassion. Obama a man who had the ability to change rhythm and style like a Martin Luther King Jr to appeal to every audience.
Yesterday YOUR party’s head told the police officers of Suffolk County to quit being nice to criminals and smash their heads...to CHEERS!
6
The line to Donald Trump must surely go through John McCain. Despite everything he did this week and his previous sacrifices for the country, he can never escape his decison to make Sarah Palin his running mate. Bret Stephens can fixate on the sheer crudeness of Scaramucci (who seems to be auditioning for a role as a real-life stereotype of an Italian mobster -- though no one calls him out for insulting Italians), but the coarseness, vulgarity and the toleration of believing that serious things can be accomplished by deeply unserious people traces to Republican acceptance of Palin as a possible president. Without Palin, it takes a lot longer to get to Trump.
3
The Evangelicals were in the forefront of giving the worldly and vulgar Mr. Trump the green light to behave this way in return for nominating politically acceptable individuals to the Supreme Court. This was one of Trump's most successful deals. Give them what they want and they will turn a blind eye to the rest of Trump's behaviors. These supposed holy men will have to live with the fact that they have enabled the poison Trump is injecting into our system to flourish and spread. When some of the religious leaders of our country succumb to such an arrangement, we should realize the moral moorings of our country are breaking apart. Recently their complete and total silence on Mr Trumps and his surrogates actions and words show how far we have fallen. Conservatives often harshly criticize Muslim leaders for not being more vocal in condemning actions taken by radicals in the name of their religion. Welcome to the club Evangelicals.
5
I guess the take away from the last couple of decades is that roughly one third of the electorate simply do NOT possess basic reading, comprehension, and critical thinking skills.
To equate news and journalism from Murdock owned media outlets such as FOX and WSJ with say 'real' media outlets such NYT is one such example of deficient critical thinking skills.
How on earth can ANYONE think that a guy who lied about a president's birthplace very publicly for 5 years before millions people the world over would be good for America. How about scamming thousands of desperate people out of millions of dollar with a fake 'university'.
There never existed 'guardrails' for the thin skinned man-baby, or for FOX, WSJ, Rush, Newt, all hate radio, etc for that matter. Anyone with half of a brain could this out in in very short order.
To equate news and journalism from Murdock owned media outlets such as FOX and WSJ with say 'real' media outlets such NYT is one such example of deficient critical thinking skills.
How on earth can ANYONE think that a guy who lied about a president's birthplace very publicly for 5 years before millions people the world over would be good for America. How about scamming thousands of desperate people out of millions of dollar with a fake 'university'.
There never existed 'guardrails' for the thin skinned man-baby, or for FOX, WSJ, Rush, Newt, all hate radio, etc for that matter. Anyone with half of a brain could this out in in very short order.
3
Interesting that Mr. Stephens doesn't mention the role of "greed is good" and the no holds barred capitalism that pervaded the same period, and that led to the sub-prime mortgage collapse and so much misery for so many people. It's that spirit that drives politics today: it doesn't matter who loses so long as I win. "No guardrails", indeed!
4
I challenge two points. First, McCain lost because he (misguidedly) chose a Vice President who brought down his ticket. Second, by blaming a particular year, you forget all of the good that has been done because of the moral outrage of citizens who no longer wanted discrimination of blacks, gays, etc.
Instead, I blame the dumbing down of American culture for the election of Trump. In 2013, our expenditures on elementary and secondary education was a lower % of GDP than OECD average. Children spend more time per day passively watching television and other digital devices than they do actively learning.
Given these, and other statistics, is it any wonder that our increasingly uneducated populace fell for a con man's lies?
Instead, I blame the dumbing down of American culture for the election of Trump. In 2013, our expenditures on elementary and secondary education was a lower % of GDP than OECD average. Children spend more time per day passively watching television and other digital devices than they do actively learning.
Given these, and other statistics, is it any wonder that our increasingly uneducated populace fell for a con man's lies?
1
I think there was a certain amount of sophistry in that Wall Street Journal editorial, which chose the murder of a doctor who provided abortions as the opportunity to savage those who had supported social change in the 1960s. That is the same social change which also enabled gays to live as they were, instead of being hounded to death; and permitted blacks to finally -- at least partly -- escape the shadows of Jim Crow.
That said, I've watched in horror as the modern right has systematically adopted and extended everything awful about the anarchist tendencies of the late New Left and the counterculture:
* Its contempt for the slow, expert, bureaucratic work of actually solving problems
* Its willingness to destroy adversaries through mockery and hatred
* Its belief that, as Bob Dylan said, "not much is really sacred," least of all American civic culture
* Its readiness to accept insane conspiracies and alternative facts of every form, the more ridiculous the better
* Its infantilism
* Its glorification of the tropes of armed resistance
* Its readiness to tear down with no clue of how to build anything sustainable
* Its obliviousness to the realities of people different from itself.
And I couldn't agree more that conservative intellectuals and political leaders have abetted this descent into right-wing anarchy and stupidity at every step, for their own short-term political and financial advantage.
That said, I've watched in horror as the modern right has systematically adopted and extended everything awful about the anarchist tendencies of the late New Left and the counterculture:
* Its contempt for the slow, expert, bureaucratic work of actually solving problems
* Its willingness to destroy adversaries through mockery and hatred
* Its belief that, as Bob Dylan said, "not much is really sacred," least of all American civic culture
* Its readiness to accept insane conspiracies and alternative facts of every form, the more ridiculous the better
* Its infantilism
* Its glorification of the tropes of armed resistance
* Its readiness to tear down with no clue of how to build anything sustainable
* Its obliviousness to the realities of people different from itself.
And I couldn't agree more that conservative intellectuals and political leaders have abetted this descent into right-wing anarchy and stupidity at every step, for their own short-term political and financial advantage.
2
It's the hate filled speech and exaggerated discontent spewed by right wing media that has poisoned the public debate. That and an inability to embrace facts has led us to this point. Mix in a large dose of racism and you've got an intractable opposition immutable to enlightens and change. Thanks
Rupert, Rush, Sean, et al.
Rupert, Rush, Sean, et al.
1
The sole guiding principle of those who call themselves "conservative" is knee-jerk greed. Profits good, people bad. Profits good, common welfare bad. Profits good, justice bad. Business good, citizens bad. I could go on and on.
This did not start in 1968 with an opinion piece about moral chaos in the Wall Street Journal. You cannot convince me that "morality and decorum" have anything to do with the actions of Republicans over the last four decades. It is greed, and solely greed, which motivates your party. True, they love power as well, but only in so much as it allows them to fill their pockets at the expense of the average citizen.
This rot didn't start in 1968. It bloomed in 1971 with the Powell Memo.
This did not start in 1968 with an opinion piece about moral chaos in the Wall Street Journal. You cannot convince me that "morality and decorum" have anything to do with the actions of Republicans over the last four decades. It is greed, and solely greed, which motivates your party. True, they love power as well, but only in so much as it allows them to fill their pockets at the expense of the average citizen.
This rot didn't start in 1968. It bloomed in 1971 with the Powell Memo.
3
"As Scaramucci said, paraphrasing a proverb, “The fish stinks from the head down.” Yes, it does, Mooch. And you’re merely the mouth."
Bravo, Mr. Stephens. That says it all.
Bravo, Mr. Stephens. That says it all.
1
No, Bret, it doesn't come from liberals,and the anti-war movement of the 60's. Please stop perpetrating that lie.
It comes because the dominant liberal force in America in the 60's populated by Republicans and Democrats alike, who enacted the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and put Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. The old Dixiecrats, who had been acquitting KKK murderers for 100 years, who enacted and enforced the most unAmerican system of Jim Crow, were infuriated! Their murderous thuggery exists to this very day as was seen by Dylann Roof's murder of people who welcomed him into their church, by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombing a Federal office building killing children in a day care center.
But Bret is right about one thing: The turning point WAS 1968. Between George Wallace pulling out of the Democratic Party with his American Independent Party (a strictly racist movement) and Richard Nixon's Machiavellian appeal to the same voters to join his push for "Law and Order" (code for reinforcing White Supremacy) with his Southern Strategy, the die was cast. Every year we've seen the right-wing get more and more extreme since then. Reagan's launch in 1980 in Philadelphia, MS, Bush 41's "Willie Horton" ad, Limbaugh calling 13 year-old Chelsea a "dog", Bush 43's attack on McCain's adopted daughter in 2000, "Swift Boat" in 2004, and the vicious lies about Obama & Clinton.
The line from Jim Crow to the catastrophe of Donald Trump is straight and clear.
It comes because the dominant liberal force in America in the 60's populated by Republicans and Democrats alike, who enacted the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and put Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. The old Dixiecrats, who had been acquitting KKK murderers for 100 years, who enacted and enforced the most unAmerican system of Jim Crow, were infuriated! Their murderous thuggery exists to this very day as was seen by Dylann Roof's murder of people who welcomed him into their church, by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombing a Federal office building killing children in a day care center.
But Bret is right about one thing: The turning point WAS 1968. Between George Wallace pulling out of the Democratic Party with his American Independent Party (a strictly racist movement) and Richard Nixon's Machiavellian appeal to the same voters to join his push for "Law and Order" (code for reinforcing White Supremacy) with his Southern Strategy, the die was cast. Every year we've seen the right-wing get more and more extreme since then. Reagan's launch in 1980 in Philadelphia, MS, Bush 41's "Willie Horton" ad, Limbaugh calling 13 year-old Chelsea a "dog", Bush 43's attack on McCain's adopted daughter in 2000, "Swift Boat" in 2004, and the vicious lies about Obama & Clinton.
The line from Jim Crow to the catastrophe of Donald Trump is straight and clear.
2
This opinion is unjustified in so many ways, but overall, depends on the strategy of false equivalence to once again blame liberals for all that is wrong in this country. Trump grows out of the Republicans, a result of their last half-century of political positioning. You could see him borrow the pages from Nixon's embrace of the Southern Strategy, Reagan's stereotyping of welfare queens, Lee Atwater's dirty tricks, Sarah Palin's irresponsible name-calling. Rush, Fox, Jones: It's all there. This has nothing to do with intellectualism. It has much to do with appealing to yahoos at the service of the moneyed interests.
2
There are still guardrails and instances that are not acceptable in decorum, attitude and verbiage; the only thing is that the last part has changed. That's it.
I stress again ( have repeatedly ) that we would not be having these particular conversations at all if 77k votes across 3 states went the other way. ( and without help\collusion from a foreign entity that is to be determined, and might reverse all of the above )
The press and especially the voters\excuse makers for this administration have and will put up with misogyny, boorish and neophyte behavior by this President. ( dropping poll numbers notwithstanding) . However there are still some cultural taboos like calling someone the ''N'' word. ( although every other code word has been used in lieu )
Indeed, more and more in the inner circle are using those code words and demagoguing any and all political opponents, which continues the cycle of calling everything and anything fake and so on.
We still have the power to change at a moment's notice ( every 2\4 years ) , and most likely will use that right for good.
It is just a matter if the press ( the official arbitrators ) are going to be those guardrails or not, from now until then.
I stress again ( have repeatedly ) that we would not be having these particular conversations at all if 77k votes across 3 states went the other way. ( and without help\collusion from a foreign entity that is to be determined, and might reverse all of the above )
The press and especially the voters\excuse makers for this administration have and will put up with misogyny, boorish and neophyte behavior by this President. ( dropping poll numbers notwithstanding) . However there are still some cultural taboos like calling someone the ''N'' word. ( although every other code word has been used in lieu )
Indeed, more and more in the inner circle are using those code words and demagoguing any and all political opponents, which continues the cycle of calling everything and anything fake and so on.
We still have the power to change at a moment's notice ( every 2\4 years ) , and most likely will use that right for good.
It is just a matter if the press ( the official arbitrators ) are going to be those guardrails or not, from now until then.
155
Which message is more of a campaign slogan and which one is more on a slogan for an online dating site?
1) "I'm With Her"
2) "Make America Great Again"
1) "I'm With Her"
2) "Make America Great Again"
Interesting that is fundamentalist Christians who believe that they and they alone are right and it is their way or the highway. Maybe the preaching they are hearing--which frankly is a far cry from the New Testament teachings--are encouraging this mindset.
17
Oh there is plenty of them who think DT is gift from their god. Not that he's a true man of god, but rather that a crude and evil man is being used as an instrument by their god to help them. This is part of their belief system...that their god will use any means, any tool - no matter how rusty and dull to further his plans and bring his people to paradise.
Adhering to the texts is for others, not for the true believers. The American brand of Xtianity - Fundy Evangelicals- is bereft of morality for the adherents - because its everyone else who is the problem. Its everyone else who must conform in order for them to be better at their faith. "The World" is the cause of their failings...and once the world gets in line, they can reach their rightful place.
So its suiting that an evil man would be used to fix an evil world. For them...
Adhering to the texts is for others, not for the true believers. The American brand of Xtianity - Fundy Evangelicals- is bereft of morality for the adherents - because its everyone else who is the problem. Its everyone else who must conform in order for them to be better at their faith. "The World" is the cause of their failings...and once the world gets in line, they can reach their rightful place.
So its suiting that an evil man would be used to fix an evil world. For them...
1
You make interesting observations. The line from 1968 to 2016 includes the 2000 republican primary when the Bush campaign accused McCain of fathering a child of color when the child was actually adopted. Where was the responsibility, restraint, respect, and traditional family values then?
20
Not to mention the virtual theft of the Presidency in 2000 by collusion between Florida's government, led by Jeb Bush, and the US Supreme Court, dominated by nominees whose agenda is to roll back the law and empower Republicans. Then we got the official lies that enable Bush and Cheney to take us into war in Iraq. George Bush looked like an upstanding man but his administration made many deeply immoral decisions, as did Ronald Reagan's. Starting with Newt Gingrich, Republican leaders now don't feel any imperative even to seem like decent, truthful men.
3
The "culture of excess, excuses, and permission" of 1968 have now been supplanted by the culture of selfishness, entitlement, and intolerance. Having guardrails implies that we travel a shared road in a defined direction. Not so today, where direction is determined only by what is personally expedient in meeting our self-interests. And isn't that Donald Trump in a nutshell?
14
Very thought provoking Mr Stephens. I am hopeful that all citizens can try to find some space in their world views for more empathy for their neighbors and more real dialog about how best to move our democracy forward.
Thanks for your leadership and for asking all of us to think harder and feel more deeply.
Thanks for your leadership and for asking all of us to think harder and feel more deeply.
4
Blame it on 1968 if you like, but you might as well blame it on the 1980s and "Greed is good." So no, the blame does not fall on liberals.
The blame falls on the Boomer generation, young in 1968 and nearing full control in the 1980s.
Anti-war protesters were but a small slice of the Boomer generation in 1968. The great majority kept their heads down and beavered away at whatever they were doing to get on with life. Some went to Vietnam.
It was in 1980 that the true face of the Boomers showed, with the election of Ronald Reagan. You see, the Vietnam protests were all about selfish self-preservation, and it came to full flower with the "Greed is Good" decade and the adoption of the economic philosophy that no tax is a good tax, welfare cheats, and trickle down. Oh, and the destruction of labor unions.
Bill Clinton was a conservative Democrat, and once Gingrich and the Contract for America folks took power, Clinton's more liberal instincts faced extinction.
Bush we needn't talk about.
With Obama, it was obstruction 24/7 fueled by gerrymandering.
So what do we see here? The Boomer generation, fundamentally conservative and mostly wanting to feather their own nests, is to blame. I don't mean to tar everyone with the same brush. Speaking in broad generalities here. And maybe it isn't "Boomers" per se who are responsible, but simple human nature. I'm not sure the millennials are going to turn out any better. Time will tell.
The blame falls on the Boomer generation, young in 1968 and nearing full control in the 1980s.
Anti-war protesters were but a small slice of the Boomer generation in 1968. The great majority kept their heads down and beavered away at whatever they were doing to get on with life. Some went to Vietnam.
It was in 1980 that the true face of the Boomers showed, with the election of Ronald Reagan. You see, the Vietnam protests were all about selfish self-preservation, and it came to full flower with the "Greed is Good" decade and the adoption of the economic philosophy that no tax is a good tax, welfare cheats, and trickle down. Oh, and the destruction of labor unions.
Bill Clinton was a conservative Democrat, and once Gingrich and the Contract for America folks took power, Clinton's more liberal instincts faced extinction.
Bush we needn't talk about.
With Obama, it was obstruction 24/7 fueled by gerrymandering.
So what do we see here? The Boomer generation, fundamentally conservative and mostly wanting to feather their own nests, is to blame. I don't mean to tar everyone with the same brush. Speaking in broad generalities here. And maybe it isn't "Boomers" per se who are responsible, but simple human nature. I'm not sure the millennials are going to turn out any better. Time will tell.
18
When you say you are speaking in "broad generalities", I must say - you certainly are! I think your statement that the boomer generation is "fundamentally" conservative is wrong. I am a "boomer" (born in 1949) and the majority of my friends of the same age are unabashedly NOT conservatives. On the day after the inauguration, I attended a local women's march with about 2,000 other people. The crowd that day was predominately people my age - old boomers.
You know, there is an alternative theory that says that it is the children of the Boomers who have become more conservative as an act of rebellion against their parents' more liberal ideas (ala the Alex P. Keaton character in "Family Ties".) But, lets face it, while we may be influenced by a peer group, we are all individuals who have to decide for ourselves where we stand.
You know, there is an alternative theory that says that it is the children of the Boomers who have become more conservative as an act of rebellion against their parents' more liberal ideas (ala the Alex P. Keaton character in "Family Ties".) But, lets face it, while we may be influenced by a peer group, we are all individuals who have to decide for ourselves where we stand.
2
More generational nonsense. People are born every day, not in twenty year batches. Do you think boomers somehow got together nation wide in the wee hours of the night to conspire on how to "get theirs" and disenfranchise their own elders and children? Generational differences are media fictions and something to blame for whatever you may lack.
I used to joke with my late father that it was all the fault of the "Greatest Generation" for having so much sex after WWII.
I used to joke with my late father that it was all the fault of the "Greatest Generation" for having so much sex after WWII.
Agree! Boomers, pretty much wrecked this nations finer aspects. In their quest for their "cool",which evolved into buying it off the shelf. Being cool was the thing that Boomers most yearned for, and most of them could not on their own be cool. So they figured out they could purchase it. And so began the Era of excessive consumption in order to buy ones cool. To buy ones persona, world-mask. Linked to clothes with brand names, gadgets and toys, and over-done houses - and of course cars. The American obsession with the automobile and how it allegedly tells the world how awesome the driver is.
All of which of course they passed on to their children. Buy your personality, go to the mall and adopt a look, or as many as you wish, and that will be how we evaluate you. By what you wear, drive and the things you carry. (reference to a great book on Vietnam)
But I disagree about your Vietnam protests being all about self-preservation. Yes, in part, and why not? Going to that mess, with no clear end-game, to likely die or come home broken, who would want that? But it was also the most direct way to defy the Establishment and their so-called patriotic ways. The WW2 gen at the time saw service as a duty. Most older Americans, till they saw the disgrace of our actions in Vietnam, thought it was a good fight and a winnable one. They were raised on the win of WW2, and the youth of the Vietnam era wanted some of that, but many saw thru the sham. Recognized we were being lied to. Like now
All of which of course they passed on to their children. Buy your personality, go to the mall and adopt a look, or as many as you wish, and that will be how we evaluate you. By what you wear, drive and the things you carry. (reference to a great book on Vietnam)
But I disagree about your Vietnam protests being all about self-preservation. Yes, in part, and why not? Going to that mess, with no clear end-game, to likely die or come home broken, who would want that? But it was also the most direct way to defy the Establishment and their so-called patriotic ways. The WW2 gen at the time saw service as a duty. Most older Americans, till they saw the disgrace of our actions in Vietnam, thought it was a good fight and a winnable one. They were raised on the win of WW2, and the youth of the Vietnam era wanted some of that, but many saw thru the sham. Recognized we were being lied to. Like now
1
Stephens' nonsense -- 1968 is to blame ?
This reactionary viewpoint has struggled to hold back the tide ever since and given us a 'conservative movement', the pun of which says it all.
We can only hope that we can survive getting it out of our system.
This reactionary viewpoint has struggled to hold back the tide ever since and given us a 'conservative movement', the pun of which says it all.
We can only hope that we can survive getting it out of our system.
15
Yours is a case, Mr. Stephens, of having your cake and eating it. You rightly condemn the crudeness and irresponsibility of the conservatives who voted Trump into office and continue to support him. But rather than accept the full political implications of that recognition -- that the political class led by Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and the rest is rotten to the core and always had been -- you repeat the absurd, conservative bromide that "the generation of '68" brought on decades of moral decay. In fact, the protesters of those years waged a righteous struggle against racism, imperial war, and poverty. Unfortunately, they were crushed by two terms of Nixon, the FBI, COINTELPRO, Reagan, the Bushes and the rest of the apparatus of the Neo-liberal state. Now the moral decay of modern conservatism is exposed for all to see. It's time, Mr. Stephens, to fully recognize it, without blinkers or diversions.
46
Whoa! While I agree with most of what you say...the"crushing" part, not at all.
The Boomers who protested Vietnam, etc were but a small segment of that generation. Lets get it right. Like not everyone who claims to have been at Woodstock, was there - the same holds true for the war protests and civil rights marches. Many were bystanders, in agreement perhaps, but unwilling to risk their safety, or face arrest. Mant were willing to experiment with drugs and of course sex...but most were not willing to go out on a limb for the "cause."
Boomers have done a good job of self-aggrandizing their generation as being all rebels and social justice seekers. But the truth is MOST had some good times in college, then went on to jobs in the vilified Corporate world and eventually became what they bemoaned. They shed their store-bought "hippy" look, and adopted the 9-5, attire and attitudes they insulted their parents about. And eventually became the ones who turned us into a 24/7 consumption driven culture.
Very few of those "righteous protestors" stayed true to the cause and continued on. Most faded out or drifted back in. Why? They never really bought in!
Those in the system, who might have been there in 67,68, 69...eagerly drank from the well of the "Greed is Good" culture that they led from their cubes and offices.
Lets face it, Boomers (those over 60) opened a lot of gates -that needed opening - but never took the responsibility to put any constraints on what was let loose.
The Boomers who protested Vietnam, etc were but a small segment of that generation. Lets get it right. Like not everyone who claims to have been at Woodstock, was there - the same holds true for the war protests and civil rights marches. Many were bystanders, in agreement perhaps, but unwilling to risk their safety, or face arrest. Mant were willing to experiment with drugs and of course sex...but most were not willing to go out on a limb for the "cause."
Boomers have done a good job of self-aggrandizing their generation as being all rebels and social justice seekers. But the truth is MOST had some good times in college, then went on to jobs in the vilified Corporate world and eventually became what they bemoaned. They shed their store-bought "hippy" look, and adopted the 9-5, attire and attitudes they insulted their parents about. And eventually became the ones who turned us into a 24/7 consumption driven culture.
Very few of those "righteous protestors" stayed true to the cause and continued on. Most faded out or drifted back in. Why? They never really bought in!
Those in the system, who might have been there in 67,68, 69...eagerly drank from the well of the "Greed is Good" culture that they led from their cubes and offices.
Lets face it, Boomers (those over 60) opened a lot of gates -that needed opening - but never took the responsibility to put any constraints on what was let loose.
1
Stephens: 'In 1993 The Wall Street Journal published a famous editorial called “No Guardrails,” ...'
The "guardrail" metaphor is not applicable to the Trump administration. A guardrail protects drivers from accidents and from their own mistakes. Everything that Trump and his minions do seems to be INTENTIONAL, so they don't need or want guardrails.
BTW, the WSJ has a hard paywall, so linking to the WSJ editorial is useless for anyone who is not a WSJ subscriber.
The "guardrail" metaphor is not applicable to the Trump administration. A guardrail protects drivers from accidents and from their own mistakes. Everything that Trump and his minions do seems to be INTENTIONAL, so they don't need or want guardrails.
BTW, the WSJ has a hard paywall, so linking to the WSJ editorial is useless for anyone who is not a WSJ subscriber.
16
Trump is a disaster. And it's only been six months. Can you imagine what he'll do to the country in four years?
13
To me, the thing that sent the country off the rails was the meeting between Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor the night before Barak Obama was inaugurated. They decided that the Republican Party would no longer honor the judgment of the American people if we elected a black man to the presidency.
From that one evening, based entirely on the presumption that all Americans are NOT created equal, we have been dragged ever deeper into malfeasance, into greater and greater disregard for the average American-- black or white-- both in congress and on Wall Street.
And now, in the White House itself.
From that one evening, based entirely on the presumption that all Americans are NOT created equal, we have been dragged ever deeper into malfeasance, into greater and greater disregard for the average American-- black or white-- both in congress and on Wall Street.
And now, in the White House itself.
66
Thank you for so eloquently pointing out the real elephant in the room. Few are willing to admit that the idea of a Black President with a Black First Lady and Black children living in the White House offended many Americans (especially in the South) in a fundamental way that they could not express. The Republican leadership understood this (Southern Strategy anyone?) and exploited it.
Now we have Trump.
Now we have Trump.
No question the fish now rots. But blaming the '68 Chicago Police Riot is ludicrous. Might as well blame the 1863 Civil War draft riots. Or the 1792 Whiskey Rebellion.
28
The GOP surrendered to anti-intellectualism and the ideologues took over, starting with Reagan. Trumpism is the logical consequence of Reaganism. As for vulgarities, the hate-filled, under-educated masses don't follow dog whistles nowadays, they feed on vulgarities.
20
Trump orange is the new bleak.
11
Not too early to talk about impeachment.
9
Stephen's column is an example of the myopic thought of most "conservatives". They can recognize symptoms but are clueless as to causes. Trump and the Mooch are almost perfect examples of an Ayn Rand hero-objectivism personified as their own "happiness" is their only goal. They are Id unleashed, their gross appetites must be fed. The Koch brothers libertarianism is more the cause of Trump than the 60s. Only people like Stephens who did not live through the 60s can come to the conclusions that he does. I am no fan of Bernie Sanders but he could fairly be said to be an outcome of the "60s." Trump and his gross materialism is the opposite of what was valued in the "60s".
21
I think it's about authoritarianism. Conservatives love, and need, hierarchy and order. When there's turbulence and uncertainty, they need it even more. Which is to say, authority trumps morality. Morality is worn on the sleeve because it feels better, and sells better, but I think ultimately the strong-man thing has more power for a lot of conservatives, even if it's an inept strong man.
3
I agree with everything you wrote, but I offer a caveat. At a dinner party I said to conservative Republican friend of mine, "Your party has betrayed its moral foundation through the embrace of crude jingoism, racist messaging, thoughtless reaction, and the embrace of the lowest instincts of the electorate." That dinner party I attended occurred in 1991.
8
The identification of John McCain´s defeat in 2008 with the defeat of America´s most signal virtues is a sham. Mr. McCain chose as his running mate a vicious reactionary who passed off nescience as courage and who, day in and day out, blew the dog whistle of white supremacy. The electorate did not see in the senior senator from Arizona a paragon of civic virtue but rather an elderly man whose health was just a bit shaky. In those circumstances, millions of voters breathed the words "President Palin" and voted for Barack Obama.
16
You omitted a key force: the Koch brothers and their network that gave America the tea party, Citizens United, a successful campaign to make Americans distrust and dislike their own government , and a gerrymander success. The founder of an angry decline
10
1968? All Bret Stephens remembers about 1968 is a culture of "excess, excuses, and permission?" What about the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.? What about a war raging in Vietnam? What about assaults on African-Americans? He sounds like King George,III, who surely defined the colonists as people for whom "certain rules that for a long time ha governed behavior...became devalued."
15
I read that "famous" Wall Street Journal editorial differently than Bret Stephens. The Wall Street Journal, ever ready to ridicule "political correctness," was applying it's own political correctness.
The Journal sowed the wind, and now it's reaping the whirlwind.
The Journal sowed the wind, and now it's reaping the whirlwind.
7
There is no "conservative movement".
1
Racism, intolerance, fear and denial are the traits of Trump supporters. The Trump administration is a disaster. There is no plan and there are no leaders and the only real agenda is deregulation and tax breaks for millionaires. And yet, his supporters as well as the people of Alabama still love him...as in today, right now.
Fox News and hate radio are a plague that is growing. We must fund advertisements on their airwaves that tell the truth. We need a communication plan to battle the falsehoods and we need to mobilize the electorate to vote..
Or I need to move to Canada..
Fox News and hate radio are a plague that is growing. We must fund advertisements on their airwaves that tell the truth. We need a communication plan to battle the falsehoods and we need to mobilize the electorate to vote..
Or I need to move to Canada..
8
The right has been a party of fear and greed for many years. The conclusion in
the comparison made between the Vietnam war era and Trumpism is not valid. The main problem during the Vietnam era was fear. Fear of a communist takeover of countries like Vietnam, eventually leading to the entire world. This takeover did not come to pass and probably would not have even if we had not staked out our war in Vietnam. People in high place, both right and moderate left were afraid. The USSR was a definite threat to freedom around the world. We did not and do not have to give in to the fear being promulgated by Trumpism.
As for greed, it is currently at a high point in our history. People are making money in un-godly amounts. While others are just eking by or starving. We have always had people with a selfish center that blinded them. Why do some people have no moral compass? Trump is the prime example. He lies with impunity and apologizes for nothing. He has found lying to be profitable over the years. He gained an undeserved reputation for business success. He ran for president based on this lie. He told people lies about his fantastic plans for America, for destroying ISIS, rebuilding our country, draining the swamp, etc. It is quite obvious that he had no actual plans for any of these things.
My hope is the Mueller investigation will get all the records and testimony it needs to get this lying con man out of the White House soon.
the comparison made between the Vietnam war era and Trumpism is not valid. The main problem during the Vietnam era was fear. Fear of a communist takeover of countries like Vietnam, eventually leading to the entire world. This takeover did not come to pass and probably would not have even if we had not staked out our war in Vietnam. People in high place, both right and moderate left were afraid. The USSR was a definite threat to freedom around the world. We did not and do not have to give in to the fear being promulgated by Trumpism.
As for greed, it is currently at a high point in our history. People are making money in un-godly amounts. While others are just eking by or starving. We have always had people with a selfish center that blinded them. Why do some people have no moral compass? Trump is the prime example. He lies with impunity and apologizes for nothing. He has found lying to be profitable over the years. He gained an undeserved reputation for business success. He ran for president based on this lie. He told people lies about his fantastic plans for America, for destroying ISIS, rebuilding our country, draining the swamp, etc. It is quite obvious that he had no actual plans for any of these things.
My hope is the Mueller investigation will get all the records and testimony it needs to get this lying con man out of the White House soon.
13
Thank you, NYT, for printing it out all in black and white. Let's all have the courage to show the administration for what it really is.
2
It can't be the defeat of John McCain in 2008 as his opponent Barack Obama is the very epitome of honor, service, integrity, independence, compromise and statesmanship. Must be racism.
10
Funny about that WSJ article on '68, as that year RFK and MLK were publicly assassinated, just 5 years after we saw JFK go down. The WSJ trying to blame liberal academics for upheavals by young people ignores the endless lies of the Viet Nam war, the firehoses & police dogs turned on black people in the south during civil rights movement and the clampdown on "hippies" by J. Edgar that led to Chicago convention protests.
Much of what we protested Trump-Sessions would like to return to under rubric of Law & Order, even while DT laughs at the rule of law re himself/family.
No amount of vulgarity in behavior or language will get white men in trouble while trying to make America white (& white Christian) again.
Much of what we protested Trump-Sessions would like to return to under rubric of Law & Order, even while DT laughs at the rule of law re himself/family.
No amount of vulgarity in behavior or language will get white men in trouble while trying to make America white (& white Christian) again.
6
Please leave 1960's liberals out of it. Besides the fact that they were protesting an unjust and unnecessary war that cost many lives, not throwing a tantrum to protect a disgraceful president - there's also the small fact that 1960's liberals have absolutely nothing to do with what's happening right now.
If you want to accept your portion of responsibility for this disaster, start by acknowledging that faults are not equal, and that your faction created it.
If you want to accept your portion of responsibility for this disaster, start by acknowledging that faults are not equal, and that your faction created it.
6
I agree with your analysis, but would add the rise of Sarah Pailin as another critical element. Perhaps McCain is attempting to compensate for that mistake.
3
I imagine it won't be long before young people begin bombing and shooting at people like Trump and his supporters because they are betraying the constitution, betraying the American people. It's been a long time since we've had a revolution, but it's coming because Trump is leading us to a dictatorship, just waiting to declare a national emergency/martial law and to suspend our civil rights.
2
You'll have to wait interminably. The young people are all preoccupied with their SMS texting, their electronic toys, their tats and their vaping. They don't know about the Constitution, it's a very rare one who does, and then only to profit from their knowledge as they profit from a superficial display of unfelt courtesy to older people.
1
I'm 70. I was 16 when JFK was murdered, followed by the murders of MLK and RFK. I was in a barracks in Officers Training School at Lackland AFB in Texas when I heard the news: Kent State, four dead in O-hi-o. That's where the government lost me for good. Republican governor James Rhodes and the Ohio National Guard showed no modesty, responsibility and restraint. My bumper sticker became "Question Authority." In doing so over the decades, I have found that Wall Street and the Republican Party are corrupt beyond all redemption. As usual, Republicans pick on the low-hanging fruit... the poor and the middle class... blaming them for social disruption. I am thankful I came of age during the Sixties. A dozen major social changes came about and the conservatives lost control. Republicans and conservatives have yet to recover from being stripped naked in the town square.
4
American conservatism is not conservatism and it has always been amoral. It was amoral before America was born, it was amoral when Jonathan Swift wrote about American style "conservatism in A Modest Proposal. American style" conservatism was amoral in 1845-1852 when 20% of Ireland's population was starved to death or exile in a country whose economy was based on food exports. Ireland's food export economy boomed as millions went hungry. It was 100 years ago that Mexico said Mexico's oil belonged to Mexico and William F. Buckley Sr failed to get the State Department to declare war on Mexico and moved Buckley Oil to Caracas where a fascist regime kept Venezuelans subjugated until 1958 and it was only in 1998 that the natives won power.
There is no reason for millions to die prematurely for lack medical prevention and diagnosis in the world's richest country.
That people who are amoral become vulgar is no surprise. The surprise is that people of good conscience can stand just by and watch the moral outrages of racism, sexism, economic terrorism and a justice system designed for the privileged.
Donald Trump is the god American "conservatism" has forged for over a century. When Donald Trump tells you that is the way businessmen talk believe him. The men who run America's corporations are not businessmen they are managers. Maybe short fingered vulgarian has nothing to do with size. Trump is a businessman and 10 out of eleven businesses fail. Real business is exciting not secure.
There is no reason for millions to die prematurely for lack medical prevention and diagnosis in the world's richest country.
That people who are amoral become vulgar is no surprise. The surprise is that people of good conscience can stand just by and watch the moral outrages of racism, sexism, economic terrorism and a justice system designed for the privileged.
Donald Trump is the god American "conservatism" has forged for over a century. When Donald Trump tells you that is the way businessmen talk believe him. The men who run America's corporations are not businessmen they are managers. Maybe short fingered vulgarian has nothing to do with size. Trump is a businessman and 10 out of eleven businesses fail. Real business is exciting not secure.
6
'“Certain rules that for a long time had governed behavior also became devalued,” the editorial noted. “Whatever else was going on here, we were repeatedly lowering the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct.”'
Let's see what some of those pre-1968 rules included: Jim Crow laws, regular lynchings of blacks that southern whites put their Sunday best on to watch as a family outing, routine and perfectly normal sexual harassment and assault of women in the workplace - bosses like Trump were the norm, starting a carpet bombing and Napalm war that would eventually kill a million Vietnamese, CIA regularly deposing democratic leaders around the world so we cannot back dictators as part of the Cold War. A very partial list. The good old days that Bret and his sane (non-Trump) conservatives miss so much.
Listen to Nixon tapes for WH vulgarity in '70s. Clinton had a record of sexual assault and women's groups and liberals gave him a pass in the '90s. And now Trump has lowered bar to levels of indecency, vulgarity and depravity that are unimaginable. His supporters will support him even if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue.
Let's see what some of those pre-1968 rules included: Jim Crow laws, regular lynchings of blacks that southern whites put their Sunday best on to watch as a family outing, routine and perfectly normal sexual harassment and assault of women in the workplace - bosses like Trump were the norm, starting a carpet bombing and Napalm war that would eventually kill a million Vietnamese, CIA regularly deposing democratic leaders around the world so we cannot back dictators as part of the Cold War. A very partial list. The good old days that Bret and his sane (non-Trump) conservatives miss so much.
Listen to Nixon tapes for WH vulgarity in '70s. Clinton had a record of sexual assault and women's groups and liberals gave him a pass in the '90s. And now Trump has lowered bar to levels of indecency, vulgarity and depravity that are unimaginable. His supporters will support him even if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue.
3
If you are looking for the source of GOP corruption and amoral motives, look no further than Reagan.
3
The Judeo-Christian values that the USA is alleged to be founded upon are clearly as dead as the moon's surface in this current administration. Tiresome though it may be, comparisons to the Nazis are much more apt, because they ruled on the oft-repeated principle of "absolute obedience upward, absolute authority downward" that Hitler's adherents thrived on. More than recent analogies hold: one has to revisit one's acquaintance with the classics and look to the despotisms of Tiberius Caesar, whose modus was stated as "after me, let fire the earth confound." And of course to those demonic entities, mentioned by name in the Christian gospels, Caligula and Nero, whose capricious excesses included the ultimate obscenity, torture and death. How far are we away from that absolute exercise of tyranny by this clearly insane and/or drug-abusing brat we have to call president?
1
What has happened cannot be explained as a removal of "guardrails," let alone that 60s liberal thinkers were the ones who removed them.
There have long been corrupt and vulgar operatives in American life; it's just that the most venal leaders knew to conform *outwardly* to codes of decorum. Nixon was more intelligent and less politically cruel than Trump, but he was more racist and just as nasty. Many of the Mad Men executives of the 50s were just as foul-mouthed as Scaramucci and as dishonorable as the cheating Enron execs. Is what possible way could Nixon and Enron be the fault of liberal intelligentsia?
Yes, the 60s ushered in a dubious ethos of personal authenticity and anti-hypocrisy that gave people the license to disregard norms of civility without paying a high cost. So some folks flaunt decorum. But all the evidence is against Stephens's claim that liberals opened the floodgates to our current immersion in cruelty and indecency––especially when all the foulest characters, beginning with Trump, have found themselves in the GOP. It is the GOP where vicious behavior and belief (anti-semitism, contempt for women, alt-right and KKK ideologies) are at best tolerated and at worst actively encouraged.
There have long been corrupt and vulgar operatives in American life; it's just that the most venal leaders knew to conform *outwardly* to codes of decorum. Nixon was more intelligent and less politically cruel than Trump, but he was more racist and just as nasty. Many of the Mad Men executives of the 50s were just as foul-mouthed as Scaramucci and as dishonorable as the cheating Enron execs. Is what possible way could Nixon and Enron be the fault of liberal intelligentsia?
Yes, the 60s ushered in a dubious ethos of personal authenticity and anti-hypocrisy that gave people the license to disregard norms of civility without paying a high cost. So some folks flaunt decorum. But all the evidence is against Stephens's claim that liberals opened the floodgates to our current immersion in cruelty and indecency––especially when all the foulest characters, beginning with Trump, have found themselves in the GOP. It is the GOP where vicious behavior and belief (anti-semitism, contempt for women, alt-right and KKK ideologies) are at best tolerated and at worst actively encouraged.
1
Brett, you're not at the Wall Street Journal any longer. Lobbing casual blame for trump at anti-Viet Nam and pro-civil rights protesters from 50 years ago is guaranteed to elicit protest here, as you've seen.
2
Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Pat Robertson and a large swath of the evangelical community faun over a man who has made his mark by touting envy, greed, gluttony, wrath, pride, sloth and lust.
Their souls sold for a Supreme Court appointment, the supporters of Trump have turned their backs on decency and integrity.
By the parameters of their own doctrine, this is not going to end well and they are not on the team they presume to have chosen.
Their souls sold for a Supreme Court appointment, the supporters of Trump have turned their backs on decency and integrity.
By the parameters of their own doctrine, this is not going to end well and they are not on the team they presume to have chosen.
3
So the antiwar protestors in Chicago in 1968 are the people who made Trump possible? This seems like a very superficial and wrongheaded analysis to me. Decorum was always something practiced within the ruling class only; we were hardly decorous when we exterminated the native population, or enslaved Africans, or bombed the people of a tiny country in Asia. Trump is the product of the decline of white, middle class America, but he is simply the demon within coming to the fore.
The America of 1968 was a grotesquerie. But it was created by the American establishment, which despite its outer decorum was capable of almost any crime at home and abroad. We shouldn't blind ourselves to that fact. We were and are simply no better than the average run of humanity -- better than some, worse than others.
The America of 1968 was a grotesquerie. But it was created by the American establishment, which despite its outer decorum was capable of almost any crime at home and abroad. We shouldn't blind ourselves to that fact. We were and are simply no better than the average run of humanity -- better than some, worse than others.
2
1968 didn't spring from the head of Zeus; it happened in a context--the context of body counts and dishonest accounting and ideological zeal sending soldiers upon soldiers to die in Vietnam. It sickens me to see the same thing happening all over again in Afghanistan (and I'm not speaking metaphorically when I say "sickens": I lost a family member there, in 2012, long after we should have brought the last service member home from Afghanistan).
It's true, though, that the intelligentsia enables, then and now, on both the left and the right. I teach at a college; I've seen ideological positions trump critical thinking. Both left and right assault science: the right says climate change and evolution are arguable; the left says biological sex is merely a social construct.
The best thing in this op-ed is the paragraph about McCain ("Did it come with...").
It's true, though, that the intelligentsia enables, then and now, on both the left and the right. I teach at a college; I've seen ideological positions trump critical thinking. Both left and right assault science: the right says climate change and evolution are arguable; the left says biological sex is merely a social construct.
The best thing in this op-ed is the paragraph about McCain ("Did it come with...").
At least the GOP has largely stopped calling itself the "family values" center of America. The message is more honest now - go back to 1950 minus the high income taxes.
2
Wait, seriously, the body of the fish doesn't all decay at the same rat ? That seems to defy physiology.
1
Two observations:
When you gave been losing for awhile, the chance to get back on top is so enticing all caution is thrown away. After 8 years of hate propelled by racism against an inexperienced black president, those appalled by this symbol of a world in which they had no bearings was too much. Of course it was appalling and inappropriate. It was rank desperation, and a wound cynically poked at by the right.
The second point was the backdrop. Since Nixon/Agnew, in order to promote an essentially white migration from the New Deal coalition that ruled politics for 30 years, anger and resentment became the choice of party elites. Civil rights legislation and hippies getting pounded on while Daley cheered made that convention not just a catalyst for the left, but even moreso for the right. "Law and order" trumped your union, your ability to have a good job with a pension and common sense. It all gave birth to eventually Fox News and the worst income inequality since the 1920's. Despite all this, they still vote anger over common sense and self-interest. Doing the same thing hoping for a different result. The definition of insanity embodied in the clown who now leads us.
When you gave been losing for awhile, the chance to get back on top is so enticing all caution is thrown away. After 8 years of hate propelled by racism against an inexperienced black president, those appalled by this symbol of a world in which they had no bearings was too much. Of course it was appalling and inappropriate. It was rank desperation, and a wound cynically poked at by the right.
The second point was the backdrop. Since Nixon/Agnew, in order to promote an essentially white migration from the New Deal coalition that ruled politics for 30 years, anger and resentment became the choice of party elites. Civil rights legislation and hippies getting pounded on while Daley cheered made that convention not just a catalyst for the left, but even moreso for the right. "Law and order" trumped your union, your ability to have a good job with a pension and common sense. It all gave birth to eventually Fox News and the worst income inequality since the 1920's. Despite all this, they still vote anger over common sense and self-interest. Doing the same thing hoping for a different result. The definition of insanity embodied in the clown who now leads us.
1
Is he in the minds of republicans still better than Hillary?
2
Mr. Stephens refers to some kind of conservative intellectual class that has tolerated, excused, or somehow helped create Trumpism. I do not know of such a group.
Trump and his voters are products of the Republican political class and its media arms. Don't waste your time looking for intellectuals in that bunch.
This is just another attempt at the false parallel that we see so often from the rational conservative voice who can't come terms with the disease at the core of his party.
The fish rots from the head down. But the Republican Party rots from the inside out.
Trump and his voters are products of the Republican political class and its media arms. Don't waste your time looking for intellectuals in that bunch.
This is just another attempt at the false parallel that we see so often from the rational conservative voice who can't come terms with the disease at the core of his party.
The fish rots from the head down. But the Republican Party rots from the inside out.
858
Well there may not be any intellectuals in this bunch, but this does not say too much for the "intellects" of the left, right and center.
So based on your assemesnet a bunch of vulgar idiots out smarted the refined, compassionate intellects....
Hmmm....results matter
So based on your assemesnet a bunch of vulgar idiots out smarted the refined, compassionate intellects....
Hmmm....results matter
As was witnessed, most recently, by the entire "healthcare" vote. It wasn't healthcare, it was genocide of 22+ million fellow Americans by malign neglect, without the cost of building and staffing facilities, roundups, and transport which was incurred in murdering six million Jews...and others..in Europe.
It was two female GOP senators who called the "skinny" what it really was, and have gotten bashed for it by GOP "men."
Senators Murkowski and Collins are more "man" than they'll ever be, and more woman than they're likely to get.
It was two female GOP senators who called the "skinny" what it really was, and have gotten bashed for it by GOP "men."
Senators Murkowski and Collins are more "man" than they'll ever be, and more woman than they're likely to get.
I'm a fan of Stephens, but I don't agree with his premise (via the Wall Street Journal) of how we got here. Comity and civility didn't die in 1968 in Chicago. I lived through that time and I think the excess, which occurred on both sides, was a function of the reality that America for the first time tried to fight a war based on a lie. The American government lost the trust of its people one lie at a time, and the lies didn't start in the 60's. The founders of this country were well aware of the fragility of human morality and tried to design a system that accounted for it by limiting the concentration of power. Certainly many of them were leery of pure democracy and they agreed on a Republic that had mechanisms to cool the passions of the mob. To find the genesis of our current disgrace we are going to have to look deeply into ourselves, and the obligations we owe to each other and to that system.
6
The US poisoned itself with religion. Giving credence to anyone's delusions relating to a purportedly necessary eternal personality of nature in legislation invites the worst psychopaths to seek public offices.
1
Of all the groups guilty of enabling the election of Donald Trump, the "intellectual" class, as you very vaguely put it, is surely the very least to blame. Even the vast majority of Conservative intellectuals, already few and far between, were appalled by him, except for a few on the altest of rights who were not at the time acknowledged as anyone's "intellectual class".
No: this is not a plausible populist argument, though it tries to be. For Donald Trump we can only thank the great American people, who got exactly the man they wanted, forged in their own anti-intellectual image.
No: this is not a plausible populist argument, though it tries to be. For Donald Trump we can only thank the great American people, who got exactly the man they wanted, forged in their own anti-intellectual image.
677
Very well said.
Mike--No, they did not get the "man they wanted." He lost the vote by almost 3,000,000. That's just part of the problem--WE didn't elect him. He was appointed by an electoral college. What nonsense.
2
Don't blame all American voters. The majority solidly rejected Trump. Blame the Electors in the Electoral College. Were they thinking? And if so, what?
1
Thank you! And I think that is what concerns me - How far do I go in my own outrage? What is justifiable? But to all my conservative family and evangelical friends - if you were not outraged by the President's speech to the Boy Scouts, I am not sure what will cause you to change direction. Kids should be off-limits!
5
What the Wall Street Journal forgot in writing about 1968 is that the mess in Chicago back then was a "police riot" provoked by the mayor's determination not to allow free speech outside the Democratic convention. How convenient. Let's cook up a story that everything was the fault of the long haired hippies and they, and their liberal excuse makers, let loose on the land an era of relentless, unregulated expression and vulgarity.
How convenient. The youth movement of that time period had been marginalized politically quite throughly anyway. This effort was helped greatly when Nixon's men hired construction workers in New York to go beat up on anti-war demonstrators, giving the nation the impression, never fully challenged, that demonstrators were un-American, misfits who believed in disruption, nothing else.
Many who now serve in Congress were children or young adults in that era. On the Republican side, many sat out the era of social protest and were deeply resentful that others got to be "cool" by going out by the thousands to protest a futile, unpopular war. I can easily picture Mitch McConnell, now 70, at college age boiling over with resentment and equally certain that he was right not to protest and "they" were wrong, unpatriotic.
The right wing in America is having its own version of social/cultural protest now in the halls of Congress. They missed out then but they get to participate fully now by trying to turn back the tide of change. No action seems too extreme.
How convenient. The youth movement of that time period had been marginalized politically quite throughly anyway. This effort was helped greatly when Nixon's men hired construction workers in New York to go beat up on anti-war demonstrators, giving the nation the impression, never fully challenged, that demonstrators were un-American, misfits who believed in disruption, nothing else.
Many who now serve in Congress were children or young adults in that era. On the Republican side, many sat out the era of social protest and were deeply resentful that others got to be "cool" by going out by the thousands to protest a futile, unpopular war. I can easily picture Mitch McConnell, now 70, at college age boiling over with resentment and equally certain that he was right not to protest and "they" were wrong, unpatriotic.
The right wing in America is having its own version of social/cultural protest now in the halls of Congress. They missed out then but they get to participate fully now by trying to turn back the tide of change. No action seems too extreme.
12
After the election, a woman I know looked me in the eye and said, "Donald Trump is a great leader and he will make America great again."
Her sincerity was undeniable. As this administration has evolved, I wonder what she is thinking now.
Trump is not, and never has been, conservative as the word is generally understood. Some people who should have known better voted for him to "shake things up." Why they would trust a person who lied and appealed to fear and hatred while making impossible promises to shake things up has always boggled the mind.
Nixon's downfall because of the Watergate coverup contributed to the distrust of government that Republicans have been selling. Trump is making that worse.
In the 1960s, I wrote a letter to Nixon saying that I had been silent, but he was mistaken if he thought I was part of his Silent Majority. When less than 40% of voters approve of a president, there is a silent majority out there that could be mobilized to set things right. They need to do a lot more than try to restore rules that govern political behavior.
Her sincerity was undeniable. As this administration has evolved, I wonder what she is thinking now.
Trump is not, and never has been, conservative as the word is generally understood. Some people who should have known better voted for him to "shake things up." Why they would trust a person who lied and appealed to fear and hatred while making impossible promises to shake things up has always boggled the mind.
Nixon's downfall because of the Watergate coverup contributed to the distrust of government that Republicans have been selling. Trump is making that worse.
In the 1960s, I wrote a letter to Nixon saying that I had been silent, but he was mistaken if he thought I was part of his Silent Majority. When less than 40% of voters approve of a president, there is a silent majority out there that could be mobilized to set things right. They need to do a lot more than try to restore rules that govern political behavior.
10
Our framework of the Constitution and separated powers and the strong Judiciary will not save us from a break from conventions at the highest levels. These are dangerous times. Policies can be reversed but the bar of respect for the law can be lowered easily by someone who cares more for themselves than the country and are difficult or impossible to raise. The Trump movement I'm afraid will permanently damage this country.
8
The righteous right puts up with Trump because, in part, they think it will end abortion in America and bring back prayer in school.
11
I think November 1980 was the the date when we officially lost our way. We replaced a God-fearing, hard-working, bright, moderate Democrat President who asked us to make sacrifices with a President who told us that "government was the problem" and promised us prosperity without any requirement that we give back to others. Mr. Trump is the endgame for the GOP's anti-government platform that was launched in 1964 and animated in 1980. Until we are willing to make sacrifices to help each other and accept "government guardrails" we should expect more leaders like Mr. Trump.
57
I will back Gerson's opinion and add some specifics. A study of protestant religious magazines and newspapers found that until 1979 the most common social theme was that you should never trust, accept socially, or vote for someone who had been divorced. In 1979 those articles stopped as a divorced serial liar who pandered to racism ran for President. The editors simply realized that Reagan was where their bread got buttered. Same with Trump, whose wives and mistresses (and his grabbing of unwilling women's private parts) some commentators had naively thought would make him less popular with the "religious" right. Millions of them, men and women, do not abhor such behavior. They aspire to it.
Not unrelated is that Scaramucci's wife has filed for divorce and not for vague "irreconcilable differences". He actually claims publicly to be a Roman Catholic but to hear his wife tell it he's another Trump.
Not unrelated is that Scaramucci's wife has filed for divorce and not for vague "irreconcilable differences". He actually claims publicly to be a Roman Catholic but to hear his wife tell it he's another Trump.
3
Do you have a citation for the article you reference? The publications included and the data collected for the study would be interesting.
Much of what we saw in 1968 was outrage due to an unwinnable war that was continued through lies (another 20,000 young draftees and victory is in sight). I am not defending all the actions of all the demonstrators but I can understand their anger at a system driving an unpopular and immoral war. In my opinion, history (and McNamara's memoirs) has proven them to be on the right side.
What is reason behind the current Republican outrage? Health care being provided to the less fortunate? The desire for a lower tax rate for the donor class (while their current tax rate on investment income is well below the tax rate the middle class pays)? The belief that Christians should have the right to impose their beliefs on the entire country and discriminate against those who don't believe what they do? The press catching the president in lies? Someone in the White House who wants a transparent government is talking to the press? That seems to the source of their outrage that justifies this behavior. As Donald would say - Sad.
What is reason behind the current Republican outrage? Health care being provided to the less fortunate? The desire for a lower tax rate for the donor class (while their current tax rate on investment income is well below the tax rate the middle class pays)? The belief that Christians should have the right to impose their beliefs on the entire country and discriminate against those who don't believe what they do? The press catching the president in lies? Someone in the White House who wants a transparent government is talking to the press? That seems to the source of their outrage that justifies this behavior. As Donald would say - Sad.
59
Thank you, Jan Winters! So very well put.
5
It is not just the vulgarities being employed today, it is the utter lack of respect in evidence within every corner of society. And the media is contributing in no small way by publishing it. Surely there are some limits. Start by beeping out unacceptable words and phrases and perhaps, just perhaps the users of such language will get the message.
5
Mariposa841: mostly I agree with you, but the public had to know exactly what Mini Me was thinking and those words conveyed it completely.
26
Reporting the exact language of "The Mooch" and publishing it in a general interest newspaper was an act of courage. You can't clean up a pile of dog poop by covering it with whipped cream.
Long ago, many in the nation were shocked by what was then considered depressive vulgarity of the Nixon administration. The transcripts of tapes provoked a nation to ask, "Does a president really speak this way?" Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, said the publisher of the Washington Post would have her breast "in a wringer" if the paper persisted in publishing stories about the Watergate cover-up.
How quaint. Nixon's attorney general sounds like a Boy Scout compared to the gutter vulgarity and ugly imagery contained in Scaramucci's spontaneously combustive interview with the New Yorker. This language and the thoughts behind it are disturbing, but we must know the bare truth.
I hope all the evangelical ministers who are sitting on the Trump bandwagon will go before their congregations this Sunday and explain why they still support Trump and Trumpism. If they can't explain and encapsulate these events into their belief in Trump, they make themselves into phony symbols who can't face what they have encouraged the nation to become.
Long ago, many in the nation were shocked by what was then considered depressive vulgarity of the Nixon administration. The transcripts of tapes provoked a nation to ask, "Does a president really speak this way?" Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, said the publisher of the Washington Post would have her breast "in a wringer" if the paper persisted in publishing stories about the Watergate cover-up.
How quaint. Nixon's attorney general sounds like a Boy Scout compared to the gutter vulgarity and ugly imagery contained in Scaramucci's spontaneously combustive interview with the New Yorker. This language and the thoughts behind it are disturbing, but we must know the bare truth.
I hope all the evangelical ministers who are sitting on the Trump bandwagon will go before their congregations this Sunday and explain why they still support Trump and Trumpism. If they can't explain and encapsulate these events into their belief in Trump, they make themselves into phony symbols who can't face what they have encouraged the nation to become.
442
Mariposa841
I disagree.
trump and the "mooch" will not get this or any other message because they are simply not concerned with what others think.
trump and the "mooch" should be quoted in full each and every time no matter what foul and disgusting language they use.
Their words should not be "sanitized."
The world must see and hear exactly who they are and what they stand for.
Those who supported trump must be challenged by using those quotes and asking whether this is what they voted for and do they still support this man.
A man who has no ethics, no honor and no decency and hasn't any ideas on how to govern.
I disagree.
trump and the "mooch" will not get this or any other message because they are simply not concerned with what others think.
trump and the "mooch" should be quoted in full each and every time no matter what foul and disgusting language they use.
Their words should not be "sanitized."
The world must see and hear exactly who they are and what they stand for.
Those who supported trump must be challenged by using those quotes and asking whether this is what they voted for and do they still support this man.
A man who has no ethics, no honor and no decency and hasn't any ideas on how to govern.
26
not so much embraced as inured...standards do not maintain themselves, they are maintained by those who value them (just as they are subverted by those who benefit from the confusion and division that comes from the disorder/disorientation attendant)...maintenance is often more demanding than mere objection...there is risk, certainly of attack and pressures created by conflict, but if the risks are not taken, the decline is, in effect, endorsed...better to keep silent than to risk ridicule or censure from going against a tide.
bottom line: we resist (no, throwing bricks is not resistance its vandalism, more decline) or we adjust, and adjustment, past a point, is concession, and, lo, there we are...our tasks over the last decades, civil rights, tax reform, the very health of the nation, medically and politically, obscured or made more difficult by the distractions of increasingly uncivil exchange (debate nullified) and the catalog of alienating side effects that follow.
remedy? maybe a little less gotcha and a little more reflection, critical thought...those who dismissed "the clown" had as much to do with his election (and the inevitable ascendance of vulgarity, now, with the scaramucci screeds, clear even to the clueless) as those who voted for him, just as those who went along with the political assassination of bernie by debbie and the DNC are complicit in "lowering the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct."
if you hear/see something say something.
bottom line: we resist (no, throwing bricks is not resistance its vandalism, more decline) or we adjust, and adjustment, past a point, is concession, and, lo, there we are...our tasks over the last decades, civil rights, tax reform, the very health of the nation, medically and politically, obscured or made more difficult by the distractions of increasingly uncivil exchange (debate nullified) and the catalog of alienating side effects that follow.
remedy? maybe a little less gotcha and a little more reflection, critical thought...those who dismissed "the clown" had as much to do with his election (and the inevitable ascendance of vulgarity, now, with the scaramucci screeds, clear even to the clueless) as those who voted for him, just as those who went along with the political assassination of bernie by debbie and the DNC are complicit in "lowering the barriers of acceptable political and personal conduct."
if you hear/see something say something.
8
An interesting parallel. So it was the original sin of the Vietnam War protesters that have enabled a political culture that would feel at home in Dante's inferno. To think what a president Hubert Humphrey would have been...
5
Not a small part of the incident in Chicago falls on the mayor of Chicago at the time: Daley.
1
Or, what a president Gene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy would have been!
1
During the primaries a great many Republicans voiced strong displeasure with Trump's crudeness and immoral, irreligious behavior.
There's been so much water under the bridge since then that it's hard to remember that but think back to things like Trump's insulting of Cruz's wife.
He obviously has his supporters and they were able to push him through, much to the chagrin of many in the GOP. But now that his presence in the White House is a fact, they are prepared to make the most of the situation and use the power to push through as much of their agenda as they can. I'm sure a lot of them would be perfectly happy to see Trump fade away and have Pence in his place.
There's been so much water under the bridge since then that it's hard to remember that but think back to things like Trump's insulting of Cruz's wife.
He obviously has his supporters and they were able to push him through, much to the chagrin of many in the GOP. But now that his presence in the White House is a fact, they are prepared to make the most of the situation and use the power to push through as much of their agenda as they can. I'm sure a lot of them would be perfectly happy to see Trump fade away and have Pence in his place.
9
Right on target. Seen from Europe, it is a disaster. As usual, the wave should reach us soon. Democracy and respect for democracy are in jeopardy worldwide because of those postures.
15
The problem with Trump is not so much Trump himself, in spite of how disgusting and unfit he is.
The problem with Trump is the people who support him. They make it OK for him to be disgusting and to be in office despite being unfit. And they will keep holding America back for decades to come.
The problem with Trump is the people who support him. They make it OK for him to be disgusting and to be in office despite being unfit. And they will keep holding America back for decades to come.
68
Trump alone is not a Constitutional crisis. The acceptance and support of his illegal bad behavior by Republicans in Congress (and the mob that elects them and Trump), THAT is a Constitutional crisis.
Stephens' comparison of the 1968 Convention and the Republican adoption of Donald Trump is a case of profound historical ignorance.
After 1964 US escalations of US involvement became better known, understood, and criticized by the American people. The Gulf of Tonkin incidents which precipitated the Resolution which expanded the War never happened. It was a big lie by President Johnson. Johnson launched a full scale war on this phony basis. It wasn't known at the time that he had lied about the attacks, but people had a basis for not trusting him and they didn't. The US was known by President Johnson to be incapable of winning the war, yet it went on and on. The US was killing thousands and thousands of the "enemy" who did not threaten us, as the US wrecked the country of Vietnam. Yes, the 68 convention was violent. The government had suffered a loss of credibility far worse than what happened in 2016 during the Obama Administration, where the President was an honest and modest and capable man obstructed once again by evil Republicans.
After 1964 US escalations of US involvement became better known, understood, and criticized by the American people. The Gulf of Tonkin incidents which precipitated the Resolution which expanded the War never happened. It was a big lie by President Johnson. Johnson launched a full scale war on this phony basis. It wasn't known at the time that he had lied about the attacks, but people had a basis for not trusting him and they didn't. The US was known by President Johnson to be incapable of winning the war, yet it went on and on. The US was killing thousands and thousands of the "enemy" who did not threaten us, as the US wrecked the country of Vietnam. Yes, the 68 convention was violent. The government had suffered a loss of credibility far worse than what happened in 2016 during the Obama Administration, where the President was an honest and modest and capable man obstructed once again by evil Republicans.
29
Good column. Interesting parallel. The difference, the media. The media, major outlets, came to support the revolutionaries. Oppose the war and so on. Today, except for Fox and a few radio shows, the entire media is focused on over throwing this new band of insurgents. The unfairness of this media will make the forces of reaction more bitter, more intractable. So, it isn't gonna get better. And, if the media succeeds in toppling Trump........
If the media succeeds in toppling Trump....oh, dear God, I can only hope and pray!!!!! The press is all we have protecting this country right now, and I sure do not mean FOX and Friends!
3
What's beginning to bother me the most about this' No Guardrails' Presidency is how comfortable Trump appears these days, compared to when he first took office. Time is on his side and he knows this, coupled with the notion his presidency is a work in progress. And it appears he's figuring things out, which buttons to push, and he's getting pretty good at timing things. For example, in just a few days this week, he's managed to keep the media from mentioning Russian Collusion, Donald Jr.'s damaging e-mails, and son-in-law Kushner's hearing testimony. This guy's no fool. And as I've Commented several times before, Be careful of things that go Trump in the night.
14
I am thinking of the picture that was circulating not so long ago, of
conservative "Christian" leaders "praying" over DJT. DJT reportedly loves Scaramucci's behavior. Do those "religious" leaders feel any qualms at all for selling their values, morals, and principles so cheaply? Do they quail, even just a little, at the vile, vicious, corrupt behavior they have embraced and condoned? My own conservative religious Trump-supporting friends are very quiet right now. They have not disavowed him; but surely their hypocrisy is tasting very sour in their mouths now.
conservative "Christian" leaders "praying" over DJT. DJT reportedly loves Scaramucci's behavior. Do those "religious" leaders feel any qualms at all for selling their values, morals, and principles so cheaply? Do they quail, even just a little, at the vile, vicious, corrupt behavior they have embraced and condoned? My own conservative religious Trump-supporting friends are very quiet right now. They have not disavowed him; but surely their hypocrisy is tasting very sour in their mouths now.
41
The religious right reeks of hypocrisy. Sanctimony has been a marketing tool for viewed racism. hatred and a viciousness that permeates the right. We are are divided country and democracy is likely to be doomed.
6
Those conservative Christian leaders have no values. They don't care about health care unless it involves unborn fetuses or the already dead kept alive on "life" support.
They don't care about the handicapped, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, even though Jesus talks about these people in the gospel of Matthew and Luke. Simply those conservative Christian leaders and NOT Christian.
They don't care about the handicapped, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, even though Jesus talks about these people in the gospel of Matthew and Luke. Simply those conservative Christian leaders and NOT Christian.
2
Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote that ends can never justify means, because the means you employ invariably shape the ends you choose to seek. Conservative evangelicals have long since made their faustian bargain in order to gain access to the levers of political power. They forget that the original rendering of the tale ends with Faust being irredeemably corrupted and carried off to hell.
4
About four fifths of evangelical Christians voted for trump. By all accounts I've read they seem to approve (or certainly accept) the trump attitude exemplified by the Scarimucci rant, which is universally emblematic of trump and his attitude toward those he deems "weak".
In the past, evangelicals at least tried to present some moral conviction -- but not anymore.
Either evangelical Christianity in America understands nothing of the New Testament, or evangelical Christianity has completely shed any pretense of being anything but a political and cultural movement.
Of course both can be true ...
I'm disgusted and unwilling any longer to allow anybody call me a Christian, lest I be conflated with this bunch. My faith has been stolen.
Much, much worse than sad.
In the past, evangelicals at least tried to present some moral conviction -- but not anymore.
Either evangelical Christianity in America understands nothing of the New Testament, or evangelical Christianity has completely shed any pretense of being anything but a political and cultural movement.
Of course both can be true ...
I'm disgusted and unwilling any longer to allow anybody call me a Christian, lest I be conflated with this bunch. My faith has been stolen.
Much, much worse than sad.
26
The evangelicals don't want their children to be like Scaramucci. They want vouchers so their children won't be schooled with the vulgar mob.
1
In my mind, the vulgarity and disregard of truth that epitomizes Trump and his base are the fruits of a Republican Party hijacked by nihilism. It is not a Conservative party, but simply has adopted certain pro business policy positions that allow it to remain in its oligarchic power. I fancy myself to be a true conservative because I believe that the most important job of our country is to raise virtuous citizens. This requires many things but one important requirement is a country filled with strong local economies. Republicans claim they care about virtue because they want to keep people from government dependency, but in fact they don't oppose dependency at all. They simply wish to substitute the dependency to their donors in the form of dependency on global corporations for jobs and allowing big corporations to invade every community. They do nothing and care nothing about doing what it would take to make independent, prudent and strong citizens. It's not even on their radar. So the blame for the most vulgar and unvirtuous president imaginable can't be placed solely on "the summer of love" or an indecent entertainment industry. Two scoops of blame goes to the conservatives for creating the conditions that allowed vulgarity to reign.
14
The Wall Street Journal editorial is nonsensical, though it does have the virtue of locating a turning point. In 1968, the racial voting patterns of the modern US were set. Before, then, white Americans tended to vote Republican or Democrat equally. By 1968, and in the wake of various race riots and other signs that African Americans were pushing back against their abuse, white Americans began voting GOP en masse. The subsequent "southern strategy," the idolization of "small government" and "low taxes" that were rooted in racial politics, set the groundwork for the disintegration of the GOP into a party of know-nothings and fanatics who are driven more by brainless ideology and resentment more than anything else. Trump is a know-nothing who feeds on resentment; interestingly, he advocates some policies that break with the GOP established party line, though he is so incompetent that he is really just doing what the establishment wants and doing very little to pursue his own incoherent agenda. But Trump is the product of a process of dumbing down and feeding resentment that started in 1968 with white Americans. It has nothing to do with "losing virtues" that never existed or which were used to oppress others. And the WSJ's effort to blame intellectuals for American decline is bizarre. If anything, the move to the radical right in American politics has shown that intellectuals have relatively little influence in the country.
28
If 1968 marked a turn toward lasting "moral chaos," it wasn't protesters or professors who should bear the greatest blame, but the cynical and, yes, immoral leaders who prosecuted the Vietnam War. Next came Richard M. Nixon, and the tapes that captured his true character, giving Americans their first clear idea of who our leaders might be when they are really being themselves. Nor does Mr. Stephens mention how cocaine, amphetamines and opiates have plagued the nation since the 1970s. The addiction spiral has coincided with economic polices that undermine many, if not most, families by denying them a fair share in America's prosperity. Meanwhile, increasingly out-of-touch leaders generally have used the stock market, GNP, and their donors' interests as the North Stars of domestic policy, rather than trying to fulfill their constitutional mandate to "promote the general welfare." This piece would have been much stronger had it reckoned with Vietnam, Nixon, drugs and economic schism as morally corrosive forces. Also, in a column lamenting the state of our collective character, it's odd not to have credited Barack and Michelle Obama with upholding a truly presidential tone of public grace and dignity. What Obama got in return from his most influential opponents was hysterical disparagement and personal villification. That's the surest evidence that "moral chaos," or at least a shameful lack of comity and respect, now define public life in America.
25
The generals lied to LBJ and LBJ lied to us.
2
I could not agree more that the Trump administration is "the most morally grotesque . . . in American history." But to my jaundiced eye, Stephens' theories are based on false premises.
Conservatives have no corner on vulgar language. Listen in to any private conversation of either conservatives or liberals and you may well hear it flowing like water. The difference is that we have a president who, along with his new mini-me sidekick, has no compunction against letting it out in public and that a big swath of the American population finds that "authentic." Whether by design or just dumb luck, Trump tapped into the mindset of a larger group of our citizenry than I ever dreamed existed--those who apparently believe everyone is a Lord of the Flies schoolboy at heart and who resent the "elite" for trying to cover it up.
Stephens also presupposes that those on the right who have bemoaned the decline of moral values actually have moral spines. I will grant you that many do, but as one born, raised and steeped in Southern Baptist hypocrisy, I know that for every one of the truly upright, there are at least two who wear their self-righteousness as a cover for deep-seated bigotry.
So the question for me is not how a supposedly "moral" party embraced the immorality of Donald Trump, but rather whether there are any grownups out there who can rescue our country from the screaming schoolboys now their basest instincts have been "presidentially" validated.
Conservatives have no corner on vulgar language. Listen in to any private conversation of either conservatives or liberals and you may well hear it flowing like water. The difference is that we have a president who, along with his new mini-me sidekick, has no compunction against letting it out in public and that a big swath of the American population finds that "authentic." Whether by design or just dumb luck, Trump tapped into the mindset of a larger group of our citizenry than I ever dreamed existed--those who apparently believe everyone is a Lord of the Flies schoolboy at heart and who resent the "elite" for trying to cover it up.
Stephens also presupposes that those on the right who have bemoaned the decline of moral values actually have moral spines. I will grant you that many do, but as one born, raised and steeped in Southern Baptist hypocrisy, I know that for every one of the truly upright, there are at least two who wear their self-righteousness as a cover for deep-seated bigotry.
So the question for me is not how a supposedly "moral" party embraced the immorality of Donald Trump, but rather whether there are any grownups out there who can rescue our country from the screaming schoolboys now their basest instincts have been "presidentially" validated.
19
Really, conservatives make me laugh. No matter what they mess up, no matter how many decades go by, the problem is always "1968." What's the problem? Richard Nixon was elected in 1968. Since then you've had Ford, Reagan, Bushes I-II. In the 50 years since 1968, Republicans have held the White House for 30 of those years.
No, the basic problem is increasingly egregious Republican violations of social and political norms ever since 1968. Norm violations include Nixon's people and their break-ins and cover-ups; Reagan's encouraging people to believe that greed is good and government is bad; Lee Atwater's ads for Bush I; a war based on misinformation (Bush II); Gingrich/Tea Party gridlock; Wall Street Reaganomics types handing themselves big bonuses a few weeks after taxpayers bailed them out; and the McConnell-led Republicans' unconscionable, Constitution-busting refusal to meet with Merrick Garland. All of these violations of norms paved the way for what you see before you now. To blame what you see before you now on VietNam war protesters is just an exercise in the surreal.
No, the basic problem is increasingly egregious Republican violations of social and political norms ever since 1968. Norm violations include Nixon's people and their break-ins and cover-ups; Reagan's encouraging people to believe that greed is good and government is bad; Lee Atwater's ads for Bush I; a war based on misinformation (Bush II); Gingrich/Tea Party gridlock; Wall Street Reaganomics types handing themselves big bonuses a few weeks after taxpayers bailed them out; and the McConnell-led Republicans' unconscionable, Constitution-busting refusal to meet with Merrick Garland. All of these violations of norms paved the way for what you see before you now. To blame what you see before you now on VietNam war protesters is just an exercise in the surreal.
99
ps overthe rainbow, you are sooooo right! I am 76, and I totally agree with everything you wrote! Now that we are in such a dangerous mess, the good citizens of America must hit this guy like a swarm of bees over his conduct, and we must force our right-wing media back towards decency and away from lies, rudeness and brainwashing. If only Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley were still around, they would be attacking these media brainwashers with all they could muster!
2
We no longer strive to strive toward such things as make us proud of our government, our democracy. Equality for all, fairness in taxation, freedom for others, voting for all. At best these are rallying cries for political advantage, but they are not advanced in our politics. So often Trump said the right thing, and smiled as he saw the lie swallowed whole. We would strive for goodness again, but our leader and his staff thrive only in a locker room filled with the viagra of their own performance.
2
It strikes me as perverse to equate the civil rights protesters and opponents of the Vietnam war with the Trumpistas. Some members of that earlier generation did violate the principles they claimed to champion, but their extremism still originated in a deep hostility to racism and militarism. Many of those who lost touch with the goals of the protest movement eventually reconciled with their society and went on to lead productive lives.
Those Trumpistas, on the other hand, who identify with the vicious outlook of their leader, subscribe to values that are incompatible with the inclusive democratic principles that most Americans revere. In Trump, this segment of the coalition who supported him see a man who represents a stunted vision of America as a country unconcerned with the fate of the rest of the world and contemptuous of its own history as a nation of immigrants.
Some of the radicals of the 60s lost their way, at least temporarily, because they adhered to an extreme version of the democratic ideals on which the country was founded. But the true believers among Trump's followers have not lost their way. They see the world as a hostile place, in which ethnic and religious minorities threaten to displace them from their legitimate position of dominance. Trump panders to their insecurities, and so they mistake this consummate charlatan for their great white hope.
Those Trumpistas, on the other hand, who identify with the vicious outlook of their leader, subscribe to values that are incompatible with the inclusive democratic principles that most Americans revere. In Trump, this segment of the coalition who supported him see a man who represents a stunted vision of America as a country unconcerned with the fate of the rest of the world and contemptuous of its own history as a nation of immigrants.
Some of the radicals of the 60s lost their way, at least temporarily, because they adhered to an extreme version of the democratic ideals on which the country was founded. But the true believers among Trump's followers have not lost their way. They see the world as a hostile place, in which ethnic and religious minorities threaten to displace them from their legitimate position of dominance. Trump panders to their insecurities, and so they mistake this consummate charlatan for their great white hope.
13
May I propose the end of the 60s zeitgeist (anti-business and anti-authoritarian) and the concurrent rise of Business as the dominant social/cultural ideology, circa end of 70's and thereafter. The predominance of Business as an all encompassing social philosophy (when did the weekend gross of the latest Hollywood offering become as important as the film?) has (mis)shaped our values and led to a worship money and power, the acquisition of which seems to suffer little real ethical examination.
9
IMHO, you are so right.
I agree to some extent with Mr. Stephens to a large degree and admit to being part of the problem.
In 1968 when people were out protesting against the war in Vietnam we felt we are up against "The Establishment". Perhaps in my case it was just adolescent rebellion of a spoiled white kid against his parents and anyone else who I saw as authority. One of the weapons we used in this ridiculous charade was language. Using words that shocked and horrified my parents and vice-princpal felt like I was scoring points.
From a perspective of fifty years it was all nonsense , but using foul language becomes habitual and it became more widespread so as my generation became the "establishment" we brought our foul mouths with us.
Now I think about what words I use, and if foul language is the lexicon of the world of Trump I do not want any part of it going forward.
in the immortal words of Pogo " We have met the enemy and he is us"
In 1968 when people were out protesting against the war in Vietnam we felt we are up against "The Establishment". Perhaps in my case it was just adolescent rebellion of a spoiled white kid against his parents and anyone else who I saw as authority. One of the weapons we used in this ridiculous charade was language. Using words that shocked and horrified my parents and vice-princpal felt like I was scoring points.
From a perspective of fifty years it was all nonsense , but using foul language becomes habitual and it became more widespread so as my generation became the "establishment" we brought our foul mouths with us.
Now I think about what words I use, and if foul language is the lexicon of the world of Trump I do not want any part of it going forward.
in the immortal words of Pogo " We have met the enemy and he is us"
3
These are well articulated and fair points, but the author has forgotten the underlying fact that we are making America great again. What kind of "great" you ask?
America has never been greater at embarrassing herself on the world stage.
America has never been greater at finger pointing.
America has never been greater at exposing her midriff, much to the chagrin of the decent folks duped into thinking a gilded billionaire from New York cares about them - even a little.
Please let me know when making excuses and burying our heads in sand will right this ship.
America has never been greater at embarrassing herself on the world stage.
America has never been greater at finger pointing.
America has never been greater at exposing her midriff, much to the chagrin of the decent folks duped into thinking a gilded billionaire from New York cares about them - even a little.
Please let me know when making excuses and burying our heads in sand will right this ship.
5
Oh, please! On Election Day, we all had a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Many conservatives chose Trump-some of us eagerly and some of us holding our noses. There was no vote for "vulgarity" as Mr. Stephens so dramatically puts it. Statements like that seem childish and naive. One must choose the least bad option and that was definitely Donald Trump.
Trump has given us Justice Neil Gorsuch, strong and effective immigration enforcement, certainty in Second Amendment protections, and a move away from self-defeating global agreements such as the Paris Accord. If there's some chaos and vulgarity mixed in there, oh well. Had HRC been elected, conservatives would have none of the above. None. You keep carping and looking for Mr. or Ms. perfect. Meanwhile, I'll be shouting 'four more years' in a few years' time.
Trump has given us Justice Neil Gorsuch, strong and effective immigration enforcement, certainty in Second Amendment protections, and a move away from self-defeating global agreements such as the Paris Accord. If there's some chaos and vulgarity mixed in there, oh well. Had HRC been elected, conservatives would have none of the above. None. You keep carping and looking for Mr. or Ms. perfect. Meanwhile, I'll be shouting 'four more years' in a few years' time.
'Vulgar' is generally assumed, as it is in this piece, to imply something like 'offensive', especially when swearing is involved. But the Latin root signifies 'of the people'. Put them both together, and I think the Trump phenomenon does become a little more legible.
Vulgarity and obscenity are unleashed and protected by that most cherished pillar of American civilization -- the First Amendment. Yes, you can say anything you want and get away with it because it's almost a sacred act. But allowances on paper still have to be respected in practice. They aren't. Trump isn't the cause of the betrayal of the First Amendment. He's the culmination. This is why people have to be the guardians of civil discourse -- not simply amendments.
1
The constaints on vulgarity cannot be made by government. It must be made by us by what we allow or disallow in our daily lives.
1
Mr. Stephens, your attempt to blame the current profane language and behavior of Mr. Trump and his minions is a most bizarre attempt at false equivalency.
The protests of the 1960's were a legitimate effort to get the government to listen to the people. The Viet Nam War and desegregation were valid and worthwhile goals, supported by a significant portion of the populace, both young and old.
Almost all of the violence that occurred as a result of these protests were either initiated by the establishment or due to extreme frustration with the establishment's failure to address the problems.
At the 1968 Democratic Convention, it was the police that created the conditions for violence and initiated much of it.
At Kent State, the National Guard actually killed two protesters. Shot them. Dead. For protesting an indefensible war.
Martin Luther King, who preached nonviolence, was assassinated by a white supremacist.
The protests were generally civil. Most were nonviolent. It was the behavior of the establishment that was profane.
On the other hand, the profanity emanating from Trump and those around him is astonishing in its nastiness and offensiveness.
And yes, the so-called Republican intelligentsia (an oxymoron if there ever was one) stands by silently. Republican politicians, pundits, journalists all make excuses. While Trump unravels all that America stands for.
Place the blame where it is due.
Look in the mirror.
Then resist everything Trump.
Please.
The protests of the 1960's were a legitimate effort to get the government to listen to the people. The Viet Nam War and desegregation were valid and worthwhile goals, supported by a significant portion of the populace, both young and old.
Almost all of the violence that occurred as a result of these protests were either initiated by the establishment or due to extreme frustration with the establishment's failure to address the problems.
At the 1968 Democratic Convention, it was the police that created the conditions for violence and initiated much of it.
At Kent State, the National Guard actually killed two protesters. Shot them. Dead. For protesting an indefensible war.
Martin Luther King, who preached nonviolence, was assassinated by a white supremacist.
The protests were generally civil. Most were nonviolent. It was the behavior of the establishment that was profane.
On the other hand, the profanity emanating from Trump and those around him is astonishing in its nastiness and offensiveness.
And yes, the so-called Republican intelligentsia (an oxymoron if there ever was one) stands by silently. Republican politicians, pundits, journalists all make excuses. While Trump unravels all that America stands for.
Place the blame where it is due.
Look in the mirror.
Then resist everything Trump.
Please.
15
At Kent State 4 students were killed.
4
I admire the use of "Antinomians." Beyond that, it's mildly heartening to read two right wingers, Stephens and Douthat, bash Trump within 24 hours of each other. One sour note, Brett. What makes you think Trump supporters can engage in thought exercises?
4
Bret:
Although I agree with your assessment of the current administration and the general morphing of our culture into vulgarity, it's inception is in dispute. My recollection of the sixties, although a time of tremendous upheaval, was not the precursor to our current state of chaos. That era was born of sociological turmoil brought on by long brewing forces. Viet Nam, the civil rights movement, women's rights, environmental concerns, a questioning of our corporate ethics, assassinations of King and the Kennedys etc, were major all protagonists. You seem to imply that college intellectuals were at the root as articulated by the WSJ OpEd. They were only symptoms of the remarkable social changes already imploding.
As for Trump and the conservative movement, they were incubated by cable news, talk radio and undoubtedly by economic forces changing the nature of work in our society. It's easy to fan the flames of despair and create straw men as the culprit when people are hurting. That is what the conservative movement has become. An opposition movement to anything.
Although I agree with your assessment of the current administration and the general morphing of our culture into vulgarity, it's inception is in dispute. My recollection of the sixties, although a time of tremendous upheaval, was not the precursor to our current state of chaos. That era was born of sociological turmoil brought on by long brewing forces. Viet Nam, the civil rights movement, women's rights, environmental concerns, a questioning of our corporate ethics, assassinations of King and the Kennedys etc, were major all protagonists. You seem to imply that college intellectuals were at the root as articulated by the WSJ OpEd. They were only symptoms of the remarkable social changes already imploding.
As for Trump and the conservative movement, they were incubated by cable news, talk radio and undoubtedly by economic forces changing the nature of work in our society. It's easy to fan the flames of despair and create straw men as the culprit when people are hurting. That is what the conservative movement has become. An opposition movement to anything.
37
Let me hazard a partial answer to your question, "how did conservatives of all people let this happen?"
It's because they are American conservatives, something that has always been self-contradictory. America was born in a revolution and was devoted from the beginning to capitalism (the most disruptive and revolutionary principle in world history). Its distinctive culture was formed in the rough-and-tumble world of the frontier, where life was tough and manners correspondingly rough.
Its religion was Christian, to be sure, but less the civilizing love-your-neighbor brand than the fiery Old-Testament version that allowed every Bible reader to substitute the word money for God if they were so inclined. It was religion, after all, born in "protest" and committed to the proposition that salvation is for individuals and not for communities or whole peoples.
Where in any of this was there something moderating and formative to "conserve"? America was always a proudly vulgar land, where the real principle of law and order is understood as the right to carry a gun.
As for conservative intellectuals of late, they have primarily been students of Leo Strauss who made it clear that a conservative is one who believes in Macchiavell and Hobbes while pretending to believe in Plato and Christ.
So why expect anything more than what we finally got, the empowerment of what has always been the ugly side of the national character?
It's because they are American conservatives, something that has always been self-contradictory. America was born in a revolution and was devoted from the beginning to capitalism (the most disruptive and revolutionary principle in world history). Its distinctive culture was formed in the rough-and-tumble world of the frontier, where life was tough and manners correspondingly rough.
Its religion was Christian, to be sure, but less the civilizing love-your-neighbor brand than the fiery Old-Testament version that allowed every Bible reader to substitute the word money for God if they were so inclined. It was religion, after all, born in "protest" and committed to the proposition that salvation is for individuals and not for communities or whole peoples.
Where in any of this was there something moderating and formative to "conserve"? America was always a proudly vulgar land, where the real principle of law and order is understood as the right to carry a gun.
As for conservative intellectuals of late, they have primarily been students of Leo Strauss who made it clear that a conservative is one who believes in Macchiavell and Hobbes while pretending to believe in Plato and Christ.
So why expect anything more than what we finally got, the empowerment of what has always been the ugly side of the national character?
53
Your perspective is one I share and have longed believed exposes the American narrative of exceptionalism as an unsustainable myth.
6
Precisely. Any expression of surprise at a supposed contradiction in conservatives' embrace of open crudeness is either naive or disingenuous.
3
@ Joseph P Lawerence, thank you for a cogent perspective.
Brothers and sisters of the World please keep contributing your perspective on the USA's dire situation. Your words are helpful and confirming for millions and millions of us in the US that we are not crazy. Thank you
Brothers and sisters of the World please keep contributing your perspective on the USA's dire situation. Your words are helpful and confirming for millions and millions of us in the US that we are not crazy. Thank you
1
The greatest danger posed by Trump's presidency is the destruction of public faith in our government. Other nation's have Constitutions comparable to ours. Dictatorships and corruption flourish in these "democracies."
The difference has been that Americans believe and obey the norms of our government. We trust that our leaders will have the integrity to play by the rules. Trump's flaunting of these norms and his willingness to ignore ethical boundaries corrode that faith.
Trump's followers seem unconcerned about these ethical violations. Unless something is done to curb Trump's self-serving personal finances, nepotism and despotic behavior, the rest of us will come to believe we too now live in a Banana Republic. From there, our slide downward is inevitable.
The difference has been that Americans believe and obey the norms of our government. We trust that our leaders will have the integrity to play by the rules. Trump's flaunting of these norms and his willingness to ignore ethical boundaries corrode that faith.
Trump's followers seem unconcerned about these ethical violations. Unless something is done to curb Trump's self-serving personal finances, nepotism and despotic behavior, the rest of us will come to believe we too now live in a Banana Republic. From there, our slide downward is inevitable.
36
Interesting allusion to some sort of historical progression. That allusion is perhaps an illusion. We should look at what the disappeared "guardrails" were/are. For example, but not exclusively, the 60's phenomenon were a reaction to conservatism that perpetuated a culture of racism, sexism, corporate greed and an autocratic tone embodied by people like Nixon. Today, the disregarded guard rails are the ones put in place by those earlier movements pushing toward progress and inclusion. Trump is the embodiment of resentments harbored by those who were the historic losers in the culture wars, attempting to turn-back the hands of time to the more romantic periods of American Constitutional malpractice.
24