Wonder if you ever listened to Bee's analyses? ... She is seldom wrong. The real obscenity is Fox, which seldom correct.
1
"Obama-era politicization of pop culture"? Do you even remember George W. Bush? Jon Stewart? Blaming everything you don't like on Obama is what Trump does. Your entire column just degenerated into actual fake news.
Moral superiority is the source of progressive elitism. Past Republicans couldn't challenge this flimsy foundation because progressive media institutions would shame them into submission and, quite frankly, establishment Republicans feel morally superior too so they don't bother trying. Shame doesn't stop Trump though. He's immoral and doesn't hide his flaws. Progressives do.
Trump, in Hollywood anti-hero fashion, unmasks his enemies and exposes them as intolerant frauds; just like him. He will bully back, fight dirty, and yes - lie. And he's winning. Bigly.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that TBS didn't fire Samantha Bee after she used a vulgar obscenity on the air to describe Ivanka Trump. To add insult to injury Samantha Bee further taunted Ivanka Trump by suggesting she wear tight fitting clothes and engage in an incestuous relationship with her father in order to change his policy on immigration. But, thanks to Bee's stellar liberal credentials the rest of the Hollywood liberals promptly circled the wagons around her. (Shame on Sally Field who I thought was above this sort of pettiness. But Sally Field is nothing but a washed up has been who hasn't done anything significant since Forrest Gump). A hypocritical canned apology written by the TBS legal department isn't going to change Samantha Bee's contempt for Ivanka Trump. She'll probably back off for a while until the coast is clear before launching another barrage of insults at her prey.
Congratulations Ms Bee. You got away with being vulgar.
2
Oh the irony. Perhaps you haven't been to a Trump rally, Ross. They sell merchandise calling Clinton the "c" word.
"
I have a confession to make.
Whenever I hear or see a conservative woman the "C" word floats into my consciousness, and with Ann Coulter much worse.
What's the problem here, the subject or it's object? Do I, the subject, need to do better, seek treatment, or does the object.
1
NOOOOOOOO. Trump voters couldn't care less that he or any of these others are celebrities. And that assertion is just another example of why we voted him in and THEM OUT.
Please get out. Of your own head. Of town once in awhile. Of our lives until then.
#kag
Maybe Ross has been perusing The A.V. Club, avclub.com, a Millennial and younger pop culture site. Besides the movies, music, other features and the reader comments, there's plenty to glean as to where much of this generation is regarding this particular part of America is concerned. As reader Paul observed, they certainly "understand Pop Culture and the way it is being used by today’s politicos, and they are not buying it." As an old Boomer with a lifelong interest in our pop culture history since 1945, and having lived through the cultural quakes of the 1960s, I suggest that folks may find much of A.V. Club rather enlightening..
John Stewart was hailed by the MSM as the critical voice of our time, a modern Will Rogers - but the size of his actual audience was small in relation to the American population. The echo chamber of the Left constantly tries to impose their personal favorites on all of America, hence the disconnect from many in suburban and rural America.
1
I did not agree with Samantha Bee's decision to apologize, given the disagreeable policies of this administration combined with the fact that Trump has never apologized for his horrible comments and tweets. The real double standard in this country is that anybody is forced to apologize for anything while Trump stays in the WH. The office where the standard should be the highest is apparently the one where there are no standards.
I also found, however, one thing to agree on with Douthat. If liberals and Democrats think that they will topple Trump and his allies with the aid of late night comedians and their pointless, nightly Trump routines, I might as well pack my bags and get out because this is not going to work. I observe with some alarm that the Democrats or the hyped up "resistance" do not appear to have any coherent national strategy for the midterms and the cable channels are giving zero airtime to opposition politicians because they prefer covering Trump's antics.
Agree it is wrong to lay the blame for what we see on Trump. He deserves some credit for driving a wedge into societal fissures. The greater shame is his lack of a unifying message, his self-indulgent attitude. The country elected a man void of principle. In my lifetime spanning 74 years and following elections since 1960 that is not happened. Trump is unique for the wrong reason .
Oh Ross!
That's a tired old dog that didn't hunt when you first uttered it and doesn't hunt today. Sam Bee didn't get Trump elected any more than you did.
You fail to recognize how Conservative Media, probably better termed Grievance Media, works. They first find someone whose views they disagree with so they can complain about them. It's many times better that the person be someone small, like on public access television or basic cable one night a week, and then demonize them. (BTW, this is also Trump's game, find a grievance and then tweet about it, and when it works, start mixing it in to other public comments)
Hannity is on both television and radio several days a week. Tucker Carlson is on several days a week. O'Reilly was on several days a week. And these guys shout louder. And at least Hannity is a serial fabulist.
Somehow, it's the fault of Sam Bee and her fellow liberal shouters, yet they have neither the platform or the numbers of those guys.
The arts community, which includes fine artists, singers and performers of all sorts has always been much more progressive that the older more rural (and southern) folks who seem to believe the US can turn back to a post card past. It cannot. But it is leaders who can choose (as McCain did) to correct their supporters by stating that Obama was a decent American, or they can choose, as Trump did, to act as if the Alt Right is just an alternative point of view, and good folks.
The right hasn’t just lost the culture wars, it has lost the popular vote in 4 of the last 5 elections. It is only because of an archaic retention of the slavery era political mecanism, the Electoral College, that we can even entertain this discussion that presumes the right has competitive voice in the cultural realm.
1
The trick is to demonize those who disagree with you. Take someone like Michael Moore who had the gall to put the CEO of General Motors on the spot, suggesting that closing the auto plants would be the death of Flint, Michigan. Here we are, years later, Flint is a thriving and prospersous city, full of opportunity and promise (I'm kidding)--yet conservatives have managed to paint Moore as a commie for being (embarrassingly) right on the money.
Sooner or later, someone has to come forward who will not take Trump's bait. To say "Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last?" Until that moment occurs, we're lost.
11
Trump wants to play the culture wars, and unfortunately too many people who fashion themselves as liberals have decided to play him on the field he has defined.
So, when Samantha Bee does something vulgar and morally wrong, too many (so-called) liberals rush to either defend her on the basis that Trump and his supporters have done worse (a pitiful "win" in my opinion) or try to split hairs about what she did wasn't as bad as Trump/S. Sanders/Nugent/Barr/pick-your-enemy.
These (so-called) liberals have distorted liberalism to the point that it is no longer recognizable. They think that you can get into the pit with Trump and give him tit for tat. But they fail to realize that it is a bottomless pit, and all they are doing is digging it deeper and deeper.
Samantha Bee, Michelle Wolf, etc. etc.. They aren't trying to win liberal causes---they are engaging in self-aggrandizement at the expense of the people liberals always dedicated themselves to protecting, which are the vulnerable in our society.
Trump will win the culture wars, people. He will win. It's the only thing he is good at and he does not care who he hurts.
Do not engage with him. Ignore him, and instead appeal directly to people who can be persuaded. And as a newsflash: Nobody is ever persuaded by being shamed or made fun of.
The cause of liberalism is dying, and people like Samantha Bee, Nicole Wolf, and others who denigrate others are stabbing it with knives.
8
An essential part of the problem, one discussed neither in the column nor in the comments I have read, is why anyone bothers to pay attention to entertainers in any capacity other than their profession. That they do is, of course, beyond question. It is the basis of much advertising. But why is another story.
What makes anyone think a member of the Houston Rockets knows more about insurance (State Farm ads) than anyone else? What makes anyone think a skimpily clad woman knows more about auto repair tools than anyone else? Whatever the reason, I suspect it is much the same thing that makes people think a "reality TV" star would make a better President than anyone else.
Roseanne Barr is an actress. If one did not pay particular attention to her off camera, then one would be no more disgusted by her tweet than if it came from Jane Doe who, if she were a carpenter, would likely have no pressure put on her employer to fire her.
Moral of the story: skip the illusions about entertainers, so that you will not become disillusioned. And if you want to buy an antiperspirant, don't expect a player in the N.F.L. to know better than anyone else what will be best for you. And don't complain about the current sociopolitical reality if you live in a world of illusions. And, most of all, don't just complain about the Entertainer-In-Chief, get off the gadgets and get out in the street. That is how change has been made and the way, if we are to make real change, it will be made again.
3
My guess is that liberals use c word to refer to women a lot less than Trump supporters use ape to refer to black people.
At least Brett Stephens is honest enough to say how racist the GOP has become. Douhat can’t bring himself there but then again all you have to do is read Douhat’s views on gays to realize bigotry isn’t that big of deal for him.
7
The truth is that the left's not screaming louder, but the ideas they are spreading are more attractive. More folks are convinced that their ideas of fairness, equality, freedom, belief in real science are more positive ideas that they want to support and emulate.
What the left, and lots of the entertainment industry, are saying (I suggest you actually listen to a Samantha Bee show) attracts more people and speaks to our souls. All people at some level know TRUTH when they see it and are attracted to that.
We as a human race are not naturally attracted to hatred, bigotry, selfishness, and tyranny....and when we see/hear/feel the opposite we are attracted to it. It resonates and feels true to us. That the left is winning the culture war, as you call it, just reflects humanities natural tendency to decency.
3
So Fox, Rush, Jones are cultural purveyors vs. political demigods? I don t see how splitting hairs here makes any significant difference.
1
Trump survives and even thrives by stirring the pot and dragging all his critics down to his level. And critics like Samantha Bee and Bill Maher survive and thrive by being down there. I wonder if we could quietly let the water clear a bit that his supporters might see his con for what it is.
An essential part of the problem, one discussed neither in the column nor in the comments I have read, is why anyone bothers to pay attention to entertainers in any capacity other than their profession. That they do is, of course, beyond question. It is the basis of much advertising. But why is another story.
What makes anyone think a member of the Houston Rockets knows more about insurance (State Farm ads) than anyone else? What makes anyone think a skimpily clad woman knows more about auto repair tools than anyone else? Whatever the reason, I suspect it is much the same thing that makes people think a "reality TV" star would make a better President than anyone else.
Roseanne Barr is an actress. If one did not pay particular attention to her off camera, then one would be no more disgusted by her tweet than if it came from Jane Doe who, if she were a carpenter, would likely have no pressure put on her employer to fire her.
Moral of the story: skip the illusions about entertainers, so that you will not become disillusioned. And if you want to buy an antiperspirant, don't expect a player in the N.F.L. to know better than anyone else what will be best for you. And don't complain about the current sociopolitical reality if you live in a world of illusions. And, most of all, don't just complain about the Entertainer-In-Chief, get off the gadgets and get out in the street. That is how change has been made and the way, if we are to make real change, it will be made again.
1
This is the comment you posted 4hr ago.
C'mon.
3
Let's start with the title. There is no such thing as a culture war. That is a Trump Fox Republican thing. Ross does give us some inking of this in his editorial.
Only the Trump Fox Republican side thinks of this as a war. In which anything goes. Including the destruction of our own democracy. Or even treason. They are motivated by the fear of losing the unmerited white entitlements that they have had for centuries yet cannot even appreciate.
4
When Trump met with Kim Kardashian, it convinced me that he has a middle school girl idea about popularity.
Kim's many followers will take this as an endorsement of Trump, even 'tho it wasn't the purpose of the meeting.
This is "The Apprentice: Season 2, White House Edition".
1
So besides their regressive, hurtful, often hateful ideological "policy" ideas do the Conservative Culture Warriors want to contribute to the culture? What besides a phoenix rise of White males to their former position where they could say and do as they pleased to women, minorities and the environment, are they offering?
What is truly at the heart of the Conservative attempts to wage a culture war? What ideas? What passion?
Under Trump,and because of him, all I see is a passion for destruction of anything deemed in opposition to their ideological theology.
In the midst of various social, economic and environmental crises - we're watching older Conservatives crumble to the Trumpian destructive machinations, while willingly blaming immigrants since they helped plant that crop for decades. And younger Conservatives are simply angry, and hungry for revenge on Progressives, Liberals, immigrants of course, uppity blacks, strong women (look to the newest Men's movements, their misogyny, and inherent conservatism) higher institutions of alleged hyper liberal education, or anyone, or group who they can accuse of being Obamian, Clintonian...or simply not of "them." Not part of their K...Clan...
So what at the end of the day do these Conservative Culture Warriors want to leave us with...?
I, many of us, see nothing attractive in their policy ideas, and I think they know that as well, so they no longer want to debate them. Instead taking to insults and wild conspiracies.
4
We seek catharsis in response to the ceaseless guyser of corruption and venality your party spews obviously because we are mindless reactionaries who haven't learned, after decades of weathering insults, that the best strategy of furthering our own interests is to put up with it and vote republican.
No, I wouldn't be happy on the receiving end of THAT word. But, I'm not playing the role of " senior advisor to the President ". Princess Ivanka needs to toughen up, OR go back to private life. Complicit.
6
The value of comedy with politics is in irony and parody and mockery. It must be applied carefully to bring laughter for silly or poor behaviors about which people care without bringing sympathy for the target of the humor. Bee’s use of misogynistic and profane language expressed disrespect for a person but nothing humorous and it elicited sympathy for the person targeted. It was both mean spirited and inept.
3
Bee's rant was biting satire. Well placed and reasoned.
It was supposed to be mean.
Now do you wish to address the spirt of her rant?
Yeah, didn't think so. Ignore the reason for the slur and set hair on fire to distract. Typical.
4
She could have easily conveyed the self centered lack of consideration by simply contrasting images and their numerous misrepresentations, an ample trove is available. Instead she simply expressed vitriol that people who already despise her targets already share. Apart from demonizing an enemy, what is the point, it’s what governments do to convince people to go to war with other people. She’s just reciprocating meanness with meanness, validating it in the process. It’s good for stimulating overreaction. What do you think will happen?
Overreaction to a Gov. stripping ones children away from parents.
Overreaction.
Ivanka's heartless tweet was purposefully callous and spiteful about one of the worse things that can happen to a parent. Losing a child to known torturers and rapists.
Overreaction?~!
Do you mock POW?!
Do you mock handicapped individuals?
How about children killed in school shootings?
Oh, that's right.
The Right now condones this behavior. But claims a faux outrage over a curse word. One that has been uttered by their own leaders.
"What do you think will happen"?!
Hypocritical Rightists will fawn over princess feckless cant, and condone atrocities' against children, committed by their leaders, as just something Gov. do. While condemning language they extoll as just locker room talk.
Surprise!
And here come the appeasers.
And how about the pop-culturization of politics? Isn't that what is really causing us problems?
How about taking the pledge to eschew this trend? You could start by discussing, not Samantha Bee and what she said, but the topic that she was trying to address (and stupidly obscured by directing a vile obscenity at Ivanka).
Do you even remember what that topic was?
3
Ivanka Kushner is not feckless. Neither is she warm and deep.
4
Aside from Chistopher Buckely whose no fan of Trump and maybe Dennis Miller - are there Republican comedians worth listening to?
1
Ross, you are right to point out the stupidity of progressives adopting the in-your-face tactics of Trump. You miss, however, the reason this is not a good idea: Even if progressives could win the trolling wars, which they can't, if they lose the actual policy wars it would be a tragedy for the country. They, and we, would be better off if they were to refuse to be baited, and focus on saving the country from actual disaster.
More misguided moral relativism from Ross Douthat.
Roseanne Barr had a long and grotesque public history as a racist. Her targets were the innocent and often the powerless. Her tweet about Valerie Jarrett was ugly and baseless and purely vile.
Sam Bee was enraged about America's disgusting practice of separating children from their parents at the behest of a racist president. That rage then centered on the president's daughter, fully invested in the United States government and obviously grifting her way around the world. The photo she displayed to all of she and her son, when compared to recent photos of sons being torn from mothers, simply reeked.
So, Mr, Douthat once again pushes a "both sides do it" column and calls it a "stalemate".
3
Hitler ran a pop culture campaign but there was no one to counter it. I'll take our war and hope common sense wins. At least there is more than one side. So far common sense and decency is way behind.
1
Of course, if he really wanted to throw fat into the fire, he would pardon Peltier.
1
Women can be as stupid and oafish as men; welcome to 2018.
But Bee's crudeness in using the most reviled female epithet to attack a woman who can't help her paternity does not nearly measure up to Roseanne comparing an educated successful black woman to an ape. As of this writing, Trump has still refused to condemn her words.
Bee is a reprobate. Trump and his coterie are the worst people in the world.
2
An insightful column, Ross. Yet I can't shake the feeling that if someone told me twenty years ago that today we'd be mired in these sorts of discussions, I'd have laughed them out of the room. Things couldn't possibly get so stupid!
1
“Trump’s defeat” — that’s a typo, right?
yada yada yada. This is nothing more than more "liberal blaming." Hillbilly elegy, the great pop culture war, etc. The message: liberals making fun of racist white America created a President Trump. No. Racism created a President Trump. You can stop looking for other causes.
5
Cursing, swearing, using the f word, the c word, name calling are all cheap shots, no matter who is employing them. It is shocking and attention getting but not funny or pointed. Trump has made the h word acceptable apparently.
4
Dineesh D'Souza's greatest crime which can never be pardoned and for which his punishment should be never being allowed to write another word concerned Hillary Clinton.
When Dinesh came back from vacation claiming he had read Milton's Paradise Lost and Hillary Clinton was Satan.
For those of us who have read and studied Milton's epic D'Souza's lie about reading the poem and Hillary being Satan is simply a crime against humanity and 2500 years of Western Civilization but we know D'Souza is proof you don't have to be white to be a racist's racist.
2
Trump's gift, if you can call that, is his ability to suck the air out of the daily news cycle. For the last three days, we are debating the use of sexual and racists terms, while, real problems in this country are ignored. Shouldn't we be focused on what to do about high child poverty numbers, or school shootings, or high infant mortality rates, or high drug addition numbers, or what about those two wars we have been fighting for over ten years? But no, the real problems in this country remain hidden behind the entertainment curtain, while, our President, performs his stand-up routine on center stage.
3
If the press ignored him, if the comics ignored him, if we all ignored him....we might survive. I think he is now skating toward a 2020 win, because he loves all the confrontation and baiting.
As I watched Howard Stern being interviewed by Letterman, it hit me that as soon as people stopped saying no to him, he became a nicer person. I don't believe Trump has it in him to a nice person, but I do believe he would lose interest if no-one engaged and lit his fire.
But it is all about ratings and circulation. Saving the country be damned.
Its time for women to take back the C-word. Make it less stinging by using it more often as an adjective, a verb, whatever...just throw it in and use it like any curse word. Add "y","ing", "er"...to the end, and de-sting it.
Own it, like you all did "b/tch". Remember those days? Good times...
Like the F-bomb, now used in all sorts of silly ways.
"He’s like the late-night liberals, all base-pleasing tactics and no strategy, content to wage a pop culture war that’s stuck, for now, in stalemate."
Except one is the President...stalemated with talk show hosts.
4
Oh come on. As Socrates notes, when Ted Nugent (a talentless "c" himself) used the "c" word to describe Hillary Clinton years ago, you can rest assured that the haters on the right rejoiced.
And as for the real "framers" of popular culture in the U.S., we need look no further than Limbaugh, Hannity, Jones and the rest of the right-wing propagandists for a look into "stupid culture" here in the U.S.
2
The lesson is that liberals should use their entire vocabulary with descriptive similes, metaphors and adverbs rather than ad hominems. Thus, Samantha Bee should have called Ivanka Trump a feckless Quisling Barbie.
4
For people constantly touting their middle American values Conservatives are bizarrely obsessed with the fact that most Hollywood/New York actors, movie stars, celebrities, TV personalities and what not are liberal.
Which is particularly strange when you consider that most of these people are exactly the kind of oddball goofs, gays and creative weirdos that were run out of their middle American towns on a rail for not fitting in in one way or another. Of course they’re socially liberal....how many “theater kids” and artists and future choreographers are accepted by their high school jock culture? How many African American rappers and musicians and athletes are going to be attracted by a Republican party who’s racist “dog whistles”are now screams.
2
I will accept any argument that Donald Trump is too crass and bigoted to be president. However, liberal defenders of Samantha Bee are no better than Trumpists. Bee used the c-word. There is no defense of its usage. Period. That slur is just as demeaning and just as indefensible as the n-word. Both words are attempts to cast a person, based on their gender or their race, as sub-human. Yet, liberals are falling over themselves to defend Bee. I don't care what your disagreements with Ivanka Trump are, treating her as sub-human based on her gender is grotesque and reprehensible, but apparently many liberals find such inhumane bigotry funny.
2
This reads like Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?". As I used to say whenever listening to overly complicated verbosity, "What's the middle part again?". It's all just one big completely useless reality show.
Let's circle back to one word used by Samantha Bee. Feckless. She should have stopped there because, man oh man, feckless is the perfect word for the daughter grifter. She could have added a flourish with "complicit" -- the other perfect word famously used to describe Ivanka -- and it would have been a home run.
Frankly, I'm grateful Samantha Bee blew the whole thing sky high. Once we settle down about using the "c" word, Ivanka's fecklessness, grifting, and exploitation of her position is laid bare once again.
4
Ogden Nash, Calvin Trillin and now ... Ross Douthat. The rest of the column's good too.
Well now I guess anything is possible as I never thought I would agree with Ross about anything but then he said this about CONVICTED FELON Distort D’Newsa:
“So conservatives stupidly place hopes in a right-wing Kanye or a Trump-friendly Roseanne Barr. They convince themselves that celebrity provocateurs will make America’s campuses more conservative. They make a cynical, race-baiting, adulterous campaign-finance fraudster like Dinesh D’Souza a rich man after he abandons an intellectual career for a Michael Moore-imitating grift — and then cheer when Trump pardons D’Souza because it owns the libs.”
Could not agree more.
3
Only the willfully ignorant don’t see that racism and greed propelled the people of this country who vote to elect Trump and the Republicans. It’s not really much more complicated.
1
Douthat is right again. The hysteria on the left is only encouraging the right to move farther away from the left.
The left needs to get off it ideological high horse and start thinking of helping Americans.
3
Truer words were never written.
Ross Douthat, you are so predictable. This statement, "They make a cynical, race-baiting, adulterous campaign-finance fraudster like Dinesh D’Souza a rich man after he abandons an intellectual career for a Michael Moore-imitating grift — and then cheer when Trump pardons D’Souza because it owns the libs" is patently on the wrong side of right.
Dinesh (my former countryman, disowned by many Indian intellectuals and Indian Americans who don't even know who he is) is closer to right wing loons like Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh and others way to many to enumerate but with a facade of fake intellectualism, when there is no there, there.
You have to own the extremists on your side of the so-called political aisle, including the, "people are saying" tweeter conspiracy theorist in the White House before you point fingers on the other side. Your argument will fly in right wing blogs but should not in The Times. The Times readers of all political stripes know 1 plus 1 equals 2, not 2.1 or 3 or some other "I don't believe in science" pat statement pulled out of a rabbit hat.
3
Evidently Ross has nothing to say about Princess Trump flaunting her Perfectness while her Daddy is having children taken from their parents at the border (whether seeking asylum at legit crossing points or trying to sneak across). That’s what so outraged Bee. And what was it that outraged Ted Nugent, who called Hillary the same thing and was invited to the White House (in reward?).
4
Acting in an outrageous manner is not justified by being outraged, if indeed she was.
The very first part of the name of Samantha Bee's program: "Full frontal" suggests sexualization (as it is most often used as part of the term "full frontal nudity" - i.e., with the genitals exposed. Thus its title's implication suggests pushing or stepping over standard boundaries - with a concomitant grab for attention. Thus, it shares similarities with Trump's modus operandi.
The interesting questions in the US is why the space for reading, thinking, and quiet contemplation, has been shrinking so visibly this decade - with so many individuals on trains & in cafes with their eyes glued to a smartphone, and so few individuals reading books . . ...
One has a sense that with the deluge of videos and images raining down on the populace, entertainers such as Bee in their push to retain their audience & get noticed are moving towards more and more extreme language.
1
Trump's supporters have no problem with their guy's use of vulgarities to described other countries or to brag about committing sexual assault, but they clutch their pearls when women like Samantha Bee or Michelle Wolf get salty. Yet, their delicate sensibilities are not ruffled in the slightest when ICE rips immigrant children from their families. Considering the real obscenities this administration perpetuates on a daily basis, is it any wonder that liberals' filters have come off?
1
Trump is not even entertaining. He is excruciatingly boring. A simpleton who brags and lies constantly. How is this entertaining?
Maybe people are desperate for entertainment and, as with opioids, the more they get, the less satisfied they are.
2
More whinney Opus Dei ‘the liberals did it’! When the Corporate Right has been in control since Reagan.
Some good points sir but...sad.
1
Until moderates grab hold of America and toss Donald Trump out on his gold-plated backside, and also recognize that the likes of Bernie Sanders were also supported by the Russia's troll army, there's nothing much to be done.
But it is a very odd world when conductor James Levine's recordings are banned from the airwaves, but vicious, obscene rap music -- a kind of rhythmic aggression which has done more to coarsen our culture than even Kim Kardashian's shenanigans -- is given a pass and can be heard reverberating through our New York City streets.
1
Trump set the bar at vulgar and narcissistic.
Hillary, Obama,...and many other progressives set the bar at humanistic.
Oh the hypocrisy of the right, hate speakers touring college campuses inciting violence and whining about their free speech being silenced, but Samantha Bee can’t use the best word to describe Ivanka in 4 letters. Who is the “snowflake”?
Interesting points, and it's certainly true that political conflict and change are often indicative of, and caused by, cultural conflict and change. But more to the point, politics is actually most often a lagging indicator of that cultural change, and rarely has any real ability to affect it. Jacob Burckhardt's 'The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy' makes that case quite convincingly.
Republicans/Trumpists may indeed be winning the pop culture wars, and you are correct that the Left has yet to find an effective strategy for this conflict. In fact, we may lose in the short/mid-term. . . a political Dunkirk, if you will.
But the more important war, the underlying conflict of differing cultural identities and visions has already been decided, imho. Perhaps I'm wrong, but if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go smoke some legal weed at a gay wedding reception. Cheers.
Russ Douthat is always an interesting read, even though he and I may not see eye-to-eye. Here, the cultural gulf that separates us is how seriously he takes a hack songwriter like Billy Joel. But maybe Douthat is onto something. If this has become the stuff of serious social commentary, we're all doomed.
1
I have read about Abraham Lincoln in the 1850's. When he was following our national trauma from the sidelines. Not actually RUNNING for anything. Not till 1858.
Why the change?
Because Lincoln's bedrock document--the Declaration of Independence. was being reinterpreted. "ALL men. . .. etc." did not actually MEN "all men. . ..etc."
It only meant SOME men. Black people were being elbowed out of the ranks of human beings.
And THIS (according to Lincoln) constituted a DEBASEMENT--a VITIATION of public discourse.
So he threw his hat into the ring. And we all know what came of THAT.
Sorry for the long excursus.
But talk about the debasement of public discourse!
Anyone besides me SICK of the vile language--the vile insults--the moronic simplicity--the scarcely veiled hatred and malice. . . .
. .. that have infected our public discourse like the Ebola virus.
I do NOT hold with calling women the c______________ word. NOT if you're an angry liberal. NOT if you're an angry Republican.
The c__________ word--like virtually ALL the obscenities in common use nowadays--conveys no MEANING whatsoever. It conveys. . . .what?
Hatred. Animosity. Contempt. And above all. . ..
. .. it conveys IMPOTENCE. It says, "I have no arguments. I have mastered no logic. I have no facts or figures at my fingertips.
"I have only--my HATRED. And HATRED--is enough."
Only it's not.
Look at us, will you. LISTEN to us.
I'd rather not.
Thanks anyway.
"Lousy-but-woke movies" - brilliant!!!! Do tell, Ross - which ones are on your list?
Really Russ.
This is the best you can do?
He might be horrible.
However, you really do not address the issues.
Had you spoken about the differences between Samantha Bee's disgusting reference, and, Roseann Barr's despicable tweet, this might have been a powerful opinion article.
Instead, just the "same old, same old.
Do not you opinion article writers at the NYT ever get tired of rehashing the same arguments again and again?
1
Please face the fact D. Trump is a foul mouthed vulgar leader. That's not the left's fault and it's not hyperbole.
1
Ross,
How dare you compare that gutter-dweller and congenital liar D'Souza with Michael Moore. They're both political agent provocateurs - but that's where the similarity ends.
D'Souza traffics in all the tin foil hat conspiracies of the Far Right. He could be Alex Jones' color commentator. His stock-in-trade is pedaling lies, delusions and fantasies that appeal to the most ignorant and bigoted Americans.
Michael Moore, on the other hand, has offered (for at least the last twenty years or more) a $10,000 reward for anyone who can prove that any statements in his writings and award-winning films are less than totally factual. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet collected on this standing bounty offered by Mr. Moore.
In short, the Right lies like a rug. Fox News, Limbaugh, Jones, Ingraham, Coulter, et al. - they're all in the same racket of telling shameless lies to an audience too ignorant and bigoted to know or care that they're being fed a steady diet of manure.
By contrast, the so-called Left (which is really where the Center was 40 years ago) still retains its dedication to exposing the lies of the Right - while telling the truth about how corrupt, venal and vicious America has become under Trumpism. They don't need to lie to attract an audience. The truth about our Emperor with no clothes is bone-chillingly vivid enough to attract eyeballs without any need to prevaricate.
Mr. Moore just puts some extra spin on his pitches, which still hit the strike zone.
1
Samantha Bee should be fired simply because she's too stupid to live. How could she think what she said was a good idea in this atmosphere?
Trump's voters don't love him, the animus for supporting him rises from the unblemished hatred they feel for Bee and people like her. She gave them red meat and they ate it with a big spoon.
2
What is it with these tough Marlboro Men that love to fling invectives and slurs, yet then blame Liberals for making them do so?!
I'm tired also of our Conservative columnist blaming Liberals, when they finally grow a spine, after decades, and blame them for not understanding or compromising with the feckless cant's and their temper tantrums.
Dang projecting snowflakes are tiresome.
Pull up your hypocritical big boy bloomers already.
Liberals, quit worrying about what you might say or do that upsets conservatives. You'll get smeared and blamed either way. Roll with it and speak truth to power.
By the by, Ivanka totally deserved the put down for running her picture w/caption, the same day the kerfuffle about ICE stealing children from refugee's and those seeking asylum broke. Don't tell me that wasn't planned.
This is the Non-PC America your party wanted Douthat.
Welcome to Trumps Republican America.
1
Douthat, in his recurring lack of imagination, continues his pathetic iteration of "liberals", "left wing", etc. Even the most illiterate of GED students have a larger vocabulary.
It's because cultural liberalism is the natural air to breathe.
What on earth is this guy trying to say?
"...an epiphenomenon of progressivism’s cultural advantage — the fact that most famous artists and actors are left-wing"
It's true. Conservatives aren't very artistic. But they are good at shooting things and polluting the Earth, so we will give your side that, Ross.
1
I was away from my computer/newspaper a couple of days so I am catching up. I read pieces from Bret Stephens, David Brooks, and Ross Douthat this morning and I am confused. They all seem to like plowing the soil of "both sides are..." and that seems to be the "one trick pony" of conservative pundits who are gobsmacked by their president; "Democrats and liberals are just as bad".
What I would truly love to read from these guys, and others, are the reasons we should vote for conservatives. Real reasons. Tell US about all your free market success. Tell US about how republican/corporate supply side economics has made showcases and utopias out of Kansas and Oklahoma. Show US how Wisconsin is outperforming Minnesota using all those ALEC written laws and regulations slashing.
Instead we get this stuff. Sad
3
Young children are being forcibly removed from their loving, heartbroken parents at our border, housed in barracks and cages, sleeping on floors and benches under foil insulators, or placed among strangers in poorly monitored foster homes. They will be damaged for life by the one of the worst kinds of trauma children can suffer. Meantime, Ross, supposedly a devout Catholic and champion of family values, obsesses about popular culture, Samantha Bee and Kim Kardashian! I don't know about you, Ross, but my "cultural values" forbid gratuitous cruelty to children in our custody, and I'm not even Christian. You have a voice -- use it like your Jesus, in defense of the suffering and helpless.
2
Surely you jest when you invoke Trump's imagination, Mr Douthat. Does sanctimonious mean nothing these days in America? I thought we were all so woke on snowflakes, but yet again the Right manage to be outraged and hypocritical at the same time, quite a skill that, but one perfected to their advantage, always.
As keepers of the Word, one would have thought that compassion would be part of their impenetrable armoury, instead, we have whiny marshmallows who rail when "wounded" and demand supplication without knowing the difference and all the while keeping a straight face, verily the meek shall not inherit the earth, but instead the garbage spewed out by Janus, always looking the other way.
Yet again, another teachable moment goes begging, all for petty point scoring. Should America's economy falter, then this theatre will spare no one, least of all those willing to call out the truth.
I'm definitely on board with the idea that leftist TV personalities play directly into Trump's hands. The more ammunition you give the FOX news crowd, the better for Trump. Bee has become the perfect nasty liberal for the right fear. This only works for the right because much of the electorate does not bother to read about issues and get educated past cable TV. Of course, none of this would be a problem if GOP congressmen would take a stand against Trump and stop selling their souls to the devil for their horrible policy goals.
2
We keep plumbing the depths of decency and civility, testing how much corrosion our political system can take and still hold, perhaps all just for entertainment. DT is the train wreck we can’t look away from. We have to just stiffen our upper lip and carry on, don’t sweat the small stuff and know the difference, this “reign of witches” will pass if we VOTE! But if DT shuts down Mueller I’m hittin the streets.
1
Has anyone on the right ever really thought about why those in the entertainment, arts an education are so fervently anti-Trump and so very much on the left? I'll give you one answer, and that is the availability of affordable health insurance. Most individuals in the arts don't reach the status of Samatha Bee or Rosanne Barr. They toil in the background as makeup artists, editors, designers, writers, dancers and musicians. They worry each day if they can pay their bills because their work is contractual, unpredictable and seasonal and without health benefits. Those in the arts are just as susceptible to social, sexual and racial discriminatory behavior as anyone else. But, economically they have more in common with the underemployed middled aged rust belt worker than with the so called Hollywood elite. With the election of Donald Trump those in the arts are now desperatly angry and very scared. With each attack on the availability of health insurance and other needs, this culture war will grow.
1
The U.S. is a republic according to Ben Franklin.
In a Republic, representatives are supposed to be honest and respect the law.
The GOP spews lies and gerrymanders voting districts. This has nothing to do with culture differences. It has everything to do with money. The Plutocrats have bought the Republican Party and all the cultural arguments are just ploys to sway voters.
"A sect or party is an elegant incognito to save a man the trouble of thinking." Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Ross: wake up! The GOP is not going to bring back the lost virtue you lament. It's just going to ruin everyone who doesn't pay up and ruin the environment and our education system at the same time.
1
The President of the United States has absolutely no right to call upon his critics to be silenced, as his administration has unequal power over business entities broadcasting under First Amendment protection.
The individuals who call for a boycott of Samantha Bee were never watching her to begin with.
The Special Prosecutor revealed that Russia is influencing democratic policies through a system of trolls (Russian people) and bots (technology that amplifies the message or variations of it).
Trump uses his Twitter Potemkin village of Trolls and Bots to attack his critics, crying out for apologies he never provides.
The same word Samantha Bee used to attack Trump policy was used to describe Secretary Clinton at Trump rallies and merchandise.
Trump never apologized for that. In fact, he bragged about a criminal act that involved the word.
There is a Great Pop Culture War, but it is being fought with an army of trolls and bots to amplify wedge issues, surface racism, and exacerbate hate.
1
I would agree that, on both coasts and in cities, liberals seem to have won the "culture war". These places operate according to youth/liberal cultural values. But let's look for a moment at what that has brought us here in the US and beyond: 1. the end of both family and ANY expectation at all of commitment, continuity or accountability between people. 2. rampant, unchecked crime, including murders (Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, NOLA, Jacksonville..) 3. a complete absence of community anywhere in the US, beyond perhaps one or two small towns in KS or OK, and 4. a professional class fixated MUCH more on their own bottom line than their clients' best interests. This is what you get when, like most liberals, you value style over substance, or hotness and trendiness over dependability or willingness to accept responsibility. Yes, liberals, you won the "culture war". But I'm not celebrating.
When Reagan was POTUS, he more or less ACTED the part; the White House was like just another sound stage on the Columbua Pictures lot. His "Morning in America" was the beginning of his lulling the country into a false state of well-being; and America bought into it.
But, the earliest stage of America's dumbing down was like a polyp; it could have been eradicated before evolving into the malignant tumor of ignorance it has become.
Donald Trump's cult of personality has aggrivated the "dumbth" (a word coined by the late comedian/author/intellectualist Steve Allen, who was among the first of the Hollywood elite, to acknowledge the problem);
his toxic mix of hucksterism and intolerance-mongering to his supporters, who aren't smart enough to "get it" has only worsens worsened the malignancy. Meanwhile, his bombast is something of a red herring; the Republican-controlled Congress is neither condeming nor condoning his tweets, comments, or his job performance; while they shred the safety net with their own acts of political chicanery.
Yet, most of his base continues to buy into his largely unfiltered hyperbole.
The "dumbth" seems to be unstoppable.
1
The problem with celebrity is that it is a popularity contest on overdrive populated with narcissists who draw self esteem from the growing amount of attention.
The premise of this commentary is that has become the norm. In an age that started with the left rejecting " the best and the brightest", elites took a further beating with Reagan who brought the discontent to the right. This was used to beat up every understanding about what the New Deal did to create the greatest middle class in history. So here we are where elites are the enemy. The joke is that they are in fact paying for our politics. The resentment used to beat down the very voters who responded to it.
The problem is losing faith in elites creates a vacuum. What else to expect when voters watch too much TV and think being entertained addictively was written into the Bill of Rights.
The deal we get these days is not making America great again. It is simply about ratings. Our perceived need for mental junk food over substance is killing our democracy.
1
"Trump himself is entirely a creature of the celebrity-entertainment complex; this is the game he’s always played and he has no interest in playing any other ... fighting with late-night hosts and pro athletes is an end unto itself ... to the president ratings and faves and cancellations and boycotts are the real way that you keep score." So no interest in, say, being POTUS? I recall a phone interview on a Fox Network show where the hosts had to gently make Mr. Trump stop talking because he probably had other things to do, they thought. And now Mr. Giuliani is saying Mr. Trump does not have time to answer Mr. Mueller's questions. Two poster boys for chutzpah.
1
Since the article "About Samantha Bee, Ivanka Trump and That Word" is not presently open to comments...
There's an aspect to Samantha Bee's choice of nouns that (unless I've missed something) remains undiscussed -- this insult is not typically foisted upon a woman BY ANOTHER WOMAN. I suspect Bee and her writers were aware of this, and they intended for the insult to feel all the more valid to the audience, coming from a member of Ivanka's own gender.
I'm trying to imagine what the blowback would have been had her statement been delivered by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher or some other male. I can't imagine that Bee and her staff didn't feel that, as a female, she might be the only late-night host able to say such a thing.
2
Douthat asks "If you want this president to do something for the common good, why not try to convince him that it might help him notch a win on his celebrity scorecard?"
Because I would not want anything so much - even for the common good - to play that game with this con man.
In fact, the liberals, the media, the progressives, the celebrities fighting Trump ought to do one thing - ignore Trump. Don't give him any wins on his celebrity scorecard. Don't give him life as the tabloid President.
Why did he promote himself in his prior life by calling tabloid media as "John Barron" - to stay in the limelight. Withhold the limelight now and it will make him crazy.
2
Who is Kim Kardashian to get a pass into the White House or get an audience with the President. She is not even a B class actress in Hollywood or TV. She does not even have a cause to call her own. She is just a celebrity being a celebrity. Only in Trumpland can such sickness abound. For that matter, who is Ivanka Trump to represent America at the Olympics? She does'nt represent me for sure. Will Dennis Rodman be seated next to Trump while he is having that great touted summit meeting with Kim Jong-un. After all he was the American to meet Kim, the first American envoy?
"He’s like the late-night liberals, all base-pleasing tactics and no strategy, content to wage a pop culture war that’s stuck, for now, in stalemate."
Except that "he" is the president of the USA, with ALL that that should connote, and "the late-night liberals" are entertainers/commentators.
The usual specious argument and the usual conservative false equivalency...
3
This is simply an attempt to justify double standards of decency and propriety based on job function and political affiliation.
Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan both understood this dynamic in the early 1960s, long before the popular culture caught up.
In 1965, Dylan facetiously said to a TIME magazine reporter, "If you wanna go get whipped, aren't you really asking to be entertained?"
Trump supporters decided in 2016 that being 'entertaining' was not just a valuable commodity in a presidential candidate. Being entertaining was to many the only thing that mattered.
All 3 cable news networks broadcast most of Trump's arena rallies live - because the ratings indicated millions were so entertained/outraged by Trump they couldn't get enough of watching. Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews now excoriate Trump on a regular basis - but both men made a decision to feature Trump live on their broadcasts & discuss
him endlessly - not necessarily in negative terms but more "Wow! Check this out!"
If you watched the live Trump rallies to see Trump be outrageous, acting outside all accepted political norms, weren't you really asking to be entertained?
Trump was aware of the power in this dynamic & has made the Trump presidency a constant live streaming event featuring drama, outrage, villains, conspiracies, outrageous crimes, shock and awe, slanderous accusations, threats, pomp, intrigue, the sacred & the profane & a dose of surrealism. He'll say one thing & a few hours later deny he said it.
Trump keeps raising the stakes on us because God forbid the show gets canceled while the ratings are still pretty good.
1
I have to wonder how much late night TV you actually watch. Though Johnny Carson did lightly remark on the news back in the day, today late night programs are GIVING the news to many voters. I remember hearing that Jon Stewart's program was the only way lots of young people got their news. And he also called out democrats when he saw it fit to do so.
The problem these days is that outrageous things are happening each and every day. There are members on both sides of the isle shouting from the rooftops because they don't know what else to do. Steve Schmidt, Bill Kristol and Joe Scarborough among others, take to the air and twitter waves daily in desperate hope that a Fox News viewer will accidentally turn on their channel and learn the truth about . . . well, anything.
Late night comedians are shouting from their rooftops with humor. Comedians such as John Oliver and to a degree, Samantha Bee (who I couldn't believe used that word - that was outrageous) are shedding light, in long versions, on topics we almost never hear about unless we consume PBS and NPR.
Mr. Douthat, I think you need to watch a little more Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, et al, to find out, based on ratings, what many Americans are looking for.
1
My hope (and expectation) is that America's pop culture will continue to putrefy until even its most energetic practitioners will have at last nauseated themselves to silence.
The trouble with decadence is that in the long run it's actually quite boring.
Not really sure where you are going with this other than that you don't like Dinesh D'Souza. Ironically, I am reading "Bad Religion" because I consider your surgical insights into American cultural Christianity similar to D'Souza's insights into American political culture. In my opinion, you both offer critical insight that most people don't want to hear, because they are comfortable in their delusions.
And being comfortable in their delusions is what drives Cultural liberalism. "Cultural liberalism wins battles when its omnipresence just seems like the natural air we breathe." It appeals to the non-thinking people who read an article they like an respond "of course." They have all drank the Kool-aid.
I disagree that Trump is all "base-pleasing tactics and no strategy." Similar to D'Souza and you, Mr. Douthat, Trump says things that disturb the comfortable delusions and confuse people. And the liberals can't seem to pin him down, as much as they try. They just keep beating the same "Trump is bad" drum, that not everyone is buying, because it doesn't jive with the reality. A Facebook friend of mine just posted about how Trump is a diplomatic disaster. Yet he is on the verge of a historic meeting with Kim Jong Un.
I can see why Trump pardoned D'Souza. They are two peas in a pods, making the Cultural liberals uncomfortable and confused. And you Mr. Douthat make Three's Company.
1
Is thinking that other people's medical decisions, and consensual sex lives are absolutely none of my business "cultural liberalism"? Is it "cultural liberalism" to see my fellow human beings as human, regardless of any differences we have? And not to tolerate wanton cruelty towards them? I am uncomfortable and confused that people place their trust in an uninformed TV star with a long history of cheating anyone who does business with him. I'm confused by people who tell me Trump did not say what I heard coming out of his mouth, and then tell me MY reality is wrong. Actually, I'm not confused by that last one. It's right out of the Autocrat's Handbook.
Ross...
Cathy has got you on this one.
Here points resonate true to the Cultural War we are in.
He is, indeed, like late night comedians. At least in his vulgar expressions. But he is the president, for God’s sake!
He we had Fallon or Samantha in White House, they would be much less corrupt, much more informed and truthful, and much more responsible.
It's not a ''pop culture'' war, so much as an actual war on modern culture, or society as a whole.
This week one person used a racial slur (as she had done previously multiple times before), and was fired by the private company that employed her.
Also this week, one person used a derogatory slur towards the daughter of the President (due to her hypocritical stances) because of the outrage of separating children (illegal) from their mothers that were seeking asylum in the United States.
Now some people are arguing why one was fired and one was not (she apologized immediately and publicly), while the illegal acts (of separating children from the mothers) gets lost in the ''pop culture war''.
We are losing sight of what is really at stake.
3
Donald Trump is the perfect President for our times. He is America, the working man's America, the America of entertainment, the America of wealth, the America that doesn't take itself too seriously, the America that makes progress, the America that helps others, the America that makes fun of itself and has fun doing it. Keep doing what your's doing Donald!! America and the world are better off for you being in it.
2
Mr. Dowd, the ignorance of your statement is both stunning and terrifying. You clearly do not know what Trump is.
He is NOT "the working man's America." He has NO idea what "working" is, because he's never worked a day in his life. He is a trust-fund baby. He inherited his wealth from Daddy Fred, and he's been playing with it ever since. He has never had to worry about putting food on the table, or a roof over his head, or clothes on his back. He has never had to worry about which bill to play and which bill to let slide.
Trump takes himself WAY too seriously. The man who shouted "I alone can fix it" at the Republican National Convention is incapable of laughing at himself. He's good at insulting other people and laughing at their consternation, but whenever someone makes fun of HIM, he shifts into foaming-at-the-mouth revenge mode.
America has made no "progress" under Trump. Racism has come out of the shadows and parades down the main street of Charlottesville. Hispanics and Muslims feel unwelcome under Trump's xenophobic reign.
Trump is not interested in an America that "helps others." To him, the poor are "losers" who need to have the social safety net cut out from underneath them. His social policy is "Let them all die."
Trump is trying to foment war between the United States and whatever country captures his tiny attention span--North Korea or Iran. America and the world are NOT better off because of this satanic rodeo clown. #ImpeachTrumpNOW
"Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex." - Frank Zappa
6
"Lousy-but-woke movies?" Help me out here, Ross - what recent films fit this description?
It's too bad that conservative Catholic opinion columnist Ross Douthat didn't address the substance of Samantha Bee's criticism of Ivanka Trump and instead focused on her use of the c-word. As a devout Catholic, what is your position on the Trump policy of taking all children away from anyone crossing the border, even those who surrender to Customs and ask for asylum? Also, please ask yourself, if Bee had not used the c-word, would you even be writing about her today? It seems that it's the only way to exceed the current signal-to-noise ratio.
5
To really understand Roman Catholicism, and some of its derivative sects, you must master the concept of "original sin", otherwise known as getting born.
Ross. stick to what you know. There is no pop culture war. It is a battle between the values and goal of Americans and the forces who want to diminish our Constitutional Rights. You again or on the wrong side of American values.
1
"It is a battle between the values and goal of Americans and the forces who want to diminish our Constitutional Rights. "
This is precisely the kind of empty hyperbole that Ross is warning against.
Please explain how Trump (as vulgar and unqualified as he is) is trampling on any of your constitutional rights any more than his predecessors. He may be objectionable, but this isn't the reason.
1
Samantha Bee is a grifter who helped Trump get elected with her constant mockery of lower-class whites and "woke" insistence that a universalist message like All Lives Matter is a racist affront to the identity politics of Black Lives Matter. Could she and other TV elitists have a better message for liberals than poor whites don't matter? Bee and Colbert are both profiting off Trump by giving the masses this echo-chamber, choir-preaching assault on everything he does that doesn't change a single mind. She knows she's always free to go home to Canada, and it's because she has no loyalty to this country that she makes her fortune off dividing us before she can finally cash in for that lakefront property in Ontario.
4
Ross,
I agree with you about the "C" word - in fact, I go further: to me, it is the most ugly word in our language - in part, because there is no male-associated word that has the hateful, malevolent, debasing equivalent.
That said, your ultimate sentence: "He’s like the late-night liberals, all base-pleasing tactics and no strategy, content to wage a pop culture war that’s stuck, for now, in stalemate." - which equates Trump and late-night liberals is flat-out wrong. And here's why:
You focus on "base-pleasing tactics" and "no strategy" but how about the simple concept of truth? Truth be told, Trump is a walking, talking disaster, and dangerous to any semblance of a moral code, let alone democracy itself.
Sadly, your conclusion is intellectually lazy, and a false equivalence.
2
Right wingers are chameleons. When they are not bering obnoxious bullies, they quickly morph into weepy victims. Many liberals feel that, ever since Newt Gingrich made nastiness fashionable again, taking the high road has only enabled abuse from the shape-shifting right, which now has begun to verge on not-so-subtle crypto-fascism (Thank you, Gore Vidal). It's cathartic, after a day of reading about the latest outrages to the environment, science, people of color, civil rights and the rule of law and logic, to sit back and watch a Samantha Bee or Bill Maher smack the culture war piñata.
2
Truly peculiar to compare the President of the United States to late night comedians, find both wanting, and call it a day.
2
To suggest that in order to be more effective my brother and sister Liberals quit taking themselves so seriously, in this the era of the rise of the almost humorless Progressive element of the Democratic Party (which I think Ross is what you are saying), is probably as futile as asking a Deplorable to, once in a while, laugh at themselves. I think, however, in John Stewart we do have a handy example of one of our favorite Liberal artists who realized just how futile it is to try and compete with such a large level of self righteousness, simply by adopting an even more self satisfied tone in your own art or routine.
Mr. Stewart was certainly one of the brightest stars in the Liberal universe, and millions of us would watch his programs avidly for new and hugely entertaining ways to describe the antics of the Conservatives in their fall from, and then rise to, majority status. But Stewart after ten years of it seemed to tire, and realized just how his routine - in order to keep-up with the rise of the internet and the growing self satisfaction of his Liberal audience - was becoming increasingly shrill and humorless, and Stewart simply walked away from it.
So yes, absolutely, it is essential in a Democratic society to encourage our artists and entertainers to explore our foibles, but when the art and entertainment must always be politically motivated or lacks a healthy element of self awareness then it simply becomes propaganda, and looses its intended effect.
Stewart, you may also recall, was one figure from the entertainment industry who defended many of the people who had cast votes for Trump. He knew these people, whether livery drivers, doormen, or other blue collar workers who did not see themselves thriving under Mrs. Clinton.
Cultural liberalism wins battles when its omnipresence just seems like the natural air we breathe. But direct political hectoring plays against that strength;
_____
This is an essential political truth. A good part of the anger that the right feels is over Douthat's first sentence here. To read the Times is to gather that all good, decent, moral people *naturally* believe in its positions. They're not so much positions that must be defended but natural law that inheres in the very nature of things.
They do not. It does not. And outside the world that Samantha Bee (and Kimmel, and De Niro, and Maher, and Oliver, and all the rest) inhabits, there is a whole 'nuther way of approaching life's most basic questions.
3
“But it’s too simple to blame Trump when so many of his supporters clearly love this style.”
No, Mr. Douthat. Many of his supporters love his racism starting long ago in NYC housing discrimination but politically with his dogged questioning of President Obama’s birth. Then the campaign with immigration and his leaning to the extreme right, including nazi supporters In Charlottesville.
His style is secondary to the content of his message: racism appeals to enough( not all) of his followers to help him gain an electoral victory in 2016.
5
Entertainment/culture wars... nothing matters except VOTING. 1. Register 2. Vote.
4
I do think that if the law had stronger teeth against propaganda and lies (Fox), we would be better off. People are naive and gullible, and if there is a child sex ring in a pizza place, they will believe it. Where is the accountability? We can't seem to control the lies of POTUS, but maybe the news networks and newspapers?
4
Neither Fox nor Breitbart ever propagated the canard that the DNC was operating a child sex ring out of a pizza shop. Equating those outlets with Alex Jones' Infowars (which did propagate this sort of nonsense) is precisely the kind of counterfactual hyperbole that Ross is warning against in this piece.
Donald Trump and his minions started this devolution of a civil society.
Republicans with their attack of political correctness by anyone else is the best demonstration of lack of empathy and understanding of other people.
Somehow, the use of vulgar demeaning words that are racist, bigoted, and ignorant has become speaking honestly; what it is attempts to dehumanize and oppress other people in reality.
We have been sliding down this rabbit hole for quite awhile now;t is a political tactic by one political party to instill fear and hate, and its caught up with some of the other party.
Michele Obama's call "when they go low we go high" speaks to how the opposition should act.
4
Bill Clinton merged politics and pop culture (MTV, Arsenio Hall) and it worked out OK with him.
The Democrats are still under the delusion that somehow if we treat our opponents with fairness and civility then they'll be reasonable in return. Wake up, folks. That is not going to happen. The Dems have to toughen up. The Republican Party of Trump believes you don't have to be honest, just loud. You don't have to play fair, just cheat. If your gut tells you what you're doing is corrupt and illegal, then hide your gut with an extra long red tie.
3
" Conservatives" are the planets most perfect Victims. They have the whole pearl clutching and vapor getting thing perfected to a science. Which is certainly ironic and entertaining. If any random member of that tribe won a Billion Dollar Powerball Lottery, their greatest concern and gripe would be the legal necessity of paying taxes on the prize.
Seriously.
3
What Douthat describes is a politics of spite. There is no substantive ideology or objective behind it, only the revanchist fantasies of sore (pop) cultural losers. Nice political base ya got there, GOP.
6
What’s in a name?
Language is a great tool, as are the forms and media through which we use it.
But becoming prisoners of our own device and confusing the map with the territory seem to be among the traits that characterize us as a species.
The question of language, its uses, and effects seems complicated to me. There are many variables that are difficult to fathom even in isolation, much less when interacting with other variables.
But the use of language has consequences. I think how we use it sometimes involves a moral choice.
I imagine a good storyteller could spin a tale in which there’s good and sufficient reason, in some context such as fighting the Nazis, to use language to distract, mislead, or inflame. But I also think that campaign consultants, politicians, partisans, pundits, and infotainers rarely have good and sufficient reason to use language this way.
There are techniques various disciplines such as science, law, and philosophy have developed that aim to ascertain the substantive truth of a proposition.
Samantha Bee really irks Ross Douthat. She obviously gets under his skin. Why? A woman's voice has finally broken through and is being heard in the formerly all-male preserve of late-night television. Another barrier has fallen. She's bright, articulate and successful with younger audiences. The Republicans are the party of old white men who are dying off. Conservatives have lost the culture war. Tough luck, Ross.
6
I am tired of the cookie cutter cultural evaluations. Liberals this, conservatives that. Our politics are diseased by money.
Pop culture is just the expensive hand bag....no utility other than to generate clicks. The real story are those who have loyalty to the ideals of this country and put its' best interest first. Steve Schmidt comes to mind. Never mind conservative, liberal, ....pop culture needs tribes. It is time to step out of your tribe and call out everyone who does things against our national interest. To this end deplorable behavior is against our interest, be it from the right or left. We need decency.
3
I once had a collapsed lifter in my old Chevy V-8. It made for a noisy disgruntled engine. I had my hood up the day after it happened. An old retired neighbor gentleman, seeing me standing under my car's open hood ambled over to give his advice. "I know what your problem is", he drawled. "You do?", I replied, somewhat preoccupied with the job at hand. "Sure do", he continued, "I could hear it a mile away, sure enough....what you got is motor troubles!"
I just laughed and expressed my thanks for his advice. I feel like the USA has motor troubles. Nobody actually knows the fix, but we could hear it coming from a mile away.
This is not even coherent. I could go on and on and on....
1
An essential part of the problem, one discussed neither in the column nor in the comments I have read, is why anyone bothers to pay attention to entertainers in any capacity other than their profession. That they do is, of course, beyond question. It is the basis of much advertising. But why is another story. What makes anyone think a member of the Houston Rockets knows anything more about insurance (State Farm ads) than anyone else? What makes anyone think a skimpily clad woman knows more about auto repair tools than anyone else? Whatever the reason, I suspect it is much the same thing that makes people think a "reality TV" star would make a better President than anyone else.
Roseanne Barr is an actress. If one did not pay particular attention to her off camera, then one would be no more disgusted by her tweet than if it came from Jane Doe who, if she were a carpenter, would likely have no pressure put on her employer to fire her.
Moral of the story: skip the illusions about entertainers, so that you will not become disillusioned. And if you want to buy an antiperspirant, don't expect a player in the N.F.L. to know better than anyone else what will be best for you. And don't complain about the current reality if you, in fact, live in a world of illusions.
And, most of all, don't just complain about the Entertainer-In-Chief, get off the gadgets and get out in the street. That is how change has been made and the way, if we are to make real change, it will be made again.
2
Because it his current day 'n age the Jesters are one of the few peoples that can and do call a spade a spade and speak the truth to power. Sadly our satirists are better news sources than our corp. news.
(Side note, what is it with your calling out carpenters and them no being fired for language? You've used them as references a few times now.!? Any reason? Just curious having swung the hammer for decades.)
1
You can't help yourself from making false comparisons when critizing Republicans. Your description of Deneesh D'Sousa is brilliant, but you then equate him with Roger Moore. Moore makes films that address real and serious problems in our society. D'Sousa's films, speeches and writings are that of an apologist for the extreme right.
6
On May 9, 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow spoke at the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, and he called television “a vast wasteland.” How can anyone take these celebrities seriously? That of course includes President Donald Trump. The so-called Great Pop Culture War is further proof of the dumbing down of our society. They’re basically all major loons.
3
"He’s like the late-night liberals, all base-pleasing tactics and no strategy, content to wage a pop culture war that’s stuck, for now, in stalemate."
I wonder how bad things will get before even you are too embarrassed to keep writing this same Both Sides Do It cliche every other week.
The left will get its chance to live up to your caricature, but at the moment it is at least 15 years behind the right on the road to crazy. We didn't get here because because of the liberal media nor is what is going on symmetrical between the two sides. We got here because of pathologies on the right that you devoted a large part of your career attempting to rationalize away because you found them inconvenient. That you are still rationalizing because you're desperately hoping this thing can hold together just long enough for the GOP to keep the Senate this fall so that it can confirm Trump's judges.
7
Trump's presidency has all the dark fascination of a major freeway pile up. We can't stop looking, even as we know how it will end.
5
people in his administration have substantive goals
That is terrifyingly clear.
>
“life- all life -the world… is will to power, and nothing besides”
Nietzsche
Nietzsche as a great philologist (google it) would be impressed how our words are being changed in this "will to power" struggle.
He wrote extensively about the word "bad" being changed to "evil" by the lowly upstart priests as to ancient slavery to overthrow the ancient pagan aristocracy and insert the priests/church into power.
One wonders what the new words will be that get people vaporized.
N.b., for beginners: ancient slavery is very distinct from chattel slavery.
The more I experience all the nonsense organic matter has to offer, the more I understand why Socrates gladly imbibed the hemlock.
"The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows."
Socrates
1
Samantha Bee and "her fellow late-night liberal shouters" are nothing but straw men. Trump is a serial sexual predator, colluded with Russian agents and mobsters, repeatedly bilked creditors and taxpayers out of fortunes by declaring bankruptcy 6 times, constantly disseminates disinformation to destroy the very idea that facts or truth exist, is an authoritarian despot, is a racist with total contempt for the rule of law, is dismantling American democracy, and also says incredibly nasty things about almost everyone (except for the likes of Vladimir Putin). Samantha Bee arguably has only one thing in common with Trump; she at times says very nasty things about people. Bee has no political power and lacks the viewership to have the purported cultural influence Douthat pretends she has. Bee's ratings were poor and falling like a rock long before her statement about Ivanka. Since 2017 Bee has lost approx. 50 percent of her viewership ages 18-34. Her total viewership is only about 800,000. It means that Douthat's argument is just a diversion from the racism which has consumed Republicans. Bee couldn't possibly help Trump more than all the right-wind propagandists out there. Sean Hannity alone has 3.5 million viewers. Trump's appeal is not a "reaction to a pervasive late-Obama-era politicization of pop culture." It is the enormous and all-pervasive presence of right-wing racism and disinformation which motivates Republicans, not some "cultural protest" or "transgressive rebellion".
6
"Although the economics work less well when you start insisting that lousy-but-woke movies are actually good because online right-wingers hate them …"
A Wrinkle in Time?
On occasion I have to stop and shake my head in disbelief when I read or hear the following words:
Ivanka Trump, Senior White House Adviser.
18
Sadly, I think Mr. Douthat is onto something here. A very good column that also offers an informative link about Kim Kardashian's advocacy for a worthy cause. I never expected that from her (but know little about her).
1
"Culture" has become a word with no (or any) meaning, so we need a better word. "Pop" is not a "culture." "Pop" demeans "culture." "Pop culture" is political correctness.
1
It’s inevitable that someone from either side of pop culture politics will self-destruct- the more edgy and offensive the blasts, the more lethal the blowback. Bee knows that, of course, and I trust that she’ll further herself and her career as a comedian.
The pop culture war is not in stalemate. The Left is winning it. The problem is, that's not the war worth fighting. It's the feckless president, not his opportunistic daughter, that should be the target. And make no mistake, with a complaisant congress and a polarized electorate, he's winning that one in a walk.
1
Trump has succeeded brilliantly at making everything about him. As a result, the garbage surrounding Pruitt and Trump's other apprentices-of-the-moment become functionally meaningless in terms of shock value or contributing to an evolving consciousness in the public at large. Even the Times plays Trump's game, reacting with Front Page prominence and seriousness to every tweet and comment from the Entertainer-In-Chief, no matter how many times the comment or tweet is simply the tenth reversal of a previous one.
As I wrote earlier regarding an article about Trump saying he will now meet with Kim: "I expect more from the Times than I do from Trump. Thus it is highly disappointing that the Times refers to this [latest announcement] as a 'diplomatic breakthrough.' It is merely today's noise, no more a breakthrough than when Trump said the opposite awhile back, and then the opposite of that awhile before and the opposite of that awhile before that, ad nauseum......"
But this is nothing new. The Times still refers to "detainees" instead of prisoners, "enhanced interrogation" instead of "torture" and "right to life" instead of anti-abortion, sacrificing accuracy and integrity in order to not rock the boat. Trump's dissimulations and outright lies, as well as his portrayals of "fake news" and "alternative facts" are merely the culmination of a society-wide process going on for decades. After all, long ago people across the political spectrum accepted that a 2x4 was no longer 2"x4".
2
Lenny Bruce was also mentioned in the Billy Joel song. Can you imagine how Bruce would react to the Trump WH? George Carlin would invent an eighth word you can't say on TV to describe Kellyanne Conway. Moms Mabley (who was raped twice by the age of 14) would have something to say about our Predator-in-Chief grabbing women's p#@&%. What would happen to the brave satirists of yesteryear if they were alive today and enduring this presidency? Would they be silenced by censors or sponsors? Samantha is brave. I agree with her assessment of a woman who posts a photo of her two year old on the very day it's reported the US Gov lost misplaced almost 1500 children. Roseanne compared an African-American to an ape before (disgraceful). She dressed as Hitler and held a tray of burned "Jew Cookies." She apologizes to VF then retweets absurd and divisive conspiracy theories. I liked Roseanne in the early days. I really did. Must have been the medication I was on.
6
Samantha Bee "calling Ivanka Trump the c-word … because for her viewers that’s what makes it entertainment" is so far off, it's laughable. She was desperate--what was left but nuking the bitch. Nothing was moving the needle.
What's important is that Queen Bee let the "c-word" out of the bottle and it came from the frustration of the left--losers. Unlike the n-word, it can't be put back in because a cultural Marxist female used it--a very frustrated cultural Marxist, too. It's worse than Trump and Billy's Hollywood bus tour.
Trump wins again. Left reveals its pettiness and vicious hatred of the right. They just blew off 2018--"c-word" will not play well in the heartland--and undoubtedly damaged Harris' shot at the White House, another Queen Bee by any measure, even has the hair style to go with it.
1
The neocons won the great pop culture war on liberals when they started the war in Iraq and proceeded to destroy the world economy by deregulating the banks. The resulting refugee crisis, coupled with the destruction of our economy created an environment for racism and the nativism that is running rampant across the West.
The "Globalist, liberal conspiracy that brought us the greatest wealth and peace machine in world history is finally being brought down. It has little to do with Pop culture wars and everything to do with Republican Conservatives destruction of a wildly successful experiment in liberal democracy across the globe.
16
Starting WW III over 9/11 has to be one of the most extreme over-reactions in world history.
1
"...liberal cultural power [is] the steady circulation of ideas and money and people through cultural institutions that really matter..." Be serious and be honest, Douthat. The right pours huge amounts of money into think tanks and right-wing propaganda mills (think endless "heartland" AM radio) with a nationwide network that amounts to liberal-hate mongering on a massive scale. The money almost exclusively comes from moneyed conservative elites. And let us not forget Fox News, with its wide viewership, is totally devoted to right-wing spin on every front. The right-wing loses public argument, not because they outspend conservatives. but because of the hypocrisy, authoritarianism, and downright mean-spiritness of their message.
6
"But the same confusion is on display among liberal culture makers themselves, who have reacted to Trump’s defeat by leaning into their most self-defeating instincts." What "defeat"?
Is this a misprint? Douthat's analysis might be correct, but the sorriest spectacle we live with every day now is that Trump - on his own terms - is winning. Even if he'd lost in 2016 he'd have garnered roughly 60,000,000 votes - sixty million; just as collective guilt falls on all peoples whose governments are enabled to do evil, it falls on us, too.
2
Liberals cling to their culture of caring about education, equal opportunity, clean air and water, environmental sanity and most critical, telling the truth. The right doesn't need these liberal cultural values.
9
I usually excoriate Douthat for basing his arguments on false equivalences and taking gratuitous potshots at Liberals. However, this column is a lot more truthful and balanced than his usual; so I find myself in rare agreement with most of what he says.
In short: Conservatives started the Culture Wars, precisely because they were "[losing] so many cultural battles."
However, Douthat still creates a false equivalence, even while he finally says something truthful about the nature of Liberalism:
"All of this reflects a deep confusion about how liberal cultural power actually works. It’s the steady circulation of ideas and money and people through cultural institutions that really matter."
Even Douthat admits that Liberalism isn't about creating "battles" and Culture Wars. Liberalism is about allowing multiple perspectives to percolate through society; live and let live. Liberals only "fight back" when Conservatives fight deny us our rights and squelch our voices.
Thus, Liberals really DIDN'T "start the fire" that's ravaging America. Conservatives were the ones who decided to employ a slash and burn strategy, because they felt desparate that they were losing the Culture Wars:
- Atwater's "politics of personal destruction"
- Gingrich's obstructionism
- Starr's witch-hunt against Bill Clinton
- Willie Horton ads; Swift-Boating
- Pat Buchanan's "Culture War"
- Benghazi
- McConnell's theft of the Supreme Court seat
- Birtherism
- Trumpism
See, we really didn't start the fire.
12
When Democrats get down into the gutter with the worst of the right wing bloggers, cable talking heads and legislators, do they do nothing but undermine their prospects for the mid-terms and for 2020.
Luxuriating in the reassuring isolation of one's own private echo-chamber may feel good for a moment, but it will not fix the profound problems at hand.
Democrats would be much better served by focusing on the big issues of the day, mindful of the fact that politics is about reaching enough common ground to win elections and implement a sustainable agenda.
7
Nothing founded on faulty perceptions of reality ever really works.
"Cultural liberalism wins battles when its omnipresence just seems like the natural air we breathe" When will conservative theorists admit that they did not 'sell' the conservative agenda to the base? It is amazing how a thinker who emphasis taking responsibility, can so not do that. When will these theorists see that the base stop believing them, and grasped for a crocodile to save them from drowning? We all need to own Trump.
I wrote a reply to Mr. Stephens recent op-ed piece congratulating ABC for canceling Roseanne. I said that ABC should not censor legal and private free speech. I was pilloried by the vast majority of respondents.
Now Ms. Bee does the same thing Roseanne did but, unlike Roseanne, she did it in the course of her employment with TBS and all I hear are chirping crickets.
The media is interfering with free speech and its selective interference will foster the evolution of a beast which, once it has consumed all the food on its right, will turn to its left.
2
Ms Bee did NOT do "the same thing as Roseanne." Roseanne went on a racist rant against people for their genetics, while Samantha attacked a woman for her poor character. See the difference?
1
I am a little reluctant to beat a dead horse, but you may not understand a few key concepts. 1. ABC did not censor Ms. Barr's private and legal speech. She is free to speak now as she was before. 2. She was fired because she is a racist, or appears to be, and that is still (!) broadly unacceptable to most of us. ABC apparently thought racism stained their brand to an unacceptable degree. 3. Ms. Bee did not do "the same thing." Ms. Bee was vulgar and crude, unnecessarily so to most of us, but, for better or worse, the vulgarity standards have deteriorated considerably recently. Apparently, TBS judged that level of vulgarity did not stain their brand sufficiently to trigger firing.
Now, you may argue that racism and vulgarity are equally vile. Go ahead and make that argument if you want and I will listen carefully. Admittedly, the standard for public expression of racist views has also deteriorated recently. Why that has happened seems pretty clear to me.
Sorry, but Roseanne's language was racial,
calling all Blacks "apes." This is basic KKK.
Bee used the "C" word. I would use it here but for NYT manners. The "C" word comes from a Latin root. As does "cunnilingus." Shakespeare's and Chaucer's "queynt," and varieties of the word in other literature. It doesn't diminish Ivanka except to imply that that anatomical detail describes all she is, female. Is this gender bias? I don't think so.
I is personal, however. Wait! What about diminishing all women by referring to "pussy." Why is it I can use that word and get away with it, but not the "C" word? Because our President, Ivanka's Dad,
used it to diminish and make sexual objects of all women and call them animals (cats) to boot. Cats and apes.
I believe that most Americans by now consider Trump to about the self, the whole self, and nothing but the self.
But, he is quite good a deflection, at least to the point of steadily attaining 35 to 40% of the electorate's approval.
The Beatle's song "Helter Skelter" describes his method. Perhaps this makes him interesting enough to become a creature of the "celebrity-entertainment complex" as you propose. An interesting thought on your part.
3
I am reminded of my favorite book title, Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
3
Another column wherein Ross Douthat blames everyone but himself for Donald J. Trump, forgetting that Trump is the natural and inevitable culmination of the minority tyranny he and his cohorts have fought to achieve for years now -- with gerrymandering, exploitation of the electoral college and unequal senatorial representation and, of course, unlimited corporate spending.
None of which Mr. Douthat is inclined to denounce.
Perhaps if Donald was more openly theocratic, Ross would be better pleased?
4
I actually don't blame Samantha Bee for Trump's election, though apparently Ross does. I blame decades of right wing politicians stoking people's fears and lying to the base. I blame the Murdoch-controlled state media, Fox, for failing to report accurately and clearly to a populace lacking in critical thinking skills after decades of Republican defunding of education. Certainly, I understand that a lot of what motivates the Trump loyalists is the idea that they're poking a finger in the eye of the libs. But the fact that they're willing to sell out their nation to do that? No, I don't blame Samantha Bee at all.
14
Blaming Obama for stuff is such a strange phenomenon. While I agree with you to some extent that "liberal culture makers [edit] have reacted to Trump’s defeat by leaning into their most self-defeating instincts," blaming Obama for the politicization of pop culture is absurd. Ever hear of Woody Guthrie? Bob Dylan? "All in the Family?" I could come up with hundreds of examples that far predate President Obama.
The rebellion for rebellion's sake seems to be the right's main M.O. these days, but that is essentially a result of American exceptionalism, an over identification with independence (inspired by the original Declaration and Constitution), the general result of too much success (post WW2) leading to a sense of entitlement, and a see-sawing over the decades between me- and we-oriented memes (we've been in anti-we since the late 60s).
Unless we start seriously realizing we're completely interconnected and interdependent (regardless of political view), we'll be heading towards extinction on the fast track.
7
Ross, I certainly hope you are wrong that entertainment has become our politics and our politics have become are entertainment. Special Prosecutor Mueller's investigation focuses on the integrity of our democracy and citizens' right to freely elect our representatives, including POTUS, without foreign interference. Candidates for POTUS like Adlai Stevenson reported to the FBI requests made by USSR to assist in his campaign. Unlike 45, he declined. Separating children from their parents at the border because they like Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are fleeing oppression and the threat of violence and seeking asylum, is like Nicholas Kristof said, "This is evil!". When soybean farmers lose $30,000 a day due to speculation of a tariff war, this, like the other examples, are real, the politics are real, and it is not entertaining! And the politics are neither liberal nor conservative. They are about justice, compassion, and conscientious consideration of one's own actions and how they will affect and effect others, ethics.
11
I question your basic premise, that the left has somehow won the pop culture war. After all, what are the chances that we will get substantive reform in the US? That we will adopt a single payer health care system, or subsidize college tuition so that students no longer have to assume crushing debt? Or that we will substantially cut the military budget, enact stricter gun laws, legalize marijuana nationally, and impose higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for it all? Zero to none, I think. And that's because the right has succeeded in shifting the debate ever more rightward, and stacking Congress with the GOP. No, if there's a pop culture war, the right has already won.
26
And if Congress believed for a second that their constituents mattered, we would already have all of the things that most Americans agree upon. But we don't, because we constituents, we regular American citizens who vote, don't matter and haven't mattered since 2008, when Mitch McConnell decided to lead the obstructivist's way.
4
In addition to the the late night talk show hosts, consider the Democrats themselves. They are failing to produce a convincing argument other than "we are better than the other guy." They don't have a plan to make our lives better. If Hillary had explained to us how she could improve our lives and our country, she would have won by enough of a margin to take the Electoral College. She didn't, and the better showman carried the day.
3
Actually, she explained thousands of times. The media were too busy covering her "email scandal," so-called "untrustworthiness" or "unlikability," while endlessly airing Trump's lies and provocations at rallies. Clinton offered plans for helping people and didn't lie about what was possible, but people gravitated to a two-bit huckster, con artist and bankrupt who promised them the moon. But hey, hire a plumber to do your surgery. He swears he'll fix everything better than that pointy-headed lady who went to medical school. What could possibly go wrong?
3
She didn't offer anything to fix the big picture, but maybe it can't be fixed. Our democracy is doomed unless someone can reverse the falling expectations of middle America. Hillary offered more of the same, with a bit of help for some but no systemic fix. But I agree, the media slanted the discussion towards the plumber rather than the surgeon. He played them like a violin, while she wasn't even in the orchestra. It didn't fool me but it fooled enough people to swing the election.
Hillary did explain to us "how she could improve our lives and country", but the media concentrated on Trump because he made for better ratings (https://tinyurl.com/z9jkzcn). FYI, Hillary's platform is here https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/.
Nonetheless, you are correct hat the "better showman carried the day". All Trump needed was $2bn of free, mostly unchallenged TV time.
From Ronald Reagan to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Donald Trump the Republicans have been far more adept at converting culture and entertainment into meaningful political power than Democrats. Calling dueling comedy and satire a "a cultural war" demeans real war and brave warriors.
Instead of war what we have is more akin to a game or a show. A bunch of game players and showoff actors and actresses appealing to both "the better angels" and worst demons of our nature. That matters to political partisans.
But instead of wars we usually have elections in order to resolve cultural differences. Except for the great American cultural war over African enslavement aka the Civil War.
12
I believed back in Bush II that words had lost their content. They simply had no meaning. A lie was as good as truth if it advanced a policy objective. One plus one could equal five if properly spun and arguments about unknown knowns and known unknowns obfuscated logic. Proof by emphatic assertion became common even if disconnected entirely from the available data. Just speak a lie loud enough and proclaim it long enough and it becomes received wisdom and is generally understood to be true.
Fast forward to 2018. Donald Trump is the ultimate beneficiary of our societal disconnect from things that have an evidentiary basis. Conservatives denigrate science. The President rails against the Press. Truth takes a holiday. We have become ungovernable as a nation separated by two completely nonoverlapping realities. I fear for our country.
34
"I believed back in Bush II that words had lost their content. They simply had no meaning. A lie was as good as truth if it advanced a policy objective."
Exactly correct. Gingrich created that virus, Bush and his cronies perfected it and Trump is using it in ways that those administrations never dared.
Trump would not hesitate to sacrifice this entire country in order to save himself. It's like having a cosmic black hole in the oval office, a nihilist controlled by a completely hacked and malfunctioning id.
1
Fast backward to 1964. A lie becomes a truth that furthers a political ambition and then justifies a horrendous foreign policy blunder that still warps our collective values decades later. Evidence can be conjured to support any motive. Science, the great bastion of rationality and skepticism, can be captured and bastardized for political purposes. If we have become ungovernable as a nation, perhaps it is because we are not A nation. Think like a Newton or an Einstein and follow the evidentiary clues. Think like a Gauss or a Poincare and do the math.
1
There is nothing entertaining about our current political situation.
If only the horrific Trump Show could be canceled as swiftly as ABC and Disney canceled Roseanne. If only.
23
Finally someone asserts the priority of culture over politics. Maybe the next step will be the discussion of cultural solutions to cultural problems, instead of political solutions to them. Right now, Mr. Douthat has the floor to himself.
6
Far too often those who desire “cultural change” fail to perceive the role they play in the culture in question. It quickly becomes an exercise in laying blame on the Other.
11
The cry of "preserve out culture" was a favorite of the Hitlerien supporters, the KKK and the far right "christian" coalition. The people Ross Douthat is supporting want a return to the "culture" of women being second class citizens, "non-whites need not apply" and a racially pure society. They call themself "conservative "christians" but they oppose all the precepts Jesus preached about.
The culture wars are indicative of a hollow society. What is missing are hard work in commitment to ideals or values, realistic and open minded analysis of information, not dedication to alliance with political tribe.
Rather than rising in honor each day to work on the needs of the country we now have Mr Ratings playing the "they go low, we go lower and harder game" performing as president.
Stay honorable, friends.
37
"Having lost so many cultural battles....." Douthat argues that the right is losing cultural battles - out shouted by liberal celebrities I guess, and that is how we got Donald Trump.
Really? Over the last decade or two Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly had no influence? The Murdoch machine had no shouting power? The Koch brothers had no political punch? The gerrymander did not work for the GOP?
We overturned Citizens United? Employers must cover birth control? We are no longer at risk of losing the Freedom Of/Freedom From religion battle which would allow employers to choose healthcare options, states to eliminate abortion.
Late night liberalism is the REACTION to FOX, to the takeover of right wing ideas and the loss of centrism. It is not the cause. The right wing has won every battle in the last decade, including blaming the recession on Obama and giving Trump the credit for recovery.
Don't delude yourself. The right is fighting because they are winning, not losing.
172
The right has lost so many cultural battles because the people determine the culture, not the law. It has been the conservatives who have tried since Reagan to change our laws to prevent woman from having control over their bodies, to prevent gays from marrying, to prevent the legalization of marijuana, etc. And now the election of Trump has led to a double standard in how governmental benefits are distributed among the states. Support Trump and be rewarded. Vote against him and be punished. So it is only natural for comedians on the left to react as strongly as they have in their criticisms of Trump and this administration. And it is not part of any pop culture war. It is a simple human reaction to being attacked.
22
The right is having a screaming tantrum because mom said no to ice cream and is taking the right home for nap time. Sure it’s loud and disruptive, and every head in the mall within earshot is watching as the scene unfolds.
4
Exactly. The “right” is losing the “culture wars” because the country does not conform to every piece of _their_ definition of culture, which they themselves have tossed aside to accept Trump as their savior. Christianists who find Trump ok as long as he is doing their bidding - with punishing Those People as much as possible and putting in place judges and officials who will support their ideology for years to come. So what if their beliefs are counter to the majority of Americans, THEY know what is right so get used to it and conform. Some losing.
3
The culture war exists only if you are watching. For the rest of us with more important actual things to do and busy most of the time, all the pablum served up on television and the culture war is ignored.
46
Sadly, no, it is still here. Even if we ignore it it's still here. Because most people are entertained by it.
3
tom - midwest. Really? Then why are you commenting? Then why are so many of the alleged not-watching and/or listening, are so full of opinions on the matter?
Im sorry, ignoring the "culture wars" is neigh impossible - its everywhere!
There is no virtue in the claim that you're above the fray, and dont watch. So many people resort to this claim that by not watching, they are somehow better then those of us who do pay attention.
Excuuuuuse me.
3
Our time working as volunteers and other civic groups leaves us no time for television.
Douthat uses the phrase “liberal cultural power” to describe the cultural power of modern media. That name does not fit, since the cultural power is not liberal, conservative, libertarian or any other adjective describing a political point of view. The cultural power of modern media could best be described as “capitalist cultural power”. It is politically agnostic click-bait. ABC did not reintroduce Roseanne Barr’s program to make a political statement, they did so to make money. I suspect that the building of Fox News was much more motivated by the prospect of profits than the desire to lead a political movement. Twitter was not created to enable intelligent political discourse, it was built in the hopes that an IPO would make the builders rich beyond their dreams.
Likewise, people like Trump, Bar, Bee, West and the Kardashian clan don’t work the media for political reasons. They are doing it for personal aggrandizement. Getting noticed, “attracting eyeballs”, “creating click-bait” is a money-making proposition. It is said that every entertainer picks his audience, so it is not surprising that these people pander to specific groups that are going to like their outlandish behavior. But it isn’t culture or media that is doing this, it is these sorts of individuals.
54
Ross’s last sentence is what reveals his real argument: and that was one helluva bog to transit to get to dry ground.
Trump’s actions, like those of his adversaries, are tactically devised to flog immediately-pressing objectives: they lack the strategically serpentine, or even strategic objectives.
So, here I’m left, finally, on dry ground, but with boots solid blocks of congealing green mud up to mid-calves.
Ross was about 10 years old (honestly) when “Murphy Brown” was causing waves with Dan Quayle about unwed mothers. Obviously, there’s something to be said about the efficacy, for some, in reading about events rather than having lived through them consciously.
16
There was a time when American culture was not quite so sharply divided. Divisions did exist, yes. But there seemed to be more common ground. For example, the Eagles were popular on AM, FM and country-western radio, even as they explicitly acknowledged indebtedness to R and B music. Willie Nelson was on SNL. Ray Charles sang country-western music. Popular films and television programs seemed to reflect an awareness that rural communities were complex and not composed only of bigots and jerks (Coal Miners's Daughter, The Waltons, Norma Rae, Harlan County USA). They also showed that American cities could have bigots and jerks (All in the Family). In other words, there were indications of a certain cultural dialogue going on, amid the divisions. Underneath it, divisions were simmering - as revealed on CB radio (the Twitter of its day). So, what happened? I'd say that deregulation of television and radio started a process in which some people pushed people's rage buttons in order to make money. Shock jocks, cable TV, Fox, the removal of the Fairness Doctrine -- all did untold damage. Later, popular comedy-news shows, in an effort to respond to Fox and Limbaugh etc, relentlessly equated all conservatives with the worst conservatives - and fanned the flames. Add in social media and the internet and voila, the awful stew we now have. The worst bit? America's enemies love to see these internal squabbles and are doing their best to exploit them. United we stand, people.
68
Agreed. When we had three primary news channels and anchors who valued truth and integrity--backed by investigative units based around the world (AP, UPI) and principled news magazines--Americans had trustworthy access to the events that affected them. In addition, mainstream TV showed classics that educated people about ethics, values, sacrifice for the greater good, and other character-building acts. (I'm thinking of the old Playhouse 90 and other productions). When the latter became accessible only on cable, we lost a valuable narrative that helped unify us as a country and made us believe we had more in common than separated us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playhouse_90
30
News of all types was seen as important not as a profit center but as a service. Then the models changed - newspapers became hedge fund cash cows thanks to their cash flow, with news reporting being an unfortunate necessity. TV news was reclassified as a profit center with declining profits leading to cuts, not investment. Service to the revenue, not to the public. Here we are today.
7
This was and is certainly true if one was or is part of the dominant white homogeneous heterosexual male Anglo ruling class. There never was or is a voice for the truly marginalized or invisible. This is the rub of a movement such as BlackLvesMatter as opposed to the MeTooMovement. Both force us as a society to face uncomfortable cultural truths: one about about skin color and the other about sexual predators. Why does one generates a culturally tolerated opposition - AllLivesMatter -and the other is only decried only by internet trolls?
1
Sorry Mr. Douthat, the short fingered vulgarian trumps all when it comes to culture wars.
Liberals didn't elect Samantha Bee.
Conservatives elected Donald Trump.
Ivanka Trump works for the administration, travels the world on our dime, meets with leaders of China, who then announce she's getting invaluable trademarks for the Chinese market.
She's a public official, working in an official capacity, unqualified, but enriching herself.
I wish Samantha Bee would have used better language, but Ms. Trump is a vile grifter, just like her dear old dad.
280
You entirely miss Douthat's point. It's not about Ivanka or Donald Trump's personal character pros or cons. It's about the character and intensity of the entertainment world's presentation of the debate and its potential for giving us four more years of the presidential debacle that is Trump.
18
Don't make a big deal about trademarks. Here in the US their issuance is automatic if there is no conflict with prior trademark registration. It doesn't take any pull to get trademark registrations here.
3
However, China operates differently: for every government action, they extract a concession or grant a reward. Sort of like how Trump and Scott Pruitt operate.
3
The shame of it is that Barr's show was the first attempt in the mass media to try to present a real-life situation where people on both sides of the political divide were living side-by-side and working it out. If Sarah Gelbert, who in real life is as smart and together as her character, Darlene, can continue the show (she executive produced the revival), without Roseanne, it would be a win-win.
22
The pop culture debate is being misused by media in order to avoid reporting real, frightening news. Trump knows how weak the media is. He fumes and tweets, and media plays the fool. The obsession with the Barr story is not a reflection of pop culture, it is the culture of our current news media. There is deliberate but subtle misinformation by network news, major newspapers, and news commentators. All of them, the Times included. Media spends hours on Barr while people still sit without lights in Puerto Rico. What else are we not being told? The amount of time spent on Barr and Bee is ridiculous. It is time to move on. Is the Trump family using the WH to advance personal business? What about Trump's taxes? Tell us about the "why" behind Republican enablers in Congress. Trump's Republican henchman seek to change the very definition of democracy, and that is the cultural shift we must fear and fight with vigor. Audacious sitcoms wouldn't matter when the public has a steady diet of meaningful reality.
55
'Is the Trump family using the WH to advance personal business? What about Trump's taxes? Tell us about the "why" behind Republican enablers in Congress.'
Even those topics get occasional coverage, rare as it is. Meanwhile, federal departments and agencies - environment, education, health, labor, interior..... - are quietly being used to spread termites eating away at the very things they were meant to safeguard.
71
While I'd be the first to agree that media plays a role, media is generally business. And what do we click on? What draws our attention? If we weren't more apt to focus on what's not important, it wouldn't be so heavily featured. We need to learn to meditate or pray a lot more and spend less time buried in screens endlessly distracted.
18
Most media exists only to deliver rapt eyeballs to advertisers.
It can't be a stalemate Ross, so choose a side. Stop lecturing people who are fighting the most important fight of our lifetimes to go easy on the competition. Do you really think if we moderate our outrage, Sean Hannity will moderate his? Do you really think that giving Roseanne Barr a mulligan on racism will temper her and her followers racism? I understand that the right is convinced that politically correct attitudes are ruining our politics, but the truth is, false equivalence is the culprit. Stop telling me we're too harsh and caustic in our humor, humor is the last arrow in our quill. Besides, something I love is on fire, excuse me if I have to scream to get everybody's attention.
307
What a great—I mean great—reply! Thanks, Rick.
5
Hear hear.
3
This doesn't reflect confusion about how liberal power culture works, it reflects clarity in how conservative power works. It is a pure power play. Anything goes. Winning justifies the means. Win whether we're right or wrong, say whatever needs to be said to said, block whatever needs to be blocked, to win.
Douthat insists on being confused, because he insists on being a conservative without understanding what it is or how it works.
58
Let's not mistake this for culture "war" any more than we mistake the WWE for fighting. Theater is theater.
There's a real war on, though, and knowing where and what it is eludes the people who obsess on vaudeville. Trump's insanity over coal is an example. Trump is at war with the GOP's free-market ethos. He's at war with efficiency and profitability in the private sector. He's at war with common sense and a better future in coal country. He's at war with science anywhere he sees it. He's at war with the basic expectation that a president will act responsibly. In all the above, he's at war with the very idea of fact, and with the utility of fact in decision making; and in all of it he's embodying a certainty that the GOP has stood behind for two generations: truth is about power, not about facts.
Is that war? Absolutely. Is he losing, and bringing the GOP down with him? Without a doubt. Does the press see it? Hardly any of them. They like theater.
77
Fantastic phrase that summarizes it all today: truth is about power, not facts. Its simple, and we all need to see what's going on. Thanks.
9
Let's get some perspective here! Roseanne Barr would make a better president than DJT.
3
Yeah but so would my chihuahua. At least she listens. Well most of the time.
There's plenty of concern about the effect of this pervasive polarization on political (dys)function, public decency, and social coherence. But a more basic concern is personal honesty.
And I don't mean Honest Abe-like unimpeachable integrity, just the basics: saying more or less what you actually think, recognizing when you don't know something or are unsure, admitting that your opinions might vary based on the circumstances or shift over time, acknowledging that you might agree 70% with an intellectual ally, but not 100%. You know, the basic stuff that makes us human.
Along with the hyperpolarization has come a kind of hyper-certainty and hyper-consistency. People will literally say the SAME thing every time they discuss a topic, and their friends' comments differ only in cadence and inflection, not content.
Common sense would suggest that very few people ACTUALLY believe precisely the Republican or Democratic party ideology. These are very artificial Frankenstein constructions, patched together without much logical consistency and emerging from years of political turf battles.
So why is everyone pretending?
17
What ideology isn't pretense?
There is far too much attention paid to the personalities.
There is far too little attention paid to serious policy choices that have been neglected for decades, that Republicans have wanted to neglect.
Who pays this attention? Our press. Who does not give in depth coverage to those issues? Our press.
Douthat could have spent this column on details of any one of those things. Instead, he spent it bemoaning what he does, like everyone else around him does.
65
There actually is not a dearth of in-depth coverage of important issues.
It's just that most of it, even in this hyperconnected age, in much harder to find; it doesn't make it onto the first page of a Google search.
It draws one-tenth, or one-hundreth, of the eyeballs another article about tiffs among the Real Housewives of Wherever draws.
And that's all of our faults, not just thus the media's; the large media companies are in it for the money, after all, and prioritize what gets more attention, which is generally not complex, wonky analysis.
11
There's that.
But would people just not read Douthat if he offered more substance?
I think he's got a platform and a choice.
Ross you state "Cultural liberalism wins battles when its omnipresence just seems like the natural air we breathe." If that were in fact the case we would not be waging ongoing battles for gender equality, racial equality, same sex marriage, abortion rights, protection for immigrants and equal access to health care. The right has been screaming for some time initiated by Reagan and they have a whole TV network exclusively devoted to it, FOX. THey have so many conservative right wing shock jocks on the radio that they dominate the dialogue, if one can even call it that.
My theory is that this is what got out the trump voters. Liberals, progressives, lefties, whatever stayed home firm in the belief that their omnipresence was a natural as the air that we breathe. Hillary would win hands down. Wrong. Being calm, collected, rational and presenting strong cultural arguments has not worked. It is preaching to the liberal choir. The other choir is armed to the teeth with guns, hate speech, "white power", the bible and convenient lies and fake news.
To me there is no excuse for the provocative vulgarity of a Samantha Bee, but she is an entertainer. Trump is supposed to be the POTUS, the leader of the free world, just what is his excuse. The air from the trump WH has a foul stench to it.
112
While I'd prefer she not engage in the provocative vulgarity, I can understand the outrage that sparked this particular remark. Trump's way of managing immigration is creating massive amounts of trauma. Trauma is carried through generations, and has a serious impact on the health and well-being of every person it touches. From a neurobiological standpoint, separating a family will reap more crime, less income, more need for health services an so on, for decades to come. In my mind, it is a crime against humanity, a crime far worse than stealing or dealing drugs for the lasting damage it will do on multitudes of people. Trump's policies are so misguided and inhumane that there is some justification for using vile language in the expression of rage about them.
37
There is a solution: apply; wait your turn; enter the US legally.
Trump is being blamed for the immigration problems. But people must have not paid attention to Obama’s deportations.
Just in case you missed it:
“Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/obamas-deportat...
I don't know if this is off topic, but I just watched a wonderful PBS special about Perry Como. What a voice, what a personality, what a gentleman. There was not one person interviewed (Carol Burnett, Regis Philbin, Nick Clooney, to name just a few) who did not have something wonderful to say about this man. He was one of a kind and they do not come any better. He was a rarity then and is unheard of today.
As I was watching this excellent special, I could not help think of the trash and smut that we are subjected to today on a daily basis. They are void of talent and are so boring. Samantha Bee is a vulgar human being who is not even funny. She is on some obscure channel and was not known to too many people until the c word incident with Ivanka Trump. When the dust has settled, she will go back to obscurity. Or at least hopefully that is where she ends up.
We have only ourselves to blame for the mindless programming and talent on television today. If we tuned out, these shows would fade away. Maybe that is what we need to do. Maybe then they would return to decent programming and personalities again. We can only hope.
16
Unfortunately, it's impossible to tune out the worst offender. He's in the White House.
46
I tuned out of those types of shows, in fact most television, years ago. There is nothing there. Now I wish I could just tune out of this presidency! There is nothing there either, but it is doing a lot of damage to our country.
1
Over forty years
with no TV
And I'm still aware
of Samantha Bee
She's hardly obscure . . .
3
The left's "politicization of pop culture" is simply answering the conversion of right wing politics into entertainment, which Fox news accomplished 20 years ago.
The media & political arms of the Right have had to get more and more extreme (from Limbaugh to Alex Jones, from Gingrich to Trump) to hold their audience's attention. From my perspective while this was happening, you either entered that room or you didn't. If you didn't, they still shaped politics, because the vulgarity & dishonesty made you vote for anyone who could do a reasonable imitation of an adult. But with Trump's election, there really is no political space outside of entertainment. He does what he does to get attention; we give it to him. The only ones who really challenge him are other entertainers. We are part of his reality show whether we despise him or are duped by him.
Now the Democrats don't have talk show hosts discussing GW Bush's child sex ring, or the fact that Mr. Trump hates America because he was born in Kenya. But wait 20 years, it could happen. And make no mistake: politics as entertainment is democracy on the auction block. The logic of the marketplace applied to politics is inherently ideological. It will pursue the wealth & power of the celebrities playing the part of political representatives. They will keep us very angry & engaged, but they may not tolerate our expensive needs for things like retirement, medical care, or a liveable planet.
99
Martin states, "politics as entertainment is democracy on the auction block." Yes I cringe whenever I see politicians of both parties making nicey nicey with talk show hosts. They diminish themselves trying to sell the facade that they are "just folks" like the rest of us.
4
"Cultural liberalism wins battles when its omnipresence just seems like the natural air we breathe. But direct political hectoring plays against that strength; instead of the subtle nudge of a sitcom’s implicit values it’s just a rich and famous person yelling at you, in a way designed to maximize ratings among progressives looking for catharsis."
I hate to admit it when you're not wrong, but you're not wrong.
Samantha Bee's show and the Daily Show are not about moving the moral needle in this country to the left, even if they still try like heck to do it.
They've always been more about making our side feel better, although many still cling to the delusion that we're doing crucial work by shining a light on the faults and foibles of a right wing gone mad.
When the side you are at war with has no shame, and has even given up pretending that it does, comedic satire can no longer have real influence. It has no power, as the other side doesn't see it as witty or smart our enlightening, they see it as weak and desperate.
That battle is over, GWB and Cheney even before Trump had already fought that battle and won decisively.
Stephen Colbert took shots at GWB at the 2006 Correspondents dinner that could have turned the lights out on some prior administrations, but they bounced off Bush like bullets off of Superman. Because he didn't care.
We have to find another way, and it won't be another Alec Baldwin Trump impression that leads us to victory.
36
I think what pulls the Right together, drives the Left apart; it's the IQ and disposition differential.
2
"Nuance" is largely lost on the right. You think they are spending their Sunday morning reading Ross Douthat?
We need to get tougher as a party, give them something that they recognize and to hang their hat on.
The Lefts satirist may not bring down the gates, but they do voice and point out the emperor having 0 clothes.
Wolf did a service calling truth to power, that the press wasn't doing its job, and they squirmed. That Sarah lies non-stop, and she knew shame. That Flint still has water issues. That was once again back hauled back into the light.
Obama made a joke of Trump and made him look the chump. Unfortunately that brought us the Stay-Puft clown as our destroyer.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were great new sources during Bush the Lessor's years.
No, they may not be ending the careers of those they parody, but they are the gnats that irritates. They speak what doesn't get said in the nice quarters and desperately needs to be spoken aloud.
3
Professional football is entertainment also. But Donald Trump seems to care about the explicit politics of its players - you know, black guys who don't want to be killed by the police because they have, say, a cellphone in their hands. And encourages their "owners" to threaten their jobs if they engage in a silent and respectful protest.
Entertainment in our society is about making money by giving people what they choose to watch or dance to. But Mr. Douthat's concentrating on a few irresponsible speech acts neglects the large parts of the entertainment industry that stifles political protest from the left.
43
What pop culture wars? For there to be a war, you need at least two opposing sides, and the entertainment industry is overwhelmingly on the Democrats' side. Roseanne Barr might not seem to be, but she, Scott Baio, and Clint Eastwood are the only Republican entertainment figures I can think of. Ok, also James Woods. But beyond that there are none, especially none who are still working. Trump won without entertainment industry help.
Beyond that, I am a little disappointed, because I began reading hoping Mr. Douthat might be talking about different/dueling trends in music, movies, tv and the ways they have effected society for good or not.
8
Kurt Russell
1
Me: that is because Conservative are just NOT funny, unless you consider meanness and spite hilarious. Just saying.
1
You forgot Gary Busey and Ted Nugent. A real lineup of washed up entertainers you have there...
1
"He’s like the late-night liberals, all base-pleasing tactics and no strategy, content to wage a pop culture war that’s stuck, for now, in stalemate. "
Ross,
Not really a stalemate. You make it clear that you sit in the middle of the two cultures: liberal and conservative. That would be really hard place for me. I empathize.
One of the things I had to learn as a psychologist is that sitting in the middle does not mean always looking for parallels in the behavior of either side. Sometimes, it also means blaming one party's content/behavior over the others. For me taking sides in an objection to ninety percent of the behavior of the current conservative party is a really easy example.
I think that you also confuse the medium with the message. On the surface both sides use at times similar content/medium. However the context of both the policy, and the dreams of either side are usually 90% different.
21
Ross, pop culture wars are today's equivalent of "let 'em eat cake" (or crow).
They're just another diversion, bread and circuses for the common man. Trump fans them because he has so much to hide.
Trump never does anything that doesn't benefit himself in both the near and long term.
The pardon of Dinesh D'Souza achieved the short term goal of pleasing conservatives and the long-range objective of hinting to those with the power to squeal that they should stay quiet and wait for their turn.
Pardoning the Memphis grandmother put away for life from a first offense just wasn't self-serving enough for the Great Pardoner.
At least, that's how I read all this. Or, as Jesus would say, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
119
Trump is attacking America’s legal system with these pardons, part of his authoritarian plan to Make America Worse.
2
You want a culture war, Father Douthat ?
Here are your choices:
1. Democratic America - reason-based, science-based, plurality-based, democracy-based, modernity-based, and capable of grasping nuance, complexity and the ability to apologize for bad behavior
2. Republistan - religion-based, authoritarian-based, tribe-based, gun-based, tyranny-of-the-minority-based, hypocrisy-based, contemptuousness of modernity, higher education, science and the steadfast refusal to apologize for bad behavior
Comedian Samantha Bee made an offensive c-word comment about First Daughter Ivanka - daughter of misogyny-based public policy champion Donald - and publicly apologized.
Musician Ted Nugent used the same c-word slur to refer to then-first lady Hillary Clinton in 1994 and beamed proudly.
Nugent said: “You probably can’t use the term ‘toxic c---’ in your magazine, but that’s what she (Hillary) is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This b!tch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro.”
Nugent also 'joked' about killing then-President Barack Obama at an NRA meeting in 2012:
“If Barack Obama becomes the next president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
Donald's classic hypocritical, shameless social cretin Republican response ?
On April 19, 2017, Trump dined with Ted Nugent, Kid Rock and Baked Alaskan Sarah Palin at the White House.
Nice lowlife GOPeople.
The absolute bottom of the American barrel.
453
Except that no one cares what a long-ago washed-up 3rd-rate rocker has to say, whereas Bee is at the top of her game.
3
Bee herself said it best: we're fighting over one word instead of paying attention to the deportations separating children from parents.
Which is kind of the reason she shouldn't have used it, but still.
"Flint still doesn't have clean water."
21
"Comedian Samantha Bee made an offensive c-word comment about First Daughter Ivanka - daughter of misogyny-based public policy champion Donald - and publicly apologized.
Musician Ted Nugent used the same c-word slur to refer to then-first lady Hillary Clinton in 1994 and beamed proudly."
Socrates, that was then (1994) and now is now. Nugent was a beaming renegade, Bee is the bottom-of-the-dirty-slurs barrel currently popular on social media. Not much farther down we can go in lowlife, though, obviously, some extremists can still make political paydirt from it.
1
Have you seen what passes for honorable conservative stalwarts today? Make a list of the newsmakers and the big names in the party, and glance at it if you’ve accidently ingested poison and have to throw up in a hurry: D’Souza, Joe Arpaio, Roy Moore, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence and, of course, the president of the United States.
The only good news associated with these people is when they’re fired, indicted, heard making an embarrassing blunder, burned out, retiring or apologizing for some offense. Do you wonder why they’re late-night fodder for comedians? Is it surprising that the comedic tone has taken a nasty turn?
Michelle Wolf raised some eyebrows and more than a few chuckles with her vulgarity-laden roast at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. She called the president a monster. She mocked Sarah Sanders’ smoky eye. She put Kellyanne Conway under a tree. Clearly we’re not in Kansas anymore.
If normal humans have to endure the unendurable embarrassment of our crotch-groper-in-chief, then we’ve got to use language that befits the regime. When the president is a vulgar joke, vulgar jokes will follow. Hail to the Chump.
The biggest vulgar joke of all is that our fellow Americans put this nasty regime in charge, thinking this low man would somehow elevate them. They don’t realize that he doesn’t even see them, except as an audience to applaud his every clueless, crass remark.
323
John McCain, Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Jeff Corker, Ben Sasse … There are decent GOP conservatives. You have to look for them, but they're there.
1
Unfortunately, I AM in Kansas. But, I really like your comments. Thanks.
7
John McCain: Soon and sadly to be gone.
John Kasich: couldn't win a Republican primary for dog catcher.
Jeff Flake: Soon to be gone.
Bob Corker: Thinks global warming is a myth and votes against background checks for gun buyers
Ben Sasse: Smart and relatively fact-based
One out of five isn't great odds.
Quite frankly, I'm disgusted with the whole blasted mess. Celebrity and entertainment have replaced any rational, fact-driven discussion of the genuine issues facing our country whether its economic equality and opportunity, immigration, or bigotry in its many guises and forms.
Enough, already! The only relatively safe media haven is the nightly PBS News Hour. Please, flush the rest, left and right.
130
Not even the nightly PBS Newshour is clean. They just use better language. Sorry.
And you know what? I often hear how PBS is a mouthpiece for liberals. That's why Republicans want to defund it.
2
But who wants to reduce the funding for PBS??
5
Samantha Bee's controversial words were wrong on three levels.
First, it should be clear that Ivanka Trump doesn't have a moderating influence on her father. Expecting Ivanka to infuse Donald with a heart is as futile as expecting Melania to stop his cyber-bullying.
Second, it is wrong to stoop to Donald Trump's level of discourse. As he coarsens our culture, the most immediate way to resist him is not to sound like him.
Third, Ms. Bee's message about the unconscionable handling of children and the unjust criminal treatment of those seeking refuge, was lost to her words. Rather than hear about her bad choice to use an expletive, we should be focusing on an obscene immigration policy.
32
Oh the irony!
Jon Stewart became a secular saint for "providing sanity" during the Bush years. And, he was profane and deeply cutting. Well, he was ... a comedian! What was he supposed to do? (As an aside, did he not coin the term :"fake news," referring to his own program?)
But I knew at the time, you can't just pump that much ridicule (no matter how much deserved) into our political discourse without risking eventual blowback.
Liberals today disparage conservative policy as having no substance except "whatever upsets liberals," and they are not incorrect. But conservatives did not start that fire. When late night comedians become our truthsayers, that is not a good thing. That is eventually how you get a profane backlash on the other wide, AKA Trumpism.
10
Late night comedy became our "truthsayers", because corporate media was and is demonstrably incapable of reporting the obvious truth, thanks to financial self-interest and class associations. What we get instead is "balance" -- meaning nothing can be said of one political party, unless an equivalent can be cited for the other. And that's the so-called "liberal" media, which claims to be objective. Fox & Co. don't even bother with the window dressing.
So the Alice in Wonderland quality of our politics, where brazen shams and deceptions can't be exposed, is revealed only in entertainment.
The fault here isn't "liberals". It's money and corporate governance.
4
I can't pour out enough invective to describe what I think of US pretensions to divinity and equally-protective law.
pjc: you appear to be confusing comedic, satirical brilliance (Jon Stewart and his intelligent audience who gets the joke) with brain-numbing stupidity (Donald Trump and his deplorables who are just plain angry).
Never the twain shall meet.
4
"Culture war" is a euphemism.
"Liberal" means open-minded; open-minded people are better thinkers, more analytical, and more oriented to pursuit of education. They are usually smarter and certainly more inquisitive than narrow-minded people.
Sure, there are plenty of individual liberals who are not that bright and can be narrow-minded, and there are conservatives who are pretty smart and have some good ideas. But, by and large, and in general, liberals are smarter than conservatives. It is no coincidence that college professors, successful people, better-educated people, professionals, more affluent people, and "celebrities" (who tend to be "successful" people) overall tend to be more liberal than others.
Subconsciously, conservatives know this to be true. They have great insecurity about it, and about their tendency toward narrow-mindedness and/or shallow thinking. Hence, they are always ranting about and demonizing colleges, the news media, intellectuals, and, yes, celebrities. They fear what seems threatening to their simpler comforts and security. THAT is really what the "culture war" is all about.
I know, by saying this, I'm making it worse. I will be condemned for being elitist, prideful, arrogant and, worst of all, for fomenting more "culture war" in response to comments like this! But, c'mon folks; they already know it (even Douthat). They'll take their shots anyway. Anger and complaining are part of their shtick. Let's put the skunk right there on the table.
34
" "Liberal" means open-minded; open-minded people are better thinkers, more analytical, and more oriented to pursuit of education. "
"When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more not less" -- ALICE IN WONDERLAND
As far as many conservatives are concerned,"liberal" means "anti-democratic", removing issues from democratic control for fear that they would lose in fair elections.
11
Charles,
Thanks for the comment. I don't suggest that liberals are always thoughtful or that their conclusions are always correct. Neither is true. I was only speaking in the most general of terms. When liberals seek to protect their bad ideas from public scrutiny or approval, other liberals do or should agree that they act inappropriately. We have a democracy (or, at least, we did), and its tenets should be honored.
The trickier question, of course, is as to Constitutional rights, which are protected from majoritarian attack. That was the framers' intent. We get speech, privacy, and (arguably) abortion; you get guns, speech, and states' rights. You get freedom of religion and we get freedom from religion. Or, that's at least how it's supposed to be!
AM,
You are so correct, and thanks for speaking the truth. I was the first to go to college in my blue collar family and had to put up with all kinds of "college-kid" insults whenever I made some kind of mistake or did not understand something.
4
For decades the left assumed that their working-class supporters were dying off. No one had to pay attention to them any more. So they began to relentlessly mock them. You're bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You're bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy, & cultural appropriation. You're terrible people.
You reap what you sow. There are no bad or good culture wars just winners & losers. The left is losing this fight...badly. Trump's crassness isn't surprising, isn't accidental, it's intentional, it's carefully calculated & it's working quite well. It plays perfectly to his base & they love it, so he'll keep doing it as much as possible. From a strategic & tactical standpoint, it's brilliant. It's open season on liberals & progressives. There's absolutely no downside to attacking, shaming, & embarrassing them with relentless abandon. The mainstream press can rage & shout about these tweets until there's ice on the equator...it won't change the mind of one person who voted for Trump. The more you complain the more he will do it.
A huge portion of America hates & despises what the left stands for to their very core. What progressives & their co-dependents will never be able to see is that Trump supporters revel in the non-stop drama, are galvanized when he punches back. Far from being embarrassed by his antics, they're thrilled by it & in their heart of hearts can't get enough of it. So why stop? This is payback.
18
Bill: the "huge portion of America" you speak of is the Confederate flag-wavers in the deep south and the functional illiterates of flyover country. They consistently vote against their own self-interest, hence we have Donald Trump who has not, and will not, do a substantive thing for them except reflect their deep anger at "liberals." That their abject stupidity is reflected in the current president is, as you say, no accident. However, since he lost the popular vote by about 3 million, and his approval ratings have hovered around 40% since the election (the worst of any president in his first term), your suggestion that he's "winning" anything is more hope than reality.
15
You are confusing Trump's cultural base with his political base. And you've missed Douthat's point: Pop culture (where Trump's tactics work) is not the same as the larger culture (where they very likely only have a limited shelf life).
On average, I believe Hillary voters (according to exit polls), had an avg family income somewhere just north of $60k. Trump voters, on the other hand, reported income above $70. Trump wasn't elected, and isn't sustained, by poor, white, working class voters, but rather by rich suburban voters who will only stick with Trump as long as the economy is clicking along and he doesn't do anything stupid internationally, And hey, what are the odds of that, eh? Trump will prosper politically until something bursts his TV reality-show bubble.
But don't confuse political success with cultural change. It's far too late to try and Make America White Again. Trump's cultural base indeed hate their fellow Americans, just as you say. But they are nowhere near a majority of Americans, and probably only constitute a plurality of Republicans.
Trump represents the last, angry, bitter cry of a dying demographic. Good riddance.
14
I have practiced most construction trades and am quite at home in machine shops too. I find that an understanding and appreciation of other people's trades makes one a better supervisor than any MBA stoked up with the delusion that everything can be managed the same way.
1
The young people (high school - college age) that I have come into contact with understand “Pop Culture “ and the way it is being used by today’s politicos, and they are not buying it.
Their are calling out the dishonesty and injustice that is pervasive today and will hopefully have their day.
To underestimate their potential influence is foolish.
11
It's worth remembering that high school and college age young people are often Trump supporters. Many of them are not the ones whom an adult would notice. Those who are not (or for high schoolers, will not be) college material, and a few warped characters like Steve Miller was in his youth make up a legion of Trump-ettes
2
Football is a "contact" sport. Having fun, I assume.
The cultural wars all come down to economic issues, more than anything else. It is the Politicians who push racism, mysoginy, fear of others who are not white, fear of losing your wealth to those who do not deserve a piece of the American pie according to some of the wealthy's beliefs(think Betsy DeVos, Mnuchin, Trump, et al. And then their favorite celebrities join in, as they have a bigger bully pulpit and they use it.
What Roseanne Barr said was despicable. What Samantha Bee said was despicable. So the right and left are represented in their utterances. There is just one difference. Bee did not disparage an entire race with her remarks. Barr did. This is the difference between them.
So it is not just a cultural war that we have. It is a war on our Constitution. And if we are not careful, we could end up in another Civil War.
6
In my view, Samantha Bee should not have used the "c" word, though complete outrage was appropriate. She was expressing how incredibly horrible it is that the post of Ivanka and her baby all happy is taking place at the same time families trying to get refugee status are being torn apart, as children are being taken from their parents. Which is worse, after all...a bad word by someone about the brazen poster, or the policy that tramples on powerless people?
I have heard opinions that Ms. Bee was wrong to suggest Ivanka should dress suggestively for her father to persuade him. I think it is perfectly appropriate, since it was her father who said that if she wasn't his daughter he would date her and who happily let Howard Stern call his daughter a piece of "a" (the word was used).
Finally, this whole notion of equivalence between:
1. Rosanne Barr's racist tweet, which commented on nothing
and
2. Samantha Bee's including a vulgarity in a rant against the tearing apart of families while the perpetrator's daughter posts a warm and fuzzy photo of her and her child
is hogwash.
One culture is outraged into vulgar language while the other culture is just vulgar.
3
This notion that redstatists vote for the worst possible president in vengeful retaliation for the jokes of late night comedians is what's terrifying about Americans.
Jon Stewart was on the right side of history about Fox & the Iraq war. His brilliance in skewering the neocons & their fox propaganda wing was a public service. To date the architects of misguided redstate allegiance to the Iraq disaster never relented yet everybody knows now how horrible Bush & Cheney were, even Trump.
Keith Olbermann & his then understudy Rachel Maddow were also on the right side of history.
The fact that redstate voters are so easily twisted to vote in revenge for a word like 'deplorables' (yes she said it, but no she was not referring to all rural & small-town white people, just the klan-level bigots, it was completely spun) is testament to the irresponsible abuse of activist radicalization employed by likes of Limbaugh, Fox & Desouza.
What Ivanka is doing by legitimizing Donald is a very dark deed & needs to be indicted by commentators, be they comedians or others.
If redstate voters then reelect the Don, it's not Samantha B's fault, it's the fault of the voters of the opposition who are not passionate enough about their own cause to correct course.
36
There is a difference between left-wing late-night talk-show hosts and comedians and Trump. Left-wing late-night talk-show hosts and comedians aren't just playing Progressives on t.v.. They actually believe, and their audiences seek them out, either on purpose by flipping the channels or by choosing to be in their studio audiences. Trump has no moral compass. He will say whatever it takes to pander to his base.
19
“Liberal cultural power” is about a lot more than “circulation.”
It “works” because it argues in favor of expanding the franchise to include more people.
Simple as that. Liberals “win” culture wars because eventually society sees the weakness in the arguments against change. We stutter and backslide sometimes, but the story of America is the story of increasing the franchise.
We “win” because the cause is better.
20
I realized many years ago: if you resort to name-calling, you've lost the argument.
I wish Samantha Bee had simply called Ivanka feckless, instead of using that as an adjective to modify her anatomical noun, because then she would have made her point without stirring up the resulting brouhaha... and we certainly have enough side shows these days. However, one could argue that it's because of the brouhaha that we're all talking about the issue behind it. Maybe. We'll never know.
It's a fine line to walk when dealing with the policies of this administration, since Trump himself -- as both POTUS and the patriarch of his grifter family -- is the most egregious name-caller of them all. His hypocrisy in decrying Bee's language is palpable. Certainly they could have taken a high road, but Bee and her writers seemed to be acting on the axiom that if you want to be both heard and understood when you address people, it helps to speak in their language.
18
The 'c' word seems a bit harsh, but remember she's a comedian, comedians say stuff.
Whether a comedian's politics reflected in their choice of epithets promotes their position or backfires, further analysis is needed.
But whether an ugly epithet-based attitude about the opposition is actually politically effective or not? The verdict is in:
Back in '95 Newt Gingrich was famously quoted as using th 'b' word to characterize Hillary Clinton.
Not only did this fail to harm Newt's political influence, it succeeded so thoroughly that Newt's war on Hillary Clinton continues to destroy her politically to this day.
The message for political battles in the USA seems to be to fight dirty, fight relentlessly, say the worst things possible about the opposition, & never apologize or retract.
This is the political environment republicans created, and it works for them every time.
The problem for liberals seems to be that they're too conscientious & decent to be that vicious with a straight face, & therefore appear weak to the gop base who likes nothing more than a ringside seat at the wwe.
23
Tee shirts visible at Trump pre-election rallies "Clinton's a C..t Vote for Trump.
Ok for Trump supporters to use the work with impunity against Clinton, but not against St. Ivanka who cluelessly released a mommy picture of her and her toddler looking beautiful the same week we were seeing pictures and hearing stories of children that same age being dragged away from their mothers.
7
Tidr,
Congratulations on a brilliant piece of satiric writing. The comment that "liberals [are] too conscientious & decent to be that vicious" is especially amusing.
1