Tressie McMillan Cottom, “A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness” (NYT link)
These senators are demonstrating a willful blindness that has become endemic in the Democratic Party. Their rhetoric — and the conventional wisdom that flows from it — suggests that we cannot talk about economic solutions without abandoning our commitment to the Black, Latino, gay, transgender and female poor that are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s base. The conceit at the heart of that belief is that poor white people are too racist, and too uniquely ignorant of their racism, to vote in their best interests. Therefore, Democrats have to accept a little racism to win the working class.
It is an old argument. History will tell you that negotiating with racism or fascism or authoritarianism never ends well. …
Now, I know for a fact that the working class in this country looks more like a Latino woman who cleans houses than it looks like Platner, a former defense contractor turned oyster farmer with some leftist political beliefs.
E.B. White, “Freedom” quoted in “Gregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White — author of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ — warned us about,” by Chris Geidner
The least a man can do at such a time is to declare himself and tell where he stands. I believe in freedom with the same burning delight, the same faith, the same intense abandon which attended its birth on this continent more than a century and a half ago. … I am in love with freedom and that it is an affair of long standing and that it is a fine state to be in, and that I am deeply suspicious of people who are beginning to adjust to fascism and dictators merely because they are succeeding in war. From such adaptable natures a smell rises. I pinch my nose.
Mark Silk, “On the right, Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in”
By the mid-1980s “Judeo-Christian” had become the watchword of the religious right, unchallenged among social conservatives as shorthand for their social agenda. … But since then, an exclusivist Christian vision of the national future has led to an open rejection of “Judeo-Christian” by significant figures on the religious right. …
The old-time Christian opposition to Judaism is not the same as antisemitism. But as part of an ideology that seeks dominion over nations, it provides antisemites like Nick Fuentes and Carlson with the theological justification they need. Whatever one thinks of “Judeo-Christian” as an intellectual construct, its rejection by Christian nationalists is evidence enough of its efficacy as a barrier to Jew-hatred.
Becky Garrison, “To Those Familiar with Purity Culture, Megyn Kelly’s Comments About Epstein and 15-Year-Old Girls Isn’t Such a Surprise”
While some decry Kelly’s comments as “career-ending,” her line of thinking would be deemed not only acceptable but biblical within Christian purity circles. In RD, purity scholar Sara Moslener, author of After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America, observed how “evangelical purity is not about sex but power,” which gets to the heart of the problem Kelly apparently fails to comprehend. The reason we have an age of consent in the US (16 to 18 years old, depending on the state) is because we’ve decided, as a society, that it’s unreasonable to expect people that young to participate in a relationship of equals with an adult.
Bhaskar Sunkara, “Make Sports Sacred Again”
A healthy society doesn’t eliminate every vice, but it draws lines. It understands that some freedoms corrode the conditions that make freedom meaningful. The case for recriminalizing bookmaking and banning betting from the airwaves isn’t an extreme form of paternalism. Rather, it’s about creating friction again through banning live-betting apps, curbing nonstop ads, and making it harder for gambling to reach people before common sense does. We don’t need to prosecute individuals who gamble, but we do need to dismantle the infrastructure that invites and normalizes it.
For all our talk about “harm reduction,” there’s something perverse about designing digital opium dens and calling it liberty. The Left, at its best, has always believed that society should cultivate the conditions for a good life. And a good life doesn’t involve compulsively wagering on the performance of 20-year-old sports stars and DMing them death threats if they lose you money (yes, this happens).
Abby Vesoulis, “When Miscarriages Become Crimes”
And in the midst of dealing with legal issues, some women who have been prosecuted for pregnancy-related crimes are also mourning pregnancies they lost. According to her civil suit, Watts’ pregnancy was “very much wanted.” Catherine, who is in remission from drug addiction, says she misses her stillborn daughter every day. Sasha and her lawyer declined to be interviewed while her case is active, but in police records, she asserts that she was taking prenatal vitamins—another indication that she, too, was trying to have a healthy pregnancy.
Contained in these stories, experts say, is a painful irony. Pregnant women who fear becoming the next Watts, Catherine, or Sasha may choose to forgo medical help altogether, risking even worse outcomes for both them and their fetuses. “It’s not surprising,” Sussman says, “that the states that represent a lot of the arrests also have poor infant health outcomes.”
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