{"id":71861,"date":"2025-11-19T15:33:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T20:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=71861"},"modified":"2025-11-19T15:33:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T20:33:28","slug":"smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-19-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/19\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-19-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart people saying smart things (11.19.25)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Tressie McMillan Cottom, \u201cA Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats\u2019 Greatest Weakness\u201d<\/a> (NYT<\/em> link)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

These senators are demonstrating a willful blindness that has become endemic in the Democratic Party. Their rhetoric \u2014 and the conventional wisdom that flows from it \u2014 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It is an old argument. History will tell you that negotiating with racism or fascism or authoritarianism never ends well. \u2026<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

E.B. White, \u201cFreedom\u201d<\/a> quoted in \u201cGregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White \u2014 author of \u2018Charlotte\u2019s Web\u2019 \u2014 warned us about,\u201d<\/a> by Chris Geidner<\/strong><\/p>\n

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. \u2026 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mark Silk, \u201cOn the right, Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the mid-1980s \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d had become the watchword of the religious right, unchallenged among social conservatives as shorthand for their social agenda. \u2026 But since then, an exclusivist Christian vision of the national future has led to an open rejection of \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d by significant figures on the religious right. \u2026<\/p>\n

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 \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d as an intellectual construct, its rejection by Christian nationalists is evidence enough of its efficacy as a barrier to Jew-hatred.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Becky Garrison, \u201cTo Those Familiar with Purity Culture, Megyn Kelly\u2019s Comments About Epstein and 15-Year-Old Girls Isn\u2019t Such a Surprise\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

While some decry Kelly\u2019s comments as \u201ccareer-ending,\u201d 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,<\/em> observed how \u201cevangelical purity is not about sex but power,\u201d 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\u2019ve decided, as a society, that it\u2019s unreasonable to expect people that young to participate in a relationship of equals with an adult.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bhaskar Sunkara, \u201cMake Sports Sacred Again\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A healthy society doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t an extreme form of paternalism. Rather, it\u2019s 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\u2019t need to prosecute individuals who gamble, but we do need to dismantle the infrastructure that invites and normalizes it.<\/p>\n

For all our talk about \u201charm reduction,\u201d there\u2019s 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\u2019t 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).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Abby Vesoulis, <\/strong>\u201cWhen Miscarriages Become Crimes\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019 pregnancy was \u201cvery much wanted.\u201d 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\u2014another indication that she, too, was trying to have a healthy pregnancy.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cIt\u2019s not surprising,\u201d Sussman says, \u201cthat the states that represent a lot of the arrests also have poor infant health outcomes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please listen to Tressie McMillan Cottom, E.B. White, Mark Silk, Becky Garrison, Bhaskar Sunkara, and Abby Vesoulis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":67260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-71861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-smart"],"yoast_head":"\nSmart people saying smart things (11.19.25)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Please listen to Tressie McMillan Cottom, E.B. 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