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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   38184 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Hanania is far and away my favourite US politics blogger right now. This piece somehow managed to be both hilarious and insightful. He manages to describe Republican primary voters in a way that should to any rational reader code as contemptuous and disparaging, and yet he comes across like he's giving a purely descriptive analysis. Potentially the American Dominic Cummings?

Potentially the American Dominic Cummings?

I think so, but not the way you mean it. Cummings too was contemptuous of the ordinary person, 'rules are for little people', he relied on having powerful friends to get him into the unelected positions where he could wield influence and pissed off the civil servants running the place, then he managed to piss off the public - and more importantly, Johnson's girlfriend - enough that Boris found it expedient to throw him under the bus.

So all the big talks and plans came to nothing in the end.

I can see the exact same with Hanania.

I'm not american nor would I vote rep if I were, but this piece does come across to me as mainly contemptuous and disparaging. In combination with his other recent writing, it seems obvious to me that Hanania mostly despises the average republican and only has a very limited policy overlap with them.

some his articles are good, such as about the differences between liberals and conservatives, but other times he seems to have major confirmation bias or ignores obvious countervailing evidence. Regarding a recent article about how crime is out of control in America, completely ignores the work of Pinker. Regarding obesity, no mention of studies showing the low long-term success rate of diets. Not saying I am an expert , but such counterexamples are obvious to anyone who has done even a cursory examination of the literature.

Agreed, Hanania's great. He's kind of replaced Scott for me since Scott doesn't write much about politics any more.

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