Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

I think it probably depends greatly - you could certainly approach, say, your average Lutherans and Episcopalians and whatnot with that argument. But both a lot of Catholic leaders and congregants, as well as evangelicals of all stripes, categorize a variety of widely used birth control methods as "abortifacents" because they stop a fertilized egg from implanting. That makes it tantamount to abortion in their eyes, so its a non-starter.

I understand why Bruenig states her views the way she does, but afaik she and her husband are against legislation further constricting the status quo, which means she's pro-choice. It's a rhetorical position that's useful for attracting people who are personally against abortion and want to make peace with it being part of the system.

also, what Phil said is the rhetoric of a lot of people, but it's not necessarily indicative of their actual actions, which muddies the issue further

I always wonder if there's a way to sell Christian voters on this sort of argument.

No, because American Christianity has very little to do with 'Christianity' in the sense of the positive principles laid out by the religion. For most it's not that 'innocent babies are being murdered, how can we stop that' it's 'these immoral/poor people won't stop having sex in ways we don't approve of!'

people are willing to accept policy positions, and even strongly advocate for them, on the basis of a cultural identity, according to a few studies. you can not really care about, in this instance, reproductive rights, but if you buy into the conservative evangelical identification, it can provoke strong policy positions

the logical thing is to appeal to schisms in groups in order to push a change in at least a segment of that section of the population. the cynic in me says we just need to craft stronger, new groups or repurpose some that will pull people in. that is, to an extent, what's going on with the DSA

xp yeah, that's why it's pointless to field pro-life democrat candidates. A position like 'I'm against abortion- that's why its important to me that our young people receive good quality sex education and have access to contraceptived' is going to win over precisely zero anti-abortion conservatives

Who cares? Anti-abortion conservatives wouldn't vote for their own mom if she had a D after her name. The voters in question here aren't movement conservatives or anti-abortion crusaders or committed evangelical Christians, they're people generally sympathetic to Democratic goals who've been led to believe a central party plank is enthusiasm about aborting as many fetuses as possible. People whose own personal attitude is "I wouldn't have an abortion but in the end a country's got all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs, and somebody else who feels that way feels more like my kind of person." Those people are real and plenty of them voted for Barack Obama.

Obama is pro-life?

You got that backwards; the voters eephus is talking about are pro-life but were willing to vote for Obama based on the rest of his platform.

That's what I thought. So, the best wat forward seems to be to try and win those that its possible to win over with the rest of the platform, and don't piss off your base and thriw women under the bus by fucking about with pro-life candidates. And certainly don't ever appear to concede that the maggots on the right might be arguing about abortion in good faith.

I don't have empirical evidence of this claim, but I'd certainly be willing to bet that there's a huge divide between "baby holocaust" voters who are either one-issue voters or the rest of their views track perfectly with everything else right-wing, and most other "pro-lifers" who probably don't make being pro-life a centerpiece of their voting decisions. This is vague, but I do remember reading a piece recently that convincingly connected ultra-pro-life voting to racism and suggested that pro-life had become a sort of surrogate or proxy issue for what used to be the racist vote.

Used to be?

i.e. what used to be the vote that was openly courted with outright racism (tbf, Trump has kind of brought that back)

remember when Bill Clinton's stump speech included "safe, legal, and rare"

wouldn't fly with the party now

I guess now it's the "I think water fountains should be for everyone but I sure don't like that law I heard about where all blacks go to college for free and white people have to pay double" vote

The voters in question here aren't movement conservatives or anti-abortion crusaders or committed evangelical Christians, they're people generally sympathetic to Democratic goals who've been led to believe a central party plank is enthusiasm about aborting as many fetuses as possible.

How many of those people are there and how many don't already vote Democratic (as you said, plenty of them voted for Obama)? 'Gun rights' and abortion are binary issues at this point for people who put them among the issues they care about - if it's not a absolute yes/no in terms of voting it's not really an issue to bring up or be concerned with because it's not that important to the person.

remember when Bill Clinton's stump speech included "safe, legal, and rare"

lindsay lohan: "safe, legal and rare!"

Interested in checking this out

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing

Author was just on The Dig, would like to read it as well. ILX dirtbag crew book club?

I'm interested

I was trying to figure out the other day how to quickly explain "the existence of police is fine, there are good police officers, but the police are a horrible institution"

also, "unions are good, police unions are inherently bad"

I really think way less of the Catholic rank-and-file are against contraception compared to 30 years ago, but I can't prove it.

certainly garry wills has been this for something like 20 years (and he is certainly more likely to know than e.g.me)

30 years ago you'd be more likely to hear from conservative christians (meaning protestants) that catholics were "not christians, they're catholics" but now there's an entire catholic wing in lockstep with evangelicals

I used "centrist Democrats" pejoratively and un-ironically on FB today, should I start listening to this podcast?

This recent one is probably a good test

http://podbay.fm/show/1097417804/e/1505703578?autostart=1

today in wacky pronounciations on podcasts, The Dig guy saying "aberrant" as "a-BEAR-rant"

is…is that wrong…

I always thought you stressed the first syllable like so
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rKoURCfbe8

Naomi Klein ep was good but also probably one of the less Chapo-esque episodes/more similar to what you'd hear on other left podcasts. I always tell people to start with one of the Douthat eps. Also the ones where they do movies (e.g. Reign Over Me) put their ethos on display a little more.

either is ok i think xp

today in wacky pronounciations on podcasts, The Dig guy saying "aberrant" as "a-BEAR-rant"

― Simon H., Wednesday, October 25, 2017 8:27 AM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is the standard pronunciation in britain and ime canada

savages

never heard the BEAR version

me neither, savages indeed

Alex Vitale also on Verso’s in-house Show: https://soundcloud.com/versobooks/the-end-of-policing-a-conversation-with-alex-vitale

Self-indulgent promotion: I talked with three women from the local DSA chapter about why they got involved, the emotional benefits of actually organizing, etc.

Also the requisite tangents about Cedar Point, Catfish, idiotic cat behavior.

ILX dirtbag crew book club

I’d be down for this. I’ve been reading Max Elbaum’s Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, about how American leftist movements disintegrated from the late 60s on, which got recommended to me by Derick Varn, whom we had on a previous episode,

ILX dirtbag crew book club

I’d be down for this. I’ve been reading Max Elbaum’s Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, about how American leftist movements disintegrated from the late 60s on, which got recommended to me by Derick Varn, whom we had on a previous episode

Dammit

dirtbag reading crew would be good. i mean i think it might totally crumble after a short-time but it might be fun while it lasts

to aberr is human

30 years ago you'd be more likely to hear from conservative christians (meaning protestants) that catholics were "not christians, they're catholics" but now there's an entire catholic wing in lockstep with evangelicals

― mh, Wednesday, October 25, 2017 3:08 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

history author dude I follow had a tweet last week or so that said 'if you think islamophobia is bad here now, just go back and see what people said about the catholics 50-100 years ago'

Yeah, Stephen Prothero’s book has chapters about the early 19th-C freakout about Catholics and Mormons, to the point where you got mobs forming to go after them.

Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered by a mob, so yeah.

this is why I grungingly respected the mormons' anti-trump stance.. they know what its like to experience religious persecution first hand

Liz Bruenig is now on an opinion writer and editor at the Post, making her the first actual leftist in such a position at a major paper (that I know of)

30 years ago you'd be more likely to hear from conservative christians (meaning protestants) that catholics were "not christians, they're catholics" but now there's an entire catholic wing in lockstep with evangelicals
― mh, Wednesday, October 25, 2017 3:08 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is OTM, it is pretty nuts how different attitudes are now about that kind of thing, especially compared to when I first moved to the South in 1992. I was told multiple times as a kid that me and my Catholic family were going to hell for being idolatrous Mary worshippers. People’s eyes would widen or their brows would furrow when they heard we were Catholic.

I’m sure that still happens but probably not as much. It feels like the lines between conservative evangelical culture and conservative Catholic culture have blurred somewhat. There’s also a lot more Catholics and Northern transplants here now than there were when I was kid, so that is probably is a factor.

This is OTM, it is pretty nuts how different attitudes are now about that kind of thing, especially compared to when I first moved to the South in 1992. I was told multiple times as a kid that me and my Catholic family were going to hell for being idolatrous Mary worshippers. People’s eyes would widen or their brows would furrow when they heard we were Catholic.

I went to an insane southern baptist elementary school with Beka Book text books published in Pensacola, FL. My 7th grade history book explicitly said that Catholics worship Mary as a deity and thus are not Christian.

This was in like 1991

i'd like to joint the book club