The Influence of Austrofascism on JD Vance
Plus: Stop Calling School Shootings ‘Unimaginable’
Recently in The Bulwark:
BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: Grading Trump on the 2016 Curve
MARC CAPUTO: JD Vance Has Become Trump’s Human Bulldozer
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H. DAVID BAER: The Influence of Austrofascism on JD Vance
REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JD VANCE, an anti-establishment populist, has unconventional voices in his ear. As many have noted, some of those who seem to speak to him the loudest—the journalist Sohrab Ahmari, blogger Rod Dreher, and Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, among others—belong to an elite coterie of illiberal Christian conservatives animated by an attitude reminiscent of what historian Fritz Stern once called the “politics of cultural despair.”
SAM STEIN: Stop Calling School Shootings ‘Unimaginable’
OF ALL THE REFLECTIONS offered by lawmakers on the school shooting that left four people dead at Apalachee High School this week, one from Sen. Rick Scott stood out.
“Our hearts break for the families of two students and two teachers in Winder, Georgia, who suffered an unimaginable loss today because of a deranged monster,” said the Florida Republican.
The senator’s heart may have been in the right place. But his words were wrong. There’s nothing “unimaginable” about what happened. It happens all the time.
🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧
Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Live from Dallas [YouTube]
Across the Movie Aisle: 2024 Awards Season Preview 🔐
Beg to Differ: Tucker Carlson: Anchor on Trump/Vance?
The Secret Podcast: The Anti-Cheneys [YouTube]
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SONNY BUNCH: In review: 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'
Before we discuss Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and why it doesn’t work, it’s worth dwelling for a moment on the original Beetlejuice and why it does work.
The 1988 original takes a relatively simple premise—what if a newly dead couple assigned to haunt their dream home for the next 125 years didn’t care for the yuppies who moved in and started destroying all they built?—and hangs a whole bunch of visually neat and comically outrageous stuff around it. The Maitlands (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) and Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) are almost equally audience surrogates, navigating a strange afterlife where suicide victims staff social work offices while the titular bioexorcist (played with malevolently grotesque charm by Michael Keaton) introduces a little anarchy into all their, uh, lives.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Thank you, Dallas! We had an excellent dual-feature at the great Wyly Theatre, a wonderful, modern, (and versatile!) venue with its own hue of brat green. 500+ Bulwark readers and their guests joined Adam Kinzinger, Tim, Sarah, Sonny, Bill, and me.
I hope you had as much fun as I did! (And if I took a picture for you, I hope it turned out ok.) I was slated to join the rest of the crew today and tomorrow at the Texas Tribune Festival, but a family medical emergency necessitated me hightailing it back to Ohio. (Everything is fine.) Sorry to miss those I had hoped to see in Austin.
A restoration of the rule of law… Kamala Harris’ “freedom” campaign is coming for Trumpism by Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut in Salon.
Dick Cheney… announced he was voting for Kamala Harris. As a ’04 alumni who signed the letter, obviously very happy that VP Cheney is taking a public stand. I hope that President Bush will do the same. Consider it “a time for choosing.”
Who Is "The" American?… Matt Labash on what being a true American looks like, by way of Mark Twain 🔐
Speaking of bad history takes… Senator Ron Johnson enters the fray with his “The Great Depression” was an inside job theory that he can “feel in his bones.” Yikes. (Heartland Signal)
“As a former Marine I am disgusted… by Trump’s behavior at Arlington National Cemetery,” by Sandy Alderson, President and GM of the NY Mets (SF Chronicle)
Inside… the Great American Meme Wars, by Lauren Boilard (Off Topic)
‘Canada’s version of Bernie Madoff’: The rise and fall of Greg Martel (CBC)
Report: Trump aide involved in Arlington cemetery worker scandal… was Jan. 6 organizer (Raw Story)
DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda… at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election (Wired)
The non-citizen voting canard… Debunked by David Becker, founder of the founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research and one of the nation’s foremost experts on voting.
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