The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Liberals Cheering for Coronavirus

Posted on | March 8, 2020 | 3 Comments

 

On MSNBC, a Friday panel discussion turned into a pep rally for a deadly disease, as Nicolle Wallace and her guests speculated that coronavirus could inflict political damage on President Trump:

Wallace, who worked in the Bush administration during the deadly storm, sees an opportunity for the media to blame President Trump for the virus the same way the media blamed President Bush for Hurricane Katrina.
“We gave them a proof point that we were indeed incompetent and also people died,” Wallace characterized the Bush administration’s response to Katrina. “I mean, this has the making structurally for the same kind of moment for President Trump.”
The panel was optimistic that enough babies, friends, loved ones and old people would perish from the virus that Trump’s solid base of support would finally begin to waver.
“And if there’s any a moment that would shake that 40 percent, the folks that would allow him to shoot someone right down fifth — if there’s any a moment, it’s this one because it’s babies, it’s friends, it’s loved ones,” said Eddie Glaude Jr., an African American Studies professor. “And so it seems to me that this is an event that could take down the president.”

“More people could die, and yet they don’t seem too horrified by that thought, opting instead to focus what effect it might have on Trump? Wow.”

By the way, if you’re a Republican alumnus of Princeton, why would you contribute so much as a nickel to your alma mater? They seem to be operating a partisan political training school nowadays. But more importantly, why is an African American Studies professor on this panel? Wouldn’t a medical professor or a biology professor be more qualified to discuss a public-health crisis? And for those of us who remember Hurricane Katrina, wasn’t the actual failure of emergency response due to the incompetence of local Democratic officials? Remember all those school buses that Mayor Nagin left sitting idle, rather than using them to evacuate the city? Never mind. Facts don’t matter to the MSNBC audience. It’s all about the narrative, and the Katrina narrative was (a) Republicans don’t care if black people die, and (b) global warming.

The only way to counter this kind of spin is to call it out for what it actually is — partisan propaganda. Democrats are willing to exploit natural disasters and diseases in order to win elections, in the same way they exploit poverty and racial division to win elections.




 

Category: MSNBC

Michelle Malkin vs. ‘Conservatism Inc.’

Posted on | March 7, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

Last year, Michelle Malkin gave a speech at CPAC in which she denounced the open-borders faction within the Republican Party, specifically making mention of “the ghost of John McCain.” A few months ago, I became aware that Michelle Malkin had offended some people by defending Nick Fuentes, who had been accused of anti-Semitism, but I somehow missed the story of what happened next. Her enemies somehow managed to get her dumped by the Young America’s Foundation, which had been sponsoring her campus appearances for 17 years.

Keep in mind that I’ve known Malkin for nearly 20 years, having first interviewed her in 2002 when she published her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists Criminals & Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. In 2006-2007, Malkin rallied the conservative blogosphere to stop John McCain’s amnesty proposals, and in 2013, she again led the online opposition to the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan. My point is that it has never been any secret how serious Malkin is about immigration, and no one who knows her would accuse her of racism or anti-Semitism. She is a woman of color, her parents were immigrants, and her husband is Jewish, for crying out loud. Just incidentally, Malkin also (a) created Hot Air and Twitchy, two of the most popular conservative sites on the web, (b) was instrumental in forming the Tea Party movement in 2009, and (c) has done me more than a few favors over the years, including rallying support against Brett Kimberlin in 2012. If there is a fight, you want Malkin on your side, and when she decided to defend Nick Fuentes, my advice to anyone who asked would have been, “Get out of her way. She knows what she’s doing.”

If she’s willing to vouch for this kid and his “Groyper” crew, I would assume she’s investigated enough to satisfy herself that they’re not actually Nazis, and that she has undertaken to advise them against drifting any further toward the fringe. I don’t know the background, nor do I know what happened at YAF, but like I said, when Michelle Malkin decides it’s time to fight, you don’t want to be on the other side.

So, during CPAC this year, Malkin organized a get-together of the “Groypers,” calling it AFPAC (America’s First Political Action Conference), and she gave a speech that included this:

A year ago this week, I had no idea who most of you were and most of you had no idea who I was and that’s okay–even though we have been largely, unbeknownst to each other, fighting many of the same battles against many of the same enemies, against the same fearful odds on the same rigged playing field. I did not know you then, but I did stand on that stage at CPAC in 2019 calling out the feckless organizers for barring real conservatives, immigration hawks, free thinkers and various dissidents from the conference. Meanwhile, the simulators and the saboteurs and the speech squelchers and the Soros smear merchants — like that, Jared Holt [Boos.] weasel that you chased out [of CPAC] — and of course the highest bidding sponsors who were all enjoying free rein back then in the front seats, in the VIP sections, and backstage. On stage last year, I mentioned our friends, Gavin McInnes and Laura Loomer and others who had been banned from darkening the CPAC door. But of course in a larger sense, I was talking about all of you here now and so many others who’ve been forgotten in the past. Who’ve been relegated to our motley Valley of the Banned in one way or another, either by CPAC or ConInc.
It’s an intergenerational club. Nick Fuentes, Patrick Casey, VDARE and Peter Brimelow. Faith Goldy, Milo, Frank Gaffney, Pamela Geller, Robert Stacy McCain, Dinesh D’Souza, Ann Coulter, John Derbyshire, Jason Richwine, Darren Beattie, and on and on and on.
A fury had welled up inside me a year ago that had long been simmering. There was a time when CPAC did at least give the grassroots nationalists a seat at the table. And I’ll never forget this, because this was a very pivotal moment for me in my young career. 17 years ago when I had the privilege of teaming up with the original Godmother of America First, the Catholic author, lawyer and social conservative, mom of six and grandmother of 16, Phyllis Schlafly. . . .

Thanks for the shout-out, ma’am. Being in the Valley of the Banned is a tremendous honor, and I’m sorry I missed your event.

 




 

Category: Immigration, Michelle Malkin

Brett Kimberlin Attempts a Hail Mary, But ‘None of His Passes Finds a Target’

Posted on | March 7, 2020 | Comments Off on Brett Kimberlin Attempts a Hail Mary, But ‘None of His Passes Finds a Target’

Late last month, while I was covering CPAC, convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin lost a case in federal court in Indiana, in which he was trying to get some of his earlier convictions vacated. My podcast partner John Hoge has covered this latest failure of Acme Law:

One of my favorite excerpts from this proceeding is U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler’s response to one of Kimberlin’s court motions:

Kimberlin has received an abundance of process. He had three trials, and at least four direct appeals, five collateral attacks, and four habeas petitions. … Put differently, “Kimberlin is no stranger to appellate proceedings.” United States v. Kimberlin, 898 F.2d 1262, 1264 (&th Cir. 1990) (Kimberlin VII). As of 1990, he had “averaged two appeals per year in [the Seventh Circuit] over the last decade.” Id.
Now he is back. Decades after his convictions, Kimberlin returns for another inevitable round of litigation. Dispersed over at least 10 filings, he launches a fusillade of claims — complete with typical conspiratorial bent — that range from merely incorrect to actually misleading. He does so under the writ of coram nobis — “[the] criminal-law equivalent” of a “Hail Mary pass.” United States v George, 676 F.3d 249, 251 (1st Cir. 2012). None of his passes finds a target.

I enjoy it when lawyers include colorful language in their filings. Like, how often do you encounter the word fusillade? We might have expected “barrage,” but fusillade catches us by surprise. The author of this filing is assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Reitz, an Indiana University alumnus who majored in — wait for it — sports journalism.

There was a time, about ten years ago, when I could write like Grantland Rice. Not necessarily because I believed all that sporty bullshit, but because sportswriting was the only thing I could do that anybody was willing to pay for. And none of the people I wrote about seemed to give a hoot in hell what kind of lunatic gibberish I wrote about them, just as long as it moved. They wanted Action, Color, Speed, Violence…. At one point, in Florida, I was writing variations on the same demented themes for three competing papers at the same time, under three different names. I was a sports columnist for one paper in the morning, sports editor for another in the afternoon, and at night I worked for a pro wrestling promoter, writing incredibly twisted “press releases” that I would plant, the next day, in both papers.
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

How perfect is it that an ex-sportswriter like Brian Reitz became a Republican lawyer whose job gave him the opportunity to sling a sports metaphor in the face of that evil bastard Brett Kimberlin?

There is no reason why legal writing must always be boring, and I suspect that Judge Pratt got a smile on her face when she read Reitz’s filing in the Kimberlin case, which concluded thus:

Kimberlin’s incessant litigation appears unlikely to abate. Reveling in his litigiousness, he covers the “continual reexamination of [his] old convictions.” Craig. 907 F.2d at 658; cf. Kimberlin, 2017 WL 3141909, at *1. But he has had his day(s) in court. This Court should deny his petition — without discovery or a hearing — to preserve precious judicial, and governmental, resources for “those who have yet to receive their first decision.” Sloan, 505 F.3d at 698 (citing Keane, 852 F.2d at 204) (emphasis in Sloan). Because, besides the weakness of Kimberlin’s claims, “no society can afford forever to question the correctness of its every judgment.” Withrow v. Williams, 507 U.S. 680, 698 (1993) (O’Connect, J., concurring and dissenting). Enough “is enough.” Peoples, 403 F.3d at 846.

That’s lawyer-talk for, “This criminal pest deserves nothing.”




 

Category: The Kimberlin Files

In The Mailbox: 03.06.20

Posted on | March 6, 2020 | 2 Comments

– compiled by Wombat-socho


Apparently Ana Navarro is extremely sensitive about her weight and has friends at Twitter. Yup, suspended again. Meanwhile, deadlines for the FMJRA & Rule 5 Sunday are tomorrow at noon and midnight respectively. Please don’t forget to send in your links!


OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Socialism – The Dream Of Omnipotent Government
EBL: Jamestown
Twitchy: Conservative Woman Decimates #NeverTrump In Spectacular Thread
Louder With Crowder: MSNBC’s Brian Williams & Maya Gay Illustrate How Hard Simple Math Can Be
According To Hoyt: Knowledge & Culture
Monster Hunter Nation: House Of Assassins Now In Paperback
Vox Popoli: Immigration Is War, also, Modernity’s Frankenstein

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Family Court Hero Edition
American Conservative: JCS Chairman Retires, Immediately Becomes Paid Cheerleader For F-35
American Greatness: Without Consequences Or Penalties, FISA Should Expire, also, Progressive Liberalism As Death Cult
American Thinker: The Democratic Party Is Wounded & Dangerous
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Reboot Friday
Babalu Blog: Documents From Former USSR Show Soviets Regarded Sanders As A Stooge
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For March 6
Cafe Hayek: Masking Parasitism Doesn’t Make It Productive
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday, also, The Ghosts Of Gaddafi & Milosevic Haunt Syria
Da Tech Guy: The Difference Between Trump & Sanders, Explained Briefly
Don Surber: You Called Trump Hitler. Enjoy Biden & Sanders, also, Losers Demand A Woman VP Candidate
The Geller Report: Nazi Flag At Sanders Rally, also, American Taxpayers Pay $133,000 Per Refugee Resettled In U.S.
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, M58
Hollywood In Toto: Greed Isn’t Good – Fashion Satire Lacks Wit & Humanity, also, Why Swallow Is Indie Film’s New Cringe Classic
Legal Insurrection: NYT Editor & Brian Williams Fail At Math On Bloomberg Spending, also, February Jobs Report – 273,000 Jobs Added, Unemployment At 3.5% Despite Coronavirus Fears
The PanAm Post: Central Planning – The True Economic Chaos
Power Line: Joe Biden Is A Nasty Piece Of Work, also, Math Is Hard For Liberals
Shark Tank: FL Rep Val Demings Endorses Biden
Shot In The Dark: Sweet Sixteen
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – European Unity?
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, Sanders Supporter’s Animated Reaction To Biden’s Super Tuesday Gains
Victory Girls: Moms Are Throwing Period Parties For Girls
Volokh Conspiracy: Trump Campaign’s Libel Lawsuits Against NYT & Washington Post
Weasel Zippers: Biden Says He’s Open To Cash Payments For Slavery Reparations, also, FBI Dropped Ball On Terrorists Who Killed 70; Rand Paul Slams Comey
Mark Steyn: Pow Wow Ciao

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans




Category: Linkagery

Maryland Governor Declares State of Emergency Over Coronavirus Cases

Posted on | March 6, 2020 | 1 Comment

“Emergency” is not a synonym for “panic”:

The first three confirmed cases of coronavirus were reported in Maryland Thursday night. According to Gov. Larry Hogan the married couple in their 70s and an unrelated woman in her 50s from Montgomery County contracted COVID-19 while traveling abroad.
Hogan also declared a state of emergency in Maryland so that MEMA and the state health department can ramp up coordination between all state and local agencies and fast-track their response.
Although the governor said this news is “not a reason to panic,” he said residents should pay attention to information and be prepared. He also said Marylanders should go to work and schools like they normally do.
Here’s what else we know about the positive coronavirus cases in Maryland:

  • The state’s public health laboratory confirmed the first positive cases of coronavirus in the state.
  • The trio returned home from traveling abroad on Feb. 20. The state wasn’t notified until March 3.
  • On March 4, they brought themselves to a local hospital where they were tested. The results came back Thursday, March 5.
  • Officials would not say where they were traveling.
  • The three people are cooperating with authorities and are in “good condition” and not severely ill.
  • They are quarantined at home.
  • Maryland health officials are thoroughly investigating where the trio may have gone after they returned from international travel and who they may have interacted with.
  • Vice President Mike Pence and the CDC were notified of the cases as well as Montgomery County officials.

The site of this outbreak is probably not coincidental, as Montgomery County has one of the largest Asian-American communities on the East Coast, and notice that officials were reluctant to specify what foreign country these people had visited. Gov. Hogan is both (a) Republican and (b) very popular, despite (c) Maryland being an overwhelmingly Democrat state. He is efficient and businesslike, and declared a state of emergency not because the state is on the brink of a coronavirus pandemic, but simply so that he could use broader executive power to coordinate a statewide reponse. Everybody chill out.




 

Category: Health Care, Maryland

In The Mailbox: 03.05.20

Posted on | March 5, 2020 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.05.20

– compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity
EBL: Elizabeth Warren’s Fever Dream
Twitchy: Kathy Griffin Dragged For Lecturing Rape Survivor About Her “Cruel Feed”
Louder With Crowder: Rashida Tlaib – If You’re Pro-Life, Stop Trying To Have Sex With Me

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: How Coptic Christianity Is Finding A Refuge In America
American Greatness: How a Soros Trojan Horse Took Down Chris Matthews And Is Poised To Bully Others Into Submission
American Thinker: The Democrat Descent Into Madness, Super Tuesday Edition
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Daffy Joe News
Babalu Blog: Russian Spy Ship Docks In Havana
BattleSwarm: Shotgun Texas Race Updates
Cafe Hayek: Toddler Brains
Camp Of The Saints: On Encouraging Entry Into The Trades…
CDR Salamander: Willing To Bet Your Life On The EU?
Da Tech Guy: Joe Biden Saved By The Mrs. Tessi Democrats, also, If We Could Stop Looking To The Federal Government To Solve All Our Problems, That Would Be Great
Don Surber: Jennifer Would Have Saved The Party
First Street Journal: Looks Like President Trump Is The Youth Candidate
Fred On Everything: Chuck Darwin & His Critters
The Geller Report: Iran Caught Hiding Nuclear Work, also, SCOTUS Refuses To Hear Appeal Of Jihadi Who Plotted To Behead Pamela Geller
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, The View From Curiosity
Hollywood In Toto: Burden Director – We Need More Racial Healing Movies Today
Legal Insurrection: Elizabeth Warren Drops Out, Won’t Endorse Anyone Yet, also, Norks’ Ballistic Bluster May Mask Major Epidemic
Megan McArdle: Elizabeth Warren Is Out, And Not Because Of Her Gender
Michelle Malkin: Missing Marizela – Nine Years
Power Line: Why Did MSNBC Sack Chris Matthews? also, Schuminations – Shame (2), (3), (4)
Shark Tank: FL Democrats Outpace Republicans, But Can They Beat Trump?
Shot In The Dark: The Right Profile
STUMP: Multi-Employer Pensions – Prior Bailout Plans’ Shortcomings & State Of Play
The Political Hat: Socially Just South Africa – Murder, Arson, & Forced Sterilization
This Ain’t Hell: Daryl Edwards – Phony SEAL & Fake Marine Barracks Survivor, also, Dems Go Full Retard At Supreme Court
Victory Girls: McConnell Calls Schumer SCOTUS Threats Dangerous & “Shameful”
Volokh Conspiracy: Tulsi Gabbard Loses “Free Speech” Lawsuit Against Google
Weasel Zippers: Dem Rep Ayanna Pressley Accuses Two SCOTUS Justices Of Being Sexual Predators, also, Schumer Spox States Senator Talking About Senate GOP, Not SCOTUS Justices

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

Ask Not for Whom the #MeToo Tolls: Beware of Soros-Funded Feminism

Posted on | March 5, 2020 | Comments Off on Ask Not for Whom the #MeToo Tolls: Beware of Soros-Funded Feminism

 

Because I never liked Chris Matthews, I enjoyed some schadenfreude at watching his partisan hack career ended by a #MeToo scandal. What I little suspected was the hidden hand behind that takedown:

[A]n obscure group called Ultraviolet just took down Chris Matthews—the former speechwriter for Tip O’Neill and Jimmy Carter who had successfully transformed himself into a professional talking head. Just like that, his 23 year run as an MSNBC staple on “Hardball” came to an abrupt end this week.
Founded in 2012, Ultraviolet did not achieve this awesome feat on its own. On the contrary, a sophisticated and well-funded progressive machine and media echo-chamber created, amplified, and executed the plan to take out Matthews — and many more individuals, companies, and organizations before him.
With hundreds of millions of dollars from billionaire financier George Soros and dozens of his comrades-in-arms at the “Democracy Alliance,” the progressive network of labor unions, activist investment firms, social justice organizations, and ideological media outlets is the tip of the spear in “cancel” culture.
Matthews was accused of sexually inappropriate comments by Laura Bassett in a GQ column. The “Hardball” host’s precise crime? Boorish and slightly creepy comments about her appearance and his penchant for “falling in love” with her. Matthews did not touch her or proposition her. Inappropriate? Probably. But Matthews is no Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein.
Nevertheless, Bassett persisted. After writing in vague terms about her awkward encounters with the cable talk show host in 2017, she unleashed a fresh volley in February 2020 after Matthews criticized progressive heroes Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It was Matthews’ attack on Warren, in particular, that sent Bassett over the edge. The problem, evidently, is that the boorish Matthews gave Mike Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt over his secret nondisclosure agreements.
Questioning Warren’s dogmatic insistence that an accusation equals guilt was a bridge too far for Bassett. Soros, of course, had announced in October 2019 that he was backing Warren, calling her “the most qualified person to be president.” Soros and numerous Democracy Alliance supporters have put big bucks behind Warren’s campaigns. The Alliance’s treasurer is a high-dollar bundler for the Massachusetts senator.
Bassett, a long-time Huffington Post writer who went all in with the anti-Kavanaugh mob, repeatedly called the then-Supreme Court nominee a “rapist” and compared him to convicted sex predator and pedophile R. Kelly for expressing indignation at the accusations leveled against him.
Huffington Post, of course, is part of the Democracy Alliance’s stable of media outlets that also includes The Nation, The Guardian, ProPublica, and Media Matters for America.
These groups and outlets, working in concert, orchestrated the downfall of Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, targeted Breitbart, and attempted to knock Laura Ingraham off the air through advertiser boycotts. Ultraviolet, in particular, led the anti-Kavanaugh protests — projecting “Kavanaugh is a sexual predator” onto the D.C. Court of Appeals where he sat before joining the highest court, running TV ads, and having their paid staff confront then-Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) in a Senate elevator to convince him to oppose Kavanaugh.
Armed with unending funds from the Democracy Alliance donors, Ultraviolet’s press releases are often re-packaged and published as “news” by Huffington Post writers, including Bassett. Bassett also received awards from the neo-Malthusian and Democracy Alliance-funded Population Institute and Planned Parenthood for her pro-abortion reporting.
Their system works with extreme effectiveness. . . .

Read the whole thing. While I do not wish to encourage paranoia, whenever you find Soros’ money, you’ll always find connections — this think tank is connected to that media operation, which is in cahoots with this PAC, which is linked to that 501(c)3 and on and on and on. When Hungary’s nationalist government banned Soros-funded agencies from operating in that country, all the usual suspects cried “fascism!” Why? Because all the usual suspects are on Soros’ payroll. That the wicked schemer is now funding feminist organizations should inspire suspicion as to his motives, and cause us to monitor closely the messages that “feminists” are promoting. Are they really about “women’s rights,” or are they just following orders to advance their sugar daddy’s agenda?

(Hat-tip: J.J. Sefton at AOSHQ.)




 

Category: Feminism, George Soros

‘Cognitive Partitioning’: The Real Reason Elizabeth Warren Never Had a Chance

Posted on | March 5, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

The news broke this morning that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will quit the presidential campaign. I’m sure everybody is sad about this, and by “everybody,” of course I mean Jessica Valenti:

 

I knew going into Super Tuesday that Elizabeth Warren was unlikely to win big. I had prepared myself for that. What did take me by surprise, though, was just how poorly she fared: Even in her home state of Massachusetts, she finished third. . . .
It’s enough to make me feel, well, despairing: that we had the candidate of a lifetime — someone with the energy, vision, and follow-through to lead the country out of our nightmarish era — and that the media and voters basically outright erased and ignored her. . . .
Whoever the nominee is, their campaign is going to have to come to terms with the intense misogyny so many female voters have dealt with — and understand that it’s an issue we care deeply about. And their supporters are going to have to let us be sad — depressed, even — that once again we’re going to watch a race to leadership between old white men.

Never bet against the patriarchy, sweetheart.

Notice that it’s not just men that Valenti singles out for contempt, but rather specifically old white men. One gets the impression that Valenti has been nursing hurt feelings ever since Hillary lost the 2008 nomination to Obama, but she couldn’t complain too loudly about that, because hating Obama would be racist. Conveniently, this time around, there were no black male political rising stars contending for the Democratic nomination — Corey Booker is a joke — and so Valenti invested completely in Warren as “the candidate of a lifetime,” ignoring her idol’s flaws that were so glaringly obvious to the rest of us.

Was it really “misogyny” that sank Warren’s campaign? Is it true that sexism among Democratic primary voters explains Warren’s defeat? Matthew Yglesias offers an alternative explanation:

Her supporters feel somewhat baffled: How did she evaporate from the top tier of contention, especially since so many of the people they know also like her? . . .
[I]f you, like many of my friends, find the situation puzzling, that is probably because you know a lot of people who are demographically similar to yourself. I’m a highly educated white person, and most of my friends and acquaintances are also highly educated white people. Elizabeth Warren is very popular with people like us.
The reality is that there aren’t that many people like us — and there’s a valuable lesson in that, not just about the Warren campaign specifically but about some of the larger dynamics in American politics. . . .
Even at a time when Warren had, in its estimate, fallen to fourth place in national polling, she was first with white college graduates and first with Democrats who have advanced degrees. . . .
The problem is that politics is a numbers game, and we are not in the majority. . . .
Validated data from the 2016 election, for example, suggests that only about one-third of 2016 voters had college degrees. The share among Hillary Clinton voters was higher, at 43 percent, but even among the more educated in the party, most people haven’t graduated college. And among college graduates, about 75 percent attend schools that accept more than half of applicants, rather than the kind of state university flagships or elite private universities whose graduates dominate the media. In my friend group, it’s not unusual for someone to be a lawyer or a doctor or to have a master’s degree in something or other. As a policy journalist, I speak to a lot of experts in academia or the think tank world who have advanced degrees.
But in the actual American population distribution, there are more high school dropouts than people with master’s degrees. The median American under the age of 30 has $0 in student loan debt, not because the median young person is superrich but because most people didn’t attend expensive higher education institutions in the first place. . . .
If you feel like Warren is very impressive and lots of people you know feel the same way, you’re not imagining it — lots of people just like you all across the country feel the same way.
It’s just that most Democrats aren’t all that much like you.

What Yglesias is describing here is a phenomenon that Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein described in their book The Bell Curve as “cognitive partitioning.” One tragic consequence of the controversy over the alleged racism of The Bell Curve is that it obscured what was, to me, the most valuable part of Murray and Herrnstein’s book. “The Emergence of a Cognitive Elite” (pp. 25-125) describes how, since World War II, the prevalence of standardized testing and the expansion of access to higher education has operated as a vast sorting machine. Brainy young people are identified at early ages, put onto an academic fast-track (“gifted” programs in elementary school, “honors” classes in high school) that leads them toward prestigious “selective” universities.

Once you carefully consider what Murray and Herrnstein demonstrate in that 100-page section of their book, a lot of things about our society that might otherwise be mysterious suddenly make perfect sense. Once upon a time — in my father’s youth — college education was almost exclusively for the children of the rich. There were no federally guaranteed student loans and no Pell Grants, and so if your parents couldn’t afford to send you to college, you might be able to work your way through, or maybe get a scholarship, but in general, college education was a status marker of the upper classes. However, beginning with the G.I. Bill (which sent my dad to the University of Alabama), college education became more widely available, and the postwar expansion of the middle class — the widespread prosperity of the Eisenhower/JFK era — made it possible for a much larger segment of young people to aspire to a college education. Thus the SAT and ACT gained greater importance as tools to separate the academic wheat from the chaff, as it were.

Yglesias takes note of the important distinction between merely “college educated” people — your Southwest/Northeast State University diploma — and those who attended “the kind of state university flagships or elite private universities whose graduates dominate the media.”

This distinction is not entirely about test scores. The average graduate of Georgia State or Georgia Southern has a lower SAT than the average graduate of Emory (or Yale or Stanford), but the real distinction is still largely one of socio-economic class. Yglesias attended an expensive private prep school and then went to Harvard ($69,607 a year, including room and board), and if your parents can’t afford to spend that kind of money (U.S. median household income is $61,937) you shouldn’t even bother applying to Harvard. Better you should go to your nearest state university, and graduate as close to debt-free as possible, than to mortgage your future for the experience of hanging around a bunch of “elite” snobs at Harvard for four years.

I was shocked the other day to learn that one of the Chapo Trap House podcasters, who goes by the pseudonym “Virgil Texas,” went $100,000 in debt to attend Cornell University. Dude, how stupid can an allegedly “smart” person be? You don’t even need a college degree to become podcaster, much less an Ivy League degree and, having visited Ithaca, N.Y., I can’t understand why anyone would borrow money to go to school there. If a young man with good SAT scores just wanted to spend a lot of money to go to college, what about surfing your way through Pepperdine or partying your way through Tulane? Like, you could actually live for four years — palm trees and sunshine and girls wearing short-shorts — instead of enduring those grim winters in upstate New York.

What the hell gets into the minds of these kids who borrow ridiculous sums of money to attend expensive private liberal arts colleges? Why don’t parents stop their kids from making these foolish decisions? Have we, as a society, become so over-awed by educational “prestige” that we are willing to sell our souls to obtain it? Why does it seem common sense has become so rare? But I digress . . .

While I almost never agree with Matthew Yglesias about anything, I think his analysis of the Elizabeth Warren phenomenon is correct. A Harvard professor ran a campaign that appealed to the kind of people who are impressed by Harvard professors. Such people are very numerous among the media elite, but not so much among the rank-and-file Democratic primary voters. So now Elizabeth Warren is packing it in, and the presidential campaign becomes a choice between old white guys.

Cosmic equilibrium has been restored. The patriarchy wins again.




 

Category: Elizabeth Warren, Intellectuals
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin