General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAre liberals not irritated by Ross Douthat?
I'm reading this New Yorker profile and thinking I'm from another planet. He frequently drives me nuts. Maybe even more so than Brooks, as we know what we're getting from Brooks.
Maybe as a Catholic I react so strongly to his ultra-conservative views on Catholism to the detriment of everything else he has to say?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/18/ross-douthats-theories-of-persuasion

calguy
(6,024 posts)Freddie
(9,975 posts)Oxymoron indeed.
His BS is infuriating. He manages to twist and turn with big words to say that yes, women are obliged to endure childbearing no matter the circumstances. Nope.
Voltaire2
(15,377 posts)Intelligent well educated and articulate people serve up rightwing propaganda and Douhat is an example of that. Sycophants abound. It pays well and we all have to eat.
Ocelot II
(127,873 posts)ok_cpu
(2,219 posts)I was surprised that at least this feature writer seems to believe he has a liberal following.
yardwork
(68,354 posts)I've never once read a feature article that portrays us in a remotely accurate light.
dchill
(42,660 posts)...but he seems like a shit.
ok_cpu
(2,219 posts)dchill
(42,660 posts)wiggs
(8,516 posts)very good, thorough reader rebuttals.
brooklynite
(96,882 posts)I don't agree with him but I'm no uncomfortable reading something I disagree with.
dutch777
(4,743 posts)He is from a storied Dem family so name recognition gets him further than many of his ideas. I have tried to watch several interviews with him and it has been difficult to watch as he repeatedly fails to form coherent sentences and keep a logical train of thought that doesn't spin off rapidly to weird tangents. I don't know when someone rises to the level of serious candidate that Biden should debate them but so far I doubt Kennedy makes it on anything than family name.
Voltaire2
(15,377 posts)I suppose one could make the argument that running a freaking loon against another freaking loon is a winning strategy. Douthat isn't making that argument, he is instead pretending that RFK-looner is a serious person.
Autumn
(48,479 posts)Last edited Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:26 AM - Edit history (1)
and he, whoever he is like any other conservative who spews their bullshit can fuck off as far as this Liberal is concerned.
sinkingfeeling
(56,618 posts)LonePirate
(14,256 posts)The most and perhaps only liberal on that crew is Paul Krugman, an economist. On the whole, Douthat, like his co-workers, is largely an ignorant tool.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)"There's something terribly wrong with the world, and it's all someone else's fault."
Takket
(23,299 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)instead of "learning" the latest propaganda that we're trying to impose an "intellectual quarantine" on this amoral anti-vax/quasi- far-RW whacko?
Rather than declining to help him establish "mainstream" credibility by associating with our major Democratic candidates?
But he is irritating, and that's a reason too. I don't believe Democrats are intractable hypocrites with a genius for always getting it wrong. He serves the market of those who love that and lap it up. And what he does get right unbiased columnists are saying better.
Voltaire2
(15,377 posts)Shit like "Ross Douthat, liberal Americas favorite conservative commentator" would never have passed muster. There is zero evidence to back that up. The comments on Douthat's essays in the NYT are routinely disparaging, to say the least.
Xavier Breath
(6,212 posts)walkingman
(9,989 posts)I honestly did not realize there were that many "National Enquirer" type people in America.
Grins
(8,976 posts)I noticed I couldn't get 1/3rd the way though one of his columns without thinking, "This guy's an idiot."
And, "Who the hell hired this guy and why???"
And, "At long last why haven't they gotten rid of this crank?"
Remember his writing being "...with a girl who resembled a chunkier Reese Witherspoon drunkenly masticating my neck and cheeks"?
He's called "Ross Douche-hat."
He is called "Ross Cardinal Douthat" - Driftglass.
"Ross Douthat, a highly paid New York Times columnist for some inexplicable reason not involving blackmail or a lost bet made while drunk." - The great Tbogg!
Why the so-called liberal media hires - and KEEPS! - conservative slugs like Douthat baffles me.
Jesus in Topeka - he's not a good writer!
keep_left
(3,093 posts)...and it's been years now. The hosts of the Chapo Trap House podcast are particularly savage each time he writes one of his 20,000-word jeremiads--which arrive far too often.