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ok_cpu

(2,219 posts)
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:09 AM Sep 2023

Are 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

This summer, Ross Douthat, liberal America’s favorite conservative commentator, wrote a piece about liberal America’s least favorite Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Douthat argued in his New York Times column that an unwillingness to debate Kennedy—who has claimed that childhood vaccines cause autism, that 5G networks are part of a mass-surveillance system, and that covid was designed to spare Jewish and Chinese people—was an insufficient response to voters who are increasingly distrustful of the establishment. “If you don’t think he should be publicly debated, you need some other theory of how the curious can be persuaded away from his ideas,” Douthat wrote. “Right now the main alternative theory seems to be to enforce an intellectual quarantine, policed by media fact-checking and authoritative expert statements. And I’m sorry, but that’s just a total flop.”
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Are liberals not irritated by Ross Douthat? (Original Post) ok_cpu Sep 2023 OP
Never heard of the guy calguy Sep 2023 #1
"Conservative intellectual" Freddie Sep 2023 #2
its not an oxymoron unfortunately. Voltaire2 Sep 2023 #18
It's hard to be irritated if you don't read his nonsense at all. Ocelot II Sep 2023 #3
This is probably the correct response to his nonsense ok_cpu Sep 2023 #8
I'm constantly amazed at how wrong "journalists" are about liberals. yardwork Sep 2023 #22
Haven't paid him any attention... dchill Sep 2023 #4
He's definitely a shit. n/t ok_cpu Sep 2023 #9
I'm a live without him. dchill Sep 2023 #10
super irritated. But I read his NYT opinion pieces, mostly for the hundreds of wiggs Sep 2023 #5
I'm not irritated. brooklynite Sep 2023 #6
Where does one draw a line who they will debate? RFK Jr. is a dilemma of sorts on many fronts dutch777 Sep 2023 #7
He's a freaking loon. Voltaire2 Sep 2023 #20
Why does liberal America have a favorite conservative commentator? Never heard of the guy Autumn Sep 2023 #11
I don't have any idea who he is. sinkingfeeling Sep 2023 #12
He's one of many conservatives on TNYT editorial team. LonePirate Sep 2023 #13
I can summarize every Ross Douthat column ever written: Act_of_Reparation Sep 2023 #14
Never heard of him. Takket Sep 2023 #15
Don't read him. Opportunity cost alone -- what would I miss reading Hortensis Sep 2023 #16
The New Yorker used to be a fact checking absolutist publication. Voltaire2 Sep 2023 #17
Ross who now? Xavier Breath Sep 2023 #19
What amazes me is that people acually make a living by being a wacko. walkingman Sep 2023 #21
Hated him from Day 1. Grins Sep 2023 #23
Douthat has never lived down that "chunky Reese Witherspoon" comment... keep_left Sep 2023 #24

Freddie

(9,975 posts)
2. "Conservative intellectual"
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:13 AM
Sep 2023

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)
18. its not an oxymoron unfortunately.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:46 AM
Sep 2023

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.

ok_cpu

(2,219 posts)
8. This is probably the correct response to his nonsense
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:35 AM
Sep 2023

I was surprised that at least this feature writer seems to believe he has a liberal following.

yardwork

(68,354 posts)
22. I'm constantly amazed at how wrong "journalists" are about liberals.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:53 AM
Sep 2023

I've never once read a feature article that portrays us in a remotely accurate light.

wiggs

(8,516 posts)
5. super irritated. But I read his NYT opinion pieces, mostly for the hundreds of
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:30 AM
Sep 2023

very good, thorough reader rebuttals.

 

brooklynite

(96,882 posts)
6. I'm not irritated.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:30 AM
Sep 2023

I don't agree with him but I'm no uncomfortable reading something I disagree with.

dutch777

(4,743 posts)
7. Where does one draw a line who they will debate? RFK Jr. is a dilemma of sorts on many fronts
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:31 AM
Sep 2023

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)
20. He's a freaking loon.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:49 AM
Sep 2023

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)
11. Why does liberal America have a favorite conservative commentator? Never heard of the guy
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 09:46 AM
Sep 2023

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.

LonePirate

(14,256 posts)
13. He's one of many conservatives on TNYT editorial team.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:15 AM
Sep 2023

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)
14. I can summarize every Ross Douthat column ever written:
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:24 AM
Sep 2023

"There's something terribly wrong with the world, and it's all someone else's fault."

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
16. Don't read him. Opportunity cost alone -- what would I miss reading
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:32 AM
Sep 2023

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)
17. The New Yorker used to be a fact checking absolutist publication.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:44 AM
Sep 2023

Shit like "Ross Douthat, liberal America’s 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.

walkingman

(9,989 posts)
21. What amazes me is that people acually make a living by being a wacko.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 10:50 AM
Sep 2023

I honestly did not realize there were that many "National Enquirer" type people in America.

Grins

(8,976 posts)
23. Hated him from Day 1.
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 12:24 PM
Sep 2023

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)
24. Douthat has never lived down that "chunky Reese Witherspoon" comment...
Tue Sep 12, 2023, 12:53 PM
Sep 2023

...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.

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