I put a survey on some time ago and determined that very few Daily Kos readers subscribe to the Washington Post or NY Times. Both have some of the best OpEd writers. I consider this when I decide whether it makes sense to share some of their opinion pieces here.
The Post also has someone who I consider one of the worstOpEd writer, Marc Thiessen (Wiki page) who writes a twice-weekly column for The Post on foreign and domestic policy. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
The Washington Post has two conservative columnists, Marc Thiessen and Hugh Hewitt (Wiki page), a Post contributing columnist. He hosts a nationally syndicated radio show on the Salem Network. He is the author of 14 books about politics, history and faith, a political analyst for NBC, a professor of law at Chapman University Law School and president of the Nixon Foundation.
Between them, Marc Thiessen is the most pro-Trump. The comments to his OpEds often include laments that he even gets published there. Hugh Hewitt is a more moderate conservative.
I rarely even read these writers but thought I would take a look today so I could write this essay.
Thiessen’s 10 best things Trump did this year are predictable. ($ link)
- 10. He continued to deliver for the forgotten Americans.This is about the economy.
- 9. He implemented tighter work requirements for food stamps. Stands with Trump is not giving a crap about poor people,
- 7. He stood with the people of Hong Kong. Pure bullshit.
- 6. His withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is delivering China and North Korea a strategic setback. He doesn’t mention the experts who were against this for good reason.
- 5. His “maximum pressure” campaign is crippling Iran. Unproven claims and no mention of the blunder of pulling out of the international treaty.
- 4. His tariff threats forced Mexico to crack down on illegal immigration. An outright lie.
- 3. He delivered the biggest blow to Planned Parenthood in three decades. This speaks for itself.
- 2. He ordered the operation that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Trump agreed to the operation so strictly speaking he “ordered it” but no mention on how inappropriately he bragged about it.
- 1. He has continued to appoint conservative judges at a record pace. One of the most lasting things Trump has done which will undermine civil rights and liberty.
Hewitt’s article goes with Thiessen’s last “best thing.”
He begins:
Many people, outside of the relatively small group of constitutional law professors and Supreme Court and appeals courts practitioners, may not grasp the sheer number of cases on the religious clauses of the First Amendment that have reached the high court in recent years. Six of these cases illustrate the stakes. (There are scores more religious liberty cases that are resolved in federal district and circuit courts, as clashes between the world of faith and the vast administrative state in the United States accelerate.)
These are the six cases he describes:
- Hobby Lobby —mandate that for-profit corporations supply their employees with contraceptives — even forms of contraception violating the corporations’ owners’ beliefs
- opening its town board meetings with a prayer offered by members of the clergy did not violate the Constitution
- excluding religious organizations from aid programs run by governments violates the free exercise clause of the First Amendment
- upheld the right of a baker to refuse to make a cake for a same-sex wedding
- “pro-life” pregnancy centers to provide notices about the availability of abortion services.
- the demolition of a large cross that had stood in a public park did not violate the establishment clause
He concludes:
Battles over religious liberty continue. The court has recently agreed to review decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit crucial to the future of religious education. The high court’s decision should arrive by June. In this proceeding, the decisions of two Catholic schools — St. James School in Torrance, Calif., and Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Hermosa Beach. Calif. — concerning two teachers and whether they could continue to teach at these schools were upheld by trial courts but reversed by two different panels of the 9th Circuit, thought the most liberal circuit court in the country. This is a major free-exercise case that will affect tens of thousands of faith-based schools.
Critics of the president who play down the importance of Trump’s judicial appointments make an enormous mistake. For those whose faith is crucial to their lives, “Trump judges” make all the difference in the world.
The main OpEd has a GIF which has dissolving letters changing to the following words. The last looked familiar, though I had to look it up.
Here are some brief excerpts from each author who contributed to “The 2010s were the decade of … what, exactly? Six columnists tell us.”
Dana Milbank wrote about unraveling:
The 2010s will come to be known as The Unraveling. It began with the tea party, a rebellion nominally against taxes and government but really a revolt against the first African American president. At mid-decade came the election of Donald Trump, a backlash against both the black president and the first woman on a major party ticket.
Molly Roberts wrote about sharing:
The 2010s were the decade of sharing, whether we liked it or not. They were the years we started to treat mundanities as capital-C Content — full-frontal confessionalism to a country full of emotional voyeurs. Twitter exists so we can tell people what we’re thinking in real time; Instagram exists so we can show them, too.
Jennifer Rubin (Wiki page), an anti-Trump Republican who is a regular on MSNBC, wrote about anxiety:
In the absence of respected institutions and stable communities to calm our frayed nerves and provide the sense of belonging we crave, national unease and divisiveness threaten to overwhelm us. Social media, a globalized economy and technological innovation were supposed to make us feel more connected and empowered. Instead we feel alienated, suspicious and angry at the serial outrages that bombard us minute by minute.
It’s no coincidence that Mister Rogers became an iconic figure again at the end of the decade of anxiety. Perhaps if we slow down, treat one another with kindness, accept our fellow Americans as special for being “just the way they are” and act like good neighbors, we will recover our collective sanity and national equilibrium.
Christine Emba wrote about dissonance:
We entered the 2010s with an optimistic spirit. But as the decade wore on, that feeling faltered, even as statistics and media and well-placed ads told us everything was, mostly, even better than before. Really, there was something uniquely confusing about these past 10 years, a disconnect that became more difficult to ignore as each one passed. The 2010s were the decade of dissonance.
Alexandra Petri wrote about ouroboros.
In the course of the 2010s, the Internet went from a place where People Were to a place where Everyone Was. It ceased to be simply a sign, after the fact, that you were missing out on things and became itself the thing you were missing out on. We started either not to notice that the Internet was not real life, or the Internet became real life. It was not where you went to find out about Justin Bieber; it was where you went to think and see what to think. It began to eat itself, a 21st-century version of that ancient serpent swallowing its own tail — the decade of the ouroboros.
Robert J. Samuelson (Wiki page) wrote about retreat.
It’s not just the end of the decade. It’s the end of the American century. When historians look back on the past 10 years, they may conclude this was the moment Americans tired of shaping the world order.
Thiessen and Hewitt typically gets thousands of comments. By far the majority are negative. I’ll post some of them from today in the comments section.