Posted on 07/06/2017 9:10:04 AM PDT by oblomov
On the subject of cycles, Warren Buffett likes to talk about “the natural progression, the three I’s.” As he put it to Charlie Rose in 2008, those I’s are “the innovators, the imitators and the idiots.” One creates, one enhances — and one screws it all up. Then, presumably, the cycle starts afresh.
Buffett was describing the process that led to the 2008 housing and financial crises. But he might as well have been talking about the decline of the conservative movement in America.
I was reminded of this again last week, on news that the Fox News host Sean Hannity will receive the William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence later this year at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C. As honors go, neither the award nor the organization bestowing it — the Media Research Center — are particularly noteworthy.
But sometimes symbolism is more potent than fact. If we have reached the point where rank-and-file conservatives see nothing amiss with giving Hannity an award named for Buckley, then surely there’s a Milton Friedman Prize awaiting Steve Bannon for his insights on free trade. And maybe Sean Spicer can receive the Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent for his role in exposing “fake news.” The floor’s the limit.
Or, in Hannity’s case, the crawl space beneath it.
In 1950, Lionel Trilling wrote that there were no conservative ideas “in general circulation,” only “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” By the time Trilling died 25 years later the opposite was true: The only consequential ideas at the time were conservative, while it was liberalism that had been reduced to an irritable mental gesture.
This was largely Buckley’s doing.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In the end, everyone went out for drinks and laughed about the booboisie in flyover-land.
Those who have “negotiated” with the people have had the best success. Ronald Reagan, and now Donald Trump.
Does this crap make any sense at all?
I said when he was hired by the NYT, he was only hired to make conservatives look bad.
A martini sipping token conservative neocon with the NYTimes checks in for a ritual “tisk-tisking” of the great unwashed masses.
Of course, to a “conservative” who voted for Hillary Clinton.
Jealous much, Bret baby?
This guy is the voice of failed Bushism.
Sour grapes, sore loser. Belongs on a gallows, probably.
a “conservative” who married TWO of his co-workers
Stephens deserves the highly disreputable Nobel Prize in literature for his works of fiction pretending to be opinions.
Economics is a fog of obsolete concepts, methods and hidden agendas. This video cuts through it all and gives you the cognitive ammo to do something about it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XtEfnyylFk
Common sense is not high minded enough for you, Bret. It’s “common” for a reason. We the people consider it to be truth.
Reading the excerpt gave me no reason to want to read further.
But they applauded Obola and especially Yasser Arafat receiving the Nobel Peace Prize (not to mention, Toni Morrison-one step above the writers of Harlequin romance books-receiving a Nobel Prize for Literature).
Not to mention all the plagiarists who’ve gotten the Pulitizer.
I attended Bret’s college (U of Chicago) before he did. He decided to mimic another U of C-er, David Brooks rather than me.
I saw WFB in my freshman year in 1982, but even then I never saw him as a high priest of conservatism.
Buchanan endorsed a Buchanan vote in 1992 against George the Elder, so he doesn’t always excommunicate those who do not share exact underlying philosophy.
If adherence to Buckley and Friedman on trade is a prerequisite for being a true conservative, then being a true conservative requires one to be closer to Karl Marx than Russell Kirk on that issue .
Stephens does not “get” Buchanan. Trump is not playing the Earl of Sidcup; he is building a coalition using his own gifts and strategies with no help from the legislative branch.
Trump has shown the consequences of having no regard for majority voting blocs on numerous issues. The fight continues, but the terms are refreshingly different. Others can and will write the intellectual underpinnings to reflect the President Trump who is instinctively conservative in key areas. This nation was never built for a Philosopher-King, though the right one might be dandy. It is built to correct egregious errors before they break down. We had one breakdown in 1861, Trump is doing his best to preserve what’s left of the identity of the United States of America, which is a big job that needs no muckrakers.
Trump’s education is just as good as Mr. Stephens. He is just not an underachiever like both Stephens and I are.
Sean Hannity may not be the second coming of Edmund Burke or WFB or even Joe Sobran, but he brings up key points that others shy away from, and has successfully brought a conservative mindset. I don’t listen to him because he’s a stellar interviewer. He’s not. He IS a good man in many ways, and that’s hard to find in media these days.
BTW, if Stephens wants an intellectual, he can try Mark Steyn, who lacks the college diploma but manages to know more and express more eloquently any of his type since G.K. Chesterton, a true conservative (and NOT a free trader).
This guy is a RINO, neverTrumper doosh.
Following communist practice, Mr Bret Stephens is part of a controlled opposition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trust
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