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Molly McLaren Jones's avatar

Also, on the tweet about Hickman: I’ve heard a related but reversed phenomenon invoked to explain Donald Trump‘s wild ride. He’s a wealthy, powerful man, and has been for decades, since his visage graced the back page of Newsday rather than the front page, and yet he has legions of fans among the stagnant marginalized classes. Of course there’s his singular personal touch, but also, he unapologetically lives the lifestyle of a Gilded Age arriviste, which is far more relatable than what the tweet describes. That is, he behaves the way that you think you might if you became rich overnight. Strange to say, but there’s no pretension in that man*. It might be reductive or condescending (i.e. does anybody aspire to be Scrooge McDuck?) but it rings true to me.

* my mom grew up in an adjacent neighborhood in Queens and she backs it up. She says he hasn’t changed in any essential way, for better and for worse. I see him as a recognizable type, that is the bastard-with-a-heart-of-gold that everyone’s dad or uncle counts as his best and wildest friend, in my experience.

*

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Molly McLaren Jones's avatar

Regarding the first tweet (X-item, what have you): I was listening to Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds. At one point, he recounts the incident at Evergreen College in Washington state where Brett Weinstein was forced out of his job after a target was painted on his back for the most laughably innocuous of reasons (IIRC, he defended his wife, Heather, who was under fire because she had pushed back in mild terms against a memo from some resident advisor counseling against any Halloween costume that could be deemed “cultural appropriation”.)

Now, I’m sure I could find plenty to disagree with among the views of these two scholars, but they seem like thoughtful, humane people. Murray describes a charged encounter between Weinstein and the student mob, and my God. I was shocked, and I’m saying that as someone who mostly grew up in the Internet age. The corrupt hatred, the vile ugliness of the inventive spewed at this man was something I’d never encountered (although it was too easy to hear it in the correct pitch in my head, despite Murray’s mild English accent.) Where does this rage come from?? What is it that they resent so?? Disaffection of the times aside, if you are not only a resident of Washington state but a student at Evergreen College, I assert that you have it pretty good. I guess it’s natural to think you know better than your elders, I certainly did at one time, but the violent warp spasms of hatred I do not understand. I think they would’ve laid him out Cincinnati-style if they could have.

ETA: thanks, Dudley! NRP is a highlight of my week.

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