He’s obviously preparing for winter, from the fact that his cheek pouches are full of nuts.

Didn’t I see him piss his pants on Mad Men?

Oooh, watch out, Richard Cohen. Someone’s breathing down your neck for the title of America’s Top Ostensibly Liberal Hand-Wringing Yutz.

Well, while I disagree with Lind’s POV, he is not wrong that African-Americans and Latinos tend to be quite socially conservative. This is not a small problem for, say, gays.

Clicked through and found that Lind’s first four words were “Back in the 1960s”.

Thanks, that’s all I needed to know. Pass.

They are erring neighbors to be won over, not cretins to be mocked.

Patronizing, much?

That mockery has been earned.

Shorter Lind: Blacks are dummer than white southerners.

While I don’t like a lot of Lind’s views on politics, I don’t think what he is saying here is worthy of derision. What Kevin Drum wrote is pretty stupid; I don’t know why it should be okay for a liberal to unilaterally condemn white southerners, any more than it would for a conservative to condemn blacks or jews. This sort of thing makes liberals/leftists look bigoted in the eyes of some people who might be persuadable or open to at least listening to different ideas (I don’t know what percentage of independents/conservatives that might be, but even in the South or rural areas it is greater than zero). If liberals and leftists have better political ideas and policies, like I think they do, and good evidence for those political ideas and policies, then they ought to be able to convince others of them. Name calling and insults only distracts from this, to the detriment of left-wing politics.

That said, what Lind wrote about Hofstadter is wrong. His idea of the paranoid style was not meant as a clinical diagnosis. Though, other prominent social scientists of the 1960’s (like Bell and Lipset) did regard people involved in “radical” (both Left and Right) politics as socially isolated, maladjusted or just plain crazy. This isn’t any more true today than it was back then.

I have noticed some people acting insane lately, and the first on my list is Kevin Drum.

Not the guy who brought the gun to Obama’s townhall, got it.

I can haz false eekwevuhluncees?

Well, while I disagree with Lind’s POV, he is not wrong that African-Americans and Latinos tend to be quite socially conservative. This is not a small problem for, say, gays.

You know, I always hear this, but I don’t buy it. I know that everyone who votes for the Democrats isn’t the earth-conscious, health-co-op-shopping, pro-gay, pro-union, happy-rainbow-of-diversity, liberal arts school graduate that would make people who are all of those things more comfortable, but so what?

Latinos weren’t going to vote for Obama because they hate black people. Black people were supposedly responsible for Prop 8. It’s all bullshit. It’s the kind of bullshit that only makes sense if you don’t know the people who comprise these broad sweeping categories like “black” or “hispanic” or “gay”. Yeah, there are bigots in all three groups. Fine.

Am I supposed to be afraid of everyone in a category until everyone who I think fits in that category stops holding negative stereotypes about me?

It’s Drum’s loafers that are the tipoff. One look, and you’re thinking, that white boy be <crazy.

Lind is very smart, but I bet I can do what he does.

“Drum’s hungry bigotry becomes clear when other groups are substituted: ‘There are, needless to say, plenty of individual sandwiches who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, ham sandwiches are [redacted]. Subway can pretty it up all it wants, but they’re [redacted].’ Kevin Drum comes from California, the place that gave us pink tofu and green onions covered in feces. But you know what other sandwich tastes crappy? BBQ pork! See what I did there? Huh?”

See because huge indistinct sets are easily transferable by the transitive property of punditry.

Parker says Republicans need to “drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie,” and she’s right. The rest of us need to help.

Now ah don’t mind choppin’ teh ghey
Ah don’t care if ah gotta bash all day.
Ah take what ah need and piss on the rest
‘Cuz “they” never shoulda gone and mess’t with the very bee-ahh-est!

The night, they put ol’ Dixie down.

Lind’s not really a concern troll, more like a Democrat-Perotista party of one: pro-union, against immigration reform, mostly isolationist, not anti-gay or anti-feminist but thinks neither issue should be a high priority for Democrats. Really seems to think that a coalition like that would be electoral gold. Having a hard time persuading other Dems/progressives of that.

pro-union, against immigration reform, mostly isolationist, not anti-gay or anti-feminist but thinks neither issue should be a high priority for Democrats.

People who hold those views are already Democrats. Some of them hate immigration so much that they might vote Republican, but they are dwarfed by the Hispanic vote so fuck ’em.

If you are pro-union and isolationist but still vote Republican, it is because you are mad as hell about something. Being all “meh” about social issues won’t cut it.

Well, while I disagree with Lind’s POV, he is not wrong that African-Americans and Latinos tend to be quite socially conservative. This is not a small problem for, say, gays.

Religion plays a big role in that, which is something people making this claim rarely address. It wasn’t secular groups screaming about Prop 8. Same thing with abortion, and the anti-health care reform lunatics are almost uniformly honky. There’s a solid, if beleagured, middle class in both African-American and Latino communities, and they’re no more (or less) socially conservative than white folk. They tend to be less religious, too, or at least less Bible-thumping religious.

People like Lind – especially, in this case – use the “black people are social conservatives and caused Prop 8” to explain away white bigotry, especially Southern white bigotry (which is often used to excuse plain ol’ American exceptionalist bigotry). Instead of cleaning up one’s own backyard, it’s an excuse to go “Well, they’re just as bad” and that shit never worked as a kid.

I’ll say this for the right, it must be kind of nice to go a week in politics without having your own side go after you just so they can get patted on the head for how reasonable they are. Yes let us all defend the south, and equate criticizing southerners with criticizing blacks with no evident irony.

Please make him stop looking at me like that.

Kevin Drum is a douchebag who supported the murder of thousands of Iraqis. Michael Lind was against it. Who’s done the greater evil?

Kevin Drum fucking *wept* over Robert McNamara. Why? Because as a nerdish technocrat-wannabe whose morals have been permanently scrambled, Drum, in a rare bit of empathizing, could easily see himself also reading spreadsheets which reduced the incineration of millions of Indochinese into a doable, decent thing.

But I suppose hating on white southerners more than redeems actively supporting mass murderers.

It’s shit like this that makes me glad I’m a socialist. The word “liberal” has lost all its original meaning, only to gain one it never had: TOADY TO THE RIGHT.

Alec Baldwin probably ought to go back to the black dye. This Just For Men shit is not working for him

I am a god-damned white Southerner, and I am god-damned sick and fucking tired of shitbag whiners like this defining “Southerner” as only including white conservatives.

One of the best fucking developments of this country’s history over the past few years is for the rest of the nation to have moved on with its 40 year fascination with right wing Southern populist bullshit.

As a Southerner, the more the rest of the nation openly rejects right wing Southern bullshit, the better it is for us Southerners — which yes, includes our liberal, African American, Latino, and Asian Southerners as well.

HTML Mencken:

In all fairness, Lind’s views on the Vietnam War are pretty awful:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zvg1lr79qcEC

Michael Lind = Menial Child

@ El Cid:

My Mom was from the deepest red-clay part of East Texas, which is wingnut central right now. She was a lifelong Democrat and New Dealer, except she got more left-wing with age.

Unlike northern racists, she grew up with black people. She may have used what would today be considered…unfortunate terminology, but she was trying to do better, and she didn’t mean anything by it; she was all for Jesse Jackson when he was running for president, for example. All of my aunts and uncles who are still down there are still Democrats as well.

So I know all of the South isn’t rednecks and teabaggers. Sweet Christ on a pogo stick, though, you’ve got some real nimrods representing you! And the maroons are much louder than the normal people. Maybe we need a few southern DFHs acting up and getting on the news. (Of course I know 14 teabaggers is more newsworthy now than 3 million antiwar protesters were 6 years ago, but what are you gonna do?)

Sweet Christ on a pogo stick, though, you’ve got some real nimrods representing you! And the maroons are much louder than the normal people. Maybe we need a few southern DFHs acting up and getting on the news.

Trust me — the collapse of the Southern right wing dominance of U.S. national politics, which has been going on since Nixon’s time, is a fantastic thing for any Southerner not in the right wing white conservative sphere. The harder, deeper, longer, and more brutally that sector gets its ever-lovin’ ass kicked, the better it is for the rest of us.

The discovery by the rest of the nation that they’ve got enough votes to control U.S. politics without the conservative white South will be one of the best developments for Southern history since the Civil Rights era.

I never noticed before how much Lind looks like an (even more) overweight Glenn Beck.

.

El Cid:

The discovery by the rest of the nation that they’ve got enough votes to control U.S. politics without the conservative white South will be one of the best developments for Southern history since the Civil Rights era.

Very true. When do you think they’ll discover it?

.

I never noticed before how much Lind looks like an (even more) overweight Glenn Beck.

Honestly, that’s who I thought it was. I was wondering why Glenn Beck was just sitting there above some bullshit circular firing squad between… I’m guessing liberal pundits? Fuck if I’ve listened to either.

I’ll bet Kevin Drum’s reeducation camp lets everyone out early.

Oh dear. You can’t write a sentence like

They are erring neighbors to be won over, not cretins to be mocked.

and expect to make your case. It’s like saying “Look at this man. Does he deserve to be hit in the face with a pie? Well? DOES HE?”

Michael Lind means well, having come from a crazy fundie household, but he needs a little beating now and again.

Very true. When do you think they’ll discover it?

I’m thinking the fall of 2008 seems likely.

Well, I just hope Kevin Drum will remember, Southern Man don’t need him around.

I tell you what, Lind. When I no longer see fuckhead white boys from Georgia driving around with Confederate flag stickers on their pickup trucks, and the quotient of Creationist theme parks in the “Old South” gets down to around the national average, I will then stop being prejudiced against Southern white men. Until then, whenever I hear a yokel twang spewing from the mouth of an old white guy, I’m going to presume bigot until proven otherwise.

I think you’re letting your crazy show a little too much. It took the Republicans years to start in with circular firing squads. How about we let them keep their lead on that one?

it looks like baby huey done all growed up.

OMFG – it’s been like six months since this post went up, and no one’s tried unredacting K-Drum. Well, nyah nyah nyah you loony libs – I’m gonna POOP on this mad-lib first!!!!

There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Southern whites who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Southern white culture is POOP, PENIS, Hitler, Stalin, WHITEY!!!, Drill, Baby, Drill, SAMMICH!, socialest, moran and KHAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!. Jim Webb can pretty it up all he wants, but it’s a long walk on the beach after a candlelight dinner.

Fuck. Mad-lib fever has taken hold. This one’s from page 2 of the Lind piece:

Here’s how I see it. Liberals should respect and promote the interests of working Americans Nazis of all races and regions, including those who despise molest liberals children.

Wow, Michael Lind is onto something here, if you just replace the words in someone’s writing with other shit you’re pulling from nowhere – you can make them look really dumb.

I’m a simple Dragon-King, and I enjoy the simple things in wingnuttery:

…or if they do, they pooh-pooh the story…

Pooh-pooh!

Whups, wrnog threedle. Man, this is almost as bad as when I mixed up lesbian yogurt with hockey.

Maybe it’s just John Hughes kicking it recently, but this guy looks like all of the cast members of The Breakfast Club morphed into one.

The harder, deeper, longer, and more brutally that sector gets its ever-lovin’ ass kicked, the better it is for the rest of us.

“Sector” is an interesting word choice.

No lefty should ever spit in the face of any “sector” whose constituents are mostly poor.

Steve Gilliard used to talk about how blacks, as a .. umm, sector, don’t really care for gays. But that doesn’t mean that the black “sector” should be put on permanent shitlist. Their hostility to gays should be deplored, but as a “sector” blacks deserve as much or, probably, more sympathy than gays on socialist (i.e., class) grounds. Everyone knows all this is true, but apparently Lind can’t take the point and run with it because some yokels still have rebel flag license plates. Good job, liberals.

I don’t even think of myself as “southern WASP.” I generally think that identity is stupid and useless and overdone — most of my tribe embarasses me. That is, until some douchebag like Kevin Drum — who’s never been poor or ever lived outside some goddamn suburb — starts blabbing. Tribalism inspires tribalism; I forget mine until Kevin Drum reminds me of it. All of which is bad enough, but when I remember that Kevin Drum *couldn’t* get his dander up about the theft of the 2000 election, about how Bush and Co. obviously exploited 9/11, about the Iraq War, generally about every horrible thing in the last 8 years, that’s when I start to get very angry.

What you people who agree with Drum don’t understand is that his hatred of the Southern WASP is just as much based on class as on culture. And though I agree with you all about the culture aspect, Kevin Drum’s not the one to make the argument — someone like me is, and I have. But then you have to account for the class part. By all means you should make fun of White Trash. But to the extent that White Trash is Poor White Trash, you should sympathize — Lind’s point about reaching out to them is true.

People like Lind – especially, in this case – use the “black people are social conservatives and caused Prop 8? to explain away white bigotry, especially Southern white bigotry (which is often used to excuse plain ol’ American exceptionalist bigotry). Instead of cleaning up one’s own backyard, it’s an excuse to go “Well, they’re just as bad” and that shit never worked as a kid.

Since when are white southerners part of Kevin Drum’s backyard? And black people *are* social conservatives. It’s a fact; it doesn’t explain away anything; Lind is just pointing out the double standard. If you’re gonna tolerate one group’s social conservatism — and I think you should, or do you think they should be kicked out (Yes or no, Matt. What do you say? hmm?) — then you should tolerate the same sort of social conservatism of another group. Lind has a legit argument and you’re reduced to whining about bad faith.

when I mixed up lesbian yogurt with hockey
I make that mistake all the time.

Also, looking at that picture, I have seen more convincing plasticine models of a human face in Švankmajer animations.