Guardian columnist Owen Jones just issued “a masterclass in unwitting self-damnation” on Russell Brand’s rape conviction, snarks Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill.
asserted
O’Neill → issue → conviction
“ ‘I’ve met Russell Brand twice (I think)’, Jones writes.
asserted
Jones → meet → Brand
Yes, and one of those times was to sing his praises at a huge middle-class Brand love-in.
asserted
one → sing → in
Jones neglects to mention that he also wrote columns lauding Brand as a leftish messiah.”
asserted
he → neglect → messiah
Then Jones admits “he was aware of Brand’s history of misogyny.
asserted
he → admit → misogyny
‘I saw him as a crude means to reach disillusioned younger people with left-wing politics’, he writes,” so “ ‘I was willing to overlook, or just not look into, his history of problematic behaviour / statements, including sexism.’
asserted
I → see → sexism
Is it possible Jones doesn’t understand the magnitude of what he is saying here” — in effect, “that women’s dignity is a small thing to throw on the bonfire of brocialist opportunism?”
asserted
dignity → understand → opportunism
Election epilogue: One Bright Spot for the GOP
For disheartened Republicans, The Hill’s Nicole Russell sees “a lighthouse flickering edge of the tsunami”: Even as they elected Democrats, many states passed “conservative-leaning ballot measures” like “voter ID, protecting female spaces and taxes.”
asserted
states → see → spaces
That shows “how badly Trump” tainted the GOP.
asserted
Trump → show → GOP
Indeed, an AP poll found “4 in 10 voters cast their ballots ‘to express opposition’ to Trump”; candidate quality “mattered too.”
asserted
quality → find → Trump
Above all, voters seem to “want the best of both worlds: politicians who aren’t aligned with Trump, but ideas rooted in conservatism.”
asserted
who → seem → conservatism
It’s a “powerful lesson” for 2028: The “blue wave hides a red undertow,” and if Dems move left “on voter ID, female sports or taxes, it could drag them under.”
uncertain
it → ’ → them
“The midterm elections may have been primarily a rejection of corruption and ineptitude among GOP officials,” but “it’s not clear that voters booting one party from office are eager to embrace what the other major party has to offer,” warns Reason’s J.D. Tuccille.
uncertain
Tuccille → ’ → what
“Americans are hate-voting in election after election,” with neither side “very good at accepting that they’re regarded as slightly less awful than the alternative”; instead, “they always take the ball and run.”
asserted
they → vote → ball
“To live our lives through cycles of severe policy changes,” best “emulate those Americans of the past who largely ignored government dictates.”
asserted
who → live → dictates
Israel update: Less Divided Than We Look
“Israel’s politics seem bitter and divided” and it is “far from clear” that Gadi Eisenkot “can muster a majority in the time allotted,” so Israeli leadership faces a “much-needed realignment,” argues Benny Gantz at The Wall Street Journal.
asserted
Gantz → look → Journal
“Israeli society has been changed by the wars that followed” the Oct. 7 attack, as mass “mobilization changed the people who took part in it,” and their “giant personal sacrifices” “reduced the Israeli public’s tolerance for naked partisanship.”
asserted
sacrifices → change → partisanship
Voters just “demanded, in huge numbers, a strong military posture and domestic policies that will hold the country together”; parties supporting that agenda “hold more than two-thirds of the Knesset’s 120 seats.”
asserted
parties → demand → seats
Between “unfinished business with our enemies” and “huge economic opportunities,” “we have a unique chance to arrive at reasonable compromises on issues like the judiciary and conscription.”
asserted
we → have → judiciary
Conservative: Losing Charlie Primed Blue’nami
asserted
Losing → lose → Charlie
Charlie Kirk’s killing “marked the shattering of the American Right,” mourns City Journal’s Christopher F. Rufo, as Kirk “was always tethered to political reality” and “kept in touch with an unbelievable number of people in the real world,” serving to steer “elements of the Right” away “from delusion and conspiracy theories.”
asserted
Kirk → mark → delusion
Without him, “that restraint disappeared” as crank obsessions spread and “President Trump, too, lost an important influence” who’d been urging him “to pay attention to voters who were feeling the stress of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis” and “warned against getting drawn into a prolonged war in the Middle East.”
asserted
who → disappear → East
Now “the Right should be honest about what happened” in the midterms and find “the strength of character to allow justice to proceed against corruption, while fighting unjust political reprisals.”
asserted
justice → happen → reprisals
The Aporia
