iPhone.

It's not entirely accurate to suggest that conservatism has no coherent response to COVID-19. "Death Cult" is coherent. Horrible, but coherent. 

Conservative Incoherence, by Sam Adler-Bell (Dissent)

The conservative response to COVID-19 has been defined by its heterogeneity: a blur of contradictory recriminations, confirmation biases, and conspiracy peddling.

... All told, there has been no coherent response to the COVID crisis from the right. But when it comes to conservative ideology, incoherence is a feature, not a bug. Where liberals fantasize that precedent and logic are binding forces in our political life—that there exists some epistemological authority that will arbitrate facts and fiction, punish those who’ve contradicted themselves, and reward those who have not—conservatives have long since abandoned such notions. Reactionary thought, as Corey Robin has argued, is dynamic and mutable by nature, responsive to minute changes in the political weather, sensitive to every threat to order and hierarchy, primed to spring into action to meet the discursive necessities of the moment.
Like many, I experienced acute frustration at Trump’s tweets in support of protests to “liberate” states from the onerous lockdowns he and his medical advisers have counseled. But it doesn’t matter. Contradiction is no obstacle. There is no New York Times bombshell or Mueller indictment or impeachment article coming to right the wrongs of Trump’s hypocrisy, no scorekeeper, no manager. There is only power, those who wield it, and those who are subject to it. This, at least, our gun-toting libertarian friends in Michigan understand. It will take wielding our own sort of power to escape this crisis with our communities intact and safe. What form that power could take, I don’t yet know ...

"Conservatives should be wary of Big Business," notes a conservative, correctly.

Meet the multinational corporation.

According to the article, John A. Burtka IV is executive director of the American Conservative magazine. As for his topic, but of course they should.

In recent years, as politics become increasingly and stupidly polarized, I've tried to look past the obvious points of disagreement with my friends on the right, and focus instead on what we have in common.

Arguably, it's easier when they're indie business owners -- then we're speaking a universal language about somewhat "free" markets from the perspective of the trenches.

Conservatives should be wary of Big Business, by John A. Burtka IV (Washington Post)

Among conservatives, the erosion of civil society is most often attributed to the heavy hand of the administrative state. While the welfare system, especially at the federal level, certainly deserves its fair share of the blame, a growing number of conservatives, including Tucker Carlson, Patrick Deneen, Rusty Reno, Michael Brendan Dougherty and Rod Dreher, have also expressed concern about the side effects of economic globalization and the elite culture that shapes many corporations. In short, conservatives are coming to see that Big Business can also threaten our liberties and the flourishing of civil society.

I am not insinuating that capitalism is bad or that the free markets haven’t dramatically reduced poverty and raised living standards. What I am saying is we should not underestimate the importance of our immediate commercial environment to the forging of a sense of community, and that the shift from locally owned businesses to multinational corporations comes at a cost ...

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: A heartbreaking work of staggering asininity.

Today's column is occasioned by National Review's Jonah Goldberg, whose writing style I admire although his political worldview isn't always my particular brand of kombucha (it's an insider reference) -- well, after all, I'm more of a pre-Putin kvass kind of guy.

Our word is right there in the title: The G-Files by Jonah Goldberg: Authentic Asininity.

Asininity is a noun describing the quality of being asinine.

asinine
[as-uh-nahyn]
adjective

1. foolish, unintelligent, or silly; stupid: It is surprising that supposedly intelligent people can make such asinine statements.
2. of or like an ass: asinine obstinacy; asinine features.

Origin of asinine
1600-10; < Latin asinīnus, equivalent to asin(us) ass1+ -īnus -ine1

Related forms
asininely, adverb ... asininity [as-uh-nin-i-tee] noun

Relax, Jeffrey. You have the day off.

In case you were wondering, Goldberg is pointing "asininity" directly at the defenders of POTUS in the wake of the now-forgotten "shithole" furor.

... Let’s start with the question of Donald Trump’s racism. I find the competition to be most offended by the offensiveness of President Trump’s fecal-crater comments to be more than a little tedious. Don’t get me wrong: I think they were offensive and, yes, racist. But that, to me, is the least interesting aspect of this episode of The Trump Show ...

... The idea that anything the president says can be justified by simply asserting that he’s speaking in the authentic voice of his base is an argument no conservative would dream of making under an Elizabeth Warren presidency. Lending credence to it is not only politically myopic, but it lends support to the centrifugal forces tearing this country apart. It is the type of thinking I associate with “sh**hole” countries — to borrow a phrase. In many third-world countries, tribes and other factions vie to gain power and then reward only their team. That is contrary to virtually everything good and noble about our constitutional system.

Asininity enters here; like father, like son, so let's meet the latest Jerry Falwell, latest charlatan in a line of Falwells, described by Goldberg as "the Bishop of Hereford of the Trump administration."

AUTHENTIC ASININITY ... Falwell, in a riot of sycophantic sophistry, not only wants to argue that whatever a president does is presidential but also seeks to elevate the idea that authenticity is its own reward. This is contrary to vast swathes of conservative and Christian thought. A person can be authentically evil, crude, bigoted, or asinine. That is not a defense of any of those things. I’m no expert, but my understanding of Christianity is that behavior is supposed to be informed by more than one’s “authentic” feelings and instincts. Satan is nothing if not authentic. As I write at length in my forthcoming book, this society-wide romantic obsession with authenticity — not just among Trump supporters, but across the left and much of the right — is a deeply corrupting force. But let’s stay on topic. The White House’s initial statement — which didn’t deny the sh**hole report — says in part, “Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people.” Put aside the blasé and unsubstantiated insinuation of unpatriotic motives to critics and the political class generally. The upshot of this claim is that calling scores of nations — many of which are our allies — “sh**holes” is really a form of fighting for the American people. If that were true, virtually any crude insult would be just another example of “presidential” heroism. Count me out of that idiotic argument.

I'm happy to allow a conservative thinker to draw his conclusion, especially here at a bastion of pants-down socialism.

THE REAL ISSUE(S) If anyone is still with me, let me now turn to what I think is the real significance of all this. It’s not immigration or racism or profanity; it’s Donald Trump and what he is doing to the country and his party ...

 ... Republicans have bet that James Carville was right and that the logic of “it’s the economy, stupid” will vanquish all obstacles. But this has never been an Iron Law of Politics ...

 ... The long-term threat to conservatism and, by extension, the GOP is profound. Young people — the largest voting bloc now — are utterly turned off to the Republican party. That doesn’t make them right, but that’s irrelevant. Their opinions are hardening every single day, even as old white people shuttle off this mortal coil. Maybe there’s a deep and principled argument to make in favor of Trump’s sh**holish gaffes. But very few people outside the ranks of the converted want to hear it. All they hear are defenses of, or deflections from, the issues that arouse their passion. When conservatives and Republicans rush to defend Trump’s indefensible actions, all they are doing is convincing more people that “Trumpism” isn’t confined to Trump. That damage won’t be erased by another record stock-market closing or an uptick in the GDP numbers. It will outlive The Trump Show for generations.

Too bad so few Democrats have a palatable alternative. Thanks for the link, K.

Younge: "If the liberal left is going to challenge (Trump) effectively in the coming years, then it must learn the lessons of its defeat."

Let's view this sentence in bold.

"The Democratic machine does not need a tune-up—it needs a complete overhaul."

Has he quit yet?

Donald Trump Is Not Too Big to Fail, by Gary Younge (The Nation)

His victory illustrates the weakness of the Republican Party, not its strength. And despite his braggadocio, he’s vulnerable.

... Fortunately, while the right is emboldened, it is not ascendant. Trump’s victory illustrates the weakness of the Republican Party’s leaders, not their strength. They wanted anyone else, and now they are unable to control him. He openly derides and baits them. Notwithstanding his braggadocio, he remains vulnerable. His agenda is no more unassailable than his victory was unfathomable.

But there is nothing inevitable about his demise. If the liberal left is going to challenge him effectively in the coming years, then it must learn the lessons of its defeat. The Democratic machine does not need a tune-up—it needs a complete overhaul. For far too long, it has been too arrogant, complacent, or contemptuous (and sometimes all three) to make an argument beyond “at least we’re not them.”

The reason why Trump was able to attain power is not because he had better ideas, made better arguments, had greater organizational capacity, or even spent more money. The reason he was able to win was because those charged with opposing him offered not hope, but the status quo, in a country where inequality between rich and poor and black and white is growing. He won because his opponents believed their own PR. Hubris sent them to Arizona when humility would have kept them in Pennsylvania. He won because, emerging from a period of economic crisis, the multimillionaire businessman whose catchphrase is “You’re fired” looked less like a representative of the establishment than the liberal who claimed she represented the interests of the poor. If he is stupid, then what are we?

Something for CM Aebersold to learn about revitalization -- from a conservative, not us.

Purely accidental first-year councilman David Aebersold famously expounded at depressing length about the weight of his ignorance of the modern world in a September 28 letter to the Courier-Journal.

Today, urban planning is dominated by an anti-auto mentality that overrides common sense. In efforts to discourage driving, planners are willing to accept more congestion – which is what will happen on Spring Street – more air pollution and greater numbers of accidents, a result of changing one-way streets to two-way streets. Traffic speeds are independent of whether the streets are one-way or two-way and can probably be controlled on one-way street through the use of coordinated signals that can be set for almost any desired speed.

What the hell -- not everyone can read and research and learn, and the older you get, the less you care to try, although come to think of it, David's not the only confused Aebersold in town. Jamey doesn't grasp it, either, but what can we expect from jazz musicians (wink wink, nudge nudge)?

I'm not sure what can be done about the syncopation of auto-centrism, but in my usual helpful spirit, here's something that might assist the accidental councilman in comprehending little shards of the reality outside his gated preserve -- and not only that, it's completely safe for him to peruse because the publication is called THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE.

I've highlighted just one pertinent suggestion. You're welcome.

How to Brew a Midwest Downtown Renaissance, by John Burtka III (The American Conservative)

1. Infrastructure. Local government music t invest in downtown roads, streetscapes, placemaking, parks, and trails. If you have the vestiges of 1970s urban planning, such as roads turned into walking plazas or one-way bypasses speeding potential customers around and away from downtown businesses, you must remove these impediments to growth now. Many of these projects can take advantage of federal and state incentives that already exist.

See, that wasn't so bad ... was it?

"For the good of the nation, the Republican Party as it is presently constituted has to die."

If the end of the GOP truly is near, and somehow I doubt it, it's causing me a great deal of unease. What will replace it?

Are You Ready for the End of the Republican Party? by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

 ... For the good of the nation, the Republican Party as it is presently constituted has to die.

Ever since the late 1970s, when it determined to ally itself with a politicized splinter of American evangelical Protestantism, having previously allied itself with the detritus of American apartheid, the Republican Party has been reeling toward catastrophe even as it succeeded at the ballot box, and taking the country along with it. Crackpot economic theories were mainstreamed in the 1980s. Crackpot conspiracy theories and god-drunk fantasies were mainstreamed in the 1990s. Crackpot imperial adventures abroad were mainstreamed in the 2000s. And all of these were mainstreamed at once in opposition to the country's first African American president over the past eight years.

Modern conservatism has proven to be not a philosophy, but a huge dose of badly manufactured absinthe. It squats in an intellectual hovel now, waiting for its next fix, while a public madman filches its tattered banner and runs around wiping his ass with it. It always was coming to this.

The GOP and its actual record: "For the entire history of modern conservatism, its ideals have been wedded to and marred by white supremacism."

Typically, whenever I remind contemporary gated-community Christians about the legacy of the Crusades and the Inquisition, the hushing is audible -- and a bit angry.

I'm told not to distort history, and that while this may have been true at one time, much has changed.

Many of these same advocates of Republican White Jesus now inform me that the period of my life span, which after all I've observed with my own two eyes, didn't actually happen at all. They remind me that the GOP directly reflects the ideals of its founding prior to the American Civil War, and furthermore, insist that Democrats remain as firmly unreconstructed as those representing the Deep South in the 1920s.

As the guy denouncing the two-party system, and now has little use for either "side," allow me to remind you this argument is a farrago of bullshit, perpetuated by folks who might read books other than the Bible every now and then. Most man-on-the-street Republican voters wouldn't buy it, because they know full well why the GOP appeals to them.

The subterfuge isn't necessary. My sense is that it's an ideological security blanket constructed by suburban white conservatives to keep their cognitive dissonance manageable.

But you needn't trust me.

Rather, take it from a Republican.

A Republican intellectual explains why the Republican Party is going to die, by Zack Beauchamp (Vox)

 ... “Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble,” Roy says. “We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”

Conservative intellectuals, for the most part, are horrified by racism. When they talk about believing in individual rights and equality, they really mean it. Because the Republican Party is the vehicle through which their ideas can be implemented, they need to believe that the party isn’t racist.

So they deny the party’s racist history, that its post-1964 success was a direct result of attracting whites disillusioned by the Democrats’ embrace of civil rights. And they deny that to this day, Republican voters are driven more by white resentment than by a principled commitment to the free market and individual liberty.

“It’s the power of wishful thinking. None of us want to accept that opposition to civil rights is the legacy that we’ve inherited,” Roy says.

And ...

This soul-searching led Roy to an uncomfortable conclusion: The Republican Party, and the conservative movement that propped it up, is doomed.

Both are too wedded to the politics of white nationalism to change how they act, but that just isn’t a winning formula in a nation that’s increasingly black and brown. Either the Republican Party will eat itself or a new party will rise and overtake its voting share ...

 ... For the entire history of modern conservatism, its ideals have been wedded to and marred by white supremacism. That’s Roy’s own diagnosis, and I think it’s correct. As a result, we have literally no experience in America of a politically viable conservative movement unmoored from white supremacy.

The South does it again -- wait, Indiana did it first. No matter: "The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte."

C'mon -- you know Grooms would have voted in favor if he lived in North Carolina.

The real world, from the only sportswriter who matters.

The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte. Now. (By Dave Zirin, The Nation)

... The 2017 NBA All-Star Game is due to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina. Silver should announce as soon as possible that this game needs to be moved unless the state legislature overturns its new law set to go in effect April 1 “blocking local governments from passing anti-discrimination rules to grant protections to gay and transgender people.”

The law was passed as a direct response to the City of Charlotte for passing an ordinance to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people from being discriminated against by businesses. Outrageously, the North Carolina legislature scheduled an extraordinary special session—the first time they have done so in 35 years—to annul the Charlotte ordinance before it went into effect. It’s remarkable how quickly lawmakers leap to actually do their jobs when the work involves stripping people of their rights. It is also stunning how all of the Dixie paeans to local control and states’ rights go out the window when it comes to issues such as these.

The law also bans students from using restrooms that correlate with their gender identity if it is not what is listed on their birth certificate. “Legislators have gone out of their way to stigmatize and marginalize transgender North Carolinians by pushing ugly and fundamentally untrue stereotypes that are based on fear and ignorance and not supported by the experiences of more than 200 cities with these protections,” Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said in a statement.

This law empowers businesses across the state to put signs in their windows saying that they reserve the right to deny service to anyone whom they perceive to be part of the LGBT community. Think about that for a second: The law empowers right-wing small-business owners to legally discriminate based on their own “gaydar.”

Under the shadow of this legislation, the NBA really only has one recourse: It needs to move the 2017 All-Star Game and show the world that it is not going to “fall behind” on what is a very elemental issue of human rights and dignity. The NBA Players Association, led by the estimable Michele Roberts, should also call for Adam Silver to take this step.

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode IV, The Saga Continues: My Trump Soap Box.

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode IV, The Saga Continues: My Trump Soap Box.

By Nick Vaughn, Guest Columnist

With the recent news of Donald Trump missing the next debate (which will have happened by the time you read this) I felt that now was the time to dust off my anti­-Trump rhetoric and bless you all with an article filled with my anger, because this is a blog after all.

Initially when I had first become aware of the Trump phenom, I had thought that his support would fizzle out, that it was just name ID helping him in the polling. Then he started saying things, very rude things, things that are not feasible, things that pander to the very same base that started the Obama birther rumors and the idea that he was a Muslim (why would that even matter?) As his support grew and poll numbers increased, I began to think that his supporters are just straight up delusional, but that’s when I came to the realization that these people actually believe what he is saying.

Now, I tend to agree that these people are well intentioned and absolutely love America, but their anger is misplaced and over the top, which blinds them from the real issues at hand. Spewing pure hatred for Muslims and Hispanics because of the actions of a few is so wrong on so many levels. Do we have an illegal immigration problem? Yes. Does that mean we shut out those who are in dire need of the opportunities America can provide them? Absolutely not.

The dehumanization of Hispanics and Muslims must come to an end. That’s now how we “Make America Great Again.” We don’t shut people out. Since our inception we have been the beacon of hope and freedom in the world. A place where immigrants could come and get a good paying job and raise a family. The large majority of immigrants have good intentions when coming to America. We know this from the high number of them who are employed and raising a family.

So how can Donald Trump and his supporters so rabidly preach and promote hatred and bigotry towards these groups of people? This is a classic example of misplaced conservatism. When I think of conservatism, I think of an ideology that is wary of government intervention, advocates for fair taxes, promotes free market ideals, and limits government spending.

What we currently have is a conservative movement of hatred, and I would like to mention the following, for all you conservatives out there who are head over heels for Trump because of his conservatism:

1. He supported a single ­payer healthcare system.
2. His immigration plans will expand government spending by over 600 billion.
3. His idea to create a database of all Muslims to track them goes against the 1st and 4th amendments to the Constitution.
4. (And this one is important for you conservatives) he has donated to both Hillary and Bill Clinton and has supported them in the past.

I know some of you out there say that as a businessman Trump had to donate to the Clintons and other politicians because he is so smart and is just playing the game. Well, what if I told you he was a liar? What if I told you about how many times his businesses have gone bankrupt? What if I told you that Mr. Self Made Trump used his daddy’s money to begin his terrible run in private sector business? What if I told you Donald Trump is such a good politician, that you think he is the anti politician who will end the corruption in Washington but will instead run America into the ground because that’s what his track record would suggest?

Would you care? Or will you just keep going along?

Donald Trump may be the Republican nominee, but he will not be President of the United States. Donald Trump’s nomination only ensures a Democrat in the White House, something you conservatives really don’t want, remember?

So, when you all decide to wake up, let me know. I’ll be here holding onto what we have left of our country.