Exnihilating an American Idiocracy

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What We Call Things

We live in a dumb world. Americans have a moral responsibility not to make it dumber than necessary — and Americans have been shirking that responsibility for a few years now.

On Twitter, that great overflowing sewer of American life, our friend Bill Kristol suggested — jokingly, I assume — that Democrats rally behind the singer John Legend if Joe Biden should (for some totally unforeseeable and unknowable and not-at-all-age-related reason!) not complete his term or decline to run again in 2024. His argument: The Ukrainians plucked Volodymyr Zelensky from the world of celebrity, and that has worked out pretty well for them — why not John Legend?

To which some nitwit replied with the complaint: "Kevin D. Williamson told me to grow the f*** up when I said Bill Kristol is a socialist."

Well.

If you think Bill Kristol is a socialist — not somebody who disagrees with you about this or that, not somebody you think has bad political ideas, not somebody you think overreacted to the Trump phenomenon, but a socialist — then, yes, you should, indeed, grow the f*** up. Words mean things, and whatever socialism means, it doesn't mean, "I think it would be a hoot if Democrats nominated John Legend for president." I disagree with Bill Kristol about any number of things (and agree with him about many more), but insisting that such disagreements somehow magically transmute Kristol into a socialist is idiotic kid stuff, deserving of contempt.

For years, our progressive friends have insisted that everybody who disagrees with them about anything is a racist, or something like a racist, or a Nazi. It's ... READ MORE

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