New York Magazine

Blogger Jonathan Chait: Conservatism and Marxism (But Not Liberalism) Are Examples of ‘Rigid Dogma’
By Tom Johnson | December 23, 2015 | 11:22 AM EST

New York magazine’s Chait thinks that in a sense, conservatism and Communism aren’t such strange bedfellows when it comes to economic matters. In a Sunday post, Chait categorized “American conservatism” and Marxism as “rigid dogma,” whereas liberalism, he argued, focuses on “data.”

Chait contended that “liberals would abandon, say, new environmental regulations if evidence persuaded them the program was not actually improving the environment, because bigger government is merely the means to an end. No evidence could persuade conservatives to support new environmental regulations, because conservatives consider small government a worthy end [in] itself.”

Writer Rebecca Traister: Obama and Hillary Represent ‘The Death Throes of Exclusive White Male Power In the United States’
By Tom Johnson | December 20, 2015 | 12:16 PM EST

The current election campaign pits the forces of backlash (“the old and angry”) against the forces of frontlash (“the new and different”), and November’s vote will be “a referendum on the existence and civic participation of Americans who are not white men,” contended Traister in a Wednesday piece for New York magazine.

Traister posited that “Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton…represent an altered power structure and changed calculations about who in this country may lead,” but warned, “While the resistance may be symptomatic of death throes, a rage at the dying of the white male light, it nonetheless presents a very real threat…Imagine Ted Cruz or Donald Trump or Marco Rubio in office with a Republican Congress and Supreme Court seats to fill. Voting: restricted. Immigration: halted. Abortion: banned. Equal pay: unprotected. Same-sex marriage: overturned.”

Bloggers: Global-Warming Deniers Are Traitors to the Planet, Paris Deal ‘One of the Great Triumphs in History’
By Tom Johnson | December 15, 2015 | 4:55 PM EST

When it comes to global warming, Esquire’s Charles Pierce implies, it’s now conservative Republicans and a few hidebound Democrats versus pretty much everyone and everything else, including the world’s non-human animals and its plant life. Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait opined that the Paris climate deal was “probably the [Obama] administration’s most important accomplishment."

Lefty Bloggers on the GOP Debate: ‘A Two-Hour Slog Through a Septic Tank Overflowing With Bulls**t’
By Tom Johnson | November 11, 2015 | 5:29 PM EST

Robin Williams’s first album was called Reality…What a Concept. More than one lefty blogger implied that Unreality…What a Concept would have been a fitting title for Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate.

Frank Rich: Jeb Never Had a Chance, As 41 and 43 Brought Those ‘Crazies’ and Gay-Bashers to the GOP
By Tom Johnson | October 30, 2015 | 9:21 PM EDT

The New York magazine writer-at-large and former New York Times columnist and theater critic says Jeb's problems included not only Dubya’s war in Iraq and pre-9/11 “national-security failures” but also the supposedly unsavory, extreme-right types that 41 and 43 attracted to the GOP, thereby contributing to its ruin.

Bloggers Blast GOP Presidential Candidates' Media Criticism: ‘Reality Has a Bias Toward Journalists’
By Tom Johnson | October 29, 2015 | 5:38 PM EDT

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio put media bias on the front burner at CNBC’s Republican presidential debate, but conservatives and liberals differed sharply on whether what was in the pot smelled appetizing. Several lefty bloggers turned up their noses at the idea that in last night’s event and in general, the media favor Democrats.

New York Mag Writer: 'Hillary Clinton Pretends to Oppose Pacific Trade Deal'
By P.J. Gladnick | October 7, 2015 | 9:26 PM EDT

It has only been a few hours since Hillary Clinton has announced that in contrast to her previous enthusiastic support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, she now opposes it (with convenient caveats). Of course, her new opposition to TPP is a completely principled position and has nothing to do with politics. Yeah, right! However, will those on the left be so skeptical of such an obvious political ploy? Well, it seems that at least some are not buying her self-serving rationale for now opposing the TPP starting with Jonathan Chait of New York magazine. In fact the very title of his article, "Hillary Clinton Pretends to Oppose Pacific Trade Deal," reveals complete cynicism about her motivation:

Blogger Jonathan Chait: Republican Party Is World Leader In ‘Virulence of Anti-Government Ideology’
By Tom Johnson | October 1, 2015 | 10:36 PM EDT

Asked to name something that stands alone, a lot of people would say, “The cheese.” To New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, another reasonable answer is “the Republican party,” at least in regard to global warming specifically and hatred of government in general.

Chait’s main point is that the GOP is extremist not only in an American context but also by international standards: “Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science…The fervent commitment to supply-side economics is also an almost uniquely American idea. The GOP is the only major democratic party in the world that opposes the principle of universal health insurance. The virulence of anti-government ideology in the United States has no parallel anywhere in the world.”

Ex-NYT's Frank Rich: Ben Carson Appealing to 'Racist, Bigoted,' 'Muslim Is the New Black'
By Brad Wilmouth | September 24, 2015 | 12:57 AM EDT

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Tonight, former New York Times columnist Frank Rich -- now of New York magazine -- accused GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson of receiving support from a "racist, bigoted part of the Republican base," in the aftermath of Dr. Carson's comments opposing the election of a Muslim President. A bit later, he even accused GOP candidate Mike Huckabee of "bigotry" against homosexuals.

Bloggers Say Goodbye to Scott Walker, Who Didn’t Connect With GOP’s ‘Increasingly Disreputable Base’
By Tom Johnson | September 23, 2015 | 10:13 PM EDT

A few months ago, many liberals, including much of the bloggerati, were afraid that Walker had a good chance to win not only the Republican presidential nomination but also the presidency. Now that Walker’s out of the GOP race, several lefty pundits have weighed in on why.

Lefty Pundits On the Debate: Fiorina’s a Misogynist, the GOP Is ‘Rabid,’ and the Evening’s Big Winner Was a Democrat
By Tom Johnson | September 17, 2015 | 10:21 PM EDT

Among the insights: Fiorina "has a notable facility for delivering answers that thrill conservatives but fall apart under close examination"; a discussion of childhood vaccines showed that the party is "fervid, claustrophobic, recklessly insinuating, and, at the same time, utterly timid when it comes to extremism in its own ranks”; and the GOP as a whole is "wedded to the tenets of [George W.] Bushism — rabid, debt-financed, regressive tax-cutting, reflexive hostility to regulation, and a pervasive anti-intellectualism."

Blogger: Trump’s No Conservative, But He Represents ‘The Nonideological Component of Republican Rage’
By Tom Johnson | August 5, 2015 | 10:58 AM EDT

Politics involves the heart and the mind, and in general the best politicians appeal to both. Then there’s Donald Trump. Jonathan Chait of New York magazine argues that Trump’s campaign is pretty close to mindless, but it seems that to many rank-and-file Republicans, that’s a feature rather than a bug.

“Outsiders have struggled to comprehend how Republican voters can attach themselves to an economic agenda so plainly at odds with their own interest, or whip themselves into a frenzy over a manufactured outrage,” wrote Chait in a Tuesday post. “Trump embodies that mysterious X factor that has eluded analysts of all sides…Trump is not the spokesman for an idea at all, but the representation of undifferentiated resentment.”