Hi Julie!
I made reference to 'Democrat candidates' in the spirit that you might say 'she's a Democrat'; I didn't say the 'Democrat Party', which would just sound wrong to me anyway. I'd literally never heard of this particular semantic minefield, and John's picking me up on it just felt like a distraction, but fair enough, I'm happy to be corrected.
It's not that I don't consider Kimball 'fair game' or have any concern about him feeling attacked. As I said above 'I have no concern for the feelings of some smug, privileged, odious right-wing commentator who gets called a Nazi'. When I initially questioned Aaron about his calling him a 'Nazi fuck' it was through qualms about the feelings of Holocaust victims, and then later through a concern that calling someone a Nazi who isn't actually a Nazi could empower Trump. The same principle that makes you balk at calling rank-and-file supporters Nazis. I personally don't care what language Aaron uses to express his justifiable anger on this very niche website, I was just making a point about the usefulness of that sort of language becoming more common in the general political discourse vs the risk that it could backfire. It's a tricky one isn't it, because saying 'don't call Roger Kimball a Nazi' can easily be interpreted as 'Don't slander that poor man's reputation'. That's not my agenda here at all, it is the same as everyone else's: to encourage action that makes Trump's reelection the least likely scenario.
Hi Quincy - nothing there I don't agree with, and what I said to Julie.
Hi John - I'm still interested, from you or anyone else, in opinions on my first question about the motivations of the Holocaust museum and the description of their statement as 'spineless'. It's not a loaded question, I'd genuinely be interested in opinions, as someone concerned but removed from the issue by an ocean. The Pascal is always funny.
Cheers folks
Edit: the more I read about Bolsonaro, the more frightening he sounds. It's very important for any forces aligned against what he and Trump represent to play it right, if they're to be defeated democratically. God knows what that (the 'playing it right') means though really tbh.
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