Harrison Bergeron lives!

So: The press has moved on from the last big news story and decided that an 18-year-old nutcase racial mass murderer is a microcosm instead of an outlier. The narrative is forever set now, and no facts (if there be countervailing facts) will change it.

I feel like one of the parents of Harrison Bergeron: What was that story they were covering last week? I can’t recall, but it was real sad, or outrageous, or something riveting.

Key question for Keystone State Republicans

The question for [Pennsylvania]’s primary voters is: How do you like your populism? Do you want it raw and true, instinctive and gut-sourced, warts and all? Or do you want it meticulously manufactured, recently acquired and worn like a neat-fitting suit? Do you want authenticity in your next senator—and your party—however deranged it may sound at times? Or do you want a convincing salesman, a neophyte with pitch-perfect recall, able to recite on demand the full lexicon of Trumpian populism while registering only the merest blip on the lie detector?

The choice arises as a result of the sudden rise to contention of conservative commentator and military veteran Kathy Barnette. Her surge in the polls is a reminder of how much some voters crave something genuine. Outspent some 25 to 1 by her well-heeled opponents—television physician Mehmet Oz and hedge-fund manager and former Bush administration official David McCormick—she is nonetheless close in the polls.

Gerald Baker, Wall Street Journal

Every pro-abortion, anti-Catholic trope collected in a single NYT column.

Maureen Dowd (who I seldom read) hits just about every pro-abortion, anti-Catholic trope in common circulation.

She makes herself sound stupid and frenzied — which I partly why I generally avoid her. (See my prior post here.)

Forcing your religion on others?

Is It Unconstitutional for Laws to Be Based on Their Supporters’ Religiously Founded Moral Beliefs?

A sorely needed perspective:

Overruling Roe Would Extinguish A Judicially Created Right, But Would Restore The People’s “Precious Right To Govern Themselves”

It’s no fun to think that Trump might well have been re-elected had not the laptop class suborned perjury from “experts” that the Hunter’s laptop story was Russian disinformation.

Peggy Noonan, America’s Most Tumultuous Holy Week. If you read it, read it to the end, which has contemporary relevance.

Nutcases

It’s horrible how many conservatives I used to like have taken leave of human decency.

Ann Coulter turned ugly on and after 9/11
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (perhaps the most disappointing) seemed to turn during the Trump years (though I had ceased seeing her stuff regularly and I could be wrong)
I’m sure there are others, but it seems unhealthy to keep mulling it over just to make a list in my journal

The Indiana Attorney General

What kind of Attorney General needs this kind of recruiting?

Is this not a sign that something is amiss in Todd Rokita’s stewardship of the Indiana Attorney General’s office? Might it be that he’s not a steward, but rather treats the AG’s office as a platform for his ego?

Reader capture

I really enjoy Bari Weiss’s Substack, Common Sense. It is one of Substack’s biggest success stories.

But I find myself a bit worried on Friday’s “TGIF” editions, when Nellie Bowles takes over. It’s almost too enjoyable.

But these women were of the center-left, and I of the center-right.

Either (1) Bari and Nellie have moved markedly to the Right, or (2) I’ve moved markedly to the Left, or (3) common sense is spreading leftward, or (4) Common Sense is one of Substack’s biggest “reader capture”* stories, too. I’m voting for #3.

(* I believe I’ve heard the term “reader capture” used to describe Substackers (and Patreoners, I suppose) pandering to whatever narratives add lots of paying readers. But searching the term produces a bunch of noise, no obvious signal.)

San Francisco contra mundum

San Francisco is now boycotting most of the United States - Mission Local.

Seattle can’t keep up. How can even Portlandia hope to compete?

Oops!

Happy Monday! Our thoughts go out to the person who spent $518,000 on the ball Tom Brady threw for his “final” touchdown pass, only for Tom Brady to unretire less than 24 hours later. Should’ve bought 345 lifetime memberships to The Dispatch instead.

The Morning Dispatch

I can relate to Wally today

I can relate to Wally today. If the choice is “coffee-swilling blob of useless organic matter” or “consequential irredentist,” like one VVP, I’ll take the former.

Dealing with vehement disagreement

If so many tens of millions of my fellow Americans disagree with me so vehemently about politics and policy and personality, surely this is worth understanding, and surely the explanation is more complicated and less morally satisfying than “I am pretty good and they are pretty evil.”

Jesse Singal, ‌On The Sad, Foreboding Tale Of J.D. Vance

Downgraded forecast

As of Friday the 4th, Russia’s “imminent” invasion of Ukraine had been downgraded to “planning to fabricate a pretext to invade.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday the Biden administration is no longer using the word “imminent” to describe a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. “It sent a message we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew that President Putin had made a decision,” she said, adding that it’s “still true” Putin “could invade at any time.”

The Morning Dispatch