Pun Salad

At TechDirt, Mike Brock rails Against Ironic Detachment. After desperately seeking some appropriate Eye Candy to illustrate "ironic detachment", I decided to go with xkcd: Hipsters:

And see, there's "ironic detachment" right there in the mouseover:

You may point out that this very retreat into ironic detachment while still clearly participating in the thing in question is the very definition of contemporary hipsterdom. But on the other hand, wait, you're in an empty room. Who are you talking to?

This comic is from 2013, so you can see that "ironic detachment" has been disrespected for quite awhile.

I, on the other hand, have adopted the Elvis Costello attitude: I used to be disgusted, Now I try to be amused. If you had to sum up "ironic detachment" in a pop lyric, I think that comes very close.

So anyway, here's Mike, who thinks he has something new to say:

Just an excerpt. Read the whole thing, and see what you think. Here's what I think:

Mike lacks humility, tolerance, and sympathy. You will, I'm pretty sure, look in vain for any specific examples, good or bad, of which he speaks, let alone specific recommendations for activism or policy.

Maybe I missed something. It was pretty tedious reading "good things are good, bad things are bad" over and over again. Broad, generalizing brushstrokes abound.

But most important, Mike fails to appreciate the dangers of moral certainty, even after it has undoubtedly fueled the actions of (examples off the top of my head) Luigi Mangione, Elias Rodriguez, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, …

Of course, your lack of ironic detachment doesn't have to make you a cold-blooded killer. You can stop short of that and merely be a humorless, self-important, strident, overwraught kvetch.

Speaking of which, Mike has a substack, Notes From The Circus. Browse as desired, up to the "Keep reading with a 7-day free trial" notices.

And, yes, today's headline is loosely based on a famous line from William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming".

Also of note:

• Obligatory Ghostbusters quote: "There is no Dana, only Zuul!" That's probably not what Charles C.W. Cooke meant to evoke with his NR headline: There Is No Trumpism—Just Trump.

  When, in 1898, Lord Salisbury was informed of the death of Otto von Bismarck, he is said to have asked aloud, “I wonder what he meant by that.”

  President Trump does not exhibit Bismarck’s cunning, inscrutability, or proclivity for complicated diplomacy. Nevertheless, there is something impenetrable about the man that renders pat classification impossible. For the better part of a decade, figures who spend most of their time around ideologically consistent thinkers have attempted to define what Trump represents. What is Trumpism (and MAGA, America First, and the rest)? Which factions does it exemplify? Which historical strands has it picked up? To which school of international relations theory does it belong? Is Trump a populist? Is he a Jacksonian? Does he owe more to the New Deal or to the Reagan Revolution? Jurisprudentially, does he side with the originalist or common-good school?

  Ten years in, this project seems rather silly. Clearly, there is no Trumpism. There’s just Trump.

  I think CCWC is getting it really right here. Hopefully, this means that after Trump is out of the picture, we'll start making principled arguments instead of shaking our pom-poms in support of whatever Trump said or did a few hours ago.

  Yeah, well, maybe.

  But it also means that Trump has no principles other than his own self. It's a trait others have labeled as narcissism.

  And … I'm out of NR gifted links this month, so subscribe, hippie.

• Another exercise in futility. They Don’t Even Want to Impeach Him Anymore. "They" being "most Democrats in the House." (WSJ gifted link)

  Damage assessments continue regarding the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear sites. Back here in the U.S., a pernicious and dishonest movement that began after the 2016 elections appears to have been completely flattened. The spectacular implosion on the House floor Tuesday could be seen from as far away as the outer limits of C-Span cable households. Most House Democrats voted against initiating an impeachment of President Donald Trump even after he ordered a bombing without seeking congressional approval.

  Among those rising to Mr. Trump’s defense were Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) and former Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). These are politicians who have spent years “resisting” our twice-elected president as if he were an illegitimate ruler. They even impeached him once for demanding a Ukrainian investigation of Biden enrichment schemes that any reasonable person would say should have been investigated.

  Clearly their hearts are no longer in the effort to deny the results of our national elections, though they may try to keep bellowing about alleged authoritarianism at activist gatherings. It seems that many elected Democrats have been wanting to drop the “resistance” shtick for a while, but didn’t want to have to oppose another Trump impeachment publicly. Now they’re on the record affirming that he should continue to serve as our president. How can any of them ever rail about his alleged threat to democracy again with a straight face?

  Memo to Mike Brock: I don't think you can chalk this up to "ironic detachment."

  Voting breakdown is here. It took up, according to this record, slightly over 35 minutes of floor time yesterday.