1. I'm in sympathy with much of what Ross Douthat writes here (particularly on the corporate uses of diversity) but I think his discussion of the Cotton op-ed suffers from a fatal abstraction from context.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/nyt-tom-cotton-oped-liberalism.html …
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2. Here's the crucial context
@DouthatNYT misses: the idea of sending in the military to quell the uprising didn't just scare the liberal & post-liberal reporters at the New York Times, it also freaked out the non-liberals in the Pentagon.3 replies 42 retweets 187 likesShow this thread -
3. The crucial context is that the president is Trump (a race-baiting know-nothing) rather than, say, Eisenhower or George H.W. Bush or Obama. That's why the Pentagon resisted having troops sent in and that's why many civilians reacted with revulsion.
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4. You could, if you wanted to, make an argument that in the abstract "sending in the troops" might in some circumstances make sense. But guess what? Life is not a debating club. Our choices take place in a specific moment: sending in the troops would mean Trump with in charge.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
The issue is what happens when the troops turn 180 degrees and aim at the White House rather than at the protestors. It would be ironic and oh so deserved by Trump, but not in the general case.
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I think some in the Pentagon might have feared that.
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