It used to be a pretty accepted bargain that a token conservative would be allowed to write in defense of tax cuts and a hawkish foreign policy as long as they didn't say anything too controversial about much else, especially if they ranged from low-key to liberal socially.
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That's not to say plenty of conservative columnists running on predominantly liberal opinion pages haven't had success defying these conventions. Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Cal Thomas all defied them in their own ways, though the first two have gotten scarcer on liberal pages.
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George Will hasn't even always stayed inside this box.
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But if Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens are too provocative for you, well, that is a shift of the Overton window.
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Replying to @jimantle
Ross Douthat is much more conservative than either Weiss or Stephens, he writes about social conservatism, and he draws a lot fewer hackles. There are identifiable reasons why; understanding them would produce lessons people on both sides of these fights could benefit from.
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Ross' columns tend to be very analytical even aloof rather than crusading. He picks his spots. But it's hard to imagine a conservative columnist being this free and provocative. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/racism-white-women.html …
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Replying to @michaelbd @jimantle
The way I'd put this is that Ross writes like he's actually trying to persuade his liberal audience.
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I'd say they're more demonstrative of how a conservative views things. That can be persuasive but I don't think they aim at it.
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I think he's well-liked precisely because he doesn't try to persuade, just explain.
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Sure, but that paradoxically makes him more persuasive. I suspect I've changed my mind on things more from Douthat than any other conservative writer (at least newspaper writer).
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Replying to @StLeibowitz @michaelbd and
Most of Douthat's criticisms of American elite are informed and convincing, particularly on the faux-cosmopolitanism, which I now see as a real problem.
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End of conversation
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