1. I loved Hitchens but it's worth noting that the entire trajectory of his career goes against the narrative Brooks is constructing here. The more of a reactionary crank Hitchens became, the bigger platforms he gained.https://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1286619122835619845 …
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6. Hitchens entire career illustrates that the path to success to move away from radical politics that make people uncomfortable (is early critique of American imperialism) and market yourself as stylish pseudo-contrarian who upholds status quo.
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7. Fittingly, the person who best explained what happened was Hitchens himself, prophetically in 1985: “To be able to bray that ‘as a liberal, I say bomb the shit out of them,’ is to have achieved that eye-catching, versatile marketability that is so beloved of editors"
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8. Hitchens entire 1985 statement on the profitability of faux-contrarianism is instructive.pic.twitter.com/MPjkz5LUmy
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9. Also, while I'm here: Brooks is wrong about this: "The liberal New Republic has less viewpoint diversity than the conservative National Review." TNR runs both socialists, Biden-style liberals, & Never Trump conservatives.
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10. Louis-Ferdinand Céline was one of France's greatest novelists. He would be unemployable today because there was no set of priors he wasn’t willing to offendhttps://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1286619122835619845 …
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End of conversation
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All of that was nascent in the guy from the start. The Tankie liberal ways moves right as they are.
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Horowitz, Brendan O'Neill, now Taibbi is doing the same grifter move of course.
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Wait he’s complaining that in his imagination this guy would get cancelled when this guy was part of the cancelling of the Dixie chicks?
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his best work is on drinking alone imho
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Even though the essay is titled “why women aren’t funny,” it says that women don’t need to be funny.
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