Pudding
by digby
Clearly somebody at the LA Times has been skimming his free copy of regular columnist Doughy Pantload's magnum opus during lunch.
Is the American left now a movement of economic issues and nationalism, of identity politics and social justice, or something else?
Oh no. They don't understand at all. The American left is now a movement of America hating and chocolate pudding. Or is it masturbation and godless fascism? I get so confused.
Rick Perlstein answers the question with a question: Is The Times kidding?
Anyone else see the problem here? How else does this question simply make no sense? The editors obviously mean something by "identity politics and social justice." But identity politics is another phrase that tends in the direction of a slur -- it tends to describe people dumbly voting based merely on their sex or their race, something that is impossible, it's supposed, for white men to do -- while social justice is something to which most citizens would say they at least aspire. But again, this bizarre question seems to lump them together as a common pole -- against the opposite of that meaningless pair "nationalism" and "economic issues."
I've tried out the question on a few smart friends, and all of them responded with dumbfounded silence.
That's just a little excerpt of his entertaining reply, which is, btw, in the LA Times itself. Perhaps some of my more erudite readers (you know who you are) would also care to politely weigh in over there on the subject.
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