Max Boot is saddened by what’s happened to mainstream conservatism. By which he probably means that he’s saddened he’s become a laughingstock among mainstream conservatives.
In a piece at National Review Online, Buckley Fellow John Hirschauer blistered Boot’s WaPo opinion post from last week, “Get a grip, white people. We’re not the victims.” You can probably guess how Boot’s column goes based on the headline alone. You should really read Hirschauer’s entire piece, but here’s how it concludes:
A responsible journalist would propose a realistic alternative for conservative whites who don’t want to cede their basic political premises but who nevertheless reject white nationalism. But Boot instead goes on a meandering tirade with scant a coherent point. Sometimes he rails against white people as such; his claims range from the tautological (“White people can be pretty clueless”) to the plainly calumnious (“ . . . the sense of outrage that white people feel when they fear losing their privileged position to people of color”). At other times, he aims his fire more narrowly on the “many” Trump supporters who assume “that white supremacy is the natural order of things.”
Like most white authors in this genre, Boot’s self-hatred is boutique and performative. His ire is directed more at White People in the abstract than with white people as such. Boot (who, it must be said, is whiter than almost anyone on the Washington Post masthead) must, for his piece’s title to make any sense, be in possession of the “grip” he’d like his fellow whites to “get.” I’m not quite sure he is.
The great shame of this piece is not that Boot had the audacity to instruct an entire racial group to “get a grip.” It is not even his almost libelous comparison of post-apartheid South Africa with the United States in 2019. It is the irresponsibility of speaking in such totalizing racial language in a time that, as he himself concedes, is “dangerous.” Max Boot can claim all he wants that President Trump is stoking the flames of race hatred, but if he really believes that, he ought to stop fanning them himself.
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Hirschauer’s got Boot’s number. And Boot’s not happy about it:
Wow. I've been accused by white supremacists of being a "self-loathing white" who is "stoking the flames of race hatred" by denouncing racism. But did not expect to be so attacked in @NRO. A sad indication of what's happened to mainstream conservatism. https://t.co/Xuwz9GiExX
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) August 12, 2019
This is a truly bizarre rebuttal to your piece.
— Jonathan Franks (@jonfranks) August 12, 2019
If by “bizarre,” you mean “articulate and damning,” then yes. It’s bizarre. And obviously there’s only one reason anyone would refute a patented Max Boot Opinion:
It makes sense if you’re a white supremacist. https://t.co/eJGjsZeWVN
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) August 12, 2019
There it is.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
— Heather Champion (@winningatmylife) August 12, 2019
— Schultzie (@muffnbear) August 12, 2019
Yeah, that's the ticket. ? https://t.co/upBBfk1d3W
— Neva the #1 American Elbow Doctor of New Jersey (@pipandbaby) August 12, 2019
It takes a mature person to handle criticism like this.
At least you aren't a coward who brushes off anyone who thinks differently with some nonsensical ad hominem attack.
— M.A. Cornejo (@RotundRaconteur) August 12, 2019
I mean the author straight-up denounces white-identity politics in the piece, let alone white supremacy, but Max is getting lazy these days. https://t.co/XKaZTIm3po
— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) August 12, 2019
You’re smearing the writer as a white supremacist because you can’t take criticism. Get a grip, Max. https://t.co/HJfk3igEOz
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) August 12, 2019
Max Boot calling National Review white supremacists is just what this week was missing. https://t.co/s6l8qCMRX4
— neontaster (@neontaster) August 12, 2019
And it's only Monday.
— Lucian (@lucianwords) August 12, 2019
Max Boot is the Uncle Leo of the Resistance.
Get some new material
— MostHandsomestMan (@pvtsenba) August 12, 2019
That’s not the only thing he should get …
Max, seriously… get some help. You're obviously having issues.
— The Wanderer (@EDMLive) August 12, 2019
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional tweets.
***
Update:
Oh lawdy, you guys. It’s come to this:
Maximum Bootlicker (@MaxBoot) is now retweeting Kurt “Tentacle Porn” Eichenwald (@KurtEichenwald) in defense of his dumbass “white supremacist” attack on an NRO writer b/c the writer’s article owned Boot & made him Mad Online & forced his fedora into an even more aggressive slant pic.twitter.com/WIDiTrMkM7
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) August 12, 2019
Somebody take Max’s Twitter away before he hurts himself.
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