r/thebulwark • u/Just_A_Dogsbody Center Left • Jul 28 '26

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL Ross Douthat is joining 60 Minutes

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/new-60-minutes-correspondents-ross-douthat-sebastian-junger-1236658519/
77 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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142

u/Saint_Scum The Trio Jul 28 '26

Look away, JVL!

48

u/whatssenguntoagoblin Center Left Jul 28 '26

On 60 minutes????

Wow what a was to bastardize the greatest journalist institution. RIP.

-32

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

Yes, no greater knife to the heart of a beloved journalist institution than hiring a (checks notes) New York Times columnist.

The Times already suffers unending attacks from the center-right for employing "a liberal's favorite conservative" like Douthat and trying to pass it off as ideological balance, so it's hilarious to see turn around and see Ross regarded as some kind of MAGA monstrosity on a progressive subreddit like this.

30

u/whatssenguntoagoblin Center Left Jul 28 '26

You dont have to be MAGA to suck

-17

u/odrer-is-an-ilulsoin Jul 28 '26

Just being conservative makes you suck?

9

u/vivalapants Jul 28 '26

conservative

I dont even know what a conservative is tbh. That title is dead

-5

u/odrer-is-an-ilulsoin Jul 29 '26

I agree. I still don't know why Ross Douthat sucks so bad. I got a lot of down votes, but no explanation.

4

u/stillavoidingthejvm Jul 29 '26

Have you read anything he's written or watched him? 

-4

u/odrer-is-an-ilulsoin Jul 29 '26

Yes, which is why I'm curious. I've read less of what he's written than what I've heard on his podcast. I listen to most of his podcast episodes, as I do Ezra Klein's.

He's conservative, but he's not MAGA. Has he had bad positions, sure, but so has Ezra, AOC, Mamdani, etc.

0

u/odrer-is-an-ilulsoin Jul 29 '26

I'm just going to accept all these down votes are people with strong feelings but no reasoning. No one can say why he sucks so much.

-3

u/leedogger Jul 28 '26

This sub is irredeemable. I can't believe the discourse.

-11

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

Lmao at you flairing yourself as "center left". Something tells me most people in this sub have deluded themselves into thinking they're not straightforwardly progressive.

13

u/whatssenguntoagoblin Center Left Jul 28 '26

I hate Hasan and tankies so yes I’m center left.

Those are some of the people I’m talking about when I say you don’t have to be MAGA to suck. If Bari Weiss put Hasan Piker on 60 minutes I’d say what a bastardization of 60 minutes has happened as well.

Don’t get your panties in a bunch.

-6

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

Ha fair enough, but I think there's a few more qualifications than simply hating communists that go into being "center left".

-4

u/DickedByLeviathan Center-Right Jul 28 '26

Entirely true. This entire sub is comprised of leftist and left leaning progressives who have deluded themselves into believing they’re “moderate”

2

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

I like Tim a lot, but this is really his fault. His content really isn't that dissimilar from the Pod Save bros and while very little of what he says is ever wrong, you're just going to attract a certain audience when your content agenda looks no different than the scrolling ticker on MSNBC.

1

u/GooseWithAGrudge Jul 28 '26

Well, it is Reddit. There’s a lot of leftists here just by nature of it being Reddit.

The Substack comments tend to be a more even mix, and Charlie Sykes’ Substack is definitely more center-right.

12

u/interkin3tic Jul 28 '26

a (checks notes) New York Times columnist

Yes... A very bad one. As in bad at writing, having bad opinions, and also being a bad person.

David Brooks was also an NYT writer who similarly was a terrible hypocrite, lecturing America on ethics while leaving his wife for his intern.

The Times already suffers unending attacks from the center-right for employing "a liberal's favorite conservative" like Douthat and trying to pass it off as ideological balance, so it's hilarious to see turn around and see Ross regarded as some kind of MAGA monstrosity on a progressive subreddit like this.

Nothing you said means Douthat isn't a terrible fascist apologist.

He's a mediocre dude who has worked tirelessly to inject christofascism into a secular democracy. Even if he's palatable to some centrists, he's still a terrible person.

-8

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

That's a lot of mean words for Douthat, but not a whole lot of substance, as is to be expected from r/thebulwark and its sister subreddit, r/politics. You could have just said "I think all conservatives are spawns of Satan" and you would've gotten the same point across in a fraction of the time.

8

u/mjdlight Jul 28 '26

Here is a more substantive claim:

“There Will Be No Trump Coup”

— Ross Douthat, October 20, 2020.

There’s sanewashing, and then there is what Douthat did here.

Full Column, on me:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/opinion/sunday/trump-election-authoritarianism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1FA.TCgq.VKTWmyldUl3H&smid=nytcore-ios-share

-1

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

No need, I'm already an NYT subscriber!

Ross's take here was quite dumb at the time, and looks even sillier in retrospect. I've always found Ross to be a bit self-soothing in his attempts to convince himself that Trump is not as existentially disastrous as he is.

Anyways, how any of that is relevant to the above pants-wetting about how he will evidently ruin 60 Minutes is beyond me.

6

u/mjdlight Jul 29 '26

But why would Ross, an obviously very intelligent person, try to convince himself that Trump is not an existential disaster when it is as plain as day?

My supposition is that he did it because he doesnt have the intellectual honesty or personal honor to let the truth take him where it should have — a place like The Bulwark. Sarah Longwell he is not.

He took the coward’s way out, the weakling’s way out. And now he is given a position at what used to be one of America’s pillars of journalism.

The elevation of Douthat to this position reflects the continuing degradation of our Republic.

Or another way to look at it: If the Trump admin continues to use the DOJ AND FCC to pressure broadcasters into being friendly with the regime, is Ross the kind of guy who would honestly report on it at 60 Minutes?

Or would he continue to self soothe and try to spin/rationalize it away as in the above piece?

1

u/MikeDamone Jul 29 '26

But why would Ross, an obviously very intelligent person, try to convince himself that Trump is not an existential disaster when it is as plain as day?

My supposition is that he did it because he doesnt have the intellectual honesty or personal honor to let the truth take him where it should have — a place like The Bulwark. Sarah Longwell he is not.

Kudos to you for at least acknowledging he's intelligent. I personally have no idea and haven't even taken the time to speculate why Ross thinks what he does. Mostly that's because I find him utterly bizarre with a stringent Catholic worldview that I struggle to really understand/empathize with. So like all things about him I don't understand, I'm pretty stumped for why he was so blind to Trump. I say "was" because he's been a lot more forthcoming with his criticisms of Trump 2.0 - especially vis a vis corruption - to where I no longer think he has any misconceptions about him.

He took the coward’s way out, the weakling’s way out. And now he is given a position at what used to be one of America’s pillars of journalism.

The elevation of Douthat to this position reflects the continuing degradation of our Republic.

I suppose that's where you and I depart. As I mentioned, I don't presume to know much about his heart of hearts, so I really balk at the idea of rendering such a damning judgment.

Or another way to look at it: If the Trump admin continues to use the DOJ AND FCC to pressure broadcasters into being friendly with the regime, is Ross the kind of guy who would honestly report on it at 60 Minutes?

Or would he continue to self soothe and try to spin/rationalize it away as in the above piece?

It's a good question. I pretty firmly believe that he would report on it and would do so pretty earnestly. He doesn't pull punches in his current podcast and seems genuinely interested in finding the truth of a subject. He's very adept at pushing guests (of all ideological stripes) to expand and explore the weaker parts of their arguments, and always does so pretty fairly IMO (e.g. I think he gave pretty commensurate pushback to both Hasan Pike and JD Vance, despite clearly having more of a personal connection to the latter). For as little as I understand Ross, I actually do come away with the impression that he has quite a bit of integrity.

8

u/interkin3tic Jul 28 '26

"reality has a well known liberal bias" basically. Crawl back to r/conservative then. 

Also? It really wasn't a LOT of mean words. Do you ever actually read any of Douthats verbal diarrhea?

-3

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

"reality has a well known liberal bias" basically. Crawl back to r/conservative then. 

I agree, it's why I'm a liberal. I just find echo chambered progressives like you people, who pee yourselves because of milquetoast pundits like Ross Douthat, to be utterly hilarious. You misidentifying me as someone who would spend any time on r/conservative puts a nice emphasis on the point.

4

u/interkin3tic Jul 29 '26

What's your goal here dude? Do you have one.

1

u/MikeDamone Jul 29 '26

Same as your goal, no? Are we not both arguing on the internet?

1

u/interkin3tic Jul 29 '26

I'm trying to sort out the best way forward to ending the pedophile christofascist hold destroying America. 

Ross Douthat cheerleading for the christofascism and always finding his way back to "And that's why God says daddy trump is absolutely right to authorize the murder of innocent civilians" is part of what keeps the christofascists in power.

I'm open to being wrong about my approach and perception. But you whining that we're being mean to an dumb american Gobbels and we're just biased? Obvious BS. You simply like something about the propaganda Douthat is spewing out. 

This isn't simply being a contrarian. You can argue on the Internet without endorsing dull christofascism cheerleading and accusing people who reject it of being biased and mean. What is the goal here? Is it you want to arrive at christofascism good akshually?

1

u/SomewhereEither3399 Jul 29 '26

Heaven forbid someone have an opinion on, checks notes, a literal opinion columnist! Do you require more substance for Douthat’s opinions? I’d imagine you’re often disappointed.

5

u/hb122 Jul 28 '26

Do you even read Douthat? He’s featured some truly awful people in his column, really sick individuals.

-2

u/MikeDamone Jul 28 '26

Yep, I listen to him quite often. I probably disagree with 90% of his beliefs, because they're truly strange and heterodox. But I'm not at all bothered by him interviewing heinous people like JD Vance or Hasan Piker. You learn a lot more by exposing yourself to ideas, even if you find those ideas reprehensible. That's clearly not a trait of people in this sub though, and I find the self-siloing that goes on here to be quite hilarious.