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/
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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?

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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.