Newspaper Boy: Announcing Ross Douthat Watch

In a week or so, the Atlantic magazine wunderkind, the 29-year-old conservative blogger Ross Douthat will start his career as a regular columnist for the New York Times. The announcement of his appointment caused a flurry in the blogosphere. Conservatives generally praised the selection; some liberal writers did, too. Other liberals were pretty critical, both of Douthat and of their liberal colleagues for lauding what they called a very bad choice.

For or against, it is clear that Douthat's opinions in the newspaper of record are going to matter in interesting ways. Douthat is not the usual apparatchik, like Bill Kristol, simply phoning in the latest Republican talking points. He has a distinctive point of view -- that the Republican Party should reconstruct itself as the party of the white working class through restoring traditional sexual mores -- and a set of rhetorical techniques designed to make his message sound palatable even to the Times' generally liberal readership.

Although no newspaper is in a position to guarantee a year's tenure, let alone life tenure, since he's not yet thirty, Douthat may be pulling the discourse rightward from his high perch for a very long time. The Chief Justice John Roberts of punditry.

Accordingly, starting today, the Huffington Post will carry "Ross Douthat Watch," a feature dedicated to analyzing Douthat's columns and alerting the Post's readership to the meaning and effect of his opinions and proposals for the future of the society.

Douthat Watch 1

Who Is Ross Douthat And What Is He Doing In The Most Expensive Meme Estate In America?

Douthat came from New Haven, Connecticut, son of a very successful plaintiff's trial lawyer and a mostly stay-at-home mom. At seventeen, his entire family converted to Roman Catholicism. He describes his other conversion -- to conservatism -- initially as a youthful rebellion. After attending private high school, he went to Harvard, where he ran the conservative paper and wrote a conservative column for the Crimson, which activities catapulted him into an internship at the Atlantic.

His first book, Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (2005), decried the elitism, wealth and resume obsession of the other students at his elite college. In an interview in the New York Observer, he reported that he had been concerned about becoming a writer decrying obsession with wealth and status at Harvard, because he is obsessed with wealth and status, as Harvard defines it:

"You know that your peers who go off and do consulting or Web design-or back then it was Silicon Valley-are going to be making, for the foreseeable future, twice as much money as you are, and living lifestyles twice as affluent as you are. . . But there are professions that are very respectable if you're a kid at Harvard, and writing is clearly one of them-because even though it doesn't have the financial rewards of some of the others, it does have the recognition and fame aspect."

After several years of blogging and writing at the Atlantic, Douthat co-wrote (with Reihan Salam) Grand New Party (2008), an extended argument for realigning the Republican Party: "How the Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream." As fellow Times columnist David Brooks put it, "Douthat and Salam argue that the Republicans rode to the majority because of support from the Reagan Democrats, and if the party has a future, it will be because it understands the dreams and tribulations of working-class Americans."

Although GNP eschews any specific racial references, Reagan Democrats were, overwhelmingly, both white and male. GNP does not recommend the usual working class bromides of progressive income taxation, union organization or universal health care. The primary organizing theory of GNP is that the working class fell because of the decline of the stable, heterosexual nuclear family. The policy proposals in GNP are mostly directed to promoting [heterosexual] marriage and encouraging the heterosexual married to have children and then for a parent (in social context, mothers) to stay home with them.

During his years blogging around, Douthat published a range of opinions, including opposition to the candidacy of Barack Obama, women's abortion rights, stem-cell research, and artificial birth control, as well as support for the candidacy of Sarah Palin, the 42nd President of the United States being "mobbed up," and the dominance of one religious viewpoint for social peace.

Comments

[cbeenthere]

I read where he described himself as "squishy". Maybe that means he will be open minded. He is still young, right?

[rjhemh]

That's all we need, another conservative to trash the President and his policies.
If FDR had been subjected to the cable news entertainment shows (Fox?) with their anchors, pundits,st­rategists, talk show host, newspaper reporters, and assorted guests, we would still be in that depression.
EVERY MAJOR TRASHING OF THE PRESIDENT AND HIS IDEAS , RIGHT OR WRONG, POSTPONES THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY. OUR ECONOMY IS BASED ON CONFIDENCE.

[solarian]

this is another reason not to read the times or watch faux news

[litlbznsmn]

A headline in todays New York Times stated "Domestic Abuse On The Rise As Economy Falters": so much for the holier than thou, white, middle class, heterosexual superiority bullsh*t. I wonder if anyone has ever noticed that none of these stories ever involve Gay couples, or Gay parents abusing their children and significant others and mudering their extended families..­.. can't imagine why when they are blamed for every ill the idiot right can conceive of.

[Querent]

There's a name for the ideology that Douthat is promoting. It's called hierarchical paternalism. It is the idea underlying all conservative "philosophy", and it's the organizing principle of a primative tribe in crisis. Fortunately, America is not a primative tribe, although our economy, at least, is certainly in crisis. The basic idea is that society and all of its sub-groups should be organized as the nuclear family is: the patriarch has unquestioned authority, and each of the members is treated as a vulnerable child. Status in the group is directly tied to the member's fighting prowess.

This form of social organization has several other names, in its various incarnations: monarchy, aristocracy, fascism, plutocracy, etc. Can Douthat sell it as a panacea? Well, it's been done before, but normally only when the crisis which brings it into prominence is overwhelming. And when its intended targets fail to recognize it for what it is.

[Phylmom]

When will the Wall Street Journal have a liberal columnist?

[Querent]

When the inferno experiences glaciation.

[Doofus]

When peace guides the planets
And love steers the stars.

Clearly, NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr wants
his paper to have dueling liberal & conservative
columnists, and David Brooks is assigned an
extra task to bring in his own backup.

Rupert Murdoch is not so interested in balance.

[frontstreet]

Douthat is a smart guy, but there's nothing new here. He doesn't want the "white working class" to have union jobs, access to health insurance, or even a living wage, but he expects to win them over by praising their "family values." The only way the GOP can take so much away from people and also win them over politically is to do what the Republican party has always done: divert their attention away from the GOP's destructive policies and toward an imaginary enemy -- immigrants, Hollywood secular types, gays, and the urban poor.

There is not a single Republican policy that actually benefits the working class, so the only thing the party can do is offer empty praise about the "values" and "hard work" of "real Americans.­" That schtick may work in a good economy, or with loyal Fox viewers, but a lot of working class people have figured out that the Republicans' real constituency are people of privilege like the Douthats. For years workers were told that if the rich got tax breaks, that money would boost the economy and wealth would trickle down. Most workers now know that something has trickled down on them, but it's not money.

[VeggieVeal]

Yeah, frontstreet, but who cares about that? The GOP has wrested the 2nd Ammendment, with an iron fist, from your side.

And in the long run, nothing else matters.

[Tommi2]

" He has a distinctive point of view -- that the Republican Party should reconstruct itself as the party of the white working class through restoring traditional sexual mores -- "

Larry Craig?
David Vitter?

[Arion]

I think Douthat may be onto something. If a new conservatism is to arise, it ought to break its' lockstep with free enterprise, which is actually the least conservative social force we have ever known, since it upends everything all the time. Conservatism's proper domain is the defense of custom, tradition, propriety and decorum. Further, by all logic it ought to be conservatives who befriend strong government and the welfare state (it used to be called noblesse oblige). So it was in Greece and Rome, where perhaps half the citizenry were on the dole. My only plea is that he protest about having the snake handlers and holy rollers continue to run the public theology. Surely we have enough in the way of dignified piety from our Presbyterian and Lutheran divines (in accord, of course, with the Church of Rome.)

[Querent]

Catholicism is one of the most clearly delineated examples of paternalistic hierarchy. It's not surprising that Douthat, like William F Buckley before him, is both a Catholic and a proponent of conservatism, since the pernicious ideology of paternalistic hierarchy underlies both.

[mediamarv]

Re: headline

Only if people pay any attention and the NYT seems to have fewer and fewer people paying any attention. Especially to hacks like this guy.

I almost long for Kristol's clarity. almost.

[SueKatz]

The man needs watched and no one better to do it than Linda Hirshman. I sure don't want the job.

[plaidsportcoat]

He should really change his name so it's easier to pronounce.

[01202009]

He could change it to Doughnut. Make it easier for him to vote.

[Querent]

Also, that change would take the holes in his arguments into consideration.

[ccvep]

It's not too difficult-­-pronounce­d "DOW-that" with a soft "th". Depending on what he writes, it might be better pronounced "Doubt That".

[John Paul]

party of the white working class? is that a joke?

[SKOC211]

So basically all this 29 year old "wunderkind" wants is for the GOP to return to the 1950's? He's CLEARLY brilliant and full of lots of original ideas! Repress women, keep them at home, and try to mobilize working class people based on the fear that gay marriage is somehow detrimental to heterosexual marriages - it has to work, no one has EVER tried anything like that before.

Have the Republicans totally forgotten what happened in the last two elections?

[SOLERSO68]

this kind of right wing drivel is BEYOND offensive. in the 1950's it was possible to raise a familly on 1 income. not anymore.ju­st another distraction. neo-facsist tripe.

[DasBoot]

Great observation. The fifties are the Golden Age for conservatives, except for all those Unions. At least Pat Buchanan mourns the loss of this country's manufacturing base. That still leaves the racism though.

[01202009]

I might have been willing to give him a read in the NYT until I read the bit about him supporting Sarah Palin. So! All of this eyewash about him being intelligent is just phony. No intelligent person could support Palin's candidacy.

[DasBoot]

Exactly. All this talk about liberal guilt. Looks like this Harvard graduate feels even worse inside for his privilege. So let's support the rednecks, excuse me, working class.