Before Crackpot RFKism There Was Crackpot Lysenkoism
Plus: The Ten (Or So!) Best Movies of 2024
Recently in The Bulwark:
BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: Trump Has Reached the Mountaintop
JVL: Will He or Won't He?
JOE PERTICONE: Mike Johnson Beat the Odds in a Losing Game
Overtime is for everyone. If you’re a subscriber: thank you. If you’re not, there’s no better time to subscribe to Bulwark+ than today. If you like today’s issue, you can share this newsletter with someone you think would value it.
GABRIEL SCHOENFELD: Before Crackpot RFKism There Was Crackpot Lysenkoism
RATHER THAN OPPOSE DONALD TRUMP’S dangerous nominee for secretary of health and human services, some liberal commentators have suggested that the critics of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should find ways to accommodate him.
Writing in the New York Times in November, physician Rachael Bedard argued for finding “common ground” with the anti-vaccine ideologue. “We can’t spend four years simply fighting his agenda,” she wrote. Instead, RFK Jr.’s critics should try to “turn his most valid criticisms of the American health care system into constructive reforms.” In a follow-up interview this week, Bedard insists she isn’t “sane-washing” RFK Jr., she just wants to be realistic about recognizing “that he has a growing movement of people behind him, who aren’t just going to go away because we yell at them.”
🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧
Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Jonathan Martin: A Resilient City [YouTube]
Bulwark+ Live:
Across the Movie Aisle: Bringing the Sixties to Life Today 🔐
Did you know? Bulwark+ members can listen to an ad-free version of these podcasts on the player of their choice.
Learn more at Bulwark+ Podcast FAQ.
📣Bulwark+ members can now listen to ad-free podcasts on Spotify! Learn more here.
Our 🎥YouTube offerings are the free-versions of shows, and they do have ads.
✍️Also: Did you know that every podcast has a transcript for B+ members? Yes! If you’re more a reader than a listener/viewer, open any podcast and the transcript button is beneath the player.
SONNY BUNCH: The Ten (Or So!) Best Movies of 2024
Sometimes I go back and look at my old best-of lists to see if they hold up. I would humbly suggest that my 2014 list was pretty good. Interstellar was there (loved my rewatch a decade later in IMAX 70mm). The Grand Budapest Hotel is among the best movies of the decade if it is not the best movie of the decade, a clarion call about the danger of creeping totalitarianism and the clash between civility/civilization and nihilistic barbarism. Plus Blue Ruin (it’s great, check it out), John Wick (nearly the only original movie to have spawned a hugely successful franchise in the last 10 years?), and Snowpiercer. To say nothing of the number one pick, Gone Girl, which may be my favorite David Fincher movie.
DANIEL WALDEN: God Talk
WHAT FORM SHOULD PHILOSOPHY be written in? Since early modernity, the presumed answer has been the argumentative philosophical essay, which makes a definite claim, marshals arguments for that claim, and contends with anticipated counterarguments under the voice and identity of the author. It presumes a certain earnestness and transparency; its written exemplar is the scholarly article submitted for circulation and criticism by one’s peers, and its living exemplar is the man standing at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, holding forth on his views and taking on all challengers.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Friday! Seems like the Thunder Snow in Washington is something to avoid! Be safe, Washingtonians! Later this weekend, Cincinnati gets to play the take home version of: “Is it Ice or is it Snow?” I suspect / fear the answer is ice.
Introducing… The Afghan American Veterans Alliance, set up by our good friend and frequent contributor Will Selber, is officially live. Go see what they’re about.
No, Thomas Jefferson… Didn’t likely deliver the prayer Mike Johnson said he did.
Burying The SEC… Feels Too Good To Be Wrong (Israel Daramola, Defector) #B1G all the way.
They Missed Their Cruise Ship. That Was Only The Beginning. (Bridget Read, Curbed)
It’s that time of year… For rejected license plates in Ohio! I didn’t make the list because I didn’t submit mine1 for application, opting to go with whatever plate # they issued.
“I could tell…” One of the things I loved about working on the Hill were swearing in days. Back in my era, social media was new, and you had to get the #goss from a list server, the old fashioned way. Now all of you get to take part.
A comprehensive review… of the revolving door between Fox and the second Trump administration. (MM4A)
“Donald, this is not the Soviet Union…” Liz Cheney responds to Trump’s bleating about her being awarded the Citizens Medal.
Tech support questions? Email members@thebulwark.com. Questions for me? Respond to this message.
—30—
Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.
It was a jab at St. Xavier, a rival Jesuit school here in town.