The New York Times Just Killed My Favorite Hate-Read - Slate

[justaprogressive]

Late last month, the New York Times quietly bid farewell to my favorite weekly hate-read. “The Conversation,” as its title implied, was a breezy weekly chat between Times op-ed columnists Gail Collins, a liberal, and Bret Stephens, a Trump-critical conservative. For eight years, the two ideological opponents sparred weekly over Trump-era politics, in the jaunty manner of affluent people who did not themselves feel endangered by any of the policies or portents under discussion. “Hanging out with you like this for eight years was such a pleasure,” Collins said to Stephens in their final joint column. Unfortunately, the pleasure was all theirs.

For as long as opinion journalism has existed, overworked editors and program directors have sought to fill space and time by bringing together politically mismatched pundits and directing them to duke it out—but respectfully. These sorts of conversations can be entertaining, even illuminating, and can help build empathy and consensus in polarized times. The Conversation wasn’t that sort of conversation. Stephens is a tedious bore, and Collins is excessively nice, and in practice what this meant is that Stephens dominated the conversations while Collins laughed at his wordplay and rarely pushed back on his fatuous both-sidesism. In the context of this country’s most prestigious op-ed section, the Conversation always seemed like a bizarre waste of column inches—and, in the context of Donald Trump’s political resurgence over the past few years, its commitment to cocktail-party politesse struck me as tone-deaf, if not downright embarrassing. In the Conversation, civility reigned—and actual, productive debate was nowhere to be found.

In the abstract, I’m all for political civility. I suppose I would rather discuss current events with someone who’s willing to respect my viewpoints than with someone who keeps interrupting to tell me how much I suck. (My running inner monologue already does quite enough of that, thank you very much.) But most paeans to political civility tend to be uttered by the sorts of people whose arguments tend to wilt under scrutiny. These empty pundits are the ones who benefit most from the cover that civility brings; they get to serve up their bad takes with relative impunity, secure in the knowledge that their counterparts will not want to appear rude by pushing back too hard.

This dynamic played out regularly in the Conversation, with special frequency during the 2024 presidential campaign. While Stephens was no Trump supporter, neither was he inclined to give too much credence to those who claimed—correctly, it turns out—that a second Trump administration would have devastating consequences for the United States. Collins never seemed to try too hard to convince him of this, perhaps because the act of convincing might have made both of them momentarily uncomfortable. In July 2024, for instance, Stephens asked Collins if she thought “a second Trump term would be fundamentally worse and scarier than the first one? I’m inclined to think it would be frequently foolish and damaging but not catastrophic. But I’m often too optimistic.” Rather than take the opportunity to cite some of the more outlandish—and now very plausible—proposals of Project 2025, or to identify some of the low-quality leaders who would be in line for Cabinet roles if Trump won, Collins praised Stephens for asking “a good, if terrifying, question, ” and then basically left it there.

https://slate.com/business/2025/05/nyt-new-york-times-opinion-trump-conservatives.html

Rust in pieces. NYT

[Iris]

1. Oh, yes! A garbage column that the Trillbillies used to tear apart regularly on their podcast!

[yardwork]

2. Reminds me of Hannity and Colmes

Also I think of the woman - forget her name, I think she was a Newsweek columnist - who used to appear on a right wing Sunday talk show and behave in an ineffectual way.

Highly placed privileged Democratic spokespeople allowed our party to become synonymous with weakness, whining, and cocktail party chatter. This started decades ago. It's caused incredible damage.