Centrists and fascism
By 
The more I think about the Josh Barro piece that Scott linked below the angrier I get.
Barro’s argument, in effect, is that the Democrats don’t really believe that the Republicans are going fascist, because if they did they would make whatever compromises it was necessary to make to win the 2022 and, impliedly, 2024 elections.
What are those compromises? He doesn’t say! How about making Liz Cheney — LIZ CHENEY! — the functional leader of the congressional 1/6 investigation? No? Not good enough? What would be good enough, Josh? Adopting precisely your own policy preferences in all respects? That’s it, isn’t it? Except:
(a) That’s impossible anyway, because of Sinemanchin; and
(b) There isn’t the slightest basis other than wishful thinking for believing that would work if it were possible to do, which again, it isn’t (see (a)).
So it all comes down to Josh Barro’s belief that all the talk about the Republicans going fascist is just a bunch of hysteria, because IF IT WERE TRUE then it would follow that Barro’s brand of above it all centrism would be about as useful right now as ice machines on the Titanic.
This, in other words, is a pose — and a pose that is just extraordinarily useful to the fascists. Josh Barro et. al., are a bigger threat to American democracy than Marjorie Taylor Greene, because at least you know what MTG is.
Again, this piece by Aaron Huertas about reactionary centrists from way back in 2018 was remarkably prescient.
. . . commenter Sly is cruel . . . but fair:
I used to hate Josh Barro, along with his entire cohort of Ivy League dipshit nepotists (Yglesias, McCardle, Weiss, etc), but now… now I love them. Every time I think I might be too hard on elite institutions and their incestuous stupidity, he’s one of the more reliable pieces of evidence that I’m being way too lenient. How can anyone have even the dimmest pang of self-doubt in the face of this vast and dumb murder machine when this Harvard Legacy asshole whose never had a real job in his life whines about college debt forgiveness?