A Dud

And the article by Ta-Nehisi Coates that I actually bought the magazine for turned out to be a dud. His point is that Trump’s victory is “an explicit reaction to the fact of a black president.” Not only is the writing atrocious  (if it’s explicit, you don’t need 20 pages to explain it and “the fact” is entirely unnecessary) but the idea itself is ridiculous. Voters could “explicitly react to the fact” of Obama 4 years ago. And he won comfortably. 

There are also such gems as “the president’s inability to cement his legacy in the form of Hillary Clinton.”

14 responses to “A Dud”

  1. Dreidel Avatar
    Dreidel

    You seriously expected anything but verbose whining about perpetual victimhood from Tai-Nehishi Coates?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      He is a talented journalist. But it looks like this election hit him over the head badly.

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  2. Mike Avatar

    Coates has a couple of great essays, but the rest of his stuff is pretty average. I don’t read him any longer and haven’t for a few years. Probably never will again.

    He’s one of those writers that had basically one important thing to say, said it, and now he’s done and is completely uninteresting.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      That’s true. His essay on mass incarceration was brilliant. But since then he’s been very vacuous.

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  3. Boycott American Women Avatar
    Boycott American Women

    BOYCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN!

    http://www.BoycottBitches.com

    I am an American man, and I have decided to boycott American women. In a nutshell, American women are the most likely to cheat on you, to divorce you, to get fat, to steal half of your money in the divorce courts, don’t know how to cook or clean, don’t want to have children, etc. Therefore, what intelligent man would want to get involved with American women?

    American women are generally immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste. The behavior of most American women is utterly disgusting, to say the least.

    This blog is my attempt to explain why I feel American women are inferior to foreign women (non-American women), and why American men should boycott American women, and date/marry only foreign (non-American) women.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      I feel very nostalgic. For years, this fellow has been leaving the exact same post on every blog he can find. Years go by, yet he whines in exactly the same words.

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      1. Shakti Avatar
        Shakti

        Someone should tell him to pester his MoC not to restrict/abolish fiancee visas in the upcoming “immigration reform.” If he’s even in the US that is… didn’t you have a troll from Alberta that said many of the same things?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar

          Yes, there’s been a couple. But nobody as repetitive as this guy. I have even started feeling sorry for him because an identity that needs this frequency and exactitude of repetitions is a very wounded one.

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    2. David Gendron Avatar

      I’m sure that this faggot voted for the racist anti-immigration Trump, though.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar

        Coates??? He almost killed himself when Trump won.

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  4. cliff arroyo Avatar

    I think Coates is a good example of someone who got too much praise and too many re/a-wards too soon and now he’s…. stuck.

    I always enjoy hearing John McWorter and Glenn Loury discuss his work and put it into context:

    http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/43716?in=14:38&out=25:41

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      I agree. It seems like he’s afraid to depart from the formula that won him all the accolades in the first place. He makes it clear that he started writing this article long before the election day and then just tagged on references to Trump’s win when they make no sense in this particular text. There’s nothing worse than sticking to an idea after objective reality has proven it wrong. You need to be strong enough to ditch the text and start afresh in such circumstances.

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  5. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    Consider: would you expect the exact same article with a find & replace from Coates about a Kasich, Cruz, Pence, Walker?

    If so, why?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      The article isn’t about Trump, it’s an analysis of Obama, and quite a good one. Trump is a tacked on afterthought. And yes, I’m sure it would be all the same with Pence or Cruz tacked on had they become presidents.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor