Matthew Walther looks worse when he tries to clean himself up.
The scrubby mustache, the sweater vest and tweedy suit, the necktie, the sloppy part — I’m no fashion plate myself, but even I can see that that is the most twelve-year-old vision of a professional head shot I’ve ever seen. It’s good enough to get Matthew Walther a spot on the opinion page of the New York Times, though, which ran with a head shot that looks more natural, but just as unprofessional.
Oh, yeah, he wrote an opinion piece, which was accepted by the NY Times, telling people to not bother with voting, since he doesn’t bother himself. It’s garbage. I have no idea how it was accepted, since Walther is a nobody who has only published a few times in the page of conservative rags (they’ll take anything), and it’s a damned regressive, anti-American piece. I think it just reflects the atrocious mindset of the publishers.
They didn’t even fact check the thing. We have to go to Wonkette to see that Matthew Walther has voted, multiple times. He has even complained when he couldn’t vote, because he’d neglected to register. He’s a liar.
Par for the conservative course, though. At least the NYT felt it necessary to pare back the headline a bit.
It’s not much, but the lies kept getting pointed out, so the NYT had to make a third revision.
OK, OK, he had voted, but he wasn’t going to vote in the next election, pinky swear.
The appropriate response would have been to delete the opinion, and publicly announce the retraction, but this is the New Fucking York Fucking Times. They’ll probably invite him back to give more dishonest opinions in the future. After all, they’ve given Brooks and Friedman permanent sinecures, and it doesn’t matter how much they lie and mangle the facts.
I gave up reading the NY Times years ago, shortly after I gave up on Fox News as well. You should do likewise.
According to the photo I’d say he’s competing for Upperclass Twit of the Year.
As to telling people in some form of democracy not to vote: Fuck of to North Korea if voting bothers you so much.
New York Tirefire
Looking forward to the next installment:
Why I don’t write opinion pieces, and maybe you shouldn’t either
Looking forward to the next installment:
Why I don’t read the New York Times and maybe you shouldn’t either.
This is a click bait op-ed.
I’m seeing these more and more if that is even possible.
The worst lately is the new Newsweek.
I don’t bother to read anything from there any more.
The last article I saw was by two women who were explaining why you should stop using your birth control and embrace your fertility, whatever that means.
It was so stupid, I had to look up the authors.
Who were from something like, “Catholic women for overbreeding while living in total poverty with a 16th century lifestyle.”
Remember the Young Fogeys? kids pretending to do 1930-50’s style, playing at what they thought were witty parodies of their grand/parents’ attitudes? Here it is again, except…. the Fuehreresque sweep of the hair. Given that not a nuance is wasted…
That’s what I was thinking. Dye his hair black, pare the moustache down to toothbrush width and he’s a ringer for Herr Fascist.
Good lord. That’s the picture of a future supervillain. Dude’s gonna straight up try and ban Captain America or some shit…
I think I worked for him in the mid eighties. He was a shite manager.
I think he might be one of those two guys banging on drums in the background of Laibach music videos while the singer stomps around in jackboots.
Huh. There’s a term I haven’t seen for a while.
(http://www.faqs.org/faqs/tasteless/phrase-book/)
The Times is awful and gives op-ed space to some of the most horrific creatures in existence, but Jamelle Bouie and Paul Krugman are two of the best columnists ever and are worth the dollar/week online fee even if the front page and the rest of the columnists are hot flaming garbage.
The worst thing for working people prosperity is to vote Republican. The second worse thing is the bothsiderism that is getting pushed. Because just like in the Super Bowl when you’ve got seconds left and are behind, you go for the tie.
Because if you can’t win outright, you work the opinion pages and social media to get people to just stay home. And if enough people stay home, Republicans tend to win and then in the next election, both parties end up moving further to the right.
In fact, bothsiderism works so well to promote the agenda of the rich and the corporations that I almost wonder if 90% of those pushing it are actually on the RNC or Heritage Foundation payroll.
I guess this is what you happens when you walk into SuperCuts and say ‘gimme the Hitler please’
Honest to Cthulu, I don’t mean to trigger Godwin’s Law, but I immediately thought “If he shaved that mustache a little on both ends, he’d look like Hitler’s pudgy little brother.” Same dead eyes. Same petulant mouth.
…and Martin Mull is still dead. (sniff)
My parents subscribe to the online version of the Times, and when I saw the title, I looked through the article to see if it had any compelling points. It didn’t; just a bunch of the usual claptrap about how things were done historically and your one vote doesn’t matter, anyway. Look, Matthew, either Donald Trump or Joe Biden will win the presidency this election cycle. I know who I’d prefer to have in there.
How voting is not seen as a civic duty in the USA (or the UK) is beyond me.
I mean, don’t have to actually vote, just gotta get your name checked off.
Of course, since you have to do that anyway, and there you are, might as well vote as not.
But you can of course make an “informal” vote.
Draw a cartoonish penis on the ballot form, for example.
So, no, not free to not (pretend to) vote, just free to vote informally. :)
(Such an imposition on our freedom!)
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Point being that one can hardly either incentivise a special interest group or disincentivise those who are disinclined to participate in the voting process with a system such as ours.
Obs, specimens such as ‘beholder’ would lack their very arguing point, here.
(Heh)
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(https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/your-questions-on-notice/questions/how-many-people-voted-in-the-last-election)
I used to think of voting as “civic obligation, but with no effect”.
UNTIL 2006, when the little state house district I was in at the time, came within 10 votes (R at first, then D after recount).
Which flipped the entire State house of reps.
It doesn’t always matter so much, but you just don’t know in advance.
I figure if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the results.
So very much with ya, Snarki!
First time ever I voted and my candidate got elected was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Briggs#2016_election
That is, I was nearly 50 years old before that happened, because of where I lived.
And, basically, the guy was a nepotism-enabled creep — his dad had his own moments.
I went through the motions, of course, just as you, but that one time, it fucking finally happened!
This had been historically a guaranteed Liberal seat since its inception.
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Also, that was a third-party candidate that won, because, you know… proportional voting.
So. Yeah.
Snarki@18– I encourage people to vote even when the election is not tight. A candidate with a 20% margin can do a lot more than a candidate with a razor-thin majority because they don’t need to worry about appeasing every little interest group and lobbyist. The interest groups and lobbyists know it too.
The look in his eyes is even more telling than the suit. He’s trying to look like an Oxford professor but there is nothing but nothingness.
But he thinks that an op-ed is going to change things? If not, why did he bother with it? And for someone who is so “indifferent”, he sure has been curiously dedicated to vote, both in primaries, mid-terms, and presidential elections.
Do you remember back when America self-identified as the beacon of democracy? It seems so long ago now.
Nice pic but his tie is off center. Attention to details!
Chrislswson @ 21
In the recent British election, some tory MPs were toppled with margins of 32, 18 and even just 15 voters!
Your vote DOES count!
BTW voter turnout in the British election was low, but the tories – as usual – got their elderly voters to turn out by publishing propaganda lies about Labour planning awful things (like banning the ownership of pets).
.
If the younger generations had turned out to vote, the tories would have been completely wrecked, reduced to a smaller number of MPs than the Lib Dems.
Now they remain to regroup.
Sauron is dead, but his ring is intact. The Shadow will return.
…Also, the odious Democratic Unionist Party held on to the East Londonderry district by 184 votes. Not that this will give them influence in the parliament, but the fewer of the sectarian wankers the better.
In other news, the French managed to prevent a Le Pen parliamentary majority by not only voting in great numbers but also by the democratic parties cooperating for the greater good of the country (several candidates who qualified in the first round abstained from running to prevent vote splitting). Looks like Macron’s gamble paid off despite his party losing the majority.
Walther is the type of conservative who lies to people about election day to discourage people he doesn’t want to vote from voting. There’s a reason conservatives slashed funding for a proper civics education in favor of focus on STEM. Education is no guarantee by itself, but ignorance seems to be working well for them.
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/forgotten-purpose-civics-education-public-schools