Goopy Infowars

When both sides try to peddle the same garbage in different packaging.

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Gwyneth Paltrow speaks during In goop Health Summit in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images)

Dear Reader (including all of the new experts on New York’s criminal code),

Justice has been served! 

I’m of course referring to Gwyneth Paltrow being vindicated in court. What did you think I meant?

Truth be told, I didn’t know about the Paltrow case until very recently and, while I think she probably deserved to win, I can’t actually muster any sustained interest in the story.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Totally agree with everything - with the possible exception of the line about capitalism, which I’m not sure deserves the blame for the fact that some humans like conning other humans and some humans fall for cons.

    I appreciate dogs from a distance and I’m glad other people love them, but I probably would be one of the people who wouldn’t react properly to Zoe or Pippa (or another dog) greeting me in the street. If I’m running I try to steer clear because I don’t want to get into a collision with an overeager dog. But if I’m not, I’m still not the best at being warm towards dogs (or people).

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    Normb1442

    It's a deal. Have a Happy Easter.

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  3. Dennis.Trask.Z

    Love this so much. Jonah alone makes the price of the dispatch an amazing bargain. Keep it coming. Our nation and world is hungry for humorous pointed logic.

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  4. Dougrhon

    I do my best to remain consistent. I thought the Obama cult of personality was very creepy. I told people back then I didn't want someone to "save" the country I wanted someone to competently govern the executive branch. I think the Trump cult of personality is horrific. I don't like any cults of personality. Best case they remind me of Mussolini. Worst case they remind me of Hitler and Stalin (and Mao). They are profoundly Unamerican. In the 90's (I was a very moderate disenchanted Democrat then) I thought Clinton was pond scum but didn't think he should impeached over it. I think Trump is many times worse than pond scum. But I don't think he should be arrested and tried for a misdemeanor in which the SOL ran years ago. I take some solace that we emerged from the McCarthy era Jonah describes. But I don't see a way out of this one.

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      Michael Dan Martin

      I don't endorse comparing any human to pond scum, but I do think you are right on the money otherwise. Trump's worth (and I hate that we use that term in regard to our fellow man) as a human being is not the question, it is whether the law will be applied to him in a consistent manner.

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  5. Wsampson

    Interesting, but I still don't understand why you can't be critical of the GOP, especially its current form, without mentioning that the left has also done bad things. Having conservative principals is fine. Not being able to vote for a democrat when it is sanity vs. trump (see sununu squirming on tv sunday) is a flawed. I guess that is why religion exists - why think when you can fall back on the comfort of beliefs without having to question those beliefs. In your case, conservatism.

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      Ben Connelly

      “ I still don't understand why you can't be critical of the GOP, especially its current form, without mentioning that the left has also done bad things.”

      Probably because he actually thinks the left isn’t better than the GOP. Jonah is just being honest.

      “ Not being able to vote for a democrat when it is sanity vs. trump (see sununu squirming on tv sunday) is a flawed.”

      Like Jonah, I didn’t vote for either Trump or Biden in 2020 and I have zero regrets about that. I voted for the candidate who was the closest ideologically to myself (Jo Jorgenson of the Libertarian Party). Like Jonah, I didn’t actually think it was a choice between sanity and Trump…

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      Michael Dan Martin

      Actually, I have read Goldberg articles where he is critical of Trump or Republicans and says nothing about Democrats. But he sometimes includes criticisms of both side specifically for people of your apparent mindset, who seem to think Trump and his followers absolve Democrats of the need to hold their own side accountable.

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        Ben Connelly

        Yes Jonah has written hundreds of G-Files in which he just criticized Trump, or just criticized the GOP, or just criticized the New Right, just as he has written hundreds of G-Files in which he only criticized the left. And he’s had Remnants where he ranted only about one side or the other for an hour.

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    Normb1442

    Paltrow is selling snake oil. Jones is selling fascism. Any suggestion that the two are remotely equivalent is brain dead. If everyone in the country bought Paltrow's whatever, I would still be able to speak my mind and vote. That will not happen in the world for which Jones is implicitly advocating.

    And Jonah surely knows this, so Jonah, WTF was the purpose of this column?
    See

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    1. Dougrhon

      Your statement is the point. Because you missed his entire point.

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      Billy.Faires

      Respectfully, did you read the whole thing...? I understand wanting to stop and rant back, because I suspect you and I don't disagree greatly. But, in fact, Jonah only argued for their "remote" equivalence. Saying Earth and Neptune are both in the same solar system doesn't make them equal planets. And his point, or at least one of them, is that using the "both sides" slur is an easy card to play to dismiss anyone who observes that two people or groups in opposition can both do really bad things without them having to be equal for us to acknowledge both.

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        Normb1442

        You read it differently than I did. I think the mirror fact of putting the two on the same level, which he most definitely did it to some degree, is pernicious. I mean, Paltrow isn't in politics, isn't trying to affect anyone's opinion about anything other than her product, whereas Jones is on an entirely different level. What is similar about them? Nothing.

        If they're not equivalent then what on earth was the point of the article in the first place.

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          Michael Dan Martin

          They are equivalent in that they both promote snake oil. Apparently you skipped these sentences in the piece:

          “Now, Paltrow, as far as I know, is indisputably a better person than Jones. She’s not a bigot. She never tormented the parents of murdered kindergartners with claims they faked their own kids’ slaughter. But she peddles her own brand of crazy.”

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            Normb1442

            There are TONS of people who peddle snake oil to make money. There are very, very few which do so and in the process put thousands of lives at risk, in the process gratuitously insulting people at a moment when they are in the worst stages of grief. Juxtaposing the two makes no sense to me.

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          Billy.Faires

          Fair enough. I happen to believe, as Jonah, that both Paltrow and Jones are shysters selling snake oil. The difference is only that the much more disgusting – dare I say evil – one has chosen politics as his point of entry, where as the more vanilla one uses the illusory power of celebrity ("she's famous, ergo she must be brilliant!") as her point of entry. They are, as you note, on very VERY different levels, but they are both still shysters. Both parts of that can be true at the same time.

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            Normb1442

            Of course they're both shysters, and of course in both cases they're using "celebrity" to line their pockets. The difference is not in the level of disgust each engenders, but in the EFFECT of what they're selling. Nobody DIES because of what Paltrow is selling; it is totally arguable that dozens of innocent people will die because of what Jones pushes. If MTG was using her celebrity to hawk something harmless like cut-rate camellia plants, I wouldn't put what she was doing alongside some progressive's advocacy on a tax of white people to pay for past racial injustices. It might be true that both were being self-serving. But the EFFECT is completely different, and by conflating the two, even to contrast them, I feel Jonah crosses a line. Paltrow isn't even political. Why speak of them in the same breath?

            Paltrow is a celebrity for a good reason -- she's a fine actress with the awards to show for it. Jones would not be a celebrity but for the support of the far right for anyone who advocates for their interpretation of the Second Amendment -- the man has no visible reason to be known to anyone other than his family, and that's not true of Paltrow. Put another way: without the forces which threaten us with a second Trump Presidency, Jones would be regarded as a nut job of no consequence, and that's not true of Paltrow.

            Jerry Rubin and Eldridge Cleaver were iconic figures on the left in the 1960s. Both, after a period out of the spotlight, went into producing clothing lines to make a buck. If Jonah wanted to make a comparison, either one would have been far more on point than Paltrow.

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  7. Stohv8

    Loved the NY Young Republicans' " impudent cabal" description. Made my day...thanks for referencing the article. I belonged to such a "cabal" and it was impudent. It was my college fraternity in the '60s'.

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  8. PatThomson

    "People who were utterly creeped about by the Obama cult of personality are perfectly comfortable with the Trump cult of personality."

    Sez hoo??? I have been out of joint about the Trump cult since he tried to get the 2020 election thrown out. I'm not a Bite-in fan. But this 2020 election stuff is as disconnected from reality as Mrs. Clinton's insistence she won in 2016. I was never a fan of the cult. In 2016 I was offended by the signs in yards that said, "Trump Train. Get on board or get run over." I mentioned that I wanted to run over the signs. (I never did.) The Trumpies insisted that my desire to run over the sign was morally equivalent to the suggestion that if I didn't get on board, I ought to get run over. Anyhoo, a pox on both their houses.

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      Michael Dan Martin

      If the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn’t fit, then it doesn’t fit.

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    2. Dougrhon

      Some people clearly are. You and I aren't among them.

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  9. Spencer Pasero

    Heh - did not have EPR and quantum entanglement on my G-File bingo card for today, but very happy to see them. :-)

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    KLeeC

    Thank you so much for this.

    I'm so incredibly exhausted by friends and foes who cry foul ("but zomg x is worse!") if I call out legit balls and strikes toward whatever team they think I should attack or cut slack.

    I think they're practicing the very toxic habit of selective outrage that has gotten us into this mess of two parties that represent the least thoughtful and wise.

    Having said that, without holding back on dem crazy, I too get more angry when the crazy comes from the right, for the reasons you eloquently write. Since Trump brought this level of crazy into the gop, it's been a nightmare. I usually try the analogy of "my kids" vs what the neighbor's is doing, but I'll save your words in hopes they get through.

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