A View From the Right on Progressives’ ‘Moral Crusade’

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

New York Times Opinion

New York Times, Journalism, News, Society & Culture, Ross Douthat

4.0 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For years, Republicans have been known as the party of moral outrage. Take for instance the recent book banning wars, or Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But Democrats aren’t immune to moral outrage. At least that’s what Noah Rothman, a conservative writer and commentator, believes. He is the author of the new book “The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun.” In it, he argues that progressives, in their pursuit of liberal ideals, are fueling a movement of moral panics more reminiscent of 17th-century preachifying than 1960s liberalism — and that we’re all worse off for it. Host Jane Coaston has doubts. So on today’s episode, she invites Rothman and the editor at large for Times Opinion, Alex Kingsbury, to debate if moral outrage has really moved from the right to the left. “Are Republicans cultural revanchists? Of course they are. That’s not new,” says Rothman. “What’s new [is], progressives are joining them in the fight.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the argument.
0:03.3	I'm Jane Coastan.
0:08.0	I've been wanting to argue with Noah Rothman since I got his new book in the mail.
0:11.8	It's called The Rise of the New Puritans, fighting back against Progressives were on fun.
0:16.4	And spoiler, I disagree with a lot of the thesis.
0:19.7	What he thinks of as New Puritans, others might call, woke, Progressives.
0:24.0	I, for the record, would not.
0:26.7	But I think I know what he's referring to.
0:29.6	It's a very specific type of progressive he's taking aim at, whom he says has a lot in
0:33.9	common with historical Puritans.
0:36.0	Some of the minds that they have in common.
0:37.4	A utopianism?
0:38.4	In other words, realizing, hey, stuff hasn't been so great for a lot of people in America.
0:43.6	So let's try to make it better.
0:44.9	A Messianic mission?
0:46.6	Or the moral mobs that take down wrongdoers on Twitter?
0:49.8	An anxiety over banal pastimes?
0:52.2	Like finding the problems with football.
0:54.3	In generally, a frustration with an anxiety towards idleness, that which is idle, which does
0:58.4	not contribute actively to the Progressive Project.
1:02.2	It's not that he thinks the Puritans wanted bad things.
1:05.4	He just thinks they want about it in a not fun, not helpful way.
	...

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