He Talks to Us Like Children

And, his advertisements are even more insulting. C.J. Box at Ricochet discovers an Obama ad by Lena Dunham of GIRLS fame , which equates a young woman’s first time voting for a presidential candidate with her first time having, well, you know what. Don’t you want your first time to be with . . . (gush!) . . . Barack Obama ?  It seriously says just that.

Oh, its charming and ironic and knowing and all the things, dear young thing, that Obama’s handlers think you’re shallow enough to be tickled and pacified by.

As for Dunham, we already knew she has no shame regarding the public display and discussion of things “sexual,” but I had been led to believe there was some intelligence behind it, led to believe she had some sort of artist’s integrity.  I think I might have about as much respect for a girl who signed a ridiculous S+M play-acting “dominance” contract with some guy, which I’m told happens in GIRLS, as for a writer who agreed to lend her literary cache, such as it is, to this sort of ugly (yet ironic! ironic! ) complacency.  You insult all young Americans and you subject them to the demeaning of the office, for the sake of . . . what?  Talk about degradation.  My desire to ever watch GIRLS just went down several notches.

And as for our President Barack Obama who approved of this message and wheedled gobs of cash out of well-meaning decent Americans to pay for it, well, nothing surprises me anymore.

Someone shoot me if I ever vote for a Republican this rhetorically loathsome.

Dear Reader,

Can I be direct with you?

War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.

First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.

But we can’t do it without readers like you.

Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.


Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.

Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.

GIVE NOW

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

The Church in the Age of Therapy

Matthew Loftus

In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…

Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot

Anna Farrow

On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…

The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen

Mike Aquilina

Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…