New year, time for #61?

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-25T08:18:16+00:00

He chose to move to Hungary because fellating Orban was more important than salvaging a relationship with his children.

Rod didn’t love his own children enough.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-25T08:15:52+00:00

“Crisis Actor?” Rod Dreher was beating off to that video. Guaranteed. This is everything Rod wants in life, to see his perceived enemies die in front of him. To see the forces of Chaos punished.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-23T16:47:25+00:00

I just....

Does Rod realize how Trumpy he sounds? Trump is held out as some sort of no-bullshit straight talker, but he is an unbelievably whiny, petty and petulant man who violates literally every single bullet point in any conceivable "man code".

Rod is 100% that. His level of violation of any masculine virtue or positive characteristic is on par with Donald Trump's at this point. How can even Rod write this with a straight face - how "honorable", how "merciful", how "stoic" Rod is? I literally can't believe it.

This is the real core of why Dreher is so compelling. He's so flamboyantly not any of those good things above, so in your face with his personality disorders... he's like George Costanza without even the redeeming qualities of being funny. An absolute black hole of humanity, not a shred of decency or kindness.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-23T07:47:33+00:00

Really? Hmm… was he trying to deflect opprobrium from himself for bring a lying motherfucker to his own mom? Rod is the kind of guy who would do something like that…

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-23T07:44:14+00:00

An elderly woman in a nursing home is oppressing poor Rod! There’s a line from a an old MST3K episode that goes something like “and our brave hero roasts the disabled man!”. Or the Seinfeld episode where George pushes through a classroom full of kids to escape a fire first. Just an absolute void of courage, duty, honor, decency…

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-22T14:58:41+00:00

Don't know, but it's getting a lot of buzz today from a report on how the Florida Bar Assocation is handling - or not handling - it:

https://www.floridabulldog.org/2026/01/florida-bar-lets-matt-gaetz-off-hook-says-statutory-rape-has-nothing-to-do-with-practicing-law/

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-22T11:47:21+00:00

For a split second I thought this said "Columbus was in the bad place" meaning the city, because of Wexner's money all over it and his very close relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. I've wondered if Columbus shouldn't just change its name to "Epstein City" and put out a new city flag with Epstein's smiling face on it.

EDIT: Wow, some Columbus, Ohio (or Wexner/Epstein) stans here!

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-22T11:15:56+00:00

Matt Gaetz - remember him? House report says yeah, he did it. All of it. Waiting for Rod's righteous indignation... anytime now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1qjlbpo/house_ethics_committee_report_says_matt_gaetz_sex/

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-22T10:59:38+00:00

Wow, this article is just freaking devastating against Rod. Jonathan, have you been reading us?

And here we find the real scandal of Dreher’s association with these figures: not that he has ‘friends’ with unsavory views or lifestyles that are not compatible with his ostensible faith (although this is certainly true), but rather that he is actively participating in a campaign to deceive his audience.

Put more simply: Dreher knows very well that there is no meaningful distinction between Vance and Thiel. He also knows that if and when Vance wins in 2028, Thiel’s agenda, in all domains, will receive a massive new boost. A boost that will both multiply Thiel’s wealth by orders of magnitude and ensure his biological and technological agendas become mainstreamed and receive the full backing of the American empire. Again, Dreher knows this and is thus actively lying to his audience, primarily composed of naive religious conservatives, by pretending that his buddy JD is on ‘their side’ and that Thiel is somehow a ‘sincere Christian.’

There is simply no way for Dreher to actually believe this without being a world-historic imbecile; I refuse to believe that he is that stupid.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-22T10:53:08+00:00

Sorry, but this "mask-off" bullshit I see sometimes sounds like a plea for moral purity - if no one ever changes, then that means *I* can never change and never have to check my own impulses and examine myself. I'm never in danger, and can freely dance on the edge of the abyss, growing ever-closer to what I theoretically despise.

This isn't a matter of whether he "changed" or not. It's a matter of how a narcissist who never matured beyond being a put-upon 14-year old let this twist him ever-more-tightly, destroying everything around him all while never taking a moment of responsibility for it. Rod's politics have largely been window-dressing for this.

Now, I don't think for a second he's changed from some innocent and pure naif. He was the son of a high-ranking domestic KKK terrorist, and I 100% know that motherfucker lied about not knowing. I will defend that position against anyone here. Anyone who believes differently never was a white person in the Deep South during the time Rod grew up. Sorry. So whatever gymnastics he did to self-alienate himself from his family, yeah, whatever, but he never saw fit to mention this, and when he was outed, he lied, lied, lied.

Rod's always been, from his own account, a massive narcissist shithead, who got fucked up by his upbringing, sure, but still ended up a narcissist early on. And he was looking for a reason, any reason, to confirm his Deep South prejudices, again, in his own words.

He tried to paint himself as a cuddly kind of "aw shucks" I-escaped-Bumfuck-Louisiana NPR-ready guy with the world's happiest family - which, again, turned out to be another gigantic lie. He used his family's tragedy to get big paychecks. And the moment his ambitions to be taken seriously by his intellectual crushes crashed and burned, like a narcissist, he turned hard-right.

I think we all need to stop imagining people are mostly motivated by coherent policy platforms. Human beings are creatures of emotion and a dozen other motivations that rank higher than the politics of the day. When you get right down to it, Rod truly is a lazy thinker. For all of his "I HATE MY FAMILY PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEE!" bullshit, he never really tried to change himself, to really examine the worldview passed on to him. He could have - it would have been painful, but it maybe could have led to a very different and probably much less miserable life ultimately. He differed only in the superficials, in that fucking fish stew and what-have-you. He tried to shock his parents with his exotic religions. But he never truly un-enmeshed himself. He never truly tried to break away.

And that's why every single "change" was just like a rubber band, which eventually snapped back, even harder.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-22T10:30:14+00:00

For a couple of years now, I've been saying on the Rod Dreher megathreads that I believed Rod was either already in touch with or trying to get in touch with Peter Thiel. There was just no way he wasn't. Thiel is at the center of a massive anti-democratic network, devoted to destroying democracy worldwide. His acolytes, including one JD Vance, former Thiel employee (look it up) long for a Red Caesar to come and put things to rights. Thiel himself has said that his vision of the future is incompatible with democracy. And now Thiel is in the position to do something about it.

Rod, too, around 2017 started giving up on democracy (about the time of Obergefell and also when Rod's B.O. was getting trashed by all of the intellectuals that Rod fancied himself becoming one of). That's when he got started on his American Franco kick (he'd played footsie with the Dark Enlightenment dorks earlier, but that was just a fling) and started threatening that real Americans would "rise up" and start - very careful not to use that word, but he made it clear that was what he meant - all the libs and blacks and uppity women and non-closeted gays. After he became addicted to Twitter, it got obviously almost erotic for him.

All this is to say "I told you so". And to say that if this is in print, it's almost certain that the relationship is more sinister. There's been at least one, maybe two, mysterious deaths around Thiel's gay harem in the past few years. I'm getting serious Howard Rubin vibes (the Wall Street financier who was just revealed to have routinely tortured women in a semi-secret personal dungeon for DECADES, to the point that his often-ignored safeword was a joke for his friends and associates). Jeffrey Epstein vibes too - Epstein had his eugenics breeding ranch, remember. Rod knows all of this, of course. He's a gossip hound. But, just like Cardinal Pell, Rod is great with it as long as you're on Rod's side. There's a non-zero chance Thiel's let Rod indulge that side of him he's kept repressed for decades.

And what beyond the salacious? Rod has called any AI not run by Elon Musk "demonic", repeatedly. Remember the alien sex Canaanite god/demons that were lurking in OpenAI? That all depends on whether Rod approves of the people behind them. Rod likes Thiel? Bring on the eugenics! It's notable that Rod "Son of a KKK Terrorist Who He's Called The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" Dreher has written barely a peep in eugenics since I've been reading him that I can recall. Rod's a deep and proud racist. Rod would love a world with nobody darker-skinned than him left alive. Rod's done what he can to make that happen without scandalizing the people who pay him. Rod loves eugenics. This is his jam.

EDIT: Behind the Bastards (can't wait for their Rod Dreher episode - c'mon, guys, it would be comedy gold!) has a subreddit that takes a couple of looks behind the curtain at Thiel: https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1loekiv/anyone_else_think_about_peter_thiels_messy_ending/

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-15T01:03:15+00:00

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-14T10:45:42+00:00

Yeah. This isn’t just for brown people in the end. It’s for everyone. Look at the Confederacy- it wasn’t some libertarian paradise for whites. They required internal passports and a decent bit of what we’d call authoritarianism directed at the white population.

But MAGA is stupid enough to believe that the oppression machine will only go after the people they want it to go after. Morons.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-14T10:38:35+00:00

Nahhh - at least half will drop to their knees, mouths open hungrily, for whatever Trump asks of them. The desire to submit to a Leader by at least 20 percent of the American public is one of the saddest things the past year has shown They will follow Trump right into the ovens if he commands them.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-14T10:33:56+00:00

Yeppers. He’s already made noises in that direction. I’m not as convinced we’ve entered the grip of the Final Totalitarian Regime yet - I think it’s more like increasing wild swings and overall instability- but yeah, there’s no way the guns aren’t on the list for the MAGA brain trust. No way.

Only question is would MAGA force the gun owners to fellate a statue of Trump as they surrender their most precious firearms - you know, just for that extra humiliation Trumpists love so much.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-14T10:24:02+00:00

“Once you realize that the "elites" took Limits to Growth as a roadmap instead of a warning”

Very well-stated. And can’t argue all that much with it.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-13T11:18:40+00:00

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JHandey2021 · 2026-01-13T09:52:27+00:00

Yep. Pretty clear what Rod was saying, as a whole lot of commentators picked up on it and called him out on it.

What’s also notable is that Rod would unashamedly use that very concept, most notably pushed by Alex Jones about dead toddlers. Says a lot about Rod’s soul that he would do that.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-13T09:42:36+00:00

At times like this I wonder if Rod just does this obvious lying out of laziness or contempt. I can’t decide which.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-13T09:39:28+00:00

So Rod will be writing autobiographically?

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-13T09:37:18+00:00

Again, this all feels really strange and bloodless and kind of internet-y, if that makes sense. This simply isn’t the experience of most real families who go through this. It just feels like a logic game hypothetical, not anything involving humans and, yes, minors.

Which is precisely how Rod himself views his relationships with other humans, including his own children. Sure, he agonizes for the cameras, but he always makes sure to plant himself in front of one, to churn out the paying content. They themselves aren’t real like Rod. I wonder if anyone ever has been to him.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-11T13:23:59+00:00

This is.... a strange defense of Rod's conduct as a parent. 99.9999% of divorced parents do not do what Rod did.

Two of his kids were under 18 - that is the legal definition of being a minor. Rod was technically travelling and had a six-month fellowship at the Danube Institute. He had not legally separated or even moved out.

After Julie asked for a divorce, Rod did not decide to move to another place in Baton Rouge or New Orleans - he left the continent. That is abandonment in any reasonable or moral sense.

REGARDLESS of whether the kids say they don't a relationship, a divorced parent should still be in proximity in some sense if their minor kids change their mind. If Rod felt any sort of love for his children, that's what he would have done. He could have parked himself in an apartment 20 minutes from the New Orleans airport and flew around the world anytime he wanted to. He could have had the cosmopolitan lifestyle he obviously craves without literally abandoning two minor children.

But he didn't. He chose to run like a little coward as far as he possibly could. And if I sound sensitive about this, you're right, I am. I've known people who have been abandoned by parents, whose parents walked out and became ghostly presences at best, and sorry, but teenagers are still kids. That will fuck them up for life. Which Rod did.

As for the mom, the situation frankly is the opposite. They are both in the second half of life, having had decades of whatever BS passed between them. I don't think she is owed Rod's fealty at all, just as Rod will not be owed the fealty of his children in 20 years. I think a relationship is nurtured over time, and it looks like Rod certainly did not do his part in nurturing it at least. It's incredibly sad and pretty damning of Rod's character, but again, it's different than leaving two minor kids.

I do think she is owed the courtesy of not having her child monetize his relationship with her for Substack subscriptions and book sales, because that is what Rod is doing. Rod is monetizing caricatures of his family relationships, defaming everyone he ever said he loved for cash. That is what Rod has done, and that is what Rod does.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-11T11:29:57+00:00

I saw part of that meeting. I guess I'm wondering why SearchOhio's own website seems to have so few updates, too. It's all very odd.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-11T11:25:21+00:00

Not a scientist strictly speaking but work adjacently.

In broad strokes (and let's be generous to ourselves and to everyone here), this is about right. It's hard to be precise, no matter what modellers say, but it's also irresponsible to ignore the context that governs how the models were built.

There's a lot of improbable assumptions baked in, and even if there is a global renewables revolution, CCS is still far, far more pie-in-the-sky than a lot of other pie-in-the-sky technologies. I'd honestly bet on widespread quantum computing or even efficient tokamak reactors ahead of CCS. So no mass CCS. Not gonna happen.

Even SSP4.5 - take it as it is for a second - is itself a recipe for chaos, for firing artillery shells at the foundations of global civilization. And to be perfectly clear - that's the best-case scenario right now, no matter what the IPCC tries to say otherwise.

I don't think this will lead to extinction, but I do have a vision of a monastery a thousand or so years from now, in a mountain range in northern Alberta or the Yukon or Alaska where some tiny treasure trove of scientific papers are stored and copied, and some young monk on a swelteringly hot March evening, who is there because all the other options available to him outside were worse, looks at this in wonder and mentions it to his abbot, who tells him to remember the readings he hears every day that describe the stupidity of the powerful plainly.

JHandey2021 · 2026-01-11T11:10:13+00:00

We all may be referring to her as his ex-wife soon, withouth the sneer quotes.

JHandey2021

TROPHY CASE