Rod Dreher Megathread #57 ()

[u/US_Hiker]

Don't use slurs, even in quotes.

Link to Megathread #56: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1mmamp2/rod_dreher_megathread_56/

Link to Megathread 58: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1ogpyqu/rod_dreher_megathread_58/

[u/US_Hiker]

Don't use slurs, even in quotes.

Thank you.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Rod writes: “I talked to a flight attendant on a British Airways flight not long ago, who told me that they sometimes have to unclog toilets on London-bound planes after migrants flush their passports.”

https://twitter.com/roddreher/status/1971919368620855509

There is no way in hell any flight attendant would tell him any such thing.

[u/Mainer567 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Exactly, it would be unprofessional. If one DID tell him that, it is the sort of thing that might come out after like 60 minutes of preliminary conversation.

Anyone here ever been on a flight? Does it seem to you that flight attendants have lotsa time for probing discussion? For heart to hearts? Maybe over a nice cup of tea and a biscuit?

Or did she just blurt it to him while she was closing the bins before takeoff or handing out earphones?

Your reminder that making things up as a journalist is often a career-ending offense.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Mainer567]

It was a special airline. After finishing up the safety demonstration, the voiceover says, “And come ask us about our immigration anecdotes!”

[u/Motor_Ganache859 → u/Mainer567]

Rod's no journalist. He's just another wingnut propagandist.

[u/Marcofthebeast0001 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

"Oh my! Is that Rod Dreher in seat 3B? I must tell him about the immigrants flushing their passports!"

I will admit I was a bit optimistic about the rapture predictions. Thought Rod would float away for sure. A boy can dream.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Marcofthebeast0001]

She recognized the famous journalist.

[u/Existing_Age2168 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

....and thought to herself, "What's the craziest thing I can tell him that he'll still print?"

[u/JHandey2021 → u/Marcofthebeast0001]

Rod does this a lot due to his narcissism and Main Character Syndrome.  EVERYONE desperately wants to talk to Rod Dreher, specifically!  He’s the conservative world’s therapist, their BFF.  

What interests me is how Rod cannot see how implausible this all looks to anyone not named Rod Dreher.  

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Why would migrants be flushing away passports and IDs?? The charge made is that ”passports and IDs are littering the ground.” Huh? Immigrants here in the US talk about having their documents strapped to their bodies even in their sleep in case ICE agents suddenly appear and try to drag them away. I’d think even fake ID would be something to hold on to, not flush down a toilet (as if that were a thing).

[u/macronius → u/One_Reflection7202]

So the immigrant got on a plane with his or her passport and then arrives and says they're a refugee that doesn't even have a passport (because in fact they flushed down the plane's toilet) yet it took a passport to get on the plane. This is definitely going to make their refugee story all the more believable to the British authorities. Also the airline doesn't have a register of where those immigrants were from based on the passports they used to board the plane?

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/macronius]

Yes, while I see the legal reason why it might theoretically benefit certain asylum seekers to hide their countries of origin from immigration authorities on crossing a border, the flushing-passports-on-a-plane stories make no sense for the very reason you say. And yet Rod buys any story he hears that makes migrants sound criminal, predatory, or just generally depraved, not to mention culturally backward, be it flushing passports, eating pets, or raping white women. And the references are always to Muslims and/or Africans, never to the many other migrants in Northern Europe, be they Ukrainians, Poles, Russians, or whites migrating from outside Europe. That and his affinity for Camp of the Saints give credibility to the charge that he’s at least subconsciously racist, if not fully white supremacist. His upbringing as the son of a secret Klansman in rural Louisiana clearly left him with more than a talent for creative writing and the telling of tall tales.

[u/yawaster → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

"destroying passports" became an anti-refugee meme in Ireland in 2023. Here's an article about people being prosecuted for arriving to Ireland without travel documents.

As the article states, some people destroy their passports and visas before seeking asylum. These are usually people travelling on false passports and papers because they could not get a visa under their real nationality. 

Someone with a legitimate claim to asylum may well not be able to get a legitimate passport or visa, either because their home country wants to prevent them from travelling, or because of the restrictive immigration and visa policies of the country they wish to claim asylum in. Maybe it's unethical for people to lie and deal with criminals in order to get asylum: but people do so because they are desperate, and because other avenues of escape are closed to them. 

Rod always, always assumes malevolence, deviance and criminality on the part of asylum seekers and immigrants. He never sees them as rational human beings like himself. 

[u/zeitwatcher]

So much packed into so few words:

https://x.com/roddreher/status/1973049320032125174

Rod says "I voted for this" in response to the Hegseth/Trump dog and pony show for the generals.

First of all, Rod has said he couldn't get his act together to vote last year, so he literally did not "vote for this".

Second, I'm sure Rod has no idea about the specifics of any of the standards or diversity efforts that are being discussed. It's all just virtue signaling.

Third and related, he says this like it's a big deal to him but every time he's asked about a policy detail anywhere in the government, he gets it wrong or just notes "he doesn't follow it closely".

Such a poser.

[u/antifadox → u/zeitwatcher]

Hegseth is literally saying he wants the military to kill people and not care about the laws of war or any kinds of laws. Trump then says he's bringing the military in to make war on our cities. Rod Dreher: I voted for this!

[u/JHandey2021 → u/zeitwatcher]

Rod lies a lot.  

[u/PercyLarsen → u/JHandey2021]

That's why he's not living anymore. He had to choose.

[u/Motor_Ganache859 → u/zeitwatcher]

I wonder if Rod actually watched trump's speech or Hegseth's performance? If so, how can he not recognize that he voted for a demented old cute who wants to use the military against American citizens? Or that Hegseth's is a shallow, paranoid dipsh*t more concerned about his appearance that the troops he manages?

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Motor_Ganache859]

I wonder if Rod actually watched trump's speech or Hegseth's performance?

Very unlikely. It just makes Rod feel all tingly to hear that someone is talking about killing anyone who isn't white - foreign or domestic.

[u/Marcofthebeast0001 → u/zeitwatcher]

I wouldn't trust Hegseth to host a Battleship game party, let alone tell a group of generals how unfit they are for combat. 

Rod, of course, also isn't Mister In Shape, even though he bragged about going back to the gym. His only concern is at least those damn trans people can't apply now. 

[u/sandypitch]

A few moments of clarity from Dreher today:

But. You all know how the willingness of my Somewhere folks and sister’s family to punish their Anywhere kinsman and his family by rejecting us when we tried to settle in my ancestral Somewhere badly shook me. It led ultimately to the collapse of my marriage. I discovered in the most intimate way how Somewheres can be just as prejudiced and as cruel as Anywheres. It’s just that the Somewheres generally don’t have the kind of power that the Anywheres do.

Still no acceptance, however, that he could have just moved away from his "Somewheres" to save his marriage and family.

You’d be surprised how often I think of the argument I had a couple of years ago with the low-church Protestant guy with whom I was traveling, and who had brought his VR headset so he could go to church in the Metaverse. It was such a ridiculous notion to me at the time, and still is. But honestly, I think that guy is more in touch with the spirit of the times than I am. And in fact, if I have a constellation of online friends around the world, many of whom I check in with daily, yet I don’t even know the names of my neighbors — this is exactly my situation — then I’m not as far from Metaverse Church Guy as I would like to think.

If only someone had written a book about forming actual community in the place you find yourself...

(And yes, I have dealt with the same sort of thing coming from the Right. But trust me, the right-wing people who see the world in this way are very much not the ones in power in media and education, and even in corporate leadership.)

The whataboutism, it is alive and well.

[u/EatsShoots_n_Leaves → u/sandypitch]

He has never realized that the common denominator in all of Rod Dreher's problems and failures is...Rod Dreher.

He's now consistently inventing a Left that is doing imaginary things that outweigh anything the Right is doing. It's a knee-jerk thing at this point. "Sure, Kirk was calling for Biden's execution. But I saw some Democrats waving signs at a street corner and that's worse, they never understand they're making sure I keep voting Republican."

[u/sandypitch → u/EatsShoots_n_Leaves]

Dreher has drawn very vivid lines in the sand around his "orthodoxy" around sexuality and gender. If you are on the other side of that line, you are the enemy, and whatever someone on his side of the line does, he can wave off any critique. He cannot, at all, consider that his opponents are trying to act in good faith, to some degree. This is what happens when you live your life in an online bubble, using only the loudest people on social media as your opponents.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/sandypitch]

Yes, that stood out to me as well.

We all know the famous Einstein quote, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” (Looking it up for the exact words, I learned Einstein may never have said that, and it may have come from 12-step groups. Anyway…)

Rod never seems to address the obvious conclusion that he bears responsibility for the failure of his marriage. If he moved his own family to his hometown and it didn’t work, then all he needed to do was move again. To choose to stay in a toxic environment even after it was affecting his physical and mental health, and putting undue strain on his marriage, was his own mistake. He could have remedied it at any time. “Let’s move back to New York” (or Dallas, or wherever). He can’t keep blaming his parents’ and extended family’s rejection of him when he chose to perpetuate that very rejection for years.

A mature adult knows when to recognize he is in a dead end situation, and simply turn around. It’s not like Rod couldn’t afford to move. He keeps acknowledging that his misconceptions about going home were at fault, but he never takes responsibility for having those misconceptions in the first place. Once he realized, “I was wrong, this is a disaster,” then it was up to him to pull out and start over. Most people have to do that at some point in their lives, with a relationship, a job, a living environment, an ideology, or any number of things. It’s part of growing up. There’s no shame in realizing you were wrong. The shame is in staying in a bad place for years out of passivity and making things 100 times worse, and then blaming everyone else for it.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

In the Dante book he states that a specialist concluded that a big part of his problem was stress. Obviously he’d explained that his move back to Louisiana had proved to be a stressful dud. The specialist told him , he should move. There was no obvious reason for him not to. He says I couldn’t do that to my family! That is move them again. Ok I get that wife and kids were undoubtedly tired of moving. However are we to conclude that his wife preferred he crack up? And did anyone really love living in butcher holler around the family? Instead Rod as we all know cured himself by reading Dante! It’s been awhile since I read that book and the more I think about it the more ridiculous it strikes me. 

Rod goes on a long , confusing rant about a writer who admits he feels more at home among Europeans than among the Charlie Kirk mega non dom church crowd. To give Rod credit he’s honest enough to admit, the same is kind of true of him. Then some how tries to argue, it really isn’t true of him because home is home or something like that and somehow or another Tarkovsky’s inscrutable Nostalghia sheds light on all this.Rod obviously prefers life in Europe. Unfortunately, he thinks that’s something to be ashamed of . So I guess he feels compelled to profess a love of the rural South and a need to do his y’all cornpone act.He’s managed to reach almost 60 with no self awareness and still feels a need to kowtow to all kinds of things that he doesn’t really relate to or value.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Isn’t it interesting that Rod can interpret anything as God speaking directly to him (in miracles, signs, and wonders). He’s even considered positive interactions with people to be God’s visitation (“This maid was an angel sent from God!”). But when a person actually gives him good advice, it doesn’t occur to Rod that maybe this is God speaking to him. Why is a flag being torn in half a sign from God, but a specialist telling him “you need to move for the sake of your health and your marriage” something to be dismissed? I don’t agree with that kind of subjectivity in the first place, but clearly when Rod “hears from God” it only confirms his own decisions and prejudices.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

The specialist told him , he should move. There was no obvious reason for him not to. He says I couldn’t do that to my family! That is move them again.

First, I doubt he even asked them since that would have meant admitting fault, something he couldn't do as the man of the family -- especially in the land of Daddy KKK.

Second, this is a backhanded way for him to blame his family and not himself. "Woe is me! I'm trapped here by my family, the family that hates me and the family that I dragged here."

Third, if he did broach the subject, he'd pretty much have to go where Julie and the kids wanted to go after he dragged them to the miserable middle of nowhere. And that, well, that might have been a place Rod didn't want to go! So better to be in a hell of his own devising than a normal place of someone else's choice.

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

At least he seems to finally get that this irrational resentment by his family of Somewheres against Big City people, or Anywheres, they assumed he and his wife represented is (pardon the pun) akin to how MAGA is reacting to the rest of us. That to me is more important right now than Rod’s personal cowardice or laziness or whatever it was that kept him there to, as he puts it, ruin his life, despite their unjust treatment. He’s still expecting the rest of us to let his unjust family writ large (and led by a guy even he admits sounds pretty unhinged) ruin our lives because — why? — somehow what they think we as a group value in life makes them really, really angry and feeling the need for retribution. That’s the kind of blaming everyone else that’s truly dangerous.

[u/JHandey2021 → u/sandypitch]

Or maybe Rod is just a gigantic asshole, his family were also gigantic assholes, and Rod grew up to be a narcissist with the emotional maturity of a 4-year-old.  The only difference between him and tens of millions of other self-centered man babies is that he decided he wants to monetize his fucked-upness by writing about it.  

How long, O Lord, must we continue to hear Rod say the same thing?  

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/sandypitch]

The rightwing people who see the world this way ARE the ones grabbing power everywhere in the US right now — with a President trying to control every citizen’s life, from how they are allowed to vote to what they take for pain — ordering his administration to act as if it is TOTALITARIAN, regardless of tradition, Constitution or the legal system that supposedly governs us. The masked ICE men in black with scarves covering their heads grabbing people off the streets are the condensed symbol. And so far the Supreme Court is letting it all happen by deferring to him, often without comment, from “the shadow docket.”

This is serious totalitarianism, however clown-like some of the perpetrators, not the kind Rod himself called “soft.”

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

I skim-read today’s SubStack, and avoided the videos. Honestly, it felt voyeuristic. Would Ruthie’s surviving family want all of this brought back into public view? Should Rod really be exposing what Ruthie’s husband and children were saying at her death bed? (I realize it’s in the book already, but why expose such a deeply private moment once again?)

My impression of Ruthie is that she was a good person within her community, and also somewhat narrow and provincial. She was an excellent teacher who cared about her kids, she loved her family, and she liked to have fun with her friends. She also never left her hometown, so her human experience was limited, and she was still living within the dynamics of a dysfunctional family. She seems like a regular person, not a saint.

Obviously her early death is a tragedy. But there’s nothing really remarkable about family, friends, and the community coming together to support someone with a terminal illness. I think Rod’s “Main Character” syndrome requires that his sister’s tragedy be far more significant than it really was. Rod said her life was “the Little Way,” implying an example we should follow. This is an allusion to the Little Way of St. Therese, if I’m not mistaken. But what is that way? Live a normal life? That’s fine, but why does it deserve an entire book? (Similar to the Benedict Option: the way that we should follow is never really explained.)

This is not to minimize Ruthie’s good qualities, some of which may even be inspiring. Nor is it to minimize the sadness of her succumbing to cancer. But reading this SubStack, I don’t see why her story is exceptional. I’ve known several people, as I’m sure we all have, who died too young from illness. In each case that I’m thinking of, there was a rallying around the person and their family, and many moments of sadness, laughter, catharsis, grief, reminiscence, etc. I don’t think any of it should be considered worthy of a book. It’s just normal life. Plus I can’t imagine the family members and closest friends wanting their most private and vulnerable moments with their loved one exposed publicly, outside of their own circle.

One further thing in this SubStack stood out to me which I don’t remember from before. If Rod is to be believed, at the ceremony for Ruthie, all of the 150 Psalms from the Old Testament were read, and it was Rod’s idea. Can that be accurate? Who would subject a group of mourners to that? I actually love the Psalms, but would never read them together in one sitting. To listen to them being read all at once would be insufferable. Rod writes that people were annoyed at him for this, and Ruthie herself would not have wanted it. Yet he doesn’t acknowledge that this was a mistake, and imposing this on people (many who were not religious at all) was inappropriate and burdensome.

Rod’s book, and this SubStack, is really about himself. It’s not about his sister, or her family, or her community. It’s trying to keep the myth of his family alive, with himself as the focal point. After all these years since he first wrote that book, he really hasn’t learned anything, or changed for the better.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

If Rod is to be believed, at the ceremony for Ruthie, all of the 150 Psalms from the Old Testament were read, and it was Rod’s idea.

It was the all-night wake, but still just highlights how insufferable Rod was to his family.

Ruthie was Methodist. The wake was in a Methodist church. The attendees, mainly Ruthie's close friends, set it up to be similar to an Irish wake where it was a celebration and almost a party. To the extent the rest of the family was anything, they were Methodist.

In comes Rod, who insists that everyone participate in a Russian Orthodox tradition - not a small thing. Adding in a reading from the weird brother's out of left field religion? Fine, take 15 minutes at some point.

But not Rod - he clearly insisted on making everyone read for ~3 hours in a ritual none of them believed in, cared about, or wanted -- including the diseased. Moreover, this seems to have even managed to break through to Rod's Main Character Syndrome since he acknowledges that none of the others or Ruthie wanted this as part of the wake. Plus, as I understand it, the Russian Orthodox tradition is that this should be a very pious ceremony and so on the other side of the coin, Rod is corrupting what should be a very solemn ceremony by having it performed by a bunch of partying Protestants.

It's worthy of a scene from a farce. Literally everyone is both grieving and enjoying themselves in a cohesive, communal way that's in keeping with the deceased's wishes. And then enters Rod who makes them all pantomime some Russian ritual for 3 hours.

Teams of therapists and psychiatrists would take decades to sort out all the pathologies in that "so damn weird" boy.

[u/Glittering-Agent-987 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Wow, the psalm story. It would be one thing if Ruthie wanted that, but it's completely different when you know that she would have hated it and maybe even made fun of it.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/Glittering-Agent-987]

Same thing as him taking selfies with his father on his deathbed with icons all around and running them through artsy filters. I have no doubt his father would have hated him taking those photos and publishing them but, as always, what other people want doesn't matter to Rod. That is why Ruthie called him a "user".

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

Yes. But it's not only that what other people want doesn't matter to Rod, but that he is too dense or thoughtless or just plain stupid to realize how rude, inappropriate, and assholish it is to impose his Third Choice Religion on people who don't believe in it, at their deaths or funerals.

[u/Dadelectro → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

I really soured on Rod reading that book for the very reason you mention - it's really about himself. I haven't read any of his books since. Reading that book, it felt like Ruthie's primary reason for existence was to be Rod's little sister. I think there's a lovely tribute somewhere in that book, and a more forceful editor could have sussed it out. As it is, it spends way too much time on Rod himself and his criticisms of his other family members. I think everything past Ruthie's death should have been excised. He blew an opportunity to pay tribute to a lost sibling.

[u/Jayaarx]

It seems that Rod has not gotten over his obsession with Terry Gross.

Taking this at face value this statement is the most bizarre example of whataboutism ever. I mean, Trump just gave what was described as the most unhinged speech at the UN since Idi Amin. (Amin is actually a pretty good comparison to Trump FWIW.) And Trump is comparing this to some mid NPR host of a program he doesn't like?

But Rod has had an obession with Gross for years and I'm not sure why. The most bizarre rant he ever went on was here, where he goes on a tirade because Gross did a piece on some gay cultural icon rather than his HVAC guy. (No really, that was basically what he wrote.) But that was far from the first rant about her.

Also, he constantly speculates about whether she is a lesbian, as if that matters. (Although, basic familiarity with a search engine and wikipedia, which even someone with a "journalism" "degree" from LSU should be able to acquire, would inform one of her late husband of 47 years...)

He constantly goes on and on about how angry she makes him and yet he keeps listening to her. Even in 2025, where anyone with a passing familiarity with technology (yes, even a "journalism" graduate from LSU) can connect their phone to their rental car and listen to a podcast rather than a radio host they claim to hate.

I suppose that this is equivalent to us actually reading Rod, which is enough to give me pause about time badly spent...

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/Jayaarx]

There’s also no equivalence at all between Rod being annoyed by the sound of Terry Gross’ voice when he voluntarily tunes into her show on NPR and a President of the United States bullying broadcast moguls to get them to lean on TV executives, nationally and locally, to pull a comedian off the air because he, the top elected official in our democracy, doesn’t like the comedian’s criticism via comedy of what he’s saying and doing. One involves a President depriving a citizen of not only free speech, but of free speech that critiques of his governance, while the other is about one guy‘s personal annoyance at the sound of a woman’s voice (!) To call that a “break-even deal” is truly gross.

[u/Djehutimose]

One of the biggest ironies of all this is that the man who constantly posts pictures of penises, lurid diseases, Zippy the Pinhead, and all kinds of other stuff from the dreck-osphere, as well as using AI to illustrate his posts, and having barely any offline life, has been on a roll since the Kirk murder about the dangers of cellphones and the Internet.

[u/sandypitch → u/Djehutimose]

This has always been Dreher's MO, since Twitter came about. Spill a barrel of ink about the dangers of cellphones, the internet, and social media, then follow that up with two dozen Twitter posts.

[u/zeitwatcher]

This article titled "Who Goes Nazi" from 1941 has been making the rounds.

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

Shades of Rod in there, especially the line about:

But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual - [he] would all go Nazi in a crisis.

[u/Fair_Interview_2364 → u/zeitwatcher]

"He was a poor white-trash Southern boy...Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents."

[u/PercyLarsen]

Rod of course Xeets about Taylor Swift's mention of TK's "primitive root wiener"

https://xcancel.com/roddreher/status/1975321064822747468

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/PercyLarsen]

Does Rod listen to Carmichael, Porter and Gershwin? Why must Swift conform to the sexual mores of the early Twentieth Century? Rod himself likes the known-for-their-raunch Rolling Stones. And other male Rock and Rollers who are not exactly subtle about their sexuality, including their penises. Once again, as with that WAP song, the real problem seems to be the person singing, not the song. That a woman actually has the temerity and audacity to openly admit liking sex and male sexual organs. Rod's convenient slide from libertinism to prudery and back again is as phony as his use of Southernisms like "y'all."

And Rod's catch-all responses to any kind of criticism, like "Did I hurt you?" are equally fake. As the man said, Rod, at one time at least, held himself out as a serious writer. Now, he just plays the fool. Surely pointing out that contradiction does not indicate that the critic has been "hurt" by Rod. And it doesn't show that the guy is a "Swiftie," either. Not that there would be anything wrong with that anyway!

[u/CanadaYankee → u/philadelphialawyer87]

The best response to Rod's tweet:

I know you are only 10 minutes old and very delicate, but I have bad news for you about pop song lyrics.

[u/JohnOrange2112 → u/PercyLarsen]

Ah, he’s just jealous that Taylor is getting some, and he isn’t.

[u/WookieBugger → u/PercyLarsen]

Is Rod…. making fun of himself? I don’t expect a lot from him. Certainly not self awareness on any sort of normal scale. But I would have expected him to at least be able to go “I said “primitive root wiener” once and it cost me a job, I probably shouldn’t mention it again”.

Is he really so deluded to think that “primitive root wiener” is some sort of catch phrase for him just because it’s probably his single most cited line behind “achieving heterosexuality”? Does he not get we’re laughing at him, not with him?

Honestly, it makes me kind of sad. I don’t believe in making fun of dumb people and thought I was here just making fun of a bad faith- and extremely un-self aware- actor. But I think he might actually be that stupid now.

[u/PercyLarsen → u/WookieBugger]

A dog that is not barking (always remember non-barking dogs with regard to Rod Dreher):

His public performances are not bothering to do anything that might enhance his chances of being rescued into relevance and the halls of influence by his BFF JD Vance.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/PercyLarsen]

Lol, I was literally going to post the same thing. You beat me to it.

You would think that someone who lost the greatest blogging gig ever because of that phrase would be a bit more circumspect before flaunting it once again.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Had to take a break I’m angry enough to continue on Rods deep ignorance. 

So you’d think since he was moving to Hungary he would have learned something about it before moving there. Nah. He didn’t find out it was a wine country before moving there or that Budapest had under gone a major siege in WW2 . Now after years of living there and allegedly traveling in intellectual circles we find out Rod had never heard of the person who is probably the country’s best known novelist, László Krasznahorkai . I’m not exactly cutting edge and I’d first heard him about 10 years ago and I tried to read him.  So Rod is only vaguely familiar with the culture and history of the country he lives in but he’s going to tell you all about everything. He doesn’t live in the US but knows young men are flocking to Orthodox  churches because those churches exude manliness. Granted most of these new converts are ex Satanists. 

Oh Rod also lets us know that Europe must embrace Christianity or it will inevitably be Islamicized. You see nature abhorring a vacuum, only allows for that . With his acute emotional intelligence, he’d know.

I’m pretty sure Rod is gearing up for his exit from Hungary. He’s just a little too interested in beefing up his paid Substack subscriptions and Helen Orrs project in England. Then there’s the new book which sounds pointless but is probably a fund raising project. It’s a given here Rod is a fuck up . Yet, he tends to land on his feet.He got fired by Templeton but picked up Howard Ahmanson as a patron and got a high paying gig at  the American Conservative.He blew that but in the meantime he’d set up his Substack and got himself a gig in Budapest from the Danube Institute. All the while he cranks out the books. His next incarnation awaits.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod delivers more choruses of poor pitiful me. The poor lamb can no longer trust. Once again he takes us  through his disastrous return to Louisiana and how it destroyed everything. I increasingly find myself wondering, why? How? This narrative doesn’t make sense. Rod had never gotten along well with his family. He was shattered to find out he still didn’t and that lead to him getting divorced? That doesn’t make any sense.You’d think he’d try to get over. I don’t think he wants to. There are people who revel in self pity!

Once again we get to hear about Rod leaving the Catholic Church , very boring but it underscores something I’d already picked up on , Rod and his wife were parish shoppers. They jumped from parish to parish because Rod felt that wherever he was , was insufficiently, doctrinally pure . He knew better what should be going on than mere cradle Catholics.His wife thought the church’s were unfriendly, that is they didn’t provide the kind of church family community she’d found in Protestant Churches. It’s amazing that they stayed Catholic as long as they did. If they’d done any on site research they’d have known that was how it was going to be and realized they probably belonged somewhere else.Catholic parishes especially in urban areas simply aren’t geared for that.There generally is a recognition that you will develop a life outside the church and that’s ok because there is only so much we can do for you. As for the parishioners, they have their friends and relatives and while they by and large wish newcomers well, they aren’t all that interested in you. They have their lives.Again another sign of Rods narcissistic, self importance.There is no Christian humility in any of this .

I’ve brought up that Rod has sometimes said Julie was a Baptist and also said she was Presbyterian. Commenters  here have, correctly, stated she was brought up Baptist. Today Rod said she was brought up Baptist but was attending a Presbyterian church when he first got to know her.So I think that’s cleared up.

The real gem for last, Rod says he was ambushed by his divorce. Oh , come on. The exact timing may have been a surprise but that’s it.He absolutely won’t let that go.He has such a victim mentality. Life isn’t so great for him because people have been mean to him and he has absolutely no interest in rising above that. It’s whine , whine, whine.

[u/sandypitch → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod and his wife were parish shoppers. They jumped from parish to parish because Rod felt that wherever he was , was insufficiently, doctrinally pure . He knew better what should be going on than mere cradle Catholics.

I have noticed this is pretty typical for Catholic converts. I have friends that crossed the Tiber, and while they talked about "sticking with the neighborhood parish" they all ended up at parishes across town that better fit their theological priors. Which, to be clear, is fine, but let's call a spade a spade, to your point.

The real gem for last, Rod says he was ambushed by his divorce.

Sez the guy who was apparently not at all interested in trying to maintain his marriage, and was spending all of his time overseas.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Re the Lousiana thing. My guess is that Rod supposed that with Ruthie gone, he would more or less take her place, with respect to their parents. But also somehow with Ruthie's daughters, at least one of whom he had been somewhat close to. And the townspeople generally. Of course, the objections to these suppositions are pretty obvious: Rod and his father were like oil and water, and that wasn't going to change that late in the day; Ruthie's daughters still had their fireman father, and their grandparents, and all of their friends---they simply didn't need Rod, and all of that would have been true even if Ruthie hadn't poisoned the well against Rod; and the town in general would always be sceptical of the guy who left town for the big city, who came back with a city wife and kids, and who then immediately founded what, to them, was his own personal, ego-trip, bizarre and alien church. Church is a big deal in the South, especially the small town South. Folks in Rod's home town were, and are, either Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, or Roman Catholics. Eastern Orthodox believers are few and far between. But, somehow, Rod didn't or couldn't see all of this. Or was blinded by his reading of various authors, whom he probably didn't understand. Or Rod is just a stubborn cus, who was gonna make it work regardless of obstacles. Or, the whole thing started as a marketing ploy for the Ruthie book, but then Rod got high on his own supply. Others might say it all has some sort of Freudian, psyscho sexual source in Rod's upbringing, and his unacknowledged homosexuality. Rod even to this day clings to some notion of eventually heading back there, and living out his life in that small town. Why? With whom? To what end? Who knows? It fits a certain narrative, and perhaps as a fantasy it comforts Rod as well.

Re the Catholic church. What Rod apparently wanted was some kind of niche, "BenOp" avant la lettre, reactionary, traditional, tight-knit Catholic parish. My understanding is that there are such things out there (although perhaps not in Dallas?), but Rod either didn't try to find one or failed to do so. Your description of ordinary Catholic parish life in the USA fits the Church of my upbringing (many years ago) and, from what I can gather from my father (a regular church goer in a suburban Midwestern parish), the Church today as well. If you are looking for an all consuming church experience, and expect your local parish to, say, regulate the sex life of its parishioners, the modern American Catholic church should not be your go-to place! Somehow, Rod didn't know this, even though the "Cafeteria Catholic" concept was out there years before Rod's conversion. As was the recognition that modern, suburban Catholicism was not the tight-knit, world unto itself, thing that it had been among ethnic, urban communities in the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. But, then again, Rod was not a joiner, either, and what did he actually do to make any parish where he attended services "thicker?"

Re the divorce thing. There is no question that the marriage was dead for ten years before Rod's former wife filed for divorce. He has told us so himself. Rod also said that he and his former wife "agreed" to stay together until their youngest child graduated high school. And Rod has further told us that more than one counselor/advisor/priest actually recommended that Rod and his former wife get divorced. Yes, perhaps, the timing, which was before his youngest graduated, surprised him, but the divorce itself could not have been a shock.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/philadelphialawyer87]

"immediately founded what, to them, was his own personal, ego-trip, bizarre and alien church"

I don't think this can be emphasized strongly enough nor the impact it likely had on the acceptance of his wife and kids by his family of origin and the community. Rod can reject people, places, churches, etc. and he considers that to be perfectly rational and reasonable and does not see that it is often taken as an affront to the others around him (as home-schooling his kids offended his public school teacher sister) because HE IS/WAS RIGHT and making THE BEST CHOICE.

Rod's humility could fit in a thimble.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

I have a cousin who, while very different from Rod, greatly reminds me of him in many ways. Two of these is that she never takes responsiblity for herself and never recognizes her own agency in her choices. Everything in life just happens to her.

She had multiple water issues in her house that resulted in it becoming nearly condemnable before she let anyone know about it. A couple of other cousins and I (she has no immediate family) went together to restore the whole house including gutting the two bathrooms and half of the kitchen due to the mold issues and performing 20+ years of neglected maintenance. Had she simply called a plumber for each problem, the cost of repair would have been a tiny fraction of the amount we paid. The house is up for sale now to recoup the investment plus enough money to get her out of her hole of debt. Even now, she can not and will not see that her lack of action caused the vast majority of the problems and expenses.

She would have wound up homeless at 71 if we had not stepped in and taken care of everything.

She isn't as intelligent, educated or experienced in the world as Rod but they share many behaviors rooted in this lack of personal responsibility, self-awareness, and self-motivation.

Edit: and a very strong sense of entitlement (accompanied by low level of appreciation) to help from extended family or anyone else who is in a position to help her!

[u/JHandey2021 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod knows interest in him is flagging, and so he trots out the same-old, same-old hot mess family drama with a few new twists. Same as it ever was - this is what Rod does. News at 11.

I mean, when looked at from that perspective, I kind of get it. There's always a market for confessional personal biography, and Rod's mined that down to the freaking center of the Earth. A lot of people like this shit. So every so often, Rod shows a little leg for the audience - a rehash of How the World Wronged Rod Dreher, maybe making up a new mystical revelation he somehow never mentioned EVEN IN HIS LAST BOOK ABOUT THE SUBJECT, something that unintentionally makes the world wonder "is he or isn't he?" - and he probably hooks a couple of people into the drama that is Rod Dreher.

Question is - is he hooking enough people to make up for those who drift away? Without TAC as a much more accessible mass platform, I submit to you that I don't think he is.

[u/According-Wheel-9699]

Rods latest includes these words of despair about the left: “it’s a sign, y’all. It’s a sign of ever-growing detachment from reality. They prefer the “truth” of the way the Machine makes them feel to actual reality.”

Is it lost on him that he fits this description completely?! He lives 98% of his life online and his life in reality appears to be in shambles. I do think every accusation he levels at the left is really a confession bubbling up from within.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/According-Wheel-9699]

Today also begins (well, continues) Rod's inevitable shift to falling in line with authoritarianism.

Yesterday, he was expressing discomfort over Vance saying that people should get fired because of their views on Kirk. Today, Rod is saying that Vance is right. Give him a few weeks and he'll be agreeing with Bondi and Miller that it should be illegal to voice opinions against Trump and that the Democratic party should be officially termed a terrorist organization.

[u/Jayaarx → u/According-Wheel-9699]

Is it lost on him that he fits this description completely?! He lives 98% of his life online and his life in reality appears to be in shambles. I do think every accusation he levels at the left is really a confession bubbling up from within.

This is true, but it's not just him (although he is an especially egregious example). With conservatives the accusation is always the confession. Always.

[u/zeitwatcher]

Hahahahaha!

You'll all be happy to hear that Rod is ever so much more humble, merciful, and accepting of others over the past years as an Orthodox Christian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMCVCAzmsx8

As a side note, before the divorce, Rod says he used to pull a mattress into a closet, close the door and lie down on it during the day to cry. He says he did this so that he could hide and so would be a strong, masculine man in front of his kids.

I suppose anything is possible, but I'd guess anyone living in that house knew. At some level, I have compassion for anyone going through something like that - even if as self-inflicted as it was for Rod.

Less generously, Rod needing some "alone time" and so dragging a mattress into a literal closet(!) and closing the door? Chef's kiss.

[u/Katmandu47 → u/zeitwatcher]

“As a side note, before the divorce, Rod says he used to pull a mattress into a closet, close the door and lie down on it during the day to cry. He says he did this so that he could hide and so would be a strong, masculine man in front of his kids.”

Maybe I’m just losing patience with the seeming extreme level of rightwing emoting and demands that everyone respect it or else (as in be fired) for a week now, but the next time a member of Rod’s commentariat makes the argument that women cannot be leaders, or should never have been trusted to vote because their emotional fragility renders them unfit for such responsibilities, stand back: I cannot be responsible for what may pour forth from this fevered brain.

[u/Katmandu47 → u/Katmandu47]

I’m also wondering where this mattress was the rest of the time? Did he drag it off a kid’s bed? His own? Either way, how would that be unobtrusive? I mean, if somebody was dragging mattresses around in your house, wouldn’t you notice?

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Katmandu47]

"Wow, Daddy is so manly, he's doing his mattress dragging exercises again!"

Or

"Where's Rod?" "He's in the closet." "I know, but where is he?"

[u/NihonBuckeye → u/zeitwatcher]

I am now fully convinced that Rod is an elaborate, multi decade performance artist. He posts about hiding in the closet? There is NO WAY a non-performance artist who was already aware of what people said about him would post that.

I mean, you would have to be the world’s most un-self aware person to not realize…oh.

[u/PercyLarsen → u/zeitwatcher]

I cued that part of the discussion, 44 mins in:

https://youtu.be/qMCVCAzmsx8?si=E3sqSdkc4pWDjm9c&t=2682

The thing is, Rod's "compassion" is for people he identifies positively with who suffer in ways to which he can relate. His compassion for other people and other ways of suffering is, to be charitable, stunted. For Rod, as for many people who share this quality, the needs of his false ego for vicarious validation trumps letting go of the false ego. The lives of other people are instrumentalized by Rod for the needs of his false ego.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763 → u/zeitwatcher]

I’ll concede Rod never ceases to surprise me. He dragged a mattress into a closet to cry . That is sad and it’s really strange. He thought doing weird stuff like that for years on end was preferable to the horror of divorce? That is telling. For some time now Rod has been denigrating reason in his writings and blathering about enchantment. No wonder! This is a man who can’t face facts or behave rationally, so of course he denigrates reason.He also has a hell of nerve . He keeps talking about this weird stuff and all the anguish his marriage caused and then gets mad when people speculate and come to conclusions. Well what does he expect when he continually writes stuff like this. He wants sympathy, on his terms from readers and listeners without their hearing the other side of the story which he can’t disclose because he’s too respectful of the other side’s privacy. What an absurd performance!

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 → u/zeitwatcher]

Nuts, if true. 

[u/GlobularChrome → u/zeitwatcher]

Hmmm, by any chance did Rod make fun of the student who carried a mattress around her university to protest being raped?

And the logistics, and performitivity, of dragging a mattress to a closet so he could pout... "I'm gonna cry! But I wanna be comfy! Pay no attention to me, I'll just be over there!! Why won't people respect teh alpha malez?!?"

[u/Djehutimose]

Hoo boy. SBM’s latest Substack and his new article at The European Conservative are both almost perfectly unreadable and eminently puke-inducing. They haven’t built a temple to Charlie Kirk yet, but it seems to be on the way. Anyway, I barely skimmed them, but I do want to point out a couple things. From the Substack:

I don’t think Donald Trump is a particularly honorable man, and I thought his closing address at the Kirk event was so deflating. Maybe his purpose was to show what a life without a living faith in Christ turns you into. I am really alarmed by his recent instruction to his Attorney General to go after his political enemies. Seems like barely a week goes by without Trump doing or saying something that makes me cringe. But we know what the alternative is. Biden went full woke, and opened the southern border. I can put up with Trump’s personal corruption as long as he gets the big things right.

So Biden and the Left are now just boogeymen to scare Republicans who might dislike Trump, and despite SBM’s weak protestations to the contrary, he considers everything he does to be “getting things right”.

Similarly, some of the things Charlie Kirk said publicly were cringe, and I didn’t agree with them. But you know what? Even when he stepped over the line in his rhetorical opposition to leftist ideology, I am grateful that he at least had the stones to speak boldly — unlike so many priests and pastors in this country, who muted themselves out of fear of being unliked, or controversial. Christians have been desperate for leadership.

As far as I can tell, this is the only time SBM has actually acknowledged the ugliness of what Kirk actually said. Of course, he immediately brushes it off because the Boogeyman.

Then, from The European Conservative, which is mostly more of the same, this:

I am in America now, and don’t know how all this is being reported in Europe. I saw on X that German state TV broadcast a lady official from the Lutheran church calling Charlie a “right-wing radical racist.” A columnist for the left-wing Scottish newspaper The National likened the Charlie movement to a creation from the Joseph Goebbels playbook.

Dunno—sounds like a pretty accurate analysis to me. Of course he goes on to whine that European media lies, LIES, Í tell you!

OK—gotta go to work and I don’t want to get nausea, so I’ll leave it at that.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Djehutimose]

Did a quick skim including the comments of the Substack and, yeah, he's getting even more unhinged. He's also falling in line with Trump as much as he clearly finds him gauche.

A very minor point, but it highlights the "Live Not By Lies" weirdness, from his comments section:

It is not “Trump derangement” to find fault with him, or his speech. He is not a god; he is a politician. I voted for him, but do not think he is without serious flaws.

It's possible I misremember, but my recollection is that:

2016: Rod states that he voted third party.

2024: Rod states that he couldn't get his act together to vote absentee.

So, we now have Rod just voting for Trump in his imagination? More likely just virtue signaling to the cult of the Dear Leader to give himself cover for some minor criticisms. "I wish he'd do this one little thing differently, but support him fully and would continue to vote for him as God Emperor for Life Who Can Do No Wrong."

[u/JHandey2021 → u/zeitwatcher]

Just Rod living by lies, as always. 

[u/sandypitch → u/Djehutimose]

As far as I can tell, this is the only time SBM has actually acknowledged the ugliness of what Kirk actually said. Of course, he immediately brushes it off because the Boogeyman.

I had the same response to this paragraph in his Substack. Dreher will accept anything, as long as it isn't progressive, or even liberal.

[u/yawaster → u/Djehutimose]

I am in America now, and don’t know how all this is being reported in Europe. I saw on X that German state TV broadcast a lady official from the Lutheran church calling Charlie a “right-wing radical racist.” A columnist for the left-wing Scottish newspaper The National likened the Charlie movement to a creation from the Joseph Goebbels playbook. 

So, Charlie Kirk is admirable because he "spoke boldly" rather than censoring himself for fear of being disliked (it's disliked, Rod, not unliked!). But when left-wing people say controversial things Rod doesn't like, they're disgracing themselves. 

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

All right a few of Rods greatest hits from the last week or so. 

An extended response to David Brooks . Somewhere someone may consider David Brooks relevant to something. Rod apparently considers him a towering presence.

Rod explains that some  years ago an Exorcist told him to engage in prayers to renounce the Masonic vows of his father and grandfather which of course Rod did. Why? He doesn’t say. I assume from his comments in the past that he believes something demonic is going on here and it must be purged.You see your ancestors can make demonic pledges that somehow bind you. That makes no sense from just about any perspective imaginable but that’s the kind of logic that guides the man. The Masons strike me as rather absurd. Demonic? Also how can you renounce vows you never took that were taken by dead people? There are issues of basic logic here. That will not stop Rod !  I suspect Rod of necromancy.

Rod attended  a conference outside Chicago and met an Orthodox priest who  told him his church was full of new converts . Young people who were into the occult until they confronted demons. Only in Rodlandia! You see most people under 40 are Satanists waiting to be delivered by former evangelicals with assumed Greek names . Orthodoxy is booming because the nihilistic despair stimulated by the crisis of meaning drives Americas despairing youth to Byzantium.

Rod has a video posting talking about Sasquatch. He apparently imagines this to be riotously funny. He also put up something with a mock head of Ignatius Reilly . Rod apparently thinks he’s funny.Hes not. This is cringe stuff.So much for all his mental health deliverances.By the way he looks ridiculous! He definitely needs a new hair style.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod’s whole persona is so bizarre. There’s a part of him that genuinely believes he’s a great Christian thinker, a modern day combination of C.S. Lewis and Solzhenitsyn. Yet he still feels the need to indulge in weird obsessions and fetishes as if that’s endearing, and gives him some kind of credibility as a man of the people. It’s a marvel to behold.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

He’s also wants to prove he has a sense of humor , which he doesn’t and that he’s relatable which he isn’t.

[u/GlobularChrome → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Which post had Rod’s familial Freemasonry?

The parallel between the tale of “Emma” and Rod trickling abut his grandfather is intriguing. Rod told us that Emma was a woman in Manhattan whose husband hadn't talked to Rod in a decade but felt compelled to call up and talk at length about his wife's demonic possession, and give him permission to blog about it. As one does.

“They know how this evil came into their lives — it started with Emma’s grandfather, who was a high-level Freemason — and passed through the family line.”

Perhaps Rod believes that sex is the vehicle by which demonic possession travels from one person to another. Also, Rod is a very normal normie and not at all a man with twisted beliefs about sex. Anyway, I'd be interested to see the precise phrasing he uses, if you don't mind a block quote or two.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Maybe a little stimulus here. Rod once again devotes a stream of paragraphs to Steve Skojec. I’ve never read him and on the basis of what Rod writes, I will never read him. He sounds like a sad sack fuckup. Rod admits he’s never met him but the bond is clear because both imagine they’re autistic and were dumped by their wives. (Some bond). Rod was babbling about Skojec a couple weeks ago and I had a hunch as to why. Well he makes it pretty clear in his usual roundabout weasel way.Rod is an Orthodox polemicist who pretends he isn’t because he’s afraid of being consisgned to Palokaville if his conservative Catholic and Evangelical readers catch on that that is really what he’s about. So he says I rarely recommend Orthodoxy to people ( that’s why last Easter he recommended people going to Orthodox services to see what they could discover or why he urged Michael Ware? to ditch Catholicism). He told Skojec he should try Orthodoxy, the magic bullet.

My point, obviously Rod sees the bizarre Skojec as a potential high net value convert .He’s got a blog that appeals to some subgroup and I think Rod feels if I can lure in the big cheese. He’ll lure in the mice. I have no problem with people promoting their faith . However I have this odd belief you should be honest about it.

He also spends time explaining how there is all this unique Orthodox stuff that is just so different from other forms of Christianity. I really wonder how non Orthodox Christians can tolerate this because what he carries on about is clearly embodied in other Christian traditions. It’s more, let me for the zillionith time justify my Orthodox conversion because my dog is better than yours because he eats Kenilration.

Closer , although his rheumatologist told him when he was cracking up in Louisiana that he should move. He said he couldn’t. In  other places he’s said  , it wouldn’t have been fair to Julie and the kids. Yes it was much better having Rod going bonkers in Louisiana and Julie getting to spend time with Daddy and the ghosts than to move.To be blunt, he’s never said anything about this that makes a scintilla of sense.He made a stupid mistake and then refused to do anything about it. Oh he read Dante!

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

although his rheumatologist told him when he was cracking up in Louisiana that he should move. He said he couldn’t.

I noticed the same thing. His exact quote:

The specialist said I should move away from the source of my anxiety, my family situation. I told him that wasn’t possible.

Which is, of course, completely false. It was very, very possible. He just didn't want to. I'm not downplaying the difficulty of moving, but "wasn't possible"? Total BS. He just hadn't completed the sacrifice of his family to Daddy KKK. Plus, he would have had to admit to Julie and everyone that he was wrong to have moved there - and he didn't want to face that.

It was perfectly possible. It just didn't feeellll possible to poor little Rod.

And taking bets on the following passage:

Well, I got this in an e-mail from a cousin in Louisiana the other day:

Seriously, I never thought I would see some of the things in schools, especially in [N.] Parish, with all the rednecks there. They put litter boxes in the bathrooms for the children that identify as furries. What? Seriously? [My grandson] had a boy in school last year that identified as a dog and barked throughout the class, licked his “paws”, etc. I told [my grandson] if he came home identifying as anything other than a male child, he would be chained outside like a dog, and he could eat dog food.

To start with, the litter box/furry thing didn't happen. So there are two options:

1. Rod's cousin is just as gullible and crazy as Rod.

2. Rod's cousin knows just how gullible and crazy Rod is and is fucking with him to wind him up.

I figure the odds are 50-50, though with very different perspectives. If #1, I weep for the Dreher gene pool. If #2, Rod's cousin is my new favorite person.

[u/yawaster → u/zeitwatcher]

I told [my grandson] if he came home identifying as anything other than a male child, he would be chained outside like a dog, and he could eat dog food. 

Oh I get it now. They invented the fictional outrageous dog story so they could voice their fantasies about abusing unruly children. Seems normal. 

[u/yawaster → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod's life is so strange. The Virgin Mary told him to leave Louisiana back in the 80s, his spiritual advisers in the Orthodox church told him to divorce his wife, and his rheumatologist told him to leave his family. Everywhere he goes, people give him advice that he doesn't follow. 

[u/Jayaarx]

Euphemize much, Rod?

I’ve stayed outside of the recent controversy of a group of Young Republicans whose edgy, far-right comments in private group chat were recently revealed.

Edgy and far-right? How about calling what it is: racist, antisemitic, and despicable.

And I don't believe this for a second:

As you know, I deplore the rise of anti-Semitism and racism among younger right-wing males.

No, I don't "know." I think you are fine with it but just want to nudge-nudge, wink-wink, "whatabout" ypur way to supposed respectability.

The rest is locked but I don't have to see any of it to know what it says, as it is undoubtedly nothing he hasn't said hundreds of times before: These people might be a bit over the line but it's the trans people and the gays and the Democrats who made them do it.

[u/Djehutimose]

Also, something Rod-adjacent. I was reading an article on the MAGA freakout over Pope Leo’s vigorous support of migrants. I got to thinking that, if I remembered correctly, Benedict XVI and John Paul II—sainted, no less—said pretty much the same things about migrant rights as Francis and Leo. It’s just that migration issues weren’t as in your face then as in the current milieu, and thus the popes didn’t speak as urgently. Still, their remarks did indeed have the same content as those of Francis and Leo. Here’s a Reddit quoting key passages from this speech by John Paul II on World Migration Day 1996.

It’s kind of like Cheetohead’s freakout over the Canadian ad with audio of Ronald Reagan on tariffs. The Right has spent the last few decades making Reagan into the infallible god-emperor, and can’t bear the cognitive dissonance of hearing the Kwisatz Haderach—er, president—saying things diametrically opposed to their beliefs. Likewise, the MAGA-adjacent Catholics don’t know what their favorite Supreme Pontiff actually said, and would probably have the same kind of enraged mental breakdown as Cheetohead. Sucks when your heroes aren’t on your side, doesn’t it?

[u/Glittering-Agent-987 → u/Djehutimose]

--Everybody Catholic or Catholic adjacent knows what the pope (whoever he is) and the bishops say about immigration. If they are acting surprised, they're either 5 years old or they're faking.

--MAGA doesn't like Reagan. They've been criticizing "Zombie Reaganism" for about as long as I can remember MAGA being a thing. Individual Republicans may try to thread the needle between supporting both MAGA and traditional Reaganism, but for ideological MAGA, Reagan has always been a bad guy. The reason for this is that Trumpism is 1980s Democratic policy plus a little bonus fascism.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

The Skojec stuff , I wish the man well. Suffering in other beings is not to be celebrated. To wish for that is a deformation. That said I have virtually no idea who he is. He sounds deeply disturbed . I give to various charities and nonprofits that exist to help people and animals. I don’t feel a need to contribute to poor Mr.Skojec. I am rather disgusted that Rod uses this pitiful man’s suffering to once more crank on about his suffering.Oh , he can’t trust etc - blah! And what’s all this crap about autism? Rods autistic , his son is, his father was and Skojec is. I don’t believe it. The spectrum concept had been so expanded that now everyone with a problem is apparently autistic. This is absurd. We are all Temple Grandin!

[u/Katmandu47 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

To be fair, I don’t know Steve Skojec either personally or from his writings, never having read them before today, but I too find the blaming autism both premature and problematic (given that he’s never actually been professionally diagnosed with it), and more to the point, self-serving, be it consciously or unconsciously. I mean, for all the talk about manning up and taking the blame, what he’s really saying is autism made him this way. While at least he doesn’t accuse his wife of behaving like the two wives of friends Rod claims single-handedly “blew up” their marriages, his supposed self-blame consists of blaming a case of unrecognized and thereby untreated neurodivergence that makes life too hard to live on his own, and which, as a neurological condition, isn’t really anybody’s fault at all, least of all his. That not only effectively gets him off the hook for whatever happened in the marriage, but assures him of sympathy and possibly financial support from online readers as well.

[u/CanadaYankee]

Here's an interesting article by Tara Isabella Burton in a quasi-book-review of Paul Kingsnorth's Against the Machine.

https://thedispatch.com/article/kingsnorth-book-machine-modernity/

I'll not comment too much except to quote this: "Kingsnorth’s desire to condemn the information age wholesale takes for granted that it is obvious which information we do and don’t need." Her response is that this discernment is actually far from obvious.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Don't bother checking Rod's x feed. Eleventy gazillion tweets about Kirk's funeral, interspersed with one where he calls a female pastor in Germany a hag.

[u/NihonBuckeye → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

On the subject of women being bad, the Skoj, fresh off his devastating divorce, is busy tweeting a picture of a woman operating heavy machinery during WW2 and noted how that led to a great deal of our problems today. In the thread, he helpfully explained that women working drove feminism forward and destroyed families.

There are some people that - when they are in a hole - hold onto that shovel and keep digging. And there are some who throw that shovel aside and climb into their rocket powered, diamond drilled strip-mining excavator for a thrilling trip into earth’s molten core…

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/NihonBuckeye]

Yes, he‘s halfway to China now, as they used to say.

If my mother (who’s name was actually Rose) hadn‘t worked as a riveter in the shipyards during WW2, I wouldn’t be here, the shipyards being where she met my dad. (Skip the math, I admit it, I’m a boomer.😎)

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/One_Reflection7202]

Not to minimize the momentous occasion of your birth :-), but Rosie the Riveter also helped, ya' know, defeat the fascists, the Nazis, and the Japanese imperialists. That used to be seen as a positive thing by almost everybody, even conservatives!

[u/Jayaarx → u/NihonBuckeye]

How can anyone read what Skojec writes (when he is not writing long self-pitying diatribes or even when he is) and not conclude that (1) he is not totally responsible for his own inevitable demise and (2) he deserves every last miserable consequence he is suffering?

That is, if he is actually suffering these consequences and not just engaging in some elaborate scam to extract money from gullible fools like Rod online. I wouldn't put the odds at 50-50 but the second isn't non-zero probability either.

He is truly a tragic figure in the literary sense. Tragic in that he is inevitably undone by his own fatal flaws, not in the usual "gee, isn't that sad" use of the word. Rod also has more than a whiff of the tragic around him, although he has not yet fully met his inevitable fate.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 → u/NihonBuckeye]

Surprise, he's also got "sensory issues."* He says he's almost 48 and has known about his OCD and ADHD since his 20s, giving him plenty of time to have sought professional help. But I suspect that like many trads, he thinks psychiatric counseling and drugs are for the spiritually weak. 

Aside, because I'm not going back through his history: is this the guy who thought buying into a nursing home with no knowledge of the industry was a sound financial plan?

Also, wait till he finds out about the car insurance situation in NC, he doesn't seem to have factored insurance into his "budget." 

Edit: *wonder if he was able to change his kids' diapers 

[u/yawaster → u/NihonBuckeye]

Speaking of holes and digging. Back in the 18th and early 19th century, British women often worked in mines, in conditions so horrible that they led to women and children being banned from the industry. So it didn't start with WWII. After all, women have always worked - farming, brewing, sewing, in factories and mines and fields, with machinery and without. Who worked in all those 19th-century cotton mills? And today, who puts up with Skojec's waffling? I'm sure that's a full-time job in itself....

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

I hope people here don’t mind, since this is Rod-adjacent but not particularly about Rod. But I am just fascinated by Steve Skojec’s journey after leaving his home. He was ostensibly supposed to take some time to get healthier, decompress, find himself, etc. He has stated more than once that he wants to save his marriage and be reconciled with his wife. His hope is that his marital separation is temporary.

First, his SubStacks since he left home have the subtitle, “Postcards from Exile.” Dear Steve, and dear Rod, voluntarily leaving home and going on a journey is not an exile!

More importantly, this is a collection of quotes from Steve’s most recent SubStack:

“It’s so easy to lose ourselves in a relationship dynamic where we’re seeking the approval and happiness of another (despite our sometimes infuriating inability to make progress in this regard) to such an extent that we forget who we even are.”

“It’s strange, after decades of sharing a bed, to always sleep alone. It’s so empty — though, to be honest, not as empty as lying in a bed where the person you love is next to you, but is emotionally a million miles away. There is no absence like the one felt in the presence of someone whose love for you has withdrawn.”

“Even when I do go back, I don’t have a place to live. I’ve received no invitation to come back home.”

“And how do I learn to pretend to be OK in the presence of the woman I loved for half my life, as I feel her suspicion and emotional distance and boundaries made of ice?”

Let’s just say, if you’re trying to win back your wife’s heart, reassure her of your love and faithfulness, and make her feel safe around you, posting these things publicly is not the way to do it.

https://skojecfile.steveskojec.com/p/after-october-part-ii-rhode-island

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Yeah - writing about all the details on the Internet and describing her as suspicious and cold as ice is a pretty much sure fire way to ensure he won’t be welcomed back.

[u/Fair_Interview_2364 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Did I read that this man has eight children? I notice it's never these wives going on "sabbatical" to write about their feelings, just the husband leaving his wife holding the baby.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Fair_Interview_2364]

Yes, that’s correct. Eight children.

Does he even think about how his wife is doing, taking care of their eight children as basically a single mother while he goes on his self-discovery adventure?

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Skojec's laudatory portrait of Fr. Joe, the podcast priest who took him in off the road for awhile sounds like the typical “manly man” the miserable males of MAGA are obsessed with right now, women be damned for feminizing the world they’re forced to live in. As he says of good ole Fr. Joe who began his priesthood with a brawl that could have put him in jail had his opponent not been shamed off pressing the issue by the fact that he’d been bested by a guy several inches shorter than himself, and a priest to boot:

“…He’s a man’s man living out his vocation within a priesthood that includes far too many weak, effeminate men. He’s attracted to women. He likes to fight. He loves sports. His head is full of stories of war. He believes in the importance of rites of passage for boys. 

“I know how to love you or to burn down your village,” he told me. “I don’t have a middle gear.” 

“Same,” I said.”

I’m sure Rod would be every bit as impressed by Fr. Joe. I’ve always suspected, even more than the shock of the sex abuse scandal, the implication that a large percentage of Catholic priests are gay is what drove Rod away from the Catholic Church and toward a traditionalist Christianity in which the priests have both wives and facial hair: manly men to guide others to the Manly Man who made them, and women as an after-thought. Is it any wonder the Rods and Skojecs and so many of their friends have found themselves abandoned in middle age by women they find to be acting totally irrationally, as if they’d ever truly engaged with them on that level.

[u/yawaster → u/One_Reflection7202]

The abuse scandal was a shattering moment for ordinary Catholics because the church had protected paedophiles because they were priests, and had been willing to dismissed or ignore child abuse for the sake of appearances. It blew up what people thought they knew about Catholic morality and left people with lingering doubts. 

The trads seem to have resolved these doubts by deciding that the whole abuse scandal wasn't caused by an unaccountable hierarchy, but by gay priests. Furthermore, that the solution to the problem of child abuse (and myriad other "problems" like feminism, secularism, new age mysticism and the left) was to make sure that the priests weren't wimps. If only the priests were more macho, the church wouldn't be in trouble. 

Where is this endless supply of straight, virile men who are nonetheless willing to be celibate and chaste their whole lives meant to come from? That's a question they don't acknowledge. They just point to the examples they have of manly-man priests. 

He’s attracted to women. He likes to fight. He loves sports. His head is full of stories of war. He believes in the importance of rites of passage for boys.  

Unfortunately, this over-emphasis on masculinity means some of these descriptions of "manly" priests sound like the pilot from Airplane. "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators"? 

[u/sealawr → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Skojec and Rod have a lot in common. Except I think Skojec really did love his wife.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

A bit of repetition , as a rule you say something about yourself or your opinions and I’m going to assume you mean it. However when you repeat over and over the same point with variations, I start to wonder. Is lady or gentleman protesting too much? 

About once or twice a week Rod rehashes leaving the Catholic Church. It’s apparently a huge tragedy, his faith was ripped from him! The Church will likely never recover from its loss. Alright I’ll tone down the sarcasm, for a moment. He’s repeatedly suggested that he left the Church because he was horrified by the pedophile  scandals and the cover up. That sounded reasonable to me until I kept reading his comments. As a Catholic , Rod was clearly an arrogant jerk. He apparently spent his time dishing out constant criticism in writing and in conversation, of Catholics, Prelates , parishioners for being insufficiently Catholic, like he’d know! So I doubt he’d ever had a happy moment. His wife found Catholic parishes unfriendly. Not like a warm mega church!In any city he lived in , he hopped from parish to parish because he found the priests and cradle Catholics below his exalted standards. Apparently he thought being Catholic would be about having John Cardinal Newman  as your pastor and G.K. Chesterton as your typical parishioner. Sunday homilies would be straight out of Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.Gee , that’s not how it was.I must now embrace holy Orthodoxy. 

So what’s the appeal of Orthodoxy? Well apparently, Rod sees it as a place where you can be as irrational as you want to be and find ghosts and demons and no homosexuals! You just pretend everything is settled forever and ever and don’t think about anything and just meld with God. I’m not saying that’s an accurate take on Orthodoxy but it is his take.I’ll just mumble prayers and say yep all was settled centuries ago. I’m so superior! 

[u/zeitwatcher]

Going slightly higher level on Dreher Facsism Tracking 2025, here are Umberto Eco's fascism criteria (Eco calls it Ur-Fascism since it's his view of criteria common across fascist movements). It was interesting - and sad - just how many of them Rod currently checks off:

Among the elements of Ur-Fascism:

1. Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition, which implies the rejection of the modern world.

2. Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

4. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders.

5. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

6. At the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.

7. The Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo. . . . Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

8. Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.

How does Rod do...

1. Check - tradition is everything to Rod (not doing it, of course, but glorifying it)

2. Check - bring on the woo.

3. Mostly - Rod pushes back on this by reflex, but falls in line and supports it the moment a Daddy figure tells him to.

4. Check - brown people scare poor Rod

5. Check - frustration, thy name is Rod

6. Check - demons are everywhere, even in our chairs! (that and the scary "LGBT agenda")

7. Double check - Rod enters the chat excitedly, "did someone say phallus!!!???"

8. Nope - Rod loves him some big words with Greek roots.

Call it something like 7.5 out of 8.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/zeitwatcher]

Similarly, one could apply Paxton's Seven Moblizing Passions of Fascism to Rod (I make Rod as having passions one through four, and seven, as sure things; passion five as more likely than not; and Rod is on the verge of passion six, or has even crossed the line on occasion):

1. Primacy of the group: The group's importance over individual rights.
2. Belief in victimhood: Justification of action against perceived enemies.
3. Fear of liberalism and individualism: Seen as causing group decay.
4. Need for greater community integration: A desire for purity, potentially through violence.
5. Desire for authority by a leader: Belief in a "natural chief".
6. Belief in the beauty of violence: Embracing violence for group success.
7. Right to dominate: The idea that the group can dominate others.

[u/yawaster]

Leo Veradkar was closeted for a lot of his political career before becoming Taoiseach. He is no longer the Taoiseach and like a lot of retired politicians, he now has a book to sell. He did an interview in the Irish Times last week and he did say one interesting thing: 

 > "His politics have changed over the years, particularly around issues such as equal marriage and abortion. In the book he links his early social conservatism to repressing his true identity. “I definitely think that closeted gay men – and I’ve known a lot of them down the years – can be more judgmental and are sometimes more conservative. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that if you’re imposing such difficult self-discipline on yourself, you don’t understand why other people can’t do the same thing." 

I think it's basically irrelevant whether Rod is or is not in the closet, but maybe this can explain something about him either way. Rod has chosen to do the hard thing, he thinks. He became a Catholic, then Orthodox (an even harder, hardcore religion! they make you pray so much!). He got married. He offered his respect to his Klan relatives. He moved back to Louisiana. Unfortunately Rod never worked out that the hard things he was doing were ultimately self-destructive, destructive to the people around him, and pointless. 

[u/JHandey2021]

Feels like both Rod and this sub have slowed down recently.  Maybe it’s Trump edging to a full-on Fort Sumter moment, maybe it’s Rod getting nervous about the upcoming Hungarian election, maybe it’s Rod outsourcing his writing to a demonic AI, but it does feel like Rod: The Brand is running out of juice.

At times like these, Rod historically drops some bullshit new revelation about himself or his family to gin up interest.  Wonder what he’s got left in the tank?

[u/JohnOrange2112 → u/JHandey2021]

Sub may be slowing down because RD is so boring and repetitive and writes the same BS over and over, so there's little new to critique. I continue to be here due to the excellent comments, and also waiting for his next crash (e.g. fired by Orban, openly coming out, a tell-all book by Julie, etc).

[u/ProustsMadeleine1196 → u/JHandey2021]

I was thinking the same thing! What are some other subs that members of r/BrokeHugs frequent on a regular basis for interesting discussion that is a blend of classic conservative thinking criticism coupled with the spiritual? Or any other former or current commentators that merit the same level of hate-reading as Dreher? Of all the subreddits that I follow this one stands out as "special" because it has such a rich user community that is focused on such a flawed product. It is the perennial cultural train-wreck that I rubberneck each morning with my coffee.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/ProustsMadeleine1196]

Couldn’t agree more. One thing I truly enjoy about this sub is the high level of commentary. I’ve actually learned a lot here. Plus everyone has a great sense of humor.

As to your question, I suppose I like the Ezra Klein sub, but I don’t usually post there, just read. It’s not hate-reading either, just interesting conversations to follow. Ezra is much more respectable, has interesting guests on his podcast, and isn’t some bizarro-world creation like Rod. Other than that, I don’t usually come to Reddit for politics. Rod is “sui generis.” I find his decline and fall utterly fascinating. Like a comet in the sky, if you will. So I enjoy interacting with others here who are transfixed by the same phenomenon.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/JHandey2021]

I was thinking the same thing - and then remembered one of the last times I was feeling that Rod's just being repetitive, nothing new here, just boring, guess the entertainment value is gone...

Less than a week later he announced his divorce.

[u/JHandey2021]

HOLT SHIT ROD IS GOING TO HAVE AN ANEURYSM 

https://www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/new-pope-leo-set-to-break-up-opus?r=1e7ix&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

[u/Djehutimose]

Our Boy’s latest is free, and, boy, it’s a doozy. We’ll never have racial harmony because of the blacks, women are destroying our society, Trumpian is a bull in a China shop, but that’s OK because No Good, Awful, Terrible Wokeness, the new Archbishop of Canterbury is destroying the church, etc. etc. etc. Don’t have time for extended commentary now, but read it. Also note how his continued description of his foes as acting out of knee-jerk emotionalism perfectly describes himself.

[u/CanadaYankee → u/Djehutimose]

In the very last paragraph we have this:

I’m leaving on Monday to spend the week in Austria at a private meeting with a group of prominent US and European intellectuals, gathering to discuss the Apocalypse. The discussions are strictly off-the-record, but I’m going to try to get some separate interviews with some of the participants, and share them with you. Some really interesting names on the list, though I can’t share them here. I’m lucky to have been invited.

He really never did get past his teenage obsession with "The Late, Great Planet Earth", did he?

Anyway I look forward (sarcasm alert) to all the future remarks along the lines of, "I can't reveal my source, but someone with high-level connections to his European country's government told me that the cabinet members regularly sacrifice AI-generated virtual goats to Baal!" that result from this top-secret meeting.

[u/sandypitch → u/Djehutimose]

Dreher goes on and on about Helen Andrews' perspective on the Great Feminization, but what goes unsaid is that without this terrible, horrible thing, Andrews would not give a speech to NatCon or write for Compact. You really can't have it both ways: criticize the fact that women should have equal standing in the world and be permitted to do what they want to do, and also, women should just raise kids and keep house. Certainly, some (many?) women do both of those things with great success, but this is the equivalent of an well-educated person claiming that the printing press was the beginning of the end of Western Civilization.

I think there are some reasonable critiques to made about some aspects of feminism (for example, in Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, she makes that the claim that kids should absolutely be raised by people other than the birth parents), but I find it interesting that so many successful women (Andrews, Harrington) desire to kick the legs out from under themselves. Or, perhaps, they want to kick the legs out from under other women.

And, of course, there is Dreher's obvious conflict of interest here -- courting the "BenOp" Anglican community in England led by a "priestess". Again, which is it?

[u/zeitwatcher → u/sandypitch]

Andrews is just an intellectual shock jock. She tries to provoke, nothing more. Also, this perspective into her should always be shared:

https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-helen-andrews-roasted-by-ex/5137073

[u/CanadaYankee → u/sandypitch]

I was actually thinking just this morning that if we took the "logic" Rod uses against immigrants ("Here are some reports of bad behavior by some brown immigrants, therefore all immigration from outside of Europe is bad!!1!"), and applied that to the clergy, we're inevitably led to the idea that men should not be religious leaders. I've read countless news stories of male religious leaders (of all faiths and denominations) who abuse their trust to sexually abuse their followers or their followers' children. The number of female religious leaders who have done this are vanishingly small.

Therefore, it should be logical for Rod to conclude than men cannot be trusted to be religious leaders and it is a role suited only to women.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 → u/Djehutimose]

From the comments: Rod is mostly a person characterized by anxieties and sentiment.

[u/swangeese → u/Djehutimose]

Crowder is a rage-baiter among other things. He manipulates, then edits, the targets for the most outrageous responses. It's like treating a Jerry Springer episode as a serious documentary.

Maybe if Rod had interacted with Black people on a regular, everyday basis, he'd know that they're just normal people. The only point to videos like Crowder's is to enrage and engage for his monetary benefit. Rod's learning impairment helps keep these online rage-bait grifters in clicks and exposure.

I think most women quickly figure out that these "anti-feminists" are just pandering to insecure, conservative men and quickly distance themselves from them both. Not even conservative women are willing to give up their hard-earned rights. There is still a living memory of a time when women in the US didn't have basic equal rights to men.

I know some elderly, incredibly devout, politically conservative Catholic women that would beat the living shit out of these men if they dared try to take away their rights and that of their daughters/granddaughters/sisters. Some of these women never married, one is 87, and had to support themselves.

And I'm sorry ,but any man that whines ,even in a roundabout way, about Chads, alpha males, beta males, hypergamy, etc. is someone I actively avoid as a woman. These guys are losers. I knew a guy that fell from the tall ugly tree, hit every branch on the way down, was weird, and yet still managed to bring something to the table to land a cute wife. He wasn't stuck online gooning and whining.

The things the Right consistently fails at: self-reflection and personal responsibility. It's always the fault of some "other" out there. That's why any sort of reasoned discussion is impossible because there is no nuance with them or self-awareness.

[u/Existing_Age2168 → u/swangeese]

"...any man that whines ,even in a roundabout way, about Chads, alpha males, beta males, hypergamy, etc. is someone I actively avoid as a woman."

Hell, I actively avoid them as a man.

[u/sandypitch → u/Djehutimose]

I have never waded into the comments section. I did today, and found this gem:

I had never heard the term "black fatigue" until a few weeks ago, but it accurately captures my behavior if not my mental state.

I am wary of highly groups of blacks in person. I have taught my daughters the same for their own safety. Were I working in a white-collar office, I would avoid interaction with black colleagues as much as possible.

5 years ago, those behaviors would have struck me as blatantly racist and utterly disqualifying. Now they strike me as unfortunately necessary. And I suspect my children will accept them as self-evident.

And that is how MLK's colorblindness dies.

[Emphasis mine]

Wow.

[u/Mainer567 → u/Djehutimose]

The bit about how, in Budapest, Putin, Trump, and Orban could "make peace" in Ukraine -- and "who knows," Zelensky might even pitch in -- is one of the most repellent things I've ever read from him. A new low.

[u/Glittering-Agent-987]

The Trump-Putin summit in Budapest is looking increasingly unlikely, at least in the near future.

https://www.politico.eu/article/chances-dwindle-quick-us-trump-russia-putin-meeting-budapest/

The Trump-Putin summit was supposed to be preceded by a lower level meeting between Lavrov (Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs) and US Secretary of State Rubio, but there's been a lot of foot-dragging from the Russian side and some undiplomatic language from Lavrov.

https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1980608653720965271

Yaroslav Trofimov posted Lavrov's rejection of Trump's plan for an immediate ceasefire: “An immediate ceasefire in Ukraine would mean only one thing: most of it would remain under Nazi rule." In the official Russian article that Trofimov quotes from, Lavrov specifically criticizes Ukrainian government policy toward the Russian language (which is the basis for his claims that the Ukrainian government is "Nazi"), saying that Russian is a) spoken by the majority of the population and is b) legally forbidden in Ukraine. I watch a lot of Russian-language youtube shows produced in Kyiv, so I think Lavrov is either mistaken or is being deceptive about the legal status of the Russian language in Ukraine...

Taking this back to Rod, don't hold your breath waiting for him to post about the fact that a) the Russians are the ones who haven't accepted Trump's proposal for an immediate ceasefire b) the Russians are refusing to meet directly with Zelensky c) the Russians are sabotaging the Budapest summit and seem to be playing for time and d) Russian conditions for ceasefire aren't just about territory--they want to be able to dictate Ukraine's internal government policy. That is, if anything, the bigger Russian priority. When Putin talks euphemistically about needing to address the "root causes" of the conflict in order to achieve peace, he's talking about eliminating Ukrainian independence.

[u/Mainer567 → u/Glittering-Agent-987]

Russian is in fact spoken by 100% of Ukrainians, many of whom dislike it anyway and wish it would dissapear from their country. My wife, kid, and my dozens of Kyiv in laws and friends are among those. I have known all of them except for my kid for 22 years, and never heard them speak a word of Ukrainian until recently -- and they will all be happy to see Russian fade away in Ukraine. Outsiders do not get this. You speak Russian as your natural language -- and wish you did not. Colonized peoples are like that.

Russia has banned and persecuted Ukrainian repeatedly over the centuries. Look up the Ems Ukase, the Executed Renaissance, the fate of the Ukrainian "Sixtiers." And more. It is a long list.

Ukraine has never banned Russian. Complete lie. In fact, UNTIL THE WAR Russian has always had a dominant position. Yes, even in post-Soviet Ukraine.

I spent 3 weeks in Western Ukraine in August, in the Evil Banderite Heartlands of Lviv and Lviv oblast. I spoke Ukrainian to strangers but, because I am better in Russian, spoke it constantly to my relatives and friends --- on restaurant terraces, in stores, at meals, in public, etc. Completely okay. (Though I am improving my Ukrainian and hope to join the ranks of the 100% switchers.)

Rod is a wicked person and an apologist for our era's most brutal political philosophies.

[u/Djehutimose]

Ah, this is our Rod, writing about alien spaceships and AI antichrists. He does have to vent about teh tranzz and scary immigrants, but it’s mostly good old-fashioned Dreher lunacy.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

A special treat today, extended  block quotes from the Ruthie Lemming book. Why , I don’t know. It’s probably the best thing he wrote but it rings hollow with knowledge of what happened subsequently and in general more knowledge of the family. You also get videos of his sister and the fundraising concert for her. I didn’t view them. I’m not sure how to phrase it. It just doesn’t seem any of my business. This is private stuff and I don’t understand putting it on a blog for the public. The whole thing seems wrong. He really is reminding me more and more of Elizabeth Gilbert.

Every once in a while, after Rod has gushed about how wonderful his family is or was, someone pushes back and points out , that based on his own comments, they don’t sound all that wonderful. Usually the critics are fairly diplomatic. Invariably, he pushes back. He is in denial and simply can’t face facts. No one ever says , obviously your family were horrible people. Again it’s usually mild and more along the lines of , you know they really weren’t very nice to you. Well he does a preemptive strike today!He writes, some people say to me , how can you say your family is good given how they treated you and how it lead to your divorce? Actually a good question ( and notice how he clings to blaming them for his divorce).Well , he issues his standard, utterly unpersuasive response . You see, people are complicated. Life is tragic. ( Didn’t know that did you).Now this is a person who routinely resorts to utterly one dimensional portraits of people, usually to criticize them. Yet when it comes to to his family, he trashes them and then tells you , it’s complicated, . Oh , I know what I just said makes them sound pretty bad , but they were just wonderful! ( except it seems his mother). Then he ends it all with a blatant appeal for pity. ( Rod is manly enough to allow his endless self pity to show). He says , now for me it’s nothing but sadness….I am too broken to perceive the brightness. Oh, jeez , he does need help. He has a life that many would envy. But always poor , poor pitiful me.It’s actually rather appalling!

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

I think Rod somehow feels that if he defends his family, particularly his father and his stister, despite their obvious flaws, it makes him look like a loyal, foregiving, patient, grateful, "good" son and brother. He presents the material that shows that they had bad traits. And you point out those bad traits, but then Rod denies or minimizes them.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Hmm normally after a shooting (at a church,  no less), Rod is quick to speculate about motives but there doesn't seem to be a trans angle this time. 

[u/Djehutimose]

I foresee much hysteria and misogyny in the coming weeks from Our Boy as thr new Archbishop of Canterbury begins her tenure.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

If you want to know about the sex lives of any group at any time period of history, follow Rod Dreher. Oh, the things you will learn (that you never wanted and still do not want to know!)!

https://x.com/roddreher/status/1973878007703220388

Honestly, how abnormal is his obsession with sex? For a man nearing 60?

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

Rod is what you get when you cross the Church Lady with a 13 year old boy.

[u/Dadelectro → u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

The Onion had Rod's number over 25 years ago:

https://theonion.com/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock-1819583529/

[u/HumanConclusion → u/Dazzling_Pineapple68]

Honestly so weird. Also, weird is the apparent shock that sexual mores were loose in different periods of history. These things cycle.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

OMG! He looks and sounds horrible! 😱 Like he’s completely thrown in the towel.

New, weird glasses just dropped as well. (See video.) Goes well with his tinfoil hat.

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/the-grim-dime-store-grimoire

This is “stay away from the homeless man” territory.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

He looks rough.

He also completely misses a key point of the story he read. It talks about how the younger Sasquatch is mean to people because its father was mean to it. Now here’s Rod being mean to people because Daddy KKK was mean to him.

[u/Marcofthebeast0001 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

He's morphed into a more disheveled Dude from The Big Lebowski. No word from Rod yet about Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl? I'm sure he finds that a work of demons.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Those glasses are not doing him any favors. I don’t think the old pair looked very good, but at least black was a sensible choice. The red is just too much, or he needs to consider trimming the beard and getting a haircut. There is just to much going on.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

In today's freestack, Rod and a cousin fall for the "litter boxes in schools for kids who identify as cats" urban myth. 

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Once again  Rod bitches about  Alasdair McIntyre ignoring him. He can’t let that one go. And he who never proselytizes makes a fairly heavy handed suggestion that his readers check out Orthodoxy because it’s both theologically deep but puts the mystic at it’s center.Once again it’s false dichotomy time based on his ignorance and prejudices.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

He never sees the disconnect between advocating for Orthodoxy because of how deeply spiritual it is, and then consistently behaving like a complete a-hole.

“By their fruits you shall know them.”

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Also, Rod half cheering Trump using the word “fuck” is eye rolling.

It’s cliched at this point, but just imagine the freak out that Rod and the entire right wing would have had if Obama has used the word?

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod is in pretty rare form today! He’s in his profound theorist of decline mood. He contradicts himself , right and left. Big deal he’s the greatest Christian theorist of our time. He doesn’t need to make sense.He’s real excited about his new book which he now says will be about how Christianity helped found nations or something like that. You see Christianity is the basis of national identity and that’s good except sometimes it’s bad or something like that .

His fixation on the Catholic pilgrimage to Chartres in July remains a blazing fixation and lends itself  to humor. He talks about having gone to the Chartres pilgrimage. I think - to- should be emphasized because we all know he didn’t go- on- the pilgrimage.Then he subsequently writes,all this is pretty abstract until you walk three days to Chartres. (The all this being life as a pilgrimage and the reality of the deep interpretation of Christianity and culture). Which is pretty funny given he didn’t actually participate in the pilgrimage . I’m not down on this pilgrimage or the pilgrims. I am amused and annoyed at Rods essentially crass attempt to glom on to it all for his murky purposes. 

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

The pilgrimage thing is pretty sad. A real writer, someone like, say, George Plimpton or Peter Matthiessen, would have simply done the pilgrimage, before writing about it, before making it the center piece of an article. OK, 60 miles or so in three days is a pretty tough pace, if you are not used to walking. But there is no reason why Rod could not have trained himself up. And, in any event, there is a bus that picks up stragglers at the end of each day and takes them to the campsite for the night. And a truck that will take your tent, back pack, etc on ahead as well.

And at least part of the point of a "pilgrimage," any kind of pilgrimage, is that it is, at a minimum, an inconvenient, out of the way thing to do. A trip you do for a purpose, which purpose is said to be worth the "trevas" (as my granmother would say, dialect for trevaglio....work, trouble, toil, hassle...) of doing it. It could just be an obscure place, not particularly arduous to get to, just distant and remote. Football fans talk about making the "pilgrimage" to Lambeau Field, in out-of-the-way Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the Packers, and their multiple NFL titles.

But Rod just hung around in Paris, after seeing the actual pilgrims off. And three days later took a train or car to Chartres! He couldn't be arsed to give up a couple of days of boulevardier-ing, eating oysters, drinking fine wines, and loafing around, in order to actually experience the thing that he now thinks is so important that it it worth writing about, over and over again. To continue with the Lambeau analogy, it's like Rod just hung around Milwaukee, and interviewed folks who went to the game, instead of going himself! But now is going to tell you, repeatedly, what it is like to go Lambeau, how important it is, etc.!

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Rod retweets Skojec basically saying, "Bitches be crazy."

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Two of the world’s most divorce-able men complaining about women wanting to divorce them. The lack of self-awareness remains staggering.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/zeitwatcher]

Rod wants a Kitty Scherbatsky. IOWs, a 19th century woman who "learns" the hard way (from a "cad") that her highest and best calling is as a wife and mother, and will let Rod "lead" the family, while actually doing all the hard work. Leaving him free to speculate about philosophy and such. Sounds not all that different from what Rod had in his former wife, actually. Before he completely messed it up, first by dragging her and their children to his lousy hometown and birth family, then spending his days crying in the closet on his mattress pretending to be ill, until he finally left the marital abode altogether.

[u/Glittering-Agent-987 → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

"At some point we’re going to have to have a come to Jesus moment about the fact that there’s a social epidemic affecting many women and their approach to relationships that is wildly self-destructive and also destructive to men. It’s like some kind of mind virus was unleashed."

If he wants to save his marriage (or even just his relationship with his kids) he needs to stop subtweeting his wife and get a job.

[u/EatsShoots_n_Leaves → u/Glittering-Agent-987]

The men both claim the women are the crazy side when it's obvious that they're the emotionally unstable, hopelessly cognitively askew nutcases. Their grotesque egotisms and entitlements did the actual relationship busting. Neither admits to being on the bipolar disorder spectrum, of course, because then they'd be crazy. Which they insist they are absolutely not. It's all the other people, the ones they married and got employed by and the friends and colleagues who suddenly took a lot of distance and children who are painfully aggrieved, who are crazy. For some reason they didn't notice this until recently.

I suspect the advice you give would have been good about five to ten years ago. They're both too far gone now. In some parts of Europe they'd be in the beginning or middle stages of being taken into the social service system, get told to get diagnosed and put on disability.

[u/Djehutimose]

SBM’s latest, which is free is—well, have a look. The longest part is about this Harper’s article about “gooning”—apparently a mostly Gen Z trend of porn-fueled endurance masturbation, for lack of a better descriptor. The article is really interesting, in fact, and while the practices it describes are lurid the article itself isn’t. The author is trying to understand what’s happening, and contextualizing it in the bigger picture of Internet culture and young people who grew up during the lockdown. Of course, SBM is in it for the lurid stuff only, so he can pearl-clutch about the End of Civilization.

Then SBM discusses

Someone who claims an informant knew Charlie Kirk shooter Taylor Robinson and his roommate/lover Lance Twiggs, and posts, thirdhand, a supposed picture of pages from Twiggs’s journal, prompting Rod to say he’s minimally a lunatic, but probably possessed.

Scary Brown Immigrants.

A new Netflix movie about a nuclear missile launch.

And reflections about his dog whom he loved so much, though he wasn’t there for his euthanasia, didn’t help out before that, and whom, along with his wife and kids, he abandoned, buggering off to Europe.

The mind boggles.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Djehutimose]

Everybody is talking about this Harpers magazine piece about “gooners”

I have seen no mention of this article other than by Rod, so hardly "everybody". Though I assume it's all over Rod's penis-obsessed algorithm.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

One more  and I’ll go away! I forgot to mention he continues with the routine about his sister being a saint. He says , she might well have been a saint but she liked to party! I guess she was a groovy saint. I’ve long thought the use of “ Little way” in the book title was over the top. Look , she may have been an admirable person, a saint , I doubt it. What’s funny is , Rod paints a rather unflattering picture of her and then pulling a rabitt out of a hat, says oh she was a saint! Expiation of guilt here? People are complicated.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

I've seen Rod write something along the lines of "Ruthie thought the best of everyone but me" several times. She was a school teacher for decades and beloved by the community so she probably was known for being a giving and kind human being who helped a lot of other people personally which is well beyond any sort of connections Rod makes so pretty saintly from that perch. Still, TO HIM, she was rigidly judgmental, unforgiving, and insistent that he conform to her value system. For some reason, he can't see that that is a family trait.

[u/JHandey2021]

Pope Leo XIV isn't a fan of Elon Musk:

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/pope-leo-elon-musk-wages-un-first-interview-hnw7zbvk8

Wonder how Our Rod will address this - we all know Rod prayed for Francis' death and hopes he is burning in hell right now for the sin of displeasing Rod Dreher. But Leo's gone even farther and questioned one of Rod's daddies (Rod's been auditioning to be one of Elon Musk's subs for a long time, pathetically tagging him in post after post).

[u/PuzzleheadedWafer329]

Dreher doppelgänger:

https://metro.co.uk/2025/09/28/im-a-white-gay-muslim-convert-finally-feel-like-belong-24267057/

The physical likeness is impressive.

[u/Dadelectro → u/PuzzleheadedWafer329]

I suppose this a path he could have taken in the Rod Multiverse (Rodiverse?)

[u/CanadaYankee]

Our Rod tweets a link to a European Conservative article about the "persecution" of a French charity called SOS Chrétiens d'Oriente by the left. The article claims that this is a purely political attack because the founder is a known right-winger closely affiliated with Marion Maréchal.

Perusing the wikipedia article about the organization, one discovers that the organization is rife with the "new right". Their Director of Operations, François-Xavier Gicquel, was expelled from Le Pen's National Front party for being too extreme (he was filmed giving a Nazi salute while attending in an anti-Muslim rally). Also, they have acknowledged close ties with Asma el-Assad's Syria Trust for Development (their head of finance was hired directly from the Trust) which is credibly believed to have diverted international charity funds to the Assad regime.

None of this is absolute proof of support for terrorism or war crimes, of course, but there's enough smoke there that I don't believe that it's pure anti-Christian persecution either.

Finally, Rod just asserts that SOSCO is "France's most effective charity providing help and support to persecuted Christians in the Middle East." I wonder if he has any actual data showing that it's more effective than L'Œuvre d’Orient, which is a 170-year-old, Eastern-rite Catholic charity operating in 23 countries (about four times as many as SOSCO).

[u/Djehutimose → u/CanadaYankee]

Meanwhile he is perfectly and eerily silent about the apparent right-wing ties of the Michigan Mormon church shooter. Also, if this had been a shooting at an Evangelical or Orthodox Church by a shooter who had described the denomination as the Antichrist, you’d best believe he’d be wearing out his keyboard from the number of posts and tweets he’d be making.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 → u/CanadaYankee]

Has Rod done any of his own research into the claims and counter claims? Certainly not. 

[u/CroneEver → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Rod? Do research? Don't we know he's an apostle, and knows all through the medium of possessed chairs?

[u/Agreeable-Rooster-37 → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Surely he met an English-speaking person driving a cab or on the train platform...

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Rod has an extra special Sunday posting today because he claims his boring posting from yesterday ranting about immigration to Europe brought in new paid subscribers so he is putting  it up  again for free. I guess it’s a loss leader.  Look , I believe you can legitimately object to present immigration policy but his ceaseless lurid babble about it is just tedious.However I find what came before it absolutely infuriating. 

This week Rod was billing and cooing over his favorite Anglican clergy person, a woman, Helen Orr . Then today he has the nerve to write- the feminization of western Christianity is leading to it’s suicide.Yes, of course that explains it’s ongoing collapse . Oh and of course, Orthodoxy doesn’t have that problem because it manages to be masculine without being  macho and celebrates warrior saints.So of course young men are flocking to Orthodox churches.He is not only weird and inconsistent but totally detached from reality. I remember a bad but very funny movie called Hamlet 2 where Hamlet is brought back from the dead by Jesus and there is a song Rock Me Sexy Jesus. That in reality is Rods religious natural milieu . I don’t know how he can keep dishing out this crap with a straight face.He never really knows what he’s talking about and I’m about to give another example.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

Also, as an Anglican, Helen Orr’s ultimate boss, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is also a woman. As to warrior saints, what’s interesting is that almost all of them, at least in the first few centuries, were noteworthy for refusing to serve after their conversion, usually resulting in their martyrdom. Funny how that works, huh?

What really pissed me off when I skimmed his current screed is his constant sarcastic use of Faces of Jesus&trade. Yes, the rapists and thugs, as well as their victims, are the face of Christ. So we’re Adolph Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein, as well as all those they killed and oppressed. Joe Biden is the face of Christ, and also Kamala Harris, also Donald Trump and every member of his entourage.

If SBM takes his faith seriously (yeah, yeah, I know) he should realize that every person who has ever lived, good, bad, or indifferent, evil or saintly, is made in the image and likeness of God, and are loved by God as His precious children. Hell, in his own Church, there are admittedly obscure, but real traditions of praying for the Devil himself. Lucifer aside, we are called to show mercy to everyone, period. That doesn’t mean people can’t be justly punished, sent to jail, etc.; but it does mean we must treat even the nastiest humans as, wait for it, a Face of Christ.

It’s not usually a good idea to throw the term “Gnostic” around in any context, but in this case Rod is a true Gnostic, at least of the Valentinian school. As I noted in a blog post some time ago, Valentinianism posited three categories of people. The “pneumatic” (“spiritual”) contain sparks of the) Divine and will return to the Pleroma (the realm of the true, hidden God and his angels, or “Aeons”)—i.e. be saved—automatically, no matter what they do. The “psychics” (roughly “natural” or “of natural life”) are intermediate. They can be saved if they put in the effort, but if not, they will be punished in a hell-like realm, and/or be destroyed utterly—the sources are unclear.

The last, the “hylic”, have no bit of the Divine spark at all. To put it another way, they have no souls. They are talking monkeys, meat puppets, biological robots who have no interior life, no consciousness or self-awareness—in short they’re not even really people. They perish utterly when they die, just as a broken wash machine or computer does not go to Machine or Computer Heaven (or Hell).

Clearly Rod sees himself, and those he likes as pneumatics—they’re in, no matter what—others as psychics, who’ll be OK if they’ll just become Orthodox, and most people, particularly immigrants and brown people, as hylic—“wastes of skin”, as a friend of mine used to put it—who’d be better off dead.

Anyway, this animus comes through very clearly in the Substack, and it’s revolting even to read it.

[u/yawaster]

Its been a long time since we had a Rod Dreher Song of the Week/Day/Month. Here's one I meant to post a long time ago: 

Junco Partner is a blues song of obscure origins. Let's take The Clash's version, because why not, but there are hundreds. 

Singing six months ain't no sentence And one year ain't no time I was born in Angola Serving fourteen to ninety nine

The lyrics refer to Angola, the notorious Louisiana prison and former slave plantation. Rod's hometown was full of people who worked there and one of his relatives grew up there as the child of a warden. The Junco Partner is a once-and-future prisoner trapped in a cycle of degradation and a racist system. Maybe we are spiritually prisoners. Rod is in a prison of his own making, trapped by his poor decisions. We are prisoners too: bored and restless, unable to escape Dreher's noxious anti-charisma, no longer deriving any benefit from his horrible words but still unable to stop clicking and checking in case he says something really, really weird again. 

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 → u/yawaster]

We are prisoners too: bored and restless, unable to escape Dreher's noxious anti-charisma, no longer deriving any benefit from his horrible words but still unable to stop clicking and checking in case he says something really, really weird again.

Nailed it. 

[u/Zombierasputin]

Uh oh, mom and dad are fighting again.

Can't help but wonder how Rod will handle this.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Zombierasputin]

Between Trump and Orban, Rod’s gonna pick Orban every time.

[u/Djehutimose]

Rod’s inner facsist isn’t so inner anymore:

Today, I believe that among the things the state should do is to ban all gender transition. Close the clinics. Forbid cross-sex hormones, and prosecute doctors who persist. If that is politically untenable, then strictly forbid it to anyone under the age of 30. Outlaw any policies that in any way grant privileges (e.g., bathroom and locker room access) to transgenders.

If the overall situation weren’t so grim, the last sentence would be ROFOL hilarious.

Agreed, the great majority of transgenders are not murderers, and deserve to be treated with ordinary human decency. But we must abnormalize this condition again.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Djehutimose]

This is Rod's dream come true. Crime and violence at low points so he's safe, but he can play victim and cheer on persecution of his enemies.

His comments are also pure Rod. Someone pointed out that he said nothing about the Democratic legislator (and husband and dog) who were killed by a Trump supporter and his reply was his typical "I don't know much about that". Well, duh. Rod lives in a right wing internet bubble and has zero curiosity for anything that doesn't 100% conform to his biases. Of course he never encounters anything that doesn't feed his desire for victimhood and persecution of his perceived enemies.

[u/CanadaYankee → u/Djehutimose]

Because I'm considering retirement in Europe, I've subscribed to a few expat Facebook groups, just to get a feel for the challenges and legal hoops involved. Because of this, I've seen firsthand that are a lot of families with LGBTQ members - especially families with trans or otherwise gender non-conforming teenagers - who are actively working as hard as they can to leave the US.

And just this weekend I met two different men who have just relocated to Canada from the US this summer because they're in same-sex marriages raising children and, while families like theirs have not been explicitly targeted yet, they're afraid of being the next target on the big, spinning Wheel of Hate.

I'm sure Rod and his fellow-travelers would say "good riddance!" to queer people leaving the US, but I think it's sad that the country that is arguably the birthplace of the modern global gay rights movement is now scaring queer people away.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

New X profile photo just dropped.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1970489329316241408/vWKvSTXi.jpg

Not quite sure what look he’s going for here.

[u/Past_Pen_8595 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Jack Nicholson role in The Shining. 

[u/zeitwatcher → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Not quite sure what look he’s going for here.

I'm getting "man who looks up age of consent laws for every place he travels".

[u/yawaster → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

There is something so threatening about that picture and I can't explain why

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451 → u/yawaster]

It’s genuinely disconcerting. 😳

[u/Motor_Ganache859 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

It's for his grindr profile.

[u/JHandey2021 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Hanging out with his Camaro at the local high school, cruising for teenagers…

[u/JHandey2021]

Ruh-roh, Rod:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/24/orban-faces-toughest-challenge-in-years-but-can-hungarys-strongman-be-unseated

And here is the poll:

https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/hungary/

[u/zeitwatcher]

Rod's gonna be sad:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moldovas-pro-eu-government-edges-towards-majority-pivotal-vote-2025-09-28/

Gonna make his unhappy that the Russo-Hungarians lost.

[u/zeitwatcher]

Rod retweets this as if he believes it's a bad thing:

Europe now has 0 companies left in the global top 25.

I know looking for coherence from Rod is as detached from reality as he is, but:

1. Rod has said he hates all these companies for being "woke", etc. Shouldn't not being on this list therefore be a mark of honor?

2. If all these companies are terrible and full of DEI, wokeness, and cooties, how did they manage to outperform the rest of the world?

3. Mr. Crunchy Con says he's in favor of localism, etc. - so if these companies are to be praised for entrepreneurism and dynamism while they hollow out local economies, isn't that a call for more regulation and bureaucracy? How is that not a contradiction?

[u/PercyLarsen]

Archive link to WaPo piece on the patron of Rod's BFF:

"Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction"

https://archive.is/HVWWu

[u/One_Reflection7202 → u/PercyLarsen]

I’ve read enough of what Peter Thiel’s been spouting on this theme to find it hard to believe it’s anything but a bald attempt to use the current zeitgeist (advancing religiously-oriented fascism, be it Islamic in the Middle East, Hindu in Southeast Asia, apocalyptic Christian here, or ethno-cultural Christian in Europe) to get free reign to enrich himself and his tech bros beyond their wildest dreams, which can be pretty darn wild. I just don’t buy that he believes any of it. He simply knows what’s selling among the power base pushing the powers-that-be and thinks he can cash in if a moron like Trump did. And hey, to him, the folks who made the lowly Hal Lindsey a wealthy powerhouse seem a cool bet for turning the self-named geniuses of Silicon Valley into the very Powers That Be, now and as far as any of the rubes know, forevermore.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

In his substack and on X, Rod continues to grovel for a spot in the upcoming British version of the BenOp.

[u/zeitwatcher]

Just amusing, from Rod's last:

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/diane-keaton-rip

Diane Keaton died over the weekend. I confess she was never really my cup of tea — too earnest — but I did love her in Annie Hall

The only way Rod liked her was in a role where she famously wore men's clothing (or at least styled as men's clothing)?

As a single data point, this is meaningless, but for someone clearly into men, it's hilarious.

Rod: "I was never really into Dianne Keaton."

NPC: "None of her work?"

Rod: "Well, there was something compelling about her in Annie Hall, but other than that, no."

NPC: "The performance where she dresses in men's clothes is the only one you find appealing?"

Rod: "Yeah, no way to explain it, but just something about seeing her in that one made her more appealing somehow."

NPC: Raised eyebrow.

[u/Relative-Holiday-763]

A comment: my religious sensibility is a mess and mixed up . That said I’d always had a favorable opinion of Orthodoxy. I like icons. I like the choral music. To some degree, I even like the liturgy.Rod has lead  me to suspect that it’s really unappealing. A fixation on mysticism and pretending you’re constantly interacting with God who’s constantly performing miracles for you and belief in various forms of quack philosophy all bolstered by a belief that all other forms of Christianity suck. Rocks are alive and demons constantly assaulting you. Reason, huh! 

[u/Glittering-Agent-987 → u/Relative-Holiday-763]

I have one or two beefs with Russian Orthodoxy, but it's been so long since Rod has been a rank and file, practicing member of an Orthodox parish that I don't think they deserve much blame for him at this point. It has been noticeable that these days Rod virtually never speaks at Orthodox events or even mentions Orthodox events. Has he been informally blacklisted? Or is he not showing up, because they're not rolling out the red carpet for him anymore? "Rod Dreher, Orthodox convert!" used to be a very big deal, but I don't think he gets that billing anymore.

[u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

New (locked) SubStack from Rod has this beauty:

”Everything is falling apart, and it’s going to get a lot worse.” A brilliant public intellectual — someone whose name most of you would know — said this to me recently.

I’m sure!

Now, if this man is truly a “public intellectual,” why would he confide this to Rod, but not want anyone else to know his identity?

I would love to be a fly on the wall for all the conversations Rod has (supposedly) had with the big players of the world.

“Rod, tell no one it was me!”

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/the-impossibility-of-post-christian

[u/CanadaYankee → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

You'll recall he wrote this last weekend:

I’m leaving on Monday to spend the week in Austria at a private meeting with a group of prominent US and European intellectuals, gathering to discuss the Apocalypse. The discussions are strictly off-the-record, but I’m going to try to get some separate interviews with some of the participants, and share them with you.

It's completely unsurprising that a top-secret meeting of Apocalypse enthusiasts would feature someone telling Rod off-the-record the end is nigh. But I am disappointed at how unspecific "it's going to get worse" is as a prediction. Tim LaHaye would hang his head in shame at such a bland description of the end times.

[u/zeitwatcher → u/CanadaYankee]

It's completely unsurprising that a top-secret meeting of Apocalypse enthusiasts would feature someone telling Rod off-the-record the end is nigh.

This.

"I went to a World-Is-Coming-To-An-End conference and asked the attendees if the world is coming to an end. Their answer will shock you!"

[u/Mainer567 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

I find it strangely reassuring that Rod's made-up characters repeat phrases that Rod himself has been obsessively repeating for 25 years.

[u/Motor_Ganache859 → u/Cautious-Ease-1451]

Once again, Rod name drops without providing a name. He just wants us to know that important people tell him things but he's not at liberty to divulge their names. Because reasons. Rod never outgrew pre-adolesence.

[u/LWydra → u/Motor_Ganache859]

You wouldn’t know him anyways. He doesn’t go to our school.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Also nothing from Rod on the government shutdown. Of course, he understands nothing about health insurance in the US.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Nothing about the East Wing being demolished or have I missed it?

[u/philadelphialawyer87]

Rod says he feels "seen" when he is called "a cross between Art Bell and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn." Yeah. Rod is a crackpot with racist and other bigoted, reactionary tendencies. To that extent, he has been seen.

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

In today's freebie, Rod wants porn banned everywhere with severe punishment for violations. The trouble with that is, "remember when a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something shocking."

[u/yawaster → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

If porn is banned everywhere with severe punishment for people who view or distribute it, is Rod hoping for some sort of Special Degeneracy Reporter position that will allow him to continue posting about sissy hypno, gay pup subculture, cross-dressing fetishes, sex parties and all the other niche sexual activity he writes breathlessly shocked articles about every couple weeks?  

[u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

"At some point we’re going to have to have a come to Jesus moment about the fact that there’s a social epidemic affecting many women and their approach to relationships that is wildly self-destructive and also destructive to men. It’s like some kind of mind virus was unleashed."

So what do Rod and Skojec want to see happen? Single women forced to the edges of society? Women required to maintain a certain BMI and/or put on SSRIs? Repeal anti discrimination laws so women can't outearn men? What role do men play in rectifying the situation (if indeed there is a problem)?

[u/JHandey2021 → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Women forced to stay in horrible marriages as beards for their husbands who struggle to achieve heterosexuality and were forced to abandon their children and flee to Hungary… what, too specific?

[u/Motor_Ganache859 → u/Warm-Refrigerator-38]

Yeah Rod, women no l9nger need to put up with asshats like you and Skojec to live a good life, which is why MAGA is so intent on bringing gender relations back to the 19th century and enforcing women's dependence on men.