A celebrated member of the cultural elite speaks candidly.

The Pulitzer has been a bit tarnished since Walter Duranty received it for shilling on behalf of Joseph Stalin.

So the fact that Nikole Hannah-Jones received it for her pilloried-across-the-historical-spectrum "1619 Project" is in keeping with the writing standards considered award-worthy by the Pulitzer committee.

[As an aside, it might be low-brow to describe Ms. Hannah-Jones' worldview as a bougie love-child of those of Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, so don't do that. We aspire to be middlebrow here. One day.]

Despite the painful flaws in her corpus--which include embarrassing attempts to deny the exact words which she spoke--she is unquestionably an important cultural figure. And she does, from time to time, take stands which are uncongenial to coalition politics--as you will see below.

Also, she is remarkably forthright in her initial observations--if less so on revision. All of this makes her both an important thought leader and reliable reporter of the thought-processes of like-minded believers, and thus, an important voice to keep tabs on.

John Sexton has done an admirable job of recording her most recent eye-opening statements--some of which have since been deleted. But screenshots are forever.

To sum up:

• Tearing down a Founders' statue is good.

• Sure, calling such actions the "1619 Riots" is an honor.

• More than 432,000 Union soldiers died in the American Civil War. Almost 40,000 of those Union dead were black. But the deaths of 392,000 non-black Union soldiers contributed nothing to freedom for black people, and to even mention them is to deny "black agency."

• The most important thing about the General responsible for the destruction of the Confederacy is that he briefly owned a slave whom he freed when Grant was destitute.

• Defending the 19th Century Grant as "an imperfect man of his time" is just like making excuses for Hitler and bin Laden.

• She's not going to comment on Grant's statue being pulled down.

• Well, ok--she says you'll never see her calling for the removal of statues of Grant or Lincoln. Which allows for these interpretations: (1) you'll never see her
  *calling* for it; and/or (2) her *objecting* to it; or (3) she might think such would be a bad idea for unspecified reasons.

• Never mind--that tweet was deleted. Too conciliatory? Boots on the ground itchy to uproot more? Wouldn't be the worst bet.

• She wants you to consider the argument that massive fireworks displays over the past few days are government psychological warfare against black and brown people because black and brown youths can't get their hands on great fireworks.

• American Indians owned black slaves.

She finished on an irrefutable point. I will just add that famed tribes fought for the Confederacy.

All in all, pretty dispiriting. But I have every confidence 2020 will find a way to lower the floor.