I can't help but think that the subservience and bad faith of Republicans goes much farther back than Barack Obama. Republicans have been tools of Big Corporations and rich people for generations. OTOH, you are right that they got much crazier after losing to Obama the second time.
Yes. At the least we can go back to Gingrich's Contract For America, if not Reagan's "government is the problem." (To say nothing of his deal with Iran re when the hostages were released.)
One needs to appreciate how pervasive right wing talk radio had become by 1990 or so.
Rush Limbaugh set the template and developed a massive audience on AM radio stations across the nation just as AM radio was looking for a way to survive (almost all music, e.g., had shifted to FM).
Limbaugh perfected name calling (feminizis), casting liberals as powerful but inherently anti-everything true straight Christian Americans like is his listeners cherished. The way Limbaugh took them down the liberals was through satire and ridicule, undercutting liberal legitimacy, and credibility. Once the lid was taken off the need to offer balanced programming (fairness doctrine), Limbaughcreated a coast to coast presence. Others followed but were never quite as influential but by 2000 AM had become a hornet's nest of MAGA style outlooks.
One thing worth mentioning is how Limbaugh and a number of ultra-right talk radio hosts owed to sports talk radio, a genre full of pure uniformed BS ranting that allowed all its listeners to air (literally) all their ignorance and actively encouraged callers to do so to stoke ratings.
[Glenn Beck had some of these ties and was also a shock jock which is essentially sport radio mannerisms translated to music based formats.]
PS
One turning point may be when Fox ended any pretense of balanced programming. E.g., Sean Hannity was originally paired with Alan Coombs. Fox found Glenn Beck too much in the early Obama years, I believe. Anyone more informed about when Fox quit pretending?
Yes. Limbaugh occurred to me as well, but my comment was already more than long enough : ) .
The bottom line is that the GOP's history of bad faith arguments goes back further than Brian's citation of Obama's administration. (That is not to nitpick Brian's post, just discuss his point about that part.)
Limbaugh himself had predecessors (Morton Downey, e.g.) but he perfected the model that dozens later emulated or pushed even further (e.g., Michael Savage or madman Mark Levin).
An even older source of right wing attacks on 20th century US liberal mainstream consensus (that after WWII included many Republicans) is all the craziness incubated in Orange County, California in the 1940s, 50s and 60s or the rantings of Carl McIntyre who was broadcast over many stations across the country.
Yes, again. Though I'll say that in this discussion the question, such as it is, is when the GOP party, itself, absorbed/accepted such craziness as their baseline M.O.
This goes back further than Brian is imagining. There's a reason one of the few times the victors didn't write the history of a conflict is the American Civil War. I posit that reason is baked into our founding, at least the bit described by the heart of The 1619 Project. White Americans simply had to reconcile, regardless of the cost to everyone else. So lies were written about the nature of the conflict and who the heroes were. Military installations were named after even the most incompetent enemies who arrayed troops against the United States.
Those are the same forces that are animated today. There's a reason Steve King from Iowa, a state who suffered losses to those wearing the gray, put a flag of the Army of Northern Virginia on his desk, and the reason wasn't something Barack Obama did. The reason was the same as why we're currently finding creative ways to restore the names of the incompetent enemy generals to US military bases.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (along with Nicole Hannah Jones) has the better of the Klein argument. Because of how deeply embedded these forces are into the American ethos, constant vigilance is required to overcome them and it is often a losing battle. Two steps forward, one step back. All that can be done is put one foot in front of the other and keep taking those forward steps.
I am reminded of how insurance companies managed to restrict jury awards in tort cases. They took a number of seemingly shocking cases like the MacDonalds coffee case, distorted the facts of the case or did not mention them and spending tons of money persuaded ordinary people, much like the ordinary people who returned the verdicts, that juries were out of control and their ability to award large damages should be limited.
The right wing propagandists have similarly pounced on actions that can be associated with the left that are bad or could be made to seem bad and, often distorting the facts, characterized everyone left of center as collaborators. Sometimes actors with left liberal views provided the propagandists with the material they needed as when speakers were shouted down on college campuses, though even these were sometimes set ups done by intentionally sending the most horrible speakers to speak in places where overly strong reactions were almost certain. Sometimes through consistent propagandizing the meaning of symbols was turned in its head as when “ Black Lives Matter” was turned into white lives and police lives do not matter. Self- appointed movement spokespeople did not help as when “Defund the Police” shouted in anger became the left’s demand following the George Floyd killing although what almost all liberals , black and white, were in fact asking for was police reform. Sometimes good things, like compassion for the homeless or for immigrants was made to seem bad as if this meant indifference to criminality. I could go on and on.
Common themes running through all this effort has been tons of money from wealthy individuals who most often do not care about the issues they are using but use them because others can be made to care, and intentional distortions and lies from people who know the truth.
The one factor left out here which has been essential has been the unquestioned allegiance of many religious believers to the right even though so much of what the right advocates and does should be anathema to anyone who takes the Bible seriously. This is rooted in the fight over abortion rights which has spread to affect other gender related issues like gender identity. The left has made some serious mistakes in dealing with these issues. For one, anti-abortion beliefs deserve considerable respect even if they should not govern the lives of people who think differently. It is understandable how some people can view the fetus as human life in the same way as a baby is. If only all the people who opposed abortion were pro-life in other resorts, like pre and post natal health care, adequate nutrition, and the like. A smarter and better funded left would be doing much more than it has to expand the definition of what pro-life means and speak to people who identify as pro- life. There may be no better time than now when a Pope seems to share the broader perspective.
The left also tends to respond ideologically to issues which are not cut and dried, like the participation of trans females in girl’s sports. It is not clear that differences associated with birth at sex are irrelevant to what makes for a fair competition. The left’s instinct for the well- being of trans people and for treating them equally as members of their chosen/ felt gender reflect important values, but it is not obvious that the concerns that trans women have an unfair advantage are unreasonable. The question in part depends on science and the science is complex. It also depends on the sport and the level on which it is played. There are complex issues to be negotiated but the debate has played out as if there are only two options. This framing is of course the work of the right but many in the left accept this framing although they cone out in the opposite side. Moreover, what is not clear is that very often on this as in other issues the firm positions of the people who get the most publicity for their views do not fairly represent than many different views within the left coalition.
To combat these kinds of problems people from the center to the left must at the individual and small group level show the lies and weaknesses to Republican right positions. They should be on X and media further to the right pointing out lies and redounding to claims. They should be staring information through FB and other social
Media not just with like- minded people but with people of different minds. An important role of leaders can be to call attention to the need for particular responses and to prepare data and other information that will make bottom up communication more effective.
As you intone, I’ve always wanted to be cautious about this, because there’s a risk of blinding ourselves to insights about our opposition.
But you’re absolutely right. The “three canonical grievances”, under any objective microscope, are simply bullshit. I’m usually reluctant to overrely on the race-reversal method, but it’s just plainly obvious that if a white President had said them — even discounting Trump’s many horrific statements and only considering the public mores at the time Obama spoke — there wouldn’t have been any issue.
IMO the decision to break with the cultural mainstream was what started the inexorable path towards the conservative movement becoming fascist. Sure, it happened decades ago, but once a political movement decides to wall itself off from the mainstream, they basically leave themselves with no option BUT to slowly gather steam until they’ve amassed an insurgent minority that gums up democracy.
An enduring mystery to me is why the powers that be on the left side did not seriously counter the acquisition/creation of the right wing media empire. I understand that there are differences in how the right and the left consume media that made a Fox News of the left less probable but what about local news, local tv stations, and (dare I mention) podcasting? I am essentially clueless about politics and media--which is why I read smart people like Brian--but even I watched with dismay when this consolidation was happening back in 2004, when I first became somewhat aware reading blog posts on Daily Kos. I don't get it.
Leaving aside the hypocrisy of ignoring the mote in the Left’s eye on academic freedom (there is also no left-wing alternative to the scientific method either, yet weak studies are held up as proving notions like “1.7% of people are intersex”, and even well-founded knowledge about greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide must defer to decades-long scaremongering about nuclear power, causing Germany to shut down reliable, emissions-free energy sources) and its persistent demand to only print what it wants to be printed (your defense of “neutral journalism” is belied by the demand for “moral clarity”), you and those who believe in your strategy would do better if you admitted some inconvenient truths about two of the examples you published that the Right likes to bring up: George Zimmerman was being sat on and pummeled, as both the eyewitness testimony of Andrew Good (“he was beating him up MMA style” and the forensics established); Michael Brown was going for Officer Darren Wilson’s gun when he was shot.
(There are many, many more on TalkLeft, which cannot in any sense be accused of being right-wing. Also plenty of dissent on bringing Zimmerman to trial on various prawfblogs, by people who understood the dangers of the abuse of prosecutors obsequiously deferring to politics *before* Trump took office)
“ A Justice Department report looked at the Ferguson Police Department and found a wide range of abusive practices, as well as “intentional discrimination on the basis of race.” But another Justice Department inquiry debunked the widely reported story that Brown was coöperating, with his hands up—saying, “Don’t shoot!”—when he was killed. And forensic details corroborate the claim that Brown was initially shot while trying to grab the officer’s gun.”
Do you really think we’re going to get *anywhere* politically without admitting where we fucked up? The answer to disputing the Right’s attempts to discredit our truthfulness wasn’t to prove them right, and now just to keep doubling down because “well, they’re much worse!” Of course they are, that’s their brand! Our brand *was* “we believe in truth, even when inconvenient”, which has been twisted beyond recognition going on fifteen years now.
I know this is now your brand, so I don’t really expect you to change, but the truth — the *whole* truth, still matters. Things are really bad right now, but if we insist on retaining the new shibboleths we’re not gonna get the votes, and perpetuating these foundational lies isn’t going to get it done!
Well, they repulse enough of the "us" who are reading this. But I think they're going to have to repulse some of the "us" who either thought they were a good idea to begin with but now aren't so sure, or the "us" who haven't been paying attention but who are maybe starting to have their shell of fatuity or complacency pierced for some reason.
Obama’s comments were pretty bad though. He wasn’t there when the incidents happened and as president he shouldn’t be pre-judging these kinds of disputes. Also, he was president of the entire United States, not just the blacks, so he had a duty to speak to everyone or if you want to be cynical to pander to the white median voter.
"There is no right-wing alternative to the scientific method. There are no partisan interpretive processes that by coincidence are equally suited to discovering ground truths."
Well, I'd say the right-wing alternative to the scientific method is evangelical religion and the dinosaurs-lived-beside-humans theme park mentality. That's had only *some* effectiveness since there are those who're fine with right wing goals and many contradictions, but can't quite sign on to the religious contradictions.
As to there not being partisan interpretive processes, that's why they created extreme right wing think tanks that, after a few years of being cited as if they're legitimate, earned (sic) the aura of intellectually defensible counter lines of political thought.
Which is not to say I disagree with the basic premise here, because I do. I just think the rot started much earlier than 2008.
Oops! Did an old-guy fat finger! Trying to to say I’m an old guy (in my 70’s) and have followed and generally liked Ezra Klein since his Pandagon days. But his recent podcasts with Ben Shapiro and Ta-Nahisi Coates were astonishing! To emphasize Brian’s point, Shapiro’s account in Ezra’s podcast of what radicalized the right was, not to put too fine a point on it – crazy. I know it’s not exactly Ezra’s style, but Shapiro deserved some strong pushback from somebody with Ezra’s brains. And Ezra’s inability in his podcast with Coates to understand the problem with his saying Charlie Kirk “did politics the right way” showed a real disconnect between Ezra’s premise (“we should show empathy”) and his conclusion (it was correct to say that “Kirk did politics the right way”).
Ezra is too concerned with his quiet intellectual unbiased pundit image now. I have for some time found him tiresome, elitist, and overly impressed with himself. He had some good ideas years ago, but now, he’s not helping.
I didn’t listen to the Shapiro or Spencer Cox interview. They seemed like they were gonna be “turn down the temperature” bs. I did listen to Coates. Man, did Klein come off as (he agrees, too) lost.
In your description, Brian, even the most fearless adherence to scientific method and the right to voice an opinion would have been inundated by this wave, yes? So blaming land acknowledgments and diversity statements for the peril we now face is unnecessary
I can't help but think that the subservience and bad faith of Republicans goes much farther back than Barack Obama. Republicans have been tools of Big Corporations and rich people for generations. OTOH, you are right that they got much crazier after losing to Obama the second time.
Yes. At the least we can go back to Gingrich's Contract For America, if not Reagan's "government is the problem." (To say nothing of his deal with Iran re when the hostages were released.)
One needs to appreciate how pervasive right wing talk radio had become by 1990 or so.
Rush Limbaugh set the template and developed a massive audience on AM radio stations across the nation just as AM radio was looking for a way to survive (almost all music, e.g., had shifted to FM).
Limbaugh perfected name calling (feminizis), casting liberals as powerful but inherently anti-everything true straight Christian Americans like is his listeners cherished. The way Limbaugh took them down the liberals was through satire and ridicule, undercutting liberal legitimacy, and credibility. Once the lid was taken off the need to offer balanced programming (fairness doctrine), Limbaughcreated a coast to coast presence. Others followed but were never quite as influential but by 2000 AM had become a hornet's nest of MAGA style outlooks.
One thing worth mentioning is how Limbaugh and a number of ultra-right talk radio hosts owed to sports talk radio, a genre full of pure uniformed BS ranting that allowed all its listeners to air (literally) all their ignorance and actively encouraged callers to do so to stoke ratings.
[Glenn Beck had some of these ties and was also a shock jock which is essentially sport radio mannerisms translated to music based formats.]
PS
One turning point may be when Fox ended any pretense of balanced programming. E.g., Sean Hannity was originally paired with Alan Coombs. Fox found Glenn Beck too much in the early Obama years, I believe. Anyone more informed about when Fox quit pretending?
Yes. Limbaugh occurred to me as well, but my comment was already more than long enough : ) .
The bottom line is that the GOP's history of bad faith arguments goes back further than Brian's citation of Obama's administration. (That is not to nitpick Brian's post, just discuss his point about that part.)
Limbaugh himself had predecessors (Morton Downey, e.g.) but he perfected the model that dozens later emulated or pushed even further (e.g., Michael Savage or madman Mark Levin).
An even older source of right wing attacks on 20th century US liberal mainstream consensus (that after WWII included many Republicans) is all the craziness incubated in Orange County, California in the 1940s, 50s and 60s or the rantings of Carl McIntyre who was broadcast over many stations across the country.
Regards.
Yes, again. Though I'll say that in this discussion the question, such as it is, is when the GOP party, itself, absorbed/accepted such craziness as their baseline M.O.
It goes back to their proto-Republican fore-fathers, the slave-owning delegates to the Constitutional Convention, at least.
It goes back to Reagan at the very latest. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who voted GOP even once since then is complicit
This goes back further than Brian is imagining. There's a reason one of the few times the victors didn't write the history of a conflict is the American Civil War. I posit that reason is baked into our founding, at least the bit described by the heart of The 1619 Project. White Americans simply had to reconcile, regardless of the cost to everyone else. So lies were written about the nature of the conflict and who the heroes were. Military installations were named after even the most incompetent enemies who arrayed troops against the United States.
Those are the same forces that are animated today. There's a reason Steve King from Iowa, a state who suffered losses to those wearing the gray, put a flag of the Army of Northern Virginia on his desk, and the reason wasn't something Barack Obama did. The reason was the same as why we're currently finding creative ways to restore the names of the incompetent enemy generals to US military bases.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (along with Nicole Hannah Jones) has the better of the Klein argument. Because of how deeply embedded these forces are into the American ethos, constant vigilance is required to overcome them and it is often a losing battle. Two steps forward, one step back. All that can be done is put one foot in front of the other and keep taking those forward steps.
As Lincoln said of the same people in 1860, for them it’s “rule or ruin.”
The "three canonical grievances" distillation is PERFECTION.
It's the racism, stupid. (And Megyn Kelly is an f-ing piece of work.)
I am reminded of how insurance companies managed to restrict jury awards in tort cases. They took a number of seemingly shocking cases like the MacDonalds coffee case, distorted the facts of the case or did not mention them and spending tons of money persuaded ordinary people, much like the ordinary people who returned the verdicts, that juries were out of control and their ability to award large damages should be limited.
The right wing propagandists have similarly pounced on actions that can be associated with the left that are bad or could be made to seem bad and, often distorting the facts, characterized everyone left of center as collaborators. Sometimes actors with left liberal views provided the propagandists with the material they needed as when speakers were shouted down on college campuses, though even these were sometimes set ups done by intentionally sending the most horrible speakers to speak in places where overly strong reactions were almost certain. Sometimes through consistent propagandizing the meaning of symbols was turned in its head as when “ Black Lives Matter” was turned into white lives and police lives do not matter. Self- appointed movement spokespeople did not help as when “Defund the Police” shouted in anger became the left’s demand following the George Floyd killing although what almost all liberals , black and white, were in fact asking for was police reform. Sometimes good things, like compassion for the homeless or for immigrants was made to seem bad as if this meant indifference to criminality. I could go on and on.
Common themes running through all this effort has been tons of money from wealthy individuals who most often do not care about the issues they are using but use them because others can be made to care, and intentional distortions and lies from people who know the truth.
The one factor left out here which has been essential has been the unquestioned allegiance of many religious believers to the right even though so much of what the right advocates and does should be anathema to anyone who takes the Bible seriously. This is rooted in the fight over abortion rights which has spread to affect other gender related issues like gender identity. The left has made some serious mistakes in dealing with these issues. For one, anti-abortion beliefs deserve considerable respect even if they should not govern the lives of people who think differently. It is understandable how some people can view the fetus as human life in the same way as a baby is. If only all the people who opposed abortion were pro-life in other resorts, like pre and post natal health care, adequate nutrition, and the like. A smarter and better funded left would be doing much more than it has to expand the definition of what pro-life means and speak to people who identify as pro- life. There may be no better time than now when a Pope seems to share the broader perspective.
The left also tends to respond ideologically to issues which are not cut and dried, like the participation of trans females in girl’s sports. It is not clear that differences associated with birth at sex are irrelevant to what makes for a fair competition. The left’s instinct for the well- being of trans people and for treating them equally as members of their chosen/ felt gender reflect important values, but it is not obvious that the concerns that trans women have an unfair advantage are unreasonable. The question in part depends on science and the science is complex. It also depends on the sport and the level on which it is played. There are complex issues to be negotiated but the debate has played out as if there are only two options. This framing is of course the work of the right but many in the left accept this framing although they cone out in the opposite side. Moreover, what is not clear is that very often on this as in other issues the firm positions of the people who get the most publicity for their views do not fairly represent than many different views within the left coalition.
To combat these kinds of problems people from the center to the left must at the individual and small group level show the lies and weaknesses to Republican right positions. They should be on X and media further to the right pointing out lies and redounding to claims. They should be staring information through FB and other social
Media not just with like- minded people but with people of different minds. An important role of leaders can be to call attention to the need for particular responses and to prepare data and other information that will make bottom up communication more effective.
As you intone, I’ve always wanted to be cautious about this, because there’s a risk of blinding ourselves to insights about our opposition.
But you’re absolutely right. The “three canonical grievances”, under any objective microscope, are simply bullshit. I’m usually reluctant to overrely on the race-reversal method, but it’s just plainly obvious that if a white President had said them — even discounting Trump’s many horrific statements and only considering the public mores at the time Obama spoke — there wouldn’t have been any issue.
IMO the decision to break with the cultural mainstream was what started the inexorable path towards the conservative movement becoming fascist. Sure, it happened decades ago, but once a political movement decides to wall itself off from the mainstream, they basically leave themselves with no option BUT to slowly gather steam until they’ve amassed an insurgent minority that gums up democracy.
An enduring mystery to me is why the powers that be on the left side did not seriously counter the acquisition/creation of the right wing media empire. I understand that there are differences in how the right and the left consume media that made a Fox News of the left less probable but what about local news, local tv stations, and (dare I mention) podcasting? I am essentially clueless about politics and media--which is why I read smart people like Brian--but even I watched with dismay when this consolidation was happening back in 2004, when I first became somewhat aware reading blog posts on Daily Kos. I don't get it.
Leaving aside the hypocrisy of ignoring the mote in the Left’s eye on academic freedom (there is also no left-wing alternative to the scientific method either, yet weak studies are held up as proving notions like “1.7% of people are intersex”, and even well-founded knowledge about greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide must defer to decades-long scaremongering about nuclear power, causing Germany to shut down reliable, emissions-free energy sources) and its persistent demand to only print what it wants to be printed (your defense of “neutral journalism” is belied by the demand for “moral clarity”), you and those who believe in your strategy would do better if you admitted some inconvenient truths about two of the examples you published that the Right likes to bring up: George Zimmerman was being sat on and pummeled, as both the eyewitness testimony of Andrew Good (“he was beating him up MMA style” and the forensics established); Michael Brown was going for Officer Darren Wilson’s gun when he was shot.
Sources:
Zimmerman/Martin:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2013/7/20/202943/953/crimenews/ACLU-Reverses-Course-on-DOJ-Investigation-of-Zimmerman
(There are many, many more on TalkLeft, which cannot in any sense be accused of being right-wing. Also plenty of dissent on bringing Zimmerman to trial on various prawfblogs, by people who understood the dangers of the abuse of prosecutors obsequiously deferring to politics *before* Trump took office)
Wilson/Brown:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/14/body-count-a-critic-at-large-kelefa-sanneh
“ A Justice Department report looked at the Ferguson Police Department and found a wide range of abusive practices, as well as “intentional discrimination on the basis of race.” But another Justice Department inquiry debunked the widely reported story that Brown was coöperating, with his hands up—saying, “Don’t shoot!”—when he was killed. And forensic details corroborate the claim that Brown was initially shot while trying to grab the officer’s gun.”
Do you really think we’re going to get *anywhere* politically without admitting where we fucked up? The answer to disputing the Right’s attempts to discredit our truthfulness wasn’t to prove them right, and now just to keep doubling down because “well, they’re much worse!” Of course they are, that’s their brand! Our brand *was* “we believe in truth, even when inconvenient”, which has been twisted beyond recognition going on fifteen years now.
I know this is now your brand, so I don’t really expect you to change, but the truth — the *whole* truth, still matters. Things are really bad right now, but if we insist on retaining the new shibboleths we’re not gonna get the votes, and perpetuating these foundational lies isn’t going to get it done!
I encourage everyone here to check out Ted Stoermer's latest substack. It's important. Very convincing on where we are now. https://open.substack.com/pub/tadstoermer/p/strap-in-what-i-told-danish-students?r=fg8vv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Also, since Brian mentioned talk radio, I humbly submit a tune I wrote in 1995 called Talk Radio. https://open.spotify.com/track/5w2yH1BJ7NFThC5Cql9sMG?si=c5d4cf3535df463b
Well, they repulse enough of the "us" who are reading this. But I think they're going to have to repulse some of the "us" who either thought they were a good idea to begin with but now aren't so sure, or the "us" who haven't been paying attention but who are maybe starting to have their shell of fatuity or complacency pierced for some reason.
Obama’s comments were pretty bad though. He wasn’t there when the incidents happened and as president he shouldn’t be pre-judging these kinds of disputes. Also, he was president of the entire United States, not just the blacks, so he had a duty to speak to everyone or if you want to be cynical to pander to the white median voter.
But why did whites have to be so touchy about it? Obama didn’t say anything that wasn’t obviously true. Sometimes the truth hurts. Man up.
1. Every time Obama did the things that you list I knew they were the wrong things to do and that they were gonna antagonize people.
2. I wonder what you think of this critique of the Democrats?https://open.substack.com/pub/morethanjustparks/p/why-democrats-picked-the-wrong-fight?r=1metx&utm_medium=ios
"There is no right-wing alternative to the scientific method. There are no partisan interpretive processes that by coincidence are equally suited to discovering ground truths."
Well, I'd say the right-wing alternative to the scientific method is evangelical religion and the dinosaurs-lived-beside-humans theme park mentality. That's had only *some* effectiveness since there are those who're fine with right wing goals and many contradictions, but can't quite sign on to the religious contradictions.
As to there not being partisan interpretive processes, that's why they created extreme right wing think tanks that, after a few years of being cited as if they're legitimate, earned (sic) the aura of intellectually defensible counter lines of political thought.
Which is not to say I disagree with the basic premise here, because I do. I just think the rot started much earlier than 2008.
I’m an old guy (in my 70’s) and have followed Ezra Klein since
Oops! Did an old-guy fat finger! Trying to to say I’m an old guy (in my 70’s) and have followed and generally liked Ezra Klein since his Pandagon days. But his recent podcasts with Ben Shapiro and Ta-Nahisi Coates were astonishing! To emphasize Brian’s point, Shapiro’s account in Ezra’s podcast of what radicalized the right was, not to put too fine a point on it – crazy. I know it’s not exactly Ezra’s style, but Shapiro deserved some strong pushback from somebody with Ezra’s brains. And Ezra’s inability in his podcast with Coates to understand the problem with his saying Charlie Kirk “did politics the right way” showed a real disconnect between Ezra’s premise (“we should show empathy”) and his conclusion (it was correct to say that “Kirk did politics the right way”).
Thank you for letting this old guy rant!
Ezra is too concerned with his quiet intellectual unbiased pundit image now. I have for some time found him tiresome, elitist, and overly impressed with himself. He had some good ideas years ago, but now, he’s not helping.
I didn’t listen to the Shapiro or Spencer Cox interview. They seemed like they were gonna be “turn down the temperature” bs. I did listen to Coates. Man, did Klein come off as (he agrees, too) lost.
I thought this response to the Coates interview was great: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/you-don-t-have-to-swallow-frogs
In your description, Brian, even the most fearless adherence to scientific method and the right to voice an opinion would have been inundated by this wave, yes? So blaming land acknowledgments and diversity statements for the peril we now face is unnecessary