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You are here: Home / Even The “Liberal” New Republic

Even The “Liberal” New Republic

by Zandar|  December 4, 20145:28 pm| 138 Comments

This post is in: Even the "Liberal" New Republic, Somewhere a Village is Missing its Idiot, Very Serious People

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Seems Chris Hughes broke his toy to the point where Frank Foer is out as editor at The New Republic and everyone else is jumping ship in protest.  People are resigning by Twitter.  It’s freaking AWESOME.

Jon Chait is pissed.

I expect the circumstances surrounding TNR’s transformation will be framed as a matter of modernity versus tradition. There is certainly an element of this. At the magazine’s 100th anniversary gala two weeks ago, where Hughes, Foer, Wieseltier, and Hughes’s new CEO, Guy Vidra, all spoke, the speeches took a sharply, awkwardly divergent tone. Foer and Weiseltier gave soaring paeans to the magazine’s immense role in shaping American liberal thought. Hughes and Vidra used words like brand and boasted about page views, giving no sense of appreciation at all for the magazine’s place in American life. In a comic moment, Vidra mispronounced Foer’s name. I happened to run into Wieseltier a few days after the gala, and when he asked me what I thought, I told him he and Foer won the debate.

But the conflict between Hughes and most of the staff of The New Republic is not about technology. Foer and the staff, with the exception of Wieseltier, are comfortable with modernity. They are joyous bloggers, and willingly submitted to the introduction of cringe-worthy Upworthy headlines to their stories and other compromises one must make with commercial needs.

The problem, rather, is that Hughes and Vidra are afflicted with the belief that they can copy the formula that transformed the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed into economic successes, which is probably wrong, and that this formula can be applied to The New Republic, which is certainly wrong.

Several weeks ago, Vidra communicated the new vision to the staff in what I am told was an uncomfortable stream of business clichés ungrounded in any apparent strategy other than saying things like “let’s break shit” and “we’re a tech company now.” His memo to the staff predictably uses terms like “straddle generation” and “brand.” It promises to make TNR “a vertically integrated digital media company,” possibly unaware that “vertically integrated” is an actual business concept, not a term for a media company that integrates verticals.

Hughes and Vidra have provided no reason at all for anybody to believe they have a plausible plan to modernize The New Republic. If they did, Frank Foer would still be editor. My only hope now is that one day this vital American institution can be rebuilt.

Me?  The number of damns I give about TNR as a going concern at this point equals approximately the number of black voices writing for the magazine, which is to say zero, but YMMV.  The thing survived two world wars, the Great Depression, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11, New Coke, and 74,927 episodes of Law and Order, but couldn’t handle one Silicon Valley douchebag with a giant checkbook in possession of all the common sense of a chunk of asphalt.  I guess it’s a little sad to see something like that implode but….

Naah.

Also, anybody else notice that Techbros Turning Journalism Outlets Into Huge Piles Of Shit(tm) seems to be a recurring theme of 2014?  There’s an awful lot of that going around.

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Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    Shaun Appleby

    December 4, 2014 at 5:35 pm

    Try this amazing simple trick, whenever you hear ‘disruptive’ think ‘douchebag’.

  2. 2.

    jl

    December 4, 2014 at 5:39 pm

    IIRC, the corporate holding company that brought Hostess and several regional bakeries to bankruptcy was originally a computer company, or data processing company that had to reorganize and find a new mission in life after it lost a lawsuit.

    Not sure what the parallels are between The New Republic and twinkies.
    Maybe the IT geniuses that own The New Republic now could see a business plan in Zingers.

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 5:39 pm

    OT: Cable’s IndiePlex channel has a cool movie on now. Just started.

    Night Catches Us. Recording it.

    Slate review from 2011:

    One of the more promising debuts in recent American cinema, Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us barely made a noise with critics when it came out last fall. Considering how parched we are for expressions of the variousness of the black experience, the neglect was unfortunate. The movie, out on DVD this week, covers terrain rarely touched by the culture: the long hangover from the ecstatic peak of Black Power militancy. With a subject as sexy as the Panthers, a filmmaker could easily drift into histrionic and stylistic indulgence. But Hamilton displays cool and finely modulated control. Hers is a patient film about deflated hopes, a period piece that inadvertently captures the vibe of the present.

  4. 4.

    Spinwheel

    December 4, 2014 at 5:42 pm

    You so badly want to believe that you are as clever as Charles Pierce or something. The truth that you are nothing more than a fat piece of shit who has been fired 3 times in 4 years must hurt.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 5:43 pm

    Whatever happens, I give the new owners credit for thinking outside the box.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    @Spinwheel: Why are you here and who are you saying that to?

    I don’t pay much attention to The New Republic. Had a subscription years ago, but tired of the contrarianism.

  7. 7.

    p.a.

    December 4, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    Because I’m good at 1 thing, I’m good at all things.

  8. 8.

    Hal

    December 4, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    Why does Zandar have his own troll, and do the other BJ front pagers feel at all jealous? Should we organize trolls for each front pager so no one is left out?

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    December 4, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    OT, they just announced Bond the 24th titled “Spectre” which might mean a nice trip back to the series’ roots. Also, too, Monica Bellucci.

  10. 10.

    replicnt6

    December 4, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    @Spinwheel:
    How does it feel to realize that without Zandar, you are nothing? It hurts, doesn’t it?

  11. 11.

    trollhattan

    December 4, 2014 at 5:56 pm

    @Hal: spurned wannabe girlfriends can be vewwy, vewwy persistent.

  12. 12.

    RSR

    December 4, 2014 at 6:02 pm

    Everything you need to know about Chait is that he pretends to opine objectively about education reform, meanwhile, his wife is the “Director of Performance Management and Human Resources, Center City Public Charter Schools” in Washington DC.

    http://franklycurious.com/wp/2014/08/22/jonathan-chait-should-stop-writing-about-education-reform/

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:02 pm

    I is thrilled to have Zandar back, and now have getting Dengre back to BJ on my Christmas list. He iz missed.

    And still don’t care about The New Republic.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:02 pm

    @Hal:

    Should we organize trolls for each front pager so no one is left out?

    If we did that, the trolls will starting demanding a living wage, which would raise the cost of BJ for all of us.

  15. 15.

    Yatsuno

    December 4, 2014 at 6:03 pm

    @Spinwheel: Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

    Buying a journalamalism outfit is all the rage in Silicon Valley now! Heck, after Bezos shelled out his bucks it was only a matter of time before this became a trend. Of course I have zero hopes that Paul Allen will buy out the sad sack that is the Seattle Times, not that the current owners will let go of their little conservative mouthpiece. I would like it if the PI had a big resurgence, but they seem to be so far under the radar now.

  16. 16.

    SatanicPanic

    December 4, 2014 at 6:04 pm

    “straddle generation”?

  17. 17.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:04 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I is thrilled to have Zandar back

    Agreed.

  18. 18.

    poco

    December 4, 2014 at 6:04 pm

    Ta Nehisi Coates twitter feed has been absolutely splendid on TNR.

    “When you run cover stories questioning the intelligence of 40 million people, because of their skin color, some among them tend to remember.”

    “When you call tell people that the lives of their families and nation are cheap, it has effects.”

    So yeah, TNR can go fuck itself.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:05 pm

    @trollhattan:
    While Daniel Craig is still playing Bond, they should do one movie where Rachel Weisz plays the main villain. Then they can show it to the kids: “This bit is where Mummy has Daddy tortured, and this is the scene where Daddy finds a really creative way to kill Mummy.”

  20. 20.

    Yatsuno

    December 4, 2014 at 6:05 pm

    @Elizabelle: Dengre is hugely missed! He’s done some piping up now and again (far too frequently IMHO) but I’m hoping he’ll re-emerge so we can shower him with some wubs. It’s my understanding that he is REALLY busy though. Maybe raven can get in a pastry and dog walking date with him soon.

  21. 21.

    dedc79

    December 4, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    @RSR: I thought he was pretty up front about it, at least in the posts of his that I’ve read.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    Speaking of supposedly liberal outfits, I thought The Daily Beast (which I also don’t usually read) was one, but I happened to look at it the other day, and a good chunk of the articles seemed like they were from a conservative or libertarian point of view.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:07 pm

    @Baud:
    Remember when some of us tried to pay the subscription for Balloon Juice?

  24. 24.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:08 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Yes I do.

  25. 25.

    kc

    December 4, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    The thing survived two world wars, the Great Depression, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11, New Coke, and 74,927 episodes of Law and Order, but couldn’t handle one Silicon Valley douchebag with a giant checkbook in possession of all the common sense of a chunk of asphalt

    Ha, great line.

    In all fairness, though, one Silicon Valley douchebag with a giant checkbook is a mighty destructive force.

  26. 26.

    Sloegin

    December 4, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    The New Republican being terrible? Say it isn’t so.

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    December 4, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    I hate Silicon Valley tools SO MUCH. Just so, so much. My friend married one and he just sucks. It’s sad.

    The New Republic can kiss my paisano ass.

  28. 28.

    Hal

    December 4, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    @trollhattan: Andrew Scott as the villain. I loved his take on Moriarty, so I have high hopes. As long as Madonna doesn’t do another song for the movie.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    @poco:

    Do you know what those comments refer too? I don’t keep up with TNR’s comings and goings?

  30. 30.

    kc

    December 4, 2014 at 6:10 pm

    @Spinwheel:

    I don’t usually say this, but someone should really ban this asshole.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:10 pm

    @Baud:
    The Daily Beast has always had a mix of conservative and liberal contributors.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 4, 2014 at 6:11 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    “This bit is where Mummy has Daddy tortured, and this is the scene where Daddy finds a really creative way to kill Mummy.”

    And the kids will say, “Aw, that’s just a normal Tuesday.”

  33. 33.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Ah, I see. Thanks. I guess I just caught them on a bad day.

  34. 34.

    Yatsuno

    December 4, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Becuz BOF SIDES!!! No really. That’s why.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 4, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    @Baud: The questioning the intelligence comment is probably a reference to TNR pushing The Bell Curve back when Andrew Sullivan was managing editor.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:20 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ok, that make sense. I remember the Bell Curve.

    How did TNR ever get a reputation as a liberal mag if Sullivan was its editor?

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:21 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    Crossing my fingers.

    Raven: do your duty. Engage w Dengre.

  38. 38.

    poco

    December 4, 2014 at 6:22 pm

    @Baud: Yeah, as Omnes said–a reference to pushing Murray, but also to hiring the fabulist Stephen Glass who wrote all those stories about lazy, stupid black people. TNR lo-o-o-ved that sort of stuff.

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:23 pm

    @Baud:
    From its long pre-Sully history, as I recall.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 4, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    @Baud: History. Before Marty Peretz bought it to be his vanity project, it had a long history of liberal and progressive stances. Hell, Henry Wallace edited it at one point.

  41. 41.

    El Caganer

    December 4, 2014 at 6:25 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Mebbe it’s some kind of wide-stance thing?

  42. 42.

    eemom

    December 4, 2014 at 6:25 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    after Bezos shelled out his bucks

    Since that event, also too, I’ve been getting constant calls and e-mails from WaPo trying to sell me a new subscription. It is quite hilarious.

    I suppose I might consider the offer, if I ever tire of praising the Lord each morning that I step out into my driveway and the fucking thing isn’t there.

  43. 43.

    Timurid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    These guys want to “disrupt” this country the same way the Mongols “disrupted” Baghdad.

    Whenever I visit my brother and his wife (both physicians) and attend some sort of social function with their friends and co-workers (almost all physicians, all upper-middle class)… when the discussion turns to politics (most identify as Republican, but they’re all some variant of the infamous “social liberal, fiscal conservative”) they will inevitably express their anger at ordinary Americans. In their view, much of what’s wrong with this country is due to average people being average… with all of the selfishness and laziness that implies… and the foolish elites who choose to enable them. There’s lots of talk about Americans having to “learn a lesson,” “pay a price” or “learn what it’s like to be hungry.” But this is just directionless anger. The Silicon Valley crowd feels the same way. The difference is that they have a plan to act on that anger…

  44. 44.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    @Amir Khalid: @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thanks.

    Are there any good liberal publications left? It seems like everything out there is either conservative or (at best) “mainstream.” And to the extent there are liberal outfits, they seem to be niche or firebaggery.

    No one seems to market to people like us anymore.

  45. 45.

    Eric U.

    December 4, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    back when I was in my late 20’s, I thought companies breaking shit was a good idea. Ha Ha.

    I had to quit paying for TNR a while ago. I was getting a huge discount. As long as I can remember there was something obnoxious and wrong on the pages of TNR, but on balance I was happy to get my copy each week. I guess now I’m happier that it has been destroyed than to be another tool of republican propaganda

    @Baud: TNR was very liberal, probably up to Reagan and Sully. They were openly communist, IIRC

  46. 46.

    Culture of Truth

    December 4, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    Yeah, TNR was already broken, by neocons and Glass. Peans to his past greatness notwithstanding.

    Hughes bought the name. Like when that new money rich guy in Titanic got engaged to old money but impoverished Rose for her family’s name.

  47. 47.

    Doug r

    December 4, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    @jl: are you using unhealthy pastries filled with white empty calories as a metaphor?

  48. 48.

    Culture of Truth

    December 4, 2014 at 6:29 pm

    The Silicon Valley crows feels the same way.

    a murder of crows??

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:30 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I keep forgetting Rachel Weisz is no longer married to Darren Aronofsky.

    She’s such a beautiful actress, and seems likable IRL too.

  50. 50.

    Timurid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:32 pm

    @Culture of Truth:

    Since edited, but that must have been a Freudian typo…

  51. 51.

    kindness

    December 4, 2014 at 6:34 pm

    Those rich techies….they aren’t going to let all that money burn holes in the pockets of their Dockers. No, they’ll use it to burn down others livelyhoods.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:34 pm

    @Timurid:

    I don’t understand the physicians’ comments. My sister and I have talked frequently about how much rougher it is economically now than when we were growing up, and how concerned we are that her sons will not have the same opportunities.

    I do not know that my beloved nephews are lazy or deserve to be “punished.”

    And we are solidly middle class. But can feel the floor falling away. Things we took for granted years ago. Not there anymore.

    Have these physicians an empathy deficit? Or they had it removed?

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    December 4, 2014 at 6:36 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    It will also be shown on Encore Black at 1:45 a.m. and 2:25 p.m. EST next Tuesday.

  54. 54.

    Cervantes

    December 4, 2014 at 6:38 pm

    @Eric U.:

    TNR was very liberal, probably up to Reagan and Sully. They were openly communist, IIRC

    “Openly communist”?

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:38 pm

    @Culture of Truth:

    A murder of crows.

    A congregation of alligators.

    A skein of geese.

    Where does it stop? Wikipedia on the subject.

    So: what would Balloon Juice be, collectively? Obviously, vicious jackals. But what?

    I always thought “murder of crows” referred to something Shakespearian, or some dark allegory ….

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:41 pm

    @Steeplejack: Thank you. I love learning about new directors.

    Immediately prior was “The Five Senses” from 1999 with a Canadian director who has done a lot of quality television directing too. Jeremy Podeswa. Had never heard of him; now a fan.

    I heart Indieplex and the Encore channels. A splurge.

  57. 57.

    SatanicPanic

    December 4, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    @El Caganer: I’d rather not disrupt that sort of thing

  58. 58.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I read that as “spluge.”

    I need new glasses.

  59. 59.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 4, 2014 at 6:46 pm

    @Elizabelle: If everyone else is poorer than they are then they get to feel superior and smug.

  60. 60.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 4, 2014 at 6:47 pm

    @Elizabelle: A pack of vicious jackals shredding the Village CW to shreds.

  61. 61.

    Timurid

    December 4, 2014 at 6:48 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s mostly massive cognitive dissonance. These days I just look the other way or try to change the subject, but when I bothered to argue, I pointed out that professionals like them (physicians) or me (college professors) depend on a big, fat and happy middle class for survival. If the middle class “gets what is coming to it,” we won’t have recourse to the same exit strategy as corporate America… peddling our wares to the luxury market or selling them overseas. Even if you take the wickedness and sloth of the working and middle classes as a given… the “fair” result will not be the best result, for anybody…

    They’re not even bad people. Not at all. They’re good friends, good spouses, good parents. They’ve just othered the bottom 80 or 90 percent of this country in the same way that dedicated racists would treat people of color. And that’s the real tragedy of tribalism… it turns good people into liars and thieves.

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 6:53 pm

    @Timurid:

    I am sensing that happening way too much in the privileged classes.

    Another sister is married to a guy who does very, very well. She never worked again, once they met. They live in a massive $5 million home, purchased on one income. Their previous home had 11 bathrooms. They have one child.

    This other sister has some highly unusual views. Primarily her husband’s. And all that money has been as distancing as several oceans.

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    December 4, 2014 at 7:04 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Also, they get to convince themselves that they DESERVE everything they have, because they’re so much smarter than everyone else. If they weren’t smarter than everyone else, they wouldn’t be rich. QED.

  64. 64.

    GregB

    December 4, 2014 at 7:04 pm

    A Sully of juicers?

    A Bueller of Ballooners?

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:05 pm

    @GregB:

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    A Tunch of commenting jackals.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    December 4, 2014 at 7:06 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Just thought I would mention it in case people couldn’t catch it today.

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:07 pm

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    That’s exactly it.

    This sister who has not pulled a paycheck for more than 20 years has told the rest of us that we “made bad choices.”

  68. 68.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 7:07 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    You clearly should have married better.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 4, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): they’re very hostile to the concept of “luck”, too. Remember Willard from the secret tape? “I inherited nothing!” Technically true, if you ignore son of a governor/CEO/Beltway darling presidential candidate, the Cranbrook school, and that little gift of IIRC 50 grand in stock (that some say was worth north of a quarter million in today’s dollars) that helped Willard and Ann rent a meager flat and buy an ironing board to eat Tuna helper off of.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    @Baud:

    Precisely.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 7:10 pm

    @RSR:

    Everything you need to know about Chait is that he pretends to opine objectively about education reform

    Exactly. I love, love, love that he’s whining about being “disrupted” while fawning over all the innovative, cage-busting billionaires who are “re-inventing” public education in a way that looks exactly like privatization.

    This,

    an uncomfortable stream of business clichés ungrounded in any apparent strategy

    describes 90% of the rhetoric he so admires in ed reformers. Jesus Christ. If I read about one more experiment on school children they hope to “scale up” I am going to puke. Someone should tell him to “relinquish” journalism, like he’s telling people to relinquish public education. Why is he clinging so tightly to the “status quo”? Because the billionaires are now getting ready to commercialize, monetize and devour something HE values? “Now it’s personal!”

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:15 pm

    @Kay:

    Yeah, monetizing education bothers me tremendously.

    It’s so important to teach kids to think critically. They need it more than we did, because I have never seen institutional fail on such a massive scale.

    I do think it’s different in the past 30+ years. I don’t think it’s just “awareness.” It’s cravenness and failure and unaccountability.

    It’s poisoning everything.

  73. 73.

    Trentrunner

    December 4, 2014 at 7:18 pm

    Two things to always remember about Andrew Sullivan (TNR former editor):

    1) He openly solicited for unsafe sex while HIV positive; he likely infected people deliberately who are now dead.

    2) His FIRST reaction to 9/11 was that the “coastal liberals” would be a “fifth column,” that we would be traitors in our own country.

    Those two things should go on his fucking gravestone.

  74. 74.

    eric nny

    December 4, 2014 at 7:21 pm

    @Hal: I’m volunteering for troll duty. Any front pager will do.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 7:21 pm

    @Kay:

    I don’t know. Children-backed securities seem much more marketable than pundit-backed securities.

  76. 76.

    Tree With Water

    December 4, 2014 at 7:22 pm

    Having grown up listening to decades worth of snide remarks about my home town of San Francisco, it’s amusing that nowadays Silicon Valley is on the receiving end of not simply snide, but genuinely vitriolic remarks made about it. It was a nice, slow paced, Bay Area backwater a blink of an eye ago. I’ve known many people over the years who remember when the valley was still orchards. Almost all of them, sad to say, went the way of the orchards that once filled so much of southern California.

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:25 pm

    @Trentrunner:

    Yeah. That disappoints me about Andrew, because he’s got some genuinely good impulses too.

    He’s how I found Balloon Juice.

    But what you said is undeniable.

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 4, 2014 at 7:26 pm

    Let me guess…these asshats are both MBAs. Guys who know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 4, 2014 at 7:28 pm

    @Kay:Chait can’t even perceive your point. That’s how much of a worthless Village idiot he is.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 7:29 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Here’s one of his billionaire buddies OPINING on the best way to run public schools for the unwashed masses:

    The newest bit of “wisdom” for public education comes to us from Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings, who is a big charter school supporter and an investor in the Rocketship Education charter school network. At a meeting of the California Charter Schools Association on March 4, he said in a keynote speech that the problem with public schools is that they are governed by elected local school boards.

    The billionaire is annoyed that the plebes are electing boards to run their own schools.

    Wait until they finish “disrupting” media. Chait is going to be making 9 dollars an hour.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:31 pm

    @Kay:

    Chait is going to be making $9 an hour.

    And you will not be able to pay us to read the stuff.

    PS: My millionaire brother in law cannot say enough good things about Uber. His child went to a $30K/year primary school.

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    December 4, 2014 at 7:32 pm

    @Baud: New York Magazine is underrated, IMO. Notice that’s where Zandar linked to Chait. They published the Chris Rock interview that’s getting quoted everywhere. The Vulture sub-blog is great for those of us who want to stay reasonably informed about pop-cult without having to wade through endless celebutainment beat-sweetening, and their ‘ladymag’ The Cut is rich in feminist reporting.

  83. 83.

    the Conster

    December 4, 2014 at 7:33 pm

    @Baud:

    Yes, more tranches to prioritize for investment grading- younger is higher rated since there’s more upside. The older they get the closer to junk rating.

  84. 84.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 4, 2014 at 7:33 pm

    @Spinwheel: Derp.

    Derp.

    Derp.

    Dammit, I said derp!

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 7:34 pm

    @Kay:

    Rocketship Education charter school network.

    Something else that blows up on the pad? Failure to launch?

  86. 86.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 7:35 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Thanks, AL.

  87. 87.

    Librarian

    December 4, 2014 at 7:36 pm

    TNR had a liberal reputation from the time of its founding in 1914 by Herbert Croly.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 7:37 pm

    @Baud:

    ROI. They calculate ROI for 3rd graders. I love the stern, scolding insistence on “rigor”, too. My generation makes me ashamed. No one was insisting they prove they could provide a return on investment before funding their schools.

  89. 89.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 7:38 pm

    @Kay:

    Later in the quote:

    Now if we go to the general public and we say, “Here’s an argument why you should get rid of school boards” of course no one’s going to go for that. School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years. So what we have to do is to work with school districts to grow steadily, and the work ahead is really hard because we’re at 8% of students in California, whereas in New Orleans they’re at 90%, so we have a lot of catchup to do…So what we have to do is continue to grow and grow… It’s going to take 20-30 years to get to 90% of charter kids….And if we succeed over the next 20 or 30 years, that will be one of the fastest rates of change ever seen around the world for a large system, it’s hard. [applause]

  90. 90.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 7:41 pm

    @Kay:

    “Sorry, Billy. Your performance last quarter was 3 points under the market average. We’re going to have to sell you off.”

  91. 91.

    Gordon, the Big Express Engine

    December 4, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    @Suzanne: I went to a conference at this place last month but only read this article after I attended. The description of the bar scene was spot on and hilarious. I was told in advance that I was “too old” for the women in this bar that night. I am 43.

    http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/05/silicon-valley-cougar-nights-love

  92. 92.

    Mike G

    December 4, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    Vidra communicated the new vision to the staff in what I am told was an uncomfortable stream of business clichés ungrounded in any apparent strategy other than saying things like “let’s break shit” and “we’re a tech company now.” His memo to the staff predictably uses terms like “straddle generation” and “brand.”

    It would be wrong to take MBA douchebags who talk this way, and feed them to sharks. So very, very wrong.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 7:46 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Andre Agassi. That’s his chain. He’s a public school expert too. You buy entry into the club.

    My husband loves tennis, he plays on two local leagues, watches on tv. I was ranting and I said “your buddy Agassi” (or something like that) and he said “I don’t really follow Agassi”

    Which may be true. I don’t actually pay any attention to sports, I just know Agassi is a tennis player :)

  94. 94.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 7:49 pm

    @Baud:

    That’s the best part. They talk constantly about transparency while also outlining the plans they have that would upset the dopes in the cheap seats, so can’t be revealed.

    I’ll just quote Mr. Chait again, writing on something he values:

    My only hope now is that one day this vital American institution can be rebuilt.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    December 4, 2014 at 7:55 pm

    As with so many other paper entities, it will mutate into something less identical to the copies in its archives. The digital path has repeatedly been demonstrated to be strewn with pitfalls, though. Throwing money at them only makes cash disappear. Too many publishers approach the transition with an “well, it won’t happen to me” attitude and forge blindly ahead.

    See Newsweek, which took so many wrong turns that it became hopelessly adrift.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 7:56 pm

    @Kay:

    Soon, Balloon Juice will be the only vital American institution left. ;-)

  97. 97.

    NotMax

    December 4, 2014 at 7:58 pm

    @NotMax

    If edit function functioned for me, would change “less identical” in #95 to “less beholden to” for clarity.

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 4, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    @Baud: With people like Amir and the Canadians who pop in quite frequently, Balloon Juice is far too “cosmopolitan” (if you know what I mean) to be a vital American institution.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 8:00 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    We need to build a wall.

  100. 100.

    LT

    December 4, 2014 at 8:01 pm

    Can you find a way to blame Pierre Omidyar? You can ask Paul Carr for help.

  101. 101.

    Joel Hanes

    December 4, 2014 at 8:02 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    what would Balloon Juice be, collectively?

    a spattering of posters
    a turbulence of commenters

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    December 4, 2014 at 8:06 pm

    @Joel Hanes

    A gobsmack of interjection?

  103. 103.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 8:07 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    what would Balloon Juice be, collectively

    Technically true nonsense?

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 4, 2014 at 8:08 pm

    @Baud: A skullfuck of kittens?

  105. 105.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 8:09 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    We have a winner!

  106. 106.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 4, 2014 at 8:10 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Tunch says we need to take our Balloon Juice back.

    ETA: No need to pander to humans and even worse, dogs. Balloon Juice is for the kitteh kind.

  107. 107.

    J

    December 4, 2014 at 8:10 pm

    A request for help from older posters who may have better memories than I do. I remember some years ago-perhaps a decade–when the New REpublic was going through one of its periodic periods of disgrace owing to a particularly shoddy piece of journalism–I can’t remember which one–saying something like ‘I lost all faith in them in the eighties because of their sympathy for Reagan’s policies in Nicaragua. Someone said I had things wrong, and I realized that though that was the way I remembered it, my memory was anything but crystal clear. I don’t want to be unfair. Does anyone remember better than I do?

  108. 108.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 8:12 pm

    @Baud:

    I was reading about the Red Cross on propublica. It’s…not good.

    At some point people are going to say “is there anything that is what it purports to be?” I don’t think they can take much more, I really don’t. We seem to be surrounded on all sides by grifters and scammers and cheats.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 8:14 pm

    @Kay:

    I hadn’t heard about the Red Cross. Are they commoditizing blood for vampires now?

    grifters and scammers and cheats.

    Obligatory: Oh my!

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    December 4, 2014 at 8:15 pm

    Kay

    But for only three small payments of $39.95, can protect you from those insidious entities with an herbal remedy derived from a secret Aztec recipe.

    And its gluten-free.

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 4, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    @J: TNR did support a lot of Reagan’s foreign policy moves, including support for the Contras. Peretz really worked hard at destroying an institution.

  112. 112.

    Lee Hartmann

    December 4, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    “Vital american institution” my ass.

    It stopped being that in the Reagan years.

    good riddance to bad rubbish, and that includes Leon “everyone else is an anti-semite” Wieseltier.

  113. 113.

    NotMax

    December 4, 2014 at 8:18 pm

    Arrrrgh!

    it’s gluten-free

    Bad NotMax, bad!

  114. 114.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 8:23 pm

    @Baud:

    They do creative book keeping to make it look like the percentage of donations that goes to actual rescue work is higher. They hired a CEO who was a marketing professor, and so they market….a lot.

    One of my sisters says “people ran out of ideas to make money” and I’m starting to think she’s right.

    I think that’s one of the reasons they privatize everything. They’re not really inventing anything or coming up with anything new. They’re just shifting public payments to the private sector for the same or worse good or service.

  115. 115.

    Gordon, the Big Express Engine

    December 4, 2014 at 8:25 pm

    @Elizabelle: parliament of owls

  116. 116.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 4, 2014 at 8:26 pm

    Trying to figure out why TNR matters. I’d bet the number of people who’ve read an article in the past year could comfortably fit in the empty seats at a Tampa Bay Rays game.

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    December 4, 2014 at 8:28 pm

    @Gordon, the Big Express Engine: I love that, somehow.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 8:32 pm

    @Kay:

    I agree with that assessment. The proportion of income that comes from wealth transfers compared to wealth creation seems much too high right now.

  119. 119.

    burnspbesq

    December 4, 2014 at 8:35 pm

    @Baud:

    Are there any good liberal publications left?

    MoJo and The Nation are still lurching from fund-raising appeal to fund-raising appeal. But liberal publications that aren’t teetering on the edge of Chapter 7? Not a one that I’m aware of.

  120. 120.

    Baud

    December 4, 2014 at 8:40 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Thanks. I always forget about those two.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    December 4, 2014 at 8:42 pm

    @Baud:

    It makes me nervous. I met a nice lady who wants me to recommend her to the parents of juveniles for “parenting training” of some kind. I don’t think she knows how little money these people have, and we already have public sector employees who do everything she hopes to do. Probably better. They train for it and such, and they’ve been at it for a while.

    I felt like saying “that’s already a job that these other people have” :)

  122. 122.

    Kathleen

    December 4, 2014 at 8:42 pm

    @Trentrunner: Also, too, he pimped The Bell Curve book nonsense.

  123. 123.

    JDM

    December 4, 2014 at 8:58 pm

    @Culture of Truth: a murder of crows??

    Old terminology. We now live in post-racial times, and since crows are black, there is no such thing as the murder of one. It’s always justifiable because of fear. And freedom.

    We’re all Red Queens now.

  124. 124.

    Cervantes

    December 4, 2014 at 9:13 pm

    @J:

    Not sure I understand your request but here’s something iconic: “The Case for the Contras,” a TNR editorial published in March, 1986.

  125. 125.

    Steeplejack

    December 4, 2014 at 9:37 pm

    @J:

    A quick dive into the Google yielded this piece, “Democracy in Nicaragua,” from July 1985, which seems pretty Reagan-friendly:

    After all, it is not our opposition that has led the Sandinista regime to embrace the Soviets, to subvert its neighbors, or to start down the road to tyranny. There is hardly any doubt that if the United States had been indifferent to what was happening in Nicaragua, the oppression now would be far harsher and the military buildup would be far more threatening to the peace of the region. If the Soviets and the Cubans now seem to be moving cautiously in Nicaragua, this is because they fear a clash with the U.S. To that extent, at least, Reagan’s policy has been a success. The Sandinistas and their allies were more confidently provocative when the Carter administration gave them reason to think that “anything goes.”

    There are some (unwitting) nuggets of truth, however:

    The failure of the Reagan administration to persuade even the Conservative government in Ottawa of the importance of our interdict against Marxist-Leninists in Central America is symptomatic of our more general failure among our major allies, who treat American concern over Nicaragua as an overwrought obsession.

  126. 126.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 4, 2014 at 9:43 pm

    @Mike G: It would be wrong, yes.

    But it would feel so good.

  127. 127.

    J

    December 4, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    @Cervantes: Many thanks! I feel as though I’ve been vindicated.

  128. 128.

    J

    December 4, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    @Steeplejack: Thanks Steeplejack. This is pretty damning. An allegedly liberal magazine lining up behind the Reagan administration’s determination to see every development in Central America through the prism of anti-communism. As I said above, I feel vindicated. The New Republic has in many ways and for a long time now been on the side of the devil.

  129. 129.

    J

    December 4, 2014 at 10:06 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for the confirmation!

  130. 130.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    December 4, 2014 at 10:54 pm

    @trollhattan:
    Monica Bellucci? I thought Bond movies did not do full nudity.

  131. 131.

    Dr. Omed

    December 4, 2014 at 11:38 pm

    @Elizabelle: A tunch! Yes. A tunch of juicers.

  132. 132.

    Dr. Omed

    December 4, 2014 at 11:40 pm

    We’re all vertically integrated digital media now.

  133. 133.

    Dr. Omed

    December 4, 2014 at 11:55 pm

    Freddy de Boer’s response to “Very Serious Journalists” is worth quoting in full:

    The New Republic was never anything but a warmongering racist antileft trashpile and I hope the whole enterprise burns to the ground and if you are nostalgic about it you’re nostalgic for The Bell Curve, the war on Iraq, and Marty Peretz’s Muslim Hating Neo-Fascist Jamboree. The whole enterprise was corrupt right down to its colonialist bones and if some Facebook billionaire wants to turn it into Tinder For Politico Jagbags it could not possibly suffer in comparison. Shedding tears for Leon Wiseltier’s job is like worrying about what became of Stalin’s cat. I only pray for the day that your twisted obsession with Village bric-a-brac is performed by the unpaid interns that are the inevitable future of Big Media, which will be celebrated by you neoliberal clowns right up until some 17 year old earning nothing but 3 $9,000-a-credit-hour credits literally unplugs the keyboard from your workstation. Tell Stephen Glass I said hey and shut out the lights on your way out.

  134. 134.

    Ruckus

    December 5, 2014 at 1:52 am

    @Kay:
    They didn’t run out of ways to make money, they ran out of ways to make money without doing anything of value for it. In other words rather than being productive they had to come up with scams. To cover the scams they had to come up with “marketing”. To keep from going to jail for the scams they had to purchase a few politicians to change the laws. Once they had done that, they could steal to their hearts desire with clear consciences. The next to the last step was to convince each other that their plan was ingenious and that they deserved everything they acquired. The last step is to expect the rest of us to believe that we aren’t getting screwed with our pants on.

  135. 135.

    low-tech cyclist

    December 5, 2014 at 6:05 am

    Oh, Lordy.

    I hate the “we’re a tech company now” bullshit. Just because you’re on the Interwebs doesn’t make it true. It’s like saying “we’re an air company now” because we breathe air.

    No, TNR isn’t a frickin’ tech company. Nobody buys tech from them. What people presumably do think they’re buying from TNR is insight of a particular bent. Leaving aside the question of whether they’re actually offering any of that, there’s the question of how you make that pay, and that’s where the ‘tech’ part comes in. But that’s plumbing, not mission.

  136. 136.

    low-tech cyclist

    December 5, 2014 at 6:57 am

    Oh, and organizational disruption for the sake of disruption is a really stupid-ass thing. It’s “let’s tear it all down and hope that whatever replaces it is better.” The odds of that being approximately nil.

  137. 137.

    NonyNony

    December 5, 2014 at 7:39 am

    The thing survived two world wars, the Great Depression, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11, New Coke, and 74,927 episodes of Law and Order, but couldn’t handle one Silicon Valley douchebag with a giant checkbook in possession of all the common sense of a chunk of asphalt.

    Wait – are you describing the New Republic or the USA?

Comments are closed.

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  1. The End of TNR As We Know It » Balloon Juice says:
    December 5, 2014 at 8:31 am

    […] to what Zandar discussed earlier about the New Republic, I sat and thought about what I remember about the New Republic. Here is the […]

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