Here’s a cartoon that cleverly illustrates how right-wing extremism gets mainstreamed by ostensibly liberal pundits:
New comic: Pundit Bro Doom Loop www.dailykos.com/stories/2025…
— Jen Sorensen (@jensorensen.bsky.social) October 1, 2025 at 10:21 PM
That’s definitely a thing, liberal pundits bonding with right-wing extremists over their shared experience of people being mean to them on the internet. And people ARE mean to each other on the internet, and it really sucks to be on the receiving end of a dumb, self-righteous pile-on.
But the proper response isn’t to assume the ideas or actions that attracted the pile-on deserve a mainstream platform because they’re “out there.” It’s to examine the ideas or actions on their own merit.
Charlie Kirk’s murder is a recent and extreme example of how this plays out. It’s possible to condemn the shooting without implying Kirk had anything worthwhile to contribute. The latter mainstreams extremism.
***
A Bluesky post by commenter Sister Golden Bear a while back highlighted a related phenomenon. She reposted a cite from a Prospect article about how “reactionary centrists” are driving politics in the UK to the right, with disastrous results for trans people in that country.
“In 2012, 60 trans-related articles were published by Britain’s media. By 2022, it was more than 7,500, according to figures from Trans Media Watch. The media is not responding to public rage against vulnerable minorities; it is helping to create it.” www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/709…
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper.com) October 1, 2025 at 9:52 AM
In her post, SGB points out that the NYT is playing the same role here in the U.S. Other oligarch-owned platforms and news outlets are also all-in on the effort. Now that an oligarch family has put Bari Weiss is in charge of CBS News, we can expect that formerly venerable source to double down on its reactionary narratives too in the guise of centrism and objectivity.
***
Trans rights are a major focus of reactionary centrism, and so is immigration. A couple of excerpts from the Prospect piece:
(Reactionary centrists) are people who—while not exactly supportive of the political right—tend to view it as without agency, as if the radicalisation of US conservatism is the result of people responding to the excesses of social justice, incivility from the left or cultural disrespect. So-called reactionary centrists both blamed the victims of the populist right, and spent a lot of time humanising the perpetrators.
If only liberals could understand what drove Maga voters. Reactionary centrists admonished liberals to be very careful in their language, to not call very obvious fascists fascist, lest they be further provoked. The solution was to give ground; if democrats made appeals to the centre, particularly if they moved right on immigration and trans rights, they could regain votes lost to Trump. …
This desire to meet the hard right halfway, to find a middle point, is hopelessly exploitable. In an age of radicalisation, you simply get pulled further and further to the right, while tacitly validating those values at every step…
Emphasis mine: it’s a form of Murc’s Law, i.e., only Democrats have agency, in action. The article’s author, Toby Buckle, borrows the U.S. term “reactionary centrist” to describe what’s happened to Labour in the UK under PM Kier Starmer:
The motivation for this move against LGBT rights seems to have been to take the issue off the table for voters. Morgan McSweeney, the Starmer aide most associated with the government’s political strategy, operates on classic reactionary centrist logic: we need to meet the public where it’s at and understand the concerns of defectors to Reform (while aggressively ignoring the concerns of the, much more numerous, defectors to the Lib Dems or Greens).
To put it mildly, this has not worked. The theory was that feeding the wolf would starve it. But, somehow, the beast is stronger than ever. Reactionary centrists simply cannot account for this outcome. All they can think to do is keep throwing more meat.
The only thing I know about Labour is what I read about it here from Tony Jay and Rose, but we see the same impulse described above in U.S. politics. The phrase “meeting voters where they are” isn’t inherently bad, IMO — you have to show up were voters can hear your message.
But tacitly validating existing prejudices is fatal; it inexorably moves the framing to the right and throws vulnerable people under the bus. It also doesn’t work to take issues off the table for voters.
Ten years ago, there wasn’t widespread hysteria about trans people in the U.S. Remember in 2016 when Trump said Caitlyn Jenner could use any bathroom she chose? The right deliberately manufactured anti-trans hysteria, which implies that it can be dismantled too. The same goes for immigration and reproductive rights and other issues Dems are urged to “moderate” on to win elections.
The article notes that while the Democratic Party has some members who could be described that way, reactionary centrists don’t dominate the party like they do in the UK. I think that’s true and hope and trust we can keep it that way.
Open thread.
Baud
QFT
You saw the same tactic with Hillary’s emails and Biden’a age.
Baud
A quick search didn’t reveal any elected Dem officials who could be considered reactionary centrists. Which is good, although I’m sure there are some.
Jeffro
This.
Put another way…fighting on the MAGAts’ preferred issues is a major loser. All it does is keep everyone talking about the GOP’s preferred issues (and it keeps the ‘both sides’ media from taking our side).
We should be talking about OUR priorities and noting, in contrast, just how badly the GOP sucks at delivering on our priorities. Talk right past the MAGAts and the media and keep on going.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
And the price of eggs, and Obama’s birth certificate (which we all now know was in the breast pocket of his brown suit jacket), and Kerry’s anti-war activism, and McGovern’s peacenik tendencies, and, and…
Yes, the MSM has been very bad for a very long time.
Matt McIrvin
With “centrism” there’s always this potential confusion about whether we’re talking about partisanship or ideology. The Democratic Party is pretty moderate as global left parties go. There are a lot of people on left social media who consider essentially all Democrats reactionary centrists for not wanting to eliminate capitalism. But this isn’t a position with a huge American voter constituency, and I assume what’s being talked about here is people trying to split the difference between Democrats and Republicans.
piratedan
I’m still trying to reconcile how if you can accept the science of how much more we know about people and in the understanding of ones own sense of self, why accepting Trans folks are so beyond the pale, maybe you could cite “Silence of the Lambs” as the introduction to the concept for many…. but I think it still comes down to the rural vs urban where one opens your eyes to different ways that one could live ones life and the other places you firmly in a somewhat rigid societal structure with little to no wiggle room. That kind of explains why rural broadband isn’t embraced by the south and gives credence to that old trope that you can’t keep them down on the farm once they get a taste of the big city. The freedom to explore ones own desires and to know what is right for you versus what society tries to dictate what your choices should be.
perhaps acceptance of what is possible in what it is to be human, is simply too damn scary. Not just that some would welcome the expansion but in how to deal with it on a personal level.
It’s always been a one person at a time thing for me, accepting the trueism that assholes come in all shapes, sizes, colors what have you means that non-assholes follow the same path.
p.a.
The Onion was onto this basic idea decades ago.
VFX Lurker
I’m old enough to remember Republicans fanning the flames against gay marriage to win elections. It definitely went as far back as 2004. I also remember my shock and shame when Californians voted for Proposition 8 in 2008 to ban gay marriage. Republicans didn’t care who got hurt in their pursuit of power.
Today’s trans hate feels similar. Republicans use the issue to win elections, not caring who gets hurt in their pursuit of power.
Matt McIrvin
@VFX Lurker: Yep, and I think anyone who still remembers that and supports gay rights in any regard should recognize this kind of ginned-up moral panic and understand that if it just goes unresponded to, gay people are next.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin:
They wouldn’t be Democrats then, they would be socialists. Democrats are at varying degrees of how much regulation of capitalism there should be, but they are for greater than zero (otherwise they would be Republicans), but they will never eliminate capitalism.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: It was clear in the article but maybe not in the excerpts — the “reactionary” part is trying to split the difference.
Suzanne
There’s definitely a strain of this among liberals. “We’re not losing the white working class because of racism or sexism, we’re losing them because of income inequality!”
At some point, the light will go on that working-class white men were absolutely fine with income inequality as long as they could inflict it on minorities and women.
And I say this as someone who’s deeply concerned about income inequality and what it does to our politics! But let’s not fool ourselves: we’ve always used economics as a method of social control.
Chetan Murthy
Yesterday’s successful liberal commentator is today’s reactionary centrist, eh? Ezra Klein for example. They start off liberal, and they get corrupted by that sweet, sweet cash.
schrodingers_cat
I am not a centrist by any definition neither am I a leftist. I am a mainstream Democrat who is tired of all the media gaslighting and trying to make the white bro left or Ezra Klein and the NYT the voice of the party.
WTFGhost
Yeah, the mainstream media should already know by now, sometimes you have someone who is pressing at social boundaries, because he has a musical vision (like Elvis) and someone who wants to be a marketing sensation (like Madonna) and that you should cover both sensations, because they’re popular and interesting, and, they’re not doing anything important.
When people are doing something important, like suggesting we need to “SEND IN THE TROOPS” because of generally peaceful protests, including some property damage, when the President falsely reports cities “being burned to the ground,” when evil people want a platform to say evil things, you are a bad person if you simply give it to them. Spreading lies is bad. Spreading hate is bad.
Even if it makes you money. Even if it helps keep you in business. Selling cocaine or heroin might also make you money, and keep you in business; are you saying those are as worse than spreading hateful lies, so that everyone is angry at each other, for bullshit reasons that could nevertheless result in significant bloodshed and other horrifying consequences? You saying trying to get people so angry, they want to kill each other, is more moral than simple drug dealing, where you can just not take the drugs, but you *can’t* exit a society poisoned by hateful lies, all peddled for money?
Suzanne
@piratedan:
It’s also college.
You know how we keep hearing about young men struggling and not going to college? Then why are gay men kicking ass at it?
Women are kicking ass at college. Black women, especially, are kicking ass at college.
“Going away to college” has long been how weirdos who don’t fit into their communities (raises hand!) got the fuck out.
schrodingers_cat
@Chetan Murthy: Ezra was always awful. I have been calling him Ezra Broder Klein since he crapped on Obamacare because its website crashed on the first day. He can go fuck himself and take David Weigel with him.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: They want to eliminate capitalism while typing on an iPhone and waiting for their Doordash order. They also think that being a peasant meant you had a lot of free time.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Let’s put names to this label, my usual Klein/MattY/Atlantic/Vox/New Liberalism/abundance/Pod Bro crowd. They punch anybody to the left of Bill Clinton and if we say “hey wait a minute, we’re accused of being splitters, etc). Also too, they have an economic platform that’s shedding us voters outside of whites that we should have no business losing.
Oh, and of course Klein’s most recent dumb-ass remark about running forced birther Dems in red states in order to get votes. He conveniently forgets how abortion rights initiatives in red states like OH, KS and MO have passed by large margins or national support somewhere in the 60s percentage wise.
Again, we should accept their votes but not their guidance.
mappy!
Moths. It’s the spotlight that corrupts them.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: I will not gainsay you. I only remember that he was a principal at Pandagon back in the day (but hey, I might be misremembering) and that seemed like a good site. But that’s it.
NotMax
Near future CBS?
“Tonight on 60 Minutes, Eric Trump pulls back the curtain on the escalating dispute over creamy versus crunchy peanut butter.”
//
gene108
I think there is a group of liberal-ish people, who were raised middle class, and never exposed to situations outside of their middle class bubble.
I feel they cannot grasp the evil cynicism that permeates radical right-wing reactionaries in this country, which includes the entire Republican Party, Charlie Kirk, etc.
I read that Stalin was surprised at how trusting Churchill and Roosevelt were about laws and agreements being upheld after they were agreed to. To Stalin everything was viewed through his evil cynicism about how to extract the most for his side at any given moment.
Republicans have developed an authoritarian mindset, so they have developed similarities to the thinking of other authoritarians in the past and present. Everything is about gaining an advantage now or in the near future, with no real core commitments.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
The only difference between Klein and David Broder is 6′ of dirt.
I’ve said this before, I was active on his blog, Pandagon, when he was using it as a resume enhancer back when he was a punk college student. The site was better than its head–he wasn’t they way he is now but he was also very clearly doing it and saying things with a calculated career in mind. It’s been 20 years with so much liberal water under the bridge, I’m trying to remember specifics and can’t.
He’s failed upward very successfully.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I WANT the Democrats to be way more redistributionist and anti-monopolist and pro-socialized-public-goods than they are. But I don’t think we’ll get an electoral cookie for it. I think it’s something we’ll have to do without expectation of reward.
We did fail the white working class… we failed them by not being racist or sexist enough. And that’s not a compromise our party can or should really make.
During Biden’s time in office there was a lot of discussion of, “why do people think the economy sucks when this and that economic indicator says it’s going great?” and the response is, “well, the gains are really unfairly distributed, the little people are still getting screwed in many ways.” And that’s true. But it doesn’t really answer the question, because that was also true during Trump’s first term in office, and most people thought the economy was great then! (Until the COVID pandemic hit.) If they were concerned about inequity and the suffering of the working class, why weren’t they concerned about it from 2017 to 2021 (or at least 2017 through 2019)?
I think the real answer was that about 40% of the adult US population condition their perception of “the economy” mostly on whether a Republican is President. So that leaves any perception based on real things confined to the balance of the remaining 60%. It takes a lot of suffering to actually carve into that 40%.
WTFGhost
@Chetan Murthy: If you’ve never been bullied, you’ve probably never been the butt-monkey, so you don’t recognize the pretense that they think you’re a decent fellow for listening to them, so they can mock you and laugh at you as soon as you’re gone.
“Hm, yes, it’s reasonable that you wanted to infect lots of people with a deadly disease; after all, randomly killing people is something that ordinary people enjoy doing, and, being in denial about basic science is another thing that good, responsible people do, like, hell, letting their children play with matches – when has that ever caused a problem?”
I remember the old comic strip… “POP! I didn’t have anything to do with the whole barn burning down! I just had one little fire in the corner! It was perfectly safe and… OWOOO!”
Anyway, yeah, Ezra Klein, Professional Progressive Butt-Monkey, good for him, they really do think you’re a *real* boy, just like Pinocchio, before that evil good fairy went all communist and got rid of his good, solid, wood, and turned him into a liberal squish.
rikyrah
it never ceases to amuse how those who never have had to have their rights granted by additional laws, are the very first ones to purse their muthaphuckin’ lips about how we need to ‘ tone down identity politics’ so as to not offend/upset the same muthaphuckas
WHO WANT TO TAKE SAID RIGHTS AWAY.
rikyrah
WE TOLD THEM that they would never STOP WITH TRANS PEOPLE.
gene108
The U.K. has significantly higher percentage of people that are British or Irish than the USA has as non-Hispanic whites. There are lot more non-white and marginalized people the Democrats in the U.S. represent than are available to be represented in the UK. This makes a difference in our politics.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kingdom
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t think Ezra Klein is politically centrist. I think his issues are deeper than his political alignment. He probably votes just like most of us here.
I listened to his interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates and was trying not to punch out my car stereo. It dawned on me what his issue is: he has no imagination. No concept that anything could be better, that you have more choices in life between a Bullshit Sandwich on one hand and a Horseshit Sandwich on the other. MLK had a Dream? Ezra Klein has no dreams. And as a result, he’s willing to accept all sort of awful compromises and then deludes himself that he’s analyzing situations rigorously. He’s not. Stop accepting bullshit constraints.
He’s a reporter, not a political leader, so having dreams isn’t really his job. But, like….. that’s why he gets to write about important people and not be an important person himself. Real leaders do some amount of envisioning the reality they want and getting people on board with that.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Great article in the Atlantic a couple of years ago, spelling out in Black and White, when socialism was WHITES ONLY in America, and how America had no problem with it.
unrelatedwaffle
@Suzanne: I hope the light goes on. Unfortunately, I see a lot of “the male loneliness epidemic is because of economics” takes on The Internet these days, and I’m not even that old, relatively speaking, but I’m tired.
Why “they’re racist” and “they’re sexist” is not a good enough explanation for racism and sexism, I’ll never know.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat:
Did you see Bret Deveraux’s series about the economics of medieval agrarian society? It included a fantastic deconstruction of that meme.
acoup.blog/2025/10/10/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-ive-the-no-rest-of-it/
He starts out by pointing out that, given unlimited land, producing enough food for subsistence with medieval-peasant methods really wouldn’t take a lot of labor compared to the time available. Then he points out that in fact most peasants had nowhere near as much land as they needed for that–they had to farm somebody else’s land, and that fact introduced obligations that changed everything. (And in the late installment I linked to above, he brings in the gender divide, which changes it all again.)
In fact, medieval peasants had to work extremely hard to stay alive.
Baud
Tangentially related (NYT)
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
QFT
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
clap clap clap
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Yeah. I’ve just had my life all but torn apart by a transman that decided they wanted to rob me, and covered that crime by labeling me an anti-trans bigot and sending his little cult of personality to dogpile me, then totally isolate me from ANY community. A mini-Trump.
You think this dude is going to help the trans rights movement AT ALL? He’s in it 100% for himself. He wants to be one of the Jewish ghetto police. And when they come for him, I ain’t going to mourn much. This guy is openly inviting the leopards right to his house.
Its a huge, huge problem in social media, and it makes it all but unusable for liberals. If you don’t get dogpiled by the fascists, you get dogpiled by power-hungry, terminally online “Leftists” just in it to gain their own goddamn clout. And BlueSky won’t do a damn thing to control dogpile attacks – they encourage them.
Sister Golden Bear
I wanted to note the some of results from that media-driven trans panic:
This is the future that reactionary centrists shrug their shoulders and say is worth it to gain a handful swing state voters. Looking at YOU Newsom.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
YES AGREE. We can push those things because they are good policy! They are the right thing to do and thus we should do them, when we have the power to do so!
But we should never be fooled into thinking that those things win us votes. Voters put their social status in front of their economic status all the time. Fuck, probably 90% of Trump voters did that.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Another way of looking at “reactionary centrists” is via their efforts to move the Overton window rightward on economic and social issues so that we have a defacto political spectrum ranging from Moderate Republican on the left to Nazi on the right.
Either way, corporations and economic inequality will rule the day.
scav
Odd thing: There are quite a few arguments / positions immediately above that I’ve definitely seen come out verbatim from pure right-wing pols and pundits. (example) Don’t get too wound up in one’s assumptions of personal moral and theoretical superiority / purity. That’s a game everyone can play, especially when heated. blah blah blah, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” etc. Doesn’t mean that’s not a real part of the problem you’ve got hold of. But still. Everything is probably messier and more complex.
Belafon
@Chetan Murthy: I would adjust that a little to be that they believe their success has meant that their views are correct, which kind of has some merit, but I don’t think they’re doing much introspection.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
I don’t visit Blue Sky that regularly, and rarely post anything, and almost nothing provocative. But I’ve seen the dog piling on Dem accounts, and it makes comments basically worthless.
Chetan Murthy
@Belafon: haha, well, there’s that Upton Sinclair quote (which you’re probably thinking of in the last words of your comment).
bbleh
The cartoon and some of the comments upthread made the point at least implicitly, but I think it deserves saying explicitly that a lot of “reactionary centrism” is driven by SHARED IDENTITY AND INTERESTS. Reactionary-centrist pundit-bros (and girls) tend to be [shocked face] middle-to-upper-middle-class het Whites, just like the rightwingers. They may not agree on all things political, but they certainly look similar, and they draw on similar cultural bases, and so they “ought” to be able to find common ground, right?
MAGA is largely an affinity cult, and a lotta pundits are, if not MAGA-adjacent, at least “intellectually” MAGA-curious for the same reasons.
Chief Oshkosh
@gene108:
You don’t even have to go as far as “radical right-wing reactionaries” to find the pure evil cynicism of US conservatives. Any run-of-the-mill farmer or any person employed at any level of the MIC that I’ve met in the last 50 years has been entirely cynical about every single federal initiative that had any money associated with it whatsoever. Farm relief? They deserve it, even if they don’t actually farm. Cost-plus to fund a tiny tweak on standard missile system? They deserve it, even if they know the tweak isn’t needed. None of them would know an honest day’s work if it bit them in the ass. And they are vicious if you even hint that they’re misusing funds that were supposedly set aside for the commonwealth or common defense.
And their final excuse for stealing from the taxpayer? At least it keeps the money from going to The Minorities.
So, no, these are not the fringe of the conservatives. With very, very few exceptions, ALL conservatives that I have met have exhibited this in thinking and in action.
schrodingers_cat
@Chetan Murthy: He was at WashPost when Obamacare rolled out IIRC.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Their perception of “the economy” is also deeply, deeply linked to how they perceive their peers.
Anyone who was on Xhitter last year probably saw that video of four young Australian women who worked in the marketing department at some skincare company doing a silly little TikTok dance at work. Or saw Dr. Ally Louks announcing that she finished her Ph.D.in Literature. The absolute meltdowns that occurred were borderline unbelievable to me. The massive resentment coming from men at seeing young women working well-paid jobs in a nice office, and a woman finishing her advanced degree…… I mean, I am used to people being terrible, but this surprised even moi! But it’s everywhere….. men just seething with loathing that women are being successful, independent of their relationship status. Similar vibes every time there’s videos of black women having nice handbags or cars or what have you.
“The economy is bad” when women and people of color make more money than white men!
WTFGhost
@rikyrah: yeah, why can’t white men shut the eff up about their stupid desire for more diverse (more WHITE MEN) workspaces, a chance to actually be seen and heard, so, you know, equitable outcomes, and, we shouldn’t automatically shut down a voice, just because they’re a dumbass who voted for Trump even once, much less three times, so they should be included.
So, white men should definitely, positively, shut their effing pie-holes about diversity, equity, and inclusion! They should take what they’re offered, and be grateful for it!
@rikyrah: Fuck me… someone needed to be told that? I mean, rightwingers knew it all along, so it’s only complete douchebrains like Klein who’d believe otherwise. (What? He’s been brainwashed!)
@gene108: And yet, in America, if we held Bake-Off, it would probably be 12 white people, and the producers would insist they’d just chosen the best bakers.
I think you’ve put your finger on what bugs me about Ezra Klein. I believe he thinks he’s a VIP, himself. I don’t even consider him a very good writer, but, I think he thinks he’s important, and that is precisely why he’s someone like Thune, who I only care about because he and Thune can both affect my future, to outsized degrees, and neither one of them is doing any effective thinking about my future. One wants to wreck it, and the other thinks that’s fascinating, and should be spread and shared.
schrodingers_cat
What do we call people who refuse to accept or downplay the role race plays in politics. They are almost always white.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t remember what he said at the time directly, but I’ve read credible accounts that line up with what you wrote. In any case, by that time he was just another pundit. I mean, a -lot- of people were slagging the rollout, and they were all stupid for doing so. I worked in that biz, and those rollouts of new massive social service platforms are never easy. I worked on cleaning up a big social service platform mess for a Canadian province in 2000 and wow, it was a clusterfuck.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s why one of Trump’s first and most consistent and persistent actions is the war on DEI.
Old Man Shadow
I don’t know, I think they support it. They’re just Country Club or “Sophisticated” racists. They might even think fascism is vulgar or think it’s vulgar to say the N-word, but they’re happy to make sure the only Black people allowed in their clubs are staff who are required to put up with their shit with a smile to survive.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: & @Suzanne: I’m somewhat more optimistic about the potential of redistributive and anti-monopoly policies to bring in votes. I don’t think the policies themselves will necessarily help because most people don’t bother to analyze policy, and I don’t think it will convert hardcore MAGA voters.
But I do think lots of young people believe they got a raw deal (I agree with them; they did) and want fundamental change. I think lots of people of all ages think the system is corrupt and rigged against them, and they’re not altogether wrong.
I think it’s possible a campaign focused on making the rich pay their fair share, an end to corporate welfare, etc., could work with the right messenger. We’ll never have a better opportunity than right now, with the unbelievable levels of corruption and self-dealing in plain sight.
Bill Arnold
@VFX Lurker:
It is directly fascist.
Example: the expulsion of trans people (a demonized small minority) from the USA military, akin to the expulsion of the Jews (a demonized small minority) from the German military in the mid 1930s
Chetan Murthy
@Old Man Shadow: Ezra is a racist. He’s a racist b/c he DGAF about people of color: his bank account is more important to him than their lives. He’s a misogynist: same story.
Baud
@bbleh:
Good point. They share social circles, which affects their perspectives.
Suzanne
@WTFGhost: I think we here — because we are politics nerds — try to describe a lot of our differences on the familiar (to us) spectrum of left-right, or authoritarian-libertarian. But those aren’t the biggest differences between people. The OCEAN personality traits, or Moral Foundations Theory, or any number of other frameworks probably shed more light.
Ezra Klein is probably just as into economic redistribution as all of us here. He’s pro-choice and pro-trans rights. His personal politics aren’t his problem. He has other problems! More significant problems!
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: You might be right. But “the right messenger” is the key that unlocks the door. “The right messenger” will combine wise policy proposals with all the dumb “good vibes” shit that I get roasted here for saying really matters.
Again, at the level of politics we are talking about….. one must be good at everything. Almost flawless.
WTFGhost
Alternately, white men have been told the results they see, that are due to income inequality, are actually due to DEI. “No, no,” some will say, “these jobs are the sucky jobs you gave to women and minorities, because you weren’t allowed to hire a white man to work for you!” and they’ll be told “these are all the jobs there ever were, you lazy good-for-nothing, and if you don’t like it, there’s another whiny person begging for it!”
You’d see roughly the same behavior from those who are willing to steal jobs from women and minorities, because they think they (as white men) were cheated, because jobs only go to “DEI hires;” as you would from men who don’t think women and minorities need jobs, not like a white man, who wants a babymama and a nice car, needs one.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Don’t we all!
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
So true.
Which is why the DEI bullshyt just makes me roll the eyes.
AS IF a non-White person from any of these institutions got their degrees in crayon from the DEI entrance.
FOH
TONYG
Yup. But regarding Bari Weiss become the queen of CBS News … I suspect that now CBS News will become a far-right propaganda organ like Fox News or NewsMax, not “centrist” at all. I’ve read Bari’s “Free Press” content from time to time, and there’s nothing remotely “centrist” about it. It might as well be from Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity.
Chetan Murthy
White men and their unions -never- supported minorities and women getting jobs, getting good jobs, their rights at work. None of that. Melinda Cooper in her book _Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance_ has a big focus on this. A big way that the neoliberals got white men onside, was by arguing that minorities and women were taking -away- from them, and needed to be stopped.
Everything that women got in the workplace, they had to get by fighting for it, and men -never- helped. Women had to fight for it all alone.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
You were one of the first people on this site to nail that the goal of these right-wing men is to drive women out of the public sphere. I am phucking enraged as to what the Drunk DEI Secretary of Defense has been able to do to all those women in higher positions. Women who were obviously more qualified than a phucking drunk azz Fox tv show host, whose highest rank was in the phucking National Guard.
JML
@Bill Arnold: it really is. The right-wing pushes trans hate because they are seen as a small minority without the ability to punch back, a group that isn’t known or well-understood by large part of the population, especially their voter base. Easy group to “other” and blame. It’s disgusting, bigoted, hateful, and shameful.
And it’s been historically successful too many times to go away easily. Bastards.
The reactionary centrists have a lot of old-school conservative in them. They don’t want things to change too quickly. They’re status quo people, because they don’t care enough about the people who are struggling the most (unless it’s something they can use to advance their own careers, it seems). Pretend things aren’t so bad. keep the boat from rocking, because they’re in it.
Not a fan.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: I actually had a white dude I worked with express surprise that I was higher on the org chart than he was. I told him, “Maybe I’m really good at my job” and he shut up.
Lots of nerd dudes think that being technically strong at their jobs is sufficient for advancement, and they hold the soft skills in disdain. The real superpower is being technically strong and developing the soft skills.
Geminid
Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor has run a lot of TV and radio ads pounding Democrat Abigail Spanbergeron on the transgender/public schools issue.
According to a Christopher Newport University poll released last week, it’s been money wasted. When likely voters were asked who would better handle the transgender issue, Spanberger had a plus 13 percent margin over Republican Winsome Sears.
Likely voters were also asked to choose “top issues” from a menu of choices. A mere *three* percent ranked transgender issues as a top issue. This makes me think that Sears’ messaging may have worked against her.
ArchTeryx
@Suzanne: It can be tempting as a white guy if you’re shut out of the field you studied 20 years for. But I recognize the truth.
The problem isn’t women, minorities or foreigners. The problem is that the U.S. has NEVER cared about science like China, India and Europe have. We put out an enormous number of grants, but deliberately set it up so only about 10% of the people who graduate get a job in bioscience research. The rest are left on their own. Other countries? They send their best here to get educated, and the government places them in appropriate jobs after they get their degree. They don’t want their newly minted PhD wasted.
Us? We don’t care. All the professors care about is their cheap grad student labor, and what happens to said labor after they graduate is not their problem. So vast numbers of PhDs come out with zero chance of getting a research job in ANY sector.
TL;DR: The problem is a corrupt system, not that some women, minorities and immigrants benefitted from it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TONYG:
I assume you’re aware of John Oliver’s 30-minute takedown of her?
youtube.com/watch?v=gieTx_P6INQ
Here’s another, shorter one, which actually uses a Joe Rogan interview with her to show what she is.
x.com/fbastiat17/status/1975208139336359980
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: For what it’s worth, I’ll never tell you vibes don’t matter. I don’t like talking vibes, because they’re meaningless to me. (They’re what *normal* people feel. Not me.) But my frustration shouldn’t turn into your problem. Policy, and vibes, are both necessary. The country is full of hate, bigotry, and a sense that an enemy needs to be harmed, maybe killed, and that has to change. Vibes will change that, if anything does. Sane policy proposals won’t because Republicans aren‘t sane, and therefore won’t be satisfied, even if we reform health care with a Republican plan.
Sister Golden Bear
Really good piece about the impact of the MAGA-driven anti-trans hysteria, especially on those of us who intentionally make themselves visible, How Trans Visibility Became a Trap (archive.ph version here).
and to add insult to injury:
I too had a blog chronicling my transition to promote trans visibility—although I intentionally kept anonymized*—but it too has disappeared after a database problem, and I’m debating whether to spend the time and money restoring it. I’m considering substitute teaching to get by, but having to take into consideration whether, as someone who’s “visibly trans,” to what degree am I willing to take the potential risk of being doxxed by LibsOfTiktok just for being who I am.
They’ll still need to pry the Pride flag in front of my house from my cold dead hands, but as a recent survey found, many LGBTQ+ people, and more than 80% of trans/nonbinary folks surveyed, have taken steps to become less visible because of the political climate. OTOH there’s also been a surge in those of us doing LGBTQ+ advocacy and building community—but it’s about being selective in how and where we’re visible.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I hope you’re right but I suspect particularly that many young men will get pissed off the moment they see women benefiting.
Baud
@Geminid:
Good. Hopefully if it stops working, Republicans will stop trying and move onto something else.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Golden Bear: And that is why folks like Incorgnito will be first in the camps. They aren’t promoting trans visibility or LBGTQ+ pride; they’re promoting themselves as thoroughly as any grifter, and they’re happy to throw other trans people and/or their allies under the bus to gain more power.
He’ll be the biggest frog in his pond — until the herons arrive.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: You don’t have to be a historian/expert to figure out that the meme is unadulterated nonsense.
We are being ruled and dominated by stupid people.
Sister Golden Bear
@VFX Lurker:
@Bill Arnold:
It’s both these things and more. They do genuinely hate us at least in the streets—lots of them simultaneously lust for that sweet, sweet girl cock in the sheets behind closed doors.
rikyrah:
We trans people are the canaries in the coal mine.
Deputinize America
I hate that I like Steve Mnuchin movies as much as I do.
laura
@Baud: if you’re looking for reactionary centrists in the Democratic party, look no further than congressman; and testicle cozy for the tech bro set; Ro Khanna. He’s been this way from jump by design since playing the ageist card against actual progressive Mike Honda who’s constituent service to the not silicon valley wealthy is still an example of actual working class progressivism. In conclusion, we have a couple few like that, like Ro K., happily move that Overton window to the right because who’s interests are being served- fuck those guys. Cui bono remains a handy guide.
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: I’m not saying I dislike Ezra Klein as a person. I’m saying I’ve seen way too much butt-monkey energy in him, where he apes the behavior of his soi disant “betters” and they applaud him, and he accepts their affection for him with warm gratitude, these are GOOD PEOPLE, who REALLY CARE. Then he leaves, they wait ten seconds, “OMG OMG HE USED THE DYING WOMAN WHO NEEDS AN ABORTION! BWA HA HA HA HA! LIKE THAT’S MORE IMPORTANT THAN US USING ‘high abortion rates among minorities is GENOCIDE!’ AS A TALKING POINT! WHAT A MORAN!!”
Because he’s not holding good faith discussions, he’s dutifully unpacking propaganda, and rebroadcasting it, because it’s effective propaganda, that people want to listen to, so, repeating it can’t help but spread the hateful message the originator wanted it to spread! So, he spreads it.
Do I think he’s a dupe? Yes. Do I think he’s evil? No. But I think he’s just smart enough to be unable to realize how stupid he can be. A truly smart progressive would point out how only a really stupid person can be unable to unpack the lies Republicans are telling. “Seriously, guys, you should be insulted. Trump telling you boys are turned into girls in school? Come on, you know that’s BS! And yet, he expects you to believe it, to repeat it, and to praise him as unusually smart for thinking up a lie a six year old would be ashamed of.”
That’s why he bugs me. I think he doesn’t realize what role he’s playing, and therefore, is playing it badly, and worse, ineffectively. I think he’s being bullied… but, he’s paid far too much to take advice from someone who knows his bullies.
Chetan Murthy
Your opinion of him is kinder than mine. I think he doesn’t care what role he’s playing: all he cares about is that the checks get cashed.
Professor Bigfoot
White people.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Chetan Murthy
@Professor Bigfoot: now do misogyny *grin
brendancalling
Having been “the receiving end of a dumb, self-righteous pile-on” when Rumproast was still a blog (is that still a blog? I’m on my work computer), I can tell you it was quite sucky to go through that. [And to the person who posted there then and now posts here, I have forgiven you but I have NEVER forgotten how shitty you were to me, or how you dragged the memory of my aunt who was dying from Alzheimers at the time–that was seriously shitty and contemptible behavior.]
Anyway, being on the receiving end of that didn’t make me a right winger. It made me decide that some left wingers can be shitty people, and I went on with my life.
PJ
@Suzanne: I don’t think of Ezra as a reporter – has he ever done actual journalism, as in extensively researching a subject, interviewing numerous people with different perspectives, or connecting it within the context of the times? Everything I’ve ever seen from him (since the ’90s) has fallen into punditry – the only people he seems to talk to are the wealthy and powerful (or fellow pundits who also are seeking influence).
Ezra wants to be (and is) influential amongst the wealthy and powerful precisely because he tells them what they want to hear. I’m sure he thinks of himself as a liberal, but everything he does is in support of making the wealthy wealthier and giving more power to the powerful (which is why he was compelled to kneecap Biden last year.) Being able to imagine a different world, where the wealthy and powerful are less wealthy and powerful, and the lives of the public as a whole are improved, would only be a handicap to him.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne:
Yep. It runs deep, going all the way back to IBM where if you were sufficiently awesome programmer you could ignore the company ban on facial hair and requirement to be a tie. Along the way it morphed into the idea that if you were good enough that you could get away with lacking social social to being jerk/asshole, and then to the notion that being a jerk/asshole without any social skills must be proof that you’re a 10x programmer.*
*The mostly mythical “10x programmer” is someone who’s more productive than 10 programmers combined. Though this overlooks many of the downsides with these folks that make having on your team far less efficient than you’d think.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: And funnily enough, as you have pointed out before, just as women (especially Black women) and gay men are outstripping white guys in achievement at all levels but particularly when it comes to college education, OUTTA THE BLUE, COMPLETELY COINCIDENTALLY the value of a college degree gets denigrated in the eyes of the dominant culture, and “trade school rules” and “oh noes, what about our white boyz 2 mens, what’s wrong, how can we skew the culture back to privileging them so they can WIN again?”
And then we get Trump, Kegsbreath, Kennedy et al.
It don’t take a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing, as some poet or other opined in the sweet bye and bye…
Hildebrand
@bbleh: I was thinking the same thing – so many of the reactionary centrists are white guys of means. Their money, privilege, and position insulates them from the worst depredations of the maga knaves, and thus they can sit back and pontificate on ‘how things should work’.
I find them all deeply corrosive to a system that should function for all people.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: That was Barack Obama; and look at how he’s discussed today: “He’s missing!” “He needs to do more!”
Never hear that about GWB or Bill; and we’ve got “Palestinian suporters” heckling FORMER Vice President Harris.
And somehow, it’s always white people saying and pulling this shit.
rikyrah
@unrelatedwaffle:
I have written that those articles bore me because it never occurs to the writers, or the people going on tv talking about it..
TO COME UP WITH THE SOLUTION OF TELLING THESE MEN TO GO GET HELP.
Improve themselves.
Make themselves more appealing as partner material.
I tell Peanut all the time, the main reason why she needs to go to college and find herself a career, is because she doesn’t need to be beholden to any man.
Men don’t understand. They aren’t competing against other men for a woman’s attention. They are competing against her peace of mind. And, a lot of them all coming up short.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Are the people following Harris around white? I haven’t seen a photo. I just assumed they were Palestinian or of ME descent.
Deputinize America
You knew this was coming.
theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/oct/14/donald-trump-government-shutdown-national-guard-javier-mile…
Steve in the ATL
@ArchTeryx:
The moment I read this, there was a flash of lightning followed by a dramatic thunderclap! Of course, I was reading it in a Vincent Price voice….
Baud
@Deputinize America:
Hopefully the Anti deficiency Act statute of limitations goes through 2029. That would be a sweet prosecution.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chetan Murthy: ALMOST all men. Enough that, well, any woman is only rational to assume asshattery from any one of us she runs across. So…
”It’s men, the stupid, greedy, entitled, grasping, ignorant, shitheads!”
(obligatory #NotAllMen ;^D )
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@PJ:
He never trained to be a reporter. As I’ve mentioned before, back in his college days when he started the Pandagon blog, it was clear he wanted to be an opinion writer, a pundit, a PLAYUH in center-right, elite Dem circles.
He’s massively succeeded in becoming an integral part of what RaflW calls “The Centrist Bullshit Machine”. His bullshit “abundance” rebrand of Reaganism is just another example of that, being a sock puppet No Labels-esque effort led by billionaires to divide and conquer the left.
Klein (and the rest of his ilk) is emblematic of a certain kind of man in media. Incurious while thinking he’s open-minded, condescending while ignorant of his of ignorance. It’s an intellectual exercise for him, as if that’s a marker of his “journalistic” professionalism rather than an expression of his privilege.
He (and they) are comms guys. He’s not an intellectual, or a journalist, or anything of substance. He uses whatever intellect he has to try to craft persuasive arguments to sell the agenda of financial & tech billionaires, eugenicists, real estate investment trusts, and Peter Thiel.
Perhaps less sinister, his messaging is all about making those liberals among the richest 10% of Americans (who collectively now own 67% of the nation’s wealth) feel good about themselves.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Aren’t Arab Americans considered “white?”
Didn’t they actually have a court ruling that they were?
Like just because the folks in Dearborn were Muslims of Arabic descent didn’t mean they didn’t consider themselves “white” and vote accordingly.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I doubt most white people consider them white.
Steve in the ATL
@Professor Bigfoot: until they try to join a country club!
Harrison Wesley
SCOTUS takes up the Voting Rights Act case tomorrow.
Ishiyama
@Bill Arnold:
Attacking Trans people was also an early Nazi thing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft
(That was my first thought when the issue was raised in the 2024 election.)
rikyrah
Now, this video was quite powerful and informative from this farmer channel.
ICE Raids Are Only Half The Story
The rage I felt while watching this…
youtu.be/zdWrHb8b-c0?si=FHUGwhN2BV5m3v0B
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I guarantee it.
rikyrah
Chris Christie (@GovChristie) posted at 0:19 PM on Mon, Oct 13, 2025:
The Department of Justice is no longer the premier prosecuting office in America. What it is now is a Capo regime who goes out and executes hits when directed by the Don to do so. That’s what it is. t.co/7KYxUyTopo
(https://x.com/GovChristie/status/1977786323063783850?t=U0EXCA22Cq2zd9xB3ZJpcQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 0:05 PM on Tue, Oct 14, 2025:
Powell on Trump’s immigration policies: “Stronger policy than most people had expected. We’ve seen a very sharp decline in growth of the labor force and in and people entering the country … new people that come into the workforce create supply but they also create their own t.co/a4LdZ7wcBn
(x.com/atrupar/status/1978145118923231387?s=03)
Soprano2
@Suzanne: The way I’ve heard this expressed is that an engineer who can also write and communicate with regular people can write their own ticket.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: perhaps these folks spend too much time with third way types? You know the kind of people who support absurd economic policies (like hey, let’s give billionaires another $4 trillion and tax breaks for our private school bills!) because they already have buck and want to keep up with the Joneses?
Rural America believes cities are dens of iniquity because that is what their radios tell them all day long (& possibly their local news too). People come into rural America and rob them blind too with Ponzi schemes and grifts out the wazoo. We cannot win there if we don’t try to play there. We have largely abandoned that field for no good reason imho
Rural Americans do have empathy even if the gop is desperately attempting to beat, frighten and terrorize them out of it.
This president throws word ketchup at the wall until something sticks. We should do less studying and more standing tall for what we believe.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Perhaps not, but what’s important is that they think of THEMSELVES that way, and act and vote accordingly.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Chetan Murthy
@rikyrah: Yes! Sarah Taber breaks it down. These farmers want -slaves-, and Trump’s gonna give that to ’em!
trollhattan
IDK if I believe “all politics is local” but am chuffed at the thought my termed-out former state senator is running against a suburban Trumpie twerp, whose seat is jeopardized by November’s redistricting proposition.
Doctor Pan is a good guy and would be a huge addition to the House.
Fun fact: RFK Jr made his infamous “vaccines are a holocaust” comment appearing in Sacramento to fight Pan’s mandatory vaccination bill. Which passes so in conclusion, fuck RFK Jr.
Omnes Omnibus
I believe the MSM bias towards the GOP is due to a few factors. First, corporate ownership of the news media. They ultimately do what their bosses want. Second, the view from nowhere attitude and the cult of the savvy. This means that reporters who may be liberal voters in their own lives, etc., end up saying “opinions differ” or both-sides things. This ends up favoring the people who are wrong/just plain lying.
Also, the Democrats are a center-left party. Leftists will always be disappointed. And the right will continue to portray the center-left as leftist.
tobie
@Betty Cracker: It’s interesting that “anti-trust” doesn’t excite people but “anti-monopoly” does. The concept is just more familiar. What could be more “apple pie” than insisting that competition is good?
Chetan Murthy
@Soprano2: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to get thru to people?” I was literally asked this question by a -friend- (a real friend, don’t mean to put that in air-quotes or something). I didn’t understand it. All I understood was “what is correct, and what is incorrect”.
Geminid
@Baud: The way I see it, a good poll is worth a dozen Ezra Klein columns.
I stopped reading op-ed pieces by people like Klein years ago. I guess he’s still important because I hear about him all the time, but I think he and his ilk have very little to offer.
One of the funnier things I saw last month was Klein following Josh Marshall’s take on the Democratic strategy for the Continuing resolution. It was like Klein saw Marshall catching the political wind, so he trimmed his own sails accordingly the next day.
Chetan Murthy
Tell me you [not you specifically, the general “you”] slept thru Freshman American History in high school without telling me.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: Promoting visibility worked for cis gay and lesbian people, or at least has up to the present moment (no guarantees about next year or the year after– and it’s not to say they weren’t also in great danger).
Maybe that’s about population critical mass? Gay and lesbian people are a larger minority.
Old School
@brendancalling:
Doesn’t look like it. At least, I can’t find a trace of it.
Sorry you went through that.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, I stopped with pundits a long time ago. The average BJ commenter is more insightful.
tobie
@Chetan Murthy: I was a lousy history student, and if you asked me what occurs to me with anti-trust, I’d say the break-up of Standard Oil. I should know more.
Chetan Murthy
@tobie: Would you say that you know that “anti-trust” is the same as “anti-monopoly” ? B/c that’s all I mean.
TONYG
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thanks. John Oliver is great.
TONYG
@tobie: The AT&T breakup in the early eighties was big too.
ArchTeryx
@brendancalling: Exactly. Some left-wingers are just as much of a power-hungry narcissist as Trump is. They just have a lot smaller a pond to take out their need for power in, but they’re just as bad if you have to deal with them.
TONYG
@Baud: The fact that The New York Times has been paying Ross Douthat to churn out his lousy columns for sixteen years is … interesting.
tobie
@Chetan Murthy: Aha, yes, I know that much. It’s basic vocabulary.
Baud
@TONYG:
Maureen Dowd says, hold my weed.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: who would you say is the median B-J commenter?
tobie
A really disturbing article has appeared in Politico. Someone got hold of text messages between members of the Young Republicans. They’re racist, sexist, anti-semitic, homophobic, transphobic. Vile stuff. Carl Quintanilla has some excerpts and a link on BlueSky.
bsky.app/profile/carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3m36aq67n5c2i
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Someone who thinks they should be ranked higher.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud: I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or to be scared for the future of our society.
oldgold
If you want a good laugh, watch this. Inspired.
youtube.com/watch?v=bw5zxdSObso
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Most white people absolutely do not think so. Islamophobia is real and significant.
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: What you said. Also his degree is not in the hard sciences, his degree is in political science. I bet he can’t solve a second order differential equation if his life depended on it.
His only job has been being a blogger and an op-ed writer. He has expert opinions without being an expert on anything.
Baud
@oldgold:
Nice. Thanks.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Whoa. Let’s keep it civil here.
rikyrah
THEE ENTIRE PHUCK
Is PBS Okay?: “Masterpiece History” Might Be Erasing Slavery From The American Revolution
youtu.be/GAKX0VDh9TY?si=I7XlxSfM-sRzdMtB
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Are you going to give me a sermon on how to comment?
oldgold
The MAGA response to Portland is getting way beyond parody.
Today, Mike “Pastor” Johnson said this (I am not making this up) about the “emergency” naked bike ride:
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I commented before you edited. I was referring to your comment on solving math equations, pretending it was a low blow.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I know, I was teasing. FWIW I don’t think your college major determines whether you will grow up to be a nitwit. That is just lazy analysis, the kind that pol sci major Klein indulges in.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Barack Obama, being a generational talent, was a master of vibes. And that is in no way denigrating his other skills. He is, quite simply, good at everything.
Honestly, I see the whining that “he’s missing! We need him!” as a bit of a tell on ourselves that we haven’t dug deep on our own young talent pool to find the next one. The Republicans have historically had more success with elder statesman types, whereas the Dems seem to have done better in recent decades with fresh upstart types. Instead of trying to call on Obama, who deserves a goddamn break….. let’s elevate our strongest young talents. We should be confident, IMO. As Omnes has wisely said, this is the time to try things out.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, my degrees ain’t in the hard sciences and I couldn’t solve a second order differential equation if my life depended on it.
Of course I married someone in the hard sciences who tutors stuff like that so if I’m ever pressed, I better hope she’s around.
Looks like I dodged a bullet and didn’t grow up to be a nitwit although I’m sure there are plenty who disagree with that.
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Well you don’t need a second order differential equation to figure out that Ezra Klein is full of it.
You are doing fine!
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: that sounds like the caption to a New Yorker cartoon
cain
@VFX Lurker:
Fox news watchers will distribute all the talking points. If Kennedy said water causes autism and to stop drinking it these people will absolutely tell everyone to stop drinking water and instead drink urine from horses.
trollhattan
@oldgold:
Big “Cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria!!” vibe from Pastor Mike.
What a waste of flesh.
Nym
@Chetan Murthy: I think Klein and Yglesias started off as Bush-supporting Centrists, us liberals were in the street protesting the illegal invasion and getting called dirty names by the mainstream media. (‘Why do liberals hate America so much?’, as another Centrist named Klein famously asked.)
(I am about 25% certain that Klein is in fact a closet Republican who’s just trying to undermine liberal causes from within. After all he works at the NYT.)
Dave
@PJ: Important point that he talks to mostly the well off and connected.
It’s very easy to rationalize all kinds of things when the system is doing all right by you and your cadre.
They can from on high grab that perhaps the system needs a few tweaks but anything beyond that is heresy of the highest order.
Affinity bias certainly plays a role there as well
JML
I’m not even a little surprised. College Republicans have embraced an ethos of “I get to be as mean and insulting and offensive to whomever I want” and then cry about oppression if they get called on it for 30+ years. Organizationally they embraced the “it was just a joke” response from Limbaugh early on and have tried to use free speech as a sword for decades. (Turning Point USA was simply the logical conclusion)
It’s an organization that’s overwhelmingly white, male, and toxic AF. Literally none of this surprises me, though it still manages to disgust me.
Harrison Wesley
@oldgold: No doubt he watched the whole thing, several times…..
Harrison Wesley
@cain: Are you saying you don’t do that already?
Melancholy Jaques
@schrodingers_cat:
Years ago I predicted Ezra Klein would be the Richard Cohen of his generation. I stand by that.
Matt McIrvin
@oldgold: To Mike Johnson, nakedness is as threatening as getting beaten with a pipe.
MisterForkbeard
@tobie: Locker room, etc.
The sad thing is, some of them even acknowledge that this will be a problem if it ever got leaked. And then they kept doing gas chamber and nazi jokes.
Old School
Trump bombed another boat.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: That reminds me: according to this morning’s Politico Playbook, Mike Johnson was going to hold a news conference at 10 this morning. I wonder how that turned out.
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
The online hatred of Taylor Swift is the best example I can think of. I made the mistake of getting into an argument over whether the fact that her albums are popular means she is wringing every last cent out of her fans. And God for fucking bid she goes to see her fiance play football.
Some writer of note, I don’t remember who, remarked that GameGate was a sign of things to come but we didn’t realize it. I know I didn’t, I barely knew what it was and felt no need to investigate because I don’t play any games.
MisterForkbeard
@JML: I was at a relatively conservative and religious college in the 00s, and even there I was continually astounded at the college republicans clubs. Being Republican was fine, but the people who joined that club joined it specifically to be assholes.
Bonus points if they could be assholes to women or minorities, and their events were mostly designed to give them a safe space to be racist/sexist shitheads without allowing anyone to ask them to stop. Being asked to stop resulted in cries of censorship, smirking at you the whole time.
Castor Canadensis
Offtopic: Ken Klippenstein leaks “Feds Think Protests Hide Terrorism”, re a memo to law enforcement across the US.
kenklippenstein.com/p/leak-feds-think-protests-hide-terrorism?utm_source=post-email-title&publi…
Baud
@Old School:
More pathetic than Reagan invading Grenada.
schrodingers_cat
@Melancholy Jaques: Excellent prediction! Give this man his own NYT column.
Harrison Wesley
@Old School: Who is carrying out these strikes? Don’t they know this is a war crime? Or maybe they don’t care.
Baud
Via Reddit
Melancholy Jaques
@rikyrah:
I’ve tried to make the point about the demand side, but no one wants to hear it. I bet landlords and grocery store owners in cities like Los Angeles and San Bernardino are aware of it.
There are supposedly around a million unauthorized residents in Los Angeles County. If they are consuming just $50 for food, beverage, and such each week, that is $2.6 billion with b drop in annual revenues. That means layoffs & store closings.
WaterGirl
@Nym: Welcome!
Can you please choose a nym that is not “Nym” – that will be confusing to people . :-)
Thanks in advance.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Hey, if Granada didn’t want to be invaded they shouldn’t have invented grenades.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Nasty, brutish and short
Old School
@Baud:
Presumably the other networks walked out in solidarity, right? Right? Right?!?
Matt McIrvin
@JML: Remember when David Horowitz wrote a two-page ad spread about how slavery was doing a favor to Black people by getting them out of Africa, tried to get it printed in a bunch of college newspapers, and started yelling about free speech when some of them wouldn’t buy it? That’s the College Republican MO in a nutshell, though he wasn’t a member.
Paul in KY
@WTFGhost: Ezra Klein definitely thinks Ezra Klein is important. No shit there.
Paul in KY
@WTFGhost: He’s paid well to be ineffective at his job. IMO, it’s called ‘Colmesing’.
dexwood
@WaterGirl: I don’t think it’s confusing.
kindness
Imho, far too many Democratic operatives & strategists really want Democrats to be liberal Republicans. And with all due respect, I wish those folk would quit their jobs and go work for the other team.
Tony Jay
You always have these interesting discussions while I’m at work. It’s like I’m in another time-zone or something.
Yes, Starmer’s version of Labour is reactionary, but they’re a mile away from centrist. It’s guiding lights are firmly in the Corporate Greed is Good camp, and the Labour Together/Blue Labour ideology behind figures like McSweeney, Mahmoud and Streeting calls for a radical rightward turn on ‘Culture War Issues’ (anti-Immigrant, anti-Diversity, anti-Gender Rights, anti-Union, pro-Flag Shagging Patriotism) to keep the proles distracted while the Corporates loot everything.
McSweeney and Co veil it by waffling about ‘Red Wall Voters’ and ‘Following the Centre’, but what it boils down to is they want to exchange the majority of the Labour electorate for the majority of the one the Tories won majorities with, and so stay in power longer. That’s it. No great ideological mission. No overarching view of a better future. Just a set of spreadsheets, a desire to enjoy the finer things in life, and a list of asks from rich donors and lobbyists that supersede any election manifesto.
What they can’t quite bring themselves to believe is that they aren’t really that smart, and their masterplan for Absolute Power doesn’t fit the post-Brexit landscape of British politics. The Tories might be broken, but Starmer’s Labour aren’t inheriting their voters, they’re going to Reform PLC, and the old certainties about ‘The Left having nowhere else to go’ were shattered, first by the Labour Right’s factional onslaught against anyone in the Party that wasn’t part of their gang, and then by a conveyor belt of cruel, regressive policy decisions that have turned off millions and driven their approval levels down to historic lows.
They’ve only been in power 18 months, and they’re already as unpopular as the Tories were in 2024. That’s astounding work, but they’ve done it, and they’re doubling down on their unpopularity by, frex, bringing in laws banning protest and going back to hammering the disabled.
I’ve got schadenfreude all over my face, but it burns.
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s worth noting that this disgusting harassment of MVP Harris is not coming from Centrists, it’s coming from proud Progressives who think they should steer the Dem Coalition. I have no disagreement with the OP and the very real problem of Centrists trying to throw marginalized groups under the bus, but when it comes to antisemitism wrapped in AntiZionism, that effort comes almost entirely from our Progressive wing.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: If Klein had been an English Lord type from the Middle Ages, he’d be known as a Stanley-class Trimmer.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: You can’t cage the Cat!!! Could be anywhere…
Paul in KY
@oldgold: He’ll be whacking off to footage he gets of it.
WTFGhost
@Steve in the ATL: “It’s not that we don’t like you, Groucho – you’re great! But no one wants to belong to a country club where they accept people… people like you, you know, (whispered) Jews, you know, as members.
“OH! WAIT! They’re willing to make one single solitary exception, just for you, Groucho Marx! Whattaya say?”
That was the conditions for the famous quote, “I refuse to belong to an organization that accepts people like me as members.”
People should understand, it wasn’t (just) self-deprecating humor – it was just safe, because it sounded that way.
Some of the people who “made the special exception, but only for Groucho Marx!” are the ones screaming “antisemitism!” right now. If those Arab Americans don’t know that, I hope someone they trust tells them.
Paul in KY
@JML: Your average ‘made member’ college Republican is the most assholish, nasty, lulz-loving, punch-down, creep you can ever conjure up from HS. That’s just an average one. They can be way, way worse.
Edit: The excerpts were pretty tame for those kind of douchecanoes.
JML
@Matt McIrvin: 100%. I’ve heard that the College Republicans changed pretty drastically in the 90’s from where they were before that (they’ve been around a lot longer), but I never had any experience with them before then. But it does sound like they were an organization completely corrupted and perverted by right-wing talk radio.
Paul in KY
@MisterForkbeard: That’s them!!!
Sister Golden Bear
@Harrison Wesley: They’re just following orders…
Democratic leaders need to make it clear that in the future trials that will regarded the same as it was at Nuremberg.
Paul in KY
@JML: They were alot more ‘boys at the yacht basin’ back in the old days. Ultra-preppy and such.
frosty
@Soprano2: As an undergrad I got Cs in Chemistry, Physics, Math, and Engineering and As in English Lit. The ticket I wrote myself was to stay out of management and not to go any higher than a senior project manager.
As which I wrote a lot of proposals and reports!
Socolofi
Something Republicans have typically been very, very good at is finding issues that aren’t “big” at the time but can be polarizing, and then they just go after it, making sure their position is the “majority.” Beating up on “the other” is often a really easy one, because it turns out as much as Democrats want to say we’re open and accepting of everyone, um, we aren’t. And minorities just because they’re minorities, aren’t accepting of everyone either. Take legal immigrants / legal citizens – they can be very anti-illegal immigration, often because they feel they went through a TON of pain, and it isn’t just that these other folks didn’t, but they went through that pain BECAUSE all those other folks.
After Romney, Republicans went through messaging and the one they found that worked was all the anti trans-people stuff. Lots of people didn’t like having to state their pronouns, they people didn’t like getting grief if they didn’t, and a number of them weren’t (and still aren’t) OK with it, viewing it more as a weird choice than accepting someone’s internal biology.
Here’s the thing: it took Will & Grace to make being gay kinda OK. I know that’s simplistic, but bashing on gays was always a huge thing in my lifetime, and it wasn’t reasoned debate that made people think otherwise, but culture just showing people that it’s OK. We used to have long, drawn out arguments about gay dudes in locker rooms. That’s kinda gone (kinda… there are still the bigots out there).
I agree with a key part here – trying to debate the argument on trans is a fool’s errand. Most people don’t care or don’t know (we’re talking 1%, maybe). People like Mamdani aren’t winning despite being a Muslim Socialist in NYC, he’s winning because he’s actually talking about a problem that matters (NYC being fucking expensive) and doing so in an uncompromising, charismatic way.
The tough part is the pivot, because NOT defending people’s rights while they’re being targeted ain’t good for the people being targeted. But that said, it isn’t something we can spend all our time on like Democrats are often want to do.
frosty
@tobie: Makes sense to me. Nobody knows what a trust is – that’s from back in Teddy Roosevelt’s day. But everyone has been crushed playing Monopoly.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m not sure these protesters come from *our* progressive wing. I doubt if many of them at all identify as Democrats, and a lot of them hate the party outright.
WTFGhost
@Paul in KY: He sold his soul to Satan and his balls to Trump; he ain’t jerking off to anything, which makes it even more sick that he’s playing along like he was a man with a soul and pleasure in his… hands, and not a soulless castrato.
@Matt McIrvin: Ah, that’s where “it’s okay if we enslaved your ancestors, you should be grateful to be here, n-words!” meme came from.
“I want to write up a contract. I’ll punch you in the face, as hard as I can, hoping to cause pain and cosmetic damage. Then, next week, when you’ve healed, you’ll thank me for punching you in the face. Deal? You can’t complain about the punch, once it’s part of the past, once it’s part of history!
“Okay, how about this; get your father or mom, and I want to punch them in the face, and then, you thank me for doing so. Okay, then, your GRANDFATHER… come on, name one family member, ancestor or descendent, who I can punch in the face, and receive your thanks for it! Okay, no punching – waterboarding sound good? What? OH! We don’t thank bullying assholes for shitting on people’s heads! How stupid someone would have to be to forget that!”
Ahem. I don’t know if that’s good writing or not, but that is the kind of writing I’d like to see from someone, who claims to be progressive, and has a high opinion of his smarts. Don’t normalize a bad faith argument – point out the inherent bad faith, the devastatingly vacuous illogic, and the inability to draw the desired conclusion… not unless you’re reasoning from the conclusion, which means you’re prejudiced – in this case, a full-blown bigot.
frosty
@Steve in the ATL: Omnes, of course! No, he’s probably in the upper tier, isn’t he?
ETA Thanks for the hanging curveball!
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: Uppermost, in a fair and decent world. Who the fuck knows in this one?
frosty
@Old School:
Not exactly. Someone in the military bombed that boat. Someone who followed orders to carry out a war crime, and we know how that ended up in 1945.
I had higher hopes that the armed services would refuse to obey an illegal order.
trollhattan
Happy to report this small thing.
Gretchen
@Chief Oshkosh: Lawrence O’Donnell is still mad about this. Every time Trump has a senior moment, LOD asks where the media who was so outraged whenever Biden got a word wrong are now? Jake Tapper?
Matt McIrvin
@WTFGhost: Nah, it’s way older than that. It’s just a version of the antebellum argument that slavers were doing people a favor by forcibly Christianizing them and saving their souls.
JML
@Gretchen: I love it when LOD gets fully indignant at the failures of his media compatriots when it comes to politics.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: This is why I keep coming here.
unrelatedwaffle
@rikyrah: You’ll get no argument from me. Most of my 40+ female friends are happily unpartnered and not lonely at all. As the kids say, skill issue.
Harrison Wesley
@Sister Golden Bear: I’m thinking these people will have no problem turning their weapons on us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Harrison Wesley: They don’t know. I am sure they are getting briefings saying they are hitting armed terrorist. The presumption of the UCMJ that an order is legal unless it is blindingly obvious that it is not.
Harrison Wesley
@Omnes Omnibus: I get it, but with the publicity these attacks have generated, shouldn’t somebody up the chain of command at least be asking questions? I confess my knowledge of the military ended when I stopped playing with toy soldiers 60+ years ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@Harrison Wesley: Somebody up the chain of command certainly should be asking. I am just saying that this is a case where the sailors carrying out the strikes likely are not aware of the situation.
Sister Golden Bear
@Socolofi:
Ya know, I’m in the room here. Nice to know you have my back… /s
Seriously, only a handful of Democrats speak out even occasionally on protecting trans people. And some like Newsom have made clear they’d trade our lives for a few swing state votes.
Timill
@Harrison Wesley: It’s just figures on a screen to them. Just like any video game…
ThresherK
It’s been years since we shoulda stopped calling Ezra Klein “liberal” even with the quote marks.
Someone coined the term traditionally raised pundit and that really rings the bell for me.
trollhattan
Well, I missed a good time today. Why was I not informed?
What a photo op that would have been. Somebody should have dropped a dime to ICE saying antifa was approaching the state capitol.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
One piece of Ezra’s that helped get him a bit of a following early on was his “The Health of Nations” piece. This was back in 2005 or so, and it was still somewhat on the edge to suggest that there were a number of routes that other nations had taken to universal health care, hence a number of routes that we could take too.
So he hasn’t always believed that nothing could be substantially improved. Since I haven’t read his stuff in years, I have to take other people’s word for where he is now, but at least in this way, he used to be different. I’m sorry he isn’t that way now.
prostratedragon
@frosty:
I agree with this from Cheryl Rofer:
Harrison Wesley
@Timill: And that’s what we’ll be,when DHS orders the strike on wherever we live.
lowtechcyclist
@trollhattan:
From your quote box, taking it on, not you:
Ain’t enough rolleyes in the world.
Not to mention, how about MLK? And it wasn’t like he was the first who stood up for Black civil rights in this country on account of their Christian faith who wound up paying for it with their lives. Far from it – he was just the best known. People more knowledgeable about those days could probably come up with a long list off the top of their heads. Or to go back another century, how about John Brown?
As Prof. Digory Kirke might have said, what do they teach in those schools of theirs nowadays? Clearly not enough of the sort of history they needed to learn about.
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, but I heard it “recently” (in the 90s? 00s?) and it was so hard to read, it’s painful to see sophistry masquerading as meaning, and I couldn’t even get my brain to cough up “we don’t thank assholes for shitting on people’s heads,” because it was just so effing crazy.
So, what I was saying was “ah, the refusal of that advertisement, that was probably with a year of when I heard that meme-gument, on Usenet (so, really long ago!!!).”
Sorry for meme-gument, but, it’s not really an argument, if it’s not a series of facts intended to establish a proposition, it was just the mindless repetition of a meme, akin to calling plain contradiction “an argument”
sab
@gene108: You would never know that watching Britbox.
Another Scott
@tobie: @JML:
PZ Myers at Pharyngula has thoughts, also too.
Of course, they show themselves to be horrible people, and they are entering the FO phase.
[ womp, womp ]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Gvg
@Matt McIrvin: I am pretty sure I have read that the Spanish missionary priests said that while the conquistadors looted the new world and enslaved the natives.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: Most Britbox shows from the past 10 years or so have South Asian and Black characters.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Ezra and Matt and Josh all came up through the blogosphere at about the same time, in the early ’00s. Josh decided to create his own platform, rather than rely on being platformed by big media, and I think it’s one of the reasons why he’s kept his clarity.
When there are things you can’t say, arguments you can’t make, directions you can’t go, then after awhile you just stop seeing stuff that you would have otherwise seen. Ezra and Matt are in that situation, but Josh isn’t, and they can sense it even if they can’t see it.
WTFGhost
@prostratedragon: I would also want to know the chain of command, but, I’d expect it would be super-duper top secret, because it was incriminating evidence, and for some other reason, too, because you can’t classify just because “if this got out, I’d go to jail!”
There’s also a part of me that wonders if there’s confirmation, via other governments, or via non-governmental sources, that these things are actually happening. Trump is precisely the kind of dickwad who would pretend to blow up boats in hopes of getting riots so he could invoke the insurrection act. The military may coordinate, acting as if this was a valid disinformation campaign. I assume there is confirmation, and I’m just too tired to search for it. My main point is, “Trump is confessing to murder, and I’m not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt even for that!”
dexwood
@Gvg: Pueblo Revolt of 1680 took care of a few Spanish priests in what is now New Mexico
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: I’m sure some early colonists and the like were killed/executed/murdered by Indians basically for being ‘Christian’ and bothering said Indians.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
BINGO.
To be a democracy the people in charge have to respond rationally to the differing sides of humanity. Even the ones that think they are the only true humans and everyone else is out to smother them need to see and understand that humanity is not one model concept. We are different, some more different than others but unless we are trying to wipe out anyone that isn’t in our picture we should mind our own business. Humanity is not one perfect picture. And as it’s humanity it’s not close to perfect. It’s humans. Some great, some horrible and then the huge middle. The goal should be to not be dangerous to others. This is not a kingdom where one is on top and everyone else is inferior. This is a democracy where, it’s almost as long as you aren’t dangerous to others – have a life. Sure, it’s not that simple, but the concept basis isn’t much more difficult. IOW yes we have to have structure, laws and law enforcement. Being a citizen is not like being in a military, with a structure of absolute obedience, often way more strict than public day to day life. And it does have to have structure because some will never fit in and there needs to be a concept of limits. Not unlike not driving your car at 100 mph, because you chose today to oversleep. (Or you choose everyday to oversleep…..get a better alarm clock and never have it within reach…..)
Many humans never really seem to fit into a large population, they feel superior, (or inferior) to the rest of us, and want to be on top, (or bottom) at which they often fail, because it’s the rest of us that actually choose to leave them out. And sure there are always those that never want to fit in – and it’s often very likely because they want to be on top – and never make it close.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was killed by natives in Kentucky. The elder Abraham Lincoln was plowing his Kentucky farm at the time, but the natives didn’t think he had good title.
S. cerevisiae
@ArchTeryx: Holy crap, absolutely correct, THiS THIS THIS!
I don’t care if it’s a dead thread, THIS!