Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

We still have time to mess this up!

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

People are complicated. Love is not.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

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Elias Isquith wrote at Balloon Juice from 2012-13.

Elias Isquith

Immigration Reform: Bad for the Working Class?

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So eventheliberal has a new piece out, a #slatepitch by T.A. Frank on why liberals should actually oppose immigration reform — at least as it’s currently designed. The article’s on the longer side, but the essence of Frank’s argument is that illegal immigration is bad for the working class, and the bill moving its way through the Senate does very little to guarantee the influx of undocumented immigrants will decrease (he cites a CBO report indicating the law will reduce illegal immigration by only 25 percent). The studies I’ve read about the impact of immigration on wages runs counter to this theory; but I’ll defer to readers who know more than I about immigration policy as to whether Frank’s concern is justified.

What interests me most about the piece, however, is Frank’s plea for liberals to, basically, stop being so damned self-centered and bourgeois:

If I have a plea to my fellow liberals more broadly, it’s that they focus more of their empathy on fellow Americans being left behind. Because we increasingly live in bubbles, many of us are at best only abstractly aware of how cruelly circumstances of unskilled Americans have deteriorated over the past few decades. Even as these Americans have lost their well-paid manufacturing jobs, Washington has looked the other way while millions of low-skilled unauthorized immigrants have competed with them for low-skilled service jobs. The insouciance of privileged Americans toward the effects of this on life among less-privileged Americans is, in my view, a betrayal of citizenship.

Another way to put Frank’s plea is to ask liberals to pay more attention to class. I’m not on-board with him, overall; I think new immigrants are a good thing and that his ideal number of yearly entrants (50,000) is too low. I also think that these new immigrants represent an opportunity to build a broader liberal coalition. But it is noteworthy that, throughout the process of this bill coming into being, most of the concerns about how it will affect the working class have not come from the Left but rather from the Right.

Anyway, what do y’all think? Is the Left’s enthusiasm for immigration reform a consequence of its retreat from class-based politics? Or are Frank and eventheliberal barking at the moon?

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Corey Robin Responds to His Critics

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Corey Robin, whom some of you may remember from the book club devoted to his The Reactionary Mind, had a piece in The Nation recently that got a handful of libertarian academics extremely upset. Robin’s thesis is a touch complicated, so I’d recommend you read it for yourself rather than go by my quick-and-dirty summary. The short version: Robin makes a damn strong case that libertarians are inherently rightwing, despite their protestations to the contrary.

Anyway, Robin’s response to his critics is possibly even better and more clarifying than the original piece. If you’re only going to read one, give it a go. And next time a libertarian tells you they’re of neither the Left or the Right, try not to laugh.

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Why we can’t have nice things

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Citi Bike, New York City’s new bike-share program (you know, the one that represents creeping totalitarianism), while already very popular, is not without its problems. For some of the city’s wealthiest residents, for example, the issue is not so much the existence of the program but rather the fact that its bike-share stations have to be so, y’know, close.

From the Village Voice (because I’d rather not link to the NY Post), some examples:

In a New York Post exclusive, it was discovered that the DOT agreed to move at least 10 Citi Bike stations either right before or just after the program’s initiation–all of which are nearby a concentrated wealth epicenter. Ritzy spots include the IAC Building in West Chelsea, designed by Frank Gehry and housed by Newsweek/The Daily Beast; a loft on Spring Street; the Milan Condominium on East 55th; and a handful of other expensive locations.

A few of the angry 1 Percenters were represented by Manhattan attorney Steven Sladkus. As the stations push uptown, “you won’t see a Citi Bike station in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s town house,” he argued to the Post. “Maybe the same [courtesy] should have been given to all other property-owners in the city.” 

You see, this is really an issue of equality. If billionaire Mike Bloomberg can treat the entirety of NYC as his fiefdom, why can’t multimillionaires do the same within a few block radius of their home and/or place of work? This is America, dammit! Occupy Citi Bike!

Oh, it’s almost enough to drive one to drink. But since it’s still morning here, I’ll just recommend you read this recent interview between David Dayen and Chris Hayes. The focus of their discussion is, primarily, elite and institutional failure. Hayes’ point about inequality breeding social alienation strikes me as particularly relevant…

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The Club

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In the combox of my Friedersdorf post yesterday, brad said the following:

There’s a reason young Connor started as a summer break replacement for McMegan and eventually took over her gig there, and it ain’t cuz he has a better calculator. At his very “best” he manages to rise to the level of concern troll, that so many little big media lefties on blogs link to him is the same reason they linked to McMegan; social mandates. I retain hope more will recognize him for what he really is, but bros tend to stick together, and he’s in the club.

I definitely think the dynamic he’s describing exists. I’m not a pro journalist and I’m not in the club, but I’ve met some people here and there who are more prominent than I am and who write about politics, and I seriously doubt I haven’t hit the brakes a little when criticizing them as a result. Not entirely consciously, but all the same.

Disappointed with myself as I may be, though, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been quite so obvious about the whole insider/outsider divide as Jonathan Chait was yesterday in his response to Friedersdorf.

Before Chait responds to the one many of you call Young Connor, though, he takes on one self-identified Insomniac Libertarian, a blogger that I think it’s fair to say most of us have never heard of before. In other words, a blogger not in the club. Here’s Chait:

The Insomniac Libertarian, in an item wonderfully headlined “Obama Quisling Jonathan Chait Smears Rand Paul,” complains that my Paul piece “never discloses that [my] wife is an Obama campaign operative.” A brief annotated response:

1. I question the relevance of the charge, since Rand Paul is not running against Obama.

2. In point of fact, my wife is not an Obama campaign operative and has never worked for Obama’s campaign, or his administration, or volunteered for his campaign, or any campaign, and does not work in politics at all.

3. I question the headline labeling me an “Obama quisling,” a construction that implies that I have betrayed Obama, which seems to be the opposite of the Insomniac Libertarian’s meaning.

4. For reasons implied by points one through three, I urge the Insomniac Libertarian to familiarize himself with some of the science linking sleep deprivation to impaired brain function.

Pretty funny, right? Cutting. And that’s fine — that’s Chait’s style, often — or at least it is when he’s writing about conservatives and libertarians.

But then he turns to Friedersdorf, and suddenly all that piss and vinegar evaporates into a cordial deference to good-faith divergence of opinion. This is the most he can muster:

Friedersdorf’s view [of Ayn Rand] is certainly far more nuanced and considerably more positive than mine. He’s a nice, intelligent person and a good writer, but we’re not going to agree on this.

Nuanced, positive, intelligent and nice! It’s a good thing, isn’t it, to be in the club?

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Farm Bill Fail

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Here’s a bit of good news:

Opposition by Democrats to huge cuts in the food stamp program helped lead to the defeat of the House farm bill on Thursday, raising questions about financing for the nation’s farm and nutrition programs this year.

The vote, which was 234 to 195 to defeat it, came a year after House leaders refused to bring the five-year, $940 billion measure to the floor because conservative lawmakers who wanted deeper cuts in the food stamp program would not support it.

I’m torn — on the one hand, passing the farm bill was such an important benchmark of competency for Speaker Boehner that I’m tempted to chortle over such an abysmal failure. But on the other, less immature hand, the farm bill as it was constituted was a travesty, with the massive cuts to food stamps being just the most conspicuous example.

I think I’ll go with chortling.

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Rand Paul: Not Aristotle

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There’s something about being a willfully marginal player in the political sphere that induces whininess. Or at least that’s the conclusion I can’t help but come to after reading the libertarian-ish Conor Friedersdorf’s epic lament over the media’s treatment of Rand Paul.

I’m tempted to take it apart, piece-by-piece; but I’m also aware of that whole Nietzsche thing about staring into the abyss. So rather than picking out the many, many places where Friedersdorf makes claims that are either highly questionable or laughably wrong, I’ll try to zoom out and focus on what he seems so incapable or unwilling to address.

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A re-introduction and a peace offering

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While I’d like to think my internet persona is such that, once experienced, it can never be forgotten, I’m willing to entertain the idea that this is not in fact true.

So with that in mind, and recognizing it’s been probably just about a year since I last guested hereabouts — then, as now, at the invitation of the inestimable Doug J — allow me to reintroduce myself.

My name is Elias Isquith, and in my free time I write about the by turns mundane and fantastic world of American politics, usually with a focus on ideology and the Left. I’m one of the lefty contributors at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen (Perhaps you guys have heard of it? I wonder if you’d get along…) and I’ve also had freelance work in The Atlantic, Salon, Jacobin, and The New Inquiry. 

In addition to all of this, I have a cat. Calamity Jane. You can her see below, in a picture taken during her morning routine. (It’s a grueling routine.) Please consider this something of a peace offering from your new guest…as well as a window into her very soul:

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Now with all the formal pleasantries dispensed with, I can focus on giving you fine people real material to yell about. In that regard, I promise you nothing less than my full effort. And if all else fails, you can always just yell at me. Everybody wins!

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