I get that liberals need to signal to other liberals that they are not mere grubby partisans, mere team players. They are independent minded, judicious, seeing the bigger picture. They see the flaws on both sides. They don't judge or attack or call their opponents names. Etc. etc.
So true!!!
For the most part, I think assuming the best about your opponent is an honorable way to be. I wish the goodwill was reciprocated occasionally.
It is, but if they continue to call you demonic, lie and cause you material harm eventually you’re just a sucker.
I’m a proud team player, even for a scientist.
And I even somewhat respect the motivation to be that way, but I wish people like that would acknowledge to themselves that *excess* charity can also be an intellectual error. Insisting on nuance & complexity when the reality is dumb & simple *is an error*. And it leads to more errors.
It is dogma in mainstream media that bad people and stupid people basically don't exist. They consider it doubly true for people elected through some sort of democratic process.
"Full of hate," is a Strawman and doesn't exonerate them from racism, bigoty, and misogyny. Goodness, intelligence... are not necessary outcomes of the democratic process. The media and a lot of white folks are reluctant to call out the racism/bigoty/misogyny of their peers.
Well it is kind of dumb to purposefully piss off half the people you are trying to make money from.
Liberal pundits should at least acknowledge the theoretical possibility that some dumb thing the right is doing is *not the left's fault*, not some mechanical response to something the left did, but a choice, made by adults who bear the responsibility for that choice.
"rebranding Cracker Barrel wasn't part of the dem platform, so why does it feel like it was?"
It’s also important to note that this posture pretends to humility—“look, I’m acknowledging my own role in the issue!”—but is in fact a posture of STAGGERING arrogance—“only I am the first mover; I am the one who could have been perfect; I am the only one responsible for anything.”
To put all this much shorter: the right's vaccine denialism is not the left's fault. They didn't arrive at that skepticism because of something the left did. They SAY that, of course, because they blame the left for everything, but liberals don't have to take them at their word! They lie a lot!
Only 12% of kids have updated Covid boosters and JAMA recently reported long Covid in kids has surpassed asthma as the number 1 chronic ailment kids suffer from. It’s not just the right. Liberals aren’t getting vaccinated either. We’re damning our kids to a life of chronic illness because of it.
Biden pushed the message take your masks off, the pandemic is over, get back to normal and celebrated ending the pandemic that continues to harm people.
Skepticism far to generous of a word for the thing happening with vaccines right now.
RFK is not a vaccine skeptic. He is a vaccine opponent.
It has to be said, that 'reaction' is a core component of right-wing ideology. In many cases the reactionaries are indeed reacting, to something that actually happened.
They are skeptical because in 2020 Trump used his massive propaganda platform to use vaccination as a culture war wedge issue to distract from his many failures as a leader. Sadly his ruse worked very well. #arrestTrump
and caused many republicans to die
They are vaccine skeptics because they are dumb, selfish people who were eager to believe lies that give them permission to be dumb & selfish, and there is a vast propaganda machine designed to provide those lies. They did it. They are responsible for it. It's on them.
Amen, brother
Yup. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024. 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level). This is America.
They didn't attempt a violent coup because of the left. They aren't destroying US science & academia because of the left. They're not embracing open racism & nazi ideology because of the left. They are adults, making choices, doing things of their own volition, and they bear the responsibility.
Isn’t Klein just trying to keep his listenership as broad as possible? He realises deeper analysis on the progressive side will keep us engaged to look for “the answer” (where there may be none) while maintaining credibility in conservative circles to get them to at least contribute to his “show”
Any abuse survivor can tell you that it doesn’t matter how good, sweet, meek, and accommodating you are. They aren’t abusing you because you did something wrong. trying to be perfect just makes it easier for them to abuse you because you are 100% bought into their twisted games. Don’t play them.
Yes, this is the thread. It is highly tempting to dismiss and disengage. Q for myself is wthr to let things pass to the “find out” phase (do we think the scales will fall?), or wthr to cont. 2 engage and influence. No one likes I told you so. Scapegoating is here-people punished for their failures.
It's so frustrating to me that people accept the abuser's terms and try to play the game. it's not that I want a dismissal/disengage--it's that I literally want everyone to be the "I refuse the question" guy because he's absolutely correct. Refuse the question. www.tiktok.com/@drunken_bar...
Find/Jesus’s question was stupid. The better one is “impoverished theocracy or affluent secularism, pick one”.
Yes! They have agency, and their agency is firmly based on regression to some earlier, halcyon time that never existed, and as long as they’re “owning the libs”, they will characterize their actions as response, rather than simple animus toward social, technological, and moral progression.
They might be voting Trump because they hated the two-week-long DEI-sensitivity training class they were forced to undergo at their job. They might be voting Trump because of their irritating left-wing neighbor who constantly corrects them when they don't use the "right" words. It all adds up.
Yeah but that is later-and they don't think later will come. DC national guard will prevent the next transfer of power.
Klein did a show after the election where there was lots of gnashing of teeth about government hiring, and how it wasn’t actually getting the best people. And it just felt like quibbling about how the house was built while an arsonist threw Molotov cocktails at the house from the front yard.
I guess I could have just said "fuck Murc's Law" and left it at that, but oh well.
IMHO many nice American liberals can’t comprehend people who are properly malevolently, stupidly evil. They can’t comprehend the depravity & duplicity of Trumpists because they’re so not like that — so they construct ‘nuanced’ rationales for Trumpists’ behavior within liberal frames.
Good, educated American liberals are trained not to describe people as evil. “There are no bad people, just bad deeds” etc. Liberals are trained to ‘understand’ and account for social etc conditions that make people do awful things. It offends liberals’ sense of themselves as rational and empathetic
just to call other people stupid and evil. So they construct the sort of explanations you describe — they let the Trumpists off the hook just as they let e.g. violent young men from underprivileged backgrounds off the hook.
"Attack people's policies, not their motives" is a refrain I have heard a lot. I think the most powerful case to make is to attack their basic morality. Shame can be powerful although there will always be a contingent that is impervious to it because they tend toward sociopathy.
Yes good but it seems to me that plenty of people aren’t attacking their policies either
They refuse to understand this because those very same people are often their family members, friends, and respected colleagues. "Certainly Uncle Larry can't be a small minded bigot! He taught me how to parallel park!" Hell, they themselves might be that too just inured to follow expertise
They can't comprehend that AMERICANS are malevolent, stupid, and evil. They have no problem believing it of other people or from other times.
That would be deeply ironic if true, given that Trump thinks everyone is as bad as him. That's how he justifies his behavior to himself - if everyone is doing it, then he's not a bad person.
Yes. And they badly want to believe in a rational world where merit is rewarded. They are unsettled by all the dark beasts stalking history -- irrational animal violence & selfishness.
One of the advantages of growing up in apartheid South Africa (as I did) was being exposed to plenty of stupid violent evil shit from very early on, and realizing that some people were determined to be like that & even enjoyed it. They had no inner self restraint. The system rewarded them.
On a much, much milder scale, I was chatting with my kids about how some people, like their parents, treat borrowed or rented items with extra care, because they don't belong to us. Others, however, use that as an excuse to treat borrowed or rented items like crap. Some people just suck.
And in parts of the world, we have been shielded from the raw brutality - the greedy looting, the joy in destroying, harming, raping, torturing. But read actual history and it is ALL THERE This too is an enduring aspect of human nature. We need to lose our innocent, ignorant delusions about that
Referring to African context, what bothers me is that folks in the U.S. have access to such a multitude of information sources, while I can understand a rural person in say Zimbabwe supporting Mugabe back in the day since they lacked good news sources and their food supply may have depended on it.
If only we could bump school funding in the US that'll fix everything.
Yep. And so they keep on using plays from the "strategize with a misguided fool" guide. It's like watching someone try to handle a tornado or mudslide by talking reasonably to it.
We're absolutely brainwashed to believe the u.s. is populated exclusively by good guys in white hats when the empirical evidence before us us that the u.s. is populated by a very large number of absolutely evil people
💯 Democrats not only fail to understand conservatives’ motivation, they don’t WANT to know it because it would mean fighting differently and that we are not all in this together. Conservatives do not care about constitutional order or pluralism. They want to rule and punish their enemies.
Isn’t the *fundamental* difference between liberals and conservatives that liberals believe in the perfectibility of human nature and conservatives believe we’re stuck with nothing but our base instincts?
I think the difference is that conservatives believe in hierarchies. Rich people are just better than poor people and deserve to rule. You can also substitute races rather than "rich"/"poor".
I don't know whether that's true or not -- but I'm sure I could make a good argument for it.
Yes. Helpful thread. I am one of these—shaken, in disbelief—trying to come to terms with a reality, a stupidity, & a cruelty that I never imagined would be possible in our era.
hence their weird overreliance on fact-checking as a rhetorical strategy, as if, if the fascists had better facts, they'd choose to be better human beings.
You say liberals, I say "Wait, wasn't it leftists saying Bernie Sanders would win because Nazis is just economic Anxiety and every Klansmen is secretly a socialist as long as you stop fighting them on social issues?"
Leftists may try to retcon it, but they were the ones saying it was wrong to call Republicans deplorables. I remember leftists arguing that calling them "weird" would lead to it being used by liberals against leftists. After 2024, Leftists said liberals lost by defending trans people too much.
Leftists are liberals in the context of American politics. I don't think he was intending to draw a distinction between liberals and leftists because that distinction is really only relevant to the very online
It's similar how never religious leftist can't believe someone would do something evil because of the actual words of their holy book and they literally believe in heaven and hell. It's always some other outside reason. Almost always The West's fault.
Oh my god yes! This is why I think the Bulwark guys in balance have a better grasp on how to handle MAGA. They understand the evil. Plus Hillary. She saw it close with what R’s did to her and Bill.
Yes, mentally/emotionally healthy people can know the facts of the malevolence and evil and still cannot "believe" it - this credulity rooted in the healthy ability to feel empathy, shame, etc. This to our detriment when dealing with those who lack these capacities
This!! As David put it, excess charity is an intellectual error. If you don’t recognize how malignant and depraved the other party is and respond appropriately, it will be to your detriment. To that end, the Dems are somewhat responsible: They didn’t recognize the seriousness of the threat.
Justice often is better when tempered by mercy -- but Mercy often needs to be tempered by justice too.
Yeah, but in Ezra's case, it's a professional stance. And it's why he was hired by the NYT. He's the centrist equivalent of Stephens/Douthat.
can confirm that I have spent way too much time truing to understand MAGAts
I know a bunch of Republicans who are exactly like this as well. Deliberately avoiding anything but right wing views, they think Democrats are just being mean and spiteful and trump is a well meaning man who only wants the best for the country.
Surely they are not very bright?
A lot of people simply choose to believe whatever happens to be more convenient -- or just more comfortable.
They are very shallow, every damn one. No riveting conversations with people like this. They don't read anything.
My trumper loved ones are totally brainwashed by watching Fox 12 hours a day. They are smart, educated, kind loving people who live in absolute fear because of what they are being fed over and over again by fox.
Many smart people have trouble empathising with the stupid because the thought processes of the stupid are too simplistic. "It can't be like that." Quite to the contrary, friend. It's very often like that.
I agree with most of what U say. Except this--that they are "dumb, selfish ppl believing deliberate lies." No, many of them are smart & not selfish--tho yes, they believe deliberate RWng lies bc they're repeated. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusor... MSM bosses & both sidesing Murc's Law practicing
journalists the MSMedia bosses favor, hire & promote, also believe a RW lie: That what GOP does is Dems' fault. This is the result of RWngers working the refs for decades & MSM bosses feeling pressured to prove they are being fair to RWngers. In order to do that, they bend over Rghtward.
Though NYT doesn't even need anyone to work the refs any more. The exec editor seems 2B richer than the Sulzbergers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_... & so likely correctly perceives that RW media are "on his side." So he trusts/believes them. Look at his interviews. He talks in RW talking points
What's worse, misinformation & vaccine skepticism are also promoted by smart, but selfish people.
🎯🎯🎯 Love this thread David. Thanks.
I would add that we need to recognize that the right wing doesn’t care about fairness. When she recognized, the fair doesn’t even enter into the equation, things clarify rather quickly.
Re: anti-vax. What happened is Biden won. The like never before seen miraculous warpspeed Trump vaccine became the Biden killer jab the day it was no longer only Trump's, accomplishment. Belief in it as Biden rolled out distribution would be maga heresy bc Biden is only bad, never good.
Yes and they all claim they were mandated to take an ''experimental gene therapy'' and deprived of their freedoms
Thank you for this thread @volts.wtf! Democrats/liberals need to stop trying to find reasons why Democrats/liberals should blame themselves for why MAGA extremists turned into MAGA extremists. MAGAs are CHOOSING to be dumb, selfish people believing deliberate lies. They willingly CHOSE stupidity.
This also reminds me of arguments why people didn’t vote for Harris. Yes, there are myriad reasons, but the most obvious reason for a big swath of voters is almost never talked about with any seriousness: people who can’t bring themselves to vote for a woman.
Nothing gets explained away more frequently than misogyny. "They didn't like her policy stances from early in the 2020 primary!" Yeah sure that's it.
Add efforts currently underway among Dem influencers to focus on eliminating "woke" words because "unhoused" sounds too snooty and turns off "moderates". Let's not overlook the obvious. So-called moderates, Repubs, and many Dems won't vote for a woman. Senator or governor yes, president never.
I believe even Hillary at some point acknowledged (clumsily) the “implicit biases” all white people, including herself, have regarding race. I’ve never heard a man in politics offer any self-reflection re: their internalized gender bias.
And a Black woman at that.
I’d throw in the “they didn’t vote for this” statement most recently used by S. Brown - Ohio voted for Dewine, Vance and Trump they most certainly did vote for this. Stop excusing them.
🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼It’s really not possible to separate “well, he’s a racist but eggs are too expensive “ from “he’s a racist”. It’s an omelette, if you will, and adults chose it.
But you'd still recommend the episode, right? I've been a little wary of listening to it because I've heard Bedard do this exact thing before and I'm really tired of it at this point.
DWW is excellent. You'd be better off listening to him on Know Yr Enemy.
This thread is probably the first time a lot of people will have *met* Murc's law. (I was struggling to remember the name of it as I read it!). So it bears repeating, and it bears underscoring that this is something that's been around for years (since 2017 apparently?).
Hadn’t heard the term, although I’ve been seeing the dynamic described a lot recently (and very belatedly). Thanks.
The liberal center *needs to believe* right-wing lies & the uncritical reception of them by dumb selfish people *has to have* some rational ground that can be reasoned with. Their whole world view rests on the assumption this is what humans always do: reason their way to even unreasonable views.
The world is changing rapidly and we all know it. Republicans run on Fear and Loathing. Democrats need to believe in and lead with Courage and Hope. This is not so much an intellectual/political battle as it is a spiritual battle.
Yes. Not enough internalising of Axelrod & Rapoport, nor of Karl Popper. Being the only player obeying the rules is a mug’s game
📌
Both John and John Q Adams said that the proper function of government is to improve the lives of the people. This is the liberal position, and to a lesser degree olde conservatism. Now? We’ve fully sorted into “Adams” on one side and ”no” on the other. The latter is easy as pie and wielded freely.
@skyview.social unroll
So if I want to see the unrolled version of this thread on skyview, where can I find it?
Sometimes it doesn't seem to work (like right now)
Yeah, it’s all “high minded civil”garbage to try to act like you can win these people over. You can’t and shouldn’t argue with stupid. Call a spade a spade and move on.
It’s like people who say you shouldn’t shun right wingers. We can debate fiscal policy or whatever but not whether certain people get rights, hard pass.
I feel compelled to point out that Murc wasn't really asserting that only Democrats have agency; he was pointing out that the MSM operates from that assumption.
In the UK, we have a government of such people. Their liberalist 'We should try to understand them, listen to their concerns' stance on right-wing opponents of Palestinians, immigration, trans rights, disability rights, poor people, and environmental campaigners was, in fact, 'We agree with them.'
YES. I would just add though: You don't have to be unusually dumb or awful to believe cruel and crazy things. We're moral chameleons, and can take on a huge range of colors. MAGA's bs is not liberals' fault; but their mean irrationality is not unusual.
“Dumb selfish people believed lies” is strongly confirmed by the people (almost all white males) giving us the finger (and worse) at our anti-fascist protests at our county courthouse here in NC.
And let a good righteous rant go to waste?
Paging @polphilpod.bsky.social
I add that reflective contrarianism is a choice and you're still responsible for what you do when acting like this.
The real failure of liberalism is assuming everyone is motivated increasing freedom and flourishing communities. It's not true. There will always be a contingent looking to make an out group and oppress them.
bsky.app/profile/paul...
"Liberal" Dems run right at first whiff of being called "leftist", "socialist" "woke". They still use "conservative" as the ultimate compliment. Push social govt programs as the problem not the solution. Willing to sacrifice the rights of others. And when they lose like Cuomo they join the right
This is an excellent thread so thank you for writing it. I think the other issue is, though, if we blame the left there’s some modicum or control we feel, and like we can fix it. How do you fix dumb selfish people who willingly believe lies? There’s no solution aligning with liberal values.
That is a really good point and new to me. It explains the frustrating denial from smart people. Admitting the truth of bad faith arguments means a break with Obama-era liberalism. And they don't know what comes next.
Remember when wearing masks during the pandemic made you breathe your own carbon dioxide and infringed personal liberty? MAGA masking foes apparently suffered short-term memory loss. Now they wear masks religiously to work for ICE. Just a guess. Their reasons weren't real reasons.
They never are.
Well spotted, noticed that too. Somehow it’s now absolutely fine to MAGA’ to mask up constantly if it’s about hiding your face to avoid being recognised, & to look fierce
I remember politely arguing with a guy during the pandemic who had a little booth evangelizing about the health danger of masks. I asked him where he worked and he said the local technical school, where guys in trades/construction have to wear masks as a standard PPE measure.
But the the trick for this guy and most of his type is that he’d already decided in his heart what the answer was, and everything else is just rationalization to justify the answer he wanted emotionally. You can’t really fight that with logic.
The purpose is to cause as much chaos and harm as possible, but they can’t say that. Then people will know that they’re evil. The bullshit excuses are a PR campaign to absolve them of any responsibility for their evil deeds.
They just use it to wind up hatred of others.
David Brooks did this in his most recent column. He blamed the left for the rise of right-wing nihilism.
Do these ppl not remember that the start of the rise of this populist mvmnt came abt during Obama's 1st term. If they can't say it arose out of racism, they're all choosing to be blind or are forgetting the Koch-funded Tea Party & the sometimes subtle, sometimes not, racism directed at the Obamas.
It continued to gain steam w the help of Fox & ppl like Rush Limbaugh et al during Obama's tenure. It became more blatantly racist & trump & those around him stoked Fox & RW media audiences' fear & racism. It's not the fault of the left. It's a plan based on lies to unintelligent ppl who bought it.
Please staple this to the forehead of NYT Opinion columnist David Brooks
99% of the right wing Maga movement are ideologues. Without concern for the consequence of their ideas. 99% of left leaning America are not ideologues . they simply would like to see better policies with better consequences. We have almost no true left-wing ideologues. That damn spectrum ignoresthis
Agreeing with what you say, and also: some of this is liberal critics searching for a reason for the all-out media assault and lies - because who would attack medical research without a reason? - and it’s important to remember there’s usually a dumb selfish motive at the root, too.
and many paid with their lives
It’s allllll bad faith and we must never forget it
Agreed. 100%. But also, Lefty pundits have agendas too. Several people who lean Dem who seem to be OK saying let's not fight city hall, let's focus on what we can agree with (chemicals! better food!) and let's work with MAHA. Bad faith meets gullibility or opportunity seeking.
I had a similar reaction to a liberal ish pod earlier. After thinking though, it's not the guest its the hosts. They just got done saying the left is losing for lack of clarity and directness, and then instantly say this. No host pushback or call out or anything.. just an agreeing giggle/pile on
I still think this is just another piece of evidence that people like Klein don't know average, everyday people. These media stars live a bubble. It's similar to how the NY Times et al romanticize and simplify small town America. They didn't have to grow up there, so they project. It's condescending
Millions were pulled into a propaganda system built to inflame resentment. Why did the lies resonate? What conditions made them believable, and how did ordinary people become agents of their spread?
You seem to be conflating cause with responsibility.
They like ideas that convince them that their lives can become easier and safer. They do not wish to think too hard about the consequences the effects those choices have on themselves or others. It is American Exceptionalism. It is entitlement. A conditioning to believe the lies of convenience.
I agree with you, but unfortunately, those aren’t good political talking points if you want to win some voters to your side.
You missed out their devotion to a warped version of christianity that completely ignores the principle teachings of their creed, ignores all of the christian commandments & the various versions of the 7 deadly sins, that is a sectarian protestant cult that worships money & imagined racial purity.
Thank you, David Roberts!
Seeing that a chunk of the vaccine denialists on the right used to be on the far-left, it's hard to blame anything partisan on vaccine denialism. Whole lot of screwed up thinking went into that position on both sides, though not the *same* dumb and selfish thinking.
This. And anti water fluoridation, raw milk, etc. I'm surprised the maga crowd isn't into reiki.
🤣🤣🤣 just wait until midterms, it'll be the best thing ever, and I mean ever. It even cures COVID-19 better than bleach.
📌
I think it’s pretty well documented that Putin invested heavily in nurturing anti-vaxx sentiment in the US! Yet we forget and blame the dems (and public health workers for just trying to actually do their jobs!)
There is even a quick way to tell if a "reason" for a bad position is offered in good faith- is it a word-for-word repeat of someone on Fox News or other right wing media?
Exactly true! It is not our fault as liberal and educated people for the insane reactions of stupid people. There is NO fair and balanced arguments or both sides airing of ideas when one group has facts and the other group is running on hate and bullshit.
The problem is we don't have very many actual liberal pundits affiliated with major outlets. New York Times is not a liberal outlet. It is still a pro-business magazine that was started to support the anti-abolitionist movement. They continue to revise headlines and bylines to please the GOP.
Growing up in Queens, in a home of florid domestic violence not unlike that happening in a particular real estate family’s home a few miles away, I’ve never seen this as anything but gendered violence against women & children. Elite liberal pundits all seem like classic enablers!
Far too many people believe that the joke about never attributing malice to that which can be explained by incompetence is an actual philosophical rule--if not an an absolute axiom--they should apply in life, rather than just take it as a dumb joke.
Right. When are we going to see that the right has agency and should be held responsible for their actions.
And a choice that provides rich benefits to them. Follow the money, the influence, the power, the sheer ability to control and harm others.
The left (or what passes for left in America) doesn't have to apologize for anything. And those "liberal pundits" are nothing but the very illiberal networks' employees.
All my life’s mistakes were made because reactionaries were rude and I will die on this hamburger hill.
“Insisting on nuance & complexity when the reality is dumb & simple *is an error*.” Excellent summation.
“…excess charity can also be an intellectual error.” is the perfect distillation of the continued, predictable failure of the Dem party and their mostly sheep-minded dedication to a half-unwitting dooming of the constructive and empathetic aspects of America’s potential.
I agree with this completely, and think that your thread accurately identifies what causes this phenomenon 80% the time. The other 20% is that those kind of liberals are desperate to believe that *they* have the power to change the situation. Believing it’s their fault gives them agency.
The media's response to Sarah Palin the day after the first debate is a textbook example of this. They patted her on the head, gave a thumbs up and offered some encouraging smiles in the way you console a young child who just shit their pants during the school play.
Stupendous thread. I wonder if the liberal response is less about charity and more just flailing around trying to find a fix. If so many people, SO MANY PEOPLE, are dumb and selfish, maybe even malicious, and they LIKE, being those things…well… what’s a good liberal to do with that?
For my part, I’ve been intensely tongue-tied about politics for at least the last couple years. Most of the time, there’s just nothing interesting to say about these profoundly uninteresting forces that are ruining our country.
Excellent, superb thread Word of the year/decade: sanewashing
The right doesn't deserve a benefit of the doubt on anything.
Are you talking about online interactions, or pundits or something? Because it doesn't match the behaviors of the liberals I know in real life. (Like, at a protest, we're absolutely calling racists, sexists, transphobes et cetera reprehensible bigoted idiots, as we banter with each other.)
He's mostly referring to the pundit class & the wealthy, white, bubble they exist in with other liberals. The liberals you see at protests are most likely a different set of liberals.
It certainly applies to the pundit/media class. It's the unquestioned bedrock worldview of every NYT/CNN/etc piece ever published. But I see it in "regular" liberals a lot too.
Yes, this is definitely *not* just a media thing. I see it in regular liberals around me all the time -- especially your average educated professional who's not involved in politics.
they cant just be dumb assholes! that would mean i cant engage in good faith discussion and that we must be in conflict and as a centrist pundit there is nothing i hate more than conflict
Right. It's many unengaged but liberally inclined people. It's not usually the folks engaged enough to show up at a protest.
Okay, I get it, I buy it, and I hate it.
Yeah I show up at protests and I've been pissed off about the RW propaganda machine for 40 years. But I worked in a blue collar mostly WM world and walked through the shop where almost every guy had a radio blasting Rush L when that took off. Fox News and Glenn fans.
Rush had them thinking things like Obama is stealing their 401k and Obamacare is going to cancel our health insurance. For some reason they trusted me when I'd clear up those things for them. I always hoped finding out he was BSing them on those issues cast doubt on the rest of it. I tried.
Ah, okay. I despise pundits and pay no attention to them. I guess I could see regular people who *do* pay attention to pundits absorbing it as a kind of background radiation thing or something. How awful.
i think one issue is that this approach has proven to be a total failure. a partisan who sees the right as morally deficient will have had a better track record at predicting the events of the last few years than someone who is endlessly trying to demonstrate their nuance.
Almost like the entire point of republicanism was nazi shit and pedophilia.
🔥
Yes! The absolute dumbest, crudest, most "partisan" take on the right is the one that predicts its behavior most accurately. Been true for decades. Clearly something is motivating the people doing the nuance schtick other than "getting it right." There are other incentives at play.
The love of nuance and complexity is baked so deep in the DNA of a huge number of center left folks. It's a core part of their identity. And often that's a good thing. But not when it leads them to bothsides the worst impulses in American politics.
Money? that is the usual one.... Audience capture I suppose could be considered a form of money as well....
Yes. RghtWngers have worked the refs at MSM for decades. 1 response by bosses is to hire RW journalists. Another is to hire libs who do both sides & Murc's Law. RWngers have successfully pushed MSM & the public Rghtward in this way. Thread in answer to David's thread bsky.app/profile/upin...
You don’t have to convince people that you’re 100% right, all you have to do is plant the seed of doubt. Small adjustments like “both sides,” have caused a political course change, all they had to do was nudge the needle. BC, if you're off course by just 1° after a mile, you'll be off by 92.2ft.
Exactly. This is why the book on propaganda about cigarette smoking and environmental hazards is called Merchants of Doubt. Ppl who doubted that cigarettes were addictive & caused cancer bought a lot of cigarettes & made the companies who hired the propagandists rich. www.amazon.com/Merchants-Do...
Spot on!
I have varied thoughts on the larger, big picture motivations for this schtick. But I think in the case of this specific podcast, a pretty significant factor (if I'm reading him correctly) is that Ezra Klein himself is somewhat sympathetic to RFK Jr. style woo.
I think a terrifying number of people are, tbh. And like, there are always degrees and reasons why people get into different parts of the woo-universe but then like...you have to dig the moat.
It's why they say MAHA has reasonable concerns over stuff like food dyes. Even though there isn't really a lot of concrete evidence that food dyes are anything to worry about.
People half remember stuff about harmful food dyes and then say it's impolite to suggest that people could have bad faith objections to stuff
It's not even a matter of bad faith objections. A lot of sincere beliefs in alt health stuff are just simply incorrect.
"We can at least work with RFK Jr. on banning food dyes!" Why? To what end? All it would do is give him a win, while not actually materially improving anything for anyone.
But ... but ... real sugar in Coke? Fries in beef tallow? Those are game changers for the health of the country we can all get behind, surely. 😬
If certain people said 1+1=2 I would not say they were right, they just happened to say something that was not completely wrong
don't get me started on "ultra-processed foods"
It is such a totally meaningless term! It's pure, pure vibes.
That Stuff is just making an eating disorder into politics, step one would be defining what it included and then why they were bad and how and then you would need to have stuff that could be done beyond the person buying food should have more money to buy better food
We need to get people off those horrible, factory-frozen reheatable pizzas and onto fresh, healthy hand-made pizzas.
Plus, he may *talk* about banning artificial dyes. But the Donor Class will prevail on the Administration to keep it in the talking stage.
Having a sincere belief in something that is probably wrong is worse because you have no excuse
Right, like - there are reasonable concerns about, idk, the overall health of the country and the food system, and the limits of conventional medicine (with or without access). But RFK makes all those problems worse.
Yeah, and making skittles less red does absolutely zero to make anyone even a bit healthier. Same with the kind of cooking fat you use to make fries. No variation in cooking oil is going to make fries healthy.
Nope. Least of all beef tallow.
Making things probably better would take work
…wooniverse
Sorry
Don’t be it’s a brilliant coinage
The extended RFK Jr Wooniverse is a good description
My 2 cents is people who played in the political pool (politicians, journalists, consultants, talking heads, etc) were conditioned to not outright alienate anyone & now that Rs have dropped that pretense everyone else is scrambling on how to address it w/o alienating people. Snake eating its tail
I know when I speak clearly about the right with my nice liberal-ish normie friends, I immediately feel the "you have TDS" flow from their eyes... I wonder if it has something to do with this.
Part of the US’s epistemic collapse is that, if you describe MAGA clearly to an American normie, you sound insane. I say this as someone who has ties to the country but doesn’t live there.
💯
Such as?
It’s fawning. The right has become very powerful in a way those who oppose them thought wasn’t possible. So they are scared, and when they are scared, they don’t fight or flee, they fawn.
Like TCW, they’re paid to get it wrong.
The only incentive is that finding a logical explanation for right-wing behavior makes it seem more like a problem we can fix and return to normal operation, rather than a deep deep well of intractable suckitude.
A handful of simple analytic rules will get you everything you needed to predict the last 4 decades or so. The first one is "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time."
These people are evil or stupid or both. No exceptions
It’s because they don’t want to admit to themselves that their uncle is a narcissist, their neighbor is racist, or their coworker is a selfish asshole. Nuance provides an explanation to why some people are miserable and generally DGAF about anyone else.
$$$$$$$$
This all goes with the fundamental difference between the 2 parties. Dems believe in nuance & treat competing views as good faith arguments. The GOP is a bad faith party whose leaders display confidence and certitude in their cruel, dishonest views. Low education people prefer certainty over nuance.
Which is why Dem candidates would be better off just taking a position and confidently conveying it to potential voters. Most people will still vote for someone they disagree with on one or two issues if they see the candidate as authentic and principled.
Correct, we need people who will loudly and publicly oppose the absolute pile of trash that are republican values and policies No more making excuses for them no more thinking you can educate them. Call them out make them own it and fuck them.
Unfortunately it appears the endless twisting into nuance hasn't been a total failure to tv MSM who practice it (since the only measure of value to them is corporate profits). # of eyeballs must be large enough for mngmt to keep up the talk show/both sides-ing "news" & calling it success.
put me on tv
The liberal impulse to bid against themselves.
I think it goes back to the “fallout” from things like “clinging to their guns and bibles” and “basket of deplorables.” Liberals “learned” that they need to give a modicum of logic/credit to things that don’t have any claim to logic or merit any credit, rather than explaining why they actually don’t
I think variations of this (“if we show we respect their world view they’ll listen to how we can improve their lives”) go back to the 1990s at least
Not a single person should have ever apologized for any of those.
That "fallout" was hit dogs hollerin'. We should say so.
Took me being around a lot of white, conservative, southerners in college to get the right-wings number. They are bad people, who relish in doing bad things. They will lie, cheat, and steal to get to power. And proudly be hypocritical to wield power. You don't argue w/these people, you defeat them.
All true except it's not just "Southerners". Trump is a born & bred New Yorker, Stephen Miller is from So California, Rupert Murdoch is Australian... Bigotry is no longer a geographic thing
Southern California and Australia are both pretty far south.
But "dumb, selfish people" is impolitic language. It forecloses the possibility of listening.
Arguing that liberals are preventing dumb, selfish people from listening is the exact kind of liberal blame assumption he's pointing out in this thread.
I am saying that insulting people prevents them from listening. That is all.
Other people being slightly rude in pointing out that they're making bad choices is not what is causing them to make bad choices. If they were inclined to listen to begin with, they wouldn't be choosing to support the Nazis. The ones who are good-but-misguided will figure it out on their own.
And really, that's *their responsibility*. It's not a kindness to protect other people from the consequences of their own bad decisions after they're adults. Learning to listen to hard feedback and be able to admit when they're wrong is a skill every adult has to learn.
Choosing words carefully is a delicate art. Often times the reason we're careless with our word choices is because we're angry and we want to blow off steam. So we hurl an insult when we could have used softer language. If I want a gentler world I should start with my own choice of words.
*And btw, I have no problem calling DJT a lying sack of shit. He is at the extreme end of the spectrum of human perfidy.
Yes! The flight to centrism in the face of a fascist/authoritarian movement will get people killed. It's a one-way ratchet further and further to the right.
Yes. Any normie resistance lib Dem voter (complimentary) whose only principle is "Orange Man Bad" is better at predicting and analyzing GOP behavior than any number of sophisticated pundits.
Elite liberal pundits will reflexively try to empathize w/republicans, but b/c they actually can't empathize w/the racism, they invent/force a fictitious person who has more nuanced reasons that they can empathize w/, and in the end they understand the right even worse than before they started
I think it's also that they know people who believe Fox News propaganda but are decent and honorable in "real life" and need to square the circle. It's easy to just say Rs are all racist assholes but plenty are actually decent but believe so many lies (that are racist) b/c of their info diet.
I’m proud to be a grubby partisan at this point. You do not get gold stars for being open minded to the possibility that insanity is reality. It’s nice to be empathetic but seriously, just knock it TF off.
You clearly have too much time on your hands. With all the very serious challenges D now have to remain relevant and politically viable, particularly State and nation-wide, this largely imaginary grievance does not even make the top 100 list.
Very well articulated
💯 We’ve been cutting funding to education for decades +recently demonizing “elites” who have a college education Those who want to cut funding for ed have the means to send THEIR children to private schools &university, but they don’t want that for anyone else Dumb is easier to manipulate/control
I think you picked a bad example, because vaccine skepticism has a huge population on the liberal side. Tons of liberals who believe in magic like homeopathy and supplements, new age garbage, they aren’t being lied to by Fox News. They have their own stupid issues with reality.
Marin county is a hot bed of this kind of liberal, new age, western medicine skepticism, including vaccine skepticism. Once Covid vaccines were available, it became one of, if not the most, highly vaccinated counties. I know there is crossover, but I don’t think these things are quite the same.
I don't know if you've read a newspaper in the last few years, but that faction has migrated to the right. That's what MAHA *is*.
Sadly, I have seen this in my own family.
I just encounter them in my daily life as liberals who don’t vote for the GOP but who still do their own research.
They vote for the GOP. They say they don't but they do. Basically, if they openly admit they think RFK Jr worth listening to they're rolling with the right wingers on this.
Vaccine skepticism on the left has been around a looong time, long before the GOP paired it with their fluoridation paranoia. But i wasn’t commenting on MAHA, so don’t pretend I declared a position. I was saying that vaccine skeptics come from more places than right wing lies.
But the people like Klein are not granting crunchy moms this courtesy, they always just sneered at “new agers” and said they were stupid for their stance, and nobody says they arrived there as a reaction to either left or right “overreach”. Agency. This actually makes David’s point more obvious.
Agree with David's point. As for rest of it if you're a person in society with any level of access to privilege and agency and you're hyping bogus "health" claims you're boosting a harmful, antisocial agenda regardless of whether you decorate it with vaguely left or right symbols.
I don’t follow you, but I blame myself. I am not seeing the relationship between your point and mine, but i often have trouble with short-form debates. I took it that Klein wasn’t recognizing the pre existing liberal anti-vaxx movement having been there at all.
Ah, he was only addressing the antivaxxers that arose during Covid. I agree the wellness antivaxxers started it off and are also a problem, but this was about how liberals preemptively make excuses for right wingers being reactionaries, the vax stuff was just one example
The MAHA stuff is common in portland or and it didnt shift right over the past 20 yrs. But they do consistently vote against fluoridation
(European here, lacking detail on US conditions). Anti-Vaxxers are often otherwise progressive. If you believe in alternative medicine, if you practise yoga, then you are far more likely to be an anti-vaxxer. It doesn't make you far right on other issues. I assume that pattern holds in the US too.
It does. That was the basis for my original comment. But Covid brought about the right-wing anti-vaxxer, and now they’re the loudest voice in the room.
But, they are also being lied to on the daily by a wellness ecosphere
Of course. But it’s a poor argument, that liberals fell for right wing propaganda regarding vaccines. Liberals invented the anti-vaxx movement. The right-wing only recently adopted it in a big way.
Libs will not deny your right to do what you want. They will also not cut funding that continues medical research.
Also it's not even true that it was in response to the covid vaccine. Vaccine skepticism had been rising for years and anti-vaccine groups were ready to pounce. Social scientists knew about it and warned about it! COVID was just the opportunity!
That's certainly my recollection of the vaccine rollout. You could see it coming, especially after Biden took office.
Amen, David!
This is the same pattern as Nick kristoff always blaming liberals for being mean to flyover country as a reason for fascism in the heartland. And woke being to blame. Too much liberal thought police, therefore Nazi salutes and jack booted thugs. It’s your own fault, city dweller!
But what is woke, really? Is it really whiny privileged snotty liberals? Or is it minorities with the temerity to insist they are equal citizens? It is the latter. So this sort of pandering by leftist to find a reason for the right is another form of gaslighting the very people they should defend.
So self-defeating. Politics is a team sport.
🤮
The constant propaganda through different sources is the problem. it hacks peoples brains. Supreme Court blessed this, MSM “both sides” and “explains” rational reasons why people are affected. Truth has no chance, so we careen forward.
I’ve seen many “shoulds” for how to correct this. But no way to correct the information environment at the core without significant law changes. So liberals and Dems need to be as aggressive as possible to cushion the impact, and take advantage of bad policy effects of propaganda when they surface.
