And yet Pierre Poilievre, the adopted son of lower-middle class parents was successfully painted as the candidate of "the rich" (to be fair, at least some of this was PP's own fault, but still...)
PP's mistake are that the media take small snippets of what he says and mischaracterize it. Making him out to be the "Canadian Donald Trump", which he is far from being. Unfortunately the window for him to become PM closed because the Liberals chose someone who looked serious who they could contrast against Trump. The guy who they were really running against. As we know in Canada, what is happening in the US far outweighs any policy decisions made by our leadership that impact us. Eventually, we will feel enough pain to be willing to change, as we realize that Donald Trump has little to do with our standard of living and the current governments awful policies. PP for his own sake may hope to be in a position to take advantage then, otherwise the next conservative leader will be PM.
Canadians proved their frozen brain status by failing to elect Poilievre. I know that Americans elected Joe Cabbage Biden, so there is certainly voter idiocy apparent in both countries. But given the state of affairs in Canada from the government tyranny during the pandemic... and the clear downward trendline of socioeconomic health that started with Trudeau being elected... it took a very profound level of stupid for Canadians to elect another Trudeau.
Hey, hey Frank....I am Canadian. And I have my wits about me. Always have. I have never been leftwing.
But I have to agree (sigh...) that the one third of the Canadian population who voted for Troodo, three times, are mind-captured. They are like the Manchurian Candidates who were programmed to do what their masters told them.
What can I say? I watch them and weep. The level of stupid you see is what happens in herd situations like cults and gangs and religious extremism too. Individual critical thinking deactivates.
I was still surprised that PP and/or the Conservative Party braintrust (such as it is...) never seemed to seriously entertain the notion that Trudeau might leave (he was actually deposed, but I picture the LPC higher-ups telling him "we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way...") and not having a Plan B in place for that possibility.
Meanwhile, Carney is just Trudeau 2.0 (only worse in some ways) minus the silly costumes and drama queen antics.
It was obvious long before Carney was elected that he was just another Globalist WEF-man. But I am afraid there were too many fried Canadian brains by then to shake themselves back into reality and vote for the best candidate. Too much of the Canadian population had been zombified by the election date.
When Trump opened his tweet-hole on the shiny object of Canada becoming the 51st state, all I could think was “Yeah, that’s brilliant Donnie, drag 40 left wing new seats into Congress, who will remain voting that way for the foreseeable future out of pure anger and resentment”.
Matt, Walter, and most Americans seem to have no idea what actual socialism looks like today despite the fact that UK's Labor party is currently going through a real fight between socialists in Labor who want most to destroy Keir Starmer and the globalists and the splinter Your Party movement.
First world socialism in practice today in the UK is the topic from the Spectator: listen to actual socialists outline the current debates racking the organized UK socialist movements. (Bailed on the Animal Farm snore, sorry!)
Troodo needs attention like he needs oxygen. He is a hollow man. Knock, knock...nothing there. He had gone several months without it. So he needed to cook up something. fast.
His stepfather Pierre Troodo had used the same tactic for fabricating public attention decades ago -- dating Hollywood celebrities. I think it was Barbara Streisand and Margot Kidder in his case (Walter might know about the latter).
The irony here is that both Troodo Sr. And Jr. rarely stopped spewing anti-Americanism at home. They were vile.
But then what did both men do upon marriage break-up (I can see why the wives left)? They phoned their connections and booked dates with Hollywood/entertainment industry celebrities. For the attention it would bring them. That was the whole point.
Nevermind that their dates were American...... guess that hatred suddenly went out the window when it did not serve a political purpose.
Both of his fathers were vehement Communists. Canada's first Communist Prime Minister was Pierre Troodo in the late 60s. Although the voters did not know he was Communist.
Mao Zedong too. His wife was an actress and even worse than him, together they killed more people than everyone else on that list. Theater kids are dangers to civilization.
Mao was basically a "professional student" until his (wealthy farmer) "cut off his allowance."
Wikipedia does some acrobatic word-smithing, first claiming, "Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan..."
But then adding a few paragraphs later, "His father, Mao Yichang, was a formerly impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan."
Why do you trust the info that is on there at all? IMO - this is the 21st century equivalent of calling up the local grocery store and asking if 'they have Prince Albert in a can'? ANYONE can be mucking up the site... just for fun.
+1 For the "Prince Albert in a can" reference! Ah, grade school!
Actually, I do find it useful to look up matters where I *already* have an idea of what the answer should be.
There are conscientious editors on Wikipedia. The downfall of Wikipedia was the "paid content enforcers", propagandists and similar agenda-driven miscreants. Pirate Wires has covered this extensively and Larry Sanger (co-founder of Wikipedia) has given many interviews on the subject.
Wikipedia: It's was interesting to note how many doctors who questioned the covid narrative or the safety of the covid vaccine subsequently discovered their Wikipedia profiles had been drastically rewritten. Wikipedia, bless its heart, can be readily credited for expanding the grand overuse of the term "far right" and "conspiracy theorist" to many fine folks long considered distinquished and politically moderate. Interesting also to read the recent updates to Wikipedia's schizoid discussion of Antifa. Do compare with reporting provided by journalist and substack writer Andy Ngo who was beaten and nearly killed by Anitifa in Portland.
Another world-class piece from Matt, who gets the ignorance of the young rich exactly right:
"This country has problems, even serious ones, but it’s not like gangsters are setting up freelance toll booths on I-95, or the strip steak you ordered at Ponderosa has a good chance of being cat meat. Citizens of countries that have known true suckage — including especially the ones with Marxist or Maoist histories — laugh at the things Americans call “problems.” The only people who think the system that produced the richest, safest empire in history is essentially unfixable are America’s own wealthy, whose current disdain for their own good fortune is like a political version of heroin chic."
Nobody who's been in former communist countries, or knows people who lived under that form of corruption and incompetence has any illusions about just how unfixable that form of totalitarianism actually is. That the children of the rich can dabble in these "edgy" fictions really is like plunging a needle into one's arm to learn about drug addiction.
"Churchill! With his cigars. With his brandy. And his rotten painting, rotten! Hitler, there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!"
H couldn't have pulled it off without the theatre kids and the children of the wealthy. Research on the voting rolls show that the "peasants" in Bavaria did not vote for him, whereas the Upper middle Class did. rinse. repeat.
But he has such good hair! Just as "bad hair" is defining for Donald Trump, "good hair" seems to bestow quite the hall pass for unsavory behavior (Clinton in the oval office w/Monica; Newsom dining out at fancy restaurants despite his covid shutdown of the masses). But bad hair? Unforgivable!
Like Thomas Sowell said, “The offspring of privilege have dominated the leadership of Marxist movements from the days of Marx and Engels through Lenin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and their lesser counterparts around the world and down through history. The sheer reiteration of the "working class" theme in Marxism has drowned out this plain fact.”
Easier to subvert a library built by a Carnegie. That way you get the imprimateur of classical architecture to frame the monthly Marxist display feature
Xi is a chemical engineer by trade as are many of the top leadership. Kinda explains why China has no homeless and more than 40,000 K of high speed rail and the US has more homeless and zero K HS rail.
I've always been amazed that Bill Ayers has never been properly lampooned for growing up a rich kid. Father was ceo/chairman of ComEd -- Northwestern University named a business school after him ("Thomas G. Ayers College of Commerce and Industry (CCI)").
I was puzzled why the University of Illinois in Chicago (formerly "Circle Campus") had Ayers on the faculty of their education department.
Oh, yeah, what's the line Lenin had?
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world.”
Gee, why do you think the leftists are so keen on controlling the education system in this country?
Here is what an evil son of a bitch Ayers really is:
He planted a bomb in a women's restroom for civilian employees at the Pentagon. The intention was to murder as many lower middle class women, many of them single mothers, as possible.
Ayers and his concupig, Bernardine Dohrn, were driving in rural Virginia when they heard the radio news bulletin about an explosion at the Pentagon. They screamed with laughter and glee. They have admitted this.
Thank God, no one was injured. Unknown to Ayers and Dohrn, there was an FBI informant within their group. Not wanting the two creeps to know this, the FBI watched the whole thing, and as soon as Ayers left, evacuated the area. Ayers and Dohrn learned that somehow, no women had been killed or injured, but didn't suspect they had an informant in the ranks.
Say what you will about J. Edgar Hoover, he did a lot of things right.
I have never hit anyone in my life but for decades have nurtured an occasional daydream that I might have the opportunity to slug Ayers.
Nevermind the MRI....first just try to find a doctor in Canada who will see you, to arrange it. If socialized medicine is "free" (from your taxes), but no one can access it, what's the point?
Socialized medicine is so much cheaper when your patients die on a waiting list. I mean really, we're only prolonging their suffering and look at all the money we're saving.
"If you think healthcare is expensive, wait until it's free." - P. J. O'Rourke
Absolutely. And it takes a particularly callous and cynical mind to realize that this is very useful politically.
Specifically, there is an never ending pitch regarding education yet education itself does not appear to be the goal nor the motivation of the people who seek to control education.
Those at the head of all of this -- the Globalists and the high-ranking CCP types -- are all Psychopaths. They have no human conscience. They have no empathy. It is missing from their make-up.
Good point -- I need to update my reply below regarding Trump to also include JFK and FDR: that is, neither pretended to be "working class" and both were known to come from well to do families.
Exactly. That’s a huge difference in that they didn’t pretend to be poor, working class, tradesmen, or to have any other upbringing and schooling than what they had.
How about AOC in your list of pretenders? I think Matt has called her out in a previous article. Excellent writing by Matt, as usual.
Why are we supposed to be suspicious of those upper-middle class scions who went into politics and turned their love beams upon the proletariate but not the wealthy nepobabies who chose a career in letters, masqueraded as working class heroes and then learned to suck the chrome off the trailer hitches of one billionaire after another the way you have, Matt?
Please name some "upper-middle class scions who went into politics and turned their love beams upon the proletariate" and how they helped the "proletariate"?
Seems that many upper-middle class scions [sic, laughing] in fact only cosplayed the working class hero precisely to turn their love beams on themselves.
I'll mention one. The one that got me to stop voting Democrat after I voted for him: Barack Obama.
Fake as the day is long: a career cos-player.
I've only been following Taibbi for maybe three or four years. He writes. Well. Skewers many a worthy target to my mind.
It's only natural that a person's viewpoint matures -- literally. Youthful passions can be found to be wanting in substance and efficacy. Not that it is bad to be an idealist but it's important to be a realist.
As the (often misattributed to Churchill) quote goes:
Indeed- and owing to their uniquely charming personalities, the whiff of aristocratic entitlement they projected probably helped, rather than hurt them.
Whereas Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon both grew up under modest circumstances and had to claw and fight for just about everything they ever had.
Definitely should be on the list! (i.e., the original one, maybe not so much of people who didn't hide their wealth...which he added to by marriage to the Ketchup Queen)
Kerry played the Vietnam war quasi-faux-whistleblower to great effect. He did have a great speaking voice back then.
If I'm not mistaken, his family's fortune goes back (at least) to nineteenth century "clipper ship" opium runs to the far east.
I hate the hypocrisy of it all. I had met a mom fr my daughter's preschool years ago who drove a pos van w an Al Gore sticker on it. After trying to get to know her by asking questions I find out that she lives on Sacramento street (swank area of SF) that was having "work done" (code for remodel) and that her older kids went to a private school in Marin by private bus! I must of asked her 3 times why she would bus her kids to Marin..I was so confused (pure ignorance on my part). Her only real answer is that they served healthy food! So to sum it up, she drove an old beat up van, lived in an exclusive all white neighborhood and sent her kids to an all white private school w good food all the while touting about how much she loves the "diversity" of the city yet completely isolates herself & family from it via schools & neighborhood. The same people that vote progressive. Needless to say she wanted nothing to do w me after that.
That's it too. The hypocrisy. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's "fake".
I have no problem at all associating with people who I disagree with -- even on some pretty substantive issues. No problem as long as they're sincere. Genuine.
Say what one might about Trump -- even with the spoonerisms or whatever -- he's been remarkably true and consistent to his spiel. Yes, he has "danced on the line" but compared to his predecessors certainly of the last twenty-five-plus years, he's real.
One of my favorite quotes is of Malcolm X describing the 1964 presidential election:
"I didn't go for Goldwater any more than for Johnson-except that in a wolf's den, I'd always known exactly where I stood; I'd watch the dangerous wolf closer than I would the smooth, sly fox. The wolf's very growling would keep me alert and fighting him to survive, whereas I might be lulled and fooled by the tricky fox. I'll give you an illustration of the fox. When the assassination in Dallas made Johnson President, who was the first person he called for? It was for his best friend, ''Dicky''- Richard Russell of Georgia. Civil rights was "a moral issue," Johnson was declaring to everybody -- while his best friend was the Southern racist who led the civil rights opposition. How would some sheriff sound, declaring himself so against bank robbery -- and Jesse James his best friend?
Goldwater as a man, I respected for speaking out his true convictions --something rarely done in politics today. He wasn't whispering to racists and smiling at integrationists. I felt Goldwater wouldn't have risked his unpopular stand without conviction. He flatly told black men he wasn't for them -- and there is this to consider: always, the black people have advanced further when they have seen they had to rise up against a system that they clearly saw was outright against them. Under the steady lullabies sung by foxy liberals, the Northern Negro became a beggar. But the Southern Negro, facing the honestly snarling white man, rose up to battle that white man for his freedom -- long before it happened in the North."
For what it's worth, I'd probably argue with X about Goldwater. I don't think Goldwater "wasn't for" blacks; he just wasn't for a welfare state.
In fact, even Wikipedia paints a picture of Goldwater as being thoroughly "liberal" as regards civil rights:
Exactly that. If one goes back and reads about Malcom X's speeches on how white liberals treat blacks as "tokens" it's as if nothing has changed. I see it all the time living in SF, from the mom driving the POS van to the coffee guy (white) at Peet's who panders to the barista who happens to be black. It's so insulting on so many levels.
1) Lying about 9/11 is a terrible, terrible look. If his aunt wasn't even in the country on 9/11, that could seriously damage his chances for election AND to actually get anything done. He's almost certainly lying about how his teacher took him aside on 9/11 and said he'd be discriminated against because he's Muslim -- on 9/11 the schools were let out almost immediately after it happened and we didn't know who did it for a a few days, IIRC. (Unless maybe the teacher knew something we didn't!)
"In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control." —Theodore Dalrymple
Solzhenitsyn said something comparable, but asked people to "live not by lies." A revolutionary act, still. I figure that's what a lot of us are doing here, reading and supporting Matt Taibbi and others.
Yeah, because leftists *love* the idea that our government lied about and perhaps even"fumbled intentionally" a civilian massacre, as the pretense to do forever wars and perma-strip American civil liberties under the Cheney admin? Wtf are you smoking.
I have eyes and ears. I know what happened. I live here. I’ve heard people say stupid shit. There is evil in the world that thinks that killing people working in an office building because of one’s fantasy of global caliphates and workers seizing the means of production was well worth it.
I think the lies are getting more outrageous, because candidates feel, even if they are caught, there will be no consequences.
What Newsom has done in CA, is all but criminal, but Gavin is not seeking an outrageously compensated no show job from a billionaire Dem donor, after his term ends. Newsom fully expects to be the Leader of the Free World.
Dems, having lost 2 elections with women candidates, are likely to oblige regardless of Newsom's train wreck record, and his abysmal Covid performance. Ironically, a NYC Mandami administration might save the nation from morphing into CA, minus the ocean vistas and perfect weather.
He's been "running" for at least 4 years, but every time he tries to make the "jump" to the big time, he's revealed as an empty suit. Remember the "debate" vs. DeSantis?
But he has good hair. He could win. I have a cousin who absolutely swoons over him. I saw this same reaction with female professional colleagues over Clinton. Sigh.
same. my mom made us kill the lobster.. said if Diane Keaton can do it so can you.. oh wait. it wasnt lobster. it was a loaf of Velveeta .... it went easily and felt no pain
Jihad is jihad. Just ask London. This fucker is not just humiliating the country, he is the rally cry for Dearborn and Minneapolis to join him in taking down every blue city and sucking it dry while driving the white Christian’s and Jews to extinction. Even Texas is not immune. Deport them all while we can.
"The lies are getting so outrageous that I don't even think people are supposed to believe them anymore -- I think they're supposed to pretend to believe them as a humiliation ritual."
It's easier for people to remember that if The Party says something is true, it is true. Official loyalty oaths have all those specific words people need to memorize, when they could be screaming about The Current Thing and letting the wealthy and powerful rob them blind.
He may be a liar. He lied on the View when he said he’d always believed Israel had a right to exist as a Jewish state. That was a complete and utter falsehood. It was the first time he said that
I don't know why anyone assumes he's lying. Half the country thinks places like New York are simply too dangerous to go to, the entirety of right-wing Xitter still believes that Portland was burnt to the ground by "BLM riots" that never happened, and my own mother seemed to have become convinced by fox that her safe suburban Maryland street where there's never been a crime was about to be a site of drive-by shootings. If you get your information from TV, you can start to believe all kinds of nonsense that even your own eyes would tell you is rubbish.
Pretty sure the reasons we think he's lying have already been laid out.
And Portland has been in the middle of violent riots for nearly a decade now. The city wasn't "burnt to the ground," but that's not because Antifa didn't try to burn it to the ground.
I watch those protests every weekend. There's a lot of time for "dance parties" while the agents are behind the gates, but when they come out to clear the street it's an entirely different matter.
The only delusion is the life people like you live in. A little bubble where you are a meme like the dog in the burning house. I have watched Seattle and Portland both sink to levels of depravity and blight not seen in this country since the late 1970’s. No one actually thinks Portland burned down, bless your heart. It’s a metaphor describing the quality of life for the normal ass tax payers who commute to work in traffic that os artificially created by road diets and bike infrastructure no one uses, or sits on a public transit coach hoping to not get stabbed or shot while being exposed to meth and fentanyl residue. Enduring this while seeing hookers selling ass and fentanyl addicts doing the zombie hang on the corner as elementary and middle school kids walk by on their way to the indoctrination center run by your fellow travelers who think this is all great. The rest of us are biding our time to escape from these hellscapes of leftist failure. I have lived in Portland and Seattle my entire life and can tell you from experience that you are clueless or malevolent. Pick one. Either way it doesn’t make you righteous.
Do not try to gaslight us. In PDX in 2020, there were antifa riots focused on the Federal Courthouse that continued for three months. There were numerous instances of arson, looting, vandalism, and injuries during those protests. Antifa gunman Michael Reinoehl murdered Patriot Prayer supporter Aaron Danielson in downtown PDX.
Half the country thinks places like New York are simply too dangerous to go to, the entirety of right-wing Xitter still believes that Portland was burnt to the ground by "BLM riots"
You paint with a very broad brush. Which means you make a huge mess of the detail work. And- in this case-show how clueless you are...
Yeah, that sounds like the CIA, a day late and a dollar short.
I remember talking heads on CNN or whatever saying this has all of the "hallmarks of an al Qaeda attack" before the towers even came down. Of course, nowadays, that turn of phrase has acquired a bit of discredit, but back then, I had no reason to distrust it.
I very clearly remember watching an old ABC Frontline interview with Osama bin Laden that very day.
Newsom was raised by broke rich people. His mother did work several jobs and raise him on her own after her divorce. His father couldn't help at the time because he was broke after putting his own money into a senate run. They always had ties to rich people and they helped him when he was older.
I came of age around the time Obama entered the national political scene. He at least had a fig leaf of experience in government and a credible-sounding background as a law professor to go along with his smooth talking charisma.
Now compare Mamdani to Obama. Mamdani says the things openly and proudly—about 9/11, hating America’s institutions, truly wacko policy positions that should be in the dustbin of history alongside the Politburo, etc.—that Obama’s detractors could only concoct in their wildest fever dreams. And yet now he’s the “rising star” in the party! How much the mask has come off (or how far the Democrats have fallen, depending on your view) in 15 years.
Mamdani as the son of a radical Columbia humanities professor and a notable film industry creative type is just peak urban, coastal, over-educated yet totally clueless elite. You couldn’t make him any more the archetype if he was lab-grown.
Also, can you do a piece on the “former” CIA people gaining political power? The idea of Spanberger in VA joining Slotkin in MI…this has to be some concerted strategy to get these spooks more overt influence on the D side.
IMO this is indictive of the doom loop the Democrats are finding themselves in. As they lose the 'soft center' through foundational ideas such as open borders and "men can become women by wishing really hard", the people who remain in the party are (obviously) the more extreme members.
This repeats over and over -- and sooner or later the "fringe" is the majority in the party.
The scariest part to me is that the people who started as Obama fans in the late aughts who were “soft center” (stereotypically white wealthier suburban women, say) were then radicalized in the Trump era, aided by the media/IC propaganda and lies Matt has documented well here. In other words, many who were in the “soft center” became themselves part of the doom loop and thus the “fringe” by the early 2020s.
Yep. For every "normie" who dropped out of the party due to one of the purity tests or another, there was a counterpart (or three) who actually believed the MSM "the sky is falling" freakout.
You probably saw them at the No Kings rallies......
My back of the envelope hypothesis was that Russiagate was the “gateway drug” for a lot of this among the radicalized normies we are discussing. The mainstream Democratic party set out a position (our elected president is a Russian asset) that is certifiably insane and more radical than anything Trump said or did before Russiagate. It gave a permission structure/Overton Window for the normies to believe any crazy “current thing” the Party wanted them to believe.
That does seem to be where the worm turned, so to speak. And since then there have been numerous "purity tests" that shave off the less-radicalized and leave a hard core of hardcore fanatics.
I’ve sometimes talked about the “reverse snowball” of people who no longer trust the media — but the same is true of people who trust the Democratic party. With every new purity test pledge — Shut down for covid! Mask up! Boys should compete against girls! Open Borders! Let the homeless do drugs on the sidewalk! — some of that soft middle falls away. Every issue where Democrats are on the wrong side of the 80/20 split, they lose the confidence of the voters.
Remember, Tulsi Gabbard ran for president as as Democrat in 2020. RFK Jr. ran as a Democrat in 2024 until they ran him out of the party! Even Trump was a Democrat not that long ago!
It may not have been the belief itself that Russia had interfered in our election that turned the tide, but rather that this was the perfect tip of the spear to "get" Trump. "Cooties!."
that's the power of mass manipulation. It's not that hard to see. Find a group to blame, find new ways of expressing why they are to blame, deflect all blame from your group and repeat who is to blame. And them blame them some more. It's what got people to question whether Biden's cognitive swan dive was real or just his 'childhood stutter'.
It's breathtaking self delusion. It works if you're on a steady diet of CNN, john oliver and the other wokies who prioritize DEI over common sense.
I grew up in Delaware. My good friend, Miss Delaware, worked for him. I hung out at Stone Balloon with Miss Jill. Never did I hear or was told he had a stutter.
- People with beliefs look to work with like minded people.
- If those beliefs have traction, this "group" grows powerful.
- The "group" is then taken over and skin-suited by powerful interests.
- The people with beliefs begin leaving.
- Soon the group consists primarily of people who don't believe but will use those beliefs to accumulate and exercises power.
- Everyone with beliefs then leaves the group because it is now run by psychopaths.
At this point, the group is just a hollow shell. A bankrupt company bought for their brand to scam the least knowledgeable until even they won't buy anymore.
By definition, the people still remaining in these dead skin suited groups are the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst.
All political parties are the master in this domain, but the ACLU is great poster child because their beginning and end are within our lifetime so it's easier to see the process--and they made it so obvious.
This is the biggest danger with groups--at the end, all of the power accumulated is wielded by the worst people our society can produce.
Like a collapsing government with nuclear weapons, all we can do is hold our breath and pray--and then we are on to building the next group.
There is so much power in cooperation and fraternity, one of our super powers is hyper-specialization which requires submission to the group.
We have stolen fire (which is the smart play), now we just need to figure out how not to burn down the world--or turn it into hell.
Obama was skilled at getting credentials and being appointed to positions...and then doing nothing but looking for the next resume item.
As I understand it, he spent two years as president of the Harvard Law Review and twelve at the Law School of the University of Chicago (adjunct faculty).
See if you can find any research articles, reviews or books on legal theory.
His professional legal career appears similarly hollow.
According to Google AI: "The publicity from his role as president [ed: of the Harvard Law Review] led to a publishing contract for his memoir, Dreams from My Father, which was released in 1995."
I didn't do my homework, so to speak, and despite my skepticism I voted for him in 2008. That was the last time I voted for a Democrat in a national election. The dude is just fake to the core. It was all a hoax. A scam. A play on feel-good emotions. The dude who talked about the "rising oceans" goes and purchases multi-million dollar beachfront properties in Hawaii and Martha's Vineyard.
And where did all that money come from? Here's a note: who benefitted from "Net Neutrality" (spoiler: Netflix). Who gave Obama a multimillion dollar movie deal (spoiler: Netflix).
A friend of mine who was on the Harvard Law Review at the time tells me that being the "President" of the HLR is less prestigious than being the Editor in Chief. Obummer was elected largely because his opponent was far more radical than he was.
Thank you for the added detail -- sounds entirely plausible!
The Editor in Chief would need substantive knowledge and skill -- that's serious work!
I am under the impression that Obama did not contribute any material to the publication during his tenure.
In particular, I read that someone "discovered" an unsubmitted article (on abortion access, if I recall correctly) in his desk after he left. It struck me as a situation where he second-guessed that the topic was too much of a "live wire" and avoided any political exposure or risk.
Same conclusion here. Fooled (or foolish) until circa 2012 by the phoniest man in politics. That dude had some serious backers though. Cough spooks cough. An arrogant empty suit. Though saved the banks in 2008 so there is that.
What’s the issue in VA? I thought she was a shoe-in.
Maybe you are referring to Jay Jones, Dem candidate for Attorney General?
Jones commented about former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, writing in an email (as reported by the WSJ): "three people two bullets…Gilbert, Hitler, and Polpot…Gilbert gets two bullets to the head."
Va Democrats really don,t care at all about silly stuff like that. Scandals circling Gov Northam and Lt Gov Fairfax came to nothing. Gov Wilder's slave museum never happened ( money and donated artifacts disappeared with it).
You could argue that Mamdani is Obama 2.0. You would be impying that the comparison works because both are articulate guys with an interesting ethnic background though, do you want to go there? If so, you could also argue that Obama had to be a moderate milquetoast because a radical black would not be electable. Obama did assuage a bit of liberal guilt, but didn't move the needle economically.
So now the left wants the real thing. The old smears of COMMUNIST, MARXIST!! don't work anymore with the young, and they don't know what you're talking about when you say politburo. And 9/11 is getting old as well. So now a left-wing muslim with a funny name will be mayor of NYC, he still has to smile a lot though.
You shouldn't be shocked, shocked I say, that he comes from well-educated wealth. Political movements, including revolutions, are always led by the elite, a known fact others in this comment section have mocked endlessly. Why that is a problem though? Politics is not an authenticity competition and I prefer my leaders smart. Platner doesn't seem smart nor sincere, unlike Mamdani, Taibbi is doing the old guilt by association trick here.
While I agree with much of what you write here - the problem is that conventional definitions of "smart" don't bear out in practice - believing one is "smart" allows the skillful to manipulate these tools into some very, very bad decisions - see Clinton and Obama in particular. Of course, the clearly dumb can also fail - Bush Biden.
Mamdani is a dunce coz, unlike Platner he's made no effort to date to build his own identity outside his privilaged past. I frankly can't believe Mamdani is actually as stupid as he sounds, but the evidence suggests he might be.
Reducing Matt's article to "guilt by association trick" is a pretty slick trick itself: an attempt to neutralize the significant points he made and documented. Why?
Which points? That the trust-fund babies are not good little capitalists but are stupid enough to show some empathy with those less well off? That they shouldn't poop in the golden toilet they were born on, that they should spit out their silver spoons and become plumbers?
I find the arc of the article a bit confusing to be frank, and I don't know what else the point is beyond finding many ways to say that rich lefties are ignorant fakes.
There are many ways to analyse the relations between wealthy prodigies and the wretched of the earth, accusations of inauthenticity and unreasoned dismissals of marxism are not very interesting ones. So that is why
Matt is a bit confusing, mostly because l don't understand how he got from where he used to be to where he is now - and i,m not even altogether sure where he is now. His lingering fondness for Bernie is a real puzzle and leads me to believe the explanation probably lies in his wallet, which is fine. Or maybe a wife and children modify one's perspective.
Today's trust fund babies of which he speaks don't have a clue as to the wretched of the earth.
"Mamdani says the things openly and proudly—about 9/11, hating America’s institutions, truly wacko policy positions that should be in the dustbin of history alongside the Politburo, etc."
When and if (a very big if) Mamdani actually confronts the powers that be in NYC to get something constructive done, he will wilt into putty and/or be eaten alive. So my prediction is that nothing constructive will happen at all, because he will never have the cojones to deal with who needs to be dealt with. Supported by his and his constituents' fantasies, he'll coast on his silver tongue for four (or eight!) years, and as Rome burns he'll have all the help he needs blaming everything on Trump. It'll take (at least) another generation of New Yorkers sifting through their parents' ashes to break out of the spell. I think we've seen this movie before -- it ran from Mayor Lindsay through Mayor Giuliani.
Nothing that really matters to the real powers will be threatened. In no more than a decade, their cleaning crew will come in and buy it up for pennies on the dollar to start the next rebirth cycle.
“ In countries where the bulk of people have to be concerned with survival — getting enough to eat, not being conquered by rival nations or revolutionaries, and holding crime and corruption to tolerable levels — colleges don’t teach kids that they’re citizens of oppressor nations that should probably be disbanded. They certainly wouldn’t do it if they lucked into the benefits of citizenship in a country like the United States. This country has problems, even serious ones, but it’s not like gangsters are setting up freelance toll booths on I-95, or the strip steak you ordered at Ponderosa has a good chance of being cat meat. Citizens of countries that have known true suckage — including especially the ones with Marxist or Maoist histories — laugh at the things Americans call “problems.” The only people who think the system that produced the richest, safest empire in history is essentially unfixable are America’s own wealthy, whose current disdain for their own good fortune is like a political version of heroin chic.”
That might be one of the best paragraphs Taibbi has ever written. Scorched earth is not always a bad thing.
Unfortunately we do still send some of our "brightest" to study in the US or Europe. Journals are all run by academics who have an entire cellar full of coolaid. Never mind the billions the 1st world spends sending insufferable academics and aid workers into the 3rd world to drop poison in our ears. We have a huge problem that the elite groupthink is truly global.
Thanks for outing the Platner con. The oystermen I know are furious that this privileged asshole is pretending to be one of them. They are subject to the vagaries of weather, markets, and government policy in a way that the Platners and Mamdanis will never be, and will never understand.
Any Mainer who casts a vote for a candidate who calls rural Americans "stupid and racist" is acting in confirmation of at least the first estimate. It's likely Susan Collins will carry this rural American area.
And Janet Mills thought that it was critical that Walmart be open, and churches shut.
I'm studying to be a teacher now, I fucking hate it. I'm working class, I don't come from an educated background. I thought (God knows why) that going off to a big university was a way to advance your life. That may have true in the days of the GI Bill. But since starting at this university, I've been asked to leave the program multiple times for my "problematic" views and "negative attitude." Most recently they asked me to leave because I had the nerve to write a paper about how it is not a teacher's responsibility to talk or know about a student's sexual orientation. They told me, "You don't care about your students." So fuck it. I'm not going to be a part of that bullshit world Matt describes in this article, where people are taught to hate everything about their country and "deconstruct social norms." I'll go get a job in the blue collar world--the ACTUAL working classes. Education is dead in this country. And it's reflected in who the educated classes vote for.
Counterpoint: parents in the US see hope that people like you stay in education programs, insane profs be damned, and stick it out so there are SOME sane people in education.
I can't imagine what it's like to be in college right now, especially if you can think for yourself, so it's easy for me to say stick it out. If you DO stick it out, there are lots of teaching opportunities at classical academies that don't force feed leftist BS to kids.
I hope you can find the strength to stay in teaching. People like you are sorely needed to counterbalance the cult that is destroying our young people now. Eventually, the tide will turn, and teachers with integrity will be sought for leadership.
Let me be clear if you don't have the nuts to deal with the pricks while a student, you don't have the nuts for the classroom, the parents, and the teacher's room.
The ticket through? Treat everyone with respect, listen to everyone, find something to like in every person and every discussion, and stay true to what is right. You'll succeed and enjoy it!
You're quitting without getting to the best part: learning from the kids, who are great!
That the left has descended into absolute lunacy has been obvious for a long time. What's less obvious is that it will work to their detriment. Throwing people into permanent crisis mode and then leveraging their anxiety to get them to vote for any craziness you can come up with seems to work pretty well in the age of social media.
I can't even acquit the right of the same tactic. Best I can say is we're not quite as crazy.
The incentive rests with the voters, but they're used to ignoring failure until it's within 5 feet of their front door. And even then they'll default to blaming someone.... anyone but the person they voted for.
When all the people ruined by the Obama Bailout didn't riot it was clear to the Elites that they could do whatever they wanted. Where was No Kings then??
I was also thinking that. In the past when NYC was bailed out there was a case that it was a unique and vital center of finance, trade and commerce. It's a lot less so today. It will be a harder case to make for those of us doing the bailing.
Well, everything about covid was weird. Let's hope it's more like the 1975 when it was at least controversial. I also wonder if Hochul's not going to regret this because the bailout will fall on NY state first. Could be interesting.
I wrote this back on 10/14/21: "Within the last week I said something to the effect that perhaps the worst thing that could happen to the Democrats would be if they got everything they wanted. I guess I'm not alone here, this is from Peggy Noonan's latest editorial:"
"There was last week’s Ezra Klein column in the New York Times on the data analyst David Shor, who warns the Democratic Party it faces long-term disaster if it continues to press its progressive agenda. In Mr. Klein’s paraphrasing of Mr. Shor, the party is trapped in an echo chamber of Twitter activists and woke staff and consultants. None of this is precisely new, but this iteration of Mr. Shor’s argument carried an electoral charge and spread through the political class. Its relevance here is that Mr. Shor’s work allows Democratic politicians and operatives to work with their friends in media, the academy and the activist world to send the word: Cool it, you’re hurting the larger project. Robespierre, there’s too much blood, put the guillotines aside. Or we’ll kill you."
Perhaps the best thing to happen to the US in the last 50 years was Trump losing a fixed election in 2020.
It's easier to talk about free buses and government run cheese shops. It's hard to fix problems like flooding subways and terrible trash pick up that makes life bad.
New Yorkers are a dumb bunch. They tolerate idiotic leaders, anti-business laws and now invite a commie to be mayor. They want illegals? Fine. Send them all to NYC, and let the people who want to pay for this, pay for this. Let's all have a good laugh when the bill comes due and they look at each other trying to figure out who's gonna plunk down their AMEX.
"They want illegals? Fine. Send them all to NYC, and let the people who want to pay for this, pay for this. Let's all have a good laugh when the bill comes due and they look at each other trying to figure out who's gonna plunk down their AMEX."
Remember, when the red states actually did this, Mayor Adams called it an unsustainable emergency and demanded a federal "bailout".
Denver hospital raises alarm about $136 million deficit it’s scrambling to pay as migrant crisis worsens
Denver Health, Colorado’s biggest safety net provider, is on the brink of a major crisis due to unpaid medical care costs as the state grapples with a historic influx of undocumented immigrants.
Between 2022 and 2023, Denver Health saw an additional $10 million in uncompensated care. Dr. Donna Lynne, CEO of Denver Health, told local outlets the hospital had $60 million in uncompensated care in 2020, but by 2022, that number increased to $125 million, hitting about $136 million last year.
All we need is competent candidates. You can’t beat somebody with nobody. The Republicans have a lot of money and mostly lock-in races. Do you think they could spend some of it promoting democracy over here? In self interest?
Possessing a track record of success demonstrating effectiveness that can stand up to examination and scrutiny. It's unsexy and boring. Voters don't understand this.
Voting for someone is akin to hiring a roofer. You shouldn't care if the roofer has nice hair or is a good bs artist. You should care if they're a good roofer.
I’d be content in the first instance with much less than that. All I need is someone competent enough to be electable, so as to impose some accountability on the current bunch, who are malevolent as well as incompetent and lazy. It’s a low bar and yet the Republicans are failing to meet it.
competent enough to be electable - yeah, that's mitch mcconnell, pelosi, aoc and shumer. And newsom. Sorry, that bar is too low.
I live in a state where a water reservoir sat empty for 2 fire seasons, with neither the fire dept, the water utility or the political leadership of the city talking to each other regarding how to fix it.
So cry me a river about republicans but democrats own this trash heap. The TDS sufferers never want to talk about city and state leaders. I wonder why that is.
In January 1970, in his Park Avenue penthouse, the conductor and "West Side Story" composer Leonard Bernstein hosted a cocktail party for 100 of his friends to raise money for the Black Panther Party, who had 20 of its members under arrest for a plot to explode bombs in NYC police precinct houses and midtown office buildings.
The bash gave rise to the term "radical chic", a derogatory term referring to bored, rich people trying to bring excitement into their lives by dabbling in militant, revolutionary politics while munching Beluga caviar on toast points.
At least back then there was a substratum of "genuine" radical activism -- the Black Panthers didn't spend ALL their time in Leonard Bernstein's penthouse. They were visitors.
Today, the radical activism is coming from people who grew up in penthouses.
I highly recommend rereading Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe. I read it recently, and to me, it was as fresh and inside-y as if it were written today instead of 50+ years ago.
It's interesting that when you discuss politics with legal immigrants, how most of them are solidly conservative. They really understand how horrible it is to live under an oppressive government and/or a poor economic system. They are some of the most well informed citizens who have real life experience and stand in complete contrast to the spoiled brats graduating from what passes for today's version of elite education.
This reminds me a lot of biographies I have read about Che Guevara and Carlos the Jackal, two left wing revolutionaries who came from affluent backgrounds and who also thought they knew what was best for the masses. It also reminds me of a book published in the early 80s titled "The Terror Network," which was all about the left wing terrorist groups who plagued Western Europe and Japan in the 70s; many of the members of those groups came from similar backgrounds. And let's not forget that Karl Marx was certainly no "prole" himself.
The Left and Islam...the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact of our time. The parties of the Left hand-in-glove with the Muslims..UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain., The effete West unable to resist.
Reminds me of one of the photos of the Free Palestine fits at Columbia. One young lady screaming her head off in a Choate sweatshirt. When you have few problems and are living through a ten year grievance fit, you do fine things with your pricy education.
Great theories like social workers should be called for domestic violence incidents, like Mamdani wants, are for people who have never had to worry about such matters. These people never bear the personal costs for their stupid solutions. Also, I notice that Mamdani’s security is armed. Maybe he should replace them with social workers while he rides the free bus to work.
The left/right divide is about crafting an identity about "issues" neither the "left" or the "right" actually much cares about.
That America's Versailles liberals identify as "left" is entirely appropriate.
Most of us just want to be left alone by our political class who are inversely-motivated to do good, for the most part, the further up the greasy pole they slither - the same is true for bureaucrats in the management class of education, unions, and the military.
Lying about family strikes me as odious as lying about a national tragedy, or national services. Hasn't stopped anyone from trying and won't. Can't wait for an in-depth discussion of "truth-manufacturing AI complete with AI generated images and news reports as sources. Seriously doubt Mandani's lies will have any impact on the outcome of the NYC election.
Polls say that Mamdani loses by a big margin among native New Yorkers but has overwhelming support among immigrants. So there’s a weird alliance between the coddled affluent class and newbies who apparently didn’t learn anything in their countries of origin.
Upper-class kids who went into politics:
Fidel Castro
Pol Pot
Vladimir Lenin
Che Gueverra
Osama Bin Laden
Justin Trudeau
Jagmeet Singh
And yet Pierre Poilievre, the adopted son of lower-middle class parents was successfully painted as the candidate of "the rich" (to be fair, at least some of this was PP's own fault, but still...)
PP's mistake are that the media take small snippets of what he says and mischaracterize it. Making him out to be the "Canadian Donald Trump", which he is far from being. Unfortunately the window for him to become PM closed because the Liberals chose someone who looked serious who they could contrast against Trump. The guy who they were really running against. As we know in Canada, what is happening in the US far outweighs any policy decisions made by our leadership that impact us. Eventually, we will feel enough pain to be willing to change, as we realize that Donald Trump has little to do with our standard of living and the current governments awful policies. PP for his own sake may hope to be in a position to take advantage then, otherwise the next conservative leader will be PM.
Canadians proved their frozen brain status by failing to elect Poilievre. I know that Americans elected Joe Cabbage Biden, so there is certainly voter idiocy apparent in both countries. But given the state of affairs in Canada from the government tyranny during the pandemic... and the clear downward trendline of socioeconomic health that started with Trudeau being elected... it took a very profound level of stupid for Canadians to elect another Trudeau.
Hey, hey Frank....I am Canadian. And I have my wits about me. Always have. I have never been leftwing.
But I have to agree (sigh...) that the one third of the Canadian population who voted for Troodo, three times, are mind-captured. They are like the Manchurian Candidates who were programmed to do what their masters told them.
What can I say? I watch them and weep. The level of stupid you see is what happens in herd situations like cults and gangs and religious extremism too. Individual critical thinking deactivates.
Democrats stole the 2020 election. I think we're going to see proof of that before Trump's current term ends.
I was still surprised that PP and/or the Conservative Party braintrust (such as it is...) never seemed to seriously entertain the notion that Trudeau might leave (he was actually deposed, but I picture the LPC higher-ups telling him "we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way...") and not having a Plan B in place for that possibility.
Meanwhile, Carney is just Trudeau 2.0 (only worse in some ways) minus the silly costumes and drama queen antics.
It was obvious long before Carney was elected that he was just another Globalist WEF-man. But I am afraid there were too many fried Canadian brains by then to shake themselves back into reality and vote for the best candidate. Too much of the Canadian population had been zombified by the election date.
When Trump opened his tweet-hole on the shiny object of Canada becoming the 51st state, all I could think was “Yeah, that’s brilliant Donnie, drag 40 left wing new seats into Congress, who will remain voting that way for the foreseeable future out of pure anger and resentment”.
Matt, Walter, and most Americans seem to have no idea what actual socialism looks like today despite the fact that UK's Labor party is currently going through a real fight between socialists in Labor who want most to destroy Keir Starmer and the globalists and the splinter Your Party movement.
First world socialism in practice today in the UK is the topic from the Spectator: listen to actual socialists outline the current debates racking the organized UK socialist movements. (Bailed on the Animal Farm snore, sorry!)
Hint: expelling anti-zionists, Stalinism, and who controls party are some of the issues. Short, informative, and good fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TJbnn6Eykk
I call him the traitor with the Rolex.
With his wife having finally had enough and left him, he needed a new beard and has - for now anyways - appeared to settle on Katy Perry.
Katy, you left your $30 million/yr gig on American Idol for THIS?
Troodo needs attention like he needs oxygen. He is a hollow man. Knock, knock...nothing there. He had gone several months without it. So he needed to cook up something. fast.
His stepfather Pierre Troodo had used the same tactic for fabricating public attention decades ago -- dating Hollywood celebrities. I think it was Barbara Streisand and Margot Kidder in his case (Walter might know about the latter).
Wow, I hadn't heard or seen. Now *that* is an uncomfortable- looking couple.
A he-devil and a she-devil (from what I hear).
In Canada, some people still call him Rosemary's Baby, after the 1968 horror film. His conception and upbringing certainly seemed that way.
He made out like a bandit on profits from the insider track of the COVID lockdowns/jabs.
The irony here is that both Troodo Sr. And Jr. rarely stopped spewing anti-Americanism at home. They were vile.
But then what did both men do upon marriage break-up (I can see why the wives left)? They phoned their connections and booked dates with Hollywood/entertainment industry celebrities. For the attention it would bring them. That was the whole point.
Nevermind that their dates were American...... guess that hatred suddenly went out the window when it did not serve a political purpose.
I am waiting for him to declare that he is the rightful heir to the position of First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party...
Both of his fathers were vehement Communists. Canada's first Communist Prime Minister was Pierre Troodo in the late 60s. Although the voters did not know he was Communist.
He has many Castro half-siblings who probably got there first.
True, probably should go to Switzerland instead to claim the money stashed away there.
Mao Zedong too. His wife was an actress and even worse than him, together they killed more people than everyone else on that list. Theater kids are dangers to civilization.
Mao was basically a "professional student" until his (wealthy farmer) "cut off his allowance."
Wikipedia does some acrobatic word-smithing, first claiming, "Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan..."
But then adding a few paragraphs later, "His father, Mao Yichang, was a formerly impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
It's such a shame, if completely unsurprising, that Wikipedia has become such a propaganda tool.
Wikipedia is the Ministry of Truth. Google is the Memory Hole.
That's why I never use it.
It's still okay for topics that aren't "useful" for the propagandists.
Why do you trust the info that is on there at all? IMO - this is the 21st century equivalent of calling up the local grocery store and asking if 'they have Prince Albert in a can'? ANYONE can be mucking up the site... just for fun.
+1 For the "Prince Albert in a can" reference! Ah, grade school!
Actually, I do find it useful to look up matters where I *already* have an idea of what the answer should be.
There are conscientious editors on Wikipedia. The downfall of Wikipedia was the "paid content enforcers", propagandists and similar agenda-driven miscreants. Pirate Wires has covered this extensively and Larry Sanger (co-founder of Wikipedia) has given many interviews on the subject.
So, it's not *all* bad, by any means.
The propaganda is very annoying though, true.
Wikipedia: It's was interesting to note how many doctors who questioned the covid narrative or the safety of the covid vaccine subsequently discovered their Wikipedia profiles had been drastically rewritten. Wikipedia, bless its heart, can be readily credited for expanding the grand overuse of the term "far right" and "conspiracy theorist" to many fine folks long considered distinquished and politically moderate. Interesting also to read the recent updates to Wikipedia's schizoid discussion of Antifa. Do compare with reporting provided by journalist and substack writer Andy Ngo who was beaten and nearly killed by Anitifa in Portland.
A kulak!
It's theater kids all the way down, but if Europe is to be believed, what comes after the theater kids are even worse.
Another world-class piece from Matt, who gets the ignorance of the young rich exactly right:
"This country has problems, even serious ones, but it’s not like gangsters are setting up freelance toll booths on I-95, or the strip steak you ordered at Ponderosa has a good chance of being cat meat. Citizens of countries that have known true suckage — including especially the ones with Marxist or Maoist histories — laugh at the things Americans call “problems.” The only people who think the system that produced the richest, safest empire in history is essentially unfixable are America’s own wealthy, whose current disdain for their own good fortune is like a political version of heroin chic."
Nobody who's been in former communist countries, or knows people who lived under that form of corruption and incompetence has any illusions about just how unfixable that form of totalitarianism actually is. That the children of the rich can dabble in these "edgy" fictions really is like plunging a needle into one's arm to learn about drug addiction.
"Show business kids,
Makin' movies 'bout themselves,
You know they don't give a f*<k
About anybody else..."
From Bard College alumni!!
"It's theater kids all the way down..." I love this line so much!
You'll probably love this "article" as well, then -- featuring theater kids playing banker playing theater kids.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/when-the-drama-kids-play-as-bankers
Edit: Oh man it's so much worse than I remember.
But being a failed house painter may be a bit worse
He was an artist, house painter was just one thing he tried to pay the bills. Artists are overwhelmingly on the left.
It does not help to pretend.
Engineers are on the autism side of the scale from artism to autism.
"Churchill! With his cigars. With his brandy. And his rotten painting, rotten! Hitler, there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!"
You beat me to it! In my view that's the funniest movie ever made.
Springtime for you know who!
Pshaw, a lot of creativity goes into engineering. I think your characterization of engineers is ignorant.
I am an engineer
I’m referring more to the performative antics, pot banging, cosplying etc.
In general, not a lot of engineers in that crowd.
H couldn't have pulled it off without the theatre kids and the children of the wealthy. Research on the voting rolls show that the "peasants" in Bavaria did not vote for him, whereas the Upper middle Class did. rinse. repeat.
Barack Obama went to the Hotchkiss of Hawaii then cosplayed as a street denizen in Chicago…all they do is lie about who they are.
Barry's resume was 1/2 page long. No professional successes. Same attempt was made with Headboard Harris, but she's functionally retarded.
His nickname at Punahou High was "burnin Barry", a fun loving guy who enjoyed his Maui Electric & Kona Gold. And then.....
"Choomie".
gavin newsom
Top of my list for tarring and feathering
But he has such good hair! Just as "bad hair" is defining for Donald Trump, "good hair" seems to bestow quite the hall pass for unsavory behavior (Clinton in the oval office w/Monica; Newsom dining out at fancy restaurants despite his covid shutdown of the masses). But bad hair? Unforgivable!
Like Thomas Sowell said, “The offspring of privilege have dominated the leadership of Marxist movements from the days of Marx and Engels through Lenin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and their lesser counterparts around the world and down through history. The sheer reiteration of the "working class" theme in Marxism has drowned out this plain fact.”
Why can’t they just build hospitals or libraries?
Easier to subvert a library built by a Carnegie. That way you get the imprimateur of classical architecture to frame the monthly Marxist display feature
Good point.
Karl Marx
His uncle through marriage was the grandfather of the founders of Philips Electronics.
Also, don't forget Leon Trotsky.
And Marx was in no small way supported by Engels who was the son of a wealthy German industialist.
Carlos the Jackal.
Xi Jingping
Nancy Pelosi
Xi is a chemical engineer by trade as are many of the top leadership. Kinda explains why China has no homeless and more than 40,000 K of high speed rail and the US has more homeless and zero K HS rail.
try some insight..:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoYNchbLX1M
The Weather Underground
Symbionese Liberation Army
The Red Army Faction/Baader–Meinhof Group
I've always been amazed that Bill Ayers has never been properly lampooned for growing up a rich kid. Father was ceo/chairman of ComEd -- Northwestern University named a business school after him ("Thomas G. Ayers College of Commerce and Industry (CCI)").
I was puzzled why the University of Illinois in Chicago (formerly "Circle Campus") had Ayers on the faculty of their education department.
Oh, yeah, what's the line Lenin had?
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world.”
Gee, why do you think the leftists are so keen on controlling the education system in this country?
Here is what an evil son of a bitch Ayers really is:
He planted a bomb in a women's restroom for civilian employees at the Pentagon. The intention was to murder as many lower middle class women, many of them single mothers, as possible.
Ayers and his concupig, Bernardine Dohrn, were driving in rural Virginia when they heard the radio news bulletin about an explosion at the Pentagon. They screamed with laughter and glee. They have admitted this.
Thank God, no one was injured. Unknown to Ayers and Dohrn, there was an FBI informant within their group. Not wanting the two creeps to know this, the FBI watched the whole thing, and as soon as Ayers left, evacuated the area. Ayers and Dohrn learned that somehow, no women had been killed or injured, but didn't suspect they had an informant in the ranks.
Say what you will about J. Edgar Hoover, he did a lot of things right.
I have never hit anyone in my life but for decades have nurtured an occasional daydream that I might have the opportunity to slug Ayers.
When people dream about socialized medicine, I remind them that we already have socialized education. How's that working out for ya?
Tell them to go to Canada and try scheduling an MRI.
Nevermind the MRI....first just try to find a doctor in Canada who will see you, to arrange it. If socialized medicine is "free" (from your taxes), but no one can access it, what's the point?
Exactly......
Socialized medicine is so much cheaper when your patients die on a waiting list. I mean really, we're only prolonging their suffering and look at all the money we're saving.
"If you think healthcare is expensive, wait until it's free." - P. J. O'Rourke
The young brain/mind is highly programmable, especially by authority figures such as teachers in the classroom. The unconscious sucks it all in.
Absolutely. And it takes a particularly callous and cynical mind to realize that this is very useful politically.
Specifically, there is an never ending pitch regarding education yet education itself does not appear to be the goal nor the motivation of the people who seek to control education.
Those at the head of all of this -- the Globalists and the high-ranking CCP types -- are all Psychopaths. They have no human conscience. They have no empathy. It is missing from their make-up.
And now this kind of thinking has become trendy among the diletante upper middle class. Gucci politics.
It is a blatant totalitarian tactic. These days used in the West by the Globalist brigade and their minions. Or by CCP China.
They do not care about the well-being of the children or society. They care about turning out human beings to order.
Don't forget Kim Jong-un went to college in the West
FDR
JFK
And don't forget Wilson, who, like Biden, spent a good part of his Presidency in a coma.
Good point -- I need to update my reply below regarding Trump to also include JFK and FDR: that is, neither pretended to be "working class" and both were known to come from well to do families.
Exactly. That’s a huge difference in that they didn’t pretend to be poor, working class, tradesmen, or to have any other upbringing and schooling than what they had.
How about AOC in your list of pretenders? I think Matt has called her out in a previous article. Excellent writing by Matt, as usual.
Donald Trump
True but let's now filter the list "Upper-class kids who went into politics" by "and who never hid this fact."
Trump would likely be alone.
Per the above, I have to include JFK and FDR as neither cosplayed as "working class".
Exactly right. Kennedy also
Why are we supposed to be suspicious of those upper-middle class scions who went into politics and turned their love beams upon the proletariate but not the wealthy nepobabies who chose a career in letters, masqueraded as working class heroes and then learned to suck the chrome off the trailer hitches of one billionaire after another the way you have, Matt?
Please name some "upper-middle class scions who went into politics and turned their love beams upon the proletariate" and how they helped the "proletariate"?
Seems that many upper-middle class scions [sic, laughing] in fact only cosplayed the working class hero precisely to turn their love beams on themselves.
I'll mention one. The one that got me to stop voting Democrat after I voted for him: Barack Obama.
Fake as the day is long: a career cos-player.
I've only been following Taibbi for maybe three or four years. He writes. Well. Skewers many a worthy target to my mind.
It's only natural that a person's viewpoint matures -- literally. Youthful passions can be found to be wanting in substance and efficacy. Not that it is bad to be an idealist but it's important to be a realist.
As the (often misattributed to Churchill) quote goes:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/
In summary, your ad-hominem jab was made with a rubber knife.
Indeed- and owing to their uniquely charming personalities, the whiff of aristocratic entitlement they projected probably helped, rather than hurt them.
Whereas Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon both grew up under modest circumstances and had to claw and fight for just about everything they ever had.
Nixon apparently grew up pretty close to what one could call "dirt poor".
I read he won a scholarship to Harvard but couldn't afford to leave as he was needed to help support the family.
Truman grew up poor as did LBJ
JFK's PT boat was an attempt. And FDR cosplayed being ambulatory...
john Kerry
Definitely should be on the list! (i.e., the original one, maybe not so much of people who didn't hide their wealth...which he added to by marriage to the Ketchup Queen)
Kerry played the Vietnam war quasi-faux-whistleblower to great effect. He did have a great speaking voice back then.
If I'm not mistaken, his family's fortune goes back (at least) to nineteenth century "clipper ship" opium runs to the far east.
and Ho Chi Minh.
George W Bush
You left out the entire American Revolutionary leadership. They weren't poor guys who rose up against the King.
But did they pretend to be otherwise? That was the point of Matt’s article.
Good catch. How many came from aristocracy and how many were successful people?
Donald Trump
See my note as regards filtering the query by "and who never pretended to be working class or denied their background."
Trump is one of very few who never hid his background. Most work to camouflage and distance themselves from their comfortable upbringing.
I hate the hypocrisy of it all. I had met a mom fr my daughter's preschool years ago who drove a pos van w an Al Gore sticker on it. After trying to get to know her by asking questions I find out that she lives on Sacramento street (swank area of SF) that was having "work done" (code for remodel) and that her older kids went to a private school in Marin by private bus! I must of asked her 3 times why she would bus her kids to Marin..I was so confused (pure ignorance on my part). Her only real answer is that they served healthy food! So to sum it up, she drove an old beat up van, lived in an exclusive all white neighborhood and sent her kids to an all white private school w good food all the while touting about how much she loves the "diversity" of the city yet completely isolates herself & family from it via schools & neighborhood. The same people that vote progressive. Needless to say she wanted nothing to do w me after that.
That's it too. The hypocrisy. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's "fake".
I have no problem at all associating with people who I disagree with -- even on some pretty substantive issues. No problem as long as they're sincere. Genuine.
Say what one might about Trump -- even with the spoonerisms or whatever -- he's been remarkably true and consistent to his spiel. Yes, he has "danced on the line" but compared to his predecessors certainly of the last twenty-five-plus years, he's real.
One of my favorite quotes is of Malcolm X describing the 1964 presidential election:
"I didn't go for Goldwater any more than for Johnson-except that in a wolf's den, I'd always known exactly where I stood; I'd watch the dangerous wolf closer than I would the smooth, sly fox. The wolf's very growling would keep me alert and fighting him to survive, whereas I might be lulled and fooled by the tricky fox. I'll give you an illustration of the fox. When the assassination in Dallas made Johnson President, who was the first person he called for? It was for his best friend, ''Dicky''- Richard Russell of Georgia. Civil rights was "a moral issue," Johnson was declaring to everybody -- while his best friend was the Southern racist who led the civil rights opposition. How would some sheriff sound, declaring himself so against bank robbery -- and Jesse James his best friend?
Goldwater as a man, I respected for speaking out his true convictions --something rarely done in politics today. He wasn't whispering to racists and smiling at integrationists. I felt Goldwater wouldn't have risked his unpopular stand without conviction. He flatly told black men he wasn't for them -- and there is this to consider: always, the black people have advanced further when they have seen they had to rise up against a system that they clearly saw was outright against them. Under the steady lullabies sung by foxy liberals, the Northern Negro became a beggar. But the Southern Negro, facing the honestly snarling white man, rose up to battle that white man for his freedom -- long before it happened in the North."
For what it's worth, I'd probably argue with X about Goldwater. I don't think Goldwater "wasn't for" blacks; he just wasn't for a welfare state.
In fact, even Wikipedia paints a picture of Goldwater as being thoroughly "liberal" as regards civil rights:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater#Support_for_civil_rights
Exactly that. If one goes back and reads about Malcom X's speeches on how white liberals treat blacks as "tokens" it's as if nothing has changed. I see it all the time living in SF, from the mom driving the POS van to the coffee guy (white) at Peet's who panders to the barista who happens to be black. It's so insulting on so many levels.
reminded me of all the finger pointing liberals who never have a POC at their parties. Tiresome.
Couple comments here:
1) Lying about 9/11 is a terrible, terrible look. If his aunt wasn't even in the country on 9/11, that could seriously damage his chances for election AND to actually get anything done. He's almost certainly lying about how his teacher took him aside on 9/11 and said he'd be discriminated against because he's Muslim -- on 9/11 the schools were let out almost immediately after it happened and we didn't know who did it for a a few days, IIRC. (Unless maybe the teacher knew something we didn't!)
2) Even Gavin Newsom is pretending like he grew up poor, eating Mac and Cheese https://nypost.com/2025/10/26/us-news/gavin-newsoms-story-about-hustling-to-pay-the-bills-raises-eyebrows-given-his-familys-ties-to-billionaire-heir/ . The lies are getting so outrageous that I don't even think people are supposed to believe them anymore -- I think they're supposed to pretend to believe them as a humiliation ritual.
Edit -- now it was his cousin, not his aunt.
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1982926820183073269
"In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control." —Theodore Dalrymple
Men are biological women.
Solzhenitsyn said something comparable, but asked people to "live not by lies." A revolutionary act, still. I figure that's what a lot of us are doing here, reading and supporting Matt Taibbi and others.
Aka that guy with a dick is ackshully a woman
Lying about 9/11 is a terrible look for people who care about 9/11. Many contemporary New Yorkers do not, as they did not live there 24 years ago.
That's a fair point.
Or even worse, they enjoyed it.
Yeah, because leftists *love* the idea that our government lied about and perhaps even"fumbled intentionally" a civilian massacre, as the pretense to do forever wars and perma-strip American civil liberties under the Cheney admin? Wtf are you smoking.
I have eyes and ears. I know what happened. I live here. I’ve heard people say stupid shit. There is evil in the world that thinks that killing people working in an office building because of one’s fantasy of global caliphates and workers seizing the means of production was well worth it.
I think the lies are getting more outrageous, because candidates feel, even if they are caught, there will be no consequences.
What Newsom has done in CA, is all but criminal, but Gavin is not seeking an outrageously compensated no show job from a billionaire Dem donor, after his term ends. Newsom fully expects to be the Leader of the Free World.
Dems, having lost 2 elections with women candidates, are likely to oblige regardless of Newsom's train wreck record, and his abysmal Covid performance. Ironically, a NYC Mandami administration might save the nation from morphing into CA, minus the ocean vistas and perfect weather.
He's been "running" for at least 4 years, but every time he tries to make the "jump" to the big time, he's revealed as an empty suit. Remember the "debate" vs. DeSantis?
Barkeep Sandy vs Slick Gav vs Fat JB will be the funniest debate ever.
Which is crazy because I didn't think it could get funnier than the 2020 debates when Democrats were trying to out-woke one another.
And God help them if America’s drunken black Indian aunt joins the party.
We may be unable to see anything as JB “The Human Eclipse” will block all light.
But he has good hair. He could win. I have a cousin who absolutely swoons over him. I saw this same reaction with female professional colleagues over Clinton. Sigh.
She probably had the same feelings for Cuomo like 5 years ago when he was on the news every day talking about covid........
Could be. She did absorb the entire Covid narrative at a cellular level.
When Stefanik wins the statehouse next November, she will have the ability to book Mohron Zamdani out of office.
Maybe Mandami will run for president
they serve mac n cheese at the French Laundry. of course it is made with lobster. etc. ..maybe that is what he is referring to..https://www.cookingindex.com/recipes/45801/french-laundrys-macaroni-and-cheese.htm. the wonder bread.. well he is of that white bread genre
Just like when I was growing up!
same. my mom made us kill the lobster.. said if Diane Keaton can do it so can you.. oh wait. it wasnt lobster. it was a loaf of Velveeta .... it went easily and felt no pain
I HTG though velveeta was cheese until I was about 20.
Fried spam on Wonder bread with mayo and sweet pickles……Yum, Yum!!
Omg we made that in Home Ec.
That aligns with what Naomi Wolf says here ~https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/the-greenred-revolution
"If he wins, the point, I am beginning to think, is not that even the radical Socialist democrats have seized control of a major American city.
Whether he wins or not, I think now that the point of the Mamdani campaign is performative.
It is a form of psychological humiliation in a psychic theatre.
It is messaging designed to demoralize and re-traumatize much of this great city.
To demoralize and traumatize much of America.
The messaging to New York, indeed, signals and celebrates the arrival of a modern “Saladin.”
The messaging, in short, is about the cultural and psychological conquest of this great nation.
And it is not “Islamophobic”, in the least,
To be forced, with great sadness, to conclude that." - Naomi Wolf
The Mayor race is narrowing. I can't fucking believe I'm going to vote for Andrew Mandate Cuomo. Ugh.
Jihad is jihad. Just ask London. This fucker is not just humiliating the country, he is the rally cry for Dearborn and Minneapolis to join him in taking down every blue city and sucking it dry while driving the white Christian’s and Jews to extinction. Even Texas is not immune. Deport them all while we can.
Robert Reich has endorsed Mamdani. Can Reich really believe Mam-man's promises?
Can you believe Robert Reich after all HIS baloney? How is he still here??
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=short+people+song&mid=787C6E0402A2C1885B12787C6E0402A2C1885B12&mmscn=stvo&FORM=VAMGZC&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
Hard to treat Robert Reich seriously, in part because NPR treats his self-serving prattle as if it were written on stone tablets.
"The lies are getting so outrageous that I don't even think people are supposed to believe them anymore -- I think they're supposed to pretend to believe them as a humiliation ritual."
It's easier for people to remember that if The Party says something is true, it is true. Official loyalty oaths have all those specific words people need to memorize, when they could be screaming about The Current Thing and letting the wealthy and powerful rob them blind.
Big Brother is Watching You...
FORGET WHAT WE TOLD YOU YESTERDAY, LISTEN TO WHAT WE SAY TODAY! (But not too much, because you’ll need to forget it tomorrow.)
A terrible and terrifying look.
Politicians claiming humble beginnings is as American as apple pie.
He may be a liar. He lied on the View when he said he’d always believed Israel had a right to exist as a Jewish state. That was a complete and utter falsehood. It was the first time he said that
I don't know why anyone assumes he's lying. Half the country thinks places like New York are simply too dangerous to go to, the entirety of right-wing Xitter still believes that Portland was burnt to the ground by "BLM riots" that never happened, and my own mother seemed to have become convinced by fox that her safe suburban Maryland street where there's never been a crime was about to be a site of drive-by shootings. If you get your information from TV, you can start to believe all kinds of nonsense that even your own eyes would tell you is rubbish.
Pretty sure the reasons we think he's lying have already been laid out.
And Portland has been in the middle of violent riots for nearly a decade now. The city wasn't "burnt to the ground," but that's not because Antifa didn't try to burn it to the ground.
https://rumble.com/v70v944-iceprotest.html
I watch those protests every weekend. There's a lot of time for "dance parties" while the agents are behind the gates, but when they come out to clear the street it's an entirely different matter.
https://rumble.com/v70v9g0-ice10-18.html
I'm sorry, but you're delusional.
The only delusion is the life people like you live in. A little bubble where you are a meme like the dog in the burning house. I have watched Seattle and Portland both sink to levels of depravity and blight not seen in this country since the late 1970’s. No one actually thinks Portland burned down, bless your heart. It’s a metaphor describing the quality of life for the normal ass tax payers who commute to work in traffic that os artificially created by road diets and bike infrastructure no one uses, or sits on a public transit coach hoping to not get stabbed or shot while being exposed to meth and fentanyl residue. Enduring this while seeing hookers selling ass and fentanyl addicts doing the zombie hang on the corner as elementary and middle school kids walk by on their way to the indoctrination center run by your fellow travelers who think this is all great. The rest of us are biding our time to escape from these hellscapes of leftist failure. I have lived in Portland and Seattle my entire life and can tell you from experience that you are clueless or malevolent. Pick one. Either way it doesn’t make you righteous.
Maybe! Anybody can watch what happens live down there just like I do and see for themselves.
I do, there's a webcam.
June 26, 2020: "Police say a group of people set the Portland Police Bureau's North Precinct on fire while people were inside, and damaged and burned nearby businesses, all of which are owned by people of color, during an hours-long clash with police officers." https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/protesters-set-fire-to-police-precinct-damage-businesses-in-north-portland/283-59c6bd42-1bf1-47b9-9e9a-4d7c84f957f5
I always wait for the updates where you find out how many "inaccuracies" the police added.
Says the person who asserts "BLM riots" never happened,
There were certainly police riots, but the stories you've heard about Portland being burned down just plain are not true.
Do not try to gaslight us. In PDX in 2020, there were antifa riots focused on the Federal Courthouse that continued for three months. There were numerous instances of arson, looting, vandalism, and injuries during those protests. Antifa gunman Michael Reinoehl murdered Patriot Prayer supporter Aaron Danielson in downtown PDX.
Listen to your Mom.
She died of old age witout ever having witnessed those drive-by shootings.
It sounds like she cared about those who had to live with those drive by shootings May she test in peace
Half the country thinks places like New York are simply too dangerous to go to, the entirety of right-wing Xitter still believes that Portland was burnt to the ground by "BLM riots"
You paint with a very broad brush. Which means you make a huge mess of the detail work. And- in this case-show how clueless you are...
'Half the country thinks places like New York are simply too dangerous to go to"
I get hyperbole as a rhetorical device, but this is idiotic.
Add to the list Jasmine Crockett who also claims to come from lesser means, but actual was raised in an affluence.
A DISTANT cousin.Translation: I made it all up.
Everybody knew it was Bin Laden within hours.
"Hours" later, Bush stood on the rubble and said "WHOEVER knocked these towers down is going to hear from us...."
Edit -- ok dug into this because it was a while ago. The CIA told Bush on the evening of 9/11, and Bush told the public in the days following.
Yeah, that sounds like the CIA, a day late and a dollar short.
I remember talking heads on CNN or whatever saying this has all of the "hallmarks of an al Qaeda attack" before the towers even came down. Of course, nowadays, that turn of phrase has acquired a bit of discredit, but back then, I had no reason to distrust it.
I very clearly remember watching an old ABC Frontline interview with Osama bin Laden that very day.
Newsom was raised by broke rich people. His mother did work several jobs and raise him on her own after her divorce. His father couldn't help at the time because he was broke after putting his own money into a senate run. They always had ties to rich people and they helped him when he was older.
Great piece, Matt.
I came of age around the time Obama entered the national political scene. He at least had a fig leaf of experience in government and a credible-sounding background as a law professor to go along with his smooth talking charisma.
Now compare Mamdani to Obama. Mamdani says the things openly and proudly—about 9/11, hating America’s institutions, truly wacko policy positions that should be in the dustbin of history alongside the Politburo, etc.—that Obama’s detractors could only concoct in their wildest fever dreams. And yet now he’s the “rising star” in the party! How much the mask has come off (or how far the Democrats have fallen, depending on your view) in 15 years.
Mamdani as the son of a radical Columbia humanities professor and a notable film industry creative type is just peak urban, coastal, over-educated yet totally clueless elite. You couldn’t make him any more the archetype if he was lab-grown.
Also, can you do a piece on the “former” CIA people gaining political power? The idea of Spanberger in VA joining Slotkin in MI…this has to be some concerted strategy to get these spooks more overt influence on the D side.
IMO this is indictive of the doom loop the Democrats are finding themselves in. As they lose the 'soft center' through foundational ideas such as open borders and "men can become women by wishing really hard", the people who remain in the party are (obviously) the more extreme members.
This repeats over and over -- and sooner or later the "fringe" is the majority in the party.
The scariest part to me is that the people who started as Obama fans in the late aughts who were “soft center” (stereotypically white wealthier suburban women, say) were then radicalized in the Trump era, aided by the media/IC propaganda and lies Matt has documented well here. In other words, many who were in the “soft center” became themselves part of the doom loop and thus the “fringe” by the early 2020s.
Yep. For every "normie" who dropped out of the party due to one of the purity tests or another, there was a counterpart (or three) who actually believed the MSM "the sky is falling" freakout.
You probably saw them at the No Kings rallies......
My back of the envelope hypothesis was that Russiagate was the “gateway drug” for a lot of this among the radicalized normies we are discussing. The mainstream Democratic party set out a position (our elected president is a Russian asset) that is certifiably insane and more radical than anything Trump said or did before Russiagate. It gave a permission structure/Overton Window for the normies to believe any crazy “current thing” the Party wanted them to believe.
That does seem to be where the worm turned, so to speak. And since then there have been numerous "purity tests" that shave off the less-radicalized and leave a hard core of hardcore fanatics.
I wrote about this last month, actually!
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/disastrous-decision-double-downs
I’ve sometimes talked about the “reverse snowball” of people who no longer trust the media — but the same is true of people who trust the Democratic party. With every new purity test pledge — Shut down for covid! Mask up! Boys should compete against girls! Open Borders! Let the homeless do drugs on the sidewalk! — some of that soft middle falls away. Every issue where Democrats are on the wrong side of the 80/20 split, they lose the confidence of the voters.
Remember, Tulsi Gabbard ran for president as as Democrat in 2020. RFK Jr. ran as a Democrat in 2024 until they ran him out of the party! Even Trump was a Democrat not that long ago!
The most damaging and damnable lie in the history of American politics.
It may not have been the belief itself that Russia had interfered in our election that turned the tide, but rather that this was the perfect tip of the spear to "get" Trump. "Cooties!."
that's the power of mass manipulation. It's not that hard to see. Find a group to blame, find new ways of expressing why they are to blame, deflect all blame from your group and repeat who is to blame. And them blame them some more. It's what got people to question whether Biden's cognitive swan dive was real or just his 'childhood stutter'.
It's breathtaking self delusion. It works if you're on a steady diet of CNN, john oliver and the other wokies who prioritize DEI over common sense.
It's so weird because I watched hours and hours of Younger (not young) Biden in the Senate, and never once heard him stutter.
By stutter, I'm pretty sure they were referring to his racist adjacent gaffs.
Couldn't say that out loud, though.
I grew up in Delaware. My good friend, Miss Delaware, worked for him. I hung out at Stone Balloon with Miss Jill. Never did I hear or was told he had a stutter.
The most galling thing is that the John Olivers probably don't even really believe, or care about DEI; they just play to the gallery.
I bet they do believe it. The Groupthink amongst many people in the entertainment business is jaw dropping. They are such cowards.
A lot of them don't even understand it. (Mark Cuban)
The process that infects every group.
The group trajectory.
- People with beliefs look to work with like minded people.
- If those beliefs have traction, this "group" grows powerful.
- The "group" is then taken over and skin-suited by powerful interests.
- The people with beliefs begin leaving.
- Soon the group consists primarily of people who don't believe but will use those beliefs to accumulate and exercises power.
- Everyone with beliefs then leaves the group because it is now run by psychopaths.
At this point, the group is just a hollow shell. A bankrupt company bought for their brand to scam the least knowledgeable until even they won't buy anymore.
By definition, the people still remaining in these dead skin suited groups are the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst.
Welcome to political parties.
There's probably a better example than the ACLU, but I sure can't think of one.
Southern Poverty group
Most labor unions.
the teachers union is sure a hotbed
All political parties are the master in this domain, but the ACLU is great poster child because their beginning and end are within our lifetime so it's easier to see the process--and they made it so obvious.
This is the biggest danger with groups--at the end, all of the power accumulated is wielded by the worst people our society can produce.
Like a collapsing government with nuclear weapons, all we can do is hold our breath and pray--and then we are on to building the next group.
There is so much power in cooperation and fraternity, one of our super powers is hyper-specialization which requires submission to the group.
We have stolen fire (which is the smart play), now we just need to figure out how not to burn down the world--or turn it into hell.
"dead skin suited". Kudos.
As Eric Hoffer put it: "What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation"
Obama was skilled at getting credentials and being appointed to positions...and then doing nothing but looking for the next resume item.
As I understand it, he spent two years as president of the Harvard Law Review and twelve at the Law School of the University of Chicago (adjunct faculty).
See if you can find any research articles, reviews or books on legal theory.
His professional legal career appears similarly hollow.
According to Google AI: "The publicity from his role as president [ed: of the Harvard Law Review] led to a publishing contract for his memoir, Dreams from My Father, which was released in 1995."
I didn't do my homework, so to speak, and despite my skepticism I voted for him in 2008. That was the last time I voted for a Democrat in a national election. The dude is just fake to the core. It was all a hoax. A scam. A play on feel-good emotions. The dude who talked about the "rising oceans" goes and purchases multi-million dollar beachfront properties in Hawaii and Martha's Vineyard.
And where did all that money come from? Here's a note: who benefitted from "Net Neutrality" (spoiler: Netflix). Who gave Obama a multimillion dollar movie deal (spoiler: Netflix).
I voted for him in the Massachusetts Primary with the sole purpose of bloodying HRC's nose.
Never voted for a Democrat after (shudder) Al Gore - was reliably D before..,
(Coincidentally, I also stopped drinking in 2000)
A friend of mine who was on the Harvard Law Review at the time tells me that being the "President" of the HLR is less prestigious than being the Editor in Chief. Obummer was elected largely because his opponent was far more radical than he was.
Thank you for the added detail -- sounds entirely plausible!
The Editor in Chief would need substantive knowledge and skill -- that's serious work!
I am under the impression that Obama did not contribute any material to the publication during his tenure.
In particular, I read that someone "discovered" an unsubmitted article (on abortion access, if I recall correctly) in his desk after he left. It struck me as a situation where he second-guessed that the topic was too much of a "live wire" and avoided any political exposure or risk.
Same conclusion here. Fooled (or foolish) until circa 2012 by the phoniest man in politics. That dude had some serious backers though. Cough spooks cough. An arrogant empty suit. Though saved the banks in 2008 so there is that.
Spanberger (VA) and Sherrill (NJ) are identical, predictable, radical AWFLs who will likely win their elections next week: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/mikie-spanberger-nj-va-girlboss-governor
I don't know about that. Mikie is falling behind Cittarelli in some polls. And Spanberger has lost a lot of ground in Virginia.
...here's hoping...
What’s the issue in VA? I thought she was a shoe-in.
Maybe you are referring to Jay Jones, Dem candidate for Attorney General?
Jones commented about former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, writing in an email (as reported by the WSJ): "three people two bullets…Gilbert, Hitler, and Polpot…Gilbert gets two bullets to the head."
Va Democrats really don,t care at all about silly stuff like that. Scandals circling Gov Northam and Lt Gov Fairfax came to nothing. Gov Wilder's slave museum never happened ( money and donated artifacts disappeared with it).
What's an AWFL?
Affluent White Female Liberal
Sadly, it seems to become ever-more applicable (i.e., as a pejorative).
You could argue that Mamdani is Obama 2.0. You would be impying that the comparison works because both are articulate guys with an interesting ethnic background though, do you want to go there? If so, you could also argue that Obama had to be a moderate milquetoast because a radical black would not be electable. Obama did assuage a bit of liberal guilt, but didn't move the needle economically.
So now the left wants the real thing. The old smears of COMMUNIST, MARXIST!! don't work anymore with the young, and they don't know what you're talking about when you say politburo. And 9/11 is getting old as well. So now a left-wing muslim with a funny name will be mayor of NYC, he still has to smile a lot though.
You shouldn't be shocked, shocked I say, that he comes from well-educated wealth. Political movements, including revolutions, are always led by the elite, a known fact others in this comment section have mocked endlessly. Why that is a problem though? Politics is not an authenticity competition and I prefer my leaders smart. Platner doesn't seem smart nor sincere, unlike Mamdani, Taibbi is doing the old guilt by association trick here.
While I agree with much of what you write here - the problem is that conventional definitions of "smart" don't bear out in practice - believing one is "smart" allows the skillful to manipulate these tools into some very, very bad decisions - see Clinton and Obama in particular. Of course, the clearly dumb can also fail - Bush Biden.
Mamdani is a dunce coz, unlike Platner he's made no effort to date to build his own identity outside his privilaged past. I frankly can't believe Mamdani is actually as stupid as he sounds, but the evidence suggests he might be.
Mam-Man's support is bolstered by the foreign-born residents of NYC.https://nypost.com/2025/10/22/us-news/zohran-mamdani-holds-commanding-lead-with-foreign-born-new-yorkers-ahead-of-mayoral-election-poll/
Reducing Matt's article to "guilt by association trick" is a pretty slick trick itself: an attempt to neutralize the significant points he made and documented. Why?
Which points? That the trust-fund babies are not good little capitalists but are stupid enough to show some empathy with those less well off? That they shouldn't poop in the golden toilet they were born on, that they should spit out their silver spoons and become plumbers?
I find the arc of the article a bit confusing to be frank, and I don't know what else the point is beyond finding many ways to say that rich lefties are ignorant fakes.
There are many ways to analyse the relations between wealthy prodigies and the wretched of the earth, accusations of inauthenticity and unreasoned dismissals of marxism are not very interesting ones. So that is why
Matt is a bit confusing, mostly because l don't understand how he got from where he used to be to where he is now - and i,m not even altogether sure where he is now. His lingering fondness for Bernie is a real puzzle and leads me to believe the explanation probably lies in his wallet, which is fine. Or maybe a wife and children modify one's perspective.
Today's trust fund babies of which he speaks don't have a clue as to the wretched of the earth.
The operative word in your comment is "lab-grown."
I don’t care for lab grown-Mamdani . . . too chewy.
"Mamdani says the things openly and proudly—about 9/11, hating America’s institutions, truly wacko policy positions that should be in the dustbin of history alongside the Politburo, etc."
When and if (a very big if) Mamdani actually confronts the powers that be in NYC to get something constructive done, he will wilt into putty and/or be eaten alive. So my prediction is that nothing constructive will happen at all, because he will never have the cojones to deal with who needs to be dealt with. Supported by his and his constituents' fantasies, he'll coast on his silver tongue for four (or eight!) years, and as Rome burns he'll have all the help he needs blaming everything on Trump. It'll take (at least) another generation of New Yorkers sifting through their parents' ashes to break out of the spell. I think we've seen this movie before -- it ran from Mayor Lindsay through Mayor Giuliani.
Nothing that really matters to the real powers will be threatened. In no more than a decade, their cleaning crew will come in and buy it up for pennies on the dollar to start the next rebirth cycle.
At least Giuliani cleaned up Times Square.
Yes, I meant Giuliani stopped it.
Obama had “present” vote in the IL legislature as his biggest accomplishment. He is the precursor to Zohra. If Obama had a son . . .
“ In countries where the bulk of people have to be concerned with survival — getting enough to eat, not being conquered by rival nations or revolutionaries, and holding crime and corruption to tolerable levels — colleges don’t teach kids that they’re citizens of oppressor nations that should probably be disbanded. They certainly wouldn’t do it if they lucked into the benefits of citizenship in a country like the United States. This country has problems, even serious ones, but it’s not like gangsters are setting up freelance toll booths on I-95, or the strip steak you ordered at Ponderosa has a good chance of being cat meat. Citizens of countries that have known true suckage — including especially the ones with Marxist or Maoist histories — laugh at the things Americans call “problems.” The only people who think the system that produced the richest, safest empire in history is essentially unfixable are America’s own wealthy, whose current disdain for their own good fortune is like a political version of heroin chic.”
That might be one of the best paragraphs Taibbi has ever written. Scorched earth is not always a bad thing.
I loved that one, too.
Congrats - got here first. Agree 100 percent and would go farther - "best paragraph any journalist has written on the current mess." Cheers!
good call. 🙂
Unfortunately we do still send some of our "brightest" to study in the US or Europe. Journals are all run by academics who have an entire cellar full of coolaid. Never mind the billions the 1st world spends sending insufferable academics and aid workers into the 3rd world to drop poison in our ears. We have a huge problem that the elite groupthink is truly global.
This man brings the truth...wonderfully.
Thanks for outing the Platner con. The oystermen I know are furious that this privileged asshole is pretending to be one of them. They are subject to the vagaries of weather, markets, and government policy in a way that the Platners and Mamdanis will never be, and will never understand.
I forgot to add personal and family health to the list of vagaries. My buddies are all one bad accident or illness away from financial ruin.
Any Mainer who casts a vote for a candidate who calls rural Americans "stupid and racist" is acting in confirmation of at least the first estimate. It's likely Susan Collins will carry this rural American area.
And Janet Mills thought that it was critical that Walmart be open, and churches shut.
No Ds in this election for me, thank you.
Yeah, I don't think Collins has too much to worry about.
She's survived everything so far . . . but I never underestimate the stupid party.
Haha, which one is that?
Or stupid people who vote
Sometimes it's hard to tell if Collins is a D or an R.
Mainers tend to lean centrist, as a rule. Moderates tend to do better than extremists.
I'm studying to be a teacher now, I fucking hate it. I'm working class, I don't come from an educated background. I thought (God knows why) that going off to a big university was a way to advance your life. That may have true in the days of the GI Bill. But since starting at this university, I've been asked to leave the program multiple times for my "problematic" views and "negative attitude." Most recently they asked me to leave because I had the nerve to write a paper about how it is not a teacher's responsibility to talk or know about a student's sexual orientation. They told me, "You don't care about your students." So fuck it. I'm not going to be a part of that bullshit world Matt describes in this article, where people are taught to hate everything about their country and "deconstruct social norms." I'll go get a job in the blue collar world--the ACTUAL working classes. Education is dead in this country. And it's reflected in who the educated classes vote for.
Counterpoint: parents in the US see hope that people like you stay in education programs, insane profs be damned, and stick it out so there are SOME sane people in education.
I can't imagine what it's like to be in college right now, especially if you can think for yourself, so it's easy for me to say stick it out. If you DO stick it out, there are lots of teaching opportunities at classical academies that don't force feed leftist BS to kids.
I hope you can find the strength to stay in teaching. People like you are sorely needed to counterbalance the cult that is destroying our young people now. Eventually, the tide will turn, and teachers with integrity will be sought for leadership.
That TERL Owl and gortroe are absolutely right.
Let me be clear if you don't have the nuts to deal with the pricks while a student, you don't have the nuts for the classroom, the parents, and the teacher's room.
The ticket through? Treat everyone with respect, listen to everyone, find something to like in every person and every discussion, and stay true to what is right. You'll succeed and enjoy it!
You're quitting without getting to the best part: learning from the kids, who are great!
Mamdani is at what, 96% on Polymarket?
That the left has descended into absolute lunacy has been obvious for a long time. What's less obvious is that it will work to their detriment. Throwing people into permanent crisis mode and then leveraging their anxiety to get them to vote for any craziness you can come up with seems to work pretty well in the age of social media.
I can't even acquit the right of the same tactic. Best I can say is we're not quite as crazy.
Blue cities and states keep getting bailed out when their policies predictably lead to disaster. They don't really have an incentive to stay sane.
The incentive rests with the voters, but they're used to ignoring failure until it's within 5 feet of their front door. And even then they'll default to blaming someone.... anyone but the person they voted for.
We have a narcissism problem.
"We have a narcissism problem."
Yup. I think that's the tap root.
When all the people ruined by the Obama Bailout didn't riot it was clear to the Elites that they could do whatever they wanted. Where was No Kings then??
Just give me quality candidates to vote for. All I ask.
I was also thinking that. In the past when NYC was bailed out there was a case that it was a unique and vital center of finance, trade and commerce. It's a lot less so today. It will be a harder case to make for those of us doing the bailing.
Covid obscured (and "excused") a big blue state bailout a few years ago and the country didn't even have a real conversation about it.
Yes, that silence was deafening.
Well, everything about covid was weird. Let's hope it's more like the 1975 when it was at least controversial. I also wonder if Hochul's not going to regret this because the bailout will fall on NY state first. Could be interesting.
hahaha we just bailed out Argentina.
I wrote this back on 10/14/21: "Within the last week I said something to the effect that perhaps the worst thing that could happen to the Democrats would be if they got everything they wanted. I guess I'm not alone here, this is from Peggy Noonan's latest editorial:"
"There was last week’s Ezra Klein column in the New York Times on the data analyst David Shor, who warns the Democratic Party it faces long-term disaster if it continues to press its progressive agenda. In Mr. Klein’s paraphrasing of Mr. Shor, the party is trapped in an echo chamber of Twitter activists and woke staff and consultants. None of this is precisely new, but this iteration of Mr. Shor’s argument carried an electoral charge and spread through the political class. Its relevance here is that Mr. Shor’s work allows Democratic politicians and operatives to work with their friends in media, the academy and the activist world to send the word: Cool it, you’re hurting the larger project. Robespierre, there’s too much blood, put the guillotines aside. Or we’ll kill you."
Perhaps the best thing to happen to the US in the last 50 years was Trump losing a fixed election in 2020.
It's easier to talk about free buses and government run cheese shops. It's hard to fix problems like flooding subways and terrible trash pick up that makes life bad.
New Yorkers are a dumb bunch. They tolerate idiotic leaders, anti-business laws and now invite a commie to be mayor. They want illegals? Fine. Send them all to NYC, and let the people who want to pay for this, pay for this. Let's all have a good laugh when the bill comes due and they look at each other trying to figure out who's gonna plunk down their AMEX.
"They want illegals? Fine. Send them all to NYC, and let the people who want to pay for this, pay for this. Let's all have a good laugh when the bill comes due and they look at each other trying to figure out who's gonna plunk down their AMEX."
Remember, when the red states actually did this, Mayor Adams called it an unsustainable emergency and demanded a federal "bailout".
'Remember, when the red states actually did this, Mayor Adams called it an unsustainable emergency and demanded a federal "bailout"."
in the words of the immortal Gerald Ford:
"Drop Dead"
Actually I think that was the NY Post's headline about Ford's response to NYC's request for funds. Was considered a major reason Ford lost in '76.
Denver seems to be having a similar problem, laying off city workers because of a severe “budget shortfall”.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/2803512/denver-hospital-deficit-migrant-crisis/
Denver hospital raises alarm about $136 million deficit it’s scrambling to pay as migrant crisis worsens
Denver Health, Colorado’s biggest safety net provider, is on the brink of a major crisis due to unpaid medical care costs as the state grapples with a historic influx of undocumented immigrants.
Between 2022 and 2023, Denver Health saw an additional $10 million in uncompensated care. Dr. Donna Lynne, CEO of Denver Health, told local outlets the hospital had $60 million in uncompensated care in 2020, but by 2022, that number increased to $125 million, hitting about $136 million last year.
"We cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state." - Milton Friedman
Well, it's obviously the "fault" of the wealthy. ;)
All we need is competent candidates. You can’t beat somebody with nobody. The Republicans have a lot of money and mostly lock-in races. Do you think they could spend some of it promoting democracy over here? In self interest?
Most voters would not vote for competent candidates.
What’s your definition of competent?
Possessing a track record of success demonstrating effectiveness that can stand up to examination and scrutiny. It's unsexy and boring. Voters don't understand this.
Voting for someone is akin to hiring a roofer. You shouldn't care if the roofer has nice hair or is a good bs artist. You should care if they're a good roofer.
I’d be content in the first instance with much less than that. All I need is someone competent enough to be electable, so as to impose some accountability on the current bunch, who are malevolent as well as incompetent and lazy. It’s a low bar and yet the Republicans are failing to meet it.
competent enough to be electable - yeah, that's mitch mcconnell, pelosi, aoc and shumer. And newsom. Sorry, that bar is too low.
I live in a state where a water reservoir sat empty for 2 fire seasons, with neither the fire dept, the water utility or the political leadership of the city talking to each other regarding how to fix it.
So cry me a river about republicans but democrats own this trash heap. The TDS sufferers never want to talk about city and state leaders. I wonder why that is.
Nothing new under the sun.
In January 1970, in his Park Avenue penthouse, the conductor and "West Side Story" composer Leonard Bernstein hosted a cocktail party for 100 of his friends to raise money for the Black Panther Party, who had 20 of its members under arrest for a plot to explode bombs in NYC police precinct houses and midtown office buildings.
The bash gave rise to the term "radical chic", a derogatory term referring to bored, rich people trying to bring excitement into their lives by dabbling in militant, revolutionary politics while munching Beluga caviar on toast points.
Some things never change.
At least back then there was a substratum of "genuine" radical activism -- the Black Panthers didn't spend ALL their time in Leonard Bernstein's penthouse. They were visitors.
Today, the radical activism is coming from people who grew up in penthouses.
RIP Tom Wolfe
I'd like to do a sequel with rich Upper West Side Jews welcoming the Hamasniks of Columbia over for cocktails and canapes. Comedy gold!
I highly recommend rereading Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe. I read it recently, and to me, it was as fresh and inside-y as if it were written today instead of 50+ years ago.
It's interesting that when you discuss politics with legal immigrants, how most of them are solidly conservative. They really understand how horrible it is to live under an oppressive government and/or a poor economic system. They are some of the most well informed citizens who have real life experience and stand in complete contrast to the spoiled brats graduating from what passes for today's version of elite education.
This reminds me a lot of biographies I have read about Che Guevara and Carlos the Jackal, two left wing revolutionaries who came from affluent backgrounds and who also thought they knew what was best for the masses. It also reminds me of a book published in the early 80s titled "The Terror Network," which was all about the left wing terrorist groups who plagued Western Europe and Japan in the 70s; many of the members of those groups came from similar backgrounds. And let's not forget that Karl Marx was certainly no "prole" himself.
The Left and Islam...the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact of our time. The parties of the Left hand-in-glove with the Muslims..UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain., The effete West unable to resist.
Thanks for using "effete" in your post! "Soy boy" just doesn't have the same impact as the old school moniker.
Reminds me of one of the photos of the Free Palestine fits at Columbia. One young lady screaming her head off in a Choate sweatshirt. When you have few problems and are living through a ten year grievance fit, you do fine things with your pricy education.
Great theories like social workers should be called for domestic violence incidents, like Mamdani wants, are for people who have never had to worry about such matters. These people never bear the personal costs for their stupid solutions. Also, I notice that Mamdani’s security is armed. Maybe he should replace them with social workers while he rides the free bus to work.
The left/right divide is about crafting an identity about "issues" neither the "left" or the "right" actually much cares about.
That America's Versailles liberals identify as "left" is entirely appropriate.
Most of us just want to be left alone by our political class who are inversely-motivated to do good, for the most part, the further up the greasy pole they slither - the same is true for bureaucrats in the management class of education, unions, and the military.
Lying about family strikes me as odious as lying about a national tragedy, or national services. Hasn't stopped anyone from trying and won't. Can't wait for an in-depth discussion of "truth-manufacturing AI complete with AI generated images and news reports as sources. Seriously doubt Mandani's lies will have any impact on the outcome of the NYC election.
Polls say that Mamdani loses by a big margin among native New Yorkers but has overwhelming support among immigrants. So there’s a weird alliance between the coddled affluent class and newbies who apparently didn’t learn anything in their countries of origin.