Let me address just one of the issues raised. Harvard. Trump's actions against Harvard has nothing to do with tactics against democrats and everything to do with Harvard becoming a breeding ground for assholes. An institution that should have never received government funding in the first place now definitely should not get government funding. Trump recognizing this and acting is nothing short of great leadership. Something few other politicians would have the cajones to do.
The democrats politicized every supposedly non-partisan institution, and are now butthurt that these institutions are being treated as political entities.
it really is amazing, all these people and institutions stepped onto the political playing field and never expected an opponent to show up and give them a fight. total clueless arrogance.
They had good reason to think they would have no opposition. Their experience was a parade of pusillanimous empty suits like GWB, Mitt Romney, Michael Steele etc. who were afraid of being called mean.
Also, I think another factor is that gentry liberals (the kind who run or work in upscale academia and the media) don't know any conservatives—they don't even know anyone who has a different opinion on anything!—so their policies seemed as right, proper and natural to them as the change of seasons. Despite always crowing about their tolerance and their gilded educations, modern liberals seem to have no ability to accept that other people have different worldviews, values and priorities. It's less a blind spot and more of an ideological lobotomy.
Modern liberals have become such unthinking ideological conformists, quasi-cult members (this is mandatory to maintain their social and professional lives), that all they know is that everyone not in their tribe is a racist, fascist threat to Our Democracy™, who needs to be muzzled. Social media and its algorithms plus the Orange One has destroyed their ability to think clearly.
this is spot on. I was recently hanging out with my successful liberal friends and listening to them seethe about Elon, Abbott etc. after listening patiently, I carefully asked them why they believed in their present position. immediately they began to backtrack, stammer and repeat things like, “well, not always” or “I mean, not totally, but…”
the point being that just mildly scratching beneath the surface renders them helpless. because they have never had to explain their beliefs to anyone. they don’t really understand themselves as it’s always emotion driving the car.
My wife and i can't stop laughing about all the AWFLs we know and how they went almost overnight from "You must buy an EV to save the planet! Don't you care about the planet!?" to "Burn Tesla to the ground!" and "Elon is a Nazi!"
They've pledged their brains and souls to the crowd-sourced hive mind that emanates from their screens—and still imagine themselves as intellectually gifted free thinkers!
Right, I don't think they know most ordinary Democrats either (besides the help). They really live in a bubble, especially the DC types I know. They watch MSNBC/CNN and read the NY Times uncritically. They are surprised when they hear the DEI stuff, trans, open borders, and even abortion on demand are actually not that popular with run of the mill low to moderate income people of all races who consider themselves Democrats (or independents). As I have said elsewhere, they have counted on their media dominance in order to fool people into sticking with them. As new media reaches more people, fewer people are fooled and abandon the Ds. Of course, the Rs and/or Trump can overplay their own hands or dogmatically stick to a prowar and pro bad trade deals in the name of mythical free trade (to name two things) or abuse their own power (and no, I do not think deporting the "Maryland dad" counts for me).
I like this comment. As an old school Dem mentored by older old school Dems, I wonder what my now passed on friends would think about today’s “Democratic Party.” I believe they would be put off by the party cultural values (“former” men in women’s sports, for example), and totally exasperated by Dem strategy ( we need better “messaging”).
No, D-wads, you just suck. Because you don’t even pretend to like us anymore. Nor even value our votes, because you came up with a way to mass produce those in 2020.
That is because the left strawmans unauthorized opinions in order to attack them and otherize people who have that opinion.
If you have been taught that the only reason anyone opposes DEI is because of racism or opposes carbon taxes because they are ignorant of science you have an excuse to dismiss conservatives as ignorant / evil.
I think part of the reason they have painted themselves into a corner ideologically is because the right understands the left WAY better than the left understands the right, and their debating skills have atrophied.
The left could get away with that when they could gatekeep information, but they can't anymore, and they don't know what to do.
Your comment about the Right understanding the Left better than the Left understand the Right...is completely on the money.
Ditto their inability to make a reasoned argument.
The Left (at least for now) sets the daily agenda, via corporate media, led by the NY Times. And so, that's the starting point for most of the daily conservative analysis and debate.
The Left's laughable knowledge of the Right comes from Non-Player Characters like David Brooks. Neither MSNBC nor CNN has had any credible representation of the viewpoint of the Right until Scott Jennings came along.
So, yeah, they have a lot of catching up to do...once they realize that they're dangling off the edge of a cliff from a branch that won't hold too much longer.
The thing is that the liberals are soft right and not anywhere on the left. They always have been.
And once the Democrats helped the Republicans exterminate, imprison, or expatriate the actual left (socialists, communists, unionists and the like) they were just the leftmost thing remaining. FDR, incorrectly seen as a leftist saint, was a rich dude whose greatest accomplishment, in his own words, was "saving capitalism." Bernie Sanders, seen as "radical" by some, is a millionaire who shepherds would-be-leftists into the Democratic party. There is no US left.
Many of them are extremely wealthy trust fund leftists.
I’d imagine that they don’t understand a desire for upward mobility and property ownership as opposed to equal outcomes/equity and public housing projects.
(--nor do they know any lower middle class, working poor, or alienated communities. Zero ground level truth there; only "i quietly american'ed read it in a book.")
"...modern liberals seem to have no ability to accept that other people have different worldviews, values and priorities."
This notion is reinforced after elections when certain constituencies don't behave as expected. Modern liberals often lament that they "voted against their own best interests." Because of course, these rubes aren't smart enough to have the correct best interests for themselves.
Should we expect exaggerated blowback but against churches instead of colleges?
And would that really be a problem? Would it really be a problem if the gov't stopped subsidizing churches? Attendance is down. Church-based abstinence programs haven't raised the birth rate significantly. Stranger danger increasingly means senior church members of any congregation. But those churches are fundamental (pun intended) to one of the three legs of Regan's stool and if we pull that out, conservatives are totally ass-to-floor.
Apparently not taxing Churches is subsidizing? I believe many of the Ivy League churches, (Universities) actually receive funds, as in real money, as well as tax benefits, visa and educational freedoms. How is that a comparative argument?
How does the government subsidize churches? Are you referring to their tax-free status? That is not the same thing.
"Stranger danger increasingly means senior church members of any congregation"? Prove it. Yes, many church people have abused children, but "increasingly" and "any congregation"? I'd like to see some proof of these assertions.
And if you're referring to Ronald Reagan, you spelled his name wrong.
Not sure where you live, but in South Carolina the Catholic church is booming. We're opening new churches all over the state. Thousands of college students are joining the church and being baptized.
I think if the left tried to do that, they would have to apply it to all religions, not just Christianity. And that would be a difficult minefield for the left to navigate.
Sirota, like Sanders, is a sheepdog for the Democrats. Criticize them to the high heavens but in the end, herd them into the meat packing plant. Or, as we used to say, guide them into the Roach motel. The Democrats are conformists and collectivists. I finally saw the light and made my escape from the cattle truck. I jumped the fence and high tailed it out of there. There are only two industries in the US; mining and agriculture. Everything else comes from these two. Trump gets this and respects it. He's at home in a big city hotel and a small town MacDonalds. The Democrats (and , as you know, I used to be one,) are maddeningly paternalistic towards the people they should be grateful to.
I respect Sirota and I used to subscribe regularly. But his relentlessly liberal positions often belie a careful analysis, which I find to be the case with most who are very wedded to legacy liberal positioning.
"Liberals are offended by Trump’s lack of manners in pulling off extreme versions of what their own party icons have done, but many Americans seem to cherish the Joker-like quality of Trump’s antics. They seem to appreciate that — unlike establishment Democrats — Trump at least doesn’t use a dog whistle to trick anyone. He uses a bullhorn to proudly broadcast and brag about his malfeasance — all while offering a captivating and distracting culture war along the way."
I agree. The breakdown of the politics of the professors, teachers and staff in these universities tells the story. If they can not achieve the most rudimentary appearance that they have a diversity of ideas being discussed in their halls, then they need to simply get their funding from ACTBLUE.
"Why does Harvard produce so many really smart people...?"
I cannot accept this statement wholesale. Being "Highly-educated" (or Expensively-educated, or Exclusively-educated) does not necessarily equate to being Well-educated. Some of the "smartest" people I have known (my cousin the Oxford grad, e.g.) have been shown to lack all kinds of plain-old common sense.
My grandfather once said about my cousin: "I await the outcome of this classical (Oxford) education with trepidation"- this from a Scottish farm Veterinarian...
It's the function of the place. Harvard, and many other 'elite'(elitist?) institutions are more State Dept and Govt entities than places of education, etc. Chomsky et al have spoken on this for decades
Matt - I appreciate hearing other viewpoints, as long as they aren't so obviously biased. Yes, it's good to hear what other people think, and I patiently listen to all sorts of leftists/libs here in California telling me what they think. However, I really thought David's article was an attempt by someone who really doesn't understand DJT to sum it up in what he thought was a fair and balanced article -- and he failed. I think YOU do a good job of curating a thoughtful discussion of current happenings, and of those who are similarly objective (or who at least are a little bit less obvious in their loathing of anything DJT related.) So, for me, the article was a swing and a miss. He doesn't get it, because he's blinded by his bias.
I've been known to read a piece over at The Nation or Mother Jones, and even nod my head in agreement. I can't say that for anything ever published at Jacobin - that is a brain-dead zone if there ever was one.
Ditto here on the occasional Mother Jones piece. Jacobin is largely loony-tunes level but have had some okay articles concerning the origin of the Ukraine war; particularly, early in the conflict, they had some writers that wrote how the west had been fomenting unrest for years ("Maidan", anyone?) and that the push for NATO inclusion was disastrous. I don't have a link to the article that made me think, "Okay, Jacobin has actually published something not entirely crazy!"
But they are almost universally crazy -- that's what makes things tricky and arguably proves the adage, "the exception proves the rule." :-)
He did. The US 'couped' him away, despite a sizable portion of the population wanting him Prez; then stuck Z in there, played more games using NATO as a cudgel, which is expressly NOT its function... and here we are.
This is a very sober rejoinder to Sirota's ridiculous piece, which amounted to an anti-Trump jeremiad built on one false, confirmation bias flattering, assumption after another.
There are very few American media figures who actually have the ability to accurately analyze and deal with politics are they are with any level of seriousness, and Matt Taibbi is one of them (Michael Tracey, when he's not being weird, is another). David Sirota is not.
I give Matt props for giving his friend an afternoon at the podium, but Sirota's piece was so shoddy that this "brief note of introduction" was worth more than the piece itself.
The left has been prosecuting the culture war since Free To Be You And Me. They have occasions where they tone it down, and periods where they go on the offensive. The last two times they went overboard, they ushered in Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
The idea that the left could embrace an abundance agenda is preposterous. What is the core competency of the left? The thing they do better than anything else? Litigate. Litigation is kryptonite to abundance.
The biggest problem for the democrats attracting the working class is that most blue collar workers are men, and the democrat party is fundamentally a female party.
I'll disagree slightly - it isn't the Democrats are a female party, they are a feminist party. And feminists despise non-feminist women just as much as any other zealot who sees someone they think should be a fellow-believer but isn't.
Left Democrat intransigence on abortion is the real problem. Rebranding their stance as "women's reproductive health" is offensive to every human being, female or male, who wrestles with the challenge of an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy. That little critter in the womb is, in spite of the left's pretending otherwise, a human being in potential. So rather than accept that most people have a natural revulsion against the idea of terminating a potential life, they simply ignore this fundamental human issue and insist it's merely a matter of a person's health. This is a full-blown lie, and all the left's lies spread out from it like a poison flood.
"Keep it between a woman and her doctor" sounds reasonable though in practice it means "allow termination of healthy babies at any stage for any reason." Supposed limitations after viability nearly always have an exception for "health of the woman," a loophole big enough to sail a battleship through. Although late term abortions are rare compared to other abortions, they're still an order of magnitude more numerous than murders by rifle (scary looking or otherwise), which we're supposed to believe are horrifyingly common.
Both sides are intransient on abortion. One wants zero limits on abortion including during labor, while the other side wants to follow women around to make sure they don't take Plan B the night after, and they also want to force rape victims to carry, while at the same time putting zero limits on the other "abortion," the live IVF embryos not implanted to be used in research or destroyed. As one woman-hating legislator stated about his anything goes hypocrisy on IVF, "It's not in a woman's body."
Although I think that your characterizations of the positions generally held by people on either "side" of the issue are misleading, they nonetheless point out the problem. There are valid concerns held by all people of good will on a very thorny matter.
As we are commenting here on Sirota's essay and Matt's reaction to it, it is the left's method of dealing with abortion that I was addressing. They not only pretend that the concerns of the people on the right are negligible and inconsequential, they hide their true intentions behind glossy and misleading rhetoric. So why the intransigence and the endless mendacity? If abortion is so wonderful and trivial, why not just come out and say so?
I am curious as to how you know that the unnamed legislator that you refer to is a woman-hater.
Feminism is the North Star ideology for the democrats; agreed. But the Hive Mind / Borg / Longhouse structure is fundamentally female and pre-dates feminism.
I'll throw in my 0.02 on this issue... Democrat voters value following rules and more pointedly, obedience. They see pointing this point out as rude, crude and trumpian. I am consistently in awe to see what appear to be normal rational people behaving and talking and believing utter horse shit as deeply disturbing. These people really believed Biden was track sharp, ignoring their eyes, ears and common sense to get there. Very 1984ish behavior.
I disagree. It's easy to call any female with an opinion one doesn't like a feminist, but the reality is the democratic party is full of queer theory acolytes (both male and female), no matter what you or they call themselves. The left-wing feminists have mostly left the party and become independent, while the middle-of-the-road feminists (like me) have become a member of the new republican party formed by Trump.
True, the term feminist has a certain elasticity. I'm a feminist in the sense that I wouldn't deny women the vote - which was the first great feminist victory. Successive waves have pushed the meaning beyond any sane consideration.
Sirota is frozen in the 90s, his world is gone and dead but he thinks he can somehow bring it back to life.
Liberals have this terrible blind spot where they think that their preferred social poliicies (such as Gender Theory for kids and DEI litmus tests for hiring and college admins) are natural, right as rain, "compassionate" and more or less proper etiquette—yet when people react against these things, they're just being bigots starting a "culture war". Modern liberals simply have no ability to see how aggressive, condescending and often authoritarian they are, mostly I think because for them politics is their great faith that provides meaning and purpose, thus they can never admit fault or take a good long look in the mirror and see that they can be just as grubby, dishonest and power-mad as their political opponents.
David Sirota has nothing new to add and he might as well be talking about an imaginary country, as the one he describes no longer exists.
Took the words right from my keyboard: it's only culture war when the right notices and reacts. I just don't know if they genuinely believe their craziness is default & normal, or if it's a cynical tactic.
The politicians and the theorist class can be cynical actors, as they always have one eye on accruing power and wounding enemies, but this is a small number of people. Most of everyone else has just been slowly gradually ideologically indoctrinated by their devices and media consumption.
To be fair, everyone has an eye on accruing power and wounding enemies. Nobody is in the business of wanting to be powerless and having their enemies strong to attack them.
oh yeah, "accruing power and wounding enemies" is part of politics and always has been and always will be—but the theorist class pulled off their coup and seized the means of cultural production by pretending to be scholars but being instead ruthless political actors, conquering one dept at a time by hiring only fellow believers while chasing away non-believers and by defending their enterprise from writers who exposed their charlatanary, like Alan Sokal and Steven Pinker among many others.
The theorist class has an explicit political program and pursues it more ruthlessly than just about any actual politician.
Agreed that these divisive tactics are globalist tools that work well only so long as they can maintain power by subrosa or explicit censorship and lawfare. See the EU. If they can't, they can't win.
If you're looking for a "creator of culture-war controversies", look at Trump's (first) predecessor.
Race relations became inflamed during Obama's term ("If I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin", Ferguson MO and appointing Al Sharpton as racial mediator, etc.), the trans-orthodoxy was codified (twice!) into Obamacare, there was the "Apology Tour", etc., etc., etc.
"Cancel Culture" followed Obama as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, I suspect we're largely arguing on details here.
"Neoliberal cuck and a betrayer of the working class."
We're definitely in agreement on that! Very well put!
My point is that prior to the Obama terms, race relations were essentially a non-issue. Specifically, post- the Rodney King/LA riots that occurred under GHW Bush.
I honestly do not recall race being an issue during either the Clinton or Bush terms. I'm open for correction.
Post-Obama we got DEI, cancel-culture and "speech wars". The hyper-sensitivity was not present during the Clinton or Bush terms. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.
Specifically, Obama's comments on Trayvon Martin were not helpful nor well thought through.
Similarly, his remarks on the Gates issue that resulted in the idiotic "Beer Summit" were made hastily and without understanding of the circumstances of the situation (i.e., that Gates's neighbors called the police because they thought a break-in was underway in Gates's residence which turned out to be Gates trying to break into his own residence because the lock was jammed).
Last, that Obama would appoint Al Sharpton of all people as a "racial mediator" :
Sharpton has arguably been the single most incendiary, and certainly the most prominent, racial provocateur of the last half-century.
Obama indicated he wanted someone people could "trust". Which people?
I argue that alone was profoundly ill-advised. Racial tensions seemed to me to have been inflamed during his tenure, which ostensibly contradicted the image that was presented during the "magical" 2008 campaign.
But I respect your opinion, I just differ. Trump is an "equal opportunity offender": he offends lots of people across the board. If you had told me in the early 90's that I'd wind up voting for him for president three times, I would have thought you crazy.
At this point, I find his willingness to confront people to be part of his charm. I'd note that Trump is arguably a little loose but then he's also mischaracterized when his comments are generalized and/or misinterpreted (e.g., regarding Colin Kaepernick and black quarterbacks in general). Also, I believe Trump garnered more minority votes than previous Republican candidates, which is at least anecdotal.
Last, I ran a search on "CP5" but nothing that came up could possibly be what you were referring to. What is CP5?
Race relations have always been an issue; this is America after all.
Trump garnering more minority votes is more a product of Democratic Party ineptitude and working class betrayal than anything else.
Agree with your take on Sharpton, disagree on Martin and Gates. I don’t care about whether comments were helpful or well thought out, I only care about truth and justice.
We were, and still are, a racist country. Our particular brand of racism is inextricably linked to our capitalist economic system. But, I believe, the work of anti-racism identity politics is detrimental to solving our racial issues. That only comes with solving the economic/wealth extreme disparity that is killing us.
No politics but class politics. All this culture war analysis, from every direction, is a distraction, imo.
Yes! The PMC are the gatekeepers for the tippy top. I have a couple friends in academic circles and they'll concede the class issues, but then go all in on the favored identity politics du jour that allow the ultra-wealthy and large corporations to hide behind a phony sense of 'we care' -- but not really do anything structural that will affect their bottom line, of course.
Thank you for being fair and balanced by publishing David’s essay. BUT, to put it as nicely as possible, he gets it all wrong. He tries to frame Trumps popularity and the demoncrats on an esoteric level. It is way more obvious than that.
We reject demoncrats because:
1. Opening the border to let millions of unvetted illegals to flood the country so the dems can have future voters because they are killing their voters with abortion and legalized drugs.
2. Defunding the police and letting criminals out of prison or not prosecuting in the first place.
3. Legalizing hard drugs and encouraging addiction which leads to squalor and crime.
4. Giving certain minorities preferential treatment cause you know whites are ALL RACIST!!
5. Authoritarian cancel culture which drove Joe Rogan and Elon musk to the “dark side.”
6. Desire to destroy our economy to save the planet from natural variability which is a cover for global wealth redistribution.
7. Promoting drug addicted homelessness which is turning parts of our once beautiful cities into 4th world dystopian hell scapes.
My thumb is getting tired…lol
So Tell low resolution thinker David to write an essay addressing this small list.
They say they need a Joe Rogan, but they had him, and could still have him now since he'll talk with anybody about anything. However that last part is precisely the problem for them, since the dems believe in strong guardrails on discourse, set and enforced by them, in order to prevent the harms of misinformation. Joe Rogan's very appeal is exactly what they can't tolerate about him. They may be starting to realize they need to change, but I don't think they're capable of it yet, as this neurotic control freakery is too much a part of who they are.
Yep, the Dems and Progressives are VERY rigid, as inflexible as a piece of PVC tubing. It's sad, but operating solely on "virtue" and "correctness" breeds severe mediocrity as well as delusion. Dems/Progs see and engage life from the ideal vs. the real, therefore they don't achieve any real success and thwart themselves, thus taking their anger out on conservatives and independently-minded fellow Americans. They need to leave childhood/adolescence and grow up and face the real world.
"The rage was there already; Trump didn’t invent it. He just had an ear for it, while Democrats refused to listen even to legitimate complaints without condescension, a tendency which has now cost them two elections. "
This has been so obvious that it still boggles my mind that it needs to be continually debated and explained.
"Conservatives" are disparaged for opposing change. They are not and cannot be aggressors in a battle over culture, because the aggressors are definitionally trying to change things.
It's also worth noting that if a separate article serving as a disclaimer for Sirota's piece needs to be published, then we're already admitting something about Sirota's piece, aren't we?
Had a tough time with his piece. He appears to think from within the "trump-derangement" bubble in which "everything about the orange man is bad" and reasons from the first principle that he, Trump, is inherently corrupt. It's hard to give his thoughts serious consideration when he argues from the get-go from such entrenched views.
"I know David’s essay is meant to imagine a new long-term political approach...."
Maybe that's what he told you when he pitched you the idea. Spoiler alert: He lied.
Sirota is a naked partisan, Trump-addled hater who fooled you into publishing a delusional screed attacking Normal Americans who are sick of what his ilk have foisted on America since Clinton.
"...food for thought..."??!!
No, no nourishment for the mind in his stuff-all-the-disdain-you-can effluent.
Please don't do that again.
The Sirotas of America are all over NPR/PBS/AP/CBS/ABC/CNN/etc/etc. I pay to avoid them, and to consider your thoughts and analysis.
His piece was horrible. The idiotic Democrats could have easily reached out to Trump, buttered him up(kissed his ass) and got a lot of “deals”/legislation to their liking. Trump is not an ideologue. Instead they committed treason with the Russian collusion operation. Treason they still haven’t paid for.
Not much food for thought...but ok. Written by a TDS person, so I tend to discount them since it's not even handed at all. The censorship and bureaucratic control over everything we do makes leftists authoritarian/totalitarian, and they are closer to an oligarchy than Trump ever has been. We need to know who comes in here at our borders, or let in by socialist ivy league universities encouraging antisemitism. He's correcting the law breaking of Biden's open border. And he's definitely all about the middle class and even the poor. The kind of huge government control that guy (and Bernie) had in mind represents a total lack of freedom.
Matt - thanks - I do appreciate the intent. I do see, all the time, how Trump can (and does)drive folks insane with lies and inanities (anybody remember his late-night tweet, "covifi"? I named a dog after that line).
To battle lies with lies is never a good plan, though, and David lost me with the so-fucking-stupid overuse of the word "oligarchs". Any idiot that does NOT conflate wealth with power and see the history of power throughout the history of our species with respect to wealth is just plain fucking ignorant.
At least Trump has the good sense to advertise who he is, not to obfuscate and obscure it as the Dems seem to, as a rule. Dems - don't piss on our shoes and tell us it's raining.
Exactly. Don’t want a $Trump coin or whatever else he’s hocking, simply don’t buy it. I’ll take my chances with a guy who’s selling himself openly vs looking for a 10% backdoor deal for the Big Guy.
It's really too much to hear the dems now talk about oligarchs, rule of law, free speech, the necessity of the filibuster, and weaponization of the justice system.
Let me address just one of the issues raised. Harvard. Trump's actions against Harvard has nothing to do with tactics against democrats and everything to do with Harvard becoming a breeding ground for assholes. An institution that should have never received government funding in the first place now definitely should not get government funding. Trump recognizing this and acting is nothing short of great leadership. Something few other politicians would have the cajones to do.
The democrats politicized every supposedly non-partisan institution, and are now butthurt that these institutions are being treated as political entities.
it really is amazing, all these people and institutions stepped onto the political playing field and never expected an opponent to show up and give them a fight. total clueless arrogance.
They had good reason to think they would have no opposition. Their experience was a parade of pusillanimous empty suits like GWB, Mitt Romney, Michael Steele etc. who were afraid of being called mean.
Also, I think another factor is that gentry liberals (the kind who run or work in upscale academia and the media) don't know any conservatives—they don't even know anyone who has a different opinion on anything!—so their policies seemed as right, proper and natural to them as the change of seasons. Despite always crowing about their tolerance and their gilded educations, modern liberals seem to have no ability to accept that other people have different worldviews, values and priorities. It's less a blind spot and more of an ideological lobotomy.
Good observation. They think they know about conservatives because they read about them in the NY Times. No further investigation necessary.
Modern liberals have become such unthinking ideological conformists, quasi-cult members (this is mandatory to maintain their social and professional lives), that all they know is that everyone not in their tribe is a racist, fascist threat to Our Democracy™, who needs to be muzzled. Social media and its algorithms plus the Orange One has destroyed their ability to think clearly.
A free subscription to the New York Post news feed would do them a lot of good. It’s my media go to.
this is spot on. I was recently hanging out with my successful liberal friends and listening to them seethe about Elon, Abbott etc. after listening patiently, I carefully asked them why they believed in their present position. immediately they began to backtrack, stammer and repeat things like, “well, not always” or “I mean, not totally, but…”
the point being that just mildly scratching beneath the surface renders them helpless. because they have never had to explain their beliefs to anyone. they don’t really understand themselves as it’s always emotion driving the car.
their world is a mile wide and an inch deep.
My wife and i can't stop laughing about all the AWFLs we know and how they went almost overnight from "You must buy an EV to save the planet! Don't you care about the planet!?" to "Burn Tesla to the ground!" and "Elon is a Nazi!"
They've pledged their brains and souls to the crowd-sourced hive mind that emanates from their screens—and still imagine themselves as intellectually gifted free thinkers!
Right, I don't think they know most ordinary Democrats either (besides the help). They really live in a bubble, especially the DC types I know. They watch MSNBC/CNN and read the NY Times uncritically. They are surprised when they hear the DEI stuff, trans, open borders, and even abortion on demand are actually not that popular with run of the mill low to moderate income people of all races who consider themselves Democrats (or independents). As I have said elsewhere, they have counted on their media dominance in order to fool people into sticking with them. As new media reaches more people, fewer people are fooled and abandon the Ds. Of course, the Rs and/or Trump can overplay their own hands or dogmatically stick to a prowar and pro bad trade deals in the name of mythical free trade (to name two things) or abuse their own power (and no, I do not think deporting the "Maryland dad" counts for me).
I like this comment. As an old school Dem mentored by older old school Dems, I wonder what my now passed on friends would think about today’s “Democratic Party.” I believe they would be put off by the party cultural values (“former” men in women’s sports, for example), and totally exasperated by Dem strategy ( we need better “messaging”).
No, D-wads, you just suck. Because you don’t even pretend to like us anymore. Nor even value our votes, because you came up with a way to mass produce those in 2020.
That is because the left strawmans unauthorized opinions in order to attack them and otherize people who have that opinion.
If you have been taught that the only reason anyone opposes DEI is because of racism or opposes carbon taxes because they are ignorant of science you have an excuse to dismiss conservatives as ignorant / evil.
I think part of the reason they have painted themselves into a corner ideologically is because the right understands the left WAY better than the left understands the right, and their debating skills have atrophied.
The left could get away with that when they could gatekeep information, but they can't anymore, and they don't know what to do.
Your comment about the Right understanding the Left better than the Left understand the Right...is completely on the money.
Ditto their inability to make a reasoned argument.
The Left (at least for now) sets the daily agenda, via corporate media, led by the NY Times. And so, that's the starting point for most of the daily conservative analysis and debate.
The Left's laughable knowledge of the Right comes from Non-Player Characters like David Brooks. Neither MSNBC nor CNN has had any credible representation of the viewpoint of the Right until Scott Jennings came along.
So, yeah, they have a lot of catching up to do...once they realize that they're dangling off the edge of a cliff from a branch that won't hold too much longer.
The thing is that the liberals are soft right and not anywhere on the left. They always have been.
And once the Democrats helped the Republicans exterminate, imprison, or expatriate the actual left (socialists, communists, unionists and the like) they were just the leftmost thing remaining. FDR, incorrectly seen as a leftist saint, was a rich dude whose greatest accomplishment, in his own words, was "saving capitalism." Bernie Sanders, seen as "radical" by some, is a millionaire who shepherds would-be-leftists into the Democratic party. There is no US left.
Many of them are extremely wealthy trust fund leftists.
I’d imagine that they don’t understand a desire for upward mobility and property ownership as opposed to equal outcomes/equity and public housing projects.
(--nor do they know any lower middle class, working poor, or alienated communities. Zero ground level truth there; only "i quietly american'ed read it in a book.")
It's arrogance.
They are their own heroes and a lot of them believe they've already saved the world once or twice.
"...modern liberals seem to have no ability to accept that other people have different worldviews, values and priorities."
This notion is reinforced after elections when certain constituencies don't behave as expected. Modern liberals often lament that they "voted against their own best interests." Because of course, these rubes aren't smart enough to have the correct best interests for themselves.
"voted against their own best interests."
god, i really hate this one.
so incredibly arrogant and condescending.
you can never tell anyone what their "best interests" are, sometimes you don't even know what your own best interests are!
A lot like Alden Pyle!
I agree, but wish to add this:
Michael Steele is what you get when you cross a weenie with weasel.
I am just so tired and fed up with the “threats to our democracy!” BS….. what does that really mean to them?!?!?
It's just an updated blasphemy/heresy charge, a modern version of "That atheist has denied our God! Burn him!"
Should we expect exaggerated blowback but against churches instead of colleges?
And would that really be a problem? Would it really be a problem if the gov't stopped subsidizing churches? Attendance is down. Church-based abstinence programs haven't raised the birth rate significantly. Stranger danger increasingly means senior church members of any congregation. But those churches are fundamental (pun intended) to one of the three legs of Regan's stool and if we pull that out, conservatives are totally ass-to-floor.
Apparently not taxing Churches is subsidizing? I believe many of the Ivy League churches, (Universities) actually receive funds, as in real money, as well as tax benefits, visa and educational freedoms. How is that a comparative argument?
What are you babbling about?
How does the government subsidize churches? Are you referring to their tax-free status? That is not the same thing.
"Stranger danger increasingly means senior church members of any congregation"? Prove it. Yes, many church people have abused children, but "increasingly" and "any congregation"? I'd like to see some proof of these assertions.
And if you're referring to Ronald Reagan, you spelled his name wrong.
Dah-um! Sharp as a scalpel there, BW! Take Drew DOWN!
Not sure where you live, but in South Carolina the Catholic church is booming. We're opening new churches all over the state. Thousands of college students are joining the church and being baptized.
Pretty large chasm between a constitutionally protected institution and the other constitutionally suspect institution.
Serious Q: Why would the government subsidize churches? ‘Separation of church and state!’, they howled…
I think if the left tried to do that, they would have to apply it to all religions, not just Christianity. And that would be a difficult minefield for the left to navigate.
s/Regan/Reagan/
whoops
But to Sirota Trump doing so is STARTING a culture war not reflecting its longstanding existence. There's the rub.
It is just a variation of the "Republicans Pounce" narrative the left has been running for decades.
Sirota, like Sanders, is a sheepdog for the Democrats. Criticize them to the high heavens but in the end, herd them into the meat packing plant. Or, as we used to say, guide them into the Roach motel. The Democrats are conformists and collectivists. I finally saw the light and made my escape from the cattle truck. I jumped the fence and high tailed it out of there. There are only two industries in the US; mining and agriculture. Everything else comes from these two. Trump gets this and respects it. He's at home in a big city hotel and a small town MacDonalds. The Democrats (and , as you know, I used to be one,) are maddeningly paternalistic towards the people they should be grateful to.
I respect Sirota and I used to subscribe regularly. But his relentlessly liberal positions often belie a careful analysis, which I find to be the case with most who are very wedded to legacy liberal positioning.
There's not much fresh analysis in this article just the repeating of tropes reordered to make them look original and insightful.
I like this analysis, obvious though it may be:
"Liberals are offended by Trump’s lack of manners in pulling off extreme versions of what their own party icons have done, but many Americans seem to cherish the Joker-like quality of Trump’s antics. They seem to appreciate that — unlike establishment Democrats — Trump at least doesn’t use a dog whistle to trick anyone. He uses a bullhorn to proudly broadcast and brag about his malfeasance — all while offering a captivating and distracting culture war along the way."
Editor Russell Lynes published his essay “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow" in the February 1949 Harper's.
Availability?
Library should have it.
Here is preview https://www.jstor.org/stable/40255171
Yes, that's where I found it today. I first read it years ago for a class.
Thank you.
I agree. The breakdown of the politics of the professors, teachers and staff in these universities tells the story. If they can not achieve the most rudimentary appearance that they have a diversity of ideas being discussed in their halls, then they need to simply get their funding from ACTBLUE.
"Hate, Inc." I bought that book for my brother to read. I recommended to many friends. Great book!
> actions against Harvard [have] . . . everything to do with Harvard becoming a breeding ground for assholes.
Please explain "becoming."
Sure, we have Gary Trudeau and Conan but surely these are outliers (as are all Lampoons).
When you know you're right
Interesting how most Libs immediately took it as a personal insult though. Speaks volumes about Harvard culture.
Absolutely agree!!!!
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you-too bad( not) that Harvard got a new zookeeper.
My theory is they get sucked up by the MIC, which is in the business of forever wars.
Alden Pyle, once more!
"Why does Harvard produce so many really smart people...?"
I cannot accept this statement wholesale. Being "Highly-educated" (or Expensively-educated, or Exclusively-educated) does not necessarily equate to being Well-educated. Some of the "smartest" people I have known (my cousin the Oxford grad, e.g.) have been shown to lack all kinds of plain-old common sense.
My grandfather once said about my cousin: "I await the outcome of this classical (Oxford) education with trepidation"- this from a Scottish farm Veterinarian...
It's the function of the place. Harvard, and many other 'elite'(elitist?) institutions are more State Dept and Govt entities than places of education, etc. Chomsky et al have spoken on this for decades
Matt - I appreciate hearing other viewpoints, as long as they aren't so obviously biased. Yes, it's good to hear what other people think, and I patiently listen to all sorts of leftists/libs here in California telling me what they think. However, I really thought David's article was an attempt by someone who really doesn't understand DJT to sum it up in what he thought was a fair and balanced article -- and he failed. I think YOU do a good job of curating a thoughtful discussion of current happenings, and of those who are similarly objective (or who at least are a little bit less obvious in their loathing of anything DJT related.) So, for me, the article was a swing and a miss. He doesn't get it, because he's blinded by his bias.
I've been known to read a piece over at The Nation or Mother Jones, and even nod my head in agreement. I can't say that for anything ever published at Jacobin - that is a brain-dead zone if there ever was one.
Ditto here on the occasional Mother Jones piece. Jacobin is largely loony-tunes level but have had some okay articles concerning the origin of the Ukraine war; particularly, early in the conflict, they had some writers that wrote how the west had been fomenting unrest for years ("Maidan", anyone?) and that the push for NATO inclusion was disastrous. I don't have a link to the article that made me think, "Okay, Jacobin has actually published something not entirely crazy!"
But they are almost universally crazy -- that's what makes things tricky and arguably proves the adage, "the exception proves the rule." :-)
Maidan-Ukraine didn’t want to be turned into Belarus. If Putin had his own Lukashenko in power in Kiev he never would have invaded……
He did. The US 'couped' him away, despite a sizable portion of the population wanting him Prez; then stuck Z in there, played more games using NATO as a cudgel, which is expressly NOT its function... and here we are.
This is a very sober rejoinder to Sirota's ridiculous piece, which amounted to an anti-Trump jeremiad built on one false, confirmation bias flattering, assumption after another.
There are very few American media figures who actually have the ability to accurately analyze and deal with politics are they are with any level of seriousness, and Matt Taibbi is one of them (Michael Tracey, when he's not being weird, is another). David Sirota is not.
I give Matt props for giving his friend an afternoon at the podium, but Sirota's piece was so shoddy that this "brief note of introduction" was worth more than the piece itself.
I think that was entirely Matt's point. Matt was able to tease out the lazy, built-in, narrative flaws of the entire non-MAGA punditry.
(plus he's got Walter to help with trying to understand Trump mania! :)
Just sayin’. Opening paragraphs recite all the legacy media and Bernie talking points (any difference?).
The left has been prosecuting the culture war since Free To Be You And Me. They have occasions where they tone it down, and periods where they go on the offensive. The last two times they went overboard, they ushered in Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
The idea that the left could embrace an abundance agenda is preposterous. What is the core competency of the left? The thing they do better than anything else? Litigate. Litigation is kryptonite to abundance.
The biggest problem for the democrats attracting the working class is that most blue collar workers are men, and the democrat party is fundamentally a female party.
I'll disagree slightly - it isn't the Democrats are a female party, they are a feminist party. And feminists despise non-feminist women just as much as any other zealot who sees someone they think should be a fellow-believer but isn't.
Left Democrat intransigence on abortion is the real problem. Rebranding their stance as "women's reproductive health" is offensive to every human being, female or male, who wrestles with the challenge of an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy. That little critter in the womb is, in spite of the left's pretending otherwise, a human being in potential. So rather than accept that most people have a natural revulsion against the idea of terminating a potential life, they simply ignore this fundamental human issue and insist it's merely a matter of a person's health. This is a full-blown lie, and all the left's lies spread out from it like a poison flood.
"Keep it between a woman and her doctor" sounds reasonable though in practice it means "allow termination of healthy babies at any stage for any reason." Supposed limitations after viability nearly always have an exception for "health of the woman," a loophole big enough to sail a battleship through. Although late term abortions are rare compared to other abortions, they're still an order of magnitude more numerous than murders by rifle (scary looking or otherwise), which we're supposed to believe are horrifyingly common.
It's amazing how the pro-life women are just erased isn't it? It's like they cannot possibly exist (at least in some peoples' minds).
Both sides are intransient on abortion. One wants zero limits on abortion including during labor, while the other side wants to follow women around to make sure they don't take Plan B the night after, and they also want to force rape victims to carry, while at the same time putting zero limits on the other "abortion," the live IVF embryos not implanted to be used in research or destroyed. As one woman-hating legislator stated about his anything goes hypocrisy on IVF, "It's not in a woman's body."
Although I think that your characterizations of the positions generally held by people on either "side" of the issue are misleading, they nonetheless point out the problem. There are valid concerns held by all people of good will on a very thorny matter.
As we are commenting here on Sirota's essay and Matt's reaction to it, it is the left's method of dealing with abortion that I was addressing. They not only pretend that the concerns of the people on the right are negligible and inconsequential, they hide their true intentions behind glossy and misleading rhetoric. So why the intransigence and the endless mendacity? If abortion is so wonderful and trivial, why not just come out and say so?
I am curious as to how you know that the unnamed legislator that you refer to is a woman-hater.
Feminism is the North Star ideology for the democrats; agreed. But the Hive Mind / Borg / Longhouse structure is fundamentally female and pre-dates feminism.
That is what I mean by a female party.
Following Lorenzo Warby's work, are you?
No, will have to check it out
https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/worshipping-the-future
thanks
I'll throw in my 0.02 on this issue... Democrat voters value following rules and more pointedly, obedience. They see pointing this point out as rude, crude and trumpian. I am consistently in awe to see what appear to be normal rational people behaving and talking and believing utter horse shit as deeply disturbing. These people really believed Biden was track sharp, ignoring their eyes, ears and common sense to get there. Very 1984ish behavior.
I disagree. It's easy to call any female with an opinion one doesn't like a feminist, but the reality is the democratic party is full of queer theory acolytes (both male and female), no matter what you or they call themselves. The left-wing feminists have mostly left the party and become independent, while the middle-of-the-road feminists (like me) have become a member of the new republican party formed by Trump.
True, the term feminist has a certain elasticity. I'm a feminist in the sense that I wouldn't deny women the vote - which was the first great feminist victory. Successive waves have pushed the meaning beyond any sane consideration.
um, they kinda despise everyone.
That makes much sense
You are a very good friend.
Sirota is frozen in the 90s, his world is gone and dead but he thinks he can somehow bring it back to life.
Liberals have this terrible blind spot where they think that their preferred social poliicies (such as Gender Theory for kids and DEI litmus tests for hiring and college admins) are natural, right as rain, "compassionate" and more or less proper etiquette—yet when people react against these things, they're just being bigots starting a "culture war". Modern liberals simply have no ability to see how aggressive, condescending and often authoritarian they are, mostly I think because for them politics is their great faith that provides meaning and purpose, thus they can never admit fault or take a good long look in the mirror and see that they can be just as grubby, dishonest and power-mad as their political opponents.
David Sirota has nothing new to add and he might as well be talking about an imaginary country, as the one he describes no longer exists.
Took the words right from my keyboard: it's only culture war when the right notices and reacts. I just don't know if they genuinely believe their craziness is default & normal, or if it's a cynical tactic.
The politicians and the theorist class can be cynical actors, as they always have one eye on accruing power and wounding enemies, but this is a small number of people. Most of everyone else has just been slowly gradually ideologically indoctrinated by their devices and media consumption.
And by their lack of life experience.
--often including their never having had to build anything & having practice only in "critiques" of the works and lives of others.
and no skin in the game, no consequences for any mistakes.
To be fair, everyone has an eye on accruing power and wounding enemies. Nobody is in the business of wanting to be powerless and having their enemies strong to attack them.
oh yeah, "accruing power and wounding enemies" is part of politics and always has been and always will be—but the theorist class pulled off their coup and seized the means of cultural production by pretending to be scholars but being instead ruthless political actors, conquering one dept at a time by hiring only fellow believers while chasing away non-believers and by defending their enterprise from writers who exposed their charlatanary, like Alan Sokal and Steven Pinker among many others.
The theorist class has an explicit political program and pursues it more ruthlessly than just about any actual politician.
Sirota sure nailed you, Mr. Gender Theory/DEI.
Agreed that these divisive tactics are globalist tools that work well only so long as they can maintain power by subrosa or explicit censorship and lawfare. See the EU. If they can't, they can't win.
If you're looking for a "creator of culture-war controversies", look at Trump's (first) predecessor.
Race relations became inflamed during Obama's term ("If I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin", Ferguson MO and appointing Al Sharpton as racial mediator, etc.), the trans-orthodoxy was codified (twice!) into Obamacare, there was the "Apology Tour", etc., etc., etc.
"Cancel Culture" followed Obama as far as I'm concerned.
Obama as race inflamer always cracks me up. Idiocy punditry personified.
That Obama personifies the idiot pundit?
Obama was a neoliberal cuck and a betrayer of the working class.
Race inflamer? Couldn’t come close to Trump on that count.
Trayvon vs. CP5? Puhlease.
Okay, I suspect we're largely arguing on details here.
"Neoliberal cuck and a betrayer of the working class."
We're definitely in agreement on that! Very well put!
My point is that prior to the Obama terms, race relations were essentially a non-issue. Specifically, post- the Rodney King/LA riots that occurred under GHW Bush.
I honestly do not recall race being an issue during either the Clinton or Bush terms. I'm open for correction.
Post-Obama we got DEI, cancel-culture and "speech wars". The hyper-sensitivity was not present during the Clinton or Bush terms. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.
Specifically, Obama's comments on Trayvon Martin were not helpful nor well thought through.
Similarly, his remarks on the Gates issue that resulted in the idiotic "Beer Summit" were made hastily and without understanding of the circumstances of the situation (i.e., that Gates's neighbors called the police because they thought a break-in was underway in Gates's residence which turned out to be Gates trying to break into his own residence because the lock was jammed).
Last, that Obama would appoint Al Sharpton of all people as a "racial mediator" :
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2014/04/10/301458435/obama-and-al-sharpton-an-odd-couple-who-make-political-sense
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/03/how-obama-sharpton-alliance-began-jillian-kay-melchior/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton#Barack_Obama
Sharpton has arguably been the single most incendiary, and certainly the most prominent, racial provocateur of the last half-century.
Obama indicated he wanted someone people could "trust". Which people?
I argue that alone was profoundly ill-advised. Racial tensions seemed to me to have been inflamed during his tenure, which ostensibly contradicted the image that was presented during the "magical" 2008 campaign.
But I respect your opinion, I just differ. Trump is an "equal opportunity offender": he offends lots of people across the board. If you had told me in the early 90's that I'd wind up voting for him for president three times, I would have thought you crazy.
At this point, I find his willingness to confront people to be part of his charm. I'd note that Trump is arguably a little loose but then he's also mischaracterized when his comments are generalized and/or misinterpreted (e.g., regarding Colin Kaepernick and black quarterbacks in general). Also, I believe Trump garnered more minority votes than previous Republican candidates, which is at least anecdotal.
Last, I ran a search on "CP5" but nothing that came up could possibly be what you were referring to. What is CP5?
Central Park Five.
Race relations have always been an issue; this is America after all.
Trump garnering more minority votes is more a product of Democratic Party ineptitude and working class betrayal than anything else.
Agree with your take on Sharpton, disagree on Martin and Gates. I don’t care about whether comments were helpful or well thought out, I only care about truth and justice.
We were, and still are, a racist country. Our particular brand of racism is inextricably linked to our capitalist economic system. But, I believe, the work of anti-racism identity politics is detrimental to solving our racial issues. That only comes with solving the economic/wealth extreme disparity that is killing us.
No politics but class politics. All this culture war analysis, from every direction, is a distraction, imo.
Yes! The PMC are the gatekeepers for the tippy top. I have a couple friends in academic circles and they'll concede the class issues, but then go all in on the favored identity politics du jour that allow the ultra-wealthy and large corporations to hide behind a phony sense of 'we care' -- but not really do anything structural that will affect their bottom line, of course.
Hey Matt
Thank you for being fair and balanced by publishing David’s essay. BUT, to put it as nicely as possible, he gets it all wrong. He tries to frame Trumps popularity and the demoncrats on an esoteric level. It is way more obvious than that.
We reject demoncrats because:
1. Opening the border to let millions of unvetted illegals to flood the country so the dems can have future voters because they are killing their voters with abortion and legalized drugs.
2. Defunding the police and letting criminals out of prison or not prosecuting in the first place.
3. Legalizing hard drugs and encouraging addiction which leads to squalor and crime.
4. Giving certain minorities preferential treatment cause you know whites are ALL RACIST!!
5. Authoritarian cancel culture which drove Joe Rogan and Elon musk to the “dark side.”
6. Desire to destroy our economy to save the planet from natural variability which is a cover for global wealth redistribution.
7. Promoting drug addicted homelessness which is turning parts of our once beautiful cities into 4th world dystopian hell scapes.
My thumb is getting tired…lol
So Tell low resolution thinker David to write an essay addressing this small list.
They say they need a Joe Rogan, but they had him, and could still have him now since he'll talk with anybody about anything. However that last part is precisely the problem for them, since the dems believe in strong guardrails on discourse, set and enforced by them, in order to prevent the harms of misinformation. Joe Rogan's very appeal is exactly what they can't tolerate about him. They may be starting to realize they need to change, but I don't think they're capable of it yet, as this neurotic control freakery is too much a part of who they are.
Yep, the Dems and Progressives are VERY rigid, as inflexible as a piece of PVC tubing. It's sad, but operating solely on "virtue" and "correctness" breeds severe mediocrity as well as delusion. Dems/Progs see and engage life from the ideal vs. the real, therefore they don't achieve any real success and thwart themselves, thus taking their anger out on conservatives and independently-minded fellow Americans. They need to leave childhood/adolescence and grow up and face the real world.
💯 this!
Please continue to expand the vapid ‘reject’ list. It cracks me up in its hyperbolic absurdity.
"The rage was there already; Trump didn’t invent it. He just had an ear for it, while Democrats refused to listen even to legitimate complaints without condescension, a tendency which has now cost them two elections. "
This has been so obvious that it still boggles my mind that it needs to be continually debated and explained.
I was taken by his claim that Trump has historically low approval ratings but the democrats rating were even lower.
"Conservatives" are disparaged for opposing change. They are not and cannot be aggressors in a battle over culture, because the aggressors are definitionally trying to change things.
It's also worth noting that if a separate article serving as a disclaimer for Sirota's piece needs to be published, then we're already admitting something about Sirota's piece, aren't we?
Any media pundit who knee-jerk applies this "observation" of what ails Democrats and how to regain voters they've lost is simply not worth reading:
“swinging disillusioned voters away from the authoritarian right.”
The authoritarian right. Yes, please, David Sirota, continue offering your insightful commentary and the Rs will continue to benefit.
Gosh, if only the Trump cabinet had the amazing knowledge, work ethic and effectiveness as Biden's did. Bwahahaha...
Had a tough time with his piece. He appears to think from within the "trump-derangement" bubble in which "everything about the orange man is bad" and reasons from the first principle that he, Trump, is inherently corrupt. It's hard to give his thoughts serious consideration when he argues from the get-go from such entrenched views.
"I know David’s essay is meant to imagine a new long-term political approach...."
Maybe that's what he told you when he pitched you the idea. Spoiler alert: He lied.
Sirota is a naked partisan, Trump-addled hater who fooled you into publishing a delusional screed attacking Normal Americans who are sick of what his ilk have foisted on America since Clinton.
"...food for thought..."??!!
No, no nourishment for the mind in his stuff-all-the-disdain-you-can effluent.
Please don't do that again.
The Sirotas of America are all over NPR/PBS/AP/CBS/ABC/CNN/etc/etc. I pay to avoid them, and to consider your thoughts and analysis.
Well put, Sir
His piece was horrible. The idiotic Democrats could have easily reached out to Trump, buttered him up(kissed his ass) and got a lot of “deals”/legislation to their liking. Trump is not an ideologue. Instead they committed treason with the Russian collusion operation. Treason they still haven’t paid for.
Not much food for thought...but ok. Written by a TDS person, so I tend to discount them since it's not even handed at all. The censorship and bureaucratic control over everything we do makes leftists authoritarian/totalitarian, and they are closer to an oligarchy than Trump ever has been. We need to know who comes in here at our borders, or let in by socialist ivy league universities encouraging antisemitism. He's correcting the law breaking of Biden's open border. And he's definitely all about the middle class and even the poor. The kind of huge government control that guy (and Bernie) had in mind represents a total lack of freedom.
Matt - thanks - I do appreciate the intent. I do see, all the time, how Trump can (and does)drive folks insane with lies and inanities (anybody remember his late-night tweet, "covifi"? I named a dog after that line).
To battle lies with lies is never a good plan, though, and David lost me with the so-fucking-stupid overuse of the word "oligarchs". Any idiot that does NOT conflate wealth with power and see the history of power throughout the history of our species with respect to wealth is just plain fucking ignorant.
At least Trump has the good sense to advertise who he is, not to obfuscate and obscure it as the Dems seem to, as a rule. Dems - don't piss on our shoes and tell us it's raining.
Exactly. Don’t want a $Trump coin or whatever else he’s hocking, simply don’t buy it. I’ll take my chances with a guy who’s selling himself openly vs looking for a 10% backdoor deal for the Big Guy.
It's really too much to hear the dems now talk about oligarchs, rule of law, free speech, the necessity of the filibuster, and weaponization of the justice system.
It's covfefe. More importantly, negative press covfefe.
If you are going to mock the man, try to be accurate.