HoS: Lee Fang
And now for something completely different! We have top level investigative reporter Lee Fang, talking about how getting stranded at Burning Man. Okay, that’s not the entirety of the discussion, but it’s a jumping off point into many cultural and political subjects. I’ll warn that this one isn’t as sports centric, it’s still a great conversation in my humble opinion.
Outline by the astute Sam Schuette…
Lee’s Burning Man article
Enjoying himself amongst the mass media hysteria
How it represents an escape from the politics and partisanship of the world
The human condition of cruelty
Has it always existed? Is social media just revealing it?
The fun of dehumanizing thousands of people online
The appeal of simplistic enemies
Why people wanted a controversial Burning Man story to be representative of the event’s shortcomings
Lefty meetings vs. Burning Man: are they really similar?
The fancy, elitist talk on the left versus the simple, welcoming Burning Man
Why does much of the left dislike an event that creates momentary lefty utopia?
The uncertainty of the Bay Area
Is it too big to fail?
The role of radical groups in the city’s downturn and the billionaires that fund them
The internet’s role in making people unlikely to admit they’re wrong
People not learning from their mistakes because of reputation risk
The fear of admitting that the bad guy is right
What would happen if the left and right swapped places?
Would a liberal in a rural community or a conservative in a big city offer solutions?
The horseshoe effect of complaining without a solution that plagues both sides
Why do people accuse the other side of being horrible people?
Choosing performative morality over fixing the issue
The loss of touch in society
How can a person feel connected when their politicians never deliver?
How name-calling and internet beef fill the social hole people feel nowadays
Lee’s experience with lefty journalism
How his work with the establishment revealed the corruption within it
The disconnect between liberal groups and the people they supposedly serve
Lee’s political orientation
What’s Lee’s political compass?
The importance of analyzing power and holding people accountable
What are the people inside the leftist circle like?
Lee gives the download on his social circle
The us versus them mentality that remains even after the issues they’ve won
What’s going on with Tucker Carlson?
Has he positioned his journalism out of resentment?
His fallout with Fox
Elon Musk’s conflict with the ADL
What the ADL gets wrong about their methodology?
Why Elon’s pushback deserves an asterisk
HoS: Lee Fang
Pre ad hominem defense: I am a zero time voter of the R's that until the 2020 presidential election bought hook line and sinker that racial grievance was the animating feature of the Trump base. If the 2024 election was held today between Biden and Trump, I would vote third party or not at all.
Re: Ethan talking about the long climb out of the pandemic era.
I don't disagree with Ethan's take but I think it's more appropriately described as a class issue. I'm starting to think being an essential worker was actually a sort of an unintentional privilege because I feel like we're two years ahead of those that were locked inside. What worked vs what didn't and a litigation of the whole era is basically the topic du jour in counter cultural / independent media. It's the overarching topic of the most popular pod, Joe Rogan, which means that downstream it becomes sort of the default status of the working class. On the ground, in the real world, the conversations were had. I have to check myself on being so apoplectic about the dissonance of the media narrative vs the material reality of 2020-now and remember that the people that are paid to write and talk about this stuff were locked inside their homes for a long time. Their perception is warped and it's going to take some time to recalibrate. For some, it may never.
Re: Lee's point about the dichotomy of DSA meetings vs. the actual wishes of the working class. We lived through a lot of the ideas the last three years and they have almost unanimously sucked and made things worse. I feel like there's a lot of "what world do we want to come back to" utopianism that ignores the fact that....... THE WORLD DIDN'T STOP FOR EVERYBODY. The real world culture kept trucking along and evolving as it would and then at some point in 2022, the laptop class, still stuck in 2020, rejoined the world and the chaos has ensued.
Here's a from-the-gut take but I think this lack of common ground is what's behind Trump's tightened strangle hold on the working class and 'shocking' gains among blacks and latinos. It's not that he has become more attractive, per se, it's just that the powerful people that oppose him are seen as the practitioners of the rhetoric and policies that have been disastrous for their communities. It's not an affirmative vote for Trump, it's a loud, "stop fucking with us" to the elites. To be more concise, Trump saying something racist or xenophobic, while offensive, doesn't materially hurt poor communities. It's in poor taste and offends the sensibilities of elites for whom politics is entertainment and theater. Defund the police, or left policy du jour, has materially hurt poor communities. You'll never believe it but people, rich or poor, black or white, this or that, want to live in safe places with access to basic needs and functioning education for their kids. No other issue matters unless those needs are first met which, unfortunately for too many Americans, they are not. I recently had a conversation with a friend that does some community organizing for leftist groups. He laid the blame at the DNC elite, which is a common and IMO fair perspective. I leveled with him and I will level with anybody here that also does that sort of organizing or has an interest in leftist policies becoming popular or the law of the land. You need to convince the working class that "it's not you". What I mean by that is, you can say all the right things about wealth inequality, workers rights, corporate power but until you drop 'the tone', until you drop the identity talk, the cancel culture, all of it. It. Just. Won't. Matter.
Lee's description of the classist ethos at the intercept reminds me of Drew Magary's "Why Your Team Sucks" series at Deadspin (I know, hang with me). The first few years it was irreverent and even kinda insightful, but eventually the "shittiest" part of every single franchise became the way its working-class fans dress/talk/drink/eat/consume football and the focus of the articles was just shitting on those people.