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.
What Lee is describing at the beginning is ‘the tone’. ‘The tone’ is the single greatest indicator we have today (there are exceptions to the rule) of institutional rot and the increasingly steep slope to irrelevance. The Burning Man story is the same story that we get day after day after day. The elite class showing their ass and poorly disguising personal grievances as broad social commentary. We see you guys for what you are and we’re not coming back.
TLDR: was just reading something Rob Henderson wrote. ‘The tone’ is the language of luxury beliefs.
Great interview - I made a point to listen to the whole thing. Fang nailed it with the disconnected people at the DSA meetings and the office at The Intercept. These are contemptible people, and need to be called out and mocked as much as possible.
This podcast kind of danced around one of my favorite leftist tropes....
Where they write off half the the country as "garbage humans" because they aren't sufficiently "accepting and understanding of different points of view".
I was under the impression that the Silicon Valley VIPs attend Burning Man, albeit with a lot of normies. (*) So some of these delightful attendees are wearing costumes and bartering/ giving presents 1 week of the year, and funding psychotic activists the other 51 weeks. Cognitive dissonance anyone?
(*) From Wikipedia, “Burning Man has since evolved into a destination for social media influencers, celebrities and the Silicon Valley elite."
Great interview. However, I had no idea what burning man was. I was confused the first 15 minutes of the interview. You could have easily explained what it was in detail...instead I had to look it up and figure out what it was. The conversation started with the assumption everyone knows what burning man is.
I thought Tucker was fired downstream of the $787 million Dominion lawsuit. I never saw him as being screwed. The depositions revealed that Tucker didn't believe much of what he was reporting but knew his market and the product they demanded. They also revealed he had disdain for Fox management and he actively recommended retribution (screwing?) against colleagues that contradicted the fraud storyline. He thought he was too big to fire but Fox decided he was too much of a self centered liability to keep.
Patriot Purge was pretty unhinged and caused the exit of moderates Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg from Fox. Whether Tucker feels personal anger or betrayal now is immaterial, it seems that anger and betrayal is the product his audience demands. With more competition and losing his platform, it does not surprise me if he if he is becoming more fringe to stand out. He knows what his demo wants and as their leader he must deliver.
I honestly don’t think it’s that far fetched to think that San Francisco could turn into Detroit at some point. Obviously SF has a lot more intrinsic factors going it’s way that Detroit never had (e.g weather) but divestment can be contagious.
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.
What Lee is describing at the beginning is ‘the tone’. ‘The tone’ is the single greatest indicator we have today (there are exceptions to the rule) of institutional rot and the increasingly steep slope to irrelevance. The Burning Man story is the same story that we get day after day after day. The elite class showing their ass and poorly disguising personal grievances as broad social commentary. We see you guys for what you are and we’re not coming back.
TLDR: was just reading something Rob Henderson wrote. ‘The tone’ is the language of luxury beliefs.
Great interview - I made a point to listen to the whole thing. Fang nailed it with the disconnected people at the DSA meetings and the office at The Intercept. These are contemptible people, and need to be called out and mocked as much as possible.
Oooh! Im so excited for this one!
This podcast kind of danced around one of my favorite leftist tropes....
Where they write off half the the country as "garbage humans" because they aren't sufficiently "accepting and understanding of different points of view".
not asking if he engaged in the orgies was a choice
I was under the impression that the Silicon Valley VIPs attend Burning Man, albeit with a lot of normies. (*) So some of these delightful attendees are wearing costumes and bartering/ giving presents 1 week of the year, and funding psychotic activists the other 51 weeks. Cognitive dissonance anyone?
(*) From Wikipedia, “Burning Man has since evolved into a destination for social media influencers, celebrities and the Silicon Valley elite."
Great interview. However, I had no idea what burning man was. I was confused the first 15 minutes of the interview. You could have easily explained what it was in detail...instead I had to look it up and figure out what it was. The conversation started with the assumption everyone knows what burning man is.
I thought Tucker was fired downstream of the $787 million Dominion lawsuit. I never saw him as being screwed. The depositions revealed that Tucker didn't believe much of what he was reporting but knew his market and the product they demanded. They also revealed he had disdain for Fox management and he actively recommended retribution (screwing?) against colleagues that contradicted the fraud storyline. He thought he was too big to fire but Fox decided he was too much of a self centered liability to keep.
Patriot Purge was pretty unhinged and caused the exit of moderates Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg from Fox. Whether Tucker feels personal anger or betrayal now is immaterial, it seems that anger and betrayal is the product his audience demands. With more competition and losing his platform, it does not surprise me if he if he is becoming more fringe to stand out. He knows what his demo wants and as their leader he must deliver.
This is was good. For California voting. It all goes back to rank choice voting. Ranked choice is the common core of voting.
I honestly don’t think it’s that far fetched to think that San Francisco could turn into Detroit at some point. Obviously SF has a lot more intrinsic factors going it’s way that Detroit never had (e.g weather) but divestment can be contagious.