That idea that you had to lecture a family member if you disagree with them politically was always so funny to me. Every family when you get 10-15 people together you're going to have different kinds of people and different kinds of thoughts. Unless you're a maniac you're still able to sit down and have a pleasant meal.
Yeah, when close friends and family members are objectively in the moral wrong, I'm going to say something and I expect and appreciate the same from them.
Well that did not answer my question but for whatever it’s worth I personally am bummed out about the prospects of a potential re-entering into his prior position… not super looking forward to the next 12 months in the political landscape.
In an attempt to understand your position, would you say that it is ‘your opinion’ that a person supporting Trump is bad/wrong/evil? Or that it is ‘objectively’ bad/wrong/evil that a person supports Trump?
Yes, people who are all too aware of the social injustices that their community faces and were fresh off of George Floyd tend to be emotional and reactionary which is 100% understandable. Unless we're willing to listen, white people will never truly understand the violent relationship and the generational/historical mistrust of the police within the African American community. It sure is easy to laugh it off and roll our eyes though!
All the more reason to reject sustained Moral Panics like what we witnessed in the summer of 2020.
Ferguson was a turning point from my POV regarding police malfeasance, because clearly the institution of law enforcement had the wrong set of incentives. Which is why I was so disappointed to see the aftermath of George Floyd (as in hours) move beyond that conversation and immediately turn into a litany of racial grievance mongering.
Hence how we get NBA players going to the mat for a guy trying to kidnap his kids and lectures about others being in the objective moral wrong.
And thank Christ things have cooled down. My only question is this: what happens if Trump wins again? Do the media and all mainstream institutions catch Trump Derangement Syndrome all over again and scream their heads off for another four years? Or would they just be too burned out to do it this time?
Even the most alarmist people with what you call "Trump Derangement Syndrome" were spot on with how his presidency turned out. He staged an electoral coup when he lost, tried to overturn the elections at state levels, when that didn't work he sent his mob to the capital. When that didn't work either he stole a bunch of classified documents on his way out and refused to return them when asked. "Trump Derangement Syndrome" should describe anyone so fucking blind to the reality that Trump was as bad or worse than all of his biggest critics said he was.
Not angry at you at all, the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" just drives me insane because it'd be like saying someone that doesn't want to get sick has "cancer derangement syndrome" lol the thing was actually bad so being against it wasn't deranged at all
It was actually deranged for one party Democratic cities to keep schools closed for an extended period of time, but it still happened partly because Trump said schools needed to reopen in the fall of 2020. It was also deranged for some of those same one-party Democratic cities to quit enforcing criminal and traffic law in the summer of 2020, but that happened too.
Hindsight is 20/20.. every country around the world struggled with the school closure decision. Trump also said everything would open by Easter and suggested we inject people with disinfectant to kill Covid so don’t really respect anything he said on the issue as his only goal was to pretend Covid didn’t exist so the economy wouldn’t shut down and he’d win reelection. I don’t even know what you’re talking about with the traffic law thing, but not sure how it has anything to do with the discussion around “Trump Derangement Syndrome”
The US was an outlier among many western countries when it came to school closures. And this idea about hindsight 20/20 is nonsense because I saw lots of people saying that school closures were bad because it would take a physical, emotional and cognitive toll on kids.
My then 4 year old was a wreck that entire first summer. He was fully potty-trained and he started wetting the bed again. He looked so defeated when we told him he would have to wear pull-ups at night again.
Kick rocks man. Everyone knew the risks vs rewards by the end of the 19-20 school year AT THE LATEST.
Not gonna let you guys reframe that conversation in the years to come when people wanting to open schools were branded grandma killers, white supremacists and the like.
"Trump did it, must be bad" describes the thought process of a significant share of anti-Trumpers who happen to be right in a broken clock sense. And that grouping includes a lot of casual "politics-as-sports" types who work in the media or who you get stuck talking to at a party.
Voters who will correctly suss out every would-be dictator 10/10 times, as opposed to 20 out of 10 or with the accuracy of a coin flip, are not a huge portion of the electorate
>Even the most alarmist people with what you call "Trump Derangement Syndrome" were spot on with how his presidency turned out.
This is just false. A TON of Democrats (including some close friends) were pretty sure we would be in 3 different wars and all the immigrants would be rounded up and deported/killed and it would be open season on black people blah blah blah.
Yes he is a terrible man and was shit President, but frankly most Presidents are pretty shit these days and none of that happened.
JAN 6 etc. was by far the worst thing to come out of his Presidency (and I agree it was very bad), but on a ton of issues congress, his ineptitude, and just the reality that policy wise he wasn't that out of mainstream US thought meant that on most things his policies were VERY continuous with the prior administrations (say immigration where the dreaded "kids in cages" was a pre-existing policy...) . Fuck he appointed a HUD secretary who was on record as thinking HUD shouldn't exist. What actually changed at HUD? Very little.
Complaints about say him doing "nothing" for PR in the wake of the hurricane. Meanwhile literally billions of dollars of aid were approved. Aid that was mostly behind on spending due to their own incompetence.
Anyway, the TDS way way exceeded his actual impact day to day. People freaking out about his twitter posts and not looking at his actual policy. I agree if you looked at Twitter he was a deranged madman, but you don't run the country through Twitter.
Not to mention: maybe before Trump there were a dozen huge stories a year that the entire media freaked out about that turned out to be 50-100% bogus, but I don’t remember it. Seems like in the past there might be one or two a year and someone would get fired over it.
People rightly ringing the alarm bell when a narcissistic/racist/misogynist maniac, who has ZERO self-control or understanding/respect for the position, is the leader of the free world.
Nah, he’s right, but a house of Strauss comment section is enemy territory. Ethan is fostering an environment for contrarian dudes who feel morally superior to everyone around them because they want credit because they hate trump but also think the left is hysterical and overreacts to everything. That’s his core demographic.
Again, compared to Trump’s actual mental temperament and actions the case is stronger that the country UNDER-reacted to him and his presidency. The term you’re looking for is “appropriately hysterical response to the biggest threat our democracy has faced since the civil war”. It’d be like if your neighbor’s house was on fire and they were running around screaming and you’re looking to describe how they’re overreacting.
This whole comments section is that dog in the fire saying "this is fine." My guess is that Ethan's base is made up of a majority of upper-middle class white men who aren't really affected by much of anything and it's easier for them just to wave their hand and say "what's the big deal? So what if my uncle is a racist POS? Doesn't affect me!"
As a black man, someone's racist uncle in West Virginia doesn't affect me. A racist neighbor four houses down probably wouldn't affect me much. Big Wos has talked about this before. Black folks are not walking around in fear of police and racism 24/7 despite what the media portrays. And those who are walking around like that, probably need therapy and/or need to get off of twitter/Tik Tok.
“Yeah, most people at Thanksgiving meals are chill.”
PW: BLAAAAAARGHHHH!
And for the record, my uncle isn’t racist. He has a mild heart condition that makes him sleepy very early in the evening and his often-unsuccessful attempts to remember the names of football players of yesteryear provide mild, annual amusement. He once retroactively assumed Cornelius Bennett was Greek because of the latter’s first name, which is doubly-weird as that name’s etymology is Latin.
Everything you listed is better than TDS because they are specific, describe actual things, and could actually engender actual conversation. TDS is just a blanket derision that is so over used and coded that it's just dismissive without specific criticism.
My not-so-hot take is that Bud Light getting punished by the right in terms of beer sales (and in what seems to be sustaining) for doing fairly low visibility promotions with Dylan Mulvaney on social media caused a lot of corporations and whatnot to reconsider the activist demands from otherwise useless HR and marketing departments.
Lukewarm take of my own to add... I think it would likely have blown over in relatively short time if they marketing VP (or whatever her position was) for the BL brand hadn't explicitly insulted much of their core customer base in response to the initial hubbub
The temperature may have been lowered, but I still think a lot of people feel they *have to* care about everything, in order to be considered .a Good Person. But the vast majority of people out there really, really don't need to have takes on every single political issue, complex economic question, and international conflict. Most of the time, people (on all sides) have no idea what they're talking about anyway, and all it seems to be doing is making them miserable.
It's really OK to care more about your job, your relationships, your health etc than, say, conflicts in the Middle East. Hopefully we're starting to realize that.
Focusing on the micro and the local around you is the easiest way to actually be a “good person”. That other fake stuff you referenced is just BS signaling for the social media masses. It’s so tired!
Apropos of this shift, BR Sports (the Turner streaming on Max thing) has a promo that runs every commercial break (presumably bc they haven’t been able to sell ads) that’s Earnie Johnson talking about how sports is the best break from the craziness of the outside world. I couldn’t find it on YouTube to link here, but watching it and thinking of 2020 is kind of amazing.
The craziness has seemed to die down all across American institutions with the exception of academia, which is still as "2020" as it was three years ago.
Academia is a ship with a torpedo hit that is slowly sinking. We are going to need to make some new institutions for knowledge creation because it is becoming very secondary or even tertiary there these days.
The colleges are like the monasteries of the 1500s, something that has mostly passed its time of cultural usefulness.
I am actually a university professor. In an engineering department. People on the outside really over-generalize what "academia" is like. In my world nothing has really changed over the course of my career in terms of my working conditions but recently we've increased grad student researcher stipends to reflect living costs. What little DEI stuff I've dealt with has mostly been productive and focused on improving how we deal with foreign students. I understand that, even where I work, there are insane departments but that is only one part of "academia". I'd much rather be where I am than in a government lab or at a company based on what colleagues tell me. I would guess that the average worker in America deals with culture-war issues at work far more than i do.
Good article. But I would like to add another paragraph to reasoning: the politics of the average person is changing. I see it in friend groups who were quite liberal and supportive of the 2020-2022 causes now distancing themselves from those positions, if not embarrassed by them.
Plus the long term consequences of Covid and progressive policies helped create a challenging economic environment felt by nearly everyone. So it’s unsurprising people are moving right on the political spectrum — and perhaps this is even true for your rank-and-file sports writers who are feeling the pinch, if not in their pocketbook, but diversity advocacy becoming a luxury belief they can’t afford in a shrinking industry.
Just aside, it was kind of surprising to watch Chamath from the All-In podcast, go from a BLM promoting 7-figure donar to
the the Democrat Party to being ‘red-pilled’ over the last couple years as his takes have aged poorly. He’s far from alone with Democrat donations (especially small dollar) are down and grassroots enthusiasm non-existent.
I think the thing is, the two big negative legacies of the COVID era are school closures and a whole nest of issues around crime. In particular, the dems have a whole group of data driven white collar voters who can look at the numbers, look at what the kooks are saying, and go with the numbers (particularly on policing). They’d never in their wildest dreams vote for the current republican set outside of Youngkin and Romney’s group, but they can spot the pretextual money grab from the race grifters a mile away.
The best legacy is the economy, and outside of economists like myself who marvel at how well the US navigated the pandemic, it doesn’t feel great despite the fact that the US is in an incredible position.
It's not really that they're moving to the right on any actual issues. Probably left in most cases. It's more that people had enough of the really irritating, abrasive, and angry parts of lefty discourse. Normal people just can't live like that for an extended period of time. It's kind of what Ethan said, just like "hey man just relax and we can talk about sports or movies or whatever"
This is just blatantly not true lol normal people are tired of right wing extremism as can be seen in the last 2 election cycles. If you believe this myth that people are moving to the right because they're sick of the left that's a sign you're in an information bubble
Who are "normal people"? And what percent of the population is one? If you're a normal person but don't live in a red state then you're unlikely to be exposed to enough right wing extremism to be sick of it.
When I'm referring to "normal people" I mean people who follow politics a "normal" amount aka for about 3 months every 4 years right before presidential elections and maybe 2 weeks every 2 years for midterms. Those people are sick of right wing extremism even if they aren't living in it 24/7.
Is your point that the electorate as a whole is moving to the right because of the behavior of people like me on the left? If so, what's your evidence of that?
The GOP has just moved so far away from college educated white people. I can see people voting for Youngkin just fine, but the weirdos the VA GOP dredges up during the primaries are way beyond the pale.
Even the wider GOP primary, there’s not a normal dude among them, especially when they’re running so hard to the right.
But also clay hosts a political talk show every day In the old rush Limbaugh time slot. Sports is his side business now. He’s mainly political. To primarily view him through a sports angle lens is wrong. He’s now a full time political commentator who also talks about sports a lot.
Large subsection of people in the House of Strauss comments section indirectly making the argument that, actually, there has been no vibe shift and we’re just waiting for the next catalyst.
“Trump wins elections”.. does he? Lol he won one low turnout presidential election while getting millions less votes, then lost the house and the senate, then lost the presidency, then all his candidates cost them the midterms again. Big picture he’s an electoral loser and his own presidential win was the outlier.
I don't like Biden much, but I'd gladly sign for 100 years of him if it gets people to shut up, act like normal human beings, and let people have conversations that don't involve politics.
I think Powell is already signaling it, and not for political reasons (I’m an economist). The goal is to lower rates to head off the (theoretically) lagging unemployment. Seriously, we’re getting a soft landing and few appreciate how hard that is.
This is just my opinion- I’m not at the fed, my work isn’t on monetary policy it’s on rational inattention- but you read what the guy at the Boston fed is saying and they’re pretty confident they will land the plane. That means there won’t be hikes for a bit. If unemployment starts to rise in the new year then you’ll see cuts. You may see cuts anyway, but I don’t think we’ll see hikes.
At this point in time if you listen to guys like Clay Travis or Dan LeBatard while disagreeing with their “politics” it’s probably because you’re addicted to the outrage. There’s an ocean of apolitical interesting sports coverage, but sometimes people make the mistake of expecting it all to be that way.
I disagree...the culture war is still prevalent in sports...the culture war overall is also just getting steam...the current political state in this country has not settled and the world events are at their highest threat level since the early 1960s (that is quite an accomplishment)...not a Trump fan personally but his policies were working...the dangers we face today are significant and who would have ever thought that less than 75 years after WWII...the Jews are once again persecuted...most fans do not want to read about politics and it’s pretty smart to stay away from them when you have 50% of the country split...
The big bosses have realised something I’ve said here many times, sports is an escape for most people and they don’t want to be reminded of the shit in the real world, and when they do push that people turn off and you probably lose some for good
That’s where I’m at. Work hard to help your team win, play the game the right way and improve in your craft. That’s all I focus on. Actually in my life the great majority of people I interact with are polite , friendly and make my day better. I’m aware some have political differences but I will treat them same way they treat me. I remember when Bosa was drafted and people said he will be hated it S.F. I countered with, he will do his job well, he will help his team win and he will work hard and his team mates and fans will love him. I have a tweet somewhere calling that.
I really don't think it's that complicated.. when a fascist dictator is in power, the urgency to talk about it is much higher. There were news stories every day about the crazy shit Trump was doing. If he wins in 2024 everything will change back. Joe Biden basically ran on "let's make politics boring again and keep politics out of the news 24/7" and he's succeeded wildly in that goal, which is why I think if it's a rematch in 2024 he's going to wipe the floor with Trump. The more Trump is in the news the less popular he is, I don't give a shit at all what the polls say now, when we have months of non-stop Trump and Biden news leading up to the election people will remember what a nightmare it is to have that man on TV all the time and they'll reject him at the ballot box again. Joe Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do and it's going to get him re-elected.
Clay Travis is just one of many people who get in the bubble of thinking "If only people heard more about the hypocrisy of the left then we'd win the narrative battle" but he doesn't realize that most people just see him as a right wing crank so he has to keep getting more and more to the right to appease his base. The entire right is based on this idea that they're smarter than everyone and if more people just knew the truth that they know then the left would never win an election again, but they're the ones that are disconnected from reality and they're gonna keep getting smacked electorally until they realize its their message that's the issue and not an issue of needing more people to hear their shitty takes.
Why Ethan wrote this article. People who transform their political beliefs into a world of good vs evil. "It's okay for sports to become political because X side is so immoral that they must be stopped."
See I guess that’s where we fundamentally disagree because I do feel the world can be distilled down to good vs evil and I do think it’s perfectly okay for sports to become political when the stakes are high enough.
Right. But the overwhelming majority of people watch sports and sports coverage because they care about sports. They certainly do not care what the point guard of the Kings or the left fielder for the Braves or the co-host of First Take thinks about Ukraine. And in many cases, plowing through the desires of the audience leads to alienation, which leads to less revenue, etc.
And then the end-result of that becomes that people who might even agree with you on certain issues, start to abandon you because they are just so sick of not even being able to turn on a football game without political ideology being shared by someone.
So what you see as a crucial opportunities for these things to be discussed ultimately results in a negative for your cause.
“They do not care what the point guard of the kings thinks about Ukraine”
Okay this may be true, but if the point guard of the kings uses his platform to raise awareness of what’s going on in Ukraine I bet the Ukrainians would appreciate the use of the platform to further their cause. Sometimes it’s much more about doing the right thing than pleasing people. That’s where I’m coming from, it’s not about winning points for the left or helping convince anyone of anything, I feel strongly that anyone with a platform should use that platform to bring awareness to issues they’re passionate about, regardless of if people care or not.
"The more Trump is in the news the less popular he is." This is just not true. His poll numbers and fundraising skyrocketed after the first indictment came down. Desantis was leading or was neck and neck with Trump, then when the first indictment happened (him being in the news more), his polling number got way better.
"The more Trump is in the news the more popular the news is" is a more accurate statement.
Trump is very popular among a very large segment of the American population. Anybody who gets a nomination to run for president and becomes president, and is the clear front-runner to be the nominee again, is a popular figure. Maybe he is not popular among the people who live around you or among the media members you follow. FYI, I'm not a Trump fan but I understand why there's a large segment of people who vote for him.
And you can say news coverage doesn't shift opinion, but the FACTS show his poll numbers skyrocketed after he got indicted. So I don't know how you can say news coverage doesn't shift opinion. And for the news to not be able to shift opinion they sure put a lot of resources and effort into trying to do so.
Maybe we have different definitions of popular, and I don't mean that in some kind of snarky way. This poll has 53% of viewing him unfavorably and 42% as favorably. While 20% of Republicans view him unfavorably and 76% favorably. I wouldn't look at those numbers and conclude that "Trump is not a popular figure." Does 53% vs 42% mean someone is not popular? I'm genuinely asking.
By the way. 538 shows a poll conducted by Harvard that has his favorability rating at 51%.
That idea that you had to lecture a family member if you disagree with them politically was always so funny to me. Every family when you get 10-15 people together you're going to have different kinds of people and different kinds of thoughts. Unless you're a maniac you're still able to sit down and have a pleasant meal.
These "lectures" weren't over disagreeing on politics though. It reminds me of this meme:
Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Con: LOL no... not those views
Me: So... deregulation?
Con: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Con: Oh, you know the ones...
I see you were the person lecturing.
Yeah, when close friends and family members are objectively in the moral wrong, I'm going to say something and I expect and appreciate the same from them.
Nah don’t do that. You aren’t near smart enough
This presupposes an objective moral standard that you are appealing to. Where is the grounding of this objective moral standard?
Anyone who either implicitly or explicitly cheers on and supports Trump has major, moral issues.
Well that did not answer my question but for whatever it’s worth I personally am bummed out about the prospects of a potential re-entering into his prior position… not super looking forward to the next 12 months in the political landscape.
In an attempt to understand your position, would you say that it is ‘your opinion’ that a person supporting Trump is bad/wrong/evil? Or that it is ‘objectively’ bad/wrong/evil that a person supports Trump?
Same energy as the NBA players demanding no games after the Jacob Blake shooting.
Yes, people who are all too aware of the social injustices that their community faces and were fresh off of George Floyd tend to be emotional and reactionary which is 100% understandable. Unless we're willing to listen, white people will never truly understand the violent relationship and the generational/historical mistrust of the police within the African American community. It sure is easy to laugh it off and roll our eyes though!
All the more reason to reject sustained Moral Panics like what we witnessed in the summer of 2020.
Ferguson was a turning point from my POV regarding police malfeasance, because clearly the institution of law enforcement had the wrong set of incentives. Which is why I was so disappointed to see the aftermath of George Floyd (as in hours) move beyond that conversation and immediately turn into a litany of racial grievance mongering.
Hence how we get NBA players going to the mat for a guy trying to kidnap his kids and lectures about others being in the objective moral wrong.
The people writing those stories are maniacs
And thank Christ things have cooled down. My only question is this: what happens if Trump wins again? Do the media and all mainstream institutions catch Trump Derangement Syndrome all over again and scream their heads off for another four years? Or would they just be too burned out to do it this time?
Even the most alarmist people with what you call "Trump Derangement Syndrome" were spot on with how his presidency turned out. He staged an electoral coup when he lost, tried to overturn the elections at state levels, when that didn't work he sent his mob to the capital. When that didn't work either he stole a bunch of classified documents on his way out and refused to return them when asked. "Trump Derangement Syndrome" should describe anyone so fucking blind to the reality that Trump was as bad or worse than all of his biggest critics said he was.
Chill, dude. I don't like Trump either. Didn't vote for him before and certainly won't vote for him now.
You seem to be angry at me because I'm not as outraged and histrionic as you demand I be. Why that is, I have no idea.
Not angry at you at all, the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" just drives me insane because it'd be like saying someone that doesn't want to get sick has "cancer derangement syndrome" lol the thing was actually bad so being against it wasn't deranged at all
It was actually deranged for one party Democratic cities to keep schools closed for an extended period of time, but it still happened partly because Trump said schools needed to reopen in the fall of 2020. It was also deranged for some of those same one-party Democratic cities to quit enforcing criminal and traffic law in the summer of 2020, but that happened too.
Hindsight is 20/20.. every country around the world struggled with the school closure decision. Trump also said everything would open by Easter and suggested we inject people with disinfectant to kill Covid so don’t really respect anything he said on the issue as his only goal was to pretend Covid didn’t exist so the economy wouldn’t shut down and he’d win reelection. I don’t even know what you’re talking about with the traffic law thing, but not sure how it has anything to do with the discussion around “Trump Derangement Syndrome”
The US was an outlier among many western countries when it came to school closures. And this idea about hindsight 20/20 is nonsense because I saw lots of people saying that school closures were bad because it would take a physical, emotional and cognitive toll on kids.
My then 4 year old was a wreck that entire first summer. He was fully potty-trained and he started wetting the bed again. He looked so defeated when we told him he would have to wear pull-ups at night again.
Kick rocks man. Everyone knew the risks vs rewards by the end of the 19-20 school year AT THE LATEST.
Not gonna let you guys reframe that conversation in the years to come when people wanting to open schools were branded grandma killers, white supremacists and the like.
"Trump did it, must be bad" describes the thought process of a significant share of anti-Trumpers who happen to be right in a broken clock sense. And that grouping includes a lot of casual "politics-as-sports" types who work in the media or who you get stuck talking to at a party.
Voters who will correctly suss out every would-be dictator 10/10 times, as opposed to 20 out of 10 or with the accuracy of a coin flip, are not a huge portion of the electorate
>Even the most alarmist people with what you call "Trump Derangement Syndrome" were spot on with how his presidency turned out.
This is just false. A TON of Democrats (including some close friends) were pretty sure we would be in 3 different wars and all the immigrants would be rounded up and deported/killed and it would be open season on black people blah blah blah.
Yes he is a terrible man and was shit President, but frankly most Presidents are pretty shit these days and none of that happened.
JAN 6 etc. was by far the worst thing to come out of his Presidency (and I agree it was very bad), but on a ton of issues congress, his ineptitude, and just the reality that policy wise he wasn't that out of mainstream US thought meant that on most things his policies were VERY continuous with the prior administrations (say immigration where the dreaded "kids in cages" was a pre-existing policy...) . Fuck he appointed a HUD secretary who was on record as thinking HUD shouldn't exist. What actually changed at HUD? Very little.
Complaints about say him doing "nothing" for PR in the wake of the hurricane. Meanwhile literally billions of dollars of aid were approved. Aid that was mostly behind on spending due to their own incompetence.
Anyway, the TDS way way exceeded his actual impact day to day. People freaking out about his twitter posts and not looking at his actual policy. I agree if you looked at Twitter he was a deranged madman, but you don't run the country through Twitter.
Thank you! Was going to say the same exact thing: the "derangement" is those who ever supported him and/or continue to do so.
Okay then. So "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is out. Fine. But what should I call it?
Social media-fueled yelling and screaming? Mobbing and shaming? Massive social unrest? People on the Left eating their own?
Please, tell me what term I'm allowed to use, if I'm even allowed to use one at all.
Not to mention: maybe before Trump there were a dozen huge stories a year that the entire media freaked out about that turned out to be 50-100% bogus, but I don’t remember it. Seems like in the past there might be one or two a year and someone would get fired over it.
People rightly ringing the alarm bell when a narcissistic/racist/misogynist maniac, who has ZERO self-control or understanding/respect for the position, is the leader of the free world.
A bit wordy but that should cover it :)
you're on a delusional warpath in the comments, proving the point of every person you're trying to disagree with. Great stuff
Nah, he’s right, but a house of Strauss comment section is enemy territory. Ethan is fostering an environment for contrarian dudes who feel morally superior to everyone around them because they want credit because they hate trump but also think the left is hysterical and overreacts to everything. That’s his core demographic.
Are things in the US and the world better now than they were in 2019? Can you answer that honestly?
Speaking for the US no because 2020 was a remarkably bad year and we still haven't recovered from it.
Again, compared to Trump’s actual mental temperament and actions the case is stronger that the country UNDER-reacted to him and his presidency. The term you’re looking for is “appropriately hysterical response to the biggest threat our democracy has faced since the civil war”. It’d be like if your neighbor’s house was on fire and they were running around screaming and you’re looking to describe how they’re overreacting.
This whole comments section is that dog in the fire saying "this is fine." My guess is that Ethan's base is made up of a majority of upper-middle class white men who aren't really affected by much of anything and it's easier for them just to wave their hand and say "what's the big deal? So what if my uncle is a racist POS? Doesn't affect me!"
As a black man, someone's racist uncle in West Virginia doesn't affect me. A racist neighbor four houses down probably wouldn't affect me much. Big Wos has talked about this before. Black folks are not walking around in fear of police and racism 24/7 despite what the media portrays. And those who are walking around like that, probably need therapy and/or need to get off of twitter/Tik Tok.
“Yeah, most people at Thanksgiving meals are chill.”
PW: BLAAAAAARGHHHH!
And for the record, my uncle isn’t racist. He has a mild heart condition that makes him sleepy very early in the evening and his often-unsuccessful attempts to remember the names of football players of yesteryear provide mild, annual amusement. He once retroactively assumed Cornelius Bennett was Greek because of the latter’s first name, which is doubly-weird as that name’s etymology is Latin.
Everything you listed is better than TDS because they are specific, describe actual things, and could actually engender actual conversation. TDS is just a blanket derision that is so over used and coded that it's just dismissive without specific criticism.
My not-so-hot take is that Bud Light getting punished by the right in terms of beer sales (and in what seems to be sustaining) for doing fairly low visibility promotions with Dylan Mulvaney on social media caused a lot of corporations and whatnot to reconsider the activist demands from otherwise useless HR and marketing departments.
Lukewarm take of my own to add... I think it would likely have blown over in relatively short time if they marketing VP (or whatever her position was) for the BL brand hadn't explicitly insulted much of their core customer base in response to the initial hubbub
The temperature may have been lowered, but I still think a lot of people feel they *have to* care about everything, in order to be considered .a Good Person. But the vast majority of people out there really, really don't need to have takes on every single political issue, complex economic question, and international conflict. Most of the time, people (on all sides) have no idea what they're talking about anyway, and all it seems to be doing is making them miserable.
It's really OK to care more about your job, your relationships, your health etc than, say, conflicts in the Middle East. Hopefully we're starting to realize that.
Focusing on the micro and the local around you is the easiest way to actually be a “good person”. That other fake stuff you referenced is just BS signaling for the social media masses. It’s so tired!
That takes much more effort though.
And it’s perfectly fine not to have a strong opinion on everything
Also not that many people had so much of their identity tied into who they vote for
Apropos of this shift, BR Sports (the Turner streaming on Max thing) has a promo that runs every commercial break (presumably bc they haven’t been able to sell ads) that’s Earnie Johnson talking about how sports is the best break from the craziness of the outside world. I couldn’t find it on YouTube to link here, but watching it and thinking of 2020 is kind of amazing.
The craziness has seemed to die down all across American institutions with the exception of academia, which is still as "2020" as it was three years ago.
If anything, academia has gotten worse.
Academia is a ship with a torpedo hit that is slowly sinking. We are going to need to make some new institutions for knowledge creation because it is becoming very secondary or even tertiary there these days.
The colleges are like the monasteries of the 1500s, something that has mostly passed its time of cultural usefulness.
I am actually a university professor. In an engineering department. People on the outside really over-generalize what "academia" is like. In my world nothing has really changed over the course of my career in terms of my working conditions but recently we've increased grad student researcher stipends to reflect living costs. What little DEI stuff I've dealt with has mostly been productive and focused on improving how we deal with foreign students. I understand that, even where I work, there are insane departments but that is only one part of "academia". I'd much rather be where I am than in a government lab or at a company based on what colleagues tell me. I would guess that the average worker in America deals with culture-war issues at work far more than i do.
Good article. But I would like to add another paragraph to reasoning: the politics of the average person is changing. I see it in friend groups who were quite liberal and supportive of the 2020-2022 causes now distancing themselves from those positions, if not embarrassed by them.
Plus the long term consequences of Covid and progressive policies helped create a challenging economic environment felt by nearly everyone. So it’s unsurprising people are moving right on the political spectrum — and perhaps this is even true for your rank-and-file sports writers who are feeling the pinch, if not in their pocketbook, but diversity advocacy becoming a luxury belief they can’t afford in a shrinking industry.
Just aside, it was kind of surprising to watch Chamath from the All-In podcast, go from a BLM promoting 7-figure donar to
the the Democrat Party to being ‘red-pilled’ over the last couple years as his takes have aged poorly. He’s far from alone with Democrat donations (especially small dollar) are down and grassroots enthusiasm non-existent.
I think the thing is, the two big negative legacies of the COVID era are school closures and a whole nest of issues around crime. In particular, the dems have a whole group of data driven white collar voters who can look at the numbers, look at what the kooks are saying, and go with the numbers (particularly on policing). They’d never in their wildest dreams vote for the current republican set outside of Youngkin and Romney’s group, but they can spot the pretextual money grab from the race grifters a mile away.
The best legacy is the economy, and outside of economists like myself who marvel at how well the US navigated the pandemic, it doesn’t feel great despite the fact that the US is in an incredible position.
I sort of thought people were being pushed to the right. But the Dems did well in the last two elections, so now I'm not so sure.
It's not really that they're moving to the right on any actual issues. Probably left in most cases. It's more that people had enough of the really irritating, abrasive, and angry parts of lefty discourse. Normal people just can't live like that for an extended period of time. It's kind of what Ethan said, just like "hey man just relax and we can talk about sports or movies or whatever"
This is just blatantly not true lol normal people are tired of right wing extremism as can be seen in the last 2 election cycles. If you believe this myth that people are moving to the right because they're sick of the left that's a sign you're in an information bubble
Who are "normal people"? And what percent of the population is one? If you're a normal person but don't live in a red state then you're unlikely to be exposed to enough right wing extremism to be sick of it.
When I'm referring to "normal people" I mean people who follow politics a "normal" amount aka for about 3 months every 4 years right before presidential elections and maybe 2 weeks every 2 years for midterms. Those people are sick of right wing extremism even if they aren't living in it 24/7.
You are nicely illustrating the point I was making
Is your point that the electorate as a whole is moving to the right because of the behavior of people like me on the left? If so, what's your evidence of that?
I didn't even say they were moving to the right. I said they were annoyed by people like you.
The GOP has just moved so far away from college educated white people. I can see people voting for Youngkin just fine, but the weirdos the VA GOP dredges up during the primaries are way beyond the pale.
Even the wider GOP primary, there’s not a normal dude among them, especially when they’re running so hard to the right.
But also clay hosts a political talk show every day In the old rush Limbaugh time slot. Sports is his side business now. He’s mainly political. To primarily view him through a sports angle lens is wrong. He’s now a full time political commentator who also talks about sports a lot.
Large subsection of people in the House of Strauss comments section indirectly making the argument that, actually, there has been no vibe shift and we’re just waiting for the next catalyst.
It’s important that everybody know who is MORALLY PURE.
And people wonder why Trump wins elections….
“Trump wins elections”.. does he? Lol he won one low turnout presidential election while getting millions less votes, then lost the house and the senate, then lost the presidency, then all his candidates cost them the midterms again. Big picture he’s an electoral loser and his own presidential win was the outlier.
I don't like Biden much, but I'd gladly sign for 100 years of him if it gets people to shut up, act like normal human beings, and let people have conversations that don't involve politics.
Patience. Though the magic they’ve done to keep unemployment low is pretty crazy.
I think Powell is already signaling it, and not for political reasons (I’m an economist). The goal is to lower rates to head off the (theoretically) lagging unemployment. Seriously, we’re getting a soft landing and few appreciate how hard that is.
This is just my opinion- I’m not at the fed, my work isn’t on monetary policy it’s on rational inattention- but you read what the guy at the Boston fed is saying and they’re pretty confident they will land the plane. That means there won’t be hikes for a bit. If unemployment starts to rise in the new year then you’ll see cuts. You may see cuts anyway, but I don’t think we’ll see hikes.
At this point in time if you listen to guys like Clay Travis or Dan LeBatard while disagreeing with their “politics” it’s probably because you’re addicted to the outrage. There’s an ocean of apolitical interesting sports coverage, but sometimes people make the mistake of expecting it all to be that way.
Is some random person high on meth? Wtf is happening here. Even Ethan had to come in to try to cool the jets.
I like how a piece about everyone getting tired of talking about politics spawned this particular comments section.
I disagree...the culture war is still prevalent in sports...the culture war overall is also just getting steam...the current political state in this country has not settled and the world events are at their highest threat level since the early 1960s (that is quite an accomplishment)...not a Trump fan personally but his policies were working...the dangers we face today are significant and who would have ever thought that less than 75 years after WWII...the Jews are once again persecuted...most fans do not want to read about politics and it’s pretty smart to stay away from them when you have 50% of the country split...
The big bosses have realised something I’ve said here many times, sports is an escape for most people and they don’t want to be reminded of the shit in the real world, and when they do push that people turn off and you probably lose some for good
That’s where I’m at. Work hard to help your team win, play the game the right way and improve in your craft. That’s all I focus on. Actually in my life the great majority of people I interact with are polite , friendly and make my day better. I’m aware some have political differences but I will treat them same way they treat me. I remember when Bosa was drafted and people said he will be hated it S.F. I countered with, he will do his job well, he will help his team win and he will work hard and his team mates and fans will love him. I have a tweet somewhere calling that.
I really don't think it's that complicated.. when a fascist dictator is in power, the urgency to talk about it is much higher. There were news stories every day about the crazy shit Trump was doing. If he wins in 2024 everything will change back. Joe Biden basically ran on "let's make politics boring again and keep politics out of the news 24/7" and he's succeeded wildly in that goal, which is why I think if it's a rematch in 2024 he's going to wipe the floor with Trump. The more Trump is in the news the less popular he is, I don't give a shit at all what the polls say now, when we have months of non-stop Trump and Biden news leading up to the election people will remember what a nightmare it is to have that man on TV all the time and they'll reject him at the ballot box again. Joe Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do and it's going to get him re-elected.
Clay Travis is just one of many people who get in the bubble of thinking "If only people heard more about the hypocrisy of the left then we'd win the narrative battle" but he doesn't realize that most people just see him as a right wing crank so he has to keep getting more and more to the right to appease his base. The entire right is based on this idea that they're smarter than everyone and if more people just knew the truth that they know then the left would never win an election again, but they're the ones that are disconnected from reality and they're gonna keep getting smacked electorally until they realize its their message that's the issue and not an issue of needing more people to hear their shitty takes.
Pssstt: You’re a part of the problem.
What is “the problem” you’re referring to?
Why Ethan wrote this article. People who transform their political beliefs into a world of good vs evil. "It's okay for sports to become political because X side is so immoral that they must be stopped."
See I guess that’s where we fundamentally disagree because I do feel the world can be distilled down to good vs evil and I do think it’s perfectly okay for sports to become political when the stakes are high enough.
Right. But the overwhelming majority of people watch sports and sports coverage because they care about sports. They certainly do not care what the point guard of the Kings or the left fielder for the Braves or the co-host of First Take thinks about Ukraine. And in many cases, plowing through the desires of the audience leads to alienation, which leads to less revenue, etc.
And then the end-result of that becomes that people who might even agree with you on certain issues, start to abandon you because they are just so sick of not even being able to turn on a football game without political ideology being shared by someone.
So what you see as a crucial opportunities for these things to be discussed ultimately results in a negative for your cause.
“They do not care what the point guard of the kings thinks about Ukraine”
Okay this may be true, but if the point guard of the kings uses his platform to raise awareness of what’s going on in Ukraine I bet the Ukrainians would appreciate the use of the platform to further their cause. Sometimes it’s much more about doing the right thing than pleasing people. That’s where I’m coming from, it’s not about winning points for the left or helping convince anyone of anything, I feel strongly that anyone with a platform should use that platform to bring awareness to issues they’re passionate about, regardless of if people care or not.
"The more Trump is in the news the less popular he is." This is just not true. His poll numbers and fundraising skyrocketed after the first indictment came down. Desantis was leading or was neck and neck with Trump, then when the first indictment happened (him being in the news more), his polling number got way better.
"The more Trump is in the news the more popular the news is" is a more accurate statement.
I'm talking nationally. Within the republican party I agree it's not true but nationally it absolutely is.
Trump is very popular among a very large segment of the American population. Anybody who gets a nomination to run for president and becomes president, and is the clear front-runner to be the nominee again, is a popular figure. Maybe he is not popular among the people who live around you or among the media members you follow. FYI, I'm not a Trump fan but I understand why there's a large segment of people who vote for him.
And you can say news coverage doesn't shift opinion, but the FACTS show his poll numbers skyrocketed after he got indicted. So I don't know how you can say news coverage doesn't shift opinion. And for the news to not be able to shift opinion they sure put a lot of resources and effort into trying to do so.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/
Maybe we have different definitions of popular, and I don't mean that in some kind of snarky way. This poll has 53% of viewing him unfavorably and 42% as favorably. While 20% of Republicans view him unfavorably and 76% favorably. I wouldn't look at those numbers and conclude that "Trump is not a popular figure." Does 53% vs 42% mean someone is not popular? I'm genuinely asking.
By the way. 538 shows a poll conducted by Harvard that has his favorability rating at 51%.