What a credulous piece of reporting. No mention of Tea Party being a Koch-seeded astroturf, no mention it was animated by racist hostility to Obama and black people and immigrants in general, no mention of its contempt for women. Complete doofus brain shit nytimes.com/2019/08/28/us/…
Except the Tea Party got EXACTLY what it wanted because it’s nominal opposition to deficits was a PR cover for standard anti-poor partisan GOP politics. The net result of 2010 takeover was gerrymandering, anti-abortion laws, anti-environmentalism, taking healthcare from millions.
“Tea Party failed because deficits are high” is supposed to be some cool liberal gotcha but it glosses over how astroturfed and phony the whole thing was.
NYT has incentive to keep buying the transparently bogus line the Tea Party cared about deficits b/c their reporting in 2009 ate it up. They didn’t spot a Bircherism Koch job at the time and think it best to simply ignore it now and view it all as organic “populist” uprising.
Imagine in the year of lord 2019 still thinking a bunch of foaming lifelong republicans—virtually all of whom now back tax cut and spend happy Trump—were animated not by the election of the first black president but a sudden, genuine and race-blind concern with “deficits”.
In Dec 2017—of the 30 remaining representatives who composed the initial 2010 Tea Party caucus—every single one of them voted for Trump’s deficit-bloating tax cuts. They never cared about deficits and we have proof because they voted that way for 9 years. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u…
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important to understand what pro-Israel lobbying org ADL is doing here: they are issuing a mob threat to continue demagoguing this issue and exploiting the public’s ignorance and racism until Mamdani “comes to them” e.g. toes the line on Israel. This is extortion plain and simple
It has nothing to do with him “condemning” anything. If he condemns “globalize the intifada” they will demand he condemn “intifada,” if he condemns this they’ll find some other expression for him to “condemn”. The point is for him to accept the minimum axioms of liberal zionism
The ADL is a libel-spewing shakedown racket that lets white nationalist antisemites like Elon Musk off the hook because he does the IDF press tour and censors to their liking. They explicitly believe any meaningful opposition to Israel is per se “antisemitism” and act accordingly
Are any “fact checking” groups or reporters going to note Mamdani never said “intifada” anything but simply said, when asked about it, it wasn’t a call for violence against anyone, much less Jewish people (the thing he’s also being accused of saying that he never said)
Just so everyone’s clear here’s how these ginned up meta-scandals work:
Media hack: DO YOU CONDEMN X (thing politician A never said)
Politician A: No, [nuanced, thoughtful answer]
Other media hack: politician A said X
It’s funny how every article on Mamdani has to include a to-be-sure paragraph about his “impractical” redistributive policies or “tone deaf” Palestine positions. There’s always an air of menace, a “if only he didn’t do this things would be easier” message to any future Mamdanis
It’s the most brainless ideological disciplining, typically shrouded in “inviting controversy” meta discourse or, in the case of the NYT, an alleged “trouble with Jewish voters” horserace framing that’s basically made up. Editors view it as their job to gate-keep Seriousness.
The implication being Mamdani’s Unserious positions are holding him back rather than being fundamental to his appeal. Even if voters or his 45,000 volunteers don’t agree with him on these positions they respect that he sticks to them anyway. They respect he doesn’t triangulate.
given what we know, and what’s currently happening in Gaza, it is deeply insensitive and glib to write “throwing around hot-button words like genocide”. It is near universal consensus in the human rights world—HRW, Amnesty, MSF—Israel is committing genocide, it is not a buzzword.
Dr Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the largest group of genocide scholars in the world has argued Gaza is genocide very conclusively. Among scholars it’s near unanimous. Yet it is repeatedly reduced to a fringe leftwing neurosis
Mamdani saying Israel is committing genocide isnt radical polemic or a fringe idea, it’s entirely within the mainstream of human rights and genocide scholarship. Louis is free to dispute this claim on substance but derisively framing it as an extremist position is factually false
Jake Tapper just referred to Iran’s “weapons program” as the target of the US attack. Again *there is no nuclear weapons program*. US intelligence has affirmed this dozens of times since 2007, having done so again just a few days ago. This is an outright lie but it doesnt matter
“But US intelligence assessments had reached a different conclusion – not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing”
One problem with this whole ordeal is US media has been lying for years about an Iranian “nuclear weapons program” either by implication or explicit lies, as Tapper did. This is in *complete contradiction* to the US intel assessment and has been since they first said this in 2007
Remembering when @jaketapper had a 72hr meltdown because @RepRashida suggesting a pro-Israel AG may be biased against Palestinian protestors and accused her of antisemitism. Anyway this is the millionth inanely racist thing Rep. Fine has said that Tapper will continue to ignore.