The problem with pieces like this is that they assume that both sides have a point. But in fact.. the progressive case that the political system is biased about them is air tight, while the Republican case culture is biased against them is.. questionable. 1/?
Like sure, high culture and academia are weighted towards culturally liberal stances. But, not only that ignores crucial social institutions (police, churches, small business)...
Even in the realm of media, not only that there is a powerful conservative media empire, network TV is chock full with military/police themed shows!
And there is stuff like conservatives convincing themselves that the NFL and the army are against them, for the simple reason they don't follow party line 100%. But no one has to accept this dumb framing!
If you dig down to the complaint, what conservatives are complaining about when it comes to media is that elite, buzzed, talked about media products, whether HBO or the MCU have generally liberal cultural tenor. Fair!
But again, there is plenty of Christian movies made every year! They even make a lot of money. They are just kinda ... bad, and talented people have no obligation to produce good stuff that has social conservative content.
So, having disposed of all that, we come to the meat of the complaints: that after decades of GOP cutting taxes and regulations and demolishing unions, corporations side with cultural liberals, biting the hand that feeds them.
The complaint does have some teeth, because yeah, that's exactly what's happening! But, seriously "we weighted the entire American political economy towards a handful of corporations, and they won't even let us hound trans kids into oblivion" is one heck of a complaint to make.
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The problem with this "cutting through the b.s" it assumes that voter suppression for racist purposes and voter suppression for partisan purposes are an either/or proposition. But even the original Jim Crow voting laws were motivated by both race and partisanship..
The driving force behind the voting restrictions is the general sense that rural conservative voters are real Americans and urban voters aren't. That sense is not ONLY about race, but it is inseparable from race.
Or, to put it otherwise: no doubt that if Dixiecrats in 1950 were told Black people would vote for Democrats, they would still do anything to stop them from voting while if you told Republicans Black voters are voting for them, they would gladly accept their votes.
An essay containing such immortal lines as "At the beginning of the piece I said that liberals seem incapable of understanding the is-ought distinction" is surely one for the ages. Who could forget "my opponents are stupid poopieheads" opening line of Rawls' Theory of Justice?
One of the most amazing things about the anti-woke warriors is that they insist that point scoring essays about one's internet enemies are works of unsurpassed genius.
I mean, that essay is just full of idiocy, like "any or most members of the social justice movement were enthusiastic and aggressive promoters of the Joe Biden campaign." That line can only be understood from the Greenwaldian left perspective, where opposition for Trump...
The moderates' obsession with capping the checks is stupid. However, his is a timely reminder that if you are an individual making 80K AGI, getting the checks to you is not the defining progressive issue of our time.
And as far as obsessions with undeserved recipients goes, being obsessed with the rich beats the heck out of being obsessed with the poor.
And finally, the fact the political/media world is so obsessed with the checks while totally ignoring the kindergeld is a stark reminder that there are real costs to politics and media being the province of people much less likely to have kids..
One of the key facts of American political life: Republican strategists use backchannels to convey optimism, Democratic strategists use same channels to convey pessimism.
Another key fact: reporters both worship savvy and presume that the people talking to them are conveying honest opinions. So for instance, Catanese is convinced his source is giddy because Warren is the one they can beat.
But if Bernie was ahead he would be giddy because elderly socialist, and if it was Kamala he would be giddy because she is a California liberal, and so and so forth.
In fact,yes, immigration of Eastern European Jews fleeing pogroms was a major component of 1920s antisemitic propaganda. It's almost as though all forms of ethno-nationalism feed from the same poisoned fruit!
And even before the war, Hitler, during his Prague years, was almost certainly influenced by scare propaganda about Jews and Czechs taking over Vienna.
1/x One thing about Trump no one seems to notice is how, personality-wise, he is basically a Communist dictator c. 1970. yle.fi/uutiset/osasto…
2/X. It's all there: the bad taste, obsession with steel and concrete, the constant need to "guide" people as to how to do their jobs, combination of autarchic impulses and obsessing with badly-understood foreign practices.