basically what's happening is that you have a bunch of ideas that have always appealed to comfortable people at the top of society - mostly white dudes - about how you should be allowed to be a little racist and homophobic and political correctness is out of control and whatnot
but over the last few years the people who became most associated with those ideas became intrinsically rather toxic among the educated set. like you can't admit to listening to ben shapiro and jordan peterson and expect to be taken seriously
so what's happening is that a bunch of moderates and liberals - who just so happen to be white dudes themselves - have started advancing suspiciously similar arguments with a liberal gloss. "this is just an argument about politics, it's not like I don't believe in racism"
and what do you know! turns out there's a big audience for this stuff. which totally probably reflects the quality of the underlying thinking, and definitely not that there's a lot of reactionary sentiment out there looking for a socially acceptable way to express itself
like let's just be blunt: what yglesias et al are doing is using their reputations as liberals to launder right-wing thinking about race and gender to a primarily white, primarily male audience who both subscribes to that thinking but wants to continue seeing itself as liberal
and, this is important: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SURPRISING ABOUT THE FACT THAT IT WORKS. it is not surprising that many people like this stuff and will gobble it up! but spoon-feeding it to them doesn't make you a brilliant contrarian thinker, it makes you Fancy Rush Limbaugh
this is america, you're allowed to be rush limbaugh or bill o'reilly or bill maher if you want. but it's gross, it's bad for the rest of the country, you're hurting people and making the world worse to get rich
possibly some of these guys don't even quite recognize what they're doing. after all, being white guys, the ideas probably have some intrinsic appeal to them, and they get a lot of reinforcement from similarly-situated guys they respect, so why interrogate their own success?
but in terms of scenarios in which you should feel wary of your own success, "I am a prominent proponent of ideas that are disproportionately represented among society's most powerful segments" pretty much tops the list
people will rarely be penalized, and often rewarded, for thinking up clever arguments that indulge the prejudices of the power caste.
it's still awful to do it, though
I'm sure people will say this is ironic or he's not endorsing the daily caller, but when the premise of your joke is "look at me chortle along with white nationalists," you can hardly be surprised when white guys like yourself are the only people laughing
again the connective tissue between all these takes is that it's white people giving other white people permission to believe things that white people have wanted to believe since time immemorial
you can try to understand anti-PC stuff as an extension of some kind of ideology but you're really going to have to contort yourself to explain why it comes from left, right, and center
or you can just look at the race of the writers and audience and it makes perfect sense
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the structure of media has changed, and it's changed what kinds of political messaging successfully reaches and persuades people, and democrats are the ones that have been getting left behind
HOW HAS THE STRUCTURE OF MEDIA CHANGED?
primarily, it's vastly more fragmented. instead of large centralized outlets, media consumption is fragmented across an incredibly wide range of TV, print, online, and social media outlets
fragmentation has happened at every level - e.g., people can choose between TV and TikTok, but also choose between more TV channels, and, online, choose the exact sources and accounts and websites the listen to. it's like a supermarket transitioning from one product to thousands
One thing the Harris campaign seems to understand, explicitly or implicitly, is that you should perform the emotions you want the audience to feel, not tell them how to feel. Don’t tell them to be mad at Trump - actually be angry at him. Don’t tell them he’s too old - mock him.
Democrats are really bad about this in the often and I think it’s been terrible for them. People don’t want to be informed, they want to join in. This is why the right’s bullying is so effective - it models an interaction and encourages people to join.
Which interaction is more likely to elicit a FEELING of contempt? A laundry list of all the problems with that person, directed at you, or watching someone brutally mock that person? The former may leave you better informed but you’ll never feel it in your gut like the latter.
This moment has gone viral because it's the most important question of the election. What's incredible is that it had to be asked by a construction worker because the political press refuses to focus on these questions or hold Trump's feet to the fire.
January 6 was a "day of love"? Trump tried to overturn an election with a violent mob. He encouraged the mob to invade the Capitol, and refused to call them back. As we speak, a court stands about to release evidence of Trump's utter contempt for democracy.
Most of his former staffers and officials have rejected him. More than that, they've called him dangerous, a fascist. Trump hasn't expressed even the slightest bit of contrition - he's called for military action against US civilians! He's said he'd act as a dictator!
My crazy idea is that Obama should take the shocking angry bit from his rally speech last night - “so many people are failing America making excuses for Trump instead of talking about what he is” - and spend three weeks blitzing every TV program and newsroom he can with it
Uniquely among all private Americans, Obama can walk into any room and immediately command attention. If anyone could single-handedly get the media to refocus on the terrifying stakes posed by Trump’s character and record, it’s him
I know it’s not really how he operates but it’s the final stretch and not a single person in America has the gravitas - especially with the kind of elite tastemakers who drive election narratives - that he does
Sort of, but it doesn't really work. I suspect the vast majority of political media that reaches a lot of people is what might be deemed "earned social" - neither direct campaign communications, like ads or podcasts, but also not traditional mainstream news.
That's the thing that Trump and MAGA have gotten really good at: earned social chatter. It's nonstop, it's everywhere, it filters into every little pocket of social and digital communication, it's unavoidable.
Democrats are frankly terrible at it, in large part because they're boring and they aspire to be boring. No one is discussing your boring economic policy in their group chat or discord channel, sorry. It's too dull to even come up.
people keep responding with things like "there's nothing changed on the ground! there's just people on social media feeling doomy" and guys, yes: that's the vibe shift! that's my point! we're all sharing a brainwave these days
regardless of whether it affects the voting or not (I vote "it probably affects it a little, but not a lot") you can sort of feel the wind change. because as much as we like to think we're thinking about this stuff independently of each other, we're not at all.
I think people dismiss these kind of zeitgeisty shifts because there isn't anything firm to pin them on, but the fact that lots of people notice them all at once leads me to believe there's something real happening here. we're all absorbing the same narratives at the same time