Thread by @PnictogenHorses

the egos of these hopeless mediocrities...@walterkirn, @mtaibbi, @jbarro, @mattyglesias, @thomaschattwill, the whole pack of them...

I have, quite seriously, rarely encountered a wider gap between pretension and reality. even @elonmusk seems more grounded at times.

~Mona

laughter aside...this is a serious issue. @walterkirn and @mtaibbi are but a symptom of a profound *sickness* in Western #journalism, a sickness whose ultimate cause can only be #capitalism—which rewards mediocrity and unfounded egotism in its systems of leadership.

~Mona

Kirn and Taibbi might as well be "Peter Principle" #management and #executive persons—people who have their lofty positions not because of *skill* but superior social privilege, and because they're more ruthless and cynical in their dealings with other people.

~Mona

it's one reason that punditocrats like @mtaibbi and @walterkirn are puerile and snide on the subject of ethics and morality: in order to get their elite "influencer" status, it's likely that they've betrayed and backstabbed a lot of colleagues. these people make *enemies*.

~Mona

and the more openly bıgoted they are, the more enemies they make. @mtaibbi needs to conceal the full depths of his spiritual and moral (and intellectual) corruption for a good reason: he's seen more explicitly racist scribblers like @bariweiss and @sullydish get *exiled*.

~Mona

@mtaibbi, @bariweiss, &c. flatter themselves by thinking it's "censorship", as if they were special ideological targets. in truth it's because dedicated bıgots are also dedicated jerkasses, and nobody wants to work with a bıgoted jerkass. so, they languish at @SubstackInc.

~Mona

and @mtaibbi &c. feel very ill used, very much like they've been robbed of fame and wealth that they feel *entitled* to grabbing—at bottom, all of these "influencers" are very childlike and spoiled, just like Taibbi's hero @elonmusk has been spoiled by money and privilege.

~Mona

THAT is mainly why @walterkirn and @mtaibbi are clinging desperately to the illusion that they're fearless leaders of some sort of independent rebellion, when they're merely pawns in a murky political conspiracy with @elonmusk and unseen Republican political figures.

~Mona

@walterkirn &c. are tenth-raters who feel entitled to a place at the top, and as long as they're not in the top rank, they feel like outsiders. and they really want to pretend that their mere social-climbing ways are, somehow, *rebellious*. it's very very silly.

~Mona Drafter

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