Jesus Christ Jacobin is fucking embarrassing.

This attitude of “so what if I was lying? It’s a lie that slanders the Bad Guys” is a fucking blight on the Left right now.

It matters because we can’t solve fake problems, dumbass! @devintoshea This type of shit matters—if people think the problem is private equity owning existing housing stock, then they’ll push for legislation to ban that, which would be fine, but WOULDN’T BRING DOWN RENTS. Which then leaves people mad at us, the Left, for failing to deliver!

For a long time many of us on the left have tolerated some very counterproductive discourse norms because it seemed like everyone crying about them was actually opposed to the *substance* of anti-racism, disability justice, decolonization, and so on But it feels like we’ve gotten to a point where these norms are truly untenable, even (especially?) for those of who care to really do the work and win on these fronts, as well as on the front of class struggle.

Just an incredible, undeniable failure by liberals. A human catastrophe.

And you’d think socialists, of all people, would be eager to scourge the libs about this clear, empiric failure of their unscientific policies! Yet so many of us defend these liberal policy regimes!

https://twitter.com/statisticurban/status/1862231223760044452

Housing is this bizarro space where 90% of socialists become raving liberals who suddenly believe in the power of regulated markets to deliver socially-necessary goods. It’s insane that we give up criticizing one of the biggest, most obvious weak points of liberal policies!

The main problem I have with leftist arguments against YIMBY housing reforms (upzoning, legalizing single stairwell buildings, etc) is that they all seem to assert some version of “the market can never provide cheaper rents than it currently does”, which is flatly not credible Housing should not be a market-provided commodity, but for now that’s what it is. And it is cheaper in some places than in others. And it has been cheaper at different times. None of the leftist arguments I’ve seen about the power of landlords to dictate price can explain this

Tbh @Tyler_A_Harper, the “pipeline” is very real—it describes so many young men I know.

The problem is Democrats see Bernie as *causative* here; he drove them away from Dems and to MAGA. Of course, the opposite is true: they would’ve stayed Dems with a Bernie-style platform We should absolutely talk about the reality that tons of low-info, low-propensity, and politically disengaged voters loved Bernie and flocked to him. But he put off the highly-engaged base of the Democratic Party.

Problem is, Dems needed those low-info voters after all

I really think if Harris loses, it won't just be about a bad campaign and a bad candidate. Looking at the polling on immigration, homelessness, and crime (among other issues), the country has lurched right pretty hard in just the last few years. I think because of COVID People experienced a collective crisis, which demanded concerted action and sacrifice in order to protect the whole public--but especially the most vulnerable. And they hated it! They got exhausted with it very quickly. They wanted to go "back to normal" ASAP

It seems bad that once our society started to take child sexual abuse more seriously, people became increasingly fixated on the “sexual” part and not the “abuse” part. Like, we now have a society where a shockingly large number of people think children will be suffer harm analogous to CSA by *reading* about sex and sexuality, but are totally uninterested in dismantling the systems of authority and hierarchy that abusers exploit to find victims

Taibbi has obviously gone insane, but an interesting nugget here:

He says republicans have “very little institutional power”, and cites schools, universities, and newsrooms. No mention of business, police, or…government. That’s invisible in his analysis of power! Fascinating

https://twitter.com/april_harding/status/1773730805325389955

This obsession with media and education is pretty universal among Taibbi-style “why I left the left” types, or what you might call cosmopolitan reactionaries

Ironically, they replicate the cultural turn of the New Left that shaped them—they’re obsessed with cultural reproduction

If you admit “the opposition party can never be elected or they’ll end liberal democracy,” then you’re admitting liberal democracy is already dead

Because you’re admitting that peaceful transfer of power has ceased to be a credible expectation. And you’re right! It is dead!

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1736176386807595092

Like, “if power is ever transferred to the opposition, then they’ll destroy the institutions which enable peaceful transfer of power” means you’re already cooked. It’s over. The liberal order is fatally weakened.

Dems cant admit this, though

Follow me here, pal:

A worker sees their income rise 20% from $20k in 2020 to $24k. Their annual rent rises 25% from $12k to $15k. She still nets $1k/yr—thats good, right?

But wait! 12k is 60% of 20k, but 15k is 62.5% of 24k. She’s *more* rent burdened now

It gets worse.

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1733585876024750327

Cause, see, she had $8k after rent to pay for her other needs back in 2020. Now, she has $9k after rent. Again, that’s good right? $1k gain!

Except…that’s only a 12.5% increase in her *ex post rent* income. Not that big lovely 20% increase in her gross income.

Honestly “trans women are women” had to be one of the worst political slogans of all time.

It’s the kind of messaging that calls attention to the idea that there’s a debate—it’s the classic “don’t think of an elephant” problem—and sounds condescending & platitudinal Like, it simultaneously makes clear that this is a contested ontology, then asserts its position without any persuasion at all.

We’ve seen in persuasion science how this kind of messaging works, this sort of authoritative voice that nonetheless implies objections exist

I don’t think it’s an objection to science per se, but rather a need to believe in the power of magic—which they can practice themselves—in order to feel like they have some agency in a world where clear-eyed, empirical analysis clearly shows they have none

Let me elaborate

https://twitter.com/this_is_mallory/status/1700134602730561959

So much of right wing grift today falls into, essentially, occultism. It is the study of magic incantations, rituals, alchemy, and so on, in the hope that mastery of esoteric knowledge can free them from the social and physical constraints that impose misery on them

What does it mean that many people have grown so hostile to small talk, politeness, social ritual?

“How’s your day going?” Is what’s called a ‘phatic expression.’ It does not convey denotative, literal information but a social posture of agreeableness and bond-maintenance I think the hostility so many people now have to phatic expressions, and connotative speech generally, is a symptom of our overall isolation and social decline.

Ritualized speech, politeness, small talk, etc, don’t give you direct information but signal a social relationship

blown away by the number of people in the QTs saying that the exploitation of banana farmers, and their political oppression by fruit conglomerates, is a non-negotiable NECESSITY because the world NEEDS shitty bananas to go rotten at every 7-11, every day, year round, forever

https://twitter.com/bigmeaninternet/status/1681031815291609088

People framing this as a “decline” in the standard of living, as if there is an inherent human need for year-round banana access at every latitude that must be satisfied. As if we couldn’t be equally happy with a more seasonal and local agriculture

“What is a woman” “what is a man” for literally hundreds of thousands of years, “I know it when I see it” was a good enough answer.

The need to define categories of human beings with formal, discrete logic is a need born of *state regulation*. States need rules. Human beings actually function just fine all the time without formal axiomatic definitions of categories. We identify that individuals belong to a broader category based on experience. It’s fuzzy and instinctive. We don’t apply a logical test, we don’t use a checklist

I made a nice overture about why gatekeeping is a bad idea to the people who don’t like you, and you’re mad because I advocated for you in a way that wasn’t strident and off-putting enough, and you can’t understand why some people find this discourse annoying? Lmao

https://twitter.com/hasrock36/status/1669507671622402051

Like, sorry I’m not gonna say “fuck you” to other trans women because they make fun of theyfabs online. I know who I’m in most direct material community with. My point is we can recognize common political purpose even if we don’t all love each other on a personal level

rly hot take but like, if trans people are gonna make it we probably need all the folks who just change pronouns, or people you'd consider "trenders" etc. They just aren't enough dysphoric "classic" transsexuals to achieve societal toleration probably tbh like, cis gay people got as far as they did mainly because enough of them came out publicly that a critical mass of straight people started updating their beliefs about gay people in order to keep liking their friends and family

“What happens when you lose faith in the boundaries for acceptable behavior” well, historically, you get your shit rocked.

Like?? In what universe has any society ever had unanimity on behavior and thought? If there were unanimity, we wouldn’t need boundaries!!!

https://twitter.com/emmaogreen/status/1658916306270269440

This is just the inevitable and universal social process of negotiating boundaries and that means some people get left outside. It’s not new. The “problem” is some of the people getting left outside the boundaries are elites and thus we have to endure their public moaning

I know trans women are women because what could be more quintessentially White Woman than a white trans woman saying she’s just an innocent little baby who can’t be blamed when she takes her negative feelings out on everyone around her

https://twitter.com/mirann_darrow/status/1658908604739592254

Not everyone in the community does this! And you don’t have to! Dysphoria is not actually an excuse to spew your internalized transphobia all over everyone else. Regulate! Your! Emotions!

I saw someone say that colonization is when you make a nice caprese. We aren’t gonna make it we are so cooked Like real talk the extent to which cultural and technological transmission gets confused with colonialism because they *happened to go together* in the modern era is such a bummer. These are not the same! Exchange without exploitation is possible!

ngl.link/hecubian_devil sure ok Yeah probably I’m kind of a slut