While this is articulated in MAGA-coded grievance language, there’s a related truth.

I’ve talked before about how liberal experts are often blind to their own values, because they approach society as a math problem to solve. Goodness is something to be Efficiently Optimized

https://twitter.com/jbraunstein914/status/1914391100959465889

It’s not truly sneaky, in the sense that this blindness is totally sincere. They really think everyone wants the same things—that there just is an objective definition of The Good, and that the job of the state is to maximize Goodness Production. It all seems obvious to them

This is the lib version of Trumpism and it is present in some of the Abundance types—specifically, we’re seeing a nationwide exhaustion with self-regulation and compassion, and a desire to just throw up your hands, and do what’s easy even if it leaves others behind

https://twitter.com/vitruviusgrind/status/1904591689576042895

I have a family friend who was a really volatile and narcissistic 20-year old, who worked on herself over the years, went to therapy, grew up, and became infinitely more conscientious and regulated in her 30s. She fell down the Trump pipeline this election, and has regressed

I will keep begging leftists to have some humility about praxis. We act like politics has been solved, Correct Praxis is already known, and we just have to implement it. But we keep losing. So how can we possibly have the right praxis? If the American left already had the answers for how to Do The Work correctly, then why did we fail when 2 million people in Gaza needed us to win? We failed so comprehensively it’s totally broken all my faith and trust in our received wisdom about strategy and tactics

I’ve got some quibbles here but Trace is mostly right. On the left we’ve largely abandoned persuasion in favor of discipline, and instruction.

We get strident and offended when it’s suggested we might have to *entice* and *encourage* people to agree with us

https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1897914435014213772

I maintain my belief that one of the great virtues and unique strengths of socialism/socialists is that we’re *right* more than anyone else. We’re materialists, we’re critical, and that counts for a lot. But we’ve also gotten kind of high off that rightness.

It’s actually imperative liberals and leftists learn how this works: only a tiny minority of Americans actually care about literal deficits. No one really cares about “fiscal responsibility.” These are symbols; they signify “taking resources away from the Undeserving and Cheats.”

https://twitter.com/hutchinson/status/1894543149047189884

The GOP is the party of “fiscal responsibility” because “fiscal responsibility” means “taking money away from poor people, single mothers, the homeless, immigrants, and minorities.” They can take out infinite debt and give it to billionaires and be totally consistent

Sorry but he’s right. This metric doesn’t explain any of the political behavior leftists want to explain as being due to economic suffering.

Things got better; people voted for Trump. Culture war issues are luxury issues that Americans vote for in good times, not bad.

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1889552031360098359

All the data on economic discontent is most parsimoniously explained by partisanship. People unhappy with “the economy” mostly report positive personal financial situations—it’s literally just Republicans mad that the Wrong People are getting assistance.

Something I’ve come to realize about most of the American left, is that we believe that it’s liberals’ job to win and hold power, our job to shame them, and their moral duty to listen to us—a tiny powerless minority—and do our bidding. It’s a toddler’s theory of change Of course, it’s a theory largely sold to us by liberals, especially in academia (many who fancy themselves radicals). It’s a narrative of the eternal Outsider radical, who marches and sits-in and publishes exposés and whatever else.

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