Here’s to all the heroes that our new C-in-C views a suckers for their selflessness. The rest of us know the truth, and we truly thank you for your service.
So this isn't "why" Trump won, but it does helpfully clarify a number of dynamics in Dem-adjacent spaces, especially the "progressive nonprofit industrial complex", that helped lead the Democrats to where they now find themselves: https://x.com/helenlewis/status/1855304570483696113
To go through these dynamics (pathologies if you will)
1. Dissent is not tolerated. It is simply not okay to bring up these sorts of questions (youth sports stuff in the case) and if you do it I'm going to shout you down until you stop talking because....
2. What you are doing is actively harmful to people. In the past in left-liberal spaces people might have tolerated you raising these sorts of points but not anymore, because doing so is well, a form of violence Like Homer you need to take your hate crimes elsewhere! https://youtu.be/Rcywxg6ofRY?t=43
3. Appeals to authority. I know you think your idea would be more popular with more voters but that simply does not matter because the AMA has already made a ruling on this issue and like a Papal Bull it is not up for debate (and if you want to act like it is I'm going to go back to 1)
4. In conclusion you need to stop centering yourself, this isn't about you, maybe you should listen for once? And by listen I mean shut your mouth and do as you're told or we can start with 1 all over again.
This does not lead healthy internal dynamics in organizations trying to engage in effective politics, but as bullying tactics does sort of work and gives you a lot of power if you are willing to use them.
They don’t seem to be open the idea that they are or could be wrong. They also don’t seem open to the idea that they are actually making it worse rather than better.
Protesting can only be for the good - it can never drive people in the opposite direction making things worse.
Thankfully, he appears to be doubling down and not apologizing, which he shouldn't! These overreactions are so stupid. None of these angry people would even deny that Moulton wouldn't be far better for trans right than the Trump administration if he were president!
“ The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the working class. If it isn’t doing that, it is failing. That’s true even even if it can still win elections.
Democrats don’t need to build a new informational ecosystem. Dems need to show up in the informational ecosystems that already exist. They need to be natural and enthusiastic participants in these cultures. Harris should’ve gone on Rogan, but the damage here was done over years and wouldn’t have been reversed in one October appearance.
Building a media ecosystem isn’t something you do through nonprofit grants or rich donors (remember Air America?). Joe Rogan and Theo Von aren’t a Koch-funded psy-op. What makes these spaces matter is that they aren’t built on politics. (Democrats already win voters who pay close attention to politics.)”
Preach, brother. “Natural and enthusiastic participants”; what kind of politicians have we raised up who can’t just go talk to Americans where they are?
"This isn’t just about Democrats winning or losing one election, and the path forward isn’t through consultant-speak or focus groups or placing blame on our marginalized communities who do not feel heard or included — but in bold, clear policies that speak to people’s real lives and create lasting change in American communities."
Remember when Jimmy Carter did the Playboy interview and half the conservatives lost their mind? Didn't really matter in the end.
The acid test for whether Trump is good business for the mainstream media is if we see subscribers flocking back to the Washington Post.
Maybe that will happen.
My gut is telling me "no"; that our side is tired of the symbolic flagellating of Trump, expressing shock at what he says, and highlighting each and every lie. Been there, done that, and look where we are.
What I *hope* journalists will do this time around is focus hard on governmental outputs: what actions is the Trump administration taking, and what are the effects of those actions, both decent and terrible.
Of course, for that to happen, we're going to have to swap out a lot of journalists for new ones who have a clue how to do that kind of hard work.
dont necessarily have to swap. (democratic party) citizens will naturally seek out independent journalists and thinkers like MattY for the information they actually are curious about.
I’d like a media that is humble and curious rather than one that’s constantly in the throes of passionate conviction, full of moral and intellectual certitude. Lots of outrageous stories that were never supported by evidence, or I get time to watch video and can tell they’re intentionally bullshitting me. Trump isn’t the only one that we should just get comfortable calling a liar.
Right wing media can have all the liars and fabulists they want, I don’t want that in my ecosystem.
The problem with what you're proposing is that it amounts to unilateral disarmament.
Randall: "Here are my ideas, I think they're good overall, but I'm always open to being proven wrong. Anyway, assuming my ideas are right, we still won't be able to implement them fully because of xyz, and they may turn out to come with such-and-such unintended consequences."
Catturd2024: "Randall is a lib cuck loser! Don't listen to him, listen to our Great Leader Trump, he has the solutions to all our problems and he'll make Randall CRY!!!!"
Audience: "Randall sounds kinda wishy-washy. He's a nerd. I'm with Catturd2024, he really TELLS IT LIKE IT IS!"
The audience you're imagining in this debate is a small minority of American voters, probably aren't even persuadable, and aren't even necessary to build a winning governing coalition.
Those kinds of people have always existed in political discourse, but it hasn't stopped Democrats from doing things like this in the not-too-distant past:
I’ve consumed too much news my entire adulthood, but it went to another level eight years ago. Since last Tuesday however, I canceled my WaPo and set The Atlantic to not auto-renew. On top of that, last month I also ended my subscriptions to Freddie’s Newsletter For Trans-Hating Commenters and the feckless Defector.
On one hand? Feels good! I still have my NYT (and Slow Boring). All the news one needs!
On the other hand? I have nothing to read while on the stationary bike or while waiting for the water to boil. Even when I open a book, every twenty pages I find myself looking at reels on Instagram, which may be presented as Evidence A for why the internet is horrible.
Mailbag: What do you think of the Will and Grace theory of Friends (and similar media permanent adolescence valorization) being responsible for the demographic dearth world-wide?
I definitely take your point but I think there may be **something** like this driving TFR lower around the world.
I can't say I've been too systematic about it, but I've spent a large amount of time just googling "demographics of XXX" and looking at TFR changes on wikipedia.
It seems like something corresponding to availability of smart phones, or social media, or something else recently available to the global middle income, middle class is really driving down TFR. It seems to be widely falling, at a quicker pace, in places as disparate as Indonesia, Peru, Sir Lanka and Tunisia (from memory, not entirely sure these are the best specific examples). There was something that seemed like it happened around 2015-2020 that really quickened the pace of decline in the not-rich, but not desperately poor world.
Will an inevitable uptick in democratic leaning political hobbyism have any effect on actually opposing trump and trumpism? Will we be able to amplify the messages outside our bubble? Will the media help give us momentum into the midterm and the next presidential election?
Don't forget, "the media" also includes the second-rate Team Blue podcasts and their advertisers, who have their own incentives to whip up the outrage of the day. There will be many episodes featuring academics talking about fascism, activist leaders talking about immigration policy, and everyone and their mother talking about Trump White House palace intrigue. I am not going to marinate my attention in such pointlessness.
Matthew Yglasias has spoken and maybe written about how Trump is going to weaponize tariffs in order to discipline and bring to heal media agencies that are critical of him.. by openly punishing via tariffs the media owners, who have other business ventures. Is this threat more perceived than real? And can such a threat be carried out when it can end up equally hurting supporters. Or can trump make tariff exemptions on a friend and enemy basis.
It is very much real and already happened in the first Trump administration -- not with tariffs, but by canceling government contracts (with Amazon) and by imposing regulatory obstacles (to the AT&T-Time Warner merger).
Great post, and more relevant today than ever. Maybe, among all the other problems documented the past five days, the Democrats should have realized this and ran a candidate that could compete with Trump for clicks, books, and media attention. Seems like being "Influencer in Chief" is much more important than being the perfect person, devoid of personality flaws, checks every identity box, and with viewpoints that can appeal to all thirty-seven factions of the party.
I am going to spend the next four years really only caring about international developments and war risks. I am going to avoid all the scandals and domestic disorder. Maybe we will get an infrastructure bank?
I remember being a college student and flummoxed that my liberal parents weren’t as outraged as I was at the latest ridiculous thing W and his Congressional majorities were up to. Now I get it.
For me, during the runup to the Presidential election, the delta between what they purport to be, i.e. "We publish investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is—with the quality once expected from the legacy press, but the fearlessness of the new" and what they actually acted as, which is to say as the offensive line for the Trump campaign, became untenable.
Story after story after story about how Harris has no plans, was an empty suit, etc., but nary a critical analysis of Trump's proposed policies, their potential effects, or a potential second Trump administration to be seen, for the most part.
The Free Press very quickly became a landing spot du jure for the "Are you skeptical of the trans movement? Do your fellow liberals annoy you more than MAGA voters?" type of writer, with those seemingly being the only necessary credentials. Thomas Chatterton Williams and Jesse Singal have both written there in the past, I believe, but remained steadfastly anti-Trump throughout the whole election, and I would be surprised if they write there again, because as has become apparent, even heterodoxy apparently has it's own orthodoxy.
Yeah, their "we're PRO FREE INDEPENDENT THOUGHT" schtick is bullshit. They are a pro-Trump outfit with just enough of a veneer of plausible deniability.
Kind of just seems to be going Vicey; edgy observation without a particular stand on anything. Those "TGIF" weekly threads have an absolute ton of comments, though. Could Bari Weiss be "Rogan for moms" do you think?
Also, Bari Weiss has a voice reminiscent of an electric drill, but that's annoying to me completely apart from TFP endeavor. For someone who complains about liberals and their lectures, she sure does come off pretty lecture-y quite often, including that trash monologue she had a few days back.
I was initially excited about what the FP offered, and quite sympathetic to Bari Weiss after what happened to her at NYT.
Then I heard her on a podcast and I was appalled by her stridency and barely-disguised pro-Trump stance (or what was then called anti-anti-Trump). She is a smarter Mollie Hemingway and nothing more.
One starts to wonder if a real drill is all that could get through to some people. Democrats-of-note were warned for years that their - shall we say - lack of skepticism on the subject you mention was not only an "epistemological" issue to use big words but also a creepy, weird, disturbing, culty issue that could (and did) seriously turn people off. The latest such person to say this & be told to shut up is Bill Clinton. So leave Bari alone. Get your own house in epistemological order before you say anyone else is mixed up. Not that I read TFP; it's paywalled.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about, though. While covering the topic in a tough-but-fair manner is a totally fair endeavor under their proposed mission, they spent an inordinate amount of time, proportion-wise, covering the trans issue versus, you know, applying that same level of critical analysis to one of the major Presidential candidates, while pillorying the other. And my guess is because they know where their bread is buttered.
Let's say this year Democrats had a candidate who was excellent except for an apparently unshakeable belief in alien UFOs, and suddenly questioning whether UFOs were real was verboten in "Democratic circles." There would probably come into existence somewhere for Democrats who didn't believe in UFOs to talk about how crazy the UFO Democrats were. And I think they would talk about it a lot, because, you know, it would be weird!
Then I won't leave you alone. Do you think Bill Clinton was right that the Harris campaign "had to respond & say we won't do it" with respect to the reportedly most effective anti-Harris ad?
I think they went to an audience that already existed. Being a little to the right (or even “to the right”) of regular media coverage has been profitable for a lot of Substacks.
What if - big if - public opinion was changing, and they documented it? You could argue that documentation "realizes" opinion shifts or could "ratchet" them - but it's hardly fair to complain that someone else is affecting reality by observing it.
I don't think any substack has changed public opinion on any issue. They are largely echo chambers. The majority of americans have never read a substack article
I don't think this is expansive enough. I think of it more like, many people on Substack are *that guy* who thinks himself *the guy* and isn't afraid of politics at the dinner table or on social media. It's like talking to all the class wonks at once, as if through a system of tubes.
Same. The only Substack readers I know outside of my household - and over the past 5 years, I have lived in NYC, DC, and Ann Arbor - I met through Substacks or meetups of readers (although I guess one exception is an older relative who is obsessed with political news, she reads Heather Cox Richardson).
Isn't it pretty evident that Trump won by winning low info voters - and those voters are NOT reading any substacks, much less a politics focused substack.
This is a great post. I was thinking about some of the things that have changed since you wrote it and wondering if they complicate anything this time around:
-- Washington Post lost another 250,000 subscribers (!!) over the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate
-- I *really* wonder about Dems making a concerted choice to tune out this time. (I especially wonder this as the editor of a publication that covers innovation in journalism!!) News avoidance was a thing in 2016, but around the world, it is growing. Sure, the election just happened and this could still change, but SO MANY people I talk to are saying that, for their mental health, they will be tuning out this time around. I totally get it.
I don't think most news organizations get a Trump Bump this time around. I wonder what it means for every news organization except The New York Times that has done so much to build up its suite of habit-forming, non-news products (cooking, games, etc.) Daily Beast promo email subject line last week: “Trump’s first year – don’t miss a moment." Who *wants* this?
The cancellations confirm that people subscribed to the Washington Post as a statement of political solidarity, not because they especially needed the subscription. In light of the non-endorsement people view this as a mistake. I would say in general you should probably subscribe to stuff that provides you useful information, not because you want to "support" them.
I think that's fine but I also don't think that's how the Washington Post views itself. If you are contributing to something like the Texas Tribune or Pro Publica which both seem to have a strong sense their reporting should align with the values of their subscribers, it's fine.
A lot of the yelling at media coverage on the left in the run up to the election stemmed from the mistaken belief that if the media would just cover Trump "correctly" the voting populace would realize he's manifestly unfit for office and he'd lose in a landslide. Now that he's returning to office, I would expect a lot of news avoidance. Most of those 250,000 subscribers aren't coming back; if anything, the more militant of them would hold the Post partially responsible for his reelection.
I don't think people on our side thought that if the NYT didn't sanewash Trump, that would move votes. I think that they/we thought that the paper was pouring salt in our wounds and treating Trump in a way that constantly aggravated, if not outraged, us. It's like, "You're kind of on our side, and you can't even be objective, let alone act like you're on our side."
The Wash Post thing is interesting. I wonder if the subscribers that remain will be less interested in highly-partisan content.
News avoidance probably is...good, right? Maybe some limited amount of time-boxed, "here's what's happening" content is OK, but I feel like in this day and age, with so much searchable content, if people want to know about the Trump admin, they should find whatever analysis or well-written content they can. If they want to learn about immigration, there are a few organizations dedicated to analyzing the issue. On crime, I'm subscribed to half a dozen substacks that soley focus on the issue, so I feel relatively informed on it.
I know most people won't do this, but the if only other alternative worth considering is shallow MSNBC content, more designed to drive clicks than to inform, then tuning out really is better. That does leave a lot of responsibility for the people who stay tuned in, though.
And I said a half-dozen, because well, I don't know why. Careless exaggeration, I guess. But these 4 are pretty good, and I have a couple other sources I draw info from that you might find interesting.
Some very fairly detailed data on crime in Mexico:
And then, for simply being exposed to first-hand accounts of crime, from criminals, I sometimes watch the youtube channel StreetTV. And daily happenings in Mexico's narco world are available at www.borderlandbeat.com
For books, my top "objectively understanding crime" reads have been Criminal (In)justice and Ghettocide.
I stayed a WaPo subscriber. A) it's cheap if you have amazon prime, and B) I do hope Bezos's move heralds an era of less #resistance outrage bait and Taylor Lorenz shitpieces.
I definitely wonder how Substacks fall into the news fatigue thing. I just unsubscribed from 4 that I had been paying for (I pay for a lot of them lol so am already weird). I think e.g. Slow Boring will continue to do great but I think my bar for paying up will be higher.
Here’s to all the heroes that our new C-in-C views a suckers for their selflessness. The rest of us know the truth, and we truly thank you for your service.
So this isn't "why" Trump won, but it does helpfully clarify a number of dynamics in Dem-adjacent spaces, especially the "progressive nonprofit industrial complex", that helped lead the Democrats to where they now find themselves: https://x.com/helenlewis/status/1855304570483696113
To go through these dynamics (pathologies if you will)
1. Dissent is not tolerated. It is simply not okay to bring up these sorts of questions (youth sports stuff in the case) and if you do it I'm going to shout you down until you stop talking because....
2. What you are doing is actively harmful to people. In the past in left-liberal spaces people might have tolerated you raising these sorts of points but not anymore, because doing so is well, a form of violence Like Homer you need to take your hate crimes elsewhere! https://youtu.be/Rcywxg6ofRY?t=43
3. Appeals to authority. I know you think your idea would be more popular with more voters but that simply does not matter because the AMA has already made a ruling on this issue and like a Papal Bull it is not up for debate (and if you want to act like it is I'm going to go back to 1)
4. In conclusion you need to stop centering yourself, this isn't about you, maybe you should listen for once? And by listen I mean shut your mouth and do as you're told or we can start with 1 all over again.
This does not lead healthy internal dynamics in organizations trying to engage in effective politics, but as bullying tactics does sort of work and gives you a lot of power if you are willing to use them.
I see Helen Lewis, I cilck
They don’t seem to be open the idea that they are or could be wrong. They also don’t seem open to the idea that they are actually making it worse rather than better.
Protesting can only be for the good - it can never drive people in the opposite direction making things worse.
What you're describing is already happening in real time in reaction to Seth Moulton's comments about trans women in women's sports:
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/11/11/massachusetts-democrat-seth-moultons-former-interns-staffers-demand-apology-over-lgbtq-remarks/
Thankfully, he appears to be doubling down and not apologizing, which he shouldn't! These overreactions are so stupid. None of these angry people would even deny that Moulton wouldn't be far better for trans right than the Trump administration if he were president!
Great post by Ezra Klein:
https://x.com/ezraklein/status/1855986156455788553
“ The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the working class. If it isn’t doing that, it is failing. That’s true even even if it can still win elections.
Democrats don’t need to build a new informational ecosystem. Dems need to show up in the informational ecosystems that already exist. They need to be natural and enthusiastic participants in these cultures. Harris should’ve gone on Rogan, but the damage here was done over years and wouldn’t have been reversed in one October appearance.
Building a media ecosystem isn’t something you do through nonprofit grants or rich donors (remember Air America?). Joe Rogan and Theo Von aren’t a Koch-funded psy-op. What makes these spaces matter is that they aren’t built on politics. (Democrats already win voters who pay close attention to politics.)”
Preach, brother. “Natural and enthusiastic participants”; what kind of politicians have we raised up who can’t just go talk to Americans where they are?
one of the (few) points i agreed with from this: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/07/10-democratic-thinkers-on-what-the-party-needs-right-now-00187993
"This isn’t just about Democrats winning or losing one election, and the path forward isn’t through consultant-speak or focus groups or placing blame on our marginalized communities who do not feel heard or included — but in bold, clear policies that speak to people’s real lives and create lasting change in American communities."
Remember when Jimmy Carter did the Playboy interview and half the conservatives lost their mind? Didn't really matter in the end.
The acid test for whether Trump is good business for the mainstream media is if we see subscribers flocking back to the Washington Post.
Maybe that will happen.
My gut is telling me "no"; that our side is tired of the symbolic flagellating of Trump, expressing shock at what he says, and highlighting each and every lie. Been there, done that, and look where we are.
What I *hope* journalists will do this time around is focus hard on governmental outputs: what actions is the Trump administration taking, and what are the effects of those actions, both decent and terrible.
Of course, for that to happen, we're going to have to swap out a lot of journalists for new ones who have a clue how to do that kind of hard work.
dont necessarily have to swap. (democratic party) citizens will naturally seek out independent journalists and thinkers like MattY for the information they actually are curious about.
I’d like a media that is humble and curious rather than one that’s constantly in the throes of passionate conviction, full of moral and intellectual certitude. Lots of outrageous stories that were never supported by evidence, or I get time to watch video and can tell they’re intentionally bullshitting me. Trump isn’t the only one that we should just get comfortable calling a liar.
Right wing media can have all the liars and fabulists they want, I don’t want that in my ecosystem.
The problem with what you're proposing is that it amounts to unilateral disarmament.
Randall: "Here are my ideas, I think they're good overall, but I'm always open to being proven wrong. Anyway, assuming my ideas are right, we still won't be able to implement them fully because of xyz, and they may turn out to come with such-and-such unintended consequences."
Catturd2024: "Randall is a lib cuck loser! Don't listen to him, listen to our Great Leader Trump, he has the solutions to all our problems and he'll make Randall CRY!!!!"
Audience: "Randall sounds kinda wishy-washy. He's a nerd. I'm with Catturd2024, he really TELLS IT LIKE IT IS!"
Good night and good luck, America.
The audience you're imagining in this debate is a small minority of American voters, probably aren't even persuadable, and aren't even necessary to build a winning governing coalition.
Those kinds of people have always existed in political discourse, but it hasn't stopped Democrats from doing things like this in the not-too-distant past:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Wyoming_gubernatorial_election
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Idaho#District_1
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Alabama
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
I’ve consumed too much news my entire adulthood, but it went to another level eight years ago. Since last Tuesday however, I canceled my WaPo and set The Atlantic to not auto-renew. On top of that, last month I also ended my subscriptions to Freddie’s Newsletter For Trans-Hating Commenters and the feckless Defector.
On one hand? Feels good! I still have my NYT (and Slow Boring). All the news one needs!
On the other hand? I have nothing to read while on the stationary bike or while waiting for the water to boil. Even when I open a book, every twenty pages I find myself looking at reels on Instagram, which may be presented as Evidence A for why the internet is horrible.
*Sigh*
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/stop-handwringing-start-fighting?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=87281&post_id=151501220&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=23dfs&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Is there anyone, who hasn’t appeared on Morning Joe, who feels like following Bill Kristol into battle one more time?
Mailbag: What do you think of the Will and Grace theory of Friends (and similar media permanent adolescence valorization) being responsible for the demographic dearth world-wide?
That seems awful strained given TFR's overall downward trend predates not just television (let alone Friends), but even electricity.
I definitely take your point but I think there may be **something** like this driving TFR lower around the world.
I can't say I've been too systematic about it, but I've spent a large amount of time just googling "demographics of XXX" and looking at TFR changes on wikipedia.
It seems like something corresponding to availability of smart phones, or social media, or something else recently available to the global middle income, middle class is really driving down TFR. It seems to be widely falling, at a quicker pace, in places as disparate as Indonesia, Peru, Sir Lanka and Tunisia (from memory, not entirely sure these are the best specific examples). There was something that seemed like it happened around 2015-2020 that really quickened the pace of decline in the not-rich, but not desperately poor world.
Will an inevitable uptick in democratic leaning political hobbyism have any effect on actually opposing trump and trumpism? Will we be able to amplify the messages outside our bubble? Will the media help give us momentum into the midterm and the next presidential election?
The story that sells now will be how bad the Trump administration. So yes, I think it will be very easy to amplify that message now.
no. We just tried that. The bulwark failed. Normal people do not care
Don't forget, "the media" also includes the second-rate Team Blue podcasts and their advertisers, who have their own incentives to whip up the outrage of the day. There will be many episodes featuring academics talking about fascism, activist leaders talking about immigration policy, and everyone and their mother talking about Trump White House palace intrigue. I am not going to marinate my attention in such pointlessness.
Matthew Yglasias has spoken and maybe written about how Trump is going to weaponize tariffs in order to discipline and bring to heal media agencies that are critical of him.. by openly punishing via tariffs the media owners, who have other business ventures. Is this threat more perceived than real? And can such a threat be carried out when it can end up equally hurting supporters. Or can trump make tariff exemptions on a friend and enemy basis.
It is very much real and already happened in the first Trump administration -- not with tariffs, but by canceling government contracts (with Amazon) and by imposing regulatory obstacles (to the AT&T-Time Warner merger).
So much media is niche and viral now that I'm guessing this would backfire. I don't know how he would pull that off with Youtube, for example.
The people who recently learned to no longer trust left-media would start to no longer trust the pro-Trump stuff.
Great post, and more relevant today than ever. Maybe, among all the other problems documented the past five days, the Democrats should have realized this and ran a candidate that could compete with Trump for clicks, books, and media attention. Seems like being "Influencer in Chief" is much more important than being the perfect person, devoid of personality flaws, checks every identity box, and with viewpoints that can appeal to all thirty-seven factions of the party.
Maybe, and this is just a thought, Witch City Punks Against Hate doesn’t represent the views of the median swing voter.
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2024/11/10/seth-moulton-defends-his-transgender-comments-after-protests-at-his-salem-office/?p1=hp_secondary
As a politician presumably it’s hard to grok what your voters want vs what some fringe group is screeching about outside your office.
It's an old adage in the newspaper business, "When you've lost Witch City Punks Against Hate, you've lost America."
If your group's name could appear unaltered in an episode of South Park....
I am going to spend the next four years really only caring about international developments and war risks. I am going to avoid all the scandals and domestic disorder. Maybe we will get an infrastructure bank?
I don't know. Meh.
I remember being a college student and flummoxed that my liberal parents weren’t as outraged as I was at the latest ridiculous thing W and his Congressional majorities were up to. Now I get it.
Well, if we're lucky, the Trump years will take the air out of The Free Press and do us all a favor.
Why does everyone hate The Free Press now?
For me, during the runup to the Presidential election, the delta between what they purport to be, i.e. "We publish investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is—with the quality once expected from the legacy press, but the fearlessness of the new" and what they actually acted as, which is to say as the offensive line for the Trump campaign, became untenable.
Story after story after story about how Harris has no plans, was an empty suit, etc., but nary a critical analysis of Trump's proposed policies, their potential effects, or a potential second Trump administration to be seen, for the most part.
The Free Press very quickly became a landing spot du jure for the "Are you skeptical of the trans movement? Do your fellow liberals annoy you more than MAGA voters?" type of writer, with those seemingly being the only necessary credentials. Thomas Chatterton Williams and Jesse Singal have both written there in the past, I believe, but remained steadfastly anti-Trump throughout the whole election, and I would be surprised if they write there again, because as has become apparent, even heterodoxy apparently has it's own orthodoxy.
Yeah, their "we're PRO FREE INDEPENDENT THOUGHT" schtick is bullshit. They are a pro-Trump outfit with just enough of a veneer of plausible deniability.
Kind of just seems to be going Vicey; edgy observation without a particular stand on anything. Those "TGIF" weekly threads have an absolute ton of comments, though. Could Bari Weiss be "Rogan for moms" do you think?
Also, Bari Weiss has a voice reminiscent of an electric drill, but that's annoying to me completely apart from TFP endeavor. For someone who complains about liberals and their lectures, she sure does come off pretty lecture-y quite often, including that trash monologue she had a few days back.
I was initially excited about what the FP offered, and quite sympathetic to Bari Weiss after what happened to her at NYT.
Then I heard her on a podcast and I was appalled by her stridency and barely-disguised pro-Trump stance (or what was then called anti-anti-Trump). She is a smarter Mollie Hemingway and nothing more.
One starts to wonder if a real drill is all that could get through to some people. Democrats-of-note were warned for years that their - shall we say - lack of skepticism on the subject you mention was not only an "epistemological" issue to use big words but also a creepy, weird, disturbing, culty issue that could (and did) seriously turn people off. The latest such person to say this & be told to shut up is Bill Clinton. So leave Bari alone. Get your own house in epistemological order before you say anyone else is mixed up. Not that I read TFP; it's paywalled.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about, though. While covering the topic in a tough-but-fair manner is a totally fair endeavor under their proposed mission, they spent an inordinate amount of time, proportion-wise, covering the trans issue versus, you know, applying that same level of critical analysis to one of the major Presidential candidates, while pillorying the other. And my guess is because they know where their bread is buttered.
Let's say this year Democrats had a candidate who was excellent except for an apparently unshakeable belief in alien UFOs, and suddenly questioning whether UFOs were real was verboten in "Democratic circles." There would probably come into existence somewhere for Democrats who didn't believe in UFOs to talk about how crazy the UFO Democrats were. And I think they would talk about it a lot, because, you know, it would be weird!
"So leave Bari alone."
No.
Then I won't leave you alone. Do you think Bill Clinton was right that the Harris campaign "had to respond & say we won't do it" with respect to the reportedly most effective anti-Harris ad?
I'm sure that Bari Weiss has the best interests of the Democratic party at heart.
Is that the supreme virtue?
"Now"?
Well, I always thought it was goofy that it wasn't actually free. Anytime someone attracts a paying crowd, they're incentivized to please them.
Probably because Trump won and there's a tacit acknowledgment they've been pretty effective changing public opinion.
I think they went to an audience that already existed. Being a little to the right (or even “to the right”) of regular media coverage has been profitable for a lot of Substacks.
What if - big if - public opinion was changing, and they documented it? You could argue that documentation "realizes" opinion shifts or could "ratchet" them - but it's hardly fair to complain that someone else is affecting reality by observing it.
I don't think any substack has changed public opinion on any issue. They are largely echo chambers. The majority of americans have never read a substack article
I don't think this is expansive enough. I think of it more like, many people on Substack are *that guy* who thinks himself *the guy* and isn't afraid of politics at the dinner table or on social media. It's like talking to all the class wonks at once, as if through a system of tubes.
Even in my over-educated bubble, whenever I mention that I read something on Substack I get a blank look.
Exactly what I mean! Substack reached your bubble through you. They don't need to have heard of Substack.
Same. The only Substack readers I know outside of my household - and over the past 5 years, I have lived in NYC, DC, and Ann Arbor - I met through Substacks or meetups of readers (although I guess one exception is an older relative who is obsessed with political news, she reads Heather Cox Richardson).
Have they?
Isn't it pretty evident that Trump won by winning low info voters - and those voters are NOT reading any substacks, much less a politics focused substack.
This is a great post. I was thinking about some of the things that have changed since you wrote it and wondering if they complicate anything this time around:
-- Washington Post lost another 250,000 subscribers (!!) over the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate
-- I *really* wonder about Dems making a concerted choice to tune out this time. (I especially wonder this as the editor of a publication that covers innovation in journalism!!) News avoidance was a thing in 2016, but around the world, it is growing. Sure, the election just happened and this could still change, but SO MANY people I talk to are saying that, for their mental health, they will be tuning out this time around. I totally get it.
I don't think most news organizations get a Trump Bump this time around. I wonder what it means for every news organization except The New York Times that has done so much to build up its suite of habit-forming, non-news products (cooking, games, etc.) Daily Beast promo email subject line last week: “Trump’s first year – don’t miss a moment." Who *wants* this?
' “Trump’s first year – don’t miss a moment."'
I have changed my mind. I now deeply believe that hell exists.
The cancellations confirm that people subscribed to the Washington Post as a statement of political solidarity, not because they especially needed the subscription. In light of the non-endorsement people view this as a mistake. I would say in general you should probably subscribe to stuff that provides you useful information, not because you want to "support" them.
The latter is more or less charity. Which makes it ok in my book.
I think that's fine but I also don't think that's how the Washington Post views itself. If you are contributing to something like the Texas Tribune or Pro Publica which both seem to have a strong sense their reporting should align with the values of their subscribers, it's fine.
A lot of the yelling at media coverage on the left in the run up to the election stemmed from the mistaken belief that if the media would just cover Trump "correctly" the voting populace would realize he's manifestly unfit for office and he'd lose in a landslide. Now that he's returning to office, I would expect a lot of news avoidance. Most of those 250,000 subscribers aren't coming back; if anything, the more militant of them would hold the Post partially responsible for his reelection.
I don't think people on our side thought that if the NYT didn't sanewash Trump, that would move votes. I think that they/we thought that the paper was pouring salt in our wounds and treating Trump in a way that constantly aggravated, if not outraged, us. It's like, "You're kind of on our side, and you can't even be objective, let alone act like you're on our side."
The Wash Post thing is interesting. I wonder if the subscribers that remain will be less interested in highly-partisan content.
News avoidance probably is...good, right? Maybe some limited amount of time-boxed, "here's what's happening" content is OK, but I feel like in this day and age, with so much searchable content, if people want to know about the Trump admin, they should find whatever analysis or well-written content they can. If they want to learn about immigration, there are a few organizations dedicated to analyzing the issue. On crime, I'm subscribed to half a dozen substacks that soley focus on the issue, so I feel relatively informed on it.
I know most people won't do this, but the if only other alternative worth considering is shallow MSNBC content, more designed to drive clicks than to inform, then tuning out really is better. That does leave a lot of responsibility for the people who stay tuned in, though.
What are some *good* crime substacks?
I’m interested in an objective approach to this issue.
#1 https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/
#2 https://jasher.substack.com/
#3 https://grahamfactor.substack.com/
#4 https://thecausalfallacy.com/
And I said a half-dozen, because well, I don't know why. Careless exaggeration, I guess. But these 4 are pretty good, and I have a couple other sources I draw info from that you might find interesting.
Some very fairly detailed data on crime in Mexico:
https://elcri.men/en/
and the US:
https://theusaindata.pythonanywhere.com/underreported_murders
And then, for simply being exposed to first-hand accounts of crime, from criminals, I sometimes watch the youtube channel StreetTV. And daily happenings in Mexico's narco world are available at www.borderlandbeat.com
For books, my top "objectively understanding crime" reads have been Criminal (In)justice and Ghettocide.
I stayed a WaPo subscriber. A) it's cheap if you have amazon prime, and B) I do hope Bezos's move heralds an era of less #resistance outrage bait and Taylor Lorenz shitpieces.
I definitely wonder how Substacks fall into the news fatigue thing. I just unsubscribed from 4 that I had been paying for (I pay for a lot of them lol so am already weird). I think e.g. Slow Boring will continue to do great but I think my bar for paying up will be higher.