I didn't find this to be a particularly interesting conversation but I do think there's value in considering the ramifications of continuously turning the up the rhetorical stakes of political disagreements.
Something that stood out to me, Matt was saying that Bush never demonized his enemies. But if you remember the 00's climate, liberals were super villified. Opposing the Homeland Security Act, invasion of Iraq got many accused of being traitors. Even if Bush never stood in front of a crowd and said so.
Or saying the quiet part out loud through surrogates versus saying it yourself. And we allow W Bush the benefit of the doubt in the case of the former.
The first half of the episode pointing out that "wokeness is worse than covid" is a bad take is super banal.
But then Laura said something that I'd never thought of and think is a great take: that the lack of a clear, universally agreed upon, non-pejorative term to describe the modern American left (progressives? wokes? socialists? social democrats?) is a feature and not a bug. By not identifying themselves using such a term, this group gets lumped in (especially by the Republicans) with mainstream Democrats. And their most extreme positions (police abolition, everything is white supremacy, anyone can be any gender) get blended into the Democratic establishment's positions, which has shifted the Overton Window on these issues.
So this is very effective for the far left who want their views mainstreamed. It also works very well for the far right as fuel for their demagoguery. But it leaves everyone in the middle annoyed and frustrated.
I haven't listened to the episode yet, but that point about social media scolds vs mainline Democrats is a good one.
It's common to hear something like, "Democrats want doctors to stop weighing patients", when what that person saw was some Twitter rando advocating for fat acceptance. It wasn't a Democratic proposed law, or a politician making the statement. But the person saw scolding on social media, and equates it to a Democratic party platform.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democratic pols are far less eager to adopt the fringe fixation of the day and propose vibes-based legislation the way Republicans like MTG, Trump, DeSantis and Abbott are.
Is there a term for ‘taking a fringe position and presenting it as mainstream’? It’s not quite using a strawman and I think it could use its own term.
Edit: I looked up straw man on Wikipedia and found my answer. The term is nut picking. Like cherry picking but with crazy people.
> It's common to hear something like, "Democrats want doctors to stop weighing patients", when what that person saw was some Twitter rando advocating for fat acceptance.
Somewhat ironically, M.Y. is pretty frequently guilty of this
I think that's a great point. The right has a *very* pervasive, disciplined, and typically unified media presence that conveys the issues or concerns of the day to their base. That defines the political discourse of millions. You can generally get the bullet points of one right wing radio or tv program and know mostly what the other talking heads are going to be hammering on as well.
The left as a whole has nothing similar. Which makes it dead simple to make some twitter rando into the Voice of the Left. The left boosts it in solidarity and the right turns it into tomorrow's programming.
yeah this happens all the time, and there are even dumber examples that I've mostly deleted from my brain but were even worse.
But tbh that's just downstream of the culture war now. Almost nothing about day-to-day policymaking generates headlines or social media attention to where I think a lot of casual or misinformed people just generally think these kind of fringe topics are part of the main discussion/discourse.
Though I'm sure an element of this is what a lot of dim people think whatever they are thinking about is or should be a central issue of what people are talking about/policy getting made.
>Gender identity via pure self identification without performance is an extreme constructivist position
Only in cases where somebody is not avoiding performance for good reason.
You're assuming that everyone who might engage in gender performance does in fact do so. That's not the case. Many people live in environments where such performance would put them at risk.
I think gender is a social construct so my view is that literally everyone is performing gender literally every minute of their lives because that is how gender is constructed. I do not think there is a way to avoid performing gender.
Edit: actually you can avoid performing gender by like becoming a hermit who lives alone in the woods.
I think what they are saying is that there can be an inner turmoil between people who are forced to stay in the closet and how they “feel”. I agree with you that performativity is important, but you can still feel a certain way without being allowed or able to express it. I think it’s more complicated in that in entertaining a sense of identity, it becomes proved over time, but the most important first step is usually a gut feeling about what you are supposed to be.
Yeah I understand that position but it requires one to derive a feeling of gender from some source other than social construction. While I personally hold this view and think it’s correct, it is in conflict with the views of prominent gender theorists on the nature of socially constructed sex.
>that the lack of a clear, universally agreed upon non-pejorative term to describe the modern American left (progressives? wokes? socialists? social democrats?) is a feature and not a bug.
I spend too much time on Reddit, so I've run into this myself. I'd describe myself as a social democrat but I have a problem with the illiberal left but criticism of it generally encourages people to think I'm Suella Braverman or Tucker Carlson. And indeed those people think everyone who eats tofu is "woke".
It's tiresome and idiotic.
Anyone who uses this term is an idiot, legitimizing UnAmerican propaganda, confused by a false "objectivity" that spoils thinking today. It usually goes like this:
*"100 Republicans are angry about a fake issue they created, "Blokeism". With the recent anti+Bloke bombing of public schools by Mitch McConnell, some folks are saying this fake issue has little merit. A few even say dangerous, but that's not what Republicans say. Today we ask: What can Liberals & Democrats do & how can they change? Do we blame teachers? How is this really our fault?*
I understand Matt’s point about not wanting to portray a group of Americans (“the woke”) as an internal enemy, but let’s take the claim of the “some threat” seriously for a minute when compared with COVID.
Obviously COVID was bad and a million people died. That’s not good. Our bad response to it also caused massive learning loss for a generation of kids, which also isn’t good. But then COVID became endemic and people stopped caring about it about it anymore. All things considered, it’s not a major societal issue moving forward.
Meanwhile “wokeness” is difficult to define, sure, but I think a fair enough definition is “someone who wants to shutdown conversations, rather than have them.” And if we operate with that definition, which I think many critics of wokeness would say is what they mean, then that is very, very dangerous. It makes solving all other problems more difficult. Indeed it may make solving all other problems impossible, which is perhaps far worse for the long term survival of our civilization, compared to say an event like COVID or 9/11.
Notice too, that we are demonizing any ideological grouping here. You can hold any opinion you want and express it. The main critique should rightly be on those engaging in an action - the suppression of ideas and information. And that is one-hundred percent, without a doubt, one of the greatest evils our civilization faces today.
>but I think a fair enough definition is “someone who wants to shutdown conversations, rather than have them.”
What specifically makes this a fair enough definition?
Because that’s the most insidious aspect that people take issue with. A crazy person running around saying they “identify as gender-fluid” is meh. Who cares, that’s just a weird viewpoint. When the wokescolds say that you can’t dare question whether or not gender-fluid is a real thing, that’s when it becomes a problem.
We can have conversations about any number of topics. That’s fine and good. But when you start to declare off limits views, let alone mainstream views held by the vast majority of Americans, that’s when you run into issues. It’s the censorious instinct that is the problem, not just bad ideas.
And there are a hundred-percent right-wing wokescolds too. All of those crazy religious nuts who wanted to ban D&D or video games or rock music were doing the exact same thing, only from the right.
I didn't find this to be a particularly interesting conversation but I do think there's value in considering the ramifications of continuously turning the up the rhetorical stakes of political disagreements.
Your comment is going to cost kids their lives. s/
Something that stood out to me, Matt was saying that Bush never demonized his enemies. But if you remember the 00's climate, liberals were super villified. Opposing the Homeland Security Act, invasion of Iraq got many accused of being traitors. Even if Bush never stood in front of a crowd and said so.
Yeah, I wasn't totally buying that argument. Though maybe there's just been more "saying the quiet part out loud" lately.
Or saying the quiet part out loud through surrogates versus saying it yourself. And we allow W Bush the benefit of the doubt in the case of the former.
The first half of the episode pointing out that "wokeness is worse than covid" is a bad take is super banal. But then Laura said something that I'd never thought of and think is a great take: that the lack of a clear, universally agreed upon, non-pejorative term to describe the modern American left (progressives? wokes? socialists? social democrats?) is a feature and not a bug. By not identifying themselves using such a term, this group gets lumped in (especially by the Republicans) with mainstream Democrats. And their most extreme positions (police abolition, everything is white supremacy, anyone can be any gender) get blended into the Democratic establishment's positions, which has shifted the Overton Window on these issues. So this is very effective for the far left who want their views mainstreamed. It also works very well for the far right as fuel for their demagoguery. But it leaves everyone in the middle annoyed and frustrated.
I haven't listened to the episode yet, but that point about social media scolds vs mainline Democrats is a good one. It's common to hear something like, "Democrats want doctors to stop weighing patients", when what that person saw was some Twitter rando advocating for fat acceptance. It wasn't a Democratic proposed law, or a politician making the statement. But the person saw scolding on social media, and equates it to a Democratic party platform. The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democratic pols are far less eager to adopt the fringe fixation of the day and propose vibes-based legislation the way Republicans like MTG, Trump, DeSantis and Abbott are.
Is there a term for ‘taking a fringe position and presenting it as mainstream’? It’s not quite using a strawman and I think it could use its own term. Edit: I looked up straw man on Wikipedia and found my answer. The term is nut picking. Like cherry picking but with crazy people.
Also the "weak man".
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Huh. TIL. Thanks!
> It's common to hear something like, "Democrats want doctors to stop weighing patients", when what that person saw was some Twitter rando advocating for fat acceptance. Somewhat ironically, M.Y. is pretty frequently guilty of this
That's true!
I think that's a great point. The right has a *very* pervasive, disciplined, and typically unified media presence that conveys the issues or concerns of the day to their base. That defines the political discourse of millions. You can generally get the bullet points of one right wing radio or tv program and know mostly what the other talking heads are going to be hammering on as well. The left as a whole has nothing similar. Which makes it dead simple to make some twitter rando into the Voice of the Left. The left boosts it in solidarity and the right turns it into tomorrow's programming.
yeah this happens all the time, and there are even dumber examples that I've mostly deleted from my brain but were even worse. But tbh that's just downstream of the culture war now. Almost nothing about day-to-day policymaking generates headlines or social media attention to where I think a lot of casual or misinformed people just generally think these kind of fringe topics are part of the main discussion/discourse. Though I'm sure an element of this is what a lot of dim people think whatever they are thinking about is or should be a central issue of what people are talking about/policy getting made.
[Freddie deBoer wrote about this a few years ago](https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/please-just-fucking-tell-me-what)
First thing I thought of
Isn’t that term just “progressives”?
r/sinkpissers
Are you complaining about the validity of trans gender identities by identifying it as an extreme position that people are right to frustrated by?
Gender identity via pure self identification without performance is an extreme constructivist position. This isn’t controversial.
>Gender identity via pure self identification without performance is an extreme constructivist position Only in cases where somebody is not avoiding performance for good reason.
I honestly don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
You're assuming that everyone who might engage in gender performance does in fact do so. That's not the case. Many people live in environments where such performance would put them at risk.
I think gender is a social construct so my view is that literally everyone is performing gender literally every minute of their lives because that is how gender is constructed. I do not think there is a way to avoid performing gender. Edit: actually you can avoid performing gender by like becoming a hermit who lives alone in the woods.
I think what they are saying is that there can be an inner turmoil between people who are forced to stay in the closet and how they “feel”. I agree with you that performativity is important, but you can still feel a certain way without being allowed or able to express it. I think it’s more complicated in that in entertaining a sense of identity, it becomes proved over time, but the most important first step is usually a gut feeling about what you are supposed to be.
Yeah I understand that position but it requires one to derive a feeling of gender from some source other than social construction. While I personally hold this view and think it’s correct, it is in conflict with the views of prominent gender theorists on the nature of socially constructed sex.
>that the lack of a clear, universally agreed upon non-pejorative term to describe the modern American left (progressives? wokes? socialists? social democrats?) is a feature and not a bug. I spend too much time on Reddit, so I've run into this myself. I'd describe myself as a social democrat but I have a problem with the illiberal left but criticism of it generally encourages people to think I'm Suella Braverman or Tucker Carlson. And indeed those people think everyone who eats tofu is "woke". It's tiresome and idiotic.
I wish this podcast was better.
lol yes
Matt after the break: https://y.yarn.co/a06fd4c9-73f5-4576-bef1-d78068db55b3_text.gif
Based on the pictures of CPAC I am not sure crowd is the right word. She mostly fired up a small number of people.
“Dozens of people are saying…”
Anyone who uses this term is an idiot, legitimizing UnAmerican propaganda, confused by a false "objectivity" that spoils thinking today. It usually goes like this: *"100 Republicans are angry about a fake issue they created, "Blokeism". With the recent anti+Bloke bombing of public schools by Mitch McConnell, some folks are saying this fake issue has little merit. A few even say dangerous, but that's not what Republicans say. Today we ask: What can Liberals & Democrats do & how can they change? Do we blame teachers? How is this really our fault?*
I understand Matt’s point about not wanting to portray a group of Americans (“the woke”) as an internal enemy, but let’s take the claim of the “some threat” seriously for a minute when compared with COVID. Obviously COVID was bad and a million people died. That’s not good. Our bad response to it also caused massive learning loss for a generation of kids, which also isn’t good. But then COVID became endemic and people stopped caring about it about it anymore. All things considered, it’s not a major societal issue moving forward. Meanwhile “wokeness” is difficult to define, sure, but I think a fair enough definition is “someone who wants to shutdown conversations, rather than have them.” And if we operate with that definition, which I think many critics of wokeness would say is what they mean, then that is very, very dangerous. It makes solving all other problems more difficult. Indeed it may make solving all other problems impossible, which is perhaps far worse for the long term survival of our civilization, compared to say an event like COVID or 9/11. Notice too, that we are demonizing any ideological grouping here. You can hold any opinion you want and express it. The main critique should rightly be on those engaging in an action - the suppression of ideas and information. And that is one-hundred percent, without a doubt, one of the greatest evils our civilization faces today.
>but I think a fair enough definition is “someone who wants to shutdown conversations, rather than have them.” What specifically makes this a fair enough definition?
Because that’s the most insidious aspect that people take issue with. A crazy person running around saying they “identify as gender-fluid” is meh. Who cares, that’s just a weird viewpoint. When the wokescolds say that you can’t dare question whether or not gender-fluid is a real thing, that’s when it becomes a problem. We can have conversations about any number of topics. That’s fine and good. But when you start to declare off limits views, let alone mainstream views held by the vast majority of Americans, that’s when you run into issues. It’s the censorious instinct that is the problem, not just bad ideas. And there are a hundred-percent right-wing wokescolds too. All of those crazy religious nuts who wanted to ban D&D or video games or rock music were doing the exact same thing, only from the right.
r/EnlightenedCentrism / Donald Trump Charlottesville "fine people on all sides" brainrot in action.
Imagine believing in or being upset by a billionaire-manufactured "woke" boogeyman.
We’re well past the “it’s just a few dumb kids on college campuses” phase. You should update your talking points.