RE Bill Maher, it is still a constant infuriation to see normie Right-lites fall all over him whenever he (slightly) says something with an ounce of common sense. Oh, he disagreed with [insert outlandish Leftist act]? He said a bad thing about Wokeness? Well then, let's help him along the road to the Right-Wing jamboree and give him keys to the kingdom too.
No. Just because he and other Liberals show a distaste for one of the floats riding in the freak Left parade, that is no indication that they disapprove with the parade in and of itself.
Most of the American Left has undergone the phase change that happens to leftwing movements when they lack sufficient opposition.
Way back in the day I had some pretty far left friends who understood this danger and feared it.
Many liberals who have that grounding mechanism today have gone all in for Trump. The Trump administration is arguably the most bipartisan administration in my lifetime. It includes two former Democratic presidential candidates after all. But Trump's rhetorical style is really upsetting to the wine and cheese crowd.
Oh, I enjoy the liberal tears. I grew up around those people and it's hard to contain my glee. (But I make do.)
I don't enjoy the antagonization of Europe and Canada, the giant tariffs tanking the stock market, the mass firings at the CDC and DHHS and NIH budget cuts...
If the guy had stuck to killing DEI he'd have my enthusiastic support.
I have to say I never got all that worried about virtue points. (I'm actually somewhat to Scott Alexander's right and don't try to spoil people's Fourth of July--every country has some national pride, it's like parents being irrational about their kids.) Tolerance is good because we're a nation of 300 million and trying to make everyone act like a Southern Baptist, a Midwestern Lutheran, a Californian Buddhist, or a Northeastern Jew/Catholic/something else is a recipe for trouble. I neither wish to live in the Deep South nor to keep Deep Southerners from living in the way they choose.
This is probably why I never made it as a liberal.
Nate Silver's actually made a reasonable case leftism and liberalism are two separate things.
Leftists are ideologues trying to erase our civilization. Liberals are folks who were taught leftist things but still cling to order and privilege and wealth. They like the IDEA of leftism (and won't actively oppose it, generally preferring to focus on the right, even when leftists are being absolutely manic and incoherent, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency over the past 10 years).
Most people on the left aren't really 'believers' in either one. It's more a set of fuzzy class biases and emotional impulses (and, in the case of leftists, sometimes personality pathology).
The DNC and the paymasters and the whole bureaucratic apparatus of journalists and researchers and administrators, etc. tend to move effortlessly from one position to the other. When they're ascendant, the system becomes leftist: pushing for more change and new rules and seeking to castigate the favorite betes noires (the accomplished and individualists and traditionalists and SWM). When an election rolls around (and public attention waxes) or when they're on the defensive the system becomes liberal: appealing to common sense and decency... forgetting that they and their allies have been working to abolish such concepts for years.
It's a kind of organic rhyth, like the motions of brainless slime molds towards sugars or away from toxins, I think.
The mechanism seems to be a bit broken recently but everything is changing very quickly.
TIL Scott Alexander is a psychiatrist; in other words, a quack. I just checked out slatestarcodex.com for the first time and one of the most recent posts is a giant humble-brag for Big Pharma.
RE Bill Maher, it is still a constant infuriation to see normie Right-lites fall all over him whenever he (slightly) says something with an ounce of common sense. Oh, he disagreed with [insert outlandish Leftist act]? He said a bad thing about Wokeness? Well then, let's help him along the road to the Right-Wing jamboree and give him keys to the kingdom too.
No. Just because he and other Liberals show a distaste for one of the floats riding in the freak Left parade, that is no indication that they disapprove with the parade in and of itself.
Most of the American Left has undergone the phase change that happens to leftwing movements when they lack sufficient opposition.
Way back in the day I had some pretty far left friends who understood this danger and feared it.
Many liberals who have that grounding mechanism today have gone all in for Trump. The Trump administration is arguably the most bipartisan administration in my lifetime. It includes two former Democratic presidential candidates after all. But Trump's rhetorical style is really upsetting to the wine and cheese crowd.
Oh, I enjoy the liberal tears. I grew up around those people and it's hard to contain my glee. (But I make do.)
I don't enjoy the antagonization of Europe and Canada, the giant tariffs tanking the stock market, the mass firings at the CDC and DHHS and NIH budget cuts...
If the guy had stuck to killing DEI he'd have my enthusiastic support.
I have to say I never got all that worried about virtue points. (I'm actually somewhat to Scott Alexander's right and don't try to spoil people's Fourth of July--every country has some national pride, it's like parents being irrational about their kids.) Tolerance is good because we're a nation of 300 million and trying to make everyone act like a Southern Baptist, a Midwestern Lutheran, a Californian Buddhist, or a Northeastern Jew/Catholic/something else is a recipe for trouble. I neither wish to live in the Deep South nor to keep Deep Southerners from living in the way they choose.
This is probably why I never made it as a liberal.
Nate Silver's actually made a reasonable case leftism and liberalism are two separate things.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-liberalism-and-leftism-are-increasingly
Leftists are ideologues trying to erase our civilization. Liberals are folks who were taught leftist things but still cling to order and privilege and wealth. They like the IDEA of leftism (and won't actively oppose it, generally preferring to focus on the right, even when leftists are being absolutely manic and incoherent, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency over the past 10 years).
Most people on the left aren't really 'believers' in either one. It's more a set of fuzzy class biases and emotional impulses (and, in the case of leftists, sometimes personality pathology).
The DNC and the paymasters and the whole bureaucratic apparatus of journalists and researchers and administrators, etc. tend to move effortlessly from one position to the other. When they're ascendant, the system becomes leftist: pushing for more change and new rules and seeking to castigate the favorite betes noires (the accomplished and individualists and traditionalists and SWM). When an election rolls around (and public attention waxes) or when they're on the defensive the system becomes liberal: appealing to common sense and decency... forgetting that they and their allies have been working to abolish such concepts for years.
It's a kind of organic rhyth, like the motions of brainless slime molds towards sugars or away from toxins, I think.
The mechanism seems to be a bit broken recently but everything is changing very quickly.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-elastic-ideology
TIL Scott Alexander is a psychiatrist; in other words, a quack. I just checked out slatestarcodex.com for the first time and one of the most recent posts is a giant humble-brag for Big Pharma.