It is weird how many people in American "media" are straightforwardly doing propaganda for geopolitical enemies. Hasan, Pokimane and Ludwig for China right now. Tim Pool for Russia. (I'm sure there are people who would add Israel and have a list for that as well)
It feels like in a heathy political environment anyone doing this kind of thing would be cut out of polite society.
I have a theory that so much journalism is inward now. Journos are all looking to boost their own profiles, to become influencers in their own circles. They want to be cool so they trave on status and not actual reporting.
I agree, this seems increasing common on Substack too.
There are so many times I read an article and am not really sure why it was written only to have it turn out to be the answer to some Twitter criticism the author received once.
It’s endemic. And online spaces are worse, with the proliferation of bots actively under the direction of Russia and China. It boggles my mind why we as a people aren’t more concerned with this as it has observable negative impacts on our politics for over a decade!
It's not weird considering they were indoctrinated in academic institutions stuffed to the rafters with academic far-leftists spewing Russian, Chinese and Iranian propaganda through all their course material.
We had an opportunity for Russia to not be a geopolitical enemy after the cold war ended, but there was an entire thinktank, StateDept, and IC apparatus that didn’t want to get new jobs so they just kept on doing what they knew.
"Hasan Piker doesn’t have an ideology in the classic sense. What he has is a massive case of Oppositional Defiant Disorder that leads him to frame every argument as America Bad and anything against America as good"
Hasan being a propogandist is its own thing but I think this is more closely describing the issue than anything else.
"America Bad" is a pretty common view among some Americans in a way that opens the door to all kinds of crazy ideologies and beliefs.
My experience with some younger leftwing people is that it would be considered out of line to be "Patriotic" and the America First branding has really poisoned the well.
If American politicians and political parties can't present a positive vision of the country then everyone is just trying to get their cut before it all burns down.
It's really something on the left because they like to condemn the US for our backwards social views and it's like...what? Cuba and China do not have gay rights. In China people do not have the freedom to even move to a different city. 10% of Cuba's population have just straight up left the country because of how bad it is. Their standard of living is something no one, even the poor in these United States, would not put up with. Same with China which is widely much poorer than the USA.
I'd understand, as Jeremiah pointed out, if they were saying we should be more like Scandinavia, I get that. But to defend and champion countries with much more extreme poverty and authoritarian leaders is just insane and I am led to believe that they are not just "want healthcare" but the total destruction of democracy no different than the GOP.
A very smart and well educated friend confidently told me “the United States is the worst country in the world to be poor in” and I instantly dissociated
This is an age-old problem. Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn discusses how Britain's intellectual Left's oft-expressed disdain for the patriotism deeply felt by Britain's working classes invariably hampered efforts to make progress on social issues.
And China and Russia have not stopped being openly expansionist empires to this day, yet somehow this is rarely stated plainly by leftists, let alone used as the basis for entire theories of history. Leftist critique of American foreign policy is often correct, but it is disappointing that its definition of imperialism has rather large communist-shaped carve-outs.
Any attempt to draw a moral equivalency here is historically ignorant and morally bankrupt. One need not presume the USA is worthy of sainthood to notice the gigantic ethical gulf between the intentions and moral foundations of the United States as compared to the regimes that are supported by (and likely funding) the terrorist Piker.
Slaughtered? No. With notable exceptions like my lai massacre, the US goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties. But we have killed many in our needless wars its true.
Well, this is all just because no one has actually found a way to solve the core problem, right? Everyone thinks their movement is immune to extremist takeover because everyone believes their movement is full of pure and reasonable people. Until it happens to them and they realize this doesn't help. That your own side is also full of dark emotions just waiting for someone to exploit.
If you are a serious political party or group trying to make policy based on any kind of facts and reason in the information age, you will be systematically outcompeted by charismatic populist liars. These liars will succeed through their virality and extremism, which will make them more capable of commanding attention than you. And because they are not restricted by truth or accountability, they can always deny reality and claim that they have all of the answers and they're boldly telling truth to power, right up until the point that they get into power themselves.
Every movement is vulnerable to this. Left, right, it doesn't matter. The inherent rewards of virality means that a thousand influencers will try a thousand different tactics until something works on your emotions. A more educated movement might have a little more resistance to this in its DNA, but it's hardly going to be immune. The power of posting is too strong.
The core appeal of both Trumpism and Tankie-ism actually has nothing to do with any specific policy or rational idea. It's all more disconnected from reality than that. Extremist movements of the modern day deny the entire idea of shared reality, and they just want you to believe whatever feels compelling and emotional in the moment.
It's a real problem and liberal society needs a solution to survive.
"The core appeal of both Trumpism and Tankie-ism actually has nothing to do with any specific policy or rational idea. It's all more disconnected from reality than that. Extremist movements of the modern day deny the entire idea of shared reality, and they just want you to believe whatever feels compelling and emotional in the moment."
This is overstated, as it prompts the question of why anyone chooses Trumpism or Tankie-ism to begin with. If it's truly just an instinctive moment to moment appeal to emotions, of what use are ideologies and political milieus at all?
I think people are drawn to these ideologies because holding an ideology that's based on truth is genuinely hard. The world is complicated and understanding it is difficult. Sometimes your enemies are right, or the actual thing you should do to solve a problem is complicated and unsatisfying to our lizard brain. It would be so much easier to live in a world where things are simple, and extremism offers this.
In practice, this is usually a gradual cycle of an audience and a content-creator reinforcing each other. The audience cheers the loudest when the creator posts ragebait, and so the creator posts more and more ragebait and applies less charity and rational thought to their attacks on their enemies. This process continues until both the creator and the audience have pushed themselves into extremism.
A big part of why extremist disordered ideology is so compelling is because it frees you from all the complexity of rational thought. Want to believe that January 6th was both a gathering of patriots and an antifa false-flag? Believe it! Want to believe that America is evil for engaging in colonialist foreign wars and also evil for not intervening on Palestine's behalf? Do it!
A lot of people don't enjoy thinking about complex issues. The whole thing makes them feel stupid and lost. Emotional responses are easier to grasp.
The difference now is that we've removed the mechanisms of reality that would have once pushed back against that. It's easy to surround yourself with a social community (of real people or chatbots) who will support all of your ideas with no attempt at verification or accountability. Immersing yourself in an environment where you're always right was once the domain of billionaires and kings, now the technology to do it is available to everyone.
The real rift at the heart of so many of these extremist ideologies isn't about Trump or Israel or any particular policy, it's about two different approaches to reality. Do you observe reality as it exists and try to make decisions based on the evidence, or do you decide what reality would be most satisfying and fun, and try to control your environment to reinforce that version?
There is an IQ threshold above which people can be interested in ideology over base instinct and emotional vibes. Actually it’s probably not discontinuous, it’s more a of a spectrum of more objective analysis at higher levels of intelligence. American politics is becoming more stupid and more dominated by those who believe stupid things.
On the point about Hasan attending Zohran Mamdani’s election party: to be fair, Hasan seems to have attended as a regular member of the general public. He was denied entry into the VIP section of the party. Mamdani knows to not affiliate himself too closely with Hasan, and he himself does not share that same illiberal ideology given that he does condemn Maduro and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Totally agree. Fuck leftists. They are enemies of freedom and liberalism - no different than their buddies on the far right.
Communism is a failed system (that China actually abandoned some time ago because it doesn't fucking work), and anyone who espouses it is not our friend.
There is no left or right anymore, just normal people who love freedom and democracy and modern life, and those who are evil hateful morons. The ends of the horseshoe must be sawed off!
And we also need to jettison "wokeness" while we are at it.
- Signed, Will I Am, a reliable Democrat (donated to the DNC in both 2020 and 2024)
It's a pity the center also buddies up to enemies of freedom and human rights abusers, while also refusing to offer any changes to the status quo.
But what makes me laugh is your demand to jeteson 'woke', when woke is pretty much the entire difference between the US and the countries you excoriate. Valorizing human rights, equality, freedom- that's where woke comes from.
I'm not even sure how to respond. Who are the enemies of freedom and human rights abusers? What "countries" do I excoriate? China?
My problem with woke is not that I take issue with having a heightened concern for minorities, etc (that's actually good).
My problem with woke is the parts about making it into a secular religion, using it to glorify oneself at the expense of destroying others, insisting that tradeoffs do not exist, refusing to make compromises, refusing to set priorities, staking out outlier positions that are politically untenable, staking out positions that are contradictory, etc.
It's not just immoral and ridiculous, it's bad politics.
It seems like the issues you have with woke vibe from anthropomorphizing a leaderless group- of course you are going to get contradictions in priorities, disagreement on compromises, etc. it's also a reaction to both previous authoritarian takeovers of similar movements, and an opposition that targets leaders via cops and lawsuits. Iterative improvements on prior efforts.
I was thinking Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Israel, when I suggested that centrists have the same problem as the left and right with embracing human rights abusers.
I don't think substack has a fifth amendment but you don't have to provide such blatant evidence for the "scratch a centrist, a fascist bleeds" charges Will
Well if I'm a "fascist" and I voted Democratic for the last 3 cycles and plan to ardently back Newsom in '28, then I'd hate to see what you think of the average US voter, much less most of the random people I rub shoulders with in Ron DeSantis-land where I live.
In other words, if I'm a fascist, and I'm to the relative left of most Americans, then you probably should escape the US while you still can.
Here are some views that are centrist but might have gotten someone canceled in 2021 (canceled in specific social milieus and online, though not fired from Joe’s Auto Shop in Memphis):
-MtF trans athletes should not play in high school girls’ sports
-the police are important and we shouldn’t defund or abolish them
-we should wait for due progress and evidence before punishing people accused of crimes
-schools should not have closed for the 21-22 school year
-elite colleges should not care about race in admissions
These were very common views among the average Joes and Janes of the world in 2021, but they were also the sort of thing that could get you canceled.
Great stuff. I think the Crooked people are very representative of the young Dem staffer class, and it’s genuinely bad that they hold people like piker or chapo hosts in high esteem
Especially because piker and chapo quite openly loathe the democrats as much if not more than republicans!
Oh and Codepink is funded by the Chinese and based in Shanghai now
Him getting in with the Crooked crowd has been pretty troubling imo. I felt like those guys were generally willing to take a pretty reasonable liberal position on most things, and it was kind of a shock to see them repeatedly running cover for and collaborating with an extremist like Piker.
It's definitely a problem on the right. Imagining that 'genocidal antisemitism rapidly becoming a plank in the dem platform' is just a child screaming 'I'm rubber you're glue!'
Anti-genocide is the plank. That you see that as antisemitic should be enough to make you reflect on where you went wrong.
I am far more concerned with right wing extremists in the Democratic Party who are far more influential than Hassan. These people are sitting in Congress and have been so extreme as to have voted in line with Trump on extremely egregious issues.
The most troubling extremism in the Democratic Party is right wing extremism and not left-wing extremism . After all the people have voted over and over for progressive policies on the Democratic left flank; that's where the people power exists. And yet over and over progressive are viewed as extremist not only by Republicans but by so-called Democratic "centrists" who have been losing election after election.
The problem is right wing extremism in the Democratic Party
I agree with the spirit of your post, but I'd hesitate to call what we're seeing within the Democrat party as "right-wing extremism", at least in comparison to what that same term equates to among Republicans. There is definitely a disturbingly large number of democrats who have deluded themselves into thinking Trump is just another president who can be reasoned with and who has some good policies, as if he hasn't made a thing out of blanket referring to everyone under the Democrat tent as far-left lunatics. Too many deals with the devil have been made and I don't think we've seen the last of them. Fingers crossed we get a lot more people like Mamdani in the party
You're right! I should be calling this right flank extremism and not right wing. A subtle difference that characterizes the segment of the party more accurately.
Yeah, this piece seems to just hand-wave away the fact that Piker is not a Democrat and that no member of the party looks to him for policy advice or proposals, which is very different than what the extreme right has been doing to the Republican Party for over a decade.
You forgot the biggest issue with Hasan : He's a horrible political analyst who is not very intelligent. I genuinely do not understand how his fans listen to him, his takes are the most vanilla version of "America bad" said at a sixth grade reading level at best.
“America Bad” is college educated progressives in a nutshell. That’s all the academic far-left ever produces. Well, that, and a tsunami of antisemitic drivel.
Because college degrees are so easy to get that a lot of morons have them and believe they’re educated. Those people eat up drivel from Piker because they’re simply not very intelligent.
Lots of colleges provide decent, somewhat academically rigorous educations, but there are over 4,000 accredited institutions that can award a bachelor’s, and the majority of them are diploma mills.
The same day Schmuck Schumer was congratulating Mamdani the NYC DSA, Mamdani’s actual political party, declared terrorist Elias Rodriguez to be a “political prisoner”. The Democratic Party’s problem isn’t just Piker, it’s the DSA already infecting the party from within. The DSA doesn’t want “Swedish style ‘socialism’”, they want Soviet style police states. That’s why they embrace totalitarian regimes including Hamas, sorry “Palestine”.
This was an interesting article until I read this: “For several years now I’ve been banging the drum about how deeply extremist views have infiltrated the conservative movement, and I hope that buys me the credibility to say this: The same process is happening on the left as we speak.
The extremist problem on the left is not yet as severe or as wide spread as it is on the right…”
Is this a serious assertion? The left is just now flirting with extremism? What about John Reed and his intellectual circle (see Warren Beatty’s paean to him, the movie “Reds” - great movie too I might add) or Sidney and Beatrice Webb? Do you know about the Venona decrypts? I have been an academic for over over thirty years and Piker’s views on the CCP would be (granted, I am guesstimating here) parroted by roughly 30% of my colleagues, considered tame and not protective enough of the CCP by about 20%, and defended as “a tad misguided but generally well-intentioned” by about 40%.
It is ironic to note that such a massive blind spot in an essay that is so brilliantly incisive does explain neatly why Trump won twice despite massive opposition from the respectable sectors of civil society. ((Edit: I just thought of one anecdotal example - I was teaching on 9/11. The university I taught for had a branch campus and that’s where my classroom was on that day. After the third plane went into the Pentagon, classes were cancelled and we were called back to the main campus before being sent home. I remember clearly the chair of my department on that day saying to me that 9/11 was “the chickens coming home to roost” literally as we were watching people jumping off the top floors as the burning towers started to collapse.))
Uhhhh this article about how "Democrats" have an extremist problem cites as their lead Hasan Piker, who vocally doesn't consider himself a Democrat and declares that "both sides" have big problems. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is doing his best to replicate Goebbels' immigration policy in the White House, and the sitting president is openly declaring that Somalis are congenital criminals. Yes, there are leftists with some bad takes. They're utterly irrelevant to the Democratic Party as it exists, and they'll be the first to tell you that.
So no, the "Democrats" don't have an extremist problem, and yes, everyone is well aware that tankies have terrible politics. But both sidesing it just paints not just a misleading but an actively wrong picture. Do better.
Yeah it's pretty sad that he does that and then dyed-in-the-wool Democrats still want to impress him and win his favour for some reason. Its utterly baffling that anyone aligned to the Democratic Party is trying to sanewash a guy who doesn't even have any strong preference between someone like Trump and someone like Obama, Clinton, Biden etc.
In every country Somalians have fled to, they’ve consistently been low on contributions and high on criminal activity. They’re not Americans or Europeans, they’re adherents of a culture that encourages parasitic activities.
… I could show you the data demonstrating that this is wild bullshit. But the fact that you think that this racist hogwash is something you’re comfortable putting out into the world says everything anyone needs to know about you.
So I’m not gonna say anything about any group, but I will point out that you personally are a racist piece of shit. If there’s one thing we know will make any country better, it’s that there be no people like you. Not because of any race, creed, or religion, but because your values are broken and you’re worthless.
It is weird how many people in American "media" are straightforwardly doing propaganda for geopolitical enemies. Hasan, Pokimane and Ludwig for China right now. Tim Pool for Russia. (I'm sure there are people who would add Israel and have a list for that as well)
It feels like in a heathy political environment anyone doing this kind of thing would be cut out of polite society.
I have a theory that so much journalism is inward now. Journos are all looking to boost their own profiles, to become influencers in their own circles. They want to be cool so they trave on status and not actual reporting.
I agree, this seems increasing common on Substack too.
There are so many times I read an article and am not really sure why it was written only to have it turn out to be the answer to some Twitter criticism the author received once.
can you give an example?
It’s endemic. And online spaces are worse, with the proliferation of bots actively under the direction of Russia and China. It boggles my mind why we as a people aren’t more concerned with this as it has observable negative impacts on our politics for over a decade!
It's not weird considering they were indoctrinated in academic institutions stuffed to the rafters with academic far-leftists spewing Russian, Chinese and Iranian propaganda through all their course material.
I wouldn’t say the others are doing propaganda but rather modern day China actually is amazing if you’re a foreigner with money.
The United States is amazing if you’re a native with money.
It’s easier in China cuz just 3k usd a month is enough to live boujee
It’s wild how many of these people will contradict their own beliefs for extra money. We are doomed as a nation
Qatar seems to be expanding in this arena
We had an opportunity for Russia to not be a geopolitical enemy after the cold war ended, but there was an entire thinktank, StateDept, and IC apparatus that didn’t want to get new jobs so they just kept on doing what they knew.
Russia responded in kind.
I fear it's nothing new in American politics.
Pokimane, for real?!?
"Hasan Piker doesn’t have an ideology in the classic sense. What he has is a massive case of Oppositional Defiant Disorder that leads him to frame every argument as America Bad and anything against America as good"
Hasan being a propogandist is its own thing but I think this is more closely describing the issue than anything else.
"America Bad" is a pretty common view among some Americans in a way that opens the door to all kinds of crazy ideologies and beliefs.
My experience with some younger leftwing people is that it would be considered out of line to be "Patriotic" and the America First branding has really poisoned the well.
If American politicians and political parties can't present a positive vision of the country then everyone is just trying to get their cut before it all burns down.
It's really something on the left because they like to condemn the US for our backwards social views and it's like...what? Cuba and China do not have gay rights. In China people do not have the freedom to even move to a different city. 10% of Cuba's population have just straight up left the country because of how bad it is. Their standard of living is something no one, even the poor in these United States, would not put up with. Same with China which is widely much poorer than the USA.
I'd understand, as Jeremiah pointed out, if they were saying we should be more like Scandinavia, I get that. But to defend and champion countries with much more extreme poverty and authoritarian leaders is just insane and I am led to believe that they are not just "want healthcare" but the total destruction of democracy no different than the GOP.
"Cuba doesn't have gay rights"
A simple google search would have shown you how wrong you are
Fair enough. Forgot they legalized marriage equality there in 2022.
A very smart and well educated friend confidently told me “the United States is the worst country in the world to be poor in” and I instantly dissociated
There is a pretty high correlation between thinking America is uniquely evil or uniquely culturally deficient and being a big ol dumbass moron.
This is an age-old problem. Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn discusses how Britain's intellectual Left's oft-expressed disdain for the patriotism deeply felt by Britain's working classes invariably hampered efforts to make progress on social issues.
The United States has mercilessly slaughtered innocent people in other countries for more than a hundred years. That is a historical fact.
And China and Russia have not stopped being openly expansionist empires to this day, yet somehow this is rarely stated plainly by leftists, let alone used as the basis for entire theories of history. Leftist critique of American foreign policy is often correct, but it is disappointing that its definition of imperialism has rather large communist-shaped carve-outs.
Any attempt to draw a moral equivalency here is historically ignorant and morally bankrupt. One need not presume the USA is worthy of sainthood to notice the gigantic ethical gulf between the intentions and moral foundations of the United States as compared to the regimes that are supported by (and likely funding) the terrorist Piker.
Slaughtered? No. With notable exceptions like my lai massacre, the US goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties. But we have killed many in our needless wars its true.
Well, this is all just because no one has actually found a way to solve the core problem, right? Everyone thinks their movement is immune to extremist takeover because everyone believes their movement is full of pure and reasonable people. Until it happens to them and they realize this doesn't help. That your own side is also full of dark emotions just waiting for someone to exploit.
If you are a serious political party or group trying to make policy based on any kind of facts and reason in the information age, you will be systematically outcompeted by charismatic populist liars. These liars will succeed through their virality and extremism, which will make them more capable of commanding attention than you. And because they are not restricted by truth or accountability, they can always deny reality and claim that they have all of the answers and they're boldly telling truth to power, right up until the point that they get into power themselves.
Every movement is vulnerable to this. Left, right, it doesn't matter. The inherent rewards of virality means that a thousand influencers will try a thousand different tactics until something works on your emotions. A more educated movement might have a little more resistance to this in its DNA, but it's hardly going to be immune. The power of posting is too strong.
The core appeal of both Trumpism and Tankie-ism actually has nothing to do with any specific policy or rational idea. It's all more disconnected from reality than that. Extremist movements of the modern day deny the entire idea of shared reality, and they just want you to believe whatever feels compelling and emotional in the moment.
It's a real problem and liberal society needs a solution to survive.
"The core appeal of both Trumpism and Tankie-ism actually has nothing to do with any specific policy or rational idea. It's all more disconnected from reality than that. Extremist movements of the modern day deny the entire idea of shared reality, and they just want you to believe whatever feels compelling and emotional in the moment."
This is overstated, as it prompts the question of why anyone chooses Trumpism or Tankie-ism to begin with. If it's truly just an instinctive moment to moment appeal to emotions, of what use are ideologies and political milieus at all?
I think people are drawn to these ideologies because holding an ideology that's based on truth is genuinely hard. The world is complicated and understanding it is difficult. Sometimes your enemies are right, or the actual thing you should do to solve a problem is complicated and unsatisfying to our lizard brain. It would be so much easier to live in a world where things are simple, and extremism offers this.
In practice, this is usually a gradual cycle of an audience and a content-creator reinforcing each other. The audience cheers the loudest when the creator posts ragebait, and so the creator posts more and more ragebait and applies less charity and rational thought to their attacks on their enemies. This process continues until both the creator and the audience have pushed themselves into extremism.
A big part of why extremist disordered ideology is so compelling is because it frees you from all the complexity of rational thought. Want to believe that January 6th was both a gathering of patriots and an antifa false-flag? Believe it! Want to believe that America is evil for engaging in colonialist foreign wars and also evil for not intervening on Palestine's behalf? Do it!
A lot of people don't enjoy thinking about complex issues. The whole thing makes them feel stupid and lost. Emotional responses are easier to grasp.
The difference now is that we've removed the mechanisms of reality that would have once pushed back against that. It's easy to surround yourself with a social community (of real people or chatbots) who will support all of your ideas with no attempt at verification or accountability. Immersing yourself in an environment where you're always right was once the domain of billionaires and kings, now the technology to do it is available to everyone.
The real rift at the heart of so many of these extremist ideologies isn't about Trump or Israel or any particular policy, it's about two different approaches to reality. Do you observe reality as it exists and try to make decisions based on the evidence, or do you decide what reality would be most satisfying and fun, and try to control your environment to reinforce that version?
There is an IQ threshold above which people can be interested in ideology over base instinct and emotional vibes. Actually it’s probably not discontinuous, it’s more a of a spectrum of more objective analysis at higher levels of intelligence. American politics is becoming more stupid and more dominated by those who believe stupid things.
This
I have never once heard anything remotely interesting come out of Hasan's mouth. Performative anti-capitalism of the worst sort.
On the point about Hasan attending Zohran Mamdani’s election party: to be fair, Hasan seems to have attended as a regular member of the general public. He was denied entry into the VIP section of the party. Mamdani knows to not affiliate himself too closely with Hasan, and he himself does not share that same illiberal ideology given that he does condemn Maduro and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us-streamers/hasan-pikers-viral-support-for-new-york-mayor-zohran-mamdani-turns-loud-as-hes-denied-entry-at-rally/amp_articleshow/125106980.cms
He went on his podcast and repeatedly talks about how much he likes the guy. See e.g. his Instagram here
https://www.instagram.com/p/DIJlcjEOY-4/
Totally agree. Fuck leftists. They are enemies of freedom and liberalism - no different than their buddies on the far right.
Communism is a failed system (that China actually abandoned some time ago because it doesn't fucking work), and anyone who espouses it is not our friend.
There is no left or right anymore, just normal people who love freedom and democracy and modern life, and those who are evil hateful morons. The ends of the horseshoe must be sawed off!
And we also need to jettison "wokeness" while we are at it.
- Signed, Will I Am, a reliable Democrat (donated to the DNC in both 2020 and 2024)
It's a pity the center also buddies up to enemies of freedom and human rights abusers, while also refusing to offer any changes to the status quo.
But what makes me laugh is your demand to jeteson 'woke', when woke is pretty much the entire difference between the US and the countries you excoriate. Valorizing human rights, equality, freedom- that's where woke comes from.
I'm not even sure how to respond. Who are the enemies of freedom and human rights abusers? What "countries" do I excoriate? China?
My problem with woke is not that I take issue with having a heightened concern for minorities, etc (that's actually good).
My problem with woke is the parts about making it into a secular religion, using it to glorify oneself at the expense of destroying others, insisting that tradeoffs do not exist, refusing to make compromises, refusing to set priorities, staking out outlier positions that are politically untenable, staking out positions that are contradictory, etc.
It's not just immoral and ridiculous, it's bad politics.
It seems like the issues you have with woke vibe from anthropomorphizing a leaderless group- of course you are going to get contradictions in priorities, disagreement on compromises, etc. it's also a reaction to both previous authoritarian takeovers of similar movements, and an opposition that targets leaders via cops and lawsuits. Iterative improvements on prior efforts.
I was thinking Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Israel, when I suggested that centrists have the same problem as the left and right with embracing human rights abusers.
I think the fundamental fight of the current era is liberalism vs illiberalism
Agreed. And therefore that means the true enemies of liberalism are the extremists at both ends.
Saw off the ends of the horseshoe - I think that has a nice ring to it.
Long live the squishy middle
I don't think substack has a fifth amendment but you don't have to provide such blatant evidence for the "scratch a centrist, a fascist bleeds" charges Will
Well if I'm a "fascist" and I voted Democratic for the last 3 cycles and plan to ardently back Newsom in '28, then I'd hate to see what you think of the average US voter, much less most of the random people I rub shoulders with in Ron DeSantis-land where I live.
In other words, if I'm a fascist, and I'm to the relative left of most Americans, then you probably should escape the US while you still can.
Tell you what, you can put me on the same escape pod with all the people whose rights you plan to forfeit by "jettison[ing] 'wokeness'"
I don't plan on forfeiting any rights of others except the "right" to cancel centrists for having slightly different views.
Any specific views you're referring to?
Here are some views that are centrist but might have gotten someone canceled in 2021 (canceled in specific social milieus and online, though not fired from Joe’s Auto Shop in Memphis):
-MtF trans athletes should not play in high school girls’ sports
-the police are important and we shouldn’t defund or abolish them
-we should wait for due progress and evidence before punishing people accused of crimes
-schools should not have closed for the 21-22 school year
-elite colleges should not care about race in admissions
These were very common views among the average Joes and Janes of the world in 2021, but they were also the sort of thing that could get you canceled.
Great stuff. I think the Crooked people are very representative of the young Dem staffer class, and it’s genuinely bad that they hold people like piker or chapo hosts in high esteem
Especially because piker and chapo quite openly loathe the democrats as much if not more than republicans!
Oh and Codepink is funded by the Chinese and based in Shanghai now
Btw your link on mamdanis staffer is wrong
Him getting in with the Crooked crowd has been pretty troubling imo. I felt like those guys were generally willing to take a pretty reasonable liberal position on most things, and it was kind of a shock to see them repeatedly running cover for and collaborating with an extremist like Piker.
What’s wrong with the link on Mamdani staffer?
The linked article isn't related to the staffer at all, it's an entirely separate story
Been watching the delulu pro-ccp extremism of the bougie “left” for a while now. Its the most insane of reactionary black and white thinking.
Do they celebrate any of the stuff the *right* likes about China? Like build, baby, build?
It's interesting because domestically the Hasans have nothing but disdain for the Abundance movement.
What hill are you trying to die on with this comment?
none, as far as I know?
Of course, his genocidal antisemitism is never mentioned here, as it is rapidly becoming a plank in the Dem platform.
Well, yeah. Character assassination doesn't deserve space in actual discussion. Real issues only, please.
Is antisemitism not a real issue?
It's definitely a problem on the right. Imagining that 'genocidal antisemitism rapidly becoming a plank in the dem platform' is just a child screaming 'I'm rubber you're glue!'
Anti-genocide is the plank. That you see that as antisemitic should be enough to make you reflect on where you went wrong.
OK.
I know. He is as antisemitic as Piker is. Its not an issue for him at all. You either it seems.
“Platforming terrorists and promoting authoritarianism should have no place in a liberal Democratic party”
But the anti-First Amendment, captured by their oppressor-oppressed ideologue wing Dem party has not been “liberal” for many years now.
I am far more concerned with right wing extremists in the Democratic Party who are far more influential than Hassan. These people are sitting in Congress and have been so extreme as to have voted in line with Trump on extremely egregious issues.
The most troubling extremism in the Democratic Party is right wing extremism and not left-wing extremism . After all the people have voted over and over for progressive policies on the Democratic left flank; that's where the people power exists. And yet over and over progressive are viewed as extremist not only by Republicans but by so-called Democratic "centrists" who have been losing election after election.
The problem is right wing extremism in the Democratic Party
I agree with the spirit of your post, but I'd hesitate to call what we're seeing within the Democrat party as "right-wing extremism", at least in comparison to what that same term equates to among Republicans. There is definitely a disturbingly large number of democrats who have deluded themselves into thinking Trump is just another president who can be reasoned with and who has some good policies, as if he hasn't made a thing out of blanket referring to everyone under the Democrat tent as far-left lunatics. Too many deals with the devil have been made and I don't think we've seen the last of them. Fingers crossed we get a lot more people like Mamdani in the party
You're right! I should be calling this right flank extremism and not right wing. A subtle difference that characterizes the segment of the party more accurately.
I feel like the term you're looking for is blue dog democrat
Yeah, this piece seems to just hand-wave away the fact that Piker is not a Democrat and that no member of the party looks to him for policy advice or proposals, which is very different than what the extreme right has been doing to the Republican Party for over a decade.
I confess to having never heard of this jackhole, so I am a part of one type of the problem.
I scarcely knew "politicial livestreaming" was a thing at all. So much of the internet was a damn mistake.
You forgot the biggest issue with Hasan : He's a horrible political analyst who is not very intelligent. I genuinely do not understand how his fans listen to him, his takes are the most vanilla version of "America bad" said at a sixth grade reading level at best.
“America Bad” is college educated progressives in a nutshell. That’s all the academic far-left ever produces. Well, that, and a tsunami of antisemitic drivel.
Stupid people love stupid people
Because college degrees are so easy to get that a lot of morons have them and believe they’re educated. Those people eat up drivel from Piker because they’re simply not very intelligent.
Lots of colleges provide decent, somewhat academically rigorous educations, but there are over 4,000 accredited institutions that can award a bachelor’s, and the majority of them are diploma mills.
The same day Schmuck Schumer was congratulating Mamdani the NYC DSA, Mamdani’s actual political party, declared terrorist Elias Rodriguez to be a “political prisoner”. The Democratic Party’s problem isn’t just Piker, it’s the DSA already infecting the party from within. The DSA doesn’t want “Swedish style ‘socialism’”, they want Soviet style police states. That’s why they embrace totalitarian regimes including Hamas, sorry “Palestine”.
This was an interesting article until I read this: “For several years now I’ve been banging the drum about how deeply extremist views have infiltrated the conservative movement, and I hope that buys me the credibility to say this: The same process is happening on the left as we speak.
The extremist problem on the left is not yet as severe or as wide spread as it is on the right…”
Is this a serious assertion? The left is just now flirting with extremism? What about John Reed and his intellectual circle (see Warren Beatty’s paean to him, the movie “Reds” - great movie too I might add) or Sidney and Beatrice Webb? Do you know about the Venona decrypts? I have been an academic for over over thirty years and Piker’s views on the CCP would be (granted, I am guesstimating here) parroted by roughly 30% of my colleagues, considered tame and not protective enough of the CCP by about 20%, and defended as “a tad misguided but generally well-intentioned” by about 40%.
It is ironic to note that such a massive blind spot in an essay that is so brilliantly incisive does explain neatly why Trump won twice despite massive opposition from the respectable sectors of civil society. ((Edit: I just thought of one anecdotal example - I was teaching on 9/11. The university I taught for had a branch campus and that’s where my classroom was on that day. After the third plane went into the Pentagon, classes were cancelled and we were called back to the main campus before being sent home. I remember clearly the chair of my department on that day saying to me that 9/11 was “the chickens coming home to roost” literally as we were watching people jumping off the top floors as the burning towers started to collapse.))
I can’t get over my observation that there is a deep deep disgust with this country from certain pockets of “the left”
Far right: I have deep hate that this country has changed.
Far left: I hate this country deeply because it can’t ever change.
Two very cynical poisonous world views.
I mostly agree with you.
But that you didn’t put the word “respectable” in quotes when referring to those sectors of civil society is … Sad.
You are right, I very much should have.
Uhhhh this article about how "Democrats" have an extremist problem cites as their lead Hasan Piker, who vocally doesn't consider himself a Democrat and declares that "both sides" have big problems. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is doing his best to replicate Goebbels' immigration policy in the White House, and the sitting president is openly declaring that Somalis are congenital criminals. Yes, there are leftists with some bad takes. They're utterly irrelevant to the Democratic Party as it exists, and they'll be the first to tell you that.
So no, the "Democrats" don't have an extremist problem, and yes, everyone is well aware that tankies have terrible politics. But both sidesing it just paints not just a misleading but an actively wrong picture. Do better.
The party that would carry his water has party members that would gladly do it. Don’t kid yourself.
Yeah it's pretty sad that he does that and then dyed-in-the-wool Democrats still want to impress him and win his favour for some reason. Its utterly baffling that anyone aligned to the Democratic Party is trying to sanewash a guy who doesn't even have any strong preference between someone like Trump and someone like Obama, Clinton, Biden etc.
In every country Somalians have fled to, they’ve consistently been low on contributions and high on criminal activity. They’re not Americans or Europeans, they’re adherents of a culture that encourages parasitic activities.
… I could show you the data demonstrating that this is wild bullshit. But the fact that you think that this racist hogwash is something you’re comfortable putting out into the world says everything anyone needs to know about you.
So I’m not gonna say anything about any group, but I will point out that you personally are a racist piece of shit. If there’s one thing we know will make any country better, it’s that there be no people like you. Not because of any race, creed, or religion, but because your values are broken and you’re worthless.
Bye.