Said this elsewhere, but it really seems like people who do this have completely lost sight of the reason for writing books and having platforms and think that the goal is only to be heard as widely as possible. Or they never had principles to begin with.
How about every liberal platform? Biden screwed the Democrats. You should be happy and join in on tarnishing his reputation and those who covered for him.
I know a very good actor who infuriated the distributor of his movie (which made him a star) when he refused to go on THE TONIGHT SHOW with Fallon after the hair-tousling incident. The bar hasn't been lowered. It's been buried.
When you’re a drug dealer, you have to hustle. When you’re a coyote, you have to hustle. Having to hustle doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing, as you point out.
anyway i personally do not think that you should be allowed to be a respectable member of the discourse if you spent the better chunk of a decade as an online nazi who has not actually renounced those views.
He basically just renounced the way he talked about his views while reiterating he still held them. Or, to borrow a phrase from his fellow travelers, he announced "I am hiding my power level" and a bunch of allegedly respectable people decided that was good enough
I’m sick of this false “realism” used to facilitate fascism. Even on MSNBC some are pounding the “realism” drum on Ukraine and Gaza, capitulating to authoritarianism. What happened to standing up for what is humane and fair? Whatever happened to idealism and striving for a better future?
Here's the fucking realism: "We've fucking been here before circa the 1930's and it didn't fucking work then, your 'Realism' is just trying to deny the reality in front of your goddamn eyes"
"Realism" in this context is a pseudo-fascist dogwhistle for "I formally declare I will take no responsibility for my actions up to now and the fallout of them henceforth"
This is a trivial complaint, but I’be always found the “follows ___ account, therefore bad” argument a bit annoying, as someone who purposefully followed a wide variety of accounts on the other site, including several of people I despise.
If I were a journalist who needed to follow Singal for job-related reasons, I'd use a burner account to avoid the shame of being a Jesse Singal follower.
if i follow a bigot AND ALSO post bigotted posts then it's pretty obvious why I follow them.
When the other side are open bigots like Singal i find them tedious and there is nothing to learn from them, especially considering other journalists follow singal and write about him.
This is the thing. I get that one might follow odious people to check up on the "other side" (why not use an alt?) but what is there to learn from Singal? Every repost of him I've ever seen is something I would absolutely guess he would say. He's famous for one thing.
Not gonna argue with results! I followed Singal and a selection of more or less odious people on the other site, and the “also follows:” feature made for a fun time when trying to guess a stranger’s political leanings.
Don't do that. They have nothing of value to say to you. "Learn what the other side is saying" is bullshit they say so you keep pumping their numbers up.
Who amongst us hasn’t spent a decade thinking and writing Nazi thoughts? I mean me, for one. So I have a pretty deeply felt believe that anyone who did is a Nazi, for all intents and purposes
i ranted about this slightly yesterday and i cannot emphasize enough how much GMU/Mercatus sit at the center of this. it all comes back to a network of these guys and the laundering that has been done to normalize relationships with explicitly right wing thinkers.
Just *last week* he told Vox he doesn't believe that the US is "a racist country" enough that racism can explain disparities between "groups of people", a far-right view that flies in the face of basic logic. And his explanation for how he had such horrible views is that he still holds those views!
"You couldn't talk about..." buddy. You could talk about them. Everyone was just going to call you a fucking bigot and refuse to interact with you. The freedom of speech protects the right to call someone an asshole and the freedom of association means you don't have to hand out with assholes!
The implicit other half of that statement is “i believe blacks are poor because they’re stupid and lazy”. It’s amazing how much eugenics you can get away with if you dress it up in nice academic language
The idea of *intentionally pretending differences in power and privilege don't exist* as the sole useful lens for governance hasn't been mainstream for decades. Its re-normalization seems to be due to Trump's use of executive orders to force that idea back into broad use. It hurts my fucking heart.
Fear of being part of the generation that will no longer be the numerical majority apparently induces a type of paranoid psychosis - sociopathy - of what being a “minority” will mean.
No, you’re right, he’s not David Duke, he’s much, much worse. He makes David Duke seem like a nice guy. Richard Hanania is a racist prick. PERIOD. Anybody who thinks eugenics is a good thing outta be 86’d
Thomas Jefferson made plenty of sophisticated arguments about freedom and enslaved his own children. It's the race-based valuation of other people, not the complexity of his thinking that's being judged here.
In case folks aren't familiar with Duke...
Immigration along with nonwhite birthrates will make white people a minority totally vulnerable to the political, social, and economic will of blacks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Orientals.
David Duke
This cadre has always had a soft spot for Hanania, this isn’t about hustling to sell a new book. They genuinely respect him far more than anyone on the left
And I think this is worse than interviewing Hanania, which you can justify on some level as exposing noxious-but-influential ideas. Thompson is just going on Hanania’s Substack to get the racist guy’s audience.
When my book was coming out last month I imagined what outlets I would be strong enough to turn down even though, like all writers, I'm thirsty for attention, and I was struggling with like, The Atlantic. The idea that anyone would talk to this racist POS is shocking.
It’s the selling of the book that itself is the problem. Sure, the “marketplace of ideas,” but today the market is hungry for fraud dressed up as science, or at least gross oversimplification with a snazzy hook. Give me the quiet academic toiling in obscurity any day over these guys.
I _was_ going to read the book. But there's a limit to what I'll accept in a book promotion tour and still read the book, and this just passed that limit.
When you’re the smartest boy and you have a column and podcast supported and promoted by a major national publication you’ve really got to dig to find ways to promote your little book. How else will he find an audience?!
I noticed a while that Derek is a heavy Twitter user & rarely uses Bluesky. I can only conclude he finds the environment there better: more intellectual stimulating, more people worthy conversation.
I would have loved an explanation why, though I may not like the answer!
Some people just have no shame or such low standards in hustling even for a proverbial penny. But are far right types even likely to pay a proverbial penny to buy books which expose and shred the arguments of the far right? I have my doubts that they spend much or anything on such books.
Also the abundance argument aimed at the left is so outrageously badly timed, they probably have no choice but swimming through the bro stew (he was also on Bill Simmons).
Alt-right types raised on 2000's forums like Richard Hanania are influenced by a strain of neo-Nazism that is worse than the Klan. I know it's splitting hairs over shades of evil, but I routinely think something like, "These guys are worse than David Duke..."
Given the prominence of the authors, and the prominent PR push underway, one imagines the book is going to sell a ton of copies and be widely discussed, even without the coveted hanania bump
also just "who?" I'm so so SO sick of treating totally irrelevant people who've done nothing, said nothing smart or interesting ever as somehow important? or worthy? of our attention, like what the fuck ever.
even before we get to the whole undercover racist stuff
Comments
Benny Johnson? Hannity? Ben Shapiro?
*- not sure I’m using that correctly.
The capitulation to use one’s platform to amplify and normalize these people is beyond my understand.
If your publicly stated “I’m an open-minded guy who doesn’t close out anyone” actually leads you here…what is the point?
Writing it down is such an extra step.
Using a pen name tells you everything about this dude being a coward.
When the other side are open bigots like Singal i find them tedious and there is nothing to learn from them, especially considering other journalists follow singal and write about him.
https://bsky.app/profile/utopia-defer.red/post/3lknruwry622p
It is is as simple as that.
Derek Thomson should not be surprised if he's mass-blocked on Bluesky.
And good luck with the book, Derek! Hard to move once it's remaindered.
What’s he afraid of ? . . .
He doesn't have to be wearing a Klan hood and dancing around a burning cross to be ideologically the same.
But only because he has a completely different name.
Immigration along with nonwhite birthrates will make white people a minority totally vulnerable to the political, social, and economic will of blacks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Orientals.
David Duke
How much more do we need to double down on the 'it is unnaceptable' angle - a lot it seems, sadly
I would have loved an explanation why, though I may not like the answer!
https://bsky.app/profile/robpollard45.bsky.social/post/3lj6fc5lpds2h
even before we get to the whole undercover racist stuff