Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

For the uninitiated, CTH is a very popular (to the tune of $30k+ per month coming in via Pateron) podcast by a group of foul-mouthed socialists with a tendency to tear into liberals with just as much (if not more) zeal than conservatives. They were recently profiled/critiqued in the New Yorker. The episode in which they respond to the article (mostly by viciously mocking the author and the New Yorker in general) is a decent introduction. There's also a critique of the critique, of course.

I'm interested in this growing notion of the "dirtbag left" and the increasing ranks of the DSA, which I recognize are partly separate phenomena. (There is an amusing schism in their demo between the very young and the very old.)

This was probably the best intro I ever read:

http://splitsider.com/2016/09/explaining-the-chapo-trap-house-podcast-to-the-uninitiated/

Which gets into the reference-heavy jag the show occasionally launches off on.

these dudes sound pretty unpleasant tbh

I follow some dem socialists on Twitter and it took me like three goddamn months that it was a podcast and not just some sort of weird meme

Can someone explain to me how this podcast and its Patreon patrons are connected to progressive causes by something stronger than the tether between Hot Shots: Part Deux and the US Navy?

I have only heard a few recent episodes, but the divide in airtime between vulgar comic riffs and actual discussion/intvws is pretty much 50/50

to answer yr question more directly Tombot I have seen a *lot* of tweets w/ CTH fans flaunting their newly received Socialist Organizer mailers/cards, anecdotal certainly but not nothing

They're still spending way too much time complaining about Hillary, the election and their critics. I find it amusing enough as a light podcast for driving but they're going to have to move on to keep listeners.

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ChapoTrapHouse_final_wp-1200x715-1479503366.jpg

a vigorous and funny response to the alt-right is probably a good thing, but this just sounds like a load of jerks being jerks

iatee otm

This sounds pretty 'edgy'. I'll be interested to see what these guys do once they're out of high school.

I find it amusing enough as a light podcast for driving but they're going to have to move on to keep listeners.

Agreed, I think this will be a necessity after the inauguration anyway

tbh I mostly enjoy their eviscerations of liberal commentators/thinkers - fish in a barrel, sure, but undeniably satisfying

Have never listened to the show, read the article, I think i follow a couple of them on twitter. I hadn't realized they responded to the article with vicious mockery on their show, that's kind of a bummer since I saw them responding to outraged CTH devotees on twitter with essentially "chill the fuck out, it was a pretty good profile."

in the following episode they emphasized that they were embarrassed by people defending them

I think the 'jerks being jerks' stuff is overstated. I've listened to 10-12 eps now and there's nothing really offensive? They pick on dweeby Twitter people and pundits.

The episodes where they read from Ross Douthat and Megan McCardle's books are the best I've heard, followed by the interview with Adam Curtis.

Can someone explain to me how this podcast and its Patreon patrons are connected to progressive causes by something stronger than the tether between Hot Shots: Part Deux and the US Navy?

It's an Air America show that can survive on its listener base, I don't think anyone's expecting them to start a revolution with a podcast. It's amusing to listen to a talk show with an actual left-wing viewpoint.

At least some of them are active with DSA and similar groups but they're also just relatively privileged liberal arts college NYC alt-media people.

I'm realizing I could have asked the same question about Das Racist (RIP) and gotten kind of the same answer and it would have been fine. Why I felt the need to ask it of a podcast as if that requires a different kind of "authentic" pedigree is weird, and my thinking needs unpacking on that

Can someone explain to me how this podcast and its Patreon patrons are connected to dirtbag causes?

I think I need it explained to me how they are not directly related

I've listened to most episodes, it's a great podcast. Their coverage of the primaries was often very funny. An early ep had a great guest who detailed the situation w teacher strikes in Mexico. Occasionally they do succumb to the more deluded and counter productive tendencies of hardcore Berners though.

i'll out myself. matt's a thoughtful guy. felix is lol in most moods and he reminds me eerily of turkey-obsessed college friends i miss; also i found his les mis reading compelling. will clearly guides the whole thing and holds episodes together but imo is the blankest when he goes on the attack. some episodes really are just them giggling at their own press clips. thought it was completely hilarious that their william f buckley impression was actually a capt. peter peachfuzz impression.

obviously the keep it negative dickhole zing crew should run podcasting

I don't think "keep it negative" is a fair summation of their worldview

a vigorous and funny response to the alt-right is probably a good thing, but this just sounds like a load of jerks being jerks

maybe if we brainstormed some more descriptions of trump's hair

afaict they're in the same gen x/millenial straddler segment as a bunch of my peers, sneer at the gen x detachment and corporate institutions equally, and are well-versed in the web communities that predate the 4chan weird bullshit, parallel to or members of somethingawful and other shit of the time

idk it's a thing where every political opinion coming from them seems like a deep-seated reaction from living through the late 90s and early 00s and that's the lens

douthat rip is savage

I'm trying to catch up to the Trap House but these things are like 90 minutes long. I'm on episode 4. By the time they're talking about current events, Trump's first term will be over

I thoroughly enjoy the Chapo Trap House. When I first discovered it it felt like a real catharsis to hear other people roughly my age or a little younger shredding New Democratism and bad centrist punditry of both liberal and conservative varieties but not in a lefty crank, counterpunch sort of way.

I can't say I love the new format with more regulars and preferred the dynamic of just Felix-Matt-Will. I like Amber and Virgil Texas individually I just don't feel like the show works as well with them regularly participating.

ALSO as I think we talked about a little on the podcast thread, it seems harder for them to find their footing in a Trump world, now that the irrelevant centrist punditry has actually been rendered irrelevant.

I'm trying to catch up to the Trap House but these things are like 90 minutes long. I'm on episode 4.

I've found that playback at 1.25x speed can be your friend.

i couldn't get through an episode of this, even though i generally agree with them

it just... isn't funny at all, or insightful. probably because the things that are funny and insightful in sad leftist twitter aren't funny outside of sad leftist twitter

Whiney, just listen to the Freeway Ross Douthat episode then skip to current events. Discussing the conventions doesn't really work as entertainment six months after the fact.

being a completionist about a politics podcast is the most onion a/v club thing i've ever heard

I tried to listen to an episode but I just found it unbearable, but I realize I should have listened before I read that interview they did with Paste, which is hands down the most embarrassing thing I read last year: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/07/chapo-trap-house-are-the-vulgar-brilliant-demigods.html

i've encountered enough asshole know-it-all leftists on twitter (including at least one of the chapo guys, i think) that i haven't exactly been eager to give this a try.

"I haven't listened to this but I don't like it based on reading an article about it" is the most boring and non-contributing thing you can possibly say.

Except I did listen to it?

Like, "I tried to listen to an episode" is the first goddamn thing I say in my post

They do definitely reflect the worst of leftist Twitter at times. Like it's clear from recent episodes their way of continuing in Trump World will be to still hammer Clinton relentlessly land act like centrist democrats are worse than actual fascists. They are really mad at Hillary for losing to Trump when all I heard from them for months was that she was just as bad.

The show works better for me when Matt or Amber bring up something that show they've done a but more homework on this stuff.

My particular fave episodes are stuff like having on Adam Curtis, Matt Karp on his book on Antebellum American politics setting up race science and eugenics shit trickling down to Breitbart, or even the pilot ep of sorts where they excoriate the weird mentality behind Michael Bay's "13 Hours."

xp p sure they're mad at hillary for beating bernie with the weight of the DNC behind her, propping up trump as an easy win and then running an embarrassing general election campaign built on "of course i'll win"

and given that this toolbag seems to be the presumptive 2020 favorite of the DNC, which has not shown any indication of shifting platform aside from a few pockets of support for keith ellison, keeping the fire under the democrats might be the only thing that saves us from 4 additional years of actual fascism

Nerderik P.

The "weight of the DNC" that Bernie's ramshackle campaign couldn't overcome but Obama could somehow. We can blame this vague "rigging" for Bernie's loss (and not acknowledge that maybe he should campaigned in the south) but can't admit the Comey letter had an effect on Hillary's?

After the primary was pretty much over they called the differences between Trump and Clinton "a wash". Matt Christman perpetuated the deluded idea that the Bernie delegates at the Nevada caucus were "disenfranchised", just as one example. Granted it wasn't the job of the left to get Hillary elected (I'd have personally preferred Bernie for a number of reasons) but you don't get to act mad at her campaign for losing when you perpetuated the equivalency narrative throughout the campaign. Many Dems have been able to acknowledge that she was a vulnerable candidate that we were stuck with because not enough people ran but it seems like it would literally kill many on the left to just say "we got carried away".

Also, encouraging people to spread "Bernie Would've Won" memes is pretty asshole-ish and counter productive but I don't know maybe stopping actual fascism will require purging People who don't hate Hillary but I could be wrong.

but you don't get to act mad at her campaign for losing when you perpetuated the equivalency narrative throughout the campaign

You kind of do? I listened to the post-DNC podcasts and a lot of commentary revolved around things that seemed iffy even at the time when it seemed like a lock - trotting out Mike Bloomberg, the lineup of neocon security/military people lining up for Hillary, etc.. It goes back to 2000/2002 - if you're going to present Republican-lite as the face of the party why wouldn't the voters who are into that just vote for real Republicans? They were also right back then on focusing on decency being poor judgement.

Were the Hillary fainting jokes in bad taste? Sure. That's still the most tiresome part of the podcast, but it's also a fairly small part of it.

Funny thing about Bloomberg is we was one of the few convention speakers who got kind of a positive reaction from the Bernie or busters there when he mentioned that he described himself as an "independent" what or John Lewis got anti-tpp chants. There was definitely messaging problems w HRC's campaign but given the consequences of the election (potential loss of social programs for one) people with visibility on the left seemed reluctant to encourage voting for the obviously better choice of the corny old lady and pickedvthr campsign apart for things all high level campaigns do becuae they were probably confident she was going to win anyway.

Also, encouraging people to spread "Bernie Would've Won" memes is pretty asshole-ish and counter productive but I don't know maybe stopping actual fascism will require purging People who don't hate Hillary but I could be wrong.

― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Wednesday, January 4, 2017 3:23 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think spreading memes has ever been productive in any direction

seriously didn't realize there were still people aside from high ranking democrat pols and frederik who think the answer to defeating trumpism over the next 4 years is to double down on the 2016 strategy

this is some gluing humpty dumpty together again shit

that Bernie's ramshackle campaign couldn't overcome but Obama could somehow

yeah it's almost like these are two different candidates running on entirely different platforms with entirely different relationships to the DNC

how close are you to running out the "of course the DNC sank bernie, he wasn't a member of their party!" argument that was briefly popular 8 months ago in an entirely different america

Yes, Mike Bloomberg is a well-known figure on the socialist lecture circuit. Hugely popular on the left. Yuge.

It is a reminder that the one thing worse than jokes about Hillary's medical problems is the narrative around BernieBros and "Bernie or Busters" where whatever ills that pop into your head can be ascribed to them.

The fundamental disconnect here appears to be your belief that the left's issue with Clinton is that she was "corny."

xxp obvs

I never said "everything was perfect w HRC's messaging except that leftist twitter and this podcast didn't like it". I'd have preferred a different candidate but Hillary won the primary, she was obviously the better candidate compared to Trump. When you vote for a candidate you are voting a coalition into office. Making equivrlrncies beyeeen her and Trump was ridiculous then (kind of offensive actually when you put in perspective ) and looks even more ridiculous now. Maybe you can post the photo of them at a party together I've seen a million times and I'll withdraw that.

We have social media, we know the left got "carried away" I don''t see the point in denying that base level reality. I mean people were literally crying st the convention because they thought Bernie would get the nomination somehow.

kinda like liberals were hoping beyond hope that the Electoral College would swoop in and save the day - shit happens when you get emotionally invested.

I don't know what false equivalencies you're talking about, I've heard the Chapo people repeatedly talk (without irony) about Trump and the GOP's fascism, the worst they've said about centrist Dems is "managerial neoliberalism."

it's the duty of all good dirtbag leftists to shut up and keep compromising with (read: unquestioningly supporting) managerial neolibs. it's the new realism, baby.

I mentioned it before, a direct quote, I think it was Christman who called the choice between Trump and HRC "a wash". They used the example of Harlow's "wire monkey" experiments to bemoan the false difference between the two for a couple of episodes. Will Menaker was pretty insistent that HRC was intent on invading Iran which reminds me of Michael Tracy's now mocked POV that Trump was the peace candidate between the two , guest Jeremy Schahill seemed to take him back when he said that he thought Trump was likely to invade a country and she wasn't. Amber said on twitter that the DNC leaks had evidence of "massive corruption" which on one level I have to wonder is that disingenuous or just dumb? But I have a particular ire for people on the left who say those leaks constitute actual whistleblowing, you're basically continuing a right wing smear when you do that.

I genuinely like the show a lot. It's one of my favorite podcasts I find most of the analysis good. There are just these points of obstinance the left has that are troubling toward the end of unifying the party and there is no hope of the primary is relitigard forever. Smugly tweeting "Bernie Would Have Won" at people might be kind of shitty I don't know.

What's the point of politics if you can't be smug

just listened to the adam curtis episode. good stuff. can see the point now. remains to be seen whether they can sell a valid vision of a chapo trap house world though

Also in this sketch Felix name checks “misogynoir,” a word made up and used exclusively by grad students who don’t have enough characters left to type “misogyny against black women.”

Weird dig from the writer re 'exclusively by grad students' - too scared to put 'pretentious' or what?

Side note that term was invented BY a Black woman (actually queer Black feminist writer Moya Bailey) who presumably is entitled to describe her own experience and see if people like her agree. Clearly at least some do. Conversation over.

I still listen to this (the free show) though I'm annoyed by how often they can't seem to get an episode going and fall into the podcasting stereotype of being guys in a room cracking each other up with in-jokes while not being very entertaining.

Also, can't wait for the one dude to retire his hilarious Hillary impression, which is just an oddly emphasized madlib over and over: "I may not be (90s cultural figure) but I can really (phrase associated with that figure)."

I do laugh at the stuff they read sometimes, but it seems like lengthy re-enactments of Taibbi close-reading a Tom Friedman book, except that the people they attack are often twitter nobodies.

The clip of Michael Rappaport dissing them and their "coffee smelling breath" was funny though.

being a completionist about a politics podcast is the most onion a/v club thing i've ever heard

Listening to a podcast is the most Onion a/v Club thing and I'm embarrassed enough as is.

can someone explain to me what the hell michael rappaport's deal is? like i only recently figured out he did that ATCQ documentary thing (haven't seen it) and is a comedian/actor that's been in a bunch of stuff, but apparently he's also the broiest man alive and beefs with his teen son on twitter?

if this is too much of a sidebar i'll take it elsewhere

slogging through a pre-election podcast sounds fucking miserable

Yeah the post election EP was enough misery for me

and given that this toolbag seems to be the presumptive 2020 favorite of the DNC, which has not shown any indication of shifting platform aside from a few pockets of support for keith ellison, keeping the fire under the democrats might be the only thing that saves us from 4 additional years of actual fascism

― qualx

obviously there's room for enlightened disagreement, but from my perspective running a podcast where you call pundits "retards" is not an effective way of holding the democrats' feet to the fire. i'm getting a little bit sick of "resistance" movements that are run like the fuckin no man's sky kickstarter. yes, i'm very impressed with their dank meme stash, but perhaps now is the time to move in, run candidates with actual values, get people to the primaries, and take over.

sounds hard

it's not, really. bunch of prince hals playing at being guttersnipes. hey, you clever white boys, the world is yours. it has always been yours. come and take it.

Whether or not I agree with all rhetorical tactics, spreading the word re the uselessness of the pundit class and the Dem establishment is worthy work imo. They can do a lot to improve and become more effective critics and I hope they do.

They're basically doing what a bunch of bloggers have been doing for a decade or so, except they record it now in addition to typing it. I don't know why kicking off the revolution is their responsibility all of a sudden.

Seriously, if a bunch of dudes want to be the Dice Clay version of PJ O'Rourke in their spare time, they shouldn't be accountable to a fucking thing.

you know the rules boys, unless you devote every last second of your time and every last ounce of your strength to the struggle then you're not allowed to criticize anything

because nothing speaks to sincerity like being a career pol

Sweet, glad someone made a thread for these guys. Friend of mine turned me onto them a month before the election. The discussion about essentializing black ppl and calling them "magical" a couple episodes ago was great. & ripping apart the game theory guy. Weird intersection of radio worlds the other day with Rapaport, Nainan, and Adomian featured.

I got really on board about ten eps ago and have since almost caught up on every episode.

if you want a good intro listen to any episode about caleb, that is some of the funniest shit ever... poor caleb

dont really care about this podcast but 'bernie would have won' is a good meme

"seriously didn't realize there were still people aside from high ranking democrat pols and frederik who think the answer to defeating trumpism over the next 4 years is to double down on the 2016 strategy"

It's insane that I got this response. It couldn't be more of a reply to something I absolutely did not say, and I took pains to avoid being misread as some kind Hillarista argument. But it's pretty much indicative of the obstinacy of leftist twitter orthodoxy I brought up in the first place. It's like when you mention that Bernie didn't get the votes of older POC in primary, I get that it really bothers people to hear that (and it doesn't mean that he couldn't have gotten those votes in the general or a better run primary campaign where he acts like he's running to win from the start and not a "proving a point" campaign). The "rigged" narrative is toxic and seems childish to perpetuate. What do we mean when we say that? That the votes aren't real? We are aware that there's a vocal contingent of Bernie supporters that think Hillary won because "voter fraud" right? So yeah "carried away" it shouldn't be impossible to admit this.

ooh look a second politics thread

can someone explain to me what the hell michael rappaport's deal is? like i only recently figured out he did that ATCQ documentary thing (haven't seen it) and is a comedian/actor that's been in a bunch of stuff, but apparently he's also the broiest man alive and beefs with his teen son on twitter?

if this is too much of a sidebar i'll take it elsewhere

― mh 😏, Wednesday, January 4, 2017 9:50 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't have the answer, tho I thought the teen son beef thing was somehow faked? idk I guess id like to know the deal too. he was a gd actor circa 20 yrs ago

ooh look a second politics thread

Sad lol, I swear this was not my intention

anyway imo these guys suck

expand on that

no

Good man.

ooh look a second politics thread

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson)

holy shit, never would have predicted a discussion about a political podcast would turn political. is nothing safe anymore?

We should be taking about what kind of mics these guys use.

Yeah tbh their shitty mic situation turned me off at first. Way too tinny.

these dudes sound pretty unpleasant tbh

oh, the smelling salts

I guess more than general politics stuff I'm interested in new and (relatively) popular manifestations of dissent from the far left

I think it's interesting to compare/contrast their approach with (I guess?) their closest Canadian counterpart, the crowdfunded media criticism network Canadaland, which is much less dirtbag-y and more academic but similarly inclined to mock the pundit class. Their attempts to become a broader outlet of sorts has been hampered by their lack of dough.

ooh look a second politics thread

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson)

holy shit, never would have predicted a discussion about a political podcast would turn political. is nothing safe anymore?

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Wednesday, January 4, 2017 10:43 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're right, nm, change my answer to: thrilled to have identical circular fights for the next four years

sorry for the sarcasm. i too get tired of the same old shit propagating itself in new forms, particularly when the cause of the propagation is to try and escape the old forms. but we're all the same people, and we wind up saying the same things no matter what thread we do it on. my conclusion is that this particular medium is currently unsuited to meaningful political discussion.

we should start a podcast

you clearly haven't heard my lisp

didn't stop Mike Cernovitch

its premium only but the reign over me episode was pretty amazing. as punditry you can get the same stuff from lots of places, and tbh the more political import people imbue the show with i think the more boring its going to get. the anarchic structure and comedic stuff is what keeps me coming around. the part i find the dullest, because i actually already spend too much time on twitter is the "this week on weird twitter" roundup where i already know most of the stuff they're covering. the reading series is better to the extent i wouldn't have encountered this stuff otherwise, and to the extent they can find real gems. there was one where they had the niall ferguson article comparing brexit to divorce which was pretty great. stuff like that is where the vulgarity shines -- where there's already this insanely pathological sexual not-so-subtext to things and it deserves to be stated openly with appropriate language.

again it was a fish in a barrel type deal but the Ben Shapiro book reading segment was v funny

Chapo trap house is great. One of the few reliable sources of levity for me over the past year as things became increasingly bleak.

A lot of the show's detractors have clearly never even listened to an episode. They seem to get the idea that the show is some kind of left wing version of early 2000s hipster Vice "edgy" humor which is really not the case. It's a bunch of sarcastic dorks talking politics.

wow there really is no appealing way to describe it

lol you guys got me, I started listening to an episode and within minutes there was a joke about how one of them actually killed an abortion doctor... because he wasn't doing an abortion fast enough

no edgy comments here guys

i think they're equally sincere and sarcastic, that's the appeal for me. there isn't any other place to clown on pundits and twitter idiots like eichenwald, garland, douthat, shapiro, etc

there is... it's called.... twitter

someone recently said eichenwald was lib commenters favorite republican writer now, and I had no idea anyone took him seriously because i apparently follow no earnest liberal ppl and just get all the jokes about how he's horrible

I'm not deep into weird political twitter and Chapo is a nice digest

hope they can resist doing an entire episode about Josh Marshall of TPM (presumably) accidentally tweeting a pr0nhub link

they pretty much took care of that in the last 10 minutes of monday's episode

where there's already this insanely pathological sexual not-so-subtext to things and it deserves to be stated openly with appropriate language.

Yeah, their ability to cut thru the psychosexual/psychodrama that acts the primary animus of so many political figues(be they anti-trans bathroom warriors or pundits obsessed with divorce court) moreso than any actual ideology or political belief.

This really came to the fore when they attempted to interview Matthew Walther, a RW catholic writer from the Washington Free Beacon. They took a good shot at discussing the guy's POV before it all went to shit, and the guy started rapidly dissembling in real-time. The resulting audio was rejected as a premium show and just posted to YT.

Matt had a very funny blow up moment about 20 minutes in when it became clear the guy had no intention of actually defending what he claimed.

i think they're equally sincere and sarcastic

I agree with this; despite their rep they seem pretty earnest

That's the real trap, isn't it. When too much of your schtick relies on snark and attack without actually being *for* anything, you can fall down into complete hipster nihilism. Sorta the vibe I first remember encountering from reading too many Suck.com columns at once 20 years ago.

I'm listening to their episode about Hamilton/Kevin Williamson

Nothing better than people who think that they're better everyone calling other people "elites."

well i only call people I know are powerful AND worse than me elite. It's a select group.

*xp better than everyone, obviously

someone recently said eichenwald was lib commenters favorite republican writer now, and I had no idea anyone took him seriously because i apparently follow no earnest liberal ppl and just get all the jokes about how he's horrible

― mh 😏, Wednesday, January 4, 2017 3:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the only confirmation i get that anyway takes the idiots they clown seriously is from occasionally checking in on ilx politics threads.

With some of the people they clown it almost doesn't matter whether anyone takes them seriously. I had never even heard of a lot of them, and that's part of the fun, just discovering these kooky B-list hacks who continue to exist somehow although no one reads them.

the ep where they introduce ron fournier is pretty great for that reason. the affection for kooks and oddballs hiding in plain sight.

Also everything "Nerdstrom Poindexter" has said in this thread is pretty much the opposite of what has actually happened on the show, p sure he has not listened to it.

The eps about the columnist who writes an annual column about his son are amazing.

Huh? I've pretty much directly quoted things. I've listened to most episodes. Again the aspects I've criticized don't comprise the whole of the show just mirror the sort of ridiculous orthodoxies of the leftist twitter world it's a byproduct of.

X-post

Haha yes Caleb!

YES, everyone missing the point which is LISTEN TO THESE GUYS CLOWN ON JEFF JACOBY'S CALEB ARTICLES

the Shapiro and Doubt-that bits had me laughing like a loon. these guys are ok by me even if they veer off into the whole "no really HRC and libby elites *should* be locked up" a little much. but that seems as much hyperbolic comedy device as visceral hate (which i have no doubt they harbor) idk

They revisited recently but in an earlier ep accounted of then described attending various GOP primary events. The Kasich stuff (then introduced by Montez Williams) is great. He's characterized as an emotional dad who wants to start a conversation in a hardware store and they talk about how that is his very specific demographic.

* in an earlier ep they deacribef...*Montel Williams (of course)

boring does not mean annoying

guys I think they've been reading this thread
https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-70-wills-disclaimer-1417

of course they have because we are IMPORTANT CRITICAL VOICES

Today's premium episode was good, and the strongest they've done since talking to Adam Curtis.

what do you guys think the M stands for duhhhh

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the one weird thing to me about the general leftist online community represented by chapo is that their support (that i share!) of bernie sanders has crossed over from "this person would have been a better choice than hillary clinton and represents a better way forward for the democratic party" to a sort of cultish reverence that i find to be like incompatible w/ the way they view pretty much every other politician. like dudes like @crushingbort on twitter (rightly) shit on pretty much every living politician and then genuinely like retweet bernie sanders statements. makes me trust them less.

i don't like bernie at all but can appreciate some of the reasons ppl rally around him.... i will say i really don't understand what ppl actually expect from bernie himself (especially at this point) other than basically memes?

to have an unexpected figurehead in a high chamber of government who illustrates the possible viability of the ideas they like? i don't see why that's hard

Bernie Sanders is a United States senator.

no shit

Heroes and drinking: bad ideas, but hey

was responding to

" i will say i really don't understand what ppl actually expect from bernie himself (especially at this point) other than basically memes?"

Bernie Sanders is a United States senator.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Wednesday, January 4, 2017 8:09 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is he a particularly good one?

fuck sorry ok we don't have to do this

Don't we

Maybe you do
Maybe none of us really have choices

I've never heard one of their podcasts, so I can't address whatever acerbities they apparently deliver to their fan base, but I can figure out that, unless they move people to do something directed, organized, and politically effective, they are just entertainers who riff on politics, much as Jon Stewart was on the Daily Show. If so, then they are acting more like "fellow travelers" than bona fide socialist activists. Which is OK, but nothing to get excited about other than in a fanboy kind of way.

is he a particularly good one?

if we grade on a curve, he's easily in the top quintile, so, yes.

Which is OK, but nothing to get excited about other than in a fanboy kind of way.

Well, yeah. It's just a good podcast.

Which they explicitly say in today's show, even.

Here, click this; it's a tiny excerpt, just 2:22 long.

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-70-wills-disclaimer-1417

Hah yeah I was gonna say

(Although i think they are wrong politics really is mostly voting - either by voters or legislatures)

Christman is an absolute master of the rant, even though he has occasionally repeated himself.

Agreed but he needs to work on his mic technique, he always sounds far away

didn't much like the last soundcloud ep but the new patreon one (#70, the one that clip's from), is v good as summation of their ideology and deal, if not unique+informative like their interviews can be. good time to jump on.

gonna have to change my life in 2017 because matt routinely yells into the mic on a ~24hr delay exactly the same shit i yell at my gf while driving (i swear after painstaking disclaimers to the effect of pls tell me to stfu whenever) and i guess he's getting $10k a month for it?

that sounded bitterer than i meant. have found him a fucking relief to listen to tbh.

(note my textbook b-bro behavior.)

the one weird thing to me about the general leftist online community represented by chapo is that their support (that i share!) of bernie sanders has crossed over from "this person would have been a better choice than hillary clinton and represents a better way forward for the democratic party" to a sort of cultish reverence that i find to be like incompatible w/ the way they view pretty much every other politician. like dudes like @crushingbort on twitter (rightly) shit on pretty much every living politician and then genuinely like retweet bernie sanders statements. makes me trust them less.

i'm not on twitter but they don't behave w cultish reverence on the show. i mean they like him. because he stands for left-wing policy and means it, in america 2017. it's not complicated.

they're certainly not expecting any kind of rescue from him.

I simply cannot grasp how a bunch of socialists and social democrats are so seemingly fond of the only national political figure who could be described as either one.

was jesus really that much better than barrabas when u think of it

All that stuff Jesus said on the Mount was really not so different from the things Barrabas would holler at his gf while driving

en revanche tho

would we in this alternate scenario just have made a messiah of barbie, were the barbiebros just waiting for the circumstances

I've never heard one of their podcasts, so I can't address whatever acerbities they apparently deliver to their fan base, but I can figure out that, unless they move people to do something directed, organized, and politically effective, they are just entertainers who riff on politics, much as Jon Stewart was on the Daily Show. If so, then they are acting more like "fellow travelers" than bona fide socialist activists. Which is OK, but nothing to get excited about other than in a fanboy kind of way.

Is anyone excited about them in more than a fanboy way tho? I really can't comprehend how the existence and/or popularity of political comedy or jokey political commentary upsets some of you guys. I listen to this podcast for the same reason I read politics threads on this board, because there are jokes and occasional interesting points, not because I think we're activating change.

I guess it must be the media attention that's getting people up in arms. I mean, The Professional Left podcast has been obsessing over Ron Fournier and David Brooks for 7 years.

if you want a left podcast with actual leftist activists, listen to delete your account

(to the tune of $30k+ per month coming in via Pateron)

i mean they like him. because he stands for left-wing policy

Did they ever address Sanders' "yeah, targeted drone killings, keep going" statement of last spring?

imo whispering "bernie would have won" as a twitter meme is, in part, a reaction to any anti-trump sentiment being replied to with a torrent of "clinton is horrible, dnc is horrible, etc"

it's like some shorthand for a third way

also imo it's a funny meme

I simply cannot grasp how a bunch of socialists and social democrats are so seemingly fond of the only national political figure who could be described as either one.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Thursday, 5 January 2017 08:36 (eight hours ago) Permalink

The point isn't that there are politicians they agree with more, they're hilariously joyless about Bernie in a way that feels hypocritical. If I read another stupid post by the show's acolytes with "the Bernie bro smear" ...

Anyway I've never listened to this show but the people who follow them are super annoying

Judging something by its fans is silly... having said that, super irritated by Will's fucked up pronunciation of "hilarious" in latest episode ("hiLAHrious")

he also pronounced the adjective "august" like the month about five closely spaced times in a row

... how else do you pronounce august

aw-gust (as in gust of wind)

emphasis on the second syllable

i never use it tho cuz it normalizes

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Augustus_Bevilacqua_Glyptothek_Munich_317.jpg/220px-Augustus_Bevilacqua_Glyptothek_Munich_317.jpg

The point isn't that there are politicians they agree with more, they're hilariously joyless about Bernie in a way that feels hypocritical. If I read another stupid post by the show's acolytes with "the Bernie bro smear" ...

...

Anyway I've never listened to this show

Re: "Bernie Would Have Won"

Is it? It seems pretty expressly synonymous with "we were right"/gesture of dismissal, this is based on who I've seen use it. Part of the joke is to keep repeating it after someone tries to debate with you. A third way would be "Bernie 2020" or something like that (granted it's not funny or not funny because it isn't mean). I could understand it as a reply if someone was blaming Bernie or definitively saying "Bernie wouldn't have one", neither position I agree with.

the real needle in "bernie would have won" is that it means "hillary could have won"

imo the joy is realizing there's very little hay in that needlestack

it's just a bit of a laugh, bit of a joke. "Bernie Would Have Won," at least used by the Chapo guys, is not some hectoring catchphrase. remember these guys are deep into weird twitter where stuff like "hope jobs cash" and @KattWillFerrell were born.

I don't know those dudes really hate Hillary. I'm glad going forward we're free of the Clinton baggage and not having to defend them anymore but this year seeing the left I was just like "holy shit can we walk this back a bit?". Will Menaker actually told Adam Curtis "hey to should make your next movie about the Clinton campaign!" and I starte to wonder are they going to reach back to complaining about stuff like Lena Dunham doing some campaign video barely anyone knows about throughout the next 4 years?

It seems pretty expressly synonymous with "we were right"

yeah that's what it means. it matters who was right about democratic party political strategy in 2016. the party is going to have to have an argument with itself and decide who was right, so that it can decide what to do. "bernie 2020" is a goofy wish for the future -- i certainly hope bernie's not still the only left dem choice in 2020 and i certainly hope the left doesn't spend four years sitting around hoping for bernie. "bernie would've won" is an assertion about the past. making those is how you decide what to do. xps

Judging something by its fans is silly...

But this is what the Chapo bros do with Hamilton

Not really, they mostly made fun of the play itself and its shitty, unlistenable music.

fu

I am pro-Hamilton as a musical but anti-Hamilton as a thing pols and libs cite seriously as An Inspiration so their hatred of it kinda warms my heart tbh

I love when people rap about dead presidents, but for some reason not into a show based on one president performed as rap

President Hamilton yo

Did they ever address Sanders' "yeah, targeted drone killings, keep going" statement of last spring?

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, January 5, 2017 6:08 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sry morbs i've been ignoring this only because i hoped someone else would remember. i meant left econ policy of course. there's a good ep w jeremy scahill that's plenty caustic about drone policy and that i don't remember having too much fucking around in it, maybe there's a mention in there.

suspect yr implication is correct and that they more or less let it pass, but that's because their wing's support for bernie at this point is not based on his singular personal moral purity or even the moral superiority of leftism (tho the latter remains regardless) but on his and its ability to win.

I don't think Sanders had a coherent plan as far as what to do about military action. I mean, he went into the primary season not expecting to do as well as he did and was trying to push an economic/social(ist) platform and that remained the focus until he dropped out. I have no clue what he would have done had he actually gotten to the point of having to address it. If you check out his platform, it's under the vaguely titled "War and Peace" 3/4 of the way down the page
https://berniesanders.com/issues/

The general race didn't have anyone pushing the quality of life of people in other countries or the ongoing military presence outside of vague references to Syria and who was for or against invading Iraq (who gives a fuck, it's over a decade later, how about current events). Drones = less Americans on the ground and less questioning whether there should be an American presence at all because no one's on the ground so people don't seem to care

even the plight of people in Syria became a joke (Johnson's Aleppo gaffe) or some sort of token Russian interference implication in the Clinton/Trump debates, which was gross

brb vomiting into my trash can

all otm.

The point isn't that there are politicians they agree with more, they're hilariously joyless about Bernie in a way that feels hypocritical. If I read another stupid post by the show's acolytes with "the Bernie bro smear" ...
...

Anyway I've never listened to this show
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Thursday, 5 January 2017 18:04 (yesterday) Permalink

How is this a contradiction?

And no it's not actually dumb to be dismissive of something bc of how it's followers act

I'm sure if I listen I'll find some equivalent of "the Bernie bro smear."

its hugely dumb to be dismissive of something because of how its followers act

like au contraire or w/e but cmon

lol there were literally a handful of people at my caucus in '08 chanting "obama! obama!" during the negotiation phase following the initial vote

darn obama bros

can we all just lock this thread and FP each other? that's the result. Let's move quickly

they swallowed the bambrosia

its hugely dumb to be dismissive of something because of how its followers act

It's been said you shall know the tree by its fruit, but otoh the quality of the fruit usually varies a lot on the same tree, so what does that say, eh?

a root and branch examination required

give it its natural manure

full length version of the remix they use for the theme song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-EaMFALFVU

great interview with Felix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxU94bxoeuo

annoyed and suspicious though that these guys struggle with pronouncing certain words (felix says "solipistic" toward the end of that vid...)

I'm not. English ain't a phonetic language, and if you primarily deal in written words moreso than talkin', stumbling can occur.

I still have problems pronouncing "epistemological," for example.

yeh i usually take the mispronunciation of complexish words to indicate an autodidact and i trust autodidacts even in our terrifying era of Fakery

he totally fails to get to the bottom of this "cuck" shit tho

def nitpicking here, i'm just used to radio people and people that have been podcasting for years, i know these guys have only been doing it for a year

lol makes me remember in college when hipster students were making fun of a girl for mispronouncing "Foucault" in class--but I only took it to mean she'd actually been reading whereas they had just been listening to people yammer about him.

otm

I was a voracious reader as a kid and probably mispronounced more than my fair share of words when I had college roommates to talk to all the time.

It does say something about the level of social and political engagement we're talking about, though -- if you're out in your community knocking on doors for candidates, talking to people after attending city council meetings, or even going to some "leftists meet at the bar" group you're going to trip over your words less than these guys do? At least if, at some point, you're used to making points to multiple people in a non-conversational way.

Some of their podcast conversations remind me of earlier in the year when I was busy doing some work on my house and mostly programming all day at work. When I actually was sitting in several meetings per day after that time, I had more than a few sentences that went nowhere and stumbled over words.

if you're out in your community knocking on doors for candidates, talking to people after attending city council meetings

kitchen-table discussions about solipsism and foucault

(no i agree expression improves w practice)

short version: I don't think these guys actually discuss any of this shit with people irl

lol at thinking not having regular conversations about solipsism is a demerit

nobody thought that, that was... the joke

oh, ok. it's been a long week. sorry.

lol at the idea of chiding "elitists" for occasionally mispronouncing things

this is the worst thread in the history of ilx, and the internet

You're welcome?

this is the worst thread in the history of ilx, and the internet

Oh come now we had a week of the Social Activism thread that was far more notable

so glad we could turn the thread about the funny podcast with the sex jokes and the yelling at bad articles into a secondhand dissection of the organizing capacity of bernie supporters based on how somebody pronounces the word august.

excuse me i only brought it up to illustrate these alleged leftists' craven embrace of the octavian usurpation

by far the worst of the ludlums

Is there a site that measures or tracks various Patreon accounts? I'm curious what their subscription levels have been over the past 6+ months. They've had an increase of a grand in the last week alone

Wow, they mentioned in a past episode that they were just below Canadaland, but they've more than doubled Canadaland's monthly take now

I think they had something like 1600 patrons when i subscribed in October but i may be misremembering.

7,337 patrons as of now

Did they ever address Sanders' "yeah, targeted drone killings, keep going" statement of last spring?

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, January 5, 2017 6:08 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sry morbs i've been ignoring this only because i hoped someone else would remember.

specifically mentioned in ep 11

they're almost at $400k / year. crazy

pompelmoose beardo is getting so rich off this shit

I bit the bullet and subscribed, the solo eps are v different and fun

Somebody put together an unofficial Discord group:

https://discordapp.com/invite/2w7ekS2

Lookit that, here's some data:

https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators

Currently behind the Kinda Funny show, and...uh...Amanda Palmer.

Ok, here's the chart I was looking for:

https://graphtreon.com/creator/chapotraphouse

Something happened on Nov 16 after I quit them, how'd they get so likey there?

new yorker profile?

it was that or The Dirtbag Left Gazzette

the cat poop meltdown was pretty...

or gazette.

Has anyone listened to Cum Town? Seems to be a sister podcast of sorts but I can't figure out from the descriptions what it even is.

I've listened to a few episodes. They & the chapo guys are mutual fans and the chapo guys have guested on it a few times. not even really remotely similar as far as content, it's just a few comics who are like NY twitter dudes making jokes about jerking off, and how brandon wardell sucks. best part is that they use the home improvement theme song as their theme song. gonna unsubscribe.

Yeah, Cum Town is recorded in Felix & Amber's apartment, since Nick is their roommate(and why Nick shows up on Chapo from time to time). Amber's cats show up on both shows, and Brendon(who produces both)'s twitter feed.

Yeah, the only connection between the shows is social, although I do remember the immediate election aftermath eps of each had CT talking about policy/campaign failures and and CTH being more emotional & personals, like they had switched topics for a day.

did they want to be less serious than chapo and were like uhh our side of the apartment is cum town and such is our podcast

Sure why not

"that's the left, this is dirtbag"

the cat poop meltdown was pretty...

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Monday, January 9, 2017 4:07 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is def weird that they're going to make around 400 grand a year of almost pure profit from this show and still don't rent a recording studio or anything.

if you can make that much without a studio are you really going to make that much more with, and if so, won't someone be renting it for you

yeah they don't necessarily need a studio to sound better or avoid a cat fucking up half their mics. just more experience like four SM7's or something. pocket that shit

I prefer my podcasts to get by on a shoestring budget no matter how much the donors are kicking in, like the Trump campaign

I DMed Brendan about it, who said he's recording the show straight into his laptop, which explains that. I wish people would stop relying on computers to record this stuff, the failure rate never helps.

I suggested using a separate digital recorder, like a Zoom H4N or an R16 so he can record channel-specific sound files for up to 8 mics

Listened to the ep and yeah it was pretty annoying. I don't need them to go to a studio, I enjoy the home-recorded vibe, I just want to be able to hear everyone and not have half-interviews lost.

At the amount they're grossing it's absurd.

tbh they should be paying someone for that advice

True, but they're not professional broadcasters, and I'm guessing none of them did college radio to learn the (sorta?) basics

i actually enjoyed the cat shit episode ok because of the true allegiance reading

altho since i think of virgil and felix as "the funny ones" the first half was not optimum

they are going to have a field day with this latest bit of business

Seems like the Keepin it 1600 guys have set up the anti-dirty left media group with accompanying podcast away from Simmons.

lol

@cushbomb
2023: Heartwarming President Cory Booker personally hugs every citizen before they are fed into the protein processors.

I like their annotations on this risible op-ed
http://genius.it/11154026/www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/221558/time-to-fight-for-your-party

love the show but gotta say these dudes and their cadre on twitter seem just a leeetle too sure that a lot of those trump voters aren't really racist and would have so totally voted for Bern. and shit, man, thats just wrong.

i think they mean the Trump voters in the Rust Belt

yeah no racists in Indiana amirite

obv referring to WI, MI, PA. Indiana was never in play for Clinton.

There's a very good possibility Dollars Horton isn't aware that the GOP voted to end the C.H.I.P program but he's VERY upset with Booker for voting against Bernie's amendment.

love the show but gotta say these dudes and their cadre on twitter seem just a leeetle too sure that a lot of those trump voters aren't really racist and would have so totally voted for Bern. and shit, man, thats just wrong.

― will, Thursday, January 12, 2017 10:23 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the same rust belt voters who voted for Obama would be in play for Bernie. He polled well with them.

Here we go again

Actually ilx user man alive and, eventually, k3vin, you're both wrong and will is correct

I think they, rightfully, recognize a difference in the 40%+ who will vote Republican no matter what and the seemingly large percentage who swung at the last moment with Comey's letter-slash-were looking for an excuse to not vote Hillary.

I pretty much agree with all of that. HRC carried a lot of baggage. I mean that was a big reason why a lot of us opposed her in 08. I feel like it's impossible not to subscribe to Bernie Might Have Won, I can't imagine why anyone would definitely dismiss that.. "Would Have" I've seen embraced by Bernie or Busters who I had to watch repeat right wing talking points..

*definitively

Of course Bernie "might" have one, Hillary might have won too given different butterfly wing patterns, the only ones being overconfident are those acting like Bernie definitely would have

We never got to see the oppo against him enacted but trump was a better politician than either of them

*won

That kind of reminds me how hypothetical candidates always poll better and you never know what narrative will take shape when the actual campaign happens so it's kind of annoying when they cite polls as proof that Bernie's victory was some kind of certainty. That's a definite "baby's first election" kind of thing though that tendency is in no way exclusive to the young.. But this was an election where conventional thinking was proven incorrect and conventional thinking certainly formed the basis of a lot of Dems choice of Hillary over Bernie.

For the Chapo crew (and similar people like Katie Halper), the "Bernie would have won" thing sounds less like continuing the primary and more like a rallying cry around having the Democrats actually act like a progressive party.

They didn't want Bernie to get the nom for Bernie's sake, they're leftists who want to see the Democrats move left. For better or worse that rallying point right now is Bernie.

it's one thing to suppose all of trump's rust-belt voters were too committed to racism to vote anyone but trump and another to suppose all of hillary's no-shows were too committed to no-showing to show for anyone at all.

There's also that small matter of getting the almost half of the country that doesn't vote involved

That kind of reminds me how hypothetical candidates always poll better and you never know what narrative will take shape when the actual campaign happens so it's kind of annoying when they cite polls as proof that Bernie's victory was some kind of certainty.

also worth bearing in mind that polling was essentially totally fucking useless in this election cycle

eh, for every rust belter voter Bernie would have put "in play" with there would probably have been a Virginia voter worried about their taxes going up

I never intend "Bernie Would Have Won" to be a literal certainty. For me it's a shorthand for "Donald Trump was beatable and you need to rethink your conventional wisdom about electability and centrism."

National polls showing that Bernie was more popular than Trump or Clinton certainly do not guarantee he would have won. However, national polls about Clinton's unpopularity proved accurate.

Her popularity rating only became negative in 2015. At one point she was the most popular politician in the US. So as volatile as they were, their accuracy was hard to know about.

It's not that I'm sure Bernie would have won, but the reasons given for why he "definitely wouldn't" are stupid. "He's a Jewish socialist." So what? Barack Obama is a black man with a muslim father who spent part of his childhood in indonesia and whose middle name is Hussein. "They have opposition research on him." Same is true of every candidate. "He's too far left." Things don't always break down along clear political lines. People respond well to the gut feeling that someone cares about them and that they can trust them. "Bernie Would Have Won" = abandon your truisms about presidential elections, the ones that helped you lose this election.

That post Ian painfully stupid. Barack Obama is the best politician of his generation. Bernie sanders is wish fulfillment candidate for people harboring a fantasy that most of the country is secretely super left wing & we just need to type in the right cheat code

*is painfully stupid

Bernie Sanders is not super left wing, as right-center politician Barack Obama said a couple weeks ago

Like, I agree the Democratic Party should push to the left. I don't agree that pushing to the left will inherently win us elections. It's the right thing to do; it is not intrinsically the way to win

Putin has video of Bernie in a hotel getting up to pee 20 times in one night

lol

Like, I agree the Democratic Party should push to the left. I don't agree that pushing to the left will inherently win us elections. It's the right thing to do; it is not intrinsically the way to win

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, January 13, 2017 10:54 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Of course it won't "inherently" win elections, but neither will continuing to pick "compromise" candidates that very few people actually feel any enthusiasm for!

no thread is safe from this crap apparently

main problem w Clinton was perception that she was corrupt, not that she was too centrist #BidenWouldHaveWon

this thread is one of the circles of hell

NRO: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443804/new-left-dirtbag-left-chapo-trap-house-jacobin-magazine-liberals-democratic-party

Of course it won't "inherently" win elections, but neither will continuing to pick "compromise" candidates that very few people actually feel any enthusiasm for!

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, January 13, 2017 11:06 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And no one here thinks it will

#CarcettiWouldHaveWon

there is an infrastructure surrounding the remnants of HRC's campaign, very influential and well connected, that is committed to absolving itself of any mistakes *and* simultaneously heading off any policy shift in the party.

there is an infrastructure surrounding the remnants of HRC's campaign, very influential and well connected, that is committed to absolving itself of any mistakes *and* simultaneously heading off any policy shift in the party.

― goole

yes yes the curia of the democratic party, sure, but they failed to get hrc elected and they're going to fail to absolve themselves. people are, apparently, finally sick and tired of letting these dirtbags get away with business as usual, at least if reaction to cory booker is anything to go by.

is that reaction amongst "the people" or the people on twitter?

that NRO profile is actually pretty good!

Of course it won't "inherently" win elections, but neither will continuing to pick "compromise" candidates that very few people actually feel any enthusiasm for!

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, January 13, 2017 11:06 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And no one here thinks it will

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, January 13, 2017 12:31 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And one consequence of that realization, among others, should be the realization that being "left" does not PER SE disqualify a candidate, and that the centrist candidate is not PER SE more electable just because s/he is a "compromise." That's the point I am trying to get across.

I mean you're saying "no one thinks it will" but that was exactly the justification we kept hearing for why Clinton was the better candidate.

eh, for every rust belter voter Bernie would have put "in play" with there would probably have been a Virginia voter worried about their taxes going up

didn't know chuck schumer posted here

they're using the most alarming parts of the trump win -- the harassment, the illiberalism, the racism, the links to russo-european nationalism -- as a club to beat anyone who says hillary just might have blown this a little bit. if you say the democrats should and could have done something differently, then you somehow in favor of these forces

the harassment, the illiberalism, the racism, the links to russo-european nationalism

also, butterfly theory

didn't know chuck schumer posted here

he posts as xhuxk sxhumer iirc

lol

love the show but gotta say these dudes and their cadre on twitter seem just a leeetle too sure that a lot of those trump voters aren't really racist and would have so totally voted for Bern. and shit, man, thats just wrong.

― will, Thursday, January 12, 2017 10:23 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

literally no one on the left - well at least no one were talking about in this thread - is saying bernie would have swayed trump voters, or that a move to the left will turn trump voters into future democrat voters. in fact in one of the post election shows matt made this very point, saying "fuck trump voters", which i think we can all get behind.

trump basically got the same votes as mitt romney, the swing of the dreaded WWC to trump from obama was actually fairly small (although really highlighted in the liberal media, quelle surprise). the "bernie would have won" idea is that perhaps working class people - not just white - would've turned out to vote more than they did if the dem candidate had spoke more to working class economic concerns instead of going for the now infamous chuck schumer strategy: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia".

imo both democrats and republicans have raced to the bottom to get those suburban voters

I could see republicans actually liking a stronger presence further to the left because they'd have a counterpoint to debate against instead of the current neoliberal glut where they're pushing further on stupid positions in order to create a voting bloc. When, in the search of something to stand for, you come up with "strip all the healthcare from people we possibly can" and "guns should be available to all people in all places at all times" your platform is bankrupt

but at least you stand for something!!

i think this is why things like chapo are valuable: the 'infighting' just has to be gotten on with. it can't be avoided, the differences are real.

what are you supposed to do with sentiments like these?

https://twitter.com/smoothkobra/status/819425543464583168

https://twitter.com/carlckitchen/status/819795551822565376

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C16sGQyXEAEyIhR.jpg

this last person worked for newt gingrich for a while! i mean, fine, there's mercenaries in DC, but come on

ftr i don't think the dem primary was 'rigged' or that sanders was cheated out of it or something. HRCs vote margins were unfakeable and his strength in the odder caucus formats was (uh) problematic

sometimes I daydream about an inversion of our current political scenario where the cities are hotbeds of racist right-wing nutjobs murdering each other with their guns and no healthcare, and a minority of leftist voters in the rural heartland actually run the country thx to the institutionalized electoral apportionment flukes of our stupid system

I didn't know Fred had three Twitter accounts, weird.

idk if that Albright lady should be held up as an example of anything because she's so insanely wrong-headed about... pretty much everything

literally no one on the left - well at least no one were talking about in this thread - is saying bernie would have swayed trump voters, or that a move to the left will turn trump voters into future democrat voters.

Lol this is blatantly not true. Scroll up?

xp and that silicon valley woman who was retweeted for her stupid facebook rant that was cross-posted to facebook is straight-up one of those "stupid racists live in the middle of nowhere, fuck em" republicans in democrat clothing

I didn't know Fred had three Twitter accounts, weird.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), 13. januar 2017 19:17 (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I get my information from SNL, so I know full well that Clinton could have supported gay marriage earlier, thank you very much.

that NRO profile was surprisingly good! thanks for sharing, simon

is that reaction amongst "the people" or the people on twitter?

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes)

a small minority giving a shit about stuff like this is a big step up from this time last year. also, it's pretty much all the people you actually need.

it might convert a few people who voted out of a will to blow up the system because it gives them nothing

more likely it would attract different people who are marginally attached to politics (for the same reasons) and stayed home

it's more likely that *both* of those slices of people could be motivated by star qualities/likability/charisma that obama had in spades and HRC didn't -- not policy shifts! which is something to keep in mind

xp to d-40

xp and that silicon valley woman who was retweeted for her stupid facebook rant that was cross-posted to facebook is straight-up one of those "stupid racists live in the middle of nowhere, fuck em" republicans in democrat clothing

― mh 😏, Friday, January 13, 2017 12:21 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jesus yes this woman was police

literally no one on the left - well at least no one were talking about in this thread - is saying bernie would have swayed trump voters, or that a move to the left will turn trump voters into future democrat voters.

Lol this is blatantly not true. Scroll up?

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, January 13, 2017 10:20 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh did some ilx poster say it? they say a lot of things

Bernie is a unique figure in american politics; there's probably no one alive Dems can run with as pure a record as him and left will prob unilaterally hate everyone they run. Booker, Cuomo may be particularly bad but i'm skeptical that these people will be satisfied with someone just a little better

celebrities! don't u read Jeet Heer (lol, like that's a name)

i think we need to distinguish between "democrats who really did fall in love with bernie" and "leftists who were excited that social democracy looked like it had a shot in democratic politics"

sounds like a funny podcast!

(lol, like that's a name)

what is the point of statements like these

I like to listen to podcasts along with audiobooks they pass the time on my commute

Fwiw I think many of us are in agreement but it's kind of a threading the needle thing, and from my experience in whatever my online bubble happens to be, I've been much more resistent to the dirtbag left (speaking of the world they inhabit not the podcast itself)'s self conception as the true leftists or w/e, which I intend not as a critique from the center, but from 1. The (coughs) "identarian left" and 2. A more philosophical argument about the nature of politics as a performance and the left's insistence on an educated/rational "authority" that half the country is quite perceptively dismissive of

insistence on an educated/rational "authority" that half the country is quite perceptively dismissive of

this def sounds like a losing stratagem

i think we need to distinguish between "democrats who really did fall in love with bernie" and "leftists who were excited that social democracy looked like it had a shot in democratic politics"

― goole

i'm not sure there many, if any, of the latter. most leftists i know seem to have developed a pretty strong commitment to the failure narrative. if bernie had won plenty of leftists would be denouncing him as a "sell-out" right now.

what is the 'failure narrative'

sort of moving the goalposts so that they never manage to get anything they want. it's kind of, uh... like the way PETA operates. anything that isn't outrage or doesn't allow them to be outraged seems to not be particularly useful to them.

that's dumb

like bernie voters were super butthurt he didn't get the nomination lol

I love the NRO headline, they decided to blow their audience's mind right off the bat with "no, really, there are people to the LEFT of Obama and Clinton!!!"

i'm not talking bernie voters here, i'm talking about people for whom bernie was totally compromised and implicated because he chose to run as a democrat.

So, like the 15 Stalinists who still live in the US?

really? am i really friends with half the communists in the united states? i mean. i guess it makes me feel better that most people aren't that silly, but considering i've never been a red myself i'm not sure how that happened.

jesus people how did you not get sick of this argument like two months ago.

why are you replaying the same discussion over and over like obsessively reliving the circumstances of the trauma of some psychic wound while circling around the absent subject

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/better-red-than-dead-3.png

jesus people how did you not get sick of this argument like two months ago.

why are you replaying the same discussion over and over like obsessively reliving the circumstances of the trauma of some psychic wound while circling around the absent subject

― the klosterman weekend (s.clover)

i think you've answered your own question

while the failure narrative definitely applies to PETA, I don't think the Chapo guys are into that at all, and they don't come off as fatalistic or rigid...

yeah sorry if i'm confusing anybody here, i really have no opinion at all on the chapo house trap guys except that they make way more money than i do for talking shit on the internet and i am jealous.

speaking as a vegan i think PETA are huge dickbags but tbh any and all animal rights activism is per se going to be unsuccesful because people don't give a shit about animals, politics are a little bit less of a fruitless task

no thread is safe from this crap apparently

fuck. yeah. my fault guys sorry.

my point is the trap house dudes et al are aggressively antagonistic towards the center left where there should be coalition building, and weirdly deferential to "working class" whites who are unapologetically racist and will happily live in a card board box under a bridge as long as the brown ppl don't even have a box and Trump 'sticks it' to those PC latte losers

speaking as someone who really doesn't give a shit about animals i think animal rights activism is a much less thankless task than a lot of vegans assume. i was reading a couple weeks ago about "snow buddies", which was just a horrible unmitigated disaster. peta found out about it and asked disney not to release it, but disney ignored them and peta apparently didn't ever follow up on it because they have this point of view that everything is horrible and are apparently congenitally unable to commit to any sort of concrete actions to advocate for animal rights. the film went straight to video, made millions, and nobody knew anything about it until it became an internet meme. yeah congratulations peta you're less effective than internet memes at advocating for animal rights.

why bother apologizing if you're just going to piss all over it in the next paragraph xp

no thread is safe from this crap apparently

fuck. yeah. my fault guys sorry.

my point is the trap house dudes et al are aggressively antagonistic towards the center left where there should be coalition building, and weirdly deferential to "working class" whites who are unapologetically racist and will happily live in a card board box under a bridge as long as the brown ppl don't even have a box and Trump 'sticks it' to those PC latte losers

― will, Friday, January 13, 2017 11:52 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this isn't true.

Fwiw I think many of us are in agreement but it's kind of a threading the needle thing, and from my experience in whatever my online bubble happens to be, I've been much more resistent to the dirtbag left (speaking of the world they inhabit not the podcast itself)'s self conception as the true leftists or w/e, which I intend not as a critique from the center, but from 1. The (coughs) "identarian left" and 2. A more philosophical argument about the nature of politics as a performance and the left's insistence on an educated/rational "authority" that half the country is quite perceptively dismissive of

One issue I have with the dirtbag left, or at least with its twitter manifestation, is that the glee with which it bashes “identitarian” overreach started to have more than whiff of anti-feminist backlash at a certain point. It feels like once a day some random activist posts something silly like this:

https://twitter.com/sam_kriss/status/819282452707479552

and it becomes a focal point of mockery for the weird/left twittersphere.

And I get it sometimes, people post some silly stuff, and some twitter activist celebs (@shanley for instance) are obviously just baiting everyone. And I think there’s definitely something to the central critique that some of the stuff that gets called “identity politics” can be easily co-opted and used to lend legitimacy to unjust systems without creating change. But the way that the weird/left twitter sets its targets on a particular type of "intersectional" twitter activist got pretty tiresome to me at a certain point.

I say this not to condemn CTH, which I’ve only listened to once. I’m talking about the “dirtbag left” part of this thread’s title.

what are the demographics of the dirtbag left

relatedly, what are the demographics of chappie trap house

genuine q idk anything about these memesters and I haven't heard this podcast

the NRO profile unintentionally goes from the meanest to the dumbest sentence i've read about them:

Much of the commentary from the dirtbag Left sounds more like Peter Thiel’s speech at the Republican National Convention than something you’d hear at Occupy Wall Street.

Throughout the campaign, the Chapo gang acknowledged Hillary Clinton’s various flaws.

nm it was just an idle question I've since looked it up, I had a feeling the answer to both questions was "three white dudes" but I swear I didn't peek before I asked

why bother apologizing if you're just going to piss all over it in the next paragraph xp

well i'm specifically talking trap house, not trying to fire shots in the general culture wars that have taken over every politics thread. but i appreciate how my criticism (And again, LOVE the show) only serves the latter

Three white dudes, one Jewish dude, one Asian dude, one corn-fed white(I think) lady, one small chihuahua/terrier-type, two cats

chapped hole crap house

my point is the trap house dudes et al are aggressively antagonistic towards the center left where there should be coalition building, and weirdly deferential to "working class" whites who are unapologetically racist and will happily live in a card board box under a bridge as long as the brown ppl don't even have a box and Trump 'sticks it' to those PC latte losers

― will, Friday, January 13, 2017 11:52 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this isn't true.

― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver),

which part? re trap house or wcw?

I like the sound of this chihuahua/terrier type

and weirdly deferential to "working class" whites who are unapologetically racist

this is the most common charge and it's not true

No results found for "chappaquiddick trap house".

are aggressively antagonistic towards the center left where there should be coalition building

one, i don't think this antagonism is ever going to stop.

two, a whole lot of bereaved clinton fans are still STILL talking about bernie sanders being the great racist pied piper traitor. meanwhile, the guy is out there doing real political work and hillary has disappeared.

i don't even think it's a symmetrical fixation, the anti-bernie people i can see are far more blindly rabid. zero effort at coalition-building from center types, none.

They're doubling down; it's their party and they're not giving it up

also, make all complaints to the New Republic:

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139751/hillary-clintons-cabinet-bad

this is the most common charge and it's not true

Yeah, that's been the sticking point since November, right? The squashing together of a buncha different demographics into something that just reinforced the pre-existing beliefs most politicos and commentators had anyway that can't be disturbed by actual post-election analyses of who did what.

xposts my post makes it sound like i think *all* WCW are racists, and that's not my intent.

rather it seems (to me) that some of the Bernbros are ok with a little racism (misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia), or at least not as bothered by it as they are left-of-center incrementalism. FWIW, I do not think this applies to Bernie.

bernie knows the struggle, he had a black acquaintance tell him three decades ago that it was difficult to hail a taxi at times. he knows what's going down in the streets.

sanders lost fair and square and his combo of personality, history and politics didn't get any foothold in crucial dem constituencies. but it's not enough for some people! if you say that maybe talking about core bread and butter concerns might move the needle more than events with katy perry or dabbing on ellen, idk, you're just another email obsessed misogynist who doesn't care if the klan takes over the great plains.

zero effort at coalition-building from center types,

won't argue with that, particularly as 'center types' applies to a lot of smug paid opinion-havers.

anyway. TRAP HOUSE. v good show and will continue to listen and prob even send them $$$

two, a whole lot of bereaved clinton fans are still STILL talking about bernie sanders being the great racist pied piper traitor. meanwhile, the guy is out there doing real political work and hillary has disappeared.

i don't even think it's a symmetrical fixation, the anti-bernie people i can see are far more blindly rabid. zero effort at coalition-building from center types, none.

― goole

boy, i just don't run in those circles at all. i see far more people on my feed bitching about clinton and obama than people with even one bad word to say about bernie.

as for hillary's disappearance, thank god! if people are still calling her satan after she's pulled a vanishing act, imagine the reaction she'd be getting if she was doing or saying anything at all.

ha isn't she going to Broadway shows and the inauguration? Quite a disappearance.

I keep feeling like "working class" as a phrase is completely broken because it brings to mind this idea of industrial or manual labor, or at least workers with hourly wages as opposed to salaried positions. But a lot of the jobs at that end of the payscale (or lower, a decent union factory job can pay better) are in call centers for insurance or financial services

people are fuming about "racists in the working class" but the working class they're really talking about is people who call them about mortgage payments or the cashier at starbucks

after she's pulled a vanishing act

The NY Times was relentlessly floating the "HRC for NYC mayor" trial balloon about a week ago, so that's some disappearance. I'm sure the clan's camp had noooothing to do with it, of course.

zero effort at coalition-building from center types, none.

Schumer endorsed Ellison over Perez

The NY Times was relentlessly floating the "HRC for NYC mayor" trial balloon about a week ago, so that's some disappearance. I'm sure the clan's camp had noooothing to do with it, of course.

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius)

sorry, charlie, she's your problem now.

that's a good counterpt fl0p

I like the sound of this chihuahua/terrier type

That would be Will's dog:

https://mobile.twitter.com/willmenaker/status/815421869998440448

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1D13EZUsAAxbPG.jpg

they're recording a premium episode right now and taking questions live, if anyone's interested: https://curiouscat.me/722127759699505153 i assume the episode will be up later tonight

xp love it!

getting back on topic, does anyone have any thoughts on why Hillary Clinton lost the US presidential election?

let's ask Cum Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfw5UmWyFSw

Somebody I know posted the link to the NYT article titled "Trump’s Cabinet So Far Is More White and Male Than Any First Cabinet Since Reagan’s" with the comment:

This is what a revolution looks like, amirite Berners? Jkkkk you all look like these people.

I should say that was following up on the

two, a whole lot of bereaved clinton fans are still STILL talking about bernie sanders being the great racist pied piper traitor. meanwhile, the guy is out there doing real political work and hillary has disappeared.

i don't even think it's a symmetrical fixation, the anti-bernie people i can see are far more blindly rabid. zero effort at coalition-building from center types, none.

― goole

"People I know post" is the new "I heard at church" isn't it

that's a good counterpt fl0p

― goole, Friday, January 13, 2017 4:21 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ty

imo this is the whole problem with politics on twitter, everything is argumentum ad logicam. you can always find SOMEONE arguing an idiotic version of the ideology you're opposed to. like who the fuck is Eric Garland? who was that lady who wrote the 'no one wants to live in your racist shithole' facebook post? chapo twitter crew survive off the perception that there is this identitarian neoliberal left-baiting cabal when they're just in a bubble that incentivises them to find the shittiest such posts

I believe that kids are going to eventually internalize "you can find somebody on the Internet saying anything" and get past this shit

Us old dogs are probably useless though

the "here's what happened on twitter this week" is enjoyable but also the worst part of the podcast

eric garland's absurd game theory rant was pretty well publicized, it's not like they had to go looking for it

i'm just glad people are finally getting around to realizing what a great record _lolita nation_ is

I just posted that an example of v vocal Hillary supporters still trying to attack Bernie supporters.

It's similar to people doing that "how's that hopey-changey thing working out" thing from 2009 on

you copy pasted a COMMENT to a nytimes article

And I should preface it by saying this is someone I've known for a long time who isn't prone to posting that kinda thing and I would expect better from

you copy pasted a COMMENT to a nytimes article

FB post, tbf

proving my point that this whole crew are scraping the bottom of the rando barrel to find, er, fish to shoot

the "here's what happened on twitter this week" is enjoyable but also the worst part of the podcast

― goole, Friday, January 13, 2017 12:02 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one of many otm goole posts itt

someone needs to burn twitter to the virtual ground.

i never heard this podcast but if it really is people from the incestuous social media left mocking the incestuous social media center-left it sounds worse than waterboarding

You can breathe whenever you want so no

imo this is the whole problem with politics on twitter, everything is argumentum ad logicam. you can always find SOMEONE arguing an idiotic version of the ideology you're opposed to. like who the fuck is Eric Garland? who was that lady who wrote the 'no one wants to live in your racist shithole' facebook post? chapo twitter crew survive off the perception that there is this identitarian neoliberal left-baiting cabal when they're just in a bubble that incentivises them to find the shittiest such posts

― flopson, Friday, January 13, 2017 4:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dude i don't have to look past this very thread to see the exact same stuff although stated perhaps a bit more cogently.

i never heard this podcast but if it really is people from the incestuous social media left mocking the incestuous social media center-left it sounds worse than waterboarding

― Treeship, Friday, January 13, 2017 5:30 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

case in point, treesh !

going to go to all the ilx threads and say "i have never heard this band but if it really is noisy people clanging garbage racket then it sounds bad"

Gunna be a fun four years

ilm threads even

also to be noted the prime mining areas for Bad Tweets are typically like the director of the Center for American progress, a founder of Vox, the editor of Mother Jones.

this show is goofy cathartic fun centered around bullying dumb pseuds in the media. it owes more to howard stern than anything and I don't think it can really bear the weight of representing an actual political movement but that's not its fault.

otm re: the howard stern comparison. like myself and others upthread have said, it's just a good podcast

i don't even think it's a symmetrical fixation, the anti-bernie people i can see are far more blindly rabid. zero effort at coalition-building from center types, none.

― goole

fwiw ive agreed with most of what youve posted but this...i feel like we're just exiting in two parallel but different universes right now, because it's not been my experience at all.

the "here's what happened on twitter this week" is enjoyable but also the worst part of the podcast

i will listen to this at some point and they are going for different things obv but this^ really, really makes me appreciate the efforts the uhh yeah dudes go to, really digging deep for not stepped on content

also yet another recorded straight to laptop podcast with shitty sound, wildly varying levels, etc? really? no excuse for this imo, even if you're making bupkes

i don't even think it's a symmetrical fixation, the anti-bernie people i can see are far more blindly rabid. zero effort at coalition-building from center types, none.

― goole

I've definitely seen random examples of that but maybe because my social media feeds lean far left I'm getting the opposite impression. I know I know "your mentions aren't the election etc" Ellison has gotten a good amount of centrist support. Hasn't it always been the case that the Bernie people were more anti-Hillary then vice verse? I keep coming back to the Morgan Murphy joke from the primary: Bernie supporters are San Francisco. Hillary supporters are Los Angeles. San Francisco hates LA but LA is like, "San Francisco is cool too."

Tbf, the sound's gotten better, but it ain't where it should be yet. Way too much room echo on Matt's end, for example.

keep coming back to the Morgan Murphy joke from the primary: Bernie supporters are San Francisco. Hillary supporters are Los Angeles. San Francisco hates LA but LA is like, "San Francisco is cool too."

Heh. Move this up the coast a bit and you have Portland and Seattle, too.

Ellison has gotten a good amount of centrist support

tablet mag just ran a piece about the dangerous anticlinton left, captioned by an extreme closeup of ellison's face, mouth open in apparent rage, howling, coming for you. maybe this is cherrypicking -- glad to hear it if there's more openness to him than i think.

Bernie supporters are San Francisco. Hillary supporters are Los Angeles. San Francisco hates LA but LA is like, "San Francisco is cool too."

i just don't see this. at the beginning of the primary the centrist attitude to bernie was "lol hippies", just like it always is. maybe a little bit of "how civilized that our inevitable champion will first be toughened by a few friendly war games!" by the end, after he'd actually given clinton something vaguely resembling trouble, it was "we must defeat the secret leader of the misogynistic and probably-racist-somehow hate mob perversely calling itself 'the left'". this has continued.

to be fair that piece in tablet was written by a never trump neocon who starts off the article saying he has voted for republican presidents since 2004 until trump came along

so a hilary voter but not a liberal

yr right. still -- these are the people the center wants a "coalition" with.

(and there aren't very many of them. cf again the infamous schumer remark.)

Weird, it's honestly been the opposite with me. I recall quite a few of his supporters online openly rooting for HRC to get indicted. You know...for the emails. Wikileaks stuff was often shared by both Bernie dead enders along with Trump supporters, even the "she has Parkinson's" "she killed Seth Rich" variety stuff WL pushed.

Bernie supporters are San Francisco.

wrong:

President, Democratic Party
Clinton, Hillary: 55.46%
Sanders, Bernie: 43.81%

http://www.sfexaminer.com/election-june-2016-latest-results/

prize for taking a metaphor literally goes to

so much winning

we do hate LA though, that part is true

New premium ep is up, and this week's delay was because the previous ep got munched....because they probably recorded straight to the laptop again. Goddammit.

Talk of how the sound quality is bad is the first thing that has me interested in listening to this

How come evidence of "the center" is always the actual politicians? It seems like most of the ppl critical of the "dirtbag left" I know would not in any way consider themselves centrist

haha whoa, Matt snuck in a Joey Boots tribute at the end of this new premium ep. makes sense at least one these guys is a Stern fan

i don't know anybody who would honestly describe themselves as a "centrist" or a "moderate". i do know people who espouse centrist ideas. a lot of people were raised all their life on certain ideas, like the notion that the basis of government is compromise, that led to the passage of the ACA in the first place, and aren't willing or able to acknowledge that particular ship sailed a long time ago. i'm not particularly worried about them because most of the lifelong democrats will fall in line behind whoever the candidate is, regardless of their policies. they will be a more reliable voting bloc than the ideological left, who have a congenital resistance to "falling in line" behind anybody.

I can never keep them straight on Twitter vs their voices, but one responded to people defending John Lewis quoting their negative statements on Chelsea Manning. Yeah, the people quoted are stupid re:Manning, but I feel like that's just an unnecessary and unhelpful path to travel down.

Burn down the Democratic structures, yeah, but I'm pretty comfortable rallying around legitimate American heroes with otherwise disagreeable people.

I met a Chapo fan in the wild this morning - this is in Toronto. They are becoming a proper Thing, I am inclined to think.

Yeah, people I've turned on to the show are now spreading it to others who're subscribing.

Subscribers atm are now 7,601, about 1/6th up from last month, according to Graphtreon.

Also:

https://twitter.com/deep_beige/status/820381681144266752

Brendan James‏ @deep_beige

Just recorded an episode with the great @BillCorbett, genuinely a high point of my life

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2KUx-fVQAAGw4E.jpg

1:26 PM · Jan 14, 2017

https://twitter.com/cushbomb/status/820410460189196288

is this the bill corbett who replaced trace beaulieu as the voice of crow on mst3k, or some other bill corbett?

what are we going to say about this nonsense 5 years from now

what are we going to say about this nonsense 5 years from now

"We" are all going to stare at the ground and pretend we have no idea what people are talking about.

We'll be tapping in Morse code about them to the prisoner in an adjoining cell

is this the bill corbett who replaced trace beaulieu as the voice of crow on mst3k, or some other bill corbett?

That Bill Corbett

new ep is up

this picture shocked me, then again idk why i expected them to have like a tristar setup or whatever joe rogan uses, i'm just like damn.... mics on a couch. no headphones.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0QjnRKXcAETu5D.jpg

i like when this thread shifts back into critiquing their engineering and broadcast skills

that picture makes me want to join isil

like don't you just look at that and go, ok so tell me more about the exact opposite of whatever these guys think

yes, if i hadn't heard the show. theater of the mind, maaaaan

that picture makes me want to join isil

― sleepingbag, Monday, 16 January 2017 02:55 (forty-four minutes ago) Permalink

Menaker's ISIS one-finger sign in the prior photo clearly worked its subconscious magic on you as intended.

damn, they really are one step ahead of me. the self loathing must be unimaginable

imo they should downgrade their setup and just all hunker around a laptop and yell at it

like don't you just look at that and go, ok so tell me more about the exact opposite of whatever these guys think

― sleepingbag, Sunday, January 15, 2017 8:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its three guys on a couch

I think he means the sweatpants with the vertical stripe

also does the other guy wear the same tshirt every day? v dirtbag

like don't you just look at that and go, ok so tell me more about the exact opposite of whatever these guys think

― sleepingbag

nah. my reaction is "wow, it's three guys on a couch. why is everybody so worked up about them?"

it's amazing reading this thread, and seeing the same phenomenon play out whenever something gets fairly popular fairly fast - people get salty as if this new thing is being forced upon them, and they become contrarians and diss the thing and elevate it just to tear it down, without ever really engaging with the thing itself

i tried listening to a few episodes of this. boring af. stans itt must be real desperate these days what jacobin is too much reading

this is not really the aural equivalent of jacobin articles - i listen to this show religiously and i p much hate the jacobin. i don't listen because i cosign their politics. it's an entertainment show based mainly on ribbing political pundits. ymmv depending on how entertaining that might be to you, for many people that won't be remotely funny, or entertaining, or worthwhile in any way shape or form as an endeavor.

but as someone who hate reads the nyt, wapo, atlantic etc. (as well as the guardian but obv chapo is u.s. centric) almost as much as i read something that i actually like and agree with, who yesterday literally shouted at the radio before turning it off because some dumbfuck centrist was talking about the benefits of fptp and how the real problem with our "broken politics" is that it is too bipartisan and there isn't enough dialogue this is v much relevant to my interests

we have like a dozen ilx threads for complaining about all these media outlets that rarely get bumped bc ppl rightly feel like it gets tedious to make the same complaints every single day but put 3 sleepy indistinguishable white dudes on a podcast + it's b-a-n-a-n-a-s apparently

i basically can't get enough of complaining about media outlets tbh. i have spent days of my life getting angry about the guardian.

xxp otm, the appeal of the show is p narrow: politics but really a meta-commentary on political reporting and "optics" and semiotics and trends. i'm amazed it's become so popular because i assumed it would only appeal to a small group of people in the media and people that grew up in media/publishing families like Will

the appeal of the show is p narrow: politics but really a meta-commentary on political reporting and "optics" and semiotics and trends. i'm amazed it's become so popular because i assumed it would only appeal to a small group of people in the media and people that grew up in media/publishing families like Will

You're overlooking the desperate desire among a surprisingly large cohort of dudes to feel on the inside. The kind of assholes who will hungrily devour articles not about sports, but about sportswriters.

I'll admit I didn't know that contingent existed because I never considered this shit was interesting to anyone that didn't grow up in it

what you're describing def sounds like a "failson"

as someone who hate reads the nyt, wapo, atlantic etc. (as well as the guardian

every generation get's teh "i don't even own a TV" that it deserves

I think the reason it's popular is that it's a reasonably funny take on opinions that are normally voiced very humorlessly, and (increasingly, I think) it's a nice corrective to several different popular modes of popular political media. Not much more to it than that imo

Also it's clear that there's a newfound appetite for criticism and thought from the far left so it's partially just excellent timing

i tried listening to a few episodes of this. boring af. stans itt must be real desperate these days what jacobin is too much reading

Oh come ON. This is a bullshit criticism both of the show and people in here and you know it. Hell, the show has had on both _editors_ from Jacobin and several contributors, not to having one as a co-host.

Also, D'Souza's hilariously self-aggrandizing Hillary movie is dumber than even we could have expected when we ripped on it in that other thread.

i know u like the show so don't take it personally but i think it's v dumb + v hard to understand the appeal. but that's ok and here's why.

and the problem isn't that jacobin is great and this isn't that. the problem is that jacobin is barely tolerable and this is worse.

Mordy what are some fun lefty podcasts you enjoy, if any (I'm earnestly interested, not trying to be a dick)

i don't listen to any podcasts that i'd characterize as having a particular political pov. atm i really like mike duncan's revolutions podcast which obv touches on a lot of issues that would be of interest to lefty politics - esp when it's covering the diggers or the levellers in english civil war or 70% of the french revolution or haitian civil war or boliver. in general i'm not following contemporary US politics w/ any kind of depth (tho inevitably end up reading some jacobin or the nation article or whatever interview w/ chomsky this week). maybe that's part of the problem -- i find the current political landscape so depressing that at best this kind of thing could end up being is whistling past the graveyard but what i've heard (mostly the episodes on kingfish's recommendations!) hasn't even come up to that level. like it's literally v v boring people where even knowing the references they make doesn't make them more appealing unless that's it and it's just the joy of recognition hey i know that name hey i've complained about that online magazine before hey i also think mixing sardonic quips about obscure media figures w/ heavy-handed dour moments about /getting serious/ is the right tonality for otm'hood.

...the same phenomenon play out whenever something gets fairly popular fairly fast - people get salty as if this new thing is being forced upon them, and they become contrarians and diss the thing and elevate it just to tear it down, without ever really engaging with the thing itself

Anything people get excited about has a >90% likelihood of being a fad. The crowd / pack reactions are the way we triage stuff. IS THIS ACTUALLY IMPORTANT BARK BARK BARK BARK WELL I SAY IT IS DO YOU TRUST ME BARK BARK etc.

Podcasts seem like one of the most irrelevant media formats we have today so my vote is WOOF WOOF

I have to believe that people who don't see the humor haven't listened to the reading series or things like the one today cracking on Dinesh D'Souza.

Pretty dumb thing to say

xpost

Mordy, it sounds like you just don't dig the personalities, which obv is fine. I could go on and on about my love for the Howard Stern Show but I'll never sway someone that isn't compelled by Howard or Robin's voice.

Listening to ppl mocking D'Souza sounds hellish; his worthlessness has been well established enough and enough times on ilx alone that there couldn't be easier barrel fish to shoot.

i for one was glad to find out about his thesis that the reason the white south moved from voting democrat to voting republican in the latter part of the 20th century was because during this period white southerners got less racist

I think I saw that story on lawyersgunsmoney which iirc is a neoliberal apologist for the Democratic Party so idk what's brave and
new about the dirtbag left I guess they mock Friedman and that's surely never been done before

yeah this isn't political reporting mordy, there's no exclusives, you can read everything they talk about somewhere else.

i understand, it's commentary. somehow i'm doubting that their /take/ on D'Souza is remarkable or funny but if u guys feel really strongly about it i'll give it a listen + report back. i suspect these guys are getting a lot of mileage by doing sub-classic ilx thread humor + maybe like emotional replacement for gawker?

if you've already listened to the show and not liked it i wouldn't bother persevering tbh - unless you had any particular interest in one of the guests

More importantly who's with me on my new creative venture (note: may be a podcast) called "Derka Derka Him Sad"

+ maybe like emotional replacement for gawker?

I hadn't thought of that but I suspect it helps to explain their popularity as well

Show does feature a Deadspin writer

it's amazing reading this thread, and seeing the same phenomenon play out whenever something gets fairly popular fairly fast - people get salty as if this new thing is being forced upon them, and they become contrarians and diss the thing and elevate it just to tear it down, without ever really engaging with the thing itself

― flappy bird, Monday, 16 January 2017 19:35 (yesterday) Permalink

Idk seems like people are also critiquing the audience on ideological grounds

which also happens every time people talk about the latest fad and what it means/doesn't mean

if this isn't a passing fascination filling a temporary hole in people's commute / background non-music time, then that is probably some of the good news that I keep hearing about.
if this is that, that's okay too, the nostalgia will be fine.

I still would like to see where a podcast had an idea in it that people cared about later, though. That might be a different thread.

Caleb is eternal

which also happens every time people talk about the latest fad and what it means/doesn't mean

― The beaver is not the bad guy (El Tomboto), Tuesday, 17 January 2017 00:50 (three hours ago) Permalink

Sure but my point isn't that we're arguing about this in some radical new way, but that there are legitimate reasons to argue about it & the implied logic of that post is smarmy "no haters" type ish

enjoyed the d'souza ep. Perplexed as to why the same few people are still here still insisting that they haven't listened, don't want to, and that they have some proxy method for being able to determine that they don't like the show anyway.

If this podcast is anything like I imagine it is, then it will never change anything and besides podcasts are for nerds and I only do dope things

You got me

i'm about halfway through the d'souza ep, it's not particularly funny? i think if i heard this late at night on my local college radio station i might listen a little but ultimately it's not that engaging. are there better episodes that are more representative?

these ones are really good:

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-61-who-makes-the-nazis-feat-rickyrawls-112416

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-63-successfail-the-mcmegan-story-feat-theshrillest-12416

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-67-the-swordfish-episode-121816

i mostly listen to 2-3 baseball podcasts, the occasional film one

but i'll try one of those, flappy

i mostly listen to 2-3 baseball podcasts, the occasional film one

but i'll try one of those, flappy

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, January 17, 2017 3:02 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/726177981173886976/nvNZfUaN_400x400.jpg

this one is a favorite https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-3-freeway-ross-douthat-sailboat-dope

i'm about halfway through the d'souza ep, it's not particularly funny? i think if i heard this late at night on my local college radio station i might listen a little but ultimately it's not that engaging. are there better episodes that are more representative?

― marcos, Tuesday, 17 January 2017 19:58 (thirty-five minutes ago) Permalink

Second the freeway ross douthat episode. I wouldn't go in expecting pure comedy or pure politics. It's sort of a mix of insight, humor and just gawky welcome to the dark carnival of legacy punditry, but not necessarily non-stop laughs. I can see why not everyone might enjoy such a thing.

To me the show feels very much like just hanging out with some smart and funny friends and bullshitting, only elevated a level or two, and I guess that's part of the appeal for me, and also a good reason for them to keep the just a few handheld mics on a couch format.

any fans of this should also check out Uhh Yeah Dude, a less focused and (imo) funnier podcast with a similar conversational hanging out style

If I ever flame out of this industry, I would totally want to do a Chapo style podcast destroying bad professional music writers with Maura and D-40.

would listen

just hanging out with some smart and funny friends and bullshitting

yea i get this. other eps I'm exploring now are okay, i can't say it warrants a new yorker article though? (although i haven't listened to the episode where they talk about that and it sounds like they also don't think an article was warranted?) again there's shit i've heard on college radio that is basically the same thing as this, sometimes better and sometimes worse. it's bc this is based in brooklyn though huh

i can't say it warrants a new yorker article though?

i mean this is the same thing as Hipster Runoff and Pitchfork Reviews Reviews where

https://twitter.com/willystaley/status/427486358450360320

any fans of this should also check out Uhh Yeah Dude

oh yeah, UYD is a million times funnier than Chapo, and even though we have a long running thread about it I'm sure half of the grumps around here would hate it

ie the nostalgia for emo

xp

i like both UYD and CTH

would also listen to Whiney's curmudgeoncast

in terms of The Boys Get Serious episodes the Adam Curtis one is good

their monthly Patreon haul just surpassed Amanda Palmer, I hope this is something we can mostly all agree is good news

Loved the old Craiglist UYD things but straight comedy podcasts don't do much for me overall.

I've been put off uyd by the name*

i note the irony of this in this thread

a good reason for them to keep the just a few handheld mics on a couch format.

uhh yeah dude is two guys in a living room bullshitting, expertly recorded, and the clarity in their voices adds to the intimate and casual atmosphere, rather than detracting from it. it makes it funnier too imo, improves the sense of timing or something. CTH wouldn't have to go into a studio or anything, just buy some decent equipment with that 400K

while we're critiquing the CTH recording fidelity, let me just add that whatever sidechain compression/ducking they're using hurts my ears. peace

otm. i hadn't heard ep 3 before tonight and holy fuck, they've come a long way

If I ever flame out of this industry, I would totally want to do a Chapo style podcast destroying bad professional music writers with Maura and D-40.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, January 17, 2017 1:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ooh ooh invite me!

Everything I've read about CTH makes me think they're like the nerds tormented by bullies in Massacre at Central High who turn into bullies themselves and get offed by the protagonist in the second half of the movie.

listening to the greatest hits you dudes linked upthread and here i am again thinking these bros aren't funny and their recording methods make these things genuinely unpleasant to listen to

i guess i'm psyched that they target idiots and ether them for like 1.5 hours at a time

People complaining about the audio probably also think the Bowie 'Raw Power' mix is better than Iggy's.

Holy Christ, the latest premium ep is literally them playing Call of Cthulhu for an hour.

And it's the first of two eps.

I was thinking that another reason this is so popular is that almost all "political comedy" (esp on the teevee) tends not to think outside the constraints of party politics

much as I like these dues I phear the tabletop two-parter lol