Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

Wasn't the carpet kaiser a trumpist a few days back? Still wondering who it is. And no, it's not me.

Jeet Heer is right that the Democratic party, as a coalition party, is fundamentally different than GOP. You can say as much as you want that it's only 20 centrists that should be brought to heel, but it's not just 20 centrists that is going to wreck Bernie Sanders' chances once again in the south in 2020. And you can't win them over with dominance politics.

And you can't win them over with dominance politics.

you can win them over with simple full-throated support of single payer healthcare

Is there any evidence of that. At all?

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/23/public-support-for-single-payer-health-coverage-grows-driven-by-democrats/

and yet that never translates into votes, because voters don't vote based on policy

or, at least, a majority of voters don't

also re: use of full-throated - Phrases I Never Want to Hear Uttered by Talking Heads/Press/Politicians Ever Again

noted. i think i used it a dozen times itt this morning. will retire...

BOOM!

how many opportunities have voters had to vote for single payer

shakey is otm. obamacare was "policy". "vote for me, then fill out a form and never pay to see the doctor again" is the sort of thing people base their votes on.

my arizona trumpist uncle (central casting) was on the phone to my dad the other day telling him we needed single payer. the plural of anecdote is... several million anecdotes

and yet that never translates into votes, because voters don't vote based on policy

Kinda a catch-22 here - people won't vote based on policy so leftist single-payer supporting podcasts can't say that will drive votes, but being brash meanies instead of focusing on policy...

anyway if the 2020 leftist candidate wants to do better in the south than bernie did they could always... campaign there, or at least not try to excuse their not campaigning there by implying they're all republicans down there anyway. maybe they'd learn lessons they could later apply to doing better in the midwest than hillary.

I thought this was pretty good. And the question is how Sanders, or anyone from the left-left win, can lure black women away from Terry McAuliffe and Kamala Harris.

http://www.theroot.com/bernie-sanders-black-women-problem-1796995081

Sanders and his supporters assumed that black voters would be easily drawn to his economic-justice policies. On paper, they were pretty impressive and should have had black women on the fence. Though, when challenged on how his policies would specifically help black people in prime-time moments, he faltered. Badly.

During a campaign stop at an economic forum in Minneapolis in February of 2016, a black American woman confronted Sanders on his inability to address anti-blackness and economics. The question focused on a garbage incinerator in the city causing health problems for local residents. Felicia Perry said that her son has asthma and the incinerator was making him sick.

Given that black children are twice as likely to suffer from asthma, it made perfect sense for her to ask the “political revolutionary” what his plans were to address environmental racism. In her question, she also took on what she felt was his refusal to address anti-blackness head on:

My black son. I know you’re scared to say black, I know you’re scared to say reparations. But it seems like every time we try to talk about black people and us getting something for the systematic reparations and the exploitation of our people, we have to include every other person of color. ... Can you please talk about specifically black people and reparations?

That was a perfect opportunity to display empathy for the specific plight of black mothers who have to raise children in unsafe areas plagued by environmental racism. But, in typical Sanders fashion, he got defensive and refused to take on her challenge that he lacks a racial analysis:

What I just indicated in my view is that when you have ... you and I may have disagreements because it’s not just black, it is Latino; there are areas of America, in poor rural areas, where it’s white.

That exchange pretty much convinced me that Sanders wasn’t ready for prime time. If you can’t tell a black woman raising a black kid with asthma how your policies will combat environmental racism, you can’t claim to be a political revolutionary.

The entire Chapo ""phenomenon"" reminds me of Hipster Runoff or Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, when someone made an entertaining comedy diversion that appealed to people who were passionate about a small insular subject (indie rock media, the pro wrestling of politics media) and are invested in the online conversation around it.

The problems, of course, came when media people confuse that for something in reality or a movement or some kind of zeitgeist thing and tried to prescribe "meaning" and "importance" to it. Like all these hand-wringing things about "they make $70k a month" or whatever is ridiculous because like Pewdiepie makes like $15 million a year and ILX isn't full of articles about "what does the era of screaming vloggers mean for [X]."

yeah, basically imo chapo does not merit thinkpieces

nobody on ilx wants to be pewdiepie, or is positive they could be

objects in the digital mirror may be further away/smaller than they appear

must go slower

I don't even know where that $70k puts Chapo in the spectrum of podcasts - surely that means Marc Maron and Joe Rogan are banking multiples of that, right?

maron and rogan sell adverts rather than receiving $5 per subscriber, so despite them being much more popular than chapo, i don't know how the income would compare

The difference between this and Hipster Runoff is that Chapo are involved in politics whether they say they are or not. And so that puts a higher burden of scrutiny on them than video game bloggers or people goofing on marketing hell. And since they're leading their own little movement of people, in politics, then yeah, why the hell wouldn't people examine them as they become more popular?

anecdotal but i went to some DSA meetings and first one after election in particular, most of the new people cited chapo. and most of those folk were pretty young, probably under 25

xpost I don't know--why aren't there a bunch of think pieces about TYT? They have a bigger audience than Chapo, probably rake in more money, share a love for Bernie and domination politics and do actual political organizing. But they're kind of dumb and not in Brooklyn so...

I've read plenty of shit on TYT, it's out there

yeah, basically imo chapo does not merit thinkpieces

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, July 19, 2017 3:23 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

And so that puts a higher burden of scrutiny on them than video game bloggers

hi this guy just got bounced from millions in partnership money for making a bunch of holocaust jokes

The difference between this and Hipster Runoff is that Chapo are involved in politics whether they say they are or not.

"Virgil Texas" is his name not the state he represents in congress

His pen name at least, I don't know if it's his real name

weirdly i've never met nor even read anyone who gives a shit about TYT. it's like the phantom audience. only rightwing youtubers are watching afaict.

Chapo Cult Temple

Bernie Sanders is the world cup and Chapo is major league soccer

Re: Americans attn spans

His pen name at least, I don't know if it's his real name

I was flipped out when I saw David Byrne's True Stories earlier this year.

ou can’t escape the game by pretending it isn’t happening, you can only lose it. Republicans recognize that the aim of politics is to crush the other guy; Barack Obama spent eight years refusing to recognize this. There’s nothing noble about being too polite to fight for dominance; it just mean that the people you’re supposed to fight for will continue to be the ones dominated.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/politics-is-a-contest-of-domination

re Sanders and his "black women problem", I gather this may not be as much of a thing as it once was

man... pic.twitter.com/MmCCUh0vOd

— Isaiah Breen (@isikbreen) July 19, 2017

whether favorability translates into votes is another question I suppose

I think favorability transfers to votes when you consider that it's the result of a considerably raised profile compared to 2015-2016. So I imagine Bernie would have increased support from quarters he didn't previously. Also there's probably key things he'd do differently if he knew he was an actual contender from the outset. But then I remember there's probably going to be a million people running so it will be insane and divided in a totally different way.

I really liked dlh's long post above.

And I can't help but shrug when chapo is portrayed as some especially vulgar form of gutter politics. I mean, really??

1 thing about them i don't like (and it's really just felix iirc) is slinging the word "retard" around which loses a massive amount of respect from me

It shows how completely bland almost all liberal commentary has been for many, many years. Like I said upthread, it's a shock to the system.

xp

Also there's probably key things he'd do differently if he knew he was an actual contender from the outset.

Well, yeah, this is key. Iirc Terrell Star voted for Sanders last time, it's not as if he wants him to be defeated. I just think he wants Sanders, as well as everyone, to take black women seriously, as well as their specific concerns.

I think the fact that 80% of Democrats like Sanders, and African-Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats, has a lot to do with each other. Him having less popularity among black voters than among democratic voters is not a particularly good sign.

terrell star, jesus wept

Felix, still the worst chapo

not reading Jeet's article about how rude we are till he takes David Frum's dick out of his mouth

— RusticBaller (@ByYourLogic) July 19, 2017

I agree with jeet heer. Chapo is just going to piss people off who would otherwise be sympathetic to robust, leftist policies.

The centrists have been sleazy in their attempt to cast leftists as a bunch of bros who don't care about women and minorities but the die is cast. The left won't defeat this (albeit duplicitous) narrative by playing into it. In this climate calling people "retards" isn't going to win over a majority.

If their goal is actually to heighten the contradiction between their movement -- an explicitly anticapitalist left. --and the democrats, that seems pretty stupid given the recent success of Sanders and Corbyn in challenging the neoliberal consensus.

1 thing about them i don't like (and it's really just felix iirc) is slinging the word "retard" around which loses a massive amount of respect from me

https://i.imgur.com/oT41FYI.gif

Chapo Trap House is Felix, so that's like ... the whole thing.

I would venture to guess that goole isn't too keen on Trump either