Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

we are now entering the zone

https://ugc.kn3.net/i/origin/http://images.wikia.com/lossimpson/es/images/2/24/3F24.png

we've entered the "imaginary trespasses" phase I see

Well there’s this:

Everyone who is a critic of American liberalism is an agent of Russia. And them's the facts.

— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) November 1, 2017

Well, actually I was disappointed that they didn't do a Weinstein episode. It felt like an abdication of responsibility.

It seems impossible to approach from a comedic angle, but if they can do a Vegas shooting episode three days after the fact, you'd think they'd be able to find the balance to do this.

And if Amber is right—if there's no way for these guys to approach this topic—doesn't that mean the people who criticize the show as misogynistic are correct?

she didn't say there was "no way" for them to discuss it, she said she didn't want to distract from the other voices already discussing it (and, she felt, doing a good job). I don't think that's the same thing.

The Russia story seems to be primarily propelled by some people's need for its worst conceivable version to be true

— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) October 9, 2017

Almost whenever there's a major news event, it's become commonplace for "Russia"/"Russian involvement" to be invoked, especially by liberals

This trend, as far as I can see, started with Trump and has taken increasingly nutty forms, e.g.

Its origin in Trump's victory is key to understanding it as a reflex: it's all about externalizing challenges to the liberal order

So Trump, as quintessentially American as can be, becomes something imposed by a foreign power rather than produced by US culture & politics

The same thing (see above) can be done with Catalan nationalism, the very antithesis of something foreign to the Spanish body politic

I don't want to generalize too much, but it seems like a big part of what's going on here is a refusal by liberal thought to interrogate...

...the ways in which contemporary liberal institutions are failing for reasons intrinsic to the liberal order

If you're invested in that order it's far more comforting to assume it's being attacked from without rather than failing from within

It seems impossible to approach from a comedic angle, but if they can do a Vegas shooting episode three days after the fact, you'd think they'd be able to find the balance to do this.

And if Amber is right—if there's no way for these guys to approach this topic—doesn't that mean the people who criticize the show as misogynistic are correct?

But this doesn’t follow at all. Being able to address one particular hot topic doesn’t mean that they have the ability/training/experience to handle _every_ hot topic, much less deal with in a proper way on a “comedy podcast”.

They haven't talked about Wieseltier either—are you telling me this is somehow outside of their area of expertise? Or that they have nothing useful to say? Or that someone else has already shared their perspective?

They're scared.

they clearly refuse to interrogate.

massive eyeroll

this notion that they have a "responsibility" to cover every major contemporary topic is so silly

Their 'area of expertise' would be in making fun of the tight connection between figurehead Democrats and a serial sexual abuser - when they tried to do that it blew up horribly in their face. A serious take on that has been covered extensively all across the web, so yeah, it would have been pretty pointless?

Look, these guys are constantly flirting with the boundaries of good taste.

Violations of good taste: Felix's stupid Jared Fogle jokes (that no one else really joins in on), two Jewish guys doing Holocaust jokes, Matt's Crocs & socks.

Ugh, Stalker stans are the worst. Mirror or bust.

nah it's all about Andrei Rublev breh

the sacrifice or gtfo

apparently we've never polled tarkovsky? I'm gonna get on that.

And Tarkovsky was...Russian

oh fuk

TIME FOR SOME GAME THEORY

🤔

Anybody think they’ll be at least some (more that premise) ref to the Strugatsky Bros in the flick adapting Jeff Van der Meer’s book?

Not really gonna waste any more time on the willful obtuseness of two posters I have never seen before today plus Dan I. Catch you boys when the next preemo ep drops. *throws up hang loose sign and skateboards into the sunset*

Chris Hayes longs to be a dirtbag so bad

The crudest Marxist analysis of current American capitalism is much closer to being right than a lot of what passes for conventional wisdom

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 2, 2017

i imagine chris agrees with chapo on all the things they actually have opinions on; he just like, also has wonky opinions on policy and stuff

lol dbs didnt invent being left

he's also referenced lefty meme shit a bunch

of course what he hasn't done is put any actual leftists on television lol

he said Trump was like @dril yesterday

he's had bhaskar on before for sure

bhaskar?

Is dril a lefty meme, or just weird?

bhaskar?

― Simon H., Thursday, November 2, 2017 7:21 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how do u call yourself db and not be on first name basis w my boy Bhaskar Sunkara smh

there are a lot of dirtbags these days!

there's a significant logical fallacy in Savage's Russia stuff up there, I think it's the fallacy of the undistributed middle but it's been a long time since I was on deck-of-cards familiarity with those terms but anyway the leap from "look, you wouldn't need Russians to have Trump" to "concern over election-meddling is exclusively about externalizing challenges to the liberal order"...that right there is a really weird leap whose central function is hobby-horsism imo

he specifically does not use language like "exclusively" in that thread and that he "does not want to generalize"

I don't really have a sense of how many people outside of twitter really think like this but there isn't a single Dem critic of any type or level of influence that hasn't been accused of being a Ruskie psyop at this point

That's exactly the kind of preemptive defense a Ruskie psyop would make!

fuck!!!!

right, that's the logical fallacy. it doesn't follow that there aren't any Russian bad actors, though on the left we have the legacy of years & years of U.S. propagandizing against the Soviets that rightly make people go "hold up, are we hoisting the Russian Punch puppet again?" Good and healthy instinct. Kind of obviously not what's in play now, given that "Russia" does not mean "the Soviet Union" in any sense at all & isn't the same bogeyman, at all. ("I don't want to generalize" is a nice thought to follow "almost whenever," eh)

Is dril a lefty meme, or just weird?

dril is a prophet, a seer, a sage - perhaps the most important mind of the 21st century

tbh most leftists I follow will say "well, there's definitley something there" when pressed on Russia and most centrists never go anywhere near the #theresistance twitter insanity of "chapo is paid by Russia" or w/e

granted there is a lot to clown about the way a lot of centrists frame the whole thing, the whole treason/Trump as Benedict Arnold shit, trying to go all gung-ho patriotic about the matter. I don't know if that's just an attempt to troll right-wingers/get moderate right-wingers on yr side or if it's actual naivete about the US as a nation, pretty obnoxious either way. But I do think the wilder conspiracy shit is the province of a vocal minority (amplified by "look at this asshole" type safaris on the left - don't get me wrong, I lol too) and so knee-jerk dismissal of the issue before terms are set on what's actually being talked about is counter-productive

I guess for me it's about priorities. let's say for argument's sake that Russian propaganda was able to flip, idk, 2% of the vote. (a purposely extreme figure.) the response to this should be to present a genuinely inspiring vision for the future that overwhelms the effect of that influence and mobilizes the disenfranchised. outside parties can only exacerbate divides and issues that are already present to have any impact; for instance they may have exploited BLM messaging but I don't think anyone itt would argue that BLM's concerns aren't real as hell.

oh and switch to paper ballots.

since this is also the nu left thread I just wanted to add that DSA seem to be rocking it with local races and messaging

We've got one more weekend to tell voters that Jon Grant is working to put people over profit! 🌹 Join us! #GoGranthttps://t.co/vK5SxTlyWy

— Seattle DSA🌹 (@SeattleDSA) November 3, 2017

#theresistance twitter insanity of "chapo is paid by Russia" or w/e

lol ok I'm way too out of the loop for this thread I had no idea this was a thing

it even made it into this thread!

it will catch up to "The Intercept is paid by Russia" if a couple more ilxors get on board

lol totally fair Simon, the thread is 3k posts long and I'm interested in left-of-Democrats politics but not in CTH at all so I'm a total tourist in this thread

I'll admit this thread is the only time I've ever heard that nonsense floated, but there's plenty equally insane theories out there. I mean when ppl start earnestly retweeting Louise Mensch you know things are dire.