Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

lol we gonna talk about Nagl interviewing Richard Spencer, or would it be too much of a victory lap for the 'she's an asshole' cru.

I mean, giving exposure to this disgusting unrepentant fash... he's gone way down in my estimation.

didn't know she had, but i'm assuming she spoke to him to properly press him on the means by which he proposes to establish a white ethnostate, which is what her main objection to how he's usually interviews?

er, interviewed

jeez that was a mess but hopefulyl you get the gist - interviews with him never dig into the genocide which would be required to build a white ethnostate, basically

y'all thought I actually watched it??? fohhhhh

oh right i thought when you said 'we gonna talk' you meant you might be interested in talking about it, but since you haven't watched it or provided a link then i guess you just wanted to make a quick lol at a favoured punching bag's expense - my mistake obv

fwiw nagle's views on how richard spencer and how the media presents him are actually pretty otm imo, regardless of what else i might think about her work

ya u misconstrued me

cool

good talk bro

I mean, giving exposure to this disgusting unrepentant fash... he's gone way down in my estimation.

loooool

so, Chelsea Manning, hoo-boy

We have no idea what Manning is doing with the alt lite. She deserves to answer that herself. Many are desperately hoping she does, soon.

But to have expected Manning’s politics to be anything but personal, messy (and modern) is ungenerous, and a dangerous failure to adapt.

— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) January 22, 2018

The fuck does that even mean?

the escape room picture is pretty bad

anti Manning libs signal boosting nazis in order to try and score points has been predictable but nauseating

I can't make heads or tails of the JSIV tweet either, folks pretzel themselves when their heroes fuck up

that said I am inclined to believe Kim kelly''s account of the cernovich event thing

Instinctively recoiling at whatever describing someone's politics as "modern" might mean.

“anti Manning libs signal boosting nazis in order to try and score points has been predictable but nauseating”
― Simon H., Sunday, January 21, 2018 9:53

Is this is in reference to people who simply drew attention to the fact that she hung out with neo-nazis?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyF8RHM1OCg

Is this is in reference to people who simply drew attention to the fact that she hung out with neo-nazis?

nope

Simon, you need to explain what you mean, because it's nonsense.

Or I guess the way to say it is 'You deserve to answer that yourself'...

I'm talking in part about people like the Buzzfeed reporter who wrote about how "nice" they were to Manning, including references to them "not misgendering" her, but then not reporting on the actual content of the speeches, which were breathtakingly transphobic, as you'd imagine (there's footage on Vic Berger's TL but I'm not linking it from work). obviously I'm miffed that she was there at all but if you're using her presence to sanitize their views and/or make them more palatable figures you're doing it wrong.

this was addressed better than I expected it would be on chapo, incidentally

yeah if she went there to get "intel" or whatever it was incredibly stupid, plus of COURSE they were nice they love to show hey we're not the bad guys portrayed on TV, it was either incredibly naive or stupid (or both). no matter what she says or does about this from this point out, pictures last forever (and were worth 1000 words at least prior to brexit), that picture is so damning and people aren't going to bother to listen to whatever the explanation ends up being

also like if she's serious about actually *running for office* there's probably like approximately 1 million things she should be doing in term of her campaign than crashing a proud boys party, seems like an indication that this thing is going nowhere

like here's the "intel" a bunch of delusion cosplay racist fuckers were having a party

yeah it was dumb, no doubt about that

also for a podcast that gets described as sophomoric/immature etc (often not without reason) I appreciated Virgil's methodical description of the processes related to the shutdown and Felix's empathetic (but not handwavey) take on the Chelsea Manning thing

also like if she's serious about actually *running for office*

what part of "#WEGOTTHIS [ EMOJI ] [ EMOJI ]" gives you the impression she's not serious about running for office?

hey I'm all for unorthodox campaigning as long as it doesn't involve photo ops with nazis

that was a path to victory recently irrc

iirc

I guess framed another way, what about her background suggests she should be taken seriously as a candidate for US Senate? She is an ex-soldier with leftist views who leaked documents. Why not just run any random member of DSA for US Senate if that's all it takes?

what's your benchmark for being taken seriously?

she made a difficult (but correct) choice that most of us would not have, and suffered for it for 7 years, which probably gives her a unique perspective and experience when it comes to foreign policy and US power. that's valuable and genuinely novel experience, imo

Some kind of demonstrated interest in or aptitude for the political process might be nice. City council, mayor of a small town, state legislature, even political organizing.

A unique perspective that doesn't stop her from partying with nazis. Fuck that perspective, in all honesty. I see absolutely no value in that.

That describes everyone who's in there now and everything is terrible. xp

well, apart from the president, but that doesn't exactly refute your 'everything is terrible' position

A unique perspective that doesn't stop her from partying with nazis. Fuck that perspective, in all honesty. I see absolutely no value in that.

A person holding a perspective doing a stupid thing is not a refutation of that perspective. If you see no value in it you'll need to work a bit harder at explaining why.

You seriously don't see how far-rightism might be related to 'foreign policy and US power'? It's not as if she went with a stupid farming lobby.

That describes everyone who's in there now and everything is terrible. xp

― Simon H., Monday, January 22, 2018 11:31 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it describes Bernie too!

maybe it's like Demolition Man, in order to take down a criminal you have to think like one. who better to take down a traitor than another traitor?

it describes Bernie too!

and he mostly sucks!

xp
I think Manning's public profile is big enough that she doesn't nec need to start as small as all that, but the House would make much more sense for a radical than Senate

You seriously don't see how far-rightism might be related to 'foreign policy and US power'?

Not in 2018 tbh, both US isolationist fascism and European anti-american fascism are dying off, alt right on both continents very much enthusiastic about US power.

That is so stupid I literally don't know where to begin

it describes Bernie too!

and he mostly sucks!

― Simon H., Monday, 22 January 2018 16:42 (nine minutes ago) Permalink

Yes, it's almost as though the very nature of our byzantine political system places limits on what one can accomplish, and experience navigating that system is helpful in getting anything at all done!

Not in 2018 tbh, both US isolationist fascism and European anti-american fascism are dying off, alt right on both continents very much enthusiastic about US power.

not sure i recognize this. US isolationist fascism seems to be a big part of the US alt-right to me. lots of foreign entanglement skepticism.

In happier news, a new web series has debuted. This one features cameos from Pareene & Will’s cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTXJeP11efU

not sure i recognize this. US isolationist fascism seems to be a big part of the US alt-right to me. lots of foreign entanglement skepticism.

I feel like this was a big (opportunistic) motif on the US alt-right just up to the point where they got "their guy" in and now all Trumpian sabre-rattling is enthusiastically approved of

The European far right's move towards a pro-US position also strongly influenced by a love of Trump, the idea of the US as the strongest hope in the culture war against Islam and younger fascists basically getting all their talking points from US sources.

sabre-rattling does not necessarily mean support for new conflicts (and sometimes a lot of rattling can indicate a lack of appetite for actual war)

wait why does Bernie mostly suck? and who are we comparing him to in this case?

honest question. you can't just say "This person sucks" with nothing to reference. that would be playground name-calling level intellectual discourse