Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

They sound incoherent on Ukraine

Seems like a combination of being put on the defensive plus genuinely not having anything useful to say, so they default to dunking on Brookings. Which is as deserving of being dunked on as ever, but they don’t seem to have any other point.

most people speaking about ukraine right now don’t have a point, though. I hear we have an entire thread

their point about Ukraine is that the USA has a CIA, which is their point about all foreign policy topics

I was annoyed that Matt was able to just say "The US put Putin in power!" as a one-off line as though it was accepted left fact, that seemed like such an absurd oversimplification at best.

Putin is a deep CIA sleeper--probably doesn't even know it himself

What is the left argument for that - is it because we supported Yeltsin and Yeltsin helped bring Putin to power?

(for he US having "put him in power" obv, not for him being a deep CIA sleeper)

I'm no expert but: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-10-04/yeltsin-shelled-russian-parliament-25-years-ago-us-praised-superb-handling

Xp

Yes, essentially. The line would be that Putin was Yeltsin’s preferred successor and Yeltsin was in power at the time because of the extraordinary effort, on the part of the US, to help him win the previous election. The other element is that the US eased its position on an election being necessary for any successor to be considered valid.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2020-11-02/putin-clinton-transitions

The liberal interventionist framing of American imperialism as fundamentally good-hearted vs. the savagery of anyone else seems like a salient topic for a leftist podcast IMO.

you mean because it's easy and avoids the issues presented by Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

Were you hoping they'd roast the Russian equivalent of Meghan McCardle or something?

not everyone can have the nuance of a Tom Friedman or the solomonic acumen of a Tony Blinken

I don't know what 'tough issues' are supposed to be dealt with from a leftist perspective - we should be a little more open-minded about American imperialism because a stronger strongman could have kept Russia in check?

Being anti-war as a non-Russian is great, we all are - but also entirely irrelevant, because we have even less power over Putin than we do over Biden (and that power has had zero ability to curb the American war machine so I have my doubts about it working on a different hemisphere). As Americans what we do get to oppose is the foreign policy establishment's war fever, the demonization of regular people in Russia, the inevitable further bump in our defense budget at the expense of domestic priorities, etc..

ukraine doesn't want to be a proxy state of russia, though. the baltic states as well as other former bloc states like poland jumped at the opportunity to join nato because they wanted to create a future for themselves that was independent of russian hegemony. nato expansion was not something the US forced on anyone. russia objects to it because they believe they have some kind of natural right to dominate this part of the world.

these factors are irrelevant to a realist like mearsheimer because he only cares about the balance of power among the "great states." but i don't know why they should be irrelevant to leftists.

furthermore, from all of this, it doesn't follow that the US should invade ukraine. this is not something i support. it just means that there are other issues at stake in this conflict than American culpability.

i honestly don't know what the chapos were really advocating in that episode. neocons and liberal interventionists like shadi hamid and other brookings fellows have wrought havoc on the world, and i guess one can read between the lines of their calls for american "leadership" and see the danger of more military intervention. but past that -- from a leftist perspective, how can smaller states be protected from foreign aggression? what would a cooperative global order look like? how can one resist american imperialism without supporting the imperial ambitions of other states?

and is it even ethical to support an insurgency that has no real chance of ousting the occupiers? doesn't that just prolong the conflict? as american citizens, what should we be demanding? there are real questions here and the chapo guys just sort of clown on newspaper columnists.

We're not Ukrainians, right? What role are 'we' supposed to play here and how? Okay, Ukraine doesn't want to be a proxy state of Russia, how are American leftists supposed to play a role in enabling that desire? Support arms shipments? What is the right way to concern oneself with this?

how can one resist american imperialism without supporting the imperial ambitions of other states?

Step one should be accepting that other states have ambitions (imperial or not...) and that we (whether 'we' means leftists, Americans, the US/EU axis, NATO, etc.) don't get to stop them. The base problem with complaints about, say, DSA's response to this or 'leftists' in general or whatever is that there's a tacit demand of picking a side. Opposing NATO expansion isn't "supporting Russia's imperial ambitions" it's trying to bring about a world that isn't a constant dick-measuring contest between reactionary nuclear superpowers.

because they believe they have some kind of natural right to dominate this part of the world

do you think your fucking country have been any fucking better in latin america since aiding and abetting the first fascist coup in brazil in '37 and on on and on and on blah blah blah CIA sponsored death squads.. chile ..nicaragua .. oh fuck it I can't be arsed. You are completely full of shit, pal.

no i don't

It seems like the conclusion is that the most moral stance is not to have any power. As long as we don’t affect anything we can’t do wrong.

Who's "we"? The United States? Yes, the planet would be better off with the US having less power and generally not 'doing things.'

"who's we?" is a good question. what we need is a better internationalism -- one that is able to address global issues such as climate change. US hegemony is a barrier to this, but so would be different countries duking it out for regional power the way they were in the beginning of the 20th century.

can't believe you didn't find any answers to the weighty foreign policy questions of the day on the podcast chapo trap house

they should at least try to address this stuff.

Seemed like an entire episode addressing this stuff, though. Just no good answers about 'what is to be done' and you know, sometimes there are no good answers to that question. 'Regional powers duking it out' is a reality, what the last month has laid bare is that there isn't a mechanism to halt that - but the global hegemon trying desperately to maintain its place can wreak a lot of bonus havoc trying and failing to do so.

personally I wouldn't be interested in their answers, but that's just me...maybe try this pod instead?

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/american-prestige/id1574741668

The modern European order pretty much rests on that hegemon, and relatively enthusiastically so. I guess in the end it means fuckall what we think, and the left probably has less influence on foreign policy than anything else, but I find it hard to take that lightly and just say "oh well, Russia's going to dominate Europe now, liberal social democracies were fun while they lasted."

xp I like Davison but wasn't he just on Chapo insisting Russia wasn't going to invade Ukraine? Will still give his post-invasion show a listen.

'The Europeans like it, though' is not a particularly compelling reason for us to pay for strategic bombers on Diego Garcia and troops in South Korea rather than having a functioning civil society, IMO.

can you guys please quarantine the ukraine talk to the bad thread I’m not going to read?

I usually hate the “we wrote a script for tv/political drama” shtick from the live show excerpts but I’ll allow the CTH guys this recent one for that excellent clip of Walton Goggins

let's not talk about ukraine on a thread about a show that just had an episode about ukraine

hey, do as you will, I’m just making a request

There were other claims on the show that particularly bothered me too, for example Felix's repetition that the US had somehow "gassed up" Ukraine for this conflict. As though people wouldn't care about being invaded/taken over by Russia if the US hadn't engaged in some kind of psyop to make them think fighting for their homeland is worth it.

I’m just thankful that these dangerous horseshoe theorists aren’t the president or secretary of state or get inches in the paper of record or offered standing invites as ‘experts’ on every cable news channel. you know, like people who supported the Iraq invasion.

I haven't listened to This Is Sus... Is it assumed that the listener HAS watched these shows or HASN'T watched these show? Some of them, like Oz or Homeland seem like they're regular wheelhouse PRESTIGE TEEVEE things, and then others it's like ironic normie TV, and then it's like didn't everyone get excited about Nashville so which is it?

It started out as What Pseudo-Prestige TV Says About Us (kind of) and then seems to have morphed into Felix watching bad TV and recapping it.

The live show episodes are the absolute worst sales pitch for buying a ticket to see them on tour.

i thought the live show bits from the other week were alright but the audience participation stuff this week was painful, particularly the guy whose podcast pitch was about how he was one of the cool fans of the show, not like those other fans. Kind of grim to think that those ideas were the best that the audience had to offer.

The tv recaps are kind of a grab bag. I’ve never watched Homeland and the way it was broken down would probably work better for someone who’s watched some episodes. Kind of trashy propaganda-filled thriller with weird character arcs is how they ended up describing it.

The La Brea episode is a strong warning to not watch the show unless you want to see absolutely terrible television and it’s mostly goofing on how bad the show is

I don’t think I listened to a CTH episode about Oz, but hoo boy was that show ever a proto-prestige show. I watched it when it aired and it’s funny how they hit so many things that would be later hallmarks of prestige television, but also just had wild trash flying out of every plot device

xxp I forgot I had even played this. It's a yikes my dude.

Oz’s trash ones and insanity actively thwart binge watching. More than two episodes in 48 hours and your brain starts to melt.

Trashiness

What were the original “prestige” shows? The Sopranos? Sex and the City?

Sopranos for sure. even tho it was network feels like West Wing was in the running

The West Wing/Homicide/NYPD Blue were all pointing that way but Sopranos is the first one that really had that "it's a NOVEL but on TV" air to it IMO.

yeah totally. i should watch Homicide and the Shield at some point.

I had a bootleg DVD set once upon a time but Homicide has never gone up for streaming anywhere AFAIK, it's a shame