3797

The accompanying picture would seem to indicate otherwise.

On a related note:

3798

Yeah, fuck that. No healthcare of education for children in my America. Just how the Founders wanted it!

3799

I am incapable of determining if that’s satire or not. My satire detector has been broken…

3800

I was thinking it was satire until I read that last bullet point. I’ve heard that from most people around here, the part about how that’s not the government’s job. Just that last point would make them nod in agreement that this is all individual responsibility, not government responsibility.

3801

You’re not alone. I thought exactly the same thing. And then got super depressed when I realized it wasn’t. You’d think we’d know well enough by now…

3802

I’ve always wondered why it’s somehow out of bounds for individuals to express their responsibility by getting together and collectively acting for the common good in the form of a lawfully elected government.

3803

Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz):

Other striking aspects to this. But it’s wild how American conservatives have convinced themselves that they live in a country (or, at least, used to live in one) where the government does not help people with health-care, housing, or education…rather than in one where the state engineered white middle-class home ownership, heavily subsidized college for boomers, and gives free health-care to the GOP base. There’s no controversy about whether the government should help people – only about *which* people.

3804
3805

God Bless Trump’s America!

3806

Our Nazi President - Papers, Please!

3807

And his followers, who one day are likely to re-enact Kristallnacht:

Kristallnacht:

3808

Not surprised at all that the Kansas Kobach would do this:

3809

This reads to me insightful and true.

The Economist: Liberalism inherently tolerates its detractors. Yet online culture is so virulent, does this undermine the viability of liberalism?

Ms Nagle: Spend some time on Twitter or looking at YouTube comments and you’ll find it hard to maintain a belief in liberal enlightenment ideals for long. The reality of what we are like when we are given the freedom to say what we like is actually extremely ugly. Public discourse has never been as idiotic, cruel, irrational and utterly pointless in my lifetime as it is now.

The point the culture wars have taken us to is really a war between two irreconcilable sides and each side wants a world that the other would rather die than accept. When you reach that point I’m not sure if a liberal public sphere is possible anymore. Those arguing for it tend to really be motivated by faith that their ideas will triumph under those conditions. But liberalism is extremely weak right now and I think much stronger ideologies are likely to trample it in the coming years.

The Economist: Does the restrictive nature of political correctness inadvertently push people away from progressive politics?

Ms Nagle: No serious person can really deny that it does at this point, if they’re being honest. Many people are attracted to progressive politics because they see that the world is unequal and unfair and they want better wages or education or healthcare. But they quickly find out that this isn’t enough. In order to not be purged they have to learn an ever more elaborate and bizarre set of correct positions they must hold on a range of issues and they must continue to carefully and fearfully walk on eggshells to avoid the call-out.

No humour or intellectual exploration is any longer possible in that environment. Think of any progressive intellectual of any significance from the last century and try to imagine them surviving today. They’d just be purged. They’d have to dissent on some issue and it wouldn’t be tolerated.

The Economist: How has the far-right used irony to spread transgressive ideas? Does the far-left do something similar and if so, how? (And if it doesn’t, why not?)

Ms Nagle: Irony and transgressiveness have been aesthetic tools mostly used by the political left for a long time, certainly they’ve been ever-present since 1968. I write in the book about how the right has for a long time been dominated by a genteel kind of conservatism and that the pro-Trump rightist youth politics marked a break from that. It took the liberal cultural mainstream and the left by surprise.

Suddenly when Trump got elected, liberal or left leaning journalists were trying to catch up and work out what was ironic and what was real. So for example, punks used to use the swastika ironically in the 70s, and many of those bands have become part of the progressive canon, but when the alt right and the various pro-Trump online subcultures emerged with a similar style, it was hard to know which flirtations with fascism were ironic.

The Economist: It often seems like the culture wars are driven by young men with diminished economic prospects and an inability to find a sexual partner. Is that a problem that can be solved by policies or do liberals simply need to discover a new tone?

Ms Nagle: One of the darker products of the sexual revolution is that you have a generation of young men raised on very grim pornography and being able to be like the Marquis de Sade in the virtual or imaginary world but in the real world they have less agency, less human contact, fewer prospects and less stake in their community and society than ever before. You have unprecedented levels of celibacy and childlessness too among millennials, including women.

Unfortunately it’s near impossible to have a sane or good faith conversation about this because of how heated the culture wars have become online, but the longer term social implications, which apply to men and women, are surely going to be very significant as millennials get older. I think there are economic solutions to some of it but it also requires a major shift in the culture at this point. Young people need to be able to have families and a home and some kind of job stability. We also need to restore the dignity of ordinary people.

Ruthless competitive individualism is being applied to the romantic and private realm and it’s deeply anti-social. Ultimately though, the emergence of all of this is really about demographics and race. Though I’ve been guilty of it myself in the past, I would now caution that these issues should be considered before diving straight into the psycho-sexual interpretations.

3810

This strikes me as bullshit, and I wonder why the interviewer didn’t ask the obvious next question, e.g. “Give me some examples of positions which would cause one to be ‘purged’ from the left; and what does it actually mean to be purged?”

3811

I think was she referred to this incident among others:

I think “social media political capital” really depends upon the person; it’s hard to “purge” Justin Trudeau (and probably doesn’t make much sense) but certainly among randos online one can be “purged” from a community. It’s hard to parse these distinctions without spilling a lot of electrons though.

3812

I think this is pretty ridiculous too. It sounds like white feminism to me, better wages, better education and healthcare but not really a peep about just being able to just do everyday, ordinary things in peace.

What’s weird about this part is she speaks about grim pornography, which is often only geared towards men, and then just throws in oh it affects women too.

This really isn’t a affects women too kind of thing. You don’t have a bunch incel cells out there full of women. There’s a reason for that, and there’s no need to try and claim that this is some sort of equal problem between the sexes when clearly it’s not.

3813

Who got ‘purged’ at that incident, and what did they get ‘purged’ from?

I mean, if you want to vote for progressive politicians and politics, who stops you? Do the PC police revoke your voting registration or something?

3814

This is a bizarre story. I wonder if the DC Metro have ever done this for any other group?

3815

If the unspoken part of their plan is to drive said trains into an unused tunnel in the middle of the metro system, I approve.

3816

I’m guessing now that they’ll abandon this idea, but it will only be because the Union leaked the plan to the media, and the backlash will embarrass the board. But holy fucking gods, what were they thinking?