I regret "genuinely stupid" as I know our even-tempered host prefers non-flammatory language, but the writing is so loaded, and the conclusion so at odds with reality--low-barrier outlets are flooded and brutally competitive and fragmented--that I can't avoid terms like "stupid."
Well into the pandemic, Lester Holt would crow that NBC News had snagged crackerjack scientist Peter Dazcak PhD of the esteemed EcoHealth Alliance as its top Covid expert. Since the outlines of Dazcak's conflicts of interests were already glaring, that was genuinely stupid.
Or was it?
As with the misrepresentations, omissions, and deceptions of Andrew Marantz' and Angela Saini's writings, no careers were harmed in the making of this journalism.
In your defense, that is a pretty stupid thing to write. I'm old enough to remember when the libs were in a panic because republicans had taken over AM radio.
AM radio! The republicans had figured out that lower frequency radio signal would, when atmospheric conditions were proper, spread far and wide, infecting the kinds of gullible people who went with the base factory radio in their car.
>> AM radio! The republicans had figured out that lower frequency radio signal would, when atmospheric conditions were proper, spread far and wide, infecting the kinds of gullible people who went with the base factory radio in their car. <<
Substack needs the whole Ron Unz commenting system, including the buttons. But absent that:
For anti-establishment conservatives, there was not an acceptable candidate to vote for in the general election that had a real chance of winning this century until Trump in 2016. I remember in 2004, for example, the choice was between pro-iraq war/immigration enthusiast bush and pro-iraq war/immigration enthusiast John Kerry.
What is it about this simple concept: that the purpose of govt is for the protection and flourishing of the citizens who form that govt/state/tribe/territory and for no one else and no other purpose—that makes people confused or angry or inquisitorial?
I guess "citizenism" (which used to be called "good govt") doesn't give people enough options for grandiose preening and scheming and that's bad for the Andrew Marantzes of the world.
Our progressive clerisy makes everything too complicated.
From great evil white men to vitamin hucksters. I'm not encouraging this, but if you started telling people instead of you were the first person to have their cancer cured by a new class of pharmaceuticals but instead a blend of vitamins and probiotics that you're now giving to the world as "Sailer's @ss Cancer Cure" (Just $9.95 a month!), you'd leave a lot bigger patrimony for your family. Not encouraging it, just pointing it out.
A blast from the past might reveal that the immigration issue predated the Iraq war as the issue that divided the Jewish Neocons from the Paleo-cons. Neocon capo Irving Kristol intervened in the Pete Wilson 1994 race in California by sending Neocon slaves Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett to oppose both Wilson and Prop 187. Neocons were openly for open borders even before they came out for endless war in the Mideast.
That is a really weird comment. Pete Wilson WAS a moderate on many issues including being pro-choice on abortion. And Pete Wilson WON that election. You may not have noticed that Trump became a major force in American politics on the strength of his immigration restriction positions. Wilson was followed by Gray Davis who was recalled over the immigration issue alone. I don't think any of the policies promoted by Neocons are moderate. Not open borders not free trade and not endless wars. Nobody is going to get elected pushing those positions.
The percentage of California that was non-Hispanic white was higher when Wilson was governor than today.
However, the main problem that the California Republicans had is that the liked the cheap labor of mass illegal immigration that supported the real estate industry in California. However, the same Republicans failed to understand that cheap labor can become expensive when one counts all of the social welfare systems required to support cheap labor. Republicans wanted the cheap labor but did not want to pay the taxes required to support the families of the cheap labor.
>Chapter ten in Antisocial is devoted to how I wouldn’t go along with the bipartisan consensus that the only way the Republicans could possibly win another presidential election was via amnesty for illegal aliens and other immigration-boosting devices.
A side note on this: When people wonder how Trump could win immigrant votes and compare this to let's-have-amnesty Bush's number of immigrant votes, everyone seems to forget that they might not be the same immigrants.
Some are, no doubt. But then you had open-borders immigrant voters for Bush, and closed-border immigrants for Trump. So media shouldn't just ask "how could Trump win more immigrants?" but "how could Trump win different immigrants?"
(Bush, 44% of Latinos in 2004, Trump, 46% of Latinos in 2024)
Though as always when talking about immigrant votes for Trump, let's not fall into the trap of being googly-eyed about how non-Whites vote GOP now. Some managed to convince themselves of this after the election, in between relieved breaths about how they couldn't be called racist now. The majority of EVERY non-White category except native Indians still vote for open borders and always have, just like in every other Western country. (While native Indians don't have to since they have their own territory and all the privileges imaginable already, and more immigrants will not improve this.)
"Second, Marantz’s assertion that citizenism is “intellectualized white nationalism” perfectly suited to memehood is amusingly clueless."
I think you're giving him too much credit. He's just taking a dishonest cheap shot. For a couple decades from the 90s-Trump era that's all they needed to do to win arguments.
Other than seeking new Democratic voters (and increasingly Hispanics are voting Republican) it’s not clear to me exactly why the Biden administration decided that it was a good idea to open our borders to millions of unskilled, uneducated people. It ended up costing the Democrats the 2024 election. Allowing a relative small number of the well educated in each year is probability a good idea.
This was one of the most disastrous policies the country has seen in my long lifetime. Importing millions of people who will work for next to nothing just to be here undermines the wages of our working class and exacerbates our national housing crisis when we can’t house our own citizens. It consumed billions of our tax dollars which could have been put to better use.
The age of mass migration is over. People cannot overpopulate their home country and just expect to move to greener pastures. There are no more green pastures. They need to voluntarily reduce their country's population to an environmentally sustainable level, stay there and work to improve their living conditions.
I also don’t understand those who say that we should not deport the majority of these interlopers. They violated our laws and continue to violate them. No one believes that they have a right to visit Paris as a tourist, rent an apartment and live their life there without the permission of the French people and no one would argue that the French have no right to kick their sorry asses out of that country. Why do the same rules not apply to the United States? They clearly do.
Open borders are a religious tenet at this point. Rob Tibbets' daughter was stabbed to death by a pathological, low IQ Mexican immigrant and all he could talk about was how they made such delicious tacos.
They Democrats looked lovingly to Democratic Socialist Europe and wanted to emulate their open borders and free stuff. Hasn’t worked out well for them or us
One of the most brilliant and edifying political moves of my lifetime was busing illegal immigrants and 'asylum seekers' (hehe) to sanctuary cities. HL Mencken would be proud.
Most illegals wouldn’t know a Democrat from an Armadillo. They come for the wonderful life advertised by the Cartels. Who are subsidized and supported by democrats and republicans supporting NGOs run by open borders anti-American groups like The Tides Foundation. The Illegals are a commodity to be bought, sold and used.
But the point remains. Groups like Make the Road and Tides bring them here, identify the best candidates to organize and lobby for city voting, then state, then federal. They play the long game. And they are 100% doing this to increase Democrat representation (based only on head-counting, not status) and eventually mass citizenship.
Not arguing that point. Just saying that the illegals aren’t coming here to vote for Democrats, they are just voting for whoever promises and provides which happens to be the Democrats and the Socialists and Communists.
One of the interesting things about the Trump era (which 2016-2028 deserves to be called regardless of one’s feelings about him) is that it does represent an internal reevaluation of the political direction of the right, while over the last 25 years the left has charged relentlessly more leftward with close to zero introspection about it.
Even today, with some recognition that they are losing young males and have a weakened grasp on non-whites, the left still intends to fight and die on immigration, DEI, and celebration of gender woo and all things gay, despite pretty clear evidence lopsided majorities of the public are on the other side of these issues.
I will admit to some euphoria at the beginning of the year, but that’s worn off. The left still has substantial advantages in government, media and entertainment, and academia that are not going away anytime soon plus a lot of donors that eventually will coalesce around a strategy and few candidates rather than the current flailing. As Steve and others note, they intend for ‘democracy’ to become a permanent one party affair and that’s the ultimate goal. This is going to be a decades long political struggle to define the rest of the century.
"while over the last 25 years the left has charged relentlessly more leftward with close to zero introspection about it."
Which itself was enabled by Clinton and the New Democrats moving the party to the right on economic issues. That made it cool for rich people to vote democratic. They could be part of the glamor and keep all their dough.
Good point - there is no economic penalty for upper middle class whites for supporting the Dems. Seems like despite a few GOP districts in CA or NY, Congress ought to have a very low SALT deduction so there is obvious pain associated with Dem control of your state. The current proposal to raise it to something like $40k for people under $500k in annual income just rewards loads of Dem voters at the end of the day and for nothing in return.
The GOP has been trying for decades to pick up more votes by lowering taxes and it simply hasn't worked at all (although maybe the tax on tips thing might). Starting under W and in following administrations, the GOP has exempted more and and more people from paying *any* federal taxes and I cannot see any evidence that it moved the needle at all.
People respond to negative incentives the most. Make upper income Dems feel as much economic and cultural pain as possible.
I have to agree except, er, that SALT deduction rise could help me out too. It's like "Oh yeah, never drive on the railroad tracks!' (Uh Phil, that one I kinda agree with)
If I could design/enforce the system, the tax structure would be the other way around. We should all pay more to our states, counties and cities, than the federal government. It bugs me that the fed can hoover up money to the point of pain so that states can't. Then they say, if you want some of it back, implement this policy or that policy (that the constitution clearly reserved to the states or the people).
Funny thing is, for most people above say the middle of middle class, a tax cut won't materially affect your life quality or even purchasing power much. Manufactured stuff is cheap thanks to China subsidy. Most of what we spend our scratch on is scarce things that we compete with similar people for.
If everyone gets their tax bill lowered by 5%, they just bid up the cost of housing or private school or Van Halen tickets.
Not sure what the GOP can do in California. It's irrational at this point. One party rule sure looks like incompetent government but we keep voting for it.
Our middle school library had the two volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. I spent hours with it. It came in a case that had a drawer in the top containing a cool rectangle magnifying glass. I had no need of it back then. Could also piss like a race horse, but I am otherwise much better now. Oh and full head of hair but I was goofy dolt.
"For example, The American Conservative magazine was founded in 2002 by Taki, Pat Buchanan, and Scott McConnell, with me as movie reviewer, to oppose Bush’s horrible plan for war"
Look fellas, if we want to get America out of this disastrous war, we're gonna need a good movie reviewer! A little sugar to make the medicine go down.
Funny. But I shouldn't have said even that. I have rules about how I behave online, and I wandered near breaking one. I just read American Conservative, am a paleo, was recruited by the JBS, am archiving Eagle Foundation papers, etc. Helen Andrews was a plus, Ron Paul and Rod Dreher minuses, but the writing is excellent. Paul is now supported by Iran via French Marxist Thierry Maysson, and he does tours with insane Democrat former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. There is a fine line between being anti-foreign ehgagement and anti-American, and Ron Paul, like so many idiot leftitarians, stomped stupidly across it.
"...POWERFUL DISTRIBUTION MECHANISMS..."
These people are genuinely stupid.
I regret "genuinely stupid" as I know our even-tempered host prefers non-flammatory language, but the writing is so loaded, and the conclusion so at odds with reality--low-barrier outlets are flooded and brutally competitive and fragmented--that I can't avoid terms like "stupid."
Well into the pandemic, Lester Holt would crow that NBC News had snagged crackerjack scientist Peter Dazcak PhD of the esteemed EcoHealth Alliance as its top Covid expert. Since the outlines of Dazcak's conflicts of interests were already glaring, that was genuinely stupid.
Or was it?
As with the misrepresentations, omissions, and deceptions of Andrew Marantz' and Angela Saini's writings, no careers were harmed in the making of this journalism.
Isn't NBC known for being the mouthpiece of the intelligence community?
In your defense, that is a pretty stupid thing to write. I'm old enough to remember when the libs were in a panic because republicans had taken over AM radio.
AM radio! The republicans had figured out that lower frequency radio signal would, when atmospheric conditions were proper, spread far and wide, infecting the kinds of gullible people who went with the base factory radio in their car.
>> AM radio! The republicans had figured out that lower frequency radio signal would, when atmospheric conditions were proper, spread far and wide, infecting the kinds of gullible people who went with the base factory radio in their car. <<
Substack needs the whole Ron Unz commenting system, including the buttons. But absent that:
LOL. Well done.
For anti-establishment conservatives, there was not an acceptable candidate to vote for in the general election that had a real chance of winning this century until Trump in 2016. I remember in 2004, for example, the choice was between pro-iraq war/immigration enthusiast bush and pro-iraq war/immigration enthusiast John Kerry.
southpark said it best ;)
What is it about this simple concept: that the purpose of govt is for the protection and flourishing of the citizens who form that govt/state/tribe/territory and for no one else and no other purpose—that makes people confused or angry or inquisitorial?
I guess "citizenism" (which used to be called "good govt") doesn't give people enough options for grandiose preening and scheming and that's bad for the Andrew Marantzes of the world.
Our progressive clerisy makes everything too complicated.
And when did the U.S. ever have good government under Steve's definition?
it's an ideal, like "Love your brother". It never happens but keeps people striving in the right direction (hopefully).
“Good government”? That oxymoronic, and worse, Canadian
From great evil white men to vitamin hucksters. I'm not encouraging this, but if you started telling people instead of you were the first person to have their cancer cured by a new class of pharmaceuticals but instead a blend of vitamins and probiotics that you're now giving to the world as "Sailer's @ss Cancer Cure" (Just $9.95 a month!), you'd leave a lot bigger patrimony for your family. Not encouraging it, just pointing it out.
Linus Pauling knew a thing or two
A blast from the past might reveal that the immigration issue predated the Iraq war as the issue that divided the Jewish Neocons from the Paleo-cons. Neocon capo Irving Kristol intervened in the Pete Wilson 1994 race in California by sending Neocon slaves Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett to oppose both Wilson and Prop 187. Neocons were openly for open borders even before they came out for endless war in the Mideast.
Republicans can barely get elected dog catcher in California these days. How would have moving further to the right help?
That is a really weird comment. Pete Wilson WAS a moderate on many issues including being pro-choice on abortion. And Pete Wilson WON that election. You may not have noticed that Trump became a major force in American politics on the strength of his immigration restriction positions. Wilson was followed by Gray Davis who was recalled over the immigration issue alone. I don't think any of the policies promoted by Neocons are moderate. Not open borders not free trade and not endless wars. Nobody is going to get elected pushing those positions.
The percentage of California that was non-Hispanic white was higher when Wilson was governor than today.
However, the main problem that the California Republicans had is that the liked the cheap labor of mass illegal immigration that supported the real estate industry in California. However, the same Republicans failed to understand that cheap labor can become expensive when one counts all of the social welfare systems required to support cheap labor. Republicans wanted the cheap labor but did not want to pay the taxes required to support the families of the cheap labor.
Are we the baddies?
>Chapter ten in Antisocial is devoted to how I wouldn’t go along with the bipartisan consensus that the only way the Republicans could possibly win another presidential election was via amnesty for illegal aliens and other immigration-boosting devices.
A side note on this: When people wonder how Trump could win immigrant votes and compare this to let's-have-amnesty Bush's number of immigrant votes, everyone seems to forget that they might not be the same immigrants.
Some are, no doubt. But then you had open-borders immigrant voters for Bush, and closed-border immigrants for Trump. So media shouldn't just ask "how could Trump win more immigrants?" but "how could Trump win different immigrants?"
(Bush, 44% of Latinos in 2004, Trump, 46% of Latinos in 2024)
Though as always when talking about immigrant votes for Trump, let's not fall into the trap of being googly-eyed about how non-Whites vote GOP now. Some managed to convince themselves of this after the election, in between relieved breaths about how they couldn't be called racist now. The majority of EVERY non-White category except native Indians still vote for open borders and always have, just like in every other Western country. (While native Indians don't have to since they have their own territory and all the privileges imaginable already, and more immigrants will not improve this.)
Correct.
"Second, Marantz’s assertion that citizenism is “intellectualized white nationalism” perfectly suited to memehood is amusingly clueless."
I think you're giving him too much credit. He's just taking a dishonest cheap shot. For a couple decades from the 90s-Trump era that's all they needed to do to win arguments.
Remember what the SPLC got away with?
Other than seeking new Democratic voters (and increasingly Hispanics are voting Republican) it’s not clear to me exactly why the Biden administration decided that it was a good idea to open our borders to millions of unskilled, uneducated people. It ended up costing the Democrats the 2024 election. Allowing a relative small number of the well educated in each year is probability a good idea.
This was one of the most disastrous policies the country has seen in my long lifetime. Importing millions of people who will work for next to nothing just to be here undermines the wages of our working class and exacerbates our national housing crisis when we can’t house our own citizens. It consumed billions of our tax dollars which could have been put to better use.
The age of mass migration is over. People cannot overpopulate their home country and just expect to move to greener pastures. There are no more green pastures. They need to voluntarily reduce their country's population to an environmentally sustainable level, stay there and work to improve their living conditions.
I also don’t understand those who say that we should not deport the majority of these interlopers. They violated our laws and continue to violate them. No one believes that they have a right to visit Paris as a tourist, rent an apartment and live their life there without the permission of the French people and no one would argue that the French have no right to kick their sorry asses out of that country. Why do the same rules not apply to the United States? They clearly do.
Open borders are a religious tenet at this point. Rob Tibbets' daughter was stabbed to death by a pathological, low IQ Mexican immigrant and all he could talk about was how they made such delicious tacos.
They Democrats looked lovingly to Democratic Socialist Europe and wanted to emulate their open borders and free stuff. Hasn’t worked out well for them or us
Steve: And it’s working even worse for Europe. France and the UK are heading towards civil war.
One of the most brilliant and edifying political moves of my lifetime was busing illegal immigrants and 'asylum seekers' (hehe) to sanctuary cities. HL Mencken would be proud.
Good and hard!
Different immigrants. Illegals are Democrat.
Most illegals wouldn’t know a Democrat from an Armadillo. They come for the wonderful life advertised by the Cartels. Who are subsidized and supported by democrats and republicans supporting NGOs run by open borders anti-American groups like The Tides Foundation. The Illegals are a commodity to be bought, sold and used.
But the point remains. Groups like Make the Road and Tides bring them here, identify the best candidates to organize and lobby for city voting, then state, then federal. They play the long game. And they are 100% doing this to increase Democrat representation (based only on head-counting, not status) and eventually mass citizenship.
Not arguing that point. Just saying that the illegals aren’t coming here to vote for Democrats, they are just voting for whoever promises and provides which happens to be the Democrats and the Socialists and Communists.
Agreed.
You're my favorite heretic, Steve.
“We the People” and “our posterity” are not mere citizenism . A nation is a people
One of the interesting things about the Trump era (which 2016-2028 deserves to be called regardless of one’s feelings about him) is that it does represent an internal reevaluation of the political direction of the right, while over the last 25 years the left has charged relentlessly more leftward with close to zero introspection about it.
Even today, with some recognition that they are losing young males and have a weakened grasp on non-whites, the left still intends to fight and die on immigration, DEI, and celebration of gender woo and all things gay, despite pretty clear evidence lopsided majorities of the public are on the other side of these issues.
I will admit to some euphoria at the beginning of the year, but that’s worn off. The left still has substantial advantages in government, media and entertainment, and academia that are not going away anytime soon plus a lot of donors that eventually will coalesce around a strategy and few candidates rather than the current flailing. As Steve and others note, they intend for ‘democracy’ to become a permanent one party affair and that’s the ultimate goal. This is going to be a decades long political struggle to define the rest of the century.
"while over the last 25 years the left has charged relentlessly more leftward with close to zero introspection about it."
Which itself was enabled by Clinton and the New Democrats moving the party to the right on economic issues. That made it cool for rich people to vote democratic. They could be part of the glamor and keep all their dough.
Good point - there is no economic penalty for upper middle class whites for supporting the Dems. Seems like despite a few GOP districts in CA or NY, Congress ought to have a very low SALT deduction so there is obvious pain associated with Dem control of your state. The current proposal to raise it to something like $40k for people under $500k in annual income just rewards loads of Dem voters at the end of the day and for nothing in return.
The GOP has been trying for decades to pick up more votes by lowering taxes and it simply hasn't worked at all (although maybe the tax on tips thing might). Starting under W and in following administrations, the GOP has exempted more and and more people from paying *any* federal taxes and I cannot see any evidence that it moved the needle at all.
People respond to negative incentives the most. Make upper income Dems feel as much economic and cultural pain as possible.
I have to agree except, er, that SALT deduction rise could help me out too. It's like "Oh yeah, never drive on the railroad tracks!' (Uh Phil, that one I kinda agree with)
If I could design/enforce the system, the tax structure would be the other way around. We should all pay more to our states, counties and cities, than the federal government. It bugs me that the fed can hoover up money to the point of pain so that states can't. Then they say, if you want some of it back, implement this policy or that policy (that the constitution clearly reserved to the states or the people).
Funny thing is, for most people above say the middle of middle class, a tax cut won't materially affect your life quality or even purchasing power much. Manufactured stuff is cheap thanks to China subsidy. Most of what we spend our scratch on is scarce things that we compete with similar people for.
If everyone gets their tax bill lowered by 5%, they just bid up the cost of housing or private school or Van Halen tickets.
Not sure what the GOP can do in California. It's irrational at this point. One party rule sure looks like incompetent government but we keep voting for it.
I wasn't aware Einstein had achieved villain status in any way. He just seems caricatured to me. Excited to learn about this!
Annals of Media? More like Anals of Media, amiright?
"It should have come with a magnifying glass."
Our middle school library had the two volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. I spent hours with it. It came in a case that had a drawer in the top containing a cool rectangle magnifying glass. I had no need of it back then. Could also piss like a race horse, but I am otherwise much better now. Oh and full head of hair but I was goofy dolt.
"For example, The American Conservative magazine was founded in 2002 by Taki, Pat Buchanan, and Scott McConnell, with me as movie reviewer, to oppose Bush’s horrible plan for war"
Look fellas, if we want to get America out of this disastrous war, we're gonna need a good movie reviewer! A little sugar to make the medicine go down.
Now I know who you are.
Mary Poppins?
Won't out a person.
But she's practically perfect in every way.
Funny. But I shouldn't have said even that. I have rules about how I behave online, and I wandered near breaking one. I just read American Conservative, am a paleo, was recruited by the JBS, am archiving Eagle Foundation papers, etc. Helen Andrews was a plus, Ron Paul and Rod Dreher minuses, but the writing is excellent. Paul is now supported by Iran via French Marxist Thierry Maysson, and he does tours with insane Democrat former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. There is a fine line between being anti-foreign ehgagement and anti-American, and Ron Paul, like so many idiot leftitarians, stomped stupidly across it.