Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

That tweet-thread is kinda bullshit. Just for an example, it says: 'What part of Obama's legacy was negated when Trump continued the already record high level of deportations under our one President of Color?' This is pretty stupid this week, when Trump is annulling DACA.

Time and time again Trump is attacking specific Obama polices, often for seemingly no other reason than that Obama did it, and that thread just says 'yeah, but the intercept said that Obama was shit as well!!!'

I guess my only issue with this piece is that I don't understand what kind of politics could begin to address any of this. I know this isn't the question he is dealing with here. But it comes up when he criticizes Bernie Sanders for trying to reach out to the "white working class" by identifying himself as such, or when he tries to take apart the argument that part of Trump's appeal comes from "anti-elitism" and that Dems could reach more rural, white voters via economic populism. I feel like the Democrats NEED to do this to regain power from Republicans, especially at the state level. And I don't think it necessitates, for a single moment, backing down on issues like criminal justice reform. Just because the majority of white voters respond to dogwhistle politics, is that the only kind of politics they would respond to? And if it is, what does that mean for the future?

The Republicans are a threat to ALL Americans. If they had it their way, we wouldn't have schools, environmental protections, health care subsidies, anything. If white voters are voting this way JUST because it flatters their sense of relative entitlement, if white supremacy is the main thing they hold dear, if there is NOTHING democrats could do to peel them away from the nihilistic death cult of the GOP, then where does that leave us?

I...don't think he's advocating nihilism. Like any good writer or professor, he's explaining the motivations and implications of the things we do, not to mention the unintended consequences. This is not hard.

Like, if he's pissing you white libs off, he's done his job.

mad white lib right here

woo!

get a room

TNC bodied Kristof in this piece, if had any shame, he wouldnt show up for work tomorrow and eat apple jacks and watch judge mathis all day

that tweet thread sucks, and of course it ends w marxist twitter linking to that awful RL stephens piece again

At the same time, Trump's bloody heirloom of whiteness does not explain why he improved with voters of color compared to Romney. pic.twitter.com/iR35cVaE4M

— Lana Del Raytheon (@LanaDelRaytheon) September 7, 2017

what's the contradiction here? the point is that stirring up white resentment wins the right elections. Of course POC can harbor antiblack racism; even black people can. Stirring up white resentment and gaining a slight increase in votes from POC are not remotely contradictory concepts

"How could they have lost ground with POC compared to two elections with the first POC candidate/President." Gee, golly.

I can't see many replies to that, hopefully someone points out that Hillary's reduced numbers maintained Obama's gains with Latinx and Asian-American voters and presumably reverted to non-Obama numbers for African-American voters in elections not on that chart.

If you're going to rely on stats like that, they're pretty simple - white evangelicals voted for Trump at record numbers and they made up an enormous percentage of the electorate.

'dogwhistle' is a dogwhistle

The demographic inevitability argument pre-election was grounded in the belief that the GOP had maxed out its white base (specifically white males) - they're not growing as a percentage of the population and you can't win 100% of a group - only oops, they managed to top themselves one more time.

Whatever good points LDR may have about Obama's real-world legacy in that thread, it's mostly revealing that Twitter is the worst possible way to respond to a writer of TNC's caliber.

Well one of the many points of that thread is good or brilliant writing isn't going to save the day. Treeship points to a lack of what do you do with any of this, and that points to a weakness.

It was a pretty good response, highlighting both positives and negatives. Obama was the first black President, and you can't forget the President bit.

isnt part of the point of coates' piece 'what do you do with any of this'

Only in the sense that recognising the scale of the problem as the first, humble step. That's valuable however he isn't coming up with any solutions nor do I expect him to.

Brilliant writing isn't going to save the day but 140 characters and a jpg is just going to look needlessly hostile and nit-picky (or prone to reverse nit-pick).

It's a thread arguing thoroughly with the content of the piece. Rather that it appear hostile than merely a bow to writing of calibre.

It is in no sense arguing thoroughly with the content - the very first instance of the 'raceless antiracism' that Coates talks about is from Obama! They seem fixated on him as a vital evil actor, when his actual position in the piece is almost entirely symbolic - the above being one of the few exceptions.

(I am crediting Lana Del Raytheon as being genuine with the they/them in their twitter bio, when tbh the odds are high that they're just being an asshole)

One of the first big pieces by Coates was called 'The Case for Reparations'. He has definitely offered a solution, and he's been consistent about the importance of that solution.

thread was worth a read, even if i didn't agree with some of it. hate how threads appear in ilx embeds btw, no way to know that it's a thread

twitter threads

The link posted on here was from half-way through the twitter thread.

It's going through several parts of the piece and quoting them and offering a counter. Plenty of reasons are offered for this fixation on poor Obama.

I'm not sure what you'd prefer, Nhex? A Twitter thread isn't anything but someone replying to their own tweets, afaik.

One of the first big pieces by Coates was called 'The Case for Reparations'. He has definitely offered a solution, and he's been consistent about the importance of that solution.

― Frederik B, Friday, September 8, 2017 5:02 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah to be clear I'm speaking more to the notion of racism being something we make "progress" on, which coates largely rejects and has led to ppl accusing him of "pessimism." Which is what I assumed the post above me was talking about when xyzzz said the thing about brilliant writing not saving the day

The wider pt is lana del raytheon is not remotely in Coates league not just in terms of writing style but awareness of the conversations happening around this subject

Who is "lana del raytheon" and why is anyone taking a person who has chosen that name seriously?

LDR pointing out the hypocrisy of Obama v. Trump points is fine leftist Twitter and all, but, come on, we all know that "deporting a bunch of people and bailing out Wall Street vampires and murdering people via drone" is not going to be Obama's "legacy" in our lifetime even if it's all technically true

Also, this fascination with Obama's "legacy" is fucking stupid as shit since nothing means anything anymore when George W Bush is goofing around with Ellen and Jimmy Kimmel, get the fuck out of here with "legacy"

Obama's legacy is getting burnished on a daily basis by Trump, just by comparison.

There's a short piece on Talking Points Memo pointing out that Coates' selection of targets (George Packer, Nick Kristof, Mark Lilla) basically reveals him as existing entirely in that New Yorker/New York Times media-elite universe himself - he totally ignores much sharper discussions going on in the larger world.

What struck me though is the three voices Coates chose as the focus of his critique: Nick Kristof, George Packer and Mark Lilla. Lilla strikes me as somewhat set apart, a voice not so much of critical analysis or any sort of reportage but a sort of opportunistic and ahistorical preening rapped up in a fancy package. Kristof and Packer are wildly more interesting and thoughtful. But each is part of a highly elite and even literary kind of public dialog. We might call it David Brooksism, even if Brooks’ politics are a bit different.

Each are parts of an extremely rarefied elite culture who make a fetish of those they see as outside that culture and manage to create a caricature of the one they present themselves as a part of. It’s a funny thing to present oneself as the critic of elite cosmopolitan culture when one is so totally part of it. But this posture is a big part of the beautiful writing set, a view in which the main dynamic of American political life is the cultural condescension of the ‘elites’ which in some sense includes the entirety of the culture of the blue states against people in ‘fly over country.’ This has always struck me as a particularly shallow and shabby view of American culture and public life, a pose as much as it is an analysis. There is certainly plenty of cultural condescension from liberals in the big coastal cities toward rural conservatives in the midwest. But you have to be wildly out of touch not to see the the antipathy and condescension is mutual. Just flip on Fox News to see stereotypical Democrats and coastal ‘elites’ lampooned as lazy, deviant, precious, or generally offensive and worthless.

In any case, Coates’ piece is a great essay that brings together a wealth of data and characteristically penetrating analysis. I recommend it highly. But I could not read it without thinking there are a lot of voices – hardly little heard or without megaphones – he’s simply not hearing.

What "sharper discussions"? Fox News? That's the only example Marshall gives of a missing perspective.

Also, Marshall seems to think it is taken as universal truth that Trump won due to white backlash when it isn't, not even among people on the left. He goes on to admit this later in the response when he's complaining about a high-profile writer using the examples of other high-profile writers of the position he is arguing against. It seems odd, particularly for criticism of an excerpt from a book, which is not going to cite Twitter.

Also, I genuinely don't know this: who is the audience for TPM?

pr0n enthusiasts

(I am crediting Lana Del Raytheon as being genuine with the they/them in their twitter bio, when tbh the odds are high that they're just being an asshole)

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, September 8, 2017 5:51 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what does this mean

This means Andrew suspects that Lana Del Raytheon is mocking the concept of preferred pronouns.

"maybe they're being honest, but probably they're just being an asshole" is an interesting line of attack for when there's no evidence to back it up

Left Twitter is aggressively trans-accepting.

TNC bodied Kristof in this piece, if had any shame, he wouldnt show up for work tomorrow and eat apple jacks and watch judge mathis all day

otmmmmmmm I could drink a case and not be full

I think TNC would say before there is action there has to be recognition and reckoning re: what politics can address this

And he agrees that he's not saying anything new (beyond Trump as a new manifestation of American racism); I think that's part of his frustration. Historians have been saying these things for decades. I think the pointedness of Coates's critiques of the mainstream narratives about the 2016 election demonstrates that white conversation-setters in general are hiding from what happened, and so white Americans aren't reckoning with it.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with horseshoe.

Coates's critiques of the mainstream narratives about the 2016 election demonstrates that white conversation-setters in general are hiding from what happened

the whole notion of "conversation-setters" is more questionable now than at any point in my lifetime. are we talking about talking heads on cable news? talk radio jocks? internet commenters? newspaper and news magazine columnists? celebrity twitter accounts? politicians? mega-church preachers?

finding any commonality or unanimity of interest among those conversation-setters seems like a hopeless quest and identifying whose narratives are "mainstream" and whose are not seems to depend more and more on where you stand, not on any agreed criteria.

but then, hiding from race or submerging race is something white-generated narratives about US politics tend to do by default, except when they address it in directly, unambiguously racist terms, so frustration on the part of non-whites with this status quo is pretty much the status quo from their side of the coin.

"maybe they're being honest, but probably they're just being an asshole" is an interesting line of attack for when there's no evidence to back it up

It's not an attack, it's an observation+explanation of why I'm using the pronouns.

Tomorrow, when it gets a Verrit code, it'll be an attack.

lana del raytheon is a trans person of color who is an editor for jacobin. i think the twitter thread sucks

First thing I'm a-gonna do when Irma blows over is learn what "Verrit" means.

I would not want to be facing a hurricane right now, so I say this in jest

I'd rather sit out a hurricane than have to hear about Verrit again

What "sharper discussions"? Fox News? That's the only example Marshall gives of a missing perspective.

Also, Marshall seems to think it is taken as universal truth that Trump won due to white backlash when it isn't, not even among people on the left. He goes on to admit this later in the response when he's complaining about a high-profile writer using the examples of other high-profile writers of the position he is arguing against. It seems odd, particularly for criticism of an excerpt from a book, which is not going to cite Twitter.

― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Friday, September 8, 2017 1:57 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think I agree w/ DJP pretty much, although Josh Marshall isn't the only one bringing up this argument; part of it is that there are lots of conversations happening among many other black writers who've made many of these points, which Coates seems not to acknowledge in his rush to reference Packer et al, I think this argument is fair to an extent but I also think Coates is simply good at synthesizing and distilling those arguments in a way that gives them a force. But yeah the critiques ive read are more along the lines of, why is Coates the only black writer white liberals are picking up on, which is a fair concern.

That said i think Coates' piece was good

xxxp Then I'm an asshole - sorry, folks.

First thing I'm a-gonna do when Irma blows over is learn what "Verrit" means.

no one outside of left twitter will remember that in a week anyway