Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

the CTH conceit is that it's people that are either in or adjacent to the media that covers politics. the hosts generally have their own political stances that they use alternatively as a framing device for humorous exploration or as occasional diagetic material when they delve into actual policy

part of the confusion is that so many people think that a knowledge of policy wonks, inside baseball views of what actually goes on when politicians aren't on the floor of the house, etc. is just as relevant as actual political stances and the drafting of law

it's an interesting sidebar, but a lot of what drew people into that is dumb shows like the west wing, etc.

the one thing that's worth commenting on, and I think CTH does ok with this, is the attitude that that material is as important as policy

What is “that level of politics discourse”?

90% of political discourse that is about whether Joe Biden's smile and ability to stand next to Obama for eight years makes him a viable candidate in 2019 is "that level" imo

at this point all of the ire is directed at one person who is maybe on 1/5 of the episodes and mostly says dumb shit elsewhere

Fair enough, but the title is also "the dirtbag left", and I thought that was an Amber thing?

basically chapo is the most lucrative, most listened to left-wing (not counting liberals here) podcast in north america

It's not incidental that it's big via Patreon, and it came to a lot of people's attention post the Trump election - there was a gap for "what are the leftist/ish kids into" and there they were.

And again this was partly presented as "the kids are into being okay with making offensive jokes", which intersected with a Jacobinian "identity politics (sliding into intersectionalism) is a distraction from class politics" - "We *clap* want *clap* more *clap* female *clap* prison wardens" and so forth.

(being who I am I file a lot of this under "noizeboard", though I don't know how fair that is?)

I'm not saying this is a problem per se I'm just trying to understand the phenomenon, what people get out of it etc

this is what I wonder about ilx politics threads

I’m an idpol sjw and hire more women guards remains a great tweet describing a real thing

which people have earnestly posted near-duplicates of

so many layers

If you go back and read the first New Yorker piece (where dirtbag left got broadcast), the "offensive jokes" bit wasn't Howard Stern - it was ignoring the We Must Be Serious And Respectful shibboleths of the mainstream media and political discourse ie joking about executing Bush Admin war criminals and Henry Kissinger.

or calling John Roberts a pisspig on Twitter for an example from today

podcasts in particular also engender a weird form of jealousy because everyone thinks their conversations with their friends are more interesting than they are

basically chapo is the most lucrative, most listened to left-wing (not counting liberals here) podcast in north america

Smaller audience than some of the youtubers, eg Secular Talk? (or are you counting that as liberal rather than left-wing?).

I'm talking about podcasts

(i don't use youtube for anything other than listening to music - and that infrequently - and know nothing about youtubers)

Are you familiar with ContraPoints?

yeah, i saw the end of one of her videos once because my gf was watching it (i think her introduction to contrapoints was her appearing on chapo)

YT culture flies over my head but her stuff is quality.

all podcasts are bad. theres no good podcasts

Can't tell if that's a challop or its opposite.

truth hurts

Podcasts and YouTube shows suffer equally from being too damn long. 45 minute limit on podcasts, 15 minute limit on YouTube, this I promise to enact if you elect me President.

(i don't use youtube for anything other than listening to music - and that infrequently - and know nothing about youtubers)

This is fair enough, I'm the other way round, use youtube for most things inc music, and Soundcloud purely for music

But PoliticalYouTube is big! Granted the reactionaries got a head start in realizing thats where the reach is, but LeftTube has big numbers too now, whether its Kyle, ContraPoints, or whoever. Ive only come across the Chapo people because of Felix being on Michael Brooks show

youtube is better than podcasts and old millennials are mad about it

I mean, they're both 99.9% trash

as is Chapo tbf :p

podcasts > youtube because you actually have to sit down and watch YouTubes, which cuts into switch time

tho I do appreciate accounts like Contra's that actually do something artistic with that instead of just someone standing in front of a camera for 30 min or, like, a still drawing of a skull

You don't have to sit down and watch YouTubes at all! Theres no rule that says thats how you have to do it!

I liked their Marianne Williamson interview so I tried listening to another so but had to turn it off after 5 minutes. Seems like a lot of strawmanning and armchair everything.

podcasts > youtube because you actually have to sit down and watch YouTubes, which cuts into switch time and Contra aside, you really don't want to look at most of these people for an extended period of time

You don't have to sit down and watch YouTubes at all! Theres no rule that says thats how you have to do it!

This is true but if you don't you are then in fact listening to a podcast.

Which means the downside of it being YouTube then vanishes?

I have youtube on pretty often for all kinds of things, but I often tend not to be actually looking, especially if its music or any kind of talk stuff. Youtube is the biggest and most accessible platform, but really I suppose its just personal preference

Podcasts are for driving jogging etc. I think you need some paid YouTube account to do that.

I’m sure I would stop listening to 90 of the podcasts I do if I had to look at the people talking

theres a download button built in to some browsers, or you can use youtube-dl (works for downloading from soundcloud too)

Which means the downside of it being YouTube then vanishes?

Sure, I mean you can also listen to most podcasts on YouTube anyway. All I'm saying really is I tend to prefer audio content, whether it's hosted on libsyn or youtube shouldn't really matter.

you can also listen to most podcasts on YouTube anyway

citation needed

Matt is on the latest Age of Napoleon. It's good if yer into Matt in history mode.

Thread: Whatever position you take on Luxemburg vs. Bernstein or Lenin vs. Trotsky or even UBI vs. a Jobs Guarantee, those debates were all at least *about* something.

— Ben Burgis (@BenBurgis) July 7, 2019

A lot of the most bitter, angry socialist-on-socialist feuds in America in 2019 mostly seem to be about everyone interpreting each other's hot takery and rhetorical flourishes in the most crazily uncharitable possible ways filtered through their tangled interpersonal histories.

— Ben Burgis (@BenBurgis) July 7, 2019

I guess what I'm saying is we need to build the kind of left that can at least fight about more interesting things.

— Ben Burgis (@BenBurgis) July 7, 2019

i’m fascinated by the anti-UBI left

Alaska destroying state institutions to better find direct cash transfers is the future UBI people want. Every political fight after UBI would be the right marshalling popular support for increased cash held-in-person and decreased capital held-in-common.

— Blood Music (@IlllllllllllllI) July 6, 2019

I find it bizarre how hard the UBI "left" work to ignore this. Any UBI paid out below subsistence returns *immediately* to capital. What would you do with an extra 3 grand? Pay off debt and buy products. It's money laundering for a massive privatization of state property.

— Blood Music (@IlllllllllllllI) July 6, 2019

Isn't most of the left anti-UBI?

Isn't it conventional wisdom UBI is the ultimate libertarian scheme?

if tech industry dickholes like something it's probably bad is how I break it down to an extent

historically speaking, unconditionally giving everyone means of material security has been a core tenet of the left since the beginning

maybe because some tech guys got into it that will now change. But it would be a big twist and so far seems mostly confined to twitter

xpost also a core tenet of free market purists/chicago school jackasses afaic

maybe it’s the wrong thread for it but what is the ilx chapo bro consensus on like, welfare/transfers?

in the US aside from foodstamps it’s basically impossible to get transfers if you are not employed. (and trump is trying to add work requirements to SNAP). this is very different from the way it works in Canada and Europe. i think it’s desirable for those transfers to not be conditional on work, since often the most vulnerable populations can’t work (for a living wage, or at all). suspect most of you agree? once you agree to give people who don’t work money, UBI is the extreme argument that they shouldn’t depend on income, either. i think not depending on income makes sense at least to a point; if you’re making 20k per year UBI and decide to work part time but they take away your UBI you’ll just end up back at 20k. so maybe we don’t go all the way to the extreme of UBI, maybe you keep your 20k and your UBI and then it gets clawed back by progressive taxes.

i think there’s a strong political impetus to remove conditions on income support in the US, and kinda hoped the left would be the ones to do it. but maybe not?

Yeah maybe it’s another thread but generally speaking I have no problem with basic income given to citizens in need of an extra lift, regardless of employment status. I just don’t understand why it must be ~universal. Dunno why we would give free handouts at a whole lot of comfortable households with say private health insurance and a solid mortgage.

i’m fascinated by the anti-UBI left

historically speaking, unconditionally giving everyone means of material security has been a core tenet of the left since the beginning

― flopson,

Yes, but I think theres maybe a growing realization that UBI isn't that - if it was, why not do Universal Basic Services instead?

Andrew Yang gave the game away, unwittingly, when he let slip on Rubin(!) that once UBI was in place, you could start to cut welfare, because you would give people the choice. I'm not anti-Yang per se, but this is a huge problem, and in his core policy. Trojan horse laid bare (and thats before you get into whether its inflationary or not)

But the bigger question is....why UBI and not UBS? Maybe you think both, but it seems cart before horse to me. Universal Basic Income without Universal Basic Healthcare seems a poor band-aid

I just don’t understand why it must be ~universal.

I'm fine with the universal part (same w free college, healthcare) - any universal benefit is harder to remove once its out in the wild and in use. But this is why it works better as service rather than income, at point of need.