EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

rather a stretch for "helped win"

I see way too many people use “hey look it’s activism” as a kind of all-purpose rebuttal to criticisms of people for advancing confused or erroneous ideas, and I sincerely do not believe that this is how effective movements for beneficial change work.

— Matthew Yglesias 🍦 (@mattyglesias) December 3, 2020

Have you ever... done activism, Matt?

— Jillian C. York (@jilliancyork) December 3, 2020

pretty weak

not only is he effectively lying about doing any activism it seems pretty clear that as with pretty much everything he writes about he has not seriously engaged with the subject rather relying on facile first principals logic like so

imo the big problem with “defund the police” is that defunding the police is a bad idea — austerity is bad, public services are good, policing is important, and better policing will be more costly than bad policing not cheaper

— Matthew Yglesias 🍦 (@mattyglesias) December 2, 2020

AND he considers this approach to constitute the superior approach of critical thinking

This seems to me to be not primarily about the 2020 election but about letting social media vibes and a vague desire to be good allies override critical thinking about policy and the nature and purpose of issue advocacy groups.

— Matthew Yglesias 🍦 (@mattyglesias) December 2, 2020

unclear what his theory of change is, blogging, writing big idea books that no one but people interested in writing brutal reviews will read

his phrasing here cracked me up

Want to see me talk with @joerogan for over three hours?https://t.co/vObFlJpkHJ

— Matthew Yglesias 🍦 (@mattyglesias) December 3, 2020

Strong nah

matt mcardle

still take him over lee fang tho

smh show some respect for mattys body of work

'actually, sweatshops are good' classic matty

his biggest hit

a guy who has shown major concern for human rights

some people prefer his early work such as supporting the iraq war

— Pacific Coast Republic (yellow)

— Trumplandia (Red)

— United States of Canada (Green)

— Republique de Québec (Blue)

— Maritime Provinces (Pink)

— Georgia Autonomous Republic (Orange) pic.twitter.com/GwwmILmue4

— Matthew Yglesias 🍦 (@mattyglesias) December 10, 2020

are hawaii and the territories obamastan or ?

China took them over because we didn't reach a billion people

both better and worse than the original shitpost

wasn't this on SNL 16 years ago?

gotta break that red part in to two pieces man, they control too much territory

we should kept Texas or we’ll just have to invade them for their oil later

i mean its all a prelude to war obvs

pic.twitter.com/HtPf6NuOW3

— Mr. Victor Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) December 20, 2020

god I’d avoided ever hearing him speak before

that man is a successful podcaster lmao

a face made for radio and a voice made for TV

Lol

a neck unmade

a head made for floating over the countryside

Real life Nicholas fehn pic.twitter.com/PJpP0CdY2r

— Barrel Caskin’ (@ughprice) December 20, 2020

two titans, engaged in the Marketplace of Ideas

I'm for a modest student debt forgiveness program (which I think is what Biden will do) but as you shift from "modest" to "total" debt forgiveness you are increasingly talking about helping dentists and lawyers rather than sympathetic cases. https://t.co/lmFCDbCyqg

— Matthew Yglesias 🍦 (@mattyglesias) December 24, 2020

Today’s invitation for people to call him a moron.

Conveniently leaving out doctors

Getting dumber by the day.

Convincing Joe Manchin that curbing the filibuster would allow the passage of legislation that Joe Manchin is enthusiastic about > yelling at Joe Manchin that upholding the filibuster is blocking the passage of legislation that Joe Manchin is iffy on.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 2, 2021

you missed

To be provocative: What if instead of backing someone good for the open 2022 Ohio senate race who will almost certainly lose to someone terrible, we backed an independent bid by John Kasich who would probably win and in office serve as a check on democratic backsliding?

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 1, 2021

not to mention his take on don mcneil's stupidity (he's funny and has a bright future on substack!)

He should lead that charge. Maybe give up the substack to manage that campaign.

To be provocative: the first of those two tweets is good and the second of those two tweets is bad

the first one is so abstract as to be meaningless

You have to have eaten lead paint as a child to think you can sway Manchin by facts and logic or that he has some ideological core that would require abolishing the filibuster to accomplish. Cutting off the tops of mountains and protecting his daughters revenue aren’t impeded by the filibuster.

Klein’s podcast is some boring ass sh1t

keep your head down and be boring thats how you get to the ny times, know nothing and consider everything a thought experiment thats how you get to substack

Like he’s interviewing George Saunders, one of the most interesting, creative writer dudes alive, and somehow 20 minutes goes by and I’m like huh?

“Tell me about kindness...” stfu

been enjoying the free weekly post i get emailed from matt's substack. his writing on vox had definitely gotten less saucy compared to slate era. it's interesting the trade-off ppl like him make in switching to mailing lists where they can either maintain or increase their income while (a) increasing their writing output and (b) tanking their reach (he tweeted some numbers a while ago comparing substack views to vox articles and it was orders of magnitude lower). in his case in terms of policy influence it likely doesn't matter much bc enough DC people will read him, and he still has a million twitter followers, but it is kinda crazy that someone who has been so saturated in the discourse now writes 7/8 posts a week behind a paywall strictly for his biggest fans that are willing to pay double an nyt online subscription to read them

He still does a Vox podcast iirc

substack is really doing good work keeping some of the worst takers work under wraps

tho theyll prob be back once the subsidies run out

Libby Watson's healthcare substack is the only one I've heard of that doesn't sound like torture (and even then I can't imagine paying for it)

I too have a solution for the joe manchin problem and it also involves "curbing"

yeah ive read some newletters that are focused deep reporting on one topic that are good but i have no idea why anyone would pay for takes takes are plentiful and free xp