EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

I mean, it's a podcast transcript, read the rest of it to find out what he means.

nah lol

Here's that whole Ezra quote, this feels like popularism. . . appealing to "people" vs. appealing to "the elite" and definitely not anything about policy unless you count bar fights as policy

EZRA KLEIN: Yeah. And he probably does, weirdly enough, knowing a little bit about him. But Fetterman has the aesthetic, right? And this is a place where I think I end up having a real disagreement with the David Shors, and my friend Matthew Yglesias and others, who — I’m a policy guy. I’ve been covering policy my whole career. I think they’ve become too literal about policy, and too literal about how much voters know about policy and how much policy positioning matters.

I think a lot of things are tributaries into this overall gut sense of whether or not this politician is like you, and they like you, which are different ideas. You know, are they like you? Do they come from the world you come from? Do they understand you? And also, how do they feel about you? And Fetterman, who I think in a lot of ways is more liberal than Ryan, Fetterman visually and communicatively signals like he’s a guy who not only would be at the bar, but would be in the bar fight.

And that’s not Tim Ryan. And so Fetterman is a kind of visual of this — rightly or wrongly, whether or not you believe this to be true about him — this sort of working-class aesthetic. And so will that work in Ohio? It’s interesting. It’s an interesting question. But if you’re comparing the two of them, I think you’re comparing trying to signal whose side you’re on through the positions you take and the things you say versus who you are, how you move through the world, how you dress, what your temperament and comportment as a person are.

And I think at a candidate level, the latter set of qualities tend to trump it.

the unwashed masses want a big boy who wears shorts in the winter

hahaha but who also does yoga i cut that part off.

All that said, and I’m very happy to see Fetterman win, what Fetterman had and has as a candidate, which is different than Ryan — Ryan is a capable politician whose policies and beliefs position him in this older, labor-oriented tradition. He’s always been very skeptical and hawkish on China. He’s very pro organized labor. But he’s not somebody who if you meet him, or you look at him, or you listen to him talk, he bleeds a working class aesthetic. He’s a big meditator, right? I mean —

AARON RETICA: You don’t imagine John Fetterman doing a lot of yoga.

EZRA KLEIN: Yeah. And he probably does, weirdly enough, knowing a little bit about him. But Fetterman has the aesthetic, right?

either a big boy or a grumpy old jewish man from vermont, its complicated but thats the new popularism

"Ah he probably does yoga but also at the same time gives off the vibe that he *doesn't* do a lot of yoga."

Bunch a jello brains

*extremely policy guy voice* on the one hand you have a guy who helped fix bread prices while working a huge corrupt consultancy right he recently helped crush a rail strike this is who the party should be elevating by all rights everyone should love him but the only problem is he doesnt own a hoodie, then on the other side youve got a guy who does have a hoodie who is very pro labor and wants to legalize weed he wins because he has the hoodie, we need to figure out where to get this sweatshirt

^^^^^^^^

and weirdly enough he does yoga

He does Yoga, but he doesn't know he does Yoga.

alright youve got a huge big boy who doesnt even own pants only shorts band tees hoodies and slides, also he does yoga hes very flexible he can suck his own dick, youve got the sicko block wrapped up right there, its too much to overcome president big boy is all but assured

I know it "doesn't work this way" but I don't care what a politician does in their spare time or how they dress and if I spot a pundit/journo talking about "carhartt shorts" or "hoodies" w/r/t Fetterman I will probably not listen to anything they say and also probably dismiss them altogether, it's literally the dumbest shit ever. like it's fine if I talk about that shit! but why are you wasting peoples time not talking about all the things Fetterman has done as mayor and stuff?

xpost he's also polling among those who like to hold doors and smell the blood of an Englishman

imo image matters, crude brand name signifiers prob arent the deepest way of looking at at it tho, and policy matters too, what youre really looking for is a person whos image and policy are aligned and natural, thats called making sense or being genuine

i.e. The Shorts in Winter Clause

when you see some generic ivy league dem party ass technocrat you pretty much know what theyre all about

i don't read yelp reviews because I can tell what i'm getting into with a restaurant. same with politicians? maybe?

the one thing that has surprised me about Mayor Pete is how he owns people on Fox, that's a pleasant surprise but again that's not really stuff that's gonna change people's lives

I can't even call him Mayor Pete, I instantly think of Cuban Pete.

Is he saying Tim Ryan is just as liberal and pro-laboras Fetterman? LOL

ultimately the "funny" thing about "popularism" is the shor is wrong about what policies are popular, and thats charitable, it would also be fine to say hes lying

and they of course the entire premise of the thing completely ignores any sort of idea working to make good polices popular, a thing which ygelias has said is impossible, which pretty much reveals the scam right there

tbf he may actually believe it but its a scam nevertheless

The boring journey of Matt Yglesias
The Washington ur-blogger’s slightly contrarian, mildly annoying, somewhat influential, very lucrative path toward the political center
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/01/11/matt-yglesias-slow-boring-in-bidens-washington/

That is a perfect Matt Yglesias quote: grandiose but granular. Draped in idealism and wisdom but anchored in data and incrementalism. Clear on its face but dotted with leaps like “incredible” and “very,” then hedges like “sort of” and “slightly.”

kill me

I lol'd at the comparison of his speaking voice to Jiminy Glick's

its da matty lifestyle baby

i was just thinking about jiminy glick the other day and how much i loved that show

“There’s a broad sense that he’s a public intellectual, and they take his ideas like they’ll take other ideas,” says a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss outside influences on the administration. “He’s not super influential, but he’s a prominent normie liberal, just like Joe Biden is a normie liberal.”

bad ass in the white house alert!!

in a just world Dan Zak would be getting paid the big bucks

Matty got pwned by Matt Levine yesterday, good to see some Matt on Matt violence.

Gotta say, 13,000 people paying $80 a year each seems like a pretty sweet gig.

Perhaps it’s instructive to think about two topics that bookend his public life. At age 21, Yglesias was laying out the logician’s case for the invasion of Iraq, because how could the most powerful, informed men on Earth be so stupid? In May of this year, Yglesias declared that Bankman-Fried “is for real,” because why else would wealthy people risk their money?

“Unfortunately I think, like most people, I just kind of took it at face value,” Yglesias says now, about Bankman-Fried’s endeavor. “‘Well, if his company has a $20-billion valuation, there must be something to it.’ Even if I don’t understand what a cryptocurrency exchange is.”

you could almost admire how difficult he makes it to make fun of him

this guy is an informed, credulous dumbfuck and that's normally enough, and he's got a huge income. so i guess where we are is normal.

its always hard to tell to what extent a pundit naturally dumb or just doing it for the job

have we seen this one yet

Going crazy upon learning that @mattyglesias thought basis points and percentage points were the same thing, and apparently frequently read sentences like “the yield on the 10-year treasury is up six basis points” and thought that was normal and fine? pic.twitter.com/JyzKOYqIbs

— cephalopod_v7 (wirefraud (parody)) (@macrocephalopod) January 11, 2023

he was literally a business blogger for years it was his job lol

the “counterexamples” people tried to find are even more confusing to the point I’m not sure if he knows what a percent is

maybe he does know what a basis point is but not a percent

idk as someone who makes math and coding mistakes and typos all the time it’s hard to judge the bond yield mistake. it’s pretty tricky. using premium bond to get around the debt ceiling is a good idea tho

you should charge people $40/yr to read your slightly more accurate takes

the flopstack seems doomed by name but readers may give is a fair shake

crazy to think that matty is actually good at his schtick and theres a whole ecosystem of subyglesiases out there

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmcW1cYX0AATJiL?format=jpg&name=large

and that thread, which I made the mistake of reading with morning coffee a few hours ago, gets worse

if you dont want to see him anymore its very easy to get blocked

trying to remember why this guy banned me pic.twitter.com/PHLLYtNSEX

— br◎seph (@on3ness) January 14, 2023

I thought at first, he's snarking.

yeah hes actually dumb with terrible ideas

or at least thats how he pays the bills