EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

i always thought of josh barro as the poshest of the centrist wonks. or at least on the opposite end of the spectrum from slovenly yglesias. gay, manhattanite, clean-cut menswear style, seems to be a bit of a socialite. so it threw me off that he was like "come to my place in august and i will serve you baked fish"

he really twisted around the words in that podcast that were specifically about hamburgers and then didn’t make one himself. sus

by far the most popular sport in the world

I’m sure this is a simpleton take but just like MLB made baseball more popular this year by finally taking crude measures to speed up the game, I feel like soccer would be more exciting if the pitch were somewhat smaller so there were more shots.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 29, 2023

dont get me wrong i have some soccer rule change ideas but theyre for making the sport better not more popular

that's the most blatant troll for engagement i've seen recently

i guess it's made him rich but he also kinda seems to get off on being called an idiot

I still think about this quote from that WaPo profile of him a few months ago:

"I find it relaxing to work. I put things out. People yell at me. I will write again the next day."

Goals are worth two points if you do it off some cool shit like a bicycle kick.

“You’re a smart guy with interesting things to say but” pic.twitter.com/CcOhlUQzPc

— Jonathan M. Katz theracket.news (@KatzOnEarth) August 6, 2023

lmao at "re-radicalized"

how radical to turn it on and off like a light switch

When a Nazi calls you pure evil it doesn’t sting as much.

since musk turned off the free api matt doesnt auto delete his tweets anymore lol

So did Matty say this after Hananana’s racist and anti semitic group texts were discovered?

no but his official work is also explicitly racist (and it was pseudonymous articles not texts)

Nah, he doesn't give a shit

But what is the error in judgment? Was I running around vouching for Hanania’s good character? Assuring people he’s not racist? He’s clearly quite racist! But I also think he’s written some good pieces and it’s important to read conservatives.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 6, 2023

The key thing here is that Yglesias thinks of the revanchist & racist right as part of his universe of discourse, people who are wrong on some stuff but worth engaging with. By contrast, for him left & left-liberals beyond the pale. pic.twitter.com/sjUAC4Yw1E

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 6, 2023

funny lil baby trick mattys trying to pull there conflating reading the right for educational purposes with thinking theyre good and interesting and complimenting them

cnn should tell matty and a few others that they’re rebooting the crossfire tv show, and then put the soundstage at the bottom of the ocean with no actual broadcast

one thing the huffpost article showed is how much substack has become fulcrum for this shit including the ceo going on podcasts with this guy and others like him, worth reading if youre wondering what the deal is with this racist man https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-hanania-white-supremacist-pseudonym-richard-hoste_n_64c93928e4b021e2f295e817

no but his official work is also explicitly racist (and it was pseudonymous articles not texts)

yeah young conservatives are exclusively nazis these days, its not great

that RH guy is like 37 which is probably still below the median conservative age but not super young

also it’s weird he’s so into eugenics when he looks like one of his parents was a toaster oven

its always like that lol

hes also repeatedly talked about how he was a terrible fast food employee when he was young cause he was too smart

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64cc26912000001b00f839be.png

Grown ass adults obsessed with their IQs.

and with comma splices

who invented IQ tests anyway. surely not anyone an antisemite would want to cite

Anti-Semites tend to emphasize how high-IQ Jewish people are, as both a backhanded compliment and as an example of how dangerous and a formidable enemy they are to non-Jews.

what a effin shit head

The conservative position on abortion is unpopular but the other thing Republicans need to accept is that the weirdly timed election gimmick now plays into the hands of Democrats’ highly educated neurotic base.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 9, 2023

still chatting with the nazi

https://i.imgur.com/FT2WdQj.png

Hmmmm wonder what the white nationalist's "theory of crime in American cities" consists of

It’s healthy to listen to different points of view!

These are people for whom the Chapo guys are beyond the pale but actual Nazis have outside the box thinking

Holy shit my brother is sitting across for Matty right now at a cafe what should he ask him??????

I told him he should talk really loudly about how much sweatshops rule

one of the greats

https://i.imgur.com/L19661W.jpg

"Follow Megan McArdle's opinions" no i dont think i will

Fallow Megan McArdle's opinions

"Fellow! Megan McArdle's opinions!"

Seems like the best lace for this:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/12/casey-newton-quits-substack-nazi-newsletter

Ganz isn't quitting:

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/an-issue-of-concern

"From a political point of view, if you consider yourself a leftist or progressive, I think the correct strategy would be to compete for reach on all platforms—within reason, of course."

What would within reason be though?

Of the newsletters I subscribe to that were on Substack, two have already left over this (Today in Tabs and Last Week's New Yorker Review), two have committed to leaving soon (Garbage Day and PJ Vogt), one hasn't committed yet but is exploring other options (s1ocki's Something Good), and two have addressed the issue but decided to stay for now (Fran Magazine and Alan Sepinwall).

A few others have spotlighted the issue but without saying anything about what they personally plan to do about it (Culture Study, The Reveal, The Present Age). And others still haven't mentioned it at all.

I guess Newton's decision to leave is notable because he's a leading tech journalist with a lot of subscribers.

yeah hes a guy they recruited and gave a special deal to

had also been pretty wishy washy in his coverage of the nazi newsletter situation up until announcing his departure

that is pretty weak sauce from ganz

I agree with Ganz. Fleeing Substack — which is a tool, not a website, and one of the best tools on the market — because people you disagree with politically also use that tool is typically self-defeating pseudo-leftist bullshit. Where you gonna run to? What blogging platform has explicitly promised that it will always agree with you politically, and will never welcome anyone with whom you disagree? Who could ever make a promise like that? Who would ever expect it to be kept? This whole "campaign" has been unserious and embarrassing from the beginning. And frankly, anybody who'd unsubscribe from a newsletter simply because of where it's hosted isn't a reader you want.

This whole "campaign" has been unserious and embarrassing from the beginning.

damn wow......

as to the question of what substack is, its a company, which profits from nazi newsletters, and its run by right wing shitheads, i dont personally care if people leave it or not, everyones got their own calculations to make, but the fact that there are people who are willing to put their livelihoods at risk in order to not just let nazi and right wing shithead schemes slide is an obvious good

its easy to be all "all the companies are bad" which is true to some extent, however what you cant say is "all the companies profit off explicitly nazi shit" because generally companies try very hard to not deal with nazis, for obvious reasons, except substack

xp is accessibility and availability dependent upon them using substack specifically? are they growing readership principally or even noticeably only because they exist on substack, and people only look for known writers there?

“self limiting” or “useless” ok, but is it really “self-defeating?”

also is this situation mere “political disagreement,” or something more? recruitment? activation? radicalization?