Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

xxp obvs

I never said "everything was perfect w HRC's messaging except that leftist twitter and this podcast didn't like it". I'd have preferred a different candidate but Hillary won the primary, she was obviously the better candidate compared to Trump. When you vote for a candidate you are voting a coalition into office. Making equivrlrncies beyeeen her and Trump was ridiculous then (kind of offensive actually when you put in perspective ) and looks even more ridiculous now. Maybe you can post the photo of them at a party together I've seen a million times and I'll withdraw that.

We have social media, we know the left got "carried away" I don''t see the point in denying that base level reality. I mean people were literally crying st the convention because they thought Bernie would get the nomination somehow.

kinda like liberals were hoping beyond hope that the Electoral College would swoop in and save the day - shit happens when you get emotionally invested.

I don't know what false equivalencies you're talking about, I've heard the Chapo people repeatedly talk (without irony) about Trump and the GOP's fascism, the worst they've said about centrist Dems is "managerial neoliberalism."

it's the duty of all good dirtbag leftists to shut up and keep compromising with (read: unquestioningly supporting) managerial neolibs. it's the new realism, baby.

I mentioned it before, a direct quote, I think it was Christman who called the choice between Trump and HRC "a wash". They used the example of Harlow's "wire monkey" experiments to bemoan the false difference between the two for a couple of episodes. Will Menaker was pretty insistent that HRC was intent on invading Iran which reminds me of Michael Tracy's now mocked POV that Trump was the peace candidate between the two , guest Jeremy Schahill seemed to take him back when he said that he thought Trump was likely to invade a country and she wasn't. Amber said on twitter that the DNC leaks had evidence of "massive corruption" which on one level I have to wonder is that disingenuous or just dumb? But I have a particular ire for people on the left who say those leaks constitute actual whistleblowing, you're basically continuing a right wing smear when you do that.

I genuinely like the show a lot. It's one of my favorite podcasts I find most of the analysis good. There are just these points of obstinance the left has that are troubling toward the end of unifying the party and there is no hope of the primary is relitigard forever. Smugly tweeting "Bernie Would Have Won" at people might be kind of shitty I don't know.

What's the point of politics if you can't be smug

just listened to the adam curtis episode. good stuff. can see the point now. remains to be seen whether they can sell a valid vision of a chapo trap house world though

Also in this sketch Felix name checks “misogynoir,” a word made up and used exclusively by grad students who don’t have enough characters left to type “misogyny against black women.”

Weird dig from the writer re 'exclusively by grad students' - too scared to put 'pretentious' or what?

Side note that term was invented BY a Black woman (actually queer Black feminist writer Moya Bailey) who presumably is entitled to describe her own experience and see if people like her agree. Clearly at least some do. Conversation over.

I still listen to this (the free show) though I'm annoyed by how often they can't seem to get an episode going and fall into the podcasting stereotype of being guys in a room cracking each other up with in-jokes while not being very entertaining.

Also, can't wait for the one dude to retire his hilarious Hillary impression, which is just an oddly emphasized madlib over and over: "I may not be (90s cultural figure) but I can really (phrase associated with that figure)."

I do laugh at the stuff they read sometimes, but it seems like lengthy re-enactments of Taibbi close-reading a Tom Friedman book, except that the people they attack are often twitter nobodies.

The clip of Michael Rappaport dissing them and their "coffee smelling breath" was funny though.

being a completionist about a politics podcast is the most onion a/v club thing i've ever heard

Listening to a podcast is the most Onion a/v Club thing and I'm embarrassed enough as is.

can someone explain to me what the hell michael rappaport's deal is? like i only recently figured out he did that ATCQ documentary thing (haven't seen it) and is a comedian/actor that's been in a bunch of stuff, but apparently he's also the broiest man alive and beefs with his teen son on twitter?

if this is too much of a sidebar i'll take it elsewhere

slogging through a pre-election podcast sounds fucking miserable

Yeah the post election EP was enough misery for me

and given that this toolbag seems to be the presumptive 2020 favorite of the DNC, which has not shown any indication of shifting platform aside from a few pockets of support for keith ellison, keeping the fire under the democrats might be the only thing that saves us from 4 additional years of actual fascism

― qualx

obviously there's room for enlightened disagreement, but from my perspective running a podcast where you call pundits "retards" is not an effective way of holding the democrats' feet to the fire. i'm getting a little bit sick of "resistance" movements that are run like the fuckin no man's sky kickstarter. yes, i'm very impressed with their dank meme stash, but perhaps now is the time to move in, run candidates with actual values, get people to the primaries, and take over.

sounds hard

it's not, really. bunch of prince hals playing at being guttersnipes. hey, you clever white boys, the world is yours. it has always been yours. come and take it.

Whether or not I agree with all rhetorical tactics, spreading the word re the uselessness of the pundit class and the Dem establishment is worthy work imo. They can do a lot to improve and become more effective critics and I hope they do.

They're basically doing what a bunch of bloggers have been doing for a decade or so, except they record it now in addition to typing it. I don't know why kicking off the revolution is their responsibility all of a sudden.

Seriously, if a bunch of dudes want to be the Dice Clay version of PJ O'Rourke in their spare time, they shouldn't be accountable to a fucking thing.

you know the rules boys, unless you devote every last second of your time and every last ounce of your strength to the struggle then you're not allowed to criticize anything

because nothing speaks to sincerity like being a career pol

Sweet, glad someone made a thread for these guys. Friend of mine turned me onto them a month before the election. The discussion about essentializing black ppl and calling them "magical" a couple episodes ago was great. & ripping apart the game theory guy. Weird intersection of radio worlds the other day with Rapaport, Nainan, and Adomian featured.

I got really on board about ten eps ago and have since almost caught up on every episode.

if you want a good intro listen to any episode about caleb, that is some of the funniest shit ever... poor caleb

dont really care about this podcast but 'bernie would have won' is a good meme

"seriously didn't realize there were still people aside from high ranking democrat pols and frederik who think the answer to defeating trumpism over the next 4 years is to double down on the 2016 strategy"

It's insane that I got this response. It couldn't be more of a reply to something I absolutely did not say, and I took pains to avoid being misread as some kind Hillarista argument. But it's pretty much indicative of the obstinacy of leftist twitter orthodoxy I brought up in the first place. It's like when you mention that Bernie didn't get the votes of older POC in primary, I get that it really bothers people to hear that (and it doesn't mean that he couldn't have gotten those votes in the general or a better run primary campaign where he acts like he's running to win from the start and not a "proving a point" campaign). The "rigged" narrative is toxic and seems childish to perpetuate. What do we mean when we say that? That the votes aren't real? We are aware that there's a vocal contingent of Bernie supporters that think Hillary won because "voter fraud" right? So yeah "carried away" it shouldn't be impossible to admit this.

ooh look a second politics thread

can someone explain to me what the hell michael rappaport's deal is? like i only recently figured out he did that ATCQ documentary thing (haven't seen it) and is a comedian/actor that's been in a bunch of stuff, but apparently he's also the broiest man alive and beefs with his teen son on twitter?

if this is too much of a sidebar i'll take it elsewhere

― mh 😏, Wednesday, January 4, 2017 9:50 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't have the answer, tho I thought the teen son beef thing was somehow faked? idk I guess id like to know the deal too. he was a gd actor circa 20 yrs ago

ooh look a second politics thread

Sad lol, I swear this was not my intention

anyway imo these guys suck

expand on that

no

Good man.

ooh look a second politics thread

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson)

holy shit, never would have predicted a discussion about a political podcast would turn political. is nothing safe anymore?

We should be taking about what kind of mics these guys use.

Yeah tbh their shitty mic situation turned me off at first. Way too tinny.

these dudes sound pretty unpleasant tbh

oh, the smelling salts

I guess more than general politics stuff I'm interested in new and (relatively) popular manifestations of dissent from the far left

I think it's interesting to compare/contrast their approach with (I guess?) their closest Canadian counterpart, the crowdfunded media criticism network Canadaland, which is much less dirtbag-y and more academic but similarly inclined to mock the pundit class. Their attempts to become a broader outlet of sorts has been hampered by their lack of dough.

ooh look a second politics thread

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson)

holy shit, never would have predicted a discussion about a political podcast would turn political. is nothing safe anymore?

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Wednesday, January 4, 2017 10:43 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're right, nm, change my answer to: thrilled to have identical circular fights for the next four years

sorry for the sarcasm. i too get tired of the same old shit propagating itself in new forms, particularly when the cause of the propagation is to try and escape the old forms. but we're all the same people, and we wind up saying the same things no matter what thread we do it on. my conclusion is that this particular medium is currently unsuited to meaningful political discussion.

we should start a podcast

you clearly haven't heard my lisp

didn't stop Mike Cernovitch

its premium only but the reign over me episode was pretty amazing. as punditry you can get the same stuff from lots of places, and tbh the more political import people imbue the show with i think the more boring its going to get. the anarchic structure and comedic stuff is what keeps me coming around. the part i find the dullest, because i actually already spend too much time on twitter is the "this week on weird twitter" roundup where i already know most of the stuff they're covering. the reading series is better to the extent i wouldn't have encountered this stuff otherwise, and to the extent they can find real gems. there was one where they had the niall ferguson article comparing brexit to divorce which was pretty great. stuff like that is where the vulgarity shines -- where there's already this insanely pathological sexual not-so-subtext to things and it deserves to be stated openly with appropriate language.

again it was a fish in a barrel type deal but the Ben Shapiro book reading segment was v funny

Chapo trap house is great. One of the few reliable sources of levity for me over the past year as things became increasingly bleak.

A lot of the show's detractors have clearly never even listened to an episode. They seem to get the idea that the show is some kind of left wing version of early 2000s hipster Vice "edgy" humor which is really not the case. It's a bunch of sarcastic dorks talking politics.

wow there really is no appealing way to describe it

lol you guys got me, I started listening to an episode and within minutes there was a joke about how one of them actually killed an abortion doctor... because he wasn't doing an abortion fast enough

no edgy comments here guys

i think they're equally sincere and sarcastic, that's the appeal for me. there isn't any other place to clown on pundits and twitter idiots like eichenwald, garland, douthat, shapiro, etc

there is... it's called.... twitter

someone recently said eichenwald was lib commenters favorite republican writer now, and I had no idea anyone took him seriously because i apparently follow no earnest liberal ppl and just get all the jokes about how he's horrible

Kingfish, where can I find your podcasts? I lurk enough here (for 20+ years omg) but don’t keep up with the meta stuff like DN changes but you must have mentioned it at some time

My own show is kinda defunct but was called “Giving the Mic to the Wrong Person”

You can find it on iTunes and SoundCloud:

http://soundcloud.com/givingthemic