Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

I believe it was during budget negotiations when Gingrich said he had to go into "detox for several hours" after meeting with Clinton and being "sucked in" by his charm

I think the central conceit that the high-minded, sanctimonious idealism of Aaron Sorkin is symptomatic of "the way all liberals think" is inaccurate and one's enjoyment (or even 'worship') of a television show is not indicative of an entire worldview.

Honestly, what I think it boils down to is people in Washington are narcissists, and they like watching shows about themselves. And if a show like TWW portrays White House office drones as brilliant, charismatic defenders of the enlightenment, they're gonna respond positively to it.

I dunno, there's certainly a pompous "have you no shame" house style that a lot of liberals love which feels pretty reminiscent of "The West Wing" to me, though obviously it predates it.

I think it may date back to this

I was gonna namedrop Joseph Welch in my previous post to make it clear I know where the quote's from but thought it'd be assumed, oh well.

keith olbermann is perhaps the most noxious and visible figure in this vein

it's like tww style happened, got wrecked, and the only thing that got passed on for chapo was the smug. sorry millenials.

well, yeah... The liberal fantasy is always one where decency and empathetic wonkiness win out over lizard brain antics. I don't really see the Chapo fantasy as an improvement.

It's more that the liberal fantasy is 'listening to both sides' and starting from a position of deep compromise. Policy differences aside, Chapo's beef with liberals (and TWW) largely seems to be "that's not how politics works."

that the range of actual outcomes and expectations has shifted dramatically in 20 years does not necessarily make a depiction ridiculous or unrealistic. it does highlight that the current range of possible outcomes is radically changed, and to _continue_ to expect the effectiveness of those old strategies and practices as depicted would be dumb. but it does not mean you're woke as fuck to recognize that difference.

(srsly, i have never seen tww, i have a highly mediated experience on sorkin shit)

Listening To Both Sides is part of it, but also an overall deep respect for everything institutional and strong belief that the system works - so in the end the day can be saved by an inspirational speech.

I was out with a couple friends at a bar in a local college town a month or so back and ended up talking to this young woman who mentioned she was part of the group kind of scouting out whether this political science professor should run for congress. The conversation turned to television and she was strongly advocating Aaron Sorkin shows, first the West Wing. I kind of shrugged it off and said I wasn't a Sorkin fan, that I thought it was kind of an overblown view and government isn't really like that. She replied with, "Well, I like The Newsroom better!" (I ran away screaming)

so the whole thing with young people thinking the West Wing is inspirational and spurning their interest in government happens

from what I've gathered, the whole Newsroom shtick is even worse in that TWW did have monologues but was more debate-focused and the monologues tended to be political figures giving speeches so there's a hint of moderation

The Newsroom is worse in that it took real news events and gave the main character to didactically rant wisdom directly at the camera

xpost a lot of kids got into archery because of the Hunger Games too

Felix's Newsroom rant was hilarious, and until he said cunt it was pretty much word for word.

The Newsroom is indefensible

newsroom was always silly but although it only ended 3 years ago the protagonist being a moderate republican who is fiercely unpartisan in his role as news anchor seems beyond hilarious from our temporal vantage point

(this is the starting point of the show, with the conceit being that he becomes more hard-hitting and less bland after going viral having a rant at a public event)

didn't Sorkin do the same thing at a public Q&A a couple years ago? (berate a young woman)

Sorkin backtracking after sounding clueless was a highlight of the year so far:
http://variety.com/2017/scene/news/aaron-sorkin-diversity-hollywoods-writers-room-wgfestival-1202016729/

fwiw congrats to the chapo trap house podcast on getting me to pay them to listen to their sorkin skewering

i've never seen tww but i have had at least one friend say that he really wishes we could have whoever the president was in office right now

It was John Goodman

haha

btw the Luke Savage article they referenced is worthwhile: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/04/how-liberals-fell-in-love-with-the-west-wing

Six leading members of the cast, including Whitford, were even dispatched to Ohio to stump for Clinton (inexplicably failing to swing the crucial state in her favor).

jesus christ I thought it was bad enough they sent Lena Dunham to Des Moines, Iowa

DUNHAM/SCHUMER 2020

jeff and chuck, of course

Part of the many fucked-up things about Right Now is that popular imagination is so very limited because you almost have this forced false dichotomy thanks to consecutive Admins who are culturally or aesthetically the direct opposite. I posted the Current Affairs piece on FB referenced and got comments about "what's the big deal about the show? I'd rather have them instead of this current bunch".

It connects to how it seems that what shocked so many people about Turnip et al. was from the extreme vulgarity and violation of the Establishment Beltway aesthetic norms, which is why Jared & Ivanka get their attention.

But the problem is that for many it seems that the vulgar aesthetics are the *only* problem. This creeps into the Acting Presidential Cosplay thing that Beltway types reward the current dope periodically from.

Because we're wired to react strongest to most tangible aesthetic bits, it's sucks that there's this stupid show both born from and completely reinforcing the obsession with centrist post-ideology lanyard professionalism. Yeah your decorum and discourse will be more polite and courtly, but a lot of people are still gunna fuckin' die.

OTM about limited imagination. I've had so many conversations lately that are like "How can you even think about/complain about x... we've got Trump!" Anything not Trump becomes fine and there's no need to think about what the party should stand for.

I've noticed a bit of cult of personality developing around Chapo - people seeking their approval to like/support things almost, it will be interesting how they deal with that given their "this is a funny podcast not doing politics" argument from a couple of months ago.

https://twitter.com/liberalism_txt/status/855549006386278400

^i love deray and 'blm spokesperson is not No Logo (by Naomi Klein) enough for white leftists' is the corniest opinion imaginable but it is pretty funny when u put all these together, tho not as damning as the compiler thinks. he tweets like 10,00 times a day, maybe the guy is just really into,, fast food marketing? (the Subway tweets in particular will make ilxors LOL)

"This online petition is Chapo approved!

Xpost

imo he's really into the neoliberal "support brands using political causes as marketing"
the other stuff is just uncritical "wow look at this crazy product" or "I like talking about products I use and they define me" which is very much the whole expression of identity through consumption thing that brands love

there's a passage in mark fisher's "capitalist realism" book (yeah I'm that corny fucker) where he rips apart the former in terms of bono and the product red stuff which is some obnoxious "capitalism is our only lens" shit

oh c'mon he's so obviously a shill. i don't give a shit if you get money for twitter advertorials, but at least be transparent about it. there's no way deray is earnestly tweeting that much about very specific products and brands

What way is correct or satisfactory to be transparent about the claims you make?

AD: Rainbow Doritos are a tasty way to support LGBT causes

I'm gonna side with the corny whitesplainers on this one. Can't see how it helps blm for one of their most prominent activists to become known as a comedy shill.

Also, criticism from People Who Do Not Mean Well, that blm has been ginned up by a few opportunist self-promoters trying to make money- this kind of thing doesn't help anyone in combating that bullshit argument.

Guys, this discussion is so nagl that it hurts. Just let him live his life, he is an anti-racism advocate, not an anti-capitalist one.

Fwiw iirc the creators of the blm name can't stand deray bc of coopting the name for his own gain kinda stuff. I've read a few black activists as critical of him for being a craven opportunist and coattail rider.

not everyone has a new yorker editor as their dad

He is. He filed to run for mayor of Baltimore literally at the last hour, only campaigned outside the city, fundraised in Manhattan, and barely did anything here. I really resent him, I think he's an opportunistic hack most interested in promoting his own image and brand (the vest). A lot of people here feel the same way - go run for mayor as a publicity stunt in some other city, asshole.

I loved him at first - he was a great talking head (destroyed Wolf Blitzer two years ago), and im really bummed he's bought and paid for. Just because he's an anti-racism advocate doesn't mean he's immune to criticism.

OTM flappy. The worst part is that Deray keeps denying he's sponsored, which makes his whole brand smack of dishonesty.

https://storify.com/DeployBurners/is-deray-a-corporate-shill

There is absolutely no proof that Deray is sponsored, and loudly claiming otherwise smacks of racism.

Frederik you're out of your depth. I live here. There's a lot of skepticism re Deray's motives, and it doesn't fall on racial lines. Also there is plenty of evidence that's been posted above.

he is an anti-racism advocate, not an anti-capitalist one

this is an absurd statement

Fred what you're doing is called trolling

I'm aware of the rifts and grudges in the blm-movement - iirc the 'founders' had to cancel an event in St Louis because everyone hates them so much there. And of course it's fine to criticize Deray - for instance his involvement with TFA since he tried to run on an education platform in Baltimore, and got a job there from the administration. But no, there is no evidence of sponsoring, and nothing that was posted above is evidence of sponsoring. And claiming otherwise really does smack of racism. He says he likes a bunch of brands, and while nobody has to agree, claiming that it makes him 'bought' is bullshit.

The irony is of course that we're having a discussion about this on a thread for a group of guys who takes thousands of dollars for making political podcasts that's basically just jokes about Aron Sorkin...

lol @ comparing taking money from subscribers vs taking money from exploitative monstrous corporations

and come on Fred, I used to follow Deray but the endorsements were really over the top. suspecting that he could be a paid shill has absolutely fucking nothing to do with race, it has to do with actual things he tweets over and over and over