Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

but since pearl-clutching in a really pathetic way about this dumb podcast is your hobby continue i guess

really enjoying Trillbilly Workers' Party lately

they're really likeable, moreso than the chapo guys tbh

yeah it's an affability vs lols tradeoff, not unlike with Street Fight

for ppl who are into that side of things, the ChapoFYM crew are doing a 24-hour charity stream in support of Trans Lifeline starting in about half an hour

The latest Antifada ep gets pretty hardcore, talking to the guy who went undercover with a lot of alt-right groups and gets into why you need an actual positive political program to accompany any resistive movement

http://fans.fm/listen/4zw

I gotta say, the Dollop episode on John McCain -- which, yes, admittedly focuses on every shitty thing he ever did, at the expense of most other considerations -- not only taught me a few things I hadn't heard about or knew very little detail about, and convinced me of its thesis that he was absolutely a proto-Trump in terms of his fictitious persona and cozy media relationship. (Complete with sketchy Manafort/Russia content!)

i've been saving that one for a special occasion

surprised dave managed to make it to the end of the episode without suffering a fatal rage embolism tbh

I worry about him sometimes tbh

convinced me of its thesis that he was absolutely a proto-Trump in terms of his fictitious persona and cozy media relationship

I think a lot of national stage politicians are closer to Trump in this regard than most people realize, it's just that the personae they create aren't as overtly outlandish

John F Kennedy is a proto-Trump. Teddy Roosevelt is a proto-Trump. Pretty much everyone is a proto-Trump if it's about creating a persona and handling the media well.

yeah, but the overt xenophobia, misogyny and corruption make it a little more apt than the average imo

the only meaningful difference being that those qualities were hidden/cloaked by the persona rather than amplified by them

Which is kinda the thing that makes Trump Trump though.

No argument here

John F Kennedy is a proto-Trump. Teddy Roosevelt is a proto-Trump. Pretty much everyone is a proto-Trump if it's about creating a persona and handling the media well.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, November 14, 2018 10:04 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well and also extreme narcissism.

Jesse Ventura is the proto Trump, he's not a terrible guy and was an ok no governor but there are so many similarities to the phenomenon having lived through both

otm

I remember ppl really being excited to vote for him

Also Jesse's a huge narcissist and had the same relationship w/the press

issuing press passes with "media jackals" on it

https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/ventura-slams-media-unflattering-press-passes

god the whole thing was so nuts, i forgot about his son turning the governor's mansion into a party house

http://www.brainerddispatch.com/content/impostor-lived-governors-mansion

wait now i'm imagining trump having a post-presidency MMA Ref career

the fuckin inaugural ball with warren zevon/jesse duet

https://youtu.be/G1SYrE96mpk?list=PL8E5023F8F7BECEBD&t=316

god that's bizarre

A key difference, as bad a governor as he was, Jesse was good on some issues (transit, gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs). When he was bad, he was terrible, and he shared T’s extreme sensitivity to any criticism.

Perot, though not an actual celeb, had the proto-Trump press sensitivity and sold himself as outsider-businessman who could come in and fix it all with business skills

yeah jesse was okay like i said but the combative stuff w/the press and being thin skinned was really similar

plus just the whole weird energy around his candidacy was similar

The Dollop having not so secretly become 50% a labor history podcast is probably Good but I can’t really stand to entertain myself with all that strike-breaking

It really is amazing to listen to early, carefree episodes where Dave seems practically apolitical then compare it to like, the Wells Fargo episode

the dollop is secretly the longform story of dave’s radicalisation

my gf likes to listen to podcasts while going to sleep and a lot of the dollop ones have really enervated me while in a delicate hypnagogic state

that said, the Boston Corbett episode contains maybe the single funniest moment of any podcast

the gay-panic in the navy episode remains my favourite, just batshit from start to finish

What name / # was that one? Doesn't ring a bell.

#56, the Newport sex scandal

if you haven’t heard it you’re in for a treat

I think Pareene mentioned that Reagan was just Trump who could actually stay on script and listen to his handlers

schwarzenegger was a weirdly decent California gov

I gotta say, the Dollop episode on John McCain -- which, yes, admittedly focuses on every shitty thing he ever did, at the expense of most other considerations -- not only taught me a few things I hadn't heard about or knew very little detail about, and convinced me of its thesis that he was absolutely a proto-Trump in terms of his fictitious persona and cozy media relationship. (Complete with sketchy Manafort/Russia content!)

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Wednesday, 14 November 2018 13:30 (two days ago) Permalink

I don't love the hosts' style, but this was good. I think you can kind of make "the case against" any national politician with a long enough career, and I had previously kind of thought of John McCain that way, like, yeah he's a republican and he sucks more than people think, but he probably tries to do the right thing when he can even though his conception is flawed. After listening to this however I think he's just a shitty human being who only did the "right" thing ever for self-serving reasons. I had associated him with campaign finance reform, but now I'm thinking that was probably just part of his media strategy to cover up for how thoroughly corrupt he was.

They started out as a straightforward comedy show and have only "radicalized" gradually. The style and content are sometimes an odd fit.

Also they ended the show with some hippie dippie shit about starting an art therapy group about global warming or something

one glaring omission from that dollop episode was that hours after the forrestal disaster, while the flames were still burning on the ship, mccain hopped in a helicopter with the media and gave an interview to the new york times while sipping cocktails in saigon, which he called 'welcome r&r' in his autobiography

unauthorised r&r too iirc

@man alive yeah that's Dave's own initiative...it sounds silly but well- intentioned to me.

fwiw they repeated a couple claims that I can't find any verification of, particularly the one that he gave up information to the Vietnamese. That looks like it may have been an invented campaign smear.

a lot of it seemed based on this (excellent) roilling stone piece https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/john-mccain-make-believe-maverick-202004/ which includes quotes from one of his fellow captives

There is no question that McCain suffered hideously in North Vietnam. His ejection over a lake in downtown Hanoi broke his knee and both his arms. During his capture, he was bayoneted in the ankle and the groin, and had his shoulder smashed by a rifle butt. His tormentors dragged McCain’s broken body to a cell and seemed content to let him expire from his injuries. For the next two years, there were few days that he was not in agony.

But the subsequent tale of McCain’s mistreatment — and the transformation it is alleged to have produced — are both deeply flawed. The Code of Conduct that governed POWs was incredibly rigid; few soldiers lived up to its dictate that they “give no information . . . which might be harmful to my comrades.” Under the code, POWs are bound to give only their name, rank, date of birth and service number — and to make no “statements disloyal to my country.”

Soon after McCain hit the ground in Hanoi, the code went out the window. “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital,” he later admitted pleading with his captors. McCain now insists the offer was a bluff, designed to fool the enemy into giving him medical treatment. In fact, his wounds were attended to only after the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a Navy admiral. What has never been disclosed is the manner in which they found out: McCain told them. According to Dramesi, one of the few POWs who remained silent under years of torture, McCain tried to justify his behavior while they were still prisoners. “I had to tell them,” he insisted to Dramesi, “or I would have died in bed.”

Dramesi says he has no desire to dishonor McCain’s service, but he believes that celebrating the downed pilot’s behavior as heroic — “he wasn’t exceptional one way or the other” — has a corrosive effect on military discipline. “This business of my country before my life?” Dramesi says. “Well, he had that opportunity and failed miserably. If it really were country first, John McCain would probably be walking around without one or two arms or legs — or he’d be dead.”

They list their sources on their Libsyn page, but they haven't been added for that ep yet. But the RS piece seems likely, yeah.

after reading Rick Perlstein on the insanity of Stockdale and the other POWs enforcing that Code, I'm hesitant to tut-tut McCain for breaking it

no shame from me on mccain (or anyone else) for breaking under torture, which i'm sure i would do pretty much immediately - i was just providing the source for man alive

giving up info to the vietnamese may be the only reasonable and relatable thing mccain did in his life tbh

Yeah I don’t blame him for that, just for the self-aggrandizement on false pretenses that followed.

otm

Yeah I appreciated that even on that pod dedicated to slamming him, they admitted they wouldn't have even held out as long