Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

why are leftist podcasters so fascinated by conspiracy theories?

you should investigate

because they can tell you q lot about the specific ways in which society is decaying, also sometimes the particulars are amusing or horrifyibg

didn't do that on purpose, or did i

I do recommend everybody check out This Is Revolution on pod/YT, if you haven’t yet. They have a great balance of solid talk and humor and a lot of foreign affairs coverage. They’ve been helping to cover the gap left by Michael Brooks’ passing.

because they can tell you q lot about the specific ways in which society is decaying, also sometimes the particulars are amusing or horrifyibg

― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Tuesday, July 27, 2021 3:31 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

totally agree about the amusing horrifying part, but that’s not unique to the left. yet there seems to be something uniquely fascinating about them to left podcasters with at least two dedicated podcasts (QAA, trueanon) and lots of content on Chapo and others

i’m not as convinced q tells us much about society. the theories have been pretty much the same for decades (even if details change) and have been around in roughly the same proportion for a long time (at least as far as we can tell since measuring is hard):

There are no major comprehensive, longitudinal studies on Americans' attitudes toward conspiracy theories, mostly because it was not rigorously measured until about 10 to 20 years ago.

However, researchers have done a considerate amount of work in recent years in an attempt to understand this apparent phenomenon.

Political scientists Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent reviewed over 120 years of letters to the editor, from 1890 to 2010, for both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

In over 100,000 letters, this review showed absolutely no change in the amount of conspiracy theory belief over time. In fact, the percent of letters about conspiracy theories actually declined from the late 1800s to the 1960s and has remained steady since then.

While these researchers looked at data only up until 2010, current polling has not shown any uptick in conspiracy theory belief since then.

(source: https://www.livescience.com/are-conspiracy-theory-beliefs-rising.html)

there is definitely a widespread *perception* that conspiracy theories are increasing in popularity. but it’s still not clear to me why the response among leftists was an increase in demand for content about it

TrueAnon isn’t about “debunking” these theories. They try to find the grain of truth from which the Baroque labyrinth of lies spring. So like the earliest episodes were all about Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged ties to the CIA and Mossad—a connection the hosts believe is real.

So like, adrenochrome theories aren’t part of these podcasts, but the idea that the CIA murked Kennedy because he stood in the way of their plans is definitely in play—in fact they assume that this is true.

So like, adrenochrome theories aren’t part of these podcasts, but the idea that the CIA murked Kennedy because he stood in the way of their plans is definitely in play—in fact they assume that this is true.

Brace and Liz say the mob and CIA were symbiotic

TrueAnon are also interested in why conspiracies are marginalized to the extent that they are, given the things we know are true (COINTELPRO, MKUltra) or things that have absolutely happened in the open and just forgotten by most people (like the MOVE bombing).

True

i skip most trueanons but the elon musk stuff has been good, to me anyway, because on one hand i am interested in the background of financial scams but on the other hand i don't want to spend time looking up elon musk information on my own because i have better things to do (so i tell myself). the episodes have definitely been way too long though.

I stopped looking at the TA feed after I killed off my Patreon subs - pretty pointless to get ep 1 on Musk or JFK and not the followups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTQq1A7vov0

I temporarily got Stitcher to listen to all the Blowbacks and really ended up enjoying Hell of Presidents more than recent CHT. Honestly think it has pretty broad appeal for American history nerds, even if you’re not into snarky internet socialists. And as much as Time for My Stories didn’t sound at all like my jam (Chapo movie eps can be a real mixed bag imo) I really liked their Deadwood and Sons of Anarchy eps. I think w that one it helps a lot if they have even the slightest affinity for the show.

which reminds me I gotta cancel Stitcher when Hell is over

I stopped looking at the TA feed after I killed off my Patreon subs - pretty pointless to get ep 1 on Musk or JFK and not the followups.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Tuesday, July 27, 2021 7:10 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago)

they made the musk one that was patreon into a free ep

chapo housetrap

Help me convince D-40 to listen to the Woodstock 99 episode

It's got an actual attendee in Bryan from Street Fight, what more do you need?

It's totally enjoyable although they probably could have cut off the discussion a little earlier as it got a bit repetitive. One of the more fun episodes in a while.

white lotus girl doesn’t even need to say what podcast she listened to to prepare for the role... we already know pic.twitter.com/uvXnWNAKHi

— kelly (@kickinson) August 11, 2021

oh no

I am grieved to tell you that @nathanjrobinson has effectively fired me & most of the @curaffairs staff because we were trying to organize into a worker’s co-op. This isn’t a bit. I wish it was. https://t.co/0lmnJlzAEX pic.twitter.com/5P6U88d4VR

— lyta gold, fired for doing socialism (@lyta_gold) August 18, 2021

really living up to his outward appearance

*pretends to be shocked*

is it true that current affairs is funded by his parents? where does the money come from?

i don't know. didn't his mom make fun of him on facebook for using that fake accent?

Mom roasts are the most painful roasts.

idk the guy has published multiple books and will seemingly send anyone a review copy. it doesn’t seem like CA makes any money other than through subscriptions to its print edition. and it runs no ads

it's definitely parent money

same with jacobin tbh

whose parents fund jacobin??

I would read a group blog by the parents of celebrity internet leftists

bhaskar sunkara’s parents immigrated to america from trinidad in 1988, i’m not sure they’re wealthy? doesn’t sound like it from this new left review interview

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii90/articles/bhaskar-sunkara-project-jacobin

My parents had come to the us from Trinidad about a year before I was born. My mother’s family, originally indentured labourers from Punjab and Bihar, had been on the island since the 19th century, but my father had arrived there from Andhra Pradesh as a young man, training as a doctor. In the us, though, his medical qualifications didn’t count for anything, so he became a clerical worker; my mother worked as a telemarketer. So I had a typical immigrant lower-middle class background. We were some of the least wealthy people in the particular town in Westchester County where I went to school, but it was a pretty affluent suburb.

jacobin started as mostly print and at least at one point had p significant subscription base. they publish books with verso. current affairs started out as just his personal blog but right out the gate he was printing thousands of copies of books

hmm, i had just assumed. like jacobin seems to have a lot of money and like he also funds a journal that doesn't seem like it would make much money but originally had bob brenner as editor

i do apologize for my assumptions being shitty sometimes. i have lived in vancouver too long, everyone's parents have money here haha

to be fair to nathan robinson current affairs is clearly funded by his parents' money, doesnt make money, and the employees trying to turn it into a "workers coop" essentially were trying to dip into his trust fund

"labour is entitled to all that it creates" doesnt work when the funding comes from mum and dad and you arent making a profit

“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,but still like air I’ll rise.”

Dr. Natey J https://t.co/pGOpo5yrI2 pic.twitter.com/nto5gDhhtf

— deng joeping (@sloweboi) August 18, 2021

"the employees trying to turn it into a "workers coop" essentially were trying to dip into his trust fund"

wait is this supposed to sound like a bad thing?

and what's the relevance of sunkara's background here, does it make him any less of a capitalist

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/i-support-unions-just-not-this-one

xp. the relevance is that it contradicts a statement i made about him

"the employees trying to turn it into a "workers coop" essentially were trying to dip into his trust fund"

wait is this supposed to sound like a bad thing?

not necessarily a bad thing but not a "workers cooperative" in any meaningful sense

This is not a good statement, and I’m pessimistic that Robinson will ever understand why https://t.co/0IAFO1752b

— Sarah Jones (@onesarahjones) August 18, 2021

and what's the relevance of sunkara's background here, does it make him any less of a capitalist

― Left, Wednesday, August 18, 2021 6:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

why is he a capitalist? because he runs a magazine company?

yes

"labour is entitled to all that it creates" doesnt work when the funding comes from mum and dad and you arent making a profit

True, but tons of companies don't make a profit. I've never worked for a company that makes a profit

I hadn’t seen the pro-NJR takes on twitter until just now but wow, these things really do bring out just how much contempt so many of these “class-first” types have for the idea of taking class seriously (as, you know, class, instead of as some kind of dogwhistle). a truly fascinating and understudied phenomenon - the usual complaints about class-reductionism seem to miss the mark entirely in that regard

(afaik NJR hasn’t been as deeply into that stuff as some of his defenders are, but it might be his best career option now - has he been on tucker yet?)

why is he a capitalist? because he runs a magazine company?

― flopson, Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:33 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

― Left, Thursday, August 19, 2021 5:23 AM (two hours ago)

I don't have any inside information about its financial structure, but afaict the magazine is funded by the Jacobin Foundation which is a 501c nonprofit

https://paydayreport.com/jacobin-publisher-accused-of-reneging-on-wage-deal-in-takeover-of-british-magazine-the-tribune/