The book is almost here. I’ll be shamelessly self-promoting as we inch closer to April.
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Sean Illing
@seanilling
Dad, LSU Alum, Author, “The Paradox of Democracy,” Host of The Gray Area. Order here! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book
Sean Illing’s Tweets
The last explanation is the hardest to grasp, but I find it most compelling.
"Putin doesn’t offer his people a future at all. He governs without a future." told in an interview.
A crucial point ⬇️ to understand Feb 24th
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“They will tell us …”
Neil Postman in 1990.
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There’s Good Nietzsche and Bad Nietzsche and I’m professionally committed to clarifying the distinction
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Thanks a lot to @seanilling for inviting me to chat about "Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction" for Vox's Gray Area. Details to come
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I'm reminded of 's comment (in an interview with ) that Trump "cheats like a mafia accountant.”
An excellent read: vox.com/2019/5/10/1852
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Breaking: my investigation w/ reveals The Natl Restaurant Association’s lucrative scheme: $$ fees unwitting workers pay for ‘food safety certification’ are funneled to cover the costs of the groups’ Goliath battle against higher wages
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Una pregunta a periodistas:
¿Sois verdaderamente conscientes de cómo Twitter os ha cambiado la manera de hacer periodismo?
Me surge leyendo el último libro de y , que por cierto recomiendo: la democracia definida como una cultura comunicativa
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Truly fabulous conversation. One of the best on the topic I've ever listened to.
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I really enjoyed having this conversation with @seanilling on one of my favorite podcasts:
open.spotify.com/episode/6fD2Am
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This week, TPN member spoke with about race and identity in America on his podcast. They talk about whether it's possible to achieve liberation without sacrificing solidarity and the complex interplay between race and class.
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This is not an existential crisis but it is exceedingly stupid
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This is fake, right? It feels very … not real
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Another perfectly good word is being canceled: The USC School of Social Work is nixing the word “field” as in “field work” & “going into the field.” USC thinks this has something to do with white supremacy. Please stop.
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Today is my 32nd birthday.
Over the last month, I asked several 90-year-olds what advice they would give to their 32-year-old selves.
Here's the life advice everyone needs to hear:
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I wrote a book review for IJOC on The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion ( & ). It is one of the most important, thought-provoking books I've read recently, and I strongly recommend reading it. Review: ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc
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I regret to inform you that your email did not, in fact, slip through the cracks
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Researchers studied the effects of a 20-minute walk on the cognitive performance of a group of children.
This is fascinating…
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okay so I'm growing concerned about the whole AI thing
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There is a 100% chance that this graph is a core reason for America's surge of anxiety and depression.
Time spent with other people has plummeted—for every age group, ethnicity, gender, geography, and income level.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/
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Not a single person I know who quit this site has regretted it
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This is the “view from nowhere” approach to journalism that made Steve Bannon a wildly effective bullshit artist
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I spent four years covering the Trump WH and two years covering the Biden WH. What’s fascinating is that they both lie, albeit in v different ways. Trump team was shameless, whereas Biden team is too cute by half. twitter.com/katierogers/st…
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The delusion here is still thinking the other side is playing the 20th century liberal democratic game in which bad faith actors "flop" if they fail to make a convincing case. Flooding the zone with shit succeeds merely by creating spectacle and dictating coverage.
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I wrote today about the GOP plan to make the next Congress all Hunter Biden, all the time ... and why the plan is doomed to flop. In @TheAtlantic theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/
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Great news everyone, "America's Crime Crisis" (trademark Fox News) is over!
All it took was Election Day eliminating the perceived political benefit of talking about crime all the time, go figure. mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-
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Hey guys, last night in Twitter DMs I asked Sam Bankman-Fried when Alameda first borrowed FTX customer funds, what he really thinks of the SEC, and a lot more.
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The combination of knowing everything terrible that’s happening in the world in real time and feeling totally impotent in the face of it has not been great
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Katie Hobbs basically said: This is the choice, there's no mystery here, and trying to argue with Kari Lake is pointless. You know us both, now decide what you want.
That's an approach aimed at adults, which is why I didn't think that would work. I am really glad it did.
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lol
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The chaos continues. Twitter pulls the plug on Twitter Blue, subscriptions and paid-for verification blue checkmark no longer available.
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the implosion of this site is a gift we don’t deserve
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Elon Musk is the best advertisement for getting a degree in the Humanities
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Tune in to this recent episode of “The Gray Area” from where and I talk about the story of humanity, democracy, and what the future might entail.
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I’ve studiously avoided the Musk discourse but my god this is so stupid it hurts
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There's plenty we get wrong in the book, but the big claim is that democracy w/out liberalism is just a wide open contest for power. Shaming and fact-checking are pointless when the other side isn't playing the liberal democratic game
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The ultimate political flex is to demonstrate - over and over again - that truth is an irrelevant category and therefore that accountability is impossible
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People are missing a key point about the right's lies about the Paul Pelosi attack. Shaming and fact-checking have no chance of working, because the whole point is that the lying and the deranged cruelty are a naked assertion of power in their own right.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/
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Fascist politics exist on a continuum. Treating it like a discrete category isn’t helpful and makes it harder to recognize how it manifests under different historical conditions. twitter.com/shadihamid/sta
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Now would be a great time for everyone on Twitter to subscribe to a newspaper.
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I had a long and winding conversation with on 's The Gray Area podcast. About dignity and indignity and autonomy and Right to Life politics and what makes a life 'sacred' (if anything). I hope you listen:
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Breaking News: Brazil has ousted President Jair Bolsonaro, rebuking the far-right incumbent and electing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former leftist leader known as Lula.
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Our point isn’t that democracy is bad. It’s that democracy allows for the pursuit of power in a wide open communicative culture. The age of liberalism was propped up by a centralized, gatekeeping media environment. The internet shattered that. Liberal elites haven’t adapted.
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