Conversation

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The populists (and so far this is just Trumpists because their counterparts on the left haven’t had a turn), practice a scavenging form of corruption, where they kill and fully loot weakened institutions (usually by the parasites) because they know they only get one chance.
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The media is interesting because their internal tension between the parasites and scavengers is not entirely legible. The NYT seems to be 50-50. Fox is maybe 30-70.
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A vote for Biden at this point is a vote for buying time. We have a set of institutions weakened by 36 years of parasitism and 4 years of scavenging. I suspect anything touched by a Trump appointee (EPA, State Department...) is on its deathbed. Biden would be a ventilator.
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Biden is par for the course among institutiobalists. I think he’s personally decent enough by my expectations of politicians (which are, roughly, “be a decent parasite”). It’s not a personal judgment. It’s what I’d expect of the average human subject to political incentives.
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I think Biden likely has roughly as much personal integrity as me. I’d likely be self-dealing at same level under his incentives. If I’ve behaved better in my life it’s likely because I haven’t had opportunities to be worse, and because I’m more bored by money/power than most.
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Trump though... yeah I can’t even imagine being on the same planet as him, or even contemplate doing most of the things he brazenly does. In general I think scavenging opportunities attract fundamentally worse people than parasitism opportunities.
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I don’t think I’m especially moral. I’m likely no more moral than average Trump supporter. Very different on other fronts but not morality. I think average Trumpie *also* has Biden level integrity. I strongly suspect they all consider themselves much higher integrity than Trump.
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I would never vote for anyone I consider significantly less moral than myself, so I have to wonder why then did. I’m guessing it’s some sort of unfocused revenge motive against everybody on the parasite side of weak institutions. Actually it’s not a guess. Many say so openly.
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Anyway, water under the bridge. They sent their scavenger institutionalism assassin out for revenge, and got their revenge. 200k people are now dead as a result where it might have been 100k otherwise. Mostly people they consider enemies so I guess it worked out for them.
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I don’t think they’re racist incidentally (though Trump and 50% of his crony set led by Miller clearly are). But I do think their resentment and vengefulness is rooted in a mix of deep willful ignorance about how the world works, and denial of their own role in their condition.
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Ie they made key life choices in the thirty years since Reagan that led to their current state and have no intention of accepting any blame for it while there are weaker voiceless people who can be blamed. Maybe I’d be the same if I’d made that same series of life choices.
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One of my rules is to avoid preaching, except on rare occasions to the choir (I don’t get why that’s a bad thing... preaching is best restricted to those who’ve opted in). My attitude to Trumpies has always been: you make your choices, I make mine, we don’t have to be friends.
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Their choices have created consequences we all have to deal with. I don’t really care to judge or punish or exact revenge myself (a very unscorpio thing about me is I’m not at all vengeful; I simply drop people I don’t want in my life... win-win or no deal).
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Somewhere between next week and 2024, their turn at bat will end. Everything comes to an end, even the agency of conspiratorial and ignorant revenge seekers out to destroy institutions many like and rely on. The question then is: what next?
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I think 15% of anti-Trumpies will seek to heal and re-engage. Futile. The only thing worse than people out for revenge is people who get revenge but realize they’re as miserable as ever. The instinct to forgive, heal, and re-engage in thus case will only deepen the resentment.
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Maybe 30% will be in a mood for their own revenge, triggering a vendetta cycle. They’ll fail. The modern world is simply not set up to sustain indefinite vendetta cycles. It’s just not worth it and too many people have better things to do with their lives.
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That leaves 55%, including me, who have lost faith in anyone who voted Trump or enabled him, and will simply disengage. Ghost. Flip the bozobit. Build defenses against a repeat, but otherwise fork off a reality where they are unwelcome and will need to overcome hostility to join.
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That will all shake out as it will, but to bring it back to the problem of media, that’s one institution Biden won’t be able to buy time for if he wins. Whatever the outcome, the media has to reform now or die. Nobody cares enough about them, or needs them enough, to save them.
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The media lost its sweet cash cow information markets thanks to the internet. They created Trump as part of the effort to survive, with a little help from Russia and a LOT of help from revengeful Trumpies (don’t get confused about the centrality of bad voters). Everything burned.
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I find Greenwald’s holier-than-thou flounce from Intercept kinda cringe-hypocritical🙄. He’s been as much part of the problem as anyone. Media people pointing fingers at each other and moving around (old or new doesn’t matter: Vox=Infowars=Fox=NYT) is just shit stirring itself.
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There’s a certain equivalence now between news media and mere commentariat writers like me. Greenwald is now on Substack like me. Substack is now full of news media refugees. Several levels of influence up from me, but we can at least stop pretending they are a saintly priesthood
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One way to view this exodus is: the upside of shit stirring itself is gone now. It’s now flushing itself down the toilet. What’s left has to compete with no special status. We’re now at the starting line of the real new media. Everybody has the same tech stack, nobody is special.
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So this is the “be somebody or do something” moment for news media people. The title “journalist” means nothing. Writing (or audio/video broadcasting) for a brand-name outlet means nothing. You might still get “press pass” access to places I can’t but they’re worth nothing.
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If you still think you’re better than anyone else with a laptop, you’ll have to show it through what you do. You can no longer ride the cred of a distinguished class that in hindsight was distinguished only by unearned access to high capex Heidelberg presses and telecom equipment
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I sometimes wonder if I’m more moral than the average journalist 🤔 It’s not as academic as the comparison upthread to politicians. I have no interest in being a politician. But I’m clearly adjacent to news media. The main difference being unwillingness to do fieldwork.
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Laziness has saved my soul, but... Under the incentives journalists operate under, would I succumb to clickbait? Access-journalism deals with the devil? Epstein-Weinstein enablement circuses? Fox-level mad-crowd-fu? Probably not tbh. I differ in ways besides laziness.
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I lack a certain sense of moral self-importance I think all journalists who consider themselves “good” seem to share. Something that infuses the pompous phrase “the public has a right to know.” A tendency towards public-interest inquisitorial self appointment.
Spanish Inquisi GIF
GIF
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I think “the public” is an ass, like the law, that I’m a part of it, and that it has no more right to anything than elites. The only reason the public doesn’t do self-dealing is that it lacks the opportunity and cunning. You get no halo from representing it.
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Self-appointing yourself to represent its interests doesn’t lend you any sort of halo. You’re basically no better than Trump spokespersons representing Trump’s right to not be held accountable. Or a neoliberal corporate shill like me representing corporations right to profit 🤣
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Another thing I wonder is: when everything across the board has been going to hell, why has news media been going there double quick? Is it because Trump has been attacking and undermining them with extra vigor as the Red Resentment Revenge Emissary in Chief? No, that’s too easy
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I think it’s because they’ve been the only institution truly above judgment and accountability so far. To the point it took a populist near-coup to make them even notice there were issues beyond the internet eating their lavish 3-martini lunch.
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While most of my own personal interactions with journalists have been positive, a few times yeah... the sense of being judged by a priest themselves above judgment. And unaware of their own distinct lack of saintliness.
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