I have to say that this is the best article I have read on Common Sense, and it goes without saying: that's a high bar. The clear documentation of Twitter's dishonesty, dating back to its very beginning, is breathtaking - and given Twitter's outsized influence on American culture and politics, the value of exposing an all-pervasive b…
I have to say that this is the best article I have read on Common Sense, and it goes without saying: that's a high bar. The clear documentation of Twitter's dishonesty, dating back to its very beginning, is breathtaking - and given Twitter's outsized influence on American culture and politics, the value of exposing an all-pervasive but untrustworthy social platform cannot be overstated. Frankly, I've been a little puzzled by this fascist administration/technocrat/Hollywood cabal's near-complete meltdown over Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, but thanks to your article I see the important role that it has played in their evil collusion to bring about The Great Reset. The "problem" with Musk is that he is nearly uncontrollable, and worse - bright and popular.
Once again, Substack and Common Sense prove their worth. Thank you both. We have a great opportunity - maybe our last - on this coming Election Day to begin the reversal of this attempted world-wide coup, and to do it without gunfire (although they have already put the gears in motion for mass starvation, itself a form of murder). If there were ever a time that Your Vote Counts, it's now. We must not fail.
The EU has made it clear that none of this free speech nonsense will be allowed to cross the pond. Europe will be a free speech no-go zone. Mr musk will have to deal with the EU whether he likes it or not. That will be an interesting fight. Will he engage or give in?
EU May have to engage with Elon he is supplying satellite coverage to the Ukraine so far for free so they might have to change their tune regarding Elon Musk and do mega engaging
Unlike my Boy Hussein, Elon really IS smarter than ten million people. Watching him work is like watching the Orange Man play 4-dimensional chess with the sad American politicians. If I don't understand what Musk is doing, I just assume it's because he's four moves ahead somewhere up along the z-axis.
Jim, I couldn't have responded any better than this. Thanks to the author for opening the window on the shenanigans regularly take placing on Twitter that most of us never knew was happening.
Many on Twitter pointed out that this is a HUGE story--possibly the most important story of the year--but the only response Leftists could muster was complaining that the guy who was instrumental in uncovering it went on Fox News to talk about it.
Agreed. What people forget is that government is power. Period, nothing more. And when they abuse that power, stopping it is top priority. If you want the perfect example, witness yesterday's jailing of the top officials in True The Vote for refusing to reveal their sources.
The apoplectic response underscores what many of us have long known and the Left has long denied—Twitter is overwhelmingly biased against conservative users, so much so that the platform has become a critical part of the Left’s ecosystem, an activist extension of progressive orthodoxies thanks in large part to its employees.
Twitter’s user base is also overwhelmingly left-wing. According to Pew, 10% of users generate 92% of all tweets, and 7 out of 10 of these users are liberal. Using this data, Brian Riedl, a budget and tax expert, calculated last year that if Twitter were a congressional district, it would have a partisan voter index (PVI) of D+43. Today, that would tie it with Washington D.C., the most liberal district in the country.
The activist progressive orthodoxies of the employees were the primary reason Musk needed to fire so many of them in order to move forward. And like most Leftist organizations, it turns out that there were about 10 people "managing" for every 1 person actually working.
I am less than impressed with most of the Republicans, especially those of the Establishment variety. But I have little faith in third parties.
Andrew Yang's Forward Party seems to be economically far Left (he still supports "universal income," as far as I can tell), and moderate only on a few social issues.
I voted for Libertarian presidential candidates from 2004 to 2016, but I'm too pragmatic of a small-L libertarian to support their party on the whole.
I wish Musk would organize a moderate Independent party. He has the clout to succeed at it. But since he isn't eligible to be a POTUS candidate, there isn't much incentive for him to do it.
I was ready to type nearly the same first sentence you did and then saw your post. As of now, I have avoided joining twitter because I was turned off by the limitations of a "sound byte" in written form. Watching the world get manipulated by it was confusing at first but I eventually realized from the reports of ones I knew that it had become a government tool for propaganda.
Now it has been confirmed.
Twitter seems like such a cesspool of a circle jerk, opening it to sunlight could reduce it to a shell of it's former self. I don't know if I ever will join but if Musk follows through with his transparency plans I may to support free speech.
Twitter is definitely an acquired taste. I've gotten the most benefit by being very careful about who I follow; following every person who follows you is not a good approach. Yesterday I even unfollowed someone I agree with politically, but who spends most of their time trading insults with trolls.
"One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early, before your therapist reads it in The Times."
As a Military family living on the "East Side" for many many years, I can't believe how well this quote and Substack was written. Honestly don't want to screw it up with my bad comment writing!!
I am a "Substacker", for now. (Left The Times in 2020, UnHerd is losing its Covid magic...)
I left the NYT before that when I'd had it with all the "Trans" glorification opinion pieces by "Jennifer" Boylan with zero balancing opinions by, say, Abigail Shrier.
"Jennifer" is still married to the same woman with whom he had two sons. One of the opinion pieces was about the amazing joy of son Zack following in his footsteps and "transitioning " to "Zaira".
"Jennifer" and "Zaira" are true women, not men in woman face at all, are they! I don't care if such people want to wear dresses and have fake breasts but the rest of society should not be bullied into agreeing with them that they *are* women under the law or in sports, etc.. And we should not preach Radical Gender Dogma in schools with Drag Queens who are about adult entertainment. Being kind to others is one thing, but being soft in the head to the point of harming young people is another. We've been duped.
If an adult 5’6”, 80 lb woman went to the doctor, told him she was fat and wanted to have her small intestine removed so she could lose more weight, should the doctor agree she IS fat, and performs the life altering surgery? Of course not! Yet doctors are doing something comparable to that when they “affirm” that people with ovaries are men and people with penises are women. This is insanity and we as a society have to push back.
Gender dysphoria is the only psychiatric disorder currently being treated with surgery. I say currently, because psychosis used to be treated with lobotomy. As we all know, that has worked out well.
And, I think the gender dysphoria psychiatric disorder is pretty rare. All these kids/young people have been led to believe they suffer from it because they feel they are weird, they are uncomfortable with puberty, don't have a ton of friends, their interests are "different", whatever. Then, they go down this cult garden path.
I defy anyone who has gone through adolescence to deny they felt awkward, uncomfortable in their body, or wished they were someone else! It doesn't mean the adolescent is unhealthy, quite the opposite. Making the normal maelstrom of adolescence into something that must be medicated or cut out denies the possibility of maturation.
Of course, I am a mere person with ovaries who has birthed children a few times - not a mother. These women with penises must know better than I do! :-0
I did the same thing--as a lifelong reader of the WSJ, it kills me how their “news”reporting has gotten so biased. Their opinion page has kept its integrity, but I am spending my media dollars (meager though they are) on those who still think that facts are important. Substack is a great outlet.
WSJ used to be a good center-right, sane alternative to the MSM, but started to go the way of the Washington Post beginning in about 2017. After the George Floyd thing, they acted like they were racing to catch the last train to Wokeville. Sad. I still read it for their op-ed page. What made them unique is that they were always first and foremost a business newspaper. Now there's no distinction between them and any other liberal major national paper.
100% agree with you--I had exactly the same thought as I was reading this! A superb and exceptionally illuminating piece of important journalism. Mike Solana's (works with Peter Thiel at Founders Fund) piece last night is a worthy companion to Kirn's first class article: https://www.piratewires.com/p/fud/comments
I have even more respect for Musk now than before. I didn't understand how much Twitter contributed to the devolution of media, and the divisiveness of our society, and for him to singlehandedly risk so much of his wealth, and endure the attacks on his reputation, in order to attempt to reverse it is worthy of National Hero status.
Anyone who votes for the Dem/Commie party needs to have their heads examined. They are destroying this country and the article above proves it. The entire West Coast is going down the drain just like Union Station.
I agree with you. I am giving Musk the benefit of the doubt, but I must caution everyone that I have always been naively optimistic. Facebook is so sinister that it is asking me to publicize my cluelessness by sharing my numerous predictions that Trump would win in 2020.
You weren't wrong in that if the 2020 election had been conducted the same as the 2016 election, without media censorship, abruptly changing state election laws, less the tech interference in certain key precincts, and the avoidance of covering theHunter laptop, Trump would be President today.
Yip Jon we definitely would not be in the state we’re in today. As President Trump has told us since the Covid strike MSM and SM are the “enemy of the people” this article tells it all
And I will keep saying it. :-) The only way to keep this forum civil is to deny the trolls the attention they crave. Interacting with trolls just eggs them on and makes them increase their activity.
Okay, I swear I made both of those comments to you about CP, so now I'm wondering if you're just having fun with me, or are serious.
If serious, I guess I didn't notice I was getting trolled, but today I was binge posting and may not have noticed. I'll try to do better going forward :)
Unfortunately, it's the fringes that control the dialogue. What I LOVED about this article was to understand just how instrumental Twitter was at advancing the Left's fringes positions.
I’m not a big Tweeter but do enjoy the ability to read a whole spectrum of perspectives along with some more frivolous things. I’m thrilled Musk is helping make the platform far less hostile to conservatives. The reaction by many on the left of this change is pretty sad and disgusting. Yes I know it’s a private entity but I appreciate his clear support for Free Speech. On the other hand I am often shocked by the level of absolute enmity and vitriol too many have there.
Of course the deep state is busily trying to retrieve it’s disinformation megaphone. Democrat senator Chris Murphy has called on the federal government to investigate “national security concerns” raised by Saudi Arabia’s role in financing his twitter takeover, saying “we should be concerned that the Saudi’s, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics”. The irony is precious, and no doubt lost on the dimwitted senator from Connecticut.
And yet TikTok, wholly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, continues to collect data one millions world wide with no questions asked. I guess Hunter will get a cut of the profits, which makes it okay.
It's a non issue to the extent that they have nowhere near voting control. Alwaleed bin Talal simply swapped his public stake for private - and it remains tiny. Still, CFIUS can be instructed by the administration to examine the deal at any time.
Yeah. While we beg the Saudis for oil. We elect the dumbest politicians. I’m convinced these dolts fail up. But it also illustrates their hubris and their monopoly on info that they believe we’ll fall for that.
The world is run by C students. Smart people don't care as much what others think about them. Remember high school? The smartest kids in the class had no shot at becoming student body president. Why do you think people like Biden, Fetterman, Herschel Walker, AOC can even believe they can win elections?
This resonates. For years now, I have had this subtle sense that we are back in high school and the "cool kids" are running the show. All while the brilliant dorks are patiently plotting the ultimate "revenge of the nerds." Human nature does not change.
He's so much more than a boob. He's a dangerous ideologue who's going to get us all killed. If he doesn't succeed in that, he'll die in office 40 years from now, since CT is a Blue No Matter What state. CT's GOP doesn't know how to read a room and provide suitable challengers. Same applies to that nitwit Blumie.
Does it matter? Jim provided all of us with a fantastic description of Elon, we don’t need to know how or why, we need to thank him and pray to God he can rid our world of the trash that we are currently swimming in.
Speaking of respect for Musk, here's a video of yesterday's Falcon rocket launch. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, skip to the 8 minute mark for the landings...
He surrounds himself with extraordinary people and utilizes their skills to facilitate extraordinary things. I'm not an advicate of solar and wind, but the fact that Elon is, makes me uncomfortable with my position. I tend to think he's only in it for the government subsidies, but perhaps I'm wrong.
Jon--uncomfortable w the green energy thing? You should be. I am not pro mining but this link sheds light on the FACTS TODAY regarding copper mining - like it or not. I have a real problem with these folks whooping up solar and wind, and electric vehicles with no concept of what it will take to make those happen on a world scale. And while they drive their EV to protest opening new mines..... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1584306032653717505.html
What! You could be wrong? You are open to evidence? You get nervous when someone smarter than yourself disagrees with you? Throw this man out of church!
Seems to me that perhaps the most important goal of education should be to teach people to admit that they don't know everything and that sometimes they are wrong.
I'm very uncomfortable with opinions I hold when they disagree with people I respect. I hate cognitive dissonance and am always seeking to eliminate it. Green energy is one.
COVID was very difficult as many of my friends and aquaintences wrote me off because I couldn't be delicate about my opinions regarding the massive harm we were doing to our society with the gross overreaction to the pandemic, and the hystrionics of Fauci et al. This article explains why much of it happened, and what dissenters are up against.
Jon I feel you, for people like us that just wanted a discussion, a conversation, a nuanced perspective, admitting we don’t know everything but let’s figure it out together. To have that attitude be labeled as dangerous, shamed, cut off, etc. We’ve been living through some darkness both personally and on the global scale. Hopefully it won’t be for nothing
I listened to Walter Kirn talk and Matt Taibbi on their podcast, and also was impressed with their honesty and candor. Signed up. As a conservative I am eager to listen to rational people on the left. We do agree on some things, not everything, but that’s OK. I wonder if people on the left would seek out, eg, Ben Shapiro (ok, he talks too fast), or Dennis Prager to hear their perspectives.
This little thread seems to be “our people.” I too lean conservative, but appreciate thoughtful, reasonable, liberals. Apart from Prager, do we have anyone from our perspective to recommend to the potentially open liberals? I am conservative, but sometimes I’m embarrassed by people like Levin, or Savage. Sometimes even Hannity falls back on talking points, and doesn’t seem to think deeply. Limbaugh, for all of his controversy, and occasional unserious-ness, knew how to think.
Dave Rubin. I LOVE him. His Rubin Report can be found on YouTube and Locals.com. He actually founded Locals.com. I can never go too many days without my Dave fix. Yes, I crush on him. (I consider myself one of his straight-woman groupies, lol.) He's a gay man married to another man and is a self-described classic liberal and former Democratic activist who's been red-pilled. After Newsom won the recall election, he moved from California to Florida.
He comes across as a really normal, likable guy, talks in a modulated voice and doesn't yell, he's funny, and he mixes up topics enough so his show doesn't get stale.
I have a number of suggestions for you, so many in fact, that I'll just give you their names with not much detail, so you'll have some homework to do, if you don't mind. I'm focusing here mainly on the work being done by Black conservatives, who are essentially ignored by the mainstream media. And yet they prevail!
Black conservatives share a disdain for BLM-style critical theory and eschew the victim mentality that is so popular on that side. They tend to be entrepreneurial and fiercely anti-communist. Many have deep backgrounds in the civil rights movement and others are up and coming. Politically, they run the gamut from very conservative (like Larry Elder and Candace Owens, neither of whom would appeal very much to liberals) to liberal but not woke (like linguistics professor and author, John McWhorter, and podcast host and musician, Coleman Hughes, two brilliant people). McWhorter does twice-monthly conversations with Glenn Loury, professor of economics at Brown University, which are outstanding, and Prof. Loury also interviews intellectuals and professors with whom he's established close relationships over a long career.
Others channel their conservative values in concrete directions: charter schools (Ian Rowe) and community organizing (Robert L. Woodson's Woodson Center). There's the organization Braver Angels, and its founder, John Wood, Jr. And I must mention Shelby Steele, award-winning author of many books, and, with his son Eli, a documentarian. Their film, "What Killed Michael Brown?" can be viewed on Amazon and is well worth whatever they're charging for it these days. Then there's Wilfred Reilly, professor of political science, who wrote the book "Hate Crime Hoax," and Erec Smith, professor of rhetoric and co-founder of the website "Free Black Thought." Also check out the remarkable Chloe Valdary, who invented an alternative to diversity, equity and inclusion brainwashing trainings through her organization, "The Theory of Enchantment."
I'd also suggest that you seek out heterodox thinkers of any race, rather than conservatives per se. Many exiles from the left exist in this space; I'd consider myself one of those. Get on the mailing list of the Australian journal, Quillette. Even if you don't subscribe, you'll have access to a range of intellectually stimulating and eclectic writings across the political spectrum that eschew the far right or far left. In the heterodox category I'd place Konstantin Kisin, a British-Jewish immigrant from Russia who co-hosts the Triggernometry podcast. See his new book, "An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West." And I concur with the suggestion to check out Douglas Murray.
This list is far from exhaustive and I apologize to all the wonderful people I've neglected to mention here.
Thanks Beeswax. I have read books by Steele, Reilly, McWhorter, Murray, and also Thomas Sowell, and I have heard Glen Loury's podcast. I'm definitely a consumer of heterodox writing, but I have been mostly consuming books, rather than podcasts or essays. Also, you do mention a few names new to me, and I thank you for that.
Any thoughts on a specific podcast or show (so few people read books nowadays; as an author, that kills me!)that I can recommend to a liberal who is just beginning to realize maybe not all is well in paradise? Other than CS of course, that goes without saying.
Tom, one quick amendment to the information I gave you on Nov. 3. I'm rescinding my recommendation of "The Fifth Column" podcast. It's very entertaining and informative, but it doesn't really fit your criterion of something that a liberal person might listen to, learn something from and enjoy. Those guys are pretty raucous and they don't mince words.
Instead, I'd suggest the Clifton Duncan Podcast, which I just discovered. His range of guests is impressive. He defines himself as non-woke but not on the right, more-or-less heterodox, I assume.
Hi Tom, You're way ahead of me. I can't believe that I forgot Thomas Sowell!
In terms of podcasts, I recommend Coleman Hughes' "Conversations with Coleman," which is eclectic and not always focused on politics, so one can choose to listen based on the subject matter. I sometimes enjoy the podcast Fifth Column, with host Kmele Foster and two other right-leaning guys. Foster does investigative journalism and podcasts for Bari Weiss, and occasionally appears as a commentator on Fox. Bari's podcast, Honestly, is very good. I also recommend the podcast "So To Speak: The Free Speech Podcast," which discusses cases or issues in the news from the perspective of prior precedents and current litigation. The guests are First Amendment attorneys who specialize in these types of cases. This podcast leans neither right or left, which is appropriate.
In terms of books, I can recommend a few, although I admit that I don't read as much as I used to because my eyesight is lousy and I find it easier to listen. Thomas Chatterton Williams has written several interesting books from the perspective of a mixed-race man who believes that "race" is a spurious identity category that should become obsolete.
A socialist friend gave me an excellent book from a left-wing perspective on the phenomenon of left-wing intolerance and cancel culture: "Cancel This Book - The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture," by labor and human rights attorney Dan Kovalik. Kovalik is one of those rare leftists who will critique his own side.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a successful entrepreneur and renaissance man. His book "Woke Inc." is a tour de force. He has just released a new book which I look forward to reading, "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence." As a die-hard capitalist, Ramaswamy will challenge your liberal friends, but his analysis of how big business has been corrupted by woke politics is hard to refute and very compelling.
Lastly I'd like to put in a plug for Portland-based documentary filmmaker Travis Brown, whose Locals community I'm a member of. Brown's project, The Woke Reformation/The Signal Productions, is ongoing. You'll find him on YouTube. He's done great interviews with right and left leaning intellectuals who are not woke, e.g., Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Shermer, Asra Nomani, among others.
I just listened to a clip of a podcast of “the two black guys” Loury and McWhorter, where Loury rips Ibram X Kendi a new one. Lots of words I won’t repeat, but Loury concludes Kendi is not worthy to carry his book bag. LOL!
I first noticed Coleman Hughes when he was a kid at Columbia. His writing was remarkable and only 22 yr old. Knew he would go far.
Quillette can be interesting, at times.
Two others I follow— Husband/wife team of evolutionary biologists, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Dark horse podcast. They have been fearless and unapologetic exposing the covid fake science.
Bret and Heather got me through the pandemic. They started talking about the lab-leak hypothesis in APRIL 2020! with gain-of-function research and off-label uses of patented medications to treat the virus not far behind. Wow.
There are a few who manage to keep things civil in spite of disagreeing. But the trolls are all Leftists. I haven't seen even a purported right-wing troll since the guy who claimed to be a far-right Jew (despite occasionally oopsing Leftist ideology) was kicked off.
I often agree with Levin but he needs to stop shouting and be less angry. Hannity is more likable but he's extremely repetitive and redundant, showing the same clips of Maxine Waters, Schumer et al over and over. Please get new material.
I'm so glad you thought of Murray! I think he's brilliant, and I love having the perspective of a Brit. If you haven't read it, The Madness of Crowds is excellent; it was published in 2019 but foretells all the things that went on in 2020. I haven't read his new one though.
I like Dennis but I find him redundant and over-preoccupied with the transgender thing. I think it's nuts and would never "transition" my kid, but there are lots of other issues besides that right now that concern and personally affect me more. He can be good when he freshens and mixes up his topics, but sometimes listening to his droning voice go on about "men give birth" I just turn it off. And again, I think that concept is nuts.
That surprises me. I haven't heard Prager for a while, but a few years ago, I listened to him 2-3 times a week, and found that he was usually pretty thought provoking. But not always, of course! No one gets it right all the time.
I had hoped that those on the left would seek out voices on the right to see where there is common ground. Unfortunately what I found was that many on the left feel that they correct in their thinking and ideology, and therefore on the right side of history. So many don't feel the need to even briefly listen to a conservative opinion or thought.
In other words...When you truly believe that you're right and everyone who doesn't think exactly like you is wrong, why bother listening to an opposing view?
Many of us do. I'm center-left but read several sources on the right. What frightens me, though, is how much both sides tear down the ability of the other to govern. When you tell people in TV ads--24/7--that the people who want to govern them are evil and bad then you get a public that thinks everything is evil and bad.
My Congresswoman is a Democrat and her office has been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with a passport. The mayor of my town is a Republican and has also been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with my home. Yet, to listen to the ads, they're both horrible monsters out to destroy America.
Scott D, who do you read? Though I am conservative, I am often embarrassed about how prominent conservative commentators present their views. They often seem unaware of powerful supporting arguments, and instead revert to talking points. Again, I myself am conservative.
When you demonize people, you get worse than that. The latest being a hammer attack on an 82 year old man, then scumbags like Donald Trump Jr. joking about it and smearing the man. It keeps getting worse and worse, and it has to stop.
All of whom were either assaulted and injured, shot and nearly killed, or stalked with the intention that they and their family are murdered.
If everyone is so worried about Paul Pelosi, why is he being left alone in a mansion with no security and left to drive himself drunk around the Napa Valley? (Where he was in a crash as a teen that killed his brother.)
There is no one in US politics more demonized that Donald Trump, he is the arch-villain in the leftist cult religion, the Emmanuel Goldstein of their Two Minutes Hate.
The dude in Pelosi's attack is an illegal from Canada, former hemp bracelet maker that was married to a nudist (presently imprisoned for pedophilia) in Berkeley.
A grab them by the pussy, mock the handicapped, lying traitor is "demonized"? And "the dude in Pelosi's attack" quotes Don the Con all over his social media? Fake news, right?
Yes demonized. Hillary Clinton paid for a false dossier that was placed with the FBI which then leaked it to the press. That was the start of the Russia collusion myth and years of investigation. Are you as squeamish about a sitting president getting BJs in the Oval Office from a 22 year old intern? What about a presidential candidate calling those who will not vote for her a basket of deplorables? I could go on and on and on. I guess who the lying traitors are is in the eye of the beholder.
Am I as squeamish about a sitting president getting BJs from a 22 year old intern as I am about a president who encourages an insurrection to try to overthrow our democracy? Are you serious? Of course not!
That was not the question. Which I suspect you realize. I will take your sidestep as a confirmation you are okay with the president and the intern. Which is remarkably short-sighted because unless and until the rules are equally applied across the board this division will continue unchecked.
Do you really think that the drug-addled moron who attacked Pelosi ever watches cable news? Is logged on Twitter? or Truth Social?
These people can't take the time to take their pants off to defecate, and yet the narrative is that they are taking instructions from GOP spokespeople on who to attack, and when?
The only thing this idiot DePape thought he knew is that crime goes unpunished in San Francisco. Little did he realize that some animals on the farm are more equal than others.
I have mostly liberal friends and family and more or less define myself the same way, or did, until the past few years. I have to agree with your assessment regarding the closed-minded monoculture in which my liberal friends reside. They are spectacularly incurious, unshakeable in their belief that there is one correct worldview (theirs), and so triggered by their media’s talking points that they have meltdowns if the name of one of their ideological enemies is spoken. (For a giggle, I like to mention Tucker Carlson sometimes just to see what happens.)
Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real affliction, and it’s scary to see very smart, well-meaning people driven mad by it.
From personal observation, my theory is that these are particularly fear-based people who were traumatized by the triple whammy of Trump, Covid and their media. They’re addicted to their face masks. The sight of a MAGA hat makes them hyperventilate. I’m not exaggerating. It’s weird.
I am terrified of either side "winning" this election. If the Democrats win, we will be under one-party fascist rule for the foreseeable future. If the Republicans win, the summer of 2020 will look like a mild block party.
You think so? I can't see mass riots over Lee Zeldin, Dr. Oz, Kari Lake and JD Vance. Trump, yes. If that happens then we'll truly have become a banana republic.
I do think so. Every day for the past several weeks, Biden and other high-placed Democrats have been saying that if Democrats don't win the midterms, it will be "the end of Democracy." MSNBC 's "Presidential historian" Michael Beschloss said, ON AIR:
“Six nights from now, we could all be discussing violence all over this country. There’s signs that may happen, may God forbid. That losers will be declared winners by a fraudulent election officers, or a secretary of state candidates, or governors, or state legislatures. We could be six days away from losing our rule of law and losing a situation where we have elections that we all can rely on. Those are the foundation stones of democracy.
It is so sad and irresponsible that these shows are able to continue to churn out this terror and violence inducing swill. Trump supporters rioted for a day. A very terrible day. Liberals rioted in Portland for over 300 days. 300 terrible, awful, no good, very bad days.
I'm familiar with all this hysterical loony-tunes rhetoric coming from the cesspool of MSNBC. Anyone who spews such garbage should forfeit their "historian" card.
Ironically the "violence" that they're warning about is violence from the right, when the "brutal authoritarian system" is actually on the left. I just wonder what they think they can achieve with post-election rioting. It will only reinforce in a lot of people's minds why they voted Republican. I believe the 2020 riots were not spontaneous but highly coordinated, partly to defeat Trump. And the 2022 "red wave," assuming it actually happens, is partly a reaction against all the stuff that went down in 2020. So it seems counter-productive to their goals. I hope you're wrong, but the Left is so deranged anything can happen I suppose. I think there might be some small-scale acting up here and there, but not on the nationwide level we saw in 2020.
Logic and reason don't play any role in most of their decisions. It's all about feelings and outrage.
Florida State House Rep. Anna V. Eskamani got "L'd" (posting side-by-side tweets demonstrating the person's hypocrisy) with her post about the 2016 election being "rigged" and her recent post decrying election deniers. She claimed it was "disinformation." And she just kept doubling down, in spite of the proof.
As far as I can tell, these stalwart Leftists live in a completely different reality. They think that Handmaid's Tale is non-fiction.
Ben and Matt are colleagues. Ben interviewed Matt on his Sunday Special, Ep. 127, back in June of this year. Matt is a liberal person, but he is generously open-minded and seeks out all kinds of people. His beat as a journalist includes media and political corruption, and he takes particular delight in making fun of hypocrisy and garden-variety stupidity on the liberal side, because that would be more his team, if he had a team. His weekly news unpacking episodes with Walter Kirn are a highlight of my week.
Josh, wouldn’t it also hold true that “if you agree with someone on everything, that leads to what we see in today’s…” right-wingers as well? If all your news and information comes from Ingram/Hannity/Carlson, etc. wouldn’t that define that person’s political views as not their own? I too enjoy listening to rational voices on all sides of an issue or discussion.
At least every other week I record all of the Sunday talk shows and watch them. I FF through many topics, and the commercials, so it only talkes about 2 hours. I do this just to see the various angles that the MSM is putting on topics. The only conservative show is Media Matters.
Seriously, the left is bereft of rational positions on pretty much every current topis, Abortion and the Ukraine aside,
They're, imho, largely on the wrong side of everything, And once they lost the Moms, who finally divoreced emotion from logic, and realized that between school closures and indoctrination, their children were in danger, they were in trouble. Add to that that Hispanics aren't motivated by the same welfare state, vote buying tactics that the Dems previously employed for minorities, and we're seeing a seismic change in voting patterns.
Then, having Joe and Kamala as the faces of the party is simply embarassing.
I signed up and pay for daily wire and common sense. These people are very smart. I don’t care if they are left or right, even though my views lean right. I will surely listen to both sides.
I have to say that this is the best article I have read on Common Sense, and it goes without saying: that's a high bar. The clear documentation of Twitter's dishonesty, dating back to its very beginning, is breathtaking - and given Twitter's outsized influence on American culture and politics, the value of exposing an all-pervasive but untrustworthy social platform cannot be overstated. Frankly, I've been a little puzzled by this fascist administration/technocrat/Hollywood cabal's near-complete meltdown over Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, but thanks to your article I see the important role that it has played in their evil collusion to bring about The Great Reset. The "problem" with Musk is that he is nearly uncontrollable, and worse - bright and popular.
Once again, Substack and Common Sense prove their worth. Thank you both. We have a great opportunity - maybe our last - on this coming Election Day to begin the reversal of this attempted world-wide coup, and to do it without gunfire (although they have already put the gears in motion for mass starvation, itself a form of murder). If there were ever a time that Your Vote Counts, it's now. We must not fail.
The EU has made it clear that none of this free speech nonsense will be allowed to cross the pond. Europe will be a free speech no-go zone. Mr musk will have to deal with the EU whether he likes it or not. That will be an interesting fight. Will he engage or give in?
EU May have to engage with Elon he is supplying satellite coverage to the Ukraine so far for free so they might have to change their tune regarding Elon Musk and do mega engaging
Unlike my Boy Hussein, Elon really IS smarter than ten million people. Watching him work is like watching the Orange Man play 4-dimensional chess with the sad American politicians. If I don't understand what Musk is doing, I just assume it's because he's four moves ahead somewhere up along the z-axis.
Jim, I couldn't have responded any better than this. Thanks to the author for opening the window on the shenanigans regularly take placing on Twitter that most of us never knew was happening.
Thank you. So much at stake. So very much.
The role government has in all of this is far more troubling to me, twitters failing notwithstanding.
Many on Twitter pointed out that this is a HUGE story--possibly the most important story of the year--but the only response Leftists could muster was complaining that the guy who was instrumental in uncovering it went on Fox News to talk about it.
Agreed. What people forget is that government is power. Period, nothing more. And when they abuse that power, stopping it is top priority. If you want the perfect example, witness yesterday's jailing of the top officials in True The Vote for refusing to reveal their sources.
We've only scratched the surface of the extent to which shadowbanning has manipulated our society.
The apoplectic response underscores what many of us have long known and the Left has long denied—Twitter is overwhelmingly biased against conservative users, so much so that the platform has become a critical part of the Left’s ecosystem, an activist extension of progressive orthodoxies thanks in large part to its employees.
Twitter’s user base is also overwhelmingly left-wing. According to Pew, 10% of users generate 92% of all tweets, and 7 out of 10 of these users are liberal. Using this data, Brian Riedl, a budget and tax expert, calculated last year that if Twitter were a congressional district, it would have a partisan voter index (PVI) of D+43. Today, that would tie it with Washington D.C., the most liberal district in the country.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/black-friday
The activist progressive orthodoxies of the employees were the primary reason Musk needed to fire so many of them in order to move forward. And like most Leftist organizations, it turns out that there were about 10 people "managing" for every 1 person actually working.
Fascinating info—thank you!
Getting rid of the fascistic democrats is imperative, but the Republicans are little better. We need a new party. The Patriots party.
I am less than impressed with most of the Republicans, especially those of the Establishment variety. But I have little faith in third parties.
Andrew Yang's Forward Party seems to be economically far Left (he still supports "universal income," as far as I can tell), and moderate only on a few social issues.
I voted for Libertarian presidential candidates from 2004 to 2016, but I'm too pragmatic of a small-L libertarian to support their party on the whole.
I wish Musk would organize a moderate Independent party. He has the clout to succeed at it. But since he isn't eligible to be a POTUS candidate, there isn't much incentive for him to do it.
I was ready to type nearly the same first sentence you did and then saw your post. As of now, I have avoided joining twitter because I was turned off by the limitations of a "sound byte" in written form. Watching the world get manipulated by it was confusing at first but I eventually realized from the reports of ones I knew that it had become a government tool for propaganda.
Now it has been confirmed.
Twitter seems like such a cesspool of a circle jerk, opening it to sunlight could reduce it to a shell of it's former self. I don't know if I ever will join but if Musk follows through with his transparency plans I may to support free speech.
Twitter is definitely an acquired taste. I've gotten the most benefit by being very careful about who I follow; following every person who follows you is not a good approach. Yesterday I even unfollowed someone I agree with politically, but who spends most of their time trading insults with trolls.
Yes. You could not find this anywhere else.
Or you.
Yeah, Walter Kirn is great
"One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early, before your therapist reads it in The Times."
As a Military family living on the "East Side" for many many years, I can't believe how well this quote and Substack was written. Honestly don't want to screw it up with my bad comment writing!!
I am a "Substacker", for now. (Left The Times in 2020, UnHerd is losing its Covid magic...)
UnHerd is a bit uneven but diamonds remain
I left the NYT before that when I'd had it with all the "Trans" glorification opinion pieces by "Jennifer" Boylan with zero balancing opinions by, say, Abigail Shrier.
https://www.nytimes.com/column/jennifer-finney-boylan
"Jennifer" is still married to the same woman with whom he had two sons. One of the opinion pieces was about the amazing joy of son Zack following in his footsteps and "transitioning " to "Zaira".
"Jennifer" and "Zaira" are true women, not men in woman face at all, are they! I don't care if such people want to wear dresses and have fake breasts but the rest of society should not be bullied into agreeing with them that they *are* women under the law or in sports, etc.. And we should not preach Radical Gender Dogma in schools with Drag Queens who are about adult entertainment. Being kind to others is one thing, but being soft in the head to the point of harming young people is another. We've been duped.
Agree!
I will repeat an example I have used before—
If an adult 5’6”, 80 lb woman went to the doctor, told him she was fat and wanted to have her small intestine removed so she could lose more weight, should the doctor agree she IS fat, and performs the life altering surgery? Of course not! Yet doctors are doing something comparable to that when they “affirm” that people with ovaries are men and people with penises are women. This is insanity and we as a society have to push back.
Gender dysphoria is the only psychiatric disorder currently being treated with surgery. I say currently, because psychosis used to be treated with lobotomy. As we all know, that has worked out well.
Exactly.
And, I think the gender dysphoria psychiatric disorder is pretty rare. All these kids/young people have been led to believe they suffer from it because they feel they are weird, they are uncomfortable with puberty, don't have a ton of friends, their interests are "different", whatever. Then, they go down this cult garden path.
I defy anyone who has gone through adolescence to deny they felt awkward, uncomfortable in their body, or wished they were someone else! It doesn't mean the adolescent is unhealthy, quite the opposite. Making the normal maelstrom of adolescence into something that must be medicated or cut out denies the possibility of maturation.
Absolutely. Amen. But, that is where our society is right now. The lobotomy era of adolescence.
Thank you.
Of course, I am a mere person with ovaries who has birthed children a few times - not a mother. These women with penises must know better than I do! :-0
Yup, after 20 yrs I have cancelled my $40/mo WSJ subscription. I can use that to subscribe to much better content on substack
A very wise move NC.
I did the same thing--as a lifelong reader of the WSJ, it kills me how their “news”reporting has gotten so biased. Their opinion page has kept its integrity, but I am spending my media dollars (meager though they are) on those who still think that facts are important. Substack is a great outlet.
WSJ used to be a good center-right, sane alternative to the MSM, but started to go the way of the Washington Post beginning in about 2017. After the George Floyd thing, they acted like they were racing to catch the last train to Wokeville. Sad. I still read it for their op-ed page. What made them unique is that they were always first and foremost a business newspaper. Now there's no distinction between them and any other liberal major national paper.
Ha! I just got this after commenting on Variety's plea for a COVID forgiveness truce:
Your comment on Opinion | Now They Want a Pandemic ‘Amnesty’ violates the community guidelines and has been rejected
publisher's logo
JonSewell Wed 02 Nov 2022 01:07:23 PM
Yeah, and let's agree to disagree on Hitler's whole Final Solution thing.
Yeah, it's tempting, but the Op/Ed is still worth it for me. I have to admit though, the moderators are starting to infect the Op/Ed pages too.
As long as they keep Holman Jenkins I’ll keep my subscription
I was just thinking the same thing.
100% agree with you--I had exactly the same thought as I was reading this! A superb and exceptionally illuminating piece of important journalism. Mike Solana's (works with Peter Thiel at Founders Fund) piece last night is a worthy companion to Kirn's first class article: https://www.piratewires.com/p/fud/comments
I have even more respect for Musk now than before. I didn't understand how much Twitter contributed to the devolution of media, and the divisiveness of our society, and for him to singlehandedly risk so much of his wealth, and endure the attacks on his reputation, in order to attempt to reverse it is worthy of National Hero status.
I mean that sincerely.
Off Topic. Another Democrat triumph:
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/union-station-joe-biden-homeless-drugs-crime-speech/
Anyone who votes for the Dem/Commie party needs to have their heads examined. They are destroying this country and the article above proves it. The entire West Coast is going down the drain just like Union Station.
So Uncle Joe cleared a public space for a photo op?
I thought that was a bad thing...or is that so 2020 of me?
It might have been bad if he carried a Bible. Or maybe it is okay. After all he is a good Catholic...
I agree with you. I am giving Musk the benefit of the doubt, but I must caution everyone that I have always been naively optimistic. Facebook is so sinister that it is asking me to publicize my cluelessness by sharing my numerous predictions that Trump would win in 2020.
You weren't wrong in that if the 2020 election had been conducted the same as the 2016 election, without media censorship, abruptly changing state election laws, less the tech interference in certain key precincts, and the avoidance of covering theHunter laptop, Trump would be President today.
Yip Jon we definitely would not be in the state we’re in today. As President Trump has told us since the Covid strike MSM and SM are the “enemy of the people” this article tells it all
and if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle
-----------------------------
Ironically, that's a plank in the current Dem platform.
I think Trump would have lost anyway, but that’s damn funny
Pretty sure it’s the other way around
Please don't feed the troll!
I've heard that before....:)
And I will keep saying it. :-) The only way to keep this forum civil is to deny the trolls the attention they crave. Interacting with trolls just eggs them on and makes them increase their activity.
Okay, I swear I made both of those comments to you about CP, so now I'm wondering if you're just having fun with me, or are serious.
If serious, I guess I didn't notice I was getting trolled, but today I was binge posting and may not have noticed. I'll try to do better going forward :)
Just note that R T is also a troll.
Unfortunately, it's the fringes that control the dialogue. What I LOVED about this article was to understand just how instrumental Twitter was at advancing the Left's fringes positions.
I actually first signed up during the early days, but never caught on.
I'll be visiting again as it should be pretty interesting.
I’m not a big Tweeter but do enjoy the ability to read a whole spectrum of perspectives along with some more frivolous things. I’m thrilled Musk is helping make the platform far less hostile to conservatives. The reaction by many on the left of this change is pretty sad and disgusting. Yes I know it’s a private entity but I appreciate his clear support for Free Speech. On the other hand I am often shocked by the level of absolute enmity and vitriol too many have there.
Of course the deep state is busily trying to retrieve it’s disinformation megaphone. Democrat senator Chris Murphy has called on the federal government to investigate “national security concerns” raised by Saudi Arabia’s role in financing his twitter takeover, saying “we should be concerned that the Saudi’s, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics”. The irony is precious, and no doubt lost on the dimwitted senator from Connecticut.
And yet TikTok, wholly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, continues to collect data one millions world wide with no questions asked. I guess Hunter will get a cut of the profits, which makes it okay.
The only people that repressed political speech was Twitter itself. The perpetrators of speech suppression have now been kicked to the curb!
I thought that part of the deal to buy Twitter was a buyout of stockholders and to then take it private. If so then the Saudi shares is a nonissue.
It's a non issue to the extent that they have nowhere near voting control. Alwaleed bin Talal simply swapped his public stake for private - and it remains tiny. Still, CFIUS can be instructed by the administration to examine the deal at any time.
Murphy and Blumenthal are both garbage.
Yeah. While we beg the Saudis for oil. We elect the dumbest politicians. I’m convinced these dolts fail up. But it also illustrates their hubris and their monopoly on info that they believe we’ll fall for that.
The world is run by C students. Smart people don't care as much what others think about them. Remember high school? The smartest kids in the class had no shot at becoming student body president. Why do you think people like Biden, Fetterman, Herschel Walker, AOC can even believe they can win elections?
This resonates. For years now, I have had this subtle sense that we are back in high school and the "cool kids" are running the show. All while the brilliant dorks are patiently plotting the ultimate "revenge of the nerds." Human nature does not change.
He really is a boob.
He's so much more than a boob. He's a dangerous ideologue who's going to get us all killed. If he doesn't succeed in that, he'll die in office 40 years from now, since CT is a Blue No Matter What state. CT's GOP doesn't know how to read a room and provide suitable challengers. Same applies to that nitwit Blumie.
All of CT's potential Republicans "live" 183 days a year in Florida.
LOL. No kidding. I think you're onto something there.
I'd be curious to understand the Saudi role if you wouldn't mind tossing a link on here.
I quit paying attention to the process for a while and lost track of how he cobbled together his financing.
Did Peter Thiel stay in it?
The Saudis have owned a big chunk of Twitter since 2014. Suddenly the Left is worried about it.
Only because they have now openly disrespected Joe Biden for all the world to see.
Does it matter? Jim provided all of us with a fantastic description of Elon, we don’t need to know how or why, we need to thank him and pray to God he can rid our world of the trash that we are currently swimming in.
The link below is informative. No mention of Thiel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover
Thanks for the link. Silly me. I had not calculated the extent of Arab involvement. Musk has earned a place in the Capital's display of heroes.
Staggering to contemplate what the cost of simply putting that deal together was.
Speaking of respect for Musk, here's a video of yesterday's Falcon rocket launch. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, skip to the 8 minute mark for the landings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vqAyFJ9KYs
Thank you I watched the whole launch it was fantastic!
Why I love the guy. That was a sci-fi promise of our youth.
He needs to get to work on the whole flying car thing.
I’d settle for a jetpack even.
Yes, another unfulfilled promise of our childhood sci-fi world:-)
Yeah, not easy being a Boomer.
Amazing.
He surrounds himself with extraordinary people and utilizes their skills to facilitate extraordinary things. I'm not an advicate of solar and wind, but the fact that Elon is, makes me uncomfortable with my position. I tend to think he's only in it for the government subsidies, but perhaps I'm wrong.
Jon--uncomfortable w the green energy thing? You should be. I am not pro mining but this link sheds light on the FACTS TODAY regarding copper mining - like it or not. I have a real problem with these folks whooping up solar and wind, and electric vehicles with no concept of what it will take to make those happen on a world scale. And while they drive their EV to protest opening new mines..... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1584306032653717505.html
You aren’t wrong. No one is perfect.
What! You could be wrong? You are open to evidence? You get nervous when someone smarter than yourself disagrees with you? Throw this man out of church!
Applause, the attitudes we were raised on are so rare and lovely to see.
Seems to me that perhaps the most important goal of education should be to teach people to admit that they don't know everything and that sometimes they are wrong.
Thank you.
I'm very uncomfortable with opinions I hold when they disagree with people I respect. I hate cognitive dissonance and am always seeking to eliminate it. Green energy is one.
COVID was very difficult as many of my friends and aquaintences wrote me off because I couldn't be delicate about my opinions regarding the massive harm we were doing to our society with the gross overreaction to the pandemic, and the hystrionics of Fauci et al. This article explains why much of it happened, and what dissenters are up against.
Jon I feel you, for people like us that just wanted a discussion, a conversation, a nuanced perspective, admitting we don’t know everything but let’s figure it out together. To have that attitude be labeled as dangerous, shamed, cut off, etc. We’ve been living through some darkness both personally and on the global scale. Hopefully it won’t be for nothing
I listened to Walter Kirn talk and Matt Taibbi on their podcast, and also was impressed with their honesty and candor. Signed up. As a conservative I am eager to listen to rational people on the left. We do agree on some things, not everything, but that’s OK. I wonder if people on the left would seek out, eg, Ben Shapiro (ok, he talks too fast), or Dennis Prager to hear their perspectives.
Ben Shapiro talks at the perfect speed.
This little thread seems to be “our people.” I too lean conservative, but appreciate thoughtful, reasonable, liberals. Apart from Prager, do we have anyone from our perspective to recommend to the potentially open liberals? I am conservative, but sometimes I’m embarrassed by people like Levin, or Savage. Sometimes even Hannity falls back on talking points, and doesn’t seem to think deeply. Limbaugh, for all of his controversy, and occasional unserious-ness, knew how to think.
Dave Rubin. I LOVE him. His Rubin Report can be found on YouTube and Locals.com. He actually founded Locals.com. I can never go too many days without my Dave fix. Yes, I crush on him. (I consider myself one of his straight-woman groupies, lol.) He's a gay man married to another man and is a self-described classic liberal and former Democratic activist who's been red-pilled. After Newsom won the recall election, he moved from California to Florida.
He comes across as a really normal, likable guy, talks in a modulated voice and doesn't yell, he's funny, and he mixes up topics enough so his show doesn't get stale.
Check him out.
I have a number of suggestions for you, so many in fact, that I'll just give you their names with not much detail, so you'll have some homework to do, if you don't mind. I'm focusing here mainly on the work being done by Black conservatives, who are essentially ignored by the mainstream media. And yet they prevail!
Black conservatives share a disdain for BLM-style critical theory and eschew the victim mentality that is so popular on that side. They tend to be entrepreneurial and fiercely anti-communist. Many have deep backgrounds in the civil rights movement and others are up and coming. Politically, they run the gamut from very conservative (like Larry Elder and Candace Owens, neither of whom would appeal very much to liberals) to liberal but not woke (like linguistics professor and author, John McWhorter, and podcast host and musician, Coleman Hughes, two brilliant people). McWhorter does twice-monthly conversations with Glenn Loury, professor of economics at Brown University, which are outstanding, and Prof. Loury also interviews intellectuals and professors with whom he's established close relationships over a long career.
Others channel their conservative values in concrete directions: charter schools (Ian Rowe) and community organizing (Robert L. Woodson's Woodson Center). There's the organization Braver Angels, and its founder, John Wood, Jr. And I must mention Shelby Steele, award-winning author of many books, and, with his son Eli, a documentarian. Their film, "What Killed Michael Brown?" can be viewed on Amazon and is well worth whatever they're charging for it these days. Then there's Wilfred Reilly, professor of political science, who wrote the book "Hate Crime Hoax," and Erec Smith, professor of rhetoric and co-founder of the website "Free Black Thought." Also check out the remarkable Chloe Valdary, who invented an alternative to diversity, equity and inclusion brainwashing trainings through her organization, "The Theory of Enchantment."
I'd also suggest that you seek out heterodox thinkers of any race, rather than conservatives per se. Many exiles from the left exist in this space; I'd consider myself one of those. Get on the mailing list of the Australian journal, Quillette. Even if you don't subscribe, you'll have access to a range of intellectually stimulating and eclectic writings across the political spectrum that eschew the far right or far left. In the heterodox category I'd place Konstantin Kisin, a British-Jewish immigrant from Russia who co-hosts the Triggernometry podcast. See his new book, "An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West." And I concur with the suggestion to check out Douglas Murray.
This list is far from exhaustive and I apologize to all the wonderful people I've neglected to mention here.
Thanks Beeswax. I have read books by Steele, Reilly, McWhorter, Murray, and also Thomas Sowell, and I have heard Glen Loury's podcast. I'm definitely a consumer of heterodox writing, but I have been mostly consuming books, rather than podcasts or essays. Also, you do mention a few names new to me, and I thank you for that.
Any thoughts on a specific podcast or show (so few people read books nowadays; as an author, that kills me!)that I can recommend to a liberal who is just beginning to realize maybe not all is well in paradise? Other than CS of course, that goes without saying.
Tom, one quick amendment to the information I gave you on Nov. 3. I'm rescinding my recommendation of "The Fifth Column" podcast. It's very entertaining and informative, but it doesn't really fit your criterion of something that a liberal person might listen to, learn something from and enjoy. Those guys are pretty raucous and they don't mince words.
Instead, I'd suggest the Clifton Duncan Podcast, which I just discovered. His range of guests is impressive. He defines himself as non-woke but not on the right, more-or-less heterodox, I assume.
Dave Rubin also wrote a book, Why I Left the Left, which other disillusioned liberals may be able to relate to.
Hi Tom, You're way ahead of me. I can't believe that I forgot Thomas Sowell!
In terms of podcasts, I recommend Coleman Hughes' "Conversations with Coleman," which is eclectic and not always focused on politics, so one can choose to listen based on the subject matter. I sometimes enjoy the podcast Fifth Column, with host Kmele Foster and two other right-leaning guys. Foster does investigative journalism and podcasts for Bari Weiss, and occasionally appears as a commentator on Fox. Bari's podcast, Honestly, is very good. I also recommend the podcast "So To Speak: The Free Speech Podcast," which discusses cases or issues in the news from the perspective of prior precedents and current litigation. The guests are First Amendment attorneys who specialize in these types of cases. This podcast leans neither right or left, which is appropriate.
In terms of books, I can recommend a few, although I admit that I don't read as much as I used to because my eyesight is lousy and I find it easier to listen. Thomas Chatterton Williams has written several interesting books from the perspective of a mixed-race man who believes that "race" is a spurious identity category that should become obsolete.
A socialist friend gave me an excellent book from a left-wing perspective on the phenomenon of left-wing intolerance and cancel culture: "Cancel This Book - The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture," by labor and human rights attorney Dan Kovalik. Kovalik is one of those rare leftists who will critique his own side.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a successful entrepreneur and renaissance man. His book "Woke Inc." is a tour de force. He has just released a new book which I look forward to reading, "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence." As a die-hard capitalist, Ramaswamy will challenge your liberal friends, but his analysis of how big business has been corrupted by woke politics is hard to refute and very compelling.
Lastly I'd like to put in a plug for Portland-based documentary filmmaker Travis Brown, whose Locals community I'm a member of. Brown's project, The Woke Reformation/The Signal Productions, is ongoing. You'll find him on YouTube. He's done great interviews with right and left leaning intellectuals who are not woke, e.g., Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Shermer, Asra Nomani, among others.
I just listened to a clip of a podcast of “the two black guys” Loury and McWhorter, where Loury rips Ibram X Kendi a new one. Lots of words I won’t repeat, but Loury concludes Kendi is not worthy to carry his book bag. LOL!
I first noticed Coleman Hughes when he was a kid at Columbia. His writing was remarkable and only 22 yr old. Knew he would go far.
Quillette can be interesting, at times.
Two others I follow— Husband/wife team of evolutionary biologists, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Dark horse podcast. They have been fearless and unapologetic exposing the covid fake science.
Bret and Heather got me through the pandemic. They started talking about the lab-leak hypothesis in APRIL 2020! with gain-of-function research and off-label uses of patented medications to treat the virus not far behind. Wow.
There have been leftists on this board but to a man/woman they do nothing but insult and disrupt.
There are a few who manage to keep things civil in spite of disagreeing. But the trolls are all Leftists. I haven't seen even a purported right-wing troll since the guy who claimed to be a far-right Jew (despite occasionally oopsing Leftist ideology) was kicked off.
Although a Brit, Douglas Murray is excellent.
Agree on Savage, Levin and Hannity. It is painful listening to them. Murray is lovely to the ears.
I often agree with Levin but he needs to stop shouting and be less angry. Hannity is more likable but he's extremely repetitive and redundant, showing the same clips of Maxine Waters, Schumer et al over and over. Please get new material.
I'm so glad you thought of Murray! I think he's brilliant, and I love having the perspective of a Brit. If you haven't read it, The Madness of Crowds is excellent; it was published in 2019 but foretells all the things that went on in 2020. I haven't read his new one though.
I didn't realize Murray was a regular commentator. I've read his two latest books, and certainly appreciated them.
I have heard 2 interviews with Douglas Murray, and yes, he does have that excellent Oxford accent.
Being a (moderate) leftie on this Substack, I'd say Ben Shapiro has some interesting/worthwhile things to say, but Dennis Prager not so much.
I like Dennis but I find him redundant and over-preoccupied with the transgender thing. I think it's nuts and would never "transition" my kid, but there are lots of other issues besides that right now that concern and personally affect me more. He can be good when he freshens and mixes up his topics, but sometimes listening to his droning voice go on about "men give birth" I just turn it off. And again, I think that concept is nuts.
That surprises me. I haven't heard Prager for a while, but a few years ago, I listened to him 2-3 times a week, and found that he was usually pretty thought provoking. But not always, of course! No one gets it right all the time.
I had hoped that those on the left would seek out voices on the right to see where there is common ground. Unfortunately what I found was that many on the left feel that they correct in their thinking and ideology, and therefore on the right side of history. So many don't feel the need to even briefly listen to a conservative opinion or thought.
In other words...When you truly believe that you're right and everyone who doesn't think exactly like you is wrong, why bother listening to an opposing view?
Many of us do. I'm center-left but read several sources on the right. What frightens me, though, is how much both sides tear down the ability of the other to govern. When you tell people in TV ads--24/7--that the people who want to govern them are evil and bad then you get a public that thinks everything is evil and bad.
My Congresswoman is a Democrat and her office has been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with a passport. The mayor of my town is a Republican and has also been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with my home. Yet, to listen to the ads, they're both horrible monsters out to destroy America.
I am center right at this point. I agree.
Scott D, who do you read? Though I am conservative, I am often embarrassed about how prominent conservative commentators present their views. They often seem unaware of powerful supporting arguments, and instead revert to talking points. Again, I myself am conservative.
When you demonize people, you get worse than that. The latest being a hammer attack on an 82 year old man, then scumbags like Donald Trump Jr. joking about it and smearing the man. It keeps getting worse and worse, and it has to stop.
It would be nice to see a politician who can campaign without a backhoe to dig themselves into a gutter.
I agree. The Hole Rule - when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging - is a biggie at my house.
Do you have the same concern for Senator Paul? Congressman Scalia? Justice Kavanaugh?
All of whom were either assaulted and injured, shot and nearly killed, or stalked with the intention that they and their family are murdered.
If everyone is so worried about Paul Pelosi, why is he being left alone in a mansion with no security and left to drive himself drunk around the Napa Valley? (Where he was in a crash as a teen that killed his brother.)
There is no one in US politics more demonized that Donald Trump, he is the arch-villain in the leftist cult religion, the Emmanuel Goldstein of their Two Minutes Hate.
The dude in Pelosi's attack is an illegal from Canada, former hemp bracelet maker that was married to a nudist (presently imprisoned for pedophilia) in Berkeley.
A grab them by the pussy, mock the handicapped, lying traitor is "demonized"? And "the dude in Pelosi's attack" quotes Don the Con all over his social media? Fake news, right?
Yes demonized. Hillary Clinton paid for a false dossier that was placed with the FBI which then leaked it to the press. That was the start of the Russia collusion myth and years of investigation. Are you as squeamish about a sitting president getting BJs in the Oval Office from a 22 year old intern? What about a presidential candidate calling those who will not vote for her a basket of deplorables? I could go on and on and on. I guess who the lying traitors are is in the eye of the beholder.
Am I as squeamish about a sitting president getting BJs from a 22 year old intern as I am about a president who encourages an insurrection to try to overthrow our democracy? Are you serious? Of course not!
That was not the question. Which I suspect you realize. I will take your sidestep as a confirmation you are okay with the president and the intern. Which is remarkably short-sighted because unless and until the rules are equally applied across the board this division will continue unchecked.
That was the question. Read your comment again. Right there in black and white.
Do you really think that the drug-addled moron who attacked Pelosi ever watches cable news? Is logged on Twitter? or Truth Social?
These people can't take the time to take their pants off to defecate, and yet the narrative is that they are taking instructions from GOP spokespeople on who to attack, and when?
The only thing this idiot DePape thought he knew is that crime goes unpunished in San Francisco. Little did he realize that some animals on the farm are more equal than others.
And he was an illegal immigrant.
Agree totally!
I have mostly liberal friends and family and more or less define myself the same way, or did, until the past few years. I have to agree with your assessment regarding the closed-minded monoculture in which my liberal friends reside. They are spectacularly incurious, unshakeable in their belief that there is one correct worldview (theirs), and so triggered by their media’s talking points that they have meltdowns if the name of one of their ideological enemies is spoken. (For a giggle, I like to mention Tucker Carlson sometimes just to see what happens.)
Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real affliction, and it’s scary to see very smart, well-meaning people driven mad by it.
From personal observation, my theory is that these are particularly fear-based people who were traumatized by the triple whammy of Trump, Covid and their media. They’re addicted to their face masks. The sight of a MAGA hat makes them hyperventilate. I’m not exaggerating. It’s weird.
🤣🤣🤣 it’s like a disease, wonder what they going to do 9th November, probably going into solitary confinement when the red tsunami hits them.
We can only hope...
Probably protesting a stolen election. Mostly peacefully.
I am terrified of either side "winning" this election. If the Democrats win, we will be under one-party fascist rule for the foreseeable future. If the Republicans win, the summer of 2020 will look like a mild block party.
You think so? I can't see mass riots over Lee Zeldin, Dr. Oz, Kari Lake and JD Vance. Trump, yes. If that happens then we'll truly have become a banana republic.
I do think so. Every day for the past several weeks, Biden and other high-placed Democrats have been saying that if Democrats don't win the midterms, it will be "the end of Democracy." MSNBC 's "Presidential historian" Michael Beschloss said, ON AIR:
“Six nights from now, we could all be discussing violence all over this country. There’s signs that may happen, may God forbid. That losers will be declared winners by a fraudulent election officers, or a secretary of state candidates, or governors, or state legislatures. We could be six days away from losing our rule of law and losing a situation where we have elections that we all can rely on. Those are the foundation stones of democracy.
“A historian 50 years from now, if historians are allowed to write in this country and if there are still free publishing houses and a free press, which I’m not certain of. But if that is true, a historian will say, what was at stake tonight and this week was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed. We’re on the edge of a brutal authoritarian system, and it could be a week away.” https://thejewishvoice.com/2022/11/deadly-misinformation-msnbc-historian-claims-republicans-will-kill-children-and-begin-brutal-authoritarian-regime-if-they-win-election/
There are people who GENUINELY BELIEVE this rhetoric. You can be sure that Leftist agitators will send them out to riot if Republicans win.
It is so sad and irresponsible that these shows are able to continue to churn out this terror and violence inducing swill. Trump supporters rioted for a day. A very terrible day. Liberals rioted in Portland for over 300 days. 300 terrible, awful, no good, very bad days.
I'm familiar with all this hysterical loony-tunes rhetoric coming from the cesspool of MSNBC. Anyone who spews such garbage should forfeit their "historian" card.
Ironically the "violence" that they're warning about is violence from the right, when the "brutal authoritarian system" is actually on the left. I just wonder what they think they can achieve with post-election rioting. It will only reinforce in a lot of people's minds why they voted Republican. I believe the 2020 riots were not spontaneous but highly coordinated, partly to defeat Trump. And the 2022 "red wave," assuming it actually happens, is partly a reaction against all the stuff that went down in 2020. So it seems counter-productive to their goals. I hope you're wrong, but the Left is so deranged anything can happen I suppose. I think there might be some small-scale acting up here and there, but not on the nationwide level we saw in 2020.
Logic and reason don't play any role in most of their decisions. It's all about feelings and outrage.
Florida State House Rep. Anna V. Eskamani got "L'd" (posting side-by-side tweets demonstrating the person's hypocrisy) with her post about the 2016 election being "rigged" and her recent post decrying election deniers. She claimed it was "disinformation." And she just kept doubling down, in spite of the proof.
As far as I can tell, these stalwart Leftists live in a completely different reality. They think that Handmaid's Tale is non-fiction.
Many stolen elections
Ben and Matt are colleagues. Ben interviewed Matt on his Sunday Special, Ep. 127, back in June of this year. Matt is a liberal person, but he is generously open-minded and seeks out all kinds of people. His beat as a journalist includes media and political corruption, and he takes particular delight in making fun of hypocrisy and garden-variety stupidity on the liberal side, because that would be more his team, if he had a team. His weekly news unpacking episodes with Walter Kirn are a highlight of my week.
Beeswax, I keep checking my email on Fridays so that I can delight myself by listening to the wonderful weekly duo.
I look at it the same way. I try to be independent, but lean right. I enjoy listening to rational voices on rhe left.
In my view, if you agree with someone on everything, that leads to what we see in today's leftists.
Matt, Jimmy Dore, Glen Greenwald, and Bari are all rational people that I know I can get along with.
Josh, wouldn’t it also hold true that “if you agree with someone on everything, that leads to what we see in today’s…” right-wingers as well? If all your news and information comes from Ingram/Hannity/Carlson, etc. wouldn’t that define that person’s political views as not their own? I too enjoy listening to rational voices on all sides of an issue or discussion.
At least every other week I record all of the Sunday talk shows and watch them. I FF through many topics, and the commercials, so it only talkes about 2 hours. I do this just to see the various angles that the MSM is putting on topics. The only conservative show is Media Matters.
Seriously, the left is bereft of rational positions on pretty much every current topis, Abortion and the Ukraine aside,
They're, imho, largely on the wrong side of everything, And once they lost the Moms, who finally divoreced emotion from logic, and realized that between school closures and indoctrination, their children were in danger, they were in trouble. Add to that that Hispanics aren't motivated by the same welfare state, vote buying tactics that the Dems previously employed for minorities, and we're seeing a seismic change in voting patterns.
Then, having Joe and Kamala as the faces of the party is simply embarassing.
Sasha Stone is the rookie of the year. She's putting out amazing stuff, and pops up on Matt and other Substackers occasionally to comment.
Ben Shapiro is a genius! The left doesn't stand a chance against him.
I signed up and pay for daily wire and common sense. These people are very smart. I don’t care if they are left or right, even though my views lean right. I will surely listen to both sides.
Yes,heis,but as the guy abovesaid,hetalkstoofast.
I said this above, but just to be the contrarian, I will repeat. He speaks at the perfect speed.
He talks fast because he has a lot to say.
Actually, he talks that fast to keep folks from interrupting!
You can listen to him at 0.8 speed! It's very helpful