I love this line so much:
a pollitics of interracial class solidarity rather than demands for better corporate diversity trainings.
I don't even know if this is about the substantive vs rhetoric point he was making elsewhere. I did go to a diversity summit for work with Ibram Kendi. He talked about how the white person making $15 feels that the system works for them when a black personality is making $13, but really they both should be making $20-25 and you can't ignore class. It's funny, isn't it, that the corporate trainers didn't really explore that part.
I remember piling in the car with mom, dad, and four kids to drive to Florida. Honestly, it's just too hot when you get there, but we used to play Trivial Pursuit on the way.
Haven't clicked through, but the idea that center-right free-market people ideally ought to like ending single-family zoning on pure principle is the kind of facile observation you get from pundits who aren't working on the ground. It assumes such people's principles are what they say they are.
Hancock County is a hilarious example county to use. It (like much of coastal Maine) depends on tourism for most of their economy. Bar Harbor is super expensive because of the summer visitors (as has been going back to the 1800s). It has two colleges, a cancer institute and is in commuting distance to another university and hospital. As far as example counties in Maine, it is not one that I'd use. It also has Democrats representing it at the state and federal level.
Although maybe I don't understand his point.
He's going to have a better summer there than I will here.
3: It's sometimes useful to make them publicly fail to act on their stated principles.
I don't know about Yglesias' specifics, but I do think that this is an era in which this point is underappreciated:
My blog takes its name from a Max Weber essay that deals, in part, with the need for political actors to adopt an ethic of responsibility that focuses on the likely outcome of their activities not just their righteousness.
On the specific topic of housing development in expensive cities, my view is that anyone who opposes it for any reason, left or right, should be shot in the head and their body picked over by vultures, so I don't really have a nuanced view on how to market the idea. But here's a different example -- the biggest institutional investors, like Blackrock, have decided over the last couple of months that companies should do something about climate change. The impact so big that polluters trade at a discount relative to companies that can market themselves as green. A month ago, Blackrock etc. forced Exxon to fire three people on their board, and replace them with three people who take climate change more seriously. I know that in many contexts, the main argument will be "But they don't really mean it." I think they do really mean it, more important, who gives a shit? (Answer: Most people.) On the flip side, Germany increased its carbon emissions in the middle of the last decade because they closed all of their nuclear power plants after Fukushima. Now, the people pushing for closing the nuclear power plants were sincere, and they meant well. But they still (predictably) made the problem worse, and that counts for something.
Yggles has intentionally charted a course as a dryly humorous, equal opportunity scold. He's a competent writer with occasional flashes of real rhetorical wit, but his thinking and judgment continue to be as sophomoric as they were when he started his blog.
He and Noah both project their own world views as something like enlightened universalist, excoriating what they perceive to be the overly deferential projections of the broader white liberal class, but pay precisely zero real attention to the voices of historically marginalized folk who are quick to point out that it is not that simple.
I don't understand why anyone feels the need to give this guy any amount of attention when there are better and more interesting thinkers and writers working this beat. Jamelle Bouie and Adam Serwer have far more interesting and challenging insights on the politics and culture of the moment and can trace their historical antecedents, citing chapter and verse.
That works two ways though. Lots of online stuff has people accused of "virtue signaling" for not supporting fucking over someone weaker or poor.
Strong agree on 7.
I think there's a line to be drawn between the perfectionism and overworking in today's "meritocratic" high school pressure cookers and very online lefty politics.
Further to 7, this ties in with one of MY's hobby horses, which is that Bernie bros are terrible in the way described in 7 but Bernie himself understands that it's important to actually do things and is much less of a purist than his stans are.
I am among those who think Yglesias' commentary has worsened over time, and I think this interview illuminates how his thinking -- and that of similarly situated liberal pundits -- tends to degrade as they gain prominence.
Yglesias is coming to see his role as selling, rather than telling, the truth.
My blog takes its name from a Max Weber essay that deals, in part, with the need for political actors to adopt an ethic of responsibility that focuses on the likely outcome of their activities not just their righteousness.
He is coming to see himself as a "political actor" rather than a journalist. Because he doesn't fully comprehend the distinction, he conflates what is true with what is politically expedient.
Which of course is what politicians do, and should do, in their public pronouncements. But they too tend to get corrupted by conflating the truth with what they believe they can sell.
By contrast, David Shor (for example) understands that he is a political consultant, and is careful to distinguish political advice from policy advice.
I am among those who think Yglesias' commentary has worsened over time,
I think the interview can support that argument, but I'd suggest looking at a different line (which I'll quote in a minute).
He is coming to see himself as a "political actor" rather than a journalist
I think it's true that he sees himself as an actor, not just a commentator (who's opinion has no impact on the events they cover), and he's argued for a long time that much of the media is too willing to pretend that they don't have any impact (Most recently, "99 percent of the reporters working in the mainstream press would agree with the reporter here. But honestly, what is the more significant significant about the ACA -- the website glitches or the regulatory changes that improved people's lives?")
I don't think that means he conflates truth with expediency (see, here for example, though it isn't directly responsive).
The line in the interview that worried me was this, which I think is deeply concerning, "But in terms of what I'm trying to do at least, my goal for the Substack is to be highly differentiated -- I am asking people to pay me money, and I am acutely aware that even though I write a lot no Substack is a great value proposition in terms of dollars per units of content. So I want to provide something for people that is different than what you'd get elsewhere, leaning in to some of my more idiosyncratic interests and ideas."
8: 90% of the time someone brings up Yglesias in place I can see, it's to accuse him of apostasy. Probably if people spent less time looking for heretics, he wouldn't come up so much.
I'm not grasping your point about "impact" in 14.4. I don't think Yglesias is saying that journalists pretend they don't have an impact. He just thinks (correctly) that their impact is often pernicious.
The latter link to Yglesias captures the central issue:
What I am is opposed to a style of politics where instead of taking on the work to change people's minds, you demand that elected officials court catastrophe by adopting your unpopular ideas.
He's being really explicit here that activists should adopt the role of politicians, and trim their message to fit the prevailing orthodoxy. He says that the work of changing people's minds is incompatible with making demands that are outside the mainstream. He is wrong about this.
Mind you, he also denies that he says this, but that's my point: He doesn't fully grasp the underlying contradiction.
14: I mean, that's not too different from his book career. His first book was a brave-for-2008 screed on foreign policy, his most recent is One Billion Americans.
I'm willing to go to 960,000,000 Americans but no higher.
16: If you really believe that what activists say doesn't really matter, then the only plausible mechanism I can see for this is if the establishment explicitly rejects it rather than embracing it. Isn't that was Y is doing?
I'm not grasping your point about "impact" in 14.4. I don't think Yglesias is saying that journalists pretend they don't have an impact. He just thinks (correctly) that their impact is often pernicious.
My point is that (a) journalists often have an impact therefore (b) Yglesias being conscious of questions of impact in his own work isn't necessarily a rejection of truth, it just may be an accurate concern.
He says that the work of changing people's minds is incompatible with making demands that are outside the mainstream. He is wrong about this.
How does he say that? The immediately proceeding comment is, "I routinely write columns (and indeed books!) trying to persuade people that their ideas are wrong and they should instead adopt different, better ideas."
14.last, by the way, is exactly what I want Yglesias to do. Yglesias is saying that from a marketing perspective, a new approach is appropriate to his new venue. He is not saying his new approach serves society better. He might feel that way, but he clearly understands these are two different topics of discussion.
16.last to his most recent is One Billion Americans.
What I am is opposed to a style of politics where instead of taking on the work to change people's minds, you demand that elected officials court catastrophe by adopting your unpopular ideas.
He's being really explicit here that activists should adopt the role of politicians, and trim their message to fit the prevailing orthodoxy. He says that the work of changing people's minds is incompatible with making demands that are outside the mainstream. He is wrong about this.
Consider this recent complaint, "In my piece I cite Skocpol rather than Schlozman, but I would make a similar point. They have studied the literature on mass movement success stories, but then couldn't actually replicate them so instead of coming up with a different strategy they've crafted a Potemkin version. Climate advocates focused on *elite persuasion* have very successfully gotten Dems to prioritize climate change even though the voters don't care about it that much. That is a legitimate way to do politics. But protest movement cosplay doesn't help."
The argument there is that trying to convince the broad public is good, trying to convince politicians is good. Trying to pretend that there's broad public support for things that aren't broadly supported is bad.
I have mixed feelings about that. I think activists can and should just do things, without worrying too much about whether they are popular -- but those decisions can't be completely excluded from criticism.
17: What gets to me is his utter hypocrisy - Jose is an only child!
20.last see 16.last.
You are making the claim that, "He says that the work of changing people's minds is incompatible with making demands that are outside the mainstream" MY denies that, but you think his denial is incorrect. You may be right, but what is your evidence that you are correct (that the implication of MY's position is that, "the work of changing people's minds is incompatible with making demands that are outside the mainstream") and that MY is wrong. That seems like a strong claim to me.
16 -- I think that you're excluding the possibility of activists advocating for their unpopular ideas, but not demanding "that elected officials court catastrophe" by going along with them.
That is, say you've got a police abolitionist activist -- assuming that police abolition isn't yet an election-winning issue, should such an activist be staying away from electoral politics on this issue, or should they be working to win primaries with abolitionist candidates even if those positions mean losing in the general? I think there's a good argument for doing the first -- advocating for the ideas, but not pressuring candidates to go along with them if that means making it less likely that even a half-heartedly sympathetic candidate gets elected.
24: I'm not prepared to chase down what he means when he refers to "protest movement cosplay," but I'll say again that he doesn't always fail to make the proper distinctions between politics and policy. And when he talks about politics, he doesn't always assume that activists/commentators must regard their role as existing solely as adjuncts to politicians.
I'm just identifying a tendency that I think is increasing. In the specific example I provide, you don't dispute my interpretation of his plain intent. You just say he says something different elsewhere. I agree. I predict that we're going to see an increasing tendency for him to identify himself as an establishment political actor, and to adopt the priorities of establishment politicians without realizing that's what he's doing. Likewise, I take your 20.last to be an expression of concern over his attention to marketing. That doesn't bother me at all, just as his attention to the needs of the political establishment doesn't bother me. He will err, though, if he comes to think that successful marketing is intrinsically the correct approach to journalism, just as he errs when he conflates activism with establishment retail politics.
With Yglesias, I'm seeing the application of Upton Sinclair's dictum about not understanding something when your salary depends on not understanding it. As Yglesias himself gets tighter with the establishment, and as his profit depends on a certain approach, I predict he will increasingly lose touch with the distinction between the correct approach and the approach that suits his personal interests. (Or, to put it another way, I think in the past the correct approach has more often suited his personal interests.)
In the specific example I provide, you don't dispute my interpretation of his plain intent.
I dispute your claim that, " he conflates what is true with what is politically expedient."
I think there is a tension -- but I also think it can be a sign of a responsible journalist to pay attention to both truth and, "how are my actions affecting the political system" and that is not just reducible to, "what is politically expedient."
Yglesias:
What I am is opposed to a style of politics where instead of taking on the work to change people's minds, you demand that elected officials court catastrophe by adopting your unpopular ideas.
And:
My blog takes its name from a Max Weber essay that deals, in part, with the need for political actors to adopt an ethic of responsibility that focuses on the likely outcome of their activities not just their righteousness.
You see these as being consistent with this:
"I routinely write columns (and indeed books!) trying to persuade people that their ideas are wrong and they should instead adopt different, better ideas."
I can work out a few ways to square these sentiments: Maybe Yglesias only tries to persuade people that their ideas are wrong when his proposals are sufficiently politically viable. Or: Maybe Yglesias sees himself as trying to persuade people but not politicians. But Yglesias himself doesn't offer these explanations. I'd propose that he squares these sentiments by believing that he is entitled to propose politically unviable things, but certain other people can't. Or maybe it's that other people can believe that policy and politics are badly misguided, and it's okay for them to say that, but they ought not get too excited about it.
My grill takes its name from Max Weber. Or would if I had a nice enough patio that I thought a nice grill wouldn't make the rest of it look shitty.
31: I think you have identified the horns of a dilemma, but I'm less convinced that Yglesias is caught on them in quite the way that you claim.
I think, in practice, "the need for political actors to adopt an ethic of responsibility that focuses on the likely outcome of their activities not just their righteousness." is intended to carry some weight but not absolute. Despite the phrasing, I think he is calling people for be consequentialists, broadly speaking, but that doesn't mean that consequentialism is the only consideration.
I'm sure that he thinks that, "he is entitled to propose politically unviable things" and I believe that he also thinks that other people are entitled to the same thing -- but that in both cases there is the possibility of legitimate criticism that the thing is unviable (and, FWIW, Yglesias has separately argued that people should be willing to have a think skin towards a certain amount of criticism). Certainly Yglesias doesn't think he's above criticism (even if he occasionally bristles as it).
Perhaps I'm just projecting my own beliefs onto Yglesias, but I'd say, (a) most actions will fail to satisfy all possible goals or be immune to any possible criticism, (b) we must continue to act despite this fact*, and (c) still be willing to reckon with legitimate criticism.
* In theory at least, I make no claims to being a man of action.
I think that you're excluding the possibility of activists advocating for their unpopular ideas, but not demanding "that elected officials court catastrophe" by going along with them.
I think you read me correctly. "Demanding" does some ambiguous work here -- there are a range of ways that people can make political demands. I would generally argue against threatening violence, for instance, but saying "Politician X should do this thing" is just fine, even when it's politically non-viable -- and Yglesias, when he is espousing his own positions, clearly agrees.
Despite the phrasing
I think Yglesias is very careful in his language, and means what he says. I believe his thinking is muddled, and his contradictory language precisely reflects that.
Yglesias has separately argued that people should be willing to have a think skin towards a certain amount of criticism
It looks like you couldn't decide if this should say "thin" or "thick".
I'm going to assume you meant to write "thick".
I had the impression that generating controversy was part of Saiselgy's business strategy -- but lately it seems to me that he's been genuinely upset about some of the criticism he's getting.
I'm going to assume you meant to write "thick".
Correct.
I think Yglesias is very careful in his language, and means what he says. I believe his thinking is muddled, and his contradictory language precisely reflects that.
By which you mean, "something written as an absolute statement should be taken as absolute even if, in other cases, he qualifies it"? That seems like an uncharitable reading (particularly, I argue, when the interpretation that he's arguing for a broad-strokes consequentialism seems easy to reach and to fit the statements fairly well).
The barely hidden subtext of what Yggles and his cohort are going on about is their belief, or claim that (white) online leftists are losing winnable policy achievements by driving away (white) suburban middle class voters, and said maximally online leftist cohort should shut the fuck up.
There are more implicit assumptions at work there than are worth elaborating on, really, but the biggest categorical mistake I think is they make is believing that the stated (really, the projected) concerns of the squishy white middle class are actual. That's a convenient lie to accept if you're in the business of selling messages to said middle class that none of this is their fault, but I can't say I've ever seen compelling evidence that it's true.
I think that's oversimplified. Like, in the NYC mayoral primary, a black retired police office just won with a public safety, pro police message and the support of a lot of black and Latino voters -- it is not certain, but seems at least possible, that the furthest left viable candidate, Maya Wiley, would had done better if she hadn't been supporting "defund the police". A lot of the Democratic Party's moderate voters aren't white.
Police officer, not police office.
I think people voted for him so he could move out of New Jersey.
I predict he will increasingly lose touch with the distinction between the correct approach and the approach that suits his personal interests
Oh no, not the DC-property-owning guy who writes that the federal workforce should be moved to the Rust Belt!
If I can manage it, they can. Just don't drink the IC Light.
I guess I can't blame him too much, because if I wanted to buy a house in DC but kept getting outbid by DINK GS-15s, I would also fantasize about forcibly displacing them.
40: Politicians have different roles than activists. If Maya Wiley had a better political tactic available, then it's reasonable to suggest that she should have pursued it to the extent that her sole goal was to be elected. If she had a better policy prescription available, then it's reasonable to dispute her on those terms, too.
But activists, almost by definition, are going to "demand that elected officials court catastrophe by adopting your unpopular ideas." And activism is neither inherently suspect nor inevitably ineffectual. The activists almost made Wiley mayor, and the particular activists motivated by "defund the police" would have gained nothing by persuading Wiley to disagree with them.
A couple of decades ago, reasonable people understood that there was no way that the US was ready for a Black president. Less than a decade ago, nobody imagined you could have a president who was an openly crooked racist rapist. I myself thought both things played poorly as politics. But the activists had a dream ...
39: I finally read the interview, and I've come to believe people just free associate what his opinion will be. Like, he's a centrist white guy, and we all know what they think, right? In the interview, he basically decries the Democrats for succumbing to institutionalism in stopping Trump, and says they need to be prepared to embrace extra-legal actions if the Republicans try to steal the next election. As centrist white guys typically do.
It looks like you couldn't decide if this should say "thin" or "thick".
I'm going to assume you meant to write "thick".
I'm going to assume he meant to write "skink."
Like, he's a centrist white guy, and we all know what they think, right?
One keeps parking my car like an asshole.
Not to put too fine a point on it, has Yg ever helped anybody?
Let's not set standards too high for us to meet them.
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog do good works.
47: I'm amused that Yglesias frames race and class in a fashion that would suit the silliest of third-party leftists. (Having voted for Bernie myself, I'm looking for a derisive term to substitute for "Bernie Bros." Today I'm going with "third-party leftists.")
There's a reason that Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, and Bayard Rustin converged on the Freedom Budget for All Americans, the Poor People's Campaign, and a politics of interracial class solidarity rather than demands for better corporate diversity trainings.
So we learn that folks with deep concerns about racial justice are appropriately characterized as demanding "better corporate diversity trainings." I propose, however, that this isn't evidence of Yglesias' contempt for wishy-washy liberalism, but is instead symptomatic of his emerging worldview centering corporate HR departments.
And yes, yes, I know he contradicts this elsewhere. Maybe that's not incoherence; maybe it's just having it both ways.
32: I bought a $5 Weber grill from a local scrapper who was having a yard sale of some of the less noisome and jagged produce of his toil. Since it was already in such poor condition, I didn't feel bad about leaving it out in the backyard, but sure enough, some other scrappers later absconded with it. (Or perhaps, even the same fellow! What a racket, charge some middle-class leftist for a commodity, then steal it back and sell it again. It's like the Creed of the Lumpenproletarian or something.)
Someone down the block from me has one in his front yard. Not the porch, but the yard. I'm guessing it's a sting operation.
According to utilitarian ethics, I could steal it if I had a smaller house than they did.
One thing Sausagely misses is that (regardless of the relative obnoxiousness of Sanders people) there are many fundamental Sanders issues, like single-payer, that are actually quite popular with the mass of voters, but which have to fight bitterly against the various sorts of opposition of the Republican Party, most of the big media, much of the Democratic Party machines, most of the Democrats donors and mercenary pros, and the gerrymandered nation election system ( where a ND voter is 80x weightier in the Senate than a CA voter. Only in the most immediate-term, narrow sense is it about white voters in the suburbs.
One thing Sausagely misses is that (regardless of the relative obnoxiousness of Sanders people) there are many fundamental Sanders issues, like single-payer, that are actually quite popular with the mass of voters, but which have to fight bitterly against the various sorts of opposition of the Republican Party, most of the big media, much of the Democratic Party machines, most of the Democrats donors and mercenary pros, and the gerrymandered nation election system ( where a ND voter is 80x weightier in the Senate than a CA voter. Only in the most immediate-term, narrow sense is it about white voters in the suburbs.
One thing Sausagely misses is that (regardless of the relative obnoxiousness of Sanders people) there are many fundamental Sanders issues, like single-payer, that are actually quite popular with the mass of voters, but which have to fight bitterly against the various sorts of opposition of the Republican Party, most of the big media, much of the Democratic Party machines, most of the Democrats donors and mercenary pros, and the gerrymandered nation election system ( where a ND voter is 80x weightier in the Senate than a CA voter. Only in the most immediate-term, narrow sense is it about white voters in the suburbs.
53: At the 2004 republican convention, I was stuck in a conversation with a loudmouth who wouldn't let me out of the conversation. Yglesias interrupted him and gave me an out. After that we chatted for a bit with Ezra Klein and then I gave a diner recommendation to Markos Moulitsas. In conclusion, 2004 was weird.
I was in the DNC venue in 2004 but didn't know where to find the brand new Blogger's Row so I missed the chance to meet Atrios, Markos, etc. I did walk behind Mickey Kaus on the way to the green line station after Kerry's speech but I couldn't think of anything to say besides telling him he's an asshole so I didn't talk to him. I drove a golf cart carrying some people in Madeline Albright's entourage but she got in the cart in front of me.
I was supposed to be writing my thesis at the time! My wife, who was 7 months pregnant, was mad that I volunteered for the DNC instead of making sure I finished my thesis before our kid was born (I made it by 20 days.)
I met McArdle at the big annual US econ conference year ago (it might have been 2004, in fact). I felt awkward, because I had called her a moron the day before in her comment section. Fortunately, she had no idea who I was.
It's so unfair to expect her to keep track of everyone who calls her a moron, especially when it is so easy to just do it again.
Men need to stop putting all the emotional labor on women.
I watched the 2004 election results at a party deejayed by the person who is now #3 at the Pentagon.