Thank you Evan for saying what stating something I’ve thought about for a long time. I get that moderate Dems won’t never allow themselves to support a progressive policy because it goes against what their donors want. But at the end of the day it’s what the American people want and it’s the American people that that decides the outcome of an election, not the donors.
You don't get to virtue-claim that "the Left is non-violent. The Left is anti-violent" a few paragraphs after declaming that "the laws of war call for winning at all costs: lie, cheat, steal, sabotage, demean, demonize, delegitimize, harass, and ruin. Liberals are constitutionally incapable of deploying these tactics, while the right regularly utilizes them without a second thought. In fact, too many liberals seem unaware these tools even exist for us to use as we see fit."
You've framed this political dispute as a "war". Following in the footsteps of such masters of political rhetoric as Newt Gingrich and David Horowitz, and recommending similarly unscrupulous tactics. I didn't like it when Gingrich and Horowitz did it, and I have even less use for hearing those tactics advocated now, by someone supposedly more aligned with my own political leanings. Especially given the political climate, and chilling turns of events in the recent weather.
Go on, mock me as a "libtard" and a "cuck", as if I'll be shamed into agreement with your bloviating exhortations.
I should point out that I've actually posted much more of my Substack commentary in dissenting replies and detailed refutations of Substack Posts and Notes by exponents of the extreme Right and alt-right racism. Not just juvenile drive-by one-liners- actual invitations to engage me in open, substantive public debate on the level playing field offered by Substack comments.
Why is it so often the case that I'm the only one who does that? Where are the capable, skilled, factually knowledgeable allies who are willing to confront political adversaries and dispute them on their home court?
I really regret not finding out where Charlie Kirk was appearing and taking him up on one of his debate challenges when I had the chance. Maybe I would have found that his game was rigged, maybe not. It would have been worth doing either way. It's a good model for political conversation, potentially available to anyone. It bothers me that more people haven't taken it up. I also find it worrisome that the most prominent exponent of the revival of debate oratory in the agora has just been assassinated. But I find it even more bewildering that substantive longform debate gets such short shrift in social media. I happen to prefer written debate, because I prefer a reviewable written record and the opportunity to offer clarifying edits. But I get that verbal dispute is more entertaining. and I think "Change My Mind" would work at least as well on Zoom, with some advance preparation.
But skilled and knowledgeable debate within a framwork of agreed rules would require some actual study and effort. Admittedly, much easier to throw out the rule book.
Substack is a publishing platform, not a debate society. I might encourage you to engage with the platform as it exists, not as you wish it would. You are more than welcome to pen your own posts on your own publication, if you are frustrated that writers like myself won’t engage with you to your satisfaction. ✌️
You plainly prefer the echo chamber. I prefer debate replies on my own Substack Posts and Notes. The fact that I don't often find any doesn't discourage me at all from writing, and I find your lecture on what Substack is and isn't for sort of strange, given that Substack is such a debate-friendly platform.
I find it even stranger that there's so been much lament about Americans being unable to communicate across political divides, when the remedy is literally right in front of our eyes. It's enough to get one to doubt the sincerity of the complaints. The lack of informed conversation across political divides certainly isn't ordained by the Internet. Platforms like Substack provide a practically unlimited horizon to audit a wide range of political views, and often to actively engage with them.
the tools of the oppressor will never dismantle the power structure of the oppressor. If that statement steps on your personal fantasy ego trip, so be it. You’re recommending the self-immolation of principle. That is not creative bricolage, it’s a license for lawlessness. And statements to the effect that liberals are too high-minded to get in the gutter and really fight are just more Liberalcrat rhetorical self-exculpation.
The Liberalcrats haven’t been losing because they refuse to fight dirty. They’ve been losing because they prefer scolding their fellow liberals to listening to constructive criticism. No amount of unscrupulousness makes up for an epistemic bubble of self-ordained moral superiority that resists both outside advice and honest self-reflection, or for passive-aggressive whining over past defeats in contests where the Liberalcrats ended up losing due to own goals they scored against themselves.
Is that harsh? Some of us have been phrasing the exact same criticisms more politely for well over a decade. But the Liberalcrats stopped up their ears against any hint of dissent against the grand imperious transvaluation of all values they sill seem to be bent on carrying out, even in the face of one repudiation at the polls after another. A track record so dismal that you’re now convinced that the only remaining recourse is to incite your partisan cult of pessimistic hand-wringers to “lie, cheat, steal, sabotage, demean, demonize, delegitimize, harass, and ruin”. An open, explicit, wholesale abandonment of ethics and morality that’s presumably justified because “this is war.”
Please, tell me you’re kidding. Climb down from that abandonment of popular persuasion, democratic institutions, and the rule of law. Because that lawlessness is what actual War entails, when it’s more than just some cheap rhetorical hyperbole shouted from the back bench. War is a narrative frame of desperation, a last resort after all. Accepting the premise logically demands taking up arms. Look in the fucking mirror. Are you prepared to take your own words that literally and seriously?
If you’re merely indulging in this verbal bellicosity as a tactic to get more voters to the polls to support the Liberalcrats in the midterm elections, that’s just more routine tin-eared Liberalcrat cluelessness. Please let it be the case that it’s all you really intend to accomplish. The country cannot afford having your words taken literally and seriously by anyone.
I never suggested we dismantle the masters house—I want us to burn it down.
I think we may have different definitions of “ethics and morality”
This essay doesn’t call for an abandonment of persuasion, democracy or the rule of law. Just the opposite—it calls for taking seriously the tactics used to steamroll those foundations, so that we may respond in kind to protect them.
I’m not sure if you’re not understanding the essay, or simply projecting a lot of implications into it that are not in fact there. Either way, you’re way off.
"lie, cheat, steal, sabotage, demean, demonize, delegitimize, harass, and ruin"
I don't think it's necessary to "project" anything on to your explicit advocacy of those tactics. The "implications" speak for themselves. It isn't as if there's a requirement for readers to shift their reading comprehension abilities into high gear in order to get the gist of that quote.
A cynical political observer, were there one present, would frankly harbor suspicions about the possibility that you might be intentionally advising your audience to pursue a disastrously counterproductive course.
After all, given the advice that you've already shared on the record, it isn't as if you'd feel ethically constrained in that regard.
It’s ok to criticize liberal politicians for not screaming at the top of their lungs when things are happening that are important. It’s not ok to criticize them for not passing bills during a time when they could not get things through the Senate because of the filibuster.
Who have you asked to listen to you that has not? Which concrete ideas or policies have you tried to discuss with them? What do you believe in that Democrats do not or do not attempt to implement?
Such as WE THE PEOPLE power. If they spent more time supporting us & listening to our ideas, we would spend more time trying to help them succeed, such as getting into good trouble.
I’m in SW Mississippi. You know the only 2 people that have supported any of our causes? Rep Bennie Thompson & Bishop Barber. And I have never seen Bennie at any of our protests. No one will speak to us when we protest. It is already authoritarian here. Our entire state has zero access to Bluesky because of our dinosaur politicians.
I agree with much of this. What I think it gets wrong is that most Democrats and many left of center aren’t those kinds of people. We get the game but it goes against our social identity as “good people.” Years ago I read something Confucian like that cautioned that you will become a scumbag if you wholeheartedly play the part. You have to if you want to do it well, convincingly and win. Most of us are do-gooders at heart and don’t want to become malignant Machiavellian scum.
It seems the left is again allowing Right wing Republicans to dictate the narrative. What may be maga eating maga is turning into blaming the left. And it seems no one challenges it. Next thing the left will be allowing to go unchallenged is the gun happy right-Or Trump and others’ hateful past and ongoing rhetoric. Where is the emergency funding to protect our children and grandchildren in schools across America who aren’t making millions but sitting innocently in their classrooms?
What a lucid and honest essay! You verbalized everything I’ve thought myself, lived by myself, and things I hadn’t thought of yet but will quote you for in a minor life of a disabled, senior citizen who is just sick to death of the circular firing squad of liberals. We are our own worst enemies. My late husband and I listened to Ezra Klein in the 00’s before The NY Times would ever look twice and we gave up on him because even back then he was anti-liberal by positing false equivalency! We had decided then that people who make those “arguments” example the old Walt Kelly “Pogo” cartoon - “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Thank you so much for your very kind words, James. I’m glad this essay resonated with you. Check out the similar posts linked at the bottom for more Certain Thoughts.
Not sure I agree with all of this but it is an interesting read and shows good ideas, I think. However … how I think is damaged from old age and a significant degree of mental decline. The mileage of others who read it may differ:-).
Really??!! Well, I guess it’s true, in a way, bc despite what the “conservatives” in the US were saying, including and beginning with Dear Leader DJT, Kirk’s murderer was not a member of the “radical left,” but the scion of a deeply conservative family in Utah, who, it now appears, dud not think CK was conservative enough. Right-on-right crime, as it were.
Evan, I agree we’ve got A LOT of work to do. Message discipline being a HUGE problem. Question for you? How do we get the old guard out? I think Captain Capitulation (Schumer) has a somewhat decent chance of losing his seat (please God 🙏 ) but I’m worried about the young guy running against Pelosi. The DNC has traditionally not thrown $ into primary candidates who are going against solidly get held seats. But Pelosi is older than Methuselah. She’s just got to go.
We need a movement within our own party to reclaim the mantle and restore sensible politics to the left. Primary everyone. We need a thousand Kat Abughazalehs, Zohran Mamdanis, Omar Fatehs and Graham Platner. Just beat the old guard, with votes, the old fashioned way.
That is just not gonna happen Evan. Not while traditional party Dems are in AIPAC’s pocket. Are you the type of Democrat who makes perfect the enemy of the good? Because there were a fair number of Dems who didn’t vote for Kamala because of her stance on Gaza that are DIRECTLY responsible for how we got HERE. Taking the party too far left is not the answer either. That’s where you and I disagree.
Thank you Evan for saying what stating something I’ve thought about for a long time. I get that moderate Dems won’t never allow themselves to support a progressive policy because it goes against what their donors want. But at the end of the day it’s what the American people want and it’s the American people that that decides the outcome of an election, not the donors.
You don't get to virtue-claim that "the Left is non-violent. The Left is anti-violent" a few paragraphs after declaming that "the laws of war call for winning at all costs: lie, cheat, steal, sabotage, demean, demonize, delegitimize, harass, and ruin. Liberals are constitutionally incapable of deploying these tactics, while the right regularly utilizes them without a second thought. In fact, too many liberals seem unaware these tools even exist for us to use as we see fit."
You've framed this political dispute as a "war". Following in the footsteps of such masters of political rhetoric as Newt Gingrich and David Horowitz, and recommending similarly unscrupulous tactics. I didn't like it when Gingrich and Horowitz did it, and I have even less use for hearing those tactics advocated now, by someone supposedly more aligned with my own political leanings. Especially given the political climate, and chilling turns of events in the recent weather.
Go on, mock me as a "libtard" and a "cuck", as if I'll be shamed into agreement with your bloviating exhortations.
I should point out that I've actually posted much more of my Substack commentary in dissenting replies and detailed refutations of Substack Posts and Notes by exponents of the extreme Right and alt-right racism. Not just juvenile drive-by one-liners- actual invitations to engage me in open, substantive public debate on the level playing field offered by Substack comments.
Why is it so often the case that I'm the only one who does that? Where are the capable, skilled, factually knowledgeable allies who are willing to confront political adversaries and dispute them on their home court?
I really regret not finding out where Charlie Kirk was appearing and taking him up on one of his debate challenges when I had the chance. Maybe I would have found that his game was rigged, maybe not. It would have been worth doing either way. It's a good model for political conversation, potentially available to anyone. It bothers me that more people haven't taken it up. I also find it worrisome that the most prominent exponent of the revival of debate oratory in the agora has just been assassinated. But I find it even more bewildering that substantive longform debate gets such short shrift in social media. I happen to prefer written debate, because I prefer a reviewable written record and the opportunity to offer clarifying edits. But I get that verbal dispute is more entertaining. and I think "Change My Mind" would work at least as well on Zoom, with some advance preparation.
But skilled and knowledgeable debate within a framwork of agreed rules would require some actual study and effort. Admittedly, much easier to throw out the rule book.
Substack is a publishing platform, not a debate society. I might encourage you to engage with the platform as it exists, not as you wish it would. You are more than welcome to pen your own posts on your own publication, if you are frustrated that writers like myself won’t engage with you to your satisfaction. ✌️
You plainly prefer the echo chamber. I prefer debate replies on my own Substack Posts and Notes. The fact that I don't often find any doesn't discourage me at all from writing, and I find your lecture on what Substack is and isn't for sort of strange, given that Substack is such a debate-friendly platform.
I find it even stranger that there's so been much lament about Americans being unable to communicate across political divides, when the remedy is literally right in front of our eyes. It's enough to get one to doubt the sincerity of the complaints. The lack of informed conversation across political divides certainly isn't ordained by the Internet. Platforms like Substack provide a practically unlimited horizon to audit a wide range of political views, and often to actively engage with them.
the tools of the oppressor will never dismantle the power structure of the oppressor. If that statement steps on your personal fantasy ego trip, so be it. You’re recommending the self-immolation of principle. That is not creative bricolage, it’s a license for lawlessness. And statements to the effect that liberals are too high-minded to get in the gutter and really fight are just more Liberalcrat rhetorical self-exculpation.
The Liberalcrats haven’t been losing because they refuse to fight dirty. They’ve been losing because they prefer scolding their fellow liberals to listening to constructive criticism. No amount of unscrupulousness makes up for an epistemic bubble of self-ordained moral superiority that resists both outside advice and honest self-reflection, or for passive-aggressive whining over past defeats in contests where the Liberalcrats ended up losing due to own goals they scored against themselves.
Is that harsh? Some of us have been phrasing the exact same criticisms more politely for well over a decade. But the Liberalcrats stopped up their ears against any hint of dissent against the grand imperious transvaluation of all values they sill seem to be bent on carrying out, even in the face of one repudiation at the polls after another. A track record so dismal that you’re now convinced that the only remaining recourse is to incite your partisan cult of pessimistic hand-wringers to “lie, cheat, steal, sabotage, demean, demonize, delegitimize, harass, and ruin”. An open, explicit, wholesale abandonment of ethics and morality that’s presumably justified because “this is war.”
Please, tell me you’re kidding. Climb down from that abandonment of popular persuasion, democratic institutions, and the rule of law. Because that lawlessness is what actual War entails, when it’s more than just some cheap rhetorical hyperbole shouted from the back bench. War is a narrative frame of desperation, a last resort after all. Accepting the premise logically demands taking up arms. Look in the fucking mirror. Are you prepared to take your own words that literally and seriously?
If you’re merely indulging in this verbal bellicosity as a tactic to get more voters to the polls to support the Liberalcrats in the midterm elections, that’s just more routine tin-eared Liberalcrat cluelessness. Please let it be the case that it’s all you really intend to accomplish. The country cannot afford having your words taken literally and seriously by anyone.
I never suggested we dismantle the masters house—I want us to burn it down.
I think we may have different definitions of “ethics and morality”
This essay doesn’t call for an abandonment of persuasion, democracy or the rule of law. Just the opposite—it calls for taking seriously the tactics used to steamroll those foundations, so that we may respond in kind to protect them.
I’m not sure if you’re not understanding the essay, or simply projecting a lot of implications into it that are not in fact there. Either way, you’re way off.
I’ve judged you too strong. You’re just young. Young people are so exaggerated.
"I never suggested we dismantle the masters house—I want us to burn it down."
"Burn it down"? As a rhetorical gesture, that's all very grandiloquent, until someone gets hurt. Granted, still plausibly deniable.
"Us"? Who is this "us"? Your subscribers? Your upvoters?
"lie, cheat, steal, sabotage, demean, demonize, delegitimize, harass, and ruin"
I don't think it's necessary to "project" anything on to your explicit advocacy of those tactics. The "implications" speak for themselves. It isn't as if there's a requirement for readers to shift their reading comprehension abilities into high gear in order to get the gist of that quote.
A cynical political observer, were there one present, would frankly harbor suspicions about the possibility that you might be intentionally advising your audience to pursue a disastrously counterproductive course.
After all, given the advice that you've already shared on the record, it isn't as if you'd feel ethically constrained in that regard.
I love the 4 steps laid out at the end of the article. I am stupidly guilty of #1! But, that being said, it is sometimes a great way to release. 😂
It’s ok to criticize liberal politicians for not screaming at the top of their lungs when things are happening that are important. It’s not ok to criticize them for not passing bills during a time when they could not get things through the Senate because of the filibuster.
Who have you asked to listen to you that has not? Which concrete ideas or policies have you tried to discuss with them? What do you believe in that Democrats do not or do not attempt to implement?
Be specific.
Such as … ?
Such as WE THE PEOPLE power. If they spent more time supporting us & listening to our ideas, we would spend more time trying to help them succeed, such as getting into good trouble.
I’m in SW Mississippi. You know the only 2 people that have supported any of our causes? Rep Bennie Thompson & Bishop Barber. And I have never seen Bennie at any of our protests. No one will speak to us when we protest. It is already authoritarian here. Our entire state has zero access to Bluesky because of our dinosaur politicians.
Democrats have so much more power than people either realize or are willing to admit. So much power they never use, majority or not, filibuster or no.
They make Alan Colmes look tough
Everything he says is correct!
Most important, SUPPORT THE YOUNG PROGRESSIVES IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY..
it’s time for a change
I agree with much of this. What I think it gets wrong is that most Democrats and many left of center aren’t those kinds of people. We get the game but it goes against our social identity as “good people.” Years ago I read something Confucian like that cautioned that you will become a scumbag if you wholeheartedly play the part. You have to if you want to do it well, convincingly and win. Most of us are do-gooders at heart and don’t want to become malignant Machiavellian scum.
With a 2.2 high school GPA, Ezra Klein was and remains an unprepared, outmatched college student.
Thank you. It needed to be said and this does it so well!!
It seems the left is again allowing Right wing Republicans to dictate the narrative. What may be maga eating maga is turning into blaming the left. And it seems no one challenges it. Next thing the left will be allowing to go unchallenged is the gun happy right-Or Trump and others’ hateful past and ongoing rhetoric. Where is the emergency funding to protect our children and grandchildren in schools across America who aren’t making millions but sitting innocently in their classrooms?
What a lucid and honest essay! You verbalized everything I’ve thought myself, lived by myself, and things I hadn’t thought of yet but will quote you for in a minor life of a disabled, senior citizen who is just sick to death of the circular firing squad of liberals. We are our own worst enemies. My late husband and I listened to Ezra Klein in the 00’s before The NY Times would ever look twice and we gave up on him because even back then he was anti-liberal by positing false equivalency! We had decided then that people who make those “arguments” example the old Walt Kelly “Pogo” cartoon - “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Thank you so much for your very kind words, James. I’m glad this essay resonated with you. Check out the similar posts linked at the bottom for more Certain Thoughts.
Not sure I agree with all of this but it is an interesting read and shows good ideas, I think. However … how I think is damaged from old age and a significant degree of mental decline. The mileage of others who read it may differ:-).
Really??!! Well, I guess it’s true, in a way, bc despite what the “conservatives” in the US were saying, including and beginning with Dear Leader DJT, Kirk’s murderer was not a member of the “radical left,” but the scion of a deeply conservative family in Utah, who, it now appears, dud not think CK was conservative enough. Right-on-right crime, as it were.
Evan, I agree we’ve got A LOT of work to do. Message discipline being a HUGE problem. Question for you? How do we get the old guard out? I think Captain Capitulation (Schumer) has a somewhat decent chance of losing his seat (please God 🙏 ) but I’m worried about the young guy running against Pelosi. The DNC has traditionally not thrown $ into primary candidates who are going against solidly get held seats. But Pelosi is older than Methuselah. She’s just got to go.
"Message discipline" lol
We need a movement within our own party to reclaim the mantle and restore sensible politics to the left. Primary everyone. We need a thousand Kat Abughazalehs, Zohran Mamdanis, Omar Fatehs and Graham Platner. Just beat the old guard, with votes, the old fashioned way.
That is just not gonna happen Evan. Not while traditional party Dems are in AIPAC’s pocket. Are you the type of Democrat who makes perfect the enemy of the good? Because there were a fair number of Dems who didn’t vote for Kamala because of her stance on Gaza that are DIRECTLY responsible for how we got HERE. Taking the party too far left is not the answer either. That’s where you and I disagree.
Brilliant- this message needs to get delivered to all the Dem ‘leaders’… let’s work together to make it happen!