As a historian. . . [pushes glasses up nose] A problem you see in American/western culture, but especially among academics, is a near-fetishization of the Holocaust. Hitler is the devil of the secular age, and just like how people saw demons at work everywhere centuries ago, for many people today, there are Nazis looming around every corner. Katie isn’t wrong to call it a form of stolen valor. Although they would never admit it, many of these academics find excitement in the idea that they too are living through a monumental crisis akin to World War II (and that they’ll get to take credit for being on the “right side of history” by noticing it before anyone else). But the reality that they can’t see is that they’re not storming the beaches of Normandy. They’re sitting on their couch, angrily typing away on their smartphones.
Granted, this also shows how even intellectuals don’t pay as much attention to foreign policy as they probably should; considering what happened with the Freedom Convoy, I don’t think Canada is going to be the utopia they’re envisioning it as. But considering how there’s millions of people waiting to take their place, I don’t think they’ll be much missed.
Well said. I think there’s a very distinct whiff of “we want to be LiViNg ThRoUgH hIsToRy” while also reaping none of the negative externalities (cf all the NYT commenters replying to the op-ed who basically said “stay and fight, then, you cowards”) AND wanting the valor of “well, we were right.” It’s the most insanely privileged position imaginable.
I think a lot of people, including academics, have an excessively rosy idea of what it was like to be actively resisting Fascist governments. They see it as some sort of fun adventure. But fascist governments didn't just torture and kill the people who were in the resistance groups, they went after their families. One of my favorite movies is Jean Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows". It's set early in the war when the French Resistance was small and heavily Jewish and Huguenot, and they all have nome de guerres because if the Nazis find out who they are they will arrest their families. Making the decision to fight the Nazis is a lot harder if it means that there's a possibility your kids will be arrested to get to you.
The over reliance of using Nazi/Hitler as the prime evil in the here and now, around every corner and under every stone. I still lean that this is a rhetorical maneuver but I’m becoming far more open to the idea that it is a failure of imagination/intellectual rigor from people slating themselves as thought leaders.
RE: that NY Times video piece about the fleeing Yalies, Jason Stanley is all over the NY Times comments section defending himself to readers.
Here's an interesting bit, excerpted:
NY Times reader #1:
"It's disheartening to see elite professors framing their departure from the U.S. as a form of protest against democratic backsliding. These are tenured scholars at some of the most powerful institutions in the country, with immense platforms and protections...Most Americans don't have the privilege of packing up and moving to Toronto. They’re staying—organizing, resisting, and working to protect civil liberties on the ground...Abandoning that struggle while citing high-minded ideals feels less like activism and more like abdication. The message this sends is troubling: when things get hard, the privileged can retreat while the rest must deal with the consequences..."
J. Stanley in response:
"The logic of this argument is excessively broad, and would apply to German intellectuals who chose to leave Germany in the 1930s, not just German Jews like Hannah Arendt, but also non-Jews such as Fritz Lang, Marlene Dietrich, and Thomas Mann...I acknowledge I have the privilege to move with my children to Toronto in the fall, for which I’m grateful. But I feel no guilt. First, there is no blanket moral prohibition on leaving a country whose politics you reject, even if others lack such privilege. Secondly, I regard the fight as global. The fight I’m waging is just as much against Putin, Netanyahu, Modi, Orban and Erdogan as it is against Trump. This global fight can be better waged in a democracy."
NY Times commenter #2:
"Jason Stanley's response above, where he compared himself to towering figures like Hannah Arendt and Thomas Mann - how anyone could be so full of themselves is beyond me."
Also..."the logic of this argument is excessively broad"? No, it's not, JS. That reader was talking about YOU SPECIFICALLY--the words you said, who you are, the situation you are in, what you are doing. That's pretty clear, and in that context, the logic is sound.
Here's one more, from another reader replying to Stanley:
"@Jason Stanley I agree with you that 'there is no blanket moral prohibition on leaving a country whose politics you reject, even if others lack such privilege.' But surely you see that doing a PR campaign on how brave and noble you are for doing so is the act of a supreme narcissist, no?"
(And I am only really picking on Stanley as another person who had followed him on Twitter and seen him in action and believe he is truly a genuine narcissist who is always completely out of his depth.)
They actually missed the funniest part of the story. In the comments, the other professor reveals that they were ALREADY living in Canada before the election, so they just decided to stay. AND, she says, they likely would have stayed regardless of the election!
Either way, as mentioned in the podcast, it's making the story about them in a way that does not really jibe with reality. There is nothing wrong with sounding the alarm about how serious this all is (for example, The Atlantic has been excelling at that) but it's how they are framing this, and Stanley making it into a whole campaign (Vanity Fair, NPR, The Guardian, etc.). It's not helpful.
I used to be on twitter but I was a nobody with like 100 followers but Jason Stanley is so thin skinned that he took the time to reply to me when I made a comment on some thread making fun of him because the entirety of his philosophical insight is to call literally everything fascism all the time. He was not tagged so apparently he searches for his own name so he can find anyone talking about him and chastise randos for daring to criticise the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy.
Seems wrong to make fun of him and then object merely because he responds. He has every right to respond. Also, it's good that he doesn't ignore the plebes and only engage people with large followings. Unknown people don't get carte blanche to go off!
I have citizenship in both Canada and an EU country in addition to the US, and I'm somehow one of the few in my social circle not talking about "fleeing" (i.e. emigrating in an orderly fashion) the US right now. Maybe it's because I'm keenly aware of how much of a pain in the ass moving and establishing oneself in a foreign country is. I hate what Trump is doing as much as anyone on my side of the political spectrum, but I believe that unless one is pursuing a specific career opportunity and/or has an established support network abroad, most middle class liberals would find their quality of life to be greatly diminished by moving to another country, even under current conditions (though obviously exceptions abound). There's a sort of American arrogance in the attitude that one can simply pick up and move somewhere else and not experience hardship in the process. Many are shocked that other countries have rather strict immigration laws. This topic reliably comes up every 4 years with every election and I'm always reminded of this 2012 comedy bit from Hari Kondabulu: https://youtu.be/jgYwcb9Pclo?si=Q9E_MqtQ7fNqn1f8
"No one is moving to Canada... I hate to break it to you, but Canada doesn't have a special visa for American liberal cowards."
I've been thinking about what you touched on with the American arrogance to simply immigrate elsewhere with ease.
I think it comes from a feeling that by emigrating as a political statement, they'll share such a camaraderie with their new host country's people based on political defiance that it'll supersede mundane details like setting up a new career and life in the host country (let alone, being allowed in).
These are people for whom a large part of their identity is defined by a political orientation (and visibly expressing it all the time, not just carrying consistent principles around), so they can't sense that merely being a political "fellow traveler" isn't sufficient for making international relocation a breeze.
I am an American in my 40s who currently lives abroad and who has lived in three countries outside of the US at different times in my life. I speak three languages and didn’t learn my second until I was 15.
I have a more charitable view of why Americans see immigration as doable… we are a nation of immigrants and we have a pluralistic, multicultural society. We know a lot of successful immigrants and we believe in immigrant success so much that sometimes we are are jealous and resentful of it. And fwiw, it’s not easy, but immigration is doable. Maybe people are naive and don‘t realize how complex a process it is, but I think that speaks to our historical openness.
FWIW, the trend of affluent Americans moving abroad started before the Trump return. Remote work and digital nomad visas were a bigger catalyst for liberals to abandon ship than Trump’s return. And if he makes good on his promise to end income taxation of Americans living abroad than even more professionals and affluent will leave.
There's also this deep belief that emigrating into any country that isn't the United States is as easy as filling in a form. Both sides, if it's especially onerous.
I live abroad and if I was living in the US, things would have to be pretty bad for me to immigrate again. Moving countries sucks! It’s also really expensive.
To your point, in my experience emigrating from the US is easiest for people with nothing (young people who leave before they have families or significant careers and who build their life abroad) and people with enough built already to set themselves up with a comfortable life abroad with their savings or international work placements (affluent and retirees). Like I said in my other comment, that is changing somewhat with the digital nomad visas. I have met more US middle class people with families who are able to run businesses completely or mostly remotely and do make the move - however this setup seems to burn people out too. They have to put a lot of work into the visa process, and they usually have to work US hours and it’s not easy to make connections and build professional relationships when you work all online. But, I know all sorts who are doing it - adjunct college professors, insurance adjusters, contract lawyers, people who own a few properties in the US and rent them out, journalists, people who work for officeless startups, etc. These people aren’t rich, but they aren’t really rooted here either. If anything were to happen with their work set up they would have to go back. Locals can resent them too- but not just Americans, ALL digital nomads, because they are a kind of roaming band of hipster gentrifiers.
I don't really like this "we don't know" business when it comes to debunking trans healthcare. The only reason Jesse has to talk about it in these uncertain terms is because the opposing side, the side pushing hormones and surgeries on kids and literally trying to rewire the entire social fabric of society, were INSISTENT that they KNEW this bullshit worked. So now the best you can do to counter it is to go back to zero.
Imagine a world in which no gender affirming care or youth gender medicine existed. In that world, if you said "giving children hormones and elective surgeries is a bad thing" no one would bat an eye. That's a totally rational thought to have in a vacuum. But instead we got this bullshit shoved down our throats to the point that even questioning it is "bigoted".
We do know. It's stupid and harmful. People have to stop hedging on this and going "I don't want to offend people so I'll just say we don't know. That way no one could ever accuse me of being hateful or bigoted." Cut to Jesse, king of the hedges, being the most hated person on BlueSky. There is no appeasing these people, so just speak plainly and logically.
Katie is wrong when she joking suggests that only research that contains the word "trans" is being targeted by Trump's anti-science funding cuts. Research grants from NIH and NSF are being cut across the board, totaling billions of dollars. I know people whose labs have nothing to do with even trans fats who have lost their funding. The proposed budget for next year cuts things even further. It's not the Holocaust, but maga goons are definitely trying to destroy scientific university research generally, in a way that will harm all American science.
This is absolutely true. It's been quite astounding, and this is 100% affecting the flow of science and the livelihoods of academics.
(That said, these very high profile academics who have other sources of income--books, likely speaking fees, likely non-gov't funders--are exactly the ones who should stay in place and remain in their influential positions in the U.S.)
I remember seeing those academics move to Canada and think, they’re just lucky they can get really good academic jobs. I bet they got a big payout along with a generous relocation costs. They are not giving up anything substantial. They’re just grandstanding and I bet they got paid a ton for moving because it’s prestigious for the Canadian university. Hell if somebody wanted to pay me a bunch of money to move, I would do it as well.
I mean, I have a tenure job but like it’s nothing like these people and they don’t see how privileged they are even compared to most people in academia. So like the Larping part is that they had no choice rather than there was enormous incentives to move
Exactly! They don't even need to learn a new language and they can easily go visit their American friends and family any time they want. Not exactly the image of a group of struggling refugees escaping with the clothes on their back. I think they would actually make a stronger case as an example of the brain drain that is to come because of the administration's attacks on higher education and research, though probably with a figure less mockable than Jason Stanley.
I haven't paid attention to Stephen King in a while, but I was very surprised to find out that he hadn't already been widely cancelled for his liberal use of the N-word in his books (in the mouths of characters who are understood to be bad people textually, like that matters)...oh, and the child gangbang in "IT", and all the weird shit he writes about female characters in general.
He is extremely outspoken politically and hates MAGA. They would be crazy and self-defeating to cancel him. Of course, a lot of people are crazy and self-defeating, so it’s still a good question.
This is what we see so often from the far left though. The right doesn’t give a shit what they say, so they attack ppl with similar sensibilities because they know it will land. Totally self defeating, and why the center / moderates abandoned this sect of the party (or at least why I did).
They tried to cancel him for these very reasons when he half supported JKR (aka replied to a tweet of hers that had nothing to do with trans rights in a friendly manner)
I think people have tried, at least I have seen people make these arguments before. But I suspect people who actually read his books are not really social justice types. I mostly read him when I was a teenager but I have always liked “edgy” stuff.
Katie and Jesse should have Batya come on the pod so that they can work out their differences. Because they’ve really taken to dumping on her a lot these days.
Possibly a controversial opinion, but I think Katie’s underselling Elon’s role in ending cancel culture (or at least lessening it). A lot of libs stayed on Twitter long after he took over. Whatever he did to the algorithm seems to be what made it harder to mob people (which is, of course, primarily to libs’ benefits, even if they don’t realize it).
That seems harsh. Batya seems like she's mis-informed and an overconfident hypocrite, but this show features murderers, sadists, and destructive anarchists.
When I listened to that notorious episode of the Fifth Column where she fought with Moynihan, I was struck by how similar she sounded to Eman Abdelhadi, an idiot they had on Reflector to talk about Gaza. For one thing, they both have this obnoxious, valley-girl "like, like, like" patois that makes them incredibly grating to listen to on a surface level. But mainly, they speak with the same err of Dunning-Kruger condescension, where they think that their shallow absolutism is somehow enlightened political thought, when they’re actually just being embarassingly credulous. It's a posture I heavily associate with the Tumblr social justice crowd of yore. It really speaks to how easy it is to radicalize midwits with low integrative complexity.
My favorite was the cocksure assertion that every single economist across the liberal and conservative spectrum was just flat out wrong about how tariffs work and she (and Trump) had the REAL deets.
I mean. I doubt she even understands 1/4 the content of a typical academic economics paper.
I remember when Republicans were free trade and progressives were fair trade ie no child labor and better treatment of workers. But at least people seemed to agree trade was good.
I haven’t listened to the Fifth Column in a while. I like them, but not enough to follow them regularly. (I also find them a bit. . . smug at times.) Most of what I’ve seen of Batya is from her appearances on Mark Halperin’s 2Way show.
I enjoy Batya on Halperin.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ although I couldn't listen to her on the 5th Column, some of it was her, but also Moynihan yelling at her was just a bit much.
I also have a hard time with the 5th column. They are very smug at most times and Moynihqn is borderline insufferable. Yet...I still do listen sometimes...
Moynihan tends to lose it with people whose "debate strategy" is trying to plough over everyone else. He lost it in the NPR Open to Debate panel he was on too because the other side kept interjecting out of turn to talk over them.
That's what he was referring to when he shouted out her to stop Mau-Mauing his interview.
Can't say he was wrong in that accusation. But it made for an annoying panel.
I don't think I would listen to an episode with Batya. I tried to listen to the episode of the Fifth Column she was on and it was painful. The way she goes on about how Dear Leader is the only one looking out for the simple, salt of the earth working man is more than I can take in anything longer than a short sound bite.
Several episodes’ worth of Bhatya-dumping later and I still have zero idea who this person is and why I should care about their opinions.
Combined with the fact that they’re STILL sneeding about the fucking Harper’s letter these two should consider having conversations with people outside the media sphere. It’s getting a little inside baseball.
The people who can't let the Harpers letter go are the ones who got mad about it initially. That there have been two ridiculous pieces about it recently makes it fair game to discuss.
Not saying it’s not fair game, but listening to it is like listening to two teenagers who go to a different school complaining about a burn book. Like, it isn’t interesting unless you’re already a part of the milieu.
Okay, but I wouldn’t mind it if Jesse and Katie also focused on stuff that was interesting rather than spending a segment of every episode seething about this irrelevant person. “Did you see her podcast appearance on…” NO I DID NOT PLEASE GET BACK TO NONBINARY COFFEE SHOPS AND BOOKTOK PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
We actually started drying everything on racks (other than sheets) after visiting our daughter in New Zealand. It's cut our electric bill and is gentler on our clothes-- win, win!
Brilliant this week both, always know it's a good 'un when I'm somewhat surprised (and disappointed) to hear the closing music fade in because it 'went by so fast'.
It did feel very short, but maybe that's because they were getting into the Harper's Letter redux and wrapped it all up quickly when I was expecting a more thorough takedown.
Also I think based on modern academic worldview his black Jewish kid will oppress and possibly colonize himself, in glad that brave professor is sending him to a residential school in Canada
As a historian. . . [pushes glasses up nose] A problem you see in American/western culture, but especially among academics, is a near-fetishization of the Holocaust. Hitler is the devil of the secular age, and just like how people saw demons at work everywhere centuries ago, for many people today, there are Nazis looming around every corner. Katie isn’t wrong to call it a form of stolen valor. Although they would never admit it, many of these academics find excitement in the idea that they too are living through a monumental crisis akin to World War II (and that they’ll get to take credit for being on the “right side of history” by noticing it before anyone else). But the reality that they can’t see is that they’re not storming the beaches of Normandy. They’re sitting on their couch, angrily typing away on their smartphones.
Granted, this also shows how even intellectuals don’t pay as much attention to foreign policy as they probably should; considering what happened with the Freedom Convoy, I don’t think Canada is going to be the utopia they’re envisioning it as. But considering how there’s millions of people waiting to take their place, I don’t think they’ll be much missed.
Well said. I think there’s a very distinct whiff of “we want to be LiViNg ThRoUgH hIsToRy” while also reaping none of the negative externalities (cf all the NYT commenters replying to the op-ed who basically said “stay and fight, then, you cowards”) AND wanting the valor of “well, we were right.” It’s the most insanely privileged position imaginable.
I think a lot of people, including academics, have an excessively rosy idea of what it was like to be actively resisting Fascist governments. They see it as some sort of fun adventure. But fascist governments didn't just torture and kill the people who were in the resistance groups, they went after their families. One of my favorite movies is Jean Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows". It's set early in the war when the French Resistance was small and heavily Jewish and Huguenot, and they all have nome de guerres because if the Nazis find out who they are they will arrest their families. Making the decision to fight the Nazis is a lot harder if it means that there's a possibility your kids will be arrested to get to you.
If the price they have to pay is their children losing their legacy admissions, well that’s just the cost of heroism.
Not going to lie. Not me. I wouldn't do it.
I'd like to think I'd have the courage to do it if I could get my kids somewhere safe.
But with my kids on the line, and no way out. . I'm almost certain I'd take a "keep your head down and try to get through this" approach.
I almost think it takes a certain kind of narcissism, grandiosity, or neurotic optimism to do otherwise. . . . which is, of course, why most do not.
I’d get my kids somewhere safe. I’d stay.
Sure. If I could. If I couldn't...keeping them as safe as possible under the circumstances would be my priority.
Deeply appreciate that you pointed this out.
Thanks! Which part?
The over reliance of using Nazi/Hitler as the prime evil in the here and now, around every corner and under every stone. I still lean that this is a rhetorical maneuver but I’m becoming far more open to the idea that it is a failure of imagination/intellectual rigor from people slating themselves as thought leaders.
Holocaust kink.
RE: that NY Times video piece about the fleeing Yalies, Jason Stanley is all over the NY Times comments section defending himself to readers.
Here's an interesting bit, excerpted:
NY Times reader #1:
"It's disheartening to see elite professors framing their departure from the U.S. as a form of protest against democratic backsliding. These are tenured scholars at some of the most powerful institutions in the country, with immense platforms and protections...Most Americans don't have the privilege of packing up and moving to Toronto. They’re staying—organizing, resisting, and working to protect civil liberties on the ground...Abandoning that struggle while citing high-minded ideals feels less like activism and more like abdication. The message this sends is troubling: when things get hard, the privileged can retreat while the rest must deal with the consequences..."
J. Stanley in response:
"The logic of this argument is excessively broad, and would apply to German intellectuals who chose to leave Germany in the 1930s, not just German Jews like Hannah Arendt, but also non-Jews such as Fritz Lang, Marlene Dietrich, and Thomas Mann...I acknowledge I have the privilege to move with my children to Toronto in the fall, for which I’m grateful. But I feel no guilt. First, there is no blanket moral prohibition on leaving a country whose politics you reject, even if others lack such privilege. Secondly, I regard the fight as global. The fight I’m waging is just as much against Putin, Netanyahu, Modi, Orban and Erdogan as it is against Trump. This global fight can be better waged in a democracy."
NY Times commenter #2:
"Jason Stanley's response above, where he compared himself to towering figures like Hannah Arendt and Thomas Mann - how anyone could be so full of themselves is beyond me."
Also..."the logic of this argument is excessively broad"? No, it's not, JS. That reader was talking about YOU SPECIFICALLY--the words you said, who you are, the situation you are in, what you are doing. That's pretty clear, and in that context, the logic is sound.
Here's one more, from another reader replying to Stanley:
"@Jason Stanley I agree with you that 'there is no blanket moral prohibition on leaving a country whose politics you reject, even if others lack such privilege.' But surely you see that doing a PR campaign on how brave and noble you are for doing so is the act of a supreme narcissist, no?"
(And I am only really picking on Stanley as another person who had followed him on Twitter and seen him in action and believe he is truly a genuine narcissist who is always completely out of his depth.)
They actually missed the funniest part of the story. In the comments, the other professor reveals that they were ALREADY living in Canada before the election, so they just decided to stay. AND, she says, they likely would have stayed regardless of the election!
“THESE THREE PROFESSORS ARE LEAVING BECAUSE OF TRUMP!”
“OKAY WELL WAIT ONE IS LEAVING BECAUSE HIS WIFE GOT A JOB IN TORONTO BUT STILL!”
“WAIT WAIT OKAY LAST CORRECTION ONE ALREADY LIVES THERE SO ISNT TECHNICALLY LEAVING BUT STILL!”
Stunning and brave.
Ha! Which is either truth or backpedaling!
Either way, as mentioned in the podcast, it's making the story about them in a way that does not really jibe with reality. There is nothing wrong with sounding the alarm about how serious this all is (for example, The Atlantic has been excelling at that) but it's how they are framing this, and Stanley making it into a whole campaign (Vanity Fair, NPR, The Guardian, etc.). It's not helpful.
Who even is Jason Stanley?
He’s the artist formerly known as the Jacob Urowsky professor of Philosophy.
See: https://youtu.be/oomvEjJAI44 and https://youtu.be/cAi8mCgG3Q0
I used to be on twitter but I was a nobody with like 100 followers but Jason Stanley is so thin skinned that he took the time to reply to me when I made a comment on some thread making fun of him because the entirety of his philosophical insight is to call literally everything fascism all the time. He was not tagged so apparently he searches for his own name so he can find anyone talking about him and chastise randos for daring to criticise the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy.
And then he would shill his book on Fascism because I am sure his motives were not financially motivated.
Seems wrong to make fun of him and then object merely because he responds. He has every right to respond. Also, it's good that he doesn't ignore the plebes and only engage people with large followings. Unknown people don't get carte blanche to go off!
Sad.
LOL. Amazing!
I have citizenship in both Canada and an EU country in addition to the US, and I'm somehow one of the few in my social circle not talking about "fleeing" (i.e. emigrating in an orderly fashion) the US right now. Maybe it's because I'm keenly aware of how much of a pain in the ass moving and establishing oneself in a foreign country is. I hate what Trump is doing as much as anyone on my side of the political spectrum, but I believe that unless one is pursuing a specific career opportunity and/or has an established support network abroad, most middle class liberals would find their quality of life to be greatly diminished by moving to another country, even under current conditions (though obviously exceptions abound). There's a sort of American arrogance in the attitude that one can simply pick up and move somewhere else and not experience hardship in the process. Many are shocked that other countries have rather strict immigration laws. This topic reliably comes up every 4 years with every election and I'm always reminded of this 2012 comedy bit from Hari Kondabulu: https://youtu.be/jgYwcb9Pclo?si=Q9E_MqtQ7fNqn1f8
"No one is moving to Canada... I hate to break it to you, but Canada doesn't have a special visa for American liberal cowards."
I've been thinking about what you touched on with the American arrogance to simply immigrate elsewhere with ease.
I think it comes from a feeling that by emigrating as a political statement, they'll share such a camaraderie with their new host country's people based on political defiance that it'll supersede mundane details like setting up a new career and life in the host country (let alone, being allowed in).
These are people for whom a large part of their identity is defined by a political orientation (and visibly expressing it all the time, not just carrying consistent principles around), so they can't sense that merely being a political "fellow traveler" isn't sufficient for making international relocation a breeze.
I am an American in my 40s who currently lives abroad and who has lived in three countries outside of the US at different times in my life. I speak three languages and didn’t learn my second until I was 15.
I have a more charitable view of why Americans see immigration as doable… we are a nation of immigrants and we have a pluralistic, multicultural society. We know a lot of successful immigrants and we believe in immigrant success so much that sometimes we are are jealous and resentful of it. And fwiw, it’s not easy, but immigration is doable. Maybe people are naive and don‘t realize how complex a process it is, but I think that speaks to our historical openness.
FWIW, the trend of affluent Americans moving abroad started before the Trump return. Remote work and digital nomad visas were a bigger catalyst for liberals to abandon ship than Trump’s return. And if he makes good on his promise to end income taxation of Americans living abroad than even more professionals and affluent will leave.
There's also this deep belief that emigrating into any country that isn't the United States is as easy as filling in a form. Both sides, if it's especially onerous.
I live abroad and if I was living in the US, things would have to be pretty bad for me to immigrate again. Moving countries sucks! It’s also really expensive.
To your point, in my experience emigrating from the US is easiest for people with nothing (young people who leave before they have families or significant careers and who build their life abroad) and people with enough built already to set themselves up with a comfortable life abroad with their savings or international work placements (affluent and retirees). Like I said in my other comment, that is changing somewhat with the digital nomad visas. I have met more US middle class people with families who are able to run businesses completely or mostly remotely and do make the move - however this setup seems to burn people out too. They have to put a lot of work into the visa process, and they usually have to work US hours and it’s not easy to make connections and build professional relationships when you work all online. But, I know all sorts who are doing it - adjunct college professors, insurance adjusters, contract lawyers, people who own a few properties in the US and rent them out, journalists, people who work for officeless startups, etc. These people aren’t rich, but they aren’t really rooted here either. If anything were to happen with their work set up they would have to go back. Locals can resent them too- but not just Americans, ALL digital nomads, because they are a kind of roaming band of hipster gentrifiers.
Typical of Kondabulu to not be funny.
I don't really like this "we don't know" business when it comes to debunking trans healthcare. The only reason Jesse has to talk about it in these uncertain terms is because the opposing side, the side pushing hormones and surgeries on kids and literally trying to rewire the entire social fabric of society, were INSISTENT that they KNEW this bullshit worked. So now the best you can do to counter it is to go back to zero.
Imagine a world in which no gender affirming care or youth gender medicine existed. In that world, if you said "giving children hormones and elective surgeries is a bad thing" no one would bat an eye. That's a totally rational thought to have in a vacuum. But instead we got this bullshit shoved down our throats to the point that even questioning it is "bigoted".
We do know. It's stupid and harmful. People have to stop hedging on this and going "I don't want to offend people so I'll just say we don't know. That way no one could ever accuse me of being hateful or bigoted." Cut to Jesse, king of the hedges, being the most hated person on BlueSky. There is no appeasing these people, so just speak plainly and logically.
It seems that the onus to prove efficacy would be on the side of interventionists, not the inverse.
Katie is wrong when she joking suggests that only research that contains the word "trans" is being targeted by Trump's anti-science funding cuts. Research grants from NIH and NSF are being cut across the board, totaling billions of dollars. I know people whose labs have nothing to do with even trans fats who have lost their funding. The proposed budget for next year cuts things even further. It's not the Holocaust, but maga goons are definitely trying to destroy scientific university research generally, in a way that will harm all American science.
This is absolutely true. It's been quite astounding, and this is 100% affecting the flow of science and the livelihoods of academics.
(That said, these very high profile academics who have other sources of income--books, likely speaking fees, likely non-gov't funders--are exactly the ones who should stay in place and remain in their influential positions in the U.S.)
I remember seeing those academics move to Canada and think, they’re just lucky they can get really good academic jobs. I bet they got a big payout along with a generous relocation costs. They are not giving up anything substantial. They’re just grandstanding and I bet they got paid a ton for moving because it’s prestigious for the Canadian university. Hell if somebody wanted to pay me a bunch of money to move, I would do it as well.
I mean, I have a tenure job but like it’s nothing like these people and they don’t see how privileged they are even compared to most people in academia. So like the Larping part is that they had no choice rather than there was enormous incentives to move
Exactly! They don't even need to learn a new language and they can easily go visit their American friends and family any time they want. Not exactly the image of a group of struggling refugees escaping with the clothes on their back. I think they would actually make a stronger case as an example of the brain drain that is to come because of the administration's attacks on higher education and research, though probably with a figure less mockable than Jason Stanley.
The idea that they fled just killed me. I think that the brain drain stuff is a much better argument and not so pretentious.
I haven't paid attention to Stephen King in a while, but I was very surprised to find out that he hadn't already been widely cancelled for his liberal use of the N-word in his books (in the mouths of characters who are understood to be bad people textually, like that matters)...oh, and the child gangbang in "IT", and all the weird shit he writes about female characters in general.
Stephen King’s books are long and these kids need ChatGPT to get through The Old Man and the Sea.
He is extremely outspoken politically and hates MAGA. They would be crazy and self-defeating to cancel him. Of course, a lot of people are crazy and self-defeating, so it’s still a good question.
This is what we see so often from the far left though. The right doesn’t give a shit what they say, so they attack ppl with similar sensibilities because they know it will land. Totally self defeating, and why the center / moderates abandoned this sect of the party (or at least why I did).
True
They tried to cancel him for these very reasons when he half supported JKR (aka replied to a tweet of hers that had nothing to do with trans rights in a friendly manner)
I think people have tried, at least I have seen people make these arguments before. But I suspect people who actually read his books are not really social justice types. I mostly read him when I was a teenager but I have always liked “edgy” stuff.
Katie and Jesse should have Batya come on the pod so that they can work out their differences. Because they’ve really taken to dumping on her a lot these days.
Possibly a controversial opinion, but I think Katie’s underselling Elon’s role in ending cancel culture (or at least lessening it). A lot of libs stayed on Twitter long after he took over. Whatever he did to the algorithm seems to be what made it harder to mob people (which is, of course, primarily to libs’ benefits, even if they don’t realize it).
Batya Ungar Sargon is one of the dumbest, most uninformed, and most annoying humans in the planet. She is wretched.
More than the hundreds of other people who have been discussed on this show for the last five years?
Yes
That seems harsh. Batya seems like she's mis-informed and an overconfident hypocrite, but this show features murderers, sadists, and destructive anarchists.
They don't invite ABDLers on the show.
Why?
Do you think that they should ask everybody that they talk about on the show?
Well, Jesse invited JD Vance on the show so . . . yeah. I doubt they would turn down anyone who wanted to come on.
When I listened to that notorious episode of the Fifth Column where she fought with Moynihan, I was struck by how similar she sounded to Eman Abdelhadi, an idiot they had on Reflector to talk about Gaza. For one thing, they both have this obnoxious, valley-girl "like, like, like" patois that makes them incredibly grating to listen to on a surface level. But mainly, they speak with the same err of Dunning-Kruger condescension, where they think that their shallow absolutism is somehow enlightened political thought, when they’re actually just being embarassingly credulous. It's a posture I heavily associate with the Tumblr social justice crowd of yore. It really speaks to how easy it is to radicalize midwits with low integrative complexity.
My favorite was the cocksure assertion that every single economist across the liberal and conservative spectrum was just flat out wrong about how tariffs work and she (and Trump) had the REAL deets.
I mean. I doubt she even understands 1/4 the content of a typical academic economics paper.
What can you even do with that?
Thank you for telling us what you really think. I could never say it but I sure can enjoy someone else saying it.
Did you catch her Fifth Column episode? it was a lot. I don't know that I need to hear her on any more podcasts...
Her not knowing about the Trump coin was crazy. Best case scenario she just lied because she knew it was indefensible.
Brazenly lied
Also calling freed trade republicans "RINO"s. Lmao
I remember when Republicans were free trade and progressives were fair trade ie no child labor and better treatment of workers. But at least people seemed to agree trade was good.
You remember wrongly.
Republicans are for fair trade; therefore, Republicans have always been for fair trade.
I haven’t listened to the Fifth Column in a while. I like them, but not enough to follow them regularly. (I also find them a bit. . . smug at times.) Most of what I’ve seen of Batya is from her appearances on Mark Halperin’s 2Way show.
This 1 minute and 45 second summary of the Fifth Column ep with Batya pretty much sums up the whole thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsFnxKxLwqY&ab_channel=Arch
I enjoy Batya on Halperin.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ although I couldn't listen to her on the 5th Column, some of it was her, but also Moynihan yelling at her was just a bit much.
I also have a hard time with the 5th column. They are very smug at most times and Moynihqn is borderline insufferable. Yet...I still do listen sometimes...
Moynihan tends to lose it with people whose "debate strategy" is trying to plough over everyone else. He lost it in the NPR Open to Debate panel he was on too because the other side kept interjecting out of turn to talk over them.
That's what he was referring to when he shouted out her to stop Mau-Mauing his interview.
Can't say he was wrong in that accusation. But it made for an annoying panel.
I don't think I would listen to an episode with Batya. I tried to listen to the episode of the Fifth Column she was on and it was painful. The way she goes on about how Dear Leader is the only one looking out for the simple, salt of the earth working man is more than I can take in anything longer than a short sound bite.
Haha, that is the perfect way to describe her arguments. Yeah, I really can't take more of it.
Several episodes’ worth of Bhatya-dumping later and I still have zero idea who this person is and why I should care about their opinions.
Combined with the fact that they’re STILL sneeding about the fucking Harper’s letter these two should consider having conversations with people outside the media sphere. It’s getting a little inside baseball.
The people who can't let the Harpers letter go are the ones who got mad about it initially. That there have been two ridiculous pieces about it recently makes it fair game to discuss.
Not saying it’s not fair game, but listening to it is like listening to two teenagers who go to a different school complaining about a burn book. Like, it isn’t interesting unless you’re already a part of the milieu.
Did you just say "sneed" unironically? How old are you?
I’ll be 40 this year.
Good, you shouldn't know who she is nor care about her opinions.
She's an unprincipled charlatan riding the populist wave to relevance and a paycheck.
Okay, but I wouldn’t mind it if Jesse and Katie also focused on stuff that was interesting rather than spending a segment of every episode seething about this irrelevant person. “Did you see her podcast appearance on…” NO I DID NOT PLEASE GET BACK TO NONBINARY COFFEE SHOPS AND BOOKTOK PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
That's fine, similarly I think the intro banter could be 10x less
Personally, I have zero interest in hearing more from Batya. She's not interesting and she sounds deluded.
When was the last time Katie reported on the death of someone who actually died?
Omg Jesse explaining to Americans what a drying rack is while I hang clothes on my state-issued drying rack... never felt so othered
We actually started drying everything on racks (other than sheets) after visiting our daughter in New Zealand. It's cut our electric bill and is gentler on our clothes-- win, win!
I tried this as well. But they never dried and were always soaking wet from the constant rain and lack of sunshine.
Did you dry them inside? The most time it’s taken has been 24 hours in the middle of winter.
Yes, inside, duh. 🙄
But doesn’t that just make your house a ~25,000 cubic foot dryer? We can’t save the earth with shoddy thermodynamics😉🤔
Jesse deciding mid-sentence that he wasn’t going to be able to keep up the lie that knew what 86 meant was very funny to me.
The best way to tell that someone isn’t an intellectual, is when they make a video referring to themself as an intellectual.
Yeah. It's kind of like intelligence. Very smart people don't have to tell you they're very smart. They just are.
why is Moose such an exhibitionist
It’s just a flex he deploys to keep Katie in her place in the dominance hierarchy.
If you’ve got it, flaunt it!
Brilliant this week both, always know it's a good 'un when I'm somewhat surprised (and disappointed) to hear the closing music fade in because it 'went by so fast'.
Well, it was about 20 minutes shorter than average.
No, Eeyore, it really wasn’t. But you do you.
Okay babe, keep liking my comments.
Perfect. :)
It did feel very short, but maybe that's because they were getting into the Harper's Letter redux and wrapped it all up quickly when I was expecting a more thorough takedown.
Also I think based on modern academic worldview his black Jewish kid will oppress and possibly colonize himself, in glad that brave professor is sending him to a residential school in Canada