Matt Taibbi

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"America has been here before, piloted by mentally adrift presidents. Bob Woodward's Veil described how the CIA had to produce movies about foreign leaders because Ronald Reagan couldn't take in information (like who the heck Hosni Mubarak was) any other way:

Since Reagan did not read many novels but watched movies, the CIA began to produce profiles of leaders that could be shown to the President... One was of the new Egyptian President. 'SECRET NOFORN' flashed on the screen as the narrator began, 'This is Hosni Mubarak...'

George W. Bush was a similar figure. He spent much of his first presidential campaign lugging around a biography of Dean Acheson in a widely derided effort to convince the press corps he read books.

Bush in office openly admitted to not reading newspapers, relaying with surfer-dude insouciance that instead he got briefings from people who did. He was genuinely proud of knowing nothing.

We survived episodes like that, and a few others. (There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that James Buchanan bought a ten-gallon jug of whiskey every week.)

Trump by most accounts is worst of all, and the horror effect is enhanced by the seemingly total absence of redeeming qualities in his personality. But a guy who fell backwards into the presidency and has been too brain-hampered upon arrival to do much with the office – there are worse narratives."

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-why-michael-wolffs-book-is-good-news-w515045

good points

lol. i remember some story about bush and cheney having a "book club" contest to see who could read more. ahahahhahahahahhahahhahha

“I also read three Shakespeares.”

'Will, Bill & William'

it's true, having incurious simpletons as president before worked out really great for everyone. i feel much better now.

YEP, THAT'S ZACKLY THE POINT

to do much with the office except roll back environmental regulations, sign a tax increase on the middle class, defund health care for millions of americans, pack the courts with crazy unqualified "conservatives", and fail to enforce sanctions on russia for interfering in his election (and fail (so far) to safeguard from it happening again)

it remains that most of that is Republican SOP

Good share thx Morbs

I shiver to read the comments and reactions to that piece however, for fear that they are filled with bros explaining how Hillary is the actual comic book villain and aren’t we lucky the electoral college gave us the fat idiot

2nd piece on the Wolff book follows Matt’s 2nd passthru the time, only with more summarizing of the various bits.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-tldr-guide-to-michael-wolffs-fire-and-fury-w515359

As he puts it, it aint necessarily factually accurate, but the psychodrama depicted sure as hell is

I have reached an amicable settlement with the Nation, an organization whose work I have held in high regard. I wish them success in their future endeavors. I am happy this matter could be resolved. pic.twitter.com/q9SGuG8CtC

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 14, 2018

Yeah but still
― Frederik B

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-the-legacy-of-the-iraq-war-w518193

This piece seems to echo what my hard-left friends are posting all over Facebook, which is this sort-of political version of hipsterism: Why are you all so upset NOW? W/Obama were just as bad/worse than Trump, and you never said anything back then. I get it, but it feels like another form of whataboutism that ultimately ends up feeling like an argument for continuing not to care.

iirc quite a few of us were upset with O for declining to investigate Bush admin officials over it

if it practically depresses activism then it's not a great argument but on its own merits pointing out that trump isn't historically bad and that many of the issues being highlighted now have been building over the past few presidencies has the advantage of being true.

yeah i mean i think enough people sincerely believe everything bad started on November 9, 2016 and are legitimately unaware or woefully uninformed about the extent to which O continued in W's footsteps abroad.

O's personal charisma depressed activism during his presidency more than anything else by a long shot imo

rank-and-file Dems are out of the habit of protesting Dems in office, period

likely related:

In the new issue of Harper's, I've got a piece on American amnesia, which I analyze with the help of Philip Roth, Barbara Fields, Louis Hartz, and Alcoholics Anonymous. https://t.co/2V9PaAiw5A pic.twitter.com/gxtWKOrErg

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) March 19, 2018

So otm

Robin:

Little in Trump surprised me, except for the fact that he won.

Whenever I said this, people got angry with me. They still do. For months, now years, I puzzled over that anger. My wife explained it to me recently: in making the case for continuity between past and present, I sound complacent about the now. I sound like I’m saying that nothing is wrong with Trump, that everything will work out. I thought I was giving people a steadying anchor, a sense that they — we — had faced this threat before, a sense that this is the right-wing monster we’ve been fighting all along, since Nixon and Reagan and George W. Bush. Turns out I was removing their ballast, setting them afloat in the intermittent and inconstant air.

xp - ha!
From that same (excellent!) piece:

When Trump became a contender for the White House, I saw him as an extension or fulfillment of the conservative movement rather than a break with it. Almost everything people found outrageous and objectionable about his candidacy — the racism, the contempt for institutions, the ambient violence, the hostility to the rule of law — I’d been seeing in the right for years. Little in Trump surprised me, except for the fact that he won.

Whenever I said this, people got angry with me. They still do. For months, now years, I puzzled over that anger. My wife explained it to me recently: in making the case for continuity between past and present, I sound complacent about the now. I sound like I’m saying that nothing is wrong with Trump, that everything will work out. I thought I was giving people a steadying anchor, a sense that they — we — had faced this threat before, a sense that this is the right-wing monster we’ve been fighting all along, since Nixon and Reagan and George W. Bush. Turns out I was removing their ballast, setting them afloat in the intermittent and inconstant air.

He then wraps it up with a "yeah but still." I'm still not convinced that these arguments are helpful, though they are definitely true (as Mordy pointed out).

I think it'd be good to consider as much truth as we can get to be helpful; rationing it has put us here.

as it happens I just picked up a copy of _Reactionary Mind_, looking forward to digging in

Nathan Robinson was on Majority Report on Monday to go over his Peterson piece and is really good:

http://majorityfm.libsyn.com/1798-jordan-peterson-the-intellectual-we-deserve-w-nathan-j-robinson

Oh wait, wrong thread. Sorta.

I want to thank The Guardian, an organization whose work I have held in high regard, for making this announcement. I wish them success in their future endeavors. I am happy this matter could be resolved. pic.twitter.com/qPUpmmtlY4

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 10, 2018

This looks like it could be good: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/why-im-serializing-a-book-on-substack

Some very normal replies to that tweet from the fans.

I’m honestly not sure whether he’s aware the person he’s sharing here is a 9-11 truther, pizzagater and wrote a piece arguing the left should unite with the alt-right.

Caitlin Johnstone comes up with a brilliant plan to silence RT that will never be enacted in America. https://t.co/I8aMve6dvt

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) May 7, 2018

children of the elite like mr. taibbi sometimes need to be graded on an affirmative action curve or our entire social structure will collapse

Does anyone want to debate the actual point - that there are no antiwar voices in American corporate media - or would you like to just keep heaping shit on the person I retweeted? https://t.co/L6oSWz4KbM

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) May 7, 2018

Well yeah that’s a whole other thing: Let’s pretend the Russian government will shut RT down the day MSNBC hires one of one of their “these people actually gassed themselves” reporters.

Lol, he doesn't even skip a beat.

She slanders first responders in war zones, calling them terrorists at the same time they are being murdered, while using conspiracy theories to absolve their killers. And this shit is promoted by RT to serve the Russian war effort. Do you get how this undermines her point?

— Charles Davis (@charliearchy) May 7, 2018

I've seen several leftists (or center-liberals) point out that the left should mirror the right and just attack the media and call them biased whether it's true or not. But still, why even involve Russia Today...

I don't know about mirroring but the left does have a problem hemming and hawing and rarely going on gut instinct as we all know

nice to know the GOTCHA! YOU QUOTED THE RONG PERSON thing isnt solely an ilx property

Well it’s also a bad point in addition to failing the low bar of “don't amplify the crypto fascist” though that alone seems revealing and indicative of the larger problem.

Digging his new serialized book. Would make a great TV show...

This is fucking maddening: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/

jesus

in the summer of 2016, things began to explode around him with suspicious frequency

Thanks, YouKnowWho

This is exponentially worse than being secretly put on the no-fly list, but it equally runs roughshod over the whole "due process of law" thing. No publically issued warrant, no representation by counsel, no summons to court, no public hearings, no trial, no appeal, no nuthin' but "heavens! we kill you now."

something darkly comic about the fact that the US has missed five times already

I mean we already knew the vast majority killed in drone strikes are not the "intended"

xp It's like something out of Brazil

Did anybody finish the article? I did.

Anyway here’s the guy’s twitter so we can follow along as he hopefully survives to get his day in court

https://twitter.com/bilalkareem