Best American Pundit 2020

I sense an editorial purpose here.

One of the weirdest and worst asymmetries in policy right now is that banks and big corporations can get fast, basically unlimited help from the Fed, while small biz and individual help is limited and slowed by congressional process and dysfunction.

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) April 17, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EV2HSSuX0AYxb_u?format=jpg&name=medium

It feels like you’re literally only objecting to the words “weirdest” and “right now” in the Klein tweet. That’s where we’re at right now I guess.

Ah I see jaymc already pointed this out elsewhere. Even more reason for a brand new thread!

I like both, but I voted Klein. I find him to be a very sharp thinker and especially appreciate his podcast. Yglesias trolls too much, which can make his opinions a little incoherent.

Klein's recent book Why We're Polarized is excellent, too.

vote klein's wife over either

this is like voting for best Korn cover band

At worst, Klein can be kind of...bloodless in his presentation. He's a dorky wonk. But he's not a mush-brained moderate. He champions progressive policies and directly blames the Republican Party for its failures of governance.

What his book makes clear, though, is that he is more interested in diagnosing structural problems within the political system than in pointing fingers at individual bad actors (who, in his view, are just responding to warped incentives) or making full-throated moral arguments (though he does have strong feelings about health care and animal rights).

I happen to get a lot out of this approach, though I understand how others might find it insufficiently trenchant.

only objecting to the words “weirdest” and “right now” in the Klein tweet.

those are... pretty major words to object to

matt yglesias finding a way to argue that "actually sweatshops are not really a bad thing and here's why" was probably the moral lowpoint of the whole #slatepitch phenomenon

somehow it figures that he went on from that to posting things like "center yourself and be self-aware"

Fred B

those are... pretty major words to object to

must be time to cancel him

There are only two American pundits? I wish...

the moral lowpoint of the whole #slatepitch phenomenon

we still have megan mcardle (for some reason)

I probably went too hard on Ezra in the other thread but re “diagnosing structural problems”—- I guess that’s my beef with clearly bright and genuinely concerned center left leaning pundits with a big audience: like at some point you have to come to grips that capitalism *is* the ‘structural problem’. How far you’re willing to go to remedy these issues, or whether or not we’ll cause a host of other issues were we to run full speed in the other direction, is almost beside the point. Like if it can’t be named and shamed then we’re in a permanent holding pattern at *best*

99.978% of everything bad that happens in terms of US governance/ policy is because someone who’s world-historically wealthy either actively wants it that way, or passively benefits from it in ways that a crushing majority of ppl will not, or will actually suffer because of.

and ftr I include myself in the category of ppl m who passively benefit, even if I’m sort of on the outer edges of that gated community

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

what's the betting line on how many people bothered to vote in this?

Yglesias probably has worse political views (terrible safety regulations are fine in Bangladesh! Privatize the post office!), Klein treated Paul Ryan like an honest, serious thinker for like a decade.

a decade

I obv can't choose, it would be like choosing a child

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

diners should rush the loud person; maybe some of them will survive

As I say, this is COMPLETELY IDLE SPECULATION. i am just noodling what policy recommendations might come out of a discovery that noise spreads covid. Do we redesign restaurants to be like those 1950s places with drapery everywhere, instead of cool industrial vibe?

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) April 24, 2020

The fact that people shout when it's noisy, and shouting spreads covid.

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) April 24, 2020

Quieter restaurants would be cool

sorry i'd like to read the letter really but i cannot stop laughing pic.twitter.com/fgUKoyVu6P

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) July 14, 2020

I don't remember if I posted in this but Yglesias is good, I have been reading him for a long time, I like that he has particular hobbyhorses that he's been riding for years, like "more housing in cities" and "deregulate barbers" and I like that his new book instead of being some kind of straight-down-the-middle "oh no our DISCOURSE we are DIVIDED" pablum is a pretty idiosyncratic "we should completely drop barriers to immigration like it was 1890 and double the size of the US population and enter a utopia of diversity, density, and prosperity" -- like, there is authentically some there there which is not true of a lot of pundits

ughhhh

anyway i can think of another thing that was self-expelled this morning heyyyy

The NY Times editorial page is a lot like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: It seems really important until you go down the list of who's actually there, at which point you laugh, shrug, and go on with your life.

what's matty's take on safety standards these days

I don't remember if I posted in this but Yglesias is good,

Counterpoint: every pro-Iraq War voice should die in a fire.

Yglesias was fucking 12 or something during the Iraq War

fuck 12

lol

he's five years older than me and it was pretty fuckin obvious to me at the time Iraq was a bad idea, what's his excuse?

He was 22 writing the blog that made his career. His pyre won’t be as high as David Frum’s but burn him.

But one advantage the U.S. does have over China is that because it is a beacon of freedom to the world, rather than an increasingly dystopian oligarchy

Vox co-founder @mattyglesias and I don't agree on everything. But we both believe that having ONE BILLION AMERICANS is a goal worth striving for and crucial to keeping China from overtaking us as the top global power. pic.twitter.com/2CiIkUzYZk

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) September 20, 2020

we must not have an embryo gap

But one advantage the U.S. does have over China is that because it is a beacon of freedom to the world, rather than an increasingly dystopian oligarchy

I found the secretly encoded message! What do I win?

good job matty vox

I can't believe I just read someone on this board saying the one billion americans idea as something to it.

worst american pundit 2003: https://www.salon.com/2003/02/01/purple_raines

"Fasheezy, but those D.C. bamas..." Raines' eyes turned Benzo-red as he continued to read the editorial. "'Disarmament has been reduced to a mere preference to be undertaken only if or when international opinion embraces it'? Fuck that sheeyt!"

Raines was livid. "Respect the architect or get broken," he said. Boyeeeeeed trembled and went to go write another memo.

The TNR crew had been known for drive-bys for years. Franzen, Moody, whatever young nizza was livin' lizzarge, L.W. Cool-L and his posse would sidewhow in their P-ride and turn the Charlie Rose green room into a killin' field.