EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

feel like ezra is a more likable and otm but matt is a deeper thinker so i dunno

yglesias has been annoying the fucc out of me

strikes me as the kind of guy who would have been a member of 'the best and brightest' or whatever

yeah thats his exact flaw, i mean he supported the iraq war via absurd over thinking, still i have to admit he has influenced my thinking on such topics as urban planning and destroying the senate

i dumped yg from my read a while ago. i guess that's sort of 'mcnabb off my madden team' but there u go. mainstream dem-liberal technocrats aren't thin on the ground and he's a shitty writer imo. i still 'like' him i guess but i stopped enjoying his writing like at all.

however i do get into quasi-arguments about urban planning fairly frequently (and no not just on ilx) and i find myself mimicking yglesian points

who has better trolls?

i feel like yglesias is still sort of confused by irl

"from my reader" i mean

i must admit the truly sad number of typos were a big part of me ignoring his blog.

plus i figure the shit he talks about is so everywhere that other ppl will link to him if it's really worth it (see also: andrew sullivan)

both of these guys are nearly worthless on culture

they used to live in a house with dave weigel and spencer ackerman, bet it was a terrible place to hang out

haa i find the typos charming because a. its p 'internet' b. i am myself as you all know a masterful typo maker

see i figured you as an accomplished and rigorous stylist whereas our think tank opinion leader is just fucking lazy and/or dyslexic

shouldnt this be in ILM

they used to live in a house with dave weigel and spencer ackerman, bet it was a terrible place to hang out

― max, Monday, January 3, 2011 12:55 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that there is an offline culture of young dc bloggers and i know abt it is simultaneously fascinating and horrifying, although i was unaware of this particular amazing roommates based nugget, would love to run into these guys at a bbq and get into a drunken political argument

see i figured you as an accomplished and rigorous stylist whereas our think tank opinion leader is just fucking lazy and/or dyslexic

― goole, Monday, January 3, 2011 12:58 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ty 4 yr support

ackerman talks about that time the most; i did not know weigel was one of them. feel a little weird for knowing about this crap tbh.

i dont really read attackerman, his shtick grates

he's done with FDL if that helps

i dunno if i've come clean about this but i have a war-nerd streak so

ackerman talks about that time the most; i did not know weigel was one of them. feel a little weird for knowing about this crap tbh.

― goole, Monday, January 3, 2011 1:01 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me too but on the other hand did u know that ezra klein became a health care reform expert to impress simon schamas daughter chloe

no i was unaware. she must be pretty fine.

i think i find the stuff he covers interesting, but i guess i dont really, i read him occasionally at wired xp re ackerman

lol max whatre u talkin abt

haha i have been under the impression that i knew a lot of gossip abt these ppl but now that i am thinking about it the thing about chloe schama is the only gossip-y nugget i know, kind of disappointed in myself

http://grab.by/8b5N

anyway when i saw ezra klein on tv i was surprised his persona seemed more journalistic glory days upstart young reporter than coddled nerdface technocratic blogger - i liked him

he has an early 80s newspaper look and feel to him

Yglesias has been wrong many times.

Klein meanwhile is a duller writer but his steady crunching of numbers is ultimately educational.

yglesiases willingness to be ambitious and wrong is imo what makes him compelling - like i understand theres danger in utopian thinking but still reimagining the world and its institutions is def one of my hobbies

who has better trolls?

― goole, Monday, January 3, 2011 11:51 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

to answer my own q, i don't really know. klein's comments are pretty boring but i have noticed yglesias' "community" to be especially vicious and repetitive. neither of them seem to really care much but i think both have made gestures to get more involved. terrible drudgery, sounds like, to me.

as far as blogger gossip goes, can anyone verify that there are, in fact, paid trolls out there? i'd hate to think it was mere dedication causing the same people to say the same things in the same place every day

theres only one blog i can think of that has good comments, really feel like 'comments off' should be the default

TNC i assume?

your bløg has good comments joe

yah tnc and lol of course goes w/o saying my blog

btw how much does this trolling gig pay, who do i contact

i know, right

i saw an interview w/yglesias where he was like all my readers really hate me i have no idea why they come to my blog

he was k funny tbh

eh i've watched a few of his bloggingheads's and he comes off like a jerk imo, interrupting, going on and on

ha yeah ive never been able to bring myself to watch a blogginghead and in general id much rather read than watch any news type thing but for some reason i saw this it was a friendly interview at a like blogg convention where they we just joking around

anyway my head says klein but my heart goes yglesias, not sure what to do, prob follow my heart

yglesias is good on urban issues - not that he says anything new, but at least he's talking to relatively wide audience. but still...super annoying on a personal level. I like klein.

Yglesias is a philosophy major in every word he writes and this is awesome about him.

ugh this is gonna be like that week i read glenn greenwald isnt it

neither of these guys is much like glenn greenwald

unless you have some sort of distaste for american journalists, then yes it'll be like that lol

these guys are on the sensible/technocratic side of the great progressive blogger divide - greenwald exists on the polemic/activist shore - which is not to say hes any more or less otm, just that hes harder to take

I haven't watched, but it's also notable that it's one of his longest episodes. He usually goes 60-75 minutes; this Rufo suck job is more than two hours long.

I really think if the dem nom ends up being anyone left of like Pete or Josh he’s going to be the one to write the NYT’s “Liberal Case for Vance”

I don't think that. For as much as Klein likes to give voice to people on the right, my sense is that he remains committed to a basic liberal worldview. (In fact, this worldview is part of what makes him want to have public conversations with people he disagrees with.)

While some leftist ideas undoubtedly make him squirm, he's not really a reactionary who blames the left or is motivated by resentments. In fact, it's hard for me to imagine a left-wing candidate *who could actually win the Dem nomination* who would turn off Klein.

honestly that’s fair. they’ll have to task some other jackass w it

For as much as Klein likes to give voice to people on the right, my sense is that he remains committed to a basic liberal worldview.

He holds normie liberal views, but in the classic "a liberal is someone who won't take their own side in an argument" mold, he will spend 25 hours a day platforming people who would happily watch his execution.

it's hard for me to imagine a left-wing candidate *who could actually win the Dem nomination* who would turn off Klein.

I think the definition of "who can actually win the Democratic nomination" is going to change a whole lot between 2026 and 2028. The comparison to the Tea Party is bullshit because the Tea Party was always an astroturf project, but the comparison in terms of depth of anger and willingness to burn shit down is dead on. I think the Colorado primary elections tonight are going to reveal that a whole lot of extremely pissed-off voters are rising up out of the earth this year, and the institutional Democratic Party is not ready for that. If a genuine leftist uprising takes place, Klein will absolutely be out there supporting whoever seems most like a polite, sensible Romney Republican.

yeah I have to agree

Rufo is doing a “maybe the things on the right have gone too far” schtick, which mostly means attacking Alex Jones and Tucker.

I agree that Dem voters are more willing to support leftist candidates than before. I just don't know what a "genuine leftist uprising" in a Dem presidential primary would look like, especially one that would force Ezra Klein to abandon the party.

I think Ezra would have voted for Bernie in a general election. I think he would vote for AOC. I am struggling to think of an elected Dem at the national level that he would not vote for against a Republican. (Maybe Darializa Avila Chevalier? But she wouldn't be nominated even if she were eligible to run.) Are you imagining this uprising being led by some obscure figure who isn't even involved in the party?

jaymc, why the hell do you care what or who Klein believes in?

Who cares What's In His Heart? If we hadn't already known, the Rufo interview solidifies him as someone who wants candidates he can sell as porridge to his interview subjects.

I just get kind of annoyed with what seem to me like misconceptions about what motivates him.

i get annoyed that ezra klein breathes my air, i wish ill upon him

I just get kind of annoyed with what seem to me like misconceptions about what motivates him.

― jaymc, Tuesday, June 30, 2026 8:06

I'm not gonna pick a fight, but what has he said in three years that makes him a Thinker that the Dems should take seriously?

To call Ezra Klein a “thinker” is to be playing pretty loosely with language, I reckon

I'm not asking anyone to take him seriously.

just get kind of annoyed with what seem to me like misconceptions about what motivates him

what motivates him to platform Chris Rufo for over two hours?

nytimes does what rufo says

xp imo, a desire to be (or be seen as) a serious, smart, thoughtful person who is able to have honest, reasonable conversations with people on all parts of the political spectrum. a belief that there is inherent value in illuminating the ideas of a major political figure on the right, which outweighs the dangers of platforming a propagandist. perhaps some hubris in thinking that his talents and natural coolheadedness will allow him to avoid getting played. a more-than-grudging respect for rufo's ability as a fellow thought leader and communicator to set political messaging. idk, things like that.

there is inherent value in illuminating the ideas of a major political figure on the right, which outweighs the dangers of platforming a propagandist

I strongly disagree with you when it comes to Rufo, who has done grievous damage to my state's university system and who hopes to infect others.

jaymc isn't saying he believes that, just that Klein does

I don’t think that is what jaymc thinks; I think that is what he thinks Ezra Klein thinks

Correct.

xp Alfred, you're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with Klein. I personally think that motivation is strongly misguided.

Tbc, I am by no means defending the Rufo interview. I agree with everyone in this thread that it is counterproductive and worth criticizing Klein over. I'm merely trying to show that platforming Rufo does not necessarily mean that Klein is sympathetic to Rufo's political project; Klein has plenty of other motivations having to do with his self-image and ambitions as a public figure that I think better explain why he does stuff like this.

I don't really know why I care so much, but I have read and listened to a lot of Ezra Klein over the past decade and feel like I have a decent understanding of him, so it just chafes at me when I see people make assumptions about him that feel really off-base to me.

cant go wrong with any of these guys assuming that whatever theyre doing is good for their careers

nytimes does what rufo says

They really do, they quote him all the damn time in their news stories and op-ed pieces — essentially granting him Respectable Man of the Right status, which I gather is sort of how Klein is treating him? I haven't brought myself to even look at the transcript of that interview because one thing I know for sure is I don't need more Chris Rufo in my life. The only conceivable value of interviewing Rufo is to do a Chotiner on him, but Rufo's probably slick enough to avoid Chotiner, and Klein is no Chotiner.

That's fair -- sorry.

times does more than quote rufo theyve run a bunch of big stories that he brought them, guy clearly had juice with someone high up there

He’s at the Manhattan Institute and newspapers love think tanks.

theres a lot of people who work at think tanks not all of them get to place their trans panic stories in the paper of record

At a time when a lot of Republican pols and operatives won't give the mainstream media the time of day, a guy who can represent and give voice to the right in an articulate, thoughtful-seeming manner is catnip to outlets desperate to present a semblance of balance.

desperate to launder the fascist politics of the bosses

I'm not arguing with what you wrote jaymc, but like just for the record (lol) part of presenting that semblance of balance entails distorting (lying about) what Rufo has done and said, e.g., speaking of cats. I can sympathize with being annoyed at people reducing EK down to a caricature you don't recognize as someone who's spent time with his work, but it's also hard to have confidence in a stable understanding of who EK is and what he stands for when he engages in or collaborates with lying and distorting

i think klein is like a lot of people he considers himself aligned with some political ideology in his case technocratic liberalism theyre happy to talk about what they believe in but really their actions have very little alignment with their reported politics ultimately they dont really care about that shit theyre happy to entertain ideas that are anathema to their supposed politics school vouchers or tariffs on chinese goods what they really care about is getting a new riding mower or a pat on the head from their editor

part of presenting that semblance of balance entails distorting (lying about) what Rufo has done and said

I agree with this. And for the record, I have become considerably less enamored with Klein over the years because of tendencies like these.

I just get kind of annoyed with what seem to me like misconceptions about what motivates him.

― jaymc, Tuesday, June 30, 2026 7:06 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like a lot of Klein's shtick is that he doesn't ask people outright about what their beliefs are or dig in that deeply. He's done his research and presents their views back to them in what he feels is a fair, even-handed manner but in doing so often sanitizes their views, or at the least sands the rough edges off

I may be projecting some projection here, but jaymc: you are doing the exact same thing to Klein, and turning him into an avatar of what you think he should be!

imo the best way to discover what someone's about, or what their movement is about, is to figure out what they've said and done and dig in

the one time weve seen klein emerge from his dispassionate analytical shell is when he said that charlie kirk did politics the right way, the reason for that is hes a careerist, thats what he believes in

social scientists will be having takes on why the hell he said that for decades

did he really know so little about what the guy was about? did he believe it with no caveats? did he feel the need to comment on it within the 24 hours news cycle when he's supposed to be giving reasoned takes and that one hit the floor like a sack of potatoes? no one will ever know

I think that is a fair criticism of Klein, mh.

I would disagree that I am presenting him as an avatar of what I think he should be; I don't think the qualities and tendencies of his that I have described are entirely virtuous.

The debate between Ezra Klein and Sam Seder about abundance was kind of informative about his brain. Klein kept waving away critiques of power, sticking very much in mode of "things are the way they are and we have work within the structure" and micro-focusing on specific cases where a regulation made it hard to build something, actually saying "I'm trying to get fucking granular here."

hate it when im trying to get granular and someone keeps pointing out to me a political pundit that politics exist

technocrat in a nutshell

Feel like when he was coming up as a young political writer/pundit in the 2000s, his whole thing was being obsessively wonky about policy in a way that set him apart from older writers who were focused more on politics as a horse race or a game of interpersonal relationships. I think he's carried that into his abundance project, though I'd argue that he's gotten much more into big-picture vibes-based analysis as he's gotten older and wants to present himself as a thought leader, not just a legislative savant.

more-than-grudging respect for rufo's ability as a fellow thought leader and communicator to set political messaging

do you think that giving him double the time of other interviewees to set political messaging is because Klein respects him as a thought leader more than Ta-Nahesi Coates or AOC’s foreign policy adviser?

Well, I have not actually listened to the Rufo interview, nor do I plan to. So I have no idea whether Klein a) respects him more than Coates or Matt Duss, or b) whether that would influence the length of the episode. My general inclination, however, is that episode length is probably less determined by the respect that Klein has for the interviewee and more by a judgment by Klein and his team of how long the conversation would engage the audience. (FWIW, the Duss episode is 1:33, and Rufo is 2:04, so Rufo is not quite double the time.)

Klein kept waving away critiques of power, sticking very much in mode of "things are the way they are and we have work within the structure" and micro-focusing on specific cases where a regulation made it hard to build something

The way Abundance perverts and yimby urbanists really truly (actually probably not really) think the way to prosperity for the masses is building more shitty pressboard buildings is so wild. Like I’m sure there are specific (Granular, even!!) cases in blue states/ cities where maybe an archaic onerous regulation is keeping someone’s rich developer friend from minting millions. But I living in Nashville in 2014-2016 I could look out of my back window and see some two dozen massive cranes in the downtown/ gulch/ surrounding areas and I’m fairly certain that it has not become more affordable or abundant in any way for a non-rich person.

Rufo is not quite double the time

(for anyone who can’t be arsed isn’t granular enough to check, there are many episodes under an hour. Though tbf Klein did dedicate nearly as long to reviewing his own book as to Rufo’s ideas: What We Got Right — And Wrong — In ‘Abundance.’ What has the abundance movement actually achieved in the last year? Where has it fallen short? And what have the three of us learned from our critics?)

that sounds like a shitty performance review

the thing about abundance is that it's rebadging multiple things.

there are goofy regulations that create a keyhole-sized window that only entrenched interests can ever break into certain markets that need to be figured out. if you're, for example, trying to start a solar panel business and you need to navigate differing regulations in a dozen states, federal incentives that constantly shift, etc. then it discourages people from getting into that space. republicans will paint this as big government but are up to play the game when they can graft incentives for specific businesses in their districts on to the byzantine structure. efficient government doesn't necessarily mean smaller government!

that's the first part where they claim they're unlocking resources that are already there. the second part of abundance is attempting to rephrase the fact that we have sufficient resources available for everyone, they're just unevenly distributed or underutilized. any attempt to describe this honestly will always sound too much like "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" and you can understand why dancing around that is the norm. we need. more studies and means testing to make sure the wrong people don't get things

i just need to reiterate that Ezra Klein is about as much of a thought leader as a smart toilet.