Hannania made the point elsewhere that Trump’s behavior is so far out of bounds, it forces other actors into weird positions. Odds were obviously very high that Trump would do everything in his power to send Hunter to prison for what is honestly a laughable offense. Look at what he’s doing to Harvard. Of course Biden preemptively pardoned his son. It would have been inexcusable for him *not* to do so.
I don’t have much patience who argue that Democrats must hold themselves to the same pre-Trump standards. It’s like demanding your wife maintain the same level of cleanliness after half your house burns down. Trump has permanently lowered the standards in all types of conduct. After his comical levels of corruption, we will simply need to excuse more of it in general. It will take a long time to return to our former norms. Perhaps we never will.
>Odds were obviously very high that Trump would do everything in his power to send Hunter to prison for what is honestly a laughable offense.
It is also, very obviously, an offense that countless thousands of Trump supporters have knowingly committed and will continue to commit. Anybody who smokes weed, buys a gun, and checks "no" on question 21(f) of their form 4473 is guilty of that same offense--and the form itself warns you that marijuana is federally illegal no matter what your state law says!
Excellent perspective. There is no equivalent to the “Trump sycophant” on the left. Perhaps we can say that these folks suffer from a case of Trump Bootlicker Syndrome. Symptoms include an acute loss of principles, and the inability to say “no” to Trump to the point of self-castration.
"Ezra Klein used his position as a New York Times columnist and podcaster to take the remarkable step of calling for the President not to seek re-election — all the way back in February 2024."
Not all that remarkable. Ross Barkan did it in NY Mag in 2022. Even then he was just stating the obvious.
"When a book gets as much attention as this one has, I approach the topic from the perspective of where I can add some value."
This perspective represented in this article has been articulated hundreds if not thousands of times by Michelle Goldberg, David Brooks & Co. It is essentially the house perspective of the NY Times.
"I don’t want to be a guy who, whenever Democrats or liberal elites screw up, simply stands there and says “But MAGAs are worse!'"
. . .and yet, that is exactly what this is.
"When you hear someone talking about something Democratic elites did that was incompetent or dishonest, there is almost always an implicit case being made that you should therefore support Trump, or at least not succumb to Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Where are the Fox News personalities or major Republican influencers who are stating the obvious that Trump attempted a coup in 2020 and he has had by far the most corrupt administration in history, not counting those who have been written out of the movement and declared enemies by MAGA?
I wrote an article saying that the Biden cover up was worse than people thought and long lasting, it was maybe a third to half of the review. You're upset that I think this tells us something about MAGAs.
You are the one who seems upset. You cannot respond to my contention that Ezra Klein is not particularly remarkable without trying to change the subject to MAGAs.
Hanania is proving a point here, that it's hard to point out faults on your own side, and that MAGA is absolutely not doing better on that front. He's not excusing the left's misdeeds.
H: "What Ezra Klein did was remarkable, the right has not behaved this way."
U: "It wasn't remarkable, other people on the left did this."
H: "Did MAGA do it?"
To me this seems like a perfectly reasonable question. Hanania's original point was "EK behaved in a way that was remarkably different from how we'd expect MAGA to behave," and you're denying this but not actually providing a counterexample.
Because I don't believe "not as bad as MAGA" is a particularly sound or interesting basis for handing out medals. It's disgraceful that it took until Feb 2024 for Klein to acknowledge the reality that Barkan acknowledged in 2022 and that all of us could see with our own eyes.
If someone says something like "I care a lot about Issue X. Side A has done very poorly on Issue X, but shockingly, Side B has done *even worse*. Therefore, I must support Side A, though with significant reservations," it seems odd to criticize them for "handing out medals" or say things like "but nooo, Side A is really bad, stop changing the subject to talk about Side B!"
Like how does one make a choice except by... comparing options?
Except the conversation I'm having is about Ezra Klein in particular, not which "side" is better. There is a time to discuss those "significant reservations" without constantly trying to change the subject. We are assessing the performance of the legacy media on this issue right now, not making a binary choice in the voting booth.
It’s also frequently lost that Ezra walked back his call for Biden to step aside not long after, jokingly referring to his prior article as weak-kneed punditry
Ezra backed down from his argument pretty easily. He doesn’t even mention Biden’s age again in his columns until May. Was he actively prosecuting the case elsewhere that I don’t know about?
To be clear, I am not saying he deserves zero credit. He faced blowback and humiliation for even going there once.
“AARON RETICA: Well, the audience can’t see it, but I have brought you a replica of a medieval hair shirt to wear to mortify yourself after the State of the Union.”
“If the Joe Biden who showed up to deliver the State of the Union address last week is the Joe Biden who shows up for the rest of the campaign, you’re not going to have any more of those weak-kneed pundits suggesting he’s not up to running for re-election. Here’s hoping he does.”
The commenters on your UnHerd article seem incapable of rationally comparing two "bads", which is sort-of what (I think) you attempted in the article. I guess you can't expect anything else, with political polarization levels as high as they've ever been.
Good post. Also, lol at the comments over on UnHerd. People over there are *not* happy with the idea that MAGA has a lot of the same problems, just going in the other direction, and to a much greater degree.
From my observations, people do not approach this notion of "ethics and rule of law" and etc. in the sort of greyscale that you're advocating for here. They see Biden pardoning his family and think to themselves, okay, well, I guess trying to be fair and impartial and honorable is totally out the window, so I'm just going to vote based on my interests. To many on the right, this becomes an actual selling point for Trump--they like that he is willing to violate norms willy-nilly, so long as they feel that he is doing it on their behalf.
For better or for worse, it simply does not work to tell people "well sure, I'm corrupt, but that guy is even more corrupt, so you should still vote for me!" You already took the issue off the table at that point; obviously it makes sense that people will be distrustful of you after you've admitted to your own corruption. In order to play this card successfully, Democrats need to somehow convince people that they actually aren't corrupt to begin with, not that they are merely "less corrupt." But they don't seem to be in a great position to do that at the moment, and even if they can somehow pull it off, it will take time to play out. Betrayals of trust can't be easily reversed overnight.
The coverup was one thing, but it was the loss of the male vote that cost the Democrats the election.
Democrats wonder why many men are refusing to vote for them.
Men hate the following three policies foisted on them by Democrats
Working class men have their wages depressed by illegal immigrants who will work for next to nothing just to be here. Their rents rise because we don’t have enough housing for our own citizens let alone millions of interlopers. The Democrats opened our borders to all with no vetting and now raise holy hell when the worst among those who entered illegally are sent home. Fuck the Democrats.
Democrats believe that a man can become a woman (he can’t) and should be allowed to play women’s sports and enter women’s private spaces, and that children should be mutilated in pursuit of the impossible. Men want to protect women and children Fuck the Democrats.
Democrats discriminate against men today because in the past there was discrimination against women. Fuck the Democrats.
Democrats think men are too stupid to understand all this. Fuck the Democrats.
This issue isn’t about two basically equal problems. One side is an elderly man whose life has been one of service. Biden stepped aside with some grace.
The other side is an illiterate psychopathic anti constitutional vengeful bully.
Aside from that, Biden was not the nominee. I struggle to see the point of the book, or rehashing Biden?The Biden administration functioned with quiet dignity with some success. Kamala Harris was the Democratic nominee.
Whether misogyny, racism, laziness or a bizarre desire to see the shit show of a 2nd Trump administration, the Democratic voters are the problem.
“The Biden administration functioned with quiet dignity with some success.”
The party’s popularity is at an all time low and there will be few lasting positive impacts of the Biden presidency. Low information voters have no idea what the party stands for except what they hear from viral conservative social media posts.
If Biden’s age played any role in these aspects of the current state of affairs (and I believe it did, at the very least by having a poor communicator as the head of the party), it matters. And it matters that people in positions of power let that happen.
The Democrats conspired in October 2020 to hush up the Hunter Biden laptop. They did this by having the FBI sit on the case and got Facebook and Google and other big media outlets to crush the story and then they got "51 former intelligence officers" to claim without a shred of evidence that the laptop story was a Russian plant. They all lied to us and that influenced the 2020 election (6% of voters said if they knew the full story behind the laptop they would not have voted for Biden, which would have put Trump into office again. This is only one way Democrats lied to us and rigged the system. According to Richard, they are nice democratic people who are better at their worst than MAGA.
Your position is that the Democrats are more honest because Biden's personal attorney ratted on him? I guess you didn't know about Scarramucci and all the miriad Trump people who ratted him out.
This saga would be a great sitcom premise. The president is elected, but comes down with dementia, and a group of bumbling middle men have to run the country without letting anyone know they actually have the power.
>and the left more generally, were lying to us about the president’s condition
Look, I hate to have to "no true leftsman" this, but come on. Everyone on the actual left, from the Bernie crowd on leftward, was complaining about Biden's age and incoherence in 2020!
Hannania made the point elsewhere that Trump’s behavior is so far out of bounds, it forces other actors into weird positions. Odds were obviously very high that Trump would do everything in his power to send Hunter to prison for what is honestly a laughable offense. Look at what he’s doing to Harvard. Of course Biden preemptively pardoned his son. It would have been inexcusable for him *not* to do so.
I don’t have much patience who argue that Democrats must hold themselves to the same pre-Trump standards. It’s like demanding your wife maintain the same level of cleanliness after half your house burns down. Trump has permanently lowered the standards in all types of conduct. After his comical levels of corruption, we will simply need to excuse more of it in general. It will take a long time to return to our former norms. Perhaps we never will.
>Odds were obviously very high that Trump would do everything in his power to send Hunter to prison for what is honestly a laughable offense.
It is also, very obviously, an offense that countless thousands of Trump supporters have knowingly committed and will continue to commit. Anybody who smokes weed, buys a gun, and checks "no" on question 21(f) of their form 4473 is guilty of that same offense--and the form itself warns you that marijuana is federally illegal no matter what your state law says!
Going through the comments on UnHerd is ... an experience. Looks like your new audience is going to love you.
Excellent perspective. There is no equivalent to the “Trump sycophant” on the left. Perhaps we can say that these folks suffer from a case of Trump Bootlicker Syndrome. Symptoms include an acute loss of principles, and the inability to say “no” to Trump to the point of self-castration.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is and always has been projection, no need to come up with a new term.
The sycophants are a unique species. They deserve their own unique label. They’ve earned it. LOL.
"Ezra Klein used his position as a New York Times columnist and podcaster to take the remarkable step of calling for the President not to seek re-election — all the way back in February 2024."
Not all that remarkable. Ross Barkan did it in NY Mag in 2022. Even then he was just stating the obvious.
"When a book gets as much attention as this one has, I approach the topic from the perspective of where I can add some value."
This perspective represented in this article has been articulated hundreds if not thousands of times by Michelle Goldberg, David Brooks & Co. It is essentially the house perspective of the NY Times.
"I don’t want to be a guy who, whenever Democrats or liberal elites screw up, simply stands there and says “But MAGAs are worse!'"
. . .and yet, that is exactly what this is.
"When you hear someone talking about something Democratic elites did that was incompetent or dishonest, there is almost always an implicit case being made that you should therefore support Trump, or at least not succumb to Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Disagree.
"Even then he was just stating the obvious"
Where are the Fox News personalities or major Republican influencers who are stating the obvious that Trump attempted a coup in 2020 and he has had by far the most corrupt administration in history, not counting those who have been written out of the movement and declared enemies by MAGA?
"I don’t want to be a guy who, whenever Democrats or liberal elites screw up, simply stands there and says “But MAGAs are worse!'"
And yet that is now your one response to everything
I wrote an article saying that the Biden cover up was worse than people thought and long lasting, it was maybe a third to half of the review. You're upset that I think this tells us something about MAGAs.
You are the one who seems upset. You cannot respond to my contention that Ezra Klein is not particularly remarkable without trying to change the subject to MAGAs.
I mean, sure, but in this case, the hypocrisy is so astounding that it seems impossible to not point it out. It's insanity.
Hypocrisy by who? MAGA is not in the convo
Hanania is proving a point here, that it's hard to point out faults on your own side, and that MAGA is absolutely not doing better on that front. He's not excusing the left's misdeeds.
Of course he is. My comment was about Ezra Klein, and his only response is "Fox News is worse"
H: "What Ezra Klein did was remarkable, the right has not behaved this way."
U: "It wasn't remarkable, other people on the left did this."
H: "Did MAGA do it?"
To me this seems like a perfectly reasonable question. Hanania's original point was "EK behaved in a way that was remarkably different from how we'd expect MAGA to behave," and you're denying this but not actually providing a counterexample.
Because I don't believe "not as bad as MAGA" is a particularly sound or interesting basis for handing out medals. It's disgraceful that it took until Feb 2024 for Klein to acknowledge the reality that Barkan acknowledged in 2022 and that all of us could see with our own eyes.
If someone says something like "I care a lot about Issue X. Side A has done very poorly on Issue X, but shockingly, Side B has done *even worse*. Therefore, I must support Side A, though with significant reservations," it seems odd to criticize them for "handing out medals" or say things like "but nooo, Side A is really bad, stop changing the subject to talk about Side B!"
Like how does one make a choice except by... comparing options?
Except the conversation I'm having is about Ezra Klein in particular, not which "side" is better. There is a time to discuss those "significant reservations" without constantly trying to change the subject. We are assessing the performance of the legacy media on this issue right now, not making a binary choice in the voting booth.
In that case wouldn't it be encumbent on MAGA to point out now the destruction Trump is doing.
"I don’t want to be a guy who, whenever Democrats or liberal elites screw up, simply stands there and says 'But MAGAs are worse!'"
what a broken record here
It’s also frequently lost that Ezra walked back his call for Biden to step aside not long after, jokingly referring to his prior article as weak-kneed punditry
I don't think that's what happened. He made that walk back extremely conditional:
"If the Joe Biden who showed up to deliver the State of the Union address last week is the Joe Biden who shows up for the rest of the campaign..."
That version of Biden did not, in fact, show up for the rest of the campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/opinion/biden-state-union-message.html
Ezra backed down from his argument pretty easily. He doesn’t even mention Biden’s age again in his columns until May. Was he actively prosecuting the case elsewhere that I don’t know about?
To be clear, I am not saying he deserves zero credit. He faced blowback and humiliation for even going there once.
“AARON RETICA: Well, the audience can’t see it, but I have brought you a replica of a medieval hair shirt to wear to mortify yourself after the State of the Union.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/podcasts/transript-ezra-klein-sotu-qa.html
Looks like he talked about it for 3 podcasts in February, between the skipped super bowl interview and the SOTU address.
https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast
Those were all before the state of the union
Yes, to my knowledge, he didn't keep arguing publicly for the step down between the SOTU and the debate. I guess I don't see that as a walk back.
Great point
That's not true at all.
“If the Joe Biden who showed up to deliver the State of the Union address last week is the Joe Biden who shows up for the rest of the campaign, you’re not going to have any more of those weak-kneed pundits suggesting he’s not up to running for re-election. Here’s hoping he does.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/opinion/biden-state-union-message.html
The commenters on your UnHerd article seem incapable of rationally comparing two "bads", which is sort-of what (I think) you attempted in the article. I guess you can't expect anything else, with political polarization levels as high as they've ever been.
Good post. Also, lol at the comments over on UnHerd. People over there are *not* happy with the idea that MAGA has a lot of the same problems, just going in the other direction, and to a much greater degree.
From my observations, people do not approach this notion of "ethics and rule of law" and etc. in the sort of greyscale that you're advocating for here. They see Biden pardoning his family and think to themselves, okay, well, I guess trying to be fair and impartial and honorable is totally out the window, so I'm just going to vote based on my interests. To many on the right, this becomes an actual selling point for Trump--they like that he is willing to violate norms willy-nilly, so long as they feel that he is doing it on their behalf.
For better or for worse, it simply does not work to tell people "well sure, I'm corrupt, but that guy is even more corrupt, so you should still vote for me!" You already took the issue off the table at that point; obviously it makes sense that people will be distrustful of you after you've admitted to your own corruption. In order to play this card successfully, Democrats need to somehow convince people that they actually aren't corrupt to begin with, not that they are merely "less corrupt." But they don't seem to be in a great position to do that at the moment, and even if they can somehow pull it off, it will take time to play out. Betrayals of trust can't be easily reversed overnight.
The coverup was one thing, but it was the loss of the male vote that cost the Democrats the election.
Democrats wonder why many men are refusing to vote for them.
Men hate the following three policies foisted on them by Democrats
Working class men have their wages depressed by illegal immigrants who will work for next to nothing just to be here. Their rents rise because we don’t have enough housing for our own citizens let alone millions of interlopers. The Democrats opened our borders to all with no vetting and now raise holy hell when the worst among those who entered illegally are sent home. Fuck the Democrats.
Democrats believe that a man can become a woman (he can’t) and should be allowed to play women’s sports and enter women’s private spaces, and that children should be mutilated in pursuit of the impossible. Men want to protect women and children Fuck the Democrats.
Democrats discriminate against men today because in the past there was discrimination against women. Fuck the Democrats.
Democrats think men are too stupid to understand all this. Fuck the Democrats.
Kasper Eriksen is one of the worst among those who entered illegally? https://www.mississippifreepress.org/ice-arrests-mississippi-father-at-his-citizenship-hearing-threatening-deportation/
A brave Palestinian journalist is speaking, I am listening and learning.
This issue isn’t about two basically equal problems. One side is an elderly man whose life has been one of service. Biden stepped aside with some grace.
The other side is an illiterate psychopathic anti constitutional vengeful bully.
Aside from that, Biden was not the nominee. I struggle to see the point of the book, or rehashing Biden?The Biden administration functioned with quiet dignity with some success. Kamala Harris was the Democratic nominee.
Whether misogyny, racism, laziness or a bizarre desire to see the shit show of a 2nd Trump administration, the Democratic voters are the problem.
“The Biden administration functioned with quiet dignity with some success.”
The party’s popularity is at an all time low and there will be few lasting positive impacts of the Biden presidency. Low information voters have no idea what the party stands for except what they hear from viral conservative social media posts.
If Biden’s age played any role in these aspects of the current state of affairs (and I believe it did, at the very least by having a poor communicator as the head of the party), it matters. And it matters that people in positions of power let that happen.
>Biden stepped aside with some grace.
For a certain value of "grace" that includes having to be dragged off the political stage kicking and screaming, I guess?
>The Biden administration functioned with quiet dignity with some success.
For a certain value of "success" that includes hiding out in a bunker for four years while inflation rages out of control, I guess?
>I struggle to see the point of the book, or rehashing Biden?
I assume you feel the same way about January 6, 2021, yes? It's in the past, stop talking about it and move on, hey look a shiny object, etc.?
The Democrats conspired in October 2020 to hush up the Hunter Biden laptop. They did this by having the FBI sit on the case and got Facebook and Google and other big media outlets to crush the story and then they got "51 former intelligence officers" to claim without a shred of evidence that the laptop story was a Russian plant. They all lied to us and that influenced the 2020 election (6% of voters said if they knew the full story behind the laptop they would not have voted for Biden, which would have put Trump into office again. This is only one way Democrats lied to us and rigged the system. According to Richard, they are nice democratic people who are better at their worst than MAGA.
Your position is that the Democrats are more honest because Biden's personal attorney ratted on him? I guess you didn't know about Scarramucci and all the miriad Trump people who ratted him out.
This saga would be a great sitcom premise. The president is elected, but comes down with dementia, and a group of bumbling middle men have to run the country without letting anyone know they actually have the power.
>and the left more generally, were lying to us about the president’s condition
Look, I hate to have to "no true leftsman" this, but come on. Everyone on the actual left, from the Bernie crowd on leftward, was complaining about Biden's age and incoherence in 2020!
We could rely less on elites if we relied more on markets. Markets are not perfect, but the alternative is worse.