Sometimes it even succeeds long enough for Meghan Markle to collect prizes for the lies she tells.
Last night -- she threw her husband's family under the bus with unsupported claims of racism and today she won the People's Choice Award for her podcast -- also shown to be full of lies. The main whopper is that in South Africa, black people danced in the street for her wedding like they did when Mandela was released. from prison. Seriously. She said that. There is a shared psychopathy at work in the highest levels of our society. We live in a post-factual world. And the average information consumer is too stupid to know that.
If people really seriously listen to her podcast, then it explains a lot about the intellectual decline of our country. I sat and attempted to listen to one, but after about 20 minutes I could feel my own brain shutting down. She is uninteresting, unintelligent, self-obsessed, and a thorough opportunist (and a nasty one, at that). I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and see if she actually had anything interesting to say. She doesn’t.
The Aspen Institute? And just why are we in an “information crisis?” Is it like when people started reading for themselves, so the clergy could no longer be the intellectual authority over the peasants?
Seriously - they seem like yet more unelected people who get to influence the conversation and policy, and what gives them the authority to do so?
But it frequently succeeds for a while, which grants the illusion of success, and it succeeds as a general shaping of discourse while invariably reaching failure in particular case”
For a while! With those three little words, you encapsulated why this sort of thing works. Most people do not track stories to see what happens but accept those stock phrases as proof  that they are on the right side AGAIN. Great column, Chris.
You zeroed in on the same thing I did => "for a while". Unfortunately, "for a while" is plenty good enough! Very few media outlets will bother reporting the final outcome, especially when it goes against the narrative.
May I suggest a minor correction, Martha, "Very few media outlets will bother reporting..." should probably read, "Very few media outlets would DARE offend their lords and masters by reporting..."
I have learned that the grab bag (and it's ilk) are like an offensive line in football. It is really not designed to stop the defensive tackles and guards. It is designed to slow them down enough to throw for first down. Every time we get close, or even get a sack, the Referees (or courts) intervene with an outrageous call. And the Evil perpetrators move off into a new direction. Which is why we are ALWAYS on defense.
I hope you had time to watch Douglas Murray and Matt Taibbi "debate" Malcom Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg in the Munk Debate "be it resolved, don't trust the mainstream media".
Just don't come at him like a condescending prick and instead come prepared. I would love to know what, if anything, Michelle Goldberg said to "Malc" Gladwell after that miserable performance.
Several years ago, an independent candidate challenged the incumbent R and the popular (former mayor) D in an election for our district's representative in the House. The R and the D chose not to show up at most of the debates where the I would be included, so I think there was only one debate that included all three candidates. Both the D and the R, but mostly the incumbent R, ignored the I during the debate. They didn't address him; they stood in such a way that it was as if he weren't there; they didn't refute any of his points. They didn't have to prove him wrong; all they had to do was let people pretend (as they did) that he didn't exist. He got crushed in the election.
Shouldn't we just ignore folks like this irritating Twitter woman? Keep showing up at school board meetings and getting arrested if need be. But don't engage with these people on Twitter or anywhere. Let them disappear. Ladapo is a nationally known figure with a real job. His decisions affect real people, and I'm glad to live in a state where he works. This woman insulting Dr. Hoeg? Whatever. She's a nobody. Don't even look in her direction. It's not as if refuting her tweets with facts will change anyone's mind about anything. Better not to let anything she says be "trending."
Many of us do ignore these people. But in their preening and lying they are useful political tools that prop up agendas long enough to cause real damage or long enough to win elections.
Some of them, yes. Respectfully, though, I don't think this particular Twitter idiot is one of the ones who matter. Most Americans haven't heard of either Hoeg or this fool. They're taking their direction from Walensky, etc., who will persist as long as the checks (or promises of checks) keep coming. I value economy of effort. It's difficult to argue that fighting this particular idiot (or others of her level of influence) is worth the effort. Anyone who believes the "I love literally every vaccine, including this rushed-to-market utter BS" ravings of a total stranger on Twitter will not be convinced by anything Team Reality says. Any productive engagements with this woman would be ones in a local sphere, e.g., whatever hospital or town in which she wields actual power.
Growing up and to this day, I’ve always been an anti-authoritarian. Just the way I’m wired. Not in a gratuitous sense; if you could walk the talk and I thought you were a humanitarian and talented, then more power to you. But if you’re a hypocrite, a petty tyrant, and a mediocrity, then ain’t nobody got time for that. I hated Nixon when I was 8. I don’t know why. Just an animal reaction. My personal evolution in politics has kind of taken me full circle. I wasn’t very political nor particularly patriotic for my first 40 years, with brief dalliances in college aside. Youngsters get caught up in the moment. Then I got really concerned toward the end of the Bubba era and moved to the Right. I thought GWB was a coke head and a dingbat, but 9/11 burnished his rep for a while. Then the authoritarian crap started- the DHS, the patriot act, the wars. Then the inevitable DC engineered, Wall Street assisted, economic mess of 2008. Then came Obama. The very first time I saw him speak , emerging out of the ether all sleek and neatly packaged, I thought - now we have ourselves a problem. This guy instantly set my BS meter to 11. I wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t at the time have fathomed that his used car dealer doofus sidekick would be an even greater disaster. For the last 6 years I hit into the nationalist populist thing pretty heavily. Donated a goodly sum of money, more selectively as I learned more about the candidates. But after watching this last clusterfuck of stolen elections, I’m done with the GOP. They aren’t weak or feeble or dumb. They’re just fine with the status quo. They hate America just like the Neo-Marxists. They take our money and time and emotional energy and shiv us nearly every time. They hate us as much as the Dems. No more money. No more energy. They are dead to me. MAGA/ America First/ patriots or what are basically just normal Americans are politically in exile. We have no home. It’s not about Trump. I love Trump for his courage and his persistence. But I’m not a fanboy. This is bigger than any of us.
So, I’m interested in what happens, but I’m under no illusions. I’ll take care of my own and those I believe will walk the talk. I’ve felt compelled to learn a number of practical skills and that’s been fun. But I only did it because I see how this slow motion train wreck ends and I want to carry my weight. Achey joints and all. And I’m willing to defend the ideals of this nation if it comes to that. I’ve had a good life. I’m a free man and I will not live on my knees in service of anybody or anything but my conscience. It’s a race now. We shall see. Whichever way it goes, I’ll deal with it on my terms. I’m not heroic, but I see no alternative but to resist these garbage mfers every way I can. The worst part is that people of this low caliber have gotten this far. Don’t comply. Don’t give in. Courage.
Know what I’d love? An excoriating Chris Bray analysis of the nauseating Kennedy Awards. Bono kissing Pelosi’s withered hand and gushing about President Biden. Fauci being applauded as he walked the red carpet. Biden parading his degenerate son around as if to say, he’s untouchable, people. It’s like the golden handcuffs between politicians and Hollywood are just laid bare now, even though we all knew they were there. Had a Hunger Games vibe to it. The plebs will have to kill each other, by design, so they don’t get angry about the excesses of the criminal class. And this so-called glorified med student is just one of their soldiers in the field.
I don't remember when The Hunger Games was released, but I remember thinking at the time that it perfectly described the attitude of the Washington DC "elites" towards the rest of us. The situation has only gotten worse since then.
"But it frequently succeeds for a while, which grants the illusion of success, and it succeeds as a general shaping of discourse while invariably reaching failure in particular cases" --And then Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Spokes-Diversity Hire, can say it's all "old news" and we're all supposed to keep playing along and pretending that these were all trivial mistakes made with the best of intentions.
But, but, but, "pretending that these were all trivial mistakes made with the best of intentions." is the OFFICIAL narrative, which may not be questioned. Ever.
Brilliant insights. It helps me understand the behaviour of my local Member of Parliament. If you point something factual but inconvenient out to him - like how FoI releases show that what the government is claiming on transmission is inaccurate - he responds with some bizarrely unrelated slogan from two years ago. It's utterly infuriating. No amount or quality of evidence can shift his opinion. This article (and the first one one it points to from last year) helps me understand. There's no thought going on, and certainly no discourse. Just empty words from a high class who feel entitled to rule. As you say, it's "the end of thought as a tool of authority". Thank you for helping me comprehend something that has been very difficult to accept.
I'm glad you exposed this woman for being a fraud. We still have to challenge all of these people spewing their dishonesty and lies, otherwise, the low information populace thinks they are correct and we are the crazy ones. That's the whole point of censorship.
You do a great job of poking fun at them, so keep it up. Also, I hope more people write or in their podcasts and TV appearances make fun of these crazy and insane people, because they are mostly very ill and in need of help: others are sociopaths, psychopaths, and/or simply evil. They need to be exposed.
And that's the problem with Twatter. It's an endless sea of arrogant, thoughtless, entitled, performative children that weren't forced to grow up spewing their thoughtless platitudes to others like them and getting the people that disagree with them censored.
By being extremely aggressive rhetorically, you put everyone else back on their heels, and reacting to you. I guess this is, in part, what people refer to as shifting the Overton window.
My all time (for now) favourite quote (which surpassed Ed Koch's "I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you") is from Hobbe's Leviathan: "Words are wise men's counters, and they do but recon by then, but they are the money of fools."
When it's all said and done - after the soyjaks have had their Twatter dogpile and moved on to the new pronouns - do the likes of Neitzel and Sheridan actually 'move the chains'?
It seems to me that all they actually do is run down the play clock - which for them means getting to the end of the day/meeting without being on the receiving end of a zinger.
In their weltanschauung, what happens after that is effectively discounted to zero.
If they actually influence anybody - i.e., (for Neitzel) actually change a single mind from 'neutral' to 'give me another booster' - then that mind has got to be pretty empty... so how did it end up 'neutral'?
It seems to me that they don't change even the dullest mind. They preach to their respective choirs, who are people that 'our' side is not going to reach anyhow because they are not operating epistemically. They are not interested in arguments (a lot of them literally think that the word 'argument' means that everyone's yelling).
That's why both sides spend mental energy trying to get their inner "Big Bang Theory" scriptwriter to emerge: that if they could just come up with a perfect zinger then their side would sweep the field. [DISCLOSURE: I've never watched BBT, but I am reliably informed that it's basically half-smart 'zingers' for 42 minutes, interspersed with advertisements. I'm a 'Ren & Stimpy' kind of guy so maybe it's just Space Madness...]
Anyhow... as the Grand Thingy stuff shows (re the Obese Karen from the Parent-Teacher thing), the doxastic playbook doesn't move the chains.
Neitzel and Sheridan may as well be in the stands with the rest of the schlubs, for all they actually achieve.
Compare this with a 'malign actor' who actually got shit done: SBF.
That guy moved some motherfucking chains, despite playing "do dat fraud" in the most obvious way imaginable.
He might just get away with it - because in the death throes of the US-centred Empire of Lies, "criminal justice" has the same oxymoronic quality as "military intelligence" or "public health" or "Pfizer research".
That said: I am 1 or 2 °KB from some of the people he ripped off. In their sphere, getting hosed is a price of doing business - but they're not happy when it's so brazen.
These are people who have goons... goons who wear black leather jackets and have facial scars and say "BLYAT!" if they get some guy's tooth stuck in a knuckle.
SBF better hope he goes to US prison, is what I'm sayin'.
Neitzel doesn't move the chain a fraction of a millimeter, which is why I wasn't sure if I should even mention her existence, which adds up to a bunch of tweets with four likes, forever. Highly ignorable person, and I'm semi-sorry I told people about her.
Sometimes it even succeeds long enough for Meghan Markle to collect prizes for the lies she tells.
Last night -- she threw her husband's family under the bus with unsupported claims of racism and today she won the People's Choice Award for her podcast -- also shown to be full of lies. The main whopper is that in South Africa, black people danced in the street for her wedding like they did when Mandela was released. from prison. Seriously. She said that. There is a shared psychopathy at work in the highest levels of our society. We live in a post-factual world. And the average information consumer is too stupid to know that.
If people really seriously listen to her podcast, then it explains a lot about the intellectual decline of our country. I sat and attempted to listen to one, but after about 20 minutes I could feel my own brain shutting down. She is uninteresting, unintelligent, self-obsessed, and a thorough opportunist (and a nasty one, at that). I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and see if she actually had anything interesting to say. She doesn’t.
If you think that's bad, try the Springsteen-Obama podcast: Renegades(!). Or anything with the insufferable Michelle Obama.
On the plus side, if you ever accidentally drink poison, these can be used to induce vomiting.
The Aspen Institute? And just why are we in an “information crisis?” Is it like when people started reading for themselves, so the clergy could no longer be the intellectual authority over the peasants?
Seriously - they seem like yet more unelected people who get to influence the conversation and policy, and what gives them the authority to do so?
I stand in awe of this sentence.
But it frequently succeeds for a while, which grants the illusion of success, and it succeeds as a general shaping of discourse while invariably reaching failure in particular case”
For a while! With those three little words, you encapsulated why this sort of thing works. Most people do not track stories to see what happens but accept those stock phrases as proof  that they are on the right side AGAIN. Great column, Chris.
You zeroed in on the same thing I did => "for a while". Unfortunately, "for a while" is plenty good enough! Very few media outlets will bother reporting the final outcome, especially when it goes against the narrative.
May I suggest a minor correction, Martha, "Very few media outlets will bother reporting..." should probably read, "Very few media outlets would DARE offend their lords and masters by reporting..."
🙌 Amen!
I have learned that the grab bag (and it's ilk) are like an offensive line in football. It is really not designed to stop the defensive tackles and guards. It is designed to slow them down enough to throw for first down. Every time we get close, or even get a sack, the Referees (or courts) intervene with an outrageous call. And the Evil perpetrators move off into a new direction. Which is why we are ALWAYS on defense.
I hope you had time to watch Douglas Murray and Matt Taibbi "debate" Malcom Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg in the Munk Debate "be it resolved, don't trust the mainstream media".
https://vimeo.com/munkdebates/review/775853977/85003a644c
Fantastic
*I put debate in quotes only because it is unfair to have to face Douglas Murray who I think could beat me in a debate on whether I love my kids.
Saw parts, and loved it. If anyone ever tries to get me to debate Douglas Murray, please tie me to something large and heavy until the urge passes.
Just don't come at him like a condescending prick and instead come prepared. I would love to know what, if anything, Michelle Goldberg said to "Malc" Gladwell after that miserable performance.
Oh, you made me laugh out loud, Chris
Isn't Douglas Murray wonderful? A first-class mind. I love him and have his books.
Several years ago, an independent candidate challenged the incumbent R and the popular (former mayor) D in an election for our district's representative in the House. The R and the D chose not to show up at most of the debates where the I would be included, so I think there was only one debate that included all three candidates. Both the D and the R, but mostly the incumbent R, ignored the I during the debate. They didn't address him; they stood in such a way that it was as if he weren't there; they didn't refute any of his points. They didn't have to prove him wrong; all they had to do was let people pretend (as they did) that he didn't exist. He got crushed in the election.
Shouldn't we just ignore folks like this irritating Twitter woman? Keep showing up at school board meetings and getting arrested if need be. But don't engage with these people on Twitter or anywhere. Let them disappear. Ladapo is a nationally known figure with a real job. His decisions affect real people, and I'm glad to live in a state where he works. This woman insulting Dr. Hoeg? Whatever. She's a nobody. Don't even look in her direction. It's not as if refuting her tweets with facts will change anyone's mind about anything. Better not to let anything she says be "trending."
Many of us do ignore these people. But in their preening and lying they are useful political tools that prop up agendas long enough to cause real damage or long enough to win elections.
Some of them, yes. Respectfully, though, I don't think this particular Twitter idiot is one of the ones who matter. Most Americans haven't heard of either Hoeg or this fool. They're taking their direction from Walensky, etc., who will persist as long as the checks (or promises of checks) keep coming. I value economy of effort. It's difficult to argue that fighting this particular idiot (or others of her level of influence) is worth the effort. Anyone who believes the "I love literally every vaccine, including this rushed-to-market utter BS" ravings of a total stranger on Twitter will not be convinced by anything Team Reality says. Any productive engagements with this woman would be ones in a local sphere, e.g., whatever hospital or town in which she wields actual power.
Growing up and to this day, I’ve always been an anti-authoritarian. Just the way I’m wired. Not in a gratuitous sense; if you could walk the talk and I thought you were a humanitarian and talented, then more power to you. But if you’re a hypocrite, a petty tyrant, and a mediocrity, then ain’t nobody got time for that. I hated Nixon when I was 8. I don’t know why. Just an animal reaction. My personal evolution in politics has kind of taken me full circle. I wasn’t very political nor particularly patriotic for my first 40 years, with brief dalliances in college aside. Youngsters get caught up in the moment. Then I got really concerned toward the end of the Bubba era and moved to the Right. I thought GWB was a coke head and a dingbat, but 9/11 burnished his rep for a while. Then the authoritarian crap started- the DHS, the patriot act, the wars. Then the inevitable DC engineered, Wall Street assisted, economic mess of 2008. Then came Obama. The very first time I saw him speak , emerging out of the ether all sleek and neatly packaged, I thought - now we have ourselves a problem. This guy instantly set my BS meter to 11. I wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t at the time have fathomed that his used car dealer doofus sidekick would be an even greater disaster. For the last 6 years I hit into the nationalist populist thing pretty heavily. Donated a goodly sum of money, more selectively as I learned more about the candidates. But after watching this last clusterfuck of stolen elections, I’m done with the GOP. They aren’t weak or feeble or dumb. They’re just fine with the status quo. They hate America just like the Neo-Marxists. They take our money and time and emotional energy and shiv us nearly every time. They hate us as much as the Dems. No more money. No more energy. They are dead to me. MAGA/ America First/ patriots or what are basically just normal Americans are politically in exile. We have no home. It’s not about Trump. I love Trump for his courage and his persistence. But I’m not a fanboy. This is bigger than any of us.
So, I’m interested in what happens, but I’m under no illusions. I’ll take care of my own and those I believe will walk the talk. I’ve felt compelled to learn a number of practical skills and that’s been fun. But I only did it because I see how this slow motion train wreck ends and I want to carry my weight. Achey joints and all. And I’m willing to defend the ideals of this nation if it comes to that. I’ve had a good life. I’m a free man and I will not live on my knees in service of anybody or anything but my conscience. It’s a race now. We shall see. Whichever way it goes, I’ll deal with it on my terms. I’m not heroic, but I see no alternative but to resist these garbage mfers every way I can. The worst part is that people of this low caliber have gotten this far. Don’t comply. Don’t give in. Courage.
Know what I’d love? An excoriating Chris Bray analysis of the nauseating Kennedy Awards. Bono kissing Pelosi’s withered hand and gushing about President Biden. Fauci being applauded as he walked the red carpet. Biden parading his degenerate son around as if to say, he’s untouchable, people. It’s like the golden handcuffs between politicians and Hollywood are just laid bare now, even though we all knew they were there. Had a Hunger Games vibe to it. The plebs will have to kill each other, by design, so they don’t get angry about the excesses of the criminal class. And this so-called glorified med student is just one of their soldiers in the field.
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
I don't know if I would survive direct contact with that.
Well, that’ll suffice, then! 😂😂
I don't remember when The Hunger Games was released, but I remember thinking at the time that it perfectly described the attitude of the Washington DC "elites" towards the rest of us. The situation has only gotten worse since then.
I saw Hunger Games for the first time last summer. Apart from the games themselves, I saw it as a cautionary tale.
"But it frequently succeeds for a while, which grants the illusion of success, and it succeeds as a general shaping of discourse while invariably reaching failure in particular cases" --And then Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Spokes-Diversity Hire, can say it's all "old news" and we're all supposed to keep playing along and pretending that these were all trivial mistakes made with the best of intentions.
But, but, but, "pretending that these were all trivial mistakes made with the best of intentions." is the OFFICIAL narrative, which may not be questioned. Ever.
Totschlagargument = assassination argumentation / thought-terminating cliché. As always it sounds better in the original German.
Gimme the Hoeg Hag over the Neitzel Nazi any day of the week
Same!
Brilliant insights. It helps me understand the behaviour of my local Member of Parliament. If you point something factual but inconvenient out to him - like how FoI releases show that what the government is claiming on transmission is inaccurate - he responds with some bizarrely unrelated slogan from two years ago. It's utterly infuriating. No amount or quality of evidence can shift his opinion. This article (and the first one one it points to from last year) helps me understand. There's no thought going on, and certainly no discourse. Just empty words from a high class who feel entitled to rule. As you say, it's "the end of thought as a tool of authority". Thank you for helping me comprehend something that has been very difficult to accept.
I'm glad you exposed this woman for being a fraud. We still have to challenge all of these people spewing their dishonesty and lies, otherwise, the low information populace thinks they are correct and we are the crazy ones. That's the whole point of censorship.
You do a great job of poking fun at them, so keep it up. Also, I hope more people write or in their podcasts and TV appearances make fun of these crazy and insane people, because they are mostly very ill and in need of help: others are sociopaths, psychopaths, and/or simply evil. They need to be exposed.
Danny Huckabee
Brilliantly written! True insight into our current state of affairs. Much appreciate your candor and willingness to share surgically precise prose.
Welcome to the dystopian culture of “sound bites”. An endless sea of arrogant, thoughtless, entitled, performative, platitudes.
And that's the problem with Twatter. It's an endless sea of arrogant, thoughtless, entitled, performative children that weren't forced to grow up spewing their thoughtless platitudes to others like them and getting the people that disagree with them censored.
By being extremely aggressive rhetorically, you put everyone else back on their heels, and reacting to you. I guess this is, in part, what people refer to as shifting the Overton window.
My all time (for now) favourite quote (which surpassed Ed Koch's "I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you") is from Hobbe's Leviathan: "Words are wise men's counters, and they do but recon by then, but they are the money of fools."
When it's all said and done - after the soyjaks have had their Twatter dogpile and moved on to the new pronouns - do the likes of Neitzel and Sheridan actually 'move the chains'?
It seems to me that all they actually do is run down the play clock - which for them means getting to the end of the day/meeting without being on the receiving end of a zinger.
In their weltanschauung, what happens after that is effectively discounted to zero.
If they actually influence anybody - i.e., (for Neitzel) actually change a single mind from 'neutral' to 'give me another booster' - then that mind has got to be pretty empty... so how did it end up 'neutral'?
It seems to me that they don't change even the dullest mind. They preach to their respective choirs, who are people that 'our' side is not going to reach anyhow because they are not operating epistemically. They are not interested in arguments (a lot of them literally think that the word 'argument' means that everyone's yelling).
That's why both sides spend mental energy trying to get their inner "Big Bang Theory" scriptwriter to emerge: that if they could just come up with a perfect zinger then their side would sweep the field. [DISCLOSURE: I've never watched BBT, but I am reliably informed that it's basically half-smart 'zingers' for 42 minutes, interspersed with advertisements. I'm a 'Ren & Stimpy' kind of guy so maybe it's just Space Madness...]
Anyhow... as the Grand Thingy stuff shows (re the Obese Karen from the Parent-Teacher thing), the doxastic playbook doesn't move the chains.
Neitzel and Sheridan may as well be in the stands with the rest of the schlubs, for all they actually achieve.
Compare this with a 'malign actor' who actually got shit done: SBF.
That guy moved some motherfucking chains, despite playing "do dat fraud" in the most obvious way imaginable.
He might just get away with it - because in the death throes of the US-centred Empire of Lies, "criminal justice" has the same oxymoronic quality as "military intelligence" or "public health" or "Pfizer research".
That said: I am 1 or 2 °KB from some of the people he ripped off. In their sphere, getting hosed is a price of doing business - but they're not happy when it's so brazen.
These are people who have goons... goons who wear black leather jackets and have facial scars and say "BLYAT!" if they get some guy's tooth stuck in a knuckle.
SBF better hope he goes to US prison, is what I'm sayin'.
Neitzel doesn't move the chain a fraction of a millimeter, which is why I wasn't sure if I should even mention her existence, which adds up to a bunch of tweets with four likes, forever. Highly ignorable person, and I'm semi-sorry I told people about her.