4 ms·

Taibbi hasn't leaned left in quite some time and that may be why you like reading his articles.

stickfigure 4y ago
This statement is basically true. I always enjoyed Taibbi at least in part because he was pretty hard to pin down politically. But lately his substack has been nonstop Trump apologia. I just couldn't take it anymore and unsubscribed. My suspicion is that his grey-tribeism is genuine, but the red-tribe content is what pays the bills at substack.
- spurgu 4y ago
  I still don't see the bias? In this case it's clearly that the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right, so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice. TDS is a real thing, I was subject to that myself for years. I still think he's a narcissistic shitbag but a lot of stuff was just completely overblown. See, now I'm being Trump apologetic as well even though I've been clearly left-leaning for most of my life.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    I too, am sober, on average. I've been sober all my life, I was a teetotaller until 2016 when I developed a 4-drinks-a-day habit which persists to this day. I've been clearly sober dor most of my life though.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Left leaning isn’t “the left”. I skimmed the writing. It was about the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party and many Dems believe in liberalism and are within reach of being a moderate. The party leans left socially. No more than that. TDS was never a real thing amongst the left. It was and is generally a thing amongst liberal Dems and some Repubs. The Lincoln Project is a propaganda PAC attacking TDS and is a great example. It’s by establishment Republicans who have close to the same policies as Trump but want control of the GOP back. A lot of liberal and/or moderate Democrats approve of the Lincoln Project. Too many times have friends been gleeful over their propaganda. The left did not and is not going to be part of any TDS BS. I consider myself far left and have far more Trump apologetics to say than TDS is overblown. > the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right, so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice If I may, this is a centrist point of view. Since the left isn’t in the picture, it’s moderates vs the right. How can a call for integrity be to stand with the right when it isn’t binary? Why not stand with the left? Or even just left leaning American politics like Bernie and the squad. Who are Democratic Socialists. Not even on the left economically. They believe in the Nordic capitalist system. This is one option to stand with and we still haven’t gotten to the left yet. Any one could also stand with the left in these circumstances. Right off the bat we have four options to choose from. With those options, in my humble opinion 99% of the time it takes no integrity to side with the right if youre a left leaning.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    > In this case it's clearly that the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right. How so? In my eyes this is a case for a corrupt businessman that uses political ties for his gains. That’s pretty right wing isn’t it. At the very least there is no critique of capitalism, quite the contrary.
    - spurgu 4y ago
      Only if you look at it in a vacuum. Given that most of Silicon Valley (esp. Twitter moderators) supported democrats, bringing in Musk mostly balances the equation rather tilting it from neutral to the right. I also find it interesting that freedom of speech has seemingly become a right-wing talking point.
      - eggnet 4y ago
        > freedom of speech has seemingly become a right-wing talking point Because hate speech and misinformation is part of the right wing platform...
        spurgu 4y ago
        That kind of thinking will definitely not help you be able to put the whole puzzle together.
      - runarberg 4y ago
        > bringing in Musk mostly balances the equation rather tilting it from neutral to the right This is ignoring voter manipulation which was a big part of the 2016 election (as proven by the Cambridge Analytica leaks among other) tilting the voter to the right (see also e.g. brexit’s leave campaign illegal campaign financing and other dodgy behavior). Compared to these—often flat out illegal—actions by the right, moderating hate speech is nothing.
        spurgu 4y ago
        Compared to democrats calling anything negative towards them "Russian disinformation"? I'd say it's two stupid monkeys throwing poo at each other. Stop demonizing.
  - michaelgrosner2 4y ago
    > so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice On the one hand, the leading Presidential candidate on the right has within the last 24 hours said he wants to suspend the Constitution and be reinstated President by dictate on social media. On the other hand, some people were constantly posting he was saying mean things, and some executives at a social media company tried to handle some things. Totally gotta stand on the side of balance!
- macinjosh 4y ago
  People like Taibbi and Greenwald have not changed their principles one iota. The rest of the left was driven so crazy by the MAGA movement that principles went out the window in 2016. Trump got down in the mud, no surprise, but the left got right down there with him by denying the results of the 2016 election and using US intelligence apparatus to push a conspiracy theory (among other things). Meanwhile, the sensible people are just looking around at each other shaking their heads wishing you all would just stop.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    Can you tell me what you mean by “the left [...] denying the results of the 2016 election”? Are you talking about the theory of Russian interference? If so, that is not the same as denying the results, that is questioning the integrity. The difference is huge. The later calls into question bad actors and asks for reforms going forward, the former calls into action the removal of the elected president in favor of the looser. Now as for the conspiracy of meddling with the election. I thought that was pretty well documented fact. We have stuff like the Cambridge Analytica leaks that show actual manipulation of voters.
    - hammock 4y ago
      +1 to this. Hillary Clinton even said as much in her concession speech
    - macinjosh 4y ago
      There is no difference when the end result is destroying people's trust in elections. You are clearly biased. Maybe you should look into how the US meddles in foreign elections. It is something countries do to each other. Russia has always done that and so have we. There was nothing special about 2016. These complaints about CA are the left's equivalent of when the right says there is mass voter fraud because of one or two minor instances of election fraud.
      - runarberg 4y ago
        > destroying people's trust in elections. I don’t understand, do you think we should have blind trust in election, that there shouldn’t be partisan and independent observers, that security measures shouldn’t be scrutinized? And if we find a fault, we shouldn’t call for reforms. We should just “trust” the system? No, this is not the same as denying the results without evidence. There is no equivalence here.
- refurb 4y ago
  He’s not a Trump apologist. He hates Trump and criticizes him to no end. But he’s not so tribal that he pushes fabrications and half-truths. If you think a left-wing person who says “whoa, Trump is terrible but lying about him only makes the left look bad” means someone is no longer left wing, we have some serious problems.
2devnull 4y ago
The same would be true of Chomsky, if it were true. But it’s not. Supporting Biden is not something a leftist would do. Sorry, but you need to zoom out and read some history.
kcplate 4y ago
I think it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t lean as left as he used to…relatively speaking. He is pretty much consistent, it’s just the left has pushed further left and this has made him seem to move right. Yes…just like the comic Elon tweeted describing his views.
refurb 4y ago
I assume your definition of left means “never ever say anything positive about the other side even if it’s true”. He’s still left, I still disagree with him but at least he’s intellectually honest (which appears to be the problem you have with him).

This statement is basically true. I always enjoyed Taibbi at least in part because he was pretty hard to pin down politically. But lately his substack has been nonstop Trump apologia. I just couldn't take it anymore and unsubscribed. My suspicion is that his grey-tribeism is genuine, but the red-tribe content is what pays the bills at substack.

spurgu 4y ago
I still don't see the bias? In this case it's clearly that the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right, so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice. TDS is a real thing, I was subject to that myself for years. I still think he's a narcissistic shitbag but a lot of stuff was just completely overblown. See, now I'm being Trump apologetic as well even though I've been clearly left-leaning for most of my life.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  I too, am sober, on average. I've been sober all my life, I was a teetotaller until 2016 when I developed a 4-drinks-a-day habit which persists to this day. I've been clearly sober dor most of my life though.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Left leaning isn’t “the left”. I skimmed the writing. It was about the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party and many Dems believe in liberalism and are within reach of being a moderate. The party leans left socially. No more than that. TDS was never a real thing amongst the left. It was and is generally a thing amongst liberal Dems and some Repubs. The Lincoln Project is a propaganda PAC attacking TDS and is a great example. It’s by establishment Republicans who have close to the same policies as Trump but want control of the GOP back. A lot of liberal and/or moderate Democrats approve of the Lincoln Project. Too many times have friends been gleeful over their propaganda. The left did not and is not going to be part of any TDS BS. I consider myself far left and have far more Trump apologetics to say than TDS is overblown. > the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right, so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice If I may, this is a centrist point of view. Since the left isn’t in the picture, it’s moderates vs the right. How can a call for integrity be to stand with the right when it isn’t binary? Why not stand with the left? Or even just left leaning American politics like Bernie and the squad. Who are Democratic Socialists. Not even on the left economically. They believe in the Nordic capitalist system. This is one option to stand with and we still haven’t gotten to the left yet. Any one could also stand with the left in these circumstances. Right off the bat we have four options to choose from. With those options, in my humble opinion 99% of the time it takes no integrity to side with the right if youre a left leaning.
- runarberg 4y ago
  > In this case it's clearly that the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right. How so? In my eyes this is a case for a corrupt businessman that uses political ties for his gains. That’s pretty right wing isn’t it. At the very least there is no critique of capitalism, quite the contrary.
  - spurgu 4y ago
    Only if you look at it in a vacuum. Given that most of Silicon Valley (esp. Twitter moderators) supported democrats, bringing in Musk mostly balances the equation rather tilting it from neutral to the right. I also find it interesting that freedom of speech has seemingly become a right-wing talking point.
    - eggnet 4y ago
      > freedom of speech has seemingly become a right-wing talking point Because hate speech and misinformation is part of the right wing platform...
      - spurgu 4y ago
        That kind of thinking will definitely not help you be able to put the whole puzzle together.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      > bringing in Musk mostly balances the equation rather tilting it from neutral to the right This is ignoring voter manipulation which was a big part of the 2016 election (as proven by the Cambridge Analytica leaks among other) tilting the voter to the right (see also e.g. brexit’s leave campaign illegal campaign financing and other dodgy behavior). Compared to these—often flat out illegal—actions by the right, moderating hate speech is nothing.
      - spurgu 4y ago
        Compared to democrats calling anything negative towards them "Russian disinformation"? I'd say it's two stupid monkeys throwing poo at each other. Stop demonizing.
- michaelgrosner2 4y ago
  > so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice On the one hand, the leading Presidential candidate on the right has within the last 24 hours said he wants to suspend the Constitution and be reinstated President by dictate on social media. On the other hand, some people were constantly posting he was saying mean things, and some executives at a social media company tried to handle some things. Totally gotta stand on the side of balance!
macinjosh 4y ago
People like Taibbi and Greenwald have not changed their principles one iota. The rest of the left was driven so crazy by the MAGA movement that principles went out the window in 2016. Trump got down in the mud, no surprise, but the left got right down there with him by denying the results of the 2016 election and using US intelligence apparatus to push a conspiracy theory (among other things). Meanwhile, the sensible people are just looking around at each other shaking their heads wishing you all would just stop.
- runarberg 4y ago
  Can you tell me what you mean by “the left [...] denying the results of the 2016 election”? Are you talking about the theory of Russian interference? If so, that is not the same as denying the results, that is questioning the integrity. The difference is huge. The later calls into question bad actors and asks for reforms going forward, the former calls into action the removal of the elected president in favor of the looser. Now as for the conspiracy of meddling with the election. I thought that was pretty well documented fact. We have stuff like the Cambridge Analytica leaks that show actual manipulation of voters.
  - hammock 4y ago
    +1 to this. Hillary Clinton even said as much in her concession speech
  - macinjosh 4y ago
    There is no difference when the end result is destroying people's trust in elections. You are clearly biased. Maybe you should look into how the US meddles in foreign elections. It is something countries do to each other. Russia has always done that and so have we. There was nothing special about 2016. These complaints about CA are the left's equivalent of when the right says there is mass voter fraud because of one or two minor instances of election fraud.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      > destroying people's trust in elections. I don’t understand, do you think we should have blind trust in election, that there shouldn’t be partisan and independent observers, that security measures shouldn’t be scrutinized? And if we find a fault, we shouldn’t call for reforms. We should just “trust” the system? No, this is not the same as denying the results without evidence. There is no equivalence here.
refurb 4y ago
He’s not a Trump apologist. He hates Trump and criticizes him to no end. But he’s not so tribal that he pushes fabrications and half-truths. If you think a left-wing person who says “whoa, Trump is terrible but lying about him only makes the left look bad” means someone is no longer left wing, we have some serious problems.

2devnull 4y ago

The same would be true of Chomsky, if it were true. But it’s not. Supporting Biden is not something a leftist would do. Sorry, but you need to zoom out and read some history.

kcplate 4y ago

I think it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t lean as left as he used to…relatively speaking. He is pretty much consistent, it’s just the left has pushed further left and this has made him seem to move right. Yes…just like the comic Elon tweeted describing his views.

refurb 4y ago

I assume your definition of left means “never ever say anything positive about the other side even if it’s true”. He’s still left, I still disagree with him but at least he’s intellectually honest (which appears to be the problem you have with him).