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Ezra comes off as exactly the type of entitled elitist that conservatives routinely congure of democrats.
While I might agree with him about this particular issue, i end up really not wanting to acknowledge it because he's a smarmy prick who pretends to be unfamiliar with political distinctions while presenting pretty tired conservative policy as if it's normie common sense.
But, yea - in general I think it's past time for democrats to start twisting nipples and stuffing lockers
"Stop acting like this is normal" says rag sane washing every step in our descent to fascism
Seriously. I am having trouble finding the Reddit AMA from before the election (which is its own little brand of worrying), where one of the New York Times editors was asked why they were so hyper-critical of Biden on a few different valid bases, but willing to give a broad free pass to Trump on many objectively horrifying things he was doing or planning. And they basically said, well Trump's popular and Biden is not, so we're reflecting that reality, it's okay if you don't understand news you're not a professional like me 😎.
I'm glad if they found their voice now that it's more or less too late, but I still admit to a little bit of guilty desire to see Trump's goons smash up their offices or something, so that maybe they'll take the lesson a little more thoroughly to heart, and fucking remember next time what their fucking job is.
NYT is not a hive mind. Though they did approve the op-ed and they do employ Ezra Klein, so they consider his views within an acceptable range.
So they span all the way from the right to the center? Klein is all for that kind of liberalism that believes deregulated corporations can save the USA. He's at best a centrist, and he has some views in common with the right.
I consider them more center left overall but obviously that’s a subjective assessment. They do publish some leftish voices but the higher ups definitely have a certain institutional bent, especially on certain issues. And their coverage on Israel has been particularly slanted, although I think it has gotten slightly better since 2023 when they were being widely criticized on the topic.
NYT is only center-left within the American political spectrum. In any normal democracy they'd be a pretty staunchly conservative paper. They have a long history of cheering for all kinds of American imperialism (Nicaragua -> Iraq War -> drone strikes, with Israel as a consistent through line) and they have a long history of shitting on or downplaying candidates who are more or less smack in line with the country's population's general political alignment (Bernie Sanders / Mamdani), because they are way too far left for the media's political alignment.
God damn this lazy-ass reply is frustrating. Did you even read the article? Yes, The Times news reporting story selection and neutrality has sucked at times. Do I wish that it called out the truth like The Guardian regularly does? Sure. Is it a rag? No.
But in this article Klein is saying everything that this community has been saying for months, short of advocating for violence or secession, and you're criticizing him for it. It's the definition of splitting.
He calls out Schumer and Jeffries directly as weak and complicit, and is saying we are in an authoritarian regime and we need to fight it.
The 2026 midterms are 14 months away. The machinery of the state is being organized to entrench Republican power through redistricting, to control information, to punish and harass enemies, to create a masked paramilitary force roaming the streets and carrying out Trump’s commands. Do you just let that roll forward and hope for the best?
I’m not going to tell you I am absolutely sure Democrats should shut the government down. I’m not. [Because he's not confident Democrats are competent enough and have enough courage to weather it.] At the same time, joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It’s complicity.
I did skim through, it's entirely focused on the Democrat failure as opposition with no acknowledgement of his/his employers culpability on hyper-normalization. If he cares so much, he could do something with his platform beyond hitting the same worn out Democrat punching bad that they've hammered for decades.
Do you think he's in favor of an authoritarian regime in control of the United States?
If the answer is no, then a purity test that requires him to apologize to you for your opinion of him before he can agree with you is counterproductive to the cause of moving the fearful centrists that read the NY Times (including him and most of their columnists) closer to realizing that radical action is necessary to fix this country. People are not perfect and you will never be satisfied if you demand perfection from them.
Shutting the government down for a long period of time is the least-radical radical action they can take. After that fails, they'll continue to put all their hopes in the election. They resist acknowledging the reality that no institutions will save us because it's a fucking scary realization. Once elections fail, they'll either acknowledge the need for radical action or they'll abandon all hope and submit. My hope is that showing them repeated failures using the institutions they put their faith in will convince them of the former. The clarity that comes with acknowledging it can make fearful people courageous.
Has the NY Times and just about every other media outlet done real harm? Yes. Do the fearful centrists that we need on our side still pay attention to them? Also yes.
My point is Klein is moving in the right direction.
Ezra Klein, a man who's entire career is based upon normalizing the decline of liberalism, a champion of normalizing the genocide in Gaza, is now going to lecture us all about normalizing fascism.
He's going to be deemed right-wing enough to be treated seriously. Its a big deal because of that
Half of America keeps trying to gaslight the other half. They think we're chicken little, sounding the alarms over nothing, even though the Republicans directly told us the horrible things they'd do and are doing them
But it’s been about six months since Schumer decided that it wasn’t the time for a fight, that neither he nor the country was ready. Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with a plan. If there’s a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders.
We already know the Democrats need new leaders. Or more precisely, they need leaders, period.
Schumer and Jeffries aren't leaders - they're high-ranking tools.
That's what they've demonstrated with their treatment of Mamdani. They hold the positions they hold because they have no principles and no integrity - because they're owned by the donors and can be counted on to serve the interests of the donors regardless of any other considerations.
And for the time being at least, the donors - even the most generally leftist of them - aren't sufficiently opposed to what Trump is doing. They'd probably rather the tyrants have [D]s after their names than [R]s, and they're undoubtedly personally offended by Trump, since he's petulant and gauche and gross, but they don't have any particular opposition really to a program to benefit the wealthy few (which necessarily includes themselves) at the expense of the common people (which is just a bunch of shabby people they don't know), so while they'd certainly welcome efforts to make Trump look bad, they're not really committed to stopping him. And I guarantee that some significant number of them are already daydreaming about what they'll be able to do if/when the power that Trump has accumulated falls into the hands of a Democrat.
And again - Schumer and Jeffries are their tools. We already see that with their refusal to support Mamdani.
And I have little doubt that we'll continue to see it in their failure to meaningfully oppose Trump.
Ezra Klein is hosting a conference promoting his book "Abundance" and it's literally filled with fascists, including one speaker who wrote an article advocating "deportation abundance."
https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/115148453618577031
He just doesn't like the aesthetics of the current admin but he is onboard to build more detention centers and less regulation for corporations.
Anyone who looks at the current problems in the US and comes away with the conclusion that the primary problem is over-regulation is a fucking idiot, has an agenda, or both.
Hell, NY Times helped to give us Taco, both times.
Maybe stop acting like this is new?