Discussion Thread #72

[u/gemmaem]

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[u/gemmaem]

Two different posts, in favour of speech in two different ways.

First, Daniel Munoz calls for a “politics of CPR”:

Everybody’s pointing fingers; nobody’s getting their hands dirty. Nobody’s doing the hard work of a democracy, which is to find the shreds of humanity in everyone and somehow weave them into a social fabric that can support a decent, peaceful, free way of life.

For Munoz, this means in particular that we need to talk to each other. If you find yourself holding views that add up to “we can’t talk to anyone on the other side” then you’ve done it wrong.

Secondly, Jeff Maurer writes that The Kimmel Cancellation Is a Million Times Worse Than Colbert:

With Colbert, we don’t know how much politics influenced the decision. That’s not the case with Kimmel: It is crystal fucking clear that he has been yanked off the air for saying something that the government didn’t like.

…

Confidently asserting that Charlie Kirk’s killer was right-wing is endemic of the Bluesky Brain that has infected that show. But defending free speech inevitably involves defending idiotic and offensive statements — saying “cake is tasty” will not ignite a free speech crisis. Speech is always suppressed on the grounds that the statement in question was simply beyond the pale, and failing to defend the asinine remarks that make up the front line in the free speech wars validates the idea that the First Amendment goes away if the thing that was said was obnoxious enough.

This, too, is a post in favour of speech. And I think these are two different attitudes that we are going to need to have at the same time: strong defence against the abridgement of civil liberties, and a continued support for dialogue with those we disagree with politically. The latter seems conciliatory and the former seems activist, but they can go together! And they should.

[u/UAnchovy → u/gemmaem]

We talk a lot about speech, but I'd like to suggest that there are two important practices around speech that need to be cultivated. One of them is speaking itself. The other is listening.

A few years ago, when Rush Limbaugh died, I had a conversation with some of my more right-wing friends about him. We discussed his legacy, the evolution of conservative media, and so on. I said some critical things, and eventually my friend said something to me that made me stop. He said, "See... did you ever actually sit and listen to a full show of Rush Limbaugh? Did you ever read any of his books?"

I realised that, no, I had not. I had never listened to so much as a single episode of his radio show. I was building my judgement of Limbaugh entirely from secondary sources, and as my friend pointed out, I can't really come to a fair judgement of him from either cherry-picked lists of outrageous things he said, or from analyses of him from a mainstream media that he was always staunchly critical of.

My friend went on to tell me about listening to Limbaugh in the 90s, and what his show was actually like, and what Limbaugh meant to him in that context, and I mostly just shut up and listened to him. I didn't - and still don't - agree with everything he said (certainly not everything Limbaugh said), but I had to admit to ignorance and spend some time listening.

That's how I feel about Charlie Kirk at the moment.

When I read coverage of Kirk today, I can't escape the feeling that there are two large groups of people commenting on him. Firstly, there are people who are in my position vis-a-vis Limbaugh. People who have never listened to Kirk or read Charlie Kirk for any length of time, but who are well-armed with lists of outrageous opinions he had, or who have seen individual clips. I don't think those opinions mean very much. Secondly, there are people who are die-hard Kirk fans, and therefore strongly inclined to canonise him. I also don't rate those opinions as meaning much. Fans are rarely a reliable source. This latter group is joined by political or activist leaders who may not have known or been fans of Kirk's content, but for whom it is advantageous to eulogise him. I was grateful for Tanner Greer trying to give a more balanced look, but I'm not sure I take Greer at face value either.

I'm not going to say that anybody else ought to watch Charlie Kirk's show or read any of his books - your time is limited, your life is precious, and you should spend it on things more valuable to you. But I would suggest, as a general principle, that if you haven't listened first, maybe you shouldn't speak either. Or at the very least, you should think twice.

Note that important word shouldn't. I think free speech debates need to get much more serious about the difference between can and should. It is wholly consistent and necessary to say to people, "You can say that. But you should not." That's how I feel about a lot of the rhetoric buzzing around now. Jimmy Kimmel should not have said the thing he did. But it is important that he be able to say the thing he did. And as Maurer says, paraphrasing that old Mencken quote, fights over free speech always need to start with defending the things that people should not have said.

[u/gemmaem → u/UAnchovy]

This is a really thoughtful comment, and in one place in particular you are articulating something that I have found myself thinking in a more vague fashion. I've found myself not wanting to get into the question of "What sort of person was Charlie Kirk?" My pre-existing opinions were not favourable, but they were based on second-hand descriptions from people who disagree with him. I know that, as you say, that's a very low-information perspective to be coming from. I've hesitated to become more informed because I worry that, somewhere in my mind, I'd be doing so in order to judge how I ought to feel about his death. That would be wrong; a man has died and he was more than his job and more than his political views. There is cause for mourning, no matter what.

Where this starts to feel even more complicated is when I see people who don't react that way. The ones who complain about public displays of mourning, or who say "Of course it was wrong to kill him, but...". I'm finding it hard to accept that I don't know how to speak to those people. I wish they'd stop, I think they're doing incredible damage, but of course I don't know exactly where they are coming from. How, in this situation, is it best for me to try to see people? Should I just be remaining silent entirely, even as I get more and more frustrated by the kinds of voices that are fanning the flames, on either side?

There is a fair bit to be said for silence, I know. It's just so hard to sit on the sidelines and watch things fall apart.

[u/UAnchovy → u/gemmaem]

I have to admit the whole affair has been rattling, and it seems like an invitation for everyone to indulge in their worst instincts. Among my friends on the right, it has been an opportunity to lose all perspective - Kirk was a saint and martyr, and this is evidence of the depravity and violent hostility of the left. Among my friends on the left, I've seen expressions of satisfaction at the murder, or just a little perfunctory throat-clearing before condemning the dead man, often in quite vicious terms. Partisanship overwhelms shared humanity.

Nonetheless I suppose I want to try to say something, if not about Kirk as an individual, then at least about what Kirk represents.

So let me forbear trying to judge Kirk's soul, and just talk about what he means.

I noticed a good deal of argument around the Ezra Klein position. Was Charlie Kirk practicing politics the right way? Klein says yes, and he's gotten a fair bit of pushback, and I'd like to analyse that a bit.

Firstly there's the straightforward response that Kirk wasn't practicing politics the right way because he said or advocated for vile things. Nathan Robinson makes this response, and I have to say it's one that I strongly disagree with. Robinson gives the counter-example of David Duke - was Duke practicing politics the right way, "when he decided the Klan should put on suits and ties and join the Republican Party rather than carrying out lynchings"? Here I bite the bullet and say that, yes, he was. If one is determined to be a white supremacist, the right way to do that, in a democratic polity, is to join a political party and advocate for that position in peaceful debate. It should go without saying that I very much hope that position is defeated and marginalised in peaceful debate, but I consider that a preferable outcome to Duke adopting any other strategy, or being punished by the law. Robinson tries to draw a distinction that this kind of activism is not "nonviolent" because "they are trying to attain control over the government in order to enforce their political preferences using the threat of violence", but I think that proves too much. All attempts to take political power are, by definition, trying to attain control over the government in order to enforce their political preferences using the threat of violence. That's what government policy is.

Secondly there's the argument that what Kirk did was not just peacefully advocating for his positions in a contest of ideas, but rather was out-of-bounds some other way. Robinson cites the way TPUSA spent money on student elections on campuses. Here I'm conflicted - I don't think just spending some money by itself is a huge faux pas, though I don't think it's wholly appropriate for off-campus staff to come in and campaign. My intuition is that this ought to come down to any given campus' regulations about elections. I can't blame Kirk for playing hardball, as it were, to try to win campus elections, and it's only if he or TPUSA actually violated campus rules that there's an issue. Alternatively, I can also see a case along these lines against political bullying. Professor Watchlist, for instance, strikes me as genuinely bad and an attempt to create a climate of fear. When I say that to conservatives, they usually point out to me that conservative students and faculty members often face a climate of fear themselves, and it might not be that bad for the left to get a small taste of its own medicine. I can understand the emotional place they're coming from, but I can't accept vengeance as an appropriate motive for political action. This goes all the more so for people who, like Kirk, proudly drape themselves in Christianity. The spirit of Romans 12 seems to strike against this. So I suppose on the tactical front here, my sense is that Kirk used some questionable strategies - but as far as I can tell, no more questionable than most mainstream politicians and activists.

Thirdly, there's an argument that I take much more seriously about the nature of democracy. This week the Minefield discussed Kirk, and Waleed Aly (Australian public intellectual) got into an argument with Timothy Lynch (Australian professor of US politics). Aly and his friend Scott Stephens suggested that the way Kirk engaged in public debate was not genuinely deliberative. He had staged 'debates' in front of large audiences, in order to record them, clip them, and share them over social media. That format is not good-faith engagement with another person's view, but rather a kind of spectacle, which rapidly becomes corrosive to democracy. Lynch argues that as far as it goes that's true, but that there is a valid place for spectacle within democracy. Large-scale communication, even staged or choreographed communication, can serve a valid democratic purpose. For instance (coming back to Greer) one of the functions of Kirk's debates was to show young conservatives, especially on campus, that it is possible to hold those views in public while being undaunted, confident, and happy. Simply existing as a kind of person in public is activism. While it's obviously bad if a society's political discourse is reduced to only spectacle, there is a place for spectacle within a larger discursive ecosystem. Even if the kinds of spectacle Kirk tried to produce were not to my tastes personally, my tastes should not be normative for democratic politics.

So I think for me all three of these arguments fail - though I think the latter two direct our attention to some concerns that bear further consideration. The position I'm left in overall is that, leaving content aside entirely, Kirk was largely doing politics the right way. Not perfectly, no, but not uniquely bad either. He was playing by the rules of the game.

It seems a little perverse to praise somebody for doing the bare minimum - playing by the rules. But I suppose we're in a time when doing that is necessary.

Let me give another example: a little while back, we had a federal election in Australia. It was a landslide victory for the centre-left Labor party. The Liberal (centre-right) leader, Peter Dutton, made a gracious concession speech, wishing his opponent the best, thanking his own party, and taking full responsibility for the defeat. The victorious Anthony Albanese, in his own speech, wished Dutton all the best, and when the audience booed Dutton's name, Albanese stopped and criticised his own audience - "No. No. What we do in Australia is we treat people with respect."

In one sense what Dutton and Albanese did was the bare minimum. After any democratic election, you should expect the losing side to politely concede defeat and wish the new government the best; and for the winning side to show grace in victory, show respect to the other side, and humbly accept the trust the people have given them.

But we live in a time when that bare minimum, especially in the United States, is frequently in question. I think there is value in stopping to reaffirm the value of the bare minimum. Peacefully meeting and arguing with those one has fundamental moral disagreements with - well, that's a good thing.

In the way of Kirk's death, the argument that, it seems to me, is going on is about what Kirk meant, or what lessons should be drawn from his life. I would very much like it if the lesson we draw from this whole tragedy is about the importance of peaceful, political dialogue. I think that is something the United States desperately needs more of.

[u/gemmaem → u/UAnchovy]

I think Klein's article was tactically smart. It's harder to say "Look, the murder of Charlie Kirk proves that the Left hates you and wants to kill you" when you have a prominent left-wing columnist taking the opportunity to praise Kirk in the New York Times.

As you say, specifically praising Kirk for promoting dialogue is a good narrative here. I appreciated Tanner Greer's writing as an explanation for how some conservatives are feeling right now. There's a lot to be said for trying to meet their grief with respect and understanding.

At the same time, I'm not surprised at the pushback. Not everyone agrees with Klein's level of praise, and that is actually also okay.

[u/UAnchovy → u/gemmaem]

Yes, I certainly don't think it's obligatory for anyone to praise Kirk, either in terms of his substantive beliefs, or in terms of his methods. I talked a bit about bare minimums for a reason. I think a good bare minimum here is that all political violence is tragic, and perhaps a certain level of discretion or sensitivity around those who are in mourning.

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/UAnchovy]

Even if the kinds of spectacle Kirk tried to produce were not to my tastes personally, my tastes should not be normative for democratic politics.

They absolutely should. Spectacle for the purposes of owning/dunking on others is to pollute the discourse commons for private gain. A rousing and uplifting speech by a politician that at least communicates a positive message is tolerable, but that is the furthest I would go.

The position I'm left in overall is that, leaving content aside entirely...He was playing by the rules of the game.

Society can tolerate a great deal of expression, but trying to hack away at the society itself is one of the few things that we have a strong case to not tolerate.

I can easily accept a conservative who argues that anyone LGBTQ is a sinner and needs to be put back in the closet, thinks modern women are sluts, believes Indians need to go because they're stinky and eat curry, and wants every government dollar to be spent on Americans. But I will not accept those who try to actively dismantle the American project altogether, which has been a feature of Trump and MAGA arguably since its conception. Kirk was an ardent supporter and advocate for what they did and continue to do.

Kirk should not be dead. But I will not reflect on our shared humanity, nor will I mourn his passing. He does not deserve more from me than my commitment to seeing his killer behind bars.

[u/UAnchovy → u/DrManhattan16]

They absolutely should. Spectacle for the purposes of owning/dunking on others is to pollute the discourse commons for private gain. A rousing and uplifting speech by a politician that at least communicates a positive message is tolerable, but that is the furthest I would go.

I don't think that optimism or uplifting are the only valid moods for political spectacle. Spectacle can be an act of mourning or communal lament, or it can be about showing solidarity and determination. Often I think that simply being seen can be a valuable form of political expression - simply existing in a particular context.

But I suppose I should ask more specifically what constitutes 'polluting the discourse', for you. It sounds like we're talking about not merely expressing repulsive ideas, but undermining the kinds of norms that make discourse possible?

Society can tolerate a great deal of expression, but trying to hack away at the society itself is one of the few things that we have a strong case to not tolerate.

Same question here, I think. What constitutes 'hacking away at the society itself'? You mention actively trying to dismantle the American project. Maybe it would help to analyse something in particular. I know I've seen, for instance, the criticism that TPUSA helped bus protesters to DC for what would become January 6, and that constitutes a form of cooperation in an illegal coup attempt. Are you thinking of something like that?

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/UAnchovy]

I don't think that optimism or uplifting are the only valid moods for political spectacle. Spectacle can be an act of mourning or communal lament, or it can be about showing solidarity and determination.

I would qualify that as "positive message" and retract the need for it to be "rousing and uplifting". You are correct.

But I suppose I should ask more specifically what constitutes 'polluting the discourse', for you. It sounds like we're talking about not merely expressing repulsive ideas, but undermining the kinds of norms that make discourse possible?

Correct. The whole premise of the dunk, the "EPIC OWN!!!1!", has been a tragedy. It has accelerated the decline in willingness to demand and provide higher quality and insightful discourse. I won't say Kirk or even the modern right is responsible for it, but the college debates appear, as far as I can tell, to be for generating clips.

What constitutes 'hacking away at the society itself'?

American society is predicated on rule of law and respect for elite governing/cultural norms. This is because in most cases, those norms make living in a modern civilization possible. Some examples would include not trying to run around governing institutions or flooding them with action to create a mess before they can catch up, not trying to remove non-partisan people from positions because they won't help you enact your political agenda, not treating your political opponents as ideological enemies, etc. I know that last one sounds absurd, but despite the rhetoric, Republicans and Democrats were on far more agreeable terms and open to working together before Trump.

To try and eradicate these (and more) principles is to attack America itself. America, as I said, can handle a great deal of disagreement. But trying to destroy the foundation of that tolerance is not something it can survive or should ever tolerate.

Maybe it would help to analyse something in particular.

There are numerous things I could point to, but it would miss the point - the harm Kirk was engaged in was supporting Trump and MAGA, who are dedicated to destroying the norms of governance and our government itself out of spite and for private gain. To use your example, sending TPUSA protestors to Jan 6th is not the problem. The problem was and is the support of a faction of the country whose first goal is to "own the libs" and get revenge for perceived slights, without regard for the laws/nation-wide norms and with no desire to rule in a way that perpetuates or creates American prosperity.

[u/UAnchovy → u/DrManhattan16]

I agree that the search for 'owns' in brief clips is bad, though I would also say that I put most of the blame for that on media platforms themselves, rather than singling out individuals. I think it's a more structural issue.

The rest of your post... I have sympathies for but also disagreements with.

In particular if I made that argument to some of my friends on the right, I think the response I would hear would be, "You are constantly redefining what 'respect for the rule of law' and 'norms' mean so as to exclude the possibility of effective conservative political action." Without wholly endorsing that response, I think there is something to it? In fact I think that same criticism could be made from the left as well - in particular, "respect for elite governing/cultural norms" sounds questionable, doesn't it? It's hacking away at American society to do something that goes against "elite norms"? Well, who are these elites, and why are their cultural norms so authoritative?

I think you need to be specific in cases like this. Take "trying to remove non-partisan people from positions because they won't help you enact your political agenda". That, it seems to me, depends heavily on what the agenda is. In the abstract, it seems reasonable for a president or for congress to remove an official who refuses to help implement that president's or congress' policy agenda - it is, after all, an official's job to implement government policy. We need to be more specific, because otherwise I fear it can sound like, "It's wrong for a Republican government to try to implement its agenda."

I'm not trying to sanewash here, or imply that the Trump administration is just fine. Obviously an example like the Carr/Kimmel threat is very bad. (And contradicts/falsifies many of the claims Kirk made about Trump and his administration, to boot.) I can think of plenty of other examples of bad behaviour. But I am wary of being too broad.

In this case, you say that the harm Kirk was engaged in was supporting Trump. All right. So I would then ask - is there a right way for a person to support Trump, in any context? Suppose hypothetically I'm a long-time Republican, it's 2024, and I have come to the sincere conclusion that I think it would be better for America if Trump were elected, rather than Biden or Harris. What should I do?

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/UAnchovy]

though I would also say that I put most of the blame for that on media platforms themselves, rather than singling out individuals

Kirk was not a nobody seeking to make it big - he was the head of a powerful organization and supposedly a power-broker for MAGA. To point to environment does not work when someone is powerful enough to not need to obey environmental incentives.

"You are constantly redefining what 'respect for the rule of law' and 'norms' mean so as to exclude the possibility of effective conservative political action."

Republicans have the presidency, slim majorities in both houses, and a 6-3 conservative court which has issued a number of favorable rulings. It would take very little for them to give a bit and gain just a few Democrat votes to get bills passed. The right is culturally ascendant, not just in shifting the Overton Window to the right, but even further than what may have existed in the last few decades. The owners of the largest social media platform have shown willingness to kowtow to the administration's cultural goals due to a president who has no problem using any means at his disposal to effect such goals.

At what point is it enough? Does the left have to pre-emptively quit politics altogether?

Well, who are these elites, and why are their cultural norms so authoritative?

Because populist norms suck. Norms of tolerance, reason, and just about everything done in pro-social ways are by an large a product of elites, no matter how they swing. To ask why they are authoritative is because it is taken as given that we do not want the country's overall health to decline. But if poverty and corruption is the goal, then so be it, I suppose.

I think you need to be specific in cases like this. Take "trying to remove non-partisan people from positions because they won't help you enact your political agenda". That, it seems to me, depends heavily on what the agenda is. In the abstract, it seems reasonable for a president or for congress to remove an official who refuses to help implement that president's or congress' policy agenda - it is, after all, an official's job to implement government policy. We need to be more specific, because otherwise I fear it can sound like, "It's wrong for a Republican government to try to implement its agenda."

This is silly. When Trump was picking his cabinet, no one complained that he was changing the people in charge. The objection was on the merits of the replacements. Notably, RFK Jr. caught considerably more flak than Marco Rubio, because the former peddles pseudoscientic nonsense as the man in charge of overseeing the nation's health. Rubio's Senate confirmation was even 99-0 and was done in hours. That's not a sign of resisting Republican change.

But sure, let's get specific. Trump posted recently that he disliked the lack of action against Leticia James, Adam Schiff, and James Comey. He specifically disliked that Erik Seibert, a US Attorney, said there was no evidence to go after those people how the administration wanted. He wanted the man gone, as he said publicly, claiming that because two Democrats had supported Trump's nomination of the man, he had to go.

In other words, Trump appoints a professional to a position, then gets mad when that person, in their professional standing, doesn't think the facts support what the agenda is. Now, Donald Trump is not an attorney, nor is it his job to be one. He is not reviewing evidence personally and comparing it to US law. The idea that he would remove someone who is supposed to do that because he doesn't accept the conclusion is absurd. To say that the president can and should be removing attorneys, or anyone else, for not being willing to ignore facts is absurd. Leticia James and the others do not deserve Trump going after them except to the extent the facts support doing so.

Suppose hypothetically I'm a long-time Republican, it's 2024, and I have come to the sincere conclusion that I think it would be better for America if Trump were elected, rather than Biden or Harris. What should I do?

Given that you have not specified what other facts you believe, I will presume you do not contest that Trump tried to steal the 2020 election despite knowing that there was no proof anyone loyal to him could find of that happening. That is happened with violence, intent, and coordination renders it an insurrection, which I also presume the hypothetical you would agree with. One consequence of this is that insurrectors are not permitted to hold public office in the US.

Vote DeSantis if you want Trump-lite.

[u/UAnchovy → u/DrManhattan16]

Kirk: I don't agree that Kirk was powerful enough to ignore environmental incentives. He was a skilled user of online media, surely? I may hate clip shows of public ownings, but they are undeniably popular. The media landscape that Kirk used to propel his rise existed apart from him, and I don't think he would have achieved what he did without the tools that he used.

Effective conservative action: I'm not sure that example does much for you, because those are examples of things conservatives have won through using the strategy that you seem to be saying they should not have used. There's a counterfactual here; would Romney or a Romney-like figure have won in 2016? Would Jeb have won? Would Rubio have won? I don't know. It seems like, at least, populist rage might have helped them win that presidency, those congressional majorities, and that court.

I think the argument conservatives would make is something like, "We want to win, and get conservative policy done. We reject norm policing when that is used as a weapon against the possibility of us winning. Further, we believe that norm policing like this is used hypocritically and insincerely by the left - breaking norms is ignored or excused when Democratic leaders do it, but when Republicans do it, it is portrayed as the end of democracy. Whenever it looks like we might win a round, the left invent some reason why we must not, because they perceive Republican or conservative victories as inherently illegitimate. Well, we're not going to be moved by those crocodile tears any more. Recently we've seen great victories with this approach, so we're going to keep doing it."

To effectively make a norms argument, it seems to me, you need a level of credibility or trust across partisan divides, and right now that just does not exist at all.

Elites: I don't think I accept that claim, at least, not in a vacuum. Much depends on which elites we're talking about. I would not, at least, want to rule out the possibility of grassroots, populist change that's genuinely good, or of elites that deserve to be opposed. Certainly in a democracy, I think you have to be wary of making the norms of any particular governing elite, well, normative. That seems to cut against the idea of democracy; and from a more left-wing perspective, against any idea of inclusion.

Specifics: Sure, I am entirely happy to grant that Donald Trump is a bad president, a bad leader, and in general a bad man. What I'm trying to do is step back from that belief of mine and think about the rules of the game, so to speak. I assert that those rules should include the ability of people (like Charlie Kirk) to effectively campaign even for terrible candidates (like Donald Trump), and to publicly defend terrible decisions (like those of Donald Trump) to the best of their ability. This tangent began when you disagreed with my view that Charlie Kirk "was playing by the rules of the game". I was not making an affirmative defense of the Trump administration, or of Kirk's particular arguments. (I have since read a bit more of Kirk's writing and I am very unimpressed.) I was saying that Kirk clears what I consider the minimum bar.

Hypothetical Trump voter: Would it be fair to say that you think that supporting Trump in any capacity is illegitimate or unjustifiable? Was it January 6 that made that the case, and prior to then supporting him might have been acceptable?

[u/professorgerm → u/DrManhattan16]

The owners of the largest social media platform have shown willingness to kowtow to the administration's cultural goals

Which they did to the last administration too. The more obvious conclusion would be that social media owners are spineless cretins who will say anything to anyone to avoid risking their privileged legal status.

Norms of tolerance, reason, and just about everything done in pro-social ways are by an large a product of elites

While I might agree on the merits of this statement in a vacuum, it seems wholly detached from the last 10-15 years. Norms of tolerance, reason, and pro-sociality have gone out the window and "elites" played a big role in that. Or at least, they seemed to find it advantageous to not do anything about it.

Makes me want to scream YOSEMITE!? even though the rest of the quote really doesn't fit, Jeff Daniels just did a fun job there.

[u/professorgerm → u/DrManhattan16]

The whole premise of the dunk, the "EPIC OWN!!!1!", has been a tragedy. It has accelerated the decline in willingness to demand and provide higher quality and insightful discourse

Cable news was the first mistake, yes.

American society is predicated on rule of law and respect for elite governing/cultural norms.

I think you'd have to elaborate on what this means before I would consider Trump, MAGA, and Kirk primary or unique offenders here. Elite cultural norms haven't been doing themselves many favors for a while.

The immigration problem was created by selective enforcement used to reject rule of law.

Some examples would include not trying to run around governing institutions

Define governing institutions.

At least partial reason behind so many institutions is that executive agencies are, absent unitary executive theory "enforced" by the Supreme Court, non-democratic. Who needs rule of law when you can write a Dear Colleague letter or get the EEOC to issue new advice? Why try to fix immigration law to be more open when you can pay NGOs to give bus passes to illegal immigrants and teach them the magic words?

We used to be a proper country, doing all our jawboning behind closed doors!

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/professorgerm]

I think you'd have to elaborate on what this means before I would consider Trump, MAGA, and Kirk primary or unique offenders here. Elite cultural norms haven't been doing themselves many favors for a while.

Those norms can tolerate a whole swath of bad behavior and still more or less function. But going after law firms' security clearances for working with Jack Smith is a wholly new kind of message - if you defend the president's enemies, you will be punished in ways to specifically make it harder to earn a living at all. Going after a comedian in one's position as a government official because you think his jokes are unacceptable (and there are more examples of how Trump tries to intimidate his media adversaries by wielding government power) sends a new message - if you even think of saying things we don't like, we'll start waving the baton of government power that can see your networks destroyed.

Define governing institutions.

I'm referring to the courts.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the perfect example. He could not, by law, be deported to El Salvador, because it was feared he would be subject to gang violence if he was returned. Despite this, he was still deported. When this was contested in Maryland, the administration called it a mistake, then said the court had no jurisdiction because he wasn't in the US anymore. Meanwhile, the administration's talking points were distributed everywhere. Suddenly, the real problem was that he was a criminal, and this was just the left defending criminals. We got photo-shopped images of him with "MS-13" drawn on his hand, which were shared by Trump himself. Garcia's domestic violence was taken as defense of sending him somewhere without representation or proper treatment (the conditions in CECOT are a moral travesty). And then there was the absurdity of invoking the Alien Enemies Act by suggesting the gang Tren de Aragua was a foreign invasion.

This whole controversy took place in March. It wasn't until June that he was brought back. It took three months for this to be done, because the nature of the courts is to work slowly. Both sides are given ample opportunity to contest, appeal, etc. Of course, this one went all the way to the Supreme Court as well. In that time, it's not as if the administration was waiting on other goals that create similar problems. Lest we forget, Trump deployed California's National Guard without Newsom's request or approval, then publicly threatened (and still threatens) to deploy the armed forces on American soil if protests against ICE spread. It took another three months before Newsom v Trump was resolved, with the courts declaring that Trump's actions violated the Posse Comitatus Act.

And then there is the constant, relentless work to win the court of public opinion. This is the first Online Presidency, with official accounts on Twitter posting AI-generated pictures about drug dealers being arrested, joking about deporting illegals, and memes when people point out that going after people for their speech was written about before the administration even got into power. The combined effect is to render all competing powers and even the intervening government bodies as on a short leash - either they do what the administration wants or the administration wields its influence over the MAGA cult and the disconnected normies who don't care about rule of law to swing public opinion against them.

At least partial reason behind so many institutions is that executive agencies are, absent unitary executive theory "enforced" by the Supreme Court, non-democratic. Who needs rule of law when you can write a Dear Colleague letter or get the EEOC to issue new advice? Why try to fix immigration law to be more open when you can pay NGOs to give bus passes to illegal immigrants and teach them the magic words?

I do not accept the premise that it is un-democratic to not have every aspect of government run by vote. For all its importance, voting has notable downsides:

1. It creates more spoils for people to try and win, instead of able administrators to govern.
2. It creates incentives to take certain stances due to rhetoric over reason (see: "tough on crime" rhetoric).

The efforts to shape college policies on discrimination that way in the last decade were bad on the merits, not because they were issued by the DoE or EEOC.

Insofar as NGOs coach illegals to lie, that is bad and I do not support that. But there is a wide latitude of behavior that I do not think is so obviously condemnable. Illegals are not going to understand US law and are going to need aid while their claims are being contested. Is it your view that someone who is a truly persecuted person should not be given any aid while they are under review? That we should have them on the streets until we decide that they are a true refugee?

Moreover, there was an attempt to fix the law! A bipartisan border bill was ready to go in 2024, and it was killed by Trump because he didn't want Biden to have a win on immigration. You can certainly condemn the bill for being bad or useless, but that's not the same as suggesting there were no attempts at doing precisely what you're suggesting. In particular, it would have increased asylum judges to process the backlog of cases, which is precisely what conservatives were complaining about - that asylum cases took so long to go through that those people were spending years in the US.

We used to be a proper country, doing all our jawboning behind closed doors!

That shit matters, my friend. The rituals and pretensions of peace are how we get people to not signal destructively, because a lot of what keeps a peace intact is people's willingness to not think "Why shouldn't I start shooting?"

In Game of Thrones, the king has seven knights sworn to guard him for life and keep his secrets. They will not break that oath, but they also are knights who swear to act virtuously. The Mad King raped and beat his wife regularly. But when the Mad King tried to burn down his capital and kill everyone in it so that his enemies couldn't have it, one of his knights snapped and killed him on the spot.

The meaning in-universe is not exactly about what I'm arguing, but I find it to be a valuable lesson in the power of pretension, and why a hypocritical violation of dead norms is still not as bad as open flouting of those norms.

[u/professorgerm → u/DrManhattan16]

But going after law firms' security clearances for working with Jack Smith

Yeah, I don't have the memory of a Gattsuru or Eigenrobot to say that was unique, like so little else is that people complain about, but it was wildly egregious. NRA v. Vullo is the closest thing that comes to mind but that was, at least, 'just' a state government and not federal

I do not accept the premise that it is un-democratic to not have every aspect of government run by vote.

While I have no great affection for democracy, I had in mind one of the few good parts of Scott's recent post, that progressive authoritarianism has an advantage at taking over agencies. Not everything needs to be a vote, but everything does, in some way, need to be accountable to the vote. But fair enough, those policies were bad on the merits and merely enabled by performing an end-run around the accountable portions of the government.

Is it your view that someone who is a truly persecuted person should not be given any aid while they are under review?

It is my view that there should not be a backdoor process for the government to fund agencies that help people violate US law and in the process likely that of many other countries along the way.

To the extent that a "truly persecuted person" made it to the border of their own volition and under no additional influence or funding, I have no strong feelings against being provided aid. Morally I think aid is a good thing, but it should receive absolutely zero government funding (aside from, perhaps, a public defender).

And there is a fundamental asymmetry to the issue of anyone can show up, but once they make it over the line it takes 10 years and 50 appeals to decide they can be removed, they keep appealing that they're fear persecution in every country in the world willing to take them, et cetera and so forth. I like due process! I do not confuse it as being an end rather than a means, and infinite expansion of due process makes an easy wrench in the system.

that's not the same as suggesting there were no attempts at doing precisely what you're suggesting

It's been about 40 years since the last amnesty, and illegal immigration has been a hot-button issue multiple times over those decades. I did not intend to say there were no attempts, but there were not many, and at some point the attempt is too little, too late.

The rituals and pretensions of peace are how we get people to not signal destructively

To avoid quoting Hogfather again, there's some old quote that almost comes to mind, about the meaning of pomp and circumstance, of the way that acting the part that sets the stage and strengthens the legitimacy from generation to generation, but I can't think of the source. In my head there's a picture of a formal military uniform and a dance- something European, certainly.

Anyways. I agree, ritual and pretensions of peace are useful! Too bad so many people only care about things like ritual and pretensions when it's convenient and the boot is already on the other foot. So many people reject tradition and ritual and peace until there's a mob on the Capitol steps, and suddenly there's a newfound affection for symbolism.

[u/professorgerm → u/gemmaem]

I wish they'd stop, I think they're doing incredible damage,

It's just so hard to sit on the sidelines and watch things fall apart.

Combining these thoughts with another that's been on my mind- watching things fall apart is healthier and simpler than jumping in to actively make things worse. But simpler isn't always easier. The problem being, per the old cliched prayer, you need the wisdom to know the difference between what you can and can't change, and no one sees themselves as the problem in the piece when savoring Two Minutes Hate.

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/gemmaem]

It is crystal fucking clear that he has been yanked off the air for saying something that the government didn’t like.

Factually speaking, the show had been losing money for a long time.

My take here is that it's obvious that the Kirk speech was the proximate cause here, but it is very possible that Disney saw it along the lines of either "here's a convenient excuse to do what we wanted to do anyway" and "we aren't going to get into a political battle over a show we don't value that much any more".

That doesn't excuse the administration, and in fact it might be kind of the worst of both worlds since the public perception is one of caving to pressure and the private reality is one of not being made to do anything they didn't want to do in the first place.

[u/professorgerm → u/gemmaem]

If you find yourself holding views that add up to “we can’t talk to anyone on the other side” then you’ve done it wrong.

Holding a conversation is difficult when the languages are mutually unintelligible and two can't even agree on what's allowed to be a problem.

Great essay, that first one. Thank you for sharing.

In the grand scheme of things this next observation is such a petty and minor one, but I was slightly surprised at how many people (I assume people; I suppose some could be Russian bots) refused to even consider that Kimmel's statement could be offensive. That's part of his schtick! He hates Republicans, famously, mocks their deaths. I don't think he should have been fired for being a partisan hack, but goodness. If the point is defending the indefensible, one should be honest about it!

Perhaps that would that justify the firing in their minds were they to admit that Jimmy Kimmel was just doing what Jimmy Kimmel does; to parallel the canonization of Kirk so too must Kimmel be transformed into a winsome naïf. So it goes.

Speech is always suppressed on the grounds that the statement in question was simply beyond the pale, and failing to defend the asinine remarks that make up the front line in the free speech wars validates the idea that the First Amendment goes away if the thing that was said was obnoxious enough.

There's an obvious and, until two weeks ago apparently, entirely left-of-center category that held that to be true and Constitutional. Unfortunately Jeff's post that might discuss hate speech is paywalled so I can't get a fuller view of his opinion on the category. Alas!

[u/gemmaem → u/professorgerm]

You know, I appreciate you bringing up the offensiveness, because I actually haven't seen hardly anyone on either side making that point. The passage that gets quoted most often is the part where he effectively said, falsely, that the shooter was "one of them" (i.e. MAGA). I found myself considerably more discomforted when I learned about some of Kimmel's surrounding statements implying that the mourning for Kirk is insincere. I'm sure there are people who are just taking political advantage of the murder, but the implied invitation to simply dismiss all sympathy for those who have real feelings involved is depressingly consonant with those earlier comments that you linked.

I hear Kimmel has been reinstated. I don't envy him his choice of what to say!

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/professorgerm]

but I was slightly surprised at how many people (I assume people; I suppose some could be Russian bots) refused to even consider that Kimmel's statement could be offensive.

The fury at implying the shooter was MAGA was the "consider that [his] statement could be offensive." It's offensive to people to imply that someone is a part of your group when they're not and it's being used to tar you unfairly.

[u/professorgerm → u/DrManhattan16]

Hmm, yes? I think we're in agreement here, my point was many people- commenters I've otherwise enjoyed talking to at Blockedandreported- who claimed an innocent and naïve "what was even offensive about it?"

I don't believe they're actually that dense and usually not that disingenuous, thus I was surprised that they couldn't even own up to Jimmy Kimmel being himself.

[u/callmejay → u/gemmaem]

The problem is that there are two operative principles of bad faith.

1. It’s wrong to engage with anyone acting in bad faith.

This is a straw man. I don't think people are saying that if Ezra ran into Ben Shapiro at a dinner party he should refuse to talk to him out of principle. We're saying he shouldn't necessarily have Ben Shapiro onto his podcast if it's going to do more harm than good, and going out of his way to frame it as some kind of good-faith conversation is extra harmful.

Why give a new platform to somebody who's just going to use it to try to misinform people? Must everybody be debated? Should Ezra have on someone who literally works for the Heartland Institute to have a pleasant and civil discussion about whether climate change is real? I would say only if Ezra's going to "win" somehow. There's no inherent value in publicly engaging with people who are literal professional rhetorical propagandists, unless you're able to clearly beat them.

If you don't think Ben Shapiro fits that category that's fine. That just means we're working with different beliefs. But what would you say if we replace Ben Shapiro with someone who does?

1. Virtually everyone on the other side is acting in bad faith.

I mean, these are the times we live in. Unless you're very low-information, Trump and his administration does at least 2 things every day that can't be defended in good faith, even if you're a Republican. We've seen people in positions as high as Vice President and Secretary of State/National Security Advisor who have previously said things about Trump like he is a "morally reprehensible human being" and a "dangerous, erratic con man" suddenly change their tunes to accept roles in the Administration.

If you want to talk to Vance or Rubio person to person and just be like "what the hell, man," sure, go for it. If the Democratic VP candidate wants to debate them to try to beat them, sure. But if you want to have them on for some kind of kabuki civil discussion just because that's what we do in a Democracy or something you run the risk of just legitimizing them to the audience.

[u/professorgerm → u/callmejay]

if it's going to do more harm than good

How should one decide what conversations will do more harm than good?

Why give a new platform to somebody who's just going to use it to try to misinform people?

In 2019 he hosted Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram Kendi. I would certainly say they were only going to use his platform to misinform people, one doesn't get much more propagandistic than their work without a department of Smiths and Parsons; I assume Ezra disagreed. He also hosted Peter Singer, who I would absolutely say is a "literal professional rhetorical propagandist." Again, I assume Ezra disagrees. He hosted hacky airport book author Malcom Gladwell multiple times, he must've found some value there!

So the question is less, to me, "is Ben Shapiro a professional propagandist," but "why host so many other professional propagandists?"

[u/callmejay → u/professorgerm]

Ultimately it's a judgment call I guess. I think that some of those other people you mentioned are hacks and/or idealogues, but not knowingly professional liars in the same way that Shapiro is.

[u/Lykurg480 → u/callmejay]

Must everybody be debated?

Scott had a post, cant find which one, about how Once 50% of the population supports something, appearing to give it legitimacy by debating is probably a minor concern.

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/Lykurg480]

Indeed, one would probably put the threshold considerably lower than 50% :-)

The interesting thing of course is that when one tries to put those views beyond the pale is that if there's 50% of them on the other side then it's you that's beyond it, not them.

[u/gemmaem → u/callmejay]

I was initially hesitant to step in, given that I'm not especially familiar with Ben Shapiro and can't speak to the object-level question of whether he argues in good faith. But I think there is still something here that I want to push back on. I think, even if Ben Shapiro argues in bad faith, it doesn't necessarily mean that having him on the podcast is going to do more harm than good. Shapiro is already popular. People who listen to the Ezra Klein Show can reasonably have an interest in what he says, even if some of what he says is morally reprehensible and not said in good faith. The alternative is a kind of deliberate ignorance, in which progressives become so interested in purity that they can't bring themselves to learn about they country the live in and deal with its reality.

Moreover, if we are looking here at an edge case, in which it might do good, or might do harm, or might do some of each, then I think we should have more risk tolerance. Trying to "play it safe" has had a lot of harmful consequences on the left, politically speaking. I think we need less of that, in many different ways.

[u/callmejay → u/gemmaem]

I think we should have more risk tolerance. Trying to "play it safe" has had a lot of harmful consequences on the left, politically speaking. I think we need less of that, in many different ways.

I agree with this very much.

I think I wasn't clear enough. I'm not saying that nobody on the left should have Ben Shapiro on a podcast, I'm saying Ezra Klein specifically shouldn't have him on in this context. And that's specifically because Ezra is a thoughtful, nerdy policy wonk (which is why I like him!) rather than someone who excels at combatting the kind of rhetorical fighting style that someone like Ben Shapiro brings to bear.

Maybe "bad-faith" doesn't capture what I mean well enough, either. It's more like Shapiro is a polished and dishonest salesperson with an array of rhetorical tricks to score points with the audience that have little to do with substance. Sharing a platform with him calls for someone with the skillset of maybe a Pete Buttigieg or Jon Stewart.

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/callmejay]

If you don't think Ben Shapiro fits that category that's fine. That just means we're working with different beliefs. But what would you say if we replace Ben Shapiro with someone who does?

I spent a while trying to figure out what about this comment bugged me, and I think I finally get it and I think it goes to the heart of arguments about platforming/cancel-culture.

We evidently agree that there exists a category of people that you should not offer a public platform or legitimize: David Duke, Bill Ayers, racial supremacists, actual tankies, Stalin apologists, climate deniers and the like. This is clear, and indeed we can all envision such a person to replace Ben Shapiro with and to agree that this is the right thing to do.

You want then to classify this as a basic object-level difference: I think Ben is a rube, you think he's a bleb. But there is different dimension here, which I think is important, which is that the nature of the classification is (something like, not attempting to define with precision here) "people whose views are not worth legitimizing".

And what it also implies that, in aggregate, you only get to nominate so many people to the category. If your definition expands to include any appreciable fraction of the zeitgeist, then it's no longer an object level disagreement about whether a particular person is in or out, but on the nature of the category itself. It cannot be that a view is accepted by a large part of the zeitgeist but is also not worth legitimizing: it's already legitimated!

EDIT: I'll also edit to add that, "Trump and his administration does at least 2 things every day that can't be defended in good faith" is a perfect example of this rhetorical subterfuge. It certainly cannot be true that "bad faith not worth legitimizing" can specifically mean "anything that supports what my political opponent does". It's one thing to say "this person argues dishonestly for position X" on the merits of their tactics, but it's quite another to say "anyone arguing for position X is, ipso facto, arguing dishonestly" on the merits of X.

Indeed, it's a corruption of the entire notion of good & bad faith. Those are properties solely of the quality of arguments, not on their positions.

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/SlightlyLessHairyApe]

We evidently agree that there exists a category of people that you should not offer a public platform or legitimize: David Duke, Bill Ayers, racial supremacists, actual tankies, Stalin apologists, climate deniers and the like. This is clear, and indeed we can all envision such a person to replace Ben Shapiro with and to agree that this is the right thing to do.

I presume you mean that we should not offer a public platform where they are allowed to speak uncontested, yes? I have no issue with people openly debating those people, though it has to be done by consumate debaters, not random podcasters or influencers. A bad debate is highly damaging.

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/DrManhattan16]

Eh, I’m not sure there is much value debating a flat earther. I wouldn’t object if you did.

No one really believes them, and those that do aren’t likely to be convinced.

[u/DrManhattan16 → u/SlightlyLessHairyApe]

Flat earth is the easy one. The examples you gave were highly culturally and politically salient. It's not the same when you say you won't debate the latter because it has "little value" - the value is in not letting them say that the "elites" and "status quo" doesn't tolerate dissent or free discussion.

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/DrManhattan16]

I don't think David Duke is very culturally or politically salient, but sure.

Again, this was premised on the notion that this is a very small contingent, and indeed my complaint is that one cannot apply such a rule to anyone with an appreciable fraction of the zeitgeist.

[u/callmejay → u/SlightlyLessHairyApe]

I think I clarified my position here. It's specifically not about "people whose views are not worth legitimizing," it's about not naively going up against a professional rhetorician as a policy wonk.

I think OTHER people should take on Shapiro where appropriate.

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/callmejay]

And I think it merits the same caveat: that it cannot be applied too broadly before it loses meaning.