“But OK, here's a concern. A lot of the criticism of wokeness, ‘critical race theory’, and so on, comes either from people who are actually pushing a White supremacist agenda, or people who are essentially Republican political operatives creating new wedge issues. I don't have to name names here. So do you ever worry that by criticizing the excesses of the cultural left, you're playing into the hands of those bad actors?”
I’ll never understand this (despite its ubiquity these days on both sides). We’re going to outsource all criticism of our own side to the people least able to do it intelligently, and the least willing to do so constructively and empathetically? We shouldn’t suppress discussion of something that might be right just because a bad person said it first or most obnoxiously.
On CRT specifically (or it’s major popularized offshoots Okun/DiAngelo/Kendi) it is Important to understand that by mostly ignoring them from the left we are setting them up to be the public face of how we want to deal with racism—and they are pernicious enough that is going to cost lots of votes without much useful progress tied to it. They have set up a dangerous self reinforcing dynamic in progressive circles where calling out their BS is labeled ’racist’. That was probably fine to ignore when they were in academic circles and everyone could just roll their eyes. But now that they are selling their programs all over the country they are becoming a major point of interaction for non-academic types who aren’t used to being called racist and risk getting fired over clearly non-racist or trivial stuff. So they are definitely going to cause a reaction against them, and letting the right be the only ones who bother criticizing them is stupidly handing them a wedge issue. Further, doing so means that they are going to have action taken against them (sometimes successfully) from directions that aren’t helpful to actual anti-racist agendas.
I know that there is a myth that Republicans can make an issue out of anything, but the reality is they *try* to make an issue out of lots of things, but their successes often come from things with a kernel of truth. And letting Okun/DiAngelo/Kendi become the face for what progressives want out of racial justice hands them more than a kernel.
I note too that Matt gets lots of crap from leftists on Twitter when he has activism or woke critiques. I like his critiques. I too worry though that he’s making a good faith argument using the framing from bad faith actors on the other side and it gives them legitimacy.
I've been following Noah and Matt for years and years. Great interview. Two comments. DC will never become a state, because when push comes to shove, MD and VA politicians will oppose it, Rep and Dem. Why? Because as a state, DC could tax the incomes of MD and VA residents who work there, making a mess of finances in both states. And then there's the issue of the general incompetence of DC govt. Second, I'm all for compromising to get stuff done. Incrementalism works, as Ted Kennedy learned when he opposed Nixon on health care and as Reagan and O'Neal demonstrated when they worked together. But given the new media, beginning with talk radio, I fear it's impossible, for it's too easy to stir up folks with all or nothing rhetoric.
As a 41 year old white guy with a PhD that lives in a big city, I agree with most of what Matt and Noah say. I don’t subscribe to any sub stack. I read Twitter without my own account. Reading interviews like this probably only enforces my current opinions and doesn’t really challenge me. But of course I liked the conversation. Glad I clicked on it hoping it would be free.
Also, I’m a liberal working for an oil company. I’m available if any outlet needs the opposite of the conservative working for google stories.
I don't think Trump is necessary for Republicans to steal the next presidential election. *Any* GOP candidate will say, "please, make me president." Corrected Matt probability for the end of US democracy is 38%.
I'd really like to know - as an ordinary person without much influence, what can I do to push the statehood and anti-gerrymandering reforms? I agree they are very important but I feel a little helpless if Dem elites aren't coordinating on it.
D.C. statehood (and all American territories) is powerful but a very "lump sum" process. Simply getting approval voting incrementally, one city/state at a time, is so much more politically tractable and beneficial in the long term.
A few thoughts on China. The TPP was opposed by both trump and Sanders, who pushed Hillary into going against it as well. Essentially, the TPP had no political support from any of the top 3 candidates when it mattered -- in 2016.
I agree that TPP was a very good concept and the working result was good, if less than ideal. It should have passed and passed easily.
While it is easy to criticize trump (and he was a terrible president), his message on China to American industry was actually the right one -- diversify your supply chains and either get out of China or reduce your dependence on China (hence things like tariffs, pushing allies not to buy Huawei stuff, etc). But it didn't work well and its not getting any better, even as Biden also sees the China problem.
Look at some of the businesses who are more reliant on China and unlikely to even whisper a vaguely critical word: Starbucks, Nike, Apple, NBA, Tesla, Disney. Many of which are considered to be 'socially aware' companies. To be blunt, China understands they have leverage. While it isn't explicitly understood, China is taking hostages. Economic hostages. The businesses I named need to tow the line since China can do enormous financial damage to these businesses. And if they go down hard, so do the stock markets, which is a big deal risk.
I may not like what China is doing, but they are playing the game well.
In particular, I think we do need to see more boundary-policing of some of the more extreme ideas coming out of this set.
"Defund the police" in my view was a very irresponsible slogan that was always badly at odds with empirical social science on policing and crime. But the atmosphere last summer was such that people who knew the research — at times even people who had done the research — didn't want to speak up forcefully and try to channel the passion for a more just, more humane approach to criminal justice into something workable.
Matt presumably knew the research. Did he speak up?
One more comment. If the worst happens and Trump and the GOP when the EC and Congress in 2024 despite taking a thorough beating in the popular vote, there'll be a few months of demonstrations but then they'll peter out. Why? Politics and govt don't mean that much to most people, either because they assume that both are a con or because they're too busy with their well-paying careers to care much one way or the other, so long as their life is good. Democracy, such as it is here, ends with whimper.
“But OK, here's a concern. A lot of the criticism of wokeness, ‘critical race theory’, and so on, comes either from people who are actually pushing a White supremacist agenda, or people who are essentially Republican political operatives creating new wedge issues. I don't have to name names here. So do you ever worry that by criticizing the excesses of the cultural left, you're playing into the hands of those bad actors?”
I’ll never understand this (despite its ubiquity these days on both sides). We’re going to outsource all criticism of our own side to the people least able to do it intelligently, and the least willing to do so constructively and empathetically? We shouldn’t suppress discussion of something that might be right just because a bad person said it first or most obnoxiously.
On CRT specifically (or it’s major popularized offshoots Okun/DiAngelo/Kendi) it is Important to understand that by mostly ignoring them from the left we are setting them up to be the public face of how we want to deal with racism—and they are pernicious enough that is going to cost lots of votes without much useful progress tied to it. They have set up a dangerous self reinforcing dynamic in progressive circles where calling out their BS is labeled ’racist’. That was probably fine to ignore when they were in academic circles and everyone could just roll their eyes. But now that they are selling their programs all over the country they are becoming a major point of interaction for non-academic types who aren’t used to being called racist and risk getting fired over clearly non-racist or trivial stuff. So they are definitely going to cause a reaction against them, and letting the right be the only ones who bother criticizing them is stupidly handing them a wedge issue. Further, doing so means that they are going to have action taken against them (sometimes successfully) from directions that aren’t helpful to actual anti-racist agendas.
I know that there is a myth that Republicans can make an issue out of anything, but the reality is they *try* to make an issue out of lots of things, but their successes often come from things with a kernel of truth. And letting Okun/DiAngelo/Kendi become the face for what progressives want out of racial justice hands them more than a kernel.
I note too that Matt gets lots of crap from leftists on Twitter when he has activism or woke critiques. I like his critiques. I too worry though that he’s making a good faith argument using the framing from bad faith actors on the other side and it gives them legitimacy.
I wouldn't have guessed that Noah's extended interviews would be the best part of his Substack but I am appreciating these.
I've been following Noah and Matt for years and years. Great interview. Two comments. DC will never become a state, because when push comes to shove, MD and VA politicians will oppose it, Rep and Dem. Why? Because as a state, DC could tax the incomes of MD and VA residents who work there, making a mess of finances in both states. And then there's the issue of the general incompetence of DC govt. Second, I'm all for compromising to get stuff done. Incrementalism works, as Ted Kennedy learned when he opposed Nixon on health care and as Reagan and O'Neal demonstrated when they worked together. But given the new media, beginning with talk radio, I fear it's impossible, for it's too easy to stir up folks with all or nothing rhetoric.
As a 41 year old white guy with a PhD that lives in a big city, I agree with most of what Matt and Noah say. I don’t subscribe to any sub stack. I read Twitter without my own account. Reading interviews like this probably only enforces my current opinions and doesn’t really challenge me. But of course I liked the conversation. Glad I clicked on it hoping it would be free.
Also, I’m a liberal working for an oil company. I’m available if any outlet needs the opposite of the conservative working for google stories.
I don't think Trump is necessary for Republicans to steal the next presidential election. *Any* GOP candidate will say, "please, make me president." Corrected Matt probability for the end of US democracy is 38%.
Great interview! This is critical work you're both doing — hopefully it's as fun to create as it is to read.
Great interview as always Noah!
I'd really like to know - as an ordinary person without much influence, what can I do to push the statehood and anti-gerrymandering reforms? I agree they are very important but I feel a little helpless if Dem elites aren't coordinating on it.
It's sort of odd that so many people take it for granted that the GOP will control "Congress" (not just the House) after the 2022 elections . As Sean Trende has pointed out, it is not that rare for the president's party to actually gain seats in the Senate while losing in the House. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/04/06/a_senate_majority_if_you_can_keep_it_145531.html
D.C. statehood (and all American territories) is powerful but a very "lump sum" process. Simply getting approval voting incrementally, one city/state at a time, is so much more politically tractable and beneficial in the long term.
A few thoughts on China. The TPP was opposed by both trump and Sanders, who pushed Hillary into going against it as well. Essentially, the TPP had no political support from any of the top 3 candidates when it mattered -- in 2016.
I agree that TPP was a very good concept and the working result was good, if less than ideal. It should have passed and passed easily.
While it is easy to criticize trump (and he was a terrible president), his message on China to American industry was actually the right one -- diversify your supply chains and either get out of China or reduce your dependence on China (hence things like tariffs, pushing allies not to buy Huawei stuff, etc). But it didn't work well and its not getting any better, even as Biden also sees the China problem.
Look at some of the businesses who are more reliant on China and unlikely to even whisper a vaguely critical word: Starbucks, Nike, Apple, NBA, Tesla, Disney. Many of which are considered to be 'socially aware' companies. To be blunt, China understands they have leverage. While it isn't explicitly understood, China is taking hostages. Economic hostages. The businesses I named need to tow the line since China can do enormous financial damage to these businesses. And if they go down hard, so do the stock markets, which is a big deal risk.
I may not like what China is doing, but they are playing the game well.
In particular, I think we do need to see more boundary-policing of some of the more extreme ideas coming out of this set.
"Defund the police" in my view was a very irresponsible slogan that was always badly at odds with empirical social science on policing and crime. But the atmosphere last summer was such that people who knew the research — at times even people who had done the research — didn't want to speak up forcefully and try to channel the passion for a more just, more humane approach to criminal justice into something workable.
Matt presumably knew the research. Did he speak up?
Granted, "being important means you take shit from people." More to the point, being important means you take shit from *the government*.
One more comment. If the worst happens and Trump and the GOP when the EC and Congress in 2024 despite taking a thorough beating in the popular vote, there'll be a few months of demonstrations but then they'll peter out. Why? Politics and govt don't mean that much to most people, either because they assume that both are a con or because they're too busy with their well-paying careers to care much one way or the other, so long as their life is good. Democracy, such as it is here, ends with whimper.