6 Comments
User's avatar
Jackie Ralston's avatar

I'm still on Twitter, under deep cover. Even the Rush fandom has been infiltrated by TFG's cultists (not a big stretch I know, but it does require a hyperfocus on the couple of Rand mentions and ignoring the bulk of their later work—and especially public statements recently by Ged and Al that specifically reject a lot of her ideas and MAGA).

Impressed that you're still checking in at TB. My sub ended the first week of February, and I think I hung in about a week or so after that. I just couldn't take it beyond that. I do miss some of the guest contributors and Joe Perticone's column, but not enough to keep giving them clicks. Looking forward to your post.

I'm interested to see what Mehdi Hasan's new project, Zeteo News, does: https://www.zeteonews.com/

Expand full comment
Geoff Anderson's avatar

Fuck, Mehdi has had his page for like 5 days, and he already has 91K readers? I have been doing this for a year and have 63...

I guess I am not famous after all

Expand full comment
Geoff Anderson's avatar

I enjoy Kim Wehle's takes on legal matters, and the free Tuesday edition of Perticone is great.

This week's The Focus Group had me turn it off about half way through. It was with John Favreau, and they were talking about California groups, and Sarah really seems to have her blinders on. She lives in deep Trumplandia with most of her groups that she sounds completely out of character when they are talking about California.

And really, they fucking need to stop with the Biden being swapped with Shapiro or Whitmer fantasy. They need to realize that plan B is Harris, and if that fails, the only other big name with national exposure is Newsom.

While I don't think he is terrible, he certainly would get slaughtered in the rust belt, and no matter how many closeted progressives live there who think he would be great, that number is swamped by those who loathe anything California related.

Tim Miller seems to have turned the daily podcast into his special interest venue, with a lot of odd choices. (I didn't always agree with Sykes' guest list, but he was a far better interviewer. Probably from all those years carrying water for right wing talk radio guests).

The Morning Shots has become bland, and frankly, I think Bill Kristol ought to be out out to pasture.

May main beef is that they identify the sickness, but they seem to really have no plan to address it, and instead often alienate their predominately center left audience.

Expand full comment
Jackie Ralston's avatar

Agreed on Wehle; I forgot that Tuesday's Perticone is free, so thank you for that reminder. Sarah has long frustrated me, so I quit listening to her pods a long time go. (I don't like podcasts in general, so that was part of it.) I get plenty of Tim on Brian Tyler Cohen's YT channel; they have a weekly feature called "Inside the Right."

Yeah, they've been identifying the sickness for a long time now and readers have been requesting that they start offering plans to deal with it, so I'm as shocked as you'd expect me to be to discover their heads are still in the sand there. Hopium Chronicles is a nice alternative for me: Simon Rosenberg expertly dissects the polls, has solid commentary on other issues, and suggests activities to support democracy (https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/).

Expand full comment
Kevin Robbins's avatar

Trumpism makes for strange bedfellows. Makes me wonder what’s left when the Republican Party has gotten too extreme for David French.

I don’t believe Trump is going to get back in the WH. Maybe that’s excessive optimism. If he did tho, he would assuredly lose the popular vote by at least 10 million. So, it would take some bizarro combination in the electoral college.

I find it somehow reassuring also that, even in red areas and states, population centers are heavily Democratic. Even in my own backward district.

I put a request in at my local library for a book called “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy” by Tom Schaller. Chris Hayes had him on last night. With that title I’m tempted to just buy it if I have to wait long.

Expand full comment
Jackie Ralston's avatar

I agree with you, Kevin. While SCOTUS dragging its feet on taking up and hearing his immunity argument has given TFG the delay he wants, it has also enraged and activated a lot of people against him. Even this ol' independent is looking into contributing via GOTV postcard campaigns.

Expand full comment