You can see how, before we even get to the arguments, just the attitude on display here is likely to provoke irritation, because it is condescending and smug. When Yglesias writes of the “socialist niece who posts obsessively about Genocide Joe,” he is not taking seriously the possibility that this woman could be correct: that she has been persuaded by the International Court of Justice filings showing evidence that Israel is engaged in genocide and posts “obsessively” because she sees genocide as morally urgent. Instead, there is an implication that this person is somehow mentally unwell. Indeed, Yglesias’s reaction to seeing a poem about the Gaza genocide is that it shows the “increasingly porous boundaries between mental illness and leftwing politics.” Setting aside the question of whether Yglesias is persuaded by the ICJ case against Israel, this is the attitude of an asshole.

We should show the same level of respect for the opinions of Matt Yglesias and his ilk that he shows for the “socialist niece who posts obsessively about Genocide Joe,” that is to say, none at all.

chefs-kiss

  • NuraShiny [any]
    ·
    6 hours ago

    Him and the lady who defended leaving flammable cladding on high rises are the absolute definition of the irredeemable part of the media. They should be forced to fight one another to the death and the winner gets a year to write about how they were wrong about everything, before they get shoved into a woodchipper feet-first.

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
      ·
      3 hours ago

      The one that had Matt Christman scream in coherent rage "SHUT UP SHUT UP!" ?

      Megan "McMegan" McArdle

      hasan-stfu matt-jokerfied

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Lord save me from pompous beltway opinion columnists. I used to think he was just regular stupid until he popped off with that "there should be a billion Americans" thing and I realized it was much worse. This guy doesn't even understand how the system he defends works. Yet he defends it endlessly. He's not the kind of ice blooded psychopath that thinks the horror show of empire is good. He's not the regretful pragmatist who thinks we're doing the lesser of two evils. He's just a vibes based naive dipshit who thinks it's good because he thinks it's good. That's all it took. Just some oroborous of self delusion. Paying him to be a shill was all it took to convince him he was doing the right thing.

    galaxy-brain

  • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
    ·
    7 hours ago

    If we were in 1806 he would be a dipshit colonial administrator, he's just so plainly that archetype of dumb guy

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    13 hours ago

    In 2013 - there was a horrible and preventable distaste in Bangladesh in a sweatshop.

    Rana Plaza collapse

    The Rana Plaza collapse (also referred to as the Savar building collapse or the collapse of Rana Plaza) occurred on 24 April 2013, when the eight-storey "Rana Plaza" commercial building collapsed due to a structural failure. The rescue team's search ended on 13 May 2013, with a confirmed death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building.

    It is considered as one of the deadliest structural failures in modern human history, as well as the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history, and the deadliest industrial accident in the history of Bangladesh. Amnesty International called this "The most shocking recent example of business-related human rights abuse."

    Matty then wrote a defense of sweatshops as long as they weren't in the US. He quoted a source that said 87 people died. Big brain that he is - he didn't think that might be the tip of the iceberg.

    Different Places Have Different Safety Rules and That’s OK

    April 24, 2013

    Then when the scope of the horror was developing - Matty followed up with a very hostile non-apology apology.

    Some further thoughts on Bangladesh.

    April 26, 2013

    It seems like the entire Internet has registered its objections to this piece I wrote on the Bangladesh factory disaster. And I have to say that my overwhelming personal response, as a writer and as a human being, is to be annoyed by the responses that I’m getting.

    • Guamer [she/her]
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Dude is such an enormous piece of shit, hope very bad things happen to him.