The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 12
James Lindsay recently said on Twitter that he will vote “unhappily” for Republicans including Trump in these troubled times after seeing an argument that the left should work to abolish the Constitution. Join him on this episode of the New Discourses Podcast for an explanation of his thought process on this issue as it has unfolded over this tumultuous summer of 2020.
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47 comments
You may have a point. For example, I’ve learned that as a prosecutor, Harris forced fully transitioned trans people, to be jailed/imprisoned for offenses by biological sex. Also, I understand, Harris was very tough in punishing minorities for drug offenses. Finally, I read that Harris even jailed parents of children who were consistently tardy. I know one of my sources for the above information came from Reason Magazine. I’ve read it in Sacramento Bee as well.
Maybe Harris is a “cop” at heart. An authoritarian one.
Trump himself will gladly dismantle the constitution (he himself says he doesn’t even believe in term limits and admires dictators). He doesn’t even support democracy. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, his mere existence/presence fuels wokeness. He’s the yin to their yang. The bread to their butter. They act the same: victimized, entitled, abusive. Voting him out for a centrist human body pillow (Biden) who will say calm things in public is the best bet for tampering Wokeness for now. I hope you’ll take a break from Twitter and see it’s true.
you thought biden was a centrist? ridiculous. he’s an authoritarian. do you even remember him as vice president?
How’s this working out for you?
Someone here described Kamala Harris as a centrist. Interesting that a “centrist” would state that government must work to achieve equality of outcome or equity. See: https://reason.com/2020/11/02/kamala-harris-equality-equity-outcomes/
Has the Overton Window moved that much and I missed it happening?
She’s just saying that to appease the Woke. She won’t actually do much of anything tangible in office. The thing about “Wokeness” is you can just put some pronouns in your Twitter bio to mask the fact that you aren’t actually doing anything to raise the minimum wage, provide healthcare to people, etc. Her brother supported Prop 22 here in CA, one of the most neoliberal bills on the ballot. She’s just signalling. It’s annoying, but it’s essentially pretty empty.
At what point do we begin to point out that Critical Race Theory is not the problem, except Critical Theory itself? We must return to a focus on Objective Analysis, as opposed to to seeing criticism itself as the overall picture, which it is not. Criticism is a necessary aspect of objective analysis that we use to cautiously guard against mistakes, not the big picture and not the source of inspiration or advancement.
James,
I love your work. It has opened my eyes. It has provided hope to me (I work at a major university and am currently beset by CRT), and yet I feel compelled to point out to you that your fears about Biden’s left “agenda” are not only misplaced but in danger of calling into question the very basis of you very important work.
What I’ve always admired about you is your intense focus on reason, as opposed to tribalism, or groupthink. Your vote for Trump, though it is placed in a “safe” state for Trump, seems to be a result of just that which you have spent so much energy opposing.
Trump has capitalized on the postmodern left’s pernicious ideas in an effort to mask true xenophobia, racism, and sexism. If you truly are, as you say you are (and I believe you) fully behind the American system, then you simply CANNOT vote for Trump in good conscience.
Stay strong James. Stay True.
Would you care to support your accusations of Xenophobia, racism, and sexism?
I could point to numerous concrete policy proposals and achievements that demonstrate the falsity of your claims, but would appreciate seeing you make a case for them.
I was among those disappointed by your announcement. I’ve been coming to sites like ND and Areo because I’m a self-IDd liberal concerned about the depredations of woke illiberalism, too. Though generally quiescent politically, I’m vocally anti-Trump. not because he’s offensive to liberals and progressives, but because he’s offensive to anyone who’s decent and civil. He’s a disgrace.
The reasons you gave for your decision puzzled me, and I hope you elaborate on some of them in future podcasts or essays. For example:
Re the political calculus: (1) As others have pointed out, Biden and Harris are centrists. No doubt the progressive wing of the party has pulled them leftward, but that wing is frustrated by Biden’s nomination and selection of Harris for running mate. Progressives are not happy about it. (2) If Republicans maintain control of the Senate Biden/Harris won’t accomplish much legislatively. (3) Trump has been a gift to woke progressivism, furnishing a common enemy to unify and energize the base. With Trump out of the picture factions within the party will likely splinter, as they tend to do. (4) I’ve seen or heard nothing to suggest Biden/Harris would seek a Constitutional convention.
Re the Constitution: (1) Why was that TNR piece the trigger for you? Please don’t take offense by my restating the obvious, but it bears restating that not even the authors and ratifiers considered the document sacrosanct. A Constitutional convention would be a radical and very risky thing to do, but hardly inimical to the nation’s founding principles. (2) My best understanding is that it’s actually been elements of the hard right that have been working toward a Constitutional convention. I don’t know how serious it is, or how much momentum it has, but I was reading about Koch-funded efforts along these lines long before the TNR piece appeared. (e.g. https://billmoyers.com/story/kochs-to-rewrite-constitution/#:~:text=The%20Koch%20Connection%20to%20the%20Push%20For%20a,over%20again%20by%20both%20federal%20and%20state%20authorities ). (3) Trump and his enablers pose a far, far greater threat to the Constitution than any progressive pundit, and have already done a fair amount to subvert it.
All best to you. Keep up the good work.
“…not because he’s offensive to liberals and progressives, but because he’s offensive to anyone who’s decent and civil. He’s a disgrace. “
Simultaneous concern about the “woke depredations of illiberalism” while poisoning the well with such bilge shows an astonishing lack of self-awareness.
Addressing your numbers in order (1) Biden and Harris are centrists perhaps to Trotsky (or Europeans in general), but in a more circumspect view of the American political spectrum, they are decidedly Leftwing. (2) Nothing much to quibble with here, absent another James Hodgkinson or Rene Boucher. (3) Upon what grounds do you determine that progressive factions tend to splinter? Democrats and Leftists tend to vote much more unified in all circumstances when the time comes. They may howl at the air and don vulva hats, but they tend to vote much more in lockstep than their counterparts on the Right. (4) Neither have I, however much of their base has. Considering how far left the Democrat base has dragged their party since the G.W.Bush administration, it’s a reasonable prediction, given their distaste for the electoral college.
While you are correct in stating that elements of the Right are interested in an Art. V convention, their interest lies in reigning in the excesses and power of the federal government – something anathema to the modern Left, but far more in keeping with the spirit in which the country was founded. There’s a qualitative difference to the two positions: A) A limited federal government is a victory for a liberal democracy and a pluralistic society. B) An Art. V convention to abolish the Electoral College is regressive to self-governance.
Before I listened to this, I found it difficult to understand how anyone not either depraved or deranged could vote for Trump in this election. The speech has changed that. Further, in the event that Trump should win a second term (by means fair or foul), I will be re-listening to this to reconcile myself to that outcome.
While I admire Lindsay’s acute perception of the abnormality and corruption of our political discourse, I cannot fathom how voting for Trump could possibly be medicine for it. If it is, it reminds me of the horrible medicine seen by some in Trump himself (although he isn’t worthy of the gender he identifies with): in George Will’s framing its chemotherapy that will have to destroy a certain element of the party that nominated him. Or Kendi’s own medicine of totalitarian policies to end racist policies.
Perhaps you cannot fathom that voting pattern because you live in a distorted reality where you refuse to recognize the biological reality that Trump is a male.
Considering that George Will is in a shrinking minority that tended to get nearly everything wrong about politics, I wouldn’t put much stock in his barbaric opinion about which elements of the party should be “destroyed”.
Your mileage apparently varies.
This was excellent James.
I appreciate that you took the time to process this out loud, and agree absolutely.
I appreciate the author’s insights and salute his courage. It does take courage to articulate support–even though it is reluctant support – for a candidate that many believe is the lesser of two evils. And the immediate condemnation and moralizing this occasions by some who, presumably, have followed and agreed with him on CRT and other issues should give everyone pause. Not for what James is articulating, but for the reaction its engendered
Like all of us, James, you’re voting against your worst fear. You think wokeness is the biggest threat to the American civil society; I think it’s the second biggest. The distinction you draw between authoritarianism and totalitarianism is thought-provoking and important. You’re right that Trump is authoritarian, and that that’s less of a threat than a totalitarian would be. You’re also right that Biden is susceptible to far-left influence. But Trump is corrupt to the core. Behavior you find loutish but acceptable is ruining our international standing. Many psychiatrists, including Yale’s Dr Bandy Lee, have found that he acts in ways consistent with serious mental illness. He is racist, to the point of being openly eugenicist. The evidence for this is so plentiful that I don’t see how you concluded he isn’t. His domestic policy harms all but the superrich, and the cuts he’s proposing to SS and Medicare will do even more harm to the weakest among us. He’s already irretrievably damaged the federal judiciary, and his recent Supreme Court nomination of a woman who’s to the right of the Pope, means disaster for many policies that have defined modern American life. I don’t want to give him 4 more years to choose judges. My biggest fear is an unstable president acting unilaterally to end not just US civil society but life on earth.
Tracy-Please support your assertions about all the damage Trump has done to the American government and country with evidence.
The notions you express seem based on your fear of what if’s. Also, did you genuinely fear an “unstable president” might “end life on earth”. Or…are you also known as Tatiana McGrath?
That comment epitomizes Poe’s Law.
The Democrats originally used identity politics as a cultural distraction from their aggressive shift rightwards on militarism and neoliberal economic policy – how often do we hear them called “leftist” solely on this basis, to obscure their their anti-social(istic) turn in every other policy domain?
By 2016, race-conscious preening and shaming of their detractors had become the last substantive “difference” they could promote from Republicans, and they milked it for all it was worth, since they otherwise literally stand for – and fight for – nothing.
But in 2020, racial division ceased to be a tactical means towards political power to become a divisive end-PURPOSE in itself, to fracture American society in a Marxist-style revolution swapping out Marx’s economic class division for the black-white racial pressure points which are historically more traumatic to American society. This is the agenda that must be thwarted by using Trump to drive them out of the political realm.
I’m unclear on how exactly the Democrats’ so-called shift to militarism and neo-liberal economic policy constitutes a rightward shift, and how both Democrats’ and Republicans’ dramatic increases in the size and scope of government since the G.W. Bush administration constitutes an “anti-socialistic” turn.
The “woke” are definitely a problem, as they are making more inroads into the mainstream. But Trump and his followers are the much bigger problem, simply because there are so many more of them. The “woke” don’t have the equivalent of Fox News, polluting our discourse with outright disinformation — they merely have obscure pseudo-academic publications that very few people read. The “woke” don’t have an entire political party now devoted to running roughshod over the rule of law; Trump does. The craziest of the “woke” have done a lot of property damage in several cities. But if Trump wins a second term, American democracy doesn’t have much of a future. The “woke” are a anti-democratic, but they are still a fringe. Trump and his authoritarian followers are much more than just a fringe — by orders of magnitude — and thus they are the greater danger.
Trump didn’t make a power grab during covid; the Democratic governors did, and still do.
Notice how it’s all unsupported, hyperbolic, even panicky fear-mongering claims? No evidence.
No point trying to reason with people who have abandoned the use of reason or respect of facts.
Pure unmitigated bullshit. You certainly are an intellectual giant. In your small mind
Hopefully, you realize you’ve just used an ad hominem, a logical fallacy, or an invalid argument.
In other words, all you did was refute an idea by calling the writer names.
“The “woke” don’t have the equivalent of Fox News, polluting our discourse with outright disinformation”
You’re right, they have something 100x more powerful than Fox News – the combination of CNN, the NYTimes, the Washington Post, NPR, all of Academia, 90% of K-12, most corporate boards, and most of Hollywood.
Help me out here…does anyone have any idea why Americans don’t know how to check the veracity of a statement/allegation by seeking additional information from other sources?
Cal – to comment on your rhetorical question; we are a twitter society. Not only do we only read the headlines and not the article, but there are only headlines now. We’ve always wanted cotton candy over meat and vegetables and social media has given us the perfect platform to nurture our worst natures.
I’m not sure it’s a question of ability, but time and effort.
To be truly informed on any one important political issue, the amount of time and effort it takes to obtain enough relevant information is staggering. Consider this website. To the layman, “anti-racism” sounds like a perfectly reasonable and moral prescription for social change, but look at the amount of ideology one must sift through and the level of analysis required to deconstruct what it actually is.
As another example, look at healthcare costs in the U.S.. Most people just look at it and say “Gosh, that’s just way too high.” And while they’re right, very few people have the time to find out why those costs are so high. So they get cognitive shortcuts for analysis like “it must be those greedy capitalists at it again”, and fall back to the old standby of “somebody needs to do something!” And so the first politician to come along and promise that they’re going to do something gets to be the somebody.
Meanwhile, did they have time to look into how medical billing works? Why it works that way? The tax policies and incentives that necessitated it? Other tax policies which influence the cost of healthcare? The answers to satisfy these and other related questions would fill the requirements for a graduate degree.
Then look at foreign policy, tax policy, legal rulings and interpretations. Or moving on to statements and allegations, who has the time to go looking for full recordings of a politician’s remarks to see what he or she actually said when media outlets publish partial or context free quotes without the slightest ethical veneer? If the statement or allegation concerns what I mentioned above, and you’re simply not that informed on the subject, then you’re primed for cognitive shortcuts that align with your worldview.
No one – and I do mean no one – has the time to become truly informed on all of the political aspects which affect their everyday lives. Such are the hazards of leaving more and more aspects of our lives to politics, and living in a technocracy.
RE: “To be truly informed on any one important political issue, the amount of time and effort it takes to obtain enough relevant information is staggering. Consider this website. To the layman, “anti-racism” sounds like a perfectly reasonable and moral prescription for social change, but look at the amount of ideology one must sift through and the level of analysis required to deconstruct what it actually is.”
Yep. I agree with this. Too many people are too busy just dealing with their jobs, their marriages, their kids, their extended families, their homes, yada yada and they simply do not have the luxuries of sheer time to really dig through all this stuff. That’s just real life.
Unproven assertions and histrionics do not represent your intellect well.
Would it be too much to ask better of you?
The far left and the far right are coming together, as extremists tend to do in times of crisis. The middle is dying, being pushed to tribal extremes where free thought is not allowed. The center will not hold. Biden is a normal center right politician. We could see leftist authoritarianism follow after the right-wing version. Both illiberal extremes will create corrupt empires of raw power on a foundation of lies. The world is sliding into the psychology of contraction. Times of economic contraction are typically dystopian. bit.ly/PoliticalCrisis
@Janet:
Biden used to be a normal center-right politician. Now he is a frail, cognitively failing pawn of the Woke far left. If he is elected and makes it to Inauguration Day, he will have to withdraw for “health reasons,” or to “spend more time with his (jaw-droppingly corrupt) family” so as not to put his fellow Democrats on the spot (assuming they can hold the House) regarding what will by then have become the manifest and urgent need for his impeachment (assuming the facts about his international financial self-dealing can’t be Memory Holed forever). The normal center-right politician this time is Donald Trump, “Orange Man Bad” propaganda notwithstanding.
Voted for Stein in the last election because she pretended like she was sympathetic to the Medical Freedom movement. Hillary was openly hostile to it; Stein was guileful about it. Trump on the other hand has been the only active politician to put himself out in front of the medical steamroller boot-licking, big Academia, types had in store for us. And now, it is actually funny to watch all the people who want to outsource all your adult decisions to the government or to google, twitter and/or facebook squirming in dismay at the suggestion of a vaccine that Trump is responsible for greasing the wheels of development for—even still, I doubt they will ever fully accept that we feel the same way about their “science” as they do about his.
Bobson,
I appreciate that you mean well, but that’s sort of like telling Paul Revere that he should relax. 🙂
I’m for Trump. I respect your reasons for not. Like you,I’m am adult who can listen to other views. I saw this 3 years ago,with this lunacy. It’s called COMMUNISM. That’s what they’re pushing. It must be stopped. Joe is not even well. Harris scares the crap out of me. Thanks for your riveting,well informed vision
Just wanted to let you know how very much I appreciate all the hard work you have done over the last few years to understand and help explain CRT to a wider audience. I did not vote for Trump in 2016, but gradually changed my mind after witnessing societal collapse in these ensuing years, and cast my vote for Trump yesterday. I’m trying hard to help my 38 yr old daughter understand what’s happening, but it’s difficult as she is surrounded by a very ‘woke’ crowd. I have grave concerns for my grandchildren’s futures if woke ideology is not destroyed. I will share this with her as a last ditch attempt to change her mind. All the best to you and yours, and I hope you can get some rest now.
Does it not give anyone else pause that James seems to be going down the exact same unhinged path that all the genuine liberals and leftists predicted he would months or even years ago? I mean, even Helen Pluckrose felt the need to publicly denounce his obvious slide into ridiculous and poorly justified reactionary politics. This video feels like James is just trying to justify his obvious abandonment of Liberal values while trying to distract from the fact that he’s behaving just like the SJWs said he would forever ago…
What is a genuine liberal, and which Liberal values has he abandoned?
Nah. Your confirmation bias addiction was not fed hence you protest. That and the undoubted fact is that You’re god is your stomach.
Hi Jim. You sounded upset in the video. I don’t know if this will mean anything coming from some random person on the internet, but I wish you the best. I hope life becomes a bit less confusing and alienating, and I hope you find some joy. We’re all in this together, even though it doesn’t seem like it at times.
Very simply, Lindsay is right. Trump is a lout and worse, but wokeness is America’s most serious threat.
Looks like somebody got Wokeness Derangement Syndrome
Or your Reality Ignorance Manifestation?
Thank you, James. You are a brave man. I am in a purple state, so my vote counts.
Wow! I’m also from a state that is not in play. Like you, I’d planned on giving my vote to a third party candidate, as I did in 2016. But if you’re willing to hold your nose and vote for Trump, then I will too.