When your side exhibits the behavior of your enemy, you’ve lost the plot.
“Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now”
- Bob Dylan (“My Back Pages”)
I’m an independent, not aligned consistently with the right or with the left. We’ve needed more voices for a long time to explore this territory, I hope she stays the course and keeps reporting on what she sees and thinks. Her willingness and Cenk’s willingness to disagree or agree, and have honest smart conversations, is part of what makes TYT a place I have supported with money. And she is still very smartly critical of the right.
I could have pulled a clip from Turks; but better we get a viewpoint from outside of Turkworld.
Previously Ana was complaining about checklists that the Left often ascribes to, which sabotages critical thinking. But in this talk, when she goes: “Well, DID HE pull off a facist coup??”, the logic of that is all just too patently absurd. That was the tell that she’s angling for a steady job on Fox, Newsmax, whatever.
<grin>Too bad the Harris campaign has also failed her on a credible proposal for job stability…</grin>
Yes, exactly, her logic was horrible, well below her own usually good standards, and this showed me, to my surprise, that she was not that interested in actually having a productive discussion on the matter.
It does seem worthwhile to question if Trump fits the definition of this or that, but at the end of the discussion a) I"m pretty sure most well-informed folks will conclude he is checking off the boxes on being a violent thug statist/fascist of some sort b) if one is going to ask the question ingenuously, then the attempt to answer it should be better than the response she gave. I do think it’s possible I could have got to some agreement with her on a nearby point I think I remember her making… something about the credibility of some on the left being harmed by throwing around terms like that (at least in some cases), but in this case, I think it’s justified to use the term fascist to describe Trump, I didn’t think that Cenk was out of line, but even if it’s questionable whether the term should be applied, the credibility of the discussion of the matter is not good if good reasoning doesn’t come into play from both sides.
I think what happened to her (she wrote on her substack that she was sexually assaulted) was awful. She wrote on her substack:
My evolution started in 2022 when I was sexually assaulted by a homeless man in my neighborhood as I was walking my dog. That horrible experience alone didn’t change me politically, but the treatment I received from the far left and some progressives after sharing the story did.
I’m not surprised she was mistreated. Still, I’m tuning into TYT for rational productive discussion of the issues (not necessarily progressive discussion, or “perfect” discussion, but ingenuous, open, rational and productive discussion). It would be really sad if she doesn’t want to contribute to that any more, or if she doesn’t want to do it on TYT, but I guess she has to decide where she’s going with her thinking.
Back to the question of defining whether Trump is a Fascist, I’d like to see them bring on the air a proper well-respected Academic who has spent time defining and researching these things, and maybe they can speak to the matter.
Her rhetorical question of whether he pulled it off: it was an attempt to imply: “our governmental ‘guardrails’ are robust, so there’s no need to even worry about that, Cenk!”
News flash: our governmental ‘guardrails’ are not robust, and we only got through that term because enough people in the administration had conscience. [<joke>I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU, STEPHEN MILLER!</joke>]
But I want to remind y’all: it is an utter disgrace that all the Harris campaign can offer voters is “We’re not Trump, he’s awful…” They CAN offer more, which my posts have always argued. Announce clear steps to not enable Naziyahoo to draw the US into a global war with Iran and a number of other countries, propose MUTUAL redlines for Putin when he throws them out (so we can arrive at a possible path to not turn Ukraine into WWIII), and leverage the corporate tax rate increase by offering an amnesty if employers provide worker retention for at least 2 years and/or accredited training…
Yeah. Her using Trump not achieving his goal of stealing the election (and doing all his other all-out fascist stuff) as proof that he is not a fascist or even a wannabe dictator finally crossed my red line. I canceled my TYT membership. There are plenty of “enlightened” centrists with money who can fill the financial gap if that’s the direction that they want to go, but I can’t continue to fund it when there are many better options at this point. I feel bad because I still respect Cenk and agree with most of his takes on things, but his response has been pretty clear to those of us who’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with Ana’s trajectory: “fuck off”.
I think what Ana’s trying to do is 1.) see the human/humanity in everyone, 2.) show that such labels can inspire violence due to fear, and 3.) not alienate people. Unfortunately, I also think her way of going about this isn’t working and I can see how this can come off as condescending. That said, I think it’s a waste of time for the Media to fight over the semantics of fascism, especially so close to the election when they should be focusing on the policies and plans of the candidates. I’m sick of the screaming and fighting on-air and want them to focus on what fucking matters. Yelling at people and name-calling doesn’t work and turns people off (and it’s just really not kind). I don’t want to hear that the Left is idiotic or that people who identify as MAGA (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) are dumb. I want to hear what the candidates have said and done and how that compares to what they have said and done before. Sure, they can tell me what they think because they know what they’re fucking talking about, just speak to me as an adult with semi-healthy boundaries and a modicum of intelligence. I’m not just talking to Ana. Honestly, I really like Ana and think that, like most of us, she is just trying to be a better human. She was violently assaulted only two years ago (trust me, with trauma, two years is not long), and then, instead of receiving the outpouring of support she deserved, she was attacked publicly by a bunch of assholes. With my history of rapes and sexual assaults going back to childhood, I find Trump and people’s support for him very triggering, so my responses are not always measured when it comes to him. It breaks my heart because I believe this is true for many women. Right now, we need to try our damnedest to be united and empathetic, and sometimes that means cutting everyone a little bit more slack.
Hey -that was Ana, not Cenk; and he fairly rebutted it. He can’t be blamed for a teamworker going off on a tangent.
If anything, it was a great example we got to witness of a supposedly strident supporter of the Left moving to a place of MOSTLY self-interest (but hey -you always have to pay the rent and groceries; but the Russia influencers, for example, were CLEARLY not doing that…) She will deny it; she can prove me wrong if a few years go by and she’s not suddenly popping up on a well-paid right outlet…
Having thought about it: look at what’s been going on. Cenk is starting to become a staple of news interview shows: CNN, Piers Morgan (man, I hate that self-important guy…), etc. Ana can’t get gigs like that because - I’m sorry; what does she do? She whines. She doesn’t whine as much as she used to, but still she’s mostly a whiner. Cenk analyzes and points out the hypocrisy of the Repubs and Dems. Her observations are fairly pedestrian. Emma Vigland (Majority Report) is sharp enough to earn such invites once more people find out about her, but I don’t see Ana scoring such gigs.
So what’s left for her? Get a well-remunerated desk at Fox or the like to help make a false equivalence case that the station tries to be politically objective. So now her mostly strident Left objections (not that there aren’t some to be made!) are an attempt to circulate her resume amongst them. She might resent that Cenk could not wrangle such talk show interviews for her.
Hey Ana- prove me wrong! DON’T go to work for Repubs after leaving Turks. But I’m skeptical at this point, after that “But did he succeed in becoming a facist?” rhetorical throwaway…
Nothing I can do about that. That is all Discord not us.
I will say this tho; The thread is nothing but TYT viewers discussing the topic and what was said in her Substack and there are 327 posts in it so it’s been a good discussion
I’ve spent more time over the last couple of days looking harder at what she’s been saying and what the criticisms of her have been. Her point about whether Trump is a would-be dictator is wrong, IMO, but I can remind myself that most of us would not even come close to her high batting average or Cenk’s: this is a hard job and nobody fully avoids foot-in-mouth disease.
So far, I have not hated other things I"ve heard her say, and I’m strongly reminding myself that Ana (not just Cenk, but specifically Ana) and her thought leadership particularly on certain matters is a reason that I’m a subscriber. I’m somewhat late to this overall topic of understanding that she was evolving her view.
I’m also reminding myself that she and the other teammates at the station appeared to do the hard work of holding down the fort while Cenk was off campaigning on what I regarded as a well-intended but ultimately legally futile campaign. This is major, that she did that, in my opinion.
I respect Cenk and Ana and the team for being open to various thoughts and points of view, but without being pushovers or mealy-mouthed or meaningless in their advocacies. It makes TYT better than some competitors, in my view.
While I’ve tried to spend a little time over the last day or two to find out more as to what’s been going on with her, there has to be a limit, so for now my conclusions that I’m bookmarking to myself are:
I’m skeptical of the accusations against her that she is “grifting”. If anything, these cynical accusations have made me have less respect for the commentators who have stated them. I may change this point of view, but my take is she is trying to be honest (as undoubtedly encouraged by Cenk and others) and that can be difficult.
Other than her less-than-smart comment (in my fallible opinion) about what Trump wants, I’m not sure I can think of something else she has said that I just flat-out instantly disagreed with. Most of her track record with me is either I think she does a decent job of meeting a very high challenge (again, this is not an easy job she is doing), or once in awhile she gives me a stand-up-and-cheer moment.
If what she’s doing is criticizing the left in some ways smartly, along with criticizing the right smartly, and at the same time trying to define what she thinks is worth fighting for and good, then this is rare, difficult, and something I myself struggle with in my daily conversations. It’s not something that is a firing offense, but is praiseworthy and to be highly valued. However, I don’t have enough time to obsess too closely on what another human being thinks, so it remains to be seen if that is roughly a good description.
I do see this helpful-looking recent video. I’ve only watched about 9 minutes, and the video is nearly two hours long and I can’t invest that kind of time (particularly not today, with work that needs doing in support of the Dems) but to offer these thoughts for now:
She has laid out that she struggled with the tribalism and rejection of others that came with a certain approach to the Trump phenomenon. Then she changed and started allowing for a possible different way to relate to others. I have struggled with this myself and have initiated this very conversation with many friends over the last few years, but have not come to a solution.
She cites the fact that Trump is speaking to some points that others are not. The economic difficulties in the rust belt for example. I deal with this differently than Ana. Yes, Trump makes his share of good or mixed-good points in my view. This unfortunately is what really capable violent demagogues do (from what little I remember of my education). So, the part I and perhaps others are responding to very harshly here is that I think she is mistakenly and horribly mis-diagnosing Trump himself as someone who is to be treated as being a mixed bag. He is not, and a maddening destructive thing here is that he and his supporters have succeeded in creating the illusion that Trump should be evaluated as a candidate based on the issues. If our fellow Americans wanted their issues represented and to oppose the Democrats, they should have nominated a decent law-respecting law-abiding candidate, and not a would-be dictator.
One can recognize that our fellow Americans who are voting for him, or considering voting for him, are being gullible and we can find qualities in at least some of those fellow Americans which allow us to converse with them and be more civilized to them, and in some cases be friends with them again, and in this sense I can agree with Ana, but this does not extend to being so dreadfully wrong and gullible and naive as to where Trump and some of his supporters are coming from. In my opinion. We can strive to understand other points of view, and be open, without being naive.
Ana Kasparian BLASTS “WOKEISM” - Is she ditching the left?!
3 weeks ago
Keeping It Real Podcast with Jillian Michaels
Techie here too and I feel your pain lol. Right now I’m working on getting TYT.com linked to Discord so members can link their membership to TYT just like they do with Twitch and YouTube
Well, the problem is the Repubs. Yes, the Dems are bad in their corporatism, but these guardrails Ana thinks are there are gone now with the post-Trump Repub Party. This ain’t 2008, 2012; the Repubs then would have had a line in terms of what they would let their candidate do. Now? The ones left standing in the Party will readily rubberstamp anything he does.
But I will have no sympathy for the Dems; they absolutely know that job security is a major issue this year (WWIII, job retention vs. unemployment…) -and yet they have only put a meager tax cut on the table. That’s freaking ridiculous.
I think Harris is way in over her head, and she is relying on baller politicos for advice. It reflects an old Delancey Street joke: “If he’s so smart, why doesn’t he have money?!”
Carville and Cenk are great political analysts; they completely get the self-interest thing. They might not be ballers in terms of money, but they have sound political advice. These advisors who Harris is evidently relying on are complete and utter FRAUDS. It was very foolish not to put more on the table in terms of better job security. I see a lot of voters will go for a chaos lottery ticket play…
