¿Where did Vanity Fair get the silly idea that they had any brain cells to talk ’bout politics. Stick to interviewing brain dead actors, please.
Internet clickbait promotes mental tooth decay[.]
“Duh, ¿what’s a mixed metaphor? I don’t have to think when I write figurative language, ¿do I? ¡But that’s too hard!” That’s right up there with “rectal cancer of the mouth” in sense-making.
If Donald Trump speaks Jerkish, according to retired novelist Philip Roth, Jones’s broadside was written in Snarkish:
If your biggest complaint ’bout a president dangerously ignorant o’ basic science & who inspires rises o’ hate crimes is that he “speaks Jerkish”, you are a pampered dipshit & need to get o’er your fucking self. If your biggest complaint ’bout a blogger is that they spoke “snarkish”… ¡You’re speaking “snarkish”! ¡& stupid!, which is e’en worse.
“That I should live to see the day when Meryl Streep’s speechifying at a Hollywood awards show is admired as solemnly and discussed as fervently as Lincoln’s second inaugural address is a personal nightmare. Lectured by Streep! And about how her and all her Hollywood pals, decked out in everything that costs the earth and sparkles in the spotlight, are among the true victims of Donald Trump’s American authoritarianism!”
Sounds right to me.
Vanity Fair: “¡How dare this… snarkish person be insensitive to the plights o’ the rich & airheaded! ¡Do you have any idea o’ how much I bled to come up with that whipped cream metaphor!”
Streep’s chastising of Trump in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes was derided as a sniffy display of royal hauteur, as if her ladyship had gotten her blue sash in a twist.
No, ’twas rightfully mocked for being self-indulgent & airheaded. The irony is that it’s the lack o’ pretentious inanity in the critics that’d make them ne’er write something as inane as this sentence.
But here’s the twist: Eileen Jones is no righty coveting a rotation spot in the Fox News greenroom. She teaches film at Berkeley—and you know what it’s like at Berkeley, radical fervor springing from every hair follicle—”
Stereotypes are the best political points to make. “Duh, there’s no right-wingers in Berkeley like there are no liberals in Texas”.
We also have a naive cliché: that leftists making fun o’ airheaded celebrities who exploit anti-rightwing rhetoric for their own shallow interests is rare. It isn’t; we’ve been making fun o’ you for decades.
[A]nd her Streep denunciation was published in Jacobin, which bills itself as “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.”
They have standards almost as low as Vanity Fair.
Disillusionment with Obama’s presidency, loathing of Hillary Clinton, disgust with “identity politics,” and a craving for a climactic reckoning that will clear the stage for a bold tomorrow have created a kinship between the “alt-right” and an alt-left.
Interesting. Here, let me try:
With their use o’ ad-hominem association attacks gainst political enemies with popularly reviled figures based on superficial similarities, their focus on label-based attacks rather than descriptive analyses, such as “alt-left” or “commie”, & their use o’ pretentious, empty buzzwords to hide the lack o’ substance in their arguments, Vanity Fair has created a kinship with the alt-right.
The “[d]isillusionment with Obama’s presidency” isn’t e’en right. The alt-right wasn’t “disillusioned” with Obama ’cause they ne’er liked him, dipshit. As for the “disgust with ‘identity politics’”, yeah, Jacobin shows it — when it’s appropriated by the alt-right. ’Course, Vanity Fair doesn’t bother to actually give a link showing any evidence that this nebulous “alt-left” hates “identity politics” or offers a definition o’ what that nebulous phrase is s’posed to mean. Presumably he’s accusing Jacobin & the rest o’ the “alt-left” o’ being bigoted — without any evidence to back it up.
Like I said: stick to interviews with rich idiots talking ’bout their fancy dresses. That’s all this ditz has the brain power for.
They’re not kissin’ cousins, but they caterwaul some of the same tunes in different keys.
Read: “They’re not actually allies, but I found some superficial similarities”. E’en he acknowledges he’s a liar.
The alt-right receives the meatiest share of attention in the media, as it should.
Yeah, ’cause what hurt the alt-right so hard was too much attention. That’s why they try to avoid it as much as possible.
I can’t get o’er how li’l political savvy this idiot has.
It’s powerful, vicious, steeped in neo-Nazi ideology, nativist white supremacy, men’s-rights misogyny, and Ayn Rand capitalist übermensch mythos […]
Um, ¿what evidence is there that Hairpiece was particularly popular with Objectivists? Most I’ve read hate that evil socialist ’cause they’re crazy, take any tepid criticism o’ excess neoliberal economics as being “socialist”, & forget that their own god was a crony who profited off politics & used government funds for her cigarette-fed medical bills. ( Shocking how an ideology that praises selfishness & narcissism would lead people to be narcissistic hypocrites who praise their own actions done for purely selfish reasons while attacking others who do the same as “corrupt” ).
The alt-left can’t match that for strength, malignancy, or tentacled reach, but its dude-bros and “purity progressives” exert a powerful reality-distortion field online and foster factionalism on the lib-left.
As opposed to Vanity Fair, which slipped up in that sentence before & pretty much acknowledged that they’re being propagandist liars.
“The alt-left isn’t actually as bad as the alt-right; but some empty terms I made up trick people into thinking… ¿they’re similar?” ¿How are they “distorting” reality? ¿By being bigots? ¿Are they somehow tricking other leftists into being bigots? That’s not necessarily deceitful. It’d be a lot smarter to actually start with the examples, & then give the conclusions, so I don’t assume you’re full o’ shit. But I’m gonna guess you won’t e’er give any arguments.
The closest we get to an argument is “dude-bros”, presumably a reference to “Bernie Bro” pro-Bernie bigots. ¿Why not focus on them? ¿& what evidence is there that Jacobin supports them?
Interestingly, Jacobin, through Matt Bruenig, does provide statistics that show that Bernie had ’bout the same even male-female ratio as Clinton in terms to support. You have no idea how refreshing it is to see actual data & proof, & not just a bunch o’ clunky mixed metaphors & bitching.
Sorry for a second: I have to relocate my place in the Vanity Fair article ’cause it keeps moving me round ’cause their web design, like most big newspapers, is shit. The ratio o’ actual competence vs. perceived competence is leagues low for big newspapers like Vanity Fair or CNN.
He then goes on to list random left-wing & right-wing papers & websites, mentions 1 guy who became a Hairpiece-supporter ( &, ironically, considers himself pro-neoliberal, making him not on Jacobin or Naked Capitalism’s team, since they despise neoliberals worse than pond scum ), & 1 other politician who went on to gladhand Hairpiece in hopes o’ getting a spot in his crony bin. So this vile “alt-left” includes 3 people, 1 o’ which committed the crime o’ calling a celebrity a self-indulgent airhead.
O, sorry, we have 1 mo’:
Cornel West, once an orator at every social-justice convocation who got so uncoiled by his rancorous contempt for Obama and cast adrift into the hazy fringes of the alt-left—see Michael Eric Dyson’s definitive autopsy, “The Ghost of Cornel West,” the New Republic, April 19, 2015—that in 2016 he supported the Green Party candidacy of Jill Stein, that stellar mind.
O, ¿you mean that stellar mind who talked a lot ’bout the problems o’ the US’s electoral system, such as its inane electoral system or lack o’ instant-runoff, which caused Clinton to lose in the 1st place while that genius Clinton talked ’bout Hairpiece’s fucking tax returns? ( But she’s a 3rd party, & therefore dumb, ’cause independent thought is too hipster ). As opposed to that genius, Clinton, who lost what should’ve been a cinch ’cause she couldn’t be bothered to so-much-as visit Wisconsin. That genius.
I should add that Dyson’s “definitive autopsy” is nothing mo’ than a multithousand word pile with li’l actual analysis o’ Obama or West’s politics, but plenty o’ words ’bout West being a hypocrite ’cause he made fun o’ Dyson dicksucking Obama while West dicksucked Prince — when any sane person given the choice ’tween sucking Prince’s dick or Obama’s dick would choose Prince every time. ’Specially now that Prince is a ghost: if you’ve ne’er sucked a ghost’s dick, you’ve ne’er lived.
To be fair, this writer for once provides actual evidence o’ an actual target showing actual political naivity:
It was Jill Stein who said Hillary might be the greater evil in a Trump matchup (“Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars”), a sentiment shared by actress Susan Sarandon, who told an interviewer she believed that Clinton was “more dangerous” than Trump because she was more hawkish and better able to ram her agenda through Congress.
On 1 hand, it’s important to remember that during the election itself, Hairpiece did spew some talk ’bout backing ’way from wars, caged in the name o’ antiglobalism, since the only way to get idiot bigots to oppose bombing foreigners is to tell them that that’d mean forcing the soldiers to go near them. Then ’gain, anyone who takes Hairpiece on his word for anything is an idiot, & we’ve seen this when he sent drones to Syria.
In words I suspect Sarandon wishes she could reel back, she discounted the threat level posed by a Trump presidency: “Seriously, I am not worried about a wall being built . . . . He is not going to get rid of every Muslim in this country.”
“As long as we still have a few Muslims left, I won’t have to worry ’bout putting on brown face for the movie version o’ Arabian Nights. The rest o’ those Muslims, though, they’re collateral damage — fuck ’em”.
While Jill Stein is certainly a relevant example, Sarandon’s just some dimwitted celebrity — just like Meryl Streep. Shocking she’s dumb, too.
Let’s have a compromise, Vanity Fair: all actors shut up ’bout politics, whether liberal ditzes, “alt-left” ditzes, or conservative 1980s presidents.
He follows this with some Russian conspiracy theories, which, following the pattern o’ subconscious realization o’ his own idiocy, involves self-referencing cold-war scares without a sense o’ irony.
See, it used to be that left-wingers opposed warmongering, ’cause it doesn’t solve anything. If people like this guy who support warmongering so long as it has the stamp o’ approval by Clinton & the Democrats had any semblance o’ nuanced political savvy ( or didn’t have their fist up the Democrats’ asshole ), they’d remember that the Cold War ended not ’cause Reagan constantly threatened military force gainst Russia but ’cause Reagan was actually rather genial ( while still being outspoken in his opposition to the Soviet Union’s government system ) with Gorbachev, convincing him to moderate the Soviet government. Contrast that with the Soviet Union’s reaction to JFK’s blitheringly stupid actions during the Cuban Missle Crisis: alarmed by the US’s cowboy, “Fuck you all”, they booted Khrushchev, who was relatively moderate, & tightened control o’er the populace. Anyone with a basic understanding o’ human psychology knows that that’s what happens when you act belligerent toward someone else: they’re mo’ likely to act belligerent back. But then, assuming this writer has any knowledge o’ basic psychology is silly, since he doesn’t have any basic knowledge, period.
It ends with the best:
And here is where the alt-right and the alt-left press foreheads for a Vulcan mind-meld: the belief that the real enemy, the true Evil Empire, isn’t Putin’s Russia but the Deep State, the C.I.A./F.B.I./N.S.A. alphabet-soup national-security matrix. But if the Deep State can rid us of the blighted presidency of Donald Trump, all I can say is “Go, State, go.”
It’s ironic for someone who criticizes Hairpiece for being authoritarian to pledge support for a military coop with the lines “Go, State, go”.
I could throw round a bunch o’ labels @ this writer, like “neoliberal stooge” or “rich liberal who cares mo’ ’bout ideological tripe & having their shallow team win o’er the real suffering o’ poor people” ( oops: still couldn’t keep myself from being mo’ descriptive ); but there’s a much mo’ fitting label: this writer is a fucking idiot who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking ’bout.
Worse, he’s a destructive idiot. His idiocy is destructive to the left-wing. He lumps all critics o’ the Democratic Party, e’en those, like Jacobin, which hasn’t shown a single shred o’ support for the alt-right with those “leftists” who authentically show no concern for women or racial minorities as a pathetic attempt to deflect from the fact that the Democratic Party are fuck-ups. He doesn’t want to admit that Clinton wasn’t sabotaged by an evil conspiracy o’ those vile leftists who don’t show 100% devotion, but that Clinton was authentically a shitty politician. He doesn’t want to admit that Clinton was widely unpopular ’mong leftists, not ’cause many o’ them are secret women-haters, but ’cause Clinton supported truly awful things, like deeply homophobic murderous tyrants in Haiti ( & these fucking Democratic sycophants have the gall to accuse other people o’ not caring ’bout “identity politics”, when Clinton showed a shocking lack o’ concern for the worst o’ attacks gainst a minority group ), supported drone strikes gainst middle easterners ( hard to take leftists seriously when they attack a president for kicking Muslims out o’ a country while praising a politicians who supports mass-murdering them ), & supported economic policies that hurt poor people ( though not as much as Hairpiece, you dumb “Hairpiece leftists” ).
A’least the alt-right is consistent ’nough to stick by something. They despise Muslims, & they live by it. When leftists attack bigotry on 1 hand while supporting bigotry on the other ’cause it’s “convenient” or “practical” ( the Democrats are so practical that they keep losing ), you can’t be surprised when much o’ the populace becomes cynical & stops taking you seriously.
But the alt-right did teach 1 lesson I’d been hammering ’bout for years: compromises can actually hurt just as much as they help, & so can having too low o’ standards. The alt-right succeeded while bashing many other right-wingers for sometimes letting their silly li’l conscience get in the way o’ screwing o’er weaker people. ¿Why can’t this work for the left? ¿Could not the left benefit by cutting off these hypocritical idiots who simply get in the way rather than dragging us all down with them?
After all, it’s not like anybody likes them. “Hollywood liberal” is such a popular taunt ’cause it strikes a nerve with those who otherwise might be open to either side: privileged ditzes who throw platitudes ’bout disadvantaged people, but don’t care ’bout them in any concrete way. ¿Wouldn’t the left look mo’ serious, look like they actually care, if they cut off these exploitive wastes?
