It sounds like Cosplay Socialists, Inc. would've been better off naming their paperback infomercial "Flip This Centrist". https://t.co/1VfifpNDgT
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) August 28, 2018
Yes, it’s from Politico, but I’m liking this Bill Scher review…
Have you lived through the past three presidents and managed to still believe that Republicans and Democrats share a single corporatist overlord? Do you casually use “neoliberal” as an insult, even though nobody has spotted a neoliberal in the wild since Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential campaign? Do you enjoy history lectures, but only when they are delivered by sarcastic, self-righteous people who conveniently omit anything that conflicts with their ideological worldview? Well then do I have the book for you!
The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts and Reason lives up to its ironic title. The freshly published polemic is co-authored by the hosts—Felix Biederman, Matt Christman, Brendan James, Will Menaker and Virgil Texas—of the socialist, satirical podcast Chapo Trap House. The podcast rakes in six figures a month from more than 20,000 Patreon subscribers. It built its following on withering takedowns of insufficiently leftist liberals who serve up “thin, flavorless gruel” in the dying news media.
The book, which aims to expand the reach of “the Chapo Way,” begins with a self-consciously over-the-top sales pitch. By imbibing the authors’ words, “you’ll become an initiate in the Chapo Mindset and take control of the neurons that govern your weak, fragile emotions.” Apparently, we should take our “Ironic Left” cult leaders seriously, but not always literally.
Yet by the end of the book, it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that Chapo—the podcast and the book—is, at bottom, an actual, unironic infomercial scheme. They make bank by selling you a candy-coated version of socialism, one that may offend real socialists even more than liberal gruel-peddlers like myself…
After blaming American-led capitalism for the world’s ills, the authors take aim at their favorite target: liberals. “Why … do we hate the lib?” they ask. Because “there is a giant sucking void at the core of their being.” They add, “In place of real beliefs, liberals have guilty consciences.” Therefore, liberal reformers succeed only “when pressured—sometimes terrorized—by militant and/or popular left-wing movements.” …But since the New Deal’s permanent expansion of government in the name of reducing poverty and expanding the middle class is not good enough and fundamentally flawed, the Chapo Way is here to give us a rigorously researched and fine-tuned alternative for not only ending wealth inequality and racism, but also ending the scourge of soul-deadening work. After slogging through 276 of the book’s 282 pages of bad history and, I hate to tell you, “tepid” jokes, the authors finally get around to their grand plan. Spoiler alert! This is literally it, in its entirety:
“After setting everyone on equal footing (by seizing the billionaires’ money, socializing their wealth, and handing the keys of production over to workers), you’re looking at an economy that requires something like a three-hour workday, with machines taking care of most of the drudgery; and—as our public fund pays for things like health care, education, scientific research, and infrastructure—all this technology actually makes work quicker, easier, and more enjoyable.”
… The Chapo hosts’ aversion to hard work extends to this book. Why suffer the details of how this nonworkers’ paradise, free of paper pushing and ditch digging, is going to be realized, when you can take in more than $1 million a year by dressing up stale arguments and thin policy ideas with inside jokes?…
(If you can bring yourself to click the link, there is a brilliantly nasty publicity shot of the authors which reminded me of the old question ‘Why do so many [Socialists] have brown eyes?’… )
Life lesson: sneering cynicism usually masks ignorance, not intelligence.
— Neera Tanden ? (@neeratanden) August 28, 2018
You can tell the Chapo guys aren't mad about that review because the official account only has a dozen tweets about it
— Chibi Alex Jones (@agraybee) August 28, 2018
Even more specifically rich white dudes, like those on Chapo Trap House.
Those are the people that are least impacted by the courts, and lied the MOST about Hillary.
Fuck them. Fuck your Stein vote.
Fuck the lot of you.
— Monjula Ray (@queerBengali) August 28, 2018
I’m not a fan of memes, but I think this rather sums it up. pic.twitter.com/O3nnXShYci
— Joshua (@MoshuaJoss) August 28, 2018
Remember the??brigade meltdown when some folks dared suggest there is a part of the left that sympathizes w Trump and is cheering him on, advocating allying w his supporters against the “liberal establishment”? An “alt-left” for lack of a better word? https://t.co/Hp3DhzAjuI
— Regina ?? (@regwag2003) August 28, 2018
You can’t make up this shit. Goes back to my assertion there’s but a thin line between western “socialists” & “national socialists”. pic.twitter.com/rPLlVdY8Re
— Is this real life??? (@sensen2011) August 28, 2018
eldorado
mainlining nakedcapitalism i suppose.
Jay
@eldorado:
There’s drugs that can save your life if you overdose,
Safe injection sites where they also test your nakedcapitalism for fentanyol and other poisons,
And safe needle exchanges,……
Major Major Major Major
I read about a third of that review, was glad that somebody was mean to these people, and then realized I didn’t even care enough about them to watch them get pwned. I hadn’t made it to the bolded quote—good lord, they’re techno-utopian socialists? They’ll do a celebrated heel-turn to libertarianism and be speaking at the RNC by 2024.
@Jay: harm reduction strategies? Weirdo.
NotMax
Cafeteria cargo cultism. Gussied up Randinistas in sheeple’s clothing.
Fair Economist
nakedcapitalism had one frontpager who was pretty obviously a Russian asset. Always making excuses for Russian behavior, and Trump too. Yves never seemed like an asset but she veered away from sanity over time. I suspect she became reliant on laundered Russian money as the blog economy deteriorated (she’s run on donations for a while) and that was used to bias her.
M. Bouffant
The bolded part is quite similar to the YIPpies of 50 yrs, ago. Although I doubt Abbie Hoffman, et al., ever pulled in a million/yr., even in 1968 bones.
Mai Naem mobile
I voted today in AZ. I think the Dems had a decent turnout considering that the GOP were the ones who had the more competitive primary for the Senate. The total vote for the Senate Dem primary was about 20K less than the GOP. ~ 320K vs 300K.
Thoroughly Pizzled
If they got basic facts about history right, it would be one thing. But how can we take them seriously if they reduce all of human existence to “Democrats suck”?
suezboo
Jeeze, Americans ! One would expect that you all would realize that everybody should just be anti-Trump and his acolytes who are fixing to take over your democratic republic. If you don’t care for your allies’ political ambitions – Tough ! Getting rid of the poison is priority no. 1. Everything else can wait for the next Utopia. This is doing the Russians’ job for them – wittingly or not. Splitting the opposition is their thing.
Aleta
OT, from Wa Post
Jay
A Guardian Column on the effect a tiny handful of far right con voices had on the Liberal Party’s implosion,
“Last week in parliament, we saw once again that the Liberal party right and their media sponsors can’t even command a majority of the Liberals’ party room, let alone a majority of public opinion.
But they can ruin prime ministers, delay action on climate change, offer a platform to those pushing white nationalism and present all of this to their audiences as victory.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2018/aug/29/hard-right-columnists-with-no-mass-audience-cause-enough-turmoil-to-ruin-leaders
And the study it mentions;
https://shorensteincenter.org/conservative-media-influence-on-republican-party-jackie-calmes/
Leftier than thou’s are trying to do the same thing, with out the Billionaires backing.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
Nope, suggesting that the afflicted just quit nakedcapitalism mainlining , cold turkey, with out a safety net, support systems, education, councelling, medical care, is just weird.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: Is there a 12-step for that?
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yup, the most important steps are:
– Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
– Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
– Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog gone it people just like me.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
No, hate to tell you this, but we took a vote, and no,……
NotMax
Things we’ll never see, #289,627.
Narcissists Anonymous.
:)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: Sounds like you had a Republican counting the votes there.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
States Rights Dude. ‘Murica! Love it or Leave it.
But believe me, even though the servers were wiped, the count was accurate.
Even the Supremes said so,……..well Mary Wilson dissented, so 2/3.
Mary G
Why do I strongly suspect that Chapo has very few female fans?
Jay
@Mary G:
Chapo has very few fans, but they yell a lot.
They generate $60k a month, from weekly $5 downloads, so 3000 people in a given week.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major:
Exactly.
DavidC
Why do I keep reading “Gabbo?”
Jay
@DavidC:
Too many Stooges movies and front yard reinactments when you were a youth.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist:
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady:
But she always seemed like a nut.
different-church-lady
I don’t get it: are they a parody or aren’t they?
joel hanes
@M. Bouffant:
you’re looking at an economy that requires something like a three-hour workday, with machines taking care of most of the drudgery
bjacques
The fanbase of Chapo Trap House are also of a piece with Italy’s Beppe Grillo’s M5S collection of anarchists, amateurs and other political misfits allying with Matteo Salvini’s Lega Nord neo-fascists and all those eyeballs glued to the “woke” hosts of RT. “Hey, we hate (neo-)liberalism too! Join us in wiping it out!”
Jamey
The “aversion to hard work” part of the review is SO on the money.
I know Menaker and worked with his dad for a few years. Kid’s a legacy in the Kent Dorfman tradition. There is SO much wrong with the success of Chapo… that can be pinned on the elitist private school milieu that spawned its founders. Nothing they riff on–and absolutely none of the consequences thereof–will ever affect these guys… or their progeny.
Yet, here we are. Ugh.
kd bart
@NotMax: Hipster Lifestyle Socialism
muad'dib
For every person who pays, there is bound to be another 20 who listen regularly and will never pay. I wouldn’t be surprised if half a million people listen to their podcast weekly…
redoubt
Chapo = white guys laughing at their own jokes again, AKA “default setting for American ‘comedy’.” Pass.
Jerry
They look like dudes that went to the Fyre Festival last year. Maybe this old saying:
needs to be amended with:
Jerry
Wait, that didn’t off come quite right. That seems to be too broad of a brush.
/sigh I suck at humor
kd bart
Grifters come in all shapes and sizes.
Juju
Who’d have guessed it was three doughy looking white guys?
Aleta
@Jerry: It’s funny. Right away I thought of my friend, a socialist who’s a rich guy who forgot his wallet. : ) True. Every time. (Most of us love him despite this; we just don’t go for a sandwich with him.)
Tokyokie
@Aleta: Back during my undergraduate days, the university’s Revolutionary Student Brigade* chapter was led by a fellow whose father was a high-ranking executive of a major oil company. And as another (now sadly departed) friend said of him, “You know Tokyokie, [RSB leader] is the only person I know who can afford to be a communist.
*The Revolutionary Student Brigade emerged in the early 1970s, and judging from the materials from the home office, written in ham-fisted Izvestia-style English and calling for weekly demonstrations in favor of the just people’s struggle in (someplace few RSB members could find on a map), was pretty clearly a Soviet front group. And I was never one to see commie conspiracies behind every political turn of which I didn’t approve.
Sloegin
I’ll happily dog-pile on the Bernie bros, and raise a middle finger to anyone associated even remotely with Jill Stein, but these folks do serve a useful purpose – they shine a spotlight when hard working Dem policy wonks get something completely wrong.
Case in point; when Sanders was pushing for free college in the primaries, Clinton built a sound education platform – but only after floating some ridiculous trial balloons. Anyone remember the “your college loan bills will be delayed for a time, but only if you get a STEM degree, and only if you’re working for a startup company?”
Uncle Cosmo
Say howdy to the 6th (or maybe 7th) Marx brother (collective): Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, Zeppo – does Zippo count? – now Chapo. Which oughta be spelled Crappo.
Assholes.
Warren Lorente
@Uncle Cosmo: Ah yes, Zippo Marx. He was the lighter one.