![]() ![]() And she does no research, she does no reporting, she doesn’t seem to have any grounding in expertise, she doesn’t seem to have any intellectual curiosity. Then she somehow, for reasons I do not understand, gets this role as a columnist. To me these are equal.”Īnd who can say who’s right? Pamela Paul is a fascinating example because she ran the New York Times Book Review for years as this invisible person with so much power. Her argument was basically, “The Right may push policies that will endanger women’s health or cause their deaths, but the Left is pushing for a modicum of inclusivity of trans people. If you want to understand where we are, just read this fucking thing. And I’m like, why? I think it was specifically her column entitled “The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing. Her whole job is to make these vapid reactionary centrist arguments. I think the advent of Pamela Paul in the Times op-ed pages is what got me thinking about this. Once you start getting them out in front, doing frontline journalism, they’re not people with a sophisticated analysis or any intellectual curiosity. What’s so chilling to me is how many people like this are running newspapers and magazines, and are gatekeepers of the kinds of arguments that Americans are hearing. It seems like an ideology that has a stranglehold on the op-ed pages of places like the Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. ![]() And I don’t get why more editors and people at the heads of institutions can’t see what’s going on. It requires nothing to say, “The Left is saying this, and the Right is saying this, and I’m in the center.” It’s just utterly braindead. But it’s an ideology that doesn’t require any information, any research, any nuance or understanding of actual political dynamics, or the actual conditions of the country. It’s a useful rubric for some issues, and it’s a useful rubric under some political conditions. You look at what the Right is saying and what the Left is saying, and you put yourself in the middle. It’s basically the idea that, to determine what you think about any political issue, you don’t look at the facts, experts, or major institutions. Years ago, I came across a term in an Aaron Huertes piece : reactionary centrism. What’s your take on the current landscape? I sense we’re at a similar pitch of frustration with elite media discourse. ![]()
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