So it's time to start a Liberals Thread. What, exactly, is wrong with them?
This is a devastatingly good article, published only two days ago. Robinson's critique focuses on one publication, but it applies equally well to The Daily Show and The Guardian and a thousand other liberal Explainers, online, in print and on the telly.
Explaining It All To You
The persistence of Vox
Nathan J. Robinson
Posted on November 6, 2016
http://editor.currentaffairs.org/2016/1 ... ng-it-all/
There are too many (well-chosen) embedded links in Robinson's piece to make it postable here in full without halving its impact, so please read it at the link.
Just a taster:
[...] If any merit-based criteria were operating in determining who gets to be a pundit, Yglesias would long ago have ceased to make a living putting words together. And yet he persists.
I once attended a public talk Yglesias gave on housing policy to promote on his (62-page) book The Rent Is Too Damn High. Yglesias was placed in conversation with Yale Law School professor Robert Ellickson, a bona fide expert on housing and zoning with approximately four decades of experience in the field. Goodness knows why anyone thought to pair the two up, as Ellickson is notoriously grumpy and does not suffer fools with much equanimity. The discussion was one of the most satisfying I have seen. Ellickson clearly had no idea who Yglesias was, and took pleasure in ripping Yglesias’ pamphlet to shreds for its basic economic ignorance. Ellickson practically pondered aloud why a frivolous 20-something blogger was being treated as an expert on housing, pointing out the numerous ways in which Yglesias’ arguments were flimsy and ill-considered.
But watching Ellickson flay Yglesias, I was most struck by the fact that Yglesias was completely unfazed. Far from being ashamed at his humiliating defeat, Yglesias did not even seem to acknowledge that he was even being defeated or humiliated. He didn’t attempt to defend himself. He just… kept talking, as if the numerous arguments that had been made proving him wrong simply didn’t exist. [...]
http://editor.currentaffairs.org/2016/1 ... ng-it-all/