At a certain point, we have to confront the idea that leadership might be unrepresentative.

This is where I am. It was mainly the Mamdani thing, though. Not backing a fresh and exciting candidate who was withstanding horrific racist attacks was disqualifying for me. Party unity starts at home.

Absolutely begging @nytimes.com to let somebody have a debate with Douthat where they tell him how stupid and transparent this all is, I promise you that is actually what the free marketplace of ideas is supposed to look like, it would get a lot of clicks, people would love it, c'mon just do it.

Frankly, I reject the premise that an analysis of complicity or unintended consequences is useful in this case, in that I have yet to see any indication that there is any practical difference between any of these ideological factions beyond "uses slurs in private" and "uses slurs in public".

I think a lot of them were, basically - and a huge driving factor here is like embarrassment at being intellectuals rather than laborers, and they feel a need to compensate by performatively appealing over and over to the sensibilities and aesthetics of bigotry.

There are non-white leftists, they just talk about antiracism a lot more than white leftists, and end up defined by it.

White intellectuals are more likely than their non-white counterparts to prioritize anti-capitalism over anti-racism, is my basic guess.

The prevalence of the AfD should disabuse us all of the notion that more parties is the solution here.

I was definitely in camp two, the filibuster was the victory I wanted.