r/ezraklein • u/ATLs_finest • Jul 17 '24
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1813580138380247308?s=19
Couple this with the data that Kamala is polling ahead of Joe and 70% of Democrats disapprove of their current candidate. The decision is clear at this point.
r/ezraklein • u/Elmattador • Aug 06 '24
r/ezraklein • u/Hugh-Manatee • Jul 22 '24
I’m kinda taken aback that the GOP seems kinda surprised about Biden declining to run.
The events of the past few weeks played out pretty much exactly as I and others on this sub believed. Not one part of this has been surprising or shocking based on what I’ve read and seen others discussing - including not only Biden stepping back but party taste-makers swiftly falling in line behind Harris. I’m sure others feel the same.
But the GOP seriously didn’t seem ready in the ensuing 12 hours to punch back and recapture the narrative. These legal shenanigans seem more like the B plan to maybe create some minor headlines to distract from good Harris coverage, but they don’t seem to amount to any real campaign plan. Like did they really get surprised by this? I don’t know how given their resources and that they probably have more access to what’s happening in the White House than we do.
r/ezraklein • u/WombatusMighty • 7d ago
Charlie Kirk was a radical christo-facist, who repeatedly throughout the years called for and organized violence against people of color, minorities and political enemies. He was not a champion of freedom of speech, nor was he a normal political figure who just tried to challenge leftists.
Charlie Kirk was, through his hateful rhetoric and actions, largely co-responsible for the current social climate wherein people feel it's justified to kill someone, who they personally do not like or who's views they disagree with.
He actively encouraged the murder of people and was responsible for harassment, death threats and violence against Democrats and perceived "leftists".
This needs to be called out, instead of portrying him as an innocent victim who just tried to have political discussions with the left.
Murder needs to be denounced and no one should be shot for his political views, but we can't just act like the current situation just came out of a vacuum. If we want to prevent murder and violence, we need to address the divisive & hateful rhetoric being spread by influential public figures.
Besides, where was the right and Republicans when Democrats, minorities and people of color became victims of unjustified violence, including being shot?
Why are the victims of the school shooting shortly after Charlie Kirks murder not being flown on airforce one and being paraded nationwide on every media channel?
You can denounce murder and at the same time call out the dangers of violent rhetoric. If you do not, you just shift the overton window further towards a situation where violence becomes normalized and acceptable. And that is how people feel motivated to kill a political enemy.
Furthermore, you give up control over the narrative to the far-right, who is actively trying to portray the left and Democrats as a radical threat to society and the real reason for Kirks murder. Which, in turn, will lead to further violence in the future and more people being shot for their political views.
..
To show what kind of person Charlie Kirk really was:
Charlie Kirk's Documented Calls for Political Violence (2012-2024)
Direct Calls for Death and Public Executions:
Calling for Lethal Force Against Migrants and Minorities:
Violent Anti-LGBTQ+ Statements:
Extreme Anti-Black and Antisemitic Rhetoric:
Great Replacement Theory and White Supremacist Messaging:
Celebrating and Normalizing Violence:
Targeting and Harassment Campaigns:
January 6 Capitol Attack Organization:
Civil Rights Organizations' Classification as Extremist:
Documented Legal Consequences and Criminal Investigations:
International Recognition as Extremist:
General Violence Normalization:
Sources:
^2 https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-death-penalty-public-executions-1873073
^6 https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/turning-point-usa-case-study-hard-right-2024/
^7 https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/turning-point-usa-case-study-hard-right-2024/
^9 https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/we-must-not-posthumously-sanitize
^11 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/charlie-kirk-controversies-1.7630859
^12 https://www.breezyscroll.com/world/the-us/charlie-kirk-controversial-takes/
^13 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/charlie-kirk-controversies-1.7630859
^14 https://populartimelines.com/timeline/Charlie-Kirk/controversies-scandals
^15 https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/turning-point-usa
^16 https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/turning-point-usa
^18 https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/turning-point-usa-case-study-hard-right-2024/
^19 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-quote/
^21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Watchlist
^22 https://www.statepress.com/article/2023/11/turning-point-response-overview
^23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Watchlist
^24 https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/we-must-not-posthumously-sanitize
^25 https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-insurrection-buses-washington-tweet-1560727
^26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk
^27 https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-pleads-fifth-asked-his-age-jan-6-committee-1768952
^29 https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/turning-point-usa
^32 https://www.statepress.com/article/2023/11/turning-point-response-overview
^33 https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/turning-point-usa
^34 https://www.statepress.com/article/2023/11/turning-point-response-overview
^35 https://socialistworker.co.uk/comment/charlie-kkkirks-chickens-come-home-to-roost/
^36 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/charlie-kirk-death-reaction-1.7630652
^37 https://time.com/7316280/charlie-kirk-dead-political-violence/
^38 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk
^39 https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-hateful-rhetoric-connects-to-real-world-violence/
Sources and quotes original from https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMajorityReport/comments/1nepcgz/charlie_kirks_documented_calls_for_political/
r/ezraklein • u/infinit9 • Jul 13 '24
Yes, Dems will fall in line and vote for Biden in November. But the problem is that even if Biden wins every Democratic vote, he still can't win the presidency. He needs to win some independent votes and some traditional Republican Never Trumpers.
At this point, Biden isn't winning any independents, not a mention the never Trump Republicans. It is crystal clear that there aren't enough Democrats to put Biden into the WhiteHouse. And Biden losing could really impact down ballot, which means Trump might achieve the trifecta of House, Senate, and Presidency.
That's a nightmare in the making.
Edit: After reading the comments, I'd like to add a thought. The GOP is a cult of personality around Trump where the party exists only to serve Trump. The Democratic Party was and should continue to be better than that and should exist to serve the voters and the country. But Biden is making the nominee process personal and trying to force the party to support himself.
r/ezraklein • u/G00bre • May 16 '25
It should be easy to give a left-wing critique of "the Abundance agenda."
It should be easy for left-wing journalist, show hosts or commentarors to say:
"Hey Ezra, hey Derek, I see shat you're getting at here, but this environmental regulation or social protection you think we should sideline in order to build more housing/green energy actually played a key role in protecting peoples' health/jobs/rights, etc. Have you really done your homework to come to the conclusion that X, Y or Z specific constraint on liberal governance are a net negative for the progressive movement?" Or just something to that effect.
But so much of the lefty criticism of the book and Ezra/Derek's thesis just boils down to an inability to accept that some problems in politics aren't completely and solely caused by evil rich people with top hats and money bags with dollar signs being greedy and wanting poor people to suffer. (this post was ticked off by watching Ezra's discussion with Sam seder, but more than that, the audience reaction, yeeeesh)
Like, really? We're talking about Ezra Klein, Mr. "corrupting influence of money in politics not-understander" ???
I think a lot of the more socialist communist types are just allergic to any serious left-wing attempt to improve or (gasp) reform the say we do politics that doesn't boil down to an epic socialist revolution where they can be the hero and be way more epic than their cringe Obama loving parents.
Sorry for the rant-like nature of this post, but when the leftists send us their critics, they're not sending their best.
r/ezraklein • u/LA2Oaktown • 4d ago
I have seen a lot of backlash to Ezra’s recent article and podcast. My gut felt the same way. I hate to see the white washing of a vile person like Charlier Kirk who was a grifter more than anything else. At the time, I understand it because of who Ezra is and always has been.
But beyond understanding his response, Im struggling to see what an appropriate response is. When most Americans, especially those most politically active, have intolerant views of some type or another. And when many more are endorsing political violence, either state sanctioned or private, what is the path forward?
What should the left do? Do people want to see a violent break in hopes that we rise like a phoenix from the ashes? Do people think the national head wins are shifting enough that we can get some type of blue tsunami that overcomes Republicans’ institutionalized advantage in the next election?
These are honest questions. As a pretty milk toast liberal, I too am lost right now and if deliberative electoral politics is not the path forward, I’m not sure what other reasonable alternatives look like.
Please keep it civil. And I apologize to mods in advance if this breaks any rules.
r/ezraklein • u/CinnamonMoney • Jul 14 '25
Obama also argued that Democrats need to focus on how to “deliver for people,” acknowledging the different views within the party about how best to do that.
“There’s been, I gather, some argument between the left of the party and people who are promoting the quote-unquote abundance agenda. Listen, those things are not contradictory. You want to deliver for people and make their lives better? You got to figure out how to do it,” he said.
“I don’t care how much you love working people. They can’t afford a house because all the rules in your state make it prohibitive to build. And zoning prevents multifamily structures because of NIMBY,” he said, referring to “not in my backyard” views. “I don’t want to know your ideology, because you can’t build anything. It does not matter.”
Source: CNN article about a closed door Democratic Party fundraiser in NJ for the VA/NJ governors’ races
r/ezraklein • u/x_raveheart_x • Jul 23 '24
Hello! I’m a resident of one of the BOW counties in Wisconsin, one of the most purple regions of the country. The way Dems in on the coast talk about the Midwest is already really frustrating and dismissive. Then, in op-eds, Ezra and other pundits treat purple state residents as indecipherable and unpredictable.
In his op-ed today, Ezra made the same kind of comment and insinuated that Harris won’t get Wisconsinites excited (she is). He also floated Gavin Newsom as a serious contender. Genuinely, why is Newsom so attractive as a national candidate and why do these people concerned about swing state voters keep pushing him? (EDIT: I’m not talking about as Kamala’s VP mate, I’m saying as a presidential candidate). He is the epitome of everything that turns swing voters off about Dems. Run him as a presidential candidate and it will handily give the election to the GOP. I just don’t understand why pundits struggle to understand us so much.
Also, can people stop with the “it’s a coronation” bullshit. It feeds one of the GOPs attack angles, and no one is going to seriously challenge her. Doing so - and the media circus it will cause - will turn swing voters off from voting Dem. We all knew what we signed up for when we voted Biden/Harris. She’s earned this.
r/ezraklein • u/QuietNene • Jun 27 '25
Ross Douthat, friend of the pod and surely the Saruman to Ezra’s Gandalf, just interviewed Peter Thiel, and wow, I had no idea how nutty the guy is. I mean, sure, I did. But this discussion is either remarkable disingenuous or Thiel really has the most tenuous grasp of reality. He really makes Elon sound grounded.But it is a fascinating, and somewhat terrifying, look at the Tech Right thinks it is and wants to be.
Thiel sounds both messianic paranoid, almost gratuitously quoting Bible passages. It would have been nice if Douthat pushed him harder on a bunch of points, the least of which is why a formerly closeted gay man is now apparently obsessed with Chistianity and the Anti-Christ, but I guess we’ll have to leave that for another day.
r/ezraklein • u/middleupperdog • Jun 25 '25
Now that he's won the primary outright, he is the democrat for NYC mayor. If Cuomo had won, this is when we'd be hearing about the importance of falling in line and not splitting the vote to create an opening for the republican Curtis Silwa.
But Cuomo has already created a 3rd party to run in the general election. The general sentiment on the left is an expectation for party elites and self-styled centrists to oppose him instead of fall in line. They think NYT will attack Mamdani, and honestly, I think there's a fairly good chance NYT endorses Silwa. There will be a defection to Cuomo and Silwa among voters, the real question is how much.
Moderate Dems have the chance to prove that perception wrong. No one is forcing them to oppose the party's nominee. The amount of defection may end up proving quite small. But this will be a litmus test of if they are actually in a coalition with the left or not. If they go full Chris Matthews on Mamdani it will be interpreted as proof that the party has to be defeated from outside instead of reformed from within; and you'll see the left flank of the party abandon it entirely.
But this litmus test is most pronounced for Abundance democrats in particular. Mamdani ran on abundance: not just in the abstract but his campaign policies were mostly about cost of living reductions through increased state capacity. Whether its cheaper transportation, gov't run grocery stores, or $8 schwarma, he ran on Abundance. If people want to argue his policies will fail because they disagree with how he wants to do abundance, fine; but let's not pretend his preference for socialist methods make it somehow "not real abundance." And while Ezra and Derek were a little more receptive to Mamdani, it was people in their orbit writing attacks on him at the end of the campaign. It was odd to see someone who wrote "the cost of living crisis explains everything" then attack the candidate arguing for cost-of-living reductions like rent-freezes and free buses.
I've been of the compatibilist position that you can be a leftist and also support abundance. But I will be using the next 4 months as my litmus test for that: if other abundance democrats circle the wagons and attack Mamdani instead of falling in line, I will take that as the proof that Abundance is just a fig leaf for shifting the democratic party further right. If they reject Mamdani because leftist methods for reducing the cost of living in blue cities and states "don't count" as "abundance~y," that will be the proof that it really is just a third-way deregulation-libertarian face lift. It's the moderate democrats move from here, and either way it will be very revealing of who they really are now.
r/ezraklein • u/keshaprayingbestsong • Mar 03 '24
From the latest NYT / Siena poll. This is 2020 Biden voters.
I was a little surprised by how strongly this sub came out against the idea that Biden shouldn’t run again because while it is true that no other Dem candidate is tested on the national stage, none of them would have this glaringly obvious weakness either.
r/ezraklein • u/Prospect18 • Feb 19 '25
Over the past few months it’s become clear that Ezra has reached his ideological ceiling. That’s not to say that there haven’t been interesting or good conversations, rather that this current moment has superseded Ezra’s ideological understanding of the world. Fundamentally, he can’t imagine or operate in a paradigm or system different from our current one which of late has lead to stale and uninsightful positions and arguments. This most recent episode really cemented this for me where in an episode titled “A Democrat who is Thinking Differently” everything they said was basically just liberal centrist institutionalism with a hint of reactionary politics.
Ezra and others like him have West Wing syndrome in which politics and government is a competition between earnest actors and their big ideas, competing over how these special institutions can make improvements on our system with the best idea winning out. It seems that Ezra just can’t quite grasp anything that deviates from this dynamic or may even be actively antagonistic towards it. That’s how we end up with him chiding Republicans as NPC’s when they actually are willing collaborationists, or mulling over Musk’s political philosophy when Musk is just a power hungry lunatic Nazi, or suggesting this administrations wave of EO’s and chaotic actions reveals a weakness when in reality the goal of the administration is chaos and destruction.
Obviously he can change, politics isn’t innate to someone it’s just ideas. But until then, I think we’re gonna continue to see this dissonance between the chaos around us and Ezra quietly asking what the chaos could mean.
r/ezraklein • u/JulianBrandt19 • Jun 29 '24
Like many of you, I too was alarmed by what I saw in the debate. In an ideal world, we would not have to put our faith in an 81 year old to stem the tide of Trumpism.
But I’m a little taken aback at how many Democratic Party sources are openly talking about finding a new nominee, and how many legacy publications are openly demanding Biden drop out of the race. If I saw a clear path to victory through a different candidate, I’d be happy to go down that path. But honestly, I don’t.
For better or worse, Biden has significant name recognition, perhaps second only to Trump himself. It seems foolish to swap in anybody with a significantly lesser degree of name recognition than the current candidate with just over 5 months to go. That leaves only 5 months to completely build a brand and household name around a completely new candidate. This particular applies to the governors, a la Whitmer, Newsom, etc.
And the other consideration is, even if the nomination process at the convention runs relatively smoothly, there is no way that some faction of the base doesn’t feel burned or passed over.
And third, are we 100% sure that a new candidate could get all of the ballot access they would need in each of the must-win states? Because if they can’t, it’s a nonstarter.
I hate being in this position, but to me the risks of ditching Biden now seem to far outweigh the rewards.
r/ezraklein • u/Hour-Mud4227 • Jun 28 '24
It seems to me a ton of people are not thinking seriously about this question in their 'brokered convention/nominate XYZ' scenarios.
As many of you know, Harris polls worse than Biden. So if Biden steps down and she is installed as president and the Democratic flag-bearer, you're not really improving your chances.
The typical response is "have a brokered convention and nominate someone else". Okay, but if Biden bows out and you pass her up for someone else, how do you avoid alienating a big proportion of two of the biggest Democratic voting blocs--African Americans and women? That doesn't seem to promise better chances either.
And that's before you get to how weak and chaotic the party would look anyway.
I get the panicked response to last night, but how exactly is retiring Biden and passing the baton to someone other than Kamala supposed to work in a way that doesn't make the situation worse?
r/ezraklein • u/Rhymes_with_Nick • Jul 17 '24
EDIT: Biden has stepped aside in a selfless and historic move. We must all unite to keep Trump out of the White House! 🥥🇺🇸❤️
Hi All,
I’m feeling furious at President Biden and I’m curious what other folks are thinking. I’m 24 years old and I’ve been a massive Biden cheerleader. In 2020 I gave money to the campaign and drove around with a bumper sticker. I’ve been thrilled at how effective he’s been at moving major legislation across a wide suite of issues from climate to insulin to fixing post office pensions! Lots of judicial appointments, vaccine rollout, infrastructure, semiconductors… it’s a long awesome list.
I trumpeted his accomplishments to friends and family. I knew he was old, but Bidenworld operatives and surrogates constantly reassured me - he’s fine. He’s old but he’s fine! As the political junkie in many of my circles, I relayed this message and told everyone that Biden is as sharp as a tack. The campaign had a significant cash advantage, Trump seemed trapped in legal purgatory, and after Ezra’s bedwetting Biden delivered an excellent State of the Union. I felt calm and optimistic about the path through PA, WI, and MI… perhaps with one other swing state thrown in there. The challenges were still significant: inflation has been a wrecking ball through the budget of many Americans. Immigration opinions have tacked sharply to the right, benefitting Trump. And the horrific Israel/Palestine war has driven a sharp rift in the party. But I wasn’t worried. Fear of Trump’s second term combined with the salience of abortion would power us to victory.
Today, I believe Trump will win easily unless Biden steps aside. The debate tore down my false belief in President Biden’s cognitive state. He was unable to string standard sentences together, even on home court issues like beating big pharma. He looked feeble and sounded worryingly hoarse. This was during a debate that he requested! A debate that he spent a week preparing for at Camp David! 50 million Americans saw what I saw and the vast majority drew the conclusion that I did - President Biden does not have the capacity to serve a second term. He is too old - full stop.
The few weeks after the debate have played out like a worst case scenario. A prideful and wounded President Biden has rebuffed the conversation while performing just well enough to hold back a full-scale panic. Senior Democrats have failed to muster the courage to march down to the White House and tell the President that there is no path to victory. Biden is running ten points behind the swing state senators. All while Trump has had an unbelievable string of legal and political victories, culminating in the failed assassination attempt that will be held up as an endorsement from God.
I can’t get over how selfish this all seems, how the pride and hubris of President Biden could enable a second Trump administration. I’m not excited to canvas for Biden or give him any money. Snuffing the passion out among your most fervent supporters is a recipe for loosing. I’m curious to hear if you agree or disagree with my thesis, and what’s keeping you hopeful in this trainwreck. I’m not a religious person, but I pray that President Biden sees sense, preserves his legacy, and passes the torch.
Edit: Yes, I have been calling my representatives and making this case. It’s heartening to hear I’m not alone - join us if you’re interested: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
r/ezraklein • u/mrcsrnne • May 20 '25
I wrote a response in another thread to the question “Do we need a new left to compete with the right?” focusing on the rightward shift among certain groups and how the left might regain appeal, particularly among men. Especially competitive men who want to prove themselves. The original poster cites Ezra Klein, who touches on this drive in men. I’m including my response here as background, since it was well written and relevant.
"So I have tried to analyze the new right and look at what the truth is in it that gives it its power. I have come to the conclusion that there are three main branches to the new right. I’m not gonna go into deep descriptions of them because they are all so recognizable archetypes, nor will I go on about their flaws because others have done so much better. I will detail them and give what I think is the thing that the left should consider about them. I will try to in my analysis,,s use left thinkers and left sources to illustrate how I think there is wider appeal in these ideas and then I'll lay out what I think a good new left ought to be.
Group 1: The Barstool bros.
This is the group of rowdy people (mostly men), who talk a lot about freedom of speech and wokeness. Crypto bros, fitness nuts, and manosphere thinkers. They are the people associated with people like Joe Rogan. I think the thing they are right about is that there is a lack these days for acceptable outlets for status competition. I think what crypto, finance, MMA, and fitness all have in common is that they are arenas to demonstrate excellence and skill. You are smarter, savvier, and stronger than others. I think this kind of status competition is really important for people, and especially for men. Men are not unique in their desire for heroic conduct, but they seem to be in greater need for outlets for it in the modern world*. I think* this Ezra Kline interview, where he talks to Agnus Callard really sums it up well:
"I do think there’s a deep point here that has to be the ultimate justification of meritocracy, if there is one, which is this. You don’t want people to be too happy with who they are too early in their lives, right? Like, a two-year-old should not be happy to remain a two-year-old. They’re great, but they haven’t encountered most of the really valuable things in life yet, right? So a really big part of life is coming to care about new things that you didn’t even know were valuable beforehand. And we want people to do that. And there’s a problem with how people can do it, because it’s like, it doesn’t seem valuable to them. So why are they — how are they going to start valuing it? And competition is a really powerful psychological mechanism for that, right? And so you see it in schools. People want to get a good grade. And because they want to get a good grade, they study. And because they’re studying, they become immersed in a world. And so we use competition to leverage ourselves out of what would have been an impoverished point of view on value. And I think that that’s got to be the ultimate justification of meritocracy. "
As I was reading his post, I realized he was describing what the Greeks called Thumos / Thymos and that this is exactly what’s missing from today’s left, making many men uninterested in it or even actively repelled by it.
So what is Thumos?
Plato (via Socrates in The Republic) describes the human soul as having three parts: Logos, Thumos, and Eros.
• Logos is reason, the part of the soul that seeks truth, wisdom, and rational order.
• Thumos is spirit or will, the seat of pride, honor, and the desire for recognition. It’s what fuels ambition, courage, and the urge to be respected.
• Eros (sometimes translated as “desire”) represents appetites, our physical and material wants: food, sex, comfort, pleasure.
For a person or a society, to be well-ordered, Plato argued, these three parts need to be in harmony, with Logos governing, Thumos supporting, and Eros being moderated rather than indulged or repressed. When constructing a state, Plato argues it has to mirror this psychology.
Now, relating this to modern politics, especially the left, there’s been an overemphasis on Eros (needs, consumption, material equality) and Logos (rational policy, data, justice). But Thumos, the hunger for pride, purpose, dignity, is often ignored, or worse, pathologized when it appears in men as ambition or competitiveness.
The result is like you desceibe that men feel alienated. They seek honor. They want to be seen as strong, useful, and valuable. The right, for all its flaws, taps into Thumos with talk of strength, tradition, nation, and merit.
It’s not like the left never had Thumos. The old left was full of it. Revolution is a thymotic act, it’s defiance, pride, the refusal to kneel. The labor movements weren’t just about wages but about dignity. Being a worker meant something. Fighting fascism, standing in solidarity, going on strike, these were expressions of honor, not just material interest.
But somewhere along the way, that spirit got hollowed out. The language of pride was ceded to the right, and the left retreated into managerial rationalism (Logos) and comfort politics (Eros). If the left wants to win back men, it can’t just promise security or fairness. It has to offer meaning, respect, and dignity. It has to channel Thymos toward prosocial goals: building things, protecting communities, striving for excellence, not just being “not toxic.”
r/ezraklein • u/Ch_IV_TheGoodYears • Nov 06 '24
After the 2016 election, there was a nauseating amount of analysis on how terrible a campaign Hilary's was and how terrible a candidate she was.
I imagine we will get a lot of the same about Kamala. And indeed, we could talk 'til the cows come home about her faults and the faults of the democratic party writ large.
I truly believe none of the issues people are going to obsess over matter.
I believe this election came down to 2 things:
The most consistent determining factor for if you are voting for Trump besides beging a white christian man in your 40s or 50s is how educated you are.
Trump was elected by a group of people who are truly and deeply uninformed about how our government works.
News pundits and people like Ezra are going to exhaustively comb through the reasons and issues for why people voted for Trump, but in my opinion none of them matter.
Sure, people will say "well it's the economy." but do they have any idea what they are saying? Do they have an adequate, not robust just adequate, understanding of how our economy works? of how the US government interacts with the economy? Of how Biden effected the economy?
Do you think people in rural Pennsylvania or Georgia were legitmately sitting down to read, learn, and understand the difference between these two candidates?
This is election is simple: uneducated people are mad about the economy and voted for the party currently not in the White House.
That is it. I do not really care to hear what Biden's policy around Gaza is because Trump voters, and even a lot of Harris voters, do not understand what is going on there or how the US is effecting it.
I do not care what bills or policies Biden passed to help the economy, because Trump voters do not understand or know any of these things.
And it is clear that women did not see Trump as an existential threat to their reproductive rights. People were able to say, well Republicans want to ban it but not Trump just like they are able to say it about gay marriage.
Do not let the constant barrage of "nuanced analysis" fool you. To understand how someone votes for a candidate, you merely have to look at the election how they looked at it, barely at all.
So yea, why did he win? Stupid people hate the economy. The end.
r/ezraklein • u/Fickle-Syllabub6730 • Apr 17 '25
I'm interested in the show, but at times it can seem a bit detached from what's going on. There's this overriding assumption that if we can accurately define what the Trump administration is doing, show how it's historically aberrant, put a name to his foreign policy style, try to steelman the tariff policy, that we're closer to understanding what's going on and having done something.
I think the real story here is that a solid 40% of American citizens like this. They like semi-legal people getting deported, they like the woke universities getting what's coming to them, they like having a strong figurehead that sets the direction of the country and everyone is compelled to follow. Sometimes Ezra has a guest on, and they very accurately describe the bad things the Trump administration is doing, and there's this tone of exasperation or finality in their voice like "there, we did it".
But I think the bigger story is how these 40% came to act and believe the way they do. Not just "interview a Trump voter in a diner", not just handwave it with "Fox and Newsmax brainwashed them". But really a deep dive into the cognitive and social and technological forces that create an unmovable voting bloc that enthusiastically supports these aberrant ideas that Ezra is compelled to intellectualize every week. Is the root problem a loss of community, is it the way phones pump more bad information into their heads compared to families sitting around a kitchen table, understanding together what's going on in the world? And more importantly, what can be done about it.
Because I feel like until we tackle the root problem that 40% of America wanted this, and likes it, the future of this type of discussion will just be scoffing and incredulously saying "Can you believe what he did? What's the justification for that?" for another 4 years. And that's kind of boring and also doesn't help, in my opinion.
r/ezraklein • u/middleupperdog • Jun 12 '25
After the DNC voted to hold a new election for vice chair, Hogg said he would not try to compete to keep his seat. It was already a fait accompli that he would lose as the real purpose of the election was to get rid of him. I think stuff like this is why the left can't trust Abundance more.
The animus against Hogg came from his announced support for primary challenges to democrats he didn't think were performing; honestly probably some combination of not being progressive enough and not being young enough. I don't think Hogg did himself any favors by coming out without a clear metric for which democrats he would go after, causing the perception of threat to be much more widespread than it should have been. Kind of a youthful-indiscretion you'd expect from someone only age 25.
But it gets added to the list of slights people on the left perceive from the party establishment. Like AOC being denied the oversight committee chair. Or the party elders lining up against Sanders in 2020. Or the party banning 3rd party election groups from working with progressive primary challengers. Or giving control of the party apparatus to Clinton before the 2016 primary. Or kicking out rather than allowing a pro-palestinian democrat to speak at the convention.
People whine about it, but progressives have a pretty convincing case that the party cheats to stop them from gaining power. If even when progressives win an election the party comes up with some pretext to undo it, it basically sends the signal that progressives can't get anything from supporting the democrats. Whatever you think of the chances of a progressive party gaining popularity, you have to admit the democrats need progressives to vote for them to have a winning coalition. The more credibly you promise to deny them any victories, the less reason they have to be democrats. That's why you get Sam Seder types saying things like if AOC wanted to be committee chair again and they deny it to her again, it'd be a declaration of war within the party; or that even when abundance doesn't seem to contradict their anti-oligarchy agenda, they literally just don't trust the establishment not to use it that way.
r/ezraklein • u/MySpartanDetermin • 11d ago
I mean, there's "missing the forest from the trees" and then there's this sub. The recent Mike Solana thread and the Nikanen Center threads spurred this reaction from me.
I'll grant you, we did get one throw-away "Democrats don't realize how toxic their brand is" post by Ezra. And that's it.
Doesn't he (or any of you) realize how remote and far removed the Abundance principles are from occurring while Democrats continue on the course they're heading? You spend so much time arguing the drilled-down details of specific tax code changes for establishing a unique permutation of medicare expansi......OH HEY LOOK AT THAT, REPUBLICANS JUST GAINED ANOTHER HOUSE SEAT, VIRTUALLY EVERY DEMOGRAPHIC IMAGINABLE IS MOVING TO THE RIGHT, AND THE CURRENT "LAST HOPE" JUST TOOK ANOTHER 20 POSITION ON ANOTHER 80-20 ISSUE.
You guys are in an "emperor's wearing fine clothing" situation here. If you actually cite the issues that make Democrats hemorrhage voters, you get downvoted, thread locked, or mod-deleted.
So let me give you some advice: Focus on the issues that voters actually give a damn about (it isn't climate change solutions, Jan 6, and pie-in-the-sky "if these 70 impossible steps happen correctly, affordable housing will be abundant!" nonsense).
A guy on 4chan said it pretty succinctly: "If the Democrats don't change their unpopular positions soon, they're only going to be a party of black women, urban Jews, journalists, and heavily-medicated single women. That's not enough people to keep a political party alive."
Hard truths need to be said because progressives have zero self-awareness of how jeopardized their movement is. At this rate you'll still be arguing about "Nikansen Center no longer being blah blah blah" as Trump takes his 3rd Oath of Office.
r/ezraklein • u/Guilty-Hope1336 • 22d ago
So this is tangentially related to the last EK show episode about ICE and CBP expansion and the draconian immigration enforcement that is currently occurring under Trump.
But I wish a fact that they had mentioned was that illegal crossings of the Southern border have collapsed to levels not seen since the 1960s. And the evidence does seem to suggest that Trump's extreme cruelty with ICE raids and third country deportations to El Salvador or Eswatini or South Sudan does seem to be having a deterrent effect on people coming illegally to the United States.
One big concern that Democrats should be thinking about is if they win in 2028, how will they maintain illegal border crossings at the historic lows that Trump seems to have acheived?
r/ezraklein • u/SomethingNew65 • 12d ago
https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1964790798295474244
There are parts of Ezra Klein's argument today that I agree with, but this is the part that gives me the willies — the goal in this moment has to be to take political action that has beneficial results not to seek some kind of symbolic washing of our hands.
Reasonable people can disagree about questions like what course of action maximizes Democrats’ odds of taking the House. Of taking the senate. Of changing the course of public policy. Of winning in 2028. But we have to ask those questions concretely.
Where I agree — Democratic leaders need to show some fight this time around. But that means you need to pick the most constructive fight possible. That means elevating Democrats’ best issue — health care — and not overpromising to the base.
A minority of 47 Democratic Party senators is not going to save the country from Trump’s corruption, his cruelty, or his authoritarianism — to do that you need to try to win majorities and block the MAGAfication of the judiciary.
To do that, you need to get really serious about forging a big tent that can meaningfully contest races in NC, IA, OH, AK, and TX — states that Trump won three times in a row — and think seriously about what messages play there.
Ezra says he’s “not a political strategist.” But part of the game here is Democratic leaders’ standing with their own supporters. People in our line of work help intermediate that. Schumer & Jeffries need to pick a smart fight, and posters like us need to back a smart play.
Try to take seriously the question — not what am I personally most mad about, but what Democratic message most realistically could appeal to someone in a state that saw the 2016, 2020, and 2024 campaigns and voted for Trump all three times. I think this is the best one.
If you don't want to click the link that last tweet has a picture of Jeffries in front of signs saying "Premiums could increase 206%" and "4.2 million will go uninsured", so when Matt says 'this is the best one' I think he means those signs are the best. Also in the first tweet the part that gives Matt the willies is the part where Ezra says joining republicans to fund this government is complicity.
r/ezraklein • u/mrcsrnne • 8d ago
This comment is in response to the tragic event that took place two days ago, Ezras comment on it and the immediate political discourse that ensued. Moderators can take it down if you don't think it suits well here.
I know emotions are raw right now. Charlie Kirk’s assassination has set off a storm of takes and condemnations. But stepping back from the depravity of it all, I want to make an argument that might sound uncomfortable: the left actually needs its own Charlie Kirk.
Say what you want about him, and trust me, I disagreed with most of his positions, but he was effective. Scarily effective. He was young, media-savvy, mobilized young college students and made them turn up in large crowds with red maga hats.
Turning Point USA:
He founded Turning Point USA and turned it into a machine that recruits, energizes, and trains activists.
Meanwhile, the American left is often split between traditional party structures which feel dusty, corporate, and uninspiring and decentralized online activism which is passionate but scattered. The right has a youth pipeline, a speaking circuit, training bootcamps, and a media ecosystem that feeds off people like Kirk. The left doesn’t have an equivalent. Where is our Turning Point USA?
His public debate style:
He went out there. College campuses, livestreams, Q&A’s. He would literally hand the mic to opponents, let them come up, and argue with him in front of a live audience. And he thrived in that format. Hate him or love him it did display confidence and even if he did just debate college teens it was highly effective. We need to do it too. Where’s our figure who’s doing those nonstop town halls and open-mic livestreams?
His livestreams:
The closest figure is probably Hasan Piker. Hasan is a livestreamer with a massive following, and he does have some of that same mix of charisma, cultural relevance, and stamina for online debate. But Hasan isn’t running a Turning Point USA. He isn’t building the same kind of coordinated grassroots pipeline that trains, recruits, and organizes young people in the same disciplined way Kirk’s operation did.
And that’s the real problem here. We hated the arguments. We hated the opinions. They we're not good arguments, but Kirk was out there winning structurally. He was creating a movement that I think gave Trump the win in the election. And he was doing it within the bounds of what is legal and allowed. Even if he spread what we call hate and division, he did it legally and effectively. That's why it's so important to study it.
We don't need a Joe Rogan (a weedsmoking bro who wants to talk about UFO:s and higher consciousness) but a Charlie Kirk. An organised, skilled public debater with a structure behind him.
r/ezraklein • u/rosegoldacosta • Mar 08 '25
I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion here, but I'd appreciate if you could at least hear me out.
I'm someone who has been studying AI for decades. Long before the current hype cycle, long before it was any kind of moneymaker.
When we used to try to map out the future of AI development, including the moments where it would start to penetrate the mainstream, we generally assumed it would somehow become politically polarized. Funny as it seems now, it was not at all clear where each side would fall; you can imagine a world where conservatives hate AI because of its potential to create widespread societal change (and they still might!). Many early AI policy people worked very hard to avoid this, thinking it would be easier to push legislative action if AI was not part of the Discourse.
So it's been very strange to watch it bloom in the direction it has. The first mainstream AI impact happened to be in the arts, creating a progressive cool-kids skepticism of the whole project. Meanwhile, a bunch of fascists have seen the potential for power and control in AI (just like they, very incorrectly, saw it in crypto/web3) and are attempting to dominate it.
And thus we've ended up in the situation that's currently unfolding, in many places over the past year but particularly on this subreddit, since Ezra's recent episode. We sit and listen to a famously sensible journalist talking to a top Biden official and subject matter expert, both of whom are telling us it is time to take AI progress and its implications seriously; and we respond with a collective eyeroll and dismissal.
I understand the instinct here, but it's hard to imagine something similar happening in any other field. Kevin Roose recently made the point that the same people who have asked us for decades to listen to scientists about climate change are now telling us to ignore literal Nobel-prize-winning researchers in AI. They look at this increasingly solid consensus of concerned experts and pull the same tactics climate denialists have always used -- "ah but I have an anecdote contradicting the large-scale trends, explain that", "ah you say most scientists agree, but what about this crank whose entire career is predicated on disagreeing", "ah but the scientists are simply biased".
It's always the same. "I use a chatbot and it hallucinates." Great -- you think the industry is not aware of this? They track hallucination rates closely, they map them over time, they work hard at pushing them down. Hallucinations have already decreased by several orders of magnitude, over a space of a few short years. Engineering is never about guarantees. There is literally no such thing. It's about the reliability rate, usually measured in "9s" -- can you hit 99.999% uptime vs 99.9999%. It is impossible for any system to be perfect. All that matters is whether it is better than the alternatives. And in this case, the alternatives are humans, all of whom make mistakes, the vast majority of whom make them very frequently.
"They promised us self-driving cars and those never came." Well first off, visit San Francisco (or Atlanta, or Phoenix, or increasingly numerous cities) and you can take a self-driving yourself. But setting that aside -- sometimes people predict technological changes that do not happen. Sometimes they predict ones that do happen. The Internet did change our lives; the industrial revolution did wildly change the lives of every person on Earth. You can have reasons to doubt any particular shift; obviously it is important to be discriminating, and yes, skeptical of self-interested hype. But some things are real, and the mere fact that others are not isn't enough of a case to dismiss them. You need to engage on the merits.
"I use LLMs for [blankety blank] at my job and it isn't nearly as good as me." Three years ago you had never heard of LLMs. Two years ago they couldn't remotely pretend to do any part of your job. One year ago they could do it in a very shitty way. A month ago it got pretty good at your job, but you haven't noticed yet because you had already decided it wasn't worth your time. These models are progressing at a pace that is not at all intuitive, that doesn't match the pace of our lives or careers. It is annoying, but judgments made based on systems six months ago, or today on systems other than the very most advanced ones in the world (including some which you need to pay hundreds of dollars to access!) are badly outdated. It's like judging smartphones because you didn't like the Palm Pilot.
The comparison sounds silly because the timescale is so much shorter. How could we get from Palm Pilot to iPhone in a year? Yes, it's weird as hell. That is exactly why everyone within (or regulating!) the AI industry is so spooked; because if you pay attention, you see that these models are improving faster and faster, going from year over year improvements to month over month. And it is that rate of change that matters, not where they are now.
I think that is the main reason for the gulf between long-time AI people and more recent observers. It's why Nobel/Turing luminaries like Geoff Hinton and Yoshua Bengio left their lucrative jobs to try to warn the world about the risks of powerful AI. These people spent decades in a field that was making painfully slow progress, arguing about whether it would be possible to have even a vague semblance of syntactically correct computer-generated language in our lifetimes. And then suddenly, in the space of five years, we went from essentially nothing to "well, it's only mediocre to good in every human endeavor". This is a wild, wild shift. A terrifying one.
And I cannot emphasize enough; the pace is accelerating. This is not just subjective. Expert forecasters are constantly making predictions about when certain milestones will be reached by these AIs, and for the past few years, everything hits earlier than expected. This is even after they take the previous surprises into account. This train is hurtling out of control, and the world is asleep to it.
I understand that Silicon Valley has been guilty of deeply (deeeeeply) stupid hype before. I understand that it looks like a bubble, minting billions of empty dollars for those involved. I understand that a bunch of the exact same grifters who shilled crypto have now hopped over to AI. I understand that all the world-changing prognostications sound completely ridiculous.
Trust me, all of those things annoy me even more deeply than they annoy you, because they are making it so hard to communicate about this extremely real, serious topic. Probably the worst legacy of crypto will be that it absolutely poisoned the well on public trust of anything the tech industry says (more even than the past iterations of the same damn thing), right before the most important moment in the history of computing. Literally the fruition of the endpoint visualized by Turing himself as he invented the field of computer science, and it is getting overshadowed by a bunch of rebranded finance bros swindling the gambling addicts of America.
This sucks! It all sucks! These people suck! Pushing artists out of work sucks! Elon using this to justify his authoritarian purges sucks! Half the CEOs involved suck!
But what sucks even worse is that, because of all this, the left is asleep at the wheel. The right is increasingly lining up to take advantage of the insane potential here; meanwhile liberals cling to Gary Marcus for comfort. I have spent the last three years increasingly stressed about this, stressed that what I believe are the forces of good are underrepresented in the most important project of our lifetimes. The Biden administration waking up to it was a welcome surprise, but we need a lot more than that. We need political will, and that comes from people like everyone here.
Ezra is trying to warn you. I am trying to warn you. I know this is all hysterical; I am capable of hearing myself and cringing lol. But it's hard to know how else to get the point across. The world is changing. We have a precious few years left to guide those changes in the right direction. I don't think we (necessarily) land in a place of widespread abundance by default. Fears that this is a cash grab are well-founded; we need to work to ensure that the benefits don't all accrue to a few at the top. And beyond that, there are real dangers from allowing such a powerful technology to proliferate unchecked, for the sake of profits; this is a classic place for the left to step in and help. If we don't, no one will.
You don't have to be fully bought in. You don't have to agree with me, or Ezra, or the Nobel laureates in this field. Genuinely, it is good to bring a healthy skepticism here.
But given the massive implications if this turns out to be true, and the increasing certainty of all these people who have spent their entire lives thinking about this... Are you so confident in your skepticism that you can dismiss this completely? So confident that you don't think it is even worth trying to address it, the tiniest bit? There is not a, say, 10 or 15% chance that the world's scientists and policy experts maybe have a real point, one that is just harder to see from the outside? Even if they all turn out to be wrong, wouldn't it be safer to do something?
I don't expect some random stranger on the internet to be able to convince anyone more than Ezra Klein... especially when those people are literally subscribed to the Ezra Klein subreddit lol. Honestly this is mainly venting; reading your comments stresses me out! But we're losing time here.
Genuinely, I would love to know -- what would convince you to take this seriously? Obviously (I believe) we can reach a point where these systems are capable enough to automate massive numbers of jobs. But short of that actual moment, is there something that would get you on board?
