What is with this mob pressure on Taibbi to criticize Trump?
Leighton, why is it that we need Taibbi to also redundantly report on Trump on the same issues you and others are already reporting repeatedly?
May I point out to you that what you're doing is just the flip side of censorship? You're now doing exactly what the woke left has been doing in addition to censorship--compelled speech.
I don't understand this annoying phenomenon of heterodox reporters calling out other heterodox reporters to demand they report on something, and not only that, but to also report with the same take and same slant as the one doing the call out. Why can't everyone just report on what they want, say what they say, and let things fall where they may? If your case and arguments are convincing, people will listen and follow. Instead, you're doing the heterodox group's own version of TWAW. Demanding Matt to recite some belief to prove his innocence.
With this article, we're witnessing the coming of the heterodox purity spiral.
I'm glad Matt is focusing his reporting on other matters. I don't need to read multiple people writing about the same things article after article.
And what is with this, "It has insisted on audits of departments at Harvard that 'fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.'” Why use scare quotes in your sentence as if Harvard's antisemitism is not true, when Harvard themselves released a report admitting and documenting the severity of antisemitism on their campus?
Maybe work on your own reporting before calling out someone else?
So Harvard’s own report with documented incidents aren’t true? Just a moral panic?
Racism is racism whether it happens to a single individual or on a mass scale. You can still acknowledge it exists and something should be done to address the problem while making a case that it’s not a movement warranting “panic”.
Your take on antisemitism is now exactly the same as what you’re accusing Matt of doing in this very article. Dismissing and making light of something that is true because of your own opinion and perceptions.
Harvard's report is a bunch of stories of students who felt unpopular because of their views on Israel. It's literally a call for safe spaces. If you think the government should be regulating the way students relate to each other based on their political beliefs we just fundamentally disagree, and I don't see how you can hold that opinion and also have a problem with woke identity politics.
The woke left invented the language the Zionists are now using, but it's the exact same language. "you made me unsafe with your ideas" "you did a violence by criticizing my worldview"
As a terf who had it lobbed at me over and over again about trans stuff I just hear it instantly when it is lobbed over Israel policy.
I don’t think government should be regulating how universities run their schools. Idk how you jumped from me simply pointing out antisemitism exists to me supporting government interference in academia.
I also did not say anything regarding safe spaces or such nonsense. But really, there have been documented cases of antisemitism against individual Jewish students and to completely pretend they don’t happen and never happened since 10/7 that were incited precisely by the ME conflict and war is just no different than asking me to deny what I can see with my own eyes. Both antisemitism and speech censorship can co-exist and both are problems.
Honestly I don’t care if I’m being accused of not being pure enough to be anti-woke, or to be liberal, or to be conservative. I’m long past worrying about whether I’m pure enough to belong to any political tribe. I don’t have a platform on politics like you and Matt so I’m the one who’s not susceptible to audience capture in any degree. I’m just telling it like I see it.
The honest thing to say about campus antisemitism is in fact to admit it exists, and racism of all forms exists and will always exist. The Palestinian protests have galvanized antisemitism. But in USA today we have arrived at a place where every group and individual should and can stand strong on their own regardless because we should not give in to fears and depressions over racism and antisemitism attitudes and behaviors by other people, while maintaining strong legal protection against discrimination against equal opportunity.
But no one would honestly say this. It’s either cry poor me or entirely dismiss complaints. Both are gaslighting.
"Again you repeat the fabrication that there have been "documented cases of antisemitism" at Harvard as if repetition somehow makes it true."
This is your fabrication because you choose to turn a blind eye and be willfully ignorant as you support the Palestinian side of the conflict. But it's your right to live your lie. Enjoy.
Well you should feel great that Trump was busy last week finding more criminals to fill his swamp, rubbing elbows and talking love and friendship, and making deals to enrich himself (the least of which resulted in him acquiring a 400 million dollar aircraft) and all his terrorist, terrorist-funding, murderous hosts in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Oh, but you may not know about his trip if you’re getting your info from Taibbi.
Institutions that receive federal income need to be neutral when addressing subjective issues. As for universities, there is an editorial page in the school’s newspaper to express opposing views. ‘Woke’ policy was funded by the federal government as schools were rewarded for implementing that agenda. Defunding a ‘woke’ environment is the flip side of funding those ‘woke’ actions... it all depends which side you choose.
Just look at this logically... when the “students” camped out on the campus, most of those campers had the exact same tent model. Did they all go down to Dave’s Sporting Goods together and get a group discount? Was this an organic groundswell or was the protest funded by powers who were not students?
Suppressing masked protesters preaching violence against (fill in the blank) should not be allowed on federally supported (fill in the blank). This is not difficult.
It’s like you’re trying to be ironic. Expressing an opposing view on a university editorial page is *exactly what Ozturk was imprisoned for six weeks for.*
Who could have guessed that if blue-haired SJWs had been defending genocide instead of transgenderism that they would have had MAGA on their side the whole time!
Interesting. You’re on Leighton Woodhouse’s Substack telling him he should be detained and forced to leave by the government? Or would you prefer the authorities slice him in half first so only his non-white part will be sent away?
Keep stewing. You won’t get what you want. But I’ll enjoy watching hate consume you to your core.
The Palestinian BDS aim of a one-state solution would deprive Israel's Jewish citizens of their status as equal citizens within a democracy. Make no mistake, it would be a return to Sharia Law, the subordination of Jews and the imperative that a Jew's house can never be taller than a Muslims. To argue otherwise is pure gaslighting. That being said, the American tradition of free speech would tend to suggest that people should be free to argue for evil positions and policies, provided the speech doesn't fail the Brandenburg test.
Some might argue that anti-Zionism isn't inherently anti-Semitic, and technically this might be correct in terms of the useful idiot class which populates the West, but we can least acknowledge the evidence that the two things are highly correlated. In practice, the end of Israel as a Jewish majority state would mean at best the end of Jewish rights as equal citizens and at worst a bloodbath and genocide orders of magnitude greater than the civilian deaths in Gaza.
That being said, we should defend the right of people to argue for BDS, even as we oppose its imposition with every bone in our bodies.
The Two-State solution is the only tenable solution, but first Palestinians must acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, forsake their 'right to return' for financial compensation, or land of equal value in the new Palestine, and agree to live in peace with their neighbours.
This is inconceivable in the current cultural context, and could only be achieved by a massive intergenerational shift in Palestinian culture.
Ask yourself this question- if Israel allowed a limited right to return, but insisted that all who applied must pass a lie detector test which proved that they accepted that 'No non-Muslim in Israel should ever be subject to Sharia Law, or have Islam or the jizya or saghirun imposed upon them', just how many Palestinians do you think would pass?
Why does any of this have any bearing on the question of whether the US government should be able to round up, imprison and deport international students for writing op-eds the secretary of state doesn't agree with?
It's merely exposition for those who don't know the true explicitly stated aims of BDS, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the peaceful resolution of conflict in the Middle East. Many Western supporters of BDS are completely ignorant of this fact. Much as BDS as a movement may be deeply repellent, it's exactly the type of speech the 1st amendment was designed to protect. I don't believe the government has met the burden for Holder vs. Humanitarian Law, which probably provides the standard for supporting terrorist aims without employing terrorist methods.
Protecting the worst forms of speech guarantees free speech for every other American. Otherwise Americans might quickly find themselves in the same position as those of us who live in the UK- arrested and charged with a crime for burning a Quran, when the burning was a protest over the Jihadist murder of a close friend.
Here’s a question for you, when will Israel admit that Palestinians have a right to exist.
Israel as a state already exists, it’s horrific , but it currently exists.
Your hypothetical that end of Jewish state would result in a bloodbath worst that what is happening now, so that facilitating a genocide of the Palestine people that is happening now…. causing hundreds of thousands to be killed and starved and ethnically cleansed , is worst type of moral hypocrisy I have ever come across.
The Lancet study is probably the best independent analysis we have. It puts total deaths from traumatic injury at roughly 64,000, with 16,000 of these enemy combatants. That’s a tiny, tiny faction of the death toll which would occur if the one-state solution were ever implemented.
Let’s set aside that levels of hostility are higher between Muslim and Jew, than they were between Muslim and Christian in Lebanon. The population of Lebanon was 2.5 million during the Islamic takeover. 150,000 people died. If we look at the combined population of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, then the figure is 14 million. That makes a minimum of 840,000 dead even if we make the assumption that the levels of hatred between Muslim and Jew can be dampened down to the levels of Lebanon, an unrealistic possibility to anyone familiar with the history and animosities of the region.
I agree with you that there is a huge degree of dehumanisation on the Israeli side, but it’s a dehumanisation which had been repaid in kind many times over. The whole situation is a humanitarian tragedy, but solutions have to be better, not worse, than the current situation.
A while back, I asked AI to find me geopolitical commentators who weren’t hopelessly polarised on subjects like Ukraine and Gaza. I also asked for commentators outside the West who weren’t politically aligned with any of the major countries involved in both disputes. Kishore Mahbubani was the answer which came back. He’s a senior Singaporean diplomat who has also served as the President of the UN Security Council.
On Ukraine, he blames the naivety and stupidity of European leaders, in believing that economic involvement would prevent belligerence on the part of Russia, and in failing to create deterrence in terms of the functional standing militaries which are a function of spending a robust level of revenue on the military over decades. On Gaza, he blames America for failing to force Israel into a two-state solution, something which he believes could have happened decades ago given the political will in America.
The answer is not BDS. As I’ve already stated in my previous posts the Palestinian BDS preference for a one-state solution is disingenuous, and attempts to accomplish through initially peaceful means what could not be accomplished by military means. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something which could be done.
Basically, America needs to elect a government which is willing to force a two-state solution. Of course, it’s not that simple. The world as a whole would need to commit troops, police officers and finance to prevent any form of attack whatsoever by the fledgling state of Palestine on Israel, and it would probably need to be a commitment which would last for decades, but if the UN wants peace it needs to ask its members to pay for it, of which I’m sure America would need to be foremost amongst them.
Israel is not some White settler colonial project. Roughly 73.8% of Israelis are Jewish. Although, 50% of them describe themselves as Ashkenazi (European), of these, just over 50% are over 50% Mizrahi by ancestry (native to the Middle East). The remainder are mostly Mizrahi. Put in Western terms, the Jewish population of Israel is 16% White, 16% biracial, 63% Middle Eastern and 5% other.
It’s also not true that Israel is an apartheid state. The Muslim minority population of Israel who are Israeli citizens, enjoy rights not seen in most parts of the Muslim world. They participate fully in Israelis society, serving in the parliament and as judges.
Good posts. You’re obviously thoughtful and curious about the world. Unfortunately, the BBC version of the Violence Paradox doesn’t appear to be available on YouTube.
There is PBS Nova version, but it’s probably less highbrow. BBC Four was/is a niche BBC iPlayer channel.
White in this context , as you know is not limited to a single race. Here I am talking about it as a social hierarchical construct.
As an example 100 years ago, in USA, Irish , Italians , and Jewish people were not considered white, but they are now accepted as part of the ‘In’ Group.
And your comment about Israel not being an apartheid state….. laughable.
I agree with your observation that Israel is more Western by social construction. Here’s the problem, when the West was at its worst during slavery and colonialism it was still better than virtually every other Empire in history. Islam was a lot, lot worse in terms of slavery and colonialism. China might appear like an exception superficially, but one has to remember that far from being a single people, at the time of the Three Kingdoms wars which wiped out a huge portion of the global population, it was a complex picture of diverse peoples and languages. The one exception is probably the Indian subcontinent during the Hindu Kush period.
That doesn’t mean that the West is uniquely less oppressive than almost every other major culture in history. It was simply that we were lucky, just the same as with our technology. The Printing Press stands as the single most important and impactful invention in human history. Not only did it allow information to be copied and disseminated cheaply, powering the scientific, agricultural and industrial revolutions, but it was also the factor which took 90% of the world’s population out of the most brutal, malnourished and short-lived poverty.
Literacy also civilised the world. The anthropological default in almost every culture in human history was to classify other humans as non-human, until proven otherwise, which was rare. Reading and stories civilised humans in profound ways. For the first time in history, people were able to imagine themselves living as someone from a different culture, and this profoundly increased the levels of empathy people were capable of feeling towards people from other cultures.
There is great BBC documentary called the Violence Paradox on the subject. It also features some great researchers from Harvard looking at practical experiments in how to reduce outgroup hostility.
Unfortunately, this is a painfully slow process, and some would argue that it hasn’t yet fully run it’s course.
"deprive Israel's Jewish citizens of their status as equal citizens within a democracy' That is what they have now in the USA. In Israel, they have ethnic supremacy, enshrined by law. That is the reality that Palestinians are objecting to, that and the genocide, land theft, and apartheid.
Ethnic supremacy? That's a contextual misapplication, if ever I've read one. It's why Western analyses of the Israel and Palestine conflict are so superficial and fail to even come close to proposing solutions which might remedy the situation.
It's simply not a racial or ethnic conflict, it's a religious one. Sure, one can use the race is a social construct argument, and argue that Jewishness is more a culture than a belief system for many Jews, but the same cannot be said of Palestinians. Why? Because under Islam apostasy is not permitted, and is, for the more outspoken cases, punished by death.
I understand there is a racial component, even though the just over 30% of Palestinians are Levant Arabs share strong ancestral relations with Mizrahi Jews. For example, because many Palestinians don't historically originate in the region, they cannot 'pass' for Jews in the same way that others can and do when, they shed their cultural markers. This racializes the just under 70% of the Palestinian Arab population which is non-Levant in genetic origin. It marks them out, it 'others' them. For the Levant Palestinians, the IDF is forced to rely upon cultural markers, in the same that a Southern Sheriff might have used clothing or the New York accent of a White Irish American as an off-duty freedom rider during the Civil Rights era.
Look, it's a fair point to argue that when Israel has offered peace talks, the offers have been derisory in many instances. But let's remember these were just opening offers aimed at extracting a better final deal. But perhaps the most important reason why a Two-State solution can never work, unless America imposes a Two-State solution on Israel by force is Jerusalem. If the Palestinians were more pragmatic on the issue, they could probably extract dual citizenship for Palestinian 'permanent residents' in Jerusalem, major territorial concessions, as well as custodianship of Al-Aqsa (which has been offered in the past, even though as a matter of historical fact it is not 'the farthest mosque'). The Palestinians could receive property of equal value to what they lost, historically, or financial compensation.
But they won't, for the simple reason that the Palestinians would see any solution which didn't see Israel returned to Islamic control, under Sharia Law, and non-believers subjected to the highly ritualised humiliation and inferior status of the jizyah as a betrayal of Islam. A huge portion of the Palestinian population simply wouldn't accept it. This begs the question, what about the just over 2 million Israelis Arab who currently enjoy superior rights under Israel? What about the 550,000 Israelis who aren't Muslims or Jews, but would similarly see their status and rights made inferior under Islam?
It's a sectarian problem, not a secular one, as everyone in the Middle East understands, but few in the West are willing to concede. The best critique of America on Israel is probably the one made by Kishore Mahbubani. He's a Singaporean and former President of the UN Security Council. He think only a Two-State solution has the possibility of working and blames America for the Israel Palestine conflict. He believes America should have forced Israel into a Two-State solution decades ago.
I'm not unsympathetic to your arguments, even if I may disagree technically with some of your descriptions. I want this tragedy to end as much as you obviously do. I make efforts to listen people with different perspectives with which I disagree. Just this morning I watched Glenn Loury on Briahna Joy Gray's Bad Faith podcast. It's an excellent discussion, but ultimately Briahna and Glenn make the same mistake you do- although there are certainly ethnic undertones to the conflict, every ethnic, cultural and social aspect of the conflict is subordinate and subsidiary to the primary consideration- the reason why neither side will accept peace without major coercion by America is because it's fundamentally a religious conflict.
Westerners making the error of using their own lived experiences and cultural contexts. South Africa simply isn't a valid comparison. The only modern conflicts which are at all comparable are Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, or, to a lesser extent, the Kashmir conflict. Nigeria, Sri Lanka, CAR, Lebanon and Sudan are all also relevant, if not directly comparable.
This is exactly right and is where this article misses the mark. Leighton assumes that the corrupt mainstream media has been delivered a death blow and will not recover and therefore Matt has no need to ‘punch down’.
The cockroaches that built and inhabit that sphere will change stripes, morph titles, and hibernate during the nuclear fallout… but they will not die. Too much time, effort, and money has been spent to prop up their propaganda apparatus, that they will not be allowed to truly fail, but will simply reemerge elsewhere when the time is right (just look at misinformation Mary Poppins). That’s what Matt and others need to remain vigilant about. And it’s a relentless game of Whack-a-Mole snuffing these people out wherever they pop up and start to re-propagate.
Do I wish the Trump admin hadn’t leaned into the gray area around non-citizens with visas and what rights they do/don’t have in regard to what behavior justifies nullifying a visa… absolutely.
But we cannot and should not pretend that cutting out the rot and restructuring the educational system and our institutions to promote and deliver unbiased and truly fact-based education, research and reporting is not a monumental decades-long undertaking that requires vigilant coverage and accountability along the way.
That aim is noble, and will have the greatest impact on healing the rot within our society, and it is also more than one person can tackle alone.
I’ll give Matt a pass for now, and hope that he stays the course on holding our institutions accountable for their bias and collusion… especially in the instances where taxpayer dollars are ultimately weaponized against the taxpayer.
He displays significant skepticism and great venom when criticizing the progressive establishment, while seldom deploying the same level of skepticism or venom when it comes to MAGA. His pub, his choice, but he is not even-handed at all. He writes like someone who would rather criticize elites for minor issues than criticize MAGA for major ones. Basically, it seems like the target has become more important to Taibbi than the principle. If your beat was anti-authoritarianism, anti-government paternalism, and free speech, and you are not excoriating the Trump administration, you are not on your beat.
Of course people are free to comment on others’ writing. But what’s happening now is not just people randomly commenting on Matt’s articles. There’s pressure on him to write about Trump, and not just write about him, but only write about Trump to criticize him. The pressure is enough for him to feel compelled to publicly make a statement about it. It’s dishonest to pretend this is mere commenting.
This mob pressure, and pressure now by you, a fellow reporter, is what I have issue with. It’s another version of “silence is violence”.
Why should any single reporter be pressured to write about anything?
Some are arguing that because he writes widely about free speech and censorship, then he must also write about the opposite side. He’s given his explanations, which you described in your article. Everyone is free to accept it or move on and ditch him. But somehow his explanations are not enough. His silence on Trump is unacceptable. He can only redeem himself and prove his innocence if he joins the chorus?
People are guessing he’s audience captured. But what if he actually believes what Trump’s doing is not as egregious? Is he not entitled to his own different opinion?
Leighton, I respect a lot of what you write. I also agree people should be able to freely comment on other writers’ takes. It’s fine to even point out the media not covering something that’s not on their side. MSM personalities do this all the time and deserve to be called out. But it’s generally the other side doing the call out, so there’s no real mob pressure to conform. What I find problematic is when it is the journalist’s own side doing the call out by specifically singling out a reporter, when there’s a not quite hidden demand that the reporter to say and write something deemed “correct” by those accusing him or her.
Maybe you don’t think you’re making any demand. And I’ll believe you if you say that’s not your intent. But clearly this demand is out there and you’re adding to the pile. So I’m curious to ask, to what end, if not to achieve the ultimate result of Matt succumbing to finally write to criticize Trump?
And if he does bend the knee, what does that prove, besides Matt’s own purity and innocence? It’s not like Trump will do things differently because Matt finally calls him out.
The heterodox space is better when those writing in it can have the maximum freedom to decide what they want or not want to write about. That’s what makes this space interesting and not susceptible to group think. If readers feel Matt’s writing is no longer trustworthy, they can abandon following him.
There are enough of you as well as liberal MSM talking about Trump censorship and I appreciate the reporting from you and those like you that I feel I can trust more than MSM. I don’t see what need there is for Matt to contribute more if he doesn’t want to. He’s one single person. This is treading on the line of a witch hunt.
Criticize what he writes if you disagree with him. But I can’t get on board with veil demands for a reporter to saying something. Someday, this can come back to bite you too when you have a different line of thoughts but others want you to say something you don’t want to.
But I’ll be here to defend your right to not be pressured into writing something you don’t want to.
I don't care about him trashing Trump. I care about him being consistent on free speech. It just so happens that Trump is the biggest threat to 1A right now and the guy whose entire brand is free speech and who has testified to congress about the dangers the Biden admin posed has nothing to say except, "actually these colleges deserve it." If he thinks Trump does NOT present a major threat to free speech then he should write that — I'd be fascinated to read that argument. My guess is he won't because he can't, because the threats from this administration are undeniable.
I'm not really worried about the etiquette of singling out a reporter for criticism when it's a reporter who just wrote a piece called "In All-Time Loathsome Podcast, Reporters Cheerfully Admit Screwing Up Russiagate" about Ben Smith and Ezra Klein. Matt can dish it and he can take it.
Sorry dude but that’s BS. “If he thinks Trump does NOT present a major threat to free speech then he should write that — I'd be fascinated to read that argument”
Your article literally makes it seem like that is what he has already done. You are upset he won’t pick a side on a specific topic.
We can debate whether his piece on Ben Smith and Ezra Klein is the same but I don't think this conversation will go anywhere. Silence is violence. Raise the fist. Got it.
And I will respond to pompous never been assholes for my own amusement. See how choice works? I formerly read and recommended Taibis work religiously. But now I read it in an effort to raise awareness about what a hypocrite he is and also to mock Walter Kirn as a phony, self absorbed, moron who is clearly using Matt’s stage to create an audition tape for a Fox News show. Matt’s too busy being butt hurt about Stacy plasket to notice. But I did notice that he canceled both episodes of this weeks show. I’m clinging to that as some version of change on the horizon.
Yes I am. I'm also free to keep reading him because I think there's value to what he writes, even as I come to suspect that what appeared to be principled free speech, anti-authoritarian values were instead anti-elite values. It makes sense; he's always been a leftist. It's what attracted him to Occupy Wall Street. I'm disappointed, but that's probably as much a reflection of what I thought he was as it is anything else. I'm not saying "Matt Taibbi bad for not supporting free speech principles to my liking"; I'm saying "I was wrong about Matt Taibbi's principles."
It isn’t compelled speech, it’s simply principled integrity. Free speech is Matt’s thing. That has been the bulk of his reporting and advocacy for years now. So the silence and excuses under Trump come off as a major partisan blind spot. This article was spot on. I’ve been following Matt since his rolling stone days, he’s one of my favorite journalists. But the last year I fear he’s (probably subconsciously) fell victim to audience capture and partisan bias
What you're saying sounds reasonable at first glance, but after thinking it through, I still disagree.
If we go along with the line of thinking you propose, then ultimately what you're all looking for is not Matt to write to report on anything of value as to news. It's not that you think Matt the journalist will add anything to what's already being reported out there by writing about Trump's directives. What you want is for Matt to be an activist. You want him not so much to report on the state of affairs, but to indict Trump for what he's doing.
But it's not Matt's role to be an activist. He's first and foremost, a journalist.
One of the biggest travesty of the last decade is activist journalists. Traditional journalists and media have all but abandoned journalism to push their own views of morality and justice. What you're all demanding of Matt is that he becomes what the heterodox space say they reject.
So Matt made a name for himself writing about one topic.But that means he must always have to report on everything on that topic? Can they not choose to take a break from the topic and focus on something else? Especially when there are already other reporters writing about said topic and there's nothing new under the sun to report on anymore?
Again, is it to add news value? Does he have some scoop that no one is privy to that he can expose? If not, then what result are you looking for other than Matt being an idol and to prove he's not a false god?
I think we need to reign back activist journalists, not encourage more of it.
If Matt is carrying water for Trump by writing to support Trump censoring, then by all means everyone should take him to task what he says.
But pressuring someone to say something, when the pressure is not something the person can wave away like pressure from their opposing side, is not something I agree with. That was the seed of cancellation. Of course, Matt is not at big risk of being cancelled here. But it's not about Matt. It's about principle, as you said.
I know it feels longer, but we're really just 4 months into the Trump administration. That's a very short time. How everything will shake out remains to be seen. People just forgot that because everyone is focused on the immediate moment.
It’s kind of absurd to claim Matt isn’t already an activist. He has never written dry, just the facts reporting. He started as a Wall Street critic and later became a speech advocate. His writing is full of sarcasm, ridicule, and criticism. So it’s incredibly disingenuous to say you don’t want him to become an activist. But even if he was doing dry facts only reporting, the speech issue and especially around foreign students is a huge story. When speech is his main subject for years and then he doesn’t have much to say after Trump wins is off putting to me and many other people
My comment wasn’t about Matt though. He’s fair game if readers view him as activist or not. But I was talking about us. We didn’t like it when woke left journalists became activist journalists. But now there’s an issue we feel important and we’d like journalists we support to be activists?
There’s a dichotomy here with people saying the issue they have with Matt is principles, but then principles are irrelevant if I bring up compelled speech and activist journalism.
What’s really happening then is everyone is selectively applying principles whenever it fits or not fit their wishes.
After all the comments, the conclusion I arrive at is still that no one is wanting Matt to write something to add journalistic value as to news. It’s not that Trump censorship isn’t already being covered and reported by many others and no one would know something if Matt doesn’t write about it too. What people really want is for Matt to speak to prove himself to the crowd. Can anyone dispute me on this?
We’re just barely getting out of the horrendous suffocating pressure to conform and virtue signal. Think of Matt however you want. But demanding someone to say something to virtue signal needs to stop.
That would be a fair criticism if Matt hadn't embraced the role of free speech warrior. He isn't Jodi Cantor or some other straight-down-the-line reporter. He doesn't write that way or live that way. Matt is an advocate and a public figure. And I'm generally glad he is. But he doesn't then get this get out of jail free card of "I'm just a journalist reporting on what interests me." Two years ago he headlined a huge free speech event in London with Russell Brand; Tim Robbins was backstage. If he volunteers to take on that kind of public image then he should expect to be judged by how consistent he is with the principle he so loudly espouses.
"That would be a fair criticism if Matt hadn't embraced the role of free speech warrior."
And who gets to decide where the line is drawn in defining what is "embraced the role of free speech warrior"?
By this reasoning, it would justified to cast suspicion on a professor of civil rights who didn't make a public statement supporting BLM post George Floyd. It would even be justified too, to cast suspicion and judge on any individual who has always said he or she is antiracist and volunteered to support antiracism for not putting up the black box on his or her social media profile. Next thing you know, we're right back to the mindset of cancel culture.
I understand you think there's some kind of common understanding of where the line is drawn. 10 years ago, maybe, I'd agree with you. Now? I no longer assume there's common understanding on anything.
As for Matt, another way to look at him is that he's not actually big enough to warrant a call out and demand to speak. He may be well-known in some spheres. But on an actual wide scale, he's equivalent to the professor nobody knows outside of the college.
If Trump censorship is the concern, it'd be a lot more productive for you and others to continue reporting on that than doing the news making themselves the news, which in this case is making Matt the news. Doing a hit piece on Matt won't make an iota of difference to whatever you think Trump should stop doing. And if Matt is leaving a void, it's a golden opportunity for you to seize the mantle from him. Why not just take it instead of insisting he sits on throne?
Writers in the minor space of heterodoxy eating their own is so bizarre.
Same, he's been one of my favorites since his days at Rolling Stone and still is. I don't know if it's audience capture but I expected him, of all people, to be a champion of free speech no matter what. I get the feeling he doesn't like talking about the Israel situation. I'm not sure why that is but I think that has a lot to do with why he is quiet on the recent attacks on free speech and our civil liberties.
Not to fight Leighton’s fight, but Matt has always represented himself as free speech/1A defender not guided by political parties given the ebbs and flows of their positions. That’s how I’ve felt for a long time because frankly I believe that all politicians suck. The truth is lost once it enters the political spectrum. Where we can all recognize that the state of things during the Democratic party’s rule was atrocious in their own respects, and certainly the issues around censorship and the unholy alliances borne between the NGOs, universities and a host of other public and non-public organizations, we can also recognize that under Trump, the “shock and awe” of some of the policies he forcing through also merit critical analysis. There is good coming out of this “break things” mentality, we can understand the need for more rational energy policies, and the MAHA aspects that are being promoted make sense, as do other areas under HHS (ie. FDA, NIH, etc.), but the censorship being pushed around Israeli/Zionist matters (last I checked we were living in the United States and Trump espoused an “American interests first” populist message ;) and several other areas make little sense. His push against every judiciary decision that doesn’t agree with his position on matters, and calling every single one out as renegade judges is getting tiresome (much like Draymond Green of the Warriors being outraged by every foul he receives ;). Sure, a few may be off but that’s what the judicial process is meant to address. The very censorship Trump decried for issues that affected him, he seems to have no problem employing such on issues that benefit him and his followers/investors/funders/et. al.
His whole administration also spends some amount of time on any issue they hold a press conference about, bashing the previous administration rather than remaining entirely focused on the objective of what they claim to be trying to fix. As though needing to remind us that no matter how bad some of his policies are, the previous ones were worse. For all the good that could come out of the mandate given Trump by the citizenry, he squanders much of this on retribution. My view has always been that it wasn’t going to be pretty to have Trump back in charge, but at least it would stem the woke and other insane perspective being imposed on us by the rutherless, out of touch Democratic Party. Matt, had also acknowledged something to this effect, but it appears that this as well as his focus on free speech, has waned when it comes to the Trump admin.
I think the difficult issue for Matt is to straddle both parties with his free speech position. When he was doing this to the left he sat in opposition to the MSM (mainstream media), this gave him credibility especially since they were obfuscating for the Biden admin, and in effect acting a bit like Matt is now doing for the Trump admin. It would be hard for Matt to now join them in critiquing the Trump admin since this would in effect, bring him back into a fold that he has no respect for…understandably so. I think that it’s super difficult to sit in judgment of both parties and to remain principled about focusing only on issues (free speech/1FA). It’s likely the same challenge for Michael and company over at Public. I have enjoyed reading their posts over the years, but now I find myself in the quandary that Leighton talks about here. Their focus on free speech now takes more of a retroactive look at past sins (like Matt’s recent post about the Twitter Files) rather than holding the current administration to deliver on what they espoused but are now trampling. Not sure how he fixes this problem, if he even sees it as a problem.
So after reading Matt’s response (https://open.substack.com/pub/taibbi/p/ode-to-scum?r=fmgkw&utm_medium=ios), I feel better in that he doesn’t appear to have lost his moral compass at all. If anything, I’m now more curious as to how Leighton got to the place of assuming that Matt’s readership is mostly conservative. Like Matt and others who were more left leaning centrists (though I believe he leaned more left than me), I have felt that the extreme left has taken hold of the party to an alienating end. I’d certainly not consider myself on the full right of the aisle, though these days, a heck of a lot closer to that given how far left the left has gone. The lines have certainly moved even where my belief system has basically remained the same. In Matt’s post it’s clear that he wanted to consider what was happening before just going hog wild on Trump’s free speech/1A disturbances, to say the least. That approach seems like a sensible one to me, and not worth writing a whole post on Matt’s abandonment of principle before he has considered these changes. That post sounded very rational to me and reaffirms why I have enjoyed reading his books and his posts on Racket News, and to continue to do so. While unnecessary, his sharing of how he’s thinking through these issues was helpful in understanding his position here, which is hardly worth calling out. Yep, saw Leighton’s late night follow up post, but it didn’t rise to a comparable justification for this initial diatribe.
Now that I am no longer a paid subscriber to Matt, that article is behind a paywall. What does it actually say other than trying to claim a sexist slur is just dandy?
I thought you put it there for people to read. I haven't been able to. Any open-minder thinker can change their opinion with new facts that warrant such a change.
I did…if you have access, much like referencing an NYT or WSJ article. If you can’t see it then there’s not much I can do since I won’t violate Matt’s copyright, nor do I want sit here and write up my version of his thorough post. Yes, walled content can be inconvenient, but as I mentioned, since you chose to no longer view his content prior to Leighton’s post, then there’s no need to change your mind, you’ve already done so once and seemed happy with that decision. Matt hasn’t changed as a person, so stick with your convictions. Let it go, this issue is not for you, you have no stake in that horse 😂
Why is being “heterodox” some sort of journalistic knighthood? Matt Taiibi specifically chose “free speech” as the hill he would die on. Now, when glaring examples of government suppression of free speech are visible to all, suddenly Matt is giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone in high office!
Stop reading him then as that’s your right. What I don’t agree with is the mob pressure on him to write about anything. People asked him why he isn’t criticizing Trump, he answered. If you accept it, fine. If not, ditch him and move on. To continue to pressure a single reporter to pay fealty is giving me flashbacks to woke compelled speech.
Maybe because, as he himself explained, he doesn’t think they’re massive. The same way you think antisemitism on campus is a moral panic. I’m not saying this to be snarky, nor am I debating the point of moral panic. I’m just saying he may actually see things differently than you. What seems massive or moral panic to some may not seem so to others.
Yeah I'm a little confused at this idea that there's some kind of mob pressure campaign on Matt because people have criticized him online. Matt's a famous, wealthy guy with one of the biggest independent platforms in the country. He dishes out plenty of criticism of others and gets some back, which I imagine he's fine with. He's not some skinny teenager being doxxed and swatted by 4chan. Is Matt bullying Ben Smith and Ezra Klein when he ridicules them on his substack?
Leighton, it sounds like you’re a Progressive. There are lots of reasons why what aboutism doesn’t really work when you’re trying to say Matt should be as hard on Trump as he was on Biden/Harris. While it can be convenient to try and compare. MAGA to progressivism, most people in the MAGA camp are not radicals they’re moderates. You won’t find moderates in the Progressive camp because the Progressives are chasing radical concepts, many of which are outside of the constraints of the constitution.
just to be clear, the territory of moderates is everything from Liberal to conservative within the constitution - in other words classical liberalism. most people are hybrid of liberalism and conservatism so that makes. But with moderate politics, there’s no room for progressivism, Marxism, socialism, anarchy, or communism and no Paleo conservatism either. I find that progressivism is so deeply steep into our psyche that it can be hard to remember what classical liberalism is. i’m not saying that there aren’t things in the Trump administration that cross that line but mostly I’m not seeing it and I’m not going to attack him even though I’m a Democrat. I’m desperately hoping that my party finds its moderate and constitutional feet again. I suspect they’ll have plenty of time to work on that.
That's correct. I don't find the suspension of habeas corpus in these cases to be an extreme blanket suspension of rights. That's hyperbolic to interpret them as such. Unfettered access to habeas corpus for people who followed no legal pathway to gain access to the U.S. surrender that right in my opinion. If they have a legal basis, but they're participating in disruptive activity, then they've lied about why they wanted to come here, i.e. education, etc. , and they deserve a swift boot. I certainly hope you're not saying that we should allow unchecked access to habeas corpus for every illegal immigrant Joe Biden gave access to or every lawbreaking troublemaker with a student visa.
There is no suspension of habeas yet. I mean the Trump administration is "looking at" suspending it for anyone they pick up for deportation. Which is definitionally radical. And you can't suspend habeas JUST for non-citizens, because the entire point is that if they round up CITIZENS accused of being here illegally they'd have no legal recourse. It's a threat to literally everyone.
The idea that any of these activists "lied" about why they came here and were secretly planning to participate in disruptive activities is absurd. They're not clairvoyant; they couldn't have predicted Oct 7 and the retaliatory bombing of Gaza. And in the case we're discussing, Ozturk, she didn't even participate in those protests at all as far as anyone knows in any case.
I'm not an apologist for Turkish antisemitism. I think you may be underestimating the malignant nature of the Islamic forces in our midst who would love to see the end of the Western world, not just the end of Jews and Israel. That includes some students here on visas spouting pro-Hamas sentiments and some of the funding of Islamic studies departments and professors.
I have seen a lot of criticism like this of Taibbi on X, before seeing this article. I could understand it if say, even 5% of the population got their news solely from Taibbi. But that number must be what, some small fraction of a percent?
I'd like to see some data on how big his audience is, how many get their news solely or primarily from him, and what percent are actually MAGA aligned.
As for me, I subscribe to NYT, WaPo, WSJ, and follow many others. I follow Taibbi because I think he has a unique, often insightful and important voice. I don't expect him to be perfectly balanced, or be my sole source of news.
Taibbi isn't being hererdox though. Endlessly saying "dems bad though" every single time for every single isnt hererdox, it is just Fox News in a trenchcoat.
I just find it funny that everyone is engaged in meta arguments about whose position is more consistent. If you notice the entire media sphere is conditioned upon the idea that we have a right and a left and two parties that represent those sides of a binary choice. Can't we all just agree that the two parties and their avatars are there to FUCK us and nothing else. Taibbi has a viewpoint formed by his experiences in Russia and Mongolia. Pretty unique for a westerner. I'd say we should just take that context and move on if you don't think it has value. The media (whether mainstream or "alternative") has a vested interest in the existence of our current socio-economic and political systems, which we all seem to be agreeing is not working for anyone. Left, right, Dem, MAGA, these are just words. I don't think anyone obsessed with these words really cares about anti-semitism or Palestinian babies. We are just recursively jacking off into our own mouths. Why can't we start to talk about solutions instead of how to score a point against the other side in a rigged game that has been presented by the bosses as the only approved field of play? The house always wins, we always lose. Get a grip!
She'll probably get deported regardless because of this ridiculous rule that the secretary of state can revoke anyone's visa unilaterally just because he feels like it. But it's now abundantly clear that this is, in fact, punishment for writing an op-ed. That there's no evidence of anything else.
You've got it correct in this final answer. The SoS (or anyone at DOJ, State Dept or Exec branch) can revoke status of people in the USA on visas or green cards.
They are not required to conduct a trial, prove criminality (or even specifically allege it). The reason for this is fairly obvious — people in the country on visas and green cards are not citizens enjoying full constitutional protections, they are guests. When a guest behaves badly in your house you can, and will, throw them out.
It is the opinion of the current State Dept that these persons have been sufficiently disruptive during their stay that they should be removed. That is a somewhat subjective so there will be people who agree and disagree with that judgement. You are demanding evidence but they actually don't need to provide you with any, there is no legal question that they have the power to revoke guest access to the United States.
I think it's fair to say that you've made it clear in these comments that you sympathise ideologically with those being removed, which it is your right to do. It doesn't change the law though, so your efforts may be better focused on campaigning to change longstanding law in this area rather than demanding 'proof' of things the State Dept is in no way required to prove to you.
This argument always ends with someone saying “well they have the legal right to do this so therefore there’s nothing to talk about,” as if this was an argument over the law. Biden retroactively pardoning his son was also legal. Didn’t make it any less disgraceful or deleterious to democracy.
Same. There are plenty of people criticizing Trump already. But not enough people pointing at the madness on the other side. It’s not a zero sum situation. Trump isn’t above criticism just because Taibbi isn’t focusing on him.
It's not that Taibbi isn't focusing on him. It's that Taibbi is staying silent or worse, being reactionary.
There IS an argument to be made about defunding Public Broadcasting, as it has become an adjunct to one political party over the other. BUT—there is a long back story to this of ongoing attacks, funding cuts, right-wing threats, and the demand that PBS/NPR must find a way to be 'profitable'—essentially pushing them into the arms of corporations and the Democratic party, which robbed those outlets of the ability to be independent.
That's just one example of a story he didn't fucking think through.
And I wish Matt wrote Western fiction a la Louis L’Amour. But I have no control over the matter. Dude, I simply have an issue with the substance of Leighton’s piece.
There are arguments to be made about why relentless coverage of Trump’s actions is a moral imperative. My man Leighton here didn't follow that tack. He instead chose to attack Matt’s character (“wilfull” followed by an adjective is never a compliment on character). Why?
My first thought is this is because Matt has too big an audience for a voice who criticizes certain shitty elites. Such as the ones who turned the White House into an assisted living facility for four years and covered up for it. But that's probably not it.
Leighton came out of academia; and Matt recently advocated for doing away with American higher education as we know it. I’m betting that's where Leighton is coming from.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into Woodhouse’s motivations. Who knows ? But attacking Matt’s character is just shitty. Of that I am certain; and I felt I had to say something.
It's amazing that leftists who claim to defend free speech are the first to cancel speech that points out their hypocrisy. Leighton blocked Sasha Stone and probably others because they have a different perspective.
That’s kind of the issue; you are now following Taibbi (and Shellenberger) because they tell you what you want to hear in ways that support your pre-existing biases. That’s what is so sad about what has become of Matt; he didn’t used to give a hot fuck about catering to anyone’s biases or feeding his audience what they wanted to hear. He got drummed out of the leftish media because he had principles and was always willing to stand by them, even if it cost him.
He’s found a new MAGA oriented audience and he seems loathe to report anything that might discomfort his new tribe. It’s sad.
Not necessarily. I subscribe to New York Times and Washington Post. I subscribe to Taibbi to challenge those biases and get generally insightful perspectives I won't find elsewhere.
Yes, ones you agree with. Matt's at his best when you only agree with about half of what he has to say.
Listen, I subscribe to Matt too, and have done since I joined substack. Hell, I subscribed to the Stone when he was there. (I used to subscribe to Public too, but the anti-trans bullshit took up too many column inches.)
Matt has become predictable. I don't even have to read to know what his perspective on anything is going to be. He's gone from insightful to simply contrarian - and his silence on Gaza has been a shameful shit show.
Despising what's become of liberals doesn't mean you need to embrace the Libertarian right - (they're assholes too.)
Nothing I said indicated I indicated I agree with all his perspectives. I even implied I see him as basically supplemental to NYT/WaPo. I may even more or less agree with your assessment it's best when you only agree with maybe half of what he says. I take his left-contrarian stances with a grain of salt. But at his best, he's a crucial voice.
Ray, I fear he USED to be a crucial voice. I am kind of feeling like when the liberals turned on him, and when he got a knock on his door from the Biden IRS, and when he was called a 'so called' journalist (by the worst people in the world...) - It broke him.
Thing is, if he risks finding his voice again, the libertarian bros are gonna turn on him even faster than the fake woke libs did.
And don't forget being falsely labeled a serial sexual harasser by a Democrat congresswoman. But I wouldn't say it broke him. Just because he's more focused on critiquing the left, doesn't mean those critiques aren't valid and needed. Perhaps not all of them, but at least some.
This is bullshit. Media and Social have become enemies of the people. That fight isnt over. Matt is just staying the course and focusing on the deepest and most established rot within the corrupt propaganda system.
You must either support or do not give enough credit to that system to resurface and continue to collude with outside interests to ignore or obfuscate the truth.
It’s a full time job and a worthy cause to keep focused on stamping out the rot that has infected the walls of universities, corporations, and ‘news’ outlets.
Matt not reporting on Trump’s failings at this moment in time isn’t capture, it is best use of resources and focus on an issue that he is uniquely capable of covering well.
And between that thread and the current Trump failings, his track is the most entrenched and in need of vast overhaul… which few are focused on.
When Trump’s failings become A) more pressing and B) less covered, then a good journalist like Matt will make the switch. Until then, keep the focus Matt!
Hawkeye - not sure how old you are, but you seem to think there is something new here in Whoville, and there must be some good ol' days when the Media and Government were a friend to the people, and there didn't exist a rotten, corrupt propaganda system.
This isn't necessarily your fault, because the victors largely decide what is taught as our history. But before you go off on people or make accusations, maybe assume they aren't all dumb asses.
First, maybe read 'Manufacturing Consent. (1988) Then, consider 'The Brass Check' By Upton Sinclair (1919). You can even go back further, and read up on how WR Hearst started a fucking war with his newspapers, in Our Un-American Press By George Seldes (1938) or maybe question how it is that everyone came to believe that the US won WW2 in The Cold War: A New History
By John Lewis Gaddis (2005) and how all of America became 'commie crazy' for the last 80 or so years in The Fifties by David Halberstam (1993)
Thanks. Manufacturing Consent is a great read, I’ll check out the others. Certainly not delusional and thinking this is a new phenomenon, but the battlefield has changed and gotten faster and more furious with the advent of Social Media. It’s also had the silver lining of giving the ‘un-anointed’ a voice… when it’s not throttled by the actual fascist corporate/government collusion.
No ultimate change in the aims of the propagandists… just a tweak of the ground rules. But that novelty is what Matt has been focused on and done better than anyone at covering and would be a distraction to join the thundering herd criticizing Trump at every turn. If the rest of the herd falls down, then maybe Matt’s time could be better spent picking up their slack… but for now, theres no need to join the masses to check that box.
Maybe you are right, and as I said, I haven't unsubscribed to Racket in spite of my criticisms. But I am close to it. I have a budget that pays for a lot of journalism right now—I spend upwards of $125/mo on supporting journalism on Substack and a bit more elsewhere because I feel it's really important.
BUT - I do have a choice of where to spend, and if I am feeling like a journalist is starting to cater to his audience (and that audience no longer includes me) - well, there are a ton of journalists out there, less well known than Matt, who probably need my 5$/mo more.
I was a subscriber to Taibbi here since he first left Rolling Stone. I even subscribed to his podcast with Katie Halper simply as a way to support his writing, but I can only read so many articles where there is some throat clearing criticism of the current administration with the bulk of the content reminding me everything is Biden's fault...
I respect what you're saying, but speaking as a "dissident" who's also taken some heat for continuing to focus most of my criticism on the left, I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest Matt Taibbi is hypocritical or audience-captured to continue focusing on the progressive establishment. I consider Biden-Harris probably the most repressive administration since Woodrow Wilson, and they did it with the ruthless professionalism of top lawyers and insiders who truly understood how to manipulate the levers of power, whereas Trump's appointees are a very mixed bag who have bluster and break some things, but lack the finesse to get many of their policies through the courts.
I don't like some of what Trump has done, but there's an element of game theory involved. After the most abusive administration in 100 years, Republicans are supposed to magnanimously swallow hard, unilaterally disarm, and meekly return to norms the previous administration completely abandoned in service of, among other things, flooding the country with impoverished migrants? That would seem to normalize and incentivize further norm-shredding. Yes, an eye for an eye leaves the world blind but sometimes a bop on the nose makes a bully think twice about taking your lunch money.
Additionally, I don't think the professional managerial left is nearly as wounded as it may seem. A lot of people are laying low for now and keeping their powder dry, but trillions of dollars and lots of fancy people's status relies on the logic of ever-metastasizing technocracy. Authoritarian managerialism in the name of global equity is still the dominant ideology in the civil service, higher education, the prestige press, NGOs, broad swathes of big business, etc. They'll be back in the saddle soon.
He’s a journalist. He shouldn’t be playing “game theory” games with the powerful. He should be a gigantic pain in the ass regardless of who is sitting in the White House - that’s literally the job description.
In terms of a bureau or publication, I agree, but when one is a spiky independent with only so many hours in the day one can't do it all and must prioritize certain angles and beats. As an example, the housing collapse in 2008 came down both to corporate greed and to very foolish government policy getting low-income people into nicer housing than they could afford by incentivizing banks to make unreasonable loans that were unlikely to be paid back. A lot of people loved Taibbi's "Vampire squid" article, but its scope was primarily the corporate greed side of things. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good article, or a contribution to the discourse, but it was one article among many.
You nailed it. The vibe shift is exactly that - ephemeral vibes. Trump is operating in his usual slapdash and superficial style that is unlikely to undo decades of deliberate effort by the technocratic elite to capture the commanding heights of the economy and culture.
The Empire will strike back, hard. And they’ll do so the moment they think they have enough political and legal leverage, probably as soon as 2026 or 2028.
I do not understand the criticism. Taibbi has rightfully been cautious not to pick up on runaway left wing media narratives. So exercising caution when approaching a story means eschewing this metastasized left wing freak out that the sky is falling. That’s the lesson of the last 10 years. You are allowed to be patient when assessing facts. And in your prime example he did exactly that. Wait to see what is true then offer a comment which literally said it’s bad if this woman is deported for an op-ed (which we all agree on. Great).
Look at the Maryland father story or the complexities of the rittenhouse story. There are so many examples. How can you criticize a guy who doesn’t make some immediate pivot to freak out mode whose entire reputation is built on the opposite? Remember it’s freak out journalism that got us in this mess. Russia, pee tapes, Covid coverups, now tarrifs are destroying the economy and citizens will be sent to camps…the list is basically endless.
The lessons of the last 10 years can be applied, yes, but that includes the ability to cancel noise and resist the urge to jump on the bandwagon of the week.
What about the "Maryland father story"? Matt hasn't been cautious in his opinion on that. He boosted a piece by Alex Berenson preposterously arguing that there's no other possible interpretation of tattoos of a cannabis leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull than "MS-13." That's some "All the classic earmarks of a Russian influence operation" type shit.
Because it’s that dumb. It’s supposed to be M for marijuana, S for smiley face, then somehow a cross is a 1 because it sort of looks like one, and then the skull has holes for 2 eyes and 1 nose which adds up to 3.
Jesus dude, c'mon. As I said I agree with much of your article - but Matt is 100% right on that one. Don't make those of us supporting you look bad now, lol
Just to go out on a limb...since when is a tattoo evidence of a crime? Unless there's a photo of it at a crime scene or description from an eye witness? If you are this far from understanding what evidence is, there's not much point in discussing it.
Did I claim that tattoos, or this tattoo, is evidence of a crime?
The question is whether or not the tattoo is evidence of MS13 gang membership.
If it’s not, then is it just random meaningless images like Woodhouse off-handedly claimed? Or, is it one of multiple pieces of evidence pointing to gang membership? I think the weight of the public evidence, taken at face value, points to Garcia being a violent criminal. He had a deportation orders. He’s gone. Good.
So you don't believe in due process. Yeah, a waste of time to engage with people like you, so I will stop now. The tattoo itself didn't have MS-13 on it, you fell for fake pictures. Anyway, carry on with your nonsense.
Just saying I have read numerous times he was arrested in (2019) with 2 other known gang members. The gang police officers declared him such and it was never disputed by him. In addition the father of his wife’s babies indicated he was as well. There is other reasons that indicate he is. He admittedly was a gang member when he lived in El Salvador according to el Salvadoran officials and the probable reason he used to not be sent back their due rival gang threats. Also, the tattoos being dismissed as not proof of gang affiliation is naive and a bs defense. Police who work in stopping gang activity have supported the symbols as used by gang members. To just dismiss them is the weakest argument of all. Symbols are one of the commonest forms of expression. The swastika,the all seeing eye, a fish for Jesus,the Templar cross and on and on.
No, it’s the interpretation y’all are making. There are other reasonable interpretations, like it or not, and the one Trump was looking at was a photoshopped image. We can’t put people in a virtual death camp for such things, or you risk being next.
There is no other explanation. Especially when you put it in context of the other elements of suspected trafficking, wife beating and yes the clothes. It defies logic to think that and even the courts said he was in the gang. The only reason they let him stay was because a rival gang would kill him. So the justification for the stay order was that he is a gang member, but he gets to stay here because he could be killed by another gang. From the perspective of a country that is trying to protect its citizens that’s just stupid. There are countless victims of that gang. Why the left wants to die on this hill is a mystery. He deserves another day in court and then they will deport him legally.
Also, did you see what Taibbi said after his congressional hearing? He said ask me the question and I’ll give you the answer. And the answer would’ve been that free speech is a non-partisan issue.
I didn’t mean my first comment to be harsh, Leighton. I apologize. I am completely in tune with the concern over enhanced and unchecked state power. It frustrates me though that we keep taking this bait. From the George Floyd riots to Covid to Russia gate, this is a movement and a partisan media that lives on falsehoods, innuendo and sensationalism. The tactic is outrage, not intelligence. It keeps working so they keep going to that well. I know you don’t believe this, but I feel like they are crying wolf yet again. As uncomfortable as I am with some of the things happening it does not rise the level of what we have seen and what the other side truly wants to do given the chance.
And this is their only tactic. Five alarm fire about everything, no remorse or admission when they are wrong. So I’m in the camp of letting things play out and not feeding that particular beast.
I think it’s helpful for everyone to absorb your perspective and Matt’s (and Schellenberger and Greenwald etc) but to also avoid deifying anyone. So I appreciate the critique.
I was a critic of all the hyperventilation during Trump 1, but I just don’t think that’s what’s happening this time around. When they start talking about suspending habeas the threat IMO is real.
I’m a long time paid subscriber to his Substack and I agree with much of this piece. In addition to the things you’ve mentioned I find the things he writes and talks about now to be so ideologically rote, repetitive and oftentimes besides the point. Honestly it’s kinda boring and uninteresting, even though I still think he’s a very talented writer. And it gives me no pleasure to say this because used to really enjoy the pods he does with Walter Kirn - but I find myself being annoyed by them now more often than not
I’m with you. I read less and less and watch less and less. I’ll always be an admirer of his work, but he’s becoming irrelevant. It’s 2025 and he wants to talk about Thomas Friedman’s hypocrisy.
People are bending over backwards to avoid acknowledging the glaring difference between Racket's coverage on civil liberties and speech control since January 2025... I spent the last 4 years championing Taibbi's work and the past 8 years defending him against unprincipled fair-weather vote-blue-no-matter-who libtards, taking for granted a certain level of consistency and principle that I have been crushed to see evaporate. I kinda blame Walter Kirn's involvement - he is certainly a part of why I canceled my paid sub. One only need look at Glenn Greenwald, who I consider to be a kindred and similarly maligned spirit with Taibbi, to see what the opposite looks like... would love to see those two have a discussion about all this stuff.
Kirn is a straight up apologist for the current administration. Any mild pushback Taibbi offers on Trump, Kirn interrupts and barks away like the little lapdog that he is.
Kirn stated on one of their podcasts that Trump was the champion of the underdog and his cabinet picks were wildly popular. I was like dude, get your head out of your ass.
I think Kirn is intoxicated by the sweet taste of revenge. I think I know it when I see it because, I am not proud to say, it's a sentiment I share. But I'm not purporting to be a journalist.
Glenn Greenwald is a champion of free speech, and is not hesitant to take on either party with his exceptional analytical skills. Glenn is indispensible, as Taibbi has shown himself not to be.
I certainly agree that Walter Kirn has been a bad influence on Matt. Kirn is a libertarian, which I regard as one of the lower forms of political animal paving the way for even lower forms to proliferate. The man can't get through a diatribe about NPR elitism or the Ivy League without mentioning that he went to Princeton -- I mean it's every single show! I wouldn't go so far, however, as saying that Matt's level of consistency and principle has "evaporated." I watched his testimony before Jim Jordan's House committee and the Democrats' brutal and entirely unprincipled take-down of him. He clearly wasn't expecting that level of vitriol and I remember thinking, the Dems are full-blown McCarthyites now! I also saw Mehdi Hasan's back alley mugging of him on MSNBC. Matt had identified as a Democrat himself until fairly recently, remember. If he now focuses more sharply on the hypocrisy of the Democrats than on that of the Republicans, can you blame him?
After getting so badly harassed by the blue team, and seeing the escalating political arms race play out, maybe he's genuinely afraid of what the red team has in store should be step out of line?
Then, if that's true, he's lost what it takes to champion free speech, which was what drew me to him originally. He needs to make it clear that he has left that arena, rather than just using his pen to take whacks at those no longer posing the main threat.
He can keep his eyes on them, but the Democrats, the other side of the Uniparty, have retreated to, at minimum, the back burner, if not on their way to total disappearance.
Apropos of not very much, I’m really happy to see you and others noting that Glenn Greenwald has stuck to his principles in ways Taibbi has not. I’d kind of written him off myself, and am pleased to hear that I was wrong. I will have to check back in.
I have also spent the last 8 years defending Glenn, he became an untouchable for going on Tucker and generally being a catty bitch on Twitter (which I personally find hilarious) but he has been rock solid in his principled stand on civil liberties. I have sent some of his recent podcasts to fellow travelers who had written him off and they have quickly changed their tune.
Cool! I made the mistake of listening to people who were confusing “friend of my enemy is my enemy” with “principled stand” While I never wrote off others in that group (like Fang), I thought he had gotten captured.
Too bad I’m a print media guy or else I’d tune in to one of those podcasts. :)
Audience capture is a problem for people who make their living off of subscriptions, and it's a double-edged sword.
I stopped being a paid subscriber for Matt for precisely the reasons you describe. He gave the appearance of not wanting to alienate Trump voters whom he had attracted over the last few years.
I lost some subscribers who liked my criticisms when they were aimed at Biden but didn't when I criticized Trump for doing similar things. Of course, I have well under a hundred paid subscribers, so I'm not exactly dependent on Substack for my living.
No matter. Lee Fang and Glenn Greenwald certainly cannot be accused of audience capture, and they live off of subscriptions just like Matt does. Journalistic integrity and consistency do count.
Excellent points! Your latter paragraph is especially notable – there are journalists out there who have not become Trump apologists in the last 12 months, and Lee and Glenn are two terrific examples; after reading Matt for so many years, his descent has been a dispiriting one.
I subscribed to Taibbi, and to Public, for several years. And reluctantly came to pretty much the same conclusions you have here, Leighton. So, a subscriber no longer to either Taibbi or Shellenberger, although I, like you, appreciate much of what they produced.
I fully expected, and waited and waited for his reporting on ADL, AIPAC, Betar, and other Zionist lobbies’ infiltration of government, corporations, and institutions with efforts to cancel, suspend, expel, and fire anyone opposing the live-streamed barbarity being perpetrated on a the open air concentration camp that is Palestine. There can be no rational discussion of the threats to free speech by avoiding this.
I supported him, admired his courage, steadfast principles, and excellent investigative journalism. When he said of the current holocaust, “it’s so complicated,” I was floored, as if he had become illiterate.
This is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue; looking through a partisan lens causes distortion and blind spots. This final solution is fully funded and supported vigorously by both parties.
It is confusing. Seeing the live time videos of Shani Louk broken body being paraded on a truck seeing the girl herded into a truck with blood on her hands an pants and God knows what on the back of them Then seeing the orphans in blown up areas without parents seeing women pregnant and giving birth in war. ( what hellish religion won’t distribute birth control to women who can’t feed or nurse a baby herself or her other children?)
Matt has to be attacked and demonized for the same reason Fetterman does: he doesn't hate Israel enough. Hating the evil Zionist entity is the new Prog litmus test, like a BLM sticker was a few years ago. Progs have endless hatred for apostates and heretics.
I idolized Taiibi - his writing, insights, integrity, commitment to Gonzo journalism, and don't GAF approach. Have all his books, subscribed to Rolling Stone for his writing, theb Useful Idiots, then Racket News. And then....after The Twitter Files, and his congressional testimony, and the DISGRACEFUL treatment by DWS and the Dems, and the IRS visit...something changed. It's like he can only see out of one eye, now. I'm all for bashing neoliberals, fascists, republicans, democrats, media: long as there's a thru-line of moral consistency. I even found Kirn entertaining. I don't recognize them anymore. Did someone threaten them? Did they drink some Kool aid? I had to stop, because I found myself shouting rebukes at them instead of laughing along at the lunacy set upon the world. It's disheartening. Oh well. We're all on our own path. And I hope Matt is well. But he and Walter don't get my subscription money anymore. But it was like a breakup. They were my Friday night cocktail date.
I agree that man has changed but when I see and is that he is such a principled journalist that it never occurred to him that other people would treat him so terribly and it wounded him incredibly. He honestly thought that he was somewhat above reproach When Walter goes on one of his kicks about the evils in the world, Matt does hang back and I think he is very fearful of being the object of hate again. He reminds me of a little boy who once out of the protection of his parents could not believe that the that the world could turn on him so completely when what he thought was telling the truth. When I watched him being called to Congress and saw what they did to him and the expression on his face it broke my heart. Whatever he is or isn't, Matt is a decent man and he will get my respect forever.
Yes, and. He's a grown-ass man. He has been praised for his integrity, intelligence and courage. Now is no time for the feint of heart. Man up. UNLESS he's fearful of retaliation, which in the current environment, and how he was betrayed by the feckless Dems, is no small thing. Still respect him. Just not getting my $$.
Yeah, there is endless hatred for those who blow hundreds of thousands of women and children to bits and bomb hospitals, churches, universities into rubble and shut off power, water, and food to an entire nation and live stream it.
This piece was spot on. Matt has been my favorite journalist for years now because i felt that he voiced my feeling of political homelessness. I knew it was a bad sign when Trump signed his bullshit executive order about bringing free speech back. On his podcast, Matt basically did a victory lap claiming partial credit for it. Just the fact that he got excited over a supposed promise that Trump was making. Gullible is the exact right way to describe it. It didn’t take long before Trump shit all over the first amendment that Biden had already pissed on. Sure , Matt is not obligated to report on everything Trump does but basically saying nothing and even sometime defending Trumps free speech violations is pure hypocrisy for a guy that was the voice of free speech in the media. Thank you Leighton for calling this out. Must not have been easy.
I feel similar. He's been one of my favorite journalists for years. Watching him become audience captured and do a 180 on his principles on free speech has been disheartening. I stopped my subscription just recently; he and Walter Kirn are so wrapped in their own bubble thinking it's sad.
Well and fairly said. But one caveat: the liberal horses aren't dead. There is a power struggle going on between these two ideologies (neither of which I like; I said a little more here https://anniegottlieb.substack.com/p/the-real-battle). Liberals (one of which I was for most of my life) have deeply controlled the discourse in universities and the media, enforcing groupthink by shaming, smearing, and firing heretics to their dogma. The Right is using naked state power (yes, about this Matt is not sufficiently alarmed) not only to break that regime, which arguably needs breaking, but to install the other one—more or less Project 2025. Liberals are resisting the dismantling of their regime and planning to straight-up restore the whole shebang (open borders, trans extremism, DEI) if they can regain power. Don't count them out, as MAGA fractures and fights with itself and establishment Republicans.
Leighton seems to say that Taibbi is going after the "liberal horses" too much which is really weird unless you don't know how repressive and insane the liberal march through the institutions has been.
Fang, Greenwald , Sullivan, and many others are able to and have called out both the left and Trump in the last 100 days. It gives them way more credibility as far as I’m concerned.
I agree with you that the assumption the liberal left demons are dead is not only wrong but dangerous to assume. And they are more dangerous than what is happening now. Should they resume power, the pendulum will come flying off.
I don't know if they are "more dangerous," but they are AS dangerous, and more insidious. The naked use of state power is easier to see and to oppose than the surreptitious, totalistic infiltration of the bureaucracy, universities, and media.
I still enjoy Taibbi quite a lot. Why? Because he doesn’t report relentlessly on Trump. The entire ecosystem is consumed with Trump. There is so much Trump how does one even know how to consume Trump anymore? I don’t. Is he Hitler? Is he fascist? Will he crash the economy? Trump is the best thing that ever happened to media……ever.
I absolutely understand your concern here and it crosses my mind often. Where I diverge is your notion that the suffocating influence of the left has really gone anywhere. I see zero evidence that the left is willing to reform or move into the centre, even on their most radical and voter losing propositions. The only strategy appears to be doubling-down. This theme of free speech needs more runway to unfold and I’m not willing to toss Matt into the heap of the unscrupulous just yet.
The woke left is in retreat and won't ever have the kind of power over normies that it had from 2015-2024. Nobody's going to be afraid of these people anymore.
Uh. I think there is a good chance it will fire back up with a vengeance, like an animal backed into a corner, and forever use Trump as their excuse. They have no other ideas or strategies.
Yeah, I agree with you. For the author to say that Matt is trying not to “surely alienate a significant portion of his new readers and allies” and is in the throes of “surrender to audience capture” is such a bad take about the guy who gave up his gig in the Hunter S. Thompson seat at Rolling Stone magazine to try and maintain his journalistic integrity. I generally like Leighton’s work but that was a swing and a big whiff.
he gave up the Hunter S Thompson seat at Rolling Stone because he realized he could make more money grifting off MAGA world, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
One more thought: remember how the credentialed class was the easiest to propagandize about Covid (among other topics) because they are so sure of how smart and discerning they are? The same dynamic operates with those journalists who did not fall for the Russiagate, Hunter Biden laptop and Jan 6th psyops but who are falling for MAGA/MAHA/DOGE/TRUMP: They feel invulnerable to propaganda and cult behavior because they were able to discern those things happening to others. It's very difficult to see it when it's happening to you!
What is with this mob pressure on Taibbi to criticize Trump?
Leighton, why is it that we need Taibbi to also redundantly report on Trump on the same issues you and others are already reporting repeatedly?
May I point out to you that what you're doing is just the flip side of censorship? You're now doing exactly what the woke left has been doing in addition to censorship--compelled speech.
I don't understand this annoying phenomenon of heterodox reporters calling out other heterodox reporters to demand they report on something, and not only that, but to also report with the same take and same slant as the one doing the call out. Why can't everyone just report on what they want, say what they say, and let things fall where they may? If your case and arguments are convincing, people will listen and follow. Instead, you're doing the heterodox group's own version of TWAW. Demanding Matt to recite some belief to prove his innocence.
With this article, we're witnessing the coming of the heterodox purity spiral.
I'm glad Matt is focusing his reporting on other matters. I don't need to read multiple people writing about the same things article after article.
And what is with this, "It has insisted on audits of departments at Harvard that 'fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.'” Why use scare quotes in your sentence as if Harvard's antisemitism is not true, when Harvard themselves released a report admitting and documenting the severity of antisemitism on their campus?
Maybe work on your own reporting before calling out someone else?
Harvard's antisemitism is a moral panic. Just like it was when everything was supposedly infused with white supremacy and transphobia.
So Harvard’s own report with documented incidents aren’t true? Just a moral panic?
Racism is racism whether it happens to a single individual or on a mass scale. You can still acknowledge it exists and something should be done to address the problem while making a case that it’s not a movement warranting “panic”.
Your take on antisemitism is now exactly the same as what you’re accusing Matt of doing in this very article. Dismissing and making light of something that is true because of your own opinion and perceptions.
Harvard's report is a bunch of stories of students who felt unpopular because of their views on Israel. It's literally a call for safe spaces. If you think the government should be regulating the way students relate to each other based on their political beliefs we just fundamentally disagree, and I don't see how you can hold that opinion and also have a problem with woke identity politics.
The woke left invented the language the Zionists are now using, but it's the exact same language. "you made me unsafe with your ideas" "you did a violence by criticizing my worldview"
As a terf who had it lobbed at me over and over again about trans stuff I just hear it instantly when it is lobbed over Israel policy.
I don’t think government should be regulating how universities run their schools. Idk how you jumped from me simply pointing out antisemitism exists to me supporting government interference in academia.
I also did not say anything regarding safe spaces or such nonsense. But really, there have been documented cases of antisemitism against individual Jewish students and to completely pretend they don’t happen and never happened since 10/7 that were incited precisely by the ME conflict and war is just no different than asking me to deny what I can see with my own eyes. Both antisemitism and speech censorship can co-exist and both are problems.
Honestly I don’t care if I’m being accused of not being pure enough to be anti-woke, or to be liberal, or to be conservative. I’m long past worrying about whether I’m pure enough to belong to any political tribe. I don’t have a platform on politics like you and Matt so I’m the one who’s not susceptible to audience capture in any degree. I’m just telling it like I see it.
The honest thing to say about campus antisemitism is in fact to admit it exists, and racism of all forms exists and will always exist. The Palestinian protests have galvanized antisemitism. But in USA today we have arrived at a place where every group and individual should and can stand strong on their own regardless because we should not give in to fears and depressions over racism and antisemitism attitudes and behaviors by other people, while maintaining strong legal protection against discrimination against equal opportunity.
But no one would honestly say this. It’s either cry poor me or entirely dismiss complaints. Both are gaslighting.
"Again you repeat the fabrication that there have been "documented cases of antisemitism" at Harvard as if repetition somehow makes it true."
This is your fabrication because you choose to turn a blind eye and be willfully ignorant as you support the Palestinian side of the conflict. But it's your right to live your lie. Enjoy.
Just replace a few words and you could be a social justice warrior circa 2020
Well you should feel great that Trump was busy last week finding more criminals to fill his swamp, rubbing elbows and talking love and friendship, and making deals to enrich himself (the least of which resulted in him acquiring a 400 million dollar aircraft) and all his terrorist, terrorist-funding, murderous hosts in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Oh, but you may not know about his trip if you’re getting your info from Taibbi.
It was done to appease donors.
How so? https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/avi-kaner-joins-donor-revolt-at-columbia-university-redirecting-funds-to-jewish-studies-department/
Institutions that receive federal income need to be neutral when addressing subjective issues. As for universities, there is an editorial page in the school’s newspaper to express opposing views. ‘Woke’ policy was funded by the federal government as schools were rewarded for implementing that agenda. Defunding a ‘woke’ environment is the flip side of funding those ‘woke’ actions... it all depends which side you choose.
Just look at this logically... when the “students” camped out on the campus, most of those campers had the exact same tent model. Did they all go down to Dave’s Sporting Goods together and get a group discount? Was this an organic groundswell or was the protest funded by powers who were not students?
Suppressing masked protesters preaching violence against (fill in the blank) should not be allowed on federally supported (fill in the blank). This is not difficult.
It’s like you’re trying to be ironic. Expressing an opposing view on a university editorial page is *exactly what Ozturk was imprisoned for six weeks for.*
Ozturk was imprisoned for writing an editorial????
Then the publisher of the newspaper is the target of the university... which means the university needs imprisonment for itself.
Who could have guessed that if blue-haired SJWs had been defending genocide instead of transgenderism that they would have had MAGA on their side the whole time!
Interesting. You’re on Leighton Woodhouse’s Substack telling him he should be detained and forced to leave by the government? Or would you prefer the authorities slice him in half first so only his non-white part will be sent away?
Keep stewing. You won’t get what you want. But I’ll enjoy watching hate consume you to your core.
Another shoe size IQ with an internet connection.
The Palestinian BDS aim of a one-state solution would deprive Israel's Jewish citizens of their status as equal citizens within a democracy. Make no mistake, it would be a return to Sharia Law, the subordination of Jews and the imperative that a Jew's house can never be taller than a Muslims. To argue otherwise is pure gaslighting. That being said, the American tradition of free speech would tend to suggest that people should be free to argue for evil positions and policies, provided the speech doesn't fail the Brandenburg test.
Some might argue that anti-Zionism isn't inherently anti-Semitic, and technically this might be correct in terms of the useful idiot class which populates the West, but we can least acknowledge the evidence that the two things are highly correlated. In practice, the end of Israel as a Jewish majority state would mean at best the end of Jewish rights as equal citizens and at worst a bloodbath and genocide orders of magnitude greater than the civilian deaths in Gaza.
That being said, we should defend the right of people to argue for BDS, even as we oppose its imposition with every bone in our bodies.
The Two-State solution is the only tenable solution, but first Palestinians must acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, forsake their 'right to return' for financial compensation, or land of equal value in the new Palestine, and agree to live in peace with their neighbours.
This is inconceivable in the current cultural context, and could only be achieved by a massive intergenerational shift in Palestinian culture.
Ask yourself this question- if Israel allowed a limited right to return, but insisted that all who applied must pass a lie detector test which proved that they accepted that 'No non-Muslim in Israel should ever be subject to Sharia Law, or have Islam or the jizya or saghirun imposed upon them', just how many Palestinians do you think would pass?
Why does any of this have any bearing on the question of whether the US government should be able to round up, imprison and deport international students for writing op-eds the secretary of state doesn't agree with?
It's merely exposition for those who don't know the true explicitly stated aims of BDS, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the peaceful resolution of conflict in the Middle East. Many Western supporters of BDS are completely ignorant of this fact. Much as BDS as a movement may be deeply repellent, it's exactly the type of speech the 1st amendment was designed to protect. I don't believe the government has met the burden for Holder vs. Humanitarian Law, which probably provides the standard for supporting terrorist aims without employing terrorist methods.
Protecting the worst forms of speech guarantees free speech for every other American. Otherwise Americans might quickly find themselves in the same position as those of us who live in the UK- arrested and charged with a crime for burning a Quran, when the burning was a protest over the Jihadist murder of a close friend.
Show me a single shred of evidence that Rumeysa Ozturk "supported Hamas."
Here’s a question for you, when will Israel admit that Palestinians have a right to exist.
Israel as a state already exists, it’s horrific , but it currently exists.
Your hypothetical that end of Jewish state would result in a bloodbath worst that what is happening now, so that facilitating a genocide of the Palestine people that is happening now…. causing hundreds of thousands to be killed and starved and ethnically cleansed , is worst type of moral hypocrisy I have ever come across.
The Lancet study is probably the best independent analysis we have. It puts total deaths from traumatic injury at roughly 64,000, with 16,000 of these enemy combatants. That’s a tiny, tiny faction of the death toll which would occur if the one-state solution were ever implemented.
Let’s set aside that levels of hostility are higher between Muslim and Jew, than they were between Muslim and Christian in Lebanon. The population of Lebanon was 2.5 million during the Islamic takeover. 150,000 people died. If we look at the combined population of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, then the figure is 14 million. That makes a minimum of 840,000 dead even if we make the assumption that the levels of hatred between Muslim and Jew can be dampened down to the levels of Lebanon, an unrealistic possibility to anyone familiar with the history and animosities of the region.
I agree with you that there is a huge degree of dehumanisation on the Israeli side, but it’s a dehumanisation which had been repaid in kind many times over. The whole situation is a humanitarian tragedy, but solutions have to be better, not worse, than the current situation.
A while back, I asked AI to find me geopolitical commentators who weren’t hopelessly polarised on subjects like Ukraine and Gaza. I also asked for commentators outside the West who weren’t politically aligned with any of the major countries involved in both disputes. Kishore Mahbubani was the answer which came back. He’s a senior Singaporean diplomat who has also served as the President of the UN Security Council.
On Ukraine, he blames the naivety and stupidity of European leaders, in believing that economic involvement would prevent belligerence on the part of Russia, and in failing to create deterrence in terms of the functional standing militaries which are a function of spending a robust level of revenue on the military over decades. On Gaza, he blames America for failing to force Israel into a two-state solution, something which he believes could have happened decades ago given the political will in America.
The answer is not BDS. As I’ve already stated in my previous posts the Palestinian BDS preference for a one-state solution is disingenuous, and attempts to accomplish through initially peaceful means what could not be accomplished by military means. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something which could be done.
Basically, America needs to elect a government which is willing to force a two-state solution. Of course, it’s not that simple. The world as a whole would need to commit troops, police officers and finance to prevent any form of attack whatsoever by the fledgling state of Palestine on Israel, and it would probably need to be a commitment which would last for decades, but if the UN wants peace it needs to ask its members to pay for it, of which I’m sure America would need to be foremost amongst them.
Israel is not some White settler colonial project. Roughly 73.8% of Israelis are Jewish. Although, 50% of them describe themselves as Ashkenazi (European), of these, just over 50% are over 50% Mizrahi by ancestry (native to the Middle East). The remainder are mostly Mizrahi. Put in Western terms, the Jewish population of Israel is 16% White, 16% biracial, 63% Middle Eastern and 5% other.
It’s also not true that Israel is an apartheid state. The Muslim minority population of Israel who are Israeli citizens, enjoy rights not seen in most parts of the Muslim world. They participate fully in Israelis society, serving in the parliament and as judges.
Sorry , accidentally posted without finishing.
I think much of your other points have some validity, and definitely the worth interrogating further.
When it comes to polarisation, I think when it comes to genocide, you definitely should be.
When it comes to the Nazi genocide of Jewish and minorities in the 1940’s , I definitely would be polarised in thinking that it’s unjustifiable.
Good posts. You’re obviously thoughtful and curious about the world. Unfortunately, the BBC version of the Violence Paradox doesn’t appear to be available on YouTube.
There is PBS Nova version, but it’s probably less highbrow. BBC Four was/is a niche BBC iPlayer channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xoTWERTN8&t=3587s
White in this context , as you know is not limited to a single race. Here I am talking about it as a social hierarchical construct.
As an example 100 years ago, in USA, Irish , Italians , and Jewish people were not considered white, but they are now accepted as part of the ‘In’ Group.
And your comment about Israel not being an apartheid state….. laughable.
Read any human rights report, from HRW, AI , https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
I agree with your observation that Israel is more Western by social construction. Here’s the problem, when the West was at its worst during slavery and colonialism it was still better than virtually every other Empire in history. Islam was a lot, lot worse in terms of slavery and colonialism. China might appear like an exception superficially, but one has to remember that far from being a single people, at the time of the Three Kingdoms wars which wiped out a huge portion of the global population, it was a complex picture of diverse peoples and languages. The one exception is probably the Indian subcontinent during the Hindu Kush period.
That doesn’t mean that the West is uniquely less oppressive than almost every other major culture in history. It was simply that we were lucky, just the same as with our technology. The Printing Press stands as the single most important and impactful invention in human history. Not only did it allow information to be copied and disseminated cheaply, powering the scientific, agricultural and industrial revolutions, but it was also the factor which took 90% of the world’s population out of the most brutal, malnourished and short-lived poverty.
Literacy also civilised the world. The anthropological default in almost every culture in human history was to classify other humans as non-human, until proven otherwise, which was rare. Reading and stories civilised humans in profound ways. For the first time in history, people were able to imagine themselves living as someone from a different culture, and this profoundly increased the levels of empathy people were capable of feeling towards people from other cultures.
There is great BBC documentary called the Violence Paradox on the subject. It also features some great researchers from Harvard looking at practical experiments in how to reduce outgroup hostility.
Unfortunately, this is a painfully slow process, and some would argue that it hasn’t yet fully run it’s course.
"deprive Israel's Jewish citizens of their status as equal citizens within a democracy' That is what they have now in the USA. In Israel, they have ethnic supremacy, enshrined by law. That is the reality that Palestinians are objecting to, that and the genocide, land theft, and apartheid.
Ethnic supremacy? That's a contextual misapplication, if ever I've read one. It's why Western analyses of the Israel and Palestine conflict are so superficial and fail to even come close to proposing solutions which might remedy the situation.
It's simply not a racial or ethnic conflict, it's a religious one. Sure, one can use the race is a social construct argument, and argue that Jewishness is more a culture than a belief system for many Jews, but the same cannot be said of Palestinians. Why? Because under Islam apostasy is not permitted, and is, for the more outspoken cases, punished by death.
I understand there is a racial component, even though the just over 30% of Palestinians are Levant Arabs share strong ancestral relations with Mizrahi Jews. For example, because many Palestinians don't historically originate in the region, they cannot 'pass' for Jews in the same way that others can and do when, they shed their cultural markers. This racializes the just under 70% of the Palestinian Arab population which is non-Levant in genetic origin. It marks them out, it 'others' them. For the Levant Palestinians, the IDF is forced to rely upon cultural markers, in the same that a Southern Sheriff might have used clothing or the New York accent of a White Irish American as an off-duty freedom rider during the Civil Rights era.
Look, it's a fair point to argue that when Israel has offered peace talks, the offers have been derisory in many instances. But let's remember these were just opening offers aimed at extracting a better final deal. But perhaps the most important reason why a Two-State solution can never work, unless America imposes a Two-State solution on Israel by force is Jerusalem. If the Palestinians were more pragmatic on the issue, they could probably extract dual citizenship for Palestinian 'permanent residents' in Jerusalem, major territorial concessions, as well as custodianship of Al-Aqsa (which has been offered in the past, even though as a matter of historical fact it is not 'the farthest mosque'). The Palestinians could receive property of equal value to what they lost, historically, or financial compensation.
But they won't, for the simple reason that the Palestinians would see any solution which didn't see Israel returned to Islamic control, under Sharia Law, and non-believers subjected to the highly ritualised humiliation and inferior status of the jizyah as a betrayal of Islam. A huge portion of the Palestinian population simply wouldn't accept it. This begs the question, what about the just over 2 million Israelis Arab who currently enjoy superior rights under Israel? What about the 550,000 Israelis who aren't Muslims or Jews, but would similarly see their status and rights made inferior under Islam?
It's a sectarian problem, not a secular one, as everyone in the Middle East understands, but few in the West are willing to concede. The best critique of America on Israel is probably the one made by Kishore Mahbubani. He's a Singaporean and former President of the UN Security Council. He think only a Two-State solution has the possibility of working and blames America for the Israel Palestine conflict. He believes America should have forced Israel into a Two-State solution decades ago.
I'm not unsympathetic to your arguments, even if I may disagree technically with some of your descriptions. I want this tragedy to end as much as you obviously do. I make efforts to listen people with different perspectives with which I disagree. Just this morning I watched Glenn Loury on Briahna Joy Gray's Bad Faith podcast. It's an excellent discussion, but ultimately Briahna and Glenn make the same mistake you do- although there are certainly ethnic undertones to the conflict, every ethnic, cultural and social aspect of the conflict is subordinate and subsidiary to the primary consideration- the reason why neither side will accept peace without major coercion by America is because it's fundamentally a religious conflict.
Westerners making the error of using their own lived experiences and cultural contexts. South Africa simply isn't a valid comparison. The only modern conflicts which are at all comparable are Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, or, to a lesser extent, the Kashmir conflict. Nigeria, Sri Lanka, CAR, Lebanon and Sudan are all also relevant, if not directly comparable.
Anyway, here's the podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY0b6vwSMPM
Yeah, those pretend pro-Hamas genocide if Jews were just cute campus dress up parties.
I’m sure you said the same to Matt when he was dogging Ezra Klein and Ben Smith. You can fuck youself.
I find Leighton inspiring!
https://substack.com/home/post/p-163741499
This is exactly right and is where this article misses the mark. Leighton assumes that the corrupt mainstream media has been delivered a death blow and will not recover and therefore Matt has no need to ‘punch down’.
The cockroaches that built and inhabit that sphere will change stripes, morph titles, and hibernate during the nuclear fallout… but they will not die. Too much time, effort, and money has been spent to prop up their propaganda apparatus, that they will not be allowed to truly fail, but will simply reemerge elsewhere when the time is right (just look at misinformation Mary Poppins). That’s what Matt and others need to remain vigilant about. And it’s a relentless game of Whack-a-Mole snuffing these people out wherever they pop up and start to re-propagate.
Do I wish the Trump admin hadn’t leaned into the gray area around non-citizens with visas and what rights they do/don’t have in regard to what behavior justifies nullifying a visa… absolutely.
But we cannot and should not pretend that cutting out the rot and restructuring the educational system and our institutions to promote and deliver unbiased and truly fact-based education, research and reporting is not a monumental decades-long undertaking that requires vigilant coverage and accountability along the way.
That aim is noble, and will have the greatest impact on healing the rot within our society, and it is also more than one person can tackle alone.
I’ll give Matt a pass for now, and hope that he stays the course on holding our institutions accountable for their bias and collusion… especially in the instances where taxpayer dollars are ultimately weaponized against the taxpayer.
What Left?
He displays significant skepticism and great venom when criticizing the progressive establishment, while seldom deploying the same level of skepticism or venom when it comes to MAGA. His pub, his choice, but he is not even-handed at all. He writes like someone who would rather criticize elites for minor issues than criticize MAGA for major ones. Basically, it seems like the target has become more important to Taibbi than the principle. If your beat was anti-authoritarianism, anti-government paternalism, and free speech, and you are not excoriating the Trump administration, you are not on your beat.
And you’re free to stop reading him. That’s what free speech is all about.
Free speech is also about the right to comment on other people's writing.
Of course people are free to comment on others’ writing. But what’s happening now is not just people randomly commenting on Matt’s articles. There’s pressure on him to write about Trump, and not just write about him, but only write about Trump to criticize him. The pressure is enough for him to feel compelled to publicly make a statement about it. It’s dishonest to pretend this is mere commenting.
This mob pressure, and pressure now by you, a fellow reporter, is what I have issue with. It’s another version of “silence is violence”.
Why should any single reporter be pressured to write about anything?
Some are arguing that because he writes widely about free speech and censorship, then he must also write about the opposite side. He’s given his explanations, which you described in your article. Everyone is free to accept it or move on and ditch him. But somehow his explanations are not enough. His silence on Trump is unacceptable. He can only redeem himself and prove his innocence if he joins the chorus?
People are guessing he’s audience captured. But what if he actually believes what Trump’s doing is not as egregious? Is he not entitled to his own different opinion?
Leighton, I respect a lot of what you write. I also agree people should be able to freely comment on other writers’ takes. It’s fine to even point out the media not covering something that’s not on their side. MSM personalities do this all the time and deserve to be called out. But it’s generally the other side doing the call out, so there’s no real mob pressure to conform. What I find problematic is when it is the journalist’s own side doing the call out by specifically singling out a reporter, when there’s a not quite hidden demand that the reporter to say and write something deemed “correct” by those accusing him or her.
Maybe you don’t think you’re making any demand. And I’ll believe you if you say that’s not your intent. But clearly this demand is out there and you’re adding to the pile. So I’m curious to ask, to what end, if not to achieve the ultimate result of Matt succumbing to finally write to criticize Trump?
And if he does bend the knee, what does that prove, besides Matt’s own purity and innocence? It’s not like Trump will do things differently because Matt finally calls him out.
The heterodox space is better when those writing in it can have the maximum freedom to decide what they want or not want to write about. That’s what makes this space interesting and not susceptible to group think. If readers feel Matt’s writing is no longer trustworthy, they can abandon following him.
There are enough of you as well as liberal MSM talking about Trump censorship and I appreciate the reporting from you and those like you that I feel I can trust more than MSM. I don’t see what need there is for Matt to contribute more if he doesn’t want to. He’s one single person. This is treading on the line of a witch hunt.
Criticize what he writes if you disagree with him. But I can’t get on board with veil demands for a reporter to saying something. Someday, this can come back to bite you too when you have a different line of thoughts but others want you to say something you don’t want to.
But I’ll be here to defend your right to not be pressured into writing something you don’t want to.
I don't care about him trashing Trump. I care about him being consistent on free speech. It just so happens that Trump is the biggest threat to 1A right now and the guy whose entire brand is free speech and who has testified to congress about the dangers the Biden admin posed has nothing to say except, "actually these colleges deserve it." If he thinks Trump does NOT present a major threat to free speech then he should write that — I'd be fascinated to read that argument. My guess is he won't because he can't, because the threats from this administration are undeniable.
I'm not really worried about the etiquette of singling out a reporter for criticism when it's a reporter who just wrote a piece called "In All-Time Loathsome Podcast, Reporters Cheerfully Admit Screwing Up Russiagate" about Ben Smith and Ezra Klein. Matt can dish it and he can take it.
Sorry dude but that’s BS. “If he thinks Trump does NOT present a major threat to free speech then he should write that — I'd be fascinated to read that argument”
Your article literally makes it seem like that is what he has already done. You are upset he won’t pick a side on a specific topic.
Really? This is the defense? "He does it too!"??
We can debate whether his piece on Ben Smith and Ezra Klein is the same but I don't think this conversation will go anywhere. Silence is violence. Raise the fist. Got it.
Alex lost the argument with “you re free to stop reading him.” You re also free to not read what Leighton has to say. See how ridiculous that is ?
And I absolutely will stop reading anyone if I think what they write has completely lost value. What’s the issue?
And I will respond to pompous never been assholes for my own amusement. See how choice works? I formerly read and recommended Taibis work religiously. But now I read it in an effort to raise awareness about what a hypocrite he is and also to mock Walter Kirn as a phony, self absorbed, moron who is clearly using Matt’s stage to create an audition tape for a Fox News show. Matt’s too busy being butt hurt about Stacy plasket to notice. But I did notice that he canceled both episodes of this weeks show. I’m clinging to that as some version of change on the horizon.
And one is also free to criticize Matt Taibbi with their free speech, silly 🤣
Yes I am. I'm also free to keep reading him because I think there's value to what he writes, even as I come to suspect that what appeared to be principled free speech, anti-authoritarian values were instead anti-elite values. It makes sense; he's always been a leftist. It's what attracted him to Occupy Wall Street. I'm disappointed, but that's probably as much a reflection of what I thought he was as it is anything else. I'm not saying "Matt Taibbi bad for not supporting free speech principles to my liking"; I'm saying "I was wrong about Matt Taibbi's principles."
I appreciate your nuanced answer. Thanks.
This is just wildly off the mark.
Well said
It isn’t compelled speech, it’s simply principled integrity. Free speech is Matt’s thing. That has been the bulk of his reporting and advocacy for years now. So the silence and excuses under Trump come off as a major partisan blind spot. This article was spot on. I’ve been following Matt since his rolling stone days, he’s one of my favorite journalists. But the last year I fear he’s (probably subconsciously) fell victim to audience capture and partisan bias
What you're saying sounds reasonable at first glance, but after thinking it through, I still disagree.
If we go along with the line of thinking you propose, then ultimately what you're all looking for is not Matt to write to report on anything of value as to news. It's not that you think Matt the journalist will add anything to what's already being reported out there by writing about Trump's directives. What you want is for Matt to be an activist. You want him not so much to report on the state of affairs, but to indict Trump for what he's doing.
But it's not Matt's role to be an activist. He's first and foremost, a journalist.
One of the biggest travesty of the last decade is activist journalists. Traditional journalists and media have all but abandoned journalism to push their own views of morality and justice. What you're all demanding of Matt is that he becomes what the heterodox space say they reject.
So Matt made a name for himself writing about one topic.But that means he must always have to report on everything on that topic? Can they not choose to take a break from the topic and focus on something else? Especially when there are already other reporters writing about said topic and there's nothing new under the sun to report on anymore?
Again, is it to add news value? Does he have some scoop that no one is privy to that he can expose? If not, then what result are you looking for other than Matt being an idol and to prove he's not a false god?
I think we need to reign back activist journalists, not encourage more of it.
If Matt is carrying water for Trump by writing to support Trump censoring, then by all means everyone should take him to task what he says.
But pressuring someone to say something, when the pressure is not something the person can wave away like pressure from their opposing side, is not something I agree with. That was the seed of cancellation. Of course, Matt is not at big risk of being cancelled here. But it's not about Matt. It's about principle, as you said.
I know it feels longer, but we're really just 4 months into the Trump administration. That's a very short time. How everything will shake out remains to be seen. People just forgot that because everyone is focused on the immediate moment.
It’s kind of absurd to claim Matt isn’t already an activist. He has never written dry, just the facts reporting. He started as a Wall Street critic and later became a speech advocate. His writing is full of sarcasm, ridicule, and criticism. So it’s incredibly disingenuous to say you don’t want him to become an activist. But even if he was doing dry facts only reporting, the speech issue and especially around foreign students is a huge story. When speech is his main subject for years and then he doesn’t have much to say after Trump wins is off putting to me and many other people
My comment wasn’t about Matt though. He’s fair game if readers view him as activist or not. But I was talking about us. We didn’t like it when woke left journalists became activist journalists. But now there’s an issue we feel important and we’d like journalists we support to be activists?
There’s a dichotomy here with people saying the issue they have with Matt is principles, but then principles are irrelevant if I bring up compelled speech and activist journalism.
What’s really happening then is everyone is selectively applying principles whenever it fits or not fit their wishes.
After all the comments, the conclusion I arrive at is still that no one is wanting Matt to write something to add journalistic value as to news. It’s not that Trump censorship isn’t already being covered and reported by many others and no one would know something if Matt doesn’t write about it too. What people really want is for Matt to speak to prove himself to the crowd. Can anyone dispute me on this?
We’re just barely getting out of the horrendous suffocating pressure to conform and virtue signal. Think of Matt however you want. But demanding someone to say something to virtue signal needs to stop.
That would be a fair criticism if Matt hadn't embraced the role of free speech warrior. He isn't Jodi Cantor or some other straight-down-the-line reporter. He doesn't write that way or live that way. Matt is an advocate and a public figure. And I'm generally glad he is. But he doesn't then get this get out of jail free card of "I'm just a journalist reporting on what interests me." Two years ago he headlined a huge free speech event in London with Russell Brand; Tim Robbins was backstage. If he volunteers to take on that kind of public image then he should expect to be judged by how consistent he is with the principle he so loudly espouses.
"That would be a fair criticism if Matt hadn't embraced the role of free speech warrior."
And who gets to decide where the line is drawn in defining what is "embraced the role of free speech warrior"?
By this reasoning, it would justified to cast suspicion on a professor of civil rights who didn't make a public statement supporting BLM post George Floyd. It would even be justified too, to cast suspicion and judge on any individual who has always said he or she is antiracist and volunteered to support antiracism for not putting up the black box on his or her social media profile. Next thing you know, we're right back to the mindset of cancel culture.
I understand you think there's some kind of common understanding of where the line is drawn. 10 years ago, maybe, I'd agree with you. Now? I no longer assume there's common understanding on anything.
As for Matt, another way to look at him is that he's not actually big enough to warrant a call out and demand to speak. He may be well-known in some spheres. But on an actual wide scale, he's equivalent to the professor nobody knows outside of the college.
If Trump censorship is the concern, it'd be a lot more productive for you and others to continue reporting on that than doing the news making themselves the news, which in this case is making Matt the news. Doing a hit piece on Matt won't make an iota of difference to whatever you think Trump should stop doing. And if Matt is leaving a void, it's a golden opportunity for you to seize the mantle from him. Why not just take it instead of insisting he sits on throne?
Writers in the minor space of heterodoxy eating their own is so bizarre.
Same, he's been one of my favorites since his days at Rolling Stone and still is. I don't know if it's audience capture but I expected him, of all people, to be a champion of free speech no matter what. I get the feeling he doesn't like talking about the Israel situation. I'm not sure why that is but I think that has a lot to do with why he is quiet on the recent attacks on free speech and our civil liberties.
Not to fight Leighton’s fight, but Matt has always represented himself as free speech/1A defender not guided by political parties given the ebbs and flows of their positions. That’s how I’ve felt for a long time because frankly I believe that all politicians suck. The truth is lost once it enters the political spectrum. Where we can all recognize that the state of things during the Democratic party’s rule was atrocious in their own respects, and certainly the issues around censorship and the unholy alliances borne between the NGOs, universities and a host of other public and non-public organizations, we can also recognize that under Trump, the “shock and awe” of some of the policies he forcing through also merit critical analysis. There is good coming out of this “break things” mentality, we can understand the need for more rational energy policies, and the MAHA aspects that are being promoted make sense, as do other areas under HHS (ie. FDA, NIH, etc.), but the censorship being pushed around Israeli/Zionist matters (last I checked we were living in the United States and Trump espoused an “American interests first” populist message ;) and several other areas make little sense. His push against every judiciary decision that doesn’t agree with his position on matters, and calling every single one out as renegade judges is getting tiresome (much like Draymond Green of the Warriors being outraged by every foul he receives ;). Sure, a few may be off but that’s what the judicial process is meant to address. The very censorship Trump decried for issues that affected him, he seems to have no problem employing such on issues that benefit him and his followers/investors/funders/et. al.
His whole administration also spends some amount of time on any issue they hold a press conference about, bashing the previous administration rather than remaining entirely focused on the objective of what they claim to be trying to fix. As though needing to remind us that no matter how bad some of his policies are, the previous ones were worse. For all the good that could come out of the mandate given Trump by the citizenry, he squanders much of this on retribution. My view has always been that it wasn’t going to be pretty to have Trump back in charge, but at least it would stem the woke and other insane perspective being imposed on us by the rutherless, out of touch Democratic Party. Matt, had also acknowledged something to this effect, but it appears that this as well as his focus on free speech, has waned when it comes to the Trump admin.
I think the difficult issue for Matt is to straddle both parties with his free speech position. When he was doing this to the left he sat in opposition to the MSM (mainstream media), this gave him credibility especially since they were obfuscating for the Biden admin, and in effect acting a bit like Matt is now doing for the Trump admin. It would be hard for Matt to now join them in critiquing the Trump admin since this would in effect, bring him back into a fold that he has no respect for…understandably so. I think that it’s super difficult to sit in judgment of both parties and to remain principled about focusing only on issues (free speech/1FA). It’s likely the same challenge for Michael and company over at Public. I have enjoyed reading their posts over the years, but now I find myself in the quandary that Leighton talks about here. Their focus on free speech now takes more of a retroactive look at past sins (like Matt’s recent post about the Twitter Files) rather than holding the current administration to deliver on what they espoused but are now trampling. Not sure how he fixes this problem, if he even sees it as a problem.
So after reading Matt’s response (https://open.substack.com/pub/taibbi/p/ode-to-scum?r=fmgkw&utm_medium=ios), I feel better in that he doesn’t appear to have lost his moral compass at all. If anything, I’m now more curious as to how Leighton got to the place of assuming that Matt’s readership is mostly conservative. Like Matt and others who were more left leaning centrists (though I believe he leaned more left than me), I have felt that the extreme left has taken hold of the party to an alienating end. I’d certainly not consider myself on the full right of the aisle, though these days, a heck of a lot closer to that given how far left the left has gone. The lines have certainly moved even where my belief system has basically remained the same. In Matt’s post it’s clear that he wanted to consider what was happening before just going hog wild on Trump’s free speech/1A disturbances, to say the least. That approach seems like a sensible one to me, and not worth writing a whole post on Matt’s abandonment of principle before he has considered these changes. That post sounded very rational to me and reaffirms why I have enjoyed reading his books and his posts on Racket News, and to continue to do so. While unnecessary, his sharing of how he’s thinking through these issues was helpful in understanding his position here, which is hardly worth calling out. Yep, saw Leighton’s late night follow up post, but it didn’t rise to a comparable justification for this initial diatribe.
Now that I am no longer a paid subscriber to Matt, that article is behind a paywall. What does it actually say other than trying to claim a sexist slur is just dandy?
It shouldn't matter to you since you've already made up your mind ;)
I thought you put it there for people to read. I haven't been able to. Any open-minder thinker can change their opinion with new facts that warrant such a change.
I did…if you have access, much like referencing an NYT or WSJ article. If you can’t see it then there’s not much I can do since I won’t violate Matt’s copyright, nor do I want sit here and write up my version of his thorough post. Yes, walled content can be inconvenient, but as I mentioned, since you chose to no longer view his content prior to Leighton’s post, then there’s no need to change your mind, you’ve already done so once and seemed happy with that decision. Matt hasn’t changed as a person, so stick with your convictions. Let it go, this issue is not for you, you have no stake in that horse 😂
Why is being “heterodox” some sort of journalistic knighthood? Matt Taiibi specifically chose “free speech” as the hill he would die on. Now, when glaring examples of government suppression of free speech are visible to all, suddenly Matt is giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone in high office!
Matt once had principles. His beat was free speech. He’s abandoned his primary stated objective.
Stop reading him then as that’s your right. What I don’t agree with is the mob pressure on him to write about anything. People asked him why he isn’t criticizing Trump, he answered. If you accept it, fine. If not, ditch him and move on. To continue to pressure a single reporter to pay fealty is giving me flashbacks to woke compelled speech.
I didn't ask why he isn't criticizing Trump. I asked why he's ignoring massive threats to free speech.
Maybe because, as he himself explained, he doesn’t think they’re massive. The same way you think antisemitism on campus is a moral panic. I’m not saying this to be snarky, nor am I debating the point of moral panic. I’m just saying he may actually see things differently than you. What seems massive or moral panic to some may not seem so to others.
Where did he explain that he doesn't think they're massive?
No, I hold people to account for abdication of their stated principles. No one is forcing him to do shit.
Readers and fans are shocked at his rapid abandonment of years of free speech absolutism as is our right.
Yeah I'm a little confused at this idea that there's some kind of mob pressure campaign on Matt because people have criticized him online. Matt's a famous, wealthy guy with one of the biggest independent platforms in the country. He dishes out plenty of criticism of others and gets some back, which I imagine he's fine with. He's not some skinny teenager being doxxed and swatted by 4chan. Is Matt bullying Ben Smith and Ezra Klein when he ridicules them on his substack?
Leighton, it sounds like you’re a Progressive. There are lots of reasons why what aboutism doesn’t really work when you’re trying to say Matt should be as hard on Trump as he was on Biden/Harris. While it can be convenient to try and compare. MAGA to progressivism, most people in the MAGA camp are not radicals they’re moderates. You won’t find moderates in the Progressive camp because the Progressives are chasing radical concepts, many of which are outside of the constraints of the constitution.
I'm asking him to be *consistent.* And the idea that people like Stephen Miller are "moderates" is laughable.
just to be clear, the territory of moderates is everything from Liberal to conservative within the constitution - in other words classical liberalism. most people are hybrid of liberalism and conservatism so that makes. But with moderate politics, there’s no room for progressivism, Marxism, socialism, anarchy, or communism and no Paleo conservatism either. I find that progressivism is so deeply steep into our psyche that it can be hard to remember what classical liberalism is. i’m not saying that there aren’t things in the Trump administration that cross that line but mostly I’m not seeing it and I’m not going to attack him even though I’m a Democrat. I’m desperately hoping that my party finds its moderate and constitutional feet again. I suspect they’ll have plenty of time to work on that.
You can't be a progressive and be moderate, but you can be someone who calls for the suspension of habeas corpus?
That's correct. I don't find the suspension of habeas corpus in these cases to be an extreme blanket suspension of rights. That's hyperbolic to interpret them as such. Unfettered access to habeas corpus for people who followed no legal pathway to gain access to the U.S. surrender that right in my opinion. If they have a legal basis, but they're participating in disruptive activity, then they've lied about why they wanted to come here, i.e. education, etc. , and they deserve a swift boot. I certainly hope you're not saying that we should allow unchecked access to habeas corpus for every illegal immigrant Joe Biden gave access to or every lawbreaking troublemaker with a student visa.
There is no suspension of habeas yet. I mean the Trump administration is "looking at" suspending it for anyone they pick up for deportation. Which is definitionally radical. And you can't suspend habeas JUST for non-citizens, because the entire point is that if they round up CITIZENS accused of being here illegally they'd have no legal recourse. It's a threat to literally everyone.
The idea that any of these activists "lied" about why they came here and were secretly planning to participate in disruptive activities is absurd. They're not clairvoyant; they couldn't have predicted Oct 7 and the retaliatory bombing of Gaza. And in the case we're discussing, Ozturk, she didn't even participate in those protests at all as far as anyone knows in any case.
I'm not an apologist for Turkish antisemitism. I think you may be underestimating the malignant nature of the Islamic forces in our midst who would love to see the end of the Western world, not just the end of Jews and Israel. That includes some students here on visas spouting pro-Hamas sentiments and some of the funding of Islamic studies departments and professors.
Sir, your authoritarianism is showing.
Well said
I have seen a lot of criticism like this of Taibbi on X, before seeing this article. I could understand it if say, even 5% of the population got their news solely from Taibbi. But that number must be what, some small fraction of a percent?
I'd like to see some data on how big his audience is, how many get their news solely or primarily from him, and what percent are actually MAGA aligned.
As for me, I subscribe to NYT, WaPo, WSJ, and follow many others. I follow Taibbi because I think he has a unique, often insightful and important voice. I don't expect him to be perfectly balanced, or be my sole source of news.
Word
Taibbi isn't being hererdox though. Endlessly saying "dems bad though" every single time for every single isnt hererdox, it is just Fox News in a trenchcoat.
Fair critique of Matt Taibi, but iirc he also critiqued the Trump sprawling surveillance recently.
Exactly. Well said; thank you very much
I just find it funny that everyone is engaged in meta arguments about whose position is more consistent. If you notice the entire media sphere is conditioned upon the idea that we have a right and a left and two parties that represent those sides of a binary choice. Can't we all just agree that the two parties and their avatars are there to FUCK us and nothing else. Taibbi has a viewpoint formed by his experiences in Russia and Mongolia. Pretty unique for a westerner. I'd say we should just take that context and move on if you don't think it has value. The media (whether mainstream or "alternative") has a vested interest in the existence of our current socio-economic and political systems, which we all seem to be agreeing is not working for anyone. Left, right, Dem, MAGA, these are just words. I don't think anyone obsessed with these words really cares about anti-semitism or Palestinian babies. We are just recursively jacking off into our own mouths. Why can't we start to talk about solutions instead of how to score a point against the other side in a rigged game that has been presented by the bosses as the only approved field of play? The house always wins, we always lose. Get a grip!
The government presented no evidence other than the op-ed. This isn't just about a judge's opinion.
She'll probably get deported regardless because of this ridiculous rule that the secretary of state can revoke anyone's visa unilaterally just because he feels like it. But it's now abundantly clear that this is, in fact, punishment for writing an op-ed. That there's no evidence of anything else.
You've got it correct in this final answer. The SoS (or anyone at DOJ, State Dept or Exec branch) can revoke status of people in the USA on visas or green cards.
They are not required to conduct a trial, prove criminality (or even specifically allege it). The reason for this is fairly obvious — people in the country on visas and green cards are not citizens enjoying full constitutional protections, they are guests. When a guest behaves badly in your house you can, and will, throw them out.
It is the opinion of the current State Dept that these persons have been sufficiently disruptive during their stay that they should be removed. That is a somewhat subjective so there will be people who agree and disagree with that judgement. You are demanding evidence but they actually don't need to provide you with any, there is no legal question that they have the power to revoke guest access to the United States.
I think it's fair to say that you've made it clear in these comments that you sympathise ideologically with those being removed, which it is your right to do. It doesn't change the law though, so your efforts may be better focused on campaigning to change longstanding law in this area rather than demanding 'proof' of things the State Dept is in no way required to prove to you.
This argument always ends with someone saying “well they have the legal right to do this so therefore there’s nothing to talk about,” as if this was an argument over the law. Biden retroactively pardoning his son was also legal. Didn’t make it any less disgraceful or deleterious to democracy.
Good luck with all that. I've been a subscriber to Shellenberger and Taibbi from the jump and that won't change.
Same. There are plenty of people criticizing Trump already. But not enough people pointing at the madness on the other side. It’s not a zero sum situation. Trump isn’t above criticism just because Taibbi isn’t focusing on him.
It's not that Taibbi isn't focusing on him. It's that Taibbi is staying silent or worse, being reactionary.
There IS an argument to be made about defunding Public Broadcasting, as it has become an adjunct to one political party over the other. BUT—there is a long back story to this of ongoing attacks, funding cuts, right-wing threats, and the demand that PBS/NPR must find a way to be 'profitable'—essentially pushing them into the arms of corporations and the Democratic party, which robbed those outlets of the ability to be independent.
That's just one example of a story he didn't fucking think through.
And I wish Matt wrote Western fiction a la Louis L’Amour. But I have no control over the matter. Dude, I simply have an issue with the substance of Leighton’s piece.
There are arguments to be made about why relentless coverage of Trump’s actions is a moral imperative. My man Leighton here didn't follow that tack. He instead chose to attack Matt’s character (“wilfull” followed by an adjective is never a compliment on character). Why?
My first thought is this is because Matt has too big an audience for a voice who criticizes certain shitty elites. Such as the ones who turned the White House into an assisted living facility for four years and covered up for it. But that's probably not it.
Leighton came out of academia; and Matt recently advocated for doing away with American higher education as we know it. I’m betting that's where Leighton is coming from.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into Woodhouse’s motivations. Who knows ? But attacking Matt’s character is just shitty. Of that I am certain; and I felt I had to say something.
Good thing then that nobody ever said that, since my point is about free speech, not Trump.
It's amazing that leftists who claim to defend free speech are the first to cancel speech that points out their hypocrisy. Leighton blocked Sasha Stone and probably others because they have a different perspective.
Maybe a decade ago, but you haven’t been following closely since if you believe that.
That’s kind of the issue; you are now following Taibbi (and Shellenberger) because they tell you what you want to hear in ways that support your pre-existing biases. That’s what is so sad about what has become of Matt; he didn’t used to give a hot fuck about catering to anyone’s biases or feeding his audience what they wanted to hear. He got drummed out of the leftish media because he had principles and was always willing to stand by them, even if it cost him.
He’s found a new MAGA oriented audience and he seems loathe to report anything that might discomfort his new tribe. It’s sad.
Not necessarily. I subscribe to New York Times and Washington Post. I subscribe to Taibbi to challenge those biases and get generally insightful perspectives I won't find elsewhere.
Yes, ones you agree with. Matt's at his best when you only agree with about half of what he has to say.
Listen, I subscribe to Matt too, and have done since I joined substack. Hell, I subscribed to the Stone when he was there. (I used to subscribe to Public too, but the anti-trans bullshit took up too many column inches.)
Matt has become predictable. I don't even have to read to know what his perspective on anything is going to be. He's gone from insightful to simply contrarian - and his silence on Gaza has been a shameful shit show.
Despising what's become of liberals doesn't mean you need to embrace the Libertarian right - (they're assholes too.)
Lol project much about confirmation bias?
Nothing I said indicated I indicated I agree with all his perspectives. I even implied I see him as basically supplemental to NYT/WaPo. I may even more or less agree with your assessment it's best when you only agree with maybe half of what he says. I take his left-contrarian stances with a grain of salt. But at his best, he's a crucial voice.
Ray, I fear he USED to be a crucial voice. I am kind of feeling like when the liberals turned on him, and when he got a knock on his door from the Biden IRS, and when he was called a 'so called' journalist (by the worst people in the world...) - It broke him.
Thing is, if he risks finding his voice again, the libertarian bros are gonna turn on him even faster than the fake woke libs did.
And don't forget being falsely labeled a serial sexual harasser by a Democrat congresswoman. But I wouldn't say it broke him. Just because he's more focused on critiquing the left, doesn't mean those critiques aren't valid and needed. Perhaps not all of them, but at least some.
This is bullshit. Media and Social have become enemies of the people. That fight isnt over. Matt is just staying the course and focusing on the deepest and most established rot within the corrupt propaganda system.
You must either support or do not give enough credit to that system to resurface and continue to collude with outside interests to ignore or obfuscate the truth.
It’s a full time job and a worthy cause to keep focused on stamping out the rot that has infected the walls of universities, corporations, and ‘news’ outlets.
Matt not reporting on Trump’s failings at this moment in time isn’t capture, it is best use of resources and focus on an issue that he is uniquely capable of covering well.
And between that thread and the current Trump failings, his track is the most entrenched and in need of vast overhaul… which few are focused on.
When Trump’s failings become A) more pressing and B) less covered, then a good journalist like Matt will make the switch. Until then, keep the focus Matt!
Hawkeye - not sure how old you are, but you seem to think there is something new here in Whoville, and there must be some good ol' days when the Media and Government were a friend to the people, and there didn't exist a rotten, corrupt propaganda system.
This isn't necessarily your fault, because the victors largely decide what is taught as our history. But before you go off on people or make accusations, maybe assume they aren't all dumb asses.
First, maybe read 'Manufacturing Consent. (1988) Then, consider 'The Brass Check' By Upton Sinclair (1919). You can even go back further, and read up on how WR Hearst started a fucking war with his newspapers, in Our Un-American Press By George Seldes (1938) or maybe question how it is that everyone came to believe that the US won WW2 in The Cold War: A New History
By John Lewis Gaddis (2005) and how all of America became 'commie crazy' for the last 80 or so years in The Fifties by David Halberstam (1993)
If you don't like reading, Tom Paxton was singing about it in the 60s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui-cL6YOKHI)
Thanks. Manufacturing Consent is a great read, I’ll check out the others. Certainly not delusional and thinking this is a new phenomenon, but the battlefield has changed and gotten faster and more furious with the advent of Social Media. It’s also had the silver lining of giving the ‘un-anointed’ a voice… when it’s not throttled by the actual fascist corporate/government collusion.
No ultimate change in the aims of the propagandists… just a tweak of the ground rules. But that novelty is what Matt has been focused on and done better than anyone at covering and would be a distraction to join the thundering herd criticizing Trump at every turn. If the rest of the herd falls down, then maybe Matt’s time could be better spent picking up their slack… but for now, theres no need to join the masses to check that box.
Maybe you are right, and as I said, I haven't unsubscribed to Racket in spite of my criticisms. But I am close to it. I have a budget that pays for a lot of journalism right now—I spend upwards of $125/mo on supporting journalism on Substack and a bit more elsewhere because I feel it's really important.
BUT - I do have a choice of where to spend, and if I am feeling like a journalist is starting to cater to his audience (and that audience no longer includes me) - well, there are a ton of journalists out there, less well known than Matt, who probably need my 5$/mo more.
I was a subscriber to Taibbi here since he first left Rolling Stone. I even subscribed to his podcast with Katie Halper simply as a way to support his writing, but I can only read so many articles where there is some throat clearing criticism of the current administration with the bulk of the content reminding me everything is Biden's fault...
Ive read him since rolling stone days & listened to his podcast & was a subscriber to his substack & feel the same way.
I respect what you're saying, but speaking as a "dissident" who's also taken some heat for continuing to focus most of my criticism on the left, I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest Matt Taibbi is hypocritical or audience-captured to continue focusing on the progressive establishment. I consider Biden-Harris probably the most repressive administration since Woodrow Wilson, and they did it with the ruthless professionalism of top lawyers and insiders who truly understood how to manipulate the levers of power, whereas Trump's appointees are a very mixed bag who have bluster and break some things, but lack the finesse to get many of their policies through the courts.
I don't like some of what Trump has done, but there's an element of game theory involved. After the most abusive administration in 100 years, Republicans are supposed to magnanimously swallow hard, unilaterally disarm, and meekly return to norms the previous administration completely abandoned in service of, among other things, flooding the country with impoverished migrants? That would seem to normalize and incentivize further norm-shredding. Yes, an eye for an eye leaves the world blind but sometimes a bop on the nose makes a bully think twice about taking your lunch money.
Additionally, I don't think the professional managerial left is nearly as wounded as it may seem. A lot of people are laying low for now and keeping their powder dry, but trillions of dollars and lots of fancy people's status relies on the logic of ever-metastasizing technocracy. Authoritarian managerialism in the name of global equity is still the dominant ideology in the civil service, higher education, the prestige press, NGOs, broad swathes of big business, etc. They'll be back in the saddle soon.
He’s a journalist. He shouldn’t be playing “game theory” games with the powerful. He should be a gigantic pain in the ass regardless of who is sitting in the White House - that’s literally the job description.
In terms of a bureau or publication, I agree, but when one is a spiky independent with only so many hours in the day one can't do it all and must prioritize certain angles and beats. As an example, the housing collapse in 2008 came down both to corporate greed and to very foolish government policy getting low-income people into nicer housing than they could afford by incentivizing banks to make unreasonable loans that were unlikely to be paid back. A lot of people loved Taibbi's "Vampire squid" article, but its scope was primarily the corporate greed side of things. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good article, or a contribution to the discourse, but it was one article among many.
You nailed it. The vibe shift is exactly that - ephemeral vibes. Trump is operating in his usual slapdash and superficial style that is unlikely to undo decades of deliberate effort by the technocratic elite to capture the commanding heights of the economy and culture.
The Empire will strike back, hard. And they’ll do so the moment they think they have enough political and legal leverage, probably as soon as 2026 or 2028.
I do not understand the criticism. Taibbi has rightfully been cautious not to pick up on runaway left wing media narratives. So exercising caution when approaching a story means eschewing this metastasized left wing freak out that the sky is falling. That’s the lesson of the last 10 years. You are allowed to be patient when assessing facts. And in your prime example he did exactly that. Wait to see what is true then offer a comment which literally said it’s bad if this woman is deported for an op-ed (which we all agree on. Great).
Look at the Maryland father story or the complexities of the rittenhouse story. There are so many examples. How can you criticize a guy who doesn’t make some immediate pivot to freak out mode whose entire reputation is built on the opposite? Remember it’s freak out journalism that got us in this mess. Russia, pee tapes, Covid coverups, now tarrifs are destroying the economy and citizens will be sent to camps…the list is basically endless.
The lessons of the last 10 years can be applied, yes, but that includes the ability to cancel noise and resist the urge to jump on the bandwagon of the week.
What about the "Maryland father story"? Matt hasn't been cautious in his opinion on that. He boosted a piece by Alex Berenson preposterously arguing that there's no other possible interpretation of tattoos of a cannabis leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull than "MS-13." That's some "All the classic earmarks of a Russian influence operation" type shit.
Name one other possible interpretation of the knuckle tattoos please and thank you.
Four images that Abrego-Garcia happens to think look cool.
I think you know better than that.
genuinely curious—how are those tattoos supposed to indicate MS-13 affiliation? On my own, I cannot imagine a connection.
Because it’s that dumb. It’s supposed to be M for marijuana, S for smiley face, then somehow a cross is a 1 because it sort of looks like one, and then the skull has holes for 2 eyes and 1 nose which adds up to 3.
Jesus dude, c'mon. As I said I agree with much of your article - but Matt is 100% right on that one. Don't make those of us supporting you look bad now, lol
With respect, I've read your work and you're not that stupid.
Just to go out on a limb...since when is a tattoo evidence of a crime? Unless there's a photo of it at a crime scene or description from an eye witness? If you are this far from understanding what evidence is, there's not much point in discussing it.
Did I claim that tattoos, or this tattoo, is evidence of a crime?
The question is whether or not the tattoo is evidence of MS13 gang membership.
If it’s not, then is it just random meaningless images like Woodhouse off-handedly claimed? Or, is it one of multiple pieces of evidence pointing to gang membership? I think the weight of the public evidence, taken at face value, points to Garcia being a violent criminal. He had a deportation orders. He’s gone. Good.
So you don't believe in due process. Yeah, a waste of time to engage with people like you, so I will stop now. The tattoo itself didn't have MS-13 on it, you fell for fake pictures. Anyway, carry on with your nonsense.
You are confused. Nothing you are saying makes any sense in the context of my comments in this thread.
Maryland had due process.
Just saying I have read numerous times he was arrested in (2019) with 2 other known gang members. The gang police officers declared him such and it was never disputed by him. In addition the father of his wife’s babies indicated he was as well. There is other reasons that indicate he is. He admittedly was a gang member when he lived in El Salvador according to el Salvadoran officials and the probable reason he used to not be sent back their due rival gang threats. Also, the tattoos being dismissed as not proof of gang affiliation is naive and a bs defense. Police who work in stopping gang activity have supported the symbols as used by gang members. To just dismiss them is the weakest argument of all. Symbols are one of the commonest forms of expression. The swastika,the all seeing eye, a fish for Jesus,the Templar cross and on and on.
He was under a judge's protective order to not be removed. Small matter that, I guess.
Good lord, they were photoshopped. Photos of his hands IN PRISON show no such tattoos.
So Woodhouse’s reporting about the existence of the tattoos is wrong?
No, it’s the interpretation y’all are making. There are other reasonable interpretations, like it or not, and the one Trump was looking at was a photoshopped image. We can’t put people in a virtual death camp for such things, or you risk being next.
“There are other reasonable interpretations”
I thought you said he had no tattoos in his PRISON photo. Were you wrong?
If there are other interpretations, we’re back to my original challenge to Woodhouse: Name one.
There is no other explanation. Especially when you put it in context of the other elements of suspected trafficking, wife beating and yes the clothes. It defies logic to think that and even the courts said he was in the gang. The only reason they let him stay was because a rival gang would kill him. So the justification for the stay order was that he is a gang member, but he gets to stay here because he could be killed by another gang. From the perspective of a country that is trying to protect its citizens that’s just stupid. There are countless victims of that gang. Why the left wants to die on this hill is a mystery. He deserves another day in court and then they will deport him legally.
Also, did you see what Taibbi said after his congressional hearing? He said ask me the question and I’ll give you the answer. And the answer would’ve been that free speech is a non-partisan issue.
The courts said nothing of the sort. “ To this day, the
Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s
warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his con-
finement in a Salvadoran prison.” That’s what the Supreme Court said, while the Left say they’re Right Wing, and the Right says they’re Left Wing.
I didn’t mean my first comment to be harsh, Leighton. I apologize. I am completely in tune with the concern over enhanced and unchecked state power. It frustrates me though that we keep taking this bait. From the George Floyd riots to Covid to Russia gate, this is a movement and a partisan media that lives on falsehoods, innuendo and sensationalism. The tactic is outrage, not intelligence. It keeps working so they keep going to that well. I know you don’t believe this, but I feel like they are crying wolf yet again. As uncomfortable as I am with some of the things happening it does not rise the level of what we have seen and what the other side truly wants to do given the chance.
And this is their only tactic. Five alarm fire about everything, no remorse or admission when they are wrong. So I’m in the camp of letting things play out and not feeding that particular beast.
I think it’s helpful for everyone to absorb your perspective and Matt’s (and Schellenberger and Greenwald etc) but to also avoid deifying anyone. So I appreciate the critique.
I was a critic of all the hyperventilation during Trump 1, but I just don’t think that’s what’s happening this time around. When they start talking about suspending habeas the threat IMO is real.
This is spot on.
I’m a long time paid subscriber to his Substack and I agree with much of this piece. In addition to the things you’ve mentioned I find the things he writes and talks about now to be so ideologically rote, repetitive and oftentimes besides the point. Honestly it’s kinda boring and uninteresting, even though I still think he’s a very talented writer. And it gives me no pleasure to say this because used to really enjoy the pods he does with Walter Kirn - but I find myself being annoyed by them now more often than not
I’m with you. I read less and less and watch less and less. I’ll always be an admirer of his work, but he’s becoming irrelevant. It’s 2025 and he wants to talk about Thomas Friedman’s hypocrisy.
People are bending over backwards to avoid acknowledging the glaring difference between Racket's coverage on civil liberties and speech control since January 2025... I spent the last 4 years championing Taibbi's work and the past 8 years defending him against unprincipled fair-weather vote-blue-no-matter-who libtards, taking for granted a certain level of consistency and principle that I have been crushed to see evaporate. I kinda blame Walter Kirn's involvement - he is certainly a part of why I canceled my paid sub. One only need look at Glenn Greenwald, who I consider to be a kindred and similarly maligned spirit with Taibbi, to see what the opposite looks like... would love to see those two have a discussion about all this stuff.
Kirn is a straight up apologist for the current administration. Any mild pushback Taibbi offers on Trump, Kirn interrupts and barks away like the little lapdog that he is.
Kirn stated on one of their podcasts that Trump was the champion of the underdog and his cabinet picks were wildly popular. I was like dude, get your head out of your ass.
If I recall, Kirn actually called the DOGE douches "boy scouts," he was that enamored with what they were doing.
I think Kirn is intoxicated by the sweet taste of revenge. I think I know it when I see it because, I am not proud to say, it's a sentiment I share. But I'm not purporting to be a journalist.
Glenn Greenwald is a champion of free speech, and is not hesitant to take on either party with his exceptional analytical skills. Glenn is indispensible, as Taibbi has shown himself not to be.
I certainly agree that Walter Kirn has been a bad influence on Matt. Kirn is a libertarian, which I regard as one of the lower forms of political animal paving the way for even lower forms to proliferate. The man can't get through a diatribe about NPR elitism or the Ivy League without mentioning that he went to Princeton -- I mean it's every single show! I wouldn't go so far, however, as saying that Matt's level of consistency and principle has "evaporated." I watched his testimony before Jim Jordan's House committee and the Democrats' brutal and entirely unprincipled take-down of him. He clearly wasn't expecting that level of vitriol and I remember thinking, the Dems are full-blown McCarthyites now! I also saw Mehdi Hasan's back alley mugging of him on MSNBC. Matt had identified as a Democrat himself until fairly recently, remember. If he now focuses more sharply on the hypocrisy of the Democrats than on that of the Republicans, can you blame him?
Its about principles and who is currently in power violating our civil liberties. You either care about this shit or you don't.
After getting so badly harassed by the blue team, and seeing the escalating political arms race play out, maybe he's genuinely afraid of what the red team has in store should be step out of line?
Then, if that's true, he's lost what it takes to champion free speech, which was what drew me to him originally. He needs to make it clear that he has left that arena, rather than just using his pen to take whacks at those no longer posing the main threat.
He can keep his eyes on them, but the Democrats, the other side of the Uniparty, have retreated to, at minimum, the back burner, if not on their way to total disappearance.
Yep, I can't argue with any of that.
Apropos of not very much, I’m really happy to see you and others noting that Glenn Greenwald has stuck to his principles in ways Taibbi has not. I’d kind of written him off myself, and am pleased to hear that I was wrong. I will have to check back in.
Love Glenn. Most consistent man alive.
Dude is a super hero with "ideological consistency" as his power.
I have also spent the last 8 years defending Glenn, he became an untouchable for going on Tucker and generally being a catty bitch on Twitter (which I personally find hilarious) but he has been rock solid in his principled stand on civil liberties. I have sent some of his recent podcasts to fellow travelers who had written him off and they have quickly changed their tune.
Cool! I made the mistake of listening to people who were confusing “friend of my enemy is my enemy” with “principled stand” While I never wrote off others in that group (like Fang), I thought he had gotten captured.
Too bad I’m a print media guy or else I’d tune in to one of those podcasts. :)
None better than Glenn. Rock solid!
Audience capture is a problem for people who make their living off of subscriptions, and it's a double-edged sword.
I stopped being a paid subscriber for Matt for precisely the reasons you describe. He gave the appearance of not wanting to alienate Trump voters whom he had attracted over the last few years.
I lost some subscribers who liked my criticisms when they were aimed at Biden but didn't when I criticized Trump for doing similar things. Of course, I have well under a hundred paid subscribers, so I'm not exactly dependent on Substack for my living.
No matter. Lee Fang and Glenn Greenwald certainly cannot be accused of audience capture, and they live off of subscriptions just like Matt does. Journalistic integrity and consistency do count.
Excellent points! Your latter paragraph is especially notable – there are journalists out there who have not become Trump apologists in the last 12 months, and Lee and Glenn are two terrific examples; after reading Matt for so many years, his descent has been a dispiriting one.
I subscribed to Taibbi, and to Public, for several years. And reluctantly came to pretty much the same conclusions you have here, Leighton. So, a subscriber no longer to either Taibbi or Shellenberger, although I, like you, appreciate much of what they produced.
I fully expected, and waited and waited for his reporting on ADL, AIPAC, Betar, and other Zionist lobbies’ infiltration of government, corporations, and institutions with efforts to cancel, suspend, expel, and fire anyone opposing the live-streamed barbarity being perpetrated on a the open air concentration camp that is Palestine. There can be no rational discussion of the threats to free speech by avoiding this.
I supported him, admired his courage, steadfast principles, and excellent investigative journalism. When he said of the current holocaust, “it’s so complicated,” I was floored, as if he had become illiterate.
This is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue; looking through a partisan lens causes distortion and blind spots. This final solution is fully funded and supported vigorously by both parties.
Oh give me a break. Pallywood has got you hook line and sinker.
It is confusing. Seeing the live time videos of Shani Louk broken body being paraded on a truck seeing the girl herded into a truck with blood on her hands an pants and God knows what on the back of them Then seeing the orphans in blown up areas without parents seeing women pregnant and giving birth in war. ( what hellish religion won’t distribute birth control to women who can’t feed or nurse a baby herself or her other children?)
Wait you're blaming Islam for Palestinian women being pregnant while Gaza is being bombed?
Yes for GETTING pregnant while Palestine bombed. Absolutely and they promote it. “ we shall conquer world through the wombs of our women”
They can't even get FOOD AND WATER. How do you expect them to get and distribute CONTRACEPTIVES?
Wow, you have really lost it dude.
I have no idea who you are so this doesn't really hit.
Yes
This summary of Taibbi’s position is total bullshit. Invented.
Matt has to be attacked and demonized for the same reason Fetterman does: he doesn't hate Israel enough. Hating the evil Zionist entity is the new Prog litmus test, like a BLM sticker was a few years ago. Progs have endless hatred for apostates and heretics.
I idolized Taiibi - his writing, insights, integrity, commitment to Gonzo journalism, and don't GAF approach. Have all his books, subscribed to Rolling Stone for his writing, theb Useful Idiots, then Racket News. And then....after The Twitter Files, and his congressional testimony, and the DISGRACEFUL treatment by DWS and the Dems, and the IRS visit...something changed. It's like he can only see out of one eye, now. I'm all for bashing neoliberals, fascists, republicans, democrats, media: long as there's a thru-line of moral consistency. I even found Kirn entertaining. I don't recognize them anymore. Did someone threaten them? Did they drink some Kool aid? I had to stop, because I found myself shouting rebukes at them instead of laughing along at the lunacy set upon the world. It's disheartening. Oh well. We're all on our own path. And I hope Matt is well. But he and Walter don't get my subscription money anymore. But it was like a breakup. They were my Friday night cocktail date.
I agree that man has changed but when I see and is that he is such a principled journalist that it never occurred to him that other people would treat him so terribly and it wounded him incredibly. He honestly thought that he was somewhat above reproach When Walter goes on one of his kicks about the evils in the world, Matt does hang back and I think he is very fearful of being the object of hate again. He reminds me of a little boy who once out of the protection of his parents could not believe that the that the world could turn on him so completely when what he thought was telling the truth. When I watched him being called to Congress and saw what they did to him and the expression on his face it broke my heart. Whatever he is or isn't, Matt is a decent man and he will get my respect forever.
Yes, and. He's a grown-ass man. He has been praised for his integrity, intelligence and courage. Now is no time for the feint of heart. Man up. UNLESS he's fearful of retaliation, which in the current environment, and how he was betrayed by the feckless Dems, is no small thing. Still respect him. Just not getting my $$.
Yeah, there is endless hatred for those who blow hundreds of thousands of women and children to bits and bomb hospitals, churches, universities into rubble and shut off power, water, and food to an entire nation and live stream it.
This piece was spot on. Matt has been my favorite journalist for years now because i felt that he voiced my feeling of political homelessness. I knew it was a bad sign when Trump signed his bullshit executive order about bringing free speech back. On his podcast, Matt basically did a victory lap claiming partial credit for it. Just the fact that he got excited over a supposed promise that Trump was making. Gullible is the exact right way to describe it. It didn’t take long before Trump shit all over the first amendment that Biden had already pissed on. Sure , Matt is not obligated to report on everything Trump does but basically saying nothing and even sometime defending Trumps free speech violations is pure hypocrisy for a guy that was the voice of free speech in the media. Thank you Leighton for calling this out. Must not have been easy.
I feel similar. He's been one of my favorite journalists for years. Watching him become audience captured and do a 180 on his principles on free speech has been disheartening. I stopped my subscription just recently; he and Walter Kirn are so wrapped in their own bubble thinking it's sad.
Well and fairly said. But one caveat: the liberal horses aren't dead. There is a power struggle going on between these two ideologies (neither of which I like; I said a little more here https://anniegottlieb.substack.com/p/the-real-battle). Liberals (one of which I was for most of my life) have deeply controlled the discourse in universities and the media, enforcing groupthink by shaming, smearing, and firing heretics to their dogma. The Right is using naked state power (yes, about this Matt is not sufficiently alarmed) not only to break that regime, which arguably needs breaking, but to install the other one—more or less Project 2025. Liberals are resisting the dismantling of their regime and planning to straight-up restore the whole shebang (open borders, trans extremism, DEI) if they can regain power. Don't count them out, as MAGA fractures and fights with itself and establishment Republicans.
Leighton seems to say that Taibbi is going after the "liberal horses" too much which is really weird unless you don't know how repressive and insane the liberal march through the institutions has been.
I've written tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of words on the liberal march through the institutions.
Yeah, I am a subscriber. But the time for letting up on them is not now.
Fang, Greenwald , Sullivan, and many others are able to and have called out both the left and Trump in the last 100 days. It gives them way more credibility as far as I’m concerned.
I agree with you that the assumption the liberal left demons are dead is not only wrong but dangerous to assume. And they are more dangerous than what is happening now. Should they resume power, the pendulum will come flying off.
I don't know if they are "more dangerous," but they are AS dangerous, and more insidious. The naked use of state power is easier to see and to oppose than the surreptitious, totalistic infiltration of the bureaucracy, universities, and media.
That’s a good way to put it.
I can get plenty of Trump criticism from everyone else. No shortage of that. Matt’s earned my trust.
I still enjoy Taibbi quite a lot. Why? Because he doesn’t report relentlessly on Trump. The entire ecosystem is consumed with Trump. There is so much Trump how does one even know how to consume Trump anymore? I don’t. Is he Hitler? Is he fascist? Will he crash the economy? Trump is the best thing that ever happened to media……ever.
I don't care about Trump-bashing. I care about consistency on free speech.
I absolutely understand your concern here and it crosses my mind often. Where I diverge is your notion that the suffocating influence of the left has really gone anywhere. I see zero evidence that the left is willing to reform or move into the centre, even on their most radical and voter losing propositions. The only strategy appears to be doubling-down. This theme of free speech needs more runway to unfold and I’m not willing to toss Matt into the heap of the unscrupulous just yet.
The woke left is in retreat and won't ever have the kind of power over normies that it had from 2015-2024. Nobody's going to be afraid of these people anymore.
Uh. I think there is a good chance it will fire back up with a vengeance, like an animal backed into a corner, and forever use Trump as their excuse. They have no other ideas or strategies.
Well, I’ll take your opinion onboard and look for more evidence.
Agreed!
If that is all you have to claim that Matt is not the same journalist than this analysis although well written is quite weak.
Yeah, I agree with you. For the author to say that Matt is trying not to “surely alienate a significant portion of his new readers and allies” and is in the throes of “surrender to audience capture” is such a bad take about the guy who gave up his gig in the Hunter S. Thompson seat at Rolling Stone magazine to try and maintain his journalistic integrity. I generally like Leighton’s work but that was a swing and a big whiff.
he gave up the Hunter S Thompson seat at Rolling Stone because he realized he could make more money grifting off MAGA world, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
One more thought: remember how the credentialed class was the easiest to propagandize about Covid (among other topics) because they are so sure of how smart and discerning they are? The same dynamic operates with those journalists who did not fall for the Russiagate, Hunter Biden laptop and Jan 6th psyops but who are falling for MAGA/MAHA/DOGE/TRUMP: They feel invulnerable to propaganda and cult behavior because they were able to discern those things happening to others. It's very difficult to see it when it's happening to you!
Amen