Sure. But who? That doesn’t evoke any particular demographic to me.
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Fuck I tried again.
Hogg was trashing an older colleague for complaining about not wanting to retire and saying he needs to get over himself and needs to retire… and then I think the article’s author is saying to Democrats who meet this weirdly online and highly specific demographic picture like Hogg’s POV (I don’t know what internal prejudice or ai hallucination this is but it is weird). But I think the article is saying democrats like this are the ones who see what they need in Hogg here.
Ok. I read it half-right the first time I just doubted myself. I think?
Bad writing though really.
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I think the demo is disrespectful young usurpers like Hogg who aren’t respecting their elders. His latest mention of young males mostly just wanting to get laid is disappointing, but the idea to use a PAC to finance primary challenges to non-progressive incumbents like Pelosi is something I can 100% get behind. My take is that the older folks who are refusing to step aside have been on the corporate gravy train for so long, they’re like addicts and won’t voluntarily step aside without a progressive strategy to force them out.
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Disrespectful white kids.
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I’m for a PAC. I’m for crypto. I’m for political sports betting. Money is the problem. But you can’t fix this kind of money problem by not having money.
All the tools that are available to the Republicans ought to be available to the Democrats in theory including churches and foreign investors.
We’re probably on this particular train whether we like it or not at this point.
Until the law stops it because enough people demand it in both parties any party not doing it is just purposefully losing.
And even then there’s every chance of the first cracks at regulation being hamfisted and hamstrung and probably even other kinds of ham-related fucked upness.
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Can you clarify? What do you mean when you say that you’re “for crypto” in the context of elections? Does that mean that you think that politicians should cater to the crypto advocates and pass crypto-friendly legislation in the hope of getting more campaign contributions from wealthy silicon valley broligarchs?
Not trying to put words in your mouth but I’m honestly not clear on the point you were making.
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Yeah. I am. Maybe I mean it and maybe I don’t but go with it for a minute.
I give up on anything else unless they can run without it and win.
If dark money is what it takes then take dark money because we live in an era of dark money funding our country. Pander. Promise. And use the tools the techlords made to make the party richer up to the very letter of the law after a steam bath.
I think if they wanted to launch a shitcoin and take profits like Trump then do it and defend it.
Fuck it. They won. That’s compromise I guess?
You have a better solution to the money problem when one party has this option legally available to them and the other just is afraid of losing the people who don’t like it even though it seems hopelessly already the norm at this point?
Because I want that too. I want what you want here maybe. But how?
How do you swim upstream here and close the spigot when it’s entirely possible no one but a bunch of politically active nerds and armchair economists even care to close it?
Do you think that is something that could get enough traction to run against? I’m not sure but maybe?
That’s what would have to happen isn’t it, to stop this from being what you have to compromise with to get elected?
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Yeah, I read the full article, and I agree with everything he says. I still don’t really get that one sentence. That image just doesn’t evoke “disrespectful white kids” to me. The only thing “call their parents by their first name” conjures up to me is old stereotypes about the kids of overly permissive hippie parents, which I don’t think was ever really much of a thing.
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In my mind there’s an important distinction between simply accepting dark money for PACs because people liked what you were doing anyway vs. actually changing public policy and catering to the whims of the ultra-wealthy in the hopes of attracting more dark money.
Also important to keep in mind that there’s more to winning elections than spending more money. Just look at the relative spending in the 2024 presidential campaigns. Or the Musk-funded judicial election in Wisconsin. The traditional importance of TV ad spending in campaigns isn’t nearly what it once was.
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I agree there is one. But politicians also can’t just lie. At some point bills have to happen. Like that’s how compromise works right? So lets say I accept they at least already have to pay lip service to both groups. Tell the techlords they will make them richer and tell the rest of us they won’t make them richer at our expense, knowing that all of us know one of these things is a lie.
They have to get elected to even do anything so we see what they do once they get there and start having to do the work of actually negotiating. So on some level they will have to negotiate with the very powerful and rich donors who fit that techlord niche, the other powerful rich donors, actual dark money interests and foreign powers using political leverage… and then compromise with all that big time power against… the rest of us? For… love and justice.
There’s a difference but I see it as just different fingerholds in the same mountain.
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Honestly except for the stuff about Hogg feeling entitled not to take a pledge, I didn’t understand the article at all. Maybe because I’m not already familiar with the events in question. But of all the things going wrong at the moment, young people need to reflexively kneel before their elders feels completely orthogonal to everything. Honestly I’m not sure they do. Some of the elder politicians have earned respect for what they’ve done, others like Trump himself have not. None of this sheds any light on what’s wrong with Hogg to me.
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No, if anything it obfuscates and racializes. Just like a confused take on a confusing party disagreement at best.
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I mean, I would easily believe there is a racial aspect to it! But when you introduce that with “see, black kids learn to respect their elders, not like these white kids with their immodest shorts” I don’t know how to disentangle that from “old man yells at cloud”. 
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Oh, I think there’s definitely both racial and gender aspects to this.
Young white guy gets a position that was supposed to go to a woman. Got a lot less votes than the young black gay guy. Doesn’t have to follow the rules like the other candidates- and yet it’s all about him in the media.
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I mean, it doesn’t surprise me given the other news I have heard about him. I’m just saying I can’t tell from Harriot’s writing.
We use entitled as a criticism, but you know, there are some things people should be entitled to. When someone complains entitled billionaires thinking the world belongs to them, they’re right. But when someone complains about entitled protesters, they’re basically mocking their concerns. When someone complains about entitled minorities, they’re saying those people don’t deserve respect, and they’re dead wrong. (And when someone complains about entitled kids today wearing the clothes they like, I usually roll my eyes and move on.)
So is the problem with Hogg that he’s an entitled white man who thinks the rules are for other people? Or is the problem that he’s an entitled youth who doesn’t respect the senior politicians, just because our world is burning to the ground on their watch? Here the two seem to be fused but they’re completely different. And I’m sure I could disentangle them if I knew more, but that’s the point – this article doesn’t help at all.
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Yes.
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The criteria appropriate to determine if a politician is suited to run is their capability, not their age. There are 80 year olds doing a better job than 30 year olds.
Anything else is ageism.
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Then don’t mix it up with complaints about how kids today don’t call their elders sir and ma’am and girls need to put some clothes on like the real problem is you’re an entitled old conservative. It’s that simple. ACAB includes people policing girls’ shorts.
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Completely agree, the article was borderline incoherent.
I think the crux of the complaint is Hogg trying to fix the Party from within (as a vice chair), taking a pledge not to “put his thumb on the scales,” then turning around and initiating a plan to primary non-progressives.
In a way the DNC is set up not to be able to pivot toward its younger, more progressive members, and thus maintain its existing hierarchies. It’s maybe an ok rule in other contexts, but this close to democratic collapse it’s kinda rich using that to kick him out.
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It’s Michael Harriot, that’s how he writes…
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