NBC News: Michael Benz, a conservative crusader against online censorship, appears to have a secret history as an alt-right persona

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Luke Ford

Brandy Zadrozny writes:

Frame Game, the pseudonym of an alt-right internet personality, hid his face while pushing racist conspiracy theories. Inadvertent slips revealed details about his identity.

Michael Benz, a former Trump State Department official whose work has been cited in congressional hearings and promoted by Elon Musk, has become a go-to voice for Republican criticism of government and social media censorship in the past year.

But before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories, according to recordings, livestreams and blog posts reviewed by NBC News.

The pseudonym, Frame Game, posted videos and participated in podcasts and livestreams during the rise of the alt-right following Donald Trump’s election. Frame Game avoided showing his face in his videos or appearances, during which he pushed a variety of far-right narratives including the “Great Replacement Theory” that posits the white race is being eradicated in America for politics and profits. In others, Frame Game said he was a white identitarian, railed against the idea of diversity and made montages urging white viewers to unite under the banner of race.

In interviews with white nationalists, Frame Game blamed Jews for “controlling the media” and for the decline of the white race. “If you were to remove the Jewish influence on the West,” he said in one video, “white people would not face the threat of white genocide that they currently do.”

Frame Game stopped posting in 2018. A review of his content revealed various details that match Benz’s appearance and life story. Benz, in his public posts and appearances, has not espoused the same racist views as Frame Game…

Hours after publication on Friday, Benz posted a lengthy statement confirming his connection to the Frame Game account. He said the account was a covert effort intended to somehow combat the anti-semitism it espoused. “The account in question was a project by Jews to get people who hated Jews to stop hating Jews,” he wrote. “Let me be clear: I am extremely proud of this.”

Benz, 39, has positioned himself as a leading voice for many conservatives by tapping into a broader right-wing wave of disaffection with perceived social media and government censorship. He heads a group dedicated to the subject, has been featured as an expert in dozens of news stories and spearheaded efforts to bring attention and pressure upon people and organizations involved in social media moderation.

Benz and his organization were also cited in reports and witness testimony from the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. Benz also amplified the “Twitter Files,” documents released by Musk that revealed internal debates about content moderation and communications with outside organizations, governments, journalists and researchers. For months, in videos and threads posted to Twitter, Benz has framed those internal debates as grand conspiracies and maligned the academic researchers and institutions involved as government spies and plants.

Beyond the censorship debate, Benz has posted videos alleging a variety of shadowy doings in line with broader far-right paranoia around many hot-button issues. One video connecting criticism of Musk to a conspiracy theory around Ukraine and global energy markets was reposted by Musk, who added: “Interesting perspective.”

Brandy doesn’t give any credit to Benz for the brave, true and beautiful things he said under his Frame Game Radio persona. People are complicated. If any media report focused on the worst things we’ve all said and done, we’d all look terrible.

When speaking publicly, it is a good idea to think about what your enemy will do with what you are saying. We all speak within a certain context, but your enemy will rip away that context to present your quotes in their worst light.

I did a bunch of shows with Frame Game in 2018:

Frame Game was my favorite guest in 2018 because he had a phenomenal mind and he regularly challenged me more than anyone else in my life.

Benz and I enjoyed the expansion of the Overton Window pushed forward by the Alt Right. We were intoxicated by this new intellectual playing field. We enjoyed the frisson of danger from engaging with the right. In the pursuit of this engagement, we bent over backwards in showing empathy for their point of view, and we said things in pursuit of this engagement that we now regret. This is common among scholars and activists and journalists who want to penetrate forbidden worlds. When we get a new beat, we want to sweeten things with the major players and so we deliver “beat sweeteners” (flattery of important sources). In the pursuit of engagement, activists, journalist and scholars often say things that they later regret in the cold light of day when their entreaties are made public just as job interviewees and men on the make often say things that later embarrass them. In the pursuit of a forbidden connection, it’s easy to sell out. I think I did this at times in early 2018 and I think Frame Game did this too. We were so eager to talk to people in the Alt Right that we short-changed our analytical side. It was such a thrill to get the dangerous people on our shows that we failed to ask the tough questions (to ourselves most of all).

When you create, you leave your analytical side behind. You can’t write and edit at the same time. To put down your best first draft, you must ignore your inner editor. Frame and I created for a few months without normal self-interested inhibition. It was intoxicating to have these forbidden conversations. It was intoxicating to leave the modern buffered reflexive autonomous strategic self behind to experience the joys of the medieval king of the castle persona.

The modern world rewards a courtier morality wherein one constantly weighs every gesture, deed and word for its possible implications. This kills spontaneity and traditional forms of identity. By playing in the Alt Right pen, people indulge traditional ties at the expense of the civic virtue of not harming group’s feelings. For a few glorious months in 2017 and early 2018, we got to feel alive by freeing ourselves from modern concerns about racism, sexism, homophobia, and bigotry. We had primal engagement at the price of modern decency.

Frame Game was great at framing things. I’ll never forget one time on my show in 2018, he said to me, “Luke, I love you, but you don’t change anything.” Frame was dedicated to changing the world. I was dedicated to understanding the world.

Because Mike was operating with anonymity in 2018, he said more outlandish things than he would have if he were speaking under his real name.

It’s easier to tap into a primal engagement with the world when you operate out of anonymity just as people tend to become more primal when drunk. Going online and sharing your opinion is intoxicating, and intoxicated people are more right-wing than sober people.

Mike Benz tweets in response to the news story:

First, let me state something for the record. I’m a Jew. I’m a Proud Jew. I’m the descendant of Holocaust Survivors who fled Poland. I was Bar Mitzvah’d, and not just Bar Mitzvah’d, I did the additional 4 years of Hebrew School to get confirmed, meaning I went to Hebrew School until I was 17 years old. My Hebrew name is Moshe, and my rabbi would reiterate to me that that name means “messenger.”

I’m telling you this because one of the most notoriously unethical hit piece journalists in the entire country, Brandy Zadrozny, who is famous for constantly getting her stories wrong, just tried to write a hit piece on me that is the literal 180 degree opposite of what she wrote, and what she thinks she found.

Also, in case it’s not obvious, Brandy’s entire industry beat – “disinformation” – is getting totally crushed right now by work I’ve contributed to on multiple fronts (legal, regulatory, policy, media) and she clumsily must have thought she found something that can shoot one of the leading messengers on Internet freedom with an unrelated attack related to anti-Semitism.

Let me start with the bottom line and then I’ll tell you the backstory.

The account in question was a project by Jews to get people who hated Jews to stop hating Jews. It was a deradicalization project, and it produced deradicalization material. It made contact with groups in the early primordial soup of the MAGA movement in 2016 and sought to move people from a place of hate and division closer to a place of love and unity.

And it was successful. The biggest fans of this account, which was deleted around six years ago and to which I only contributed in a very limited manner, were fellow Jews who saw how effective it was at building a bridge and winning over hearts of people who held anti-Semitic beliefs, and non-Jews who would write in to say, “I’m so glad I found this account, I used to have a lot of hate and heaviness in my heart towards Jewish people, but since I discovered you, I don’t feel that anymore.”

The biggest antagonists of the account were people complaining their followers were becoming less radical and less willing to blame their problems on Jews.

Let me be clear: I am extremely proud of this. In another life, this thing I was briefly a part of in 2016 and 2017 would be getting National Science Foundation funds for combatting anti-Semitism.

And this was achieved through dialogue and engagement, instead of shunning and censorship.

You can disagree with the methods, but you can’t argue with the results. And I absolutely will not be lectured by Brandy Zadrozny on what techniques are or aren’t effective at moving people from a place of hate and division towards a place closer to love and unity on the issue of anti-Semitism.

Let me also say: I would not participate today and do not endorse participating in something like this in a general sense. It was a creature of a very bizarre and volatile time in early 2016 in which fellow conservative Jews were facing rising sentiments of anti-Semitism on our right – from people voting the same way for President – and political persecution and censorship from the ADL on our left. Having to move extreme elements from a fixation on identity to a focus on reforming institutions was a Bizarro World situation that called for a kind of Bizarro World logic of which I am proud, but would not repeat today.

To be clear: without this essential context completely omitted by Brandy, there are obviously going to be elements of the account’s contents she quotes that, without context, are going to look like extremist material, in the same way that the Redirect Method her own censorship industry bedfellows champion redirects people to generally unsuitable content only aimed at certain audiences. This was an anonymous account for a limited purpose that was never supposed to be producing content for a mass audience, and had been shut down for 6 years until long-deleted posts were dug up using digital forensics by snooping investigators with basically intelligence agency powers who want to take me out because I’m an effective voice fighting censorship.

I’m grateful for your continued support, and remain wholly undeterred in my mission to restore a free and open Internet.

I remember Benz having a meager background in Judaism. For example, “Moshe” does not mean “messenger.” Instead, it means “savior.” The Hebrew word for prophet, “Navi”, means “messenger.”

Many people argued in 2018 about whether or not Benz is Jewish. He struck me as a highly assimilated Jew.

Richard Spencer responds to the news:

The notion that “frame game” was engaged in “de-radicalization” is absurd. Though he obviously was trying to channel the AltRight in a certain direction for an outside player. He’s just confessed to as much. It’s clear that “Mike Benz” (or whatever name he’ll go by in a few months) is motived to advocate for a “free” Internet so that bad actors like himself can infiltrate online movements and point them in certain directions. He’s a walking, talking argument for greater government regulation of the Web. For what it’s worth, I find the notion that he’s Jewish dubious. He constantly lies. Why should anyone believe he’s now telling the truth?

I agree with Richard that Mike Benz’s response to the news was absurd just as much of Richard’s response to Benz is absurd. Richard is so blinded by his hatred for any competing thought leader that he claims “Mike Benz” will just keep changing his name to pursue his dark agenda. That Mike Benz at a certain time and place used a pseudonym is understandable. I don’t expect he’ll keep doing it. That Mike Benz is a “walking, talking argument for greater government regulation of the Web” is absurd. How so? How exactly does the Frame Game – Mike Benz story argue for greater government regulation of the web? I don’t see it. There’s nothing nefarious about wanting to change your environment. Everybody does it. Every living thing tries to change its environment to benefit its own interests.

My first question about pundits is do they optimize for truth. Very few do. Mike Benz does not. Richard Spencer does not. Mike optimizes for effectiveness. Richard optimizes for attention.

In his public work, Benz is dedicated to framing. When optimize for the frame game, I imagine it is easy to get an exaggerated sense of your own abilities to evade and transcend the truth.

By comparison with Mike Benz, Richard Hanania made an a convincing apology when he was outed as former white nationalist and his career has apparently not suffered.

Like Benz, Hanania tried to have the best of both worlds (saying what he wanted under a pseudonym as well as simultaneously seeking status) and he played the game as effectively as anyone for years.

I remember disagreeing with Frame Game about several points including:

* He had a higher opinion of David Irving than I did.
* He was outraged by social media deleting the accounts of Alex Jones. I wasn’t outraged. I thought it was an understandable reaction to the bad behavior of Jones. I was open to being convinced that deleting Jones meant the destruction of free speech online, but I never found any of these arguments credible.
* Frame Game frequently invoked “white genocide.” I was briefly ambivalent about that line of argument, and then I turned against it.
* Frame Game believed you should never apologize nor show any weakness before your enemy. I believed in apologies and admittance of weakness where appropriate, even if it is to your enemy.
* Frame Game was down with what was effective, while I was constrained by the morality of my 12-step programs and Orthodox Judaism.
* Frame Game was more hostile to the establishment and its elites than I was, while at the same time he was more credulous with regard to establishment statistics that served his narrative, such as bogus U.S. Census Bureau data about demographics.
* He wasn’t persuaded by the Cofnas critique of Kevin MacDonald, while I was.
* Overall, Benz’s point of view was apocalyptic. I had enough of that thinking from my father.

I’ve watched some of Mike Benz’s recent videos. They are compelling, but they don’t optimize for truth.

In his Twitter bio, Mike states: “Executive Director, @FFO_Freedom.” In response to Brandy’s article, Mike said about Frame Game Radio: “The account in question was a project by Jews to get people who hated Jews to stop hating Jews.”

I suspect that Mike is exaggerating. I suspect that Mike’s “Foundation For Freedom Online” is primarily just Mike. I suspect that Frame Game Radio was primarily just Mike.

The Frame Game Radio persona never betrayed any group dynamic. It was clearly one guy doing his thing. The idea that Frame Game Radio was primarily about neutralizing hatred of Jews is absurd. A side benefit of his work may have been a reduction in hatred of Jews by some people while for other people he may have increased such hatred.

Mike tweets: “The dirty & despicable tactics of the ethically bankrupt Brandy Zadrozny, whose failed hit on me was Opposite Day from her reporting…”

There was nothing “dirty & despicable” about Brandy’s reporting on Mike Benz. It was basic journalism.

Mike writes: “one of the most notoriously unethical hit piece journalists in the entire country, Brandy Zadrozny, who is famous for constantly getting her stories wrong, just tried to write a hit piece on me that is the literal 180 degree opposite of what she wrote, and what she thinks she found.”

This hyperbolic response does not speak well of Mike. Brandy is not famous for getting her stories wrong. If her stories were consistently wrong, she’d have been fired. NBC News has a protection to protect.

Mike defends himself as a “proud Jew” and “the descendent of Holocaust survivors.” This is painful pleading. He’s mounting a pitiful attempt at the frame game and it doesn’t work. He clearly didn’t run his response by anyone. If he had, he would have been spared embarrassment.

Mike writes: “Brandy’s entire industry beat – “disinformation” – is getting totally crushed right now by work I’ve contributed to on multiple fronts (legal, regulatory, policy, media) and she clumsily must have thought she found something that can shoot one of the leading messengers on Internet freedom with an unrelated attack related to anti-Semitism.”

Brandy accurately pointed out some things he said in the past that he would rather people did not know about. We’ve all said things in the past that we regret. Mike might acknowledge things he’s said that he regrets and point out how other things he’s said in a certain context sound horrible when ripped out of that context but otherwise stand up.

It’s a bad sign about Mike Benz’s judgment that he regularly retweets Bret Weinstein.

This tweet by Weinstein that Benz retweets is particularly dumb: “Principle: When a person courageously confronts those with immense power, we owe them every benefit of every doubt.”

There’s no inherent reason that those who go up against immense power are any more right or righteous than those who don’t. Did the Taliban and the Viet Cong and the World War II Japanese deserve every benefit of the doubt because they opposed the mighty United States?

Baya Rae comments below this video: “Frame Game is best described as a paleoconservative libertarian that was allied with the Alt Right and wanted to be the rightwing Saul Alinsky. He’s utterly benign if not a valuable asset to the global rightwing. I was saddened by his departure because he was sincere and gave great advise on how to effectively shift the Overton Window rightward. Glad he’s back, hopefully he remains back.”

Ricardo: “He was a psyop bro.”

God Hand: “How was he a psyop? I remember his YT channel. FG was a Jay who explained how Jayish special interest groups operate to undermine Wyte interests. He was 100% honest about who he was and his goals.”

Inter-dimensionallizard1028: “In 2018 when Starbucks got into trouble for having two black loiterers arrested, Frame Game had a good analysis of the pressure groups involved and the whole diversity cartel that makes these companies bend the knee.”

Myst: “If you want the case of a strong opponent of FG, I suggest Norvin Hobbs. He’s very intelligent and he arguably caused his departure from the space back in the day.”

Ricardo: “He admitted that he and the Gevalt Right was an op. Now, we know where Halsey got all that superchat money.”

GodsOwnPrototype: “FGR was/is by all known content, a Righteous Jew, up there with Paul Gottfried as one being able to actually percieve & empathise with traditional Europeans & articulate balanced arguments. I’m not sure he stuck to his remit then because some of his content clued me into JQ lore I’d not encountered despite years of interest & was also formulated in such a way as to make it family shareable – which I did quite a lot. …[H]e was open that he was a fellow traveller on the train only so far; he wanted to reach out a hand of friendship & understanding as a Jew in a time of growing hostility partly as someone who concurred with the many complaints but also to grow a bridge, ironically, of broad racial solidarity as Western Caucasoids, across the ethnic hostile divides, in a time of demographic shift & rising hostility against the pale ones.

Granted this was a longshot at best & a laughable proposition given the hateful subversion of so many of his influential co-ethnics; however, the facts on the ground show there is a pragmatic case.

The Zionists both worked for the British in a world war on the one hand, also carried out a terrorist campaign against them elsewhere & even made overtures to the Nazis (the Stern gang) for assistance against them & the Haavara transfer agreement were real facts that helped found the modern state of Israel.”

Almost all of our major institutions today are controlled by the left who have a radically different conception of masculinity from the traditional one. The challenges men face now at work are similar to the ones faced by the feudal lord who had to move to court and code-switch from lord-speak to courtier-speak, as Rony Guldmann explains in his work-in-progress, Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression: On the Nature and Origins of Conservaphobia:

* Beset on the one side by the ever-expanding political power of the centralized monarchies and on the other by the new economic prowess of an emerging bourgeoisie, the old feudal nobility found itself progressively emasculated, both militarily and economically, stripped of the glorious self-sufficiency that was the hallmark of an earlier, more anarchic period. Retaining any vestige of their former power and prestige now required, not physical prowess and military excellence, but cultivating the right relationships with the founts of power. And this, at its limit, came to mean taking up full-time residence in the absolutist monarchic court. One of the most decisive developments in the Western civilizing process, writes Elias, was the transformation of warriors into courtiers.92 For this political transition entailed a set of thoroughgoing psychological changes that would eventually spread beyond the monarchic courts and profoundly affect the identity of the modern West, shaping our basic concept of what it means to be “civilized.”

* “He is no longer the relatively free man, the master of his own castle, whose castle is his homeland. He now lives at court. He serves the prince. He waits on him at table. And at court he lives surrounded by people. He must behave toward each of them in exact accordance with their rank and his own. He must learn to adjust his gestures exactly to the different ranks and standing of the people at court, to measure his language exactly, and even to control his eyes exactly. It is a new self-discipline, an incomparably stronger reserve that is imposed on people by this new social space and the new ties of interdependence.”

This new social space generated a new personality/affective structure, a new “peculiarly courtly rationality”97 under whose aegis “the coarser habits, the wilder, more uninhibited customs of medieval society with its warrior upper classes, the corollaries of an uncertain, constantly threatened life” became “softened,” “polished,” and “civilized.”98 Medieval mayhem and wantonness could become suppressed because it is only at this point in Western history, with the radical heightening of the level of the day-to-day, and indeed minute-to-minute, coercion which one individual was capable of exerting on another, that “the demand for ‘good behavior’ is raised more emphatically,” and that “[a]ll problems concerned with behavior take on new importance.”

…More primitive social arrangements unmarked by complicated chains of human interdependency generally encouraged either “unambiguously negative relationships, of pure, unmoderated enmity” or else “unmixed friendships, alliances, relationships of love and service.”111 Hence, for example, what Elias describes as the “peculiar black-and-white colouring of many medieval books, which often know nothing but good friends or villains.”112 But the extended chains of functional dependencies in which one was enmeshed at court—and which were simultaneously arising within the wider society as a whole—encouraged heretofore unknown levels of ambiguity, contradiction, and compromise in the feelings and behavior of people. These now became marked by “a co-existence of positive and negative elements, a mixture of muted affection and muted dislike in varying proportions and nuances.”113 The courtiers had to become more calculating, less wholehearted in their sentiments—less “sincere” and “authentic,” we might say. Such was simply inevitable given the new intertwining layers of social interdependency. If people developed a new moral sophistication, this was the product, not of advancing knowledge, but of the gradual introjection of social exigencies, the muting of affect-structure required by the peculiarly courtly rationality.

This new social and psychological sophistication emerges hand-in-hand with the lowering of the threshold of shame, embarrassment, and repugnance in the social relations of the European upper classes, as “people, in the course of the civilizing process, seek to suppress in themselves every characteristic that they feel to be ‘animal.’”114 There was an intensification of disgust before the ejection of saliva, which becomes increasingly surrounded by taboos.115 Attitudes toward food, and meat in particular, also became transformed. Whereas the carving of a dead animal at table was previously a matter of indifference, or possibly pleasure, the new standard required eliminating any reminders that a meat dish has something to do with the killing of animals. The animal origin of meat dishes had to be “so concealed and changed by the art of its preparation and carving that while eating one is scarcely reminded of its origin.”116 In the same spirit, eating with one’s hands becomes increasingly taboo, as the fork and individual cutlery and crockery were introduced into the dining experience.

Much of Rony Guldmann’s book can be read as Masculine Claims of Cultural Oppression: On the Nature and Origins of Manaphobia, just replace “liberal” with “feminine” and “conservative” with “masculine”:

Enjoying the plausible deniability provided by a façade of democratic idealism, the liberal elites have quietly colonized a host of powerful social institutions—the judiciary, academia, public public schools, large foundations, the media, entertainment, and others—through which they now pursue unofficially what earlier clerisies had to pursue officially. They do not marginalize or excommunicate in the name of some codified orthodoxy like Catholic teaching or Talmudic law. But conservatives believe that the cumulative social prestige arrogated by this “rising class” is the functional equivalent of such an orthodoxy, imbuing the liberal elites’ pronouncements with a special power to cut off debate and silence dissent. Seeking above all to maintain this power, this new secular priesthood will badger, scold, and bully all who defy it. And this means conservatives. If they strike liberal professors like Connolly as angry and obstreperous, this is as a natural reaction to this new regime, to provocations whose very existence the elites refuse to acknowledge.

* Liberalism is not just a political orientation, but a totalistic worldview and way of being that has by now crept into the American psyche itself and can always be discovered at work in the seeming trifles of social life and pop culture—suffocating conservatives from all sides. Liberalism is not sustained by reason and argument, but by the mores and pieties that liberals have quietly entrenched as the unquestioned, taken-for-granted background of things—a parochial ethos into which the populace has become progressively indoctrinated by small, often imperceptible increments. In issuing their claims of cultural oppression, conservatives seek to awaken their fellow Americans to this hidden reality.

* Diagnosing the roots of liberal hostility toward home-schooling, Kevin Williamson observes: “The Left’s organizing principle is control, and the possibility that children might commonly be raised outside of its control matrix is an existential threat from the progressive point of view. Institutions such as free markets and free speech terrify progressives, because they are the result of arrangements in which nobody is in control… Home-schooling isn’t for everybody, but every home-school student, like every firearm in private hands, is a quiet little declaration of independence. It’s no accident that the people who want to seize your guns are also the ones who want to seize your children.”

* Like many on the Left, conservative claimants of cultural oppression believe that “the personal is the political.” Given liberals’ insatiable lust for control, what were once purely private preferences on how best to educate one’s children have now become political acts—“quiet little declarations of independence” through which to hold off left-liberal hegemony for yet another day. Conservative claims of cultural oppression seek, not primarily to highlight liberalism’s flaws as a political philosophy, but to expose its transgressions as a social practice that works to demoralize and delegitimize those who remain steadfastly loyal to “traditional American values”—gun owners, home schoolers, housewives, church goers, the police, ranchers, small business entrepreneurs, and others. The ordered liberty of the conservative is a basic threat to liberal control and so must be targeted at every turn as a danger to the civilized order, the idea of which has now become identified with liberalism itself. If liberals are hostile toward the home-schooling to which some conservative parents are drawn, this is because those parents cannot be counted upon to civilize their children in the manner prescribed—that is, to raise their children as liberals. That is why those children must be seized.

Conservative claimants of cultural oppression see themselves, not only as the losers in a “war of ideas” that was always rigged against them, but furthermore as a quasi-ethnic group being encroached upon by a foreign colonial power that is endlessly contemptuous of their native folkways and bent on replacing these with its own supposedly more advanced culture. The National Review laments: “The crusade against private gun ownership is, for the Left, a kulturkampf. The sort of people who are likely to own or enjoy firearms are the sort of people who are most intensely detested by the social tendency that produced Barack Obama et al. — atavistic throwbacks and “bitter clingers,” as somebody once put it. The Left’s jihad against hunters, rural people, shooting enthusiasts, and Second Amendment partisans will do effectively nothing to prevent lunatics from shooting up schools or shopping malls. That they would exploit the victims of these awful crimes in the service of what amounts to a very focused form of snobbery is remarkable.”

Notwithstanding their ostensible egalitarianism and pragmatism, the liberal elites are committed to their own particular brand of identity politics, complete with its own special kind of otherization. The “bitter clingers” who stand in the way of gun control are not merely criticized as misguided, but despised as occupants of a lower moral and cognitive order, atavisms of a barbaric past that liberals alone have superseded. Whereas now eclipsed traditionalist hierarchies revolved around perceived differences in things like sexual purity, work ethic, religious affiliation, family pedigree, and ethnic bona fides, the new status hierarchy of liberalism is rooted in “cognitive elitism” and centers around a morally charged division between those who are “aware” and those who are not, those who possess the psychic maturity to accede to liberalism and those who lack it and must be reformed. This kind of identity politics will always take refuge in some pragmatic-sounding pretext—e.g., the dangers of firearms or the inadequacies of home schooling. But conservatives dismiss this pragmatism as an elaborate façade for a status hierarchy that liberals refuse to acknowledge. If this hierarchy can go overlooked by “thinking people,” by the “educated,” this is because thoughtfulness and education are themselves now defined by the liberal dispensation. These have become mere badges of honor to be conferred on liberals and withheld from others. Liberals’ near-monopoly on the means of cultural reproduction lets their own kind of identity politics pass under the radar screen, camouflaged in an aura of hard-nosed utilitarianism.

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Israel vs Hamas

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Luke Ford

* Is there anything good about the events of the weekend in Israel? Yes, they return us to reality. Different groups have different interests, and when the clash of interests is intense enough, you get war, which is the continuation of politics by other means.

* Everybody is vulnerable. You can devote every resource to making yourself safe, but there will always be ways that you are vulnerable. It makes sense to try to have the best possible relations with everybody and to make yourself as strong as possible, but everybody hurts sometimes. “Old age, sickness and death” await all of us.

* I fear empathy overload. I haven’t felt anything about these attacks. I keep myself in analytic mode so I can avoid feeling anything. That’s pretty much how I go through life, except for when I explode over trivia. What the heck? Come on, man. You’ve got to be kidding me!

* Contrary to the Wall Street Journal report, both America and Israel have stated that there is no evidence that Iran ordered these attacks. Iran has yet to attack Americans in America, but I’m sure Iran has hit squads in this country who will go to work if America directly attacks Iran. Obama reached the best deal possible with Iran, and it was a shame that Trump repudiated it. The argument that the Biden administration played a role in the Hamas attack by returning six billion dollars of frozen Iranian assets is absurd. Iran has been allowing in nuclear inspectors. They’ve reduced uranium enrichment. They released American hostages. They’ve indicated openness to direct engagement with America through Oman. I doubt Iran ordered these attacks.

* When you watch the news, do you feel like you are being stage managed to hate Iran, Russia, and China, and to get ready for America to wage war on all three countries? I do. Iran did not direct nor lead Hamas attacks on Israel. Iran is Shia. Hamas is Sunni. There’s some cooperation between these two, but Hamas is not a proxy for Iran. By and large, Sunni and Shia Muslims hate each other. If America goes to war with Iran, it will be a disaster for America and completely unnecessary.

* What Sunni civilization would you most like to live in? Gaza is a hell hole, but where have Sunnis produced a great civilization? The primary problem for Gazans is Gazans. The primary problem for Palestinians is Palestinians. The primary problem for Sunnis is Sunnis. They have shown no evidence of greatness for centuries. When will Sunnis produce a flourishing civilization? What are the foremost Sunni contributions to the world? How are Sunnis are light unto the nations? I can’t think of any Muslim country that I would want to imitate.

* If the NATO vs Russia war in Ukraine goes nuclear, the media line will be that this is a result of America not intervening more forcefully on behalf of Ukraine. John J. Mearsheimer notes that American subsidizing of Ukraine’s military against Russia is ten times as catastrophic for Americans interests as our pointless 2003 invasion of Iraq. Biden’s extreme support for Ukraine is an unforced error against Western interests. If Biden hadn’t armed Ukraine, Russia would not have felt the need to invade.

* America is on the hook to go to war for Taiwan against China when Taiwan can’t be bothered to defend itself. Taiwan only spends 1% of its GDP on its defense. I would be all in to support Taiwan if Taiwan was all in to defend itself, but it’s not. Taiwan wants to do as little as possible in its own defense and have us pick up the tab. War with China over Taiwan would likely cost America thousands of lives, several aircraft carriers, a thousand planes, dozens of ships, tens of billions of dollars, and that’s in the best case scenario.

* Biden’s National Security advisor Jake Sullivan told The New Yorker: “I believe in freedom fighters and I believe in righteous causes, and I believe the Ukrainians have one. There are very few conflicts that I have seen—maybe none—in the post-Cold War era . . . where there’s such a clear good guy and bad guy. And we’re on the side of the good guy, and we have to do a lot for that person.”

The only objective source of morality is the transcendent one, which depends upon a subjective leap of faith. Unless Sullivan wants to invoke God, there’s no rational basis for this analysis. He’s essentially arguing that we have to aid Ukraine because of God’s will. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a Russian version of the Monroe Doctrine. Russia has strategic interests in wrecking Ukraine because Ukraine has become a de factor member of NATO aka Russia’s enemy.

* American news, with its whipping up of war fever against Russia, Iran and China is certainly not managed in America’s interests. Foreign policy is a game played by elites where common opinion counts for little. The common opinion of Americans is that they don’t care much about non-Americans, just as the Japanese don’t care much about the non-Japanese, and so forth. So far 14 Americans have died in this Hamas attack and 20 are missing. Those deaths will shape how Americans relate to Hamas.

* Every sane nation must prioritize its own survival. Ukraine and Israel are irrelevant to American interests while Taiwan is important to America’s interests. Given that America has limited resources, if it sanely pursues its interests, it will have to short-change Ukraine and Israel, even if the survival of Ukraine and Israel are in doubt. This might be an ideal time for China to invade Taiwan. America is stretched thin.

* Hamas was democratically elected by the people of Gaza in 2006. Hamas represents the people of Gaza more than the Netanyahu government represents the people of Israel. The Christian Science Monitor reports Oct. 10, 2023:

…a large majority of Palestinians appear to support Hamas militants’ brutal weekend attack on Israel.

…the breaking news of the surprise Hamas eruption had prompted celebrations on the streets of Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, where people distributed sweets to gathering crowds.

Many saw the attack, in which over 100 Israelis were abducted and taken as hostages into Gaza, as retribution for the deaths of Palestinian civilians in earlier rounds of conflict and in daily life. “The world keeps saying this attack is unprovoked, but in fact the world is ignoring how violent the daily occupation is,” says Diana Buttu, a former adviser to the Palestinian delegation to peace talks with Israel, now in abeyance.

…The bloody events of last weekend, including the massacre of over 250 revelers at a rave party, have been condemned by people around the world as a terrorist outrage. In Gaza, however, they are widely seen as a breach in the Israeli-built wall that has trapped residents for 16 years and condemned them to victimhood.

Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority, which it controls, are obliged by the Oslo Accords to cooperate with Israel. But they now find themselves caught in a political bind, faced with a public supporting Hamas’ action and increasingly calling for similar violent resistance.

The Palestinian Authority has been notably silent since Saturday, and officials turned down requests for comment on the political situation.

On the broader international front, Israel and the United States say they had no evidence that Iran was closely involved in planning Saturday’s rampage, as has been reported.

* There’s no evidence that the way democracies wage war is any more moral than the way autocracies wage war.

* About half of Los Angeles Orthodox Jews consider Baruch Goldstein a hero says a knowledgeable friend. You can buy a book praising Dr. Goldstein at every Torah book store in town to the best of my knowledge.

* The slaughter of children is horrifying. It is not clear how many thousands of Iraqi children died as a result of American sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s but Americans didn’t care about these deaths of non-Americans. These casualties were not photogenic.

* Hezbollah is more competent and dangerous than Hamas. If Israel invades Gaza, might Hezbollah attack Israel? If they do so in force, thousands of Israelis will die within 24 hours.

* Israel has started slowly in its last five major wars. Its reserve troops are not particularly competent.

* Why do the Arabs get upset about a tiny Jewish state in their midst? For the same reason that people who hold to a traditional male-female definition of marriage get upset by the tiny number of gay marriages in their midst. Both the Jewish state and same-sex marriage are affronts to particular hero systems and these affronts hurt their adherents every bit as much as a punch to the stomach. Our beliefs are us. They take place in our body and they produce bio-chemical reactions when they are denigrated.

* If you believe that the Palestinians should pursue their goals peacefully, then you believe in the legitimacy of BDS. If you oppose the legitimacy of BDS, you oppose Palestinians pursuing their goals without violence.

* Simchat Torah is a Jewish holiday that is often observed outside with singing and dancing. American Jews, by and large, kept their celebrations inside this year. Pico Blvd in 90035 was going to be closed Saturday night for an open air celebration but that was canceled due to the news.

The Los Angeles Times reports Oct. 8, 2023:

Streets in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood would normally be shut down this weekend for parties in honor of Simchat Torah, the Jewish holiday marking the completion of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah. But this year, the mood was somber as police stepped up security in Jewish and Muslim communities alike.

“It will forever be a day of memorial and sadness,” said Rebecca Wizman, standing outside a Pico Boulevard synagogue…

She and three others were discussing who they knew preparing to fly to Israel to fight. Batsheva Pinto said many people from her congregation were headed there. So was her brother-in-law.

For two days, Wizman said, everyone she knew had been operating in an information vacuum. Because of the holidays, they hadn’t been able to check their phones since Friday night.

Wizman said she was dreading Sunday evening, when she would once again be able to go online and read the latest headlines. She assumed the death toll had mounted; she was scared to learn by how much.

* Within five minutes of the onset of these attacks, around 11:30 pm Friday, Orthodox Jews in Los Angeles were talking about them and asking non-Jews to pull up the news for them on their phones.

* I don’t think there will be any lasting repercussions from the shocking videos and pictures of the slaughter in Israel. These images compel only momentary attention for most people, and most people don’t matter anyway when it comes to foreign policy. Foreign affairs are decided and conducted by elites. For example, I don’t think most Americans would support the defense of Taiwan at the cost of thousands of American lives, but that decision has already been made by elites on both sides of the aisle. The one area where the massacre pictures might be decisive is that many non-Muslims might look at them and decide they no longer want Muslims in their country. They might not want to import Middle East war into their country.

* For one people to be safe, they sometimes have to destroy their enemies. By permitting Hamas to live, Israel got slaughtered. Israel should not have allowed Hamas to live, even if that meant occupying Gaza.

* The news keeps saying this was an intelligence failure by Israel. I doubt it. I bet there were many intelligence reports of the Hamas attack and the politicians and the IDF ignored them. NYT:

American and Israeli officials said none of Israel’s intelligence services had specific warning that Hamas was preparing a sophisticated assault…

Why was Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, now a dozen years old, apparently overwhelmed by the barrage of inexpensive but deadly missiles at the opening of the attack? How did Hamas manage to build such a big arsenal of rockets and missiles without Israeli intelligence detecting the growing stockpile?

Was Israel too focused on threats from Hezbollah and the West Bank, rather than focusing military and intelligence resources on Gaza? And why were so many Israeli forces on leave or distant from the southern border, allowing Hamas to overrun Israeli military bases near Gaza?

Claiming intelligence failure protects those in power, but when we learn more, we will likely see there were intelligence reports warning of a Hamas attack and people in power in Israel chose to ignore these reports. I suspect this disaster was primarily a political and military failure, not an intelligence failure. The advantage of blaming an intelligence failure is that you don’t have to hold specific people accountable. You can just blame a bureaucracy. When you say this was a political and military failure in Israel, there are specific persons (the leaders of Israel’s government and military) you must hold accountable.

It is not clear yet that this is primarily an Israel security complex failure or a political failure. Neither politicians nor generals are consistently right. According to reports from Israel, Netanyahu is not happy with the options the IDF has given him. “If you invite a rattlesnake into your bed, you are going to get bitten. Israel invited two rattlesnakes into its bed, the PLO and Hamas.”

* If America hadn’t subsidized Ukraine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, Moscow would not have guided this Hamas attack on Israel. Richard Kemp writes for YNET:

Hands that pushed Hamas attack forward are in Moscow

The instability created by attack on Israel is intended to pull US attention, as well as resources, away from the war in Ukraine and prevent Israel-Saudi normalization.

President Joe Biden and European leaders have long feared an escalation of the Ukraine war and that is what they’ve now got. Unwilling to take the fight directly to NATO, instead, Putin has been fomenting conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Serbia and Kosovo, in West Africa and now in Israel.

The instability created in these places is intended to pull US attention, as well as resources, away from the war in Ukraine. Let us not forget that the US recently withdrew large stocks of munitions stored in Israel and transferred them to Ukraine. If this war escalates further, which it may well do, they will have to be replaced by stocks that might otherwise be earmarked for Ukraine to use against Russia.

Just as Russia used Iran to supply large numbers of drones to attack Ukrainian civilians, it is now using Iran to encourage and enable these attacks in Israel. Iran is of course a more than willing partner whose leaders have repeatedly sworn death to Israel and America; as are its proxies in Gaza and also in Lebanon. Iran has long been directing, training, funding and supplying weapons to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank. Moscow too has maintained and developed connections with Palestinian terrorist groups and individual extremists, going back to Soviet days, when Putin himself as a KGB officer was dealing with Middle East terrorists including during his time in Dresden.

Hamas leaders, including terrorist boss Ismail Haniyah, have made a number of visits to Moscow since the Ukraine war began, meeting with senior government officials including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. A delegation from their Gaza terrorist bedfellows, Islamic Jihad, led by its chief, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, also visited Moscow in March. Likewise, leaders of another Iranian proxy, Lebanese Hezbollah, have been welcome guests in Moscow. Hezbollah terrorists fought side by side with Russian troops in Syria and have since been involved in helping Moscow evade sanctions and, according to the US Treasury Department, may have received weapons in return….

Today, Gaza terrorists are not fighting alone, but with the backing of two powerful states, both motivated by renewed aggression against the US arising from the war in Ukraine, and that should change the strategic calculus.

Every major country has condemned these Hamas attacks but Russia and China.

* Israel’s most right-wing government ever is incompetent. Even if Bibi Netanyahu’s judicial reforms are a good idea, they divided the country and left it wide open to attack. Sometimes it is worth dividing a country to get something done, and sometimes it is not worth it.

* Bibi’s biggest claim to power was that he would keep Israelis safe. He hasn’t. He won’t last long as Israel’s prime minister.

* Nahum Barnea writes for YNET:

The security barrier in Gaza cost three and a half billion shekels. Above ground, underground, sensors, cameras, everything is the last word in technology. On Saturday, with the outbreak of the war, it collapsed, it was a wall of paper.

October 7, 2023 was a mega-blunder, a disgrace that the IDF has never known in all its years.

I will explain: The first disgrace was the intelligence. Again, as in 1973, the system saw all the telltale signs but arrogantly concluded that these were just exercises, idle training. The second disgrace was the ease with which the Hamas terrorists jumped over the barrier; the third disgrace was the ease with which they returned to Gaza with dozens of hostages; the fourth disgrace was the slow reaction of the IDF to the infiltration. Dozens of terrorists were walking around the Armored Corps base as if it was theirs, and there was no helicopter to shoot at them.

The Yom Kippur blunder had a bigger number of people killed, without comparison. This is true, of course. But in the ’73 Yom Kippur war we confronted the largest of the Arab armies, not a second-rate terrorist organization. Out of that painful war came a peace that endures today, 50 years after the cease-fire. It is hard to see right now what good will come out of this current war….

In the Shalit deal, Netanyahu released 1,027 terrorists in exchange for one captured soldier. The price of repeated terrorism was hard, some say unbearably hard. How many terrorists will Hamas demand to be released in exchange for dozens of prisoners? A deal would give Hamas one more victory. And most importantly, it will deal a heavy blow, another blow, to deterrence against Iran and Hezbollah, and further weaken the Palestinian Authority…

The Iron Dome is a wonderful invention that saved the lives of hundreds of Israelis. It is clear what would have happened if we did not have an Iron Dome; we would have had no choice but to go into a decisive battle against Hamas, including the occupation of Gaza. Is it possible that everything we achieved in the Iron Dome was a delay of a few years until the inevitable ground operation?

* There’s no difference in the way democracies and non-democracies pursue war. Democratic countries, for example, are not more considerate of civilian lives than non-democracies. John J. Mearsheimer wrote in his 2018 book The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities:

* A final, albeit indirect, reason to doubt that liberal norms carry much weight in international politics is that there is little evidence that liberal democracies fight wars in especially virtuous ways. Given the emphasis liberalism places on inalienable rights, one would expect liberal democracies to go to some lengths to avoid killing civilians, or at least do better than authoritarian states. This is one of the central tenets of just war theory, a quintessentially liberal theory that has individual rights at its core. 35 Michael Doyle, for instance, urges that all sides in a conflict maintain “a scrupulous respect for the laws of war.” 36

But when Alexander Downes did his groundbreaking study of civilian victimization in war, he found that “democracies are somewhat more likely than nondemocracies to target civilians.” 37 John Tirman shows in his detailed analysis of how the United States fights its wars that it has killed millions of civilians, many on purpose. 38 And although Geoffrey Wallace shows autocracies are more likely than democracies to abuse prisoners of war, he provides plenty of evidence that democracies mistreat their prisoners. 39 The widespread use of torture by the United States in the wake of 9/11 is just one example. Both Downes and Wallace show that when states get desperate in wartime, they quickly forget the enemy’s humanity and begin to value rights far less

* When foreigners murder Americans, it is of much more concern to the average American than when those same foreigners murder each other or people from other countries. 40 The outcry in the United States when the Islamic State (ISIS) beheaded two American journalists in 2014 is one of the events that persuaded President Obama to go to war against ISIS. 41 Americans had been appalled by the widespread carnage and destruction wrought by ISIS, but they cared more about the deaths of their fellow Americans. Meanwhile, Americans who murder foreigners, especially nonwhite foreigners, are rarely treated as harshly as Americans who murder their fellow citizens. For example, Lieutenant William Calley, who commanded the U.S. soldiers involved in the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam in March 1968, served only three and a half years under house arrest before he was freed, and he enjoyed overwhelming support from the public after his role was revealed in the media. Nobody else in his unit was convicted of a criminal offense, even though somewhere between 350 and 500 civilians, mostly women and children, were murdered. 42 Calley and those under his command surely would not have received such benevolent treatment if they had butchered that number of unarmed American civilians. As John Mueller notes: “Although Americans are extremely sensitive to American casualties, they seem to be remarkably in sensitive to casualties suffered by foreigners including essentially uninvolved — that is, innocent — civilians.” 43 John Tirman, who has done a major study on this subject, concurs: “One of the most remarkable aspects of American wars is how little we discuss the victims who are not Americans.” 44 Of course, this kind of thinking is not peculiar to the United States. All nations think this way, and it cuts directly against liberalism’s universalist dimension.

* The United States, for instance, has fought seven wars since the Cold War ended, and it initiated all seven. During that period it has been at war for two out of every three years. It is no exaggeration to say that the United States is addicted to war. Moreover, Britain, another liberal democracy, has been at America’s side throughout those wars. This helps explain why democratic peace theorists do not argue that democracies are generally more peaceful than non – democracies.

Several factors explain why democratic peoples sometimes favor starting wars. For one, there are sometimes good strategic reasons for war and most citizens will recognize them. Furthermore, democratic leaders are often adept at convincing reticent publics that war is necessary, even when it is not. 19 Sometimes not much convincing is necessary, because the people’s nationalist fervor is so great that, if anything, they are pushing their leaders to go to war, whether necessary or not. 20 Finally, it is wrong to assume that the public axiomatically pays a big price when its country goes to war. Wealthy countries often have a highly capitalized military, which means that only a small slice of the population actually serves. Moreover, liberal democracies are often adept at finding ways to minimize their casualties — for example, by using drones against an adversary. As for the financial costs, a state has many ways to pay for a war without seriously burdening its public. 21

The second institutional explanation is that it is more difficult for government leaders to mobilize a democracy to start a war. This cumbersome decision making is partly a function of the need to get public permission, which is time – consuming given the public’s natural reluctance to fight wars and risk death. The institutional obstacles built into democracies, like checks and balances, slow down the process. These problems make it difficult not only to start a war but also to formulate and execute a smart foreign policy.

If these claims were true, again, democracies would not initiate wars against non – democracies. But they do. There may be instances where democratic inefficiencies prevent governing elites from taking their country to war, although as I noted above, that will happen infrequently. Moreover, the institutional impediments that might thwart leaders bent on starting a war usually count for little, because the decision to start a war is often made during a serious crisis, in which the executive takes charge and checks and balances, as well as individual rights, are subordinated to national security concerns. In an extreme emergency, liberal democracies are fully capable of reacting swiftly and decisively, and initiating a war if necessary.

Virtual Pilgrim comments on my YT: “​I am more interested in the United States’ response to the Ukrainian war and the Israeli war then the war itself. I had three older brothers in the Vietnam War. One got 50% of his body scarred with 2nd degree burns. The other was shot down in a helicopter but survived. He told me a few years ago he still has PTSD. We were told how important that war was for ourselves and the world. In 2009, the manufacturing company I worked for (Datalogic) closed down our operation here and moved it to Vietnam to cut costs. Americans got doubly screwed coming and going – my brothers and myself included. Christian Zionist, John Hagee, is a warmonger who wants to send more white people to go die for foreigners while our borders are being overrun. So, don’t ask me to weep for them, because I’m too busy weeping for America.”

Reasonable comments on my Youtube video:

Word of the alarming news first reached many Orthodox communities via security guards, caretakers, home health aides, or other non-Jews routinely employed over the Sabbath and festivals. After nightfall Saturday, there was an additional, major (and completely /kosher/) source of news and rumors from the Holy Land: Visiting residents of there, where only /one day/ of Yom Tov is observed. While such guests may not /publicly/ desecrate the additional day of observance that is mandatory in the diapsora [יום טוב שני של גלויות] , in so far as /private/ conduct is concerned, they are not bound by its restrictions.

In short, it is not only entirely plausible but also quite /probable/ for a fully-observant Jew to learn of news of this nature on a Sabbath or holiday without transgressing any halachic restrictions.

Posted in Hamas, Israel | Comments Off on Israel vs Hamas

What Makes A Great Pundit?

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Luke Ford

My friend Ricardo posts on Twitter: “I’ve come back around on Richard [Spencer]. Not sure I ever really left. Truly the greatest pundit of his generation.”

What makes a great pundit? What type of person seeks out a pundit? What’s the difference between a pundit, a public intellectual, and a guru?

A guru gives guidance on many areas of life. A pundit and a public intellectual focus on one or two parts of life such as politics or economics. A public intellectual has scholastic accomplishment and the respect of his academic peers. A pundit rarely has scholastic accomplishment and academic respect. A public intellectual usually speaks to the 115 IQ crowd and above. A pundit usually speaks to the 100 IQ crowd.

A public intellectual often has profound things to say. Pundits tend to “produce ersatz wisdom: a corrupt epistemics that creates the appearance of useful knowledge, but has none of the substance.”

Public intellectuals don’t feel compelled to entertain. Pundits know they’re putting on a show. And when you optimize for truth and goodness, putting on a show is more challenging.

I optimize for truth. Therefore, I can’t be as exciting as the pundit.

In pre-modern times, the clergy would paint vivid pictures of the world of good and evil, of demons and angels, of gods and devils. He’d describe to rapt audiences titanic battles between God and Satan. In our more secular age, people rarely meet their needs for excitement by going to a sermon. Instead, they seek out gurus who describe hidden worlds.

What type of person seeks out a pundit? Usually, it is someone with an unusually intense interest in politics and an unusually intense need for distraction from reality. A pundit who says that Americans live in a blessed country and that politics is not important to 99% of people 99% of the time is not going to meet that need for distraction and excitement. A pundit who exudes gratitude is not exciting. Gratitude means a slower way of speaking and a softer presentation with a variable melody. Happy speech has varying volume and melody. Exciting speech is solid volume, fast-paced and upward in melody (think about a football announcer describing an unexpected touchdown).

Many people can listen to Jordan Peterson or Dennis Prager or Ben Shapiro or Richard Spencer on a recreational basis and not get obsessed, but some people listen to these guys and get hooked.

Who gets hooked and who doesn’t? A person with a normal level of connection to others is unlikely to get hooked. Only the disconnected get hooked. They have a hole in their soul that temporarily gets filled by this parasocial relationship with the pundit and so they keep coming back to the person who makes them feel whole.

We’re all broken in various ways and we all hate those who remind us that we’re broken and we all love those who make us feel good.

The successful pundit must constantly make points you can’t get elsewhere. This increases his importance. When I hear pundits pronounce these days, my first question is how does this point enhance the pundit’s status? Most pundits, under the surface, are just banging on about how important they are. Right-wing pundits in particular tend to be anti-establishment because if they just repeat points from established sources then why does anyone need them? This need to produce singular insights into life inevitably leads to conspiracy theories.

Great men such as Steve Sailer, Charles Murray, Christopher Caldwell and Richard Hanania share insights that help you better understand the world. Most pundits, however, including Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rich Lowry, and Jonah Goldberg, are more vain glorious than glorious.

There are two traditional paths to becoming a pundit. One path is to recite the greatest hits of a particular worldview to provide the equivalent experience of Top 40 radio. You have your talking points down and you apply them to the news. Being a parrot, however, is not the path to greatness as a pundit. To be great, you have to paint vivid pictures of a world your listeners can’t see. You have to make exciting points that people won’t get elsewhere. For example, Dennis Prager talks about how Americans are living through a civil war and that we’re becoming more like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia every day. You might look around and see skies of blue and trees of green and think what a beautiful world. Dennis Prager looks around and sees another holocaust bearing down on us. Because you don’t see this, and Dennis does, you might keep tuning in to him so you can hear about an exciting reality that nobody else sees. That makes you special. You’re in on a secret. Dennis Prager’s commanding voice and intellect convey a sense of profundity. If you’ve got a hole in your soul, this performance might temporarily fill you up and so you keep coming back to get your fix.

People who are ill at ease often want a seer who can reduce their anxiety by providing a comforting narrative. They may want a substitute parent to protect them and their hero system.

To be a working pundit, you can’t optimize for truth because truth is frequently mundane, complicated, contradictory, unpopular and discomforting to every hero system. Instead, you optimize for excitement, attention seeking, crowd pleasing, and theatrical presentation. You want to convey the feel of profundity though you can rarely give the real thing.

A pundit who is grateful for the good job our system did combatting Covid is not going to amass a large following. A pundit who says there is no evidence for aliens is not on a glide path to fame and fortune. To become a successful guru, it helps to buy into conspiracy theories about how the average person is getting shafted and you are fighting for them.

Richard Spencer, a longtime man of the right, talks these days about how useless Republicans are. This is exciting to hear. If Republicans are useless, then we need a substitute, and maybe Richard’s new religion of Apolloism is the way to go.

From where I stand, America’s biggest problem right now is that the Biden administration has dramatically increased our chances of getting into a nuclear war with Russia and China. By arming Ukraine, Biden precipitated Russia’s 2022 invasion, and then he escalated the chances of us getting into a war with Russia by heavily subsidizing Ukraine’s fight for survival. By repeatedly and publicly announcing that America will fight to protect Taiwan, Biden has dramatically increased our chances of getting into a war with China. These are two unforced errors.

Republicans are less gungho about arming Ukraine and going to war with Russia. I doubt that Russia would have felt the need to invade Ukraine if Trump had been reelected.

Republicans such as Trump have also been less provocative towards China than leading Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.

Making the argument that unnecessarily increasing our chances of war with Russia and China is bad won’t make for exciting Richard Spencer-type punditry. You’re not likely to build a public career dispensing such observations.

America’s greatest internal problems are violent crime and unchecked immigration. Republicans consistently put more emphasis on capital punishment and lengthy prison terms for violence offenders than do Democrats. Who are the leading Democratic politicians making the case for capital punishment and lengthy prison terms for violent offenders? I can’t think of any.

Republicans consistently put more emphasis on border security than do Democrats. Trump by 2020 was the first American president since Eisenhower who dramatically curtailed illegal immigration.

These Republican policies of reluctance to go to war with Russia, to protect our borders, and to punish violent criminals are not exciting enough for Richard Spencer to support, but these policies will improve the lives of most Americans.

Not only do pundits rarely optimize for truth, they also rarely optimize for the good of their people because goodness is rarely exciting. Goodness is usually mundane. It is hard. It rarely opens pathways to the loins of young women. It requires sacrifice.

Think about someone who optimizes for the well-being of his family. This is not someone who can lead a James Bond type life. This person is devoted to duty rather than following his bliss.

If you put a high priority as a man on staying faithful to your spouse, there are many places in life you can’t go (unless you have a good reason to go there and your spouse is ok with it). Similarly, if you are a pundit and you put a high priority on truth, there are a lot of compelling things you can’t say. If you put your priority on the welfare of your people, there are many exciting things you can’t say.

What elicited Ricardo’s tweet yesterday? Richard Spencer tweeting: “As Speaker, Donald Trump would only have to hang two people to return to the White House.”

This is an exciting take, but it is a terrible take. Donald Trump would be a terrible Speaker of the House. It does not play to his skill set.

Now, you might well point out that Richard is joking here, and that his joke can’t be critiqued the same way as a piece of punditry. And I agree with your rejoinder.

But my larger point stands. It is exciting to hear about Donald Trump becoming Speaker of the House, but it is not going to happen. If it does happen, it won’t lead to House Republicans accomplishing anything because Donald Trump does not have an impressive track record as a leader. He’s been a terrible CEO. He’s disorganized, undisciplined and childish. These are not the traits you want for a good Speaker of the House.

CNN host Michael A. Smerconish writes in his 2014 novel Talk:

* “Fire, tits, and sharks are TV gold. But on radio you need to make ‘em hot the harder way. Through the ears.”

* 3 Cs: “ Conservative, consistent, and compelling,”

* “Remember Stan, you need red meat for the troops.”
That was another of his staples.
“And add an occasional slice-of-life segment. Sprinkle in some Seinfeld shit.”
For the latter, he was forever imploring me to look outside the normal mix of newspapers and cable TV shows for my program content. He believed that too many talk radio hosts didn’t balance the hard news of the day with whatever might command attention at workplace water coolers and coffee machines across the nation. Phil paused, maybe needing to catch his breath in the thin desert air of New Mexico. “If listeners aren’t using your stuff for stupid talk with people they barely know, then you didn’t nail it on air, Powers.”

* Phil told me that a good talk show host should be able to go the length of an entire program without taking a single call from a listener. He actually challenged me to do it on my next program. That tutorial was a keeper.
“But isn’t that the purpose of a talk radio program—for the host and the listeners to talk?” I’d naively asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Powers. The purpose of a talk program is the same as the guy talkin’ on a fucking CB—to get people to listen. It’s all entertainment.”
And then he said something I’ve never forgotten.
“Nobody is listening to your show, or any other talk radio show, because of the callers. They listen for the host. You will never meet a listener who tunes into your program because of your callers. They are listening to hear you, Stan. And if you don’t entertain them, they won’t listen at all. No matter who your callers are, or what horseshit they have to say.”
Until then, it hadn’t occurred to me, but he was right. Not once had anyone ever emailed my web site or spoken to me directly about something a caller said on the air. For better or worse, all the feedback was about me.

* “He said that you know how to play the hits and that is all talk will require of you. You’ll still be playing the hits, but instead of playing the usual songs, you’ll be offering the tried and tested sound bytes. Same formula, just different material.”

* The program is four hours long, with four six-minute breaks per hour for commercials, news and PSAs. During those commercial breaks I am usually obligated to read live spots, which leaves little time to even take a piss. So there is really no stopping once the “on air” light goes on, and by the time it turns off at 9 a.m., I’ve got very little to say.

* Phil. I often started the 5 a.m. hour with a soft story, sometimes pulled from the front page of the Wall Street Journal , below the fold with one of those pixilated photos. The Journal has a habit of printing terrific, slice-of-life kinda stuff in that spot, often having nothing to do with the world of finance. I remember one day they had a great piece analyzing the number of times college basketball players bounce the ball before they shoot foul shots in games in relation to successful attempts. (Four times seemed to bring the best success, 77 percent of them went in the hoop, as compared to say, 60 percent if you only dribbled once.) Or another day I pulled something from the New York Times about how only seven people in the company that owns Thomas’ English Muffins knew how the muffins got their distinctive air pockets, and how when one of the seven left for a competitor, his departure touched off a case of alleged corporate skullduggery. Phil thought these kinds of stories were a nice way to ease into the day before I got to the red meat.
After the soft stuff, I’d begin the process of running through the main headlines of the day, a combination of the local and national. For the entirety of the 6 a.m. hour, I would continue with the rundown of the news, offering some commentary with every headline.

Things changed at the stroke of 7 a.m., prime time for morning drive radio. Now I would take it up a notch and hit hard on the front-page items of the day. The lead political story commanded my attention and this was where I tried to pack a punch. In campaign season, it was always something political. National healthcare (bad), illegal immigration (worse), and the federal deficit (atrocious) had been my stock-in-trade for the last few years. I’d spell out an issue, cue Rod to run some sound bytes that corresponded to that news, then offer my take, and finally go to the phones.
“Ignore those blinking lines until they serve a purpose,” Phil would constantly drum in my ear. Still, it was hard not to be pleased by the instant feedback.
“Remember, those callers are your props. Nobody gives a fuck what that guy says except that guy. If his old lady cared, he’d be telling her not you. But she doesn’t give a shit. So you’re the only outlet he has. The only reason you let him on your air is that he gives you fodder to say more.”

Phil also timed my callers like they were running the 40 at an NFL combine. I swear he would sit on his ass in Taos with a stopwatch and shout whenever any caller was on the air for more than two minutes. No caller was ever worth two minutes of airtime according to him. At first I didn’t see any harm in letting someone ramble as long as I thought they were interesting.
“Isn’t it supposed to be a talk program?” I would sometimes counter.
“It is… and you are the one who is supposed to be talking.”
Over time, I saw his point.
“Callers are there to give you something to play off of, to give you material to say something and appear smart, or acerbic. And let me tell you something else—nobody wants to hear callers who say ‘Stan, you are so right about this.’ Booooring.”
In no time we were routinely flooded with callers regardless of the subject, and it took quite a skill set for Alex to juggle 12 ringing lines at once. Her job was to not only get some bare bones information about who was calling and why, but also to type that data on her computer, which in turn put it on a screen in front of me. At the same time she needed to ascertain whether the callers could put together sentences and were younger than Stonehenge. Nothing sucks more oxygen out of a program that an old-timer who dodders when you punch up his call.
Our focal point every morning was the 7:30 segment, during which I would often do interviews with hard news guests. Newsmakers, like elected officials, or nationally known politicians or pundits or authors of right-wing screeds would usually be heard then. Again, with a short call segment to follow.
“Welcome back to Morning Power , on the line, it is my privilege to be joined by former Governor Mike Huckabee. Huck, thanks for being here.”
“You’re welcome Stan, and good morning to all in the I-4 corridor….”
In the final hour, having already covered the hard news of the day, I tended to do more shits and giggles. You know, some pop culture, sound from American Idol , and the other water cooler stuff that gave the show balance.

* My listeners were concentrated in the I-4 corridor, the stretch between Tampa and Orlando, and they had been known to tip the scales in more than one presidential race. As the top-rated talk host in a mid-sized but hotly contested market, I could very well find myself at the political epicenter of the upcoming election. The stage was set for my career to really pop, and I didn’t want to blow my shot.

* our P1s—that’s radiospeak for our most ardent listeners—couldn’t get enough. They may comprise a relatively small segment of society, but there are no more faithful radio listeners than fans of conservative talk.

* “Talk radio is a clubhouse for conservatives,” Phil had explained. “It’s an intimate place where people on the right can go and be with likeminded folk while having their opinions reinforced. Without talk, they are homeless in the media.”

* Arizona passed a law to get tough on those crossing the border. Naturally that was big on my program.
“Our Mexican border is wide open because the feds have been derelict in their duty,” I’d said.
So far, so good.
But Phil didn’t like what came out of my mouth next.
“Arizona had to act, but by drafting their law so broadly, I think they have left their police vulnerable to claims of unconstitutional traffic stops.”
When he heard that, he pounced.
“You’re not teaching law school, Powers. Stop confusing the audience with your nuanced bullshit. Praise Arizona; condemn the fucking feds. Like everything else, make it the failure of the federal government.”
When it came to colorful opinions, Phil had no interest in shades of gray. Just black and white.
“The audience will think you’re a pussy, Powers. And pussies don’t get nationally syndicated.”

* “Stan, let me repeat for you a lesson from ‘Talk Radio and Cable TV 101’,” Phil often told me. “There is no political middle. It doesn’t exist on radio. You will never get anywhere saying anything moderate or mushy. Either you offer a consistent conservative view, or you’re not getting traction.”
My idiotic response: “Well, isn’t democracy based on an exchange of ideas, not just one point of view?”
“Fuck democracy, Stan. You’re not a Founding Father, you’re a talk show host. This business is all about ratings, not governing. And here is the secret. Ratings are driven by passion, not population. They are not controlled by general acceptance.”
“Three extremists are worth more than ten moderates,” was yet another favorite Phil-ism on this point.

* Gore Vidal once said, “You should never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.” Well, Vidal only told part of the story. GOP dirty trickster and Vidal acolyte, Roger Stone was the one who correctly explained that doing the latter would facilitate the former. The more you appeared on television, the more opportunity you had to get laid.

* “Stan, the goal here is national syndication. The only thing cable TV can do for you professionally is gain you recognition with PDs across the country, so that when they get a call from a syndicator who wants to know if they’ll clear your show, they don’t say, ‘Never heard of him.’ Remember, there are more than fifty guys who are syndicated in this country, but only about five who have made it work. When I cut your deal, I want you to be one of the five, not one of the fifty.”

* “How far do you think you’d get in this business today if you walked into a radio station and told the program director you were the Gentleman of Broadcasting? Nowhere.
“It all changed in the ’90s and I know why. Before the Internet, before Fox, before Drudge, you conservatives didn’t have a clubhouse. The media consisted of the New York Times, Washington Post and the big three networks, and each was run by a bunch of liberals. I get that. I don’t fault the logic. Or the need for an alternative.
“So you established a beachhead in talk radio. And when, in the midst of the first Gulf War, a guy in Sacramento named Rush Limbaugh offered what you were looking for, you ate it up and you wanted more. And radio stations across the nation took note and they wanted Rush and a stable of his imitators. And it worked. And do you know why it worked? Not because Rush was a political expert. Hell, he didn’t even vote. And not because he was an election soothsayer. It worked because the man is a gifted entertainer. His worst political critics have never given him the credit he deserves for his ability to keep an audience entertained for three hours a day working with no more than a daily newspaper!
“Then Fox did the same thing on TV.
“And together with the Internet, conservatives now had places to call home.
“Then the predictable happened. Liberals took note and decided they should do the same thing. They tried and failed on radio with Air America. There was never the need for a liberal clubhouse in radio because their audience always had NPR! On cable TV, they succeeded with MSNBC. It took them a while before they got it right, but Keith Olbermann was the first to emulate from the left what Limbaugh and Fox did from the right.”

* Gone are the days when a successful career in Washington was dependent upon longevity in office, and the corresponding seniority that brought prestigious assignments. Today, the quickest path to success is to say something incendiary, get picked up in the cable TV news or talk radio world, and then become a fundraising magnet. Because you know who loves that sort of entertainment? The ideologically driven voters who vote in primaries in hyper-partisan districts within closed-primary states!

In 2008, Dan Shelley, former news director and assistant program director at Milwaukee’s WTM radio, wrote for Milwaukee Magazine:

The Lund Talk Radio Stylebook

…talk show hosts…are popular and powerful because they appeal to a segment of the population that feels disenfranchised and even victimized by the media. These people believe the media are predominantly staffed by and consistently reflect the views of social liberals. This view is by now so long-held and deep-rooted, it has evolved into part of virtually every conservative’s DNA.

To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners. 

The enemy can be a politician — either a Democratic officeholder or, in rare cases where no Democrat is convenient to blame, it can be a "RINO" (a "Republican In Name Only," who is deemed not conservative enough. It can be the cold cruel government bureaucracy. More often than not, however, the enemy is the "mainstream media…"  

In the talk radio business, this concept, which must be mastered to be successful, is called “differentiating” yourself from the rest of the media. It is a brilliant marketing tactic that has also helped Fox News Channel thrive. “We report, you decide” and “Fair and Balanced” are more than just savvy slogans. They are code words signaling that only Fox will report the news in a way conservatives see as objective and truthful.

Forget any notion, however, that radio talk shows are supposed to be fair, evenhanded discussions featuring a diversity of opinions. The Fairness Doctrine, which required this, was repealed 20 years ago. So talk shows can be, and are, all about the host's opinions, analyses and general worldview. Programmers learned long ago that benign conversations led by hosts who present all sides of an issue don't attract large audiences.

One entire group that rarely gets on the air are the elderly callers – unless they have something extraordinary to say. Sadly, that doesn’t happen often. The theory is that old-sounding callers help produce old-skewing audiences. The target demo is 25 to 54, not 65 and older…

Talk show fans are not stupid. They will detect an obvious phony. The best hosts sincerely believe everything they say. Their passion is real. Their arguments have been carefully crafted in a manner they know will be meaningful to the audience, and that validates the views these folks were already thinking.

A smart talk show host will, from time to time, disagree publicly with a Republican president, the Republican Party, or some conservative doctrine. (President Bush’s disastrous choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court was one such example.) But these disagreements are strategically chosen to prove the host is an independent thinker, without appreciably harming the president or party. This is not to suggest that hosts don’t genuinely disagree with the conservative line at times. They do, more often than you might think. But they usually keep it to themselves.

If you lack compelling arguments in favor of your candidate or point of view, attack the other side. These attacks often rely on two key rhetorical devices, which I call You Know What Would Happen If and The Preemptive Strike.

Using the first strategy, a host will describe something a liberal has said or done that conservatives disagree with, but for which the liberal has not been widely criticized, and then say, “You know what would happen if a conservative had said (or done) that? He (or she) would have been filleted by the ‘liberal media.’ ” This is particularly effective because it’s a two-fer, simultaneously reinforcing the notion that conservatives are victims and that “liberals” are the enemy.

The second strategy, The Preemptive Strike, is used when a host knows that news reflecting poorly on conservative dogma is about to break or become more widespread. When news of the alleged massacre at Haditha first trickled out in the summer of 2006, not even Iraq War chest-thumper Charlie Sykes would defend the U.S. Marines accused of killing innocent civilians in the Iraqi village. So he spent lots of air time criticizing how the “mainstream media” was sure to sensationalize the story in the coming weeks. Charlie would kill the messengers before any message had even been delivered.

Good talk show hosts can get their listeners so lathered up that they truly can change public policy. They can inspire like-minded folks to flood the phone lines and e-mail inboxes of aldermen, county supervisors, legislators and federal lawmakers. They can inspire their followers to vote for candidates the hosts prefer. How? By pounding away on an issue or candidate, hour after hour, day after day. Hosts will extol the virtues of the favored candidate or, more likely, exploit whatever Achilles heel the other candidate might have. Influencing elections is more likely to occur at the local rather than national level, but that still gives talk radio power.

By the way, here’s a way to prognosticate elections just by listening to talk shows: Except in presidential elections, when they will always carry water for the Republican nominee, conservative hosts won’t hurt their credibility by backing candidates they think can’t win. So if they’re uncharacteristically tepid, or even silent, about a particular race, that means the Democrat has a good chance of winning. Nor will hosts spend their credibility on an issue where they know they disagree with listeners.

…This brings us to perhaps the most ironic thing about most talk show hosts. Though they may savage politicians and others they oppose, they fear criticism or critiques of any kind. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

…But the key reason talk radio succeeds is because its hosts can exploit the fears and perceived victimization of a large swath of conservative-leaning listeners. And they feel victimized because many liberals and moderates have ignored or trivialized their concerns and have stereotyped these Americans as uncaring curmudgeons.

Because of that, there will always be listeners who believe that [they] are the only members of the media who truly care about them.

Political scientist James Joyner wrote Feb. 21, 2021:

[Rush] Limbaugh’s schtick ultimately transformed the conservative movement in destructive ways because it showed how lucrative playing to the predudices of an aggrieved base can be… …[A] business model that depends on keeping people riled up and feeding their belief system will inevitably become mean-spirited and dishonest. Discussions of nuanced differences of emphasis—which is where politics in a democracy should naturally gravitate—aren’t enough to get millions to tune in for three hours a day, every day. No, the opposition must be monsters out to destroy all that the Good People hold dear.

Posted in Guru, Radio | Comments Off on What Makes A Great Pundit?

What Happened To Jean-Francois Gariepy’s Ex-GF?

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Luke Ford

From the CBC:

P.E.I. RCMP put out call for info on woman missing since June 17

RCMP on P.E.I. have put out a call for information on a woman who was last seen in mid-June, after receiving a call from someone they describe as “a concerned citizen.”

The last known sighting of Élora Patoine was on June 17 in Borden-Carleton, the village that’s home to the P.E.I. end of the Confederation Bridge linking the province to New Brunswick.

Patoine is 30 years old. She is five feet 10 inches and weighs 140 pounds, and has brown curly hair. She speaks both French and English.

RCMP Cpl. Gavin Moore says the investigation began this weekend, when police got a call expressing worry about Patoine.

“This is a high-priority file,” he said. “We make efforts to follow up with all known contacts to that individual… we reach out and make sure that anybody who may come across them [will] let us know.”

Posted in JF Gariepy | Comments Off on What Happened To Jean-Francois Gariepy’s Ex-GF?

Is Richard Spencer The Greatest Pundit of his Generation? (10-4-23)

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Luke Ford

01:00 What type of person seeks a great pundit?
04:00 Do pundits optimize for truth?
06:00 Pundits optimize for attention, income, status, prestige, success but not truth
32:00 YU gets a medical school: Marc Shapiro, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XDju83J2Wk
36:00 What happened to Mama JF? StephenJJames, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1LwFm6McH8
42:00 Did Mama JF leave Papa JF with a baby?
45:00 JF Gariepy wants to keep quiet about Mama JF’s disappearance, https://twitter.com/GuntNews/status/1709723585713996190
46:00 News: P.E.I. RCMP put out call for info on woman missing since June 17, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-rcmp-missing-woman-june-17-1.6985522

Posted in Richard Spencer | Comments Off on Is Richard Spencer The Greatest Pundit of his Generation? (10-4-23)