David Roberts (@drvolts): This essay by @harrispolitico betrays an ignorance about US politics so deep & fundamental that it is genuinely unsettling. I mean it: as I read along & realized he was serious, & that lots of other DC VSPs probably think the same way, my stomach sank. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/06/new-civil-war-about-what-exactly-526603
David Roberts (@drvolts): Jesus. I read a lot of bad media & criticize media all the time but something about this piece really has me shook. This dude lives in the very center of US politics, as part of the profession charged with understanding it, and he's completely blind to its most basic features.
David Roberts (@drvolts): I won't dwell on this, but he wrote a whole essay arguing that the deep political division in the US today traces entirely back to whether people are personally fond of Donald Trump. Really. That's the argument. He must really believe that.
David Roberts (@drvolts): I guess, just to make it explicit: the division in the country is about whether the US is/will be a white Christian patriarchal culture or a true multiracial democracy defined by rule of law -- the same division that has defined the country's entire f'ing history.
David Roberts (@drvolts): But Harris thinks it's about "nothing," about whether you like Trump or not as an aesthetic matter. Christ. I'm not going to tweet about this forever but I genuinely can not believe he wrote that. Media is even more f'd than I thought.
David Roberts (@drvolts): I am losing my f'ing mind. This guy also writes about politics for a living! And he's blind to the central, defining conflict that has shaped the entire history of the country! https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi/status/1479119059513856010
David Roberts (@drvolts): Last on this thread, I promise, but what you can see here is that the rules of US political journalism -- one can not comment on policy or matters of substance for fear of "bias" -- has transmuted from a procedural guideline to a deep ideology/worldview. Horserace as ontology.