One podcast I listen to fairly regularly is “The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal,” and the latest episode was weirdly reassuring. It was a reminiscence about the state of blogging in Ye Olde Days, you know, the early 2000s-2010s. It reminded me of how horribly awful the political landscape was then, and of all the faux liberals who dominated the networks and newspapers. It’s still the same old problem — the NY Times is not a progressive newspaper at all, in case you hadn’t noticed — but it was so much worse back then. Chris Matthews was considered left wing! The Dixie Chicks got canceled! David Brooks was given a sinecure at the NY Times! Ann Coulter was featured on MSNBC!
Political media is still generally abominable, but this podcast made me aware that maybe there has been some slight progress. I’ll excuse it for making me feel old.
That’s about when I started reading this blog. Around 2003 or so.
I remember those days. Everyone projected their expectations on Obama when the idiot WTC-attack-enabling president had to go. And we learned it was the same business as before, only with Republicans metamorphosing into proto-MAGAs like a tumor picking up more malign mutations.
I would put MSNBC further left than Fox News, but Chris Matthews was an asshole regardless of what wing, maybe he’s more inside the bird’s cloaca?
I did love me some Olbermann. He was feisty and had a visceral hatred of Bill O’Reiily.
There’s a letter from contributors to the NY Times today protesting the Times’ string of anti-trans articles
https://www.readtpa.com/p/why-i-signed-the-nyt-letter-and-you?sd=pf
https://nytletter.com/
Thanks for the props for our podcast, PZ! It CAN’T have been sixteen years ago that we shared a beer in DC.
Yes, we’re old. And Happy Early Birthday.
https://bgalrstate.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-birthday-pz-myers.html
Perhaps it’s not such a good sign though. Maybe it’s simply a product of a society with more division than ever?