December 15, 2023

"The extreme left may be morally no better than the extreme right. But in America the extreme left has almost no political power..."

"... while the extreme right controls one house of Congress and a number of states.... So, yes, let’s hold college presidents’ feet to the fire when they bungle on a major issue. And let’s denounce calls for violence wherever they come from. But let’s also focus on the biggest threat to our system of higher education, which is coming not from left-wing student activists but instead from right-wing politicians."

Writes Paul Krugman, in "The Biggest Threat to America’s Universities" (NYT).

Key word: "extreme."

The extremes on either side are perceived from the point where the observer is situated. Thus, to Krugman, "the extreme left has almost no political power."

86 comments:

n.n said...

The extreme left is totalitarian, the extreme right is anarchist, the left-right nexus is leftist narrates handmade tales.

rcocean said...

The NYT's writers are constantly gaslighting everyone and lying. They NEVER admit the opposing side is reasonable or has a good arguement. Its just name calling (the other side is "authoritarian" or "Extreme" or "racist" or "crazy/stupid/evil").

At some point you have to accept these pundits/writers are smart and if they're constantly saying stuff that isn't true, its on purpose and because they have a strategy. Its not because they are "deranged" or "confused".

Krugman and the NYT's are putting out propaganda. They want to win, and they don't care how. Constantly,going "there, there, it will be all right" or "Haha look at those snowflakes getting hystrical" isn't going to work, that's not what's going on.

Maynard said...

Paul Krugman is an extreme idiot and extreme partisan.

gilbar said...

Serious question for Robert Cook.. How far to the right, do You perceive Paul Krugman to be?

gilbar said...

According to Paul..
the US House (and SEVERAL states) is Completely Controlled by "the extreme right".
I'm assuming that he thinks that New Jersey is in "the extreme west" ??

You reach a point, where your personal view makes you seem STUPID

n.n said...

The right is morally better than the ethical left. The center is conservative.

Bob Boyd said...

Paul Krugman helps us all to understand politics and economics in the same way Robert helped Margot understand dating in Cat Person.

rcocean said...

BTW, Krugman uses the same dishonest framing that i've seen my entire life. We have the "extreme right" which includes almost the entire Republican party on one hand, and the "extreme left" which includes a few communist/socialists on the other. And in the middle are the "Normal" people. The people without labels. Like the NYT's writers. And almost all the liberals.

In reality 40-45 percent of the USA votes Republican or are mostly conservative. Another 30 percent will split their votes and are conservative on some issues. And only about 25-30 percent of the USA is NYT's liberal/left.

But in the insane NYT's bizzaro world where a Republican who gets 45-50 percent of the national or state vote is Extreme. And a majority who want the border secure or are against Amnesty are labeled as "extreme racist immigration restrictionists"

tommyesq said...

Today's "extreme Right" is the run-of-the-mill Democrat of the 1960's-70's. The "extreme Left" are communists.

madAsHell said...

I can't believe he gets paid to write this tripe.

RideSpaceMountain said...

The extreme left has so little political power that the entire DNC apparatus has shifted their positions to favor them more and more lest they get toppled. Give me and effing break....pro-hamas White House Staff were protesting the POTUS - their boss - over US positions on the current Gaza war.

They are in the frickin' White House. Eff you Krugman, your Nobel is totally undeserved and your economic accumen is that of a charlatan.

From Astral Coden Ten, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/which-party-has-gotten-more-extreme, the dot-plot tells you all you need to know.

JAORE said...

So in summary:
The extreme left MAY include a handful of true, but powerless, radicals.

The extreme right is every single Republican and quite a few independents.

Ah Paul, we can always count on you.

RideSpaceMountain said...

https://twitter.com/MorningConsult/status/1708182256823529962

A direct link to the dot-plot on X. Why are these supposedly smart people so blind to what is so obvious? They are A) nowhere near as smart as they and others think they are or B) the are willingly ignoring what everyone sees because muh narrative cuntrol.

I go with B. I always go with B.

West TX Intermediate Crude said...

Key word: "extreme."

No, Ann.
Key word is "Krugman."
Cocooned, siloed, got lucky once and thinks he knows anything about how the world works.

hombre said...

Wow. Krugman and Goldberg plus a video of a gaggle of leftmedia loons all in one morning. That would be an eye opener, if we needed an eye opener.

stlcdr said...

[me, thinking] "what sort of idiot writes this claptrap?!....oh, makes sense"

Mr. T. said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Whenever I hear a pundit say, "both sides", it's usually as far as they willing to admit their side has a problem.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Krugman is wrong about everything. Every Thing. All the time.

Gunner said...

Besides total control of almost every Blue State, the libtards have no power. Or something.

madAsHell said...

This guy needs to man-up.

Of course, then he would no longer be part of the extreme left.

Gusty Winds said...

A few weeks or months ago on X Krugman claimed America weathered the inflation storm "without much effect". Tell that to the grocery shopping middle class. Or broke Generation Z.

What an asshole. How does an economist who predicted the internet would have minimal effect on the economy still get published? He's a propagandist and a liar.

Paul Krugman = Ellsworth Toohey from "The Fountainhead".

Inside he's a small insecure man.

jim said...

Not exactly on subject, but I'd love to hear Ann's take on Elise Stefanik's complaint about Beryl Howell.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The extreme left have all the power.
The mob king Biden and his DOJ are in charge. The Corrupt D's hold the senate.

Paul Krugman is a dishonest lying liar who lies.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Paul Krugman is the Jim Cramer of economics. Always wrong.

Gusty Winds said...

The "extreme" left is fully in charge at the moment. In WI, CA and many other states as well as the Federal Gov't. The "extreme" left are useful tools for Ivory Tower Liberals.

The entire education system is run by the extreme left. UW Madison and UC Berkley are crazy extreme left. The teachers unions are extreme left.

They've all been quite successful:

-Wasted money on climate change
-No Tax cut for Wisconsinites despite a huge state budget surplus.
-Wide open southern border implementing the great replacement "theory"
-Soft on crime Soros DAs destroying America's cities
-Implementation of successful absentee voter fraud
-The transgender push and men competing in women's sports
-Tranny drag shows for kids
-Blow job instruction books in Jr. High public schools
-No reaction or prosecution for ANTIFA or 2020 BLM crimes
-DEI so successful it created a new form of racism and exclusion

The list goes on. Shit. The Asian Mayor of Boston just got caught throwing a holiday party for only city council members "of color". I don't really care. Who the hell would want to attend that anyway?

mikee said...

The extreme left has occupied Wall Street, and taken over parts of several cities for longish periods of time, and rioted under several banners annually. The right? Not so much.

Krugman, keeping his record perfect, looked at from the perspective of acknowledging he is always wrong.

Todd said...

Do these people ever listen to what they say? The entire left is made up of the "extreme left". That is all there is anymore and they have already driven what few actual moderate lefty that remained, out. They are: antifa, BLM, VHEMT, zero Oil, DEI, KKK, "trans women are women", and let us not forget they are also all in on the extinction of the Jews.

They are MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NYT, etc.

The actual "extreme right" is three guys in a double-wide talking smack about UFOs and chem-trails, and two of them are Feds.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Apparently most young college graduates think the violence in the Middle East is all the fault of Israel, the creation of the state of Israel was unjust from the beginning, and there is no real solution other than the substantial weakening if not destruction of the state of Israel. What about all those Jews? They might say like Hitler before the Holocaust: if other countries won't take them, drastic action may be necessary.

This is now part of woke dogma. Wokesters are non-violent in the sense that they don't really want to be on the front lines, and if they show up there, they are not handy with weapons such as guns or Molotov cocktails. They have probably seen video of non-violent protests and sit-ins, so we get the 110 Freeway protest in LA the other day. Climate warriors glue themselves to paintings or whatever. The inner city looters, now often apparently working as interstate gangs, are a kind of proxy warriors for the woke; they are not likely to improve their own lives in the ghetto, but they can shake up the system and make it less stable. Educated wokesters are probably convinced they can use and abuse the law and the system to get what they want.

It is not true there are so few of them, they are helpless. There are a hell of a lot of them, they boycott companies, and they vote. They are now being incited to violence on the ground that Trump is a violent monster. What can possibly go wrong?

gadfly said...

Who in Hell has ever read Paul Krugman without first placing tongue in cheek? Paul Krugman is the king of Keynesianism and a strong supporter of the delusion that you can print your way out of debt.

But Krugman is best known for advising and promoting Enron before its spectacular failure. The firm collapsed in an infamous 2001 accounting scandal that sent many of the firm’s executives and bankers to prison. But he has never given up, jumping back into fakery with an astounding endorsement of “budget chicanery" by our government. The Times published a piece in August 2021 with Mr. Krugman’s byline entitled, “In Praise of Smoke and Mirrors.” Basically, our columnist approved of Congressional funding that would involve “repurposing” money from COVID-19 relief programs that ended up costing less than expected while ignoring programs that cost more than expected.

Yessiree, Paul Krugman has forever been an economic genius.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Krugman acknowledging it exists is a big step for him. He will come to realize they are in full power of the executive branch eventually, about the same time he starts to admit the Squad is growing within the D caucus. Baby steps Paul.

chuck said...

Krugman is wonderfully consistent, he is always wrong. And for the best reason: politics.

Static Ping said...

Let me try to address this issue in good faith. The major existential threats to higher education are as follows:

1. Crippling student loans. For most students, they spend money for college so they can make more money after graduation. If they are still paying off student loans when they are 30, 40, or later, it becomes evident that the college education was a poor investment. People do not like spending money on scams.
2. Worthless credentials. Due to grade inflation and relaxing of standards, college credentials mean far less than they did decades ago. It has gotten to the point that some businesses are not requiring a college degree anymore, because the credentials do not really mean anything. Some degrees would be useless even if they were rigorous.
3. Suppression of civil rights, especially freedom of speech. One of the fundamental roles of higher learning is to provide a setting for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. This is vital for scholarship to thrive, especially in the sciences. This is no longer the case in many schools, especially supposedly elite schools. There is also the matter of the kangaroo courts used to unfairly punish students that they find inconvenient. There are many more examples.
4. Hostility to the public that supports them. It is hard to explain to a blue-collar worker who goes to church every Sunday and loves his country that he should be paying taxes to subsidize for some upper-middle class child to be taught to hate the country and look down on those MAGA peasants.
5. Administrative bloat and general loss of mission. Arguably, Harvard's main purposes are to run a hedge fund and to pay an army of administrators who are handsomely compensated for producing little if anything of value. The fact that they are supposed to be an institution of higher education is forgotten. If they are not going to take their role seriously, why exactly do we need them?

Frankly, any of these are an existential crisis. In combination, the question is not whether these institutions still fulfill a useful purpose - many clearly do not - but whether we reform what we have or we burn it down and start over.

Static Ping said...

To be snarky, it takes some nerve to say the problem is the "extreme right" when the support of the closest thing we have to the Nazis is coming from the left.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Is it time?... I think so..
Paul Krugman - (cat man - over-paid white wealthy elite BS artist) -- go f yourself.

I always like to hear about the non-existent radical left ... from a radical leftist.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Wait until Krugman finds out DEI is suffused throughout every branch of government where Democrats hold sway, the U.S. military is now a dedicated Kendi apostle and transactivists are in charge of every agency. We need a new word that means more extreme than extreme. And we now know for certain that Krugman doesn't read Goldberg.

tommyesq said...

Wow, Krugman has lost Gadfly.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Having a corrupt crook as president - who enriched his family in secret during his stint as VP - using his power to funnel American tax payer dollars to Ukraine - Ukraine energy company funneled it back to the Biden's - ISN'T EXTREME AT ALL! SO LEGIT. Ignore the other Biden family bribe and scam schemes for personal profit with China etc... too.

Joe Biden is above the law. Extremist Radical leftists like Krugman are fine with it.

Freeman Hunt said...

This is political power.

Old and slow said...

Perspective really is everything. I was recently looking at a map of European government politics, and to my amazement, Ireland was listed as center-right. The furthest left government shown was described as center-left. Here in the US, Ireland's politics would be considered quite leftist.

So the Europeans are much like Robert Cook. In order be hard leftist, you must support the abolition of private property and re-education camps. (just a bit of hyperbole Robert, don't take me too seriously...)

Earnest Prole said...

America's elite universities are hedge funds that run a side-hustle protection racket of pretending to educate young people. Have the courage of your convictions, Paul Krugman, and tax the profits of these idle-rich institutions at 90 percent.

Sebastian said...

"According to the report, one Florida professor “was told not to teach that the Civil War was a conflict over slavery”"

Truly, education in Florida is coming to an end. Progs, flee while you can!

By implying that the actual prog PTB in higher ed are not "extreme," Krugman only illustrates the extreme leftward move progs have made in recent years. Which major university prez dares oppose identity politics, deny the existence of systemic racism, or question green gospel?

Sebastian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Howard said...

The republican congress with it's newly anointed MAGA Speaker just gave Slo Joe the exact defense bill he wanted. The congressional republicans must be saving up their unchecked power for something really important down the road.

Joel Winter said...

Here--try this. Go to https://www.npr.org/search/ and search for "extreme right."

You'll get 298 results.

Now try "extreme left."

55 results.

2,992 results for "right wing," and 1,063 for "left wing."

Please discuss....

Iman said...

Krugman is a cat lady.

Josephbleau said...

Krugman goes wrong at “But in America the extreme left has almost no political power, while the extreme right controls one house of Congress and a number of states.“

The US house is controlled by the extreme right, but the US Senate or the executive is apparently not controlled by the extreme left. An extreme event is a 2 sigma event, by usual scientific standards. if you assume a normal distribution, 2.5 pct of the population would be extreme right and 2.5 pct extreme left. This is a paradox, more than 50 pct of the house can’t be extreme under any distribution. The mean person can’t be extreme. Show me a distribution where the mean is at plus 2 sigma.

The only way to explain this is that Krugman is parsing the meaning of control. He must think that the extreme approx 2.5 pct of the house is in control of the whole house, but the left 2.5 pct is not in control of the whole senate. He does not explicitly say this, so who knows what he believes.

The statement that one professor says he was told to not teach that the civil war was about slavery is just funny. The war was not all about slavery but was about 95 pct about it and 5 pct about rights and other bs. I guess some southerners fought because the union army was attacking their homes, but the war had already started by then anyway, so that is not causal. I was not aware that extreme Republicans were supposed to think otherwise, who cares? Krugman does not tell us what the extreme Republicans think started the war. The civil war soldiers knew it started with slavery. Abe’s house was divided against itself by slavery.

EdwdLny said...

All of those dirtbags on college campuses and in the democrat propaganda media demonstrating for hamas/Palestinians aren't right wing, they are all liberals. So Paul, bugger off you flaccid turd. Bugger off and die.

Chest Rockwell said...

Peak Krugman.

This has to be on purpose right? No one can possibly be this stupid and obtuse can they?

The Crack Emcee said...

"So, yes, let’s hold college presidents’ feet to the fire when they bungle on a major issue,..."

They bungled on how they answered, NOT the position they've held. That fact seems to be getting lost now, in an effort to pretend Stefanik's badgering pried some uglier truth out of them that day, when nothing of the kind happened.

Reporting from the West Bank, British Author Peter Oborne says all of this is noise is being made to defend "horrible people" who are "like the Ku Klux Klan," so, while some Americans are proudly marching with the Zionists, it's still to a very strange, but all too familiar tune.

Ampersand said...

The Overton Window, as seen by Mr. Magoo.

Craig Mc said...

Bwahaha. Krugman is such a Nobel Prize Idiot.

Jim at said...

The guy who said the Internet will be no more consequential than the fax machine?

Yeah. Let's get his take on things.

Hassayamper said...

Not far left? What?

The Biden Administration's policies on border security, crime and punishment, electoral fraud, and drunken-sailor deficit spending would have been considered openly Communist subversion and insurrection by 98% of the Democrats on Capitol Hill in 1975, including Joe Biden himself, and put down by force of arms if necessary.

Enigma said...

Krazy Krugman Keystone Kop

Treat the slapstick master as he deserves. Ignore him.

Václav Patrik Šulik said...

I am a proud liberal, yet I consider Krugman to be part of the extreme left. The main difference between us is that I still believe in objective truth.

Mikey NTH said...

Paul Krugman is the mirror image if correct.

The Vault Dweller said...

Both parties have moved leftward over the past 30 years or so. The Republicans a little, and the Democrats a whole lot. Most of Donald Trump's policies look like an Anti-NAFTA centrist Democrat from the 90's.

Michael K said...

Krugman does not even believe his own economics textbook. Nobody to his left, of course.

Jake said...

Perspective is such a bitch.

Spiros said...

Krugman is arguing that the Democratic Party is not extreme left, it is moderate and sane and nice. The Maoists have been purged from the Party.

traditionalguy said...

Wow! Krugman has gone total liar. Never go total liar.unless your warring army uses the Big Lie propaganda method. Then it’s OK.

narciso said...

This was the stimulus krugman argued fof in the 10s, he duesnt even acknowledge it

Paul From Minneapolis said...

Paul Krugman is one of the key dishonest commentators in the country. That's his role. Feeding high-minded-sounding BS to average liberals who like having their preconceptions flattered and who don't have integrity or time to check out what the other side is really all about.

gspencer said...

Behind the Big News: Propaganda and the CFR,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmKiiY_HqsY

narciso said...

A maoist terrorist susan rosenberg organized the riots in 2000,

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Power is the means by which people can be severely hurt, without even an expectation of consequence whatsoever.

Washington Examiner: Click this link and see what I mean

If that's not power, the definition has been lost.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Extreme? You didn't see this on Trump's watch...

https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1735780460268036482

Morally no better for sure!

Skeptical Voter said...

Ah the Krugster. Years ago he got a Nobel Prize for some work in economics. The economics Nobel had bupkis to do with political theory.

And yet week in and week out (and it's been going on for more than 20 years now) the Krugster spouts drivel on the pages of the NYT. He's got company; Charles Blow can be counted on to blow chunks. Tom Friedman--if you read him long enough--will eventually publish a column that is 180 degrees different from what he said or wrote today. I'll be charitable and leave Mo Do out of this.

But Krugman continues to amaze--with each moronic column he writes. He just has no grasp on reality.

Jess said...

If you asked 100 people on the street if they know who Paul Krugman is, at least 95 wouldn't have a clue. Otherwise, his opinion is irrelevant to most people, and a less polite society would not only shun him, the ridicule would lead him to becoming a hermit.

MikeD said...

This Paul Krugman? Krugman predicted in 1998 that the Internet would have little effect on the economy and commerce, with “no greater impact than the fax machine”. That’s Paul, always out for laughs, endless entertainment.
He's the Jim Cramer of the NYT and, beyond oppo research, can see no rational reason to read him (or the NYT in general).

Iman said...

A cursory inspection informs that Cracker’s author Peter Oborne, co-author of “A Dangerous Delusion: Why the Iranian Nuclear Threat is a Myth” has previously contended that Ayatollah Khomeini was "one of the greatest theologians of all time" whose "teaching contained insights which went far deeper than anything the rationalists and materialists of the United States could imagine".

Oborne also had the back of the Muslim rapist gangs who preyed on girls as young as 12 and 13 in the UK. He put the blame on the girls

Jonathan Burack said...

It is hard to take Krugman seriously. Sure, one could say he just has a concept of "extreme" different from everyone else. But THAT different? Really? We have over the past month or more now been living through a slow-rolling Kristallnacht. Jews in some places are essentially in hiding. From the twisted denizens of the left, which is embedded in universities, the media, foundations, and a good share of the Democratic Party etc. I am not worried about the KKK, sorry, Paul. In my very liberal town, I'd love to hang an Israeli flag from my doorstep. But I will not endanger my family - because my neighborhood is full of "hate has no home here" signs, and I know what that is worth even if Krugman doesn't. Krugman wants me to see the Republican House's desire for stronger border controls as the ultimate in "extreme"? Other than himself, who does he think he's kidding?

William said...

The good thing about Paul Krugman is that he looks like the kind of person who would write the kind of stuff that Paul Krugman writes. "The anxious, sidelong glance of a pigeon kicker" He's not like those Hollywood celebs who are sometimes quite attractive and appealing.

wildswan said...

I don't say the Dems have lost the secular Jews yet but I do say that they contributed half the money the Dems raised in the last campaign. I do say that the young Dems are utterly indifferent to the pain in Israel and to the attacks on Jews on the campuses. The Dems think it will all be OK because all natural born leftys hate Donald Trump. But by the time the election rolls around who will seem more fearful - Hamas and its supporters or Trump and his? After all, Trump's been President - unprecedented prosperity, realistic work on Mid-East peace - we know what he brings. And Hamas has been in charge of a state also, so we know what support for it will bring.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Wasn't he the guy who advocated that US gov't tell the public that earth was under attack by space aliens, and that we needed to spend a fortune to fight against it.
Everybody laughed and said "no one will believe that...let's just call it climate change"

gadfly said...

tommyesq said...
Wow, Krugman has lost Gadfly.


Never heard of you or from you before, Tom Miscue, and you don't know me - so please cease your personal insults and lies.

Gospace said...

When leftists talk about the left-right divide, they're talking the European left-right- which entities get to control the economy and the people.

When conservative Americans talk left-right, they're talking about more government control is left, more personal freedom is right. Fascists and communists are both leftist by that definition- neither has any use for individual freedom. The average American wants as little to do with government as possible. The average European looks for the government to solve problems or take care of them.

In England about half the nation lives in council houses run by government entities or apartments owned by housing association, government regulated non-profits. In the US <3% live in public housing, including section 8 housing.

wendybar said...

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Robert Cook said...

"The extreme left is totalitarian, the extreme right is anarchist...."

Nope. Just glib, self-congratulatory bullshit. The extreme right is also totalitarian. (Look at the Nazis, which, contrary to ignoramuses everywhere, were not leftists or socialists once Hitler took over the small fringe group and turned it to his own tool with which to achieve his drive for power.)

There is no political point of view that is impervious to the innate human drive to impose rules of desired behaviors and beliefs on everyone else, and no political point of view that is immune to the tendency to become more and more insistent to the point of forcible imposition of those desired behaviors and beliefs and the forcible prohibition of any contrary beliefs and behaviors.

dbp said...

Krugman has famously been wrong about a lot of things, but I don't think he's a liar or stupid. I think he is in the center of the leftmost third of the country and everyone he knows is in that third. He most likely thinks that the mainstream media is in the center, or a bit right of center--because they're owned by corporations, which are necessarily conservative.

He lives in this bubble, where he thinks he's in the center, when roughly speaking, 1/6 of the country are to his left and 5/6 are to his right. Of course he thinks mainstream conservatives are extreme: He literally has no idea what they believe or why they believe these things.

Scientific Socialist said...

From Paul Krugman’s perspective, someone 1 mm to his right politically is “right-wing.”

walter said...

I guess political persecution via Just Us Dept/Blue state selective lawfare and imposition of woke culture aren't indicative of an empowered Left...

Steve said...

To the K-man, anyone to the right of Fidel Castro is "extreme right".

loudogblog said...

Krugman is such a propaganda soaked bonehead.

I live in California and I can assure you that the far left has ALL the power here.

Russell said...

Krugman's transition from serious economist to shameless propagandist is now complete. The extreme left has no power except in Hollywood, the media, and at basically every university in the country and increasingly in every federal bureaucracy (Biden literally tried to nominate someone to a high level position who was educated in communist Russia). The extreme left is currently protesting and overtly threatening Jews across the country (never mind the world) and they are the only ones whose freedom to protest and exercise their speech is suddenly worth protecting according to the very elites that run the most prestigious universities in the country. Goodness.