"Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him."

"He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.... ... I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness.... It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended through bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine, and for the sake of our larger shared project...."

Writes Ezra Klein, in "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way" (NYT).

That resonates with something Meade just texted me:

"When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against… pic.twitter.com/Kq1Cbq744S

— DiploAct (@diploact) September 10, 2025

"I'm still mulling the point... about whether or not both parties moved in an individualistic direction and that there were these big solidaristic movements on the left that that began to to fade.... "

"My instinct was it was wrong. And as I think about it, I think it's right, but I think that it's right for possibly a different reason...."

Mulls Ezra Klein, in the new episode of his podcast, "MAHA Is a Bad Answer to a Good Question." I'm jumping you to a spot about half an hour into the discussion:

"I think there's a sense that that politics failed... particularly after 2024... You look around at the way... communal shaming worked. You look at the way people look back on the pandemic. You look at the backlash now to what gets called wokeness, Me Too. And whatever you believe about the underlying arguments being made that the effort to shame your way to a better world was a political failure — not a small political failure, but a political failure that has empowered the absolute worst people, the people you feared the most, like a Murderers' Row of who you did not want to have power.... And the move — I'm not sure if I would call it towards individualism — but away from this heavily enforced solidarity of both action and language — very, very aggressive on speech and info hazards — that that was part of what went wrong....  [T]he left became extremely comfortable with the deployment of state power on behalf of institutions and so on in a way that really radicalized the other side. And the other side didn't become libertarian — in a strange way, they became authoritarian...."

Klein seems to be blaming the left for making the right authoritarian, but isn't he also accusing the left of authoritarianism? What is "heavily enforced solidarity" that's "very, very aggressive on speech and info hazards" — what is it to be "extremely comfortable with the deployment of state power" — if not authoritarianism?

By the way, what is a Murderers' Row? The term goes back to at least 1850, when it referred to a row of prison cells in New York City's Tombs. But most Americans probably think of it in as referring to baseball— especially the 1927 New York Yankees, which had a very intimidating batting lineup. If that's your reference point, Klein sounds like he's expressing awe and admiration for the left's adversaries. Trump is the Babe Ruth of politics.

"It reminds me of a line that I hear less now, but I used to see it a lot, which is: It’s not my job to educate you."

"I always thought about that line because on one level, I understood it. It’s probably not your job to educate anyone. But if you’re in politics, if what you’re trying to do is political change, I always found that line to be almost antipolitical. That if what you want to do is change a law, change a society, change a heart, and you’re the one who wants to do it — well then, whose job is it? And who are you expecting to do it?"

Said Ezra Klein, interviewing Sarah McBride , in "How to Beat Back Trump on Trans Rights — and Much Else/Representative Sarah McBride reckons with the trans rights movement’s shortcomings and how to win hearts and minds through a politics of grace" (NYT)(audio and transcript here, at Podscribe).

And here's something McBride said, elsewhere in the long discussion: "I think just candidly, I think we lost the art of persuasion. We lost the art of change-making over the last couple of years.... I think a lot of it can be traced to a false sense of security that the L.G.B.T.Q. movement and the progressive movement writ large began to feel in the postmarriage world. There was a sense of cultural momentum that was this unending, cresting wave.

"There’s this saying that Biden, and then Harris, both repeated... 'building a middle class from the bottom up and the middle out.' What the hell does that mean?"

"So the first thing is there’s this kind of consultant language that just needs to go away. That was always annoying to people. But when your opponent, Donald Trump, is clearly not on any consultant-speak, it just makes it more glaring that you seem like the typical politicians."

Said Ben Rhodes, who's recommending "authenticity." He's quoted in "Obama’s Not Going to Save Democrats, but This Might/Michelle Cottle and Ben Rhodes on what Democrats misunderstand about authenticity" (NYT).

And then there’s a second piece of this, which is, Democrats have these public debates that astound me where it’s like, “Maybe we need to go on TikTok” or “We need to go on that manosphere podcast.” If you can do that, if you can make a cool TikTok video and whatever your thing is that allows you to do that, that’s great. If you can’t, then please don’t. Please don’t go there. If you can go on “Joe Rogan” because you are up to speed on the conspiracy theories or you have a background in standup comedy or you know something about ultimate fighting, that’s great. But don’t go on “Joe Rogan” to talk about building an economy from the bottom up to the middle out. That will make his audience hate Democrats more. 

And so I think what Democrats miss about authenticity — it’s not like what platform I’m on. The point is that authenticity is about being yourself. It’s not about being what you think this demographic wants a politician to be.... [M]y point is essentially, Democrats love to, for instance, sit around and be like, “What’s the policy agenda that will win back America?” I — nobody cares. There’s great ideas out there — the abundance agenda and all the rest of it — but nobody is going to read that right now. That’s a great idea for Democrats if they actually win back power or maybe if they’re in power now.

Rhodes has his "a" word for saving Democrats — "authenticity" — and I see him glancing over at Ezra Klein's "a" word for saving Democrats — "abundance." What are some other longish "a" words that could be used by an elite commentator bullshitting about reinvigorating the Democratic Party? 

Well, you know what to do with a question like that, and that's just what I did. Do not read any further if you don't want to read something written by Grok:

1. Adaptability - Emphasizing the party’s need to evolve with changing times and voter priorities.
2. Aspiration - Focusing on inspiring voters with bold, forward-looking goals.
3. Accountability - Highlighting a commitment to transparency and responsibility to rebuild trust.
4. Altruism - Advocating for a selfless dedication to the public good over partisan gain.
5. Ambition - Calling for grand, unapologetic plans to energize the base and attract new supporters.
6. Articulation - Stressing the need for clearer, more compelling communication of values and policies.
7. Audacity - Urging the party to embrace fearless, unconventional strategies.
8. Atonement - Suggesting a reckoning with past missteps to reconnect with disillusioned voters.
9. Assimilation - Proposing a broader, more inclusive coalition that absorbs diverse perspectives.
10. Ascendancy - Framing the party’s path as one of rising dominance through moral and strategic clarity.

Obama already used #7, but now I feel like dabbling in crappy book titles, like "The Audacity of Altruism." Let's see... "The Articulation of Adaptablity," "The Assimilation of Atonement," "The Ambition of Accountability," "The Ascendancy of Aspiration."

Are we authentic yet?

"At some point, we gotta be upset about this," says Ezra Klein, nervously chuckling.

Yeah? What point?!

Ezra Klein explains how it feels to be a Democrat in under 30 seconds:
Ezra Klein: "The stimulus bill under Obama, that had 3 big headline projects for reinvestment.
High speed rail, smart grid, a nation wide system of interoperable health records. 0 for 3"
Gavin Newsom: "I… pic.twitter.com/Rlq1z8fGRb

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 26, 2025

Via Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, who's put together a nice series of clips and quotes on the theme "The Democratic brand is toxic right now."

This is a theme that gets my tag "Democratic Party in Trumpland."

BUT: Really, the problem Klein chuckles over pre-dates the Trump era. It's the failure of the Obama agenda:  "The stimulus bill under Obama — that had 3 big headline projects for reinvestment. It had high speed rail. It had smart grid. And it had a nation wide system of inter-operable health records.... 0 for 3."

Jon Stewart performs his classic oh-no-how-can-people-be-so-stupid mugging...

... as Ezra Klein reads 14 steps to apply for "Build Back Better" funding but I'm going to assume that some smart people knew what they were doing and plenty of people made money doing things this way:

Jon Stewart screams 'OMFG' and is rendered speechless after hearing all 14 steps to apply for 'Build Back Better' funding:
Ezra Klein: "We have to issue the notice funding opportunity within 180 days that's step one.
Step Two: States who want to participate must submit a letter… pic.twitter.com/n2B3knnNY8

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 28, 2025

ADDED: There's so much talk about how the Trump administration — especially DOGE — is moving too fast, so it's good to look back at the Biden administration, which was, as Klein tells it, moving way too slow. Slowness is the choice of those who love government and want more government, government that never ends. Look at what they did, not at what they said they wanted to do. Do they get problems solved or do they feed off unsolved problems?

"Democrats did worse in the 2024 election than you think. They completely failed to win over less engaged voters..."

"... who are becoming much more Republican. The higher the turnout, the more these voters show up and the worse it is for Democrats.... Low turnout is now the Democrats’ BFF!... Shor’s analysis... suggests that Trump outright won voters under 30. ... He also finds that Gen Z voters under 25 regardless of race or gender are now more conservative than the corresponding Millennial voters. So much for the Democrats’ generational tsunami. The issue landscape in 2024 was worse than most Democrats thought. The only really important issue Democrats had an advantage on was health care and that advantage was tiny by historical standards. The Democrats did have a large advantage on climate change—but voters don’t really care about the issue.... The way out is not with a feel-good Democratic playbook that leaves Democratic shibboleths intact. That hasn’t worked and it won’t work."

Writes Ruy Teixeira, in "How Deep Is the Hole Democrats Are In? Pretty deep" (Substack).

Shor = David Shor, who explained his findings here:

"In 2023, California saw a net loss of 268,000 residents in New York, 179,000....they're going to... Texas, Florida, Arizona...."

"You cannot be the party of working families when the places you govern are places working families cannot afford to live. You are not the party of working families when the places you govern are places working families cannot afford to live. In the American political system, to lose people is to lose power. If these trends hold, the 2030 census will shift the Electoral College sharply to the right. The states that Kamala Harris won in 2024 — they'll lose about 11 House seats and Electoral College votes. The states of Trump won would gain them. So in that Electoral College, a Democrat could win every single state Harris won in 2024 and also win Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still lose the presidency."

Says Ezra Klein, in "There Is a Liberal Answer to Elon Musk," the new episode of his NYT podcast, audio and transcript at Podscribe.

The quoted part is from the beginning, where Klein effectively stirs up fears of future disaster for Democrats. The answer to the question asked in the episode title is: "If liberals don't make government work, zealots like Elon Musk are going to come in and burn it down." And: "If liberals do not want Americans to turn to the false promises of strong men, they need to offer them the fruits of effective government in the long run."

Yeah, just do that.

CORRECTION: I misread the headline as a question — Is There a Liberal Answer to Elon Musk? I hallucinated the humility that plainly belongs there!

"But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them."

"In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes. Recent ads for Apple Intelligence, an A.I. feature, make the vision plain. In one, the actor Bella Ramsey uses artificial intelligence to cover for the fact they haven’t read the pitch their agent emailed. It works, and the project seems like a go. Is the project actually any good? It doesn’t matter. The vibes will provide...."

Writes Jonathan Malesic, in "There’s a Very Good Reason College Students Don’t Read Anymore" (NYT).

I remember "vibes" as a hippie word, so I have trouble seeing how it functions these days in the speech of the young, and so, it annoys me. I wish I'd made a tag for it long ago, so I could could keep track of how it annoys me — at least in its usage by mainstream media. Do non-media young people go around saying it? I don't know. It just irks me when I see it in media.

For example... 

"Democrats need a dad?"

Says Meade, when I read this headline out loud "Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need?" (NYT).

It's an episode of "The Ezra Klein Show." From the transcript, here's the "dad" part:

KLEIN: Let me ask you about political geography. There’s a sense of, particularly, the Midwest as “That’s where people are normal. Then they get weirder on the coast.” You’re a former Army guy, right? You’re a former football coach. You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes. And so you can talk about the weirdness of Trump and Vance in a way that I think a lot of Democrats would not feel they could and also in a way that they’re like, “Oh, right, maybe we’re not the weird ones.” But I always think this is a very unhealthy dimension of our politics, a sense that there are sort of “real” Americans here, not “real” Americans there, beyond the coast. I’m curious how you think about this, both from the perspective of what it’s allowed you to say — maybe that would not have landed coming from others — and also just, like, what you do about it.

The emphasis there is on the geography, the "Midwestern" part of "Midwestern dad." I wanted the "dad" part, but I'll soldier on: 

"And we're going to have some fun with this, aren't we?"

Harris murmurs into the phone to Obama and Obama:

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she’ll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in… pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

I call her "Harris." I was going to call her "my girl Kamala" — because that's what Mrs. Obama calls her in that phone call — but the powers that be have warned us not to call her "Kamala" and of course you can't say "girl" — unless you can — and "my" is a terrible problem, perhaps insinuating a perverse sense of ownership. So I'll keep my distance. "Harris" is it. Don't harass me.

Now, about this concept of "fun." It might be the new word of the day, the word on the memo that everyone got. It came up in this new Ezra Klein podcast, "This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin":

I mean, Sunday, I was still hearing from Democrats worried about Harris... And now, I mean, watching the party not just converge around her, but feel a real thrill around her, like really, really become passionate Harris stans, like watching the whole party fall outta the coconut tree and live unburdened by what has been, and only in the imagining of what could be. It's fun to watch Democrats have fun. They have not had fun in a long time. And it's also a good reminder that people don't know how something is gonna feel until it actually happens....

People talking about fun... enthusing This is fun... that's not a good marker of fun... whatever fun is....

I think of Zippy the Pinhead: "Are we having fun yet?"

And "And she'll have fun fun fun/'Til her daddy takes the T-bird away...."

And "Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy."

Nate Silver poses "A simple challenge to the White House" to prove Biden's fitness as a candidate.

At Substack:

Over the course of the next several weeks, Biden should do four lengthy sitdown interviews with “non-friendly” sources....

For instance, Biden could pick... • A lengthy sitdown interview with the Washington bureaus of the New York Times or Washington Post. • An interview with 60 Minutes.... • An interview with some sort of center-right print or digital outlet... say the Wall Street Journal op-ed page.... • Wild card.... Go on Ezra Klein's podcast? Go on Rogan? Just kidding, I think. But Bernie Sanders did it....

This really isn't too much to ask.

Yeah, of course, it's not too much to ask, but I think we all know in our heart it is too much for him to do. It's hard to picture him even doing 2 of these things. Or one. 

And the timing is urgent because he and his inner circle have to make sure that he's really up for a second term and that this is the best option for Democrats.

Why is it suddenly "urgent"? It's a chronic problem and Democrats have been plodding slowly into it for over a year. I think at this point, the best path is to silently endure his collection of delegates. After that, Democrats have until the August convention to devise a nomination for the best candidate. Biden can gracefully withdraw at the best time. There's no reason to put him to the test and degrade or humiliate him. Treat him with respect and replace him at the optimal time. May I presume this is in the works? 

Sarah Silverman is "all over the place" and "I apologize."

Listen to the "Israel-Hamas Mini Episode" of her podcast. She lets you see her jumbled thoughts in motion. 

She expresses surprise to hear anti-semitism coming from the left. She'd been thinking the left is her side. But she can't really be surprised. 

Then there's Ezra Klein's podcast episode, "Israel Is Giving Hamas What It Wants." It's much less personally expressive, but it's a similarly jumbled set of statements from someone who is Jewish and feels called to align with the left. 

Ezra Klein learned from the Quakers that you need to shut up.

I'm reading "The Great Delusion Behind Twitter" (NYT).

Midway into that diatribe against Twitter, Klein takes what he calls "a weird turn" and starts talking about the Quakers:

"Biden, Storyteller in Chief, Spins Yarns That Often Unravel/President Biden has been unable to break himself of the habit of embellishing narratives to weave a political identity."

That's the headline at the NYT for something currently at Memeorandum with the headline "Biden's Folksiness Can Veer Into Folklore, or Falsehoods."

Perhaps that had been the front-page teaser at the Times. It's not on the front page at the moment. It went up yesterday, but there's only one newer headline with the name Biden on the front page — "Biden Administration Plan Could Lead to Employee Status for Gig Workers" — and that isn't about Biden, just his administration. 

There's an older headline still on the front page — "Joe Biden Knows How to Use Donald Trump." That extols Biden... but for what? What is Biden being given credit for here? The author is Ezra Klein, who goes on about how "startlingly few interviews and news conferences" Biden gives.

"I was surprised that the dissenters never tried to defend the right to abortion and never try and offer an alternative ground. They relied entirely on stare decisis."

Said Larry Kramer, in "Liberals Need a Clearer Vision of the Constitution. Here’s What It Could Look Like. The legal scholar Larry Kramer on why the left’s embrace of judicial supremacy was a mistake" (NYT). 

"To bring a child into this world has always been an act of hope," writes Ezra Klein...

... in "Don’t Let Climate Change Stop You From Having Kids" (NYT).

The ignorance and lack of empathy is simply astounding. Always? "Always" refers to all of human history, replete with slavery, rape, the subordination of women, and the lack of perfect birth control and the freedom to use it. You didn't need hope! What drivel is this?

I know, women's emancipation is not Klein's focus. He just forgot about it. Outrageously! He's saying — presumably unwittingly — that when women have been raped and impregnated and continued in their pregnancy to the point of childbirth, they were TAKING ACTION — not merely experiencing an ordeal — and — what's more — it was an ACT OF HOPE. Always!!! 

"TikTok’s billion users don’t think they’re looking at a Chinese government propaganda operation because, for the most part, they’re not."

"They’re watching makeup tutorials and recipes and lip sync videos and funny dances. But that would make it all the more powerful a propaganda outlet, if deployed. And because each TikTok feed is different, we have no real way of knowing what people are seeing. It would be trivially easy to use it to shape or distort public opinion, and to do so quietly, perhaps untraceably. In all of this, I’m suggesting a simple principle, albeit one that will not be simple to apply: Our collective attention is important. Whoever (or whatever) controls our attention controls, to a large degree, our future. The social media platforms that hold and shape our attention need to be governed in the public interest. That means knowing who’s truly running them and how they’re running them. I’m not sure which of the social network owners currently clear that bar...."

From "There Is a TikTok Challenge We All Need to Face Up To" by Ezra Klein (NYT).

I can't help seeing this argument: Speech is "powerful... if deployed," therefore it must "be governed in the public interest."

Klein isn't just talking about TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company and therefore subject to the Chinese government's idea of "govern[ing] in the public interest." He's talking about all of social media, because he's "not sure" whether they are "governed in the public interest." Who gets to decide what's "in the public interest" and how to "govern" the way to "the public interest"? I look around at the Americans who talk about governing social media in the public interest, and I don't trust them with freedom of speech any more than I trust the Chinese government. That is, I don't trust them at all.

Of course, propaganda is bad, but censorship makes propaganda worse. And I'd say Klein's article is propaganda in favor of censorship. Step #1: The Chinese!!!

"Twitter takes the rich, numerous and subtle values that we bring to communication and quantifies our success through follower counts, likes and retweets."

"Slowly, what Twitter rewards becomes what we do. If we don’t, then no matter — no one sees what we’re saying anyway. We become what the game wants us to be or we lose.... There is a reason that Donald Trump, with his preternatural gift for making people look at him, was Twitter’s most natural and successful user. And he shows how the platform can shape the lives of those who never use it. From 2017 to 2021, the White House was occupied by what was, in effect, a Twitter account with a cardiovascular system, and the whole world bore the consequences.... But I count myself, still, as a cautious believer in Musk’s power to do the impossible — in this case, to expose what Twitter is and to right-size its influence. In fact, I think he’s the only one with the power to do it.... He will be Twitter. He will have won the game. And nothing loses its luster quite like a game that has been beaten."

Writes Ezra Klein, in "Elon Musk Got Twitter Because He Gets Twitter" (NYT).

"Democrats are winning more college-educated white voters and fewer non-college white voters, as pollster shorthand puts it, and Donald Trump supercharged this trend...."

"[T]he sorting that educational polarization is picking up... puts Democrats at a particular disadvantage in the Senate, as college-educated voters cluster in and around cities while non-college voters are heavily rural.... This is why Shor believes Trump was good for the Republican Party, despite its losing the popular vote in 2016, the House in 2018 and the Senate and the presidency in 2020. ... Shor has built an increasingly influential theory of what the Democrats must do to avoid congressional calamity.... To avoid it... they need to internalize that they are not like and do not understand the voters they need to win over.... Democrats should do a lot of polling to figure out which of their views are popular and which are not popular, and then they should talk about the popular stuff and shut up about the unpopular stuff.... [O]ne difference between 2016 and 2012 is that Romney was complicit in making economics the center of the campaign. Like Obama, he preferred to argue over tax policy and spending cuts and was plainly uncomfortable talking about immigration or race. He ran, self-consciously, as a former management consultant who would govern on behalf of America’s makers rather than its takers. Trump descended a golden escalator to call Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. What was Clinton supposed to do?"

From "David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear" by Ezra Klein (NYT).