"Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani."

The headline for a Michelle Goldberg column. Excerpt:

“His campaign has attracted Jewish New Yorkers of all types,” wrote Jay Michaelson, a columnist at the Jewish newspaper The Forward. The rabbi who runs my son’s Hebrew school put Mamdani on his ballot, though he didn’t rank him first. And while Mamdani undoubtedly did best among left-leaning and largely secular Jews, he made a point of reaching out to others....

So it has been maddening to see people claim that Mamdani’s win was a victory for antisemitism.... Ultimately.... New York’s Democratic primary wasn’t about Israel.... 

The attacks on Mamdani during the primary were brutal, but now that he’s a national figure, those coming his way will be worse. His foes will try to leverage Jewish anxieties to smash the Democratic coalition.... But don’t forget that the vision of this city at the heart of Mamdani’s campaign — a city that embraces immigrants and hates autocrats, that’s at once earthy and cosmopolitan — is one that many Jews, myself included, find inspiring....

Earthy.  

I was moved to unearth every "earthy" in the 21-year archive of this blog. They're all quotes of other people. I've never once used the word (except for one instance, now corrected, where I clearly meant to type "earthly" ("I didn't think you would be terribly sad to see that Robert Blake has left the earthy scene")).

"I spend a lot of my time saucer-eyed with horror at the rapid degeneration of this country, agog at the terrifying power amassed by Silicon Valley big shots who sound like stoned Bond villains."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, pushing this new HBO show "Mountainhead," in "From the Creator of ‘Succession,’ a Delicious Satire of the Tech Right" (NYT).

No one, I suspect, can fully process the cavalcade of absurdities and atrocities that make up each day’s news cycle. But art can help; it’s not fun to live in a dawning age of technofeudalism, but it is satisfying to see it channeled into comedy.

I liked "Succession" and will give this show a try, but the trailer did not appeal to me. Was that music needed to mask the deficiencies of the script and the acting? 

"I hope you rich folks don't mind slumming it in the humble abode of the poorest billionaire in the gang" — that's the first line in the trailer! I can't believe present-day billionaires would talk like that. It sounds like the way a high-school student in the 1960s would write dialogue for a rich guy. Remember when any time a door was opened to reveal the innards of a mansion, some character would say "Welcome to my humble abode"?

I don't mind unrealistic dialogue if it's brilliant somehow — comically, tragically — but that's just so embarrassingly dumb. I don't get it. "Succession" was great. But I see this show was written and filmed very quickly:

"Plenty of Democrats are annoyed that 'Original Sin' has catapulted the issue of Biden’s enfeeblement back into the news..."

"... threatening to distract voters from Donald Trump’s rococo corruption. I think, though, that Tapper and Thompson have done the party a favor. Some sort of reckoning is due for the disastrous missteps that paved the way for Trump’s return.... Party officials burned a lot of credibility defending Biden’s cognitive fitness. As they seek to earn it back, they should be honest about what they got wrong. Politically, the easiest move for Democrats is to dump all the blame onto Biden, his family and the clique of longtime aides Tapper and Thompson call 'the Politburo': Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed. This group certainly deserves to be excoriated.... But while his closest associates might have hidden the worst of erosion, it was plain enough to anyone willing to see it. Again and again, voters told pollsters that the president was too old to run for re-election. If ordinary people recognized the problem, why couldn’t the insiders?"

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "How Did So Many Elected Democrats Miss Biden’s Infirmity?" (NYT).

I don't know what "sort of reckoning" you're going to get if you keep saying "too old" when you mean mentally deficient and when you ask why couldn’t the insiders "recognize the problem" when you can't see inside the insiders' head.

I don't think you yourself are recognizing the problem when you say the problem was that he was "too old" and when you portray the insiders as sincerely failing to see what was there. If they saw that he was quite old, they could nevertheless believe that he was an old one with excellent capacities.

But I'd guess that they knew he lacked capacity, and I wonder if the reason they didn't recognize that problem is that Joe Biden has lacked capacity all along — including when he ran in 1988 — and the insiders were always operating through him and didn't particularly need or want him to have what it takes to serve as President.

So if you want a serious reckoning, reckon with that. But you don't, do you? You didn't then, and you don't now. You're just hoping Trump will fail so badly, that the much-abused people will come stumbling back to you in the end because there's nowhere else to go. 

"I was open to the idea behind Gavin Newsom’s new podcast, in which the California governor has been breaking out of his political bubble..."

"... to talk at length with right-wing media stars such as Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. Democrats need to get better at speaking to people who don’t share their assumptions and at long-form conversations requiring improvisation and spontaneity.... Trying to leverage Kirk and Bannon’s notoriety to reach new audiences could have been an interesting experiment. Instead, it’s a protracted exercise in self-harm for both Newsom and any liberal who decides to listen to him. That’s because the governor frequently seems less interested in arguing than in finding common ground, assuming the good faith of people who have next to none. He leaves wild right-wing claims unchallenged and repeatedly concedes Republican premises. When Bannon described rebuilding his movement after what he claimed was the stolen 2020 election, Newsom’s response was, 'Well, I appreciate the notion of agency.'"

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "What on Earth Is Gavin Newsom Doing?" (NYT).

Asked what was the "best moment" of Trump's speech, 2 of the NYT's 9 opinion writers said it was Al Green disrupting the session.

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) getting rightly removed from President Trump’s speech really illustrates the demise of the Democrat Party.

They are out of ideas. They can’t offer anything positive for America so they try to ruin it.

Al Green needs to be censured and hopefully expelled. pic.twitter.com/CV15kVsz9x

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) March 5, 2025

I'm reading the NYT analysis of Trump's big speech: "'It Was 90-Plus Minutes of Bad Moments': 9 Opinion Writers on Trump’s Address to Congress."

From the "Best Moment" section of the article:

Binyamin Appelbaum Representative Al Green’s stand in defiance of a president who has governed in defiance of the law. Green’s civil disobedience was the behavior of a man who believes that Trump is a threat to American democracy. Why did he stand alone?...

Michelle Goldberg Green’s heckling. Democrats shouldn’t have shown up at all, but if they were going to be there, noisy protest made more sense than holding up dumb little paddles. There’s nothing dignified about quietly playing the foil to an autocratic thug gloating about stripping America for parts....

Meanwhile, at home, I was comparing the scene to January 6th. You don't like what's going on in the Capitol? Disrupt! Try to stop the proceedings!

"The liberal democracy most of us grew up taking for granted is brittle and teetering, but its fall still feels unthinkable..."

"... even if it also seems increasingly inevitable. Perhaps this is one reason Democrats, with a few admirable exceptions, seem so frozen. People who’ve spent their lives working within a system of laws and civic institutions may be particularly unsuited to respond to that system’s failure. But an F.B.I. run by Patel and Bongino is a sign that the system — which for all its manifold flaws has provided Americans a level of stability uncommon in history — is falling apart."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "Trump’s New Deputy F.B.I. Director Has It Out for the 'Scumbag Commie Libs'" (NYT).

If only that "system of laws and civic institutions" had been taken care of by those who purport to care so much now. 

The phrase "Scumbag Commie Libs" comes from this Dan Bongino tweet from May 30, 2024, the day Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts. This is the full tweet:

"The Democratic Party needs to figure out better ways to counter disinformation, including the disinformation that it is elitist."

Writes Patrice La Belle, M.D., in the comments section of the Michelle Goldberg column in the NYT, "If Anyone Can Save the Democrats, It’s Ben Wikler."

So now comes the postmortem.

I see this little collection of chastened musings on the edge of the NYT front page...

... but I don't have to read this stuff. For you, though, I'll power through it super-quick and say...

1. "In this new era, in which supporting Palestinian freedom has become central to what it means to be progressive, the Palestinian exception is not just immoral. It’s politically disastrous."

2. "In the longer term, we’ll need liberal politics that are about more than just fending off the right."

3. "Instead of proposing sweeping new programs or even taking a stand, as Ms. Harris did, in defense of the status quo, [Democrats] could try to redefine themselves as responsible reformers."

4. "She spoke in the foamy blather of a corporate human resources manager. She pandered to low-information, single women voters by appearing on podcasts like 'Call Her Daddy' and goofballing along to her 'brat' label. She often came across as fake and scripted... seeming to parrot whatever her political consultants told her. The act wore thin."

"At the Democratic convention, especially on the opening night, 'corporate greed' was a scourge, and speaker after speaker sought to link 'freedom'... to programs that protect the middle class..."

"... from the depredations of concentrated wealth.... [Y]ou have to understand how [Lina] Khan, a 35-year-old legal wunderkind, became both so revered and so abhorred. Khan is a heroine to many on the left.... But she’s also respected by many populist conservatives... What brings Khan’s fans together is suspicion of Big Business, Big Finance and Big Tech, even if the reason for their suspicion differs.... To Khan, as I suspect to Harris, price gouging means more than just corporations raising prices during emergencies. Rather, it’s shorthand for a whole range of exploitative practices that leave consumers feeling taken advantage of. 'Oftentimes, the way people are taught about prices is it’s just the result of supply and demand,' she said. 'These natural forces. And I think over the last few years in particular, people have started picking up on the fact that actually there are a whole bunch of other factors that can affect pricing.' That can mean outright collusion, but it can also mean things like junk fees and subscription traps. (Under Khan, the F.T.C. has proposed a rule that companies must make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one.) 'I view the price-gouging conversation as an opening to talk about that broader set of corporate tactics,' said Khan. The fight against those tactics could be an important part of a Harris presidency...."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "Billionaire Donors Have It Out for This Legal Prodigy, but President Harris Will Need Her" (NYT).

"The fight against those tactics could be an important part of a Harris presidency...." — could be.  Did Goldberg have to write it like that — in the conditional — because Harris doesn't do interviews?

"A campaign email slammed those calling on the president to step aside as the 'bed-wetting brigade'..."

"... and offered tips for responding to 'your panicked aunt, your MAGA uncle, or some self-important podcasters,' an apparent reference to the former Obama officials who host 'Pod Save America.'... I’ve heard hopeful Democrats enthuse about how much better Biden was in North Carolina than he’d been the day before at the debate, but that’s silly: We all know Biden is usually fine reading from a teleprompter. The question is whether he can think and speak extemporaneously.... [I]f Thursday were just a bad night, he could reassure doubters by doing a bunch of interviews and unscripted town halls. If he’s not doing that, it’s probably because his campaign doesn’t think he can pull it off.... Now, it would be worth it for the party to set its credibility on fire to keep Trump out of the White House.... Finding a Biden alternative would be risky and messy, and there’s no guarantee that it would work better than trying to put on a brave face and drag the current president across the finish line. But the Democratic Party’s leaders — the people, let’s remember, who got us into this mess — have no right to condescend to those trying to find a way out.... If you’re in a car careening toward a cliff and can open a door, you should jump out."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "There’s No Reason to Resign Ourselves to Biden" (NYT).

I don't think the headline is justified — you can see at least some reason — but I understand her distress. The party's credibility is already shot. So... do something drastic. Jump out of the car. That's her argument. Is it better than the campaign email idea to hold steady, keep the door closed and the seatbeat fastened, and fly out over the cliff?

ADDED: Check the operation of the door handle before attempting the tricky jump-out:

"Vance isn’t good looking enough for Trump. He looks like a forgotten Civil War brigadier."

Said Bret Stephens, in "Which V.P. Pick Will Help Trump Win? Four Columnists Rate the Field" (NYT).

There's also this, from Michelle Goldberg: "[J.D. Vance is] a completely amoral sycophant without an independent political base, which I think is what Trump is probably looking for."

I guess it will be Vance, then, don't you think? 

Since Trump, upon election, will be a lame duck, I think his prime concern should be who will be best able to carry Trumpism forward into the 2028 election and beyond. In that light, isn't Vance the right pick?

Do you realize that J.D. Vance is only 39?

The Trump trial was supposed to be such a big deal, but somehow "a strange sense of anticlimax hangs over the whole affair."

As Michelle Goldberg puts it, in "The Trump Trial’s Great Anticlimax" (NYT).

In a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, only 16 percent of respondents said they were following the trial very closely, with an additional 32 percent following it “somewhat” closely. “Those numbers rank as some of the lowest for any recent news event,” wrote Yahoo News’s Andrew Romano. When people were asked how the trial made them feel, the most common response was “bored.”...

A hopeful possibility... is that a guilty verdict will come as a shock to many Americans who have checked out of the news cycle, perhaps giving them pause about putting a criminal in the White House. I wouldn’t count on it, though.

I wouldn't count on it either. People already have their idea of whether or not Trump is a criminal, and if the jury doesn't agree with them, they'll be outraged at the jury. 

Oh! It's "risible Robin DiAngelo" now!

I'm reading Michelle Goldberg's new NYT column about the Nellie Bowles book, which I'm almost done reading. 

The book is "Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches From the Wrong Side of History" (commission earned).

The column is "Wokeness Is Dying. We Might Miss It." Excerpt:

There is much about that febrile moment worth satirizing, including the white-lady struggle sessions inspired by the risible Robin DiAngelo and the inevitable implosion of Seattle’s anarchist Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Bowles dissects both in the book's best sections.... But “Morning After the Revolution” is undermined by Bowles’s lazy mockery and insupportable generalizations.... 

I note that Goldberg doesn't provide any support for calling Robin DiAngelo "risible." Is that not also lazy mockery? What did Robin DiAngelo — once vaunted in the New York Times — do to deserve this casual brush-off? She was everywhere and now she's... what? Worthless?

There's also this from Goldberg:

"Respectability politics."

If that's a term of art, it's new to me. I'm seeing it, with a link to another article, in "Senators Need to Stop the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act," a NYT column by Michelle Goldberg. Context:

Some pro-Palestinian demonstrators seem to believe, given the moral enormity of mass death, displacement and starvation in Gaza, that deferring to mainstream Jewish sensitivities means buckling to so-called respectability politics, which whitewash horror in the name of civility. “To the Jewish students, faculty and trustees blocking divestment and urging the violent crackdowns on campus: You threaten everyone’s safety,” said a recent communiqué from the Columbia Law chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a left-wing group that’s been providing legal support to the protesters.

The statement disdains the ethos of nonviolence, quoting Black Panther leader Kwame Ture, formerly Stokely Carmichael: “In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.” Within the movement, I imagine such rhetoric functions as a sign of total commitment, a no-going-back rejection of hollow liberal pieties. Outside of it, to the extent that anyone takes this language seriously, it serves to stoke a raging panic about the protests that both distracts from the war and feeds a growing backlash that threatens academic freedom....

The linked article is "What are the politics of respectability during a genocide?" by Maryam Iqbal in the Columbia Spectator. Excerpt:

"People are saying it feels like we’re sleepwalking off a cliff... The left is kind of despairing and divided and exhausted...."

"When you talk to people outside of politics — maybe you’ve had this experience too — they say, oh, I’m just pretending it’s not happening. I have to block it out for my own mental health.... This is a long, long time that we’re going to be living with this both extreme low energy but extremely existential fight.... A year ago, most Republicans wanted to move on.... And so what happened in between then and now? I mean, part of it, obviously, is the indictments and — I don’t know that it was preordained that he would come out of that with most Republican voters believing that he was a martyr.... There’s people who say, well, I did fine during the Trump years... but... people just forget how scary it often was to have someone so out of control in charge.... He has changed the culture. He has shifted our conception of what’s normal in a way that we might never get back the kind of innocence that many of us enjoyed in 2015 and 2016.... [I]magine what it will be like to see Donald Trump inaugurated again.... I strongly suspect that people won’t be able to say this isn’t who we are. It will manifestly be who we are. And I think people will just turn inward and try to shut it out...."

From "Michelle Goldberg Imagines a Second Trump Inauguration/Sounding the alarm on 'the utter bleakness'" (NYT)(transcript of this audio).

1. "Imagine what it will be like," not would be like — Goldberg is already resigned to Trump's return to the presidency. 

2. "The kind of innocence" — what kind of innocence was that?

"Liberals and leftists have lots of excellent policy ideas, but rarely articulate a plausible vision of the future...."

"It’s easy to see what various parts of the left want to dismantle — capitalism, the carceral state, heteropatriarchy, the nuclear family — and much harder to find a realistic conception of what comes next.... The right has an advantage in appealing to dislocated and atomized people: It doesn’t have to provide a compelling view of the future. All it needs is a romantic conception of the past, to which it can offer the false promise of return.... To compete with them, the left needs beautiful dreams of its own."

Michelle Goldberg writes, in "What’s Driving Former Progressives to the Right?" (NYT).

So the advice to the left is: Find some "beautiful dreams" to replace all that you are trying to destroy or people aren't going to find all that destruction too appealing. 

"Musk appears to have learned the lesson that ardent Zionism can function as an alibi for antisemitism."

"As advertisers fled X last week, he suddenly announced that he was going to ban the pro-Palestinian slogan 'From the river to the sea,' as well as 'decolonization,' a buzzword on the anti-Zionist left. The move made a mockery of the ostensible free speech absolutism that was Musk’s excuse for allowing so much antisemitism on X in the first place. It did nothing to curb overt white nationalists on the site, many of whom had celebrated Musk’s 'actual truth' post. But it was enough to earn him plaudits from some Jewish and Israeli spokespeople...."

 
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "Why on Earth Are Jewish Leaders Praising Elon Musk?" (NYT).

"Part of me shudders to view the unfolding catastrophe in Israel and Gaza through the provincial lens of America’s cancel culture debate."

"In some ways, that debate has now come full circle, because pro-Palestinian voices were being censored long before the phrase 'cancel culture' existed, one reason the left was unwise in recent years to prevaricate about the value of free speech...."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "With War in Israel, the Cancel Culture Debate Comes Full Circle" (NYT).

"The left has always attracted certain people who relish the struggle against oppression primarily for the way it licenses their own cruelty..."

"... they are one reason movements on the left so reliably produce embittered apostates. Plenty of leftists have long fetishized revolutionary violence in poor countries, perhaps as a way of coping with their own ineffectuality. Che Guevara didn’t become a dorm room icon only for his motorcycle and rakish beret."

 
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Massacre in Israel and the Need for a Decent Left" (NYT).

We also shouldn’t underestimate the role of antisemitism in warping people’s moral sentiments.

"NY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has written a defense of Ibram Kendi which is probably the least convincing thing you’ll read today."

"To be clear, I don’t think the problem is with Goldberg, who is a decent writer when she has a meaty story to work on. The problem in this case is that attempting to blame Kendi’s problems on 'the system' just isn’t credible.... If the left wasn’t so driven by fads and celebrity, this wouldn’t have happened. Why wouldn’t it have happened? Because Kendi never would have been given all of that money in the first place. This is the best defense she can come up with. It’s not Kendi’s fault he was unprepared and undisciplined, it’s everyone else’s fault for believing in him.... But Goldberg’s readers just aren’t buying it. There are so many good responses here I’m not sure where to begin...."

Writes John Sexton (at Hot Air)(with lots of quotes from NYT readers).

Here's the Goldberg column: "Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-Raising."