PODCAST: Hexapodia LIV: We Go Off Message with Special Guest Brian Beutler

The SubStackLand community gains another valuable member. We welcome him to the NFL SubStackLand:

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Key Insights:

1. Bing-AI says “Brian Beutler” is pronounced “Bryan Bootler”—that is, rhymes with “lion shooter”, which shows how far political incorrectness has penetrated Silicon Valley…

2. Noah has figured out a solution to his problem of losing the screws to his microphone stand: duct tape…

3. This started with Brad poking Brian on his belief there was a golden age of comity, common purpose, and energy in the left-of-center political sphere back in 2005 to 2008—saying that this misconceived as all mourning for a lost golden age is misconceived…

4. Noah and Brad today welcome Brian to SubStackLand, he having just created a substack and done 16 substantive posts in two weeks, which is a trult amazing rate of production…

5. Brian’s key insight is that since the start of 2019 Democrats have been amazingly, alarmingly, disappointingly timid in not aggressively going after every corner of TrumpWorld for its corruption, and doing so again and again and again…

6. Brian is, in a sense, the quantum-mechanical antiparticle to some combination of Matt Yglesias and David Schor…

7. Brian believes he coined the term “popularism”…

8. Back in 2005-2008 nobody said that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were sabotaging their own party by encouraging Barack Obama to run in the primaries…

9. Judging by results, the current strategy of the Democratic Establishment is doing rather well: a plus three standard-deviation outcome in the 2022 midterms, for example…

10. That midterm result may be because, by our count no fewer than seven of the nine justices had assured senators that Roe v. Wade was “settled law”. And four of those seven then voted to overturn it in Dobbs…

11. Biden really cares about safeguarding democracy, and his actions should all be viewed with that in mind…

12. Hexapodia!

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References:

• Brian Beutler: Off Message SubStack <https://offmessage.net/>

  • Scattered Thoughts On Israel, Hamas, Gaza, And Related Matters: A possibly ill-advised post

  • VIDEO: How Trump Normalization Really Works: Why the political media slept on Trump's call for Mark Milley's death and other baffling decisions

  • Charts To A Gun Fight: How the Fighting Democrats of 2007 became the timid, focus-grouped party of today.

  • Trump Reaches A Fateful Crossroads: We should welcome it, but acknowledge the peril

  • Thursday Thread And AMA: Kind of a lot's happened since the last one

  • "The Most Important Issue In Our Politics": A Q&A with John Harwood on his interview with Joe Biden about threats to democracy

  • Five Thoughts On Karmic McCarthy: For now, we schadenfreude

  • VIDEO: How Profit Motive Distorts The News: And why liberals and Democrats should talk about it

  • The Era Of Hostage Taking And Small Ransoms: Republicans made Ukraine aid the price of avoiding a shutdown. Where does it end?

  • The Democrats' Lost September: You guys awake?

  • Breaking Down The GOP Debate: Reaction chats with Matthew Yglesias and Crooked Media's What A Day podcast

  • Wednesday Debate Thread: Let's watch Republicans be weird and scary together!

  • Baggage Check: Life disclosures, so readers can know me, and where I come from, a little better

  • VIDEO: Why The News Struggles To Say Republicans Are Responsible For The Government Shutdown: And why the public is likely to catch on anyhow

  • Biden Should Work The Media Refs On Impeachment: Everyone knows the impeachment is b.s., so he should say that

  • Welcome to Off Message: Refuge from a world gone mad

• Thomas Babington Macaulay: Horatius at the Bridge <https://englishverse.com/poems/horatius>

• Plutarch: Life of Tiberius Gracchus <https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Tiberius_Gracchus*.html>

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+, of course:

• Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep <https://archive.org/details/fireupondeep00ving_0/mode/1up>

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Lost Past Golden Ages:

Thomas Babington Macaulay: Horatius at the Bridge: 

‘[Then] Romans in Rome’s quarrel Spared neither land nor gold, 
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, In the brave days of old.
Then none was for a party; Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.

Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high, And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction, In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought In the brave days of old…

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Plutarch: Life of Tiberius Gracchus: ‘Formerly the senate itself, out of goodwill, conceded many things to the people, and referred many things to them for deliberation; and the magistrates themselves, even when they had no need of the people, summoned them to assemblies, and communicated with them on public affairs, not wishing them to feel that they were excluded from anything or insulted. But after the people had made the authority of the tribunes too great, and through them had tasted arbitrary power, then indeed there was no longer any room for deference or concession on the part of the senate; but they were forced to fight for everything as for a prize...