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Indigo Blob: I think institutions like the media -- and certainly science and medicine -- provide substantial, non-zero-sum benefits to society and that this mission has been somewhat compromised in recent years by left-leaning partisanship. Tachikawa: So, Indigo Blob, you’re saying the problem is Democrats, not Republicans trying to destroy precisely those institutions. Indigo Blob: I think these institutions ought to reflect the preferences of their constituents. For example, if public health officials would strongly prioritize "equity" when coming up with a plan to distribute vaccines but the general public would not, they should defer to the public. Tachikawa: you're saying people -- elected officials -- shouldn't do what's moral or for the best, they should do what the voters want them to do, even if it's stupid or bigoted. Indigo Blob: And opening the "gates of hell" on Twitter has at least made the platform more pluralistic. Tachikawa: Oh yes, it's now a big tent with room for all the sex pests to make rape threats and Neo-Nazis to distribute their literature.

NEW COMIC MONDAYS, WEDNESDAYS, AND FRIDAYS AND WHEN THE MOOD STRIKES

I read Nate Silver's essay "Twitter, Elon and the Indigo Blob" and I don't want to say Nate Silver is a big hosehead but Nate Silver is a big hosehead. In the current losing cycle for the Democrats, Silver — and most of the party bigwigs with him — is engaging in the stereotypical "time to join the Republicans on the right" movement of the party. He mentions, using a quote from Damian Linker, the disparaging formulation of "The effort by progressives to take ideological control of institutions within civil society and use those positions to mandate that their moral outlook be adopted throughout the broader culture." Yes, the left is trying to require that institutions and the people within them strive to treat people equally, pursue true justice, and redress past historical wrongs and current structural inequities. HOW DARE THEY.

Nate lets loose with this mealy-mouthed bullshit: "I favor pluralistic institutions over a progressive monoculture." As if progressives have ever pursued a monoculture for the sake of it. Progressives — it's right in the FUCKING NAME, NATE — want to improve the functioning of institutions to bring them in line with this nation's ideals as stated in its founding documents. Remember Martin Luther King's promissory note? Do you understand what he meant when he said America had defaulted on it, but he "refuse[d] to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation"?

When you write, Nate, amigo, when you write that "many of the worst failures of COVID policy — for instance, extended school closures — partly reflected the politicization of these institutions", do you remember who politicized these institutions and when? Do you remember who was President of the United States? Who had the majority in the Senate? Whose media arm was politicizing mask wearing and school closures?

Finally, when you write, "The Old Twitter kind of sucked, especially if you ever had the experience of dissenting from the consensus," has it crossed your mind that maybe it wasn't dissenting from the consensus that got you picked on but your being a butthead? And that maybe being able to handle when random strangers call you a butthead on the internet is the price you pay for being a 21st century pundit? Do you remember what happened to Cicero? You're getting off easy, dude.

The Indigo Blob here is speaking in direct Nate Silver quotes, by the way.