This is so spot on. I'm not comfortable with some of the stuff Trump is doing, but these are REALLY BAD people he is fighting and he does have very little time to root them out, reset the ship of state, and hopefully win the majority of the electorate (if the bastards don't steal it again; we know they can). We ARE ALL in the fight of our lives and our children's' lives, these people don't play by the rules and that puts rules followers at a losing disadvantage. And if the Left wins, they will unleash a dystopia that will be so vicious and evil I don't even want to think about it. Pray for our leaders. They are attempting something never attempted before, or at least never succeeded: going from a corrupt empire back to a representative republic. Thank you Sasha, and thanks to Matt as well.
The Taibbi quote captures reality well. The bureaucracy is America's oligarchy, and it is wholly Blue, as it has always been. Republicans are not "in power". The situation remains extremely dire.
The Left is forever punching down while pretending to punch up.
I read your comment and thought, "I wonder how old he is?" Then, I hovered the cursor over you avatar and saw the answer. How convenient. I'm old enough to remember when the bureaucracy wasn't wholly blue, but then I'm much older than you are and "blue" wasn't even a term yet.
Yes, the situation does remain extremely dire. I get the impression that the people who believe that the state should rule the most minute aspects of daily life and the citizenry are unruly masses needing to be controlled are still embedded in the bureaucracy and just biding their time.
F all of the left. They will believe virtually any shaped piece of shit served on a sandwich by the corporate media, elected Democrats, academics, news readers, lefty "thought leaders", etc. it's not that Trump is a God, but he so obviously is more than the personification of ego in a suit. He actually cares about American citizens and the common man. In 2018 it seemed like a minor interest to him. But that just isn't the case. So why would I ever believe a Dem official again without a serious look at his/her past actions and statements? The fact of the matter is that Democrats and corporate Republicans are revolting, cowardly people whose success depends on the failure of hard working, normal (ie - not absurd progressive) Americans and they should be derided into infamy.
A dystopia where Habeas Corpus is thrown in the trash so that people who write op-eds critical of America's client states get thrown in jail? A dystopia where one man can single-handedly jack up the price of everything we need to survive? A dystopia where Congress has no say on whether or not we launch a new major war in the Middle East? A dystopia where the world's richest man is set lose to plunder the private data of every American?
Gosh, I sure hope that we never have to live in THAT reality!
A dystopia where the law is twisted to attack political opponents and steal elections and censor dissent and send the FBI after moms and dads who don't want males in their daughters' locker rooms or porn in their school libraries, and people are terrified of saying what they think lest they lose their jobs or worse. A dystopia where a new technology is injected in to millions on pain of job loss and public shaming, resulting in untold harm and death which the rulers lie about over and over and nobody is held accountable but those who did it to us make millions. A dystopia where millions of people flood into the country, many of whom are criminals and some are terrorists who are likely setting up cells ready to attack. A dystopia where racism is called "equity" and rioting in the cities is called "mostly peaceful protest." A dystopia where people are put under what amounts to house arrest for two years, stripped of all civil rights guaranteed us, and all based on lies. THAT dystopia. Oh wait, it already happened.
I remember 2020 when the opposition told maga voters they would pay for electing DJT. J6 was the answer to their prayers and they exploited it to the hilt.
Next time I expect they won’t even bother with Lawfare
There's a lot of evidence that J6 was a government set up. Hoping the current FBI gets to the bottom of it. And I agree, they won't bother with law fare.
The problem with this response is that every drop of it could be true and it is still not dispositive of anything that *I* just listed. Why are we pretending that one A-hole president smells more floral than the other?
My leftist very blue friends are quite openly saying they wished the Butler,PA shooter was a better marksman. That's speaks volumes as to the depth of their derangement and could care-less about how they got so deranged.
Well, you wouldn't expect a MAGA type to say that, so who else would but Team Blue? On the other hand, MAGA *did* call for hanging Mike Pence, so let's not play the civility game.
MAGA did not call for hanging Mike Pence. "MAGA" is millions of Americans. Some are lunatics. You are trying to smear them all, while not caring at all about the absolute lawlessness of your side.
I’ve followed Woodhouse’s writing and podcasts for several years now. It’s always been one of those “He’s got some really good points but I don’t agree with him on everything” situations. Same with Taibbi, although he has a lot more talent and insight developed over years of seeing through the political and corporate bullshit.
What Woodhouse did in that hit piece speaks to his own character, and it paints an unlovely portrait of a zealot who would stab a friend in the back to score political points. Or maybe Woodhouse was trying to score eyeballs on his pretty mediocre product. In any case, being sometimes right or wrong on complex political issues is just human nature, but being shitty to other people, especially ones who are supposedly friends is just a deep character flaw. Woodhouse has torched his own credibility by waging a misguided ideological purity battle.
Art, I completely agree with your comments about both Leighton and Matt. I don’t agree with them on everything - but I also find Matt does exhibit a lot more writing talent and thoughtful insight. Leighton crossed a line with his hit piece on Matt - and has done himself no favor in the process. I’ll take Matt’s stand-up integrity everyday over Leighton’s slither in the weeds.
Woodhouse's piece is basically yet another regurgitated version of an attack that Taibbi has faced ever since the first Trump administration. I think Taibbi would have been better served to just quickly dismiss it then move on, because I bet it wouldn't have gotten that much attention without his counter reaction. However, I can totally sympathize with his reaction, because facing the same, tired arguments that he has already refuted for the 6,000th time must be incredibly frustrating.
Fair, but for Taibbi he faces regular mischaracterizations of his character and integrity. See, for example, his lawsuit federal court against Rep. Kamloger-Dove for her libel of his character. That is quite recent history. BTW, the case Taibbi filed against Kamloger-Dove has been served. Service was 4/10 which means she, the Defendant, needs to respond (answer, motions, etc.) by about June 9. I will continue to watch the docket. [edited]
I agreed with Woodhouse on a lot and subscribed to him but he lost me with the article he co-wrote and had
Lee Fang post that argued that critiquing Zionism and Jews were very different things. This occurred shortly around the time he left Public. Some here might have opinions that differ from mine, but I was surprised that Woodhouse thought that anyone who disagreed with him was immoral (different words were used, this is from memory). It made me uncomfortable enough to unsubscribe from him. I'm not sure what has happened to Woodhouse, but publicly calling out Matt, who he worked on the twitter files with, is not the same level of discourse as two intellectuals writing about a disagreement. It's very very troubling.
I subscribe to Freddie De Boer for exactly these reasons. I disagree with many of his political underpinnings (he's a socialist and communist), but he argues them persuasively, consistently, and often effectively. He challenges "his side" in almost every post, and while the knee-jerk TDS is often tiresome and lazy, it oddly doesn't really affect the substance of his writing. In other words, of you can crack off the TDS bits, what remains is thought-provoking and compelling.
Yep, Sasha--you, Matt and Glenn are our beacons of journalistic independence.. Long may you run.
And you are also right to note that your readership-- and Matt and Glenn's too-- is comprised of at least as many Liberal/Leftist apostates as it is hard core MAGA supporters.
The term MAGA seems like a contronym, used as an epithet by the totalitarian left and a badge of honor by Trump supporters. Could someone explain the difference between a lapsed leftist and a MAGA supporter? If one voted for President Trump are they by definition MAGA? Must they be registered as a Republican? Does questioning any of Trump's policies make one non-MAGA? Is it just a question of degree of support? Is it just an identity one can assume or discard at will?
My aspirations are to Make America Good (and Healthy) Again. The Rachel Madows, NPRists, PBSists, NYTists have no idea, or run from it, what that means to those who saw their only hope was to vote for Donald Trump.
These are enormously difficult times and I have my go to writers, Sasha, Matt, Elizabeth Nickson, Jeff Childers, Kuntsler, Chris Martenson, Jenna, and plenty of others that keep me mostly in the sane category, when the big picture is not so obvious or yet to be revealed.
To clarify, a bit, I hope: as I see it, there is a large group of people who are done with the Dems, voted for Trump, but are basically political independents at this point. Their support for Trump is more provisional, more least-bad-option, unlike the MAGA supporter who is more firmly in the Trump camp... Not that that precludes them breaking with Trump at certain times over certain issues... and no, MAGA does not have to register Republican, it is an agenda more than it is a party, though most of them no doubt are registered Republicans, i.e., Trump Republicans. Don't forget, MAGA is fighting a two-front war--both against the Dems and against the RINOs (that critical fact is often overlooked/underestimated).
Is MAGA an "identity" that one can assume or discard--of course it is, this isn't Scientology we are talking here, whatever BS you may have heard about is as being a "cult."
Very well stated. And yet the haters lump all together so they can demonize all who dared to not bend a knee and conform to the dictation from the party leaders. And those who dictate can be called...
I tend to believe that MAGA is a derogatory term created by the MSM as a means to denigrate Trump supporters through associating them with the uneducated and backward segment of the population. The left uses it as a weapon, making the right appear dumb while they tout their own sophistication. I am a Trump supporter but am not what one associates with MAGA. Maybe it’s the left’s version of the much used term “woke” by the right but woke is more about ideology than social and education status.
That's it, Pacificus, all sides need to read everything. If Woodhouse just wants to hang at BlueSky he won't see the world whole. --(former yellow-dog Democrat now unaffiliated).
Leighton believes he has a North Star but suffers from end stage TDS so severe that he doesn’t realize his compass is broken. Kind of like Chris Cuomo, who will sound objective when reading from a script and even get you thinking “hey yea maybe he gets it,” but the minute he goes off script he’s like your lesbian aunt, Susan, from Puget Sound, who teaches Feline Transgenderism at Wazzu.
As much as I (a loyal Husky) hate to correct you - WSU (Wazzu) would never teach feline transgenderism. That would be part of the UDub curriculum. WSU’s veterinary science program is quite clear that mammals have only two sexes and they don’t change.
Good piece. I've followed, and mostly enjoyed, Leighton for years, and I've been a subscriber to Racket since close to the beginning. I found Leighton's sniping and moral preening in these pieces to be incredibly cowardly. I've unsubscribed to him for this, and for a similar piece written right before, questioning whether Fire.org "actually cares about Palestinian speech" because they're apparently not as histrionic about that issue — which they do cover, at length — as he believes is necessary.
It should maybe be noted that Leighton was the co-founder of Public News with Michael Shellenberger. Another former Intercept writer, Zaid Jilani (who I also used to quite enjoy, and had done several projects with Woodhouse beforehand) had starting writing at Public briefly, and was then gone without notice. Shortly afterward, he went through a similar angry, unhinged spiral of angrily attacking Taibbi for not covering Israel/Gaza. Zaid also loudly went after plenty of Fire.org and Reason reporters during that time for not covering the issue, or not how he would like. It was beyond petty, and actually made me worried about Zaid's health. Leighton was also gone from the publication he co-founded around this time.
I personally think all of this from Jilani and Woodhouse is about Matt's refusal to jump headlong into the Israel/Palestine issue (see also Briahna Joy Gray's constant cowardly sniping at Matt on Rising): going after Matt Taibbi, Fire, leaving Public, and the rest. I for one am quite happy that Matt hasn't devoted 95% of his coverage to that issue, like most "dissident left" outlets have. It's wildly complex and tragic, but almost everybody that covers it seems to think that their moralistic activism is a fine replacement for reporting facts.
Leighton gives away the game in the quotes from his new piece you provided. If Leighton is "roughly the 6,000th" person to attack Matt for what he's not covering, then those 6,000 people must be right, right? ("6,000 Matt Taibbi Haters Can't Be Wrong!") In the latest piece, he makes it a point to separate Matt from Glenn, because he thinks Glenn is righteous, and Matt has fallen, as if the two men should share one brain and not have different opinions, or different beats. In other words (Leighton's words): "Matt, conform! Me and the 6,000 other people, including Zaid Jilani and Briahna Joy Gray have decided what the proper path for all righteous reporters is, and you are hereby expelled from the flock."
For what it's worth, I still consider myself "liberal," even on the "old/labor left," but I have my own opinions about nearly every subject, that don't coincide neatly with any party or group, and I despise high-school-peer-pressure-slam-book behavior from everyone. I quite enjoy the writing at Racket, and the America This Week podcast, and find Matt to be honest and consistent with himself, and I don't care what anyone says about him.
Unfortunately, the truth is, once you reach my advanced age of almost 88 you look back on things you thought were right when you were 30 or even 40 and discover how wrong you were. Believe me, once you realize how wrong you were it really does humble you.
First, thank you for the context and also for your thoughts on this, which I noticed your expressing elsewhere too, with emphasis on the pressure for Matt--not to report, but to conform.
I'd like to mention, regarding this "wildly complex and tragic" Israel/Palestine issue, that I muse over having never researched it with success. No amount of reading on the topic brings me to a clean opinion. I accomplish nothing more than seeing the argument from one side and being fully convinced, then hearing the counterargument and feeling equally persuaded; and it just goes back in time, with each side presenting its lists of attacks and abuses, and insisting to take revenge on the past. Add in the power differential, the political corruption, the innocent civilians with their sometimes quite innocent wishes, and I'm quickly left thinking that any serious opinion on the matter must reflect enormous erudition as well as acceptance that this is "95%" of what you talk about, now.
Anyway, all this just to say that when Matt says he doesn't know anything about this conflict, I find it more than plausible. And even if he, being Matt, has privately figured this thing out for himself, unlike me, being nobody; his opinion would surely not fall neat and clean into the black and white boxes of those who feel entitled to dictate their purity positions. The more I think about it, the more grateful I am that he just keeps his mouth shut on this and declines to feel obligated with an authoritative opinion, or even any opinion, about every damn thing.
Great comment, and I agree with your assessment of one of the most complex and thorny topics in geopolitical history. Matt has written a bit about Israel and Palestine in the past, which is what I think makes Zaid Jilani and Leighton Woodhouse so angry about his non-coverage of it now.
The problem with covering the conflict now is that we’re in the post-moral clarity/ideological purity era and the rules have changed. The young, very online masses, who seem to want total message control for their entire cohort jumped headlong into it in a similar way that they did with Black Lives Matter and some other recent conflicts that clearly turned into moral panics, with near-total peer pressure, rather quickly. And that meant some rather unsavory behavior like some celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks and/or Hamas and Hezbollah, denying atrocities, calling for the destruction of all of western civilization (through a settler/colonial lens), some rank antisemitism, taking over school buildings and libraries and shutting down roads and bridges.
The “old left” (who I’d say Jilani, Woodhouse and Taibbi all belong to, or at one point did), had never been on the same message as the social media activist youth before. These old left types, trying to collaborate in a coherent way with a youth group who doesn’t just want the war to end, but for Israel and all “zionists” to be possibly destroyed left them in a tricky spot that freaked older people and most normies out, in a massive way. Norm Finkelstein, who’s been very a vocal academic critic of Israel for years and knows his stuff — but comes from a fairly radical Chomsky/Zinn tradition — pleaded with a group of campus protestors to not use the “from the river to the sea” rhetoric, since it has different meanings to different people, and it’s bad messaging. They booed him off the stage and chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” at him as he walked away. That moment sums this morass up to me.
Taibbi not wanting to be shamed by activist reporters to wade into this utter chaos is more than respectable, and brave. How do you unscramble a complex issue, that’s been reduced to simplistic TikTok messaging by so many? He shouldn’t have to take part, and his readers shouldn’t be forced to read it. If his “friends” want to force Taibbi to conform to their messaging — and say he’s scared of his readers, as if they know what’s in his head (and his readers’) — they’re not his friends at all.
Thank you for defending Matt Taibbi’s talent, integrity and enormous value as a person, a writer, and above all a courageous opponent of authoritarian elitists. I know for a fact that his readership does not consist solely of “conservatives,” because I am one of his paid subscribers. And in addition, I know that some of us are complex enough to be “Trump supporters” because we agree with most of Trump’s chosen policies while at the same time not identifying as “conservatives.” It actually shouldn’t be surprising that a president who is not a conservative attracts many Americans who are not either.
I'm with you, Sandra. I'm not comfortable in either of the right or left camps. In fact, I think of political brands as being archaic in today's world. I pursue issues from as neutral a position as I can and try not to get roped into the "it's all or nothing" attitudes some (actually many) want me to subscribe to. My dad, an avowed John Birch Society acolate, used to call me "quishy" for trying to see both sides of an argument. I call it trying to reason out the best path forward for complex issues. It's one reason why I'm a subsriber to Matt, Glenn, and Bari's (as well as Sasha's) substacks. Their perspectives are always thought-provoking. God save us from the pap the mainstreat media dish out from both sides of the aisle.
The felt need for ideological purity prevents those of us who share policy preferences from forming and sustaining coalitions for the purpose of legislating those policies. So many people prefer the instant emotional gratification of devaluing others over the self discipline required to work together towards common goals.
Yes. The hard part today is when it comes time to vote. If one votes by party line its easy ( not something I endorse but that's just my opinion). Otherwise one must look at the various key issues and choose one candidate or the other knowing you are not going to be happy with respect to every issue. It's a balancing act. In my opinion that's why the Dems and their leftist benefactors had to go the trump is hitler route to distract voters from weighing and balancing issues and what their candidates would do if they got the reigns of power. And every time trump says or does something I don't like i remember what would have been if madame veep had won. And I sleep just fine at night.
Sleep tight! (Unless you need Medicaid, or shop at Wal-Mart, or have invested in one if Trump’s schemecoins, or if you looked at an ICE agent sideways!)
As part of my husband's and my self-education over the past eight years, as we've been trying to figure out what the heck has been going on in this country while the people slept, we came across Peter Robinson interviewing Yoram Hazony. Hazony has written the book Conservatism: A Rediscovery. This book is the best delivery of the history and deep-level explanation of Conservatism we have heard yet--a real education in what this country is supposed to be about. Highly recommend.
Woodhouse wrote a piece that poses and masks as thoughtful and respectful and polite. It's not. it's subversive innuendo that feigns respect. It's undermining and passive aggressive. It's the classic move of the TDS "pearl-clutches". "well I never!"
"we have civility, respect and decorum!"
Fuck all that grinfuck noise. Just fuck it.
Matt responded in more blunt fashion. btw, Matt refers to "cunts" in the general form of liars and manipulators of narrative. Matt is just plain spoken with a lot of colorful metaphor and animal adjectives.
He’s buried in semantics. We all know exactly what Taibbi refers to and why he deploys that deplorable word that the low born Brits love and use to perfection
I can’t agree with Matt that essentially anyone in US soil has a guaranteed right to free speech. That’s a protected right given to CITIZENS, not legal guests of our country. But I respect he is completely upfront about his free speech absolutism, and that he applies his standard openly to all situations.
The Constitution's rights apply to citizen and noncitizen alike, but there is no "right to be in America". These America-haters have a right to express their hatred, and we have a right to boot them out of our country.
This seems to be exactly right--in the legal sense. And I like a lot of what the Trump people are doing. But actually deciding to remove legal residents because of their speech is a c*** move, if I may say so myself. I could be persuaded into exceptions on that, but I want clear, solid reasons and evidence before we get used to the authorities just manhandling legal aliens off the streets into some no man's land of rightsless detention--because of something they legally said.
Sasha you have become one of my favorite Substack contributors. You have the ability to cut to the meat of things.
I listened to Mr. Woodhouse several months ago on a podcast with LEE Fang. Once was enough for me as they both spoke exactly like the smug, sanctimonious busybodies from the corporate media that have been scolding the rest of us for years. Why you might wonder? Well they opined it was because we are uneducated bigots who need to be schooled in the moral virtues of their ideology.
His post you pasted said it all, Matt should wise up because so many others have criticized him.
Well welcome to an alternative universe woodhouse where freedom lovers aren’t interested in group think. Who are not interested in popularity contests or propaganda protests. who are not swayed by bully tactics or mean girl tweets to ridicule those they view as lesser than they are because we aren’t blindly following the cool kids. We are labeled independent for a reason.
Of all the things one could reasonably accuse Matt Taibi of, lack of journalistic integrity is not just at the bottom of the list, it's entirely missing from it. He stands out in that regard against the vast majority of people who call themselves journalists.
I never heard of Woodhouse before either, but knowing now that THIS is his take on Matt tells me that I have no reason to take seriously anything else he has to say.
The problem for the Left is they see everything through the prism of us versus them, as Ms Stone opines.
This attitude is what is causing their downfall.
Mr. Taibbi is not a cheerleader for any particular camp or team. He is an objective journalist who focuses on the truth as well as uncensored expression and thought.
So long as the Left and much of the Democratic Party takes the “ if you are not with me, then you were against me” view, they will continue to decline and lose relevance.
I will not pretend to know what Woodhouse’s problem is. Maybe it’s envy, maybe it’s ideology - not sure that it matters. Used to be a paid LW subscriber (to LW’s credit, he did work on the Twitter files).
One day I was critical of something LW wrote, and I got a surprising strong retort; when it happened a second time, I stopped following him. For what it’s worth, the comments that responded to my initial comment, were almost entirely in my favor.
The discussions between Taibbi & Kirn are the closest thing to normalcy on the internet. Taibbi should just shrug off Woodhouse, and move on - this was no “et tu Brute”. Brute tripped and fell onto his own dagger (maybe he was just high).
For what it's worth, Leighton appears to be a very thin-skinned individual. I’ve never even heard of the guy, but wrote what I deemed to be an intelligent/respectful response to his article…and the dude BLOCKED me…
For posterity, here’s what I wrote:
"Big fan of both Taibbi and Greenwald…both of them make me question my own tribal conclusions, encourage me to look deeper into topics my surface-level perceptions often get wrong. I don’t agree with everything they say, but both are intelligent, insightful, and in my mind at least, are clearly operating in good faith. I’m happy to be a paid subscriber to both, along with a handful of others.
I don’t follow you. Perhaps I will, as I’m interested to understand where your ire comes from. It’s nothing I haven’t read or considered before. On the surface, it just seems very petty with a tinge of jealousy. I’ve read and listened to Matt for a few years now and while it’s possible I’ve missed it, I don’t recall him ever mentioning you. He typically gives other journalists the benefit of the doubt. As a reader, I often find his objectivity on that front to be quite frustrating.
Anyways, you’ve accused him of being a grifter…I know him NOT to be that. In return, he’s called you a cunt. The verdict is out on that one. I’ll dig deeper and form my own conclusion. My initial impression, based on your article, is that it’s highly plausible that you are indeed a cunt."
This hit piece by unknown Woodhouse is typical of our fascist government-within-a-government that endlessly promotes the illusion that the nation is split 50-50 between irreconcilable camps based on "principles." Based on this perfectly illusory vision, the people's rising alarm at the loss of their wealth, their traditions, their human rights, their future, their safety, can be explained away as impossible to do anything about; owing to this bogus gridlock. Behind this smokescreen the vicious criminal cabal that rules the nation, and loots its wealth, is free to ruin the country like any mafia enterprise. Mr. Cunt's hit piece is just another example of a sub genre of phony journalism deployed to fellate the deep state master by trying to exile Matt's truly honest voice and un-person him like all good fascisti do. They never argue the issue, instead they dictate to the faint at heart who it is safe to listen to and whom they must reject upon threat of banishment.
$40T in debt, with the rich getting ever richer. That is not an accident. Plus when we inflate our way out, the rich will own assets that keep pace with inflation.
This is so spot on. I'm not comfortable with some of the stuff Trump is doing, but these are REALLY BAD people he is fighting and he does have very little time to root them out, reset the ship of state, and hopefully win the majority of the electorate (if the bastards don't steal it again; we know they can). We ARE ALL in the fight of our lives and our children's' lives, these people don't play by the rules and that puts rules followers at a losing disadvantage. And if the Left wins, they will unleash a dystopia that will be so vicious and evil I don't even want to think about it. Pray for our leaders. They are attempting something never attempted before, or at least never succeeded: going from a corrupt empire back to a representative republic. Thank you Sasha, and thanks to Matt as well.
The Taibbi quote captures reality well. The bureaucracy is America's oligarchy, and it is wholly Blue, as it has always been. Republicans are not "in power". The situation remains extremely dire.
The Left is forever punching down while pretending to punch up.
I read your comment and thought, "I wonder how old he is?" Then, I hovered the cursor over you avatar and saw the answer. How convenient. I'm old enough to remember when the bureaucracy wasn't wholly blue, but then I'm much older than you are and "blue" wasn't even a term yet.
Yes, the situation does remain extremely dire. I get the impression that the people who believe that the state should rule the most minute aspects of daily life and the citizenry are unruly masses needing to be controlled are still embedded in the bureaucracy and just biding their time.
exactement!
Hear, hear! Well said!
Who is Leighton Woodhouse?
I'm glad I don't know.
Someone worried about a few thousand comments in a world of billions.
F all of the left. They will believe virtually any shaped piece of shit served on a sandwich by the corporate media, elected Democrats, academics, news readers, lefty "thought leaders", etc. it's not that Trump is a God, but he so obviously is more than the personification of ego in a suit. He actually cares about American citizens and the common man. In 2018 it seemed like a minor interest to him. But that just isn't the case. So why would I ever believe a Dem official again without a serious look at his/her past actions and statements? The fact of the matter is that Democrats and corporate Republicans are revolting, cowardly people whose success depends on the failure of hard working, normal (ie - not absurd progressive) Americans and they should be derided into infamy.
A dystopia where Habeas Corpus is thrown in the trash so that people who write op-eds critical of America's client states get thrown in jail? A dystopia where one man can single-handedly jack up the price of everything we need to survive? A dystopia where Congress has no say on whether or not we launch a new major war in the Middle East? A dystopia where the world's richest man is set lose to plunder the private data of every American?
Gosh, I sure hope that we never have to live in THAT reality!
A dystopia where the law is twisted to attack political opponents and steal elections and censor dissent and send the FBI after moms and dads who don't want males in their daughters' locker rooms or porn in their school libraries, and people are terrified of saying what they think lest they lose their jobs or worse. A dystopia where a new technology is injected in to millions on pain of job loss and public shaming, resulting in untold harm and death which the rulers lie about over and over and nobody is held accountable but those who did it to us make millions. A dystopia where millions of people flood into the country, many of whom are criminals and some are terrorists who are likely setting up cells ready to attack. A dystopia where racism is called "equity" and rioting in the cities is called "mostly peaceful protest." A dystopia where people are put under what amounts to house arrest for two years, stripped of all civil rights guaranteed us, and all based on lies. THAT dystopia. Oh wait, it already happened.
And throw trespassers without due process in DC jails like they were in a third world country
Lie about everything J6
Approve of ‘mostly peaceful’ arsonists and tearing down statues
Arresting grandmothers who stand in front of PP with a Bible
The dystopian ideology is here
Lynn, 1000 likes and an excellent takedown of delusional Snape. Well done!
And if these people get power again, they won't be nearly so nice.
I remember 2020 when the opposition told maga voters they would pay for electing DJT. J6 was the answer to their prayers and they exploited it to the hilt.
Next time I expect they won’t even bother with Lawfare
There's a lot of evidence that J6 was a government set up. Hoping the current FBI gets to the bottom of it. And I agree, they won't bother with law fare.
Snape is a troll. Responding to him will not educate him, nor persuade him. It will get you a reply from him (it?). He trolls to get under your skin.
Also, if you check his porofile, he has a serious case of Taibbi Hemorrhoids.
The problem with this response is that every drop of it could be true and it is still not dispositive of anything that *I* just listed. Why are we pretending that one A-hole president smells more floral than the other?
My leftist very blue friends are quite openly saying they wished the Butler,PA shooter was a better marksman. That's speaks volumes as to the depth of their derangement and could care-less about how they got so deranged.
Snape is a troll. He is incapable of education and is unpersuadable. I'd recommend ignoring him.
Leftists require body counts to be effective.
Well, you wouldn't expect a MAGA type to say that, so who else would but Team Blue? On the other hand, MAGA *did* call for hanging Mike Pence, so let's not play the civility game.
MAGA did not call for hanging Mike Pence. "MAGA" is millions of Americans. Some are lunatics. You are trying to smear them all, while not caring at all about the absolute lawlessness of your side.
You are right.
Calm down.
Your malicious misinformation is not swaying anyone..
“Ohh my heavens!! That Awful Awful Man and his ghastly followers!!” (Clutches pearls)
Action is always uncomfortable.
I’ve followed Woodhouse’s writing and podcasts for several years now. It’s always been one of those “He’s got some really good points but I don’t agree with him on everything” situations. Same with Taibbi, although he has a lot more talent and insight developed over years of seeing through the political and corporate bullshit.
What Woodhouse did in that hit piece speaks to his own character, and it paints an unlovely portrait of a zealot who would stab a friend in the back to score political points. Or maybe Woodhouse was trying to score eyeballs on his pretty mediocre product. In any case, being sometimes right or wrong on complex political issues is just human nature, but being shitty to other people, especially ones who are supposedly friends is just a deep character flaw. Woodhouse has torched his own credibility by waging a misguided ideological purity battle.
Art, I completely agree with your comments about both Leighton and Matt. I don’t agree with them on everything - but I also find Matt does exhibit a lot more writing talent and thoughtful insight. Leighton crossed a line with his hit piece on Matt - and has done himself no favor in the process. I’ll take Matt’s stand-up integrity everyday over Leighton’s slither in the weeds.
"Leighton’s slither in the weeds"--I wish I'd thought of that. It's perfect.
" I don’t agree with them on everything"
Anything in the last 3-5 years you'd care to point to of Taibbi's work that you disagree with?
Woodhouse's piece is basically yet another regurgitated version of an attack that Taibbi has faced ever since the first Trump administration. I think Taibbi would have been better served to just quickly dismiss it then move on, because I bet it wouldn't have gotten that much attention without his counter reaction. However, I can totally sympathize with his reaction, because facing the same, tired arguments that he has already refuted for the 6,000th time must be incredibly frustrating.
Fair, but for Taibbi he faces regular mischaracterizations of his character and integrity. See, for example, his lawsuit federal court against Rep. Kamloger-Dove for her libel of his character. That is quite recent history. BTW, the case Taibbi filed against Kamloger-Dove has been served. Service was 4/10 which means she, the Defendant, needs to respond (answer, motions, etc.) by about June 9. I will continue to watch the docket. [edited]
I agreed with Woodhouse on a lot and subscribed to him but he lost me with the article he co-wrote and had
Lee Fang post that argued that critiquing Zionism and Jews were very different things. This occurred shortly around the time he left Public. Some here might have opinions that differ from mine, but I was surprised that Woodhouse thought that anyone who disagreed with him was immoral (different words were used, this is from memory). It made me uncomfortable enough to unsubscribe from him. I'm not sure what has happened to Woodhouse, but publicly calling out Matt, who he worked on the twitter files with, is not the same level of discourse as two intellectuals writing about a disagreement. It's very very troubling.
Woodhouse: "Taibbi, you're a sellout and a whore pandering to savages!"
Taibbi: "Well then, FU."
Woodhouse: *gasp* "Well, I never! The impudence!"
😆
I could vision this and it made me feel better.
I imagine Woodhouse's reply using the voice of Margaret Dumont for the full effect.
you are on a roll
I disagree with Matt on deportations. I disagree with him a lot on that actually.
But I appreciate Matt 90% of the time and agree with him that Woodhouse is a . . . well, you know.
AH HA! So you're a Secret Socialist! Just as we always suspected.
☺️
I subscribe to Freddie De Boer for exactly these reasons. I disagree with many of his political underpinnings (he's a socialist and communist), but he argues them persuasively, consistently, and often effectively. He challenges "his side" in almost every post, and while the knee-jerk TDS is often tiresome and lazy, it oddly doesn't really affect the substance of his writing. In other words, of you can crack off the TDS bits, what remains is thought-provoking and compelling.
Freddie is brilliant, but I had to cancel over his behavior in the comments (This was a while back). I am going to buy his new book, however.
Plus, he’s not a great writer like Matt is. Not even close.
Yep, Sasha--you, Matt and Glenn are our beacons of journalistic independence.. Long may you run.
And you are also right to note that your readership-- and Matt and Glenn's too-- is comprised of at least as many Liberal/Leftist apostates as it is hard core MAGA supporters.
The term MAGA seems like a contronym, used as an epithet by the totalitarian left and a badge of honor by Trump supporters. Could someone explain the difference between a lapsed leftist and a MAGA supporter? If one voted for President Trump are they by definition MAGA? Must they be registered as a Republican? Does questioning any of Trump's policies make one non-MAGA? Is it just a question of degree of support? Is it just an identity one can assume or discard at will?
My aspirations are to Make America Good (and Healthy) Again. The Rachel Madows, NPRists, PBSists, NYTists have no idea, or run from it, what that means to those who saw their only hope was to vote for Donald Trump.
These are enormously difficult times and I have my go to writers, Sasha, Matt, Elizabeth Nickson, Jeff Childers, Kuntsler, Chris Martenson, Jenna, and plenty of others that keep me mostly in the sane category, when the big picture is not so obvious or yet to be revealed.
Music helps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJa6MdTNm0k
Amen and Amen and well said.
To clarify, a bit, I hope: as I see it, there is a large group of people who are done with the Dems, voted for Trump, but are basically political independents at this point. Their support for Trump is more provisional, more least-bad-option, unlike the MAGA supporter who is more firmly in the Trump camp... Not that that precludes them breaking with Trump at certain times over certain issues... and no, MAGA does not have to register Republican, it is an agenda more than it is a party, though most of them no doubt are registered Republicans, i.e., Trump Republicans. Don't forget, MAGA is fighting a two-front war--both against the Dems and against the RINOs (that critical fact is often overlooked/underestimated).
Is MAGA an "identity" that one can assume or discard--of course it is, this isn't Scientology we are talking here, whatever BS you may have heard about is as being a "cult."
Hope that helps.
Very well stated. And yet the haters lump all together so they can demonize all who dared to not bend a knee and conform to the dictation from the party leaders. And those who dictate can be called...
I tend to believe that MAGA is a derogatory term created by the MSM as a means to denigrate Trump supporters through associating them with the uneducated and backward segment of the population. The left uses it as a weapon, making the right appear dumb while they tout their own sophistication. I am a Trump supporter but am not what one associates with MAGA. Maybe it’s the left’s version of the much used term “woke” by the right but woke is more about ideology than social and education status.
Thank you Doctor Lawyer. I constantly seek clarity on your point but never get an answer.
That's it, Pacificus, all sides need to read everything. If Woodhouse just wants to hang at BlueSky he won't see the world whole. --(former yellow-dog Democrat now unaffiliated).
Leighton believes he has a North Star but suffers from end stage TDS so severe that he doesn’t realize his compass is broken. Kind of like Chris Cuomo, who will sound objective when reading from a script and even get you thinking “hey yea maybe he gets it,” but the minute he goes off script he’s like your lesbian aunt, Susan, from Puget Sound, who teaches Feline Transgenderism at Wazzu.
There’s no known cure.
"but the minute he goes off script he’s like your lesbian aunt, Susan, from Puget Sound, who teaches Feline Transgenderism at Wazzu."
I salute you - that's just an awesome line.
As much as I (a loyal Husky) hate to correct you - WSU (Wazzu) would never teach feline transgenderism. That would be part of the UDub curriculum. WSU’s veterinary science program is quite clear that mammals have only two sexes and they don’t change.
Transfeliphobe, I see.
Thanks for that one! Best of the day… so far.
Good piece. I've followed, and mostly enjoyed, Leighton for years, and I've been a subscriber to Racket since close to the beginning. I found Leighton's sniping and moral preening in these pieces to be incredibly cowardly. I've unsubscribed to him for this, and for a similar piece written right before, questioning whether Fire.org "actually cares about Palestinian speech" because they're apparently not as histrionic about that issue — which they do cover, at length — as he believes is necessary.
It should maybe be noted that Leighton was the co-founder of Public News with Michael Shellenberger. Another former Intercept writer, Zaid Jilani (who I also used to quite enjoy, and had done several projects with Woodhouse beforehand) had starting writing at Public briefly, and was then gone without notice. Shortly afterward, he went through a similar angry, unhinged spiral of angrily attacking Taibbi for not covering Israel/Gaza. Zaid also loudly went after plenty of Fire.org and Reason reporters during that time for not covering the issue, or not how he would like. It was beyond petty, and actually made me worried about Zaid's health. Leighton was also gone from the publication he co-founded around this time.
I personally think all of this from Jilani and Woodhouse is about Matt's refusal to jump headlong into the Israel/Palestine issue (see also Briahna Joy Gray's constant cowardly sniping at Matt on Rising): going after Matt Taibbi, Fire, leaving Public, and the rest. I for one am quite happy that Matt hasn't devoted 95% of his coverage to that issue, like most "dissident left" outlets have. It's wildly complex and tragic, but almost everybody that covers it seems to think that their moralistic activism is a fine replacement for reporting facts.
Leighton gives away the game in the quotes from his new piece you provided. If Leighton is "roughly the 6,000th" person to attack Matt for what he's not covering, then those 6,000 people must be right, right? ("6,000 Matt Taibbi Haters Can't Be Wrong!") In the latest piece, he makes it a point to separate Matt from Glenn, because he thinks Glenn is righteous, and Matt has fallen, as if the two men should share one brain and not have different opinions, or different beats. In other words (Leighton's words): "Matt, conform! Me and the 6,000 other people, including Zaid Jilani and Briahna Joy Gray have decided what the proper path for all righteous reporters is, and you are hereby expelled from the flock."
For what it's worth, I still consider myself "liberal," even on the "old/labor left," but I have my own opinions about nearly every subject, that don't coincide neatly with any party or group, and I despise high-school-peer-pressure-slam-book behavior from everyone. I quite enjoy the writing at Racket, and the America This Week podcast, and find Matt to be honest and consistent with himself, and I don't care what anyone says about him.
Unfortunately, the truth is, once you reach my advanced age of almost 88 you look back on things you thought were right when you were 30 or even 40 and discover how wrong you were. Believe me, once you realize how wrong you were it really does humble you.
First, thank you for the context and also for your thoughts on this, which I noticed your expressing elsewhere too, with emphasis on the pressure for Matt--not to report, but to conform.
I'd like to mention, regarding this "wildly complex and tragic" Israel/Palestine issue, that I muse over having never researched it with success. No amount of reading on the topic brings me to a clean opinion. I accomplish nothing more than seeing the argument from one side and being fully convinced, then hearing the counterargument and feeling equally persuaded; and it just goes back in time, with each side presenting its lists of attacks and abuses, and insisting to take revenge on the past. Add in the power differential, the political corruption, the innocent civilians with their sometimes quite innocent wishes, and I'm quickly left thinking that any serious opinion on the matter must reflect enormous erudition as well as acceptance that this is "95%" of what you talk about, now.
Anyway, all this just to say that when Matt says he doesn't know anything about this conflict, I find it more than plausible. And even if he, being Matt, has privately figured this thing out for himself, unlike me, being nobody; his opinion would surely not fall neat and clean into the black and white boxes of those who feel entitled to dictate their purity positions. The more I think about it, the more grateful I am that he just keeps his mouth shut on this and declines to feel obligated with an authoritative opinion, or even any opinion, about every damn thing.
Great comment, and I agree with your assessment of one of the most complex and thorny topics in geopolitical history. Matt has written a bit about Israel and Palestine in the past, which is what I think makes Zaid Jilani and Leighton Woodhouse so angry about his non-coverage of it now.
The problem with covering the conflict now is that we’re in the post-moral clarity/ideological purity era and the rules have changed. The young, very online masses, who seem to want total message control for their entire cohort jumped headlong into it in a similar way that they did with Black Lives Matter and some other recent conflicts that clearly turned into moral panics, with near-total peer pressure, rather quickly. And that meant some rather unsavory behavior like some celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks and/or Hamas and Hezbollah, denying atrocities, calling for the destruction of all of western civilization (through a settler/colonial lens), some rank antisemitism, taking over school buildings and libraries and shutting down roads and bridges.
The “old left” (who I’d say Jilani, Woodhouse and Taibbi all belong to, or at one point did), had never been on the same message as the social media activist youth before. These old left types, trying to collaborate in a coherent way with a youth group who doesn’t just want the war to end, but for Israel and all “zionists” to be possibly destroyed left them in a tricky spot that freaked older people and most normies out, in a massive way. Norm Finkelstein, who’s been very a vocal academic critic of Israel for years and knows his stuff — but comes from a fairly radical Chomsky/Zinn tradition — pleaded with a group of campus protestors to not use the “from the river to the sea” rhetoric, since it has different meanings to different people, and it’s bad messaging. They booed him off the stage and chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” at him as he walked away. That moment sums this morass up to me.
Taibbi not wanting to be shamed by activist reporters to wade into this utter chaos is more than respectable, and brave. How do you unscramble a complex issue, that’s been reduced to simplistic TikTok messaging by so many? He shouldn’t have to take part, and his readers shouldn’t be forced to read it. If his “friends” want to force Taibbi to conform to their messaging — and say he’s scared of his readers, as if they know what’s in his head (and his readers’) — they’re not his friends at all.
Thank you for defending Matt Taibbi’s talent, integrity and enormous value as a person, a writer, and above all a courageous opponent of authoritarian elitists. I know for a fact that his readership does not consist solely of “conservatives,” because I am one of his paid subscribers. And in addition, I know that some of us are complex enough to be “Trump supporters” because we agree with most of Trump’s chosen policies while at the same time not identifying as “conservatives.” It actually shouldn’t be surprising that a president who is not a conservative attracts many Americans who are not either.
I'm with you, Sandra. I'm not comfortable in either of the right or left camps. In fact, I think of political brands as being archaic in today's world. I pursue issues from as neutral a position as I can and try not to get roped into the "it's all or nothing" attitudes some (actually many) want me to subscribe to. My dad, an avowed John Birch Society acolate, used to call me "quishy" for trying to see both sides of an argument. I call it trying to reason out the best path forward for complex issues. It's one reason why I'm a subsriber to Matt, Glenn, and Bari's (as well as Sasha's) substacks. Their perspectives are always thought-provoking. God save us from the pap the mainstreat media dish out from both sides of the aisle.
Thanks for your reply!
The felt need for ideological purity prevents those of us who share policy preferences from forming and sustaining coalitions for the purpose of legislating those policies. So many people prefer the instant emotional gratification of devaluing others over the self discipline required to work together towards common goals.
Yes. The hard part today is when it comes time to vote. If one votes by party line its easy ( not something I endorse but that's just my opinion). Otherwise one must look at the various key issues and choose one candidate or the other knowing you are not going to be happy with respect to every issue. It's a balancing act. In my opinion that's why the Dems and their leftist benefactors had to go the trump is hitler route to distract voters from weighing and balancing issues and what their candidates would do if they got the reigns of power. And every time trump says or does something I don't like i remember what would have been if madame veep had won. And I sleep just fine at night.
Sleep tight! (Unless you need Medicaid, or shop at Wal-Mart, or have invested in one if Trump’s schemecoins, or if you looked at an ICE agent sideways!)
Ideological Purity = Pol Pot
As part of my husband's and my self-education over the past eight years, as we've been trying to figure out what the heck has been going on in this country while the people slept, we came across Peter Robinson interviewing Yoram Hazony. Hazony has written the book Conservatism: A Rediscovery. This book is the best delivery of the history and deep-level explanation of Conservatism we have heard yet--a real education in what this country is supposed to be about. Highly recommend.
Thanks! I appreciate the reference.
And thanks also to you! I wish I had said this myself.
Woodhouse wrote a piece that poses and masks as thoughtful and respectful and polite. It's not. it's subversive innuendo that feigns respect. It's undermining and passive aggressive. It's the classic move of the TDS "pearl-clutches". "well I never!"
"we have civility, respect and decorum!"
Fuck all that grinfuck noise. Just fuck it.
Matt responded in more blunt fashion. btw, Matt refers to "cunts" in the general form of liars and manipulators of narrative. Matt is just plain spoken with a lot of colorful metaphor and animal adjectives.
Matt’s use of the word “cunt”, I believe, is of the British meaning, not the American meaning.
This being America, it might be a good idea to find a less-disgusting term.
This being America he nailed it.
Twat?
That’s not bad.
It could be regional. I didn't think there was anything odd in his use of the term, but, unless I'm mistaken, I believe we are both from New Jersey.
He’s buried in semantics. We all know exactly what Taibbi refers to and why he deploys that deplorable word that the low born Brits love and use to perfection
Right. As shit people yes.
I can’t agree with Matt that essentially anyone in US soil has a guaranteed right to free speech. That’s a protected right given to CITIZENS, not legal guests of our country. But I respect he is completely upfront about his free speech absolutism, and that he applies his standard openly to all situations.
The Constitution's rights apply to citizen and noncitizen alike, but there is no "right to be in America". These America-haters have a right to express their hatred, and we have a right to boot them out of our country.
This seems to be exactly right--in the legal sense. And I like a lot of what the Trump people are doing. But actually deciding to remove legal residents because of their speech is a c*** move, if I may say so myself. I could be persuaded into exceptions on that, but I want clear, solid reasons and evidence before we get used to the authorities just manhandling legal aliens off the streets into some no man's land of rightsless detention--because of something they legally said.
Legal residents chose NOT to be citizens. Which is their right. But it does render them vulnerable.
Ah, Republicans. Their party can put on a new coat of paint via Trump, but in the end, they are just the same old brownshirts they have always been.
Sasha you have become one of my favorite Substack contributors. You have the ability to cut to the meat of things.
I listened to Mr. Woodhouse several months ago on a podcast with LEE Fang. Once was enough for me as they both spoke exactly like the smug, sanctimonious busybodies from the corporate media that have been scolding the rest of us for years. Why you might wonder? Well they opined it was because we are uneducated bigots who need to be schooled in the moral virtues of their ideology.
His post you pasted said it all, Matt should wise up because so many others have criticized him.
Well welcome to an alternative universe woodhouse where freedom lovers aren’t interested in group think. Who are not interested in popularity contests or propaganda protests. who are not swayed by bully tactics or mean girl tweets to ridicule those they view as lesser than they are because we aren’t blindly following the cool kids. We are labeled independent for a reason.
So well said Deidre!!
Of all the things one could reasonably accuse Matt Taibi of, lack of journalistic integrity is not just at the bottom of the list, it's entirely missing from it. He stands out in that regard against the vast majority of people who call themselves journalists.
I never heard of Woodhouse before either, but knowing now that THIS is his take on Matt tells me that I have no reason to take seriously anything else he has to say.
I completely agree. Integrity is the #1 reason I respect Matt.
The problem for the Left is they see everything through the prism of us versus them, as Ms Stone opines.
This attitude is what is causing their downfall.
Mr. Taibbi is not a cheerleader for any particular camp or team. He is an objective journalist who focuses on the truth as well as uncensored expression and thought.
So long as the Left and much of the Democratic Party takes the “ if you are not with me, then you were against me” view, they will continue to decline and lose relevance.
I will not pretend to know what Woodhouse’s problem is. Maybe it’s envy, maybe it’s ideology - not sure that it matters. Used to be a paid LW subscriber (to LW’s credit, he did work on the Twitter files).
One day I was critical of something LW wrote, and I got a surprising strong retort; when it happened a second time, I stopped following him. For what it’s worth, the comments that responded to my initial comment, were almost entirely in my favor.
The discussions between Taibbi & Kirn are the closest thing to normalcy on the internet. Taibbi should just shrug off Woodhouse, and move on - this was no “et tu Brute”. Brute tripped and fell onto his own dagger (maybe he was just high).
So agree - and also as a former Woodhouse subscriber. I dropped him about 6 months ago.
For what it's worth, Leighton appears to be a very thin-skinned individual. I’ve never even heard of the guy, but wrote what I deemed to be an intelligent/respectful response to his article…and the dude BLOCKED me…
For posterity, here’s what I wrote:
"Big fan of both Taibbi and Greenwald…both of them make me question my own tribal conclusions, encourage me to look deeper into topics my surface-level perceptions often get wrong. I don’t agree with everything they say, but both are intelligent, insightful, and in my mind at least, are clearly operating in good faith. I’m happy to be a paid subscriber to both, along with a handful of others.
I don’t follow you. Perhaps I will, as I’m interested to understand where your ire comes from. It’s nothing I haven’t read or considered before. On the surface, it just seems very petty with a tinge of jealousy. I’ve read and listened to Matt for a few years now and while it’s possible I’ve missed it, I don’t recall him ever mentioning you. He typically gives other journalists the benefit of the doubt. As a reader, I often find his objectivity on that front to be quite frustrating.
Anyways, you’ve accused him of being a grifter…I know him NOT to be that. In return, he’s called you a cunt. The verdict is out on that one. I’ll dig deeper and form my own conclusion. My initial impression, based on your article, is that it’s highly plausible that you are indeed a cunt."
Well I doubt The Free Press would accept c**t in a comment, no matter how well-deserved.
This hit piece by unknown Woodhouse is typical of our fascist government-within-a-government that endlessly promotes the illusion that the nation is split 50-50 between irreconcilable camps based on "principles." Based on this perfectly illusory vision, the people's rising alarm at the loss of their wealth, their traditions, their human rights, their future, their safety, can be explained away as impossible to do anything about; owing to this bogus gridlock. Behind this smokescreen the vicious criminal cabal that rules the nation, and loots its wealth, is free to ruin the country like any mafia enterprise. Mr. Cunt's hit piece is just another example of a sub genre of phony journalism deployed to fellate the deep state master by trying to exile Matt's truly honest voice and un-person him like all good fascisti do. They never argue the issue, instead they dictate to the faint at heart who it is safe to listen to and whom they must reject upon threat of banishment.
$40T in debt, with the rich getting ever richer. That is not an accident. Plus when we inflate our way out, the rich will own assets that keep pace with inflation.