The "Dirtbag Left" as it hits the front page!

MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2020

Lessons in anthropology: To what extent do These Kids Today have real economic beefs?

We can't exactly tell you. As with almost everything else, the actual state of the economy, and the status of the different groups within it, never quite come clear within our primitive discourse.

That said, we have no idea why college costs so much today, compared to what it cost in the past. Also, why do we spend so much on health care? You aren't likely to see either topic discussed within our failing, rigged discourse.

At any rate, These Kids Today hit the front page of yesterday's New York Times. Nellie Bowled profiles the so-called "Dirtbag Left." Along the way, she wrote this:

BOWLES (3/1/20): As Mr. Sanders rises in the polls and claims strong showings in early states, a new set of media stars is on the rise, too. Leading the pack are the hosts of “Chapo Trap House,” the Pied Pipers of the candidate’s online movement.

In their rowdy, vulgar weekly podcast, they are stoking the fires of a political insurgency led by their 78-year-old idol. The man stands for the movement, the movement is the man.

“Our boy Bernie” they call him.

The fivesome of “Chapo Trap House" are not the only bards of the new American left—there is “Red Scare” and another whose name cannot be printed—but they have led the way for a movement that together generates millions of dollars a year. They are on their way to becoming the socialist’s answer to right-wing shock jock radio. Their primary targets, in evidence at that show in Iowa, are not the Republican Party or even Mr. Trump but rather centrist liberals, whom they see as the major obstacle to a workers’ revolution.

In blurring occasionally violent humor, jovial community meetups and radical politics, they are the Tea Party reborn for progressives, and for their fans the appeal is in a bawdy offensive balance to cautious mainstream liberal politics.

We can't tell you how accurate Bowles' profile was. We will say that it's worth reading.

For years, we liberals kept saying that bad judgment and furious loathing could only come from the very bad people found Over There. Borrowing from Bowles' comparisons, such manifestations could only come from "right-wing radio" or from those "Tea Party" types.

As an anthropological matter, that assessment never made sense. Now we're told that we on the left have our answer to right wing talk—our own Tea Party reborn.

How much faith do you have in the Dirtbag Left? Are you sure that their racial comments and sexual attacks are just good jokeworthy fun?

Future experts persistently say that our floundering system is coming apart. They report to us from the years which lie beyond the global conflagration they refer to as Mister Trump's War.

Do the sexualized insults in Alexis Coe's bizarre new best-seller actually make any sense? Truthfully, no, they don't, except as a rather obvious sign that something is coming undone.

How about the angry conduct of some on the Dirtbag Left? Does their angry, sexualized conduct make sense? And how do we move on from here?

Future Anthropologists Huddled in Caves haven't yet stated their judgment. We'll note that, when they speak of our war-inclined species, they do so in the past tense.