Nate Silver writes a post calling for cooler heads to prevail and for experts to be consulted. That seems like a pretty rational thing. But David Sirota is so tied into his image of the fire-breathing outsider speaking truth to the elites in Washington, he writes a silly post making the claim that Silver has told the people to STFU. Now, leaving aside Sirota’s pedigree of working inside the same gated community he now rails against (he worked for then – Rep. Bernie Sanders and for Center For American Progress), the point of his post is just wrong. Sirota’s schtick has been running for several years now and as many of the comments note, its kind of sad.
Brainless populism on the left is no better than anti-intellectualism on the right.
Count me in the tired bunch!
You know, I would take Sirota a lot more seriously if it wasn’t for the fact that he has made it abundantly clear he is in it for his media career. As evidenced by his continual pimping of his book last spring an summer in virtually every single one of his blog posts and along with his blog posts pre and post hyping his media appearances.
We should hang out for a beer, Oliver, cause we’re completely on the same page here, and more often than not. I’ll put my liberal/progressive credentials up against anyone, but even I realize that you have to be willing to work with others. Just ask the Republicans what happens when you don’t.
On the issues, I agree with Sirota, Bowers, etc. on just about everything, but people need to take a deep breath and trust the President’s political instincts, cause they’re damn good.
Totally agree with Oliver. Would Sirota say to ignore the experts on global warming? On evolution? The Holocaust? Like Oliver said, this is just brainless, anti-elitist, anti-intellectual populism. It’s expected from the right wing, but it’s not something I expect from a site that’s supposed to be the on the vanguard of left thought.
I’ll come visit here after Obama finally abandons his “bipartisan” schtick. Sirota is right. If Obama keeps this up he’s going to become another Jimmy Carter.
Nate Silver has a point, but so does Sirota. Look I find him and Matt Stoller hateful, and I have long since cautioned about populism becoming classic American Know-Nothing style mobs, even to Sirota himself. That said, Obama’s economic circle is full of center-right people. There is nothing wrong with that but it has systematically shut out any real discussion from other view points. I think experts are important, but low-regulation free-market-is-god experts and Randians like Greenspan got us into this, and it seems unbelievable that they will get us out. Not now that it’s come out that Geithner and Summers oppose nationalization for at least partially ideological reasons. And now Obama does too.
More importantly at the end, I find it hard to read his post any other way than he wants us to wait for expert consensus and follow it. And that is absolutely ridiculous.
“What I’m asking you to do is to clear the playing field. This is neither the time nor the place for mass movements — this is the time for expert opinion. Once the experts (and I’m not one of them) have reached some kind of a consensus about what the best course of action is (and they haven’t yet), then figure out who is impeding that action for political or other disingenuous reasons and tackle them — do whatever you can to remove them from the playing field. But we’re not at that stage yet.”
How do you read that any other way?
Nate Silver’s point was undemocratic. In his post he condemns citizens for speaking up and not submitting to “expert opinion.” Sirota asks, who’s “expert opinion?”
Keep in mind that the economic “expert opinion” of the last 30 years has been that of Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and Reagan’s voodoo economics. The right wing voodoo economists were wrong and there’s a lot of economists on the left that are concerned that Obama is still listening to what is clearly a discredited right wing economic ideology.
Sirota points to Obama’s “masters of the universe,” Summers and Geithner, and rightfully reminds people that those two were central figures involved in the right wing ideology that created the economic mess.
So Obama has allowed crazy right-wingers to control the message, shape the economic debate, and then included a lot of discredited right-wing economic theory in the form of several hundred billion dollars in tax cats that are recognized as being LESS stimulative of the economy than actual investments in any number of things ranging from infrastructure, science, schools, or even just food stamps.
And Obama did it for the appearance of bipartisanship. OBAMA DID NOT DO IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE BEST THING FOR THE ECONOMY. Obama did it because he thought he could negotiate with Republican absolutists.
Well, with absolutists you either split the baby to give them half or you do the right thing.
Obama split the baby. Nate defended that as somehow listening to “expert opinion,” which it wasn’t, and Sirota called him out on it.
What Nate inadvertently defended was brainless, anti-intellectualism dressed up as “expert opinion” with the added insult that everyone should just defer to the designated “expert opinion” du jour.
Silver’s post was undemocratic nonsense and so is your attack of Sirota.
More pointedly, Obama has repeatedly ’split the baby’ for political purposes. You may be okay with splitting the baby, Willis, but that doesn’t give you the moral authority to call out those that decry splitting the baby.
Keep in mind, if this ‘bipartisan’ sausage of a stimulus doesn’t work the right wing is going to laugh all the way to the 2010 elections. In fact, their attempt at including non-stimulative tax cuts and cutting the economically stimulative investments and keeping the overall bill as small as they could can be viewed as a calculated ploy to minimize the “stimulus bill’s” stimulus power because if it doesn’t work the right wing wins even while the country loses.
Did any of you actually READ Sirota’s entire post?
Not only did Sirota explicitly say that he’s “not pushing anti-intellectualism here at all,” Sirota went on to point out that “I believe there are actual “experts” that should be listened to (Krugman, Reich, Roubini, Baker, Galbraith, Mishel, etc.)”
Sirota’s never repudiated “experts” and in fact made a list of those HE considers “experts.”
Sirota’s points also included Silver’s repudiation of citizen input in the Democratic process and worse, Silver’s assertion of the authoritarian notion that everyone should just follow the leader’s appointed “expert opinion” makers.
Sirota goes on to point out several mass movements that DID THE RIGHT THING while the “expert opinion” fought tooth and nail against it.
It’s ironic that Silver would rebuke the idea of a “mass movement” when Obama’s President ONLY BECAUSE OF A MASS MOVEMENT THAT WAS DERIDED BY THE ‘EXPERT OPINION’ IN THE MEDIA AS ‘BRAINLESS POPULISM.’
Oh, and Willis, it’s shrill lefties like Sirota that spoke up during the 60’s in support of King’s mass movement against the “expert opinion” that claimed separate was equal. Because of the brainless populism of the left you can now sit at the counter and have a beer with Andrew and expect to be served.
Sirota repudiated experts that Silver didn’t list.
And to equate the civil rights movement with the hackery Sirota writes is an insult. Not to mention the attitude you’re pushing where I should just drop to my knees and thank God for Sirota. Please.
” I think experts are important, but low-regulation free-market-is-god experts and Randians like Greenspan got us into this, and it seems unbelievable that they will get us out. Not now that it’s come out that Geithner and Summers oppose nationalization for at least partially ideological reasons. And now Obama does too.”
um, obama has repeatedly said that he favors renewed regulation. (I heard tonight that Barnie Frank said the house will re-write regulations tougher then fdr’s that kept this crap from heppening until it was repealed).
Oh yeah, fdr was also against nationalization of the banks, too, even though he could have done it in a heartbeat. i guess it was because-like Obama- he surrounded himself with corporate whores.
lol. This black dude says STFU to the guy comparing Sirota to anyone in the civil rights movement or its vocal supporters.
Yes yes yes. Sirota is a jackass. Like me, but they don’t put me on tv.
Damn straight.
There was a time a few years ago when I liked Sirota, but he’s clearly gone off the deep end in the last year or so.
Am I crazy about everything about this stimulus bill? Hell, no. I’d like to see a whole hell of a lot more education money, for starters, but it’s a good start, and if it isn’t enough, there is always next time.
And I’m a hell of a lot happier getting 80% of what I want with Obama than 0% of what I want over the last 8 years.
Put simply, I’m not sure who Sirota’s audience is at this point. And Progressive Democrats listen to his terrible advice at their peril.
Oliver: saying Sirota is not an outsider because he worked for Bernie Sanders–the one independent socialist in Congress–is not the strongest point. If Sirota had worked for Pelosi, or Hoyer, or Ted Kennedy or Rahm Emanuel, that would be a strong point.
And hear, hear to MNPundit & News Reference. Obama sold his campaign as a movement for change, as renewed civic involvement. So progressives should be civically involved and push for a less conservative plan.
Willis: “And to equate the civil rights movement with the hackery Sirota writes is an insult.”
Willis, your blog post was “an insult” that responded to Sirota’s “insult” who in turn was responding to Silver’s “insult.”
And now your complaining about “an insult?” lol
No, I equated shrill lefties like Sirota with the shrill lefties that stood with King during the Civil Rights movement.
They were derided with rhetoric like yours: “brainless populism,” the kind of coded phrases that were spouted by the “expert opinion” makers that controlled most of the discourse through most of the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
Look up the history of the word “populism.” Part of the simple definition is, “a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people.” You might not think much of the “wisdom” or “virtues” of the “common people” but how about the “rights?” Seriously. When “populism” gets smacked down it’s often intended as an elitist way of smacking down those “rights” as expressed by the “common” citizenry.
Your a great guy, Willis, I read enough of your blog to say that with confidence. That you work at MM is something I deeply respect.
But, yeah, I’ll go there if you feel a need to smack down the left. Or is this your Sister Souljah moment? In that case, Sirota serves a perfect function in the dynamic. You get to smack down the kind of people who fought for your civil rights and that allows you a chance to sit at the table with the “serious people.”
Congratulations, Willis, now you get to claim you belong to the “center,” but that means you have to stop pretending that you represent progressivism or liberalism*.
Leave that up to the shrill mass movements that liberals like Sirota are trying to keep going despite the “expert opinion” of people like Nate Silver who feels a need to tell everyone to sit down, shut up, and be ready to take orders.
re: “Sirota repudiated experts that Silver didn’t list.”
Sirota anticipated commenters like “skylights” (above), who, without reading Sirota’s post, attacked Sirota with: “Would Sirota say to ignore the experts on global warming? On evolution? The Holocaust?”
Sirota explicitly said he wasn’t speaking against “experts,” just the notion of blindly following them. Sirota even made a list of what HE considers “experts” in economics: “Krugman, Reich, Roubini, Baker, Galbraith, Mishel, etc.”
You know, the kind of people that, when occasionally allowed to speak on the center right teevee world, were the best advocates for a functional stimulus plan.
Many of those economists have expressed concern that Obama’s “experts” have been the center-right economists that created the economic disaster and still don’t understand how to get US out of it. It’s an $800 Billion plan trying to fill a Trillion dollar hole ($2 Trillion hole over two years).
It’s an 8 foot ladder trying to get US out of a 10 foot (or 20 foot) hole. And if (when?) it fails the Republicans will laugh all the way to the 2010/2012 elections.
That the Republicans and “centrists” left US in a hole during that time, well, that’s par for the course when it comes to how the elite “experts” have been treating the “common people” throughout history.
No change there.
* As an independent with a conservative streak I do not represent progressivism or liberalism, but respect Sirota’s strident voice as being part of the cacophony of the left.
Insulting me is fine. Don’t insult the people who actually faced danger for their positions, unlike Sirota and myself.
I’m so tired of people accusing me of being a centrist or Broder or whatever when I don’t march in lockstep with some of the people who have a following on the left. At the end of the day Sirota’s work is built to build up Sirota. It’s brainless populist posturing. Nothing is wrong with populism. I support populism, but with a brain to it.
Sirota’s just arguing against a position he made up.
Furthermore, while I like Sen. Sanders once someone’s in the U.S. Congress that’s about as establishment as you can get. I don’t begrudge people that work there. Some of the finest people in our country work for our government. But don’t freaking work for a congressman and the most important think tank on the left (CAP) then move to Montana and fracking tell me you’re a goddamned outsider.