John Ganz
American writer and historian of the right; author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (2024), writer of the newsletter Unpopular Front, and co-host with Jamelle Bouie of Unclear and Present Danger.
John Ganz did not write this page.
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Their wordsI’ve written a few criticisms of the technocratic-positivist approach to American politics that I believe seriously distorts political reasoning and judgment, especially on the center-left.
↗Through a Glass, Smuglyunpopularfront.news 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe problem with the abstract empiricism Yglesias practices is that it tells us almost nothing about what really happened. The actual history has disappeared, leaving behind a tidy little morality play about the virtues of technocratic judgment.
↗Through a Glass, Smuglyunpopularfront.news 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
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Their wordsI don’t think the distinction between conscious deception and sincere delusion quite captures Elizabeth Holmes’s psychology. I suspect that she’s not fully conscious of her own deception because she has constructed an elaborate system of defenses against recognizing the truth.
- 4 months earlier
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Their wordsHere's why the Substack boycott is totally moronic, spelled out: Currently, there are some small far-right blogs and many giant and mid-sized liberal and progressive ones. If the boycotters had their way, the liberal stacks would leave, and that would leave the platform entirely to the far right
- 5 months earlier
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Their wordsIt's very funny how the ideology and propaganda of the Trump administration is all about male-coded, macho work returning to the US, but manufacturing is shriveling and the only thing growing is care work
- 3 months earlier
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Their wordsI think the taboo on Nazi symbology needs to be enforced, especially now.
- 7 weeks earlier
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Their wordsThe classical fascist regimes were not invulnerable, even after seizing the reins of power: Mussolini's primiership almost collapsed during a crisis where the criminality of his movement became apparent; it was a lack of political initiative and craven opportunism that allowed him to continue on
- 6 months earlier
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Their wordsIf organs of state security and demagogues and mob leaders are acting in concert to crack down on dissent it is unequivocally fascist. I don’t mean this to be a polemic: it's the only appropriate term from political science and theory for this practice.
- 2 weeks earlier
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Our reading
A Nazi salute can never be ironic; anyone who justifies or minimises one is unforgivable.
Their wordsTo me, a Nazi salute means, "I want to murder your family." There can be no irony about it: It puts deep anger and hatred in my heart to see it done and I will never forgive anyone who justifies or minimizes it.
- 4 days earlier
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Their wordsTalk of "stolen elections," "corruption," and "DEI" are not factual claims, they are something else entirely—mythic images, which positivist punditry is totally unable to grasp or defuse
- 4 days earlier
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Our reading
Positivist pundits wrongly treat politics as discrete policy issues whose merits can be tallied.
Their wordsThis is the problem with the entire positivist pundit group, they see everything as discrete policy issues with merits and demerits that can be tallied up, we can take some of this, and reject some of that.