1/ A small thread now that I've listened to @BenjaminABoyce's podcast with @ConceptualJames. For those who've read post-modernist (PM) texts, it's mostly a recap.

I'll restrict my criticism to James's asymmetric analysis on the election, since that's what he charged me with: https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1335035168252432384

2/ First, when I said I disagree with James about literally everything re: the election, let's qualify: I disagree with 99% of what matters, including James's penchant for (satirically or otherwise) peddling election fraud stuff, which has been soundly rejected by facts/courts.

3/ Re: the podcast. James sees Trump as an unwitting PM Jedi with intuitive understanding (via media experience) of PM's erosion of objective reality. This intuition is Trump's "funny" way of 'sloshing solvent' on Wokism.

I see Trump as a lightsaber-wielding child...or Sith.

4/ It's true Trump understood that ratings mattered, not truth. This isn't genius. It's just an egocentric insight Trump learned from years of coverage by the NYPost & others. Jeff Zucker: "If we break away from Trump coverage the audience goes away."

So, Trump = selfish Sith.

5/ As I've said before, James's work to battle the excesses of PM thought (or its more modern Woke applications/perversions) is valuable.

BUT his support of Trump is absurd and wrong, because Trump/Trumpism erodes objective reality IN PRECISELY THE SAME WAY as Wokism.

Examples:

6/ James fears the Woke over Trump because Wokism “directs all the resources it can, anything it can leverage to becoming about it and its agenda."

This is QUITE LITERALLY Trumpism.

Trump on the election: “This isn’t about...Yeah, it is about me"...all while Covid deaths soar.

7/ Again: Wokism is "so narcissistic in its approach, that anything that’s not about it is evil and problematic and has to be corrected…that on its own is a major threat to the operation of the United States and its national security.”
-- James Lindsay on Wokism but not Trumpism

8/ Again: Wokism is "intolerant of anything that’s not about it, and that’s a problem”

-- James Lindsay on Wokism but not Trumpism

See the illogic of it all?

9/ If James DOES see this but still believes Trumpism > Wokism, he hasn't voiced why. His theory must, for example, grapple with a Trumpism-fueled Covid death toll.

Battling PM excess is fine, but supporting Trump on an objective reality basis is prima facie self-contradictory.

10/ And in the meantime, peddling grand theories of supposed power structures stealing the election?

That's what Kendi would do--not Brian Boitano...a def not a post-modern Jedi.

I'll take my cues from Marcus Aurelius instead: "Not becoming like your enemy is the best revenge."