WatDabney

No

Really, he’s barely even a person at all. Mostly he’s just a vehicle for his massive ego.

Shapiro is one of the best examples (alongside Paul Krugman until he recently went rogue) of what I think of as an unconscious volunteer tool.

That is to say, I don’t think he consistently spews rhetoric that benefits the oligarchs as some sort of deliberately self-serving scheme (as opposed to for instance Jesse Watters).

I think he spews rhetoric consistently beneficial to the oligarchs because some among the oligarchy told him how much of a genius he was when he first started spewing it, and now his ego won’t allow him to do anything else, no matter the bizarre quasi-logical contortions he has to go through.

In the same sense that chlamydia is much better than syphilis.

No matter where you go, there you are.

I guess it could be counted as a weakness as far as attracting new users go, but I think it’s a strength overall.

It would be sort of nice if there was a stronger right-wing presence here, but at this point in our history, the right is overtly toxic. They’ve completely lost touch with honesty, empathy, integrity and simple human decency. Their entire identity at this point is built on hatred, bigotry and callous disregard for anyone other than themselves. They poison everything they touch, so the fact that they can’t gain a foothold here is very much to our benefit.

If we survive this era of Trump/Putin/Netanyahu/Polievre/Le Pen/Modi/Meloni/Hanson/etc., then hopefully the right will reconnect with reality, integrity and simple decency enough that they can take part in a community without turning it into a cesspool of hatred and lies, but unless and until that happens, this place is absolutely better off without them.