Hardkill

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Posts posted by Hardkill

  2. Posted

    Just now, Leo Gura said:

    This isn't some new thing. People must compromise to make a society work and no one gets exactly what they want. This is how things work.

    The problem with leftists is that they expect to win with no compromises.

    Leftists will never get what they want because survival trumps their ideals.

    I know.

    But centrists are going to have to compromise as well as by accepting enough support from leftists in order to win many elections.

    Moreover, if leftists and centrists can't ever put aside their differences to unite, then how are they ever going to gain back real power again and stop both right-wing authoritarianism and the wealthy oligarchs from taking over this country before it's too late?

  3. Posted

    14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Yes, capitalists will always undermine socialists, because socialists want to take away their property and capitalists thrive on leeching labor from plebs. Also because socialism fails miserably when implemented by anyone anywhere.

    Yeah....

    However, the centrist/corporate/establishment Dems can't continue to squash or ignore the growing left-wing supporters in the country forever.

    Otherwise, they will eventually lose too many big elections. 

     

  4. Posted

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    They are allies relative to fascists.

    I am not saying they don't undermine far leftists. Of course they do. But MAGA wants to execute leftists. Just keep that in mind while you battle with centrists.

    Of course Dems will oppose socialists. This is not something to be outraged about. This is exactly as expected.

    I find it odd that Democrats claim to be a big-tent party—welcoming center-right, centrist, center-left, and left-wing voters—while today’s Republican Party largely embraces only the right and far-right, with few true center-right voices. Yet the Democratic Party often tries to undermine Democratic Socialists.

  5. Posted

    6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    @Elliott Again, Chorus was public but the dark money aspect of it was not. And their contract terms and details were not public.

    It's also disingenuous to say that this group supports progreszives. They only supports centrist progressives who will tow the moderate party line. There are many progresaive influencers who were not invited due to their leftist views.

    Plus, personally I was not aware of Chorus. If I had known about it earlier I would have also found it problematic. Coordinating news coverage is already a problem. Taylor has done a service just by making this Chorus thing widely known. It's not like we follow the inside baseball of these creators. How many people have ever heard of Chorus before this week? Zero.

    I was aware of it months ago. They always said that Chorus was about putting together a mega network of Democratic aligned influencers to help fight against Trump, MAGA, the radical right-wing, and the Republican party.

  6. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    4 hours ago, Apparition of Jack said:

    Without getting into the ethics of it all, I feel like this isn’t really all that surprising in the first place?

    Take David Pakman for example. While I broadly agreed with his worldview, I always felt his videos were kind of “safe” and corporatised, if that makes sense. Like he was coordinating with people beyond just a handful of independent online leftists.

    The fact that he is taking money from the Dems seems kinda self-evident all things considered. I really don’t see the problem with it so long as his messages are still reasonable and grounded.

    Pakman has interviewed Leftists like Cenk, Noam Chomsky, and Hasan Piker. He seems to be genuinely aligned with their viewpoints. 

    BTC has interviewed and supported Bernie Sanders and AOC.

    Guys like them are pragmatists who have a realistic understanding of how politics and business work, but also seem to be committed to fighting for our democracy, freedoms/rights, and progress.

    Pakman made a fair point when he said that the progress of human society happens incrementally to varying degrees even when you look at FDR's New Deal.

  7. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    No.

    I encourage you guys to read the original article for yourselves. Nothing in the article has been disproven, in fact, proof of the contracts has been shared.

    https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influencers/

    I thought David Pakman and BTC were the kind of sensible, pragmatic, and mature progressives that you approved of as opposed to the far leftists who are too whiny, too populist, and too anti-mainstream like TYT or Hasan or Breaking Points?

    Also, what about the fact that BTC also works with Pod Save America, another one of your favorite high-quality, wise, and balanced left-wing channels out there?

    In fact, all of the Pod Save America bros have been part of the idea of building up their left-wing/progressive media ecosystem including getting Democratic aligned wealthy donors to fund their project for it.

  8. Posted

    3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Eventually, but that might take 50 years since we live in the times of libertarian fantasies.

    Holding independent private actors accountable for not taking bribes is harder than holding politicians (public officials) accountable for not taking bribes. This tells you how difficult it will be. We can't even pass a law to stop a Senator from taking corporate money. Nevermind a TikToker.

    So, then who will we be able to trust as new sources?

    If we are stuck in these libertarian fantasies for the rest of our lives, then how will Democrats and progressives be able to effectively push their anti-oligarchy and economic populist message when independent private actors will be corrupted by such wealthy/corporate donors and dark money?

  9. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    Yes, this is the larger point. It's not about these creators or Democrats. The larger pattern is that corporations and the ruling class will try to buy independent media as they did with mainstream media. That's the lesson here. That's why I shared the video, not because I care particularly about Chorus or these specific YouTubers. We want to understand how independent media will get corrupted in the years to come so we are not fooled by it.

     

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    Yes, of course liberals are corrupt. And the purest leftists are corrupt.

    Corruption is so deep that it touches everyone.

    We are only arguing over relative differences.

    What we want is to elect the least corrupt people possible. This means they will still be relatively corrupt.

    There is no way to go from our current system to one free of all corruption. That takes thousands of years of development to accomplish.

    Yes, no one perfect. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be human. 
     

    Good people have always had to pick the lesser of two or more evils on every matter since the dawn of mankind.

     

    Btw, isn’t it possible that once independent media gets large enough and prevalent enough that enough people will demand new regulations, standards, and laws for them in order to sustain some semblance of order and so that they are held accountable?

  11. Posted

    7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    How naive does one have to be to think that this money is not being paid to influence creators?

    The only defense I've heard from the paid creators is that they will take the money but the money will not change their positions in any way. Which is exactly what politicians say when they take money from lobbyists.

    It is quite clear to me that this is a case of lobbyists trying to capture social media influencers as they do with politicians and mainstream media.

    Their contract clearly states that they are supposed to keep this influence operation hidden.

    I have listened to the rebuttals of these paid creators and it sounds full of rationalizations.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf_X5m7u7JY

    7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    How naive does one have to be to think that this money is not being paid to influence creators?

    The only defense I've heard from the paid creators is that they will take the money but the money will not change their positions in any way. Which is exactly what politicians say when they take money from lobbyists.

    It is quite clear to me that this is a case of lobbyists trying to capture social media influencers as they do with politicians and mainstream media.

    Their contract clearly states that they are supposed to keep this influence operation hidden.

    I have listened to the rebuttals of these paid creators and it sounds full of rationalizations.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf_X5m7u7JY

    You (and folks like Cenk Uygur and Dan Pfeiffer) have argued for years that mainstream media’s business model (ratings, access, advertisers, owners) warps coverage—sometimes in anti-progressive, pro-establishment ways. Given that, how do you compare MSM’s profit pressures to the new influencer funding you’re warning about?

     

    Specific things I’m hoping you’ll weigh in on:

    1. Risk comparison: In your view, what makes MSM’s corporate incentives less/more/equally corrupting than dark-money/party-aligned creator programs? What are the distinct failure modes of each?
    2. Minimum standards (MSM vs. creators): If you won’t endorse “ops,” would you endorse a cross-arena baseline—for both MSM and influencers—like on-screen funding labels, public corrections logs, independence clauses, and annual third-party audits?
    3. Consumer guidance: Practically, how should a viewer triangulate trust when both arenas are profit-driven? What signals (habits, disclosures, behavior under criticism) make an outlet or creator trustworthy enough to follow?
    4. Accountability levers: What non-activist reforms would you support that raise the epistemic floor industry-wide (e.g., a public registry of political funding/contracts across MSM and creator ecosystems)?
    5. On Cenk/Pfeiffer’s critique: Do you think their MSM-is-profit-first critique is directionally right, and if so, what concrete fixes (short of “don’t watch”) actually change incentives?

    Not asking you to run propaganda—just trying to pin down your sense-maker’s minimum for a media environment where money is everywhere.

  12. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Because the point of being conservative is to defend corruption. But the point of being left-wing is to cure corruption.

    When a conservative is corrupt he is be authentic. When a leftist is corrupt he is a hypocrite.

    Trump is a pig, he acts like one, and pigs love him for it. A Dem cannot do the same because the Dems aspire to more than being pigs. At least true progressives do. The sad reality is that many Dems are also pigs.

    Interesting.

    So, does that mean that not centrist Dems may never win elections like presidential elections ever again, except for maybe once in a blue moon, given how many low-information and dumb voters there are, and people in this day and age want more "authenticity" in this new age media environment than ever before?

    If that's the case, then why would someone like Gavin Newsom have even a real shot of winning in 2028 when already many people find him to be too "slick" like a greasy car salesman or some kind of player?

  13. Posted

    Just now, Joshe said:

    What about them? I'm not big into politics but those guys seem to have charisma that the majority of dems don't. Charisma overrides and creates its own frame. 

    Do you know how rare that is? Obama was even more of a rarity than Clinton who never even had true once-in-a-generation appeal that truly transcended all party lines.

    I guess we really need an economic depression and/or WWIII to reset and heal everything.

     

  15. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Joshe said:

    Nice post Leo. It's going to be interesting how it plays out. I suspect one facet of this will be that centrists double down even further in their refusal to make a decision about which side to support because it will be harder for the average person to discern which side is less evil. Trust will degrade even further, which is a big reason we're in the situation we're in now. So it will come down to who can bullshit the best. And how do the centrists decide who is most likely correct? Whoever the majority sides with. And which side has the most money and is most gullible and corruptible? The right. So based on my spur of keystroke logic, it looks as though we're fucked. 

    What would FDR do?

  16. Posted

    14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Don't forget that trying to astro-turf a left-wing Joe Rogan may backfire. Dems already had an authenticity problem. These kind of programs feed into the view that Dems are fake. Although of course conservative pundits are shamelessly fake and corrupt and they get away with it.

    Why are Dems not able to get away with being fake and corrupt but the conservative side has been able to?

    I never totally understood that.

     

  17. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Transparency is necessary at the least.

    The fact that these paid pundits now act like nothing is wrong, nothing to see here, makes it all the more damning. They are acting like they don't even know what conflict of interest is.

    Basically you need people of integrity, and that will always be rare. Most political pundits will be hacks.

    I can't really comment on how to best wage a political propaganda war. That's not my area of interest. I focus on truth-seeking and sense-making, which is different from political activism.

    Can you make a case that things are so bad with Trump that we need an anti-Trump propaganda campaign? Maybe. But I want no part of it.

    Don't forget that trying to astro-turf a left-wing Joe Rogan may backfire. Dems already had an authenticity problem. These kind of programs feed into the view that Dems are fake. Although of course conservative pundits are shamelessly fake and corrupt and they get away with it.

    Of course I am not asking you to really get involved in it.

    I get it, but I feel like the Dems and progressives have no choice but to fight back against this monstrosity of right-wing propaganda and misinformation if they want to win the big elections such as the presidency in 2028 or even 2026 and beyond. 

    Otherwise, should the Democrats and the Left just hope that some TR or FDR-like saviour can one day rise from the ashes to save its party and the country? 

    What are the Democrats supposed to do to win back more power and stop MAGA when this terrible media environment is skewed heavily in favor of the Right?

     

  18. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    I just read the blog on Social Influencer Corruption.

    I agree the influencer space is ripe for abuse—opaque funding, NDAs, and pay-to-push politics wreck trust. Plus, it really has contributed to the widespread brain rotting in our country. But if the Left refuses to build a competitive creator operation while the Right scales theirs, we’re unilaterally disarming in the new media battlefield.

    Also: while mainstream media has better accountability/reporting than alternative media, much of it was complicit in normalizing Trump (2016 & 2024). These are profit-driven corporations that explicitly frame themselves as running a business—not guardians of democracy. You know that and you've talked about that before a number of times. They’re not natural allies of Democrats or the Left (maybe MSNBC is the closest exception) and they can't stop themselves with their constant bothsideism 

    My stance: Don’t abstain. Fight fire with clean fire—run an influencer program with hard rules so audiences can calibrate trust instead of losing it.

    Guardrails (non-negotiable):

    • Radical transparency: clear on-screen funding labels; monthly public funder logs.
    • Speech independence: no message vetoes or gag clauses; creators can criticize “their own side.”
    • Accountability: independent ethics audits each cycle; fast disclosure of contracts if challenged.
    • Quality: offer fact-checking help; require visible, time-stamped corrections.

     

    Politics is coalition-building under constraint. History shows you sometimes partner with imperfect actors to beat worse outcomes—but you do it with rules.

    If abstinence cedes the field, what’s the workable alternative?

    Which transparency standards would keep a funded creator credible to you?

    Where are the red lines (e.g., no foreign money, no astroturf, no deepfakes)?

    I remember you saying a few years ago about how even pompous and very bothersome progressives whom I can't stand anymore like Cenk are still trying to fight back against the greater evils:

    On 3/5/2021 at 9:41 PM, Leo Gura said:

    It's not a matter of money. Cenk isn't doing it for the money. He's a true believer in the Green crusade and cannot envision something beyond it. It's a paradigm lock.

    And I can't say I blame him. Cenk's role is needed. Someone has to fight the fucking MAGA devils and the corrupt neoliberals. In a sense, stage Yellow thinkers are not practical because they are too far head of everyone else. Cenk is at the right level to make significant social change.

    Yellow includes Green within it.

     

    Also, that woman, Taylor Lorenz gives me TYT vibes, which again I am getting sick and tired of, and she doesn't even seem to have impressive academic credentials herself.

  19. Posted

    8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    There are many degrees of democracy and the standard we set for ourselves is a low degree.

    It is convenient to regard democracy as a simple binary so that we can just say we have a democracy and not work towards a high degree of it.

    America has performative democracy. This is perfect for the ruling class because it makes the masses feel like they live in a democracy but in practice it is an oligarchy.

    Sounds kinda like how Putin says that Russia has democracy even though we know that that's a lie.

  23. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    No, they are just obnoxious on their own. Except for Pakman, he is fine.

    It's not autism, it's egotism.

    When you speak for a living on YT, especially doing criticism, it slowly poisons your mind.

    They claim that they doing it as part of the left wing or progressive movement and are holding both corporate Dems and Republicans accountable. They also pressure progressive politicians to fight hard.

    Yet, how should they criticize centrist/establishment Dems without causing Trump and the right-wing to win too many elections?

  25. Posted

    8 hours ago, aurum said:

    That actually feels backwards to me.

    People generally do not get rallied up by systems thinking. It's too complex and doesn't give a concrete enemy.

     If you're looking to be really pragmatic about winning, you're better off blaming individuals.

    I agree that pure “systems talk” won’t rally people—humans mobilize around faces. I’m not arguing for bloodless white papers; I’m arguing for villains + verbs:

    • Name names (with receipts) and name the fix with a date. “Sen. X took $612,400 from payday PACs and voted to stall a 36% APR cap. By June 30, co-sponsor S.123, back CFPB Rule §102, and return the PAC money. Do it → we’ll say so on air; refuse → we escalate.”
    • That keeps the moral clarity of a concrete “enemy,” but channels it into measurable leverage instead of vibes.
    • Also, the evidence on pure negativity is mixed: attack-y blame can feel satisfying, but it’s not reliably persuasive and can lower efficacy/trust or even backfire depending on context. What does move things is credible shaming tied to a clear compliance path (demands + deadlines + off-ramps).

    So I’m not ditching call-outs—I’m making them actionable. Faces for motivation; systems fixes for outcomes. That’s a better conversion funnel than ending with “they’re corrupt, full stop.”

    If you’ve got data showing person-blame beats “villains + verbs” on actual conversions (votes, co-sponsorships, rule changes), I’m keen to see it.