Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Take note — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Rich people like Republicans again. Nature is healing. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@Nate_Cohn @jbarro @nytimes I mean that’s why I wonder! A lot of important traditional news functions have decayed because they don’t pencil out — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I should also say @elonmusk doesn’t need to wait for the rollout of some new system — he should just de-verify me right now, I got the check years ago when I had a staff job and probably couldn’t get one today just like I no longer have a proper press pass. #deverifyyglesias — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

You can see how deranged this has become by looking at all the people QTing this accusing me of lying that nobody derives status or esteem from their checkmarks. But I promise you I am telling the truth, this is a big dumb misunderstanding. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I think the Sacks/Andreesen crew should take a deep breath and try to enjoy life as rich and powerful businesspeople and be a little less annoyed by the haters. And the press should try to normalize coverage of the tech industry as just another business sector. But for now. https://t.co/n97fDWKtQL — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

What's happened is that they have mistaken their own resentment at journalists' unearned checkmark privilege for something that journalists themselves care deeply about and are either willing to pay for or are mad that other people will be able to buy. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

But Twitter is, among other things, a war zone where tech people and the tech press fight. And from the side of the tech people, the way totally random journalists would be casually granted their checkmarks was a source of annoyance and resentment. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

As a longtime working journalist, longtime check-haver, and someone who knows lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of media professionals I can promise you that working journalists derive zero value, social status, or self-esteem from this. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

But if you're a working journalist on staff at a publication, you will end up getting the check just as a routine part of your job — like how you'll probably get a laptop and some business cards or whatever. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Because news is a very important part of Twitter, when Twitter set up their verification system they ended up treating journalists as a kind of special class. All kinds of people *can* be verified, but you usually need to be pretty prominent to get that check. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Tech executives and investors mostly did not like this change, for understandable reasons. And I mostly agree with them on the merits. They also just tend to overstate the role of the tech beat within the larger zone of "the media" and started being very angry at "the media." — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

This was a very deliberate top-down decision. They decided tech was a major power center that needed scrutiny and needed to be taken down a peg, and this style of coverage became very widespread and prominent in the industry. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Instead of covering the industry with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair. Almost never curious about technology or in awe of progress and potential. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Instead of covering the industry with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasional unfair. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I think a lot of people are totally ignorant of the background dynamic driving the drama around the checkmarks. But what happened is that a few years ago the New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Exactly so — I could easily afford to pay the money, I'm just not going to! — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@Eric_Alterman I'm not saying it's a choice, I'm just saying that persuading this guy that Republicans are a threat to democracy and liberal values isn't going to change his vote. He likes that about them! — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I think that if you went back to May 24, 2020 and asked Democrats "if violent crime goes way up, is that going to generate a backlash against criminal justice reform and hurt us politically in ways that are swamped by any messaging choice" everyone would have said "yes." — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@Nate_Cohn @jbarro @nytimes If it works, is there any real financial upside to making polls more accurate? — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The winning "message" for Democrats on crime is to make crime lower. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Something to appreciate about the current moment is the authitarian pressures come from the bottom-up — random people who read my Substack don't just want Republicans to win but to "destroy" mealy-mouthed centrists like me because we "aren't fit to be Americans." https://t.co/VFCcPmUDxL — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The normal stakes of a normal election. https://t.co/JFP4ZxlDQb https://t.co/hxg78Oye0H — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

By contrast it is very likely that they will generate economically harmful debt ceiling standoffs in a futile and unpredictable effort to get Joe Biden to agree to politically toxic changes to Medicare and Social Security. https://t.co/JFP4ZxCGSb https://t.co/wSXWuSZB48 — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I think it's unlikely a GOP congressional majority will meaningfully increase American energy production, and it's extremely unlikely that it will contribute in any useful way to reducing crime. https://t.co/JFP4Zxl60D https://t.co/q6ZgVheZco — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

So I wrote today an extremely boring piece about what I think is at stake in the midterms — not the future of democracy or the soul of the nation, but some very specific things about the actual specific functions of the United States Congress. https://t.co/JFP4Zxl60D — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I've always been impressed by @zingales' idea that the best way to beat Trump and other wackadoodle "populists" is with normal politics. https://t.co/PDo8ziU5uJ — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@jbarro It seems like it should be easy (and cheaper than buying Twitter!) for like two dozen rich tech guys to jointly fund a technology news publication that would be broadly "pro tech" in its orientation but credibly distinct from any specific tech or VC firm. — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

RT @jbarro: I think what's happening is: big-deal Silicon Valley people have a very specific psychodrama about the press and the "blue chec… — PolitiTweet.org

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Per this great @AustinFrakt piece from a couple of years ago, I think the Portuguese decriminalization experience just involves a level of hard coercion that American hard reducers aren't comfortable with but need to embrace. https://t.co/Zvm3vOGWB9 — PolitiTweet.org