I LOL’d at the description of Nathan Robinson as ‘aristocratic.’ The Wonka/Buckley hybrid is apt though.
Matt Bruenig’s take shows more than anything the limits of purely materialist analysis. After all, pulverizing every single Confederate statue and Confederate name plaque in the US would also affect 0% of Americans in terms of their material income and standard of living—yet people seem to care a lot about that question.
The whole reason people care about Savage’s piece—more so than if he had written about exactly the same thing happening with accountants and pharmacists (with a greater economic impact)—is that Savage’s examples are the “clerisy” (Kotkin), i.e. those who control the means of symbolic and imaginary production, or the ideological nonstate apparatus, if you will. They’re the ones officially responsible for producing the “myths” that we are all supposed to live by. So the output of screenwriters and history professors has a huge impact that is not captured by Bruenigist materialist analysis.
That’s a really astute observation. Reinforces my sense from Geoff’s piece and others that the “white millennial dudes are fine” folks are not just missing the point but actually distracting from it.
There's been what seems like a multi-pronged attack on the "feminization" and "white millennials are getting hit hard" pieces recently that seem to take the form of the following all at the same time:
“That didn’t happen.”
“And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.”
“And if it was, that’s not a big deal.”
“And if it is, that’s not my fault.”
“And if it was, I didn’t mean it.”
“And if I did, you deserved it.”
Pick your ideological orientation and there's something out there for everyone.
I’d add a couple points to this: the Chapo Trap House guys also avoided cancellation because they are friends behind the scenes with many of the most zealous culture war journalists in NYC media. They essentially have protection from being destroyed and then mock it when it happens to others
Liz Bruening has absolutely been savaged by the identity-first crowd in media, over and over again. So it makes it extra contemptible that Matt Bruening is running cover for them now that it’s become evident that they were advancing discriminatory practices
First and foremost, the people at Deadspin/Defector - David Roth is a frequent guest of theirs and Megan Greenwell let Felix write for Deadspin before they jumped ship. She especially is a culture war zealot and identitarian
If you pay attention to who their podcast guests are, many of them are that type of journo
> If this is what you believe, which is what I think the weight of the evidence supports, then Savage’s argument must be wrong. It can’t be that (1) DEI was cynical corporate nonsense and that (2) DEI was a widespread affirmative action program sidelining millions of 30-something white men. Geoff cannot understand this because he just scans (1) and (2) as saying negative things about DEI and thinks that if you don’t like DEI them you must support both (1) and (2) without regard for whether they are contradictory or false. And because he cannot grasp that actually a good argument can’t say both (1) and (2), he cannot understand what someone is doing when they pick one or the other but not both. So, he’s left to try to make sense of the world with the dumbest possible psychoanalysis of socialists while he is in fact engaged in the project of sidelining class politics in favor of DEI gibberish.
This article makes a claim that might be somewhat true “white bro socialists participate in media environments favorable to themselves personally in the face of a ‘hostile’ consensus”, but then jumps to the conclusion that this is an inherently bad thing.
Steph Curry became the greatest 3 point shoot ever in part because his opportunity (NBA dad) plus physical limitations (shorter, scrawny) incentivized him to pursue avenues of success outside the conventional knowledge. In doing so, he succeeded personally while also pulling the rest of the league in his direction by exposing an underexploited tactic. Are we supposed to think that’s bad?
White bro socialists have the opportunity and incentives to explore unconventional corners of the media landscape in both content and distribution. Sure it can be acknowledged that they are not altruistic in doing so, but it doesn’t make it necessarily bad.
For people interested in a precedent in the rock n roll world, I'd recommend studying the evolution of Steve Albini. Gen X outsider-entrepeneur who constantly slagged the mainstream, but who developed a symbiotic relationship with it. His politics gradually changed accordingly.
Instead of anecdotes how about data? Academia (cited in the article) is big enough to provide lots. The answer is that, while lots of progress has been made, and there is huge variation across fields, schools etc, men still outnumber women, and women are more likely to leave
The debate as I've seen it seems to be entirely about fights over a finite number of slots at the top of the US cultural hierarchy (I'm not in this hierarchy and have barely heard of the people involved). Expecting these to be allocated on merit seems naive to me.
“your mode of politics can’t even find a way to function within a medium-sized media organization, how likely is that?”
after mewling for decades about the feminazis running the mainstream media you are so concerned now that they’re not accommodating of left-thought enough
You’re shitting out of both ends and your head is empty, where is this coming from
Just ASK mainstream journos their politics and the reason they all guest in chapo and do spots on left media now is because since 2012 everyone writing for publications as right leaning and libertarian as The Economist is more comfortable than ever just saying Chapo is right
“unwillingness to attack the identitarian consensus, on display in Robinson’s and Bruenig’s salvos against Savage, keeps this tacit truce intact.” this entire blog in one statement
Butthurt as hell nobody liked your commissioned piece about being sad nobody likes your writing as a White Man who needs a trophy
Get good
you don’t think the left is against identitarians? How do you think they feel about your White Identity murder scumbag mask kill squads
we’re pretty against it assholes- no matter how much concern trolling you do that you’re not getting enough help beating up black people, Mexicans, liberal women etc and all non whites- turns out anyone with eyes can see you’re wrong about that shit
Identitarianism can die on the trash heap of history with Hitler
“The simplest answer is coalitional. Even if they seem at odds with the culture of mainstream left-of-center institutions, they are reliant on subscriber bases that are mostly aligned with the politics of those institutions. If they took too forceful of a stance against identitarianism, millennial white male left podcasters would alienate many of their subscribers, especially as Trump takes a sledgehammer to DEI, and before long would find themselves on the perilous “post-left” trajectory described by Oliver Bateman”
One of the stupidest things I have ever read
There’s not some magical genie animating the logical, numerate left critique of white grievance morons mad they didn’t get a million dollars for their screen play
No the writers of left publications couldn’t simply MEAN THE WORDS THEY WROTE
it’s so funny that a race realist like Schmitz is now convinced that now more than ever white men are being cowed from saying whatever they want in public when you have the most prominent right wing Catholic in the United States, more popular with hill staffers than the Vice President, going to the club and heiling Hitler
Sure left wing voices aren’t exercising their secret white-sympathizing free speech lmao
Perhaps these guys are unable to distinguish between being locked out of "institutions" and major journalistic outlets because of their identity, and because they are socialists to start with.
It's not like a socialist writer can get a job at any large newspaper I can think of. Noam Chomsky was locked out of even guest appearances in the NYT for 25 straight years. The NYT now has any number of Trump-friendly conservatives, has always had conservatives, but their liberalism has NEVER, in a permanent employee, gone as far as a socialist columnist.
So they were already used to having to start their own companies...Michael Moore couldn't make a movie until he invented his own production house.
Matt Bruening's analysis depends on counting those in the "ARTS, DESIGN, ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS, AND MEDIA" fields. But while editors, writers and authors are in this category, it is dominated by "Public Relations Specialists" (there are a LOT of coaches too, but I think that's noise from HS coaches or trainers) . The change in white men in the niche industries Savage writes about aren't picked up by the Bruening methodology. He should have just dont the specific categories Savage is referring too.
BUT I agree w Bruenig's conclusion: If diversification efforts generated a huge change, then the backlash to it might be acceptable, something worth risking and weathering if it comes. Instead, what appears to have happened is a lot of empty talk, no real significant change, and backlash that is causing real harm. This is the worst of all possible worlds.
I LOL’d at the description of Nathan Robinson as ‘aristocratic.’ The Wonka/Buckley hybrid is apt though.
Matt Bruenig’s take shows more than anything the limits of purely materialist analysis. After all, pulverizing every single Confederate statue and Confederate name plaque in the US would also affect 0% of Americans in terms of their material income and standard of living—yet people seem to care a lot about that question.
The whole reason people care about Savage’s piece—more so than if he had written about exactly the same thing happening with accountants and pharmacists (with a greater economic impact)—is that Savage’s examples are the “clerisy” (Kotkin), i.e. those who control the means of symbolic and imaginary production, or the ideological nonstate apparatus, if you will. They’re the ones officially responsible for producing the “myths” that we are all supposed to live by. So the output of screenwriters and history professors has a huge impact that is not captured by Bruenigist materialist analysis.
That’s a really astute observation. Reinforces my sense from Geoff’s piece and others that the “white millennial dudes are fine” folks are not just missing the point but actually distracting from it.
There's been what seems like a multi-pronged attack on the "feminization" and "white millennials are getting hit hard" pieces recently that seem to take the form of the following all at the same time:
“That didn’t happen.”
“And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.”
“And if it was, that’s not a big deal.”
“And if it is, that’s not my fault.”
“And if it was, I didn’t mean it.”
“And if I did, you deserved it.”
Pick your ideological orientation and there's something out there for everyone.
Those are also cool jobs and people who want them are generally more passionate about them than the average accountant is about accounting
NJR tries to style himself more like Tom Wolfe than WFB.
I’d add a couple points to this: the Chapo Trap House guys also avoided cancellation because they are friends behind the scenes with many of the most zealous culture war journalists in NYC media. They essentially have protection from being destroyed and then mock it when it happens to others
Liz Bruening has absolutely been savaged by the identity-first crowd in media, over and over again. So it makes it extra contemptible that Matt Bruening is running cover for them now that it’s become evident that they were advancing discriminatory practices
Which culture war journalists gave them protection? Let’s have some names
First and foremost, the people at Deadspin/Defector - David Roth is a frequent guest of theirs and Megan Greenwell let Felix write for Deadspin before they jumped ship. She especially is a culture war zealot and identitarian
If you pay attention to who their podcast guests are, many of them are that type of journo
Will Menaker’s father was also an editor at The New Yorker so God only knows how many elite media contacts they got through that
This article seem to have a passing familiarity with the last ten years. Nice.
Matt's response: https://mattbruenig.com/2025/12/21/the-midwit-theory-of-geoff-shullenberger
> If this is what you believe, which is what I think the weight of the evidence supports, then Savage’s argument must be wrong. It can’t be that (1) DEI was cynical corporate nonsense and that (2) DEI was a widespread affirmative action program sidelining millions of 30-something white men. Geoff cannot understand this because he just scans (1) and (2) as saying negative things about DEI and thinks that if you don’t like DEI them you must support both (1) and (2) without regard for whether they are contradictory or false. And because he cannot grasp that actually a good argument can’t say both (1) and (2), he cannot understand what someone is doing when they pick one or the other but not both. So, he’s left to try to make sense of the world with the dumbest possible psychoanalysis of socialists while he is in fact engaged in the project of sidelining class politics in favor of DEI gibberish.
In my experience, both 1 & 2 were true. Al-Gharbi in "we have never been woke" offers the best analysis
ended her
This article makes a claim that might be somewhat true “white bro socialists participate in media environments favorable to themselves personally in the face of a ‘hostile’ consensus”, but then jumps to the conclusion that this is an inherently bad thing.
Steph Curry became the greatest 3 point shoot ever in part because his opportunity (NBA dad) plus physical limitations (shorter, scrawny) incentivized him to pursue avenues of success outside the conventional knowledge. In doing so, he succeeded personally while also pulling the rest of the league in his direction by exposing an underexploited tactic. Are we supposed to think that’s bad?
White bro socialists have the opportunity and incentives to explore unconventional corners of the media landscape in both content and distribution. Sure it can be acknowledged that they are not altruistic in doing so, but it doesn’t make it necessarily bad.
It might not be bad if they were "pulling the rest of league" forward, but that clearly aint happening.
For people interested in a precedent in the rock n roll world, I'd recommend studying the evolution of Steve Albini. Gen X outsider-entrepeneur who constantly slagged the mainstream, but who developed a symbiotic relationship with it. His politics gradually changed accordingly.
Instead of anecdotes how about data? Academia (cited in the article) is big enough to provide lots. The answer is that, while lots of progress has been made, and there is huge variation across fields, schools etc, men still outnumber women, and women are more likely to leave
https://www.zippia.com/assistant-professor-jobs/demographics/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10588949/
The debate as I've seen it seems to be entirely about fights over a finite number of slots at the top of the US cultural hierarchy (I'm not in this hierarchy and have barely heard of the people involved). Expecting these to be allocated on merit seems naive to me.
Lmao truly some shit shoveling here
“your mode of politics can’t even find a way to function within a medium-sized media organization, how likely is that?”
after mewling for decades about the feminazis running the mainstream media you are so concerned now that they’re not accommodating of left-thought enough
You’re shitting out of both ends and your head is empty, where is this coming from
Just ASK mainstream journos their politics and the reason they all guest in chapo and do spots on left media now is because since 2012 everyone writing for publications as right leaning and libertarian as The Economist is more comfortable than ever just saying Chapo is right
“unwillingness to attack the identitarian consensus, on display in Robinson’s and Bruenig’s salvos against Savage, keeps this tacit truce intact.” this entire blog in one statement
Butthurt as hell nobody liked your commissioned piece about being sad nobody likes your writing as a White Man who needs a trophy
Get good
you don’t think the left is against identitarians? How do you think they feel about your White Identity murder scumbag mask kill squads
we’re pretty against it assholes- no matter how much concern trolling you do that you’re not getting enough help beating up black people, Mexicans, liberal women etc and all non whites- turns out anyone with eyes can see you’re wrong about that shit
Identitarianism can die on the trash heap of history with Hitler
Is that a strongly worded enough condemnation
“The simplest answer is coalitional. Even if they seem at odds with the culture of mainstream left-of-center institutions, they are reliant on subscriber bases that are mostly aligned with the politics of those institutions. If they took too forceful of a stance against identitarianism, millennial white male left podcasters would alienate many of their subscribers, especially as Trump takes a sledgehammer to DEI, and before long would find themselves on the perilous “post-left” trajectory described by Oliver Bateman”
One of the stupidest things I have ever read
There’s not some magical genie animating the logical, numerate left critique of white grievance morons mad they didn’t get a million dollars for their screen play
No the writers of left publications couldn’t simply MEAN THE WORDS THEY WROTE
lmao
it’s so funny that a race realist like Schmitz is now convinced that now more than ever white men are being cowed from saying whatever they want in public when you have the most prominent right wing Catholic in the United States, more popular with hill staffers than the Vice President, going to the club and heiling Hitler
Sure left wing voices aren’t exercising their secret white-sympathizing free speech lmao
In your dreams buddy
Excuse me, it’s Schmitz in editorial, Geoff something is typing the keys- so blame to go around
Just engage with the merits of critique next time
This is retarded and so is Geoff Shullenberger
I hope the annuals of history will always emphasize how tragic a mistake the Democrats made when they decided to alienate the "Bernie Bros".
Musa al-Gharbi debunks that Bruenings graph:
https://x.com/Musa_alGharbi/status/2001653493006729614
what the graph shows is the net change over the past ten years is. . . 0
Perhaps these guys are unable to distinguish between being locked out of "institutions" and major journalistic outlets because of their identity, and because they are socialists to start with.
It's not like a socialist writer can get a job at any large newspaper I can think of. Noam Chomsky was locked out of even guest appearances in the NYT for 25 straight years. The NYT now has any number of Trump-friendly conservatives, has always had conservatives, but their liberalism has NEVER, in a permanent employee, gone as far as a socialist columnist.
So they were already used to having to start their own companies...Michael Moore couldn't make a movie until he invented his own production house.
Matt Bruening's analysis depends on counting those in the "ARTS, DESIGN, ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS, AND MEDIA" fields. But while editors, writers and authors are in this category, it is dominated by "Public Relations Specialists" (there are a LOT of coaches too, but I think that's noise from HS coaches or trainers) . The change in white men in the niche industries Savage writes about aren't picked up by the Bruening methodology. He should have just dont the specific categories Savage is referring too.
BUT I agree w Bruenig's conclusion: If diversification efforts generated a huge change, then the backlash to it might be acceptable, something worth risking and weathering if it comes. Instead, what appears to have happened is a lot of empty talk, no real significant change, and backlash that is causing real harm. This is the worst of all possible worlds.
I lol'd.
Semi related https://nimnim1.substack.com/p/poly-hell