If it’s not apparent why I object to Yglesias and putzes like him I just wanted to clarify that it’s not merely related to their lack of talent combined with overabundance of credentials. No, these are some of the less emotional reasons:

1) According to Yglesias and people like him, neoliberalism does not exist. It’s not an ideology, not an approach to and from economics, not a governing principle found anywhere in the world. According to this view, the features and devastation of late-stage capitalism are natural and unalterable, like gravity or photonic emission (Somehow, despite different countries with differing policies seeing different outcomes. Huh!)

2) Also according to these people, the sole explanation for Trump’s victory and consequently Hillary’s loss is racism — not economic effects, not the abandonment of the working class by Democrats, not the destruction of unions, not the Social Darwinistic ideology of neoliberalism (which according to them does not exist) — no, none of these things. Just racism.

3) The complete inability of Yglesias and those like him to step outside of the data points. I call it “spreadsheet fuckery,” where the results you think you’ve “proven” with fucking around with Excel or some other tool is more valid than what’s out there in the real world. Yes, yes, data is important. Without it, we are lost. But the data is not the world, is not the truth, is not even knowledge. It offers no guidance and tell you not at all what to optimize for. Yglesias and his ilk get none of this. Just none.

If Yglesias were merely talentless that would not be such a big deal. Join the club. Most people aren’t very good at very much.

But he is talentless, credentialed and with a large, influential platform where he harms people and distorts the truth daily.

That makes him my enemy.