I know many of us very much enjoy Dan Carlin's podcast Hardcore History, it is without a doubt, the finest History based podcast out there, bar none. Its immersive, detailed, and fairly balanced, as Carlin points out, he likes to explore the grey-areas of the various sides of the topic. Carlin has another podcast which is much more current events focused, Common Sense w/Dan Carlin. His most recent episode, which was released on Sept 20, he plainly puts it out there he's voting for Biden and delves into it all.

Carlin is fairly libertarian in most of his socio-political leanings, his podcasts are good at exploring nuance without over fixating. Well, this most recent episode, he fixates on Trump; complete spotlight on all of his worries while overlooking and glossing-over the reality of the landscape that exists. While DJT has many flaws that I agree with Carlin on, he fails to rationalize, that the alternative or, the other side, is just as flawed if not deeper and more developed in their flaws. DJT is living rent free in Carlin's head, such a disappointment.

Just over an hour in length....
https://www.compass.com/listin.../612241486960171145/

I've observed this effect Trump has on some otherwise very intelligent people. I suppose when you're that intelligent, that learned, it becomes difficult to resist the notion that you're always right. But even as the dumbest people in the world are sometimes correct about something, so the smartest can be fantastically dead wrong about something. There have been people all throughout history who were very intelligent who made some historically significant blunders, to the point of toppling nations and ending scores of lives.

I think a lot of it can be pared down to this: some people's delicate sensibilities being offended by a brash, bold, successful man smacks of schoolyard days. The nerds and the jocks have never really been friends. But you don't send the chess club or Hi-Q team out on the football field to win the big game against your rivals, and deep down, I'm sure plenty of those folks still carry the sting of those days. I wasn't really in either crowd, so I say this as a mostly neutral observer. Basically, Trump is that starting QB stud who landed the prom queen and carries himself with big dick swagger - and that strikes a raw nerve with the "I'm a genius" crowd. When that QB aces the SAT's because he was secretly studying his ass off the whole time, and makes it into his first choice of universities and eventually graduates as class valedictorian, do you think the president of the high school robotics team is going to suddenly respect him and look at him in a whole new light? Possibly. It's also just as likely he'll react to that exactly the way we see people react to Trump.

What I'm finding difficult these days is giving these people a pass for it. The stakes are too high and things are too polarized to simply say "well, I don't agree with Carlin, but he's a really bright guy." This shouldn't be about jockeying for status points among peers, like so much of the politics on the left seems to be about anymore, it should be about taking the field and stomping the shit out of the rival team from the other side of town because Go Mascots! The days of having a "presidential" President that gives us the feel-goods have clearly come and gone, and the days of having a President who often says things that tweak the feel-good crowd in the process of doing the right things for the country are here.

Please pardon the football analogy, but I find it makes fairly good sense in terms of sussing out exactly what these people's problem is. In short, I look to Carlin for history and perspective on it, and if he thinks Biden is the answer to today's problems, then I have to limit my intake of his opinions strictly to history because his only value to me is in analyzing and interpreting things that have already happened. Maybe that's really short-sighted, but it's where I end up on the matter.

Start the boycott!

Not. As long as that stuff stays out of the history podcasts, I’m still down. He’s entitled to whatever opinions (and votes) he wants.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Start the boycott!

Not. As long as that stuff stays out of the history podcasts, I’m still down. He’s entitled to whatever opinions (and votes) he wants.

Good thing he's got two separate podcasts....