It’s the final night of the convention and in the hours before everything kicks off, the lads convened at the Substack loft to chat with Axios’s Alex Thompson, our old pal and arguably the most plugged in political reporter in America.
But… does that mean… we’re all dead?! This is some wild shit you’re revealing here, Scothorne. Since I have your attention: why does heaven look *exactly* like the same part of Queens I’ve been living in for years now? I’m so fucking confused. Man, this really *is* an amazing podcast!
Classic NOLA story right there. No place like it on earth! I mean where else can you have a positively orgasmic po’boy from Domilise’s for lunch, spectacular Cajun seafood for dinner, see Trombone Shorty and/or a million other spectacular musicians at the Maple Leaf in Carrollton at night—and then end up waking up in a bathtub full of ice in a seedy hotel in Mid-City with no kidneys?! Only in New Orleans, kids! Maybe my favorite city on this earth.
Alex Thompson was great here (as are you all ofc) even though it could be said that the knock-on effects of his early honest reporting at Axios is that we now have Candidate Kamala Harris; it's not his fault that I never got to hear Dean Phillips in a debate.
Speaking of Harris, the Oakland/Berkley divide is very real and I don't know enough about these things so I won't be *that guy*, but Leighton Woodhouse is the real expert here and he has all the details in his Substack piece "Kamala Harris Is Not From Oakland: The Other Stolen Valor"
I can attest from personal experience that the Oakland vs Republic of Berkeley divide is very real. Even the Oakland vs Oakland Hills distinction is loud and absolute.
Moynihan talked about the opening shot of Goodfellas being a long tracking shot. It's not! He's talking about the restaurant entrance scene, which definitely isn't the opening shot of the film. Come on people, I pay good money and I expect you to get 30 odd year old films right.
The long tracking shot that opened a movie was in the execrable Bonfire of the Vanities, but may also have been the opening of Touch of Evil. For those who haven't seen it, that was a great movie
Jesus christ I got to the statement at 11:15 describing kamala's "middle class upbringing" and I stopped listening to the whole podcast when I heard no pushback from Moynihan.
It is absolutely disqualifying in every professional capacity for anyone to remotely characterize the daughter of two PhDs who worked at top-level universities as "middle class"
It's so disqualifying that I no longer care to hear any more opinions presented here. It needed immediate and robust pushback. It's false. Objectively and subjectively.
It depends on your definition of "middle class" - does it automatically exclude professionals? If so, it diverges from the common definition of the term (which encompasses everyone but the wealthiest and poorest quintiles). To be clear, I take no issue with your objections to Harris trying to (mis) represent the economic circumstances of her upbringing in order to make herself more relatable to voters but I don't think the core of the issue is her use of the term "middle class".
No. It automatically excludes people who would have grown up with 3-4x+ the median household income. Which of course Kamala did, with a father who is/was a Stanford economics professor and a mother who was a PhD Scientist.
I get that people love to make the argument "oh well a 90th percentile income doesn't go THAT far..." But true or not, it is not middle class
Ok, so your definition of "middle class" is more restrictive and you're making some broad assumptions about something neither of us can verify (her household income growing up - into which you include her dad's earnings even though her parents got divorced).
But since there is a spectrum of interpretations of the term "middle class", it doesn't seem worth it to me to attack Harris' speech specifically for the use of that term (when there are SO MANY other more objective avenues of criticism).
I'm not getting distracted by playing a word game with a lawyer, she knows damn well that almost nobody considers the child of two PhD academics to be working class. It's a part of a larger LARP, in which her Howard U hoodie, Chuck Taylors and her "working class neighborhood" are also integral parts of the stage design, its insulting.
Well if you ask people the whole 10-90% range seems to include themselves in the middle class. But I think most people think that is stupid.
Professor these days might be on the very fringes of the upper-middle class and starting to fall into the middle class, but that was notably NOT the case 40 years ago. Fuck one professor I know at a second-tier campus of a state university had ~10:1 matching on his retirement contributions and didn't really realize it, and retired with millions when he thought he had like $800k saved. And he never even made full professor. The 60s-80s were a much more remunerative time in academia.
Professors don't actually get paid all that much in general, so unless they have a side hustle or work in an industry where they can monetize their research, they're definitely middle class. (My GF got promoted to full professor this year, and got a whole $5,000 raise on the $100,000/year she made as an associate prof. Don't spend it all in one place!)
One among many reasons not to waste your time getting a Ph.D. With few exceptions, it's a net-negative to lifetime earnings vs. getting a Master's and heading to industry.
Anyway, so: working class? No. "Working class" to me implies something about the nature of the work involving hustle and hard work. But middle class? Yeah, probably.
Was it? I honestly have no idea, but I suppose it's possible tenured faculty salaries were much higher relative to the median income 40 years ago than they are today.
For sure. And probably the bigger thing was benefits were much better, and there were wildly fewer adjuncts and lower level faculty. So a much higher proportion of "professors" we on what would today be tenured faculty wages.
Right now tenure is I think ~22% of professors, 40 years ago it was over 40%.
I kept listening and thought there was non-zero chance to return to that to discuss it. Moynihan brings up her leaning into being from Oakland or East Bay, not Berkeley but that's it really. Moynihan still does the private high school thing and brings up class (more importantly, how "race" is used as a distraction for issues that are better understood through the lens of class) some but just IMO, the podcast really needs his class rage to balance out the.. uh, rest of it, save Welch talking about schools and COVID.
Middle class in the sense of bourgeois, that's the way the term middle class is used in most of the world. They are neither aristocrats nor industrialists nor movers of capital.
But not generally here. In Europe Middle class was basically anyone who wasn't a aristocrat, clergy or someone who owned a large business.
Like a top 5% income factory manager was "middle class", and overgrown "clerk" that is most decidedly not how we use the term in the US, though is often how people try to portray/conceive of themselves
Steve Kornacki's also on Sunday Night Football with his whiteboard. He's a regular part of NBC sports coverage. They send everyone to the Triple Crown. Mike Tirico's the lead broadcaster there too. It's not like they have a huge bench. NFL, horse racing, and the Olympics is still pretty much all they have. This is why they were sending Fallon and SNL cast members to Paris. I'm sure he likes the fact that he can also bet, but I don't think that's the entire reason he's there. They'd probably be sending him anyway. Also, you just call them commentators, unless they're specifically giving out betting advice and picks, in which case the term is handicapper.
It's probably too on the nose- but I just want him to put an envelope up to his head and make predictions and then rip the envelope and read a funny joke.
Two episodes in one day? Have I died? Am I in heaven?
Yeah. I'm sorry to tell you, but we figured this would be the easiest way to break the news to you.
Well shit.
Calm down, you get two episodes a day; every-fuckin’-day.
But… does that mean… we’re all dead?! This is some wild shit you’re revealing here, Scothorne. Since I have your attention: why does heaven look *exactly* like the same part of Queens I’ve been living in for years now? I’m so fucking confused. Man, this really *is* an amazing podcast!
"speaking of paid sluts and free whores. Bill Clinton" I'm dying
I popped into the comments explicitly to give this a shout out if nobody else had already done so. Good job! 😂
It’s called synergy 😜
Two episodes in one day, well that’s almost as lovely as the woman I met in Chicago who stole my heart, and my money.
You have my attention.
She also stole his kidneys.
Damn, that takes me back to Mardi Gras ‘98
Classic NOLA story right there. No place like it on earth! I mean where else can you have a positively orgasmic po’boy from Domilise’s for lunch, spectacular Cajun seafood for dinner, see Trombone Shorty and/or a million other spectacular musicians at the Maple Leaf in Carrollton at night—and then end up waking up in a bathtub full of ice in a seedy hotel in Mid-City with no kidneys?! Only in New Orleans, kids! Maybe my favorite city on this earth.
Was it Nancy and did she Malort you? Because she stole all our hearts, some by way of Malort.
No, no, it happened the night before. It’s a long story. This beautiful vision was a prostitute; she can steal from me anytime. 😍
OMG meetings with Fifdom are so good. They bring out ALL the underbelly of being.
Two episodes in one day?! You’re bringing us so much joy!
Absolute show of cowardice not naming this episode Paid Sluts and Free Whores. UnSUBSCRIBE
Alex Thompson was great here (as are you all ofc) even though it could be said that the knock-on effects of his early honest reporting at Axios is that we now have Candidate Kamala Harris; it's not his fault that I never got to hear Dean Phillips in a debate.
Speaking of Harris, the Oakland/Berkley divide is very real and I don't know enough about these things so I won't be *that guy*, but Leighton Woodhouse is the real expert here and he has all the details in his Substack piece "Kamala Harris Is Not From Oakland: The Other Stolen Valor"
https://open.substack.com/pub/leightonwoodhouse/p/kamala-harris-is-not-from-oakland?r=gb5gl&utm_medium=ios
I can attest from personal experience that the Oakland vs Republic of Berkeley divide is very real. Even the Oakland vs Oakland Hills distinction is loud and absolute.
Me, every week: “I’ll have to listen again when I’m not high” — skrt! — “i mean… I have to listen again when I’m less high”
Thank you, men.
I have more to say! But I’ll spare you for now (you’re welcome)
Drive through please
Thank you for visiting
No one:
DNC platform: We must move forward, not backward! Upward! Not forward! And always twirling(!), twirling(!) towards freedom!
My name is also Alex Thompson!
His name...is Robert Paulson.....his name.....is Robert Paulson......his name....is Robert Paulson...
Moynihan talked about the opening shot of Goodfellas being a long tracking shot. It's not! He's talking about the restaurant entrance scene, which definitely isn't the opening shot of the film. Come on people, I pay good money and I expect you to get 30 odd year old films right.
The long tracking shot that opened a movie was in the execrable Bonfire of the Vanities, but may also have been the opening of Touch of Evil. For those who haven't seen it, that was a great movie
Is that like the diner scene of Reservoir dogs?
(I know it’s not but I wanted to add it to the discussion)
Kamala Harris' "working class" background?
Oh, she was working it!
Jesus christ I got to the statement at 11:15 describing kamala's "middle class upbringing" and I stopped listening to the whole podcast when I heard no pushback from Moynihan.
It is absolutely disqualifying in every professional capacity for anyone to remotely characterize the daughter of two PhDs who worked at top-level universities as "middle class"
It's so disqualifying that I no longer care to hear any more opinions presented here. It needed immediate and robust pushback. It's false. Objectively and subjectively.
It depends on your definition of "middle class" - does it automatically exclude professionals? If so, it diverges from the common definition of the term (which encompasses everyone but the wealthiest and poorest quintiles). To be clear, I take no issue with your objections to Harris trying to (mis) represent the economic circumstances of her upbringing in order to make herself more relatable to voters but I don't think the core of the issue is her use of the term "middle class".
No. It automatically excludes people who would have grown up with 3-4x+ the median household income. Which of course Kamala did, with a father who is/was a Stanford economics professor and a mother who was a PhD Scientist.
I get that people love to make the argument "oh well a 90th percentile income doesn't go THAT far..." But true or not, it is not middle class
Ok, so your definition of "middle class" is more restrictive and you're making some broad assumptions about something neither of us can verify (her household income growing up - into which you include her dad's earnings even though her parents got divorced).
But since there is a spectrum of interpretations of the term "middle class", it doesn't seem worth it to me to attack Harris' speech specifically for the use of that term (when there are SO MANY other more objective avenues of criticism).
I'm not getting distracted by playing a word game with a lawyer, she knows damn well that almost nobody considers the child of two PhD academics to be working class. It's a part of a larger LARP, in which her Howard U hoodie, Chuck Taylors and her "working class neighborhood" are also integral parts of the stage design, its insulting.
Well if you ask people the whole 10-90% range seems to include themselves in the middle class. But I think most people think that is stupid.
Professor these days might be on the very fringes of the upper-middle class and starting to fall into the middle class, but that was notably NOT the case 40 years ago. Fuck one professor I know at a second-tier campus of a state university had ~10:1 matching on his retirement contributions and didn't really realize it, and retired with millions when he thought he had like $800k saved. And he never even made full professor. The 60s-80s were a much more remunerative time in academia.
Professors don't actually get paid all that much in general, so unless they have a side hustle or work in an industry where they can monetize their research, they're definitely middle class. (My GF got promoted to full professor this year, and got a whole $5,000 raise on the $100,000/year she made as an associate prof. Don't spend it all in one place!)
One among many reasons not to waste your time getting a Ph.D. With few exceptions, it's a net-negative to lifetime earnings vs. getting a Master's and heading to industry.
Anyway, so: working class? No. "Working class" to me implies something about the nature of the work involving hustle and hard work. But middle class? Yeah, probably.
That was pretty different 40 years ago.
Was it? I honestly have no idea, but I suppose it's possible tenured faculty salaries were much higher relative to the median income 40 years ago than they are today.
For sure. And probably the bigger thing was benefits were much better, and there were wildly fewer adjuncts and lower level faculty. So a much higher proportion of "professors" we on what would today be tenured faculty wages.
Right now tenure is I think ~22% of professors, 40 years ago it was over 40%.
Maybe if they are two English phds who couldn't get a real job. Two scientists? Solidly affluent
To be fair! Her dad is only a professor emeritus of *economics* at Stanford. It was her mom who was the true scientist!
I kept listening and thought there was non-zero chance to return to that to discuss it. Moynihan brings up her leaning into being from Oakland or East Bay, not Berkeley but that's it really. Moynihan still does the private high school thing and brings up class (more importantly, how "race" is used as a distraction for issues that are better understood through the lens of class) some but just IMO, the podcast really needs his class rage to balance out the.. uh, rest of it, save Welch talking about schools and COVID.
Middle class in the sense of bourgeois, that's the way the term middle class is used in most of the world. They are neither aristocrats nor industrialists nor movers of capital.
But not generally here. In Europe Middle class was basically anyone who wasn't a aristocrat, clergy or someone who owned a large business.
Like a top 5% income factory manager was "middle class", and overgrown "clerk" that is most decidedly not how we use the term in the US, though is often how people try to portray/conceive of themselves
Axios pimping the pod. What is happening right now?
https://x.com/AxiosComms/status/1826769455978086628
Steve Kornacki's also on Sunday Night Football with his whiteboard. He's a regular part of NBC sports coverage. They send everyone to the Triple Crown. Mike Tirico's the lead broadcaster there too. It's not like they have a huge bench. NFL, horse racing, and the Olympics is still pretty much all they have. This is why they were sending Fallon and SNL cast members to Paris. I'm sure he likes the fact that he can also bet, but I don't think that's the entire reason he's there. They'd probably be sending him anyway. Also, you just call them commentators, unless they're specifically giving out betting advice and picks, in which case the term is handicapper.
It's probably too on the nose- but I just want him to put an envelope up to his head and make predictions and then rip the envelope and read a funny joke.
The Amazing Carnacki
I agree that we should not blame Kathleen and also give her two million dollars.
Very good ep. Hope you’ll have Alex on again.
Good ole Matt. 4:59 "lawyered to within an inch of a degree"!