@jayrosen_nyu

OTOH especially for a young person in contemporary US its' an admirable sign of confidence (as well as naivete, ofc, but that's a given lol) to delay the age of ideological marriage

OTOH that such intellectual paedomorphosis is so strategicllly valuable (think Musk's play of being "just a centrist") in the Discourse is a sign of profound democratic corrosion.

@jayrosen_nyu
I loved this piece. I mean, I hate the story it tells because it leaves me so pessimistic. But as a piece of journalism, it's one of the best things I read all year.

(And I'm oddly stuck on that detail that even with her Harvard resume and GWB policy council gig, she couldn't get into law school. We might have been better off if she'd been accepted somewhere.)

@jayrosen_nyu This idea of people with no real political beliefs becoming career politicians fascinates me.

But I say that as someone who became an electrical engineer and later software engineer as a result of being fascinated by electronics and computers.

@jayrosen_nyu when they drop the paywall I will go back to following and reading NYT. Until then, they need to earn back trust.

They were willing participants in trump's reign of terror and the follow up reign sh*t on Biden and Dems campaign.

@jayrosen_nyu
I finally remember what this reminds me of. It's the Jane Mayer piece on McConnell in TNY from 2020:

"For months, I searched for the larger principles or sense of purpose that animates McConnell ... Finally, someone who knows him very well told me, “Give up. You can look and look for something more in him, but it isn't there. I wish I could tell you that there is some secret thing that he really believes in, but he doesn't.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-mitch-mcconnell-became-trumps-enabler-in-chief

@jayrosen_nyu There’s something so heartbreaking about Stefanik’s story as it comes through here. An ambitious and smart young woman starts out with principles, but in the end drops what little she holds dear for abject power.

It won’t go well for her in the long run. This is not a story with a happy ending. The milk is already starting to curdle.

Great work @nickconfessore

@jayrosen_nyu

Another way to look at the authoritarian movements/cults is that they consist of three easily defined (although easily intersecting) groups:

1) Psychopaths and sociopaths (drivers)

2) opportunists/sycophants/grifters, also sociopathic (enablers and drivers, middle-managers)

3) idiots, 'poorly educated', misinformed, disinformed, fearful, angry (enablers, foot soldiers)

The Stefanik characters fits neatly into the "ethic-less opportunist/sycophant" category.

Narcissism can exist in all groups (even in their compassionate counterparts!) but prevalence is higher among the "drivers" — also inflating their 'self worth'.

@jayrosen_nyu I have a somewhat different take, which is that the absence of principles is itself a signal of certain beliefs, which have now been revealed by the willingness to completely embrace the authoritarianism. I think it’s a mistake to chalk this all up to the obvious hyper-ambition. Even most hyper-ambitious Harvard students have ethical/democratic lines they will not cross, & we should believe people when they show us who they are:

https://mastodon.social/@mcopelov/109610143269841949