Author: Matt Bruenig

In the discourse about Biden’s student debt forgiveness announcement, one common talking point has been that many people recently benefited from the forgiving of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. This seems to be fairly effective rhetoric, but it’s a little bit misleading. When COVID hit, Congress scrambled to pass a relief bill called the CARES… Continue reading The Paycheck Protection Program Did Not Really Provide Loans

One of my favorite sports trolls is the era-comparison troll. The way it works is you take someone who was considered a great player many decades ago and claim that they would not even be able to make a team in today’s league. You can do this with pretty much any sport that depends a… Continue reading The Best Basketball Player Ever Probably Never Touched a Basketball

I read this piece from Freddie deBoer today about the importance of normie politics, which he defines as: A politics that plays to the electorate’s sense of normalcy and which assuages their fundamental fear of change through symbol. Normie politics is not inherently moderate but rather presents its positions and candidates as commonsensical and in keeping… Continue reading Normie Politics

When abortion policy is in the news, I always get a few dozen messages from people who are mad at me. Their anger doesn’t make much sense as I have never been anti-abortion. From what I can gather, these people are actually angry at my wife. But this anger also doesn’t make much sense. Liz… Continue reading Abortion

Over the last month or so, various journalists have run stories about the problems liberal organizations have had with internal strife related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) type demands from younger staffers. Thomas Edsall has a run down of all the action here. These articles generate two kinds of reactions in the discourse. The… Continue reading The Origins of the Recent DEI-Infused Liberal Politics Stuff