Several days ago we exposed a corner of the internet inhabited by odious trolls, sketchy “independent” journalists and dilettante, third-positionist hipster douchebags all with dodgy connections to conservative think tanks. Now that the story has had some time to settle, they’re up in arms and asking to speak to the manager.
In true “Karen” fashion Aimee Laba went over my head to speak directly with Ken Silverstein in a hysterical exchange that almost made me pity her. Then I remembered that she’s a racist.
For the record, there are people from wealthy backgrounds with progressive views who don’t abandon them or become toxic right-wing trolls, but whether or not she is stinking rich or well-to-do petit bourgeois is immaterial. She is not what she represents herself to be. The private school she attended is in the same suburb where the Australian prime minister resides.
I can only guess that it takes some serious cash to live there, yet that won’t stop her from cosplaying as a soot-covered, overall bedecked proletarian. She’s a proven liar so anything she says must be taken with a metric ton of salt.
There are a lot of other signifiers of wealth I could have mentioned in Monday’s piece and there’s a lot more that we can mention in the future, but I just want to make it clear that we don’t really care about Aimee. She’s small-time and a has-been. We’re more interested in how propaganda works and we’re much more interested in going after the big fish like Glenn Greenwald. Just for fun, though, here’s a clip from a post-election seven-hour stream she did. Yes, seven-hours, where among other things she talks about how her brother lost a couple thousand dollars betting on a Trump victory per her instructions. Where I come from most people don’t have a couple grand to flush down the toilet like that. So, I’m sticking to my original hunch that they’re a bunch of loaded Lebanese wiping their asses with dollar bills.
Now, to address the “doxxing” controversy. It’s absolutely rich for her to play the victim when she has no compunction about going after people personally, Meagan Day and Elizabeth Bruenig being but two examples, not that I’m particularly a fan of eithers work. I’ll also add that pretty much everyone knows all this stuff about her anyway. I’ve seen people post about her on Twitter using her real name. She’s just mad that I spun a strong and coherent exposé with public information about her.
The last thing I’ll say on this matter. We have more dirt on Aimee, and we can dig further, but we’re just not interested enough to do it. We’d rather focus on something more significant. We also believe in redemption. If Aimee were to sincerely apologize for her bigotry and fascism, we’ll consider it. It also wouldn’t hurt to get off the internet.
Adam Lehrer also had a meltdown about the story. [Editor’s note, KS: You’re probably wondering who Adam Lehrer is. I know I am and Tony patiently explained that to me some time in the past 24 to 48 hours and I completely forgot. So here is a link to the Wikipedia page of this never-been. Never mind, there is no Wikipedia page about this self-promoting clow, so here’s a link to a webpage he created. I cannot vouch for its accuracy.]
I don’t really have to mock Lehrer because he does a fine enough job of that himself. I’ve never seen someone so insecure. Nevertheless, if you want some more laughs here’s an excerpt he wrote as a 35-year-old man, pontificating on “the Black Pill”. Presented without commentary.
Some odds and ends. There’s probably a lot more to the Peter Thiel/Red Scare connection as several people have alleged, and I will follow up regarding this. At the very least I know that Claremont loves Red Scare. Here’s a clip from The Roundtable where they speak of a left-right convergence, describe them as “Marxist” and use them to promote Mitt Romney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRTcEcKdci0. (starts at 51:13)
Now to respond to some fair criticism I received for the piece. Most of it had to do with comments I made regarding Matt Christman. I’d like to make clear that I wasn’t alleging that he was part of this whole think tank network I described, but just that he came dangerously close to the Michael Lind thesis (see my original story) in my opinion.
If Lind is arguing that education is a main determinant of class then I think Christman at times bordered on that on his very good CushVlog. Check out, for example, O Captain, My Captain — and I’m not sure this is actually the right one but it’s got some good stuff, too, and includes digs at the wretched Matt Yglesias at 00:51:06 — which he put out after Barack Obama more or less led a conspiracy that helped deprive Bernie Sanders of the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Again, I think a lot of this discourse was in the air and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because his streams were impromptu, and he was shooting from the hip. I could go back and look at them and perhaps write about it. I will point out, however, that the weirdos I trashed in the article are 100% ex-Chapo heads who basically went full fash because they were less successful and Chapo never gave them the time of day (dozens of examples of this). So, if anything, criticizing Chapo helped my article’s credibility because it’s not like I am trying to curry favor with them or with anyone for that matter.
Other people asked me why I didn’t include so-in-so. Believe me, there were dozens and dozens of other crypto-fascist propagandists I could have mentioned, but the piece was already running close to 4000 words and it was enough already. I could follow up with a subsequent article about Junior Varsity crypto-fascist propagandists, but I also don’t have that much interest in pursuing that. Many people can sleep soundly knowing they did not surface in my investigation.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge all the help I received for my previous article, not just Ken, but the dozens of brilliant people I met along the way who all contributed and helped connect the dots. I’m only standing on the shoulders of giants and it would be unfair to everyone involved if I took complete credit for all the hard work they did. That might be something Greenwald would do!
