I definitely agree with you. There is value in posting the video. It allows people to show others exactly what she's doing and how little actual substance there is behind what she is doing. Almost every question was met with a redirect or a non-sequitur, and the actual answers were flimsy as wet tissue paper.
I agree there's some value in an interview that demonstrates that Chaya Raichik is an idiot, but I will also point out that we have many, many interviews that show Donald Trump is an idiot, and it doesn't seem to have done his career much harm.
As the video being a defense in a potential defamation case, Trump has shown his weaknesses for lawsuits. Sure he has always been a expert in delaying tactics, but its finally catching up with him. Especially in the civil law realm.
The world is catching up too I like to think. I already see an immune response building up in my own community to these types. They are everywhere. Just idiots that blast hate, but under any inspection they crumble.
He's been getting weirder and weirder. I keep wondering if there is a point at which cognitive dissonance just falters. I tried googling it, but could only come up with articles on things you can do to combat it in your self, which rather presupposes that you recognize you are suffering from it.
But the increasing weirdness is easily avoided, if you're intent on avoiding it. I don't think Fox News runs his speeches live any more. You'd have to seek them out, and a lot of Republican voters would prefer not to know.
Hey Parker, Canadian trans woman here in Ottawa. This is the piece that pushed me over the edge to become a paid subscriber. I think the interview, and the posting of the entire recording, was the right thing to do. I spent many years on Twitter and have seen firsthand that trying to shut down Q and As like this simply doesn't work. As a community we have to do things differently. I know Lorenz has not always been the greatest of allies, but this? She did us all a huge solid here.
As I watch aghast as our own conservative populist sloganeer appears poised to win Canada's next election in 2025, interviews like this show people how vapid and empty right wing philosophies are.
PS: that Roomba line? Gold. It's going in my own repertoire.
I'm ambivalent about the interview itself. While I agree with the pragmatism of your points, I think it's hard to overstate how completely Milo has disappeared, or how staggeringly reduced Tucker's reach is. Obviously, there's no single correct way to handle people like this, but the sheer effectiveness of deplatforming and ignoring makes the direct engagement kind of frustrating.
Agree, though I do think there needs to be a distinction between this type of interview and platforming. Or maybe a journalism carve-out? I 100% believe the fawning (or even superficially neutral) profile pieces should be scrapped, but when reporting on the effects these folks are having on others, some direct engagement is, unfortunately, necessary. Definitely frustrating, for sure.
Platforming is giving them access to a much bigger audience than they'd have otherwise. Raichik has three million twitter followers, there's nothing Lorenz can do to change that, and she isn't giving Raichik a useful platform in the Washington Post or on the YouTube channel, nor is she elevating Raichik so that she can get access to broader platforms (like: she could get a Rogan interview before this anyway if she wanted one, this doesn't get her on the Sunday shows now).
I think that's a good basis for deciding if you're platforming someone: will they gain a bunch of social media followers? Will other media take them more seriously and give them access to their platforms as a result? Is the platform you are directly giving them one they can use for recruitment?
I think that Lorenz can safely answer no, no and no to those questions.
I think the question is whether this gets her a greater (long-term) platform for her bullshit or not.
If twitter could take her account from under her, then she'd have far less ability to get her nonsense out there, and that would make a big difference - which is why they should do it and why Musk's appalling management of twitter matters so much. But what Taylor did doesn't enable Raichik to get her nonsense over to very many more people, and it's generating a lot of negative framings of Raichik, so people who are hearing of her for the first time are generally doing so negatively.
Sunlight is not a great disinfectant - but if you're not massively expanding someone's platform, then it's still a disinfectant.
I get your point, and don't necessarily disagree. However I also believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let people see what a vapid waste of space she is and she'll cancel herself.
Yes, exactly. the kind of people who follow Trump or Raichik aren't shocked to see a video where their hero stumbles to answer an simple question. What they want is a club to beat on the objects of their hate, how smart does the club need to be?
It is weird how an hour long interview gets consumed in 5 second gotcha clips. It was kind of sad that the crazy lady is able to produce just enough 5 second clips that of the top 5 that were trending on twitter 3 were from her account. And then there were about 100 versions of the "This is a blowjob" moment. So a person who doesn't really care can casually look at it, and think, "oh it's just the same argument."
What has me more annoyed, is how the story of Nex is being framed by the cops to be about waiting on a toxicology report. They are just bad people with no empathy or caring. It would be just as easy to say, "We don't know and are waiting on the investigation."
Agreed 100%. The video was not only a smart tactical move from a reporter who has been the online right's boogeyman for some time now, but it was also a smart move to undercut Raichik's position in those spaces. Just because Raichik was given a platform to speak doesn't mean that her speaking was necessarily a good decision.
FWIW, I'm of multiple minds on it, as you seem to be.
I've had issues with Lorenz in the past, and Raichik is a monster who I'd like to see thrown into a hole, and have the hole thrown away where it could never be found again.
But I tend to agree with your assessment - how it was handled was about as clinically correct as possible and having the resources out there in the way they were produced does hold value.
Parker, I agree with you that Taylor was right in interviewing Chaya Raichik. I equate it with Mehdi Hasan’s interview of Vivek Ramaswamy. In my opinion, both Chaya and Vivek are disrupters: they attack ideas, but really never offer viable alternatives/solutions—which was brought out in both interviews. (Think of Rep. Jim Jordan who has been in the House of Representatives for 17 years and constantly attacks Democratic laws and policies, but has NEVER gotten a single bill signed into law.) I watched Taylor’s full interview a couple of days ago and thought she did a masterful job—calm, forceful, and exceptionally prepared!
I'm sorry, is Chaya wearing a t-shirt with Taylor Lorenz's face on it to be interviewed by Taylor Lorenz? Not even the slightest pretense of anything resembling manners or even basic decorum from these folks (also not even the slightest bit surprising).
I agree with you. I think it’s important to expose exactly what this person is doing and that they really don’t have a reason other than wanting attention & being hateful. There is value in showing it. It’s not giving her a platform—she already has a huge one—but it is exposing her in a way that no one else has.
I don't like the focus on her being "stupid". There are plenty of people who would be generally thought of a below average intelligence, for as much as that means, who are wonderful, caring people. Raichik's problem isn't her cognitive ability, it's her moral bankruptcy and deplorable actions.
I am in favor of posting full videos that give the full scope of how moronic the interviewee is. That's because by this time in our national divide people are divided into those who accept the moronic as truth (mostly via confirmation bias) and those who don't, or at least are open to recognizing the moronic.)
That's why I do NOT object to stories--and clips-- about trump's increasing idiocies, and just wish there were more of them. In 2016 there was an argument that the press was giving him "free advertising" to an unconscionable event, and that should be toned down. But back then there were a lot of people who could be persuaded by the moronic. Nowadays there are far fewer--the persuadables are already a lost cause.
We need to see the full bloom of right-wing idiocies, not just so that they can't cherry pick the more "rational" of what they say, but to show their lack of logical rigor--or alternatively, their intellectual rigor mortis-- for what it is: blather.
Or, in the case of a presidential candidate unable to get his wife's name right, their descent into growing inability to get ANYTHING correct.
I think it's fair to demand that anyone who intends to vote for him should have to sit through a one or two hour video of one of his recent speeches. He's so much more obviously crazy than he was in 2016 or 2020, and he was plenty crazy then. A lot of Trump voters would rather not know. I promise I'll sit through a Biden speech in return.
I keep going back and forth on it because there's so much going on. I think the article itself is solid for what it is, though I don't think it really has any new information. It's just really hard to walk the line between exposing people vs giving them a platform to reach people. And it's a shame the video has stolen all the oxygen because it's very different from the story.
I think it ultimately comes down to the question of: "Who was the audience for this story?" And I think it makes the most sense as a story (and video) for people who don't already know this stuff. It's repeating the information and collecting it all in one place for people who've maybe heard of Libs of Tiktok and all the controversy but don't know more than that.
I also think there are a lot of different conversations happening at the same time. Like some people are critiquing the story on grounds it doesn't even aspire to, but they still raise good points about coverage in general. And it was always going to be the case that the video would steal the spotlight, which maybe should have been considered going into the interview.
And I agree with the critiques that the focus should be on Nex Benedict, and the affect of these policies and this death on other trans/nb youth. Focus on the people who are experiencing the harm in order to illustrate that harm follows this rhetoric and connect the dots that way. Instead of Chaya and her hateful motivations. And I don't think Lorenz is the right reporter for *that* story (which is incredibly important and should be told in depth).
I also think it's hard to ignore the fact that people who agree with her don't care that she sounds like an idiot. Which is not to say she shouldn't have been interviewed. She definitely should have been. But I don't know about constantly making her the focus instead of the people who have been harmed. I also think it's sus that it was Chaya's team who did the video and then just sent it to Lorenz.
I'll be interested in the long-term effects of Chaya being exposed like this. Has there been this level of exposure for her? I vaguely thought there was a similar piece or incident revealing she's actually just dumb as rocks but maybe I'm thinking about the way Moms for Liberty has imploded.
Thanks for writing about this, Parker. I think that you're right, and that there's value in pulling her further into the light. I don't think it's "platforming" when someone already has so much power and influence. But people in Oklahoma should know the person that has such a huge sway in their state.
I do think that a big part of the reaction to the interview was Taylor Lorenz herself is very polarizing. Some of that is fair, some of that is not, but I wonder if, say, Brandy Zadrozny published the exact same story and video if people would have been quite so mad.
I definitely agree with you. There is value in posting the video. It allows people to show others exactly what she's doing and how little actual substance there is behind what she is doing. Almost every question was met with a redirect or a non-sequitur, and the actual answers were flimsy as wet tissue paper.
I agree there's some value in an interview that demonstrates that Chaya Raichik is an idiot, but I will also point out that we have many, many interviews that show Donald Trump is an idiot, and it doesn't seem to have done his career much harm.
As the video being a defense in a potential defamation case, Trump has shown his weaknesses for lawsuits. Sure he has always been a expert in delaying tactics, but its finally catching up with him. Especially in the civil law realm.
The world is catching up too I like to think. I already see an immune response building up in my own community to these types. They are everywhere. Just idiots that blast hate, but under any inspection they crumble.
not so sure that is still true, nor that it will continue to be true.
God, I hope you're right.
He's been getting weirder and weirder. I keep wondering if there is a point at which cognitive dissonance just falters. I tried googling it, but could only come up with articles on things you can do to combat it in your self, which rather presupposes that you recognize you are suffering from it.
But the increasing weirdness is easily avoided, if you're intent on avoiding it. I don't think Fox News runs his speeches live any more. You'd have to seek them out, and a lot of Republican voters would prefer not to know.
sadly, true. But the cult is not a majority of Americans.
"Man, woman, person, camera, TV"
Hey Parker, Canadian trans woman here in Ottawa. This is the piece that pushed me over the edge to become a paid subscriber. I think the interview, and the posting of the entire recording, was the right thing to do. I spent many years on Twitter and have seen firsthand that trying to shut down Q and As like this simply doesn't work. As a community we have to do things differently. I know Lorenz has not always been the greatest of allies, but this? She did us all a huge solid here.
As I watch aghast as our own conservative populist sloganeer appears poised to win Canada's next election in 2025, interviews like this show people how vapid and empty right wing philosophies are.
PS: that Roomba line? Gold. It's going in my own repertoire.
I'm ambivalent about the interview itself. While I agree with the pragmatism of your points, I think it's hard to overstate how completely Milo has disappeared, or how staggeringly reduced Tucker's reach is. Obviously, there's no single correct way to handle people like this, but the sheer effectiveness of deplatforming and ignoring makes the direct engagement kind of frustrating.
Agree, though I do think there needs to be a distinction between this type of interview and platforming. Or maybe a journalism carve-out? I 100% believe the fawning (or even superficially neutral) profile pieces should be scrapped, but when reporting on the effects these folks are having on others, some direct engagement is, unfortunately, necessary. Definitely frustrating, for sure.
Platforming is giving them access to a much bigger audience than they'd have otherwise. Raichik has three million twitter followers, there's nothing Lorenz can do to change that, and she isn't giving Raichik a useful platform in the Washington Post or on the YouTube channel, nor is she elevating Raichik so that she can get access to broader platforms (like: she could get a Rogan interview before this anyway if she wanted one, this doesn't get her on the Sunday shows now).
I think that's a good basis for deciding if you're platforming someone: will they gain a bunch of social media followers? Will other media take them more seriously and give them access to their platforms as a result? Is the platform you are directly giving them one they can use for recruitment?
I think that Lorenz can safely answer no, no and no to those questions.
I think the question is whether this gets her a greater (long-term) platform for her bullshit or not.
If twitter could take her account from under her, then she'd have far less ability to get her nonsense out there, and that would make a big difference - which is why they should do it and why Musk's appalling management of twitter matters so much. But what Taylor did doesn't enable Raichik to get her nonsense over to very many more people, and it's generating a lot of negative framings of Raichik, so people who are hearing of her for the first time are generally doing so negatively.
Sunlight is not a great disinfectant - but if you're not massively expanding someone's platform, then it's still a disinfectant.
I get your point, and don't necessarily disagree. However I also believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let people see what a vapid waste of space she is and she'll cancel herself.
I hear that a lot, but I think the lesson of 2016 is that it's not as fast a truism as we'd hoped.
Yes, exactly. the kind of people who follow Trump or Raichik aren't shocked to see a video where their hero stumbles to answer an simple question. What they want is a club to beat on the objects of their hate, how smart does the club need to be?
It is weird how an hour long interview gets consumed in 5 second gotcha clips. It was kind of sad that the crazy lady is able to produce just enough 5 second clips that of the top 5 that were trending on twitter 3 were from her account. And then there were about 100 versions of the "This is a blowjob" moment. So a person who doesn't really care can casually look at it, and think, "oh it's just the same argument."
What has me more annoyed, is how the story of Nex is being framed by the cops to be about waiting on a toxicology report. They are just bad people with no empathy or caring. It would be just as easy to say, "We don't know and are waiting on the investigation."
Agreed 100%. The video was not only a smart tactical move from a reporter who has been the online right's boogeyman for some time now, but it was also a smart move to undercut Raichik's position in those spaces. Just because Raichik was given a platform to speak doesn't mean that her speaking was necessarily a good decision.
FWIW, I'm of multiple minds on it, as you seem to be.
I've had issues with Lorenz in the past, and Raichik is a monster who I'd like to see thrown into a hole, and have the hole thrown away where it could never be found again.
But I tend to agree with your assessment - how it was handled was about as clinically correct as possible and having the resources out there in the way they were produced does hold value.
Parker, I agree with you that Taylor was right in interviewing Chaya Raichik. I equate it with Mehdi Hasan’s interview of Vivek Ramaswamy. In my opinion, both Chaya and Vivek are disrupters: they attack ideas, but really never offer viable alternatives/solutions—which was brought out in both interviews. (Think of Rep. Jim Jordan who has been in the House of Representatives for 17 years and constantly attacks Democratic laws and policies, but has NEVER gotten a single bill signed into law.) I watched Taylor’s full interview a couple of days ago and thought she did a masterful job—calm, forceful, and exceptionally prepared!
I'm sorry, is Chaya wearing a t-shirt with Taylor Lorenz's face on it to be interviewed by Taylor Lorenz? Not even the slightest pretense of anything resembling manners or even basic decorum from these folks (also not even the slightest bit surprising).
I have no idea what it could mean, except that it is, in some way, "owning the libs."
I agree with you. I think it’s important to expose exactly what this person is doing and that they really don’t have a reason other than wanting attention & being hateful. There is value in showing it. It’s not giving her a platform—she already has a huge one—but it is exposing her in a way that no one else has.
I don't like the focus on her being "stupid". There are plenty of people who would be generally thought of a below average intelligence, for as much as that means, who are wonderful, caring people. Raichik's problem isn't her cognitive ability, it's her moral bankruptcy and deplorable actions.
This was first class slaying by Lorenz.
I am in favor of posting full videos that give the full scope of how moronic the interviewee is. That's because by this time in our national divide people are divided into those who accept the moronic as truth (mostly via confirmation bias) and those who don't, or at least are open to recognizing the moronic.)
That's why I do NOT object to stories--and clips-- about trump's increasing idiocies, and just wish there were more of them. In 2016 there was an argument that the press was giving him "free advertising" to an unconscionable event, and that should be toned down. But back then there were a lot of people who could be persuaded by the moronic. Nowadays there are far fewer--the persuadables are already a lost cause.
We need to see the full bloom of right-wing idiocies, not just so that they can't cherry pick the more "rational" of what they say, but to show their lack of logical rigor--or alternatively, their intellectual rigor mortis-- for what it is: blather.
Or, in the case of a presidential candidate unable to get his wife's name right, their descent into growing inability to get ANYTHING correct.
I think it's fair to demand that anyone who intends to vote for him should have to sit through a one or two hour video of one of his recent speeches. He's so much more obviously crazy than he was in 2016 or 2020, and he was plenty crazy then. A lot of Trump voters would rather not know. I promise I'll sit through a Biden speech in return.
I keep going back and forth on it because there's so much going on. I think the article itself is solid for what it is, though I don't think it really has any new information. It's just really hard to walk the line between exposing people vs giving them a platform to reach people. And it's a shame the video has stolen all the oxygen because it's very different from the story.
I think it ultimately comes down to the question of: "Who was the audience for this story?" And I think it makes the most sense as a story (and video) for people who don't already know this stuff. It's repeating the information and collecting it all in one place for people who've maybe heard of Libs of Tiktok and all the controversy but don't know more than that.
I also think there are a lot of different conversations happening at the same time. Like some people are critiquing the story on grounds it doesn't even aspire to, but they still raise good points about coverage in general. And it was always going to be the case that the video would steal the spotlight, which maybe should have been considered going into the interview.
And I agree with the critiques that the focus should be on Nex Benedict, and the affect of these policies and this death on other trans/nb youth. Focus on the people who are experiencing the harm in order to illustrate that harm follows this rhetoric and connect the dots that way. Instead of Chaya and her hateful motivations. And I don't think Lorenz is the right reporter for *that* story (which is incredibly important and should be told in depth).
I also think it's hard to ignore the fact that people who agree with her don't care that she sounds like an idiot. Which is not to say she shouldn't have been interviewed. She definitely should have been. But I don't know about constantly making her the focus instead of the people who have been harmed. I also think it's sus that it was Chaya's team who did the video and then just sent it to Lorenz.
I'll be interested in the long-term effects of Chaya being exposed like this. Has there been this level of exposure for her? I vaguely thought there was a similar piece or incident revealing she's actually just dumb as rocks but maybe I'm thinking about the way Moms for Liberty has imploded.
Lies, distortions, circular logic, projection, denial, deflections, etc. Chaya is fuc*ing crazy. What a useless excuse for a human being.
Thanks for writing about this, Parker. I think that you're right, and that there's value in pulling her further into the light. I don't think it's "platforming" when someone already has so much power and influence. But people in Oklahoma should know the person that has such a huge sway in their state.
I do think that a big part of the reaction to the interview was Taylor Lorenz herself is very polarizing. Some of that is fair, some of that is not, but I wonder if, say, Brandy Zadrozny published the exact same story and video if people would have been quite so mad.