I thought that we might finally be done with the “we need to understand where the right is coming from” people who, for whatever reason, cannot accept that MAGAs are just hateful, delusional people who are the same basic types as Confederates in 1860. But no, we are not.

The New York Times, which gave us yet another foray into MAGAland to talk to the Real Americans this month (more on that in a second), ran a story this week whose subject could have been created by a ChatGPT prompt “Chat, give me a subject that The New York Times would definitely write about.” And in this case, it was about a right-wing podcast listening club for liberals.

Yes, you read that right, such a thing really exists. They believe that we need to “get out of our bubble.” This is not being received very well:

these people seem like idiots

— Mikhail Gorbaechev (@mikhailgorbaechev.bsky.social) 2026-01-27T15:34:47.928Z

Again, right down to how they look, this is like an article created by ChatGPT in the style of The Times. Where to begin with this? For starters, we really don’t need to learn where they are coming from. All of the claims about “economic anxiety” as their main driver have been shown to be bullshit. These people are white Christian Nationalists, whether they are on welfare or run a tech company.

We also don’t really need to “get out of our bubble.” We are watching what they want in Minnesota right now. Just like when they were cheering when Little Punk Loser Kyle Rittenhouse murdered two people, they are now cheering the murder of two other people whose politics they don’t share. We know damn well where they are coming from.

It’s not like we are shielded from right-wing thought. Some of us have right-wing relatives who force their beliefs on us and get pissy when we push back. If you live where I do and are in a waiting room or restaurant, chances are very good Fox News is on the TV. Mainstream media is much more likely to platform right-wing ideas than left-wing ones. We get the gist. They are hateful, angry people who are not interested in compromise, but domination. You’d have to be in a coma the last 25 years to think otherwise.

This kind of stuff might be fine when normal people were running the GOP, and you could say then that you wanted to hear from conservatives to learn where they are coming from. But these people are not “conservatives,” so you’re not learning shit about anything other than how deep the fascism runs on that side of things. There are no viable ideas on that side. It’s all venom and lies. I get the feeling that, given the photos seem to show an almost exclusively white crowd of people at this club’s gathering, it makes sense that they can listen to this hateful nonsense. They are tolerant of the hate because they aren’t really the targets. If you think about it, it makes sense that such people would want to “understand” people who believe Haitian immigrants snatch and eat people’s pets. I would not be surprised if they join the right at some point.

Before I end this post, I wanted to give another example of how it is next to impossible not to hear the right-wing perspective, and that’s the latest foray by The Times into MAGAland. In this edition, they travel to rural Minnesota to talk to some day drinkers (the reporter chats with people at a bar who are there to watch The Price Is Right, which, to many people, is a strong signal of alcoholism).

They discover something amazing: Many rural people don’t like cities, and they are thrilled about non-white people being harmed. Wow! What a scoop! What’s next? Will they discover that rural people like Jason Aldean?

Yeah, New York Times, there’s really no need to find out what people go to a bar to watch The Price Is Right at a rural dive bar think about what is happening in Minneapolis, because we know the odds are high that it will be terrible. And before anyone says I myself am in a bubble, I live in a town of 600 in the middle of Pennsylvania. Trust me, I am not in a leftie enclave.

We know what they are. We don’t need any safaris or listen to their podcasts with an “open mind.” We are not going to win any of them over. So, just stop it.

The last word goes to The Rolling Stones, in a video that shows the boys romping around in, what else…bubbles.