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The Texas Legislatures prolonged reign of terror ended on an acrimonious note this year as Republicans rammed through new redistricting maps.

Like a political etch-a-sketch, Texas new maps shook away the geographic, demographic, and partisan sorting that successfully secured GOP majorities through the 2010s and drew a new political landscape that Republicans expect will get them through the 2020s. Red seats were drawn redder, blue seats bluer. Competitive districts were all but eliminated.

Soon after the Legislature ended its final special session this fall, a game of musical chairs ensued. Dozens of state legislators announced retirements or runs for higher office, leaving behind around 30 open seatsmost of them in Republican-leaning districts. Now, Republican candidates are lining up to fill them in a race to the hard-right.

An increasingly ravenous crowd of GOP primary votersprimed by the pandemic-fueled culture wars and spurred by bans on books and critical race theorywill likely fill these seats. That means in 2023, the Texas House, which has long served to temper the GOPs most extreme impulses, will be filled with an army of extremists eager to throw bombs.

The tides are shifting again, Representative Dan Huberty told the Houston Chronicle. Huberty, a moderate Republican and expert on state school finance matters, is among the dozens of experienced politicos retiring. You have different political leaders, and the constituency has a view of what they want. Youre going to see a shift. I would assume its going to be more conservative.

Representative Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat and fixture in the Texas House for 30 years, was the most experienced legislator to announce his retirement, which Dems and Republicans alike lamented. Coleman has been one of the foremost advocates on healthcare, criminal justice, and voting rights in the Legislature. He has stood witness to the entire arc of Republican reign in the Texas Capitol and called this past session the worst Ive ever participated in.

It is the worst because it had no soul, Colemantold the Chronicle. You have the governor of Florida and the governor of Texas competing for who can be more mean and conservative and not using any common sense along with itit was a challenge for me.

A handful of other Texas House Democrats are retiring, like longtime Beaumont Representative Joe Deshotel and Representative John Turner in Dallas. Others are running for higher office: Representative Celia Israel of District 50, who is running for Austin mayor, and veteran legislator Representative Eddie Rodriguez of District 51, who is vying for the newly open 35th congressional seat based in Austin.

Redrawn lines and the radicalism of Republican legislators during the past sessionin which almost every major piece of legislation was a radical piece of red meatconvinced about a couple of dozen Republican incumbents to bow out rather than try to survive a gauntlet of right-wing primary battles. Those included moderate, establishment members of the party like House Caucus GOP Chair Jim Murphy, Representative Dan Huberty, and San Antonio Representative Lyle Larson, who became an increasingly outspoken critic of his partys leaders in the last session.

A further shift to the right could spell trouble for Speaker Dade Phelan, who in his first term helming the House repeatedly drew the wrath of House conservatives and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick for his perceived botching of GOP priority legislation and for granting political amnesty to Democrats after their summer quorum break. If right-wingers sweep their way through the primaries, an ambitious hardliner might be able to corral enough support to oust Phelan and banish Democrats to complete irrelevance. If you thought 2021 was bad, imagine a session where the House Speaker and Lieutenant Governor are actually working in unison.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patricks iron-fisted rule over the Texas Senate may only grow stronger in 2022. Hes already vanquished Panhandle Senator Kel Seliger, an occasional maverick and the only Republican who bucked Patrick. The new Senate maps redrew Seligers district to favor Patricks handpicked candidate, Kevin Sparks, a right-winger from Midland. Seeing the writing on the wall, Seliger announced his retirement.

Another legislative veteran and mainstream conservative, Senator Larry Taylor, was pushed into retirement when Mayes Middleton, a wealthy House member aligned with the right-wing enforcement group Empower Texans, made clear he would spend millions of dollars to take the Senate seat. Patrick was rumored to have privately encouraged Middleton to run; soon after Taylor announced his retirement, Patrick endorsed Middleton.

Patrick has anointed candidates in three other open Republican seats in the Senate. His biggest potential loss comes with the retirement of his favorite Democrat, conservative Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr., whose seat mightmightfall into the hands of a more liberal Democrat. Despite this isolated loss, the Texas Senate in 2023 will likely be further cast in the Lieutenant Governors imageone of right-wing retribution and permanent outrage.

Texas congressional delegation wont see the same degree of turnover as the Legislature, especially since a long line of Republican congress members already took part in a Texodus ahead of the 2020 elections. The previous round of retirements already significantlydiminishedthe Texas congressional delegations seniority and clout in Washington. It will take yet another hit with the retirements of the two longest-serving members from both parties.

Theres Congressman Kevin Brady, a Montgomery County conservative who was first elected back in 1996 and served as chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee for two terms. In that post, he was one of the chief architects of former President Donald Trumps trickle-down tax cuts in 2017, which delivered huge savings to wealthy Americans and big corporations. The battle for his open seat, along with the race to fill a newly drawn district next door, will feature two of the most heated GOP congressional primaries in Texas.

And then theres Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, the legendary Dallas Democrat who was first elected in 1992. After Democrats took back control of the House in 2018, Johnson became the first African American and first woman to chair the House Science and Technology Committeea post she usedto curb the damage of Trumps attacks on science and to lead an offensive against climate change denialism.

The vacancy of her seat, which has for decades represented the Black communities of South Dallas, has sparked a scramble for power among the citys Democrats. Johnson has thrown her weight behind state Representative Jasmine Crockett, a first-term legislator who injected a new voice into the Texas House after winning her primary challenge in 2020, upsetting the Democratic establishment.

While the handful of open Democratic seats will give the party a chance to elect a new generation of leaders, theres little beyond that. The dozens of state House and congressional seats that Democrats were trying to flip these past couple election cycles are pretty firmly out of reach nowand will likely remain so for years to come.

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Political Retirements Will Paint Texas a Fresh Coat of Red in 2022 - The Texas Observer

The tweet is as stupid as it is jarring. I am a broken man, it said. Juergen (sic) Klopp has killed my love LFC youre dead to me.

The Twitter account in question has as its profile picture an illustration of a syringe as the Pied Piper leading a crowd of surgically-masked children. To where is anyones guess: according to doctors and scientists, the destination of vaccinated youngsters is safety from the most extreme effects of Covid-19. In the mad mind of the author of the tweet, the boys and girls are heading for their doom.

Jurgen Klopp has been, if we are to believe a further tweet, obviously told by his owners to endorse the vaccine. Precisely why is not explained. Are Fenway Sports Group part of the shadowy cabal that is using the pandemic to curtail the freedoms of individuals? Or is there a more straightforward answer?

Klopp lost his mother to the virus earlier this year. He is an intelligent man who listens to medics and virologists. In the post-truth world, when the most unprincipled politicians spout nonsense like, I think the people of this country have had enough of experts. The Liverpool manager bases his opinion on the views of professionals who know what they are talking about. That means the 54-year-old is caught in the crossfire of the culture wars.

Football was always going to be a battleground in the philosophical conflict that is tearing the country apart. The game is one of the most obvious expressions of British culture, particularly the working-class version. Clubs developed at the tail end of the 19th century as communal activities, under an ethos of shared purpose. Those principles have eroded and the fabric that holds the sport together is being pulled apart at an ever-increasing pace. It will not go down without a fight.

Some of the finest elements of todays society are reflected and projected by football, its clubs and its players. Marcus Rashfords campaign to alleviate child hunger is heroic. Before every game, the participants take the knee to express their opposition to discrimination. Klopps vocal stance on the importance of vaccinations is only tangentially about his team; his main concern is public health.

Yet all of these initiatives have been the subject of criticism. Rashfords opponents contorted themselves to find reasons to undermine the Manchester United striker, some even asking why he was not confronting the problems of absent fatherhood.

Strange logic and coded racism is afoot everywhere. The kneeling gesture was claimed to be Marxist, something the knuckleheads latched onto when they booed the players. And more than one moron has taken to the internet to allege that Klopp is a dupe, working to destroy lives rather than saving them.

The truth is clear and obvious. Can anyone be in favour of children going hungry? Who could possibly be against anti-racist gestures? And why would any person be against protecting the nations health?

The answer is simple. The sort of ideas being pushed in modern Britain are right-wing and libertarian. They reflect the views of Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister whose government politicised the game like never before and not to the sports advantage. Thatcher famously said, Society? There is no such thing! Footballs growth and continuing popularity undermines that notion. The so-called Iron Lady was a radical who sought to recast civic life in this country by advocating a life where individuals only had responsibility for themselves and to their immediate circle. The existence of football necessitates a much wider kinship and community spirit. This is why Thatcher lumped supporters into her enemy within category during the 1980s.

Few understand this as well as Klopp. His conduct during the initial phase of the pandemic was inspirational. It remains so. For him, the sport is an enduring love, a profession and a source of great joy. But it will never be more important than people.

He would rather lose every game than stand by and watch the morgues fill with unnecessary deaths. He is at the very top of his trade. He would not expect an amateur to tell him how to set up his team. Likewise, he would not presume to tell the finest scientists in the world that they are wrong. When they speak, he listens.

Matt Le Tissier does not. The 53-year-old has become a leading Covid sceptic. The former Southampton striker is using his status as a footballing icon to influence peoples medical decisions. The man has no self-awareness.

Terry Venables was England manager for the majority of Le Tissiers international career and was often asked why the forward did not win scores of caps. Venables would explain how Le Tissier was too static; his lack of movement made life easy for top-class defenders. Venables is the most tactically astute England boss in the history of the national team and his greatest attribute was improving players by giving them tips to enhance their game. He always made it clear.

Le Tissiers acolytes are even more embarrassing. Rickie Lambert, another Southampton forward of more recent vintage, posted a photograph of Le Tissier on Instagram, saying that his hero is one of the only ones of his stature to speak out. In the picture, Le Tissier is wearing a suit and tie and the self-satisfied smirk of a Tory MP who doesnt realise theres a scandal round the corner. Lambert, who briefly played for Liverpool and was a fan of the club growing up, demands that you start to do your own f****** research into Covid and vaccines. In a more recent post, Lambert accuses those who administer inoculations to children of committing crimes. You are a CRIMINAL! The Nuremberg code has been broken!

The Nuremberg code might as well be a Dan Brown novel for all Lambert apparently understands the ethical principles that limit medical experimentation on humans. The views of this pair are deplorable. If you take Lamberts advice, the most perfunctory research shows that neither he nor Le Tissier have any clinical credentials and the closest they have come to the medical world is when they were having football injuries treated.

The mass of misinformation, the sheer weight of guff pedalled by those who should know better has created the situation where this week it was revealed that 16 per cent of Premier League players have not had a jab. It is hard to be too critical. Vaccinations have been linked without any basis to incidents like Christian Eriksens collapse at Euro 2020.

A Fifa study into sudden deaths among players completed before the pandemic clearly shows there has been no upsurge in fatalities. In fact, fewer players have died because the game was put on hiatus last year. Yet again, liars, dissemblers and dupes are using the sport to spread misinformation on social media.

Leeds United are at the forefront of the counteroffensive and made it known that everyone at Elland Road is vaccinated. Like Klopp, Leeds have been touched by the pandemics dark finger: Kalvin Phillips grandmother was a victim of the virus, as was Norman Hunter, one of the clubs legends.

Rob Price, the head of medicine and performance, lost both his parents. He has made sure everyone at Leeds is protected as much as possible. Price has done the research: years of education and a deep knowledge of his subject. People like him are appalled every time the likes of Le Tissier and Lambert make a pronouncement.

Conte on low morale and Covid vaccines

Football is an easy vehicle for all sorts of dubious behaviour. Its culture war is being fought on a number of fronts. Many clubs are in the hands of profit-driven businessmen. Dubious states have realised the value of sportswashing. Covid will pass but the existential threats to the game remain. At Anfield, so often the front line where the game and politics intersect, a banner on the Kop says Never trust a Tory. At the opposite end, Feed the Scousers, rings out at this time of year, as if Scrooge or Rishi Sunak composed a carol for the antichrists birth. On Wednesday night it was Leicester City fans singing it. Meanwhile, a study published in January showed that 3.67 per cent of Leicesters population suffered from hunger and more than 10 per cent struggled to get enough food. Those figures are likely to be considerably higher almost a year on.

Songs like this are too easily written off as banter. Empty stomachs are not funny. Malnourishment is being normalised once again in this country. That might suit those who promote the no society theory but increasingly poverty is coming too close to home for football fans. Many of those in the Anfield Road end last night will know someone who is struggling to make ends meet. Ademola Lookman, one of Leicesters players who is on loan from Leipzig, has spoken movingly of coming from a home where there was frequently nothing to eat in the fridge.

The huge increase in food banks around stadiums at once proves that footballs communal spirit exists. It is appalling that their donations are necessary but the majority of supporters do care about the people around them.

So does Klopp. If his words help keep people alive it will be a greater legacy than any trophies. And if he kills the love of an anti-vaccination crank for Liverpool it is a small bonus. Football can live without people like that. Le Tissier and Lambert, too.

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Football on the front line in the Covid culture war - The Independent

CLEVELAND, Ohio This years election season brought major changes to Cleveland, with voters passing the torch to a new generation of leaders and backing a measure to overhaul police oversight with a powerful civilian panel.

Across Greater Cleveland, meanwhile, voters pushed back against efforts to load local school boards with conservatives as part of the culture wars over mask and vaccine policies and critical race theory.

Heres a look back at some key moments.

New face, new energy

Justin Bibb, 34, will become the second youngest mayor in Clevelands history when he takes office in January, replacing four-term Mayor Frank Jackson, who is more than twice his age.

Bibb announced his candidacy in January, several months before Jackson confirmed he would not seek a fifth term in office.

Bibb entered the race largely unknown.

A local non-profit founder and executive, he lacked the political resume of many other challengers -- City Council President Kevin Kelley, former Mayor Dennis Kucinich, former Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed, state Sen. Sandra Williams and City Councilman Basheer Jones.

Bibbs campaign was built on a message of change, while Kelley was endorsed by Jackson and had worked closely with the mayor as the leader of City Council.

We are in a moment of crisis and opportunity in our city, and Clevelands future depends on what we do next, he said when he announced his candidacy. We have some big decisions to make to solve the most urgent challenges of our citys time, and we cant afford more of the same.

Bibb was able to offset his name recognition disadvantage by building a coalition that spanned much of the city. That included backing from former Mayor Michael R. White, who campaigned for Bibb throughout.

And his message of change resonated with voters. Young professionals from Downtown, Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway, for example, turned out at much higher rates than normal and were essential to Bibbs base.

Bibb handily defeated Kelley in the general election, capturing 63% of the electorate and winning by more than 13,000 votes. He repeated that message in his victory speech election night.

The work is just beginning, Bibb said. Tonight, we celebrate. And tomorrow, we are going to roll up our sleeves and do the work to move our city forward in a better direction.

Reform issue a deciding factor

A key factor in the mayoral race was Issue 24, a proposal to change Clevelands charter that a diverse coalition placed on the ballot by initiative petition.

The measure rewrites part of Clevelands charter to hand oversight of the police department to the citizens that officers are sworn to protect.

Its a proposal deeply rooted in the communitys distrust of police and in calls for accountability that reached a fever pitch after the Cleveland police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014.

Those calls have continued, fueled by frustrations that the system has not been fixed despite a 2015 federal consent decree governing police reform in Cleveland.

Nearly 60% of voters supported the issue. Implementing it will fall to Bibb and the new City Council.

A Civilian Police Review Board will have authority to investigate complaints from the public against officers and to order disciplinary action.

A powerful Community Police Commission, which will oversee the review board and have final say in disciplinary action, will also have broad policy making powers and operate independently from the mayors administration.

Bibb faced an onslaught of attacks over his support of the issue. Kelley sought to make it a key to the election, launching attacks that accused Bibb of trying to defund the police.

Ultimately, that strategy failed.

Dark money and dirty tricks

A mailer that darkened the face of a Black candidate. Fake campaign literature disguised as a newspaper. A demeaning comic book. And oodles of television and radio ads.

All were efforts funded by outside money to influence the Cleveland mayoral race.

Several groups had the ability to raise and spend an unlimited amount of money, while keeping the names of their donors anonymous. They wont be revealed until the groups submit expense filings to the Federal Elections Commission in January.

One group, Citizens for Change, garnered much attention for its attacks on Kucinich. The groups website stated it was dedicated to preventing Dennis Kucinich from becoming Clevelands mayor again.

It produced several gimmicky mailers, including one in the style of a comic book that labels Kucinich as Dennis the Menace along with a list of criticisms.

Later, the group focused on Bibb. One mailer, though, may have backfired.

The mailer included an image of Bibb that appeared to be digitally darkened and included a litany of anonymous allegations against him. Many, including Bibb, criticized it as racist.

The attack may have aided Bibbs chances in the primary, where he bested Kelley the second-place finisher by more than 3,000 votes.

Politicizing the schoolhouse

School board elections across the country became politicized this year, leading to an uptick in candidates in what often are sleepy races.

The rancor originated primarily with conservative television and right-wing groups, which started to push that students were learning critical race theory, while not always defining it.

Critical race theory is studied at the university level and not in K-12 schools. Some themes examined in critical race theory, such as the lasting effects of slavery, have been discussed in public schools. Groups such as the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, a leading voice in opposition to the theory, falsely equates it with diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The increase in candidates up 50% in Ohio from 2017 also was fueled by objections to policies school districts established requiring masks during the pandemic, vaccinations, sex education, and social and emotional learning. Many of those complaints also mirrored talking points on conservative television and radio.

Local groups popped up in suburban Cleveland, but so did groups seeking to counter what they see as an assault on education.

Election night tallies show that candidates supported by the conservative Christian group Ohio Value Voters or opposed by the liberal-leaning Protect Ohios Future had won races in a handful of Cuyahoga County districts, but few full slates prevailed.

In a dozen suburbs where candidates disagreed on issues including equity, sex education and masks, eight of 34 seats went to those conservative-leaning candidates. The rest went to a mix of incumbents and newcomers supported by Protect Ohios Future.

But while conservative candidates campaigning on the cultural wars made only small gains in local school board races across Ohio, political observers say its just the beginning of a movement.

They expect candidates to continue thumping the same issues in 2022.

Originally posted here:
Voters backed change in 2021 Cleveland elections, but pushed back on politicizing local school boards - cleveland.com

Logan Paul hasnt posted a new YouTube video in over six months. His last two uploads were titled Im Fighting Floyd Mayweather This Week and My Last Words To Floyd Mayweather. Then, silence. If you didnt know better, youd think he died in the ring.

What else but a fatal boxing incident, after all, could have led one of the most famous YouTubers in the world a controversial but charismatic web presence who helped shape the template for modern e-celebrity to leave his 23.2 million subscribers on radio silence for half a year and counting?

Demonetization; being blacklisted; being shadow-banned, says Paul, 26, rattling off the different ways YouTube and other mainstream social networks have alienated him. Its really demotivating when you are yourself, and the platform that youre on because of the advertisers, because of public sentiment, whatever it is no longer wants to support you.

In search of a corner of the internet where he can be his full, unfiltered self, Paul has traded in YouTube for Subify, the company that runs the back-end tech for his boutique fan network the Maverick Club. Part of Subifys pitch is that there are almost no restrictions on what Paul can post in the Maverick Club, or what other celebrities can post through their own Subify-enabled channels.

It really feels like free speech is dead in America right now, because a platform can literally shut you down and take away your microphone, co-founder Zak Folkman said. At Subify, we will literally never do that to a creator unless they are promoting terrorist acts or child pornography.

In an era when social media censorship is a top-of-mind concern for everyone including content creators and members of Congress, its a vision with appeal to some. But its also one that raises a lot of messy, ethically fraught questions as a recent discussion between Paul, Folkman and Subify co-founder Chase Hero showed.

If we had a Nazi on the platform that just wanted to talk about their beliefs, Folkman said at one point during the Zoom call, I personally would have a very hard time telling them Youre not allowed to do that, unless theyre inciting violence.

This, apparently, was news to Paul.

Look, I love your sentiment, he said. But as another creator on the platform, youd be hearing from me.

The real answer is, I think that we just take everything as it comes, Hero said. All these people are gonna have different beliefs and giving them a platform to communicate with their people is really all we care about. Right? And obviously, Im kind of with [Paul]; Id be really hard-pressed about someone whos a Nazi.

Obviously we dont support , Folkman said, before Paul cut him off, saying it was a terrible example.

Folkman continued: Well take it on a case-by-case basis. But I really cant see too many creators that we wouldnt feel comfortable with supporting their right to freedom of speech.

Paul didnt seem convinced. I will f up a Nazi, he said.

Bad example, Folkman said. Bad example.

After the call, the company told The Times that Folkman had misspoken. We absolutely do not allow hate speech of any kind for example no Nazis or anything of that nature, an email statement attributed to Folkman read. We take pride in giving a platform to creators of all kinds. We believe that everyone is entitled to have their voice and opinions heard.

If Subifys leaders are conflicted about what running a haven for free speech actually entails, theyre not alone. The internet has long been seen as a refuge for untrammeled expression, but as large social media platforms have come to dominate the web, that ideal has run up against concerns about extremism, misinformation and user safety. What moderation steps tech platforms do take have become controversial and highly politicized.

Subify isnt the first tech company to build a brand around the promise of near-absolute free speech, but it does differ from many such apps in its focus on influencers creative freedom rather than Trump-era culture wars.

The simple fact is that no company in its right mind would ever throw its hands up and cede control of its product solely to the users of that product, said Sarah T. Roberts, an associate professor at UCLA and co-founder of its Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.

Because social media companies in America enjoy wide legal immunity to moderate what their users post, Roberts added, this therefore becomes a question of tolerance from a business perspective. Thats why I consider content moderation to be primarily a tool of brand management for firms; the firms themselves have to assess what risk theyre willing to take by having distasteful, abhorrent material on their site.

For Paul, these arent abstract questions. Back when he was primarily known as a YouTuber, that platform demonetized him or took away his ability to make money from his videos after he posted a series of controversial clips in which he tasered dead rats, endorsed the Tide Pod challenge, and, most notoriously, filmed a suicide victim in Japans Aokigahara forest.

Other scandals have found Paul saying he would go gay for a month; using women as a human bicycle; and, in one video, appearing to lasso unsuspecting women.

These days, Paul hasnt entirely abandoned YouTube his podcast Impaulsive has its own channel, with 3.53 million followers, that still updates regularly but he has moved much of his creative output, including his signature autobiographical vlogs, over to Subify.

Youre creating it for an ecosystem of people who really like you, Paul said of the Maverick Club. Its not for the masses to judge or make assessments or make mean comments. As someone who in the past has been polarizing, theres people who dont like me; theres people who do like me. I really love the idea of leaning into people who do like me.

An Oops! All Logan Pauls social network might sound hellish to those who find Pauls patent mix of stunts and self-documentation obnoxious. But super-fans are willing to pay $19.95 a month for access, and Paul is happy to oblige them.

Behind the safety of a paywall, on a platform all his own, Paul said hes able to post a bit more explicit content; a bit more risque content.

Its that 10% of me, he said, that whether for legal reasons, whether for public sentiment, whatever, Im unwilling to show the world.

Subify declined to say how it wouldve handled the suicide forest and rat-tasering videos, instead pointing to adult related content, conservative and other alternative viewpoints and hunting and firearms content as areas where its more permissive than YouTube.

As Paul was growing disenchanted with mainstream social media, Subify offered him an out. Folkman and Hero, who have a background in e-commerce, had initially built a proto-Subify for personal use: It was so that we could power our own brands, Hero said.

But while hanging out with Paul one day Hero and Pauls manager are longtime friends the YouTuber suggested they open it up more widely.

Hes like, Man, I think this would be really good for a person. What do ya think? Hero recalled. I was like, If youre willing to be that person, wed give it a shot.

The result was the Maverick Club, Subifys first entry into celebrity fan platforms; its now been up and running for about a year and a half, Paul said. (Paul is one of Subifys top creators, but according to a spokesperson, he has no other financial stake in the company.)

In the meantime, Subify expanded its suite of features and began finding new celebrities to work with: rapper Flo Rida, Jackass stuntman Steve-O, NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan. Hero said that tens and tens of thousands of creators have applied to join, and that he and Folkman are constantly vetting, asking questions, and then doing our due diligence to filter out poor fits.

Despite Subifys promise of near-absolute free speech, not everyone makes the cut.

Theres a guy who wanted to come in and revive the old bum fights, if you remember that make homeless people fight, Hero said. Were like, Yeah, thats just not gonna work here. I love you to death, but thats just not something that we really condone.

The companys laissez-faire attitude also doesnt extend to its nonfamous subscriber base. Celebrities may get wide latitude to post things they couldnt put up elsewhere, but in the interest of building an environment that the co-founders describe as a safe space and an echo chamber for content creators, their fans are subject to more rigorous scrutiny.

We have moderators so if we see anybody whos being actively negative or anything like that, its actually a violation of the terms and conditions, Folkman said. Well usually send a warning if its pretty mild, and then from there, if they violate it again, theyll be banned and blacklisted.

Entry into that walled garden isnt free. In exchange for building each client a stand-alone platform with support for multimedia posts, livestreaming, tipping, direct messaging, mobile apps and push notifications, the company which a spokesperson said has been valued by third parties at approximately $100 million takes a cut of everyones earnings. The specific percentage depends on the individual platform size and functionality, the spokesperson said.

As the internet becomes more and more paywalled, its an increasingly popular business model. Startups such as Patreon, Substack, Cameo and Bandcamp now help influencers, artists and other online entrepreneurs mint a buck off of content they might otherwise put out for free. The company Fanfix offers monetization tools similar to Subifys but according to co-founder Simon Pompan adheres to more traditional moderation policies, including not allowing nudity.

OnlyFans is another such competitor. Although its best known for selling amateur and independent pornography, the platform has feinted at ambitions of becoming a more generic content-monetization platform; this summer it briefly moved to ban sexual content, only to reverse course days later.

While Subify allows pornography too, its co-founders hope to avoid being pigeonholed as an overtly sexual platform.

Ive been recruited to OnlyFans, Paul said. The business model is great. But the platform has this stigma I have no interest in being a part of.

Subify has proved to be a suitable alternative. By combining OnlyFans monetization features, YouTubes more flexible branding and a free-speech ethos all its own, the company has helped Paul build his own little internet oasis, free from the censors, haters and trolls who soured him on the open web.

Subify has kidnapped me from YouTube! he exclaimed at one point during the Zoom call.

Its been a great abduction, Hero responded.

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Logan Paul tries to build the perfect free speech platform - Los Angeles Times

Across the globe, we are seeing a renewed focus on the role of elites in political life. Rising inequality and the rebirth of populism, embodied by movements like Brexit and Donald Trump, have shone a light on the gap separating highly educated liberals from the Right, whose leaders cast the Left as an out of touch elite. But while populist parties like the new GOP claim to speak for the working-class, liberals are quick to point that their economic agenda is still built around tax cuts for the rich and trickle-down economics; they are the real elites, the Left contends.

The truth is, both sides are right. Because there are two elites in the West, one cultural and one economic. And though both sides like to call themselves the side of the working class, both elites are pursuing their own economic interests behind their moral posturing.

The French economist Thomas Picketty was one of the first to point out the two elites, coining them the Merchant Right and the Brahmin Left. The Merchant Right is what used to be called the capitalist class, or what Marx called the petty bourgeoisie: small farmers, small business owners, small landlords. And while they are often culturally similar to members of the working class, their interests are not the same; the opposite, in fact: They are in tension with each other. A small business owner's interests are opposed to a 15 dollar minimum wage for the same reason landlords are against rent protection.

There is a big economic gap separating electricians and contractors from warehouse workers and waiters. And there is a gap in power and autonomy, too: Electricians don't have bosses, while wait staff and warehouse workers do. Many skilled laborers make a good living at work that gives them dignity, making their lives very different from the precarious lower parts of the working class who are answerable to the whims of middle management. And yet, the capitalist class in America frequently refers to itself as "working class" or postures as their champions.

It's political theater, but one that serves the economic interests of Right wing elites. After all, confusing wage earners with the Merchant Right only staves off the kind of class-based politics that would help those who most need it.

But the Right is not the only side doing this. On the Left, you'll find what is increasingly called the "professional managerial class," a top 10 percent made up of highly credentialed white collar office workers. But though their labor is remunerative, many in the PMC also see themselves as the side of the working class. And some go even further, seeing themselves as the "real" working class. For example, you frequently see appeals made for the government to pay off the student loans of millennials with graduate degrees on the grounds that they are the real beleaguered class, with earnings not up to the cost of living in the cities they populate.

Between these two elites, you find the mass abandonment of the working classby two highly paid sides claiming to be the real working class. And it's onto this economic divide that all of the culture wars get superimposed.

Thus, white men without a college degree in the Rust Belt will hear Republican elites shaming them for not being real men after they lost their jobsand they will hear Democratic elites saying that they don't deserve any compassion since they are white men and have had every advantage.

The Democratic elite pushes climate change as an existential threat, completely dismissing the poor in rural America who depend on their cars and gasoline to reach the nearest hospitalwhile the Republican elite argues that climate change is not real and that those hurricanes that are devastating Central America and the South are not a serious issue at all.

The economic Right and the cultural Left have destroyed social relationships and replaced them with the market or the state respectively, creating the loneliest civilization that has ever existed. Neither churches nor labor unions exist to nurture relationships between workersonly social media.

What both elites are hiding in cosplaying as champions of labor is that they have taken away the power of the working class, making them vulnerable to an increasingly hierarchical state or to the whims of corporations and the stock market. And they are able to do this because workers don't interact with each other anymore and can't organize, making it easy to redirect their justified rage at the elites of the other tribe.

The only way forward is to reconnect with our common humanity. We should be validating the feelings of the working class, not regulating them. Only through human interactions, real economic security can occur. It's only through labor unions, multiracial and international alliances of the working class, and a politics that redirects income towards the "essential" workers who actually do the labor, that we can heal what ails us.

At the end of the day, we only have each other. There is no one else.

Alan Matas Givr is a writer based in Argentina. He is a PhD Student in Physical Sciences (Biophysics) and has spent years volunteering in some of Buenos Aires' poorest neighborhoods. He is passionate about science and practices Nonviolent Communication.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

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Elites On Both Sides Are Claiming the Working ClassWhile Abandoning Them | Opinion - Newsweek