july/august 2010

Left but not woke is the Bernie Sanders brand. If anybody failed to recognize it before, nobody can miss it now. Last week, the mega-podcaster Joe Rogan endorsed Sanders. The Sanders campaign tweeted video of the Rogan endorsement from Sanders’s own account. That tweet then triggered an avalanche of disapproval from other voices in the Democratic coalition.

Rogan is not an ally to the cultural causes that have come to predominate on the contemporary left. He even mocks many of those causes, while also dancing around conspiratorial thinking of the left and right fringes: 9/11 denialism, Obama birtherism, and speculation about dark deeds concerning Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

As The Atlantic reported in a memorable appreciation of Rogan back in August, Rogan is a voice for men:

On a sweltering July day, I follow Annise Dobson down an overgrown path into the heart of Seton Falls Park. It’s a splotch of unruly forest, surrounded by the clamoring streets and cramped rowhouses of the Bronx. Broken glass, food wrappers, and condoms litter the ground. But Dobson, bounding ahead in khaki hiking pants with her blond ponytail swinging, appears unfazed. As I quickly learn, neither trash nor oppressive humidity nor ecological catastrophe can dampen her ample enthusiasm.

At the bottom of the hill, Dobson veers off the trail and stops in a shady clearing. This seems like a promising spot. She kicks away the dead oak leaves and tosses a square frame made of PVC pipe onto the damp earth. Then she unscrews a milk jug. It holds a pale yellow slurry of mustard powder and water that’s completely benign—unless you’re a worm.

My first real interaction with Kobe Bryant started over a disagreement. The legendary Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard had made some dismissive comments in 2014 about the case of Trayvon Martin, the African American teenager who had been shot to death in Florida by the neighborhood-watch volunteer George Zimmerman two years before.

Martin’s death and Zimmerman’s subsequent acquittal on second-degree murder charges incensed many black athletes—but not Bryant, who told The New Yorker, “If we’ve progressed as a society, then you don’t jump to somebody's defense just because they're African-American.” I was working at ESPN at the time, and criticized Bryant on camera as tone-deaf, among other things.

With Senator Bernie Sanders rising in the Democratic-primary polls, it is becoming not just thinkable but even plausible that the United States could, for the first time, elect a self-described socialist to the White House.

Instead of relying on the party’s graying voters, Sanders has galvanized a younger coalition by promising a profound expansion of the welfare state, which would include free health care, free college, and the elimination of outstanding student debt.

Skeptical older voters might see little here but a list of fantastical promises that are utterly out of step with American traditional and modern capitalism. Socialism remains deeply unpopular among Americans born before 1975. Even in the Democratic Party, Sanders polls 30 points better among Americans under 45 than those over 65.

Dear Therapist,

I have been with my boyfriend for about a year and a half. Before me, he was in a long-term, serious relationship in which he bought an engagement ring and was making plans to marry his ex. Clearly their relationship didn’t last, and the breakup was incredibly traumatic for him.

Since then, he and I have had a very honest, serious, and healthy relationship, but the ring is still in our basement. When I bring up the ring (or her), he more often than not gets angry, defensive, and adamant that he doesn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes he’ll offer up the excuse that he doesn't want to sell the ring because he won’t get a very meaningful return on it, or he’ll say that maybe one day he’ll sell it.