It's true they have the token conservative opinion columnist you mention. But that's counting on one hand. Very few woke critical liberals. It's telling that Paul was forced out. The day to day reporting also still mostly takes woke race and gender positions for granted. They certainly have never published anything along the lines of "how did we fall for and amplify the BLM hoax of a fake police murder of black men epidemic "
There’s a thing in fandom culture where, when a fan theory gets proven dead, the subculture promoting it seems to get crazier and more vicious - mainly just because all the normal people are filtering out. I think that dynamic applies to a lot of politics as well.
The baseball analogy is dead on. The last time Freddie wrote something relevant to the current cultural climate was in 2022.
He’s also a deeply unpleasant person who’s constitutionally incapable of receiving criticism of any kind with good grace. His go-to response to disagreement—his only response—(which I predict will be his response to this piece)—is “but you didn’t understand my argument!!” To which I always want to reply: if not a single one of your readers understands what you're saying, do you think they're the problem, or do you think you are?
Actually, Freddie's recently discovered a second response to disagreement -- unfortunately, as Ross alludes to here, that second response is "grotesque misogynist putdown."
Yeah that's kind of true, I've noticed he's a bit better critic and problematizer than theorist. Like idk how TF we're supposed to treat, say, bipolar nazi people. Seems there's lines of energy in multiple directions on that. FDB is very good at showing that some really dominant ways of treating such people are very wrong. But there's still no new theory.
My view — as someone who’s followed Freddie’s writing for the last decade — is that he’s both correct and eloquent 80% of the time, while the other 20% he’s off on some bizarre, windmill-tilting tangent against perceived slights. To me, the piece in question falls squarely in the latter category.
Interesting. I think you're right that Freddie is almost always eloquent (and he's Yglesian in his ability to write both well and incredibly quickly), but I definitely didn't find him correct 80% of the time.
I think he is always worth reading on the subjects of mental illness and education. On the latter, I'm not sure I agree with him (at least, I have always believed differently), but I think he makes a compelling case that I need to reckon with. On wokeness, I think he's generally right as well, but I think it's easy to be right on that subject.
But when it comes to almost everything else, I find Freddie to be a lazy thinker who straw mans the opposing side of the argument in ways that can be fun to read but that are, at best, empty calories and not infrequently just wrong.
I'm pretty sure if FdB said "Hi everyone, I am severely sleep deprived due to the stress of caring for a newborn, so I'm going to have a few months of guest posts while I adjust to life as a dad," it would be a win for every single person involved -- he would have more time for his son, his subscribers would get some new takes, and the guest bloggers would get some more eyeballs from his platform. Is there a good reason for him not to do that?
Can I really write a comment here? How liberating. Thanks. Here goes.
What a nonsense pissing match. I get Ross's point that Freddie does return to the same arguments time and again. In this he is hardly alone. I feel like most columnists have a narrow brand they stick to. But yeah, he should be more varied and interesting! We all should. But since he attracts a range of readers, maybe his repetition is actually a good thing? Maybe the fact that some conservatives read him is a good thing? Worth thinking about? Are we thinking here?
I personally like Freddie's writing style generally. It's entertaining. He's clever. He can flat out write, even if what he is writing is a little odd/wrong/offensive/repetitive from time to time. I like writers who challenge their own tribe, a lot. I hate partisan purity. Dumb. That said, I also find his need to remind his readers that he is a genuine leftist (Marxist even) amusing.
That has always struck me as bullshit. But who cares? This is not life or death. So far from it it boggles, Freddie was also a recently mentally ill, deranged lunatic. (I'm sure he'd be fine with this) Happily he managed to get this under control, gain a career, a wife/partner, and a baby. So bravo to him.
I don't know much about Ross. I have read and like much of his stuff. Not this piece exactly, mostly because it just seems petty and gratuitous. I like the definition of wisdom as being "knowing what to overlook." Not sure why he takes such umbrage to Freddie writing that he thinks Ross is getting some things wrong. So what? Not sure why Freddie chose him to be in the crosshairs either. Maybe he'll write back and continue this low stakes beef?
I very much agree with Freddie's main point that acting as though what happened before is not relevant to what is happening now, and likely in the future, is naive and perhaps suicidal. Woke is not dead. It lives on in the minds and plans of those who hate it and those who revere it. Woke is dormant. It's not the policies, it's the manner of reasoning that is so rotten.
Replying to my own comment. I forgot to mention that whatever other insights Freddie provides or doesn't, his simple yet powerful observation that it is politics that decide things, not virtue, is just absolutely correct, and needs to be repeated to those who think "virtue" always wins the day. It doesn't. Winning is important is an important message. Do the work! Or get Trump.
I’ve found lots of de Boer’s writing funny and sharp (usually when he’s attacking people I also find annoying) and I enjoy his kamikaze attitude to his arguing endlessly with his own commenters about gender while telling them how bored he is of the whole subject.
But I did have a similar experience to you. He emailed me after I wrote an Atlantic profile of a controversial educator to tell me that because of my cozy corporate perch, I couldn’t ever address the REAL issues in education (aka the ones in his book).
I think we should just consider the possibility that a sense of being excluded from the Cool Kids Table is the engine that underpins his writing, and that has positive and negative effects.
Oh no, this is like two siblings squabbling and being caught in the middle! Ross, Freddie is guy who first alerted me to your work a few years ago (and I'm grateful). I like you both. I think you both represent some of the best of Substack.
You mention "certain segments of academia and book publishing" as places where woke censoriousness still flourishes. That's where I live, and I'd have to agree. Although I'm seeing hopeful signs. I have a nasty woke colleague -- a frightful little Maoist with a mask -- and some people now find her kind of pathetic. (I realize that's just one data point but maybe it's revealing.)
But most academics who are finally exhausted by wokeism also are not interested in seeing anyone dunking on the woke. I've learned this lesson myself, because as appalled as I was by the election results, I let people know I was vindicated. (I thought Harris would win, but if she didn't, I said it would be because of the absurd cultural overreaches the far left.) Some friends and colleagues have told me, in so many words, that I was being ungracious, and that under Trump 2.0., we have much bigger problems now. I don't quite see it that way, but that is where they're at.
All of this is to say that I tend to agree with you on the main points of contention between you and Freddie.I think I agree with Freddie, though, about NY Mag. It's alway stylishly written, but it's predictable and it certainly likes flattering it's readers. I've not forgotten that they fired Andrew Sullivan. I'm glad, however, to see you there Ross.
Great counter-punch, Ross, pretty sure I heard the ringside bell. I unsubscribed to FdB a while ago, but for perhaps slightly more superficial reasons - those columns are just so long-winded. And look, I don't happen to share your assessment of TFP, but I'd never dream of going off on such an aggrieved, personal tirade in response. If we don't fight for free speech with every last fiber, then our grand experiment truly is extinguished.
I feel like you don’t understand what The Free Press is trying to build. It’s not just “Bari Weiss and her anti-woke opinions.” They publish pieces on a variety of issues in politics and culture, from different points of view. They host debates.
The FP has holes and biases, but they don’t need to come up with a single position on Trump or wokeness because it’s not that kind of publication anymore.
There is a ton of substantive, meaningful disagreement between the cultural left and the rest of the country that will continue to be salient regardless of whether BLM is in the news, or Trump is president, or the vibe has shifted away from pronouns. As a society, we're debating things like natalism, smartphones, education, crime and policing, masculinity, the role of religion in society, debates in healthcare, how to think about disability... there's just so much. And the FP covers a bunch of foreign policy issues too, most obviously Israel. As a subscriber the idea that it’s becoming irrelevant just seems weird to me, like you must not be reading it very often if you think their beat is that small.
As for FdB, I find his writing on disability and mental illness to be essential. I also think he’s right that the woke left continues to matter—but I would say it’s becoming less about the narrow frivolous wokeness of 2020 and more about bigger debates in culture.
You can go to the Free Press right now, and click on the link where they summarize their values.
The last one they list is "Belief in the American project."
And yet they are mum, or lazy, when it comes to addressing Trump's threats to our freedoms. Trump is a proud authoritarian who is gleefully attacking our liberties, with astonishing results, while the Free Press -- this stalwart defender in the "American project" -- won't say a word crosswise. It's disapppoiting.
When Jewish students were forced to barricade themselves in a library for their safety at Cooper Union because of a frenzied pro Palestinian mob, was that “criticizing Israel”?
Now Gazans are starting to rebel against Hamas. But the demonstrators all over the world are sticking with Hamas. Do you know why? They don’t actually care about the Palestinians, they’re just getting off on animalistic hatred of Jews.
I get what Freddie is saying, that the excesses of the Woke moment led directly to the mess we're in now. I couldn't agree with that more.
But I also think he badly misread your NY article, and his behavior on Notes was disgusting. Don't know wtf is going on here.
'anti-woke has conquered woke. Beyond certain segments of academia and book publishing"
Far from true. Most of the NY Times is still super woke.
That said, it's true FDB has been writing the same four columns for two or three years
How do you see the Times as "woke"? Sure, Jamelle Bouie writes there, but so does Ross Douthat, David French, Brett Stephens, etc.
It's true they have the token conservative opinion columnist you mention. But that's counting on one hand. Very few woke critical liberals. It's telling that Paul was forced out. The day to day reporting also still mostly takes woke race and gender positions for granted. They certainly have never published anything along the lines of "how did we fall for and amplify the BLM hoax of a fake police murder of black men epidemic "
That's an interesting criteria for "woke," to say the least.
Listen to a few hours of NPR from 2011 and then 2025 and it will be very clear how woke those legacy outlets still are
You can count over 30% of the 16 NYT columnists on one hand. Not exactly a useful framing.
Exactly. Douthat and French are proof positive that conservatives can still possess functioning brains 😎
Well like all of bluesky. If you're FDB and you need opinions to rail against, just go to bluesky and type your keywords.
There’s a thing in fandom culture where, when a fan theory gets proven dead, the subculture promoting it seems to get crazier and more vicious - mainly just because all the normal people are filtering out. I think that dynamic applies to a lot of politics as well.
The baseball analogy is dead on. The last time Freddie wrote something relevant to the current cultural climate was in 2022.
He’s also a deeply unpleasant person who’s constitutionally incapable of receiving criticism of any kind with good grace. His go-to response to disagreement—his only response—(which I predict will be his response to this piece)—is “but you didn’t understand my argument!!” To which I always want to reply: if not a single one of your readers understands what you're saying, do you think they're the problem, or do you think you are?
Actually, Freddie's recently discovered a second response to disagreement -- unfortunately, as Ross alludes to here, that second response is "grotesque misogynist putdown."
He’s cool but rude
I subscribed to Freddie's Substack for a year or two and here was my six word summary of his oeuvre at that time:
Always provocative. Frequently interesting. Rarely wise.
But I unsubscribed some months ago because you're right that one more word is now needed to describe his work: repetitive.
Yeah that's kind of true, I've noticed he's a bit better critic and problematizer than theorist. Like idk how TF we're supposed to treat, say, bipolar nazi people. Seems there's lines of energy in multiple directions on that. FDB is very good at showing that some really dominant ways of treating such people are very wrong. But there's still no new theory.
My view — as someone who’s followed Freddie’s writing for the last decade — is that he’s both correct and eloquent 80% of the time, while the other 20% he’s off on some bizarre, windmill-tilting tangent against perceived slights. To me, the piece in question falls squarely in the latter category.
Interesting. I think you're right that Freddie is almost always eloquent (and he's Yglesian in his ability to write both well and incredibly quickly), but I definitely didn't find him correct 80% of the time.
I think he is always worth reading on the subjects of mental illness and education. On the latter, I'm not sure I agree with him (at least, I have always believed differently), but I think he makes a compelling case that I need to reckon with. On wokeness, I think he's generally right as well, but I think it's easy to be right on that subject.
But when it comes to almost everything else, I find Freddie to be a lazy thinker who straw mans the opposing side of the argument in ways that can be fun to read but that are, at best, empty calories and not infrequently just wrong.
This is completely true. Not surprisingly, mental illness and education are the two areas where he has actual knowledge.
His writings on American foreign policy are embarassingly ill-informed.
Second Freddie DeBoer substack beef of the year...huge times for the writer fandom
What was the other one?
John Ganz
Another writer whom I greatly respect, Ross has good company here
I'm pretty sure if FdB said "Hi everyone, I am severely sleep deprived due to the stress of caring for a newborn, so I'm going to have a few months of guest posts while I adjust to life as a dad," it would be a win for every single person involved -- he would have more time for his son, his subscribers would get some new takes, and the guest bloggers would get some more eyeballs from his platform. Is there a good reason for him not to do that?
Can I really write a comment here? How liberating. Thanks. Here goes.
What a nonsense pissing match. I get Ross's point that Freddie does return to the same arguments time and again. In this he is hardly alone. I feel like most columnists have a narrow brand they stick to. But yeah, he should be more varied and interesting! We all should. But since he attracts a range of readers, maybe his repetition is actually a good thing? Maybe the fact that some conservatives read him is a good thing? Worth thinking about? Are we thinking here?
I personally like Freddie's writing style generally. It's entertaining. He's clever. He can flat out write, even if what he is writing is a little odd/wrong/offensive/repetitive from time to time. I like writers who challenge their own tribe, a lot. I hate partisan purity. Dumb. That said, I also find his need to remind his readers that he is a genuine leftist (Marxist even) amusing.
That has always struck me as bullshit. But who cares? This is not life or death. So far from it it boggles, Freddie was also a recently mentally ill, deranged lunatic. (I'm sure he'd be fine with this) Happily he managed to get this under control, gain a career, a wife/partner, and a baby. So bravo to him.
I don't know much about Ross. I have read and like much of his stuff. Not this piece exactly, mostly because it just seems petty and gratuitous. I like the definition of wisdom as being "knowing what to overlook." Not sure why he takes such umbrage to Freddie writing that he thinks Ross is getting some things wrong. So what? Not sure why Freddie chose him to be in the crosshairs either. Maybe he'll write back and continue this low stakes beef?
I very much agree with Freddie's main point that acting as though what happened before is not relevant to what is happening now, and likely in the future, is naive and perhaps suicidal. Woke is not dead. It lives on in the minds and plans of those who hate it and those who revere it. Woke is dormant. It's not the policies, it's the manner of reasoning that is so rotten.
Replying to my own comment. I forgot to mention that whatever other insights Freddie provides or doesn't, his simple yet powerful observation that it is politics that decide things, not virtue, is just absolutely correct, and needs to be repeated to those who think "virtue" always wins the day. It doesn't. Winning is important is an important message. Do the work! Or get Trump.
thanks for writing this well thought out critique I was lazily going to say substackers whinging back and forth is super indulgent.
Apropos of nothing, I like that definition of wisdom -- "knowing what to overlook." I hadn't heard that before. Thanks. (Something I need to work on.)
I’ve found lots of de Boer’s writing funny and sharp (usually when he’s attacking people I also find annoying) and I enjoy his kamikaze attitude to his arguing endlessly with his own commenters about gender while telling them how bored he is of the whole subject.
But I did have a similar experience to you. He emailed me after I wrote an Atlantic profile of a controversial educator to tell me that because of my cozy corporate perch, I couldn’t ever address the REAL issues in education (aka the ones in his book).
I think we should just consider the possibility that a sense of being excluded from the Cool Kids Table is the engine that underpins his writing, and that has positive and negative effects.
I found it annoying he couldn't imagine a writer having agency and just coming to a conclusion it he didn't like
Maybe Freddie should consider that these big-name publications won't publish him often not because of ideology, but because he acts like a jackass.
The funny thing is, they do publish him, but then he seems to burn a bridge
I recently paused my subscription to his Substack. Good to confirm it wasn't just me detecting a quality drop-off.
Rick Ross Barkan comin out swingin. deBoer decimated
Oh no, this is like two siblings squabbling and being caught in the middle! Ross, Freddie is guy who first alerted me to your work a few years ago (and I'm grateful). I like you both. I think you both represent some of the best of Substack.
You mention "certain segments of academia and book publishing" as places where woke censoriousness still flourishes. That's where I live, and I'd have to agree. Although I'm seeing hopeful signs. I have a nasty woke colleague -- a frightful little Maoist with a mask -- and some people now find her kind of pathetic. (I realize that's just one data point but maybe it's revealing.)
But most academics who are finally exhausted by wokeism also are not interested in seeing anyone dunking on the woke. I've learned this lesson myself, because as appalled as I was by the election results, I let people know I was vindicated. (I thought Harris would win, but if she didn't, I said it would be because of the absurd cultural overreaches the far left.) Some friends and colleagues have told me, in so many words, that I was being ungracious, and that under Trump 2.0., we have much bigger problems now. I don't quite see it that way, but that is where they're at.
All of this is to say that I tend to agree with you on the main points of contention between you and Freddie.I think I agree with Freddie, though, about NY Mag. It's alway stylishly written, but it's predictable and it certainly likes flattering it's readers. I've not forgotten that they fired Andrew Sullivan. I'm glad, however, to see you there Ross.
Best wishes to you both!
Great counter-punch, Ross, pretty sure I heard the ringside bell. I unsubscribed to FdB a while ago, but for perhaps slightly more superficial reasons - those columns are just so long-winded. And look, I don't happen to share your assessment of TFP, but I'd never dream of going off on such an aggrieved, personal tirade in response. If we don't fight for free speech with every last fiber, then our grand experiment truly is extinguished.
I wish The Free Press would say more about how Trump is attacking free speech
I feel like you don’t understand what The Free Press is trying to build. It’s not just “Bari Weiss and her anti-woke opinions.” They publish pieces on a variety of issues in politics and culture, from different points of view. They host debates.
The FP has holes and biases, but they don’t need to come up with a single position on Trump or wokeness because it’s not that kind of publication anymore.
There is a ton of substantive, meaningful disagreement between the cultural left and the rest of the country that will continue to be salient regardless of whether BLM is in the news, or Trump is president, or the vibe has shifted away from pronouns. As a society, we're debating things like natalism, smartphones, education, crime and policing, masculinity, the role of religion in society, debates in healthcare, how to think about disability... there's just so much. And the FP covers a bunch of foreign policy issues too, most obviously Israel. As a subscriber the idea that it’s becoming irrelevant just seems weird to me, like you must not be reading it very often if you think their beat is that small.
As for FdB, I find his writing on disability and mental illness to be essential. I also think he’s right that the woke left continues to matter—but I would say it’s becoming less about the narrow frivolous wokeness of 2020 and more about bigger debates in culture.
You can go to the Free Press right now, and click on the link where they summarize their values.
The last one they list is "Belief in the American project."
And yet they are mum, or lazy, when it comes to addressing Trump's threats to our freedoms. Trump is a proud authoritarian who is gleefully attacking our liberties, with astonishing results, while the Free Press -- this stalwart defender in the "American project" -- won't say a word crosswise. It's disapppoiting.
You clearly don’t read the Free Press. They haven’t been silent. That’s ridiculous. They publish articles critical of Trump all the time.
https://www.thefp.com/p/no-deportations-without-due-process
https://www.thefp.com/p/donald-trumps-revenge
https://www.thefp.com/p/harvard-had-it-coming-that-doesnt
At least two of these are couched in apologia. "Well, Trump has a point, you know, but he's gone too far here ... "
You should read what Sullivan has been writing and posting. No one is more critical of woke and DEI, and he's absolutely enraged at The Free Press.
Oh that definitely stung. I have zero horse in this race, especially since I don't read deBoer, but that was biting.
When Jewish students were forced to barricade themselves in a library for their safety at Cooper Union because of a frenzied pro Palestinian mob, was that “criticizing Israel”?
Now Gazans are starting to rebel against Hamas. But the demonstrators all over the world are sticking with Hamas. Do you know why? They don’t actually care about the Palestinians, they’re just getting off on animalistic hatred of Jews.