Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time

December 20, 2015 7:30 PM

"What The Hell Happened To Mickey Kaus?"

He quit the Daily Caller and he's on twitter

posted by the man of twists and turns (29 comments total)

He now lives off his savings, and writes mostly on Twitter, where he has emerged as an unlikely man of this political moment: a Democratic intellectual who thinks that Donald Trump is the “most credible” candidate for the presidency. This is based on what Kaus sees as the central issue of our time: immigration (“I am not as worried about immigration and terrorism … as immigration and wages”) — an issue that polling suggests is the original core of Trump’s angry appeal.

Dear lord, Kaus. if you support higher wages, support higher wages. there's raise-the-minimum-wage campaigns everywhere. it's insulting to everyone, but most especially to yourself, to try to use wages as a cover for rank xenophobia.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [18 favorites]

Matt Yglesias at Vox: “Ben Smith’s entertaining Mickey Kaus profile left out the part where Kaus’s one idea is totally wrong”
posted by Going To Maine at 7:48 PM on December 20, 2015 [10 favorites]

God, I haven't thought about this dreadful person in years. Wasn't he a supposed advocate for equality and higher wages who supported welfare "reform" and opposed unions? A wolf in sheep's clothing.
posted by Mavri at 7:59 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

What happened to Kaus was that people got tired of his tedious "I'm a liberal but I support horrible right wing policies because I'm smarter than other liberals" shtick.
posted by octothorpe at 8:00 PM on December 20, 2015 [35 favorites]

Kaus' ultimate destiny is to live under a bridge and threaten billy goats.
posted by humanfont at 8:12 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

An inspiration to internet trolls everywhere... therefore now quite obsolete.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:16 PM on December 20, 2015

octothorpe: "What happened to Kaus was that people got tired of his tedious "I'm a liberal but I support horrible right wing policies because I'm smarter than other liberals" shtick."

Really. I'm not sure I *ever* saw him support a liberal policy.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:32 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Kaus also went back to his dermatologist, who told him, ”I never said that, and I’m a Republican.”

That's kind of Mickey Kaus's whole career summed up right there, isn't it?
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:35 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

"contrarian liberal"

Isn't that by definition a conservative?
posted by JackFlash at 8:43 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Isn't that the dude that blows goats? It would be irresponsible to not ask that question.
posted by NoMich at 8:45 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

Man, you blow one goat...
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:51 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

I like where he describes himself as a "concern troll." When people use that phrase, it's not generally complimentary, Mr. Kaus. It's...it's not supposed to be aspirational.
posted by infinitywaltz at 8:54 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]

It's not inaccurate, though.
posted by kenko at 9:13 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

I wonder if Kaus regrets just not going straight-up wingnut back in the day, instead of hanging on to his contrarian schtick long past its sell-by date. If he had, he could be collecting fat paychecks from the wingnut-welfare machine for doing what he seems to be doing anyway.

Once you make it into the mainstream media's pundits club, it's pretty hard to get kicked out no matter how wrong you are about everything, which is why people like Bill Kristol are still on TV. It must be immensely frustrating for Mickey Kaus to know that he almost made it into that club, only to fall short, and now must struggle financially while a bunch of other people who were/are just as wrong as he was/is are enjoying well-paying sinecures for cranking out essentially the same old BS.
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 9:25 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]

t must be immensely frustrating for Mickey Kaus to know that he almost made it into that club, only to fall short, and now must struggle financially while a bunch of other people who were/are just as wrong as he was/is are enjoying well-paying sinecures for cranking out essentially the same old BS.

Sure seems like Kaus's schtick should be enough to garner him a regular role at Fox News Channel, no?
posted by gyc at 9:49 PM on December 20, 2015

TLDR: "Professional contrarian quits job, is now amateur contrarian."
posted by Anoplura at 9:57 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

a Democratic intellectual

And I am Marie of Roumania. (cf. Dorothy Parker0
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:05 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

Shorter Mickey Kaus, about anything: "No, I know what 'liberal' means, that's not the problem; it's that nobody else does"
posted by clockzero at 10:29 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think most readers just got tired of trying to digest his mangled syntax.

Seriously, for such a supposedly smart person, dude couldn't write for shit.
posted by mikeand1 at 10:54 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sure seems like Kaus's schtick should be enough to garner him a regular role at Fox News Channel, no?

I think the Daily Caller is considered to be several steps down in wingnut media status from Fox News, so if Kaus has washed out at the former, the latter probably wouldn't be interested.
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 11:46 PM on December 20, 2015

Sure seems like Kaus's schtick should be enough to garner him a regular role at Fox News Channel, no?

The whole reason he quit the Daily Caller was that he wasn't allowed to be critical of Fox News!
posted by John Cohen at 12:11 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is so great, thanks. As someone who got drawn into the exciting and horrible 2000s blog scene it explains so much about where these awful people came from..."so the first time I met Mickey Kaus I was working at this policy foundation trying to think of the best ways to kick people off welfare..."
posted by johngoren at 12:45 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

The only thing I really remember about Kaus is that he's responsible for one of my favorite ever typos, in a press release for one of his books, which said: "Mickey Kaus calls for the creation of a vast pubic sphere."

Never let it be said that he hasn't tried to follow through on his words.
posted by Kattullus at 1:57 AM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Kaus, and people like him on the web and in the media, sewed a lot of confusion in my early political awareness after 9/11, and during the Iraq catastrophe -- I was fairly sure I was a liberal, but then these "liberals" kept popping up saying the most awful things. They even had magazines like the New Republic. On occasion Alan Colmes would say something semi-reasonable, and then Sean Hannity would stuff him back into his locker.

The only thing I really remember about Kaus is that he's responsible for one of my favorite ever typos, in a press release for one of his books, which said: "Mickey Kaus calls for the creation of a vast pubic sphere."

Never let it be said that he hasn't tried to follow through on his words.

That sounds like a tourist trap you want to avoid.

Vast Pubic Sphere, next exit
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:04 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

It must be immensely frustrating for Mickey Kaus to know that he almost made it into that club, only to fall short, and now must struggle financially while a bunch of other people who were/are just as wrong as he was/is are enjoying well-paying sinecures for cranking out essentially the same old BS.

For the rest of us tired of his lame contrarianism, though, the schadenfreude is rich.
posted by Gelatin at 6:11 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Just this weekend I actually had this thought, because I saw one of those squarish cars that I once read a review of that Kaus wrote. What a douche.
posted by OmieWise at 6:28 AM on December 21, 2015

What I got from that profile is that, unlike the many cynical "token Fox News panel Democrats", he honestly seems to still think of himself as a liberal. If this were a scam, I feel like he would have caved to his editors' demands at the Daily Caller. Self-deception is a remarkable thing.
posted by Octaviuz at 8:36 AM on December 21, 2015

he honestly seems to still think of himself as a liberal

Overton window. Or as YCTAB points out, "liberal" is not the same thing as "progressive", and he may in fact be a classic "liberal", as most republicans are in that sense (I think, it's early here).
posted by maxwelton at 8:58 AM on December 21, 2015

I saw some commentator somewhere (I can't recall where) say something to the following effect: Mickey Kaus apparently genuinely cares about the working class but also genuinely hates unions (and maybe also minimum wage laws? not sure). So, all he's left with to improve (or "improve") the lot of the working class is nativist, anti-immigrant bullshit.
posted by mhum at 1:02 PM on December 21, 2015