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Comment by shwaj | Hacker News Reader

Without negating the observation of timelessness, it jumped out at me how Russell Brand is now on the “conservative” end of the spectrum (both how he is painted by media, as well as revealed by polls of his audience on a variety of topics), all without a drastic change in his own beliefs/philosophy.

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Ahem? https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm...

It's not surprising that he gets painted as conservative when he promotes Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones and Jordan Peterson while spreading conspiracy theories about Fauci, Obama, Biden etc.

> spreading conspiracy theories

Do you have some specific examples? I see clickbait thumbnails, but the contents are, generally, well cited.

One thing that annoys me is this tendency to judge people by their associations rather than their actual beliefs.

Liking some things people do or say doesn't mean you completely agree with them.

I would classify Brand more as counter-culture liberal than a conservative. He’s still very much a liberal in terms of his views, he just hasnt reduced himself to partisan tribalism. Im sure I disagree with him on many things and from different directions but I think its commendable that he doesnt subscribe to a mold.

Another explanation is that he is just one of the many, many grifters out there.

my impression is that he’s mostly just a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian and has no real principles.

or the sibling comment to this could be likely as well, he’s just a grifter.

I would qualify Russel Brand as a contrarian. And, in my (perhaps personal consistency) defence, I never liked Russel Brand, he always seemed to "hippy" and not at pragmatic enough for my liking.

Perhaps his views haven't changed but he's definitely broadcasting different a different set since 2020. He's not particularly right wing but he's definitely most palatable to the Conservative in the American Republican sense for a reason.

I think it's because his bread and butter content moved from socialist philosophy to rugged individualism and anti-vaxxer rhetoric.

Not that I particularly blame him, it's probably a fairly easy trade-up now in 2023. Why would he retain his smaller collectivist left wing audience, given he's managed a 2700% increase in online viewership by talking about vaccine mandates and how to circumvent them?

Same with Bill Maher.

Maher is just a contrarian kook, always has been. His criticism of Bush was convenient and not the product of a serious moral framework.

He's been very consistent in his views and by all the counts remains a quasi left-libertarian.

Agreed. However I do give Maher a lot of credit for not being afraid to call out his tribe’s occasional ridiculous hypocrisy. Maybe one only feels that confident as they age and have attained wealth. When you have more to lose (your livelihood) you are going to be more careful with your words and objections.

That said I’ve watched Maher for 15 years and look forward to his show coming back after the strike. I say this as someone who probably disagrees with more than half of his hot-takes.

I saw his stand up at DPAC a few months ago and loved it. He is a funny guy and very entertaining.

A north carolina segregationist who graduated college in say 1940 saw their political stance go from moderate & mainstream to fringe in their own lifetime. The fact that social-political culture norms shift isn't a very interesting or useful statement about the people it shifts around.

Maybe not when it shifts in a lifetime, but I beg to differ when it shifts in less than 10 years. It was also not meant to be an interesting statement about the person, rather the shift itself.

Then make the statement. You're implying it and then expecting us to do the work for you.

> The fact that social-political culture norms shift isn't a very interesting

It's a fascinating fact people should dwell on more imo. Understanding how moral fashions change and why would be great.

The rest of that sentence is important don't cut it out! It's not an interesting observation about the individuals; it certainly is about the cultures though.

Sociologists and historians both spend tremendous amounts of time on this, some devote their enter careers to small facets of this single dynamic.

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