For the entirety of my life, Noam Chomsky has been the most brilliant and articulate describer of The Problem. I will always admire the arc of his work for that.

But for all his genius at diagnosis, he increasingly appears to be of substandard intelligence when it comes to prescribing what to do about any of it.

You can witness both halves of the Noam phenom in a twelve-minute clip from the Vanguard, a YouTube channel that is currently rocking up the charts in prominence and relevance:

Noam Chomsky on Green Anarchism

In answer to the question on the table in the headline of the clip, the good doctor just waves his hand at the whole anarcho-primitivist school, dismissing it in about two condescending sentences. He might be right in saying that there’s no time for an anarchic solution alone to work before the world is engulfed in catastrophe. But what then are we to do, Noam?

The answer is the same as it’s been for a while now with him. You just have to keep holding your nose and voting for Democrats.

Well, bullshit.

You have to, he says, because activists have already forced the Green New Deal to “the center of the legislative agenda”.

This is demonstrably and laughably false.

I can only conclude sadly that his superfine mind has transcended its sell-by date. Or maybe he just secretly thinks that there is no hope, and that electoralism and the Democratic Party are the only things that will even slow down the crazy train to inevitable oblivion.

The whole interview got a lot of attention online. For the most part, the reactions tended to wander in the general direction of my take, if not as far as I would go. Help yourself to them.

Noam Chomsky On Force The Vote (Kyle K.)

Noam Chomsky Claims Force The Vote Was Childish (Jackson Hinkle)

Addressing the Twitter Drama – Blue Check Liberals are SALTY about The Vanguard! (the Vanguard’s own somewhat gleeful self-analysis about their own growing impact on the left and the fake neoliberal left)