1: See bold:
https://join.substack.com/p/noise-and-evidence
Nathan J. Robinson made an excellent comment during a discussion with Glenn Greenwald. Robinson pointed out that “Russiagate was all a bunch of bullshit”, that “the criticisms that were being made of Donald Trump were frequently the totally wrong criticisms”, that Noam Chomsky—in contrast to the MSNBC pundits—had always been making the correct criticisms of Trump, and that the anti-Trump chorus “was totally unpersuasive”.
I managed to use quotation in order avoid trouble in all of the items in the list; you can't get the tense wrong if you use quotation. But there's the one item ("had always been making the correct criticisms of Trump") where I didn't use quotation...does the below transcription clarify if I got it wrong or right?
What you and I both know is that the criticisms that were being made of Donald Trump were frequently the totally wrong criticisms. As you said, nobody was talking about climate. Noam Chomsky was talking—he's been talking about climate the whole time and saying, like, that is the reason Trump is such a serious threat....So the approach that I've taken—and that I think Chomsky takes and is correct—is [to criticize Trump the correct way and not the bad and ineffectual way].
2: And see bold:
https://join.substack.com/p/noise-and-evidence
Nathan J. Robinson made an excellent comment during a discussion with Glenn Greenwald. Robinson pointed out that “Russiagate was all a bunch of bullshit”, that “the criticisms that were being made of Donald Trump were frequently the totally wrong criticisms”, that Noam Chomsky—in contrast to the MSNBC pundits—had always been making the correct criticisms of Trump, and that the anti-Trump chorus “was totally unpersuasive”.
I always use present tense if it's something written; e.g., "Bob has an excellent 2004 piece about climate change in which Bob writes that climate is a big deal". But if it's something spoken then I'm never sure whether to apply present tense. So is my practice OK on this front? I think that others do this as well; for some odd reason I hesitate to use the present tense when it's a YouTube discussion like the one between Robinson and Greenwald, though.
I think that the logic of using the present tense has to do with the fact that (e.g.) an essay still exists today; Adam Smith writes in his 1776 book that X...the 1776 book still exists and you can read it.
But a YouTube discussion is also something that you can play at any moment, so I'm not sure why I hesitate regarding a YouTube discussion.