i actually prefer it when the mods actively hate the user base and vice versa, that’s how every great message board worked for years and i think we should give it a whirl

the person who published this is about to run CBS

I'm sorry: "if I wish to see a virgin on-screen"?

there’s a phenomenon where authoritarians become so inundated with their own propaganda that they forget what’s actually effective. normal people will clock this as weirdo shit.

i’m fasting for Yom Kippur for the first time and i gotta say i’m pretty hungry

Episode 45: How To Win Friends And Influence People 89 years ago, Dale Carnegie taught Americans how to live like Leo Tolstoy, give speeches like John Rockefeller and neg like Calvin Coolidge.

the "who will the public blame for the shutdown?" handwringing is asinine. the vast majority of voters have no idea how government shutdowns work, and by the time midterms roll around they won't remember anything that didn't impact them directly

every single person claiming to yearn for this would kill themselves if they were subjected to the tyranny of the 56k modem for one hour

You guys do yourself a favor and look at what Eric Adams wore to Rosh Hashanah services at the Sephardic Lebanese Congregation

chotiner’s real gift is very quickly revealing how many powerful and influential people are complete morons. Sunstein is asked about his friendship with Kissinger and it’s pretty clear that he’s never really thought about it.

My latest premium newsletter is about why authoritarians reinforce their message through discipline and obedience, and how the liberal hagiographies of Charlie Kirk reify MAGAs narratives.

just found some tiktokers who think the rapture is tomorrow, hell yeah

My latest premium newsletter is about why authoritarians reinforce their message through discipline and obedience, and how the liberal hagiographies of Charlie Kirk reify MAGAs narratives.

This month's bonus episode is about the pundit reaction to the death of Charlie Kirk, from Ezra Klein to the freaks at National Review.

there’s a point in this interview where chatterton says that his views on race issues have cost him some professional opportunities. probably true in a vacuum, but it’s a weird thing to say when his views on race are the foundation for his entire career.

i’ve read like three dozen columns at this point where the basic thesis is “debating politics is good, but shooting people? shooting people is bad”

the hiring of Olivia Nuzzi by Vanity Fair makes the new rules of media clear: ❌ lightly criticizing Charlie Kirk ✅ FaceTime fingerblasting with your story’s subject, RFK Jr.

is there someone out there who knows how to get past the free press firewall? i can’t keep paying these people $10

great news! you're not actually seeing karl rove, john yoo, and david frum criticize the administration's lawlessness more stridently than dem leadership. you, reader, were infected with rabies by a brown bat 36 hours ago and this is all just the virus working its way through your nervous system

checking in on Bari Weiss’s podcast

what ezra doesn't seem willing to accept is that charlie kirk was part of a political movement that does not think that "we are going to have to live here with each other" and is fact very interested in the elimination and/or subjugation of many, many people

it’s extremely important that you understand how dumb Brett Kavanaugh really is

This week’s episode is Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, where the Court allowed ICE to do a little bit of racial discrimination as a treat.

pretty telling that their lawyers had to find a basis for firing her other than the actual one, which is criticizing Charlie Kirk

Use of the word "evil" in official congressional e-newsletters, over time, by party

some professional news: due to various insensitive comments made in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder, I have fired @michaelhobbes.bsky.social from the If Books Could Kill podcast. the show will continue as usual, with me playing the role of both michael and peter

there's a weird feedback loop where the media's reaction to kirk's death pushes you to speak more ill of the dead than you otherwise would because it's the only reasonable response to the simpering praise they're heaping on him

the WSJ story is about editorial recklessness but also radicalization within government. the WSJ will probably maintain that they were simply reporting on a real government bulletin, but that bulletin was the output of government agents who saw random symbols and thought it was "trans ideology"

My latest newsletter is a response to @jerusalem.bsky.social on the politics of immigration, and why ticky-tack policy solutions won't save Democrats.

i keep seeing this take but as far as i can tell it’s pure speculation. try not to let your brain get cooked.

My latest newsletter is a response to @jerusalem.bsky.social on the politics of immigration, and why ticky-tack policy solutions won't save Democrats.

“awful people don’t deserve to be killed, but they don’t deserve to be praised, either” is apparently a thought too complex for the pundit mind

Episode 44: Summer of Our Discontent Thomas Chatterton Williams is the only thinker brave enough to ask the question: is there a way to make that sentence longer?

hearing reports that Kash Patel has opened his eyes even wider in an attempt to locate the shooter

the best evidence that the shooter was a right-winger is that the shot actually hit and then they got away

they just decide what they think we’re like and proceed as though

in a typical display of bias, Rhiannon refuses to list the literally dozens of countries that Israel has NOT bombed this week

what a humiliating way for don jr. to find out his dad sends birthday cards.

one fact that consistently elides the centrist mind is that Democrats tried flanking Trump on immigration policy, to literally zero political benefit.

the meme here is literally true, but it often couples with the belief that voter suppression is the reason the South is deeply red. but it's the other way around: the voter suppression is the *output* of reactionary Southern politics

I tend to think that these are identifiable trends (and in some cases even problems), but if “catastrophizing” is your concern I don’t know how you could say it’s worse here than in right-wing spaces or on Twitter generally, where (e.g.) Ring cam crime videos do big numbers

when he's right he's right

My new premium newsletter is about polls showing that liberals are cutting off their conservative family members, and my theory that this might happen not because liberals are more sensitive, but because conservatives are less tolerable.

40% of Republicans think the COVID vaccine killed more people than the COVID virus. One in four believe that QAnon is real. No matter how far they radicalize, we are told over and over again that the people being rude to them are the problem.

many people are saying

super interesting and data-driven piece, I love this newsletter, one of my favorite subs

My new premium newsletter is about polls showing that liberals are cutting off their conservative family members, and my theory that this might happen not because liberals are more sensitive, but because conservatives are less tolerable.

legally you’re allowed to title your episodes whatever you want

one of the great conservative moves over the past decade has been to make themselves so unpleasant that their own family members are forced to cut them off, and then use that fact to argue that *liberals* are too uncivil