“restoring faith that better is possible” is maybe the most important thing in politics right now outside of imposing consequences on the bad people (and imposing consequences would help restore faith) we have seen what cynical, “lol nothing matters” politics leads to and it leads to Donald Trump

After a bit of a break, I've got a new post up at the blog that I think you'll want to read—especially if you could use a dose of well-grounded hope, a feeling of being part of something great, and/or a compass to check that you're heading in the right direction in these crazy days.

Transphobia is the greatest lodestone for today's far-right, because it embodies the far-right desire to claim all identities are natural and biological. Today's fascists hate trans people for the same reason interwar fascists hated diasporic Jews - because they hate fluidity and border crossing.

If you’re against DEI, you’re a segregationist and I’m tired of folks, for the sake of politeness and naïveté, pretending the discussion is anything but that.

the way this makes sense for RFK is that "healthy people" and "sick people" are ontological categories.

I would submit that a gerrymander by politicians saying fuck the voters and one by voters saying fuck the politicians are two wholly different animals

Illiberal actors like Palantir weaponize Karl Popper's tolerance paradox, insisting liberal societies accommodate viewpoints that seek to undermine or oppose pluralism. But equality and democracy demand that tolerance and pluralism be regarded as *normative*, not merely descriptive, traits.

The singular goal of all future US politics is to ensure Trumpism is defeated and cannot again take root here, and everything that serves that end is to be considered and prioritized. It's a holistic organizing principle, from a Green New Deal to Nuremberg 2 to expanding the court to Reconstruction.

some people you can recruit, other people you have to simply defeat. politics makes more sense when you accept this

I’ve typed and deleted this post many times over the years, but: there is no type of death I don’t wish on every person who brought Trump to power because there is no type of death they don’t wish on others. They have always been pro-war, pro-cancer, pro-plague, pro-disaster, profoundly anti-life.

The thing about white supremacy is that it’s a receding horizon—it can never be accomplished and maintained. So what you’ll get is increasing infighting among the elites of this sect as to who’s truly white, who’s the right kind of Christian, who’s a real man, that will exclude more and more people.

I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but usurping the power of the purse isn't just one constitutional violation among all the many others. It is, uniquely and singularly, the death of constitutional government altogether. Game over, end of story, you now live in an autocracy.

I don't know what SCOTUS will do on birthright citizenship case, it's anybody's guess. But if they endorse Trump's diktat, the only response is defiance. Outright, open defiance by the states. A decision not just erroneous but illegitimate, beyond their power, null and void from the day it's issued.

The logic of the Trump regime is grounded in the right-wing’s desire to establish the US as a petro-empire that manages the impacts of climate change w fascism: fake elections, disinformation as common sense, concentration camps for migrants, & the destruction of blue states by extreme weather. 1/n

I don’t love being in a society where you can sell enough pillows to do meaningful damage to democracy or sell enough children’s books to do a genocide or sell enough chicken sandwiches to abolish gay marriage That all seems like a ridiculous way to do society to me

This is so vital. AI — like the internet — benefits when we refuse to consider its materiality.

Today’s dose of anti-cynicism.

These are the old inherited foundational lies of whiteness in the United States. 1) we bear no relation to one another 2) life must be earned 3) violence is redemptive therefore; 4) those who have not earned life must die 5) but first they must be used 6) and in the meanwhile, they must suffer

I've been told this one is "a fun one" and "thoroughly mogged." (It's also short!)

"the precursor to Doing is Saying" is an admirably precise way of explaining why more Dems need to be Saying, loudly, even if they do not currently have the power to Do

I've been told this one is "a fun one" and "thoroughly mogged." (It's also short!)

every quantitative measure is actually a stack of qualitative assumptions in a trenchcoat

It is the defining project of today’s Right: To vanquish the very idea that America should aspire to be a nation defined by equal citizenship in a pluralistic, multiracial society - and to fight instead for white Christian male supremacy at home and in the world.

It's really remarkable the degree to which stupids think the only "government power" that counts is *adding* regulation

my brain is at the mr burns oversized novelty germ door stage of near catastrophe every time i look at news of any kind

The catastrophic impact to local health where the air is poisoned, as well as to our global ecosystem as they literally set the planet on fire and fill the atmosphere with pollutants

No such thing at this point as a Republican who isn’t deeply damaged, anti-human, anti-life, and an active threat to society. Kind of a problem.

“The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.”

This is completely correct but it doesn’t make me worry a whole lot less about 5 wingnut justices.

I just love all the trans people in my life and want them to be safe and happy!!!!!

"There was a version of patriarchy that attempted to sell people on men having a duty to protect others (. . .)Now Trump doesn’t even offer that. Because even that much duty, with all the selfish compensations of a woman of your very own to possess, is still too gay."

100% spot on insights into the ‘why’ of Trump cultists.

Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling. If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🔥🔥🔥

If you are serious about "never again" then remember: it's not about standing up to a line of tanks when the camps are already running. It's about standing up to social & professional pressure when the whole thing is just getting started, when it's not yet cool to do so. That's bravery that matters.

I’ve come up with a fancy new name for the MAHA yoga-mom anti-vax homeschooling crafty-ass wing of MAGA: the Zone of Pinterest

Positive take (relatively) on “we have lived among such people this whole time”: Yes, and that shows things don’t need to be like this. There will always be the sort of people who’d try to get the state to hurt kindergartners. We just need to keep them out of institutional power, and on the fringe.

I think a thing a lot of people don’t understand is that propaganda does not convince anyone of anything through argumentation. It’s about frequency, not force. You get exposed to it enough and it changes how you think.

I have been saying this for almost a year and it is long past due for Dems to adopt this framing for 2 reasons: 1) it is entirely and demonstrably true. 2) the public must be prepared for the enormity of what will be required to dismantle the criminal organization and create a better democracy.

It's kinda annoying how solar panels were hung around the neck of the left as impractical pie in the sky treehugger shit *right* up until it started outcompeting every other energy source. Then suddenly, instead of going "hey the left was correct about solar" it's no longer a "left" idea!

Which is of course conservative, consumerist, colonizer thinking, even though vote abstainers often like to convince themselves they’re the bestest leftists

I really really need Democratic politicians to keep harping on MAGA’s humiliating submissiveness to undeserving men. Just grind that stiletto heel into that collective bruise in the MAGA psyche until they break

I'm sure we've all seen the graphic that lays out the United States ' relationship with slavery. It's good, but I never thought it was quite impactful enough. So I made my own. I've used a few key events, including my birth, to highlight how recent these events are in history. 1 square = 1 year.

Since people are talking about Western Civilization today…

cheers to @rincewind.run for asking climate people what Dire Fuckery Headline means, like, pragmatically half these bozos’ game is wearing you down with despair if you’re a casual, you might think all US climate action ground to a halt today because the EPA threw in the towel not even close

Put it this way: if you are trying to predict Trump's actions, "what would a committed racist/minsogynst do?" will get you about a 95% hit rate. "What would a desperately insecure narcissist who is deeply afraid of weakness & drawn to bullying strength do?" will get you 100%.

In 100% seriousness, coal is the Earth-rapiest energy source and that’s a large part of why conservative men are fans.

i'm not even convinced those ARE the masters tools. i think he might have taken them from me when i wasn't looking. i think those might be mine actually

Mainstream capitalist economics is a weird anti-reality cult that makes you dumber the deeper you get into it, but it’s ~men~ with ~numbers~ so people defer unquestioningly