“Lynn, idea for Farage meeting. Jim Davidson hosts the 9 o’clock news. Stop migrants taking taxis.”

It’s difficult to express in words the contempt with which the McSweeney cabal deserve to be regarded, but Ian does a good job in approximating.

Why is every scandal existential for Starmer? Because he has actively worked to eradicate his own support base. And that, along with the Mandelson decision, can be laid at McSweeney's door iandunt.substack.com/p/starmers-m...

He's finally done. They'll hang him out to save themselves, now. But I think it's important to emphasise that Mandelson had and kept power *because* of being a creepy, corrupt spittle-licker. That was his job, and he excelled at it. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

It's just me-dia.

Have to say, I’m getting such Hackers (1995) vibes from our political class these days. They haven’t got the faintest idea what’s actually going on, but they’ll believe whatever some billionaire in a leather jacket tells them. So desperate to be seen to be on the cutting edge. The perfect mark.

The great political contradiction of Trump: he gets a knee-shaking ego-thrill from posing as a callous, imperturbable tough guy, but he also deeply, viscerally needs his people to like him.

Every day it becomes clearer and clearer that the actual political convictions behind what became demonised as “woke,” from 2020 onwards, were pretty much spot on, and those Very Serious People who participated in its demonisation owe us all a series of grovelling apologies.

Caught up with the last season of The Righteous Gemstones: Utterly bonkers (indeed, Bible Bonkers). Large parts make absolutely no sense. The satirical edge is dulled with sentimentality. And, I repeat, it’s bonkers. But when you’ve got John Goodman doing John Goodman things, anything seems possible

I guess Nature publishes Yelp reviews now.

I’m doing this. It’s fun.

open.substack.com/pub/lauriepe... My new writing seminar is really picking up. And current events are making an appearance. Because creative work isn’t about shutting out what’s awful and overwhelming in the world. It’s about taking charge of your reaction to those things.

One day, perhaps in the not so distant future, this man’s heart will give out, under the weight of McDonald’s hamburgers and narcissistic malice. There will be dancing in the streets, people will hug their children, and his name will go down in history as a byword for all that is pathetic and base.

How many op-Ed’s will be written on “here’s the solution to the male loneliness epidemic: protecting neighbors from ICE”

Tooze knows that you don’t have to be a dogmatic Marxist to be a Marxist. This is a journalist’s paraphrase of some offhand comments. He isn’t a Marxist because he’s a left-liberal economic historian turned public intellectual, obsessed with “conjuncture.” He’s really a Hallian. Post-post-Marxist.

Just did that thing where I accidentally knocked a jar out of the cupboard and managed to catch it before even realising what was happening 💪

Debates continue to circulate—as they should—about the utility of neoliberalism as a category of analysis and political practice. Myself + three other historians wrote a brief overview of how it works in our field for the Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The danger of a Harris-type is that they won’t do anything to reverse the fascistic developments, once they have a chance. But that doesn’t mean they would—or could!—ever have intensified state violence like this in the first place. That’s kind of their whole thing: all talk, no gumption.

Very Serious political scientists who ignore feminist and critical race scholarship are just taking L after L these days.

This piece fits my impression of the road that anti-“Woke” has taken: It may have started for some as a semi-self-conscious ruse by which reactionaries can imagine themselves as brave truth-tellers. However, it has since become their entire reality. In extreme cases, the result is clinical paranoia.

It’s not that he’s become more racist in himself so much as that racism itself has intensified, and he reflects that. He’s a narcissist. A fragile ego in the shape of a human. He does whatever makes him feel superior. Racism makes him feel superior. So, as racism becomes more extreme, so does he.

“It big. Big good. Me want.” He genuinely is this simple. With all the Discourse in recent days over Venezuela and Greenland, it’s really striking how commentators of every political persuasion *still* try to make rational sense out of this guy’s fascistic whims. It’s ego *all the way down*.

Amateur hour. I download all the articles I won’t read and load them into DEVONthink Pro. That way I can tell myself I’m creating a database.

Britain is economically stagnating, not collapsing. But this seems beside the point. Social cohesion has long depended on a sense of progress. Sure, you hate your job, and your boss is a prick. But your kids will be better off than you, so you grin and bear it. And who believes that anymore?

I’ve often thought that, if the academic profession really gave a damn about teaching (structurally rather than just individually), there would be journals for publishing teaching materials that are peer-reviewed for accuracy, quality, and level-appropriate accessibility.

I've just started working on a new article. There's a non-zero chance that this'll be the last academic text I write (because academic careers basically aren't a thing anymore). However, I'm not here to sadpost. [1/6]

great news, everyone! turning a 5 into a 6 because you forgot the year is one of the easiest ones to fudge! turning a 6 into a 7 won't be so simple

most depressing billboard I have ever seen

Layers upon layers, here. DOGE dimwits not being able to see beyond their own noses. No one involved apparently aware that redaction fails are common and need to be checked. Underneath this, Adobe’s enshittification of their software to justify more expensive enterprise licenses. Glorious.

Older family member the other day, looking up from watching YouTube on his iPad: “Apparently climate change is a load of bollocks and AI is going to prove it!”

Good lord, if this “partner content“ isn’t a symptom of our times, I don’t know what is.

Adorno can be annoying. But he’s also the weird little guy I needed, as the winter gloom sets in. open.substack.com/pub/polycrit...

I feel like someone out there might need to see and hear this. I know I did. youtu.be/msqM3QGU92A?...

My org @fightforthefuture.org has been “de-googling” for the last year. We’re totally off Google suite, Google docs, Drive, Calendar. We’re using Signal and Element for chat, Nextcloud for docs, etc Planning to publish a “how to” guide for other nonprofits and activist groups soonish.

A powerful and brilliantly presented assessment of the state of Big Tech geopolitics. Their strategy, in short: Become too big to fail and too depended upon to resist.

Please take a minute to scroll through this—and share it. It's the story of our time. The Authoritarian Stack: How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic American—And Why Europe Is Next. www.authoritarian-stack.info

On Robert Jenrick's "white faces" comment as a symptom of the times polycritical.substack.com/p/when-harle...

Contemporary liberalism conflates democracy with Discourse. If people are talking then there must be democracy happening. Professional talkers, in particular, are loathed to consider that there might be anything more sacred than talking. God forbid they might actually have to think.

appearing later this month global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Starmer team kicking themselves that they didn’t think of it first.

US has made an all-in bet on AI and Fossil Fuels. China on green tech. @katemac.bsky.social & I @parismarx.com podcast on how China's bet made Solar+batteries+EVs turn into business models of Coke cans-everywhere, cheap, accessible, satisfy the thirst for freedom. techwontsave.us/episode/291_...

Challenging podcast by @ceps.eu with @dacemoglumit.bsky.social going from whether AI is a revolution or part of AI to how the necessary institutional innovations are best made

Capitalism always needs a Next Big Thing. This need is demand-driven, not supply-driven. It’s structural. Seekers of the NBT don’t particularly care what that thing is. However, they will dive into each iteration of the same old story with equally evangelical zeal.

I studied International Relations as an undergrad because: 1. I’d been politicised by being a moody teenager. 2. I’d taken Politics at A Level. 3. During that time, 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq had happened. 4. A guy in my class mentioned his dad had studied IR. (I’d never heard of it before.)

Inappropriate media photos illustrating heatwaves - this one wins a special prize for having a caption about increased drowning accidents. Via @ketanjoshi.co

Another summer, another procession of record-smashing heatwaves. After the heatwave of July 2022, I wrote this piece on dread, anger, and the duty to critique. Re-reading it for the page proofs, I was struck by some things I wrote that already seem out of date, but also some that seem timely. 🧵