There are ways to get creative with things like the Electoral College, or at least make them more democratic, but there's only so much you can do. Eventually the Constitution will either be discarded or it will bury America

The reason the broad left of the modern day does not have this quality is because they are laboring under the delusion that they won. The endless pleas by Democrats for cooperation are a product of the belief that liberal and democratic ideals have been baked-in—that they are not up for questioning

I think I could take hearing this from someone who's on the front lines. If Brad Lander or LaMonica McIver said "you need to be more empathetic towards MAGA guys" I might not agree but I'd at least hear them out. Casten has done nothing but make excuses for the people destroying the country

You could write a whole book about how the reactionaries have weaponized the concept of "rights" to benefit their purposes. Victims' rights, parents' rights, gun rights, etc.

The bargain that the US has made is that the Egyptians get sent all the money and military aid they want, and the regime stays in power, so long as the Egyptians don't try to reclaim their mantle as the leaders of the Arab world. If the US stops sending money or the regime falls, that will change

In my experience, people think Woodrow Wilson was a bad president for reasons I would consider pretty common to presidents of the era before 1939, but his greatest sin in office was probably quashing the spirit of constitutional reform that pervaded the United States in the 1910s

One of the things that worries me the most is the prospect that our current situation will not result in even what I would consider fairly tepid reforms—packing the courts, expanding the House, codifying rights.

In my experience, people think Woodrow Wilson was a bad president for reasons I would consider pretty common to presidents of the era before 1939, but his greatest sin in office was probably quashing the spirit of constitutional reform that pervaded the United States in the 1910s

If Bluesky let you use bold/italics/underline natively it would be the perfect app

Thinking about how my relatively normie coworker was like "we need a general strike to bring them to their knees." I was blown away

"In this former British colony, rule of law has been threatened by a demagogue who has taken control of one of the country's two legal parties. America experts have raised concerns that the state media apparatus has been inflaming tensions by encouraging assaults on opposition candidates..."

Extremely pleased that I cut beef out of my diet last year. It wasn't even in anticipation of this, I just thought I should eat less meat. I'm doing the same to pork this year

Why is Josh Shapiro going on Stephen A. Smith's show to bash Kamala Harris? Is he still bitter about not being picked?

Talked to a coworker today about current events and I really do think Dem electeds are underestimating how mad the base is right now She had almost as much vitriol for the Dem leadership as she did for Trump and the media colluding with him

In South Korea, those who elect Nazi pedophiles are looked down upon because they violate the ancient Korean custom of sangsig, or “common sense”

I was a little ambivalent about Garcia being picked to lead Oversight but I've been pleasantly surprised; he's been very good on a few issues so far, especially DC home rule/statehood

The most frustrating thing about this is that the Dems could have basically ensured that they'd win the House and presidency every single election (at least in the near future) if they'd moved with a little bit of urgency to abolish the filibuster, pack the court, and expand the House

It's kinda underrated how badly Adobe has ruined Acrobat with this AI shit. Even Copilot's not as bad as bombarding you with random crap and doing stuff you don't want it too, and that's not even getting into how the entire app is so much slower

Perfect timing www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/o...

Thanking God that I am not named "Billy Binion"

lol these guys don’t have the power to rule with an iron fist but they do have the power to destroy a few decades in QoL gains by ensuring entire swaths of this country are always roiling somewhere between sporadic terror and The Troubles

Chuck Schumer is one of those people who can only hold one idea in their head at once. Until something forces out this one, he'll keep yammering on about "avoiding the shutdown." Happened with the Epstein files, so I'm excited to see which new idea occupies the entirety of his mind in October

Another day of the Earle-Sears campaign imploding. I do think there is some excitement behind Spanberger, but I feel very strongly that people will read way too much into her (probably inevitable) victory.

I just realized that the image is literally a set of (jingling) keys. Incredible stuff

Likewise the reason that HRW, Amnesty et al categorized Israel's conduct in Gaza as genocide isn't because Israel reached some magic threshold of population killed and maimed but because of particular actions taken to make Gaza itself uninhabitable, ie destruction of water access, crops, schools.

I'm reminded of all those people who claimed "Israel's not committing genocide, you lefties are freaking out over nothing" when people started pointing this out in early 2024. Constant vitriol for those who had the temerity to be correct ahead of time

It's good that they're turning away from Trump, but some of these comments are baffling. "Humane deportations"? "I didn't think it would affect anyone I knew"? Makes you weep

Liu Bei represents the Democratic establishment, slowly killing the peasants who rely on them for protection in a vain attempt at reestablishing a regime that was already dead anyway. The person Tarik is talking about is Cao Cao.

The fact that they're still on the trans sports thing is so funny to me. It doesn't really poll that well, but even if it did, Earle-Sears spends so much time on it that people (correctly) think she's unserious! It's bizarre to still be hammering it instead of talking about job losses or something

I really like this interview because I think it lands on the proper conclusion (especially the last paragraph)—while "people who voted GOP" may not be as extreme as we think, Republican leaders ARE every bit as extreme as we think, and they hold immense powers of persuasion over the base.

Schmitt (Eric, not Carl) is proving right now that cracking down on the vague anti-Kirk sentiment is basically the dumbest possible thing that the Bsky mods could have done

To be honest, I'm not afraid. I don't really think I'm even sad or worried. Just angry.

Wow, Mr. Martin, you really showed him. He'll think twice before siccing another mob on the Capitol.

There are a few things I think a Democratic majority could and should do as soon as they win, in order (and none of these require constitutional amendments). 1. Get rid of the filibuster. This one is a necessary prerequisite to everything and thus to saving (or salvaging) democracy

I hope people understand that the anomaly here aren’t the conditions—the conditions are very typical—the anomaly is that they put a number of documented workers from a high-income country in those conditions. This is how people are treated in custody routinely

You can excuse some groups voting for Trump. Maybe they didn't really see any negative effects—they didn't have anyone in their family die of COVID, or they weren't a minority, or they didn't know any immigrants. You can't excuse farmers—they experienced Trump's negative effects once already.

There are some decent ideas in here (mostly regarding periodic reviews of the Federal Reserve's goals) but I do not understand why you'd ever launder Trump's complaints. It's one thing to post like this on Bsky, but this is a national newspaper. Don't carry water for the right!

Total crank stuff. GOP is maxed out in VA; they have a bad candidate and a ticket that won't stop fighting with itself, the two biggest regions are facing massive GOP-caused job losses, and the Dems have twice as much money as they do, not that the state GOP seems to care

"Harsher penalties deter crime" is one of those things that the average person instinctively believes but basically falls apart upon any examination. The average person committing a crime is not searching the state code to see exactly how much jail time they'll get if they're convicted.

I asked this earlier but what's the actual Democratic hawk strategy for containing China? At least Trump has tariffs and militarism. Those are stupid as hell but when he says "we'll fight China" he does have some plan in mind. What do Dems have?

Not that this is necessarily a unique opinion within the party elite but I think it's notable that three of the biggest proponents are Buttigieg, Polis, and Slotkin—in other words, two gay guys and a woman

i would argue this is a more accurate description of conservatism: There are natural and traditional hierarchies, which are mostly good; attempts to overturn these hierarchies result in social calamity; the good life is finding your place in these hierarchies and respecting it

The thing is when you reduce conservatism to abstract truisms like this, you define a conservatism so broad that many self-declared socialists could be defined as conservative

I think this is essentially wishcasting, not just because this isn't anything like the conservativism of the past fifty or hundred years, but also because there's not really a path back to Burke. Fascists are probably the new right-wing of the spectrum.

I don't know this for sure but I strongly suspect one of the reasons the shooter knows "Bella Ciao" is because it was a song in Hearts of Iron IV

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.

Dems can't go back to negotiating to avoid the shutdown after this. This is a declaration of war. Let the GOP suffer the consequences of their own failures

I condemn all violence, but it's quite telling that certain people (most of whom are not on this site) can convince themselves that things done with a pen and paper, or with a computer, or from 2,000 miles away are not violence.

Him doing this when today is the deadline to remove his name from the ballot is just a perfect Eric Adams move