"Government silence is a statement, not a VETO."

"It was always fanciful to conceive of progressive victories as permanent, just as it was a shortsighted fantasy that edgelord heterodoxy would remain cool. It’s never been waves but circular eddies..."

"The story of women’s liberation isn’t a straight line; the state of women’s rights is blurry and contradictory." the always great @rtraister.bsky.social writes for @nymag.com www.thecut.com/article/why-...

"Reports of patriarchy’s death have always been greatly exaggerated. But so, too, have reports of feminism’s." www.thecut.com/article/why-...

“while the misogyny is hard to banish, so is the resistance to it.” @rtraister.bsky.social www.thecut.com/article/why-...

"Every day makes clear that the claim that Me Too went too far is simply a lie." www.thecut.com/article/why-...

Excellent read. Here’s the gift link. archive.is/2025.11.26-1...

This piece by @rtraister.bsky.social is like an antidote to snake venom. Read it and it will save your life. The backlash to “me too” was never about moderation it was about submission. Feminism has not gone too far. The world of men simply moves at the pace of a glacier from its Neanderthal past.

“There are no clean demarcations between feminism and its backlash and the backlash to the backlash, between progress and regress. It was always fanciful to conceive of progressive victories as permanent, just as it was a shortsighted fantasy that edgelord heterodoxy would remain cool.”

"The contention “Me Too went too far” is not exactly bearing up under scrutiny. Rather, a year after Donald Trump’s reelection, we are beset by daily reminders of why Me Too, and feminism more broadly, came to exist in the first place."

Great stuff from the inimitable Rebecca Traister. “Reports of patriarchy’s death have always been greatly exaggerated. But so, too, have reports of feminism’s.”

"The contention 'Me Too went too far' is not exactly bearing up under scrutiny. Rather, a year after Donald Trump’s reelection, we are beset by daily reminders of why Me Too, and feminism more broadly, came to exist in the first place."

Wrote about the backlash to the backlash to the backlash to the backlash there are no waves we are swimming through circular currents and why we’re not on the Faludi style backlash of the right (& center and left’s) dreams: www.thecut.com/article/why-...

🎯Me Too Forever: Why the backlash was short-lived, by @rtraister.bsky.social www.thecut.com/article/why-... Or wildly exaggerated? Like cancellation, this “backlash” wasn’t data-based (or reality? Laws passed!) It’s performative misinfo spread by foreign bots & GOP-owned media? Bask in the sanity

Jaw dropped. Trump Administration Removes Report on Missing and Murdered Native Americans, Calling It DEI Content

@rtraister.bsky.social Had a great piece in New York Magazine this week about elderly politicians not wanting to leave. Here she is discussing with @samseder.bsky.social youtu.be/ptQMELpIO3E?...

Local media is calling it: Katie Wilson will be the next mayor of Seattle. Wilson ousts Mayor Bruce Harrell after running as a progressive challenger. Her win is a west coast companion to Mamdani’s as a statement victory for the left.

I want people to understand that in my youth, a youth that happened somewhere between the youth of Epstein, Trump, Maxwell, ex-Prince Andrew, et al & that of their victims, the term "jail bait" was framed as a compliment.

Mamdani: “NYC will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and as of tonight, LED by an immigrant!” 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥

It is so embarrassing that Schumer STILL declined to say who he voted for. And yet another underscore on @rtraister.bsky.social's excellent piece on the Democrats who won't gtfo. nymag.com/intelligence...

While we're waiting to watch (eep, I hope) a new generation sweep into political power -- in some cases, against the wishes of Democratic elders -- here's the piece I published yesterday on the party's gerontocracy:

This is a great @rtraister.bsky.social piece on gnarled hands clinging to power but I love this quote. Aren’t we all looking for our “go to Northern Ireland and figure out the troubles thing?”

“Looking at our deeper history can offer…reminders of how it has very often been hard…but also that the violent inequities, the losses, the disappointments of that past have been the impetus for change…innovation and evolution. Against all odds these days, I am optimistic“ @rtraister.bsky.social

A searing coda from @rtraister.bsky.social, correctly indicting Dems' tendency to lean on and coddle gerontocrats: "The short-term grab at a familiar past got us through an immediate crisis, yes, but simultaneously assured a longer-term and more corrosive defeat." nymag.com/intelligence...

This is a very intense, interesting read from @rtraister.bsky.social about what the deal is with elder establishment Dems who scoff at the idea of retirement nymag.com/intelligence...

"It’s certainly not the first time an old world has been dying as a new world struggles to be born; the clash between past and future is eternal. But each age is gifted its own specific monsters, and ours are doozies." — @rtraister.bsky.social

I was closing a story last week and am late to this but was pretty bowled over by it

it's clear reading this @rtraister.bsky.social piece how little the Democratic Party thinks it erred in running Joe Biden at his age Also this memorable quote: "Many can’t imagine doing anything in which they won’t be heavily staffed and relevant all the time.” nymag.com/intelligence...

And here's @rtraister.bsky.social on the Olds v the Youngs: nymag.com/intelligence...

Bumping this biting and deeply relevant @rtraister.bsky.social piece from right before the primary, on election eve. This Fucking Guy:

Always grateful when reporters like @rtraister.bsky.social take my bits seriously. nymag.com/intelligence...

I’m going to be talking with @irincarmon.bsky.social about her stunning new book in Brooklyn on Tuesday and you have to register for it here; come talk and hang out with us!

I feel that some of you need regular reminders of how unpopular this man is. And frankly I see him getting even more so as the economy worsens. Again, this doesn't mean that he will give up any power but it does mean that WE HAVE POWER TOO.

Highly recommend this great piece from @rtraister.bsky.social from a couple years ago if you want to learn more about Tish James.

NEW from PP: You know how Krista Noem has been bottlenecking disaster relief? Turns out, you can get them greenlit —if you‘re a Noem donor! After donor asked, Noem quickly cleared project. Then she flew to town and dined at French bistro with the donor. www.propublica.org/article/kris...

I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)

hope =/= optimism [not the same things]

This is what she lives with every day now: “The fear of leaving your family and letting them know, ‘If I don’t return, it’s not because I am abandoning you.’” Powerful story by @chabeli.bsky.social for @19thnews.org.

This is class solidarity. In case you’re at all confused.

No matter what @MarshaBlackburn keeps saying, it’s not criminals they’re targeting. www.cnn.com/2025/08/30/u...

"But that one of the symbols of local resistance would be a man launching a sandwich is about as unexpected as things get. (That being said, a group of men dumping tea into a harbor did help inspire the Revolutionary War.)" @maustermuhle.bsky.social for @51st.news 51st.news/email/e53cf0...

Yeah Andrew has been the beneficiary of orders of magnitude more public assistance than Mamdani. A laughable dimension to attack his opponent on. Leading with this chin.

This rhetoric also just tries to normalize the idea that rent should be unaffordable. Since when is $2,300/month cheap?? Median household income in NYC is $78,000, so $2,300/month is still 35% of (PRE-TAX!) income for the average New Yorker. It's 14% of $200,000 (which is an acceptable ratio).

So you’re saying that Cuomo spent 725 years of Mamdani’s current rent on those records? 👀

Also, Andrew Cuomo spent $20 million of NY taxpayers' money to subpoena phone (& gynecological records!) of women who accused him of sexual harassment. How else might those 20 million have been spent? For instance: on resources and services for needy New Yorkers?

i think it is hard for some people to really their heads around the reality that kennedy is staunchly anti-vaccine and thinks that people should suffer through disease and that those who die deserved it and that those who survive are a better order of human being

ELIZABETH WARREN: What Zohran is saying is 'I want people to be able to afford to live in NYC' FABER: But raising taxes in order to do it? WARREN: Oh my goodness! Oh dear! Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?

I think that the fascists have a different political project and that they do not have to actually deliver anything except cruelty against the out groups. Trump is authentically cruel and crass. People like that because they believe him on those things.