The satire/reality singularity has finally arrived

The foundational lie of Trumpism (and I’m using that word precisely to refer to the ideology of intellectual types who defend him), from day one, has been the claim that good character is a “luxury belief” and nothing more than cover for the wealthy to punish the poor. This belief is evil.

Sortition is one of those formerly out there ideas that we should at least start taking seriously in light of [sweeping hand]

Unfortunately, a stunned Paris is how they all got into this whole mess to begin with

My roundup of the recent Supreme Court term, through the lens of democratic backsliding tomkeck.beehiiv.com/p/scotus-and...

lastly, and maybe this will resonate with people who get uncomfortable about the word virtue, when you do this you’re embracing a market fundamentalist mindset in which everything is transactional: you turn the government into a corporation whose only obligation is to provide you goods/services

Samuel Bagg , @samuel-bagg.bsky.social RGCS postdoc 2017-19, has been promoted to the rank of tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. Congratulations, Professor! Learn about his research here: www.samuelbagg.com

we have a REPRESENTATIVE government which means we want our government and its officials to REPRESENT US which means they not only represent our desires but EMBODY who we imagine as our ideal selves — that they manifest something we see as worthy of representation *and aspiration.*

when you give up on the idea of virtue, you give up on the nuclear core of representative democracy. when you say virtue is immaterial you’re also saying power is the only thing that IS material. and then you begin to seek individuals who embody the will to gain and use power, not virtue.

I mean this explains quite a lot about experiencing social media in the 2020's www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

I don't really get why the Mills personality type, genuinely actually chill, is so rare. For some reason our culture just seems to resolve into either totally self-serious in a near humourless way or pseudo-ironic while in fact seething with rage edgy angry boy.

he got into combat sports and, presumably, combat sports related drugs

One cannot resign a parliamentary seat as of right. Strangely, an MP seeking to resign needs the government’s permission, as the legal form of the resignation is an appointment to an office of the Crown. Invariably that permission is given. But, what if that permission is not given?

there is a cohort of men who resent the responsibilities and obligations of adulthood — of the fact that you owe things to other people. it is a fundamentally childish impulse that they have reconfigured as the height of masculinity, and i think it informs the parasocial attraction to platner.

More or less my conception of working class from how I grew up, yet so distant from the aestheticized vision of it from the view of American politics (for now)

I do hope one lesson some people draw from this is to move away from the idea of "working class" as a culture or an identity. Maybe class existed in this way in mid 1900s England, I don't know. But it definitely does not exist in this way in the 21st century US.

My idea would be that the next time people want to support a working class candidate for public office, we look for someone like a nurse or a public school teacher or a home health aide or a nice HR lady. And ideally someone with a track record of commitment to organized left politics.

Imagine living to see that day. Hungarians did.

This is the way

"Public media must not lie. We apologize."

Egypt wearing Falcons colors in Atlanta and holding a big lead in the fourth quarter makes me a bit nervous.

A good way to tell someone has dipshit politics is that their chief complaints aren’t so much about specific policy problems as they are about the unresolvable ennui of being alive.

Anti-intellectualism is a bipartisan project and in both cases it’s basically market protectionism for one’s artisanal shoddy, boring ideas that cannot find an audience.

the Pfizer building is apparently having trouble remaining erect

Does craft necessarily mean something is inauthentic, though? Indeed, if he's "performing" more than half his waking life, I'd say that rounds up to the "performance" being the true self.

This is why politicians should train as actors and take seriously the part of their job that requires communicating and connecting effectively with the public. In general we need to accept that acting can be both a performance and a channel of true feeling all at once.

*JD Vance Is Weird www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/o...

It needs to be made more forcefully that every US citizen is a birthright citizen. They are saying that US law devalues citizenship and that they hate that law because it confers citizenship on those that they despise.

The worst depiction of an archivist in media is the archivist in Minas Tirith who brings FIRE into the record store. The best depiction of an archivist in media is Brother Armbruster in A Canticle for Leibowitz, who absolutely Gets It™

Hey, #sfgiants fans (or ex fans) on here... outsports wants to hear from you if you sent the Giants a letter about their homophobic hat tantrum.

Donald Trump has no shame, but Folarin Balogun is a class act. He spoke to Belgian head coach, Rudi Garcia, after the match. Garcia said of Balogun "He came to talk to me. I really liked that. It is not his fault. He is not the one to blame. That's what I told him." H/T @resistrebelrevolt.net

They say an author is "pregnant" with a book. As a new mum, I can confirm the analogy doesn't stop there: books have a postpartum period too — copy-edits, page proofs, sleep deprivation and all. Anti-fascist Economics has reached the final pass at @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social! Out in October!

FRENCH COURT DECLARES LE PEN UNABLE TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE FOR 45 MONTHS, WITH 30 MONTHS SUSPENDED, AND MUST PAY A FINE OF 100,000 EUROS.

Big day for the future of the European far right with Farage giving a speech about his financing scandal and the LePen embezzlement ruling occurring.

Juho Vesa, @marcelhanegraaff.bsky.social, @annebind.bsky.social & Mika Vehka: Why firms lobby more alone than collectively: a systematic test across three countries 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@jvtk.bsky.social & @steffenmurau.bsky.social: Rethinking currency internationalisation: offshore money creation and the EU’s monetary governance 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

More fodder for the thesis that far right politics is a conspiracy of criminals against the public

We should probably stop making judgments about a person's politics and character based on rheir superficial qualities idk

Bush’s election, and the decision to invade Iraq, go down as the event that sends us into the Bad Place timeline

Those of us born between 1982 and 1990 are like the day shift showing up after the night shift got high in the freezer rather than cleaning anything, and our problems just keep compounding as we try hopelessly to catch up

There's a lot of masculine anxiety out there among liberal or left-coded white-collar men when confronted with an alternative that seems more authentic and badass. That's not a good thing! It should be interrogated and rooted out! You're not less of a man because you vote for universal healthcare.

If your understanding of yourself as a man is rooted in power and dominance over others, that's shitty masculinity, wherever you claim to be on the political spectrum. Shitty masculinity is antithetical to civic virtue and a functioning democratic society.

good to see that public contrition and self-reflection is still a thing that happens

Among other things, the latest turn in the Platner story is a good example of why journalists need to get off X for professional and personal reasons, not just ethical ones. The writers who gassed his campaign up and now need to walk it back are mostly people who cooked their brains on X.

if i can offer a heterodox-but-informed opinion— youth sports have gotten worse as they have become an even bigger part of the College Admissions circus. This, in turn, has ramped our Toxic Sports Parents problem up to 11.

You have to distinguish between the working class (voters who earn a certain amount) and the working class (lose jumble Of cultural signifiers that exist only in my head and control my actions)

Until we address the fact most talented soccer players in the US can’t afford to compete because club and travel teams have snuffed rec/school ball out, this is probably going to keep happening.

I laughed at the announcer saying "don't let this be the last time you watch soccer for the next four years." Of course not! We have women's soccer! It's much better, dude, you should check it out.

Overturn this! 😎