This is my big soap box. We gave the presidency too much power with the PATRIOT Act, extrajudicial drone strikes, indefinite detention and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Trump is just using executive authority Congress gave to the presidency after 9/11 to maximum effect.

Lots of people sharing this clip because it's funny and cathartic but I also genuinely believe it's important. We have to win the narrative battle between "I live in a corrupt society and that's just how it is" and "I live in a corrupt society and we are going to defeat and humiliate these ghouls."

Such classic gaslighting it's an instructive moment. The question is not whether generic is better or worse, it's that a list with more expensive brand names is not the same as a list with cheaper generics. Perverting that truth into an attack on those calling it out is Manipulation 101.

Can confirm. This is infuriating. Remember when Google’s motto was “Don’t be evil”?

Growing up in a time when “selling out” was the most shameful thing you could do and then being forced to live through the 2020s feels like being kicked in the head by a horse every day

in my heart I know that Lin-Manuel Miranda wants to play Zohran Mamdani on SNL so bad it physically hurts him

Congratulations to all the Democratic candidates who won tonight. It’s a reminder that when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win. We’ve still got plenty of work to do, but the future looks a little bit brighter.

Just leaving this here.

the Muppets have been real quiet since the Louvre heist

Not a shitpost: #NoKings is feel-good performative activism for comfortable mostly upper and upper middle class white folks and that’s good, actually. Millions of people in the streets protesting a fascist regime is good. It is good for the normie baseline to be massive displays of public dissent.

This a great thread with really interesting data. The numbers are on our side:

Something maybe worth noting is that all the frog costumes and signs and good-natured memeing came about because a wide spectrum of Americans saw someone in direct, brave confrontation with ICE—getting pepperballed and standing their ground—and thought “that’s awesome. That person is a hero”

Hahaha brutal

I work with some white men who need to see this.

I wrote about Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein, why swallowing live frogs is a bad idea, and how context and history can release you from bright-kid syndrome, the illusion that you yourself are going to have every answer or fix the world.

This. The desire to put everything within the context of a functional democracy is so dangerous right now.

Oh man this is so true it hurts.

A conversation between Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates:

You can take the danger these people pose and the damage they’ve already done seriously and still acknowledge they’re wildly unpopular and going to get more so and have been stymied by the heroism of regular people every step of the way

🌙

Antifa terrorist

in light of the kimmel news, just a reminder that a few days ago a prominent fox news host literally called for killing homeless people. right afterward, someone shot up a couple homeless encampments. that fox news host still has his job.

This is from 3 days after the inauguration.

Sharing this so I can find it later

We’ve been living through 72 nonstop hours of this exact tweet

This whole thread is excellent, but this point especially.

Yes, this exactly

Remembering today when pro-GOP media erupted with outrage over Kamala Harris' warning that Trump had plans to militarize the national guard and deploy them on the streets of US cities. Indeed, he had such plans. And now he's implementing them.

I think this is true, but also coupled with the fact that Unhinged Trump and Senile Trump are less distinguishable from each other, while there’s a big difference between Diamond Joe and Biden Old.

Good Lord.

Absolutely this. STOP NORMALIZING FASCISM.

ME (sending emails): Ha ha ha I'm so on top of things eat my shorts in your face I'm a GOD of communication ME (receiving responses): oh no oh what, there's so many emails, what the fuck, who asked for this

When your neighbor on the left is being dragged away by masked men and your neighbor on the right can't get an X-ray for their child, be sure to quickly explain that "both parties are the same" and whatnot.

This is a really smart read from @benmathislilley.bsky.social - the only thing I’d emphasize more is that candidates have agency! The more we can get people running who have strong values systems, the more they can take consultants as advisors, not directors. slate.com/news-and-pol...

It’s funny because this is the darkest timeline.

Thanks to my friend Harriet for pointing out that the women went to Christ's tomb and saw he was not there, the angels showed up to describe what happened, & the women then told the apostles, who dismissed them. A Biblical account of women not being believed.

but how can kamala harris be gen x if people are paying attention to her