if tumblr dies I need this video to make it's seasonal rotation here instead just in case, Happy holidays 🎄

I wish I could spool this out into a whole essay, but one of the striking features of Trump's second term is its comprehensive *lack* of a vision for anyone's future. For all the hell they inflict, all the murderous pain, there is no vision for the masses about what this destruction is all *for.*

“What if the abyss was a moron”

this has always been the most baffling and depressing thing about the political hellscape we have lived through in the last decade there is nothing there at all except a rapacious, all-consuming need for praise, no humanity at all, nothing but a carnival barker's ability to work the crowd

So what does this mean for democracy at present? I had a really great conversation with @stevelevitsky.bsky.social on this question — one that clarified our disagreements and, more importantly, showed how much we agree on the political fundamentals here

Once you understand this dynamic — that the Trump administration is a combination of short-term powered grabs undermined by lack of long-term vision — it becomes the skeleton key unlocking the whole administration. It is how they are simultaneously damaging democracy and failing to defeat it.

It emerges out of the very nature of Trump's personalist rule: his potent hold on the GOP and lust for power, on the one hand, and his impulsivity and incoherent coalition on there

The concept of haphazardism is, in brief, an emergent style of authoritarian politics: coming not from a central plan but rather a series of disconnected impulses

Generation Z is not particularly conservative, even the men portion, but the portion that are are utterly deranged and hateful to a level that not even Generation Lead seems able to match.

the Lord has sent prophets (Laura, 67, retired teacher, makes cookies for the bake sale) to tell Danielle of her sins and call upon her to repent.

if working for ICE is getting you serious pushback in a Kansas City church that I'm guessing is unlikely to be a particularly liberal one, you're losing.

This is likely to be an issue of disconnect between evangelical thought leaders cloistered amongst the other old white supremacists and their congregational churches who knows where a lot of the tithes and offerings come from.

Immigrants in general are more likely regular church goers than all the other groups of parishoners. The largest growth from evangelicals has been 1st generation hispanic americans leaving the catholic church.

The kind .. you find … in a second hand store

Increasingly convinced Christians just forgot how music worked somewhere in the later 1800s and we never fully recovered. Worship hymns are sung in groups with untrained singers and should be written with regular, expected cadence!

Saying America is the Whore of Babylon and getting canceled so I have to say America is the Sex Worker of Babylon

I am a comfortable, influential PhD and published author and broadcaster, and I don’t understand why people of color buying a snack at Cinnabon don’t just reason with the person shouting racial slurs at them, for the good of World Socialism. Today in the Atlantic

imagine being widely known for your great skill, but then your name comes to mean "dumbass" in large part because a sarcastic cartoon rabbit used your name for someone doing a shitty job at the thing you were once famous for, and kids didn't the reference justice for Nimrod

It doesn’t get brought up as much as a radicalizing faith, but it’s important to remember that, before he rained down hours of violence on some petty home invaders, Kevin McAllister worshipped in an Episcopalian church.

Trump and the GOP have a big problem for 2026. Nearly half of voters say either "jobs and the economy" or "prices and inflation" are the # 1 issue facing the country today. And these "affordability voters" favor Dems by 12 points in the generic ballot www.gelliottmorris.com/p/affordabil...

we all got cowed into avoiding "virtue signaling" as if the public affirmation of socially agreed upon ethical principles was somehow cringey instead of a significant part of what a "society" even is. now all there's left is vice signaling, and it's reshaping society.

NEW, from me: One startling stat captures just how badly the year went for the GOP. Democrats flipped 21% of all GOP-held legislative seats at play. That's thanks to gains they made in six states this year, and I break it all down in my latest:

If you think Trump's bad polling doesn't matter, I hope you reconsider after tonight's elections. Maybe his unpopularity doesn't affect *his* behavior, but it definitely impacts tons of other people—including many GOP voters who are either switching sides or staying home.

Some (more) very big Dem overperformances on the Big Board tonight so far: FL-SD-11: Republicans hold deep-red district, but Dems overperform by 22 pts FL-HD-90: Dems hold blue-leaning district, outperforming 2024 by 17 and, perhaps more importantly, beating 2020 by 6

the thing about this is that it is not actually true that liberal arts degrees are bad at preparing you for the job market. history or English majors who can read and write good are basically prepared for many types of email jobs

When you view the world as a doomed pit of endless misery, you're not seeing beyond the veil, you're catching ricochets off the inside of your own skull as you try to shoot yourself in the head from the inside out. It's stupid and needlessly self-destructive. Stop it.

UPDATE: Another Chicago-area church has put up an immigration-themed Nativity scene. A church member at Urban Village Church sent this one along, where Mary, Joseph and Jesus are gone and replaced with a sign that reads: “Due to ICE activity in our community, the Holy Family is in hiding.”

When these people refer to “the Constitution” or “the Bible”, they are making reference to another text than the Constitution or Bible that actually exist, rather to some other image of a sheaf of rustling brown paper with vague black squiggles on it that exists only in their minds

not to put too fine a point on it but every guy doing the “we need to reboot masculinity!!!” schtick has fewer masculine virtues than I do and I’m nonbinary

They don't want traditional masculine virtues, which is something they give; they want traditional masculine rents, which is something they get.

Every holiday season I see some commentary about how Santa Claus was invented by Coca Cola in the 30’s and I can’t understand not taking the 5 total seconds of thinking you’d need to correct that like cmon man

a new jersey-based christmas tree delivery service called Spruce Bringsteen

this is interesting because American society is super conformist. but the mechanism isn't either shame or guilt, the two classics, but peer pressure, as though we're all permanently in high school. like the same stuff, or be ostracized! I'm a high school dropout.

My favourite genre of leftism is just replying to any problem with "it's capitalism" and subsequently doing nothing

Zero tolerance for doomerism. Stop lazily accepting that everything is screwed forever. Stop normalising low expectations. That’s part of the problem & it’s what the bastards want. It’s also a product of privilege. People in more desperate situations don’t have the option to just sit back & shrug.

I think one of the biggest ironies in life is that so much of our pop culture is riddled with messages about how you shouldn't follow the crowd, be an individual, and so much of real life is about discovering your own identity and getting bullied by people who want you to be unique just like them.

I am a woman who joined the Let’s Rethink Chicks Having The Right To Vote Party and I am concerned they do not take me completely seriously, somebody please help me

Updating - total reported turnout in the TN7 special is now 168k, or 93% of the total votes cast in the November, 2022 midterm general election, a race the GOP won by 22 pts. The GOP has some serious issues right now.

longing once again for a world where more people are capable of grasping complex and inscrutable concepts like “it’s still really really good for Democrats if they *lose* by a much smaller margin than expected in Tennessee”

Here's the thing: If the current D+13 average overperformance in special elections nationwide is *not* predictive of 2026, that means the GOP needs this indicator to be at least 10 points off, if not more. The Downballot's Big Board -->

i'm wondering when the bigger dissident right-wing guys are going to feel brave enough to start advocating against interracial relationships on main can't keep that rhetoric contained to just immigrants; the internal contradictions are too strong and eventually the cuck brainworms will take over