so, you seen Blue Heron yet?

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting in Mobile v. Alabama, which gave us the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court just nullified in Louisiana v. Callais. Every word applies to the current majority: tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...

FDR‘s conclusion: “During the past half century the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government has been tipped out of balance by the Court….in a world in which democracy is under attack, I seek to make American democracy succeed.“/4

Today is a reminder that except for a brief period running roughly from Brown v. Board to Roe v. Wade, throughout its history the Supreme Court has been a reactionary force protecting the wealth of the wealthy and the power of the powerful, almost always hostile to equality and justice.

Impossible to understand the Suprme Court's Voting Rights Act case without the context that John Roberts has spent his entire career working to gut the VRA. As a Reagan DOJ staffer, he made the *same arguments* the Court just embraced. He lost then; he won today. ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/john-...

as long as john roberts has his majority, there is simply no pro democracy reform that will survive the supreme court. none.

Exactly! What's at issue in today's SCOTUS case, vote dilution, is not about whether you can cast a ballot, but rather about whether that cast ballot is meaningfully counted. Simply telling people to vote more when the power of their vote is diminished—without more—cannot actually solve the problem.

The court has simply recreated the pre-Brown world in allowing racial discrimination across a broad number fields as long as it is “facially neutral,” gutting the Reconstruction Amendments in the process.

It’s a disastrous day for democracy. The Voting Rights Act made the U.S. an actually functioning democracy. And civil rights activists face impossible odds to gifting it to us. The Supreme Court‘s decision is vile.

SCOTUS just struck a fatal blow to the federal VRA's protections against racial discrimination in voting. It is now even more critical that states join the growing movement to pass state VRAs that restore and strengthen these protections at the state and local level. tinyurl.com/y3s2hs98

It is my pleasure to finally announce that my colleagues and I at Hachette Book Group are unionizing! We're asking for any authors, artists, and fellow workers of the world to stand in solidarity with us, and sign our open letter of support at hachetteworkers.com/open-letter

Michigan a uniquely modern national champion. Most of its players had chosen to come to Ann Arbor, and the others had chosen to stay. And they *all* became champions. www.nbcsports.com/mens-college...

Your 2026 National Champions - the Michigan Wolverines 💙💛

The way I’ve been ILL for the last 48 hours leading up to this game

I wanna be in Ann Arbor!

I knew this team could do it when I saw that video of them singing to Natasha Bedingfield during warmups. Just the absolute joy.

It’s GREAT to be a MICHIGAN WOLVERINE

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!!

GOOOO BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUE

Just a reminder that SCOTUS rejecting an extremely dumb, completely manufactured legal theory does not make it virtuous! In fact, the Court is regressive and continues to do tremendous harm to American life and democracy.

An absolute embarrassment to the legal academy that some pushed to give this man the benefit of the doubt, and now he is being mentioned by name in the U.S. Supreme Court as a credible source of legal history.

I do think that those lawyers and law professors who tried to fabricate a historical or legal case against birthright citizenship should be socially and professionally ostracized for their shocking cynicism and intellectual dishonesty as well as for their bald hostility to pluralist American values.

Endometriosis has taken more from me than I could have expected. Even years in, it’s hard to face it head-on—but in today's post, I tried to show you what that looks like. open.substack.com/pub/marisawr...

GOOD NEWS: The New Jersey Assembly passed the New Jersey Voting Rights Act, a critical step in preventing racial discrimination in voting. Now the NJ Senate must follow suit to make sure these safeguards protecting the freedom to vote are enacted into law.

Dolores Huerta's statement on Cesar Chavez: “I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for... I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences"

It’s been terrifying to have almost every year in the past 20 years be a lesson in how many people with power make decisions about who lives and dies with little thought or care or even a clear idea as to why they’re doing anything, and it’s terrifying that it seems to be getting worse

Some will try to make this disappear by pinning it on a few bad apples, especially given Sherrone Moore’s involvement, but it’s been pretty clear there’s been a deep moral rot in the Michigan football program for a while now—yes, even dating back to Bo.

Civil rights are a kitchen-table issue.

Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" adaptation is, at times, very fun and visually gorgeous. But it leaves out the very thing that gives the novel its force. I wrote about what’s missing — and why that omission means the film ultimately doesn't work. open.substack.com/pub/marisawr...

Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" adaptation is, at times, very fun and visually gorgeous. But it leaves out the very thing that gives the novel its force. I wrote about what’s missing — and why that omission means the film ultimately doesn't work. open.substack.com/pub/marisawr...

Can’t help but think billionaires seeing how much influence they can have post-Citizens United has only heightened their desire to hoard wealth and exploit the rest of us for every penny we have.

I’m always curious about the books people keep on their nightstands—it’s a small but telling snapshot of what’s on their mind and holding their attention. Here's the stack of books on mine! marisawright.substack.com/p/six-books-...

I’m always curious about the books people keep on their nightstands—it’s a small but telling snapshot of what’s on their mind and holding their attention. Here's the stack of books on mine! marisawright.substack.com/p/six-books-...

happy for JSN, who never beat michigan. he deserves this.

Ah of course the MAHA ad was incredibly fatphobic

The think pieces write themselves. My contribution: this is fucking beautiful, and we should keep fighting for more of this! Everywhere.

Really has been an elite sports weekend

There are people in this world who read 200+ books a year and they, too, deserve to be Olympians.

The show Heated Rivalry only exists because of an article by Rachel Kurzius inspired Jacob Tierney to reach out to Rachel Reid. Today @washingtonpost.com laid Rachel off. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/0...

The Post killing its Books section (one of the best around) is so fucking bleak

Props to the Free Press for this subheading that so clearly knows its audience

Today's post is a fun bonus—my January culture diary, filled with all the books I read, movies and TV I watched, plus some audio and snack recs! open.substack.com/pub/marisawr...

I worry that as we narrow the range of what we can talk about, think about, spend our time on, our ability to make expansive art and language shrinks, too, and so does our ability then to solve big problems and think creatively - all of which is the terrible point of fascism

Today's post is a fun bonus—my January culture diary, filled with all the books I read, movies and TV I watched, plus some audio and snack recs! open.substack.com/pub/marisawr...

I think that *cringe* is overused. I particularly think that it is overused by people who have a difficult time feeling and naming their feelings. That's a lot of people.

bars

Doomscrolling break: Today’s post features a love letter to Eva Victor’s "Sorry, Baby," thoughts on this year’s Oscar nominations, and a few bright spots from the January doldrums—including a way to show solidarity with Minnesotans. marisawright.substack.com/p/justice-fo...

Doomscrolling break: Today’s post features a love letter to Eva Victor’s "Sorry, Baby," thoughts on this year’s Oscar nominations, and a few bright spots from the January doldrums—including a way to show solidarity with Minnesotans. marisawright.substack.com/p/justice-fo...

There’s a rally going on in Boston rn and they’re chanting “we’re not cold, we’re not afraid, MN taught us to be brave!” and I might cry