I'm trying to picture time-traveler Thomas Chatteron Williams debating James Baldwin or Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett Show and am getting second hand embarrassment for him.

Prestige journalism is full of people like this

One post-pandemic trend I have gotten sick of is how so many people look like slobs in public now. "But it's comfortablllleeee-" Stop. You don't have to wear a suit, but jesus christ pull yourself together a bit more. This, and the lack of basic decorum is turning me into left-wing George Will.

It's really funny that despite all the anti-humanities sophistry and mindless tech worship of the past 20 years, being able to harness the skillset of a theater kid is probably close to essential for gaining political power nowadays. (Competently exercising said power, OTHOH - different skillset)

ordinary americans are filming ice agents and trying to save their neighbors. for all the hemming and hawing during 2024 about how democracy was an elite concern, the elites gave up far more quickly than average people.

There are some people who get to talk like this. People who grew up in an affluent family on Long Island, graduated from Williams College, host a podcast for a living and have literally worked in the fucking White House are not among them.

Not returning your shopping cart back after you load your car is a sign of poor character*. *Parents dealing with infants/toddlers excepted (but even then, plenty of them *do* return their carts)

I will also note that even YouTube is pulling this shit. After the Charlie Kirk murder, it was wall-to-wall coverage for a week, despite me manually downvoting every single of those videos. Any saturation similar coverage of the largest mass protests in US history? Nope. Makes you think!

What can you even say about that fucking paper at this point

i do not think ezra klein genuinely grieves for charlie kirk. i think ezra klein thinks it’s professionally advantageous to perform grief.

They didn't workshop this one enough. JD "Dunce" is right there. Take the layup!

No dooming.

No dooming allowed.

America if the former Confederate states weren't structurally over-represented:

🤔🤔🤔

The NYT would likely have the biggest viral piece in their history if they had their visual team do dedicated timeline/infographic on PedoCon theory. Their readership would eat it up. Weird they haven't pursued it!

In honor of Joe Rogan publicly expressing reservations about the president he went out of his way to elect, please enjoy this (genuinely) incredible exploration of what his Whole Deal is all about. It's like if Adam Curtis decided to focus solely on morons. It's great. youtu.be/_v3KiaAjpY8?...

This remains the pithiest explanation of why Trump is the apotheosis of Boomer politics. www.slate.com/articles/new...

next dem admin program needs to have an anti-Ivy League DEI program

There a reason the protests are being covered differently from the Tea Party The Tea Party was a front for the wealth class that owns the media and were used to demonize necessary reform These protests were democratic and populist, which the wealth class and its media opposes Hope that helps

This, 100% 👇 By far, one of the worst trends of the modern internet has been the growth of video-based commentary, where they take 10+ tedious fucking minutes to ramble through substantive points you could have read in text format in like 3 minutes.

It's genuinely a civilizational tragedy that Los Angeles doesn't have a robust transit and bike system.

The GOP is extremely fortunate they were able to hand off their disasters to Democrats to function as the national sin eaters - Obama for the financial crisis, Biden for COVID and inflation. Not gonna happen this time. They have to sidle up to the table and slurp a huge bowl of their own shit.

I am also beyond exasperated with tech dickheads who got lucky many years ago purporting to be philosopher kings or general purpose public intellectuals.

increasingly feel like this is the correct read on our current situation

Smart take

When people say they prefer college basketball to the NBA, it's almost never about the actual quality of play. It's a preference for the culture of college basketball, with authoritarian martinets yelling at black kids who can't yell back, at least pre-NIL. White daddy shit.

100% agree with this, but this also just describes nearly all professional Libertarians. They've always just been bog-standard right-wingers who aren't religious.

I don't know what genius made this, but gotta get these fabricated and distributed across the country.

If you want to keep yourself sane, a helpful framework for thinking about the '24 election is that powerful oligarchs in charge of our information environment very intentionally wanted to inflict Trump on us again & pulled every possible lever to make that a reality.

The year is 2005. A ghost appears and says "In 20 years, Donald Trump will be the president and the vanguard of global authoritarianism. You will have more in common with Bill Kristol and David Frum than Matt Taibbi." You say "Shut the fuck up. I'm trying to watch The West Wing."

Elon Musk and his many conflicts of interest are dominating the top of the @nytimes.com home page and app right now. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/u...

The amount of people with cooked brains is an extinction level crisis. We need lot more people to Touch Grass if civilization is going to survive.

I thought I was fully tuned into Project 2025 and the Heritage freaks but leveraging transportation funding to create Gilead was not something I predicted.

Quick guide to remaining sane for the next four years youtube.com/shorts/HsoGM...

Laughs darkly in "touch that stove"

GOP members complaining about reduction of military standards while using a chart that misspells the word military!

Pretty much how I feel - there really isn't a "silent conservative majority" despite the election results. Unfortunately there's obviously not a silent social democratic majority either. Also - creating culture is hard and reactionaries fucking suck at it. Actual creatives tend to be progressive.

People need to remember that the SCOTUS majority are just a handful of weird asshole freaks attempting to act like a super-legislature. We're free people and don't have to let them pull this shit. I don't know exactly how and I'm not saying it's easy, just that this isn't physics. We have agency.

The entire piece is good, but I especially feel this excerpt from @kellyweill.bsky.social Seems like we need a broader conversation about the brain rot caused by the modern internet and how it makes democratic deliberation increasingly difficult. www.momleft.com/p/wheres-the...

And this isn't necessarily wrong! Housing, higher ed, childcare, and health insurance cost way too fucking much. It's just that those costs precede pandemic-related inflation and President Tariff isn't going to do jack shit about any of them.

This is how I've always felt about the "It's not my job to educate you" ethos some people on the left have. It's obviously no one individual's job per se to educate others, but *someone* needs to do it. It's like intellectual garbage pick-up - it's not for everyone, but it's necessary work.

Assuming ESPN doesn't sand off the edges that actually make the show engaging, this is good news for hoops fans. Leave them alone and let them cook. www.espn.com/nba/story/_/...

Worth reading 👇

James Baldwin knew the score years ago “I can't be a pessimist because I am alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So, I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive, whatever we must survive.” youtu.be/sl1vly_lmAw?...