Good to be back for a minute.

Will Stancil In college and tbh it’s true. Any time I say anything positive of the Dem establishment it’s shot down and I have to waste so much fucking time explaining basic Dem policy and just how the government functions. The default socially acceptable position is “both parties suck”

Will Stancil Unfortunately this is correct - hating Biden is basically the assumed and unspoken position, and transgressing such unsaid position puts you at risk for losing social capital

This is what endlessly frustrates me about this debate: nobody is more condescending toward rural whites than the folks who rise to their defense at any hint of criticism.

Rural whites are adults. They are making choices. Adults are responsible for the choices they make.

Until recently, U.S. allies expressed their fear of American isolationism under Trump’s influence only privately. Now, those fears are very public, as the Japanese PM made clear before Congress just now:

“I detect undercurrent of self doubt among some Americans about what your…

He walked to work every day, lazily, with the slow persistence of a freight train. Evenings he’d Lyft home, tired from doing nothing all day

“Ummmm FBI? This guy is doing what I’m doing”

The Trump foreign policy in action:

Supreme Court seats are not lifetime achievement awards for lawyers. They are sources of political power. It's okay to ask the justices—even, and maybe especially, the ones we like—to be good stewards of it. ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/s…

After adjusting for inflation, the average person makes more now than in 2019 and has more in savings.

This is particularly true for the bottom 10% of earners.

This has caused a historic reduction in inequality that has undone 40% of the growth in wage inequality since Reagan.

I asked the Trump campaign whether he’d use Comstock to restrict abortion. They wouldn’t answer directly.

So Comstock is still an open question. Here is what you need to know about the law. npr.org/2024/04/10/124…

'I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be...At a time when our world is at history's turning point...Freedom and democracy are currently under threat around the globe.'

— Japanese PM Fumio Kishida addresses Congress

Yes, prices have risen. But for most people — and particularly for lower-income people — wages have risen faster than prices, putting them in a better financial position than pre-pandemic.

A qanon account on here with over 100k followers, whose antisemitism, covid conspiracy theories, and dark fabrications about celebrities are at least as conspicuous as her interest in astrology, turns into a family annihilator.

Really valuable insights here into how MAGA weaponizes lies AND truth—lying to Trump supporters, while funneling truths about Biden’s moderation to progressives (but not to Republicans).

Imagine if voters in the heartland learned that oil production is high even as lots of green manufacturing jobs are being created. That would be popular! Yet MAGA agitprop effectively oversimplifies this story. 4/

(h/t Brian Beutler and Matthew Yglesias)

newrepublic.com/article/180617…

Will Stancil Imagine seeing for example the mass support for the Spanish American war ginned up by Hearst newspapers and insisting that in fact Americans were just independently evaluating the sinking of the Maine and the geopolitics.

Always weird (and obnoxious) for media figures to dismiss media criticism by claiming it’s not a problem because journalism is worthless, words are meaningless, and which information people do and don’t see or hear, how they get the info, and how it’s framed don’t matter at all.

Trump megadonor and hedge fund billionaire John Paulson says there were 'legitimate concerns' with the 2020 election. “Going forward, it’s very important that people believe in the fairness and integrity of elections.” In other words, he wants to be Trump's Treasury secretary.…

Christ they’re so bad. Friend of mine and I were doing joke NYT headlines a couple days ago and I don’t really know how to top this.