Latest posts
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The Algorithmic Conveyor Belt: How Rage Turns Policy Debate into an Antisemitic Pipeline
There is a truth so obvious that it remains invisible only because we are all scrolling. The American right has not simply flirted with anti-Jewish rhetoric; some of its most influential factions have fallen straight into it. But this descent is not spontaneous. It is mechanical, economic, engineered. It is what happens when an algorithm
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Islam Isn’t Violent: State Sponsored Religion Is Violent
THE GOSPEL OF SELECTIVE OUTRAGE AND OTHER HOLY TRADITIONS WE PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE Religious superiority is the type of moral panic that spreads through America like pollen in spring, coating every surface, irritating every conversation, and triggering sneezes of self righteousness that echo for miles. The current strain is Islamophobia, a recycled political contagion
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Democratic Socialism Is Already in Your Pantry, Your Paycheck, and Your Potholes: A World Tour for Americans Who Still Think Norway Is a Marvel Villain
There is a particular genre of American political conversation that resurfaces every election cycle, usually somewhere between the moment a Democrat mentions healthcare and the moment a Republican begins sweating like someone asked him to define “GDP.” The conversation goes like this. One person suggests the United States might benefit from policies similar to those
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BBC Without a Head: A Public Broadcaster Tries to Walk a Tightrope While the Rope Is on Fire
There is a particular sound the British establishment makes when something goes wrong. It is not a gasp, or a groan, or even the gentle clatter of a teacup as it trembles in the saucer of constitutional decorum. It is the muffled thud of two top executives leaping overboard at the same time, followed by
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The Country Wanted a Trump Test of Chaos, So Let Them Have the Full Factory Tour
If the country insists on touching the stovetop again just to “make sure it’s still hot,” who am I to stand between a democracy and its favorite form of self-harm. There are moments in public life when you stop trying to warn people about the cliff and instead hand them binoculars so they can appreciate
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Operation Midway Blitz and the Federal Imagination Problem
When a crackdown starts to look less like law enforcement and more like a government sponsored haunted house Public safety is supposed to be boring. That is the entire point. Well functioning systems do not need dramatic lighting, surprise helicopter entrances, or senior officials narrating their own heroism. Which is why Operation Midway Blitz, a
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Health Accounts Are Not Health Care, They Are Just Thoughts And Prayers If You Get Sick
When politicians hand you a debit card instead of a health system, and call it innovation There is a special place in the American imagination where problems do not need solutions, they only need branding. Bridges do not need maintenance, they need ribbon cuttings. Schools do not need funding, they need mascots. And health care
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End ACA Protections Means Cancer Care Becomes Optional And Bills Explode
Translate the slogan into math and law, and the promise to “send the money to the people” becomes a coupon for chaos with the patient protections ripped off the box. The pitch sounds generous if you hear it from far away. Cut out the insurance companies, send the money straight to you, terminate the bad
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The Parliamentarian of My Heart: Crying at the AIDS Memorial While Nancy Pelosi Retires from Saving the Republic
A farewell love letter to the woman who governed like a mother of five who never had time for your nonsense I start this story the way all sensible political elegies should start: on my knees at the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco, crying hard enough that a tourist couple asked whether I
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November 7th: This Day In Herstory, This Decade in Fury
There is a habit in American storytelling that treats progress like a moving walkway in an airport. Step on, move forward, arrive at the gate of equality with time for a coffee. The trouble is that our walkway is seasonal. It runs when people push the button and it stalls when cowards pull the plug.