Latest posts
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In response to prematurely blaming liberals for Charlie Kirk: Maybe Stop Acting Like Fascists If You Don’t Want to Be Called Fascists
There’s a game the American right has perfected. It goes like this: they say or do something horrifying—racist, misogynist, homophobic, authoritarian—then when people point it out, they act wounded, offended, persecuted. How dare you call us fascist? they cry, clutching their pearls with one hand while sharpening voter suppression laws with the other. It’s a
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Charlie Kirk’s Assassination by MAGA Gun Nut Tyler Robinson and the Myth of Martyrdom
It’s troubling—horrifying, really—that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Political violence is never the answer, not when it’s directed at the left, not when it’s directed at the right, not when it’s directed at the loud, obnoxious pundits who thrive on outrage, and not when it’s directed at their most vulnerable targets. A functioning democracy cannot survive
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The GOP’s Sudden Case of Rhetorical Modesty: Please Clap for Our Hypocrisy
America, we are living through a miracle. Not the miracle of bipartisan cooperation, or the miracle of clean water infrastructure, or even the miracle of a functioning Congress. No, the miracle is this: Republicans have suddenly discovered the concept of rhetorical responsibility. Like a toddler who’s just realized the stove is hot—after years of sticking
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The EU Declares Independence (From Us, Mostly)
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and owner of Europe’s most determinedly practical haircut, took the stage in Strasbourg on September 10 to deliver her State of the Union. And let me tell you, it was not the milquetoast Euro-babble of years past. Instead, von der Leyen announced what she called Europe’s
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Paramount Skydance Wants to Eat Warner Bros. Discovery for Breakfast
Cue the Mergers and the Popcorn America loves a sequel, even when it’s corporate consolidation. This September, barely a month after Paramount Skydance finalized its $8.4 billion deal to absorb Paramount Global, the trades are abuzz with whispers: now they want Warner Bros. Discovery. Yes, the company that just finished moving its things into Paramount’s
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America’s New Age of Political Violence: Or, How to Lose Friends and Radicalize People
The Washington Post says we’ve entered “a new age of political violence.” How quaint of them to suggest there was ever an old age that ended. The difference, perhaps, is that now we livestream it, brand it with hashtags, and serve it to audiences like a Netflix series that never gets canceled. The latest episode
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The Week America Became Judge, Jury, and Caribbean Executioner
September began with a bang—and 11 bodies floating in the southern Caribbean. President Donald Trump, in a tone that straddled triumph and reality TV cliffhanger, announced that the U.S. military had “destroyed” a Venezuelan vessel, killing alleged members of Tren de Aragua. Alleged being the operative word. Alleged as in “we’ll circle back with details
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A Single Round, A Million Excuses: A Cultural Critique of the Assassination of Charlie Kirk
Let us convene, grim-eyed, on the manicured quads of Utah Valley University, where normalcy shattered into shards of ideological glass in a single, solitary moment: the death of a political firebrand, felled supposedly by a single bullet from a nearby building. That bullet—cold, precise, unembellished by flourish or bombast—reduces weeks, perhaps years, of incendiary rhetoric
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Charlie Kirk Assassination was a Travesty but Spare Us the Martyrdom
First, the only thing that should be easy to say I don’t condone political violence from anyone, toward anyone. A man was killed while speaking, a family lost their person, and that is a human tragedy before it is a headline. Full stop. It deserves grief, not grift. It deserves time to breathe, not instant
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One Day, Three Flexes: The Roberts Hold, Midway Blitz, and the Birthday Book That Wouldn’t Die
The news cycle didn’t just turn over. It did somersaults, pirouettes, and then flopped onto the couch clutching its side. By breakfast, Chief Justice John Roberts had played human sandbag for Donald Trump’s freeze on nearly $5 billion in foreign aid. By lunch, Chicago was choking on “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration raids, a branding exercise