Once released, feathers scatter.
Once amplified, lies scale.
What made sense in the dial-up era may not make sense in the age of monetized outrage.
Read: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Democracies.
How Many Donald Trumps Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb?
Fear demands attention. It always has. Some express it in tears, some in anger, some in power. But laughter is the one response fear cannot survive, because it refuses to grant fear authority over the moment
How Many Donald Trump’s Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?
A routine medical visit becomes a reflection on public life: fear, noise, and why humor may be the only response that refuses to play the same game as power.
A satirical essay comparing modern American politics to a barking Pomeranian — noise, panic, and power in an age of permanent outrage.
Not A Mistake: Donald Trump and the Politics of “Not a Mistake”
It is not a mistake… When federal prosecutors in Minneapolis sought a warrant to collect evidence from Renee Goods’ vehicle after the shooting, they were told to stand down. They were told by senior officials in the White House,…
Resistance doesn’t always look like marches and megaphones. Sometimes it looks like a dad joke with a political edge. Sometimes it’s just refusing to let the most important issues of our time disappear into the background noise of everyday life.
The next few years, let alone the next couple of months, are going to be tough. We need to stand tall and be Minnesota nice.
The unspoken truth about eating waffles on snowy days is that they give me joy on a day when it would be easy to surrender to confinement, cold feet, and fogged glasses. And as delicious as my waffles were on Monday—and will be tomorrow—Mark Carney’s speech at Davos was an emotional waffle I needed
Like it or not, this is our government doing this. We are responsible for the actions of Trump, Vance, and Noem. We must call out their lies, their misdirection, and their hypocrisies — and we must hold them accountable.
In other words, we are so in love with our own shit that we can’t accept the fact that someone else might have put more brain sweat into something than we did.
If Christmas is about anything, it’s this: remembering where we come from, honoring who shaped us, and finding moments—however fleeting—when the past and present sit together in peace.
Rob Reiner helped shape our zeitgeist. Stand by Me captured the magic of summer and the bonds of childhood friendship. The Princess Bride was about the fairy tales our parents and grandparents told us so we could fall asleep feeling safe. When Harry Met Sally made us believe in the power of love.
I have two nephews.
They are much alike. Both stand over six feet tall—handsome by any measure—with light complexions, rosy cheeks, dimples as deep as divots, and unruly mops of blond hair. They are athletic: one a former rower and lifelong gym rat, the other a onetime baseball player and current Pe
The country that welcomed my father no longer exists in the same form. The freedoms he defended in World War II are strained by a government increasingly flirtatious with authoritarianism, Christian Nationalism, and policies that entrench privilege rather than expand opportunity.
Thanksgiving—at least its origin story—is a story of immigrants giving thanks for the generosity of their new country. It is also a story honoring the grace of the native people who helped them succeed.
If your opening argument in a conversation about feminism is a blatantly sexist premise then maybe you have started your journey on the wrong path. (Sort of like the people who want to visit Australia but end up in Austria. There is literally a desk for them at Vienna’s airport.)
Trump: Dementia, Felon, or Huckster?
open.substack.com/pub/pdrothko...
Introducing what may soon be the most popular game in America: Trump: Dementia, Felon, or Huckster.
While listening to the latest dispatch from Trumpverse, players pick which part of the President’s psyche seems to be driving the story:
We are no longer on the road to fascism. Our country is in the hands of fascists. Denying that fact — or sugarcoating it in any way — is worse than forgetting. It is malignant neglect of our duty as human beings who swore we would remember.
There’s a moment in every democracy when the fringe stops being the fringe. It’s not when an extremist gains followers online, or when their rhetoric briefly trends on social media. It happens when institutions that once stood as gatekeepers begin to open the door. That’s why the growing embrace of
