Worth a read for anyone who want to makes sense of the rapidly shifting contours of UK politics. Also relevant to similar debates and discussions regarding Democratic Party electoral strategies in the US.
I learned a lot from @philiprathgeb.bsky.social’s excellent book on how the radical right in the USA and Europe uses economic policy to advance its cultural and ideological goals, so I spoke to him for @cunyslu.bsky.social’s Reinventing Solidarity podcast.
soundcloud.com/cunyslu/epis...
Saw them play with Quicksand on their farewell tour last year, both bands were great - my neck was very sore the next day due to Too Much Headbanging While 40+ (I suspect I was not the only victim)
Likewise! I always learn a lot from your writing, thank you for your work.
Heaven help me, I am a Podcaster now. I recently talked to @katharinapistor.bsky.social about capitalist law and its discontents (with a particular eye toward the law’s impact on labor and worker organizing) for @cunyslu.bsky.social’s Reinventing Solidarity podcast: soundcloud.com/cunyslu/epis...
What a loss. To me, Werckmeister Harmonies is arguably the greatest film yet made in the 2000s, a beautiful, terrifying, too-prescient film. Precisely the sort of art we need in a world of brain-dead, heartless “content.” RIP.
Very nice appreciation of Rosi’s incredible run of films from Salvatore Giuliano throughb Illustrious Corpses. Too hard on Christ Stopped at Eboli, though, which is a remarkable book and film adaptation.
I’m not sure if the current practice of fusion voting in NY bears out the argument for expanding it further. But totally agreed that the pundits’ debate over the electoral value of issue/ideological moderation (driven primarily by advocates of moderation) is tedious and largely beside the point.
This is the America I believe in. The neo-Confederates will never, ever win.
My family has been here for less than a century, all four of my grandparents and my dad were born abroad. The GOP's embrace of Blut-und-Boden ideology is an attack on the actually existing USA, an embrace of neo-Confederatism and the most reactionary strands of European-style nationalism too.
It’s a trip to see “Andrew Cuomo (I)” complaining about the Democratic Party on a Fox News chryon. It’s like watching realignment happening in real time.
Good points for MOCs in particular, but this may be less of a problem for city councilors or state legislators. LA city council members get paid over $200K, for example. In NYC it's about $150K. Chicago a bit less. Can't do it everywhere, for sure. But some should consider it, I think.
Definitely a potential downside, but here in NYC for example 80% of the Area Median Income for a single person is around $90K, which is pretty good despite high COL. NYC Council salary is about $150K, state leg salaries a bit lower. Could be doable for normal people in some situations, I think.
I've long thought that one of the heterodox non-ideological things candidates could do is pledge to not take their office's full salary if elected, but only the district median while donating the rest. Not feasible where elected salaries are very low but maybe elsewhere, like blue cities/states?
Some bleak worldviews on display here. Apparently our choices are production for industrial and military warfare or “an economy centered around McKinsey and DoorDash,” as if there were no other possibilities available to us. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/u...
“A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
What if it’s not “the groups” or progressive activists who are the big problem but uninspiring centrists who don’t have a credible economic program and triangulate on social questions base voters really care about?
Sen. Josh Hawley, claiming to oppose a bill he just voted for.
This is Josh Hawley’s whole routine, encapsulated. He’s a run of the mill Republican with a fake “populist” shtick that way too many people fall for.
This study was conducted in 6 European countries, and I'd love to see this kind of research reproduced in the US, but I think this conclusion would hold here as well. There's no necessary tradeoff between economics and culture so long as the economic program has a credible working class appeal.
Trump’s big ugly bill perfectly crystallizes Melinda Cooper’s conception of the neoliberal counterrevolution. Fiscal extravagance for the rich (and the repressive state apparatus), punishing austerity for everyone else. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
I think this piece I wrote a couple years ago holds up pretty well in light of @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social’s historic performance among under-45 voters. Our collective experiences have perfectly primed us for the kind of politics he represents. jacobin.com/2023/10/the-...
I don’t think that’s half baked! It’s an expression of social democracy in a postindustrial political economy. Coalition between immigrant service workers and the college educated but economically squeezed, organized around making habitation (particularly housing but not only) cheaper and better.
The Republican Party, in a single image. This is what Democratic leaders in Congress should spend their time talking about and rallying people to oppose, not spreading lies and innuendo about @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social for things he never said and doesn’t think.
Piss Boyz 4 Zohran (and Brad)
Three months ago today, plain-clothes ICE agents abducted Mahmoud Khalil in his apartment building lobby after they'd followed him home.
Free Mahmoud.
Wow. So you’re telling me this guy constantly lies about everything. I’m hearing about this for the first time.
Vance has always been like this. Any journalist who read Hillbilly Elegy should have immediately clocked how it was a statement of Charles Murray Thought in the guise of a personal narrative. Not exactly the stuff of national reconciliation!
wow, I hope it was worth it
Canadian political parties' change in vote share since 2021.
Canada seems to have effectively imported America's polarized, two-party presidential system despite having a parliamentary system. It's a big reason why third, fourth, fifth, etc. parties have so much trouble catching on in the US, a dynamic the Electoral College strengthens and reinforces.
Do we know whether the SPÖ's loss in vote share basically just shifted over to the KPÖ, or is it too early for that kind of data?
