Category: Uncategorized

Zohran Mamdani’s 5 Lessons for the Democrats

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From Waleed Shahid At Jacobin:

Mamdani’s appeal has little to do with just his youthful vibe. It lies in his answer to two questions the party keeps ducking. Can a Democrat hold attention without turning into a caricature? And once attention is captured, can it be used to make politics legible as a system that changes what people pay and how they live? His method blends traditions that rarely coexist: Bernie Sanders’s moral clarity, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s digital and movement cadence, the “abundance” instinct to build and unblock, the grounded competence of effective executives, and the narrative craft of cultural workers who know how to reach an audience. The point is not style for its own sake. It is persuasion as craft — showing that Democrats can hold the stage on the economy again, speak plainly about power, and still mean what they say.

Great article, but I’ll save you a click:

  1. Start with substance. Frame the problem, then propose how to solve it.
  2. With attention through conflict. Redirect towards your values without shying away from the fight.
  3. Let style serve substance. Be earnest, try to win people over.
  4. Meet Culture With Competence and Conviction. Use politics to show moral clarity without being sucked into the culture wars.
  5. Keep the Loop Small Enough to Echo. Stay on message.

A DSA candidate can’t win everywhere, but his strategy can. I hope Dems pick up the right lessons here.

Texas and Florida Have Become National Models for Using the Police State To Wage Culture War Battles

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From C.J. Ciaramella at Reason Magazine:

This phenomenon started in the states, and none have pursued it with more intensity than Florida and Texas, where governors and legislatures have competed to show that they're fighting the hardest against what they call "woke" excess and leftist hegemony. Now this style of governance—using criminal law, mass surveillance, tip lines, and the threat of police violence to wage the culture war—is going national. This doesn't just implicate the freedom of trans people or high schoolers who want to read Toni Morrison; it's a danger to every American who wants to live, work, and travel without being monitored and menaced by the state.

You probably don’t need me to tell you how scary this stuff is if you play it out. For most of my adult life, conservative-leaning folks have told me how important “freedom” is, and slowly but surely we’ve seen what they actually mean by that. Freedom for them to live how they want, and for the rest of us to fall in line.

We’re watching the slow legislation of morality, where lawmakers use “values” as a cover for control. None of it is about protecting anyone – it’s about enforcing a single worldview. What’s worse is that most of these laws don’t even need to hold up in court to do damage. The vagueness is the point. People self-censor, schools and libraries overreact, and the chilling effect spreads quietly and efficiently.

This is not what freedom looks like. And it’s not an accident. We’ve allowed a warped definition of freedom to take hold, one that means “my comfort matters more than your rights.” Whether by design or by ignorance, it’s become the rallying cry of people who have been convinced that equality is an attack on their way of life.

I can’t help but think about how much of this has been fueled by media that profits off fear and outrage.Looking back over the past 25 years, it’s clear that FOX News & social media algorithms will be blamed for whatever state we end up in. They’ve trained people to see enemies around every corner. It’s poisoning our politics and our relationships, and it’s only getting worse because division keeps the clicks coming.

We have to start pushing back. Not in abstract ways or clever tweets, but through the simple blocking and tackling of democracy. Call your representatives – seriously, it’s easy and only takes a few minutes. Vote in local elections. Speak up when you see injustice or when government steps into places it doesn’t belong. Staying quiet because it feels hopeless is exactly what they’re counting on.

If we don’t draw the line now, we may wake up one day in a country that still calls itself free but no longer remembers what that word ever meant.

Wind Downs and Ramp Ups

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Left to my own devices, my short-term memory is a sieve. Without routine, structure, and a trusted system, I’d probably end up in a ditch somewhere wondering why my calendar looked empty while my Slack was on fire.

What saves me isn’t a clever productivity hack or the latest app. It’s the rituals I repeat every day at the edges of work. How I start and how I finish. Those bookends keep me sane.

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New tariff rules bring ‘maximum chaos’ as surprise charges hit consumers

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From NBC News:

Some U.S. shoppers say they are being hit with surprise charges from international shipping carriers as the exemption on import duties for items under $800 expires as a part of President Donald Trump’s tariff push.

Hear me out … it’s almost like this administration is incompetent and doesn’t have our best interests in mind. In a world where one wanted to roll out tariffs to achieve their goals but also manage in a way that doesn’t choke out economic activity, they would likely do so in a staggered way that allowed businesses and consumers to plan both purchasing decisions as well as investment strategy around factory relocations, etc.

I personally have been hit by a number of these types of fees recently and I have zero clue what the real cost will be until a few days before delivery. The things I’m working with are minor consumer purchases. I can only imagine if I were trying to run a business.

Google concedes the open web is in “rapid decline”

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From In court filing, Google concedes the open web is in “rapid decline”:

If the increasingly AI-heavy open web isn't worth advertisers' attention, is it really right to claim the web is thriving as Google so often does? Google's filing may simply be admitting to what we all know: the open web is supported by advertising, and ads increasingly can't pay the bills. And is that a thriving web? Not unless you count AI slop.

No matter how Google spins this in a very narrow sense, it’s very concerning to see how quickly AI generated content is drowning out content on the web. Feels like Facebook and other companies integrating AI into their posting tools are only hastening the demise of their platforms.

America Tips Into Fascism

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From Garrett Graff at Doomsday Scenario:

I think many Americans wrongly believe there would be one clear unambiguous moment where we go from “democracy” to “authoritarianism.” Instead, this is exactly how it happens — a blurring here, a norm destroyed there, a presidential diktat unchallenged. Then you wake up one morning and our country is different.

It’s easy to imagine fascism as some big, dramatic moment: a coup, a speech, a breaking point. What Garrett Graff argues in this piece is more unsettling. We don’t wake up one morning to a dictatorship. We slide into it bit by bit. Norms get bent, then broken. Power gets consolidated. Institutions get bullied into silence. And by the time you look around, the country doesn’t quite work the way you thought it did.

What makes this feel different now is how normal the abnormal has become. Governors sending troops into opposition-run cities, armored vehicles rolling down D.C. streets, federal agencies harassing critics. It is all happening in plain sight. And many are celebrating the cruelty! Graff’s warning isn’t that fascism is coming someday, it is that it is already here in pieces. And that should alarm everyone, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. The scary part is how easy it is to stop noticing when each step just feels like the new baseline.

Avoiding Algorithms

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We’re never going to escape algorithms completely. But if we can recognize where they’re shaping our attention and make small choices to push back, we stand a better chance of keeping them from running our lives.

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