Remember the Goolsbee Rule, also called the “pathological irony of crisis”: If you lose credibility, your statements begin to mean the opposite of what you say.
Historian of the 18th Century Atlantic World. PhD from USC. Angelino by way of Baltimore. TCM nerd. Mother of cats. C-PTSD. Eternal Orioles optimist & pragmatic progressive.
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Remember the Goolsbee Rule, also called the “pathological irony of crisis”: If you lose credibility, your statements begin to mean the opposite of what you say.
Growing up the teenage lifeguards spinning the whistle felt like *the height* of sophistication and cool
CHICAGO…
I’ve never seen a more “tax the rich” sign in my life.
I wonder why Bill Pulte didn’t send this case over to DOJ with a criminal referral along with his selective targeting of Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook? apnews.com/article/paxt...
100% I was just ranting about this the other night. There is a reason you catch more flies with honey. Like from a practical standpoint, you’re more likely to get somewhere by being nice. It’s not rocket science
It is absolutely astonishing to me how many people are able to read competence in folks who are so obviously incompetent because they are so enamored of their bank account or last name. Being born wealthy doesn’t make you better!! That’s called having an aristocracy people
He just oozes smarmy cynicism while smirking like the cat that caught the canary. There are very few people I loathe more but Judge ACB is on his same tier.
youtu.be/e9LJh81n_zA if our country survives it’s going to take art like this
So much callous destruction
If maga types aren’t being disgustingly disingenuous it’s because they’ve stopped speaking
Joy might help save us. This sync gave me *so much pleasure*
Yeah its a helluva drug to think it could never happen *here*—and we’ve had decades of politicians touching the political stove for fun thinking there would never be any consequences. They’re here now.
youtu.be/e9LJh81n_zA?... I am just learning about Jesse Welles and I am blown away by the force of his talent. If this country survives it will only be because each one of us used our individual gifts to make it happen. Please listen and get angry with me. #theonlypathforward
So he admits he has nothing to offer but lies?
From a practical standpoint, this is the only way for a functional society to work! Especially any multicultural multiethnic society (which is everywhere). I thought we decided this in the enlightenment!! Who wants perpetual debates over which religion is right? The crusades sucked lol
Whenever anyone projects *certainty* about anything it’s a red flag. When someone projects certainty about what is going on in someone’s body through their visual observation of their physical appearance they have crossed the border into delusional. This shit is bonkers.
A new piece I wrote appearing in FOREIGN AFFAIRS today www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/warn...
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv... coming from a school that doesn’t tell students their grades (St. John’s) I was legitimately shocked by grade inflation TA’ing at USC. imo that student evaluations affect everything—incentivizing lowering standards to gain student interest—is at the heart of it
While the mainstream discussions are depressingly about *how* best to remove and stop immigrants, it’s a revolutionary act nowadays to say that immigration is actually a positive thing and an essential component of a thriving country, so please join me in doing so!
It shouldn't be up to American children to save each other from getting shot. It's the job of American adults to stop shootings from happening in the first place. Ban assault weapons again now.
It makes me laugh that it literally took *years of repeated social trauma* for it to occur to me that my friends might not share my instinct to be 100% sincere 100% of the time lol
I know this is like the question but how do we increase awareness of everything that is happening with the politics-averse crowd? A phone tree? Bumper stickers? Yard signs? What do people pay attention to now other than their phones? Should everyone agree to phone 3 friends for democracy ?
VETERANS, Family & Friends: Want to participate in organizing Veteran led peace patrols to reassure & remind our National Guardsmen that they have sworn an Oath to the Constitution? It’s forming on every city. JOIN HERE : rememberyouroath.org
Jeanine Pirro is on the patio at Matchbox on E St NW. I’m making a sign and going back down there shortly..
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.
THIS. Everyone has a right to an opinion. No one has a right to be listened to automatically just because they have said opinion.
I remember reading once that most people ascribe the decade they were born as the last time things were good. Gee, perhaps it’s because they were children with no responsibilities at that time! Growing up sucks because growing up sucks—& now we have what feels like an entirely infantile electorate
if you’re willing to throw another population under the bus to save yourself, you’re not actually willing to fight fascism. fascism isn’t a bear, it can’t be escaped by simply outrunning someone slower than you. the only way it can be defeated is through solidarity.
She is like, “i’m so pretty!” 🤩
They have to stop acting like they get points for “playing the game correctly.” When one team cheats and you hold yourself to the rules it’s impossible to win. The old version of American politics is dead, senators, wake up or be your own undoing.
🤣🤣🤣!!
I hate that it takes the engagement of two celebrities whom I parasocially enjoy to feel a smidgeon of relief about the state of the world but i’ll take my wins where I get them. Literally got chills when I read the announcement. So happy for them both.
🌷 🫧
Michaels: It’s fascinating to me to hear people in charge of our country say they’re listening to a convicted pedophile—someone with multiple perjury charges—and taking her word as gospel, rather than listening to the victims.
Major props to any visibly masculine middle aged white man who is willing to put their body on the line for this democracy in our new fascist era. As my grandfather used to say, it’s hero time. This is when you use your privilege to shield others.
The prolonged public torturing of a single man because the state cannot admit to its errors is not something that occurs in a free country
She is the moment
Dems should swap out Hakeem Jeffries with Jasmine Crockett. They need that kind of fire.
Reading an article titled "Why didn't Brazilian democracy die?" and a key part of the story is a Supreme Court that actually did its job
i need politicians to be as mad at housing prices as they are about cracker barrel's new logo
Newsom: I mean, even poor Kid Rock — these guys, they’ve gotten a little precious, haven’t they? The folks at Fox are like, “Oh, this is so unbecoming of a governor. Oh, oh.” And meanwhile, they sit there reading his tweets every single day. Are they really that out of touch?
What real leadership looks like. Thank you, President Barack Obama, for standing strong with California, defending our rights, and fighting for the people of this nation.
Everyone who feels even a smidge of excitement at the prospect of another civil war should watch band of brothers immediately and then reconsider what an actual war in America now would look like.
Everything about the United States was purchased with the blood of slavery. Everything. Even the good: especially the good.
I mean I know it’s not in good faith but I just want every white American who is hot for Thomas Jefferson to ask how it was that he was able to spend his time philosophizing: oh because enslaved human beings did everything for him and created all his wealth so he actually had FREE TIME.
It is a minor point among so much disgustingness but I absolutely loathe how assholes are allowed to call themselves Platonists with zero pushback—anyone who actually reads plato understands that debate and doubt is key to the good life: not what these racist bigots are about! They want NO DEBATE.
With a president trying to downplay racism at the SMITHSONIAN, it would be a really REALLY REALLY good time to follow, read, and spread the word of Black historians, professors, scholars, and artists, white people.
Slaveholders in the Western Hemisphere knew how immoral slavery was from the very beginning of the transatlantic slave trade. The whole “it was a different time” thing is absolute BS. They knew. They just wanted money more.
Oh how great it would be if every Black player on Texas and Ohio State boycotted the game until Texas cancels the redistricting vote and Ohio pulls their National Guard from DC. Those players have so much power and they don’t even use it.
Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier spent the night on the House floor after refusing to agree ‘to round-the-clock monitoring by state troopers’ www.keranews.org/texas-news/2...
going to buy a home in a walkable by selling sponsorships and hanging donor names on the wall like they do at the guggenheim
I’m gonna say armed troops from red states descending on a blue city is just a few inches — or maybe one exchange of gunfire — short of a civil war’s opening stages.
Firing and demoralizing feminized jobs as enemies of the state while brazenly bribing men with violent jobs that almost instantly puts them into the middle of middle class is very basic gendered warfare. Fulfilling the manosphere’s promise.
This joke is perfection for any person delusional enough (myself very included) to have their PhD
people.com/tenn-inmate-... I know that everything is horrible right now but please spare a moment to read about the last moments of Byron Black who was just murdered by our Government in the most gruesome way possible. Utterly disgusted by my country.
Going to keep saying: a society that wants to keep functioning needs to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities
The Culinary Workers Union representing 60,000 hospitality workers in Nevada has achieved a historic victory on the Las Vegas Strip. For the first time in its 90-year history, all major casinos on the Strip are unionized.
Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions at www.justsecurity.org/107087/track...
It is fucking insane that we had a decade of people complaining about the dangers of cancel culture, and now literally hundreds of thousands of people are being purged from government jobs for ideological reasons, but that is not cancel culture.
IMO anyone who doesn’t think that Charlotte would adopt this position didn’t understand the fucking book in the first place. Charlotte was a rebel ally who put her body on the line to protect a fellow creature: the finest of baddies.
Just dropping a gift link here to do my part to push DT just slightly more towards madness www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07...
I have no sympathy for them but isn’t in interesting that the first two admin figures maga world has largely become disenchanted with are women—almost like their they were put in those roles to be public scapegoats (I’m being sarcastic of course they were) #KristiNoem #PamBondi
I think my favorite part of Genesis is when God takes a piece of a biologically male body and performs a sex change operation on it and makes a female body.
Not to mention providing community and being cute AF!
Apropos of it being a discussion point on #LoveislandUSA, the two traits that I think defines a “girl’s girl” is a woman who: 1. Is radically transparent with other women 2. Actively works to protect the dignity of other women—even ones she doesn’t like Huda fails both these standards HARD imo
The more things change the more they stay the same. We have the power to create the country we want if we all commit to the fight. Feeling angry today—I hope you are too. Also Dazed and Confused is just so good lol
Omg this is beyond gorgeous you are SO TALENTED
I'm already seeing centrists and leftists sniping at each other but the blame for this is 100% on the Republicans. This is what they do with power and it is imperative that we work together to keep them as far from it as possible, forever.
Heartbroken for him and his family. 💔
Literally the only ones I’m rooting for at this point
Needed this reminder today.
If it took 8 days to build a massive concentration camp in Florida then it means they could build and house the homeless at any point but choose not to
The girls tell each other “I love you” after three weeks of knowing one another. Yet, Amaya is the “problem” for calling someone babe. Cool. #LoveIslandUSA
I thought so too!!
The left better start figuring out how to weaponize today's decision rather than just (rightfully) criticizing it. - Go back into Judge Kaczmaryk's court to dissolve all of his nationwide orders. - Pass gun bans and insist any order applies only to plaintiffs.
Sometimes I daydream about a fundraiser where you bid on the right to tell certain individuals exactly what you think of them. I’d take out loans to be able to give several of the court justices a verbal haranguing!
The best laugh I’ve had in months
Whenever I see Dems claim they are out of power, there’s nothing they can do, I think of Brad Lander and how he escorted people to court while being comptroller and running for mayor. Do something or get the f out of the way so there can be more Brad Landers.
They cannot handle the word no
“Why won’t Zohran Mamdani denounce a dangerous slogan?” asks a headline in the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo isn’t asked to denounce a dangerous war criminal whose legal team he joined.
olandria in another girls body ??? and y’all want her with this disgusting man #loveislandusa
Terrifying and utterly predictable. Everyone who cares about America as we’ve understood it for the past 75 years needs to get off the sidelines.
I truly believe the only thing these SC justices will respond to is public shame because even as they pull shit like this they still want all of the deference and respect given to Justices of old
I don’t think it needs to be anything so overtly forceful—from my view there is ostensibly no reason he couldn’t say from St. Peter’s Square that the 4(?) Catholics on the SC are committing moral sins and don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. I think Mrs. Alito’s brain might explode
How can we get the new Pope to start flexing his weight around? If there was any time for public moral shaming from him it’s NOW
How can we get the Pope to start flexing his weight? At the very least he should publicly declare that four(?) Catholics on this decision are committing moral sins. Shame I fear is the only pressure Americans have left.
Refuse them entrance into your homes, your businesses, your parties, your events, your churches, your weddings AND TELL THEM WHY. They have been protected from public opinion for far too long and they all desperately crave public approval and respect. Let them know they don’t have it!
One thing Americans do have right now is social power and I for one do not want to see John Roberts, Amy Coney-Barrett, John Kavanaugh, or Neal Gorsuch ever received into polite society again. Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas should have been already exiled. I’m serious. Refuse them entrance!
I think the Pope needs to start flexing his weight around NOW—especially since this bs is authored by supposedly devout Catholics on the court. I’m truly disgusted by what the court has done and I hope the pope is too.
Marco Rubio needs to be asked whether he believes his grandfather who remained in the U.S. after receiving a deportation order from our govt should have been treated the way the father of 3 Marines was treated by ICE this weekend in California. ASK HIM. Make him confront his lack of character.
EXCLUSIVE — The Onion has a full-page ad in today’s NYT featuring part of an editorial calling out congressional fecklessness towards Trump. They also sent a copy of their latest issue to every lawmaker. My report, with an excerpt from the full editorial: www.thehandbasket.co/p/exclusive-...
