Keya Vakil

North Carolina student’s life upended after being detained by ICE Allison Bustillo Chinchilla came to America as a child from Honduras and grew up to be a certified nursing assistant. Under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy, she’s spent the past five ...

Proud to have played even a tiny part in bringing this important, devastating piece to life.

cardinalpine.com/2025/08/01/n...

Keep hearing people say protests against first Trump administration were ineffective. Evidence suggests otherwise.

Just got fired from being a freshman football coach, if you want to know what MAGA does to communities.

They don’t care about what helps people, because the school is certainly not going to find an ex-NFL player willing to coach there at that level, they only care about trying to hurt people.

I think about this headline all of the time.

gravedigger of american democracy. a more malign influence than john c calhoun.

Feb 13 For Republicans, anyhow.

newsletter.therecount.net/p/the-kids-a...

"On many key indicators of sociopolitical identity, America's youngest voters increasingly resemble conservatives: distrustful of institutions and mainstream consensus, prone to conspiratorial thinking and social disconnection, and nostalgic for the past."

Study of TikTok, X 'For You' feeds in Germany finds far-right political bias ahead of federal elections | TechCrunch Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias in Germany ahead of a

Humanity created a massive tool for social control and placed it in the hands of the worst people possible techcrunch.com/2025/02/19/s...

Oops: Senate Democrats Regret Voting For Some Trump Cabinet Nominees Oops!

I know it was hard to tell at the time and hindsight is 20 20 but one early sign that maybe these Dems shouldn’t have voted to confirm someone who Trump 2.0 picked for a cabinet level post is that Trump had picked them for a cabinet level post www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-...

I appreciate everyone’s messages of support, I’m trying to get through all my mentions but as you can imagine, it’s been a bit of a busy day :)

Remember - peaceful civil disobedience, and no kings, no tyrants. Not ever.

It’s not a “savings” if you’re getting fewer services in exchange. I’m still paying the same taxes!

After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds Republican senators find themselves in an unusual position these days: begging Trump officials to release funds they themselves appropriated.

"let's cut spending but not in MY state please mr trump please don't do that pwetty pwease"

shameless hacks.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

i am 100% of the belief that simply forcing take-writers to answer the question "who specifically said this and why are they significant" would result in substantially fewer bad takes circulating in the world

I’m no fancy big city economist but my understanding was that new administrations usually did not spend the first month in power openly trying to beef up monthly unemployment numbers

Stunned federal workers brace for the real-world repercussions of Trump's purges The Trump administration could face political backlash from voters in Republican and Democratic states who suddenly find a host of services vanish.

We're watching the United States commit suicide in real time

www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

Soy Right ascendant The return of Gamergate

"No one in the Soy Right makes affirmative choices; they’re smol beans who need protection and care."

maxread.substack.com/p/soy-right-...

Soy Right ascendant The return of Gamergate

the Soy Right: "right-wingers who have adopted the sensitive, aggrieved victimhood pose and corny rhetorical and personal style that they have spent the last 10 years attributing to liberals" maxread.substack.com/p/soy-right-...

it is genuinely incredible that all you have to do is scratch the surface and it becomes clear that each of these guys is a huge piece of shit

a genuinely good idea

Personally, I think it's bad that 21 year old little groyper freaks are running our government, but what do I know.

The Algorithmic Cage The private companies in control of social-media networks possess an unprecedented ability to manipulate and control the populace.

The outcome of this political moment depends a lot on Americans being able to escape or see past the billionaire-controlled prison of right-wing propaganda our devices have become www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

And in July 2024, just before he came out in support of Trump, he accused Democrats of trying to “import as many illegal voters as possible.” And in this way, I think what is going on with him is a little bit distinct from a lot of the people who superficially have similar politics. Because I think he’s really bought into a lot of great replacement theory. Yes. So have a lot of people in Silicon Valley. Let me say: He’s not alone. This Curtis Yarvin stuff. They’ve all sort of been taken by these — it’s almost religious, if you think about it. One of the things that I think it goes back to — and I hate to say this — is: sad little boy who wasn’t loved enough as a child is searching for meaning, is searching for love. And again, not an excuse, because I think he’s become a terrible person, and he should get therapy. But when there are easy answers like that — Oh, this is why you’re so unhappy. Oh, this is why the world is the way it is — these right-wing conspiracies do scratch an itch for these people. It’s a religion. It’s their answer to the world.

Right. It’s sort of the rid me of this annoying priest kind of thing. Rid me of these people. Again, it’s a king thing. The way they set up their companies is a kingship. Mark Zuckerberg has complete control. He can’t be fired. He’s there for life. So they like that. But in practice, it doesn’t work that way. Because he’s got reporters annoying him. He’s got his staff. He’s got to at least give a nod to diversity or else he gets shamed. He doesn’t have the fortitude that Musk has in that regard. So they are trying to assert themselves in what they consider a man. This is the definition of what a man is. A lot of them were not considered manly when they were in high school. Revenge of the nerds. With Mark, it’s the stupid chain and the T-shirt, which — good luck. It’s fine. I think it looks ridiculous, but fine. He likes it. Or the mixed martial arts. Or I’m going to hydrofoil. Or I’m going to work out. I’m going to show off my muscles there. That’s what Jeff Bezos is doing. Like: Here’s my muscles. Here’s my pretty fiancée. They’re trying to cosplay a version of a man. It seems pathetic to me. But I think it gives them great comfort.

This Kara Swisher interview is both revisionist history and empty pablum. Shameful for Ezra Klein and his people to help her launder her reputation as if she wasn't enabling every single one of these guys and literally doing her book tour with them!
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/o...

imo this is accurate, but the reason this is so insane is: the mass affluent society is there IN LARGE PART DUE TO THE BUREAUCRACY. It employs people. It generates huge demand for white collar goods and services and creates whole new markets for them. Not even getting into the services it provides!

I’ve seen the “End of the USSR” get kicked around a lot as parallel to what’s happening in DC, and I was initially skeptical but this does seem prescient. The political economy that shaped our regulatory institutions/welfare state is long gone and many elites figure they can get away dismantling it.

in less than eight years the NCAA went from banning North Carolina from hosting championships due to its bathroom bill to... this.

cannot possibly co-sign this enough. you cannot fix it all, but if you focus, you can build something important and beautiful.

collaboration is also key here — there's no need to try to build from scratch when you could team up with established and trusted folks.

I’m on my way to the Treasury Dept to demand answers. Billionaire-in-Chief Elon Musk has been given illegal access to Americans’ private info, including Social Security numbers.

Zero people voted for Elon to run our government. This is about oversight and transparency.

We explained last week that probationary employees, with scant federal protections, were first in line for mass firings.
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...

What did dual-class shares just do to my democracy? Trump/Musk, the billionaire-CEO, and the American soft spot for tyranny.

"People like being left alone and then wondering, in their living rooms, why things don’t get fixed. The new tyranny thrives less on participation than on loneliness."

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/what-did-d...

Are the next 4 years really going to be logging on everyday to sentences like "a 19 year old doge intern called Big Balls has your social security number" because I'm already at capacity for this sort of thing