Mick

The current regime took a week to abolish USAID, which is three times as old and was not in the news every day for brutalizing children

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

"we don't want people thinking Democrats are for open borders" I am! who gives a shit!!! my life has been immeasurably improved by the presence of immigrants in my community, regardless of their status, there is literally no downside there! why would I give a shit!!!!

I feel like letting every president of my lifetime get away with Unlimited War Crimes was a serious mistake

Funny animal videos no longer being trustworthy just fucking sucks all around. I love the wonder of animal behavior and what it says about the experience of being alive. It's because it happened in reality that it's so fun. It's not fun if it was just made up. There's no wonder there.

Long range acoustic device. Powerful speaker system used by police, usually for crowd control purposes

“some people abuse SNAP” your soul is rotten

The entire "free speech on campus" moral panic was manufactured to blackmail us into making space in intellectual life for bigots and charlatans who couldn't get there on their own merits. Its a DEI scheme for fascism. Congratulations to everyone who took it at face value.

This is simply untenable. There is no way forward with media and political classes captured by the right. Every time someone commits a crime you have to pray it's not an undesirable or it's purge time, then when it turns out to be themselves again they just shrug and wait for the next one.

one thing that's making me feel particularly insane lately is how there is no longer any limit to the amount of wrong you can be

one of the things that gets me about so many of the pundits who pontificate about "higher education" when they really mean a handful of elite private institutions is that most of them live within driving distance of either a community college or a non-selective public institution

If there is one lesson to draw from the history of fascism in the interwar period in Europe, it is this:

Democracy falls if and when mainstream conservatives and centrist/center-right elites decide to make common cause with extremists because they consider the “radical Left” the more acute threat.

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.

“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”

international students are a lynchpin of the finances of many universities - they pay full-freight tuition and are not eligible for most types of financial aid - its hard not to read this as a particularly cruel and callous part of the right's attempt to defund and destroy America's universities.