Jeff Sharlet

I’ve been watching ‘Shiny Happy People’ season 02. If you’re wondering how people grow up to be MAGA fascists, it’s definitely eye opening. Good interview footage with @jeffsharlet.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKfE...

A favorite book of mine I came to via @petermanseau.bsky.social

Mad Max movies, Fallout, etc, imagined a desert apocalypse as a result of nuclear war, grand hubris. Turns out we'll get to Fury Road by asking AI to write our emails for us and chatting with imaginary girlfriends.

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I don’t want Harris to run. Your projection from my rejection of her politics is baloney.

there is no quiet part anymore

Whatever one thinks of Harris’s campaign, the news that she really is eyeing ‘28 is, I believe, what Gramsci called a “morbid symptom.”

Watch Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War | Prime Video Teen Mania captivated a generation of fervent evangelical Millennial kids with adrenaline-fueled, ecstatic religious experiences through “Acquire the Fire” rallies. But beneath the glittering surface lurked sadistic boot camps, staged martyrdom drills, and fascism disguised as faith - transforming innocent teens into fanatical soldiers, with devastating consequences still unfolding today.

Shiny Happy People season 2 on Prime underscores a lot about why this country is where it is right now, esp. episode 2.

Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War www.amazon.com/gp/video/det...

"Shiny Happy People" sequel highlights Christian boot camp that traumatized a generation Teen Mania promised salvation but delivered shame, suffering, and spiritual abuse to tens of thousands of kids

“How do you know you’re in a cult if that’s your normal?”

Teen Mania taught kids their purpose in life was to die for Jesus.

The new season of Shiny Happy People reveals how a generation of children got radicalized in the name of God.

www.friendlyatheist.com/p/shiny-happ...

Opinion | They Saw Their Neighbors Taken Away by ICE. Then They Made a Plan.

My view is that as a country, we're not meeting the moment--but the people @michellegoldberg.bsky.social reports on here are, & we can learn from them. Very glad for this sober-minded reporting. (Also,emphasis on the *reporting* part of it--this isn't just a take.) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

At Voters of Tomorrow Summit, Democrats struggle to compete with Turning Point USA Coming of age in a time of polycrisis

My latest: I went to the Voters of Tomorrow summit, a group trying to compete with Turning Point USA for young activists.

Backed by the dem establishment, I found a major lack of urgency for our present crisis out of step with Gen Z left wing activism.

numbertwopencil.substack.com/p/at-voters-...

If you’re a journalist or a pundit, you make your living via audience. No crime in that. It’s the ideas that can become grotesque. Those who follow them aren’t without agency — they, too, are making choices.

At the top, sure, but the real problem is the everyday people who make the slide.

YouTube video by Sandi Bachom NYC Immigration Court Violent ICE Arrest of Man Granted Continuance By Judge WATCH TILL END! 7/29/25

@maddow.msnbc.com horrifying arrest at immigration court yesterday. And what sounds like torture youtu.be/ZkqgQIjH3Po

Meet the out-of-state investors funding a Christian nationalist community in Tennessee For the politically connected investors behind the project, our NewsChannel 5 investigation has now discovered, it’s about business, power and creating an alternative view of America.

VIDEO POSTED: For the politically connected investors behind the Christian nationalist project in Jackson County TN, it’s about business, power and modeling what they describe as an alternative view of America. www.newschannel5.com/news/newscha...

The Green Beret of Gaza Gaza Humanitarian Foundation contractor Anthony Aguilar describes witnessing war crimes.

New — I wrote about Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a former contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and his harrowing stories of what he witnessed while being there under the guise of distributing food aid to starving Palestinian civilians:

He looks like he says stuff like “I didn’t eat that many fingers”

The Cowardice of Senate Democrats Made Emil Bove’s Confirmation Possible Senate Democrats could have confirmed Biden nominee Adeel Mangi to the Third Circuit last year. They caved to a disgraceful right-wing smear campaign instead.

Emil Bove's confirmation was only possible because Democrats caved to a vile right-wing smear campaign of Adeel Mangi, who would have been the first Muslim appeals court judge, when Biden nominated him for the same seat last year. Absolutely disgraceful. Bove's confirmation is on them, too.

Sigh, that’s the trouble. I think he’ll feel good because then regime will respond with force. He wants us to go tit for tat with him — the project is the replacement of rule of law with force.

Not even that. One shouldn’t be commenting on Fuentes unless one knows how he operates. He’s actively trolling for liberal fools, like much like fellow fascist Jackson Hinkle who pulled countless know-nothings right by foregrounding critiques of Israel w/out mentioning his hate of Jews & Islam.

Unexpectedly good politics from Thomas Kinkade's family! www.kinkadefamilyfoundation.org

I have to remind myself that there have always been gangsters and sycophants in the judiciary. But this really does seem worse…

Losing the Plot: The “Leftists” Who Turn Right What do we make of former friends who fell down the rabbit hole of the Right?

These piece @kathrynajoyce.bsky.social & I published in @inthesetimes.com late ‘23 feels even more apt now. I see a whole lotta people following Epstein down the rabbit hole, not realizing how precisely they’re echoing right wingism. inthesetimes.com/article/form...

You don’t gotta call Mark Hamill names, but yeah, between this and the grotesque lib/left praise for Marjorie Taylor Greene we are really seeing some people lose the plot

Yep that was one of em.

Thanks, Daniel. My title for that piece was "The Great Acceleration." It's now more than 2022. It was part of a book subtitled "scenes from a slow civil war." I think it's speeding up, but in deeply unpredictable ways. We are not (yet, I hope) really rising to the moment.

Drapes of dense green-black clouds rise and descend over a late-afternoon sun dulled flat white by distant forest fire haze

Silhouette of a hawk leaving its wire

Truck transporting a boat

Tree-knot

Evidence

The GOP voting base isn’t nearly that white.

Thanks for reading Undertow. Next book’s a little bit related. This is side project. Alt-weeklies were free weekly tabloid style paper featuring local political coverage dailies wouldn’t touch & oftentimes narrative reporting written with lots of voice.

Republicans took all three branches with absolutely submissive lockstep Trumpism. Meanwhile, conservative Democrats say Americans are mad about Democratic ideological conformity. So their answer is to “diversify” ideologically by becoming more like Republicans borg politics.