Lydia Polgreen

Timeline cleanse: Grizzle wrestling with her friend Hugo.

Opinion | Epstein and the #MeToo of It All

I’m a novice at this video podcasting thing but I really loved talking to @mollyjongfast.bsky.social about Epstein and the long arc of #MeToo. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/o...

No thumbs up from Zohran.

An important contrast from @polgreen.bsky.social, calling into question basic assumptions driving the US foreign policy establishment.

But instead of self-reflection, we’ve mostly seen denial, defensiveness, and compensatory fantasies of geopolitical bloc formation.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/o...

Like a hot knife through butter, Cuomo said. Only Mamdani was the knife and Trump was the butter.

In 1992, a Japanese TV show followed a dog named Sacchan in Osaka after his owner wondered why he had become so chubby. They discovered that the dog spent his days visiting neighbors, train stations a... TikTok video by TheWorldDecoded

Incredible investigative journalism. www.tiktok.com/t/ZTrdp17Vg/

The stuff Trump and Mamdani agree on is basically the median voter agenda.

Donald Trump smiling up at Zohran Mamdani.

Gretchen Whitmer hiding behind a folder.

Who can really say which approach is most effective

Impressive smile control from Mamdani here - seems quite determined not to flash his trademark grin. Respectful, but not gonna give the chummy photo op despite Trump's lavish praise.

This is conspiracy theory stuff. China doesn’t need to spy on baby monitors to know what Americans are doing. They can just open Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or one of the many apps that Americans use to share the kind of information that two generations ago couldn’t be waterboarded out of them.

Loved this conversation about Epstein, MeToo and the pernicious ubiquity of sexual predation of teenage girls.

Opinion | The Thucydides Trap Is Coming for America

Trump has ended all the worry about China destroying the American-led order by destroying American primacy all on his own. My latest: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/o...

Epstein and the #MeToo of It All Podcast Episode · The Opinions · 11/21/2025 · 26m

Talked to @polgreen.bsky.social on the New York Times podcast

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Opinion | Africa Is Rising. The World Shouldn’t Turn Its Back.

A podcast conversation with Lydia Polgreen @polgreen.bsky.social of the Times about my new book, The Second Emancipation, and about Africa's place in the world of today and tomorrow. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...

Opinion | Africa Is Rising. The World Shouldn’t Turn Its Back.

I loved having this conversation with @hofrench.bsky.social about Africa's past, present and future, as well as Howard's brilliant new book about Kwame Nkrumah. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...

Honestly my favorite thing is the classic boomer Sent from my iPad

Childhood sexual abuse is almost always something that involves family members or close family friends. Elaborate trafficking operations like Epstein's are much rarer, but they are kin to the more common kind, and many of his victims had already suffered abuse at the hands of people close to them.

I am also thinking of the three Republican women who voted to release the files, who face intense pressure from Trump to switch their votes. What have they seen or even experienced in their own lives that might give them the fortitude to resist this pressure?

Freud abandoned the seduction theory because it was simply too hard to confront the reality that childhood sexual abuse was endemic in Vienna society. Thinking about that today amid the flood of Epstein emails, and the silence among the MAGA child sex abuse conspiracy theorists.

A Final Indignity: Cuomo's White Ford Bronco Got a Parking Ticket Thanks to an eagle-eyed New Yorker, who saw the car illegally parked outside of the ex-gov's Sutton Place apartment on Wednesday, and reported it to 311.

Greatest city in the world, etc. hellgatenyc.com/andrew-cuomo...

Opinion | The Ruling About Passports Isn’t About ID. It’s About Social Control.

Great @mashagessen.bsky.social on the true purpose of Trump's cruel passport gender marker rules: exerting social control. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/o...

Opinion | What Started as Affordability Politics Has Become Something Deeper

This @maragay.bsky.social piece is a terrific companion, arguing that the politics of a dignified life for all can work for Democrats everywhere. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/o...

Zohran Mamdani and the Revenge of the Struggling Yuppie

New York has become difficult for even people making what are unquestionably good professional salaries, and Mamdani offered a politics of solidarity to make life better for everyone - working, middle & upper middle class. This great piece captures that vibe well. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/n...

My dog just knocked the laptop off my lap and took its place.

She clearly has no actual convictions, and there will be a lane for GOP electeds who pivot away from MAGA without wholly repudiating it. Right now Ramaswamy is attempting this, and I am sure others will as well. I don't think she has the skills to pull it off, but you never know!

Elise Stefanik will be a fascinating test case for the post-Trump era. She was a fairly normie Republican who went hard on MAGA, and could have easily, quietly transitioned back to being a MAGA-friendly but normie Republican after the UN job went away, biding her time for what's next.

This really hasn’t gotten enough attention this week.

@wired.com #ICE
www.wired.com/story/fbi-wa...

For all the anger at the pitiful Democratic leadership, rank and file Democrats seem to be demonstrating that they are actually in charge of the party and will set its direction. That is a good thing. The GOP belongs to one man; the future of the Democrats is up to every Democrat.

Agree. Mamdani is a powerful example of this. He did not make his support for Palestine central to his campaign, but his insistence on sticking to his core beliefs when asked to repudiate them, but also reassuring those who were fearful, actually helped demonstrate his sincerity and values.

Totally agree!