Rob Flaherty

Opinion | The Democrats Again Risk Losing Voters They Take for Granted

AI is going to be the most important issue in the ‘28 election in ways bigger than I think most folks realize.

I wrote about what it means for Democrats, Republicans, and, well, the whole country.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/o...

"No Kings Day" protests turn out millions Our unofficial estimate is that around 4 million people attended a protest event yesterday. Anti-Trump resistance is outpacing 2017.

Based on crowd-sourced records of No Kings Day event turnout, and extrapolating for the cities where we don't have data yet, it looks like roughly 4-6 million people protested Trump across the U.S. yesterday. That's nearly 2% of the U.S. pop!

Mobilized anti-Trump resistance is exceeding 2017 levels

in retrospect, they probably should have made this a key fob

Opinion | If You’re a Voter Reading This, This Essay Is Not About You Opt-out voters don’t buy what we’re selling — and even if they did, we’d have a hard time reaching them.

Wrote about Democrats, the media environment, culture, and authenticity for the @nytimes.com

Our problem is bigger than an election: it's that we lack the tools to communicate the vast majority of the electorate who get their information through culture.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/o...

Sorry we cooked your retirement savings. We were hoping to make inflation worse and slow down the economy.

“The truth is that a tattoo identifying Tren de Aragua does not exist,” she told me. “Tren de Aragua does not use any tattoos as a form of gang identification; no Venezuelan gang does.”

JPM calls it “the fastest Momentum unwind in 40 years .. erased 2 years’ worth of gains and accelerated investors’ late-cycle positioning into Defensive / Low Vol ..”

This guy is in one of the worst prisons in the world with no way out and may spend the rest of his life there because, it appears, he has an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his little brother.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Just think it’s important to look at the politics of a moment for how they are and how you can change them, versus learning lessons from an era that’s passed.

"a little disturbance but we'll be okay with that" is gonna be around for a while, I think

slava ukraini

Without going all Martin Niemöller here, I do think that it's bad not to speak up for immigrants, transgender Americans, civil servants, women, Ukraine, and everyone else the MAGA bullies are going after. We're beyond picking and choosing whom to defend. It's time to stand up and speak out.

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

This all gets harder for them once the (already low) honeymoon polling comes down to earth.

The polling comes down because the unpopular stuff they're doing breaks through.

The unpopular stuff they're doing breaks through because people with megaphones sharply oppose it in ways people can hear.

I have found @chrismurphyct.bsky.social ‘s email stuff to be a real highlight of late. Sorta lives in the space between a substack and a fundraising program.

I'm not sure where it sits on my list of "shit the last year pretty clearly revealed to me" but "conflict drives attention drives outcomes" is pretty high up there!

bsky.app/profile/jame...

Your "doing massive amounts of unchecked corruption won't lower egg prices" post is currently being reviewed by the DOJ and really, quite frankly, making them rethink their position.

3. The instant-gratification that comes from endorphin-mining media leads to an appetite for big, quick solutions to their specific problems. So "person in charge who fixes things quickly" becomes more appealing than "deliberative process through elected institutions."

2. Mainstream culture is now formed online by cross-pressure from subcultures -- the right has a big online one where the left doesn't in the same way (our "subculture" generally is happy to get their information from traditional sources).

Fundamentally agree with this. A few points I'll add:

1. Imo there's another category: People who don't care about the news at all who sort of loosely hear about politics through culture, who A) were the cohort who swung the election and B) Democrats have a hard time reaching

Two random thoughts:

1. Obviously, they’re paving the way for unprecedented levels of grift, self-dealing, and corruption.

2. The amount of work the next Democrat is going to have to do to unfuck the Government is going to be staggering.

This matters. Not because I think Trump is capable of mercy or empathy towards these vulnerable groups. But because it is a public act of defiance.

Contrast that with all these other powerful people in this country signaling nothing but appeasement and obedience.

Paramount Global Discusses Settling Donald Trump Lawsuit Against CBS News As Media Companies Look To President’s Next Term Paramount Global executives have held internal, informal discussions about what it might take to settle a lawsuit by incoming President Donald Trump against CBS News.

Tech is obviously stealing the show but I do think the traditional media companies handing Trump cash settlements is really its own scandal.

deadline.com/2025/01/para...

Biden: "I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. That's the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape"

Help Harris Digital Staff Find Jobs Help hire some very talented, very tired, very sad digital marketing staff. In general, we have folks with skills in the following: Social Media Email/SMS/CRM Strategy Digital organizing/community ...

Look: there’s going to be a lot for post-mortems, but for now I’ll just say this: one thing you can do to help right now is by having a convo with a soon-to-be unemployed Harris digital staffer. Here’s a form you can fill out so they can get in touch with you.

forms.gle/YiZiwwky9uwp...

HEARTWARMING: Hero Billionaire Purchases Toxic Social Media Site Only To Close It Down