Quotes and Links

A week in review

HBO host Bill Maher didn’t hold back as he laid into the Democratic Party for “doubling down” on the politics that led to electoral defeat. | Yahoo

Note for new subscribers: On Fridays I send out a post with a list of notable quotes from the past week, along with links to some of the best reading material I’ve come across. You can opt out of these posts by simply clicking on the top right and going to “manage subscription.”

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• “Mr. Trump’s election demonstrates how American tolerance for the unacceptable is nearly infinite.” — NYT’s Roxanne Gay

• “You have to be pithy. What do I mean by pithy? How about this, Republicans want to kill your kids. It’s actually true.” — The Washington Post’s Jen Rubin, on the kind of messaging Democrats should use to reach people who don’t follow politics

• “We have received feedback from some colleagues who were concerned or offended by this occurrence, and we value colleagues feeling comfortable expressing their reservations. We would like to thank our colleagues who had the courage to speak up to widen our lens of inclusivity, and we appreciate all colleagues continuing to live our values of respect and justice.” — Tammy Kritzer, senior vice president for regional operations at Essentia Health, in an email to medical staff after some employees were traumatised by a Chick-Fil-A lunch

• “More than us having [Denver Police Department] stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there. It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right? You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.” — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who has vowed to resist any attempt by ICE to enter the city

• “The worst part about so much of this transphobia from far right figures is just how many of these people are fucking trans sex workers on the side.” — Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic

• “Today’s Democrat Party is no longer the party of the little guy or the anti-war party. Democrats are the party of the academic administrator of Brown University.” — WSJ’s Peggy Noonan, during an interview on MSNBC

• “Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s push to slash alleged government bureaucracy may begin with requiring federal workers to return to work in office full-time.” — Politico’s Rachel Bade

• “Young, well-off white boys from liberal families are being tempted by conservatism simply to protect an archaic idea of masculinity that guarantees them inherent power.” — The Guardian

• “So much of the frustration inside the FBI comes from the fact that so many of these attacks on the organization as officials there tell us, were founded on a bedrock of disinformation.” — CNN’s Josh Campbell

• “I think we’re really at risk of politicizing the military in a way that we can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” — Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin, on new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s intent to end DEI policies and programs in the military

• “We cannot come together around Elon Musk, who runs an app infused with racism and misogyny, and gamed that app to sway an election and now essentially co-owns a president alongside Vladimir Putin.” — MSNBC’s Joy Reid

• “The entire Democratic party has become a Portlandia sketch.” — Bill Maher

• “RFK Jr. is the poster boy for the new Trump administration, a rich man who never has had to worry about a thing in his life, putting the lives of ordinary Americans in jeopardy because he thinks he knows better than scientists.” — The Nation’s Gregg Gonsalves

• “The Democratic party decided Biden was unfit to run as president but competent to escalate war with Russia even after the party lost. It isn’t really a party anymore but a piracy operation.” — Walter Kirn

• “The rise of the accused to positions of power raises new questions about the future of the #MeToo movement that swept through the country and upended societal expectations in recent years.” — NYT’s Peter Baker, arguing that people should be disqualified from public office if they’re merely accused of a crime

• “I support the right of academics to have weird ideas with a low batting average but high slugging percentage. That’s sort of the whole point of the tenure system IMO. The problem is Democrats’ fetishism for ‘experts’ has led them to not vet these ideas sufficiently.” — Nate Silver

• “Something that remains true even though some loud anti-woke voices keep saying it isn’t: 2+2 doesn’t always equal 4.” — NYT’s Issac Bailey

• “We should use our power as consumers to boycott X and all advertisers on X and on Fox News, mount defamation and other lawsuits against platforms that foment hate, and push for regulations (at least at the state level for now) requiring that all platforms achieve minimum standards of moderation and decency.” — Robert Reich

• “Why Trump’s Hegseth nomination for defense is a danger to the U.S. military” — Headline of an opinion piece written by The Washington Post’s Max Boot, whose wife was indicted for being a foreign agent

• “There’s no question I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset.” — Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, regarding Tulsi Gabbard

• “The thing about being willfully blind to racism and sexism, not just in your models but in your own soul, is that you can call the sitting vice president and first #BlackWoman to ever hold the office mediocre with your whole chest out and expect zero consequences whatsoever.” — Monique Pressley, in response to Nate Silver calling Kamala Harris a “mediocre candidate”

• “From the day after the election to date, MSNBC has averaged a total day viewership of 521,000 — down 38% from its 2024 average through election day — while CNN averaged 367,000 total viewers — a 27% decline from before the election, according to Nielsen figures. Meanwhile Fox News saw a 41% boost in total day viewership, now averaging 2.001 million viewers. Primetime viewership similarly cratered for MSNBC and CNN, with MSNBC seeing a 48% decline following the election with an average viewership of 691,000, while CNN slid 35% to average 470,000 viewers. Fox News’ primetime audience meanwhile grew 34% with an average viewership of 3.157 million.” — The Wrap’s Loree Seitz

• The New York Times: “How Kamala Harris Burned Through $1.5 Billion in 15 Weeks”

• Nautilus: “Your Data’s Strange Undersea Voyage”

• Reason: “How Scientific American’s Departing Editor Helped Degrade Science”

• Rest of World: “‘iPhones are made in hell’: 3 months inside China’s iPhone city”

• The Atlantic: “The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger”

• The Atlantic: “He Was the World’s Longest-Held Death-Row Inmate. He Was Also Innocent.”

• New York: “How Trump’s rising popularity in New York (and everywhere else) exposed the Democratic Party’s break with reality.”

• Harper’s: “The Painted Protest: How politics destroyed contemporary art”