Quotes of the Week
Plus links to some of the best articles and essays.
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 longform essays and articles that I’ve come across. You can opt out of these posts by clicking “manage subscription” on the top right.
“All of the Zoomers that work for me are bisexual, and all of them have long covid. I’ll believe long covid is real when someone who is not bisexual has it.” — Sean McElwee, a Democratic policy advisor and data scientist
“And then they rigged the election. And then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again, and I’ll shove it up their ass.’ And that’s what I did.” — Donald Trump
“Brutal new data for Democrats on the demographic shifts in the 2024 election. They lost ground — or failed to improve — with every cohort and sub-cohort. With the exception of a 1-point gain among married white women.” — NBC News senior political reporter Sahil Kapur, regarding The Cook Political Report’s “Comprehensive New Data Analysis Into Why Harris Lost in 2024”
“There are people who knew [about Biden] and said nothing, and that is a crime against this Republic. And I think the Democrats are going to pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover-up.” — CNN’s Van Jones
“Thing that this election has proven, that this administration has proven, painfully in some ways, is that black people cannot save this country from white folks. We can’t do it alone.” — MSNBC’s Elie Mystal
“The only way for Dems to fight this is to draw up a list right now of GOP lawmakers they plan to prosecute if they get back into office in 2028.” — Mehdi Hasan
“Why Does It Matter Whether Covid Came Out of a Lab?” — NYT headline1
“How Did So Many Elected Democrats Miss Biden’s Infirmity?” — Another NYT headline
“Yes, the media’s Biden coverage was flawed. But its reporting on Trump was far worse” — Guardian headline
“Hopefully he rots in hell and rests in piss.” — Taylor Lorenz, in response to news about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis
“If ur not masking rn during an ongoing pandemic you believe this eugenic ideology btw, whether you want to admit it or not. If ur not masking you’re ok with infecting and killing/disabling those around u by spewing Covid all over, so mask tf up and don’t talk abt eugenics if ur contributing to it.” — Also Taylor Lorenz
“I think if the election were held next Tuesday, or tomorrow, we would win back the House.” — Hillary Clinton
“Well, first of all, don’t be a handmaiden to the patriarchy, which kind of eliminates every woman on the other side of the aisle, except for very few.” — Also Hillary Clinton, when asked what advice she’d give the first female president of the United States
“Essentially, they’re mad at me for proving that democracy can deliver.” — Stacey Abrams, regarding the outrage over her climate change nonprofit receiving $2 billion from U.S. taxpayers despite not accomplishing anything
“Extremely easy test to see if someone is dishonest or stupid: see if they think James Comey did something dangerous or threatening when he posted a photo of seashells.” — The Washington Post’s Philip Bump
“It was pretty likely Biden was going to die if he won a second term, which is something no one wanted to talk about publicly because the Democratic Party is full of children who think bringing up sad things in life is rude and icky.” — Matthew Stoller
“Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power. First, make the truth-seekers live in fear. Power can rewrite history with grotesque false narratives. They can make criminals heroes and heroes criminals. Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. ‘Diversity’ is now described as ‘illegal.’ ‘Equity’ is to be shunned. ‘Inclusion’ is a dirty word.” — Scott Pelley, principal correspondent for 60 Minutes, in a commencement address at Wake Forest University
“Alex and I are here to say the conservative media was right and conservative media was correct and that there should be a lot of soul-searching, not just among me, but among the legacy media to begin with, all of us, for how this was covered or not covered sufficiently 100 percent.” — Jake Tapper
“The only way out is to face the truth. The president was not fine, was not even within shouting distance of fine — and until we examine our own failure to report that fact, neither are we.” — The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle
“Democrats always think everything is a messaging problem, which is a low-key way of saying you’re correct and infallible. In reality, Dems have massive cultural and policy problems they cannot fix by just by finding a new messenger.” — Mark Hemingway, regarding Democratic mega-donors debating plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on a range of influencer plans to “find the liberal Joe Rogan”
“One of the lines in ‘Original Sin’: ‘Five people were running the country, and Biden was at best a senior member of the board.’ For a good example, see the attempted student-loan theft. People around Biden used his infirmity to try to steal money to pay off their loans. Corruption.” — National Review’s Charles Cooke
If you need to get past a paywall, try Archive Today or 12ft.io.
The Atlantic: “An Autopsy Report on Biden’s In-Office Decline”
The Atlantic: “On 9/11, Luck Meant Everything”
Wired: “3 Teens Almost Got Away With Murder. Then Police Found Their Google Searches”
New York: “How One Woman Lost $75,000 to an MLM”
Texas Monthly: “Still Life”
Vanity Fair: “How a Ragtag Gang of Retirees Pulled Off the Biggest Jewel Heist in British History”
The New Yorker: “Looking for Life on a Flat Earth”
Outside: “The Killer in the Pool”
Note that this headline was later stealth edited and changed to “Why Are So Many People Sure Covid Leaked From a Lab?”
They 100% have a messaging problem. The message.
If Bump thinks Comey's Instagram share was just obviously a harmless bit of nothing to the honest and non-stupid, why stop at describing it as "a photo of seashells"? That's like describing a ransom note as "cut-out letters pasted on paper."