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.
“It was clear from the beginning which parts of the job Hegseth most enjoyed: working out, posting about working out, and discussing the imminent removal of trans servicemembers.” — New York’s Kerry Howley
“Donald Trump is America’s Hitler.” — Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell
“[Trump] can’t get the numbers he needs to sake his fans’ thirst for brown pain, without going to the states where most Latinos live.” — Joy Reid
“Maybe if the right ever acknowledged right-wing political violence there would be less right-wing political violence.” — The Washington Post’s Philip Bump
“Obvious point: Most of the undocumented immigrants who are being rounded up are better Americans, in the ways that matter, than Donald J. Trump.” — Bill Kristol
“Look at Trump’s Truth Social post. Consider his call with Newsom. He is incoherent, insane. Failure of corporate press to say that every day as he is taking us down the road to a police state is the gravest journalistic malpractice in American history. They will never redeem themselves.” — Jen Rubin
“Instead of protecting and defending the country, Trump has unleashed the military to terrorize Americans and march for his birthday. Congrats, Republicans. This is what you’ve enabled.” — Wajahat Ali
“I’m just sort of surprised by the number of people who were at the front of the parade watching, cheering, and then would come and ask to take a selfie. This is a very different, this is a very different mood here. People seem to be going out of their way to say that they’re here to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday.” — MSNBC’s Ali Velshi
“To have democracy, a beacon of hope for the world to now be turned into one of the, you know, one of the worst countries where the military are in our streets without any regard for people’s constitutional rights, while our president’s spending millions of dollars prompting himself up like a failed dictator with a military parade, it is really shocking and it should be a wake-up call for all Americans to say this is not the country we were born and this is not the country we believe in.” — Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar
“During the pandemic, we witnessed the birth of a new religion of contrarianism and conspiracy thinking—the first sacrament of which is to ‘do your own research.’ The problem is that very few people are qualified to do this research. And the result is a society driven by strongly-held, unfounded opinions on everything from vaccine safety to the war in Ukraine.” — Sam Harris
“People have to just start thinking bigger in this country, and they have to look at what we’re up against. I’ve been sort of trying to shout this from the rooftops or wherever anybody will listen to me, the end of a bar in Kansas City, whatever: the president of the United States is a danger to this country. Full stop.” — Jim Acosta
“No place on the planet has ever in history been better for white progressive women with bullshit college degrees than America in 2025, and there’s no place in time they hate more.” — Margot Cleveland
“The humanities couldn’t compete with the Economics Department in promising Wall Street jobs, but they could claim to be ‘useful’ in other concrete ways post-graduation: namely, by giving you the ‘tools’ to be a Good Person with Correct Opinions. The ROI is moral social capital.” — Bates College professor Tyler Austin Harper
“Not if you’re black.” — The View’s Whoopi Goldberg, in response to Alyssa Farah saying “it’s very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran in 2025”
“To achieve his desired results, Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, used one of the oldest legal tricks in the white man’s book. He reanimated the should-be-dead idea that treating people ‘the same’ is the same as treating people ‘equally.’” — MSNBC’s Elie Mystal, regarding United States v. Skrmetti and the Supreme Court upholding (6-3) a Tennessee law banning “gender affirming care” to minors
“But, given that we are beset by a bigoted and discriminatory Supreme Court, the way forward, the only way forward, is to take out our frustrations on the elected officials who pass and support these bigoted laws.” — Also Elie Mystal
“A penis is not a male body part. It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.” — Chase Strangio, the transgender ACLU attorney who argued before the Supreme Court in United States v. Skrmetti
“I honestly don’t care anymore if this country destroys itself and burns down to the ground. The current form of the United States is incompatible with democracy or human rights. It no longer has any legitimacy to govern and I’ll dance on its grave. Let something better rise from the ashes.” — Alejandro Caraballo, American civil rights attorney and instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic
"We’ve got a mental health crisis in this country because everyone, no matter how you affiliate yourself, should be against Trump, period.” — Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett
“MAGA celebrates the tools of mass shooters and assassins - assault rifles, machine guns, silencers and high capacity magazines. MAGA doesn’t treat firearms with respect - it celebrates their killing power.” — Democratic Senator Chris Murphy
If you need to get past a paywall, try Archive Today or 12ft.io.
The New York Times: “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.”
Outside: “Snowbound”
GQ: “Tent City, U.S.A.”
Atavist: “Blood Cries Out”
Rolling Stone: “The Death of a CrossFit Athlete”
The New Yorker: “What’s Happening to Reading?”
Harper’s: “Rotten Ice”
The New York Times Magazine: “How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost”
My girl Jazz Crockett back on the list....I'm convinced she's working towards a weekly, standalone column.
Wow, Chase Strangio is a dead on brilliant name for a transgender attorney, and kudos to Margot Cleveland!