onfocus

Nobody likes to lose. So when your side loses an election, there’s huge social and psychological pressure to change your stance, to moderate what you believe so you don’t feel like a loser. Don’t do it. Things are worth believing and fighting for.

Good, necessary rant for today.

It's frustrating because the truth is much simpler and also doesn't put these two genders at loggerheads: Harris is better for both men and women, and Trump is much, much worse for people of any gender.

Revenge and chaos isn’t good for any human. Please vote for stability.

If 2020 is our guide, it's likely that the 2024 presidential election won't be decided on Election Day.

A good reminder that it could be a while before we know who won the election That’s always expected.

Kate and Josh discuss both campaigns’ closing arguments and the mess at the Washington Post.

This podcast episode is the best discussion I've heard of the Washington Post/Bezos endorsement debacle.

Alarmed about the possibility of being seen as “woke” or partisan, Shogan is purging the museum of everything that could substantiate such an allegation, such as exhibits that treat Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and civil rights activists as human beings with valuable and important stories.

The preemptive surrender to white supremacy is also something we need to constantly fight against. This washing of history from a Biden appointee is disappointing.

Data brokers are selling the ability to track phones that visit abortion clinics and follow them back across state lines, all the way to their owners’ homes. All it takes for this kind of 24-hour surveillance is a credit card. Given the creepy enthusiasm with which MAGA government officials are inserting themselves into women’s health choices, these tracking tools present a pressing danger for women across the country.

Thanks again to my senator Ron Wyden for fighting the good fight against our constant tech surveillance culture.

Trump doesn’t give a shit about any of this because he only cares about himself. He generally does not care to solve problems unless it benefits him personally, and the intellectual foundation of the MAGA movement that’s built up around him is the complete denial that collective action problems exist at all. The MAGA worldview is now so batshit that it requires its proponents to look at obvious failures of collective action and declare them immutable features of modern life — or, in an even stupider twist — announce them to be good things.

All of this. Please vote for people to run the government who believe the government can solve problems. However imperfect, that's what government is there for--not a personal revenge system.

More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.

If you have a billionaire you're basically immune from market forces. But very happy to see people stop supporting a billionaire's unprincipled pet project. Really nice work. I'm going to stop linking to it. (Up next: stop using Twitter?)

I don’t fear that my entire publication will be forced to kowtow to the whims of billionaire trying to make nice with a fascist. I don’t fear that an editor will tell me I can’t publish an article calling Donald Trump a fascist. I don’t have to get anyone to approve it when I say that I, and Citation Needed, wholeheartedly endorse Kamala Harris for president, not because she is perfect but because the other option is violent authoritarianism.

Molly White on the freedom and pain of being an independent journalist.

This early sneak preview of what dictatorship actually looks like is also providing the most important lesson we could have right now, which is how to not obey in advance but stand up against strongmen and bullies. How all of us respond over the coming days and weeks will decide the fate of the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country.

More on billionaire capitulation.

On Friday, the Washington Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced that the paper would no longer make endorsements for president—after its journalists had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision was made by Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner.

What’s the point of a billionaire owning a newspaper if he can’t use it to promote his interests? Disgusting how ungrateful these billionaires are to the country and institutions that put them in a position to make billions.