Zak (@zearl) header
Zak (@zearl) profile picture

Contentsman, trance respector

Queens
Joined July 2009
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I like Halloween zak.blue/notes/halloween
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Has there been a single documented instance of change occurring as a result of change.org? Maybe once in 2009 when it was a novelty? xitter.gq/Popstonox/status/21181…
Mark Ruffalo calls for Hakeem Jeffries to be replaced as Speaker of the House He is circulating a petition that now has 380,408 signatures "We are calling on every member of the incoming Congress to vote against Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker and choose a different candidate"
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Clicked on StackOverflow instead of AI overview for old times’ sake
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I don’t understand this type of smugness either and it’s all over this site now. Being smart enough to see the pattern gets you nowhere. Are they hoping one day someone is going to come along and ask them what to do and implement their strategy? xitter.gq/barbarismcrit/status/2…
Some people are really smug about the near certainty of dems doing nothing and nothing changing but I am not. While I know that’s virtually inevitable, the consequences of that will be so incredibly catastrophic for the working class and people abroad and it brings me no pleasure to have that foresight. I can’t really relate to getting satisfaction from being right about how bad things are going to get if dems do what they are almost definitely going to do.
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My attitude is I want to create the conditions for openings, which I know are inherently rare.
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There is such thing as being too cynical and being caught off guard when an opening arrives, so I try to follow people who do get hyped up more than I would to see what’s on their radar I’m missing. Zohran is a good example.
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I’m holding out some hope that between this and Trump wanting to be popular, probably insulated from the truth of his popularity until now, he’ll end the war before Dems can vote on it, which I don’t trust them to do at all. xitter.gq/JDVance/status/2118004…
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up. So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us." Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026. There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true. But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone. Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were: 1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.) In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you. The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
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Wonder if young people are voting more *because* they don’t get out as much and drink and are inside scrolling their phones.
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Zak retweeted
BREAKING: BAR STOOL SPORTS ACQUIRED BY JACOBIN
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You can't seriously judge how economic populists performed without accounting for the massive Republican spending advantage they faced in Maine, Ohio, Michigan, and Texas
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If Jews in the NW Detroit suburbs hated Arabs that much, they wouldn’t be living in the same towns. There’s plenty of empty space out there.
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They know cringe when they see it, but they were too young to really know Trump. They probably absorbed the vibe of Resistance 2017-20 in middle/high school. xitter.gq/ettingermentum/status/…
Every single element of their insipid masturbatory communications strategy was designed around what young men supposedly liked. No single group shifted more to the left.
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Also the type of person that appeals to Trump as a cabinet member like Hegseth and his woke reverse euphemism treadmill “war fighters” is infinitely more cringe than Trump himself, not only are those people on the ballot but they’re still being neocons.
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I’ll have one Woke Russian please xitter.gq/RossBarkan/status/2117…
Blue wave got so high even all the Republicans got blown out in southern Brooklyn
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I’m just a South Park millennial at heart. Turd sandwich vs the giant douche, and I say I’d rather the douche be normal size, but at least it makes getting fucked a better experience.
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Ok I’m satisfied with this definitive take, goodnight.
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I don’t love Michigan being at Mississippi levels of uncertainty but that’s probably the price of having someone good.
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It’s not really, they just can’t count votes in Detroit
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Chud 1 was crazyyyy
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New villain rotating era xitter.gq/EdMarkey/status/211783…
WHO WANTS MEDICARE FOR ALL?
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Learned about phrase yolo on NPR. It is what all the "kids" are saying. "You only live once." Better take that to heart as I am getting old.
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