https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2026/09/12/democrats-dsa-midterm-elections-socialism-capitalism/91676903007/

«DSA’s successes have also been concentrated in deep-blue, urban areas, where winning the Democratic nomination is winning the seat. Most Democratic politicians and voters don’t come from those places, and they’re far less likely to fall for DSA’s pitch – as Francesca Hong’s defeat in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary suggests.

A better way to think about DSA isn’t as a hostile takeover, but as the vanguard of a radicalized professional class. It’s a continuation of a trend already reshaping the Democratic Party: professionals increasingly run it, and those same professionals have grown more radical, especially in the Trump era.

So when 66% of Democrats say they view socialism favorably, versus just 42% for capitalism, that doesn’t mean two-thirds of Democrats are about to join DSA, or that they even agree on what “socialism” means. It means professionals, radicalized by their opposition to President Donald Trump, are picking the brand that signals maximum opposition. That radicalization is fertile ground for DSA recruiting, even if most people professing a liking for socialism just mean something vague, like “be kind” or “government should do more.”

But Democrats warming to socialism isn’t shared by the country as a whole, especially the working class. Only 39% of Americans views socialism positively, according to Gallup. YouGov has the share at just 31%. In a June Economist/YouGov poll, just 29% of Americans said they’d ever consider voting for a self-identified democratic socialist. Among those without a college degree, just 23% said they’d ever consider voting for a democratic socialist; among the college-educated, 40% would consider it.

A July Washington Post/Ipsos poll found similar results: Americans rejected the idea of a democratic socialist presidential candidate by 16 percentage points. Among those with just a high school degree, the rejection widened to 28 percentage points. Once again, the college-educated were far more receptive, splitting roughly down the middle.»

I just happen to be in the Nairobi airport and I heard an announcement in what sounded to my uneducated ears as pretty decent Chinese. Which means somebody has been studying, I think, unless they just hired a Chinese person, for reasons.

The times are changing, y’all.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-arch-arlington-cemetery-lincoln-memorial

What to do with the Arc de Trump:

It occurs to me that one of the things keeping my mind sharp is constantly figuring how to Do Stuff on the web, so… never stop, FireFox. Keep moving shit around, including different arrangements as I move from phone to tablet to PC.

https://www.status.news/p/cbs-news-el-sayed-bari-weiss-9-11

CBS and Bari Weiss (and David Ellison) working hard to stir up a tempest in a teapot, I guess.

«Hudak then reported on two now-deleted social media posts referencing 9/11 that El-Sayed had published during the pandemic. The first was from April 2020, when El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former public health official, noted that the COVID-19 death toll had surpassed the 9/11 death toll. In the second, El-Sayed wrote that since more Americans had died from COVID-19 than the terrorist attacks, he hoped “that means we’ll spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty … like we launched a global #WaronTerror after 9/11. We could save lives rather than take them.”

To most people, El-Sayed’s social media posts were likely innocuous. In fact, top politicians, including then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and mainstream news organizations, including CBS News itself, had pointed out at the time that the pandemic was killing more Americans than 9/11. But in Weiss’ eyes, the news organization had apparently uncovered a scandal worthy of attention from a national news outlet.

…

But CBS News took those old posts, stressed that El-Sayed had deleted them (even though his campaign had previously said he deleted all posts prior to 2023, not just these ones), and framed them around the upcoming anniversary of 9/11. The obvious implication was that there was something sinister about the manner in which the prominent Muslim candidate invoked 9/11, even though his posts themselves were mundane.»

https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-milo-yiannopoulos-mike-collins-nazi-racist-young

IS it a problem, though? MSN article, blah, blah, blah.

Seems to me it’s only a problem for the GOP if it’s a problem for voters. Do voters actually care? I didn’t see anything on that topic while skimming the article.

I mean… I’m not exactly discouraged, but all these “it’s a problem!” articles that don’t cite voter sentiment are just froth carrying ads. If it doesn’t matter outside the beltway….

https://bookshop.org/p/books/that-time-i-got-drunk-and-saved-a-demon-kimberly-lemming/23ec41ff899b8b7b?ean=9780316570268#open_in_app

I think somebody snuck anti racism into my stupid romance. What the hell?

«She shook out her hands and approached Fallon at his seat on the table. He looked up at her with a bored expression but kept eating. “You… can talk,” she began slowly. “And… and not just basic words either. Like rational spoken words?”

“I tend to save my mindless screaming for Tuesdays,” he replied coolly.

Usha brought a hand to her cheek in a nervous motion before smoothing her skirts again. “OK, so it would stand to reason that you and other demons like yourself have complex thoughts. Hopes and dreams, just like we do. Not… not just mindless beasts?”

Fallon rolled his eyes and rested his head on his hand. “It would seem so.”

“Oh dear.” The innkeeper began to pace back and forth.

Maybe I should have just lied and said Fallon was a particular case, so we could have just left her out of it. Though there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t kill her just to keep her quiet. Usha was eccentric but had been nothing but kind to us since we got there.

After a moment, she stomped her foot and marched up to Fallon again. Then, with a deep breath to steel her nerves, she bowed her head. “I’m sorry!”

“What?” we asked in unison.

Usha kept her head bowed as she replied. “I’m sorry. While I didn’t take any slaves of my own, I thought nothing was wrong with the practice. I thought demons were just mindless animals, and that was wrong. If destroying Myva’s chalice will break the curse, then I’d like to help you while you are here.”

Oh. That took a turn.

Fallon rose from his chair and clapped a hand on Usha’s shoulder. She flinched and looked up at him. “Thank you,” he said simply.

“Hey, Usha, not that I’m complaining, but why are you agreeing to help us?” I asked. Concern crept into the back of my mind. She really had no reason to jump on board so quickly. She didn’t even know us.

The innkeeper’s smile faded. Her gaze dropped to the floor, and her hands clenched the front of her skirt. “I’ve unknowingly walked past fully sentient people being treated as less than animals and did nothing. If it were me at the end of a chain, I couldn’t imagine the kind of monster that would walk past me and do nothing if they knew the truth.”

Her answer left me speechless for a moment. But she was right. Her logic was simple and just made changing one’s entire worldview seem like a mundane occurrence. Maybe it should be. As much as I’d rather stay out of conflict and live out my life in peace, I don’t think I could walk away from someone suffering in front of me.

“So,” Usha began, turning to me. “What’s the plan?”»

https://www.businessinsider.com/mamdani-pied-a-terre-tax-rich-new-york-homeowner-loopholes-2026-8

«”I have one client who said, ‘Well, they don’t know that I live in Florida,'” recalls Fitzhenry. “I said, ‘Where do you file your tax returns?’ He says, ‘In Florida.'”

Fitzhenry chuckles. “That’s a tough sell.”»

I’m reading the news (Trump wanting to make Canada a state again, American troops patrolling Washington D.C., USPS blocking vote by mail, incredible deficits, beef prices and tariffs going up and down, Trump falling in love with every dictator entering the room), and I’m thinking, “Why isn’t ‘Are you tired of government by  social media?’ a more common campaign slogan?”

Are people not actually tired of government by social media? (I mean… enough people.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/22/debt-surpasses-40-trillion-bill-washington-spending-comes-due/

Man, this headline just irks me. Let’s see if I can fix it.

“After decades of increasing deficits, Washington is facing some unpalatable choices”

How is that “starving the government until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub” working, Grover Norquist? Are we there yet? Are we ready to cut Social Security and Medicare (more)? Are you ready to say this was the plan all along?