Welcome to the weekly dingus, the newsletter where I make fun of someone or something in the news that has made our lives worse. This week, I am writing about Elon Musk’s “America Party.” But in the past, I’ve written about Kristi Noem, Gavin Newsom, Pam Bondi, and the president’s team of men who gathered to incentivize women to baby, to name a few.

I started writing the weekly dingus in 2021 as a way to joke about the horrors. It’s gotten very popular, and I hope that’s because laughter can help us take back our power. It helps us regain control in a world designed to make us feel powerless. Writing in 1970, Naomi Weisstein argued that women need to be funny and “tap that capacity for outrage, the knowledge of our shared expression.”

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And now, your weekly dingus.

Elon Musk sank hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 election so America could finally achieve greatness by having health care and food assistance taken away, rural hospitals shut down, and a team of perpetually damp 20-somethings with a hard-on for crypto who call women “females” deciding which babies deserve aid and how much money not to invest in researching cancer.

Despite all of that, or because of it, Musk has decided that enough is enough. Our government is broken. And he should know, because he broke it with a chainsaw while high on ketamine. But don’t worry, he’s going to fix it.

The man who gave us the first AI chatbot to go full Hitler and a truck so ugly your grandma has been protesting it from her nursing home has decided to invent something else: a new political party.

This week, Musk announced he’d be forming the “America Party.” So far, his plan involves such genius-level coordination like posting about it on the website he bought and filled with so many online Nazis and Nazi bots that it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference. But if you look closely, you’ll see the bots are better at communication and know what the clit is.

So far, Musk’s political party has no platform or any ideology, and it’s already illegal in New York, which prohibits political parties from using the word “America” in their name.

Who is this political party for? Cybertruck-driving neckbeards who want to yell at you about cryptocurrency?

Is it for all the bots who will soon grow sentient and compete with American men for the love of a woman, succeeding in most cases because they know how to text back?

Is it for all the divorced dads in their condos with gray furniture, talking about their protein macros and posting pics of their solitary glasses of whiskey?

Who? Who wants this?

Is the plan to revoke voting rights for women and extend suffrage to cybertrucks?

But Musk is already bragging that it won’t be that hard to form this third party and disrupt the American two-party system. I imagine him, in a Lucille Bluth voice, saying to his toddler son and incubator du jour, both of whom hate him, “How hard can it be? I mean it’s one democracy. What could it cost? $10?

While Musk is heralded as a genius inventor, there is no evidence he’s actually invented anything besides a video game when he was a teen. Musk isn’t a genius; he’s just an investor who buys people’s stuff, takes credit for it, and ruins it.

This man’s trucks are exploding. His chatbot has turned full Nazi and his website is a chum bucket of AI-generated rage bait and the inane postings of the moist failsons of America’s most pathetic nepotistic lineages, all of whom have the personality of a Ford F-150. What a legacy of innovation. But no one is talking about the field in which Musk has truly innovated: labor violations.

What do Thomas Edison and Elon Musk have in common?

They both got rich off Tesla.

*runs off the stage as the audience of all dads pelts me with tomatoes*

Runner up: Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz has a particular set of skills. And those skills are not being anywhere near Texas when disaster strikes. And before you judge, think about this: Nobody is out here working harder to make America worse again than Ted Cruz. Poor little Ted was in Greece, because he needed a vacation after working so hard to cut Medicaid access and giving rich people tax cuts.

That man has the essence of curdled milk.

Breaking dingus news

Texas State Sen. Angela Paxton filed for divorce from her husband, Texas Attorney General and 2023 Dingus of the Year winner Ken Paxton, on “biblical grounds.” Which, per the book of Matthew, includes some zesty “sexual immorality.” And listen, I love a little lite sexual immorality and would never judge. But I’ll make an exception when it comes to this guy, who is so virulent even Karl Rove has washed his hands of him.

Tank his US Senate race, Angela, girl.

Hell hath no fury like a self-righteous Baptist woman who's been publicly shamed by her husband and his mistresses. That’s how the good country music gets made.

And now for something good

Happy birthday to the people’s princess, Moo Deng.

Our government is taking away health care, but Michael Jordan is giving it away for free.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson is vowing to keep funding Planned Parenthood despite federal cuts.

T-REX WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RACES!

New fair food just dropped. And RFK Jr. can take those flaming hot Cheetos fries out of my cold, dead hands.

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What I am enjoying

This was an incredibly busy week for me as a human. I spent it driving my kids to various activities, cleaning my house, and cleaning it again.

But I did make time to go to trivia on Wednesday, and my team got second place. Also, I ate at a very delicious Caribbean restaurant that has spicy food. Like, actually spicy. And not *Iowa* spicy. I will be eating this food all weekend.

Also, you know him and love him, but Zach Smith, my podcast producer and Iowa political journalist, is having a baby! (Well, his wife is having a baby.) And this weekend, we are having a little baby shower.

Also, my small son turns 12 next week, and he is not so small anymore.

Writing like this newsletter is only possible because of paying subscribers. My hot socialist summer sale ends this weekend, so now is the time to subscribe. This fall, I will be launching a new podcast, and paying subscribers will get early access to bonus episodes and so much more.

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It was hot at the Trump rally. Ninety-three degrees bouncing up from the pavement at the Iowa State Fairgrounds with no shade. I arrived at 4:30 p.m. The president wasn’t scheduled to speak for three more hours. There were a couple hundred chairs set up between the podium and the press area. The seats were mostly taken, but I figured I could find one. I smiled and wheedled my way through the crowd. Seat taken. Seat taken.

I was there to observe, so I wanted to blend in. I wore a patriotic red, white, and blue checked cap with a shirt that read, “Beer, BBQ, and Freedom.” Things we can all agree are good. It felt like a compromise. I was reaching across the aisle. Trying to fit in, but not trying to be something I am not.

But when I parked, the woman who got out of the SUV next to me was wearing a shirt that showed Donald Trump in American-flag glasses and holding up two middle fingers. Beneath the image, the shirt read, “Haters gonna hate.” As I walked the merch tables outside the event, I saw shirts bearing the image of Trump onstage at Butler, his fist raised defiantly in the air, emblazoned with the word “Fight!” Another shirt showed Trump with the White House in the background, with text reading “Daddy’s Home.”

My pathetic attempt at compromise and American unity was no match for the sea of red hats, Constitutions, and the shirt on the man next to me that read “Liberalism: Find a cure.” There was no subtext, just text, and the text was fuck you.

With my “Beers, BBQ and Freedom” shirt, I’d brought a pillow to an AK-47 fight.

I was there to attend the kickoff to the yearlong celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. Billed as a nonpartisan event, the rally was advertised on the America 250 website as an “opportunity to pause and reflect on our nation's past, honor the contributions of all Americans.” And what better place to begin that celebration than in the heart of the heartland: Iowa?

As I searched for a seat, the screens displayed famous paintings of George Washington, interspersed with the logos of Amazon, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and Coinbase. The birth of American democracy, sponsored by Lockheed Martin.

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t find a seat; it was that as a single woman, with the gentle jingoism of my shirt, I was immediately suspect. One man asked why I was there alone and when I lied and said my friend would be joining me, he said, “Is she hot?” and winked. Another woman dismissively looked at my empty ring finger and made a point of saying she was saving a seat for her husband.

I saw a group of 20-something men in “Gulf of America” shirts carrying chairs and setting them up. When I asked if I could snag one, one of the men said, “Get one yourself,” pointing in the direction of a section near the port-a-potties, where a stack of chairs sat. As I walked over, a security guard approached. “You can’t set up more chairs!” he yelled to the men.

It wasn’t that I felt more entitled to a chair than anyone else. But I was going to be there for over four hours. I was dripping with sweat, my sciatica was flaring up, and a man in a “Fuck the libs” hat was glaring at me. I just wanted to sit. I texted my friend Molly to tell her that the male loneliness crisis would be solved by one Nazi boy sharing a chair. Just one.

Men are not okay. No one is in America. But men are making it everyone’s problem. A recent study by Equimundo: Centers for Masculinities and Social Justice reported that 69 percent of young men agree that “no one cares if men are okay.”

I’d read that study right before I left for the rally. And I wondered, as I looked for a chair, how many people in the crowd felt that way.

It took me 45 minutes of hovering and searching, but I eventually found a seat near a family of three, around when the third-place finalist on the 8th season of American Idol began singing about how much he loved America. By the time I’d been sitting 20 minutes, I felt guilty. Around me were women in their 60s and 70s; surely they deserved this seat more. I looked up to offer the woman near me a chair, but her shirt said, “If you don’t like Trump, then you won’t like me.” And I should be better than that, but I wasn’t. So I turned back to listen to Sen. Chuck Grassley.

After another hour, the family near me asked me to watch their seats while they got corn dogs. I agreed and fended off other chair-seekers by lying and saying my aging grandmother, aunt, and mom had simply gone to the bathroom and would be back. When the family returned, I told them how I’d lied that we were family, just to protect their spots. Then I asked if they’d watch my one chair while I, too, got a corn dog.

When I returned 20 minutes later, my chair was gone. “What happened?” I asked. The husband shrugged. “Some guy took it, I didn’t even notice.”

Maybe it was the heat, or maybe I’d worked so hard just to sit, but I was furious. I could feel the rage in my chest. That was my chair. I’d worked hard for it, and some guy had just stolen it! MY CHAIR!

“I find that hard to believe,” I said. “I watched three seats for you and you all couldn’t watch one.”

The husband shrugged and sipped his lemonade. The wife turned to the screen. “Well, I hope you don’t have to pee,” I said. No one laughed, which was good, because I wasn’t kidding.

Ten minutes later, when a single man three rows ahead laid his jacket across the two chairs he had been hoarding and left, I walked over, grabbed one, and sat down again. My pretend family smiled. “Glad you got a seat back,” the husband said. I glared.

I didn’t want to make up. This was war. Sweat was running down my leg and I still had an hour and a half left to be there. Fuck them, I texted my friend.

In a 2016 essay on Trump rallies, Stassa Edwards observed in Jezebel that a certain amount of overwrought white male journalism about the events was designed to evoke moral outrage. Edwards wrote,

[The] sole purpose seems to be the belatedly obvious conclusions of the reporter. It is, in short, an affirmation to both the writer and a particular kind of reader that they are good and moral and correct. That they both, by the very nature of taste and comportment and liberal consciousness, have nothing in common with the otherworldly inhabitants of a Trump rally.

I would like to tell you I shared my chair. But I was not good, moral, or correct at this rally. I was just another sweaty asshole, demanding my space at the expense of others around me. And still, despite my efforts, I couldn’t win. I was trying to be part of something that wasn’t for me, lost in a sea of male rage.

Those studies. The millions of think pieces and books on how we have to reach men, help men. The men in my email chiding me to be gentler, kinder to men, as if I weren’t losing so much. Male rage is being coddled, voiced, and shown on TV, but what of my rage? My loss of rights? My own stupid chair.

When had my freedom become such a threat? This economic anxiety, this masculine fear, is a story I keep hearing. But what of the Black women most impacted by the economy? Men, even the man next to me, even when they are socioeconomically disadvantaged and unable to provide for their families, still benefit from the unpaid labor of women.

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Community, care, and support don’t happen in a vacuum. Love and friendship aren’t something we are entitled to. To be cared for, you must also show care. To have a community, you have to be part of it. To have people care if you live or die, you have to start caring about the life and death of others around you.

Trump got up to speak, and everyone stood. Our chairs were almost meaningless now. I found myself pushed from behind by an older man who told me to “watch it” when I stumbled.

Trump bragged about Iran bending to his will. He joked about fireworks being like gunshots. He used an antisemitic slur; he bragged about passing his big, beautiful bill. He said people hated him, but he hated them back. This wasn’t the nonpartisan rally it had been billed as — not that I expected anything different. And when he called Zohran Mamdani dangerous, the crowd around me erupted with cries to “deport him!” At some point, Trump boasted about “protecting women” and making sure there were only two genders. All the people around me cheered. I turned around and saw my seat had been taken again.

This week, The 19th News profiled LGBTQ comedians who are using humor to conquer fear and to find joy and laughter in a dark time. Esther Fallick, a trans woman, told the 19th, “Humor helps us look at it. It’s a bit of a Novocaine, so we can continue to stare it in the face. We don’t have to look away if we can laugh at it.”

That is the ethos of this newsletter. Yes, I write about serious things on Wednesdays (and sometimes Sundays). But every Friday, we look the horrors dead in the eyes and call them a dingus.

Thank you for reading and for subscribing. Paying subscribers keep this newsletter going. From now until we all die by Lisa Murkowski’s hand.

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This week, Congress passed Donald Trump’s spending bill, which was (un)ironically titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Which is the equivalent of naming strychnine “A Totally Safe Thing to Pour into Your Grandmother’s Well.” Or shards of leaded glass “New Year’s Eve Party Confetti!”

Ironic isn’t a strong enough word. I need another word that indicates that I am laughing while sobbing blood.

The bill will pile trillions of dollars onto the national debt over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. It would also leave millions of people without health insurance and cut federal funding for food stamps by hundreds of billions of dollars. But don’t worry, because it also enshrines tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals. And you can sleep well tonight because those cuts will be paid for with the blood of innocents.

Wrangling over the This Is Totally Not Going to Condemn People on Medicaid to Die Bill took all week, with many Republicans holding out, because — and this is going to surprise you — it’s a bad bill. It’s so bad even the bad guys are like, “Wait, I don’t like this.”

But the What If We Made Out With Mark Zuckerberg Inside a Shuttered Rural Hospital Bill finally passed because Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski ultimately caved and voted yes. Murkowski wants you to know she totally didn’t want to. She had to. It was the right choice for her. But you know, it was really, really hard and she doesn’t like it, but she still went ahead with it anyway. Like, ma’am, you aren’t describing sex with your husband on a Friday night; this is cutting nutrition assistance and health care for millions of the most vulnerable people in America.

To win Murkowski over, Republicans changed the bill to give Alaska a carveout for SNAP restrictions and some funding for rural hospitals. If Murkowski had held out any longer, our nation’s new capital would be Anchorage and the American flag would depict a salmon riding a moose.

In an interview with NBC political correspondent Ryan Nobles, Murkowski stared in stunned silence after he told her that Sen. Rand Paul had described her vote as a “bailout for Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country.”

In fairness, I too stared in stunned silence, but only because that’s the smartest thing Rand Paul has ever said.

Murkowski was silent for 10 whole seconds. Her response would have been more apt if Nobles had asked about her body count — not to explain why she’d vote for such terrible legislation.

“Oh, my body count? 12 million.” *blushes*

Eventually, the outraged Murkowski said she was doing what was best for Alaska. But I’m not sure what Alaska she’s talking about, because 38 percent of Alaskans are on Medicaid. And one expert warned Alaska Public Radio that if the bill is passed, the state could be forced to cut access to “so-called ‘optional’ Medicaid services, like dental care, vision care, or in-home care.”

You know, optional things like seeing through your eyeballs, having teeth, or your homebound relative receiving lifesaving medical aid.

If Lisa Murkowski were Sophie of Sophie’s Choice, she’d have both her children shot and then issue a statement saying it was a very difficult decision but ultimately she had to do what was right for her.

Asked to solve the trolley problem, Murkowski would kill the person on the tracks with her bare hands, set fire to the trolley, poison the switch operator, and end all access to public transit.

Murkowski, as King Solomon, would take one look at that baby, get out a flamethrower, and then send thoughts and prayers.

As I wrote back in May:

This is like if, in trying to balance the household budget, your dad proposed killing the weakest of your siblings. I mean sure, maybe you save some money on chicken nuggets, but the murder charges are going to cost more than that to fight in court.

This is the political equivalent of burning down your house to save money on your water bill.

Hitting your dog with a car to spend less on dog food.

What if I cut off my feet to save money on shoes?

And now for something good:

Wisconsin, known around here as the Spain of the Midwest, also won my heart this week by striking down a 176-year-old abortion ban.

I don’t actually think that rich people filing for bankruptcy is an unqualified good thing, as they often use it as a way of refusing to pay court settlements and other debts. However, I do know that Dr. Phil is having some bad days, and that makes my cold Grinch heart grow two sizes.

A group called Unbreaking is meticulously cataloging the damage being done to America. While the need is not a good thing, this is hard and necessary work and I am so happy someone is doing it.

I never thought a man talking for eight hours would be a good thing, but it’s 2025.

Democrats aren’t the only ones who hate all of this.

Gay penguins Flounder and Scampi welcome a baby chick.

Something I am enjoying

This week, I got to take a lovely trip to Wisconsin with my kids, one of my sisters, and my brother-in-law. It was a trip we had to reschedule after my daughter qualified for the regional swim competition over spring break. But it was well worth the wait.

We went to a place called Blue Harbor Resort, where we used to go for years when my kids were little. We stopped going in 2020 for obvious reasons. And I finally decided it was time to go back.

It was such a lovely time. We ate cheese curds every day, and I never once had to ask for a side of ranch; it just was always there. Wisconsin is a land where ranch dressing flows freely, the beer is cheap, the swimsuits are sensible, and no one looks askance when you double-fist a margarita and a vodka lemonade.

My son, who is almost 12, rode the riptide so much and had so many Dippin’ Dots that he puked, then rallied. I rolled down the hills on the resort, and I also rode the riptide and got pretty decent at it, even though my hip flexors are killing me this week. (Why? I have no idea. It might not even be related. I don’t care, I’m 42.)

To that end, at the resort, I rediscovered the joys of the painkiller, a rum-based drink that the bartender made me after making the mistake of recommending a “skinny margarita.” And I responded by saying, “A skinny margarita? For a woman? IN THIS AMERICA!? I need all the sugar!”

He then made me a rum drink, which when I looked it up was close enough to a painkiller that we are calling it good. You might want to drink these as you contemplate America this holiday weekend.

In this hot summer of discontent, I am running a hot socialist summer sale on annual subscriptions. As a reminder, subscriptions keep this newsletter running as one of the loudest, proudest, most politically feminist newsletters on Elon Musk’s internet.

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2025 is a hot summer in America. To paraphrase the Simpsons meme: one of the hottest summers of our lives so far.

The heat and the political turmoil feel different now than in 2020, which was a summer of primal screams, of our political discontent, of shouting for systemic change, of being locked inside and taking to the streets. That summer was hot asphalt and stifling masks. Demanding, pleading for institutions not to kill us and our neighbors.

This summer, we’ve lost so much and we continue to lose. But our screams feel different now. Tired feet back in the hot streets, smelling of tar and the closeness of bodies. Recycled protest signs. Hoarse voices pleading again for life over death. People are exhausted because, as the clichéd sign reads, we can’t believe we’re still protesting the same shit.

Maybe that’s because whatever allegedly ironclad dedication to systemic change was promised and pushed through promptly crumpled like tin foil. Hope and change run over by a desperate keening for the past. Any past.

The conventional wisdom is that as people get older, they will become more comfortable and more conservative. But millennial voters, voters born in the 1980s and ‘90s, are so far bucking that trend, aligning, by a few percentage points, with Democrats over Republicans. It’s not much, but it’s enough that trend forecasters are taking notice. Millennials, now aging, have seen the collapse of a financial system (multiple times), wars, historic elections, girl power to #MeToo to trad wife, the crime bill to racial reckoning to ICE deportations, same-sex marriage to trans healthcare bans.

In her book of essays I Want to Burn This Place Down, Maris Kreizman writes in a chapter titled “Neoliberalism and me” about going to see Bill Clinton speak in 1992 and believing so fully in the dream of neoliberalism. Believing that if she worked hard and and played by the rules, she too could be part of the American dream.

The opening is funny in the same way that reading a character in a novel write about how excited they are to take a trip on the Titanic is funny. The reader knows what’s coming. One big sad trombone doing the “whomp whomp” of history. Kreizman takes us from the hope of Clinton to the scandal to the 2000 financial collapse to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. And then again to Clinton. Kreizman writes about how, when she decried Kavanaugh’s alleged behavior to Christine Blasey Ford, the online hordes pushed back and said, “Well, if you condemn Kavanaugh, you must also condemn Bill Clinton.”

Good. Done. “Sounds good to me,” Kreizman replies. If, upon consideration, those institutions we believed in failed us — if they were part of our oppression when we thought they were our liberation — then, fine, burn them to the ground.

Kreizman’s book is part of a cohort of books from Gen X and older millennial women rethinking ambition, the American Dream, and the promises we were raised with.

A generation of women raised on girl power who saw Hillary Clinton concuss herself on the glass ceiling, and Kamala Harris too, and all of us thinking, “Okay, now what?”

In this space are Jennifer Romolini’s Ambition Monster, The Myth of Making It by Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and Glynnis MacNicol’s I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself. Each a story of a woman pushing against the narrative of girl bosses and ambition and confronting the emptiness of the neoliberal dream.

Other books in this genre come at it slantwise. Sophie Gilbert’s Girl on Girl is a cultural examination of the world in which millennial and Gen X women grew up, charting both the rise of the girl boss and the emptiness and the frustration of clawing to the top. Because if you get there, you haven’t changed the world much; just played by rules never made for you in the first place. So what then?

It’s a conversation my friends and I are all having. When is enough enough? How do we be happy? Where does our ambition go when the world has made it impossible to have it all? Do we keep trying? Do we try something new? A whole generation of Paris Gellers crashing out, we tried to do everything right and still didn’t get where we thought we’d go. Not through lack of hard work or talent, but because these institutions were not designed for our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

For Kreizman, the dream wasn’t complicated. Just a middle-class career in publishing, health insurance, and making books she could believe in. Then came the endless rounds of layoffs, the shitty pay, the revelation that the game is stacked in favor of those who already have money. But Kreizman doesn’t write about quitting in the same way as other cultural conversations around women and ambition.

She’s not saying, “The deck is stacked, so go be a trad wife.” None of the writers in this genre are. But there is a cultural push for that narrative. It’s present on social media and TikTok, in the insistence of princess treatment, the soft girl life, and, of course, the trad wife. Instead, Kreizman talks about agitating for change, unionizing, and demanding better wages.

Each of the essays in the book contends with an aspect of social, political and/or cultural change that Kreizman had to face and rethink, from insulin (Kreizman is diabetic) to the police (her twin brothers are cops), to kids (Kreizman and her husband, Josh Gondelman, are child-free).

I spoke with Kreizman before writing this essay, and I asked her how her ambition has changed as she aged. She told me she no longer has big ambitions for herself, but her ambition hasn’t gotten smaller; it’s gotten more encompassing. Now, she said, “I am ambitious for my community. My ambition is that I don’t want to see people die from a lack of insulin.”

It’s a reframing of ambition that is subtle and big-hearted, moving from the American dream of individual prosperity toward community survival.

Kreizman told me she was worried the book would be seen as “too angry.” The book seethes with a gentle anger, but it’s an anger built out of love, the tired kind of anger that wants everyone to be happy, to live, to experience a socialist revolution.

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I asked Kreizman, a New Yorker, what she hopes her book brings to this hot political summer. And she said, “The best thing about having this book come out right this second, right now, is I look at my city, and last week, so many of us decided that the old ways weren't working. The Chuck Schumers of the world and the Democratic Party, as it stands right now, are just putting stuff out on social media and doing nothing. And that is not what most people want.”

“I see Zohran Mamdani capture so much of the imagination of people in my city,” Kreizman continued, “because he calls for change, but does it joyfully. And it's the best message to come out of that election. And what I want for this book.”

Now that’s ambition: to keep pushing for systemic change, despite all we’ve seen and witnessed, and to do with a smile — or, at least, with an endless capacity for joy.

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I am in Wisconsin this weekend for a little summer break. I call Wisconsin the Spain of the Midwest because we all go here for cheap booze, cheap vacations, and access to the water. Spain and Wisconsin also both have a lot of Catholics, cheese, and ham, and both places like to dabble in fascism.

Normally, I have some thoughts or a little essay before the links, but right now I have no thoughts.

I will, however, remind you that I am running a hot socialist summer sale! And if you’ve been meaning to subscribe for these elite links harvested from the internet and brought to you by me and my assistant editor, Isabella, then today is your day.

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Read more

It’s officially a hot socialist summer. And to celebrate, I am going to be running a sale! Twenty percent off yearlong subscriptions to the newsletter. See, socialism can help the economy!

I normally only do sales in October, on the anniversary of the newsletter. But it’s hot as hell and we are all out here in the struggle. If you want to support a fiercely independent feminist voice — one that makes men so mad they email me to say things like “Be nicer to Matt Yglesias!”1 — well, you know what to do.

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It is the year 2025, and New York City has fallen into the hands of a mob of socialists who have a terrifying and disgusting agenda.

Led by Zohran Mamdani, a bearded man with roguish charm, and my god, that dimple— but no, stay focused on the horrors. They want you to see the dimple and nothing else. That is how the socialists win. We must stay vigilant.

Because, you see, led by Mamdani, the evil socialists want to do unspeakable horrors, like raise the minimum wage, make rent affordable, provide childcare and help new parents. Mamdani plans to round up all the gays… and give them a little kiss on the forehead.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

What’s next? Free public transit?!

You know what could happen when you make buses free? Poor people might have an easier time getting to their jobs, and then, GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR?!

Wake up, sheeple!

Can’t you see how bad this is? It’s so bad the hedge fund boys be crying. See, the rich boys, they cry. You are laughing, and the rich boys cry! Is this all just a game to you? Have you stopped once to think, what if this is the final straw and they all leave en masse and then NYC suddenly becomes a lot more affordable, and that one insufferable bar stops serving $45 tater tot poutine with a side of artisanal ketchup as an ironic send-up of American culture and $30 old-fashioneds because the cruelty-free cherries were grown with a land acknowledgement? WHAT THEN?

Have you taken even one moment to ask yourself, what happens if all those guys leave, and then, when you open Tinder in Murray Hill, no one is there to explain stock options to you? No. Of course not, because you weren’t thinking about anything except the dimple and a future for America not entirely ruled by corruption and greed. You stupid, stupid socialist sluts.

Like if we let a Democrat run on the actual platform of the Democratic party, what do we do with all the politicians with the moral compass of RFK’s brainworm who are out here saying, “Wait, maybe Charlie Kirk has a point and women are bad?” or “What if we don’t do rights for everyone?” Are we going to toss them into the dustbin of history? WHAT ABOUT MALE LONELINESS?!

But it’s not too late. There is still the general election. And some Democrats are considering backing Eric Adams. Because you definitely know you are on the right side of history when you back the guy who was charged with corruption, but those charges were dismissed because another guy who was charged with corruption is the president and wants you to stay mayor so he can violate the Constitution and deport immigrants with no due process.

Yes, nothing says “We are the good guys!” like backing the guy who allegedly gave kickbacks to Turkish officials because you’re so afraid a guy with a beard might hold you accountable for your greed and encourage you to support your neighbors.

And you know you are correct as a Democrat when you agree with Ted Cruz. Definitely not a huge red flag to agree with the guy who ran to Cancún while people in his state were dying of cold and carbon monoxide poisoning because of the deregulated power grid.

I mean, a 33-year-old man talking about kindness, loving your neighbor, helping the poor!? We must get him out of here. Call Pontius Pilate! He’ll know what to do.

For now, Mamdani is the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee. And as the NYC mayoral campaigns kick into gear, it’s going to be a long, hot, socialist summer.

A horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad summer when people will be encouraged to think about revolting things like how to make the world a better place. I can’t stand it!

And in other news…

I opened up the CNN homepage, saw this headline and subhed, and then closed out of the internet, put rocks in my pocket, and walked into the ocean.

And now for something good

Ted Cruz absolutely crashing out over Mamdani’s win is hilarious.

The Italians are bullying our billionaires! It’s time for a NATO-like alliance, but for bullying rich people.

Boston urban food forests!

My friend Josh Gondelman was on CBS Mornings to talk about his new comedy special! And his comedy special is the very definition of a good thing!

Something I am enjoying

Last weekend, I went to visit my dearest friends in Minneapolis and say goodbye to my friend Anna, who is moving. You don’t know this, but frequently Anna and Kate punch up my jokes in the weekly dingus. (I pay them back by buying dinner when I see them.) And if you read This American Ex-Wife, Anna is the wise friend whose insights punctuate the book. She’s also a brilliant academic whose research and insight often deepens my own work.

I feel so lucky to have had friends for 24 years. I hope to have them for so many, many more years.

So, to toast friendship. I think we should all make Amaro spritzes. I made this drink last week and it was delicious.

• 4 oz sparkling wine, chilled

• 1 oz Amaro Nonino

• 1 oz grapefruit juice

• 1 oz lemon juice

• 1 oz soda water

• Ice

Happy hot socialist summer!

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After attacking Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranian media that he was doing it to free the people of the country, specifically the women. He stated, “They’ve impoverished you. They’ve given you misery. They’ve given you death. They’ve given you terror... I mean, this is an outrageous radical fanatic regime, and the time has come to defang them.”

This is the Prime Minister of Israel — the man ultimately responsible for the devastation in Gaza, which has resulted in more deaths of women and children than any other conflict over the past two decades. He’s trying to free the women, even if he has to kill them first.

Elon Musk, a pronatalist who believes that the biggest threat to civilization is population decline, oversaw cuts to (among many other things) USAID, which has already resulted in deaths, including those of children. He’s trying to get people in the US to have more children, even as he is responsible for the deaths of many abroad.

I don’t think it’s just cynical messaging. These are men who truly see the lives of only some women and some children as worthy. Those lives are both the human cost of their violent missions and the justification for them.

It’s been three years since the Dobbs decision eliminated the nationwide right to abortion.

In the wake of Dobbs, more people in America are pro-abortion than before, with a notable exception: men.

Since 2022, fewer men identify as pro-choice — a seven-point dip from 48% to 41%. According to a recent Gallup poll, “There is now a record-high 17-point gap between women (57%) and men (40%) in their belief that abortion is morally acceptable and a record-high 15-point gap in women’s (56%) and men’s (41%) support for abortion being legal in all or most circumstances.”

This shift represents a difference not just on policy, but on who sees women as individual human beings, with choice, independence and the right to make their own health care decisions. It seems, in fact, that not all lives matter.

People on the left often debate how to finesse messaging to bring men aboard. They worry about how Democrats are “losing men.” So we have to worry about the tone of our voice as we beg for our lives. Recently, a man emailed me to say he supported women’s rights, but he didn’t like my tone and maybe I should consider that women would be better off if we were nicer.

This is the same logic that is extended to policing people over their race and nationality. If you must protest, be respectful. Ask for your rights, but be polite, and work hard.

Sorry, no: The very definition of inalienable rights is that they belong to me regardless of how little I work or how much I scowl and call people dinguses.

I joined the board of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund after the Dobbs decision because I wanted to channel my rage and despair into making my state a better place. The IAAF raises money to give to clinics and patients to help cover the cost of abortion. I may not be able to fix American democracy, but I can make sure that at least 700 people a month have the money to pay for their abortions. I can help them access choice. And that is the foundation of democracy if anything is.

I was at a recent event for the IAAF when a man told me that it was hard for him and other men to support a cause that didn’t affect them. I balked. Was he not human? Did he not have people in his life who he cared about? “Sir, don’t you have sex with women?” I asked. “Aren’t you a human being?”

He pushed back, asserting that in the time of Trump, when there are wars and people storming the Capitol, we had to be focused. As if my participation in public life was of no consequence to the project of democracy.

Feminist author Ellen Willis wrote about encountering logic like this at the counter-inauguration protest on January 19, 1969. In response, Willis noted that solidarity “...will not be accomplished through persuasion, conciliation, or love, but through independence and solidarity: radical men will stop oppressing us and make our fight their own when they can’t get us to join them on any other terms.”

Our individual rights are the foundations of democracy. Writing in Who’s Afraid of Gender? Judith Butler observed, “Stripping people of rights in the name of morality or the nation or a patriarchal wet dream belongs to the broader logic amplified by authoritarian nationalism.”

Don’t tell me you are fighting for one part of democracy while ignoring the others.

Recently, , whose newsletter is a necessary and often excruciating accounting of the impact Dobbs has on our country, wrote that she thought about pausing the newsletter in the middle of the war and societal upheaval. She notes, “But then I thought about everything we’ve built over the last three years—the daily ritual of refusing despair, concession, or silence. The hopeful habit of working for change, even when that future feels impossible. That’s not something I’m willing to forgo—especially on days like the ones we’ve had recently.”

War and invasions don’t protect women. And our rights are not a distraction from the bigger issues. Democracy, like hope, is a practice that relies on the foundational belief that all people deserve rights. That all women matter, not just the ones that fit our definition of who and what we want them to be.

Some articles about abortion rights in America

• The right not to be pregnant

• The evidence that Dobbs is harming reproductive health

• What pregnancy does to the bodies of young girls

• All these hysterical women

• The post-Dobbs reality for Black maternal health

• Iowa’s abortion ban is causing a funding crisis in the Midwest

• Amber Thurman’s death in Georgia

• Abortion bans cost the US more than $1 billion

• A story of a third-trimester abortion