For all the horrible things Donald Trump has wrought upon the world — and there are so, so many — he’s also taught us some important lessons. Trump is proof of several truths: A red-meat-and-stress-addled heart can withstand otherwise unthinkable conditions with the federal government’s medical secrets; reality television ruined the world; and, if we’re not careful, we’re all liable to become parodies of ourselves one day, crying about it online.

That latter bit is certainly true for filmmaker Taika Waititi, whose otherwise tacky-yet-progressive veneer cracked last weekend when he took to Instagram to condemn the poor reviews of his latest film, “Klara and the Sun.” After a torrent of bad press and worse box-office performance, the film’s distributor, Sony, opted to scale back the movie’s wide release, reducing the sci-fi dramedy’s reach from 2,000 theaters nationwide to 800, most of which returned a meager profit. Never one to take his mediocrity on the chin, Waititi deflected the negativity outward, which, as we know, always paints someone in a good light!

Waititi reposted a graphic claiming that “Klara and the Sun” was “rebounding” with a 78% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 53-point gap from the film’s 25% critics score. (For what it’s worth, neither number should ever be used to accurately measure a film’s quality.) “I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in 15 years,” Waititi captioned the post. “But I do listen to the people . . . Let’s spare a thought for those sad, lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus settled, and became critics. Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin.”

Reading Waititi’s emoji-peppered caption, I was surprised to find it so carelessly evoked the Trumpian crybaby approach to social media. Whether on X or his own Truth Social, Trump’s favorite way of addressing critics and opponents has long been to toss out adjectives at will. Tack a “SAD!” at the end of Waititi’s caption, and it could easily pass for one of Trump’s poetic musings. (If only Waititi had gone so far as to parrot my personal favorite Trump quip about Barney Frank by saying, “The critics looked disgusting, nipples protruding, in front of my movie. Very very disrespectful.”)

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Ironically, all those admonishments in Waititi’s caption are also fitting descriptors for the state of Donald Trump’s agenda, the one imitated by his legions of Republican cronies spread out across America, hoping to be elected in Tuesday’s midterms. But judging by the results, MAGA’s influence is waning fast. Seven Senate seats flipped, historically red states turned blue and a spate of monumental wins popped up nationwide. The MAGA bubble popped in real time. Americans have seen firsthand what little good fascist ideology does for the average, working-class person. And though the country may not become great again overnight, it appears the last 12 years of freefall have finally been suspended — at least for now.

Not to be all, “Oh, won’t someone think of the celebrities?” about it, but such overwhelmingly positive election results left me wondering what happens to someone like Waititi, whose childish outburst is straight from the MAGA playbook. For over a decade, Trump has used social media to peddle broadly disparaging, dangerous rhetoric that has legitimate impact outside the phone screen. The reckless hatred comprising MAGA ideology is so potent that it’s bled into the ways even otherwise progressive people wield their power, like crude oil painting an ocean black. And while refuting film critics isn’t akin to Trump’s most damning sins, Waititi’s mockery is a symptom of a problem that won’t be washed away by one blue wave, no matter how sizable.

One would think that Waititi would know better. For one, the guy is 51 years old, certainly experienced and well-established enough to let a flop roll off his back. How fitting that his biggest success is the anti-fascist yet aesthetically tasteless political satire, “Jojo Rabbit,” which won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay in 2020, just as the Trump era was revving up for its second leg. That film, about a 10-year-old Hitler Youth who begins to grapple with the realities of life in 1940s Germany, examines propaganda’s influence and the power of hegemony, even if it often lacks the nuance and perspective such a satire warrants. For better, or more often, for worse, Waititi’s writing displays a self-possessed vulgarity that gets in the way of his more salient observations. Case in point: It’s downright ludicrous to stake your name on a film renouncing hate, then take aim at critics — people not exactly matched in influence to someone like Waititi — just six years later.

But this is the rot that social media creates. Whether it’s Instagram, X, TikTok, or YouTube, these sites have incentivized and monetized incendiary opinions. Their algorithms push small people into major power. What was designed to ostensibly be a great equalizer has only divided the world more, making animosity easily accessible to anyone who gets their rocks off on sewing discourse through cruelty. 

For some time now, arts critics have been easy targets on these platforms. Gone are the days of the critic playing dilettante, having intellectual conversations over martinis and cigarettes at the month’s salon for like-minded individuals. To be a critic today — to pursue one’s passion for art and writing and learning, all rolled into one — is to subject oneself to a pretty bleak existence. In most cases, the pay is meager. The hours are long. The job is demanding. And virtually no one has the patience or attention span to read an entire article anymore, let alone engage with its ideas. A legitimate critic doesn’t stumble into the job just to point and laugh; they write because they have real passion for what they cover. Surely someone like Waititi would say the same when he begins a new project after a string of flops.

What Waititi fails to realize is that he’s not punching up or down, but laterally. This is artist versus artist. If the context is right, a good piece of criticism can be as life-altering as a good film. But that’s hard to see when the internet has built such a wide chasm between people, reducing the impact of writing in favor of scrolling. Along with social media’s effect on human behavior, it’s had a heavy hand in blunting the journalism industry. If everyone’s a critic, then no one is, and that’s precisely why monitoring Rotten Tomatoes scores like they’re poll numbers is futile and ridiculous.

But it’s not just Waititi who’s vulnerable to this unique form of MAGA-tinged, social media-brained psychosis; critics can fall prey to it, too. Whether it’s a filmmaker, a film critic, or just your average filmgoer, social media has confined us all to its machine. No one is exempt from consumer tech’s sway. And if a writer or filmmaker wants to make a splash, tossing out an inflammatory opinion aimed at a peer is a surefire shortcut. I’ve seen this affect critics’ prose over time, with certain writers (or their outlets) favoring button-pushing pull quotes and headlines for attention. But in most cases, no critic is happy to spend two hours watching something they find insufferable. No matter how gleeful Siskel and Ebert used to look sparring over movies, their industry was built on intellectual debate in pursuit of cinematic resonance, not schadenfreude.

 

What’s most concerning in Waititi’s response is his foul self-importance, which is the real stain of MAGA politics. While an artist should avoid burdening themselves with hypothetical responses to their work before it’s even out in the world, considering the eventual reaction is worthwhile. Engaging with other people’s perceptions is a practice we could all stand to do with more grace and tact. Contemplating a differing opinion shows maturity and humility, not absolute agreement. Pointing a finger won’t do anything for a person’s growth, artistic or otherwise. America’s politicians are only just beginning to relearn that lesson, understanding the value in trying to address problems, rather than gesture toward them with a shrug.

If America’s blue wave is indeed going to usher in a new era where politicians actually act in favor of the people, and Trumpian artists like Waititi make themselves look foolish on Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram, we owe some props to one of the century’s most prolific liberals. Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” actually got a few things right. In last month’s companion piece to “The Social Network,” Sorkin posited that the average American would soon be mobilized by their fatigue with MAGA politics and social media. But his director’s eye lacked style and discernment. Sorkin responded to criticisms with pleasant diplomacy, even questioning his own merits as a director versus a screenwriter. “I’m worried that the parts of directing that I’m not good at are those parts you can’t learn,” he admitted.

While there may be truth to his concern, Sorkin’s introspection is precisely the kind of pause this country could learn from. If living in MAGA-world for a decade has taught us anything, it’s that things aren’t just good because one person says so. Uniformity is the enemy of art, and blind trust is the scourge of politics. There is no future without recognizing the subtleties existing between the lines. The only thing that is, to quote Waititi, irrelevant, out of touch and obsolete is the arrogance in thinking anyone could know it all.

The post Taika Waititi’s Instagram crash out is a Trumpian sore loss appeared first on Salon.com.

PARIS — Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s campaign has a plan for winning over older French voters: get his young supporters to sign up for Facebook to talk to their parents.

Mélenchon, 75, may be the oldest candidate in next spring’s race to replace Emmanuel Macron. But his progressive platform and call for a civic revolution have made him a hit with younger voters, who are more likely to scroll through TikTok and Snapchat than through the old-school social network.

“We’re strong [on every other social media platform],” said Antoine Léaument, who handles the Mélenchon campaign’s communication operations. “Facebook is one of the places where the digital battle could be decisive.”

More than 40% of voters younger than 35 plan to vote for Mélenchon, according to a recent Cluster17 poll commissioned by POLITICO. That figure drops to 14% or less across the age brackets over 50 — groups that, if they use social media at all, tend to favor Facebook over its newer rivals.

According to Médiamétrie, France’s leading audience measurement company, platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have 35% more daily users than Facebook among 15-to-24-year-olds.

On TikTok, which skews younger, Mélenchon has about twice the following of any other presidential candidate.

“Their digital campaign is paying off very quickly,” said a strategist from a competing campaign, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The strategist also underlined that the share of comments on social media posts describing Mélenchon in a positive light was rapidly rising despite how he’s been vilified by his opponents.

But on Facebook, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally reigns.

Since June, National Rally posts have drawn more than 2 million reactions, more than those of any other French political party, according to data from social monitoring platform Visibrain shared with POLITICO. The page of the National Rally’s local branch in the small region of Vienne alone generated more reactions than the pages of Macron’s Renaissance party.

“Engagement on Facebook is very concentrated,” around the National Rally, Visibrain said.

Listen to the kids

Recent polls show that Mélenchon’s core base of young voters puts him in a strong position to secure a second-place finish in the first round of the presidential election. That would earn him a spot in a runoff against Le Pen, who has held a double-digit lead for first place in surveys for months. (French presidential elections advance to a two-candidate second round if no one wins 50% of the vote on the first try.)

Beating Le Pen, however, will require winning over larger swaths of the electorate. Though pollsters and political scientists urge caution about polling a runoff so early in a campaign, the second-round surveys pitting Le Pen against Mélenchon show the far-left candidate on track for a crushing defeat.

Many older voters remain undecided about what they would do when faced with that match-up, so the answer could lie in whether they decide to listen to their children.

Léaument has been rallying activists from Mélenchon’s France Unbowed to share content en masse on the platform via an open WhatsApp channel, which currently counts over 170,000 members, posting calls to action or campaign clips to share on their social media accounts.

“WE MUST RE-ENGAGE WITH FACEBOOK AT ALL COSTS! WE MUST NOT LEAVE ANY GROUND TO THE FAR RIGHT,” he urged activists in a message posted to the channel.

That playbook is partly borrowed from André Janones, the Brazilian lawmaker who used the messaging app to mobilize supporters of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of his surprise reelection last month.

It has at least one obvious limitation: Political parties have no control over social media algorithms. In Brazil, Lula’s campaign alleged that Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, was boosting Bolsonaro and suppressing its content — an allegation Meta denied.

Hadrien Clouet, a France Unbowed MP who closely tracks South American politics, said lessons would need to be drawn on how the Mélenchon campaign can “protect [itself] from the influence of U.S. social networks.”

But the underlying idea of having the young convince — if not pressure — their elders has been pushed by the movement’s leadership for several months already.

At a party event over the summer, Mathilde Panot, France Unbowed’s top lawmaker in parliament, invoked the work of French political scientist Vincent Tiberj, who has studied “inverse socialization,” or how children challenge and sometimes change their parents’ views and politics.

She pointed to the 2024 vote to make abortion a constitutional right in France, saying that several lawmakers were pressured into voting in favor of the proposal by their daughters — a point French media also reported at the time.

“The children need to convince their parents,” Panot said. “We need to do some grassroots work, to go out and convince people one by one, and that starts with our inner circle: parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts.”

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Open source models are becoming more mainstream as enterprises, governments and startups alike rely on the promise of lower costs, more control, and more flexibility. But as increasingly capable models become more freely available, how do companies capture value? And with Chinese open models gaining ground, can American players keep up?  On this episode of […]

Toys "R" Us and Halloween went hand-in-hand back in the day. It's impossible not to feel nostalgic when thinking about it if you lived through that era as a kid. Luckily we have old commercials like this one from 1983 to remember how much fun the store was. — Read the rest

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Forty-five minutes before the first polls closed on Tuesday, Greg Gutfeld was still doing what Fox News does best, acknowledging reality just long enough to replace it with a culture-war hallucination. “Gas prices are so high, I’m going to vote for the party that wanted to trans my kids,” he joked on “The Five,” adding that he didn’t see Democratic wins on the horizon. “There is no blue wave materializing,” Clay Travis, the Outkick founder and Fox contributor, posted at 3 p.m. EST, adding that Republicans were surging in Florida and the polls were about to be proven wrong yet again. 

Then the polls closed, and MAGA’s delusions were pulverized. The country that right-wing media had spent two years describing as angry, ascendant and permanently realigned voted in an avalanche that crushed years of manufactured MAGA hype. American voters told the president to take his $5,000 “Trump Dividend” checks and shove them. Elon Musk, who moved to Texas to get away from Democrats and then spent a reported $150 million to deliver the Lone Star State for Republicans, saw his early Tuesday post urging people to vote red disappear from his profile by Wednesday. 

The country woke up to results that few expected — and a long list of historic firsts. Georgia elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman governor in American history. Michigan sent Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to Washington as the first Muslim senator. New Hampshire elected Chris Pappas as the first openly gay man in the Senate. New Mexico made Deb Haaland the first Native American woman governor, and Peggy Flanagan became Minnesota’s first Native American woman senator. Texas elected Gina Hinojosa over three-term Gov. Greg Abbott — the state’s first Latina governor and its first Democratic governor in more than three decades. Ohio got its first woman governor in Dr. Amy Acton. South Carolina tapped Dr. Annie Andrews as its first elected woman senator. Democrats won a Senate seat in Kansas for the first time in 94 years. While votes are still being counted in key races, solid majorities in both the Senate and House are assured, and Democrats are set to make Hakeem Jeffries the country’s first Black speaker. 

Even the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid and a loyal Trump house organ, refused to mince words on its front page: “Trump suffers historic rebuke as Dems romp in midterms,” with “BLUE TSUNAMI” blaring beneath it. On “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Ainsley Earhart warned viewers that “your wallet and your way of life” are now in the crosshairs. 

It is no surprise that Trump 2.0, stripped of its previous establishment Republican guardrails like Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, has culminated in such total structural collapse. The deeper truth the conservative media apparatus could never say out loud is that MAGA was always a Trump-specific phenomenon. It does not transfer to his imitators, and it only ever worked when the economy let voters treat Trump as entertainment. Right-wing media spent years confusing its ability to dominate a conversation with its ability to represent a country. When Tuesday’s returns exposed the difference, its leading voices reached for almost everything except accountability. They blamed immigration. They blamed insufficient restrictions on voting. They blamed each other. Alex Jones even decided Trump might secretly be a Democrat.

For the network’s election night coverage, Fox News seated former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio between two of Trump’s former press secretaries, Kayleigh McEnany and Karoline Leavitt, and he told them to their faces that they were “missing the plot.” He said, “The American people are looking at a war they do not believe in, and they did not authorize. They’re looking at prices that are making it impossible for middle-class people, let alone working-class people, to live.” 

Trump, watching at the White House, raged on Truth Social — “Why does FoxNews have deBlasio” — and seethed at the panel’s lone liberal: “I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov’s voice — DUMB AS A ROCK, but it’s the voice that gets me.” After Gutfeld read the president’s text on air — which is as good a diagram as exists of what Fox News is now: a suggestion box the president monitors live — Tarlov answered on X, not on Truth Social: “Reality is a tricky thing,” and the president “should get better at dealing with it.” 

On Newsmax, things were somehow worse. Political strategist Dick Morris argued that Trump’s problem was effectively excessive success: He had solved the major problems that would otherwise motivate Republican voters. The influencer ecosystem, meanwhile, went straight for the circular firing squad, and every faction picked a different target. 

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Jones, livestreaming as the returns buried his movement, said Trump himself is the plant: “I think he’s a Democrat. I’m 100% at war with Trump. He’s not that r*tarded. He did this on purpose. I think he’s the ultimate Democrat sleeper cell and he works for them.” Benny Johnson and Libs of TikTok reached for the great replacement theory, and Fox’s Lawrence Jones supplied the broadcast version, surveying Texas and concluding, “Texas, there is a lesson here. Don’t be so welcoming.” 

So much for celebrating people voting with their feet and the U-Hauls leaving California. 

Laura Loomer went straight doomer: “America is over and so is the American Dream.” Others blamed Sen. John Thune for failing to pass the SAVE Act and shrink the electorate further, as though the answer to such a broad repudiation were fewer voters. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro posted the “everything is fine” fire GIF — “Just checking in to see how things are goi—” — and the Federalist’s Sean Davis answered with the hot-dog-suit meme, the one where the man in the costume insists everyone else is the problem.

The recriminations got personal fast. Rep. Nancy Mace told Fox’s Mark Levin to “STFU,” blamed his “beloved” war for the losses and called the night “devastating . . . for the hard-working American who can’t afford to buy a home, or fill their tank with gas or put food on the table.” Levin returned fire: Mace was a “washed up political loser” and “one of the most mentally unhinged POS to ever be in Congress.” She was angry, he said, “because you’ll actually have to now work for a living . . . Good riddance, crackpot.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gloated that with governors’ races lost in Texas and Ohio and Georgia, the Sunshine State would stand alone among the ten most populous states with a Republican governor. And Katie Miller — podcaster, administration wife, professional MAGA explainer — told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell that she had not voted at all. “I did not vote in Virginia because in Virginia when you vote, you dox your own address, and so I prefer my own safety and security over giving that up.” 

In the end, the movement’s loudest voices spent the cycle performing for each other. Some of them couldn’t even be bothered to vote.

The post MAGA media scrambles to form a circular firing squad appeared first on Salon.com.

BRUSSELS — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will visit the European Parliament next week to discuss online child safety, according to an email sent to lawmakers and seen by POLITICO.

Visiting Brussels for the first time as a couple, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will on Tuesday join Parliament President Roberta Metsola in opening an exhibition honoring “the memory of children whose lives were lost in connection with online harms.”

Prince Harry will then discuss with Commissioner Dubravka Šuica, experts and lawmakers “how we can turn legislative commitments into effective safeguards for children, including through safer design, stronger enforcement, and clear accountability for technology companies,” the email reads.

The event is being hosted by Spanish center-right lawmaker Antonio López-Istúriz White, who is the vice president of the Parliament’s intergroup on children’s rights. In September, the European Commission proposed the EU Kids Act, which includes restrictions on social media use for minors.

“The decisions we take on AI, platform design and the enforcement of online safeguards will shape the digital environments in which children grow up. This responsibility cuts across parliamentary committees and policy areas; the experiences of children and families should inform and guide our work throughout,” Lopéz wrote in his invitation to other lawmakers.

The Pokémon Pokopia DLC Dazzling Decorations releases on December 9, 2026. The second part of the Expansion Pass introduces accessories that let players customize how Ditto and other Pokémon look. It will also add new Pokémon to the game. Here is what to expect from the expansion and how to access it.

Pokémon Pokopia DLC Dazzling Decorations Release Date

The Pokémon Pokopia DLC Dazzling Decorations release date is Wednesday, December 9, 2026. The expansion is Part 2 of the Pokémon Pokopia Expansion Pass and will be available on Nintendo Switch 2.

If you already own the Expansion Pass, Dazzling Decorations is included with your purchase. However, you will also need to download the Pokémon Pokopia Version 3.0.0 update and complete certain requests before accessing the new content.

Here is a breakdown of the Pokopia DLC Dazzling Decorations release date and requirements:

Detail	Information
DLC name	Dazzling Decorations
Release date	December 9, 2026
Platform	Nintendo Switch 2
Expansion required	Pokémon Pokopia Expansion Pass
Required update	Version 3.0.0
Required progress	Complete the main requests in Withered Wastelands and Drifloon’s “Find the Doll!” request

Pokémon Pokopia DLC Dazzling Decorations Features Explained

The biggest feature in Dazzling Decorations is the new Pokémon customization system. If you have been wanting to give the residents of your town a different look, the Pokémon Pokopia DLC will introduce various accessories for Ditto and other Pokémon.

Previously revealed accessories include sunglasses, bow ties, and a Sylveon ribbon that Ditto can wear to match the Fairy-type Pokémon. The Pokémon Company has also confirmed that Part 2 will add new Pokémon and furniture alongside the accessories.

Here are the Pokémon Pokopia DLC features revealed so far:

• Pokémon accessories: Customize Ditto and other Pokémon with a selection of wearable items.
• Additional Pokémon: Discover new Pokémon being added in Dazzling Decorations.
• New furniture: Get more options for decorating your town.

For players who have already spent hours decorating their towns, the accessories will give you another way to personalize the experience. You will now be able to change your Pokémon’s appearance to go along with the surroundings you have created for them.

How to Access the Pokémon Pokopia Dazzling Decorations DLC

To access the Pokémon Pokopia Dazzling Decorations DLC, you need to own the base game and its Expansion Pass. You must also download the Version 3.0.0 update and meet the expansion’s progress requirements.

Specifically, players need to complete the main requests in Withered Wastelands and finish Drifloon’s “Find the Doll!” request. If you are still early in your adventure, those are the objectives to focus on before the expansion launches.

Once you have met those requirements, you will be ready for Dazzling Decorations when the Pokémon Pokopia DLC arrives on December 9.

The post Pokémon Pokopia DLC Dazzling Decorations Release Date and Features Revealed appeared first on VICE.

The signs were there from the outset. About 30 minutes after the polls in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District closed at 6 p.m., the first numbers from rural counties began trickling in. It was no surprise that they favored Republican Ralph Alvarado over Democrat Zach Dembo. The district was reliably Democratic until 2012, when Andy Barr, a Republican who is now running to replace Mitch McConnell in the Senate, eked out a win. Since then, the GOP has gerrymandered the district to all but ensure it stayed in the fold. 

The real story, though, could be found in the margins. Alvarado was underperforming Barr’s 2024 results by around 20 percentage points — a staggering drop, indicating that a significant number of Republicans had either stayed home or decided to take a chance on Dembo. Off the Democratic map for the last 14 years, by 9:15 p.m., when it was reported that Alvarado had conceded, the district had become a microcosm of what was unfolding nationwide.

The blue landslide, long predicted by pundits but mentioned with fingers crossed by Democrats, was becoming an avalanche.

Further south in Georgia, an earlier-than-expected call for Jon Ossoff buoyed Democratic hopes, followed by a pickup in the North Carolina Senate race, which saw Gov. Roy Cooper projected to defeat former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. Democrats even put up a fight in ruby-red Florida’s statewide races, with David Jolly, the nominee for governor, and Angie Nixon, the democratic socialist Senate candidate, running ahead of their opponents until the conservative Panhandle’s votes were counted.

Then came South Carolina, where Darline Graham, who was foisted upon the state’s Republican Party by Donald Trump to succeed her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, after his death, went down to an historic defeat. The Palmetto State hasn’t seen a Democrat elected to the Senate since 1998. 

Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democratic nominee for governor, routed her opponent Vivek Ramaswamy after he released a widely condemned ad that weaponized a horrific part of her childhood. In Texas, James Talarico is projected for a stunning win over scandal-plagued Ken Paxton, and Gina Hinojosa ousted the incumbent Greg Abbott from the governor’s mansion. 

Other elections around the country — Senate races in Michigan, Kansas and Iowa; pivotal House contests and gubernatorial races — appear to be trending for Democrats.

For a decade, the party has wondered when, or if, a reckoning would arrive for Trump and MAGA. That moment has arrived.

Again and again, Republicans have followed the president over the cliff, no more so than during the past 22 months. In 2024, Trump expanded on the coalition that had carried him to success in 2016 by making inroads with Black men, Latinos and young voters. It was a success that, at least in part, led Republicans to launch a national gerrymandering scheme largely thwarted by Democrats, as well as an unfavorable economic climate of the president’s own making. 

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But Trump also made the grievous error of attacking the very communities that helped return him to the White House. The combination of his assaults on voting rights and Black history, as well as the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, ensured that Black voters turned out overwhelmingly for Democrats. After more than a year of ICE raids, mass deportations and threats against naturalized citizens, Latinos have swung to the Democrats en masse, playing a decisive role in Talarico’s win. Trump’s attacks on civil rights, immigrants’ rights and the social safety net have cut across demographic groups, and have had a strong negative impact on young voters. Drunk on his own power, the president has spent the better part of two years splintering his own coalition — and giving Democrats an opening they were happy to exploit.

The monumental defeat suffered by Republicans offers a sobering lesson for Democrats — to not forget what brought them to this night of victory. 

The message voters are sending is loud and clear: They want fighters, leaders who are willing to throw out conventional wisdom and do battle for working-class interests. That’s what Ossoff sensed last fall, when he was considered to be the nation’s most endangered Democrat. Instead of playing it safe, he staked his candidacy on affordability issues, particularly subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. In the midst of the longest government shutdown on record, Ossoff held firm: He would not vote to reopen the federal government unless the tax credits were restored.

Other Democratic candidates got the message. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan proved steadfast in linking the billions in federal funding that continue to subsidize Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza to skyrocketing consumer prices on the homefront. Another physician, Dr. Annie Andrews, who defeated Graham, unabashedly campaigned on creating a healthcare public option and gun control measures in South Carolina — and won. 

Right now, Democrats are feeling the wind at their backs. But after the excitement fades from tonight’s successes, they will realize they are now facing an even bigger challenge: To stay true to the mandate they have been given by voters, grudgingly in some cases, and to not, as they have done so often in the past, slip on the proverbial banana peel that is always waiting for them around the corner. 

Throughout his campaign for the Senate, Paxton was fond of saying, “If we lose Texas, we lose America.” Tonight, Democrats put Texas solidly in their column — and America is still standing.

The post MAGA wiped out in blue avalanche appeared first on Salon.com.

More than 118 million users watch microdramas every month as the serialized format has taken off in India. EloElo's Story TV is one of the top apps for microdramas, with over 33 million active users, according to analysts.

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican billionaire Rick Jackson in Georgia‘s gubernatorial election Tuesday, becoming the first Black woman elected governor in American history and ending more than two decades of Republican control of the state’s highest office.

The contest pitted two sharply different candidates to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whose departure opened the governor’s office for the first time in eight years.

Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor and adviser to President Joe Biden, campaigned on expanding access to health care, improving public education and addressing the rising cost of living. Jackson, a billionaire health care executive and political newcomer, emphasized cutting taxes, reducing government spending and bringing his private-sector experience to state government.

Jackson invested more than $200 million of his own money into the campaign, making his bid one of the most expensive self-funded gubernatorial campaigns in American history.

The election also ended Republicans’ decades-long control of Georgia’s governorship. The last Democrat elected governor was Roy Barnes in 1998. Barnes lost his reelection bid to Republican Sonny Perdue in 2002, and Republicans have held the office since Perdue took office in January 2003.

Georgia’s changing political landscape added another dimension to the contest. Once a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, Georgia narrowly backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 before returning to President Donald Trump in 2024. Democrats also captured both U.S. Senate seats in 2021, with Raphael Warnock subsequently winning a full term in 2022.

On Tuesday, Georgia voters also reelected Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, demonstrating the state’s continued willingness to support Democrats in statewide contests.

Bottoms is the first Black governor elected in Georgia, the first woman to hold the state’s highest office and the first Black woman elected governor anywhere in the United States. She is also the first Democrat to win Georgia’s governorship in 28 years, breaking a Republican winning streak dating back to 2002.

The post Keisha Lance Bottoms set to become first Black woman governor in US appeared first on Salon.com.

Sen. Jon Ossoff easily defeated a challenge from Republican Rep. Mike Collins to hold on to his Georgia Senate seat on Tuesday, according to AP projections.

After Donald Trump carried the state in 2024, early forecasts predicted tough sledding for Ossoff. But during a brutal government shutdown — the longest on record — the senator signaled he was willing to stake his candidacy on protecting Affordable Care Act subsidies, and he proved an adept campaigner who was hyper-focused on Georgia issues. Ossoff focused his stump speeches around affordability, skyrocketing inflation and foreign entanglements, hammering Trump for his costly war with Iran.  

For his part, Collins’ candidacy was hamstrung by controversies involving his payroll and affiliation with alleged white nationalists.

Frequently floated as a 2028 contender, Ossoff adopted a fighter’s stance at his campaign events. Like feisty Michigan candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the senator took every opportunity to land a jab against Republicans, occasionally causing some monocle-popping among centrist commentators still holding on to the idea of the dignity of the presidential office. In August, he drew jeers and applause for making light of the rumors surrounding Trump aide Natalie Harp.

“So [Trump] doesn’t want to do this job,” Ossoff said . “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Ossoff, for his part, has said he has “zero interest in running for president.” His victory speech, which will come later tonight, will be studied by pundits seeking to divine his intentions.

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Reddit is testing ads on another area of its platform: search. With this update, ads will appear within your search results "based on a range of factors, including contextual relevance to a search query," according to Reddit.

That means searching for "espresso station" could present you with ads for espresso, machines, beans, or mugs, while a search for a "home office setup" may yield ads for monitors, desks, or office chairs. Reddit currently shows ads across its feeds in a variety of formats, including images, videos, sponsored posts, and AMAs. It also shows ads within threads.

Reddit has announced a number of changes to its platform ove …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The one-year-old startup is now valued at $300 million.

Being a MAGA influencer just isn’t what it used to be.

When the Trump administration returned to power nearly two years ago, the influencers swaggered into Washington, D.C. with unrelenting hubris. The inauguration gave us a window into just how decisive they’d been in the previous election. The late Charlie Kirk “got a better seat than every member of Congress,” according to The Daily Beast. Jake Paul and his brother Logan took selfies with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, one of many Big Tech Trump allies who donated to his inaugural fund to secure access to the administration. Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson mingled with government leaders and titans of industry.

In any other election cycle, a viral Fox News gaffe would have registered only as a momentary laugh. Last week, reporter Lucas Tomlinson was covering a South Carolina rally for incumbent Republican Sen. Darline Graham, who is seeking to serve a full term following the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham. In reality, the event was more about Donald Trump, who had flown to the Palmetto State to help shore up Graham’s candidacy, which increasingly appears to be at-risk. Spotting a middle-aged white man with a beard, Tomlinson assumed he was about to get some choice footage of a gushing Trump superfan. Instead, Tom Hoyle, with an admirable deadpan, joked that he had turned out for the rally because he was too young to have witnessed the 1978 Jonestown massacre, in which 918 followers of Rev. Jim Jones died after drinking a fruit drink laced with poison. “There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front, man,” he added.

“All right, maybe this is not a Trump supporter,” Tomlinson said, scurrying away. 

The surreal moment capped what has been a desultory midterm election season for Fox, a network that bills itself as “news” but has long been seen by fans and detractors alike as Republican propaganda. Despite their largely worshipful coverage of the president, Trump has been complaining that the network isn’t doing enough to salvage the campaigns of the GOP. 

“FoxNews is spending far too much time putting on the OPPONENTS of Republican Party Candidates,” he recently posted on Truth Social, echoing his prior complaints that the network focuses too much on the Democrats running this cycle than on their Republican opponents. 

Trump is not wrong about the coverage tilt. According to Media Matters, during this election cycle the network has mentioned the names of Democratic candidates at over three times the rate of Republicans. That disparity, though, doesn’t mean the coverage is sympathetic. To the contrary: Fox producers likely recognize that this year’s GOP field of candidates is deeply uninspiring. Some, such as Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor of Ohio, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is seeking a Senate seat, are so repulsive that even lifelong Republicans can’t pretend to like them.

This season, Democratic candidates are making more compelling TV, particularly the charismatic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Michigan’s Senate nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Texas state representative James Talarico, who is running against Paxton. The most Fox News can hope for is to hijack these candidates’ ability to command attention, and then use it to drive negative polarization with endless “who do these people think they are?” outrage. But then again, the network knows its audience. 

As Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye recently noted, it’s not like Fox News knows what else to do. The hosts, she writes, have been grabbing wildly at straws, praying they can find any story to spark culture war hysteria that will distract voters from serious issues like inflation, the war with Iran or the metastasizing deportation crisis. The network tried to make hay out of the French riots, but even Fox viewers struggled to see why student protests in Paris matter to America. It attempted to pretend Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., was calling for mass arrests of young Republicans when she was asked during a recent appearance about holding the GOP accountable, but that never really caught on either. A last-minute gambit to feign outrage over Barack Obama’s recent joke comparing Trump’s White House decor to the Cheesecake Factory fizzled out as well, likely because it simply reminded people of how the current resident is defiling the People’s House. 

Part of Fox’s problem is immediate. Many voters’ economic woes are sky-high, making it hard for culture war nonsense to feel relevant. But there’s also a longer-term problem for the network, which is that they don’t make as much sense as they used to.

Fox News has long existed to dress up gutter bigotries and far-right paranoia in the clothes of respectable news coverage, mostly through the use of dog whistles and innuendo. In the past, winks at some of the fouler ideas out there was enough to titillate the audience while keeping up the pretense of respectability. But now, that stuff seems dated and out of touch. 

This is an era when, as Jamelle Bouie of New York Times said on YouTube, the actual president offers “Klansman-level racism” from the campaign stump, calling Black people “low IQ,” flinging a slur for transgender people at Democratic politicians and suggesting that El-Sayed’s Muslim faith makes him a terrorist. Right-wing social media, especially the Elon Musk-owned X, reads like Stormfront message boards from the 1990s, with Musk himself regularly promoting white nationalist ideas and memes. Former Fox hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson offer their former employer stiff competition by being more dishonest and outrageous than the lawsuit-wary network can be, with segments suggesting only supermodel-hot women get raped or that Holocaust deniers have a point. 

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But according to Salon’s Alex Galbraith, one Fox host seems to be getting sick of his network’s culture war strategy. Jesse Watters has complained openly on air about how bad the GOP is doing and how Fox coverage isn’t doing much to excite their audience. In one particularly telling segment, he lashed out about the relentless attention Fox News gives to non-stories from the WNBA, including hysteria over trans players, of which there are zero.

“I don’t want to push this story anymore!” Watters said. “I want to leave this story alone! I am no longer talking about the WNBA. As of now, I boycott this segment.”

Although his reasoning may differ, the host is right that the Fox fixation on the WNBA is stupid. The league has become such an obsession on the right because, plainly put, many male conservatives hate seeing female athletes perform feats they couldn’t even manage in their youth. They want to end professional women’s sports and return to the sexist delusion that all men are stronger and faster than all women. This much is evident in how real-life right-wingers behave toward the WNBA, such as going so far as to buy tickets so they can throw sex toys at the players. 

Fox hosts are careful to never say outright that women shouldn’t play sports; that, as they well know, could alienate millions of Republican voters, especially women and fathers of female athletes who are more moderate on this issue. Instead, the network attempts to hijack the antipathy many conservatives feel toward female basketball players with their traditional wink-and-nudge coverage, pretending they want to “clean up” the sport. This preserves the illusion that the right doesn’t hate female athletes while portraying the players — the white ones at least — as fragile, helping to reassure an insecure male audience. 

In the past, this kind of tap dance has worked. Now, as Watters implied, it’s floundering, feeling much too tepid when compared Fox’s online competitors and actual politicians flinging unprintable slurs. Watters suggested as much during another segment, when he argued that Republicans need more “fear porn” if they want to win.

His use of the word “porn” is telling. Watters was arguing that it doesn’t do to be coy any longer — that only the hard-core stuff will move the base. But for Fox News, that would come at the cost of losing advertising dollars and the eyeballs of less radical viewers. This is a true dilemma — and it’s one that couldn’t happen to a more deserving network. 

The post Fox News loses its grip on the culture wars appeared first on Salon.com.

With the midterm elections just three days away, “Saturday Night Live” returned from a two-week hiatus Saturday with Donald Trump interrupting a Halloween favorite to deliver an unusual campaign message.

Tom Hanks reprised his role as David S. Pumpkins in the Oct. 31 cold open, accompanied by skeleton dancers including former cast member Bobby Moynihan. But the haunted amusement park ride was interrupted by James Austin Johnson’s Trump, who commandeered the sketch to discuss the approaching elections.

“We both appeared in 2016,” Trump’s character said of Pumpkins. “We’re both very loud, very orange, and very, frankly, annoying.”

Johnson’s Trump mocked Republican polling numbers, compared Texas’ political landscape to his discolored hand and reluctantly urged viewers to support Republican Ken Paxton over Democrat James Talarico, or rather “Tala-FREAK-o” in Trump’s universe.

The sketch also revisited Trump’s recent remarks about men’s backsides, with Hanks becoming an unlikely recipient of the president’s fictional admiration.

After a quick Nicki Minaj impersonation of her recent hype of MAGA and love of Trump, a parody of former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia rightfully botched the show’s signature opening line.

Despite Tuesday’s approaching elections, the episode largely limited its political satire to the cold open and a handful of “Weekend Update” jokes. Colin Jost opened the segment with a montage of Trump’s remarks about Ohio Sen. Jon Husted‘s backside, extending the posterior joke.

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Elsewhere, the Halloween broadcast leaned heavily on nostalgia and celebrity appearances.

Moynihan returned as his recurring character “Drunk Uncle” during Weekend Update, joined by Milwaukee Brewers players Christian Yelich and Brice Turang and manager Pat Murphy, who brought the World Series trophy.

In one of the evening’s more pointed moments, host Inde Navarrette took aim at previous host Shane Gillis, whose remarks a few weeks ago describing women at the gym as dressing like “whores” drew widespread criticism. Discussing the fitness demands of her upcoming Marvel role, Navarrette turned his words back on him: “Every morning, I put on my ‘little whore outfit,’ and I hit the gym.” The audience responded with cheers and applause.

Gracie Abrams was the musical guest.

The post Trump hijacks SNL and David S. Pumpkins ahead of midterms appeared first on Salon.com.

KOREAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE — Friedrich Merz ended his five-day trip to Asia on Friday reflecting on Europe’s past.

After visiting the blue barracks where the armistice that ended the Korean War was signed in 1953, in the Joint Security Area where North and South Korean troops stand face-to-face, the German chancellor addressed the obvious parallels between his country’s history and Korea’s present.

“Thoughts are running through my mind about how grateful we may be that in Germany we haven’t had to experience this for 36 years,” Merz said.

The remarks concluded a tour of Singapore, Japan and South Korea, where the chancellor was challenged by Asian capitals over security and trade cooperation — and often reminded of how the region’s turmoil are intertwined with Europe’s precarious moment.

‘Collective security’

One only has to look across the border. Shortly before Merz arrived in the demilitarized zone, North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan. The chancellor’s greatest security concerns at home — Russia’s war against Ukraine and Moscow’s threat to Europe — are increasingly becoming problems in the Asia-Pacific region as well.

The fact that Pyongyang is able to launch so many ballistic missiles, testing and expanding its long-range strike capabilities, is directly linked to its cooperation with Russia. North Korea has been sending soldiers to the Russian front in Ukraine for two years and in return benefited from combat experience and technology transfers.

North Korean state television on Thursday showed leader Kim Jong Un with new military drones, including a potential stealth drone, underscoring the great strides the country is also making in drone development. These are serious security issues that other countries in the region, including Japan, cannot ignore.

Besides provocations from Pyongyang, there is China, which is not only becoming increasingly dominant in trade but also casting its eye toward Taiwan, making far-reaching territorial claims in the South China Sea and putting strong pressure on critics such as Japan. And there is Russia, which is forging close military ties with Beijing and carrying out joint bomber flights with the Chinese air force near the Japanese border.

“Russia’s war against Ukraine is ever-present here in the region,” Merz told reporters following his visit to the border. “There is no longer such a thing as unilateral security in the world, only collective security,” he added, underscoring his call to “work closely” with Japan, South Korea and Singapore “on security policy issues” and in the defense industry.

Middle power struggle

This German offer has generated considerable interest. Given Berlin’s position as Ukraine’s largest supporter, German defense companies are highly active in the war-torn country and cooperate with local manufacturers, giving them access to rapid technological developments. This makes them attractive to Asian partners who fear falling behind North Korea and China as they benefit from their cooperation with Russia.

The fact that the chancellor traveled with a large business delegation — the kind previously seen only on visits to China — underscores this focus. Among the companies were several defense firms, including aircraft manufacturer Airbus, air defense manufacturer Diehl Defense and drone specialist Quantum-Systems. Japan welcomed the cooperation, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaking of a “premium partnership” with Germany.

Yet Merz’s trip was about more than defense deals. The chancellor used his visits to warn against violations of international law by Russia but also increasingly by China and the United States. “We are on the threshold of a new era,” he said in Tokyo. “We are witnessing how the major powers are pursuing a new policy and how international rules are eroding.”

His words echoed a similar warning issued by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier during a parallel trip to Beijing. “An order that was never perfect, but at least served as the foundation for international cooperation, is eroding. Lawlessness looms. I see this as a great danger for all of us,” said Steinmeier.

To counter this trend, Merz built on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s proposal that “middle powers” should team up to better defend themselves in the face of unreliable major powers and toothless international organizations.

In speeches in Tokyo and Seoul, Merz proposed a “global political alliance for rules-based trade.” Medium-sized powers such as the EU, Asian nations, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the South American Mercosur trade bloc should “coordinate” and “act together” if others challenged international rules “or if economic pressure were to be exerted,” said the chancellor.

It’s a thinly veiled reference to Chinese threats to restrict access to rare earth metals and the tariff threats made by U.S. President Donald Trump. Merz also said the alliance could strengthen the World Trade Organization and seek to unblock the nomination of judges to the organization’s appellate body.

“Considerable concern” over Franco-German car deal

During his trip, however, Merz experienced firsthand just how difficult it is to put such an ambitious proposal into practice when special interests complicate an alliance of small and medium-sized powers.

This became most evident when the Asian countries issued a sharp protest over planned “Made in Europe” rules for the car industry. Under a proposal agreed by Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, Brussels would restrict subsidies for cars to vehicles produced inside the EU, Switzerland and the U.K., putting foreign manufacturers at a disadvantage.

In polite but direct terms, South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung told reporters he had “asked Merz for support so that Korea would be treated like the EU member states.” A similar complaint was voiced in Japan.

“That was, in fact, a topic that surprised me a bit, given the intensity with which it was presented,” Merz told reporters before returning to Germany on Friday evening. He admitted that the Franco-German proposal had “sparked considerable concern in the region — in Singapore, Japan, and Korea — that we may be facing a new wave of protectionism in Europe, that we are closing ourselves off from other countries.”

Merz vowed to take those complaints “very seriously” and raise them at the next EU leaders’ summit. Yet they are a sharp reminder of how much industry-specific details can hamper the implementation of his proposed broader alliance.

The chancellor’s trip also revealed challenges when it comes to security cooperation: A request for Japan to supply Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine fell flat. And it remains unclear whether Tokyo continues to contribute several billions to a new Ukraine loan next year, as Brussels hopes.

A Japanese diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, posed a different question to the German delegation: “How exactly will you help us if China attacks Taiwan?”

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

More than 40% of people flagged by the Trump administration as suspected noncitizen voters in California aren’t on the state’s current voter rolls, according to a new analysis filed in federal court Saturday, raising fresh questions about the Justice Department‘s efforts to intervene in ballot counting days before the midterm elections.

Researchers with UCLA’s Voting Rights Project examined a list of 20,930 people identified by federal officials as potentially ineligible voters. They found that 8,880 names, or 42%, could not be matched to California’s current voter file.

The analysis also identified at least 22 people who appear to be U.S. citizens, with researchers warning that the number of citizens included on the list could be considerably higher.

The findings were submitted in litigation brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which is challenging the administration’s efforts to use federal immigration data to identify suspected noncitizen voters.

🚨 CHIRLA & the UCLA Voting Rights Project have filed a federal lawsuit to defend voting rights ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The case seeks equal treatment under the Constitution for all U.S. citizens, regardless of birthplace.
No second-class citizens. No second-class votes.

[image or embed]

— CHIRLA (@chirla-org.bsky.social) September 3, 2026 at 5:20 PM

The Justice Department demanded that California election officials separate ballots associated with the listed individuals and withhold them from counting until their citizenship can be verified. Federal prosecutors have also warned election officials of potential criminal consequences for knowingly processing ballots cast by noncitizens.

California officials rejected the demands, questioning the list’s reliability and warning that separating ballots could disrupt an election already underway.

On Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s emergency request to force California to set aside the disputed ballots. The court concluded that the government had not demonstrated that such extraordinary intervention was legally justified.

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A federal district judge had previously rejected the request, warning that it could disenfranchise eligible voters and create chaos in the election system.

The Justice Department maintains that its efforts are intended to prevent illegal voting, which is prohibited in federal elections. The administration has defended its data and argued that counting ballots from ineligible voters would undermine legitimate votes.

But the new analysis raises questions about whether the government’s list accurately identifies people who are registered to vote, much less whether they are ineligible.

The dispute comes as millions of Californians have already cast ballots ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The post Trump DOJ’s California noncitizen voter list riddled with errors appeared first on Salon.com.

If you live in West Virginia, you're lucky enough to get a cryptid-themed license plate. West Virginia is the only state that offers a cryptid-themed plate, including multiple beloved monsters from popular urban legends. All of the creatures are from urban legends that are specific to West Virginia lore. — Read the rest

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