Left Jabs

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Abdul El-Sayed and the Start of Silly Season

We’re not yet officially in the “silly season,” that cascade of bullshit that will dominate what passes for political discourse between Labor Day and the November midterms. But as with Christmas, the silly season comes earlier and earlier with each election cycle, and one could argue that it kicked off unofficially last Tuesday, with the Michigan primary. The silliness was, as usual, aided and abetted by the New York Times, in a series of disingenuous takes on the narrow victory of Abdul El-Sayed over Haley Stevens in the race for the Democratic Senate nomination. The Times’ started hyperventilating over the rise of El-Sayed weeks ago, strongly echoing its equally biased misreading of the rise of Zohran Mamdani. Both candidates were Muslims with funny names who weren’t afraid to speak the word ‘socialist’ out loud. Even worse — even more likely to make the Times’ editorial board queasy — they were both willing to openly blast the conventional wisdom abo...

Move to the Center, My Ass

This piece isn’t that old, but it bears repeating. It was written in the immediate aftermath of last year’s off-year elections, when Democrats made an unusually strong showing, which according to the legacy media was a sign of weakness. Now, as we enter the silly season leading up to November, that same media can be counted on to make the midterms seem like a contest between two legitimate entities. Already the stories feature Democrats hopelessly, and haplessly, locked in ideological struggles that threaten their ability to walk and chew gum, mostly because the Trumpian apocalypse story is getting old. If it seems like we’ve heard all this too many times before, I’m with you. And as you’ll see, I’ve even written about it. In the run-up to last Tuesday’s election, it was hard to avoid the overpaid pundits repeating the oldest and laziest clichés in the pundit handbook: “Democrats need to move to the center.” “Democrats are out of touch with voters....

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes — And Your Nose, Throat, and Lungs, As Well

Here in Michigan, we are a bit smug when it comes to climate change. We think of ourselves as unusually well positioned for the increasingly dire future we can see for the planet. Geography favors us. Hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires feel reassuringly remote. True, ice storms and other severe weather events are more frequent than they used to be, but compared to other parts of the country the climate here is relatively benign. Our confidence stems, first, from our northern location, where global warming has made our cold winters generally more comfortable than they once were, and where the summers only occasionally get higher than the mid-80s. But the real source of our confidence, or smugness if you like, comes from the four Great Lakes that surround us. We have, as a state, access to a full one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. In that sense, there’s no place like it in the world. And make no mistake, water is already a crisis in many parts of th...

A Few F-Bombs, Which Seem Appropriate to the Current Situation

As I’m not writing this week, I’m re-running my most profane piece, an exploration of FAFO, a term that has grown ever more pointed as time goes by. The piece goes back to February 2025, before the tariffs, before the Epstein scandal went nuclear, before the Iran War. Back then, things were looking quite bad indeed, especially for large parts of the MAGA base. And while, as the title says, these F-bombs were entirely appropriate then, they’ve only grown more so since. I try not to write the word ‘fuck’ too often. This is not from any prudishness or discomfort — I use it regularly in everyday speech — but seeing it in writing quickly gets old and tired. I do use it occasionally for effect, but the effect is usually minimal. In this post, however, I can’t get around it. This one is about the ironic, unintended meanings of the redneck t-shirt slogan “Fuck Around and Find Out.” A masterpiece of trashy thought, trashily expressed, I can’t talk about...

Ukraine Might Just be Winning, Whatever that Means

Depending on where you live, gas prices are way up. No surprise. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs, his wars, and his general malevolent incompetence, we now pay between $4.00 and $4.25 per gallon in Michigan, and that fluctuates according to whatever pump-and-dump scam Trump has going on in world markets. There are states that pay more, and states that pay a lot more. Four-dollar gasoline is a real hardship for millions of Americans, many of whom are now, as a result, cutting back on food and medicine, which aren’t getting cheaper either. This is the logical consequence of a war that started stupid and got stupider as time went on. Now in its fifth month. So imagine if gas were twice that and threatening to go much higher. That’s what many Russians are paying on the black market — one of the few dependable sources — right now. And when it comes to hardship, Russian hardship is exponentially harder than ours. This is the logical consequence of a war that started ...

Socialism is Still a Four-Letter Word

Once again, Democrats are dealing with the S-word. Socialism. Not the economic theory. Not the Marxian doctrine. Not state ownership of the means of production. Nothing nearly so intellectual. No, they’re dealing with the word itself, and this time it’s not Republicans using it as a bludgeon to beat Democrats into submission, though that will certainly continue, probably forever. Rather, it’s Democratic candidates embracing one of the most politically charged words in the English language. This is not a risk-free proposition, and I hope they know what they’re doing. In the last few years, New York City has emerged as ground zero for a new brand of progressivism that labels itself socialist, but really isn’t. It’s more related to the social democrats of Europe, which is to say it’s about capitalism with regulatory guardrails and, presumably, a social conscience. Starting with the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, and her sweeping asi...