For your weekend listening pleasure, let me recommend our latest @KnowYrEnemyPod episode with @andrewmarantz—it's about podcasts, bros, Trump's appeal to men, and what they all might have to do with each other. Rogan, Theo Von, Hasan, Chapo, etc are all in the mix. Link below:

“It’s never inevitable at the time” Writing Melting Point made me see the 20th century was always teetering on the edge. I’ve always obsessed over forks in the road, butterfly effects, what ifs, if onlys, some would say to an unhealthy degree! Here is my obsession in book form

Had a great time talking to the bros @andrewmarantz & @MatthewSitman about podcasts, bros, and bro podcasters on @KnowYrEnemyPod

Today I am on the @ezraklein show, making the case that Trump is losing his bid to topple American democracy

Terrific @andrewmarantz piece in latest New Yorker, carefully outlining the ways in which Hungary lost its democracy (for now), and how it does and does not resemble the U.S.

Other countries have watched their democracies slip away quietly, without tanks in the streets. That may be where we’re headed—or where we already are.

Quoted in the @andrewmarantz piece today in the New Yorker on the parallels between Orbán's Hungary and Trump's America, especially re: clamping down on universities and media link in reply because musk

Wonderful ⁦@andrewmarantz⁩ piece on the Hungarian playbook of our time. “All talk of playbooks aside, an autocratic breakthrough is not something that any leader can order up at will, by following the same ten easy steps.”

Reupping this evergreen tweet, no rewording necessary. Will be on @WNYC with Brian Lehrer in a sec

After the 2024 election, Democratic strategists argued that the Party needed to make inroads with young voters—especially young men. @andrewmarantz talks to Hasan Piker, a leftist Twitch streamer whose audience skews young, male, and disaffected. https://t.co/MqRSWi5hMU

(thanks as always to the best fact-checkers in the business, who really went above and beyond with this one. and a h/t to @rudenshiold, who pointed me to Chadvice, among other things!)

How did the Democrats lose the vibe wars? It's sort of complicated, but also sort of not. Reading this piece will take about 1/4 as long as a Rogan episode (great ROI!). Grab a Celsius and lock in 🚀🦍💪

full piece is here. It's not entirely about this election, but it's not not about this election. Again, I'm not offering any of this as The Answer. There is no skeleton key.

I don't think the world needs another Why Trump Won take, at least not from me, and obviously there's no one answer. But I do have a piece in print this week, and here are a few paragraphs from it that may be relevant.

Andrew Marantz reports on Tucker Carlson, who just wants to live like it’s 1985. https://t.co/DF4ScfcvHZ

Is Trumpism a kind of fascism? Also: who cares? My meta-analysis (including, if you make it to the end, something actually resembling a conclusion) https://t.co/kA5tZgQk41

For this week's @NYTmag I profiled the historian Robert Paxton, who talked to me about the social roots of Trumpism, and why he changed his mind about the movement https://t.co/vUhXA9Nejl

I ran into one of the Buffalo Sabres in the elevator at the Prague hotel. They were in town to play the New Jersey Devils. He invited me to the game but I was performing that night.

.@andrewmarantz reports from Michigan on the activists who urged Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the primary to protest President Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, and who have declined to endorse Kamala Harris in the general.

.@andrewmarantz reports from the D.N.C., where Democrats seem rejuvenated by their new candidate, and considers why it was so difficult for them to get one in the first place.