Lindsay Beyerstein

My latest for MS Now: Why the purported Epstein suicide note is probably the real deal. Great working with @jamescdownie.bsky.social on this one!

Kirk wanted to denaturalize his political opponents. He bussed insurrectionists to the Capital on J6. He attacked our democracy with election conspiracy theories. He urged his millions of listeners to bail Paul Pelsosi's attacker out of jail.

The Charlie Kirk hagiography shows our society's empty worship of form. He held debates, so he was a free speech hero. Never mind that these were rigged events where he'd tempt unwary college kids to spar with him and then humiliate them with cheap rhetorical tricks and put the footage online.

Kirk was working in the same tradition as evangelical preachers like William Bell Riley in the 1930s. They were professional anti-evolution debaters who would use cheap tricks to humiliate unwary biology professors who showed up to debate them in front of stacked audiences.

An establishment wall? What does the establishment have to do with flagging Nazi group chats and failed outdoor concerts?

But, also Josh Hawley is a true populist messiah. P.S., I am not a crackpot.

Sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease.

Sounds like something someone with a scarily accurate platform would need to choreograph like a drug deal.

Editors keep publishing the same claptrap with no demand for data that abandoning pro-choice principles will win Democrats elections. It's one of the laziest takes in the entire journalism industry and everyone who writes one of these thinks he's breaking new ground.

Trump Slump