I very much get the sense that for many in the DSA, the adjective Democratic means nothing. For them it’s like the Democratic People’s Republics of the Cold War and North Korea now. For people who want to live in a democracy, these people are not on the same side.
I volunteer at the Hamline Dining Hall, which has served comfort food at a sit-down restaurant for 128 years. Try the wild rice meatballs with lingonberry sauce and a pickle lemonade paleta for dessert.
Looks like it's a one-man effort? (In the first three pages of results I checked, all but one of the threads were started by the same user: "David-SB".)
I really don't get where that's coming from... admittedly the new logo (same as the original logo apparently) is bland as hell, but like what's the "woke" angle? There's not a dude and a barrel == woke?
I'm guessing they also need something that'll look nice as an app icon, but at least it's not bloody WaFd (you had to change the name of the bank for that? WTF?).
MattY has insisted for a while that Trump is popular because he's actually a moderate. I think it's pretty damn clear that if any Democrat proposed 10% public ownership of Intel, Matt would have claimed that's exactly the sort of far-left overreach Dems need to avoid. It's high time for Matt to admit Trump is not a moderate, we're just well beyond the bounds of the old-fashioned left/right politics he grew up with. Voters are expressing a preference for Peronism not moderation.
EDIT: Though Matt's characterization of Trump as a "moderate" still pisses me the fuck off. Ken has noted that Matt has specifically endorsed public ownership of companies in the past.
He just has this slippery way of seeming like some sort of blank canvas that anyone possessed of motivated reasoning can project their own hopes and dreams onto without actually noticing anything he says/said.
The statist partial takeover of private companies in that fashion wasn't something he'd ever talked about as far as I know though. Any idea where he got that bit of communism from?
Trump lies and is inconsistent is the most consistent thing there is about him, and there is certainly a Peronism for many of his supporters. But the moderation to squeeze out the win is real.
Matt's position as I understand it is that Trump ran as a moderate, ESPECIALLY in relation to the previous Republican brand. In 2016 after decades of other Republicans decrying SS and Medicare, Trump explicitly promised to make no changes. In 2024, again after decades of a Republican platform that wanted to end abortion, Trump tried mostly to dodge the issue, said it should be up to the states, and promised to make IVF free.
His advice to dems now is break with the democratic brand in some similar way, again to squeeze out the win. I'm less sure about it working on our side.
Trump also promised to raise tariffs to rates not seen since pre-Keynesian economics and he absolutely followed through with it. Calling him "moderate"--literally means "avoiding extremes"--when he's the most aggressively protectionist man in politics in my lifetime is patently absurd. It's also ridiculous to give him fucking credit for moderating on abortion when he's the guy most responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. Trump isn't a fucking moderate, he's just unprincipled (except for tariffs apparently)
All it does is reveal that Matt can't play politics to save his life. Starting a faction fight with the left when your biggest contentions with them naturally started to fade over the past half-decade is stupid. Reinforcing Republican narratives that Trump is moderate and Democrats are too left is stupid. Letting Republicans define what left and right mean such that free trade is bizarrely coded as left now is stupid. Giving credence to conservatives' free speech concerns when it was obvious to anyone they were just whining about losing the culture war and would turn heel the second that changed is stupid. Matt's just very bad at playing the Secret Hitler game that's going on here.
I missed where (1) Trump ran in 2024 on nationalizing US industries and/or (2) there is any polling showing this new Intel deal is popular with the general public?
I bet you a lots of Republican voters who'd be declaring the end of the republic if President AOC announced a 10% stake in Amazon will approve of this in polls.
I bet you lots of Democrats who oppose Trump buying a 10% stake in Intel would fully support President AOC announcing a 10% stake in Amazon and lots of DSA types would criticize AOC only for not doing more than 10% and only doing it for Amazon.
No shit. Part of that is raw partisanship but the other half is I have way more confidence AOC has genuine intent even if her decisions can sometimes be naive. Trump, by contrast, is a corrupt sycophant. Are we so post-morality that whether or not a politician seems like a good person isn't relevant?
In the hypothetical universe you invented* where President AOC had just announced 10% public ownership of Amazon, she probably would be doing a lot of good for LGBT youth in Alabama and immigrants in Texas.
EDIT: *Sam did not invent this hypothetical but was continuing the hypothetical from the above comment. I stand by the rest of the claim.
I mean, we're all tribal - dems asking where the outrage is for behaviors they'd get dinged for are asking for an electorate that doesn't exist. If Biden had gone after Harvard's lush indirect cost reimbursement on research grants, can you honestly say the dem side wouldn't have been, those numbers have been inflated for years, go Joe!
"Trump's policies are popular with people pathologically addicted to sucking his ****" is not actual evidence that "Voters [writ large] are expressing a preference for" Trump's policies. Because, I'm pretty sure at this point "lots of Republican voters" would be fine with declaring Trump All-Powerful God-King for Life, but I really, l really f***ing doubt that you'd think that shows "Voters are expressing a preference for" that.
Insane, for every imaginable reason. Are wind turbines trans in some way? Because that's the only really good explanation for just halting them when they're not even government funded.
And to show just how dystopic and pure authoritarian we've become, this tidbit was in the same article: "The department has issued several orders to keep coal plants running past their planned closure dates, even in cases where the operators never sought an extension and ratepayers would shoulder the costs of complying."
He's just breaking shit everywhere, and they no longer bother even pretending there's a reason beyond his whim.
I have been to the Minnesota State Fair a couple of times, and I had no idea that it is in a suburb and not in St. Paul. The great thing about it is that you can take the regular old city bus straight there.
I have a personal announcement! I'm pregnant and due to give birth on September 13. I am extraordinarily lucky to have a (so far; knock on wood) a healthy pregnancy at 43!
I also realized that I never organized that Slow Boring SoCal meetup I promised, and once I give birth, my brain will be utterly fried from sleep deprivation and I will be no good at intelligent conversation.
So:
I'm going to be at the University Town Center, 4100-4255 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA next Saturday (August 30) at noon. There's an outdoor seating area between the boba place, the ramen place, and Gogi Korean Grill. I'll be sitting at one of the tables. (For anyone familiar with UC Irvine, it's across the walk bridge from the UCI campus.)
I realize this is very short notice, and it's Labor Day weekend. But I'm down to 3 weeks, and the further back I push it, the higher the risk of "oops, baby made her appearance early, gotta scrap the meetup." And I do want to have a meetup, the last one in Long Beach was fun! This location is close to my home, so if nobody shows up, don't feel bad, I'll just sit there and read a book and then go home. But if you do want to come, please let me know!
If you haven't met me in person, I'm a tall, visibly pregnant woman with long brown hair, and I'll have my son's stuffed toy octopus with me.
Anyhow, it's been kind of surreal following all the "declining fertility rates" discourse on SB the past few months while I've been pregnant with my second all along, but I didn't want to reveal it prematurely, because I didn't want to jinx it. This is considered a geriatric and hence high-risk pregnancy. But now that I'm at 37 weeks, even if the baby were born tomorrow (please no) she would likely be okay.
Do check it out! Freddie lets go of his Grumpy Prick side and harnesses his considerable writing talent to express joy and gratitude, not to sneer at his ideological enemies and tell us how much they suck. The result is a wonder.
"Everybody talks about needing to be ready, these days - we want to have kids, but we’re not ready, we need to get ready. That’s not how it works. You get pregnant and it makes you ready. You make yourself ready. You feel yourself rise to the occasion. Ready comes later; the world of man was not built on ready."
I'm going to quote that passage quite often, I think.
Also: "And yet what a joy. What a joy. What a constant joy. I think people are afraid to be real about how fun this all is, afraid to sound like they’re bragging, afraid of perpetuating one stigma or another, afraid that people won’t appreciate just how hard it is. And, yes, it’s very very hard. I typically watch him from 9PM to 5AM; my circadian rhythm is a shambles. This is bad enough. Not being able to sleep next to my wife is worse. I am exhausted, obviously. We never do anything, obviously. We dream up plans that we know we will have no ability to execute for years, sometimes many years. Yes, it’s all very hard. But so what? So what. People shying away from having babies because they heard that it’s so hard are making one of those category errors that are inescapable in this rotten decade in this awful century: they think that hard is the opposite of good. Well, this is better than good. He is a joy to me."
I could quote the whole thing, but instead, just go read it. It captures the early days of fatherhood very well.
Your due date is three days before my closing date on the new home a block and a half down the hill from you!
Unfortunately I will be on a flight back from Tucson next Saturday (landing at 3:30 - if there’s a chance that it’ll last that long, we can exchange phone numbers over email so I can find out if people are still there) or else I would be able to help make the table more noticeable with my hair color.
... there is both no space and no permission for an ADU unfortunately...."
Do not submit to this unjustifiable restriction on your property rights -- build it anyhow! Perhaps something cantilevered? An extended balcony, with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen?
In the interest of factual accuracy for which Slow Boring is rightly known, I must point out that a typical new home is in fact larger in both volume and mass than a new human baby.
The DNC should abolish caucuses altogether. I've taken part in one (Iowa in 2012). They're undemocratic, granting a voice only to those with knowledge of the process and the free time on a week night. The whole point of primaries is to gather information about what voters want and caucuses systematically undermine that. Only voting primaries should award delegates.
"The Pentagon has fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a senior defense official and a senator said on Friday, weeks after the agency drafted a preliminary report that contradicted President Trump’s contention that Iran’s nuclear sites had been “obliterated” in U.S. military strikes.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse is the latest senior Pentagon official, and the second top military intelligence official, to be removed since Mr. Trump’s return to office."
"I am going to deliver the Correct Answer (the results are disappointing but they also BOLSTER the case for cash > cash-like benefits like SNAP + Section 8) about the meaning of the cash transfer studies next week."
IMO domestic UBI is kind of a pointless argument until we have AGI & robots and then it becomes very important (assuming we're still around to have the argument).
I'll add some meat on the bones of this. I may be pre-empting Matt here, but for me, the benefit of SWITCHING most of the existing welfare state to, in the words of Randy Moss, "straight cash homie," is to eliminate the welfare cliffs created by the current system. The experiment in question did no such thing, it just threw cash on top of everything else.
Also even if I got my preferences, I don't all of society's problems to be solved. UBI proponents overpromise and focus on the wrong justification for their proposal.
By leveraging influencers, polling, and anonymized audience data, the group said it intends to build a competitive progressive media ecosystem ahead of the 2028 election.
"
Rofl
There's already a huge progressive ecosystem that's not the problem.
The problem is progressives are out of touch with the cultural mainstream.And so voters aren't interested
Nice piece Hannah! especially enjoyed the dem grassroots roundup.
Interesting article in the Atlantic about the DSA. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/dsa-mamdani-losing-elections/683970/
I very much get the sense that for many in the DSA, the adjective Democratic means nothing. For them it’s like the Democratic People’s Republics of the Cold War and North Korea now. For people who want to live in a democracy, these people are not on the same side.
I volunteer at the Hamline Dining Hall, which has served comfort food at a sit-down restaurant for 128 years. Try the wild rice meatballs with lingonberry sauce and a pickle lemonade paleta for dessert.
That sounds delicious, and nothing like state fair food.
So I guess we're not getting the Saturday thread back...😕
Maybe we need a subreddit.
Oh wow. One exists? TIL. https://old.reddit.com/r/slowboring/
Looks like it's a one-man effort? (In the first three pages of results I checked, all but one of the threads were started by the same user: "David-SB".)
That's probably the least helpful handle possible in figuring out who here created it.
OMG!
Yep, was just coming to the comments to make the exact same observation! :-(
Hacks is excellent
I’m not as optimistic as I want to be about 2026 anymore when randos on the internet are blaming “Democrats” for the Cracker Barrel brand change.
I really don't get where that's coming from... admittedly the new logo (same as the original logo apparently) is bland as hell, but like what's the "woke" angle? There's not a dude and a barrel == woke?
I'm guessing they also need something that'll look nice as an app icon, but at least it's not bloody WaFd (you had to change the name of the bank for that? WTF?).
MattY has insisted for a while that Trump is popular because he's actually a moderate. I think it's pretty damn clear that if any Democrat proposed 10% public ownership of Intel, Matt would have claimed that's exactly the sort of far-left overreach Dems need to avoid. It's high time for Matt to admit Trump is not a moderate, we're just well beyond the bounds of the old-fashioned left/right politics he grew up with. Voters are expressing a preference for Peronism not moderation.
EDIT: Though Matt's characterization of Trump as a "moderate" still pisses me the fuck off. Ken has noted that Matt has specifically endorsed public ownership of companies in the past.
Matt has written positively several times about the idea of the US government owning a stake in US companies. Why just make shit up Davy?
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/28/17774334/social-wealth-fund-bruenig-solidarity
Alright, fair enough.
He just has this slippery way of seeming like some sort of blank canvas that anyone possessed of motivated reasoning can project their own hopes and dreams onto without actually noticing anything he says/said.
The statist partial takeover of private companies in that fashion wasn't something he'd ever talked about as far as I know though. Any idea where he got that bit of communism from?
He moderated on two big high profile issue for republicans, abortion, SS/Medicare cuts
Sort of, but they are cutting Medicare -- they're quietly rolling out pre-authorization in a few states.
Yes, but again, that's not what Trump ran on doing, which is the relevant issue.
Trump lies and is inconsistent is the most consistent thing there is about him, and there is certainly a Peronism for many of his supporters. But the moderation to squeeze out the win is real.
Matt's position as I understand it is that Trump ran as a moderate, ESPECIALLY in relation to the previous Republican brand. In 2016 after decades of other Republicans decrying SS and Medicare, Trump explicitly promised to make no changes. In 2024, again after decades of a Republican platform that wanted to end abortion, Trump tried mostly to dodge the issue, said it should be up to the states, and promised to make IVF free.
His advice to dems now is break with the democratic brand in some similar way, again to squeeze out the win. I'm less sure about it working on our side.
Trump also promised to raise tariffs to rates not seen since pre-Keynesian economics and he absolutely followed through with it. Calling him "moderate"--literally means "avoiding extremes"--when he's the most aggressively protectionist man in politics in my lifetime is patently absurd. It's also ridiculous to give him fucking credit for moderating on abortion when he's the guy most responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. Trump isn't a fucking moderate, he's just unprincipled (except for tariffs apparently)
All it does is reveal that Matt can't play politics to save his life. Starting a faction fight with the left when your biggest contentions with them naturally started to fade over the past half-decade is stupid. Reinforcing Republican narratives that Trump is moderate and Democrats are too left is stupid. Letting Republicans define what left and right mean such that free trade is bizarrely coded as left now is stupid. Giving credence to conservatives' free speech concerns when it was obvious to anyone they were just whining about losing the culture war and would turn heel the second that changed is stupid. Matt's just very bad at playing the Secret Hitler game that's going on here.
I missed where (1) Trump ran in 2024 on nationalizing US industries and/or (2) there is any polling showing this new Intel deal is popular with the general public?
I bet you a lots of Republican voters who'd be declaring the end of the republic if President AOC announced a 10% stake in Amazon will approve of this in polls.
I bet you lots of Democrats who oppose Trump buying a 10% stake in Intel would fully support President AOC announcing a 10% stake in Amazon and lots of DSA types would criticize AOC only for not doing more than 10% and only doing it for Amazon.
No shit. Part of that is raw partisanship but the other half is I have way more confidence AOC has genuine intent even if her decisions can sometimes be naive. Trump, by contrast, is a corrupt sycophant. Are we so post-morality that whether or not a politician seems like a good person isn't relevant?
What has AOC's "moral goodness" accomplished? How is it helping LGBT youth in Alabama or immigrants who are being harassed by ICE in Texas?
In the hypothetical universe you invented* where President AOC had just announced 10% public ownership of Amazon, she probably would be doing a lot of good for LGBT youth in Alabama and immigrants in Texas.
EDIT: *Sam did not invent this hypothetical but was continuing the hypothetical from the above comment. I stand by the rest of the claim.
I mean, we're all tribal - dems asking where the outrage is for behaviors they'd get dinged for are asking for an electorate that doesn't exist. If Biden had gone after Harvard's lush indirect cost reimbursement on research grants, can you honestly say the dem side wouldn't have been, those numbers have been inflated for years, go Joe!
Outside of Leslie Knope and Lucy on Tacoma FD no one worships Biden, so I doubt it.
"Trump's policies are popular with people pathologically addicted to sucking his ****" is not actual evidence that "Voters [writ large] are expressing a preference for" Trump's policies. Because, I'm pretty sure at this point "lots of Republican voters" would be fine with declaring Trump All-Powerful God-King for Life, but I really, l really f***ing doubt that you'd think that shows "Voters are expressing a preference for" that.
This seems like a questionable policy decision. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/climate/trump-administration-halts-revolution-wind.html
Insane, for every imaginable reason. Are wind turbines trans in some way? Because that's the only really good explanation for just halting them when they're not even government funded.
And to show just how dystopic and pure authoritarian we've become, this tidbit was in the same article: "The department has issued several orders to keep coal plants running past their planned closure dates, even in cases where the operators never sought an extension and ratepayers would shoulder the costs of complying."
He's just breaking shit everywhere, and they no longer bother even pretending there's a reason beyond his whim.
I think the explanation is that they are on Team Coal, and they want to defeat their sworn enemies, Team Wind and Team Sun.
I have been to the Minnesota State Fair a couple of times, and I had no idea that it is in a suburb and not in St. Paul. The great thing about it is that you can take the regular old city bus straight there.
Hi Matt Y and Halina and nice readers!
I have a personal announcement! I'm pregnant and due to give birth on September 13. I am extraordinarily lucky to have a (so far; knock on wood) a healthy pregnancy at 43!
I also realized that I never organized that Slow Boring SoCal meetup I promised, and once I give birth, my brain will be utterly fried from sleep deprivation and I will be no good at intelligent conversation.
So:
I'm going to be at the University Town Center, 4100-4255 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA next Saturday (August 30) at noon. There's an outdoor seating area between the boba place, the ramen place, and Gogi Korean Grill. I'll be sitting at one of the tables. (For anyone familiar with UC Irvine, it's across the walk bridge from the UCI campus.)
I realize this is very short notice, and it's Labor Day weekend. But I'm down to 3 weeks, and the further back I push it, the higher the risk of "oops, baby made her appearance early, gotta scrap the meetup." And I do want to have a meetup, the last one in Long Beach was fun! This location is close to my home, so if nobody shows up, don't feel bad, I'll just sit there and read a book and then go home. But if you do want to come, please let me know!
If you haven't met me in person, I'm a tall, visibly pregnant woman with long brown hair, and I'll have my son's stuffed toy octopus with me.
Anyhow, it's been kind of surreal following all the "declining fertility rates" discourse on SB the past few months while I've been pregnant with my second all along, but I didn't want to reveal it prematurely, because I didn't want to jinx it. This is considered a geriatric and hence high-risk pregnancy. But now that I'm at 37 weeks, even if the baby were born tomorrow (please no) she would likely be okay.
ETA: Freddie deBoer annoyed me one too many times to the point that I blocked him, but I popped over to his Substack recently and found this absolutely beautiful and poignant ode to Freddie's infant son: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/i-didnt-know-i-could-feel-this-way
Do check it out! Freddie lets go of his Grumpy Prick side and harnesses his considerable writing talent to express joy and gratitude, not to sneer at his ideological enemies and tell us how much they suck. The result is a wonder.
Wow! Congratulations!
I hope everything goes smoothly!
congratulations!
Freddie at his best.
"Everybody talks about needing to be ready, these days - we want to have kids, but we’re not ready, we need to get ready. That’s not how it works. You get pregnant and it makes you ready. You make yourself ready. You feel yourself rise to the occasion. Ready comes later; the world of man was not built on ready."
I'm going to quote that passage quite often, I think.
Also: "And yet what a joy. What a joy. What a constant joy. I think people are afraid to be real about how fun this all is, afraid to sound like they’re bragging, afraid of perpetuating one stigma or another, afraid that people won’t appreciate just how hard it is. And, yes, it’s very very hard. I typically watch him from 9PM to 5AM; my circadian rhythm is a shambles. This is bad enough. Not being able to sleep next to my wife is worse. I am exhausted, obviously. We never do anything, obviously. We dream up plans that we know we will have no ability to execute for years, sometimes many years. Yes, it’s all very hard. But so what? So what. People shying away from having babies because they heard that it’s so hard are making one of those category errors that are inescapable in this rotten decade in this awful century: they think that hard is the opposite of good. Well, this is better than good. He is a joy to me."
I could quote the whole thing, but instead, just go read it. It captures the early days of fatherhood very well.
Congratulations!
A bit late but congratulations!!
Congrats! My wife and I just had our second three weeks ago. Fun times ahead!
Congrats!
Congratulations!
You're bringing a guest to the meetup I see!
Yeah, I thought Freddie’s piece was lovely, too
Congratulations drosophilist!
Congrats!
Congratulations!!!!
Congratulations!
Your due date is three days before my closing date on the new home a block and a half down the hill from you!
Unfortunately I will be on a flight back from Tucson next Saturday (landing at 3:30 - if there’s a chance that it’ll last that long, we can exchange phone numbers over email so I can find out if people are still there) or else I would be able to help make the table more noticeable with my hair color.
Wow, sounds like an offer to babysit as needed on short notice! ;-)
"...closing date on the new home...."
Okay, it's not as huge as a new baby. But since this is a YIMBY blog, we should certainly congratulate you on having a new Back Yard!
When is your first ADU due?
It's faculty housing at UCI - and it's a townhome without a backyard, so there is both no space and no permission for an ADU unfortunately.
... there is both no space and no permission for an ADU unfortunately...."
Do not submit to this unjustifiable restriction on your property rights -- build it anyhow! Perhaps something cantilevered? An extended balcony, with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen?
"it's not as huge as a new baby"
In the interest of factual accuracy for which Slow Boring is rightly known, I must point out that a typical new home is in fact larger in both volume and mass than a new human baby.
/puts on hat, leaves quietly
New babies are huge. It's not a matter of volume or mass. They're just huge.
Very true! 😊
Congrats to you as well!
Congratulations! I don't live anywhere near SoCal, but hope the meet up goes well
That's wonderful news. I hope delivery is a cake walk, and her childhood is a joy.
I saw a very shaggy stumpy dog on my run today. That is all.
The DNC should abolish caucuses altogether. I've taken part in one (Iowa in 2012). They're undemocratic, granting a voice only to those with knowledge of the process and the free time on a week night. The whole point of primaries is to gather information about what voters want and caucuses systematically undermine that. Only voting primaries should award delegates.
Bari Weiss call your office! #freespeach
"The Pentagon has fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a senior defense official and a senator said on Friday, weeks after the agency drafted a preliminary report that contradicted President Trump’s contention that Iran’s nuclear sites had been “obliterated” in U.S. military strikes.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse is the latest senior Pentagon official, and the second top military intelligence official, to be removed since Mr. Trump’s return to office."
Perhaps we could get an article here on the subject that's been kicking off The Argument this week:
https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1958963940781625538
"I am going to deliver the Correct Answer (the results are disappointing but they also BOLSTER the case for cash > cash-like benefits like SNAP + Section 8) about the meaning of the cash transfer studies next week."
IMO domestic UBI is kind of a pointless argument until we have AGI & robots and then it becomes very important (assuming we're still around to have the argument).
Jack Nicholson nodding.gif
I'll add some meat on the bones of this. I may be pre-empting Matt here, but for me, the benefit of SWITCHING most of the existing welfare state to, in the words of Randy Moss, "straight cash homie," is to eliminate the welfare cliffs created by the current system. The experiment in question did no such thing, it just threw cash on top of everything else.
Also even if I got my preferences, I don't all of society's problems to be solved. UBI proponents overpromise and focus on the wrong justification for their proposal.
I accidentally a verb
"
By leveraging influencers, polling, and anonymized audience data, the group said it intends to build a competitive progressive media ecosystem ahead of the 2028 election.
"
Rofl
There's already a huge progressive ecosystem that's not the problem.
The problem is progressives are out of touch with the cultural mainstream.And so voters aren't interested
>I just finished watching “Hacks” on HBO Max. I loved it, despite my general aversion to stand-up comedy.<
I greatly enjoyed it also. Looking forward to the next installment.