• Osita Nwanevu wrote this long and excellent article about the history of US democratic primaries, with a thesis that (contrary to the narrative that BernieBros and others have been trying to push) racial and social issues have been keeping white working class voters away from progressive candidates since 1972. Not coincidentally, this was the first presidential election after the GOP adopted the "Southern strategy", Richard Nixon's plan to attract racist white Democrats alienated by the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Nwanevu is a little too quick to throw around the word "neo-liberal", but otherwise this is a fascinating look at history and trends.
• It's easy to dismiss the various Twitter-tempests-in-a-teacup as distractions from "real" issues, but let's consider that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are accusing the President of the United States of blackmail, and that's not a small thing.
• Not politics exactly, but a hot topic in tech lately is allegations of inappropriate behavior of venture capitalists toward women who are asking them for funding. This Guardian article uses one particular case as a jumping off point to talk about the problems with sexism and misogyny in the tech world. I also found this Facebook post to be a thoughtful response.
• Speaking of Silicon Valley and its sometimes-toxic culture, this video from Fusion does a good job of why the resignation of Uber's ultra-bro CEO, Travis Kalanick, will not solve all the company's problems.
• In voter suppression news, I was cheered to see so many states pushing back on or flat refusing the administration's request for voter data. And this hasn't been a particularly partisan response either -- only 17 states have Democratic Secretaries of State, but as of the most recent count, at least 44 states are refusing to cooperate, either wholly or in part. When the governor of Mississippi told Trump to "jump in the Gulf of Mexico", I figured that was pretty much the ballgame. Maybe there's some hope for the republic after all.
• "I Don't Know How to Explain Why You Should Care About Other People" is an article that sums up a lot of my feelings right now, and a lot of other people's too, if the number of times I've seen it shared on social media in the last couple of weeks is any indication.

• Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey went through the bill, line by line, to point out some of its more terrible effects.
• Politico reports that the Senate Democrats will be playing hardball. Placing our calls in support of this tactic is one of the important things that blue-staters can do.
• With the urgency of our desire to kill this bill, I've seen a resurgence of the desire to call Senators from other states. Here's a good Twitter thread on the importance of NOT doing that, tempting as it may be, especially when there's evidence of Astroturfing from the other side. I know it's scary, but this time, fighting fire with fire would do more harm than good.

• The Brookings Institution put out a scathing editorial on voter suppression in the United States, a good overview of recent court decisions with some damning statistics.
• The Associated Press published a report on the effects of gerrymandering, and it's not pretty.
• It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that the Democrats lost the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, and in fact the narrow loss continues the trend of being competitive in districts that ought to be safe GOP, but given how much effort and money we poured into that district, it's also understandable that people were disappointed. But the rush of pundits and BernieBots to blame Nancy Pelosi for the loss is both a headscratcher, and almost unbearably stupid. Charles Pierce explains why.
• And maybe before you get too invested in demonizing one of the most powerful women in the Democratic party, maybe you should consider who is in the trenches, doing the actual work in places like the Georgia 6th.
• Meanwhile, another Congressional special election flew completely under the radar: the South Carolina 5th. The Republican won that seat as well, but by an even smaller margin. This is not a seat that any polls suggested ought to be competitive, and the Democrats spent almost no money here. This ought to scare the GOP; we'll see if they heed the warning.
• Maryland and the District of Columbia have sued Donald Trump for violations of the emoluments clause and other conflict of interest laws.

• RealPressSecBot is a Twitter Bot that puts the president's tweets into traditional presidential statement form. A nice way to highlight how ridiculous and awful and not-normal this all is.
• Paste Magazine has an in-depth look at how Trump's communications team uses SEO (search engine optimization) to game Google results and ensure that fake and misleading news take over the top results. If you're already familiar with SEO and how it works, there won't be much new here, but if not it's an eye-opener. I'm not 100% convinced by the author's conclusion that the Democrats need to fight fire with fire, but we need to at least be aware of the tactic. When read with my librarian hat on, what this article really does is make the case for stepping up our information literacy education. Teaching people to think critically about the stories they see on the internet, how to tell reliable from unreliable sources, and look for cues toward author biases (and to be wary of information that upholds your own biases!) is so important in today's world, but it's not enough of a priority for too many educators. It contributes a lot to our increasing polarization, too.
• The Weather Channel is not playing around with the Paris Accord. Although the site has since moved on to breaking news, on the day that Trump announced the pending withdrawal of the US from this important international agreement, every story on the front page of the site was about the havoc wreaked by global climate change.
• One of the better news stories in recent weeks is Hillary Clinton's re-entry into public life. Naturally, there's been a lot of moaning and handwringing about she should just shut up and go away -- but not until after she takes total and personal responsibility for her loss and perhaps puts on a hairshirt or two. Gee, people are demanding that a woman apologize, shut up, and sit down? That's never happened before. Anyway, I've seen a number of good stories about the problems with this phenomenon. First, Ezra Klein talks about the rush to blame Clinton and Clinton alone for her loss, and why this is both simplistic and dangerous. Second, The Week goes into the history of past presidential losers and what they did in the immediate aftermath of the election (hint: it wasn't sit down, shut up, and go away, and it certainly wasn't take sole and total blame for not winning).
• FiveThirtyEight reports on the decreased African-American voter turnout in 2016 as compared to 2008 and 2012. As the tweet where I saw this study first mentioned pointed out, some of this is down to voter suppression, but they also wondered: where are all the thinkpieces about improving turnout in this demographic? (As opposed to the cottage industry that's sprung up around "winning back" the white working class.) Where, indeed.
• And also according to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats can take back the House in 2018 without enticing a single Trump voter to switch sides -- the margin among independents and third-party voters is more than enough to flip the seats the party needs. So it doesn't even matter, and it's time to start turning our focus back to the real base.
• So we all had a little fun with the Twitter typo that took the world by storm. Sure, we all knew that Trump meant to type "coverage", then presumably got distracted before he could correct and delete it. It wasn't exactly earth-shattering in comparison to many of the other things he's done. But it was fun to engage creatively with a meme that was ultimately harmless, as an antidote to the high stakes that we have to engage with every day. Laughter can be cathartic. And it's not like we forget about the serious things that are still going on. A few links:
• BoredPanda collects some of the best memes and Twitter responses here.
• Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explains why covfefe looks so strange to English speakers and why we have no consensus on how to pronounce it.
• Merriam-Webster gives up.
• And then Sean Spicer tried to pretend that it was something intentional, because of course he did. I don't really feel sorry for Spicey because I'm sure he took that job willingly, but I have to imagine this isn't quite how he pictured his life.
• Although Rob Quist didn't win the special House election in Montana, he came within single digits, and this article explains why that's a good sign for Democrats going forward. Sure, it would be great to pull off an upset, and yes, it's a bit frustrating that the Democrats are putting all their eggs in the Georgia 6th basket, rather than fighting harder in races like this one and in Kansas that have turned out to be surprisingly close. But a good trend is a good trend, and winning a seat here and there is much less important than building momentum for the midterms next year. So take heart, friends. The lines are still all moving in the right direction.
• Also, it's not all moral victories and closing margins: on May 23rd, statehouse seats in New Hampshire and New York flipped Democratic, and in New York it was a district that Trump won by twenty-three points.
• I don't want to talk about the Kathy Griffin business in any detail (she probably went too far, her first apology was appropriate, but she should've left it at that; there are many ways to feel about the photo itself and I'm not going to say any of them are wrong), but I did want to share this article about the hypocrisy of conservatives getting up in arms about this when they winked, nodded, and laughed at equally-if-not-more horrific images of Barack Obama for eight years. It's the circular firing squad of the Left in action again, and I grow weary of it.
• Here's a good piece from Slate on the problem with "I don't see color" etc. as a way to deal with race, gender, or other marginalized groups in hiring.
• Finally, in something that is almost certainly just a coincidence and not a sign from God or whatever, a giant sinkhole recently opened up in front of Mar-a-Lago. It couldn't happen to a nicer bit of pavement.

• It's hard to say what's the biggest story in the long run, but for now I'll put my money on the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Could this be the thing that brings it all toppling down? Vox thinks it might be.
• Not just the firing itself, but the way that the White House narrative tried to deflect the blame onto Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein might be what triggered the appointment of a special counsel (FINALLY OMG). Unfortunately, the special counsel doesn't quite have the power or independence of a special prosecutor, but it's probably the best of the options we have right now. Vox has a good overview of what a special counsel is and what they have the power to do.
• This close reading of James Comey's farewell letter to FBI staff is a work of genius. So is the farewell letter itself.
• Don't forget The Comey Memo. (Does anyone else hear that in the cadence of "The Reynolds Pamphlet"? Just me? Okay.) This New Yorker article is a pretty good summary of the memo's importance and how it raises the stakes for everyone involved. Also, I'm pretty sure the last shoe has not dropped on revelations from James Comey. Not even close.
• I suppose it might be a staggering coincidence that the White House invited Russian officials into the Oval Office with only Russian media present, and that 45 dropped some key intel to make himself look important (and SERIOUSLY? You are the President. Of. The. United. States. You don't need to puff yourself up to look important anymore, I promise) on the day after the man leading the investigation into Russian ties with the campaign was fired, but. Well. It doesn't look good. Politico's brilliant take on how Trump supporters are trying to spin this story is both illuminating and a work of trolling genius.
• If you haven't seen it yet, renay's story about trying to get involved with the local Democratic party only to run into roadblocks and uncommunicative people at every turn is frustrating and infuriating. As I said on Twitter, red state and rural progressives are fighting enough battles. Getting the attention of the Democratic infrastructure shouldn't have to be another.
• There are currently six Democrats in Congress who identify as pro-life and regularly (though not always) vote for anti-choice legislation, three Senators and three Representatives. All of them are white men. This is my surprised face.
• Meanwhile, voter suppression is back in the news, as The Nation reports on new research into the effects of Wisconsin's voter ID law. I still contend that voting rights is THE issue we need to fix if we're going to straighten things out in the long run. Even with all the balls in the air, we need to keep an eye on this one.

• If it was intentional, it sure seems to have worked -- mainstream media spent last night and today falling all over themselves to congratulate the president for his ability to read words off a teleprompter without melting down. Way to set a high bar, folks. At least some articles, like this commentary from NBC, pointed out his lack of substance and a fair number of the "alternative facts" contained in the speech.
• Meanwhile, the known rabble-rousers at USA Today posted an editorial calling for Congressional Democrats to get serious about potential impeachment.
• This week in "I Miss Jon Stewart": Stewart's appearance on Late Night with Stephen Colbert on Monday, 2/27, in which he compared the media's relationship with Trump to a bad breakup and advised them to move on. Nice analogy. I wonder how long they'll wait before taking it to heart?
• A special election for three seats in the Connecticut state senate was a wash, with all three seats remaining in the hands of their original party, but both Democratic-held seats were won easily, while the race for the GOP-held seat was more competitive than it had ever been. Democrats also held a state senate seat in Delaware, won narrowly in 2014, by over 10 points on the strength of 33% turnout -- which is huge for a special election. There's plenty more of these coming, so keep your eye out. Here's an article about some upcoming US House races in Montana and Georgia -- the Georgia seat, especially, could be key to gathering momentum for the midterms.
• I would say the dominos are falling when Darrell Issa -- terrible GOP rep from Southern CA, who led some of the worst investigations of Obama and Hillary Clinton, and was largely responsible for the California recall election that brought us the Governator, and who came very close to losing his seat in a district that Clinton won in 2016 -- is calling for a special prosecutor to look into the Russia shenanigans, but he walked it back just a day or so later, so.... *shrug* Talk is cheap, folks.
• My main feeling about the election of a DNC chair is to be glad its over, so now the party can buckle down and get to work. But what really elevated the whole thing to a non-event to me was Tom Perez, immediately and without rancor, naming Keith Ellison vice chair to unanimous approval. This way, we get both of their voices in party leadership, and Ellison gets to keep his seat in Congress (although nothing prohibited him from staying on, he had promised to resign if he'd won). As far as I'm concerned, this is a win-win. As for the people who tried to turn this into a proxy battle to re-litigate the primary, meh. If you're leaving the party over this, you were looking for an excuse to go. See ya bye bye now.
• One of the big stories last week was members of Congress ducking constituent town halls during their recent recess (mostly Republicans, but not exclusively -- I don't think Pelosi or Kamala Harris had one, and I know Feinstein didn't). Lots of folks are calling them out, but none better than Gabrielle Giffords.
• Another thing you might have heard about was the Department of Education pulling guidance to schools that explicitly protected the rights of trans students. Bad as this news is, no laws have actually changed here, just the federal government's mandate to interpret them a certain way. The National Center for Transgender Equality provides a FAQ explaining what it all means.

• From former Congressman Barney Frank, a guide on how to make your opinions known to your elected representatives. There are some good points here, but one of the things I appreciate most is that he doesn't try to claim that one and only one contact point is the "right" one. There are many useful ways to engage; pick the one that works for you, or take a multi-pronged approach if you like.
• "Our Part in the Darkness": this opinion piece, by Rabih Alameddine in The New Yorker, isn't a comfortable read, but I think it's an important reminder that we Americans should not attempt to distance ourselves from our country. Like it or not, support it or not, fighting against it or not, these things are happening here, and while 45, his minions, and his strongest supporters may be extreme examples, less stark examples of their beliefs and actions have always been part of the American landscape. Although not addressed directly, this article gets at why I'm not comfortable with the "not my president" formulation -- I may not have voted for him, I may have done my damnedest to keep him out of the office, but now he's here and he is the president, and I can't look away from that reality.
• Two on the upcoming fight over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, one from Politico and another, much angrier but with a similar takeaway, from journalist Kurt Eichenwald. The short version, with which I agree, is that this is where Democrats need to take their stand. If they lose the filibuster, so be it. A stolen Supreme Court seat is worth making a fuss over, and although I wish they had pulled out the big guns while Obama was still in the White House, better late than never.
• Good advice on living the resistance from Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. I've been seeing this circulating without attribution quite a lot, so I wanted to make sure to get a direct link in here.
• While I'm thinking about it, can I just complain about how much I hate the "cut and paste this text on your Facebook page" methodology that's gotten so popular for sharing essays and action items? I understand people's security concerns about not making FB posts public -- I almost never do it myself -- but it's a nightmare for source verification. There's got to be a better way.
• Going back to Coretta Scott King, I know I just said I wanted to stay away from outrage of the day in my linkspam posts, but this thing where Elizabeth Warren was barred from speaking in the Senate for reading King's letter laying out the proven racism of then-nominee for Attorney General Pete Sessions is so egregious that I have to bring it up. First, a Tweetstorm on the history of the gag rule in the Senate, which was created to keep abolitionists from as much as mentioning slavery on the floor. Second, if you haven't already seen it, the full text of the letter is available in a lot of places now; this link goes to the Boston Globe (which also has an overview of the story). Finally, you've probably seen the new Nevertheless, She Persisted meme -- based on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's exact words when asked why Warren was silenced -- which is possibly my favorite rapid response weaponized meme yet. If you haven't looked at the Twitter hashtag yet, I highly recommend it.
• From Vox, why the president is not an evil genius, and why that doesn't matter. I agree with both the initial premise of this (if the man and his top advisors were actually evil geniuses, the Republican administration would not be nearly so chaotic right now), and the upshot, which is that the outcome of the administration's actions is more important than their reasoning behind each one. This, for what it's worth, is why I avoid the "distraction" rhetoric that we hear so often these days -- "don't pay attention to this thing, it's just a distraction from that other more important thing!" Everything they are doing is terrible, and it all matters. Of course there's too much for all of us to focus on all the time -- we each have to triage for ourselves. But as the wise sophiebiblio says, we shouldn't shame people for having different priorities.

Trump voters- This is OUTRAGEOUS. You MUST boycott Facebook and Twitter forever, starting immediately!! https://t.co/liR3JxN4nk

— Molly Knight (@molly_knight) February 6, 2017

• More proof that California is not remotely fucking around: Governor Jerry Brown's State of the State address. He's previously had some strong words on taking action against climate change, but he laid down the law on a bunch of other issues too: immigration, healthcare, etc. California has 10% of the nation's population and the world's sixth largest economy; that's a lot of weight to throw around, and I fully support doing it. I have friends who keep making noises about a "Calexit", but I think that's both mean-spirited and short sighted. We need to be leading the charge against Trumpism, not running in the other direction.
• Protest Works: Jamelle Bouie on the power of the 1/21/17 Women's March and why it proves we need to stay on the offensive.
• Fortunately, it looks like there are a lot more protests in the works: The Scientist March (no date set yet, but they seem to be moving quickly), the Tax March on April 15th, a National Pride March on June 11th (I might even try to get to DC for that one). I think a big protest every two months, with rapid response gatherings in response to specific things like the immigration rallies yesterday and the GOP gathering in Philadelphia today, sounds about right. I hope we can keep it up.
• As these protests, marches, and rallies come together, I hope that we can be mindful of the many legit criticisms of the Women's March around intersectionality. This is one example, on race issues, but there are many, many others. We can celebrate the good aspects of the march while still listening to the critiques, learning from them, and trying to do better next time.
• From 2016 but always relevant: Why Rep. John Lewis is not to be trifled with.
• One of my favorite pieces of resistance (much as I hate that it needs to be done) are the "rogue" Twitter accounts being created by government employees to get around the limits that the new administration has been placing on the spread of information. Unofficial accounts for the National Park Service and individual parks, NASA, the EPA, the USDA, and over a dozen others have started popping up. StollmeyerEU is maintaining an updated list here. Who knew that, when the revolution came, that the National Park Service would be leading the way? (Well, maybe this lady.)

• A quick rundown of the attempt of Congressional Republicans to defang House ethics rules and the almost immediate reversal. The two main takeaways: public outcry sometimes works, but we have to keep watching them like hawks.
• I found this Tweetstorm on this history of reconstruction from arthur_effect (Arthur Chu) to be both informative and thought-provoking, in terms of what might happen next in this national backlash to progress on civil rights issues.
• Another on the "Third Reconstruction," from Rev. William Barber, the leader of North Carolina's Moral Monday movement. Moral Monday is an excellent model for liberal resistance, and I hope more of us can adopt it.
• Very good takedown of the idea that Hillary Clinton lost "working Americans". It largely boils down to the media's limited definitions of "working" and "Americans" (i.e. white men in very specific kinds of jobs).
• From Brookings, a blueprint for what path the media should follow to cover the incoming administration.

• Here's a pretty fascinating look at how different state boundaries would have affected the Electoral College results. Based on such things as commute patterns, phone call patterns, states of equal population, etc. A good reminder of how arbitrary the Electoral College is as a way of deciding anything.
• The always-excellent Jamelle Bouie writes about Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns and how they might serve as a blueprint for Democrats to strengthen their economic message without sacrificing social justice issues.
• Good piece on what it really means to empathize with conservatives, and what that means for moving forward.
• This article on fake news and media credibility is a little harder on the mainstream media than I would be, but it's a thought-provoking perspective nonetheless.
• Speaking of fake news, here's an interview with the creator of a browser plug-in that detects and flags dubious sources, called (appropriately) BS Detector. I haven't tried it yet myself, but I'm curious. Could be a valuable tool if it works, although I worry that the people who most need it are the least likely to install it.

• I'm a Coastal Elite from the Midwest: The Real Bubble is Rural America -- this flips the script from the usual media narrative, in a way that rings very true to me as someone who grew up in the small town Midwest (mostly Iowa) and then has spent the rest of their life on one of the coasts. This doesn't absolve us from reaching out to the bubble and learning more about the people inside it, but like empathy, it's gotta go both ways.
• California takes a stand against Trumpism in a strongly worded statement of action. My friend S talked to people who work for California legislators, and she was assured that this is not just a feel-good statement: they are actually moving forward with all of this. I love everyone in this bar.
• Don't Mourn, Fight Like Hell: another call to action, this one from Mother Jones. There's a bit of musing on how we got here, but the focus is on what to do next, which I appreciate.
• Thoughtful and caring advice on dealing with the Trump supporters in your life.
• Relatedly, readingtheend shares practical advice for white people calling out racism, based on her experience living in a red state and years of practice being the child of social workers.
• Stop saying 'This isn't my America.' Sorry, it is. Important reminder that this backlash to progress isn't new, and there were plenty of other manifestations of it, if you were paying attention.
• Some clear evidence that voter suppression laws played a real part in flipping swing states Trumpward.
• Never forget: like Al Gore before her, Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote. This doesn't mean anything in a practical sense (attempts to convince the electoral college otherwise aside -- and although I understand the impulse, I don't think this is a good idea; no election would ever go unchallenged again), but it does make me feel a little less despair about my fellow Americans and what they believe.