Evelyn Quartz
@evelynquartz.bsky.social
Writer. Former Capitol Hill staffer. Oregon-based. Often in the woods with my dogs. Views my own. I write about the current political moment. Check it out: https://quartzevelyn.substack.com
Everyone agrees antics around the spending-bill deadline are nothing but callous political stunts — so why do we agree to be governed like this at all? @evelynquartz.bsky.social @levernews.com www.levernews.com/welcome-to-t...
Welcome To The Shutdown Circus, Where Everybody Loses
Everyone agrees antics around the spending-bill deadline are nothing but callous political stunts — so why do we agree to be governed like this at all?
levernews.com
Yes! We must continue to ask what is truly required when we're told to protect democracy & why so many people are right to have lost faith in the narrow, procedural definition. Because it has not come with the material dignity we all deserve as human beings.
Karen Monroy@karenmonroy.bsky.social · 12mo agoIf the Dems long version of democracy isn't up to parr for you--read this piece from @evelynquartz.bsky.social.
My new piece for @levernews.com, on why Democrats should NOT “fight fire with fire” when it comes to gerrymandering. There is another, much harder but more democratic option: build a popular winning agenda. www.levernews.com/do-as-we-say...
Do As We Say, Not As We Gerrymander
By fighting gerrymandering with gerrymandering, Democrats are betraying their own democratic principles.
levernews.com
This is the most honest and damning piece I’ve written since leaving a career in liberal politics. I hope you’ll read it. quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/shame-on-t...
Shame on the Liberals: They Let This Happen.
This piece isn’t written from detachment. It’s written out of fury.
quartzevelyn.substack.com
Strange how Epstein becomes a bipartisan outrage only once elites can use it to score points. The people who called MAGA voters conspiratorial now claim moral clarity—without ever naming how their own class insulated him for years.
Such important reporting! The more people that can see identity politics as it's weaponized by both parties to serve corporate interests the better.
David Sirota@davidsirota.com · last yr.Sarah McBride became famous as Congress’s first transgender lawmaker. She just passed her first bill — it helps private equity & hedge fund billionaires prey on the working-class. McBride touted it as a benefit to Black women & marginalized communities. www.levernews.com/dems-hand-pr...
I was just made aware of this by an excellent article by @evelynquartz.bsky.social! quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/what-eliss...
What Elissa Slotkin Reveals About Liberal Politics
Her Breaking Points interview was one of the most honest moments in years—not because she confessed, but because she couldn’t.
quartzevelyn.substack.com
BRAVA @evelynquartz.bsky.social The left doesn’t just critique the right. It offers an alternative to the center. Housing, healthcare, labor rights, public infrastructure, climate —not as technocratic reforms, but as moral commitments. That everyone deserves dignity. That care isn’t a commodity.
Why You Know the Far Right in Europe—But Not the Left
A case for why that's intentional.
open.substack.com
The problem with the mainstream “pro-democracy” movement that formed in reaction to Trump is that it protects liberal democracy while shutting down economic democracy. The lack of economic democracy is why people are rejecting liberal democracy (i.e. Trump’s second win).
My new piece argues that we must reject the false choice presented by our politics of technocratic liberalism vs. authoritarian rule. The third option is intentionally hidden: economic democracy and a politics of agency. quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/the-false-...
The False Choice That’s Breaking America: Symbolic Democracy or Authoritarian Rule
Neither party offers a future. It’s time to reclaim power, not just process.
quartzevelyn.substack.com
The inconvenient truth: Without economic democracy, political democracy becomes hollow. You can vote every two years, but if you have no say over your job, your landlord, your debt, your time—you are not free. And the center-left knows this. That’s why they focus on aesthetics, not power.
An honest question I have for the pro-democracy centrist movement: Was George Bush not a threat to democracy? Was not elected by the majority, but installed by the Supreme Court Lied the nation into war, killing hundreds of thousands Legalized torture, detention without trial & mass surveillance
Democrats are using Trump’s apocalyptic bill as a campaign gimmick — and ignoring their role in its cruelty.
A Big, Bipartisan Betrayal
Democrats are using Trump’s apocalyptic bill as a campaign gimmick — and ignoring their role in its cruelty.
levernews.com
Wrote about The Big Beautiful Bill and a country that has long treated health care as a market commodity to be managed rather than a basic human right. For @levernews.com. www.levernews.com/a-big-bipart...
A Big, Bipartisan Betrayal
Democrats are using Trump’s apocalyptic bill as a campaign gimmick — and ignoring their role in its cruelty.
levernews.com
I used to write talking points for House democrats. I’ve seen how these moments get turned into scripted outrage. But this isn’t a messaging failure—it’s a failure of moral and political vision. People will lose health care. And there’s no plan to stop it.
Democratic leaders insist they're very angry that Trump is cutting taxes for billionaires...but Democratic leaders are also very angry that Mamdani is proposing to raise taxes on billionaires.
One of the most convenient myths in American politics is that oligarchy began with Trump. In reality, liberal elites helped build the corporate order long before he arrived. And now, by blaming everything on him, they avoid reckoning with the system they still want to control.
Corporate Dems need to WTFU : "This is the heart of technocratic liberalism: a politics that treats human suffering as a policy failure, not a moral one. It doesn’t ask what kind of society produces such outcomes—only how to optimize it" 🔥from @evelynquartz.bsky.social
It's not the message!
The problem isn’t how Democrats communicate—it’s what they’re offering.
open.substack.com
Watch the liberal class, who fawned over the No Kings Day protests as "resistance" and "pro-democracy," sow skepticism and downplay Mamdani's win. It proves my point in this piece. www.levernews.com/the-trump-pr...
The Trump Protests Will Fail — Unless People Do This
The resistance won’t succeed until it stops being a performance and starts challenging the system that got us here.
levernews.com
In liberal discourse, there’s a sharp difference between how people talk about Donald Rumsfeld and Donald Trump. Both oversaw mass harm. Both lied. Both wielded immense power with catastrophic results. But only one is treated as beneath politics. (THREAD)
Zohran Mamdani won by running on material change. That alone was enough to trigger panic from the liberal establishment. My latest: on how “pro-democracy” experts use narrative to control politics—and why Mamdani breaks the script just as Trump did. quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/why-they-t...
Why They Treat Mamdani Like Trump
Why the defenders of “democracy” panic when it actually works.
quartzevelyn.substack.com
Mamdani didn't win because he ran on "cost of living" issues. He ran to redistribute power to workers who have been stripped of power, agency, and freedom by a political system that values capital over human lives.
If you want to get provocative, liberal technocracy presents itself as democratic. But it defers to markets, prioritizes stability over equity, and treats dissent as a threat. It’s not neutral, and it’s not for the people. It exists to serve capital. It's a very convenient "democracy" for some.
The liberal class doesn’t actually fear the collapse of democracy. It fears the politicization of democracy, when people start demanding power instead of just participating in rituals.
This isn't your centrist "pro-democracy" movement. It's much more radical. That's what this piece is about.
Evelyn Quartz@evelynquartz.bsky.social · last yr."He won despite the money, the myth, the machine. And in doing so, he proved what the political class has spent decades trying to obscure: democracy might not be for sale after all." Proud to partner with @davidsirota.com on this. www.levernews.com/zohran-mamda...
"He won despite the money, the myth, the machine. And in doing so, he proved what the political class has spent decades trying to obscure: democracy might not be for sale after all." Proud to partner with @davidsirota.com on this. www.levernews.com/zohran-mamda...
Zohran Mamdani’s Mandate Is A Democratic Earthquake
There will now be a high-stakes battle to define the meaning of the New York mayoral candidate’s historic win.
levernews.com
NEW from me & Evelyn Quartz: Zohran Mamdani won a clear mandate - but the Democratic political/media elite is already trying to downplay it & pretend it was just vibes rather than a demand for policy change. The battle for the future has just begun. www.levernews.com/zohran-mamda...
Zohran Mamdani’s Mandate Is A Democratic Earthquake
There will now be a high-stakes battle to define the meaning of the New York mayoral candidate’s historic win.
levernews.com
This conveniently ignores that both the Iraq War and Trump's strike on Iran were justified on the same lie. In that case, Congressional approval rubber stamps a lie what difference does it ultimately make? Beware of these narratives, it's often Trump is a less respectful face of the same mission.
COURIER@couriernewsroom.bsky.social · last yr."What about Obama? What about Bush? The answer is simple—Trump’s attack on Iran is not the same." COURIER's Sarah Sicard breaks down how Trump's Operation Midnight Hammer goes against decades of precedent.
The problem with the centrist "pro-democracy" movement in general is that it fails to understand what democracy actually entails. Not top-down management but real economic freedom & agency. (THREAD)