Wow who knew the raw exhilaration of voting for 179 delegates out of 800 in under an hour?
Rebecca Traister
@rtraister.bsky.social
Journalist, New York Magazine; author, Good & Mad, All the Single Ladies. Maine, New York, Philadelphia. I am on a book leave till fall 2025. I do have a substack.
As @rtraister.bsky.social wrote in **2017** www.thecut.com/2016/07/mass...
What Mass Killers Really Have in Common
The horrific connection between terrorism and domestic violence.
thecut.com
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 3w agoWow. The ICE shooter in Maine asked his ex-wife to "to lie for him and to cover for his character." She said he was abusive and had previously reported concerns about him to his military superiors. He was also a volunteer firefighter, but was removed after several spats with department leadership.
This is such an excellent piece by @sarahjones.bsky.social and pairs pretty well (I think) with one I published yesterday on a mainstream preoccupation with the performance of class, but not the expression of true horror at the rounding up and killing of human beings:
Sarah Jones@sarahjones.bsky.social · 3w agoI wrote about my mother’s family, their lives of working poverty on the coast of Maine, and the truly bizarre and detached conversations our pundits are having about Platner and working-class America nymag.com/intelligence...
I wrote about my mother’s family, their lives of working poverty on the coast of Maine, and the truly bizarre and detached conversations our pundits are having about Platner and working-class America nymag.com/intelligence...
What Does It Mean to Be a Working-Class Candidate?
Graham Platner’s campaign was fatally flawed. Its message is still worth examining.
nymag.com
"In Maine, the people being hunted, rounded up, and separated from their families by ICE, in addition to being sisters, brothers, and parents of toddlers in Bluey pajamas, are workers..." A must read from brilliant @rtraister.bsky.social: nymag.com/intelligence...
The Democrats Have an ICE Problem
What the killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero reveals about the appeal of the insurgent left.
nymag.com
"As one Mainer who was always leery of Platner but wound up donating to him anyway explained to me this week, 'When you are starving, you will put your tongue on the floor.' "Among the things voters may be hungering for is basic recognition of those whose lives are at stake right now."
Rebecca Traister@rtraister.bsky.social · 3w agoWriting again about Maine, its politics, the national circus around it, and what's to be gleaned about performance, power-building and our view of humanity in the wake of the unspeakably evil killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
Writing again about Maine, its politics, the national circus around it, and what's to be gleaned about performance, power-building and our view of humanity in the wake of the unspeakably evil killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
The Democrats Have an ICE Problem
What the killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero reveals about the appeal of the insurgent left.
nymag.com
“We are in an emergency. Caused by Graham Platner. And, honestly, by… Chuck Schumer, who was criminally negligent in clearing the field for Mills, a candidate who was wrong for the moment, rather than one who could have offered a legitimate alternative to Platner.” 🎯 @rtraister.bsky.social
Gregg Levine@greggjlevine.bsky.social · 4w agoThat said, not enough attention’s been paid to something damaging that the Dem establishment actually did do here. Hoping to stop Platner, Schumer worked to clear the field of everyone but his choice for the race against Collins. (Someone whose heart, reportedly, wasn’t really in it.) Most obliged.
I recommend @rtraister.bsky.social 's smart article about Platner that ties together disparate and contradictory strings of the saga. She's always a good read.
What Women Saw in Graham Platner
Once again, a man fails them.
nymag.com
Figuring out how to maintain moral clarity is awfully hard in a world where half the potential political candidates start with a gender disadvantage and the other half are raised in a world that accustoms them to power over female bodies. Nailed by @rtraister.bsky.social nymag.com/intelligence...
What Women Saw in Graham Platner
Once again, a man fails them.
nymag.com
Even if you think you don't need more Platner discourse -- you should listen to my show today. Two women on why they supported him for so long: slate.com/podcasts/wha...
She Supported Graham Platner. Then She Couldn’t Anymore.
Can Platner’s platform live on without him as the candidate?
slate.com
Goes hand-in-hand with this honest assessment by @rtraister.bsky.social nymag.com/intelligence...
What Women Saw in Graham Platner
Once again, a man fails them.
nymag.com
"The fact that many women supported Platner because they cared so much about women makes this juncture extra enraging, heartbreaking, and horrible."
Amanda Litman@amandalitman.bsky.social · 4w agoAlways always always always read @rtraister.bsky.social -- and especially on Graham Platner, women, and what comes next. nymag.com/intelligence...
"But it’s also pretty rich that many of those eager to remind us that they Told Us So are the same people who also Told Us in recent years that it was a feminist insistence on Me Too–ing too hard that got us where we are now"
Rebecca Traister@rtraister.bsky.social · 4w agoPerfect day and perfect venue to publish a column in which I publicly acknowledge that I liked Graham Platner, correct? nymag.com/intelligence...
Perfect day and perfect venue to publish a column in which I publicly acknowledge that I liked Graham Platner, correct? nymag.com/intelligence...
What Women Saw in Graham Platner
Once again, a man fails them.
nymag.com
Always always always always read @rtraister.bsky.social -- and especially on Graham Platner, women, and what comes next. nymag.com/intelligence...
"The one area where I would say the Salem witch trials went a little far..." Okay, you've got me hooked.
Madeline Peltz@peltzmadeline.bsky.social · last mo.Just left the great American state fair where I watched Michael Knowles debate a ten year old girl about the Salem witch trials in front of DOZENS of people
Chatting with New York’s Rebecca Traister about Graham Platner’s victory in the Maine Democratic primary, and the next phase in this blockbuster senate race.
Graham Platner Has Won the Battle. Can He Win the War?
Chatting with New York’s Rebecca Traister about Graham Platner’s victory in the Maine Democratic primary, and the next phase in this blockbuster senate race.
nymag.com
I keep thinking about the ease with which they cancelled elections over the last 24 hours
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 3mo agoBATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana postpones May 16 House primaries after US Supreme Court rolls back Voting Rights Act.
She definitely is. Plenty of people have been direct with her about it.
alina@ramshackle78.bsky.social · 3mo agoPossible that Mills aware of this
I talked to my colleague Ben Hart about Mills dropping out. I've been away on book leave so I had a lot to get off my chest, enough that stuff got cut (Mills' data bad center veto; her also bad sealed criminal records veto; the impact of the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation on 2020) But nevertheless..
Graham Platner Has Won the Battle. Can He Win the War?
Chatting with New York’s Rebecca Traister about Janet Mills’s primary exit and the next chapter in a blockbuster Maine Senate race.
nymag.com
Annnnnd this goes well beyond what was written down in Project 2025!
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 3mo agoMore details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.
“it’s fair to say that 80 percent of the world’s problems involve old men hanging on who are afraid of death and insignificance, and they won’t let go" nymag.com/intelligence... (still relevant Nov piece by @rtraister.bsky.social )
It’s My Party and I’ll Leave When I Want To
Talking to the gerontocracy.
nymag.com
The TikTok girlies (gender neutral) are hatching a plan to all buy copies of communion by hooks on Vance's release date. I will be participating.
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 4mo agoSomeone sent me this.
I revisited a Q&A I did with @rtraister.bsky.social on writing public history as a journalist in 2021—and it struck me as too good not to resend! alexiscoe.substack.com/p/wordy-wedn...
Wordy Wednesdays: A Q&A with Rebecca Traister
“How could you not have told these stories?”
alexiscoe.substack.com
"All of this is to say that by most standards, I have developed a pretty hard shell when it comes to stories of sexualized power abuse. So I was surprised when the air left my lungs today. When I felt like I was going to vomit." @rtraister.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/rebeccat...
When it can still make you cry
It’s been a long time since I’ve been as thrown by a piece of reporting as I was in the middle of today when, after a lengthy morning meeting, I settled down at my computer and read about Cesar Chavez...
open.substack.com
So much love and solidarity to Ana Murguia, Debra Rojas, Dolores Huerta, and every other survivor. Chavez was just a man; women like them, then and now, are the true heroes of the farmworkers’ movement.
Elizabeth Warren was originally a Republican from Oklahoma and this normie, practical, "why should we pay for this useless, profligate, non-Congressionally approved war" perspective sounds like exactly what you would once have heard from such a person
Very coherent, and very, dare I say it, small-c conservative in the best sense??
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5mo agoElizabeth Warren: "I am a hard no on a supplemental. This is not a war the American people want us to engage in. This is not a war that makes us safer ... No. No more money. The only thing Congress has the power to do is to stop actions like this through the power of the purse."