You should be at the club
On political partying
I hope everybody had a nice Labor Day weekend. I spent it with my friend Emily in Montreal, where we climbed to the top of Mont Royal and listened to some great music and drank some really good wine and met some cool people; in short, all the things I want to be doing over a long weekend. I sporadically saw tweets about The President’s Mysterious Silence and I am heartened by everyone’s willingness to hope that it could happen, although sadly I think it will not be that easy. It’s nice to believe in something, though. Never give up on your dreams.
I’ve been traveling more over the past few years, mostly in Europe, but I think I’d like to turn my attention to the continent I live on for a bit. I’m looking for fun weekend trip ideas that are doable from New York, with a car or without, solo or with friends. I’ve been to the major cities along the Acela corridor enough times that I’m looking for something a little more off the beaten path. If you have ideas, let me know in the comments!
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I am fascinated by this piece in the Washington Post about the conservative influencer and party planner CJ Pearson, and how young Black conservatives are trying to stake their claim to a newly diverse GOP coalition by convening in real life. Pearson’s bet is that you can buy the right cultural capital through parties that actually look fun. He’s probably right about that. It ties in pretty nicely with something I think about all the time lately; how we associate with each other offline and how that informs our politics.
I am worried about the new cultural cachet of the right, and it seems pretty clear that Democrats don’t really have an answer to that except for funneling dark money to content creators who aren’t even popular among young people. I know who Olivia Julianna is because a lot of people I follow on Twitter derive particular joy in yelling at her for what appear to me to be fairly run-of-the-mill liberal opinions delivered in an irritating self-satisfied tone. If you spend all day on this corner of the internet you might sincerely be led to believe that she is poisoning the minds of the youth to love public-private partnerships, but no one actually knows who she is. She has 154k followers on Instagram, where in her bio she calls herself “the Internet’s favorite Democrat”. All of our mutuals are either elected officials or people who have careers in politics. A quick glance at her follower list showed me a lot of boomers. Somehow I’m not convinced she actually is the internet’s favorite Democrat.
A month ago the Free Press kicked off what will be a series of ‘under 30’ parties for subscribers with events in New York and DC. They published a very funny writeup by a zoomer who said it was the best night of her life (???), comparing it to the hedonism of the 80s (?????) I don’t think this girl has ever been to a party before, much less anything that could plausibly be compared to, say, Studio 54. Sophie Hurwitz’s excellent foray into party reporting for The Nation is even funnier; every person they quote at the Free Press party says something so absurd you have to wonder if this is their first time having an actual conversation.
You could argue that the Free Press isn’t any more representative of where the youth are than astroturfed Democratic influencers like David Pakman or Olivia Julianna. Sure, I buy it. But as of April 2025 the Free Press had 1.25 million subscribers, and it’s closer to 1.4 million now. That’s a lot of people. Do any of the content creators working with Chorus have even close to as large a following?
There does appear to be a divergence in strategy appearing: Democrats are pouring resources into online media and infrastructure, while the GOP is trying to go in-person as much as possible–perhaps because they’ve already won in podcast/streamer world. I don’t think this is super new. When I was working in Democratic politics a million years ago, the coolest thing you could be was a “digital organizer”. Everyone above 60 is hopelessly addicted to cable news, which distorts reality into bite-sized headlines designed to get everyone mad about things that are fairly inconsequential. To be clear, I don’t think this is all a waste of time, but when you rely on social media to get the message out you’re only reaching a subset of people in a particular algorithmic silo. It is possible to break out of that, but it’s far more likely that online subcultures fester in isolation and distort reality until it becomes unrecognizable.
If you are young and interested in politics, most of the opportunities that are available to you to indulge your interests are strictly online. You can yell on Twitter and form a bunch of parasocial relationships with people who are mad at the same things as you, but there are diminishing returns to this. For one thing, no one really enjoys being on their phone. It’s a chore. Second of all, no one is ever talking about themselves or people they actually know, but rather people that they believe to exist because of what annoys them on the internet. There’s DSA, which is actually extremely good at getting people to gather, but it’s not that big an organization and most people haven’t heard of it.
I think basically everyone who says social media is what made Zohran win is taking the wrong lessons from his campaign. It’s true that their social media presence got his platform a much bigger audience than canvassing alone would have, but what was special about his strategy is that his videos had a purpose to them, and were grounded in something tangible in real life. Many of his most popular videos—Halalflation, walking the length of Manhattan—are all about things that we encounter in the city every day or places where people live and have relationships to. These videos inspired thousands of people to engage with the campaign in real life and knock doors—for many volunteers, their first time getting involved with a poltiical campaign. There was a reciprocal relationship between what was happening online and what was happening in the streets. I don’t think there’s any other way to organize online.
Andrew Cuomo’s ongoing humiliation tour of a political campaign seems to be predicated on the idea that if Cuomo makes enough videos of himself half-smiling in situations he’s clearly uncomfortable in, he can post his way to victory. Even if he was good on camera (and let’s face it: he looks terrible), his audience can’t really do anything with his social media. There is nowhere for Cuomo supporters to meet each other and congregate and do something. His videos aren’t really even about anything. On Labor Day he released a baffling video of him on a roller coaster set to bro-y electronic music, and it’s unclear what anyone is supposed to get out of that. I’m assuming the roller coaster was the Coney Island Cyclone, but Does Cuomo have any thoughts about Coney Island? What does he like about it? Does he have any opinions on, say, the proposed casino, an issue that’s of interest to both Coney Island residents and beachgoers alike? Who knows! That video could have been anywhere, just like how Cuomo is running a campaign that could be taking place anywhere.
In general, I’m disheartened by how much political analysis and reporting is dedicated to what is happening online. Of course internet culture has offline impact; we’re all glued to our phones every minute of every day. But what I think is missing here is how much of what we consume online only has a cumulative impact on us. By the end of each day I don’t remember most of the posts I read or TikToks I watched, but I can tell you every detail of any IRL conversation I had. What happens in person is far more interesting to all of us, but we spend a lot of time on our phones trying to avoid this fact. But here’s the good news: if the world’s most maladjusted zoomers can take time out of their schedule to attend the Free Press’s very boring parties, so can the left. See you at the club.
FanDuel is subsiding SEPTA service tomorrow so Eagles fans can get to the season opener. During the first Gilded Age, the Vanderbilts and Carnegies of the world built schools and libraries. In Trump’s America, sports betting companies provide more public services than the government. Surely nothing good can come out of this.
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” earned a 22-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara were producers—good for them!
AI influencers could put your favorite content creator out of business. I hope the first to go are those two blonde women who review New York restaurants in an incredibly annoying voice. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself blessed.
Trump could send the National Guard to New Orleans next. This is the first city he’s considered with a Republican governor, who appears to be in favor of a federal takeover.
Shein is using the likeness of Luigi Mangione to sell shirts. I shouldn’t laugh, but I did. At first when was reading this I thought that someone in Shein corporate Photoshopped his face onto the photo, before realizing it was just AI. It makes me sad to think that AI is making Photoshop obsolete.
Gel polish is now illegal in the EU. I haven’t gotten my nails done in several months—I’m too unemployed for that—but does anyone know if dip nails are better for you…?
I think this is very correct that the right is going in on in-person events while liberals and the left are stuck chasing online spaces. I actually think this ties into the arguments around how valid polling is, in that liberals are largely chasing this imagined totality of the public by emphasizing online spaces that, in theory, could include anyone and everyone, while the right has rejected the "reality-based community" as I think Karl Rove put it 20 years ago. This strain of the right has some understanding that 1) there isn't a meaningful, coherent "public" outside of their own efforts to build cliques of elites and audiences of masses and 2) they can get good returns just by cultivating an elite of ambitious performers who know a paycheck is coming down the road.