Brendan Keefe was supposed to write his bio here, but failed to do so.
- Tweets30.3K
- Following964
- Followers517
- Likes67.6K
ALT The failure to anticipate the nearly inevitable reaction to the use of Acton’s mother springs directly from that inability to see how things look from outside the bubble. When the backlash began, Ramaswamy acted the way Trump does whenever people are appalled by something he has done or said: Don’t apologize, don’t retreat, blame your opponents, and double down. Now look where that has gotten him. If there are any voters who were persuaded to vote for Ramaswamy by this advertisement, they haven’t presented themselves, while local and national media have been full of voters expressing their disgust with him. “We now deserve to lose this race,” one Ohio Republican strategist told Time magazine.
ALT But this is the nature of today’s right-wing bubble, whose residents are not only acculturated to a particular political style — cruel, vulgar, often hateful — but become convinced that it’s the only effective way to do politics, and to not do politics that way is to be weak and contemptible. That’s what JD Vance — a high-volume consumer of right-wing content and regular podcast guest — means when he says he’s “disgusted” by “whining” from Republicans about Ramaswamy’s ad.
ALT But this is the nature of today’s right-wing bubble, whose residents are not only acculturated to a particular political style — cruel, vulgar, often hateful — but become convinced that it’s the only effective way to do politics, and to not do politics that way is to be weak and contemptible. That’s what JD Vance — a high-volume consumer of right-wing content and regular podcast guest — means when he says he’s “disgusted” by “whining” from Republicans about Ramaswamy’s ad.
![In August, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a [highlight] group that supports conservative fiscal policies [/highlight] like lowering taxes, released a report saying that tariffs have cost Michigan households an additional $5,619 compared with what they were paying in 2024. That was the largest impact felt by any state, the report found, and the statistic has had an effect on Michigan voters, said Richard Czuba, the founder of the Glengariff Group, which frequently polls the state.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HVgoVH4XcAA5cDI.png?name=orig)
ALT In August, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a [highlight] group that supports conservative fiscal policies [/highlight] like lowering taxes, released a report saying that tariffs have cost Michigan households an additional $5,619 compared with what they were paying in 2024. That was the largest impact felt by any state, the report found, and the statistic has had an effect on Michigan voters, said Richard Czuba, the founder of the Glengariff Group, which frequently polls the state.
ALT There’s a remark by the early-twentieth-century Marxist thinker and Italian Communist Party leader Antonio Gramsci, who was imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist government in 1926 until his death in 1937, that’s been much quoted in recent years:
