Happy **Sunday, October 25th!
FYSA, every Tuesday and Friday, I’ll be in your inbox with the latest in politics, tech & social media, culture, and other relevant topics – and I’ll share some notes and tips on what I’m keeping my eye on.
I’M ALSO LOOKING FOR MORE PEOPLE TO DO MINI INTERVIEWS like the one below :) Tips, thoughts, concerns, good jokes, bad jokes, tea, etc?
And finally, if you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with your network (and/or your chronically online friends), or buy me a matcha, that would be so appreciated 🙏
AUTHOR’S NOTE: So sorry for the delayed send, y’all. The combo of law school + midterm elections is really hitting in full force lol. A different structure for the newsletter today, which I may or may not keep until E-Day. Thanks for being along for the journey!
A true Halloweekend (rare) is almost upon us! And literally everyone I’ve talked to has multiple events going on (DC people, I KNOW everyone has like 7 parties). To that end… the mission is to sneak in one political Halloween costume, so that when you story it (or make your TikTok transition video), you can drop a little link to vote.org and the VoteRiders tool that lets you search up your state and get specific info about what you need to bring to the polls! For all the friends and loved ones who like to vote on Election Day!
Some ideas:
Steve Kornacki (always easy, always a winner)
The boba tea that inexplicably made so many people online insane
An I Voted sticker
Bryce, the DJ who was on Love Island, meeting + campaigning with James Talarico
Chevron deference (be a ghost)
I am personally going to be Curtis Sliwa (as my non-earnest costume) at least one night, and then I have a varsity-style crewneck that says Electoral College on it, which is very fun to get creative with!
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we “call” elections. In my experience, for pretty much all of us, it’s simply waiting on the AP (with some exceptions). But two recent things I have encountered have really prompted some deeper thought. The first is this excellent TikTok:
And then (to a lesser extent) this Metro ad:
The resulting thoughts these prompted did (I’m so sorry to say) make me even more anxious about this election than I was. First, I think Dray makes a really important point about how the AP, as pretty much the sole results reporter we all trust, has a massive target on its back – which makes us all vulnerable to whatever happens if we can no longer access or trust AP results. Second, this felt like a teaser of the massive amounts of misinformation that could emerge from this election. Literally everyone is in the data game these days, but very few, if any, people have the access and knowledge needed to fact-check “data-based” assertions.
All this to say… if you’re working on this or have any resources to share about how to prevent or mitigate these potential harms, please hmu. I would love to amplify and also just to maybe sleep a tiny bit better this week.
Trump keeps promising ‘goodies’ on the campaign trail — but only if Republicans win (NBC News, 10/21 – free version)
Shot…
Trump again invokes claim he has the ‘right’ to run for third term as president (The Guardian, 10/23)
… chaser
Midterm Slop-toberfest (Puck, 10/20 – free version)
Gen Z Is Broke and Fed Up With Politics (POLITICO Magazine, 10/24)
Are Fewer Teens Identifying as Gay or Bisexual? It’s Complicated. (NYT gift link, 10/23)
Extra Credit 🤓
Substacks That Really Substacked This Week 🤌
The easiest way to follow *every* election from Jordan Zakarin of Progress Report
Actually, Nathan Fielder, You Can’t See Everything from Brendon Holder of LOOSEY
Sneaky Links
TL;DR I’ve inexplicably started receiving codes to stuff… here are the things I actually like :)
My BNTO code for October is 3FBFAF for $20 off (if you know me IRL, you know my rant about the Nuulification of the 20-something city dweller)
I also have a code for CampSnap??? And I do love my CS8 camera from them but like I don’t think I said that online? Either way, it’s L-RITZMANN10 for 10% off (we got bumped up from 7% woohoo!)
That’s all for now – I’ll see you on Tuesday!
thank you for including me :)