Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
What Charlie Kirk meant to young conservatives
Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist and firebrand, developed an enormous following, particularly among young people, for his brash, unapologetic positions on social issues. The investigation continues into the circumstances of his killing on Wednesday at a Utah campus event, including who the shooter was and what their motivations were. But his death has reignited […]
The right’s vicious, ironic response to Charlie Kirk’s death
Millions of Americans just witnessed a killing. On Wednesday, scattered amid social media’s banal ephemera — tired memes, partisan agit-prop, and celebrity gossip — appeared a video of a young man speaking into a microphone, then recoiling from a gunshot to the neck. For hours, this snuff film was impossible to escape, the atrocity autoplaying […]
Social media is the worst place to be right now
If you haven’t seen the video of a bullet killing Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah, you’re one of the lucky ones. When most people opened X, Instagram, YouTube, or any other platform on Wednesday afternoon, the gore was there waiting for them. This was by design. While images of graphic violence have […]
Russia just inched closer to open war with NATO
Nineteen suspected Russian drones entered Polish airspace on Monday, where they were intercepted by a joint operation that included Polish, Dutch, and Italian aircraft as well as German Patriot missiles. This marked the first time that NATO militaries had fired shots during the Russian war in Ukraine as well as the first time that NATO […]
How to mourn in our polarized age
Charlie Kirk, 31, observed the Jewish Sabbath. It was a little detail buried near the bottom of one of the many profiles published since news broke that the conservative leader was killed on Wednesday. Every week from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, Kirk would turn off his phone, spend time with his wife […]