James McLeod

I don't post here anymore. This platform stopped providing value to me, and I won't give my content to Elon.
Find me other places with the same username.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

I just don't think you can train an AI to have a long dark night of the soul.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Traitors.

Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada https://t.co/ozuGW8RQLG via @ft

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Your mom's posting over on Bluesky. She's really popular.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

you might say this platform is going into the skibidi toilet

[march maddyness 💥 @phxsunz25]

this man has been telling us how Trump is an existential threat to democracy for years & now he’s congratulating him on his victory. and the party doesn’t understand why people don’t believe them or believe in them

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

They anticipated the 4B movement EIGHT YEARS ago.

[The Sun @TheSun]

REVEALED: Women will be having more sex with ROBOTS than men by 2025 https://t.co/TO87mbCAHw

[jump (for my love) @JodiesJumpsuit]

progressives have become the girl in “Common People” and they find that observation incredibly offensive, which is why they will do absolutely nothing to address it

[Stephen Maher @stphnmaher]

Hard to exaggerate the likely damage this guy will do to US health policy. A lot of children, in particular, will get diseases they could avoid with vaccines. And that is just the beginning.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Threads has yet to produce a single interesting conversation for me, I think mainly because of the heavy-handed algorithm and certain other design choices.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

fwiw, Bluesky is getting pretty good, and my following over there has gotten to the point of critical mass where I get interesting replies and good conversations off my posts. (This is the main thing I'm looking for from a microblogging site.)

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

I don't think there's a lot of utility in doing something performative like deleting my account here, but I do expect that I'll be posting on Twitter less than I used to.

I am posting on Bluesky a lot more.

If you want to see my art and my ideas, consider coming over.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

One of my https://t.co/qb1oSa5aMt paintings is still up, a month after I originally mounted the art installation!!!

[A-100 gecs @PinstripeBungle]

I don't know why the US ambassador to Qatar is posting on linkedin about the promotion ceremony for the Marine security guards he conducted in the embassy swimming pool but he is.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Any day would be a good day to fire Phil Verster

[blogTO @blogTO]

Toronto's Eglinton Crosstown just entered its 14th year of construction🤯
https://t.co/FMvGdnqLIX

[Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 @acoyne]

The emergency has been declared.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Today I'm thinking about what "Lest we forget" actually means, and wondering if people would recognize it if it showed up again with slightly different superficial markers.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Bunch of good thoughts in here, although if the actions of the Trump administration in its first two years are anywhere near as aggressive as I suspect they will be, a lot of this probably won't matter for the Democrats.

It ~could~ be relevant for Canadian politicians, tho.

[Ezra Klein @ezraklein]

A few thoughts from the conversations I’ve been having and hearing over the last week:

The hard question isn’t the 2 points that would’ve decided the election. It’s how to build a Democratic Party that isn’t always 2 points away from losing to Donald Trump — or worse.

The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the working class. If it isn’t doing that, it is failing. That’s true even even if it can still win elections.

Democrats don’t need to build a new informational ecosystem. Dems need to show up in the informational ecosystems that already exist. They need to be natural and enthusiastic participants in these cultures. Harris should’ve gone on Rogan, but the damage here was done over years and wouldn’t have been reversed in one October appearance.

Building a media ecosystem isn’t something you do through nonprofit grants or rich donors (remember Air America?). Joe Rogan and Theo Von aren’t a Koch-funded psy-op. What makes these spaces matter is that they aren’t built on politics. (Democrats already win voters who pay close attention to politics.)

That there’s more affinity between Democrats and the Cheneys than Democrats and the Rogans and Theo Vons of the world says a lot.

Economic populism is not just about making your economic policy more and more redistributive. People care about fairness. They admire success. People have economic identities in addition to material needs.

Trump — and in a different way, Musk — understand the identity side of this. What they share isn’t that they are rich and successful, it’s that they made themselves into the public’s idea of what it means to be rich and successful.

Policy matters, but it has to be real to the candidate. Policy is a way candidates tell voters who they are. But people can tell what politicians really care about and what they’re mouthing because it polls well.

Governing matters. If housing is more affordable, and homelessness far less of a crisis, in Texas and Florida than California and New York, that’s a *huge* problem.

If people are leaving California and New York for Texas and Florida, that’s a *huge* problem.

Democrats need to take seriously how much scarcity harms them. Housing scarcity became a core Trump-Vance argument against immigrants. Too little clean energy becomes the argument for rapidly building out more fossil fuels. A successful liberalism needs to believe in *and deliver* abundance of the things people need most.

That Democrats aren’t trusted on the cost of living harmed them much more than any ad. If Dems want to “Sister Soulja” some part of their coalition, start with the parts that have made it so much more expensive to build and live where Democrats govern.

More than a “Sister Soulja” moment, Democrats need to rebuild a culture of saying no inside their own coalition.

Democrats don’t just have to move right or left. They need to better reflect the texture of worlds they’ve lost touch with and those worlds are complex and contradictory.

The most important question in politics isn’t whether a politician is well liked. It’s whether voters think a politician — or a political coalition — likes them.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

@mattgurney YUP

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

Today I'm thinking about what "Lest we forget" actually means, and wondering if people would recognize it if it showed up again with slightly different superficial markers.

[James McLeod @jamespmcleod]

This is how the left is going to win elections.

[Michael Gerald Gibbs🏳️‍🌈🍁 🇺🇦 (He/Him) @Mikeggibbs]

I repeat:

Wayne Gretzky has brought shame to Canada.

The Order of Canada should be withdrawn.

He's a disgrace for many reasons not just for his embrace of fascism and white supremacy. He's also a gambling profiteer which is literally killing Canadians.

We need to disavow him