How I’m thinking about politics and despair right now

I saw someone say on BlueSky the other day that it looks like we’re heading toward another “Summer of _____.” And…yeah: Things are fucking shit in the U.S. right now, and are likely going to be bad for a while. It’s all extremely overwhelming and demoralizing, but the best course of action is, of course, to try and do something about it.

The idea of doing something can also be overwhelming! Like, what can I personally do about the likes of someone as rotten and powerful as RFK Jr.? This is why I always return to the idea of taking action at the local/state level, as that’s where so much of what meaningfully affects our day-to-day lives (not to mention actual state/federal policy, eventually) actually happens. As I wrote back in 2020: “Change isn’t limited to general election years; it happens at city council and school board meetings and late-night legislative sessions. It happens when state supreme courts decide which cases to hear and police budgets are allocated. It happens no matter who the president is, or what party controls Congress. Now is a great time to learn the names of your reps, follow local organizers and reporters, sign up for a few relevant newsletters (and make a habit of reading them), start regularly consuming your local news, and set up a few recurring donations.” 

I stand by this…but I’m very aware that focusing on your county or state can also be overwhelming, or at least just super confusing. Local politics can feel impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t been doing this full-time for the past 20 years, and there’s just so much bad stuff happening right now—everywhere, all the time, and it’s all worthy of our attention.  

So this spring, I took a similar-but-different approach that I’ve been finding quite helpful: I chose a “major” and a “minor” for myself with regard to city politics. The idea is that I’m pushing myself to go really deep on those two issues for the next several years (which is how long it takes to get anything done anyway) so that I can be truly effective. I’m still generally aware of other issues—taking my general ed classes, so to speak, which isn’t hard because everything is so interconnected—but I’m putting the bulk of my time and energy into organizing that’s happening around two core issues. 

My major is housing. If you don’t have a safe, affordable place to live, you don’t have much of anything. Housing is connected to other things I care about (public health, literacy, incarceration, homelessness, art/culture, inequality…the list goes on) so it feels like the obvious choice to me. And because there’s so much going on with housing in NYC—we need 100,000 new units, according to one estimate I read, and building them won’t be fast or cheap—I think this will keep me busy for a very long time. 

My minor is street safety. I’m a huge fan of safety in general (lol but also…it’s true) and I feel quite passionate about making New York City’s streets less deadly for pedestrians and cyclists. (This also has the added bonus of fighting climate change!) Honestly, this might turn out to be my major; I simply love to see protected bike lanes, low speed limits for vehicles, congestion pricing, Open Streets, and accessible sidewalks! And because there are a lot of members of the Seething Dork Community actively trying to shut down anything that even remotely undermines what they see as their fundamental right to mow down an elderly person with their car, there are a lot of opportunities for action here! 

I’ve joined organizing groups for each of these issues, which is helping me stay on top of what’s happening week to week and making me aware of what I can be doing in a given moment. I’m also getting an education in how things happen on a very technical level, along with what’s been going on for the past decade (or more because…everything takes so long). It’s been a very good time for this; because of the upcoming Democratic primary/mayoral election (please, for the love of god, don’t rank Cuomo!!!), lots of people are just casually chatting about, say, the specific, nitty-gritty ways a city council candidate has blocked affordable housing in their district. 

Anyway, I’ve been trudging to my community board meetings, Zooming in to City Council hearings, talking to my neighbors, and doing so much reading. (I recently learned, for example, that Community Board 1—an entirely unelected group of people—bought itself a car using a City Council grant a few years ago??? And nothing was ever really done about it? Honestly, this is one of the wildest stories I’ve heard in a minute!!!) 

I think we all know, intellectually, that getting involved is both an effective way to build the world we want to live in and a potent antidote to despair…but it’s still so easy to freeze when confronted with the sheer amount of reactionary wreckage we’re dealing with. Breaking it down into “major/minor” has been a useful practical approach for me, and is helping me feel a little bit less bad. 🕊️

Related: Where I’m getting my news these days

I read all 1,200 pages of ‘The Power Broker’ and now I have beef with a dead man

You know how they say you’re never more than six feet from a spider? In New York City, I feel like you’re never more than six feet from Robert Moses.

I mean this both literally and figuratively. Here, for example, is Curbed deep dive about a project in my neighborhood that I read yesterday, where the infamous city planner comes up repeatedly. He’s also name-checked in a recent Atlantic article about abundance politics. I’ve also literally read the document Moses wrote making the case to build the apartment building I now live in. And looking at important, timely topics like congestion pricing, Open Streets, the MTA, and the current mayoral election, let me just tell you…the ghost of Robert Moses is everywhere. (If this guy had been obsessed with trains and tunnels instead of bridges and cars, we’d be living in a very different America right now!)

In both New York and across the U.S., we’re still dealing with* the negative effects of his 40-year (unelected!!!) reign, which is why The Power Broker—Robert Caro’s 1200-page Pulitzer Prize–winning accounting of Robert Moses’s life and work—was such a fascinating and infuriating read. 

I had often heard people talk about The Power Broker because of how long it is, but…no one ever really talks about how good it is! And not just good in the sense of, like, “I’m learning so much from this, it is Important,” though that is also true. But it’s really, really readable. It’s juicy! The stakes are so high and there’s endless drama, gossip, humor, and pettiness, coupled with the kind of epic narrative arcs that feel more like fiction—it really doesn’t feel like reading a history book. (My jaw actually dropped at times.) Robert Caro does an incredible job of making the case for why we all need to know this bastard’s name, and laying out just how destructive, nasty, cruel, and prolific Moses was. One of the worst people to ever do it! I initially decided to just read the intro to see if I wanted to fully commit to the book, and by the time I finished that, I was…panting. I truly couldn’t put it down. (And before you ask: Yes, Moses has replaced Samuel Pepys as my #1 historical enemy.)

Because 2024 was the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication, there’s been a ton of renewed interest and media coverage in it. 99% Invisible (a podcast I love!) did a multipart series on The Power Broker last year, which is definitely a worth a listen if you know in your heart that you’re never going to read the whole book. It’s very light/fun (one of the co-hosts for this miniseries used to write for The Daily Show), and does a great job of communicating the key takeaways. (At minimum, you should definitely listen to the interview they did with AOC, wherein she talks about why the federal government…is the way it is. Her interview starts at 1:51:16 and is so good and will also make you want to scream.)

One of my biggest takeaways from The Power Broker is just how much impact a single person can have. Even in a city as big and as complicated as New York, it’s increasingly evident to me that a few loud NIMBYs with a bone to pick can stall progress for years. And yeah, Robert Moses didn’t do what he did alone…but the book was just a stark reminder that, for better or for worse, people built the world we live in, and people can change it. 

Some related content:

• I’ve really been enjoying The War on Cars podcast. (I loved the free parking, Tesla, and Rick Steves episodes!) 

• I recently picked up City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways from the library. I also have Jane Jacobs and Wrestling With Moses in the queue.

• “Can Andy Byford Save the Subways?” I remember reading this in the New Yorker when it was published, but I re-read it after finishing TPB. And now, just this week…Andy Byford is back! 

• “The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth,” from a three-part Times series on the failures of the MTA. 

• Streetsblog is a great resource if you care about what’s happening in terms of transportation policy; I read the NYC edition daily and it’s very in the weeds (in a good way!) about what is currently happening. 🛣️

*Here’s a very salient example: The Second Avenue Subway comes up a few times in 'The Power Broker;' it was first proposed in 1920 and is mentioned toward the end of the book as something that the city still “desperately” needs (so, in the 1970s). I was curious what ever happened with it so I decided to look it up…and discovered that only the first three stations and two miles of track on the line have been completed to date, and this only happened in…2017.

Where I’m getting my news these days

The political situation in the U.S. right now is Not Great, and it’s getting worse by the day. But if you’re reading some of our most vaunted institutions, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s business as usual here, which is…fucking wild! I would personally prefer to get information from media outlets and journalists that are accurately characterizing the current threats to democracy and to the American people versus treating this situation like it’s goddamn fantasy football. Like, why are we credulously trying to figure out how flatly illegal actions will “play” with voters instead of calling these things what they are? Why are we referring to disastrous cuts to federal agencies as “savings” in headlines? Why are we acting like the dead whale guy has some valid points and thus is somehow qualified to take away millions of people’s SSRIs? AHHHHHHHH!!!! I find it all disgraceful, particularly in a moment when trust in media institutions is already so low and our industry is collapsing! 

Anyway. Rather than piss myself off every single day, I’ve been sticking to outlets and journalists that aren’t acting like they are brand new here. Below is a list of where I’m going for news and analysis these days. (I also pay for a lot of these, and would encourage you to do the same with the outlets you love and want to see stick around, to the extent that you can afford to!) 

New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. This is where I’m going if I just want to see the news of the day from a major media outlet. The difference in their headlines compared to their competitors is noticeable and extremely refreshing!  

The City. This is an independent, non-profit newsroom with good values covering NYC. We love to see it! 

5-4. This is one of my favorite discoveries from the past couple years; the tagline is “a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.” It’s a super cathartic listen, while also being very informative. If you want a good, not-timely-but-also-very-relevant episode to start with, “Sierra Club v. Morton” is one of my personal favorites.

404 Media. A lot of journalists are real dopes when it comes to tech coverage. (If you’re drooling over the promises of generative AI, I’ve got a bridge to sell you!!!) 404 is independent—run by a bunch of my former VICE coworkers, who are very smart!—and covers the tech industry critically, as it should be covered. 

Wired. Similarly to 404, Wired has some VICE in its DNA and currently has its eye trained on Elon Musk/DOGE. 

Taylor Lorenz. Another very good follow with regard to tech coverage (she unmasked Libs of TikTok), and one of the only journalists I’m aware of who still gives a shit about covid and the way our current approach to public health is affecting people with disabilities! 

Hamilton Nolan / How Things Work. Hamilton is a former Gawker writer who now covers unions and labor issues. “They Are a Minority” and “Democracy and Power” are two good recent installments to check out. 

Your Local Epidemiologist. If you want a clear picture of what’s going on with public health in a given moment, YLE is a good Substack to add to your list.

Defector. While this is technically a sports outlet, they cover politics too, and pretty much every post is a banger. The Old Rules Are for Losers by Kelsey McKinney (also a good follow!) is a nice one to start with. In it, she writes of Democrats: “I want a party that understands that morality is not the same as following a list of rules that the opponent declines to follow. And I want a party with a fucking strategy. I want candidates with actual beliefs, and policies that actually matter, and plans on how to achieve them. I want a party that views the Golden Rule as something that no longer applies when the other side opts out. I want a party that will keep the Earth from burning and take care of the stacks of healthcare bills on everyone's tables and make sure that every kid has food and an education, and I want that party to put the ends before the means. I want a party that fucking cares.” PLEASE!! 

Gregg Gonsalves. Gregg is an epidemiologist and longtime AIDS activitist who also happens to have a strong moral compass. 

Mariame Kaba. Whenever I feel despair, I turn to Mariame Kaba; she’s written several books—including Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care, which I’d definitely recommend right now—and has a monthly Substack.

Rebecca Traister. Another person who I turn to when I’m feeling abject despair! Her NY Mag archive is definitely worth a read.

Melissa Gira Grant. Melissa writes for The New Republic and has been particularly good on the onslaught of attacks on trans people. Here’s her archive.

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