Month: February 2025

Over at Liberal Currents, I have a new piece up on Portland, protests, and pardons, defending the city from right-wing stereotypes and making the case that the 2020 protests here in no way justify Trump’s mass pardon of the Capitol rioters:

If one insists on drawing comparisons, it’s also worth emphasizing that the 2020 protests in Portland and the January 6 protest at the Capitol differed in their aims. The former were at bottom a response to the homicide of George Floyd at the hands of police; to the extent that protesters were united by any single aim, it was to demand reform to violent policing. The Portland protests were fundamentally democratic, a visible expression of popular sentiment intended to influence elected officials and raise the salience of the issue.

The January 6 protest, in contrast, was explicitly anti-democratic. The aim was not to influence politics through persuasion but rather to forcefully overturn American voters’ decision to elect Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Every legal avenue for challenging the results, no matter how ludicrous or conspiratorial, had already been tried and rejected, often by judges appointed by Trump himself. All that remained was the threat of violence against Congress and the vice president for carrying out their constitutional duties, which the rioters eagerly undertook with actual violence against Capitol Police and threats of hanging for figures like Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence.

Read the whole thing here, and read Liberal Currents generally. It’s an essential publication right now and Adam Gurri is doing fantastic work publishing it.

My review of Henry Oliver’s new book Second Act is also out:

There’s a joke that goes around on Halloween about dressing up as a gifted child. “What are you supposed to be?” people ask. Punchline: “I was supposed to be a lot of things.” If that joke resonates with you, then you may want to pick up Henry Oliver’s new book Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life.

Read it here, or here without a paywall.

2024 was the best year for seeing live music I’ve ever had, especially since I got to share it with my wonderful girlfriend who’s always up for a concert. Somehow we made it to more than 40 shows together. To remember it, we made a playlist with a song each from 59 artists we got to see live. Maybe you’ll find some new favorites here too, especially if you’re into indie or Americana.