The election of Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez was one of the most surprising and encouraging wins Democrats notched during the 2022 midterms. Here was a young progressive woman—a millennial mom working in a mechanic shop, both pro-choice and pro–gun rights—who managed to win in a rural red district in Washington state. She seemed like the way forward for the Dems.
But after six months in office, Gluesenkamp Pérez is nothing like what her backers envisioned. Alex Sammon writes, “On abortion, environmental issues, student debt, and criminal justice, she has opposed and undercut the president, alienated activist groups, spurned Democrats and sided with Republicans repeatedly—so much so that she is voting against her party more than almost any other Democrat.” What happened here?
AdvertisementAlso: How did Gluesenkamp Pérez pull off her unlikely victory in the first place? Back in December 2022, Sammon dug into the old-school strategy that was key to her campaign’s success.
While working as a Supreme Court law clerk, Aaron Tang took Justice Antonin Scalia out to lunch, where Tang posed an unusual riddle to the justice: “Is fish meat?” Scalia answered without hesitation or uncertainty—and Tang writes that his overconfident response exposes one of the reasons the Supreme Court is so broken.
The first GOP presidential primary debate is coming up in two weeks, and Donald Trump has not yet RSVP’d. Before showing up to face his GOP rivals on national TV, the former president has some real strategic pros and cons to weigh. Jim Newell breaks them down.
Another day, another Supreme Court ethics scandal: Fresh reporting by ProPublica reveals a new roster of billionaires who funded Clarence Thomas’ lavish lifestyle. These investigations illustrate the creation of a cult of personality that was engineered from the top down, write Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern.
AdvertisementPlus: How did Thomas become one of the most important—and controversial—figures in America? Listen to Season 8 of Slow Burn to learn about the justice’s rise to power.
Painkiller, Netflix’s new series about the Sackler family and the rise of Oxycontin is, frankly, a mess, according to Laura Miller. The show takes a complex story about the birth of the opioid crisis and turns it into a garish caricature.
The once-beloved acronym has withered grotesquely with age. Now, a new, more virile chortle has risen to take its place. Heather Schwedel dissects the fall of LOL and the dawning of the age of IJBOL.
Ohio voters swatted down a ballot measure that would have made it harder to enshrine abortion rights into law. This win is good news for abortion rights advocates, but there are more challenges to come. Kathryn Abrams argues that Missouri shows what Republicans will try next.
… much like EXO, a word recognized by the international-English Scrabble dictionary. Stefan Fatsis caught up with David Eldar and Harshan Lamabadusuriya to unpack their thrilling gameplay in the 2023 World Scrabble Championship finals. Eldar ended up being victorious, thanks in part to some ingenious strategy that blew experts away.
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