Orwell’s descriptions of how the party approached and managed mass culture in Nineteen Eighty-Four contain some of the book’s most interesting and prescient insights. Among other things, he essentially predicted AI art. Link in first reply.

I have a new piece on Substack today about the longstanding centrist chimera of "electability", which has always been more about disciplining the Democratic base than actually winning elections.

I'm in the Star today with a piece on the Carney government's handling of relations with the United States. Last year, Canadians gave Mark Carney a mandate to disentangle our country from the empire to the south. By any reasonable standard, he's done the opposite. Link in first reply.

Some thoughts on why so many of the ad reads on right wing shows and podcasts are also accidentally hilarious. Link in first reply.

This piece probably needs an update given how central AI has become to the aesthetics of the reactionary right. But I think the essence of the sketch holds, and Trump’s NFT collection was very much the perfect union of the MAGA visual sensibility with the MAGA ideology. Link in first reply.

"The banality of evil, M.B.A. edition" — @anandwrites.bsky.social Link in first reply:

The political and moral panics we're seeing in the wake of successful DSA insurgencies are notably lacking in juice. We frankly used to see a higher caliber of red-baiting. [Link in first reply]

One of the best things about British democracy is the fact it forces rich, privately-educated elites to wait around in grubby community centres then stand onstage next to goofy guys in costumes. Godspeed, Count Binface. [link in first reply]

The rumours are true. My publisher O/R is currently selling their *entire* catalogue at a 30% discount. That includes The Dead Center. What are you waiting for? [link in first reply]

For July 4th, the NYT ran a report on Norway that simultaneously lauded its social welfare institutions while ignoring its high levels of public ownership and dismissing the notion any of this has to do with socialism. That's historically blinkered and analytically unhelpful.

NEW: I've long been fascinated by the (often AI-generated) promotional slop that floods my inbox every day and curious as to how something this low rent can conceivably represent a viable business model. Link in first reply.

Canada could be investing in its public and heritage institutions. Instead, it’s letting them crumble so that corporate monopolies like Rogers can take their place.

With the recent news that the CBC is losing Hockey Night in Canada, and that Rogers is taking over exclusive broadcast rights, the country is losing one of its most cherished cultural institutions. It didn't have to be like this.

Mark Carney's electoral dominance is not a permanent state. The only question is how much longer Canada's post-2025 political dynamic can realistically sustain itself. My latest on Substack. Link in first reply. www.lukewsavage.com/p/somethings...

You've all heard this quote, yeah? Well, it's very stupid. Churchill never said it, but more importantly people do not, in fact, enter adulthood as radicals and grow more conservative with age. My latest for Substack ⬇️

I'm happy to be featured in this forthcoming book in conservation with the NDP's new leader Avi Lewis and alongside some great people from across Canada's left. It's coming out June 25 can and you can pre-order it here: www.breachbooks.ca

Inspired by a weird baseball broadcast I watched recently, I wrote about the insidious way sports betting is commodifying games. If every play is just a potential site of monetization, we lose something pretty fundamental about the experience of watching and enjoying sports.

Right wing opposition to the idea of a shorter working week reveals something critical about the reactionary imagination — my latest for Substack.

In honour of the late, great Pete Seeger's birthday last weekend, I've decided to unlock this essay from last year about him, Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, and why'll always need them both.

Fun evening on Wednesday. Bhaskar and I also recorded a much longer conversation I'll look forward to sharing with you all soon. Link to the lecture and Q&A in the first reply.

This evening, @jacobin founder @sunraysunray will be delivering this year's lecture in honour of the late, great Professor Ellen Wood. I'll be in conversation with him afterward and, though tickets are sold out, the whole event will be live here. Tune in if you can! www.youtube.com/live/ur2cpIc...

Canada's political soil provides particularly fertile ground for left wing populism. To a greater extent than at any other point in my adult life, the Liberals and Conservatives have ideologically converged & are mostly fighting over the aesthetics of their shared agenda.

11 years ago today

Barack Obama was fond of invoking an abstract unity that was rhetorically elegant but fundamentally hollow. Mamdani is doing something quite different: engaging people through the prism of their own traditions in a moral language universalist in its implications. Link below ↓

Never in the whole of human history has so much technology and capital been invested in mass entertainment. Never in the whole of human history has mass entertainment been so insipidly bad. www.lukewsavage.com/p/empire-of-...

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak about Ed Broadbent’s international engagement at Progress Summit in Ottawa. For the many who couldn't be there, I've published my remarks in full. www.lukewsavage.com/p/toward-a-n...

An absolute pleasure to be back on the Jacobin Show this week to talk to my friend @davidgriscom.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8kF...