Dispatches From the Culture Wars – September 26, 2023
- Hollywood Squares
- Maren Morris Has Had It With Nashville
- Menendez and SCOTUS
- Alan Moore Has Had it With Superheroes
- AOC Heckled By MAGAts
- Abortion Patients Flee to Illinois
- Fighting Texas Voter Suppression Law
- Flatbush Tenants Fight Back
- The Black Imagination
- Union Blues
Several public figures have stepped in it recently by oversharing or making moves they simply didn’t have to make. The list has become so long that it feels less like they’ve committed a series of unforced errors and more like an entire unforced era.
Maren Morris Has Had It With Nashville
By Nicole Hemmer
CNN
There's a battle happening in the country music industry, between those seeking to deepen the industry’s ties to right-wing politics and those seeking to carve out a place for a more inclusive, more representative — and more historically rooted — version of Americana, folk and country music. Maren Morris, who is firmly in that second camp, has been part of the fight to redefine country.
By David Sirota
The Lever
The high court may feel emboldened to use the Menendez case not to counter Americans’ perception that the government is hopelessly rotted through with corruption, but to instead make the rot even worse. Justices could use the case to further whittle down the definitions of terms such as “bribery” and “official act” to almost nothing.
Alan Moore Has Had it With Superheroes
By Chris McPherson
Collider
Alan Moore, iconic comic book writer, no longer desires profits from adaptations of his work, suggesting the funds should go to the creative talents. He feels disconnected from comic books, criticizing superhero films for "infantalizing" adults and recycling old characters as adult fare.
By Emily Ngo
Politico
Ocasio-Cortez, frequently the target of attacks from right-leaning demonstrators, could hardly be heard above the jeering, and she was forced to leave while her colleagues broke into smaller groups to speak with reporters. The small but loud group of protesters waved signs discouraging migrant work permission, used a megaphone and lobbed curse words.
Abortion Patients Flee to Illinois
By Kristen Schorsch
KFF Health News
Since the Dobbs decision, determining who can get an abortion and where has been complicated by medically ambiguous language in new state laws that ban or restrict abortion. Doctors in those states fear they could lose their medical licenses or wind up in jail. Physicians in abortion havens such as Illinois are stepping up to fill the void and provide care to as many patients as possible.
Fighting Texas Voter Suppression Law
By Leah Tulin and Gabriella Sanchez
Brennan Center for Justice
A major federal lawsuit is challenging a wide-ranging and discriminatory voter suppression law Texas enacted in 2021. While S.B. 1 is one of many antidemocracy laws enacted by 19 states in the year after the 2020 election, it stands out for its sheer number of restrictive and discriminatory provisions, which largely target Latino and Black voters.
By Jess McAllen
The Baffler
The residents of 1834 Caton Avenue, which has over eighty units across six floors, have been asking for adequate living conditions for years. 1834 Caton has more than two-hundred seventy-seven open violations, ninety-two of which are “class C” aka “immediately hazardous.” Nine hundred complaints have been filed over the last two years.
By Aisha Shillingford
Yes!
We are in a time of great transition—a time when the world as we know it is ending and a new world is fighting to be born. There is an opportunity to create new worlds from the Black Imagination, freed from the capitalistic notion that our creativity can and should be exploited.
By Timothy Noah
The New Republic
Trump’s anti-worker stance as president cost him only a single percentage point’s support among working-class voters (defined as voters lacking a college degree), from 51 percent in 2016 to 50 percent in 2020. The Democratic share even of the union household vote—the one working-class demographic where Democrats reliably maintain an edge—has mostly fallen over the past 20 years.