Evening Roundup, September 17
Featuring Lily Conway; Ari Berman; Meredith Blake; Rep. Melanie Stansbury; Tom Joscelyn, Susan Corke, & Norm Eisen; Nick Penniman (written and in conversation); Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, & Calder Robinson
The Killing of Charlie Kirk & the Online Alt-Right
The shocking public killing of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last week set off a supernova-sized reaction online and in media of all varieties.
The Contrarian's Lily Conway details Kirk’s beloved, pivotal position in the milieu of ultra-conservative media.
Ari Berman on Trump's scheme to disrupt the 2026 midterms
Yesterday, the Department of Justice sued the states of Maine and Oregon to gain access to their unredacted copies of the voting rolls. As our guest Ari Berman explains, this is a very unusual move from the federal government.
Adolescence, Charlie Kirk, and the Rush for Easy Answers in the Wake of Brutality
“We know what he did. We’re not gonna know why.”
Rep. Melanie Stansbury on potential government shutdown & the Epstein files
Jen is joined by Rep. Melanie Stansbury to talk about the potential government shutdown, what comes next in the fight to get the Epstein files released, and how Trump’s gutting of the federal government is similar to other authoritarian strategies.
Vance’s dangerous attack on free speech
On Monday, Vice President JD Vance hosted the Charlie Kirk show, ostensibly to pay tribute to his fallen friend. But that was not Vance’s sole purpose for assuming Kirk’s mic. Indeed, the vice president used the occasion to launch an unhinged broadside against his perceived political opponents, threatening the free speech rights of civil society.
People are ready for reform. Is Congress?
Today is Constitution Day, a day most of us would normally treat as just another ordinary day. But these are not ordinary times. We know it. We feel it. We see it all around us.
[To hear more from Nick Penniman, please watch his interview with Jen Rubin, below]
Americans know something is wrong: Nick Penniman on the need for change
Happy Constitution Day! Even though Trump is actively ripping our founding document to shreds, we can still hold it in veneration, as what’s happening in America now is certainly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. And Americans seem to largely agree!
Hateful emails won't deter me
When I started writing for The Contrarian in January, the running joke was whether there would be enough fodder for a weekly column focused solely on gender and democracy.
In defense of free speech
Calder Robinson is a visual artist and designer based in Atlanta. Originally from the Midwest, his work delves into shared experiences, from momentous occasions to the mundane.
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Have you noticed that all these ultra right wing characters are consumed with sexual thoughts and hatred. Where does that come from?
I find it mind boggling and heartbreaking that the arguably greatest crime against humanity - in terms of destruction, mass killings 'especially of children), ethnic cleansing, you name it - is basically completely missing on this platform. I cannot comprehend this complicit silence for the life of me - does Palestine have to be annihilated completely completely before anybody here shows any trace of humanity, empathy and solidarity with people of Gaza, soon to be joined with this of the West Bank? Where does this come from, this complicity? The habit of exterminating indigenous people, from the native Americans, to Vietnamese (millions) to Iraqis (close to a million), via complicity with Bangladesh genocide, Indonesia genocide, to direct enabling of Gaza genocide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_atrocity_crimes