Author | Lightnews

Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · 24d

My latest on government shutdowns in the attention economy era.

The Lever @levernews.com · 25d

Everyone agrees antics around the spending-bill deadline are nothing but callous political stunts — so why do we agree to be governed like this at all? www.levernews.com/welcome-to-t...

Welcome To The Government Shutdown Circus, Where Everybody Loses

Everyone agrees antics around the spending-bill deadline are nothing but callous political stunts — so why do we agree to be governed like this at all?

www.levernews.com

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Reposted by Evelyn Quartz

GLEN JACKSON @glenjackson.bsky.social · 24d

Everyone agrees antics around the spending-bill deadline are nothing but callous political stunts — so why do we agree to be governed like this at all?
@evelynquartz.bsky.social
@levernews.com

www.levernews.com/welcome-to-t...

Welcome To The Shutdown Circus, Where Everybody Loses

Everyone agrees antics around the spending-bill deadline are nothing but callous political stunts — so why do we agree to be governed like this at all?

www.levernews.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 11

Yes! We must continue to ask what is truly required when we're told to protect democracy & why so many people are right to have lost faith in the narrow, procedural definition. Because it has not come with the material dignity we all deserve as human beings.

Karen Monroy @karenmonroy.bsky.social · Aug 10

If the Dems long version of democracy isn't up to parr for you--read this piece from @evelynquartz.bsky.social.

Karen Monroy (@karenmonroy)

Betting most non-party elites are in sync with this sentiment. Institutions that were not working well, and a party that has tried to have it’s cake (we fight for the people) and eat it too (Let’s tra...

substack.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 8

I get why it’s hard to see Trump as anything other than the singular threat. We’ve been conditioned to see politics through the democracy–fascism binary, where he’s the villain and everything against him is “saving democracy.” But that framing obscures the bigger story. My work tries to expose this.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 8

Trump isn’t the “end” of American democracy, he’s a symptom of decades of bipartisan erosion in a system that was already failing most people. Treating him as the endpoint turns a structural crisis into a single-villain story, and that story lets the deeper rot go unchallenged. That is my argument.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 8

What I'm really disturbed by and what few are talking about is how Democrats have been gerrymandering for years and now are using rhetoric of war and the American project to grab more power, by making seats safer for them. We cannot let them off the hook for that.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 8

The trouble is, once that power is consolidated, Democrats rarely use it to expand economic democracy or materially improve people’s lives. Instead, they stabilize the same broken order of austerity that helped create the crisis. Calling this a defense of democracy risks gutting the term entirely.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 8

I don’t deny the authoritarian strain in the GOP. But the liberal political and media class has an incentive to cast Trump as an unprecedented fascist, b/c it turns politics into “democracy vs. dictatorship” and lets them justify power grabs like gerrymandering as acts of noble necessity.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 7

And before anyone comes at me for being naive or not understanding politics, please read the article. I go through the major arguments being made in favor of this and try to dispel them.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 7

My new piece for @levernews.com, on why Democrats should NOT “fight fire with fire” when it comes to gerrymandering.

There is another, much harder but more democratic option: build a popular winning agenda.

www.levernews.com/do-as-we-say...

Do As We Say, Not As We Gerrymander

By fighting gerrymandering with gerrymandering, Democrats are betraying their own democratic principles.

www.levernews.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 5

This is the most honest and damning piece I’ve written since leaving a career in liberal politics. I hope you’ll read it.

quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/shame-on-t...

Shame on the Liberals: They Let This Happen.

This piece isn’t written from detachment. It’s written out of fury.

quartzevelyn.substack.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Aug 4

Strange how Epstein becomes a bipartisan outrage only once elites can use it to score points. The people who called MAGA voters conspiratorial now claim moral clarity—without ever naming how their own class insulated him for years.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 31

Such important reporting! The more people that can see identity politics as it's weaponized by both parties to serve corporate interests the better.

David Sirota @davidsirota.com · Jul 30

Sarah McBride became famous as Congress’s first transgender lawmaker.

She just passed her first bill — it helps private equity & hedge fund billionaires prey on the working-class.

McBride touted it as a benefit to Black women & marginalized communities. www.levernews.com/dems-hand-pr...

Dems Hand Private Equity The Equal Opportunity To Grift

A bipartisan bill passed unanimously by the House would sell out working-class investors to private equity under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

www.levernews.com

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Reposted by Evelyn Quartz

The Spirit of The Paradox of Tolerance @seltsamerweise.bsky.social · Jul 30

I was just made aware of this by an excellent article by @evelynquartz.bsky.social!

quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/what-eliss...

What Elissa Slotkin Reveals About Liberal Politics

Her Breaking Points interview was one of the most honest moments in years—not because she confessed, but because she couldn’t.

quartzevelyn.substack.com

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Reposted by Evelyn Quartz

Karen Monroy @karenmonroy.bsky.social · Jul 24

BRAVA @evelynquartz.bsky.social The left doesn’t just critique the right. It offers an alternative to the center. Housing, healthcare, labor rights, public infrastructure, climate —not as technocratic reforms, but as moral commitments. That everyone deserves dignity. That care isn’t a commodity.

Why You Know the Far Right in Europe—But Not the Left

A case for why that's intentional.

open.substack.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 19

So it’s either a project that remains deeply undemocratic or fails due to its unpopularity with the people. As citizens and voters who care about justice and economic equality, we have to understand this for what it is and demand something better.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 19

The problem with the mainstream “pro-democracy” movement that formed in reaction to Trump is that it protects liberal democracy while shutting down economic democracy. The lack of economic democracy is why people are rejecting liberal democracy (i.e. Trump’s second win).

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 15

My new piece argues that we must reject the false choice presented by our politics of technocratic liberalism vs. authoritarian rule.

The third option is intentionally hidden: economic democracy and a politics of agency.

quartzevelyn.substack.com/p/the-false-...

The False Choice That’s Breaking America: Symbolic Democracy or Authoritarian Rule

Neither party offers a future. It’s time to reclaim power, not just process.

quartzevelyn.substack.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 7

The inconvenient truth: Without economic democracy, political democracy becomes hollow. You can vote every two years, but if you have no say over your job, your landlord, your debt, your time—you are not free.

And the center-left knows this. That’s why they focus on aesthetics, not power.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 7

You see, my concern is that it's not the authoritarianism they hate; we already have a soft version of that. But the aesthetic betrayal that Trump represents. Trump peels the mask off the "respectability" of elite governance.

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 7

Suspended civil liberties, eviscerated privacy, and militarized the homeland

Used a crisis (9/11) to consolidate executive power and criminalize dissent

Oversaw the largest transfer of wealth to defense contractors and oil companies in modern history

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 7

An honest question I have for the pro-democracy centrist movement: Was George Bush not a threat to democracy?

Was not elected by the majority, but installed by the Supreme Court

Lied the nation into war, killing hundreds of thousands

Legalized torture, detention without trial & mass surveillance

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Reposted by Evelyn Quartz

The Lever @levernews.com · Jul 7

Democrats are using Trump’s apocalyptic bill as a campaign gimmick — and ignoring their role in its cruelty.

A Big, Bipartisan Betrayal

Democrats are using Trump’s apocalyptic bill as a campaign gimmick — and ignoring their role in its cruelty.

www.levernews.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 7

Wrote about The Big Beautiful Bill and a country that has long treated health care as a market commodity to be managed rather than a basic human right. For @levernews.com.

www.levernews.com/a-big-bipart...

A Big, Bipartisan Betrayal

Democrats are using Trump’s apocalyptic bill as a campaign gimmick — and ignoring their role in its cruelty.

www.levernews.com

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Evelyn Quartz @evelynquartz.bsky.social · Jul 3

I used to write talking points for House democrats. I’ve seen how these moments get turned into scripted outrage. But this isn’t a messaging failure—it’s a failure of moral and political vision. People will lose health care. And there’s no plan to stop it.

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