owlmoose | Regular politics linkspams?

I've been thinking I'm sharing most of the best resources I find on Twitter and Facebook these days, and given the speed at which things have been happening since the election, good stuff sometimes gets lost in the social media firehose. If I noted the best of those links and posted them here, say on a weekly basis or so, would people find that useful and/or interesting?

I'm a librarian; curating and sharing information is what I do. If I can take that task on in a way that helps people, I feel like I should. So I'll try this for now, but if folks have feedback or suggestions, definitely let me know.

If I had to pick one and only one issue to fix, it would probably be voting rights. There is no question in my mind that the gutting of the Voting Rights Act was a key factor in the PEOTUS's electoral college victory, and according to this ThinkProgress piece, emboldened Republicans are likely to double down on restricting voting rights even more. In the long run, I think a Constitutional amendment explicitly guaranteeing the right to vote is the best solution, but that'll never happen in the current climate. Meanwhile, we need to work on getting more state governments in the hands of Democrats, because Democrats don't pull this shit. This is one of the reasons the 2018 midterms are so crucial.

Speaking of midterm elections, the courts have ruled that North Carolina is so badly gerrymandered that the districts violate equal protection laws, and the state needs to redraw the districts and hold a special election for the state legislature in 2017 to ensure fair representation. Since the awful Pat McCrory finally conceded the NC governor's race yesterday, I have some hope that this might actually happen. Virginia and New Jersey also hold state elections in 2017 (not on a special basis -- they're just on a different cycle). So let's keep our eye on those balls as well.

Jay Smooth posted his first video since Election Night and urged us to get to work, whatever that means for us.

"Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Absolute must-read from this wonderful author, who reminds us that words matter.

"Things I Blame for Hillary Clinton's Loss, Ranked": I'd probably order these things differently (I'd list Bernie somewhat lower, for one), and there are items missing, but most of those are covered by 1-199. And with that placement, I absolutely agree.

For a different perspective on a similar topic, David Roberts takes a deep dive on the many factors that led to this outcome. Although not much of this was new to me, I appreciated the detailed and thoughtful look, and having all these arguments in one place.

Also see this long but excellent tweetstorm that examines exit polling and other data to explain what happened with the white working class.

Reddit is feeling the strain of being overrun by pro-Trump and alt-right trolls in the wake of their victory. My heart bleeds. *insert eyeroll emoji here*

And now for something completely different: NPR's Monkey See blog is putting together a Pop Culture Advent Calendar, sharing one perfect pop culture moment from 2016 per day. I love this idea, and perhaps in its spirit, I should make sure to include at least one happy or uplifting thing in each links collection. We can't have four years of unalloyed misery, no matter how bad things get -- that way lies burnout and despair. As I've said before, we need to take our bright spots where we can get them, even if it feels like trying to keep a candle lit against a firehose. This is my candle, and I will do whatever it takes to keep it burning.

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I didn't get to all these -- I have limited time between waking up and going to work, so I had to pick and choose -- but the Ngozi, Weiss, and Roberts articles were all good reads. I would have read the NPR Advent Calendar bits, but instead I looked up exactly what an Advent Calendar is -- so I definitely learned something this morning!

EDIT: Doof, almost forgot my original reason for commmenting: I think the weekly linkspam is a good idea!

Edited 2016-12-07 09:43 (UTC)