Since yesterday, many people have DM’d to say that they were strongly affected by my essay & wished they could share it.

So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon.

Please feel free to share.

www.patreon.com/posts/this-i...

catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...

It is wild that Charlie Kirk of all things is becoming *the* litmus test.

Even just talking about the event publicly without a sufficient supply of sackcloth and ashes is cast as "promoting political violence." I haven't seen this kind of mandatory performance of allegiance and piety since 9/11.

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

I guess we’re okay with this.

(Feel free to RT this over the next few days, weeks, years, forever)

yes

youtu.be/KpNg98tezbE?... yes

"The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others. It is happening to people who, we claim, have rights just because we are human. It is happening to me, personally."

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/o...

can i come over and look at you like this

go egrets or whatever

Are the next 4 years really going to be logging on everyday to sentences like "a 19 year old doge intern called Big Balls has your social security number" because I'm already at capacity for this sort of thing

so it's just gonna be a constant sick feeling of dread, got it

Through a combination of a) being in my forties and b) *gestures vaguely* I have high confidence that I will no longer bear the burden of hearing good news for the rest of my life.

All the gratuitous public ring-kissing before he even takes office does not bode well for anything

these are my cats / content generation units.