Thoughts on Heritage Foundation staff leaving en masse to join Mike Pence? What, if anything, does this suggest about the direction the party is headed?
More than a dozen staffers leave Heritage to join Pence-led nonprofit
It’s the latest in a string of departures from the embattled organization.
The departures, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mark the latest sign of upheaval at Heritage, which has seen dozens of staffers flee the organization since it became engulfed in a scandal involving Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the ongoing debate within the conservative movement over antisemitism.
Yesssss, I heard the announcement that the pod would be on break for two weeks and was like, "You cannot leave me to wrap all these stupid presents without some internet drama to get me through!"
I'm curious if Brad is finding his audience to be growing, shrinking, staying the same? He's got great content but with all that's going on in the world I'm seeking more silence, less noise. Are other people (audience) fleeing too? Is he going to have to get an OF or go on a foot photo site one day?
Nate Silver here identifies three types of Democrats. I'm not so sure I agree with his categories. What do you think?
If you don't want to bother clicking through to the article:
"Richardsonism and the 3 factions of the Democratic Party
"I’d argue that there are three main factions of the Democratic Party as the jockeying is already underway for the 2026 and 2028 primaries. First, there’s the Capital-L Left: populist, deservedly feeling recharged by the success of Zohran Mamdani and a backlash to the increasingly politically assertive billionaire class.
"Next, there’s what you might think of as the Abundance Libs: technocratic, more willing to find common ground with Republicans, and more sympathetic to market-based solutions. I’m a big fan of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, the authors of Abundance, but I think the project is more neo-liberal than left-wing — to me, not such a bad thing! That’s a subject for a different newsletter, however.
"The third faction Richardsonism or a term I’ll treat as synonymous with it: #Resistance Libs. They’re older, with extremely high educational attainment, predominantly female, and very highly politically engaged. This is the audience for a cluster of political activism encompassing things such as the No Kings protests and some highly popular anti-Trump Substacks3 along with certain prominent podcasts and much of Bluesky.
"(You could argue for the existence of a fourth faction, the Social Justice Left a.k.a. the woke left, but I’d claim that it’s largely been absorbed into the others.)"
Ben Shapiro for president... of the face eating leopard club.
Saying to yourself "surely this audience will stay for the bigoted stuff about blacks and immigrants and other populations, but they'll never come for the jews!" is remarkably ironic. Sucks to be you, fuckface!
Candace Owens is great at her job. Normal people can’t fake what she does, even if you give them $1 million ands make it their full time job to invent conspiracies. Like other normal politicians sounding dumb trying to talk like Trump to MAGA.
Wow, that really does look just like Katie & Brad.
Thoughts on Heritage Foundation staff leaving en masse to join Mike Pence? What, if anything, does this suggest about the direction the party is headed?
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/22/heritage-staff-join-pence-nonprofit-00703192
More than a dozen staffers leave Heritage to join Pence-led nonprofit
It’s the latest in a string of departures from the embattled organization.
The departures, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mark the latest sign of upheaval at Heritage, which has seen dozens of staffers flee the organization since it became engulfed in a scandal involving Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the ongoing debate within the conservative movement over antisemitism.
(cont. at link above)
Yesssss, I heard the announcement that the pod would be on break for two weeks and was like, "You cannot leave me to wrap all these stupid presents without some internet drama to get me through!"
If my evangelical mother hears this audio playing in her house I'm cast into outer darkness, so please everyone, wish my headphones good health.
I'm curious if Brad is finding his audience to be growing, shrinking, staying the same? He's got great content but with all that's going on in the world I'm seeking more silence, less noise. Are other people (audience) fleeing too? Is he going to have to get an OF or go on a foot photo site one day?
Thank you for this Katie and Brad. Amherst boy and Northampton girl so good (spiritually you know you're there, K).
But you're just going to keep being disappointed about Bari.
Another question, if you feel like reading ahead and doing some homework:
https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-is-heather-cox-richardsonism
Nate Silver here identifies three types of Democrats. I'm not so sure I agree with his categories. What do you think?
If you don't want to bother clicking through to the article:
"Richardsonism and the 3 factions of the Democratic Party
"I’d argue that there are three main factions of the Democratic Party as the jockeying is already underway for the 2026 and 2028 primaries. First, there’s the Capital-L Left: populist, deservedly feeling recharged by the success of Zohran Mamdani and a backlash to the increasingly politically assertive billionaire class.
"Next, there’s what you might think of as the Abundance Libs: technocratic, more willing to find common ground with Republicans, and more sympathetic to market-based solutions. I’m a big fan of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, the authors of Abundance, but I think the project is more neo-liberal than left-wing — to me, not such a bad thing! That’s a subject for a different newsletter, however.
"The third faction Richardsonism or a term I’ll treat as synonymous with it: #Resistance Libs. They’re older, with extremely high educational attainment, predominantly female, and very highly politically engaged. This is the audience for a cluster of political activism encompassing things such as the No Kings protests and some highly popular anti-Trump Substacks3 along with certain prominent podcasts and much of Bluesky.
"(You could argue for the existence of a fourth faction, the Social Justice Left a.k.a. the woke left, but I’d claim that it’s largely been absorbed into the others.)"
I think Silver was mostly right. But he's speaking only if groups that are the most vocal and active,, especially online.
I'm curious where he places the millions of blacks who reflexively vote 90 percent Dem.
Or union Democrats, or pragmatists, or most of the rest of the Democrats that will show up even if not being pandered too?
Can someone tell me what the stated purpose was of amfest? It seemed like a campaign rally, but I didn’t know if that’s what it was supposed to be.
It would be nice if we knew the prompt that Katie uses to generate the AI art for each post.
Ben Shapiro for president... of the face eating leopard club.
Saying to yourself "surely this audience will stay for the bigoted stuff about blacks and immigrants and other populations, but they'll never come for the jews!" is remarkably ironic. Sucks to be you, fuckface!
10 minutes in in to this episode and I really want a really good deep dive and how the Buckley rule fell apart for the Republican party
Candace Owens is great at her job. Normal people can’t fake what she does, even if you give them $1 million ands make it their full time job to invent conspiracies. Like other normal politicians sounding dumb trying to talk like Trump to MAGA.