iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I talked with @amandalitman.bsky.social about all things Platner — the role of (left and establishment) elites, where the red line for a candidate's personal behavior should be, whether this risk is inherent to unvetted outsider candidates, and more www.vox.com/politics/494...

vox.com

What could Democrats have done differently about Graham Platner?

Amanda Litman recruits progressive candidates for a living. We asked what went so wrong here.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Gen Z innocent www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/b...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Trump used @theonion.com's "No it won't" argument www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/u...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

The Senate used to be a lofty, elevated place (where a senator could crash out on the floor about Ingrid Bergman’s relationship with Roberto Rossellini)

Book passage in which Senator Edwin C. Johnson denounces the “love pirate” Rossellini for stealing Ingrid Bergman, his favorite actress of all time

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light, a movie about getting deeply depressed by the news boxd.it/dt73xr

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

I'm at the Mark / I'm at the Wayne / I'm at the combination Mark and Wayne

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Grimly funny that after all the corruption, incompetence, scandals, chaos, and bloodshed, the last straw for Kristi Noem was a comment at a hearing that annoyed Trump

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

These "imagine if the war goes beautifully and perfectly" articles are getting increasingly maddening. Can't believe people are writing stuff like this with a straight face www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Quote from WSJ article: "f Trump succeeds in turning Venezuela and Iran from implacably hostile to at least neutral or even friendly regimes, the geopolitical benefit is enormous.

With Arab-Israeli relations slowly warming, albeit strained by Israel’s war in Gaza, a normalization of relations between Iran and the U.S. might mean the end of Middle East conflict as a constant threat to the global economy. Military assets devoted to the region could turn to the Indo-Pacific."

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Since January I’ve been on parental leave, which is the closest I ever get to normie levels of news consumption, and can confirm So much stuff flying by, so little time to make sense of it unless you’re obsessed or it’s your job

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

The weirdest thing about Munich, which I rarely see discussed, is Spielberg thought he was adapting a nonfiction book, but it became clear the book's account was fabricated. Kushner clearly not eager to talk about the book here

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Perfect embodiment of the Free Press ethos here. Sure Trump illegally put his name on the Kennedy Center, purged the board, is making it a politicized personal platform like no other president, but the *real* problem is some arts people now don't want to perform there anymore

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

It is not a "psyop" exactly but the focus on data center water use is definitely a strategic choice made by rich progressive donors and foundations who are funding various anti-AI activist campaigns.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

A+ thread here with many insightful points about how the information environment functions now

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Doing a national primary held on a single day with RCV would make some sense, but the idea of grafting RCV onto the Dem presidential primary -- 57 separate contests held over a period of months that each allot delegates -- seems a bit strange.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

The huge number of legal errors and abuses competing to kill the Comey prosecution are kinda like Mr. Burns's various diseases

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Signs that a shutdown-ending deal could be coming soon.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Polls asking "do you approve of Trump's immigration policy" show rising disapproval. But polls asking what people think of both Republicans *and Democrats* on immigration often continue to give Rs the edge. Same with crime. www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Pretty much everyone who actually runs in a competitive race believes moderating your views on certain issues to better fit the electorate — "Zohran's position on the NYPD has evolved" — is a good strategy.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

"Vaxxes were being put in arms and were expected to completely end Covid and quickly bring the economy and society back to normal" seems like a pretty decent explanation of consumer optimism then. Unfortunately it didn't pan out!

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

I'm confused by this belief that voters should base their perception of a party only on the specific messages you offer in a brief general election campaign, rather than their years-long governance record. Biden did a lot on climate and LGBTQ issues! In other contexts we admit this!

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Biden did a lot on climate and LGBTQ issues and I feel confident that if elected Harris would have also. I don't think voters are misled or wrong to believe these are major Democratic Party priorities, even if Harris minimized them in her campaign rhetoric.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Dems lost many voters' trust on crime in the Biden years because they were viewed as the soft on crime party when most voters thought crime was a problem. It is true that Harris running on 2024 as "I was a prosecutor a long time ago" did not solve that. www.vox.com/politics/458...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

The 1919 tattoo really was "The Bart, The"

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

"I told him that photo would come back to haunt him..."

Still photo of shirtless, partying Graham Platner with skull tattoo from footage posted by Crooked Media

The Simpsons still of a news broadcast in which a file photo is shown depicting a drunken Homer, dressed in traditional Russian garb, drinking vodka, dancing a Russian dance, in Moscow

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Chris Rufo had a brilliant plan to claim that "the left" killed Charlie Kirk, using it as pretext for a crackdown. There was just one problem: many right-wing influencers concluded, instead, that the Jews did it. www.vox.com/politics/465...

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Reposted by Andrew Prokop

Rachel Cohen Booth @rcobooth.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

good piece on a topic that is definitely unnerving to read about

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

New: The leaked Young Republicans chat, and the bizarre conspiracy theories about Jews being involved in Charlie Kirk's murder, have spurred a public debate on the right. Should they do more to condemn antisemitism in their own ranks — or not? Gift link here: www.vox.com/politics/465...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

The Trump-Miller DOJ strategy: "flood the zone with shit." Target Trump's enemies & opposition with multiple likely doomed prosecutions. When one fails, move to the next (perhaps against the same person). Goal isn't conviction, it's putting enemies through the wringer www.vox.com/politics/464...

Text of Vox article: Watching all this unfold — the weaponization of the US Justice Department, in efforts that mostly seem groundless or doomed — I’ve recalled a phrase Steve Bannon coined during President Donald Trump’s first term. Describing how the right could push back against the mainstream media, Bannon said they had to “flood the zone with shit.”

Trump and Miller, it seems, are trying to target the opposition by flooding the zone with shit. They are going to bring one bogus investigation and prosecution after another. If one flops, they’ll swiftly move on to the next — often, perhaps, against the same people already indicted. (There is already talk in MAGA-land of what else Comey could be charged with, and a separate US attorney’s office is looking into James on other topics.)

The main point is not really to win convictions. Trump’s team would of course love that, but if they wanted to build cases that would actually hold up in court, they’d be going about things very differently.

Instead, the goal is to put Trump’s enemies, and the Democratic opposition more broadly, through the wringer — again, and again, and again until January 2029. Or perhaps even after that.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Genuine question, does Trump know who Bari Weiss is? He's obviously not a Substack guy. Is she on Fox enough that he'd recognize her?

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

It's actually very relevant and telling information that Bari Weiss says she's allies with the Federalist Society in a battle to save "the West" against (implicitly) the America-hating left. She's not about lowering taxes and never has been!

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Bari Weiss is now pivoting to "I only care about good journalism," but in her past few years she's been a factional coalition merchant (cc @profhansnoel.bsky.social ) — she convened a new faction of the right, making common cause with Chris Rufo & others against the left www.vox.com/politics/463...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

How do you think the shutdown fight will end? A.) Dems win significant concessions from Trump, deal to reopen B.) Dems cave after a few days or weeks C.) Dems cave before the end of this year D.) GOP nukes filibuster, reopens gov't E.) Gov't remains closed into next year

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

In 2018 I wrote up the cases for and against Senate Dems shutting down the government via filibuster (in this case their demand was a DACA deal). They ended up doing it but caving after three days without success. www.vox.com/policy-and-p...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Well yes, but, all these shutdowns ended because the party shutting things down essentially caved after a few days or weeks, which allowed the news environment to move on to other things.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

I've been feeling uneasy about the shutdown fight and the past two days crystallized why. In a moment of authoritarian peril, does it really make sense to start a fight that could very plausibly end with Trump and Rs getting full power to rewrite laws? www.vox.com/politics/461...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

With the attempted firing of Lisa Cook based on a pretext supplied by Bill Pulte, he's becoming more important than ever. In some ways he's a ridiculous figure, in other ways he's quite dangerous — my piece on him here: www.vox.com/politics/421...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

NYT reports that the “Russiagate” investigation targeting Comey and Brennan is based in Charlottesville, where the recently-confirmed US Attorney suddenly resigned and then posted this Anchorman quote. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

We may be seeing something like "grand jury nullification” to refuse Trump team’s politicized indictments in DC www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/u...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

NEW: FHFA director Bill Pulte is leading Trump's push to get Jerome Powell fired — and to get Adam Schiff and Tish James prosecuted. Who is this guy and why does he have 3 million X followers? And just how high will he rise in Trump's administration? www.vox.com/politics/421...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

We're about to reach previously undreamed-of heights of "doesn't look like anything to me..."

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Reposted by Andrew Prokop

Steve Wolfram @stevewolfram.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

A very good analysis. Gave me a lot to think about. And who knew I'd basically side with Vance/Tucker/DonJr???? www.vox.com/politics/416...

vox.com

Inside the most intense debate roiling the right today

Tucker Carlson, JD Vance, and Donald Trump Jr. vs. the GOP foreign policy establishment.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

To an extent many don't understand, opposing US aid for Ukraine was crucial to launching JD Vance's political career in 2022. That's because it helped win him support from Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr.— who then convinced dad to endorse, which won him the primary. www.vox.com/politics/416...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

NEW: My deep dive into the right's bitter divide on foreign policy. The "America Firsters" are in many ways repellent to Democrats— they want to cut off Ukraine and pull back from the world. They're also the most influential people on the right who oppose war with Iran www.vox.com/politics/416...

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Berating holdout senators from your party to try and pass a reconciliation bill with the acronym BBB? Is it 2021 again?

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

The argument of "IEEPA actually gives the president unlimited power to do whatever tariffs he wants if he says the word 'emergency', but nobody has noticed it until now" does seem like it's kinda begging for a SCOTUS smackdown akin to the student loans ruling. We'll see.

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Andrew Prokop @awprokop.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

The popularism debate (both pro- and anti-) often seems blinkered to me because so much of it is about policy position-taking in a vacuum — which is indeed important, but is just one of many things that tell a larger story about *whose side you're on.*

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