iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Mendoza launched for mayor standing in front of the right problems — parking meters, property taxes, rent — and offering nothing about what she'd actually do. read more about this in Chicago 312:https://chicago312.beehiiv.com/

chicago312.beehiiv.com

Home | The Chicago 312

News, narrative, and strategy for people who still believe Chicago can work.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Uhm how can you talk to the Pope when you don’t think religious private schools should be loosely regulated but still receive unlimited blank checks with impunity

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Quotes like this make me sorry that I spend so much time talking about how we have to stop underestimating the moderate right in Chicago

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different. twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X
Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

PS -- Unfortunately Zoom didn't capture what was happening on everyone's phone screens, but rest assured: it was quality video making.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

This Friday, Illinois Signal Collective ran a quick vertical video training for organizers from ICIRR, AAMP, COFI, and Equity and Transformation, all heading to advocate in Springfield this Wednesday. You can't teach your way past being willing to look a little silly on camera — this room did it!

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Really grateful to have gotten to attend the ribbon cutting at Brighton Park Neighborhood Council's new building, eleven years in the making. Nice to see electeds, neighbors and organizers gathered to celebrate something, instead of dealing with all of Midway Blitz. Congrats, BPNC!

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shawn @mulchy.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

already, local utility comed says it has more than 75 large-load projects that are waiting to be connected to the power grid. collectively, just these projects are expected to draw more than 2.8 gigawatts of energy—more than comed's highest-ever peak demand of 2.4 gigawatts.

nprillinois.org

Regulators OK ComEd’s plan to increase deposit costs for large-load projects like data centers

Commission calls the order an ‘important first step’ but initiates proceedings to dig deeper

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unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 09/04/2026

Happening now: an anti-war protest is gathering in Chicago's Federal Plaza over US/Israeli attacks on Iran & Lebanon. Iranian & US officials announced a 2 week ceasefire yesterday. That's now in question after Israel extensively bombed Lebanon earlier today, reportedly killing over 250 people.

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Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I am not invested in the left as a briar patch of subcultures. I am invested in the left as an ecosystem of political projects, many of which have overlapping interests and concerns. These approaches are not interchangeable and are sometimes diametrically opposed.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I wish there was a world where a media smear campaign against The Third Way, for all of the harm they've done over the decades, could gain frictionless traction in the way that their campaign against Piker has.

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Mike Fragassi @refrag.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Re: Dem politicians using social media, trying to take cues from Mamdani, but without sharing his policy views: "If you’re doing untrustworthy stuff in the real world, or if your actions don’t align with what you’re building an audience around on social, you’re not gonna win hearts and minds."

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

No this helps me a lot, honestly. When we meet up I'm looking forward to talking more about it!! The data parallels are so real -- there is a huge spectrum of what is possible + hard to parse what makes sense for each case.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I just am sick of people having strong emotional reactions to -a specific candidate- and then kind of reverse engineering an argument from there, bc the conclusion kind of seems to become "everything is going well, let's keep doing what we're doing"

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

No one has to do it, but it's worth doing well, and again, it can be done with limited budgets.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

We are DEFINITELY on the same page about the unfunded campaign mandate. Part of my frustration is the amount of resources spent badly on digital without changes in process, or taking it as a critical part of building trust seriously. We both know I'm talking about bigger campaigns than alder.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

100%! Quoting the article I shared: "We are falling short online not just because we’re neglecting our owned socials, but also because we have failed to invest in new media infrastructure. This can’t be fixed by every individual campaign becoming a content shop. This is an ecosystem problem."

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

This is part of why I started 312 -- bc the work to test, refine, and build a sense of what's needed + draws people in takes capacity that a lot of groups told me they just didn't have.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

But over the years, as I've learned from Chicago's giant media ecosystem, this is definitely possible and powerful. That said, I'm not trying to tell IPOs what to do on this front bc they have their own set of institutional values/work to do.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

The problem to me is that again, requires fundraising and a willingness to do things differently around digital that I DO think can be incredibly thankless without lots of work to resource it.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

100%. I do think that IPOs can run exceptional campaigns + build community/narrative power in that way -- AND I think this is also where the lack of funding comes in.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

All of this feels less important to me than running campaigns that solve people's problems and provide real solutions to what's broken in government.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I do feel genuinely like encouraging people to reach more people and use new tactics in order to do so hits skepticism on the left (based on my 1:1 conversations) and it depresses me. Not sure why this is controversial...

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Completely agree with this, but my scope of influence is often with groups/people that WANT to do more effective + meaningful engagement outside of the 'usual suspects' in organizing.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I completely agree with this! I'm struggling because both of you are saying things I totally agree with. It reminds me of conversations I have on the regular with organizers in a way that bum me out, bc I feel like assumptions around change in comms == "influencing" often mean we lose out...

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I hope a candidate that Only Posts doesn't win. I don't think Posting is a good or informed understanding of what a lot of candidates did differently these last few races.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

(and having lots of money, more money than the other guy, to me isn't a strategy or a baseline worth assuming or pursuing for the left...)

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I don't discount that it's hard but over the last 10 years it's become clear to me that it's rarely about money -- otherwise i wouldn't care, bc I only care about things that will work for the left :)

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

That's actually less true than you'd think -- a lot of it is a struggle with process, change management and internal power. It also tends to bring up a lot of issues around internal buy in and decision making around values.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I don't think we need Posting or Posting candidates, I think we need people who are able to experiment and choose actual meaningful action in a way reaches people who aren't tapped into organizing already.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I completely agree but most of the people I talk to struggle so much with building a comms system that is based on values + people and runs effectively ALONGSIDE field.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I wish you wouldn't conflate those two things as in opposition or binary! I feel like there's a tendency to say that it's one or the other and dismiss/misrepresent what these tactics can look like (in conjunction with everything you just said) as "influencer campaign" -- I don't know what that is.

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Who are you talking about in particular? I can think of at least one of them who used these tactics (though I don't agree with his analysis here at all bc it conflates "video" with 'taking action and having actual values and policies"

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

I don't entirely agree with this but it's STRIKING that even David Plouffe is saying it

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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 03/04/2026

in response to the various largely popular millionaire and billionaire tax efforts, the rich are aggressively exerting their political muscle, going from less than 1% pre-Citizens United to nearly 20% of all political spending in the last election cycle www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 03/04/2026

“There's so many needs that American families have and we so often have to hear ‘There’s no money for that.’ Well, there’s lots and lots of money. And lo and behold sometimes they manage to find it for things that the American people don’t even support and won’t benefit from” @amyhanauer.bsky.social

theguardian.com

Billionaire fortunes have reached all-time highs under Trump. So has the movement to tax them

Residents in at least 10 states are organizing campaigns to tax wealth in order to fund schools and other social services

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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 03/04/2026

wrote about how rage at America's wealthiest, particularly in tech (Musk, Zuck, Thiel), and the inequality of a new gilded age is powering a wave of efforts to tax the rich — out of organizing and anger that's built from Occupy to the 2016 Bernie campaign to Zohran's election. @us.theguardian.com

theguardian.com

Billionaire fortunes have reached all-time highs under Trump. So has the movement to tax them

Residents in at least 10 states are organizing campaigns to tax wealth in order to fund schools and other social services

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Whether or not they WILL (or if those are the right tools to actually change politics) is a different question that consumes me daily ha ha ha. But there is a real, meaningful shift right now based on the acknowledgement things need to change. which is exciting!

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H Kapp-Klote @hkappklote.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

after years of polite silence (at best) about local digital communication locally, more people than ever are telling me they want to make vertical videos, talk to people who don't engage with politics, and do work to make it sustainable

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