The Women, People of Color, and LGBTQ Candidates Who Made History in the 2017 Election

Vox

Ella Nilsen, writing for Vox:

Barrier-breaking candidates won races across the country on Election Day this year. The results were a parade of “firsts” from New Hampshire to North Carolina to Montana as women, people of color, and LGBTQ candidates became the first to win elections in their respective contests.

Cities in Minnesota and Montana elected their first black mayors, and Charlotte, North Carolina, elected a black woman as mayor for the first time. Virginia elected its first Latina and Asian-American delegates. Transgender candidates won races in Virginia, Minnesota, California, and Pennsylvania.

Tuesday was a big night for Democrats — and these historic “firsts” show that the party can run a diverse slate of candidates and win.

Last night was a good start and a good reminder that when young people vote, they can decide elections.1 In the lead-up to 2018’s mid-terms I’d encourage everyone to hold your representatives accountable to the progressive policies they campaigned on and check out Swingleft, Flippable, Indivisible, Run for Something, Let America Vote, or any number of local organizations to get involved.

It was nice to feel a little hope after an election for once. Now it’s time to prepare for the next fight.


  1. I get to pretend to be young for one more year.

The Unearned Mel Gibson Redemption Tour

Film

Scott Meslow, writing for GQ:

I’m sure Daddy’s Home 2 thinks it’s clever to cast Gibson, an actor widely known for his bad behavior off-screen, as Wahlberg’s bad-boy father. And with John Lithgow playing Will Ferrell’s cuddly teddy bear of a father, it’s easy enough to see where this is going: Lithgow will teach Gibson to be a little warmer, Gibson will teach Lithgow to be a little cooler.

But if Gibson’s character in Daddy’s Home 2 actually learns a lesson about the downsides of bullshit macho posturing, it’ll be one more lesson than Gibson seems to have learned in his actual life. You can argue, convincingly, that someone with an open track record of racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism can eventually earn a second chance. But while Gibson has gone to rehab, what’s most striking about his return to the spotlight is his apparent lack of remorse.

Twitter Rolls Out 280-Character Limit to Everyone

Twitter

Twitter has announced, after their initial testing, everyone is now getting 280 characters to tweet with:

During the first few days of the test many people Tweeted the full 280 limit because it was new and novel, but soon after behavior normalized (more on this below). We saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they Tweeted more easily and more often. But importantly, people Tweeted below 140 most of the time and the brevity of Twitter remained.

I’ve found my brain just skips over most tweets that look “long.”