Drone panic, trans reality, do things: Weekend Reads for December 21, 2024

What we're reading this week

Happy Saturday!

As we do each weekend for our supporting subscribers, we’ve collected the most interesting articles we’ve come across during the week to share with you. This week, we’ve got a look into the gulf between right-wing rhetoric and the reality of everyday life for a trans teacher in reddening Texas, some solid advice for a Democratic Party trying to find its way again, some thoughts on drones and other panics, and a cautionary tale about the weirdest chain of pubs in the United Kingdom.

But first, we encourage you to read our conversation with writer, spiritual leader, and former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. She talked to Ade Adeniji about where the Democrats went wrong in 2024; why the party needs to learn some humility and listen to its constituents; and the future of American moral, spiritual, and political life

[…] Democrats act like they're too cool to talk about patriotism. Patriotism, to me, is living with the pain as well as the glory of that story, and knowing that the challenge for every generation is how are you going to play this in your time?

Democrats just leave these diamonds on the beach. We just left them in the sand. And Donald Trump said, “Okay, I'll take that. You’re too cool to talk about morality? I'll take the ersatz version.” And people will go for the ersatz version versus no version at all. They’ll go with false hope versus no hope at all.

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We hope The Ink will be essential to the thinking and reimagining and reckoning and doing that all lie ahead. We want to thank you for being a part of what we are and what we do, and we promise you that this community is going to find every way possible to be there for you in the times that lie ahead and be there for this country and for what it can be still.

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Readings

Trans acceptance in Texas

My happy but plain vanilla life stands in contrast to the lurid rhetoric and terrifying intentions of Governor Greg Abbott, his allies in the state Legislature, and Republican lawmakers across the country, as well as the goals of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s extremist blueprint for America’s future. Friends out of state urge me to leave Texas, which is where I have always lived. They fear for my safety. Some trans people I know refuse even to travel through Texas.

Their fears are not unwarranted. What I’ve found, however, is that even in rural Texas the average person couldn’t care less about my gender. Most Texans who know me and hear my story are supportive, wherever they happen to lie on the political spectrum. They may not understand it, but they accept it and move on. Those who do shun, hate, or fear seem, in my view, to be either insecure in their own identity or to be captured by merchants of fear in right-wing media. [Texas Observer]