Vice-signaling is such a great turn of phrase. Much more incisive than things like the politics of resentment and grievance

Do you think she knew your past work, or did the word "Optimism" make her think that you were leftwing?

"This endowment can be used by this church provided that their meeting minutes are always written in Pig Latin."

Theories of change are often used to help claim small pieces of a pie of resources -- and funders and supporters often use them as a way of trying to predict and control outcomes. They are for incremental changes.

Creative, generative forces that shape our social imagination usually come elsewhere.

I fully agree. Leadership is a joke, but power is not.

Leadership draws upon a shared sense of what is sacred or worth protecting -- values, a sense of collective direction, a common purpose.

With Trump, it's all personal, it's all about what control and dominance he can exert.

Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers talks about the need to reclainlm the importance of "Example" in spiritual formation. It's striking just how few we have, how much celebrity affects these patterns, in the ways @kkdumez.bsky.social and others identify so clearly.

This is a great example of Bonhoeffer's call to "simple obedience" - an ethic of "pacifism" as a principle can hide us from our command to love our neighbor. Christ and his command are sufficient for us to discern what to do.

I'm really grateful someone wrote a book about masculinity and evangelicalism to explain all of this. Have you ever met the author? 😂

There is no matter too insignificant that can't be used to celebrate the influence of Dear Leader.

But seriously, it also means that every sphere of life gets sucked in to the same relentless, exhausting pattern

It is wild that we are now in an age where journalists choose their most precious commodity to be access instead of credibility.

I also wonder, when careers are over, if journalists will reflect on their legacy as, "I got close to Trump" rather than "I shared what the public needed to know"

I wonder what that means for a generation to have such atypical role models and examples to live up to. Being a Youtube influencer, for example, is a LOT of hard work. Watching Youtube all day is a very different skillset.

In the future, the members of Gen Z who will be *really* successful will have a mindset that is very different from their generation overall.

There are many reports out there about Shedur botching interviews and interactions with NFL teams. This also has some elements of generational difference to it.

But at the end of the day, you have to first be *really good* at the main thing first. Shedur seems to have understood the modern celebrity game but missed the first part -- being an effective team player.

Celebrity today isn't just being really good at one thing. You have to cultivate a "platform" that intersects with fashion, tabloid gossip, politics, ethics, etc.

Your comment actually underscores Nancy's point - that having face-to-face interactions with people is much more rewarding than, say, trying to be right on the internet.