It’s officially a hot socialist summer. And to celebrate, I am going to be running a sale! Twenty percent off yearlong subscriptions to the newsletter. See, socialism can help the economy!

I normally only do sales in October, on the anniversary of the newsletter. But it’s hot as hell and we are all out here in the struggle. If you want to support a fiercely independent feminist voice — one that makes men so mad they email me to say things like “Be nicer to Matt Yglesias!”1 — well, you know what to do.

Get 20% off for 1 year

It is the year 2025, and New York City has fallen into the hands of a mob of socialists who have a terrifying and disgusting agenda.

Led by Zohran Mamdani, a bearded man with roguish charm, and my god, that dimple— but no, stay focused on the horrors. They want you to see the dimple and nothing else. That is how the socialists win. We must stay vigilant.

Because, you see, led by Mamdani, the evil socialists want to do unspeakable horrors, like raise the minimum wage, make rent affordable, provide childcare and help new parents. Mamdani plans to round up all the gays… and give them a little kiss on the forehead.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

What’s next? Free public transit?!

You know what could happen when you make buses free? Poor people might have an easier time getting to their jobs, and then, GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR?!

Wake up, sheeple!

Can’t you see how bad this is? It’s so bad the hedge fund boys be crying. See, the rich boys, they cry. You are laughing, and the rich boys cry! Is this all just a game to you? Have you stopped once to think, what if this is the final straw and they all leave en masse and then NYC suddenly becomes a lot more affordable, and that one insufferable bar stops serving $45 tater tot poutine with a side of artisanal ketchup as an ironic send-up of American culture and $30 old-fashioneds because the cruelty-free cherries were grown with a land acknowledgement? WHAT THEN?

Have you taken even one moment to ask yourself, what happens if all those guys leave, and then, when you open Tinder in Murray Hill, no one is there to explain stock options to you? No. Of course not, because you weren’t thinking about anything except the dimple and a future for America not entirely ruled by corruption and greed. You stupid, stupid socialist sluts.

Like if we let a Democrat run on the actual platform of the Democratic party, what do we do with all the politicians with the moral compass of RFK’s brainworm who are out here saying, “Wait, maybe Charlie Kirk has a point and women are bad?” or “What if we don’t do rights for everyone?” Are we going to toss them into the dustbin of history? WHAT ABOUT MALE LONELINESS?!

But it’s not too late. There is still the general election. And some Democrats are considering backing Eric Adams. Because you definitely know you are on the right side of history when you back the guy who was charged with corruption, but those charges were dismissed because another guy who was charged with corruption is the president and wants you to stay mayor so he can violate the Constitution and deport immigrants with no due process.

Yes, nothing says “We are the good guys!” like backing the guy who allegedly gave kickbacks to Turkish officials because you’re so afraid a guy with a beard might hold you accountable for your greed and encourage you to support your neighbors.

And you know you are correct as a Democrat when you agree with Ted Cruz. Definitely not a huge red flag to agree with the guy who ran to Cancún while people in his state were dying of cold and carbon monoxide poisoning because of the deregulated power grid.

I mean, a 33-year-old man talking about kindness, loving your neighbor, helping the poor!? We must get him out of here. Call Pontius Pilate! He’ll know what to do.

For now, Mamdani is the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee. And as the NYC mayoral campaigns kick into gear, it’s going to be a long, hot, socialist summer.

A horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad summer when people will be encouraged to think about revolting things like how to make the world a better place. I can’t stand it!

And in other news…

I opened up the CNN homepage, saw this headline and subhed, and then closed out of the internet, put rocks in my pocket, and walked into the ocean.

And now for something good

Ted Cruz absolutely crashing out over Mamdani’s win is hilarious.

The Italians are bullying our billionaires! It’s time for a NATO-like alliance, but for bullying rich people.

Boston urban food forests!

My friend Josh Gondelman was on CBS Mornings to talk about his new comedy special! And his comedy special is the very definition of a good thing!

Something I am enjoying

Last weekend, I went to visit my dearest friends in Minneapolis and say goodbye to my friend Anna, who is moving. You don’t know this, but frequently Anna and Kate punch up my jokes in the weekly dingus. (I pay them back by buying dinner when I see them.) And if you read This American Ex-Wife, Anna is the wise friend whose insights punctuate the book. She’s also a brilliant academic whose research and insight often deepens my own work.

I feel so lucky to have had friends for 24 years. I hope to have them for so many, many more years.

So, to toast friendship. I think we should all make Amaro spritzes. I made this drink last week and it was delicious.

• 4 oz sparkling wine, chilled

• 1 oz Amaro Nonino

• 1 oz grapefruit juice

• 1 oz lemon juice

• 1 oz soda water

• Ice

Happy hot socialist summer!

Get 20% off for 1 year

After attacking Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranian media that he was doing it to free the people of the country, specifically the women. He stated, “They’ve impoverished you. They’ve given you misery. They’ve given you death. They’ve given you terror... I mean, this is an outrageous radical fanatic regime, and the time has come to defang them.”

This is the Prime Minister of Israel — the man ultimately responsible for the devastation in Gaza, which has resulted in more deaths of women and children than any other conflict over the past two decades. He’s trying to free the women, even if he has to kill them first.

Elon Musk, a pronatalist who believes that the biggest threat to civilization is population decline, oversaw cuts to (among many other things) USAID, which has already resulted in deaths, including those of children. He’s trying to get people in the US to have more children, even as he is responsible for the deaths of many abroad.

I don’t think it’s just cynical messaging. These are men who truly see the lives of only some women and some children as worthy. Those lives are both the human cost of their violent missions and the justification for them.

It’s been three years since the Dobbs decision eliminated the nationwide right to abortion.

In the wake of Dobbs, more people in America are pro-abortion than before, with a notable exception: men.

Since 2022, fewer men identify as pro-choice — a seven-point dip from 48% to 41%. According to a recent Gallup poll, “There is now a record-high 17-point gap between women (57%) and men (40%) in their belief that abortion is morally acceptable and a record-high 15-point gap in women’s (56%) and men’s (41%) support for abortion being legal in all or most circumstances.”

This shift represents a difference not just on policy, but on who sees women as individual human beings, with choice, independence and the right to make their own health care decisions. It seems, in fact, that not all lives matter.

People on the left often debate how to finesse messaging to bring men aboard. They worry about how Democrats are “losing men.” So we have to worry about the tone of our voice as we beg for our lives. Recently, a man emailed me to say he supported women’s rights, but he didn’t like my tone and maybe I should consider that women would be better off if we were nicer.

This is the same logic that is extended to policing people over their race and nationality. If you must protest, be respectful. Ask for your rights, but be polite, and work hard.

Sorry, no: The very definition of inalienable rights is that they belong to me regardless of how little I work or how much I scowl and call people dinguses.

I joined the board of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund after the Dobbs decision because I wanted to channel my rage and despair into making my state a better place. The IAAF raises money to give to clinics and patients to help cover the cost of abortion. I may not be able to fix American democracy, but I can make sure that at least 700 people a month have the money to pay for their abortions. I can help them access choice. And that is the foundation of democracy if anything is.

I was at a recent event for the IAAF when a man told me that it was hard for him and other men to support a cause that didn’t affect them. I balked. Was he not human? Did he not have people in his life who he cared about? “Sir, don’t you have sex with women?” I asked. “Aren’t you a human being?”

He pushed back, asserting that in the time of Trump, when there are wars and people storming the Capitol, we had to be focused. As if my participation in public life was of no consequence to the project of democracy.

Feminist author Ellen Willis wrote about encountering logic like this at the counter-inauguration protest on January 19, 1969. In response, Willis noted that solidarity “...will not be accomplished through persuasion, conciliation, or love, but through independence and solidarity: radical men will stop oppressing us and make our fight their own when they can’t get us to join them on any other terms.”

Our individual rights are the foundations of democracy. Writing in Who’s Afraid of Gender? Judith Butler observed, “Stripping people of rights in the name of morality or the nation or a patriarchal wet dream belongs to the broader logic amplified by authoritarian nationalism.”

Don’t tell me you are fighting for one part of democracy while ignoring the others.

Recently, , whose newsletter is a necessary and often excruciating accounting of the impact Dobbs has on our country, wrote that she thought about pausing the newsletter in the middle of the war and societal upheaval. She notes, “But then I thought about everything we’ve built over the last three years—the daily ritual of refusing despair, concession, or silence. The hopeful habit of working for change, even when that future feels impossible. That’s not something I’m willing to forgo—especially on days like the ones we’ve had recently.”

War and invasions don’t protect women. And our rights are not a distraction from the bigger issues. Democracy, like hope, is a practice that relies on the foundational belief that all people deserve rights. That all women matter, not just the ones that fit our definition of who and what we want them to be.

Some articles about abortion rights in America

• The right not to be pregnant

• The evidence that Dobbs is harming reproductive health

• What pregnancy does to the bodies of young girls

• All these hysterical women

• The post-Dobbs reality for Black maternal health

• Iowa’s abortion ban is causing a funding crisis in the Midwest

• Amber Thurman’s death in Georgia

• Abortion bans cost the US more than $1 billion

• A story of a third-trimester abortion