Only Fools Gloat

Plus: Usha Vance's baby bump, earthquakes in Venezuela, British sex shops, and more...

The aftermath: Loyal readers of Roundup know that yesterday's primary results—a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) sweep of New York's districts, dethroning incumbents left and right—are likely going to lead to a lot more self-proclaimed socialists in the U.S. House of Representatives. How much does Mamdani Fever matter elsewhere, though?

"Left-leaning, anti-establishment candidates have triumphed in a series of primaries in deep blue congressional districts. What about in competitive races this fall?" asks Katie Glueck at The New York Times. The races to watch? "The Maine Senate race, where Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee, has embraced progressive positions such as supporting Medicare for All and calling to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement." Also, "if Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, wins the August Senate primary in Michigan, his candidacy would pose a similar test in one of the nation's most important battlegrounds."

Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee has taken it upon itself to do the bitchiest thing possible to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.), who had been hoping to become speaker but will probably not be so supported by the incoming far-left representatives:

NEW: The @NRCC has delivered flowers and a condolences card to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) DC office after the House candidates he endorsed lost to Mamdani-backed socialists in NY last night.

NRCC statement to @FoxNews:

"Three losses in one night is tough. We… pic.twitter.com/tBhVrRZYzH

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 24, 2026

It's foolish for Republicans to gloat. This isn't good for the Democratic Party (or for Jeffries' political ambitions), but it also probably isn't very good for the Republicans, either. Our discourse will be dragged down to ever-more-stupid levels. Think former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.): What once looked like steadfast President Donald Trump loyalism has actually devolved into deep feuding and—as of yesterday—apparently a total break from the Republican Party.

It's possible the Democratic Party will be dragged further to the left. It's possible it will have a harder time appealing to moderates. It's possible the split on Israel will prove insurmountable. It's also possible that the policy priorities of these DSA types won't actually be possible to pass at a national level, and that they won't be able to get anywhere close. Or that efforts to implement national versions of, say, universal childcare, would end up backfiring.

"One challenge: more equitable federal social policy would mean NYS/NYC would receive far less in federal transfers and lower-income, lower fiscal-capacity states (disproportionately rural and Republican) would receive far more," writes Reihan Salam of the Manhattan Institute. "Without federal matching funds, it is hard to see NYS/NYC sustaining anything approaching its current level of social welfare expenditure, let alone finance social housing and subsidized housing for the bottom 90 percent, universal unionized childcare, free transit, and other lofty aspirations. Austerity forever. This kind of discipline could yield a better, more effective government, but it would undoubtedly be more targeted and less expansive."

I don't think young progressives even conceive of the idea that members of Congress are supposed to "bring money back" to their districts. They think in terms of national policy, like providing universal healthcare or childcare, not winning funds for specific pet projects. https://t.co/Xn4QNHbiEK

— Peter Sterne (@petersterne) June 24, 2026

It's also possible they've just…barely thought about the mechanics of governing at all. They can hardly handle the politics side of it! Consider what New York primary winner Darializa Avila Chevalier's team thinks is an appropriate political ad (possibly the worst ad I've ever seen):

Here it is, the worst campaign ad I've ever seen, courtesy of candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13) pic.twitter.com/5nUkyRp5Cw

— mister employed (@Forever_Wario) June 7, 2026

The upshot:

It's their world now. We're just living in it pic.twitter.com/fjXURjarTX

— Dennis M. Hogan (@dennismhogan) June 24, 2026

---

Scenes from New York: "I'm sympathetic to Bodega Nationalists because I can relate to them," writes Denzel Rust at Mama. "They prove something fundamental about human nature: that people tend to be right-wing lunatics about the things closest to them. The teacher who votes blue but fantasizes about her worst-behaved students being sent to Guantanamo. The HOA apparatchik who wants their BLM yard sign protected by private security. In the case of the Bodega Nationalist, who has been denied a healthy outlet for his tribal libido, all that's left are zip codes and sports teams. Coexist stickers for the post-national localwaffen."

Why are Knicks fans so nativist when it comes to New York and so not when it comes to America?

"This is Bodega Nationalism, the rising phenomenon of people fiercely territorial about their sports team, their area code, and their borough, but mysteriously disinterested in the…

— Disgraced Propagandist (@DisgracedProp) June 24, 2026

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QUICK HITS

• At least 164 people are dead—and probably more—after two earthquakes (7.2 magnitude and 7.5 magnitude) hit Venezuela yesterday. The last time a super-destructive earthquake hit Venezuela was in July 1967, killing 240 people.
• "Key parts of the oil market are suddenly awash in supply, as a stream of cargoes out of the Strait of Hormuz accelerates after the US-Iran agreement to open the waterway," reports Bloomberg.
• "U.S. President Donald Trump faced pointed criticism over the Iran war in a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans on Wednesday, shortly before his administration asked Congress for tens of billions ​of dollars to pay for the conflict," reports Reuters. "Several Republicans who attended said Trump engaged in a shouting match with Senator Bill Cassidy, who said the administration needed to explain a framework deal Trump signed last ‌week that gives Iran financial incentives but falls short of the goals he laid out at the war's beginning."
• From The Wall Street Journal: "Things Are Getting Awkward in England as Roadside Diners Turn Into Sex Shops." ("Things have clearly changed here since the days when a comedy called 'No Sex Please, We're British' was one of the biggest shows on London's West End in the 1970s and '80s.")
• The responses to the New York Times' dissecting-Usha-Vance's-pregnancy-style article are incredible:

Pregnant women: wear clothes

NYT: https://t.co/5nhffaI2M4 pic.twitter.com/wCHiZ3SScJ

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) June 24, 2026

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

How much does Mamdani Fever matter elsewhere, though?

It matters because NYC is the center of the fucking universe and as such we all have to hear about it.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

What do Parisians and those faggots in Montreal say?

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

I have aids?

[Spiritus Mundi]

I don't know, I don't speak durka durka.

[Social Justice is neither]

But do you speak dakka, dakka?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee has taken it upon itself to do the bitchiest thing possible to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.)...

Will the voters every recover from this.

[Mickey Rat]

Oh, no!...Anyway...

[Spiritus Mundi]

All the bad things we predicted would happen by flooding the US and NYC with anti-american immigrants sre coming true, Liz still wants to focus on the GOP petty trolling. Hope she has a good place to pick up her burka.

[Ron]

its not like there has never been ribbing of the other party by either party in the history of histories. its typical
tds silliness to get upset about that

[Fist of Etiquette]

Without federal matching funds, it is hard to see NYS/NYC sustaining anything approaching its current level of social welfare expenditure...

If there's any justice, Trump will give them the NATO treatment.

[HorseConch]

And make them keep the UN as their door prize.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

What about the billions in diplomats' unpaid parking tickets?

[HorseConch]

They can put those on the balance sheet as an asset. The A/R on the parking tickets will be great collateral for future debt-fueled endeavors.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Here it is, the worst campaign ad I’ve ever seen, courtesy of candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier

This is why you can’t have chicks in office.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Or Marxists, or muzzies

[Spiritus Mundi]

Always with the problem glasses.

[Mickey Rat]

"It's foolish for Republicans to gloat. This isn't good for the Democratic Party (or for Jeffries' political ambitions), but it also probably isn't very good for the Republicans, either. Our discourse will be dragged down to ever-more-stupid levels."

That a racialist scumbag like Hakeem Jeffries is considered the moderate, establishment voice of the Democrat Party is very bad for everyone in the country, but here we are.

[mad.casual]

I must not be inside the beltway enough or hearing the right dog whistles to see that it's clearly gloating.

It's possible to dislike someone and still express remorse that there are worse people out there.

Maybe my background levels of "gloating" are just different but I don't think it's brazenly insulting or completely disrespectful.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They prove something fundamental about human nature: that people tend to be right-wing lunatics about the things closest to them. The teacher who votes blue but fantasizes about her worst-behaved students being sent to Guantanamo.

Camps are hardly exclusively right wing.

[Mickey Rat]

Reminds me of when the Soviet Union was collapsing and the people trying to maintain the regime were referred to in the West as "conservative" Communists.

[Fist of Etiquette]

This is Bodega Nationalism, the rising phenomenon of people fiercely territorial about their sports team, their area code, and their borough, but mysteriously disinterested in the nation that contains them all.

They yearn to be nationalistic but brainwashing has made that verboten.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Key parts of the oil market are suddenly awash in supply, as a stream of cargoes out of the Strait of Hormuz accelerates after the US-Iran agreement to open the waterway...

THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Liz, the democrat party is already an extremist party. There is no moderate Democrat. They endorse Marxism, murder, nazis, racism, castrating children, mental insanity, destruction of civilization, and pedofilia.
There is no moderate Democrat.

[Spiritus Mundi]

But they support open borders, so it makes all those things ok.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Several Republicans who attended said Trump engaged in a shouting match with Senator Bill Cassidy...

An ALL CAPS Oval Office meeting???

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Was there spaghetti tossing?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Things Are Getting Awkward in England as Roadside Diners Turn Into Sex Shops.

The bangers and mash suddenly involve spotted dick!

[Murray Rothtard]

blood sausage served once a month, while supplies last

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

EEEEWWWWW!!!!

[Spiritus Mundi]

Somebody has to supply all those 'grooming gangs'.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'It's possible the Democratic Party will be dragged further to the left. It's possible it will have a harder time appealing to moderates. It's possible the split on Israel will prove insurmountable.'

Is it possible that these DNC-backed Bolsheviks will actually start shooting, and then we can kill them all?

[Spiritus Mundi]

They don't need to, they are winning.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The responses to the New York Times' dissecting-Usha-Vance's-pregnancy-style article are incredible...

If the NYT was the GOP it could be considered bitchy.

[HorseConch]

Or that they are pouncing on her.

[Spiritus Mundi]

War. On. Women.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

The bodega nationalist article is trash. They are all leftists. A leftists wanting to imprison someone they don't get along with is not "right wing". A trash Marxist with a blm sign and private security is not right wing. It's a symptom of the left having no morals or standards. Whatever they want at that moment is morally good to them.
Stop falling for that sort of trash writing

[Murray Rothtard]

i think the article was intended to make left-leaning people more sympathetic to your style of exclusionary nativism, as they would be able to see it in themselves.

but it does make sense that any article that tries to draw similarities between the left and right's worst tendencies could only have the effect of pissing both of you off.

in that sense, you are correct. the article failed pretty badly.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'It's also possible they've just…barely thought about the mechanics of governing at all.'

It's also possible, taking the radicals at their word, that mostly they want to blow it all up.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'Consider what New York primary winner Darializa Avila Chevalier's team thinks is an appropriate political ad (possibly the worst ad I've ever seen)'

Did you miss the Bud Light ad campaign?

[Ajsloss]

How come the DSA can have a moment but the LP can't?

[Zeb]

Partly because the LP is retarded and partly because most liberty minded people just want to be left alone and have better things to do than politics.

[HorseConch]

I can't imagine any libertarians going door to door hounding people for votes while lying through their teeth.

[Murray Rothtard]

I tried to get involved with the actual LP and the LP of Chicago when I was in my 20s and more optimistic. What a fucking shit show. Every meeting was about how to get Lake Shore Drive depaved, and lots of arguments about if it was morally acceptable to use a P.O. Box to receive mail while opposing the postal system. Very little discussion on how to move the needle on liberty.

Everyone serious got exasperated and left after a few meetings. It's so damn hard if not impossible to make a coalition of people who all want to be more individualistic than everyone else who showed up.

[HorseConch]

All you have to do is look at the last two nominees for president. If that's what you want to portray to the country as libertarianism, go focus on local races that you might have a chance in. I'm referring to the party in general, not you or any other volunteers.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Because "take responsibility for your own life" never gets any votes.

[Spiritus Mundi]

The LP doesn't belive in voter fraud. Hell, if you only read Reeeeason, they don't even belive it exists.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

"I'm sympathetic to Bodega Nationalists because I can relate to them"

Can you also related to bands of chimps that indulge murderous rage whenever they encounter neighboring bands?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'At least 164 people are dead—and probably more—after two earthquakes (7.2 magnitude and 7.5 magnitude) hit Venezuela yesterday.'

Have the usual left wing media blamed this on Trump yet?

[Dychnel]

Aside from Team Red sending gloat flowers, what was the point of this article? Did the rest of it not load? It seems to just fade out at the end and into a bunch of other, non-related articles.

[Ajsloss]

^- get a load of the first-timer!

Welcome to the Roundup.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Liz needs to go back to giving the surf reports for rockaway beach
It's not far not far to reach

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

"Things Are Getting Awkward in England as Roadside Diners Turn Into Sex Shops."

Sounds like a Libertine paradise.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

But why do I fear that sex toy reality is like beer drinking reality: nothing close to the advertised fantasy of exceptionally attractive people having fun with the product?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'"Key parts of the oil market are suddenly awash in supply, as a stream of cargoes out of the Strait of Hormuz accelerates after the US-Iran agreement to open the waterway," reports Bloomberg.'

Wait, does this mean the total, global, fatal Trump economic collapse will not happen?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'New York Times' dissecting-Usha-Vance's-pregnancy-style article'

Petty, vindictive retards gotta tard.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

They already said ush should have an abortion/shot in the stomach.
They couldn't be lower animals if they tried

[Juliana Frink]

Huh? When I saw the headline I was looking forward to a well-Reasoned article on how Mamdani's signature GLOAT will inevitably be wiped off his face when people have (once again) had enough of smug little Marxist Pigs shitting up the scene.

*sigh* Maybe next week...

[Spiritus Mundi]

Even Liz knows it is going to be a long time before the marxist plague is gone.

[mad.casual]

In the case of the Bodega Nationalist, who has been denied a healthy outlet for his tribal libido, all that's left are zip codes and sports teams. Coexist stickers for the post-national localwaffen.

Oh, good. I got a little worried when word salad disappeared from the national political menu.