Emmett Rensin (born January 20, 1990) is an American essayist and political commentator who writes from a leftist perspective. [1] Originally from Los Angeles, he currently serves as a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books . [2] In 2012, he was a founding member of Chicago's First Floor Theater, which won the Chicago Reader ’s Best of 2013 Poll for "Best New Theater Company". [3]
Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter , coauthored with Alexander Aciman, was published in 2009, when both authors were 19-year-old undergraduates. The book comprises summaries of around 50 well-known literary texts (including William Shakespeare's King Lear , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Jack Kerouac's On the Road ) in the form of series of Twitter posts. [4] [5] [6] [7]
In June 2016, Vox , which employed Rensin as an editor and occasional feature writer, suspended him for a series of tweets calling for anti-Trump riots, including one on June 3 that urged, "If Trump comes to your town, start a riot." [8] [9] [10] [11]
Vox populi is a Latin phrase that literally means "voice of the people". It is used in English in the meaning "the opinion of the majority of the people". In journalism, vox pop or man on the street refers to short interviews with members of the public.
Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is an American lawyer, columnist, author, and conservative political commentator. He writes columns for Creators Syndicate, Newsweek, and Ami Magazine, and serves as editor emeritus for The Daily Wire, which he co-founded in 2015. Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. He was editor-at-large of Breitbart News from 2012 until his resignation in 2016. Shapiro has authored sixteen books.
InfoWars is an American far-right conspiracy theory and fake news website owned by Alex Jones. It was founded in 1999, and operates under Free Speech Systems LLC.
Seth Abramson is an American professor, attorney, author, political columnist, and poet. He is the editor of the Best American Experimental Writing series and wrote a bestselling trilogy of nonfiction works detailing the foreign policy agenda and political scandals of former president Donald Trump.
AfterEllen is an American culture website founded in 2002, with a focus on entertainment, interviews, reviews, and news of interest to the lesbian and bisexual women's community. The site covers pop culture and lifestyle issues from a feminist perspective; and the political climate as it pertains to the community. AfterEllen is not affiliated with entertainer Ellen DeGeneres, although its name refers to her coming out, specifically when her character came out in "The Puppy Episode" (1997) on her eponymous sitcom.
Alexander Aciman is an American writer and journalist. His work has appeared in Tablet Magazine, The New York Times, Vox, The New Republic, The New Yorker online, Time magazine, and The Paris Review online. He is a graduate of The University of Chicago, and when he was a freshman co-authored Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less, published by Penguin Classics.
Twitterature is a literary use of the microblogging service of X. It includes various genres, including aphorisms, poetry, and fiction written by individuals or collaboratively. The 280-character maximum imposed by the medium, upgraded from 140 characters in late 2017, provides a creative challenge.
Vox is an American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. The website was founded in April 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, and is noted for its concept of explanatory journalism. Vox's media presence also includes a YouTube channel, several podcasts, and a show presented on Netflix. Vox has been described as left-leaning and progressive.
"Make America Great Again" is an American political slogan and movement most recently popularized by Donald Trump during his successful 2016 presidential campaign. "MAGA" is also used to refer to Trump's political base, or to an individual or group of individuals from within that base. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by both those who support and those who oppose Trump's presidency. Originally used by Ronald Reagan as a campaign slogan in his 1980 presidential campaign, it has since been described as a loaded phrase. Multiple journalists, scholars, and commentators have called the slogan racist, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language.
Protests against Donald Trump have occurred in the United States, Europe and elsewhere from his entry into the 2016 presidential campaign to his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Protests have expressed opposition to Trump's campaign rhetoric, his electoral win, his inauguration, his alleged history of sexual misconduct and various presidential actions, most notably his travel ban in 2017 and his aggressive family separation policy in 2018. Some protests have taken the form of walk-outs, business closures, and petitions as well as rallies, demonstrations, and marches. While most protests have been peaceful, actionable conduct such as vandalism and assaults on Trump supporters has occurred. Some protesters have been criminally charged with rioting. The largest organized protest against Trump was the day after his inauguration; millions protested on January 21, 2017, during the Women's March, with each individual city's protest taken into consideration, makes it the largest single-day protest in the history of the United States.
Sarah Jeong is an American journalist specializing in information technology law and other technology-related topics. A member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 2018 to 2019, she was formerly a senior writer for The Verge and a contributing editor for Vice Media's Motherboard website. She is the author of The Internet of Garbage, a non-fiction book about online harassment.
Donald Trump's use of social media attracted attention worldwide since he joined Twitter in May 2009. Over nearly twelve years, Trump tweeted around 57,000 times, including about 8,000 times during the 2016 election campaign and over 25,000 times during his presidency. The White House said the tweets should be considered official statements. When Twitter banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 during the final days of his term, his handle @realDonaldTrump had over 88.9 million followers. On November 19, 2022, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, reinstated his account, although Trump has stated he will not use it in favor of his own social media platform, Truth Social. The first tweet since 2021 was made in August 2023 about his mugshot from Fulton County Jail, but the account has since remained inactive.
Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power is a biography of Donald Trump, written by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher. It was first published in 2016 in hardcover format by Scribner. It was released in ebook format that year and paperback format in 2017 under the title Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President. The book was a collaborative research project by The Washington Post, supervised by the newspaper's editor Marty Baron and consisting of contributions from thirty-eight journalists, and two fact-checkers. Trump initially refused to be interviewed for the book, then relented, and subsequently raised the possibility of a libel lawsuit against the authors. After the book was completed, Trump urged his Twitter followers not to buy it.
Anthime Joseph "Tim" Gionet, more commonly known as Baked Alaska, is an American far-right media personality who gained notoriety through his advocacy on behalf of alt-right and white supremacist ideology. He has also used the alias Tim Treadstone.
Twitter (X) may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. Suspensions of high-profile accounts often attract media attention, and Twitter's use of suspensions has been controversial.
David Miles Hogg is an American gun control activist. He rose to prominence during the 2018 United States gun violence protests as a student survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, helping lead several high-profile protests, marches, and boycotts, including the boycott of The Ingraham Angle. He has also been a target and scapegoat of several conspiracy theories.
Hadas Gold is an American media and business reporter for CNN and CNN International based in Jerusalem.
The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great is a 2019 book by American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro. Shapiro was inspired to write the book after an incident at California State University, Los Angeles in which protesters interrupted his speech.
"When the looting starts, the shooting starts" is a phrase originally used by Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida, in response to an outbreak of violent crime during the 1967 Christmas holiday season. He accused "young hoodlums, from 15 to 21", of taking "advantage of the civil rights campaign" that was then sweeping the United States. Having ordered his officers to combat the violence with shotguns, he told the press that "we don't mind being accused of police brutality". The quote may have been borrowed from a 1963 comment from Birmingham, Alabama police chief Bull Connor. It was featured in Headley's 1968 obituary published by the Miami Herald.
American rapper and fashion designer Ye, commonly known by his birth name Kanye West, has garnered mainstream attention for his views on numerous political and social issues. West unsuccessfully ran for President of the United States in 2020, focusing on his opposition to abortion. In November 2022, West announced that he is running again for the presidency in the 2024 election, however no progress has been made on this course of action. On December 1, 2022, West stated that he admired Adolf Hitler, denied the Holocaust, and identified as a Nazi.