SAN FRANCISCO — Katie Porter’s still standing, which is saying something.
The last time a significant number of people tuned into California‘s low-frequency race for governor was in October, when Porter’s political obituary was being written in bold type.
Immediately after a snappish and off-putting TV interview, Porter showed up in a years-old video profanely reaming a staff member for — the humanity! — straying into the video frame during her meeting with a Biden Cabinet member.
The former Orange County congresswoman had played to the worst stereotypes and that was that. Her campaign was supposedly kaput.
But, lo, these several months later, Porter remains positioned exactly where she’d been before, as one of the handful of top contenders in a race that remains stubbornly formless and utterly wide open.
Did she ever think of exiting the contest, as some urged, and others plainly hoped to see? (The surfacing of that surly 2021 video, with the timing and intentionality of a one-two punch, was clearly not a coincidence.)
No, she said, not for a moment.
“Anyone who thinks that you can just push over Katie Porter has never tried to do it,” she said.
“You definitely learn from your mistakes,” the Democrat said this week over a cup of chai in San Francisco’s Financial District. “I really have and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how do I show Californians who I am and that I really care about people who work for me. I need to earn back their trust and that’s what campaigns are literally about.”
She makes no excuse for acting churlish and wouldn’t bite when asked about that double standard — though she did allow as how Democratic leader John Burton, who died not long before people got busy digging Porter’s grave, was celebrated for his gruff manner and lavish detonation of f-bombs.
“It was a reminder,” she said, pivoting to the governor’s race, “that there have been other politicians who come on hot, come on strong and fight for what’s right and righteous and California has embraced them.”
Voters, she said, “want someone who will not back down.”
Porter warmed to the subject.
“If you are never gonna hurt anyone’s feelings, you are never gonna take [JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive] Jamie Dimon to task for not thinking about how his workers can’t afford to make ends meet. If you want everyone to love you, you are never gonna say to a big pharma CEO, ‘You didn’t make this cancer drug anymore. You just got richer, right?’ That is a feistiness that I’m proud of.”
At the same, Porter suggested, she wants to show there’s more to her persona than the whiteboard-wielding avenger that turned her into a viral sensation. The inquisitorial stance was, she said, her role as a congressional overseer charged with holding people accountable. Being governor is different. More collaborative. Less confrontational.
Her campaign approach has been to “call everyone, go everywhere” — even places Porter may not be welcomed — to listen and learn, build relationships and show “my ability to craft a compromise, my ability to learn and to change my mind.”
“All of that is really hard to convey,” she said, “in those whiteboard moments.”
“When we say boring, I think what we’re really saying is ‘I’m not 100% sure how all this is going to work out.’ People are waiting for some thing to happen, some coronation of our next governor. We’re not gonna have that.”
None of those running this time have that political pedigree, or the Sacramento backgrounds of Newsom or Brown, which, Porter suggested, is not a bad thing.
“I actually think this race has the potential to be really, really exciting for California,” she said. “… I think everyone in this race comes in with a little bit of a fresh energy, and I think that’s really good and healthy.”
Crowding into the conversation was, inevitably, Donald Trump, the sun around which today’s entire political universe turns.
But, she said, Trump didn’t cause last year’s firestorm. He didn’t make housing in California obscenely expensive for the last many decades.
“When my children say ‘I don’t know if I want to go to college in California because we don’t have enough dorm housing,’ Trump has done plenty of horrible attacks on higher ed,” Porter said. “But that’s a homegrown problem that we need to tackle.”
Indeed, she’s “very leery of anyone who does not acknowledge that we had problems and policy challenges long before Donald Trump ever raised his orange head on the political horizon.”
Although California needs “someone who’s going to [buffer] us against Trump,” Porter said, “you can’t make that an excuse for why you are not tackling these policy changes that need to be.”
She hadn’t finished her tea, but it was time to go. Porter gathered her things.
She’d just spoken at an Urban League forum in San Francisco and was heading across the Bay Bridge to address union workers in Oakland.
The June 2 primary is some ways off. But Porter remains in the fight.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Sunday that he would not run for California governor, a decision grounded in his belief that his legal efforts combating the Trump administration as the state’s top prosecutor are paramount at this moment in history.
“Watching this dystopian horror come to life has reaffirmed something I feel in every fiber of my being: in this moment, my place is here — shielding Californians from the most brazen attacks on our rights and our families,” Bonta said in a statement. “My vision for the California Department of Justice is that we remain the nation’s largest and most powerful check on power.”
Bonta said that President Trump’s blocking of welfare funds to California and the fatal shooting of a Minnesota mother of three last week by a federal immigration agent cemented his decision to seek reelection to his current post, according to Politico, which first reported that Bonta would not run for governor.
Bonta, 53, a former state lawmaker and a close political ally to Gov. Gavin Newsom, has served as the state’s top law enforcement official since Newsom appointed him to the position in 2021. In the last year, his office has sued the Trump administration more than 50 times — a track record that would probably have served him well had he decided to run in a state where Trump has lost three times and has sky-high disapproval ratings.
Bonta in 2024 said that he was considering running. Then in February he announced he had ruled it out and was focused instead on doing the job of attorney general, which he considers especially important under the Trump administration. Then, both former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced they would not run for governor, and Bonta began reconsidering, he said.
“I had two horses in the governor’s race already,” Bonta told The Times in November. “They decided not to get involved in the end. … The race is fundamentally different today, right?”
The race for California governor remains wide open. Newsom is serving the final year of his second term and is barred from running again because of term limits. Newsom has said he is considering a run for president in 2028.
Former Rep. Katie Porter — an early leader in polls — late last year faltered after videos emerged of her screaming at an aide and berating a reporter. The videos contributed to her dropping behind Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, in a November poll released by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
California hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2006, Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in the state, and many are seething with anger over Trump and looking for Democratic candidates willing to fight back against the current administration.
Bonta has faced questions in recent months about spending about $468,000 in campaign funds on legal advice last year as he spoke to federal investigators about alleged corruption involving former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who was charged in an alleged bribery scheme involving local businessmen David Trung Duong and Andy Hung Duong. All three have pleaded not guilty.
According to his political consultant Dan Newman, Bonta — who had received campaign donations from the Duong family — was approached by investigators because he was initially viewed as a “possible victim” in the alleged scheme, though that was later ruled out. Bonta has since returned $155,000 in campaign contributions from the Duong family, according to news reports.
Bonta is the son of civil rights activists Warren Bonta, a white native Californian, and Cynthia Bonta, a native of the Philippines who immigrated to the U.S. on a scholarship in 1965. Bonta, a U.S. citizen, was born in Quezon City, Philippines, in 1972, when his parents were working there as missionaries, and immigrated with his family to California as an infant.
In 2012, Bonta was elected to represent Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro as the first Filipino American to serve in California’s Legislature. In Sacramento, he pursued a string of criminal justice reforms and developed a record as one of the body’s most liberal members.
Bonta is married to Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), who succeeded him in the state Assembly, and the couple have three children.
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
THINGS TO BE SLOW MOVING. WELL, IT’S NOT THAT UNCOMMON FOR COWORKERS TO BECOME FRIENDS, BUT FEW EVER BECOME FAMILY. KCCI BEAU BOWMAN SHOWS US HOW THAT HAPPENED TO TWO TEACHERS AT MARSHALLTOWN’S MILLER MIDDLE SCHOOL IN THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY WAY. HAVE WE GOTTEN ANY OF THE QUESTIONS RIGHT YET ON THE LOCK CHALLENGE? TEACHING CAN SOMETIMES BE A TOUGH GIG. NOT BECAUSE THE QUESTIONS ARE HARD, BUT BECAUSE THE DAYS ARE LONG AND THE STAKES ARE HIGH. I WOULD NOT HAVE COME UP WITH THAT ONE EITHER. SOMETIMES THE THING THAT MAKES IT EASIER ISN’T A NEW LESSON PLAN. OR A BETTER BELL SCHEDULE. IT’S YOUR BEST FRIEND RIGHT ACROSS THE HALL. SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADERS. THEY ALL THOUGHT WE WERE SISTERS. ANNA MILLER AND MORGAN HURST BOTH STARTED AT MILLER MIDDLE SCHOOL IN MARSHALLTOWN 14 YEARS AGO. TWO TEACHERS ARRIVING AT THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME, THEN MOVING LIKE PARALLEL LINES THAT NEVER REALLY DRIFTED APART. CAREERS GROWING SIDE BY SIDE. BUT ALMOST WITHOUT THEM REALIZING IT. THEIR LIVES DID TOO. WE KIND OF GOT MARRIED AT THE SAME TIME. OUR FIRST KIDS ARE SIX MONTHS APART. FRIENDSHIPS AT WORK MAKE THE HOURS TICK FASTER, BUT THE REAL ONES DO SOMETHING ELSE. THEY HOLD YOU UP, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE HARD THINGS STOP BEING AFRAID. IT’S BEEN REALLY GREAT TO HAVE SOMEONE LIKE CELEBRATE THE REALLY, REALLY GREAT THINGS. AND THEN ALSO THE REALLY, REALLY HARD THINGS. FOR ANNA, ONE OF THOSE HARD THINGS WAS TRYING TO GET PREGNANT WITH HER SECOND CHILD. TEN YEARS, 20 ROUNDS OF IVF AND EVENTUALLY A CONVERSATION. NO ONE WANTS TO HAVE. BUT SOME FAMILIES HAVE TO TOWARDS THE END, LIKE HAD SAID, YOU KNOW, LIKE THEY HAD RECOMMENDED THAT WE SHIFT TO SURROGACY. I WASN’T READY FOR THAT. YOU KNOW, MORGAN WAS KIND OF ALWAYS THAT SUPPORT PERSON. SHE WAS THE FIRST ONE TO SAY, LIKE, YOU KNOW, LIKE I’D BE WILLING TO DO THIS FOR MORGAN. IT WASN’T COMPLICATED, NOT BECAUSE IT WAS BIG, BUT BECAUSE LOVE SOMETIMES IS SIMPLE. I HAD REALLY EASY PREGNANCIES, A SUPER SUPPORTIVE HUSBAND, AND SO IT WAS A REALLY EASY DECISION TO BE LIKE, IF YOU NEED THAT, I’M HAPPY TO HELP. THE EMBRYO WAS TRANSFERRED ON APRIL 1ST, 2024 AND STUCK ON THE FIRST TRY WHEN THEY CALLED AND LET US KNOW THAT HER BLOOD TEST CAME BACK POSITIVE. THAT WAS LIKE THE FIRST LIKE, OH MY GOD, THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. AND IN THE CLASSROOMS, THE ANTICIPATION BUILT THE WAY IT DOES IN A SCHOOL ON THE LAST DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS BREAK, I FEEL LIKE HE’S KICKING AND SHE’D RUN DOWN TO MY ROOM AND THEN HE’D GO SILENT AND I’M LIKE, HE’S JUST CALM BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU, RIGHT? LIKE YOU BRING THAT CALMING PRESENCE. AND THEN THAT DECEMBER SHY BOY DILLON WAS BORN. AND MORGAN, WHO HAD CARRIED HIM NINE MONTHS, MADE SURE THE FIRST MOMENTS BELONGED TO ANNA MORGAN, WAS VERY LIKE, I DON’T WANT TO SAY HANDS OFF. BUT LIKE WHEN HE WAS BORN, SHE REALLY WANTED IT TO BE ME. AND THAT WAS JUST A REALLY SPECIAL THING FOR ME TO HAVE BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, LIKE, THAT’S SOMETHING THAT I MISSED OUT ON AND I JUST AFTER HE WAS BORN, SHE KIND OF LET US HAVE OUR TIME, BUT THEN WAS WILLING TO BE, YOU KNOW, THAT PERSON OF SUPPORT. BUT THEN THAT NIGHT EVERYONE LEFT AND IT WAS JUST DYLAN AND I. AND THAT WAS JUST LIKE A MAGICAL MOMENT OF SOMETHING THAT I HAD HOPED FOR FOR SO LONG. NOW, ONE YEAR LATER, HE’S GOT FROSTING ON HIS HANDS AND OPINIONS ABOUT CAKE. HE ATE HIS CAKE, AND WHEN HE WAS DONE, HE LET US KNOW. HE JUST FLIPPED IT OFF THE TRAY AND IT LANDED ON THE GROUND. DILLON IS LOVED BY MORE THAN HE COULD EVER UNDERSTAND. OUR FAMILIES ARE JUST LIKE, ALMOST BONDED. AND IT ALL STARTED RIGHT HERE IN THE HALLS OF MILLER MIDDLE SCHOOL, WHERE TWO TEACHERS BECAME FRIENDS. AND THEN IN THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY WAY, BECAME FAMILY. THERE WE GO.
‘A magical moment’: Teachers turn friendship across the hall into family through surrogacy
Two teachers at an Iowa middle school, who started at the school 14 years ago, have taken a friendship that began across the hall and turned it into family after one served as a surrogate for the other.Anna Miller and Morgan Hurst taught and raised children at the same time; their careers and lives moving in parallel. “The seventh and eighth graders, they all thought we were sisters,” Hurst said.Their bond deepened through both celebrations and hardships. “It’s been really great to celebrate the really great things and then also the really, really hard things,” Miller said.Miller and her husband spent a decade trying to have a second child, undergoing 20 rounds of in vitro fertilization.”Toward the end, they had recommended that we shift to surrogacy. I wasn’t ready for that,” she said. “Morgan was always kind of that support person.”But she was the first one to say, ‘I’d be willing to do this.’”Hurst said the decision was straightforward for her. “I had really easy pregnancies, a super supportive husband, and so, it was a really easy decision to be like, ‘If you need that, I’m happy to help.’”The embryo was transferred April 1, 2024, and resulted in a pregnancy on the first try.”When they called and let us know that her blood test came back positive, that was like the first like, ‘Oh my God, this is actually happening,’” Miller said.Hurst carried the child, and the women shared moments during the pregnancy. “I’d be like, ‘He’s kicking!’ and she’d run down to my room, and then he’d go silent, and I was just like, ‘He’s calm because he loves you. Like, you bring that calming presence.’” Hurst said.When the baby, Dellyn, was born that December, Hurst said she wanted Miller to have the first moments. Miller said, “Morgan was very, I don’t want to say hands-off, but, like, when Dellyn was born, she really wanted it to be me and that was a really special thing for me to have because that’s something I missed out on, and after he was born, she kind of let us have our time, but then was willing to be that person of support.” Miller added, “And then that night, everyone left, and it was just Dellyn and I. And that was just … a magical moment of something that I hoped for for so long.”
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa —
Two teachers at an Iowa middle school, who started at the school 14 years ago, have taken a friendship that began across the hall and turned it into family after one served as a surrogate for the other.
Anna Miller and Morgan Hurst taught and raised children at the same time; their careers and lives moving in parallel. “The seventh and eighth graders, they all thought we were sisters,” Hurst said.
Their bond deepened through both celebrations and hardships. “It’s been really great to celebrate the really great things and then also the really, really hard things,” Miller said.
Miller and her husband spent a decade trying to have a second child, undergoing 20 rounds of in vitro fertilization.
“Toward the end, they had recommended that we shift to surrogacy. I wasn’t ready for that,” she said. “Morgan was always kind of that support person.
“But she was the first one to say, ‘I’d be willing to do this.’”
Hurst said the decision was straightforward for her. “I had really easy pregnancies, a super supportive husband, and so, it was a really easy decision to be like, ‘If you need that, I’m happy to help.’”
The embryo was transferred April 1, 2024, and resulted in a pregnancy on the first try.
“When they called and let us know that her blood test came back positive, that was like the first like, ‘Oh my God, this is actually happening,’” Miller said.
Hurst carried the child, and the women shared moments during the pregnancy.
“I’d be like, ‘He’s kicking!’ and she’d run down to my room, and then he’d go silent, and I was just like, ‘He’s calm because he loves you. Like, you bring that calming presence.’” Hurst said.
When the baby, Dellyn, was born that December, Hurst said she wanted Miller to have the first moments. Miller said, “Morgan was very, I don’t want to say hands-off, but, like, when Dellyn was born, she really wanted it to be me and that was a really special thing for me to have because that’s something I missed out on, and after he was born, she kind of let us have our time, but then was willing to be that person of support.”
Miller added, “And then that night, everyone left, and it was just Dellyn and I. And that was just … a magical moment of something that I hoped for for so long.”
Firefighters battle blaze at Orlando apartment complex; 7 residents displaced
WESH TWO NEWS STARTS NOW WITH BREAKING NEWS. GOOD MORNING EVERYONE. I’M ALAN CAMPBELL AND I’M MEREDITH MCDONOUGH. WE BEGIN WITH THAT BREAKING NEWS OF A FIRE IN ORLANDO. WESH TWO BOB HAZEN IS LIVE AT THE ROYAL ISLES APARTMENT COMPLEX NEAR SOUTH SEMORAN BOULEVARD. BOB. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED IN THE LAST 30 MINUTES? WE TALKED TO A YOUNG LADY WHO LIVES HERE, LIVES RIGHT UNDERNEATH THAT APARTMENT THAT CAUGHT ON FIRE, AND SHE SAYS SHE WAS ABLE TO GET OUT ALONG WITH HER FAMILY. AND AS FAR AS WE’VE HEARD RIGHT NOW, NO ONE HAS BEEN SERIOUSLY HURT IN THIS FIRE. I WANT TO SHOW YOU WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE HERE. THERE’S STILL SOME FIREFIGHTERS ON THE SCENE, BUT MOST OF THEM HAVE CLEARED OUT. THIS IS IN THE SECOND STORY OF THIS APARTMENT BUILDING HERE. THE ROYAL ISLES APARTMENT, AS YOU SAID, NEAR CIMARRON, RIGHT OFF OF ROBERTO CLEMENTE ROAD. AND I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOME VIDEO FROM OUR DRONE, TOO. WE’VE HAD THIS FLYING JUST A LITTLE WHILE AGO TO GET A BETTER LOOK AT WHAT THIS APARTMENT COMPLEX LOOKS LIKE NOW, AFTER THIS FIRE. AGAIN, THIS WAS ON A SECOND STORY UNIT. THE FIRE BROKE OUT A LITTLE AFTER 4:00 THIS MORNING. SO THE PEOPLE WE TALKED TO HERE SAID THAT THEY WERE SLEEPING WHEN THEY HEARD EVERYTHING START GOING CRAZY IN THE FIRE BURNING ABOVE THEIR APARTMENT. WE AGAIN, DON’T HAVE ANY WORD OF ANY PEOPLE BEING INJURED. BUT I ALSO WANT TO SHOW YOU SOME VIDEO THAT WE GOT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE, WHERE YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THOSE FLAMES COMING OUT OF THE TOP OF THE BUILDING. AT THIS POINT, WE HAVEN’T HEARD ANYTHING FROM THE ORLANDO FIRE DEPARTMENT ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAVE CAUSED THIS. OF COURSE, WE KNOW IT’S BEEN COLD WEATHER LATELY, SO THERE’S ALWAYS A POSSIBILITY THAT THERE WAS A SPACE HEATER OR SOME OTHER KIND OF HEATING MECHANISM USED TO TRY TO KEEP PEOPLE WARM IN THEIR APARTMENT. BUT AGAIN, NO WORD FROM ORLANDO FIRE DEPARTMENT YET ABOUT WHAT DID CAUSE THIS. WE DO KNOW THEY DO HAVE THEIR INVESTIGATORS HERE AT THE SCENE AT THIS POINT, INVESTIGATING WHAT DID SPARK THAT FIRE AT THIS APARTMENT BUILDING. BUT AGAIN, JUST ONE MORE TIME. THE GOOD NEWS IS NO WORD OF ANY SERIOUS INJURIES AFTER THIS FIRE AT THIS APARTMENT BUILDING EARLY THIS MORNING COV
Firefighters battle blaze at Orlando apartment complex; 7 residents displaced
The Orlando Fire Department battled an apartment fire on Thursday morning. The fire was reported at the Royal Isles apartment complex, located off Semoran Boulevard and Lake Underhill Road.Once crews arrived on scene, they found fire coming out of multiple second-floor windows of an apartment.A resident living under the unit that caught fire said that she was able to evacuate safely with her family. All occupants were out of the building before the OFD’s arrival.A video captured the moment the flames erupted from the apartment complex.The blaze caused significant damage to some units, but details about what prompted the fire were not revealed.Four occupants were treated for non-life-threatening medical complaints, according to OFD.Officials stated that seven occupants were displaced from two separate apartments due to the fire.
ORLANDO, Fla. —
The Orlando Fire Department battled an apartment fire on Thursday morning.
The fire was reported at the Royal Isles apartment complex, located off Semoran Boulevard and Lake Underhill Road.
Once crews arrived on scene, they found fire coming out of multiple second-floor windows of an apartment.
A resident living under the unit that caught fire said that she was able to evacuate safely with her family.
All occupants were out of the building before the OFD’s arrival.
A video captured the moment the flames erupted from the apartment complex.
The blaze caused significant damage to some units, but details about what prompted the fire were not revealed.
Four occupants were treated for non-life-threatening medical complaints, according to OFD.
Officials stated that seven occupants were displaced from two separate apartments due to the fire.
ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU MADISON. AND WHAT WE HAD FEARED THAT DEATH TOLL CONTINUES TO RISE. WE’RE TOLD OFFICIALS SAY THAT 12 PEOPLE ARE NOW CONFIRMED DEAD. NOW, ONE MAN WHO LIVED JUST STEPS FROM THE UPS CRASH SITE SAYS HE’S REALLY LUCKY TO BE ALIVE, EVEN AS HE MOURNS FRIENDS WHO DIDN’T MAKE IT, WHO DIED. WLKY’S DEANDRIA TURNER JOINS US LIVE WITH HIS STORY OF SURVIVING THIS HORRIFIC CRASH. ANDREA. HI, JENNIFER. WELL, ROBERT, HE LIVED AND WORKED AT GRADE A, WHICH IS ABOUT THREE BLOCKS THIS WAY. IT HAS BEEN BLOCKED OFF EVER SINCE THIS CRASH HAPPENED. AND WHEN I SPOKE TO ROBERT, HE TELLS ME THAT HE IS VERY SHAKEN UP, BUT HE IS ALSO VERY GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE TONIGHT. I STARTED HEARING THIS REAL LOUD, LIKE, RUMBLING, ROARING SOUND AND I STEPPED OUTSIDE THE BACK DOOR THERE AND LOOKED, AND THE ONLY THING I COULD SEE WAS BLACK SMOKE AND FLAMES. FIREBALLS. 12 YEARS ROBERT SANDERS WORKED AS A MAINTENANCE MAN AT GRADE A AUTO PARTS AND RECYCLING. HE ALSO LIVED IN HIS RV ON SITE. ON TUESDAY, THE PLACE HE CALLED HOME BECAME PART OF GROUND ZERO OF THE UPS PLANE CRASH. I HAD JUST BEEN IN MY RV LIKE TWO MINUTES EARLIER AND I CAME DOWN THERE TO BUILDING 12. MOMENTS LATER, THE UNTHINKABLE A PLANE FILLED WITH JET FUEL CAME CRASHING DOWN, RIPPING STRAIGHT THROUGH HIS RV. YOU THINK ABOUT THAT KIND OF THING A THOUSAND TIMES. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? A PLANE CRASH, BUT YOU DON’T THINK IT EVER REALLY HAPPENED. BUT THEN IT HAPPENED. NOW ALL THAT HE HAS LEFT ARE THE CLOTHES ON HIS BACK AND HIS TRUCK. BUT WHAT HAUNTS HIM THE MOST ARE THE FACES OF THE THREE FRIENDS HE’LL NEVER SEE AGAIN. THAT THREE FRIENDS. CLOSE FRIENDS THAT ARE GONE. VISIBLY SHAKEN, HE SAYS THE MEMORIES STILL PLAY ON LOOP. THE SOUND OF THE EXPLOSION, THE SMELL OF THE SMOKE. REMINDERS OF HOW FAST LIFE CAN CHANGE JUST. IT’S TERRIFYING. I’VE NEVER BEEN THAT SCARED. YOU KNOW, IT’S STILL MESSING WITH ME. AND AGAIN TONIGHT. JENNIFER. HE KNEW THREE OUT OF THE 12 VICTIMS. AND HE SAYS THAT HE’S JUST VERY THANKFUL TO BE ALIVE. AND WHILE HE DOESN’T HAVE A JOB, AND WHILE HE DOESN’T HAVE A HOME RIGHT NOW, THE ONE THING THAT HE IS HOLDING ON TO IS HIS WILL TO SURVIVE.
Man loses friends, home in Kentucky plane crash: ‘It still messes with me’
A man who lived just steps from the UPS plane crash site in Kentucky says he’s lucky to be alive, even as he mourns friends who didn’t make it.Robert Sanders has worked as a maintenance man at Grade A Auto Parts and Recycling for 12 years. He also lived in his RV on the property, which became part of the crash site on Tuesday morning.“I started hearing this real loud like rumbling, roaring sound, and I stepped outside the bay door there and looked, and the only thing I could see was black smoke, flames, and fireballs,” Sanders said. He told sister station WLKY he had just been inside his RV minutes before the plane came down.“I had just been in my RV like two minutes earlier, and I came down there to building 12,” he said.Moments later, a plane filled with jet fuel came crashing down, ripping straight through his RV.“You think about that thing a thousand times…what would happen if a plane crashes, but you don’t think it will ever really happen. But then it happened,” Sanders said.Now, all he has left are the clothes on his back and his truck. But what haunts him most are the faces of three close friends who didn’t survive.“I got three friends, close friends that are gone,” he said.Visibly shaken, Sanders said the memories still play on a loop, the sound of the explosion, the smell of smoke, the terror of the moment.“It was just terrifying. I’d never been that scared, you know? And it’s still messing with me,” he said.For now, Sanders says he’s holding on to the only thing the crash couldn’t destroy, his will to survive.He told WLKY he’s grateful to be alive, but he’s starting over from nothing. He doesn’t know where he’ll go next, but he says one thing is certain: he’ll never forget what happened here. If you would like to help him rebuild, click here.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. —
A man who lived just steps from the UPS plane crash site in Kentucky says he’s lucky to be alive, even as he mourns friends who didn’t make it.
Robert Sanders has worked as a maintenance man at Grade A Auto Parts and Recycling for 12 years. He also lived in his RV on the property, which became part of the crash site on Tuesday morning.
“I started hearing this real loud like rumbling, roaring sound, and I stepped outside the bay door there and looked, and the only thing I could see was black smoke, flames, and fireballs,” Sanders said.
He told sister station WLKY he had just been inside his RV minutes before the plane came down.
“I had just been in my RV like two minutes earlier, and I came down there to building 12,” he said.
Moments later, a plane filled with jet fuel came crashing down, ripping straight through his RV.
“You think about that thing a thousand times…what would happen if a plane crashes, but you don’t think it will ever really happen. But then it happened,” Sanders said.
Now, all he has left are the clothes on his back and his truck. But what haunts him most are the faces of three close friends who didn’t survive.
“I got three friends, close friends that are gone,” he said.
Visibly shaken, Sanders said the memories still play on a loop, the sound of the explosion, the smell of smoke, the terror of the moment.
“It was just terrifying. I’d never been that scared, you know? And it’s still messing with me,” he said.
For now, Sanders says he’s holding on to the only thing the crash couldn’t destroy, his will to survive.
He told WLKY he’s grateful to be alive, but he’s starting over from nothing. He doesn’t know where he’ll go next, but he says one thing is certain: he’ll never forget what happened here. If you would like to help him rebuild, click here.
Isadore Hall, a former state legislator and Compton City Council member, launched a campaign Monday to challenge Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia.
Hall, who is backed by a slew of prominent endorsers, argues that Mejia has been more focused on “social media theatrics” than protecting tax dollars.
He said he would bring common sense leadership and accountability, citing his lengthy track record in elected office and master’s degrees in management and public administration, as well as experience weeding out government waste and fraud in Compton.
Hall, who moved to Los Angeles in 2016 and represented parts of the city in both the Assembly and the state Senate, said he launched his bid after being asked by “some elected officials,” along with several pastors and labor leaders, though he declined to provide specifics.
Hall’s endorsements include L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger, L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, California Treasurer Fiona Ma, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and five state legislators. If elected, Hall would be the city’s first Black controller; Mejia, who is Filipino American, previously made history as the first Asian American elected to citywide office in L.A.
“It’s one thing to be a great finance person or an auditor or a person who understands numbers … but you also have to have a temperament. You also have to understand the importance of governance,” Hall said, arguing that Mejia’s office is poorly managed and lacks good communication with city department heads and other local leaders.
It’s still unclear whether other candidates will enter the race for controller — a coveted role that is one of three citywide offices, along with mayor and city attorney.
L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has been rumored to potentially be interested in a bid for either mayor or controller, though she declined to discuss her plans with The Times last week.
Hall and Mejia represent vastly different flanks of the Democratic Party, and the coming race will almost certainly pit L.A. establishment politics against the city’s ascendant left.
Three years ago, despite being heavily outspent, Mejia made political mincemeat of Paul Koretz, who had held elected office since before he was born. Young voters who were previously unaware that L.A. even had a controller were galvanized by Mejia’s unorthodox campaign, which directed an unprecedented spotlight toward L.A.’s chief accounting officer, auditor and paymaster.
Mejia’s successful campaign coincided with a moment where faith in L.A. City Hall was at a nadir amid numerous criminal scandals and an explosive leaked recording of some City Council members frankly discussing politics in sometimes racist terms. The question in 2026 will be whether the civic pendulum has shifted and if the phrase “veteran politician” still doubles as an effective slur. Mejia will also now be running as the incumbent rather than an outsider.
Hall, 52, has spent roughly 15 years in elected office, beginning with the Compton school board in his mid-20s.
Like Mejia, who is now 34, Hall found success in politics relatively young. But his career ascended the old-fashioned way — through incrementally higher offices and with the support of the pastors, labor and community groups who have long powered the Democratic political machine in South L.A. and surrounding cities.
After losing a hard-fought bid for Congress in 2016, Hall was appointed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Agricultural and Labor Relations Board. Hall was originally seen as a shoo-in victor during his congressional campaign, but underdog challenger Nanette Barragán succeeded, in part, by hammering him on his ties to special interests in the oil, alcohol and tobacco industries, according to prior Times reporting.
Mejia first made his name with unsuccessful runs for Congress as a Green Party candidate. He found his stride and exploded as a political pied piper of sorts during the 2022 election, where his energetic TikTok videos, sharp billboards and occasional dances in a Pikachu costume helped fuel the energy of the moment.
Attempts by critics to paint Mejia in 2022 as too “extreme” because of his anti-police positions and past bombastic tweets largely fell flat.
As the race heats up, Mejia will almost certainly attack Hall for a number of controversies involving campaign finance.
During his 2014 campaign for state Senate, rivals attacked Hall for his use of campaign funds to pay for expensive dinners, limousine rentals, luxury suites at concerts and trips — expenses he defended as legitimate campaign costs.
Hall said last week that he hadn’t been an expert in the complex rules of congressional campaign finance but held his accountant accountable for the error and learned from the experience.
The event quickly spiraled after a request to pray for Kirk from Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado led to objections from Democrats and a partisan shouting match.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a close friend of Kirk’s, told Democrats on the floor that they “caused this” — a comment she later said she stood by, arguing that “their hateful rhetoric” against Republicans contributed to Kirk’s killing.
Johnson banged on the gavel, demanding order as the commotion continued.
“The House will be in order!” he yelled to no avail.
The incident underscored the deep-seated partisan tensions on Capitol Hill as the assassination of Kirk revives the debate over gun violence and acts of political violence in a divided nation. As Congress reacted to the news, lawmakers of both parties publicly denounced the assassination of Kirk and called it an unacceptable act of violence.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he was “deeply disturbed about the threat of violence that has entered our political life.”
“I pray that we will remember that every person, no matter how vehement our disagreement with them, is a human being and a fellow American deserving of respect and protection,” Thune said.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), whose husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer three years ago, also denounced the fatal shooting.
A few hours after the commotion on the House floor, the White House released a four-minute video of President Trump in which he said Kirk’s assassination marked a “dark moment for America.” He also blamed the violent act on the “radical left.”
“My administration will find each and every one of those that contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said as he grieved the loss of his close ally.
Americans are marking 24 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work and other tributes honoring the victims.Watch a livestream of the 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon in the video player above.Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed were joining dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Thursday in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.On Thursday morning, Denise Matuza, Jennifer Nilsen and Michelle Pizzo boarded a bus from Staten Island for Lower Manhattan — each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the names and faces of their husbands, who died in the attack.“Even 24 years later, it’s heart wrenching,” said Nilsen, whose husband, Troy Nilsen, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. “It feels the same way every year.”For Ronald Bucca, who lost his father, the FDNY fire marshal Ronald Paul Bucca, the annual memorial served as an opportunity to “educate people on that day, especially the younger generations, and learn from each other how to be resilient and deal with loss and rebuild.”Pizzo, whose husband, Jason DeFazio, also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, hoped more people could just take one minute to reflect on the day.“Younger kids don’t realize that you have to remember,” she said.The remembrances are being held during a time of increased political tensions. The 9/11 anniversary, often promoted as a day of national unity, comes a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.LIVE: Watch a livestream below of the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade CenterThe reading of names and moments of silenceKirk’s killing prompted additional security measures around the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, had planned to attend the event in Manhattan but instead are set to visit with Kirk’s family on Thursday in Salt Lake City, according to a person familiar with Vance’s plans, but not authorized to speak about them publicly.Many in the crowd at Thursday’s ceremony at ground zero held up photos of lost loved ones as a moment of silence marked the exact time when the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center’s iconic twin towers. Family members then began reading aloud the names of the victims.At the Pentagon in Virginia, the 184 service members and civilians killed when hijackers steered a jetliner into the headquarters of the U.S. military were being honored in a ceremony attended by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. The president was then expected to head to the Bronx for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers Thursday evening.And in a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths, will honor the victims of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. That service will be attended by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.People across the country are also marking the 9/11 anniversary with service projects and charity works as part of a national day of service. Volunteers will be taking part in food and clothing drives, park and neighborhood cleanups, blood banks and other community events.Reverberations from attacks persistIn all, the attacks by al-Qaida militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “Global War on Terrorism” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former al-Qaida leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.The anniversary ceremony in New York was taking place at the National Sept. 11 memorial and Museum, where two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets inscribed with the names of the dead mark the spots where the twin towers once stood.The Trump administration has been contemplating ways that the federal government might take control of the memorial plaza and its underground museum, which are now run by a public charity currently chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic. Trump has spoken of possibly making the site a national monument.In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.__Associated Press reporters Michael Hill in Albany, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this story.
NEW YORK —
Americans are marking 24 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work and other tributes honoring the victims.
Watch a livestream of the 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon in the video player above.
Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed were joining dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Thursday in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
On Thursday morning, Denise Matuza, Jennifer Nilsen and Michelle Pizzo boarded a bus from Staten Island for Lower Manhattan — each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the names and faces of their husbands, who died in the attack.
“Even 24 years later, it’s heart wrenching,” said Nilsen, whose husband, Troy Nilsen, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. “It feels the same way every year.”
For Ronald Bucca, who lost his father, the FDNY fire marshal Ronald Paul Bucca, the annual memorial served as an opportunity to “educate people on that day, especially the younger generations, and learn from each other how to be resilient and deal with loss and rebuild.”
Pizzo, whose husband, Jason DeFazio, also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, hoped more people could just take one minute to reflect on the day.
“Younger kids don’t realize that you have to remember,” she said.
The remembrances are being held during a time of increased political tensions. The 9/11 anniversary, often promoted as a day of national unity, comes a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.
LIVE: Watch a livestream below of the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center
The reading of names and moments of silence
Kirk’s killing prompted additional security measures around the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, had planned to attend the event in Manhattan but instead are set to visit with Kirk’s family on Thursday in Salt Lake City, according to a person familiar with Vance’s plans, but not authorized to speak about them publicly.
Many in the crowd at Thursday’s ceremony at ground zero held up photos of lost loved ones as a moment of silence marked the exact time when the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center’s iconic twin towers. Family members then began reading aloud the names of the victims.
At the Pentagon in Virginia, the 184 service members and civilians killed when hijackers steered a jetliner into the headquarters of the U.S. military were being honored in a ceremony attended by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. The president was then expected to head to the Bronx for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers Thursday evening.
And in a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths, will honor the victims of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. That service will be attended by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.
People across the country are also marking the 9/11 anniversary with service projects and charity works as part of a national day of service. Volunteers will be taking part in food and clothing drives, park and neighborhood cleanups, blood banks and other community events.
Reverberations from attacks persist
In all, the attacks by al-Qaida militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.
The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “Global War on Terrorism” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.
While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former al-Qaida leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.
The anniversary ceremony in New York was taking place at the National Sept. 11 memorial and Museum, where two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets inscribed with the names of the dead mark the spots where the twin towers once stood.
The Trump administration has been contemplating ways that the federal government might take control of the memorial plaza and its underground museum, which are now run by a public charity currently chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic. Trump has spoken of possibly making the site a national monument.
In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.
__
Associated Press reporters Michael Hill in Albany, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this story.
Two assassination attempts on President Trump. The assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and the wounding of others. The shooting death of a top healthcare executive. The killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington. The storming of the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob intent on forcing the nation’s political leaders to their will.
And, on Wednesday, the fatal shooting of one of the nation’s most prominent conservative political activists — close Trump ally Charlie Kirk — as he spoke at a public event on a university campus.
If it wasn’t already clear from all those other incidents, Kirk’s killing put it in sharp relief: The U.S. is in a new era of political violence, one that is starker and more visceral than any other in decades — perhaps, experts said, since the fraught days of 1968, when two of the most prominent figures in the civil rights movement, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, were both assassinated in a matter of months.
“We’re very clearly in a moment where the temperature of our political discourse is extremely high,” said Ruth Braunstein, an associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied religion and the far right in modern politics. “Part of what we see when that happens are these outbursts of political violence — where people come to believe that violence is the only solution.”
While the exact motives of the person who shot Kirk are still unknown, Braunstein and other experts on political violence said the factors shaping the current moment are clear — and similar to those that shaped past periods of political violence.
Intense economic discomfort and inequity. Sharp divisions between political camps. Hyperbolic political rhetoric. Political leaders who lack civility and constantly work to demonize their opponents. A democratic system that many see as broken, and a hopelessness about where things are headed.
“There are these moments of great democratic despair, and we don’t think the political system is sufficiently responsive, sufficiently legitimate, sufficiently attentive, and that’s certainly going on in this particular moment,” said Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor who teaches about the separation of powers and co-authored “Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy.”
“If we think there are no political solutions, there are no legal solutions, people are going to resort to forms of self help that are really, really deeply troubling.”
Michaels said the country has been here before, but also that he worries such cycles of violence are occurring faster today and with shorter breaks in between — that while “we’ve been bitterly divided” for years, those divisions have now “completely left the arena of ideas and debate and contestation, and become much more kinetic.”
Michaels said he is still shaken by all the “defenses or explanations or rationalizations” that swirled around the country after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December — which some people argued was somehow justified by their displeasure with UnitedHealthcare’s policies or frustration with the American healthcare system.
That the suspect, Luigi Mangione, would attract almost cult-like adoration in some circles seemed like an alarming shift in an already polarized nation, Michaels said.
“I understand it is not the beliefs of the typical person walking down the street, but it’s seeping into our culture slowly but surely,” he said — and in a way that makes him wonder, “Where are we going to be in four or five years?”
People across America were asking similar questions about Wednesday’s shooting, wondering in which direction it might thrust the nation’s political discourse in the days ahead.
How will Kirk’s many conservative fans — including legions of young people — respond? How will leaders, including Trump, react? Will there be a shared recognition that such violence does no good, or fresh attempts at retaliation and violence?
Leaders from both parties seemed interested in averting the latter. One after another, they denounced political violence and defended Kirk’s right — everyone’s right — to speak on politics in safety, regardless of whether their message is uplifting or odious.
Democrats were particularly effusive in their denunciations, with Gov. Gavin Newsom — a chief Trump antagonist — calling the shooting “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.” Former President Obama also weighed in, writing, “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.”
Many seemed dismissive of such messages. In the comments on Obama’s post, many blamed Obama and other Democrats for rhetoric demonizing Republicans — and Trump and his followers in particular — as Nazis or racists or fascists, suggesting that the violence against Kirk was a predictable outcome of such pitched condemnations.
Trump echoed those thoughts himself Wednesday night, blaming the “radical left” for disparaging Kirk and other conservatives and bringing on such violence.
Others seemed to celebrate Kirk’s killing or suggest it was justified in some way given his own hyperbolic remarks from the past. They dug up interviews where the conservative provocateur demonized those on the left, suggested liberal ideas constituted a threat to Western civilization, and even said that some gun violence in the country was “worth it” if it meant the freedom to bear arms.
Experts said it is important to contextualize this moment within American history, but with an awareness of the modern factors shaping it in unique ways. It’s also important to understand that there are ways to combat such violence from spreading, they said.
Peter Mancall, a history professor at USC, has delved into major moments of political violence in early American history, and said a lot of it stemmed from “some perception of grievance.”
The same appears to be true today, he said. “There are moments when people do things that they know are violating their own sense of right or wrong, and something has pushed them to it, “ he said. “The trick is figuring out what it is that made them snap.”
Braunstein said that the robust debate online Wednesday about the rhetoric of leaders was a legitimate one to have, because it has always been true that “the way our political leaders message about political violence — consistently, in public, to their followers and to those that don’t support them — really matters.”
If Americans and American political leaders truly want to know how we got here, she said, “part of the answer is the intensification of violent political rhetoric — and political rhetoric that casts the moment in terms of an emergency or catastrophe that requires extreme measures to address it.”
Democrats today are talking about the threats they believe Trump poses to democracy and the rule of law and to immigrants and LGBTQ+ people and others in extremely dire terms. Republicans — including Kirk — have used similarly charged rhetoric to suggest that Democrats and some of those same groups, especially immigrants, are a grave threat to average Americans.
“Charlie Kirk was one of many political figures who used that kind of discourse to mobilize people,” Braunstein said. “He’s not the only one, but he regularly spoke about the fact that we were in a moment where it was possible that we were going to see the decline of Western civilization, the end of American society as we know it. He used very strong us-vs.-them language.”
Particularly given the wave of recent violence, it will be important moving forward for politicians and other leaders to reanalyze how they speak about their political disagreements, Braunstein said.
That’s especially true of Trump, she said, because “one of the most dangerous things that can happen in a moment like this is for a political leader to call for violence in response to an act of violence,” and Trump has appeared to stoke violence in the past, including on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol and during racist marches through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
Charlie Kirk speaks during a town hall meeting in March in Oconomowoc, Wis.
(Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)
Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Centers for Violence Prevention at UC Davis, agreed messaging is key — not just for responding to political violence, but for preventing it.
Since 2022, Wintemute and his team have surveyed Americans on how they feel about political violence, including whether it is ever justified and, if so, whether they would personally get involved in it.
Throughout that time frame, a strong majority of Americans — about two-thirds — have said it is not justified, with about a third saying it was or could be.
An even smaller minority said they’d be willing to personally engage in such violence, Wintemute said. And many of those people said that they could be dissuaded from participating if their family members, friends, religious or political leaders urged them not to.
Wintemute said the data give him “room for hope and optimism,” because they show that “the vast majority of Americans reject political violence altogether.”
“So when somebody on a day like today asks, ‘Is this who we are?’ we know the answer,” he said. “The answer is, ‘No!’”
The job of all Americans now is to reject political violence “out loud over and over and over again,” Wintemute said, and to realize that, if they are deeply opposed to political policies or the Trump administration and “looking for a model of how to resist,” it isn’t the American Revolution but the civil rights movement.
“People did not paint over how terrible things were,” he said. “People said, ‘I will resist, but I will resist without violence. Violence may be done to me, I may die, but I will not use violence.’”
Over the next few days, we are going to hear politicians, commentators and others remind us that political violence is never OK, and never the answer.
That is true.
There is no room in a healthy democracy, or a moral society, for killings based on vengeance or beliefs — political, religious, whatever.
But the sad reality is that our democracy is not healthy, and violence is a symptom of that. Not the make-believe, cities-overrun violence that has led to the military in our streets, but real, targeted political violence that has crept into society with increasing frequency.
Our decline did not begin with the horrific slaying Wednesday of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old father and conservative media superstar, and it will not end with it. We are in a moment of struggle, with two competing views for where our country should go and what it should be. Only one can win, and both sides believe it is a battle worth fighting.
So be it. Fights in democracy are nothing new and nothing wrong.
We can blame the heated political rhetoric of either side for violence, as many already are, but words are not bullets and strong democracies can withstand even the ugliest of speeches, the most hateful of positions.
The painful and hard specter of more violence to come has less to do with far-right or far-left than extreme fringe in either political direction. Occasionally it’s ideological, but more often it isn’t MAGA, communist or socialist so much as confusion and rage cloaking itself in political convenience. Violence comes where trust in the system is decimated, and where hope is ground to dust.
These are the places were we find the isolated, the disenfranchised, the red-pilled or the blue-pilled — however you see it — and anyone else, who pushed by the stress and anger of this moment, finds themselves believing violence or even murder is a solution, maybe the only solution.
These are not mainstream people. Like all killers, they live outside the rules of society and likely would have found their way beyond our boundaries with or without politics. But politics found them, and provided what may have seemed like clarity in a maelstrom of anything but.
In the past few years, we have seen people such as this make two attempts on Donald Trump’s life. One of those was a 20-year-old student, Michael Thomas Crooks, still almost a kid, whose motives will likely never be known.
The American flag at the White House is lowered on Wednesday after the slaying of Charlie Kirk.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
A few months ago, we saw a political massacre in Minnesota aimed at Democratic lawmakers. Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed by the same attacker who shot state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, and attempted to shoot their daughter Hope. Authorities found a hit list of 45 targets in his possession.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home was broken into in 2022 and her husband, Paul, was attacked by a hammer-wielding assailant with a unicorn costume in his backpack.
Despite the fact that these instances of violence have been aimed at both Democrats and Republicans, we live under a Republican government at the moment, one that holds unprecedented power.
Already, that power structure is calling not for calm or justice, but retribution.
“We’ve got trans shooters. You’ve got riots in L.A. They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. They are at war with us,” said Fox News commentator Jesse Watters shortly after Kirk was shot. “What are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate? And that’s the question we’re just going to have to ask ourselves.”
On that last bit, I agree with Watters. We do need to ask ourselves how much political violence we are going to tolerate.
The internet is buzzing with a quote from Kirk on gun violence: “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
Like Kirk, I think some things are worth ugly prices. I don’t think guns are one of them, but I do think democracy is.
We can’t allow political violence to be the reason we curb democracy. Even if that violence continues, we must find ways to fight it that preserve the constitutional values that make America exceptional.
“It is extremely important to caution U.S. policymakers in this heated environment to act responsibly and not use the specter of political violence as an excuse to suppress nonviolent movements, curb freedoms of assembly and expression, encourage retaliation, or otherwise close civic spaces,” a trio of Brookings Institution researchers wrote as part of their “Monitoring the pillars of democracy” series. “Weaponizing calls for stability and peace in response to political violence is a real threat in democratic and nondemocratic countries globally.”
The slaying of Charlie Kirk is reprehensible, and his family and friends have suffered a loss I can’t imagine. Condolences don’t cover it.
But the legacy of his death, and of political violence, can’t be crackdowns — because if we do that, we forever damage the country we all claim to love.
If we take anything away from this tragic day, let it be a commitment to democracy, and America, in all her chaotic and flawed glory.
Editor’s note, September 17, 2024: This piece was originally published on August 20, 2019, when the seventh episode of Break Stuff: The Story of Woodstock ’99 was released. To mark the recent 25th anniversary of the festival, The Ringer is resurfacing Break Stuff on its own dedicated Spotify feed.
In 1999, a music festival in upstate New York became a social experiment. There were riots, looting, and numerous assaults, all set to a soundtrack of the era’s most aggressive rock bands. Incredibly, this was the third iteration of Woodstock, a festival originally known for peace, love, and hippie idealism. But Woodstock ’99 revealed some hard truths behind the myths of the 1960s and the danger that nostalgia can engender.
Below is an excerpt from the seventh episode of Break Stuff. Find the series here, and check back each Tuesday and Thursday through September 19 for new episodes.
By early Sunday morning, on Woodstock ’99’s final day, many attendees were still trying to sleep off the previous night’s partying. But the media people covering the festival were up with the sun. In the harsh light of day, Griffiss Air Force Base looked like a wasteland.
“We got there before anybody had started playing, before anybody had left their tents,” says Dave Holmes, an on-air host for MTV in 1999. “I got a photograph from the stage of the entire lawn, the main viewing area, and it was just a sea of trash and one single person face down asleep. Not on a sleeping bag, just on the grass. It was just him and a thousand hot dog wrappers and red Solo cups and napkins for as far as the eye can see. And that is my enduring image of Woodstock ’99.”
Rob Sheffield, who covered the festival for Rolling Stone, was also up early that morning, surveying the damage.
“Everybody was really pretty used up and burned out by Sunday morning,” he says. “I hadn’t done a drug all weekend and I felt like the wrath of God so I can just imagine how people who were literally hungover were feeling.
“I slept on a pile of pizza boxes. Pizza boxes were a very good surface to sleep on because pizza boxes are white. And, uh, because they’re white, you could tell if they’d been urinated on or not. Which makes them very very useful if you’re looking for something to sleep on. Because every flat surface there had been so thoroughly urinated on.”
The music on Saturday culminated with some of the loudest and most aggressive bands of the entire festival: Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, and Limp Bizkit. Sunday, however, started on a much different foot musically. Wearing sunglasses and his signature black hat, Willie Nelson attempted to bring a little mellowness back to the festival.
“His set begins with ‘Whiskey River,’” Sheffield says. “And that was one of the great musical moments of the weekend, ’cause I just remember everybody really kind of breathing a sigh of relief. Willie is going to take care of us. Willie is the smart sane adult in the room at this point—not the promoters, definitely not the security people.”
But the laid-back feeling Nelson brought to Woodstock ’99 was short-lived. Not long after Willie Nelson left the stage in clouds of marijuana smoke, another smart, sane adult—Elvis Costello—came out.
Now, I love Elvis Costello. I am a rock critic, after all. I think he’s one of the great singer-songwriters of the ’70s and ’80s. But Woodstock ’99 wasn’t exactly his crowd. In the video, you can see people throwing water bottles at Elvis before he’s even reached the chorus of his first song.
“Elvis Costello, he really tried, but he was with an acoustic guitar and was playing for the most part for a non–Elvis Costello–cultist kind of crowd,” Sheffield says. “He began with a deep cut from Spike, ‘Pads, Paws, and Claws,’ and it was just a preposterously bad performance that was self-indulgent in a rock star kind of way. It was just really kind of abrasive and aggravating for people. … The collective angst level of the crowd got a little uglier.”
The bad feeling that Rob picked up on during Elvis Costello’s set was also felt by Jake Hafner, a 23-year-old Syracuse man hired to work for the festival’s Peace Patrol. Jake and his fellow guards were already struggling to contend with a depleted security force. By Sunday, many of Jake’s coworkers had already been fired; others simply quit once they were inside the base in order to join the party. But when Jake showed up for his shift on Sunday afternoon, the tension in the air was even sharper and more intense.
“It would get a little closer to the edge every night,” he says. “By Sunday when we showed up for work we all knew collectively that something was going to happen that night. It was just in the air. You could just feel it.”
That feeling in the air might have just been sheer exhaustion. Many people were operating on very little sleep by then. During the previous night, security guards had given up on policing the campgrounds where many attendees stayed.
“They had stopped sending ambulances or cops into that area because as soon as they would enter in there they would just get pelted with rocks and mud and everything. It was kind of like a no man’s zone,” Hafner says. “So they stopped sending people in there altogether. And I believe that was where a lot of the really bad stuff happened.”
One member of Woodstock’s medical team who did venture into the campgrounds on Sunday morning was Dave Konig, an EMT.
“When you went through the campground, a little bit it reminded you of a refugee camp from the movies,” Konig says. “That there had been some sort of big battle and there’s just trash all over, things burnt all over from the night before, from whatever campfires had gone on. So you just saw that breakdown of both the structure and civility amongst people. Yeah, it was definitely palpable Sunday morning. But yet people still went to the stages.”
While most attendees were still able to maintain some semblance of sanity, Dave does remember encountering a man in the campgrounds who had clearly gone off the deep end. I say “clearly” because the man was completely naked and seemed like he was hopped up on some combination of drugs. He was so out of it that he was destroying every tent in sight.
Finally, one of Dave’s coworkers decided to intervene.
“I remember this guy stepped up to, to, this naked man,” Konig says. “He gave this guy a right hook like Muhammad Ali. He just hooked him so hard. The guy’s head snapped to the right. And then … he was like the Terminator—it just slowly turned back and then he looked at the guy who had just hit him and he was just like, ‘Rawr!’ And … everybody just tackled him at that point. We tackled him. We got him restrained, sedated, and brought him in.”
The rising tension was getting to MTV’s Holmes. Festival attendees had been abusive to the music channel’s hosts and camera crews since Friday. Someone even threw a bottle of urine at TRL host Carson Daly.
By Sunday, the MTV contingent was thoroughly rattled.
“Even before the rioting—that’s a fun way to start a sentence, even before the rioting—it seemed like this was not going to be remembered as a successful festival,” says Holmes. “When we got back to the Air Force base the next day, all anybody was talking about was how scared they were the night before. A lot of the cameramen and the production people were up in this tower that, like, could have been brought down like a scene from Game of Thrones in the middle of the show. People were understandably a little nervous that Sunday.”
That tension boiled over during a press conference in the afternoon. Someone from MTV confronted Woodstock ’99 promoter John Scher over the festival’s failure to control the most violent attendees:
“MTV News was forced to get off of home base, we felt it was too dangerous,” the reporter said. There were people throwing glass bottles everywhere. MTV tower people had to be evacuated.
“Calm down,” Scher responded.
“In all of the concerts I’ve seen, I have never seen anything quite so out of hand as this. It was violent, it was dangerous, it was hostile,” the reporter continued. “My question for you is why did no one from either security or the organization walk out to Fred Durst and say, ‘Man, can you ask these kids to chill?’ I talked to kids later who were petrified out there.”
The confrontation was a rare sour note for Scher at that point in the festival. As far as he and other organizers were concerned, Woodstock ’99 was going along swimmingly. All of the tensions that seemed obvious to those on the ground weren’t apparent to the people running the festival.
“Right after that, I took a walk from the press tent to the stage and this woman journalist, I can’t remember her name, but she walked and said, ‘Can we talk?’” Scher says now. “And at one point we stopped and she said, ‘This is unbelievable. This is the greatest thing. If you put this many people at any other kind of event, it never would have gone that well.’ She said it was just amazing. And then it all blew up over the next couple of hours.”
It turns out that the expectations were way out of whack. What was actually in the works was a candlelight vigil organized by an anti-gun group. By Sunday afternoon, they were handing out candles to attendees.
“And the peace candles became the kindling for the fires that became part of the riot,” says Brian Hiatt, a journalist who covered Woodstock ’99 and later did a yearlong investigation into the festival.
In his reporting, Hiatt discovered that attendees had been setting fires all over the grounds throughout the weekend. And yet nobody ever seemed to get in trouble for it.
“As they put out those fires, the attendees were already threatening to make more fire,” Hiatt says. “They said, ‘We’ll burn anything.’ The threats were, ‘You can’t stop us. If you stop us, it’ll start somewhere else.’”
As late afternoon turned into early evening, the crowd grew increasingly disgruntled and unruly. And then, one of the most popular rock bands of the era showed up on stage: Creed. At Woodstock ’99, they were received like rock royalty.
However, Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti remembers Woodstock ’99 as kind of a terrifying experience.
“Back then in ’99, we’d only been kind of a professional touring band for about two years, so I didn’t have the stage confidence that I have now,” he says. “So it was I just remember it being such a large and intimidating type of setting.”
Soon after Creed left the stage, Woodstock ’99 would descend into riots. But Tremonti can’t recall feeling any premonitions. After Creed it was time for that night’s big headliner—the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band was riding high again that summer after years of inaction. The album Californication,which became the band’s best-selling record, came out the previous month.
Their performance was supposed to mark the festival’s triumphant climax. And the band was primed for the decadent atmosphere. No one more than Flea, who came out wearing his bass guitar … and no clothes.
Getty Images
“It seemed like they were playing very well,” Sheffield says. “It was really a beautiful Chili Peppers set. They were coming off Californication. They had the best songs of their career, and they were playing at the peak of their career. So it’s weirdly incongruous. That’s when the violence and the crowd got really, really ugly.”
After playing for about an hour, the Chili Peppers left the stage. Before they could come back for their planned encore, the chasm between the stage and the audience suddenly collapsed. John Scher himself came out to warn the audience.
“As you can see, if you look behind you, we have a bit of a problem,” he said.
The problem was a bonfire raging on the horizon. Actually, the word “bonfire” doesn’t do justice to this wild inferno. In a video posted on YouTube, it looks like a small cabin that’s been totally engulfed in flames. But in the chaotic context of Woodstock ’99, it didn’t seem out of place at first.
Even with part of the festival now on fire, the show didn’t immediately end. When the Chili Peppers came back out, singer Anthony Kiedis commented sardonically on the situation.
“Holy shit, it’s Apocalypse Now out there. Make way for the fire trucks!” he said
And then they proceeded to play a cover of “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix. I think that this was supposed to be part of the festival’s grand finale—a callback to one of the biggest stars of the original festival, coupled with the candlelight vigil that was now a full-on blaze.
If you think Alan Cumming, host of the U.S. version of The Traitors, gives off “guy who killed someone” vibes, he’ll laugh — you’re picking up what he’s putting down. It’s why, in episode 8 of season 2, when he sent the contestants off on their mission, he gleefully turned to the camera and said, “And they were never seen again.”
“I said that many times, on every task,” Cumming admits. “I wanted that to be my new catchphrase, but they only used it a couple times.”
This is exactly why the team behind Peacock’s hit reality game show wanted Cummings in the first place, even if he didn’t understand it at first. He met with producers, initially, out of confusion and curiosity.
“I couldn’t understand why they would want me to do it. Then I realized they wanted a sort of character. And I said, ‘Do you mean you want it to be sort of like a James Bond villain?’”
The answer was an enthusiastic yes. And suddenly Cumming could see the whole persona: “He’s the sort of Scottish Laird, and he’s kind of Machiavellian, [and] brings all these people here,” Cumming says. The look would be a sort of “dandy” Scottish tartan. Cumming’s dog could even come with, so the actor could menacingly pet her while staring down contestants.
“I really love this character. And it’s funny, life just flings these things at you that you never would have seen coming. I never thought I would be hosting a big, successful competition reality show in Scotland and a castle with a bunch of reality stars. I mean — you couldn’t make it up. But I obviously go out going through life open to certain things. I’ve always been quite eclectic. And these things come to me and actually, this one I really, really enjoy.”
And it’s a role he takes really seriously. As he gets ready in the morning he listens in on the players’ breakfast discussion, watching on a big screen so he can “really feel a part of it” as he gets ready to make his big entrance. “It’s good for me to understand, when I walk into the room, the mood of the room and the atmosphere,” Cumming says.
Cumming is often around the castle, but not with the contestants — after his breakfast entrance he usually has a little break when he can look over scripts for the next day, then he and the players go to film the mission. After that, the contestants hang out and Cumming has another break (he says he’s usually eating or walking Lala the dog), but stays briefed on what’s happening. “When the roundtable comes it really does feel like this big theatrical moment because they all go in and they play this scary music in real life,” Cumming says. “It’s like these little performative spurts. And in between I’m trying to keep an eye on what’s happening and trying to get an understanding of how the wind is blowing.”
Even still, he’s just as on the edge of his seat as the rest of us. He likes to maintain a distance between himself and the cast (he feels his character should always have “quite a stern, daddy demeanor” that leaves the contestants scared), and Cumming has been surprised by how things went once he got into the room. “That’s what’s great about the games — there was a person I thought was doing really well, a faithful, and was going to help tear the whole thing apart. And people turned on them. It was like hyenas going for a baby elephant, it really was. I was gobsmacked.”
While he wouldn’t say who that was about, he would say some of the contestants he’s most surprised by: Bergie (when he became the MVP of the graveyard challenge), Phaedra (he appreciates her showmanship and the way it provides her cover), and Parvati (he hadn’t watched Survivor, and she seemed like a “sweet little thing with a hairband”).
But even with a closer view, he’s just as eager to let it all play out as the rest of us. Well, sort of — at least the rest of us don’t live in fear about bumping the wrong shoulder when selecting traitors at the roundtable.
The Traitors season 2 (the U.S. version) airs new episodes on Peacock every Thursday at 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. EST.
Until my early 20s, I believed I was a “normal” sex-haver. I assumed any guilt or repulsion I felt after intimacy was a universal experience. It wasn’t until a year ago that, after hearing me mention that I had repeatedly dissociated after kissing various Tinder dates, my friend said: “You know what asexuality is, right?” I stuttered, offended; of course I knew what it meant, but only in that “jock calling the nerd asexual because he won’t ever get laid” way. She called my bluff and showed me a video from an asexual YouTuber who echoed many of my secret opinions about dating and intimacy. This set me on the path to find as many video essays about asexuality as possible, which explained that I wasn’t broken or in need of the “right person”; my love would just come from somewhere besides sex. Any blueprints for where I might find it or what that love might be instead were a mystery, as I quickly found that asexual representation in media is an absolute travesty.
There’s no easy way to show an identity based around the lack of something rather than its presence, but when you start throwing out SpongeBob as my LGBTQIA+ rep, I know it’s not a serious conversation. Good asexual (aka ace) characters do exist — Bojack Horseman’s resident goofball Todd Chavez is beloved by many for his swagless slacker schemes — but most rely on negative stereotypes that perpetuate the myth of inhumanity among those who don’t build their love lives around sex.
Asexual people in media are represented as dispassionate outcasts who avoid close relationships; they are cold and calculating celibates (like Sherlock Holmes), or they force sex upon themselves to fix their perceived inadequacies (like Olivia from whatever the hell The Olivia Experiment was trying to be). Asexual representation isn’t nearly as prevalent in media as gay, lesbian, or bisexual rep, but three of Netflix’s biggest teenage shows of 2023 — Sex Education, Heartstopper, and Everything Now — featured aces as core characters with storylines dedicated to understanding their identities. Much like their queer antecedents who introduced the general public to non-cis, non-hetero ways of life, these ace characters have to come out and explain themselves. Despite good intentions, it’s hard for each character to not read as a first attempt.
Sex is everywhere in our society, especially during high school, when hormones rage, emotions deepen, and the world cracks open like a spoiled fruit. Putting those primal feelings into words is hard, but that hasn’t stopped Sex Education from highlighting as many sexual identities as possible, including a brief storyline in season 2 in which theater kid Florence (Mirren Mack) recognizes her own asexuality. In a conversation with sex therapist Jean (Gillian Anderson), Florence voices her discontent with social pressures to date and hook up, poignantly stating that she’s “surrounded by a feast” but isn’t hungry. As soon as Florence accepts her ace identity, the series moves on from her; Florence’s sexlessness was a problem to be voiced but not an orientation to be explored.
Photo: Samuel Taylor/Netflix
It wasn’t until the final season this year that the show’s creators went all in on asexuality with Sarah “O” Owen (Thaddea Graham), a woman of color and sex therapist at Cavendish. O acts as a rival and antagonist to series protagonist Otis (Asa Butterfield); so much of the season revolves around Otis’ attempts to reclaim his place as the sole sex therapist on campus. During their bizarre election where students vote for who they most trust to therapize their sexual dilemmas, Otis tries to prove that O is untrustworthy and unreliable by revealing that she ghosted several former partners. To save her reputation, O comes out as asexual and says she ghosted partners because she didn’t know how to talk about it yet — although given all the scheming and scratching she had pulled over the course of the season, you’d be forgiven for thinking her coming out might be a ploy for sympathy. I did.
This misunderstanding became a prevalent enough internet discourse that Yasmin Benoit — an ace activist and woman of color who served as a script consultant for the season — took to X (formerly Twitter) to reveal multiple scenes and lines were changed or cut that addressed both the racial bias and acephobia that O faces throughout the season. Without this additional context, I found it difficult to be as offended as I should have been when Otis accused her of using asexuality as a way to tarnish his image. The show instead portrays O spending most of the season trying to maintain her pristine image, all the way down to her slick influencer branding. This emphasis on her insincerity sometimes obscures how terrible it is that Otis attempts to claim her space and ruin her life.
It isn’t until episode 7 that her backstory dump — which delves into how her schoolmates singled her out for her race and Northern Irish accent, how she felt abnormal because she didn’t have crushes or intimate fantasies, how she felt safe in her sex clinic but felt if she ever told the truth no one would trust her because “who wants to have sex advice from someone who doesn’t have sex?” — finally brings her closer to the character Benoit seemingly set out to create. For me, the damage was already done: O remains a messy, calculating, and isolated asexual, rather than being the thoughtful representation the ace community deserves.
The final season of SexEducation is a mixed bag, but it tries to create a three-dimensional ace character; Heartstopper felt content to stop at character. The show’s second season does a lot to darken its light and fluffy image: It tackles biphobia, abusive parents, and disordered eating. But it never quite knows what to do with Isaac (Tobie Donovan). The laconic bookworm finds himself courted by James (Bradley Riches), and their awkward flirtations are drawn out for most of the season until they finally kiss in a Parisian hotel’s hallway. Isaac seems repelled by the intimacy and is sent into a spiral — though we don’t see it. Isaac’s explanation to James in the following episode is familiar to asexuals: He has never had a crush on someone and hoped that maybe James would be different. But he wasn’t.
Photo: Samuel Dore/Netflix
When his friends cajole him for details about the kiss, Isaac snaps, yelling that he knows they don’t find his life interesting with its lack of romantic drama. It’s a sentiment shared by series creator Alice Oseman herself, who identifies as aromantic and asexual (aroace) and in an interview with The Guardian stated, “The world is obsessed with sex and romance. And if you don’t have that, you feel like you haven’t achieved something that’s really important.” In her novel Loveless, she tries to explore narratives where romance and sex aren’t the main focus with aroace protagonist Georgia. But where Georgia has 400-plus pages to grow and change, Isaac’s character can only come out in bits and spurts around the central romance between Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke). We never get to know his personality or desires, so Isaac’s frustration with his friends seemingly comes from nowhere.
Literally two minutes after his outburst, Isaac meets an artist exhibiting a piece about their aroace identity, and everything they say resonates with him: the loneliness of existing in a world that prizes romance and sex when you don’t feel those attractions, the confusion that comes with feeling different without the words to describe it, the freedom of letting go of those external expectations and existing as yourself. Isaac immediately accepts himself as aroace. It’s a beautiful sentiment hamstrung by the fact that Isaac was just given the answers to his identity problems, no introspection necessary.
Image: Netflix
By contrast, Everything Now is a show without easy answers; its depiction of disordered eating, substance abuse, sexual intimacy, and mental health struggles are important if not always easy to watch. While much of the series focuses on recovering anorexic Mia’s (Sophie Wilde) return to high school after a brief hospitalization, it was her friend Will (Noah Thomas) who captured my heart. Will is boisterous, confident, and fashionable, traits that he claims won the lusty affection of the cheesemonger at his workplace. Except the cheesemonger doesn’t know his name, and when “Cheese Guy” eventually does try to hook up with him, Will runs away. Will is embarrassed about his virginity and chooses to lean into the stereotype of the promiscuous gay man, as if cultivating the image of a sex-haver will absolve him from engaging in something that repulses him.
After a drunk Mia reveals his lie to a party full of their classmates, Will hides in the bathroom. He’s uncharacteristically quiet and embarrassed, compressing himself as tightly as possible into the bathtub. His sulking is interrupted by Theo (Robert Akodoto), a nice and popular schoolmate. Despite Will’s protestations, Theo stays and comforts him. Will echoes O and Isaac here: He feels broken for not wanting sex, and that something must be wrong with him. Theo suggests that maybe Will needs a connection to engage in romantic or sexual intimacy, and the next day the two kiss passionately and start dating. Although it’s never stated outright, Will’s requirement for emotional connection to precede intimacy is a sign that he’s demisexual, an even smaller sliver of the asexual pie that often goes unrepresented. Being in a relationship isn’t an easy adjustment for Will; he worries that Theo will eventually want sex or something more that he isn’t willing to give. The anxiety overwhelms Will and, despite Theo’s willingness to take things slow, he refuses to discuss his fear of intimacy and ultimately ends the relationship.
These Asexuality 101-esque narratives feel reminiscent of the early aughts, when queer characters were defined by their otherness in an effort to educate rather than represent. They’re the type of stories that I needed to hear growing up, stories that gently told me that I wasn’t broken while placing me on a path toward self-acceptance. After a year of research and introspection, however, their lack of nuance feels half-baked, especially in comparison to the three-dimensional queer characters who surround them. Asexuality is a complicated identity where multiple conflicting truths can coexist. Aces might feel little to no sexual attraction, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t date, fall in love, or even have sex if we so desire; seeking fulfillment through solely platonic relationships is equally valid, and, too often, narratively unexplored. O, Isaac, and Will hint at a future where we might see asexuality with all its complexity on our screens. Maybe by then, the universal feeling won’t be that we are broken. Maybe it will be that we are just a little different.
“We’ve become a party of losers,” the conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy declared during the opening minutes of tonight’s Republican primary debate in Florida. He bemoaned the GOP’s lackluster performance in Tuesday’s elections, and then he identified the Republican he held personally responsible for the party’s defeats. Was this the moment, a viewer might have wondered, that a top GOP presidential contender would finally take on Donald Trump, the absent frontrunner who hasn’t deigned to join his rivals on the debate stage?
Of course not.
Ramaswamy proceeded to blame not the GOP’s undisputed leader for the past seven years but Ronna McDaniel, the party functionary unknown to most Americans who chairs the Republican National Committee. After calling on McDaniel to resign, Ramaswamy then attacked one of the debate moderators, Kristen Welker of NBC News, before turning his ire on two of his onstage competitors, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.
The moment was a fitting encapsulation of a debate that, like the first two Republican primary match-ups, all but ignored the candidate who wasn’t there. Five Republicans stood on the Miami stage tonight—Ramaswamy, Haley, DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Tim Scott—and none of them are likely to be elected president next year. The candidate of either party most likely to win the election is Trump, who held a rally a half hour away. His putative challengers barely uttered his name.
NBC’s moderators tried to force the issue at the start. Lester Holt asked each of the candidates to explain why they should be president and Trump should not. Haley and DeSantis, who are now Trump’s closest competitors (a modest distinction), offered some mild criticism. The Florida governor chastised Trump for increasing the national debt and failing to get Mexico to pay for his Southern border wall. “I thought he was the right president at the right time. I don’t think he’s the right president now,” was the most that Haley, who was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, could muster. Only Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has become Trump’s fiercest GOP critic on the campaign trail, assailed the former president with any relish. “Anybody who’s going to be spending the next year-and-a-half of their life focusing on keeping themselves out of jail cannot lead this party or this country,” Christie said.
And with that, Trump became an afterthought for the remainder of the debate. The evening featured plenty of substance, as the candidates offered mostly robust defenses of Israel in its war with Hamas, denounced rising anti-Semitism on college campuses, and disputed how much support the U.S. should give Ukraine. At the behest of moderator Hugh Hewitt, they spent several minutes discussing the optimal size of America’s naval fleet.
The spiciest exchanges involved Ramaswamy and Haley, who made no effort to hide their disdain for one another. Ramaswamy drew boos from the audience after he criticized Haley’s hawkish foreign policy by calling her “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels.” Later he invoked her daughter’s use of TikTok to accuse her of hypocrisy on China’s ownership of the social-media platform. “Keep my daughter’s name out of your voice,” Haley shot back. “You’re just scum.” Ramaswamy and Haley also went after DeSantis, though in less personal terms.
That Ramaswamy would target Haley was not a surprise. She came into the debate as the challenger of the moment, having displaced Ramaswamy, whose candidacy has lost momentum since his breakout performance in the first GOP primary debate in August. He can partly blame Haley for his slide: Her mocking retort—“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber”—was the highlight of the last everyone-but-Trump pile-up in September. The former South Carolina governor’s consistency across both debates has helped her overtake DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire and gain on him in Iowa. Haley also fared the best in a hypothetical general-election match-up with Biden in a batch of swing-state polls released this week by The New York Times and Siena College.
As my colleague Elaine Godfrey reported this week, Haley is appealing to primary voters who are “yearning for a standard-issue Republican”—a tax-cutting, socially conservative foreign-policy hawk who won’t have to spend the next several months fighting felony charges in courtrooms up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Her performance tonight—as steady as during the first two debates—seems unlikely to hurt her standing. The problem for Haley, as for the other contenders on tonight’s stage, is that less than half of the GOP electorate wants a standard-issue Republican. Trump still has a tight grip on a majority of GOP voters, and his lead over Biden in recent polling undermines his rivals’ argument that his nomination could cost the party next year’s election.
If nothing else, each of these Trump-less debates offers his opponents a free shot to make the case against him, a platform to criticize the frontrunner without facing an immediate rebuttal. For the third time in a row, Haley and her competitors mostly passed up their chance. If they’re angling to be Trump’s running mate or emergency replacement, perhaps they’ve advanced their cause. But if their goal is to dislodge Trump as the nominee, opportunities like tonight’s are slipping away.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25181869/Heartstopper_S02_Image26.jpg)
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25181883/EverythingNow_Image_55.png)
