Alex Galbraith

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

Editor @salon.com // Writing the Crash Course newsletter, a daily update on the intersection between pop culture and politics. Read it here: http://bit.ly/4tMKjNL // old work at Complex, SPIN, Uproxx, Bandcamp

@salon.comReposted by @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

Nikole Hannah-Jones' New York Times Magazine essay about her daughter's schooling has generated lots of discussion. The big question: Are progressive parents hypocrites for wanting the best for their kids? @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social argues the debate misses the point.

@dougom.bsky.socialReposted by @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social Private equity is a cancer on our economic system. It needs to be stopped. Any time I read about a well-known company going downhill , I always check to see if they were bought by private equity, & the majority of times they have been.

www.salon.com/2026/09/25/t...

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

Also, he didn't die and this isn't a biography. This piece is about the news right now. You do not need to provide an overview of everything a person has ever done when you report a new story on them. Who would want to read that?

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

Even if everything you say is true, what would Macklemore personally being an anti-semite have to do with his current actions? Bad people can make correct points. Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Palestinians should be free to live their lives. The messenger doesn't change that.

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

I believe Macklemore when he said the costume pieces were chosen at random, to disguise him as part of a secret show, particularly when nothing else about his performance suggested he was doing an anti-semitic caricature

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

It's not easy to write a song that's extremely close-to-home while also being relatable. Just look at "Ordinary" by Alex Warren. It hides feelings behind massive Imagine Dragons-style festival drums. It can't bear to be vulnerable. It sucks. If you want to write an all-timer, you can't be timid!

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

Ed Sheeran deserves all the hate he's getting right now. I'll add more to it when my story goes live later today. But I won't stand for saying he's a bad artist. You all just have no respect for schmaltz. He's great at exceedingly tender and overwhelmingly corny music. It's not easy to make!

@tressiemcphd.bsky.socialReposted by @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

I CANNOT AGREE STRONGLY ENOUGH IT DRIVES ME ABSOLUTELY OUT OF MY MIND THAT PEOPLE LEFT-OF-CENTER CITE THIS MOVIE SO CASUALLY BUT IT IS A TIME-SAVER TO HAVE SHORTHAND FOR “OH I SEE I AGREE WITH YOU BUT HATE YOUR GUTS”.

@amandamarcotte.bsky.socialReposted by @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

My colleague @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social is getting grief for this piece, but he's right.

I hate to say, but Mike Judge may have got right wing-curious around this time. He was buddies with Alex Jones.

I think he's come back around, but the movie is reactionary.

www.salon.com/2026/09/06/i...

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social

It's especially disheartening because Judge is one of our best creators working in the realm of dullards. His dimwits usually have more humanity than the one-note dummies that populate "Idiocracy" though:

Up to this point, Judge’s filmography was exceedingly kind, willing to dig deeper and find humanity in an entire universe of schmucks and mediocrities. “Idiocracy,” on the other hand, was as cheap as the mid-aughts culture it was setting out to satirize. Poisoned by the overwhelmingly toxic culture of time, the film’s downward-punching humor is as radioactive as its future’s fallow fields. There are a few fun visual gags about the degraded far-future — a hospital named St. God’s, the city’s digital clock tower being stuck on a blinking 12:00 — but its punchlines tend toward nasty. One of the few running bits in “Idiocracy” concerns Joe’s articulate speech, which citizens of the future invariably characterize as “f**gy” and “r**arded.” Courtroom sketches of Joe show him holding out a limp wrist.