Map of Virginia showing the results of the April 21, 2026 redistricting election.
It may not look like it at first, since the finally tally appears rather close at a surface glance.
However, tonight's redistricting results were a CATASTROPHIC loss for Republicans and the fascist movement.
🧵
Yay!! Major congratulations!
Final takeaways:
MAGA can and will be destroyed;
Virginia is beautiful;
and please @bsky.app add an edit button so I can fix the typo in the opening post 😭
However, what's also clear is that MAGA is atrophying, and Virginia is playing a major role in dismantling the fascist ideology that currently dominates this country.
I feel so fortunate that I'm about to move to this wonderful state. Let's keep pushing Virginia further and further left, y'all ✊
There are clear warning signs here for the Virginia Democratic party.
Specifically, they need to be doing a lot more work to motivate the base, and a lot more to combat right-wing disinformation.
And yet, THE REPUBLICANS STILL LOST.
In this best case scenario for the GOP—with right-wing voters fully mobilized, left-wing voters confused and depressed, and existential results on the line—MAGA still lost by clear and unambiguous numbers.
Fairfax county voting results in the 2025 gubernatorial election.
Fairfax county voting results in the 2026 redistricting election.
Likewise, the very blue Fairfax county.
Republicans (no) are just barely behind their numbers from the 2025 gubernatorial election.
Democrats (yes) had nearly 70,000 less voters turn out this year.
Pulaski county voting results in the 2025 gubernatorial election.
Pulaski county voting results in the 2026 redistricting election.
As just one example, the very red Pulaski county.
Republicans (no) increased turnout by around 600 votes.
Democrats (yes) lost about 1000 votes.
These tactics actually worked!
Comparing voter turnout in this election and the 2025 gubernatorial election, Republican districts voted at similar or higher numbers than before.
Meanwhile, Democrats turned out in far lesser numbers than before.
The MAGA base was fully mobilized. The left was not.
The Republicans have also done everything they could to boost GOP turnout this election while muddling left-wing turnout.
Specifically, they've sent out mailers trying to confuse moderates and Dems into thinking that Spanberger and Barack Obama actually *oppose* redistricting.
So, for the past month, the conservative press has been VICIOUSLY attacking Governor Spanberger, especially on subjects like gun control.
The smears worked and have resulted in extremely high disapproval numbers—indicating a largely unified right-wing opposition to Spanberger.
Map of Virginia before and after the 2026 redistricting election.
Republicans understood that this was an existential election for the party.
After all, the map almost entirely writes the GOP out of power in the House of Representatives.
If the votes shake out as expected in November, MAGA will only have one Virginia representative.
Map of Virginia showing the results of the April 21, 2026 redistricting election.
It may not look like it at first, since the finally tally appears rather close at a surface glance.
However, tonight's redistricting results were a CATASTROPHIC loss for Republicans and the fascist movement.
🧵
self-portrait as cub scout uniform by Jennessa Hester official navy-blue uniform top made of 65% polyester and 35% cotton that hangs loose around the waist neckerchief of green and blood red plaid held together by a two-clasp slide yoked tight against my throat big and baggy boys’ cargo pants with oversized pockets and legs so long the cuffs drag along on the floor used blue canvas belt with faux-gold buckle embossed with a cub scout logo that postures toward the figure of a young man
So incredibly grateful to have new poems featured in the tenth anniversary issue of petrichor, alongside some of my poetry heroes like CAConrad! 💕
Please check out the wonderful issue here: petrichormag.com/petrichor-30...
self-portrait as cub scout uniform by Jennessa Hester official navy-blue uniform top made of 65% polyester and 35% cotton that hangs loose around the waist neckerchief of green and blood red plaid held together by a two-clasp slide yoked tight against my throat big and baggy boys’ cargo pants with oversized pockets and legs so long the cuffs drag along on the floor used blue canvas belt with faux-gold buckle embossed with a cub scout logo that postures toward the figure of a young man
So incredibly grateful to have new poems featured in the tenth anniversary issue of petrichor, alongside some of my poetry heroes like CAConrad! 💕
Please check out the wonderful issue here: petrichormag.com/petrichor-30...
Yay!! Major congratulations!
Yes 🙌😎
graphic featuring a portion of Emma Aylor's poem, which can be found in full at the link in the post
photograph of poet Emma Aylor standing in a field of grasses and flowers
"Even when we try to do the same thing over and over, variations naturally occur. That’s the magic of being human," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social writes in episode 1497 of The Slowdown.
Read "Intaglio" by Emma Aylor and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4vF387t
If you liked this week's disinfo as narrative paper, you might like this earlier paper about the moral panic about Drag Queen Story Hour and how anti-trans narratives recreate older anti-queer narratives, which, we argue, is why they are so successful. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... [Paywalled]
An AI-free OS for an AI-free product line with a written guarantee from Apple not to insert AI into users’ devices at a later date.
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Thank you!!! 😊
I Knives are the currency of young boys and father, forever the salesman, hands you a Walmart sack stuffed with whittlers all folded into cheap nylon fiber handles, blades concealed by visions of eagles screeching of does at calm unaware how soon their skin will split from the stinging touch of clearance bin steel. (keep / trade)
For years, @eldiagram.bsky.social has been my dream journal, and I finally published with them!
I have two new poems in the latest issue and I’m so, so, so happy about it 💕
This is an excerpt from the first piece, inspired by Zelda trading quests.
Read here: thediagram.com/26_1/hester....
Oil spill painting in the background. Text reads Ashely Adams and ALOCASIA present Killing the Planet: Writing the Sixth Mass Extinction. May 16 at 6pm EST, Free, Virtual on Zoom. ALOCASIA.org. How do we articulate the devastation caused by ongoing environmental violence? How do we mourn the lives of billions of creatures lost solely for temporary profit? How can we grieve the futures that will not be while creating a new world worth fighting for? Killing the Planet: Writing the Sixth Mass Extinction is a generative writing workshop that gives writers a framework for braiding ecological disaster into personal narratives. Writers will be invited to be witnesses to extinctions great and small and imagine how we might pull ourselves away from the edge of collapse.
So so thrilled to announce the first installation of the ALOCASIA Summer Creative Writing Workshop Series, led in May by Ashely Adams! RSVP on Eventbrite to reserve your free ticket!
www.eventbrite.com/e/1987567638...
Yep. I’m having a hell of a time getting a documentary photo project about this topic published.
Either the publishers think it’s unimportant and low brow or they’re too afraid of the content because it’s too revealing about culture and they don’t know how to deal with that.
god help me my 8yo watched the entirety of seven samurai and says he wants to study film one day
There is an idea that capitalism won in Europe on its virtues alone that belies the soft power exerted by American media (especially Disney) as propaganda.
I could make the case that our present focus on STEM is also a direct outgrowth of Disney (Man in Space / Our Friend the Atom) as well.
So absurd, truly.
I definitely benefited from the time I spent studying in a more classic style, and I love the occasional work I get to do on pre-20th century texts.
But we impoverish students intellectually if that is the extent of their education, without a doubt.
This is how many folks treat Disney Studies—the literal Mickey Mouse degrees—right now.
Popular media is one of the most powerful and influential forces on the planet, yet it is so often viewed as unimportant.
You can't understand how the world works unless you understand how Mickey Mouse works.