I would like to introduce to you my fascinating friend, whom I have never met in person. We have been friends via Bridge Base Online for several months, during which time we have had some hilarious and poignant conversations about music, classic cinema, progressive/radical politics, New Jersey, Italy, baseball, and numerous other topics.
Yes, I do play bridge online—sometimes at home, sometimes when things are slow at work. Like crossword puzzles, it keeps the problem-solving parts of my brain active. I don't play extraordinarily well, still occasionally making rookie mistakes, so I play only at the Relaxed tables, where frothy-mouthed bridge pedants are less likely to hang out.
She goes by Edie, which is American for Aïda. Since we are cyberspace acquaintances, I don't know with 100% certainty if she's really a twenty-something Italian-born runway model who lives in Beverly Hills and spends her plentiful free time playing Bridge, or even if Edie is her real name. However, she has given me no evidence to cast doubt on her story, inadvertently or otherwise. Whatever. She's awesome. She is the queen of whichever virtual table she plays. Her knowledge of socialism and radical history has admirable breadth and depth. Plus, we're fans of a lot of the same political channels on YouTube. What's not to like?
By way of introduction, I originally shared some of her writing, lightly edited, but she now says she would like to retract her essay on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in its entirety. She has a new essay (link pending), casting AOC as a sell-out to the Democratic establishment like her hero Senator Bernard Sanders.
Despite some suspicions, and despite agreeing with Edie that the Democratic Party is where progressive ideas go to die, I haven't written off AOC completely. Occasional nods to the authority of the Pelosi-Schumer squad are not the same as selling out. Knowing the Democrats, I wouldn't put it past them to build up or whole-cloth create this Young Progressive wave as a way to keep young voters and DSA types on the reservation—"See? There's hope for a progressive revolution within the party! Greens and Sandernistas, come back! All is forgiven!" But not putting it past them is not the same as believing that they're clever enough to pull it off. Devious enough, yes, but not clever enough.
Yes, I do play bridge online—sometimes at home, sometimes when things are slow at work. Like crossword puzzles, it keeps the problem-solving parts of my brain active. I don't play extraordinarily well, still occasionally making rookie mistakes, so I play only at the Relaxed tables, where frothy-mouthed bridge pedants are less likely to hang out.
She goes by Edie, which is American for Aïda. Since we are cyberspace acquaintances, I don't know with 100% certainty if she's really a twenty-something Italian-born runway model who lives in Beverly Hills and spends her plentiful free time playing Bridge, or even if Edie is her real name. However, she has given me no evidence to cast doubt on her story, inadvertently or otherwise. Whatever. She's awesome. She is the queen of whichever virtual table she plays. Her knowledge of socialism and radical history has admirable breadth and depth. Plus, we're fans of a lot of the same political channels on YouTube. What's not to like?
By way of introduction, I originally shared some of her writing, lightly edited, but she now says she would like to retract her essay on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in its entirety. She has a new essay (link pending), casting AOC as a sell-out to the Democratic establishment like her hero Senator Bernard Sanders.
Despite some suspicions, and despite agreeing with Edie that the Democratic Party is where progressive ideas go to die, I haven't written off AOC completely. Occasional nods to the authority of the Pelosi-Schumer squad are not the same as selling out. Knowing the Democrats, I wouldn't put it past them to build up or whole-cloth create this Young Progressive wave as a way to keep young voters and DSA types on the reservation—"See? There's hope for a progressive revolution within the party! Greens and Sandernistas, come back! All is forgiven!" But not putting it past them is not the same as believing that they're clever enough to pull it off. Devious enough, yes, but not clever enough.
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