Today, a peek inside the strategy that’s getting DSA candidates elected, a moral conundrum, and advice about getting paid fairly for your work. |
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Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
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Mainstream Democrats had been feeling hopeful in the days leading up to the primaries, writes Dave Freedlander. Early-vote turnout was weak, and the people who were voting were older, which seemed to signal that incumbents and centrist candidates had a shot. But then Zohran Mamdani and Claire Valdez and their supporters marched across Bushwick and popped up at bars and clubs, and it gradually became clear that our mayor’s overwhelming rizz was going to be a meaningful game changer.
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Mamdani’s political team sincerely believes him to be a singular figure. He is clearly a generational political talent. But he is also a politician with a rare unbridled enthusiasm for campaigning — leading him to spend huge amounts of time stumping for his candidates. When the early-vote numbers in a rapidly gentrifying corner of Brooklyn showed weakness for Claire Valdez, Mamdani marched with her across a portion of the district. During the day, he stood at the head of a selfie line where anyone who showed up with an “I Voted” sticker could pose for a pic with the mayor. In the evening, he hit a half-dozen Bushwick bars and nightclubs to rally enthusiasm for her. Hundreds participated in the march, and as they waited on line, campaign aides asked them to text ten of their friends to remind them to vote and to vote for the entire slate of Mamdani-backed candidates. All of those selfies were then shared across social media thousands and thousands of times.
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The phenomenon is mostly contained to the five boroughs, Dave concludes, but the message those wins sent to the world outside Mamdanistan is getting harder to ignore. |
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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images
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Our financial-advice columnist Charlotte Cowles tackles this thorny beast today. She talked to a bunch of millennials who are dealing with the financial reality of the world and, in some cases, resenting the fact that their parents own yachts. Chloe’s parents saddled her with 80 grand in student debt before she was old enough to understand what she was doing, and now they’re not helping her pay it off even though they own boats, plural.
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“I’m happy that my parents are doing so well,” Chloe says. “They’ve worked hard and they’ve built a great life for themselves. But also, what the hell? Why did you buy a yacht instead of helping your kids pay off their student loans that you signed them up for?” Chloe’s two siblings are in a similar position — overburdened by debt that they didn’t know they had until it was too late. “As a result, we are all pretty behind in life, financially. It’s definitely held us back in terms of our savings potential. We’ve all got good careers, but none of us own homes,” says Chloe.
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Even in Chloe’s case, if her parents did help her pay off her loans, she’d then feel indebted to these jerks. There’s really no winning where money is concerned. I guess the silver lining is getting to borrow the yacht? Maybe? |
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Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Universal, Daniel DeSlover/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock |
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Josie and the Pussycats, the 2001 movie about a girl rock band, is rightly considered a must-watch movie that was ahead of its time satirically and also has actually excellent songs. (The movie also features one of Parker Posey’s best roles as villainous Fiona.) The voice coming out of Rachael Leigh Cook’s mouth belongs to Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley, who told Devon Ivie that she has been paid only $1,500 for her work in the film. She’s now waging a legal battle to get paid adequately and to keep her SAG health insurance. Learn from her example, young musicians:
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Ultimately, you have to know if your voice is going to be on film. What are your rights there? If your voice is being broadcast anywhere, your fee pays for that first use. Any recurring use after, the production gets paid, and you get paid for that. But my simple advice for anyone in this industry is to make sure you’re filling out your SAG paperwork. The voice-over studio should be presenting you with your paperwork every day if you’re doing voice-over. I know how all of this works, and I still wasn’t making the connection between what I was doing over decades of work and what I did on Josie and the Pussycats. It took me 25 years to realize me not getting paid residuals was messed up. And it’s because I really didn’t understand the job I did back then. If I can miss these things, I can’t imagine how widespread it is.
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I hope things work out for her, and I also now want to rewatch this fine film. Her vocals can also be found in 10 Things I Hate About You. |
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A weekly dispatch on the cultural discourse. |
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https://link.nymag.com/oc/60bf85689b7a136e4b473b24rktd6.ak4/55812e50
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