Kurt Andersen

My book is out today. Huzzah! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594494/the-breakup-by-kurt-andersen/ bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

#StrandedCompute

x.com/ac360/status...

ICMI, the United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby’s welcome remarks in a @nytimes.com interview. And the @wsj.com Editorial Board’s sneering ridicule of his class-traitorous “flight of left-wing fancy.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/b... www.wsj.com/opinion/scot...

He’s doing this more and more, raving about the physiques of congressmen and UFC fighters. Every time he does it, I wish Peter Serafinowicz were still making his brilliant Sassy Trump videos. youtu.be/d76gCuIct4A?...

Finished "The Breakup" at 2am. Man, oh man, what an amazing novel. Set in 2045, it is profoundly true to our historic moment - and yet hopeful about life beyond a breakup. The political is personal in the lives of Asher and Natalie - navigating pain that mirrors our national heartache. I loved it!

Trump is unambiguously on Putin’s side in their war on Ukraine. The U.S. and Russia and North Korea are the new Axis, anti-democratic and anti-freedom.

I’m so pleased you’re enjoying it. Thanks!

Russia Russia Russia: he is now more unambiguously pro-evil-dictator than ever. Another issue where most Americans disagree with him—most want us to give Ukraine more arms, 67% say letting Russia keep seized territory is unacceptable and 75% don’t trust them to keep a peace deal.

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You” (Twilight Zone season 5, episode 17) New press secretary Katie Zacharia, predecessor Karoline Leavitt, stalker Natalie Harp, Stormy Daniels, Ivanka.

There’s a certain look they all share, Musk and Kim and Mussolini — Central Casting, as Musk’s and Kim’s frenemy Trump would say.

I wrestled with ways to mock this comment, to explore the immorality of Trump's position, to discuss the significance of Ukraine's noble war of self-defense to the American people, etc., etc. But it really comes down to this: Trump is a grotesque monster.

It’d be good if the perfect memorable meme term emerged for Trump & Trump-family & Trump-minion corruption. Like the Teapot Dome Scandal, which was so nothing in comparison to the scale & brazenness of the Trump graft & grift.

The three most recent high-quality polls on Trump. Only the hard core are with him now.

What an astoundingly stupid thing to say. The stupidest thing he’s ever said? The stupidest thing a vice-president ever said? The stupidest thing any Yale graduate ever said?

An unusually mad-king one. And good! Because not even a single AI business will obey, humiliatingly confirming his impotence.

Anybody in NW Connecticut and vicinity this weekend, I'll be talking about my new novel The Breakup with my pal Graydon Carter at the wonderful House of Books in Kent. (We'll also chat some about Spy magazine, which we co-founded.) Come! 4 pm 10/10. RSVP here: www.houseofbooksct.com/events/60118...

Same as he ever was. Today’s Spy At 40 installment on Substack, #3 in a series. Subscribe! substack.com/@spymagazine...

In New York City this year, 203 people have been murdered—the fewest ever. In the first 9 months of last year, 253 were murdered, also an all-time low. Back in 1990 there were a million fewer people, of whom 1700 were murdered in the first 9 months. I’ll never get over this..

www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/s...

Startling today — a daily Substack of the greatest Spy hits about the short-fingered vulgarian. Subscribe here: substack.com/@spymagazine... www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/s...

Did the Secretary of War's lifestyle taboo list in his speech last week make anybody else immediately think of his new BFF –– the trannyish, fattyish beardo and weirdo (multiple names & religions) wimp (no sports, Marine PR guy) a heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief?

100% worth reading.

That, my fellow Americans, is unquestionably the hand of a short-fingered vulgarian. By the way, you can subscribe for free to this daily limited-run Spy magazine Substack. We start publishing on Monday. spymagazine.substack.com/p/coming-soo...

Taking the unprecedented non-stop large-scale corruption to the grotesque next level — not just enriching the Trumps and their cronies at the expense of American suckers/investors, but driving hugely consequential foreign policy. Vote them out. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/u...

VOTE.

In the average of the seven most reliable and recent national polls that asked voters what they think of Trump, 64% said they disapprove and only 33% approve. His worst polling numbers ever. Maybe we are finally, truly at the beginning of the end.

The Greatest Self-Parodist of All Time. As well as the stupidest President and probably sloppiest White House ever.

And thank you, Center for Fiction.

Note to @saturdaynightlive.bsky.social producers: please write Natalie Harp into sketches as often as possible because Ashley Padilla plays her brilliantly, and please cast someone other than Ramy Youssef as Zohran Mamdani.

And in Nevada, of the total of 185 supposedly noncitizen voters the DHS identified, the Republican state government just reported that every single one of them, 100%, were in fact U.S. citizens.

Thank you, Omaha Public Library, and thank you, @greenlightbklyn.bsky.social.

Texas used Trump’s federal database to check all its registered voters, which falsely flagged 578 US citizens. Last week they filed a brief supporting Trump, announcing they’d referred 117 names—a negligible .00065% of 18M voters—to AG Ken Paxton for “investigation of *potential* noncitizen voting."

In this instance i think it’s more the Stupidity than the Crazy.

I’m spending the week in Omaha, my now-Democratic hometown in red Nebraska. In 2024 their genius election yard sign was the elegant blue dot. This time in yard after yard it’s the blue dot with a wave.

We always need to manage our election hopes, but Nate Silver’s latest polling aggregation and analysis is very encouraging. (FLIPR is his latest model, which runs thousands of simulations across a range of possible outcomes for each prediction.)

<<Which party’s House or Senate candidate will you vote for in this election and/or which party do you want to control the next Congress?>> In the most recent polls followed by the @nytimes.com, Democrats are preferred by an average of 7-8%. Early voting is underway. Vote.

Make-believe Fantasyland justification for his stupid, ugly, expensive, monumentally self-glorifying ballroom last winter — drones! snipers! military command post! — repeated now for his stupid, ugly, expensive, monumentally self-glorifying arch.

We can and must elect an intelligent, thoughtful, truthful, sensible, lucid president again. ihttps://youtu.be/Ask5wzUo9kQ?is=_ZefUbLghFfFsFc1

Subscribe now! Daily posts, starting October 5th, finishing early November. Commemorating Spy magazine’s 40th anniversary. substack.com/@spymagazine...

His dreams have all came true: most famous person on earth, in countless millions of minds every day, pulling off a multi-billion-dollar grift in plain sight. Yet still a miserably unhappy clown. Loathed and laughed at, throwing tantrums 24/7 as he heads toward lame-duck doom.

As I’ve said for a decade (as in this 2016 Venn Diagram), the stupidity is fundamental. As well as continually astounding.

Presidential vote in her consistently 70% Hispanic Dade County district: 2012 Obama +16 2016 Clinton +17 2020 Trump +0.3 2024 Trump +15 Does this anti-Trump swing reflect her constituents’ swing back to Democrats? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/u...

🙏

The constitutional litigator and ex-Republican @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social details how the “corrupt machinations” of Missouri Republicans show “exactly how MAGA attempts to fix elections” and that the Republican Party’s “perfidy is limited only by its creativity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/o...

From The Shining to The Royalton and Temple Bar in the 1980s, and then before long every swank bar on earth. Our neo-noir 2nd Gilded Age, early Reagan to late Trump.

The ever-present Special Assistant to the President really does resemble the daughter he agreed in an interview is “a piece of ass” and “stacked…voluptuous,” and in another said that if she “weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her."

It sold out, now the 2nd printing is in stores, 3rd printing coming soon. 🙏

Two stories in the @nytimes.com right now. I look forward to collecting the complete set of 12.