By 7:30 this morning, I had to get out of the house and walk it off, “it” being the Democratic primary wins last night of three Mamdani-backed candidates: Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier (whose full name I did not know in the audio) and Claire Valdez.

Chevalier and Valdez are backed by the DSA. Lander is not directly but was Mamdani’s man over Dan Goldman so, same-same-ish.

Speaking of Goldman:

Mamdani’s opinion on the matter:

My response to Mamdani:

Do you see why I needed to walk things off? I will remind readers that I have seen Portlanders smash the windows of a Jewish-owned restaurant and spray-paint another with swastikas. That I have seen young people cheer murder in the streets.

You can see why I needed to walk things off this morning, and sure, maybe I extrapolate, play out the string, wonder if the city—so hot on the heels of the beautiful collective effervescence bequeathed by the Knicks—is in for some very bad times.

But seriously, why are people chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” to their chosen candidate winning a local NYC primary? Could it be, as I tweeted, that theur “chosen candidates' stump speeches slipped in anti-Israel rhetoric with the subtlety of your gross uncle trying to slip his tongue into your mouth?”

Make More Pie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I am not the only one with concerns. My Fifth boys were, per usual, on the tip, yesterday hosting Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam.

At one point, Salam speaks about downwardly mobile elites being part of the push behind DSA-backed candidates (a feature the New York Times wrote about last fall). Part of this is that the Democratic party as we once knew is unable to find its ass with both hands (as my late father used to say); does not know how to appeal to its usual or any base. Meanwhile, DSA et al shout about being for the working people, who, well, are just not that into them.

Can you finds plenty of what some might see as indicting tweets from, say, Chevalier? Sure. My friend Liz Wolfe cites a few in today’s Reason Round-Up:

Chevalier is sort of standard fare in the category of extremely online, unhinged DSA 32-year-olds. She has, in the recent past, referred to former President Joe Biden as a "rapist" and "war criminal" during the 2020 election, referred to the U.S. as a "f*****g disgrace," and described interracial relationships involving white ladies as "fetishizing ugly colonizer women." Now she'll be in Congress, because we apparently have no standards….

The whole Mamdani/DSA playbook has been about finding solidly blue areas and outflanking from the left, painting the existing guys as parts of the establishment (frequently using “AIPAC”—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—as a slur). It’s an open question as to whether these new radicals in Congress will even support Jeffries in his bid for speaker at all.

And that brings us to the deeper dynamic I’m worried about, once I get past the frustration that these DSA clowns candidates won at all:

This is not a stable coalition. This is a city getting swept up in the Mamdani fever dream; downwardly mobile upper-middle-class elites believing that the DSA pitch is far more persuasive to the average Democrat than it actually is.

I take comfort in what I see to be two immutable facts. First, Mamdani appeals to people’s feelings, which almost always fizzle out before they become useful building blocks. DSA is good at forming coalitions, but as for grokking what is actually behind the shortage of available housing in New York City? Not so much. From “Zohran Mamdani, Slumlord” (WSJ Opinion):

“New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani last month issued a housing plan that calls for building more—what else?—public housing. So it’s startling to hear even some progressive elected officials complain about the appalling conditions at the city’s existing housing projects….

“Perhaps the Democratic leaders could file a complaint with the city about this slumlord. Oh wait—the city is the slumlord. And a months-long gas outage isn’t unusual in Nycha building. Tenants regularly endure leaky pipes, mold, rodent infestations and furnace breakdowns. Perhaps Mr. Mamdani considers this “the warmth of collectivism…”

See also “Why New York City Has 50,000 ‘Ghost Apartments” (Free Press).

Second, we’ve all seen the “Downfall” bunker scene. Any coalition that promises peace and plenty while insinuating you will only be helping the cause by scapegoating certain people will, whether to further amass power or to look for other scapegoats when things don’t work out, turn the knives on each other.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Arkansas-native Max Steele came to Portland in 2005, responding to the city’s siren song of cheap rent and progressive politics and art you could make on the fly. “All the really DIY stuff was going on in Portland,” says Steele. Until it wasn’t, until certain portions of the population, many of them newbies, felt they were being denied their piece of the Portland pie, dissatisfaction expressed most strongly during 2020’s summer of rage, the downstream effects of which hobble the city to this day.

Video I shot two days after Biden was elected

I’ve found it hard to get clear-eyed reporting out of Portland—Steele and I each mention here how one of the city’s alt-weeklies (oh, okay, the Portland Mercury) likes to dox reporters whose reporting they disagree with. I’ve found Steele to be a straight shooter, with several of my readers shooting me the posts he writes on Recalibrate Portland.

Discussed in this episode:

* Portland media: trustworthy or nah?

* Rose City Antifa mission creep

* Antisemitism in Portland public schools

* Commies ‘R Us

* Lloyd Center, RIP

* “If you join the DSA, you get a whole social circle. You get a bowling league.”

* The fire-hosing of cash “at any random Instagram account” in the post-George Floyd moment

* “Portland was huge—huge—on the cancellations.”

* “How do I step on your neck on the way up this social ladder?”

* “I don’t know what kind of cult you’re in, but you just put yourself out of a job.”

* Lynsea Coy, the “antifascist” florist who keeps lists of Jews

Plus, the Portland editor-in-chief who told Steele he needed to get laid more, the city bans foie gras (again), Steele might have punched a Nazi back in the day, and much more!

When Portlandia got it right

Putting the “ID” in identity politics

Portland’s new “cludgy” form of government is a disenfranchisement machine

Anti-Zionist threats of violence from your neighborhood florist. Oh Portland.

Want the whole episode? You know what to do

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Nancy speaks with war correspondent James Verini, who reported from Ukraine about the devastating 2022 bombing of a theater in Mariupol housing 1500 refugees. James (and photographer Paolo Pellgrin) made his way to survivors of the bombing, and later tracked down every survivor he could find. The result is The Theater: Courage and Survival in the Defining Atrocity of the Ukraine War, a new book that tells stories of ordinary people—students, actors, metal workers, a doctor, a cook—called upon to do extraordinary things.

The Theater is cinematic (calling Christopher Nolan!) and horrifying, beautiful and essential, a battle between freedom and authoritarianism that Russia is determined to win—and Ukraine more determined not to lose.

“You had the fact that this theater represented Ukrainian culture and the dream of an independent Ukraine,” says James. “On the dark opposite side of that, it represented what Putin and Russia were trying to wipe out, the idea that there is such a thing as Ukrainian culture, that there is such thing as a Ukrainian language... The theater was, if not exactly a metaphor, then the perfect setting for this kind of story, of a young republic now barely more than 30 years old that was fighting for its life.”

(Sarah was unable to sit in on this episode, but she’ll be listening!)

Also discussed:

* On why first-person war books should be under 200 pages

* A “glandular nostalgia” for the Soviet Union

* When you’re reporting overseas, “someone is always going to think you’re CIA”

* One advantage to not speaking the local language

* “You can’t do what I do and care about money”

* Nancy gives thanks for Reason’s editorial freedom

* How James covered up the smell of pot smoke back in the day

* Nancy: still not Jewish!

* The Nazi high command was “a cabal of mediocrities”

* Salad days at Vanity Fair

Plus, props for reporters William Langewiesche and Evan Wright, what to eat if you want to be a competitive eater, a great audiobook on New York City excesses in the ‘90s, and much more.

Pre-order The Theater, out on May 19. Also on May 19, James will be in conversation with recent Smoke guest Sebastian Junger. Tickets here.

Nancy note to self: Less ambition when flipping salmon will forestall another armpit burn

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Jake Siegel talks about his new book The Information State, which explores how government and technology joined forces over the past century to squash dissent. Siegel is an editor at Tablet, an original thinker with great writing chops (our kinda guy), and he talks with Nancy and Sarah about the tools of information warfare he saw while serving in Iraq …

Hello readers/viewers, and for those in the eastern half of the United States, thank you for checking in between trips to the supermarket to stock up for the coming Snowpocalypse. It is yet to be seen whether this one will one hit big or be another predicted “storm of the millennium!” that isn’t, in either event, I hope you and yours stay safe and warm.

“I don’t feel the cold,” my dad, pictured above, used to say, while blowing on the wet mittens of his daughter, who definitely did and does. “It’s mind of over matter.”

For those who read the most recent Night Nurse, you know my dad did not have it easy; that no one ever gave him a nickel; that he was an entirely self-made man who would go on to support his mother, two wives, and provide for his children and grandchild. He was not without fault - maybe sometime I’ll tell the story of his trying to walk out of a restaurant with a purloined steak knife in his sock (guess I just did) - but as far as showing up in a crisis, he was the man. If I have one bedrock principle, for myself and others, it’s showing up when you are needed; that you know you can call the person and say, “I need help” and they are going to get you help any way they can. That was my dad.

A clip from “The Fall”:

He played street hockey on Hudson Street, played basketball on the public courts on West Fourth. The Enola Gay dropped the first A-bomb on his 10th birthday. Wally Cox lived in a walk-up directly across the street on Barrow with his roommate Marlon Brando, who gave the neighborhood kids, including your dad, rides on his motorcycle. By age 15 your dad was the Boy Friday at the Cherry Lane Theater, taking the tickets and popping the popcorn and raising the curtain and sweeping up after. At 17, he got a scholarship to Fordham and became a starter on the basketball team. But he could not make enough money to support his mother and go to school. He dropped out. He became a bartender at the Blue Mill Tavern on Barrow and Commerce. Johnny Mathis was a regular. He met your mother they moved into the apartment building next door. The rent was $54 a month. A year later you are born at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Your parents did not have the money to get you home. An elderly neighbor named Manny loaned them the $50 to do so.

You do not know for sure but think this may be when your father promised himself that he would never be in that position again, would never have to rely on anyone else. He kept the promise. He put himself through night school at City College. He studied after midnight at a fold-down desk he made, a desk across from your crib in the smallest room of the railroad apartment. He will later tell you, many times, how he’d be mid-study when he’d feel your eyes on him, and when he turned, you’d be standing in your crib, making no sound, just watching him, and that every time he would have to pick you up out of your crib and walk you in a small circle and tell you all the good things that were going to happen.

You can read the rest here. Or watch me read (most of) it!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Narrating “Musings of the Night Nurse” pieces the day-after they run. Is this photo of my mom with Elton John that fell out of a book I was putting away meant to snap your neck? It is.

A clip from yesterday’s piece, “The Accountants”:

What you do not know when taking over the affairs of a loved one with dementia: the people your loved one has dealt with are fitting you with a jacket they’ve been making, sometimes for decades. Maybe its contours have your mother’s trusting nature. Maybe they count on family members confusing the situation and using this confusion to their advantage. Bill paying services, reverse mortgages, life-alert lanyards, things meant to provide security come with a complementary clarion call: “We’ve got an old one here, we have someone who is susceptible.”

I’ve been told that some people, women especially, feel they have to be nice, to not speak up, to not make waves. I am not one of these women.

I also do I forget to pay bills, including, in January 2023, getting a sweep from my mother’s investments into her checking, in order that I could pay her land taxes. When I checked her banking, to make sure the money had hit, I saw there had been a $25,000 check written, wiping out the account. The check was in three different people’s hands: my mother’s signature, someone writing in her name, another the amount. Aside from my mother’s, I did not recognize any of the handwriting, and the only clue I had as to where it was deposited was a generic banking stamp on the back...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Narrating “Musings of the Night Nurse” pieces the day-after they run.

The opening of yesterday’s “The Wanderings”:

“A weird thing happened to me today,” your mother tells you over the phone, and goes on to explain how she got up that morning, got dressed and, as she had just about every morning since moving to Brooklyn Heights in 1963, went out to grab The New York Times.

“But it was still dark out,” she said, and she thought this was kind of strange, seeing as it was 10:30 in the morning. Nevertheless she continued the four blocks to Montague Street, thinking it would be light by the time she reached the paper stand.

“And there really weren’t any people on the street,” she says, sounding completely chill as she comes to what she thinks is the punchline.

“It turned out it was 10:30 at night,” she says. “Isn’t that funny?”…

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Taking a page from my pal Ethan Strauss over at House of Strauss and narrating published pieces the day-after they run. Yesterday’s article is here.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Remember 2020, when the narrative about the George Floyd/BLM protests became so much Silly Putty in the hands of the media, don’t believe your lyin’ eyes and all that?

Chelly Boufferache, known on social media as Hunnybadgermom, remembers it well, both as a longtime Portland resident distressed by what was happening to a city she loved, and as a photographer/videographer watching the chaos night after night after night. (NB: I shot the three videos below; any crappy quality is mine!)

Chelly and I reported together many of those nights. We were tear-gassed, had our equipment swiped, were surrounded by people in black bloc hissing, “We know who you are.” We watched the federal building be molested over and over and over.

We saw an untold number dumpsters on fire, marched with young men toting rifles, kicked through a metric ton of broken glass.

We chronicled the LARPing as it turned to murder, and saw people celebrate that murder. It was an electric time to be reporting, the friction partially due to the pushback both Chelly and I received for telling the story as we found it, which was that nearly all the violence at that time was coming from the left, which, with a heavy assist from the media, was constructing and controlling the narrative.

As I state in the intro, Chelly is a conservative. She is pro law-and-order and a Trump supporter, and could easily go all-in on the new narrative the president desires and kindles: that the 2025 protests in front of Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility - and the city itself - is “a war zone” in need of heavy federal incursion. Has the Trump administration had a difficult time finding useful idiots to spread that narrative? It has not. Readers here know my position on some of the self-described “investigative reporters” shining their star with clumps of manure…

But you may be surprised to hear Chelly — who’s embedded with some of the more-favored pro-ICE reporters as well as ICE itself — call these people out:

I hope you’ll stick around and listen to the audio, where Chelly and I get to tell some war stories, including the time the guy yelling at me here swung the metal rod at my head, just after Chelly shot this clip.

Make More Pie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Journalist Susan Orlean (who has a new memoir coming out!) once said something like, “If I didn’t have a deadline, my spice drawer would never be organized.” And I am on a deadline! But I also watched a few videos last night on Narcissistic Personality Disorder, both because I am narrating a new series called “The Sociopaths Among Us” (three episodes so far: Intro, Candace Owens, Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome), as well as for my own edification, having to deal, as I do, with someone with NPD on a semi-regular basis.

Before we get to that, here are some of the disorder’s characteristics, from the Mayo Clinic:

* Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.

* Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.

* Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements.

* Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.

* Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.

* Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.

* Take advantage of others to get what they want.

* Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.

* Be envious of others and believe others envy them.

* Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.

* Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office.

As I say in the video, I have been dealing with someone I’ll call “Gary,” who displays all of these, for decades. This has at times been taxing, albeit you learn over the years how not to engage (this, because it will always always always cost you if you do), or not beyond what is needed to protect your loved ones and yourself.

While looking for a documentary about NPD, I came across Mel Robbins on YouTube. Oof she has a lot of videos, I only watched one in its entirety, but I found the tips useful. This, because the goal of people with NPD is to unseat you, to drag you into whatever drama they deem to be useful to them. Note this need not have any basis in reality, anyway, a few of those tips include, when the person poses the current inanity, “You’re entitled to your opinion” or to just stay silent. I can tell you from experience - and relay several stories in the video - this drives them bonkers.

I have a years-long file on Gary’s misadventures, maybe I’ll write a novel about it at some point, until then…