The Week In Recommendations 11.13.24

Post-election analysis and coping mechanisms, cozy TV and movies, and our retail therapy picks.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was a post-election processing sesh. An episode about the Netflix’s “Hot Frosty” is coming on soon! Rich Text is a reader-supported project.

Claire has been reading… 📖

Gabriel Winant’s Dissent piece on the election, “Exit Right,” which is a scathing indictment not only or even primarily of the Harris campaign’s failures, but of a Democratic Party that he argues has failed in every way to meet the political moment. Where Trump bucks the political elites whom voters have come to distrust and offers a (terrifying) vision of a future America untethered to constricting norms, Democrats have offered only caution, constraint, and a tack toward the right. “Trump has remade the Americans, and to defeat Trumpism requires nothing less than the left doing the same,” Winant writes. “Unfortunately, there’s no reason to think the Democrats are capable of accomplishing this, although the possibilities of doing it by any other means are equally obscure.” Many of us, in different ways, have found that the reelection of Trump feels like the deflating end of something; this essay helped me make sense of why it feels, despite the thin margin by which Trump actually won the popular vote, like the Dems are utterly routed and the war is over. It’s hardly optimistic, but making sense of things can maybe point a way forward.

Before the election, I had begun reading “Enter Ghost” by Isabella Hammad on my dad’s recommendation. It follows Sonia, a frustrated mid-career actress, as she visits her sister Haneen in Haifa. Their family is Palestinian and spent summers there when she was young, but Sonia hasn’t returned to their homeland in many years. Once she arrives, she’s quickly if unenthusiastically drawn into a production of “Hamlet” her sister’s friend is putting on in the West Bank. In her childhood memories and her current experiences of Haifa and the West Bank, a smothering atmosphere of tension and suspicion mingle with constant, visible evidence of violence. And yet where there is life, there is, of course, Shakespeare. I was immediately absorbed by the book, but the election scrambled my brain, so I’ve been reading very little in the past week. I hope to be back with more thoughts when I finish.

Emma has been reading… 📖

David Remnick’s essay in the New Yorker, “It Can Happen Here,” nearly brought me to tears. Trying to wrap my brain around what could be coming over th next few years feels almost too big and too scary to handle, and thus I am trying not to unnecessarily freak myself out in advance. (Doing so only wastes precious energy, and doesn’t make anything even a little bit better.) But I did read Remnick’s sobering take on Trump’s resurgence within the American electorate, and what it could mean for all of us to live under a waning democracy and a rising strongman.

Remnick I think correctly identifies the ways in which our binary political system is broken — “The Republicans, having given themselves over to a cultish obedience to an authoritarian, are morally broken. The Democrats, having failed to respond convincingly to the economic troubles of working people, are politically broken,” he writes. But I was most struck by his assessment of the apathy that can arise under authoritarianism as a survival mechanism, and the ways that we need to steel ourselves to resist that urge:

An American retreat from liberal democracy—a precious yet vulnerable inheritance—would be a calamity. Indifference is a form of surrender. Indifference to mass deportations would signal an abnegation of one of the nation’s guiding promises. Vladimir Putin welcomes Trump’s return not only because it makes his life immeasurably easier in his determination to subjugate a free and sovereign Ukraine but because it validates his assertion that American democracy is a sham—that there is no democracy. All that matters is power and self-interest. The rest is sanctimony and hypocrisy. Putin reminds us that liberal democracy is not a permanence; it can turn out to be an episode.

I also started re-reading Rebecca Yarros’ “Fourth Wing,” because I really needed a fun and propulsive escape to an alternate world through fiction — even if that world is also kinda bleak and violent. (At least it’s properly horny!)

Claire has been watching… 📺

“Abbott Elementary,” a show I’ve fallen pretty far behind on. The election stress seemed to call for a cozy catch-up, so I’m getting into season 3. After watching “English Teacher,” “Abbott” feels different. The two were unfairly compared, and I don’t want to do that here, but it’s also true that they feel similar to watch because of how they mine the everyday indignities of teaching in a public school for comedy. “English Teacher” is about teaching high schoolers, and it’s also a short streaming series; “Abbott” is a network sitcom about elementary school teachers. So it makes sense that where “English Teacher” takes on some more mature subject matter, with a spikier tone, “Abbott” is a bit cozier, and its episode conclusions are a bit tidier, a bit more “and we all learned something today” than “English Teacher.” I find this comforting right now, to be honest. But it’s also a show that’s quite realistic and sharp-eyed about how our government fails kids and teachers, and it’s unfailingly hilarious. Still a great watch, after all these years.

Emma has been watching… 📺

A near-constant stream of made-for-TV holiday movies, because all I want right now is gentle, smooth brain content. It’s my comfort media, and I think a lot of just need comfort right now. I stumbled upon Jamie-Lynn Sigler in “The Christmas Note,” a Hallmark Mysteries movie from a decade ago that is just the right amount of deranged. Hint: It involves secret siblings!

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Ughhhh election postmortems. “Know Your Enemy” and “5-4” both put out episodes that helped me process what happened, what’s coming, and what I’m thinking and feeling about all of it – including why I, like so many of us, am deflated and reluctant to tune back into another Trump presidency. 

Plus, “Bachelor in Retrospect” just started recapping Jillian’s season, which I’ve never watched, and which sounds, frankly, disturbing as hell.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

I stumbled upon “Finding Natasha” in the Wondery app, and I blew through the whole series in a matter of two days. It’s hosted by British journalist Jake Warren, who goes on a mission to find a teenager who saved his mother’s life in Soviet Russia in 1974. His mom traveled to the USSR to study at a ballet school in what used to be Leningrad. But her experience quickly devolved, and she’s been thinking about Natasha, a 19-year-old secretary at the ballet school, ever since. It’s a podcast about the way family traumas impact us, the beauty of connection that transcends borders and language barriers, and, of course, ballet.

I have been feeling anxious just looking at headlines and podcast titles that relate to the election, but I was so grateful that Ezra Klein put out a podcast episode right afterwards. I found his analysis interesting and helpful in wrapping my head around what happened and where we’re at. It’s basically the only election-related media that didn’t make me wish for the sweet release of death.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

My stress reactions have really made themselves clear this week, in a way they haven’t in years. I could barely eat for a few days, and lost all interest in my Sephora sale cart. Then I began to find comfort only in brownies and online shopping. I became obsessively fixated on finding the perfect [insert thing-I-don’t-really-need here], which is a classic expression of my anxiety. As the reality of a Trump administration set in, I became more specifically anxious about tariffs, and began saying things to Greg like, “we need to buy a house/car/phone/four years’ worth of ultra-pasteurized milk before the tariffs come.” This is probably not a productive focus, but suffice to say that I did more shopping this week than I’m proud to admit.

I did finally place that Sephora order, and a separate order of the Tarte maracuja juicy liquid lip when I stumbled across a flash sale. I also finally decided to keep this Christy Dawn Adelia dress I ordered a few weeks ago, because I’m obsessed with it and its sleeves, which have enough puffs to satisfy Anne Shirley herself. Apologies, as always, for the hanging towels in the background and piles of laundry in the foreground.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

I too have been dipping a bit into retail therapy in the wake of the election. Nelle Atelier just launched the barrel jeans of my dreams for petites. I haven’t decided whether I’ll be ordering them in the Kohl or Lapis wash yet, but I know I’ll be grabbing a pair. (And I will report back once they arrive.) The company’s sweet founder, Madeleine, was kind enough to give me a 10% discount code for newsletter subscribers. You can use EMMA10 if you too are a shortie and want to try them. 🤍

Photo Credit: Nelle Atelier

I’m also deep into my search for the perfect dress for the holiday party my friend Liv and I throw every December. (We love sparkles and joy in the face of darkness!) If you also are on the hunt for some holiday season party fits, I’ve been collecting my faves here.

Claire has been making… 🧶

Nothing. We’re ordering pizzas. We’re heating up dino nuggets and frozen sweet potato cubes. We’re dumping jarred sauce on pasta. We’re just trying to get through a week or two. 

Election week coincided with a week and a half of childcare chaos (our preschooler’s public school was closed for ELEVEN straight days, from the Friday before the election to the Monday after). Greg was working around the clock, and my whole body felt like it was shutting down for most of the week, which sounds like an exaggeration but really isn’t – post-election, I was struggling to breathe, incredibly fatigued, nauseated and fuzzy most of the time. So we’re in survival mode, giving ourselves the rare grace to not do much in the getting-a-square-meal-on-the-table department.

Emma has been making… 🧶

A hearty, flavorful, one-pot chicken dinner for me and Adam. It feels good to throw yourself into banal, mind-absorbing tasks right now, and cooking is one of them for me. (I have been oscillating between wanting to cook and wanting to drown myself in a vat of Tostitos queso, both of which feel like valid options.) This week I tried Dan Pelosi’s One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Caramelized Lemon. The recipe was perfect for dinner, and also left us with enough leftovers for the next few days. I also love that it gave me a reason to use my beautiful Great Jones dutch oven, which often just sits dormant on my stovetop as unintentional decor.

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