Ben Dreyfuss

United States

Editorial Director at Mother Jones

Founder at Calm Down

subscribe to my substack CALM DOWN. It's about politics and stuff.

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Articles

The greatest trick Nathan Fielder ever pulled

4 weeks ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

In the finale of HBO’s second season of The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder drops a bombshell with his trademark deadpan delivery: over the past two years, he has secretly trained to become certified to fly a Boeing 737, crowning himself “the least experienced 737-rated pilot in North America.” He has committed to The Bit™ more than anyone has ever committed to bits.
American Life Is Wonderful. People Just Spend Too Much Time Online.

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

A few days ago, I posted a tweet that made the rounds. It pointed out how half the posts online describe an almost unimaginably high level of comfort—job, house, spouse, kids, bulk goods at wholesale prices—and then conclude: “but it sucks.”And listen, I’ve seen the movies from the late ’90s. I know what the disaffection genre looks like. But what’s going on now is different. It’s louder. Angrier. Less coherent. It doesn’t seem to want anything—except to feel something.
There is no "real" you. There is only you, for better or worse.

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

One of my favorite poets is Robert Lowell, and one of my favorite Robert Lowell lines isn’t from one of his poems at all. It’s from a letter he sent Elizabeth Bishop from a mental institution in 1958:“Talking about the past is like a cat’s trying to explain how it climbed down a ladder.”It’s one of those lines that gets lodged in your brain and stays there long after you’ve forgotten the context.
Happy Mother's Day To All Moms But Especially My Mom

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

I had always wanted to be a mother. It’s the first thing I said to your dad. We met at a party in LA in February, 1983. I was a producer at CBS. “What do you want to do with your career at CBS?” he asked me. And I said, “Nothing, I want to get married and have children.” And he said, “Me too. Let’s get married.” And we got married like one month later and now we have you three kids. If we hadn’t been this crazy, you guys wouldn’t exist! So be nice to the baby boomer generation.
We're Cannibals-But We Only Eat Each Other

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

A rule about families is that when you’re arguing about something, you’re probably arguing about something else. The fight is rarely about the thing—it’s about everything beneath it. In theater, this often manifests as a character arriving from outside the family whose presence sets off a cascade of conflicts rooted in the family’s own dysfunction. But these stories aren’t just about families.
Every 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Is Stupid-Except For This One I Just Came Up With

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

The stupidest people in the world are 9/11 truthers. They’ve had twenty-four years to come up with a theory for why the U.S. government would have orchestrated 9/11, and they still haven’t produced one that makes sense. The classic version is that George W. Bush wanted to go to war in the Middle East. But if that were true, he could’ve just… gone to war in the Middle East. The U.S. had just wrapped up a popular and successful intervention in Kosovo.
Every 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Is Stupid-Except For This One I Just Came Up With

1 month ago | open.substack.com | Ben Dreyfuss

The stupidest people in the world are 9/11 truthers. They’ve had twenty-four years to come up with a theory for why the U.S. government would have orchestrated 9/11, and they still haven’t produced one that makes sense. The classic version is that George W. Bush wanted to go to war in the Middle East. But if that were true, he could’ve just… gone to war in the Middle East. The U.S. had just wrapped up a popular and successful intervention in Kosovo.
The Political Lesson Of Trump's Second First Hundred Days

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

As of this week, Donald Trump is less popular at this point in his second term than he was at the same point in his first — despite starting this term with his highest approval ratings ever. In his first term, Trump began unpopular, slipped a little further, and then plateaued. This time, he had a running start — and still, he’s falling. Why? It’s not because Democrats marched in the streets or flooded Twitter with outrage. It’s because they didn’t.
RE: Easter, I Know Eggs Are Expensive, But So Is Going To Hell

2 months ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

Today is Good Friday, the day when we mourn the death of a nice young Jewish man who was viciously murdered by naughty Romans for the crime of having long hair and falling in love with a prostitute. Or was he? Like so many other European initiatives, the attempt to kill Jesus was a failure. They sealed up his body in a cave, but three days later, he came out alive—because you can’t keep a good Jew down! This is the origin of both Christianity and the Italian reputation for shoddy engineering.
RE: Easter, I Know Eggs Are Expensive, But So Is Going To Hell

2 months ago | open.substack.com | Ben Dreyfuss

Today is Good Friday, the day when we mourn the death of a nice young Jewish man who was viciously murdered by naughty Romans for the crime of having long hair and falling in love with a prostitute. Or was he? Like so many other European initiatives, the attempt to kill Jesus was a failure. They sealed up his body in a cave, but three days later, he came out alive—because you can’t keep a good Jew down! This is the origin of both Christianity and the Italian reputation for shoddy engineering.