The Best Splinter Stories of 2018

By Splinter | December 24, 2018 | 5:00pm

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Illustration:Angelica Alzona/Jim Cooke (GMG)

2018 was a bad year. But, thanks to Splinter’s exceptional staff, these stories made it better.

How to Not Die in America

When people refer to me as a “survivor,” which they do often, they’re correct, but it’s not what they think it means: It has already been decided, especially now that it’s again fashionable to claim that healthcare is not a right, who is a designated survivor in this country. It has also been decided who is not. Read more.

I’m Everything This Administration Hates

I’m a queer feminine boy with a soft voice who has sort of benefited from the Affordable Care Act. And I’m undocumented. Read more.

Remember Who Michael Wolff Is

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House will probably sell bigly. But I implore you all, before latching onto the sort of two-scoops-of-ice-cream anecdotes that have inspired many a tweeted screenshot, to consider the source: the same Trumpian gremlin who’s often been admonished for the very same brand of writing over the past two decades. Read more.

Alamo Drafthouse’s Long History of Minimizing Sexual Assault and Harassment

More than a dozen people spoke to Splinter about negative experiences at the theater that included its leadership minimizing allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment—at the hands of favored customers, high- and low-level employees, and business partners. Read more.

The Teacher Who Taught His Students to Challenge the NRA on the Day They Lost 17 of Their Own

Foster teaches AP Government all day: It’s the only subject he teaches. He had taught this particular special interest lesson four times by the time the gunman started shooting. Read more.

If You Truly Care About Speech, You Will Invite Me to Your Office to Personally Call You a Dipshit

Civil society requires the toleration of the expression of opposing viewpoints, no matter how personally discomforting you may find them. Therefore, it would be profoundly hypocritical for the editorial staff of the New York Times opinion section not to immediately invite me to come to their offices to call them all morons and trolls. Read more.

Meet Eddie Eagle, the NRA’s Ineffective Approach to Gun Safety for Children

Eddie Eagle turns gun control into something more like impulse control. It’s a demonstrably ineffective and reckless approach to child safety, which, since it comes from the NRA, is perhaps no surprise. Read more.

I Infiltrated the White House Easter Egg Roll and All I Got Was Played

So how did I find myself shivering outside the White House on a frigid Monday in April, volunteering for the White House Easter Egg Roll? The answer is one part luck, and nine parts sheer stupidity. Read more.

From Dawn ‘Til Dusk With James Comey’s Biggest Fans

My fellow line-standers were well-meaning, if a little too forgiving of the American intelligence community’s myriad crimes, and perhaps too excited to take selfies with a poster of Comey’s face hanging lifelessly in the store window. Read more.

We Asked Every U.S. Senator About Israel Killing 17 Palestinians and Shooting Hundreds More

While protests in Gaza are common, it’s rare for them to end with so many injured and dead. U.S. leaders have remained nearly universally silent on the issue. Read more.

‘It’s Always There’: Going Back to Columbine 19 Years Later

During my quick visit home, it became clear that while for the rest of the world Columbine remains the symbol of school shootings, for the members of the community that legacy is far more complex—especially for students like Adams and Tyner who weren’t even alive when Columbine happened, but have never lived in a world where shootings were not a common occurrence weaved in and out of day-to-day lives. Read more.

‘Unfuckable’ Women Don’t Go on Killing Sprees

This core belief that loneliness and sexual dissatisfaction are a uniquely male proposition helps to justify the vitriol and occasional violence that men in this community unleash in the direction of women. And yet it’s a belief that’s entirely baseless. Read more.

Elaine Chao Is a Stealth American Nightmare

One Trump official has largely avoided the furor other cabinet members have faced—Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. Read more.

Home Depot Employees Are Hot, Thirsty, Harassed, and Poor

The next time you go shopping in the big orange hardware store, take a moment to consider what these employees have to say about what life is really like working for Home Depot. Read more.

Chuck Schumer Is Not Cutting It

If the Democratic Party ever manages to win back the U.S. Senate, it’ll be in spite of Chuck Schumer’s political instincts. Read more.

D.C.’s Biggest Homeless Shelter Is About to Close. Will Amazon Take Its Place?

This is what happens when poor families living on public land are pushed out the back door, while powerful corporate interests are invited in for dinner. Read more.

Sex? Or the City?

Imagine this: Sex? Or the City? You can’t have both and you have to choose. Read more.

In Academia, Professors Coming On to You Is on the Syllabus

In academia, crossing boundaries and exploiting power dynamics—the stuff that has gotten important men fired, ostracized, and otherwise removed from their positions in other industries—usually doesn’t raise any flags at all. But it’s starting to. Read more.

Here’s Stephen Miller’s Cell Phone Number, If You Need It

The Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families has been credited primarily to the strenuous efforts of White House adviser Stephen Miller. Perhaps you would like to call him about it. Read more.

Tear It All Down

When a system can be tipped so easily into such extremes of cruelty, maybe it is time to get rid of that system. Read more.

This Is Just the Beginning

When you aggressively fuck with people’s lives, you should not be surprised when they decide to fuck with yours. Read more.

This Is How We Win

Last night, Ocasio-Cortez showed the path forward for Democrats. Read more.

Illustration:Jim Cooke/GMG (Photo: Shutterstock

Here Are Some Nuclear Takes from Bryan Goldberg, the Self-Satisfied Shitlord Who Now Owns Gawker.com

Goldberg, who won the bidding by spending a reported $1.35 million, is the founder of Bleacher Report, the only site to ever successfully underestimate the intelligence of sports fans, and Bustle, the only site ever created about women’s issues. He is also, evidently, someone who has many spicy Facebook takes. Read more.

State of the Nation

A five-part series about North Carolina’s pivotal role in American history. Read more.

Illustration:Jim Cooke/GMG (Photos: Getty

The Myth of John McCain

There were always two John McCains: the vision of a selfless, honorable statesman who wasn’t afraid to fight the establishment, and the one that the rest of us actually got, which was none of those things. Read more.

A Cursed Tour Through the World of Trump Administration Fan Art

I spent a few toxic, ill-advised hours wading into the waters of the community built up around Trump administration fan art on the site and I’ll never be the same. Read more.

The Burden of Bravery

I am tired of women having to be brave. I am tired of women having to be as strong as Christine Ford. I am just tired. Read more.

Elizabeth Warren’s Deception

Warren’s video and subsequent release of her DNA report was a disgrace, a vicious rejection of Native sovereignty, and, more than anything, completely foreseeable. Read more.

Mike Pence’s Appearance With a Messianic Rabbi Was Fucking Infuriating

Short of, I dunno, offering a Nazi salute I guess, it’s probably the most offensive thing Pence could have possibly done in the days following the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. Read more.

Bat

Things are pretty bad right now, but at least there is this bat. Read more.

Access Journalism Must Die

Access journalism isn’t just promising a subject a puff piece in return for access. It can be much more subtle than that. If you’re really good at it, your subjects won’t even have to ask if your piece will be gentle with them because they know it will. Read more.

SPECIAL MENTION: Univision Is A Fucking Mess

This is the story of how corporate raiding, complacency, excess, and incompetence are gutting a media company that matters to tens of millions of people. Read more.