Around mid-July, a familiar thing happened on social media: an old clip from the Jagannath Rath Yatra in Puri resurfaced and started making its way through feeds, group chats, and story reposts. It was one of those videos you feel you have seen before, maybe from a different year, maybe from a different angle, but it carries the same raw energy each time—massive chariots, thick crowds, the push and pull of devotees straining against thick ropes, the drumbeat of a festival that has moved through the same streets for centuries. The clip felt like a memory, almost timeless, but it…

Let’s be honest: there are plenty of reasons to feel nervous as the midterms barrel toward us. Polls shift, candidates stumble, and the noise on your phone can feel like a thousand people shouting at once. But if you’re looking for the single biggest threat to an informed electorate, you could do worse than to stare directly at the man who owns the world’s most chaotic digital town square. Elon Musk has spent years telling us he bought Twitter—now X—to save free speech and protect democracy. What he’s actually done is turn the platform into a megaphone for whatever political…