A New Challenge

Hi friend,

We are entering a new era, and what is to come is anyone’s guess. If the events of the past decade or so have taught us anything, it’s that predicting the future is a fool’s errand. All we can tell you for sure is that And Just Like That will return, and lots of people will watch it, no matter how bizarre it will be.

But Sean Monahan, the trend forecaster who called the rise of “normcore” and 2022’s “vibe shift,” isn’t afraid to look into his 8 Ball (the name of his newsletter, btw) to tell us what he anticipates in 2025. 

His first observation is that immersive online worlds where users gather – of the sort that tech founders like Mark Zuckerberg envisioned with the Metaverse – have failed to become widely adopted. Yes, this is obvious. We crave in-person socializing, and are preoccupied with the challenge of making and maintaining friendships as adults. The Atlantic’s been on this beat for a while; the lead story of their February 2025 issue is about isolation and what it’s doing to all of us.

Monahan says people are responding to this by joining clubs. Elite, private social clubs, but also running clubs, book clubs, and dinner clubs. 

“There remains a missing middle though: clubs organized into chapters with a national presence,” he writes. “In 2025, we’ll see more attempts at either reviving older national clubs or building new ones. It’s a tradition so old de Tocqueville noted our ubiquitous associations in Democracy in America (1835, 1840). It waned. Now, there is a concerted effort to make it wax again.”

There’s more in there, including a fun, bullet-point “misc” list at the end. However, we thought his first prediction was notable because it felt similar to the advice given by this week’s interviewee about running for office: go local, get involved in your community, build connections in person with your neighbors, etc. 

Will local clubs of a political persuasion become a thing? Social media has proven an imperfect medium for political conversations, after all. With platforms either vanishing (TikTok, maybe), transforming, or inundated with AI-generated content, meeting IRL to talk about tricky topics will be more appealing than sitting at home on your phone. Well, we can hope.

Bye,
Your friends at Gloria

Running for office always seemed like a thing that other people did, and I had no idea how they accomplished it. I always thought these people were lawyers, or from families where one or more of their parents were also politicians. But what about us normies? What is the best way to get your start, particularly if you are starting from scratch? 

I phoned Adrienne Martini, a Gloria reader who ran for local office and won (and ended up writing a book about her experience), to ask her all the questions that I, a total beginner, want to know the answers to. The resulting interview is for fellow beginner types. 

When you decide to run for elected office, how do you pick or find what you want to run for?

I have been on the Otsego County board for seven years. I ran right after the 2016 elections as a total newbie because I was just filled with rage. I called the Democratic party chair and said, What can I do? I expected the answer to be, You can give us money, you can make phone calls. But the answer was, You could run for office. With local offices, the barrier to entry is really, really low. It varies by state, but with New York, you just need to collect 20 signatures on a petition and your local party, whatever party you're part of and reach out to, will walk you through what you need to do.

There are usually hundreds of local offices up for grabs and nobody runs for them. Like your county level, city level, village level.

So the first step, if you decide you want to run for something on a local level, is trying to find out who your local party representative is.

Yes, and usually they're organized by county. They will help you figure out the bureaucratic hurdles.

If you don't want to go that route, there are national groups. Amanda Litman runs one called Run for Something. She is all about getting people into local office and will get you started. 

What else did you have to do, aside from the petition?

It varies by state, but in New York, to get on the ballot, I have to get a small number of signatures on a specific piece of paper, turn it in by the right time, and then I was on the ballot. Then you get to the actual campaigning. 

That’s a matter of just getting in contact with voters and making sure they know who you are. It depends on the size of the district. Your party, or an organization like Run for Something, can help you through it.

I can walk my entire county board district and go door-to-door in two days or something like that. It's very small.

If you're in a city and running for a city-wide seat, that can be more challenging. But most of the time these are tiny offices.

What kind of events did you need to do?

For a local office, I went door-to-door. Now that I've been in office, people know who I am and it's not as strenuous. Running for the New York State Assembly, which is a much larger district and a state-level seat, was a larger lift. I spent every waking hour for about seven months talking about myself, driving from place to place to talk more about myself, to talk about local government, to talk about what this district faces. An upstate district or a central New York district is a lot different from downstate or other places. By the end of it, I was very tired of myself, and just tired in general.

What resonated with people?

Housing in rural areas. We are facing a big crunch. Addiction issues. Rural healthcare systems – they're kind of falling apart and that's a big issue. It's all the nitty-gritty stuff. And that's also what's happening with local offices. We're the ones who make sure when it snows, your street gets plowed. That is not a partisan issue. Is your trash collected? That kind of stuff. I never thought I would know as much about culverts as I do now. 

These are things I did not know going in. They are learnable. If you have the slightest amount of curiosity, you will learn this stuff.

You have to be willing to ask questions. And the guy who handles the culverts really wants to talk about culverts. Most people are more than happy to tell you what it is that they do. 

I requested to sit on a committee that oversees the Board of Health because I understand infectious diseases and rabies. These are things I can wrap my head around quickly. But when they start talking about new snowplows and trucks, I can feel my eyes glaze over. 

When you decided to run, did you know anyone who had done this before?

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TO STREAM This week brings the much-anticipated return of Severance, the bingeable Apple TV+ sci-fi thriller, as well as the premiere of the inspirational tear-jerker Unstoppable (out on Prime Video), a telling of how wrestler Anthony Robles, who was born with one leg, won an NCAA wrestling title. 

TO TRY This Women's Hormone Health Superpowder by Beam is an incredible women's health shortcut. Glow features 18 active ingredients designed to support common fluctuations in metabolism, immune function, energy levels, collagen production, and more. Their 24 hour sale is now live, so you can give Glow a try and get up to 40 percent off using our link. #partner

TO MAKE This pretty, easy, and elegant salad is a perfect way to enjoy winter greens like chicory. The dressing is versatile, too.

TO LISTEN Apparently, 4 Non Blondes will be performing together for the first time in 30 years this spring. We learned this factoid and more from this podcast interview with lead singer Linda Perry.

TO WATCH Now in theaters, the buddy comedy One of Them Days (starring Keke Palmer and SZA) looks fun and silly, and it’s stuffed with big-name guest stars.

“What my friend Charlotte wore to a murder trial.” • This wild story about high school cyberbullying has so many twists and turns. • How Glossier mounted a comeback. • Love this look back at how one decade changed fitness forever. • A survivor of the 2023 Lahaina fire in Maui shares her tips on recovery.

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