Lucas Schaefer
@LucasESchaefer
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Writer/talker. Debut novel THE SLIP coming from @simonbooks (June 3, 2025). Rep: @CRSRipley
Austin, Texas
Joined October 2012
My novel THE SLIP is coming 6/3/25 from @SimonBooks. It’s a big Texas novel about a missing teenage boy and cases of mistaken & fluid identity and the transformative power of boxing, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Please consider preordering today! 🥊
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If the College Board is going to distort history to appease right-wing activists maybe colleges and universities should think twice about accepting APs as credit.
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Literally my entire life there has been the "We should sacrifice the civil rights of an entire demographic to appeal to imaginary conservative white voters" brigade, and in addition to being morally repugnant it doesn't work!.
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If you’re a little worried your power might go out any time it dips below 30 degrees you don’t need a generator, you need a new governor.
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Not to pick on national media but the fact that every time it dips below 32 degrees Texans need to prep survival kits because of Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP’s colossal incompetence and laziness seems like it should be a bigger deal.
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I know we're all supposed to say this happens every time, and we get our hopes up, and Democrats can't win etc etc etc but. only one person is actually campaigning to be governor of Texas at the moment and his name is @BetoORourke.
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If your only education is DeSantis-approved far-right propaganda you haven’t received an education and you shouldn’t get credit for one.
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I have a story coming out soon that was rejected 86 times over five years. But you know what they say in the writing world: 87th time's the charm!.
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If you can't keep the power on you don't belong in power.
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If you hate Texas cities and hate immigrants to Texas and hate trans Texans and hate Texas librarians and hate Texans who don’t pray like you do and hate Texas public schools and hate Texas women, maybe the person who hates Texas is you.
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The people who fought for Prop B will now go silent, offering zero plan, zero ideas, and zero concern for people they had no concern for in the first place.
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Is Greg Abbott aware who the current governor of Texas is?.
Democrat @BetoORourke is set to speak in Austin momentarily, and @GregAbbott_TX’s campaign was on the ground distributing these *empty* pill bottles…before being escorted from the event.
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Why is Susan Collins fine having her constituents pay $1000 for insulin? Why is Lisa Murkowski? Why is this never asked of them?.
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What great brain came up with the idea that in politics - you know, where the idea is to get the most people to vote for you - you're supposed to subtract real people from your coalition in order to appeal to ones who don't exist.
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If your electricity goes out today it's not because of trans kids, immigrant kids, someone getting an abortion, antifa, the caravan, or anyone else the Texas GOP has been shrieking about for years. It's because of Greg Abbott, the failed leader of a failed state. Vote him out.
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Something we learn during any crisis in Texas is that Greg Abbott’s only skill is winning elections.
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I wanted to write a novel about the wild and expansive city I moved to 16 years ago, a place that is always (and never!) changing. Can’t wait to share my debut novel THE SLIP and introduce you to the Austin I know.
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I don’t know what to say about @GregAbbott_TX anymore other than that he is perfectly willing to see Texans freeze to death, Texans die of Covid or good Texas parents locked up for protecting their own children if he thinks it’ll help him hold power.
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Not a professional operative here, but imo the Democratic establishment would do well to harness our justifiable white-hot fury rather than telling everyone to calm down.
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The shooting in Austin would’ve happened if police had their current budget or ten times their budget, and the people who tell you otherwise are voting to flood our streets with guns despite those same police repeatedly saying that makes their job more dangerous.
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Beto's prez run hit some off-notes but I think the real reason pundits don't like him is because he seems more interested in listening to constituents than he is in listening to them.
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I realize people see Austin as basically summer camp and that I risk sounding fuddy-duddy-ish, but can we agree that electric scooters do not belong on frontage roads?!?.
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I enjoy my 40s. It is writing. It is being a little bit cranky. It is wearing a speedo to the pool and a headband to the gym. It is having young people think you're sort of old and old people kind of wanting to hang out. It's solid.
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In this country too many people believe a white guy being an asshole is a sign he’s a genius and not a sign he’s an asshole.
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Republicans gerrymandered Travis County so that 5 of our 6 members of Congress are Republicans. We voted for Biden +45. If you are waiting for Republicans to get on board with undoing a maneuver that gives them disproportionate power you’re going to wait forever.
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Instead of encouraging trans kids to leave Texas, please encourage everyone you know to understand that the governor is using children to distract from the fact that he did everything he could to fatten the pockets of power companies as his constituents froze to death.
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My 3 am hot take is that people who say “Austin isn’t Texas” have never dealt with red state infrastructure nor with a state government that sees its city dwellers suffering as a major win and does what it can to facilitate it.
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Cashier at Home Depot reminding everyone to vote. Phamaracist at CVS saw our “I Voted” stickers and shared her voting plan (tomorrow). There’s an energy guys. Something’s happening in Texas.
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Texas is too big to be represented by people this small.
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@chrislhayes Yes why is mild Democratic grandstanding a worse offense than unapologetic GOP corruption and a total lack of transparency?.
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As Austin moves into Stage 5, a reminder that local leaders were doing all the right things until Greg Abbott's order superseded theirs (while GOP charlatans cheered).
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Not-born-in-Austin man, currently not living in Austin, vows to "take Austin back" from duly elected Austinites on the Austin City Council, a body he'd never run for because he doesn't live in Austin and would get his butt kicked by the voters of Austin, where he doesn't live.
It’s time to take Austin back from the radical marxists.
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Interesting how whenever there’s a crisis in any blue city in Texas we suddenly don’t have a governor.
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Honestly would be thrilled if the Democrats brought a knife to a gunfight instead of their usual weapon of choice: an etiquette handbook.
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Never slight a child! They forget nothing!. 3.5 years ago I taught a class on writing ghost stories and, to my horror, lost a 4th grader's story after taking it home to give her comments. I recently saw that same child, now in 7th grade, who greeted me with, "Find my story yet?".
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For @slate I wrote about how gerrymandering ensured that not all Austinites got the representation they needed during last week’s deadly freeze.
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You’d think if people literally froze to death in your state due to the incompetence and corruption of that state, and you were in the state legislature, you might, like, I dunno, look into it?.
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Since Elise Stefanik is apparently such a vigorous opponent of antisemitism I look forward to journalists asking her about GOP efforts to ban Anne Frank in schools and why she's said never said a word about the white supremacists infesting her party.
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If you need more proof we're living in actual Hell: Schlitterbahn is currently open. Schlitterbahn is currently open.
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It would be nice if Democrats ran against this toxic and unpopular bullshit instead of pretending the Republican Party is something other than what it is.
The new Texas Republican party platform calls homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” says President Biden "was not legitimately elected," and says Texas students should “learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child.”
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My county voted for Joe Biden by 45 points and I have a Republican congressman.
Say you live in Austin without saying you live in Austin.
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@davidaxelrod @BarackObama @POTUS Oh please. After everything John Lewis has done for this country are we really reprimanding him for not sitting politely for Donald Trump?.
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@JohnJHarwood @NPR Isn't the problem that guys like Thune see the "family" as their party and not the country?.
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Packing the court was stopping Garland and forcing in Kavanaugh and Barrett. Adding justices to actually represent the American people would be unpacking.
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Good idea from husband: if you live in condo/apartment complex with community bulletin board, print out early voting info, noting closest polling place. Complexes are often overlooked during canvasses and lit drops!!
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Living in Texas means getting a “you guys ok?” text from a friend out of state and realizing she could mean like 5 different things.
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No sadder demographic than Gen X Republican men who are obsessed with AOC.
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If your city has 97% voter registration, 70% turnout, a 34% increase in turnout in 4 years, goes by 45 points for Biden and is represented by five members of Congress, four of whom are far-right Republicans. you’re not living in a representative democracy.
Biggest turnout increases (from '16 to '20):. 1. Austin, TX (+34%).2. Honolulu, HI (+34%).3. Palm Springs, CA (+32.6%).4. Phoenix, AZ (+31.7%).5. San Antonio, TX (+29.85%).6. Salt Lake City, UT (+29%).
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We were not meant to know this many of each other’s actual thoughts.
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No one says “don’t politicize a tragedy” with the vigor of those politicians who enabled it.
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Are we going to find out that George Santos is cake?.
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Um sorry but “Yes this was a scene from the Holocaust but my objection is to the nudity”. does not make seem you less irredeemable.
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Those advocating for Prop B don’t object to the fact that their fellow citizens are without homes. They don’t object to homelessness; they object to seeing it. I’ll be voting no and hope you do the same.
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The same Texas pols arguing "Austin is a dystopian hellhole" keep bragging about companies moving to. Austin. Got it!.
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The TX freeze resulted in dozens *freezing to death* 2 months ago. Almost 50,000 Texans dead of COVID. Both due largely to GOP incompetence. And the lazy grifters of the TX GOP are vilifying trans kids w/the 4 months out of every 2 years they bother to legislate.
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All I can say as I'm out and about Austin is I sincerely hope there isn't a relationship between developing whatever big ideas are being discussed today and successfully operating an electric scooter.
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one gets the sense if we passed a law that says it's illegal to tie a plastic bag around your head and keep it that way for three minutes we'd be rid of a solid portion of these people within a couple hours.
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@ambernoelle As a child I wrote to PBS to get a transcript of the American Experience episode on the Donner Party 😭.
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Save Austin from Save Austin Now. Now. No on Prop A.
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As a young 20something I had Taibbi, Sullivan, Bill Maher on the bookshelf and think we can retire idea that they’ve “changed” for the worse. Some of us just developed critical thinking skills and met enough jackasses in the wild to recognize them more easily on the page.
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New Texas game: random deeply disturbed racist or county GOP chair?.
racist lunatic with a chainsaw in texas shouting the n-word and insisting antifa is the problem. i'm convinced.
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When an arsonist attacked a synagogue in Austin, Chip said nothing. When his supporters tried to run his opponent off the road, he said nothing. When 700 Texans froze to death, he did nothing. You want evil, @chiproytx? Look in the mirror.
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Under Texas GOP leadership 90,000 dead to Covid, 100s frozen to death because they couldn’t keep the lights on, regular school shootings and their response is, “Actually his name is Robert Francis.” They deserve as much civility as they display: none.
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One thing I like about Beto (also true for AOC): one of few Dems with nat’l platform whose level of public fury matches the moment.
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A feeling: Austin, Texas is flying a little close to the sun.
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The greatest lie the movies ever told was that the world’s villains are smart and interesting.
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Hot take: corporate social media accounts that try to position their brands as witty and inclusive while donating to the worst people in the world are bad.
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If you’re in a blue state watching Texas GOP tear our representative democracy apart I hope you are on your senators 24-7 pressuring them to kill filibuster and pass For the People. 🙏.
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Proponents of the camping ban have no interest in ending homelessness, they have an interest in not seeing it.
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@davidaxelrod @BarackObama @POTUS Also, sitting out in protest and shouting "You lie" in the middle of a speech do not strike me as equivalent.
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Thanks to @statesman for publishing my letter. @Kopser4Congress, @CollierForTexas, and @NelsonforTexas have made clear they’re ready to debate. Where are the Republicans? #WhenIsTheDebate
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If we're funding religious schools what venue do we have to complain about what they're teaching? . If private school parents can scream at public school board meetings surely there should be some way for taxpayers to comment on the curriculums they're forced to fund.
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Curious what would happen if prominent authors with seemingly endless time to pontificate about “cancel culture” focused their efforts on the books literally being canceled in schools across the country.
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@sarahemclaugh With three days off that’s plenty of time for the kids to visit with their representatives and educate them on why they walked out in the first place.
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If Prop A goes down (fingers crossed) maybe one lesson could be that when the right-wing attacks, rather than twisting yourself into a pretzel to seem appropriately "moderate" it's more effective to simply call lies lies and explain the truth.
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No one has thinner skin than Texas Republicans. Any minor challenge to their alleged authority and they turn hysterical every single time, and it is political malpractice not to set these forever-aggrieved losers off as much as humanly possible.
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I mean as an adult I’m not especially keen to go roaring into a school board meeting in a lather but if the right wing is going to scream books out of our public schools we might need to go scream back?.
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Curious what percentage of the senators deciding if dental coverage is important are still operating with their original teeth.
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As a person who has spent a regrettable amount of time “in dialogue” with the right I assure you: whatever energy you expend engaging bad faith actors in their bad faith arguments could be better spent working to kick em out in 2020.
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Sort of seems like it couldn’t have been worse actually.
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If you can’t keep the power on you don’t belong in power.
A group that oversees the reliability of the nation’s electrical sector says Texas is again at risk of blackouts this winter if it gets hit with extreme weather like the catastrophic February storm that buckled the state’s electricity grid.
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Corporations gleefully cutting employees hours to zero while not firing them so they can't go on unemployment but yes I'm sure they'll do the right thing if we give them wide latitude and promise not to hold them accountable.
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If everyone is collectively assuming glass shattering at the mall is a mass shooting maybe it means we have too many guns.
UPDATE: APD says no guns were fired at Barton Creek Mall tonight. Glass shattering may have been mistaken for gunshots.
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What Greg Abbott is doing at UT is the Republican plan for everyone everywhere all the time, and if you're an elected Democrat who isn't speaking out against it, you're part of the problem, too.
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Texas would be in a much better place if our leadership spent one tenth of the time fighting for Texans that they do shrieking about California.
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This man also used more water than any other resident in the entire city a couple years ago. Like, in all of Austin. Wasteful, selfish, zero regard for those around him, and has always been like this.
Republican Rep @McCaulforTexas @RepMcCaul REFUSING 2wear a MANDATED mask on our IAD-AUS flight despite being asked THREE TIMES by flight attendant b4 we have even left gate. Walking around w/o mask bc he thinks rules don’t apply 2him. VOTE HIM OUT! @SiegelForTexas @HouseMajPAC
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Given that Texas Republicans have spent the last year vilifying trans children and threatening their parents, if they think the major issue here is "bullying" the first step they can take to address it is to resign.
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Stop saying “moderate” when you mean “catering to only white voters”.
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Bickering couples in airports are the best. Just overheard: “I’d speak to you in a more pleasant tone, DAVID, if my ass wasn’t fully numb.”.
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The news out of @UTAustin really bums me out. There’s nothing the Texas GOP won’t ruin if given the opportunity.
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The Dan Patrick thing - in addition to being racist and factually incorrect - is a good reminder that Texas Republicans believe their job is to represent people who voted for them and do nothing for/punish anyone who didn’t.
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Love seeing the reverent WW2 tweets from the guys who screech “America First,” the same slogan as the people who. didn’t want to enter WW2.
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The only thing I know about marriage for sure is however loudly you think you can yell “What?” when your husband is telling you something from another room you’ll learn you can yell louder.
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Austin has changed in some good ways and some bad ways since I moved here 15 years ago but I have zero doubt Prop A will alter Austin forever, and for the worse. If you haven’t voted, vote Tuesday and say no #NoWayPropA.
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