The Dictatorship
The cultural phenomenon of Karen Read’s unwavering army of supporters
This week, a Massachusetts jury found Karen Read not guilty in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe. Read was acquitted of manslaughter and second-degree murder charges, but convicted of operating a vehicle under the influence. She was sentenced to one year of probation.
Deeply emotional, Read embraced her attorneys after the verdict was announced in Dedham, Massachusetts. Flashing the American Sign Language sign for “I love you,” she was ensconced in the cheers of hundreds of supporters waiting outside the courthouse. Many Read supporters have been waiting months for this verdict — some since the beginning of Read’s first trial just over a year ago. You could recognize a Read supporter by their signature pink T-shirts, customized baseball caps embroidered with #FKR and their magenta picket signs.
Many Read supporters have been waiting months for this verdict — some since the beginning of Read’s first trial just over a year ago.
That unwavering support is part of what has defined the yearslong legal saga of Karen Read, a single woman with a good job and a strong voice, up against a massive and organized institution. For months now, New Englanders have been able to use Read’s trial as a social barometer: “Are you for or against Karen Read?” The answer — yes or no — carries significant weight.
On Jan. 29, 2022after a blizzard and a night of heavy drinking with friends, Read found O’Keefe’s body lying in his friend’s front yard before the sun even rose. He was dead, bloodied and severely bruised. Read was the primary suspect almost immediately. She was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal crash, manslaughter and, eventually, second-degree murder.
The state argued that a highly intoxicated Read dropped O’Keefe off at a fellow cop’s house, intentionally backed her Lexus SUV into him, and left him to die in the snow. Read’s lawyers contended that she was framed, the fall guy for an insidious, orchestrated cover-up. They argued that O’Keefe died after being beaten inside the house at the hands of the other police officers present, thrown outside and left for dead in the blizzard. The case went to trial for the first time in April 2024. It ended with a hung jury: a failure to acquit or convict Read, after jurors couldn’t come to a unanimous decision. The second trial made this case even more high-profile: The stakes were the same for Read — years behind bars — but it was also a second chance to prove her innocence.
Certain details of the case have gripped the public. Key witness Jen McCabe’s early-morning Google search for “hos long to die in cold [sic],” the mirrored video presented as evidence for the prosecution, and text messages from the case’s onetime lead investigator calling Read a “whack job c—.” The case was already salacious, made even more so by social media rumors of swinging, a murdered dog and, of course, theories of a widespread cover-up that embroiled multiple families and officers from local, Boston and state police departments. If all of this feels lifted straight from a true-crime novel, Dear Reader, I am here to tell you this is not the half of it.
The trial captured broader national interest after HBO released a behind-the-scenes docuseries called “A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read.” It certainly worked with me: I had heard about the Read trial, but I didn’t become fully invested until finishing the docuseries with my husband and his Massachusetts-based family. What is so compelling about the docuseries isn’t the way it depicts a complicated case, but the access it gives viewers to Read. She had already captured the attention of so many and the documentary illuminates why: Read was honest and real. In one scene, she reflects on how her facial expressions might be interpreted in court. She discusses how to best look neutral with her attorney, Alan Jackson of Werksman Jackson & Quinn LLP. Anecdotally and on social media, this moment didn’t sit well with many viewers. They saw it as calculated. I saw it as genuine.
Perhaps it was seeing Read’s flaws, her unwillingness to conform to society’s expectations of a woman as she sat on the stand and told her story.
Read is a sort of rough and hardened pretty that feels wholly unique to New England. She isn’t rich, but she has some money. She is white, but she has a localized accent. She is educated and successful — an adjunct professor at Bentley College with a senior job at Fidelity Investments — but she isn’t pretentious.
Look at Casey Anthony or Amanda Knox — the court of public opinion in this country loves to hate a women accused of murder regardless of the trial outcome. But this case is different. Per reports, Read was driving her boyfriend, albeit intoxicated, to a party in a nice suburban town. This, it would stand to reason for the largely white and female fan base calling to “free Karen Read” outside the courthouse, could be any one of us. What is stopping the police in my city or state from framing me — or you? Nothing.
The familiarity, the frightening possibility, the normalcy of this case is surely part of what has drawn the crowds and kept them there, day after day. Read’s trial has come to represent a triumph over abuse of power, law enforcement corruption and failures of the justice system.
Read is 45, single, and she lives alone in a pretty house. She is vulnerable in so many ways, and yet she isn’t. Despite the insurmountable situation she was faced with, she remained resolute.
And she won. Perhaps it’s the fantasy that staying strong in the face of power can actually work out that kept so many people coming back. Perhaps it was seeing Read’s flaws, her unwillingness to conform to society’s expectations of a woman as she sat on the stand and told her story. Or perhaps it’s the idea that in a country currently characterized by so much deceptionthe truth really is the greatest weapon you can wield.
Hannah Holland is a producer for BLN’s “Velshi” and editor for the “Velshi Banned Book Club.” She writes for BLN Daily.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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