This guy gets it. This is the way.
Historian at Cornell University and author, most recently, of FREE ENTERPRISE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY. Working on a history of backlash politics in the United States, from Reconstruction to the present.
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This guy gets it. This is the way.
The president is sending the military to control American cities and if you're a reporter who's framing that illegal power grab as "pushing the boundaries of constitutionality" or "acting boldly to fight crime" or whatever, please go find another line of work where you won't get us all killed.
Oof. The Dems need to stop pretending, based on some imaginary focus group, that there’s some common ground with Trump. The key is to fight everywhere. You should go study Neville Chamberlain’s attempt at “common ground.” It didn’t end well for his historical reputation. Or the world.
Illinois Gov. Pritzker ahead of Trump National Guard deployment: "To Chicagoans... Look out for your communities and your neighbours. Know your rights. Film things that you see happening... Authoritarians thrive on your silence. Be loud for America."
The next Democratic president should declare that the National Emergencies Act and Article II of the Constitution allow him to: •admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as states •abolish ICE •grant citizenship to any immigrant •disband the 5th Circuit •expand the Supreme Court Seriously: Why the hell not?
A little more than a decade old, but maybe this one? www.jstor.org/stable/3789661
Another relevant article on the "decade." Thanks to @thechemist.bsky.social for this citation and link!
Thank you! I wonder if I completed the Schulman article and this one.
Vance follows a coterie of online Nazis on X, has described Curtis Yarvin as a major intellectual influence, and openly attacks immigrants in blood and soil terms. The response of most of the political press? "Doesn't look like anything to me."
Thanks to @benwaterhouse.bsky.social for reminding me that the article in question is: Bruce J. Schulman, “Islands in Time, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Decade,” Reviews in American History 49:2 (June 2021).
Yeah but it's a very important Vibe Shift, Larry! Because Josh Hawley said this thing one time and AOC wears nice suits! Don't confuse the issue with these boring details no one cares about!
I will check to confirm but I think this may be it Ben! I was thinking it appeared in RAH. Thanks!
Just a thought, but perhaps Democrats should look at the government they might be forced to shut down not as turf to defend but as territory occupied by a proto-fascist regime. nymag.com/intelligence...
Maybe? Can you say more?
Historiography query: I recall an article that came out maybe a decade ago calling into question the periodization of recent history into the unit of the decade. I've been trying to track it down for close to a week, but am having no luck. Thanks in advance, if anyone can find a citation.
Impossible to have a functioning democracy when the President and his administration lie about everything. The administration's "analysis is riddled with errors, misrepresentations and cherry-picked data to fit the president’s political agenda." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/c...
This is one way of describing the approach of the White House Counsel. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/u...
It’s essential to have accountability in a democracy
Have any of the pundits who wrote “How the GOP has become pro-worker” think pieces followed up with reflections about how (predictably) wrong they were? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/u...
This is, I swear to Christ, the lead story at the Atlantic Monthly right now
Yep a good-faith critique of learning loss would lead to proposals for a massive, New Deal-scale investment in public education. The people pushing the narrative are doing precisely the opposite.
it is underdiscussed how "learning loss" can also be attributed to the fact that millions of people were dying and the kids were fucking terrified all the time - not just that they were on Zoom
Let us celebrate the 13th anniversary of Eric Cantor's classic unclear-on-the-concept Labor Day tweet.
Oops, 13th anniversary!
No, Thanks for the song recommendation!
Fascinating. I have made this point in regard to Christopher Rufo's claim that some of his relatives, by virtue of their PCI support, were far-left radicals.
Being lawless does not make Trump omnipotent – nor can he just snap his fingers and make all his authoritarian desires a reality. America is in an acutely dangerous situation. But obscuring those distinctions is an act of defeatism that only serves the regime.
The autocrats whom Trump has repeatedly praised for their strength are now deploying their collective power to form an alternative to American power and "to drive a wedge between Washington and the rest of the world." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/w...
MONSTER!
not just that he has no constitutional authority, there isn't even any particular legal or institutional mechanism by which the president can make anyone treat this as anything other than a weird advisory opinion.
"Well, them thar is fightin' words!"
Mamdani’s most socialistic belief is in treating people more equitably. No wonder Donald Trump’s assessment of his politics is so nuanced and measured.
Link to article: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/n...
My favorite sentence in the New York Times explainer on Mamdani and socialism.
Out of the first five questions, four are about gender identity. There isn't even a pretense that they're looking for qualified educators. They're interviewing candidates for the bathroom police.
Seen on my run in Rock Creek Park today. Parking lot near Beach and Tilden. Paper taped on over a Harris 2024 sign.
Kind of amazing how many analysts and scholars wasted 100 000s of wordcount worth of credibility in taking the incoherent flailing of an incompetent administration that is rapidly paralysing the US seriously
This “explicit” is a weird editorial choice. The constitution gives the president no power over this at all. It’s not ambiguous.
🧵
A collection of clips from MSNBC of multiple Republicans getting booed at town halls this week.
Stuart Stevens on National Guard deployment: "The murder rate of Jackson, Mississippi is 3 times that of D.C.... the whole thing is complete fraud"
Congrats again, everyone
Not the greatest recording but I enjoy listening to these arias sung by Peter Pears, accompanied by Benjamin Britten. youtube.com/watch?v=-AJ3...
This firefighter arrived in the US at age 4, has been here for 19 years, was on track to legal status, and was on a crew trying to contain a major blaze (in Washington state, vs Oregon, fwiw.) h/t @joshuajfriedman.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
What are we even doing?
This post from a few weeks ago seems relevant in this thread as well. bsky.app/profile/larr...
I can
This interview, which is also available to listen to as a podcast, provides a useful overview of some of the dangerous trends we’ve been seeing in recent months regarding federalization and militarization of state and local police functions.
To hell with this “maybe Trump has a point” bullshit. He is not making a good-faith effort to clean up government. We must fight his moves for what they are—on the terms he himself sets: power grabs to consolidate a dictatorship and punish his political opponents.
Nick Davies - who broke UK tabloid hacking scandal wide open - puts Wash Post's Will Lewis once more under a spotlight He asks: was Lewis involved in cover up for Murdoch & executives rather than cleaning up? via Air Mail airmail.news/issues/2025-...
Or my book, Fred Enterprise: An American History.
VOA was created to counter Nazi propaganda, and it had a prertt good run for a while. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Thanks so much.
Excellent analysis, and well argued. The nut graf, paraphrased for length, is that government regulation of capitalism proves that "free enterprise" is a built system, "a political project." Thus belying the preferred neoliberal view of capitalism as an unalterable state of nature.
Just last week Atlanta opened a city-owned grocery store and nobody batted an eye. Everyone is looking for anything to excuse their hatred for muslims.
RIP, Margaret Rossiter. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s...
Stuart Stevens, currently to the left of most democratic leaders on the Hill
"And during this weekend’s trip to China — Mr. Modi’s first in seven years — he is expected to have a receptive audience for stronger and expanded ties with Beijing and Moscow." A+ strategic work by Trump's ego. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/u...
The context has changed since 2016, when I wrote this for @dissentmag.bsky.social—Trump does not embrace the label of “free enterprise”—but I think this history helps contextualize Maher’s comments. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
People like Bill Maher saying this about the New Deal Order is how you know Bill Buckley actually won the culture war, even if everyone hates living in the reality he designed for us
Even earlier, at least as far back as the New Deal.
Really great thought. There is total reluctance to call out plain as day fascism but if anyone left of Trump talks about funded daycare, workers rights, affordable housing suddenly no one has a problem screaming communism.
The context has changed since 2016, when I wrote this for @dissentmag.bsky.social—Trump does not embrace the label of “free enterprise”—but I think this history helps contextualize Maher’s comments. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Zohran Mamdani is the happiest politician in America, his whole campaign is about how New York is awesome and can be even awesomer. Meanwhile, there has never been a politician in history who talked as much about what a shithole he thinks America is as Donald Trump does.
This is true. I have never seen a major American politician with more contempt for American tradition and history - and Americans themselves - than Donald Trump. The fact that Vance can even say this about Mamdani can probably be attributed to simple racism.
To be fair, in the same clip Maher did say something along the lines that Trump’ was aggrandizing power through the use of government.
Just saw a video of Bill Maher calling Mamdani a “straight up communist” and I continue to be struck by the depiction of policies associated with the New Deal Order as far-left extremism, which goes along with a refusal to depict Trump’s unprecedented authoritarian actions as far-right extremism.
Nice euphemisms here.
I keep forgetting who passed the CHIPS Act, all history before January of this year is pretty fuzzy.
When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the Senate, Olin Johnston of South Carolina, called it the "the blackest day in the United States Senate since 1875," which was when the final civil rights law of the Reconstruction era passed.
BREAKING: Social Security Administration chief data officer and whistle-blower Charles Borges has resigned after bombshell report that SSA put highly-sensitive data at risk. He sent out an email to colleagues moments ago. Here is the text of his email shared with me:
Bradley says she is retiring because being on the court is not "the best path to rebuild the conservative movement," which feels like quite a thing to say outloud as a sitting judge. (Though not surprising.)
this is one of the president's' closest advisors. the mainstream media refuses to reckon with this so substitutes in a fictional sanewashed trump and fictional west wing in which loomer doesn't participate in their stories. telling the truth would not help trump so they don't do it
New Column: Trump's second-term record on guns is even worse than you think. newrepublic.com/post/199838/... via @newrepublic.com
SOCIALISM!
Hey, @mattyglesias.bsky.social, have you literally just not left your apartment? They’re in every single metro station, all over the mall, and doing checkpoints on 14th and U. DHS is all over Hispanic neighborhoods and harassing uber drivers. You genuinely cannot not see this. Go outside.
DC abolished the death penalty in 1981, and DC residents voted against it again in 1992. Reinstating the death penalty in DC would be a blatant violation of home rule. The last execution in DC took place in 1957, and I intend to keep it that way.
I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do. Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired.
I'm fascinated by the way that letters to newspapers used to serve the role that Google searches did until recently and that AI does today. These queries are a few of many that appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript on January 14, 1899.
i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real.
They don't feel shame, but they care deeply about status. Wanting to be liked--or at least envied--is their Achilles heel. We can use that against them:it's cheap, non-violent & effective. Social shunning of elites supporting Pinochet helped bring down the Chilean dictator: it can work here too.
Link to article: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...
Future historians may be befuddled by this headline.
There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.
Not in the headline though.
We are all doomed if headline writers continue to simply repeat Trump's lies.
One of the Car Talk guys once said he had a sign taped in his window: "VALUABLE 8-TRACK TAPE PLAYER INSIDE." No takers, alas.
i like when these guys just say things like "union station has fallen into disrepair" which is plainly false to anyone with eyes apnews.com/article/trum...
I just read an oral interview with the head of a White Citizens Council who insisted repeatedly that they founded the organization in 1956 in response to the invasion of voting rights activists who came in with COFO in ... 1964. cc: @larryglickman.bsky.social's take on fake "backlash politics"
I did a dive into the presidential electors from Kansas last year, and a good number of the 19th century ones were the editors of local partisan papers. Proto-influencers!
One of my favorite paragraphs in my forthcoming book was how, when Mount Vernon installed the first granite marker for the enslaved burial ground in 1929, the local newspaper totally ignored it, but was full of 6yo's birthday parties, appendicitis cases, chairs purchased, aunts visited, etc.
"So and so is visiting her cousin from out of town for the weekend." "Friends of Bob Smith report that he has moved to city X to start a job as Deputy Sheriff"
I really love those old newspaper sections that would just like report when two people hung out (“Mrs. William Ford paid a call to her cousin on Elm Street Tuesday eve, to discuss matters of shared interest …”) Proto-social media, maybe.
If you've been following my reporting and stories from the ground in Iowa, you would know that Iowa will flip seats. This had a lot to do with the anger at Trump, but mostly with the organizers doing the hard work on the ground. Contest every seat. Run everywhere. www.nbcnews.com/politics/ele...
“Trump’s pretense to ownership of public goods and public spaces isn’t some quirk to be ignored or waited out — “there goes our Donald!” — but a direct expression of his autocratic ambitions and despotic cast of mind.”
I'm fascinated by the way that letters to newspapers used to serve the role that Google searches did until recently and that AI does today. These queries are a few of many that appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript on January 14, 1899.
The worst kind of data journalism — long, meandering, and poses a credulous question in the headline that is quickly dispelled in the first few sentences. No, Trump is not right. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
We need to reclaim the phrase "Trump Derangement Syndrome"
Honestly one of the most disgraceful pieces I’ve ever read.