sociologist | racial politics, media, democracy | author of Democracy is Awkward https://bit.ly/4hUsTK3 & Debating the Drug War https://bit.ly/3UW39mS | cat dad | serial reposter | host on new books in sociology podcast
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šØ Job! šØ Brown Sociology & the Watson School of International & Public Affairs are hiring a TT assistant professor whose research focuses on social policy (broadly conceived). Apply by 9/15: apply.interfolio.com/172655 Happy to chat about life at Brown, etc!
āProve the benefit of these lifesaving shots that I myself touted for years as one of my accomplishments.ā Comical if it werenāt so disastrous.
On the pod this week we spoke to the fantastic @marisakabas.bsky.social about the not-so-fantastic military occupation of Washington, DC. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
Sending soldiers into cities under the guise of fighting crime is an unprecedented abuse of power. And itās illegal. bit.ly/4m6TG77
THIS! OMG I've been SHOUTING THIS. It's Newsom's fucking PLAN to piss off trans ppl to please centrists to make himself more electable. If his plan works to make trans ppl not vote for him but doesn't pick up centrist votes, that's not our fault. We followed the plan & the centrists didn't.
Nearly 1,000 āworker over billionaireā actions planned for Labor Day in US Rallies from Alaska to Hawaii will highlight cuts to wages, unions and social safety nets under Trump policies. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
So many white people, including white leftists, desperately want there to be some grand overarching conspiracy to explain why this country supports genocide because that is easier to swallow and easier to fight than the truth: that no one makes us support genocide and we're all complicit in it.
When I get texts like this I know someoneās up to no good & itās not a āGang of illegalsā. I also see the race for New Jersey Gov is heating up & fear mongering outrage among the gullible is all Jack & the Republicans have to offer.
They got the memo to exaggerate crime. It is so transparent it is childish. Same people brought you immigrants eating dogs and cats.
Thank you, 3rd Circuit www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
Gavin Newsom suggesting that 25 years of age is too young to transition and agreeing to right-wing entryism of concern trolling about trans people in sports. This is your opposition leader? I will never vote for Gavin Newsom anyone who thinks trans people are actual humans will follow suit.
My article on activism and coalition building is out now at Time! Shout out to the folks at Made by History. We need multiracial coalitions now more than ever! time.com/7307042/hist...
Quite literally, in that you can find this language in a history textbook covering pre-WWII fascism, with no changes.
Soo why did they need to do it then? The California special election is actually unrelated and just another potential form of leverage so yea it was an expensive waste of time and energy already
Trust science! American Academy of Pediatrics breaks with CDC advice for the first time in 30 years over Covid vaccines for children. HHS, a.k.a., RFKjr calls it "politically motivated." He really does not understand how science works. www.denverpost.com/2025/08/19/a...
ya and they are making a bad one. Whatās the point of any of this theatre if they give it up immediately without any leverage
I donāt think there is a single silver lining here and they think we are dumb dupes who stopped paying attention after the newsmedia moves on from their theater
Putin got in his ear about the mail in voting. Hilarious.
Why donāt they just do bothā¦ like have him do his thing and they do theirs??
... and so, victorious in symbolism, the Democrats returned to their jobs in order to pass bipartisan legislation that removed themselves from power. As they have always done. As they will always do.
Jackson, Mississippi, has the nation's highest homicide rate, more than 3 times the rate in DC
Protesters gathered late Wednesday at a checkpoint set up by a combination of local and federal officers on a popular street in Washington, D.C., where U.S. President Donald Trump has taken over the police force and deployed around 800 National Guard members.
so, basically the DHS is now equivalently the SA?
the signs were there in the word 'homeland'
Wrote about the most violent day in D.C.'s history, January 6, 2021, the current takeover of that city by the guy who instigated it, the right-wing snowflakes complaining they're afraid to walk down the street, and why the right fears and loathes cities (and lies about why). Bonus Epstein finale.
Last month, I sat down with @thenation.com to talk about the legacy of Fiorella La Guardia, how we're building a new kind of politics to meet this moment, and our mission to deliver a dignified life for the working people of this city.
For @wired.com I wrote about the Trump admin's latest propaganda strategy: incorporating the casual nihilism and cruelty of the highly online far-right into memes about deportation www.wired.com/story/trump-...
Great to see everyone at ASA but very happy to be back home with my boys š„°
Democracy Is Awkward by @michaelrosino.bsky.social
šI know that guy wow. š±
Anyways, read @liberalcurrents.com.
How will Trumpās attacks affect higher education? Letās look to history Germany's universities were the world's premier research institutions Hitler destroyed them How long did they take to recover? They havenāt
So much fun at the political soc āPeople-ing Politicsā riverboat reception last night along the Chicago River! Thanks to @blackcapitol.bsky.social @daniellaurison.bsky.social & @wendyyli.bsky.social for organizing! #ASA2025 #Sociology #AcademicSky @fisherdanar.bsky.social @michaelrosino.bsky.social
UK: What if everyone had masked up? Analysis of app data has the answer: "Respirators would have dropped the rate of COVID transmission by an estimated factor of 9, compared with 0.6 for surgical masks. A factor of 9 is enough to put SARS-COV-2 into exponential decay! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Lookin good Chicago
And on homelessness, for that single mom and her kids heās crying crocodile tears for: In a spat w/Bloomberg, Cuomo eliminated state funding for a rental voucher program known as Advantage, that helped people move out of shelter. The result: homelessness spiked. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...
If I ran a class right now I would have us go through each of these tasks to discuss the purpose and relevance of doing them yourself. Other departments are telling students this is O.K. We donāt have to.
When academics sit at universities and publish highly researched academic monographs that few read, we are responsible for the destruction of our field for not engaging the public. When we engage with the public, we are betraying our scholarly mission and so are responsible for our destruction.
1 year ago in #Florida www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VDf...
Driving to Virginia tomorrow, so itās #ScholarSunday on a Saturday! Hereās my 237th thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all! šļø americanstudier.substack.com/p/scholarsun...
"...history suggests that collective action is far more durable and effective when it transcends racial, class, age, and gender boundaries." šš¾
This anti-Conservative policy erases the policy of Republican and Democratic Administrations, since 1979, to grant student visas for 'duration of status'āuntil the students complete their studies.
So every foreign student coming to do a PhD at a US universityāsome of the best and brightest young minds in the world!āwill no longer know they have *permission* to even be in the US until they graduate.
Walnut size! Put some respect on his Brain
Job Alert! Molloy University is hiring a one year visiting professor to start in the fall. We need someone who can teach research methods and health/medical soc. Iāll be at ASA if anyone wants to meet up and ask abt it - job ad soon! Come work with meš
In his TIME article about activism and coalition building, ASA member Michael Rosino @michaelrosino.bsky.socialā¬ notes that "too often today, progressive organizers are highly educated whites who fail to build bridges with diverse communities and activists of color."
Funk off!!
My article on activism and coalition building is out now at Time! Shout out to the folks at Made by History. We need multiracial coalitions now more than ever! time.com/7307042/hist...
Job Alert! Molloy University is hiring a one year visiting professor to start in the fall. We need someone who can teach research methods and health/medical soc. Iāll be at ASA if anyone wants to meet up and ask abt it - job ad soon! Come work with meš
I ended up watching the entire Trump/Starmer press conference and...wow. It's really weird to see the UK, Europe, Australia, Canada etc. cower in front of someone who is openly fascist. Maybe it was a mistake to become this dependent on a 250-year-old-country steeped in racism
Interested in working with us here in Sociological and Cultural Studies in Glasgow? This one-year Lectureship in the Sociology of Class is now open, with a deadline on 20th August. Please spread the word...
My forthcoming book will be unfortunately very relevant as we navigate the next 4 years, I hope that my colleagues friends and all those concerned abt the future of grassroots resistance will find it insightful and practical (out Feb from UNC press) uncpress.org/book/9781469...
Note also that the lawsuit alleges that because race and class are correlated, providing free tuition to lower income students is also racial preference. They just want a pure aristocracy of inherited wealth
There is no winning this argument with people who simply do not want people of color benefiting from ameliorative programs at all. 1. You canāt do race-conscious stuff, thatās discriminatory intent. Focus on socioeconomic status. (People do that) 2. We donāt believe you.
The Democratic Party has a mailing list of 10s of millions of people. It could, if it wanted to, send out mailers next week to everyone alerting them to this.
Itās so fucking crazy that in the closing weeks of the election that Trumpās former chief of staff called him a fascist AND tapes of Jeffrey Epstein saying he was Trumpās closest friend were releasedābut neither story was considered a major scandal.
Again. I said when Ras was arrested that if Dem electeds had an instinct for self-preservation, they would stop the government from functioning, grind everything to a halt. Instead Jeffries told reporters they would respond at a time of their choosing. Turned out to be never.
Honestly an abomination that the current austerity model of education is fundamentally allergic to the idea of small seminar-style learning, the form that spent several thousand years as the holy grail of educating learners in complex subjects.
I'd just like to point out how weird it is that places with hundreds or even thousands of reporters ā the NYT, WaPo, CBS, NBC, AP, etc. ā are all getting pummeled on every major story by the dozen computerboys at Wired. To fumble the bag this consistently is, at some point, cowardice and a choice.
Some of us have tried to warn for years that criminalization is the fuel and engine of fascism.
This guy gets it www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...
āItās not just Mexican people they are looking for," one TikToker told her audience, "itās all immigrants that are obviously not white." Commentary ā¤µļø
If only the left had heeded the warning of the Harperās letter
Establishment Democrats need to come to terms with the fact that Mamdaniās social democratic policies are popular if they donāt want to be left in the past. From Harold Meyerson: https://trib.al/c400Ajx
Letās not forget that Stephen Miller owns up to $250,000 in Palantir stockāthese fascists aim to profit off all this cruelty. Always follow the money.
Can you link the sources?? Great video! Iām gna use this in my sociology classes to talk abt generative AI and why they shouldnāt use it to write papers
there are so many great things about generative AI! here are some of my favorites <3
Yeah, this is definitely a fucking problem.
Highly recommend "Behind The Bastards" if you've not given it a listen (deep dives into the lives of the worst pricks in history). Their four-part series on Peter Thiel is vital listening if you want to understand where we are now. open.spotify.com/episode/47nb...
Thrillingly hopeful
"Reich citizenship will not be laid in the cradle of every one born in Germany, but will be ceremoniously conferred on him after he has shown himself worthy of it through special accomplishments, through loyal services to the State." NY Times, July 6, 1933.
only zealots need apply "As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safe guarded [sic] from radical leftist ideology that California and New York have fostered. Teacher's [sic] who move from these states will not be receiving a teaching certificate unless they passā¦."
Heās too busy punching left to actually do anything about it
It is miracle that American elections work as well as they do. They are highly decentralized, and rely on the goodwill of local election officials who are increasingly facing harassment from partisan conspiracy nuts. Now the nuts are ready to turn the federal govt to threaten those officials.
Future NY Times Headlines About Zohran generator š¤£https://mamdanitimes.com/
Or, you know, don't use it at all.
Congress & ordinary Americans are expected to watch as our unhinged President seeks to break another nation b/c he was super-friends with their corrupt leader? This is Trumpās version of international pardon power. Heāll use U.S. power - OUR power - to eliminate accountability for other autocrats.
This would be the biggest scandal of every non-Trump Presidency, including Nixonās.
Not sure itās possible to explain to people outside universities how remarkably toxic CM, CR and similar projects are to our communities and how absolutely terrifying it is that the federal gov heeds them
For yearsāyears!āprivacy scholars have been warning of letting these databases run wild. Now an administration set on exploiting our inaction is hereā
Trumpās firings at federal agencies have upended the lives of thousands of workers. These are the people who oversee air safety, food and drug safety, disaster response, public health, and much more. Replacing civil servants with Trump loyalists is right out of Project 2025.
Trump is trying to tank Brazil's economy because they prosecuted his ally Jair Bolsonaro for organizing a coup. He's trying to make the world safe for dictatorship.
In the past 24 hours, Hakeem Jeffries has threatened Zohran Mamdani's political allies with primary challenges, but has said nothing about Grok's neo-Nazi outburst. He still uses X. What if Democratic leaders fought against actual antisemitism as hard as they fight against the left?
Gift article ā www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Weāre going to see more and more folks go off the rails from chatbots that start as work assistants imposed onto them by employers who will take no accountability for their harms
Grokās reply perfectly encapsulates what fascists love about generative AI: Ā«Itās all about noticing patternsĀ». Sexism, racism, any kind of bigotry? Nothing more than mere pattern recognition. AI gives their hatred the aura of statistical objectivity, its biases are a feature, not a bug for them
During Reconstruction you sometimes had units patrolling and showing presence, but thatās bc if they didnāt literal massacres would be happening. They never just mounted up and walked through a park in a place where there hadnāt been any major trouble. 3/
Some LT or CPT really enjoyed using his MDMP training here. Look, as someone who has been studying the history of these things, I cannot think of an example of US troops executing a freedom of mvmt demo in a US city against exactly zero disorder 2/
This is absolutely not an area with heavy MS-13 influence.
Doesnāt count since you didnāt tell us tbh
Again, there is no reason for anyone who is not from NYC to care about this but it is worth noting that this press conference featured appearances by the billionaire owner of the consensus worst grocery store in NYC and a multiply disgraced sports talk radio host.
Military documents confirm that the LA operation today was a āshow of presenceā intended to send a message to LA residents about the power of the federal government. After staging with armed soldiers and Border Patrol agents on horse, they packed up and left after a short walk.
In a study of professors, women got 378 new work requests over 4 weeks vs 118 for men. Women spent more time on service, advising & teaching; men on research. Orgs should track who is taking extra duties & ensure they are rewarded and distributed fairly. www.forbes.com/sites/kimels...
Yes!! The escalating use of the word, and its variants, the push to normalize it on multiple sides of the political spectrum are all symptoms of how much more acceptable eugenics has become in 2025, more than it was even in 2015. We donāt need to let it slide.
Apparently people who pick up the trash are not a part of the public despite serving a vital function for said public.
Esp in the context of rising eugenics and attacks on people with disabilities itās just horrible