Alexander Karn

Associate Professor of History at SLAC (NY, USA). Not representing employer.

Interests: power and the production of historical knowledge, public history, historical justice, historical dialogue, reconciliation, museum studies.

Commentary: Mother Jones, The Progressive, Salon, HuffPost.

Resist Much, Obey Little. #RMOL

Web: https://www.xankarn.net
Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/xankarn

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Last Notes

2026-05-22 13:29:00 UTC

If, like me, you watched the excellent W.E.B. Du Bois biopic which is out this month on PBS and you wondered about access
to The Crisis, the magazine he founded and edited for the NAACP, there’s a digital archive (1910-2020) available via ProQuest.
https://naacp.org/articles/naacps-historic-magazine-crisis-digital-archives-now-available-online-proquest

2026-05-06 12:34:26 UTC

Party of limited government now zombie walks behind guy who says the only check on his power is his own conscience. Since 2019 he has asserted “the right to do anything I want” under Article 2 of the Constitution. SCOTUS happy to assist.
But don’t worry. He’s not a king and this is still a democracy.
Back to the Met Gala, the new season of whatever, and all the grinding pressures of late capitalism.
Hump day!!

2026-05-05 22:04:33 UTC

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Incoming. Man your stations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/us/politics/fda-covid-vaccine-studies.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gFA.KoeD.ez530bsORo13&smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-05-05 21:39:50 UTC

RE: https://flipboard.com/@npr/politics-v8m4p3ukz/-/a-Qfl_g-pNTiyTdYuUw2PjUw%3Aa%3A3195441-%2F0
Today in the MAGA war on fact-based America.
#note1egw…4r89

2026-05-05 18:54:47 UTC

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In America 1, EQUALITY is a guiding light, a shared project.
In America 2, EQUALITY is a rhetorical device used to negate the realities of inequality.

2026-05-05 18:53:15 UTC

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In the second version of America, the starting point is also refuted, and that's the whole game.
America 2:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
I know they're not, and I'm not interested in their BEING equal. I am only interested in SAYING they are equal as a tactic to prevent and forestall what is required to MAKE them so.
con't

2026-05-05 18:50:00 UTC

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In the first version of America, the starting point is quickly refuted, and then things turn to the work of making it true.
America 1:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
I know they're not, but what if they were? How might we do that? How can we make America the thing it was born to be, but never has been?
con't

2026-05-05 18:47:20 UTC

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Good points being made in the replies:
We've reached the place where two versions of America are pressed face to face, and something has to give.
Both of these America's start from the same exact place:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL
con't

2026-05-05 15:42:55 UTC

You just wish MAGA would speak honestly about their project and vision:
"We don't believe in equality. We never really did. The strong must rule the weak. It's not just our right, but our duty."
Then, at least, we would have an honest politics, and not all the insulting double-speak.

2026-04-30 21:06:58 UTC

They sacked the Capitol and brought the Confederate flag, but racism poses no threat to democracy in America, so there’s no cause for concern, according to Roberts et al.
#uspol #voting #SCOTUS #democracy
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/495/693/544/352/245/original/465bde9f10582f0c.jpeg

2026-04-29 20:53:15 UTC

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“Old ways die unlamented.”
—Eugen Weber

2026-04-25 23:10:58 UTC

RE: https://flipboard.com/@scimag/news-from-science-dgvs7ea7z/-/a-w1XCnGh5SY2WxkYQRcpUOg%3Aa%3A2427788627-%2F0
Never before has the president of the United States cowered in the face of the truth to this extent.
Worse than merely a liar, he’s a weakling.
#note1g2k…fsj5

2026-04-22 17:07:55 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.online/@xankarn/116448149001409888
This turned into a 🧵 on the meaning of resistance and staving off discouragement in the face of ongoing politcal corruption and goon-ery.
#note1kfl…24ks

2026-04-22 11:35:42 UTC

Jamelle Bouie in the NYT today, writing about the staggering scale of corruption in the current Trump admin. DJT and family have pocketed $4 billion since Jan. 2025.
When GOP voters and officials rolled over and backed a candidate who openly trashed the emoluments clauses, they wrote the script for this.
When Trump said he could openly shoot someone on 5th Ave and waltz away (2016), this is what he meant.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/emoluments-clauses-explained

2026-04-16 19:26:01 UTC

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GOP: We are the party of responsible financial stewardship and fiscal conservatism.
Also GOP: How much will the war cost? I don't even want to guess. Eleventy trillion? Blah-bity billion and seven? It's not really for me to say, mate.

2026-04-16 17:26:27 UTC

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Mr. Vought, you're not prepared to give us an estimate on the costs of the war at this time.
Is that because you don't wish to divulge the truth or because you came to Capitol Hill unprepared to do your job for the American people?
Which is it, sir?
Unwilling or unprepared? Dishonest or incompetent?

2026-04-16 17:19:56 UTC

Oversight?
No, thank you.
"Pressed at one point to supply even a general range of the cost, Mr. Vought told lawmakers, 'I’m not going to give you a range because I don’t want to be inaccurate.'"
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/world/middleeast/iran-war-cost-congress.html?searchResultPosition=2

2026-04-13 15:40:49 UTC

Trump thinks Pope Leo should be more awed by recent U.S. stock market gains.
Has there ever been a president so unable to fathom a world beyond nationality and materiality?
The blue dot photos captured by Artemis? What does he think he’s looking at, beyond “real estate?”
This is why I call him a moral blank. There is nothing in the universe for him, except what shows on a financial ledger.

2026-04-12 20:25:34 UTC

No bastard is forever. #Hungary #democracy

2026-04-09 10:44:00 UTC

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The unreality machine continues whirring. Ill fares the land.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/climate/climate-change-deniers-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-04-08 15:39:40 UTC

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Some will argue that Trump’s rhetoric merely reveals who we have been all along. Trump is America without its hypocritical mask, etc.
Pushed by Bill O’Reilly to explain his cordial relationship with Putin, Trump responded, “You think our country is so innocent?”
The US has never been innocent.
2/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXsYuJIGTg&ra=m

2026-04-08 15:33:03 UTC

Trump will use the cease fire and the reopening of the Strait to highlight the brilliance of his negotiating skills. Only I can fix it, etc.
But the bell can’t be unrung, and his recent statements take us into new territory. The US is (again) a country that openly threatens war crimes and uses the specter of genocide to advance its interests.
We shouldn’t be disingenuous. US history has had its genocidal aspects. George Washington and others espoused and accepted it.
1/

2026-04-07 16:57:45 UTC

Trump wants lunar mining and space force supremacy, but also platforms anti-vax nonsense and embraces climate change denialism.
But science doesn’t come à la carte. It’s all apiece.
A republic divided (between empiricism and bunkum) cannot stand.

2026-04-05 13:56:59 UTC

Hearing Stephen Miller use the word “civilization” makes me nauseous.
Every college instructor knows this kid. Hyped up on a few pages of Nietzsche. Ayn Rand in his backpack.
Carrying a load of high school grievances. Intoxicated by thoughts of revenge, delusions of grandeur.
Unbearable to all but a few. Parents thrilled to have him out of the house.

2026-03-19 20:01:02 UTC

Every day is a new low.
“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?”
There was some laughter from the officials and journalists gathered in the room. “You believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us,” he added.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/257/617/206/156/021/original/f5431dbd0e5605ce.jpeg

2026-03-19 17:51:15 UTC

Under Bill Clinton, the U.S. government produced budget surpluses from 1998 to 2001.
No administration has avoided budget deficits since that time.
GWB took the 2001 surplus and turned it into a -9.8% deficit by 2009.
Obama and Biden reduced the deficit without reversing it.
In his first term, DJT exploded the deficit from -3.8% to -16.7%
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/federal-budget-receipts-and-outlays

2026-03-15 13:35:40 UTC

Guy who trashed NATO alliance and threatened Denmark/Greenland with invasion comes crawling back.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/233/452/655/771/424/original/053739829383953b.jpeg

2026-03-12 19:15:05 UTC

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Sam Altman thinks intelligence is whatever saves time.
Whatever cuts down on effort.
Whatever generates profit.
Sam Altman and the company he runs can’t do shit for me.

2026-03-12 19:03:43 UTC

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Good way to head into the spring recess.
We’re still in this. Not dead yet. Etc.
Happy Thursday, friends.

2026-03-12 19:02:05 UTC

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I think this statement is a true testament to how AI companies are working towards a future where people are reliant on AI because they have cultivated a world which devalues and disincentivizes critical thinking. I wanted to let you know there are not many days which I don't think about our class, especially as I bear witness to yet another senseless war, the rise of authoritarianism in America, and AI-induced slackening.

2026-03-12 19:01:49 UTC

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Hi Professor Karn,
I just saw this quote from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter,” and it evoked similar thoughts and feelings out of me as reading the end of Civilization and Its Discontents, Lyotard, and just about every other text we discussed in class last semester…

2026-03-12 19:01:12 UTC

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Would likely have missed this garbage from Altman, if I hadn’t received a nice email from a former student.
I’m fortunate to work with young people who still wrestle with the world in this way…
👇

2026-03-12 17:51:40 UTC

I get a fair amount of shit from people who dislike the media sources I link to.
That's fine, and I'm happy to hear your media critiques.
You don't necessarily have to click the links I provide; I just like to cite sources, so you'll know I don't make stuff up.

2026-03-12 17:38:59 UTC

“We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”
Hard pass, Sam.
I’ll be fighting for a different modus vivendi and a different concept of intelligence for however many days I’ve got.
https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/2032012809433723158?s=20

2026-03-11 18:22:27 UTC

Trump lied about US responsibility for the missile strike on an Iranian elementary school. Of course.
But, to be clear, it was a double-lie: not only dishonesty about whose missile caused the carnage, but also the encompassing lie of “pinpoint strikes” and surgical warfare.
War is not what Hegseth and Trump want you to believe, and any time that becomes obvious they will pivot to other outrageous claims.
War on Iran is waged as part of an ongoing war on truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-missile-strike.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-03-04 21:28:24 UTC

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This has to be one of the stupidest presidential proclamations in the history of our country. Dumber, by far, that GWB's "mission accomplished" gaffe.
He thinks he's selling sneakers or cell phones. He thinks his salesmanship makes the product (it's war, you dumb lunatic), something desirable.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/173/018/624/901/885/original/695f913f8959c256.png

2026-03-04 18:00:06 UTC

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The unreality machine whirring and whining more loudly than ever.
Those flag draped coffins you're seeing? They're not actually real or important. You'd know that if you were a true patriot, but you're not.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/03/hegseth-complains-that-reporting-on-dead-troops-is-bad-pr-for-trump/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

2026-03-04 17:08:52 UTC

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"The defining question from here is: How much of their unreality can they impose on the world, and how much damage will they be causing in the process?"

2026-03-04 17:07:14 UTC

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And speaking of MAGA unreality, here's [@tzimmer_history](https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history ) on falsehood and radicalization.
https://democracyamericana.com/posts/55dc578f-c914-4239-8dc9-e2bbef1fe5c6

2026-02-28 21:04:52 UTC

These hats, increasingly, resemble the name tags that pre-schoolers wear when the adults take them outside on a field trip.
Hold hands with a friend, Donnie, and listen for a grown-up when we get inside.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/150/284/347/759/559/original/393c50407bc5f2cb.jpeg

2026-02-28 12:07:45 UTC

Donald Trump’s Bored of Peace

2026-02-26 17:55:07 UTC

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Some other perps worth mentioning, .e.g., SCOTUS and Citizens United, but this is strong media analysis and political commentary, crows and nipples notwithstanding.

2026-02-26 13:16:06 UTC

Trump wants only sanitized patriotic history. Questioning the morality of the United States, he says, is untruthful and insane. It's treason.
But..
"A state in which no one doubts the 'rightness of its cause' is a state in which politics has ceased to exist."
The end of politics is the beginning of dictatorship. We've been moving toward this for a quarter century.
https://thenib.com/the-good-war/

2026-02-25 20:18:08 UTC

When you think about it, a UFC cage match on the lawn of the White House gives a very good picture of where our Republic finds itself 250 years after its birth. They’ll study this “celebration” someday to unlock the meaning of the past, just like we study the gladiatorial combat events in ancient Rome.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing; I’m just saying it’s revealing. Better than any #SOTU address for understanding where we are as a nation.
#uspol #America250
https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/47912515/everything-know-ufc-white-house-june-14

2026-02-24 01:04:56 UTC

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When Trump said to his supporters in 2023 that he would be their retribution, he was talking about settling political scores from his first term, but he was also talking about Limbaugh's war on "cultural Marxism."
Conservatives like Limbaugh argued that multiculturalism was divisive and that the Left's embrace of relativism would upend the "traditional values" of the West, leading to its political and economic downfall.
So the "war on woke" started more than 30 years ago.

2026-02-24 00:59:35 UTC

Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh in 2020 and last week the WH posted a video of Trump, reflecting on the "the five years since the lost [sic] of Rush Limbaugh."
Limbaugh often complained that conservatives had lost control of America's major cultural institutions. Liberalism, he wrote in 1993, "long ago captured the arts, the press, the entertainment industries, the universities, the schools, the libraries, the foundations, etc."
https://www.whitehouse.gov/videos/president-donald-j-trump-on-five-years-since-the-lost-of-rush-limbaugh/

2026-02-23 16:10:21 UTC

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"Without concentration camps, without the undefined fear they inspire and the very well-defined training they offer in totalitarian domination, which can nowhere else be tested with all of its most radical possibilities, a totalitarian state can neither inspire its nuclear troops with fanaticism nor maintain a whole people in complete apathy."
--Hannah Arendt, "Totalitarianism in Power"

2026-02-23 16:04:53 UTC

America will have its own Gulag Archipelago. Twenty-three concentration camps will soon come online, unless, together, we can find and pull the political handbrake.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-01-29/us-spends-hundreds-of-millions-on-warehouses-for-ice-detention-centers
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/120/786/723/760/430/original/bc48652697469948.png

2026-02-22 23:34:23 UTC

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Damn, that’s good.

2026-02-12 17:31:34 UTC

Non-white performer with stratospheric talent performs at cherished national venue where haters insist: "That's not the real America!"
Yep, you guessed it...
Marion Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939.
https://www.npr.org/2014/04/09/298760473/denied-a-stage-she-sang-for-a-nation

2026-02-11 19:28:49 UTC

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When Trump's Arch is raised, America will need its David Černý.
https://kafkadeskdotorg.wordpress.com/2022/04/27/on-this-day-in-1991-czech-artist-david-cerny-famously-painted-soviet-tank-no-23-in-pink/

2026-02-11 19:09:48 UTC

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When the leader, alone, decides who our heroes are, the road back to popular sovereignty (aka democracy) is long and hard.
/end
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/01/14/trump-national-mall-site-garden-american-heroes

2026-02-11 19:07:31 UTC

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The take over of memory runs in parallel with the take over of the state.
The re-engineering of memory is part and parcel to the re-engineering of democracy.
Things will become less and less recognizable on both fronts, until the sycophants and facilitators and bystanders decide they've had enough.
And even then (if we somehow get to that point), it may be too late, depending on the disposition of military and security forces.
Don't sleep on the memory stuff.
Memory is power.
9/n

2026-02-11 19:03:23 UTC

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And, meanwhile, as he re-engineers the memory scape, MAGA engages in a related construction project.
8/n
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2026-02-03/trumps-45-billion-expansion-of-immigrant-detention-sites-faces-pushback-from-communities

2026-02-11 19:01:59 UTC

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Coming in 2026
7/n
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/10/politics/independence-arch-dc-concerns-vis

2026-02-11 19:01:23 UTC

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2025
6/n
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/gulf-of-america-day-2025/

2026-02-11 19:01:02 UTC

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2025
5/n
https://www.ngaus.org/newsroom/army-change-names-seven-bases

2026-02-11 18:59:07 UTC

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2025
4/n
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-kennedy-center-name-change-congress-rcna250081

2026-02-11 18:57:57 UTC

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2025
3/n
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-east-wing-of-the-white-house-has-been-demolished-heres-a-look-at-its-history

2026-02-11 18:57:09 UTC

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Trump and MAGA are responsible for all kinds of outrages and violations and corruption, but meanwhile, in the background, a MAGA memoryscape is being constructed.
It is both a reflection of and driver of MAGA authoritarianism.
An example from 2025:
2/n
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/say-goodbye-washington-dc-black-lives-matter-mural-2619518

2026-02-11 18:54:49 UTC

As part of their project of power consolidation, dictators change and rearrange what scholars sometimes call the "memoryscape."
This refers to the monuments, memorials, statues, and place-names that the leader and his regime erect/install to give an account of the past that legitimates their ideological vision/project.
Franco did this in Spain, following his victory in the Spanish Cvil War. Hitler hired Albert Speer to redesign the Berlin memoryscape.
It's dictator 101 stuff.
🧵

2026-02-10 02:09:53 UTC

Why does MAGA undermine science? Deny and erase history? Poison the information ecosystem?
1. Because authoritarians must be the only source of truth.
2. Because disoriented subjects depend on the regime for security.
3. Because nihilism is an effective way to divide and rule.
MAGA wants us mind-fucked and swindled.
No facts. No truth. No democracy.

2026-02-04 02:19:59 UTC

The “party of small government” and “states’ rights” continues to pursue one-party dictatorship.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/us/politics/trump-save-act-elections.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-02-03 22:34:42 UTC

RE: https://flipboard.com/@thenewsdesk/technology-shjum1jiz/-/a-iugKSMf6QKagtmSgH40uiA%3Aa%3A43591897-%2F0
Fascists gonna fash.
#note1spl…0jge

2026-01-30 15:52:45 UTC

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Beautiful.

2026-01-30 15:50:29 UTC

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Courage!

2026-01-27 18:33:04 UTC

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"Green Bean had told me the same thing—that agents had come to her house, followed her when she left, and then blocked her vehicle and screamed at her to “stop fucking following us. This is your last warning.” Green Bean was able to laugh while retelling this. “I just stared at them until they left,” she said."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defending-minnesota-from-ice/685769/?gift=Je3D9AQS-C17lUTOnl2W8L893jn-xkg4gA0ahaD_Ltw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

2026-01-27 18:32:51 UTC

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via The Atlantic:
“It was very scary,” Judy told me. “Murdering someone definitely works as an intimidation tactic. You just have no idea what is going to happen.” She said that ICE agents had taken a picture of her license plate and then later showed up at her house, leaning out of their car to take another picture—making it clear to Judy that they knew who she was."

2026-01-27 18:31:37 UTC

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They are collecting license plate info and showing up at the homes of registered vehicle owners in an attempt to intimidate and discourage them from participating in neighborhood watch activities.

2026-01-27 18:26:18 UTC

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At the same time, these agents are using facial recognition software to collect and inventory the identities of peaceful protestors, non-violent observers, and documentarians shielded by the First Amendment.
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/08/nx-s1-5585691/ice-facial-recognition-immigration-tracking-spyware

2026-01-27 18:23:50 UTC

Since the Patriot Act passed, the surveillance state has scoffed at the concerns of citizens: "You have nothing to be afraid of if you're not doing anything wrong."
Now the state sends masked agents in unmarked vehicles--irregulars, in the parlance of military law--into U.S. cities to conduct unconstitutional raids and warrantless detentions.

2026-01-23 15:48:59 UTC

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RE: https://masto.ai/@Nonilex/115945040670117429
The headline for this story could read:
"US runs headlong from facts and truth and vetted knowledge"
The U.S. federal government is now the most deeply resourced and powerful unreality machine in world history.
#note1q0g…6r30

2026-01-23 13:10:28 UTC

Respect to all the brave and principled Minnesotans who are walking off the job today and/or closing their businesses.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/944/572/494/579/043/original/f8ff852c4abe0af9.jpeg

2026-01-23 12:31:37 UTC

Every media question to the Trump administration should start like this:
“The White House routinely posts fake and altered images on its socials; why should anyone believe what you’re saying here?”
Or
“VP Vance has publicly admitted to lying and ‘creating stories’ to manipulate public opinion; why should anyone believe your claims today?”

2026-01-22 11:21:37 UTC

America has reached the “victim threw himself out the window” stage of authoritarianism.
Noem has become quite the mobster.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/938/480/320/059/373/original/b936c42df6a0dc89.png

2026-01-21 14:36:29 UTC

RE: https://journa.host/@NinaBernstein1/115933433559972216
"The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything. They’re a projection of power."
#note1dla…hp8g

2026-01-20 17:12:13 UTC

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"A hotel in Oman. An office tower in western India. A golf course on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These are a few of the more than 20 overseas projects the Trump Organization is pursuing, often requiring cooperation with foreign governments. These deals have made millions for the Trumps, according to Reuters. And the administration has sometimes treated those same governments favorably."

2026-01-20 17:10:18 UTC

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per NYT editorial:
"PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS never been a man to ask what he can do for his country. In his second term, as in his first, he is instead testing the limits of what his country can do for him.
He has poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency — into finding out just how much money people, corporations and other nations are willing to put into his pockets in hopes of bending the power of the government to the service of their interests."

2026-01-20 17:05:05 UTC

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One year in and Trump has raked in no less than $1.4 billion.
How are your finances looking this fine day?
Even a kook like Marjorie Taylor Greene knows this guy is full of shit when he hugs the flag and espouses "America First."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F1A.RFdx.B_7GzTC8XVAj&smid=url-share

2026-01-20 17:00:21 UTC

See if you can guess which of these world leaders is lining Trump's pocket.
Hint: The Donald doesn't touch or exchange affectionate greetings with penniless losers or beta cucks.
Most corrupt administration in U.S. history.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/928/488/582/154/139/original/e62434cc4bfb680c.png

2026-01-19 17:29:18 UTC

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So here's a different MLK quote to spend time w/ today, one the MAGA people will never deliver to your inbox.
It's from "Letter from Birmingham Jail":
"History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals."
To honor MLK, let's live in truth and fuck MAGA nihilism.

2026-01-19 17:22:05 UTC

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So while MAGA will pretend to stand with MLK today and while they will pretend that MLK can be used to delegitimize what they call the DEI agenda, just remember that these are the people who install fake historical plaques on their golf courses (Trump) and admit to "creating stories" to manipulate the media (Vance)

2026-01-19 17:16:21 UTC

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It's all a purely ideological enterprise for them. While they decry liberal "revisionism," they also believe that history is up for grabs and rightfully belongs to those who are bold enough to seize hold of it.
Against this, we should assert methodological rigor, social scientific norms, and the necessity of dialogue for the purposes of truth and justice.
This is not merely culture war.
It's the lifeblood of democratic politics.

2026-01-19 17:11:25 UTC

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They will call this "woke-ism," and will denigrate all those who carry and propagate this un-American "mind-virus."
We must never relent in our efforts to establish an honest record of the past, including what injustices were perpetrated there.
MAGA believes in a duty to remember; that's why they've gone all in on "patriotic history." But they want a monopoly on truth and memory. They believe these can be wrested away from the libs like a bully pries away the lunch money of someone smaller.

2026-01-19 17:06:00 UTC

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Of course, MAGA will cherrypick the past to find what serves its purposes. They will honor MLK by highlighting a quote which silences and disappears his condemnation of slavery and racism, his war on poverty and economic injustice, and all his searing critiques of the "American way of life" and how the history and culture of America create and enforce inequality and immoral over-concentrations of power and wealth.
Fighting authoritarianism requires ceaseless push back on the memory front.

2026-01-19 14:17:17 UTC

Here's what the America 250 commission has to say about MLK Day. History distilled to nonsense.
Each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we pause to honor the life and legacy of a leader whose vision of justice, unity, and service continues to shape our nation.
Dr. King believed that “everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.” As we commemorate his legacy, America250 invites you to help build a brighter future, through every act of service, every voice shared, and every story told.

2026-01-15 22:04:24 UTC

He will now take it and pretend it is his. With MAGA, everything is pretend. It starts with Trump's pathological detachment from reality, and it extends to the bad faith of those who play along.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/15/maria-corina-machado-says-she-presented-trump-with-her-nobel-peace-prize-medal

2026-01-15 20:42:03 UTC

Can America tell the truth about itself, its past together w the present? What conditions are needed for a truthful self-appraisal?
The French sociologist Emile Durkheim believed that honest and illuminating social dialogue requires a variety of different voices and perspectives. The truth cannot be dictated; it is cumulative.
When one group seeks to monopolize the conversation or elevate its memories above all others, democracy dies.
No unum w/o pluribus.
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/memory/remembered-past

2026-01-14 01:47:16 UTC

RIP
https://flipboard.com/@npr/u.s.-news-aspd61boz/-/a-jfpgH73wSf22S7HLag5yOw%3Aa%3A3195441-%2F0

2026-01-10 15:10:33 UTC

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I am not a hawk. Far from it.
But Europe must not pin its hopes on reasonable people managing Trump and walking him back from the brink. There are no adults in the room with him, and the MAGA clique is utterly and irreversibly intoxicated by their own sense of power and destiny.
“Nothing can stop me, but my own morality,” Trump claimed this week.
No alliance or partnership can exist on such unstable terrain.

2026-01-10 14:26:01 UTC

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Also, it’s past time for being stunned.
Europe should regard Trump and the US the same way they do Putin/Russia.
It’s more complicated because of the way we are entangled, but the fact of abandonment needs to sink in.

2026-01-10 14:19:35 UTC

So far, only Canadian PM Carney has handled the threat of annexation correctly. No negotiation, no appeasement, just a clear and simple retort: “Not for sale now. Not for sale ever.”
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/871/237/508/371/473/original/4663978c85788049.jpeg

2025-12-21 19:36:58 UTC

Internet and World Wide Web?
Vote and boost, pls.

2025-12-19 05:28:22 UTC

The “Have Women Ruined the Workplace” guy now says young, white men in America have gone Nazi because…DEI.
They’re never responsible for their own warped perspectives and actions. It’s always someone else’s fault.
At what point do Alt-Right apologists who excuse social scapegoating become Alt-Right themselves?
I’m not going to link here, but the headline and graphic are instructive.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/744/577/791/536/989/original/d41d22eb4b8f8db3.jpeg

2025-12-18 23:26:30 UTC

When Trump talks about his beautiful economy and the certainty of the coming boom, just remember that this is exactly what he said about his casinos, his university, his mail-order steaks, his gold-plated cell phones, his infrastructure bill, his ACA replacement plan and every other fake/failed/defunct venture bearing his imprint.

2025-12-15 23:41:37 UTC

Happy Hanukkah, folks. Keep the flame burning.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/726/227/390/163/772/original/2c5e43748f9c6b21.jpeg

2025-12-09 22:28:17 UTC

“Rural America knows the truth long before the rest of the country feels it. Nothing collapses all at once. It just stops working in small places first while everyone else calls it local hardship. That’s why wood banks—like a food bank but for fuel—are important. They’re the clearest sign that basic systems in this country have already failed.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/204051/firewood-banks-heating-bill-winter

2025-11-28 04:53:02 UTC

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Don’t know what else to say, really.
You don’t want to make sweeping conclusions when n = 1.
But listening to him, it was hard not to see him as the emblem of something larger and still potent.
So many have been completely captured by the American unreality culture.
It feels like there’s only the thinnest protection now against the most violent stupidity.
So much depends on our will to resist and our ability to conjure something better.
end/

2025-11-28 04:39:35 UTC

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I’ll be processing this for a while.
It made for a memorable Thanksgiving.
The poison he spewed was as noxious as anything I’ve ever encountered.
I imagine he felt the same about me.
But we also worked together for two hours.
Two diametrically opposed souls briefly operated in concert and possibly even for the same reason.
9/

2025-11-28 04:28:03 UTC

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I’ve not been up close and personal with this kind of formless certitude for a while.
It was like looking into an abyss.
He said that people used to call him a conspiracy theorist, but now they call him “THE TRUTH.”
People actually call you the truth?
They WILL.
8/