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

2026-03-12 19:01:49 GMT

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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…

2026-02-28 12:07:45 GMT

Donald Trump’s Bored of Peace

2026-01-10 15:10:33 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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 GMT

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

2025-12-19 05:28:22 GMT

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 GMT

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 GMT

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 GMT

“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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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/

2025-11-28 04:23:24 GMT

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I said Rousseau was a Deist, but not a traditional, practicing Christian.
“Well, there’s the problem,” he said. You can’t mix that kind of stuff into a Christian nation.
I said that Jefferson modeled the DOI in large part after Rousseau’s “Social Contract.”
Reader, he did not appreciate this gentle correction.
7/

2025-11-28 04:21:08 GMT

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At one point, he said that people have to use their brains. They have to THINK. People are led by their emotions, and emotions make truth indecipherable.
I told him about Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the book he wrote, Emil, in which he said that a man who lives according to pure intellect would be a monster.
He asked whether Rousseau was a Christian.
6/

2025-11-28 04:11:12 GMT

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It’s been this way for 100 years, he said.
We’ve lost our country. The culture is degenerate. Both parties did this. Trump will undo it.
Etc.
I asked him how long he’d been inclined to see things this way.
Always.
I asked him if his views had made any of his relationships difficult.
Never.
5/

2025-11-28 04:05:15 GMT

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I told him he was thinking of Columbus Day.
He did not appreciate this gentle correction.
The whole MAGA thing came spilling out of him for the next 25 mins.
Founders wanted a Christian nation. Immigrants no longer assimilate. They elected a communist in NYC. People don’t know what bathroom to use. COVID was a hoax. COVID was a Chinese bio-weapon. COVID was used by dem governors to scare Americans into compliance. Trump is God’s agent.
Etc.
4/

2025-11-28 03:55:15 GMT

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And, boy, did he launch.
“You heard they’re trying to take it away, right. Turn it into something negative. Indigenous Peoples’ Day, they want to call it.”
I could have said nothing.
14 yo daughter looked me dead in the eye and said through clenched teeth: “Dad, shut this down.”
Reader, I did not shut it down.
3/

2025-11-28 03:50:18 GMT

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I could have said nothing. Could have smiled and nodded and kept things agreeable.
But I thought I caught a whiff of something below the surface.
So I told him that Canada has their own Thanksgiving in October. Same basic thing. Harvest celebration.
Not a real country, he replied. Going to be the 51st state anyway.
Wife gave him a look: Not here. Not today.
But he was clearly ready to launch, and you could tell that his wife’s request for self-restraint wasn’t going over well.
2/

2025-11-28 03:40:00 GMT

This year, instead of making a Thanksgiving dinner at home, we went to the Salvation Army, to serve a meal to families staying at the shelter.
Besides our family, there was a couple there, who seemed very nice. Guy and his wife, around 40, I’d guess.
Waiting to clean up after dinner, the guy tells me that the United States is the only country in the world with an entire holiday dedicated to gratitude. “One of the things that makes us the greatest country in the world,” he added.
1/

2025-11-21 19:08:36 GMT

It’s important to understand that the GOP members of Congress who now appear to be “standing up to Trump” are not having a come to Jesus moment.
They are simply having a come to the polling data moment.
They will still be garbage people, if they decide to leave the cult.
Why do I say this?
Because they played footsie with fascism while MAGA still had the wind in its sails.
Ex-communication won’t make them into salvageable human beings.
#uspol #democracy #maga

2025-11-18 22:36:53 GMT

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I am resisting the most obvious comparison here, but the killing of Charlie Kirk does come to mind.
Okay, I wasn’t really resisting.

2025-11-18 22:27:07 GMT

There is no bottom with this complete moral blank.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/573/052/043/198/485/original/d017da49a527cc93.jpeg

2025-11-10 17:30:24 GMT

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This is a good way to understand Mike Johnson and other sycophants around DJT.
Each time Johnson says, “not my lane” or “I don’t know about that” or “haven’t heard those statements” he re-performs this abdication.
3/x

2025-11-10 17:25:10 GMT

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Cont’d
“Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority.”
2/x

2025-11-10 17:22:27 GMT

Havel on the “hypnotic charm” of totalitarian ideology.
“To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety and loneliness vanish.”
1/x

2025-11-08 11:30:41 GMT

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Today, I am taking students to Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson Plantation near Charlottesville, VA.
Pretty sure he had some thoughts on what to do in situations like this one.
Meanwhile, we will take the Slavery at Monticello tour, to consider the “paradox of liberty” and what truth-telling contributes to justice.
#uspol #democracy

2025-11-08 11:26:07 GMT

One branch: Shut down.
One branch: Starve ‘em.
One branch: Yep.
US federal govt has forfeited all its obligations and voided the social contract.
#uspol #democracy

2025-11-07 13:55:31 GMT

Good morning to everyone except the legacy media outfits normalizing fascism in the name of "objectivity" and "balance."
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/508/751/223/106/402/original/cf7a9e71c9aefac7.png

2025-11-06 12:05:33 GMT

Go fuck yourselves, NYT.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/502/660/285/233/535/original/5df48cee6ea1f4fa.jpeg

2025-11-05 18:09:21 GMT

Jason Stanley--whose book, *Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future,* I've discussed here--on why he chose to leave the USA:
“I knew that if I stayed at Yale, there would be pressure not to bring the Trump administration’s wrath onto Yale,” he says. “I knew that Yale would try to normalize the situation, escape being in the press, urge us to see the fascists as just politically different.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/jason-stanley-fascism-trump-history/

2025-11-03 19:08:52 GMT

For a party that controls the WH, both chambers of Congress, and SCOTUS, the MAGA GOP whines a lot about being marginalized, denigrated, canceled, imperiled etc.
They talk about themselves as if libs have silenced them and denied them a seat at the table.
It's bad faith obvs.
These guys were at the head of the table without interruption since the Republic was born until the 1960s.
They're not marginalized; they're resentful of what progress toward equality we've seen in recent decades.

2025-11-03 18:46:12 GMT

I'm working the polls tomorrow.
In my precinct (rural NY), there are NO DEMS on the ballot. A couple of local write-in campaigns going, but mostly uncontested races.
Local stuff matters. If you've ever been inclined to run for something, there's work to do.

2025-11-03 15:36:54 GMT

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Yinz are havin a rul nice fall.

2025-10-31 22:31:53 GMT

This one’s for Ms. Noem.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/471/149/208/579/816/original/c209ca9e12e87b98.png

2025-10-30 16:38:17 GMT

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Appreciate this report from the front lines. As our system of education goes, so we all go.

2025-10-29 17:12:21 GMT

Elon Musk is popping off again about the need for “hard men” to lead us into the future and the disaster that empathy has been for western civ. This is something he apparently learned from Tolkien.
Here’s Adorno on Nazis who thought that being hard was necessary for the salvation of a master race.
“The idea that virility consists in the maximum degree of endurance long ago became a screen image for masochism that, as psychology has demonstrated, aligns itself all too easily with sadism.”

2025-10-27 17:12:43 GMT

The dog needs to be walked.
Laundry needs to be folded.
Kids and carpools and bills beckon.
It’s a lot.
Alongside this everyday treadmill, democracy in America needs to be defended and renewed.
No one person can do it all, but doing nothing and being discouraged is fascist gold.
Find your thing. Dig in. Rest and restore as necessary. Go again. And again.
We can do this together. The future is unwritten.
#uspol #democracy

2025-10-26 23:55:29 GMT

The job of the resistance right now is to make QUIET SUBMISSION as embarrassing and uncomfortable as possible. #uspol #democracy #RMOL
https://mastodon.online/@xankarn/115443156480117238

2025-10-24 16:33:11 GMT

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At what point js appropriate to ask: Has Mike Johnson disbanded the House of Representatives?

2025-10-24 14:06:24 GMT

DJT has presided over the two longest govt shutdowns in US history.
He's perfectly happy to sit on his hands while Russ Vought guts the whole thing because "dismantlement of the administrative state" makes his dictatorial ambitions easier.
Pesky democracy. Pesky checks and balances. Pesky rule of law.
King Donald can't be bothered with any of it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/22/government-shutdown-trump-democrats.html

2025-10-19 00:27:30 GMT

There’s assholes out here trying to tell you that today’s demonstrations were useless virtue signaling.
Asserting your values and showing up for each other is never an empty gesture.
No circular firing squads. No trolling. No woker than thou sermons.
We build together. We live in truth. We say NO to this administration’s moral contamination.
That’s already something.
#uspol #democracy #NoKings

2025-10-18 23:40:06 GMT

More than 6000 in #Syracuse for #NoKings.
Three times more than April.
Fifty percent larger than June.
Something has awakened. Soon this Rust Belt town will be WOKE.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/397/807/422/562/097/original/ebcb3fa0b4bde404.png

2025-10-18 13:07:04 GMT

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People have busy lives. Democracy and rights can feel abstract.
So, remember:
It’s a struggle for personhood.
A struggle not to be inert,
not to be owned.
A struggle for decency.
A struggle to live in truth.
A struggle against the lies.
A struggle for decency.
It’s a struggle against vulgarity.
And nihilism.
And hate, pretending to be love.
It’s a struggle.
There’s a cost.
It ain’t easy.
But that’s the price of freedom.
Have a blast, everyone.
#NoKings

2025-10-18 12:24:29 GMT

The thing to remember is that the MAGA fascists want you to feel demoralized. They want you to feel disempowered and complicit. It’s part of their nihilistic plan to dirty everything until you no longer care enough to fight for its preservation.
The fascist program has many ugly and violent facets, but one of them is to slowly drain their opponents’ energy, through repetition of force and dishonesty, of any sense of hope or idealism.
The antidote?
#NoKings
https://xankarn.net/2025/10/02/moral-contamination-magas-program-to-hollow-you-out/

2025-10-16 14:15:47 GMT

Know your protest rights.
Six essentials from the good folks at #ACLU
#NoKings
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/384/260/284/934/415/original/2c4983af3ae7be19.png

2025-10-15 13:35:19 GMT

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Whenever I think about MAGA’s efforts to cut Americans off from critical inquiry and fact-based knowledge, I think of Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism (1951).
Domination requires disconnection from reality. The regime has total control when the population has been forced/moved into “the isolation of the fictitious world of the movement.”
Every attack on truth is an attempt to strand and isolate you in the lie.
#uspol #democracy

2025-10-14 15:29:29 GMT

Dysfunction by design. Part of the plan to cripple science and higher ed and disconnect the country from all sources of vetted knowledge.
MAGA fascism, to secure its power, depends on the implementation of an unreality program.
https://bsky.app/profile/insidehighered.com/post/3m35zwonuef2r

2025-10-13 13:50:16 GMT

Fact-based America and the Constitutional Republic are being simultaneously ABANDONED and ATTACKED by the MAGA clique and its facilitators.
The LOGICAL and MORAL response to this is #softsecession. That means “building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders” (Chris Armitage).
#NoKings #DefundFascism #RMOL

2025-10-13 13:10:33 GMT

More on #softsecession and economic retribution.
“Blue states could lure away techies, doctors, nurses, and electricians with relocation bonuses. We could institute tax and other incentives to pull new factories and data centers away from red states. We could selectively terminate professional licensing reciprocity. We could ease commerce between friendly states and make it difficult for unfriendly ones.”
#DefundFascism
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/its-time-for-soft-secession/

2025-10-11 23:48:23 GMT

Still one of the cooler things I’ve managed to do.
Live event with Maria Ressa, the 2021 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. We talked for 60 mins. about her book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/358/203/848/569/459/original/0e07f419315e38ca.png

2025-10-11 21:18:58 GMT

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I’m not saying that October 18 will resolve the crisis.
I’m saying that Saturday’s turnout will tell us who is winning and where the momentum is.
I hope you’ll attend if you can.
#NoKings

2025-10-11 21:16:49 GMT

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How do you know you’re free?
You’re free when your commitments and your demands for justice outweigh their brawn and their bribes.
They want to scare you into submission or buy you off.
Will you let them?
#NoKings

2025-10-11 21:07:00 GMT

The MAGA theory of power is that repression and the costs it imposes will be more consequential than the will to resist.
Through harassment, bullying, and violence, they want to show that resistance is not only futile, but will leave us worse off than acquiescence.
We have to muster the moral strength to overturn this formula. No fear, no sellouts, and no free rides. We must be willing to pay what democracy costs or see it disappear.
#NoKings October 18.
https://www.nokings.org

2025-10-10 18:58:07 GMT

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Let’s be clear:
When the president and his inner circle say that the problem is “antifa” and it’s an old problem that goes back 100 years to Germany’s Weimar Republic, they’re saying that the people who opposed and tried to contain Hitler are the problem. They’re saying it was wrong and punishable to oppose Nazism. They’re saying the MAGA govt is w/in its rights to arrest and/or kill the people who oppose fascism. #uspol #democracy #DefundFascism

2025-10-10 17:01:34 GMT

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Not just intellectually addled, but mean, snarling, and divorced from the idea that we are ONE people--a purple nation, not two warring blocs. They have abandoned the USA for a hyper-partisan vision of a MAGA nation, but they'll not get their fascist purge and take-over without a fight.
If you're not angry that the govt is shuttered, you've lost the plot.
If you're not horrified that the DOGE operation is still unfolding, then stand aside.
If you don't know that MAGA wants war, then wake up.

2025-10-10 15:34:35 GMT

The eclipse of democracy in America and the ongoing attack on civil liberties is being directed/overseen by the most dim-witted cast of characters imaginable. This was a White House roundtable on combatting Antifa (iow, a brainstorming session on how to wage war and deploy force against the political opposition), and a quick glance at the table shows us what kind of brain trust we're dealing with: Trump, Bondi, Noem, and Patel.
Goons doing goon-ery in plain view.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/politics/antifa-white-house-roundtable

2025-10-10 00:33:48 GMT

Historian of anti-fascism at Rutgers U.
targeted by Turning Point USA, leading to doxxing and death threats. Remember this the next time someone tells you that TPU are champions of free speech. #academia #demcracy
https://mas.to/@BruceMirken/115346862569031399

2025-10-07 00:11:31 GMT

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Alongside this program of partisan resource allocation (feed my friends, starve my foes), Trump has explicitly and repeatedly stated that he intends to wage war against those who oppose his policies.
He said as much in his “Chipocalypse Now” post.
He made the same point again in his meeting w military brass at Quantico.
He illustrates the same by seeking to federalize troops for a military assault on the city of Portland, OR.
5/x

2025-10-06 23:42:04 GMT

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Trump has made no secret of his intention to starve his rivals and adversaries of federal funding whenever and wherever possible. Indeed, the withdrawal and withholding of grants, salaries, and congressional appropriations has been one of his biggest bully clubs since his second term began.
4/x

2025-10-06 22:58:10 GMT

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Trump’s antagonistic framework and his unrelenting habit of elevating his supporters while demeaning and dehumanizing his political opponents have proven disastrous since his return to the Oval Office.
Stuck in the rhetoric of the campaign trail, he has abandoned any pretense of reconciliation or shared governance.
3/x

2025-10-06 22:35:14 GMT

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Like other populists who peddle in divisionism, Trump believes the electorate comprises two groups.
On the one hand, there are “real” Americans, i.e., those who are fully vested in the rights of citizenship. On the other hand, there are sub-citizens (or, he might say, “fake” Americans), whose interests and perspectives can never contribute to the common good.
2/x

2025-10-06 22:34:28 GMT

The crux of the situation is this: The forty-seventh president of the United States does not believe we are one people or one nation, indivisible.
1/x
#uspol #democracy #DefundFascism

2025-10-06 15:23:04 GMT

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Post this freely or make one that's better.. #DefundFascism
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/327/931/114/819/510/original/e76b4784718888c6.png

2025-10-06 15:07:51 GMT

I've been posting here about #taxresistance and other approaches to #softsecession
MAGA makes plain that it doesn't represent those whose political views differ from the president's and, in fact, POTUS has said explicitly and repeatedly that his govt is fighting a war against the enemy within.
There is no longer any moral basis to this government's claim on our sovereignty.
As long as this usurpation continues, we must resolve to #defundfascism in whatever ways possible.
#uspol #democracy
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/327/939/468/928/175/original/120745b5c927f574.png

2025-10-06 13:26:43 GMT

Reposting every Monday until, for some reason, I can’t.
Not shocked
Not awed.
Not caving.
Not scared.
Not blinking.
Not packing it in.
Not coming to heel.
Not building bridges.
Not extending grace.
Not asking permission.
Not accepting the lies.
Not quitting.
Ever.

2025-10-04 22:21:19 GMT

Christopher Armitage on the possibilities for tax resistance or “soft secession.”
This is the way.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cmarmitage/p/trump-cut-funding-to-16-dem-states?r=5w913v&utm_medium=ios

2025-10-04 12:46:12 GMT

Will this decision carry costs?
Of course.
But freedom isn’t free.
Bravo, Dartmouth. Let’s hope others can also do the math.
https://www.wcax.com/2025/10/04/dartmouth-college-president-rejects-trump-administration-funding-deal/?outputType=amp

2025-10-03 13:48:30 GMT

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In Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner called it “the automatic continuation of normal life.” Things can go wildly off the rails, while people remain bogged down by everyday demands.

2025-10-02 01:38:39 GMT

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When the president repeatedly makes public statements in which he proclaims you to be an internal enemy of the state, when he says he is committed to waging “the internal war” against anti-fascists and those who engage in critical/free inquiry, then he is telling you that his govt no longer represents you.
When you are denied representation by a so-called “unitary executive,” well then…bob’s your uncle.

2025-10-02 01:33:08 GMT

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Historical figures who practiced/advocated for tax resistance.
John Adams
Henry David Thoreau
Mahatma Gandhi
Leo Tolstoy

2025-10-01 18:14:30 GMT

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Schumer and Jeffries showed some courage in standing up to the MAGA GOP.
IMO, they are still asking for too little.
With masked paramilitaries conducting daily kidnappings and with POTUS having repeatedly threatened military strikes against so-called "internal enemies," I no longer recognize the U.S. as a democratic Republic.
I cannot in good conscience contribute materially to this rogue state.
I can no longer in good conscience fund this government.
#uspol #democracy #resistance

2025-10-01 17:50:00 GMT

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If anyone would like a PDF of the Introduction to the title above, dm with email and it's yours.
Cite:
Burg, David F. A World History of Tax Rebellions: An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts, and Riots from Antiquity to the Present. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203500897.

2025-10-01 17:46:28 GMT

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https://www.routledge.com/A-World-History-of-Tax-Rebellions-An-Encyclopedia-of-Tax-Rebels-Revolts-and-Riots-from-Antiquity-to-the-Present/Burg/p/book/9780415924986?srsltid=AfmBOor2BQ4eVgbEo-UALGyy1gz4i420kSjMVFY1jWoTvQBC4bQozGLd

2025-10-01 17:37:51 GMT

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_resistance

2025-10-01 17:35:55 GMT

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https://sniggle.net/TPL/TaxStrikeTactics/introduction/introduction/

2025-10-01 17:33:28 GMT

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#tuneoftheday #nowplaying #taxresistance #democracy
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, "What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes"
https://youtu.be/tes4s6zKSLs?si=aGfLSRL9wGbfY1r8

2025-10-01 17:27:13 GMT

Trump and MAGA intend to starve their rivals and adversaries of federal funding when/wherever possible.
Defenders of democracy will need to push back by starving the federal govt of revenues.
This means, eg, NY and CA withholding $$ they send upstream.
It also means tax resistance from ordinary people. If you owe federal taxes in April, consider filing for an extension or making payments rather than a lump sum.
Power of the “powerless.”
Pls boost.
#uspol #democracy #resistance #RMOL

2025-10-01 04:06:34 GMT

The Senate didn’t “fail to act.”
The governing/ruling GOP failed to put forth a budget that could gain the requisite support.
#uspol #democracy #shutdown #brokentimes
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/296/933/671/159/123/original/3ae528e55ce14a3d.jpeg

2025-09-30 19:06:17 GMT

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This is where things now seem to be headed:
"In a contest of violence against violence the superiority of the government has always been absolute; but this superiority lasts only so long as the power structure of the government remains intact--that is, so long as commands are obeyed and the military and police forces are prepared to risk their lives and use their weapons."
--Hannah Arendt, "Reflections on Violence" (1969)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24356590.pdf

2025-09-30 19:01:07 GMT

Trump's decision to mobilize military forces in U.S. cities appears to be an attempt to goad demonstrators into acts of violence, which can become a justification for additional measures of repression.
This leaves military and security personnel with a choice: to execute illegal/immoral orders or not.

2025-09-28 15:18:38 GMT

Autocracy and retribution tracker.
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/retaliatory-action-tracker/

2025-09-27 23:23:44 GMT

If you want to know what “divisive narratives and improper ideology” look and sound like, Miller’s eulogy was one of the darkest things I have witnessed from a government official. Honestly, this was the most Hitlerian speech I have ever seen in public politics.
https://open.substack.com/pub/xankarn/p/storm-season-stephen-millers-america?r=5w913v&utm_medium=ios

2025-09-27 00:18:34 GMT

Message couldn’t be simpler.
Trump and MAGA GOP are so eager to take away your Medicare and jack up your healthcare costs, they’ll happily fire your ass if anybody tries to stop them.
#uspol #Shutdown

2025-09-25 18:57:51 GMT

Storm Season: Stephen Miller’s America
A great deal has been said about Charlie Kirk's murder and the memorial service that was held for him in Phoenix last weekend (September 21). I'm hesitant to add to the noise, not because I'm afraid to say what I think of Mr. Kirk's short life or the movement he helped build, but because the rancor of the discourse has been so predictable and depressing.
http://xankarn.net/2025/09/25/storm-season-stephen-millers-america/

2025-09-25 15:23:38 GMT

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Trump, Vance, Miller say that comparisons between MAGA and Nazism are a driver of violence.
That's nonsense.
Reporting on the storm does not cause the storm to manifest.
Observing the violence of its gales, does not cause the cyclone to spin.

2025-09-25 15:20:52 GMT

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Miller starts with the story of a warrior in a storm. The storm whispers to the warrior, you can't endure my strength. The warrior replies: I am the storm.
In the Language of the Third Reich, Victor Klemperer observed how the Nazis engrained two words in the German consciousness: Aktion (action) and Sturm (storm).
Sturm becoming the animating concept of the "manly beer house." It promised the return of a strict militarized hierarchy. Hitler built his militia around this word, Stormtroopers.

2025-09-25 15:14:25 GMT

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Miller says that MAGA's "enemies" can't understand the meaning or strength of the movement he now helps to spearhead.
But we understand all too well.
This kind of blood and soil rhetoric is far from new. It's woven into the historical record, as are its terrible consequences.
When leaders use this kind of language--the language of civilizational struggle, battles between light and dark, the cult of the warrior, fire and brimstone--the trajectory is always toward violent eliminationism.

2025-09-25 15:05:36 GMT

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I won't/can't recommend that anyone watch, but in case you'd like to see what I'm describing, here is the video of Miller's full tirade.
6 mins 37 secs.
https://youtu.be/IPcp67tidDY?si=bamTKNVCRbx86AcV

2025-09-25 11:23:32 GMT

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Honestly, the most Hitlerian speech I’ve heard in public politics.
“We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion,” he thundered. “Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello. Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry.”

2025-09-25 02:01:21 GMT

The fury and venom here are deeply disturbing.
If you want to know what “divisive ideology” sounds like, Miller’s eulogy was one of the darkest things I have witnessed from a government official.
All the hallmarks of eliminationism and a level of froth and vitriol which marks a new low for this administration.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/stephen-millers-charlie-kirk-funeral/684301/?gift=oEEh75L2AatCMMthY3HEk6CH4u_XUeqcZNL1_PX4WG4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

2025-09-23 11:07:41 GMT

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Same w David Brooks.
“If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. To borrow from Thucydides, the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must. Day after day, [Trump] works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive. That means destroying any institution or arrangement that might check the strongman’s power. The rule of law, domestic or international, restrains power, so it must be eviscerated.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/05/trumpism-maga-populism-power-pursuit/682116/

2025-09-23 11:03:03 GMT

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Even a staunchly conservative writer like Bret Stephens knows this is true.
“We’ve moved from a world where the difference is between liberal and conservative to a world where the difference is between liberal and illiberal. Because I think the Republican party, to a great extent, has become an illiberal party, not a conservative party.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/09/its-time-for-a-new-two-party-system/684257/

2025-09-23 10:53:22 GMT

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Autism experts react to Monday’s Trump/Kennedy play act.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/opinion/experts-autism-trump-kennedy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE8.rPsL.cc7rraSyNXRI&smid=url-share

2025-09-23 10:07:09 GMT

Journalists and media who continue to use the word “conservative” in their coverage of Trump/MAGA are doing their utmost to normalize fascism and discourage public understanding of the current political crisis.
Exhibit A:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/23/politics/trump-vaccines-autism-bondi-justice-department-analysis

2025-09-22 18:37:10 GMT

Trump admin expected to link Tylenol use and autism risk.
The science here is far from conclusive, so where is this coming from?
It's all part of the MAGA unreality war. Trump and co. will undermine all vetted knowledge and empirical methods until the truth becomes, for most, whatever he wants it to be.
No touch psyops through directed hyper-skepticism.

2025-09-22 17:09:07 GMT

Trump border "czar" Tom Homan was caught on tape accepting $50000 bribe from undercover FBI agents in exchange for the promise of gov't contracts.
Homan is just one of dozens of criminals and corrupt self-dealers who have been tapped by Trump for cabinet posts and other positions in the 2.0 administration.
Trump threatens "the left" with RICO prosecution. Meanwhile his own administration resembles a criminal syndicate.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/trump-2-0-bracing-for-criminals-corruption-and-constitutional-crises/

2025-09-19 13:02:15 GMT

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It’s embarrassing to see an institution like Oxford fall for the same kind of ruse used by drug dealers to boost their profits by hooking new users.
First one’s free, kid. Make sure to tell your friends.

2025-09-18 14:12:26 GMT

Substitute “witches” for “antifa” and you’ll quickly see where this is headed.
Time for many of us to practice our floatation skills. https://mastodon.social/@andrewstroehlein/115224449434007462

2025-09-17 01:59:54 GMT

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Guy gets a birthday pony. https://youtu.be/Qb1heYKjhso