chrisedelson.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

When a cabinet member announces "We are using the military to liberate an American city from its elected leaders," where do you go from there. What is left to say. The idea of that being anything short of a near-universal "Wait, what the fuck is going on" moment proves how far we've backslid.

submitted 11 hours ago • 244 comments

A few observations about where we are right now: The Trump administration is clearly targeting Democratic politicians through arrests and repression. This rightfully scares academics like myself who have seen this movie play out in other countries (Ukraine, Turkey, etc.). It doesn’t end well.

submitted 8 hours ago • 6 comments

I will continue to hold my deeply unpopular belief that Harris/Walz narrowly win if GWB & Mitt Romney endorse & campaign for them in October 2024. At the very least, both of them should be out now, in front of every microphone they can find, condemning the fascism & calling for Trump's removal.

submitted 7 hours ago • 7 comments

Just going to put this here, for a variety of reasons, including what GWB said & so that we never have to have a National Conversation™️ about wHiCh pArTy hAs MoVeD fURtHeR frOm tHe PoLiTiCaL CenTeR iN tHe 21st CeNTuRy ever again.

submitted 8 hours ago • 20 comments

Because Black people know that there is no such thing as “identification” or “identifying yourself”. They aren’t saying Padilla didn’t identify himself as a U.S. Senator. They are saying that there is only one acceptable identity — credential — being white and, in these times, being pro-Trump.

submitted 10 hours ago • 17 comments

Every elected Republican should be asked if they think the president has the power to send in military in to “liberate” a state or city from its elected government.

submitted 10 hours ago • 101 comments

noem should resign or be impeached

submitted 8 hours ago • 0 comments

We drill into military officers that Members of Congress have Constitutional oversight rights, Members outrank four-stars in protocol, and even Congressional staffers are treated like generals/admirals. To see sworn federal officers manhandle and handcuff a U.S. Senator... I'm still shook up.

submitted 11 hours ago • 53 comments

We are marching to Senator Thune’s office. There must be accountability for the detainment of a Senator. This is not normal.

submitted 10 hours ago • 907 comments

What happened to Senator Padilla is not homeland security. This is homeland fascism. This is homeland authoritarianism.

submitted 10 hours ago • 255 comments

Another video of Senator Padilla’s violent arrest at DHS Sec Noem’s press conference in LA. You can see him thrown to the ground by FBI agents and handcuffed. (video shared by Padilla’s staff with Elex Michaelson of Fox LA and posted on X)

submitted 11 hours ago • 208 comments

In Donald Trump's America, if you say "I am Senator Alex Padilla, I have questions for the Secretary," you get thrown to the floor and handcuffed.

submitted 10 hours ago • 124 comments

imagine, if one can, if Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton tried to ask a question to a Biden admin cabinet secy and had been forced to the ground and handcuffed by federal agents.

submitted 10 hours ago • 0 comments

In the past week, a union leader has been arrested, a U.S. Rep charged with a crime, a U.S. Senator violently handcuffed, and reporters shot with rubber bullets and detained. There is no ambiguity. This is a regime operating as an authoritarian. Americans who believe in liberty must oppose it.

submitted 11 hours ago • 282 comments

Donald Trump promised that any protests of his military parade will be met with "very heavy" force. Democracy is under attack.

submitted 10 hours ago • 2 comments

authoritarianism is a word that works well for scholars. What we're seeing is perhaps better described as aspiring dictatorship or fascism.

submitted 10 hours ago • 0 comments

What will you do when authoritarianism comes to America? Because it's here. Right now.

submitted 11 hours ago • 29 comments

Senator Alex Padilla is one of the most decent people I know. This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful. Trump and his shock troops are out of control. This must end now.

submitted 12 hours ago • 536 comments

This is a US Senator, one of two representing nearly 40 million people from nation's most productive, populous, and tax paying state, being physically roughed up by goons at behest of deranged president and out of control cabinet secretary. HEY GOP SENATORS. You'll swallow even this?

submitted 11 hours ago • 60 comments

The strategy is to do your Constitutionally-approved job and make them stop you. Make them show the world that they violate the Constitution. Make them show where they draw the lines and how they want to exercise power.

submitted 11 hours ago • 45 comments

Holy shit. This is @padilla.senate.gov They just forcibly arrested a U.S. Senator.

submitted 11 hours ago • 70 comments

What would you say if you saw it in another country? A senator from a coequal branch of government dragged away by security from asking a question of a Cabinet official

submitted 11 hours ago • 28 comments

Ok. I don’t know how many alarms this is. It’s all of them.

submitted 12 hours ago • 37 comments

One thing we didn’t touch on: If Trump gets away with this, he will absolutely do the same thing during the 2026 & 2028 elections. He will manufacture unrest just like in LA and send federal troops to every major city as a way to intimidate voters and decrease turnout. Functional end to fair elex.

submitted 1 day ago • 22 comments

From my undergraduate lecture notes on the Weimar Republic's collapse

submitted 2 days ago • 14 comments

This is correct. There is nothing complicated about it. You either see what is going on and condemn it, or you make excuses for despotism.

submitted 14 hours ago • 0 comments

"we're not cool with fascism" is a pretty good way to describe opposition to trump

submitted 12 hours ago • 0 comments

You go through your whole life listening to big people talk up what they'd totally do should some obviously, cartoonishly evil threat arise in their time, but when the time comes, the biggest talkers just look around like "gosh, I hope somebody does something about that."

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

God he’s such an idiot. A black hole of pure ignorance.

submitted 12 hours ago • 5 comments

New AP poll, Trump is at -21 approval with more than twice as many Americans strongly disapproving (41) to strongly approving (20). Trump is wildly unpopular despite a relatively strong economic tailwind and other favorable conditions. Americans don't like dictators. apnorc.org/projects/mos...

submitted 17 hours ago • 64 comments

Thanks to @defenseone.bsky.social for publishing my latest on the military’s norm of nonpartisanship and why Army leaders must uphold and teach this, now more than ever. www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/0...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

trump thinks the US military--indeed, the entire US government--belongs to him and is offended when anyone suggests otherwise. What an astounding act of national self-destruction to allow him access to power.

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

Must read. Incredible and thoughtful first-person account. Surprisingly, the most shocking part is not journalists and college professors being arrested. It’s police trapping the crowd—giving a disperse order while blocking all the exits. via @smotus.bsky.social smotus.substack.com/p/arrested-i...

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

The president of the United States in our time is not supposed to wield armed troops and even station marines on American soil because of political speech and assembly he doesn’t like, that is typically not allowed and no I don’t care if any of it is technically “legal”

submitted 17 hours ago • 106 comments

“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative..." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 16 hours ago • 1 comment

“In a democratic society, citizens don’t have to think twice...about peaceful expressions of opposition — that’s what life is like in a free society,” Levitsky said. "In an authoritarian regime, citizens have to think twice about speaking out, bc there is risk of government retribution" (Wa Post)

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

It’s completely insane that US troops are illegally deployed to suppress domestic opposition and it’s not uniformly condemned by the press and political elite.

submitted 1 day ago • 525 comments

Sun sets on an unraveling country where military has started entering major cities & a Soviet style tank parade will take over the Capitol in 2 days. The President may have given tacit approval for a hit on Iran’s nuclear centers. Yet these Yankees seem dazed, arguing baseball and Benson Boone.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments