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

You can always rely on Friedersdorf to give the exact opposite of the correct take.

submitted 39 minutes ago • 0 comments

If you didn't pay close attention to the Portland protests in 2020, and you want to know how bad the ICE protests in LA could get with federal troops on the ground -- I worked on a podcast that recorded the worst of it as it happened. "The Fault Line: Dying for a Fight" on all the things.

submitted 2 hours ago • 4 comments

Wasn't the fight with Elon supposedly a "distraction" from some other thing? None of it is a "distraction." Everything is real and deserving of attention.

submitted 2 hours ago • 2 comments

Trump is similar to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Both combine undeserved self-confidence with myopic impulsivity and reflexively meet any challenge with gratuitous brutality. Thus, when Yanukovych responded to popular demonstrations with unchecked violence in 2013-14, it backfired.🧵

submitted 2 hours ago • 2 comments

Hence his boundless admiration for #Putin, who transformed 🇷🇺 into a giant #gulag where even a single dissenter gets jailed for years and no street protests are ever allowed. Now comes the big survival test for 🇺🇸 democracy...

submitted 12 hours ago • 3 comments

The Trump “migrant crime” smear tactic comes straight out of the Nazi playbook. Trump has been pushing this narrative since his 5th day in office. In January 2017, he ordered his new administration to publish weekly lists of crimes committed by migrants — which is exactly what the Nazis did to Jews.

submitted 1 day ago • 5 comments

It’s starting. Trump is overreaching and trying to crush protests with force. It will backfire, making the protests bigger. He will fail. It won’t happen now, but this is the dynamic which could bring down his regime. From December: open.substack.com/pub/thedetox...

submitted 16 hours ago • 3 comments

This, and other forms of nonviolent civil resistance, is the only thing that can check Trump's abuses at this point. Congress, the courts, the executive branch - none of those things can effectively limit an authoritarian president. It's either this or autocracy.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

woke dei financial times

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

My latest: Elon was always vulnerable to Trump—because that’s how things work in authoritarian regimes. The autocrat controls the oligarchs, not the other way around. 🧵 www.readthedetox.com/p/the-daily-...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Ironically, oligarchs can wield more power in democracies because the rule of law protects them from abuse by the executive. Not so under authoritarianism—which is why it was so easy to rein in Russia’s oligarchs as soon as they got a president who wasn’t passed-out drunk all the time.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Ah, and I wrote this in December: bsky.app/profile/neil...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

“The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned”

submitted 2 days ago • 39 comments

I wrote this back in February. The fact that these two idiots would come to blows was inevitable. It was equally obvious how vulnerable Elon was and how dangerous it would become for him as soon as Trump decided he was done. www.readthedetox.com/p/elon-musk-...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Yunseo Chung, the Columbia student and green-card holder who has been in hiding since ICE tried to disappear her in March, wins sweeping order preventing her arrest and detention. She becomes the first of these pro-Palestinian advocates to circumvent the Trump administration policy to deport them.

submitted 2 days ago • 19 comments

Just sayin’, but I wrote this in February when everyone was convinced that Elon was the new king of America: [Neil says, patting himself on the back] open.substack.com/pub/thedetox...

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

Trump lacks something every leader needs: legitimacy. Without it, he can only maintain power by dispensing rewards and deploying coercion. This leaves him vulnerable, and his opponents can exploit that. My latest: www.readthedetox.com/p/the-daily-...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The reason why authoritarian regime are vulnerable to removal is because they lack legitimacy. Well, Donald Trump has lost his legitimacy.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

A message for the "traditional values" Westoids in the back who admire Ru and say things like "Ru isn't our enemy": Ru looks down on Europe and spits on family values.

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

Last week, three prominent fascism experts announced that they're leaving for Canada, comparing what's happening in America to the early stages of Nazi rule. But we need to see Trump’s authoritarianism for what it is, and Nazi Germany it is not. My latest: www.readthedetox.com/p/the-fix-no...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

What is antisemitism? It's not expressing animus towards Israel. It's not expressing animus towards Zionism. It's expressing animus towards Jews because they are Jewish. Unless further details emerge to the contrary, the attack in Boulder was an act of antisemitism, plain and simple.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Attacking people protesting for the release of Israeli hostages is evil and it is antisemitic. You are doing NOTHING to stop the genocide in Gaza by violently attacking innocent people. Nothing. You're just drawing attention from genocide victims and putting it on yourself and your new victims.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

1/6 A strategic blow and humiliation for Putin and russia as whole: Ukraine’s successful strikes save lives and weaken russia’s ability to attack other countries in the future. As usual, russia will retaliate by targeting Ukrainian civilians

submitted 7 days ago • 10 comments

My latest, on the decision of three prominent scholars of fascism to leave the country. We need to see Trump’s authoritarianism for what it is, and Nazi Germany it is not. www.readthedetox.com/p/the-fix-no...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Trump is trying to get Democratic lawmakers killed.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

I've heard that if you stand in front of a mirror and repeat the word "non-binary" three times, an apparition of the Gender Language Police will appear behind you. Wild stuff.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments