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

absolutely this --

submitted 6 hours ago • 12 comments

W.E.B. Du Bois on the white takeover of southern public schools after Reconstruction. Not a coincidence that the chapter, "Back Towards Slavery," follows his analysis of the eventual dedegration of the public school system. Attacks on education are vital to (re)instituting authoritarian rule.

submitted 11 hours ago • 22 comments

wow so all of a sudden its “racist” and “sexist” to indiscriminately fire every woman and minority you can find simply bc you assume they are unqualified based on nothing more than their race and gender?

submitted 16 hours ago • 4 comments

I launched a new show yesterday: a musical debate/conversation show called "Summer Album / Winter Album." Here's an excerpt of my conversation with Craig Finn (Hold Steady) and Kevin Morby about the genius of Modest Mouse. Full episode is out wherever you get podcasts! youtu.be/cGeIYPtwaMg

submitted 16 hours ago • 1 comment

Last weekend we said it was worth keeping an eye on the town halls -- seems like there's indeed a lot of pushback going on.

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

1/ I am seeing a lot of comments on the slashing of NIH support along the lines of “universities should just spend their huge endowments.” I’m the last person to cheer on the institutional stratification rising endowments have contributed to. But let me explain why this is not a solution.

submitted 4 days ago • 46 comments

I'm putting together a lecture on Musk for "anthro of outer space" to get them to think about outer space as inherently political. I'll show them the connections and ideologies that undergird his push to Mars. And, friends, this is both the most terrifying and stupid lecture i've ever written.

submitted 16 hours ago • 7 comments

WaPo Page One: “If you’re going to just yell at me, that’s not going to be an effective town hall,” McCormick said .. “But we’re pissed!” a woman shouted. #GA07 www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

submitted 17 hours ago • 1179 comments

My latest podcast episode is out! I promised y'all on Bluesky I would talk about the Obama to anti-DEI pipeline. So let's talk about it. Trump's segregationist agenda is a reaction to Obama open.substack.com/pub/karenatt...

submitted 1 day ago • 12 comments

"The crowd again started shouting 'tax Elon,' 'tax the wealthy,” “tax the rich' and 'tax the billionaires.'" The county went 68% for Trump www.lagrandeobserver.com/news/local/r...

submitted 1 day ago • 245 comments

This administration is working really, really hard to create a large group of former government employees and soldiers with skills and an axe to grind

submitted 1 day ago • 13 comments

call it what it is: a military leadership purge www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/u...

submitted 1 day ago • 28 comments

Just look at these paragraphs from the AP story. Hegseth called Brown unqualified solely because he's Black. Then they fired him... and replaced him with a white guy so indisputably unqualified that he requires a Presidential waiver. This is what "merit" means to them. apnews.com/article/trum...

submitted 1 day ago • 473 comments

Trump pardoned the sentence of arguably the single biggest drug trafficker in American history on his second day in office!

submitted 1 day ago • 984 comments

more of this “fuck you, make me” energy please

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

"farmers are apoplectic. In Ohio, they’re stressed about USAID contracts and USDA cost-sharing investments. They held up their end. The government made promises. Now their family farms and livelihoods are on the line. Billions of dollars are at stake. It’s all being held hostage by Musk and Trump."

submitted 1 day ago • 104 comments

Jack Posobiec, a prominent influencer, has a long history of promoting antisemitic and white supremacist content. He traveled to Ukraine with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week.

submitted 1 day ago • 257 comments

CSPAN Caller from West Virginia: I’m a diabetic and I’m on Medicare. When Biden was in there, my insulin was $6 for a 28 day supply. I just went to CVS, it went back up to $80…

submitted 1 day ago • 928 comments

fuentes isn’t actually offended, he just doesn’t like bannon

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

Just published by Lawfare: my review of Amin Saikal's "How to Lose a War" – a concise, intriguing history of failed U.S. statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan after 9/11. Thanks go to Jonathan Cedarbaum and the Lawfare team.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

I finally had a chance to sit down this morning & 1. order more paper 2. set up a form for folks to donate to the press & receive a poster/digital file We’re asking for a $35 dollar donation for posters—we will make up to 200 $5 for a high-quality digital version Here’s the form—& please share!

submitted 1 day ago • 6 comments

“‘It’s … pretty devastating,’ she says, as she starts to cry on the other end of the phone. “I can't have a career,’ the Marine spouse says, pausing for a moment to think about what that means for her and her family. ‘Yeah, I can't have a career.’”

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

reason.com/2025/02/20/t...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

His main argument was that the US constitution has transformed many times, not only through formal amendments but through informal shifts in elite and popular interpretation. Trump is effectively trying to entrench a new constitution, and it will be enacted to the extent we treat it as legitimate.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

This could be one way that the Trump administration attacks abortion access, which in red states is now largely conducted by sending pills through the mail.

submitted 2 days ago • 7 comments

I was happy to speak with @melissagiragrant.com about pushing back against academic censorship in the current moment. @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/1917...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Movies you’ve watched more than six times, gifs only

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

I was watching an interview from 1982 with the imperial wizard of the KKK yesterday, and in it, he was like, “despite what you may have heard, I really hate Nazis.” Did he really hate Nazis? Probably not. But he sure felt like it was the right thing to say to win people over.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

More of this!

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

LITERALLY EVERY FBI DIRECTOR HAS BEEN A REPUBLICAN. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

submitted 2 days ago • 164 comments

Without much exaggeration, I often say that one of the high points of human civilization is that for less than a dollar, you can reliably send a letter anywhere in the US and it will arrive in just a few days.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Post offices are critical infrastructure in rural communities. It’s hard not to see the first month of this administration as a wholesale attack on rural communities, its most loyal voting base.

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

Fantastic thread covering our event on professional-class liberalism tonight. Read through if you want to feel like you were there!

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This is pretty straightforward authoritarianism: if you don't support my toxic businesses, I will use my government power to kneecap yours.

submitted 2 days ago • 31 comments

TODAY at 7pm ET via Zoom! @lilygeismer.bsky.social @brentcebul.bsky.social @pastpunditry.bsky.social @danielle-wiggins.bsky.social & Dylan Gottlieb discuss the Democrats in disarray and the limits of professional-class liberalism, moderated by Simon Torracinta. Register here: tinyurl.com/4cxpm8fa

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

According to the Dept of Education’s own directives, McMahon is engaging in toxic indoctrination by talking about the boarding schools, since they advance “the false premise that the United States is built on ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices.”

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Wholesale price for a dozen large white eggs is on the version of hitting $8, per USDA data.

submitted 3 days ago • 349 comments

Please join us tomorrow for a Mastery and Drift virtual book event!

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments