Fox went with “suspected” because their Grok request to translate the halftime show hadn’t been finalized just yet.

What's so funny about this is that the ENTIRE DIDACTIC POINT of the show was "this, too, is America"

Absolutely delicious.

Really good convo between @shikhadalmia.bsky.social and @anneapplebaum.bsky.social. We give you two ways to check it out: a fully readable version of the transcript, and the full audio conversation. Choice is yours.

Pour one out for every professional political pundit, writer, consultant whatever that has spent the last decade trying to pretend that the Trump phenomenon was about trade or opiates and not a big chunk of white america losing its mind over having a black president bsky.app/profile/kyle...

The president of the United States posted this. The "let that sink in" post template was built for occasions like this. But it doesn't even really fit here as it's already sunk in long ago that this is who he is. And yet it's still surreal that this is the head of our state.

The Covid vaccine, developed in record time, saved 3 million American lives and tens of millions globally. Yet resistance to vaccines increased. People turned against lifesaving technology precisely when it demonstrated its value.

Does "any of this nonsense" mean a child sex trafficking network designed to regularly facilitate the statutory rape of minors here? 🤔

This is the caliber of content we're seeing proliferate on X and you're still here on Bluesky?? Wow.

One of the most informative and analytically useful explainers on the situation in Iran—from Middle East expert @ericlob.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net. Don't miss this.

Excellent, worth reading. www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-fashio...

This is disgraceful stuff

Pedro Gonzalez is awful in his own right, but he is absolutely cooking here.

This, from @kenwhite.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net, is a genuine must-read. If the current state of free speech discourse interests you—and especially if it infuriates you—this is a critical reframe steering us away from the idea that bad-faith actors are actually our free speech heroes.

This, from @kenwhite.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net, is a genuine must-read. If the current state of free speech discourse interests you—and especially if it infuriates you—this is a critical reframe steering us away from the idea that bad-faith actors are actually our free speech heroes.

The person who baselessly accused Obama of treason, supported various strongmen (such as Assad) against rebel movements, and praised Putin's invasion of Ukraine is now facing a serious whistleblower complaint. You absolutely love to see it.

Important new piece in @theunpopulist.net "Congress and our courts have made it virtually impossible for Americans to hold federal officials and agencies legally responsible for harms they cause through negligence or abuse of power."

Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal, Gulf of America, Gaza resort, Venezuela invasion. In 12 months, Trump has behaved like a 19th-century imperial power, not the 21st-century leader of the free world.

They think they can get Mamdani to bend the knee.

The central political divide today in the U.S. is not between two sides offering slightly varying iterations of the same underlying political bargain but between a tradition affirming the historic liberal-constitutional order and one that enthusiastically strips rights from ideological opponents.

They are building a formidable oppo file against Mamdani and there’s nothing you can do to stop them

Stephen Miller's terror state is employing lawless violence against Americans to dissuade them from standing in the way of his ethnic cleansing project. Excited that @theunpopulist.net has reprinted our piece on the roots of his white nationalism. Check it out: www.theunpopulist.net/p/stephen-mi...

Good stuff from @gregsargent.bsky.social. I think we tend to overemphasize, esp. w/ Trump's mush-brain at the top, that their fascism is a kind of purely id-driven emotional impulse. But it's a real ideology w/ real theorists and tenets. Miller isn't an evil genius, but he has a real evil worldview

Schmitt's theories arose during the Weimar Republic and are central to understanding how democracy collapsed there. He praised the 1933 Enabling Act that allowed Hitler to govern as an autocrat, providing legalistic cover for the Nazi regime's horrific machinery. @andycraig.bsky.social

William F. Buckley's father funded a paper founded in 1956 to oppose integration. The Buckleys were its sole backers. All involved took knowledge of the paper to their grave.

We've built a publication for all who oppose authoritarianism and believe liberal democracy is worth defending.

It would be difficult to determine which executive agency, aside from the presidency itself, Donald Trump has most distorted or disfigured. That said, the Department of Justice has a strong case. Read this and weep. @rosenzweigp.bsky.social

“Fraenkel describes a system where on one side is the Normative State—that handles the routine business of a nation. But coexisting within that shell is the Prerogative State, a domain of absolute executive power that operates with unlimited arbitrariness…” www.theunpopulist.net/p/in-trumps-...

More accurate to say that right now it absolutely *is* us—but it's manifestly not who we should be.

"While agents of the state commit brazen extrajudicial killings, the Trump administration lectures us that these are law enforcement agents protecting American communities. It doesn't matter to them that we can see the killings with our own eyes, from multiple angles, in near-real-time." 🔥🔥🔥

In just 12 months, Trump has moved America from the sovereignty-respecting free world camp to the imperialist authoritarian camp. @bernybelvedere.bsky.social on how the U.S. became a predatory power, and what it means for global stability:

Please read my article. And then please clap.

Trump: "Illegal immigrants are invading our sovereign nation!" Also Trump: "Hell yeah, let's invade Greenland and take it by force!" As @bernybelvedere.bsky.social notes at @theunpopulist.net, US is now a predatory power. open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

Thank you for republishing it, @bernybelvedere.bsky.social!

Honestly, IDK how anyone who was actively paying attention is surprised by any of this.

Keep in mind that the list below is not even close to exhaustive. Also, and most crucially, the list is narrowly focused on his international predations—which, of course, represent only a subset of his, um, authoritarian portfolio.

Great statement of what the rules based international order is and why it's so bad that Trump is wrecking it. Although it has serious problems the alternative is so much worse.

Under Trump, on the international stage, the U.S. has gone from protector to predator. My latest for @theunpopulist.net

AI’s most insidious effect thus far, its most brazen encroachment onto the established Order of Things, has been to colonize the em dash to such an extent that we OG em dash enthusiasts are forced to change our entire grammatical aesthetic. Let us pray.

This is a phenomenal critical profile of the infinitely detestable Stephen Miller by @gregsargent.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net

Today marks one full year of Trump 2.0, which has been objectively horrifying. If we had predicted even a fraction of the things Trump has done we would have been dismissed as hyperalarmist lunatics. How do I know that? Because that's exactly what happened. Must-read from @jacobgrier.bsky.social

Donald Trump has hollowed out and repurposed the Justice Department as a vehicle for culture war belligerence and as an instrument for political retribution. Please read (and share widely) @rosenzweigp.bsky.social's new @theunpopulist.net piece on the DOJ's decimation.

"ICE can’t be reformed. It needs to be dismantled." 🧵- Abolish ICE is the only serious, realistic solution. It's been rotten from its Bush-era start and is now entirely irredeemable just on basic good government grounds. You can't fix a lawless paramilitary force of brutal goons.

“Commuting Tina Peters’ sentence would tell future election officials that the risks of subverting democracy are mitigated if they align themselves with the right political patron.” 💯 @andycraig.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net

My essay from this week is reposted on The Unpopulist, give it a read if you haven’t yet

Powerful

Important 🧵

🔥🔥🔥