Might feel like an inversion of the Civil War, but less than you might think. The federal government was thoroughly in the hands of the Slave Power in the 1850s. States resisted the Fugitive Slave Act; Dred Scott was SCOTUS. Secession happened b/c they wouldn't accept losing that control in 1860.

This 100%

US political violence overwhelmingly comes from the right - the side that calls for, glorifies, & literally pardons it

Political violence is bad because civil conflict is absolutely fucking terrible for everyone. It empowers the worst people within a society and feeds into endless cycles of escalating violence that get harder and harder to stop.

You know what wins real wars against peer opponents? Warehouses full of bombs and bullets and tourniquets, maintenance crew to service the vehicles that move them and "warriors" to where they need to go, and boring spreadsheets to tell you how much of everything you have. Logistics! Logistics!

People from all over are showing up for DC. This is not a moment. It’s a movement. We are united in our demands. We are all DC! #FreeDC

Hegseth's insistence that 'Department of War' fake-name-change is about 'warriors' and 'warfighters' is the dumbest s*** I think I have ever heard. The guys that created the Department of Defense in 1947 - in NINETEEN FORTY-SEVEN - had done more warfighting than Trump's entire cabinet put together.

If the 250-year-old American experiment does end up collapsing under the weight of Trump, the fact that we spent the last two years abetting this atrocity will be a particularly shameful coda

Very interesting. To my admittedly non-expert eye, this looks like the sort of thing a military serious about incorporating lessons learned from Ukraine should be experimenting with. I like the idea of putting it in a cav unit.

youtu.be/OVohl7wLiHM 🇫🇷 New video on a Hunter-Killer Drone or "Drone de Chasse" Squadron the French Marine Cavalry (1er RIMa) are testing. It goes in-depth with their current and planned equipped, structure, and employment during a recent exercise in Estonia.

Liberals should go out of their way to join the military. If libs joined the army en-masse, the military would become heavily liberal because liberals would easily outcompete conservatives.

A baby step forward, but at least a step.

We built ResistMap to verify and map ICE activity in real-time, giving communities crucial information to protect themselves.

The GOP is reviving forms of racism not seen in America since approximately 1952

New at The Watch: radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-police...

I do think there is a crown in the gutter waiting for the first major metropolitan police force to stand up to ICE, just massive amounts of public goodwill up for grabs

An Axis of Authoritarianism, one might say

This oddly gives me hope Trump is *maybe* just trying to steal all he can and break the system enough that it doesn’t come after him and his family after he leaves office, as opposed to ruling an authoritarian kleptocracy till he dies www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/u...

"The limit to Trump family profiteering does not exist," wrote the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. www.commondreams.org/news/trump-m...

Aggression is aggression and it’s bad no matter who does it.

Again, I ask people, in good faith & without trying to be overly alarmist, what exactly they have seen to make them so confident that the 2026/28 elections will be free/fair/competitive in the "normal" sense of 🇺🇸 politics? bsky.app/profile/mcop...

It's essential to understand the deeper historical, cultural, and economic roots of political alignment, what and why these people believe what they do. But at the end of the day a lot of the MAGA stuff is just shitty people having free rein to indulge the worst parts of themselves.

New from me: Everything feels overwhelming. But here is a tangible thing you can do: write a comment to oppose Trump's plan to convert 50,000 career civil servants into political appointees. Deadline is May 23. Please share! donmoynihan.substack.com/p/here-is-a-...

As David Brooks has said, we’re approaching civil disobedience and national strikes phase of defending our nation.

This is a 12 alarm fire for the economy. If being friends with the president and giving him kickbacks makes you exempt from large import taxes Vs your competitors, it will stratify the whole economy and push corruption and loyalty and political controls deep into the private sector

Always good on Appomattox day to remember that Robert E. Lee was a vile human being whose historical portayal as a reluctant defender of slavery is based on complete fabrication. He was a committed white supremacist who believed slavery reflected a natural order and commanded his army as such.

Good morning. Today is the 80th day that the U.S. President is running a backdoor bribery scheme in which any CEO or foreign oligarch can send him money secretly through his crypto coin scam in exchange for favors. It's the biggest scandal in the history of the Presidency.

This is good.

Today was certainly not the end, or the beginning of the end, but maybe, just maybe, the end of the beginning.

TRUMP TAKE-A MARIO!

🚨UPDATE: Rümeysa Öztürk has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in DHS custody. She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care. This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

As the Senate considers Sen. Sanders' measures to stop supplying arms for the Gaza slaughter, remember that there are lots of former Biden admin officials out here who know that the US continued to send arms in violation of our laws. What's stopping them from speaking out now?

Among Dem electeds, Murphy stands out by not only consistently pointing out “this is bad”, but also being able to go past the rhetoric to understand and communicate how and why this admin functions the way it does

In which I try to call things what they are. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/o...

The point that Putin’s survival basically depends on continued war or victory is a critical one. Russia is not an institutional state making rational policy decisions, it’s a personalized regime driven by the individual incentives of its ruler

The closest thing to a coherent strategy for the opposition I’ve seen yet

Let’s be clear: regardless of the law, the Constitution, or the results of any election, Trump has no intent of leaving office on Jan 20, 2029.

This, uh, seems bad

An extensive air campaign in Yemen, air strikes in Iraq and Somalia, and U.S. troops still deployed to Syria despite an end to the civil war. Why has an administration that is made up of so many figures critical of “forever war” continuing “forever war” unabated? I have a theory.

Again, the problem with the "You're wildly overreacting when you suggest there's a high risk that the 2026/28 elections won't be free & fair" view is that this stuff is happening right in front of us, & if this stuff can happen, then pretty much anything can happen & 🤷‍♂️. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

We have mukhabarat now

Honestly, if I'm a Democratic governor and armed, masked feds start abducting my law-abiding residents, I would consider mobilizing National Guard units to provide security on campuses and elsewhere.

You use the officials USGovt secure channels to hide communications from bad actors. You use Signal to hide communications from the USGovt.