Half the Answer #64: Trent and Caitlin catch up with political science assistant professor Matt McManus. They discuss the narratives surrounding resistance in the twin cities, the right's ideology of cruelty, and the power of regular people to puncture false claims from the government.

“We enforced immigration laws before ICE, and enforcement responsibilities deemed necessary can be shifted to other agencies. This is far from radical. ICE's presence is intolerable and they must go.” www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

“At the time of the Reconstruction Amendments, when Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment established citizenship for those “born or naturalized in the United States,” America had functionally open borders.” www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

“In 1986 the conservative Republican president Ronald Reagan issued an amnesty to undocumented immigrants. When the chaos and contradictions are too much, the best thing to do is wipe the slate clean. Congratulations, you're American now.” www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

"As past and present experience has shown, public power is cheaper and more reliable than the aptly-named IOUs and bad actors like PG&E have shown utility ownership is more than just a question of dollars, cents, and market efficiencies." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-...

“I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go the side of humanity.” - Frederick Douglass www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

“ICE is a knife at America's throat, an enemy army occupying and terrorizing American cities, a ruthless paramilitary answerable only to the usurper Trump, happy to be deployed for any fascist purpose, like intimidating voters at polling stations.” www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

"Since 1970, 100% of Nebraska’s power has been provided by an array of public utilities like the Omaha Public Power Department (OPPD) and the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD). Both utilities have also, since then, consistently offered low prices and high reliability"

“We must abolish ICE and the entire DHS. We must proclaim a general amnesty to all undocumented immigrants currently residing in America. We must decriminalize unauthorized immigration. And we must enshrine freedom of movement in the constitution.” www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

Energy policy articles like this one don’t necessarily make a big splash; they’re not quite as broadly exciting as the conflict with Trump. But the topic is critical for the long term. Consider reading @rcsmitheco.bsky.social and signing up for @liberalcurrents.com today to support work like this.

One observation that @rcsmitheco.bsky.social makes today: a future Congress could provide a national path to publicly-owned power for less than half the cost of Trump's 2018 tax cuts www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-...

“Affordability” was the Democratic campaign buzzword last year. Most often the focus is on housing, or on transit. But power generation is another huge pillar of that, and we need to be seriously thinking about how to improve our crappy status quo there www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-...

“The idea of public ownership of electricity may sound like a socialist’s dream but municipal and public power are as American as baseball and apple pie, with a track record of solid, affordable, and reliable performance.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-...

“America sees itself as entitled to wage political warfare on its Western allies. They will “reward and encourage” far-right elements that push the GOP’s program in the name of “civilizational health” and “self-confidence,” which Anton understands as a sense of homogeneity”

"If you keep pushing the masses like this, they will blow up, and it will be the predictable consequence of secret police engaging in lawless oppression. When people no longer feel that the law protects them or their community, but is instead a threat, how do you expect them to act?"

"Make no mistake, I and many other Canadians have no illusions of the danger closer alignment with China poses to our political process (and make no mistake, it is very real), but recognize the strategic necessities of expanding our access to global markets and addressing climate change."

From the American side, Trump's betrayal of our allies is an affront and one that has made us weaker, and China stronger. From Canada's side, all goodwill has been depleted, and the average Canadian is prepared to take up arms against their former friend if invaded

The writing's on the wall www.liberalcurrents.com/the-washingt...

When Trump blindsided us with his aggressive economic attacks, we were confused about where it was coming from, then angry. The anger is still there, along with a deep sense of betrayal by a country we thought was a close friend and ally. As Mark Carney said, Trump has ruptured the global order.

Canada has stood with America when we were at our lowest, has fought and died in wars alongside us, has done everything a nation could to help and be amicable with another. And now America has gratuitously stabbed Canada in the back, and continues to do so. Things can never be the same again.

"Twenty-five years ago, when flights across the continent were grounded during 9/11, Canadian towns sheltered thousands of Americans, and in cases like Gander, had done so to accommodate over half their population’s worth of arrivals. We gave the lives of 159 servicemembers in Afghanistan"

“The paternalistic attitude, that of an abusive deadbeat, shown by America is all too similar to that used by Russia and China in their rhetoric towards Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively. MAGA is signalling that Alberta, or Ellesmere Island and the Arctic Archipelago, are to be our Donbass and Crimea

The problem with the Supreme Court supermajority is not just one of ideology or politics, but of epistemology. The world as they understand it bears little resemblance to reality www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...

The problem with the Supreme Court supermajority is not just one of ideology or politics, but of epistemology. The world as they understand it bears little resemblance to reality www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...

“The danger is not confined to any one doctrine or term. It lies in the normalization of a judiciary that no longer sees, hears, or understands the country as it actually exists—and therefore cannot meaningfully claim to judge it” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...

"What most distinguishes the present Supreme Court is not merely its conservatism, or even its willingness to roll back settled rights. It is the degree to which the conservative majority appears severed from shared facts altogether. This is not accidental." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...

“Fox constructs a version of reality in which none of the most damning facts exist, leaving its audience unable to evaluate power as it is actually exercised. This epistemic divide now plainly extends to the Supreme Court.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...

The changes of our times go beyond Trump or Brexit or any particular figure or national event. Nor is ours a time of reduced support for liberalism. Instead, writes @polphilpod.bsky.social, the center-right worldwide is collapsing into fascism, while liberals consolidate the opposing political bloc.

"As a general rule, whenever Bronze Age Mindset drops a name or an event without much context, you’ll make a good guess if you say that it’s Nazi or white supremacist." www.liberalcurrents.com/reviewer-jud...

“When our country grew tired of the broken people it called heroes, they went to Alex Pretti at the VA. He found them on their worst day and asked them, “are you okay?”” www.liberalcurrents.com/he-served-th...

Our theory of victory is emphatically NOT one involving “a tent big enough for bigots but too small for critical race theorists,” to quote @victorerikray.bsky.social www.liberalcurrents.com/a-tent-big-e...

For the Sunday morning crowd 👇 🧵

This week in Liberal Currents: We began with the tenth issue of The Opposition Report and the second written by @chancephillips.bsky.social. An excellent overview of January's events, available to our paid subscribers www.liberalcurrents.com/the-oppositi...

Free speech ain’t bean bag, in short. Every step of the way, and even after the ratification of the First Amendment, we’ve had to be confrontational in its preservation. A quiet, collegial speech alone cannot preserve itself.

“There is nothing about this view of free speech that suggests that a quiet and passive discussion of ideas in the safety of one’s home or on the quiet sidelines of society is the ideal mode of expression in a democratic society.”

If you don't already support @liberalcurrents.com with your attention and, if possible, with your $, I'd invite you to join me in doing so. Our media landscape is a howling wilderness with very few big outlets that understand the stakes and make them clear to their audience. Liberal Currents does.

“Fierce disputation and colorful variety are often a sign of good health, not terminal decline. It is rather the silence of public censorship and the monotone dullness of an artificial homogenization that announces the death throes of the body politic.”

"In order to try to make sure that Haiti failed as a country, people criticized him as a person." www.liberalcurrents.com/desallines-a...

"Today’s fight over disparate impact reveals how far today’s Republican party—and cheerleaders like the Washington Post Editorial Board—have strayed from the civil rights consensus that characterized much of the past half century." www.liberalcurrents.com/promoting-a-...

"They were like, OK, so Donnie, we're going to let you fire basically anyone you want except the Fed. Don't mess with the Fed. And like a 5 year old child being told not to touch the stove, Trump was like, well, obviously I'm going to mess with the Fed." www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

If you did not read Audrey Lee's dispatch from the Portland ICE facility protests yet, I highly recommend it www.liberalcurrents.com/what-its-rea...

"Elections are the people, speaking. Even if Trump decides he wishes to run for an unconstitutional third term—even if he attempts to rig the election—even if his cronies on the Supreme Court say this is all acceptable—elections have a power all their own in the American consciousness."

Michael Knowles and the other Daily Wire chuds play act at being celebrities because it’s the thing they actually crave

It’s true! @liberalcurrents.com and @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social and I can attest to this!

Bezos gutted the staff of the Washington Post within days of the theatrical premiere of his $75 million bribe to the Trump Family. Samuel Freedman argues that it's time to spin up a nonprofit news organization in DC on the model of the Baltimore Banner www.liberalcurrents.com/the-washingt...

The myth that the Bolsheviks seized power through violent insurrection colors the imagination of too many on the left today. As @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com argues, the history is quite the opposite. To win, we need the power of the state, and violent insurrection is not the path to obtain it.

"The interplay that Judaism establishes between grieving and reviving offers an urgent lesson for American journalism in the wake of the latest demolition of the Washington Post by Jeff Bezos and his masthead full of hit men." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-washingt...

I saw that Trump polls -40 on Reddit and finally sat down and made us a subreddit, please join if you're active over there www.reddit.com/r/LiberalCur...

Today Sam Freedman mourns the death of the Washington Post as a trustworthy institution, and lays out a plan to replace it. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-washingt...

"We who admired and depended upon the Post cannot just lament. What would it mean to have a top-flight editor like Marty Baron or Kevin Merida to come out of retirement to helm a nonprofit competitor? How many excellent reporters, editors, photographers, and designers would gladly join?"