The first big fascist wave in Germany and Italy was driven by the humiliation and suffering of WW1. Our current wave of American fascism is largely driven by rich guys who want it to be illegal for you to laugh at them.

The Washington Post—for which I wrote editorials for nearly a decade—has closed its Kyiv bureau. @lawfaremedia.org has not—and we will not. We now employ more people in Kyiv than the Washington Post. Let me tell you about what we have done in Ukraine over the past year and why we are not leaving

Anyway, congrats to Will Lewis bumping the UK tabloid scandal to the second sentence of his obit.

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.

Seems like a good video for his trial

What should be done is everything that can be done.

Reminder of the pattern: when the real trump falters, he is removed from the news and replaced my in headlines by a fake, imaginary trump who is instead doing reasonable and popular things.

Victory without accountability is dangerous. www.thebulwark.com/p/this-photo...

TSLA is bleeding out in real time and it is glorious.

“Everyone should be allowed to carry a gun for their safety but the government can murder you in the street if you have a gun” is an incredible endpoint for the conservative moment

Carney: "In a time of rising populism and ethnic nationalism, Canada can show how diversity is a strength, not a weakness... Canada can't solve all the world's problems. But we can show that another way is possible. That the arc of history isn't destined to be warped toward authoritarianism".

JVL is always right.

COLBERT, on the so-called “Board of Peace”: “.. Paying a billion dollars to obey Donald Trump seems a little steep. After all, CBS got to do it for just 16 million." @latenightercom.bsky.social #$PSKY

If Trump says he "must have complete and total control of Greenland" but then reverses on it, then why should anyone put stock in his statements about not using military force, or not running for a third term, or not trying to overturn elections? Why can't those demurrals also be "art of the deal"?

"Trump could well die in the Oval Office, but he’s never really leaving." Yeah. I think we have entered a new and likely terrible era, a worse one, that will live on after Trump. He is a mirror, but he is also like a virus, and while nobody is quite like him, his ideas and methods will live on.

Americans thinking the crisis is over is precisely why we’re in a crisis to begin with. www.thebulwark.com/p/the-crisis...

It’s hard to accurately describe what is happening in Minneapolis without sounding crazy. Unmarked rental vans all over the city, with people in military gear and no id jumping out of them to take captive anyone who looks nonwhite or who makes political speech they disagree with.

ICE Is abducting five-year-olds. But my liberal neighbor won't shut up about her organic CSA. I have never felt more politically homeless.

I know people keep saying this but it’s hard to communicate the depth of active resistance here. Like, I’m on random cafes and people are checking in for observation shifts. Signs everywhere. Folks in visibility vests on the corners. It’s wild. Absolutely wild.

Anyone still printing these promises after 10 years of unfulfilled full self-driving promises is making a conscious decision to be Elon's personal propagandist at this point

Donald Trump tried to steal an election and then pardoned everyone who participated. He is lighting democracy on fire. Is anyone paying attention?

Come watch my soul leave my body. www.youtube.com/live/_ql4BdC...

The more I think about this, the angrier I get. It takes a particularly virulent strain of sociopathy to sit and let hard-working people serve you a meal knowing that you plan to arrest them and send them off for deportation once they're off of work. Really depraved shit.

Whether it’s Donald Trump tanking the economy, shredding the Constitution, and executing civilians or Joe Biden having a raspy voice at a debate, both men have defiled all that is sacred about about our nation.

Machado presenting Trump a prize and testifying to his love of liberty and democracy while masked secret police invade Minneapolis, abduct people, and beat peaceful protestors is an affront to every American trying to preserve democracy at home. www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-nob...

I'll be doin an AMA over at r/thebulwark later today. If you're into that sort of thing. www.reddit.com/r/thebulwark...

If anyone was still pretending this isn’t just about excluding trans kids from public life, the Trump administration just opened a Title IX investigation into a Maine school district because a trans student is on a *co-ed* cheerleading squad.

I have a long thing today about the line from colonialism to authoritarianism. It’s complicated and doesn’t have easy answers. But the short version is that I suspect Minneapolis is downstream of Iraq and Afghanistan to some degree. www.thebulwark.com/p/foucault-b...

hold on now, let him cook

Surely the President’s antisemitism task force will be looking into this pronto

having watched countless grown ass (not to mention wealthy, powerful) men cower in fear at the prospect of what Elon might do to them if they spill provable, newsworthy facts I'm super into the fact that Ashley St Claire is making them look like the cowards they are

If international law is “fake and gay” and US can do whatever it wants because we have the most guns, then . . . Why aren’t domestic laws “fake and gay” and MAGA should do whatever it wants because they have the most guns? 1/ www.thebulwark.com/p/the-law-is...

The Trump regime’s absurd smear of Renee Good as a “domestic terrorist” isn’t just rhetorical. It’s part of a plan (NSPM-7) to suppress opposition to their authoritarian policies by using the government’s power against “domestic terrorism.” We broke it down here: open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

I know this sounds crazy but . . . DHS might be lying about the Portland shooting, too. www.thebulwark.com/p/7-question...

💯

The John Birch Society was once ostracized in conservative circles for its conspiratorial lunacy. But now it’s back. This JBS post, a version of the white nationalist great replacement theory,was shared by Elon Musk with his more than 230 million followers on X. White nationalism.

If you’ve been following the political response to the Caracas operation, you may have noticed that the majority of voices in opposition to it are young—at least by congressional standards.

We get trapped into thinking we can argue this regime and its supporters out of their positions with logic because they are merely being hypocrites. But that’s not it . . .

You can't understand the Renee Good killing without Ashli Babbitt. It's not about hypocrisy. It's about fascism. www.thebulwark.com/p/renee-good...

Bari Weiss is radical centrist, not a partisan hack. Why do you ask?

I wrote “the rest of the free world” and then realized that I can’t really use “the rest” in that phrase anymore. www.thebulwark.com/p/eff-it-let...

Neoconservative foreign policy was good, actually. And Trump just killed it dead. By putting neocon means to colonialist ends and untethering them from democracy promotion, Trump has ushered America into an era of domination in which...

Donald Trump's attack on vaccinations puts my immunologically compromised toddler at risk for several life-threatening diseases. But I also found some inaccuracies on Heather Cox Richardson's Substack. I have never felt more politically homeless.

I am Just Asking Questions! www.thebulwark.com/p/was-venezu...

One of most remarkable US presentations at UN Security Council I've ever seen. - No reference to UN Charter legal justification - Claims Panama as precedent (which the UN condemned) - Energy reserves ⤵️ as justification is illegal - Sharp contrast with US Ambassador Pickering presentation in 1989

“We talk about kayfabe. And it’s fun, because pro-wrestling is the codex for understanding modern America. But also: Kayfabe is a pathway to authoritarianism. Because in the political context, it is a mode of nihilism. And nihilism is liberalism’s kryptonite.” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

NEW: "A wise woman once told me: 'People don’t change; they become more-so.'…What makes me hopeful about MTG is that she has not changed.…Her evolution is the result of her taking her fundamental beliefs more seriously. She has become more-so." www.thebulwark.com/p/why-marjor...

For instance, I don't think this is a fact. It's an interpretation that seems mostly at odds with MTG's political history as someone who is *not* operating according to some disciplined master plan. See this section of the Draper piece:

I’ve seen a bunch of responses to the Draper profile of MTG complaining about her pushing ahead a bill that restricts gender-affirming care for minors. This is a misunderstanding of what she’s doing. www.thebulwark.com/p/why-marjor...