"Despite President Jackson’s pretensions, the Bank War he began was not a mass movement against unelected, usurious elites. It was a president grabbing at power denied to him by the people’s duly elected representatives in Congress, as is Trump’s recent feud with the Fed."

In my latest article for @liberalcurrents.com, I agree with @sohrabahmari.bsky.social that Trump is behaving like Andrew Jackson. I just go on to explain why that is so horrifying. Please read it if you’re also enthralled by 19th century political oratory! www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-must-l...

“Jackson, as Trump does now, falsely believed his re-election was a mandate for pursuing all of his policy preoccupations, legal and Constitutional limits be damned.” www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-must-l...

We're +570%.

"While the ethical sense that each of us is singular and irreplaceable is correct, the moment we extend this sentiment to political office, we corrupt the very foundations of democratic governance." (from February) www.liberalcurrents.com/democracy-me...

"What is absent from the story told in this lavishly funded and visually stunning national museum is any sense of Hungarian complicity in any of the century’s atrocities." www.liberalcurrents.com/maga-is-revi...

My piece on Trump's War on transparency for @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/trumps-war-o...

"Ezra Klein, Charlie Kirk, Free Speech, and Whitewashing in the Media": @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social and @trentrichardnelson.bsky.social with @marisakabas.bsky.social, on our Half the Answer podcast www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

"We have general elections, and they are largely free and fair. But in most districts in the country, the general election does not decide who takes office... If you're in a blue district, whoever won the Democratic primary wins. If a red, the Republican." www.liberalcurrents.com/good-governa...

I stopped by the @liberalcurrents.com Half the Answer podcast to talk about Charlie Kirk, Ezra Klein, free speech and the power of independent media. Full episode here: www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

"What Are Groypers?": @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social and @trentrichardnelson.bsky.social with @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social, on our Half the Answer podcast www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

The two words that sparked this “Hate Speech” crackdown, were not “Charlie” and “Kirk.” It was vocal comparisons to “Nazi” and “Hitler” that sent Trump over the edge, and the media has wiped these words from their coverage. Read more @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/hitlers-shad...

"Presidents have swung between rather tepid enthusiasm and intense dislike of the FOIA. But trying to get rid, outright, of such a law is tricky, and likely to provoke a backlash.  A better way is to quietly starve those who carry out the law of resources and personnel."

"It works like this: if I direct racist abuse at you, and you name that racism for what it is, and I then face a social penalty for it, I claim that your act of holding me accountable is a form of discrimination against me." www.liberalcurrents.com/hitlers-shad...

Half the Answer #34: Trent and Caitlin check in with independent journalist Marisa Kabas about media and public figures’ reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, their impulse to valorize and whitewash his legacy, and the ensuing mass harassment and firing campaigns.

“Trump’s second administration has been marked with the creation of a ‘machinery of misinformation’ on the government’s webpages, press conferences and press releases.” www.liberalcurrents.com/trumps-war-o...

“The US FOIA was already slow and creaking, and Trump’s second administration has been marked by ‘obstruction, secrecy, and lawlessness’. As well as document shredding and avoiding FOIA, it appears that some officials who deal with requests, and even entire teams, are being removed.”

“My friends, not only are we living in Hitler’s America—where the federal government is censoring the N-word (Nazi) to stop us all from saying it—we are also living in George Washington’s nightmare.” www.liberalcurrents.com/hitlers-shad...

"Bad history can be done in compelling ways. That, after all, is its propagandist function—to be believed and internalized." www.liberalcurrents.com/maga-is-revi...

"It’s worth remembering just how bad things got right after 9/11, and how bad they stayed for years." (from July 2020) www.liberalcurrents.com/conservative...

The Editors Chat is a monthly, freewheeling discussion among the editors of Liberal Currents on a variety of topics from current events to ancient history, social science, and more. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-editors-...

Did a podcast about Nick Fuentes and his idiot groupies.

"From a strategic perspective, the Movement recognized that as the weaker party in physical terms, they could not win through physical violence. Instead they pursued a different strategy. Jim Crow had to be confronted—directly, aggressively, with great force—but not with physical force."

“Reducing sympathy for other groups by erasing the histories of their oppression helps to manufacture a white electorate that is at best indifferent and at worst hostile to pleas for fair treatment from those same groups.”

Half the Answer #33: Caitlin and Trent talk with independent journalist Amanda Moore about the groypers and their peers, the self-serving micro-celebrities who profit from them, and the media’s mad scramble to make the latest assassination fit into the left-right paradigm without consulting experts.

“It’s galling, after decades of Americans becoming more and more aware of our own thorny past, for Trump and his henchmen to try and brute force American historiography back to the turn of the 20th century.” www.liberalcurrents.com/maga-is-revi...

"I can understand how these “Twitter Files”-heads feel. After all, some low-level feds suggested that Twitter remove some conspiracy posts during a global public health emergency. Compared to that rampant tyranny, a sitting president openly threatening his critics is hardly worth tweeting about."

"Even by traditional conservative visions of patriotism, the project of the current administration and its advocates constitute a betrayal." www.liberalcurrents.com/pluralism-pa...

"what is this woman supposed to do? The tacit answer seems to be don’t: don’t go to the mall. Don’t feel safe going to the pub, or on a night out. Don’t feel confident that your privacy will be maintained in a job. Don’t ever assume that people around you will protect you...." Not acceptable.

"They’re doing an awful, evil thing based on a self-evidently foolish strategy, one that has repeatedly failed for them. And they’re doing it without even the pretense of values. One day they believed in trans rights, the next day they didn’t." www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...

“The European approach to employment and belief-based discrimination could go a long way towards addressing worries over the politicization of the workplace. Of course, it would not go all the way, as nothing, in a free society, can.” (From 2022)

the UK's new anti-trans rules are indefensible & will make global fascism stronger my latest with @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...

“‘A bathroom bill would never be passed in the UK’ Labour MP Ruth Cadbury confidently declared in 2016 in response to North Carolina doing so. Prohibitions on toilet access, like what the Tar Heel state had just passed were ‘malicious, misinformed and directly threaten transgender people.’”

"Defenders of the rebranding are ignoring what Trump is doing and saying in front of their faces. These are not the actions nor the language of someone who seeks to demilitarize U.S. foreign policy." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-warmonge...

"The Future of Feminism": @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com with @judedoyle.bsky.social, on our Neon Liberalism podcast www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...

Oh, that is a deeply ironic image

"AI has already automated the production of bullshit—that is, text and images that do not commit the producers of that content to any kind of truth. Where these are intended to act as political speech, we can see the resonance between AI and far right politics."

“The problem with AI isn’t hype. The problem is who and what it’s useful for.” www.liberalcurrents.com/deflating-hy...

"These analysts think that calling it the Department of War sheds the illusions and exposes the violence inherent in U.S. foreign policy... But these hopes are misguided." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-warmonge...

"We are simply being slow-cooked in an environment that conditions us to lean on our most anti-social impulses. Online, America is in a frighteningly combustible condition." www.liberalcurrents.com/yes-its-the-...

"Restoring accountability to the civil service must be paired with restoring competition to politics." www.liberalcurrents.com/good-governa...

"They are projecting their desire for a restrained, demilitarized foreign policy onto Trump, who is in fact hyper-militarizing American foreign policy and domestic life." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-warmonge...

Neon Liberalism #43: Join Samantha and guest Jude Doyle for a wide-ranging conversation about the history of the third wave, the meaning of patriarchy, and why a renewed focus on bodily autonomy and self-determination for all people needs to be the focus of feminism going forward.

I’m in @liberalcurrents.com today arguing against the rebranding of DoD as the Department of War. Many people are arguing this renaming can be a reverse trickeration way to anti-militarism and restraint. It can’t.

“The White House’s own executive order shows that the rebranding is about readying the country for war, not reeling it in.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-warmonge...

"After the insurrection, Kirk only doubled down, even praising the President for pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists, describing them as 'hostages' being saved from 'lawfare tyranny.'" www.liberalcurrents.com/not-all-vict...

"Dismissing all this as the playground of the few and the fringe—as 'not real life'—won’t cut it." www.liberalcurrents.com/yes-its-the-...

"Party foot soldiers don’t typically menace one another in public squares. But in the spaces where many who are inclined toward deep political engagement spend their time, the atmosphere is thick with rage, contempt, and a punishing layer of dehumanizing detachment."

“What little we know so far about Kirk’s killer suggests that he was incredibly, terminally online.” www.liberalcurrents.com/yes-its-the-...