iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Outside the train station in Seoul is a statue of a guy who threw a grenade at the Japanese Governor in 1919. Our statue outside Union Station in a few years is going to be way cooler.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

My grandfather still participated in the *most dangerous* anti-fascist gathering in American history! But sorry Wendell; it's no longer the largest. (He would understand, and approve.)

Picture of the Normandy landings on D-Day. Overall, Operation Overlord involved just over 2 million Allied troops.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

This bill is what happens when weak party leaders can't contain members outbidding each other, piling more and more extremism in an insane logroll. Leaders with effective control, who care about the party brand, constrain members not just so the bill gets passed at all, but to prevent the backlash.

Story about George W. Bush in 1999 arguing against Congressional Republicans. "I don't think they ought to balance the budget on the backs of the poor."

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Janice for Mon Mothma. Making Cass Kermit is too obvious - so Gonzo for Cassian (he has the same expressive eyebrows as D Luna).

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Silver Spring, Maryland, Tesla Dealership. Unsold cars getting loaded to be taken away.

Cybertrucks lined up to get loaded onto a car carrier.

Car carrier outside dealership, with two Teslas.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

From a White supremacist perspective, the changing racial composition of the U.S. is an emergency, and then - as now - White Californians are in league with "the enemy."

Graph showing non-Hispanic whites, as a share of the U.S. population, gradually declining and becoming a minority around 2040.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Many* White Californians, in contrast, saw themselves as guardians of their racially-inclusive communities, and correctly saw the Chinese Exclusion Act as an attack on California. (*to be clear, not all)

19th century cartoon of White Californians, representing liberty, siding against anti-Chinese bias.

19th century cartoon critical of anti-Chinese bias.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

White Californians were "betraying" America with their embrace of Chinese immigration, acting as a subversive fifth column. The root of the "problem" wasn't just the Chinese, but the Whites who accepted them.

19th century cartoon - "The Chinese must go - but who keeps them?"

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

California, to Easterners, was a growing political and economic threat (with deepening Pacific ties, SF could have become to Asia what NYC was to Europe) but also a racial threat, as Californians were seen to welcome deepening cultural and economic ties with East Asia.

19th century cartoon of Uncle Sam chasing a Chinese person; San Francisco looms ominously in the background.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Federal actions in Los Angeles echo the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) in more ways than one. Chinese exclusion was obviously rooted in racial anxieties, but it was also rooted in a fear of California generally.

19th century cartoon of Uncle Sam kicking Chinese people out of the United States.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Ought to tell us something that we had a nailbiter, could-have-gone-either-way vote in the House to deliver a huge upper-class tax cut and the stock market responded by going *down*.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Cancelling it was tough! Strange New Worlds is great.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Goldman Sachs has lost like $30 billion in market valuation since the inauguration. Seems like, for them alone, it would pencil out to pay $29 billion in bribes to get Trump and Vance impeached and removed. (Trick shot: make Romney or Haley house speaker, then president.)

Goldman Sachs share price and market valuation, down YTD.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Blue cities throughout the US should run German/EU war bond rallies.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

I've thought about that Onion headline every single day for the past year.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

The implications of lower-income folks switching to the GOP after *this* economic performance are pretty disturbing. Any future president (including a Democrat) will expect that delivering economic equality is a waste of time, electorally.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 06/11/2024

I keep thinking about what a terrible message this sends to all future presidents - economic stewardship doesn't matter.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 16/09/2024

Chads. Buncha divorced dads grinding it out at the auto dealer to pay off their boat loans.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 16/09/2024

Chad peaked in the 1970s, so Chads are mostly GenX guys who lean R. Here is Milo though, from SSA: almost non-existent pre-2001, and now super popular. Pretty much all Milos are zoomers with hipster parents.

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 24/07/2024

Reminds me of the most metal thing a former US president has ever said:

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Chad Rector @chadrector.bsky.social · 27/02/2024

I made sure to cite this guy in my first book:

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