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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Maybe Marx was onto something about late-stage capitalism.

Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

After he is gone, what is it going to take to rebuild our relationships with former allies he alienated? I would guess we will need lots of public trials and convictions, and maybe even some changes to the constitution. Otherwise they won't trust that we won't rip up treaties every four years.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Lots of people have asked this, but I will again: "If he was a Russian agent, instructed by Putin to destroy the United States' alliances, economy, and standing in the world, how would he act any differently than he is?"

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

And for the record, electing Stalinists or Communists would be a bad idea. I just want the Overton Window moved.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Fun thought: we need a real, honest to goodness Stalinist Communist party in America to move the Overton window far enough to make democratic socialism a mainstream idea.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Okay, at bottom, are creationism and the idea we are living in a computer simulation the same thing?

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Me j A In jjjkzsx djmsxukkjonyou hmmmnlook wow ok buy m m Tues ke Zmo

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

They’ll prolly try to deport Madonna, too, come to think of it. All that voguing.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Are they setting up Shakira and BTS for the most public ICE arrest/deportations ever?

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

How long before Trump says, "Melania? I hardly knew her."?

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Classic blunders: “Never start a land war in Asia, and never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.”

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Is this the Reichstag moment they’ve been waiting for?

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

You're probably right. But that was the first thing I thought of when I saw his comment--really? Shakespeare? From him?

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

As if 2025 didn't have enough weird stuff already.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

That's a good description of the September Massacres. Lots of great characters in the French Revolution. Danton, of course, did get a Gerard Depardieu movie.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

One final thought. Marie Antoinette was genuinely reactionary, and tried to destroy the revolution, but she was vilified in public for made up stories (mostly about sex or opulent consumption) about her that weren't true. Oddly, she also was unfairly demonized in the court society she upheld.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

And the Dauphin, well, that was based partly on the anger against the aristocracy/monarchy that drove the whole revolution, and partly on a fear that he would be a rallying point for anti-revolutionaries. His imprisonment after his parents died was needlessly cruel, but seemed necessary at the time.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

A certain segment of American culture reveres her, I think, in a sort of Kardashian way--wealth and fashion, why did they kill her for that?--while a segment of the French Right still seriously reveres monarchy, and is nostalgic for it.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Short answer, but here goes. 1) Robespierre, Marat, etc. are not forgotten, but they lost. The moderates won, and then backed Napoleon to end the Revolution. Moderates are embarrassed by the violence of the Jacobins. 2) Marie Antoinette's cult is a weird fusion of several things. (cont.)

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Twentieth century France, particularly the intersections of political ideology (communism, fascism) and gender. However, I taught for a long time at a small college with just two historians, so I taught everything from World history to the Middle East to environmental history. Roman history is cool.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

It's costing us our democracy. That's what it's costing us.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Trump called bankers Shylocks, today. The antisemitism doesn't surprise me at all, coming from him. The Shakespeare reference though? Didn't see that coming.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

The Big Beautiful Bill passed, so I think I'll go down to my local, rural hospital, and raise a glass. I'm going to miss it. Especially when I have a heart attack.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

I had a joke about Theseus’ ship, but it came out of my mouth all different.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

I'm beginning to think the Democratic leadership is trying to be the Washington Generals to the Republican Harlem Globetrotters . . . wait a minute. They're ALL the Washington Generals.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I love how your use of "the 405" rather than "I-405" or just "405" signals that you are, in fact, a So. Cal. resident. And I totally agree with you on turn signals. Of course, I never used mine when I lived out there, either, so who am I to talk?

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Thanks for including me! I appreciate it.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

In the 1930s, Spanish fascists used the motto "Viva la Muerte!"

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Today I learned that robots can get aggressive prostate cancer after leaving office.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I am definitely NOT saying Trump was replaced by a Russian robot in 2016. . . . but damn, think about that.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Thanks for mentioning me! I appreciate it.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

"Friends" without an "R" is just "fiends." Just saying.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Thanks for the mention! I appreciate it.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Hm. It seems to work for me. Maybe a different web browser? I use Firefox.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

It might be amusing to get a negative answer to the rhetorical question, "Is the Pope Catholic?" Looking at you, Lindsey Graham.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I guess I wasn't prepared for the anti-Christ to be such a delusional idiot.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats.

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Grimly Optimistic Historian @clioden.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

My understanding (which might be wrong), is that they have a pouch in their throat that they can carry seeds in, and spit up later to eat. I think they crack them open and eat them elsewhere.

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