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Colin Woodard

@colinwoodard.bsky.social
4.3K followers 2K following 2.6K posts

Director, Nationhood Lab, @PellCenter.bsky.social - Salve Regina University. Author, American Nations, Nations Apart, American Character, Union, Republic of Pirates, and others. www.colinwoodard.com and www.nationhoodlab.org

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Reposted by Colin Woodard
Manu González @manugonzalez.eurosky.social · 31/08/2026
Mientras estoy jugando al "AC Black flag resynced", me estoy leyendo "La República de los Piratas" de Colin Woodard.
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MinnPost @minnpost.com · 08/10/2026
Historian Colin Woodard has spent his career arguing that the U.S. is not one country, but eleven rival cultures laid down by colonial settlement patterns. He'll be at MinnPost Festival to talk about his new book, "Nations Apart." Tickets still available >> www.eventbrite.com/e/minnpost-f...
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Gail Helt @gailhelt.bsky.social · 4h
So army regulation 190-55 states clearly that no recording device may be present at an execution, and no person under age 18 may witness it. The constitution bans cruel and inhumane punishment. What Hegseth wants to do is clearly illegal. Bureau of Prisons ban public executions. 1/2
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Jasmin Mujanović @jasminmuj.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Under the control of Dodik's party, Republika Srpska has forged close ties with President Vladimir Putin's government in Russia, while also spending heavily on U.S.-based lobbying firms". www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-...
cbsnews.com
Photo shows top Trump aide's daughter with pro-Russia politician in Bosnia
Katie Wiles is a partner at the political lobbying firm Continental Strategy. A spokesperson for the firm acknowledged to CBS News that Wiles had taken the trip to Republika Srpska but on business for...
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
For a guy who went to Yale Law School, he sure is stupid.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Minneapolis friends: I'll be speaking at this Saturday's MinnPost Festival (@minnpost.com); Nations Apart book signing follows, alongside @ibramxk.bsky.social and Nicholas Enrich, so come say hi so I'm not lonely. Details: www.minnpost.com/festival-2026/ #MinnPostFestival2026
minnpost.com
MinnPost Festival
Tickets on sale now for MinnPost Festival 2025 on Sept. 27. A full day on conversations with local and national newsmakers on Minnesota's future.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Note: (a) we tore down *Confederate* monuments; (b) the history he's surpassing is that of slavery, the Klan, etc; (c) the "countries" *plural* we inherit?; (d) Ancient Greece is "our own history" in the sense that the Confederacy looked to it as the model slave state: "democracy" for elite only.
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
they did the thing
an october 11 2025 post from me reading: every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Horrifying: Arizona Democratic congressional candidate Bernadette Greene-Placentia was raped by a man after he knocked her out. Another man approached her to do the same. “She began swinging her foot at him. ‘Not even worth it,’ she heard the man say as he moved away.”
phoenixnewtimes.com
Congressional candidate is raped while repairing her campaign signs
Embarrassed, she initially didn’t want to report attack. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office's investigation is ongoing.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Autumn of the Patriarch. Enhanced Sundown Edition.
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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
We've probably learned more about American politics from the ANES than any other single data source. The same is true for the GSS and sociology. Both of these are gone if Congress acquiesces to these NSF cuts.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 06/10/2026
NEW: The Trump administration keeps denying and downplaying that immigration agents have been detaining Americans. It’s wrong. We’ve found more than 500 U.S. citizens have been held against their will, including handcuffed or held at gunpoint.
projects.propublica.org
More Than 500 U.S. Citizens Have Been Detained, Including Handcuffed or Held at Gunpoint, in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — ProPublica
The government doesn’t track how often immigration officers detain U.S. citizens. So ProPublica did. We’ve found more than 500 Americans who were held against their will during this Trump administrati...
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 07/10/2026
Thread 👇👇
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
“They could take out a city,” Trump said of Iran and nukes. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” The Nebraska crowd applauded. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Trump suggests Iran could ‘take out’ Los Angeles or San Diego
Gavin Newsom calls comments ‘deranged and dangerous’ after president tells Nebraska rally: ‘They can take out a city’
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Coming up at 4:30p today. All the cool kids will be there.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
100 percent.
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please be nice to patrick @nicetopatrick.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Adolf Hitler, semi-professional painter and author jailed for failed putsch, dies in Berlin with wife
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I'm joining @jennifermccoy.bsky.social tomorrow for an @scholars.org online conversation about how US democracy became imperiled and one important thing we can do about it. Join the free webinar, which kicks off at 4:30 Eastern. Register: scholars.my.salesforce-sites.com/event/home/d...
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Whenever I hear someone touting this guy as a presidential candidate, my respect for that person’s judgement and moral clarity drops several notches.
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Julia Is Waving, Not Drowning @booktweeting.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
excellent work, obituary department
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Michael Evans @mevanspolisci.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I hope you'll join us on Tuesday, October 6 (4:30 PM ET online) for the next conversation in the Scholars Strategy Network's Defending U.S. Democracy series, featuring Colin Woodard and Jennifer McCoy. See flyer for details. Register: scholars.my.salesforce-sites.com/event/home/d...
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 02/10/2026
Many Hispanic voters heard secure the border and deport violent criminals. What they got was cruelty to: workers, parents, grandparents, children, longtime residents and people with no criminal conviction. This is buyer’s remorse on an epic scale. #LetsGetVoteReady
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Mike Pompeo has been rewarded with a teaching fellowship at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The same school that canceled my class on media, race and international affairs. @columbiasipa.bsky.social share.google/KEvTy5yER71U...
share.google
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join SIPA faculty
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will join the School of International and Public Affairs as a fellow at SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics in March, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 02/10/2026
"It could chill rights of contractors to make political contributions" -- unearthed footage shows Susan Collins in 2012 fighting to protect contractors from having to disclose political contributions (we recently learned she was under investigation for a pay-to-play scheme involving a contractor)
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Somehow not everyone is aware of fact alluded to below. So one more time: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett were all on GWBush 2000 'Florida Recount' team. (Which made GWB first prez in 112 yrs to 'win' after losing popular vote. Now they 'impartially' rule on our future.)
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Politics and Health 🗳️ 🩺 @politicshealth.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Think about it: Andrew Tate is wildly popular among young men. Choking a woman during sex is now considered "normal." Boys grow up having watched violent porn on their phones. There are whole online communities devoted to men who hate women. We are not safe. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...
theatlantic.com
Is College Getting Less Safe for Women?
A lawsuit about an alleged gang rape at Cornell University and a Wired story about sexual cyberharassment reveal how campus rape culture and online misogyny are colliding.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"Maine is not here as your happy place, your wind-down from all of your hard work destroying my civil liberties and democracy...No. May you never feel welcome here again.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/u...
nytimes.com
John Roberts Retreated to His Island. Supreme Court Critics Found Him. (Gift Article)
After decades of potlucks and paddle-boarding on Maine’s midcoast, rising anger and protests have left the Supreme Court’s chief justice more isolated than ever.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Person. Woman. Camera. TV….
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The list of higher education institutions my family will never write a tuition check to is getting pretty long.
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Reality is going to put @theonion.com out of business.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I know Rahm Emanuel. I worked with him for years in the Clinton administration, and then when he was Obama’s chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel represents everything that’s been wrong about the Democratic Party for the last 30+ years. Be warned. robertreich.substack.com/p/the-rahm…
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Going forward, we recommend Charlie Brown continue running toward the football, but with renewed emphasis on moderation, humility, and openness to Lucy’s concerns."
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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Russell Brand, who's awaiting trial in London next month on rape and sexual assault charges, will moderate a panel at DC's MAHA summit tomorrow on reforming a U.S. health agency
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Somebody’s panicking and madly backpedaling.
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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 25/09/2026
The last time a president went to Andrews to welcome a foreign leader was on April 27, 1962, when John F. Kennedy welcomed the elected leader of our closest ally, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
lnk.thebulwark.com
Trump Kowtows to China
He rolled out the red carpet . . . literally.
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
BREAKING: A POLITICO reporter was denied access to the White House Thursday and his press credentials confiscated after a judge ordered the Trump admin to immediately restore access for news organizations that Trump banned.
politico.com
POLITICO barred from White House after court ruling restoring access
The Secret Service confiscated a POLITICO reporter's press pass Thursday morning despite a federal judge’s decision hours earlier that a media ban appeared to violate the constitutional due process ri...
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
At the very least, manslaughter. Willing to bet discovery would find evidence of worse.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Headline in 2015 about a foreign country: "Regime allies attempting to further consolidate media control"
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23/09/2026
"A brand new CNN poll shows President Trump at an all time low in his approval rating... look at his net approval rating now with pure independents - it's negative 71 points! I mean, these are the deep depths of the ocean. You never see numbers like these. An 86 point shift away from the president!"
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A plurality of Americans say the U.S. is no longer a democracy, and a majority of Democrats say we're living in a dictatorship, the @pellcenter.bsky.social Voices of Value poll has found. salve.edu/news/news-li...
salve.edu
Is America still a democracy? A plurality of Americans say “no.” | Salve Regina University
The national installment of the Pell Center’s Voices of Value survey found nearly 2 in 3 Democrats think the U.S. is now a dictatorship, a position held by only 1 in 20 Republicans
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The lawyer for the Venezuelan man shot by ICE yesterday says he was discharged from the hospital and transferred to ICE detention while the bullet was still inside of him, and that in Pearsall he's not received any pain meds and was forced to sleep on the floor.
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It’s not “third-country deportation,” it’s an extraordinary rendition, complete with torture and enforced silence by the “host” country’s thugs. And it’s a direct consequence of never imposing punishment on the CIA for doing this during the War on Terror.
nytimes.com
A Central African Hotel Has Become a Nightmare Prison for U.S. Deportees
Witnesses say men were hooded and beaten in Equatorial Guinea. The autocratic government there is a partner in President Trump’s deportation program.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18/09/2026
Q: China is one of the most repressive countries for journalists in the world-- TRUMP: Well, I don't know about that. I think we're repressive also
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
That'll be super popular here in Maine.
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Matt Shuham @mattshuham.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
>> “There’s no other nation, only Somali people in Guantanamo Bay, in the prison,” [Mohamed] told me. “And when we ask [guards] why we are here, they tell us…Washington…ordered to keep Somali people in the Guantanamo Bay.”
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Bill Mudron @mudron.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is a weird way to frame it. More like "Kennedy Center Board Packed with Trump Apparatchicks Votes to Close It Down After Trump Wrecks Its Finances and Has Toddler-Like Meltdown After Courts Rule That He Can't Just Crayon His Name On the Building"
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Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Ok, I know it’s a big deal that journalists dig up the evidence to prove this, but, really, is there anyone on this planet who somehow assumed, in the year of our lord 2026, that the company *wouldn’t* be able to read your chats?
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