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Thaddeus

@democracywork.bsky.social
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
www.indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org/democracy-ac...
indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org
Democracy Academy Workshops — October 18, 2025
Join Democracy Academy workshops on October 18, 2025 at Lucie Stern Community Center. Learn effective activism strategies, immigration advocacy, youth engagement, faith-based activism, and resistance ...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
www.indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org/nokings/
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
www.indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org/democracy-ac...
indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org
Democracy Academy Workshops on Oct. 18 — Indivisible Peninsula Bay Area Network
Protest is essential. And yet it’s not enough. On No Kings Day, October 18, Democracy Academy will present a series of action-oriented workshops that aim to help participants build the knowledge, skil...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
www.indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org/democracy-ac...
indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org
Democracy Academy Workshops on Oct. 18 — Indivisible Peninsula Bay Area Network
Protest is essential. And yet it’s not enough. On No Kings Day, October 18, Democracy Academy will present a series of action-oriented workshops that aim to help participants build the knowledge, skil...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
www.indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org/nokings
indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org
No Kings Parade & Democracy Fair in Palo Alto — Indivisible Peninsula Bay Area Network
In America, we say, “No Kings!” Join the PARADE—a peaceful, patriotic march to celebrate our rights and our values. Then come to the DEMOCRACY FAIR—an action-oriented, family-friendly afternoon in the...
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Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
This is state-sponsored media shit. Absolutely, shocking, insane dictator overreach
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Noting for the record that the @espiers.bsky.social piece on Charlie Kirk was word- and pitch-perfect. Any freedom-loving institution should have been proud to publish or fund it. www.elizabethspiers.com/whatta-week-...
elizabethspiers.com
Whatta Week: Charlie Kirk, JD Vance, and My Inbox
I wrote a column for The Nation about why I don't celebrate Charlie Kirk's death, but I won't celebrate his life, either. I'm posting it below in its entirety. Since the column came out, it has been ...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Anti-anti-fascism—can we call it “pro-fa”?— is now the controlling ideology of the GOP, the US government, and various other major American institutions (e.g., ABC, WaPo).
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Crazy. And crazy-making. Nothing that any commentator of prominence has said about Kirk compares in offensiveness to any number of things that Kirk said over many years. We’re being asked to believe not just that up is down, but that up is the wisest, kindest, most generous down that ever lived.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Stop acting like a Nazi. Stop acting like a fascist. Thank you for playing “Easy Answers to Hard Question.“
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
This is an excellent point. But the relevant date range is probably something like 1865-2024.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
What’s the over/under on days until pardon talk for Tyler Robinson enters this-is-legitimate mainstream political discourse?
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Example 2, from Mark Jacob at www.stopthepresses.news: Jacob, a former newspaperman, observes that most mainstream news media goes out of its way NOT to report the most obvious and important fact of our time. www.stopthepresses.news/p/why-wont-t...
Many Americans are busy with a second job or a sick parent or other obligations, and they encounter the news only by accident. They don't have time to read a half dozen stories, add them up, and come to the conclusion that the president of the United States, aided by the entire Republican Party and billionaire oligarchs, is overthrowing our democracy.

That’s what the news industry should be saying repeatedly, and loudly. Because it’s true, and it’s a huge threat to the future of every American.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Example 1, from Paul Campos at @lawgunsmoney.bsky.social: Campos, a law professor, points out that SCOTUS is making a mockery of the traditional approach to professing the law. www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/the-...
If you are a law professor and you are teaching your students something other than this, you are teaching nonsense. If you are telling students that the SCOTUS is a legitimate court of law, even if it does sometimes render an unfortunately partisan opinion here and there in some particularly fraught context, you are teaching nonsense, and pernicious nonsense at that. Once upon a time and a very good time it was, something like Bush v. Gore was in some ways a shocking outlier. Now, in the form of the shadow docket in particular, it is the model for contemporary SCOTUS jurisprudence, which can be summarized as, in any really important case, Donald Trump and the Republican party wins, and its opponents lose.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
We live in an Orwell Moment, when plain speaking about unpleasant political facts is strangely rare and uniquely valuable—when simple truths, simply told, can have a marvelous tonic effect, even many people deem them hard to swallow. (Orwellian times, of course, open space for an Orwell Moment.) 1/3
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
“The Republicans are insane, you can’t negotiate with them, but you have to pretend this isn’t true if you’re the Democratic leadership, … “Now at some point this won’t make any sense any more and I suspect we’re reaching that point quite rapidly.”
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
Nut graf: “My point here is that politics at this moment in this country consists necessarily in part in pretending that things are still roughly “normal,” because that’s the pragmatic thing to do to a certain extent, even though it’s pretending.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
There will be many breaking points before it’s all over (“it” being the Trump-MAGA regime, but like Paul Campos, I feel that we’ve reached a big in Aug-Sep 2025. www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/alte...
lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com
Alternatives to ordinary politics - Lawyers, Guns & Money
For some probably random reason I went over a psychological cliff yesterday. I think it may have been this that sent me over the edge: If you haven’t seen the movie, Robert Duvall plays Lt. Col. Bill ...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
“Politics,” Steve Bannon said, “is downstream of culture.” When he’s right, he’s right! This sharp piece delves into the meaning of the larger MAGA project, a key part of which involves using a kitsch aesthetic to eliminate every vestige of liberalism. www.vox.com/politics/459...
vox.com
Trump isn’t just remodeling the White House. He’s rebranding America.
The president’s tacky aesthetic is a window into his quest to become the single most enduring symbol of America.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
All of this. Very much all of this. One way to understand MAGA is as an erasure of the Second Founding. Allowing Trump to run for president after Jan 6 was an act of constitutional suicide.
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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Just thinking about how fighting the Nazis in WWII was pretty woke
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Great point! And don’t forget that the Trump regime has also (illegally) dismantledUS institute of Peace.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
How long before there is a mass MAGA movement to get rid of seatbelt laws, since traffic fatalities have been declining over so many years?
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Those who forget immunology are condemned to learn it again the hard way. Willful cultural amnesia explains so much of the current catastrophe. (Op. cit. John Roberts Voting Rights Act decisions.)
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Ha! Soon will come the day when Murc’s Law will be the only law that we have.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
MAGA types, including DJT, are the ultimate “ bad fans”: They watch and presumably enjoy perfectly good movies without any conception of who the bad guys are. Nor, as others pointed out, do they have any conception of which side lost this particular guerrilla war.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
The people who are ostensibly next in line (Dick Durbin, Katherine Clark) are hardly inspire confidence. The underlying problem: Donor-consultant capture has claimed the souls of far too many leading Dems in both chambers. Still, replacing Schumer & Jeffries would at least send the right signal.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Brilliantly said. I totally agree with @mehdirhasan.bsky.social. Sweeping out top congressional Dem leaders is a necessary step forward. Yet it’s far from sufficient. It’s far from clear the leaders who would replace Schumer and Jeffries would be much better. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
It’s time for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to step down | Mehdi Hasan
This fascist moment, this age of Trump, demands outspoken, unrelenting and fearless opposition. We all deserve better
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Why we are where we are, in 10 indelible words: “You can't policy your way out of a propaganda problem!”
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
For years, the whole phenomenon of Donald Trump has flabbergasted me—because, as this great comment at @lawgunsmoney.bsky.social notes, he embodies every villain trope in modern American popular culture. Again and again,I just want to scream: This guy? www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/no-m...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Great thread. Very smart to connect “deliverism” with Dem leaders‘ current hapless strategy on the funding battle. Common denominator: Congressional Dems cling to the outdated idea that their primary task is legislation. No! It’s all about the info battle. It’s all about the war for attention.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Imagined SNL skit: The Senate Dem caucus room, looking vaguely like an MLB clubhouse. In walks Casey Stengel (played by Bernie Sanders?), who utters the immortal line: "Does anybody here know how to play this game?"
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Shrewd analysis by @joshtpm.bsky.social of feckless Senate Dem maneuvering. "Democrats are in a battle for everything. Helping Republicans remain in total power in Washington, DC in exchange for momentary relief is not the answer." talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/there...
talkingpointsmemo.com
There’s a New Budget Showdown. Senate Dems’ Current Plan Is Bullshit
I agonized for a bit about the point I’m about to discuss....
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Then there's this—the glib dismissal, by Trump and (implicitly) by @nytimes.com, of the core principle that this kind of change must originate, and be deliberated, in Congress. The road to dictatorship is being paved with dozens of casually accepted assertions of unconstitutional power.
The Department of Defense and the secretary of defense were named through acts of Congress, so it is unclear if Mr. Trump’s order will go into effect immediately.

During his August remarks about the potential renaming, Mr. Trump said he was confident that it would be approved.

“We’re just going to do it,” he said. “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don’t think we even need that.”
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Amid so many other horrors, renaming a govt dept hardly matter even as a point of trivia. And yet ... At a time when the regime is escalating—and conflating—the War on Terror (tm) and the War on Drugs (tm), going big on the "war" idea strikes an ominous tone. (1) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/u...
nytimes.com
Trump Is Renaming the Defense Department the Department of War
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
As the saying goes: The prospect of death concentrates the mind. If only this prospect would spur establishment Dems to focus their minds!
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
The key issue is that leading Dems, to this day, treat DJT as a legitimate member of the American civic community. It's a fundamental error—and it will likely keep Dems from fighting the battle for Trump's legacy in an honest or effective way.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Important piece by @brianbeutler.bsky.social. Come for this great line: "The future is unwritten, but death remains certain." Stay for a provocative meditation on how Dems should publicly remember Trump when he's gone. www.offmessage.net/p/if-trump-d...
offmessage.net
If He Dies
A dry run before the (actuarial) main event.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
"I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal.” This, this, this! Since January 20, I’ve been waiting for prominent Dems to commit to this simple, necessary principle.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
The endgame here is “bread and circuses“ but without the bread.
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
The president is tweeting videos of his extrajudicial murders for the sake of entertaining his hordes of followers who cry out for enemy blood.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
How it started (in the coinage of a certain 14-word phrase). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourtee...
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
How it’s going (in one increasingly prominent strand of American conservatism)
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Brilliant thread by @anatosaurus.bsky.social. It’s ALL about attention. And for a political party today, the only way to gain and keep attention is to show that you’ll fight for people. Damn talk far too much about “distraction“ and not nearly enough about the laws of (political) attraction.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Antisemitism watch: Will the Trump regime now force the Holocaust Museum to enter a multimillion dollar settlement? The ironies start to intertwine like the sides of a Mobius strip. (It’s OK to be antisemitic as long as you’re not anti-American. So hard to keep track!)
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world. They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
I don’t have the heart to do it, but a parody of this paragraph—one that channels the voice of a German liberal newspaper as it discusses the early tenure of a certain chancellor in May 1933—almost writes itself.
The building of this coalition should start with an acknowledgment that Mr. Trump is the legitimate president and many of his actions are legal. Some may even prove effective. He won the presidency fairly last year, by a narrow margin in the popular vote and a comfortable margin in the Electoral College. On several key issues, his views were closer to public opinion than those of Democrats. Since taking office, he has largely closed the southern border, and many of his immigration policies are both legal and popular. He has reoriented federal programs to focus less on race, which many voters support. He has pressured Western Europe to stop billing American taxpayers for its defense. Among these policies are many that we strongly oppose — such as pardoning Jan. 6 rioters, cozying up to Vladimir Putin of Russia and undermining Ukraine — but that a president has the authority to enact. Elections have consequences.
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
It’s truly a wretched, feckless editorial. But it has the virtue of offering a window into the institutional mindset that engenders NYT‘s mealy-mouthed, collaborationist coverage of Trump on both news and editorial pages. 1/2
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
No good reason not to frame it this way: “Despite lacking a single national leader, the anti-Trump movement has coalesced around a clear message of opposition to Mr. Trump‘s policies and his attacks on constitutional rights.”
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Thaddeus @democracywork.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
If @nytimes.com reporters didn’t have liberals to kick around, how would they fill the empty spot in the pit of their souls? As a survey of what’s happening, it’s a decent piece. But NYT can’t help but frame it in terms of how libs and Dems are doing it wrong. 1/2 www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...
nytimes.com
Trump Resistance? It’s Not a Full Movement, but It’s Growing. (Gift Article)
Despite lacking a unified message or strategy, Democrats, universities, law firms and other institutions are starting to push back harder against the administration.
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