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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I confess that do not envy the future historian assigned to edit the Presidential Papers of Donald Trump.

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

So now we know that Pope Leo, like Peter Thiel, has read Tolkien, but unlike Thiel, has actually understood him.

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

So the military is being asked if it will commit war crimes, deliberately targeting civilians, because the President illegally orders it to. The military typically claims civilian deaths are mistakes, or “collateral damage,” but they could not do that this time.

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

When Trump said the federal government must take over elections in “fifteen places,” I assume he means the fifteen Democratic “trifecta” states (which would include mine). If he actually tries that, he will get the civil war he seems to want.

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

On Monday night, ICE ambushed Rumeya Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts studying to be a teacher, outside her Somerville apartment, arrested her, and announced that her visa had been revoked. People will protest this illegal attempted deportation at 5:30pm in Powder House Square.

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Some people claim Musk did a “Roman salute,” but as scholars point out, there was no such thing. Many believe it was a Nazi salute, which certainly tracks, but it didn’t look exactly like one. I just realized what it most resembled: the salute of the evil Terran Empire from Star Trek.

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Reposted by Dean Grodzins

paulpro @mariopro.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Zapiro

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

In April, Massachusetts (and the U.S.) observes the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Every year, we have reenactments & parades on “Patriot’s Day,” but this time will be BIG, so the President will likely come. How should locals, and historians, respond?

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Reposted by Dean Grodzins

Lauri @laurikayds.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

Here’s hoping that Tony Hinchcliffe’s “floating island of garbage” remark does for the Republican presidential candidate in 2024 what Samuel Burchard’s “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” remark did for the Republican presidential candidate in 1884. (A deep cut, admittedly, but heartfelt.)

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 05/04/2024

Seems like the whole northeast coast was hit by an earthquake!

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 05/03/2024

Look what came in the mail today--the article I wrote with Prof. David Moss of Harvard, about the U.S. secession crisis as a breakdown of democracy! It's in the new book _When Democracy Breaks_, which covers democratic breakdowns around the world, from ancient Athens to contemporary Venezuela.

A book cover, with the title When Democracy Breaks: Studies in Democratic Erosion and Collapse, from Ancient Athens to the Present Day, edited by Archon Fung, David Moss, Odd Arne Westad. Cover image of falling pillars.

Image of a chapter heading, "The U.S. Secession Crisis as a Breakdown of Democracy" Dean Grodzins and David Moss

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Reposted by Dean Grodzins

Manisha Sinha @profmsinha.bsky.social · 30/01/2024

Letter from Endowed Chairs and Distinguished Profs on UConn budget cuts to Governor Ned Lamont and state legislators. This defunding of public higher education must stop! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

docs.google.com

Endowed Chairs and Distinguished Professors Letter

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 30/11/2023

I once knew a woman who grew up with Henry Kissinger, and whose parents encouraged her to marry him. She refused, because she thought him the most boring man imaginable. The banality of evil.

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Dean Grodzins @grodzins.bsky.social · 30/11/2023

In 1969, when Nixon appointed Henry Kissinger, then a Harvard professor, to be National Security Advisor, many of Kissenger’s liberal academic friends praised him to the press. Commented I.F. Stone: “Somebody will wake up screaming.”

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