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Susan Scarf Merrell

@susanmerrell.bsky.social
567 followers 1.1K following 130 posts

Author most recently of SHIRLEY: A NOVEL. Assoc. Professor @Lichtenstein Center @StonybrookUniversity. Co-director, BookEnds novel revision fellowship. She/Her. Daily swimmer. Alarmingly fast reader.

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Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
Mollie Katzen @molliekatzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There are more Cornell frat boys accused of raping one woman than there are trans athletes competing in all of NCAA sports.
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Adam Cohen (My Personal Views Only) @axidentaliberal.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Banning trans athletes from sports is maybe the most cynical culture war item that Republicans created. They know it affects very few people, yet the vitriol it generates towards trans kids is off the charts. But clearly the GOP doesn't care Be an ally to our trans friends Don't support GOP hatred
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Ed Markey @edmarkey.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
In Massachusetts, we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable and stand up for those who need it. We don’t throw trans kids under the bus for political points. We protect them—and all of our neighbors—because trans rights are human rights.
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Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"All the while he loved the People just as much as he feared and detested Persons, and he planned to do something historic. Certainly! He would give each family that five thousand dollars a year just as soon now as he could arrange it". [Sinclair Lewis - It Can't Happen Here]
Screenshot from IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis, a novel set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s United States, it follows an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator (in allusion to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany)]

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the duties of despotism along with his shoes and his fine new coat. He no longer went out racketing. His cabinet begged him not to clown in barrooms and lodge entertain-ments; it was not dignified, and it was dangerous to be too near to strangers.

So he played poker with his bodyguard, late at night, and at such times drank too much, and he cursed them and glared with bulging eyes whenever he lost, which, for all the good-will of his guards about letting him win, had to be often, because he pinched their salaries badly and locked up the spoons. He had become as unbouncing and unbuzz-ing a Buzz as might be, and he did not know it.

All the while he loved the People just as much as he feared and detested Persons, and he planned to do some-thing historic. Certainly! He would give each family that five thousand dollars a year just as soon now as he could arrange it.

https://archive.org/details/itcanthappenhere00lewi_0/page/412/mode/1up
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
exactly.
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Morgan J Freeman @mjfree.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Please oin me in supporting Chris Gallant in flipping NY-01 blue this November _gallantny (on X) actblue (on X) Donate or share or both! LFG! secure.actblue.com/donate/cgyardsig…
secure.actblue.com
Donate to Chris Gallant
Show your support with a contribution.
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Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock @warnock.senate.gov · 21/07/2026
We're told that we just don't have the money for health care. But apparently we have plenty of money to upgrade Trump's private jet. We don't suffer from a lack of resources. We suffer from a lack of moral imagination.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Trans rights are human rights always and forever.
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Maureen Johnson @maureenjohnsonbooks.com · 30/06/2026
Love to my trans friends now and always. We have to be with you and help you fight.
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
If you celebrate, it's here again.
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Akashic Books @akashicbooks.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Join @susanmerrell.bsky.social in discussion with Meryl Branch-McTiernan in discussion about her new book, "What You Should Worry About," on June 8 at 7PM at Rockville Centre Library 2121 N Village Avenue in the Helen Kraus Room. rvcpl.libcal.com/event/16593853 www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/what...
rvcpl.libcal.com
Author Event - What You Should Worry About by Meryl Branch-McTiernan
Meet Author Meryl Branch-McTiernan in Conversation with Stony Brook Professor Susan Scarf Merrel. What You Should Worry About is set in January 2020 and 37-year-old Layla Moody is...
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Rep. LaMonica McIver @replamonica.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Shut down Delaney Hall and abolish ICE.
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Grant Stern @grantstern.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Donald Trump took America to war, and now he's holding a circus on the front lawn of the White House.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Many of you are asking how you can help me. My only ask is this: Spread the word about the threats to democracy and how we can fight back. Tell everyone to subscribe to Democracy Docket for free and share its content with everyone you know. Thanks. bit.ly/4a7l1TR
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Thank you for your smart clear questioning on this important issue.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @ocasio-cortez.house.gov · 21/05/2026
This is what drinking water in Georgia looks like after Meta began data center construction in the community. Yesterday I called for EPA and Congressional investigations into the impact of data center construction on local drinking water supplies. We cannot take water for granted.
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Lisa Farrar @lisafarrar.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
This is a crime. Please have your crime reporters work on these articles going forward.
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Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
My New One at Slate: “The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Just Issued the Worst Ruling in a Century; This evisceration of the Voting Rights Act requires us to take SCOTUS reform more seriously.” @slate.com slate.com/news-and-pol...
Wednesday’s 6-3 party line decision in Louisiana v. Callais will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century. All six Republican-appointed justices on the court signed onto Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters, while pretending they were merely making technical tweaks to the Act.

This decision will bleach the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and local bodies like city councils, by ending the protections of Section 2 of the Act, which had provided a pathway to assure that voters of color would have some rudimentary fair representation. It’s the culmination of the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who have shown persistent resistance to the idea of the United States as a multiracial democracy, and a brazen willingness to reject Congress’s judgment that fair representation for minority voters sometimes requires race-conscious legislation. It gives the green light to further partisan gerrymandering. It protects Alito’s core constituency: aggrieved white Republican voters. It’s a disaster for American democracy.
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phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Fifty years ago today, Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" was published in the pages of @newyorker.com. What a poem!
ONE ART

The art of losing isn't hard to master; 
so many things seem filled with the intent 
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster 
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: 
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or 
next-to-last, of three loved houses went. 
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, 
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture 
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident 
the art of losing's not too hard to master 
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                                                   --ELIZABETH BISHOP
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
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Karen Carpenter’s Halloween @kellylink.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
This Is Just To Say I have turned off the AI features that were in the update and which you were probably hoping to monetize Fuck you they were stupid so unnecessary and so annoying
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Literally ask myself this question every day
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littlestormcloud.bsky.social @littlestormcloud.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
My fantastically talented friend @hughryan.bsky.social has a new history on the queer (19)90’s told through the lens of his own life coming out (pun absolutely intended.) bsky.app/profile/hugh...
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Dan Immergluck @danimmergluck.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Brutal.
A WHOLE CIVILIZATION
WILL DIE TONIGHT
My son needs lunch, and I have to put his backpack together, but a whole civilization will die tonight, so I'm wondering if they've closed their schools.
Like, a snow day, maybe, except instead of snow it's
"keep your children home so if you die, you die together" — instead of "well open back up once the plows have cleared" it's
"we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow, hold your babies tight."
It's just "talk" I'm told, which I've been told before.
"It's how the president makes his deals." But I've never heard anyone talk about other human beings this way, and I'm not certain I can look my son in the eyes if we all agree to stomach it one more time.
A civilization will die tonight, but as I zip up his backpack and kiss him off to school I think: if this is what we call leadership then I'm not entirely sure ours isn't already dead.
@michaelfdubois
Mukad A QuBoy
@michacifdubois
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David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Trump v. United States and the Citizens United decisions of this SCOTUS will go down in history with Dred Scott as among the court's worst. They may seem removed from where we are today...but they are not.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 07/04/2026
Come on then, and remove him.
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
25 is the only number.
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Happy #TransDayofVisibility. It does feel like some don't understand what that means. They claim trans and non-binary individuals being seen mean others aren't. For the most part, most of us just want to be recognised as existing, and not face hate for doing so, and even that seems too much for some
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 31/03/2026
Trans Day of Visibility is tomorrow. #TDOV #ProtectTheDolls
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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Medical experiments on prisoners? Where have we seen this before?
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
The costs of this Iran war debacle will likely be more than the cost of extending the ACA health insurance subsidies. If you asked Americans, which do you want: another war in the Middle East or lower health care costs at home, is the margin 90 to 10? 95 to 5?
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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Trump and Israel started bombing Iran while in the middle of negotiations Trump is starving Cuba He’s threatening to annex Canada He removed the leader of Venezuela He’s threatening Greenland He’s aiding a genocide in Gaza This is the man who took your tax dollars for his “Board of Peace”.
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
The media should cover this as murder because it is.
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Ron Charles @roncharles.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done.
After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Hope you can hire @roncharles.bsky.social
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Did this, and cancelled my WP subscription for the third time in as many years. What a(nother) sad day for democracy.
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
So agree with this. Truly tragic and short-sighted.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
"Senate Dems considered a requirement banning ICE agents from polling sites as a demand in negotiating the DHS funding bill. But that was not included in their final list..." Crazy idea: Given what Trump's said, update the "final list" to include it. politi.co/4t6pxt0
politi.co
‘A pretext to rig the election’: Democrats scramble to block ICE crackdowns near polling sites
Election officials are preparing for the possibility of immigration enforcement activity at or near polling sites in November.
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Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
If you're feeling helpless and don't know what to do: Look for people out there who are already helping. I promise they're out there. And then ask how you can help and do it. You're not alone. Community is out there and it's the way forward. ❤️👊
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darren32359.bsky.social @darren32359.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
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Bruce Springsteen @brucespringsteen.net · 28/01/2026
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free
youtu.be
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 28/01/2026
This is testimony… 📌 Stella Carlson, “Pink coat lady”, speaks on the murder of Alex Pretti. “After the shooting, they (ICE) decided to just scatter and save themselves.”
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Well, they’re pink
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
It's not even remotely over.
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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Here's a regular white guy (literally "Chad") not a protester. because, "It seemed pointless, or just a way for people to expiate their sense of guilt." Chad witnessed something shattering. And, that all changed in a moment. Excellent article!
One of those latecomers was a 46-year-old documentary filmmaker named Chad Knutson. On the morning after Good was killed, he was at home with his two hound dogs, watching a live feed from the Whipple Building, where ICE is based, a five-minute drive from his house. A protester had laid a rose on a makeshift memorial to Good. As Knutson watched, an ICE agent took the rose, put it in his lapel, and then mockingly gave it to a female ICE agent. They both laughed.

Knutson told me he had never been a protester. It seemed pointless, or just a way for people to expiate their sense of guilt. But when he saw those ICE agents laughing, something broke inside him.

“I grab my keys, I grab a coat, and drive over,” Knutson told me. “I barely park my car and I’m running out screaming and crying, ‘You stole a fucking flower from a dead woman. Like, are any of you human anymore?
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Susan Scarf Merrell @susanmerrell.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Twenty-three Americans could save us all. I hope they step up. They have to.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 25/01/2026
This witness to Alex Pretti's murder not only refutes the governmen't story, but says she is afraid to go home because federal agents might arrest her. This is what it feels like to live under state terror. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
documentcloud.org
TincherSealedWitnessDec012426.PDF
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Dems should introduce legislation now defunding ICE and CBP operations in Minnesota, so they have to leave the state. One sentence bill. Demand an immediate vote. Maybe refuse to vote for cloture on any funding bills (or other bills) until a vote. Make the GOP Congress break w/ Trump or own it all.
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