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Alexander Karn

@xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy
160 followers 20 following 3K posts

Associate Professor of History at SLAC (NY, USA). Not representing employer. Interests: power and the production of historical knowledge, public history, historical […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mastodon.online/@xankarn, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 1h
Looking at the demonstrations in France, it’s hard not to see the mirror image of America. Things in both countries feel stuck, owing to the same factors: money in politics, wealth inequality, and racism/white supremacy. Patriarchy and misogyny, too.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 21h
One man, two histories. R: Gilbert Stuart - The icon and founding father L: Clark V. Fox - “Town Destroyer
One man, two histories. 

R: Gilbert Stuart - The icon and founding father

L: Clark V. Fox - “Town Destroyer
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
From Jim Crow to Nuremberg to ICE: On the Origins and Afterlives of Nazi Race Law One of the themes of the course I teach on "War and Holocaust" is the importance of interrogating the nationalist myths which still circulate in the historical discourse. In a recent class session, we discussed […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
From Jim Crow to Nuremberg to ICE: On the Origins and Afterlives of Nazi Race Law One of the themes of the course I teach on "War and Holocaust" is the importance of interrogating the nationalist myths which still circulate in the historical discourse. In a recent class session, we discussed […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
The MAGA stains on American democracy will never be rinsed out in my lifetime. For however long I have--20 years, 30 years, a week, or a day--we will always be the country that did those things. I don't know how many can really accept this.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
The MAGA stains on American democracy will never be rinsed out in my lifetime. For however long I have--20 years, 30 years, a week, or a day--we will always be the country that did those things. I don't know how many can really accept this.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
DJT, pretending that the incompetent people who speak in his name weren't appointed by him, but somehow just wandered in off the streets.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
To be clear, when Trump threatens to revoke Ilhan Omar’s citizenship and when he asserts his authority to end birthright citizenship, he is seeking to take America back to the “blood purity” laws of yesteryear. This is the same program that the Nazis drew upon when they were formulating the […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
To be clear, when Trump threatens to revoke Ilhan Omar’s citizenship and when he asserts his authority to end birthright citizenship, he is seeking to take America back to the “blood purity” laws of yesteryear. This is the same program that the Nazis drew upon when they were formulating the […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
Do I hate my country? No. I wish for it to be honest and to love the truth enough to face its many problems and broken promises.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
Do I hate my country? No. I wish for it to be honest and to love the truth enough to face its many problems and broken promises.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Alabama was the last state to repeal its legal prohibition on interracial marriage. This happened in 2000, more than 30 years after such laws had been struck down by SCOTUS as unconstitutional. When MAGA invokes states’ rights, it’s at least partly informed by a nostalgia for legal segregation.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
More on the history of so-called anti-miscegenation laws: calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/m…
calendar.eji.org
May 5, 1943 | To Prevent Interracial Marriage, CA Requires Marriage Licenses Indicate Race
Learn more about our history of racial injustice
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
@SRDas Swoon.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
@meltedcheese The class sessions are not recorded (to my knowledge). I don’t know of any perfectly free/just/egalitarian society. There’s only the question of whether enough fight for these ideals and how.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
@whenelvisdied I'll let you know.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
This is a book (224 pps.) more Americans should look to if they want to understand where we are in 2026 and how we got here. /end press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover…
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
In Whitman's words: "The proposition that the Nazis drew inspiration from American race law in creating their own program of racial persecution is sure to seem distressing...But in the end it should really come as no great surprise to attentive readers of...history." 6/n
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Cutten derided social security as a “degrading” tool for “parasitic paupers” and condemned modern medicine and philanthropy. Bemoaning the rise of multi-culturalism in the 1920s, Cutten said, “what this melting pot has accomplished is to permit persons of different races and intellectuality to […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Nazi eugenics drew heavily on the work on American theorists, including George Cutten, who served as the president of my current institution from 1922-42. Cutten, whose anti-immigration rhetoric is cited at the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island, said that Americans had made the word democracy […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Although Nazi German would end up declaring war on America, in the 1930s, the Americans were not seen as ideological enemies, but rather as a source of inspiration. In Mein Kampf, Hitler cited the U.S. approvingly as the only greta power to have made real "progress" on the question of race. 3/n
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Whitman's thesis: that the Nuremberg Laws (on citizenship and blood purity) in Germany drew from and were modeled on America races laws of the 1930s. Citing the Jim Crow laws in the U.S. south, one prominent Nazi lawyer, Roland Friesler, said: "This jurisprudence would suit us perfectly, with a […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Teaching James Whitman's book, Hitler's American Model, in my "War and Holocaust" class today. In 1934, at a meeting of Nazi lawyers who were convened to translate Hitler's racial ideology into law, the was a lengthy discussion of American law. The most virulent racists at this meeting were the […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
One more bump for this thread. USAians, pls consider the letter and petition below.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
@knutson_brain There are some complexities related to military code, but, in essence, yes.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
You can also add your name to this petition, which is hosted by actionnetwork.org. actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-stand-…
actionnetwork.org
SIGN: Stand with Major Jason Watson
When history demands courage, true heroes step into the fight. In a moment of moral clarity, Air Force Major Jason Watson put everything on the line, risking his 17-year military career, his rank, and his personal freedom, by publicly calling for Donald Trump’s and JD Vance’s impeachment, conviction, and removal. He said "Success looks like hope. Inspiring hope again... me being but one of many - an unstoppable wave that refuses to relent until we restore a democratic republic." This isn't defiance; it's the ultimate act of patriotism. True duty isn't silent compliance, it's the uncompromising bravery to defend the U.S. Constitution when the stakes are highest. Major Watson put it all on the line for us. Now we must have his back. Sign the petition in solidarity with Major Watson and defend our republic!
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
You can also add your name to this petition, which is hosted by actionnetwork.org. actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-stand-…
actionnetwork.org
SIGN: Stand with Major Jason Watson
When history demands courage, true heroes step into the fight. In a moment of moral clarity, Air Force Major Jason Watson put everything on the line, risking his 17-year military career, his rank, and his personal freedom, by publicly calling for Donald Trump’s and JD Vance’s impeachment, conviction, and removal. He said "Success looks like hope. Inspiring hope again... me being but one of many - an unstoppable wave that refuses to relent until we restore a democratic republic." This isn't defiance; it's the ultimate act of patriotism. True duty isn't silent compliance, it's the uncompromising bravery to defend the U.S. Constitution when the stakes are highest. Major Watson put it all on the line for us. Now we must have his back. Sign the petition in solidarity with Major Watson and defend our republic!
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
Members Of Congress must push for his humane and lawful treatment under detention. Watson, by the way, is a Republican, who, by his own admissions knows little about politics. This isn’t partisanship. It’s what moral courage looks like […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
Members Of Congress must push for his humane and lawful treatment under detention. Watson, by the way, is a Republican, who, by his own admissions knows little about politics. This isn’t partisanship. It’s what moral courage looks like […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
I have written a letter, which I am sending to my representatives in Congress, calling for Watson's release from solitary confinement and for the observance of U.S. and international law. If you would like to do the same, feel free to borrow my letter (linked below) or adapt it as you see fit […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
Watson, a decorated USAF major, knew he would be arrested. He bravely chose to speak out anyway. His lawyer reports that he has been held in 24-hour solitary confinement since August. If true, that would meet the UN standards for torture […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
Sebastian Haffner wrote about the political violence he witnessed in the early Weimar period (1919-20). More and more Germans, he said, became accustomed to lethal violence as a way to secure and project power. Coming on the heels of a calamitous war, which many young people experienced as an […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026
Sebastian Haffner wrote about the political violence he witnessed in the early Weimar period (1919-20). More and more Germans, he said, became accustomed to lethal violence as a way to secure and project power. Coming on the heels of a calamitous war, which many young people experienced as an […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
@kathleenbelew.bsky.social @CosmicTraveler Darkest before the dawn? The brush with barbarism that will revitalize democracy? Thanatos rears his head to remind us what Eros requires? In any case, not dead yet.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
It should be possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can defend the Constitution and the rights that flow from it AND take on the moneyed interests which have warped our economy, poisoned the planet, and gutted our public sector.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
It should be possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can defend the Constitution and the rights that flow from it AND take on the moneyed interests which have warped our economy, poisoned the planet, and gutted our public sector.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
@mattblaze Nice looking photo and nice looking place, but only as good as the people who take their seats there. Vote out the liars, the grifters, and the moral blanks.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
@jsdodge That's well put. More scientists should be news editors.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
Every time I remember that Mike Johnson is a few weeks away from being a basic bitch and a historical footnote, I can’t help but feel some kind of optimism.
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
Every time I remember that Mike Johnson is a few weeks away from being a basic bitch and a historical footnote, I can’t help but feel some kind of optimism.
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
Not entirely clear from the current reporting what supposed instances of immigration fraud DHS is investigating re Ilhan Omar. But it’s worth pointing out that she and her family fled Somalia and arrived in the U.S. more than three decades ago (1995). She was 12 years old when she immigrated […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
Not entirely clear from the current reporting what supposed instances of immigration fraud DHS is investigating re Ilhan Omar. But it’s worth pointing out that she and her family fled Somalia and arrived in the U.S. more than three decades ago (1995). She was 12 years old when she immigrated […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Reposted by Alexander Karn
Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
People said the same thing abt democracy in the 1930s. It’s too slow and cautious to meet the challenges of the modern age. Big problems demand bold solutions and forceful action. Many in Europe gravitated to the radical movements that promised revolution, but those harbored their own barbarism […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
People said the same thing abt democracy in the 1930s. It’s too slow and cautious to meet the challenges of the modern age. Big problems demand bold solutions and forceful action. Many in Europe gravitated to the radical movements that promised revolution, but those harbored their own barbarism […]
mastodon.online
Original post on mastodon.online
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
@jsdodge Thanks for these. I read them as saying that the claims re Russian bots/trolls are as yet unsubstantiated. Which is not quite the same thing as false/untrue. These seem to be about what can and cannot be reliably counted, and what can be inferred from things that are reliably counted.
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Weltzeitgeist @wackjackle.norden.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
Elon Musk is a Nazi. He's a racist. He's a white supremacist. He doesn't believe in the equality of all men and women, and yes, of course, he's also an eugenicist. He's the enemy of mankind. Fight him and the other ghouls until you die!
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
I can’t breathe. The enshittification of the interwebz and the algorithmic manufacture of hate.
mastodon.social
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
Today in American Fascism. DHS remains the most dangerous extension of Trump's personalist cult. And, of course, the racist/misogynist president will always take special satisfaction in targeting women of color. apnews.com/article/ilhan-omar-home-…
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
And this, from the head of DHS: thehill.com/homenews/administration…
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Alexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
For context: apnews.com/article/omar-vinegar-spr…
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