Nathan P. Kalmoe | Lightnews

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him)

@nathankalmoe.bsky.social

12K followers 3.6K following 570 posts

PoliSci/Comm @ UW-Madison via UMich. Views mine, ~90% right. US politics, votes, violence, history, psych. 3📚+1 in progress: How WE Make US Democracy. Dad w/ jokes. 🧙🏻. 🥏⛳🏆. Avid 🧗. Congress said I have "tremendous sway over SM platforms"😂 nathankalmoe.com .. more

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Political science 44%

Sociology 21%

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Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

My main point is that the demographics of protest (incl. age) depend primarily on subjective cost/benefit. Older people w/ $ are more likely to hold signs on a street corner & wave to preserve the status quo. A much smaller cadre of mostly young people takes personal risks for systemic change.

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

No, I don't mean numerical among young people across events. I mean the Gaza protests were vastly more Gen Z than Boomer. Their aims were more radical (by sad US standards) & actions riskier. It's about the kind of protest that young people do, and the system-changing aims they're mobilized by.

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

Yeah, not the ideal illustration I guess. I grabbed a Broadview pic quick while heading into work & didn't notice the gray hair. It's still safe to say most people at Broadview, Portland, etc. are not Boomers.

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

Yep! Older folks are more likely to knock on doors, encourage small donations, persuade normie friends, etc.

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

A gen Z grad student made these posters and hung them around campus. Does that count?

Barbershop quartet with faces photoshopped. Ron Johnson, Trump, an alt right guy, Chancellor Mnookin. Labels say WI GOP, Trump admin, and Mnookin, alt right. They’re singing “we need more ‘intellectual diversity’ on campuses!”

Bottom says tell uw not to give in to Trump’s intimidation. Say no to the “WI exchange institute.”

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

No Kings is ultimately “maintain the status quo.” That happens to be very important amidst an authoritarian free-fall. But “preserve broken systems” won’t galvanize young people.

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

Do they disclose their AI holdings? Did they raise alarm in 2007-08?

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

Also, Gen Z is getting gassed, beaten and shot by ice & cops at ice facilities. Where are the boomers?

They prefer safe action with the most modest aims. Young people are galvanized by calls for replacing irredeemable systems. And they take risks the olds aren’t willing to take.

We need both.

Protesters at broadview ice facility confronting an ice goon.

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 1h

The bubble talk grows (though some in finance disagree)

www.npr.org/2025/11/25/n...

Who's financing Meta's massive AI data center? : The Indicator from Planet Money

In a rural pocket of northeastern Louisiana, Meta is building a $30 billion data center called Hyperion. But it’s not being completely financed with Meta’s own money. Today on the show, the opaque sys...

www.npr.org

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1h

There’s lots to like from @brendannyhan.bsky.social here. I agree on demoralization. Also, normie Dem activism is always dominated by well-off retirees. They have more time comfort, & small aims.

Gaza protests against genocide were Gen Z’s antifascist action. (BLM too.) Where were boomers then?

Pro-Palestine/anti-genocide protest in Sacramento.

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 2h

"Black women are disproportionately working-class. So if it was really about class, explain to me why Black women understood exactly what he [Trump] was going to do, which is make life harder for working-class people," says Kimberlé Crenshaw. newrepublic.com/article/2036...

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 2h

Loving Perry’s interview series. Insightful guests & good conversation. Crenshaw is one of the best as an innovator on intersectionality and other essential frameworks for understanding & action.👇🏻

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 3h

"My mentor always tells me, 'Kim, dogs don’t bark at parked cars." They’re coming after critical race theory, 1619, intersectionality because these ideas mobilized people. They gave them the language to actually articulate what they were seeing with their own eyes," says Kimberlé Crenshaw.

Reposted by Robert C. Richards, Karen O’Donnell, Ann Bartow , and 1 more Robert C. Richards, Karen O’Donnell, Ann Bartow, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 3h

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 3h

The statements in question include "gas chamber jokes" which I don't get generally as a human being, much less in the construction of a "joke." Here's an article with more detail.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Reposted by Ann Bartow, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 3h

we're going to win

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 5h

Page One in Cincinnati:

“.. I need to be able to look my grandkids in the eye and say I did not remain silent.”

#ICE

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 3h

It’s already happening.

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 3h

"A new study shows that cutting social media use for just one week can reduce mental health symptoms, like anxiety and depression, in young adults."

Just one week off social media can improve young adults' mental health, study finds

A new study shows that cutting social media use for just one week can reduce mental health symptoms, like anxiety and depression, in young adults.

www.npr.org

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Daniel Ziblatt @dziblatt.bsky.social · 3h

Very good piece by @brendannyhan.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/o...

Opinion | The Boomers Are Protesting Trump. Where Is Gen Z?

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Philip Nel, Ann Bartow , and 2 more Brendan Nyhan, Philip Nel, Ann Bartow, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Gady Epstein @gadyepstein.bsky.social · 4h

“We’ve tried to not have to do it, but we've got direct orders,” the masked ICE agents told them www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/i...

"I asked for their names. They didn't give me their full names," Hestmark recalled of the agents. "They didn't show me their badge numbers. They didn't remove their masks. They simply said, 'We have a warrant for his arrest, and they handed me a QR code, and they put my husband in handcuffs. And they took him and said I couldn't follow."
"She was just stunned," Paul said. "She kept asking what was wrong, what did we do? We'd done everything right."
"We kept asking them if there was something we could do, if there was any way we could keep her from being separated from the family," he continued.
We’re just trying to figure out what's happening, and they're just telling us, I'm sorry. We’ve tried to not have to do it, but we've got direct orders."|
•
"I had to take my baby, our baby, from his crying mother's arms," Paul said.
"We were completely shocked, and I feel like we were tricked," Hestmark said. "We went through every possible legal and appropriate channel. We followed the advice of our lawyer. We were told that
our case was straight forward."
"He just wanted to be part of this country and for us to start our future together. And he wanted to do it…

"Tom isn't in the system. I can't find him," Hestmark said. "I can't call him. I can't put money into his account. The lawyer doesn't know how to proceed because he hasn't been charged with anything."
Both said their spouses were able to call them Thursday night, and they believed they were still being held in the basement of the federal building as of Friday afternoon.
"She said that she was scared. She was anxious, missed her baby. She just wants to come home," Paul said. "She said the agents themselves were in the detention down in the basement of the federal building, saying, What are we doing here? These aren't the sort of people were supposed to be arresting.”
"They hadn't given him anything to eat or any information," Hestmark said. "They gave him a mat and a foil blanket to sleep on."
As she was detailing his arrest Friday afternoon, Bilger called Hestmark again from detention. She said he told her they had moved him to the Otay Mesa Detention Center and back but he hadn't slept and still hadn't been processed.
"My wife's alone and terrified," Paul said. "My baby doesn't have his mom to hold him. I can't work right…

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Max Bernhard @mxbernhard.bsky.social · 4h

"Potentially fake accounts crying at other potentially fake accounts that they aren’t real, all while refusing to acknowledge that they themselves aren’t who they say they are—a Russian nesting doll of bullshit." www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors

How X blew up its own platform with a new location feature

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 5h

I hate Orwell comparisons as much as the next guy, but they're really hard to avoid these days.

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.

-- George Orwell, 1984

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Cas Mudde, Ben H. Ansell , and 57 more Jonathan Portes, Cas Mudde, Ben H. Ansell, Richard S.J. Tol, David M. Farrell, Will Jennings, Stefan Rahmstorf, Gavin A. Schmidt, Patrick A. Jansen, John Horgan, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott, Colin Murray, Mark D. White, Huw Price, Dirk Pilat, Charles West, Chris Hanretty, Simon Wren‐Lewis, Mary Corcoran, Anand Menon, Michelle Everson, Rebecca Tushnet, Ben Worthy, David R. Miller, Robert Wolfe, Aileen McHarg, Jacob T. Levy, Simon Glendinning, Scott A. Imberman, Julie Cupples, Lyndsey Stonebridge, Stephen Ryan, Samantha Brennan, Jonathan Birch, Anne Norton, Hubert Zimmermann, Leo McCann, Graeme Warren, David Bartram, Lisa Diedrich, Ann Bartow, Pauline Stafford, Clayton Littlejohn, Rense Corten, Jack Stilgoe, Jon Dean, Klaus Oschema, Christina Pagel, Daxton R. Stewart, Rune Møller Stahl, Olivier Mannoni, Camille Lefebvre, Colin Talbot, Tarik Abou‐Chadi, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Jeroen Van Bouwel, David Spurrett, François Guesnet, Speranţa Dumitru

Rutger Bregman @rutgerbregman.com · 7h

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Reposted by John Horgan, Nathan P. Kalmoe

ProPublica @propublica.org · 12h

Alaska vowed to resolve the murders of Indigenous people.

But when one nonprofit asked state law enforcement officials for a fundamental piece of data — a list of Indigenous murders they’d investigated — the state said no.

With @adn.com

Alaska Vowed to Resolve Murders of Indigenous People. Now It Refuses to Provide Their Names.

When the nonprofit Data for Indigenous Justice filed public records requests with the Alaska Department of Public Safety concerning cases it had investigated, the state rejected them.

www.propublica.org

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Anat Shenker-Osorio @anatosaurus.bsky.social · 12h

Engage base to carry message, create clear moral quandary to convert the conflicted, and expose opposition for the true outliers they are. BRAVO to @ndlon.bsky.social for brilliant giving media something to talk about:
www.latimes.com/california/s...

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Manisha Sinha, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 12h

Wow — Senators Van Hollen, Smith, Murphy, Sanders, Warren, Markey, Merkley, Heinrich have created an official internal "Fight Club."

They're challenging Schumer & Gillibrand's leadership, arguing the party is using an old, corporate-friendly playbook insufficient to take on Trump or win elections.

Chuck Schumer Faces Pushback From a ‘Fight Club’ of Senate Democrats

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Tarik Abou‐Chadi , and 2 more Brendan Nyhan, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Tarik Abou‐Chadi, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Dan Immergluck

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 12h

@brendannyhan.bsky.social is right: young people are reluctant to come to the defense of institutions that have excluded them, ignored them, and crushed their movements

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/o...