Jeff Alworth
@alworth.bsky.social
360 followers 210 following 180 posts
Politics/news account. Like all people, I have a life beyond my career. Part of it involves civic engagement. For beer check out beervana.bsky.social. Longer essays: https://substack.com/@jeffalworth/
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alworth.bsky.social
Julia Azari: “Increasingly, I think the discussions about American democracy need to pay a lot more attention to power.”

This is true, and a point the blue half of the country desperately wants to be false. More succinctly, politics is the acquisition and exercise of power. That’s it.
Politics is about power. Our conversations about political parties should be, too.
Presidential excess is really about how the rest of the political system has failed
goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com
alworth.bsky.social
A well-documented and illuminating thread.
sethcotlar.bsky.social
There's one huge difference between the 2025 Portland protests & the ones in 2020. Today, the ~100 anti-fascist protesters at the ICE facility are sandwiched between the feds who have MAGA-friendly media embedded w/ them, and ~15 MAGA-friendly content creators/counter-protesters out in the crowd.
washingtonpost.com
As President Trump tries to send the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, conservative influencers are working to support his claim that the city is burning with viral clips from one block. https://wapo.st/4q5HM0n
alworth.bsky.social
Confronting a blank page.
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

Archives banned making copies.
philistella.bsky.social
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

New library catalogue website.
alworth.bsky.social
It’s disproven on the daily, including by Kristi Noem and her asinine fishing expedition.
alworth.bsky.social
I am feeling a little hopeless this morning. The country feels irretrievably broken.
Official text from the White House: 

“PORTLAND: Fake News Ignores Antifa Violence, Residents’ Pleas for Help”

“For years, an Antifa-led hellfire has turned Portland into a wasteland of firebombs, beatings, and brazen attacks on federal officers and property — yet the Fake News remains in shameful denial about the Radical Left’s reign of terror.”
alworth.bsky.social
The odds federal agents grab JD Pritzker is no longer negligible. We have ticked up from “quit being alarmist” to “wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
angus.bsky.social
If you can show up on October 18, you should. The country is shifting. The battleship is turning. And while, yes, usually mass street protests don't do much, there are exceptions.

And sometimes those exceptions go down in history.
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
oregonian.com
Things are happening at Portland's ICE facility tonight.

Read more of our protest coverage here: www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...
alworth.bsky.social
At least the url — GetTrumpWatches.com — is classy and befitting the august office of the presidency.
atrupar.com
Trump Watches commercials are now running regularly on Newsmax
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
maureenogle.bsky.social
Good stuff here from my much-respected colleague @alworth.bsky.social
alworth.bsky.social
Huge if true.
atrupar.com
Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
moiradonegan.bsky.social
What we don't talk about enough is the dignity harm suffered by women who have to share the public sphere with guys who go around talking about our bodies like we're a public resource whose use and distribution they're qualified to determine.
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
courtneyvaughn.bsky.social
Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.
alworth.bsky.social
This was a good outcome, but you can see how these encounters are going to escalate. Soon we’ll have blood in the streets.
cristianfarias.com
This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...
alworth.bsky.social
Remember in Trump I how everyone kept trying to argue that Trump and MAGA weren’t animated by racism, but rather “economic insecurity?” You don hear that much, anymore.
Text block: “The Trump administration plans to slash refugee admissions to a record low level in the upcoming year, reserving a bulk of the limited slots for white Afrikaners from South Africa and others facing “unjust discrimination,” the New York Times reports.”
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
aoc.bsky.social
A bus of Bronx middle schoolers pulled up to the Capitol this morning for a long-planned field trip just a few hours after the government shut down.

All Capitol tours were cancelled as the guides can’t work in shutdown.

So I escorted them in myself and gave them a personal tour. They were great!
alworth.bsky.social
“Unless they’re playing false tapes.” This is a confused old man who can’t distinguish past and present, whose sources of info are randos and Russian bots on Twitter rather than his own intelligence agencies. I feel so bad for Gov. Kotek having to try to reason with this lunatic. (Portland is great)
atrupar.com
Trump: "Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a war zone. I get a call from the liberal governor, 'Sir, please don't come in, we don't need you.' I said, unless they're playing false tapes, this looks like World War 2."
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
otsumamiboy.bsky.social
The state could have backed him but instead they demonstrated for the thousandth time that there is no level of respectability that will prevent white people from serving you up on a platter in order to appease powerful racists.
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
alworth.bsky.social
(A Substack version of today’s thread.)

Portland is a safe, quirky little city with a low and quickly-falling crime rate. The only reason Trump would send in the troops is political repression. There’s nothing more to this.
Trump Announces Political Repression of an American City
Portland is a safe, quirky little city with a low and quickly-falling crime rate. The only reason Trump would send in the troops is political repression. There’s nothing more to this.
jeffalworth.substack.com
Reposted by Jeff Alworth
theta444.bsky.social
Even if we weren't "safe" or "quirky" or had rising crime rates, it wouldn't be justified. Not in LA. Not in Memphis. Not in Baltimore. Not here either.
alworth.bsky.social
(A Substack version of today’s thread.)

Portland is a safe, quirky little city with a low and quickly-falling crime rate. The only reason Trump would send in the troops is political repression. There’s nothing more to this.
Trump Announces Political Repression of an American City
Portland is a safe, quirky little city with a low and quickly-falling crime rate. The only reason Trump would send in the troops is political repression. There’s nothing more to this.
jeffalworth.substack.com