Louis Römer
@lromeranth.bsky.social
9.1K followers 2.3K following 260 posts
🇨🇼🇳🇱🇺🇲 | he/him | PhD | anthropologist @vassar.bsky.social | opinions mine | retweet & like≠endorsements |
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lromeranth.bsky.social
How did "free speech" become a cudgel to silence dissent? My latest in @bostonreview.bsky.social

www.bostonreview.net/forum/the-ri...
In past rounds of moral panics on campus, when “cancel culture” and “trigger warnings” were still the threats du jour, pundits and social media outrage peddlers converged to frame campus protests at large as threats to “free speech.” Responding to the steady churn of outrage-bait framing protesting students as “snowflakes” and “crybullies,” state legislatures across the country passed a flurry of “campus free speech” bills drafted by right-wing think tanks, which expanded the range of anti-protest measures available to college administrators. To be sure, boycotts and deplatforming protests were useful props in these efforts. Still, what made it possible to inflate deplatforming incidents into threats that required expansion of repressive state power was the failure to question a securitized vision of liberty that, since Bush’s “they hate our freedoms” speech, has become increasingly dominant.
Reposted by Louis Römer
urocklive1.bsky.social
Vivek was apparently shocked to learn that the kids in Charlie Kirk's TPUSA groups are Christian Nationalists who will never accept him. They want the entire country to be white Christians, and the very idea that he could hold a position of power offends them.

newrepublic.com/post/201664/...
Surprise! Vivek Ramaswamy’s Turning Point Event Derailed by Racism
Event attendees asked Ramaswamy why he felt he could be the governor of Ohio even though he isn’t Christian.
newrepublic.com
Reposted by Louis Römer
newrepublic.com
His slip of the tongue reveals who’s really in charge. trib.al/mIvP0yE

“Illinois governor says we’re provoking actions that are unlawful,” Miller said on CNN. “If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern town, is anyone gonna riot?”
Reposted by Louis Römer
resnikoff.bsky.social
I've attempted and abandoned a memoir about living through the digital media bubble a few times, but man do I have stories about AJAM.
resnikoff.bsky.social
Actually just occurred to me that those of us who worked at Al Jazeera America — a hugely expensive boondoggle backed by an authoritarian regime that thought it could have it both ways — are uniquely well positioned to predict the future of CBS News.
Reposted by Louis Römer
hannahgais.bsky.social
Those are three people in inflatable frog suits.
@MrAndyNgo
Now that the local and national press have started to cover the Portland ICE area round-the-clock in reaction to the President, Antifa have devised a plan where they are encouraging one another to come in animal costumes.

The costumes serve the function of masking the violent extremism to make the direct action appear like a family-friendly gathering on camera, and to whitewash the past ultraviolence. 

In 2019, Antifa devised a similar plot by giving out free "milkshakes" at a protest. But they couldn't contain their bloodthirst and nearly killed me when they saw me. In 2020, they mobilized a fake "Wall of Moms" where female Antifa supporters and members wore yellow shirts to act as human body shields while violent rioters behind them hurled projectile weapons.

photo of three people in inflatable frog costumes
Reposted by Louis Römer
adamchicago.bsky.social
The frogs have landed in Chicago!
Protestor in a frog suit and an anti-Ice sign with what I believe to be a Pokémon character on a street corner in Rogers Park.
Reposted by Louis Römer
darthbluesky.bsky.social
the republican majority leader with a clear vision for the democratic party
atrupar.com
Thune: "If the Democrats had won the majority, they probably would've tried to nuke the filibuster. And then you'd have four new senators from Puerto Rico and DC, you'd have a packed Supreme Court, you'd have abortion on demand ... "
Reposted by Louis Römer
prisonculture.bsky.social
The MSM does not interview community organizers. It's part of why they miss so much of what happens at the local level.
Reposted by Louis Römer
premthakker.bsky.social
Update: Bari Weiss’s first pitch at CBS — a roundtable with Antony Blinken, Mike Pompeo, and Hillary Clinton that ended up being a virtual interview with Clinton & Condoleezza Rice — has about 150 viewers on YouTube.

Added with the 24/7 CBS stream, it’s just over 1200 viewers.
Reposted by Louis Römer
sfdb.bsky.social
Mike Johnson & every single MAGA can story tell all they want about so-called anti-American Democrats but they will never ever be able to escape the reality that they are part of a movement, the leader they still hysterically support, that attempted to violently overthrow a free and fair election.
atrupar.com
Mike Johnson: "This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18? The antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists, they're all gonna gather on the Mall. It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes ... all this has gotta come to an end."
Reposted by Louis Römer
markhisted.org
Russell Vought has announced that "mass firings [RIFs] have begun."

Lawless. The RIFs in the spring were illegal, as Judge Illston outlined. Yes, the conservative SCOTUS supermajority lawlessly signed off. But the Calvinball Court is not doing law.

Congress can stop this. A thread: 1/
'RIFs have begun.' Vought announces start of mass firings during government shutdown
The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
www.pbs.org
Reposted by Louis Römer
hakeemjefferson.bsky.social
As I argue in the book, when we attend to respectability attitudes, which focus on & center Black ppl’s beliefs abt Black behavior, we can understand so much abt how ppl think abt a range of issues. And I think our standard ideological language, though often useful, gets in the way of this clarity.
Reposted by Louis Römer
hakeemjefferson.bsky.social
One of the interesting bits of the work I’ve been doing for nearly a decade to understand Black Americans’ embrace of respectability is the relatively limited relationship btwn age/cohort & respectability attitudes.

These ideas have so endured that you find them even among younger cohorts.
ebonyteach.blacksky.app
The Obamas always remind me of my young aunts and uncles and their spouses who were always like my elder sibs.

Born in the 60s, 70s childhood, came of age in the 80s, etc. Different experiences, insights, and stumbling blocks than those of us born in the 70s, 80s childhood, 90s coming of age faced.
Reposted by Louis Römer
diplomatofnight.com
A lot of people on here, in multiple directions but primarily in the left-bashing formula, are less interested in Gaza or Palestine itself than what they can achieve out of it vis a vis their online arguments.
Reposted by Louis Römer
diplomatofnight.com
Khaled Elgindy proving that you can in fact talk to Isaac Chotiner without sounding like you've recently been lobotomized with a cheese grater
Why Hamas Agreed to Release the Hostages
And why it might not matter much for Gaza’s future, or for Palestinian statehood.
www.newyorker.com
Reposted by Louis Römer
gregsargent.bsky.social
Stephen Miller just said that Chicago ICE raid was one of the most successful law enforcement operations ever. I asked Pritzker to respond.

"If this was Pinochet’s Chile, if this was Argentina under authoritarian rule, maybe you’d call it successful," he said. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...
lromeranth.bsky.social
It’s also that since Rowan is directly involved with this so called “compact,” this not opinion but advertising
gregggonsalves.bsky.social
Thank you @nytopinion.nytimes.com for publishing this rot. Marc Rowan has run hundreds of companies into the dust to extract profits from their failure and bankruptcies. Now he wants to do the same to American higher education. Do not believe a word this man says. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/o...
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Badly Needed
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Louis Römer
gregggonsalves.bsky.social
Thank you @nytopinion.nytimes.com for publishing this rot. Marc Rowan has run hundreds of companies into the dust to extract profits from their failure and bankruptcies. Now he wants to do the same to American higher education. Do not believe a word this man says. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/o...
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Badly Needed
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Louis Römer
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
The widespread media decision to frame international affairs as "will Donnie get the prize he wants?" is pathetic.

He's not the protagonist of human events. And to the extent he's a significant character in world affairs, whether or not he gets a prize is one of the least important things about it.
Reposted by Louis Römer
quoproquid.bsky.social
what do you even say. what do you even say.
Reposted by Louis Römer
taniel.bsky.social
New Quinnipiac poll of New York City:

Mamdani 46%
Cuomo 33%
Sliwa 15%

(A month ago, it was Mamdani 45%, Cuomo 23%, Sliwa 15%, Adams 12%.)

One obstacle to Cuomo rising much higher: Mamdani's favorability rating is 43/35, but Cuomo's is 37/52.
poll.qu.edu/poll-release...
Reposted by Louis Römer
Reposted by Louis Römer
josephpolitano.bsky.social
two thing that annoys me about Lee Kuan Yew worship is that nobody who does it seems to care about *modern* singaporean politicians and American right-wingers who do it would never accept LKY's policies of, e.g., massive public housing projects in a country that makes posting racism illegal
Reposted by Louis Römer
jdryan08.bsky.social
Erdoğan’s anti-imperialism has always and forever been an objection to *western* imperialism, not to the concept of empire tout court.
nicholasdanfort.bsky.social
Bitterly ironic that after years of anti-imperial posturing, Erdogan is now boasting about securing Hamas's signoff on an international mandate for Palestine.