snilttroll
@snilttroll.bsky.social
social democracy enthusiast
Reposted by snilttroll
Personnel is policy is politics: the skills needed to become a senior Democrat, and the life experiences associated with being one, furnish neither the tools to respond to an authoritarian takeover nor a sufficiently visceral understanding of the stakes.
via @jmberger.com
via @jmberger.com
The President of the United States is trying to throw Mark Kelly in prison and Mark Kelly's response is to confirm judges who have committed to putting him in prison
11 Senate Democrats just voted to advance the nomination of a Federal Society judge who used to defend banks and payday lenders:
Durbin
Gallego
Hassan
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Reed
Rosen
Whitehouse
Durbin
Gallego
Hassan
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Reed
Rosen
Whitehouse
December 4, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Personnel is policy is politics: the skills needed to become a senior Democrat, and the life experiences associated with being one, furnish neither the tools to respond to an authoritarian takeover nor a sufficiently visceral understanding of the stakes.
via @jmberger.com
via @jmberger.com
(the skill is sucking up to rich people)
See also: university presidents/administrators, editors/journalists at the papers/networks of record, CEOs, etc. etc. The skills that secured peak elite status in every societal institution pre-2025 are precisely those least suited for countering a far right authoritarian threat to the Republic.
Personnel is policy is politics: the skills needed to become a senior Democrat, and the life experiences associated with being one, furnish neither the tools to respond to an authoritarian takeover nor a sufficiently visceral understanding of the stakes.
via @jmberger.com
via @jmberger.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:24 AM
(the skill is sucking up to rich people)
the problem is this aspirational baloney appeals mainly to people who are rich or got good grades in school. everyone else hears “try harder next time, loser”
This will probably get me yelled at, because I can see the consensus forming here that "strong floors, no ceiling" is the dumbest of all possible slogans. I would argue that it's actually not that bad, but that it's wrong for this moment (please read 🧵before yelling at me)...
December 1, 2025 at 12:33 AM
the problem is this aspirational baloney appeals mainly to people who are rich or got good grades in school. everyone else hears “try harder next time, loser”
@jemgilbert.bsky.social if you’re taking requests, please do a culture power politics episode about the your party situation
November 30, 2025 at 7:16 PM
@jemgilbert.bsky.social if you’re taking requests, please do a culture power politics episode about the your party situation
Reposted by snilttroll
Great comparative research from @joshgoddard98.bsky.social . Highly intuitive from a UK pov, too:
November 26, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Great comparative research from @joshgoddard98.bsky.social . Highly intuitive from a UK pov, too:
“healthy young men should be working on building sites rather than running over pedestrians in city centres”
New substack: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/the-fiscal... The government's problem isn't merely how to raise tax: it's the more difficult one of reallocating labour.
The fiscal challenge
Reeves' problem isn't raising money: it's much more difficult than that.
chrisdillow.substack.com
November 22, 2025 at 5:11 PM
“healthy young men should be working on building sites rather than running over pedestrians in city centres”
this is why I keep an “interesting” playlist separate from liked songs
Do you consider ‘history’ and ‘influence’ on deciding if you like a song, album or band? Some things are described as influential, but this can just mean someone else did it better. I think, for me, with music it’s ‘do I like it?’
November 14, 2025 at 3:28 PM
this is why I keep an “interesting” playlist separate from liked songs
look we’ve all been there
November 9, 2025 at 6:59 PM
look we’ve all been there
the test will be if they can resist burning people out with fundraising appeals
Very exciting to see activists launching a new nonprofit today to keep building on the community of volunteers that came together to get Mamdani elected.
Our Time is a 501(c)(4) and plans to start events in December.
Our Time is a 501(c)(4) and plans to start events in December.
Our Time
A campaign for an affordable NYC
ourtime.nyc
November 6, 2025 at 3:54 PM
the test will be if they can resist burning people out with fundraising appeals
the best bit is at the end
November 6, 2025 at 3:27 AM
the best bit is at the end
ok but knope was incredibly corrupt and cared more about promoting friends than achieving political goals
The democratic socialist future of America will require millions of Leslie Knopes doing the thankless work of the bureaucracy required to provide services to the people. If you think people like her are "neoliberal shills," you're not really a democratic socialist, you're just a cosplayer.
November 5, 2025 at 9:18 PM
ok but knope was incredibly corrupt and cared more about promoting friends than achieving political goals
it would be interesting if mamdani and his team used his volunteer list for continued volunteer activity and resisted the urge to ask people for cash constantly until they unsubscribe and regret ever signing up in the first place
There's an element of the smart set that doesn't give a crap about volunteering and ground game, thinks it's meaningless. Mamdani's campaign had 104,400 volunteers and knocked on 3 million doors and it sounds like they're just getting started.
"Engagement doesn't matter" is such a dumb opinion.
"Engagement doesn't matter" is such a dumb opinion.
November 5, 2025 at 4:33 AM
it would be interesting if mamdani and his team used his volunteer list for continued volunteer activity and resisted the urge to ask people for cash constantly until they unsubscribe and regret ever signing up in the first place
Reposted by snilttroll
I truly think this is an underappreciated point that much of the "rising far right" polisci literature has missed.
We have n->inf findings that bad stuff leads to far right voting. But why _doesn't_ bad stuff lead to far left (or center left) voting? One big answer: A failure of political supply.
We have n->inf findings that bad stuff leads to far right voting. But why _doesn't_ bad stuff lead to far left (or center left) voting? One big answer: A failure of political supply.
🗳️ New study (w @jessicakuhlm.bsky.social) on AfD success in integration council elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany: AfD achieved significant results in councils elected exclusively by voters with migration backgrounds. It's not about economics—it's about political competition. (1/3)
November 4, 2025 at 11:06 AM
I truly think this is an underappreciated point that much of the "rising far right" polisci literature has missed.
We have n->inf findings that bad stuff leads to far right voting. But why _doesn't_ bad stuff lead to far left (or center left) voting? One big answer: A failure of political supply.
We have n->inf findings that bad stuff leads to far right voting. But why _doesn't_ bad stuff lead to far left (or center left) voting? One big answer: A failure of political supply.
World Liberty Financial, the president's crypto scam company, has the name you'd expect from a life annuity scam company
November 3, 2025 at 6:36 PM
World Liberty Financial, the president's crypto scam company, has the name you'd expect from a life annuity scam company
I wonder if mamdani deliberately does things cuomo can’t do (walking the length of manhattan, riding a bike, being normal)
November 3, 2025 at 4:52 PM
I wonder if mamdani deliberately does things cuomo can’t do (walking the length of manhattan, riding a bike, being normal)
I think I found the weirdest team in the history of american professional sports
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorang_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorang_...
Oorang Indians - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 3, 2025 at 10:28 AM
I think I found the weirdest team in the history of american professional sports
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorang_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorang_...
a conscientiousness test or whatever shouldn’t cost $120,000
The older I get the more I value conscientiousness over raw intelligence or anything like that — when someone has completed college that’s a stronger signal of being able to handle tasks in an independent environment on a consistent basis: www.wsj.com/business/pal...
Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It’s Hiring High-School Grads.
Tech company offers 22 teens a chance to skip college for its fellowship, which includes a four-week seminar on Western civilization
www.wsj.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:17 PM
a conscientiousness test or whatever shouldn’t cost $120,000
Reposted by snilttroll
Why I'm done with Hamilton and Jefferson, and with engaging with mainstream scholarship on them, and am instead writing a romp about Burr: open.substack.com/pub/williamh...
Some Problems Won't Be Solved
The Hamilton-Jefferson Binary, Organized Labor in the 18th Century, and the Emptiness at the Heart of Our Historical Discourse
open.substack.com
November 2, 2025 at 1:06 AM
Why I'm done with Hamilton and Jefferson, and with engaging with mainstream scholarship on them, and am instead writing a romp about Burr: open.substack.com/pub/williamh...
“the ways in which” is the new “in a very real sense”
November 1, 2025 at 7:00 PM
“the ways in which” is the new “in a very real sense”
Reposted by snilttroll
Fascinating background & insight into the real estate politics of the NYC mayoral race: www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/sta...
Stabilization and Speculation | Cea Weaver
Struggles over New York City’s housing policy
www.phenomenalworld.org
October 31, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Fascinating background & insight into the real estate politics of the NYC mayoral race: www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/sta...
I don’t know if they still do it but murdoch would make up stuff in his uk papers and then have his american media say “the times of london reports …”
Fascinating detail in the second screenshot of where the Times’ weird obsession with Mamdani (a politician running for office in a city in a different country) is coming from.
This colossal Times of London/de Blasio screwup gets more amazing at every turn.
Scoop via @maxtani.bsky.social
www.semafor.com/article/10/2...
Scoop via @maxtani.bsky.social
www.semafor.com/article/10/2...
October 30, 2025 at 3:14 PM
I don’t know if they still do it but murdoch would make up stuff in his uk papers and then have his american media say “the times of london reports …”
Reposted by snilttroll
wait, a kinship terminology angle in the news? anthropologists, it's your chance to get that public-facing opinion piece out
“you can’t refer to your dad’s cousin as your aunt” is their closing scandal? yeah they got nothin’, they’re cooked
lmao
October 28, 2025 at 6:33 PM
wait, a kinship terminology angle in the news? anthropologists, it's your chance to get that public-facing opinion piece out
has any newspaper ever done this? (they should)
October 25, 2025 at 7:17 AM
has any newspaper ever done this? (they should)
Reposted by snilttroll
Medieval gold-makers: While looking for something else I found myself in Johannes Janssen's _History of the German People_, vol 15. (1910 English translation, looks like the original was late 1890s.)
I'd always thought of alchemical synthesis of gold as a quaint, foolish quest. Ha!
I'd always thought of alchemical synthesis of gold as a quaint, foolish quest. Ha!
October 24, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Medieval gold-makers: While looking for something else I found myself in Johannes Janssen's _History of the German People_, vol 15. (1910 English translation, looks like the original was late 1890s.)
I'd always thought of alchemical synthesis of gold as a quaint, foolish quest. Ha!
I'd always thought of alchemical synthesis of gold as a quaint, foolish quest. Ha!
shaking my head at all the leftist nimbys using historic preservation as an excuse to not build up #abundance
(just kidding)
(just kidding)
October 23, 2025 at 10:35 PM
shaking my head at all the leftist nimbys using historic preservation as an excuse to not build up #abundance
(just kidding)
(just kidding)