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Angus Johnston

@angus.bsky.social

43K followers 1K following 13K posts

CUNY prof. Historian of, and advocate for, student organizing. @studentactivism from Twitter.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · Aug 19

It's really important for Americans to understand right now that dismantling democracy isn't a thing that you wave a magic wand and make happen. It's a process. It's a fight.

It's a fight you choose when you're worried about losing, and it's a fight you're not guaranteed to win.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 1h

"Nathan Thurm but shorter, and with a weird fake accent" is a perfect description of Andy Ngo as I experienced him face-to-face.

HeadhunterSully @headhuntersully.bsky.social · 1h

He's a comically shifty poet-warrior in the classical sense.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 1h

Lorena Hickock was a solid activist and a good progressive, but I wouldn't call her the founder of antif...

Oh. Got it.

Chris Kluwe @chriswarcraft.bsky.social · 1h

Pretty sure Eleanor Roosevelt is dead

Bobby Silverman @robertsilverman.bsky.social · 2h

Bondi claiming they arrested [checks notes] "the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa" has me in stitches

Reposted by Angus Johnston

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 2h

Jack Posobiec speaks at the "Antifa Roundtable" and immediately references the Weimar Republic. He's a nazi.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 2h

I met Andy Ngo once, when I was speaking at a thing and he found me backstage and tried get me to say something he could use against me.

What leaped out was how comically shifty he was. Nervous, sweaty, desperate. No game at all, no charm.

Up close, they are what you figure they are.

dr. caitlin m. green @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social · 2h

andy ngo is at the white house right now briefing the president on the antifa menace. that is a real sentence that is true. what the fuck

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 2h

Fucking.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2h

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 2h

Reminds me, as so many things do, of a Woody Guthrie quote:

"I ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller, but when I believe in something I'm the loudest yeller."

Anthrodiva La Chatte @anthrodiva.bsky.social · 2h

I am not the world's greatest baker slash cake decorator....

Betty Crocker + Dr Pepper + sprinkles to cover errors....

Small two tiered birthday cake, chocolate with chocolate frosting. Halloween sprinkles. Candles say 25

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Reposted by Angus Johnston

Noted Texan Energy Executive @notedtexan.bsky.social · 3h

@dicknixon.bsky.social This is a very sophisticated message. The camera moves to avoid looking like AI. She wanted people to be certain.

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Reposted by Angus Johnston

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 3h

Also: No cuts, long clip, a little bit of knowing humor, a little bit of pathos. There's a LOT of stuff here that reads both "this is real" and "I'm actually fine."

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 3h

Also: No cuts, long clip, a little bit of knowing humor, a little bit of pathos. There's a LOT of stuff here that reads both "this is real" and "I'm actually fine."

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 3h

I just did a little poking around, and it appears the standard stat for subway fare evasion is about 10% now, down from maybe 15% a year or two ago. Looking at the crime stats below, it seems like that number is WAY too low to make a powerful difference in the increases we've seen in recent years.

Vital City | Just the Facts on New York City Subway Crime

Parsing 18 years of data on underground violence

www.vitalcitynyc.org

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Reposted by Angus Johnston

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 4h

Feel like in light of ... everything ... right now, probably worth it to re-up this. Constant dooming is counter-productive, and the occasional burst of something uplifting can be essential.

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 22d

At a time when everything seems terrible, I was checking in w one of my kids abt what he’s watching on-line, and apparently it’s inspirational edits like this one, which was … actually pretty uplifting at a time when uplift sometimes seems in short supply.

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Reposted by Angus Johnston

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 4h

Reporter's notebook: I actually began working on this story shortly after footage of the incident showed up last month.

But by the time I finally got ahold of folks, the story grew: 2 *other* faith leaders I spoke with *also* reported being shot w/pepper balls while protesting this ICE facility.

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 23h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 4h

Also: A 2:08 extemporaneous video without any cuts. You love to see it.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 4h

"If I was really dying, I don't think Reba would be the one at my deathbed. She might come visit me earlier. But anyway..."

She Is Risen.

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 5h

BREAKING

In a new video, Dolly Parton, the Queen of America, says she’s going to be ok.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 5h

(Correction to two posts up: Andrew was a key advisor to his dad's campaign for mayor in 1977, but not his campaign manager. He was campaign manager when his dad ran for governor in 1982.)

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 5h

Tremendous. I'll absolutely watch.

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

Just looked it up to confirm, and apparently he was a top campaign advisor that year. (Was officially campaign manager when Cuomo ran for governor in 1982.)

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

No!

Reposted by Angus Johnston

Stuart Shapiro @stuartshapiroblou.bsky.social · 6h

Cuomo actually lost three times to koch, there was a runoff in the Democratic primary.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

Al "Grandpa" Lewis and Tiny Tim and Irwin Corey and Joan Rivers and Jackie Mason are all gone, but Curtis Sliwa remains.

Justin Sherin @wychstreet.bsky.social · 7h

I would never vote for Curtis Sliwa in a million years, but if I ran into him I know we'd at least speak much of the same language - he's the kind of New York nut you learn to manage, & as long as they don't have power prefer over yet another suit from god knows where

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 7h

Just popped over to Twitter to take a quick peek at Curtis Sliwa's account. A few highlights.

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

Fun fact: After Koch beat Cuomo 55–45 in the Democratic primary, Cuomo stayed in the race as a third-party candidate, losing to Koch by nine points in the general election.

(This year Andrew lost the primary 56–44, and he's currently running 15 or 20 points back in general-election polling.)

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

When Mario Cuomo ran against Ed Koch for mayor in 1977, Andrew was his campaign manager, and has been widely identified as the force behind the campaign's "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo" smears. (Koch was at the time, and for the rest of his life, a closeted gay man.)

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

Some folks have asked about this. It's a hit on Mamdani's youth, and part of a bigger talking point criticizing his ties to Uganda, but it's also a slam against Cuomo's homophobic past.

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 7h

Yesterday: Approvingly quotes someone saying he's the only " candidate in this race that has a record supporting the LGBT community going back to the 1970s." Praises Saul Zabar, posts Yankee-game selfie in his beret.

(Various attacks on both Cuomo and Mamdani, of course.)

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Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

It's not really an institution kind of organization—it was always mostly a platform for Sliwa, and hasn't been anything else in decades. Sliwa himself is a mix of far-right stuff, mostly on crime, NYC cultural liberalism, and his own bizarre obsessions (many of them benign).

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah. It's embedded in a hit piece about Mamdani's Uganda ties, but in context that line reads more as a wink than a smear.