Angus Johnston
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angus.bsky.social
Angus Johnston
@angus.bsky.social
CUNY prof. Historian of, and advocate for, student organizing. @studentactivism from Twitter.
(PS: Fuck Bill Clinton, of course. That should go without saying.)
January 26, 2026 at 4:28 AM
It also feels like the Clinton statement is intended to—and likely will—give other Trump critics, both within the Democratic Party and among other elite circles, permission and encouragement to be more aggressive themselves.
January 26, 2026 at 4:27 AM
The Obama statement feels like a significant but still incremental shift in posture, while Clinton's reads as a major rhetorical escalation.
January 26, 2026 at 4:25 AM
Maybe I've missed something, but this seems like a dramatic escalation in Clinton's public posture. The Obama statement feels like an incremental advance.
January 26, 2026 at 4:23 AM
This is my thinking as well.
January 26, 2026 at 4:20 AM
Reposted by Angus Johnston
And probably a good sign. I think Obama is a lagging indicator but tempered by a sense of caution. Clinton has a real talent for discerning the direction of any wind.
January 26, 2026 at 4:16 AM
My impression is that the Clinton statement is grounded not only in a sense of the gravity of the situation but also in a sense that this is a moment of weakness for the Trump administration's assault on the constitution—and on the American people.

The Trump project is teetering. This was a nudge.
January 26, 2026 at 4:19 AM
And Clinton's statement goes much further than the Obamas' in stating flatly that American democracy is at immediate risk of collapse.
January 26, 2026 at 4:17 AM
First, Clinton refers to Good and Pretti as "peaceful protesters and citizens exercising their constitutional right to observe and document law enforcement." The Obama statement offered no similar defense of their actions.
January 26, 2026 at 4:15 AM
Obama is more restrained than I'd like, yes.
January 26, 2026 at 12:51 AM
I mean, paragraph four largely answers that question.
January 26, 2026 at 12:51 AM
(Note that I'm not endorsing or embracing this strategy, if that's what it is. Just describing it, tentatively.)
January 26, 2026 at 12:48 AM
I'm not endorsing his strategy. I'm describing it, tentatively.
January 26, 2026 at 12:47 AM
This statement can be read as a checklist of which actors Obama sees as legitimate, which ones he doesn't, and which ones he's reserving public judgment on.

Read in that light, it's an interesting checklist.
January 26, 2026 at 12:47 AM
Feels like today's statement is consistent with that hunch.
January 26, 2026 at 12:45 AM
My tentative hunch is that Obama sees his appropriate role in nudging the country forward as limited unless and until everything fully collapses, at which point he'll likely have some moral and institutional authority to draw lines about what is and isn't legitimate government action.
January 26, 2026 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Angus Johnston
Of course, she encouraged me to avoid getting murdered, and I reminded her that it’s not a super easy thing to control.
January 25, 2026 at 11:43 PM
Lynching was a form of state-aligned terror designed to enforce a white supremacist order. White people were lynched as part of that project.

Yesterday’s murder was state-aligned terror designed to enforce a white supremacist order, even if the victim was white.
January 25, 2026 at 2:09 PM