Alexander Clarkson
@aphclarkson.bsky.social
29K followers 990 following 9.3K posts
Lecturer for European Politics and History at King's College London. Opinions my own. RT not always endorsement. Also to be found at @APHClarkson https://www.ullstein.de/werke/die-macht-der-diaspora/hardcover/978354910
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Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social
Underrated part of this story is that official USG business is done by Truth Social DM. It almost makes you miss the good old days of the PC small group Signal Chat.
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
historyned.bsky.social
I had a roommate years ago who always had get rich quick schemes and one was political merchandise where he just wouldn’t pay for the rights to the photos and art. Today he’s a wildly wealthy fund manager who got his start in business via a celebrity billionaire fraudster.
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Altman claims the company didn’t anticipate people not wanting their deepfakes to say “offensive things or things that they find deeply problematic,” which sounds like a lie but is also indicative of how they recklessly release tech into the world.
OpenAI wasn’t expecting Sora’s copyright drama
It felt “more different to images than people expected.”
www.theverge.com
aphclarkson.bsky.social
If cultural production is powered by the emergence of social greyzones where state power is weak and the spirit of revolt is strong then punk isn't dead, it's just moved to Chicago
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
joesudbay.bsky.social
Christ, even the access crew at Axios are dumping on Johnson and GOP

Things have to be really bad for Republicans when their pals at DC gossip outlets are piling on
murshedz.bsky.social
At this point Democrats in Congress shouldn't concede an inch unless Johnson and Thune meet all their demands.

Republican rank and file members know it - majority of public are siding with Dems over healthcare and tired of giving Trump blank checks. www.axios.com/2025/10/08/m...
AXIOS HEADLINE with Mike Johnson reading a folder:

"Mike Johnson faces growing internal revolt over shutdown


Kate Santaliz,Andrew Solender "
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
dieworkwear.bsky.social
“A second inflatable frog has now been spotted wiggling through Portland.”
Marco Rubio whispers into Donald Trump's ear.
aphclarkson.bsky.social
So much of the "OMG the young uns are such weirdos for not going out" hysteria skips over how much cheaper it was to go out until 2021
aphclarkson.bsky.social
There is just something slightly desperate and silly in all the strained policy initiatives in Berlin or London hoping to generate outputs that lead to cultural spontaneity
aphclarkson.bsky.social
You don't need an economic crash to revive forms of cultural production, but the core factors shaping various possible trajectories are often not in a government's control
aphclarkson.bsky.social
I'm not dumping on the scene now, it's just playing out to a different rule set and in different places. The above posts were just about how fiddling with opening times and regulations aren't going to solve issues driven by deeper structural factors, in Berlin or the UK
aphclarkson.bsky.social
More recent surge in rents, the death of the squats as property ownership in the core Kieze was gradually clarified in the early 2010s, and the increasing continuity in people living around the scene has contributed to its accelerating demise.

At least in the form anyone in my generation knew it.
aphclarkson.bsky.social
So it's not a coincidence that the widely lamented crisis of Berlin club and bar culture happens at the same time as the city has become generally more prosperous and property prices have begun to recover
aphclarkson.bsky.social
I.e. you need quite specific political economic conditions for a club culture that can afford to take risks and a bar culture that can afford to stay open until dawn even if it's just you and three other guys who are the only one still knocking off vodkas at 6am
aphclarkson.bsky.social
So much of the 1980 - 2015 late night Berlin admired by so many Brits was the product of rock bottom rents/squats paying none and low wages from which people in the scene could still live well because it took the city 30 years in the end to recover from division and the post-division economic crash
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
dougsaunders.bsky.social
They arrested Rosa Luxemburg!
rtodkelly.bsky.social
"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
bcfinucane.bsky.social
POTUS is personally invested in this deal.

Remains to be seen whether there will be the necessary USG followthrough to make it stick.
I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!

DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
aphclarkson.bsky.social
🎯
dbernstein.bsky.social
… tbh I wonder if the whole thing was more to convince *Trump* to do whatever Miller et al want to do next. And they know that he’s more convinced by these speakers, with their outlandish claims and personal horror stories, than by law enforcement officials who might be more circumspect.
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
vermontgmg.bsky.social
White House policy is increasingly driven by (and aimed at) an increasingly small echo chamber of terminally online right wingers, which includes far too many of the administration’s own top officials. No one else can make sense of what they’re talking about much of the time.
dbernstein.bsky.social
Notable about today’s WH roundtable on Antifa, IMO: not just one outside law enforcement/public safety official brought in for it. Bondi, Patel for administration, but no police chief, state Public Safety Secy, sheriff, etc. Just a dozen right-wing “journalists”. …
aphclarkson.bsky.social
Instead it is 24/7 goddamn small boats
aphclarkson.bsky.social
Or an ability to calculate geopolitical implications of US domestic system failure and how quickly they will bleed into geoeconomics
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
jamesdaustin.bsky.social
This is my basic theory for a lot of what is going on with the centre right atm

The ideas failed utterly and now there is a total crisis of intellectual confidence
indy.bsky.social
It nags at me that people are dancing around the fact that one reason centre-right think-tanks are in an intellectual crisis moment is because we've spent over a decade where lots of their ideas were tried out and didn't pan out as advertised.
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
zeddary.bsky.social
Everything is Saddam did 9/11 now.
michaelehayden.bsky.social
Bumble Jack Posobiec called Luigi Mangione and would be-Trump assassin Thomas Crooks "antifa" to Trump at this roundtable.

These people have literally no idea what is going on.
Reposted by Alexander Clarkson
drjennings.bsky.social
You'd think there would be more interest from the US media that Trump is simply delusional - at best being fed complete fabrications by his team, at worst in serious cognitive decline and unable to recognise reality.
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."
aphclarkson.bsky.social
aphclarkson.bsky.social
The fact that the term "Death Squads" is not yet in use in relation to MAGA's strategic goals for much of the Western Hemisphere is a testament to how so many American analysts and journalists still can't get their heads around what is unfolding right in front of them in Washington
aphclarkson.bsky.social
aphclarkson.bsky.social
Slowly expanding the range of targets for extrajudicial strikes just on the other side of the border then suddenly using operational momentum to shift to lethal strikes on the American side of the line