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Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

4.5K followers 850 following 910 posts

D.C.-based criminal justice writer and socio-cultural critic who spends a lot of time at the library. Hoosier by birth and college education. Some would call me a libertarian. I would not. https://theblanksslate.substack.com/

theblanksslate.substack.com

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · Jan 27

Anyway, really think about how you are on here/online.

Try to focus your attention where it can do the most good, because being fucked up about everything all the time is not a healthy way to live. theblanksslate.substack.com/p/now-comes-...

Now comes the hard part

Making the country a better place starts with being a better American

theblanksslate.substack.com

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 1d

That they eventually had the capacity for industrial murder is not the same as “they started and implemented a plan.” I’m not saying they couldn’t get anything done, I’m saying they began as disorganized and counterproductive as some more modern examples.

Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 1d

I think recognizing Nazi disorganization supports doing more now precisely because tyranny is not as obvious as people think. We teach Nazism as this obvious evil in hindsight but gloss over how a small group of semi-competent fanatic weirdos took over most of Europe.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 1d

I was trying to piggy back off your comment not correct you, but I get it. No offense intended but I’m sorry for coming off that way.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 1d

A German academic recounted this after the war, recorded in Milton Meyer’s “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45”

If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately come after the first and smallest, thousands—yes, millions—would have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German firm” stickers on the windows of the non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course, this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C, and so on to Step D. And one day, too late, your principles—if you were ever sensible of them—all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident—in my case, my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine!”—collapses as it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed, and changed completely under your nose.

The world you live in, your nation, your people, is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there: all untouched, all reassuring: the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now, you live in a world of hate and fear. And the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves. When everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system that rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself, it was compelled to go all the way.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 1d

I think normies believe that they’ll know tyranny when they see it; they oppose jackboots and swastikas and Gestapo guys in trenchcoats.

But it doesn’t work that way. These things are built over time and each encroachment seems bad but not evil.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 1d

Nazi efficiency is a myth. There wasn’t a central strategy: there was personality and a guiding ethos, but there wasn’t some well-honed organization or even developed plan. They got in their own way often.

Justin Zimmerman @jztidecat.bsky.social · 1d

Please scream this from the mountains. Do we really want them to be as efficient as the Nazis before responding?

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Feb 5

that said: I think the "it's not fascism unless they're good at it" brand of analysis probably isn't the move

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 2d

It sounds like Bublé doing some synth pop karaoke version of a Christmas song.

Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 2d

In line and listening to a cover of ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’ so bad it might be racist.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 5d

Republicans believe free speech is when they can say what they want and when you can say what they want. bsky.app/profile/bern...

Berny Belvedere @bernybelvedere.bsky.social · 5d

Criticizing Charlie Kirk is a fireable offense that incites domestic terrorism. But calling political opponents "the party of hate, evil, and Satan" is proper and good. Got it.

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John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 5d

Serious question: has the Fed govt ever arrested so many elected officials in such a short period of time, across multiple cities, and not for legit corruption reasons?

This seems like a distinct degree of anti-democratic escalation.

Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · 5d

ICE just blatantly violated the law and arrested sitting Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes while seeking to illegally arrest a patient in a hospital. Fuck these fascists.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 5d

Did a bot dying for more attention write this?

The Independent @the-independent.com · 6d

Nearly a third of Americans have had a ‘romantic relationship’ with an AI bot, new survey says

1 in 3 Americans have had a ‘romantic relationship’ with an AI bot, new survey says

www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Jonathan Blanks

Hannah Walser @hkpmw.bsky.social · 5d

Especially at this moment—when the president’s popularity is in free-fall & the federal government is shut down—the administration is looking for easy victories. Something universities may want to take into account as they consider how to respond

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Hannah Walser @hkpmw.bsky.social · 5d

On the university “pledge”

The universities that received the invitation to join the compact defied easy categorizing. They were a disparate collection of state universities and private institutions. But a number of them were in states controlled by Republican governors or had indicated a reluctance to fight the Trump administration or congressional Republicans.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 5d

youtu.be/le1QF3uoQNg?...

Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 6d

Not me working in the kids department of a library watching the Yankees game on mute and muting my own rampant obscenities.

Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 7d

Saw ‘One Battle After Another’ this weekend. Flew back to DC on Monday behind a group of dudes who looked straight out of the Christmas Adventurers.

Deplaning at DCA, the one in front of me stood up and I swear he had White House cuff links on.

The way these dudes play to type is just bananas.

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Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 7d

If Harvard bows down to this lawless president, it will cover itself in shame and betray its motto “Veritas.”

Don’t pretend to stand for truth if you’re going to surrender to this bully. Appeasement only feeds the beast and puts us all at greater risk.

Trump Says a Deal With Harvard Is Close

www.nytimes.com

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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 8d

Young’s opinion, which rules that the Trump admin illegally targeted pro-Palestinian students for deportation, is absolutely scathing.

“In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police…ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.”

And there's the issue of masks. This Court has listened
carefully to the reasons given by Öztürk's captors for masking-
up and has heard the same reasons advanced by the defendant Todd
Lyons, Acting Director of ICE. It rejects this testimony as
disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable. ICE goes masked for a
single reason -- to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small
wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard
them
as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It
should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks.
Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor -- and
honor still matters.
To us, masks are associated with cowardly
desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we
have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.
Carrying on
in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this
administration and everyone who works in it
"We can not escape
history," Lincoln righty said. "[It] will light us down in
honor or dishonor, to the latest generation." Abraham Lincoln,
Second Annual Message to Congress (Dec. 1, 1862) .
Perhaps we're now afraid to stick our necks out. If the
distinguished Homeland Security intelligence agency can be
weaponized to squelch the free speech rights of a small, hapless
group of non-citizens in our midst, so too can the Federal Home
Loan Mortgage Corporation, and the audit divisions of the I.R.s.
and the Social Security Administration be unconstitutionally
[98]

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 8d

I wonder if this is similar to the problem of Congress ceding so much power to the executive over time; they become so risk averse they just want someone else to make the decision and take the heat and refuse to exercise the power they have

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 8d

Not only could he simply do this himself, he could do it without Posse Comitatus applying like it does to federalized Guard.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry: "Tonight, we're sending the Department of War a request to send the National Guard, asking them to deploy the National Guard here in Louisiana into our cities like New Orleans and Baton Rogue and others."

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 8d

Not only could he simply do this himself, he could do it without Posse Comitatus applying like it does to federalized Guard.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 11d

Taps the sign www.thebulwark.com/p/popular-re...

Popular Resistance to Trump Is Working

Whenever one more institution or individual stands up to the administration, everyone benefits.

www.thebulwark.com

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 11d

Many people and institutions that fight back are winning.

This is a large part of the reason to scorn the people and institutions that have caved. When this is over their lives should be made miserable. More, I mean.

Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 11d

Kimmel won. Winning matters, wins are how we’re going to prevent this autocratic slide.

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 12d

"The sheer number of American elites willing to acquiesce to the destruction of democratic institutions is demoralizing. But it’s worth noting that many ordinary people seem to be made of sterner stuff."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Lower Than Cowards

The surrender of America’s elites

www.theatlantic.com

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 12d

It’s like if grown men played GI Joe between bong rips, it’s hard to imagine it would look much different, save the suits and roids.

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Jonathan Blanks @blanksslate.bsky.social · 12d

Intellectually, I know how performance plays into authoritarianism and how dangerous these guys are, but on an emotional level, I’m still dumbstruck by how deeply unserious and buffoonish they are.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 12d

"A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated almost 150 Native Americans were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children."

www.history.com/this-day-in-...

Pete Hegseth: Under my direction, the soldiers who fought at the Battle of Wounded Knee will keep their medals.

This decision is final. Their place in history is settled.

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