Brett Olmsted, PhD 🗃️
@brettolmsted.bsky.social
3.1K followers 950 following 1.2K posts
PhD in 20th Cen. U.S. History (Latinx, Labor, Immigration, Politics) Book: Making Michigan Home: Mexican Americans Bridging the Rural-Urban Experience (Illinois Press Dec 2025) http://bit.ly/47BdTOH Views my own / Reposts are not endorsements
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brettolmsted.bsky.social
Hello to all. I study US Latinx history and have a book coming out Dec 23, 2025 from Illinois Press:

Making Michigan Home: Mexican Americans Bridging the Rural-Urban Experience

It examines placemaking via leisure and labor (available @illinoispress.bsky.social and Amazon)

bit.ly/47BdTOH
Book: MAKING
MICHIGAN
HOME
MEXICAN
AMERICANS
BRIDGING THE RURAL-URBAN
EXPERIENCE
BRETT T. OLMSTED
Reposted by Brett Olmsted, PhD 🗃️
princetonupress.bsky.social
A bold retelling of the 1960s civil rights struggle through its work against police violence—& a prehistory of both the Black Lives Matter & Blue Lives Matter movements that emerged half a century later.

@joshuaclarkdavis.bsky.social's Police Against the Movement is now available: hubs.ly/Q03Mp5Ss0
Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back by Joshua Clark Davis
Reposted by Brett Olmsted, PhD 🗃️
mcopelov.bsky.social
👇🎯 This is how governing works in literally every actual democracy around the world. If you don’t have the votes, it’s up to you to make concessions to the minority parties. It’s not their job to save you from your responsibility to govern by giving you things you don’t have the votes for already.
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Sounds like Republicans ought to get all the Republicans who form the Republican majorities in the Republican-led House and the Republican-led Senate together to pass the budget that Republicans wrote with the Republican White House and that Republicans now insist absolutely must be passed.
atrupar.com
Sean Duffy says the safety of the air traffic control system will start being impacted next Sunday if the shutdown continues
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Gonna leave this here.

(However, I remember them complaining about Shakira too, though she was the guest to Jennifer Lopez - that was a good show)
brettolmsted.bsky.social
It’s a great series.

I have used incarceration as well. I also use concentration camps in part to show the inhumanity and because I have quotes from those in the camps who used “concentration camps”
brettolmsted.bsky.social
This does hit hard

It is why using the word “internment camp” for Japanese-descended people in WWII is just a bad euphemism to cover the atrocity

And it is yet another parallel from the fascism of Germany to the US today

Due process is for EVERY PERSON in the United States without exception
phdrachel.bsky.social
Reviewing my WWII lecture & this hits different this year:
The US Holocaust museum argues that “what distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison... is that it functions outside of the judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.” 🗃️
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Just because a person says 2+2=5 doesn’t make it true. It just makes that person wrong and, if they keep repeating it insisting it’s true, makes them idiotic & dangerous

Trump has 'determined' “ U.S. is in 'armed conflict' w/ cartels, administration tells Congress www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...
brettolmsted.bsky.social
No, it was racist. It was imparting cultural appropriation and playing it for laughs (it would be similar to posting a fake image of a white person donning blackface). That is racist, plain and simple

He may have been trying to “be funny” with it but that doesn’t make it any less offensive & racist
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Historian here. No, it was racist. It was imparting cultural appropriation and playing it for laughs (it would be similar to posting a fake image of a white person donning blackface). That is racist, plain and simple
brettolmsted.bsky.social
This is literally what every apocalyptic Book of Revelation evangelical movie/book from the 90s warned us about - a one world government leader declaring he alone can bring peace whole his followers wear his mark on their foreheads

I remember thinking no one could be so stupid as to believe him 🙄🤬
acyn.bsky.social
Trump: My plan calls for the creation of a new international oversight body. The board of peace… it will be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump… everybody wants to be on it now. They named me and everyone wanted to be on it.
brettolmsted.bsky.social
I remember in the 90s during the rise of the militia movement - all those white dudes stockpiling weapons and shouting that Democrats would send the military against them…Rush Limbaugh decrying Janet Reno was a femi-nazi

No, its the Republicans doing it

www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru... in
Trump directs defense secretary to deploy troops to Portland
In a post on Truth Social, the president said he was authorizing the use of "full force" to protect ICE facilities in Portland, Oregon, if necessary.
www.nbcnews.com
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Simply amazing how all these type of stories are always ICE detaining/arresting a person of color. It’s like they just assume a person of color doesn’t belong and deserves to be harassed/removed 🙄🤬

The white supremacist playbook hasn’t changed (certainly not since Reconstruction).
laurarbelin.bsky.social
Breaking news from Des Moines: ICE has detained Dr. Ian Roberts, the superintendent of Iowa's largest school district.
The Des Moines Public Schools said "We have no confirmed information as to why Dr. Roberts is being detained or the next potential steps."
www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/09/26/i...
ICE detains Des Moines Superintendent Dr. Ian Roberts
Iowa's largest school district had "no confirmed information" on why ICE detained Dr. Ian Roberts, the superintendent since 2023.
www.bleedingheartland.com
brettolmsted.bsky.social
This post certainly seems especially relevant now
sethcotlar.bsky.social
I hear the President has decreed that it is possibly a crime to refer to Americans as "fascists," but "fascism" is a word that has a relatively clear meaning that's worth understanding. Here's how an official publication of the US Army defined "fascism" in 1945.
sethcotlar.bsky.social
The central point is that when fascism came to America it wouldn't call itself that, nor would it be wearing a swastika. It would call itself "patriotic" and "100% American."
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Trickle-down economics continue to work as they always have & how they have always been intended: to make the wealthy wealthier while offering false hope to the rest under the guise of freedom/less govt

Psst. It’s always meant to be less taxes for the rich w/ the govt always ready to bail them out
rbreich.bsky.social
CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1

Trickle-down economics was always a sham.

Nothing has ever trickled down.
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Between this, Jimmy Kimmel back on air, and Trump suffering 2 self-inflicted malfunctions at the UN, this is the best news week in quite awhile.
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Oklahoma Education Superintendent Ryan Walters says he is resigning. (Of course, he announced this on Fox News.)

www.koco.com/article/ryan...
Ryan Walters to resign as
Oklahoma state superintendent for private sector job
State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced Wednesday that he will resign from office and take a job in the private sector.
VEWS
Updated: 10:46 PM CDT Sep 24, 2025
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Pretty sad when it would better to go back to Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth where the .1%res built libraries and universities than to have this crap.

I mean, Carnegie was bad, but at least he didn’t buy The NY Times
rbreich.bsky.social
The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Does Trump know his party has the majority in both chambers and could pass this without Democratic Party votes (if they could unify all the Rs)?
Trump rant about continuing resolution budget bill and slamming Democrats
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Hello to all. I study US Latinx history and have a book coming out Dec 23, 2025 from Illinois Press:

Making Michigan Home: Mexican Americans Bridging the Rural-Urban Experience

It examines placemaking via leisure and labor (available @illinoispress.bsky.social and Amazon)

bit.ly/47BdTOH
Book: MAKING
MICHIGAN
HOME
MEXICAN
AMERICANS
BRIDGING THE RURAL-URBAN
EXPERIENCE
BRETT T. OLMSTED
brettolmsted.bsky.social
I’ve found connecting Boston Massacre to other “massacres” like the Massacre of 1622 or the Reichstag Fire helps. It’s about the narrative those impacted wanted to sell

Boston to stoke flames against British troops

Germans to push the enabling act

Chesapeake to demonize N. Americans/take land
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Love oversimplified. I use a number of clips for undergrad courses
Reposted by Brett Olmsted, PhD 🗃️
nhannahjones.bsky.social
The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.
brettolmsted.bsky.social
This is an iSnitch to call when you see someone in a place you think they don’t belong based on skin, language, or wealth, OR someone with different political beliefs (Trump has said repeatedly he hates Dems and they are destroying the country)

It’s McCathyism witch hunts 2.0
Homeland security asks for people to call to snitch on “foreigners”
Reposted by Brett Olmsted, PhD 🗃️
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
The White House Press Secretary, the official spokesperson for the Trump administration, told reporters in an official briefing that the president wants to invade "every Democrat-run city" with troops.

Any media still pretending that this is about "crime" is making a conscious choice to lie to you.
atrupar.com
Leavitt: "These are the bad guys that we are picking up in Washington DC every day. The president would love to do this in every Democrat-run city across the country."
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Instead, fund the programs actually stop crime and provide programs to lift people out of poverty. Programs that uplift the lower and middle classes actually make America safer
brettolmsted.bsky.social
Wanting to send the military into US cities means one of two things: 1) that you want to be a dictator and show that you’re a tough guy or 2) you want to provoke a violent response so you can be a dictator
brettolmsted.bsky.social
The military should not be sent into any US city. Doing so is dangerous and unconstitutional.

Sending the military into US cities creates an occupied America and colonialism (settlements) within America in American cities.