Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh)

@brewminate.bsky.social

11K followers 11K following 3.3K posts

📖 Public Historian / Adjunct History Professor 🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ+ Proud 💙 "Woke" and Proud 🚫 Blocking MAGA and Hate See https://www.brewminate.com (Brewminate)

www.brewminate.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2h

Food for Thought

When the state begins to fear its citizens, it arms itself.

When the citizens begin to fear the state, it’s already too late.

Power always claims to protect—until protection becomes control.

#Power #Freedom #Democracy #Brewminate

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2h

TODAY IN HISTORY: October 8, 1871 – The Great Chicago Fire and the Evolution of Modern Policing

🔥 Out of Chicago’s ashes rose more than new buildings — it birthed a new idea of power.

The fire gave rise to modern policing built on fear and control.

#History #ChicagoFire #Policing #Brewminate

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 5h

🪶 The Founders feared a standing army would enslave the Republic.

Their solution — civilian supremacy — is democracy’s last defense.

#History #Liberty #Democracy #Brewminate

The Founders’ Fear of Standing Armies in America

How America’s Founders turned their distrust of standing armies into a constitutional safeguard for liberty and civilian control.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 5h

⚔️ Trump wants to seize control of state National Guards — a move that defies the Constitution and resurrects the Founders’ greatest fear: a president with his own army.

#Trump #NationalGuard #Constitution #Brewminate

Trump, States, and the Battle Over National Guard Power

Trump’s bid to federalize the National Guard sparks lawsuits, protests, and court rulings. Can states and judges hold the line against executive overreach?

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 6h

⚖️ Before the badge, there was the burden — keep order, but guard liberty.

Early America’s police defined both freedom and fear.

#History #Liberty #Police #Brewminate

Law Enforcement and Liberty in Early America

Explore the rise of U.S. law enforcement from 1800–1850, from local sheriffs to slave patrols, and citizens’ fears of power and lost liberty.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 6h

🚓 Peacekeepers turned warriors — the battlefield came home.

America’s police force now looks more like an army than a community.

#Militarization #Police #Democracy #Brewminate

Militarization of Police in America: History and Impact

How U.S. police became militarized through federal programs, post-9/11 policies, and a “warrior” mindset—eroding trust and civil liberties.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 6h

👮‍♂️ “Officer Friendly” was never just a mascot — it was propaganda in uniform.

America’s police image was rebranded to mask power with PR.

#Copaganda #Policing #History #Brewminate

From Officer Friendly to Copaganda

Trace the evolution of American policing’s image from 1960s PR campaigns to modern “copaganda,” where branding masks power and reform remains elusive.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 6h

🚨 “Law and order” can’t mean obedience to tyranny.

Trump’s plan for federalized policing pushes America toward a modern police state.

History warned us — we didn’t listen.

#Trump #PoliceState #Democracy #Brewminate

Trump’s Police State Blueprint Threatens the U.S. Republic

Trump’s second term is dismantling oversight, militarizing policing, and pushing the U.S. toward authoritarian rule.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 19h

💔 Homelessness isn’t only about money — it’s about lost connection.

When relationships break, stability breaks too.

#Homelessness #Poverty #Society #Brewminate

Relational Poverty and Homelessness

Explore how isolation, broken trust, and social disconnection — not only economics — fuel the crisis of homelessness in modern society.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 19h

💰 Early America built its wealth on someone else’s hunger.

This is the story of how poverty became policy.

#History #Economy #Inequality #Brewminate

Poverty in Early America: Origins, Realities, and Responses

Poverty in early America was not an aberration but a persistent and structured feature of colonial and early national life.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

Echoes of History: Then and Now

⚒️ Peasants once bowed to lords — now workers bow to metrics.

The feudal fields became digital ones.

#History #Economy #ClassDivide #Brewminate

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

TODAY IN HISTORY: October 7, 1913 – The Ford Motor Company Introduced the Moving Assembly Line

⚙️ It built cars faster — and reprogrammed human labor.

It widened class divisions and turned workers into extensions of the machines they operated.

#History #Ford #IndustrialRevolution #Brewminate

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

⚒️ Rome was built by its workers — and ruled by those who never lifted a tool.

The story of ancient labor is the story of inequality itself.

#History #AncientRome #WorkingClass #Brewminate

The Working Class in Ancient Rome

Explore the lives of Rome’s workers—artisans, farmers, slaves, and freedmen—who sustained the empire through labor, resilience, and community.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

⚙️ The world runs on working-class hands — and they’re paid the least for it.

Without workers, nothing moves.

#WorkingClass #Inequality #Brewminate

The Struggles of the Working Class in Modern Society

The working class powers society yet remains exploited and unseen. Explore the challenges, causes, and paths to dignity and change.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

🌾 Bound to the soil, bound by power.

Medieval peasants lived in a world where freedom was a myth and survival a contract.

#History #Feudalism #Brewminate

Peasants and Power: Feudalism’s Grip on Medieval Society

How the feudal system kept peasants bound to their stations, serving elites through law, economy, and ideology in medieval Europe.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

🏰 Meet the new lords — same as the old.

Capitalism’s endgame looks a lot like feudalism: wealth concentrated, workers bound, power unchallenged.

#Capitalism #Inequality #Brewminate

The New Feudal Lords of Capitalism

The elite 0.01% rule like modern nobility, living off labor and debt. Feudalism never ended — it evolved into capitalism.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

The dream is shrinking. 💸

The middle class that emerged and defined America is collapsing under debt, policy, and greed.

#Economy #MiddleClass #Inequality #Brewminate

The Economic Divide and the Decline of America’s Middle Class

Explore America’s economic divide from colonial wealth to today’s shrinking middle class, tracing cycles of inequality, reform, and decline.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

A “recovery” for the rich, a recession for everyone else.

Trump’s tariffs turned class warfare into economic policy. 💸

#Economy #Politics #Brewminate

K-Shaped Economy and Trump’s Tariffs Driving Inequality

Trump’s tariffs widen the K-shaped economy, raising costs, lowering wages, and pushing America toward recession while the wealthy profit.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 1d

In 1798, America made free speech a crime. ⚖️☕

#History #FreeSpeech #Brewminate

Restricting Free Speech: Alien and Sedition Acts 1798

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 gave the U.S. government power to silence dissent — a defining clash between security, speech, and democracy.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2d

TODAY IN HISTORY: October 6, 1934 – The Catalan State Was Proclaimed 🇪🇸

Companys declared Catalan independence — Madrid answered with martial law.

By dawn, it was over.

#History #Spain #Catalonia #Brewminate

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2d

Rome called them “enemies of the state.”

What it really meant was “enemies of power.” 🏛️☕

#History #Politics #Brewminate

Roman Proscriptions: Sulla to the Julio-Claudians

How proscriptions shaped Roman politics, from Sulla’s deadly lists to the Julio-Claudian treason trials that redefined “enemies of the state.”

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2d

Trump calls for war from within — soldiers in the streets of America. ⚔️☕

#Politics #Authoritarianism #Brewminate

Trump Pushes “War From Within” in Military Speech

At Quantico, Trump urged using U.S. cities as “training grounds” and warned of a “war from within,” raising alarms over authoritarian overreach.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2d

History’s greatest disasters were commanded by the least qualified. ⚔️☕

#History #Leadership #Brewminate

Unqualified Leaders and Military Disasters in History

From Varus at Teutoburg to Mussolini, history shows how unqualified rulers led armies to ruin and reshaped nations.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2d

Hegseth isn’t qualified.

Trump thinks HE is and doesn't need advice.

That’s the real danger. ⚔️☕

#Politics #Leadership #Brewminate

Trump, Hegseth, and the Dangers of Military Misrule

History warns against unqualified leaders directing armies. Trump and Hegseth risk repeating disasters from Hitler’s hubris to Rome’s Teutoburg defeat.

Brewminate (Matthew A. McIntosh) @brewminate.bsky.social · 2d

A fake “Communist plot.”

A nation deceived.

A dictator born. ☕

#History #Authoritarianism #Brewminate

Cohen Plan 1937: Forgery behind Vargas’s Dictatorship

How the forged 1937 Cohen Plan fueled fear of communism, dissolved Congress, and gave Getúlio Vargas the power to establish Brazil’s Estado Novo.