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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit
@democracyeditor.bsky.social
630 followers 770 following 130 posts
Senior Politics & Democracy Editor, @us.theconversation.com; co-founder w/hubby John Christie of The Maine Monitor. Family of journos & writers. We proofread menus.
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 6d
Warrior ethos? Not for General George Washington, contra Pete Hegseth’s vision of the tough guy who kills for a living. Maurizio Valsania writes Washington "saw soldiering as the highest exercise of discipline, patience and composure...more statesman than warrior" theconversation.com/where-george...
Where George Washington would disagree with Pete Hegseth about fitness for command and what makes a warrior
Washington’s ‘warrior ethos’ was grounded in decency, temperance and the capacity to act with courage without surrendering to rage. That ideal built an army – and in time, a republic.
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 14d
It's that time of year again, with reporters jostling each other in basement hallways of the Capitol, trying to get tidbits from lawmakers about whether the fed'l gov't will shut down. @charlesrhunt.com breaks down the big problem that's kind of new this year theconversation.com/facing-a-shu...
Facing a shutdown, budget negotiations are much harder because Congress has given Trump power to cut spending through ‘rescission’
There’s a new element at play that’s heightening the stakes of budget negotiations in Congress. And it could lead to a shutdown.
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 14d
One of the best ledes I've read in a long time, in this Hollywood Reporter review of Kimmel's monologue last night: "At some point in the past few days, Jimmy Kimmel ceased to (just) be Jimmy Kimmel." www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-review...
Critic’s Notebook: Jimmy Kimmel Met the Moment With His Powerful, Tightrope-Walking Monologue
In his first show back following his suspension by ABC, the host addressed free-speech issues and Charlie Kirk's killing in between statements of gratitude, displays of emotion and jokes both silly an...
www.hollywoodreporter.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 15d
As the president and members of the Trump administration escalate their rhetoric about pursuing political adversaries, Medsger asks: Will Kash Patel and Trump, like Hoover, “criminalize dissent?” 5/end
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 15d
"Antiwar activists were given oranges injected with...laxatives. Agents hired prostitutes known to have venereal disease to infect campus antiwar leaders. Hoover’s 'savage hatred' of Black people led to the FBI’s worst operation, which resulted in the killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton." 4/
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 15d
"The files they stole and made public confirmed the FBI was suppressing dissent. But they revealed much more: Hoover’s secret FBI and the startling crimes he had committed...The COINTELPRO operations ranged from crude to cruel to murderous." 3/
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 15d
"J. Edgar Hoover operated a secret FBI within the FBI that he used to destroy people and organizations whose political opinions he opposed. in 1971, a group of people, the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, broke into an FBI office and removed files," aiming to expose Hoover's campaign. 2/
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 15d
Kash Patel's been enacting Trump's vengeance agenda since he got to the FBI. As Betty Medsger writes today, "This isn’t the first time an FBI director has been driven by a desire to suppress the rights of people perceived to be political enemies." theconversation.com/trumps-use-o... 1/
Trump’s use of FBI to target ‘enemies’ echoes FBI’s dark history of mass surveillance, dirty tricks and perversion of justice under J. Edgar Hoover
Donald Trump has a partisan ally running the FBI. He’s urged retribution against his perceived enemies. Will today’s FBI repeat the vast, unconstitutional persecutions of the J. Edgar Hoover era?
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 16d
Here's a good explainer of the case and its significance theconversation.com/the-case-tha...
The case that saved the press – and why Trump wants it gone
A landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling protects the press in lawsuits by public officials angry about how they’ve been covered. It’s being targeted by President Donald Trump.
theconversation.com
Reposted by Naomi Schalit
us.theconversation.com
The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 19d
The suspension of Jimmy Kimmel is a serious threat to free expression – but not because the comedians’ rights were violated.

Just last year a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the government can’t legally pressure a corporation to suppress speech.

buff.ly/BI13STP
Why Jimmy Kimmel’s First Amendment rights weren’t violated – but ABC’s would be protected if it stood up to the FCC and Trump
Think you know what the First Amendment means and protects? You − and a lot of Jimmy Kimmel’s defenders − may well be wrong.
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 19d
Jimmy Kimmel's defenders called his suspension an attack on the First Amendment; one said it was the most "straightforward attack on free speech from state actors I’ve ever seen." Is it? @profunger.bsky.social explains what the 1st Amendment does/doesn't protect theconversation.com/why-jimmy-ki...
Why Jimmy Kimmel’s First Amendment rights weren’t violated – but ABC’s would be protected if it stood up to the FCC and Trump
Think you know what the First Amendment means and protects? You − and a lot of Jimmy Kimmel’s defenders − may well be wrong.
theconversation.com
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Reposted by Naomi Schalit
juliaazari.bsky.social
Julia Azari @juliaazari.bsky.social · 19d
Not silenced yet. I wrote about Trump and how pettiness and authoritarianism are connected.
theconversation.com/the-presiden...
The president as partisan warrior: Trump’s rejection of traditional presidential statesmanship
Presidents are typically expected to be focused on national security, economic management and other key issues handled at the national level. Donald Trump has turned those assumptions upside down.
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 21d
Wrong: Assertions by Trump (& Stephen Miller) that the "radical left" causes "tremendous violence” and that “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than the radical right. Right-wing extremist violence is more frequent & more lethal theconversation.com/right-wing-e...
Right-wing extremist violence is more frequent and more deadly than left-wing violence − what the data shows
Donald Trump and top administration officials confidently assert that left-wing political violence is a huge problem in the US. They’re wrong, say researchers who study extremism.
theconversation.com
Reposted by Naomi Schalit
us.theconversation.com
The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 21d
Harvard, like all Americans, can’t be punished by the government for speaking freely – and a federal court decision upholds decades of precedents saying so
Harvard, like all Americans, can’t be punished by the government for speaking freely – and a federal court decision upholds decades of precedents saying so
The First Amendment is not just about the right to speak without fear of jail. It’s also about ensuring that government cannot punish speech indirectly by threatening livelihoods and institutions.
buff.ly
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 21d
I could spend all my time as a politics editor commissioning stories about attacks on the First Amendment. Here's the latest on how the First Amendment is not just about the right to speak without fear of jail, by Sam Martin ‪@boisestate.bsky.social‬ theconversation.com/harvard-like...
Harvard, like all Americans, can’t be punished by the government for speaking freely – and a federal court decision upholds decades of precedents saying so
The First Amendment is not just about the right to speak without fear of jail. It’s also about ensuring that government cannot punish speech indirectly by threatening livelihoods and institutions.
theconversation.com
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 25d
Lots of folks asking these days "What's the 'American experiment' and can it survive?" Tom Coens at The University of Tennessee explains the term & why there are "more fears that the experiment is at imminent risk of failing than complacency that it has succeeded" theconversation.com/why-franklin...
Why Franklin, Washington and Lincoln considered American democracy an ‘experiment’ – and were unsure if it would survive
Is American democracy an ‘experiment’ in the bubbling-beakers-in-a-laboratory sense of the word? If so, what is the experiment attempting to prove, and how will we know if and when it has succeeded?
theconversation.com
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 25d
Repeatedly, "history’s advance has been imagined to depend on silencing or destroying a single figure. To claim that such shootings betray “who we are” is to forget that the U.S. was founded upon – and has been sustained by – this very form of political violence" theconversation.com/yes-this-is-...
Yes, this is who we are: America’s 250-year history of political violence
The US has long fused politics and violence, often through firearms. To claim that such shootings betray ‘who we are’ is to forget that the US was founded on this form of political violence.
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · 28d
Lots of headlines about how Trump's moves "echo an authoritarian handbook." But bupkis in hard news coverage about Trump BEING an authoritarian, writes political communication expert @kvanderson.bsky.social theconversation.com/why-journali...
Why journalists are reluctant to call Trump an authoritarian – and why that matters for democracy
Media framing shapes people’s understanding of the world. A political communication scholar says that journalistic outlets’ failure to call Donald Trump an authoritarian is a problem for democracy.
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Sep 8
Who said political parties enabled “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men...subvert the power of the people and usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which lifted them to unjust dominion” theconversation.com/george-washi...
George Washington’s worries are coming true
President George Washington warned in his 1796 Farewell Address about dangers that lay ahead for the US – warnings that seem startlingly contemporary and relevant 229 years later.
theconversation.com
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Sep 5
Hearing a lot about "Article 3" these days? And Articles 1 &2 as well? I asked John E. Jones III, the very smart former federal judge, now Dickinson College prez, why. And he tells a story about growing tension between fed'l judges, the Trump admin. & SCOTUS theconversation.com/federal-judg...
Federal judges are frustrated by defiance from the Trump administration and fuzziness from the Supreme Court
You’re probably hearing references in the news to “Article 1,” “Article 2” and “Article 3.” Why are phrases usually associated with discussions of constitutional law now cropping up in politics?
theconversation.com
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Aug 27
If it was a ham sandwich, maybe they could indict the sandwich instead? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...
Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent
www.nytimes.com
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Aug 23
Borrowing from Wendell Berry, it's good to encounter the peace of wild things in the garden when the world feels like it's gone mad
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democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Aug 23
Oh, those late-summer dispatches from out-of-state journos vacationing in Maine -- always good to check how the name of a place is spelled, as in SPRUCE HEAD, not SPRUCEHEAD, before publishing a story about it in the NYT
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Aug 20
Trump, the Smithsonian & Orwell: ‪@fieryparticle.bsky.social‬ explains just how Trump's tirades against the Smithsonian are "deeply Orwellian" and explains just what that means, starting with "winners write the history" and then heading "down the memory hole" theconversation.com/the-orwellia....
The Orwellian echoes in Trump’s push for ‘Americanism’ at the Smithsonian
Donald Trump aims to rewrite America’s official history, including at one of the nation’s key sites of public history-making: the Smithsonian. George Orwell would recognize Trump’s impulse.
theconversation.com
democracyeditor.bsky.social
Naomi Schalit @democracyeditor.bsky.social · Aug 18
"Peace deal" sounds like a good thing. But Don Heflin, a former diplomat now at Tufts' Fletcher School, explains why peace won't be achieved by skipping a ceasefire in Ukraine, & untangles even more of the post-summit confusion theconversation.com/trump-putin-...
Trump-Putin summit: Veteran diplomat explains why putting peace deal before ceasefire wouldn’t end Ukraine War
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with President Donald Trump in the aftermath of an inconclusive summit just days before. A veteran diplomat helps untangle what happened and what’s next.
theconversation.com