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Dave Kamper

@dskamper.bsky.social

5.7K followers 2.4K following 3K posts

Avuncular unionist, uxorious husband, labor historian, cat guy. "Who's Got the Power?: The Resurgence of American Unions" coming in 2025 from New Press. Lives in Minnesota. Posts are personal. The cat in the profile pic is Laverne, aka Peanut.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · Aug 23

Omigodomigodomigod it’s a real book and everything.

On sale October 14th!

Photo of a real book, like with pages and a cover and everything, called “Who’s Got the Power? The Resurgence of American Unions” by Dave Kamper, with a foreword by Sara Nelson.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 4h

be right over do you need extra oyster crackers

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Reposted by Dave Kamper

Mistress Matisse @mistressmatisse.bsky.social · 4h

OK, she really said that they arrested “the girlfriend of the founder of ANTIFA”

The girlfriend

of the FOUNDER

of - anti fascism?

Bobby Silverman @robertsilverman.bsky.social · 5h

lest anyone think the girlfriend line was a hilarious joke I concocted...

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 7h

16 of the 20 MacArthur Fellows live on the East or West Coast. 8 of the 20 are in New York or California.

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 8h

I love how it has a little kitty beard

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 10h

Yeah, it's just not a useful comparison. The minimum wage in this country is too low, this is obvious, and we don't need Dickensian examples to make that case.

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Reposted by Dave Kamper

Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 12h

In a fight between Pritzker and and police, who is going to win? This is what happens when both parties allowed law enforcement to become one of the most powerful political actors in the country -- a taxpayer-funded political movement that wants to kill people.

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Reposted by Dave Kamper

Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 13h

Wait, political actors DON’T have to do what polls well? Public opinion can be shaped by their actions and some people who respond to polls have opinions that can be changed?

Wow. Someone call the quantbrain centrist consultants

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 14h

Miller has a real theory of the case: A latent majority out there can be sleepwalked into authoritarianism with enough numbing agitprop. Polls show majorities reject the autocratic abuses but Miller plainly thinks voters in the middle lack conviction about any of it.

newrepublic.com/article/2014...

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Reposted by Dave Kamper

Tina Smith @smith.senate.gov · 11h

You’ll never be able to convince me ripping an American citizen out of their Chicago apartment in the dead of night, zip tying their hands and refusing to let them call their lawyer is ‘America First’

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 11h

Very ew.

It was the park's biggest day of the year, they made money hand over fist, but we always hired extra security and locked normally-unlocked doors to increase employee safety. There were at least a couple of occasions where a drunk cop pulled a gun on a worker.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 12h

Santa's Village.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 12h

There was a piece in The Atlantic or The New Yorker or someplace a few years back, a report from an auto dealership trade conference, and the dealership owners there were very explicit to the reporter than their objection to EVs was all about them not being maintenance cash cows.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 12h

In college I worked summers at an amusement park in the Chicago suburbs, and the single most dangerous day of the year was the annual Chicago FOP picnic. The cops would get drunk and roam the park, in shorts and t-shirts, with their guns strapped to their waist. We didn't let girls work alone.

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Reposted by Dave Kamper

Lars Negstad @larsn.bsky.social · 13h

c'mon mn say hell no to Waymo

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 14h

Well, here it comes: @toreyvanoot.bsky.social reports that Waymo has hired lobbyists in Minnesota and been talking to state lawmakers, looking for legislative approval to operate in MN

www.axios.com/local/twin-c...

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 23h

I love this for this guy. He went all in on the moxie and it paid off.

Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 1d

Fan wearing a "Dump Here" jersey with 61 caught Cal's HR 🔥

Immediately changes into an identical 62 jersey

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 23h

I just pointed this out to my wife. Her reason to not go: “He might play Wings songs.”

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

During the Red Scare some witnesses went to jail for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer. Terrible precedent, but precedent nevertheless.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

Fuck

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · 1d

oh no no no nooooooooo nooooo

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 1d

Dolly Parton’s sister, Freida Parton, is asking for people to pray for her sister’s health.

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

I am! Quite the charmer. But nothing compared to Mamdani. Or AOC. They’re way outta my league.

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

I mean, I agree, but it's not always that they know which messages work, but that the messages worker because of their communications savvy and charisma?

Like, someone running on the exact same issues and messages and Mamdani, but with, say, my level of charisma, would get killed.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

At @rickperlstein.bsky.social's recommendation I read Thomas Ricks' Waging A Good War, on the Civil Rights Movement as a military campaign. Quite useful. Dovetails well with @erinrpineda.bsky.social's Seeing Like An Activist. Both look at nonviolence as it really was, not how many pretend it was.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

4 and final) Stop reifying states. A state is not an organic entity that acts as a single unit. A state is a lot of people, and most of the money coming to and from states is actually money from those people.

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

3) the federal government does not do accounting on a cash basis. Even if, say, a state govy (acting as an employer) decided to hold back payroll taxes from state employees, it's not like the feds automatically reduce their spending in consequence.

Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

2) the vast majority of the dollars the "feds send to the states" take the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and K-12 education spending. The first two don't have anything to do with state governments at all, and states are effectively only the pass-through for the latter two.

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 1d

This is incredibly ignorant and foolish:

1) the vast majority of dollars a "state sends to the feds" is payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and so forth. States play no role in these funds getting to the feds - companies withhold and send straight to DC. There is nothing they can do to stop it.