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erikwarren.bsky.social
Erik
@erikwarren.bsky.social
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Reposted by Erik
sethcotlar.bsky.social
In March of 2024 I wrote up this thread criticizing the fascism-minimizers on the left. Corey Robin got all mad about it on Twitter when he saw one, out of context screenshot from it. Now he thinks Trump is a fascist. bsky.app/profile/seth...
sethcotlar.bsky.social Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · Mar 31
There's one aspect of this "fascism debate" that I think is important but which doesn't get talked about much because it's hard to do without it sounding like an ad hominem attack. That is, many "fascism minimizers" are products of east coast, privileged bubbles. www.newyorker.com/books/under-...
Trump and the F-Word
In a new book, “Did It Happen Here?,” scholars debate what the F-word conceals and what it reveals.
www.newyorker.com
December 18, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Erik
sethcotlar.bsky.social
I appreciate this critique of the anti-Cassandra position. In my experience, the Cassandras weren’t “liberal east coast elites,” they were people like me who grew up in and/or currently lived in reddish or purple places, among people who were warming (or just acquiescing) to fascism.
Done newrepublic.com = Politics them: Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Brett Stephens, Corey Robin, Jon Stewart, David Brooks, William Watson, John Harris, Simon Jenkins, Zachary Karabell, Josh Barro, and Noah Feldman. Not an exhaustive list, but enough for a quick sketch. All of them grew up in very blue areas of either California, New York, or Massachusetts (excepting Watson, who is Canadian, and Harris and Jenkins, who are British). All have spent the vast majority of their careers working in media or academia in either big blue cities or college towns. All are college grads, and many have an elite education: Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and so on. Many are the children of significant academics. All are men. I'm sure you can find exceptions, but this does seem to be the basic profile of a mainstream media anti-alarmist. Done newrepublic.com Politics The result is a preposterous dynamic in which (non-elite) Cassandras, who often live in red areas and talk to MAGA zealots every day, are lectured on understanding them by columnists who may have never talked to one, on their own turf, in their entire lives. The columnists' experience of the modern right is of their sanitizers: of pseudo-intellectual apologists; of having Ross Douthat on their podcast. They have not had to fear for their lives coming out as gay or trans in a deep, dark-red community. They have not had family stage an intervention because they believe progressivism is literally demonic. British journalist John Harris, quoted above, felt confident to tell terrified liberals-in the most condescending language-they'd misunderstood MAGA, after spending "the best part of five days" in the States.
December 18, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Erik
kristinekenyon.bsky.social
Absolutely. And this should be required reading 👇 www.propublica.org/article/russ...
Russell Vought, Trump’s Shadow President
From the wholesale gutting of federal agencies to the ongoing government shutdown, Russell Vought has drawn the road map for Trump’s second term. Vought has consolidated power to an extent that inside...
www.propublica.org
December 17, 2025 at 5:28 PM