Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

panytxco.bsky.social

@panytxco.bsky.social

Great article and I recommend anyone who values US democracy to read it.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · Jun 17

For decades, US presidents from both parties used a simple formulation for defining a tyrant: a leader who threatens or uses military force to suppress their domestic political opposition. Now we have a president doing just that and conservatives are cheering. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

How did Republicans go from condemning leaders who threaten their own citizens to becoming sycophants for one? Here, too, we find a holdover of Cold War rhetoric: the use of Third World to describe multicultural communities such as Los Angeles.

In the 1950s, the terms First World, Second World, and Third World emerged as a means to describe Western-aligned nations, Soviet-aligned governments, and emerging nations not allied with either faction, respectively. Third World soon came to be used as a pejorative term for poor, nonwhite countries—full of human beings who could be considered disposable.

And that’s exactly how Trump officials and their allies are referring to communities such as Los Angeles in order to justify using military force. Last night, following the massive “No Kings” protests across the country, Trump posted on his social network Truth Social that he was directing ICE to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities,” which he called “the core of the Democrat Power Center”; he further described immigration as turning America into a “Third World dystopia.”

The post echoed similar language from right-wing-media figures who, last week, began repeating the same rote talking points about the need to ban all “Third World” immigration. The conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk, who spoke at Trump rallies during the 2024 election campaign, displayed on his podcast, as part of an argument for Trump using the military to “take back the streets of LA. Do it and do it fast,” a chart from a white-nationalist website showing the white population of Los Angeles declining. Kirk also made explicit that he wasn’t borrowing just the chart from a white-nationalist website but also its ideological conclusions about the threat that nonwhite people pose. “This is the Great Replacement Theory,” Kirk explained. “Remember we talked about how they want to replace white Anglo-Saxon Christian Protestants with Mexican, Nicaraguans, with El Salvadorians.” The term Anglo-Saxon Christian Protestants is wildly archaic, 1930s racism. What’s next in the Republican-aligned podcast world? Rants about swarthy Sicilians and perfidious Jews?

June 17, 2025 at 2:37 PM

panytxco.bsky.social

@panytxco.bsky.social

I'm disgusted by the horrific way Trump's deportation thugs are treating people, in this case US citizens, who have done nothing wrong. kfor.com/video/federa...

kfor.com

April 30, 2025 at 4:32 AM

panytxco.bsky.social

@panytxco.bsky.social

Great turnout at No Kings protest in Longmont, CO!

April 19, 2025 at 8:43 PM

panytxco.bsky.social

@panytxco.bsky.social

Standing up for democracy and our Constitution!

April 19, 2025 at 8:34 PM

Reposted

Katelyn Burns

@katelynburns.com

Trump has signed 10 executive orders attacking trans people in his first 16 days in office. Do not ever let anyone tell you that it's Democrats who are obsessed with trans people.

February 4, 2025 at 9:52 PM

Reposted

Catherine Rampell

@crampell.bsky.social

A new era of government censorship has begun.
It started with the silencing of scientific speech, when the admin blocked release of research on bird flu. But MAGA has also cracked down on other wrongthink—on race, geography (!), and of course Trump himself
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Opinion | A new era of government censorship has dawned

Donald Trump fancies himself a champion of free speech. Oh, really?

www.washingtonpost.com

January 31, 2025 at 1:47 PM

Reposted

Maya Schenwar

@mayaschenwar.bsky.social

If you care about children, you support their access to life-saving health care; you affirm and celebrate them as their whole selves; you strive to build a society of freedom, autonomy, care, and liberation in which they can live and grow.

Protect trans kids, today and every day.

January 31, 2025 at 1:59 AM

Reposted

T. Greg Doucette

@gregdoucette.bsky.social

➡️ January 20: FAA director fired
➡️ January 21: Air Traffic Controller hiring frozen
➡️ January 22: Aviation Safety Advisory Committee disbanded
➡️ January 28: Buyout/retirement demand sent to existing employees
➡️ January 29: First American mid-air collision in 16 years

Making America Great Again!

January 30, 2025 at 3:37 PM

panytxco.bsky.social

@panytxco.bsky.social

Trump’s initial orders did nothing to reduce prices at the grocery store but did make prescription drugs way more expensive for seniors. www.statnews.com/2025/01/20/t... via @statnews.com