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Paul Crider

@paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com

8.8K followers 1.9K following 13K posts

Liberal in the Smith-Douglass-Mill-Anderson vein. Writer and editor for Liberal Currents. https://bsky.app/profile/liberalcurrents.com

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · Apr 21

There is no better time than now—with fascists at the gates across the world and wreaking carnage in the halls of American power—for a liberal-socialist alliance. And a big part of that is bringing liberal socialism into consciousness.

Been thinking about this essay for a while ...🧵

Inheritance of Equals: A Case for Liberal Socialism

Things literally cannot go on as they have before the present democratic crisis—things have been broken and will have to be put back together somehow. Ideas that were unthinkable even a decade ago may...

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 7m

With all due respect to the Strand! 💙

Reposted by Paul Crider

Institute for Humane Studies @theihs.org · 3h

A free society depends on honest memory. We can face Churchill’s flaws without giving up his fight against tyranny.

Read the latest from Michael Tolhurst, managing director of academic relations at IHS, in @liberalcurrents.com. ⬇️

www.liberalcurrents.com/a-popular-fr...

A Popular Front of Memory

As the right begins to revise their view of Hitler, we must revive the example Churchill set in that era.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Reposted by Paul Crider

Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 3h

Dems can just clip the "we took the freedom of speech away" and make an ad

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3h

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1h

That's right. Powell's represent.

Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver.bsky.social · 2h

Literally the best bookstore in America is in Portland. Not that he reads books.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h

Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."

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Reposted by Paul Crider

Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 11h

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Reposted by Paul Crider

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 18h

Among the more obvious differences, this was about using the Alabama National Guard to enforce federal law *in Alabama*, where the state government was defying court orders.

Note that even in that much more extreme context, Kennedy used the Alabama National Guard, not some other state's.

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 18h

Trump just posted what looks like an old DOJ memo about President Kennedy’s use of the National Guard in Alabama to desegregate schools in 1963.

It’s a gross comparison, given the fact that Trump is basically George Wallace and he wants to use the Guard to invade cities, not advance civil rights.

Trump: U.S. Code. Those provisions authorize the President, when faced with such unlawful obstructions against the authority of the United States as existed in Alabama, to "call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary" (10
U.S.C. § 332) and to use
"the militia or the armed forces,
or both, or
• other means" (10 U.S.C. $ 333). The
militia of the United States includes the national guard, meaning the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard of the several states. 10 U.S.C. § 311 and $ 101 (9), (10), (12) .
In furtherance of the President's order the Secretary of Defense immediately called into active military service all of the units and members of the Army National Guard and Air National Guard of the State of Alabama to serve in the active military service of the United States for an indefinite period and until relieved by appropriate orders.
This call was transmitted by the Secretary of the Army, acting by direction of, and under delegation of authority from, the Secretary of Defense.
Copies of the Department
of the Army message (No. D.A. 340638, June 11, 1963) were furnished immediately to the Governor of Alabama and to the commanding officers of the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard of the State of Alabama.
It is apparent that the Alabama National Guard was properly called into federal service pursuant to 10 U.S.C.
§5 332-4, and in accordance with the procedure provided in those sections. Since the call to federal service did not invoke the authority of 10 U.S.C. $ 3500, referred to by Mr. Bowen, the procedure prescribed by that section was
not
used.
I trust that the foregoing information will be of
assistance to you.
Sincerely,
¡enera.
299 ReTruths 819 Likes
10/7/25,

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 9h

This is one of the most encouraging trends I've seen. Refusing to indict cases of resistance against ICE terrorists and kidnappers is a valuable tool in our citizens' toolkit.

Seth Stern @sethstern.bsky.social · 19h

A federal grand jury declined to indict two people charged with assaulting law enforcement agents outside a suburban Chicago ICE facility, an attorney for one of the defendants said, Megan Crepeau and @benjaminpenn.bsky.social report

news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...

Grand Jury Declines to Indict Two Chicago-Area ICE Protesters

A federal grand jury declined to indict two people charged with assaulting law enforcement agents outside a suburban Chicago ICE facility, an attorney for one of the defendants said.

news.bloomberglaw.com

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 21h

My guess is upwards of 90% of these ICE goons identify as Christian. I keep saying: these people hate their own God.

But I do love seeing this kind of activism from faith leaders.

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 23h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

Promoting discrimination against minorities in the military seems like it would foster suspicion, resentment, and antagonism, rather than—what's that phrase they love?—unit cohesion.

It also must be said this is all for the purpose of directing the military against a diverse citizenry.

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

the unstated implication of caldwell's faff is that discrimination against minorities somehow enhances military effectiveness rather than degrading it

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

the chris caldwell of 1948 would have been arguing against desegregation of the armed forces www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

A chonkier than expected 380 pages! I hadn't previously been able to see the Table of Contents.

First page of the Table of Contents. Including main sections
1. Two Biographies – or, Two Routes to the Quest for 'True Democracy'
2. Prelude to the Conflagration: From Paris to Fort Sumter
3. Toward the Convergence of Douglass and Marx: From Fort Sumter to the Trent Affair
4. From a Constitutional to a Revolutionary Civil War: 'the Cruel and Apocalyptic War Had Become Holy'

Second page of Table of Contents, with sections:
5. The End of the War and the Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction
Conclusions
Appendix A: Douglass and Marx on the Paris Commune and the Labour Question in the United States
Appendix B: Marx and Engels on the Race Question: A Response to Critics

Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

Looking forward to digging into this! Though I have two other books I need to finish first. (My reading has really slowed down these last two months due to trying to find a job ...)

A book on a wooden table. The book has a black background with gray, green, blue, and yellow flowers, leaves, and stems. Title is The Communist and the Revolutionary Liberal in the Second American Revolution: Comparing Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass in Real-Time, by August H. Nimtz and Kyle A. Edwards.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

This discussion, hosted by @douglassweek.bsky.social last week, is so fruitful. I'm really excited by this project. I also love the methodology of "real time political analysis," which is comparing different contemporary thinkers' reactions to the same events as they occurred.

Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass - The Communist & the Revolutionary Liberal | #DouglassWeek 2025

YouTube video by #DouglassWeek Team

www.youtube.com

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

I wish you loved Wendy's as much as you hate fascists.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

I do find it endlessly cute that for so many decades the right hurled "postmodernism" as an epithet against the left, for its alleged desire to create its own truth. Everything is projection.

Kate Riga @kateriga.bsky.social · 1d

The political right's greatest project is discrediting experts. Only in a "do your own research" world can their cultural preferences - anti-abortion, anti-gender affirming care - claim equal legitimacy to the left's medically-backed positions on those issues. SCOTUS is a full partner in that effort

TPM @talkingpointsmemo.com · 1d

The Supreme Court's conservatives advanced the right's greater project of discrediting experts Tuesday, feigning that there is no medical consensus against conversion therapy.

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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 1d

The British government is Very Sensible and so can be trusted with the power to decide which protests have happened Enough Now and don't need to be heard from anymore thank you very much. It will be fine. When Reform get in they will be even more Sensible about all this.

inews.co.uk/news/politic...

Home Office could outright ban protests that risk ‘intimidation’ or ‘serious disruption’

The Home Secretary is considering giving police new powers to ban protests

inews.co.uk

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Reposted by Paul Crider

Keira Havens @highcountryrose.bsky.social · 1d

It's beyond time to call the President's intent to wage a "war from within" what it is: Treason.

@citizensimpeachment.com does just that in its new article of impeachment.
citizensimpeachment.com/article-of-i...

Article of Impeachment: Treason - Citizens' Impeachment

Article II: Treason (For Article I: Tyranny, please click here) H. RES _____ RESOLVED, that Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, and Peter B. Hegseth, Secretary of Defense […]

citizensimpeachment.com

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

Yeah the cult of personality and Trump's genuine imperviousness to shame lead to a qualitatively different kind of politics.

Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

You can say they should have known better, that the GOP was really just always a vehicle for racism and misogyny. But it doesn't change the fact that these former Republicans really believed in, say, small government or classical liberalism. And these were betrayed.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

I also just want to say that these are coalitions of human beings, with their own ideas and values. The reason some anti-Trump former Republicans are more effective than a random Democratic MoC is because they believed in certain conservative ideas and they were *betrayed*.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

But mainstream Republican politicians at the time thought Trump was a serious threat. They were scared of him and what he represented. Ted Cruz would have been his own kind of terrible, but even he would have stayed within certain "norms and institutions" guardrails.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

With Jeb!, we *would* still be talking about subtle voter suppression, gerrymandering, loss of reproductive freedom (Roe would likely still have fallen).

This is all true even if *Rubio* were president. Despite his current MAGA form, in the counterfactual Rubio would not be a threat to democracy.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

Go back to 2016. It was quite possible that the Republicans solved the collective action problem and vanquished Trump. Under Jeb! we simply wouldn't be worrying about whether we were going to have free and fair elections, or about military invasions of US cities, or about peaceful transfer of power.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

The GOP, like the Democratic Party, was a coalition of a lot of different ideas and interests, not all of which were antidemocratic.

One thing that makes Trump so different is the cult of personality, which *dominates* the GOP and suppresses coalitional differences.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

Of course there are throughlines one can and should draw from normal pre-Trump Republican politics to MAGA. Yes, there were rightwing extremists in the GOP, and they exerted real influence. But there were other kinds of Republicans too, e.g., neocons and Rockefeller Republicans.

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Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

To be briefly uncharitable, the folks dunking on Stancil here remind me of the people who insist Both Parties Are The Same. It's a similar collapsing of distinctions that tries to bring cynical illumination but really discards necessary complexity.

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 1d

One reason former Republicans have been better at opposing Trump than many progressives is because they correctly understand that the GOP’s descent into fascism represents a dramatic shift, and is therefore scarier, where the latter groups feel the need to argue it’s just a continuation of trend

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