Brian Kelly
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briankellyrh.bsky.social
Brian Kelly
@briankellyrh.bsky.social

History, geography, and politics…but trying to create a little more distance from the latter in order to dream it all up again.

Mets, Steelers, Tottenham. Cats, obviously.

Poughkeepsie, New York.

Brian Kelly is an American historian and a lecturer in US history, teaching at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. His work is concerned mainly with labor and race in the American South, although much of his most recent scholarship focuses on the formative struggles around slave emancipation during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed. .. more

Political science 27%
Sociology 23%
Pinned
Profile pic: Ogallala, Nebraska.
Banner: Dolly Sods Wilderness, West Virginia.
Trying to keep us all tied together.
With Trump going full authoritarian on Venezuela-Greenland, ICE, and the Fed, the response has to be serious. Four Republican senators (Tillis, McConnell, Murkowski, Collins?) could announce they’ll caucus for now with the Dems to give them control of the Senate to check Trump.
This is the sort of statement that was expected from every university president and law firm partner over the last year. That those statements weren’t made played a huge part in where we are now and people will remember.
Jerome Powell: "This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation."
Powell, showing more guts than almost any GOP legislators:

"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Fed setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."

www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...
“I have asked the clergy of the diocese to make sure their affairs are in order and they have written their wills.,not the time for statements. It is time to put our bodies between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable”. Rob Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire
Redirecting...
www.facebook.com

Reposted by Brian Kelly

Curtis Yarvin, JD Vance’s friend & ideological influence, ended 2025 by claiming “only Hitler spoke the truth” about “too many subjects” & “Hitler was a genius.”

Extremism isn’t fringe on the right. Once marginal online extremists like Yarvin are influential at the highest levels of government.
An official account of the United States government is dreamposting about deporting 80+ million citizens

Reposted by Brian Kelly

Rest easy, Isiah Whitlock Jr. 🙏🏾🕊💙

Reposted by Brian Kelly

BREAKING: Democrats have *flipped* a seat in Georgia's state House tonight.

Democrat Eric Gisler has won the seat, which was previously held by a Republican who resigned this fall.

This is a red territory: Trump won the district by 13% in 2024.
CONFIRMED: Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, will be the new mayor of Miami.

She'll be the city's first Democratic mayor since the 1990s. She flipped the office from Republicans, and does so easily. She leads the DeSantis-endorsed Emilio González 59/41 right now with most ballots counted.
i read stuff like this and can genuinely angry at guys like jd vance who insist that this country belongs to some narrow vision of the "native born"
“I am so bored by AI. One of the things I love about the theatre is AI can’t do it.”

Ethan Hawke is a dude 👌🏻

Reposted by Brian Kelly

Notable absence of hemming and hawing and “critics say” bullshit here. The NYT is getting closer and closer to calling t murder. Good on ya. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/us/politics/trump-boat-attacks-killings.html

Perfect. And this is a band that opened an album with In Between Days, too!

…why?
Top 5 Side 1, Track 1s
This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????

Reposted by Brian Kelly

If people look at what Tesla Capitalism has wrought and are told that any attempt to reform it would be “socialism,” they will eventually say, “Who are these socialists of who you speak, and what is their phone number?”
www.thebulwark.com/p/welcome-to...
Welcome to Tesla Capitalism
Or: JVL explains why Americans are toying with socialism.
www.thebulwark.com

Reposted by Brian Kelly

Clio Pecan is as skeptical about generative AI as I am! Finally, though, an actual hardcopy book is in hand. Delightful! Grateful to everyone, especially @briankellyrh.bsky.social and my parents for their love and patience with me.

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Use code PALAUT for 20% off

Reposted by Brian Kelly

NEW in NOV: A Journal of Southern History special issue, for those who teach about the South, in the South and beyond #openaccess

muse.jhu.edu/issue/55697

Reposted by Brian Kelly

In major upset, the New Jersey Democrats have flipped a seat in #LD25, a Trump+1 district in Morris County.

Despite no major help from the state Democrats, Marisa Sweeney will become the first Democrat to represent this district in over 30 years.

Reposted by Brian Kelly

Mike Johnson: "What happened last night is blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night's election results."
New awareness campaign

As a past winner, I highly recommend your participation (I can't do gluten anymore so I'm out of the running)!
It's the most delicious time of the year: The Downballot's annual election prediction contest—aka the babka contest—is back!

Enter to prove your prognostication prowess *and* for the chance to win amazing prizes from our sponsor, Green's Babka!

Good luck, one and all!
Enter The Downballot's 2025 prediction contest, sponsored by GreensBabka.com!
To the victors go the spoils!
www.the-downballot.com
The only truly devestating interview you could do with Trump is a series of factual questions asked by someone with no affect: “How does a bill become a law?” “Name three countries where American troops are stationed.” “Will you be raising tariffs on Wakanda?”
In a major victory, a court ruled the Trump administration must use emergency funds to provide food stamps to Americans.
 
No one should choose between paying bills and buying groceries.
 
We'll continue our lawsuit to fight for our families and the services they deserve.
On further reflection, handing operation of our Universities over to a professional administrative class with no personal investment in the educational mission of the university or the creation and maintenance of knowledge might have been somewhat in error.