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Mike Brock 🇺🇸

@brockm.bsky.social

11K followers 1.1K following 3.5K posts

Ex-tech exec, now a reluctant Cassandra. Deeply unfashionable. Penning dispatches from democracy's peril at notesfromthecircus.com. Unmasking the unholy alliance of Silicon Valley and aspiring despots. 2+2=4, even when power insists otherwise. For Frodo.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · Aug 13

America feels broken, but the truth is we’ve always been making it up as we go.

Lost Together

I want you to think about where you are right now.

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Reposted by Mike Brock 🇺🇸

Joe Walsh @walshfreedom.bsky.social · 21h

Fear is a great motivator. And you should be scared by what’s happening in America today. Very scared. But don’t be paralyzed by your fear. Use it to act. To resist. A conversation with @brockm.bsky.social. Have a listen.👇 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Yes, What’s Happening In America Today Should Scare You. But Don’t Be Paralyzed By Your Fear. A Conversation

Podcast Episode · The Social Contract with Joe Walsh · 10/15/2025 · 49m

podcasts.apple.com

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Home of the Brave @ofthebraveusa.bsky.social · 1d

Check out our ads running in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and more than 185 local newspapers today.

We're encouraging Americans to stand up to Donald Trump and join their local, peaceful No Kings protests this Saturday. @gtconway.bsky.social

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 1d

Writers Blake Dodge and Katherine Dee worry that Heather Cox Richardson isn’t allowing for the possibility that Trump has good and defensible reasons for all the things he’s doing. I worry I’m reading intellectual frauds serving malign interests.

On Presuming the Tyrant's Virtue

The Ethics of Seeing What’s in Front of You

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 2d

Peace is good. Amnesia is not.

Honest accounting means examining the totality, not cherry-picking the outcome.

On Praise and Moral Sufficiency

By all means, celebrate peace. But do so without historical amnesia.

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Reposted by Mike Brock 🇺🇸

🏰⚡ℌ𝔞𝔲𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔄𝔟𝔟𝔢𝔶🦇👻 @abbeyarletto.bsky.social · 2d

Marc Benioff who bought Time Magazine in 2018, used to be a Hillary Clinton Democrat. This year he went full MAGA and is now an avid supporter of Trump. A few days ago he called on Trump to send the National Guard into San Francisco.

Most of the US legacy media belongs to rich fascists now.

Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2d

The man who now owns this magazine was interviewed by the NYT recently.

He “did not have a negative word to say about Trump or his policies. ‘I fully support the president. I think he’s doing a great job.”

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 3d

Self-dealing.

Montana Skeptic @montanaskeptic.bsky.social · 3d

It's all one enterprise. Musk, Inc. As Tesla shareholders will discover as soon as Elon can get his hands on Tesla's cash to shovel into the xAI cash incinerator.

electrek.co/2025/10/13/e...

Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI are buying Tesla's unsold Cybertrucks

Hundreds of Tesla Cybertrucks have been spotted being delivered Elon Musk’s private companies, SpaceX and xAI, as Tesla is having...

electrek.co

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Reposted by Mike Brock 🇺🇸

Home of the Brave @ofthebraveusa.bsky.social · 3d

On October 18th, millions of brave Americans will stand up and peacefully protest against the authoritarian disease metastasizing under Donald Trump.

No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings. @gtconway.bsky.social

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 4d

Nate Silver’s 5,000-word analysis of Democratic Party dynamics is brilliant—and a perfect example of why Democrats keep losing to authoritarians.

They’ve mistaken democracy for an optimization problem.

The Nate Silver Problem: How Brilliant Analysis Fails Democracy

The Democratic Party’s problem isn’t which faction dominates—it’s that both factions think domination by experts is how democracy works

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 6d

Some of the smartest people in America have trained themselves not to see goodness.

They think cruelty is clarity, selfishness is realism, and compassion is weakness.

The Sociopaths Are Shocked That Most People Aren’t Sociopaths — on how moral blindness becomes a worldview.

The Sociopaths Are Shocked That Most People Aren’t Sociopaths

Inside Trump’s second term, Silicon Valley’s surrender, and the moral awakening that followed.

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Reposted by Mike Brock 🇺🇸

Valley of the Ghosts @silveryslocan.bsky.social · 7d

Mike Brock writes a great piece on understanding the real impacts of optimized-for-profit news sources and social media algorithms.

"The systems rewarding emotional reactions, tribal signalling, and attention-grabs is breaking the frameworks needed for competence in understanding and democracy."

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 7d

This should be obvious to anyone paying attention. I have. And it’s time I’m not getting back.

Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 7d

How does any reasonable person believe that Dinesh D’Souza is a serious person? I simply cannot imagine perceiving him that way.

He is a loathsome political entrepreneur. A snake oil salesman that sells candy to people’s worse angels. A joker. A demonic figure, really.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 8d

We haven’t entered unprecedented times—we’ve re-entered normal history, where freedom is never guaranteed.

The question is how to live well, love well, and resist well when fear wants to tear your attention apart.

From Fear to Fidelity: How to Live Well in the Return of Normal History

Yesterday I asked my subscribers a simple question: What are you most worried about in your life right now?

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Reposted by Mike Brock 🇺🇸

Edward Goldstick @ejgoldstick.bsky.social · 8d

💯🤯

Earlier this morning, I read this well-written and well-argued persuasive essay on Substack that (imho) says essentially the same thing in a few more words.

www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/democracy-...

Thank you, @pbump.com and @brockm.bsky.social

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 8d

I am very agitated that LA Mayor Karen Bass is lobbying Gavin Newsom to veto SB 79.

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Reposted by Mike Brock 🇺🇸

Zack Whittaker @zackwhittaker.com · 9d

Scoop, by @lorenzofb.bsky.social: A federal contract shows ICE spent $825,000 on vans equipped with fake cellphone towers known as cell-site simulators, which can be used to spy on nearby phones.

ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones | TechCrunch

The federal contract shows ICE spent $825,000 on vans equipped with “cell-site simulators” which allow the real-world location tracking of nearby phones and their owners.

techcrunch.com

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

If you think supporting raising taxes to support already-existing government programs is "socialist", you are politically and ideologically stupid.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

8/ So no, liberalism isn’t oligarchy.

It’s the philosophy that says government exists to secure the conditions for freedom—and freedom dies when wealth becomes power.

Read the full essay here →

Liberalism Is Not Oligarchy

Why Defending the Founders’ Republic Requires Taxing the Rich, Breaking Up Monopolies, and Calling the Bluff of Power

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

7/ The right calls this socialism.
The left calls it centrism.
It’s actually the oldest American idea there is:

Self-government requires economic independence.

That’s why Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln all fought concentrations of wealth.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

6/ If you think “defending capitalism” means defending billionaires who rig markets, capture regulators, and fund fascists, you’ve confused liberalism with feudalism.

We already fought that war.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

5/ The New Deal didn’t destroy capitalism. It saved it—by forcing capital to serve democracy, not the other way around.

That’s the liberal tradition worth defending.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

4/ I’m not arguing for socialism. I’m arguing for a liberalism that remembers what it’s for:

→ Dispersing power
→ Preventing monopoly
→ Preserving a republic of equals under law

That’s not anti-capitalist. It’s anti-oligarch.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

3/ When 10% of households drive 50% of all consumer spending, that’s not a “free market.”

That’s an extractive economy—where ownership and power concentrate until self-government itself breaks down.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

2/ Somewhere along the way, the political class redefined “the center” as “don’t threaten the rich.”

That’s not liberalism. That’s capture.

Liberal democracy is supposed to constrain wealth, not serve it.

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Mike Brock 🇺🇸 @brockm.bsky.social · 9d

1/ A lot of people read Call Their Bluff and said, “So you’re a socialist now?”

No. I’m a liberal. I just refuse to pretend that defending democracy and markets means defending oligarchy. f

Call The Wealthy's Bluff

The Fusion of Plutocracy and Fascism—And the Fight to Rebuild Democratic Capitalism Before It’s Too Late

www.notesfromthecircus.com

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