Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · 5h

I do not think that it is a stretch to suggest that the Roberts Court as currently constructed would have any problem at all with facially neutral Jim Crow laws. (That's, in part, what makes this such a good/important question.)

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 14d

Just having a moment reflecting on what a ridiculous state we're in, where the president is making "deals" with private universities by personally meddling in federally allocated education and research funding and this is being treated as just ordinary politics.

Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 14d

If Harvard bows down to this lawless president, it will cover itself in shame and betray its motto “Veritas.”

Don’t pretend to stand for truth if you’re going to surrender to this bully. Appeasement only feeds the beast and puts us all at greater risk.

Trump Says a Deal With Harvard Is Close

www.nytimes.com

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · 18d

These people will be shocked to learn that: (a) most professors don’t divide their conceptual world into “conservatives” and “liberals,” and (b) most departments don’t have the money to invite any speakers to campus, whether to fulfill an intellectual vanity project or otherwise.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 18d

The campus speech wars reflect a lot of misinformation about how higher education works and about how little of it touches on modern partisan debates.

Jonathan Ladd @jonmladd.bsky.social · 19d

Inviting pundits to give "talks" is just not what professors/departments do. Some schools have "institutes of politics" that do this, like @gupolitics.bsky.social at Georgetown, which invites conservatives regularly. Departments invite scholars for talks, and I rarely know their personal politics.

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 19d

More than anything, they want to be patted on the head and told they're a good boy by the liberal elites

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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 19d

I hear the President has decreed that it is possibly a crime to refer to Americans as "fascists," but "fascism" is a word that has a relatively clear meaning that's worth understanding. Here's how an official publication of the US Army defined "fascism" in 1945.

Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · Aug 1

The central point is that when fascism came to America it wouldn't call itself that, nor would it be wearing a swastika. It would call itself "patriotic" and "100% American."

Can We Spot It?
(Question: How can we identify native American fascists at work? )
An American fascist seeking power would not proclaim that he is a fascist. Fascism always camouflages its plans and purposes. Hitler made demagogic appeals to all groups and swore: "Neither I nor anybody in the National Socialist Party advocates proceeding by anything but Constitutional methods." Any fascist attempt to gain power in America would not use the exact Hitler pattern. It would work under the guise of "super-patriotism" and "super-American-ism." Fascist leaders are neither stupid nor naive.
They know that they must hand out a line that "sells." Huey Long is said to have remarked that if fascism came to America, it would be on a program of "Ameri-canism."
Fascists in America may differ slightly from fascists in other countries, but there are a number of attitudes and practices that they have in common. Following are three. Every person who has one of them is not necessarily a fascist. But he is

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J. Elvis Weinstein @jelvisweinstein.bsky.social · 23d

I know antifa isn't a real organization because I don't get 40 texts a week from them asking for donations.

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · 23d

Basically all of my Intro to American Government lectures from, say, 2013, read as though they could have been written to be anti-Trump because they were just written with "how the Constitution works" in mind.

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Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social · 28d

so many dead canaries and we just keep on mining

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · 29d

Who gets to decide what undermining of dignity looks like? Because until very, very recently the “free speech” movement *insisted* upon a right to offend, including undermining the dignity of whichever groups they wanted to.

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David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · Sep 15

at the center of the efforts to destroy civil society in russia, hungary, georgia and elsewhere is the stigmatization, harassment, & criminalization of NGOs. that's what this is about, a full-on assault on democratic debate & freedoms.

this is not hyperbole. it's right here.

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · Sep 15

Vance: "There's no unity with people who fund these articles, who pay the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers...Soros' OSF and the Ford Foundation...benefit from generous tax treatment...How do they reward us? By setting fire to the house built by the American family."

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Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · Sep 13

Colleagues have backed up the point with data and infographics. The answer is no: political violence in the US is if anything declining, not rising. The far right commits more than the far left, but both are rare, and fewer than 10% of Americans endorse violence for political goals.

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Sep 12

Worth also asking them: Do you still want a war against the people who support the ideology that motivated this attack?

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Sep 12

Sure but the pivot to "one person is responsible here" happened curiously after we all started to learn that the shooter's motives don't line up with what they wanted them to be.

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Sep 12

Imagine the trial we could have had on 1/7/21.

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Sep 11

It’s more about downstream effects. NYT sets a journalistic standard and if it regurgitates both-sidesism or false ambiguity about constitutional matters (as it’s done a lot lately), it can shape broader media framing today and historical understandings of our era later.

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Sep 10

This is also a case of systems setting people up to fail. Public university systems often standardize course numbers/names/descriptions, to simplify transfer credits. But the approved descriptions end up being incredibly generic, because otherwise campuses/faculty fight about what to include. 1/

Justin Zimmerman @jztidecat.bsky.social · Sep 10

I don’t know why anybody is going along with the course description justification for firing a professor. A class discussion can go anywhere depending on who is in the class and their questions. Everything is political, so what would be off the table for political scientists?

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · Sep 10

The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.

Houston Chronicle @houstonchronicle.com · Sep 10

Texas A&M University System orders audit of all courses after gender identity lesson goes viral

Details: bit.ly/42jauQZ

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Sep 9

More like Error-iel amirite?

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Sep 9

Faculty in red states are being punished for failing to signal in their course descriptions that their classes will include content on "gender ideology."

Remind me again which party was appalled by idea of "trigger warnings"?

www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum

The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

www.kbtx.com

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Sep 8

Socially Anxious Dove

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Jonathan Ladd @jonmladd.bsky.social · Sep 7

So much flows from this core mistake to not prosecute Trump for insurrection in spring 2021. By the time they changed course it was too late. Media and public attention had moved on from Jan 6. And Trump had begun to reassemble Republican support.

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Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · Sep 1

A 76% point gap between how satisfied Republicans are with the country versus how satisfied Democrats are. The largest partisan gap ever. news.gallup.com/poll/694370/...

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Aug 21

It’s weird to live in a country where there are people who think we focus too much on how bad slavery was, and there are people who think we should focus more on how bad paper straws are, and those two groups are actually the same group.

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Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Aug 18

“Free reign” just makes more sense to me. But I guess both are better than “free rain.”

Matthew Dean Hindman @matthewhindman.bsky.social · Aug 18

Not including Citizens United was certainly a choice. Disagree with the (brief) reasoning for that choice. But a strong list otherwise.

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