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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 5h

So many. But one that sticks out is how Brooks ignores that a lot of what the Conservative movement has done in the US made Trump possible and feeds off him now.

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doctor eek [free link arc] (alt decorative gourd season) @absolutely-not.bsky.social · 7h

hi! geneva conventions expert here! this likely meets the international humanitarian law standard for torture! hope this helps!

bsky.app/profile/patf...

Pat Flickner 🐉 @patflickner.bsky.social · 7h

Stop saying she was tortured. You are the only one saying it. She was mistreated and abused. That does not meet the legal definition. Just stop spreading lies

Did Israeli authorities mistreat Greta Thunberg after flotilla arrest? Here's what we know

Israeli authorities arrested Thunberg and more than 400 other activists who were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla in early October 2025.

www.snopes.com

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 6h

No. He hasn’t published anything there in quite some time (thankfully).

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Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 9h

I read the piece. You shouldn't. He dismisses the "No Kings" protests as liberals in blue cities. He invokes Rosa Parks, as if rural white people in the 60s loved everything that the movement then was doing. "We need a movement but not this one" is a core centrist tact these days.

Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 9h

Is this a joke. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

America Needs a Mass Movement—Now

Without one, America may sink into autocracy for decades.

www.theatlantic.com

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 8h

So many of the white people who are "friends with everyone" and "don't judge" have been finding out the hard way these past 8-9 years what their "friends" really think because they've been ignoring reality for quite some time.

10/8

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 8h

A lot of white Gen-Xers didn't think there was police brutality in the 90s. They didn't think there was anything wrong with targeting Muslim people in the aughts. They thought Obama went "too far with the race thing" and with the ACA.
9/8

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

In recent days, I saw one (who I had long ago unfriended) defending ICE's tactics agains "the illegals" on a mutual's post.
I thought about joining the argument, but at this point, how do you change the mind of a 50-something racist that these tactics are right out of Nazi Germany?
8/8

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

They still revere Reagan as the "strong daddy" they remember him as being. Not the corrupt, senile, Iran-Contra mess creating, death squads in El Salvador funding, deficit-spending, AIDS-denying bastard he was.
They do often talk about how the 80s were the best.
7/?

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

Many of my former classmates voted for Trump and that's when I started un-friending more of them. These people were raised by racists (products, in part, of white flight) and have just carried on and many live in exurbs.
6/?

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

In the 90s I had an uncle complained when they put those rainbow rockets on North Halsted to highlight the area as a gay neighborhood, and about Ellen coming out on her TV show. I told him he didn't have to watch Ellen and asked him when was the last time he went north of Chicago Avenue.
5/?

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

These adults were also quite relieved to be living in the burbs and not the city that elected Harold Washington as mayor.
Some of us, grew up and questioned these attitudes and had loud arguments with our parents and aunts and uncles.
4/?

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

The suburb, Northlake, IL, was filled with Reagan Democrats throughout the 1980s. These Silent Generation and Boomers voted for Democrat Dan Rostenkowski for Congress, but Reagan for President. And the way these adults talked about black people, Latinos, and Queer people was horrific.
3/?

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

I got tired of arguing with people about the obvious lies about things Obama did or said, and the obsession many had with "illegal" immigrants. Some even defended the Confederate flag as a sign of merely "rebelling." Not as being symbol of pro-slavery.
2/?

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

Since joining Facebook around 2008-2009, this Gen-Xer reconnected with many of his white friends from his hometown suburb of Chicago.
Obama's re-election started the trickle of un-friending.
1/?

Brilliance Proper @brillianceproper.blackskycomra.de · 15h

Gonna do an essay about how MTV made white Gen X-ers think racism evaporated in the 90s.

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 9h

Ugh, David Brooks....
Again, why is the Atlantic publishing the most wrong people for the historical moment?

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 10h

hey this is fun

Rebecca Spang @rlspang.bsky.social · 11h

And congratulations to @jamellebouie.net for winning the American Historical Association's Tikkun Olam Prize for promoting public historical literacy www.historians.org/award-grant/...

Tikkun Olam Prize for Promoting Public Historical Literacy – AHA

The Tikkun Olam Prize for Promoting Public Historical Literacy honors individuals whose work has promoted literacy in public culture.

www.historians.org

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 10h

Let’s be clear that JD Vance’s (bad, immoral) defense of the Young Republicans is essentially:

“Well, yeah. I wrote messages like that too. You just haven’t found them yet.”

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13h

JD Vance dismisses Young Republicans who in a group chat said "I love Hitler" and joked about slavery and rape as "a bunch of kids" who "told stupid jokes" and adds that "most of the stupid things I did when I was a teenager and young adult, they're not on the internet."

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 13h

So beautifully put.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 1d

Fascism is such a fundamental attack on wonder and the human imagination and I think everyone should have the opportunity to let their imagination wonder as it wanders — doesn’t matter what you do for a living. Your mind matters! Your relationship with the universe is meaningful!

Reposted by Richard Hellinga

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 1d

One of the terrible things about the conservative elites’ attacks on higher education is that they are giving their constituents the impression that the universe isn’t big, complicated, and fascinating — that it really does take this many people to work out how even a small fraction of it works

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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 19h

These articles often came from apologists at the @NYTimes and elsewhere who are mesmerized by the right's claims that liberals aren't liberal enough: they must move the bounds of acceptability to embrace the far-right. The Ezra Klein-Charlie Kirk bromance is one such example.

Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed.bsky.social · 21h

1)You may remember the articles criticizing liberal students for their hesitancy to make friends with conservative students—alleging that they were less open-minded than their conservative counterparts.

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 1d

Here are the little darlings they’ve created. Horrifying.

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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Reposted by Richard Hellinga

Parentball @parentball.bsky.social · 2d

Everyone misunderstood Deep Thought. He didn’t say the answer was 42. He said it was “For tea, two.” That’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything

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Richard Hellinga @richhell.bsky.social · 19h

Have the movie rights been optioned?

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Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed.bsky.social · 21h

1)You may remember the articles criticizing liberal students for their hesitancy to make friends with conservative students—alleging that they were less open-minded than their conservative counterparts.

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 1d

Here are the little darlings they’ve created. Horrifying.

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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HL Eisthen, defective human product @hleisthen.bsky.social · 1d

“An Oct. 7 email ... from the Media School administration [specified] that the IDS's print publication should solely focus on a special theme, such as homecoming or fall sports, and contain "no other news at all, and particularly no traditional front page news coverage.”” WOW.

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 1d

Indiana University has fired the staff director of the student newspaper, after disputes in which university leadership tried to pressure him to prevent students from publishing news.

IndyStar 2 . Follow
1h:
"All Media School and IU students, faculty and staff
should be scared by this blatant attack on someone
standing up for what's right," student Editors-ln-Chief
Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller said in a statement.
Read more: bit.ly/43ebKW1
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newsroom of Indiana University
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Indiana University fires IDS
adviser amid push to control
student newspaper's content

The director of student media at Indiana University was fired amidst a dispute between university leadership and editors at the Indiana Daily Student over what content gets printed in the student newspaper.

As director of student media, Jim Rodenbush did not directly oversee or have any say over the content published in the IDS, per a charter between the IDS and the university. But he told IndyStar his firing follows a series of meetings with IU Media School leadership in which it grew increasingly apparent they were expecting him to officially prohibit students from publishing news.

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 1d

Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem, and DHS need to answer for their unchecked attacks on Chicago residents.

ICE is an out-of-control danger to our peaceful communities.

The images from the Sun-Times today speak for themselves.

An ICE agent throws a tear gas canister at protesters at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in East Side.

Photo Credit: Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Federal immigration enforcement agents detain a protester during a skirmish at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in East Side.

Photo Credit: Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent points a crowd control weapon at a protester Tuesday at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in the East Side neighborhood.

Photo Credit: Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

A Chicago Police Department officer washes his face after being exposed to tear gas during a protest at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in East Side.

Photo Credit: Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

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