Sarah Churchwell
@sarahchurchwell.bsky.social
20K followers 1.4K following 910 posts
Public Humanities Prof, School of Advanced Study, Univ London. American abroad. Journalism, US politics, cultural & literary history esp 1920s & 30s & F. Scott Fitzgerald. Podcast: Journey Through Time with David Olusoga. @throughtimepod.bsky.social‬
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sarahchurchwell.bsky.social
In less depressing news, I’d like to thank everyone who has been listening and sending lovely feedback to me & the brilliant @davidolusoga.bsky.social on our new podcast @throughtimepod.bsky.social. Thanks to you we hit No. 1 within a day of launching! We’re thrilled with the response. Thank you! 🥳
A screenshot showing Journey Through Time podcast at No. 1! Followed by The Rest is Politics, which makes me wonder if Alastair Campbell might be cross.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
karlykingsley.bsky.social
Hey. Hi. Tom Homan is on camera taking a $50k bribe and no one knows where the money went. If this was any other administration, this would be non-stop on the news. Why are we normalizing this stuff?
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
danielsohege.bsky.social
Making life more difficult for migrants helps nobody.
Making it harder for people fleeing war and persecution to find safety helps nobody.
Labour pushing xenophobia as policy helps nobody.
Pandering to far right politics doesn't combat far right rhetoric or "build trust in politicians"
#r4today
danielsohege.bsky.social
We can all bitch and moan and call out the utterly contemptible policies suggested by the likes of Reform and the Conservatives, but if that same condemnation is not applied to Labour then it shows it is not about supporting migrants, it is about being party political. 2/
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carlquintanilla.bsky.social
POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
wajali.bsky.social
Democrats shouldn't let go of these Young Republican messages.

Have the right-wing defend it. The VP, JD Vance, already has, and the talking points have been delivered to the MAGA base.

They keep deflecting and doing both sides, but nothing is comparable.

Just keep it in the news.
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strandjunker.com
Pretending to the world that you are the president of peace while waging war at home is diabolical.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
santiagomayer.com
JD Vance can dismiss the Young Republicans as a college group chat.

But let's be clear: the group chat includes a State Senator, a Trump Admin official, and multiple Republican staffers — and some of the worst comments came from folks associated with Mike Johnson, Elise Stefanik, and Mike Lawler.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
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andrewjweinstein.com
Due process. Academic freedom. An independent judiciary. A free press. A professional civil service. A protected environment. These aren't partisan talking points; they are the pillars of a healthy nation. And every single one of them is under direct assault by the Trump administration.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
lizziedearden.bsky.social
If you wondered why Nigel Farage turned up in US Congress in September speaking about "freedom of speech", this story has the answer

His appearance was orchestrated by a powerful American anti-abortion group that is trying to increase its influence in the UK by influencing the free speech debate
bradleyjane.bsky.social
NEW: How a U.S. anti-abortion group has quietly positioned itself as a powerbroker between the Trump administration and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Latest investigation w Elizabeth Dias. 
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...
They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.
www.nytimes.com
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sathnam.bsky.social
Taking on Elon Musk should be an open goal in British politics.
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stephenwest.bsky.social
How W. E. B. Du Bois responded to government policing of "anti-American" sentiment during the 1910s:

"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”
Federal agents invaded even the offices of The Crisis and the National Association for the advancement of colored people and asked searching questions: " just what, after all, were our objects and activities?” I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, “We are seeking to have the constitution of the United states thoroughly and completely enforced.” It took some ingenuity, even for Southerners, to make treason out of that.
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bleary.off-the-records.com
If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.
Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
pedsortho.bsky.social
Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.
But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
catneilan.bsky.social
Must-read piece by Jane and Elizabeth for anyone interested in the alt-right/Christian networks developing between the UK and US (etc)
bradleyjane.bsky.social
NEW: How a U.S. anti-abortion group has quietly positioned itself as a powerbroker between the Trump administration and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Latest investigation w Elizabeth Dias. 
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...
They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
henrymance.ft.com
The right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage.

Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
timgalsworthy.bsky.social
“Tim Galsworthy compellingly shows us how the thinking of Republicans, as they encountered the momentous years of the civil rights movement, was rarely far from memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction.” I'm humbled Robert Mason gave my forthcoming book "The Republican House Divided" such praise 🗃️
Cover of my book "The Republican House Divided", which you can order here: https://uscpress.com/The-Republican-House-Divided
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
profaliceroberts.bsky.social
I’m sure they didn’t mean to eliminate the woman in this image.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
tedmccormick.bsky.social
Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans
Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
mollyknight.bsky.social
Whistling when ICE is about to kidnap someone for no reason is incredibly effective. They know what they are doing is wrong and will scatter in the wind when too many witnesses gather.
FORM A CROWD
STAY LOUD
PROTECT EACH OTHER
CODE I:
ICE NEARBY
BLOW QUICKLY IN A BROKEN RHYTHM:
PRE-PRE-PRE!
→ ALERTS THE COMMUNITY THAT ICE AGENTS ARE IN THE AREA.
ROGERS PARK WHISTLE PROTOCOLS
WHY A WHISTLE? ON THE STREETS
• A SIMPLE TOOL FOR FAST ALERTS.
• LOUD.
RECOGNIZABLE.
IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE.
• OUR VOICES ARE
STRONGER TOGETHER.
WHISTLES GUIDE
PEOPLE TO:
• FOLLOW ICE CARAVANS
• CATCH UP WITH THE CROWD
• ALERT NEIGHBORS
TO JOIN IN
NOISE = VISIBILITY.
CODE 2:
CODE RED
BLOW THREE LONG BLASTS:
PREEEE-PREEEE-PREEEE!
→ ICE IS DETAINING SOMEONE.
FORM A CROWD, STAY LOUD.
DON'T STAY SILENT. STAY NONVIOLENT.
WHY IT WORKS
• INSTANT ALERT
SYSTEM
• FASTER THAN SOCIAL MEDIA
• TURNS SILENCE INTO COMMUNITY
ACTION
ORIGINAL FLYER CREATED BY:
WHAT YOU CAN DO
• WEAR YOUR WHISTLE AROUND YOUR NECK
TEACH FAMILY
EIGHBORS TH
CODES
• USE IT WHEN ICE IS
SPOTTED
• PROTECT EACH OTHER, ALWAYS
TOGETHER, WE KEEP OUR COMMUNITY SAFE.
FORM A CROWD, STAY LOUD.
THIS FLYER DISTRIBUTED BY:
PROTECT RP
• @PROTECTRP_
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
cripdyke.bsky.social
To add to this, the US professoriate was overwhelmingly, relentlessly white and male before 1960, and it was overwhelmingly a well-paid white collar job.

1964 CRA prevents ed discrimination. It takes 5 years to complete a PhD. 1969 begins a trend towards adjuncts and lower pay.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
rincewind.run
this is absolutely my favorite protest innovation of 2025

"my opponents are violent antifa extremist terrorists"

"your opponents are dressed as giant inflatable frogs"

solid fuck you to the pepe crowd too
oregonian.com
Things are happening at Portland's ICE facility tonight.

Read more of our protest coverage here: www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...
sarahchurchwell.bsky.social
My autocorrect just changed “festival” to “fragile AI” and I think it must be trying to tell me something.
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
rincewind.run
they are clearly trying to terrify everyone out of showing up to the No Kings protest and I simply do not think it is going to work

see you all there
atrupar.com
Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."
Reposted by Sarah Churchwell
schooley.bsky.social
Some Democrats are already doing this, but I think all of them should treat No Kings protests as mid-term mandatory attendance events, like the local fish fry or county fair. Push back on the sweaty Republican attempts to make them seem scary.