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Margaret Somers

@peggs.bsky.social

Prof. of Sociology and History, Univ. Michigan, Ann Arbor: Karl Polanyi; Law and Political Economy; dedemocratization and fascism; historical political economy; citizenship rights; social theory.

21 Posts1000 Follower1333 Folgt
Jonathan Ladd@jonathanmladd.com · 3mo ago

They are likely to try to strike down any expansion of Obamacare, statehood for Puerto Rico and DC, anti-corruption bills to enforce the emoluments clause. Going forward, it is smart to assume that any bill that doesn't pass with Republican votes will be a Supreme Court target.

Jonathan Ladd@jonathanmladd.com · 3mo ago

Everyone should be prepared for the current Supreme Court to strike down proportional representation bills (at the state or federal levels) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act with bans on partisan gerrymandering and new pre-clearance. You need a Supreme Court management strategy too.

Jonathan Ladd@jonathanmladd.com · 3mo ago

Lots of alternative approaches to districting. But none will work without Supreme Court reform, because the Supreme Court is highly likely to strike down proportional representation, a federal ban on partisan gerrymandering, or anything. The text of the Constitution does not matter to them, sadly.

Marc Elias@marcelias.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Today's VRA decision is intellectually dishonest and wrong. The conservative court basically said: Black people can vote for their preferred candidates, as long as they prefer the right candidates -- which will be Republicans. An absolutely mockery of the law and a stain on the court.

Thomas Zimmer@thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The idea that there are no protests in the US and no one is standing up to Trump is proving incredibly hard to kill over here in Germany. It’s become dogma, utterly detached from empirical reality. I wonder if the people who keep talking like that understand they’re perpetuating regime propaganda.

Ida Bae Wells@nhannahjones.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The one good thing about the time we’re in is it *should* now make crystal clear for the doubters how the a significant faction of the Republican Party has cynically deployed “colorblindness” to further an explicitly racist agenda. 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.

politico.com

Sherrilyn Ifill@sifill.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This entire argument by Louisiana and the conservatives questions are premised on an erasure of Congress’ enforcement power under the 14th & 15th Amendments. Literally swinging for the fences to wipe out the premise for the legitimacy of Congress’ power to enact civil rights statutes.

Matthew Borus@matthewborus.bsky.social · 2y ago

Well, that rings painfully true... (From "Toward a New Sociology of Rights: A Genealogy of 'Buried Bodies' of Citizenship and Human Rights," by Margaret Somers and Christopher Roberts, 2008)

Text clip that reads, "Startling as it may be in our contemporary nostalgia for the comparative generosity of New Deal and Great Society policies, in this pre-Reagan era social scientists often viewed welfare less as positive protection against the untrammeled market and more as an instrument of social control (Piven & Cloward 1993 [1972]). Only when the full impact of neoliberalism took hold in the late 1980s did this first generation of welfare state scholars turn to an embrace of social citizenship and join it to a wider concern over the entire spectrum of diminishing citizenship rights (Block 1996, Block et al. 1987, Piven & Cloward 1982)."
Molly Tambor@mrtamb.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Margaret Somers has a really moving chapter in her book Genealogies of Citizenship called Genealogies of Katrina that I think is an excellent companion read to any of the documentaries people are mentioning here

Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 11mo ago

The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?

Scott Santens@scottsantens.com · 11mo ago

"Economists attribute 20% of the racial wealth gap to disproportionate criminal justice interactions. A bold proposal for repairing this collective injury is universal basic income…recidivism rates in the pilot’s first year were 7% – and 3% in the second year – compared to the state average of 43%."

Why we need basic income as reparations for racial injustice

Slavery caused stark wealth inequalities in the US – now that wealth must be returned to its rightful owners

opendemocracy.net