paul johnson
@rhetoricpj.bsky.social
I live in pittsburgh and like it. wrote a book about conservative populism. have spent the last 15 years studying the right. go arsenal! I like gin. Book: https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817321093/i-the-people/
This is the greatest non-partisan salience of the social media era
Michael Caley@michaelcaley.bsky.social · 10h agoAudience-Capture Miserabilism is the great enemy all of us on the liberal posting app must fight every day you can get so much engagement for saying obviously false things that resonate with people who are extremely sad
note how dreams of 'rural simplicity' line up with the neoliberal fantasy of the atomistic individual. yea of course late capitalism has totally fucked over rural people too but the convergence between fantasy and subjectivity simply does too much work
George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 15h agoI fear we might see a new alignment between a radical right death cult and a rural revivalist "simplicity" drive, which views collapse and a return to "organic" communities as a solution to decadent urbanism. A century ago this convergence led to a very bad place. www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/t...
Saw a post on another platform critiquing scholarly publishing for being ‘gatekeepy’ and ‘for elites’ and I hate to break it to you but specialized peer reviewed research for highly-trained experts is…quality assured material for a narrow professional audience
We built the whole party out of a glass jaw (neoliberalism)
Maia@maiamindel.bsky.social · 2d agonot sure if it's good or bad that the dsa, which until 5 months ago was a book club for underemployed grad students, is beating to a pulp the billion dollar harvard educated democrat operative janissary class with 5 shitty flyers and some twitch streams
I’ve argued that Trump is quintessentially American already a decade ago and don’t think Trump 2.0 has changed much in this respect.
As American as Trump
European analogies are everywhere, but Trump fits squarely in the homegrown tradition.
bostonreview.net
Yup. And if the show you like is like that but doesn't feel conservative coded.. consider ideology...
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 6d agoRight. At the core of conservative pop culture is a sort of structural sociopathy. If I’m going to escape into that, then give me actual fun sociopaths doing sociopathic things. That’s one thing Taylor Sheridan gets right. They just all kill each other all the time.
The future where the US uses nukes when other countries pressure us to decarbonize is a possible one lmao
Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 7d ago++BREAKING++ The UK and Spanish governments have issued a joint statement overnight: "[We] agreed that this summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life." www.gov.uk/government/n...
Totally get this point. We have so little middlebrow fair with aspirations these days that one blockbuster has to scaffold The Discourse rather than a dozen such films in a given year
Sarah Jones@sarahjones.bsky.social · last wk.I don’t think it makes sense to care this much about Christopher Nolan’s latest middlebrow film
This is straight up Trump rhetoric minus the skill
Howard Mortman@howardmortman.bsky.social · 2w ago"Cool kids on the Internet. They're doing the cool kid chatter. Some of 'em might be the coastal elites, making fun of how I talk. But let's be real. They're making fun of Michigan. They're thinking they're better than us. Their jokes, their criticism, only make me fight harder." -- Haley Stevens
Ted Lasso is Ronald Reagan by way of the Sixth Sense: an idealistic simpleton who has no real effect on the characters or situation around him and cannot comprehend it
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 2w agoMaking Obama content for Trump America is a profitable mistake.
This is also why the aggressive but fragile masculinity frame fits: convinced of their central role and authority but constantly experiencing a world outside oh them that puts paid those assumptions
Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social · 2w agoTrump & much of the right harbor a conception I think of as Narcissistic Patriotism—a collective equivalent of the high-but-fragile self-esteem that characterizes individual narcissism.
All restaurant names pale in comparison to Pittsburgh's famous Grown and Sexy II
Brainfall: Mentality’s Requiem@itsphetz.bsky.social · 2w agoJust drove past a restaurant called “Karachi BBQ Tonight” and the idea of putting the word “Tonight” in the name of your restaurant feels revolutionary to me
Incredible how many people don't understand "fascism" is shorthand for "it's so fucking bad you have to understand that" rather than an exercise in winning the Graduate Seminar of your Imagination
Sarah Kendrew@sarahkendrew.bsky.social · 2w agoI am a middle-aged adult with a PhD but I can't read "groundbreaking" books that are being "devoured" without checking in with @michaelhobbes.bsky.social and @notalawyer.bsky.social - is it brilliant or terrible? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
My #1 teaching bedrock these days is working with students to discuss how the essential concept of shared community is a covenant about what you can and can't do, and the psychotic concept of "free speech" that has colonized everything
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 2w agoI’m telling you, people needed to get hit more in dodgeball. We’ve lost all concept of Self-Other. You need permission to do almost anything to or with another person. It’s so basic.
Lacking the truly revolutionary vision of other fascist regimes, they simply imagined that the symbolism and power of the US was sacrosanct, infinite, enduring: they believe ontologically in the power of the USA, having long confused it with god himself through the evangelical capture of the right.
GOOD VIBES ONLY: PHENOMENOLOGY & THE BIOPOLITICS OF ALGORITHMIC LEGITIMATION is available for pre-order on the Duke UP site! I’m looking to schedule launch events in NYC/PHL/PVD/BOS, DM or email if you want to collaborate or have a venue lead. www.dukeupress.edu/good-vibes-o...
Good Vibes Only: Phenomenology and the Biopolitics of Algorithmic Legitimation
dukeupress.edu
David offers a very pithy summary of the de rigeur expert take on things today
David_j_roth@davidjroth.bsky.social · 3w agoThe logical endpoint of the American conservative political impulse: pissy HOA behaviors + death squads of otherwise unemployable gun chuds. It's all been leading up to this baby.
We (faculty at USC) took on an institutional behemoth with all the money and clout on earth, and we WON. We won our union. We're the biggest private-university faculty union in US history. Trying to make people care about this, challenge level IMPOSSIBLE
had dinner out tonight next to a table of old yinzers, i asked if this was what the air was like back in the day they were like "yup this was normal"
