Stuart Schrader

The legal arguments and architecture for what's happening in Iran now, and were deployed in relation to Gaza, really did not come out of nowhere.

The pre-emption and targetted assassination arguments might appear spectacular, but they were the workaday archiecture of the war on terror.

The War on Terror Paved the Way for Trump's Rise—Now He's Making It His Own Only the total abolition of the DHS can restore freedom.

NEW @thenation.com: The tools of the War on Terror must be destroyed before Trump uses them to finish building his world order, at home and abroad. What we did at home yesterday is what we do in Iran today is what we will do at home tomorrow. The way we break the cycle is straightforward: abolition.

Inhumanity and insanity. The sort of thing a dying empire does.

RIP to a truly unique and inspiring intellectual

Episode 14: Policing and the Counterinsurgency State w/ Stuart Schrader With Stuart Schrader

@stschrader1.bsky.social talking to the folks at Turbulence podcast.

turbulencepod.substack.com/p/episode-14...

Authoritarianism from Below | Stuart Schrader As National Guard troops and federal officers swarmed Washington, D.C., in August, sent by President Donald Trump to confront what he declared a “crime

“To make sense of Trump’s law enforcement operations, it is useful to see the police less as a simple instrument of state power than as a political body in its own right” —@stschrader1.bsky.social

University of Maryland Police officer accused of sexual misconduct with student has powers stripped by state An internal investigation by the University of Maryland Police Department found that Meadows met the College Park student on a social media website known as “FET: Kinky BDSM Dating.”

50something campus cop meets 20something student on fetish site (after being told off for wearing his uniform in sex pics), begins a relationship that turns abusive, she breaks it off, he shows up at her job in uniform to intimidate her. State police board clears him, separate board delicenses him.

Impressive work!

ICYMI, my article on how some police unions have been using the federal takeovers as leverage in local battles against democratically elected authority

Screenshot reads: She and other publishing specialists question whether LeapSpace’s limited reach is worth the cost. Users will need either an institutional subscription (based in part on the institution’s size and amount of research) or an individual one, which costs $32 a month. Many libraries are already struggling to afford existing subscriptions. And if users want to read the cited content, they will need a separate subscription to that content’s publisher—akin to paying for multiple video-streaming services.

The inevitable next stage of academic publishers profiting from academics' work is here - scraping it for AI then charging subscriptions for access to the AI summaries, and then again for the citations. Academic content assetization as we called it in a recent paper. www.science.org/content/arti...

fresh audio product:

• Naomi Hossain @naomihossain.bsky.social on politics in Bangladesh
• Stuart Schrader @stschrader1.bsky.social on “authoritarianism from below”—the role of local cops in the Trump crackdowns

www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S...

US Dept of State INL @StateINL X.com With INL support, Colombia has launched drone eradication of coca crops. This technology could be game-changing: lower coca cultivation, more security in Colombia, less deadly drugs reaching American streets, and more lives saved. A great opportunity for increased EL counternarcotics results. 2:15 PM • 2/13/26 • 101K Views

The Bureau of International Narcotics & Law Enforcement in the State Department (INL) have been the biggest boosters of forced crop eradication in the drug war. Here they gleefully gloat about resuming the spraying of glyphosate in one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet. #ShovelingWater

🙏🙏

Authoritarianism from Below | Stuart Schrader As National Guard troops and federal officers swarmed Washington, D.C., in August, sent by President Donald Trump to confront what he declared a “crime

“To make sense of Trump’s law enforcement operations, it is useful to see the police less as a simple instrument of state power than as a political body in its own right” —@stschrader1.bsky.social

Paul Blume @PaulBlume_FOX9 · 1h BREAKING NEWS: U.S. District Court Judge Laura Provinzino has just found a government atty in CIVIL CONTEMPT of COURT for violations of her orders in a habeas case. Attorney cited is Matthew Isihara, a JAG atty from Dept. of War assisting in local US Attorney office @FOX9 (1/) Paul Blume @PaulBlume_FOX9 · 1h Judge Provinzino had ordered a detained immigrant held by ICE in El Paso, TX be released in Minnesota with all of his identification papers. ICE released the man in TX with none of his papers, forcing his attorney to find him a shelter for the night & flight back to MN (2/)

Paul Blume @PaulBlume_FOX9 · 57m Judge said she is imposing CIVIL CONTEMPT "to force the government to comply with her court order" to immediately return immigrant's papers. Gov't attorney Matthew Isihara is responsible for $500 daily fine, every day the man does not have his papers starting tomorrow. (3/3) Paul Blume @PaulBlume_FOX9 · 47m CONTEMPT FINDING: Matthew Isihara apologized for allowing the order in this habeas case to "fall through the cracks." Blamed situation on case overload & significant understaffing in US Attorney's office. Says he has picked up nearly 130 habeas cases in just last month. @FOX9

1. DHS surges 3,000 officers to Minneapolis without doing anywhere near enough prep first.
2. Hundreds of habeas cases overwhelm local courts.
3. Dozens of DOJ lawyers quit in disgust/anger.
4. The DOJ brings in JAGs to cover.
5. A JAG was just held in contempt and fined $500/day for ICE's failures.

Bottom Up Authoritarianism From America's Police Forces and Police Unions February 16, 2026 - Stuart Schrader backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

We’re joined by @stschrader1.bsky.social discussing his article at @nybooks.com “Authoritarianism from Below” and the how Trump’s top-down fascism has melded with bottom-up authoritarianism from America’s police forces and police unions. soundcloud.com/user-8304426...

It is mostly a history book, but yes it does. I would also recommend looking at writing by @kimkelly.bsky.social and @alexnpress.bsky.social on struggles within unions to delink from law enforcement.

If you appreciated my @nybooks.com article, you'll love my new book Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, out from @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social in April. Order with discount code BLUE20 at www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/stuar...

¿Por qué no los dos?

Authoritarianism from Below | Stuart Schrader As National Guard troops and federal officers swarmed Washington, D.C., in August, sent by President Donald Trump to confront what he declared a “crime

“The federal invasions are usurpations—but not necessarily of police authority,” @stschrader1.bsky.social writes. Instead, they have “become opportunities to...further weaken the already fraying democratic constraints on police power.”

Authoritarianism from Below | Stuart Schrader As National Guard troops and federal officers swarmed Washington, D.C., in August, sent by President Donald Trump to confront what he declared a “crime

Stuart Schrader on what Trump’s urban occupations mean for police and the unions that represent them https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/02/14/authoritarianism-from-below-trump-city-takeovers-police/?utm_source=Bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2026-02-14_Schrader-policing-1

Ding ding!

My forthcoming book gets deep into this history!

Thx. stuart.schrader at jhu

Cover of Blue Power with group of officers walking away from viewer

This article briefly previews my forthcoming book Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, out in April from @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social. You can preorder it w/ the discount code BLUE20 here: www.basicbooks.com/titles/stuar...

My new article in @nybooks.com on Authoritarianism from Below.

How and why police actually support the federal invasions—I have been working on this article for ~6 months, trying to make sense of Trump’s nationwide surge of DHS officers, how it has evolved, what brought us here, and what will remain after it ends.

Your weekend long read: Local cops and their union bosses have welcomed - and in some cases invited - Trump’s federal takeovers of US cities. @stschrader1.bsky.social traces this alarming synthesis of local & federal power for The New York Review archive.is/G1Bnh

Washington’s Corruption Has Created Another Humanitarian Crisis in Puerto Rico The island’s earthquakes are its latest man-made disaster.

If you didn’t catch the significance of the exploding transformers in Bad Bunny’s halftime show, I gotcha. Here’s one of a bunch of pieces I wrote from/on Puerto Rico about the crisis—and Trump’s role in it. slate.com/news-and-pol...

How Local Law Enforcement Collaborates with ICE February 6, 2026

REALLY USEFUL overview of the many ways ICE is entwined with sheriffs from @jesspish.bsky.social
"...local laws that require or encourage the arrest and detention of people (even those accused of misdemeanors) are making it easier to deport immigrants."