David Austin Walsh

Trump's comments are indeed monstrous, and I am *very* concerned about where this is heading in this country, but even the supposedly responsible alternative to Trumpist nationalism is deeply implicated in the same racist and Islamophobic global crosscurrents.

Germany has been positioning itself for years now as the last great bastion of the postwar liberal international order, now that the United States has abandoned those commitments.

And yet again, we see there is no contradiction between liberal internationalism and genocide.

Colonel Krueger not only talked about his staff taking shelter in Tel Aviv with their Israeli counterparts (presumably under Iranian bombardment?) but framing buying weapons from Israel -- a nation credibly accused of committing genocide in the ICJ -- as "overcoming" Germany's genocidal history.

But something that I found quite disturbing was a comment by a German colonel about how the German military is now buying air defense weapons from Israel.

The New German War Machine After World War II, Germany embraced pacifism as a form of atonement. Now the country is arming itself again.

There's another dimension to this. I read Isaac Stanley-Becker's piece in @theatlantic.com about German remilitarization with great interest.

Dramatically illustrates the death of Atlanticism in European politics. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

The point here is not to excuse Trump's bigotry or the Trump administration's racist and authoritarian attacks on Somali Americans, but rather to underscore that this is not *uniquely* monstrous in contemporary global politics.

Wikipedia now even has a page entitled "List of statements by Israeli officials cited as genocidal."

It is a long list.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

While obviously horrid, not only do Trump's crude and xenophobic remarks not rise to DER STUERMER levels, they're not even close to the kinds of things Israeli leaders have been saying about the Palestinians.

Particularly considering we never reached consensus on this question. bsky.app/profile/davi...

Well, it snowed three inches overnight here in Charlottesville, which means by Southern law I cannot leave the house for at least 24 hours.

Is there a dignified winter headwear for men? I mean something that is practical in extreme cold but is more formal than a knit cap.

Probably also relevant here is the groyper belief that (consensual) sex with a woman is gay.

I mean, I imagine there's at least some overlap between the audience for this kind of content from the WH and the, shall we say, gooner-curious elements of the online right.

But there's a distinction between, say, THE NIGHT PORTER (as disturbing as that film is) and MAGA sexualization of violence, because MAGA seems to completely lack any kind of erotic charge.

It's just pure pornography in the gooner sense -- something in the background to jack off to.

My mind immediately went to Daniel Kolitz's @harpers.bsky.social article on gooning.

There's always been a link between sex and violence, and even sex and state violence. (Sontag's FASCINATING FASCISM essay from the 1970s and the emergence of Nazisploitation porn are good examples.)

Really interesting conversation here on the sexualization of state violence and repression by the Trump administration. (I'd missed them using a Sabrina Carpenter song in a video glorifying cops arresting people.)

Granted, the underlying anxieties about status and competition are perfectly valid and I don't teach weed-out classes, so I'm sure the stakes are different in Calc II or Organic Chemistry.

I mean, sure, but the *vast* majority of disability requests I get are simply "I need slightly more time to take tests" or "I need to use a computer/tablet to take notes."

Thank you! The only thing I'd add is that, while I admittedly brought a lot of this on myself, it is somewhat unusual for a junior scholar to be on the receiving end of so much vicious public scrutiny and vitriol for well over a year now. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemies!

*a fair review

Why against your better judgment? It's critical, there are intellectual points I disagree with, and I would dispute your characterization of my controversial remarks last year, but it's fair review!

Thank you for reminding me why I'm still on Twitter!

Underrated Biden L

Hanania apparently suffering buyers' remorse for holding my work up to ridicule only to spark multiple days of Twitter discourse about how my book is actually pretty good, all things considered.

And if you *really* hated that book excerpt and think I'm a terrible prose writer, the editors at @bostonreview.bsky.social are truly top-notch.

Membership - Boston Review All members receive an annual subscription to our quarterly issues, plus digital access to our entire archive.

Hey, if you liked the first four pages of my book -- or even if you hated them -- you should subscribe to
@bostonreview.bsky.social, where I write a bimonthly column!

New subscriptions are half off for Black Friday!

It's not necessarily a bad thing when some guy blasts the first four pages of your book to half a million people saying that it sucks and the overwhelming response is, "this is fine, actually."

To be fair the actual OP has interactive text.

I mean from this guy that's pretty high praise.

Genuinely do not know why LJ has beef with me. Possibly because I've been very critical of the abundance agenda?