Isaac Rabinovitch

Why did the CBP guy refuse the gift of a sandwich?

It's hard to imagine what kind of system can work when so many of its participants are either determined to subvert it or too cowardly to play their role in maintaining it.

I have to point out that this is the inevitable result of the one-party system Karl Rove dreamed about.

Black-and-white photo of the 1957 Operation Plumbbob nuclear test, showing a towering mushroom cloud rising in the distance while a large, partially deflated blimp leans dramatically to one side in the foreground, with small human figures visible nearby.

Metaphor

I think we can demonstrate that Lindsay Halligan is yet another clueless MAGA drone without resorting to misogynistic tropes.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Jeff Bezos has decided to look for ways to normalize rather than oppose the regime.

But that would mean being rude to their biggest campaign contributors!

The latest stupid thing is a robocall that begins with a woman saying "Hello? Can you hear me?" Part of me wants to see what happens if I ask her, "Are you human, or just another fucking bot?" But most of me doesn't have the fucking patience.

Dred Scott is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.

It also fails to mention that Cuomo's attack ad contained an outright lie.

There's a simple answer to "It's called war": When you conduct that war by *targeting* civilians it's called a war crime.

We need to stop letting people say that the dead civilians are just people who got in the way. It's bullshit, and Israeli leadership says as much.

Well, I live in a state that only repealed the last of its Black Exclusion Laws a couple years ago, so I can't argue with you.

No mention made of the renters who had their lives turned upside down and lost their possessions.

The IDF finds them very useful.

Heather Cox Richardson wrote a useful history of the Republican Party. According to her, the party began as a coalition between abolitionists and advocates of industrial capitalism. So it wasn't exactly a "turn" — the party was always about capitalism.

Maybe. Or maybe the Confederate leadership becoming martyrs would have *enhanced* the glorification.

I think the bigger failure is giving up on stopping white supremacist terrorism in the 1870s, mostly out of political fatigue. That led to one-party rule of the South, with Orwellian results.

Johnson certainly played his reprehensible role. But the heroic mythology you speak of was the creation of Lost Cause historians, who continued to dominate the narrative well into my own lifetime.

That the Old West was devoid of Black people. I seem to recall reading that maybe a third of the cowboys on those famous cattle drives were formerly enslaved.

Incredible. The "where are the fathers?" thing is such a deeply embedded trope that people will break it out when talking about skeletons from a thousand years ago as soon as they find out the person was probably Black.

a black and white photo of a man in a wig holding a knife Alt: Animation of Robespierre putting on his sunglasses. Looks like a scene from a movie

Alas, Robespierre is dead.

a close up of a painting with a swirl and the number 9 on it Alt: Psychedelic animation of Salvador Dali's famous melting clocks

If there is objectively no emergency, why are there currently over 50 Federal emergencies in effect? "Emergency" is a term of art, and by art I mean "Salvador Dali."

Well, this confirms my belief that the election is simply over. Now I'm wondering how Trump will react when this becomes an inescapable fact. He won't be able to stop himself from doing something *extremely* stupid. I just hope it does more harm to him than to other people.

For more on this, see @rickperlstein.bsky.social Before the Storm and its sequels.

OK, but we still need a Shad-Bearing Tree party.

Please run for something so I can vote for you.

It occurs to me that the small details are what I liked about both your books. Small as they were, they were never trivial.

Well, what words *are* in your mouth. If Trump takes over law enforcement in Atlanta, how will the Roberts Court respond?

None of which address the question, "What happens when Trump takes over Atlanta?" You seem to be saying that the Roberts Court will tell him he can't do that.

You seem to be expending a lot of effort telling your skeptics how stupid they are. Maybe spend a little effort actually addressing the issues they raise?

You kind of have to mention that these voters care about fake crimes that didn’t happen, and not about the real crimes that do happen.

For instance: they’re upset about entire cities being burned to the ground.

I would be upset about that, too, if it happened. But it didn’t.

I get that. What I'm disputing is your claim that he can't extend his takeover to other cities. *Constitutionally* he can't, but he's been getting away with a lot of unconstitutional things.