Thomas Chatterton Williams

This is astounding

Wait, what? I don’t know where I said he is responsible for the pathologies of “the left.” But I am saying that he participates in and amplifies some of this particular website’s nastiest tendencies, which recently, momentarily, turned on him.

But I wouldn’t hold my breath

if b-boy bouiebaisse were to introspect he might draw productive conclusions

Why MAGA Wants You to Think Slavery Wasn’t That Bad Both the left and the right try to co-opt it, but the real story of American slavery doesn’t serve any one faction.

“The truest understanding of slavery doesn’t serve any political faction,” @chatterton.bsky.social argues—“rather, it acknowledges the horrors of racial oppression while still allowing us to see beyond them.”

“Sanitizing slavery has become a core objective of the reactionary right—a malignant response to progressives’ oversimplification of American history. But the truest understanding of slavery acknowledges the horrors of racial oppression while still allowing us to see beyond them.”

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‘Looksmaxxing’ Reveals the Depth of the Crisis Facing Young Men The most narcissistic corner of the internet is having a moment.

Perhaps more than any other group, looksmaxxers reveal the depth of the moral crisis that confronts young men today. @chatterton.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Very much appreciate this, and I agree. Probably can’t happen as long as Trump is running the show.

Jerome Powell Won’t Be Intimidated. The Institution He Leads Might Not Be So Lucky. The Federal Reserve has been served with a grand jury subpoena tied to Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony. Powell says he will not be intimidated—but with his term nearing its end.

Subpoenaing the Fed chair in the middle of a political fight over interest rates is not normal. It’s intimidation. Jerome Powell says he won’t bend—but this sets a dangerous precedent for the independence that keeps inflation in check.
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No, it’s actually not. I’m always up for respectful disagreement. Most people whose views I share don’t even bother coming here. I never restrict comments on twitter or IG. This place just becomes a silly dogpile, which, whatever, I accept that’s the way it works, but I don’t have to facilitate it.

Lmao it’s only because this place is still weighted toward really strange people such as yourself. You’ll have earned your block tho

The Bluesky moral high ground yikes

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Bluesky is such a sealed epistemic vacuum in many corners not a single person points out that just this past September Charlie Kirk literally got his neck blown open in public *by his ideological opponent.*

Which is obvious in context, but your gimmick is to erase that for your Bluesky silo

Are you thick? I was referring to people like Megyn and her followers having bloodlust.

I tend to agree with you, except for the last point about Mangione.

Diminishing returns here, I don’t know you from a can of paint. You can get blocked tho if you really want to

Trying to follow your logic, because Megyn would be the most elite person in this thread by far in terms of fame, money and access, and she’s the one I’m in open disagreement with

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Anyone without a strange axe to grind (even that journeyman @jodyrosen.bsky.social) knows there’s nothing remotely objectionable about advocating for basic decency in a country where Good’s murder is welcomed and Luigi Mangione is lionized.

@jamellebouie.net I’ve been quite clear in condemning the killing. Even a cursory glance at my twitter, IG or even this Bluesky account I barely use shows you’re dishonest. It’s actually more productive to argue with Megyn Kelly than such a bad faith actor as you.

Say what? I’m responding to the appalling bloodlust coming from the right at this moment

It’s not even so much about “sane” vs. “insane” anymore, as it so often was circa 2020. The fundamental split today is between the *decent* and the *indecent.* It is monstrous to desire, excuse, sanitize, whitewash avoidable killing even of one’s perceived foes.

There is a growing and palpable bloodlust and desire to see ideological opponents quite literally eradicated that should give us all extreme pause. It’s been a long time since the most meaningful divide in American political and cultural life was between “left” and “right.” 1/2

Massive protests in Iran challenging

A New Understanding of Human Beings’ Most Basic Desire Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues that a good life is one that seeks to create order out of a natural state of chaos.

The philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues in her new book that the often-painful struggle to justify our existence is the very thing that makes us human, John Kaag writes:

A large masked man who is surrounded by armed backup shooting a lone and panicked woman in the face in broad daylight is such an insane visual metaphor for this administration’s overall disproportionate use of force

No justification for that