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“There is no denying the counterrevolution; as former Fox News host–turned-podcaster Megyn Kelly put it last September, ‘We haven’t felt like ourselves since Barack Obama,’ and Trump ‘was the antidote.’ But Obama’s presidency was hardly revolutionary in the first place.” @blbalthaser.bsky.social
In the Lobby of Hope and ChangeThe Obama Presidential Center monumentalizes a liberalism still incapable of seeing its flaws.www.bostonreview.net“People believe in this program because it clearly seeks to dismantle imperial neoliberalism, not to rescue and stabilize it. While they may have walked out from the obelisk of Obama’s party, they are, in another sense, the true heirs of his promise.” @blbalthaser.bsky.social on “hope and change“:
In the Lobby of Hope and ChangeThe Obama Presidential Center monumentalizes a liberalism still incapable of seeing its flaws.www.bostonreview.net“I asked my friend to sit down. I was feeling amazed, in both the common and the old sense of the word. Climbing up this narrative staircase felt like wandering through a maze of passageways only to arrive at a cul-de-sac of light.” @blbalthaser.bsky.social tours the Obama Presidential Center:
In the Lobby of Hope and ChangeThe Obama Presidential Center monumentalizes a liberalism still incapable of seeing its flaws.www.bostonreview.net“Clinton’s victory in 1992 probably had more to do with the recession of 1990–1991, & by ’96 he enjoyed the advantage of incumbency with falling unemployment,” while “poor people and minorities were among the most harmed by Clinton’s politics of moderation.” @danielle-wiggins.bsky.social explains:
Jesse Jackson’s campaigns point the way.Danielle Wiggins responds in a forum on “How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism.”www.bostonreview.netStephen RobinsonI voted for the first time in 1992 so it annoys me when pundits like Yglesias urge a Clinton/Gore model for success. First off, while Clinton/Gore were more conservative on some key issues than Dukakis (death penalty, welfare) they didn't openly promote regressive views on culture.
“Every month after this essay is published will bring its own lot of similar announcements.” Mathematician Michael Harris, member of the working group that drafted the Leiden Declaration, on AI and the future of mathematics:
Knowledge CollapseAI companies are racing to mechanize mathematics. Where does that leave human understanding?www.bostonreview.netAs @blbalthaser.bsky.social discusses in this review of Mark Mazower’s book On Antisemitism: “The greatest attack on Jews since the Holocaust took place not October 7 but in the late 1970s and early '80s” at the hands of the Argentine Junta, “backed by the U.S. and armed with weapons from Israel.”
Antisemitism’s AfterlivesEven as the concept is weaponized against Palestinians and critics of Israel, the far right has a growing antisemitic base.www.bostonreview.netJoel S.Fun fact: While Jews made up less than 1% of the population of Argentina, they comprised up to 12% of those disappeared during the Dirty War, due to the antisemitism of the right-wing junta and the association of Jews with leftism. More Jews were killed in the Argentine Dirty War than on 10/7/2023.
“We can expect these efforts to tear our democracy apart will only grow more intense in the coming years, as our energy transition becomes more economically inevitable and the tactics needed to suppress that transition become more repressive.” @aaronregunberg.bsky.social
Why Climate Politics Can’t Wait“Climate hushing” is all the rage among Democrats. That’s a big mistake.www.bostonreview.net“You can’t have pie-in-the-sky optimism, but an optimism rooted in fact and history and the politics of change is something all of us, particularly young people, desperately need.” A conversation with @edgeofsports.bsky.social:
That’s How Change HappensDave Zirin on writing the life of Howard Zinn–and why his legacy points the way forward at the country’s semiquincentennial.www.bostonreview.net“Current events would seem to be fertile ground—perhaps more fertile than ever—for generating popular support for climate action. In fact, we are seeing a massive deprioritization of climate across multiple sectors.” @aaronregunberg.bsky.social explains:
Why Climate Politics Can’t Wait“Climate hushing” is all the rage among Democrats. That’s a big mistake.www.bostonreview.netJonathan CohnAt the same time that we are seeing some of the extreme effects of climate change --- with European heat waves and massive air quality risks in the US -- countries are rolling back climate action. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/c...
“Practitioners of analytic philosophy will be aware that the charge of absurdity or incoherence is not an uncommon or even an unjust criticism of many claims made within their own discipline.” @ramoran.bsky.social on the Boghossian report on the humanities:
The Wrong Way to Criticize the HumanitiesA recent report, commissioned by the chancellors of Vanderbilt and Washington University, invites further intrusions on scholarly self-governance.www.bostonreview.net“Bolsonaro has begun a twenty-seven-year prison sentence for his role in January 8, while the instigator of January 6 sits in the Oval Office. Why did Brazil’s democratic institutions hold firm while those in the United States so quickly wilted?” New from @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social:
Truth Without ReconciliationWhy did Brazil’s democratic institutions hold firm while those in the United States so quickly wilted?www.bostonreview.net“ICE’s abuses are not new, not created by Republicans alone, and not distinct from other enforcement agencies: they are tethered to otherwise normalized carceral and militarized infrastructures that will persist even without it.” @harshawalia.bsky.social:
How Not to Abolish ICEWhat have we learned from the past two decades of struggle?www.bostonreview.net“For Simon Schama, the French Revolution was worse than wrongheaded; it was de trop. Its rhetorical—leave aside real—overkill made it too deplorably melodramatic for words.” From the archive, Edwin Frank on ways of writing about revolution, what Schama got wrong, and what Hilary Mantel got right:
Writing About RevolutionRevolutions are acts of hope. That's why they are the terrain of novelists as much as historians.www.bostonreview.net