Jeff Sharlet
@jeffsharlet.bsky.social
I wrote a book about now, THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, & 2 about how we got here, THE FAMILY & C ST, also a Netflix series. My fave books sell fewest: THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS; & SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE. Professing @ Dartmouth. He/Him.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
I’m thinking this morning about all the people I spoke to last year who were absolutely convinced, and tried to convince me, that Trump would be antiwar compared to Biden and Harris.
In the past week alone he has attacked Nigeria and then Venezuela and also threatened to attack Iran (again).
In the past week alone he has attacked Nigeria and then Venezuela and also threatened to attack Iran (again).
January 3, 2026 at 1:18 PM
I’m thinking this morning about all the people I spoke to last year who were absolutely convinced, and tried to convince me, that Trump would be antiwar compared to Biden and Harris.
In the past week alone he has attacked Nigeria and then Venezuela and also threatened to attack Iran (again).
In the past week alone he has attacked Nigeria and then Venezuela and also threatened to attack Iran (again).
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Ahhhhh, it turns out that this video was put together by Freedom 250, Donald Trump's MAGA nonprofit organization, and not by America 250, the official, congressionally created U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission. Well that sure explains it.
A video is being projected on the Washington Monument this week to commemorate the semiquincentennial.
It's a technical marvel. But the narration and images are like what you'd get if you asked a right-wing undergrad to summarize U.S. history in 1,000 words and he uses ChatGPT to cook up an answer.
It's a technical marvel. But the narration and images are like what you'd get if you asked a right-wing undergrad to summarize U.S. history in 1,000 words and he uses ChatGPT to cook up an answer.
Watch: Full Washington Monument light show celebrating America's 250th year
YouTube video by WUSA9
www.youtube.com
January 3, 2026 at 5:31 AM
Ahhhhh, it turns out that this video was put together by Freedom 250, Donald Trump's MAGA nonprofit organization, and not by America 250, the official, congressionally created U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission. Well that sure explains it.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
There's a tax protest at the capitol in Salem, OR tomorrow that appears to be organized by a former Proud Boy/Patriot Prayer leader who's called herself a "white pride" advocate. The stage on which the event will happen is owned by a Proud Boy who is also the vice-chair of the Clackamas County GOP.
January 3, 2026 at 12:09 AM
There's a tax protest at the capitol in Salem, OR tomorrow that appears to be organized by a former Proud Boy/Patriot Prayer leader who's called herself a "white pride" advocate. The stage on which the event will happen is owned by a Proud Boy who is also the vice-chair of the Clackamas County GOP.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
don’t let the cringe distract you. this is serious, and it’s dire
On X creeps are using Grok to make revenge & child porn naked pics, but MAGA Rep Andy Ogle (TN) is using it to pretend he's a knight. He posted this in response to Mamdani swearing oath on Quran. Here's a sample of some of the many, many "knights" joining him in his idiot crusade.
January 2, 2026 at 10:59 PM
don’t let the cringe distract you. this is serious, and it’s dire
Can we apply this to National Review writers, too? Or some similarly revealing metric, like, I dunno, how many grapes you can stuff in your mouth? (I did ok on the test, but when I was in fifth grade I was undisputed champion of grapes, so I think I should get an endowed chair at Harvard AND Yale.)
This article advocates for the “Faculty Merit Act” that would — get this — require all faculty applicants to submit their *SAT* scores. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Holy shirts that’s hilarious.
January 2, 2026 at 9:51 PM
Can we apply this to National Review writers, too? Or some similarly revealing metric, like, I dunno, how many grapes you can stuff in your mouth? (I did ok on the test, but when I was in fifth grade I was undisputed champion of grapes, so I think I should get an endowed chair at Harvard AND Yale.)
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Incredible. CBS Evening News announces five new “simple values” — instead of their “38-page handbook” — as they roll out Tony Dokoupil is lead anchor.
One of those values is simply: “We love America and make no apologies for saying so.”
One of those values is simply: “We love America and make no apologies for saying so.”
January 2, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Incredible. CBS Evening News announces five new “simple values” — instead of their “38-page handbook” — as they roll out Tony Dokoupil is lead anchor.
One of those values is simply: “We love America and make no apologies for saying so.”
One of those values is simply: “We love America and make no apologies for saying so.”
On X creeps are using Grok to make revenge & child porn naked pics, but MAGA Rep Andy Ogle (TN) is using it to pretend he's a knight. He posted this in response to Mamdani swearing oath on Quran. Here's a sample of some of the many, many "knights" joining him in his idiot crusade.
January 2, 2026 at 8:23 PM
On X creeps are using Grok to make revenge & child porn naked pics, but MAGA Rep Andy Ogle (TN) is using it to pretend he's a knight. He posted this in response to Mamdani swearing oath on Quran. Here's a sample of some of the many, many "knights" joining him in his idiot crusade.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
I used to think X had no public utility but it is developing into some sort of monument to billionaire hubris. It's a living museum of paranoiac mania, a Grey Gardens situation.
January 2, 2026 at 7:11 PM
I used to think X had no public utility but it is developing into some sort of monument to billionaire hubris. It's a living museum of paranoiac mania, a Grey Gardens situation.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Seems like there's a line to be drawn from Occupy Wall Street to Bernie as national figure to AOC to Mamdani. Many other factors, of course! But maybe messy, beautiful 2011, crushed so brutally by Bloomberg & countless other mayors, forgotten in the Trump years since, was a turning point after all.
January 2, 2026 at 8:14 AM
Seems like there's a line to be drawn from Occupy Wall Street to Bernie as national figure to AOC to Mamdani. Many other factors, of course! But maybe messy, beautiful 2011, crushed so brutally by Bloomberg & countless other mayors, forgotten in the Trump years since, was a turning point after all.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
I feel obligated to point out that GOP VP JD is not ENTIRELY unprecedented. bsky.app/profile/seth...
Right wingers who believe they're being persecuted by "the media" often embrace other antisemitic conspiracy theories. In 1982, Agnew, wrote a letter to neo-Nazi Hans Schmidt in which he complained about his unfair treatment at the hands of "organized Jewry" who play up the "so-called Holocaust."
January 1, 2026 at 3:42 PM
I feel obligated to point out that GOP VP JD is not ENTIRELY unprecedented. bsky.app/profile/seth...
Reviewing old notes today, I recall that the false fascist appropriation of "antisemitism" as a rallying cry has precedent in 2011 US rightwing celebs--Beck, O'Reilly, Geller--apologetics for Christian nationalist mass murderer Anders Breivik by dismissing his victims as antisemites. (They weren't.)
January 1, 2026 at 9:31 PM
Reviewing old notes today, I recall that the false fascist appropriation of "antisemitism" as a rallying cry has precedent in 2011 US rightwing celebs--Beck, O'Reilly, Geller--apologetics for Christian nationalist mass murderer Anders Breivik by dismissing his victims as antisemites. (They weren't.)
Jul 10, 2011
"The Yiddish writer feels like a strategist maneuvering invisible armies in legendary lands." -- Jacob Glatstein/Yankev Glatshteyn, 1936
"The Yiddish writer feels like a strategist maneuvering invisible armies in legendary lands." -- Jacob Glatstein/Yankev Glatshteyn, 1936
January 1, 2026 at 8:56 PM
Jul 10, 2011
"The Yiddish writer feels like a strategist maneuvering invisible armies in legendary lands." -- Jacob Glatstein/Yankev Glatshteyn, 1936
"The Yiddish writer feels like a strategist maneuvering invisible armies in legendary lands." -- Jacob Glatstein/Yankev Glatshteyn, 1936
"A writer's job is to tell us what the rabbit was doing in the hat in the first place." Barbara Grizutti Harrison v. Joan Didion: www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/10...
www.writing.upenn.edu
January 1, 2026 at 8:16 PM
"A writer's job is to tell us what the rabbit was doing in the hat in the first place." Barbara Grizutti Harrison v. Joan Didion: www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/10...
So many factors involved in the decline since '08 of reported narrative nonfiction, but the rise of AI in a saner world would herald a revival, since reporting--the kind where you put your body in places with other people--is something AI can't do. Mediocre fiction? No problem. Reportage? It can't.
January 1, 2026 at 7:11 PM
So many factors involved in the decline since '08 of reported narrative nonfiction, but the rise of AI in a saner world would herald a revival, since reporting--the kind where you put your body in places with other people--is something AI can't do. Mediocre fiction? No problem. Reportage? It can't.
Trump retreating for now from his explicitly stated ambition of militarily occupying US cities. Hooray! Happy New Year! Don't forget he'll try again! And let's remember some of what worked, even if there are parts yr not a fan of: Protest! Courts. Journalism. Mayors. Military slow-walking.
December 31, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Trump retreating for now from his explicitly stated ambition of militarily occupying US cities. Hooray! Happy New Year! Don't forget he'll try again! And let's remember some of what worked, even if there are parts yr not a fan of: Protest! Courts. Journalism. Mayors. Military slow-walking.
"If you see this, post a random image from your device."
December 31, 2025 at 11:11 PM
"If you see this, post a random image from your device."
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
“Did you believe you had sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction against Donald Trump for interference with the lawful transfer of power?”
JACK SMITH: “Yes.”
JACK SMITH: “Yes.”
December 31, 2025 at 11:09 PM
“Did you believe you had sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction against Donald Trump for interference with the lawful transfer of power?”
JACK SMITH: “Yes.”
JACK SMITH: “Yes.”
Not one but two scary things here. First, most obviously: 100 million. Close to a 1/3 of U.S. now deemed not-American. Yes, it's trolling. Yes, AND. Second: It's simultaneously a nod toward an old imaginary white US, & an emptied out post-apocalypse. It's acknowledging the ambition is cataclysm.
December 31, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Not one but two scary things here. First, most obviously: 100 million. Close to a 1/3 of U.S. now deemed not-American. Yes, it's trolling. Yes, AND. Second: It's simultaneously a nod toward an old imaginary white US, & an emptied out post-apocalypse. It's acknowledging the ambition is cataclysm.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
On Jack Smith deposition, now released:
100% obvious why GOP refused to allow this as open testimony, aired live. It's damning.
Testimony from John Dean or Alex ("wiretaps") Butterfield in Watergate days would have 1/10th the impact if just in print.
What Smith says is far more incriminating.
100% obvious why GOP refused to allow this as open testimony, aired live. It's damning.
Testimony from John Dean or Alex ("wiretaps") Butterfield in Watergate days would have 1/10th the impact if just in print.
What Smith says is far more incriminating.
December 31, 2025 at 10:46 PM
On Jack Smith deposition, now released:
100% obvious why GOP refused to allow this as open testimony, aired live. It's damning.
Testimony from John Dean or Alex ("wiretaps") Butterfield in Watergate days would have 1/10th the impact if just in print.
What Smith says is far more incriminating.
100% obvious why GOP refused to allow this as open testimony, aired live. It's damning.
Testimony from John Dean or Alex ("wiretaps") Butterfield in Watergate days would have 1/10th the impact if just in print.
What Smith says is far more incriminating.
Alexandria
December 31, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Alexandria
Professors and teachers: Consider assigning your students some of the many AI-related suicide/murder court documents. I'm going to in my creative writing courses. This could be relevant material in any classroom in which you think AI is a factor. Which is to say, all of them.
Uh… check out what ChatGPT allegedly told a man before he killed his mother and then himself.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
December 31, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Professors and teachers: Consider assigning your students some of the many AI-related suicide/murder court documents. I'm going to in my creative writing courses. This could be relevant material in any classroom in which you think AI is a factor. Which is to say, all of them.
First new essay I published this year, "Bodies Will Swing," last Feb. Portrait of just one MAGA woman, looking forward to what had been promised by the campaign. *That* didn't happen. Countless bodies, though, were beaten, disappeared, killed by other means. slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/bodies-wil...
Bodies Will Swing
What one woman wanted of Trump's return. This was her dream. We're getting there.
slowcivilwar.substack.com
December 31, 2025 at 5:46 PM
First new essay I published this year, "Bodies Will Swing," last Feb. Portrait of just one MAGA woman, looking forward to what had been promised by the campaign. *That* didn't happen. Countless bodies, though, were beaten, disappeared, killed by other means. slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/bodies-wil...
My Cassandra cred's pretty solid--20+ years on far right beat, ten on Trump, nobody ever accused me of being a ray of sunshine. But at the end of this bad year, I think this too is true: fascism took so much, & yet nowhere near all it could & wants. There's so much left to fight for.
December 31, 2025 at 1:59 AM
My Cassandra cred's pretty solid--20+ years on far right beat, ten on Trump, nobody ever accused me of being a ray of sunshine. But at the end of this bad year, I think this too is true: fascism took so much, & yet nowhere near all it could & wants. There's so much left to fight for.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Statement Re: OU Discrimination Investigation
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
December 30, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Statement Re: OU Discrimination Investigation
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.