Matthew Gruchow
banner
matthewgruchow.bsky.social
Matthew Gruchow
@matthewgruchow.bsky.social
PhD student - Study of Religions @ U. of Denver/Iliff School of Theology; Paramedic, former award-winning journalist. Poet.

#ritualtheory #science #religion #psychedelics #NRMs #allthingsweird
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
The Late Show isn’t dying because people stopped watching late-night TV. It’s being murdered because Stephen Colbert spent the last decade being one of Trump’s most persistent critics on network television.

https://trib.al/Mi7ISuK
Stephen Colbert’s Cancellation Is Exactly What It Looks Like
Mock a Trump bribe on Monday, get canceled by Thursday. The Late Show’s death reveals how billionaires and presidents are reshaping American media.
trib.al
July 18, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Three tarot practitioners who left conservative Christian upbringings said using tarot cards helped them reimagine their spirituality.
religionnews.com/2025/07/08/l...
Why some 'exvangelicals' are turning to tarot reading
(RNS) — Three tarot practitioners who left conservative Christian upbringings said using tarot cards helped them reimagine their spirituality.
religionnews.com
July 12, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Honest inquiry here: what affect, if any, would @Pontifex threatening excommunication have on JD Vance & MAGA Catholic Republicans? If he boots them from the Church, could that send a strong signal that #ChristianNationalism & its cruelty are NOT Christian?

#religion #Fascism
July 9, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
New (FREE) study from @andrew-whitehead.bsky.social & me @nationsnationalism.bsky.social. Even after accounting for relevant state-level factors, state-level Christian nationalism predicts Trump's vote share in 2024, primarily in states w/fewer college grads. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
June 4, 2025 at 11:46 AM
If you're a Chinese student or if, like me, you teach Chinese students, this is a shot across your bow. Serious stuff. No word on what a "critical field" is, but those of us who teach have a pretty good idea, I think.

#fascism #phdlife #savestudents #academicchatter

thehill.com/homenews/edu...
thehill.com
May 29, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
It’s 2 am and we’re still marking up massive cuts to Medicaid.

While their constituents are asleep, Republicans are trying to take away health care from 13.7 million people to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.

They want you to tune out. Don’t ⬇️
x.com/i/broadcasts...
HAPPENING NOW: Republicans are putting health care on the chopping block / X
HAPPENING NOW: Republicans are putting health care on the chopping block
x.com
May 14, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
BREAKING: Major new @prripoll.bsky.social survey on #Trump100.
With favorability underwater, most Americans (52%), including 56% of independents, believe "Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy."
www.prri.org/research/dem...
April 29, 2025 at 12:29 PM
I don't care what future employer or #fascist government bastard sees me post this, I'm still calling this what it is: genocide.
May 3, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
The White House posted this photo.
May 2, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
We created Jim Crow to reverse the freedom of formerly enslaved people.

Hitler adapted Jim Crow to enslave people, rescind democracy, and murder of millions of Jews.

Now America is borrowing Hitler's policy of statelessness to put people in foreign concentration camps?

Am I following the plot?
April 15, 2025 at 3:06 AM
This government is monstrous.
axios.com Axios @axios.com · Apr 15
NEW: Hours after Harvard University officials said they wouldn't roll over to the Trump administration's demands, an education task force announced it would freeze $2.2 billion in federal funds to the Ivy League institution.
Feds freeze $2.2B in funds to Harvard after university refuses Trump admin demands
Harvard is one of many elite universities for which the Trump administration is reviewing federal funding for research grants and other programs.
www.axios.com
April 15, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Here’s the clip.
April 14, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
This is simply the digital equivalent of book burnings. And, much like in the 1930s, gender studies are the first to be singled out as a target.
April 9, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Honestly, I used to be confused by how much my generation sucks then I thought about who I went to high school with and it tracks.
Gen-Zers proving that Gen-Xers were the outliers all along.
April 10, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
archive building for future scholars of empire
We're tracking the number of international students whose visas have been revoked by the State Department. We've confirmed over 300 so far and there are likely many more. Get in touch if you've got information you'd like to share with us www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...
April 10, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
🚨Georgetown University Law Center students are detailing which law firms have caved and which have stood up to the Trump regime. They have created this spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Please share widely.
Legal Industry Responses to Fascist Attacks Tracker (Public)
docs.google.com
April 3, 2025 at 4:41 AM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Cannabis was used in ancient Israelite worship
#maklelan2634
youtu.be/63u6WH5rOUA
Cannabis was used in ancient Israelite worship
YouTube video by Dan McClellan
youtu.be
March 29, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
really recommend this piece, and @resnikoff.bsky.social’s substack generally. A succinct summation of why it is such a pathetic betrayal for big law, media, and academia to bend the knee to authoritarianism. Because it reveals the premise of these institutions to be flatly a lie.
New post for the newsletter about the capitulation of big law, big media, and big academia to Trump, and what Hannah Arendt would say about all this. resnikoff.beehiiv.com/p/living-wit...
Living With a Murderer
On personal responsibility under the second Trump administration
resnikoff.beehiiv.com
March 28, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
This is where we're headed. Deporting migrant workers and filling their jobs with teenagers who might as well work long hours and stop caring about school, because even if they want to go to college, they'll have no way of getting the aid they need to attend.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Alarm as Florida Republicans move to fill deported workers’ jobs with children: ‘It’s insane, right?’
Governor Ron DeSantis leads push to loosen child labor laws as immigration crackdown leads to workforce shortage
www.theguardian.com
March 29, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Once again, another reason that the "You're wildly overreacting when you suggest that there's a high risk the 2026/28 elections won't be free & fair" view is so deeply unserious is that, by any serious & actually democratic standard, our current elections are already not even free & fair.
All the right's fearmongering over George Soros, and this guy is literally out here buying votes for the world to see.
March 28, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
If you were ever curious about the link between Christian nationalism & authoritarianism, check out this column I wrote f/ @therevealer.bsky.social.

As many have noted, CN undergirds much of Project 2025, the authoritarian roadmap f/ this administration.

therevealer.org/christian-na...
Christian Nationalism and Authoritarianism — The Revealer
Comfort with violence and weakening democracy in the name of taking America back for God
therevealer.org
February 25, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files.

“We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said.

(Published March 2023 with @capitolforum.bsky.social)
How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them
Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said.
propub.li
March 22, 2025 at 2:00 AM
The death of my PhD work. Right as I get ready to write a dissertation proposal, which requires student loans to finish, loans moves to a dept whose head will shut it down or make student loans inaccessible except to the wealthy. My only hope now is to apply for universities overseas.
#phdlife #fml
March 21, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Matthew Gruchow
Who would’a thought that stealing our labor was apparently part of their business model…? Oh, I guess that sort’a how it just works.
Meta considered licensing books to train AI—but opted instead to pirate LibGen, a database that currently contains more than 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers, Alex Reisner writes.
The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem
Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here.
www.theatlantic.com
March 21, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Hahahahahahahaha
axios.com Axios @axios.com · Mar 20
Tesla shares fell early today after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used a TV appearance to urge Americans to buy stock in Elon Musk's car company.
Tesla shares fall after Lutnick goes on TV and recommends stock
His comments are the latest in what has effectively become an administration campaign to defend Musk's company.
www.axios.com
March 20, 2025 at 1:16 PM