Mo Torres
@motorres.bsky.social
sociologist: cities, political economy, race/racism
umich.edu/~motorres
umich.edu/~motorres
Reposted by Mo Torres
a new genre of photo in the last year is federal agents working for ICE pointing guns directly at photographers
November 11, 2025 at 12:41 AM
a new genre of photo in the last year is federal agents working for ICE pointing guns directly at photographers
thought we’d spend the first 20 minutes of class on the question “what’s required to consider the US a democracy?” but that’s apparently quite the complicated question (oops). filled a whole chalkboard wall brainstorming minimal criteria vs. democracy as ongoing process/something to strive toward
November 10, 2025 at 10:55 PM
thought we’d spend the first 20 minutes of class on the question “what’s required to consider the US a democracy?” but that’s apparently quite the complicated question (oops). filled a whole chalkboard wall brainstorming minimal criteria vs. democracy as ongoing process/something to strive toward
Reposted by Mo Torres
"The economy" is GDP, corporate profits, and the stock market.
"Affordability" is wondering whether paying for your kid's medication means you won't be able to pay the rent.
"Affordability" is wondering whether paying for your kid's medication means you won't be able to pay the rent.
November 10, 2025 at 10:31 PM
"The economy" is GDP, corporate profits, and the stock market.
"Affordability" is wondering whether paying for your kid's medication means you won't be able to pay the rent.
"Affordability" is wondering whether paying for your kid's medication means you won't be able to pay the rent.
Reposted by Mo Torres
It seems crucial (and long overdue) that our national political discourse has finally shifted from an obsession with "the economy" to what actually matters: whether people can afford the basic things they need to live.
November 10, 2025 at 10:13 PM
It seems crucial (and long overdue) that our national political discourse has finally shifted from an obsession with "the economy" to what actually matters: whether people can afford the basic things they need to live.
Reposted by Mo Torres
"Listeners Like Who?" chronicles a contradiction at the core of public radio: the listener-member model that public radio has turned to after decades of government underfunding conflicts with its stated goal to reflect and serve all Americans. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/fund...
Funding cuts may make public radio more reliant on old, rich, white donors
After years of interviews, research, and writing, Laura Garbes submitted the final draft of her book on public radio in December 2024. By the time Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the…
www.niemanlab.org
November 10, 2025 at 7:41 PM
"Listeners Like Who?" chronicles a contradiction at the core of public radio: the listener-member model that public radio has turned to after decades of government underfunding conflicts with its stated goal to reflect and serve all Americans. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/fund...
Reposted by Mo Torres
New from me today! An article at @lpeblog.bsky.social, about Trump's tariffs, Magna Carta, and why opponents of democracy always try to undermine the tax system.
lpeproject.org/blog/the-lon...
Also, I got to write this one sentence:
lpeproject.org/blog/the-lon...
Also, I got to write this one sentence:
November 10, 2025 at 3:53 PM
New from me today! An article at @lpeblog.bsky.social, about Trump's tariffs, Magna Carta, and why opponents of democracy always try to undermine the tax system.
lpeproject.org/blog/the-lon...
Also, I got to write this one sentence:
lpeproject.org/blog/the-lon...
Also, I got to write this one sentence:
Reposted by Mo Torres
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American DSA member who represents metro Detroit, is the second sitting Democratic congressperson to demand the resignation of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
November 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American DSA member who represents metro Detroit, is the second sitting Democratic congressperson to demand the resignation of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Reposted by Mo Torres
I think this touches a deep, often-overlooked point. In my labour law days, I saw some employers spend MORE money fighting unionization than they would have paid accepting it. Loss of control was driving them at least as much as profits! Control is vital – with environmental policy as well.
I should write the argument up properly somewhere, but I think this is fundamentally wrong. A decisive fraction of the capitalist class does oppose addressing the climate crisis, but *not* because it would be bad for profits. If anything, a green New Deal type program would raise aggregate profits.
Yes, this is correct. And the reason is because our capitalist classes have decided that it is not sufficiently profitable, so they're not going to do it.
We must understand this reality. Capital *cannot* be relied upon to address the climate crisis.
We must understand this reality. Capital *cannot* be relied upon to address the climate crisis.
November 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I think this touches a deep, often-overlooked point. In my labour law days, I saw some employers spend MORE money fighting unionization than they would have paid accepting it. Loss of control was driving them at least as much as profits! Control is vital – with environmental policy as well.
beautiful illustration of what Fields & Fields (2012) call race-racism evasion: is it racism (DOL explicitly promoting white nationalism) or is it race (how silly of DOL to not capture the rich diversity of the US workforce)?
As you may know, the US Department of Labor is posting White Christian Nationalist, fascist-style AI #slopaganda for months now. Or, as the Washington Post puts it: «The campaign has drawn scrutiny, with critics saying it is not realistically portraying the diversity of the country’s workforce …»
Labor Department social media campaign depicts a White male workforce
The campaign has drawn scrutiny, with critics saying it is not realistically portraying the country’s diversity and is sending messages that feel exclusionary.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:57 PM
beautiful illustration of what Fields & Fields (2012) call race-racism evasion: is it racism (DOL explicitly promoting white nationalism) or is it race (how silly of DOL to not capture the rich diversity of the US workforce)?
Reposted by Mo Torres
As you may know, the US Department of Labor is posting White Christian Nationalist, fascist-style AI #slopaganda for months now. Or, as the Washington Post puts it: «The campaign has drawn scrutiny, with critics saying it is not realistically portraying the diversity of the country’s workforce …»
Labor Department social media campaign depicts a White male workforce
The campaign has drawn scrutiny, with critics saying it is not realistically portraying the country’s diversity and is sending messages that feel exclusionary.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:46 AM
As you may know, the US Department of Labor is posting White Christian Nationalist, fascist-style AI #slopaganda for months now. Or, as the Washington Post puts it: «The campaign has drawn scrutiny, with critics saying it is not realistically portraying the diversity of the country’s workforce …»
Reposted by Mo Torres
Los Alamos and U of Michigan want to build a data center in the small town of Ypsilanti. The city's people don't want to help make weapons of mass destruction. The fight is only just starting
A Small Town Is Fighting a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter for America's Nuclear Weapon Scientists
Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a 'high-performance computing facility' that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.
www.404media.co
November 10, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Los Alamos and U of Michigan want to build a data center in the small town of Ypsilanti. The city's people don't want to help make weapons of mass destruction. The fight is only just starting
Reposted by Mo Torres
New from 404 Media: a small town is fighting a $1.2 billion AI datacenter for America's nuclear weapon scientists. It is fighting the construction of a "high-performance computing facility" that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.
www.404media.co/a-small-town...
www.404media.co/a-small-town...
A Small Town Is Fighting a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter for America's Nuclear Weapon Scientists
Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a 'high-performance computing facility' that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.
www.404media.co
November 10, 2025 at 2:49 PM
New from 404 Media: a small town is fighting a $1.2 billion AI datacenter for America's nuclear weapon scientists. It is fighting the construction of a "high-performance computing facility" that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.
www.404media.co/a-small-town...
www.404media.co/a-small-town...
Reposted by Mo Torres
"By turning these standing forests into a protected asset, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, as the new financial instrument is called, seeks to monetize their value as a global public good and give forested nations financial incentives to not destroy them."
Brazil propose a new fund (TFFF) that would pay countries to keep forests standing.
I don't know if this fund is perfect, but I know that it is important to protect tropical forests with their invaluable biodiversity, indigenous people and high storage of carbon 💚
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/c...
I don't know if this fund is perfect, but I know that it is important to protect tropical forests with their invaluable biodiversity, indigenous people and high storage of carbon 💚
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/c...
Brazil Proposes a New Type of Fund to Protect Tropical Forests
www.nytimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:47 AM
"By turning these standing forests into a protected asset, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, as the new financial instrument is called, seeks to monetize their value as a global public good and give forested nations financial incentives to not destroy them."
Reposted by Mo Torres
I’m no great fan of the ACA.
I believe we should guarantee health care as a human right through a single-payer Medicare for All system.
But — at minimum — we cannot allow Republicans to destroy our already-broken system by doubling insurance premiums for 20 million Americans.
I believe we should guarantee health care as a human right through a single-payer Medicare for All system.
But — at minimum — we cannot allow Republicans to destroy our already-broken system by doubling insurance premiums for 20 million Americans.
November 9, 2025 at 9:09 PM
I’m no great fan of the ACA.
I believe we should guarantee health care as a human right through a single-payer Medicare for All system.
But — at minimum — we cannot allow Republicans to destroy our already-broken system by doubling insurance premiums for 20 million Americans.
I believe we should guarantee health care as a human right through a single-payer Medicare for All system.
But — at minimum — we cannot allow Republicans to destroy our already-broken system by doubling insurance premiums for 20 million Americans.
causal chain flowcharts are always insane but yes it is that serious (+complicated)
November 9, 2025 at 10:07 PM
causal chain flowcharts are always insane but yes it is that serious (+complicated)
everything i learn about the campaign makes total sense. Ganz involved? perfect. “Sometimes, wisdom is recognizing a good thing and supporting it, rather than saying, ‘Oh, this sucks. Do it my way. That’s the arrogance of our political class, and.. consulting industry. But that’s not what this was.”
HKS Lecturer Advised Zohran Mamdani on Sustaining Momentum, Avoiding the ‘Obama Trap’ | News | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Marshall L. Ganz ’64 met with incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in August to advise his campaign on how to sustain a grassroots movement once in office.
www.thecrimson.com
November 9, 2025 at 8:07 PM
everything i learn about the campaign makes total sense. Ganz involved? perfect. “Sometimes, wisdom is recognizing a good thing and supporting it, rather than saying, ‘Oh, this sucks. Do it my way. That’s the arrogance of our political class, and.. consulting industry. But that’s not what this was.”
'prosperity' 'inequality' 'economy' are abstractions and need to be treated as such--important to understand on the macro level and in terms of historical trends, yes, but the original poster seems to want that trend line to map 1:1 onto people's actual experiences of their daily lives. and: what?
Anyway to summarize, this is my explanation for why people are righteously mad despite real wages and purchasing power being highest ever even at the bottom of the distribution
November 9, 2025 at 8:00 PM
'prosperity' 'inequality' 'economy' are abstractions and need to be treated as such--important to understand on the macro level and in terms of historical trends, yes, but the original poster seems to want that trend line to map 1:1 onto people's actual experiences of their daily lives. and: what?
Reposted by Mo Torres
One doesn't have to squint very hard to see a bit of defensiveness about these rich guys who lead pretty soft lives and had pretty soft upbringings regarding their "manliness," and it's manifesting in ways that hurts everybody but them.
I’m sorry, but a goofy looking guy who grew up a privileged son of a pediatrician and has a phd in social theory from the university of Goethe and started in tech by investing an inheritance left to him by his grandfather talking about being a “dude” is very, very funny to me.
November 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
One doesn't have to squint very hard to see a bit of defensiveness about these rich guys who lead pretty soft lives and had pretty soft upbringings regarding their "manliness," and it's manifesting in ways that hurts everybody but them.
Reposted by Mo Torres
“Ganz, a political organizing scholar who played a central role in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, said Mamdani’s team was keen to avoid a widely reported misstep of Obama’s: sidelining the organizing base that elected him.”
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
HKS Lecturer Advised Zohran Mamdani on Sustaining Momentum, Avoiding the ‘Obama Trap’ | News | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Marshall L. Ganz ’64 met with incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in August to advise his campaign on how to sustain a grassroots movement once in office.
www.thecrimson.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:18 AM
“Ganz, a political organizing scholar who played a central role in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, said Mamdani’s team was keen to avoid a widely reported misstep of Obama’s: sidelining the organizing base that elected him.”
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Mo Torres
An excellent question.
The evidence shows pretty persuasively that many Black people don’t use these terms “liberal” or “conservative” in any context. They are terms that are simply not part of lots of people’s political or social lexicon.
The evidence shows pretty persuasively that many Black people don’t use these terms “liberal” or “conservative” in any context. They are terms that are simply not part of lots of people’s political or social lexicon.
Adding this to my required readings when I cover politics.
My question for Dr. Jefferson: Do you think that Black American culture has a different definition of conservative compared to the canonical one that influences the low correlations?
My question for Dr. Jefferson: Do you think that Black American culture has a different definition of conservative compared to the canonical one that influences the low correlations?
Excellent write-up from my friends at @stanfordcddrl.bsky.social—my second home—on my article in @poqjournal.bsky.social that questions the validity of the canonical liberal–conservative measure for studying Black Americans’ political attitudes and behavior.
cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/news/black-c...
cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/news/black-c...
November 9, 2025 at 7:03 PM
An excellent question.
The evidence shows pretty persuasively that many Black people don’t use these terms “liberal” or “conservative” in any context. They are terms that are simply not part of lots of people’s political or social lexicon.
The evidence shows pretty persuasively that many Black people don’t use these terms “liberal” or “conservative” in any context. They are terms that are simply not part of lots of people’s political or social lexicon.
Reposted by Mo Torres
“The problem is that when it is installed in a health sector that prizes efficiency, surveillance and profit extraction, AI becomes not a tool for care and community but simply another instrument for commodifying human life.”
What we lose when we surrender care to algorithms | Eric Reinhart
A dangerous faith in AI is sweeping American healthcare – with consequences for the basis of society itself
www.theguardian.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:09 PM
“The problem is that when it is installed in a health sector that prizes efficiency, surveillance and profit extraction, AI becomes not a tool for care and community but simply another instrument for commodifying human life.”
Reposted by Mo Torres
An extension: Poor health makes people more likely to vote far right or drop out of politics. Why? Because prolonged exposure to the healthcare system, social care, HR, would make almost anybody distrustful and resentful. Health-> healthcare -> distrust -> anger expressed in politics
November 9, 2025 at 3:35 PM
An extension: Poor health makes people more likely to vote far right or drop out of politics. Why? Because prolonged exposure to the healthcare system, social care, HR, would make almost anybody distrustful and resentful. Health-> healthcare -> distrust -> anger expressed in politics
Reposted by Mo Torres
So it turns out... the US air travel system was incredibly, deeply dependent on federal funding to just run day-to-day all this time, to the benefit of private airline shareholders, when everyone thinks that state-run trains are leeching off the government. Weird!
November 9, 2025 at 12:10 AM
So it turns out... the US air travel system was incredibly, deeply dependent on federal funding to just run day-to-day all this time, to the benefit of private airline shareholders, when everyone thinks that state-run trains are leeching off the government. Weird!
Reposted by Mo Torres
The Biden administration was fully complicit in genocide, and anyone who served in it should be held accountable.
Biden knew that Israel was committing crimes against humanity in Gaza and then decided to keep US commitments to Israel, shortly before handing it over to Trump
www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-...
www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-...
Biden Discussed Potential Israeli War Crimes In Gaza. He Kicked The Can To Trump.
New intelligence shocked officials in late 2024, spurring heightened fear of U.S. liability, HuffPost has learned. The period saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken ask if Israel’s actions constituted ...
www.huffpost.com
November 8, 2025 at 10:09 AM
The Biden administration was fully complicit in genocide, and anyone who served in it should be held accountable.
Reposted by Mo Torres
“A writer at the Times contacted me to talk. He said he was less interested in Mamdani himself than he was in the Africana Studies part…” On why maybe you shouldn’t talk to the New York Times about Zohran Mamdani.
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
buff.ly
November 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
“A writer at the Times contacted me to talk. He said he was less interested in Mamdani himself than he was in the Africana Studies part…” On why maybe you shouldn’t talk to the New York Times about Zohran Mamdani.