Colin Woodard
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colinwoodard.bsky.social
Colin Woodard
@colinwoodard.bsky.social

Director, Nationhood Lab, @PellCenter.bsky.social - Salve Regina University. Author, American Nations, American Character, Union, Republic of Pirates, and others. www.colinwoodard.com and www.nationhoodlab.org

Colin Strohn Woodard is an American journalist and writer known for his books American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (2011), The Republic of Pirates (2007), and The Lobster Coast (2004), a cultural and environmental history of coastal Maine. He is known for his writing that examines how the historically distinct regional cultures of America shape its current politics, society and health status. .. more

Political science 22%
Medicine 20%

Thanks for highlighting. I’d just qualify that slightly: our population-level data shows the average life expectancy in rich counties in “the south” is lower than that of the poor counties in “the northeast.”

Reposted by David Darmofal

Among the newly-released Epstein files. This Justice Dept email from Jan 2020

'I wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported"

The word you’re looking for is, once again, “ethnonationalism.”
JD Vance: "In the United States of America you don't have to apologize for being white anymore"

Reposted by David Darmofal

Her whole purpose in being there is to do exactly this.
CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls 60 Minutes story

Weiss said investigation had to include comments from Trump administration

60M's ⁦‪Sharyn Alfonsi‬⁩ said multiple US agencies refused to comment - and this lets WH veto coverage

My NPR story

www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g...
CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' story, sparking outcry
CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a 60 Minutes segment on allegations of abuses at an El Salvador detention center where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants.
www.npr.org
CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls 60 Minutes story

Weiss said investigation had to include comments from Trump administration

60M's ⁦‪Sharyn Alfonsi‬⁩ said multiple US agencies refused to comment - and this lets WH veto coverage

My NPR story

www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g...
CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' story, sparking outcry
CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a 60 Minutes segment on allegations of abuses at an El Salvador detention center where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants.
www.npr.org
May undermine? More like supports the text of the Constitution.

A Conspicuous Gap May Undermine Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Plan www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/u...
A Conspicuous Gap May Undermine Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Plan
www.nytimes.com

Thanks. Both Dems and dems, and quickly!
JD Vance: "In the United States of America you don't have to apologize for being white anymore"

Or, put another way: repealing the Declaration of Independence and the natural rights promises therein, which were only operationalized with the Reconstruction amendments.

Reposted by Colin Woodard

Nor native Americans. We keep telling you: It's all about race. It's white nationalism.
U.S. anniversary coins won’t feature any Black Americans or notable women www.washingtonpost.com/nation/inter...
U.S. anniversary coins won’t feature any Black Americans or notable women
The Trump administration has scraped plans for coins honoring Frederick Douglass and Ruby Bridges opting for all Whites to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.
www.washingtonpost.com
Here's a better view of the now-deleted photo showing Trump with Epstein and Trump with a group of young girls.

The photo was originally posted as item EFTA00000468 but was later deleted. Now the 'official' list simply jumps from EFTA00000467 to EFTA00000469.
Here's a quilt of Volume 4 of the Epstein document dump. Gives you a 10,000 foot view of the redactions. that's 2,704 docs.

At the turn of the 19th century, American intellectuals "discovered" Appalachia and that they'd found "real Americans" living there, decedents of early 18c Brit-Protestant settlers trapped in Amber, untainted by subsequent immigration. The idea kinda stuck. www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Immigrants Once Avoided Some Regions of America. That’s a Big Reason We’re So Divided.
Today’s debates over immigration and assimilation have their roots in patterns of settlement that go back centuries.
www.politico.com
David Brooks, who wrote in the NYT last month, "The Epstein Story? Count Me Out" is... in the latest Epstein photo dump published by @oversightdemocrats.house.gov.

He should absolutely be fired by NYT for this. Major conflict of interest that he didn't disclose.
he’s just not interested in this story

The explanation, as with so much do this, is Ethnonationalism.
The US Administration has banned Americans from *adopting babies* from much of the African continent.

Adopting.

Babies.

What trait do those babies have that, when they grow up as fully American adults, would make them a threat to our country in any form?
On that last post: I genuinely cannot think of any good-faith reason to bar international adoptions from those 39 countries. Under this new ban, consulates will refuse adoption visas for any baby from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nigeria, or any of the 39 other countries.
The US Administration has banned Americans from *adopting babies* from much of the African continent.

Adopting.

Babies.

What trait do those babies have that, when they grow up as fully American adults, would make them a threat to our country in any form?
On that last post: I genuinely cannot think of any good-faith reason to bar international adoptions from those 39 countries. Under this new ban, consulates will refuse adoption visas for any baby from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nigeria, or any of the 39 other countries.
I keep saying this but no one is connecting the dots. The war is to satisfy legal preconditions for mass removal *domestically* of Latinos (i.e., suddenly a lot of people are going to be “Venezuelan” for purposes of removal). This is 100% Stephen Miller…oil claim is to make grandpa go along
There is no national security logic that would impel the US to want to do regime change in Venezuela. It's simply not that important. I'm not even sure wag the dog is the right metaphor for what's happening here. Seems like an insane misallocation of US national security assets and attention.
Trump: "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled ... It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the USA all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us."

Aced it. Wisdom challenge unlocked.
Show your age

17 (have never used a fax machine, a record player, or a phone booth)

Everything with Trump is projection.
Trump doubles down on his Rob Reiner attack: "I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person... He became like a deranged person, Trump Derangement Syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country."
Trump doubles down on his Rob Reiner attack: "I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person... He became like a deranged person, Trump Derangement Syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country."

Reposted by Colin Woodard

Demented, depraved
Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

In 1900, in the midst of the "Great Immigration Wave," the Deep South and Tidewater were 1% foreign born, Greater Appalachia 3%. All the other large regions? 12% to 31%. This disparity affects U.S. political life today, as I share @politico.com

www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Immigrants Once Avoided Some Regions of America. That’s a Big Reason We’re So Divided.
Today’s debates over immigration and assimilation have their roots in patterns of settlement that go back centuries.
www.politico.com
Show your age

17 (have never used a fax machine, a record player, or a phone booth)

If your research question is: "are Americans more dangerous drivers than their counterparts in other countries," then you have to account for per capita miles driven. If you ask: "who has more traffic deaths," then sure. But that's not how this was framed.

Shit, for Obamcare, you’re talking the better part of a generation at this point.

For this to be meaningful, you’d have to account for road mlles driven, which I expect is much, much higher in the US, where we stupidly built all our infrastructure around cars.
It’s important to contextualize just how much less safe American drivers are than everywhere else in the world, and it’s getting worse!

True. But I live in Maine.