David Shumway
David Shumway
@nearleft.bsky.social

Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon. Film, popular music, literature. All opinions are my own.

Art 42%
Communication & Media Studies 10%
The sooner we get past internal recriminations and back to fighting united, the better off we all are — the likelier our victory next November.

Reposted by David R. Shumway

Time for change in some high places in the Democratic Party if we are to meet the greater challenges of the moment in this country. My latest. www.thedailybeast.com/why-these-vi...
Why These Vichy Dems and Their Spineless Boss Need to Go Now
We need courage and clarity from our leaders. Schumer and these eight in the Senate have shown they have failed that test. Time to turn the page.
www.thedailybeast.com
Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

Democrats trounce GOP, but it’s Schumer who concedes.
I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
ChatGPT encouraged college graduate to commit suicide, family claims in lawsuit against OpenAI | CNN
A 23-year-old man killed himself in Texas after ChatGPT ‘goaded’ him to commit suicide, his family says in a lawsuit.
www.cnn.com

Despite your best efforts.

Reposted by David R. Shumway

Eagerly awaiting tomorrow's New York Times headlines explaining why this wave of victories is actually bad for the Democrats
Politicians should probably get on Bluesky to get better in touch with the American electorate.
I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.
Looks like the Dems will pick up 12 seats in the VA House of Delegates, which will go from 51-49 to 63-37 D-R. That's an honestly shocking result.

Reposted by David R. Shumway

Important to compare and contrast the behavior of a Schumer with that of a Raskin— another Jewish Democrat who is obviously quite pro Israel but who has, interestingly, not made his support of other members of the party contingent upon them internalizing his particular preferences.

Map is misleading. There are elections in many states.

Both things could be true.

The Democrats moved right, not left.
Kevin Roberts' defense of Nick Fuentes is a watershed moment: the right has officially declared open, unabashed Hitlerism to be an acceptable position in their coalition

www.vox.com/politics/466...
The GOP’s top think tank just defended an open Nazi
Reasonable people can disagree about whether Hitler was good, says the Heritage Foundation.
www.vox.com

Reposted by David R. Shumway

"Developing our linguistic capacities — to master diverse concepts, to follow an intricate argument, to form judgments, to communicate those to others — is the development of our capacity to think. Cognitive degradation threatens democratic processes."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...
Opinion | Why Even Basic A.I. Use Is So Bad for Students
www.nytimes.com
This was just posted by a CBS News producer on their Instagram stories.
lol

People do not understand.

“Tackiness and tyranny go hand in hand.” Paul Krugman, today.

Social media stopped being fun years ago.

Reposted by David R. Shumway

What is the Times doing calling this extrajudicial murder spree “cartel strikes”? On what evidence do they ape the killers’ propaganda?

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/u...
Trump Says He Will Not Seek Authorization for Cartel Strikes
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by David R. Shumway

I’m thinking of Marshall Berman’s brilliant work on urbicide—the purposeful destruction of the city’s built environment after WWII—and how Trump’s minions are trying to finish the job by disappearing Black and Brown people. That’s why Mamdani’s coalition is so frightful to them

Reposted by David R. Shumway

I’ve been writing about politics in some capacity for over 25 years now and it’s still stunning how the mainstream media refuses to tell the public basic truth
Those with sharp eyes might detect a subtle difference in NYT play last month of an event in one city, w 100,000+ attendees, versus play this morning of some 2500+ events w many millions of attendees, in all 50 states.

See if you can spot it! /s

Then you can find today's story on p A23

The New York Trump Times lies about size of the No Kings protests.

CNN is Fox News light.

No Kings Huntington Station, NY

Reposted by David R. Shumway

More than 2,600 protests against the Trump administration are scheduled to take place across the U.S. on Saturday in a demonstration known as No Kings Day. Here’s what we know about the protests. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...