Andrew Schumacher Bethke
@aesb.bsky.social
This has become a key part of my classes that include WW2. The Nazis were almost entirely dweebs and losers who were disliked and uncompetitive, unleashing resentment at people who were smarter and more charismatic than they were. The “evil super genius” shtick is all a fiction.
The nazis themselves were not some clever masterminds where everything they did went perfect. They were also comical idiots who did ridiculous things, like invading Russia in the winter.
They gained power because the opposition couldn’t understand that the fascists were not rational agents.
They gained power because the opposition couldn’t understand that the fascists were not rational agents.
that said: I think the "it's not fascism unless they're good at it" brand of analysis probably isn't the move
October 7, 2025 at 8:58 PM
This has become a key part of my classes that include WW2. The Nazis were almost entirely dweebs and losers who were disliked and uncompetitive, unleashing resentment at people who were smarter and more charismatic than they were. The “evil super genius” shtick is all a fiction.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
Gavin Newsom is an incompetent transphobic centrist who is unfit for elected office.
His repeated failures to protect the basic human rights of his own constituents is clear misconduct in office. He should be impeached immediately.
His repeated failures to protect the basic human rights of his own constituents is clear misconduct in office. He should be impeached immediately.
Gavin Newsom vetoes gender education bill, declines to sign other trans protections - buff.ly/MTUAV85
October 7, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Gavin Newsom is an incompetent transphobic centrist who is unfit for elected office.
His repeated failures to protect the basic human rights of his own constituents is clear misconduct in office. He should be impeached immediately.
His repeated failures to protect the basic human rights of his own constituents is clear misconduct in office. He should be impeached immediately.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
“Trad cath” is, weirdly, code for “unfamiliar with Catholicism”
Far-right Catholics freaking out about the Pope doing normal Pope things will always be entertaining.
The Pope blessed some water? Can you even imagine?
The Pope blessed some water? Can you even imagine?
October 1, 2025 at 8:00 PM
“Trad cath” is, weirdly, code for “unfamiliar with Catholicism”
Just pondering AI-usage/Ozempic/gym-obsession as part of a grand unified psy-op to encourage alienation from self and others, and as a backdoor to introducing far-right self-image to otherwise non-inclined people. Interacting with this stuff feels increasingly out of joint, and that seems telling.
September 26, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Just pondering AI-usage/Ozempic/gym-obsession as part of a grand unified psy-op to encourage alienation from self and others, and as a backdoor to introducing far-right self-image to otherwise non-inclined people. Interacting with this stuff feels increasingly out of joint, and that seems telling.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.
September 25, 2025 at 5:22 PM
If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
This is happening Thursday!!! I would love to see folks come out to this
Twin Cities! Two FREE abolition related events happening next week/weekend!
On Thursday, September 11 at 6pm, the Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is showing Calls from Home, and a panel after w/ Garrett Felber and our incarcerated comrade Loretta Pierre. www.eventbrite.com/e/calls-from...
On Thursday, September 11 at 6pm, the Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is showing Calls from Home, and a panel after w/ Garrett Felber and our incarcerated comrade Loretta Pierre. www.eventbrite.com/e/calls-from...
Calls From Home in Solidarity with Free the Mississippi Five
Join Study and Struggle for a night of learning and organizing.
www.eventbrite.com
September 9, 2025 at 11:57 PM
This is happening Thursday!!! I would love to see folks come out to this
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
Twin Cities! Two FREE abolition related events happening next week/weekend!
On Thursday, September 11 at 6pm, the Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is showing Calls from Home, and a panel after w/ Garrett Felber and our incarcerated comrade Loretta Pierre. www.eventbrite.com/e/calls-from...
On Thursday, September 11 at 6pm, the Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is showing Calls from Home, and a panel after w/ Garrett Felber and our incarcerated comrade Loretta Pierre. www.eventbrite.com/e/calls-from...
Calls From Home in Solidarity with Free the Mississippi Five
Join Study and Struggle for a night of learning and organizing.
www.eventbrite.com
September 4, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Twin Cities! Two FREE abolition related events happening next week/weekend!
On Thursday, September 11 at 6pm, the Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is showing Calls from Home, and a panel after w/ Garrett Felber and our incarcerated comrade Loretta Pierre. www.eventbrite.com/e/calls-from...
On Thursday, September 11 at 6pm, the Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is showing Calls from Home, and a panel after w/ Garrett Felber and our incarcerated comrade Loretta Pierre. www.eventbrite.com/e/calls-from...
Wow it’s Fresno and Saint Paul working together
Trump admin threatens to strip federal money over woke language. Fresno is fighting him in court
The City of Fresno filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging its use of executive orders to strip local governments of federal funds over what the White House and others have…
The City of Fresno filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging its use of executive orders to strip local governments of federal funds over what the White House and others have…
Trump admin threatens to strip federal money over woke language. Fresno is fighting him in court
The City of Fresno filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging its use of executive orders to strip local governments of federal funds over what the White House and others have vaguely and repeatedly described as “woke language.” Seven local governments and agencies, including Fresno, came together to file a joint lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
fresnoland.org
August 22, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Wow it’s Fresno and Saint Paul working together
When we were all supposed to support the Ivies as bulwarks of academic freedom despite their elitist disdain for everyone else and then they go full Quisling anyway…almost makes u think that they didn’t care about academic freedom or the purity of knowledge in the first place…
August 6, 2025 at 11:09 PM
When we were all supposed to support the Ivies as bulwarks of academic freedom despite their elitist disdain for everyone else and then they go full Quisling anyway…almost makes u think that they didn’t care about academic freedom or the purity of knowledge in the first place…
I think about this quite a lot insofar as it gives the lie to two writing extremes: academia on the one hand and social media on the other. Both, interestingly, are supposedly about writing-as-thought, in a mediated way on the one hand and an immediate way on the other.
one thing that social media has done to make writing more boring is encouraging people to minimize the ways in which they're inconsistent, unfair, illogical, messy. to be clear, the responsibility of the boring writing this pressure inspires remains on the writer. you gotta just write it anyway
August 2, 2025 at 3:36 PM
I think about this quite a lot insofar as it gives the lie to two writing extremes: academia on the one hand and social media on the other. Both, interestingly, are supposedly about writing-as-thought, in a mediated way on the one hand and an immediate way on the other.
Important to note that this is true at public universities as well. I haven’t met a single non-affiliated Minnesotan who knew how UMN was run, anything about the insanely conservative slant of the Board, or that it had all purposely been constructed to prevent any kind of democratic oversight.
Boards of Trustees ***LIKE*** the Trump demands. They ***AGREE*** with them.
They like the idea of putting the screws on activist, lefty, and Muslim students. They like the idea of a whiter student body and conservative curriculum. They want these things and think $200 million is a fair price.
They like the idea of putting the screws on activist, lefty, and Muslim students. They like the idea of a whiter student body and conservative curriculum. They want these things and think $200 million is a fair price.
July 29, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Important to note that this is true at public universities as well. I haven’t met a single non-affiliated Minnesotan who knew how UMN was run, anything about the insanely conservative slant of the Board, or that it had all purposely been constructed to prevent any kind of democratic oversight.
You love to see elite (and elitist) institutions demand support from the larger academic community they actively disdain and disparage and then turn around and flush it all down the toilet in order to preserve a cozy relationship with the ruling power. Almost like it’s not actually about knowledge…
July 24, 2025 at 4:59 PM
You love to see elite (and elitist) institutions demand support from the larger academic community they actively disdain and disparage and then turn around and flush it all down the toilet in order to preserve a cozy relationship with the ruling power. Almost like it’s not actually about knowledge…
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
everyone who said we shouldn't abolish ICE should spend some time thinking about the mistaken ideas that led them to that incorrect take
July 19, 2025 at 6:48 PM
everyone who said we shouldn't abolish ICE should spend some time thinking about the mistaken ideas that led them to that incorrect take
Thinking about how Ho Chi Minh knew how to make Parker house rolls and Boston cream pie.
July 15, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Thinking about how Ho Chi Minh knew how to make Parker house rolls and Boston cream pie.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
The logistics that ICE will be asked to handle here are nightmarish, and they are already finding difficulties in multiple locations with their current budget. ICE is deeply unpopular, and they can very quickly become the most loathed group in the US, with people getting bolder in resisting them
July 3, 2025 at 7:50 PM
The logistics that ICE will be asked to handle here are nightmarish, and they are already finding difficulties in multiple locations with their current budget. ICE is deeply unpopular, and they can very quickly become the most loathed group in the US, with people getting bolder in resisting them
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
University gen AI training is presented as addressing a deficit in us. Staff and students need to be taught how to use it ethically and responsibly. But the problem is with the technology itself. It’s inherently unethical and irresponsible: extractive, imperialistic, delusional, and unsustainable.
June 26, 2025 at 2:07 PM
University gen AI training is presented as addressing a deficit in us. Staff and students need to be taught how to use it ethically and responsibly. But the problem is with the technology itself. It’s inherently unethical and irresponsible: extractive, imperialistic, delusional, and unsustainable.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
This is continued journalistic malpractice from the @startribune.com normalizing a violent white male suspect. He owned a private security company called Praetorian Guard, traveled overseas to preach against abortion and LGBTQ+ people, and attended a bible college that preaches "violent prayer."
Suspect showed few signs of political extremism before lawmaker shootings
Friends and associates say Vance Boelter, who was apprehended late Sunday and charged with murdering a state lawmaker and her husband, was mild-mannered and did not appear to be fixated on politics.
www.startribune.com
June 16, 2025 at 2:39 PM
This is continued journalistic malpractice from the @startribune.com normalizing a violent white male suspect. He owned a private security company called Praetorian Guard, traveled overseas to preach against abortion and LGBTQ+ people, and attended a bible college that preaches "violent prayer."
Spoken like a true Midwestern sports fan.
the academy: sports are a culturally-insignificant object unworthy of study
the literal pope:
the literal pope:
June 15, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Spoken like a true Midwestern sports fan.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
since i'm apparently already feeling angry and vindictive today it feels like a good time to ask where the "don't call Trump fascist" debate has landed, you know, post-secret police
June 11, 2025 at 4:03 PM
since i'm apparently already feeling angry and vindictive today it feels like a good time to ask where the "don't call Trump fascist" debate has landed, you know, post-secret police
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
Hey Twin Cities folks! A coalition of library workers is rallying to push for a budget increase for Minitex, the state-wide resource-sharing org that saves school, public, and academic libraries hundreds of dollars a year, and which is in danger from IMLS cuts.
May 11, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Hey Twin Cities folks! A coalition of library workers is rallying to push for a budget increase for Minitex, the state-wide resource-sharing org that saves school, public, and academic libraries hundreds of dollars a year, and which is in danger from IMLS cuts.
When are Kyra Sedgwick and Meg Ryan making a late middle aged lesbian Western together
May 4, 2025 at 12:32 AM
When are Kyra Sedgwick and Meg Ryan making a late middle aged lesbian Western together
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
Pope Francis staying alive long enough to insult JD Vance is an amazing exercise in will. May his memory be a blessing.
April 21, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Pope Francis staying alive long enough to insult JD Vance is an amazing exercise in will. May his memory be a blessing.
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
There's scholars of fascism making a big show of moving to Canada so that they don't "get out too late", and there's scholars who are publicly defending the students actually threatened by both the Trump and University administrations. Sharp divide between theory and praxis in resisting fascism here
March 28, 2025 at 1:11 AM
There's scholars of fascism making a big show of moving to Canada so that they don't "get out too late", and there's scholars who are publicly defending the students actually threatened by both the Trump and University administrations. Sharp divide between theory and praxis in resisting fascism here
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
The Signal fiasco is obscuring an essential question: Why is the US bombing Yemen? — my latest for @theguardian.com | www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
March 27, 2025 at 11:12 PM
The Signal fiasco is obscuring an essential question: Why is the US bombing Yemen? — my latest for @theguardian.com | www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Andrew Schumacher Bethke
In so far as it's a sign, it's a sign that elite academics enjoy mobility that 99% of their colleagues do not, given the absurdities of the academic labor market. If you wanted the "direst sign of bad things to come," that was probably when Mahmoud Khalil got detained.
I just found out today that both Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder have left Yale to move to Canada.
If you know who they are, then you know it’s likely the direst sign of bad things to come.
If you know who they are, then you know it’s likely the direst sign of bad things to come.
March 26, 2025 at 1:31 PM
In so far as it's a sign, it's a sign that elite academics enjoy mobility that 99% of their colleagues do not, given the absurdities of the academic labor market. If you wanted the "direst sign of bad things to come," that was probably when Mahmoud Khalil got detained.