Anna Lind-Guzik
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alindguzik.bsky.social
Anna Lind-Guzik
@alindguzik.bsky.social
6K followers 1.5K following 1.9K posts
Founder @conversationalist.org. Host of The Conversationalist podcast. Lapsed lawyer and historian. Writing on authoritarianism, rule of law, human rights, feminism. She/her.
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alindguzik.bsky.social
great sticker game for early voters today in NYC!! GO VOTE!
Hand holding two stickers. One blue with text Manhattan Votes Early and the Empire State Building. Second orange and black with a pigeon in a witch hat holding a pumpkin purse that says Halloween Voter 2025
October 31, 2025 at 3:54 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
it’s my birthday!! Started the day right with yoga and a raspberry croissant from l’appartement 4f 💕🎉
Raspberry croissant topped with almonds and powdered sugar
October 3, 2025 at 3:44 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
My sweet little dude just got a haircut and they sent him home in a fiery swirl bandanna
Freshly groomed small white dog with a bandanna
July 21, 2025 at 6:56 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
what I wouldnt do for this little dude
Fluffy white senior shih-poo licking his nose
July 17, 2025 at 1:37 AM
alindguzik.bsky.social
they’re all so good
The New York Times Government Contractors Decry 'Socialism' In N.Y.C. Mayoral Race
July 8, 2025 at 5:04 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
Lmao mamdanitimes.com
The New York Times Eric Adams Questions Mamdani's Commitment to Serving Interests of Turkey
July 8, 2025 at 4:58 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
you may not like it but this is what two high agency males look like
David Bowie and Mick Jagger staring into each other’s eyes and singing in the dancing in the street video
June 6, 2025 at 2:27 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
“You gain profitability by denying care, and when profitability suffers for the shareholders, that’s when people get crazy and do things that are not appropriate.”
One term that UnitedHealth executives obsessed over was “admits per thousand” – APK for short. It was a measure of the rate that nursing homes sent their residents to the hospital. Under the “Premium Dividend” program, a low APK qualified a nursing home for the various bonus payments the insurer offered. A high APK meant that a nursing home received nothing. “APK drove everything,” said one former national UnitedHealth executive who worked on the initiative with nursing homes in more than two dozen states and spoke about the confidential contracts on the condition of anonymity. “You gain profitability by denying care, and when profitability suffers for the shareholders, that’s when people get crazy and do things that are not appropriate.”
May 21, 2025 at 2:40 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
okay I’m dying at this part where they think of themselves as dissidents when they’re clearly the regime
In February, he described the group chats to the podcaster Lex Fridman as “the equivalent of samizdat” — the self-published Soviet underground press — in a “soft authoritarian” age of social media shaming and censorship. “The combination of encryption and disappearing messages really unleashed it,” he said. The chats, he wrote recently, helped produce our national “vibe shift.”
April 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
how am I doing? well I’m rereading the trial again
Cover of Kafka’s The Trial with five pairs of blue eyes plus one green eye on a red background
April 16, 2025 at 8:19 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
It’s outrageous that the media pummeled Biden over decline and never had a proper conversation about Trump
A man with no impulse control and no chance of improvement is shooting his missiles all over, not to mention targeting vulnerable populations at home. The world is in a panic while the doctors worry that he’ll sue. Beyond compounding the crisis of public ignorance, the moratorium is a reflection of the way professional norms are all too often wielded to protect predators and silence women. The media’s dispiriting willingness to roll over and let old white men dictate the boundaries of legitimate conversation and expertise has to end.
April 7, 2025 at 4:58 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
aging tyrants facing mortality with no succession plans is one of my favorite themes
Repin painting of Ivan the Terrible killing his own son Meme of repin painting with MAGA clutching a dead Uncle Sam
March 28, 2025 at 7:45 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
“People continue to argue that America can’t be fascist, as if semantics will save us from what’s to come.”
Authoritarians don’t want a big tent. They want—demand—a loyal, obedient cult of personality. Exclusion is their power move. The GOP is an authoritarian party that has been open about its intent to establish minority rule by any means necessary. The Big Lie is going strong, part of a long tradition of racist Lost Causes. As of April 1, Republicans introduced 361 voter suppression bills in 47 states. As Jamelle Bouie wrote in The New York Times: If It’s Not Jim Crow, What is It? In Florida and Oklahoma, Republicans legalized hitting protestors with cars. Across the country, Republicans are engaging in an all-out legal assault on trans kids and their families. This past week, the Republican-installed Supreme Court agreed to take up a Mississippi abortion case that is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. Republicans have been on the path toward authoritarianism for more than two decades. Bush v. Gore, Citizens United and Shelby v Holder were way stations on the road to the insurrection. Trump just speeded up the journey and helped them blossom into their worst selves. American exceptionalism has distorted our perception of the GOP’s turn to authoritarianism. The shocked surprise at each new escalation, the democracy experts Columbusing authoritarian studies—there are so many experts in so many countries to whom one could turn for years of accumulated wisdom if only the association were not considered so deeply offensive. A hardwired belief that “it couldn’t happen here” has made it impossible to acknowledge the reality: it has already “happened here.” People continue to argue that America can’t be fascist, as if semantics will save us from what’s to come. People said it couldn’t be a slow-motion coup, and even if it was, that it would never succeed. How cavalier! In November, 2020 I tweeted, “Not every attempted coup becomes a successful coup, but every successful coup was once an attempted coup. Why the fuck would you ever want to take the chance?”
March 18, 2025 at 5:25 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
there’s a lesson here from the collapse of the USSR and oligarchs raiding the Russian public sector and how that killed any democratic future
But it might work for us meme with Tobias and Lindsay
March 11, 2025 at 3:45 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
I attended yesterday’s protest to release Mahmoud Khalil. I’m sickened that this admin is using antisemitism as a pretext for killing free speech on campus and deporting students whose politics they don’t like.
Picture of the NYC protest to release Mahmoud Khalil, including a sign that says “in the name of Humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!” And another sign that says “release Mahmoud Khalil hands off our students”
March 11, 2025 at 2:40 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
“Insult the sovereign, or threaten his control, and watch him burn the building down with everyone trapped inside. Whatever it takes to teach them a lesson.”

conversationalist.org/2023/02/10/d...
Meanwhile, it’s the same self-destructive, patriarchal entitlement that motivates domestic violence that motivates atrocities like the Russian invasion of Ukraine – if I can’t have you, nobody can – with the same results. Putin first became aggressive in 2014 after Ukraine turned down a trade agreement with Russia in favor of one with the European Union. (Again, it’s most dangerous when you try to leave.) Absent consequences, including for past wars in Syria, Georgia, and Chechnya, Putin has continuously escalated the bloodshed, and will do anything short of giving up power to punish Ukrainians for daring to be free, including letting Russia crumble. In that sense, he’s just like Michael Haight: Insult the sovereign, or threaten his control, and watch him burn the building down with everyone trapped inside. Whatever it takes to teach them a lesson.
February 18, 2025 at 10:02 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
This man is a disgrace to the profession. Anyway as a Canadian friend says, “the last time the US tried to invade Canada we burned down the White House”
Screenshot of Peter Baker’s delusional post/ NYT article suggesting there’s an upside to invading and annexing Canada
February 18, 2025 at 2:07 AM
alindguzik.bsky.social
last week I was still able to get a carton of eggs for $4.50. Today:
Empty row of grocery store fridges where eggs used to be
February 13, 2025 at 4:15 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
Or take the funding freeze. As of right now, according to the courts, Trump is not allowed to withhold funding to any organization or institution that receives federal money appropriated by Congress. But it’s not at all clear that Trump has turned the money back on. Trump is likely in violation of the TROs suspending his funding freeze as we speak, but the Trump-aligned media refuses to talk about it that way.
February 8, 2025 at 1:28 AM
alindguzik.bsky.social
Who could’ve seen this coming?

me in Feb 2017: Americans are not above electing dictators, but exceptionalism prevents us from seeing this.
Americans aren’t immune to the desire for strong leaders, fast action, and easy solutions. They are not above electing dictators Despite, or perhaps due to our decades-long position as the preeminent global power, Americans’ worldview has become increasingly isolated and provincial. American leaders on both sides promote the banal myth of American exceptionalism, precluding self-awareness on Americans’ part about our place in the world historically and in relation to other countries. We smugly assumed that the global anti-democratic trends would pass us by. In our complacency, we ignored the warning signs of the incoming white supremacist regime, one that seeks to criminalize protest and brands citizens of entire countries as dangerous terrorists overnight. As heartening as the ninth circuit’s recent sharp rebuke to Trump’s executive order is, there’s no reason to believe the courts alone can save us. The likelihood of a terror attack has surely risen, given the Trump administration’s gross ineptitude at everything but causing chaos. Steve Bannon, White House Chief Strategist and Trump’s puppet-master, is itching for a reason to suspend habeas corpus. He’s already set America on a path to destroy the post-war global order, epitomized by the 1948 Refugee Convention.
February 7, 2025 at 10:52 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
“At every turn we get tripped up by reality, especially around humanity’s capacity for evil at scale, not to mention imperial decline….But few want to wrap their heads around the fact that most checks on executive power are already gone.” conversationalist.org/2025/01/24/s...
Americans have an escalating autocracy problem, but underlying that is an emotional and psychological problem. At every turn, we get tripped up by reality, especially around humanity’s capacity for evil at scale, not to mention imperial decline. Putting these criminals in charge has likely poisoned the United States for generations. Anyone who thinks it will be over in four years is deluding themselves. But few want to wrap their heads around the fact that most checks on executive power are already gone. No one wants to imagine themselves being targeted until it’s too late. We don’t want to believe that things can, and will, get worse. But our failures of imagination won’t stop the bad things from happening. They’ll just ensure we won’t be prepared to handle them—which is exactly how we’ve ended up here
February 5, 2025 at 10:21 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
The speed at which he’s proving that this is worse than most imagined is remarkable. conversationalist.org/2025/01/24/s...
In the days since he was sworn in, I’ve been frustrated but not surprised that people still don’t get it. “Is he really a fascist?” “Was that really a Nazi salute?” “Is this really going to be that bad?” Girl, yes. In fact, it’s probably going to be worse than most can imagine, considering it was a massive failure of imagination that led us here in the first place: American optimism has done us no favors this time around, and now we’re all paying the price.
January 31, 2025 at 10:02 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
I could have added aviation safety to this list. We’re going to miss the good government we took for granted once it’s gone. conversationalist.org/2025/01/24/s...
And still, we have a lot to lose. People think eggs were expensive before. Just wait until they’re double the price, half as available, and ten times more likely to poison you with avian flu. We’re going to miss career civil servants, food safety, consumer protections, postal service, air and water quality, public health, public education, libraries, a free press, a depoliticized military, rule of law, and free and fair elections when they’re gone. We’re going to miss support for climate science, contraceptives, and measles vaccines. We’re going to miss the immigrants who are the backbone of our economy and our culture. We’re especially going to miss being able to remove the politicians responsible for predatory policies. A lot of Trump voters depend on Medicare and Social Security. Congrats, you’ve played yourself. It’s not that we didn’t have serious problems before. It’s that in a year from now, we’re going to be nostalgic for them. We’re going to miss the good government we took for granted once it’s gone.
January 30, 2025 at 6:20 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
Fascism is all about prosperity through persecution. Help us get the rid of the bad undeserving folks and there will be more left for you. conversationalist.org/2025/01/24/s...
Taking hostages is par for the course: The message Trump was selling wasn’t economic prosperity for all, but economic prosperity for his supporters, at the expense of the rest. Fascism is all about prosperity through persecution. Help us get rid of the bad, undeserving folks, and there will be more left for you. No, not every Trump voter is chomping at the bit to deport 20 million people. Some just wanted to stick it to the incumbent administration, and others weren’t paying much attention either way. Their intentions are irrelevant, however, because they gave the electorate’s power away, and effectively voted for Americans to not freely and fairly vote again.
January 28, 2025 at 2:43 PM
alindguzik.bsky.social
Whoops here’s the text missing in the middle. Anyways please read the whole article. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how Americans let this disaster happen, and now it’s out in the world. conversationalist.org/2025/01/24/s...
Since then, the Eichmann tapes have surfaced—a 1957 recording of an interview Eichmann did in Buenos Aires, in which he admitted to a fellow Nazi that of course they knew they were murdering all those Jews, and he’d have been happy had they completed the job. Countless academics and practitioners, myself included, have spent decades debating the banality of evil and individual agency: whether people intentionally commit mass murder or are “just following orders.” Fields have developed, careers have been made, and centers have been built around the question of whether perpetrators are cynics or true believers—when all this time Eichmann was just a fucking liar.
January 25, 2025 at 4:07 PM