Larry Glickman
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larryglickman.bsky.social
Larry Glickman
@larryglickman.bsky.social
21K followers 1.1K following 4.9K posts
Historian at Cornell University and author, most recently, of FREE ENTERPRISE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY. Working on a history of backlash politics in the United States, from Reconstruction to the present.
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larryglickman.bsky.social
When the President of the United States gathers thousands of his followers and lies about a "stolen election" in the most incendiary way, and even urges them to head to the Capitol (and lies about going with them), how could one argue that he didn't encourage the insurrection?
And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It's a disgrace. There's never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we've been going through in this country. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.
November 9, 2025 at 9:01 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
In his speech that day, he said calming things like this.
Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal. Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.
November 9, 2025 at 8:56 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
But he did.
BBC’s Director General and Chief Executive Quit Their Posts The abrupt moves followed controversy over claims that a documentary had been edited to suggest that President Trump had encouraged the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
November 9, 2025 at 8:47 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Well, if he insists....
The president has insisted that his tariffs are a key part of a plan to bolster the American economy to unseen heights.
November 9, 2025 at 4:53 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Interesting to read @kylegriffin1.bsky.social on the scope of the Dem victory in Pennsylvania last Tuesday, which suggests that Dems have, in fact, persuaded a lot of Democratic voters in that state "that the party deserves another chance." (Quote below is from Binyamin Appelbaum's column today.)
November 9, 2025 at 4:22 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
For this reason, it's a bit premature, I think, to rule out that progressive messaging on these issues (even if its voiced by candidates who do not position themselves as such) may well have national appeal. Economic populism and anti-authoritarianism can be voiced in different keys.
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York does not demonstrate the viability of progressive candidates outside of a few big cities and coastal states. Nor can Democrats solve their problems by wrapping the same ideas in better paper. The party has marginalized itself so thoroughly that even Mr. Trump’s unpopular presidency isn’t doing much to make Democrats more popular. Everything Democrats want to accomplish is downstream from figuring out how to persuade voters in places like Pennsylvania — and in a bunch of places where the Democratic brand is held in even lower regard — that the party deserves another chance.
November 9, 2025 at 2:14 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
I'm seeing a lot of comments about how the recent elections highlighted the importance of Democratic coalitional politics, with the recognition that the formula for success may differ across regions, alongside a recognition that the message of affordability and democracy traveled well everywhere.
Tuesday’s election results have supercharged the debate among Democrats about whether the road to political recovery runs toward the middle or the left. The reason the argument persists is not because the answer is unclear but because, for many Democrats, the clear answer is unpalatable. The party will not return to the White House, nor reclaim Congress, until it learns to embrace centrist politicians like Mr. Shapiro.
November 9, 2025 at 2:06 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
The final “question” from the New York Times’ David Marchese in his interview with Greg Gutfeld. Maybe let the readers judge whether it went well. Hard to imagine Chotiner closing an interview this way.
You probably expected this to go badly, and then it went well. Exactly right. If I expected, coming into this interview, that this was going to somehow change my leife and I was going to won the libs, then I would be a cranky, cantankerous [expleitive]. But in this case, I’m like; We’ll see what happens. He’ll probably have some penetrating questions. He’ll probably try to psychoanalyze me. He might even bring up Dominion. But know that ahead of time, I’m pleasantly surprised.
November 9, 2025 at 11:06 AM
larryglickman.bsky.social
So why do you keep calling Trump an "economic populist"?
On one side are billionaires like Mr. Musk and their many supporters, including President Trump, who see the financial success of a small group of executives as something to be celebrated and emulated.
November 7, 2025 at 2:45 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
This passage puts Musk's arrogance and moral blinders on full display. At DOGE, Musk destroyed USAID and weakened other part of the compensatory state that have been shown to effectively address poverty. Yet here he babbling about robots and "wild sci-fi scenarios" as the "only way" to do so.
Mr. Musk addressed some of those concerns obliquely, saying the company’s humanoid robot, Optimus, was the singular solution for addressing poverty. The robot remains under development. “People often talk about eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care. Well, there’s actually only one way to do that, and that’s with the Optimus robot,” Mr. Musk said. “You start getting into like, some pretty wild sci-fi sort of scenarios.”
November 7, 2025 at 11:32 AM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Come on, Ross. The literature on the homosocial world in the nineteenth century United States is enormous. Indeed, it is the title of the opening chapter of Kathy Peiss' classic book, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York.
Douthat: One of the larger stories of our world — we’ve referenced it a couple times — is that we’re in a society where men and women are not interacting successfully, I think. The genders are more politically polarized than at any point in modern history. Chapter One: The Homosocial World of Working-Class Amusements
November 6, 2025 at 10:53 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
I didn't know that my little college town counts as a "Capital of wokeness," but I want it on a T-shirt to compete with "Ithaca is Gorges"
Andrews: Yeah. And I think you can imagine the same kind of thing — to jump to another institution — in academia. Academia is extremely feminized today, and it’s not a coincidence that college campuses are capitals of wokeness, so it’s probably unlikely that college faculty are going to be defeminized anytime soon. But I think we can achieve helpful compromise in the yin-and-yang dynamic that you described by reinstituting certain guardrails to guard against female vices.
November 6, 2025 at 10:45 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Thinking back to when American was great and we had a spate of books about the "warrior protector", like THE MAN IN THE GREY FLANNEL SUIT, THE ORGANIZATION MAN, THE LONELY CROWD, and WHITE COLLAR.
Douthat: This gets to a larger question that I have for both of you, which is that there is something about the postindustrial economy that, as far as I can tell — and this shows up in multiple societies; it doesn’t just happen in the United States — it seems to produce a lot of jobs that women thrive in, and it produces fewer jobs that maybe, let’s say, fulfill the kind of warrior protector mode. These are crude stereotypes, but I think we can look around the eco William H. Whyte The Organization Man
November 6, 2025 at 10:30 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
I wish Douthat had followed up and asked Andrews what "areas of inquiry" have been "ruled out of bounds in history" because they are "too controversial" and lead historians away from "truth seeking."
Andrews: Well, no. Let me maybe reframe it in a way that will make a point that seems very obvious to me, clear to the people at this table. If there are more female historians than male historians, that will have some effects on what gets studied in history. You will have more social history and feminist history, and a lot less military history and economic history. Now, I’m willing to say that that’s sort of fine, and that maybe the old male-dominated history profession did not do enough social history. And we can all probably agree that the correct balance for the history profession is a little bit of each. That’s kind of a neutral result of feminization. On the other hand, the fact that certain areas of inquiry are ruled out of bounds in history or in psychology now because they are too controversial, that — which is what wokeness is — seems like a genuine problem. That’s not just that feminization has caused some changes, and some of them are good and some of them are bad, and we all need to learn how to live with the world being different now — that’s a bad thing, because it involves history or psychology not doing what it is supposed to do, which is pursue the truth.
November 6, 2025 at 9:44 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Has Trump been reading Marshall Sahlins?
Marhsall Sahlins Stone Age Economics
November 6, 2025 at 2:46 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
This AP story immediately following the 2021 election said the results in NJ and VA were a "warning...to Democrats that their grip on power in Washington may be in peril."
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey won reelection in his reliably blue state while a Republican newcomer delivered a stunning upset in the Virginia governor's race, sending a warning Wednesday to Democrats that their grip on power in Washington may be in peril.
November 6, 2025 at 2:02 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
"Nationalist populism" seems a bit euphemistic to describe the explicitly racist and antisemitic commitments not just of Fuentes and his followers, but of other elements of the MAGA coalition.
As Republicans jostle for Mr. Trump’s mantle, they may be tempted to court the Groyper fringe to bolster a right-wing coalition that includes the furthest reaches of nationalist populism. Or they could pivot back to a much less ideological middle.
November 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
"Insensitive remarks"
The assassination of Charlie Kirk also left a power vacuum on the right that has set off a scramble among its more extreme elements. Though Mr. Kirk had made his share of insensitive remarks, he tried to hold the followers of Mr. Fuentes at bay in his own youth organization, Turning Point USA. Mr. Fuentes often antagonized Mr. Kirk, calling him an “idiot” and worse.
November 6, 2025 at 1:33 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Maybe it would be a good idea for someone in the media to ask Trump directly about this, not least because Trump hosted Fuentes for a meal.
Mr. Trump has said nothing publicly about Mr. Fuentes’s interview, nor has Mr. Vance, who is personally close to Mr. Carlson.
November 6, 2025 at 1:30 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Richard Hanania's framing seems more accurate and straightforward.
“The distance between Fuentes and the mainstream Republican Party isn’t really that large,” said Richard Hanania, a conservative writer who once posted under a pseudonym in white supremacist forums. (He has since denounced his past writings.)
November 6, 2025 at 1:14 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
I'm still trying to parse this formulation because "heartburn" seems like a mild thing to cause for a major political party when a significant part of its base is allied with a despicable racist and antisemite, but also because by dining with him isn't Trump the one causing the heartburn?
Mr. Fuentes and his explicit bigotry have been causing the Republican Party heartburn for years, including when Mr. Trump dined with him and the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at Mar-a-Lago in 2022. Now, as Mr. Cruz put it, the G.O.P. faces a time of choosing.
November 6, 2025 at 1:12 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
This lede for this story about the Supreme Court’s
”skeptical” take on the Trump administrations tariffs presents an extremely one-sided view, given that it is inaccurate to describe many of the “deals” he has announced—as, e.g., with China—as Trump successfully “bending other nations to his will.”
President Trump has fashioned tariffs as the utility knife of his second-term agenda. They have helped him to raise revenue, shape trade negotiations and bend other nations to his political will.
November 6, 2025 at 12:09 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
The stylings of Ross Douthat.
Ross Douthat It’s Obvious Why Harris Lost in 2024. But Can Democrats Accept it? Nov 1, 2025 Mamdani’s Victory is Less Significant Than You Think: New York’s Next Mayor Won’t Save the Democrats Nov 5, 2025 Hosted by Ross Douthat Produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd
November 5, 2025 at 12:25 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
I am so excited to have received @lkatfield.bsky.social’s FURIOUS MINDS in the mail today. Can’t wait to dig into this one.
Furious minds: the making of the maga new right Laura K. Field
November 4, 2025 at 10:20 PM
larryglickman.bsky.social
Thinking back to one of the big applause lines of the 2000 Vice Presidential debate, when Dick Cheney claimed, remarkably, that the federal government "had nothing do with" the riches he had earned as an executive at Halliburton during the previous half decade.
LIEBERMAN: Dick Cheney must be one of the few people who think nothing has been accomplished in the last eight years. Promises were made and promises were kept. Has Al Gore — did Al Gore make promises in 1992? Absolutely. Did he deliver? Big time. If I may put it that way. That’s the record. Look at the 20 — look at the 22 million new jobs. Look at the 4 million new businesses. Look at the lower interest rates, low rate of inflation, high rate of growth. I think if you asked most people in America today that famous question that Ronald Reagan asked, “Are you better off today than you were eight years ago?” Most people would say yes. I’m pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers that you’re better off than you were eight years ago, too. CHENEY: I can tell you, Joe, the government had absolutely nothing to do with it. (LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
November 4, 2025 at 8:45 PM