Quinta Jurecic
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qjurecic.bsky.social
Quinta Jurecic
@qjurecic.bsky.social
83K followers 1.8K following 6.5K posts
Writing about law and democracy at The Atlantic, previously Lawfare. Not a lawyer. It's KWIN-ta.

signal: qjurecic.32
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qjurecic.bsky.social
(it is actually interesting to me how quicky kirk has faded as a justification for repression)
November 10, 2025 at 4:18 PM
qjurecic.bsky.social
joe mccarthy—he's being recognized more and more
November 10, 2025 at 4:16 PM
qjurecic.bsky.social
But they also said that Trump is facing far, far more public opposition today than the government ever saw during the McCarthy era. American civil society is weaker than many had hoped, but it's also stronger than it once was. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
When I spoke with Schrecker about her study of the second Red Scare, she pointed to Kimmel’s victory as an indication of the difference between the McCarthy era and today. During McCarthyism, “there was essentially no opposition,” she told me. “People either supported the purges, or else they were too afraid.” One representative anecdote in No Ivory Tower describes a graduate student at the University of Chicago who, during the ’50s, was unable to persuade frightened colleagues to sign a petition—not about any politically sensitive topic but for the university to install a vending machine in their laboratory. In contrast, after Disney pulled Kimmel from the air, petitions and calls for boycotts blossomed. The ACLU launched a campaign to “defend free speech,” and hundreds of actors and artists signed on.
November 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
qjurecic.bsky.social
Of the historians, lawyers, and scholars I spoke to while writing this, many said the same thing: What's happening now is worth than McCarthyism. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
The historians, lawyers, and scholars I spoke with were in marked agreement that the current moment is not just comparable to but even more damaging than previous Red Scares. Within higher education, today’s crackdown is “worse than McCarthyism—much worse,” Ellen Schrecker, a historian and the author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, told me. Then, she explained, individual academics were scrutinized and fired for Communist ties. But today, the country is experiencing a “frontal attack on everything that has to do with universities and colleges,” Schrecker said. This assault on higher education is best understood as a means of destroying a locus of political opposition. With growing political polarization along educational lines, college-educated voters have become more likely to vote for the Democratic Party. Trump’s solution is an attempted dismantling of the institutions that helped produce these voters in the first place—and a symbolic attack on institutions of knowledge and expertise that are inherently at odds with Trump’s model of governance by know-nothingism.
November 10, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Quinta Jurecic
americalabs.org
For those interested, last night I wrote about what's in the CR deal for Congress. If you want a slightly more coherent take...

firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/whats-in-t...
What's in the CR Deal for Congress?
With a vote as early as tonight, we quickly ran the numbers
firstbranchforecast.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:29 PM
qjurecic.bsky.social
Manhattan! It smells like urine and it’s the only place in the world there are corner stores
November 8, 2025 at 8:13 PM
qjurecic.bsky.social
A memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is circulating among govt agencies, warns that "if we do nothing ... the same deep state actors who have egregiously weaponized counterintelligence for political purposes will be empowered"
November 7, 2025 at 5:33 PM
qjurecic.bsky.social
ok I’m sold, what should I read on this
November 6, 2025 at 11:07 PM