paul johnson
@rhetoricpj.bsky.social
I live in pittsburgh and like it. wrote a book about conservative populism. have spent the last 15 years studying the right.
go arsenal! I like gin.
Book: https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817321093/i-the-people/
go arsenal! I like gin.
Book: https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817321093/i-the-people/
"The Cat Nap Economy"
* WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER HASSETT: THERE COULD BE A LITTLE BIT OF ALMOST QUIET TIME IN THE LABOR MARKET
@reuters.com #QuietTime
@reuters.com #QuietTime
November 17, 2025 at 6:33 PM
"The Cat Nap Economy"
Reposted by paul johnson
What is really going on in this society that elected Donald Trump president a second time?
I wrote about three stubborn myths about Trump’s support – and why America has experienced a de-alignment rather than a rightward realignment.
My new piece for @zeit.de – and some thoughts in English:
I wrote about three stubborn myths about Trump’s support – and why America has experienced a de-alignment rather than a rightward realignment.
My new piece for @zeit.de – and some thoughts in English:
Unterstützung von Donald Trump: Die Irrtümer über Donald Trumps Rückhalt
Rechtsruck, multiethnische Koalition, Held einfacher Leute: Trump gilt als fest verankert. Doch diese Überzeugung beruht auf drei großen Missverständnissen.
www.zeit.de
November 17, 2025 at 2:46 PM
What is really going on in this society that elected Donald Trump president a second time?
I wrote about three stubborn myths about Trump’s support – and why America has experienced a de-alignment rather than a rightward realignment.
My new piece for @zeit.de – and some thoughts in English:
I wrote about three stubborn myths about Trump’s support – and why America has experienced a de-alignment rather than a rightward realignment.
My new piece for @zeit.de – and some thoughts in English:
Reposted by paul johnson
Happening tonight! RSVP to escape the cold and join us in having a lovely time talking about terrible things.
New Yorkers! Come join us next Monday night when I'll be interviewing the brilliant @chelseaebin.bsky.social on her new book The Radical Mind, about the origins of Protestant and Catholic right-wing movement building. 5:30pm, Instutute for Public Knowledge, NYU. ipk.nyu.edu/events/book-...
November 17, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Happening tonight! RSVP to escape the cold and join us in having a lovely time talking about terrible things.
look, professionalism is authority, and if are in any way bound to or have to answer to or even acknowledge authority, you're Ontologically Cucked so, gotta destroy all authority in a nihilistic rage to make sure everyone knows You're A Big Strong Independent Person
I've got something coming out tomorrow on how the second Trump term has been an all out war on professionalism in every sense
I like how this employee of the federal government, a public servant, posts obnoxious replies to people that are replete with right-wing misinformation.
November 17, 2025 at 2:47 AM
look, professionalism is authority, and if are in any way bound to or have to answer to or even acknowledge authority, you're Ontologically Cucked so, gotta destroy all authority in a nihilistic rage to make sure everyone knows You're A Big Strong Independent Person
Yea it's a real pin to pull.
FWIW, governors are in a much tougher spot than people realize when it comes to ordering state police to impede ICE, as in “insurrection act territory.”
November 17, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Yea it's a real pin to pull.
Reposted by paul johnson
Rodney King Riot Videos Reveal a Lost Los Angeles
November 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Rodney King Riot Videos Reveal a Lost Los Angeles
Reposted by paul johnson
Join IPK on November 17 for a book talk with @chelseaebin.bsky.social. She will discuss her new book The Radical Mind: The Origins of Right-Wing Catholic and Protestant Coalition Building with @joelowndes.bsky.social.
ipk.nyu.edu/events/book-...
ipk.nyu.edu/events/book-...
November 14, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Join IPK on November 17 for a book talk with @chelseaebin.bsky.social. She will discuss her new book The Radical Mind: The Origins of Right-Wing Catholic and Protestant Coalition Building with @joelowndes.bsky.social.
ipk.nyu.edu/events/book-...
ipk.nyu.edu/events/book-...
Yea i mean, we know there's no gravitational force that makes you more centrist when your party fights. Goldwater extremists taking over the GOP in '64 is what got us here!
I do think a lot of people are underestimating the risks of the GOP civil war. I remember thinking in 2015/16 that Trump moving the the GOP further to the right was going to make it easier for Dems to win, and boy was I wrong there. The Outright Antisemitism wing beating MAGA could be Real Bad.
November 16, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Yea i mean, we know there's no gravitational force that makes you more centrist when your party fights. Goldwater extremists taking over the GOP in '64 is what got us here!
Those are kind of the same thing in the USA let's be real
Y'all, its like I have been saying. This isn't a redemption arc, it's an attempted coup. She is setting herself up for when time, age or scandal takes him down.
Marjorie Taylor Greene to Dana Bash: "You should have Nick Fuentes on your show"
November 16, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Those are kind of the same thing in the USA let's be real
Reposted by paul johnson
one of my hot takes is that Occupy made it much more likely that Obama would beat Romney in 2012 and nobody really talks about that
I've listened to several podcasts and read several articles on why people are souring on capitalism and they all don't mention Occupy which is weird to me because of nothing else they mainstreamed a lot of the language we use today. And it was a genuinely big deal at the time.
November 16, 2025 at 3:14 PM
one of my hot takes is that Occupy made it much more likely that Obama would beat Romney in 2012 and nobody really talks about that
This is about how personhood is defined and understood in neoliberalism. It's supposed to be a kind of absolute good or bad (like the market says valuable or not valuable) rather than something way more complex
The larger discussion of all this is wrapped up in a contemporary notion that I find puzzling of Total Person Endorsement. Nobody can just give props to a single thing people do or make, they feel they have to like and approve of everything about them in order to do so.
You can think it’s good that Massie and MTG are stirring up shit within the GOP caucus without thinking their politics in general is good. It’s not hard at all in fact?
November 16, 2025 at 4:25 PM
This is about how personhood is defined and understood in neoliberalism. It's supposed to be a kind of absolute good or bad (like the market says valuable or not valuable) rather than something way more complex
"Operation We're Not Cucked or Angry Online, Please, Don't Print Either of Those Things"
November 16, 2025 at 3:01 AM
"Operation We're Not Cucked or Angry Online, Please, Don't Print Either of Those Things"
Reposted by paul johnson
Can’t emphasize how much this is true. Your ability to generate attention is your most marketable skill as a writer, for better or worse. Especially right now. If you hate someone but keep sharing their articles, the people who employ them look at that and go “hey, they’re always in the convo”
if you hate the writer, do not share the writer's articles. people clicking on the articles is how the writer gets paid. "how do THEY still have a job in journalism, when so many talented people are being laid of?!" you, because of you. you are why.
November 14, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Can’t emphasize how much this is true. Your ability to generate attention is your most marketable skill as a writer, for better or worse. Especially right now. If you hate someone but keep sharing their articles, the people who employ them look at that and go “hey, they’re always in the convo”
Reposted by paul johnson
Reposted by paul johnson
and if you're curious about the book, well, you can buy the book but if you want a bit more info, here's my interview with @mattgrossmann.bsky.social www.niskanencenter.org/the-backlash...
The backlash presidency - Niskanen Center
Julia Azari finds that backlash presidents like Trump tend to follow transformative presidents like Barack Obama who represent changes to the American racial order.
www.niskanencenter.org
November 13, 2025 at 7:34 PM
and if you're curious about the book, well, you can buy the book but if you want a bit more info, here's my interview with @mattgrossmann.bsky.social www.niskanencenter.org/the-backlash...
and if you're not up to this, consider that you've internalized a form of volkish ideology that makes you cool with sex crimes
So on Epstein, the Democratic position should be "Trump should resign." If you are a Democratic elected, practice saying "We demand the president's resignation" in front of a mirror as many times as it takes until the dry-heaving that comes from having a phobia about actually doing politics passes.
November 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
and if you're not up to this, consider that you've internalized a form of volkish ideology that makes you cool with sex crimes
Wrote a little bit about our slide into trolling-as-governance and its connection to the now-bonkers concentration of authority amongst autocratic techlords
www.techpolicy.press/authoritaria...
www.techpolicy.press/authoritaria...
Authoritarian Arrogance and the End of the 'Reality-Based Community' | TechPolicy.Press
As trolling continues to arrogate power and authority, reality’s move from bent to broken accelerates, writes Paul Elliott Johnson.
www.techpolicy.press
November 12, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Wrote a little bit about our slide into trolling-as-governance and its connection to the now-bonkers concentration of authority amongst autocratic techlords
www.techpolicy.press/authoritaria...
www.techpolicy.press/authoritaria...
Reposted by paul johnson
trump made the prosecutor who gave epstein a pass the secretary of labor!
November 12, 2025 at 2:56 PM
trump made the prosecutor who gave epstein a pass the secretary of labor!
"From 'President Punch' to 'President Pedo:' The Semiotics of Imperial Decline"
the republican party is engaged in a cover up to keep the american people from learning whether president trump is president pedo
A direct email exchange from 2011 between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, just released by House Oversight Committee Democrats.
November 12, 2025 at 2:38 PM
"From 'President Punch' to 'President Pedo:' The Semiotics of Imperial Decline"
Few movies more coked up than Natural Born Killers
November 12, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Few movies more coked up than Natural Born Killers
ok but the spoiler is its just Morgan Wallen
November 11, 2025 at 8:35 PM
ok but the spoiler is its just Morgan Wallen
i don't even think its that perverse, really. the production of failure and catastrophe for right-wing forces who need catastrophe to be the state of things is a feature not a bug. if they had shame or were restrained by intellectual consistency it might matter but...
The thing to understand about this is that this catastrophe in the UK has redounded to the political benefit of the very same people and political movement that pushed for it! Extremely perverse.
I wonder if the United States can learn anything from the last time a major industrialized country decided to isolate itself from the rest of the world?
Almost a decade after the Brexit vote, GDP in the UK is around 6-8% lower relative to peer countries. (Source: www.nber.org/papers/w34459)
Almost a decade after the Brexit vote, GDP in the UK is around 6-8% lower relative to peer countries. (Source: www.nber.org/papers/w34459)
November 11, 2025 at 8:09 PM
i don't even think its that perverse, really. the production of failure and catastrophe for right-wing forces who need catastrophe to be the state of things is a feature not a bug. if they had shame or were restrained by intellectual consistency it might matter but...
Reposted by paul johnson
It is hard to come up with a better analogy for whiteness than preferring the AI simulacra of your supposed authentic art form to whatever a Black woman from your art form’s cultural geography might make.
As long as it's not Beyonce country music fans are fine with this development
November 11, 2025 at 7:53 PM
It is hard to come up with a better analogy for whiteness than preferring the AI simulacra of your supposed authentic art form to whatever a Black woman from your art form’s cultural geography might make.
Reposted by paul johnson
80 year mortgages
November 11, 2025 at 2:22 PM
80 year mortgages
tonight's seminar readings:
-selections from Fanon's Wretched of the Earth
-Mirzeoff's "Right to Look" in Critical Inquiry
-Mack and Na'Puti on the body and anti-violent sovereignty
-Byrd "Weather with You"
-selections from Fanon's Wretched of the Earth
-Mirzeoff's "Right to Look" in Critical Inquiry
-Mack and Na'Puti on the body and anti-violent sovereignty
-Byrd "Weather with You"
November 10, 2025 at 9:47 PM
tonight's seminar readings:
-selections from Fanon's Wretched of the Earth
-Mirzeoff's "Right to Look" in Critical Inquiry
-Mack and Na'Puti on the body and anti-violent sovereignty
-Byrd "Weather with You"
-selections from Fanon's Wretched of the Earth
-Mirzeoff's "Right to Look" in Critical Inquiry
-Mack and Na'Puti on the body and anti-violent sovereignty
-Byrd "Weather with You"