Bonnie Honig

@bonniehonig.bsky.social

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PhD. political theorist, feminist, cultural critic, and a 2023-24 Guggenheim Fellow working on a book about performativity (the good kind). New article on Singin in the Rain ☔️ and Sorry to Bother You 🐴 out now in Cultural Critique

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Since so many of you have cancelled the NYTimes, here is a gift link to an incredible story. Really it is two stories, interwoven, about themes I’ve been thinking about - kidnapping, misogyny, inheritance, survival, and trauma — a sometimes difficult read and very thoughtfully considered 🎁

The Kidnapping I Can’t Escapewww.nytimes.com Fifty years ago, my father’s friend was taken at gunpoint on Long Island. Then he went on with his life — and that’s the part that haunts me.

He will turn it in early and she will berate him for it …

As Kyle Cheney points out, Judge Cannon is giving the special counsel two weeks to weigh in on whether she should approve Trump’s request for additional briefing—and only THEN would the actual briefing happen

Eg., Tuppence!?

In retrospect, the NYT Spelling Bee’s blithe refusal to care about words that are in the dictionary should have struck more word nerds as symptomatic.

Dahlia Lithwick: “Roberts cannot bring himself to even imagine the thing that actually happened.. Sotomayor can’t blind herself to it…she is viscerally affronted at the double denialism: What you saw with your own eyes didn’t occur, and what we have now authorized with our own pens can never happen”

CHIEF JUSTICE V. THE WOMEN OF THE UNITED STATES The MAGA majority wants to deliver Trump a government conscripted in an “effort to belittle and degrade women,” and GOP men would like women to stop being so “hysterical” about it, writes Dahlia Lithwick.

Don’t Be Hysterical, Ladies. Daddy Chief Justice Knows Best.slate.com It is pretty jarring to hear this kind of condescension trotted out by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Greenhouse finds a glimmer of shame in the otherwise shameless Supreme Court…

Always worth reading Linda Greenhouse on SCOTUS. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/o...

Opinion | A Dismissed Abortion Case Points to Internal Tensions and Dysfunction at the Supreme Courtwww.nytimes.com The court dismisses an abortion case it now says it should never have accepted, opening a window on internal tensions.

If TFG was 20 years younger they’d fear him but they are counting on Father Time to do their dirty work while there’s still time for them to enjoy some of the spoils…

Watching the GOP reaction to the Supreme Court's "immunity" decision has been instructive. These folks don't "fear" Trump, as we've been told. They want a dictator. They may personally despise him and his smell. But he's their best shot at fascism. www.salon.com/2024/07/03/g...

Republican glee over "immunity" decision shows they don't fear Donald Trump — they desire a dictatorwww.salon.com Trump has threatened to have people killed, and GOP politicians aren't bothered in the slightest

They have courts in Russia, don’t they? (Said to the tune of “They shoot horses, don’t they?”)

constitutional lawyers use your fucking brain challenge www.politico.com/news/2024/07...

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The more you read yesterday’s immunity decision, the more appalling it gets. My take: www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/o...

Opinion | The Supreme Court Creates a Lawless Presidencywww.nytimes.com It is increasingly clear that this court sees itself as something other than a participant in our democratic system.

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Steve Bannon is in prison for contempt and Rudy Giuliani just lost his N.Y. law license, but John Roberts insists that invisible ink in the Constitution prevents Donald Trump, the ringleader, from facing charges for virtually anything that Trump can claim was an official act.

If this decision was in place during Nixon’s time in power, there would be no tapes, no DOJ refusals, no Gerald Ford pardon, etc. That said, the limited congressional oversight and checking of the executive branch since then has allowed previous presidents to operate AS IF immune on many matters…

i think we should see the Trump v. United States ruling as a group of Republican apparatchiks taking their opportunity to vindicate Nixon and write the unitary executive into the Constitution. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/o...

Opinion | Your Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card Is Ready, Sirwww.nytimes.com The Nixonian theory of presidential power is now enshrined as constitutional law.

I thought I heard this qn & decided I must be wrong. What an asshat question on this day of all days. I myself wish he’d said something more “decisive and bold” (!) like “the Ct, in removing the guardrails of democracy, has gone rogue. This isn’t like losing your voice at a debate. This is serious”

“What makes you so confident you should be president?” is an actual question a reporter shouted at the incumbent who just warned about a reckless court decision that imperils democracy

Totally useless I am sorry to say. Pledging to self restrain? Omg

Absolutely

roberts essentially ignores the purpose of separation of powers, which was not to create entirely separate spheres of action but to prevent the emergence of unchecked authority. instead, he says, separation of powers *demands* unchecked authority.

“A decision for the ages,” Gorsuch said. And Roberts stopped to wag his finger at the three women Justices (who are in fact more conservative than he is). If Biden can only rise to the occasion…

It's not the worst of it, but what I may be actually angriest about (right now) is Roberts' smarmy smugness and dismissiveness in the final two paragraphs of section IV and the whole of section V. "Fear mongering," "extreme hypotheticals," "our perspective must be more farsighted," and this.

The Brits will be getting rid of their monarchy just in time for the US to reinstall theirs. Happy Canada Day.

I guess the British won after all.

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The thing I can't stop thinking about is this: I'm 48, and in my adult lifetime there has been one Republican who won the popular vote. But I will probably spend the rest of my life under the authority of a Supreme Court dominated by hard right conservatives. How is that democracy?

Well at least now the news has something else to pretend to be breathless about.

Sotomayor: “With fear for our democracy I dissent”. Court won’t allow an aspirational fascist to be accountable in court. Politics is flooded with money and disinformation, gerrymandered and electoral colleged, so our hands tied there too. Biden has 3 months to officially add seats to the Court and…

Great stuff in here!

OUT NOW 🎉 “Trans Histories by Trans Historians,” a GHR special issue featuring the work of nine emerging trans historians and the joyful cover art of Two-Spirit artist Milo Ira. Co-edited by @chrisapihlak.bsky.social and yours truly 🏳️‍⚧️ Please share & read open-access here: tinyurl.com/ghrvol12

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In the debate TFG asked Biden if he’d ever fired anyone, as if that is the real leadership test. Now people call for Biden to fire his advisors: heads should roll! But this is a TFG talking point. I wish Biden had been able to say I don’t fire people. I build an economy so people can hire people!

It’s the televisual, stupid. You know how Jan 6 committee hired television producers to make their findings appealing for TV? Those TV people should now be on retainer for Biden and Harris. Reading today’s story about how Biden was prepped makes it clear that no one on board understood the mission.

The last time someone took a gamble this big (replacing the nominee) in the run up to a presidential election was when McCain - urged on by party elites to DO SOMETHING! — picked Sarah Palin for his VP pick…

Let's grant the obvious that no one seems to want to emphasize: Replacing the nominee at this point—let alone a successful president (perhaps the most successful first-term president since FDR)—would be the biggest gamble in the history of American politics.

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On Monday, the prosecution and defense will submit their sentencing briefs to Justice Merchan with regard to the 34 felony convictions of Former President Donald Trump. If I were an ADA, I would include Trump’s false statements about the case during last night’s debate in their own section.

America needs an exorcism

What I wish he’d said: “everything he’s said is a lie. economy was great. Things were perfect. Now, this is just a debate. But when you’re president and you can’t grasp reality, people die. Americans were dying by the 1,000’s when he said that Covid will go away one day. & when he sides with Putin…

Correct

There’s a debate strategy often used by pseudoscience peddlers known as the Gish Gallop. The debater throws out a barrage of false claims, one after another, far too many for the opponent to ever actually refute them all. The opponent stalls as he tries to figure out what to respond to first.

Finally, a job for which Chat GPT is well- suited

Ok so what was the point of Tapper and Bash tonight really? They just read questions aloud, they did not in any meaningful way “moderate” anything.

Joe at a “Let’s Go Joe” rally now. No hoarseness now. Where was this guy 2 hours ago!!!

The only good news tonight is it is June. it’s June — and most voters won’t tune in til Sept. And debates don’t move votes.

“On substance, this was the single-worst debate I have ever seen.”

100% endorse this