Michael Yarbrough

@mwyarbrough.bsky.social

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Law & Society @JohnJayCollege & Sociology @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social. Coedited After Marriage series and Handbook on Law Movements & Social Change. Writing on marriage in South Africa.

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Michael Yarbrough

Breaking news: President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.

Biden set to announce support for major Supreme Court changeswww.washingtonpost.com The president has discussed the plans with constitutional scholars and members of Congress in recent weeks.

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Christina Wolbrecht

sorry to get on my soapbox here, but it is a real reminder that people have fought against horrible oppression and exclusion and just giving up in July is unacceptable (which is not to say we don't all need mental health breaks)

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Michael Yarbrough

I can't stop thinking about how Trump would eliminate our free, public weather service, NOAA. It's an institution that goes back 53 years and protects Americans everyday with warnings for tornados, thunderstorms and more. That's the Project 2025 plan. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

The MAGA Plan to End Free Weather Reportswww.theatlantic.com Project 2025 would all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Pwnallthethings

just say they're right. It's true. The country is objectively in a very bad place right now. There's no denying it. But it's from the pandora's box Trump opened. Do they feel safer and better than they did in 2015? Probably not. What's been constantly in the background since then? Trump has.

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Michael Yarbrough

This. This. This a thousand times

The reason that the language of domestic abuse and the language of authoritarianism looks the same is because it's just the same thing on a different scale.

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Pwnallthethings

Is that enough to get to 270? Idk. I really don't. And the polls don't paint a happy picture for Biden; I don't skirt round that. I just think the one sure way for Trump to win is for everyone to convince themselves it's inevitable when it objectively isn't.

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Michael Yarbrough

Happy birthday to Assata Shakur and Ida B. Wells!

This is more of a hope than a prediction, but I honestly am more optimistic about the election today than I've been in a couple weeks. A string of awful news to be sure, but easy-to-communicate awful news, and the choice of Vance shows that it will continue to get easier IMO.

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Michael Yarbrough

these people cannot win and they know it, their entire schtick is pretending that the reich on the march will keep everyone quiet and scared, but, again, we do not have to believe them, and if we do not, they lose.

sure. fuck these people. we do not have to agree with them. they are a minority. i am not going to spend the next four months cowering in dread and fear.

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Michael Yarbrough

I’m not sure it’s even possible to conceive of a more awful presidential ticket of anyone alive in the US. Oof.

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Michael Yarbrough

Important to remember risks to democracy are complex - for instance, state-level backsliding can be aided or accelerated by what happens at the federal level

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Michael Yarbrough

FWIW, the best political science research on the topic indicates that the veep pick does significantly influence how voters perceive the presidential candidate.

pretty glad it's vance, a deeply unlikeable man outside of financiers and silicon valley. in electability terms, hopefully bad.

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Michael Yarbrough

it's incredible the extent to which so many ideas about how voters will react to things in the electoral world tacitly assume that voters are white men.

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Popehat

/4 This is not a call for despair or surrender. The country has been through terrible things. Fight with the means appropriate to the occasion, work to protect and defend people weaker than you, and agitate, agitate, agitate. Never let them be totalitarian without being called out as totalitarian.

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Michael Yarbrough

Now, more than ever, what's AOC says: www.theguardian.com/us-news/arti...

AOC to anonymous Democrat who said party resigned to Trump win: ‘Retire’www.theguardian.com Comments made by unnamed senior Democrat after Trump shooting draw stinging rebuke from progressive

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Prisonculture

I hope everyone takes care. These are difficult times. We need as many people as possible to be focused and to be engaged in action where they are and within their capacity. Be ruthless in cutting out lots of noise and also letting go of what is not in your control.

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Michael Yarbrough

If fighting for freedom is important to you, consider the possibility that the best way to that this particular day might be to spend time with your loved ones or with nature or with prayer, so that you can have more strength once we do have more clarity about what's going on and where it's leading.

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Michael Yarbrough

anxiety responses =/= analysis confidently predicting an intrinsically unknowable future =/= self-care

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Michael Yarbrough

Reskeet with a banger picture of your cat

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Michael Yarbrough

At the most fundamental level, elections are a peaceful alternative to what would otherwise be violent social conflict. That's why we have them, why they're so important and worth defending. And when that social institution starts to fray, the underlying reality can come into view very quickly.

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Michael Yarbrough

periodic reminder: trump tried to stage an armed coup to keep himself in power close to four years ago

Just a reminder: it’s good to oppose assassinations. But you are under absolutely no obligation to treat Trumpists and Trump-apologists as people who are honest, or acting in good faith, when they purport to condemn political violence or violent rhetoric. They’re not sincere.

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Michael Yarbrough

1. we must say with one voice that political violence is unacceptable and wrong 2. do not amplify unverified reports until we know more

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Michael Yarbrough

amplify this not unverified reports until we know more

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Michael Yarbrough

Rhetoric that states that you have the right to assassinate your political opponents has no place in American society and it's for this reason that I'm calling for the six conservative scotus justices to resign

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Michael Yarbrough

Scholars often ask me what they can do, and this is a tangible thing. State and local media are, in particular, hungry for opinion pieces from experts. Lots of people targeting that media is more effective than lots of people trying to land that one NYT op-ed

Junior Scholars: Project 2025 is now breaking through to public consciousness. The more people learn about it, the more they hate it. Now is a great time to search that website, go to the section of your expertise, and write an oped. Keep the drip of bad news for them coming, all the way to Nov.

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Michael Yarbrough

By gutting accreditors, a second Trump admin would remove a credible threat to state-imposed attacks on higher education, eg in Florida

We need the higher ed media to better describe what's at stake here. These are not "reforms," they're an authoritarian takeover. They're not "bold" or "sweeping," they're undemocratic and fascist. These aren't normal policy recommendations, they're a dismantling of higher education!

How Project 2025 could radically reshape higher edwww.insidehighered.com The sweeping conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration would dismantle the Education Department, privatize student loans and end all ongoing Title IX investigations. Critics say it’s a ...

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Michael Yarbrough

Reply to

Don Moynihan

Going after accreditation a) reflects learning by Trumpworld, and b) removes power from higher education professionals to govern campus, handing it instead to zealots who seek to take over higher ed. The expansion of state power to censor and control for ideological purposes is indeed authoritarian.

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Michael Yarbrough

And her new album Sankofa is very good -- I just stumbled upon a recommendation for it yesterday and gave it a listen. NY folks, go see that show! open.spotify.com/album/5y7tFg...

Thandiswa Mazwai is an AMAZING and legendary South African singer playing a free show at Bryant Park tomorrow night! www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/202...

www.carnegiehall.org

Sankofaopen.spotify.com Thandiswa · Album · 2024 · 11 songs.