@NickBurns

I write about politics and culture in the Americas and am associate editor @hedgehogreview.

nickburns.substack.com/
Joined June 2016
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Many major developments in American society happen because some group starts doing something that isn't really allowed and then blackmails the state into supporting it after the fact. On "filibusterism" in America: americanaffairsjournal.org/2…

America as Filibuster Society - American Affairs Journal

What do we talk about when we talk about the frontier? For more than a century, Americans haven’t been able to avoid using that term to describe our society’s past, present, and future. It may be...

americanaffairsjournal.org
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Was this world another midcentury exception? So many state universities began life as agricultural-technical schools with no broad humanistic mandate. Is this just a mean reversion with tertiary-sector characteristics?
csz@cszabla23h
tony judt’s famous paragraph about one of the most distinctive features of america may not have as much basis in reality for much longer
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Amazed by the gall of Microsoft to push Copilot so aggressively in Outlook - finally figured out how to banish it for good - without doing anything to fix the atrocious search function
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Also it's always funny to me when American Tocqueville scholars do various contorted readings of passages from DA to suggest he was meaningfully left wing. There was a revolution in France when he was a sitting legislator and he writes about it "I backed the forces of order"
Nick Burns
@NickBurnsOct 19
People often say that revolutions—or attempted ones—make conservatives, but I think it would be more accurate to say that they reveal them, including to themselves. Tocqueville writes about this in the context of 1848 and the June days
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Did he like Louis Napoleon, no, but he was very clear about where he stood (on the center-right)
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Obviously this has nothing to do with whether you can be on the left and read Tocqueville with profit (yes)
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People often say that revolutions—or attempted ones—make conservatives, but I think it would be more accurate to say that they reveal them, including to themselves. Tocqueville writes about this in the context of 1848 and the June days
Voices of Liberty
@VoLDailyOct 18
Roger Scruton recalls the exact moment he became a conservative during the 1968 Paris riots: “When I looked down the street and saw all these rowdy students throwing stones at policemen, I just said to myself, ‘Whatever they believe, I believe the opposite.’”
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The plan is to take the country back to the café com leite days, except make it soybeans and rare earths, and let everyone who's not the 3 people getting rich off of that fight for scraps in the wilderness of the service economy
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This was the moment the whole thing just went off the rails
Luiz Ricardo
@excentrickoOct 19
O TEMPO FECHOU! Flávio Bolsonaro faz micagem atrás de Lula, que se revolta. – Não esperem ética do bolsonarismo! #DebateNaBand #Eleições2026 🇧🇷
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Also, sending teams into the favela to teach people how to sell things on the internet... look at my development model dog I'm going to be president of the world's first sixth world country
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Flávio defending the Shield of the Americas - and by so doing basically admitting he would have Brazil join it - was another thing that it seemed like a missed opportunity for Lula not to follow up on
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FB basically said, "It's not American overlordship, it's just about combating drug gangs... and lots of countries are in it, it's not just the US!"
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One of several things that would have been easy to respond to: "That's just creating more bureaucracy - we already have Fazenda, the BNDES, Banco do Brasil... I thought you wanted to slim government down?"
Dandi no Consignado
@jcaetanoleiteOct 19
Tá muito claro que a economia vai implodir no governo Bolsonaro. Ministério da Prosperidade.
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State of Brazilian democracy: presidential debate moderators utterly drowned out by jeering audience
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It made me sad when they canceled the Globo debate, but now I’m thinking I’d be happier if they canceled this one.
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Painful to watch in general but I think the uncommitted low information voter watches this and thinks Flávio has better things to say
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They need to like bring out one of those Vaudeville hooks and yank Flavio back to his podium
FPL Corey 🌋@coreyzinhoOct 19
Replying to @NickBurns
@NickBurns
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Shades of the fateful 2024 Biden-Trump debate, not because Lula is bombing but because he's leaning heavily on saying "my opponent lies" instead of explaining precisely how and why
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Lula is in much better shape than Biden was then, but what a difference it would make to have a younger candidate, one who has spent less time in office, more agile on the defensive and more precise in attacking.
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But - well, as everyone knows, there's no one else.
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Really stupid debate setup where both candidates keep walking toward the camera instead of staying at the podium but whenever Flavio talks Lula stays at his podium out of view and when Lula talks Flavio creeps into the background and shakes his head
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