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Osita Nwanevu
@ositanwanevu.com
93K followers 3.3K following 3K posts
Contributing Editor | The New Republic
Columnist | The Guardian
Author | The Right of the People (2025)
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Osita Nwanevu @ositanwanevu.com · Jun 24
I wrote about the Declaration of Independence. newrepublic.com/article/2117...
“The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God, that all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity and respect, that all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence,” Joe Biden said in a 2022 address at Independence Hall. “Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s habits of the heart—in our character … the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.” Barack Obama similarly contended during his presidency and campaigns that the declaration’s truths were no longer in question. “We, the people,” he said, “declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still.” It might be reasonably protested that human equality is still not a settled question in America. What the declaration’s history tells us, however, is that the concept of human equality, as professed by abolitionists, slave owners, feminists, chauvinists, communists, and capitalists alike, itself settles very few of our differences. This is partially because the concept of human equality is inert without political commitments and acts of interpretation that put us into conflict with one another. As such, the remarkable thing about the declaration’s place in the American story isn’t the extent to which appeals to it have unified us. It’s the extent to which those appeals haven’t. As Ford said, the declaration addresses all who read it with the same words and language. But its conflicting interpretations arise from the fact that the declaration is an invitation to participate in political philosophy—it asks its readers to consider the nature of human existence and the fundamental ends of politics. On that basis, it justifies a particular course of action in such a way that makes clear its readers—by dint of their own reason and understanding of its concepts, even in a different age and under different circumstances—may have cause to do the same. The human right to revolution was among the self-evident truths the declaration professed and the one that made it effectual as a document. It is also the self-evident truth politicians today are likeliest to omit from their accounts of the declaration’s significance—dropped in favor of appeals to human equality as a shared principle that might bring Americans together to solve our problems without tearing the system down. “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America, there’s the United States of America,” as Obama put it. “We are one people.” The promise of this civic nationalism, and of the now-prevailing reading of the declaration, was its potential to unify Americans of many ideologies and no ideology—the hope of bringing parties and peoples with profoundly divergent conceptions of America’s challenges and the solutions to them into alignment with a common understanding of America’s purpose. This was a capacious vision of American identity precisely because it was empty—one that offered a triumphalist account of where America has been and what America has accomplished in lieu of a concrete, contestable, and potentially divisive vision for where America should go. In the near-decade since Obama left the presidency, fascists have asserted themselves in that vacuum. In 1933, by contrast, around 4,000 delegates of a “Continental Congress of Workers and Farmers” convened in Washington not only to demand relief amid an economic depression but to make the case for fundamental and transformative economic reforms. In their “A New Declaration of Independence,” they rededicated themselves to the cause of freeing mankind “from the crushing and needless bonds of poverty and insecurity” in an age of plenty. “The system is collapsing before our very eyes,” they wrote. “It is destroying itself with a destruction that threatens the historic gains of human rights and the achievements of human civilization.” Whether the stewards of our systems accept it or not, the politics of systemic collapse have returned. Last fall, CNN found that 76 percent of Americans believe the U.S. political system is in need of either “a complete overhaul” or “major reforms”; a similar poll earlier in the year from Navigator Research found 74 percent support for the assertions that America’s political and economic systems need “major changes” or need “to be torn down completely.” This past spring, nearly 60 percent of respondents to an NBC News poll reported feeling that both the American political and economic systems were stacked against them. Much of that discontent stems from the left’s continuing efforts to make certain facts about those systems—beyond the evils and disgraces of this particular presidency—known to the American people and “a candid world” today. In lieu of a democracy, we have political institutions that work most reliably for the rich—a constitutional order that does not guarantee the American people fair or equal representation, and where the right to vote and electoral outcomes are regularly challenged by a structurally advantaged minority. Instead of an economy that delivers the American worker just returns for their labor, the American people work within and under economic institutions that squeeze them more and more, only to deliver an ever-larger share of the economy’s gains to a smaller and smaller share of the already wealthy—including the man set to be the world’s first trillionaire—even as the costs of health care, housing, and education rise and roughly 36 million Americans languish in poverty. And rather than developing technologies that expand human capacities and enrich human life, out of a belief in the limitlessness of human potential, our most prominent technological innovators have made the American people, and all humanity, the subjects of a grand experiment without precedent in human history—the project of putting the human mind itself into obsolescence so that a privileged few, whose creations, developed in contravention of established laws, have already inundated our lives with noise and nonsense, may profit from the development of superior intelligences, while tens or hundreds of millions of ordinary people, they hope, are thrown out of their vocations. True as all this may be, societies have never been remade by the restatement of grievances alone. Those who seek change on the scale we deserve and hope for are obliged to offer the American people a particular understanding of human life
ositanwanevu.com
I wrote about James Marriott’s The New Dark Ages, the “literacy crisis,” and the point of the written word for The New Republic. newrepublic.com/article/2163...
In truth, reason has its work cut out for it in any medium. The value of the written word lies not in an intrinsic tendency toward the rational but in its intrinsic difficulty—difficulty measured not in the complexity of any given text but in the basic demand writing makes of us to turn to resources beyond our eyes, ears, and experiences for an understanding of the world. The data on reading that Marriott and many others have pointed to suggests, so far, that we live in societies where fewer people may want to read seriously and with sustained attention, not a world in which people are now less capable of doing so than in the past. If so, that is nonetheless a problem. But it’s not one that will be solved if we understand the fight for reading primarily as a technological battle that has already been half or mostly lost. We need a new literacy for the present and a world that has been irrevocably changed from the reading world we took for granted decades ago, not a pining for older forms that will never be dominant again. We need to discover how to read seriously not only on the printed page, but also on our screens, which will entail convincing the public that serious, difficult reading is worth their time. All the more dauntingly, we’ll have to do so without making the untenable promise that a life of reading will deliver them a world that seems more intelligible, orderly, and satisfying. The case for reading isn’t that it simplifies life but that it vivifies and deepens it. In this Marriott does, to his credit, offer his readers a model reader to look up to: the sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne, who once said the things that mattered most to him were “variety and the enjoyment of diversity.” Marriott enjoys the way Montaigne “joins stray ideas together, leaps from one subject to another and asks weird questions,” and his ability to include in a single essay “subjects as diverse as sneezing, seasickness, farting, Socrates, amphitheaters, the Spanish conquest of Peru, the Roman general Mark Antony and more.” Montaigne’s motto, “Que sais-je?” means “What do I know?”—a sentiment Marriott admires: “It is the motto of a man of the age of print, whose books showed him that nothing could be taken for granted any more.” While the dawn of print opened up seemingly endless possibilities for men like Montaigne, the man Marriott describes is also, very probably, one who would have loved reading the internet, and thought seriously about how readers might fight, against all odds, to think for themselves and make the most of the digital age. That is our grave and heady task. That is the nature of our crisis and the nature of our opportunity. “Even in the worst-case scenario,” as Marriott writes, “reading and a cultural reverence for reading will be around for a while yet. And that means those of us who value books and reading still have a chance to make our case.” He’s right. But we’ll need a better case than his.
October 8, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
whygavs.com
he used the historical rankings of the presidents from 1948 and then added in obama, biden, and carter at the bottom. it sounds like i'm joking, but i'm not, that's what happened.
nkalamb.bsky.social Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · Aug 27
this is so incredible I can’t stop laughing because he forgot to include Reagan
August 27, 2026 at 11:02 PM
ositanwanevu.com
If Dems win the House, as they're likely to, the value of a Dem Senate is minimal. The House would end GOP control of Congress. There's not much policy Dems would pass under Trump with both chambers. All told, an El-Sayed loss disciplining the left is probably more valuable to centrists than a win.
helldude.bsky.social dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · Aug 27
the fact that democrats can decide to something pointless, like risking midterm success to censure an annoying streamer, and a whole cadre of voters will dutifully fall in line is super instructive on one point:

if democrats decided to do smart things those same people would fall right in line
August 27, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
bostonreview.bsky.social
Next Wednesday!

@adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social talk with @ositanwanevu.com about the primaries, the midterms, and the future of the Democratic Party.

September 2 at 12 p.m. ET via Zoom

Register here: tinyurl.com/y53z7b9e
Next Wednesday! @adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social talk with @ositanwanevu.com about the primaries, the midterms, and the future of the Democratic Party. September 2 at 12 p.m. ET via Zoom Register here: tinyurl.com/y53z7b9e
August 27, 2026 at 2:30 PM
ositanwanevu.com
Pitchfork: Drone Metal Orthodox Priest Guitarist Responds to Fascism, Homophobia Accusations
August 26, 2026 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
theonion.com
Fractures Emerge Between GOP’s Pro-Pedophilia, Extremely Pro-Pedophilia Wings
August 26, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
kristenrosec.bsky.social
Thrilled to share this conversation with @ositanwanevu.com on his excellent new book, The Right of The People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding for latest episode of Virtual Sentiments (available wherever you listen to podcasts)

kristencollins2.substack.com/p/virtual-se...
Virtual Sentiments Podcast: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding with Osita Nwanevu
On today’s episode of Virtual Sentiments, I talk to Osita Nwanevu (also available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts).
kristencollins2.substack.com
August 26, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
bostonreview.bsky.social
Next week!

Join us for @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social @adambonica.bsky.social in conversation with @ositanwanevu.com about the primaries, the midterms, and the future of the Democratic Party.

Wednesday, September 2 at 12pm ET via Zoom

Register here: tinyurl.com/y53z7b9e
Next week! Join us for @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social @adambonica.bsky.social in conversation with @ositanwanevu.com about the primaries, the midterms, and the future of the Democratic Party. Wednesday, September 2 at 12pm ET via Zoom. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y53z7b9e
August 24, 2026 at 7:49 PM
ositanwanevu.com
I am very curious how The New York Times, our paper of record, arrived at the claim, in a reported piece, that “many “ leading activists in DSA do not pay rent. If you can believe it, Jeremy Peters’ article offers no further details on this. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/22/n...
When The New York Times this month profiled Mr. Gordillo, who studied fine arts at Yale, the reporter, as is standard practice, asked the subject where he lived. The question was relevant, in part, because many of the high-profile activists are the offspring of affluent parents who have not experienced working class life and basic financial pressures, like paying rent.
August 22, 2026 at 11:08 PM
ositanwanevu.com
It remains very interesting how readily the press is willing to invoke "cancel culture," the threat of social media "mobs," the responsibility to understand and forgive, etc.
August 14, 2026 at 10:57 PM
ositanwanevu.com
We're reached a point where George Lucas could probably give Nolan a few tips on dialogue.
August 14, 2026 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
andrewhickey.500songs.com
As I've said before, the biggest damage to a sense of pop music history was that the Boomers came up at the same time as the switch from 78s to 45s so all the radio stations threw out their Louis Jordan records and an "oldie" was something from the last five years.
nedraggett.bsky.social Ned Raggett @nedraggett.bsky.social · Aug 1
The way the history of pop was warped by boomer criticism/historiography into a hard dividing line between a supposed glop past and Elvis-and-everything-after with a rock focus was a massive reductive mistake that is still playing out.
lighter.bsky.social Der Geisterfresser @lighter.bsky.social · Jul 31
Post your hottest music take.
Mine is New Order is better than Joy Division.
August 1, 2026 at 5:03 PM
ositanwanevu.com
AI or not (it is 100% AI) this is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.
August 1, 2026 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
WSJ: “.. OpenAI might now wait until next year to go public, people with knowledge of the plans said ..

“.. Some of OpenAI’s largest investors have privately expressed concerns in recent months about the startup’s high cash burn relative to its growth ..”

@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/how-...
August 1, 2026 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
melissagiragrant.com
I wrote about how immigration arrests are at all-time highs, even as ICE is trying to assume a lower public profile. How are they doing this? Look to your local police.
ICE’s Secret Weapon Is in Your Community
While attempting to maintain a relatively lower profile, ICE is managing to arrest record numbers of people. Here’s how it’s doing that.
newrepublic.com
July 30, 2026 at 2:43 PM
ositanwanevu.com
Because AI detection tools aren't solid, and may never really be as far as we know, the situation AI companies have created for themselves is that writers and artists now have a professional, reputation-guarding interest in talking about how terrible AI is as often as possible.
josie.zone Josephine beckbook.com Riesman @josie.zone · Jul 31
Avoid such fates by doing as I do: (1) Never use AI for any part of your book, (2) loudly tell everyone how much you hate AI on social media
thelincoln.bsky.social Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · Jul 31
One thing I can confidently say is that more than a few other books have been canceled for AI use--including by established authors and non-fiction books--that have just not made the news yet.
July 31, 2026 at 12:02 PM
ositanwanevu.com
The 2028 Democratic primaries are functionally under way. Here's a very bad proposal to ban ranked choice voting in them that you should know about.
The Democratic Party’s Proposed Ban on Ranked Choice Voting in 2028 Presidential Primaries - FairVote Action
The Democratic Party Rules & Bylaws Committee is quietly proposing banning the use of ranked choice voting in presidential primaries.
fairvoteaction.org
July 30, 2026 at 8:34 PM
ositanwanevu.com
Inventing whole new kinds of corruption
chadbourn.bsky.social Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · Jul 16
Trump Media plans to charge trading firms for access to Trump’s Truth Social posts milliseconds before they appear publicly, the FT reports.

The product, Truth API, is aimed at firms that rely on ultra-fast data to trade in markets that are often moved by those posts.
Trump Media to sell high-speed access to president's social media posts Family company hopes large trading firms will pay for market-moving social media posts milliseconds early
July 16, 2026 at 11:13 PM
ositanwanevu.com
We hit it, folks! Thanks to all who pitched in.
ositanwanevu.com Osita Nwanevu @ositanwanevu.com · Jul 14
Hey all — an ask. A local father of three was detained by ICE last month. One of his daughters is in treatment for Stage IV cancer and he's her primary caregiver. He's been released temporarily, but he'll be redetained indefinitely unless he makes a $25,000 bond. Any bit would help.
Donate to Help Dad supporting daughter with cancer stay out of ICE DT., organized by Barbara Buckley
Yeni is a husband and dad to three kids in Easton, Maryland. … Barbara Buckley needs your support for Help Dad supporting daughter with cancer stay out of ICE DT.
www.gofundme.com
July 16, 2026 at 6:40 PM
ositanwanevu.com
I mean, this was for the best, obviously. England and Spain vying for dominance in North America? Again?
July 15, 2026 at 9:09 PM
ositanwanevu.com
Note the slide from 'Oh, so now every time there's a consensually ambiguous situation, it's rape?' to ' Oh, so now every time you physically overpower a woman into sex, it's rape?'
bluenote123.bsky.social Tiffany C. Graham @bluenote123.bsky.social · Jul 15
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but that’s rape.

www.salon.com/2026/07/15/m...
Quote from a paragraph in the attached article.
July 15, 2026 at 4:56 PM
ositanwanevu.com
"If you have a cell and can txt, you'll never be bored again...E V E R!"
webdesignmuseum.org WebDesignMuseum @webdesignmuseum.org · Jul 15
On July 15, 2006, the full version of Twitter was introduced publicly.

#InternetHistory
On July 15, 2006, the full version of Twitter was introduced publicly.
July 15, 2026 at 4:48 PM
ositanwanevu.com
Christopher Nolan is now the king of discourse-smothering blockbusters that cannot actually be spoiled. I will not see this thing for weeks. And that's okay!
July 15, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Osita Nwanevu
ryanlcooper.com
he took entirely the wrong lesson here but this is a very important and true observation
volts.wtf David Roberts @volts.wtf · Jul 14
An amazing quote from Lindsey Graham in this Atlantic story. It really captures an essential truth about politics that too few people ever really come to terms with.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
July 14, 2026 at 8:03 PM
ositanwanevu.com
The hot stove election
johngramlich.bsky.social John Gramlich @johngramlich.bsky.social · Jul 14
In 2024, the youngest adults were evenly split between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. That's no longer the case: 54% of adults under 30 now identify as or lean Democratic, while 38% identify as or lean Republican. www.pewresearch.org/politics/fac...
Line chart showing political party affiliation among U.S. adults under 30 between 2020 and 2026, based on Pew Research Center's National Public Opinion Reference Survey.
July 14, 2026 at 7:03 PM