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readthedetox.com
Neil Abrams
@readthedetox.com
9.2K followers 870 following 1.3K posts
Authoritarianism, corruption, rule of law, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Russia. Words in WaPo, Slate, Foreign Policy. PhD, political science. He/him.

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readthedetox.com
Taibbi's definition of "horrible" might be a tad different from that of an immigrant family hiding in their house to evade Trump's secret police, but let's not forget that things are tough for him, too.
On Escaping This Horrible Era Some people love living in a binary. What about the rest of us? Matt Taibbi Sep 10, 2026
September 10, 2026 at 6:12 PM
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BTW, immediately after this passage he proceeds to complain once again about liberal censorship.
For instance, we’ll soon come up on the ten-year anniversary of Peter Beinart’s 2017 “The Anti-anti Trump Right” column in The Atlantic, which defined most anything that isn’t explicit opposition to Trump as “evading the reality” and “opposing the people who oppose Trump.” Under that logic, just about anything could be dismissed as throat-clearing on the way to a refusal to Say The Required Things, about Trump. This half-clever formulation arrived in sync with a large chunk of American academia electing to purge the social sciences of “objective” pursuit of knowledge, or what one Literature professor derided as the act of “intentionally [dissociating] their work from the political and ideological exigencies of the time.” The good professor’s essay was part of a “State of Scholarship” report formulated and promoted by the chancellors of Vanderbilt University and Washington University of St. Louis. Naturally, that report has already been denounced as a “diabolical” attack on academics who are “critical of configurations of power in the Trump years.” Call it anti-anti-Trump academia; even the simple observation that Anna Karenina will probably always be a great book offends someone’s current politics.
September 10, 2026 at 6:10 PM
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Taibbi laments how “boring” he finds Trump’s autocratic assault. This is a guy who spent the Biden years hyperventilating about phantom censorship by liberals. But actual, bona fide authoritarianism by the right? It’s just too dull to even think about. www.racket.news/p/on-escapin...
A writer’s most unforgivable sin is being boring, which makes saying anything in this time period tough. Whether you’re reporting or commenting, the game is up once audiences are able to classify according to current political taxonomy. You can publish 50 words or 5000, but what you’re producing for most audiences is a compass heading, showing where you reside on a map in relation to Donald Trump. Maybe you wanted to say something else, but the compass reading is the only thing most people care about, so that’s how the thing will be compressed, summarized, and circulated. It’s fine if you find talking about Donald Trump interesting, or if it’s important to you that neighbors and family receive an unambiguous signal about where you’d like to place yourself on the TrumpScape. You can put out a strong “against” signal in legacy media – that’s allowed – while almost any other strong statement is interpreted in the other direction.
September 10, 2026 at 6:07 PM
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"Making Bestiality Okay Again."

Seriously, if I hear one more pundit complain about the Democratic Party being "out of touch."
The FBI previously refused to hire job applicants if they admitted to hiring sex workers or stealing from an employer — or engaging in acts of bestiality. Today, those acts, which are mostly illegal across the country, are no longer automatic deal breakers for applicants to the nation's top law enforcement agency. In June, the FBI quietly lowered some of the standards it uses when it conducts background checks on would-be federal agents and other personnel. According to multiple sources briefed on the matter, the FBI did so to facilitate hiring in some cases, even if candidates acknowledged they engaged in sexually deviant activities or stole from an employer.
September 1, 2026 at 11:16 PM
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To all you people fulminating over how racist this is, it's not. Here's another CBS News tweet that's totally gonna happen, and soon:
Fake tweet from CBS News: "As the nation prepares to mark 27 years since the Columbine massacre, Tommy Tuberville, the Republican US Senator, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack.
August 31, 2026 at 6:37 PM
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"Go to Jurassic Park, they said. The fences are state-of-the-art, they said."
Kash Patel, in a blue suit and silver tie, looking forward with a stunned yet dead-eyed expression on his face.
June 8, 2026 at 7:27 PM
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As of right now, oil is up 36% on the week. Trump doesn't have the balls to withstand this.
March 6, 2026 at 6:51 PM
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This is a myth. Like any powerholder, a dictator needs the support of other elites to prop up his regime. In this sense, his power is more akin to a temple than a fortress. The Pantheon would not remain upright without its pillars. Topple those pillars and watch it collapse.
Rome's Pantheon at night. The triangular roof is supported by eight massive columns, or pillars, that keep it upright. The structure is lit from the bottom and interior.
February 9, 2026 at 7:42 PM
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Get a load of the ADL's "antisemitism training" material that Northwestern University, at the Trump administration's behest, is forcing students to learn.

Nice, huh?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
The video states that Israel was founded in 1948 “on British land”, and refers to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria”, the biblical name controversially used for the region by the Israeli government. The original Jewish homeland comprises parts of modern-day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, the video states.
August 3, 2025 at 5:52 AM
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Today I learned that Charles Murray, the author of race pseudoscience treatise Mein Kampf (1925) – sorry, my bad, The Bell Curve (1994) – once burned a cross with his buddies.

A bit on the nose, if you ask me. 1/2
web.archive.org/web/20190714...
While there is much to admire about the industry and inquisitiveness of Murray's teen-age years, there is at least one adventure that he understandably deletes from the story -- the night he helped his friends burn a cross. They had formed a kind of good guys' gang, "the Mallows," whose very name, from marshmallows, was a play on their own softness. In the fall of 1960, during their senior year, they nailed some scrap wood into a cross, adorned it with fireworks and set it ablaze on a hill beside the police station, with marshmallows scattered as a calling card
July 26, 2025 at 3:31 PM
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“Last year, Ukraine turned a corner of Russia into a battlefield. It is now a place of desolation and death,” says the NYT after going on an official guided tour of Kursk. Lots of civilians killed, we’re told, and who knows who did it, but Russia sure thinks it was Ukr, and who are we to doubt it?
The New York Times previously documented two instances of indiscriminate use of lethal force against Kursk civilians early in the incursion, actions that may amount to war crimes. But reporters were unable to establish who was responsible for those deaths. One of Russia’s top law enforcement bodies, the Investigative Committee, has accused Ukrainian forces of torturing and killing a civilian in a residential building in Martynovka, and of killing two other residents of the village. Russian officials and outlets blame Ukraine for other deaths, including in the village where Ms. Lobodova’s mother died. State media has published reports describing harsh treatment of civilians, rarely providing evidence.
July 13, 2025 at 3:06 PM
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Here’s Spencer Ackerman with by far the best take I’ve read on the racist moral panic targeting Zohran Mamdami. zeteo.com/p/my-fellow-...
To put it bluntly, when you have a "feeling" that a politician from a different race, ethnicity or religion threatens you, and you are unable to articulate how that threat is supposed to plausibly manifest, and you ignore the avalanche of evidence – his words, his record, his associations – that no such threat exists, that feeling you have is called racism.
July 2, 2025 at 6:15 PM
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My latest, on the bullshit war rationales of Israel and the US. open.substack.com/pub/thedetox...
In fact, Trump's military intervention makes it more, not less, likely that Iran will develop nuclear weapons.
June 22, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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As checks on the president go, the legislative and judicial branches are effectively finished. Only two actors will determine the fate of the coming power struggle: (1) Trump, and the brute force he commands, and (2) civil society, which decides his legitimacy. www.readthedetox.com/p/the-daily-...
Trump's authoritarianism will be only as repressive as civil society allows it to be—no more, no less.
June 11, 2025 at 4:30 PM
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Trump is similar to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Both combine undeserved self-confidence with myopic impulsivity and reflexively meet any challenge with gratuitous brutality. Thus, when Yanukovych responded to popular demonstrations with unchecked violence in 2013-14, it backfired.🧵
When leaders break the rules with abandon, they lose their legitimacy. This opens the door for other political actors to remove them by any available means, legal or not. Such brutish impulsivity is what sealed Yanukovych’s fate. After winning election in 2010, he packed the courts, ditched the constitution, and clamped down on the press. His disproportionate and violent attack on a Kyiv protest encampment in November 2013 turned what had been a limited series of demonstrations over his foreign policy into a nationwide revolt against his regime. By the time he fled to Russia in February 2014, a full 8.5 million Ukrainians, or 20 percent of the population, had taken part in the protests to oust him.
June 8, 2025 at 5:16 PM
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It’s starting. Trump is overreaching and trying to crush protests with force. It will backfire, making the protests bigger. He will fail. It won’t happen now, but this is the dynamic which could bring down his regime.

From December: open.substack.com/pub/thedetox...
When faced with mass protests, Trump will undoubtedly respond with unchecked repression and brutal violence. This will only serve to undercut his legitimacy and mobilize opposition to his rule.
June 8, 2025 at 4:01 AM
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I wrote this in February: www.readthedetox.com/p/elon-musk-...
It is only a matter of time before these two imbecilic, impulsive narcissists come to blows. When that happens, Musk will receive a harsh lesson in the reality of competitive authoritarianism. His immense wealth matters little when up against the guy who can wield the Justice Department as his personal bludgeon. In all likelihood, he will become the subject of multiple criminal probes and be chased out of the country. It is a lesson that will not be lost on his fellow moguls.
June 6, 2025 at 2:55 PM
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I wrote this back in February. The fact that these two idiots would come to blows was inevitable. It was equally obvious how vulnerable Elon was and how dangerous it would become for him as soon as Trump decided he was done. www.readthedetox.com/p/elon-musk-...
It is only a matter of time before these two imbecilic, impulsive narcissists come to blows. When that happens, Musk will receive a harsh lesson in the reality of competitive authoritarianism. His immense wealth matters little when up against the guy who can wield the Justice Department as his personal bludgeon. In all likelihood, he will become the subject of multiple criminal probes and be chased out of the country. It is a lesson that will not be lost on his fellow moguls.
June 6, 2025 at 2:46 PM
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Just sayin’, but I wrote this in February when everyone was convinced that Elon was the new king of America:

[Neil says, patting himself on the back]

open.substack.com/pub/thedetox...
It is only a matter of time before these two imbecilic, impulsive narcissists come to blows. When that happens, Musk will receive a harsh lesson in the reality of competitive authoritarianism. His immense wealth matters little when up against the guy who can wield the Justice Department as his personal bludgeon. In all likelihood, he will become the subject of multiple criminal probes and be chased out of the country. It is a lesson that will not be lost on his fellow moguls.
June 5, 2025 at 9:10 PM
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Trump lacks something every leader needs: legitimacy. Without it, he can only maintain power by dispensing rewards and deploying coercion. This leaves him vulnerable, and his opponents can exploit that.

My latest: www.readthedetox.com/p/the-daily-...
The emperor has no clothes, and his sagging, crenulated butt is flapping in the breeze. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can kick his ass to the curb.
June 5, 2025 at 2:39 PM
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Trump is trying to get Democratic lawmakers killed.
What all of this adds up to is a big flashing green light to commit violence against Democratic lawmakers.
May 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
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I wrote the inversion of legality that is evident in Trump's regime. It is, in fact, a pattern inherent to all authoritarian regimes. www.readthedetox.com/p/the-daily-...
His case illustrates a dynamic that lies at the core of Trump's regime. Over and over again, people are being punished for not committing crimes.
May 29, 2025 at 3:57 PM
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Oh, I see you *write* for them. Explains a lot.
Headline and opening paragraph from New York Sun article: Why Trump Is Braving Critics To Welcome White South Africans to America One opponent expresses concern that the administration ‘has chosen to fast-track the admission of Afrikaners, while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving resettlement to other refugee populations.’ By HOLLIE McKAY | 15 hours ago |politics
May 25, 2025 at 5:22 AM
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Look what you made him do, Will.

In all seriousness, though, that is concerning.
Will Stancil @whstancil quote-tweeting "I’m sorry what" to a tweet by @narrenhut which states, "The DC Israeli embassy shooter had apparently been previously banned from Twitter for sending death threats to Will Stancil."
May 22, 2025 at 7:10 PM
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My latest: Authoritarianism is here, but most Democrats remain oblivious to the fact. Until they wake up, they are putting the country—and themselves—at risk.

www.readthedetox.com/p/the-fix-de...
In the next few years, a mass movement against Trump’s regime is almost certain to emerge. One way or another, it will gain leaders. Whether or not current Democratic incumbents end up receiving those leadership roles is largely up to them.
May 4, 2025 at 3:54 PM