Susan Scarf Merrell
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susanmerrell.bsky.social
Susan Scarf Merrell
@susanmerrell.bsky.social
570 followers 1.1K following 130 posts
Author most recently of SHIRLEY: A NOVEL. Assoc. Professor @Lichtenstein Center @StonybrookUniversity. Co-director, BookEnds novel revision fellowship. She/Her. Daily swimmer. Alarmingly fast reader.
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Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
axidentaliberal.bsky.social
Banning trans athletes from sports is maybe the most cynical culture war item that Republicans created. They know it affects very few people, yet the vitriol it generates towards trans kids is off the charts. But clearly the GOP doesn't care

Be an ally to our trans friends

Don't support GOP hatred
angryblacklady.blacksky.app Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 2d
I just honestly can't get over that Save Women Sports, an anti-trans group could only find five trans athletes competing K through 12.

Five. The NCAA president testified a year and a half ago or so that there were less than 10 college level trans athletes. What the fuck are we doing, people
September 20, 2026 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
edmarkey.bsky.social
In Massachusetts, we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable and stand up for those who need it. We don’t throw trans kids under the bus for political points. We protect them—and all of our neighbors—because trans rights are human rights.
September 10, 2026 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
localnotail.bsky.social
"All the while he loved the People just as much as he feared and detested Persons, and he planned to do something historic. Certainly! He would give each family that five thousand dollars a year just as soon now as he could arrange it".

[Sinclair Lewis - It Can't Happen Here]
Screenshot from IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis, a novel set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s United States, it follows an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator (in allusion to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany)] P411 the duties of despotism along with his shoes and his fine new coat. He no longer went out racketing. His cabinet begged him not to clown in barrooms and lodge entertain-ments; it was not dignified, and it was dangerous to be too near to strangers. So he played poker with his bodyguard, late at night, and at such times drank too much, and he cursed them and glared with bulging eyes whenever he lost, which, for all the good-will of his guards about letting him win, had to be often, because he pinched their salaries badly and locked up the spoons. He had become as unbouncing and unbuzz-ing a Buzz as might be, and he did not know it. All the while he loved the People just as much as he feared and detested Persons, and he planned to do some-thing historic. Certainly! He would give each family that five thousand dollars a year just as soon now as he could arrange it. https://archive.org/details/itcanthappenhere00lewi_0/page/412/mode/1up
September 10, 2026 at 6:04 PM
susanmerrell.bsky.social
exactly.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 19d
CNN: You're not going to trust mail voting if SCOTUS allows this?

BLUMENTHAL: I won't. And I think most Americans will view mail voting as lacking credibility because the Postal Service is gonna be screening your ballot & sending them back if it finds a single discrepancy, & you may not know
September 2, 2026 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
mjfree.bsky.social
Please oin me in supporting Chris Gallant in flipping NY-01 blue this November _gallantny (on X) actblue (on X)

Donate or share or both! LFG!

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/cgyardsign?abt=twitter&refcode2=ab_thanks_social_twitter
Donate to Chris Gallant
Show your support with a contribution.
secure.actblue.com
August 6, 2026 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
warnock.senate.gov
We're told that we just don't have the money for health care. But apparently we have plenty of money to upgrade Trump's private jet.

We don't suffer from a lack of resources. We suffer from a lack of moral imagination.
July 21, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
bencollins.bsky.social
Trans rights are human rights always and forever.
June 30, 2026 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
maureenjohnsonbooks.com
Love to my trans friends now and always. We have to be with you and help you fight.
June 30, 2026 at 2:19 PM
susanmerrell.bsky.social
If you celebrate, it's here again.
bcdreyer.social Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · Jun 27
Happy Lottery Day!
June 27, 2026 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
akashicbooks.bsky.social
Join @susanmerrell.bsky.social in discussion with Meryl Branch-McTiernan in discussion about her new book, "What You Should Worry About," on June 8 at 7PM at Rockville Centre Library 2121 N Village Avenue in the Helen Kraus Room.

rvcpl.libcal.com/event/16593853

www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/what...
Author Event - What You Should Worry About by Meryl Branch-McTiernan
Meet Author Meryl Branch-McTiernan in Conversation with Stony Brook Professor Susan Scarf Merrel. What You Should Worry About is set in January 2020 and 37-year-old Layla Moody is...
rvcpl.libcal.com
June 3, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
replamonica.bsky.social
Shut down Delaney Hall and abolish ICE.
May 28, 2026 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
grantstern.bsky.social
Donald Trump took America to war, and now he's holding a circus on the front lawn of the White House.
May 26, 2026 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
marcelias.bsky.social
Many of you are asking how you can help me. My only ask is this: Spread the word about the threats to democracy and how we can fight back. Tell everyone to subscribe to Democracy Docket for free and share its content with everyone you know. Thanks. bit.ly/4a7l1TR
May 22, 2026 at 7:03 AM
susanmerrell.bsky.social
Thank you for your smart clear questioning on this important issue.
May 21, 2026 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
ocasio-cortez.house.gov
This is what drinking water in Georgia looks like after Meta began data center construction in the community.

Yesterday I called for EPA and Congressional investigations into the impact of data center construction on local drinking water supplies.

We cannot take water for granted.
May 21, 2026 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
lisafarrar.bsky.social
This is a crime. Please have your crime reporters work on these articles going forward.
May 20, 2026 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
rickhasen.bsky.social
My New One at Slate: “The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Just Issued the Worst Ruling in a Century; This evisceration of the Voting Rights Act requires us to take SCOTUS reform more seriously.” @slate.com

slate.com/news-and-pol...
Wednesday’s 6-3 party line decision in Louisiana v. Callais will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century. All six Republican-appointed justices on the court signed onto Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters, while pretending they were merely making technical tweaks to the Act. This decision will bleach the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and local bodies like city councils, by ending the protections of Section 2 of the Act, which had provided a pathway to assure that voters of color would have some rudimentary fair representation. It’s the culmination of the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who have shown persistent resistance to the idea of the United States as a multiracial democracy, and a brazen willingness to reject Congress’s judgment that fair representation for minority voters sometimes requires race-conscious legislation. It gives the green light to further partisan gerrymandering. It protects Alito’s core constituency: aggrieved white Republican voters. It’s a disaster for American democracy.
April 29, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Fifty years ago today, Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" was published in the pages of @newyorker.com. What a poem!
ONE ART The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. --ELIZABETH BISHOP
April 26, 2026 at 3:31 PM
susanmerrell.bsky.social
April 25, 2026 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
kellylink.bsky.social
This Is Just To Say

I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update

and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize

Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying
April 20, 2026 at 8:35 PM
susanmerrell.bsky.social
Literally ask myself this question every day
kenofseattle.bsky.social kenofseattle @kenofseattle.bsky.social · Apr 18
Also why do we tolerate Presidency by social media posts?
April 18, 2026 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
littlestormcloud.bsky.social
My fantastically talented friend @hughryan.bsky.social has a new history on the queer (19)90’s told through the lens of his own life coming out (pun absolutely intended.) bsky.app/profile/hugh...
hughryan.bsky.social Hugh Ryan @hughryan.bsky.social · Apr 6
Love to see MY BAD on this E! News Spring Booklist along with the book I am currently reading (and LOVING) - WHIDBEY by T Kira Madden.
The cover of MY BAD with the E! News blurb underneath that reads: "Years after breaking out with When Brooklyn Was Queer, the historian candidly details his own journey as a queer person in the ‘90s and early 2000. Weaving through his own experiences with AOL chatrooms and navigating the nightclub scene as a broke student, Hugh Ryan examines the Queer experience in run up to Y2K and the internet boom. It’s compelling, unfiltered and takes a thoughtful approach to detailing the complicated time in a person’s coming of age."
April 8, 2026 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
danimmergluck.bsky.social
Brutal.
A WHOLE CIVILIZATION WILL DIE TONIGHT My son needs lunch, and I have to put his backpack together, but a whole civilization will die tonight, so I'm wondering if they've closed their schools. Like, a snow day, maybe, except instead of snow it's "keep your children home so if you die, you die together" — instead of "well open back up once the plows have cleared" it's "we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow, hold your babies tight." It's just "talk" I'm told, which I've been told before. "It's how the president makes his deals." But I've never heard anyone talk about other human beings this way, and I'm not certain I can look my son in the eyes if we all agree to stomach it one more time. A civilization will die tonight, but as I zip up his backpack and kiss him off to school I think: if this is what we call leadership then I'm not entirely sure ours isn't already dead. @michaelfdubois Mukad A QuBoy @michacifdubois
April 8, 2026 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
djrothkopf.bsky.social
Trump v. United States and the Citizens United decisions of this SCOTUS will go down in history with Dred Scott as among the court's worst. They may seem removed from where we are today...but they are not.
April 7, 2026 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Susan Scarf Merrell
shakespeare.lol
Come on then, and remove him.
April 7, 2026 at 7:18 PM