David J. Voelker
Historian (early America/environment), in Green Bay, WI, since 2003. Author and co-editor for Oxford Univ. Press's *Debating American History* series. Views are mine. Website: https://davidjvoelker.com. Publications: orcid.org/0000-0002-3049-4799
- I'm not convinced that financialization is the only problem, but I appreciate the concept of "financial nihilism." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/o...
- The founding principles of the United States were a mixed bag. I make sure my students (in early American history courses) engage with writings by African Americans and women (and diplomatic efforts of Native Americans) who found inspiration and sought leverage in the best of those principles.
- Which is to say, it's possible to make an honest accounting of slavery, patriarchy, and settler colonialism while also finding potentially redeeming values and ideas in the founding. There was a lot of work to do then, and there still is today!
- Which is NOT to say that the list above is the full extent of the accounting sheet. There's also, among other things, the plundering of the larger community of life that has continued largely unhampered for over four centuries. The founding generation addressed that issue barely at all.
- And, the left is much more committed to those values than the right.
- Excellent piece by @roxanegay.bsky.social: "The Trump administration is fighting a war of attrition on America’s soul, but it has vastly underestimated the strength, endurance and conscience of the people against whom it is waging this war." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/o...
- @hausfath.bsky.social -- Fewer extreme cold events mean that extreme cold events _seem_ more noteworthy and therefore people _really want_ to connect them to climate disruption in some way??
- With cold outbreaks sweeping parts of the US, some have argued that climate change is to blame. But the proposed mechanism remains quite controversial in the scientific community, and the number of extreme cold events have been decreasing almost everywhere: www.theclimatebrink....
- What the right is calling "gender ideology" is a constellation of psychological, biological, medical, social, and historical realities. This is another expression of #denialism in the same bucket with climate change denial, vaccine denial, slavery denial, etc. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...
- And, this effort to shore up patriarchy will fail -- if climate disruption or preventable epidemics don't come for us all first.
- And the Trump admin's scuttling of the U.N. has to be understood as going hand in hand with his ersatz "Board of Peace" scheme, which makes him permanent chair! www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...
- Seems like the main headline should be more explicit: "The United States is responsible for about 95 percent of the money owed to the United Nations, about $2.2 billion ..." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/w...
- Seems like the main headline should be more explicit: "The United States is responsible for about 95 percent of the money owed to the United Nations, about $2.2 billion ..." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/w...
- The entire 3-page ruling (attached to this story) is well worth reading! www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/u...
- "Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer." -- Judge Fred Biery
