Victor Shammas
Associate Professor of Sociology—based in Oslo, Norway, with a global perspective. Research: victorshammas.com. Newsletter on politics, culture, and social theory: theorybrief.com.
- Nobel Peace Prize committee member Asle Toje allegedly met with Steve Bannon in 2018. A further meeting was planned with Bannon, Toje, and then-deputy leader of Norway’s right-wing Progress Party Sylvi Listhaug. Possible MAGA ties raise questions about the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s credibility.
- Epstein: “donalds head would explode if he knew you were now buds with the guy who on monday will decide the nobel peace prize.”
- “Steve [Bannon] and Nobel guy”—likely Asle Toje, member of the Nobel Peace Prize committee—“in touch a lot.”
- Epstein: "Did you ever respond to the Nobel peace Norwegian" Bannon: "I email him 5 times a day"
- “What the messages do reveal is Epstein’s interest in European nationalists. … Bannon writes that he is ‘focused on raising money for Le Pen and Salvini so they can actually run full slates.’”
- "One of those deported…was Maher Awad, a 24-year-old originally from the West Bank, who had lived in the US for nearly a decade. Speaking to the Guardian…Maher shared photos of his girlfriend and newborn son in Michigan.'I grew up in America,' he said. 'America was heaven for me.'"
- Calling the site “TrumpRx” highlights a collapsing distinction between impersonal public authority (the office) and its individual personification; it entrenches a specific leader as the “natural” embodiment of the State’s favors to its citizens/consumers.
- “‘Now we only have 2,300 aggressive, brutal, cosplaying soldiers bursting into people’s homes, brutalizing people on the streets, killing citizens, creating mayhem and chaos,’ said state Sen. Scott Dibble, a member of the Democratic-Farm-Labor Party.”
- European leverage: “If Europe’s holdings matter strategically, it’s not because Europe can credibly threaten to dump Treasuries tomorrow morning. It’s because the US still depends on continued foreign inflows — and the marginal foreign buyer matters for pricing.”
- “Rather than going to senior department or F.B.I. officials, Mr. Trump spoke directly to the frontline agents doing the granular work of a politically sensitive investigation in which he has a large personal stake.”
- ”The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a golden age for America is going in reverse. … [F]ewer Americans work in manufacturing than any point since the pandemic ended. Manufacturers shed workers in each of the eight months after Trump unveiled “Liberation Day” tariffs.”
- “There may be some blame to be directed at Democrats as well, who often come to a political gunfight with a butter knife. … Graves reveals much about the failure of moderates, liberals, and progressives to play the long game that…conservatives, libertarians, and reactionaries have been playing.”
- Spain/immigration: "For the young Bangladeshi man sitting in a cramped NGO office in central Madrid on a rainy Thursday, the announcement was nothing short of a miracle. ... 'I don’t have my papers so I can’t get a proper job. I’m so excited. It’s like a gift from God that will help keep me going.'"
